A Fun Read? It's a Lock!

John Scalzi is hardly an obscure, unknown author; he's won Hugo Awards and signed a multi-million dollar publishing deal that was widely discussed in sci-fi fan circles. But I only discovered him last year, and have slowly been exploring his sizable bibliography since then. Most recently, that was in the form of his 2014 book Lock In.

Lock In is set in a not-too-distant future in which a global pandemic has permanently altered normal life. (I know, right?) Most people who catch this highly contagious virus experience only mild flu symptoms, but for 1% of the people who contract it, consequences are dire. (I know, right? This was published in 2014.) The victims of Haden's Syndrome fall into a paralyzed state -- fully awake but unable to move or respond to stimuli. Fortunately, huge strides are made in interfacing with the human brain, allowing these "locked in" people to continue interacting with the world via personal robots they inhabit. Against this backdrop, a new FBI agent -- himself a "Haden" -- is assigned with his partner to investigate a murder in which a Haden is a prime suspect. Soon, they're on the trail of a vast conspiracy with sweeping ramifications for society.

I still don't have a lot of other John Scalzi to compare Lock In to, but the comparisons are positive. As with The Dispatcher, he has created a vivid sci-fi premise and built up a wholly credible environment around it. The world-building is clever and deep, with more layers always waiting to be revealed as the tale unspools: if this is true about this world, then it makes sense that this would also be true. And yet the world-building is not the point of the story, but rather a backdrop against which an interesting narrative can be spun.

Like Redshirts, there's a healthy dose of humor woven throughout the tale. Lock In is not actively trying for comedy most of the time (as Redshirts often does), but the characters all have a sense of humor and don't shy away from it. The circumstances of the story are extreme, but the characters are believable. They're real people in surreal circumstances.

You do have to like mysteries, I think, to be drawn into Lock In. Despite the science-fiction premise and trappings, this is very much a detective story, a cop drama. It's a specific kind of cop drama, in fact, with sort of "opposites attract" partners learning to work together in the face of a plot much bigger than either of them. Not that the familiarity of this story structure is necessarily a bad thing; there's plenty of inventiveness elsewhere in Lock In that I don't begrudge John Scalzi mixing a few tropes into his recipe in places.

Lock In might actually be my least favorite Scalzi so far, but that says more about my reaction to his other books than it does to this one. Lock In is also the first book of his I've read that does have a sequel, and I do expect I'll be reading that at some point down the road. I give the book a B+. It's a solid page turner, and I think most of you who would be reading this post would probably enjoy it.

A Movie Named for Its Audience?

I was nowhere close to the target audience for the DC Universe streaming service. But when its programming started showing up on HBO Max, one of my friends started aggressively singing the praises of the show Harley Quinn. The message was received and understood, and yet something did go wrong somehow along the way, because first I ended up watching the movie Suicide Squad.

It isn't as bad as you've probably heard it is. It's far worse.

Oftentimes, this is the point in one of my reviews where I devote a paragraph to a brief plot synopsis of the thing I'm writing about. I'm challenged to do so for Suicide Squad, as it somehow manages the impossible feat of having a plot that's simultaneously so slim that there's nothing to summarize and so incoherent that it's impossible to follow. A government agent recruits "the worst of the worst" villains to become a black ops team... that is dispatched to solve a problem that only exists because the team was recruited in the first place. Along this pointless ouroboros of a journey, things explode, people do bad things because they're villains, and your mind is slowly numbed.

The movie is about two hours long, but feels somehow both longer and shorter at the same time. It's "shorter" in that the first chunk feels like a long clip package reminding you want happened "previously on" some non-existent TV show you've never seen. It's supposed to make you care about the characters, but it's too spastic and unfocused to be effective. And then, once you're actually watching what feels like "this week's episode," it's shocking how long it lasts. You can't believe it isn't over yet.

The people in charge seem to know they've made a bad movie, because they're trying to drench it top to bottom in "needle drops" meant to shortcut you to emotion about what you're watching. Someone backed up the money truck to put The Rolling Stones, Rick James, AC/DC, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Black Sabbath, The White Stripes, Eminem, Queen, and many, many more in one movie. And the 30-second snippet you get of any one of the songs is far more compelling than the movie itself.

The acting is terrible throughout. It shouldn't be possible to make Viola Davis come off bad, but her character's fraction-of-one-note personality is too dull even to be grating. Will Smith displays none of the charisma he's wielded in other movies. Other characters in the titular Squad are quite literally forgettable; one of them (um... spoiler, I guess?) dies along the way, and today I couldn't name them or pick them out of a lineup if a cash prize were riding on it. Then there's Jared Leto, who was reportedly a preening asshole to all his castmates, indulging in the worst excesses of "method acting," just to deliver this weak-ass performance? The one bright spot (to strain the term) is Margot Robbie, who is at times pretty fun as Harley Quinn. I guess it makes sense that she's the focus of the spin-off/sequel movie Birds of Prey.

The actual mystery is how this is getting a do-over movie. I mean, this is just terrible. If James Gunn can pull something good out of this, maybe we should see what he can do about world peace or something.

Is Margot Robbie alone enough to call this movie a D- instead of an F? Maybe. Does it matter? I don't see how. Either way, the movie should be avoided at all costs.

DS9 Flashback: Prodigal Daughter

Any long-running television series is going to have its share of weak episodes. Generally, the writers of a show know when they've missed the mark, and can be almost as hard on themselves as the fans. The writers of Deep Space Nine may have been even harder on themselves when it came to what they saw as the final season's worst episode, "Prodigal Daughter."

Chief O'Brien goes missing while searching for the widow of the Orion Syndicate member he once shadowed. Since he was last seen in a system where Ezri's family runs a prominent mining operation, Sisko turns to her to find the Chief. She returns home to a disapproving mother, a despondent and alcoholic brother, and a business under pressure from the Syndicate itself.

As "worst episodes of a season" go, the one really isn't that bad. (It's no "The Muse.") Yet there are flaws here, to be sure. Arguably even more so than the previous episode, "It's Only a Paper Moon," this feels like a story that barely makes use of the main characters. We the audience still don't know Ezri all that well. She's surrounded here by guest stars we don't know at all. And the only other character who has much screen time is O'Brien, who seems put here more to witness the story than play any meaningful role in it.

Perhaps the writers are extra hard on this one knowing that they could have done better if only they'd had the time. This was a case of production overtaking them, with the preposterous 26 new episodes per season Star Trek was making (double or more what most shows today produce). Reportedly, the writing team of David Weddle and Bradley Thompson had been trying to crack a script about a Sisko from the future coming back to warn present Sisko not to do something, but finding they had nothing to say beyond the intriguing sci-fi gimmick.

With just two weeks to go until some episode had to begin filming, show runner Ira Steven Behr told them to do something to flesh out Ezri Dax's backstory instead. Precious days passed as they wrote a story about Ezri's criminally connected mother revealing that the Orion Syndicate had somehow arranged the "accident" that led to her receiving the Dax symbiont. Ultimately, no one liked how manipulated that made Starfleet look -- but they liked the Syndicate angle. With the clock running out, they decided the story would involve the widow of O'Brien's contact/friend Bilby. By this point, the production needed to be building sets, making costumes, casting actors, and such. And so, as staff writer Ronald Moore put it, everything became "first thought, best thought," and the next thing written became what was filmed.

The result is vaguely "Godfather Lite." (And I'm one of those "philistines" who actually doesn't like The Godfather very much to begin with.) The roles don't quite map one-to-one, but you still have a stew made out of a crime family in too deep, the child who got out clean but gets roped back in, the unassuming brother who turns out to be darker than anyone realized, and everyone keeping secrets from each other. It's not super-exciting, but it's hardly a disaster.

And there are actually some interesting personal dynamics in play in various scenes. Star Trek is no stranger to characters with unresolved family drama, but this feels a little more realistic to me. The tension between mother-who-can't-be-pleased and daughter-learning-not-to-try feels lived in, and it's a neat wrinkle that as a joined Trill, Ezri has suddenly acquired eight lives' worth of experience to upset their dynamic. The easiness and shorthand between Ezri and her brother Norvo feels authentic too; Norvo's self-loathing feels understandable even before the final twist revealing the real reason for it. (And it's all more interesting that the "main story" of the Orion Syndicate trying to get its hooks into the family business.)

If they'd had more time? Yes, they could have made more of Ezri's being joined when no one else in her family is. They could have sharpened the character of Ezri's other brother Janel a little better. They could have done more to highlight the differences in having a woman in charge of the family business instead of a man. But a lot of moments do work: mother Yanas' manipulations-by-negging, Ezri refusing to let her off the hook when she asks if everything is her fault, Ezri's heart-to-heart moments with both of her brothers.

