[Short-Lived Showcase] Captain Power, unproduced episode "Face of Darkness"

"Overall, it's not a particularly stunning or game-changing episode, just another of those one-off adventures where we get a little character, a little dark commentary, a lot of action, and our heroes being heroes. But on paper, it's a perfectly fine one, which kept me involved and interested all the way through. If this speaks to the overall quality of the season 2 which never came to be, it's unfortunate that more hasn't surfaced or been officially released."

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[Masters of Carpentry] Johnocrypha #3: The Thing From Another World (1991 comic)

"Set pieces are being built which aren't allowed to play to their fullest potential. Any one of these could have made for a great story in its own right, but by trying to cram them all into a single 2-issue tale, none of them get any room to breathe. Remember how much of a part the base itself played in both early film adaptations? We never get that here."

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[Masters of Carpentry] Monthly Feature #13: The Thing (1982)

"This is just a film where everyone brought their A-game, everyone excelled, and everyone meshed together. You guys have brought up the realism, it's also a very stylish movie in the way that it's shot and composed and edited and lit. But it uses the stylish stuff to shoot things that are played very realistic, and it's that perfect mesh of, it's not a fully realistic movie, it's not a fully stylish movie, it's a harmonious fusion of the two. Which has always been one of my favorite things of Carpenter, everyone's very down-to-earth and real, but it's also very slick and clean."

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[Short-Lived Showcase] Captain Power: Season 2

"I definitely think they were on the right track with a lot of their ideas. Broader world-view, shake up the dynamics a bit, take each character further down their paths, bring in new characters and new monsters, this is all good stuff. What I'm seeing of the structure, though, that feels messy, like they weren't sure how to map things out, so they'd just squish it into these little clumps before moving on. It feels surprisingly scattershot, given how much other stuff I know was mapped out ahead of time, to the point where I can't even tell if the neat nuggets Straczynski mentioned above were even still on the table."

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[Short-Lived Showcase] Captain Power, episode 22 "Retribution, Part 2"

"Pilot started cold and underexplored, but as we got into her history and realized just how much humanity she'd been deprived of, it gave so much weight to the little moments of her experiencing new little things everyone else takes for granted. And here, she goes out the hero, saving what little she can of what our heroes have fought for, in total contrast to cold service of the Machine (further contrasted by her saving the good machines of the suits and Mentor)."

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[Masters of Carpentry] Johnocrypha #2: The Thing From Another World (1951 film)

"I love the pace of it. Hawks has always had a very simple style, there's nothing really flashy about his camera work, but he stages things very well. As you said, like a play. Even during the big climax, where it's basically just a single shot down a single hallway, as people are coming left and right, up and down, setting up the tracks, setting up all the insulation. What I love is how crowded this cast is, too. It's like 20-25 people, all usually gathered in a room versus this one thing."

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[Short-Lived Showcase] Captain Power, episode 21 "Retribution, Part 1"

"The other big change is the early scene in the Power Base, where Tank and Pilot are, in the script, having a watergun fight and pull the others into laughter and merriment. It's a cute scene, but I much prefer the dance we get here, as everyone gets to have a moment that's uniquely them before clearing the dance floor for Power and Pilot to hold each other in their arms, sharing looks of both longing and hesitation. Jorge Montesi has been the second most prolific director of the season and was absolutely the right choice to bring the show to a close, as he knows how to bring out the tender, human moments."

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