The 37's

The second season of Star Trek: Voyager began with "The 37's," an episode intended as the finale of season one, until network executives chose to hold it (and three other episodes) to start the next fall season weeks ahead of other networks.

Voyager discovers a group of humans in stasis, all abducted by aliens in 1937 and transported across the galaxy -- including famed pilot Amelia Earhart. Waking them and explaining their fates is not without incident, but the real conundrum comes when the Voyager crew faces the choice to abandon their journey home to settle permanently in the Delta Quadrant.

There are a lot of fascinating ideas in this episode that aren't particularly well executed. Or rather, it's more that there are at least three different points where the episode could settle and be "about" one thing, only to pass it up in pursuit of something else.

The mystery of how objects and people from Earth got to the Delta Quadrant seems like plenty of material for an entire episode. After all, there are so many unanswered (and unanswerable?) questions here! Is it pure coincidence that in all of space, Voyager happened upon this area? Why did aliens from the Delta Quadrant want these humans anyway? Why go all the way across the galaxy to get them? Why, after depositing humans on a planet, did they let loose a truck to float in space? Where did the aliens flee to?

Yet all television shows we know of are made for humans, of course. So perhaps these alien motivations wouldn't make for compelling drama. OK then, why not make more of a meal out of eight people from the 20th century waking up in the 24th? They're shown to be rather culturally diverse (certainly by 1990s TV standards); surely they'll all have different reactions to their situation. Why put Amelia Earhart here to do almost nothing with that? (And give the game away by showing her name in the opening credits?)

But okay, maybe the writers weren't interested in any of that because The Next Generation already made a (rather poor) episode along the same lines? So why not give us more about the story of humans who made a colony out of nothing and thrived halfway across the galaxy? The arrival of humans who actually come from Earth could be a real fracture point for their society -- how about give us the episode about that? These humans seem pre-warp, you could even throw a good old-fashioned Star Trek dilemma about the Prime Directive in there!

No... the writers aren't here for that either. We get essentially 35 minutes of setup for a 10 minute episode about whether the crew is going to settle in the Delta Quadrant and give up the journey back home. And admittedly, that could have been a good episode too! But we hardly get enough of it.

If there hadn't been so much budget needlessly squandered on landing the ship, they might have actually shown us the wondrous cities that we only hear about, that the human colonists created. Seeing them would have actually put something on the other side of the scale, making tangible the thing our heroes might consider staying for. Getting to this plot sooner than the final act would have left more time for scenes like the good one between Kim and B'Elanna, where they actually discuss "should I stay or should I go?"

But I think a more grievous error even than forcing a good story into too small a space is the way they chose to end it: having no one from Voyager choose the stay behind. That's ludicrous. 10 people can't agree on pizza toppings; 160+ people are all going to agree on what to do with potentially the rest of their lives? Maybe if this was like, the second episode, you could accept that everyone is still harboring hopes of getting back home to Earth. But they've been out there a while now. Think about how, after a few months of pandemic life, you were itching for anything different? Same thing here.

And while I'm sure it's meant to be unifying and inspiring that everyone chooses to stay with Janeway and Chakotay, I really don't think it plays that way. We get more than one scene of them expressing real doubt over how many people they're going to lose. Because they end up losing no one, to me this indicates a massive disconnect between "how they think it's going" and "how it's really going." Seems to me they really don't know their crew at all, which is not the sterling statement on their leadership the writers intended.

Other observations:

• The reactions to the truck backfire are pretty funny, especially Tuvok pulling his phaser. But the joke kind of relies on them knowing what a gunshot sounds like when they don't know what a truck backfire sounds like. Shouldn't both be equally foreign to them?
  

• It's funny: the whole reason there even are transporters on Star Trek is that for the original series, it would have been cost-prohibitive to show the ship landing all the time. But decades later when Voyager can do it... it's not only quite superfluous to this story, it looks plain goofy. Those tiny little landing pads look like something out of a 50s sci-fi movie. And how heavy must the back of the ship be for the whole thing to not just topple forward on the saucer when it touches down? (Although I'll admit, a blue sky out the conference room window is a striking visual.)
  

• Sharon Lawrence, then on NYPD Blue, was a big "get" at the time for Amelia Earhart. But it's kind of surprising how little she has to do in the episode.
  

There are a ton of interesting ideas here, enough to keep me from truly disliking the episode. And yet, the way the writers cruise right by the potentially good stuff, deftly avoiding anything with a whiff of actual conflict, is quite disappointing. I give "The 37's" a C+.

For the People?

The U.S. Supreme Court made news last week by agreeing to hear a case next term that could enable the newly enlarged conservative supermajority to erode or even reverse abortion rights throughout the country. I was already primed for disdain of the Court, having just recently finished reading a book by Adam Cohen, Supreme Inequality.

The book's subtitle hides nothing of the author's thesis: The Supreme Court's Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America. The introduction frames a compelling argument that almost everything that liberal-minded people tend to think about the Supreme Court is wrong. "It's a backstop for justice, a champion for the little guy, a bastion of hope for people who the system has otherwise wronged." Cohen argues that it was, for a too-brief 15 year period under Chief Justice Earl Warren, but that in the 50 years since, landmark rulings protecting those with less power have otherwise been shockingly few and far between.

I'm not sure there's a clear organization to the chapters that follow, but each one is well argued unto itself. Perhaps it's just that there are so many examples of injustice to choose from that it defies any organizational principle. The book goes on to look at cases where rights were at stake for voters, workers, targets of discrimination, and much, much more. Almost always, the Court majority chips away at equality, any reasonable concept of fairness, even self-determination.

Remember the hearings for Brett Kavanaugh, asks Adam Cohen? How, aside from the allegations of sexual misconduct against him, many feared the Court would lurch sharply to the right with him on it? (The book was written before Amy Coney Barrett was appointed.) That only represented a small move from just how far to the right the Court already was. The last time the Court was anything close to centrist or left? You'd have to go back to when Richard Nixon applied political pressure to force the resignation of Abe Fortas in 1969.

I find it rather surprising, though, that the book does not go on to offer any conclusions or proposals in response. Does the author simply find the situation hopeless? Or think it sufficient to simply shame? After making the case so thoroughly for why the Supreme Court should change, it feels like a glaring omission that it makes no arguments as to how. Term limits? Additional members? Something else?

As far a recommendation goes? Well, you might not need any more rage over politics in your life right now. But Supreme Inequality is a rather brisk read for a heavy topic. It makes clear and accessible many case names you may have heard of without fully understanding (Buckley v. Valeo, Ledbetter v. Goodyear, etc). I would give the book a B overall. It may not be recreational reading for most people, but it's a potent case for why liberal voters -- who tend not to prioritize the Supreme Court enough -- should care.

2020's Lone Summer Blockbuster

This weekend could be said to be a momentous one in movie theaters around the United States: the "big movie" is coming out of hibernation. After more than a year in which the expected $100 million movies would either release simultaneously for streaming or not be released at all, A Quiet Place Part II is arriving only in theaters to a hopefully eager audience.

