The 100: False Gods

“We keep ending up in the same place, and every time, people die.”

At this point in the game, The 100 has tried and tested what feels like a thousand different variations on warring factions with starkly opposing views. What makes this type of recycled story still work is the fact that the writers manage to inject these trials with humanity and nuance, irrespective of the group each character might be part of.

Doom Patrol: Danny Patrol

"Fabulosity incarnate stands before you, Darren. Show some goddamn respect."

This made me happier than any other hour of television ever has.

History Nerd's Review: Apollo 13 (1995)

"Gentlemen, at this moment, I want you all to forget the flight plan. From this moment on, we are improvising a new mission: How do we get our people home?"

Apollo 13, the third manned moon landing mission, nearly ended in tragedy after a defective oxygen tank exploded and disabled the command service module. The three astronauts, Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton), and Jack Sweigart (Kevin Bacon), were forced to use the lunar module, designed to support two people for two days, as their refuge for the four days it took to get back to Earth. With the aid of the flight controllers and engineers back in Houston, they modified and repurposed the equipment on hand into enough of a spaceship to get them back safely.

The 100: The Garden

Becca: "If you ask me, time dilation is sexy as Hell. You'll get to the future faster."

What was this? A visit to Planet Exposition?

Legends of Tomorrow: The One Where We're Trapped on TV

Oh... Oh my...

"But on the other hand, why not?"

This was a really great episode.

I didn't enjoy it much.

June 2020: What Are You Reading?

The world around us may be opening up, but the only thing I’m planning on opening this summer is…a book!

Okay, that was unforgivably bad, even by my low standards. But I wanted to grab your attention, since it’s time for [drumroll, please]: another coronavirus quarantine edition of What Are You Reading?

Star Trek Voyager: Real Life

"I guess all of us would avoid that kind of pain if we could. But most of us don't have that choice."

The Doctor wants to experience family life for himself, so creates a holographic family on the holodeck, but things don't quite go as planned.

History Nerd's Review: Gallipoli (2015)

"Men, I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die."

World War One's Gallipoli campaign was an offensive undertaken by France and Britain to capture the Bosporus and Dardanalles and the city of Constantinople (Istanbul), opening a supply line to their struggling Russian ally and knocking Ottoman Turkey out of the war. Like most World War One offensives, it did not end well. A mixed force of French, British, Australian, and New Zealander units landed on the mountainous Turkish coast on April 25, 1915. After eight months of costly, futile trench warfare, they were withdrawn, having never gotten more than a few miles inland.

History Nerd's Review: Sophie Scholl, die letzen Tage (2005)

"If you and Hitler weren't afraid of our opinion, we wouldn't be here."

Sophia Magdalena Scholl (Julia Jentsch) and her brother Hans (Fabian Hinrichs) were college students in Munich and members of the "White Rose," an idealistic anti-Nazi resistance group. They were arrested in 1943 for distributing leaflets calling for an end to the war and the overthrow of National Socialism. This 2005 German-language film tells the story of their arrest, "trial," and execution, emphasizing Sophie's calm defiance and deep religious faith.

Five Notoriously Troubled Productions

Five famous film productions where everything that could've gone wrong went spectacularly wrong.

Orphan Black: Guillotines Decide

"We do what we can. Each of us in our own way. And we do it for each other. Chipping at the devil till he is done."

BBC hyped the hell out of this episode. It was supposed to be so [insert adjective] that they didn't even show any scenes in the promo. I'm not sure why BBC advertised it as if it were an explosive hour of TV when the episode itself never goes there. Instead, what it offers is a carefully constructed story that celebrates the show's history while delivering some of the most important turns of the series with calm and elegance.

Legends of Tomorrow: I Am Legends

"This whole day has been wrong, so why stop now."

Wow.

I did not see that coming.