TV And Films

The shows and movies I like (or don’t).

📚 Unspoken Truth by Margaret Wander Bonnano

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26/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Saavik-centric story, mostly set after the events of Star Trek IV, but with flashbacks to her youth. The first half of the book is mostly planetary exploration with a dash of mystery surrounding Saavik’s past; the latter half takes that mystery and becomes a somewhat odd spy story, with various disguised motivations. I found the latter half far less engaging than the first, but overall, I liked diving more into Saavik’s character and fleshing out some of the wider consequences of the Star Trek II/III/IV trilogy. Also, though not a comedic adventure, one brief mention of a character “stepping over a Thermian’s tentacles” in a bar did make me laugh out loud.

Me holding Unspoken Truth

🎥 Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023): ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was good, lighthearted, fun. I’ve never been a D&D player (though I did enjoy reading through the monster manuals when I was a kid, and I’ve been around it enough through friends to have a reasonably good generalist familiarity), so I’m sure there were any number of references and creatures that long-time players would have noticed that I didn’t. I just got to sit back and enjoy the adventure. I really want the portal staff (just as I’ve long wanted an Aperture Science Portal gun), and the pudgy dragon was particularly great.

🎥 Scream VI

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Scream VI (2023): ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This series continues to entertain. The move to NYC helps refresh things a bit, and the constant parade of background horror movie characters (and multiple Ghostfaces) thanks to the Halloween weekend setting was consistently amusing. I think the shrine was a bit of a stretch—even buying the handwave-y explanation given, it’s not like all that stuff came from a lot of different places and so wouldn’t be easily missed when it disappeared—but admittedly, it did make for a fun set piece for the final showdown. All in all, another enjoyable entry to a series (sorry, franchise) that started strong and even in its weaker moments is still pretty consistently entertaining.

📚 Cast No Shadow by James Swallow

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24/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Set seven years after the events of Star Trek VI, this does a good job of fleshing out Valeris and exploring the motivations and rationale behind her actions. It also follows up on some of the practical and political fallout for the Klingon empire of the events in the film. Definitely one of the stronger Trek novels I’ve read.

Me holding Cast No Shadow

🎥 Cocaine Bear

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Cocaine Bear (2023): ⭐️⭐️⭐️: Exactly what it says it will be, exactly what you think it’s going to be, and exactly what we wanted for a lazy Saturday afternoon. The only thing I didn’t like was how underlit the climactic 10 minutes were (I swear movies used to have scenes at night that you could actually see). But aside from that, it’s an ideal 90 minutes of ridiculous characters getting mauled by a bear high on cocaine.

📚 The High Country by John Jackson Miller

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16/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A fun, light romp of an adventure, rather perfect for the first Strange New Worlds book. Several Enterprise crew are stranded on a world where electronics don’t work and technology is tightly controlled. This results in a mishmash of the Wild West, mountainside castles, tall ships, mysterious aurora, and steampunk-ish clockwork creations. All with a welcome dash of humor throughout. I enjoyed this one a lot.

Michael holding The High Country