jeffchan

This show is painfully badly written, and I'm generally a huge fan of both Seth McFarlane's work and science fiction. The dialog in particular is vapid at best. It's even more painful to consider that the same Fox that greenlit this dreadfully bad show also cancelled the brilliant Firefly series by Josh Whedon. Firefly was easily one of the best shows written, performed and staged for TV but was cancelled by Fox even before all of its episodes had been broadcast.

Firefly was a masterwork by one of today's top writers. Orville decidedly is not. A few minutes of one episode of Orville was more than enough to prove it conclusively unwatchable.

Excellent writing, acting, casting, cinematography, effects makes this short SF film an excellent calling card for writer/director Karel van Bellingen. Script cleanup by Sheridan Thomas may have contributed to a very tight result. Better than most of what comes out of Hollywood, the writing reminds me a bit of some of the best SF short story authors such as Heinlein who could create highly descriptive worlds and backstories with just a word or two. For example, "clubs" run by criminal syndicates offer services that include prostitution. The very lean dialogue manages to explain this in a couple brief sentences. Other plot devices are very tidy and efficient, but then they need to be in a 30 minute piece.

It's definitely a dystopian future for the left-behinds on Earth, with a murderously-repressive yet at the same time ineffectual central government.

Casting also stood out with just the right looks and screen personalities for the roles. The bland and ineffective bureaucrat spouting broad platitudes on the telly had the right look, accent and delivery for the role.

A clever twist and lots of morality play makes this a thoughtful and fun short. It's superbly well done.

If you at all like flying or space, this is a must see. The main problem is that it seems unavailable except in pirated form on YouTube, etc. BBC, or whoever owns the rights, please sell it in HD!

May's flight to the edge of space in a U2 haunts with its beauty, enchants with its musings, and thrills with its adventure.

Technically James was the passenger in a two seat U2 flown by an American Air Force pilot. Both men wore pressurized flight suits similar to what astronauts wear, and the views were absolutely incredible. I'm sure the HD cameras barely captured the actual impact of the views from the cockpit, yet they were otherworldly.

Airliners at their highest altitude, for example, passed far below them as they transited California parallel the Pacific Ocean on their way up to altitude. The U2 was flown from Beale Air Force Base north of Sacramento California, and the film includes suiting up, flight briefings, what to do if you get an itch inside the suit, etc.