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Reviews
Star Trek: Discovery: Red Directive (2024)
Great special but terrible writing.
What was that; blushing teenage romances times three? The dialogue throughout was embarrassingly bad; writing, delivery, everything. The acting has become noticeably worse since last season, from the entire cast, but especially from the Tilley actress. Are they just not trying any more, now that they've been cancelled? The storyline was weak from the getgo. Riding on the OUTSIDE of a spaceship under acceleration? And that excruciatingly long, boring, unnecessary 'sandmobile' chase scene which ends by crashing two spacecraft into the sand? Seriously? Come on! Terrific special effects were offset by cheap-looking sets. If the second episode is as bad as the first, that's it for me.
Star Trek: Voyager: Renaissance Man (2001)
Worst episode of the series; unwatchable!
That the Doctor disobeyed a direct order, betrayed all of his fellow crew members, and put the ship and everyone on it in mortal danger is bad enough, but when he declares, "Voyager can survive without its warp core, but not without its captain," I almost turned it off. Wrong on both counts, and stupid, stupid writing. In fact, the logic was lacking in pretty much every scene in the entire episode. The Doctor's reasoning and rationalizations throughout lacked causation and credibility. I watched the episode with a group, and the emotions in the room varied from puzzlement to anger that this piece of derk was allowed to be put into production. What a sad second last episode in a great series.
Law & Order: Organized Crime: Original Sin (2024)
Bad writing
I love law and order and all of its iterations, so it's sad when the writing goes completely off the rails. I can understand when one L&O series might use the oft used trope of a mother taking her eyes off her child in a playground (usually taking a phone call which for some reason necessitates her turning her back on the kid) for a microsecond, and a perp knows exactly when that moment will be and uses that opportunity to snatch the kid and vanish from the playground area in about three seconds. Back to the episode in question: Stabler blocks a car in the street in broad daylight, in front of a hotel bar, tries to drag the perp out, gets chloformed, presumably dragged into the back seat, while controlling a panicked hooker, and NOBODY noticed. Then the perp somehow gets Stabler out of the car and into a church, again with NOBODY noticing. Stabler is twice his size. Come on guys. Try to raise the level of your writing above that of kiddies shows.
American Nightmare (2024)
As thrilling as any fictional crime drama
Congratulations to Netflix for.producing American Nightmare. It was well-paced, gripping, and held my attention from start to finish. It seems that, all too often, the police in real life become fixated on an outcome that they've decided is the solution to a crime, and bend their efforts towards proving their theories, ignoring potential alternative ideas and suspects. This became evident very early on in their investigation, and is not really a spoiler. The police and the media should hang their heads in shame for what they did to this innocent couple. It is gratifying to know that justice prevailed in the end.
Retribution (2023)
From triumph to turkey
It started off as a tight thriller but before the end, degenerated into a complete, ridiculous, sorry mess. I started with a rating of 7, but before the end, my rating dropped right into the krapper. Even though I expected it to be somewhat formulaic, given who the star is, I had hoped that the writers would at least credit us with at least a modicum of intelligence. When the police managed to stop him, why didn't he just keep going if that was an actual possibility? How was it then possible for him to evade the police force of an entire city, even through a public demonstration, which would have been heavily monitored by, guess who, POLICE??!! What a massive disappointment this movie turned out to be.