TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E07 Mission to Destiny

After introducing Servalan and Travis as the effective face of the Federation in "Seek-Locate-Destroy" the series initially alternated encounters between them and the crew for six episodes with self-contained stories that took a more peripheral approach. Actually, the next five would all be self-contained and could work in any order before the twelfth episode, "Deliverance", sets up the first season finale. This is one of the Federation's episodes "off", the second and last of the season to not feature them in anything other than a parting reference. There seems to be a simple reason for this; having taken the money to write all 13 episodes of the series himself, Terry Nation often used to retell with some humour how draining this was, and of pacing around his house telling his wife there were no more stories to tell. "Mission to Destiny" presumably comes after all the stories ran out.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E06 Seek-Locate-Destroy

The final part of the B7 jigsaw slots into place in "Seek, Locate, Destroy" - that of regular recurring villains. Aside from Leylan and Artix (and they were only in it as a recap, with extant footage of Rayker, and if the couple of London crew members seen at the end of "The Way Back" are in "Space Fall" I haven't spotted them) no-one outside of the Liberator crew had been in more than one episode so far and only two non-crew characters (one of whom was recast) would be added to the list over the rest of the series (though both John Bryans and Michael Wisher's characters, Bercol and Rontaine, would return for one other episode. "Seek-Locate-Destroy" however would introduce a pair of regular Federation characters in the form of Servalan and Travis. The former would go on to appear in 28 of the remaining 46 episodes, the latter in 12 of the next 21 - basically just over half of each character's lifespan.

No Girls on the Grid - Equality in Formula One

Formula One's decision to "retire" Grid Girls from the 2018 season threw the spotlight on the sport in the off-season as the latest skirmish in the tiresome battle between those rallying against the forces of political correctness and those battling objectification. It's a highly complex issue which has largely been hijacked on both sides as a cause celibre, largely by people who haven't watched a race for years and don't intend to any time soon. Who can blame them is my initial answer - I stopped watching when Michael Schumacher retired for the first time and no amount of cribbed NASCAR gimmicks will tempt me back to watching anodyne PR droids in cars that can't overtake. But there's more here beyond identity politics.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E05 The Web

"The Web" is a first for B7 for several reasons. It's the first with a settled crew, an entirely self-contained adventure - allowing for a brief moment where the crew are unsure of the procedure for firing the neutron blasters it could be switched with a later stand-alone like "Bounty" or "Mission to Destiny" with no problem. It's also the first not to actually feature the Federation, which would go on to be an occasional feature of the show. And finally for the first time and not the last something tries to use Cally as a telepathic conduit to take over the ship - it's also not the first or last time it will be some long lost creature from Auron that does it either. Considering Jenna's initial distrust of her that this happens straight away is either very smart or very dumb. Or would be if her remarks from "Time Squad" were ever followed up on as the pair instantly become pals because they're both women. Both Terry Nation (Abby Grant) and Chris Boucher  (Leela) can write strong, well-rounded female characters but for B7 most of their energy was quickly drawn towards the Blake/Avon dynamic.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E04 Time Squad

"Time Squad" is often grouped with the opening trilogy of episodes due to the debut of Cally, the last of the original crew but that aside the format is much closer for what will become the default template of the first season and the opening episodes of the second - part of the crew teleport down to do something proactive against the Federation while the remainder face some minor crisis on the Liberator which may or may not dovetail with  the surface action - but more likely will just result in the ship not being on station at some crucial point to provide a getaway, allowing for people to be locked up. Indeed, the only real difference between Cally and the later guest allies is that she survives and gets offered a slot on the crew.

Toy Review - Machine Robo Series 07 - Shuttle Robo/Gobots Masterpiece Spay-C

The joy I felt from the return (after what felt like a worrying hiatus) of Action Toys' Machine Robo Series was tempered a little by the choice of two characters I wasn't particularly keen on in any real form. The original Shuttle Robo, ported over to Gobots as the Guardian Spay-C, was one of the weaker toys of the series despite the cool alt mode, while the character didn't grab in either of the cartoons. In Revenge of Cronos Shuttle Robo was largely a background character, a member of the arrogant but basically sound Land Commander 5 team; in Challenge of the Gobots Spay-C was a female Guardian who didn't really do much, especially as the faction had a more popular space-going female in Path Finder. But obviously I bought the toy anyway, because Masterpiece Gobots.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E03 Cygnus Alpha

The last of the opening arc, "Cygnus Alpha" marks the end of the initial imprisonment/escape arc and the beginning of a shift to more episodic traditional sci-fi adventuring. It also marks the beginning of what would be a recurring format for the show, that of "A" and "B" plots; with five to six human regulars at any one point in order to give everyone something to do the crew would be split in half, typically with one group teleporting down to the surface of a planet on some mission and the other half staying on the ship and typically having some kind of minor drama. The general rule of thumb was that this format would only be eschewed for big episodes, though it would also come into play when the writers ran out of things to give the female characters to do.

