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STAR TREK fans finally get the Battle of Wolf 359 they were denied by 1990s budgets

It's been a long time coming, but Star Trek fans have finally been rewarded with a full-length account of the Battle of Wolf 359, arguably the single most iconic battle in the history of the Star Trek franchise.

The Excelsior-class USS Roosevelt (NCC-2573) engages the Borg cube at Wolf 359.

In-universe, the Battle of Wolf 359 was fought between the United Federation of Planets and the invading Borg at the start of the year 2367. A single Borg cube invaded the Federation, destroyed the colony on Jouret IV and drew out the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) into a confrontation, during which the Borg boarded the ship and kidnapped Captain Jean-Luc Picard, converting him into a Borg drone called "Locutus," who could serve as a spokesman and communicator to demand Starfleet's surrender. The Borg left the damaged Enterprise behind and engaged a hastily-assembled Starfleet taskforce at Wolf 359, just 7.9 light years from Earth. The taskforce consisted of forty Federation starships under the command of Admiral Hanson. The battle was not seen on-screen, at least initially. When the Enterprise-D finally arrived at the site of battle, they found only a graveyard of destroyed and devastated ships. Later episodes would confirm that thirty-nine Federation starships were eliminated and over eleven thousand lives were lost, Starfleet's most crippling defeat in its history. The Enterprise crew later rescued Captain Picard and used his knowledge gained from the Borg to disable the Borg cube just before it attacked Earth. Fearful of capture, the Borg ship self-destructed.

Later episode would reflect on Wolf 359, particularly the Deep Space Nine pilot episode Emissary which shows a brief part of the battle in its opening moments, and the CD-ROM video game Star Trek: Borg, in which the Q entity rescues a Federation starship during the battle for his own inscrutable purposes.

YouTuber JTVFX has spent well over two years creating a new, fuller account of the battle. The fourth and final part has now been released. The first parts depict the build-up to the battle, with the Borg attacking Jouret IV, the Enterprise engaging the Borg and Hanson assembling the fleet. The latter two parts depict the battle in two stages, with an initial engagement followed by Starfleet retreating, getting some unexpected reinforcements and rejoining the fight. There's also some moments of hope as even the Borg struggle to hold off the sheer volume of enemy firepower.

There are some limitations, particularly with live-action footage: the only footage available is from the original episodes (Best of Both Worlds Part I and Part II, and DS9's Emissary) and the full motion video filmed for the CD-ROM video game Star Trek: Borg. There are other voice overs and some use of filmed actors in limited 2D shots.

The star of the show is the stunning CGI, which is based very heavily on the aesthetic used for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. The 4K quality is amazing and the attention to detail is remarkable: the Starfleet vessels' phaser colours are fluctuating as they rotate their frequencies, and each starship at the battle is correctly named and registered based on the various material and lists out there. Even obscure lines of dialogue are taken from other references. Seasoned Trek fans will also spot some tributes to some famous effects shots, like a number of shots inspired by Deep Space Nine's Way of the Warrior battle between the Klingons and Federation. Doctor Who fans may also want to keep an eagle eye out for an unexpected cameo at a certain point.

The result is lengthy (about the length of a full TNG episode when all is done), but very impressive.

The videos can be found here:

• Wolf 359: The Prelude - Part 1
• Wolf 359: The Prelude - Part 2
• Wolf 359: The Massacre - Part 1
• Wolf 359: The Massacre - Part 2

JTVFX has a bunch of other videos reimagining the CGI from various Trek episodes and movies, their channel is well worth checking out.

Titanfall 2 (campaign)

The Frontier, a remote region of space far from Earth and the Core Systems, is ravaged by war between the Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation (IMC) and the Frontier Militia. Both sides use Titans, large, AI-assisted combat exoskeletons, and Pilots, highly-trained, hyperaware soldiers with improved mobility and weapons knowledge. The planet Typhon becomes the latest battleground between the two sides. Rifleman Jack Cooper is given a field-promotion to Pilot when his commanding officer is killed. Taking command of his Titan, BT-7274, Jack stumbles on a secret IMC conspiracy to destroy the Frontier Militia once and for all, and has to foil their plans deep behind enemy lines.

Emerging from the flaming wreckage of Call of Duty developers Infinity Ward, Respawn Entertainment's first game back in 2014 was Titanfall, a heavily multiplayer-focused game where two sides of soldiers engaged in battle, with the twist that they could call upon powerful mechs for support. Bigger than power armour but not as large as full-on BattleMechs from other franchises, Titans were more nimble and maneuverable, but able to carry a much heavier weapons loadout. The game was successful, but players complained about the lack of a single-player campaign. For the sequel (released just two years later), Respawn added a story campaign to give better context to the battles. Unexpectedly, the story campaign would go on to be hugely well-received.

On one level, Titanfall 2 feels like any vast number of manshooters from the last thirty years. You control a guy with a gun and must shoot a truly colossal number of other guys with guns. You can swap weapons, with some weapons better at short range and others better at long. Some guns reduce enemies to gibs of flesh, some set them on fire, some blast them with electricity. The usual. The game throws two curveballs into the situation. The first is the freedom of movement for your character. You can run along walls and bounce off one wall to run along another, as well as double-jump and pull yourself over ledges etc. Once you get used to the movement controls, you can ping-pong all over the map like an angry ball with guns. The second is that you also have a partner, a semi-independent walking battlesuit who provides covering fire and whom you can board to command directly in battle. Fighting as a Titan is significantly different to on foot, trading speed and maneuverability for much greater durability and heavier weapons.

