Jun 2024 – JG Judgementally Comments…

Star Trek: Discovery – Season 5

Star Trek: Discovey bows out with a fifth, final, season. But can it manage a late-in-the-day turnaround?

What’s the Show? Star Trek: Discovery and it’s fifth and final season.

What’s It All About, JG? Well, it’s a quest, innit? The crew of the Discovery are sent on a “red directive” to investigate a Romulan science vessel from 800 years in the past, where they chance upon two couriers, Moll and L’ak, who find a journal. This relates to the Progenitors tech from the TNG episode “The Chase”. The journal provides clues and whoever can track down all of them gets the technology they used. This is, of course, awesomely powerful. Book gets roped back in because he’s on the show, the Breen get involved as the Big Bad and want to use it as a weapon, and the Federation want it to stop it being misused and also cuz they’re da best. The rest of the season is a runaround to establish who will get all the bits and thus the tech. After a lot of episodes of “find the thing”, Michael Burnham (who else?) manages to secure the tech but decides nobody should have it so casts it away. Then Saru gets married. Then we get a flash-forward to Burnam and Book being married with a son, and Burnam taking the Discovery to a new location and leaving it there for a long time to away a new red directive.

Doctor Who Season 14, Episode 7 – “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” / Episode 8 “Empire of Death”

After a wobbly season, can Russell T Davies manage to at least stick the landing?

What’s The Episode? The two-part season finale The Legend of Ruby Sunday and Empire of Death.

What’s It All About, JG? The Doctor returns to UNIT and meets up with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jenna Redgrave), Mel (Our Bonnie), and assorted other UNIT bods. Kate wants help finding out who the mysterious Susan Triad, head of S Triad Technology, is – someone the Doctor and Ruby have been encountering in various different forms on their travels together. Mel’s undercover and investigating and while she does that, Mrs Flood (Anita Dobson) pops into take over caring for Cherry while Ruby’s Mum Carla (Michelle Greenidge) joins the shenanigans at UNIT. Turns out they have a Time Window, a device that lets them look back in time and they use a VHS of the night of Ruby’s abandonment to try and figure out who her biological Mum is. This overloads the Time Window, taking a UNIT Colonel with it. Susan (Not That One, despite the play) prepares to give a speech to the UN but before she can, a UNIT employee – the perfetctly-dreadfully named Harriet Arbinger – announces that The One Who Waits has in fact stop waiting and it’s Sutekh, who turns up for a nice end-of-episode reveal. Which is nice.

Doctor Who Season 14, Episode 6 – “Rogue”

Time for a historical romp! But can the Doctor’s romance right a struggling season?

What’s The Episode? Rogue

What’s It All About, JG? The Doctor and Ruby travel back to Regency England where they say the word “Bridgerton” a lot, in case the audience don’t get it. There they encounter mysterious bounty-hunter Rogue (Jonathan Groff) who is there to… er, stop the Chulder? They’re shape-shifting aliens who enjoy cosplaying but also suddenly decide they want to destroy the world for a bit of added jeopardy. The Doctor and Rogue have a bit of a romance while Ruby largely gets lost in a typical love-plot of the era. Eventually (very eventually) the Chulda are defeated, the world is saved, Rogue sacrifices himself to save Ruby, and that’s pretty much that.

Doctor Who Season 14, Episode 5 – “Dot And Bubble”

Can the fifth episode of the season manage to land its satire? Is it satire?

What’s the Episode? Dot and Bubble

What’s It All About, JG? Lindy Pepper-Bean, an insufferable rich brat, is a resident of the town (?) of Finetime, a chintzy, dayglo residence where she lives within a literal bubble of social media and friends, projected round her by a floating “dot”. First Ruby, then the Doctor, try to break into her feed because the residents are slowly (very slowly, actually) being eaten by slug-like creatures. Lindy, unable to even walk in a straight line without guidance from her dot, manages to escape her place of work with the Doctor and Ruby’s help and encounters Ricky, a vacuous singer who turns out to actually be fairly smart underneath it all. They’re directed to the basement by the Doctor to try and escape. While trying to open a door to let them out into the Wild Woods beyond, the Doctor realises the dot is responsible for all the deaths and it turns violent and tries to kill Lindy. She sacrifices Ricky so she can escape, then finally meets the Doctor and Ruby in real life, where other members of the Finetime community are waiting. But rather than allow the Doctor to rescue them, they sail off into the Wild Woods, presumably to die terrible deaths, while the Doctor rages against his inability to save them.