Other observations:

• In the opening scene, we learn a lot about gagh. Everything you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask.
  

• In retrospect, this episode might feel more soap opera-like than it did at the time, given the presence of guest star Kevin Rahm (who recurred for several seasons on Desperate Housewives).

• The cliff-side house where Ezri's family oversees their mining operation was designed as an homage to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, but I find it more reminiscent of the so-called "Sleeper House" -- featured in the Woody Allen movie of the same name, visible from the highway as you head into the mountains west from Denver.
  

"Prodigal Daughter" may indeed be the worst episode of Deep Space Nine season seven. (I can't recall another contender in the remaining dozen-and-change I have left to re-watch.) Still, it's hardly one I think you'd warn people to skip. I give it a (low) B-.

Politics Aside

I know, you're sick of the election and ready for it to be over. (You've voted already, right? Or have made your plan to vote in person, right? How about the people you know?)

Anyway... right now, the idea of watching a television show about politics may sound as appealing as someone sneezing in your face. But let me make a modest case for Netflix's series The Politician.

The Politician is one of many shows from from the television juggernaut-hive-mind of Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan. My route to the series was that it stars Ben Platt, Tony Award winner for Dear Evan Hansen. Platt plays Payton Hobart, a hyper-ambitious high school student whose campaign for student body president is merely the first step on his meticulously mapped-out path to eventually becoming President of the United States. Machiavellian machinations meet zany twists of fate and wild secrets that won't stay hidden in a fast-paced "dramedy."

There are only 15 episodes of The Politician, spread across two (very different) seasons. And it took me perhaps too big a chunk of that for me to decide I actually liked the show. That's because it took me a while to accept its tone and adjust to just what kind of show I was watching. The first episode was earnest and serious, and carried a well-placed content warning about suicide. (Oh, so, drama then.) The fifth episode was an insane farce about one horny student's quest for (ahem) "me time" as candidates court his vote. (Um... so... not serious.) The Politician is both of these shows.

At its core, though, The Politician is a pulpy, schlocky soap opera that is very much aware that it's a soap opera. Evil twins? Guardian angels? Sexual secrets? Faked deaths and diseases? The Politician has all these things and more. It is ridiculous. And though it took me a while to realize this and succumb, once I did, I found the show to be a decadent dessert. Each new scheme, three-way, or backstab was just sort of perfect -- and the only way to top the insanity of actual American politics right now (while still feeling like escapist entertainment).

No, The Politician is nothing revelatory, but it's full of fun performances to enjoy. Ben Platt gets a role much more diabolical than the one that brought him fame on Broadway (but which still gives him ample opportunities to sing). Gwyneth Paltrow plays his mother, a role that is frankly written as a parody of Gwyneth Paltrow. Season one features a scenery-chewing Jessica Lange, while season two introduces a great comedy pairing in Judith Light and Bette Midler.

The rest of the main cast, though not as well known, is filled out with many interesting other characters played with razor-sharp focus. And guest stars include the likes of Dylan McDermott, January Jones, Martina Navratilova, Bob Balaban, and Joe Morton. As usual with a Ryan Murphy show, the contact list is extensive and willing.

Also as usual with a Ryan Murphy show, they seemingly get sick of their own premise and completely change it in season two. Without going into details, I'll say that season two is the better of the two, a more complete embrace of its over-the-top tone. (Still, you sort of have to watch season one to appreciate the big swing of season two.)

Is The Politician essential viewing? No, not really. Overall, I'd probably give the series a B. (B- for season one, B+ for season two.) Yet it can be fun. It made me want to watch a television show about politics (at least in part) right now. That's no mean feat. Maybe its brand of quirkiness is right for you too.

Far From Home

As much as I loved the third season premiere of Star Trek: Discovery, and as much as that had a lot to do with it being a showcase for the considerable talent of Sonequa Martin-Green, I didn't at all mind that the newest episode barely included her at all -- because the rest of the great cast of characters was back in full.

Discovery arrives in the future, much worse for wear. It crash-lands (on a planet that wasn't where they thought they were heading), and needs urgent repairs before night falls and a parasitic ice consumes the ship. Saru and Tilly set out to barter for help from a local settlement, only to find its people under the thumb of a self-appointed despot.

Part of me recognizes that the overall plot momentum this week stalled a bit; this episode essentially replayed all the story beats of the first, just from the point of view of different characters. You could even see this episode as a self-contained "crisis of the week" kind of affair with no significant connection to any ongoing narrative. But I don't at all mind Discovery relaxing its hyper-serialized narrative a little. And I'm absolutely thrilled to see the rest of the characters back.

It's been a year-and-a-half since we've seen Saru, Stamets, Tilly, Georgiou, Culber, Reno, Detmer, Owo, and the rest. Long enough to maybe forget that after just two seasons, this batch of characters is already more sharply drawn than many from Star Trek series that ran seven years. And this episode seemed specifically crafted to let them all be their purest selves.

A more confident and assertive Saru really got to take charge and be the captain in all but official rank, and Doug Jones got to show there's more to his performance than just a carefully constructed means of movement. Tilly got to be her patented mix of bubbly/babbly/fiery, and Mary Wiseman gave us a number of great moments. (My favorite: Tilly being moved to tears by a compliment from Saru.) Georgiou got to ooze and vamp all over the place, and Michelle Yeoh got to be the center of another epic hand-to-hand combat sequence. Stamets and Culber were finally back to being a happy, natural couple, and Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz got plenty of opportunity to show their great chemistry. Jet Reno was drier, crankier, and more sarcastic than ever, with Tig Notaro serving as delightful comic relief in every scene.

Yeah, there were a few moments that don't hold up to much scrutiny. Why exactly did Stamets need Reno's direction to complete a basic repair? And why call Culber for help to just have him stand there cheering like he's on the Amazing Race and his teammate is performing a Road Block? We're not really implying Detmer is infected by Control, are we? Did we really come 900 years into the future just to immediately start up the same story line again?

But I was much more caught up in the fun of it all. We've seen many a ship crash in Star Trek over the years (including one in Lower Decks, just a couple of weeks ago), but great visuals and stunt work made this one feel more exciting and dangerous than we've seen before. The "saloon" that Saru and Tilly found seemed straight out of Firefly... but that's an homage I can live with, and the earnest hopefulness of Kal quickly won me over. Plus, we got more of those fantastic visuals from location filming in Iceland.

I'd give "Far From Home" a B+. Now that the whole crew is reunited, I'm eager to see what they'll do next.

DS9 Flashback: It's Only a Paper Moon

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine evolved into a show with consequences. A trauma suffered in one episode wouldn't be forgotten by the next. When Nog lost his leg in combat, the show was not going to let it pass easily. Instead, it gave us the episode "It's Only a Paper Moon."

Nog is struggling with rehab after receiving an artificial replacement for the leg he lost in combat. But he begins to come alive when he starts spending time in the holosuite with Vic Fontaine.

You could say that this episode is the most "Deep Space Nine" episode of the entire series. It's centered on two recurring characters, and the main cast is barely featured. It's a direct follow up to events from a prior episode. And the narrative slows at several points to make room for a song performance. No Star Trek series before or since would build an episode like this.

The Deep Space Nine writers didn't set out to do so either. The concept was a shelved story pitch from an earlier season dubbed "Everybody Goes to Quark's" (an homage to the stage play that spawned the movie Casablanca). The idea was that there was some kind of holiday, all the places on the Promenade were closed except Quark's, so all the characters packed in there and multiple mini-stories ensued. Despite never really finding an angle into a story, the concept lingered to be brought back as "Everybody Goes to Vic's."

The plan was for three storylines -- two comedic, one serious -- and staff writer Ronald Moore thought a Vic episode sounded like a lot of fun. The script for "The Siege of AR-558" was coming together, and it was decided that Nog's recovery from being shot could be the serious story. But as Moore wrote early script drafts, the feeling was that the Nog plot was too heavy, too big, and overwhelmed everything else. Show runner Ira Steven Behr made the call to cut everything else, even though that would mean an episode all about the guest stars. (Moore says Behr joked that had they known what this episode would become, maybe they'd have had O'Brien lose a leg instead so he and Bashir could hang at Vic's.)

Aron Eisenberg certainly rises to the occasion of starring in his own episode. He gives a truly different performance as Nog; the youthful enthusiasm he has always had is understandably diminished here. His early depression and obsession with the song "I'll Be Seeing You" feels like a familiar way of responding to loss, as does his rejection of help -- from a counselor, from friends. Nog's final breakdown and confession of his feelings is Eisenberg's best work on the series, and reportedly struck a chord with many actual veterans returning from combat -- he often said he received a lot of fan mail from former soldiers.