But there was one movie that dared to show up only in theaters during the pandemic, that optimistically poked its head up last summer only to flop: director Christopher Nolan's latest event film, Tenet. Did it fail because few people were willing to go to a movie theater in September of 2020? Almost certainly. But now that I've been able to catch up with the movie, I posit that Tenet was going to fall short of expectations in any case. It's not a bad movie by any stretch. But I've seen all of Christopher Nolan's full-length features, and it is the "worst" of the lot.

A few things about the movie are just plain good. You get many of the striking visuals that are now the signature of a Christopher Nolan movie. And in between the most eye-catching visuals (like a building assembling-then-exploding again-in-a-different-place all in one shot), there are a lot of very subtle shots that are actually quite difficult when you pause to think about them. There are many tricky scenes where you will think "oh, they just ran the film backward there"... and sometimes, they did. But plenty of shots mix forward and backward elements together, defying such a simplistic solution. In an age where one assumes a computer can do anything, it's nice to still be wowed with a "how did they do that?" moment.

I also hope this movie marks the official arrival of John David Washington as action movie hero -- at least, if he wants it. His father Denzel, throughout his career, flipped back and forth between prestige pics and popcorn movies, and it seems to me like he has the same chops: he's great at the action, while also clearly showing more going on beneath the surface. (It's actually a good cast throughout, though it features many members of Nolan's "repertory company" of favorite actors.)

But there's also a lot about the movie that's middling -- chiefly, how the plot pulls off the seemingly impossible feat of being both terribly predictable and utterly incomprehensible at the same time. Unless you are asleep at the wheel as a viewer, you are going to know every single "plot twist" of this movie before it happens. That's the nature of the story here, telegraphing all the moves in advance... and it's simply not as subtle as, say, Memento is at hiding things in plain sight. Yet even when you know what a future scene is obliged to be, the moment-to-moment logic of getting from one action sequence to the next is impenetrable. I'm someone who never understood the need for all those internet articles and info-graphics meant to explain the seems-pretty-straightforward-to-me plotting of Inception. But compared to that, Tenet is a crazed conspiracy theorist's wall loaded with photos, newspaper clippings, and red yarn. The major organs are all there; the connective tissue is weak and cannot bear the load.

Then there's the just plain bad: chiefly, the audio mix. I'd forgotten hearing complaints on the internet about the sound in Tenet, but if anything, it's worse than advertised. About 20 minutes in, we turned on the subtitles and just left them on; this was validated as the right decision with dozens of instances of inaudible dialogue we'd have to read, and supposed noises like laughs and grunts that I would swear on anything are not there. It's as though Nolan raised Inception's BWAAAAANG with Interstellar's deafening pipe organ, then just pushed all in here with composer Ludwig Göransson's all-encompassing score. I can't even decide whether I think it's a good score. (Is all the backmasking of instruments clever or obvious? Why not both?) In any case, I feel sorry for anyone who actually did see this in a theater; it's hard enough to follow even when you do know all of the dialogue.

Still, if you don't really mind much how you're getting from one action sequence to the next, there's a lot of fun to be had in watching Tenet. Fist fights, car chases, stealth infiltration, all-out military engagements... Tenet has it all, as big or bigger than a James Bond film. But would I ever watch it again? No, I can't imagine I ever would. So I'll give Tenet a C+. Christopher Nolan completists will need to see it at some point, but here's hoping that the re-opening world of blockbusters we're about to enter will serve us up better action fare.

Here's the "Things"

One of the more delightful examples of "pandemic entertainment" was the movie Palm Springs, which not only appealed to the "every day is exactly the same" vibe everyone felt, but was also a quite clever twist on the "Groundhog Day" formula. If that movie had never existed, then a newer movie now on Amazon Prime would have been quite the revelation. As it is, though, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things -- which already knew it was living in the shadow of Groundhog Day -- lives a bit in the shadow of another movie.

Adapted by Lev Grossman from his own short story, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things opens on teenager Mark, already succumbing to boredom from being stuck in a repeating time loop of the same day. When he discovers that the mysterious Margaret is also trapped, though, things begin to look up. He begins to recognize some of the simple beauty around him, and develops a theory for how they might escape their predicament.

Assuming you make room for the idea that there can be "other Groundhog Day movies" (and I do), then it's true that even though there are a lot of similarities here to Palm Springs, there are differences too. This is a teenage version of the premise, and its main idea is perhaps a little adjacent to American Beauty's (in)famous "plastic bag in the wind" scene -- the world is full of "tiny, perfect" moments, if only you're open to recognizing and appreciating them. I've heard many people call that the most hokey element in American Beauty, but it feels less random here and is certainly given more space. Perhaps the crowd that didn't like American Beauty might still respond to this.

The two leads make a pretty good pair. Kathryn Newton broods well as Margaret, letting both Kyle and the audience in just enough to be sympathetic while not feeling secretive merely for the sake of plot. It's no surprise that the character's attitude speaks to a hidden secret, and Newton performs well when it's revealed. Kyle Allen is goofy and fun as Mark. Palm Springs again steps on this movie a bit, as Andy Samberg is known for man-child silliness (while also having a deeper emotional gear on occasion). But Allen also plays the type well enough, and he and Newton are good together.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things isn't very long at 99 minutes, though it does start to run out of steam a little as it closes on the finish. Still, it has managed to serve up enough nice moments along the way to earn a little indulgence. I'd say it isn't really an essential movie, but I found it fairly enjoyable. I give it a B-. If you haven't seen Palm Springs, I honestly don't know if the recommendation is "see this before you see Palm Springs" or "go see Palm Springs!" Maybe you have Hulu, or Amazon Prime, but not both -- and that will settle it. But if you liked one movie, you'll probably like the other well enough.

Epic Fail

Have you ever heard of The Dana Carvey Show? It's easy to assume no, as the half-hour variety show starring the former Saturday Night Live alum only aired 7 episodes, 25 years ago. But it's quite possible you have heard of it, as it's one of the more infamous, large-scale flops in television history.

Either way, you might enjoy a documentary on Hulu about the show, Too Funny to Fail. It's a look back on the series, why a niche audience loves it to this day, how it assembled a ridiculous roster of up-and-coming talent, and just what the hell happened for it to implode so spectacularly.

If you're not in the know, it's worth pausing for a moment to point out just how many now-heavy-hitters were associated with The Dana Carvey Show. The cast included Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and Robert Smigel, among others. They all contributed to the writing, along with Charlie Kaufman, Jon Glaser, Dino Stamatopoulos, Spike Feresten (who left Seinfeld for this!), Robert Carlock, and Louis C.K.

You can watch the documentary for a thorough explanation of why a sketch show with all those comedians didn't work, but it boils down to the same recipe that has made many a cult favorite: "no one is gonna tell US what to do... and what we do is only going to appeal (deeply) to a narrow audience." Too Funny to Fail shows a lot of great clips from the show -- some truly hilarious, some that hit you more in a "this is funny, even though I'm not laughing out loud" sort of way.

