By and copyright of Owen Quinn. Thanks to Stephen Mooney
Lighthouse At The End of the World is the final story in the new Time Warriors book Wolves of Chernobyl & Other Stories coming soon by Belfast author Owen Quinn.
It sees Varran faced with a request from an old friend to help him die. The issue of assisted suicide is very relevant right now and it certainly wasn’t the angle Owen decided to take when he came up with the idea. Like all good sci-fi stories, it takes a social issue and puts it under the microscope. Owen is the first to admit, he would have no idea what to do if he was asked to do something like this.
How Varran resolves it will only be found when you get your copy of Wolves of Chernobyl & Other Stories on release soon from Amazon.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Copyright Gerry Anderson
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
Apart from Deep Space 9’s Odo, there has always been a much more exciting and enticing shapeshifter for me. No disrespect to the late René Auberjonois but she is also much more pretty to look at.
In the second season of Space 1999, the revamp included the introduction of a resident alien to ramp up the sci fi factor. Maya was to be a regular on the show ala Spock on Star Trek. Played by Catherine Schell, Maya was introduced in the first episode the Metamorph. Her father, Mentor (Brian Blessed) was ruler of their dying world Psychon, who had a secret he kept from everyone. He would lure travellers down to the surface or kidnap them and feed their minds to the biological machine, Psyche. This kept Psychon stable but the unwilling victims were left husks, zombies that toiled in the mines digging out the metals necessary to maintain the machine below the city far away from prying eyes.
When Moonbase Alpha is in dire need of Titanium, they locate it on Psychon, a seemingly lifeless planet but the survey Eagle is captured. Commander John Koenig (Martin Landau) finds himself facing Mentor who seems so inviting and welcoming. To get his people back they agree to meet in space. But it’s a trap and they find themselves in line to be fed to Pysche.
Maya was taught the power of molecular transformation by Mentor and the first creature we see her as is a lion. In the space of the first episode we see change into a dog, a dove and gorilla. When her father’s evil deeds are exposed and Psychon is destroyed, Maya is forced to leave the exploding Psychon to make a new life with the Alphans.
Her advanced knowledge and skills make her a vital part of the crew and she assumes the role of base science officer. Maya also quickly becomes romantically involved with Koenig’s right hand man and security chief Tony Verdeschi (Tony Anholt). As the last of her kind, Maya is delighted when they discover there is another from her species alive and well, Dorzak. Maya remembers him as a poet and philosopher but he is now being held as prisoner by an alien race. They offered Dorzak sanctuary but he used his mental powers to turn a peaceful people into murderous savages under his control. Dorzak is a psychopath the defeat of whom leaves Maya feeling more isolated than ever before.
This is an aspect of the character that is barely touched upon in the second season. What does it mean to be the last of one’s species? What are the implications if she breeds with Tony? Would her half human offspring be able to learn the power of transformation? In the classic Bringers Of Wonder, an expedition party from Earth arrives consisting of friends and family ready to take them all back to Earth. Maya feels uncomfortable meeting them as it is suddenly real that she will have to live her life on Earth. At least on Alpha she has the chance of finding other of her species and maybe a home that closely resembles Psychon. She loves Tony and she is equally loved by the rest of the Moonbase personnel. But her feline features are a constant reminder that she is different. However there may be another reason for that. In the Rules of Luton, she reveals to Koenig that she has a brother and that when they learned Psychon was dying, he and a thousand others headed off into space to find a new home.
While on Alpha there is the chance she could find them but not if she were to go back to Earth. As the Dorcons believe Maya is the last one, the other Psychons may well be hidden or far enough away to escape the Dorcon threat. If the Alphans did find them, would Maya stay with them or Tony? So much untapped potential for future stories.
While Maya can turn into any creature she can see, her shape shifting ability was always a highlight of an episode to see what she becomes in that particular story. While we see her as Earth animals or other people, she becomes a variety of aliens that can hurt and maim. In the episode Space Warp. she has a dangerous fever which leaves her powers running wild. She becomes her father and is driven to go home to Psychon. This shows the dangerous side to her ability as she becomes bigger and more powerful creatures to get home. One looks like a cross between a bull and a gorilla and it takes a lot to bring her down. She is a liability to herself in this shape as she can kill herself quite easily.
Indeed not all changes are pleasant as she discovers in Bringers of Wonder when she changes into one of protoplasmic aliens trying to kill them all. In All That Glisters, Maya assumes the rock life form and is almost absorbed by it when it locks her into its form as she tried to change back to escape its grip. We also get to see the playful side of Maya when Tony, who is desperately trying to brew great tasting beer gets her to taste his latest sample. She turns into Doctor Jekyll to show what she thinks of it.
As the last Psychon, Maya has a target on her back. The Taybor wants her for his collection while the biggest danger comes from the Dorcons. Mentor may have had good reason to hide below the surface of Psychon. When the Dorcons locate Maya aboard Alpha they cripple the base demanding they hand Maya over to them. She is terrified of them knowing what is coming and despite their assurances she tells them they cannot stand against them. She begs her friends to kill her to spare her the fate the Dorcons intend for her. The Dorcons are the most powerful of species with shape shifting spaceships who have hunted Psychons for centuries. The only force they cannot control is death and by surgically removing a Psychon’s brain stem, they can. The Dorcon’s brain stems stop functioning at a certain age but by replacing it with a Psychon’s they will live forever. In this case it is for their leader played by the second Doctor Who Patrick Troughton. Of course, John Koenig finds a way to save her helped in no small part by the Dorcon’s internal squabbling ,meaning they will die naturally with no more Psychons to feed on. They are also the only species that can prevent Maya changing form.
