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Y2kk Update: - Stargate SG-1: Arthur's Mantle & Battlestar Galactica: Downloaded Reviews (Spoilers...) -

It seems that Stargate SG-1 and Battlestar Galactica have both been trying to really outdo each other over the past few weeks...

The only problem is, the prize that they both seem to be gunning for?... is to somehow obtain the IvanFian episode of the week, with the worst possible episode that they can produce to still win the award...

I guess it's sort of just like me in university... How close can I possibly get to failing while still managing to pass the fucking course?...

... heh... I got 49.5% in a course once... booyah... but that's besides the point...

While Arthur's Mantle definitely won't be putting any real awards up on its mantle at the end of the season, I guess it should be duly noted that thanks to some Arthurian magic? It still managed to somehow whisk the episode of the week honours away, if only due to the efforts of one man... but I'll get to Mitchell and his stomach growling banter in a moment...

Arthur's Mantle was a predictable episode, with two separate plots obviously converging together in the end to solve the daily double of the day. Of course, I am a fan of tight and circular writing in that sense, even if it wasn't logical for Cameron Mitchell to be seen by just seemingly normal Ancient cloaking devices (I mean, if you can be seen so easily on our own plane of existence, how the heck could Merlin actually hide from the ascended Ancients then?)...

There's obviously no dimension where we can hide from his pure boring shittiness, but I digress...

Cameron Mitchell really didn't do much in this episode either, as all he could do was worry about taking a shit as he no longer could sit down on a fucking toilet. But I think while his actions couldn't speak for himself, his words definitely did (whatever the hell that means)... I never really did laugh out loud at any of the jokes he made, but I definitely did get a slight chuckle from a fair share of them...

I mean, who here didn't crack a smile when he high-fived Carter for just being able to tap the keyboard buttons on the Merlin device thingy? And c'mon, who here wouldn't have taken a swipe at Mitchell's annoying head, with no need to think twice, just like Teal'c did?... Now, I don't know whether the Lt. Col. really had any classic moments in Arthur's Mantle. But I'm sure it would've been hell to have filmed the episode with Ben Browder, considering how much ad-libbed shit he could've ran from his mouth as everyone around him was pretending as if he wasn't there...

Like I already mentioned, Teal'c seemed to have his best moments when he actually could see Mitchell standing right there. It wasn't just the cold faced swipe at his head with a P90 that got a laugh out of me, but also the fact that the cloaked Teal'c didn't give a shit when Mitchell just appeared before his eyes... Now, I couldn't care less about anything else that Christopher Judge did in the rest of the episode. Haikon was just there to talk about how evil Dahak of the Ori must've been to make zombie warriors, only to hear back that Teal'c was apparently too brain-dead to even consider shooting the living, vomiting dead in the fucking brain... Still, Teal'c was pretty badass yet again with dual P90's. And I can't help but forgive him for that...

Amanda Tapping seemed weirdly out of place, mainly because she was out of place (or out of phase, really). I found it definitely odd how she didn't seem concerned one bit about her current predicament, even if she at the time assumed that Daniel would be able to see her... But you know what was even more odd? It was how damn cute she acted this episode. I mean, whether she was smacking her lips at the sight of Dr. Lee bungling up the job yet again, or shrugging her little shoulders at Daniel in the most adorable, girlish fashion possible? There was just something about her that screamed 'romantic comedy'...

I normally don't care for her looks one bit. But is it just me, or does Amanda Tapping always seem to somehow get more Chloe-cute at the end of a season?... She did in season 7, though I attributed that more to the fact that the SciFi channel kept dressing her in either tight civies or tank tops. And then she was also fucking hot as hell in the final stretches of the eighth season, though I credited that more to her pregnancy glow and the fact that evil RepliCarter was fucking smoking hot...

But what about season nine? Why was she cute to me here?... Do I simply get desperate for a woman after Valentine's Day? Or does she really just get irresistibly adorable as soon as she realizes that it's almost fucking time for her vacation break?... Like I mentioned before, she somehow seemed instantly huggable as she was shrugging her shoulders at the sight of Daniel. And she just seemed to be enjoying herself so damn much with her beaming smile, when Daniel was essentially beamed into her phased out dimension...

But I'll give credit where credit is due, as Daniel once again made an episode dealing with the Ancients into something decently entertaining in the end... I mean, even if the writers were basically feeding off of my nostalgia? You know still that's a good thing, when as soon as I had finished watching Arthur's Mantle? I instantly had a craving to rewatch The Crystal Skull and get my own fair share of Lepton or Leprechaun or Lesbian or whatever radiation...

At least the SG-1 writers here were more correct and consistent with being out of phase this time around, which is more than I can say about The Crystal Skull. I mean, while in Arthur's Mantle, Carter and co basically just stood around and hoped to God that they didn't fall through the floor? Phased Daniel in The Crystal Skull was leaning on walls and sitting on desks, and for God's sakes, he even fucking moved a chair in that episode... But sigh, I'd still kill an entire army of darkness of undead Jaffa, just to get a real sequel to Daniel's grandfather and the events of the goddam Crystal Skull...

Still, Daniel here helped give credibility to an episode that was barely above Evolution on the, well, evolutionary scale of Stargate (which was the only other episode where The Crystal Skull was even mentioned, might I add). I mean, before we had no idea what Merlin's real purpose in the SG-1 universe was, but now we suddenly realize why he had the orgy of the Ori galaxy on his communication device's speed-dial... It still makes no sense to me why Merlin would need to descend to find a way to kill the ascended Ori. Wouldn't he have vastly more knowledge and power as an ascended being rather than a human? And even if he could hide somehow from his fellow Ancients using his phase cloaking device, wouldn't they just read his mind as soon as he returned to our reality?...

Either way, the new vision for Stargate SG-1 is really starting to take form again in my eyes. I'm starting to see exactly the kind of mythos that we've been lacking since Avalon, that the tales of King Arthur and the Knights Table were really somehow about battles against the magical Ori... If Merlin and his companions back then really did face off against the Ori and their minions and their death stars or whatever, I don't get why the Ori wouldn't know about earth now. But at least thanks to episodes like Arthur's Mantle, and also thanks to more mythological revelations from Daniel Jackson, I can really start looking forward to Crusade and Camelot...

... two episodes that may actually deserve the episode of the week award for once...

Now, obviously the SG-1 writers shouldn't be praised or put on a pedestal, or have their names engraved on a mantle for this episode or anything. I mean, first of all, what the fuck was up with that ten second ending?... And when one plotline of the story involves Dr. Lee being obsessed with 'Honey, I Shrunk the Kids', and the other half being some weird ass combination of Space Balls and Resident Evil SG-1?...

... and when, quite frankly?... they made a black actor both look and sound and snarl like an ape?...

... but at least, they wet my appetite for what will hopefully be two epic weeks to follow...

To be honest, if I was running the show around here? Downloaded would get episode of the week... if only for how nicely ironic Ron Moore decided to design the episode of the title, just for people like me...

... people who, you know?... get their episodes through the mail, from their second cousin "Bit" in the Yukon... but I digress...

Because since I'm not running the show around here, while my evil brother Lore is? I can't help but think then, that Downloaded could've been so much more than it was... Though to anyone who says that Downloaded sucked ass as an episode (and you know who you are...), then I'd imagine that they just don't get what the real purpose of Battlestar Galactica really is as a show...

I admit that Downloaded sort of made the Cylons into absolute pussies. They were perhaps made a bit too compassionate and a bit too human in the end. As just a little contact with a human that she loved, seemed to actually make the Cylon model number six think twice about nuking 12 billion humans in a night... While that Diana Biers (Number 3) model seemed to absolutely have no conscience whatsoever, I never would've really expected Number Six to actually have one. And yet here, we had Tricia Helfair absolutely acting her supermodel socks off, if only because waking up naked in a giant vat of white goo is always a plus (or a placenta?) in my books...

So, there's a Dr. Baltar crawling around in Number Six's head, just like there is a Number Six in the real Dr. Baltar? Talk about a fucking ironic plot-twist, because this seriously throws almost every single theory we had between the two of them out of the window... Obviously, neither of them are computer chips. Could there actually be a psychic link between the two of them? Probably not, since neither even knows that the other was still alive... How the heck can both of their visions seemingly predict the future? Because unless both hallucinations are actually projected into their minds by the Cylons themselves, you start to wonder whether there really is a higher power at work here...

Either way, I laughed my ass off in Downloaded at just how bitchy Dr. Baltar was in Six's head. He was berating her at every turn, baiting on her guilt for potentially nuking the only man she's ever loved... It was a nice contrast, really. Baltar in Number Six's head was moving her towards peace, while the complete opposite was happening with Number Six in Baltar's mind back on Galactica. I am a fan of circular kinds of storylines afterall, with all loose threads eventually leading and converging in Rome...

Now, I don't really get why the hell Number Six would feel so guilty about the destruction of humanity or Baltar's presumed death right now, considering she barely seemed emotional at all about it back in the miniseries before she was blown away. But Tricia Helfair really did seem to act her clothes off in Downloaded, going absolutely crazy as soon as she came out in a vat of Baltar's goo, with nothing but the Arthur's Mantle clothes on her back...

If there was any other purpose to Downloaded, it was to finally see Grace Park actually do something meaningful on the show once more. And if only to see her naked in a vat of fucking sticky, white goo as well... Now sure, it was cringe-worthy embarrassing to see her try to act serious in the apartment with the whole picture-throwing thing. I mean, I guess she had to learn bad acting from the best, when she starred with Kristen Kreuk back on Edgemont... But even so? It was fun seeing the ol' Galactica Boomer once again, how attached she still was to Chief fucking Tyrol of all people, and how shocked she was that Dr. Baltar was the one who had betrayed the human race in the end...

Grace Park really did act as if she loved her 'family' back on Galactica. It really makes me wonder whether it would be wise for Ron Moore to send this Boomer and Baltar's Number Six over to the fleet one of these days, and see these two Cylon bitches fight it out over whether to turn Baltar in for treason or not... I hope some sort of oil and white goo would be involved if so...

There was definitely something meaningful that happened between the two of them in Downloaded. They both shared emotional bonds with humans that they loved, and they shared an even more lovely lesbian bond between the both of their arms at the episode end... Will the two of them actually start a revolution for the Cylons? I doubt it. But at least it'd be fun once in a while, to check back on Caprica without the crappy ass sense of having to see fucking Helo like in the first season, or fucking Anders again like we did over here...

Fucking Anders. What a fucking moron. He's still wearing Kara's dogtag? God, he's such a pussy whipped asshole... I guess we now know that he ain't a Cylon, otherwise the Diana model wouldn't have wanted to shoot him on the spot. Sucks to be a fan of the show then, really...

At least, I thought that Anders had a noble purpose on the show, besides forced romance with Thrace over a fucking pyramid game. I thought that his goal was to liberate all the remaining humans on earth or some worthless hero crap like that?... Instead here, we see he's become a lowly terrorist, simply there to inflict pain and torture on an opponent he knows it's fucking impossible to win against. Sound fucking familiar?...