James Darren is doing equally strong work as Vic. We get plenty of the "coolest cat in the room" vibe that the character has displayed in all his previous appearances, but there's a lot of new texture here too. We see a more casual Vic (out of his tux for the first time), a more crafty Vic (swapping out Nog's cane), and ultimately a more vulnerable Vic (as we learn the subtle hell of being a self-aware hologram who doesn't get a life of his own). His best scene in the episode is all subtext, when Ezri congratulates him and starts talking about a timetable to nudge Nog out of the holosuite -- and you can see that Vic had no such plans. Ultimately, Vic is a loving father figure in this episode, giving "his child" what he needs, whether that's hearing the same song for the 15th time or tough love to push him out of the nest.

It is all quite a slow burn, though. While there is fun along the way (more talk of the often-heard-but-never-seen-Alamo, everyone dunking on Bashir's holosuite tastes, Quark angling to get paid for the holosuite time, a fun domestic montage set to the episode's title song), there's never any doubt where this episode is going. And while it's great when it does finally get there, it does take a while. If you haven't bought into Vic Fontaine by this point, a full rendition of "I've Got the World on a String" (twice!) is not going to win you over.

Other observations:

• It speaks to how fleshed-out the world of the show is that Leeta is even in this episode. Her character doesn't really have much of a role here, but it is a fact that he's Nog's stepmother, and it's appropriate that she's around for such an important milestone in Nog's life.

• The show does a pretty good job of incorporating just enough Ezri to plausibly give credence to her job as counselor, while allowing the Vic story to unfold as intended.
  

• There's a quick joke about The Searchers being a much better Western movie than Shane. But Nog is watching Shane because Paramount owned it. (Side note: the movie is in color, but Nog is of course watching it in "1962," and therefore on a black-and-white television.)

You could almost say that "It's Only a Paper Moon" is an episode about one scene. When that scene does come, it is great... but I think the slow build to get there isn't as strong for me as it is for the many fans who name this among the series' best episodes. Still, I think it's a very solid B+.

An Empty Throne

I didn't know much about the game Dice Throne before I sat down to play its "Season One" box. It wouldn't have taken many details for me to know it's not a game for me

Dice Throne is a battle royal game for 2 to 6 players. Each player has a character with particular powers determined by the symbols on a set of dice they roll. On your turn, you get three rolls (Yahtzee-style) to hone the best result you can, then use it as an attack on one of the other players. They get one chance to roll to defend against at least some of the damage (and maybe to inflict a modest counterattack). But essentially, it's a war of attrition to be the last player standing.

The designers knew that a true free-for-all wouldn't make for a fun game, and wisely restricted things so you can't just gang up on the leader or pick on someone you don't like on that particular game night. With every attack, you must roll to determine whether it affects the player on your left, your right, or your choice between the two. It's a little tedious, but I think necessary for the game to be even close to fair. (But it might be one reason the Board Game Geek community has judged this game to be best for two players.)

There's also ever-expanding content within this system. New sets of two characters, meant for head-to-head play, are released regularly, with the "season" box sets like the one I played being a collection of several of those characters for a larger play group. This serialized expansion system might be another reason why the Board Game Geek community says this is best for two.

Another reason it might be considered "best for two?" It takes too long with more. There are many ways to handle dice rolling in games, but something about this game feels extra chaotic to me. It's very slow paced, because every character has an array of unique powers that only the player using them really understands. Interactions between players take a long time to explain and resolve. That's not helped by the vague game rules that don't give much guidance on how effects tokens are meant to interact with each other if stacked on the same player.

And yet the game is also very repetitive. Despite that broad array of powers, there are fundamentally only maybe half a dozen things you can do -- and most of those things require special and rare combinations of dice rolls. It only takes you a few rounds to feel like every one of your turns is pretty much the same as every other turn -- it all just boils down to: one of your opponent loses a few of their health points.

Then there's the spotty theme draped over the whole thing. Each character has powers that seem pretty well chosen to give a decent identity to the player -- here's the muscle-bound bruiser, here's the crafty trap-setter, and so forth. But each character also has a deck of cards you use when you play them, and the names of those cards are fourth-wall breaking quips I would have thought suitable only for playtesting. There's a card that leans into the game's randomness called "Vegas Baby," a healing card called "What Stack Effects?," and other similar titles that have no ambition to portray Dice Throne as a world with any meaningful story. Yet it seems to me that most games that care this little about theme are sophisticated, strategic endeavors where the player will be too busy plotting to care what the theme says they're "supposed" to be doing. Dice Throne certainly isn't that.

So, it's long, it's repetitive, the rules are vague, it's chock-full of randomness, and the story of the game is totally unimportant. And it's so very much all of those things that not only did I not like it myself, I struggled to imagine the target audience. Maybe the Betrayal at House on the Hill crowd? (Though the flavor is sorely lacking, comparatively.) Maybe I'm just thinking of that game as a comparison because that's the last game I can think of where I had that little fun playing it.

I give Dice Throne a D -- and that high only because it can give you the occasional visceral thrill of a potent dice roll. But plenty of games can give you that, and so much more. I don't see why you'd play this one.

Druid Dynamics

I've written before about The Dresden Files series; I was slowly enjoying them until I hit the skids a bit on book three and decided to take a break before continuing. During that break, my plan was to cycle through a few different kinds of books to sort of "reset" my brain before book four. But in that process, I found another book that struck me as being very much like a Dresden Files book.

Hounded is the first book of The Iron Druid Chronicles, a long-running series by author Kevin Hearne. It's centered on Atticus O'Sullivan, a Druid who has survived for thousands of years and is now settled down in modern-day Arizona. The first book has an ancient nemesis finally tracking him down for a confrontation Atticus seems likely to lose.

I don't necessarily believe that Kevin Hearne sat down to deliberately create his own Dresden Files. Nor do I think that Hounded is a one-for-one re-rendering of Jim Butcher's universe. But there are a lot of superficial and not-entirely-superficial similarities here. The main character is a magic-wielding human making his way in a world populated with every kind of "thing that goes bump in the night" you can imagine. The story sets up fairly rigid rules for its supernatural critters, building a universe meant to last for many books.

Where Dresden has a "possessed skull" for a confidant/partner, Atticus has his loyal dog Oberon, to whom he can speak through the use of magic. Where Dresden has an ally in the Chicago police, Atticus has high-priced lawyers to get him out of trouble. Both Atticus and Dresden are, for lack of a better world, horny; a great deal of the prose is straight male fantasy, and particularly noticeable as both authors chose a first-person narrative for their series.

For reasons I'm not entirely sure I can put my finger on, I felt a little more drawn in by Hounded. It's entirely possible that I simply haven't "pushed through" to the better Dresden books yet (which, I hear commonly, come a little later in that series). Or maybe it's that Hounded doesn't have the same pervasive tinge of film noir style that Dresden has. But in any case, I'm sort of feeling like Dresden and Iron Druid are not books to be read in alternation.

I'd say Hounded is a B+, a solid enough start for a long-running series -- and perhaps my slight preference between the two. Not that it has to be a competition, though; I would wager that any fan of Jim Butcher would like Kevin Hearne, and vice versa.

A Look at the RBG Spectrum

Last weekend, I decided to follow up my recent view of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic, On the Basis of Sex, with the recent documentary about her, RBG. The two proved to be effective companion pieces to one another.

Where On the Basis of Sex was a dramatized look at a relatively narrow window in Ginsburg's life before the Supreme Court, RBG takes a broader look at her entire life, focusing mostly on her time as a justice. It's not a film trying to present a traditional underdog narrative; it's here to celebrate the achievements of a woman who would rarely call attention to herself.

Where the two films overlap is in the sense they give you of Ginsburg's time in law school. Both make clear how hard she had to work, how dismissive so many people around her were, and how she skillfully juggled the demands of her education (and her husband's, as he battled cancer) with raising children. But after that, On the Basis of Sex focuses solely on her first major case -- argued in front of the Tenth Circuit, not the Supreme Court. RBG would rather you understand just how much she accomplished throughout her life.

In RBG, you see how the incremental approach suggested in On the Basis of Sex actually played out over the years. You hear about most of the six cases she argued before the Supreme Court during the 1970s (winning all but one). You see the patience and strategic prowess she brought to bear on changing minds and changing lives. It's uplifting, affirming, and powerful to watch.

Finally, the movie settles into RBG's later years on the court -- and this last section of the documentary left me considerably more conflicted in emotion. These were the years in which Ginsburg actually become most famous and celebrated. These were the years in which she became The Notorious RBG, the Great Dissenter. On the one hand, her patient but firm reasoning was the same here as it was in the 1970s, and the fact that she continued on in that mission, that righteousness, that certitude, is inspiring. She never wavered and she kept fighting, staying true to principles that had always served her well in life.

