Die Medium?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lower Decks: Upper Decks

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prodigy: Ouroboros, Part II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prodigy: Ouroboros, Part I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lower Decks: Fully Dilated

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jury Duty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lower Decks: Of Gods and Angles

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saving the Best for "Last?"

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and the Christmas season is now upon us. People have all sorts of Christmas traditions -- but one in particular, that it seems has become more popular in recent years, kind of gnaws at me.

"Whamageddon" is the challenge to go for as long as you can in the holiday season without hearing Wham's original version of the song "Last Christmas." I'm sure everyone who participates in this is just having some goofy fun. (And if you've already posted about "Whamageddon" online, please know that this blog post is not at you in any way. I was thinking about all this... well... last Christmas.)

The thing that increasingly bothers me is: why, of all possible Christmas songs, is it "Last Christmas" by Wham that you're supposed to avoid?

If the challenge were about sheer difficulty, there are more ubiquitous Christmas songs you could set out to avoid. A true Christmas warrior would try dodging Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" for the holiday season.

If the challenge were about keeping goofy synth-pop instruments out of your ears, surely the challenge would be based around "Wonderful Christmastime," Paul McCartney's agonizing contribution to the Christmas canon. (I'm still haunted by that song, more than 25 years after I worked a retail job through several holiday seasons.)

Maybe there's something about the melancholy nature of the song, and wanting to avoid sad sentiments over the holidays? But the challenge could just as easily been about avoiding Elvis Presley's "Blue Christmas," or The Carpenters' "Merry Christmas, Darling," or "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (the original version being especially dark).

Even though I know it's all "in good fun," I find myself wondering if the dark reason everyone is supposed to avoid the song "Last Christmas" is because it's the gay Christmas song.

George Michael was closeted for most of his life, including at the time he wrote "Last Christmas." Sure, that doesn't automatically mean the song is about gay love. But if you really listen to the lyrics, I feel like you can't avoid the distinct impression that it's the story of a gay romance gone sour because "the other guy" wasn't ready to be public about his sexuality or the relationship.

Add to that the fact that Michael himself seemed to indicate how important the song was by the fact that he played all the instruments on the recording, which he did not normally do for Wham songs. Also, for years he downplayed the song, trying to distance himself from it and not embracing it until later in his career. (Perhaps because it was only later in his career that he lived openly gay?)

Like I said, I'm sure that the "Last Christmas" challenge is meant in good fun. But, as we now stand on the brink of a major backslide for LGBT+ rights, I kinda don't feel like letting even the innocent things slide without comment. Sure, when tomorrow the U.S. Supreme Court hears argument in a major transgender case, and telegraphs some horrific and hostile development in the law they're going to realize by next June, whether or not you enjoyed avoiding one particular Christmas song is not going to matter at all. But since it can sometimes feel so impossible to affect the big things, I'm gonna try to notch a completely symbolic win on an admittedly insignificant thing.

And so, this humble proposal: let's all ditch "Whamageddon" and just openly enjoy the song "Last Christmas" without treating it like some kind of holiday contagion.

The Horror... The Amor...

Casa Bonita is a Denver institution, famous to everyone who ever lived here, long before an infamous episode of South Park depicted it for a wider audience. The bizarre Mexican restaurant with TARDIS-like interior dimensions and entertainments from puppet shows to a "haunted house" to cliff divers was decaying in decades of squalor before the creators of South Park bought it, refurbished it, and reopened it to more public demand than ever.

That story is chronicled in a new documentary streaming on Paramount Plus: ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! I found it both quite entertaining and more than a bit horrifying.

First: the entertaining part. The film really demonstrates how improbable it is that Casa Bonita even continues to exist. Only because South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone stepped in was the rundown restaurant saved. Parker in particular is portrayed as a Don Quixote who has made this project his personal windmill. Most people are familiar with the deep lure of nostalgia, but few of us have the kind of financial resources he had to just keep throwing money at a problem past the point of reason.

In the course of this documentary, we see the already-exorbitant sticker price of the restaurant become laden with repair costs that rise, then sail, then soar well past any possible expectations. Casa Bonita has been called "the Mexican Disneyland" by some, and it starts to look like it might cost as much.

