Project: Nirvana is a Doctor Who audio drama presented by Big Finish Productions, that well known supplier of such entertainment.  This episode was released in 2012 and is part of the range known as The Companion Chronicles.  Cavan Scott and Mark Wright are the writers with Ken Bentley back in the director’s seat.  Maggie O’Neill and Amy Pemberton are Big Finish original characters Captain Lysandra Aristedes and Private Sally Morgan and share narration duties.  The special guest performer is none other than the Seventh Doctor himself, Sylvester McCoy.

This episode also brings back the organization known as the Forge, which was introduced in Colin Baker’s Big Finish episode Project: Twilight.  The Forge had some similarities to Torchwood in that they collected alien equipment left behind in all of the invasions foiled by the Doctor or by some other means.  The Forge had a much more ruthless outlook on how such finds were to be employed.  I rather miss the Forge which was under the iron grip of a leader code named Nimrod.

Anyway the Doctor, Aristedes and Morgan find that a dangerous creature has been let loose, and they must do something about it.

The alien in this one isn’t a bad idea.  The actors all did fine as they usually do, however I didn’t find that actual story to be all that enthralling.  I didn’t find it to be all that terrible either.  The story had some interesting moments such as when we find a younger version of Aristedes on the scene.  The creature has some interesting psychological effects on the heroes.  The episode was competently written and very well performed, but it still felt a bit middle of the road.

Underwater is a science fiction horror film written by Brian Duffield and Adam Cozad.  The director is William Eubank.  Kristen Stewart is the lead protagonist with Vincent Cassel, T.J. Miller, Jessica Henwick, and Mamoudou Athie as part of the cast.  The film draws some inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft.

It’s not exactly the most original of plots, but the film works overall.  A group of deep sea drillers are stationed about six miles under the ocean.  The station suffers a catastrophic breach that occurs about just two minutes into the film.  I thought for a couple of moments that it was a dream sequence experienced by Stewart’s character, however that was not the case.  Stewart plays a young chemical engineer named Norah who manages to lead another crew member to other survivors of the initial collapse of the base.  As the survivors try to make their way to another base a mile away, they find that new and savage intruders stand in their way.

There were some pretty effective frights throughout the film.  Stewart is often panned for a limited range of acting, and that criticism is usually fair.  She does manage to keep my interest this time. Everyone in the cast manages to sell it throughout the film.  The visual effects were also quite convincing.  The deep sea creatures were very well designed.  I might have ended up with nightmares if I had seen this as a child.

There were times on the ocean floor where it was hard to determine what was actually happening.  I understand that some of how the action was shot and edited was supposed to provide a sense of frightening realism, but it pulls me out of it a bit as my brain tries to catch up with what the characters are experiencing.

There wasn’t much explanation as to the origin of the creatures, however I found that I liked that.  The film was about how these people were going to survive the onslaught, and I thought it was a good decision to just focus on that other than spending much time trying to figure out as to why these things are so testy.

For those of us who enjoy a good cinematic fright every now and then, this film manages to deliver just that.  I still wouldn’t all it a future classic or anything like that, but it made a more lasting impression on me than I expected.

The Queen of Time is a Doctor Who audio play released in 2012 by Big Finish Productions.  It is an episode from a range known as The Lost Stories, which were initially written for television but ended up not being produced for one reason or another.  Catherine Harvey is the scriptwriter who adapted a pitch conceived initially by Brian Hayles in the 1960’s.  Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury share narration duties as well as reprise their roles as Jamie and Zoe, respectively.  Hines once again shares his impression of the late Patrick Troughton as the Second Doctor.  Lisa Bowerman is the director of this episode.  Caroline Faber is the guest performer who plays an immortal, all-powerful being known as Hebuca who also dubs herself as the Queen of Time. She has an unusual fondness for clocks and various sorts of timepieces. She also has a similar taste for games and puzzles much like another entity in which long-time fans would recognize.

The Doctor and his two companions find themselves trapped in the Queen’s realm and forced to endure her cruel challenges.  Jamie and Zoe are separated from the Doctor, who is held prisoner by Hebuca as he is forced to watch their plight.

It would be pretty easy to dismiss this episode as something that has already been explored, however the performances of all of the cast keeps one pretty riveted.  I was waiting for that moment for the connection to a previous First Doctor story to be fully revealed even though I knew there was no real mystery in that.  Faber pitches the seductive nastiness just right in her vocal performance.  Padbury and Hines are typically very engaging in this one.  They have worked together on enough of these episodes to no longer be astonished by their efficiency and effectiveness.  Hines continues to honor his deceased friend and costar with an affectionate impression of how Troughton would likely have read the lines.