The documentary itself is also pretty funny, though. This really shouldn't be surprising, given that they're interviewing a lot of very funny people who use the opportunity to do bits for the documentary team. But the movie itself is edited in a wry and clever way, full of snarky on-screen captions and hilarious juxtaposition. (The biggest laugh in the entire documentary comes when they show an actual commercial that aired in 1996, for a "very special" Home Improvement episode, followed by a new Dana Carvey Show. The reactions are priceless.)

I don't know that this film is really going to the heart of what's funny and why -- or even if one documentary should shoulder the burden of asking that. But it's a great examination of creative minds at work (and play). They thought it made sense at the time, they mostly seem to stand by it now, and if you're the sort of person who would make time for this documentary, you'll probably get that.

I think Too Funny to Fail is a solid B. If you want a good laugh -- and especially if you like Steve Carell and/or Stephen Colbert -- you should check it out.

Sommar Lovin'?

I loved the horror movie Hereditary. But only after I saw it did I learn just how polarizing it was; plenty of people out there apparently hate it. I figured my own reaction meant I should give any other movies by writer-director Ari Aster a chance. That's why I watched Midsommar... and how I found myself on the other side of a polarizing movie experience.

Midsommar centers on university student Dani, in the aftermath of a horrible personal tragedy. She goes on a trip to rural Sweden, where a friend has invited them to participate in a midsummer celebration lasting many days. This being a horror movie, this celebration involves some messed-up shit.

Although...

It almost feels like a stretch to call this a horror movie. To be sure, there are plenty of moments literally meant to horrify, violent displays of gore, disturbing examples of inhuman behavior, and more. But Midsommar is also slow-paced to the point that it's lethargic, and often aggressively weird. I found it rather like bringing the film-making sensibilities of 2001 or Apocalypse Now to the horror genre. And given how I feel about those movies, compared to how I know many others feel? Yeah, this one is going to be polarizing.

I found the slow pacing ultimately quite frustrating, but I have to admit that it mostly works in the moment. The movie grabs you right away with an effective teaser, and then proceeds to use space in an effective way. The tension does slowly ratchet up... and then usually, right as you're becoming bored that "nothing is happening," you do get a moment of genuine horror. For many, that will be a winning formula. For me, I only felt strung along to the next such moment.

By the halfway point, I'd gone too far to give up. And yes, the finale does serve up a big heaping pile of insanity. But the movie is nearly two-and-a-half hours long (with a director's cut apparently 30 minutes more still!) and I didn't find it worth it. The truth is, much of what's most effectively creepy in the movie is camera moves and music. The story isn't all that great -- and the plot moves are laid bare in front of you to see well before they come.

I'm quite sure that many people out there would love Midsommar, and I'm pretty sure a few of them will read this. But I'm not sure how to identify them. I can't say "if you liked Hereditary, try this." I loved Hereditary, and pretty much hated this -- I'd give it a D-. Is the 2001 / Apocalypse Now touchstone enough? I don't know, but I'd say unless you feel pretty confident, err on the side of skipping it.

Voyager Flashback: Learning Curve

The writers of Star Trek: Voyager weren't planning for "Learning Curve" to be the finale of their first season. Four more episodes were filmed before the official break in production, but a decision was made above their heads to hold those episodes for season two. As a result, this decidedly non-finale-like episode became the finale.

Bad attitudes among some Maquis crew members are becoming a distraction on the ship, so Tuvok is assigned as their "Starfleet Academy teacher" to whip them into shape. Meanwhile, malfunctions in Voyager's bioneural gel packs are caused by an unexpected source.

This isn't a bad episode of Star Trek, but there sure were a lot of bad decisions in making it. First and foremost, this is the moment when Voyager once and for all resolved the idea of a split Starfleet and Maquis crew that could generate internal story friction. Even though the writers had realized that a contradictory character like Seska had been useful to have around, did they seize the opportunity to create more Seskas in their midst? No... they normalized them all in one fell swoop, for the sake of one Tuvok episode.

Another problem is how "Lower Decks"-y this episode is. You can't blame them for wanting their own version of one of the best episodes of Star Trek (made just one year earlier on The Next Generation). But on Voyager, it's hard to have a story based on previously-unknown characters when we don't even really know the main characters all that well yet. "Lower Decks" worked as an episode in large part because it touched on so many in the main cast, and the audience had an understanding of those people that the "grunts" on the ship did not. Here, Tuvok isn't well known -- and being Vulcan, is maybe unknowable to an extent. We don't even get the satisfaction of meeting new recurring faces here; not a single one of the Maquis characters in this episode ever appears again.

Yet another problem I have with this episode is admittedly more subjective, a matter of taste. Starfleet obviously is a military organization; every week, we're confronted with this fact in the form of ranks, barked orders, "yes, sir"s, and more. But their primary mission of exploration and diplomacy is decidedly not militaristic. Different fans watch Star Trek for different reasons, of course... but I for one could do with as few of the military trappings as possible. "Learning Curve" puts them all front and center.

This episode serves up all the "boot camp" cliches, repackaged in a sci-fi format: the 10-mile run, the "cleaning the floor with a toothbrush," the systematic dehumanization of recruits to build them into a fighting unit. And maybe, to achieve maximum military efficiency, this is the only way to do it. But I'd like to think that centuries in the future, there might be less humiliating ways to make a soldier. And of course, I personally don't want to think of Star Trek characters as soldiers.

Tuvok is frankly pretty dumb in this episode. His character arc, learning that he himself has things to learn from the Maquis, is premised on him not understanding a very simple problem. If he really has taught at the Academy for 16 years, as Janeway says, then surely he should recognize that the key difference here is that these people never wanted to join Starfleet Academy. Instead, it takes Neelix to open his eyes to this. Neelix. Not Chakotay, or B'Elanna Torres, or Tom Paris -- you know, the characters who actually understand the Maquis, yet who have learned to fit in on Voyager. It's a symptom of another problem that would grow on Voyager in the coming seasons: not knowing what to do with their characters even when it was staring them right in the face.

But even if the story arc doesn't quite make sense to me, it is a nice enough story as it unfolds. Tuvok learns to take advice from someone he would otherwise dismiss. He learns that sometimes, even the "tried and true" methods have to be changed to get results. This is all paired with a reasonably fun "problem of the week" for the ship. Having Voyager "get sick" is a fun way of actually doing something with the Macguffin of its "bioneural" technology. Sure, it comes at the expense of Neelix and his cooking almost destroying the ship -- but we already don't much like Neelix or his cooking anyway. (Neelix himself could learn the lesson of "try a different approach when you're not getting results.)

Other observations:

• More time wasted with Janeway and her Victorian holonovel. Are we supposed to be getting invested in an ongoing story line here? Is her conflict with this bratty child and his traumatized sister meant to reflect on the main plot in any way?

• The chatterbox character of Chell is written very much like Neelix. And performed rather like him too, by guest star Derek McGrath. When I saw this episode the first time it aired, part of me was convinced that Ethan Phillips had just put on different alien makeup to play the part.

• "Get the cheese to Sickbay" is, admittedly, one of the funniest lines of the entire series.

• In the climax to cure the ship, the sweat on all the characters is also funny... though unintentionally so. They really overdid it on Kes.