That leads to the horrifying part of the documentary. I actually ate at Casa Bonita many times over the years, including a few visits during the 2010s, not long before it closed prior to Parker and Stone's purchase. When the documentary shows you what was actually going on in the walls of the restaurant at that time, I wonder how I've even lived to tell the tale. Vile filth infesting walls, ceiling, and floors feels like only the beginning, as we're shown how much money needs to be spent just to turn Casa Bonita into an inhabitable space -- never mind restoring it to its former glory. You can only wonder how the place was passing inspections for all those years. Bribery? People looking the other way out of their own sense of nostalgia about the place? This documentary is a sort of real-life version of the 80s comedy The Money Pit, where everything that can go wrong does.

But the story does have a happy ending -- and the documentary even showed me things I never knew about Casa Bonita. It points out several spruced up or wholly new features that I didn't notice in my one visit since the place reopened, sparking a feeling in me I hadn't had since visiting the restaurant as a child: there's always something new to discover there, some nook or cranny with something you've never noticed before.

It may be that ¡Casa Bonita Mi Amor! would hold less appeal for anyone who has never personally visited the restaurant. Then again, maybe it would be interesting to see how this funhouse fever dream is actually a real place. Regardless, I myself give the documentary a B+. It's a fun, wild watch.

Prodigy: Touch of Grey

Season 2 of Star Trek: Prodigy concluded with a two-part episode -- and "Touch of Grey" was the last episode before that.

Asencia throws the captured Protostar cadets into an arena with a captive Loom to menace and execute them. Voyager has very little time to secure their rescue -- but Janeway, Chakotay, the Doctor, and Wesley Crusher are on the case.

The pendulum swings quite a bit in the last chunk of this season: some episodes center the young main characters in the story, and others -- like this one -- give the spotlight to the legacy franchise characters. There simply isn't much for Dal, Gwyn, and the gang to do in this episode but run from the Loom. 

And that by itself really tripped me up for too big a chunk of the episode's short runtime. At some point, we get a clear shot showing the technological collar that's been attached to the Loom, implicitly forcing it to stay in our reality, and perhaps even driving it into its extra-aggressive rampage. (While depriving it of its most dangerous powers? Maybe?) But there's a lot of hand-waving here.

Not the least of which is the question, how did Asencia figure out how to control (or at least confine) a Loom when even Wesley Crusher couldn't stop them with his extra timey-wimey knowledge? This is more of the artificial inflation of Asencia as apex villain that hasn't really made sense to me. But at least Jameela Jamil keeps delivering a deliciously wicked vocal performance as the character. The character isn't quoting authors and playwrights like Khan or General Kang, but she's bringing the same energy.

Like I said, though, this is more of an episode for the legacy characters -- and they do get some nice moments in it. The Doctor's holographic deception to stall Asencia is the "big scene," but I most appreciate a much quieter scene that opened the episode: Chakotay acknowledging Janeway's 14th anniversary commanding a starship. It's a nice moment reminding us of how much these characters have shared, informed by how much history the actors themselves share. Plus, there's extra resonance in it all when you think about it specifically from Chakotay's point of view: he had 7 years with Janeway every day, another 7 post-return-to-Earth... and a staggering 10 years where he was stuck in isolation with the Protostar and only the holographic version of Janeway for company. (He was stuck there longer than he was stuck in the Delta Quadrant!)

That's a lovely scene with surprising emotional heft... but it's also just one scene amid an episode that's otherwise mostly run-and-gun action. For me, it wasn't a favorite of the season. I give "Touch of Grey" a B-.

Enterprise Flashback: Sleeping Dogs

After a series premiere that heavily featured the Klingons, Enterprise didn't showcase them again until much later in the season, with "Sleeping Dogs."

Enterprise detects a Klingon ship that is sinking into the atmosphere of a gas giant. When a team boards the ship to mount a rescue, they find the Klingons unconscious... save for one who misinterprets their intentions as hostile. The team must find a way to save the ship and themselves.

There are a lot of decent elements to this episode. As always, the production values feel great, from the sets of the Klingon ship to the exterior visuals of it caught in the swirling gasses of the planet. (The CG Klingon targs don't look amazing, though I appreciate the attempt to do something more credible than almost literally putting lipstick on a pig, as The Next Generation did in an early episode.)

The Klingons are interesting here. It still remains to be seen how the series will bridge the gap between the relatively positive interactions we're getting now and the "at war" status Klingons have with the Federation come the time of the original series. But I enjoy how the one conscious Klingon officer is basically a conspiracy nut, spouting nonsense to her perceived captors. And I like the moment in the end where the Klingon captain (played by the ever-present Vaughn Armstrong) tries to save face by blustering at Archer.

