#but instead he’s a recurring character in like one of the only sd show with lore

[bajablastflavoredsaxreed]

once again thinking about harlan ellison in scooby doo mytsery incorporated. he is mr e. he is probably dating hp hatecraft. he has the color palette of a watermelon. he voices himself. he is a real actual human ass man. he knows about timeline travel. he corrects shaggy’s grammar. real life human actual man author of i have no mouth and i must scream harlan ellison. he is a major recurring character. real ass author. in a scooby doo show. about four teens and their talking dog preventing the apocalypse by learning about a bitch ass parrot and his jigsaw puzzle. real life guy.

[travllingbunny]

The 100 rewatch: 4x03 Four Horsemen

Another strong episode, which introduces an important element of world-building – the Second Dawn cult, features the return of Luna and sets up several important plot points that are going to play a big role in the rest of the season (the bunker, the list, Nightblood as the solution to Praimfaya, and the fact that the end of the world is coming sooner than anyone thought). It also has many great character and.or relationship moments – especially for Murphy, Clarke and Bellamy, Jaha, and Indra and her two ‘daughters’.

Not only is Luna – one of the most interesting Grounder characters –back, but so is Nyko, one of my favorite minor characters, who’s always been one of the nicest and most reasonable people in the show. He brings the Boat people to get the advanced medicine that the Sky people have. They seem to have been the first ones to get seriously infected by radiation because of their diet – (irradiated) fish. It’s heartbreaking that Luna first had to kill her husband and several other of her people last season, and now she has to watch her daughter and every single one of her people die right in front of her. At one point, she even wonders if the sickness is somehow a punishment for refusing to take the Flame (and save the human race from ALIE), before Bellamy tells her that it can’t be true, no one deserves to suffer. In the end, while her daughter died in spite of being given the medicine, Luna was the only one who got better, even though she had been given no treatment – which makes Clarke realize that the Nightblood protects people from radiation. This sets up a major plot about our protagonists trying to use Nightblood as a solution to save everyone, as well as Clarke’s eventual fate, with repercussions up to the current season.

But before Clarke came to this realization, it seemed that it would only be possible to save 100 people inside Arkadia – so Raven gives Clarke the task to make the list of 100 people from Arkadia to be saved. (Kind of funny that they always come up with those round numbers? How likely is it that it’s exactly 100 people that can survive in Arkadia? Isn’t it more likely that it’s, say, 97 or 105 people, or something like that?) And I know that Raven is very stressed out, but she again displays her biggest character flaw – tendency to be judgmental, self-righteous and hypocritical, especially in her interactions with Clarke. She says she’s in charge of rationing, but then “deciding who lives or dies” is Clarke’s specialty. Ouch. So she tells her that they must decide who lives or dies and makes that Clarke’s responsibility instead of her own, but at the same time she is making Clarke feel like crap about it? WTF, Raven?

Jaha proposes another solution: finding the bunker that was built by a doomsday cult, Second Dawn, which could sustain many more people.  This is something that Jaha has obviously done a lot of research on. The bunker they do find is a huge disappointment – it was never sealed and didn’t save anyone. However, this is just a setup for what happens later in the season, when Jaha finds another Second Dawn bunker.

We find out a lot about Second Dawn and especially their leader, Bill Cadogan. The actor cast in the role, John Pyper-Ferguson is a rather well known actor with lots of recurring guest starring roles in various shows – so it’s really unlikely that he was cast just for a 5 seconds speech. We’re probably going to see him again, but I don’t know if that will happen in flashbacks on The 100, or in a spinoff prequel. Two season 4 episodes are named after Second Dawn slogans – this one is named after the SD hashtag #fourhorsemen (of course the cult had an apocalyptic theme), and 4x06 is “We Will Rise”, after their motto “From the ashes, we will rise”.

