Amentep

I liked it too. It has some issues, but it had some fun ideas and was overall a good follow-up to Dark Castle's House on Haunted Hill remake. I liked the idea of the Black Zodiac, the house was a neat invention and they used the glasses gimmick better than the William Castle original, IMO. Shout! Factory's blu-ray is really nice looking.

Assuming that Flim-Flam is with them, then the Scooby gang is hunting for the thirteen ghosts released from Vincent Price Van Ghoul's Chest of Demons. Otherwise, someone was probably hedging their bets to end the haunting whichever way it turned out.

Not yet, but its not for a lack of trying... Seriously though, I was expecting a real train wreck, but it wasn't really that. Definitely some of the same structural problems that Discovery has; I can only assume the writers rooms are struggling to come to terms with long form episodic television. And it wasn't boring which is about the only problem I can't forgive in a movie or TV show. Can't really talk about Picard-Q since I've only seen season one. Not trying to change your opinion, but a lot of what you talk about really didn't bother me, to whit - I just got through watching all of TNG, the series that conveniently has Data relearn the exact same thing about humans a few times; that has Picard endanger himself and his ship just to communicate with an alien for the first time; who has experienced another lifetime and become more spiritual, who Q challenges to represent the best of humanity....and who also wants to let a planet die because of a whack interpretation of the Prime Directive; where Worf manages to be totally security minded and yet he also keeps his position as head of security despite being quite possibly the least effective member of the crew with just about everyone waltzing in and out of the Enterprise (and not all of them had superior tech); where the ship's counselor often blatantly disregards obvious signs of people in psychological trouble or gives specious (and perhaps dangerous) advice and also has to take bridge crew training despite being part of the bridge crew for a plot point that goes nowhere. Out of character is kind of their brand. Moreover, I understand where they're coming from within the context of the show (whether they justify how they got there is another thing entirely). The characters are all 'lost' in a way. Each of the characters have trusted someone or something and had that trust violated (Picard and Starfleet, Rafi and Picard, Rios and his Captain/Starfleet, Soji and her first romance, Jurati and Oh, Elinor and Picard, Seven and that lady on the Star Wars planet). So it makes sense that Picard at the start of the show isn't the Picard from "All Good Things..." or "Nemesis". And it makes sense why this group is the one that gets together thematically (and why Laris and her husband don't make sense to join Picard). To my mind, then, the problem with the end isn't Mass Effect Reaper\Synthetic-Cthulu in a Portal, but the fact that they don't really follow through with the theme about misplaced trust and recovery. I feel that they wanted to have the tie in to Discovery (which is why the Synthetics-from-Beyond seem to mirror the Control Ship from S2), but that misses the thematic point that I see in the show's narrative, and its why much of the conclusion isn't satisfactory from a thematic position, in my opinion, even though it wraps up the story nicely in a strictly plotting way. Because they never come back to the theme of trust, completely. This is why Seven of Sparta as a final confrontation doesn't feel satisfactory because the characters had never met to that point; the better confrontation between Romulan-Tal-Shiar-Sister would have been Romulan-Tal-Shiar-Brother affirming his choice to trust the right people (Soji) over the wrong (his sister, the Zhat Vas).* Its why its unsatisfying that Sutra never gets a comeuppance, really, for pushing her people (who trusted her) to side with what she thought was right by killing one of their own (who also trusted her). Its why, thematically, the call that Sutra put out should have never been answered, because in the end the Zhat Vash should have been shown to have spent centuries trusting in the truth of a message that had long ago become irrelevant as time swept away those long gone players from the board rather than trusting the things and people they saw before them. Its why the show needed to have some resolution for Sutra violating the trust of the people she led. Its why Riker's return to help Picard in the end should have shown the triumph of putting trust in the right people to defeat the misplaced trust Starfleet has had in Oh. Without these thematic elements satisfied, the team's 'return to adventure' scene doesn't feel earned, really. So don't get me wrong, I think the end is a mess. I totally get why people would dislike it. But I think at an entertainment level, its fine; but not everyone is going to be able to just ignore such problems. As an aside, I don't think they were dumping the Borg to necessarily kill them (although it would, probably, kill most of the xBs) but to delay the return to operation of the Borg Cube. Unless I missed a bit of dialogue where they specifically said they were terminating them (and of course, we don't know if the Romulans put in a fail safe that would ensure if the stasis pods were blown the Borg would be killed, so I guess even then, we just don't have enough information because they spent 100000% of the time on the borg cube with the sappy Soji/Romulan-dude romance). EDIT: To follow through on my thought, Data put the ultimate trust in Picard and was rewarded for that trust; that's what made those scenes work - they actually thematically fit the show. *Seven killing Romulan Zhat Vas lady is very much a direct 1-to-1 plot element; Lady kills Hugh, Seven kills Lady. Its supposed to elicit an emotive reaction of "hell yeah!" from the audience, but it can't because the confrontation isn't earned. So I understand the temptation to go with it from a plot standpoint, but its a good example of where I think the writers were struggling with long form television. It makes sense from a plotting level and maybe even an episode level, but its missed the overarching story themes and I feel like that's a re-occuring problem with the new ST shows I've seen -along with structurally wasting time on things that aren't ultimately important (Soji's time on the Borg cube could have been halved, and the Klingon stuff in S1 Discovery ultimately isn't very important to the show for how much time is spent on it).