I also appreciate that the writers are making an effort to course correct. I think perhaps they realized that they'd crafted Hoshi Sato to be so green, so loaded with anxiety about space travel, that it was going to be hard to put her in the sorts of situations that Star Trek requires. This episode seems to be an effort to sand off the corners, show that she is picking up some experience, and is finding her "sea legs." Still, a lot of this episode feels a bit familiar after the earlier episode that centered on Hoshi. And it's strange how the climax of the story sees her become an expert in weapons detonation, coming up with better ideas than Malcolm Reed on how to save them.

I don't love the bad tropes that Enterprise is already falling into. People ignore T'Pol's advice more often than Worf was ignored on The Next Generation -- and she's right more often. (Here, she points out that Klingons would rather die in the line of duty, and should be left alone.) Yes, I understand that listening to T'Pol would mean you don't have an episode, but I feel like they should stop making her the voice of reason if no one on the show -- Archer most of all -- is going to listen to reason.

Similarly, I question Archer actually saying to Trip: remind me to stop helping people. This is only highlighting another already-developed trope of Enterprise, that Archer's actions are never the right ones to carry out his intentions. (He's "new at this.") Clearly, the show isn't actually going to have him stop putting the ship in jeopardy, or again... we wouldn't have a show. So why call attention to it?

Instead, why not have Archer change something about himself that the show could actually change? Here's another episode where he punks his junior officers for his own twisted amusement, making Hoshi grovel to get on an away mission before revealing that T'Pol has already requested her presence. To me, Archer's humor feels laced with weird cruelty an uncomfortable portion of the time. At least in this episode, he finally decides to consult an expert and read up on what Vulcans know about Klingons.

Other observations:

• Enterprise really seems to like its pre-credits scene to be just "slice of life" stuff that doesn't actually tee up the story to come. This episode has Hoshi in target practice with Malcolm, and while this does touch on the themes of her greenness (and establishes Reed's cold, which... kind of isn't a thing in the episode), it doesn't get us to the "ship is sinking into a gas giant" meat of the story.

• I had a note that the three members of the away team ultimately take off their spacesuits and spend the rest of the episode in something close to underwear. But then they're actually in underwear for the final scene, in Enterprise's notorious decontamination chamber. It is a bit less salacious this time; they aren't rubbing gel all over each other.

• It doesn't seem great to put Reed -- who has a cold -- into the same decon chamber as Hoshi and T'Pol. Perhaps there's a gel for that?

• Archer was aboard the Klingon ship too, with the helmet of his spacesuit off. Why isn't he in decon?

I give "Sleeping Dogs" a B-. It's an interesting story, but the way that it's told highlights many of the elements of the series that aren't working for me.

Lower Decks: Starbase 80?!

Another week of Star Trek: Lower Decks, another great episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks. This time, we're off to "Starbase 80?!"

When the Cerritos needs urgent repair, the only option within range is the infamous Starbase 80. There they find a crew of people Starfleet has seemingly forgot, shunted to the edge of the galaxy... and also, a zombie-like "curse" that spreads rapidly to the visiting Cerritos personnel. As Mariner tries to get to the bottom of it, Freeman and Ransom are working elsewhere on the station to repair damaged systems.

Lower Decks always has great voice acting, but they really scored big with the guest stars this episode. First, the station commander, Kassia Nox, is played by Nicole Byer. Her unique comedy ability to deliver the darkest news with the brightest tone is perfect for the head of the dreaded Starbase 80. Second, the crafty-but-goofy engineer Gene Jakobowski is played by Stephen Root, who always squeezes every bit of juice out of every one of the countless small roles he's played in a decades-long career. These two would elevate any episode they were a part of.

But then, they get great material to work with too. The many quirks of Starbase 80 create a carnival-like atmosphere (of funhouse rooms and corn dogs, no less) against which the high-speed jokes typical of Lower Decks play hilariously. The nods to past Trek series were piled on thick this week too, from "the disease Geordi got in that one episode" to original series technology in every room to a lengthy callback to Enterprise's infamous decon gel.