While we know she and Tony love each other, in New Adam and New Eve, God or an alien scientist claiming to be God kidnaps Maya, Tony, John and Helena Russell in order to repopulate a new world. There he decrees that John and Maya mate to create the perfect beings encompassing the best of both of them while Helena and Tony will equally comply. But his petri dish is smashed freeing them all.
Now it would appear, unlike Odo whose every component is made from his liquid goo, Maya is able to affect her clothes and any object she is touching too. When Tony is attacked by a mind controlled Alphan, Maya changes into a Kendo warrior and her pen becomes a stick to defend herself with. Like the 70s Bruce Banner whose eyes turn white when he is about to Hulk out, similarly we see the creature Maya is about to change into reflected in her eyes. Together with a sound effect it was an effective tool to signify shit was about to go down.
Maya will forever be a sci fi character that lives on in the minds of fans. Indeed I still have my Space 1999 annual which features her in comic strip adventures. Why does it seem to be that shortsighted television executives cut down so many good shows just as they are taking off? Now the likes of Maya are in the land of ‘what could have been’ and can only be enjoyed on Blu-ray and streaming.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
For a show hyped as a comedy Star Trek clone, The Orville quickly became a show packed with quality scripts focusing on social commentary. But it could also deliver epic space battles and drama in way reminiscent of the war seasons of Deep Space 9.
At first the show looked like a copy of Star Trek but without the transporters to save the day. It had the token Klingon-like officer, the robot trying to understand humanity and a super strong female alien security officer to add to the alien presence. We had the pilot becoming chief engineer just like Geordi La Forge did on the Enterprise. We know as an audience that we would learn more about each character as we go but never did we expect the plot twist in the two-part Identity. Such was the shock of it all, that the Orville universe would be changed forever.
Isaac is not a formal member of the Orville but an emissary for his species, the Kaylons. He has been sent by his people to study organics to see if the Kaylons will enter The Union as fully fledged members. Isaac has formed close associations with the crew especially with Doctor Claire Finn (Penny Johnson Jerald from Deep Space 9) and her sons Ty and Marcus. The boys have come to see him as a father figure and Claire has romantic feelings for him despite his lack of understanding of emotions.
They announce their relationship to the boys at the start of the episode but Isaac short circuits and collapses. The only way to save him is to return him to his homeworld Kaylon and deliver him to his people if he has any chance of survival. Ty and Marcus keep vigil over him with Ty telling the inert robot that he wants him to come back, marry his mom and become his father.
Photos copyright Fox
No Union ship has been to Kaylon. It is a totally robotic society closed to everyone and the visuals as the Orville flies amid its towering cities is impressive. Even the soundtrack is epic here conveying an ominous air as they arrive at Kaylon, far from home and all alone. Kaylon technology is far superior to anything the Union has. Without a word, the ship is scanned and landing co-ordinates are given.
Handing over Isaac’s body, the crew can only wait. It is somewhat unnerving to see a species with all the same face and same red eyes. Humans react best when they can look into the eyes of the person they are talking to and judge their inner thoughts by their expression. The Kaylons call to mind all the classic movie robots like C-3PO. Isaac has provided a certain comedy element in the series such as learning abut practical jokes with helmsman Gordon Malloy. Isaac sedates a sleeping Malloy and amputates his leg as a joke totally misunderstanding the concept of practical jokes. he is liked and trusted by all of them.
The superior attitude of the Kaylons grates with the crew especially when they tell them Isaac will be reintegrated to their society having fulfilled his function as Emissary. Claire is furious that he is discarding them so quickly especially her boys. He breaks the news to them and they take it badly.
The Kaylons are still analysing the data Isaac has gathered and their addition to the Union is far from certain. They tell Captain Mercer that it is not in their best interests to join the Union due to a violent history including history. They see Malloy’s practical jokes as abuse towards Isaac cancelling Mercer’s argument that that that sort of behaviour is long past. But little do we know that this is just a cover for a more deadly plan.
They even throw a party for Isaac and Ty gives him a drawing he has done of them as a family which the robot drops on purpose in a corridor. But security chief Talla and Bortus have detected some sort of factory making something en masse.
Young Ty, having found the discarded drawing, goes after Isaac launching a search for him. Bortus, Doctor Finn and Talla find him in an underground chamber which kicks the story into gear.
In the cavern are thousands of skeletons of a biological race. The planet is covered in these mass graves. The visuals for this are both horrific and creepy as we realise that discovering the Kaylon secret forces the robots to show their true hand.
Isaac’s mission was not to assess organics for admission to the Union but to assess the threat they pose to the Kaylon. The mass graves are the race that built them that the Kaylon exterminated in a slave rebellion. They distrust organics because their builders abused them. This is why they are so focused on Isaac’s “abuse” and human history of violence and slavery.
The Kaylons have been assessing the rest of the Union for mass extermination and after that will be the non-Union societies like the Krill. The construction they observed was in fact a fleet of orb-like ships to carry out this massacre. The Orville crew are restrained as the Kaylon invade their ship intending to use it as a Trojan horse to gain entry to Earth then destroy it from orbit.
And just when you think things can’t get any worse, the Kaylon reveal a hidden feature. Their heads split open to form weapons which can kill or stun. This image makes them unique and terrifying. Orville takes our expectations and turns them on their heads, literally in this case. Now the simple looking robots are almost demon like in appearance and a clear and present danger. They are strong, cannot be intimidated and go by a simple binary logic; kill of be killed. There are no other choices because of their limited code. They cannot conceive any other options because they have no imagination or gut instincts.
The gathering of the crew and civilians into cargo bays is reminiscent of the Star trek Voyager two parter and season cliffhanger ‘Basics’. In that story, Voyager is commandeered by the Kazon and Cardassian traitor Seska who leave the Voyager crew stranded on a primitive planet to die.