Comic Review - X-Men Legacy Vol 1: Prodigal

Legion is one of those characters that dropped off my own mental map at some point - obviously I remember "LeqionQuest", though now I think about it I mainly remember "The Age of Apocalypse" and not much of the catalyst story beyond the Legion killing Professor X in the past bit. I couldn't tell you what happened to Legion, a.k.a Charles Xavier's son David Haller, in the intervening years so just have to take the Marvel NOW book featuring him as I find it.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E02 Space Fall

"Space Fall" is a direct continuation of the first episode of Blake's 7, part of a tightly plotted trilogy that opened the series. Few episodes later would be quite so closely connected either in the narrative sense or in the tonal sense; while Season 2's quest for Star One nominally provided a longer arc it was more of a macguffin chase with a sometimes questionable connection. Here though we catch up with Blake on the transport ship London as per the end of "The Way Back", and most of the action would take place on the vessel. The rough gist is that Blake is being transported to the penal colony on Cygnus Alpha, soon banding together with a few allies - the previously introduced Jenna and Vila plus the new additions Avon, Gan and Nova.

TV Review - Blake's 7: S1E01 The Way Back

The first episode of Blake's 7 is probably the most unique. It's all about Blake for one; while both Jenna and Vila debut they don't actually get much more work than most of the other supporting characters. It's also entirely set on Earth - only the Season 2 episode "Pressure Point" and Season 3's "Rumours of Death" would actually directly visit the planet again. And finally it actually looks moderately expensive; it's not the most original of observations but the opening episode wouldn't need much work to function as a one-off play. 

Comic Review - Avengers vs X-Men

To shake up the status quo of the Marvel Universe ahead of the Marvel NOW! relaunch strategy the company naturally went for a big mad event and decided to pit its' two premiere teams against each other. Both have evolved considerably since I last properly read the titles. The Avengers have gone from being just another superteam that spent long periods struggling to live up to the Earth's Mightiest title to an all-star Justice League type roster of the company's premiere heroes while the X-Men have become more of a political collective, given their own island Utopia. Off-panel as well there have been some changes to the stats quo as well - to whit that the box office success of the heavily Avengers-centric Marvel Universe has turned what was a single book that for vast chunks of the preceding decades was kept ticking over out of seeming obligation has become the hub around which Marvel's comics arm rotates. Conversely, the X-Men film franchise was (until a recent takeover) owned by dastardly evil empire Fox, who refused to hand over the rights they'd paid for. While mutant sales are strong Marvel have subtly done what they can to try and position their books as of secondary concern and by the time AvX was published the pressure was becoming more overt.

[CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ANYONE ELSE FIVE YEARS BEHIND]

Minifixation Update

More fresh piping hot reviews! From the Marvel universe there's the sensational She-Hulk, the improbable Nick Fury Jr, Sunspot, a stealth-suited Iron Man, the Red Widow, a bigger cuter Kingpin, Black Tom Cassidy and the Executioner Skurge.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe gets updated versions of Drax and Yondu, the Janet van Dyne version of the Wasp, Spider-Man's flashy new Infinity War suit, the Brickfig Hulkbuster, Justin Hammer, Odin and the Patriot.

From DC comics there's Jim Gordon as Batman, Bruce Wayne, Star Sapphire, Jessica Cruz and Lois Lane, while their animated spin-offs turn up Robin and Red X.

Plus of course a surprise appearance from Captain Canuck.

Comic Review: Captain Marvel - In Pursuit of Flight

Preamble - I used to be a major Marvel obsessive. From the nineties through to just after the millenium I bought anything and everything - Wonder Man, Ghost Rider 2099, even Infinity Crusade, voraciously hunting down back issues and trades, loving the universe. Then in around 2002 a mixture of being poor and Grant Morrison & Kurt Busiek being replaced on my favourite books by Chuck Austen & Geoff Johns put me off. Once I was out I dabbled occasionally - Civil War, nextwave - but never really followed much. Modern ongoing comics had no appeal to me and I was pretty sure it was all rubbish. An attempt to at least follow IDW's disastrous Transformers for some sort of connection to an art form I theoretically love twice ended badly, the most recent resulting in me not actually reading any even vaguely new comics for something like six months, leaving me assuming everything was that smug, that intolerably insular, that derivative and that obsessed with meta. However, a friend recommended I give Marvel's NOW! relaunch a go for something different but not contrarian, sending me a reading order. The same person recommended I watch Drive and that's a track record you can hang a few comics recommendations on. The starting point given was just before NOW!, with the seventh series of Captain Marvel. As said, apart from a few storylines I've read nothing since about 2002, so these are the musings of a lapsed fan trying to get back into the universe. Preamble ends...

