Die Medium?

With barely a week to go before Christmas, the internet is deeply engaged in one of its most enduring holiday traditions: the debate over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Netflix is here to say that not only is it a Christmas movie, it's one to be emulated. And so it has brought us the new action movie Carry-On.

It's Christmas Eve at LAX. In addition to the usual crush of airport travelers is a deadly "facilitator," working for an unknown employer to sneak an unknown suitcase through security. TSA officer Ethan Kopek's world is upended when he's targeted to look the other way... lest his pregnant girlfriend be killed. Ethan must soon call on every bit of ingenuity he can to keep his girlfriend -- and then, the ultimate target of this nefarious scheme -- safe.

I will say that to whatever degree you accept Die Hard as a Christmas movie, Carry-On is decidedly less so. The Christmas time setting is just a convenient bit of lampshading to attempt to explain how the scenario of this movie progresses as far as it does. But that's hardly the point; no one really expends any effort on debating how realistic Die Hard is, and Carry-On is not here to make you wonder if this could actually happen. It's here to be popcorn-devouring, escapist fun.

It is that at times. And also plenty broad, and occasionally a bit silly. But it does have points in its favor. The calculating villain at the heart of this piece is played by Jason Bateman, who chews the scenery in a most delightful way. There are never any outsized histrionics; he barely even raises his voice. But his every moment on screen is just deliciously, unapologetically villainous, giving this story exactly what it needs.

The movie is very much an action-thriller. Or, more accurately, a thriller-action movie, in that the first half of it is all tense conversations, threats, and coiled danger. Frankly, I feel like Bateman keeps this part of the movie afloat, because his scene partner -- Taron Egerton as Ethan -- is on the other side of a phone call, separating the two actors and stymieing any real fireworks.

Then, at almost exactly halfway through the movie, comes one of the most bonkers, over-the-top sequences I've seen in an action movie in the last several years. It's a brazen, epicly long single take full of stunts, visual effects, fisticuffs and danger. It's so outsized, it kind of makes you laugh... but in the best way possible. And from there, the movie really "wakes up."

The last 45 minutes of the movie are almost non-stop action, opening up the scope of the movie beyond the airport security line in a way it desperately needed. You see every set piece you'd want to see at an airport and more -- enough to do Die Hard proud. (Or, I suppose more fairly, Die Hard 2 -- actually set an airport.)

Is Carry-On going to become anyone's new appointment holiday viewing? I sure don't think so. But instead of watching your holiday favorite for the 20th time, or pretending to be an iconoclast by watching Die Hard, perhaps you want to drop this sugary confection of a movie into your queue. It would be a lot better with a stronger first half, but I'd still say Carry-On merits a B-.

Lower Decks: Upper Decks

The very concept of Star Trek: Lower Decks came from a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that took a look at life aboard the Enterprise outside the view of the main characters. Now the series loops back upon itself to do the same thing, but kind of in reverse, for "Upper Decks."

It's a hectic (but perhaps quite typical) day aboard the Cerritos, as members of the senior staff become entangled in a variety of problems. Alien invaders try to seize the ship, and Freeman must stop them. Alien creatures are lose in one of the cargo bays, and Ransom must rally a group of ensigns to contain them. Shaxs is at war with his own psyche. Dr T'Ana is cranky about being asked to review her Sickbay's pain management protocols. Billups works on an especially dangerous repair in engineering. Meanwhile, Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, Rutherford, and T'Lyn carve pumpkins.

This is by far the most stuffed episode of Lower Decks we've ever seen. It features twice as many story lines as we usually get -- and I haven't even mentioned the evolving/de-evolving crewmember hosting a sousaphone recital. Sitcoms do this sort of deft writing all the time, and it very often flies under the audience radar. Telling compact stories with a true beginning, middle, and end is a real art that the best sitcom writers quietly excel at, and the Lower Decks writers show they are among the best here as they keep all these balls juggling, coherent, and funny.

Admittedly, you have to squint pretty hard to find the "Star Trek morality tale" in the episode. Perhaps it's Shaxs' story line, showing how a dark past will always remain with you and be something you must constantly overcome to be a good person. Perhaps it's the Ransom story line, which reveals the character as willing to subsume his own ego in the name of being good at his job. But really, this is one of those episodes that's just going for the funny, and I don't mind that at all.