As they launch the Orville, we see their fleet of Kaylon ships rise and swarm behind the captured ship. The shots of the ships rising from the planet surface and their simple design is frightening. Their Ferris Wheel look is simplistic but effective given we have seen what the Kaylon are capable of. Trapped and helpless, the crew can only watch as they are flown to be witness to the mass extermination of everything they know. Even Isaac no longer responds to Claire’s anger as his fellow robots use his knowledge to secure the Orville.
Epic is an overused word these days but Orville can confidently claim this title, for not only this episode and the second part, but for the final shot of the entire Kaylon fleet rising into space with the helpless Orville leading the way.
Every show aims for a cliffhanger on par with Star Trek The Next Generation’s ‘The Best of Both Worlds’ or Star Trek Enterprise’s ‘Aati Prime’. Seth McFarlane comes close with ‘Identity’. Our expectations are subverted and I can imagine many thinking they know where this story is going; until the stool is kicked from under them. The job of any writer is to take the norms and turn the dial up to eleven; to surprise and make the audience sit up and take notice.
We have a great shift in a beloved character’s motivations and a deadly plot revealed that threatens allies and enemies alike. At one point, the Kaylon joining the Union would be a great advantage against the Krill bit now that is irrelevant. All species face the same enemy in a doomsday situation. The token annoying kid label that began with Wesley Crusher works perfectly here as Ty’s reaction to losing Isaac is genuine and heartfelt.
Of course this leads to the other moral ambiguity of having children from a sperm bank and raising them without a father. Then again, if Isaac had not been seen as such then the Kaylon plot would never have been exposed. The Union and everyone else would have died as the Kaylon burned the surface of Earth from space, never knowing why.
But if you want a ‘how the hell do they get out of this?‘ story then ‘Identity’ Part 1 is for you. Stunning.
“There was one thing I always meant to ask Jack, back in the old days. I wanted to know about that Doctor of his. The man that appears out of nowhere and saves the world except sometimes he doesn’t. All those times in history when there was no sign of him, I wanted to know why not. But I don’t need to ask any more. I know the answer now. Sometimes the Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame. I’m recording this in case anyone ever finds it and you can see; you can see how the world ended.“
There’s never really a minute to catch your breath in an action packed adventure with the bad guys breathing down your neck but sometimes a welcome quiet moment are the ones that make you stop and think on the scope of the threat. They are the moments that burn themselves into your memory and like a cuckoo, never leaves.
In Torchwood’s Children of Earth, the final episode sees the world in chaos. The alien 456 have demanded 10% of the children of Earth and have brought the world to its knees. Torchwood has been destroyed and are being hunted as terrorists. Gwen is pregnant. Politicians plot and show their true commitment to the people. Ianto has been killed by a virus they have released along with Jack Harkness as a demonstration of what will happen if they do not get the children. But Jack revives as he always does and is left to face his lover’s death alone. Children are being rounded up in the thousands and taken and parents are beaten down by the military. The armed forces have been guaranteed their children will not be taken if they round all the rest up. And all because Jack Harkness handed children over to the same species decades previously.
The British Prime Minister, Brian Green, is following his own agenda to make himself the hero in this horrible decision and make the Americans look like the instigators of the children being taken. He will claim the sudden rounding up of the lower performing school children is to give out mass inoculations. He is cold and uncaring and even orders his man, Frobisher, to hand over his two daughters to the aliens. Rather than let that happen, he goes home and murders them and his wife to prevent them from that fate. Tragically, Jack finds a way to stop the 456 but too late for the Frobisher family. But while we recoil at the murder, Frobisher, future Doctor Peter Capaldi, has actually committed an act of love to maintain his family love and memories. They may be dead but they died together, content at their lives up to that point and now nothing will threaten that ever again.
Gwen and Rhys are at Ianto’s sister’s home telling her about how her brother died when soldiers swarm the area taking the children. While the men of the estate fight back, Gwen and Rhys take the ,kids and run along with Ianto’s sister. They are hiding with no options left to them. The 456 use children as a source of drugs, feeding off them over years like a Capri Sun until all that is left is a husk.
Torchwood, or what’s left of them, are fugitives with Jack now working with his enemy, Agent Johnston, once assigned to wipe Torchwood out but now sees her boss’ real intentions. Not even an ice queen can stand by and see children sent for slaughter. To stop the 456 but with no options left, Jack has to make a devastating choice that will destroy Torchwood , his daughter and him forever.
Things couldn’t be any more dire and at this point you would expect a certain time traveller in a blue box to appear and save the day, trampling impossible odds like weeds. And that is the crux of the scene in question as Gwen reflects on how they have come to this and why the Doctor has not come to save the day.
It opens the episode and is shot in black and white. The lighting is beautiful here as it slams home the somber atmosphere. These are people that have ran out of hope and bravely waiting for the end of the world. They have been so used to being saved that the reality of the impact of this horrendous decision will have far reaching consequences that will scar the human race forever. White lines shiver across the screen, reminiscent of the black and white Doctor Who title sequence.
With half of her face in shadow with only her eyes showing, Gwen who is pregnant and being filmed by Rhys, speaks, intermixed with images of children being rounded up, of entire schools being marched onto buses and lorries to be taken to the 456 collection points.
When she talks about the end of the world, she isn’t talking about about it blowing up or an alien invasion like The Stolen Earth or what the Master did to the planet in Last of the Time Lords. Everything decent, moral and good that was humanity will be gone if the children are taken. The world will burn in riots as governments will be stormed and killed for agreeing to sacrifice their children to become snacks for aliens. This is not about safeguarding the rest of the population but the government’s own power bases. But the ordinary people would rather die with their families than give up any child to that fate as we saw with Frobisher. That is what humanity really is; standing together in the face of evil and even if it means death, they will do so willingly rather than live with the knowledge of the fates of the children the 456 took. How could anyone go through the rest of their lives knowing the kids will be alive as they are fed on as we saw in an earlier episode.
