If I can be honest with you, there was more than one moment last year where I felt like this movie blog had become a chore. Creativity borne out of the fact that I wanted to work my way through the worst movies ever made, and it felt sometimes like it was becoming homework. So I decided to make it more fun, and start to feature "Free to Watch" movies, or FTW Week as it came to be known, because there are a whole plethora of movies out there with basically fuck-all licencing restrictions that you can watch for free on the well known video streaming platform of your choice. And out of that pool, I have covered some absolute humdingers but also some genuinely pleasant surprises and it reminded me why I got into watching movies in the first place. This week, whilst fully planning to cover something entirely different I stumbled upon the title "Space Milkshake" - amusingly intriguing enough in of itself but after reading the description: "Four low-ranking astronauts are stuck together on an orbital Sanitation Station after they bring a mysterious device aboard their ship and all life on Earth disappears. Little do they know they are about to come under attack by a mutating rubber duck named Gary, who wants to open a portal to his evil dimension and take over the Universe." I knew immediately that this had to be the movie I was covering this week.
We are in the 22nd Century and most of the space around Earth is littered with space debris. Onboard Sanitation Station Regina, orbiting the Earth; Captain, Anton (Billy Boyd) and crew member / his girlfriend Valentina (Amanda Tapping) respond to debris collision alert caused by a space pod fleeing Antarctica colliding with wreckage and scramble their own pod to intercept the debris. After retrieving their first load from the wreckage, and discovering some kind of energy source, they accidentally trigger a huge flash which eradicates all the wreckage, including the debris surrounding Earth... Returning to the Station and to Station Controller Tilda (Kristin Kreuk) and new engineer Jimmy (Robin Dunne) - literally on his first day on the job brought in to help fix the ships computer, Anton asks Tilda to go check out the haul where Tilda discovers a complete clone of herself in the holding pen, who promptly murders her and disposes of the body... hearing the scream Jimmy rushes to check and discovers who he thinks is the original Tilda getting changed, but believing her to be startled by him finding her getting changed he isn't phased when she just runs off without saying anything... Meanwhile Anton and Valentina endeavour to raise contact with, literally anybody else, but get nowhere, however that is interrupted when WENDI - the ships computer (voiced by Amy Matysio) reminds them it's time for Scrabble... yeah I should mention that this film doesn't take itself super seriously... Scrabble doesn't last too long for the trio however, when the game is suddenly interrupted by the station being hit by debris. Suiting up and going to investigate, Anton ventures outside and returns to the station with the object; a yellow rubber duck. Believing it at first to belong to Valentina, the crew discover it to be an exact replica of Valentina's except with the wording on the bottom; V + G to be switched around; G + V. However any further discussion will have to wait as WENDI announces it's bed time! The following, uh well morning I guess? After Jimmy manages to briefly get WENDI back online the crew discover there is no ground control communications whatsoever, but that's as far as they get when WENDI dies on them again. Later during Scrabble Tilda, who still hasn't spoken a word since Jimmy discovered her changing, spells out on the Scrabble board that there is a "Secret Intruder Onboard" but before Jimmy can fully digest what is happening Anton interrupts them and sends them back to work. Bursting in on Valentina, her and Anton argue where Valentina reveals the duck was a present from "Gary", an old flame, and the pair argue resulting in Valentina announcing she's wanted to leave the station for years and doesn't want to see Anton any more... Jimmy manages to get WENDI back online, or at least partially although it now has a male voice (not credited), and after Anton questions WENDI we learn that "Gary" was a Professor stationed in Antartica who theorised that it was possible to transport lifeforms between parallel realities, and that Valentina had interned for him for nearly 3 years. Meanwhile cutting back to Valentina in the bath, one of the rubber ducks suddenly grows tentacles and is literally on the verge of attacking Valentina when she is startled by the intercom and rushes out the bath to get changed... meanwhile in the break room, Tilda is still not talking, even when Anton tries to force her to, but when Jimmy bursts in to