On the other hand... she was dissenting in all these major cases that represented a huge erosion of rights and freedoms. She -- and we -- were losing these cases. Ledbetter, a refutation of gender equality that had to be corrected by Congress and President Obama's first major action after inauguration. Shelby County, the voting rights erosion that led directly to the widespread poll and dropbox closures, and hours-long lines, that we see today. Hobby Lobby, the decision allowing for-profit corporations to claim their own religious beliefs, and force them onto all their employees. Ginsburg wrote a powerful dissent in all these cases (and more), dissents that will hopefully, one day, be the argument that carries the day.

And yet, they're dissents. Losses. It's hard not to look on this final section of the movie, especially watching it now, after Ginsburg's passing, and see a lot of defeat mixed in with the triumph. It magnifies the emotions surrounding her death, and let's be honest: 2020 has been a year where magnified emotions don't generally feel very good.

That said, though... it has long been the case that conservatives are generally more motivated to vote with court composition in mind than progressives. There are signs now that with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that status is flipping. I do believe if more people watched this documentary and understood just how much RBG accomplished in her life, exactly what rights she saw vindicated in the law, and exactly what direction she'd hoped to steer the court, that would indeed be more motivating to more people.

And so even though I'd probably grade the movie a B "as a film," I would regard it as essential viewing, and strongly recommend people watch it. (Especially if you haven't voted yet or made your plans to. Get on that!)

That Hope Is You, Part 1

It's been almost a year-and-a-half since the last new Star Trek: Discovery, but they've finally been able to overcome the challenges of post-production in a COVID world (like recording a full orchestral score one instrument at a time, then mixing it all together). And, as promised by the season two finale, Discovery is now almost an entirely different show.

Michael Burnham arrives in the late 32nd century, but has become separated from Discovery. She turns to a roguish "courier" named Book for help, but he is initially suspicious of Burnham -- and hiding a secret of his own. Along the way, Burnham learns of her distressing new reality: about 100 years earlier, a mysterious event known as The Burn wiped out most dilithium in the galaxy... and the Federation along with it.

Unsurprisingly, this episode of Star Trek: Discovery felt like the pilot to an entirely new series. Unfettered by any need to line up franchise continuity, they'll now be able to tell basically any story they want. They've set up what seems to be a season-long mystery, just as was done for each of the first two seasons. This one has immediate stakes to Star Trek fans, though, as the mystery involves the destruction of Starfleet, the home to all Trek we've known before.

We do have one familiar face, though, in Michael Burnham. And from beginning to end in this nearly solo episode, Sonequa Martin-Green absolutely crushed it. If there were any justice for science fiction at the Emmy Awards, she'd win one for the teaser alone. First, she embodies the resolve of a test pilot, tamping down clear panic and taking steps to save her own life. (Playing all of this against a green screen void, remember.) Then, in a scene with minimal dialogue and only a computerized voice as her scene partner, she screams a joyous celebration at having completed her mission, runs a frenzied race against the clock to send word of her success back in time, and then collapses in a tearful heap as the weight of what she's lost finally hits her. And all of this is about tying up a plot point the audience hasn't considered in a year-and-a-half. Sonequa Martin-Green is amazing.

That opening may be the standout, but there's plenty more to come, as Burnham gets a bunch of big action moments over the next hour: a fist fight on a beach, a wild shootout in an alien bazaar (maybe too wild; I could have done with a more stable camera), and a frenetic teleporting chase all across a planet. And along the way, she gets hit with a "truth drug" and starts tripping out of her mind (in still more great work, now comedic, from Sonequa Martin-Green).

Martin-Green isn't quite doing it entirely solo, though. She's paired with new main cast member David Ajala as Book. Book is definitely a trope-tastic character, a scoundrel with a heart of gold, but with just enough of a spin on him to be interesting: he has some strange empathic sense or technologically-assisted abilities that put his "heart of gold" closer to the surface. Ajala and Martin-Green definitely play well together. I believed their relationship, even if on the page, it seems to me like maybe Book turned the corner from backstabbing rogue to helpful ally a little fast.

Another major "co-star" was the setting. The production reportedly went to Iceland to film on location for this episode, and the results are well worth it. Many movies don't look this good. Essentially no Star Trek movies looked this good. And we're treated to all kinds of gorgeous backdrops: desolate wastes, strange bubbly fields, cliffs, beaches, waterfalls. You got everything but narration from David Attenborough, and it was great.

If you were maybe starting to worry that things weren't feeling Star Trek enough, there was a feast for the eyes once they reached the bazaar. Besides the Orions and Andorians featured in the story, the background was filled with all sorts of aliens brought back from all sorts of Trek series. My personal favorites were in the squad that caught up with Burnham and Book at the beach: a Tellarite and a Lurian (Morn's species).

The episode had one last magic trick to present, right at the end. We got a short two-minute introduction to the character of Aditya Sahil (also glimpsed at the beginning of the episode in a context-free montage). We hardly got to know him, and yet the moment in which Michael Burnham gave him a real Starfleet commission was among the most emotionally impactful scenes ever on Star Trek: Discovery. Honestly, I don't know how they pulled this off, but guest actor Adil Hussain was a big part of it; you could simply tell that there was a lot going on beneath a stoic exterior.

Call me intrigued. Call me impressed. But I quite liked this season three opener. I give "That Hope Is You, Part 1" an A-. Right out of the gate, I'm excited for the season to come.

Isn't It Grand?

A few years ago, I got to play a highly regarded board game, Grand Austria Hotel, from designers Simone Luciani and Virginio Gigli. I got to play it one time only, even though it made a fairly good impression. It languished under the never-ending avalanche of new games, until I recently got to revisit it.

In this game, you're managing a Viennese cafe and working to establish it as a successful, growing hotel. You draft cafe customer cards from an ever-changing queue, deliver them specific food and drinks (resources), and then move them into color-coded hotel rooms -- scoring points along the way.

There are some very nice mechanics built into the game that regularly bump you out of any carefully laid plans you've made, in a fun and challenging way. For one thing, money is super tight. A strategic choice might be available and clearly best for you in terms of scoring points... yet it might simply be too expensive for you to afford. So you face a choice: take extra turns to earn the money for that best option (assuming someone else doesn't snatch it up first), or embrace what's clearly a second-best choice and make that work.

Dice play an interesting role in the action-taking system. At the beginning of each round, a large collection of dice is rolled, then sorted by result. Each number, 1 through 5, corresponds to one specific action you can take in the game. On your turn, you select one of those five actions, and do it according to how many dice of that value have been rolled -- more dice means it's more effective for you. When you make a choice, you remove one of the dice, making that action less effective for the players behind you. (Meanwhile, a 6 lets you choose any action, but with an extra charge to pay for that flexibility.)

Here again, the game is encouraging you to rethink your plans. The action you really want to take might only have 1 or 2 dice associated with it. Meanwhile, this other action you weren't considering might have 4 or 5 dice there. Can you alter your plans to take advantage of a big opportunity like that? But then, with certain things you must do every few rounds to avoid a penalty, are you going to have to stick with your original plan no matter what? Adjusting on the fly is a big, fun part of this game.

But there is an aspect of the game that I'm a bit wary of. At the start of the game, you're dealt a hand of "staff" cards, people you can hire on whose special powers help you in the game. While none can be categorized as truly "bad," there are some that seem clearly better than others... and plenty that seem to combine with each other in potent ways. While there are a handful of ways to pick up new staff cards during the game, you're (for the most part) limited to making the most of the ones you're dealt at the start -- sort of in keeping with the game's "make the best of what you have in the moment" design philosophy.

Yet these cards give me Agricola vibes -- and not the good kind. Without taking too long a side trip, Agricola is an engaging farming game that I played plenty of in person, and even more through its smartphone adaptation. I played it over and over and over... until one day, the curtain fell: no matter how clever your decision-making during the game, the winners and losers seemed determined too much by the opening hands dealt to each player.

I've played nowhere near as much Grand Austria Hotel as I have Agricola, so it's far too early to make definitive judgments. But I am nervous that the staff cards of Grand Austria Hotel have a similarly outsized effect on the outcome. I like enough of the rest of the game that I'd like to play more anyway... and I very much hope to be proven wrong in my suspicions. Yet however much I want to love this game, it's also kind of "on notice" with me.

For the moment, I'd give Grand Austria Hotel a very provisional B. With more plays, I could see that moving as much as a full letter-grade up or down... and because of that, it's hard to say right now whether I'd recommend it or not. Perhaps I'm really looking for other gamer friends of mine who have played it more (I strongly suspect you're out there) to weigh in and tell me their experiences with the game, and with the staff cards in particular.