The game is linear, with areas that are divided into Titan-compatible zones and other areas (usually inside buildings) where the Titan can't fit, so you have to go in on foot. As with most first-person shooters, weapon choice is key as you can only (sigh) carry two weapons at once and if you run out of ammo, have to ditch one for another one. Weapon have their own advantages and disadvantages, but I generally found ditching a gun the second it ran out and just picking up whatever was nearest and making do worked fine. The game does have a very nice line in shotguns and some good sniper rifles, though given the game's focus on frenetic movement and always taking the fight directly to the enemy, switching to a sniper strategy feels a bit odd. Ground combat is chunky and most satisfying, with okay enemy AI and aggressive strategies being rewarded.

Titan combat is a mixed bag. You actually don't spend that much time doing it, which is odd given how much emphasis is placed on training you in different loadouts (this is more useful for multiplayer, of course). Different loadouts have different damage outputs and defensive options, as well as different special attack moves. There's a lot of fun here, using missiles, lasers and forcefields that catch enemy bullets and missiles and sends them straight back Return to Sender. There's also the nice stompy power fantasy of being in your Titan and being attacked by guys on foot, leading to very one-sided fights (unless they have tons of missiles and suicide drones). Some of the later battles with half a dozen Titans on each side are also pretty cool. This isn't MechWarrior and those after a more simulationist approach are directed to that franchise, whilst those who want a more anime-ish approach can check out the Armored Core series. Titan combat can be fun, but limited, as least in the single-player game.

The game has fantastic level design, which makes figuring out where to go and how to get there a constant delight. The game takes place in jungles, underground installations, scientific bases, and even inside a flatpacked house-assembly warehouse. Wall-running and bouncing between areas can be a lot of fun (though occasionally the game gets confused over what you're trying to do). There's also way more imagination than I was expecting: one level set at the scene of a scientific experiment with time that went wrong allows you to bounce between two timelines, switching time periods to get past obstacles. This bit was reminiscent of Dishonored 2's legendary "A Crack in the Slab" mission, and more impressive as it predated that game by a few months. Another level has you trying to reach a satellite uplink facility and you have to use cranes to set up the wall-running route you need to get to the destination. There's some more traditional levels - fighting in caves or on the hull of an inevitably exploding spaceship - but they're carried out with aplomb.

The game is keen on getting you in the action with a much lower-than-normal amount of tediously expository cutscenes, and animations are mercifully restrained. Although the game is linear (though some of the areas you have to fight through are quite large, allowing different routes across factory floors or through office blocks), the game is also determined to get out of its own way and to let you have fun. The game also has little truck with stealth: there's a nascent cloaking device and a stealth-kill takedown option, but they feel like they're there because they're expected, not that the game encourages you to use them. If you're not wall-running into an area, dropping on five guys' heads and stomping them with your mech feet, you're possibly playing the game wrong.

The story structure, which requires you taking down a bunch of mercenary commanders in order before tracking down the inevitable superweapon, is unoriginal but satisfying, leading to a series of amusing boss fights against special enemies with their own moves. The story is fine, with some nice moments and humour, though the worldbuilding and characters are mostly Generic Manshooter 101. They get the job done but no more, possibly with the exception of the AI piloting your Titan, whose laconic observations on the mission are often amusing.

The campaign definitely does not outstay its welcome, wrapping up in less than six hours. Given the intensity of the combat and gameplay, this felt fine, though obviously you don't want to be buying this at a premium. The game's usual price is still a bit steep for singleplayer-only fans, you probably want this to be in the £10 ballpark before looking seriously at it. But for a high production value, fun, tighly-designed, well-designed shooter, Titanfall 2 (****) is extremely entertaining.

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New STAR TREK video game will let you decide to murder Tuvix or let him live

Finally, you can make the decision yourself. Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown is an ambitious video game which recreates the USS Voyager's entire seven-year journey across the Delta Quadrant, putting you in the command chair and making decisions very similar to the problems that Captain Janeway had to deal with.

Do you ally with the Borg to defeat Species 8472 or take a different path? Do you fight the Kazon or avoid them? And, most critically, will you brutally murder Tuvix or not? Will you promote Ensign Kim? Ever? And what will the long-term fallout from that be?

With some similarities to The Alters and XCOM's base-building, combined with some fine starship adventuring, the game looks like an intriguing spin on the franchise. Developed by Gamexcite and published by Daedalic, it doesn't have a release date yet but smart money is on 2026, for PC and console.

Doctor Who: Season 18

The Doctor and Romana are recalled to Gallifrey, to Romana's distress as her journey with the Doctor is coming to an end, but the TARDIS is accidentally transported to another universe. As the Doctor tries to get them home, they recruit a new companion and then learn that the fate of the entire universe is hanging in the balance...and an old enemy has returned.

Season 18 of Doctor Who, airing from 1980 to 1981, was, once again, a time of great change. Douglas Adams had left after just one season as script editor, due to overwork caused by his Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy project blowing up big time. Graham Williams had also chosen to leave as head producer (the then-equivalent of a modern showrunner) after three seasons, finding the job had been more stressful than expected due to budgetary issues. John Nathan-Turner, who'd worked on the show since 1968, was promoted to showrunner and quickly hired Christopher Bidmead as script editor and lead writer. Bidmead was noted as having more knowledge of "proper" science fiction and was tasked with moving the show away from the silliness that had grown unchecked over the preceding few seasons.

Nathan-Turner also decided that the show was in need of a revamp, arguably the most significant since the series had moved into colour production with Season 7 back in 1970. More sophisticated visual effects were employed, thanks to the advent of computer technology and better model shots and prosthetics. It was hardly competing with Star Wars but at least it looked a bit better than what had come before. The title sequence was changed for the first time since Season 12 and the theme music given a somewhat funkier, electronic makeover. The cumulative result was to announce that Doctor Who had moved, very firmly, into the 1980s.

