STAR TREK: DISCOVERY (full review at The Reel Word)

After an incident aboard the U.S.S. Shenzhou results in the United Federation of Planets entering into a war with the mysterious and vicious Klingon Empire, disgraced former First Officer, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), finds herself amongst the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery. The Discovery is a prototype ship, a one-of-a-kind, because it hosts an experimental spore drive (derived from fungus). Under the guidance of Chief Engineer Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) it allows Discovery to use an intricate mycelial network (similar to the roots of a plant) to transport itself, undetected, to almost anywhere in the universe. Instantaneously.

Beginning life on Discovery as a pariah, Burnham strives to regain the trust of her new crewmembers and former shipmates.  Under the command of Captain Gabriel Lorca (Jason Isaacs), and with the friendship of Cadet Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman), Burnham begins her path to redemption, as the Federation battles for survival.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
https://www.thereelword.net/star-trek-discovery-season-1-review-cbs-netflix/

IMDB: Star Trek: Discovery

ALTERED CARBON (full review at The Reel Word)

To try and concisely summarise the plot of Altered Carbon, Netflix’s latest big budget foray into your living room, would likely take as much space as the housebrick of a novel on which it is based. But the gist of it, adapting Richard K Morgan’s 2002 sci-fi opus into ten tasty increments, is thus…

In the distant future human beings are equipped with a device at the base of their skull known as a stack. Acting as a sort of hard-drive-for-the-soul, the stack stores a person’s life, memory, and identity, known as Digital Human Freight (DHF). If a person’s stack remains intact when they die then it is possible to place the stack in a new body, or sleeve, and for the person to carry on living with all the same memories, emotions and experiences. The technology, although available to all, is unsurprisingly controlled by the super-rich. This wealthiest one per cent, having cheated ‘real death’ for generations, are known as Meths, after the Bible’s oldest man Methuselah.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
https://www.thereelword.net/altered-carbon-season-1-review-netflix/

IMDB: Altered Carbon