Some will point out that the public did not know about 456 but have you met us? Alien invasions are more prevalent than ever, especially at Christmas. There are ordinary people like Clive and Rose that are watching and documenting everything. With millions of children suddenly gone, of course people would protest and investigate; putting it all together. Never underestimate the power of the human race when their children are threatened.
The 456 will come back again and again until there are no more children left. What makes this even more poignant is the fact that Gwen is pregnant so at some point will her child be taken too? She has spoken about an abortion rather than giving birth. This is such a telling thing because how awful that someone would willingly abort their child which is wanted and will be loved rather than let it be born into a world where it will be taken forcibly by aliens at some stage.
Rhys, as I said, is filming this and when he ends we get the most human response. Rhys is a hardman but is reduced to tears when he ask if Gwen is serious about the abortion and she says no, of course not. He breaks down and it is such a beautiful humanising moment that drives home that this is so bad that even the hardest of us will crumble.
The parallel can be made that we trust those that we vote into government to look after us and all our best interest yet they have, without a real thought, decided to hand over the children to save themselves; not the world but by doing so, ensures their personal agendas are secure. It’s not their kids so it doesn’t matter. They believe the great British public will simply get over it; it is after all, in their best interests. As a parent figure, they don’t know their children at all.
Similarly when we bring a child into this world. We do it because we love each other and want that child to be better than us and have a better life than we did. We are always striving to make it better so that child trusts us to act in its best interests which is not just a natural instinct but a vocation that we willingly take on. Our governments have twisted this into something that will benefit the world. How does sending millions of children to this fate benefit anyone?
To be honest the old woman that touts on Gwen and the hidden children is an important testament to this train of thought. As an older woman, you expect her to not only be a mother but a grandmother too. Granny loves her grandchildren yet us witnessing her casually telling an army patrol about Gwen, Rhys and the children immediately riles us but that’s exactly what would happen. Now don’t forget that among the kids Gwen and Rhys have safe is Ianto’s niece and nephew. They have just lost their uncle and now are facing being sent off to the same aliens that murdered him. This is more than personal for them. Ianto didn’t die heroically. He choked to death on a virus as a demonstration of what will happen if the children are not delivered. The soldiers will not hesitate in killing a pregnant woman and expectant father to carry out their orders. But when those soldiers return home and look upon their kids, can we really expect them to stay silent? If that child asks where their friends are, how does the soldier answer? How quickly will that burden cripple them or force them to go public especially when the streets and playparks are now ghost towns. There is no laughter, no school trips to pantomines and no more birthday parties. Christmas morning will be shunned because the grief will be too much to bear. The politicians will continue as normal while parents will be left grieving as all of their children are gone yet still alive in a feeding frenzy.
But what would happen if the children were taken? Governments would burn, politicians would be strung up, new people would take over governments to ensure that this atrocity never happens again. But power corrupts so who’s to say what replaces the power bases will be any better? Those members of the frontline services that got to keep their kids will be crucified and who knows what the reaction to their children will be? They could be taken by a grieving parent to serve as replacements for the kids they have lost or worse.
People will stop having children in case the 456 return. Even if a child was born, the stress and worry about being taken will have a detrimental effect on the parents. Instead of seeing a young life full of possibilities, they will forever see a child marked for a cruel fate they will be powerless to stop. If someone does fall pregnant, would they have to raise it in secret or will forced abortions be introduced? There would be no need for maternity services so that part of the already fragile health service will collapse impacting the economy so many ways. Yes, Jack discovered the frequency to repel the 456 but now revealed, they can come up with a defense against it. Let’s face it, it was the only weapon humanity had.
No children means no schools, no nurseries, no baby shops. There will be no Sundays in the play park; no trips to farms to see animals, no family friendly places because the very concept of family will no longer exist. People will grow old and die and with no new generations to replace them, the Earth issue with over population will be solved until the world ages to death. As the population dwindles, industry, shops, healthcare and the simple beautiful sight of watching a new mother pushing a pram through the park will crumble. Think of the abandoned playgrounds in Chernobyl sitting rusting for decades and you’ll get the picture.
What about the children that were spared? Will they be banned from reproducing or will it be mandatory for them to be sterilised? Is that the fate of Gwen’s baby? We bring children in to the world to continue our bloodlines and legacies but every bloodline and legacy will end.
When Gwen talks about the end of the world, this is the scenario she is talking about. The Doctor would indeed turn away in shame, He loves the human race and especially the children. I have no doubt that he would burn the 456 to the ground and free them but the world they left behind would be gone forever so what then? The Doctor’s network of Children of Time have been powerless to stop this from happening so it would not surprise me that he would never darken the Earth again leaving the stupid apes to destroy themselves. If he hadn’t been exiled on Earth in his third incarnation, he may well have done just that when the Brigadier blew up the Silurians behind his back. The Doctor had persuaded the reptiles to agree to peace talks but the Brigadier betrayed him. Weakened and broken, the Earth would be ripe for conquest as seen in the Doctor Who season 4 episode Turn left.
This scene is roughly about 53 seconds long but it is the most powerful ones in the history of the show. As the recent The Giggle showed, when the human race is fired up, it is capable of tearing everything apart. The speech invokes our basest instincts to protect our young and what we love. In just 102 words, Gwen demonstrates that the world hangs on a fragile web of trust with the powers that when broken is one step from the apocalypse. Stunning words that we need to remember because what we do in life leaves a legacy and impacts others every single day.
