Classic Coverage looks back on the episodes of past shows from a modern perspective.
“Pascal’s Triangle Revisited” originally aired on NBC Thursday night, May 20, 2010″ One of the dirtiest little secrets of Community is that it never quite sticks the landing. Other than the series-ending “Emotional Consequences Of Broadcast Television”, i can’t think … Continue reading A Community Notification For This: S1E25, “Pascal’s Triangle Revisited”
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) Star Trek: The Original Series is fondly remembered in large part because of the social and political allegory it dabbled in. It was rarely subtle or delivered with finesse, but in the context … Continue reading You Talking Trek to Me? – “The Undiscovered Country”
An astronaut returns to earth after a mission to discover he has traveled over 200 years into the future. Humanity as we know it no longer exists. An extraterrestrial microbe wiped out most of the population, leaving the survivors physically … Continue reading The Outer Limits: S1E06 “The Man Who Was Never Born”
“He thought it was about his doomsday device—about wormholes. It wasn’t. It was only about the time I kissed a girl.” The basic story of “Nerve”/“The Hidden Memory” is pretty simple. John breaks into a Gammak Base to find a … Continue reading The Wonders I’ve Seen: 1×19, “Nerve” / 1×20, “The Hidden Memory”
Written by: Lewis MortonDirected by: Jeffrey LynchDN’s Ranking: Bad / Nonessential / ESSENTIAL I will admit that the ‘nonessential/essential’ categorisation of episodes is a bit messy and intuitive to me; I know for a fact that there are definitely episodes … Continue reading Futurama, Season Two, Episode Two, “Brannigan, Begin Again”
A genetic researcher has developed a machine that allows him to speed up the genes responsible for evolution. A young woman volunteers for the chance to become smarter, but she isn’t fit for the experiment. Her boyfriend is a match … Continue reading The Outer Limits: S1E05 “The Sixth Finger”
“How does a damned virus get to be so smart anyway?” A Note: I tried, but I couldn’t find a way to review this episode entirely without spoilers. They’re minor, but there are references to the next two episodes of … Continue reading The Wonders I’ve Seen: 1×18, “A Bug’s Life”
Written by: Patrick VerroneDirected by: Mark EvrineDN’s Ranking: Bad / Nonessential / ESSENTIAL I was thinking about this before watching it and was surprised to realise that I would put it in the ‘essential’ category with no qualification. The less … Continue reading Futurama, Season Two, Episode One, “I Second That Emotion”
“The Savage Curtain”(Star Trek: The Original Series – Season 3, Episode 22) The nature of Good and Evil is a fundamental and deeply complex subject that crosses many academic topics – philosophy, psychology, history, etc. It’s especially relevant to anyone … Continue reading You Talking Trek to Me? – “The Savage Curtain”
“English as a Second Language” originally aired on NBC Thursday night May 13, 2010 Couple things: 1) Community never set out to be “the show that just parodies everything”, and 2) nearly anything that followed “Modern Warfare” would seem like … Continue reading A Community Notification For This: S1E24, “English As A Second Language”
A college professor becomes the key figure in a top secret experiment. He receives an implant in his brain that gives him telekinetic control over the untapped energy reserves in space. This rolling cloud of electricity can destroy anything he … Continue reading The Outer Limits: S1E04 “The Man with the Power
“I’ve always wondered what could be beyond the height, depth, width, and time.” “Nausea.” “Through the Looking Glass” is an interestingly vanilla episode, for Farscape. It’s a “ship in trouble” plot with a misunderstood creature at its center, and it … Continue reading The Wonders I’ve Seen: 1×17, “Through the Looking Glass”
Written by: Lewis MortonDirected by: Ron HughartDN’s Ranking: Bad / NONESSENTIAL / Essential Some of us have said how we can relate to Fry and see ourselves in his problems, and how they’re larger-than-life exaggerations of relatable problems. Certainly, I … Continue reading Futurama, Season One, Episode Twelve, “Fry And The Slurm Factory”
The end of the world is inevitable. The tensions of The Cold War have risen so high that nuclear weapons are being launched as threats to other countries. A team of scientists must use new surgical technology to transform one … Continue reading The Outer Limits: S1E03 “The Architects of Fear”
“That’s it. Earth. Minus the sunshine.” “A Human Reaction” is… Aw, fuck. “A Human Reaction” is great. You know it, I know it, the world knows it. A paranoid thriller that deconstructs E.T. way better than the episode that explicitly … Continue reading The Wonders I’ve Seen: 1×16, “A Human Reaction”
Written by: Ken KeelerDirected by: Brain SheesleyDN’s Ranking: Bad / Nonessential / ESSENTIAL I knew going in that I would call this one essential but I wasn’t sure how I was going to justify that – I usually take subjective … Continue reading Futurama, Season One, Episode Twelve, “When Aliens Attack”
“Modern Warfare” originally aired on NBC Thursday night May 6, 2010 Community doesn’t really “become” Community until “Modern Warfare”. That’s the accepted narrative, anyway. i happen to disagree with this, but i’ve long since stopped kidding myself. Without “Modern Warfare”, … Continue reading A Community Notification For This: S1E23, “Modern Warfare”
“Paradise Lost”(Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 4, Episode 11) As I mentioned in my review of “Homefront,” rewatching many Star Trek episodes as an adult can be a different experience than when I first absorbed them as a … Continue reading You Talking Trek to Me? – “Paradise Lost”
It’s the presidential election in the United States. An unspecified East Asian country chooses this as the opportunity to take over America. They have developed technology that will allow them to transform one of their citizens into the presumptive winner … Continue reading The Outer Limits: S1E02 “The Hundred Days of the Dragon”
Written by: J Stewart BurnsDirected by: Bret HaalandDN’s Ranking: Bad / NONESSENTIAL / Essential There’s been occasional discussion in the comments on how, for being done by the most overeducated cartoon writers’ room in history, Futurama rarely churns out sophisticated … Continue reading Futurama, Season One, Episode Eleven, “Mars University”
“Homefront”(Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 4, Episode 11) One of the most incisive and subversive bits of dialogue in Deep Space Nine was spoken by an angry Benjamin Sisko ranting to Kira about the former Federation colonists’ plight … Continue reading You Talking Trek to Me? – “Homefront “
