RED ALERT: SPACE FLEET WARFARE hits the shelves

If you're a boardgamer or a wargamer, you've almost certainly encountered the name Richard Borg before. A veteran games designer of several decades' standing, Borg hit the big time around the turn of the century with his Command and Colours rule system, most successfully in the WW2 variant, Memoir '44, one of the most popular and biggest-selling 2-player board games of all time.

There are numerous other versions of the game, including ones set in the American Revolutionary War (Tricorne), the American Civil War (BattleCry), the Napoleonic Wars (Command & Colours: Napoleonics), World War I (The Great War) and a fantasy version, BattleLore, which in turn has spawned a Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones spin-off, Battles of Westeros, which is fantastic (but did not involve Borg at all).

One of the most logical directions to take the rules system is upwards, into space, and the latest game in the series is now sneaking onto store shelves in the USA, and is already on wide release in Australia. It should be hitting UK shelves over the next two weeks or so.

Red Alert: Space Fleet Warfare pitches the Commonwealth against the Confederation for control of known space, in pitched battles involving battlecruisers, dreadnoughts, flagships, carriers, space stations and fighters. Lots of fighters. Most Command and Colours games are heavily based around terrain, which is less of a thing in Red Alert although there are tokens to represent planets, gas clouds and, in a first for the series, moving terrain tokens for things like comets and asteroids.

Command and Colours' immense success has been down to the fact it always looks fantastic - colourful maps dotted with excellent miniatures or block counters - but is very easy to learn to play. Scenario maps allow you to set up a battle map in minutes. Each map is divided into three sectors, a central one and two flanks. Each player has a hand of cards and on each turn a player may play one card. This card will say something like "Advance right flank" or "Advance 3 units of your choice". There are also special tactics cards which do things like boost your attacking or defensive power. Each ship has its own attack strength and its own abilities and differing amount of hits it can sustain. And that's pretty much it.

The simplicity of the rules combined with the tremendous tactical depth afforded by the rules has made the Command and Colours system thoroughly addictive and compelling, and it looks like Red Alert has hit the same spot.

The game is being released, unusually, with the core box and six expansions in one go. Alongside the core set, the following expansions are available to expand the roster of ships in each fleet and the amount of space phenomena that can be encountered:

• Vice Admiral Flagship
• Carrier Starship
• Dreadnought Starship
• Logistics Ships and Space Platform
• Meteor Storm
• Space Rift

Further expansions are planned which will add at least two additional factions and also allow for planetary assaults and landings.

Once I get my hands on the game, I'll readers know how it plays and if it's worth picking up, but so far it looks very cool, and I suspect enterprising gamers will already be working out how to substitute the existing ships for miniatures from their favourite SF setting (such as Star Wars, Babylon 5 or Mass Effect).

Thanks to George R.R. Martin (and the Hugos)

I should have mentioned this earlier (as today is the last day for Hugo nominations), but I have a very British aversion to self-promotion. Anyway, I have to extend my thanks to George R.R. Martin for recommending people to vote for myself for Best Fan Writer at the 2019 Hugo Awards.

In terms of eligibility, I'm eligible for Best Fan Writer and the Wertzone is eligible for Best Fanzine (a bit of a misnomer, as it has now become dominated by online blogs). I don't have any other works that are eligible. In terms of past history, I've been longlisted twice and my History of Epic Fantasy article series was longlisted in 2016, but I've never made it onto the shortlist.

Whatever the situation, I will be at WorldCon in Dublin in August, and at the EuroCon/TitanCon in Belfast (where GRRM is Guest of Honour) the following week.

Apocalypse Nyx by Kameron Hurley

The world of Umayma is still rocked by the ongoing war between the nations of Nasheen and Chenja. Former bel dame assassin turned freelance mercenary Nyx is still profiting on the sidelines of the war, slowly gathering a team of trusted associates to more effectively take on contracts, and hoping she doesn't get them killed in the process.

Apocalypse Nyx is a collection of five short stories (a couple approaching novella size) set in the world of Kameron Hurley's Bel Dame Apocrypha trilogy. The stories take place before the trilogy (God's War, Infidel, Rapture) and serve several functions, including being an origin story for several of Nyx's associates. Interestingly Nyx herself doesn't get such backstory, perhaps as the novels told that story well enough or because Hurley is holding onto that story for another time.

