ORBzine - UK TV Roundup February 1999

Tales of the Crypt
Miguel Ferrer [Robocop] plays the jealous fiance of an unfaithful model [ Teri Hatcher - Lois & Clark: New Adventures of Superman ] - he dresses her in a purple basque and ties her to the bed. Nothing else really stands out from that episode.

Babylon 5 [Season 5, finale]
End of an era - tear-jerking. OTOH, the last few eps were depressing, and nothing really happened in them. Here's hoping Crusade will get here soon!

Seaquest DSV [Season 2, Episode 21-2] [saturday & sunday, ITV]
Season 2 came to a fiery double-episode conclusion.
Season 3 arrived the next week.

Highlander [Season 2, Episode 7] Return of Amanda Highlander [Season 2, Episode 8] Revenge of the Sword
Shown [wednesday & thursday, ITV]

This is reviewed in our special supplement!

Star Trek: DS9 [season 1, Episode 4] Past Prologue
Shown [thursday, BBC2]

This series seems to be in the middle of a repeat too. This reviewer switched on the television to discover Bashir meeting Garak for the very first time - something I missed the first time it was shown, about 5 years ago.

27th Jan [Wednesday]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer [Season 1] was dumped - for Ice Skating :(

3rd Feb [wednesday]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer [Season 1] We get to see the episode delayed from last week. Hey, we waited 2 and a half years for it, so what is another week?

9th Feb [tuesday]

New trailer is shown; Every generation has its idiot Yes, the new series of Red Dwarf is due out this month! And Arnie Rimmer has risen from the grave!!!

10th Feb [wednesday]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer [Season 1] is bumped again - this time for SNOOKER! :(

11th Feb [thursday]

Hard-hitting prison drama Oz [starring Ghostbusters' Ernie Hudson and the Weird Science TV show's Chet] reached the end of its run last week. It has been replaced by a new show called Prey , [no notable stars except Dark Man's Larry Drake].

Existence

Prey is a bit like Channel 4's Ultraviolet - but without the Vampire lore about sunlight, mirrors and the undead. Basically, a female scientist [a beautiful twenty-something, naturally] discovers a new species of humans that are genetically 1.6% different from Homo Sapiens, walk among us as trailer trash and wish to remove humans from the face of the Earth just as Cro-Magnon man replaced the Neanderthal.

One of the good things about X-Files is that it showed the TV industry that a SF TV show does not need the huge budget and SPFX of Star Trek to be both entertaining TV and popular SF. However, this show seems little more than Buffy the Vampire Slayer for adults - without the charm of the teenage-orientated series.

15th Feb [Monday]

Red Dwarf [Season 2, finale] These reruns are digitally enhanced with CGI to replace the original scenes with the plastic models. Personally, this reviewer has always felt the models to have a certain charm, a certain Britishness. The BBC spent as much on the SPFX budget of 1 Red Dwarf episode as they did on an entire season of Dr Who, and now all that has been thrown away and replaced with fancy CGI. Which begs the question - will Dr Who be re-released with CGI SPFX?

16th Feb 1999 [Tuesday]

Highlander [Season 2, Episode 9] Run For Your Life

This is reviewed in our special supplement!

17th Feb 1999 [Wednesday]

Star Trek: TNG [Season 5, Episode 19] The First Duty

This is reviewed in our special supplement!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer [Season 1, Episode 3] The Witch

This is reviewed in our special supplement!

Highlander [Season 2, Episode 10] An Epitaph For Tommy

This is reviewed in our special supplement!

18th Feb [Thursday]

ST: DS9 [Season 1] was another repeat - followed by Quantum Leap [Pilot] . All these repeats make this reviewer feel old - I mean, I remember watching that for the first time, ten years ago!

The only thing that really stands out is Al's abortive catch-phrase, Ain't that a kick in the butt? - and there's really nothing more to be said!

Now ...

Red Dwarf [Season 8, Episode 1] Back in the Red (1)

This is reviewed in our special supplement!

Prey [Season 1, Episode 2] Discovery

Finally Larry Drake has something to do. He performs some tests on the non-human serial killer, and detects unusual cranial activity - the main character hypothesises that the new species' 1.6% genetic differentiation from Homo Sapiens may give them ESP powers; there is no PHYSICAL way of telling them from humans.

The plot of this week's episode does nothing but tell us that the species is organised enough to cover the tracks of its members - even to the extent that they dig up the grave of a deceased non-human in order to ensure the humans cannot dissect it.

Sorry, but we've seen this all before - hell, The Hunger's eerie ending where the detective is told that a mysterious Corporation has sold the lone vampires' home was creepy ... Prey is just mundane. Even the villain isn't scary - he's no master-race, just trailer trash.

19th Feb [Friday]

The same week as he played a Seacouver Immortal, Johnathan Banks turns up on Seaquest DSV [Season 1, Episode 17] ! Whale Song

20th Feb [Saturday]

Star Trek: VGR [Season 4, Episode 8] Year of Hell, Part I

This is reviewed in our special supplement!

This weekend there was a special Censored theme to Channel 4, which they used as an excuse to screen a couple of 1980s Video Nasties.

Evil Dead 2 and Zombie Flesh Eaters are both reviewed in the TV Movies section.