Forgotten Heroes: Odyssey 5’s Sarah Forbes

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

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.

In another universe I wouldn’t have to be writing about Odyssey 5. It would have been on all our lips like Quantum Leap. My first view of it was on a late night slot on television and by the end of the hour and a half I was hooked. very few shows have caught my attention in the first episode like this for example X Files and The Walking Dead but Odyssey 5 was a trailblazer for other shows today. It had swearing, full frontal nudity all wrapped up in a sci fi coat.

The characters were flawed; three dimensional good and bad in all their glory. To get the show’s premise you should click on the video above which is the show’s intro and gives you everything you need to know. What is beautiful about odyssey 5 written and created by the late Manny Coto, was that it played with our expectations of time travel in the same way as it did the characters. They all know what is going to happen in their lives and the world so all they need to do is live it again and look for signs of the mystery of what caused the Earth to explode and stop it. However this is not the case as their very investigations begin to change the future within months. These themes were also explored in the series Travellers. The Odyssey was the name of the shuttle they were all on when the Earth died. The titular 5 refers to the occupants of the shuttle. Three of them are astronauts Chuck Taggart (Peter Weller), his son Neil (Christopher Gorham), scientist Kurt Mendel (Sebastian Roche), astronaut and senator’s daughter Angela (Tamara Craig Thomas) and reporter Sarah Forbes (Leslie Silva).

Sarah Forbes played by Leslie Silva, was a high profile news reporter who bagged a place upon the Odyssey shuttle mission. Out of all the five people sent back in time, Sarah represents the one with the most to lose and the most to gain. In the original timeline, Sarah’s young son Corey died of a rare form of cancer.

Its symptoms went undiagnosed until too late. As a result Sarah’s marriage to her husband Paul fell apart and she began an affair with her boss at the news station, Troy. Now Corey is alive and well and Sarah has a two fold mission; save the Earth and her son.

Being returned five years in the past, Sarah is still married to Paul. It must be hard to pretend to still love someone you’d grown beyond in your mind and heart but Sarah goes along with it. The type of cancer she knows Corey will get is hard to diagnose and with no symptoms showing at this point in time, Sarah has the luxury to watch for them. and do something to stop it from happening.

Her contribution to the team is her access to news networks and weird stories that may be the work of the synthetics or the Sentients. She alerts the team to the ten year olds murdering family members or being the sole survivors of house fires. It turns out her reporter instincts are right as the children are being controlled to build a machine to create a portal. The team don’t get to save all the children but most of them are not taken and returned to their families.

Equally she and Angela try to stop the kidnapping of a little girl but somehow their presence changes events causing another child to be taken instead leaving Sarah and Angela the new suspects. As the others found, knowing the future is not a guarantee that events will take the same path. Chuck and Neil learn this lesson all too well when Chuck’s beloved wife Paige is murdered by a synthetic skin that changes her into an assassin. Kurt discovers he doesn’t know sports results as well as he thought he did which places his life in danger. With ther arrival back in the past and subsequent investigations are changing events so the future is shifting. Maybe this will apply to Corey nd Sarah can save him. Have what they have done already managed to prevent the destruction of Earth? They don’t know but this future knowledge threatens their own well being.

Sarah arrives home one night to discover Paul has taken Corey having discovered that Sarah has been giving the kid medication that has not been prescribed by a doctor. Unable to tell anyone the truth about what she knows, Sarah looks like a crazy mother before the court at the custody hearing. Her story falls apart on the stand and Corey tells the court he didn’t like the medicine and his mummy told him she was now a doctor. Looking like she is abusing her son, Sarah has supervised visits only which upsets Corey as he doesn’t want to leave his mother. Despite begging her husband to believe her, Sarah is alone and the more time she spends apart from Corey, the less she can do to help stop the cancer taking hold.

The scene where she receives the phone call telling her she has lost her case is heartbreaking because we as the audience know she is racing against time to save her child. In reality, we would do the same but that’s what Odyssey 5 does best. It has a heart and really has you wanting to reach out and hug the characters when they are kicked in the nuts. You’d think that given they are trying to save the world, fate would give them a break but sadly not.

