Deep Space Nine: Season 5

Deutsch | Season 4 | Season 6

Disc 1

Apocalypse Rising

Synopsis: Starfleet has developed a plan to expose Chancellor Gowron as a changeling. For this Sisko has to borrow Dukat’s Bird of Prey and fly deep into the klingon territory. There O’Brien, Odo and he poses as Klingons – or at least Worf tries to teach them how to do that. And of course it’s not that easy for a random klingon warrior to get close to his ruler.

My Opinion: It was great to see Brooks, Auberjonois and Meaney in klingon masks and costume, especially Brooks. And it was funny to see how they tred to behave like Klingons. But I have to admit I think it was a dangerous choice to take Odo, given his current state of mind. Even if it wasn’t voiced in the episode the reason was obviously to challenge Odo, to show him that he can do his job even as a “solid” but he could as well blown it. But in the end it worked out ok and I liked the twist that it wasn’t Gowron at all.

The Ship

Synopsis: Sisko leads an expidition to a planet in the GQ where they want to determine whether it’s suitable for a mining operation. But then a Jem’Hadar warship crashes on that planet – there are no survivors. But while they are inspecting the wreckage yet another Dominion ship arrives and in the following fight Sisko’s people get trapped in the wreck. Surprisingly the Vorta offers safe conduct if they’d leave the ship. But now Sisko has become curious about what’s so important about a crashed ship (and of course he doesn’t trust her to keep her word).

My Opinion: OK, I was tired, but I dozed off during the episode, what does that tell you?

Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places

Synopsis: Grillka, Quark’s klingon ex-wife, comes to the station because the war had some heavy impacts on her financial situation. And while Quark is happy to see her again, he’s not the only one who finds her fascinating. Worf tries to impress her but doesn’t succeed due to his dishonoured status within the empire. In the end he agrees to help Quark courting her.

My Opinion: The beginning of a beautiful romance. No, not Quark and Grillka, but Dax and Worf. “par’Mach” is klingon for “love”, just a lot tougher than its human counterpart. It was great to see Quark courting Grillka and fighting his challenger while Worf and Dax were secretly helping him to survive. And of course the best part was where the two pairs came into the infirmary at the end of the episode. 😀

Nor the Battle to the Strong

Synopsis: Bashir and Jake (who’s writing an article about Bashir) return from a medical conference when they receive an emergency call. They change course and land on a planet where a Federation force tries to hold the line against klingon ground troops. And while Dr. Bashir works in the clinic Jakes tries to help and not to stand in someone’s way. But he also has to learn about the horrors of war.

My Opinion: I thought this was a really good episode. Once again DS9 has shown Humans much more human and not as perfect as they had been portrayed in TNG. I liked the idea of hearing Jakes notes as voiceover, to hear what he was feeling right now when he meet all these different kind of people. And that he didn’t consider himself a hero just because he saved the day by accident even though everyone else does – that was great.
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Movie Watchings 2009 – January

Deutsche Version | February

January, 1st

The Dark Knight

Christian Bale … Bruce Wayne / Batman
Heath Ledger … The Joker
Aaron Eckhart … Harvey Dent / Two-Face
Michael Caine … Alfred Pennyworth
Maggie Gyllenhaal … Rachel Dawes
Gary Oldman … James Gordon
Morgan Freeman … Lucius Fox

Synopsis: Batman, Lt. Gordon and DA Harvey Dent have become a very efficient team and they dealt some major blows to Gotham’s underworld. But now Batman gets a new class of enemy: The Joker. The Joker has no plan, he has no goal beside causing havoc and creating chaos. And he’s very good at what he does. But can he force Batman to cross the line?

