Episode seven brings us to a return of an unexpected reoccurring character this season. Harry Mudd.
I'm sure he's over that being left to rot on a Klingon prison ship.
A return of Mudd, and an episode of this new series which feels surprising like a Classic Trek or Next Generation episode. A dangerous situation. A colorful foe. An internal conflict. The ship on the line. And Lorca gets to die.
Back into Discovery again, and this time we get to know a little more about a popular Vulcan among Trekkies. Sarek.
In fact, after seeing this episode I started to build an interesting timeline for the Sarek family between Spock's birth and his entrance to Starfleet Academy based on this episode. But that will have to wait until the midseason break next week. And the rest of these midseason reviews.
We get a simpler title this time around, and am I the only one that feels this could be a song title for a heavy metal song? Come on, you can't imagine Saru and Burnham fronting a band, with Lorca in back on the drums in a glam rock wig? I can't be the only one that could imagine that.
As I'm a little behind on reviews, I decided to hold off on watching new episodes, so I am not too far ahead as I review. So I haven't seen episode 8 yet. So I have to hurry up, as I know I am missing some good stuff. Now, if only my Internet service will give me enough bandwidth to write, save, and have twitter open...
We return to Discovery having now successfully implemented the Spore Drive technology. This ship can jump anywhere instantly. And in a war, being where you're needed at a moments notice is quite the boon.
Wow. That's a title, isn't it? Reminds you of some of the titles from Classic Trek, that funneled their way into later series on occasion. But for what the crew of the Discovery are working against in this episode, it is rather apt.
Welcome back to my Subspace Reviews. I do apologize for these starting up again so late. But it has been the glorious Halloween season, and for that time, if I'm not ahead of schedule, some things end up being delayed.
But it is time to return to the Trek Sector of space to find out if the Spore Drive can finally be successfully implemented to take the crew places never gone to before.
October is coming to a close. The Halloween season is now at it's grand horizon. And tonight will be the last night for most all haunted houses to be visited.
It is always a sad sight in the days after Halloween to see the festivities out by the curb. It's almost as painful as the mid-October shift in stores to Christmas.
But this day is here, and we are can live it. Enjoy it. Be terrified by what we like, be it house, or kid at the door, or movie we enjoy.
But maybe it's not time for that, or maybe you just need your horror fix to continue. So what will we watch. Something about Halloween, obviously. But what to pick?
So hard to choose. So let's go buffet on this. Let's go anthology film. So...
There are many gory horror movies and movie series out there. Some go for the ridiculous. Some go for the ongoing dread. Some are just about throwing some blood around.
And then you have films that take you to another world. Where gore is the beginning of an exploration. Where it acts as a portal for beings outside our understanding.
All you need to do to meet them is...solve the puzzle.
It's time to solve accept the challenge, welcome the suffering, and see if we can come out sane on the other side of...
It's a cold and rainy day, and sometimes you need more than a good film or show to bolster your Halloween and macabre sensibility. Sometimes, you just want a good read. A tome not so much of forgotten lore, but of enjoyable horror.
And if you need an interesting read, as you enter this new week, try one of the many tales of Dracula tales made into a comic. A mix of dark words, dark deeds, and striking imagery.
Dracula: In The Company Of Monsters.
Published by BOOM! Studios in 2011, this tale takes us into a strange twist in the unlife of Dracula. is he the most evil force to face? This story challenges that idea.
As the last weekend of Halloween comes to an end, we need something comfy. Particularly if where you are is cold right now, we need a mug of something and some good old fun to snuggle up with under a blanket.
So let's set a course, and go to warp. It's time for some Star Trek.
And let's take a look at the Star Trek franchise's only holiday episode. And it's a Halloween one.
Sadly, we are heading into the final weekend of our Halloween fun. So it's time to get in what gore and horror we can, hmm?
So let's return yet again to the 80's with a gory comedic classic. One of the Brian Yunza and Stuart Gordon twisted jaunts. A bit of the old Jeffrey Combs that make carnivorous entrails smile.
Back before the now that doesn't seem real... A world of fake news, and utterly ridiculous presidents... We had, in some ways, a simpler time... A time when we assumed the news and networks wouldn't screw with us... That seeing was believing... Perhaps this was naive... But it was.
Today, we have Reality TV. Today, we have Reality TV presidents. The circle is complete. But let's go back to a Halloween when the veil between the naivety of the past and the madness of the future was breached for just one night...
Ghostwatch.