Yes, this episode is a bit of a retread in many ways, and I wouldn’t say there are any great twists or surprises, although there is a dinner scene which is rather more gruesome than what I would have thought one would see on the telly during Troughton’s era.

Harvey’s creative choices to extend the story into something that could stretch to two hours are actually quite good.  She didn’t have much to work with since Hayles never actually wrote a script, but she made great use of what she did have.

Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror is the latest Doctor Who episode with Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor.  Mandip Gill, Bradley Walsh, and Tosin Cole are still aboard the TARDIS playing Yasmin, Graham, and Ryan respectively.   This latest story is written by Nina Metivier and directed by Nida Manzoor.   Goran Visnjic joins the guest cast as inventor Nikola Tesla.  Tesla’s rival, Thomas Edison, is portrayed by Robert Glenister.  Anji Mohindra and Haley McGee round out the main guest cast.

In 1903 America, The Doctor and her friends meet Nikola Tesla who is being hunted by a renegade alien knows as the Skithra Queen.  The Skithra are wanting to use Tesla’s inventive genius to repair their ship.  Thomas Edison also gets caught up in the mess, which does not help since he and Tesla are not exactly fond of each other.

This episode wasn’t terrible.  It’s not going to rank as any spectacular addition to the series, but I liked some of the ideas explored.  It reminded me of some of the earlier episodes of the Russell T. Davies or Steven Moffat eras.  Visnjic was pretty good as Tesla. Really all of the guest cast was pretty good, although I was not that impressed with the realization of the Skithra.  Mohindra did the best she could, I think.  I guess I didn;t find her all that menacing.  The Doctor dismisses her as a scavenger and bully.  I do like that we get a new adversary though. It’s just that I didn’t find her all that compelling or threatening if she needs to snatch an inventor from the early twentieth century to repair her ramshackle ship.

I am probably just getting used to Whittaker’s performance, but I didn’t find her performance too off the mark this week.  She just can’t quite come off as intimidating as some of the previous incarnations when she is being confrontational with whatever alien menace if before her for the week.

There is not much emphasis on the relationship between the companions this year, which is nice.  I still think the focus should be on the Doctor, even if this isn’t a favorite incarnation.

This may end up being one of the better episodes of the current year, but it’s not going to hold up much within the Doctor Who canon as a whole.  At least, I didn’t outright hate this one, which may be about as high as enjoyment is going to get as long as Chris Chibnall is at the helm of the production.

Amarillo Little Theater continues its long tradition of entertaining plays performed by a talented cast.  Even the plays that are not often my cup of tea still manage to keep me pretty well engaged.  Baskerville is a much more comedic take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, certainly one of the most popular  adventures to feature renowned fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes.  This version of the story also has the unique experience of only being played by five performers, with three of them hurriedly switching from role to role.

Zeke Lewis dons the deerstalker and cloak as Sherlock Holmes with Jeffrey Pickens at his side as Doctor Watson.  Brandon Dawson, Brooks Boyett, and Kara Leimer play everyone else.

Sir Henry Baskerville is portrayed as a Texan who inherits the cursed property in Dartmoor.  I thought that was a nice touch.  I do wonder if the original adaptation by Ken Ludwig had that or if that was somehow adjusted by the cast.

I ended up getting more into after the intermission though.  I suspect that this is likely because I am a bit of a purist snob, and it takes me some time to warm up to the slapstick being presented here.  I did appreciate the moments where the Fourth Wall was overlooked, and the audience was brought more directly into the joke.

Once I was able to use my imagination during the location changes because the set never changed, I was more appreciative of  the detail given to design the famous 221 B Baker Street lodgings.

I am no expert on plays, so I am not sure there were any technical flaws that would have caught my eye, but I think my overall admiration for the performances were strong enough for me to forgive them.

So the play has another weekend to go before the Amarillo Little Theater preps for their next show.  If anyone in Amarillo reads this or is stopping through in the next few days,  would certainly recommend an evening out at the theater next week.

Bad Boys For Life is the latest action film to reunite Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reprising their roles as Miami detectives Mike Lowry and Marcus Burnett.  There has been change behind the scenes with two directors named Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah instead of Michael Bay.  It also took three people to come up with the screenplay.  Chris Bremner, Peter Craig, and Joe Carnahan are the scribes of this latest caper for Lowry and Burnett.  Joe Pantoliano returns as Captain Howard.  Vanessa Hudgens, Paola Nunez, and Alexander Ludwig are included in the cast with Kate del Castillo and Jacob Scipio playing the cartel leaders who launch a mysterious vendetta against Lowry.

