Flash Gordon... THE WEDDING EPISODE!

Not actually Flash's. Flash's token black friend's brother's and of course, Flash's friend is the best man. Which makes it a trifle unfortunate - if eminently predictable - when the portal to Mongo opens, beasties (paradise bugs) pop out and bite him.

Thanks to our Mongol native, we know that these are fatal. You'd think the best thing to do would be to make an excuse for him or something but no he's taken to the wedding, where Dale has to be a real bitch to him to stop him dying (stops the poison).

Naturally, Flash has to go off and get the cure... from a bunch of women, who aren't keen on men... and keep eunuchs around. So, Flash has to get them an urn back - which requires a trip to Ming's palace... All in all, it unfolds by the numbers from there and isn't very captivating.

The following episode is a big improvement... Flash gets his hopes up when a portal opens and a video shows his father coming through... but then, it seems that ol' dad has got murder on the mind.

We have a good dynamic with Flash and the bounty hunter... and Zharkov is used wonderfully. His paranoid, rantings show a glimmer of the character he was in the movie - which is, naturally great. Eventually Flash realises that his father, this is not (the murdering was a clue) and all is well... the first episode approaching "good".

Seems like remake and spin-off season in sci-fi town. A new Flash Gordon, a spin-off from Terminator and now, a remake of the Bionic Woman... doubtless if they ever manage to get the Wonder Woman film off the shelf, they'll make a new TV show.

Refreshingly, this pilot episode doesn't dawdle. Not quite the running start of Sarah Connor Chronicles... but we've got the basic elements established by the end of the first episode... with a few fun fight scenes. It's pretty straight forward... ordinary student at university - with deaf sister - is doing just super with her professor boyfriend. Until resident bionic psycho bitch (Starbuck!) crashes a truck into them.

This leaves our heroine in pretty rough shape. Just as well her boyfriend is in charge of a secret project to give women bionic body parts, eh? So, she gets her bionic legs... a bionic eye, a bionic arm and bionic ears! Shouldn't they have thrown in a free breast augmentation? Anyway, as you might expect our Eastend girl is somewhat freaked out by getting spiffy new parts and with the help of her fiance, promptly escapes.

Naturally after a traumatic car accident, miscarriage and surgery - she goes straight back to work, where Starbuck stops by to say hello. Starbuck being a nutter prototype who tells our heroine that it's her bionic implants that are activating - kinda like a benign Terminator interface. After this, it's only a matter of time before the two women are battling on roof tops in what is actually a pretty passable display of speed and strength...

All in all, while it did tick several cliche boxes it was a much stronger start than one might have expected. It would have been very easy for the show to simply languish in self-reference and cheesiness but this looked quite promising. Which is surprising to say the least.

The Invasion is clearly missing something... and that's "Of The Body Snatchers" from the title.

Yes, it's a rehash of that classic formula - as if it hasn't been rehashed enough. The twist here is that it's Nicole Kidman trying to fight off those fiendish body snatchers. Also, no pods in sight. It's a virus that comes from an exploding space shuttle. That seems like a pretty dangerous premise for a film... given the 50/50 chance of shuttles not making it to the ground in one piece.

In any respect, space shuttle Plot Device breaks up on re-entry and spreads itself over a sizable area of the USA... whereupon it's discovered that it's got some highly resistant spores on it. It also just so happesn that the guy in charge of this operation is Nicole's ex husband... who seems to be one of the first victims of the BODY SNATCHING VIRUS.

Beyond being a virus, rather than pods or some such - the only difference is that for you to become one of them, you have to enter REM sleep. Actually, there's another difference which is probably more interesting... the body snatched people are unable to innately discern the difference between someone who is on their side and someone who isn't... which somewhat ruins the "us and them" mentality. Part of the whole suspense of these is that they know who is one of them and you don't... here, all you have to do is walk around with the diversity of facial expression of Kurt Russell and you're fine.

Really, this could have been a pretty much standard conspiracy film... the alien body possession adds that little. Even the avoiding sleep aspect isn't that interesting - although perhaps ironically Kidman's struggle to stay awake is akin to the audience's. The film pauses for only a few moments to reflect on the aliens... they're not violent and there are some none too subtle scenes of American forces withdrawing from Iraq and Korea being reunited to demonstrate that in many ways, the aliens represent an alternative to human conflict... but at the price of our passions and humanity.

Naturally though - alien spores are no match truth, justice and the American way and so... the aliens are vanquished, with the help of Kidman's kiddy, who is handily immune. Wouldn't you know it, the alien virus has pretty much no immunity to terrestrial viruses... No doubt, the film makers are banking on their audience not drawing a parallel between that and War Of The Worlds.

