Sci-Fi Malady

100 Episodes in. Thank you to anyone who has listened to this podcast. For our 100th episode what better than a review of one of the best episodes of the original Star Trek - The Doomsday Machine. This one has it all, a message about the socio-political climate of the 1960’s, action, space combat, great acting by the primary cast and the guest stars and an early treatment of post traumatic stress disorder. Sure, in the 1960’s they didn’t fully understand and that rings through but today, more than 50 years later, the episode works as a discussion on the effects of trauma on the human psyche. This episode holds up well over the test of time, in terms of story, acting and visually. Doomsday Machine - simply an example of Star Trek at it very best.

Finally, 99 episodes in and we finally dedicate a month to my favorite franchise - Star Trek. January is Trekkin into the new year in which we review my favorite episodes of The Original Series. We kick off Trekkin into the new year by reviewing Mirror Mirror, the episode that brought you evil Spock with a beard. This episode make the list because it is culturally iconic, is an example of excellent acting by the main cast, a solid script, good action and a story that encapsulates the Roddenberry ideal. All in all it is a great piece of science fiction.

We wrap up 2018, or I guess start 2019 with a free from show where we revisit old topics, add to or amend our prior positions on things, or just hit topics we really didn’t throughout the year. In this weeks show we hit on:

1. Walter Peck in Ghostbusters - was he REALLY the villain?

2. Why Ragemaster doesn’t want a sequel for The Thing from The Things perspective, and why Scott does

3. Star Trek Discovery

4. The failure of DC’s movies

5. Stranger Things Season 3

6. How Disney nearly killed Star Wars

Merry Christmas from Sci-Fi Malady!

This week, its not really a Sci-Fi Malady as we review a decidedly non science fiction movie - the greatest Christmas movie ever - Die Hard.

I know, I know, this is a science fiction show, why are you reviewing Die Hard. Well, because it is Christmas and I wanted to. Next week we are back to sci-fi, but for this week, yipee kai yay sickies and shoot the glass. Somehow, this movie is the first and only movie we all gave a 10.

Do you remember the 80’s? If you do then you will love Weird Science. If you don’t physically remember the 80’s by living through them you will be horrified by the casual objectifying of women, writer’s thinking its ok for two 15 year boys to create and living adult sex bot with I dream of Genie powers, and that Bill Paxton’s character opens doors with his shotgun, and he’s the responsible one.

This one really depends on when you were born. If you grew up in the 80’s its a fun coming of age, teenage party romp. If you grew up with cell phones, it is a monstrosity. I side with fun.

Its cheesy. The action is over the top. The violence almost got thing an X rating, Red Foreman is the bad guy and the ED209 is complete garbage. Yep, this week we review that dystopian action classic, the film that says every corporation and big wig is more evil than you ever thought - Robocop!

The topic this week was supposed to be Farscape. It was supposed to be that. Unfortunately it wasn’t available on any streaming service or YouTube. It was available on Daily Motion, but unless you are an ad, Daily Motion won’t play you. So this show became a random show in which we briefly discuss why Daily Motion sucks, Farscape and then spend a lot of time on 4X grand strategy science fiction games for PC (and why PC gamers needs to be less arrogant). In particular we discuss Stellaris and Endless Space 2.

Today is a different show, maybe it was good and maybe it sucked. Back to regular scheduled programming next week with the start of Sickest Picks month.

Fan service android month rolls on. Sorry, Sy-Fy network series month continues with Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda. This series can be described simply as - unreached potential. Conceptually the scripts are excellent science fiction. The idea of a dystopian future in the wake of a collapsed Utopia is intriguing. One ship trying to restore the light of the fallen society is something that should have hooked everyone. It is ruined by horrible dialogue, terrible and uninspired acting and budget that makes it look like well done fan fiction. This series is intriguing, when it hits it hits well, but ultimately it needed a writing room that could re-write and punch up weaker dialogue and better camera work/direction to achieve all that it could have.

Due to complications (being unable to use Amazon Prime correctly, squirrels invading my home and Ragemaster becoming a homeowner) and the holiday, we were unable to get an episode produced. To add to that, my portable hard drive crash and I lost my stand scripted review of Star Trek IV. The result is a week off. We will return next week with the promised review of Andromeda.

We kick off SyFy Channel Series month by reviewing Firefly meets Star Trek TNG meets SG1 meets Dune…or by it’s actual name - Dark Matter. It is a series that has some well constructed plot lines, character advancement, decent acting and is overall enjoyable if in no way original or groundbreaking. Of course that means that the show was cancelled by SyFy for the amazing reason that it was not a SyFy original. Brilliant!

Dark Matter is a mish mash of sci-fi concepts and explores the concept of nature vs nurture, leaning somewhat toward the nature argument. It manages to be not only plot driven but character driven and only really suffers from SyFy’s less than adequate budget, which is why the Imperial Palace looks like someones nice basement, but aside from that, it is a decent show. Sham SyFy for cancelling it. Shame.