The original and still the best...

I was lucky enough to be able to watch this ninth season of `Stargate: S.G.1' in conjunction with the second `Stargate: Atlantis' season and while Atlantis continues to be an enjoyable, engrossing and genre-experimenting addition to the original, for me this ninth season proves that the big boys (and girl) are still S.G.1 and reigning supreme as they approach their tenth year on our screens.

`Avalon, Part 1' is a weak season opener, especially for new kid on the block Ben Browder, as it doesn't inspire the viewer with much confidence in this replacement for veteran cheeky-chappy Richard Dean Anderson. However, as the season progresses the character is definitely fleshed out more and he soon fits in nicely with the tightly-knit S.G.1 team. However, the bottom line is that this is still a character who bares a striking similarity in disposition to Browder's other well-known TV personality- Farscape's John Crichton- with that same irreverent humour and easy-going attitude, but it's a style that clearly works for Browder and it's difficult not to find that likeable (eventually). Beau Bridges' introduction is made with equally little fanfare, but his character is one who I found myself liking more readily- he approaches the role of the General of the base differently to Don S. Davis, with more of an everyman approach, although he never hesitates to exert the full force of his office against unfriendly aliens, or humans when required.

Largely thanks to the development of this season's main story-arc with the introduction of God-wannabes the Ori and their powerful minions known as Priors, this ninth season becomes surprisingly mesmerising in very short order. Beginning with the concluding part and then into episode 3- `Origin', this season soon establishes itself as one of the best `Stargate: S.G.1' offerings in years. The use of Arthurian legend in this season is spread pretty thickly in the beginning and had me worried that this fantasy element might not work in a predominantly science-fiction-oriented series, but very soon the parallels the writers draw between the Arthurian myth and the familiar Stargate set-up, become very inventive and come to work surprisingly well at contrasting against the new and growing force of evil spreading through the galaxy. In the first five episodes that other recognizable `Farscape' regular Claudia Black and her seductively disobedient alter-ego Vala are another reason to be enchanted by this season. Vala brings such humour and life to the series that I was really disappointed when she parted company with S.G.1, despite the welcome return of Sam Carter following her brief career change. Thankfully Vala returns towards the end of the season and here's hoping it's not the last we see of her.

This season's other major success is in its stand-alone stories that continue to present unique, punchy and creative sci-fi ideas to its audience. In particular episode 9- `Prototype' and episode 13- `Ripple Effect' are a couple of my favourites, the first of which concerns the discovery of a prodigy of Anubis frozen on a distant planet and the second has multiple S.G.1 teams pouring through the Stargate from diverse alternate realities (high jinks ensue), both of which had me glued to my seat. As with many previous seasons of `S.G.1' a lot of development in the main story-arc is left to the last ten minutes of the final episode, only to leave the viewer with an excruciating cliff-hanger to be endured until the release of the tenth season on DVD. I love it!

Brilliant Finale to a Brilliant Series!!

These are great episodes to end the series.
The First one"Fear Her" is okay but not as good as the others. It is about a girl who gets posessed by a creature called the"Isolus". Whenever she draws something it disappears from reality and ends up in the drawing. It is a decent enough story but a very weak plot.(7/10)
The"Army of Ghosts" is a great episode. When the Doctor and Rose take a visit back to London they find out that at times in the day, there is a ghost shift when all these ghosts appear. It ends up that the ghosts are Cybermen and the Daleks are there aswell. Great episode!(10/10)
"Doomsday" is the best out of all of them by far. The Cybermen have taken control by upgrading everyone, while the Daleks are trying to open"The Genesis Ark", which in the end; we find out that it is a prison ship from the timelords, made to put Daleks in, then they take over. Then finally there is the great finale of the Doctor losing Rose! A very dramatic ending.(10/10)
I strongly recommend that you buy this. (Overall 10/10)!!!

Underated but one of the best tv shows ever made

Firstly there are many tv shows that i like

But there are only a few tv shows that i love, House,Scrubs and Buffy. I have only recently got into house and a year ago I was obsessed with scrubs. But I can hand on heart say that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was my first love. I started watching it as soon as it came out in England and loved it at first sight.