Her actions end her marriage before it did in the original timeline and worse still, she meets Troy, the man she will end up with. Despite herself she can’t resist Troy’s advances which results in her breaking up his relationship leaving her looking like a marriage wrecker. By th season’s multiple cliffhangers, Paul realises Sarah has been right all long as Corey is diagnosed with cancer. What a beautiful and terrifying theme to include where you witness your child dying twice, burying them twice. It is such a pity that we will never get to see what happens. Knowing what she knows, would Sarah have tried to use synthetic tech to save Corey? Would she have made a deal with the devil to keep Corey alive? What impact would that have on her relationships with the team? Would saving your child cause the end of the world? Those are fascinating themes that could have been explored but never will be. Manny Coto passed in 2023 and he ever got around to finishing the story in another medium.

But Sarah has fun as well. She gets along with Harry, a synthetic that turns out to be a super nerd of sorts and teaches her the Vulcan nerve pinch which she uses in future episodes when fighting the synthetics. She is upset when Harry dies but it shows them synthetics are not all the robotic killing machines as portrayed so far.

And that’s what it is to be human: to laugh amid the terror and tragedy. Of all the Odyssey crew, Sarah was the one that had reason to fight harder than anyone else.

Forgotten Villains: Star Trek TAS: Tchar of the Skorr

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

photos copyright Paramount Pictures

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.

There’s nothing I like more than a flying alien especially when based on Earth birds like eagles. There’s something about them that immediately elevates the fear factor because it’s bad enough being attacked by something predatory that pricks your primal fears but when it swoops from above outmanoeuvring you it is lethal. In Enterprise season 3, the alien threat the Xindi are composed of several species. One was supposed to be an avian but they had become extinct. Only the animated series provided such a creature given in animation there are no limits to the size and shapes of the aliens the Enterprise crew could encounter.

In season one’s sixteenth episode the Jihad, Kirk and Spock joins forces with a variety of aliens on a quest to prevent a disaster from happening. One of the specialists that are summoned is Tchar from the avian species the Skorr. He is the hereditary prince of the Skorr and Master of the Eyrie. They were a violent warrior people over two centuries ago with advanced military technology and could breed warriors at an exponential rate. But they became a civilised race and part of the Federation thanks to the teachings of their religious leader Alar.

Upon his death the Skorr made him immortal by placing his brain waves into a sacred sculpture, the Soul of Alar (also known as the Soul of Skorr). It was stolen. If the Skorr find tHis out they will declare holy war on everyone consuming all planets in the galaxy. They are capable of breeding 200 billion warriors in two years which makes them a serious threat to the stability of the Federation.

Their mission now is to retrieve the Soul of the Skorr.

Kirk and this team will be the fourth to try and get it back from an unstable world full of volcanic activity and atmospheric storms. Tchar’s ability to fly gives the group an advantage from aerial reconnaissance. They are attacked by mechanical dragon like creatures and Tchar is seemingly carried off by one of the beasts. They find a Skorr temple where Tchar claimed he can hear the Soul of Alar calling to him.

Just as they are about to get the Soul, Tchar is revealed as the villain. He stole the Soul because it has reduced th Skorr to soft creatures when they should be fighting great battles. The Federation has taken their warrior souls from them. With the relic destroyed the Skorr will rise up and take revenge. When Spock points out many will die, Skorr agrees saying it will be a warrior’s death. They are very Klingon like in their thinking as several times since the Khitomer Accords, some Klingons have fought to go back to their warrior days rejecting the new peace.

Skorr is defeated when he turns off the gravity forcing them to fight on his terms; in the air like Skorr. Between them Kirk and Spock capture him sending him back the planet they were initially summoned to. Skorr’s view is seen as a sickness and he is sent for rehabilitation. They acknowledge he is proud and brave but has to be made sane and whole again.

It is a pity that these animated episodes only run around twenty minutes. The Skorr are an unique species in the Star Trek universe as avians. With today’s CGI it wouldn’t be hard to have one as a member of the Entrprise crew or feature in a story. Maybe it’s about time we revisited the Skorr and expand their culture to make them fan favourites.