... well, some assholes would compare him to President Bush then... but I rather just compare him to fucking Roslin instead...

Laura was a complete bitch in this episode. Really, when was the last episode where we actually got a touching, motherly scene between her and either Lee or Kara?... Here she was at her supreme overlord-bitchliness once again, ordering that the newborn child be adopted into the hands of Mya or whatever her name was...

Now, I wouldn't personally mind if my bits and pieces had been placed in Mya's hands instead, as long as a certain white good was involved. But really, surely the president knows that giving this kid up for adoption wouldn't actually work in the end?... What if it matures faster than a normal human? What if its Cylon tendencies begin to form, and we get a potential enemy from within the fleet that's almost impossible to track?... What if Hera ever wants to meet her mother? Or what if that fucking hot Mya girl was actually a Cylon, as migraine-inducing predictable that would be (besides the fact that she supposedly had a child before, at least)?...

And does Admiral Adama even know about this? Sure, it may be a wise decision for the president to keep the information private even from the military, considering Diana-model Cylons within Galactica could still be plotting to steal the miracle child of Dahak's... But really, must Roslin constantly keep going over Adama's head? He just seemed like such a slow-witted fool in Downloaded as a result, with his only purpose there being to nod his head in agreement with whatever the bitchy ass president said... though I think all men can definitely relate to him on that...

Helo certainly can at least. God, was he fucking useless in Downloaded or what? His only two scenes consisted of him either playing cutesy-pussy-whipped with his new daughter, or fucking acting stone cold clueless when it came to his child's ashes... At least Doc Cottle brought something to the episode with his dark sense of humour, and the fact that he got the life choked out of him. And at least Tyrol didn't have a fucking line in the entire episode to annoy us with... What's Helo's excuse then? Even the death of his baby wouldn't shut him the fuck up...

To be honest, I was disappointed with everything that happened on the Galactica ship itself. Almost to the point where I ironically had to start calling it Craplactica... Grace Park wasn't even darling in her role. I mean, besides getting her finger wrapped by some ET looking, penis-wrinkly hand, did she even have a part over in the fleet at all?... I expected more, much more, from an episode dealing with the core fundamental story arc that's been running since last fucking season. I may hate the whole religious aspect of the show, but I hate it even more than it's almost been completely forgotten in the goddam series...

Yet over on Caprica? Despite the presence of Anders, it was anything but Crapica for once... We got some valuable insight into the Cylon culture, we got to finally see Grace Park in the hottest fucking sense again as she did sweaty ass chin-ups over the thought of angry sex, and we even got some absolutely classic scenes of Dr. Baltar playing revenge on poor Number Six's fragile mind...

Now, don't get me wrong. I ain't gonna put this episode on a mantle or anything, as Downloaded in the end was essentially what amounts to a clip-show. An hour of television that will hopefully save money for the last two and a half episodes to close out the season, that is... Budget concerns are always there for any series, and we as an audience should never forget about that...

But still, true to the white goo?... and more than true for the aptly named, "Downloaded"?...

Y2kk Update: - Stargate SG-1: The Scourge & Battlestar Galactica: The Captain's Hand Reviews (Spoilers...) -

Judging by the harsh comments out there, you'd think that The Scourge was the bane of internet critics everywhere...

And perhaps rightly so. Afterall, this was an episode that featured a bunch of flesh-eating bugs... Not only did The Scourge completely rip-off every bad SciFi movie cliche out there, but Stargate even copied itself by replacing the Replicaters with more organic versions of those little, nasty buggers...

The thing is though, if anyone out there hasn't quite noticed yet? Stargate SG-1 hasn't had a clip show yet this season. And neither has Stargate Atlantis for that matter, for God knows what reason... Now, I have no idea how the latter was able to afford its entire season without sacrificing a single episode (unless The Tower or the budget of Grace Under Pressure counts...). But I personally find it obvious that The Scourge was the equivalent of a cost-effective clip show for the ninth season of the show, exactly in the same vein as Disclosure was back in season six...

Well, almost identically just like what Disclosure was like back in season six. Considering both episodes dealt with the international politics of the Stargate program, that is...

Now, if anyone wants to know what the fuck the Chinese ambassador and Daniel were saying at the start? Allow me translate...

Now sure, I may not know Mandarin myself... I mean, I can understand Cantonese, but not fucking Mandarin...

But seriously? I can still understand with my fucking ears what exactly is real Mandarin...

We already know that Daniel sucks at Asian languages. I think Michael Shanks and the cast and crew proved all that already back in the seventh season, whenever Daniel did try to actually speak Cantonese shit... But seriously, why the fuck couldn't the writers get at least a real Chinese actress to play the part here, rather than a person who barely even looks Chinese to me? Why the fuck did they pick someone who couldn't even pull off two fucking syllables properly in the Mandarin language? WTF?...

Cost saving measure? Well, a really bad one, perhaps... the same kind as Cho-Ann was in the seventh season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

God, watching Daniel and the Chinese bitch here?... was like watching a bad Firefly episode all over again... What the gorram fuck?...

Still, absolutely the only truly interesting part of The Scourge was the threat by the Chinese government to somehow take control of the Stargate program. How exactly will they do it? Financially, illegally, alienly? WTF?... It's not like Daniel and the ambassador had any truly epic scenes between each other. It's just that, I do kind of miss the world politics that used to happen with Colonel Chekov and the Russians... And as a Chinese CBC myself? I wouldn't particularly mind if we got more hot Chinese bitches, evil or not, on the show or whatnot over time (though sadly, the ambassador here doth not count)...

Daniel was sort of just there, badly doing an impression of a linguist while spraying the ground of the planet with bullet fire. He didn't really do much else than that, but at least we were reminded of just why he's still on the team... Becoming a generic superhero is what got Michael Shanks bored of his role in the fifth season (though we all saw how far he got after leaving the show...). It's also what made the fifth season of the show into the mind-numbing, boring clusterfuck that it was...

Now, the first half of the ninth season was full of Daniel just being his archaeologist himself, especially when it came to the Ori. But here in The Scourge? Well... We didn't even get a mention of the pestilence of the biblical apocalypse or any crap like that, as Daniel simply was invisible except for the times when he was flirting with the Chinese ambassador...

Carter felt a bit off to me as well, considering she seemed so damn pessimistic when it came to their odds of survival. One moment in the episode, she refused to use the word, "impossible", and the next she's suddenly all doom and gloom about pesky little bugs? WTF?... She even seemed out of her element when she was trying to boost the power to the radio station at the research outpost. She just appeared so damn non-diplomatic the whole episode through, that not only did it make her seem like a hardcore military colonel rather than the soft-hearted scientist she often appears to be, but it also made her seem like a stone cold bitch as well... I mean seriously, when have little man-eating bugs ever really been considered a true threat to someone like her? WTF?...

At least we got some decent moments between Teal'c and Cameron, as the both of them got some good bonding time. Almost in the same vein as O'Neill would've with the ol' Jaffa, really... Now, I will never understand Teal'c's taste in movies (Star Wars before, and now Old School? Is he an LA Clippers fan too? WTF?...), but Christopher Judge always manages to shine whenever he's talking about freedom and the downfall of the Goa'uld. His speech about having a "just cause", how he knew the Goa'uld would one day fall (even if it ain't in his lifetime), was absolutely the most memorable aspect of the episode by far...

And Mitchell? Meh, besides sadly doing better at faking a Mandarin accent than Daniel or even the fucking Chinese diplomat herself, all he did was shoot a bunch of bullets at the ground to keep the bugs at bay. Guess maybe they should bring along a few zats and staffs once in a while, just in case for the unlimited ammo you know?... But I guess he had a few decent quips as well. Afterall, you gotta admit, Starship Troopers was unintentionally humourous as hell... and I sadly wouldn't mind watching the sequel right about now, for God knows what gorram reason...

Now, of course none of this changes the fact that despite the new Ori bug threat, The Scourge was simply a throw-away episode meant to save a shitload of money for the final three or four episodes of the season. I mean, when an episode starts making fun of itself by comparing itself to one of the worst SciFi movies ever made? And when sadly the plotline of the story is a rehashed mix of Tremors, Aliens, and The Mummy? Then obviously, you just somehow know that something just ain't right...

Hell, they even had the French ambassador take the spotlight now and again. And obviously, just from that shit alone? You knew the writers had openly surrendered the damn episode of the week award to goddam Battlestar Galactica fucking it up from behind...

But hey, what can I say? Knowing the premise, I never once took The Scourge seriously. And as a result, it was a fun little episode of pure stupidity... Sure, it made Stargate Atlantis season two look intelligent by design. But at least never once was I supposed to assume that this episode was the absolute best that the SG-1 series and writers had to offer (which is far more than I can say for the former)...

So I suppose besides being the bane of fans everywhere? The Scourge can perhaps be considered the plague or the pestilence of season nine as well...

But I'll reserve my own judgment for later, after seeing whether the final episodes of the ninth season truly kick Ori ass or not. Afterall, I am kind of fair and patient that way...

Last week, Battlestar Galactica won the episode of the week award, simply by default...

The same goes for this week, except for one slight difference... and that is?...

And you know what? While The Captain's Hand was nothing truly revolutionary, it was still a surprisingly solid episode, even if it was in a week where obviously it didn't have much competition for the IvanFian award...

Now, Battlestar Galactica went back to its Old School ways of bashing us over the head with an obvious ugly stick, when it came to its complete lack of subtlety over the abortion issue of today. I can understand why of course that this sensitive issue would become so damn major in the BSG world, but I just didn't like how Ron Moore handled it at all, that's all...

Hate me if you will, but I am anti-abortion. I believe in freedom of choice, but not at the cost of life obviously. The only issue has always been for us, what is the definition of life?... The thing is, despite my stance on the subject, Baltar was right in the end. Both Laura Roslin and Ron Moore treated the abortion issue like a machine... Laura wanted people to simply procreate for the simple fact that more human lives are needed, stripping us of our freedom of choice in the process. And Ron Moore on the other hand, pretty much turned the whole abortion debate into two clears sides of pure black and white, as if we were dealing with a goddam computer boolean programming problem here...

Why was it that Ron Moore made the Geminon people all seem like religious fanatics, demanding that the pregnant girl stay as the "property" of her parents? Why was it that both Laura Roslin and Baltar at least hated the idea of banning abortion, and that the only non-religious-extremist who sided with pro-life was the military man of Admiral Adama of all people?... It just seemed so fucking partisan, whatever the hell that means, you know? It just seemed that everyone logical or everyone with human feelings picked pro-abortion as their choice, while all the characters closest to the Cylons in terms of one-dimensional personalities picked the pro-life formula instead...

Now, don't get me wrong. I definitely did see both sides of the argument in The Captain's Hand. It's just that, when one side is dealing with the idea of "freedom" or fries or Freestars or whatever, and the other side is talking about the sheer number crunching of our species as a whole? I dunno, but... Couldn't Ron Moore have at least brought up the idea of the fetus being an actual living person at one point or anything? It was purely freedom versus the machines here instead. The argument he presented just didn't seem fair...