This is a likable enough film with some rough spots in the plotting.  Smith and Lawrence have lost none of their chemistry.  There are some pretty entertaining gags regarding their age.  Burnett is a newly minted grandfather while Lowry is still the sharply dressed bachelor playboy with some notoriety in Miami.  Lowry is gunned down near the beginning of the film and is understandably curious as to which of his many enemies has such an objection to his continued existence.  Burnett has decided to retire and needs convincing to join the hunt.  Another tragedy motivates him to get back into the fray, and it’s a tough one.

I rather liked the exploration of how getting older affects the two leads.  The bantering and bickering between Lowry and Burnett is written pretty sharply as well as the rivalry with the younger colleagues with whom they end up being allied.

Not everything was all that well thought out, but the charisma and chemistry displayed by Smith and Lawrence goes a long way to making some of the wobbly moments a bit more forgivable.   There is a surprising motivation behind the vendetta against Lowry. Some of the revelations were a little bit hard to swallow, however the movie as a whole was still entertaining.

The fight scenes were pretty well executed.  The chase scenes were pretty thrilling.  Pretty much all of the action sequences were well done.

There were some surprising moments of emotional connection between some of the characters.  There is an interesting moment between the captain and Lowry where the question of what Lowry really wants in his life comes into play.

Not all of the jokes landed perfectly, but there were enough that did land solidly enough to make this an enjoyable viewing.

It felt strangely right to have Lowry and Burnett back on the big screen.  As long as one can somewhat embrace the ridiculousness of this film, it turns out to be a pretty fun movie.  It did kind of leave wanting to see these guys together again.

Orphan 55 is the latest episode of Doctor Who to feature Jodie Whittaker in the lead role. She is still in the company of Bradley Walsh, Toson Cole, and Mandip Gill.  This episode was written by Ed Hime and directed by Lee Haven Jones.

The Doctor and her friends are whisked away by a transport cube for an unexpected holiday to a place known as Tranquility Spa on what is thought to be a distant planet. Strange savage creatures known as Dregs break through the barrier into the spa and starts killing the guests.  A small group of survivors come together with the Doctor trying to find the secrets behind the chaos.  There is also a a rather unexpected family reunion with a couple of the guest characters.

The guest cast includes Laura Fraser, Gia Re, and Julia Foster, and they do their best with only a mildly interesting episode.

The Dregs were fine as the monster of the week. There was some creativity in the design.  There are some aspects of the story that seemed overly familiar.  It was just a mishmash of concepts that have been visited before in the series.

The episode just didn’t leave much of an impression on me one way or the other.  It wasn’t the worst I have seen as other critics have suggested, however it certainly isn’t one worth remembering for any significant amount of time.  This series is somewhat better than Whittaker’s debut season, however it has yet to really impress me.  I may just have to live with Whittaker’s era merely being tolerable, and that may be just because I still love Doctor Who used to be and what it could be with better writing.

The Master of Blackstone Grange is a Sherlock Holmes audio play released by Big Finish Productions.  This release also has a bonus adventure entitled The Adventure of the Fleet Street Transparency, both scripted by Jonathan Barnes.  Ken Bentley is the director this particular audio release.  Nicholas Briggs and Richard Earl return to the imagined lodgings of Bake Street as Sherlock Holmes, Dr. John Watson, respectively.

The first story starts off with Watson bringing a peculiar matter of his barber’s wife disappearing inexplicably.  Holmes is quite taken aback when his nemesis, Sebastian Moran, is released from prison.  Colonel Sebastian Moran was the chief lieutenant of the criminal enterprise headed by Professor James Moriarty.  Clues and circumstances take Holmes and Watson to Blackstone Grange where they encounter a mysterious landowner named “Honest” Jim Sheedy, whose fortune has hazy origins.  Also, Dr. Watson meets an intriguing woman.

This is a three hour adventure here.  It’s actually pretty good, but I am it does feel a little long.  Richard Earl still does a remarkable job as narrator and performer.  Briggs also delivers an interesting take on Holmes.  There seems to be some exploration of the period where Holmes and Watson middle-aged.  Watson has moved back to Baker Street after his wife’s passing.

Harry Peacock, Lucy Briggs-Owens, and Tim Bentinck are part of the guest cast.  John Banks portrays Colonel Moran and does a great job.  The story does drag at times, but it still has plenty of interesting moments.  Earl has the heaviest load here since he also narrates as Dr. Watson. There are some threads that lead back to Texas.

I also was interested that this takes place around Christmas of 1899, so there are questions concerning the changes swirling around Holmes and Watson at the dawn of what be a new century to them.

The Adventure of the Fleet Street Transparency has a longer title but is a much shorter installment.  Barnes elected to have the Baker Street face something quite a bit more supernatural.  Holmes and Watson will wander into the realm of H.G. Wells, but that’s all I will say about that.