Instead, we get the stories of how Khos and Anneke join the team, how the team operates together, why Rhys stayed with them for so long and the sort of small jobs that keep the team ticking over between the more epic events of the novels. It has to be said that these are all splendid. Like the trilogy, these stories feel like a pint of science fiction mixed with a pint of fantasy and washed down with absinthe. The stories brim with attitude and verve, even moreso since Hurley can set up and resolve the story in a few dozen pages rather than across hundreds.

There aren't too many problems as such, although those who enjoy short story collections for variations in tone may be disappointed: the collection retains the same bloody-minded attitude as the novels, with a fair amount of violence, mayhem and adult content. The short length of the stories does allow for a sharper focus though, and the stakes are correspondingly a lot lower. It's interesting to see how readily Nyx hits the self-destruct button when the team are tasked with a simple data retrieval mission, perhaps explaining how she reacts when the fate of the nation/world are at stake in the trilogy.

The most successful story is the last one, "Paint It Red", where Nyx is offered the chance to join another team of mercenaries. The idea of not being in charge and not having responsibility appeals to Nyx, but soon she discovers the price of working for a team whose morality is a lot more compromised than her own. The reader realises that Nyx, for all her myriad faults, has a sense of fairness and honour that sets her apart from others of her kind, and makes her ultimately a protagonist worth rooting for.

Apocalypse Nyx (****½) is a fine collection of razor-sharp, bloody-minded tales from one of the most interesting voices in modern genre fiction. It is available now in the UK and USA.

Netflix's LOVE, DEATH & ROBOTS brings some of SFF's biggest names to the screen

Tomorrow (Friday 15 March), Netflix are releasing a new series called Love, Death and Robots. An anthology series, it showcases eighteen short (5-15 minute) SF films about the title concepts, based on short fiction by some of SFF's biggest names, as well as some films by concept artists.

Executive produced by David Fincher, the anthology series features the following stories with the confirmed writers so far:

Sonnie's Edge by Peter F. Hamilton (set in the universe of The Night's Dawn Trilogy)

Three Robots by John Scalzi
The Witness by Alberto Mieglo

Suits

Sucker of Souls

When the Yogurt Took Over by John Scalzi

Beyond the Aquila Rift by Alastair Reynolds

Good Hunting

The Dump

Shape-Shifters

Helping Hand

Fish Night by Joe Lansdale

Lucky 13

Zima Blue by Alastair Reynolds

Blind Spot

Ice Age

Alternate Histories by John Scalzi

Secret War

The entire HALO collection (almost) is finally coming to PC

In a surprising move, Microsoft have confirmed that their hithero mostly-X-Box-exclusive Halo video game series is coming to PC.

The original Halo: Combat Evolved (2001) had a well-received PC port, but Halo 2 (2004)'s PC port was poor and badly reviewed. Subsequent games were not released on PC at all.

The Halo: Master Chief Collection is now coming to PC. This will include revamped and upgraded versions of Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, but, for the first time, Halo 3 (2007), Halo 3: ODST (2009), Halo: Reach (2010) and Halo 4 (2012). The spin-off Halo Wars strategy series and Halo 5: Guardians (2015), the most recent game in the main series, are not included.

Microsoft plan to release the games this year, although they will be releasing each title individually so they can test and optimise each game through a releasing and testing period. Microsoft will be releasing the game via their own online store but, surprisingly, also through Steam.

Captain Marvel

1995. In deep space, a war is raging between the Kree Empire and the Skrulls, a race of shapeshifting infiltrators. The Empire's most elite military unit is Starforce, a special operations unit consisting of recruits from different worlds with different but complementary skillsets. One of these recruits, Vers, is being personally trained by Starforce's commander Yon-Rogg, who senses in her great potential. Vers, however, cannot remember her own past. An operation to engage Skrull infiltrators on the planet Earth goes awry as Vers gradually realises that this is her forgotten homeworld, and she starts to piece together her past with the help of a SHIELD agent named Nick Fury.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is now a mature franchise, eleven years, twenty-one films and $17 billion into its run. The MCU has settled down into a smooth conveyor belt of films, churning out three movies a year based on characters both well-known and obscure, including sequels and also original films based on characters never before seen on screen. Somehow it has managed to do this whilst not becoming too tired or formulaic, even if some of the series' standby tropes have become increasingly obvious (particularly a tendency towards self-deprecating humour and a big CGI finale).

