Matthew Surridge

This film was pretty much what I expected from a low budget sequel to Titanic. You have a totally unrelated low budget production crew put 'II' on the title of one of the biggest blockbusters originally made by one of the biggest producers and you're going to end up with a poorly made cash grab. Cameron's original masterpiece was lauded for it's impressive CGI work whilst this looked like something you'd find in a computer game, and not a particularly good one. The film isn't helped by its inconsistancies. Supposedly to mark the centenary of the original Titanic, a replica of the original set off to recreate the voyage on the same route. The Titanic II is then seen sailing past the statue of Liberty, so setting off from New York, so not following the original route at all. The drama of the film isn't helped by the fact that you don't feel any connections to any of the characters, including the main ones so you don't really care who lives and who dies. In an attempt to build the suspense, a submarine is dispatched to the area of a giant tsunami which would go on to seal the Titanic II's fate. Why was it sent there? No idea. It was sent there with the knowledge that the waters would be infested by ice bergs, which would be mostly submerged but no-one in the submarine thought to dive below ice berg level before it was too late. There's a similar scen later on when a plane, knowing an even bigger tsunami was on its way didn't think of flying at a decent altitude to escape it. I could go on picking holes in the plot but to sum it up, this is a film that's entertaining for all the wrong reasons. It's car crash viewing that you watch to see how bad it can get and it doesn't disappoint. To put it simply James Cameron needn't feel threatened.

This show made compelling viewing... for all the wrong reasons. From the opening scenes there were 3 big questions. Is it really this bad? Does it get any better and can it get any worse? The answers are yes it really is bad and although the jury is still out as to whether it got actively worse it sure as he'll didn't improve. I had to sit through all 7 episodes to fully answer these questions and to see if there was a big pay off at the end. And no there wasn't. Yes there were some twists to come but not enough to justify sitting through the whole experience. From the first scene of Chase waking up and meeting KC the dialogue felt forced and unrealistic with none of the characters behaving in a believable way when finding themselves stuck on a desert island. No-one bothered with the question of how and why they were there or how to survive. One of the great things about the concept of strangers thrown together in a hostile environment is watching the relationship either develop or break down but this lot just hated each other from the get go for no valid reason and any tension or confrontations were meaningless as they had no real substance. The big reveal of where they were and why came early on in the series with episode 3 taking a break from normal proceedings to introduce a new wave of awful characters who thankfully then disappeared till the finale. In any show about a main cast in peril you should feel some empathy for the characters however flawed they may be so you are invested in the matter of whether they survive the ordeal but you didn't really care about any of them and if they were all suddenly slaughtered the main feeling would be 'whatever' This is obviously an attempt to cash in on the phenomenon that was 'Lost and the one advantage it has over that show is that it's all over in the space of a single series... at least I hope it is.

When I came to watch the Orville, considering it's by the guy who brought us Family Guy, I was expecting a cross between Galaxy Quest and Red Dwarf, a story of an incompetant crew spoofing their way through the universe. However this series wasn't what I was expecting... it was so much more. The Orville is a Sci Fi comedy with some truly funny moments but it's not played purely for laughs. The stories are well written and well thought out and wouldn't be out of place as episodes of Star Trek. In fact, the whole series feels like an extension of the Star Trek universe, more specifically it feels like the original series but with more laughs and a bigger budget. Some episodes feel like they've been lifted directly from the escapades of Kirk and co and, not copied but used to inspire the stories, with season 1 featuring crew of a shuttle marooned on a savage planet, the Klingon like Krill and their own version of the prime directive. That said, this is done in a way that pays homage to the source material as a tribute to the works of Gene Roddenberry and, whilst containing some genuine comedy it tells the stories without resorting to spoofing things or simply creating a parody of the whole genre. This is obviously a series created and written by people who love and respect not only Star Trek but the whole Sci Fi voyage through the stars scenario and wish to continue this great TV tradition whilst putting their own stamp on it and they do it so well.