No Formal Training

Star Trek Picard Episode 7:  Nepenthe Spoilers ahead, so be wary:   This week's flashback takes us right back to the meeting between Agnes and Commodore Oh, confirming what we all knew had happened, and that Agnes had indeed been recruited to spy on Picard and his merry band. We even get to see how Agnes was “shown” the things they had had seen her that she tearfully told Maddox before she killed him. It’s possible she was even under instructions to do so.   Back to the present, which is still the future to us, but is still the present for these characters who live in the future, “Narrisa” has Hugh and a selection of Ex Borgs lined up, trying to get information out of Hugh on where Picard and Soji are. When Hugh refuses, she executes the Ex Borgs, leaving Hugh heartbroken but still refuses to betray Picard. “Narrisa” speaks to her brother who is now preparing to track Rios and his ship who are currently stuck in a Borg tractor beam, Rios blaming Raffi for gett...

Star Trek Picard Episode 6: The Impossible Box Spoilers ahead, so beware.   Breaking the tradition of Picard of starting with flashbacks, we have a dream instead as Soji dreams of walking down the corridor of her childhood home during a dark and stormy night™, and seeing her father before waking up in bed with Narek on the artifact. Narek gets curious about the dream, trying to plant another one of his seeds of doubt, but leaves after Soji starts turning the tables and asks him about his real name that he only uses for family and loved ones. But not before suggesting she calls her mother. As she calls out to him by name he turns and says “that’s not my name” and leaves.   Onboard the La Sirena, Agnes reports to Picard on Maddox's cause of death, leaving out the truth  t hat she killed him by turning off the life support. Picard tries to comfort her as best he can but the issue of the Borg cube comes up and Soji was sent to investig ate a possible link to the...

The Witcher TV show, season 1, beware, here be Spoilers.   So I’ve finally managed to give the show a watch from start to finish. Twice for the purposes of this review. I’ll be clear about a couple of things upfront first off. I’ve not read the books and I’ve only played the second and third games, and loved them both. But I’m not about to compare this show to the games, and even if I had read the books, I wouldn’t be comparing the two either.   But as a fan of the games, as a fan of the fantasy genre, I was looking forward to this show. I liked Game of Thrones, I wasn’t in love with it like other genre fans weas, or even people who weren’t fans of the genre who seemed to flock to it. And I wasn’t in love with it like fans of the books and short stories they were based on were.   I liked it. It was good overall, turned some heads with it subversion of the genres typical troopes, kept managing to find some way to surprise viewers and looked truly beautiful, even w...