What wasnt there to like, getting to watch the amazingly attractive Sarah Micheal Geller kick ten bells of crap out of vampire's, demons and anything else mystical and evil. I loved it and so did all of my older brothers. The first thing we did was buy series one on video boxset, and we kept building our collection. But slowly the collection became more varried with half of season 2 and all of season 5 ect. And slowly I began falling out of the pattern of watching my favourite programme, mainly due to older brothers change of taste not mine.

Thats why as soon as I saw the change to get the whole entire collection on DVD I took it. And now re-watching from season 1 all the way to season 7 I have been appriciating Buffy even more. You forget this isnt some run of the mill tv show. The acting is top notch alwyas. The storylines are always original and gripping. With some episodes standing out for being truely terrifying such as Hush or I only have eyes for you. And its so watchable that I know as soon as I have finished the collection it likely I will just start watching them again.

I plan to get the entire collection of angel soon. (Need more money though), becuase I was always annoyed that it was put on channel 5 so i wasnt able to watch it. Hopefully it will be as brilliant as Buffy.

If you havent seen Buffy then you havent been awake!

And dont say its not your kind of thing cause its got heart. Violence. Comedy. Romance. And many more. There is no way that it could not be your kind of thing. So get it and watch it and enjoy it.

Doctor Who S3V2

On this disc there is"Daleks In Manhattan", a good episode, with a brilliant cliffhanger."Evolution Of The Daleks", not the best episode ever, actually when you've got past the fact that the Daleks are in it, it seems kind of crappy!"The Lazarus Experiment", I watched that on my Birthday, that makes it extra-special, a good monster and a brilliant storyline."42" is great. This is a worth-while DVD!

Destroyed a Great Story and No Original Sound Track

First off, where's the Japanese audio, in this day and age it's unbelievable that only English and German audio tracks are offered for a Japanese movie.

Secondly, the CGI at first looks fine, but they concentrate too much on small details, such as shell casings hitting the ground and earings moving in the breeze. Shame they could not have put the same level of work in to the faces, which are static and feel like a 2-D mapping moved round an oval, like in a computer game from 10 years back. Also the eyes look like those painted on a doll, with as much emotion.

Next they have changed the characters, as much as you can tell anyhow as there's no background supplied (in the original manga, which is 4 or 5 volumes long, there is a lot of detail), plus Dunen is now no longer half-cast, something which was actually important (I believe she was the first non-white/Japanese hero in a Japanese manga).

As to the story. Thin, obvious, key plot parts spoon fed early on. There's little suspence, little plot, and frankily most the action scenes look like John Woo has spent far too much time watching the first and third matrix movies.

If you're not seen the original movie, the CGI remake from 2004, or read the manga, then you may actually like this, however if you have then you will be deeply dissapointed.

In fact if you are in to manga or anime then the originals are a must and I know available from here.

A Sci-Fi Pleasure

I'm a sci-fi fan so my comments are biased but I thoroughly enjoyed this mini-series. I would recommend it to viewers who like films of a weird/otherworldy/supernatural quality. Definitely not down-to-earth stuff but then the characters are quite real and believable.

A shaky start for the USS Voyager

Before going any further I think it is worth noting that this review is not aimed at Voyager fans, who will buy it regardless of any comments. It is intended for Voyager newcomers and the basic message is -- forget being linear. If you want to see what Voyager is really like, buy seasons 3, 4 or 5 first!

Season one of ST:Voyager is a very mixed bag - from the promising to the horribly forgettable or disappointing. Voyager had a much longer teething period than either TNG or DS9 and considering the premise, did very little to push the Star Trek boundaries in its first year. Rather than approaching the show with great drama and conflict, or even with a sense of isolation the first season seemed wrapped in a candy cocoon and its stories were far too similar to TNG.

Amongst its stand-out episodes were 'Caretaker' (a promising pilot), 'Eye of the Needle' (a brilliant episode which explored the ships isolation and lust to return home), 'State of Flux' (great episode establishing the Voyager traitor) and 'Learning Curve' (another maquis episode but impressive nonetheless).