In all honesty, it's not surprising that this project was on the shelf for over a year. It's lacklustre, no really interesting performance, the plot is derative and the chase scenes are about as bland and prosaic as they come and honestly struggles to reach the "magical" ninety minute mark. There is no reason to watch this film... unless you're particularly interested in seeing more projectile vomitting than you'd find in The Exorcist... some of it directed at Kidman. To surmise - a waste of time.

Apparently in Smallgate - aka Flash Gordon - Ming The Merciless is not to be called "The Merciless"... and of course, he's not even slightly Asian looking... he's to be a "media savvy dictator". Which is a lot more in keeping with the times but makes him slightly less... well - Ming.

As predicted, we get the Mongol of the week - this time a guy with massive hair, Goualdified voice and LASER WHIP. That aspect of the episode isn't particularly interesting... him being a big "man beast" he's got the intelligence of a block of wood.

The more interesting aspect of the episode is Ming The Media Savvy - not really quite the same, is it? Supposedly his absolute dictatorship is built upon the contamination of the water... and his current monopoly on its distribution. Hence, ice smuggling carries the death penalty.

Now, they don't actually explain the nature of the contamination... but in previous episodes, it was alluded to that it was necessary for sustaining populations... although it's not exactly clear if this was simply through the necessity of water or to feed crops... but if it was any kind of normal contamination, then it would naturally increase as it went up the food chain. Anyway, it seems fairly strange that the ice smuggler should get stopped in a leafy green area with cattle wandering around. Perhaps the contamination only affects humans but then, it's likely that either all with be revealed later or that detail will be overlooked.

Other than banishing the man beast - surprise! Flash finds that the bounty hunter from last week isn't so stand offish - despite having stolen The Predator's cloaking device - and she is going to stay with Flash. So, I suppose we at least aren't quite stuck with the status quo... or at least, we've not yet reached it... sometimes it can take shows a couple of episodes to get their main cast established... see SG-1... ha, another similarity. Although the science guy (is he called Zharkov and if not, WHY NOT?) is no Sam Carter.

Also, by the end of the episode it's entirely clear that Ming really should be called the Merciless - even if he is media savvy - and that whole subplot massively overshadowed the main "Mongo of the week" one in terms of coolness but then... evil dictators generally trump boring man beasts of the week.

The fact the episode is so Earthbound makes the show feel quite limited... despite a lack of rocketships, Flash et al trapped on Mongo and running around would be pretty great... sure, it would follow the cliche of humans getting trapped in some other time/planet/place/dimension/universe but at least it wouldn't have the awkwardness of suburban life. Naturally, this type of "home by dinner" adventuring has been done before but it's somewhat facile. Which is unfortunate, it does seem that the concept of Mongo is quite cool... although we've yet to see the moons of Mongo as anything other than a backdrop. This episode was more promising than the last but only by dint of Ming being great.

One thing the Bourne franchise could do with is an epilepsy warning. The number of scenes where things occur in the blink of an eye or where the camera angle changes dozens of times in the blink of an eye are too numerous to count.

This is however, no deviation from the previous two films. As with the second film, this doesn't really deviate from the original formula... actually, if anything this more similar to the second film as the eponymous protagonist actually has a clue what is going on.

The notable thing about Bourne films is that people seem to think that they're all rather complex in their plots. Nothing could be further from the truth. There's no shocking revelations for anyone but the dullest film goer - he was part of a covert project to make a bunch of ass kicking assassins, it's merely a premise not part of the plot... the plot of these films is... MATT DAMON! Doing a lot of running around, shooting and sneaky spy stuff. All other points are of only minor importance - they aren't movies about characters or complex plots, they're about slick set pieces and big explosions.

The frenetic pace is present and we move from one city to the next to the next, sometimes with such rapidity it can be easy to miss the change. Not that it really seems to matter. It's best to describe this as a man who thinks he is a thinking man man's action film. It would like you to believe that it's clever and has depth but really, it's shallow and allows for as much facial expression from Damon as you'd get out of a block of wood. Despite the pretence - it's really a fairly unapologetic summer actioner.

As far as sci-fi goes, few franchise approach the notoriety and sheer age of Flash Gordon.

From hilarious racist comic strip to campy black and white drama to children's cartoon to campy cult movie to children's cartoon and now to sci-fi original drama.

The most obvious deviation from the established premise is that there are zero rocket ships. Or at least so far. No, instead the show has opted for a far easier plot device... WORMHOLES! Well, almost. They're called "rifts"... presumably because after Farscape and SG-1, they don't want to look like the only idea they have are wormholes.