Bidmead and Nathan-Turner were also both keen to refresh the show creatively and in its casting. Lalla Ward had already announced her intention to leave the role of Romana, and Tom Baker had, as usual, played hardball in early-season negotiations and was quite surprised when the production team accepted his departure instead of arguing for him to stay by offering more money. They were also keen to remove K9, feeling his presence made the Doctor too powerful, not to mention making a mockery of the Doctor's strict no weapons policy: he doesn't like carrying guns but having a mobile laser tank trundling around is fine, apparently. These changes also required the introduction of new companions, with the 18-year-old Matthew Waterhouse cast as Adric mid-season and Janet Fielding joining as Tegan in the series finale. There was also an unexpected decision to promote guest star Sarah Sutton to a companion as Nyssa in the finale, resulting in a complete change of TARDIS crew and the most crowded TARDIS since way back in Season 4 (and the TARDIS wouldn't be this crowded for so long again until Series 11 of the new era...though that's a different story), although the full impact of that would not be felt until the following season.

The season launches with The Leisure Hive. The new music and new title sequence immediately impress, but the bemusingly long tracking shot of Brighton Beach that follows feels like the director is trying a bit too hard to make it feel like a different show. The story moves to the planet Argolis, where the survivors of a devastating war have funded reconstruction by turning the planet into a resort. Unfortunately, the odd appeal is now seen as old-hat and the planet teeters on the edge of bankruptcy. A spate of deaths and tensions with the Foamasi, the alien species who won the war with Argolis, intrigue the Doctor into getting involved. It's an odd story - and the first of several through the decade to dwell on capitalist themes - but at least feels fresh and original compared to what has come before, with a couple of refreshing plot twists and some interesting new effects (such as better locking-off technology that means the TARDIS can now materialise whilst the camera is moving). It's also the first story of the season to put Tom Baker in prosthetics, with him having to spend an episode or so aged into a very old man.

This continues in Meglos, where the Doctor's appearance is taken on by a hostile shapechanging cactus alien, and means that Tom Baker has to play both the hero and the villain. Despite complaining about the prosthetics required whenever Meglos changes shape, it's clearly an acting challenge that Baker relishes and he delivers clearly his best performance since at least City of Death here. The story and worldbuilding are quite good with its central story of a planet caught in a battle between reason and superstition, with a splendid array of guest performers. Bill Fraser and Frederick Treves are particularly good and there's a nice returning performance by Jacqueline Hill, here playing the antagonistic Lexa but whom is best-known for playing one of the Doctor's first companions, Barbara, back in Seasons 1 and 2. There are also some very impressive effects shots, at least by contemporary standards.

Full Circle is the first in a trilogy of serials set in E-Space. The TARDIS is sucked through a portal to this other dimension and is unable to escape, leading the Doctor and Romana to try visiting several planets in this new realm. On the first they run afoul of a conflict between the descendants of the crew of a crashed starliner and strange creatures rising from the swamps. This is a somewhat standard Doctor Who story, enlivened by an interesting last-minute plot twist, but its main purpose is to introduce new companion Adric, played by Matthew Waterhouse. Unfortunately Adric comes across as a bit of a wet blanket rather than the roguish "Artful Dodger" the producers had envisaged, but the Marshmen are a visually impressive opponent.

State of Decay, written by Terrance Dicks and held over from prior seasons, is a better story but an incongruous one. It feels like it's straight out of the Hinchcliffe/Holmes era, with a full gothic horror vibe and its premise basically being "the Doctor meets vampires!" Where the serial sings is the tying in of the vampires to the mythology of the Time Lords, and its effective guest cast who get the assignment, which stays just on the right side of camp.

Warriors' Gate is Doctor Who at its flat-out most bananas. Doctor Who always hovers around the edges of being totally surreal, and at rare moments in its history it gives in to the impetus. The last time it went Full Weird was arguably Season 6's The Mind Robber, and it wouldn't even try to match this again until Ghost Light in Season 26. Still, those stories at least had the Doctor and his companions written as normal, dealing with weird events. Warriors' Gate extends its atmosphere of weirdness to the Doctor, Romana and K9, who have poetic turns of dialogue in a story that starts traditional (a ship gets lost in the boundary of E-Space, after losing track of a captive creature who helps guide them) but rapidly takes a turn for the bizarre. Director Paul Joyce imbues the serial with a dreamlike quality, and its minimalism (the serial is mostly shot on greenscreens with only a couple of real sets) contrasts with the extensive and mostly-effective effects work. The bizzarity is not helped by the odd way that Romana and K9 leave the show at the end, with the hint of them going off on their own adventures we never hear about again, at least not on the main show (spinoff media, as usual to the rescue). It's certainly the most unusual-feeling Classic Doctor Who show of them all, and ambitious even if not a full success.

The Keeper of Traken is a refreshing change back towards what appears to be normality: the Doctor and Adric, having escaped E-Space, arrive on the planet Traken at the request of its dying Keeper, who feels evil is afoot. However, the Doctor is then framed as being the source of the evil. The serial has a splendid guest cast, with Anthony Ainley being the standout as Tremas, but Sheila Ruskin providing a splendid two-faced performance as the charming-but-deceitful Kassia. Adric's been a bit underwhelming as a companion so far, but he perks up a lot in a double-act with Sarah Sutton's likeable Nyssa, which I suspect played a key role in the decision to bring her back as a companion. The story itself is very solid, mid-to-upper tier Doctor Who, but what perks it up immensely is the ending. Arguably for the very first time, the "normal" way a Doctor Who story is supposed to end gets thrown out of the window by a series of shocking twists, something that feels more like an episode of Buffy or Babylon 5, and the serial itself ends on a hell of a cliffhanger as the Doctor's greatest enemy stages his most impressive comeback to date.