• There was apparently an ending, cut for time, in which Neelix shows Tuvok some kind of "trick" he learned from the Maquis, which was actually something Tuvok had been teaching them in his training regimen. It was meant to cement that they really had come around, and it's a shame it didn't make it into the final cut. But no, we couldn't leave out Janeway's holonovel!
  

I'd say that "Learning Curve" is a C+ episode. (Probably all the boot camp cliches just rubbed me the wrong way.)

So there you have it -- Star Trek: Voyager: Season One. My picks for the best five episodes of the season would be "Eye of the Needle," "Cathexis," "Phage," "Heroes and Demons," and "State of Flux." (Though I'd probably only curate "Eye of the Needle" -- along with the pilot episode -- into a package of "good and/or essential Voyager.")

Onward to season two...

Hate the Player?

"The sequel isn't as good as the original" may be an enduring cliche, but it's generally true. Then there are the sequels that fall so far short, they make you question your opinion of the original.

Few modern authors have had a debut as big as author Ernest Cline with Ready Player One. When your book enters the zeitgeist so hard that Steven Spielberg is directing the movie adaptation just a few years later? Yeah, your publisher is going to be asking for a sequel. My recollection is that Cline resisted for a time, saying in interviews that he'd only do a follow-up if the right idea came along.

It's not the idea of Ready Player Two that I question; it's the execution. Plot-wise, it's pretty much everything that a fan of book one would expect in a sequel. The characters all return for a new adventure, loaded with a new barge of 1980s references and new fanciful VR technology. In concept, it's all pretty good.

But to borrow the endlessly repeated exclamation from the book: "holy shit." Holy shit, is the exposition awkward and laborious. Ready Player Two has at least as much long-winded world building in it as it does narrative. (And it has more pop culture shout-outs than either.) It takes almost a quarter of the book before the background is finally all set up and the actual story begins to unfold.

Part of the problem is how much repetition there is. Rarely does a chapter go by without repeating information established in a previous chapter. At first, I thought it was unsubtle planting of details that would come around to be important at the conclusion of the story. (And sometimes, it is.) A lot of the time, it's also Cline preemptively trying to address criticisms about holes in his plotting -- pausing the entire narrative for paragraphs at a time to tell his readers, "see, I thought of that... but you're wrong because...."

In the end, it seems mostly like this pedantic world building is the material Cline is truly interested in: imagining what the world would be like if everyone had access to convincing virtual reality. (It seems his editor agreed, leaving a lot of bloat in the story that really ought not to be there.) Well, that, and showing off just how much he knows (or researched) about early Japanese video games, John Hughes movies, children's shows of decades past, and what-not. I suppose this kind of material was the major draw the first time around, but it feels like leftovers this time -- stale and reheated.

A plot does eventually manifest, and it's probably not spoiling much to say that it involves another "Easter Egg hunt" along the lines of the first book. It probably shouldn't be any other way for a sequel. And yet, the stakes of this new hunt are ratcheted sky high and put under a preposterous time pressure, to a degree that it makes any "fun" happening in the book feel implausible. With a deadline so short, with consequences so large, it can only make for one awkward situation after another. The book also wants to serve up all that 80s pop culture that made Ready Player One such a hit... and yet all the time swapping geeky references feels like wasting precious seconds in light of the circumstances.

Also, strangely, I get the sense from Ready Player Two that Ernest Cline must not have liked the film adaptation of Ready Player One very much. I say this because he clearly has made choice after choice with his sequel to render it as near to "unfilmable" as possible. There's tons of inner monologue, lots of beats in the story, and too many impossible-to-secure-the-rights and too-obscure-for-most-people references -- that are too tightly bound into the narrative to easily be changed. (Like the "Shining for Wargames" switch of the first movie and book.) Does Cline not want to see a movie of this book?

Amid all these elements I doubt in the writing, I can report at least one joy in the reading. That's the fact that I listened to the audiobook version this time, which was performed by Wil Wheaton. I missed his reading of the first book, and it seems like I may have missed quite a lot. Wheaton is rather different than many audiobook performers I've heard, at least in this case. He doesn't go as far in creating distinctive voices for the different characters here -- one gets an accent, and that's about it. But he more than makes up for it with a powerfully enthusiastic performance. This especially suits the first-person narrative here, and you very quickly buy into the wildest parts of the adventure because of the committed delivery.

But overall, I can only see Ready Player Two as a big disappointment. When I look back at how I graded Ready Player One, I was actually more muted than many, calling it a B+. In comparison to that, I think it quite generous to call Ready Player Two a C-. Unless you simply loved the original (more than me) and just gotta have more, I'd say it's best to skip it.

It's a Trap

Recently, I've written about a few cheaply made independent movies that didn't thrill me. So it's time to mention one that... well, okay, it didn't thrill me. But it was interesting, and maybe some of my readers would consider it worth a look.

Time Trap is a 2017 sci-fi film that seems like it gives away too much in its title. A pair of college students head out into the desert in search of their missing professor, with two younger kids in tow. They head into a cave they believe he explored, and then... things begin to get strange.

If you think you can guess what happens next, what's happening to them? I bet you're right. If you think you can guess what happens after that? Well... I bet you're right about that too. But if you think you know what's going to happen next? Well, let's just say that I thought I had the rough shape of the movie mapped out when, just shy of the halfway point, it took a wild turn that surprised the hell out of me.

It is definitely a weakness of the movie that you spend a great deal of it far ahead of the characters. Because you know they're in a movie and they don't, because you've seen sci-fi / thriller movies, and yes, because you know the title of this one, you're armed with a lot of information that it takes these characters far too long to catch up with. But this movie does want to operate within the tight space of a specific premise, and explore every inch of that space. So patience is eventually rewarded with the some exciting and fascinating developments.

I can't promise you much here. The acting is decent enough, though it doesn't feel like anyone has found their breakout role that will catapult them to stardom. The visual effects are pretty solid; the march of technology has democratized camera trickery to a degree that even a movie made cheaply like this can still present you some nifty images. Years from now, am I going to be saying, "you know what the best sci-fi movie you've never heard of is? Time Trap." No.

But... at a brisk 95 minutes, this movie packs in far more ideas than many Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters manage. Directors Mark Dennis and Ben Foster (working with a script by Dennis) seem to be putting "let's make a movie" into practice, and the results aren't half bad. I give Time Trap a B-.

Hidden Gold?

I recently played a new "(blank) and write" game that, while not becoming a personal favorite of mine, feels like a great new option for the gaming hobby at large. "And writes" are perhaps the most popular trend in board games right now (write now?). They're games in which players take turns by marking off things on a personal score sheet, modern successors to the general idea behind Yahtzee.

In Silver & Gold, from designer Phil Walker-Harding, the system is "flip and write": turn a card face up from a very small shuffled deck. That card shows a geometric shape made up of 3 or 4 squares (think Tetris). You have to cross off squares in that shape on one of two dry-erase island cards you have in front of you. Islands come in many different configurations, take 8 to 14 squares to complete, and are worth points equal to the number of their squares when you do. (You then select a new island from a face up array of four to begin working on.) Repeat until you've gone through the deck of shapes (using every card except one) four times.