It’s a lighter adventure than the first one.  This type of direction for Sherlock Holmes is not my favorite, however I still found some enjoyment here.  I guess I am getting more used to Nicholas Briggs’ take on Holmes, however I think Earl’s voice as Watson is quite compelling.

Blake Ritson, Anjella MacKintosh, and Leighton Pugh make up the guest cast and are well selected, however that’s no surprise.  There seems to be no shortage of talent found by the Big Finish folks.

Although I am not sure that Blackstone Grange needed three hours to tell the story, this release was still quite good for the most part. There are some interesting moments of friction in the relationship between Holmes and Watson.  Watson doesn’t quite come off as the sycophant as he is sometimes presented in other tales.  I never really disliked Briggs’ interpretation of Holmes, but I do think I can developing a deeper appreciation for it,  I think other previous depictions will still be a preference, but Briggs’ love for the character is something I share and appreciate.

Anyway, whatever misgivings I have expressed are really pretty minor, and I don’t have any hesitation in recommending giving this one a try.

Just Mercy is a film based on the true story of a wrongfully convicted death row inmate in Alabama who is aided by Harvard attorney Bryan Stevenson who finds the evidence presented in the original trial to be a somewhat dodgy.  The film is directed by Destin Daniel Crettin, who also co-wrote the script with Andrew Lanham.  It is based on the memoir written by Stevenson.  Jamie Foxx and Michael B. Jordan lead the cast which which includes Brie Larson, Tim Blake Nelson, and O’Shea Jackson Jr.

Foxx plays the unfortunate Walter McMillian, who has been sentenced to death after being charged with the murder of am 18 year-old white woman in Monroe County, Alabama.  Jordan plays the determined attorney, Bryan Stevenson who takes on the appeal.  It’s based on a true story, however the incompetence that is depicted in the investigation at times seem too outlandish to believe.  I am not saying that I disbelieve that McMillian was not the recipient of a gross injustice.  I am not sure what elements depicted was artistic license and was actually accurate.  I might have to read the book if I get more curious obviously.

The performances were quite extraordinary,  Jordan’s acclaim as an actor seems quite well earned.  Foxx of course is a master at tugging the heartstrings as well.  Really, the acting talent runs abound all over this film.  It just manages to avoid the depiction of all white people being terrible racists, which I appreciated.  I am a proponent of the death penalty, but I am a bigger proponent of getting the right bad guy regardless of the ethnicity.  Stevenson’s final argument for justice and at times mercy did resonate with me.  If the evidence portrayed in this film  was as flimsy in real life, I have to say that I am glad that Mr. McMillian spent his final years in the free world.  As for Bryan Stevenson, he seems like a pretty decent fellow as well, and I hope that the people he ends up helping really are the victims of flawed prosecution.

It’s a pretty good film, and it does tell an important story.

 

Warzone/Conversion is a Doctor Who audio double feature from Big Finish Productions.  Peter Davison is of course the Fifth Doctor while Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding reprise their roles as Nyssa and Tegan, respectively.  George Watkins is still on board as a former slave in Ancient Rome named Marc.  These are a pair of two-parters in the 258th release of the monthly range, directed by Scott Handcock.

Chris Chapman is the writer of Warzone which has Silas Carson and Pepter Lunkuse as part of the guest cast.  The Doctor and his companions land in the middle of a race with a lot of participants.  The Doctor learns that the runners subject themselves to upgrades that seem disturbingly familiar.

This is one of those stories which gets better in the second half.  It just seems to serve as a setup for the second story which has a more intense and dramatic purpose.  The episode is pretty good, but the real meat is in the second entry.

Guy Adams picks it up with Conversion which sees David Banks and Mark Hardy return as the version of the Cybermen featured during most of the 1980’s when they encountered the Doctor during the fifth, sixth, and seventh incarnations.

One of the more interesting aspects here is that the Doctor finally faces the aftermath of Adric’s death which occurred in the television serial entitled Earthshock. He does finally express some real regret over Adric’s death which was brought about by a confrontation with the Cybermen.

I like this story because it delves into the horror of the conversion process.  Marc has been infected with technology that kicks off the cyber conversion process, and the Doctor is desperate to not lose another companions because of his silver adversaries.

Many fans like the Daleks, however I was much more intrigued by the Cybermen, and they were used effectively here.

The cast continues to perform well.  I am not necessarily a big fan of Marc yet, but he got a bit more interesting once the story was about rescuing him.

I had a little trouble imagining everything that was occurring in this episode, but I still enjoyed this one.  I’m just a sucker for the Cybermen, I guess.