The series finale, Logopolis, written by Christopher Bidmead himself, is one of Doctor Who's better regeneration stories. There's something of the surreal air of Warriors' Gate here, as the story involves the TARDIS materialising around a real police box (so the Doctor can measure it and unjam the chameleon circuit), but this has been predicted, so a trap has been laid for the Doctor which causes an infinite regression of the TARDIS interior. Janet Fielding's Tegan stumbles into the TARDIS in the middle of all this chaos. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure is trying to help the Doctor and his companions towards a terrifying destiny the Doctor has to face head-on, and there's also a bunch of guys who are muttering equations that are preventing the universe from being destroyed. Obviously someone thinks it would be a brilliant idea to try to silence them.

The result is Doctor Who at its most grandiose and epic. For once the fate of the entire universe is at stake and, this not being a near-weekly occurrence as in Modern Who, the stakes feel pretty convincing for once. There's a ticking clock of doom as the Doctor realises his regeneration is coming but he tries to keep a brave face up for his companions. The story is odd, and dense, but also busy with a constantly-evolving plot, changes of scenery and characters coming and going. John Fraser delivers a superb guest performance as the Monitor, and there's a great turn from British character actor Tom Georgeson as a police inspector out of his depth. Janet Fielding also makes a terrific impression as new companion Tegan, even if she takes what's going on a bit more in her stride then you'd expect. Logopolis closes out the epic, immense Tom Baker era (which lasted longer, in episode count at least, then the next five Doctors combined) in appropriately epic style, and welcomes the arrival of Peter Davison as the younger-seeming Fifth Doctor.

As a bonus, at least on the Blu-Ray release of the season, there's also A Girl's Best Friend. This is a one-off TV movie, planned as a backdoor pilot for a show provisionally called K9 & Company. The 50-minute Christmas special sees the return of Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, some five years after she parted company with the Doctor. The Doctor has built a third iteration of K9 and sent him to her to help in her investigations. Sarah soon needs his help as she investigates weird goings-on in her aunt's remote village out in the country. It's a pretty standard story, with traces of The Dæmons and The Stones of Blood (and, more amusingly, vague foreshadowings of the movie Hot Fuzz), though shorter and more focused. Elisabeth Sladen effortlessly slips into the role of Sarah Jane, but here as the heroine and star, and rises to the occasion easily. The guest cast is game and the direction effective. The script is solid enough and this being a slightly more upgraded version of K9 sees him have a little bit more of a personality and sense of humour than his two predecessors. How long the legs would have been on a full series of this is unclear (as K9 basically lasers his way to resolving the story fairly effortlessly), but it does feel like the premise could have led to a full series. Well, I suppose it did when The Sarah Jane Adventures finally debuted in 2007, twenty-six years after this episode aired, but that's another story as well. I will caution that K9 & Company might well have the very worst title sequence and musical score of any television show ever made. It's really something.

The eighteenth season of Doctor Who (****) is a hugely transitional one, with the entire cast and most of the crew changing over its considerable length (it being the longest season between Season 6 and Series 4 of the Modern era). If John Nathan-Turner wanted to put his stamp on the show he succeeded: there's a completely different energy working in this series by the end of the season and, for better or worse, the excesses of the Tom Baker era are slowly ironed out. If Baker was unhappy with many of these changes, it at least seems to galvanise him and he delivers some of his best performances since his Imperial Period (Seasons 12-14), with his performances in The Leisure Hive, Meglos, Warriors' Gate and Logopolis being particularly accomplished. Doctor Who has finally reached the 1980s, properly, and nothing will quite be the same again.

The season is available on DVD and Blu-Ray, as well as streaming on BBC iPlayer in the UK and various services overseas.

• 18.1 - 18.4: The Leisure Hive (***)
• 18.5 - 18.8: Meglos (***½)
• 18.9 - 18.12: Full Circle (***)
• 18.13 - 18.16: State of Decay (***½)
• 18.17 - 18.20: Warriors' Gate (***½)
• 18.21 - 18.24: The Keeper of Traken (****)
• 18.25 - 18.28: Logopolis (****½)
• K9 & Company: A Girl's Best Friend (***½)

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

Next STAR WARS movie gets its first trailer

The trailer for the next Star Wars movie has been unveiled. The Mandalorian and Grogu is the first Star Wars cinematic release since 2019's much-criticised The Rise of Skywalker, and also acts as a continuation of the three-season Mandalorian TV show on Disney+.

The Mandalorian and Grogu stars Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin aka "The Mandalorian," a bounty hunter with a strict code of honour. In the film he continues to act as the guardian of Grogu, a powerful infant Force-user of the same species as Yoda. Sigourney Weaver co-stars as Ward, the head of the New Republic's Adelphi Rangers, whilst The Bear's Jeremy Allen White plays Rotta the Hutt, the son of the deceased Jabba (Rotta previously appears as a baby in The Clone Wars animated film). Jonny Coyne will play an Imperial warlord, the film's likely primary antagonist. It's unknown if other castmembers from The Mandalorian TV show will recur.

The film is directed by Jon Favreau and co-written by Favreau and Dave Filoni. Ludwig Göransson returns from the TV show to score.

The film will break the curse that has afflicted Star Wars theatrical releases since The Rise of Skywalker's release. Numerous movies have been in development and been cancelled or indefinitely delayed, including Rogue Squadron, multiple trilogies from Rian Johnson, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. One of the films, about Obi-Wan Kenobi, pivoted from film to TV in the development phase.