Captain Marvel is an interesting movie in that it introduces the - arguably - single most powerful superhero in the entire Marvel canon to cinema audiences. Captain Marvel is the closest thing the comics have to Superman, a being capable of flight, firing energy beams our of her body and even travelling through interstellar space purely on her own power. In the comics the character (who has had several identities) can suffer from the Superman syndrome - coming up with a credible threat to her is quite tough - which is presumably why Marvel held fire this long on bringing her into the fold.

The movie also has a bit more riding on it than that. This is an origin movie not just for Captain Marvel but for the entire MCU. It explains the origins of Nick Fury, Agent Coulson and the modern focus of SHIELD on superheroes. It also brings in the Kree-Skrull War, one of the most iconic storylines and elements from the Marvel Comics which fan have been eager to see ever since the MCU started. And it also ties in with The Avengers: Endgame, where Captain Marvel will return to Earth to join the fight against Thanos.

On this level the movie feels busy and a bit cluttered. MCU fans will enjoy seeing the tie-ins to the cosmic/SF side of the franchise and elements and characters previously seen in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, whilst nostalgia heads will like the 1990s setting. But it does feel like some elements get lost a little in the mix, and one of these is the central character. Brie Lawson plays Vers/Carol with integrity and presence, but her amnesia means she spends a bit too much of the film as a blank slate, trying to figure out who she is. She gets there in the end, but it takes a while.

More successful is her relationship with Nick Fury, here played by Samuel L. Jackson with some very expensive CGI de-ageing going on. Marvel have experimented with this before in brief shots, but this is the first time they've done it for an entire movie and it is very nearly flawless. Fury is perhaps a bit too quick to adapt to the revelation that aliens exist and are fighting a war on Earth, but perhaps that adaptability is what made him perfect as a future director of SHIELD. Jackson and Larson have great chemistry and the road trip elements of the film are hugely enjoyable.

Also worthy of mention is Ben Mendelsohn as a Skrull leader. Mendelsohn has carved out a recent niche as Hollywood's go-to villain in the humourless martinet role, and it's great to see him being given both a character with much greater depth, a sense of humour and a more relaxed demeanour (helped by him being allowed to use his native Australian accent). There's also a fun cat character, although their prominence in the movie has perhaps been a tad overstated in previews.

Captain Marvel (****) is perhaps a little too eager to fall back on MCU tropes - lots of CGI everywhere, a few too many brief downbeat moments of self-doubt overcome by some punch-the-air good feels as the hero overcomes their issues to stand tall (in a scene oddly extremely similar to a sequence in the last-ever episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) - but ultimately ends up being a worthwhile slice of hokum and fun, with strong central performances and some very effective action sequences. Not among the MCU's strongest offerings, but still a very solid movie. The film is on general release worldwide at the moment.

The Wheel of Time TV series update: multiple books per season, production to start in September

There's been a lot of low-key news emerging about the Wheel of Time TV series for Amazon Prime, so it's probably a good idea to catch up on everything that's been going down recently.

The Talent

Rafe Judkins is the showrunner and head writer on the project. He has written the first episode of the series, Leavetaking. His pop culture career began when he was a contestant on American reality show Survivor: Guatemala (the eleventh season of Survivor) in 2005. He came third (out of eighteen contestants).

Judkins subsequently began writing for Hollywood TV productions, starting with My Own Worst Enemy. He then joined the writing staff of Chuck, contributing several episode scripts and becoming a script editor and producer. He co-wrote the two-hour series finale. He then moved to Hemlock Grove and then Agents of Shield, where he has been credited as one of the writers who helped turn the show around after its disappointing first season. He also developed several drafts of a script for a movie based on the Uncharted video game franchise.

Amanda Kate Shuman is a writer on the show, having penned the second episode, Shadow's Waiting. Shuman also started her career on Chuck, writing two episodes and working as a writers' assistant. From 2013 to 2015 she worked on The Blacklist as a writer and story editor, and was then promoted to a producer on Berlin Station (also working as a writer and script editor).

Identical twins Paul and Michael Clarkson (aka the Clarkson Twins) are also writers on the show, having penned the third episode, A Place of Safety. Their previous credits include The Feed, See and the BBC/HBO project His Dark Materials.

Dave Hill is the writer of the fourth episode, The Dragon Reborn. He is - so far - the show's first scalp from fellow fantasy behemoth Game of Thrones. He started work as a writer's assistant on Season 2, providing support to the rest of the writing team. He started writing for the series directly in Season 5, picking up the slack when George R.R. Martin chose to stop writing for the series. He has so far written three episodes: Sons of the Harpy (Season 5), Home (Season 6) and Eastwatch (Season 7). He has also written an episode for Season 8.