My Opinion: A great continuation to the great first movie. I always liked the first two Batman movies and I never really liked the cheesy third and especially fourth movie. Although I’ve never read any Batman comic I’ve always felt that it had to be dark and dirty and sometimes morally grey. Batman is no bright character for me. And although it had many comic elements in it Batman Begins felt very realistic. And The Dark Knight is the perfect sequel. It continues where the first movie left off – and I love the Joker. When he first told the story about how he got the scars I thought they were going to blew it and then was relieved when he then told yet another – totally different – story and thus remained his mysteriousness. But to be perfectly honest, I had expected that the “good people” on the ferry would pull the trigger. And then have themselves blown up. That would be totally in the line of Joker’s thinking IMHO. If I were to give stars, what I rarely do, I’d give 9.5 out of 10.
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Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Season 1

Deutsche Version

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Cast

Season 1

Disc 1

Pilot

Synopsis: It’s the year 1999 and Judgement Day hasn’t happened – yet. Sarah and John are constantly switching aliases and living placaes. But one day two cyborgs have still found them: One comes in the form of a young girl called Cameron and she was sent to protect John. And the other is a classical terminator. They try to escape him but in the end there’s no place they can hide, just another time.

My Opinion: To fully enjoy the show one has to put it in a parallel universe to the movies. It’s similar to the Highlander movie (There can be only one!) and the series. While I liked the general general idea of the show I had a problem with some story elements. For example: Cameron took the other cyborg out with a power surge. In my unprofessional opinion two minutes should have been enough to somehow destroy him or at least to damage him severely – he can’t resist after all. And some of the stuff in the vault seemed unlikely, too. Even if I knew how to build a microchip in 1965 there wouldn’t be the the technology (wafers etc.) to actually do it. But they had to find a way to push the series forward to today and it was fairly ok.
So I like the story but one mustn’t think to much about the logic.

Gnothi Seauton

Synopsis: They jumped eight years into the future, into 2007. And now all three of them need new identities to blend in. Cameron leads Sarah to a group of resistance fighters who were send back by John to destroy Skynet before it goes operational. But when that fails they have to visit an old friend. Meanwhile John explores the technological differences between 1999 and 2007.

My Opinion: The writers are obviously not very burdened with the complex issues that go with time-travel. It seems that whenever they need it they will send people back and forth through time as if nothing could disrupt the timeline. But if that were so then we would be back on the concept of a time-loop as the movie Terminator had present it (It has always happened that way and always will be, there’s nothing we can do about it). But Terminator 2 had thrown that overboard and declared that the timeline can be changed and (as Doc Brown explained it in Back to the Future 2) that will result in another timeline. I also had a problem with that “Zombie Terminator” who can obviously walk without its head attached – I thought the “eyes” were its optical sensors?
Another thing I noticed: I don’t know how far ahead the pilot was shot and what they thought would happen after it, but I didn’t have the feeling to see a Mrs. Dyson or a detective who was eight years older than in the pilot. They should have used a better mask to make them look younger in the pilot (Look at Bruce Boxleitner in Babylon 5: In the Beginning!)
Too bad Enrique had to die, I would have liked it to see Tony Amendola (Master Bra’tac in Stargate SG-1) more often.

The Turk

Synopsis: Sarah is looking for former employees of Cyberdyne Systems to check whether they are continuing the Skynet project or doing something else dangerous. Connor and Cameron pose as siblings in their new school and try to blend in.

My Opinion: Is it my imagination or did the metall skeleton of that terminator look a bit too shiny? He had been blasted to peaces and has lain in the garbage. Which brings up another question: How did he get there in the first place? He wasn’t within the time bubble and thus hasn’t travelled with the others. What happend to that bank building in the last eight years and why has no one ever found the skeleton or the head – which lay quite open on the side of the street?
And when Sarah burned down Andy’s house the fires looked digital – and fake. Don’t they have the money anymore to burn down a real, wooden facade?

Disc 1 – My Opinion: The show is enjoyable, the characters are fine. But as you can see the show opens a can of questions for me and they bother me because that makes me thinking that either the writers didn’t see this problems or they thought the viewers wouldn’t notice or that the viewers wouldn’t care. None of which is really an acceptable answer in my opinion. But I will continue to watch and see how it unfolds.
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Deep Space Nine: Season 4

Deutsche Version | Season 3 | Season 5

Disc 1

The Way of the Warrior

Synopsis: A rather large fleet of klingon ships under the command of General Martok arrives at the station and their true intentions remain unclear. But then they start to search ships that try to leave the bajoran sector to look for changelings. Sisko needs a Klingon to shed some light into this: Lt. Cmdr. Worf, son of Mogh. But when the fleet departs for an attack on Cardassia (that is infiltrated by Founders – or so do the Klingons believe), Worf has to make a choice: To stay with Starfleet or to rejoin his people.