A fourth season of The Mandalorian has been written but was delayed due to the Writers' Strike, with the idea of doing a movie floated as a way of getting Star Wars back into the cinema (as the first two seasons of the show represented a rare critical high point for the franchice, alongside Andor) and it's unclear if the film will replace it altogether. The movie is intended to be a stand-alone and will reportedly not require extensive knowledge of the Star Wars franchise or The Mandalorian in particular to be enjoyed.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu will hit cinemas on 22 May 2026. A further film, Star Wars: Starfighter, is now in production starring Ryan Gosling, Amy Adams and Matt Smith and is slated for release on 28 May 2027.

The next Star Wars television series expected to air is Season 2 of Ahsoka, which is also currently filming and expected to debut in 2026.

Doctor Who: Season 17

The Doctor and his companion Romana are on the run from the evil Black Guardian, using a randomiser to make them impossible to track through space and time. Their journeys will take them both to Earth and new, alien worlds.

Season 17 of Doctor Who was arguably the show's most troubled since its start. The show was near the apex of its success - Season 17 features several of the highest ratings in the show's history - but was also chronically hit by economic woes, with rampant inflation demolishing the show's budget, or at least its buying power. Creatively, the show had a unique problem: new script editor Douglas Adams had just penned a science fiction radio series, The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which had blown up unexpectedly big and seen him commissioned to write a second radio series, a novelisation, a TV show, a possible movie version and, a year or two down the line, even a video game. Adams did his best not to let this distract him from the day job, but it resulted in him shouldering a very heavy workload.

The season also featured continued clashes between star Tom Baker and the creative team. Baker had a low opinion of "boring" scripts and would tend to adlib or even rewrite scripts on the fly. Adams, who was a huge fan of Baker's humour and got on well with him, was inclined to indulge this tendency, to the irritation of other writers and directors (Baker, notably, was more restrained in meddling with Adams's own scripts). The season's production was also afflicted by strikes, and Baker's romantic relationship with his costar Lalla Ward which could be sparky.

Things kick off with Destiny of the Daleks, in which the Doctor and Romana travel to Skaro, homeworld of the Daleks, and get caught up in a war between the Movellans and the Daleks, who are trying to rescue their creator Davros, despite his apparent extermination in Season 12's Genesis of the Daleks. The first episode is pretty good, high in tension and atmosphere, but drops off a cliff quickly. David Gooderson is fairly inert as Davros, a sharp drop-off from the magisterial Michael Wisher in Genesis, and the conflict between the Daleks and Movellans (who look like members of a pop band) is underwhelming in the extreme. The Dalek models, some of which are over sixteen years old by this point, are also looking decidedly ropey. There's some nice location filming and a couple of interesting plot reversals, but it's a rather underwhelming story (if not as bad as its rep) and a disappointing bowing-out moment for Terry Nation, arguably Who's most important writer.

Fortunately, things immediately reverse with City of Death. Co-written by Douglas Adams, Graham Williams and David Fisher, City of Death is sometimes cited as Doctor Who's greatest single story, which is probably pushing it a bit. But it is definitely up there. The script is almost unrelentingly witty, the actual location filming in Paris really gives the show a filmic quality it has never had before (and rarely will again, at least in the Classic era), and Julian Glover gives one of the all-time great Doctor Who villain performances as Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth. Even the model shots are high in quality. Endlessly quotable ("what a delightful butler, he's so violent,"), well-paced and with a cast all on maximum form, City of Death is easily the season highlight, if not the highlight of the last three seasons (and maybe the next three as well).

The Creature from the Pit is an interesting story, mainly for its outstanding cast, particularly Myra Frances as Lady Adrasta who gets the assignment and performs with total conviction (Eileen Way is also excellent). The story has a very nice twist which almost subverts your expectations of what a Doctor Who story is about, whilst also being quintessential Doctor Who, but I feel the twist is really propping up the whole story. Without it, the plot is quite thin, so it doesn't reward rewatches as much. The visual effects, especially of the titular creature, are also a bit weak (and unnecessarily phallic). A solid story but not one you're going to revisit a lot.

Nightmare of Eden has a pretty strong premise, with two ships that ram into one another in a hyperspace accident. The Doctor helps them out, only to discover a whole ton of weird alien lifeforms are on the ship as well. Some interesting ideas in the story (if a bit of influence from Carnival of Monsters) and some strong guest performances - David Daker delivering his second memorable guest turn after his role as Irongron in The Time Warrior - help enliven a story that doesn't quite have the legs for four episodes, along with the Mandrels being the cuddliest and least-threatening Doctor Who monster, possibly of all time.

The Horns of Nimon, for many years, was decried as the worst Classic Doctor Who story of them all, which is debatable. It's definitely not the show at its best, with a plot that borrows more than a bit from Greek mythology and the titular Nimon being rather underwhelming in appearance. The serial is more infamous for Graham Crowden's ludicrous performance as Soldeed, which is 150% pure turbopanto. If you're in the mood for the hammiest performance in Doctor Who history, the story can be very entertaining; if not, it's a bit of a dire slog.

Shada, the final story of the season, has acquired a hushed, legendary reputation in Doctor Who circles by dint of 50% of it not existing. The story was fully written and filming had begun, with extensive location shooting in Cambridge mostly completed and a studio session also finished, when an electrician's strike halted shooting in its tracks. Attempts to remount the story for the following season failed, leaving the story incomplete. After various attempts to remount the story, including an audio version featuring Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor, and a video release with Tom Baker narrating the missing material, the BBC finally paid for animation to fill in the gaps, with the original voice cast returning to complete the script. Although the quality of the animation is...variable, this is the best solution for ensuring the story is completed in accordance with Douglas Adams' original intentions.