Overall, the first season of Voyager is bright, sparky and new - much like its young and inexperienced crew - but falters on its feet a number of times. It doesn't quite establish itself in this short season but does a commendable job of setting up a ship of characters which you should come to love within a few seasons time.
That doesn't change my recommendation though - spend your money on the later seasons first [3 is a good place to start] and later, once you love the show enough, see how it all began with this short but most expensive season's introduction to the Voyager crew.

highly overrated movie but okay to watch it once

This wasn't a particularly amusing movie and I would say its strongest point was its special effects.The story lacked credibility and failed to draw me into the world the writers had tried to create.This was largely because Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith just didn't seem as scared of the aliens as I think people would be in real life ( particularly aliens this ugly and nasty)and there was no development of characters - their personalities were exactly the same at the end of the film as they were at the beginning.I'd heard a lot about Men In Black and I've gotta say that it is overrated and the 1980s film Ghostbusters with Bill Murray is funnier and way more interesting to watch.

They did it again.

This is another excellent series. The Star Trek team did it again. This series has some of my favourite episodes. The 'Past Tense' episodes are brilliant. I really enjoyed watching this series and although I still feel it's a warm up for the next series, it still has some excellent character developments with Kira, Odo, Sisko and the rest of the crew.

I recommend buying this series and I will be watching this box set over and over again.

Still in the dark....

What happened?

I don't know because I gave up somewhere around the swimming pool scene. I was quite looking forward to this and despite the fact I used vouchers and not real money for this I still regret stumping up the full value; in fact, any value.

The cinematography is so dark that you find yourself flicking through the TV setup menu for the brightness and contrast setting. It doesn't make any difference. One of the characters has a pair of night vision goggles which really should have been issued to the audience.

Save yourself some money, just sit in the dark and put on some random music and whale songs. At the same time. It'll make as much sense and you'll be just as entertained.

very much ahead of it's time

I absolutely love this film.
I first saw it when I was a teenager and appreciate it more and more the more often I watch it. Considering it is from 1960 the special effects are great. But it is more about the story. These days films are all about special effects and get spoiled. It is great to see how things actually happen in faster time rather than just instantly go to the new place in time.
Excellent film indeed.

How can such an old film look so good?

im going to keep this short, im assuming youve already watched this film, i mean who hasnt? if youve got a HD TV, HD or blue Ray player, do yourself a favour! you will be amaaazed at how crystal clear the picture is, youd think this film was made yesterday, ive compared the two versions, the regular DVD and the HD, no comparison, the HD is wow wow!
if you know anybody who loves this film and there not quite convinced about upgrading to HD, this is a good place to start

A gloriously funny sci-fi comedy

'Galaxy Quest' is much better than it might be expected to be. Although it's a mischievous take on the reputation and backstage rivalries of the original series of 'Star Trek', it's also an exciting space opera in its own right, with plenty of high-energy beam-zapping, lobster-headed aliens and CGI flash to be going on with.

The jaded cast of a long-cancelled television sci-fi show are mistaken by genuine aliens for their own characters, because the aliens, called Thermians, have no concept of 'acting' - to them, the shows (which they've picked up as transmissions from our planet) are much-treasured and carefully studied 'historical documents'. The human cast are whisked off into the middle of a life-and-death struggle between the benign, kindly and peaceloving Thermians and an evil and violent race bent on enslaving them. Somewhat startled to find that their fictional ship has been recreated in working detail by the Thermians, the cast are even more thrown to realise that they have to live their roles for real and rise into heroism.

Everyone is brilliant: Tim Allen as the bombastic and Shatneresque captain, Sigourney Weaver as the gorgeously bosomy and doggedly earnest communications officer (whose only job is to relay every command to the computer and repeat back whatever it says - she knows it's stupid but she's going to do it anyway), Alan Rickman as the deeply disappointed Shakespearean actor reduced to wearing a stupid rubber wig as the alien scientist 'Dr. Lazarus', and a host of great supporting roles. My two favourites are Enrico Colantoni as the spectacularly weird-voiced and really quite touching Thermian leader Mathesar and Tony Shalhoub as the serene-to-the-point-of-stoned Fred Kwan, fictional 'chief engineer' on the spaceship and the one member of the TV show cast who just treats the whole thing as an amusing exercise in group improvisation.

The plot is clever, the jokes are richly funny and the special effects do not let the side down. It's a blast. Old-school Star Trek fans will get a special kick out of it, but anyone will enjoy it.