My Opinion: Hawk is back! 😉 This was a great start to the season. Worf and Martok are great additions to the show and I like how fluent the concept of good and bad guys is. Except for Babylon 5 in other shows of that time the good guys remain good and the bad guys remain the bad guys. There’s rarely a grey area. Yes, the Klingons have been the bad guys once, but since the start of TNG they basically belonged to the good guys and that didn’t change – until now. It also often happened that a race was portrayed in a certain way and there were only a few exceptions to that general portrayal. Only Humans had been shown in all variations of grey. That is also due to the fact that TNG has shown a certain race rarely twice (except for the Klingons). DS9 with it’s “port of call” concept has broken with that and has shown all kinds of Bajorans, Klingons, Cardassians and will continue to do so.

The Visitor

Synopsis: An accident happens aboard the Defiant and Sisko gets vaporized and his son is shocked. But a few months later Ben Sisko reappears in Jake’s quarters and disappears again. Then a year later it happens again. Ben is caught in some kind of subspace bubble and Jake (who was involved in the original accident) is his anchor to this world. While his life goes on, he spends his time either with writing or studying subspace mechanics and after fifty years, Jake has figured out how to save his father.

My Opinion: In general, I liked this episode and (again) the relationship between Jake and his father. The story is very emotional and very well told. What bugs me is the fact that the Dominion war didn’t seem to have happened in that timeline. Firstly this contradicts the things we have learned so far about the Dominion infiltration of the AQ (e.g. in The Adversary) and secondly because that would mean that Sisko’s survival would lead to the greatest war in the history of the AQ with its millions of deaths.

Hippocratic Oath

Synopsis: O’Brien and Bashir detect a crash-landed ship along a trading route in the GQ. But when they approach the planet they get shot down and have to face a group of Jem’Hadar. But these are not regular Jem’Hadar, these one want to be free and for this they need to free themselves from the Ketracel-white drug. Bashir doesn’t believe this is possible due to his experiences with the Jem’Hadar infant in the previous year.

My Opinion: For the first time since the start of their friendship a rift has been created between Miles and Julian. Although it was sad to see, their behaviour was very fitting to each character. Miles has fought in the cardassian border wars and seen what an ruthless enemy is capable of and Julian is still a very enthusiastic doctor who values life above all else. But I am glad that their friendship will survive things like that.
And now we’ve seen Jem’Hadar who can think and act outside their genetically programmed pattern. Again a race has been shown more than one-dimensional and it will happen again.
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Science-Fiction Mini Marathon

Deutsche Version

It wasn’t planned as such, but in the last few weeks I have watched quite a number of Science-Fiction movies and a good part of them were “Doomsday” movies, so I might as well write a few words about them. Most of these movies are very, very US-patriotic but when you can accept that and when you can ignore the scientific “inaccuracies” you can have a lot of fun with them.

Independence Day

Will Smith   …    Captain Steven Hiller
Bill Pullman   …    President Thomas J. Whitmore
Jeff Goldblum   …    David Levinson
Mary McDonnell   …    First Lady Marilyn Whitmore
Judd Hirsch   …    Julius Levinson
Robert Loggia   …    General William Grey
Randy Quaid   …    Russell Casse
Margaret Colin   …    Constance Spano
Vivica A. Fox   …    Jasmine Dubrow
Adam Baldwin   …    Major Mitchell
Brent Spiner   …    Dr. Brackish Okun

Synopsis: July, 2nd. Some aliens come in a huge ship. They place their UFOs all over the world and blow everything apart. July, 3rd. We try to strike back and fail miserably. July, 4th. We give them a cold and blow them apart.