The mission to find the bunker is an opportunity to Jaha to have some interactions with Bellamy and Clarke. He is very perceptive about the relationship between those two, pointing out to Bellamy: “Leadership is a lonely pursuit. She’s lucky to have you. You center her”. Bellamy thinks he got it backwards, but Jaha is right, as the rest of season 4 and subsequent seasons show. Yes, Clarke also centers Bellamy, but what Bellamy doesn’t realize is that it’s a two-way street: they bring out the best in each other when they are working together and moving in the same direction. But both Bellamy and Clarke tend to see each other in worse light and look up to the other.

Jaha’s line about leadership being a lonely pursuit probably reflects like he felt as a Chancellor – even though he had friends such as Abby or Kane and even Jake, he didn’t have someone he considered a partner the way Bellamy and Clarke are to each other. His advice to Bellamy about his guilt is very different from the advice Kane gave to Bellamy in 4x01. Both of them were trying to help Bellamy come to terms with his feelings of guilt over his actions in season 3, but they do it in very different ways, which reflect their different mindsets and approaches to their own guilt: Kane has accepted Abby’s view about needing to “deserve to survive”, and his advice to Bellamy was to try to do better every day, until he “deserves” to survive – which is obviously what Kane had been trying to do since the culling, back in season 1. Jaha, on the other hand, points out to Bellamy that everything he did, he did for “pure” reasons, trying to protect his people. He has always justified his own actions that way. However, Bellamy is not so easily forgiving of himself or others – he had previously told Raven and Clarke he wouldn’t be in the bunker, and now he says “if there is Hell, I’ll see you there”. He may be on good terms with Jaha now and have had an almost father/son relationship with Kane, but (as seen here and later in S4 when he makes a similar remark to Kane), that doesn’t mean he has forgotten that they were the oppressive regime on the Ark and that they executed his mother and many other people. Forgiveness is a complicated thing when it comes to Bellamy. Maybe he has forgiven, but he doesn’t forget.

Since the bunker solution seems to have failed, Clarke makes the list – and that scene is one of the famous moments that demonstrates the strength of feelings and devotion between her and Bellamy. She is doing something that is very “Head over Heart” – trying to be cold and rational and focus on the survival of the group, rather than any of the individual people (something she tries to do throughout season 4), so she doesn’t even put some of her closest friends on the list. I don’t think season 2 Clarke would have been able to leave Monty or Harper or any of the Delinquents from such a list. (Now, leaving Monty actually doesn’t make sense, but more about that later in 4x04.)  But she can’t ever make herself not listen to her heart when it comes to Bellamy. And I think this is one of the ways that he centers her – because it is a good thing for a person to not ignore their heart completely, even when they think they must.  Bellamy feels the same: “If I’m on that list, you’re on that list”. Clarke is unhappy about what she has to do, essentially condemning 400 people to death, so she really can’t make herself put her own name on the list – it would seem wrong, but Bellamy writes it instead of her. Those two don’t have that many interactions in season 4 – there’s a stretch of episodes (like almost every season) when they are physically separated (from 4x07 to the end of 4x10), but scenes like this are some of the most intimate between them, from the way Clarke watches Bellamy sleep, to the way he gives her comfort and support – and while the way he puts his hand on her back is something he was already doing in 1x07, before they were even exactly friends, the way she responds to it is much more intimate.

Murphy has a lot of focus and character development in this episode. For starters, I’m happy that there’s a serious conversation between him and Emori about Ontari, where Ontari gets jealous, but Murphy points out that he didn’t have a choice. I was less than impressed with how that plotline was treated in season 3, so it’s good to see the show somewhat rectifying that by treating the subject seriously and making sure the audience understands what was going on (even if they don’t use the word rape).

Murphy and Emori have been surviving as hunters, but he realizes he’s a better thief than hunter and goes back to Arkadia to steal food. He has some typical snark he has with Nate Miller, who’s guarding the entrance with his father, but when Murphy makes a joke about Bryan, thinking he and Nate are still together, Nate looks awkward, because Bryan left him in 4x02.

While stealing food, Murphy overhears Raven and Abby talk about Praimfaya and finds out the truth. Abby is asking for medicine to treat Luna’s daughter, Raven is trying to be rational and cold, a Big Picture thinker who uses Head over Heart, because it seems necessary, and insists that they can’t waste medicine on the Boat people without knowing it will even work. When Abby retorts that she should be aware that her she will be the one killing Luna’s daughter, Raven ends up in tears, even though she only shows them after Abby leaves.