Once you get over the jarring shifts from live action to animation and back again, the story ends up being quite interesting. As an Adams script, it's inevitably witty and enjoyable. The guest cast is excellent, particularly Christopher Neame (whom some fans of this parish might recognise from his turn on Babylon 5's And the Sky Full of Stars fourteen years later), Denis Carey, Daniel Hill, Victoria Burgoyne and Gerald Campion. The plotting is a bit questionable in places - the Doctor convincing a computer that he's dead so should ignore orders to kill him is a joke drawn out for too long - and the pacing is definitely sluggish, with Adams not being best-represented in the six-part format. But still, it's a very solid story and a shame it was never finished to the original plan.

Season 17 (***½) is not as poor as its rep suggests. City of Death aside, these aren't the strongest scripts in Doctor Who history, but Tom Baker and Lalla Ward are on good form, and even where the scripts aren't the best, there's still some solid ideas being explored. It could be better, and the season is clearly compromised by budget issues in some places, but it ends up being firmly watchable.

The season is available on DVD and Blu-Ray, as well as streaming on BBC iPlayer in the UK and various services overseas.

• 17.1 - 17.4: Destiny of the Daleks (***)
• 17.5 - 17.8: City of Death (*****)
• 17.9 - 17.12: The Creature from the Pit (***½)
• 17.13 - 17.16: Nightmare of Eden (***)
• 17.17 - 17.20: The Horns of Nimon (**)
• 17.21 - 17.26: Shada (***½)

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House of the Dragon: Season 2

King Viserys Targaryen has died. He left instructions for his oldest child, Princess Rhaenyra, to inherit the Iron Throne. But Ser Criston Cole, the Kingmaker, has instead crowned his son as Aegon II. The realm is divided with almost half declaring for the Queen on Dragonstone and almost half for Aegon. Banners have been summoned and armies are forming. But this war will be bloody, for both sides are armed with dragons. Some are trying to halt the bloodshed with a negotiation, but others are seeking to profit from the chaos as much as possible. The Dance of the Dragons has begun.

Game of Thrones was the biggest TV show of the 2010s and also, easily, the biggest live-action fantasy television series of all time. The show stumbled hard at the end, though, and left behind a bitter taste for viewers. When HBO announced a prequel spin-off, they knew they would have to work hard to win back the fans disappointed by how Game of Thrones ended.

Against the odds, they succeeded. The first season of House of the Dragon was well-characterised with some great dialogue, brief but impressive action sequences, and some outstanding performances, particularly Paddy Considine's epic turn as King Viserys and Matt Smith as his brother, Prince Daeron, as well as Milly Alcock and Emma D'Arcy as Rhaenyra and Emily Carey and Olivia Cooke as her rival, Alicent. This was all great stuff, and established House of the Dragon as the clear fantasy successor to Game of Thrones, succeeding where Wheel of Time, Rings of Power and The Witcher had, to one extent or another, failed.

The reason for the success appears reasonable: whilst Game of Thrones struggled when it outpaced the books and did not have access to George R.R. Martin's source material any more, House of the Dragon had its entire storyline mapped out in Martin's 2018 tome Fire & Blood, with character motivations and arcs clearly established, and major action setpieces established. With a great cast, some strong writers who'd already established themselves in the first season, and some superb vfx designers (the dragons remain unmatched on the small screen), there was no reason to expect Season 2 to be anything other than a smash hit success.

Which is why it's a bit of a mystery why the second season is such a bizarre mess. Season 2 certainly has some great character moments to match anything in Season 1, some superb action scenes, some phenomenal vfx etc, but the pacing of the season has been hugely thrown off. Much of the season feels sluggish, with too many scenes of characters sitting around talking about the plot (again) rather than getting on with business. There's also a bizarre reluctance to embrace the fact that the war has started and cannot be stopped: Season 1 ended in such a way that should have left nobody in doubt that a full-scale conflict could not be avoided. Season 2, however, spends almost its entire length re-litigating about whether the war is inevitable and maybe there's a way to avoid it etc, which beggars all belief. The writers also seem to have realised that, following the book, they'd never have a scene with Emma D'Arcy and Olivia Cooke verbally sparring ever again, so they introduce a surreal device where the two find ways to sneak into one another's strongholds for occasional hearts-to-hearts. It's genuinely bizarre and does not wreck a sense of disbelief as drive a four-ton truck right through the middle of it.

The writers also decided it was a great idea to have Matt Smith spend most of the season wandering around the "haunted" castle of Harrenhal having weird visions and strange exchanges with the locals. One episode of this might have been interesting, even fun, but when this extends into a third episode you might be wondering this was a good use of resources, such as one of your best and most expensive actors. There's also a bemusing obsession with trying to tie the events of House of the Dragon into those of Game of Thrones, through visions, dreams, prophecies, etc that just makes the show feel less confident in standing on its own two feet.

The season finally perks up with the fourth episode, where all hell breaks loose. The Battle of Rook's Rest is excellent, with a well-choreographed ground battle and a furious aerial engagement. Any fears that HBO's vfx department would not be able to deliver on the promise of dragon-on-dragon ultraviolence are laid to rest here. The battle and its plot ramifications are a major highlight of the season.

Any hope of the season turning the corner and becoming more compelling is quickly dispelled: Daemon continues to mess around at Harrenhal interminably, Rhaenyra and Alicent continue to come up with reasons not to, y'know, get on with the actual the war the story is about, and there's a whole lot of not very much going on . The season is not helped by the late HBO decision to reduce the episode count from ten to eight, with the writers' strike just starting. This meant that the production team couldn't do anything to compact the events into fewer episodes (usually ill-advised, but in this case it would have helped the season tremendously with pacing) and just had to cut off the final two scripts from the run and shunt them into Season 3 instead. This robs Season 2 of any kind of climax, it just stumbles to a halt.