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Hatchet: A Multilayered Masterpiece

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

2007 saw the release of Hatchet, a new horror movie that would become a franchise spawning three more movies, action figures and comic books. From the mind of Adam Green, it saw the introduction of Victor Crowley in to horror. I almost said villain there but unlike Michael and Freddy, he is really a victim. Indeed, Victor was a victim of circumstance and other’s actions while he was still in the womb. So, it is bloody no wonder that he reacts so badly to the intrusions into his territory in the movies. He is simply protecting his space.

Victor, we learn, is a repeater forever doomed to come back from the dead for eternity until he is reunited with his father. The legend is tested in Hatchet 2 but the ashes in the ruin are not his father so it fails miserably. While the intentions were good, the execution is flawed.

Victor was the result of an affair his father, Thomas Crowley (Kane Hodder who also plays adult Victor), had with the nurse who was tending his terminally ill mother. They fell in love conceiving Victor in the process. When Victor’s mother found out about their love in her dying moments, she cursed the baby robbing her husband of his heir, the one thing she couldn’t give him due to her illness. Victor’s mother died in childbirth and he was born with deformities.

Victor’s father, played by Kane Hodder, took his son and moved to Honey Island Swamp, supposed home of a Bigfoot type monster for many years. They would go to town but the kids would tease Victor over his appearance relentlessly. Victor never had contact with any other kids and that is a vital part of growing up. Within the character’s introduction Adam Green makes his monster/villain sympathetic by introducing the themes of bullying and isolation. Victor’s dad does not avail of any services the medical world provides, probably because he does not have the money to avail of them. The shack they live in is basic and Victor does not have much in the way of toys or games consoles or any of the other things taken for granted by kids these days. The basic joy of playing is extended only to in and around their house but if a stranger calls Victor has to scurry away into the safety of the house. It is the only way his father can keep him safe from the bullies. It is all he can do to give his so any sort of life free from any more pain than he already suffers.

By introducing the themes of being different, disability and poverty, Hatchet becomes a social commentary. We probably laugh at it without thinking about these issues but if we look at the real world, especially now, in this cost-of-living crisis, disabled kids living in poverty and their parents struggling to give them a decent life is very real. Indeed, it applies to all children these days but by adding these to Victor’s life it immediately elevates him to more than just another bloodthirsty slasher killer. It is society that has let Victor down as well as taunting bullies. His father’s poverty, their location out in the swamp and the attitudes of others are not Victor’s fault. It is clear from the scene at the grocery store that Victor is terrified of children because bullies are the only ones he has met so far. By this being his only exposure to children, it makes him believe others represent pain. All he has is his father and anyone else is a threat.

If his father had sought out social help then Victor would have known the joy of playing with other children. Kids don’t see colour or differences; they only see another person to play with. If Victor had grown up with this sort of emotional and physical contact then the pressure would have also been off his father. He could have availed of facilities and services for children like Victor but it wasn’t to be. So ashamed was Thomas of Victor’s disfigurement which is severe, Thomas thought it was better to keep him isolated. Intentionally or not Hatchet highlights the need for social services in society or kids slip through the cracks., Les we forget kids like Victor were put away into institutions and kept a dark family secret where they died forgotten while the world went by.

By keeping Victor isolated from the rest of the world, people being what they are will make up stories about the monster, the freak in the swamp. The parents would probably scare their kids with these tales as a deterrent to stop them from going into the alligator infested swamps. Rightly so, but, no-one would have thought the effect of these stories as the older kids get the bolder they get. They can be easily led by others with alarming consequences.

This is what happens one Halloween when a gang decide to go to Victor’s house and scare him with fireworks. His dad has gone to run an errand so Victor is locked inside the house. Thomas comes back to a burning house. Victor is behind the door trying to get out. Thomas uses an axe to smash the door down but doesn’t realise his son is behind it. Victor collapses as he is hit in the face. He dies leaving behind his dad who dies ten years later from a broken heart. Again, this may seem like a simple piece of story to fill in the plot but it is in fact a beautiful representation of the bonds between a father and son. Thomas literally gives up his life to care for his son. It isn’t even a question; it is his duty. Perhaps he never got over the death of Victor’s mother. A broken heart can be a burden but when you have a child involved, some cap their grief and put all their attention into the child. Life is all about their care and well-being and nothing will stop anyone from ensuring that happens. Thomas falling in love destroyed his son’s life and now he has killed the only thing he had left. Maybe the grief he had been ignoring finally could be ignored no more and ate away at him. He died alone and unloved which again brings in the theme of isolation and the importance of human contact. Like his son, Thomas had no-one. What a tragedy that in this world with billions of people, not one thought of reaching out to Thomas and giving him a lifeline. His money was good enough for Gertrude’s store, he was known in the area; yet nothing. How is that possible in this world yet it is sadly a fact that happens every day.

