Commander's Log, Craig Bowlsby

Delighted to see Commander's Log continue with a new episode in 2005!

In an era when special effects dominate too many weak scripts, in blockbuster productions, Bowlsby proves that good writing and good acting lie at the heart of comedy.

The early episodes remain my favorites, for sheer audacity and originality, although Bowlsby ramps up the action in episode three with typical zany charm, while managing to remain loyal to the laundry squad roots of his heros as they fight a bitter electrion campaign against the arch villain Bastaard. The best moment in the new format episode, for me, is the one where both candidates woe a voter with promises, our hero running on the clean socks campaign. The best episode, all around, has to be the one that features Blather alone in the command center, played against an ingenious counterpoint of screen alerts.

(I look forward to the next complication. Perhaps our heros will become covetous of status, take a teach-yourself course on being real officers, and struggle to keep their lowly roots and shallow qualifications from showing in their discourse on engineers at fashionable crew events.)