the room with the same energy source from earlier and drops it on the table, Tilda blurts out that he has "found the time cube" and that "all life on Earth has ended..." As Valentina and Anton's relationship completely breaks down with Anton increasingly jealous of Valentina and Gary's past relationship, Tilda reveals that she is a robot from a future where Earth and most of the universe has been completely destroyed, and who travelled to this point in time to replace the present version of Tilda and prevent the time cube from being activated. However before Tilda can reveal more the crew are interrupted by WENDI informing them of power fluctuation. Sent to investigate Valentina discovers it was a false alarm but is then suddenly startled by the rubber duck - complete with mess of tentacle legs waiting for her who begins to speak revealing he is Gary (voiced by George Takei - is there nothing this man won't do for money?) trapped in a body that isn't his and is stuck inside a trans-dimensional rift, needing the time cube to get home. And that he was travelling to the station to rescue Valentina when the time cube was activated. Meanwhile back in the break room Tilda reveals to Anton and Jimmy that she was expecting to find Gary on board which sends Anton into a rage and when the alarms begin to sound Anton naturally presumes it has something to do with Gary, tooling up and rushing off to find him. Meanwhile after a brief motivational speech, Tilda and Jimmy pledge to search the station with hopes of tracking down Gary, whilst elsewhere onboard, Gary begins to outgrow his rubber duck body and mutate is something even weirder... as the station begins to suffer systems failures, Valentina reveals to Anton that Gary is onboard, but that he needs the time cube to go home, however before they can debate it for too long they are interrupted by a heavily mutated Gary who dives at Anton and scrambles away when Anton's blaster fails. Returning to the break room as... it's lunch time now... despite Valentina's resistance the crew decide to use WENDI and trap Gary in a part of the ship so they can kill him, and split up with Valentina and Anton taking one part of the ship and Jimmy and Tilda the other. Tilda, after briefly confessing her love for Jimmy discovers, by accessing WENDI, that Gary has manipulated the stations controls sending them plummeting into Earths atmosphere and that they only have a short moment to correct it. As Valentina splits from the rest of the crew, hoping to find Gary herself before the others, Anton and Tilda discover Gary in the break room, who has now mutated into some crazy huge octopus lizard looking thing. Gary demands to know where the time cube is but Anton, still jealous, proceeds to just attack him and the pair scrap leaving Anton with multiple injuries. As they tend to Anton, Valentina separates from the others and, after being tracked down by Gary, the pair have a heart to heart with Gary revealing he wanted to take Valentina back to Earth to the dawn of mankind and rule over the planet with her, together. Meanwhile as the station begins to plummet faster Tilda sends Jimmy to the control room to correct the problem, where he begins to try and make adjustments, but he is quickly joined by a suspicious looking Valentina and when Gary begins to speak over the intercom telling the crew to "prepare to be incinerated", Jimmy tracks his transmission and traps him in the storage bay but is attacked from behind by Valentina who releases Gary but is then attacked from behind herself by Tilda. However when Tilda and Jimmy are both distracted, she slips away with the time cube. As Jimmy and Tilda try desperately to reverse the path of the station, they manage to get the stations thrusters back online, but it necessitates Jimmy going outside to re-direct the thrusters manually. Meanwhile as Valentina, time cube in hand says goodbye to Anton, Gary uh... slithers in I guess... and demands that Valentina kills Anton. But Valentina has a change of heart when Gary starts trying to boss her around and the pair end up fighting with Gary, all as Anton tries desperately to redirect the thrusters! Seeing the fight envelop Tilda rushes to the break room and throws a blaster to Valentina who uses it to blow Gary to tiny, green chunks, just in time for Anton to trigger the thrusters and direct the station away from Earth! Valentina finally admits to Anton that he is "twice the man Gary was" and they end up kissing and after Tilda and Jimmy reconcile back inside the station, they connect the time cube to the station and activate it to return everything to how it was before. But then, as things return to normal Gary's pod re-appears, with both Anton and Valentina opting this time to just eradicate the pod and everybody goes on to have a Gary-free existence!