Justine Juel Gillmer is the writer of the sixth episode, The Flame of Tar Valon. She started working in Australian television in the early 2000s, working on shows such as Home and Away. Her American writing credits include The 100 and Into the Badlands, serving on both shows as a script editor.

Celine Song is an experienced playwright, having written The Feast, Family, Tom & Eliza and Endlings, which premiered recently. She has also recently moved into television, working on Tuesday Nights. On Wheel of Time she is working as a writer.

Sarah Nakamura is the show's creative consultant. She is a "superfan" of the series, well-known in the fan community, and even played Moiraine in Tor Books' trailer for the release of Towers of Midnight in 2010.

Harriet McDougal, Robert Jordan's widow and editor and Brandon Sanderson (the writer who completed the final three Wheel of Time novels) have also been involved in consulting on the series.

Uta Briesewitz is the director of the first two episodes of The Wheel of Time, Leavetaking and Shadow's Waiting. Briesewitz is an experienced cinematographer and director. She is best-known as the cinematographer of HBO's The Wire, developing the show's signature look. Her directing credits include Jesscia Jones, The Defenders, Stranger Things, The Deuce, Altered Carbon, Black Sails, The 100, Fear the Walking Dead, Orange is the New Black and This is Us.

The Episodes

So far we know about the following episodes:


101: Leavetaking
Written by Rafe Judkins
Directed by Uta Briesewitz

According to Rafe Judkins, the first episode opens on Tam al'Thor and Rand on the Quarry Road, riding towards Emond's Field. This is the start of Chapter 1 of The Eye of the World. Judkins has confirmed that they are skipping New Spring, the prologue and the special YA bonus prologue, which are all chronologically set before this point in the story. Those elements may be revisited later on in the series in flashbacks.

Leavetaking is the name of Chapter 10 of The Eye of the World, suggesting that the first episode may cover all of the material in those chapters (147 pages), including all of the Emond's Field events.

Leavetakings (the plural) is also the name of Chapter 9 of The Great Hunt, Chapter 16 of The Shadow Rising and Chapter 48 of The Fires of Heaven, but that's probably irrelevant for now.


102: Shadow's Waiting
Written by Amanda Kate Shuman
Directed by Uta Briesewitz

Shadow's Waiting is the name of Chapter 19 of The Eye of the World and refers to the ruined city of Shadar Logoth, suggesting that the second episode may cover all of the events between Chapters 11 and 19 (9 chapters, 127 pages), incorporating the trips to Taren Ferry and Baerlon, the chase along the Caemlyn Road and the arrival at Shadar Logoth.


103: A Place of Safety
Written by the Clarkson Twins

A Place of Safety is, curiously, the name of Chapter 8 of The Eye of the World and should already have been covered in Episode 101.

Assuming a similar page/chapter distribution to the first two episodes, A Place of Safety could cover Chapters 20-30 (11 chapters, 161 pages). This would incorporate several "places of safety", including Whitebridge and the Ogier stedding where Perrin and Egwene take shelter. This episode would introduce characters such as Bayle Domon and Elyas Machera and concepts such as wolfbrothers, Tinkers, the Children of the Light and the Tower of Ghenjei (in brief passing). This might be quite a lot to pack in, but it'd be a busy episode.

Another possibility for the title is a new side-visit to Tar Valon (the "place of safety" Moiraine is referring to in Chapter 8) to set up the storyline there.


104: The Dragon Reborn
Written by Dave Hill

The Dragon Reborn is, of course, the name of Book 3 of the series and also the name of Chapter 8 of The Great Hunt. At this juncture it seems unlikely to be referring to either of those.

Assuming a similar page/chapter distribution to the first two episodes, The Dragon Reborn could cover Chapters 31-40 (10 chapters, 139 pages). This would incorporate Rand and Mat's journey to Caemlyn via Four Kings, their meeting with Loial and Rand meeting Elayne, Gawyn, Galad, Morgase and Elaida for the first time (and Logain, sort of).

The title allusion would be to Rand seeing the false Dragon Logain from the walls of Caemlyn.


105: Unknown
Written by Celine Song (?)

Not much on this one, although I'd assume that Celine Song was in line to write this episode.

