Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

As can happen in such an incredible season of a series where the episodes featured within are often good to great, a few need to be seen perhaps within a marathon where they don’t have to seemingly fall after a string of classics such as “The Hitch-Hiker”, “Mirror Image”, or “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”. And “Long Live Walter Jameson” follows another classic episode I think has “moved up the charts” of TZ fandom over the years, “A World of Difference”. But I think in the case of Walter Jameson , it is the (back)story of the title character that gives the episode this intrigue that is never altogether elaborated beyond a certain bit of history. Jameson (Kevin McCarthy) is a professor of history (and why wouldn’t he be?), engaged to a chemistry professor’s (Edgar Stehli) 29 year old daughter (Dodie Heath), studying to get her PhD. James in his classes can so vividly evoke whatever period he teaches, it is as if he was reciting history from actual experience. And Stehli’s...

Cally is fed up I admit that this episode of Battlestar Galactica was ruined by an announcement with my employer regarding an obvious potential job loss and obviously stuck in quarantine because of the pandemic hasn’t helped matters. And this episode was driven mostly by political intrigue and civil war, with a dark descent for Tory, who takes it upon herself to shoot Cally out an airlock in order to maintain her secret of being a Cylon (“skinjob”). Lee Adama is now part of the Quorum Government in the fleet and it didn’t take long for him to be at odds with President Roslin regarding tribunals and the government seemingly under Roslin’s control, and Starbuck on the Demetrius, with the likes of Gaeta and Anders in the small, makeshift crew, seemingly on route to nowhere. Cally, in this episode, is fed up with Tyrol’s absence in her life, as the baby cries and she feels so alone. Tyrol is caught with Tory at a bar, and Cally takes obvious exception to it…Cally later listens beh...

I was sort of burned by “A View to a Kill” as I realized I had written extensive user comments in 2012. This was after the same sort of extensive write-up for a review for the blog. I might include the user comments for the archive later.  I did find some brief and rather tightly managed user comments in 2010 which I included for the archive earlier while watching “You Only Live Twice” (1967), featuring Bond (Connery, thought to be his final adieu to 007, lured back in with “Diamonds Are Forever” (1971)) in the Orient, investigating possible SPECTRE activity, “stealing” space shuttles while Russia and America orbit the planet, as Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence, with the scarred eye/face, “gentlemanly English voice with that obvious balance of genius and madness”, and demeanor of clear psychopathy) seeks to cause a World War between the Super Powers as the British believe there’s more than meets the eye.  Bond in a faux marriage ceremony with Kissy Suzuki (Mi...

This is the review from ten years ago, August 7, 2010, user comments from my barely used IMDb account: How about a James Bond film with some Oriental flavor. Bond(Connery)joins forces with Japanese allies to find the secret SPECTRE headquarters of arch nemesis Blofeld(a memorable scar-faced Donald Pleasence)located in a volcano, responsible for kidnapping US and Russia space shuttles while orbiting earth, attempting to cause war between the two countries. Connery, of course, has the same charm and charisma he always does and the impressive sets(particularly the aforementioned headquarters in the volcano)are eye-popping. Blofeld even has a pool of piranha fish he feeds humans to if they fail him. Akiko Wakabayashi and Mie Hama are the Japanese bond girls(Akiko as Aki suffering a tragic fate swallowing poison meant for Bond)with Tetsurô Tanba as Tiger Tanaka, James' major connection(they're code is "I Love You")in Tokyo. The finale is a slam bang affair with lots o...

Roger Moore, one last time as 007 "A View to a Kill" (1985), is considered one of the worst Bond films, and I don't believe time has necessarily ever rescued it from that distinction. The criticisms are much: Moore was too old, Tanya Roberts, hot but bland (with a boring character) Bond romantic interest, Walkin in blond coif annihilating mine workers with a machine gun, the stunt doubles too transparent, and just a general lack of exotic locales in favor of San Francisco. We do get a fun action sequence set in Siberia but shot actually in Iceland involving Russian agents pursuing Moore's stunt double while skiing down dangerous slopes, soon throwing a driver off a snowmobile so he could drive it until it too was blown up, taking a ski from the machine to use as a snowboard! Another chopper tries to kill 007 and, as expected, goes KABOOM! when Bond shoots a powdered capsule into the cockpit. There's fun action in Paris where the Eiffel tower is featured as Bon...

What an episode. Kara insists that the fleet is going the wrong the way. She will hold a gun on President Roslin, then give her the gun to prove a point…Starbuck will let Roslin shoot her to prove she’s not a Cylon as many seem to believe because of the passionate desire to get to earth. “Six of One” has a lot of plot specific to Battlestar Galactica—Lee Adama is leaving the military for a government gig, as he respectfully denied his father’s offer to take back his position within the Viper division (Major) from the first episode—but also features a major development within the “seven council” of the Cylons. In the previous episode one of the raiders (often nicknamed “toasters”) realized that Sam Anders (in a Viper as the two faced each other during the great Cylon attack on the fleet at the beginning of the first episode) was one of the “five”, and because of this, we learn why the Cylons left the fight when they had the fleet dead to rites. I really like when events lead...