To that end, this episode perhaps isn't peak funny, as it has to work hard to keep all the plots straight. But there are a lot of laughs. I was most entertained by the 3x dose of technobabble we got in the Billups story line, but you might just as well go for Freeman saving the day with compliments, or T'Ana cursing up a (censored) storm as she tests her own pain threshold. Regardless, I must give props to the incredibly clever joke about how to stop a mind-reading cave person: think of fire.

Now here's where I'll be a little unfair. If I knew we had another season of Lower Decks coming, I might call this an A- episode. But in the context of this being almost the end, I'm a bit disappointed that we haven't spent much time with Rutherford this season, and barely more with Tendi. Sure, Freeman and Ransom are technically main cast too, and the whole episode did center on long-established characters. Still, I couldn't help but feel a little like one of the precious few episodes we have left wasn't being used for the core Lower Deckers. And that makes me feel like this was perhaps more of a B+. Like I said, maybe a little unfair.

Prodigy: Ouroboros, Part II

Here at last, my thoughts on the season 2 finale of Star Trek: Prodigy, "Ouroboros, Part II."

Our heroes must send the Protostar through a wormhole back in time, to preserve history and ultimately kick off their own grand adventure. But in the aftermath, what will become of them all?

I've been a little down over the end of this season's story arc, but I really did appreciate the way this final episode specifically wrapped everything up. I was reminded of my thoughts on the series finale of Voyager, where I felt the story ended too quickly and left important character questions unanswered. Prodigy does the opposite, quickly resolving the big question of saving the day (which, come on, was never really in question), to allow room for an extended "coda."

Part of that is explicitly setting up a possible season 3, of course, by showing the cadets on a new ship. I feel like that was sort of the same ending as season 1 had -- but, at long last, the ship is actually called "Prodigy," closing the real "ouroboros" I felt at the core of the show.

I appreciated that the character of Maj'el, who has increasingly been a "part of the group" as the season unspooled, was more officially made a full-fledged member of that group in this final episode. Despite Star Trek: Prodigy having plenty of interesting characters, Maj'el filled a role that wasn't otherwise being covered, and I feel like this was the show fully acknowledging that.

One of my favorite aspects of the coda was the time the writers made to explicitly connect to the final season of Star Trek: Picard. Having featured Wesley Crusher in their season two finale, Picard had no way of organically working the character into the grand reunion that was season three. That felt like a source of unresolved tension to me, and here Prodigy finds a couple of minutes to relieve some of that tension. Giving us one more moment between Beverly and Wesley was wonderful, and giving us the moment of the two of them with Jack that Star Trek: Picard never did was icing on the cake.

I wouldn't dream of giving back those minutes pack with the Crushers... but I do feel like a bit more room should have been made somewhere for the Holo-Janeway story arc. Very, very late in the season two game, we're told that she will have to make a sacrifice, losing her memory to go back in time aboard the Protostar. In this episode, even later in the game, there's suddenly an oh-so-convenient quick fix that gets her out of making that sacrifice. While I appreciate that an escape was needed here (especially in light of the fact that her season 1 story also ended in a noble sacrifice), I wish that this problem and its solution hadn't felt like such an afterthought hastily squeezed into this episode.

I give this episode of Star Trek: Prodigy a B -- which is probably also how I feel about the season as a whole. The great episodes in the middle of the season were really quite great, but I feel like season 1 had an overall higher consistency that I appreciate.

Officially, no call has yet been made about a season three of Star Trek: Prodigy. You would think signs point to no, since the show was already basically cancelled by Paramount and saved by Netflix. If it had done renewal-worthy numbers on Netflix, they would surely have announced that renewal already. Still... I feel like Star Trek as a franchise really benefits from having at least one animated show in the mix. And since, apparently, that can't be Lower Decks (which still baffles me), I find myself hoping that Prodigy can beat the odds.

Prodigy: Ouroboros, Part I

With Star Trek: Lower Decks about to end (sniff), it struck me that I really ought to wrap up season 2 of Star Trek: Prodigy before that happens. So, with just two episodes left there, I turn my focus to "Ouroboros, Part I."