If we are being judged by people from another world then we really need to evaluate ourselves, not just on a personal level but those we entrust to make our lives safe.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photos copyright 20th Century Fox
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
Decker: I’m not one of them. I’m here to destroy them. See, I’ve cleaned up a lot of breeders. Families like cesspools. Filth making filth, making filth. And I did it over, and over, and over again. But it was all leading me here. I was born to destroy Boone and the Breed together. I’m Death. Plain and simple.
If ever there was a villain to epitomise the ultimate serial killer it is Doctor Philip Decker in Nightbreed. Usually I would say that every villain has a degree of humanity that makes his evil so shocking to the audience but with Decker, there is nothing but pure evil. He has no soul, no remorse and no problem murdering children. He murders entire families wearing a mask earning him the name Old Button Face.
His initial appearance is ghostly as he murders yet another family, walking past the bottom of the stairs like a shadow as a child watches. After murdering his parents, Button Face walks up the stairs soundlessly brandishing his knife bearing down on the terrified boy.
What makes Decker so dangerous is that he is in a position of power and respect as a psychiatrist. He works with the police and is highly respected. His delivery is one of being quietly spoken. When he encounters Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer) who is having nightmares about monsters in a place called Midian, Decker becomes obsessed. He needs to find it as it is the place where all sins will be forgiven. Boone meets a man, Narcisse in the hospital who is also seeking Midian and is also a patient of Decker. Decker is seeking anyone that can lead him to Midian, mentally twisting them to the point Narcisse starts to cut his own face off. Decker manipulates Boone into believing he has killed all these families and his dreams are memories of that.
Fleeing, Boone finds Midian where he flees as he is not welcome. He runs into the police and Decker who tells the police Boone has a gun. They kill him in a barrage of gunfire but having been bitten by one of the Midian inhabitants, he comes back to life.
Boon’s girlfriend follows him only to be followed by Decker who murders her friend by pinning her to a tree whilst manipulating the police. Decker will break his MO and do what is necessary to leave no witnesses. Indeed he begins wiping out anyone he finds. His exterior is always calm and collected but within him rages a fury the closer he gets to Midian. He escapes after almost killing Lori and brings the cops back to wipe out the inhabitants. At one point you think he is looking to go there to have his sins forgiven but he only wants to destroy. He is obsessed with destroying Midian and Boone and amid the war zone he creates where the Breed versus humans, he goes after Lori and Boone.
They fight as Midian collapses around them. Boone manages to drive his fist through Decker’s chest before he falls over the edge of a chamber. Presumably his body is consumed when Midian is blown apart. It could be this drive to wipe out Midian is because he doesn’t want to be be forgiven for his sins. He revels in the deaths of his victims. In the battle he beheads Narcisse and presents his head to Boone. Indeed it is an art form to him as seen when we see his massive secret collection of knives. His chamber is literally wall to wall with them. Decker lived in his own paradise with no glimpses of the evil within.
He is the perfect serial killer hidden behind status and respect in the community. Not even Hannibal Lector was this cold. He is a killer through and through with no redeemable qualities. Boone did the world a favour by putting him down.
Join myself and fellow writer and all round talented, Stephen Carey on his show where we discuss all things Time Warriors, Zombie Bluies, Stephen King and more. Please leave a comment or a like to support us independent writers. It means so much to us! Enjoy!
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photo copyright Fox
Robots are ten a penny in sci-fi but in Seth Mcfarlane’s The Orville, we get one with a twist in the shape of the Kaylons.
The Orville is a virtual Star Trek show without the transporter. Isaac fills the role of Data. He is the observer of humanity but unlike Data is not wanting to be human. He seeks merely to understand humanity and its ways but as we discover the truth is far more terrifying.
A totally robotic race, the Kaylon have responded to the Union’s invitation to join them by assigning one of their own, Isaac, to be part of the Orville crew. His job is to work alongside the various alien species and determine if the Kaylons should become part of the Union. He has no emotions and says things as they are. He is not compromised by emotions and is a diligent crew member whose abilities can often save the day. He and pilot Gordon Malloy (Scott Grimes) engage in a practical joke where Isaac amputates his leg, not really catching the concept of jokes. In another they discuss getting a cat for the bridge as stroking furry animals is good for you. Gordon suddenly finds Isaac stroking his arm hoping to emulate the sensation. Isaac’s robotic nature comes in handy when the crew discover a planet whose orbit means centuries pass in it’s orbit while little time passes for us. Isaac is able to live and observe the species evolve across history first hand bringing invaluable data to be studied.
Isaac begins a relationship with Doctor Finn (Deep Space 9’s Penny Johnson Jerald), falling in love and becoming father figure to her two sons, Marcus and Ty. In their holodeck, Isaac assumes a human form for their dates and to be honest I don’t even want to think of the sexual side of their relationship. Isaac would again use a hologram shield to look human in season three when the Orville travels to the 21st century in search of a lost crew mate and minerals they need to get back home.
But sadly the truth about Isaac and the Kaylons proves much more terrifying than anyone thought. In the episode Identity, the Kaylon would go from wanna be Datas to Borg.
In the two parter Identity, Isaac suddenly shuts down and collapses. To save him the Orville must travel to Kaylon 1 and meet his people face to face. What initially seems a cordial welcome, Isaac is repaired and decides to stay behind much to the disappointment of Finn and her boys. In the meantime, the ship’s sensors discover a massive build up of circular ships being constructed on the planet surface. Young Ty sneaks off to the planet’s underground caverns and when Bortus and Alara go after them, they discover the horrifying truth behind the Kaylons. The cavern is filled with thousands of skeletons. Kaylon Primary tells them that they wiped out their makers and Isaac was never simply an observer. His mission was to assess if the ‘biologicals’ are worthy to be allowed to live or not. They have decided they must all be killed starting with the Earth. In a stunning cliffhanger the Kaylon take over the Orville and lead it’s fleet to Earth. The Kaylon weaponry is inbuilt. Their heads split open and blasters flank either side of their heads. Their heads are also detachable if need be to become flying armed drones.
