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Jeffrey Combs’ Andorian Shran is back, and this time he’s here to help Archer nab the Xindi weapon prototype. Or does he just want leverage in the war against the Vulcans? Or does he have other hidden goals entirely? Who can tell?

A clear parallel to the religious fanaticism of radical Islam, Archer runs afoul of the Sphere-worshipers, who make traveling through the anomalies of the Expanse very difficult.

Somewhere in the contract it says that your characters must come to “the present.”

Unlike ST:IV, however, this is a little more serious – as they must stop the biological Xindi weapon that’s getting ready to be deployed in the past. A local douchebag is aiding the Xindi by kidnapping people by blood type. Why he can’t just steal their blood (he works in a blood bank) isn’t explained.

A “very special” episode, in a way, where Trip gets bonked on the head & is in a coma and only some of his own brain tissue can save him.

One of Phlox’s worms can become, essentially, a clone – one that will live Trip’s full life in 15 days. Is it right to “create” this clone and harvest his tissue? Is it right to buy a Chrysler?

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These shows just can’t resist finding a way to go to the old west, can’t they?

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A zap to Archer’s brain from an Expanse anomaly leaves him unable to form short term memory. As such he’s out of commission and can not save Earth. Survivors become a BSG-like group of refugees on Ceti Alpha V.

Future-Phlox, however, figures out that killing the parasites in Archer’s head will alter the timeline, or something – it kinda makes sense when you see it.

The core of the story, though, is of T’Pol becoming caretaker (and lover) to Archer in this future timeline.

Archer and his team are ready for infiltration when they track down a facility creating the element Kemocite for the deadly Xindi weapon.

What’s the play? Blow the shit up or try and make an ally?

There aren’t too many episodes with Hoshi as lead for good reason. She’s a drip.

Anyway, here beauty (allegedly) gets trapped with Beast in an old castle loaded with telepathy. Not very interesting, but new knowledge gleaned about the Xindi help move that arc forward a bit.

What’s more awesome than Vulcans? Zombie Vulcans!

Also throws a wrinkle in Archer’s plans for the Expanse. T’Pol will go batty if exposed to anomaly-busting Trellium-D. Ruh roh!

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Lady Saucypants makes her way to Enterprise and uses here Siren skills to get intel for the Xindi. You gotta stop trusting people in the Expanse, Archer!

It ends with one of the funniest Unitards in the entire series.

Awful.

A planetoid virus changes your DNA and turns you into a bad actor. Truly, less said about this one the better.

This pirate-driven episode shows the first time an Enterprise crewman dies as well as the first time Archer acts like an ends-justifying-the-means badass in the BSG mode. Definitely a product of the year 2003.

Season 3 begins with a great setting (the Expanse), a clear goal (get the Xindi!) and some story-based reasons for T’Pol to try on new outfits (resigning her commission and Neuropressure sessions with Trip!) Heck, even the song has a little more pep.

I like the jailbreak aspect of this episode and learning more about the Xindi.

A quick story about the first time I saw this. I was a Freshman at NYU Film and reading a lot about Altman. I’d seen M*A*S*H and The Player and I think that’s about it. I’d read about his genre-spinning send-up of detective movies and really wanted to check it out. I headed over to the Bobst Library’s Avery Fischer Center – where I spent most of that first year devouring films of every stripe. Imagine banks of tiny TV screens & headphones and access to the world’s largest Netflix queue.

Anyway, I got there & immediately forgot the name of the movie I wanted to see (it was, of course, The Long Goodbye) but someone piped up and said Brewster McCloud! Because, yes, there is a detective character in that movie. It took me until I got back home & to my reference books (no Internet!) to realize I watched the wrong flick.

All that aside, hot damned, what a picture!

Imagine Peter Greenaway’s The Falls or A Zed and Two Naughts on laughing gas.

It is one of the more successful counter-culture pictures because it doesn’t try to describe the counter-culture, like, say, Easy Rider – it simply IS counter-culture. (<–please add “man” to the end of that sentence.)

It is also really funny. Odo turns into a fucking bird for Christ’s sake.

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This is not quite the disaster some would lead you to believe.

It is, though, a bit of a missed opportunity. TNG shoulda gone out on a better note.

Consider this, though – had this movie been fantastic, there would have been additional TNG movies. Heck, maybe Enterprise would have gotten that fifth season.

If that were the case, would Paramount have set the engines in motion for an Abramsverse reboot in 2006? Perhaps not, but that’s what Myriad Universes are all about.

I can not lie to you. I enjoyed Eyeborgs. It’s like someone took RoboCop and ran it through a low-budget/bad-acting machine – but it is still enjoyable.

And when you watch it, each time you see an Eyeborg you should shout “Eyeborg!”

It may have the worst title in history, but when you learn that this is a Zhang Yimou remake of The Coen Bros’ Blood Simple your interest level may perk up.

What a strange project. It is, at heart, what it sounds like: Blood Simple airlifted from 1980s Texas to Medieval China. A very stylized Medieval China.

There are a few changes: additional characters, the wife character is much more mischievous, the opening is much broader and sillier, but then there are whole sequences that are shot-by-shot the same.

Cineastes are gonna’ lose their shit when they see this.

A full review on UGO to come at the end of the Summer as we ready for the flick’s release. I’ll probably get to interview Zhang, too.