As Asencia unleashes all her forces to attack Voyager and the Protostar, the cadets fight on the planet below to take control of an installation that will allow them to open a wormhole through time. If they can hold off Asencia and Drednok long enough, the Protostar can be sent back in time, restoring the timeline.

In my reviews of late season 2 Prodigy, I've come down on some of the twisted machinations of the plot. I haven't felt like Asencia makes a credible Big Bad (no matter how fun Jameela Jamil is voicing the character). I've felt like the lampshading of Wesley Crusher's "Traveler powers" has been overly convenient. I've seen the danger of the Loom as variably menacing, depending on circumstance. And all of that continues here.

But of course I recognize that the table has been set. This is essentially a one-hour finale, broken in two, and no reasonable consumer of entertainment would expect the story to just completely change course at this point. So... yeah... a fair amount of what's happening here in this episode doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's kind of so much action and noise. But this is the ending we've been working to, take it or leave it.

Still, there are moments that I found effective. Dal's part in all this is especially strong, as he completes his season-long arc to better learn what it is to be part of a team. He puts himself on the line to help his friends generally, and Gwyn in particular, and I think the emotions behind that really work. Plus, it doesn't hurt that he's basically put in a Back to the Future-style "Doc Brown on the clock tower" situation where he has to connect the power in time to save the day. An homage to the best.

Gwyn gets a re-match of her one-on-one fight against Asencia from earlier in the season, and this time gets help from her own people in a somewhat spiritual union that cements her as a righteous leader. Murf vs. Drednok is the all-out fight I didn't know I was waiting to see. And Janeway gets to bark all sorts of fun captainy dialogue as she guides Voyager in battle.

Yet the real meat of "Ouroboros" comes in Part II -- so much so that I almost feel I should just immediately turn focus to that and talk about it here. But I've devoted a separate post to each Prodigy episode until this point. It feels a little weird to change that up right here at the finish line. So I'll give "Ouroboros, Part I" a C+, and then tease an upcoming post on Part II (which I enjoyed a good deal more).

Lower Decks: Fully Dilated

Several times already in its final season, Star Trek: Lower Decks has served up an episode that gave me all I could want from the series (and then some). It did so once again with "Fully Dilated."

A fissure to an alternate universe expels debris that crashes on a planet with a pre-warp society. Mariner, Tendi, and T'Lyn are sent on a mission to contain any cultural contamination... but they also must contend with a time dilation effect that makes a week pass on the planet as only one second passes on the orbiting ship. When a transporter, uh, accident delays their retrieval, the three must set up more permanently on the planet. Mariner wants to seize the opportunity to improve herself, while Tendi tries to bolster her credentials to become chief science officer aboard the Cerritos -- with help from an unexpected source.

This episode really had it all. Star Trek doesn't really have a more classic formula than going undercover in a more primitive alien society, and seeing a Lower Decks take on that is just rife with comic potential. Combining that with the concept of time dilation is fun too -- but doing that so Mariner could chase an "Inner Light"-style moment of self-revelation (and have her explicitly label it as such) was just next level hilarious. The reference comedy did nothing to undermine that previous all-time great Star Trek episode... and even paid off in a semi-serious way as Mariner actually did learn a lesson hidden in plain sight.

Great as that was, though, the episode will ultimately be remembered as the one featuring Brent Spiner voicing Purple Data's Head. It would have been enough just to have Lower Decks log another cameo appearance from yet another legacy Star Trek actor. (It's had so many great ones!) But Spiner really gets a meaty role! Not only does he recapture the comic naivete of early Next Gen Data in his vocal performance, he's actually central to the other big character story at play in the episode: Tendi's jealousy of (and competition with) T'Lyn. Data's impartial (and famously emotionless) perspective on the situation is exactly what Tendi needs to hear -- even if, of course, she can't hear it at first. But everything ends happily with a sweet moral about friendship and communication.

Plus, we get some ridiculous interludes with Boimler and Rutherford licking spilled Micheladas off of the transporter console.

Yup -- I really couldn't ask for more. I'd call this another grade A episode in a season that's served up a few already. I still wish Lower Decks wasn't going out... but at least it's going out on top.

