The Dirty Dozen (1967)

I adore a good war movie, and The Dirty Dozen is one of the best.

Bad movies are the easiest things to review, because you can let fly and break it to pieces. Good movies are not quite as easy, but provide plenty of fodder for discussion or praise. The mediocre movie is harder, because it's neither here nor there: nothing so bad you need to point it out, and nothing so good that it's worth talking about. To me the hardest film to review is the great movie: the movie that's so good that you don't really want to go into depth about its merits - you simply want to shrug and point to it, and let everybody else bask in its obvious brilliance. The Dirty Dozen is one of those films.

Lee Marvin plays Major John Reisman, tasked with a seemingly impossible mission: take 12 military prisoners destined for life imprisonment or death row, and train them into an elite squad capable of sneaking behind enemy lines and assassinating a château full of German officers. The film follows the selection and training of this "Dirty Dozen", their demonstration of their talents during a war game, and finally the mission itself.

Blake's 7: "Gambit"

It's 20 March 1979, and time for more Blake's 7.

Blake and his crew arrive at Freedom City, a sprawling criminal hive just beyond the Federation's reach. Blake is there to track down Docholli, a renegade cyber-surgeon who may be the only person who knows where the Federation central control base Star One is located. Travis is there as well, guarding Docholli and waiting for Blake to arrive. Servalan is there too, hunting down both Docholli and Travis. Meanwhile Avon and Vila sneak off to steal several million credits from the local casino.

Here's the thing: "Gambit" should be egregiously awful. It features Jenna and Cally faking a cat fight as a distraction. It's got Travis bumming around a spaceport in a cloak and a floppy hat. It has Avon and Vila shrinking Orac to the size of a pocket calculator and smuggling it into a casino to fleece it for millions of credits. That casino is run by fops dressed in regency period clothing with silver make-up, and is hosted by someone who's walked out of a Wiemar Germany cabaret nightclub. The costuming is pretty much the most insanely over-the-top and nonsensical as Blake's 7 will ever have. Put simply, this episode absolutely should not work - and yet, strangely, it does.

Babylon 5: "No Surrender, No Retreat"

It's 26 May 1997, and time for more Babylon 5.

With a military blockade surrounding Proxima 3 killing more than 10,000 civilians attempting to escape, Sheridan finally takes matters into his own hands. Assembling the White Star fleet, he takes the blockade head on - either to liberate the Earth colony once and for all, or to die trying.

"No Surrender, No Retreat", an episode that shares its title with Season 4 as a whole, is an outstanding hour of television. It's basically a 40 minute war movie, but more than that it's an intelligent war movie. It actively tackles moral questions and doesn't shy away from the answers. It combines great moments of character with some exceptional action sequences. I don't think I'm exaggerating to call this one of the best episodes of Babylon 5 ever made. It's stunning stuff.

Blake's 7: "Voice from the Past"

It's 13 March 1979, and time for more Blake's 7.

Someone is using an interstellar signal to influence Blake's mind and put him under control. It forces a mutiny on his ship, but does ultimately take him to the asteroid PK-118 - where he comes face to face with a presumed-dead resistance leader and a prominent Federation defector. That defector is Ven Glynd: the judge who sentenced Blake to Cygnus Alpha.

"Voice from the Past", by new writer Roger Parkes, is a mixture of good and bad elements. Sadly the lesser aspects of the episode do tend to overwhelm the better ones. It's one of those cases where you can see what the writer and the production team were attempting to do, but you can also see that they failed for a couple of obvious reasons.

Babylon 5: "Moments of Transition"

It's 19 May 1997, and time for more Babylon 5.

Civil war rages across Minbar, and Delenn (Mira Furlan) is forced to surrender to the warrior caste before more lives are lost. On the station, Lyta Alexander (Patricia Tallman) struggles to find work as an unregistered telepath - until Mr Bester (Walter Koenig) arrives with a proposal for her.

So the Minbari civil war ends rather abruptly here. It's felt oddly truncated. When this season was produced, it was strongly suspected by the producers that there was not going to be a commission for the fifth and final season. As a result some plot threads after the Shadow War got truncated to ensure the series could close up shop at the end of its fourth year. I don't know for sure if the Minbari War was one of the truncated threads, but given how it's played out I'd be surprised if it wasn't. With that limitation in mind, it's actually quite a satisfying conclusion.

Doctor Who: "The Unwilling Warriors"

It's 27 June 1964, and time for more Doctor Who.

The Doctor and his companions remain trapped onboard a human space rocket. The TARDIS lock has been stolen by the mysterious Sensorites - who continue to terrorise the frightened human crew.

This is the second episode of "The Sensorites", written by Peter R. Newman and directed by Mervyn Pinfield. The first ended with a wonderfully effective cliffhanger, with the Doctor and Ian staring face to face with one of the Sensorites - which floated ominously in space on the otherside of a rocket porthole. This episode we meet a pair of them, which is effective in some ways and disappointing in others. In some moments they're creepy and effective. In others they're rather unengaging and more than a little pathetic. It creates a slightly shaky episode.

Babylon 5: "Rumors, Bargains, and Lies"

It's 12 May 1997, and time for more Babylon 5.

Sheridan uses subterfuge and trickery to persuade the League of Non-Aligned Worlds to back his White Star fleet. At the same time Delenn meets with her old enemy Neroon in a last-ditch attempt to halt the Minbari civil war.

Two storylines run in parallel. One focuses on Sheridan, the other on Delenn. One of them is pretty great television. The other is thunderously stupid, not only failing to convince on its own merits but also potentially damaging the series' overall narrative. Without knowing fully what happens next, it's difficult to say. Whatever the outcome, this is a weirdly divided episode.

Blake's 7: "Countdown"

It's 6 March 1979, and time for more Blake's 7.

Blake (Gareth Thomas) travels to the colony world Albian, where the local Federation major may know the location of the relocated Central Control. His arrival coincides with a civilian uprising, which brings about a countdown to a bomb detonation that will kill everybody on the planet. Meanwhile Avon (Paul Darrow) is forced to confront his past when one of the rebellion leaders turns out to be Del Grant (Tom Chadbon) - a man who promised to kill him.

"Countdown" sees Terry Nation return to write for the series for the first time since "Pressure Point". While to an extent it's a case of 'spot the Terry Nation cliché' - an ice planet here, a radiation bomb there, a character named Del - it can't be denied that he's very effective at plotting these kinds of thrilling escapades.