The best of the entire 2 trilogy's

Its dark (like all sci-fi should be), its fatalistic, and its the best Star Wars film. Actually this is the only Star Wars film in which the remastered version is superior.

Dear, oh dear.

What a ghastly, boring and hugely un-entertaining film. What has Mr. Dick done? His earlier films have been tremendous. Nicolas Cage is a strange character and he plays some strange characters in his films. But this one is so incredibly odd that I found myself either laughing out loud or groaning at the poor acting, the bad action shots, the ridiculous dialogue, the all-too-easy missing nuclear bomb ploy and the antics of the now 'must have' feisty female police officer who just happens to be a crack shot in any circumstance. If Cage's character is meant to be able to see into the future, he should have given this film a miss.

Fantastic series

I love this DVD, but I cant really comment on the DVD itself, I can only comment on the Doctor Who series. The best yet in my view and well done to all the team who made Doctor Who, and the amazing actors.

DS9: Fantastic story-driven Sci Fi....

I've never been a *huge* Star Trek fan, not to say I didn't enjoy them, but I didn't sit down and watch them all religiously. The thing I didn't like about the other Star Treks is the lack of an on-going story, most of the espisodes were complete 'one offs' and I found it got boring after a while.

Deep Space 9 is where it all changes though, DS9 is a very well written, story driven Sci-Fi. The more you watch the less you'll want to stop, it shows many charecters from all sorts of races and how they interact with each other. It has an amazing number of twists and turns and the best thing of all, it isn't as 'twee' as the previous Star Treks. It shows Humans as, Humans. Not some sort of all-powerful ethical super-being - one other big reason I was never a huge fan of the other Star Treks.

This show has something for every one, even if you aren't a huge sci-fi fan I can assure you this is a good investment. Those of you who look a little more deeply into things will find DS9 even more gripping as it contains many subtle under-currents throughout the seasons which many will miss.

Each season has around 20 episodes, you can't go wrong for under £1 per episode!!

Big Heroes fan? HD capable? GET THIS.

I'm a mega Heroes fan, and when I saw this I had to have it!

The quality of the actual episodes in HD are simply amazing. Hiro's (Masi Oka) freeze scenes are incredible when the camera swoops around, and it's just an all-round amazing experience to watch such an amazing show in HD. I totally recommend buying the HD box-set if you have all the HD basics, it's a hellofa lot better than the standard DVDs.

Just the one regret was not being able to get it off of Amazon. I bought it for me and my brother as a joint Christmas present and had to get it from Play.com (which worked out cheaper I must say) as Amazon couldn't guarantee delivery before Christmas... but ah well, I would have got it off of Amazon if they had let me!

Big Heroes fan? HD capable? GET THIS.

Acme Brain Candy!

Couldn't disagree more with the negative reviews - as Brain Candy this trilogy is the creme de la creme. having never played (or heard of) the game version before watching the films, the characters in the first film took some time to really get to know - but Milla Jovovitch is an ass-kicking, zombie-slaying queen. Trust me, am usually very cautionary about models-turned-actresses but she shines.

The second film is even better, introducing more fun stereotypical characters which makes them easier to follow. Alice is back and despite her bizarre outfit (how does one pick up a mini-skirt in an army surplus store I ask) is her usual awesome self. Add to this a cop who looks like she's walked off a CGI computer screen with teeny-tiny waist, short skirt and heels,(personally I can't even walk straight in stilletos let alone chase down criminals) a street-wise joker, and a troop of tough, macho-guy troops and you've pretty much got a recepie for an amazing sequel. The ending has tobe one of my all time favourite quotes.

Extinction rocks with its scenes of a devastated and deserted Planet* and a band of die-hard survivors just trying to, well, survive. Amazing cinematogrophy and more kick ass moves. Cheesy acting only add to the charm of this film and an even better ending than the second make it tops in my humble opinion. Can't help wondering if there could ever be a fourth - justice for the little people would be sooooooooo fulfilling!

* Well, mostly America to be honest, which was extremely satisfying. (Don't get me wrong, I LIKE America - the fact that seeing it buried under 20 million tonnes of sand gave me a warm fuzzy feeling is neither here nor there.)