When you look at it, Victor is to be pitied more than feared. He spends the afterlife seeking out his father, the haunting wails of daddy echoing out across the swamps. You can hear the pain and longing in that cry. Regardless of his murderous ways, Victor is alone. Let’s face it, anyone stupid enough to go out there deserve what they get because all contact with the outside world has terrified Victor hence his actions. He is a kid desperately seeking his dad, the one stable thing in his life that loved him and cared for Victor regardless of what he looked like. This was attempted in the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween by showing the origins of Michael in an abusive household from his mother’s boyfriend and his relationship with his mother. But it fails miserably, not convincing audiences at all, unlike the one between Thomas and Victor.

Behind all the blood and guts and dark comedy, there is a sadness in Hatchet where you cannot help but feel sorry for Victor. We have seen movies like Mask, the Elephant Man and even Beauty and the Beast where someone who looks different deals with society in different ways. Hatchet falls into that category. Whether Adam Green inserted these themes deliberately or it is just new eyes seeing it, Hatchet is a horror movie that has heart and social commentary that is still effective in today’s society; perhaps more than ever before. That’s why Hatchet stands head and shoulders above the rest of the genre for its soul and emotion.

Book Excerpt: Zombie Blues 3: Faithless Zombie

By and copyroght of Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

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.

Available on Amazon now!

Faithless Zombie

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name”

Damn those words are so hollow right now. The Church’s reputation has suffered in recent years but never so much as right now.

If ever the world needed you now was the time for God to step in and show himself to his flocks of scared worshippers it was now.

But he didn’t. He wasn’t going to any time soon.

Millions succumbed to the wrath of Mother Nature withering into these shuffling husks beneath her poisonous touch. Gnarled fingers stroked the purity of the flesh surrounding the soul, twisting it into abominations intent on killing every last human on the planet. What was your response God?

Yeah, good one; hide in heaven silently watching us struggle as usual like some reality show you can switch off without an afterthought. It would not be a stretch to say my very soul is broken. But then again that’s been your response for centuries; absolute silence and you wonder why humanity has lost faith in you? According to the Holy Bible you weren’t so quiet when you needed Moses or Noah when the shit hit the fan.

I preached every day to the faithful so they could see your truth in every day life packing my Church every Sunday. We acknowledged your glory as being everywhere from the first golden rays of the sun rise to the miraculous arrival of a baby to the world. How many of those babies lie dead because of your impotence you coward?  Who would have thought that the emergence of the undead would be the proof the world needed to declare you really exist? 

You bore creation in less than a week so therefore you created Mother Nature. By definition her very existence proves that you do exist once and for all. Atheists all around the world are either dead and in your glory or undead like me or confirming their own beliefs as they gaze upon this shattered world of the dead. God exists, hallelujah! So what? How can you silently stand by and witness your own creation be torn apart reducing our ephemeral lives to ash like this? Where does this fit in your great plan the faithful ask? Why haven’t you seen fit to open the heavens, step in and put an end to this horrendous scheme? If this is God working in mysterious ways, it’s certainly winning you no fans. I put on this sacred collar to preach your word to your flock but now another controls them easier than any shepherd could. If my cold dead fingers could rip this collar from my turkey neck they certainly would

Forgotten Heroes: Odyssey 5’s Chuck Taggart

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

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.

In another universe I wouldn’t have to be writing about Odyssey 5. It would have been on all our lips like Quantum Leap. My first view of it was on a late night slot on television and by the end of the hour and a half I was hooked. Very few shows have caught my attention in the first episode like this for example X Files and The Walking Dead but Odyssey 5 was a trailblazer for other shows today. It had swearing, full frontal nudity all wrapped up in a sci fi coat.