With that said, this was probably Laura Roslin's best episode in a while, though that's hardly saying anything. She was still a bitch obviously, scolding the Gemini representative without giving a damn about respecting her beliefs... But I do admit that the president had a tough decision to make in The Captain's Hand, both morally and politically. And while personally I think she made the wrong decision politically (and made her decision for the wrong moral reasons perhaps as well), I've still gotta admire the fire that the actress always presents every single time she stands behind that podium for a speech to the press...

Baltar was a sniveling weasel in The Captain's Hand, and that's exactly the way I prefer him to be. I have no clue whether Tom Zarek knew that Gaius had turned moronic with his support of the Cylon cause, but I still loved the smugness between of the two of them in that scene. Baltar craves power and recognition, and Zarek knew that (and perhaps was even manipulating that to his advantage somehow?)... I almost felt sorry for Roslin at times, even if she always has been a bitch, considering she never really saw Baltar's betrayal coming. One moment, he's advocating to her the harsh reality of the human numbers game (and therefore recommending pro-life), and then suddenly later using his recommendation against her right in the mug and the spotlight of the fucking press...

Speaking of sniveling weasels? Well, I'd normally call fucking petty bitch Dualla that, except she did look pretty smoking hot in the nude... Now, I absolutely can't stand the whole thing she has going with Lee. I mean, just one month ago, her boyfriend sacrifices himself to save her life, and now suddenly she forgets all about him while banging the guy she was cheating on him with? WTF?... Still, I can't deny that as long as I get more scenes of Dualla's naked backside (and hopefully front later on), I can't really complain...

It takes two to tango, and thus I've hated Lee Apollo for the past half season, simply for this shit Dualla crap and his sudden new love for the kamikaze run. But if anything has saved his character? It's definitely been the fact that at least his relationship with Kara is finally going somewhere, romantic or not... She was back to being her old cliche, flygirl self in The Captain's Hand, and that's not such a bad thing. Sure, I kind of found it odd how her friendly fire incident with Lee was barely mentioned whatsoever, but at least its one mention did provide the spark to a decent reconciliation scene between the two of them...

Were they really cool with each other at the end? I don't know. Apollo's whole speech about how Kara pisses him off, just felt juvenile in comparison to the rest of the writing on the show... But all I do know, is that whenever we get Kara Thrace laughing it up in her Viper cockpit as the fucking Battlestar before her gets nuked to hell? Then you just know that Ron Moore is going back to the Old School ways of what fucking works for the series, and that's normally a good thing...

If there's any other omen that the writers have done an episode justice? It's the fucking Celtic music crap that always plays between Admiral Adama and his son... Now, I personally feel that the music is way overused and hasn't felt appropriate outside of Home and The Hand of God. But there's also no denying, that every single episode where the music has played, has at least been decent or above average in the end... and The Captain's Hand was definitely no exception...

Admiral Adama was his usual self, being all calm and reserved while also being the most kickass leader known to SciFi. He presented his abortion opinion to the president in a way that was both tactful and very objective, even if there was some personal bias behind it. And even when he was not so diplomatic when it came to Doc Cottle? At least Adama never once lost that sense of commanderness that almost every single Pegasus CO seemed to lack since Admiral Cain bit the bucket...

Oh, Commander Gardner. Where do I start with thee? I was hoping for so much more from him. Afterall, both he and I are engineers or some shit like that...

The episode was trying to have a central theme here, with Baltar stealing the spotlight with his talk off the new abortion law stripping us closer to becoming machines, and Gardner here treating his crew as if they were nuts and bolts. I just wished at least, that Gardner wasn't so dumbass with his whole theory about rescuing his damn Raptors, even against the Admiral's orders... Sure, he attempted to redeem himself and my engineering kind by suiciding himself to save the ship. But really, considering how damn obvious the Cylon trap was? I could care less for the commander who embarrassed my kind and died alone in his home of engineering...

The command of a ship is more about the people than it is about the machines. Or at least, that's what Captain Adama made out to be the moral of the story...

No, wait... say again?... That's Colonel Adama for you? Or Commander Adama? WTF?...

William T. Riker must be pulling out the plugs of what remains of his hair. I mean seriously, how long did Ron Moore make that asshole wait patiently for Captain Picard just to roll over and die and yield for him a command? How many years did it take that first officer just to be promoted to captain? And yet Captain Lee Adama does it all here, getting his own damn Battlestar after just one fucking episode? WTF?...

Well, at least the ol' Star Trek: The Next Generation character can take some solace in the fact... that at least Commander Riker technically had the same exact rank as Apollo did by the end of this episode?...

Finally we had a proper Lee Adama episode to mull over, instead of all that self-destructive crap we got in bullshit like Black Market. Sure, some have complained that the guy froze over in the heat of the battle with the Cylons, but I just found that moment to be great acting on his behalf. Afterall, he was stunned for one second, and a true commander the next... And goddammit, that was a pretty decent fight we got there in The Captain's Hand as well. I mean, the Pegasus took like three or four nukes while still blasting away at a Basestar? Any time we get some decent battleship shit like that, an episode scores a hit and two thumbs up from me of course...

I personally thought that The Captain's Hand got a good look inside the commander's head, and tied up a lot of loose threads when it came to just how dumbass he's been all season long... Sure, in the end it may have turned out decent for the series when it came to his mutiny at the start of the season. But at least we got some recognition here, that perhaps turning his back on his dying father at the time may not have been the most savy or moral of moves... or at least, not in his own fucked up head any longer...

Apollo as a result had a couple of good scenes with Starbuck, as they put their past mistakes and goddam Smallville teen angst behind them. I particularly liked even the shortest of moments later on, when Apollo was open-minded enough to order Starbuck to the Viper hanger bays... And even though Dualla was still fucking up the series with all her captain handjobs? Hell, even Lee was able to salvage those wasted moments of the episode, with the fact that Dualla does have a pretty sweet body and ass (and luckily for us men, she also covered any part of Adama that we did not want to see...)...

Sure, The Captain's Hand doesn't quite rank up there with the best of Battlestar Galactica episodes. Commander Home Alone afterall was as dumbass as he was in the movies, leaving his son (and his crew here) behind. And the B-plot of the abortion shit wasn't handled nearly as tactfully or respectively as I would have expected from Ron Moore and such a controversial subject...

But still, even in a week where my hand was forced, and Battlestar Galactica would get the captain's chair by default as the episode of the week?... well still, nevertheless?...

I think I can still hear Tom Hanks' voice, badly dubbed in Chinese over fucking Commander Gardner's last gasps of breath?...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Cyborg small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers...) -

It was only a matter of time, until the Smallville writers did the ever cliche and cop-out thing...

... and ripped-off all sorts of SciFi, with the merging of man with machine and fucking stolen scripts from goddam Star Trek...

Now, while I do completely admit that the Borg or cyborgs or bionics or whatever, are indeed an integral part of the Superman mythos?...

"Lana and her SUV got rammed through again, and yet she still survives with barely a scratch? Why must the writers keep teasing me with this shit? WTF?..."

And what the fuck was with that Bionic Stone Cold Victor guy in that scene? Did he somehow bind his feet to the ground somehow? Because the laws of physics kind of dictate, that unless you're Superman? The object of greater mass is supposed to kick your ass... and he should've been sent flying, along with the rest of the shit ass script of course...

Now, I will gladly admit that Cyborg was better than the goddam usual crap that we get out of the show. And definitely one of the only reasons why it was even half that good, was that Cyborg actually led somewhere with the whole Lionel Luthor mystery at the end of the hour...

I admit that John Glover was getting on my nerves throughout the episode, as it couldn't have been more obvious that he had set up Martha's whole blackmail thing, just to rescue her in the end and get in her good graces. Did we really need so many goddam old-Clark and old-Lana shit scenes to point all that shit out between the two of them? Haven't the writers done this enough with young-Clark and the fucking real Lana Lang to get it in their heads, that this is not what Superman is really all about?...

The thing is though, while it was hinted at a couple of episodes earlier with Lionel's whole "son" comment to Clark? We still didn't really get confirmation of what the fuck was up with Lionel Luthor all season long, until he uttered the words "Kal-El" in this episode. And something tells me he ain't just talking about Nicolas Cage's latest fucked up creation...

It's still unclear what the fuck is going on. I mean, is Lionel really Jor-el or Zod or whoever is pretending to be Lionel Luthor all along? Or is it Lionel Luthor really in there, and he actually remembers the time when was taken over by the Fortress of Solitude?... But at least we finally know one thing for sure. Because at one point at least?...

After so many months of just assuming that they had no clue what to do with Lionel? I really did think that the writers had a plan...

And then I remembered the rest of the episode... and promptly shot that fucking loony theory down...

Tom Welling normally does better when dealing with other so-called superheroes (The Flash in particular, and even Aquaman to some extent), as normally the show then focuses on the Superman aspect of the series and not the fucking angst... Problem was, as cool as Mr. Super Ford redux here may have been? Victor was simply used as a fucking reincarnation of more teen angst for Clark, by constantly reminding him of the shit that would happen if he did reveal to Lana the truth about his secret (not that he hasn't before, mind you...)...

I mean seriously, doesn't this make Clark all wish that he could take back the goddam taking back of Lana's fucking death?...

Sure, shit happens. But in Lana's case? Please, for God's sakes, let the shit happen...

... let the fucking bus rape and school her for all I care... God, was she ever annoying in fucking Cyborg...

The whole episode literally consisted of just Lana Lang, making fucking moon-pie eyes at Clark, about their "glory days" and how much in fucking love they used to be (as if any of us actually counted what we saw this season between the two of them as love). God, she even makes Padme and Anakin Skywalker look animated and anything but fucking mechanical in comparison...

Sure, the whole Catharine and Victor reembracing scene was sappy enough as it was. But still, it was absolutely ruined even further by the fact that the fucking camera locked onto Lana Lang's bitchy eyes the whole time through... Didn't she and Clark already break up last episode? Is the status of their relationship going to be conveniently forgotten episode to episode, just like the writers can't make up their minds as to when Lex will be a ruthless villain for the next hour or when he will be a trusted friend?...

Lex was a predictable villain in Cyborg, a bit too much so actually. It was obvious right from the get go that he was behind the whole operation, but we never really got a motive out of it... Sure, Michael Rosenbaum can make a ton of god-awful scenes tolerable just by himself, by simply being the best cocky asshole as possible. The writing for him here was just too damn weak for even him to save though, as we even got a cliche MWAHAHA scene of him looking over Victor in the fucking medical chair... Isn't that shit normally reserved for the cringe or Krige-worthy, noname villain of the week?...