Here's hoping I can someday do a follow-up post to this with a ringing endorsement of Grand Austria Hotel.

To the Victor...

A few years ago, I was very pleasantly surprised by the movie Love, Simon -- a gay teen rom-com with some actual emotional heft, despite its mostly light touch. Though the movie was successful, it was hardly the sort of thing you'd expect to spawn a sequel. And yet it has, in the form of a TV series on Hulu: Love, Victor.

The title character is a teen who is just arriving in a new city. Victor is questioning his own sexuality, and afraid to admit that to a family he fears won't understand. But he has one person he can confide in. He happens to be starting at the same school where a recent graduate, Simon, had a memorable coming out. Victor writes Simon, and gets back advice as the two strike up a cyber-friendship.

I will say right up front: Love, Victor is not as effective a story as Love, Simon was. In fact, Love, Victor sometimes seems more like the cheesy knockoff of some other truly great show. The writing is soap operatic -- in dialogue, and even occasionally plot twists. What I didn't know while watching the first season (but which makes total sense now that I've heard it) is that the series was originally made for Disney+, but they balked at the last minute, deciding not to host it under the Disney banner and instead airing it on Hulu. Still, it absolutely feels like a "Disney Channel" show.

Still, there are things to like about the series. Although the guys in the cast seem that rather one-dimensional and limited actors, the women are pretty great throughout. Rachel Hilson is a young actress you might know as the college-era Beth from This Is Us; she's just as strong here, and has a lot more to do in each episode. Bebe Wood has grown up hopping from one "almost a hit" sitcom to another, including The New Normal and The Real O'Neals (among more guest starring roles); she has great comic chops here and the show makes good use of them. Isabella Ferreira is strong as Victor's fiery sister, and Ana Ortiz has many good moments as his mother.

For whatever weaknesses the show might have, its heart is always in the right place. It does have a lot of positive messages woven into its story. It's an LGBT story that charts a different course than Love, Simon. Also, Victor and his family have Puerto Rican and Colombian-American heritage, which gives this story a different canvas to paint on.

Honestly, if Love, Victor hadn't been just 10 episodes, each a half an hour and easy to watch, I might not have hung with it for the whole ride. A renewal for a second season was just announced, and I had mixed feelings about that: there's certainly potential within the show and it could get better, but I hardly feel like I need to know what's going to happen next. But that renewal announcement came with interviews from the creators saying "now that we know were making the show for Hulu, we're going to be able to do more with it." So... maybe...?

Given that it is such a breezy watch? I think I'd call it a B- overall. It's no Love, Simon... but it's not too bad.

DS9 Flashback: Covenant

Gul Dukat was the original villain of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and was cultivated over time for the audience to "love to hate." But he'd fallen out of the plot a bit by the start of the final season, and the writers wanted to get him back front and center for the final story arc. So they crafted "Covenant."

Kira is abducted by a group of Pah-wraith cultists who have set up a small community on Empok Nor... and their leader is none other than Dukat. Kira seeks to expose how Dukat is using these people. (And he is.) But along the way, she discovers that Dukat may actually be a true believer.

Once again, the conceit of "a station just like Deep Space 9 that isn't Deep Space 9" saves the production a lot of money. But once again, there's a good narrative reason for setting this story aboard Empok Nor. Just as Pah-wraith worship is a perversion of Kira's faith, placing these cultists in a setting that looks just like her home makes that insult visible.

Dukat has a way of explaining Pah-wraith worship that does make some sense. If the Bajoran gods were so loving, why would they have sat idly by and allowed the Occupation? (It's a talking point paraphrased from real-world Satanic worship.) What's more, we learn in the course of this story that Dukat really does believe in the Pah-wraiths (and why wouldn't he, after being possessed by one): he prays to them in earnest, when no one is around to see him do so.

But above all of that, Dukat is as always an egomaniac, and this new incarnation of him is no exception. It just so happens that his new faith has led him to a role in which he gets to boss around Bajorans. And he's once again forcing himself upon women in no position to deny him. As ever, he needs to oppress people, and have them profess their adoration as he does it. And at the end of the story, his self-serving focus is exposed for all to see.

A life-long friend of Kira's, Vedek Fala, is included in this story as a way of shocking Kira: someone she's known forever, a spiritual guiding light in her life, has turned to the Pah-wraiths. Yet this is never a story about testing Kira's faith. Indeed, the episode lays out the theme clearly in the opening scene, in a conversation between Odo, Kira, Ezri, and Julian about religion. This is a test of forgiveness. Kira says to Odo that she'd be open to him exploring any religion, even if it's not hers -- and then along comes Vedek Fala with a religion that's definitely not hers. Perhaps this makes a liar of her, since she makes it her mission to "turn" these people. Then again, she's not looking to do that so much as she's looking to unmask their leader; you could argue that the question in play here is "does Hitler deserve forgiveness?" and I for one don't mind that the answer is a resounding "no."

The episode presents a pretty accurate picture of what it's like to be brainwashed by a cult and its influential leader. (Or by, say, a mainstream political party that has functionally morphed into a cult.) Every point of logic or reason Kira comes up with is turned aside by the Pah-wraith worshipers. Every ridiculous lie presented by Dukat is eagerly accepted over any more rational explanation that exists. Only when Dukat tries to kill them do they finally see -- and we the audience finally see that "I never meant to hurt anyone" really meant "I never thought this would hurt ME.") Even faced with irrefutable truth, some people (represented by Fala) would literally rather die than live with having been wrong.

Yeah, kind of reminiscent of current events.

Other observations:

• The Quark's bar set is redressed to serve as Dukat's temple, full of ominous reds and a fun twist on the usual Bajoran logo.
  

• By now, Deep Space Nine no longer worries about being self-referential, and so Kira can bring up things like the death of Jadzia, Dukat's relationship with her mother, and his disgusting obsession with her.
  

• Speaking of that obsession, it makes the moment when Kira awakens to find herself partially undressed especially skin-crawling.
  

Neither the stakes nor the danger feel especially high to me to me in this episode, and so I think for me it tops out at a B. Still, it sets the stage nicely for Dukat's role in the final arc.

What's the Catch

The criminal behavior of Harvey Weinstein was said to have been something of an open secret in Hollywood, ultimately dragged fully into the light by the courage of his victims and the reporting of Ronan Farrow. Weinstein is now in prison, while Farrow has published a book on the story, Catch and Kill.

I'm not quite sure what I expected to get out of reading this book, and yet it still somehow managed to be different than I expected. I suppose I was expecting a more detailed accounting of Weinstein's crimes, as told by the women he victimized. And this is part of the book... but only part, and I suppose not as big a part as I thought it might be. As I read, I felt myself wondering if perhaps the stories of Rose McGowan, Rosanna Arquette, Asia Argento, and so many more (too many more) were being subsumed too much in the story of a dogged reporter working to break a big new story.

In retrospect, the title Catch and Kill was really the not-subtle clue as to the nature of this story. This book is the story of the system that empowers harassment and assault by men like Weinstein. "Catch and Kill" is the policy of "catching" reports before they go public and "killing" those stories. If you read this book for that exposé, you'll get what you're expecting. Read it for the victim's stories, as I think I probably was? Well, Ronan Farrow focused mainly on that in his original New Yorker reporting and its follow-ups. This book seems to assume the reader already has some degree of familiarity there.

Similarly, the book assumes you already know a fair amount about Farrow's own personal life and family history. And so it's in the latter half of the book, when covering material he doesn't assume you have great knowledge of, that his writing is most compelling. Weinstein was just one rapist protected by power, and exposing him quickly led to the exposure of others. In particular, the book covers Matt Lauer in detail, and how a similar "Catch and Kill" culture at NBC nearly shut down Farrow's attempt to report the Weinstein story. His writing here on Lauer is especially visceral, the assaults truly horrific and upsetting. And perhaps because Farrow has said less about this subject before (as opposed to Weinstein), he gives more space to the stories of the victims that I was expecting all along.

It may just be that the very long form like this is not Ronan Farrow's forte; television and magazine journalism is the core of his career, and rely on a very different set of skills. There are aspects of Catch and Kill I found engaging, but I found the whole a bit disjointed, and too cursory in spots. I'd call it a C+ overall.

No Small Parts

Throughout its first season, Star Trek: Lower Decks has skillfully walked the line of being respectful of Star Trek while pointing out the stains on its figurative tie. (All in good fun.) With its season finale, "No Small Parts," it continued to do that -- while also serving up its most authentically Star Trek installment so far.