However during the battle when Primary threatens to kill Ty, Isaac saves the boy and turns on his own people to save the crew and Earth. Thousands are dead and this echoes into season three.
Isaac is a pariah both from his people and the Orville crew. He is a traitor to both of them and lives in the lab. New navigational officer, ensign Charly Burle detests him as the woman she loved was killed by them in the battle. She tells him straight what she thinks and refuses to work with him. His relationship with Doctor Finn and Marcus is broken but Ty still loves him. Marcus writes ‘murderer’ on the lab wall and he lets all his feelings out about the battle and Isaac’s part in it.
Isaac’s logical mind perceives that as the crew would be better off without him and with no way to return home, he commits suicide. This is the first inkling that a Kaylon can evolve and experience real emotion. John LaMarr finds a way to restore Isaac who is surprised to be alive and returns to his lab. Marcus still can’t bring himself to speak to him.
In the episode Far From Graves Captain Ed Mercer, Isaac and a team travel to Situal 4. There they meet a scientist and a very obliging Kaylon by the name of Timmis who can also experience emotion. He forms a bond with Isaac who has the emotion enhancement done to him. However it fails to take as he is an older model of Kaylon but experiences emotion for the first time. For the first time he is able to tell Doctor Finn how he feels and relishes how love makes him feel.
Timmis (Christopher Larkin) had been badly damaged during the Battle of Earth and could not harm the scientists. They studied and modified the injured Kaylon, although Doctor Uhabbus later died. Eventually, scientist Villka managed to uncover pathways that the Kaylon had to be able to allow Timmis to experience emotion and named him Timmis after her father. He is a kind and sensitive Kaylon who sees biologicals through very different eyes that his kin. There does not seem to be any female Kaylons as they are all identical with either red or blue eyes like Isaac.
Photo by copyright Greg Gayne/Hulu)
In the same episode we get to see the creation of the Kylons in flashback. They were were constructed by a biological species native to Kaylon 1 that they referred to as the ;Builders’. They were initially conceived by the Builder Yan who mass-produced them at his company Vandicon. They were to serve as a slave race subservient to every order the Builders gave. A Kaylon asks if he can go to school with the children of the family he is servant to. Vandicon installed pain receptors in all Kaylons so as to prevent them from getting above their station. It is alarming to see children inflict pain on their Kaylon so when the Kaylon rise up and murder everyone for abusing them, we see where the caverns full of skeletons came from in Identity.
The Kaylon mindset is formed by this so their distrust of biologicals is well founded and understandable. They see them as potential threats and even Isaac’s data on the Orville crew is not rationally studied by neutral eyes but through the eyes of the abused.
In the end of second season finale The Road Not Taken, Kelly accidentally changes history. By not going on a second date with Ed the future changes. They never got married or ended up on the Orville therefore the Kaylon invasion succeeded. Their massive orb ships are everywhere hunting down the resistance. Luckily Kelly and Doctor Finn prevent this future from happening.
Add to this the Krill threat and the Moclans having left the Union (when they are exposed as duplicitous and guilty of kidnapping and almost murdering Bortus’ daughter Topa), Isaac and Charly create a super weapon capable of destroying Kaylon ships on a massive scale. When the Orville goes to Kaylon 1 to use it as a deterrent and potentially forge a peace treaty, they are attacked and forced to fire the weapon. They agreed to a cease fire but Admiral Thomas Perry (Ted Danson) steals the weapon and gives it to the new Krill and Moclan alliance. They are going to amplify the effects so all Kaylon are irradiated ending their threat forever. Kaylon primary and a few others agree to work with the Orville crew to prevent disaster.
The Orville crew with its Kaylon contingent charge to stop them but the Moclans have already charged the weapon. Charly as established hates the Kaylon. She cannot stop the firing mechanism so has to overload the machine to prevent it from firing. The only problem is she has to there to do it. She succeeds leaving an emotional crew devastated at her loss.
Keely tells Primary that Charly hated them but still gave her life to save the entire species. This act sees the Kaylon join a provisional peace treaty and membership with the Union. Their information on biologicals is seemingly flawed and are indeed worthy of saving. When Isaac marries Doctor Finn in the season three finale, every Kaylon turns up to the wedding taking their fellow’s invitation literally.
Thee Kaylons are a great race to explore. They are both childlike and lethal at the same time. Their weaponry heads opening like something from John Carpenter’s The Thing is unnerving. Along with their eyes turning red, they are a force to be reckoned with yet sympathised with due to their time as slaves. They didn’t start the fire but it was their fear of biologicals that kept them isolated from the rest of the galaxy. There was never any chance they could see that not all biologicals were like the Builders unless they reached out. And even then their past tinted their perceptions. They saw humour and joking as attacks on Isaac which, unless you understand humour, is quite a justified view to take.
I’m sure poor actor Mark Jackson was roasted in that all encompassing suit he had to wear but he did a great job in taking what he had and forging a robot unique to the genre. Here’s hoping we haven’t seen the end of the Orville and its robotic hero.
I love a time travel story. You might have noticed from all The Time Warriors books I’ve written, so sci-fi is the greatest backdrop upon to paint such tales.
In the third season of The Orville: New Horizons, we get a time travel episode that truly looks at the reality of it and how it can impact, not the galaxy but one person’s life. In season two an old cellphone was discovered. Accessing it, helmsman Gordon Malone (Scott Grimes) was able to interact with the videos within and fall in love with a musician Laura.
In season three the crew are testing the Aronov device, a literal time machine. When the robotic Kaylon sneak attack to take thee device for themselves, Gordon Malloy races to destroy it before they can take it. But he is hit by a beam of energy and believed to be dead. But they receive a message from three hundred years in the past from Gordon asking to be rescued.