There are a few other small wrinkles, but what's distinctive about Silver & Gold compared to other "and write" games is how simple those wrinkles are. There's scoring based on palm trees on some island squares, scoring based on gold coins you can "dig up" on your islands, and scoring based on "suit colors" of islands. In the time it would take you to explain, say Welcome To... to a large group and stumble very awkwardly through a first round, you could teach, play, and put away Silver & Gold.

It's actually fairly debatable whether this is actually more or less complicated than Yahtzee. Perhaps it's just a "lateral move," in that it's more visually and spatially oriented. I make no claim that it will scratch any deep strategic itch for experienced gamers. (But there is a little strategy: watch the reference card that shows you all the shapes left in the deck, and try to leave yourself "outs" to draw efficiently on your islands.) If you're a serious gamer who doesn't already have a go-to "quick 20 minutes at the end of the night" game, you might want to consider adding this to your collection.

But I do feel there's great value here as a "crossover game." There's plenty of praise for hit games like Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, and the like, to bootstrap people into more serious games. Unlike those games, Silver & Gold doesn't feel like it's trying to be "a little more complex" to coax a would-be gamer a bit farther down the road of enlightenment. Instead, Silver & Gold feels to me like it could open eyes in showing people that "games can be simple and fun without looking quite like the ones you know." You don't roll dice, or move around a board, or keep a secret hand of cards. Silver & Gold might be the crossover game to Crossover Games.

And it even steers clear of the one element that I personally dislike in most "and write" games -- player experiences do diverge meaningfully. Although everyone is given the same shape to draw on every turn, each player has their own set of two cards different from everybody else's... and they continue to choose new and different island shapes every time they finish a card. True, the interaction is fairly minimal (coming from details in the gold and palm tree scoring), but it's not solitaire, and it's certainly not "many people playing solitaire together at one table."

So overall, I give my thumbs up to Silver & Gold. Realistically, to grade it alongside other games I truly love, I would give it perhaps a B at most. But I certainly think it's a game with an audience that I hope it finds.

Voyager Flashback: Jetrel

"Jetrel" is arguably the darkest, most serious episode in the first season of Star Trek: Voyager. So naturally, the focal character of the story is... Neelix?

An alien scientist named Dr. Jetrel contacts Voyager with news that Neelix may be suffering a fatal cellular degeneration. But Neelix is loathe to accept help, as Jetrel is the creator of the horrifying weapon that killed Neelix's entire family in a Talaxian holocaust. And he may right to be suspicious, as Jetrel is not being forthright about his true motives.

Two different interviews that two different executive producers gave about this episode provide a good hint as to why it doesn't quite work. Jeri Taylor said, "It's pretty clear that it was a Hiroshima metaphor." Michael Piller countered, "You can't say that every show is making a comment. It's not." Clearly, the creatives weren't on the same page here... and while I agree that not every Star Trek episode needs to serve up insightful social commentary, I certainly don't think you should pick an episode with such a clear allegory -- complete with a guest character modeled after J. Robert Oppenheimer -- as the episode where you're not going to make a comment.

To be fair, I'm not sure what sort of insight really could have been offered here. But I imagine it would have been more compelling than the outsized time spent trying to fake out the audience. The bulk of the episode presents Jetrel as unrepentant and unfazed by his role in a mass murder, only to reveal much later that he's in fact profoundly upset by it and trying to atone. Dramatic as that behavior may be for the story, it makes no sense for the character as a tactic for getting the help he needs from the Voyager crew.

In the version of this story where Jetrel isn't needlessly cagey about his intentions (to try to "resurrect" the victims of his weapon), there would have been time for Neelix to get more fully invested in the idea of seeing his family again. Instead of scene after scene of Neelix nursing an anger ranging from passive-aggressive to openly hostile, we could hear his memories of his family when they were alive. Over time, we could see his hopes begin to rise... only for him to effectively lose his family all over again in the end when Jetrel's experiment fails.

Better still than Neelix telling us about his family would have been to see them. Sadly, Voyager didn't have the budget that would have allowed any flashbacks to Neelix's past, but the strange pool hall nightmare he has is no substitute. We could have met those siblings, or seen him on his homeworld looking up as the moon is devastated... any number of scenes that could have been more effective than another monologue. (Even though it is nice to see actor Ethan Phillips downshift to a less manic pitch for his performance here.)

Other observations:

• Another problem with the "Neelix is going to die" bait-and-switch is that the only other episode so far to feature Neelix was also about him being at death's door. So they can't play it here for many scenes or any intensity, for risk of retreading the same ground. The scene in which Neelix confesses something like happiness to die before Kes is interesting, but doesn't go nearly deep enough.

• James Sloyan is a multi-episode Star Trek veteran. He does solid work again here.

• Neelix's nightmare isn't a great scene, but the burn victim makeup they put on Jennifer Lien is marvelously gruesome.

• It's so gruesome, in fact, that it opens the door to more: I wish that when they were attempting to transport the victim back to life, that they'd gone a little farther in suggesting the person was in pain. Twist the knife a little more.
  

Though my review here may seem largely negative, I think the issue here is more that "Jetrel" has a lot of shortcomings. There is decent acting, and the frame of an interesting story... just not told well. It's hardly a disaster of an episode. I give a C.

The Crown -- Jewel?

The Crown has run for four seasons so far on Netflix, telling the story of the British royal family from the ascendancy of Queen Elizabeth II to (so far) the 1980s. Throughout its run, it's been loved by audiences, praised by critics, and showered with awards. There was never really a point in the show's existence that it wasn't on my radar. But I only took to watching it in the past few months, and only recently caught up with it completely. My take: it's a very good show... but it's also flawed at its core, and I'm not sure I like it.

When I focus on the good, I can't imagine I'll point out anything that others haven't highlighted before. The production value is beyond incredible. It looks super-expensive to make, better than many movies. I'd imagine the show must have an enormous audience for Netflix to continue to justify new seasons. (But then, who knows how their accounting works.)

Of course, as much budget as they put on screen in the form of sets and costumes, they put toward an exceptional cast full of A-list actors, both award-worthy and award-winning. And even though time marches on, leading to characters going and coming, and (famously) others being recast, the heavy hitters they get for The Crown only get heavier. Everything you've heard about how good Claire Foy, or John Lithgow, or Olivia Colman, or Tobias Menzies, or Helena Bonham Carter, or Josh O'Connor, or Emma Corrin, or Gillian Anderson are on this show? It's all true, and still often sold short.

But the show can also be incredibly slow-paced at times, incredibly repetitive from one season to the next, and frankly rather dull in between the handful of real showpiece episodes that make you sit up and take notice. The Crown is incredibly uneven, and I think this is unavoidably baked into its subject matter. The Crown makes me think that the problem is trying to build an ongoing television series around real-life people and real-life events.

You don't need to watch many episodes of The Crown to learn (if you didn't already know it from reality) that the royal family are, generally and collectively, not good people. Of course, it's far from required that "good people" be the focus of a television series; there are many examples of widely praised (and rightly so) shows centered on criminals, screw-ups, and outright villains. But... those shows almost always include some likeable supporting characters. Or episodes in which the unlikeable main character softens somewhat, doing one nice thing (even if for the "wrong reason"). When writers control the narrative, it's easier to walk the tightrope of making you like people who make decisions you want to watch through your tensed fingers.