Oh, yes. Ghostwatch. The show they only showed once on the BBC. The show that brought in 10's of thousands of angry calls in the hour after it aired. The show that cruelly robbed a nation of their innate faith in...Ah, well. Let's take a look at this.
One way to enjoy your Halloween is to have traditions. Sometimes it's a place, or a food. Sometimes it's one or more movies. A good horror series also makes for a nice tradition, particularly if it's one you can binge on windy nights.
And among the recent new series that could prove worthwhile to you is...
Ash Vs Evil Dead.
The series is a continuation of sorts to the Evil Dead movie series. Hey, they never properly sync up as it is, so more or less. We return to the life and times of Ashley Williams. Stock clerk subpar, demon destroyer extraordinaire.
Halloween is ever a time of spooks and goblins. Even the pranksters and the tricksters love to come out to play. But sometimes, the murderers also get out. And we cannot have that, can we?
At times like that you want the sharpest minds and eyes at work. Through the falling leaves, the rapid dusk, and along the forgotten paths, the sleuths will make things right.
So today let's enjoy the efforts of one such sleuth. Hercule Poirot. Drawn out in the wake of a Halloween tragedy in...
It's time to delve back into TV movies for some more early 80's horror. And what better to mess with than more vampires.
And, hey, this time it is perfectly named movie, with no confusion whatsoever.
Vampire.
But not to worry, when it was first shown in October of 1979 (Hey, what a great time for a movie like this!) it had an ad and opening that helped make it look like a torrid romance...Oh, ad people.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention in this review that IFC will be having a marathon of Stan Against Evil Season 1 this Halloween, October 31, 2017, as a run up to the new season.
I am one for enjoyable horror comedy. It is a subset that some seem to forget, and some seem to look down on it. But for the rest of us, it is a chance to laugh and be startled.
An enjoyable new series started last year on Halloween.
Sitting down for some early morning nourishment. Have to head out on a trip. Perfect time for some Halloween Captain Crunch. I need to fill up on my...green.
Yeah, I know Scotty...
...but it's my cereal.
Anyway, with this I need something else curious. A more recent superhero take. A chance to ride with Batman...and his robowolf...
On the one hand, I think we all need some more toons. But on the other hand, have we had enough zombies? I don't know. This Halloween needs some more more cartoons, but how can I work zombies in? In a fun way.
Halloween special episodes of TV shows have come and gone in waves over the years. And in this Binge Age it's strange to have any holiday themes when the show will likely come out at a different time in the year. But, once, Fall was a big time for TV entertainment. And some producers were determined to have their big October episode.
Not every special has been as memorable as one would like today, with our long pop culture memories. But some specials do stand out. Community, in it's run on NBC, liked to play with it's sitcom and TV world rules. The paintball episodes liked to push their world to breaking points. But Halloween was always interesting. In particular their second season Halloween episode is quite memorable to this day.
The show follows a collection of people looking for second chances in their lives, so find themselves at the small and unimpressive Greendale Community College. Jeff the conman/lawyer, is looking for the easy way out. Britta is a self-styled rebel out to help, but struggling with herself. Shirley is a single mom that dreams of opening her own business as to restore normalcy to her life. Annie is a smart kid that struggled with an addiction that derailed her parent's plans, but freed her to find her own way. Abed is a somewhat disconnected young man who likes to see the world through the lens of TV and movies. Troy lost out on a football scholarship when he got hurt senior year, but it's meant he's been able to reexamine his life and find his other passions. And, then, we have Pierce who is a rich older man who enjoys being among the young people and college life. He also likes to push and provoke people to justify his negative opinions, like too many people on Twitter.
So let's all head to class and crack the books on... Epidemiology.
Black comedy is always a pleasure, the macabre can do more than just make you scream. It offers many access to different emotions and different perspectives.
The 60's offered a number of black comedies from production companies like American International Pictures. So let's return to a follow up to The Raven. An opportunity to unite Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, and Basil Rathbone on screen.
It's Halloween, we are looking at Dracula. Do we need to say much else? Well, yes.
The stories of vampires, and the story of Dracula, prove to have many branches. We see vampires in general, and Dracula himself, in many ways. For Dracula we have the debonair count that so many think of. And then there's that creepy figure, the man who does not seem entirely human.
Nosferatu, a take on Dracula where his less than human characteristics of the books remain and are enhanced. This take started in the famous silent film of the 20's. Then it returned in a major way again in 1979 with...
I have already covered the pilot of the new series Ghosted. So how can I resist coming back to look at the second episode of the series? Particularly when it's a Halloween episode?