Checking they find he became a civil engineer and pilot before dying in 2068. Union law states that if any officer finds themselves trapped in the past they must isolate themselves and leave no footprint in time which could affect the timeline. To do otherwise will incur serious punishment. As Bortus points out, since Malloy lived and died, they obviously did not rescue him. Since history is intact then their mission is already accomplished.
Isaac points out that events are still in flux given they have not made their decision yet as to go after him or not. Now this doesn’t make sense to me but then it is time travel so when does it ever. History is intact, Malloy had a full life with no consequences and this did not implode the space time continuum so it should be all good.
But Mercer’s logic is that his friend called out for help and cannot be left in the past alone. They must go after him. But when they go back, they damage the Aronov device and worse still, have arrived ten years after Malloy. They find him at the commercial airport in the full flow of his life.
While Charley and a disguised Isaac go searching for the mineral they need to fix the device to get them home again, Kelly and Ed start acting, to be frank, like idiots. And this is what I mean when I talk about the flippancy or careless attitude of the Orville crew, especially the Captain and first officer. They attack Malloy for creating a life for himself; warning he will face serious charges when he gets home. Ed berates him saying that he had no right to build a life for himself. Kelly comments on how he has acclimatised to life in the twenty first century. He tells them about deodorant and personalised car plates and says he has no intention off returning to their time. And they soon learn why. Malloy is married to Laura and they have a son, Edward and another on the way.
Malloy has broken the law and in Mercer and Kelly’s collective eyes in the most terrible of ways. He is a criminal who needs to be brought to justice. Given their past, are the recent glories between thwarting the Kaylon invasion and Krill alliance gone to their heads? Since when were they so duty bound that they take such a narrow and insular view? Especially when he is Mercer’s best friend.
Malloy warns them to go and not come back but they are determined to take him back. He agrees but only if his family come too. Mercer refuses seeing them as anomalies that should never have been. It is true that Malloy used his previous knowledge of Laura to find her but he was already in love with her from the previous episode. And it is here that Mercer and Kelly get an up close and personal look at the harsh reality of obeying the temporal law. It looks great on paper but to physically go through it is tougher than you think.
Ed tells them he did what he was told to and hid himself away from all other people. He lived by killing animals and eating them. That equates him to being a mass murderer. But the loneliness and isolation was too much to bear. Faced with a life of anguish and torment, Malloy spent three years alone but he went seeking Laura. Humans are not built to be alone and the temporal laws are not viable to the species they were written for. What they ask for is an impossibility and when no-one showed up, Malloy did what he had to.
Malloy pulls a gun on them and tells them to leave and never come back. He is happy and about to become a father again. It all seems very black and white to Mercer and Kelly to the point that they bring the super strong Tala as back up to rip Malloy back with them.
The scenes of Edward and Laura’s fears about him being taken are touching and show another aspect to this situation. But before they can take Malloy, Lamarr contacts them and tells them they have fixed the Aronov device and can leave. This new information gives Mercer another option. He is going to go back to the original arrival date and take that Malloy instead. This will cancel out this future.
Mercer is condemning the Malloy family to death.
Those final scenes of the Malloys sitting on the couch watching television knowing they are about to be wiped from existence are tragic. What Mercer is doing is killing an unborn child. They go back and rescue the recently stranded Malloy.
Now with him retrieved, do Mercer and Kelly have regrets about what they did in the name of The Union? They tell Malloy what they did but he is very understanding about it saying it must have been a terrible decision to make. We end with the Malloy we know oblivious to the exact consequences of what was done. he is no longer the Malloy that would die for his family. If you look at it, being part of the Orville crew is holding Malloy back from finding true happinerss and becoming a three dimensional man with a purpose in life. His family brought him to maturity while maintaining his comedic side. but Malloy is oblivious tot his. While there he sees others gain promotion or haver better sex lives than he does but separated from them, he becomes his own man. That’s an interesting theme. What if the people you call friends are in fact holding you back from a truly happy life? it is clear that they had no problem putting rules before friendship and Mercer is hypocritical as he bends the rules to suit himself. So is his friendship with Malloy real or a comfort blanket as Mercer took the Orville command in an unconfident mind. It is clear from this episode that Mercer puts duty over friendship at the drop of a hat when he and Kelly have broken the rules time and again. And let’s not forget, Mercer has a ha;f Krill daughter he has kept secret.
Let’s face it, none of this would have happened if Mercer had simply accepted that his best friend was gone, lost to the past where he lived a full life. Details of his family would have been on his bio that was found, yet for some reason (plot convenience) they fail to see that information. In fact it is Isaac that opens the argument that they cannot ignore this.
But it is clear that what they did was the wrong thing to do.
They saw that Malloy survived and thrived without them and made a very happy life for himself. The only reason this happened could be that Mercer could not bear to be without his best friend. The fact is that he witnessed first hand Malloy’s happy new life and how settled he was. Bortus was the only one here that spoke any sense.
The real crime here is what Mercer and Kelly did. Twice In a Lifetime is a perfect example of how laws are not always right; that life is not a straight road and the people that write the rules may not necessarily see all the consequences of their law. As they say, it’s easier said than done. Humans are creatures hat need contact with others to survive. Isolation is toxic to our very nature.
If ever there was a story screaming for a sequel then this is it. Somehow I don’t believe that the Malloys were simply wiped from the timeline. And while Mercer and Kelly might be happy with the way things turned out, I doubt that family man Malloy will see it like that. Indeed he may see it in a very different, perhaps vengeful light.