By the same token, you can make a movie about real people by carefully curating what parts of their real life you want to feature. To create a narrative arc for the protagonist, you find one episode from their life in which they traveled a meaningful "character arc" that changed them in one way or another. Clear away the unneeded parts, and you're on your way to a three-act structure.

The problem with The Crown is that it ultimately cannot stray away from the decades-long history of its characters: namely, to continually repeat the same mistakes, whinge about the same complaints, and never, ever grow or change in any meaningful way. Every season of The Crown features the episode where Philip complains about being overlooked, the episode where Margaret complains about being underappreciated, the episode where Elizabeth bristles at the sort of restrictions she never hesitates to impose on everyone else. And it's no coincidence that the actors of The Crown have won so many awards for their performances; besides them actually being good in their roles, these "very special" episodes seem coldly calculated as awards bait.

In order to provide any character arcs at all, The Crown generally must look to its "temporary" characters -- often its Prime Ministers, who generally leave office different than when they came in. But even that isn't always the case. It's just as likely that a new character comes on the show just when you've come to hate all the old characters, sticks around long enough for you to start hating them too, and then gives way to new characters you'll also eventually come to hate.

Basically, I'm very glad I don't have any more episodes of The Crown to watch right now, because I had grown weary of the formula. But I won't pretend that I won't be starting season 5 the moment they drop it all at once on Netflix some time in 2022. Maybe by then, I'll have a better sense of why I find a show I'd probably grade a B- overall so compulsively watchable. Is the acting that big a selling point? Are the one or two grade A episodes each season what makes it? Someday, maybe I'll figure it out.

No Filler, All Killer

Not long ago, I kinda-sorta recommended (for the right audience) the Netflix horror-slasher film The Babysitter. It wasn't exactly great, but it was made utterly without seriousness; it knew what kind of movie it wanted to be, advertised that clearly, and invited you to take it on those terms (or not). Well, if you liked The Babysitter, you're probably going to like the sequel, The Babysitter: Killer Queen.

Summarizing the sequel would require giving away elements of the first film -- and while plot is hardly the main draw, there is enough fun there that it seems a shame to spoil anything. I will say that it seems like Killer Queen is actually trying to have more of a plot than the original, and I don't think that actually works to the movie's advantage. It surprises me to say so. I would think that would make the sequel more up my alley, but it turns out that "just enough plot to frame the bloodshed" would have been the right amount here.

So maybe the sequel tries to be more logical than you'd expect, in a way it probably shouldn't have bothered to attempt. But it also serves up everything you'd really expect from a sequel to a loud, dumb, gory movie. It's louder, dumber, and gorier. There are callbacks aplenty, but usually only when the new film is about to one-up the original with something even more over-the-top.

I can't pretend I didn't know what I was in for here... but I think almost anyone would say that this sequel, while more brash, really isn't as good as the original. Since the original was only a C+ for me personally, that means we're now getting into territory where I wouldn't normally recommend it. Yet if you truly liked (or even loved?) The Babysitter, you'd kind of be crazy not to watch Killer Queen. It's not so much worse as to ruin any enjoyment; indeed, it's hard for me to imagine that you'd feel worlds differently about one than you did the other.

I'd call The Babysitter: Killer Queen a C. But I know I have readers I would recommend the original to, and the same goes for the bloody, wild follow-up.

Book Report

I had heard a little bit of buzz about a comedy movie from 2019 called Booksmart. In a nutshell, it was said to be a classic "teen gross-out comedy," but with two female characters at the center. Blockers, perhaps, if the focus were more on the kids and not shared with the parents?

It turns out that this description isn't totally accurate. It is a teen comedy for sure, and presents its own take on some of the tropes. But it's not a "gross-out" film, preferring instead to dial up the coming-of-age moments of self-discovery.

We're finally reaching a stage where Hollywood is taking a variety of existing movie types and remaking them with a wider range of characters, including different genders, races, sexuality, and backgrounds. Booksmart shows that there's more to these movies than just new representation; with new perspectives comes the opportunity to tell different stories too.

In this movie, lead characters Amy and Molly aren't just "out to get laid" or "blowing off steam." There's a subtle difference that makes all the difference: after spending their high school careers walking the straight and narrow, they've reached the conclusion that they could have relaxed and partied that entire time and still achieved everything they wanted academically. So now, before their graduation ceremony, that have one night to live it up.

Their wild night has them interacting with a variety of fun characters played by Jessica Williams, Jason Sudeikis, Billie Lourd, Skyler Gisondo, Noah Galvin, and more. Leads Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever get a brief send-off from parents played by Lisa Kudrow and Will Forte, and then it's off on an adventure.

The movie's big strength and weakness are sort of one and the same. You're actually made to care about these two friends, and what this wild night might do to that friendship. But because there's actually a plot being valued here, the jokes aren't always as sharp. Although the movie does bob a bit from set piece to set piece, it stays with each long enough to mine the narrative ore from it and not just the humor.

So ultimately, I think expectations play a pretty big part here. Mine weren't quite calibrated correctly, and I wound up feeling Booksmart was perhaps a B-. But it still felt "good" to me, and I think if I hadn't come to it expecting some kind of side-splitting comedy, I might have liked it better still. Perhaps it's a movie to put on your list.

Two Tesla Movies: Alternating and Current

Every now and then, Hollywood serves up two very similar movies in close proximity -- the asteroid apocalypse movies Deep Impact and Armageddon, the turn-of-the-century magician films The Prestige and The Illusionist, and so forth. A rather specific pairing has cropped up recently, two movies about the competition between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison over forms of electricity: The Current War and Tesla.

The two films have so much in common that there are even specific scenes that appear in both -- debates over capital punishment, a meeting at the World's Fair. But Tesla does go further in the story of its protagonist's life, devoting its final act to the years after the inventor moved to Colorado Springs and faded into temporary obscurity. (Also: where he'd become a character in The Prestige!)

Despite the overlap, though, Tesla is a quite different movie from The Current War, and it's all about style. I have no idea if writer-director Michael Almereyda was aware of the other movie while making Tesla, but his choices are as radical as they could possibly have been if he did know and was deliberately trying to be different. And frankly, beyond being provocatively strange, I confess I don't quite understand the choices.

There are scenes in Tesla that are outright lies. Narrator character Anne Morgan is there to point out when the movie is lying to you... probably. I mean, you do have to wonder, is she always there for that? Calling attention to the movie's flights of fancy does leave you to ask: is it being completely truthful the rest of the time?

That's only the beginning of the strangeness surrounding the narrator. The character is both a participant in the period-set action and a fourth-wall breaking lecturer presenting a slide show to the audience and talking about Google search results. Not that the movie would be completely realistic without her. Several brief scenes are set against obviously painted canvas backdrops, as they might be for a high school theater production. You're meant to notice this, with lighting sometimes casting shadows on those backdrops and wind machines sometimes making them flap in the breeze.