My Opinion: Great movie. Love it. It’s so cheesy that falls out of the bottom of the scale and comes back from the top of it. The characters are so overdrawn that you can’t take them seriously and that saves the movie. Imagine you would have to look at this movie with a serious eye. The president that fights in the final battle, the drunken pilot that saves the day, the scientist that writes a computer virus for an alien computer and Will Smith in the middle of it.
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Deep Space Nine: Season 3

Deutsche Version | Season 2 | Season 4

Disc 1

The Search, Part I

Synopsis: During his stay at the Utopia Planitia ship yards (prior to his assignment to DS9), Sisko has helped designing and building a ship whose sole purpose was to fight the Borg: The Defiant. It’s over-powered and over-gunned for a ship this size but now DS9 needs it. And the feature list has been updated. In the hope to find the Founders of the Dominion without having to engage in battle the Defiant has got a cloaking system – sponsored by the Romulan Empire. Sisko hopes to contact the Founders and show them that the Federation is no enemy of them.

My Opinion: From a diplomatic and tactical POV this was a stupid idea. If you’d want to negotiate with the leaders of an enemy force, would you take your biggest gunship and try to sneak into enemy territory? It would be like taking a B-2 Spirit, landing it on the Red Square and trying to talk to Khrushchev. But I liked the general idea of the Defiant from the beginning. The Star Trekian universe has never been a very peaceful one and the Federation is surrounded mostly by hostile forces. I wonder how many Starfleet ships have been destroyed in the cardassian border wars because they weren’t really equipped to fight in a war.

The Search, Part II

Synopsis: Unfortunately the cloaking system didn’t help in the end and when the crew returns to DS9, the Vorta are already there and they negotiate with Starfleet. But Sisko and the others become more and more uneasy because of where these negotiations are going. Meanwhile Kira and Odo are still in the GQ because Odo has finally found his people.

My Opinion: I remember that – when I watched it for the first time – I didn’t see it coming that the changelings are the Founders. But this episode also made clear that the Dominion isn’t interested in being left alone. Now that they know of the wormhole they want to impose their idea of ‘order’ in the AQ and there isn’t much Sisko or Starfleet could do about it, short of actually blowing up the wormhole. Or as Aragorn said to Théoden: “Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.” 🙁

The House of Quark

Synopsis: A drunken Klingon attacks Quark in his bar but accidentally kills himself. But Quark tells a story how he heroically killed the warrior in a battle of life and death. And ironically, some Klingons actually want that he sticks to that story, although for different reasons. And suddenly Quark finds himself as the head of a klingon house.

My Opinion: I loved this episode. Quark and Grillka were great together and the clashing of ferengi and klingon culture was also fun to watch. But divorce seems to be painful. 😉 And it was nice to see chancellor Gowron again although I have to admit the more klingon episodes I watch the less I can wait for Martok to make his appearance.

Equilibrium

Synopsis: Dax begins to behave irrationally and aggressively. Additionally she has hallucinations. Bashir fears that the symbiosis is breaking apart and that they may lose Jadzia. Sisko and Bashir return with her to Trill but the mystery is getting bigger instead of being solved. Something isn’t right with one of Dax’s previous hosts.

My Opinion: This was an average episode. The ‘revelation’ wasn’t that interesting and the episode hadn’t much plot at all.
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Deep Space Nine: Season 2

Deutsche Version | Season 1 | Season 3

Disc 1

The Homecoming

Synopsis: A new movement is growing on Bajor. They call themselves “The Circle” and they want “Bajor to the Bajorans”, i.e. all out-worlders should leave the bajoran system. Meanwhile Kira learns that Li Nalas – a hero of the resistance – is still alive and he’s being held prisoner on a cardassian planet. She and O’Brien disguise themselves as traders and try to rescue him.

My Opinion: I remembered this three-part season opener to be somewhat uninteresting but I really enjoyed it this time. It’s “funny” to see how something that happened almost only by accident can develop into a legend and how the protagonist becomes a hero. Although they are nothing alike the story of Li Nalas becoming a hero reminded me of the Firefly episode Jaynestown.

The Circle

Synopsis: Li Nalas has become the new liasion officer aboard DS9 and Kira has been recalled to Bajor. But there fights have broken out. The Circle has acquired a lot of weapons and is now openly moving against the provisional government. What they don’t know: The weapons were delivered by the Cardassians (although not directly) who are hoping that The Circle drives the Federation away and thus opening the system for another cardassian invasion.