I always enjoy a new discovery in the world of horror films. And among 70's and 80's TV movies one can find a number of small scale and interesting stories. We've already taken a look at a favorite of mine, The Midnight Hour. Now let's look at one I missed back in 1982
Another weekend, and another chance for some cartoon fun. So let's head back to see how Phineas and Ferb are handle one year's Halloween fun, or rather some Drusselsteinian Halloween fun.
"Druselsteinoween"
And I know what your thinking. "But everyone knows Drusselstein is spelled with 2 S's not 1. What the hell?" I know, man. It's bugged me for years to.
It being Friday the 13th, it would be hard to not include some Friday the 13th into any marathon. And it is tempting to turn to Jason Goes to Hell, as it stars John LeMay, who also starred in Friday the 13th the Series.
But it's hard not to go back to the classics first. And everyone owes it to themselves to start at the start. So it's back to 1980 and...
It seems we've reached another Friday the 13th. And it's in October! What?!
So we have to return to a forgotten tradition on this site. A return to Friday the 13th the Series. More fun with Jack, Micki, and Ryan, as they chase down cursed antiques before the bodies begin to pile up.
Last time we were facing a time traveling vampire. Now we have a seedy seaman, and his evil lamp.
The modern age offers us many paths to horror. Some it may be better to leave untrodden. But online the web of paths can be confusing. But also sometimes rewarding.
In 2014 Michael Balif started a production company. The Witching Season. The intent was to use it to create a horror anthology consisting of short films. The result has so far been 5 such films. Scary tales to light our way through a dark marathon night.
This trailer, while revealing nothing about the shorts, is such a great snapshot of how most of us like to imagine Halloween. The pumpkins. The mist. The leaves. The pagentry of Halloween. And the music evokes such a great John Carpenter vibe.
And being at most 15 minutes long, you have few excuses to not plunge in for the grim and gorey goodness being put out for you. Feast on the dread.
The Witching Seasons productions can be enjoyed though their website or their Youtube channel.
Horror arises from many places. Horror entwines itself amongst our various fears. Horror comes from the living and dead. So call out with me my friends.
Come! Come! Rise again! Seek you vengeance, our Pumpkinhead!
Halloween has had many classic periods. We each have our preferences. 1820's. 1640's. 1930's. But among the periods that mean a lot to me is the 80's. Good horror themed videos. Good horror movies. And a selection of good horror anthology TV shows.
One of the classics of that period was Tales from the Darkside.
The shows opening and closing are iconic (Composed and written by Donald Rubinstein and Erica Lindsay.).This music helps set up a frightfully wonderful mood of foreboding and dread. It demands you start thinking on the looming nightfall, or just how far away daylight really is. It's exactly the thing, anytime of the day, to set the mood for horror.
The show is an anthology series in the vein of Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits, though it focused far more on monsters, magic, with the occasional alien or techno terror stories. It ran for 4 seasons in the mid 80's.
It was created by George Romero and others to showcase these creepy stories. Among the stories used are Stephen King's and other luminaries of horror and science fiction.
The first story they chose to do was a Halloween tale, which is all so nice for us. And I was pleased to see it actually premiered just days before Halloween in 1983. Now that is how you open a horror series.
So let's see what treat the 80's has saved up for us.
You can only hope that networks will try to bring in some new shows that will fit in nicely during the Halloween season. They are not often obliging. Then again, I am all for a more year round Halloween vision.
And like an extra fun size chocolate at the bottom of your bag, FOX has an interesting little show for us to try out this October. And the name is wickedly fitting.
Once more we find ourselves on the precipice of the final frontier. Ready to join a new crew of Starfleet officers as they plunge into the unknown. But instead of a series at the edges of Star Trek history, we find ourselves at a midpoint of sorts. Between Enterprise and the original Star Trek.
Some people ask me, "Jack? What's this whole thing about?" And I tell them the truth. The hell if I know.
But sometimes you are on a sugar high. And you take some nerdiness. And you take some geekiness. And you grab some politics. And then you stuff some skepticism into it...and you crash.
When you make up you don't know what it is, but it's attached itself to your jugular, and you decide it's best not to fuss.
A curmudgeon and soft-heart. A pessimist and optimist. A loner and joiner. Even I get sick of me.
I'm...
A Neophyte Negotiator of all the Nonsense. An Ornate Opponent of…Oh, you know. A Lover of Levity and the Lectern. An Irreconcilably Irate Idyllist. The Eternal Enemy of Erratum. Just a Solitary Serrated Soul. I'm sorry, what was the question?
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