I know that Clark is too much of a good guy to just punch Lex in the face or anything, but something just feels so damn tame about every single scene where Clark blames Luthor for everything going on. Clark always just storms in there, points some fingers, scuffs his feet, then just turns tail and runs after giving Lex warning number 556? WTF?... It's like the writers start off every episode with those two fucking characters acting as friends or something, and then quickly shift them both to arch-nemesis mode once they remember that Lex was supposed to turn evil something like three goddam seasons ago...

The true villain of the series has always been Lionel Luthor, and I suppose I am glad that John Glover's talents have been combined with Jor'el's strengths to some extent. I just wish that we didn't get so many goddam scenes of Mrs. Kent falling in love with the man who obviously is doing everything in his power to make her his fucking Valentine's Day Massacre... It was boring to see that video of Clark racing through the C4 fireball over and over again, as I could barely register what was going on. And it just made Ma Kent look so damn fragile and weak, giving into blackmail that damn quickly and early on in the show...

It's kind of interestingly ironic though, as to what's going on between her and Lionel I mean. Maybe it was just a coincidence that Jor'el chose to inhabit the body of a man who already loved Martha Kent. But still, is it just me, or is the supposed biological father of Clark trying to fucking make his fucking moves on his son's adopted mother?... Does Terence Stamp still have the hots for Annette O'Toole, after all these years of not being in fucking lameass Superman movies anymore? WTF?...

Chloe and Lois Lang probably could've helped to save this episode. But really, Chloe was barely anywhere to be found, simply typing in Google shit into her computer like I basically am right now... And Lois? God, aren't the writers making such great use of the newest main cast member of the series or what?... Next thing you know, at this rate? Clark will one day mistakenly call her "Pete"...

Besides Lionel Luthor? Probably the only decent thing about Cyborg was the damn cyborg itself. Sure, I seriously don't get why the Smallville universe now has energy weapons and SciFi shit like that, but at least we got a classic scene out of Clark and Victor jumping off of the building roof together... It would've been funny as hell, if it had just been fucking Pete who was turned into a mechanical superhero. Then maybe he would've found a purpose on the show or some shit that?...

... and yet still, he would've found a way to get his useless ass kicked off of the show by fucking Steve Austin...

Victor and Clark had some decent scenes reminiscing about their glory days of football, but God did the episode ever weigh itself down with thinking back to the so-called glory days of whatever the writers actually do consider to be fucking Smallville love...

Cyborg was just a formulative episode in the end, with a completely predictable plot twist when it came to Lex Luthor, another generic mad scientist by the name of Alister Krige or Alice Krige or whatever, and even more "oh shit" looks between Clark Kent and Lana Lang for the entire second half of the goddam episode...

Sure, I may be a huge SciFi whore. But fuck no, will I ever lower myself to drivel shit like this...

Y2kk Update: - Stargate SG-1: Off the Grid & Battlestar Galactica: Sacrifices Reviews (Spoilers...) -

Off the top of my head? Off the Grid was a fun standalone episode that I definitely did find myself enjoying...

But it's still always great to watch endless hordes of Jaffa cannon fodder get offed by, well, cannon fire on screen...

The final fifteen minutes of Off the Grid were a nice reminder of the good ol' fashion, mindless actions days of SG-1. I can never get enough of just hearing the team go in guns blazing, not even asking questions before kicking ass and taking names... The final fight scenes in the Ha'tak corridors were just pure brainless, bliss action. Sparks and bodies were both flying everywhere, though of course our heroes remained unscathed...

I also gotta mention here just how schizophrenically kickass SG-1's new weapons were... I mean, for the uninitiated (myself kinda included), they were using MP7 PDWs in Off the Grid, which is H&K's newest direct competitor to the P90's that SG-1 has been using since season four. While the P90 can store more ammo (fifty bullets versus forty for the MP7 in a clip), the MP7 is somehow much lighter, more robust, has better range, better armour piercing capability, and doesn't have any of the P90's jamming problems associated with reloading cartridges (not that SG-1 ever fucks up that way, mind you...)...

But fucking goddammit, despite all the facts? The MP7 looks and sounds like a fucking toy, with fucking light bulbs that blink...

Still... there's absolutely nothing more badass in the world, than Teal'c dual wielding MP7s...

... dual wielding MP7s to the sound of dual channel MP3s, that is... oh hell fucking yes...

Off the Grid was absolutely a Man's Man type of episode. It really reminded me of all the hardcore, classic action movies of the 80's...

And speaking of the 80's? How 'bout Colonel Emerson, commander of the Odyssey?... Guess the stock broker asshole guy finally grew up after cheating on Drew fucking Barrymore, and got the last laugh over The Wedding Singer afterall...

But alas, not everyone in the world shares my view of the classic 80's movies. Because apparently, quite a few fans out there simply refused to shut off their brains while watching Off the Grid, and the episode turned out to be quite the hated one on the net as a result...

I personally just think these fans are off their rockers... But then again, what do I know? I miss The Rockers from the WWE, afterall...

I agree that Cameron Mitchell was quite a goofy moron in Off the Grid. I mean, his whole "Shaft" routine was more than just lame, and he did get the whole team in trouble with his whole cowboy drug dealer bit... The writers did also provide a couple of shitty ass cop-outs, both in the "Eight Hours Earlier" intro stolen right from BSG (which was stolen from Alias, of course), and in the fact that the writers pulled a Ford in The Hive by not showing us just exactly how Cameron managed to escape his captors...

And it just felt kind of ridiculous, how he was calling it all a "good day" after he got SG-1 tortured by Mor'el for something like two fucking days in a row? WTF?...

Of course, as a guy? I forgave Cam Shaft for all his misgivings as soon as he started going all badass on the Jaffa at the end with his G36K (or whatever kind of assault rifle he was carrying)... That money shot of the whole team covering each other upon beaming onto Ba'al's ship? 'Twas simply priceless, and worth more than any price of admission...

The thing is though, a lot of female viewers definitely thought the writers "dropped the Ba'al" when it came to Colonel Carter...

... fucking stupidly enough, quite a few of them are crying sexism for Cameron's whole "Mary Poppins" rib...

Not to mention the fact that Carter was about to fall out of her fucking top throughout the whole damn exchange. And how could I possibly complain?...

Besides the fact that Amanda Tapping looked quite smoking hot (yet awkward and uncomfortable as hell) in that leather corset or whatever she was wearing? Well... She also pulled off a bit of miracle science, reprogramming a DHD on Ba'al's ship in like five seconds flat. And she was mostly passive for the rest of the episode, actually playing the innocent Mary Poppins by a) popping out of her top, and b) letting Cameron do all the talking and commanding for her... Sure, feminists can cry foul all they like. But why the fuck would I ever shed a tear, when this was all still so damn tame in comparison to such classics as the bitches in the original Terminator and fucking Conan the Barbarian?...

Daniel was mostly useless in the episode as well. Because seriously, when the glasses are off? All bets obviously go out the window as well, as Daniel simply becomes one badass killing machine... What happened to the mild mannered archaeologist who used to want to negotiate for peace? It was weird really, that Mitchell would call for Daniel as backup in the firefight instead of fucking Colonel Carter, but whatever...

Besides just getting punched a few weakass times by Mor'el, I don't think Daniel did a thing. Hell, he was even too damn dumb to think up a decent line to save SG-1's collective asses during the torture... But meh, we got lots of bright lights during the ending battle sequence. So regardless of what little content Micheael Shanks managed to achieve, I was still nevertheless appeased...

What did Teal'c do? Well, he went back to being absolutely clueless to earth cliches and terminology yet again. But why the hell would I mind this kind of shit, when the man can fucking dual wield MP7s?... I got a chuckle out of his little "below the radar" retort, and I loved how he played politics with the whole "equidistant" comment about drug dealing... But who fucking cares about drug dealing, when you've got fucking dual wielding? I don't care if the only line Christopher Judge ever gets to say is "indeed", as long as I still get my motherfucking Halo action in...

Now, there was one terrible aspect to the whole episode, and of course, the blame falls squarely on General fucking Landry. I mean, sure Beau Bridges does seem to do his best work with Nerus (one fat, old bastard to another apparently...). But that still doesn't change the fact that watching five scenes straight of Nerus hurling his food across his Area 51 cell, was not exactly my kind of brain training...

It certainly didn't help that all Landry did was stall for more time. God, is he ever annoying when he's trying to be clever... just food for thought, really...

I do admit though, that I did snicker at the General's plan to fucking pull a fucking Austin Powers Fat Bastard on Nerus, by feeding him a locator beacon in a fucking cupcake. But the only reason I found that amusing, was because a fucking moron like General Landry managed to still turn out smarter than the entire collective team over at fucking goddam Atlantis (who fucking fell for the exact same virus crap that Nerus did here)...

God, the Atlantis team were simply off the charts with their fucking goddam stupidity this season... unfortunately, their intelligence or lack thereof seems to be spreading...

Yes, it seems that Atlantis has invaded the SG-1 universe, as the fucking useless Daedalus was transposed back into the Milky Way galaxy and renamed The Odyssey (fucking bastards stole the name of my ship... if I ever get around to rewriting those fucking novels I failed miserably at as a kid, at least...)... And once again, we got a final battle scene where the ER doctor of a stock broker commander was too damn dumb to realize, that if only he had fired on Ba'al's ship rather than the Lucian Alliance ones? Then maybe the shields would've gone down quicker and he could've beamed out SG-1 sooner...

... though God, the weapons on the Daedalus-class ships are so fucking useless...

Yeah, obviously Off the Grid was a little bit off the page if you ask me, if you actually do care for a little bit of brain food from your television...

And strictly off the record? I suppose that Off the Grid wasn't quite what I expected either, as it ain't even my favourite episode of the week...

I mean, I did like the villains to some extent. The Lucian Alliance was pussified as hell (using projectile weapons? WTF?), but Ba'al did have a few decent scenes with Nerus. And I did think his plan was decent, of reprogramming the DHDs so that the Ori or anyone else couldn't access his own private network of Stargates anymore...

But I dunno... writing wise, Off the Grid was still just a tad bit?... I dunno?...

Hell, even Colonel Reynolds just felt off, as all the bastard really got to do was just sit around and munch on Ectasy corn, as he waited around to stage some terrorist assault over on Battlestar Galactica or some crap like that... not a very bright move on his behalf either...

But as long as I still get my fucking guns blazing, my fucking dual wielded MP7s, and my fucking Mary Poppins, pop-out cleavage shit?...

I mean, I didn't really like this episode. Hell, I was laughing out of my maniacal mind when Lee got shot, as the fucking pussy bastard deserved to get his ass kicked by the girl who truly wears the pants in the family... And God, I couldn't help but mock Colonel Reynolds cowering in the corner, obviously pissed off that he scrapped his secure job over on SG-1 just to become the equidistant of Jaffa cannon fodder over on BSG...

And yet Sacrifices still turned out to be my episode of the week?... It wasn't the episode I most enjoyed, but it was definitely still the most well written one of the three (not that Smallville ever has a chance in hell of winning, mind you)...