My Opinion: That was an interesting turn of events with Frank Langella (Skeletor in Masters of the Universe) once again in the role of the bad guy. But I like him in these roles. 🙂 Interesting thing – especially in comparison to later seasons and later shows – is that you only had to hear the distant rumbling of war to believe that there is one, without seeing it. I don’t condemn special effects scenes, I really like them, but if a movie or series relies to heavy on them the actual storytelling moves into the background or is forgotten at all. That’s the reason the Star Wars Episodes I – III didn’t work for me.

The Siege

Synopsis: All non-bajoran civilians have been evacuated with the help of the runabouts Ganges, Orinoco and Rio Grande. But Sisko and his Starfleet crew remains in the hope that he can delay the surrender of the station until Kira presents the evidence of the cardassian involvement in the Chamber of Ministers.

My Opinion: A good conclusion but I hated to see Vedek Winn squirm herself out again. As I said I like good bad characters. I’Ve always liked Gul Dukat or (later) Weyoun, but I never liked Winn (Louise Fletcher; Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). But at least life is going back to normal on the station – for now.

Invasive Procedures

Synopsis: During a plasma storm the station is running only with a skeleton crew when a nearby ship declares an emergency and has to be pulled in. But the mayday was a fake, the ship’s crew takes control over DS9. Why? To get the Dax symbiont and transplant it into the group’s leader who feels that he deserves to be blended with a Trill symbiont. But that will kill Jadzia and Sisko won’t let that happen.

My Opinion:I didn’t pay attention to the credits but when I saw Verad (Dax) I instantly knew I knew him. But it took me a while to figure it out. I assumed that – since he had not much of a mask – he usually wears one. But then it came to me. The beard and the long hair was missing: John Glover a.k.a. Lionel Luthor from Smallville. Slap my head
I liked this episode because here we saw how a person can change when he/she is blending with a symbiont. This is one of the rare before/after moments since we’ve never known Jadzia without Dax.
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The Big Bang Theory: Season 1

Deutsche Version

The Big Bang Theory Cast

Season 1

Disc 1

Pilot

Synopsis: The two theoretical physicists Leonard and Sheldon get a new Neighbour: Penny, a waitress in The Cheesecake Factory. And suddenly two galaxies begin to crash into each other.

My Opinion: I liked the series from the beginning, all these cultural references gave me a happy. But I also liked the small details like Howards’ belt buckle (this time a Nintendo gamepad –> look out for it, it changes from episode to episode!) and the “table of elements” shower curtain.

The Big Bran Hypothesis

Synopsis: After he’s seen the chaos that is Penny’s appartment, Sheldon cleans it (and Leonard helps him) during the night while Penny’s sleeping. Naturally she freaks out when she realizes what they’ve done.

My Opinion: I think every episode of the first season is funny as hell, so no point repeating it over and over again. The  best scenes of this episode were the discussion about Lois Lane’s fall and the re-design of the IKEA media center.

The Fuzzy Boots Corollary

Synopsis: After having no luck with Leslie, Leonard tries to ask Penny out to a date. But she totally misinterprets the invitation, thus not considering it a date.

My Opinion: I recognized Sarah Gilbert (Leslie; Darlene in Roseanne) at once but I needed a friend to really open my eyes. I didn’t think I knew Johnny Galecki (Leonard) from anywhere until my friend pointed out that he played Darlene’s friend David on Roseanne.

The Luminous Fish Effect

Synopsis: Sheldon gets canned after he’s insulted his new boss in his very own – and typical – way. But he uses his time off to invent new things the world was waiting for, e.g. a luminous fish as a night light.

My Opinion: First Sarah and now Laurie Metcalf (Jackie in Roseanne). It’s like family reunion. Wink I am wondering where the authors get all these ideas, e.g. to make a physicists weaving his own poncho. It’s hilarious. I also find it terribly funny when Sheldons asks things or answers to questions with no regard to the appropriateness.

The Hamburger Postulate

Synopsis: After they been practicing with their classical instruments, Leonard sleeps with Leslie and is now torn between his fantasy about Penny and the prospect of having a real relatuonship with Leslie.