The characters were flawed; three dimensional good and bad in all their glory. To get the show’s premise you should click on the video above which is the show’s intro and gives you everything you need to know. What is beautiful about Odyssey 5 written and created by the late Manny Coto, was that it played with our expectations of time travel in the same way as it did the characters. They all know what is going to happen in their lives and the world so all they need to do is live it again and look for signs of the mystery of what caused the Earth to explode and stop it. However this is not the case as their very investigations begin to change the future within months. These themes were also explored in the series Travellers. The Odyssey was the name of the shuttle they were all on when the Earth died. The titular 5 refers to the occupants of the shuttle. Three of them are astronauts Chuck Taggart (Peter Weller), his son Neil (Christopher Gorham), scientist Kurt Mendel (Sebastian Roche), astronaut and senator’s daughter Angela (Tamara Craig Thomas) and reporter Sarah Forbes (Leslie Silva).

Chuck Taggert was played by Robocop actor Peter Weller. He is a tough no nonsense astronaut fiercely loyal to his friends and deeply devoted to his wife Paige (Gina Clayton). Now because Chuck and Neil are the only ones aware they are five years in the past, their whispered conversations and sudden changes in behaviour immediately make Paige suspicious to the point she thinks Chuck might be having an affair. While infected with the virus that begins turning him into a synthetic, Chuck seeks refuge with Kurt who desperately searches for a cure. However Paige discovers where Chuck is and goes to Kurt’s. There he tells her to go away using language that creates friction between him and Neil. She doesn’t believe his tale of aliens and time travel. It is their long marriage and deep love for each other that gets them through the mad tale. If he were having an affair, he could think of a thousand better stories that time travel. One of the rules of time travel is tell no one the future or it may change the entire timeline with disastrous consequences. What is so lovely about their argument is it is clear they are deeply in love and plays exactly how a fight like this would happen in real life. This show is intense and this is partly due to the relationships between the cast. Chuck is forever ready to kick the crap out of the annoying Kurt but as a leader recognises his worth to the team and saving the planet. Chuck’s word is law. But Kurt forever butts head against him openly defying Chuck’s wisdom and decisions but they have a respect for one another (Nicknaming him Kurtrude along the way when the name Chucky is used). Angela is a protoge to Chuck and when they are returned to the past, Angela is in the middle of a space walk at the time. She was badly injured in the future so the shock of finding herself back in the past causes her to nearly die. It’s only Chuck talking her through that saves her life. This action alone begins to raise suspicions because there was no way for Chuck to know what was happening. Further investigations into NASA including the theft of a strange moon rock brings attention to Chuck he’d rather not have. His loyalty is brought into question but his position protects him somewhat. However he discovers a whole world around him of lies and deceit that he never saw the first time he lived those years. There are synthetics, seemingly two sets, one of which originated from Mars who can grow human bodies and one has infected the internet. Old friends are conspirators, some are living secret lives well aware of the alien threat and a secret cabal battling the aliens called the Cadre, forms the heart of the space agency who have Chuck and his team firmly in their sights as a threat. They even blackmail Chuck’s son Marc into spying on his father to ensure he gets the grades he needs to enter the astronaut programme. This applies equally to the aliens, the Sentients who invade cyberspace and the synthetics. Chuck is infected with a virus that almost turns him into one of the alien cohhort and barely survives. The Sentients have been using human as hosts to carry out missions like murder including children and Chuck and the others are now on the list to be converted. However with two sets of aliens running about which one is the real enemy and responsible for Earth’s destruction?

What keeps the team going is they have the chance to change the bad things that happened in their own lives. For Chuck, it is a chance to rebuild bridges with his other son Marc. Marc failed the astronaut programme the first time round and Neil discovers now that Marc is only doing it for their father. He doesn’t want to go to space and it is putting severe strain on him. Chuck has a strained relationship with Marc and even with that foreknowledge Chuck cannot stop it falling apart again. In the opening scenes we see both Paige and Marc standing with others watching a massive explosion that sounds the Earth’s destruction. The audience is immediately sidestepped into thinking that these characters will go to the end of the series.

