Steven Helmer Publications

Synopsis: While delivering supplies to a penal colony, Enterprise ends up with an escapee onboard. At first, Kirk ( William Shatner ) believes it is a prisoner, but when he learns it is instead one of the staff members, Dr. Simon van Gelder (Morgan Woodward), it puts him at odds with McCoy ( DeForest Kelley ) who wants him to investigate despite Kirk's admiration for the man overseeing the colony, Dr. Tristan Adams (James Gregory). My Thoughts -  This episode forces you to not overthink transporter technology. My first question was "why didn't the transporter detect a prisoner inside the box they brought on board?" My immediate answer was "the box is marked classified so maybe there's some sort of protection to keep the transporter from seeing inside." Then I asked, "but if that's the case, how is the transporter supposed to correctly transport what is inside?" I stopped when I realized I'd get a headache if I thought about it too much ...

Synopsis: While playing Robin Hood in the woods, Opie ( Ron Howard ) and his friends meet a hobo ( Douglas Fowley ) who uses their love of the literary character to convince them to steal for him. When Andy ( Andy Griffith ) finds out, he comes up with a clever way of solving the problem without seeming like the bad guy. My Thoughts: In all seriousness, has nobody in Mayberry had the "stranger danger" talk with their kids? You would think Andy, of all people, would have had that discussion with Opie but the very first thing he and his friends do is have a picnic with the homeless guy they meet in the woods. Law & Order: SVU episodes start that way. The episode ruins a great Barney Fife ( Don Knotts ) moment. I think I've said this before, but just because a show or movie is a comedy doesn't mean everything needs to be humorous. Barney's comment about not needing material things to be rich was sincere, insightful and added some depth to a character that is us...

Synopsis: After Barney ( Don Knotts ) writes Gomer Pyle (Jim Nabors) a ticket for making an illegal U-turn, Gomer turns the tables by conducting a "citizen's arrest" when he sees Barney do the same thing. Andy ( Andy Griffith ) attempts to diffuse the situation by writing Barney a $5 ticket he intends to pay himself, but an outraged Barney decides to take five nights in jail instead before handing in his letter of resignation. My Thoughts - It's probably sacrilegious to say it, but I just realized I don't like Gomer Pyle . To be clear, I think Jim Nabors was a national treasure so please don't confuse the two. I just can't stand his most famous character, at least when it's not in small doses. I think it's because everyone gives him a pass since he's always so good natured/simple minded even though this episode and others have proven he can also be kind of a jerk at times. And don't even get me started on the citizens of Mayberry. Look, I ...

Synopsis: Stuart ( Kevin Sussman ) and his friends are trapped inside a comic book, courtesy of an all-powerful entity, the Adversary (André Sogliuzzo). No longer in possession of the device, their only hope is to find the Flash (Andy Ridings) and convince them to use his abilities to transport them back to their universe before Mr. Freeze (Eric Allan Kramer), sent by the Adversary, kills them. My Thoughts:  I had some doubts because this could have gone a number of wrong ways , but it was well done. Having the Flash be the older, Jay Garrick, version was a nice touch as was having the team still being forced to sit through mundane tasks, like waiting for their flight at an airport and getting food poisoning while having it broadcast on the pages of the comic book. I was, however, left with questions about why. Assuming, of course, the Adversary is a main bad guy and not just universe specific, I think it would be safe to assume it knows just about everything about Stuart, especia...

We are waiting for our youngest daughter to get done with work and, after failing to find a new movie that looked interesting, my wife and I decided to just watch a classic horror film we've seen before. This ended up being The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which I haven't seen (at least not in its 1974 form) in nearly a decade. Here are my thoughts after seeing it again: This movie was duller than I remember. I think a big part of that was the violence being surprisingly tame, especially by today's standards. Most of the violence is filmed in a way that keeps things from being too violent. However, it also took longer than I recalled for things to get going and even then, there's quite a bit of downtime between the kills. Plus, for a film that promises a chainsaw massacre, there isn't a whole lot of chain sawing. It might as well have been called the Texas Hammer Massacre because that was Leatherface's ( Gunnar Hansen ) preferred weapon of choice for a good chunk of...

Synopsis: On August 5, 1962, Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe is found unresponsive in her bed and is later determined to have died of a drug overdose raising questions about if it was an accidental overdose, suicide or something else. This true crime book explores Marilyn's life, career and tragic death at the age of 36. Review: I wasn't sure what I was getting when I checked out The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe from my library. I'm always interested in a good biography, even one with a "true crime" twist to it, but the library had this listed as fiction, so I didn't know if it would be educational or just a book taking advantage of a tragic life/death. In the end, I think it fell somewhere in between but more toward the former than the latter. I think the thing I liked best about this book is how it manages to bring her back to life in the pages and humanizes her. She was an actress that died 13 years before I was born and my only familiarity with her was th...