Reviews

Less of a follow-up to the original series and more of something new and largely awful. Rather than being set in a 1930's "England" the series is set in modern day. Barring a couple of primary characters retaining a British accent (often very poor ones at that) the voice talent speaks in an American accent.

The plots for episodes are nowhere near as tight and take far more liberties with the source material than the prior series. This is understandable given the books both series are lifted from are limited in number. However there is very little of the spirit for those books brought into Next Steps.

The animation has shifted from hand drawn to CGI and the look suffers slightly. It is mostly well animated but lacks character and very much like any other cheaply produced show on PBS and other kid outlets.

Kids will love this none the less, adults who remember the old show might feel it is cloying and dumbed down.

I have tried to re watch this... whereas TOS is just sorta campy SF combined with Mormons In Spaaaaace, this was just a bad idea star to finish. Even as an 11 year old who thought TOS was about the best TV show ever, Galactica 1980 was unforgivably bad...

Sure it was low budget. But good writing might have solved some of the shows problems... well barring the awful premise to begins with. It is more insulting to SciFi fans than a show catered to them...

However... I should say something good about it... when SciFi airs it it is an hour we do not have to watch an infomercial....

Except maybe the informercials have higher production values and script standards...

This is a favorite movie of mine to watch. Shrimp on the Barbie is a stardard fish out of water with Cheech Marin as a down on his luck Mexican American in Sydney. He then is brought into a scheme by the poiled daughter of a tycoon to fake being her fiance so her ultimately worse pick of a fiance looks better.

There are some logic gaps that defy logic, but between these moments are some funny bits that glue the movie together. It is a low budget comedy, so this is to be expected.

Is it a must see? Probably not. But it also isn't 90 or so minutes that you won't feel like you wasted either.

I saw this at a science fiction convention back in 1990. A friend of mine had been talking up this film for some time and I fell for the hype. The dialogue was bad, the pacing worse. The Japanese seem to have a monopoly on giant robot action, too bad it appears not to apply to live action. I wish I had brought a book to read...or more beer. I would not have been bored out of my mind or simply to blitzed to care.

It was so bad I simply walked out after a while...even half drunk this was not a good movie. There are inumerable examples of better giant mecha action to be found from Japan (Gundam, Patlabor, Gasaraki, etc.). Rent those.

Luckily a good example of Japanese film making was starting (Akira) in an ajoining room.

This is the bonus material in the 2003 rerelease of Aminal House on DVD (Double scret probation edition). It is a mockumentary that basically catches up with the various characters sometime later (80's or 90's).

The math is a little funny as the characters would be a whole lot older then the actors who portrayed them. So the visuals were off as basically no effort was made to make the actors look older.

That peeve aside, Where Are They Now?: A Delta Alumni Update just was not funny enough to watch more then once out of curiousity. There are some vaguely amusing bits, but it has a feel of something just thrown together for bonus material on a DVD rather then anything done to be seriosuly funny.

Comedy Central as of late has been a bit uneven in regards to its original programming. I'm With Busey is proving to be a one joke show. The Man Show might falter without Adam and Jimmy. Last Comic Standing is good, but also a rerun a week later from NBC. Daily Show and Insomniac remain brilliant.

Does Reno911 live up to its hype?

So far Reno911! has. There are scenes in it that I thought I was just going to die laughing. In particular the reference to What's Happening (Hey Hey Hey) was brilliantly set up. The Leutenant getting maced after an extremely long set up and having his wallet stolen was well timed.

It is hard to say if Reno911! has legs, but there are enough jokes within a Cops type format to fuel the show for 1-2 seasons.

8.5/10 - So far

Wing Commander has about the same sort of depth and logic of its founding video games. Shallow, more than a little silly and virtually ignorant of most law of physics. Wing Comander is also good fun, combined with great effects. So if you are bored and looking for a fun movie to killa few hours, Wing Commander is for you. If you are expecting Citizen Cane in space...best look elsewhere.

When BG was on the air in the late 70's, I was honestly enamored with the show. It was good fun to a 10 year old. Fast forward twenty or so years...I just cringe at how, generally, bad the show is. I think there is a lot of good stuff squirreled away in the show, but certainly not enough to make it a sacred cow of science fiction. Its very short run on TV nails the coffin shut on that account.