Star Trek: Discovery - Brother

I just have to say right up front, this season looks like it's going to be better than last season. I want to make that clear because I don't have much nice to say about this episode because there just wasn't much to it. The specific plot of the episode is mostly filler and what's left is setting things up for the rest of the season. It was already more fun than last season though, and I like Pike so far.

Star Trek: Discovery - The Escape Artist

The fourth and final Short Trek is centred on the recurring character of Harry Mudd. I still don't know why they thought he was worth bringing back from TOS, but he's fine, I guess. And this episode is also fine. It's a bit like Calypso in that there's really nothing new or unique about it but it was well-executed.

Doctor Who: Resolution

Well, that was terrible. Forget the fact that they called the monster a Dalek - because that word clearly has no meaning any more - this was just a badly written story. The B plot about Ryan's father was actually quite good, but it didn't have anything to do with the rest of the episode and seemed to just be there to fill time.

Tell Me a Story: Deception

This, the penultimate episode, basically just moves all the pieces into place for the climax. Put everyone in a position where a violent confrontation is the only possible resolution and then somehow get them all into the same location. Yes, all three stories are going to be "connected" by coincidentally resolving at the same place and time. OK, there are other connections, but they're really not important at all. And I still think it would have worked better to tell each story separately, even with these connections, because that would have given us the opportunity to put the pieces together as we watched the second and third stories.

Tell Me a Story: Truth

They're actually starting to show the connections between the stories now, although the Red Riding Hood one is pretty tenuous. And despite it still being very slow, I am enjoying this show, even if the fairy tale gimmick doesn't really add anything.

Quick Game Reviews 7

Playing more games, making more snap judgements.

Five quick game reviews

I've been trying out some new games again. Somehow I keep ending up with a bunch of games I have no memory of in my games library. Most of them aren't worth having, even though they were free.

Tell Me a Story: Betrayal

After a very slow start, things are actually moving at a decent pace now. But I'm still not sure what direction they're going. The fairy tale links remain as tenuous as ever and we're still left frustratingly in the dark about a lot of things. Some of that is because the protagonists are equally confused, which is fine, but they've also started concealing things from the audience that the characters we're watching do know, and that's annoying.

Doctor Who: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

Another absolute nothing of an episode. I guess they were sort of trying to make mystery out of it but it was just terribly contrived and resolved in a completely meaningless way. I think we're also supposed to care about Tim Shaw from Demtel episode one coming back, but, uh, why? He was basically the platonic ideal of "generic villain". The thing with him collecting a tooth from each of of his victims sounds like an interesting hook, but it's not actually relevant to anything and it ends up making him look pretty dumb a lot of the time.

Do Not Poor Tea Into the Mystery Cup

It's sitting between the teapot and the dirty dishes and you can't remember why.