By Owen Quinn author of The Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photos copyright Universal
I’m betting you all think that the ladies that have played the Bionic Woman consists of Lindsey Wagner and EastEnder’s Zoe Slater herself, Michelle Ryan. But did you know that there was another Bionic Woman in the eighties that lasted one episode and went on to movie super stardom?
And if things had gone a little differently then there would have been a brand new Bionic Woman series complete with several of the old cast returning. And the new Bionic Woman’s name would have been Kate Mason played by the one and only Sandra Bullock.
As a premise this wasn’t bad and given it was the eighties and Star Trek had successfully rebooted, why not the bionic family?
The old crew were back like it was a crossover episode from the old days. Jaime was the one to prepare the wheelchair-bound Kate for the surgery. Steve Austin was there as was Oscar Goldman and Rudy Wells, the genius behind the invention of bionics. but sadly there was no Max the bionic dog but Lee Majors real life son as Jim Castillian. Of course nobody ever remarked how much Jim and Steve looked alike. Anything to tell us Steve? That’s okay because Jim doesn’t look like you when he stands beside you or talk like you at all….Thank God Jeremy Kyle is no longer running his show.
Added to the cast was Jim Goldman (Oscar’s nephew) played by V’s and Star Trek Voyager’s Jeff Yagher, Kate’s love interest.
Kate’s bionics were very different from Steve and Jaime’s. She was not an amputee and thanks to the constant evolution of technology, these bionics were implants placed into the paralysed muscles through the body. Jaime, now a therapist, has been guiding Kate every step of the way. We get to see family home movies showing Kate and her family in Kate’s first scene.
Now remember that this was not only Sandra Bulloch’s very first television appearance but her first leading role. Now the writing is okay for the time but writers then seemed to think it was important to show disabled as hating themselves and in a constant cloud of dejection. This was so the audience would identify with Kate on an emotional level because better her than them, right?
Jaime finds her siting in the dark watching these movies and refers to herself as the gimp. Now that would come to mean something else in years to come so best we skip that. But it does show that Kate sees herself as a burden. Kate has a congenital disease and muscular degeneration and has been in a wheelchair since she was six years old. She is terrified that she will not be the same person if the bionics work so Jaime tells her what happened to her.
I have to say I quite like the new theme music and titles, updated as it could be for the eighties.
Her bionics work thanks to a mini-computer in her brain stem which controls all the others throughout her body. We discover that Jim Goldman is in love with Kate long before she became the new bionic woman. He even persuades her to let him go undercover with her as her trainer. But he has a rival in the form of OSI agent Alan Devlin, who is very protective of Kate.
My question would be how is she going top explain this to her friends and family? Well, her family would have been told which was also explored in the Six Million Dollar Man two part episode, The Bionic Boy to great effect.
Kate is plunged into her first mission amid a background of Oscar going off the rails, a traitor at the OS, another bad guy bionic person on the loose and an international threat to the Unity Games. Kate joins the track team but must control her speed for fear of her cover being blown. It is also very sexualised as her costume is skimpy to say the least much in the way Wonder Woman’s was.
You can see through her performance that those little Sandra traits we will come to the fore when she goes global starting with Speed. She does have an arc, no longer seeing herself as the gimp when she beats the bad guys. Kate learns that not everyone around her is as they seem when Alan is revealed to be not only the traitor but bionic as well. Not only that he is super bionic meaning Rudy’s work has already been taken and expanded on. Kate is not invulnerable as their enemies have developed a bionic disruptor which if fired will drop her on the spot as it will attack her brain implant controlling her body. Her limbs are as invulnerable as Jaime and Steve but the bionic moves have had a terrible update.
While Jaime and Steve still have the old go-slow effects with the classic sound effects, Kate and Alan blur from view in a kind of rainbow effect and whooshing sound effects which don’t do it for me. You want to see our bionic heroes in full flow not obscured behind a rainbow.
I remember this coming out on video and hoping there would be a full series as they really try to honour the originals to their fullest and bring them up to date in a decent manner. But it is so eighties in his presentation with its synthesizer soundtrack mixed with hard rock. But the bionic Showdown does what it set out to do. It presents a potential new Bionic Woman ready for the new era and with Kate Mason they certainly deliver. Sandra is a great actor, versatile and the audience falls in love with her. But I for one would love to have seen Kate Mason in full bionic flow.
“The ending of Toy Story 3 was a horror story. It was as shocking as Ripley falling to her death with the alien popping out of her chest. It was like Brad finding his wife’s head in the case at the climax of Seven. I didn’t cry along at all with the dewy eyed masses enraptured with Woody and the others. Stuck in the cinema, I stared open mouthed but inwardly was screaming at the screen, ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’
The zombie rollercoaster continues as the undead continue to give us their view of being a rotting corpse under the control of Mother Nature. This time round we meet Comic Book zombie and the zombie who thinks the ending of Toy Story 3 is sacrilege. What happens when a zombie’s faith in God is rocked to its very foundation and why is the spirit of Elvis Presley still going strong in the vast roaming herds? A zombie tells why the covid pandemic was much preferable to being undead and why having a club foot makes you feel normal as a zombie. Plus more zombie characters than you can shake a stick at.
In this third book in this series we meet fifteen new zombies!
1 The Zombie with all the Answers
2 47 Year Old Orphan Zombie
3 I F***ing Love It Zombie
4 Far From Home Zombie
5 Faithless Zombie
6 Faithful Zombie
7 My Dog Died Today Zombie
8: Comic Book Zombie
9 The Zombie Who Left the Building
10: Comparison Zombie
11: Club Foot Zombie
12: World Through a Window Zombie
13: Don’t Call me Andy Zombie
14: How My Parents Died Zombie
15: Photographic Zombie
Plus a bonus taste of the Time Warriors as they face a game changing old enemy in The Time Warriors The Belbridge Mystery
The Time Warriors and Beyond 