If it helps, I also didn't hate Plan 9 from Outer Space, Raging Bull, Hawk the Slayer, The Black Hole, Blue Velvet, Gladiator, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Have Rocket Will Travel, Touch of Evil, Mr. No Legs, Shakespeare in Love, Forbidden Planet, The Warriors, North by Northwest, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, etc. So me not hating something is probably different than other people not hating something.

2nd episode of Enterprise, "Fight or Flight" liked how Hoshi had to deal with a very real fear of space travel that just drives home how unusual this would be for most of the crew. They get over their heads pretty fast and there's a bit of a horror movie vibe when they go through the other ship. So far so good. Watched the end of Picard Season 1. I didn't hate it There were some major developmental issues that I think are down to the story structure. I also kind of feel the end "team flies off to adventure" wasn't earned by the story. Be interested to see what I think of Season 2 when I get around to it.

I think the Glepnir anime only got to vol 3 or 4 in the story. I guess part of the problem of adapting a still young and ongoing story.

Space Cobra aka Supēsu Kobura Episode XXIII: "The Tomb at the Bottom of the Ocean" aka "Kaitei no Bohyō" Episode XXIV: "Care to Buy a Robot" aka "Robotto wa Ikaga?" They were fun enough episodes, but other than some character information about Lady that's not terribly definitive they don't add much to the overall mythos. Also read Vol 10 of Glepnir... Really enjoyed it. Feels like we're getting to the end of "Part 1" of the story.

I remember a local news story - they broke into a show to interrupt and over the course of an hour, the news story went like this... 1st interruption: Young child shot by intruder in the home after school! 2nd interruption: Teenager shoots younger brother! 3rd interruption: 20 year-old committed suicide.

Again I can't vouch for it, what I read was Picard's mom talks about going to Paris while his dad roots in the dirt and his brother was away in school.

Yeah, I dunno as I haven't seen it either.

Regarding Mission: Impossible - all the action stuff was never what Mission: Impossible was about, which this re-affirms my desire to never see any of the films. YMMV.

I'm good.

From what I've heard Robert was established as being away at boarding school during the childhood flashbacks in Picard. Which could make sense, as I seem to recall per TNG he was like 8 years older than Picard, if memory serves me.

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Seems like an odd promotion. I guess its an alternative to reading it for the articles, I guess. 😄 Also brings new meaning to that bean ad slogan where the guy says "Roll that beautiful bean footage!" ... ... I'll get me coat. ...and hope I don't make a typo anytime soon...

I refuse to watch any of the MI films due to the 1st Cruise film's attempt to **** on the original TV series.

Picard "The Impossible Box" and "Nepenthe" First episode was dull, and a good example of how the Soji storyline was treading water and adding nothing to the overall story. By the time we get here, we know how its going to play out, there's no surprise in the episode. I can't help but feel the story would have been better without the viewer knowing what to expect when Picard arrived; then having flashbacks to some (but not all of the scenes) when Hugh and Picard trace where she is. You'd have gotten everything you needed about Soji, Narek and Narissa without the repetitive scenes that plague the Soji stuff that made me say it was just doing time until Picard showed up. That said TIB was the fulcrum episode, now everything has turned and it feels like we're moving towards an end - even if Nepenthe could be seen as a bottle episode. We get some important pieces for Soji (more so than any of her cube scenes until Narek (intentionally?) fails to killer her) and some, I think, important bits for Picard (and seeing Riker and Troi is a lot of fun as well). Pity Hugh's part essentially wasted him; don't think he was used very well. Enterprise "Broken Bow" A wee bit on the 'have people bicker to bicker" side, but an enjoyable premiere episode. Most of the cast is given just enough to do that you have a grasp of who they are, except maybe Malcolm (we know that he's distracted by new and alien things, but it wasn't made completely clear in the episode that he was their weapons and presumably their security guy). I'd forgotten about the time travel stuff (or was my memory altered when the timeline changed? 🤔) but it makes me wonder if, with the presence of the Temporal Cold War if post Enterprise Trek could be considered its own time-line (as I speculated in Discovery's second season, that the whole Red Angel subplot could mean that Discovery and SNW are in a different time-line; Picard could go either way since its post three time-travel stories).

Full trailer now:

I kinda liked some of the ideas in the Tommyknockers, but it didn't really come together very well. Still I finished it which is more than I can say for some books. I actually only ever read the author's cut on The Stand. Someday I probably should try to read the original version.

Space Cobra - Episode XXI -"The Two Sword Kings" (Futari no Sōdo Ō) & Episode XXII - "The Underground Visitor" (Chitei no Kyaku) The Swordian 2 parter story was kind of lame, ultimately, and while the Underground Visitor had the makings of a better story, the fact that its only one episode makes the narrative turn on a dime (the biggest turn is Yuko's reveal which seems to have a pointless bait & switch over the course of about 2 seconds). Also whoever thought it was a good idea to have two back-to-back stories where Cobra fights opponents who travel underground? I'd have ditched the Swordians and split this story up into a two-parter (or combined it with the escape part of the Swordian story and made it a properly structured three parter with the first part being Cobra and Lady helping people escape the underground traveling Pirates instead of Swordians).