My Opinion: And again it’s Sheldon and his not having a clue about social conventions that makes me laugh the most (“Message received!”). But the entire banana scene was also really great.

The Middle Earth Paradigm

Synopsis: Penny invites the four – Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Raj – over to a Halloween party and Leonard hopes that he can present himself in another light during that party.

My Opinion: Nerds. Wink All the costumes were great and also the commentaries about them (Flashs walk in row; hobbit vs. elf; Robin Hood vs. Peter Pan) and I also really liked the closing scene.
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Deep Space Nine: Season 1

Deutsche Version | Preamble | Season 2

Disc 1

Emissary

Synopsis: Deep Space Nine is a former cardassian space station orbiting the formerly occupied planet Bajor. The Bajorans have lived for 60 years under cardassian rule but now they are free. The provisional government has asked the Federation for support and Starfleet takes over the management of DS9. It’s commander is Benjamin Sisko, who has lost his wife three years ago in the battle against the Borg and now he must raise his son alone in the middle of nowhere. His second in command is Major Kira, a former bajoran resistance fighter. The rest of the crew are both Starfleet officers of all kind of races and Bajorans. Chief of security is Odo, a shape-shifter with unknown origins.
The spiritual leader of the Bajorans asks Cmdr. Sisko to study the “Tears of the Prophets”, mythical orbs that have come to Bajor of the last ten thousand years. With their help Cmdr. Sisko discovers the only known stable wormhole in our galaxy and it leads to the Gamma Quadrant, to a point 70,000 light years away from DS9, on the other side of the galaxy. And suddenly the bajoran system has been put onto the map and the Cardassians will accept any excuse to re-take it.

My Opinion: It’s very clear from the beginning that DS9 will be different than its predecessor Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG). TNG played on a all-Federation-personnel Starfleet spaceship, while on DS9 uncounted cultures clash: Starfleet personnel, Bajorans and the civilians aboard the station – for example Quark, the Ferengi bar owner. And most of the characters have a background story and their lives haven’t been straight-forward. I really like that. Unfortunately I can’t really remember what I thought about them, when I saw them for the first time back in the mid-90s, but DS9 is now my favourite Star Trek show and one of my favourite Sci-Fi shows.
I also liked the idea of the “handshake” when the Enterprise made an appearance in the pilot episode, something they will do again when the Voyager departs from DS9 in their pilot episode. But the meeting between Captain Picard and Cmdr. Sisko also showed that these shows will be different.

Past Prologue

Synopsis: A bajoran scout ship is being attacked by a cardassian warship but the pilot can be beamed out shortly before his ship is destroyed. He seeks asylum aboard DS9 because he was a member of the Khon-Ma, a “terrorist cell” during the occupation. Kira knows him from these days and she pleads to Sisko to grant asylum. But not all Cardassians have left the station. The local tailor Garak – who is suspected to be a spy – contacts Dr. Bashir in a rather unorthodox way and informs him about a meeting between two klingon renegades and the former terrorist.

My Opinion: The first episodes of the season will be used to introduce the viewers to the characters. While the pilot was mostly about Sisko and the loss of his wife at Wolf 359, this episode is about Kira and her past in the resistance. It was an OK episode, but I really liked the introduction of Garak, who will become an interesting guest character over the years.

A Man Alone

Synopsis: Odo tries to throw a Bajoran out of Quark’s casino/bar and wants him off the station. A few hours later that man is dead and there are no traces that could explain how the murder had left the crime scene. As chief of security Odo investigates but soon becomes a prime suspects and thus having a conflict of interest. Meanwhile Chief O’Brien’s wife Keiko – who was a botanist aboard the Enterprise – has nothing to do on DS9 and becomes frustrated. When Sisko’s son Jake befriends Quark’s nephew Nog and subsequently gets into trouble, she decides that the station needs a school.

My Opinion: This episode introduces Odo who has also been security chief during the last years of the occupation. I really like that he’s a man of principles who has his own codex and who values justice above all else. It was only consequent that it was he who pointed out that only a shape-shifter could have left the crime scene without leaving a trace. The story’s hole was that the doctor couldn’t figure out what these DNA particles were until it grown into a whole body. After all he was second-best in his year at medical school…
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