Minifigures: G.I.Joe - Kopf KF-348 to 355

As some of you may know I used to collect G.I.Joe figures, especially the 25th/30th Anniversary ones. However, a mixture of a lack of space to set them up in, the impending arrival of my daughter and the spike in prices on eBay meant I cleared them all out. These days counterfeit Minifigures are my main source of plastic crack - cheap, small and child-friendly. Most of the ones I collect are of superheroes - after several format attempts here I eventually set up a satellite blog for these called Minifixation - but there are some others out there, including a nascent range of G.I.Joe-themed figures.

Film Review: Transformers - The Last Knight

I held off reviewing the fifth Transformers film when it was on release over the summer; I had other projects on the go, I was a little tired when I went to see it, spending as much time looking at my watch, and there were a couple of queries about it that I wasn't entirely convinced weren't down to me missing something massive. I wasn't keen but I wasn't prepared to slaughter a film on one compromised viewing but the release of the DVD gave me a chance to re-evaluate it. Results were mixed; with better preparation for a letdown (anyone who reads mainstream reviews of the films, which have quickly become a Nickelback-esque punching bag for critics who make their mind up before the film even starts) it was less of a letdown but basically none of the film's problems were solved.

[SPOILERS FOLLOW]

Toy Review: EM Gokin EM-03 Blue Jet

A couple of months ago, bereft and emotional at the seeming cancellation of Action Toys' Machine Robo line (since announced to be resuming after an eight month hiatus, with two new figures and a series of retro-tinged recolours and retools - nice!) I gave in and bought this thing, which came out about two years ago as part of the Fewture Gokin line, covering licenced characters from a handful of semi-forgotten animes. And there is not a day since it arrived that I have looked at it and hated it. It's not a problem with the stylisation; it's Blue Jet from Revenge of Cronos, not Fitor from Gobots. 

Six Reasons You Will Never Get The Transformers Film You Want

Initial box office figures for the fifth Transformers film, The Last Knight, have been underwhelming while the reviews have been the usual lazy hackwork, though this time it seems that even fans of Michael Bay's envisioning have been left unimpressed. I've yet to see it so I'm reserving personal judgement but as usual it's taken fandom little time to crack out the knives, further fuelled by the apparent exit of Bay from the franchise. Putting aside that it seems to be a familiar pattern slash negotiating tactic from Bay (who only took the assignment on Age of Extinction as leverage to raise money for Pain & Gain) many seem to be heralding this as an end to his style of Transformers films and the chance for something more cerebral. It won't be, and here's why.

Digital Archive: Robo Machine featuring the Challenge of the Gobots Mini World series

Past posts have touched upon the unsatisfying history of Gobots in print even at the height of their commercial success - rather than a licence with Marvel or even someone terrible like Malibu there was a token mail order magazine from Telepictures while in the UK a run in IPC Fleetway's Eagle was superb but soon followed by a switch to the infamous World International Publishing, most often known as World Distributors. They didn't actually publish comics but instead licenced annuals (two Gobots examples were issued in 1986 and 1987; both were terrible, the first being a possible nadir for Western creative writing) and storybooks based on extant properties with some appeal to kids - most notably their savaging of the likes of Doctor Who and Blake's 7 under approval of the BBC.

Film Review: Transformers - Age of Extinction

I've been an avid fan of Michael Bay's take on Transformers since 2007. As a grown adult I can appreciate a different take on Transformers, realising that me liking it isn't compulsory; in an era of IDW's turgid, soul-destroying comics and some largely poor, unimaginative cartoons the films don't stand out as a particularly poor area. The first in 2007 did a fine job of relaunching the line into genuine popularity with a confident swagger; 2009's Revenge of the Fallen sandwiched a poor middle section between a superb opening and a decent conclusion but at least showed that errors from the franchise's past wouldn't be repeated. 2011's Dark of the Moon delivered solid big-screen action after a slow and overcomplicated start. 2014's Age of Extinction meanwhile greatly disappointed me; while the revamp of the universe showed considerable promise the actual execution was arguably spottier than any of the previous three instalments.

[Contains minor trailer spoilers for The Last Knight]

Comic Review: Transformers - Punishment

PUBLISHER: IDW (2014)

WRITER: JOHN BARBER

ARTIST: LIVIO RAMONDELLI

Note: this will probably be the last of the IDW reviews for the blog. I can't go on reading this shit, it is killing me.

Originally released as some sort of interactive Internet thing for young people in the mistaken belief fandom wasn't generally the wrong side of thirty and the younger ones were actually interested in IDW's output, Punishment was - like the Spotlight: Shit Overpriced Toy strand - written out of sequence for logistical reasons, like being able to give motion to characters' head exploding.