However Marc’s running away changes the timeline but it is the events of the 13th stunning episode Skin that is the show’s biggest game changer. A synthetic organism created to kill Angela’s father is on the loose jumping from person to person. It infects Paige, turning her into an assassin who dies in Chuck’s arms. This is a ball breaker as it lets us and the characters know loud and clear that everything they knew is no longer guaranteed. Paige never died in the original timeline. Chuck was never a widower but now he is because of his mission. Devastated by his wife’s death, Chuck’s relationship with his boys is wrecked especially Neil who blames him for getting their mother involved. He tells the team he is leaving and takes off on a road trip. He’s going to enjoy his last years. Along the way he meets a hitchhiker. It turns out that Chuck is reliving the trip when he first met Paige. He cares about nothing. With Paige dead, Chuck doesn’t care of the world dies or not. For him, his world is already destroyed. As he poignantly relives his memories, you cannot help but be moved by his plight. The power of knowing the future should make you a god but instead it stabs you through the heart. Ignorance is bliss as they say and here it is never been more true. Chuck’s gruff manner stands him in good stead in dealing with authority figures especially when the FBI come snooping asking why Paige tried to murder a leading politician. Now a single parent he must find a way to keep his two boys safe but he cannot be emotional or sensitive with Neil calling him cold and that he is running away instead of facing his pain. Theey have a huge fight where Neil tries to bring him back to the mission but it isn’t easy when your a cigar smoking tough guy.

Chuck is brought back to the fold when he is kidnapped by a group of synthetics and a Sentient creates a fake world where Paige is alive. She has been using humans to understand human mind and been searching Check’s memories for what he knows about the alien plan. Here he discovers people are being experimented upon, their minds drained into this virtual world before being murdered and dumped like rubbish. This tips Chuck back to the fight, When she releases both of them the Sentient Paige offers Chuck one last moment with his wife but Chuck dismisses it saying she doesn’t have that power. She has his wife’s face but not her soul.This is his first step to bringing the fight to them and honouring Paige. While he is hurting bad over his loss, he realises that others are being murdered needlessly by these things and he is in a unique position to stop them. Chuck even strikes up a new female friendship with a waitress at the cafe they frequent, Penny but keeps it platonic despite her wanting to date him. If there is one positive to come from Paige’s death, it’s that Chuck’s feud with his sister Jennifer ends when she comes to help him sort through Paige’s affairs. Their relationship is frosty to say the least but it is the most vulnerable and open Chuck has been with anyone else bar his wife.

What is nice that aside from Chuck and Neil and a past fling between Kurt and Angela, these people are not friends. They have been thrown together to face an almost impossible task. Their relationships are not easy but over the course of their solitary season, they grow closer especially when tragedy calls and they fail to change their own past issues. Indeed the beauty of Odyssey 5 is how emotional it is hand in hand with action and aliens. The Odyssey 5 see the world through new eyes as the intensity of their mission increases. They see the suffering the Sentients and Synthetics have caused which went unnoticed before. Now their compassion and humanity steer them towards saving the Earth.

Out of everyone Chuck goes through the biggest journey in the solitary season. Sadly we will never get to know the resolution to the story especially with the passing of Manny Coto. However Chuck would live on in a way in the Star Trek universe.

Manny went on to bcome a writer on Star Trek Enterrise and literally saved the show’s final two seasons from being banal until it was cancelled. Using the cancellation news he crafted two of the best seasons of Trek ever using what had come before. When Star Trek Enterprise was cancelled Peter Weller was brought in for a two part block buster Demons and Terra Prime. As John Frederick Paxton leader of an anti alien group that wants Earth for humans, Terra Prime of the title. He creates a baby girl from the DNA from chief engineer Trip Tucker and science officer Vulcan T’Pol. He uses her as an example of how the human race will die out from mating with aliens robbing humanity of its unique genome leading to their extinction. He wants all aliens gone from Earth and the entire solar system or he will fire upon Earth from his Orpheus mining complex. He kidnaps T’Pol and she discovers the baby is dying. Paxton is suffering from Taggart’s syndrome, a nod to Chuck and the irony was he could have found a cure amid the alien medical bases.

But we’d like to think that Chuck Taggart lead his team to victory and save us all. If you ever see a cigar smoking astronaut in sunglasses swearing like a trooper pop up unexpectedly, rest assured that he is there to save us all.

Doctor Who: New Trailer and Episode Titles Revealed

Photo copyright BBC Disney

The new season of Doctor Who is almost upon us and the new trailer and episode titles have been released.

