Warp Section

I love watching the Stargate universe be expanded in various ways, as long as it does not get too diluted, but from what I can tell the first Stargate novel written by Australian author Karen Miller should fit in nicely. Entitled “Stargate SG-1: Alliances” it takes place just after the season four episode: The Other Side.

Here is what the publisher says about the book:

Following the disastrous mission to Euronda, the team — and especially Colonel Jack O’Neill — are up the creek without a paddle with a crocodile named Senator Robert Kinsey circling the boat.

The team must ignore the Washington politics and regroup to spearhead a mission to find more hosts for the Tok’ra. It means infiltrating a Goa’uld slave breeding farm and risking their lives — but that sure beats doing 20 questions with Senator Kinsey.

All SG-1 wanted was technology to save Earth from the Goa’uld, but the mission to Euronda was a terrible failure. Now the dogs of Washington are baying for Jack O’Neill’s blood — and Senator Robert Kinsey is leading the pack.

When Jacob Carter asks General Hammond for SG-1’s participation in a mission for the Tok’ra, it seems like the answer to O’Neill’s dilemma. The secretive Tok’ra are running out of hosts, and Jacob believes he’s found the answer — but it means O’Neill and his team must risk their lives infiltrating a Goa’uld slave breeding farm to recruit humans willing to join the Tok’ra.

It’s a risky proposition, especially since the fallout from Euronda has strained the team’s bonds almost to breaking. If they can’t find a way to put their differences behind them, they might not make it home alive …

I miss Colonel Jack O’Neill, things just weren’t the same after he got promoted and eventually left SG-1. This sounds like a great way to go back to the good old days before any changes to the team, and remind yourself why you hate Robert Kinsey so much.

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After this season, Stargate: SG-1 the television show is over. Everyone is wondering what will happen to the cast, and there are rumors of another spin-off which I really hope is the case, as well as a chance for a crew member or two to move to Stargate: Atlantis.

The best outcome, and the one that is most likely going to happen as MGM has given a green-light to the projects are two direct to DVD movies with higher budgets than a single television episode. That is what executive producer of the show, Brad Wright, told TV Guide recently:

“They’re not big-budget [films] by any definition, but for us it’s pretty good.. As we’ve proven over the years, just give us little more money and we can make pretty good television, or DVDs.”

The first movie will deal with the climax of the Ori story. Dealing with all the lose ends that the end of season ten will leave. The film will be written and directed by current SG-1 executive producer and show-runner Robert C. Cooper. Currently, the SG-1 cast has not signed up for the movies, but they have been said to be very excited about continuing.

Brad Wright will pen the second film, which will supposedly involve time travel, and maybe even be the stepping stone for another spin-off. I don’t know yet how I feel about that, but I don’t want Atlantis to be the only Stargate series on television.

The studio is targeting the fall of 2007 as the release for both projects, which is great because we won’t have to wait for new Stargate after the series ends in June.

I am having really bad withdrawals right now since Stargate won’t be back on television until March 2007. I hate when they do two part episodes in the middle like this, making me cry myself to sleep as I wait for the next Stargate experience.

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Cast: Hugh Jackman (Wolverine), Halle Berry (Storm), Sir Ian McKellen (Magneto), Famke Janssen (Jean Grey), Anna Paquin (Rogue), Kelsey Grammer (Beast), James Marsden (Cyclops), Rebecca Romijn (Mystique), Shawn Ashmore (Iceman), Patrick Stewart (Professor Xavier)

Premise: In the not so distant future, genetic mutations are quickly becoming the norm. When a cure is found to treat mutations, two groups form, the X-Men, led by Professor Charles Xavier attempt to keep the peace while the Brotherhood, a band of powerful mutants organized under Xavier’s former ally, Magneto try to take over control of the cure.

My Thoughts: When I first heard about the third X-Men movie, I had high hopes. I am a big fan of Marvel, and the first two X-Men movies, while decent, really did not show off the super powers of the heroes as much as I would like.

The first scene of the movie basically sets up the whole movie pretty well, as Charles Xavier and Magneto go and meet Jean Grey for the first time back when she was a child. The make-up on Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen looked pretty ridiculous, as they tried to make the aging actors look young, but other than that, it was a great start to what I consider a great movie. Jean showed off her powers by lifting every vehicle in sight with her telekinetic powers.

My favorite scene in the whole movie is where Magneto stands in the road as a convoy approaches and he raises his hand and easily crushes and tosses the first two vehicles. It was much more impressive, in my opinion, than the climactic Golden Gate Bridge scene.

Out of the three movies they have made so far, this one is probably my favorite. You get to see a wide range of powers, we don’t deal too much with the boring Cyclops/Jean Grey love issue. There are some great action sequences.

The final rating I give it an 4 out of 5.

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Season 10, Episode 7
Original U.S. Air Date - August 25th, 2006
Guest Starring - Morena Baccarin (Adria), Tony Amendola (Bra’tac), Matthew Glave (Colonel Emerson), Richard Whiten (Bo’rel), Gary Jones (Walter Harriman), David Andrews (Se’tak), Martin Christopher (Marks)

Overview

SG-1 finds themselves on a planet being converted to Origin when a wave of radiation kills everyone and leaves an Ori ship unmanned and unprotected. SG-1 takes the opportunity to learn more about the ship, and hopefully even pilot it away, but they are not the only ones. The Jaffa also want the ship, but what they don’t know is that Ardria isn’t effected by the ancient weapon. Chaos ensues, and the weapon on Dakara is destroyed.

