“Hot and Bothered” gives us a little more “meat” to the story. Things are finally starting to fall a bit more into place. And, too, the pace seems to be quickening slightly. It all adds up to an episode that, finally, actually feels satisfying. There’s plenty happening in this episode and, in many ways, it’s a culmination of a LOT of groundwork from the first nine episodes. As such, it’s quite fascinating to see things coalescing around a more focused narrative.

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A new review of a G1 Season 2 episode, “The Search For Alpha Trion,” is now available:

“The Search For Alpha Trion” is a very strong episode in terms of establishing the Transformers “mythology.” It’s a fast-paced, action-filled story which focuses on Elita One, leader of a rbel group of Transformers still on Cybertron. What makes Elita One and her followers unique is the fact that they are all female. And the attempt to establish a bit of gender equality in the series – however short-lived it may be – must be applauded. It helps that the episode is particularly well-written and executed.

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A new review of a G1 Season 2 episode, “Auto-Bop,” is now available:

“Auto Bop” is another “mindlessly fun” episode … that isn’t quite as much fun as its predecessor “Prime Target.” It is mindless, though. Or rather, it deals with brainwashing. Or is it that, when you watch the episode, your mind goes blank? Whatever the case may be, the episode is neither inspiring, deep, or even particularly well-executed. And when it’s over, you feel like you’ve been in a hypnotic daze.

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The Image Gallery for the latest BSG episode, “4.08 - Sine Qua Non Image” is now available. The Full Review for the episode will be available tomorrow, 06.01.2008.

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The Image Gallery for the BSG episode, “4.07 - Guess What’s Coming To Dinner” is now available. The Full Review for the episode is also available.

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“The Enemy Within” has an exceptionally strong premise. In this episode, Captain Kirk must literally come face to face with his darker, more evil self. It’s a an important mythic archetype which is competently explored within the episode. With a few scenes skirting the edges of camp, the performances and dialogue are distinctly memorable. There are some technical issues in terms of the surface layer story. But with the primary focus being Captain Kirk, the episode is well worth watching.

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A new review of a G1 Season 2 episode, “Prime Target,” is now available:

“Prime Target” is an enjoyable episode primarily (pun intended) for its focus on Optimus Prime as the target of a big game hunter. The episode has shades of “The Most Dangerous Game” – which work quite well. And even if it is slightly implausible for a human to be so successful in “hunting” Autobots, the fact is easily overlooked in favor of watching the battle of wills between Optimus Prime and Lord Chumley.

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A new review of a G1 Season 2 episode, “Triple Takeover,” is now available:

“Triple Takeover” is a lot of fun. But it’s ultimately a rather poor episode. As the title implies, the Trple Changers of Astrotrain and Blitzwing “take over” – the Decepticons. It’s amusing watching them blunder their way through their plans. But in the end, it winds up being a rather pointless exercise beyond simply having an episode to feature the two Transformers. These are, afterall, commercials for the toys. But they usually aren’t this blatant.

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… but who will the actor be?

According to Empire Online, Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro had this to say about casting the pivotal role of Bilbo for the upcoming films, “We are writing based on [Ian Holm's performance], but other than that, we have ideas [of who could play him]. I can tell you that it’s down to a few names that we all agree upon. And that our first choice…completely, magically, we said the same name. All of us!”

It seems obvious to base the upcoming role on the convincing performance of Ian Holm, who portrayed Bilbo in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. But who could this “magical” choice to play Bilbo in the new films be?

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Like most episodes in Carnivàle, “Insomnia” is not especially satisfying. Indeed, by the time the episode ends, it’s hard to pinpoint reasons for enjoying it. And yet … and yet, it still, somehow, manages to be engaging and compelling. It’s quite clear that this series is not going to have a universal appeal – either you buy into it or you don’t. But even if you do buy into it, there hasn’t been a whole lot to go on from episode to episode. However, “Insomnia” does begin to provide some more meat to the story.

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A new review of a G1 Season 2 episode, “Sea Change,” is now available:

“Sea Change” is an episode about fighting for freedom … and love. And actually, the two concepts mix pretty well – save for the seemingly awkward romance between Seaspray and a humanoid female. But actually, if you can get past the notion of a robot and a humanoid having feelings for each other – seeing past one another’s “skin” the episode works fairly well.

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A new review of a G1 Season 2 episode, “Kremzeek!,” is now available:

“Kremzeek!” is one weird episode. And a lot of fun. It’s chaos, pure and simple. And watching the Autobots try and fail with one plan after another throughout the episode is highly amusing – that is, when they finally do come up with a plan. As Optimus Prime puts it, “Who has had time to even come up with a plan?” There isn’t a whole lot of depth to the episode, but its breakneck pace and frenetic action more than compensate. Put simply, this is one of the most memorable episodes in the entire G1 run.

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One of the problems with having an episode like “The Naked Time” – an episode in which the characters act out of character – occur so early in a series is that we haven’t seen the characters often enough to clearly establish who they are. And, as a result, changing the character doesn’t exactly matter as much as it might otherwise have done. Not only that, the “out of character” actions are cringeworthy. The pacing of this particular episode is also problematic, taking far too long to get to the few scenes that provide true character revelations.

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A new review of a G1 Season 2 episode, “The Gambler,” is now available:

“The Gambler” is a natural progression from “Child’s Play” so it’s curious that there were two intervening episodes in between. But if you can get past that, you’ll be in for an episode that can be a lot of fun – despite the fact that it’s so blatantly contrived. And there is a lesson, too, about gambling (big shock, I know). But it all ends up as an episode that is different enough to set it apart from the typical Transformers fare.

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A new review of a G1 Season 2 episode, “The Secret of Omega Supreme,” is now available:

“The Secret of Omega Supreme” is an episode about betrayal and revenge. It ends up being a fairly strong character sketch. It also provides a bit of backstory for Cybertron and the Constructicons – though it does contradict the already established Constructicon origins. There’s enough action in between the character moments to keep the episode engaging from start to finish. But there are a number of silly plot devices that keep the episode from being truly exceptional.

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