The secret of Captain Freeman and Ensign Mariner's relationship slips out to the whole crew. But the dust hasn't settled when a crisis hits: the Cerritos comes under attack from an alien threat... and not everyone will survive.

Lower Decks has often "remixed" plot elements of past Star Trek episodes for comedic effect. Indeed, this episode was every bit as referential as the others, with nods to a classic original series episode, a style lift from the first animated series, a quote of the lyrics from the Enterprise theme song, and more. But this episode was almost an inversion, taking something from past Trek that was largely played for comedy -- the Pakleds from The Next Generation -- and bringing them back in a serious context.

The result was a season finale that could compare quite favorably against many finales of other Star Trek seasons. We got big action and big stakes, plus the death of a character and a real shake-up in the lives of many others. There was also some serious discussion about the inconsistent application of Starfleet's (and Star Trek's) principles of non-interference. To fit all that in, "No Small Parts" was arguably not as funny as other Lower Decks episodes... but certainly funny enough in the right moments.

The series and its characters stayed true even in this more dramatic story. The loss of Rutherford's memory, along with his implant, could easily have been a tragic turn on another show, but Tendi responded with lightness and optimism. Career-driven Boimler of course would take a promotion when offered. And Mariner's going to keep being wild, now with more support from her mother.

We got fun cameos from Will Riker and Deanna Troi. Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis delivered recognizable versions of their characters while shading them with a bit more roguishness and snark (more like the actors themselves, based on what I've seen of them) to fit better in the world of this series. And perhaps we have a little more of them to look forward to in season 2 (at least as long as Boimler's adventures on the Titan last)?

"No Small Parts" was a strong episode, to me probably the best of the season save for last week's hilarious movie send-up. Regardless, it showed another gear the series can shift to, and that made me look forward to its eventual second season. I give the episode a B+.

Next time, we're moving on to season three of Star Trek: Discovery!

DS9 Flashback: The Siege of AR-558

After several Dominion War episodes full of ship combat and triumphant action, the writers of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine felt it was time to present a more harsh and uncompromising view of war. So with "The Siege of AR-558," they went to the front lines.

While delivering supplies to a captured Dominion communications array, several crew members from the Defiant are left behind. Together, they and a group of ragged soldiers must defend a desolate planet from brutal mines and waves of Jem'Hadar, while also battling exhaustion and failing morale.

Although Deep Space Nine had done its share of darker episodes, this one -- according to show runner Ira Steven Behr -- faced some internal pushback. With a setting inspired loosely by the Battle of Guadalcanal in World War II, there was a lot of concern that this episode was too far off-brand for the Star Trek universe.

Ultimately, the concept was embraced -- and was realized in authentic detail by director Winrich Kolbe, who brought his real-life experience fighting in the Vietnam War to the production. The episode captures moments of horror (when all the Houdini mines are made to appear in the camp), tension (when distant flashes of exploding mines portend the approach of the enemy), and loss of both life (the deaths in this story really make an impact) and innocence (tracked by Nog and Quark's character arcs). The setting is perfectly anonymous -- a great remix of the ever-present Star Trek planet set into something truly dirty and desolate, and always shrouded in darkness.

In some ways, this episode is covering the same themes as season five's "Nor the Battle to the Strong." But where that episode focused on Jake Sisko's loss of innocence in the face of war, this episode puts multiple characters on the front lines: Ezri Dax, Nog, Bashir (once more), and Quark. Pointedly, the characters with the most battle experience (and/or who would be great to have in this situation) are left out -- Worf, Kira, O'Brien, and Odo. Joining the reduced selection of main characters are a spectrum of guest roles carefully cultivated from the war movie tool box, played by a group of recognizable character actors.

Bill Mumy, most famous for his childhood role in Lost in Space, plays shell-shocked engineer Kellin. Deep Space Nine show runner Ira Steven Behr was friends with Mumy and had wanted to cast him many times throughout the series run. Mumy was a regular on Babylon 5 at the same time, but it wasn't really scheduling that was an obstacle, but rather that he wasn't interested in another job requiring intensive alien makeup. When this human role came along, Behr sent the script, and got a quick "yes."

Patrick Kilpatrick played a lot of "tough guy" roles in the 80s and 90s, and does so here as Reese, a soldier Nog naively admires for his necklace of Jem'Hadar ketracel-white tubes. Reese is given a subtle and interesting story arc, made visual with the knife he carries around and then leaves behind when he finally leaves the planet. You get the sense that Reese will never again see battle after this moment; you can even imagine that he resigns from Starfleet.

Raymond Cruz, another great working actor you've absolutely "seen somewhere before," plays the frayed-to-snapping Vargas. Through him, you get your first hint of how dire this situation is. Quark gives a fantastic monologue about the true nature of humans when you take away their creature comforts; he's looking at Reese when he delivers it, but it feels like Vargas is the embodiment of it, his humanity stripped beyond recovery. Cruz gets a great monologue of his own, explaining the significance of a bandage to Bashir, in another of the episodes most haunting moments.

Annette Helde is primarily a stage actor, and as it happens, I've seen her perform in person many times. Shortly before she played this role of Larkin, she was in residence for several years at the Denver Center Theater Company. It's a great choice to put a woman in this role that would be male in any given war movie, yet not to force the character to be hyper-masculine. Helde imbues Larkin with enough pathos, even in limited screen time, for her death to have weight when it comes.

Despite the great one-off guests stars, though, it's really an episode for the recurring characters to shine. Ezri must deal with past life confusion as she goes into battle for the first time, despite vast battle experience as Dax. (She's also the character to note the moral restructuring that happens when the Dominion's own mines are turned against them.) Bashir is the first to really understand how dire the situation on this planet is for the soldiers who have been stuck there, but is largely powerless to do anything about it but play a melancholy tune from Vic Fontaine ("I'll Be Seeing You," a song that was actually popular during World War II).

But the episode is most significant for the Ferengi characters. For Nog, the story is not just a loss of his leg, but a loss of his innocence; early in the episode, his biggest concern is being embarrassed by his uncle while on duty. Quark's role is to be a voice of hard truth. He seems to know all along what a horrible situation they're getting into, and he doesn't back down from confronting Sisko about it. In the end, he's forced to pick up a weapon himself.

Another significant role in the episode is filled by Paul Baillargeon, the composer. By edict of executive producer Rick Berman, the music in this era of Star Trek was so often anonymous and almost interchangeable. But this episode is a rare example of a prominent melody being established and repeated through the score. And the final battle montage is outstanding, the sound effects dropped way into the background to give center stage to the music. Melancholy music with ominous overtones goes perfectly with visuals as grisly as Star Trek (or 90s television) could get at the time.

Other observations:

• For a light moment in a dark episode, the teaser opens on Rom auditioning for Vic Fontaine with his take on "The Lady Is a Tramp" ("Scamp," in his version). Recently, in the DS9 retrospective documentary, we saw that Max Grodénchik is a decent singer. So, just as when Rom played baseball, this is another case of the actor dumbing it down for comedic effect.
  

• The casualty list is presented just as it was in a previous episode, so we know what it is even before it's explained in dialogue.
  

The final season of Deep Space Nine has had a lot of very solid episodes, but for me, "The Siege of AR-558" is the first true stand-out. I give it an A-.

A Tired Custom

The great promise of a legacy board game is the way it grows and changes while you play it. But you get that experience over the course of many, many plays that can take weeks or even months. It's only logical that someone would try to condense the same "evolving game" experience into a single-play game. That's Custom Heroes.

Each round of Custom Heroes begins with a shared deck of cards being dealt out evenly to all players. Each player also receives a random supply of transparencies they keep hidden behind a screen. The game comes with clear sleeves for all the cards, so that on your turn, you can pay the costs associated with one of your transparencies to slide it into the sleeve in front of the card, transforming it both visually (adding weapons to a character, for example) and mechanically (changing its number value).

It's a neat idea, but it's in service of a not-terribly-neat game. The game play is essentially identical to a public domain game you can play with a standard 52 card deck: President. (The most well-known published adaptation of that is The Great Dalmuti.) Basically, a "trick" opens with a player playing to the pot any number of cards all with a matching number. Play then proceeds around the table with everyone required to play the exact same total number of cards, while increasing the value played. The first player to run out of cards in hand wins the round; in Custom Heroes, that gives you victory points toward a winning score.

Meanwhile, players who finish the round later get more crafting points and transparencies to alter cards on future rounds -- a way to catch up. But every card you alter to help you in this round stays permanently changed when you reshuffle and redeal the deck for the next round. As the game unfolds over several rounds, an opponent's changed card might show up in your hand, and the mix of cards gets increasingly more diverse.