There are other strengths to Season 2. Though he debuted at the end of Season 1 and showed some good promise, The Last Kingdom's Ewan Mitchell really nails the role of Prince Aemond and becomes a great addition to the show. Jefferson Hall's Tyland Lannister is also most entertaining and has more to do this season as a politician and diplomat. The acting throughout remains strong, even if the actors sometimes struggle to sell the more nonsensical plot twists.

Season 2 of House of the Dragon (***) is a deeply odd, dispirited convulsion of television. It retains many of the strengths of the first season, including great acting, vfx and casting, but the pacing and writing are all over the place. There's a lack of firm commitment to the fact this is a war, and despite the source material being complete and eminently filmable, there's a strange tendency to drift away from it at times in favour of contrived, less interesting "TV drama" moments. Game of Thrones and House are both at their very best when they resist being "ordinary TV" and it's odd this season makes such strides to try to become that. The battle sequence in the fourth episode is a huge highlight, though, and hopefully now all this additional scene-setting has been done, Season 3 can just cut loose with business and get the story going at last.

The season is available to watch on HBO and Max (and local equivalents) in much of the world, and Sky Atlantic and Now TV in the UK, alongside physical media releases. A third season of House of the Dragon is currently in production for release in late 2026.

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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition

The planet Tartarus has come under heavy attack by the Orks, hard-pressing the planet's Imperial Guard defenders. The Blood Ravens chapter of Space Marines arrives to reinforce the planet and carry the fight to the Ork forces, but with both the Eldar and Chaos Marines also playing a role in events on the planet, it is clear that more is going on behind the scenes...

Originally released in 2004, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War was an important milestone in the growing popularity of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. It was a major sales success, unusually for a real-time strategy game at a time when the genre had already started stagnating, and has been credited with helping boost the success of the Warhammer 40,000 setting, particularly in the United States, where it had previously been quite niche. The game was also hugely praised for its voice acting, graphics and particularly its characterful animations, with gory "finishing moves" for melee combat. Although I enjoyed the game, I wasn't keen on its brevity versus its price, a repeating issue with Relic Entertainment games (with just 11 missions and one faction playable in campaign mode, though this expands to four in multiplayer), and the slow drip-feed of content over the next four years. I also found the first expansion, Winter Assault, underwhelming enough that I never checked out the later two (Dark Crusade and Soulstorm). It also didn't help that Relic's Company of Heroes took ideas from Dawn of War and made many of them work much better in a World War II context.

Now Relic have taken a leaf out of the Age of Empires book - reasonable given their work on Age of Empires IV - and combined all of the content for the original Dawn of War and released it as a "definitive edition," with all of the game and expansion content and factions rolled into one package, moderately remastered. This isn't a comprehensive remake. The game looks a bit better than in 2004 with higher-resolution textures and a better draw distance, but it's mostly the same game with a slight shine added rather than a massive update. That said, it's a definite improvement and an easy recommendation if you are new to the game. Far more important is removing the original game's memory limitations, allowing it to scale much more nicely and appropriately with modern hardware rather than being limited to just a few gigs of memory. There are also some interesting new options, like being able to keep corpses on the battlefield rather than them disappearing over time, which makes the psychotic kill-count in some battles much clearer. These changes should also allow for more impressive mods to appear.

The Definitive Edition also handily removes a lot of the issues I had with the original game. This is now a big game taking about 50 hours for a full run-through of all four campaigns with a single faction (far more if you try to 100% it with every side), featuring no less than nine factions: the Blood Ravens Chapter of the Space Marines, the Orks, the Chaos Marines, the Eldar, the Imperial Guard, the Tau, the Necrons, the Dark Eldar and the Sisters of Battle, making multiplayer correspondingly more interesting. This is now a pleasingly chunky package as opposed to the anemic original release.

It's also a varied one, with each of the four titles having a different approach. The original Dawn of War is a linear, story-led campaign with you guiding the Blood Ravens under Captain Gabriel Angelos in the defence of Tartarus. At first the battle is a straightforward clash between the Space Marines and their Imperial Guard allies (not a full faction in the first game, but some units are playable in some missions) against the invading forces of the Orks. But soon the Eldar and the Chaos Marines both intervene, with all sides tracking a powerful artifact. There are plot twists and betrayals in the well voice-acted cutscenes, as well as the clash of forces on the battlefield and an a reluctant alliance of convenience between people whom in other circumstances would be mortal enemies. It's all good stuff, just a bit on the easy side even on higher difficulties, and far too short.

Winter Assault switches gears and sees a battle unfold for control of the planet Lorn V, fallen to Chaos, with the Imperial Guard tasked with reclaiming the planet for the Imperium, with some limited support from a small group of Ultramarines. The Eldar provide clandestine support from the shadows, hoping to use the humans to soak up the invading Chaos and Ork forces before revealing themselves. The twist here over the base game is that the story is divided into two distinct campaigns: Order and Disorder. Both campaigns see the factions forced into an uneasy alliance (Elder/Imperial Guard and Chaos/Orks), with the player having the freedom to choose which faction within each alliance will gain the upper hand. This is a clever way of making the most out of limited assets, as there's only a handful of maps. The game's structure allows you to revisit each map with different factions and alliances doing different things. Having said that, it's still a very short game, and the only Dawn of War title not to have any presence from the Blood Ravens, making it feel separate from the rest of the canon.