... and fuck, Mary Poppins wasn't even in the running... so really, Sacrifices wins by default?...

Last week's episode of Scar was much better than Sacrifices on a whole, but lost to SG-1's Ethon for episode of the week. So I suppose it's only fair then, that I take the bullet and the goddam frakkin' sacrifice, to give Battlestar Galactica its due props for two straight decent weeks...

And I gotta admit, I did laugh my fucking head off at Billy being the hero and getting himself killed...

... oh boo hoo, the poor fucking bastard was shot in the heart... how appropriately sad for the lovesick asshole, I guess?...

Seriously though, Billy hasn't really been in the series since the first season. He was meant to be killed off in Valley of Darkness long ago, and he's just been on borrowed time since... Sure, it must've broken his heart to know that Dualla was fucking cheating on his ass the whole damn time. But at least he got to go out as the hero, or trying to be the hero at least... What a fucking moron though. He was too damn clueless to know what kind of skank he was dating. And then he actually got himself killed, right before he would've been naturally saved of course...

And as for Dualla? The chief petty bitch of the whole goddam show these days?... What the fuck is wrong with her? Not only does she fuck over Billy's marriage proposal by dating Lee the very same night, but she fucking flirts with Lee in the hospital bed rather than ever giving one damn bit about Billy lying cold in the morgue on the other side of the room?... As soon as her boyfriend dies, she starts making new dating plans with the other man who fucking almost died for her as well, without even giving two damn shits about their two damn sacrifices? Talk about a man eater. WTF?...

God, I wished it was her who had died rather than fucking Billy in this episode...

... though I guess I should've seen this coming, considering she did get to learn from the actual bitch herself on Smallville last season...

And fuck... we didn't even get Chloe-form cleavage out of it all... What kind of fucking useless, episode of the week was that?...

Well, at least Starbuck looked decent. When her hair was down, she really glistened in her little R&R clothing... Of course, the episode just felt really out of it when it came to Kara the rest of the way through. She had no real introduction into the episode, as she just magically Mary popped her way into Cloud 9 right from the get go. And after she shot Lee? All she did was cower in the corner, obviously afraid that she'll be deported along with Colonel Reynolds to SG-1 for frakkin' things up (if she's lucky...)... I suppose shooting fucking Apollo would set things back a bit in their budding relationship of rough non-sex. But if there were any ramifications to her friendly fire incident? We sure didn't witness them here in Sacrifices...

Now, Lee Adama has officially become the fucking Tom Welling shit of the series, as he was completely whipped by Dualla over on Cloud 9. He did everything in his power to save her, and fucking got screwed in the chest by a bullet because of it. The writers are obviously trying to extend the life of the relationships in the series, but it just sucks that they're wasting all their time with it on Apollo of all people... The guy may be great in the cockpit, but he's just a goddam clutz when it comes to the cock. The writers absolutely ruined his character with those flashback scenes of his old girlfriend back on Caprica, and now they're making him into a callous bastard by just slutting it up with Dualla in his unborn child' name and memory...

There was no Baltar or Number Six or really any decent characters in Sacrifices... I mean, Saul and Ellen Tigh were there, frakkin' things up as usual. Well, Ellen did at least, as she seems to spy with her little eye and get people into trouble even more than I fucking do with the women at my work (but, umm... that's a story for another day...)... I didn't particularly like how Colonel Tigh was so one-dimensional in Sacrifices, simply being there as the voice of reason about Sharon still being a Cylon. She could be playing the Admiral and nobody would be the wiser, afterall. But still, hearing the Colonel reiterate the same damn Saul stance in all his fucking lines throughout the episode, wasn't exactly my cup of tea either...

Doesn't matter if they're right. You club them over the head with an ugly stick regardless...

Meanwhile, Admiral Adama was still the man as always, but he just wasn't as commanding as he normally turns out to be. He was soft on Sharon, real soft. He refused to kill her when the demands were made, and he seemed to even 'politely' slam the phone on Boomer when she refused to give away the names and faces of her fellow Cylons in the fleet... Still, while his plan to give the dead Sharon body to the terrorists was predictable, I did like how the man refused to give into the real demands whatsoever. He was gungho all the way and paid the price with two marines getting killed for nothing, but at least I got my quick fix for semi-automatic fire for the week...

And as for the president? Sure, the actress completely stole the scene as she couldn't contain her tears and guilt at the sight of Billy's dead body. But her character as a whole was just plain grating to me throughout the whole of the episode... Isn't she supposed to be a fucking school teacher? I understand that events have hardened her into a bitch in the clutch who always drives stick, but it just feels weird and wrong that she's consistently more gung-ho about killing everyone in sight than Adama and the military ever have been...

It should've been her and Dualla biting the fucking sacrifice in this episode rather than Billy...

I mean, I for one sure wouldn't have minded a scene of a dead naked Sharon, watching the dead naked Dualla on top of the dead naked president...

Though, wait... Necrophilliac Chloe-form cleavage?... umm... eww... That's just wrong, even by my standards...

... I guess, maybe the fucking god-awful Smallville episode of the week really got to me more than I thought?...

Because obviously Tomb over on Smallville sucked dick real hard as always. And Stargate SG-1, while entertaining as hell? Just didn't have the brains nor the real butter of brawn to really take home the prize this week...

Therefore, Sacrifices gets the nod by default... if only for the fact that I still can't stop fucking laughing at Billy's pathetic demise...

... and if only because the lead terrorist bitch was... well?... you know... kinda hot?...

Obviously, Sacrifices wasn't the greatest of BSG episodes. But last week kinda was...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Tomb small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers...) -

It actually made suicide tempting, if only so I could forget the secrets and all the shit that can only be known as Tomb...

"A slasher-horror episode, in the middle of fucking February? WTF?... Were the writers jealous of Saw II ads for Valentine's Day, and decided to do one even worse? WTF?..."

Oh dear God, I never thought I could see an episode even more fucking painful than an entire fucking hour of Lana Lang... though yes, that is still kind of true to some extent, since nothing (and I mean, nothing) will ever be worse than that goddam first witch episode from last season...

But goddammit, Tomb came so damn close to matching even that episode in pure shittyness, that it freaked the hell out of me... so fucking close...

Lois Lane finally made her return, in an episode where she fucking plays the nurse and maid to her whacked out cousin? Sure, she had a decent scene at the end where she tried to play the hero with a knife (as if nobody saw that fucking coming). But really, did the actress do anything else but walk around, look all concerned, was too fucking dumbass to even properly secure her door, and got fucking knocked out by goddam chloroform as a result?...

I never thought I'd say this. But for once, just for once?... I actually fucking slapped myself in the forehead from the sheer stupidity of Chloe in an episode, than I think I ever have from fucking even Lana Lang over the past year or so? WTF?...

I can't honestly believe just how bad Tomb really was, even in making a character such as Chloe into a pure running joke. I mean, all she really did was run and cluck around, claiming that the sky was falling as she kept seeing fucking bloody hell footprints on the floors of the hospital... Sure, I can believe that maybe Gretchen the ghost only appeared to her because she was whacked out of her mind with some sort of mental instability. But I absolutely felt nothing still when we learned exactly How Chloe Met her Mother... or the wig of a shadow of a substitute or whatever in the mental institute, that is...

Clark was absolutely pathetically atrocious in Tomb, even without the presence of Lana Lang somehow. I mean, does he really have to go bashing in every wall with a dead body behind it that he sees? And really, what the fuck was the purpose of him speeding in to save the day from the fucking serial killer, when he was fucking incapacitated by the kryptonite bracelet within three seconds flat? WTF?... Was there even a real reason why he refused to let Chloe go to Belle Reve? Was he simply fearful of all the freaks there, or was he simply afraid his secret will get out? Either way, Chloe looked more like a fucking crazy person to me than anything else...

How many times has Chloe gotten possessed by some entity in Smallville already? Is there a minimum quota for each season or something?... Sure, the actress did a decent job in the final scenes with the serial killer, as she really did look terrified out of her wits. But goddam, the whole MWAHAHA villain of the story was so damn grating in the first place, as who here didn't suspect that the psychotic looking orderly fellow was actually goddam psychotic right off the bat?... The predictability of this shit made Chloe and co look like goddam fools...

I suppose if this was Halloween time or even the fucking Prom again, I would give this episode a bit more credit. But honestly, we're talking about a fucking slasher rip-off here, made as the monkey in the middle for fucking February. WTF?...

Usually Lex sweeps in to save an episode from complete mediocrity, but even he was completely fucked over by the presence of Lana Lang ripping apart whatever acting credibility Michael Rosenbaum had... The two of them did what exactly? Just give "oh shit" looks to each other, every single time Chloe took a stun-gun or fled from the fucking scene of the crime?... I mean, considering Ms. Sullivan was on fucking foot, don't you think it would've been fucking easy to catch her by say, fucking actually walking after her or some shit like that? And yet all Lex and Lana would do was cuddle for warmth in the hallways? WTF?...

And fuck, did Lana really have to fuck up every single scene she was in, by giving the absolute most bitchy looks and tones to Clark every time she saw him?... She may have only been on screen for about a couple minutes flat, and part of that was fucking flat on her back (as always...). But still, I swear it was like I was watching that fucking witch episode from last season all over again. Except this time, Lana had no real fucking excuse for being a complete and utter bitch...

I suppose that Lionel Luthor and Martha Kent tried their best to spare this episode from the same kind of shit as Scare was last season. But the thing is, there's only so much of goddam widow-flirting through the windows that I can take... Lionel may always be The Man in my eyes, for trying to sweep Martha off her feet with all his support for the death of her husband. But really, what I can never fucking forgive is the fact that just a few weeks after Jonathan's demise, we already have fucking Ma Kent making moon eyes at the fucking villain of the story?... Fucking goddammit, what a goddam slut. No wonder she was selected to play Lana fucking Lang in the movies...

If the writers really are obsessed with possessing Chloe every single season, wouldn't it have been wiser to just have her channel the spirit of Pa Kent through her Chanel or some shit like that?... Think about it. We could have episodes with Jonathan in Chloe's body going at it one last time with MILF Ma Kent, Patrick Swayze style. And then since we all know that Pa Kent had something in his heart for fucking Lois Lane as well, I can finally get that long night out between the two cousins that I've been goddam demanding since last season...

And yet in Tomb? Instead we got fucking cleavers and beavers and saws and shitty ass, pointless slasher-fanfic-shit like that. What were the writers possibly thinking?...

In just one episode, not only did they completely ruin Lex's character with Lana Lang clawing at his back, desperately trying to steal his glory... Not only did the writers completely waste Lois Lane as the new damsel in distress of the series... And not only did they completely destroy whatever adoration I had for Chloe, by reducing her to the same damn role that Erica Durance pretty much had in the first damn House of the Dead movie?...

But also? Fuck, somehow?... the writers made me look forward to fucking seeing House of the Dead 2...