But Murphy steals medicine for Luna’s daughter and brings it to Abby. As Jackson reminds Abby, the situation must have made Murphy think of his own history, the fact that his father stole medicine to cure him, and got executed for it. Abby says she always knew Murphy had it in him. Which surprises me a bit, because don’t remember those two having many interactions previously, except, to be fair, when Murphy saved her life in 3x15.  But later, after Luna’s daughter has unfortunately died anyway, Murphy goes back and tells Emori they need a shelter because of the upcoming disaster, and he’s ‘working” Abby already to prove how useful he is. This storyline is played ambiguously at this point – we are left to conclude on our own if Murphy was sincerely moved by the plight of Luna and her daughter, which reminded him of his own family, or if he was just being opportunistic. I think it was a combination of both, but this time more the former than the latter – but he is still not ready to admit to himself that he is anything but a ruthless survivor and that he actually has deeper feelings and wants respect, care and belonging.

The storyline in Polis revolves around the fact that Gaia has stolen the Flame, because she thinks it is a blasphemy that a secular ruler has it. Roan thinks that Flamekeepers are religious fanatics, and wants Gaia dead. Octavia has quickly become Roan’s right-hand person for dirty deeds (it’s interesting that he is not using Echo for that – probably because he doesn’t trust her to not be against Sky people). This is where we get the revelation that Gaia is Indra’s daughter, resulting in some family drama. As we learn from their conversation, Indra and Gaia are estranged because Indra wanted Gaia to be a warrior and leader, while Gaia was fully into their religious worship of the Flame and went around looking for Nightbloods. (She doesn’t seem to have find any – Madi’s people were determined to hide her from Flamekeepers.) There’s some pseudo-sibling rivalry between Gaia and Octavia, because Gaia realizes that Indra found the “daughter” she wanted in Octavia – which explains a lot. Indra being so quick to accept a complete novice and make her a favorite among other warriors and warriors in training, starts making more sense now.

At this point, Octavia and Gaia work together and their relationship is still not antagonistic, as Octavia comes up with the plan how to save both Gaia and the Flame: by tricking Ilian and the other looters, who are destroying every type of technology, into smashing the fake Flame, actually Gaia’s necklace. (Ilian really took Kane’s words from 4x02 way too literally – if it’s not Sky people who are to blame, but the chip, then he must “avenge” his mother by destroying technology.) But the show loves shocking moments, fake-outs and twists, so it fools the audience into thinking for a moment that the real Flame is really destroyed, before it’s revealed what the ruse was.

Octavia lies to Roan and uses one of the looters as a scapegoat to blame him for stealing and destroying the Flame. Roan’s response is to hire her as his assassin. He may not be a bad guy, but he’s a pretty ruthless and morally grey character: “One death to prevent thousands, that’s good politics”. Octavia has already become known for her sudden murders, and has a brand new nickname, “Skairipa” – death from above. Does any other character have as many nicknames as Octavia gets throughout the show?

Timeline: This probably takes place not long after 4x02, so it’s probably been about 10 days since Clarke shut down the City of Light. Raven realizes that they have only about two months of survivability, so the initial calculations were off by about 3 and a half months.

Body count:

Luna’s clan, the Boat people, had already lost 40 people before they came to Arkadia, and 6 more of their people die in this episode, including Luna’s daughter Adria, from acute radiation syndrome

Terro, one of the looters, killed by Octavia, who delivers his head to Roan to makes him a scapegoat.