My Thoughts

Not a bad episode, a fair bit of action and a good amount of forward motion in the Ori plot. We finally get to see the Ancient weapon on Dakara used again, but by the end of the episode everything is so fractured, and it really does seem like Adria and the Ori ships are unstoppable.

It will be interesting to see how the Jaffa do now that the planet that binded most of the different clans/groups is basically in ruins.

I found it interesting how little Carter was used in this episode, focusing more on Daniel, Valla, Ardria, as well as Teal’c and Colonel Mitchell. Carter was used as a plot device to keep things moving, but the story really did not give her much other focus.

I would have liked to see some sign of a limitation in regards to Adria’s powers, or some sign that the Ori ships are not “invincible”, but this was not the episode for that.

I give Counterstrike a 4.5 out of 5.

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Everyone thought that with the horrible box office results of Star Trek: Nemesis, that the Star Trek movie franchise would die off, but with so many of the different Star Trek shows not having their own feature film, everyone wondered if Star Trek: Voyager or maybe Star Trek: Enterprise would get a movie.

It looks though like Star Trek: XI will be a prequel movie, but not as far back in the Star Trek timeline as Enterprise was, instead going back to Kirk and crew, either with them in the Academy, or their first mission together.

I have to admit that I am not liking where the Star Trek universe is heading as Rick Berman continues to take Star Trek to the pre-TOS era.

The prequel film has not been given the official green light for production yet, but the word is that it will be getting a thumbs up from Paramount in December or January. If they do green light it, you can expect to see Star Trek: XI sometime in the summer of 2008.

The word online is that Abrams, one of the producers of the upcoming movie, is already interviewing potential cast members. The characters being portrayed apparently being a young Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty. I really hope they pick some unknowns to play the characters because if I see Matt Damon as Kirk, I will never watch any Star Trek again.

I am still hoping that something crazy happens and a storyline about cadet Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty is given the shaft. I am going to Keep my fingers crossed.

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I remember in early 2001, when I first heard that a new Star Trek series was coming out. I was very excited, until I heard what time period it was going to be in.

I had enjoyed the constant evolution of Star Trek, always going forward in time, and with the close proximity of the time periods of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager, I had high hopes for a new series to be set after Voyager’s return to Earth.

But alas, this was not to be, as Enterprise, was set to go back before even Star Trek: The Original Series, back to a time around ten years before the founding of the Federation. This was so far from what I had expected, but I tried to keep my hopes up. I assumed that much of the staff that created Star Trek: Voyager, which I had found to be decent, would be able to take such a backwards concept and do well with it.

I had wondered how they would deal with many of what Star Trek fans call canon, or “factual representation” of what we know to be happening in that time thanks to other episodes, books and literature.

Little did I know that the show they were producing would almost all but kill the Star Trek franchise. I can see what they were trying to do though, Paramount wanted a series that both Trekkies and more “regular” folk could enjoy, and by trying to remove the Star Trek from Enterprise, I think they might have pushed away more hard core Star Trek fans than they got in new viewers.

The next major turn-off for me was when I saw the ship they were planning on using, as well as some images of the production sets. The ship was an Akira class ship, that was slightly redesigned to look “older”, and the computer interfaces and whatnot all looked much more high-tech than anything seen in Star Trek: The Original Series. I know that The Original Series was made in the late-sixties, so they could not create the sets that we expect from shows today, but they could have tried to make it look a little less advanced in some respect, giving more tactile controls or something.

The saving grace for the show in my opinion was Scott Bakula, who played the Captain, Jonathan Archer. I remembered him from Quantum Leap, and so I knew he could act in a science fiction show.

While the show only lasted four seasons, it was four seasons too many for me. It looked for a while like the show was going to be cancelled in 2004, but unfortunately for some reason they decided to give it another shot. Then we got to watch as Star Trek: Enterprise basically gave all types of stories from the other previous shows, and redid them in Enterprise, basically saying that the NX-01 was the first to deal with genetically engineered people, even going as far as having Enterprise deal with the Borg.

The whole thing was rediculous in my mind. There were some great episodes, even I can’t say it was all horrible, but this show was not deserving of having Star Trek in its title.

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I admit it, I was a big Babylon 5 nut. When the series was in its first run during the mid-nineties, I was addicted to it. I never missed an episode, no matter what else was going on in my life. It came on at seven in the evening for me, and everything stopped during that time.

It was early in season four when my girlfriend at the time decided to call around that time. I told her that I really like to watch the show and I would call her afterwards. She took that as a challenge and called me again at seven in the evening the next day.

There was a fight going on, and she wanted me to pick spending time with her, over spending time with my favourite science fiction show. It was right at the height of the Shadow War, and I was really into the show. I stopped paying attention to her and eventually she hung up.

By the time the episode named Into the Fire aired, I no longer had a girlfriend. She realized that I had chosen Babylon 5 over her.

The only regrets I have over the whole thing is that first off, I couldn’t convince her to call at a different time. Secondly, had I know the conclusion was going to be so much the opposite of what I had hoped, I might have just taped the episodes to watch them later. Who knew that the Shadows and the Vorlons were basically going to run away. I wanted to see the ultimate fight. The civil war later in the season was much more interesting.

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Warp Section is going to cover my favourite topic science fiction. We will be looking at television shows past and present, movies, merchandise, and games all in the sci-fi genre. It will be a great experience for all those sci-fi fans. We might get into a bit of the Star Trek versus Star Wars versus Babylon 5 versus Battlestar Galactica, but that will come later, and depending on the audience.

I hope you all enjoy Warp Section, and please feel free to comment.

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