Y2kk Update: - Stargate SG-1: Ethon, Stargate Atlantis: Allies & Battlestar Galactica: Scar Reviews (Spoilers...) -

God, I'll be scarred for life from Ethon. But I've got to hand it to the writers, for not just producing one of the best episodes of the season? But for also giving it one of the coolest titles ever...

For those who don't know, Ethon was the hawk in Ancient Greek mythology that tore at Prometheus' shitty ass liver every single day, as Prommie's punishment for giving the gift of fire to humanity. We all know the significance that was behind the name of the "Prometheus" in the first place, so it was a brilliant touch by the writers in dedicating the title of this episode to the very earth battlecruiser that started it all...

O'Neill was right though. They should've named the ship the goddam Enterprise...

Hell, did the ship ever even win a battle by itself? How many times has its crew been dumbass enough to let it be taken over again?...

Still, I'll admit that my stomach churned at seeing all those Air Force officers sucked into the depths of space. Ethon reminded me a lot of the second season finale for Deep Space 9 in that sense, one of the finest moments that that Star Trek series had... Back then, the Dominion were an actual threat in terms of technology, not just numbers. Their Polaron beams cut through the Odyssey's shields (ironic name, two weeks from now considering....) like a hot knife through butter, as one of my favourite Galaxy-class Starships was cut to shreds...

The Prometheus may have been a shit ship, with a crew apparently too damn dumbass to run back into hyperspace at the first sign of trouble. But I'll be damned if its loss doesn't automatically guarantee Stargate SG-1 the best damn episode of the week award...

If the Ori were never considered a threat to humanity before, they sure as hell are now. Unlike with the Wraith, we have absolutely no defenses against even their dumbed-down technology for the masses, let alone their real shit coming along... The Priors proved something in Ethon, that they can teach pretty much any industrialized planet in the Milky Way to build the technology needed to do their bidding. Within just five months, a race with barely the technology we had back in World War 2 managed to build a satellite system that was more compact, more robust, and just as packed with as much of a punch as the Ancient satellite defence grid had in Atlantis...

The death of the Prometheus was warranted, as the ship had become a running joke from shit like Vala taking it over single-handily. But hot goddammit, the loss of the Prommie hurts just as much as the destruction of Deep Space 9's own Defiant... If the Asgard hadn't perked their tiny little ears to the Ori threat before, they might as well start taking notes now about what's going on in our galaxy...

I mean, Asgard shields are useless against Ori tech? What the fuck are we paying the Asgard for then?...

Where's our guarantee? Either give us better shields, or get our motherfucking money back...

Just like the Ancient drone weapons have been known to penetrate any known defences, it seems the Ori know a thing or two about cutting through energy shields as if they were paper. And yes, while I've seen and experienced it countless times in Star Trek before, seeing a scathing swath bore right through the thick of a starship we've all grown to love (the Prometheus in this case) not just once but thrice, was like a fucking knife stabbed through my own heart...

The destruction of the Prometheus wasn't in the heat of the battle or anything. The damn dumb fuck of a rock just stood there as it was torn apart and ripped asunder, piece by piece... ever so slowly, deliberately, and methodically... just like the fucking Ethon nipping at the fucking liver of the real tragic Prometheus...

Now, I didn't give a damn about Pendergast. The man was a moron who just sit in a chair, and was too damn dumb to beam himself out before the final shot from the weapon was fired... Still, unlike episodes like The Fourth Horseman where all the carnage happens off screen, you really did feel for the crew of the Prometheus as they were depressurized into space. While the Ori have always felt like a real threat from episodes such as Beachhead, earth never really had experienced a heartbreaking loss like we did here in Ethon...

And what's even more insulting, is that we lost our first fucking intergalactic battlecruiser to a bunch of religious zealots with fucking primitive technology. Fuck, this must have been how the Goa'uld felt day in and night out, losing to the goddam Tau'ri... Hell, it was fucking messed up really, in terms of sheer contrast and juxtaposition. SG-1 was at a complete loss in space against the Ori weapon, yet absolutely decimated the Rand on their own soil when it came to just a simple EMP weapon...

And to be honest? I kinda felt smug about taking out their whole bunker at the end with just one radar-invisible missile. I would've preferred if the Prometheus had just beamed a nuke into the Rand capital while they still had a chance, but I guess they were too 'hesitant' (or dumb) to do so out of fear of killing Daniel... again...

Poor Daniel Jackson must be feeling pretty guilty as this point, and he damn well should. Not only did his damn meddling cause a World War on the same damn planet last year in Icon, and not only did his stupid ass curiousity bring the Ori to our galaxy, but his damn bullshit politics (and thanks to being captured yet again) got the Prometheus' ass kicked and name taken in Ethon. Not to mention the fact that the entire planet nuked themselves to hell anyhew, no matter what kind of deals Daniel managed to broker...

Michael Shanks though, did an excellent job with his role. He really seems to be caring about the rest of his teams these days, as he was literally wincing in agony while contemplating the fate of Prometheus in his jail cell, and he seemed so damn relieved to here Sam's and Cam's voices over the radio. You also gotta love his little quip of never giving up, never surrendering, not even after death...

Now, I really do still think he was a moron for listening to a goddam Cylon, especially one who was ironically preaching against religious extremists (if Doral didn't give himself away right there, I don't know what will). But Daniel was just being himself in Ethon, always hoping that a peaceful solution can be found, even though the motherfuckers blew up our motherfucking ship and should've just been nuked as a result...

But, well?... With our ship now out of the equation, and an evil Ori satellite still in your neighbourhood? Who are you gonna call?...

Apparently, the last member of the Ghostbusters. But where the fuck is Bill Murray when you need him? Lost in Translation? WTF?...

Seeing the F-302 fighters against the Ori satellite was a pretty cool experience, especially since Ben Browder just seems to be a natural in the cockpit. His reactions to everything happening to the Prometheus were just superb, as he neither seemed callous nor did he oversell the destruction of our precious first battlecruiser... And was it just me, or was he really extra friendly with Sam the whole way through? Not only did they share one of the best moments of the episode over Landry's empty chair, but the embrace they gave each other after they beamed down to Caledonia safely was actually kind of touching (except to Jack and Sam 'shippers, I'm sure)...

Now, I would start calling the two of them together as "Sam Mitchell". But as a Toronto Raptors fan? Ah hell's bells, even I wouldn't sink that low...

Rough week for the fucking Raptors? Yeah, I'd think so... but that's a story for another day...

And Landry? God, not only did Landry suck absolute balls in this episode, but his apparent lack of any screentime doomed the Prometheus as well. If only the asshole general had been on base to had denied the mission to take out the satellite, then none of this would've happened...

As for Samantha Carter, she seemed to be her old self again in Ethon. I loved the way she used dumbed-down technobabble, as she always explained things easily for Cameron and the audience when it came to the blueprints of the Ori weapon. I love the fact that we learned that our own inertial dampeners can be used as EMP weapons, and I enjoyed the little reference to her time at Area 51 as well...

I thought she was as intelligent as her old self in Ethon, even if the whole crew were morons for just assuming that the Ori weapon couldn't put a dent in their shields. And for once, Sam didn't have a miracle solution to save the ship. She looked vulnerable for a while, yet came up with a (somewhat) plausible solution in the end given the McGyver tools that she had left on Caledonia. I kinda appreciated that...

I also appreciated Teal'c. Sure, he was just sort of there, floating in the backseat of Cam's F-302. But I did appreciate his effort in cheerleading in the background anyhew... very much, indeed...

The villains themselves in Ethon were actually both credible and threatening, especially in light of what's happening in the real world over a fucking measly, Denmark caricature of all things... The Rand president was an absolute religious extremist, and it made sense that a bunch of wackos like him could take over the planet that we knew from Icon. Under the circumstances of an Ori plague and a World War, I can almost sympathize...

The poor bastard got shot in the heart and didn't even get to ascend. I don't blame him for being a complete moron, but I do blame his minister counterpart over in Caledonia. I mean, she was fucking hot as hell, and yet she still was dumbass enough in the end to destroy both nations with a nuclear holocaust? Fuck, did she have a brain transplant with Lana Lang after SG-1 left the planet or some shit like that?...

Sure, some on the internet have considered it a cop-out of an ending, how the entire planet just wiped itself out (and hopefully left the satellite intact for SG-1 to play with, even though I wouldn't trust an Ori-built device when the Ori warships do come a'knockin'...). Poor Daniel must be kicking himself for that bad mess-hall food he ate that morning, for fucking up a planet so damn badly...

However, I actually loved the ramifications of this episode. On one end, it gave us some hope for defeating the Ori tech at one point, considering we did get the blueprints to their dumbed-down weapon. But on the other hand, the Prometheus got its ass kicked, we learned that Asgard tech is as useless against the Ori's as it was against the Replicaters (those little bugger machines must've gotten their tricks from somewhere...), and apparently the Ori can take over our galaxy without a single goddam one of their actual shots fired...

The Priors are master-manipulators. They convince you into selling your soul, for technology or power or pretty much anything you've ever wanted in the world... And whether they beguile a world into worshipping the Ori or just plain wiping themselves out, they win...

And apparently the audience does too, if the same quality of writing in Stargate SG-1 continues well into the tenth season of the show...

Sure, Ethon wasn't a perfect episode, as so many of the Daniel scenes with Doral or Aaron or Cain or whatever his name was, fell flat and boring on screen. I mean seriously, how the fuck could they even begin to listen to a fucking religious zealot of a Cylon?... But still, without a shadow of a doubt, Ethon was definitely one of the most memorable episodes of the stellar ninth season, as it opened up old wounds and old fucking livers...

Sure, I would've preferred it if O'Neill had gotten his way, and they had just named the goddam ship as "Enterprise"...

But still, the end result would've just been the same... with yet another captain going down with the ship, in the long list of Enterprises...

I had such high hopes for the second season of Stargate Atlantis, at least to finish off with a Prometheus-sized bang...

The writers had proven to be fucking legendary with their first season of the show. They had become my dearest chums...

The thing is, Allies was still an excellent episode, and absolutely one of the best of the second season of the show... although I do think that speaks more volumes about the season as a whole than it does for the episode...

My brother and I rewatched National Treasure the other night, and it still astounds me how the characters in that film are always one step ahead of the audience. It leaves even science fiction and history nerds like me in captivated awe, simply because we never really knew what the fuck will happen next...

It just ain't the same with Stargate Atlantis this year. Take this week's season finale, Allies, for example...

Yes, I know the Atlantis expedition team had no choice in following the Wraith's orders, as they were essentially being blackmailed into doing their bidding. But please don't tell me that Dr. Weir and her fucking nutjobs didn't see the end betrayal coming... Even a fucking five year could have predicted that kind of shit as soon as Michael claimed that he fucking came in peace...

I was hoping that the Atlantis team would eventually redeem themselves, but they never did. How the fuck could they be so fucking stupid, especially after the events of Intruder, to let a fucking Wraith virus into their fucking computer systems?...

It's dumbass enough to open up an executable file from earth on a computer with sensitive information, let alone a fucking e-mail attachment from an enemy message that reads, "Wraith nekkid pr0n"...