As I said, I truly don't understand these creative decisions. Are they somehow meant to reflect the visionary mind of Nikola Tesla? How? Are they making the most of a low budget by highlighting the constraint and trying to make it look deliberate? Is it really just because The Current War was stuck on a studio shelf for years before release, Michael Almereyda really did know about it, and he was trying a different approach? Are these the kinds of questions that a good movie is supposed to make you ask?

Here's another question: can a good performance be completely flat? Ethan Hawke stars as Nikola Tesla, and he plays the character as the most buttoned-up, emotionless introvert imaginable. I may be confused about the movie's other creative choices, but Hawke's here is clearly deliberate. Yet while it certainly tells you a lot about Tesla (the character, at least), it certainly doesn't help the movie to be more engaging to watch. Hawke emotes only minimally, and really only in one scene -- the movie's truly bizarre fourth-wall- and time-breaking finale. (I'll SPOIL it and save you 102 minutes: he steps up to the mic and sings "Everybody Wants to Rule the World.")

There are moments where others in the cast seem to be having fun. Kyle MacLachlan plays a pompous Thomas Edison. Eve Hewson is that oddball narrator, Anne Morgan. Comedian Jim Gaffigan plays the wealthy George Westinghouse. Still, the moments of true fun aren't as frequent as the moments of pure strangeness.

Perhaps this movie is for you if either you're just deeply into the real-life Tesla, or you have a thing for quirky movies that refuse to play by the rules. It really wasn't for me. For the few scenes I did connect with, I think I'd give Tesla a D+. But if you're only going to see one "average at best" movie about the AC / DC struggle for dominance, I'd pick The Current War.

Go for the Assist?

The Oscars have come and gone. That means for a certain kind of film enthusiast, who really wants to make an effort to see nominated films, the pressure is off. You might now turn to a film that was nominated for zero Academy Awards, that many critics nevertheless thought would have been a worthy contender. A movie like The Assistant.

Jane is a junior production assistant working for a New York City film company. She's only been on the job for a month, but that job has already become dreary and routine: showing up at the office before anyone else, endless phone calls and scheduling of meetings, cleaning up after her inconsiderate co-workers... and swallowing the abuse from her tyrannical boss as she facilitates his sexual misconduct.

This movie isn't trying to be sneaky: it's inspired very directly by Harvey Weinstein's appalling crimes, and it wants you to know that. This movie aims to show the environment in which such a predator can thrive, the mechanisms in place to protect him, and why "no one" would say anything to stop it. And even though the movie is less than 90 minutes long, writer-director Kitty Green paints a crystal clear picture.

But sometimes, the movie isn't so much driven by plot as featuring the rough contours of a plot. Part of the message here is "this is just a normal day," and to underscore this, you get to see a lot of a normal office day. If you're an office worker, it's maybe been a year since you regularly worked a full week in that setting. This movie will bring that experience rushing back as though you'd never left. It opens with a 10-minute montage of waking up, commuting, turning on lights, making coffee, making copies, on and on and on. Peppered throughout the film are long phone calls to schedule plane flights, scrubbing mugs in the communal sink, a lot of mundane activities. It's frankly numbing, which is the clearly the point, but also kind of excruciating to watch.

In the moments when "the plot" actually comes around, there's some truly scathing commentary being offered. When assistants huddle together to draft an apology email, you sense this is something that happens all the time -- even before the movie literally shows that. When Jane is made to talk to the boss' wife simply because she's a woman, it's clear how wrong this is and on how many levels. And a lengthy scene in which Jane goes to register an HR complaint? Well, it's the cruel centerpiece of the movie, oily and upsetting and drawn out for all its uncomfortable creepiness.

Star Julia Garner is quite good, playing an office drone whose ambition has already been drummed out of her. Fellow assistants Jon Orsini and Noah Robbins are so perfectly smug and sympathtic, consoling and complicit. And Matthew Macfayden makes that key HR scene the reason to watch.

But would I recommend it? That's very, very hard to say. It's weird to feel like there's so much wasted time in a 90-minute movie. But it's also clear that this movie has something to say even to an audience that thinks "I get it." It's certainly not a movie to watch when you're already in a dark mood.

I suppose I'd grade the movie a C. That would ordinarily put it outside the range at which I'd nudge people to see it. But I'm also sure that if anything I've written here has made you think you might want to, then it probably is "for you."

Voyager Flashback: Faces

An enduring plot of Star Trek fan fiction was to split Spock into two people, a full Vulcan and full human. (Inspired, perhaps, by the classic episode "The Enemy Within," that famously split Kirk into "good" and "evil" halves.) Something very like that fan fiction finally became reality in Star Trek: Voyager, with "Faces."

Searching for a cure to the Phage, a Vidiian doctor splits B'Elanna Torres into two people -- one a timid human, the other a defiant Klingon on whom he intends to experiment. While both B'Elannas, Tom Paris, and Durst are imprisoned in a Vidiian labor compound, the Voyager crew works to overcome the aliens' camouflage technology to mount a rescue.

This episode was an early assignment for staff writer Kenneth Biller, who was handed the "split B'Elanna" concept (purchased from outside writer Jonathan Glassner) as maybe something of a trial-by-fire for the new guy. Biller realized that the Vidiians would be the best vehicle to logically explain the premise (ditching the "random alien machine accident" in the original story), and from there he crafted this script.

In my view, though, this episode manages somehow to thread a needle of both being too on-the-nose and not digging deep enough. Human B'Elanna's journey of self-acceptance, arriving at the realization that her fiery Klingon personality is a vital part of who she is, seems awfully literal and is rather laboriously hammered on in dialogue. But there's something much more profound at play here that goes underexplored, something more meaningful than "all Klingons are warriors and I don't like the warrior inside me."

B'Elanna Torres, much like Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation, is a character with a background in two very different cultural heritages. She's very unlike Worf in two important ways, though: she made the choice to assimilate, to reject her "foreign" heritage; and she is of two worlds not only in upbringing but in genetics. It matters that Roxann Biggs-Dawson herself is an actor with a Puerto Rican Latina background, who changed her birth name to further her Hollywood career. There is a lot in common here between actor and character. But I feel like the script doesn't do the best job of leveraging that in the story.

Of course today, two-plus decades later, there is a broader understanding of the concepts of cultural appropriation and assimilation. And you can't really expect older television to "get it" completely. Still, the moments where the episode really doesn't get it are a bit cringe-worthy. Tom Paris equates B'Elanna's embarrassment over her Klingon physical features with the bad haircuts he got as a boy. (Haircuts grow out, dude.) The scene of Neelix messing with a classic Vulcan recipe is just played for a laugh (in a scene where Tuvok is made to seem like the one in the wrong).

Perhaps because the episode is relying on the performer to bring the subtext, I think she struggles a bit at times. Klingon B'Elanna speaks strangely and slowly for the first half of the episode -- is this a choice meant to indicate that she's not as smart as human B'Elanna? Is Biggs-Dawson just learning to speak through the prosthetic teeth, or did she watch Lursa from The Next Generation for preparation and choose to copy that? In any case, they certainly threw Biggs-Dawson into the deep end here without much help: she's barely had time to figure out her regular character on the show, and now here she's asked to play two related characters, one in heavy makeup, both with a challenging visual effects element (for the split-screen scenes).

