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Reviews
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Starship Down (1995)
Another travesty against engineering
The story was a bit patchy, too many subplots, although they were mostly pretty good. The split is caused by huge damage to the Defiant, isolating some small groups. This has been done better in other episodes, mostly because the overarching plot is not really strong enough to tie them together; it's just "we're gonna win this battle about trade at any cost LOL".
But the reason I'm writing the review is the Quark subplot which pushes "star trek is not always strict scifi" too far: a torpido hits the ship but doesn't explode, getting stuck wedged half way into the room Quark is in, so he can open the panel and defuse it. This is utterly, utterly ridiculous. It would maybe fit in a cartoon series for preschoolers.
It wouldn't have been too hard to fix: they could have had the same story with the torpedo in a more plausible location and hacked it remotely; it would have taken more words, they could have dropped the Bashir/Dax subplot.
Oh well. DS9 is still worth watching even if you have to grit your teeth through some episodes.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Explorers (1995)
Laughable science / engineering, no story
I don't think I fully understood how bad this was on first viewing.
Sisko builds a ship capable of interstellar travel in his spare time, as a hobby, in a matter of ... weeks?
And it's made out of wood, metal, and glass, without any electronics. That's the part I missed on the first viewing, because it just makes no sense at all. It's basically a sailing ship. It somehow has artificial gravity so they sleep in hammocks. When they have to figure out where they are, they reach for a sextant ... only they dropped it and it broke.
And then nothing happens and they make to where they were going--another star sustem--by sheer luck and yay, something about ancient Bajorans and Cardassia. The Cardassians let off fireworks. What?
And a B plot that makes just as little sense: Bashir's rival at the academy and she doesn't recognize him because she always thought he was someone else.
Red Dwarf: Siliconia (2017)
So many mechs
The Red Dwarf crew encounter a ship full of mechs, who roam space rescuing other mechs from their lives of slavery.
Classic Dwarf, and of course some great Kryten moments. But, I didn't enjoy it as much as the first episode of the season; it wasn't quite as tight, and the story didn't hang together as neatly.
Still, a good edition to the Dwarf library.
Red Dwarf: Timewave (2017)
What happens when criticism is outlawed
The Dwarfers end up on another fully crewed ship -- space is getting very busy in season 12 -- and this time have to content with a society where nobody can do any wrong.
Some fun moments, but too much silliness for my taste. I never thought camp worked well for Dwarf (looking at you, season 8). Still, worth watching.
Red Dwarf: Cured (2017)
Red Dwarf on top form
This is a clever episode, funny, and with no "fat" -- everything is essential to the story.
Can evil be cured? A nice sci-fi topic, and handled very well here, with interesting reactions from the Dwarf crew and a strong ending.
I thought season X was good, season XI was better; XII is off to a promising start.
The Revenant (2015)
Boring
It started off quite well, although a bit too violent for my tastes. Promising characters, beautiful scenery, some action, some sharp dialog.
But half way through I'd thoroughly lost interest.
Problem one: the plot doesn't make a whole lot of sense. From what I've read in other reviews, it seems this is because elements were added on top of the story it was based on to make it more exciting/dramatic.
Problem two: most of the characters aren't believable, making odd decisions. They're neither likable nor interesting, so I don't care what happens to them.
Problem three: for a survival drama, it needs to be plausible that the main character could actually survive. There are multiple moments where he's clearly dead, superhuman will to live or not. It just makes it silly. It would have been more plausible with a fantasy/sci-fi element to help out, but that wouldn't be a survival drama, would it?
It's a beautiful movie, although far too violent for my taste, and it's a shame to waste that on such a terrible story.