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with the Atlantis team? I know that they "firewalled" their computers, but that fucking didn't stop the Daedalus from being completely taken over in Intruder... Sure, we also virus-scanned the hell out of the Wraith files. But Norton Anti-Shit is useless enough as it is against earth viruses, let alone alien ones it ain't supposed to know...

How fucking hard would it be to just transfer the shit to a non-networked computer before opening up its contents? Then again, the Daedalus never opened up any executables before getting infected (and didn't even consciously download anything for that matter). But at least the team should've tried to take some real precautions this time around, instead of just waving and dismissing the threat off like McKay did in this episode...

It's bad enough that the Wraith were able to probe our systems for the location of earth, but it's even worse that we didn't make a fucking backup of their technological specs on a DVD-ROM or whatever else sort of non-rewritable format. Sure, the virus may end up burning the DVD literally on fire once it ever gets inserted back into a computer, but at least the Atlantis team wouldn't have looked so damn dumbass clueless once their screens started to fuck up...

I'm praying that the third season of the show starts with the Atlantis team being redeemed, that they actually planted false information in our database for the Wraith to find. If the Wraith ever do make it to Milky Way, I sincerely hope that they drop out of hyperspace expecting to find earth, only to arrive at a fucking, fully loaded Jaffa stronghold instead. Or hell, even send them to the fucking Ori galaxy for all I care...

Please writers, do something to make the Atlantis team look even remotely competent in the end. Otherwise heads will roll, and I'm not just talking about Dr. Weir and the fucking moronic characters in the series themselves...

With all that said though?... Allies was still a strong episode, in a very strong week for SciFi Friday...

Yeah, I know she was trying to be all dark and broody and everything, but why has she become such a hardlined bitch? She barely even flinched when the Wraith queen started feeding on her own, and she barely even cared when Dr. Beckett started voicing concerns about the Wraith civil war... I don't get why the fuck we would ever want to convert the Wraith to humans, if we could actually just beam or cloak our nuclear bombs into their Hive ships. Does Dr. Weir enjoy the thought of Wraith feeding on each other, torturing themselves into oblivion? Is that how she lullabies herself to sleep each night?...

Carson was mostly invisible in the background, as I didn't even notice him until the second time I watched Allies. Finally though, some of the old Beckett started to shine through, namely his humane self that would try to save anybody, even a Wraith who was injured... Still, despite losing a bunch of sleep over building a goddam biological weapon, he was a bit too gung-ho for his own good. I liked some of his bizarre and awkward comedy when it came to trying to discuss science with a Wraith, but his rigid backbone when it came to the gas-only approach to his weapon against the Wraith just seemed badly misplaced...

Dr. McKay had a few decent moments, most of them coming with Hermiod. Or because of Hermiod, really... Afterall, we haven't had nearly enough of the guy mocking our cast and crew since Intruder. And it was nice to see the Asgard still being his ol' Assgard self...

Still, I just can't get around the fact that Rodney was such a fucking moron in Allies. I know he gets easily seduced by technology, and he had a great line of "Everything you wanted to know about Wraith technology but were too afraid to ask". But the overconfidence in his counters against the Wraith-beaming-countermeasures was just too plain telling and too damn grating... He didn't even seem to consider even once that a) the Wraith were going to backstab him, or b) that the Wraith fed him limited or red herring info when it came to their jamming technology. Otherwise, he wouldn't have left himself so vulnerable on the Wraith ship in the end...

Zelenka is always great to see, but I blame him just as much for the virus fiasco as I do McKay. Or actually, what I blame the most is the fact that we got none of the McKay and Zelenka show in the end, as all the Czech scientist got to do was mope about the city as the Wraith virus started chewing up our fucking computer systems... The actor tried to make it sound as if the team had taken every precaution against the virus in the end, when he was trying to spare his ass with Dr. Weir. But it was both obvious to the actor and I'm sure to the writers at the time, that Zelenka now looks like just a complete dunce of a moron...

Ronon and Teyla were really the only two who knew that something was amiss, and knew that they would be betrayed by their newfound Allies. I just hope their concerns were not left on deaf-ears when the third season of the show starts coming about... Ronon had a few gripping scenes, naming when he was gripping his gun or brandishing his weapon at some Wraith. He was a complete badass when it came to the knife against the Wraith scientist, and he certainly seemed to be quite fond of Michael in the infirmary room as always...

Teyla herself only had the one decent scene with Michael, but at least there was some good continuity there. It was disappointing that Connor Trinneer didn't have the time or the chance to reprise his Enterprise role of Michael the Wraith, even though the bizarro Michael still did provide an interesting dynamic to the plot of the episode... It was obvious that while his Wraith instincts still govern him, his mind knows only what it's like to be a human. He didn't want to feed on Teyla, and even felt regret about it afterwards, but who could blame him for almost doing so? I mean seriously, most guys wouldn't mind eating her out too (though obviously, broken record of a man that I am, I'd much prefer Sora and Cadman on a nekkid pr0n platter... I'd open up that viral e-mail in a heartbeat, thank you very much...)...

Michael as a character has lots of potential, and I would love it if he could join the cast in the third season of the show as a reoccurring character or something. A part of him obviously wants to be human again, otherwise he wouldn't have looked so damn disgusted when the Queen was feeding on her newly human-turned prey... It'd be great if Atlantis could get Connor Trinneer to return for several episodes next season then, and make Michael into sort of their own Sharon or Boomer Cylon equivalent in the series...

Of course, it'd be even better if they could just get Grace fucking Park on the series as well...

But still, I'd settle for Linda Park as a Wraith turned into a soft, naked human with perfect complexion and skin, thank you very much...

Now, Sheppard was good for the role he was given, as he never really did look that damn dumb with the whole Allies fiasco. He knew the Wraith couldn't be trusted, and it's not like he trusted the data that the enemy had sent McKay either... It's just that, he was still too damn dumb for his own good not to see the Wraith betrayal coming from a mile away. Otherwise, he wouldn't have seemed lost as hell when the two Hive ships opened fire right on the Daedalus coming out of hyperspace at the end...

The battle scenes alone are the reason why I did end up enjoying Allies for what it was worth. Sure, it made no fucking logical sense that the Daedalus and it's trained crew, would just keep blindingly fire fucking pathetic projectiles the size of my puny fist at a massive ship that's larger than some human cities, always hoping to hit something that would just fucking explode in a bang. But hey, if McKay and Ronon aboard the "friendly" hive ship heard at least something ignite, then I guess shooting wildly at random targets has just got to be doing something afterall for the team?...

Still, the first battle scene where the tiny Daedalus takes the hits to give the friendly Hive ship time to escape? It reminded me so much of the USS Defiant at the time (though the destruction of the Prommie over on SG-1 reminded me of the death of the Defiant too... so I guess everything reminds me of the bloody hell Defiant). And any reminder of the best of Trek battles is always a good thing in my book...

I'll also chalk it up to the special effects team here. They really made a classic, action wise at least, as not only did the sight of the Daedalus taking on two Hive ships look absolutely spectacular? But the view of the Atlantis city as the Hive transport was being escorted by two F-302's was breath-taking as well...

The only times that John Sheppard really felt natural was when he was in the cockpit of the F-302. He pulled a complete R2D2 with his 360 twirls in space (which sadly worked against an entire fleet of Wraith darts), and I just loved his determined attitude to take out the Wraith hyperdrive as well (was McKay over the comm telling him to use the force or some shit like that?)... We all know he ain't dead at the end of Allies. Knowing him, he either found a way to land in the Wraith hanger bay, or he pulled some miracle Hans Solo stunt, nailing his fighter to the side of the Hive ship, just waiting to be jettisoned along with the rest of the trash...

Sheppard kicked ass and took names in Allies, and I appreciated that. The Daedalus got its ass kicked, but still brought it when it came to dishing the punishment back out, and I appreciated that...

I appreciated Allies as one of the best episodes of the season not just because of its laughable and horrid plot, but really because of the action and rewatch value it brings to the show. Sure, I didn't give one single damn about the cliffhanger conclusion, but I look forward to enjoying all the surefire, sunfire, kickass explosions and brainless light-shows that we'll inevitably get in the third season of the show...

... that's all that really counts to me, besides all the hot, nekkied pr0n viruses that is...

And who knows? Maybe we'll even get an intelligent story out of it all again, one of these days as well?...

And if we ever do? Then the writers will really become my best friends again, if the first season of the show was any true indication...

It's been one of those few amazing weeks in SciFi television, if you asked me at least. Stargate Atlantis, while not superb, was still solid as hell with its season finale of Allies. And Stargate SG-1 continued it hot streak of episode awards of the week, with one of the most memorable hours of the year in Ethon...

The real surprise of the week for me though, was that Battlestar Galactica came so damn close from stealing the weekly honours from the latter up above... Reading the quick synopsis of Scar, it sounded like it would simply be just a bad rip-off of the Lion King or some shit like that. Or at least, I was hoping for some sort of gangsta, Scarface moment... Hell, I was still hoping for some goddam Tommy Gun action when it was all said and done. Where the fuck is Ron Moore's Simba pride?...

While Scar can't quite match the brilliance that Pegasus or Kobol's Last Gleaming managed the first time around that I watched those episodes, I still have to admit that I was absolutely shell-shocked and floored at just how well structured of an episode that it all turned out to be in the end...

Scar was nothing flashy, and the concept of an enemy Red Baron has been done time and time again in SciFi shit. But it was just done all so well in the end, in a tighly knit single story, that I really do consider it to be perhaps the strongest and most solid standalone episode the series has ever done since The Hand of God...

Of course, it still can't hold a candle to The Hand of God, namely because of all the shitass flashbacks we got... but that's really besides the point...

I mean, Anders? Mr. fucking Anderson? Why the fuck would we care about his ass, let alone Kara caring about fucking his ass all over again?... Did we really need to be reminded of that forced, god-awful Pyramid match he had with Super Starbuck? Are we really supposed to give a damn that the guy could potentially be alive, when we all pretty much wished that he never existed in the first place? WTF?...

It's not like the guy can really die, right? He's a virus, who can stick his hand into people and turn them into clones of himself. Where the fuck is Neo when he's needed?... Or at least bring back Doral from SG-1 to show Anders what it means to be a real fucking Cylon...

But at least the bastard gave Thrace a real purpose to be on the show again. I didn't care for a single one of her flashbacks, but the actress still did such a wonderful joy in conveying the frustration she was having, with just the hope that Anders could still be alive...

It was scary actually, that I enjoyed Helo scenes for once. The guy was still so damn pussy-whipped afterall, as the asshole even tapped out to a Kara Thrace elbow drop in the end... But even so, we got to see Starbuck open up to Helo about her shitass Anders feelings, in a way that strangely enough didn't feel contrived or awkward. She was frustrated because for once, she actually had a reason to live (as Helo put it), instead of just being the cocky son of a bitch she's always been...

