STARHYKE |
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Captain Blowhard - Claudia Christian Dotty - Suanne Braun Dr Striker - Jeremy Bulloch Commander Cropper - Brad Gorton Lt Commander Wu - Rachel Grant Engineer Popyatopov - Stephanie Jory Nurse Sandy Beach - Rebecca Nichols 
OTHER SCI FI COMEDIES Chuck Red Dwarf Hitch-Hiker s Guide to the Galaxy 3rd Rock From the Sun Eureka Quark OTHER SPACE ADVENTURE SHOWS Star Trek The Next Generation Deep Space Nine Voyager Enterprise Babylon 5 Battlestar Galactica (new) Space 1999
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DisorderedHumanity has all but taken over the galaxy by suppressing its emotions. One race still fights and during a battle, the Reptids go back in time to threaten Earth's past. The dreadnought Nemesis also makes the time trip, but a bomb leaves the entire crew at the mercy of magnified emotions they are ill-equipped to deal with. Oh dear. Science fiction and comedy, bedfellows that are almost never happy ones and STARHYKE is no exception, if this first episode is anything to go by. It's a set up episode, so there is a lot of plot to get in, much of which is rendered almost incomprehensible by the speed at which it is delivered. What would have been nice would have been if there had been a few jokes shoehorned in there as well. Alien farting is the depths to which this opening episode descends and there isn't much better as the cast are all required to overact like idiots by the sudden imposition of emotions. This might have made for a funny idea, but not here. Danny John Jules gets away with a cameo appearance and then it is left to Claudia Christian (yes, she from BABYLON 5) to carry the rest of the episode and she tries valiantly, but was probably wondering if this really was how far she had fallen. With everything else being so awful, it comes as a nice respite that the special effects are pretty good. The alien make up is nothing special but the shots of space and spaceships are all uniformly excellent and the sets are pretty impressive. If only the same attention had been paid to the script. TopLucy In The SkyThe Nemesis encounters a smuggler who uses a hallucinogenic to render the crew incapable as he attempts to steal their supplies. The inside of the characters' heads are examined in a series of not very funny and ultimately tedious dream sequences that do nothing other than put the majority of the female crewmembers in their underwear. Had we cared about the characters, these dreams might have been funnier (that is to say in any way funny), but we don't and they're not. It's all a bit desperate and unfunny. TopKill JillThe crew locate an alien on the Earth's surface, hiding in a shopping mall. Going undercover, they transport to the surface, but find making contact more dangerous than they might have imagined. On top of everything else that the show has thrown at the screen in the hope that something will stick it now adds some not too bad martial arts moments and the unedifying sight of esteemed TV astronomer Patrick Moore jammed into a yellow tracksuit and dubbed with a woman's voice. And, believe it or not, that's what's good about this episode. The story is nonexistant, the humour juvenile and the special effects remain impressive. TopRebootA time traveller from the future brings information, but the ship crashes and the crew live out their remaining years trapped aboard. Except... The alternate future with a big reset button at the end is a favourite story convention in science fiction series and so it's no surprise to find it cropping up here, but it doesn't help with the comedy, which is where the real problem lies. It's still crass and juvenile. TopPlug And PlayDiscovering a hideout in a poledancing club, the crew go undercover. In their absence, the ship is attacked. If there was a plot in all of this then we somehow managed to miss it. Putting the hideout in a strip club allows some of the female cast to strip down a bit, but the family rating of the show means that it's the tamest strip club you've ever seen. The special effects involving the events in orbit are very impressive; about the only thing in the show that is. TopLock, Choc And Flying HogsAfter a drunken night the crew are all nursing hangovers. This is not the best time, therefore, to learn that the ship is being controlled by an outside force. The big finale has some nice moments (specifically Sally inside the computer with a nice 2001-A SPACE ODYSSEY routine), but drags everything down with its (literally) toilet humour. It descends to the fart in the lift gag, that's how poor things have got. A cliffhanger of sorts is set up, leaving the crew stranded on Earth. Hopefully, the situation will never be resolved. Top |
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