Biggs-Dawson isn't the only performer in a double role. Guest star Brian Markinson, who showed up last episode as Durst, is double-cast here as the Vidiian doctor Sulan. That's all to support the visual gag of Sulan transplanting Durst's face onto his own, a great concept and even better makeup effect... that like all things Vidiian, seems like it isn't played enough for the true horror it could be. (But it is another fun level on the episode title of "Faces.")

Other observations:

• The opening scene is supposed to end on the stunning reveal that B'Elanna has been transformed into a full Klingon. But it's filmed in such low, harsh lighting that I don't think it's entirely clear what's happened.

• There's a Talaxian prisoner in the labor camp with our heroes, who helps them out with good advice and water... and who Paris just abandons when Chakotay arrives to rescue him.

• B'Elanna is going to die at the end of the episode if the Doctor doesn't reintegrate her Klingon DNA. But by all means, take the time to restore Chakotay's regular, non-Vidiian appearance first. No hurry.

I feel like "Faces" is on the cusp of being a really good episode. But "so close, yet so far" really applies here. I give it a C+.

Time Out

I recently stumbled upon a documentary on Hulu about my favorite movie, Back to the Future. Back in Time seemed like it would be an all-access look into the making of the classic film, and I was excited to watch. But I was quite disappointed -- and I think it was the documentary, not my expectations, that was out of alignment.

From what I can surmise watching Back in Time, there aren't actually very many interesting stories about the making of Back to the Future. Less than half of the 95-minute film is devoted to that subject, and most of that is about the previously well-chronicled process of writing the script and trying to get studio to buy it (without creators Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale relying on buddy Steven Spielberg). There's really no anecdote here that hasn't been told countless times before -- and you indeed get exactly that sense during many of the interviews: these people have told this same handful of stories hundreds (maybe even thousands) of times.

There's a tiny bit more material than previously revealed about the original casting of Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly -- and a few more fleeting glimpses of the footage he shot. There's are brief snippets of new interviews with Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd. But, unsurprisingly, there's nothing from Crispin Glover (whose split with the producers over the sequels has endured) or Thomas F. Wilson (who is so tired of talking about Back to the Future that he wrote a song about it and made that a centerpiece of his stand-up routine).

So, apparently lacking the ingredients to make a "behind the scenes" or "making of" kind of documentary, what did the people behind Back in Time do instead? They made an "isn't this thing we all like really cool?" movie. To be certain, that kind of approach has its audience. I've been to more than my share of conventions (and I mean, before I was employed by game companies and working those conventions). There I formed the embryonic theory that there are fans who want to know more about the thing they love (me) and fans that want to be in the company of other people who love the same thing they love (lots of very extroverted people, but not me).

Back in Time is squarely for the latter group. More than half the movie is devoted to interviewing fans. And yes, there are certainly some inspiring stories in the mix -- the couple who overcame a health scare and then devoted themselves to fundraising for Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's charity, the father who passed Hollywood vehicle restoration onto his son. But collectively, I really don't feel like I need to hear from 8 different people who all built their own replica DeLorean time machine, or the couple who got engaged on stage at a Back to the Future convention, or the tribute band that dresses up in costumes and performs "Power of Love." I am very aware that Back to the Future is great; you don't need to sell me on it.

So on the chance you're the kind of "deep dive" fan I am and not the "collective experience" fan this film is made for, I'll offer this warning. I found the documentary Back in Time a disappointing D+. But perhaps if a year of coronavirus has made you long for the convention experience, something about this movie might offer you a taste of that?

The Game Is Afoot

Not long ago, I wrote about the mini-series 11.22.63, a thus-far unique experience for me of actually reading a Stephen King novel before watching its adaptation. I got on more familiar footing (watching without reading the book) when I recently watched Gerald's Game.

This 2017 film was the work of writer-director Mike Flanagan, the creative force who subsequently would make The Haunting of Hill House and Doctor Sleep. He may have specifically won the opportunity to work on the latter with his results here, on what was long considered to be King's "unfilmable" book. Gerald's Game is the story of Jessie, whose husband Gerald handcuffs her to a bed in a sexual encounter... that goes very wrong when Gerald dies of a heart attack and leaves her stuck there. Jessie is tormented by her own thoughts and her own past as she remains trapped in the handcuffs with no hope of rescue.

This is an incredibly well-constructed script. It doesn't seem like it should be possible for this limited scenario to sustain a 103-minute movie. Yet it does... so well, in fact, that there isn't even a musical score for the main section of the story. (The score by The Newton Brothers is used essentially as bookends for the movie.) There are techniques employed to keep things engaging, but they don't feel like "tricks."

One of those techniques is to personify Jessie's inner struggles as a sort of "angel" and "demon" on her shoulder, encouraging and berating her in her predicament. To keep the movie tight and claustrophobic, these personalities are embodied by Jessie herself and her dead husband Gerald. The movie sets this up through smart show-not-tell, as the real Jessie must negotiate a series of escalating problems all while remaining trapped on the bed.

Mike Flanagan has clearly thought about how to stage his perfectly crafted script in great detail. Camera position is always just right to heighten the tension. Long takes are used not to a showy degree ("look at how long we've gone without cutting!") but for just the right length to draw you into actor and character. Cuts are just as cleverly deployed to guide the action -- and yes, though the main character is trapped on a bed, there is action.

This scenario also allows for two outstanding performances from two incredible actors. Bruce Greenwood serves up two distinct versions of Gerald that are still very much the same character -- the genuine article, and the mocking scold that is Jessie's mental image of him. But the real tour de force is by Carla Gugino as Jessie, so good it leaves me short on adjectives to praise her. She'd be great enough even only as "Brain Jessie," the hallucinatory advisor giving support. But of course, as real Jessie, she goes through every emotion on the spectrum as she struggles with the physical obstacle of the handcuffs. This movie would not work without Carla Gugino, and she rises to occasion with what would have been seen as an Oscar-caliber performance by an Academy truly looking to highlight the best performances and not just the most Oscar-y ones. (Henry Thomas also gives a unsettling and effective performance, but I'd rather not get into the movie's quite-limited use of other characters.)

The only thing I didn't like about this movie? To put it bluntly, the ending is ridiculous. The final 5-10 minutes tosses in what to my mind is a completely unnecessary twist on the proceedings -- a bewildering WTF that undermines a key element of the story by taking things too literally. I've heard that this is an almost 100% faithful rendering of the ending Stephen King wrote for the original book... and it could certainly be an exhibit in a trial over King's inability to end his stories well. (But he's already been convicted of that in the court of public opinion, right?) It's almost a "maybe you should just stop watching the movie at a certain point" situation -- the ending is that wild, and that easily excised from the rest of the movie.

Even with that ending, though, Gerald's Game is one of the best thrillers I've watched in ages. I'd give it an A-. It's a few years old now, so perhaps you've already seen it. But if you passed it over, perhaps thinking "how is that going to work for a whole movie," I highly recommend you head to Netflix and find out for yourself.