Damn though, I wish we did get that cocky son of a bitch back... the one that ripped apart Scar's brains last season and salted the wound by stealing his ride...

Rough day for the Raider?... hmm... Guess it wasn't so pleased about that in the end... would you be?...

I think The Hand of God proved without a shadow of a doubt (and maybe even Resurrection Ship, to a much lesser extent), that Battlestar Galactica is at its best when it's all about dogfights between Vipers and Cylon Raiders. Having Scar as a threat felt real, not just because he was picking on pilot n00bs, but because he wasn't really any generic Raider... He had a history with Kara. We can only assume what that was, but I think we can safely assume that there's only one damn Raider out there who would have a personal enough grudge to be hunting her ass every step of the way...

Grace Park finally had a purpose again, besides just looking fat and ugly as a pregnant whore. Her belly was never shown once, and I was thankful as hell for that shit... Instead, she was sort of like a ghost story teller. I mean, who else are you gonna call when there's an evil Cylon Raider in the neighbourhood?...

And she told the story extremely well, how Cylon Raiders just keep on getting better and better every single fucking time they get nixed by Starbuck or whoever else. Boomer built up just a lowly Raider into what felt like a real threat for an episode, if only because we had no real idea whether Kat would survive the next encounter or not...

I guess Kat was pushing it a bit, trying to hide her fears with all her show-boating and shit like that. Still, she made a wonderful reference to Tigh when it came to Starbuck sucking down the booze, and even I laughed at the oohs and awes that ensued... I've never really liked Kat as a character, considering she's been done so many times before in fighter jet movies like Top Gun. But she did start to open up a bit, thanks to all her lesbian looks of lust at Riley's really hot girlfriend in that picture. Because let's just say, that ex gave me a fucking Pikon where it counts...

But wait, what was Kat holding in her hand in the mess-hall?... I really did like the meaning behind that mug. Kara really put a lot of soul and heart into her speech at the end, of just simple callsigns of names that she claimed she couldn't remember just a few scenes before...

And really, how the fuck can you ever hate a show, that has the guts to paint straight on the screen the two words, "Top Gun"?...

I'm sure it did to fucking Lee and Kara too, as their fucking sex scene was absolutely directed to be as goddam awkward and Brokeback, broken back awful as possible... I know that the writers want to stay away from those two ever getting together (at least until the final season of the show), but they just seemed so damn bad for each other, that it looked too damn fake in the end. They were so damn cool with each other as they were spitting booze on one another, and yet Kara fracks up again by trying to posterize Anders' fucking face on Lee's damn body?...

Speaking of women with issues, the Madame President was actually respectable for once in an episode. Or at least, tolerable for the few scenes she was there... She didn't technically badmouth anyone or order another execution. She was simply the bearer of both good news and bad news, old news and new news, and I respected her neutrality on the combined military and civilian issues when it came to the mining operation... Of course, I know she'll be back to being a complete bitch next episode. But at least for one week, I haven't been further scarred...

Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh just did a bunch of frakkin' around in CIC, but at least they looked like they were in charge for once. It's obvious that the writers feel so much more comfortable with just Galactica on the show (as Pegasus was shoved away out of sight with the fleet in Scar), and I personally thought the two commanders of the ship did a great job in letting the pilots learn to fight this threat themselves...

They were concerned for the pilots as any leader would be, as they were right there in the mess-hall during the combined celebration and memorable for those who were lost. And yet at the same time, they both kinda felt like fathers (or at least, Adama did as usual), letting Kara and Lee in the end learn what it means to be a true leader... or what it means to want to survive, simply for the sake of your people surviving...

Of course, I think we all know why I currently count Scar as the best damn standalone episode since The Hand of God (and it's not just because of the mere coincidence, that both episodes deal with mining operations and kickass special effects...)...

Scar was a nifty little opponent, and gave the special effect studios a perfect excuse for putting all their time and effort again into the aerial combats in space. The dogfights weren't just spectacular due to the creative use of sunlight glare and fucking asteroid debris confusion, but also from the fact that for the first time since Kobol's Last Gleaming, or even The Hand of God? The 'cinematography' in space (with all the zooms and focusing) was startlingly epic to say the least... or at least, noticable to my untrained eye...

In pretty much any other week of the year (or at least, those in which SG-1 does not air...), Scar would've been my episode of the week, hands down. Of course, it just happened to air during one of the best damn Fridays of SciFi in the entire bloody hell year so far, but I sure as hell ain't complaining...

It's been a really weird past few days really, with Cylon humanoids invading the SGC, fucking Cylon viruses making the Atlantis team look like complete morons, and fucking Mr. Anderson fucking with Starbuck's mind over on BSG...

And I really did expect to have been scarred for life, from yet another god-awful, atrocious Battlestar Galactica episode of the second season...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Vengeance small Smallville Week in Review (Spoilers...) -

Or if that product placement ain't blatant enough for you? Then how about... well?...

"Acuvue to the rescue? WTF?... If anything, I want hot girls to be wearing glasses, not the other fucking way around..."

I don't even remember the name of the Angel of Vengeance character. All I do remember, was that she was hot with the glasses as a reporter by day, and fucking ugly as a bat when she took them off... I know that the writers were trying to tout her assets or something, as if she was Ms. Marvel Universe or some shit like that. But the CG jumping effects were just so bad, that the Angel of Vengeance reminded me more of just a bad Birds of Prey ripoff than anything else... and that says a hell of a lot...

I admit that Chloe was decent in Vengeance. I mean, when a girl can't have glasses to inflame my fetishes, at least wearing a cute little toque while being mugged always helps... The thing is, most of her comedy just felt out of place in Vengeance. While Clark was brooding about losing his father (and about it being his own damn fault in the end, really), Chloe was making wise cracks about how Metropolis could really use a glasses-wearing reporter during the day and a superhero at night?... I dunno, no matter how cute Chloe was in Vengeance, she just didn't fit in with the mood of the episode. If anything, I felt more chemistry between her and Martha when they were feeling each other up than either of those ever had with Clark...

Now, Tom Welling did a better job with his pent-up, Hulk rage in Vengeance than he did in that shitastic episode last year with the Sand-thingy man. I mean, you could actually feel some of the fury of his during that scene when he was strangling that noname criminal, even if his rage was really just directed at himself... Of course, then Tom Welling became completely wussified again, as Clark once again reduced himself to being the good boyscout with the kryptonite lapel pin as his badge of honour. He went from being deranged one moment to being a pure criminal sympathizer as soon as that Angel girl swooped onto the scene. And he should've just fucking bitchslapped Lana Lang for all her backhanded shit for all I cared...

Do I really need to talk about Lana? Must I always reiterate the same old shit, about how she must be sucking a whole lot of dick to be staying on the show?... The thing is, the writers keep shoving her into our faces (and unfortunately doing so face-first, not breast-first so to speak...), so why the fuck wouldn't I reserve the right to complain that once again, she was backstabbing Clark at every turn?... I mean, sure I know that a) Clark has basically left her out to dry since he got his powers back, and b) the actress has always had more chemistry with Lex than Clark, but really? Must she always be making fucking cutie-eyes at every fucking guy who walks into the Talon but Clark, especially during the times when her fucking boyfriend just lost his fucking father?...

She did alright with the watch at least, as apparently the spoiled bitch can do no wrong when it comes to shopping. And yes, I do understand where she's coming from, that essentially Clark will have to walk it alone when it comes to his loss... But does the actress really have to make it always sound like she's screaming in his ears, "I told you so?", as if she's feeling all smug and warm inside that finally Clark got a taste of her own bitched-up rage (when it comes to the death of her own parents long ago)?... Just get over it, you fucking bitch...

And ah, good ol' Lex. I mean, he may be one of the most pussy-whipped villains out there on television today, but man can the guy get reviled for just trying to pick up the vulnerable chicks all the time... I loved his scene when he was trying to seduce Lana. I mean, doing it all behind his so-called best friend's back, stealing his girl while Clark's father was just buried six feet deep? Heh... Now, that's cold. That's Lana bitchy Lang stone cold, as the two of them deserve each other really...

But when it came to Lionel Luthor trying to do a hostile takeover of Luthorcorp? Not only am I left wondering how the fuck Lionel mustered up that kind of money from the Chinese, but I'm also left shaking my head at just how fucking abrupt the whole B-plotline ended up being in Vengeance... So what if there was a power struggle? Was it supposed to make Lex look like a cheap badass, by pulling another skeleton out of Lionel's bag of closets?... Or was it supposed to make Lionel Luthor look like a threat again, even though the guy was shot down by one frickin' threat from his son, and had to be fucking saved by Clark from a fucking Bird of Prey wannabe? What the fuck was the purpose of this plotline anyhew?...

Well, if the whole hostile takeover thing proved one thing, it was that John Glover was indeed back as the great character we've always known him as. And if anything else? Well, at least Lionel backing off so quickly from Lex's threat, proved without a shadow of a doubt what we've known since the second season at least... That just like Lex has a thing for Lana? Lionel Luthor has had his eyes set on Martha Kent for a very long time, even or especially when he was blind apparently...

So, Ma Kent was given the Senator role of her late husband? WTF?... Can this actually happen in real life? Couldn't Hilary Clinton just have offed her husband during their threeway with Lewinsky and then called it a presidential day? WTF?... Either way though, how dumbass can that Martha Kent bitch really be? First, she goes to a Metropolis slums alleyway in the middle of the night fucking alone, not even with the protection of her goddam superhero son. And then she makes old skool Lana Lang cooing eyes, when it comes to Lionel Luthor being a soft-ass with her in the barn? WTF?...

There was really only one decent scene in all of Vengeance, and that came near the very end... Smallville is very rarely an emotional rollercoaster for me, except for screaming at my television at just how dumbass every character on the show may be. But I do admit that I did feel a bit of sentimentality for poor Jonathan Kent smiling and waving on the ol' Kent video, as if the actor actually still had a job that is...

Poor unemployed bastard. Now that the actor homeless, does this mean he's going to have to accept the clothes that were donated from Jonathan Kent's closet?...

Now, I didn't give a damn about the whole watch thing that Clark was wearing. But the tear down his cheek definitely does deserve some merit from me in the end... And the final moment of the episode, with Pa Kent together with his son on the tractor? That definitely saved this shit hour of an excuse of a show from my fucking full wrath, for one more week at least...

Sad thing is though, John Schneider had more to do in Vengeance than he did for most of the past two seasons combined...

But oh dear God, that still doesn't change the fact that I want my fucking time back...

Can they spin the earth backwards on its axis? Can the fucking writers give me back my fucking time?...

Fuck... Even just a full episode of hot sweaty broads wearing sexy, scintillating glasses, and I would've been perfectly complacent!....

I would rather have fucking Birds of Prey back than this fucking, goddam chicken shit...

Yet instead? I'm sure next week, we'll all be humbled and fucking chicken littled...

... as it'll just be Lana Lang and another fucking product placement to the rescue...

[c. visitors too bored to return...]
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