Rating: 8.5/10

[daleisgreat]

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season 2

-Greetings and welcome to my continued logs of my chronological voyages through the seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). Click here to catch up with my entry on season one. It would be hard to tell by looking at the number of episodes in season two of TNG, but a writer’s strike in 1988 delayed the season premiere by a few months which resulted in them rarely taking many weeks off afterwards to finish the season off with a regular slate of 22 episodes. -I want to kick things off by mentioning the changes to the cast this season. The primary addition to the show is William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) now sporting the most dashing beard in all of TV history! Gone is the incapable Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden). Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) gave the official plot reason in the season premiere for her removal being so she could help train new recruits at Starfleet Academy. Replacing her is Dr. Pulaski (Diana Muldaur). From the first two seasons I thought Pulaski was a far superior character than Crusher, and Muldaur delivered a strong performance throughout the season with her standing up to Picard better than Crusher and Pulaski having some entertaining supporting arcs with Worf (Michael Dorn) throughout the season. Apparently there was enough fan outrage for this swap that the powers that be brought her back the following season.

Other cast changes is Geordi La Forge(Levar Burton) transferred from helmsmen to his more recognized role as the primary engineer for the remainder of the series. Transporter Chief Miles ‘O Brien (Colm Meaney) is now a more frequent recurring character after only making a few miniscule appearances in the first season. Finally, I will give a big hoo-rah to the addition of the bartender Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) to the new lounge in the Enterprise, Ten-Forward. I forgot how legit awesome Whoopi was as an actress at this time and how much I loved her in the show as a kid and I recall at that time being intriguingly mystified with her unique hats and attire. She absolutely steals every scene she is in as she lays down her wisdom to various Enterprise crew seeking advice. She is only a recurring character however and only goes on to appear in four or five episodes a season which is only more reason for her guest spots to standout each time she is on. -A big improvement this season is dialing back on Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) and Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton). Troi was written too over-the-top with her obvious telepathic deductions last season, and they are used far more effectively and sparingly in season two. Wesley Crusher is less annoying too as he settles in his role on the Enterprise and starts to gain more responsibilities. Both characters have a couple episodes where they are in the primary story arcs, but for the most part they are now more supporting roles. -Season two of TNG sees the addition of the occasional poker scene that became one of the trademarks of the series. Having the infrequent poker game and scenes transpiring at Ten-Forward were a recurring treat where we got to see the Enterprise crew relax and fraternize for a breather from the serious threat of the week. One of my favorite scenes of the season is where Riker teaches Wesley how to talk to women after engaging in a sample of flirting with Guinan that winds up going to a whole new level to the dissatisfaction of Wesley.

-A few other random favorite moments and scenes from the season feature Picard and Wesley stuck with each other on a shuttlecraft for several hours playing out exactly how I wanted it to. Data trying to best a grand master at the fictional game ‘strategema’ was fascinating for its similar parallels to the cancelled Wii Vitality Sensor and having a computer AI trying to best grand chess masters several years later in the 90s. The fictional futuristic version of joust Riker and his father engage in is so over-the-top cheesy I could not help but crack up throughout it! -Hats off to some good Worf episodes this season where the Enterprise crew team together to throw a holodeck klingon ceremony to Worf’s surprise and Worf mastering a plan to avoid a battle with a klingon ship. I was initially trepid with the holodeck episodes in the first season, but they won me over with the batch of holodeck-centric episodes in season two where Picard relives the adventures of one of his favorite PIs, and the crew has a memorable encounter with one of Sherlock Holmes’ top adversaries.

-The most standout episode of the season is ‘Q Who,’ the only Q (John de Lancie) episode this season where he introduces the Enterprise to the Borg (AKA Space Zombies). It is a tremendous introduction for what would become one of the Enterprise’s top antagonists for the run of TNG. From what I can recall for what I saw so far in the first two seasons, ‘Q Who’ is also the first episode of TNG to have an engaging back and forth dogfight between two space vessels that were some of my more prominent childhood memories of the show. It was also the first episode of TNG where they fired the vintage ‘Photon Torpedoes’ artillery of the Enterprise. If you have to watch just one episode of season two, make sure it is ‘Q Who’ because it is a big hint at what to expect of the rest of the series. -For as improved as season two is over the premiere season I would be remiss to not mention there are still a few dud episodes cluttering up season two. The episode where the Enterprise encounters a mute negotiator is a challenge and a half to get through, while another has the Enterprise taking on a group of refugees overflowing with Irish stereotypes. Due to the nature of the strike before the season, it resulted in budget cuts and there are some episodes where it is apparent where the cuts were made with the primary case in point being the season finale being a clip show. According to the behind-the-scenes interviews it was met with such disdain it resulted in being the only clip show of the series. -I do not know if many of you dear readers are keeping up with Seth McFarlane’s lighthearted homage to TNG, The Orville on FOX. As long as you can tolerate Seth’s over-the-top brand of humor, it is an entertaining take on TNG. A season two episode of TNG saw Riker teaching Wesley leadership lessons for his first assigned team he was in command of. Ironic timing a few days later happened for me when watching the then latest Orville episode paying tribute to that exact scene, but with their style of humor in a fun homage.

