Andor, Season Two | Star Trek: Resurgence
- DB
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Star Wars and Star Trek both having successful instalments in the same post?
This is what I've been watching and playing over the last seven days...
MOVIES
Considering the TV section below, this was an obvious one, right?
My favourite Star Wars movie of the Disney era extends its lead thanks to Andor and it's now going to take something very special (a good adaptation of Knights of the Old Republic maybe?) to top it.
GAMES
Completed it previously in Game Pass, but got it in some bundle or other a while ago, so am just going through it again for the sake of Steam achievements!
Death Stranding - Director's Cut
Finally giving this a whirl after also getting it in a bundle a while back and aim to take my time, doing only one or two deliveries a day - should be quite a while before I'm done with this.
Star Trek: Resurgence
Game summary: After the refit the U.S.S. Resolute is ready to go on a new mission to prevent a diplomatic disaster. Playing as the ships new first officer, Cmdr. Rydek, and one of the ships engineers, Petty Officer Diaz, you represent the best values of Starfleet. (IMDb)
To be clear from the get go, Star Trek: Resurgence is not the best-looking or -sounding game ever, neither is it particularly innovative when it comes to gameplay and the performances are pretty much just 'good'.
However, as someone who grew up watching The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine on the BBC and this game being very much in the mould of those shows, I loved my time with this game.
There's a nice amount of switching things up thanks to having two lead characters in Rydek and Diaz, the threat ties in to an old TNG episode, and Ambassador Spock and Captain Will Riker both show up too!
I get that if you're not well-versed in 90s Trek, that previous sentence won't have made much sense to you, but all of those things and every little bit of detail added to reflect those shows just made me happier and happier.
I'd say Star Trek: Resurgence really is for fans to enjoy all the little references to balance out the issues (the poor combat and stealth sequences especially) and enjoy the great story, well-written characters and expertly-built Trek atmosphere. [8/10]
Also currently playing: Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020)
TV
Andor, Season Two
Episode Seven, "Messenger"
Nice to see the Rebel base on Yavin up and running, a Force user present (not a Jedi), and a non-stop pace making it feel like the next episode will already be the conclusion to this arc - great episode!
Episode Eight, "Who Are You?"
Best episode yet? Best episode yet. Not quite the full launch of the Rebellion, but the fighting between the Ghor and the Imperials gets pretty damn close as almost all the main characters suffer or lose something while the Empire wins.
No-stop tension from start to finish, wonderful performances and incredible action in an episode most other series would be glad to call a magnificent season or series finale.
Episode Nine, "Welcome to the Rebellion"
Well, these three episodes are now arguably the second best trilogy in the history of Star Wars after the original three films.
This episode could never live up to the previous, but there are still so many important things that happen to set up later events, including maintaining continuity with Rebels too - impressive stuff all around.
Episode Ten, "Make It Stop"
Another great episode, opening with Dedra (Denise Gough) finally catching up with Luthen (Stellan Skarsgård) and leading to a series of flashbacks showing a younger Luthen and how his relationship with Kleya (Elizabeth Dulau), finishing on a bittersweet note.
Episode Eleven, "Who Else Knows?"
Well, I guess the streak had to end somewhere, and Andor's excellence as a show comes to a crashing halt in the final four minutes of what is otherwise another great episode with one of the worst builds to a cliff-hanger I've ever seen.
Seriously, Cassian and Kleya just say the same things over and over again while staying in what they both know to be a high-risk location just to give the Imperials time to close in - it's so badly structured and the 'conversation' so forced that it drained all interest out of me and left me hoping that the finale doesn't shit the bed rather than being something to look forward to.
Episode Twelve, "Jedha, Kyber, Erso"
To my relief, apart from the first thirty seconds essentially repeating the same dialogue as the last four minutes of the previous episode, this was a pretty great finale to what has become one of the finest instalments in the history of Star Wars.
The series' overall story of the founding of the Rebel Alliance is effectively finished by this episode and it's all about setting things up to head into Rogue One and tie off the last loose ends, including a tear-inducing bittersweet and and awesome ending.
I still have the same issues with Andor as a whole that I did at the end of the first season (read them here to save me writing out the same stuff all over again), but those issues are diminished quite substantially thanks to the quality of the story-telling in this second season. [9/10]
Addendum: For me, Andor as a show slots in right behind the original trilogy and the Knights of the Old Republic games as the crown jewels for Star Wars and, considering the time gaps between them all, it might well take a couple of decades for anything to come close to challenging them.
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