Jury Duty

We're pulling into "prestige movie" season. Nearly every such season has a legal drama in the mix, and this year it comes from writer Jonathan Abrams and director Clint Eastwood: Juror #2.

When Justin Kemp is called up for jury duty, he is shocked to find he has a personal connection to the case. When this goes undiscovered by the lawyers and he is actually seated on the jury, he finds himself in a moral quandary. He wants to steer his fellow jurors to the right outcome... but he must do it without confessing to his own rapidly growing web of lies.

This movie asks you to accept a lot to get the story rolling: wild coincidence, gross negligence, and much, much more. Different people will possibly think different elements of it are "a bridge too far," but I doubt many will just buy the whole premise. This is not a "this could happen to anyone" kind of story. This is more a situation where... sure, you could imagine this eventually happening to some person, somewhere, and this is that story. And I suppose the script tries to lampshade these issues as much as it can.

Ultimately, though, you've just gotta roll with it. And at least the acting is here to help. Nicholas Hoult plays Justin Kemp, and it's a big, meaty role -- real "tip of the iceberg" stuff where almost none of the emotional performance is conveyed in dialogue. Hoult has to convey everything with just a look, and is given very few moments of release; instead, we see him and his character just get wound tighter and tighter over the course of two hours.

The movie doesn't ask very much of its other stars, though. Mind you, there are some great actors here -- Toni Collette and J.K. Simmons are always welcome in pretty much anything. Kiefer Sutherland is well deployed as an Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor who you sense has been through the wringer himself. Chris Messina is a perfectly credibly public defender. But none of these performers are really doing any heavy lifting here: this movie is all on Nicholas Hoult's shoulders.

The results are something of a "through the looking glass" version of the recent Anatomy of a Fall. What that movie wants to keep secret and leave open to doubt, this movie opens up to its audience. Juror #2 also feels like more approachable "popcorn" fare -- which is perhaps why, even though it's arriving in prestige season, I don't hear much buzz about it for awards.

But it does entertain well enough. I give Juror #2 a B. Once you're over the hump of plausibility, the moral dilemma makes for a fun little suspense thriller.

Lower Decks: Of Gods and Angles

The back half of the final season of Star Trek: Lower Decks kicks off with the no-that's-not-a-typo title, "Of Gods and Angles."

The Cerritos plays diplomatic host to two feuding species. When it appears a member of one of the species has been murdered by a member of the other, conflict escalates and threatens the ship. Mariner must solve the case, with the help of a new ensign she's taken under her wing. Meanwhile, Boimler continues to remold himself in the image of his alternate universe doppelganger -- and the next step of that is to have Dr. T'Ana bestow him with a nickname.

Lower Decks often revisits classic Star Trek tropes to give them a comedic spin. Here, we've seen the "host diplomacy for warring species" stories in the classic "Journey to Babel" and The Next Generation's "Lonely Among Us." This time, the writers stir in a serving "The Outrageous Okona" (or really, Romeo and Juliet). And also, they follow up on the classic "Who Mourns for Adonais?" by presenting a new "half-demigod" character.

All that might sound like this is an overly derivative episode... but it doesn't really come across that way thanks to how much the focus is really on the central Lower Decks characters. This is really a showcase for how far Mariner has come since season one. She's still fun-loving, giving real "chaotic good" energy, but is now earnestly trying to help others try to learn from her past mistakes. I'm a little disappointed that so much time in this episode is spent building up the new character of Olly. The series is about to end, so a) we can't follow up much on her; and b) I'd rather we spend the precious little time we have left on established characters. But this is mostly a vehicle to show us that Mariner can be herself but can now also be an effective mentor. So it mostly works for me.

Mariner is learning, but Boimler isn't. As his season-long story arc continues, the message is getting more explicit: he really needs to learn to be himself. (Not someone else, and not even a version of himself.) But while he's still in the process of learning, we get some great jokes -- around his alternate universe PADD with its telltale bevel (and color!), and Dr. T'Ana's prodigious (and hilariously bleeped) swearing. Boimler gets a nickname in the end -- just not one fit for the average Star Trek fan site.

This is still a really solid episode of Lower Decks; it just isn't quite soaring to the heights of many others this season. I give it a B+.