The titles are Space Babies, The Devil’s Chord, Boom, 73 Yards, Dot and Bubble, Rogue, The Legend of Ruby Sunday and Empire of Death.

New Guest Announcement for Dublin Comic Con

We are delighted to add another well known name amongst gamers and film and tv audiences, Jeff Teravainen!

Best known to our gaming audience for his role as Sam (zero)Fisher in Rainbow Six Siege, Jeff has played many characters in so many popular video games such as Walton Purefoy in Far Cry 2, Walker in FC5 along with many NPC’ s and Vasily Gulov in FC6. He was also a big player in Splinter Cell Blacklist, Starlink, Starcraft and so many more.

Jeff recently starred in Eli Roths Sony Pictures horror hit “Thanksgiving “. Jeff played Deputy Labelle to Sherriff Newland played by Patrick Dempsey. Speaking of holidays pics, Jeff played, Vincent, the main villain in Netflix’s hit, The Christmas Chronicles with Kurt Russell.

On television, Jeff has played many memorable roles, such as Anders in the SYFY hits Dark Matter and Agent Stack on 12 Monkeys as well as Gerald on Hulu’s Utopia Falls.

Jeff is also well-known in the Voice world many diverse gigs. He has been the voice of the Olympics numerous times and the FIFA World Cup. He is the voice of Argo Garcia in Beyblade and and Bakugan as Damdos and. Shargo Ronin along with other animation.

Jeff is the voice of hundreds TV ads you may know but also many documentaries you’ll see on Shark Week like Air Jaws. also, other popular series like Secrets in the ice. One particular highlight was being chosen by Clint Eastwood himself to Voice, the HBO documentary series on his life.!!

Jeff won the Jim Russell Car Almost doneRacing School Scholarship in 1996. Though his favorite sport is MotoGP, you can usually find him on weekends at the cottage, or digging for fossils. He is a massive fan of paleontology, science and history.

Photo ops are live!
📲 Get your tickets via https://www.tixr.com/groups/comicconireland/events/dublin-comic-con-summer-edition-2024-79332

Call of Duty: Vanguard Actor for Dublin Comic Con

We are delighted to continue our guest announcements with a foray into the world of gaming with Martin Copping!Martin is an actor and voice actor. Best known to our audience as the voice of Mozzie in Rainbow Six: Siege and as Lucas Riggs from Call of Duty: Vanguard as well as Zombie Hunter amongst a host of other titles! Photo ops are live !📲 Get your tickets via https://www.tixr.com/groups/comicconireland/events/dublin-comic-con-summer-edition-2024-79332#dccsummer #dublincomiccon2024 #comicconireland #dublincomiccon #callofduty #martincopping #rainbow6seige #lucasriggs             

TW watches Toy Soldiers

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

1991 saw the release of Toy Soldiers. An action movie written by Petrie and David Koepp and directed by Daniel Petrie Jnr. it saw terrorists taking a school hostage in order to secure their leader’s father’s release from prison. It brought together a team of actors that were familiar to audiences and have sci fi links.

Louis Gossett Jnr (Enrmy Mine) played Dean Parker while the Goonies Sean Astin played Billy Tepper. Star Trek’s Wil Wheaton played Billy’s best friend Joey Trotta, estranged son of Mafia boss, Albert Trotta. Indiana Jones’ sidekick Denholm Elliott played the headmaster while Wishmaster baddie Andrew Divoff played the madman Luis. The rest of the gang comprised of Hank Giles (T.E. Elliott), Ricky Montoya (George Perez) and “Snuffy” Bradberry (Keith Coogan).

They are all staff and pupils of Regis High for boys. Their families are wealthy and influential but many including Billy and Joey have been expelled from other schools. Despite their antics, Dean Parker is protective of his boys and seems to spend his time battling Billy and the gang’s escapades.

But when Luis Cali takes the entire school hostage in return for his father’s freedom, teenage mischief becomes vital in order to save the lives of everyone at the school and defeat Luis and his men. The entire shool has been wired with bombs and Luis has the detonator on his wrist at all times. His men have made Regis a fortress and no one can get in. It’s an impossible scenario from which there will be seemingly no resolve but Luis has not counted on Billy Tepper.