It's a trivially simple game... and in theory, I understand why. You have to have a simple skeleton for play here, so that altering the cards doesn't make it too complex in later rounds. But that's a tough balance to strike, and I don't think Custom Heroes does it very well. Round one is so straight-forward and without nuance that it simply isn't that fun. Your ability to win the hand is more a factor of luck than it is any strategy you might try to run.

If luck shuns you, though, you quickly wind up with an almost overwhelming number of potential card upgrade transparencies. The screens you use to hide them from the other players is so small that you end up stacking upgrades on top of each other, so you have to thumb through them all and grind the game to a halt every time you want to think about using one. Things can grow and change almost too fast.

And yet, they sort of have to, because the game doesn't actually last more than a couple rounds. This too, I can understand in theory. It's not that engaging a game, and if you were locked into it for, say, an hour or more, you'd get bored of it. (It barely sustains 30 minutes.) I can see the logic behind all the design choices here... yet I still find myself wishing that the game started with a "higher floor," unfolded a bit more slowly, and concluded with a "lower ceiling."

What I really wish is that it wasn't just so much random chaos. If you're a "serious gamer" who's ever played Fluxx with "less serious gamers," this experience will feel familiar. You don't play Custom Heroes so much as it plays you. There is a little bit more agency here than in Fluxx, I'd argue, so I'd certainly choose Custom Heroes to play (if forced to play one). Still, it all feels to me like a gimmick I hope someone else figures out how to use better somewhere else.

I'd give Custom Heroes a C-. It's short enough that I'd probably agree to another game of it, if that's what everyone else was keen to play. But it's not very satisfying, so I certainly wouldn't want it to be the only (or last) game of the night.

Fair Weather, Friend

Like many children raised in the 1980s, I was a fan of Huey Lewis and the News. I couldn't say for sure if that came before their biggest hit, "The Power of Love," was featured in Back to the Future, or if it came about from my love of that movie and everything associated with it. But I picked up Huey Lewis and the News albums well into the 90s, even their unusual compilation of 50s cover songs.

The band had essentially become a touring one only. They hadn't recorded new material since 2001, or an album of any kind since 2010. Then even the touring slowed and stopped, when Huey Lewis was diagnosed with Ménière's disease, suffering hearing loss significant enough that he could no longer sing.

But there is a new, more triumphant chapter in the story. Earlier this year, Huey Lewis and the News released a new album: Weather. (A title cheekily selected to echo their most successful album, Sports.) It's perhaps better characterized as two-thirds of an album: seven songs recorded before Lewis' hearing loss that were supposed to have been joined by more. Still it doesn't feel incomplete, it just feels short. It also feels like a high-concentration dose of what the band did best in its heyday.

The two best tracks are right up front. "While We're Young" is a slow tempo jam about enjoying the later years in life. I find it oddly uplifting, even empowering, and for those reasons a good song to visit now and then in a year like 2020. "Her Love Is Killing Me" is more like the band's classic sound, like parts of "The Heart of Rock & Roll," "Hip to Be Square," and "I Want a New Drug" all mixed perfectly in a blender. It's catchy as hell, and has a fun video in which a truly eclectic collection of fans take turns lip-syncing the lines.

You get a ballad with the new "I Am There for You," a rock shuffle in "Hurry Back Baby," and the funkier "Remind Me Why I Love You Again." There is one oddball 50s cover in the mix, the ludicrously kitsch "Pretty Girls Everywhere." You even get a straight-up country song (not my thing) in "One of the Boys." It's all laced with a punchy horn section, accented with Huey Lewis' trademark harmonica, and served with delightful nostalgia.

It's not an album where every song is great, beginning to end. But then, there aren't many of those. It is solid recommendation for anyone who ever liked Huey Lewis and the News at one point; this album will remind you why. I give Weather a B+. Or you can cherry-pick or Spotify the highlights like most people do these days for a Grade A experience.

Embrace the Dark

For years, I'd been hearing about the Netflix original series Dark... but more from "the ether" and not from people I knew who had seen it. Still, the series had been on the radar for a while, and moved up the list after releasing its third and final season just a few months ago. (It was complete! No better time to start!)

I will tell you now what I wish someone had told me: you really should try this show!

Dark is set in a German town littered with mysteries. It opens with an inexplicable suicide and soon expands to deal with a disappearance, decades-old unsolved crimes, mysterious figures arriving in town, and more. Much, much, more. Surprise is far from the only trick up Dark's sleeve, but spoiling any of the truly satisfying surprises just seems cruel, so I'll leave it at that.

Dark was Netflix's first German-language original series, but it feels like it was made by people who played close attention to a lot of American television, taking careful notes and learning valuable lessons. More than anything, I think it's taking its cues from early seasons of Lost, with an ever-expanding web of mysteries that are tightly entwined with characters and their histories. Unlike Lost, though, Dark rarely gets bogged down in the science-fiction puzzles to the detriment of the characters and their journeys. It's 26 episodes that always feels like they're heading somewhere, reaching a definitive and satisfying ending.

The show also feels strongly influenced by another Netflix show, Stranger Things. Here, the similarities are more a matter of tone, and of some superficial elements in the narrative. But while I personally soured on later seasons of Stranger Things, I only became more engrossed as I eagerly made my way through Dark. (My husband and I don't binge-watch things, generally... but rare was the night when we watched only one episode of Dark.)

Like I said, I don't want to spoil the experience for anyone. But I think I can give a few more specifics in praise of the show. The casting is superb. That "decades-old crimes" aspect of the plot does lead to time spent in the past, and so the same characters sometimes appear at different ages, played by different actors. The continuity in look and performance is absolutely top-notch, making strong connections for the viewer to latch onto. I'd go so far as to say that dual-casting of a role has never been done more effectively than it is in Dark.

The music is wonderful in enhancing the atmosphere of the show. The score by Ben Frost contains a number of eerie, repeating themes, and incredibly clever choices of instrumentation (if you let yourself stop and think about the choices being made). The structure of most episodes features a song (in English) just minutes before the final scene, and these montages are always a highlight both in presentation and in selection of the song for resonance.

The production values are outstanding. As the narrative sprawls, Dark features wilder and wilder settings, and each one is realized with compelling realism. Every time you might get to thinking "this is as big as the story gets; now I understand what Dark is," the story gets bigger. And each time, the production keeps up with no visible strain from the effort involved.

I would offer just two small caveats. First: while season two is unquestionably better than the already strong season one, season three dipped for me a bit in the middle. That last season has both a great opening and a solid ending, but arguably gets a little too tangled for its own good in the middle. (It's a rare moment where the series gets a little too involved in its sci-fi mysterious and relaxes its hold of the characters' narrative threads.) Second: I highly recommend watching it in the original German, with subtitles. We began episode one with the default English dubbing, but the voice-over performances grated on us enough that we changed over within the first few minutes... and we never looked back.

Overall, I give Dark an A-, and a strong recommendation. It's among my favorite genre series in recent memory.

Crisis Point

We're nearing the end of season one of Star Trek: Lower Decks. Up until this point, it's been a steady stream of "pretty good" episodes, but I've been waiting for that one "great" episode to come along. It finally did this week, with "Crisis Point."

Mariner bristles when she's ordered to spend time with a counselor, and winds up taking her therapy to the holodeck. There she commandeers Boimler's Cerritos training scenario, turning it into a movie starring her and her friends.

Star Trek has always had an odd relationship with the movies. Where it shines on television is in presenting moving character dramas, cerebral brain ticklers, and tales of thoughtful introspection. And you can make movies that are those things. But Star Trek is also a decades-long franchise, and huge studio franchises demand hundreds of millions of dollars, giant action, and wild spectacle. This is why the truly great Star Trek films are actually few and far between, often the result of a budget slash after a less-successful-than-hoped outing in the prior movie. The Wrath of Khan is as character-focused as the Trek movies get -- and no wonder, it's among the cheapest, and the best one.

"Crisis Point" indulged all the excesses of Star Trek films to hilarious effect. Every episode of Lower Decks is packed with enough Star Trek references that you could imagine re-watching just to make sure you didn't miss anything the first time around. "Crisis Point" multiplied that feeling, just as every Star Trek movie multiplies the spectacle. The story featured -- for no real reason -- an overlong sequence of beauty shots of the Cerritos, a Shakespeare-monologuing villain, a catwalk fight, a ship crash, and more. Even the jokes had jokes: when the "cast" of the "movie" signed off with their signatures (a la Star Trek VI), Boimler dotted his "i" with a Star Trek chevron.