-I will once again raise my hat to whoever Paramount hired for their excellent HD re-mastering of the season two BluRay. There are many great SD-to-HD comparisons in the first season extras and floating on YouTube I recommend checking out to see how well they make TNG hold up to the latest sci-fi shows on TV today. I never fail to light up with every panning, transitional shot of the Enterprise! -I will once again plug the podcast, Star Trek: The Next Conversation for their thorough and entertaining breakdown of every episode in the series. It has been a great way to keep up with extra details that went over my head, and with the hosts also working in TV production it helps bring a unique perspective to TNG. -Speaking of extra features…..damn…..season two is jacked with exponentially more than the first season. There are many hours of original on the set interviews, new interviews and features for when TNG first hit DVD in the early 2000s and all new extra features for the BluRay. I kept a running tally in my notes of all the extras and not including a handful of episodic commentaries there are a little over four hours of extra features! Thank you Paramount for spreading out a couple of features per disc instead of having one disc with all the special features which made it more manageable to consume throughout watching season two. About half of the extras are brand new HD bonuses.

Nearly all the bonus material appealed to me, but I will try and isolate a few I enjoyed the most so you do not have to indulge them all. There is an awesome 17 minute piece where Levar Burton reminisces about his other then-concurring job hosting the hit PBS kids show, Reading Rainbow and how they did a Star Trek themed episode during this time and through interviews how it was the catalyst for many new Star Trek fans. Once again the gag reel does not disappoint and it has a fun singing cameo from Roddenbery. Making It So: Continuing TNG is a two part, 80 minute BluRay exclusive feature I highly recommend where the cast and crew reflect on the big cast changes for season two and the evolution of the show and how they noticed how everyone was starting to feel more in sync and the show was hitting its groove. There are too many big interview moments to mention here highlighting key and controversial moments of the season, but believe me it is a must watch! My final extra feature recommendation, and my favorite of all the bonus features is another BluRay exclusive, Re-Unification: 25 Years After TNG where the entire primary TNG cast sits down for a huge roundtable discussion reflecting on memories and anecdotes from the show for an hour. It was fantastic to take this in, and I could not help but get the feeling that this cast has no doubt stayed in touch through conventions and such over the years because they instantly were gelling with camaraderie and old stories and I could not help but feel like a lucky fly in the wall that happened to be in the room with them overhearing countless memorable moments and interactions from their time on the show. -And that wraps it up for season two of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Minus a few episodes I am real excited with how the show is progressing and as I elucidated above, how everything is falling into place as the show I remembered from my childhood. I cannot wait to start up season three later this week, and from what I understand, that is the perfect jumping on point for the show as nearly the rest of the run of the series is top-notch from there on out. Please join me here once again in a few months for my take on season three! Past TV/Web Series Blogs 2013-14 TV Season Recap 2014-15 TV Season Recap 2015-16 TV Season Recap 2016-17 TV Season Recap 2017-18 TV Season Recap Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series Baseball: A Ken Burns series Angry Videogame Nerd Home Video Collections Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1 OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30 RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13 Roseanne – Seasons 1-9 Seinfeld Final Season Star Trek: Next Generation – Seasons 1-7 Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle Superheroes: Pioneers of Television The Vietnam War: A Ken Burns series X-Men – The Animated Series: Volumes 4-5