This movie may have sounded cormy on reading but it is executed in a heart pumping fashion. No movie really succeeds without a heart at its very core and the heart here is the friendship between the five boys especially Joey and Billy. Anybody can make an action movie but without the human core then it is simply a paint by numbers exercise. While Toy Soldiers is a great action movie, you can’t help but feel for the characters.

All of them have rich parents and have been estranged from them for various reasons. This is showcased in Jpey’s character. He hates his father to the point of no return and this relationship will be key to the plot. It is not specified as to why he hates him but we can only assume with no mother figure his gangster father somehow maybe caused her death. Add to being sent away to Regis when he really needed love from a parent and you can feel Joey’s hatred. His complete and total loyalty is to his friends. He and Billy balance each other out. Billy tempers Joey’s hothead reactions and Joey encourages his buddy to plan his revenge against the teachers rather than act irrationally. Interestingly enough Dean Parker refuses to give up on these kids and is very protective of them. With him trapped outside when the school when it is taken over, he is helpless but is secretly betting that Billy will somehow come up with a way to contact the outside world. And he’s right.

Using the combined talents of the other students, Billy manages to get details of how many terrorists there are and where they are positioned including names and weapons. The military have taken up position nearby and trying to stall negotiations. In a heart in your mouth sequence, Billy escapes to the outside world using a secret drain they use to bunk off school into town. He has less than an hour to get back before the hourly headcount is done, If he isn’t back in time then five students will be executed. The military detain Billy but Parker helps him escape. He is chased by soldiers in jeeps and falls into the waterway. With only seconds to spare before the headmaster and four kids are murdered Billy rushes in wearing a towel saying he was in the shower and never heard the call. It’s great stuff that elevates this movie beyond a cheesy run through. You care about these people as the deranged Luis Cali (Wishmaster himself Andrew Divoff) whips Billy in the Dean’s office. This gives Billy a chance to scout the layout including an air shaft leading to the rest of the building.

But Albert Trotta is not happy his son is being held hostage and sends word out for his release. Luis cooperates but fails to see how dangerous it is for Joey not to be more heavily guarded. He refuses to leave without his friends and is furious that his father has arranged this. But he is manhandled out but without Billy, Joey assaults the terrorist accompanying him and steals his automatic weapon. He rushes outside and has no control of the weapon as it fires random shots. The others have to hold Billy back as Joey is shot repeatedly lying dead on the school’s steps.

This is really the heartbreaker of the movie. It really shows the bond between these kids and now the fun is suddenly very real. Billy is distraught and forced to pull himself together by the others. The tragedy is felt on many levels as Joey dies for nothing. His father is devastated even knowing his son hates him beyond repair. The lone trumpet soundtrack makes you well up especially when Dean Parker has to go to the school to retrieve Joey’s body. Louis Gossett Junior underplays his fury and grief at one of his own being killed. He is tough with his kids especially with Billy and his vodka scam but he will die for them. You can the griEf and hatred in his face but his years as Dean of the school let him hold it together so he can look Luis in the eye and warn him. His words are not lost on Luis who know his days are numbered. It is clear along with the haunting solo trumpet backtrack that the Dean’s loss is killing him as surely as if Joey were his own. He warns Luis in a level, calm voice that they will bring him down but he is too busy being terrified at the retaliation from the Mafia for this. Rightly so, as his father is murdered in prison taking away his only reason to not kill everyone.

This triggers the run to the heart stopping finale as we get the kids fighting back as helicopters battle the roof machine guns. Navy Seals use the secret storm drain to gain entrance along with Dean Parker but an accidental grenade stops them leaving Dean alone with the wounded. Snipers take out the roof top terrorists and soldiers drop from helicopters as the terrorists are shot dead. Luis is freaking, knowing this is the end and detonates the bombs. However he is unaware Billy has swopped the chips in the detonator with a toy plane. Luis shoots Parker before being shot in the head. The kids are released and Billy and Parker have a new understanding.

There isn’t a poor performance here and even now the tension and the heartbreak is still as poignant as it was on the first viewing. Wrapped in this rollercoaster hostage movie is a story about family and what constitutes that. Family is supposed to be blood but on the absence of that, family will find you in people you never expected.

Amazing movie.