Assuming a similar etc etc, my guess is that this episode finishes off The Eye of the World, covering chapters 41-53 (12 chapters, 164 episodes) and will feature the Ways, Fal Dara, the Eye of the World, the Green Man, Tarwin's Gap and so on.

Against the Shadow could be a good title in that case, or maybe The Eye of the World itself.


106: The Flame of Tar Valon
Written by Justine Juel Gillmer

The Flame of Tar Valon is the title of Chapter 1 of The Great Hunt and one of the titles of the Amyrlin Seat, who is also introduced at the start of The Great Hunt.

Logically this infers that this episode will feature the introduction of Siuan Sanche, the Amyrlin Seat, and her meeting with Moiraine and Rand at Fal Dara, as well as other events that happen in the first 10-15-odd chapters of The Great Hunt.

Production Details

The Wheel of Time TV show starts shooting in and around Prague, in the Czech Republic, in September. Production will run well into 2020 and will be followed by a lengthy post-production phase. When the show will air is unclear and depends on the amount of effects work required. It could be late 2020, but early 2021 sounds more likely.

It sounds like the scriptwriting stage is wrapping up and location scouting is currently underway. The next key stage will be casting, which I suspect will begin fairly imminently with announcements to be made over the summer.


Assessment

It's hard to fully assess the structural status of the project since we are lacking a key piece of information, namely how many episodes will be in the first season. It could be 8 or 10 or 13 or anything between. The episode titles seem to be heavily leaning towards Season 1 covering all of The Eye of the World (Book 1) and part or all of The Great Hunt (Book 2) as well. This makes sense because clearly the show is not going to get 14 seasons, so they need to cover far more than 1 book per season (as Game of Thrones did). The only question is if they are covering both books in full or stopping partway through The Great Hunt.

Some people I know will be concerned that with only 5 episodes per book - compared to 10 per book for Game of Thrones - the series may end up feeling rushed. The traditional Hollywood rule of thumb is that 100 pages of paperback = 1 hour of screentime (the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy, for example, is 11 hours long for an 1,100-page book, although it still omitted a lot of material). Game of Thrones, at least in its first season, covered a relatively leisurely 80 pages per episode, with plenty of time for diversions and even new material. We don't know if they are really just doing 5 episodes per book, but if so, this suggests they are getting a move on. Although essential to cover the 14 books in a reasonable number of seasons, some may fear this will end up hurting the story.

We will, eventually, find out in late 2020 or early 2021.

FALLOUT to get two pen-and-paper roleplaying games

Fallout is to - finally! - make the transition to tabletop rolepaying. The venerable video game franchise, which turns 22 this year, started life as a homebrew game played by the team at Interplay using the GURPS rules system before became a video game, so this is a sign of the franchise going full circle.

Two products are in development by Modiphius. The first is an expansion to Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, the tabletop miniatures wargame released last year. This expansion will provide context for the battles in the game and uses a rules set modified from the miniatures game. It sounds like this product is aimed at those who favour using miniatures in their games. The expansion will be released in summer 2019, with a special boxed set containing both the expansion and the Wasteland Warfare starter set will follow at Christmas.

The second product is a stand-alone Fallout RPG which will use the 2d20 rules system used for Mutant Chronicles, Star Trek Adventures, Conan and John Carter of Mars, among other products. This will launch in 2020 with an initial rulebook followed by expansions.

This is positive news. Fallout has a rich setting and impressive lore, and it's way past time that a tabletop roleplaying version was available.

The LORD OF THE RINGS TV show will be set in the Second Age of Middle-earth

Amazon have confirmed that the Lord of the Rings TV series will be set in the Second Age of Middle-earth's history and tweeted a final update to their map series which adds the island of Númenor, which is only present in that epoch of history. This also confirms that Amazon has secured the screen rights to Unfinished Tales, as the map of Númenor and its place names are all copyrighted as part of that book.

J.R.R. Tolkien divided the history of his world, Arda (actually an imaginary version our world in an ancient, prehistorical time), into several epochs. Spanning tens of thousands of years were the Sunless Ages, known as the Age of Darkness, Age of the Lamps, Age of the Trees etc. The numbered ages began with the creation of the Sun and the awakening of the race of Men in Middle-earth. The First Age, which lasted a mere 600 years or so, was dominated by the War of the Jewels, the desperate battle by the Noldor elves and their dwarven and human allies against the dark power Morgoth fought to regain the Silmarils, the greatest creations of the elven smiths. At the end of the war Morgoth was defeated, but at great cost, including the destruction of the subcontinent of Beleriand in far north-western Middle-earth where the war was fought.