Dark Crusade throws a huge curveball into the mix. There is no linear, story-led campaign here at all. Instead, there is a strategic map of the planet Kronus, when multiple armies fighting for it. You tell your forces where to attack next, with each province of the planet providing different bonuses and abilities. Seize the planetary starport and you can mount assaults anywhere on the planet rather then the immediately adjacent provinces. Seize an industrial region and you start your battles with more resources. It's not exactly Total War - what to do in each province is pretty limited - but it does offer some interesting choices and some of the most challenging battles of the entire collection. The main problems with it are a lack of exposition on what's going on with the strategic map and how to play optimally, and the baffling absence of any kind of autosave. You have to manually save regularly or lose progress, no matter how many battles you win. It's barmy nonsense. It also doesn't help that the game doesn't explain the "Honour Guard" mechanic, which is the key to winning some of the endgame, ultra-hard battles. The expansion does add the Necrons (always a hard species to balance correctly) and Tau into the mix, and does a good job with them.

Soulstorm is where it feels like the wheels have come off the game a bit. It's basically Dark Crusade II, though for some reason it looks a lot worse (the attractive strategy map of Dark Crusade has been replaced by something much more primitive and ugly here). It looks bigger, as it unfolds over three planets and several moons, but the provinces are just bigger and scattered over the various worlds instead. The game adds the Dark Eldar and the Sisters of Battle to the mix but I'm not sure if they were playtested, as their balance feels a bit off. The game is also odder in that it's generally more straightforward and easier than Dark Crusade, but the last couple of factions you have to eliminate will have built up so much strength that in order to defeat them, it becomes a bit of a joyless slog. Soulstorm also - utterly nonsensically - doesn't keep structures from previous missions in the same province in place (unlike Dark Crusade). I'm assuming this is because in Dark Crusade it was a viable strategy to take every strategic point on every map and hugely fortify it before assaulting the enemy base and ending the mission, making it almost impossible for the enemy to actually win counterattack missions. But it's otherwise illogical why all the infrastructure you spent ages building up in a region are missing just five minutes later. Soulstorm also has very little story (even less than Dark Crusade) and plays even less lip service than Crusade as to why the Space Marines, Sisters of Battle and Imperial Guard are fighting one another. Soulstorm is the weakest link here, even if moving your armies around to conquer territories and paint the map your colour retains some appeal.

The core appeal of the game remains intact. Sending scout forces out early to secure territory to gain enough recruitment points to form a huge army that then assaults the enemy position never gets old, resulting in a constant tension between attacking, defending, capturing and consolidating. Get the timing of your attack wrong and you will pay a heavy price. Animations remain among the best-in-class, and the polish-up from this remaster allows the game to remain visually pleasing whilst also being playable on a potato. The combination of the four titles into one gives it enough heft to be worth the reasonable asking price, without even counting the possibility of mods and multiplayer.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Definitive Edition (****) is, indeed, the definitive edition of the game. There's probably not enough of a change here to justify the purchase for established veterans who already own all the content, but for newcomers or maybe those who got the original game but skipped the expansions, this an enjoyable experience. The game is available now for PC.

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Wheel World

The world is in danger. The ancient cycling spirits hold the key to salvation, but their legendary bicycle parts have been scattered through the world. A skilled young cyclist, Kat, is recruited to help find the parts and restore the world's balance.

Wheel World is a game with a odd setup and storyline. It's basically a bicycle racing game in an open world where you are guided to objectives by a sentient floating skull (as you do). The use of the supernatural plot to explain why you're taking part in a lot of cycling races is unconventional, but interesting. Would Forza Horizon be improved if there was a metaplot explaining you're working for the God of Drivers in order to save the world by winning races? Probably. It certainly gives Wheel World a unique flair even if it's weird.

The game is set in a moderately-sized open world divided into zones which you can cycle across. You have to defeat several "boss" cyclists in order to claim their legendary parts, but you can only challenge the bosses once you have built up enough Rep to do so. You gain Rep by winning races, finding collectibles and pulling off tricks. You can also upgrade your bike to be faster, more durable, better at cornering or capable of faster acceleration (but not all at the same time), which makes winning races and building rep easier.

The game has a gorgeous, somewhat cel-shaded art style that is always very entertaining to cycle through (and refreshingly undemanding on hardware). The controls are pretty responsive, and the different upgrades make your bike handle convincingly differently. This isn't a hardcore bike physics simulator, so there aren't tons of complicated things to understand about the upgrades and physics (the game is fairly forgiving on things like crashes), and you can wing it to an extent. You also don't need to do every race, or get 100% on every race, to get enough Rep to challenge the bosses.

There is no reason not to do that though. Going for a completionist, 100% approach to the game will only take you around 12 hours. Speed-running the main story path will take around half that. The completionist approach, where you have to find hidden words on each race course, will also take you to more corners of the map than just running through the essential races as fast as possible.

The worldbuilding is interesting, though thin: this is a world where cars exist, but the bicycle is still king, and people are revered for their cycling skills over all other forms of achievement. The first land you visit is all beautiful countryside, verdant fields, picturesque villages and one sizeable-but-pleasant town. A later city you visit is polluted, messy and squalid, a hint of what will come to the whole land unless you prevail. I would say the later city is a less interesting location, with twistier, tighter courses that are not as fun to explore, and a general downer vibe at odds with the sunny opening. It's not a major problem - this is still a fairly short game - but it does slightly mar the experience. The final section is also odd, taking place in a very large area but where there's not much to do, making it feel like the developers ran out of time.

Still, it's hard to argue with the game. Wheel World (****) is short and focused, has a great art style, a nice soundtrack, is relatively chill and overcoming weaknesses to win the races is fun. The game is relatively cheap, doesn't outstay its welcome and is genuinely amusing in places. A recommended palate cleanser between longer games. The game available now for PC, PS5 and Xbox X/S.

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