Anyway, it starts out with Flash winning a marathon (if you've watched Smallville, you could be forgiven for thinking flash had fallen through one of these rifts from the eponymous town) but of course, it's not long before aliens are invading all the hot spots - highways, bowling alleys and minimarts. Flash doesn't seem too smart though - he punches a metal robot, stops his car to get out and run across an open field and jumps through a rift in the small hope that he'll find his father.

Which naturally gets him and ex-girlfriend Dale - who despite her engagement still have some chemistry - into trouble when they arrive in Mongo and meet Ming. Here we find out why they're sending robots to Earth and so on before they manage to escape and ponder on what an "Imex" is.

Overall, it's not so bad. The acting is decent enough and the effects - while not plentiful - are solid. The main let down is that this really doesn't have much to do with Flash Gordon. It really seems as if the format of the show means that we'll have aliens of the week and Flash saving the world but home for his tea. Not to mention that the "rifts" make this feel as if it's trying to be teen SG-1... or Smallville meets SG-1. It really feels lacking in the kind of epic stuff you had in the movie... and while it's obvious that you can't really compare the two, this doesn't really have any sense of grandeur. Which is rather a shame.

It's clear that there is going to be some kind of story arc (possibly) with Flash's father but beyond that, there isn't really anything to indicate that this will be an episodic drama where we have some enemy come through every week or have Flash go to Mongo every week. Either way, it's a rather lacklustre start that might indicate Sci-Fi feel the name alone will give it time... but hell, that worked for Star Trek for a decade.

Babylon 5 has long been a fan favourite and many had hoped for it to be redeemed.

Indeed, Lost Tales offers such a chance. Of course, surely the point is somewhat missed... B5 was a great show because of characters, story arcs and kiss ass space battles. This seemed to lack... at least two of those. Not only that but it wasn't really a movie but more, two separate episodes.

The first was almost entirely out of character for B5... while religion has played a part of the show in the past, it's never been a focus... here, we suffer some tedious diatribes at the hands of lacklustre Locklear about it in a setting that owes more to The Exorcist than it does to Babylon 5. Making Locklear the main character was a critical misjudgement... she was a one season wonder who had perhaps, two points of interest (neither of which were ineresting) and still she failed... fortunately, she wasn't forced on us like other late comer characters in other show have been.

The second episode, is SHERIDAN... and Galen. It flows a lot more naturally... Galen is a dick, Sheridan is... well, Sheridan. It was a lot more compelling than the first story - which was a lot more relevant. Unlike Locklear's debacle, this played into the general spirit of B5 and, of course... didn't have her horrible acting. Sheridan was solid throughout and the character was... as always, not just a thin excuse for Ivonava (yeah... Locklear wasn't close to being close to being half an Ivonava). While the dilemma this provided was interesting... it really wasn't exciting.

If JMS was doing his best to gain new fans? A lot of money? Well, JMS - you've smoked one too many crack pipes... even HARDCORE fans won't find this that pleasing. It's... at best mediocre. The first tale poor and the second ok... If it's building to something... perhaps it could be good but there's nothing in here to recommend it. It's just so bland... sure, there are some nice touches - quantum space? - like the improved CGI and much, much more detailed model of B5 but really... Pointless.

Terminator - along with Alien(s) and Predator - is one of the most iconic franchise to come out of the 1980s... The first and second film, likely to be timeless classics of the action and sci-fi genre. Many feel that the third film strayed somewhat on this front and it seems hard to argue on that front.

Perhaps Terminator 3's greatest error was that its reach exceeded its grasp. The effects simply weren't good enough for the ambitious stunts. Which, coupled with a so-so story made it weaker than the other films by a long shot. Even Arnie camping it up couldn't put it in the same league as the first two. Which is unfortunate as the franchise really had the potential to deliver.

Those who have their misgivings about the upcoming "Sarah Connor Chronicles" - a TV series that follows the eponymous heroine between the end of T2 and beginning of T3 may then take heart that it requires only a few minutes for it to piss all over the established events of T3. The effects of time travel... perhaps.

The inherent fear of a series set between the two films is obvious - that it would be sans Skynet... and if you don't have a time travelling killer robot from the future trying to ventilate the saviour of humanity, then why even bother? Hence, it should be reassuring to all fans of the franchise that the show does indeed include said time travelling robots and the associated gun heavy mayhem.

Projects like this are inherently difficult - especially when the original actors have been replaced by more budget friendly replacements... the budget is fractional compared to the films and yet, there is an expectation of quality and action. Terminator films may have their moments of reflection upon fate and destiny, the nature of the battle between man and machine... about how one man can change the future but it was always, at its heart, an action film... so, it would only be fair to expect this of the show.

And it does deliver. Not exactly the epic car chases, non-stop climactic action... but still enjoyable and for a film where expectations were so incredibly low - that is impressive.