rustiswordz

I've recently encountered a little known British Science Fiction comedy called Starhyke. It was made back in 2008/9 and stars Babylon 5's own superb Claudia Christian in the lead role. I'd heard various comments about this show and when i saw it for sale I decided to buy a DVD copy.

I was pleasantly surprised, its a funny, witty clever little show with great special effects, stories, acting. It shamelessly sends up science fiction like a mad thing! For a sci-fi comedy it works. True it wont beat Red Dwarf which always will be king of the sci-fi laughs however Starhyke knocks the frankly terrible Hyperdrive rightly into third place. It reminds me a little of the old Captain Kremmen cartoon in the 70's made by the late great Kenny Everett with a contemporary slant. If you are looking for alternative comedy, you wont find it here and all the better for it.

The show also has a solid ensemble cast with experience in science fiction and comedy. Jeremy Bulloch who played Boba Fett in Star Wars, Suanne Braun, Hathor in Stargate SG1 and featuring special guests in the form of Red Dwarf's own Danny John Jules and the ever awesome Sir Patrick Moore.

The characters and actors all work well together my favourites are the aforementioned Jeremy as a pill popping drink swilling looney Ships Doctor and Suanne as a very lovely utterly bonkers Android.

I'm surprised the show hasn't been picked up by one of the many digital channels here in the UK. Starhyke is better than a lot of the comedy rubbish thats out there today.

The show is made with love and care and it shows. The DVD release has all six episodes and a bonus disk packed with bloopers, auditions, makings of etc.

A great first season attempt and deserves a lot more attention and a second season!

OK Lets make the following clear:

If you expect Moneypenny, glib one liners, Q and stupid gadgets turn away now, cos there isn't any. What there is, is better than that. Excellent acting, breathtaking locations, clever script/story and the best Bond in years. Craig is better every time. A superb actor who's portrayal of Bond is inch perfect. He's a troubled man, in a turbulent world where allies become enemies and vice-versa. The world has changed and so has this Bond to meet it. He's professional, ruthless and as cold as Craig's ice-blue eyes. He's a Bond of the 21'st Century. I want more!

OK now for my one BIG gripe. The editing was terrible, i mean terrible. The action sequences were like machine gun rapid to the point where I had trouble keeping up with the action, it was so fast. TOO fast. The editing was trying to out Bourne the Bourne films, didn't quite work. I wasn't alone in that train of thought either. As I left the cinema, several other expressed similar reservations.

However despite that, its a new Bond, in a new world.

We have a word in the UK: Ming. Its short for 'minger' or 'minging' It basically means, rubbish, bad, awful, terrible etc.

Well this 'reimagining' isn't so much Ming the Merciless as just plain Minging. Lackluster sums up the: sets, acting, special effects, script story and characters. I found Andromeda of a higher quality! That's saying something.

There are no space battles, no spaceships, no evil attacks on Earth to get Gordon off on his quest. The whole thing is just a damp sqib. Ming himself just comes across as a peeved bank manager.

Judge for yourself but personally unless the later episodes massively improves radically over the the pilot this show will be just a 'flash' in the pan.

To me it just comes across as a cynical ploy to cash in on the name Flash Gordon. Well if that's the case I think people are a bit more discerning than that and the series wont last.

Anyway there was already a modern flash Gordon made. It was called Farscape, go watch that instead a million times better.