Because "this is what you do with a movie," the aspect ratio of the picture was widened, lens flare was everywhere, "visual effects" from phaser blasts to warp drive looked more over-the-top... everything was just 25-50% more grandiose. And then, because they were really paying attention to the details, every scene was color-adjusted just a little differently, treated with film scratches, and backed by a score clearly composed to evoke the work of James Horner.

But... and here's the key... the actual story was perhaps Lower Decks' most personal, most direct character story yet. It was driving right at Mariner's self-revelation, a real breakthrough moment for her. (And of course, as soon as her change comes, Boimler stumbles onto the secret of her relationship with Captain Freeman, to propel the story in a new direction.) None of what we saw was shocking or especially deep character work, but it mined out more than any primarily-comedic cartoon usually does.

And so I found it Lower Decks' best episode yet. I give it an A-. I'm looking forward to next week's season finale.

The Doctor Is In

It was about a year ago (or a decade ago, in COVID time) that I was reading Stephen King's The Shining for the first time, and speculating that I might want to read the sequel, Doctor Sleep before seeing its then-upcoming movie adaptation. It didn't work out that way. I still might want to read the book some day, but I did watch the movie.

I come to this movie from a perhaps unusual place. Many people revere Stanley Kubrick's movie adaptation of The Shining; I'm not one of them. Neither was my reaction to it tainted because Stephen King himself reportedly hates it. I'm basically a heretic to both sides of this fan feud: I thought The Shining was a pretty middle-of-the-road horror movie.

What I find amusing in all that is that (in film form, at least) Doctor Sleep barely feels like a sequel to The Shining. It all builds to a climax at the Overlook Hotel (more on that in a moment), but it's otherwise a pretty independent story, about being haunted by psychic abilities and tormented by evil creatures. It fits as a Shining sequel, but I'm not even sure The Shining would be required viewing to "prep" for this movie.

So, setting comparisons aside, I did like the neat tightrope this movie managed to walk between the fantastical and the grounded. Ewan McGregor is the perfect lead actor to make you feel the real-world weight of battling alcoholism, struggling with PTSD, and facing trauma. (Not that this performance is anything like his breakout role in Trainspotting, but it feels like there's a connective tissue there.) That these real-world troubles issues have supernatural origins in this tale is beside the point.

There are exceptional child actors in the movie too. Kyleigh Curran doesn't have many film credits on her resume, but I'd say she deserves a bunch based on her work here. It would be spoiling too much of the plot, I think, to highlight the things she's called on to do in this movie, but she's great throughout. There's also Jacob Tremblay -- a more known young actor, and in a surprisingly small role here -- but he makes a big impact.

The movie also has great villains. Rebecca Ferguson is the ringleader of an unusual and vaguely defined gang. (The book might say more about it, but I'd bet not much.) She's a potent blend of seduction and menace. She's surrounded by half a dozen other goons, many played by recognizable character actors, who remain unsettling throughout the movie.

The musical score is a distinct creation of its own, compelling and fitting to the movie and yet nothing I'd ever want to own the soundtrack to. (It's dominated by a heartbeat rhythm that's as much sound effect as musical composition.) The visuals are often compelling and unusual, with strange camera placements and prominent color choices.

But you can only set aside comparisons for so long. This movie is a Shining sequel, and really embraces this in its final 30 minutes. Yet it's an odd embrace: gimmicky yet appropriate, predictable yet thrilling. That the movie ends where and how it does really doesn't make sense plot-wise, and is really the only way that it could end thematically. My understanding is there is some odd friction here in trying to please Stephen King; the book Doctor Sleep is an explicit sequel to his Shining book, deliberately rejecting changes made in the movie version. Writer-director Mike Flanagan had to really thread the needle to reconcile the differences and please Stephen King. He did (reportedly), but I can't help but feel that some of the strangeness (which I don't want to spoil) is a telltale sign of these adaptation issues.

Still, Stephen King stories are often known for their weak endings, and I think the ending of this movie is a fair amount better than some in the King novels I've read. Certainly, it doesn't detract from what I enjoyed about the rest of the movie. I'd give Doctor Sleep a B+. Some day, I might make time to read the original book. Until then, at least, I'll hold this movie in fairly high esteem.

DS9 Flashback: Once More Unto the Breach

With the Deep Space Nine writers looking back at the series for themes and characters to revisit one last time in the final season, their attention fell on the character of Kor. This resulted in "Once More Unto the Breach."

With his political power faded, Kor comes to Worf for a job aboard a Klingon ship, where he might die in glorious battle. But Martok has a bitter hatred for Kor, and is incensed at Worf's efforts to help. Plus, Kor's mental faculties are in decline, which may put all of them at risk on their dangerous mission.

In the early seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I'd often ding episodes for focusing too much on their guest stars and not enough on the main characters. Part of me wants to ding this episode for the same reason: it's an episode all about Kor, who has appeared only twice prior on the show (plus once in the original series and once on the animated series). The meaty roles in this story are his and Martok's. Worf's part is marginal at best, a fact which actor Michael Dorn even brought to script writer Ronald Moore's attention. Moore acknowledged the issue, saying he'd imagined more of a "caught in the middle" struggle for Worf (that didn't really materialize), and promising he would fight to give Worf a good story before the series ended.

Deep Space Nine earns episodes like this, though. Over years, it patiently built up a stable of secondary characters through increasingly prominent appearances, to the point where it feels as necessary to feature them in episodes as the characters listed in the opening credits. I myself probably wouldn't have put Kor into that category... but then, I don't always like the Klingon-centric stories. And if maybe I wouldn't give Kor a big send-off, I don't begrudge one for actor John Colicos, whose decades-long career and place in science fiction fandom (besides this, he was the original Baltar in the original Battlestar Galactica) merit attention. Indeed, this performance in "Once More Unto the Breach," was his final acting role before his death.

It really is a fine meal for John Colicos. He starts out almost the villain in his entitlement, appropriate since the character began as a villain some 30 years prior. But his sliding mental faculties make him sympathetic, and his quiet retort to the mocking by Martok and his crew flips the roles and makes Martok the villain for a moment. Kor gets other great moment too: offering condolences to Worf over the death of Jadzia, reminiscing with Ezri Dax (and once again showing how cool he is with the changing nature of Trills), and regaling an audience with tales of triumph.

And there's a lot more to like in the episode. The central conflict here is one of class struggle, and it's quite compelling. Ronald Moore was looking for something to put Kor and Martok against each other, and says he was inspired by the actors' performances: John Colicos seemed to play Kor as an aristocratic and entitled figure, while J.G. Hertzler played Martok as more of a down-to-earth man. The story that Martok's career was blocked by the casual disdain of the lofty Kor -- a moment so insignificant to Kor that he can't even remember it -- feels honest and potent.

Hertzler, who considered his own family to be blue collar, relished the story he'd been given, and really threw himself into this performance. Some of the best flourishes in the episode were his. When explaining his feud with Kor, the detail that Martok's father died before Martok became an officer was a line Hertzler added -- and ad libs were something the actors on Star Trek are almost never allowed to do. At the end, when the crew sings in honor of Kor, the fact that Martok does not join them was a specific choice Hertzler fought for -- he knew Martok could pity the man, but never truly forgive him.

Worf is on the sidelines for most of the episode, but still comes in off the bench for one or two good moments. His opening comment to Bashir and O'Brien as they debate the Alamo is insightful: essentially that there is no point in having a legend if you aren't going to believe in it. (This is the same thesis statement that closes the episode.) The moment Worf catches a thrown knife right out the air is almost ridiculous, but executed so well that it actually works. And in the end, he goes full Starfleet with a wild, technology-based plan to save the day.

Also at the margins, we have a short little subplot about Quark misunderstanding half of a conversation, concluding that Dax is going back to Worf again, and giving her an intervention of sorts. Yes, Quark has personal interests in mind here, but his speech is laced with enough truth and passion that it doesn't come off that way. (Indeed, Ezri is moved.) The conversation that kicks off the misunderstanding is fun too, with Ezri and Kira having a very natural "part-serious, part-humorous" talk between friends.

Other observations:

• Guest actor Neil Vipond makes a real meal of his small role as Martok's aide Darok. It's a shame the character wasn't brought back again after this. Or perhaps more a shame that, if he wasn't going to be brought back, he didn't go off with Kor on the desperate mission to save them rest.
  

• More great final season visuals. The atmospheric maneuvers of the Klingon ships, with strafing runs and a mix of CG ships and practical explosions, looks great. In contrast, we don't see Kor's final battle... which actually works better for the story and isn't just a matter of saving money.

• Ezri orders a Moscow Mule, a rare moment when a real-world alcoholic beverage is mentioned in Star Trek.

Even though I might not have bothered with a sendoff for Kor, I mostly liked this episode. I give "Once More Unto the Breach" a B.