The Second Age saw many elves depart for the uttermost west, but those who remained forged new alliances and kingdoms in Middle-earth. In recognition of their bravery, the greatest human warriors and fighters, the Edain, were blessed with their own homeland, a great island named Númenor raised by the godlike Valar from the depths of the ocean. For a time peace reigned, but disquiet returned thanks to the machinations of Sauron, a servant of Morgoth who had escaped imprisonment or destruction. Sauron went in disguise among the elven-smiths of Eregion and tricked them into forging the Rings of Power. Using their knowledge, Sauron then forged the One Ruling Ring by himself as a means of controlling all the others and dominating Middle-earth. He then made war upon the elves of Middle-earth.

From the sequence of maps posted by Amazon, it appears that the series will cover a number of important events during the Second Age. Possible time periods could include the initial visits by the Númenóreans to the coasts of Middle-earth in the 800th year of the Second Age (due to the prevalence of forests on the maps, before they were cut down by the Númenóreans to build their ships); the forging of the Rings of Power c. 1600 SA; the War of Sauron and the Elves in 1695-1700 SA; the Downfall of Númenor in 3319 SA; and the War of the Last Alliance in 3428-3441 SA. More intriguing is the possibility that the series will cover all of this material, jumping forward centuries at a time and using immortal characters like Elrond and Galadriel to anchor us whilst the human cast keeps changing.

Hopefully Amazon will confirm more about the series soon. Production of the Lord of the Rings TV series is expected to begin by November at the latest to debut in 2021.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7

For Buffy Summers, it's a strange sense of deja vu to see her sister Dawn starting high school at the newly-rebuilt Sunnydale High. Soon, however, an old enemy returns to Sunnydale and sets in motion a chain of events which threatens everything and everyone. Buffy has to become a leader as she never has before to stand against the threat, and the cost will be very high.

The cast of Buffy hit absolute rock bottom in the show's sixth season, a long and bleak journey from post-traumatic stress through self-realisation to catharsis via a lot of really bad relationship choices, several deaths and the world very nearly being destroyed. Season 7 opens with the fall-out from that season still being felt - Willow in recovery from her magic addiction, Spike trying to deal with his newly-acquired soul - but also with a bit of a back-to-basics feel.

There's a new Sunnydale High (unwisely built - in record time - on top of the old one and the Hellmouth) which Dawn is attending and where Buffy gets a job as a school counsellor, which is one of those genius ideas that the show proceeds not to do very much with. Early episodes of the season have a bit of a Season 1 feel, although this also includes, with the bemusing episode Him, an instalment that feels like Season 1 quality as well. The season is a bit rough in the early going with potentially solid story and character developments being undercut by filler episodes and some odd character choices, like reducing Spike to a raving loon for half the season and killing off fan-favourite side-characters for questionable story reasons.

The story does pick up with Conversations with Dead People, the season's best episode, in which characters are haunted by figures from their past (and yes, this episode bears more than a passing resemblance to Babylon 5's Neil Gaiman-written episode Day of the Dead) which leads to both character growth and also to pushing the main storyline on. By mid-season it's become clear that the true threat is an old enemy returning to destroy the world and the tension ratchets up a gear as Buffy assembles an army of new allies and older characters to face the threat. Spike also stops acting crazy, to everyone's relief.

Events then build to the epic season finale, taking in a few twists and turns along the way, including a memorable turn by Firefly's Nathan Fillion as a crazed evil preacher with superhuman (or subhuman) powers. This is all good stuff and it's a refreshing change of pace after the introspection of Season 6, although those who felt that in-depth psychological exploration of the characters in that season was a strength may be disappointed by the more obvious good-vs-evil struggles this season which dials back the intense character drama.

Buffy does at least stick the landing: the ending is thematically appropriate, rewarding for the characters and leaves the world on a good note, although some may bemoan a few perfunctory character deaths and a rather pointless apparent heroic sacrifice that had been undermined by news the character was moving to Buffy's sister show Angel. Beyond that, the ending and the final line are very nicely done.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer's seventh and final season (****) is a fine ending to the show. It's not the strongest season, but it does provide an appropriately epic finale to seven years of Slaying and it does give the show a nice coda. The season is available now as part of the complete Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD box set (UK, USA).