Besides making me laugh a bunch (and smile even more), there were those Star Trek ideals buried in the heart of the episode. Commander Nox delivers the message to us with trademark Nicole-Byer-on-Nailed-It candor, giving love that doesn't feel "tough" or mean: Starfleet believes in second chances, and Starbase 80 is a place for second chances. It truly does explain how a place like Starbase 80 (or even the Cerritos itself, to some extent) can exist in the same Star Trek universe with the Enterprises. Everyone has a place.

I give "Starbase 80?!" an A-. It continues this great (sniff) final run for Star Trek: Lower Decks.

A Force to Be Reckoned With

I've now completed two of author Brandon Sanderson's many book series. After quite enjoying Skyward and, uh, rather not enjoying Mistborn, it felt like if I was going to try another Sanderson series, the best way to go might be away from high fantasy. So I came to Steelheart, book one of a series called The Reckoners.

This series is set in a dystopian version of our own world, where a handful of "Epic" people with superhero powers have somehow emerged. But they're anything but heroic. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and the Epics have carved up the world into fiefdoms where they rule tyrannically over the ashes of what remains of society. A resistance group called the Reckoners has devoted themselves to learning the weaknesses of Epics in order to assassinate them. A young man named David wants to join their ranks -- if he can find them. He wants their help, as he's set upon killing one of the most powerful Epics of all, Steelheart -- the one who killed his father.

Brandon Sanderson wrote this book five years before Skyward, and I wonder how much me coming to it in the opposite order colored my perception of it. They do have a lot of surface similarities. Our protagonist is a teenager on the cusp of adulthood, with an inflated sense of their own skills and a lot to learn about just how much they don't know. Both live in dystopian societies under the oppression of a seemingly indomitable force. Both develop romantic feelings with a person they initially butt heads with.

Mind you, these are all tropes of the genre at large, more than a matter of Sanderson repeating himself. And it's because this is probably the twentieth time I've encountered them in books, television, and movies -- not merely the second -- that I'm inclined to say that five years more experience writing helped Sanderson make Skyward a better book. I found the characterizations there to be more well-rounded, and the world-building more multi-layered, than what's here in Steelheart.

But Steelheart was by no means bad. Indeed, there are a number of welcome, even clever, subversions of the genre tropes within its pages. The obligatory Young Adult Fiction romantic subplot does not stay on the prescribed course. The eventual "humanization" of the implacable foe is indirect; the book exposes nuances about Epics in general without ever undermining the fundamental evilness of its titular villain. And the central hero, David -- in this first book of the trilogy, at least -- never really becomes the only person who can save the world; he isn't ever made "unique" or "special," remaining part of an effective team instead.

Also, this book about toppling a dystopia frequently emphasizes that you don't save the world simply by toppling one despot. Surely part of that is self-serving; this is book one of a trilogy, and Sanderson obviously needs to tee up the next books so they don't feel tacked on to an otherwise complete narrative. Still, there's some nuance here in the underlying message that many dystopian series don't get to until later books (if at all).

I'd give Steelheart a B+. I expect to rotate around to a few other things before circling back and trying Reckoners book two. But I do think I'll eventually be circling back.

Enterprise Flashback: Dear Doctor

In the first season of Enterprise, John Billingsley's portrayal as Phlox quickly emerged as one of the stronger elements of the show. But it was used in relative moderation until the mid-season episode "Dear Doctor."

In a series of letters, Doctor Phlox relates life on the Enterprise back to a former colleague on Earth. What begins as a somewhat mundane account of the day-to-day turns more dire when Enterprise arrives at a planet with two sentient species. The more dominant species is in decline due to a global pandemic, and the question of whether to help -- at the expense of the more oppressed species -- weighs heavily on Archer and his crew.

The classic "epistolary novel" -- a story told through written letters -- is such an enduring narrative convention that it persisted even into television. Many series have done their version. Star Trek: The Next Generation did a particularly memorable one in "Data's Day," and while that wasn't among the very best episodes of that series, I feel it does cast something of a shadow that any subsequent Star Trek needs to work to get clear of. Like "Data's Day," "Dear Doctor" benefits from focusing on the fan favorite "outsider" character of its series. And as I said in my intro, John Billingsley is a strong performer, who here rises to the occasion when put at the center of the episode.

The story features a strong moral dilemma, that's ultimately all about the Prime Directive even if the actual tenet of "non-interference" doesn't yet have a name in this prequel series. Is it right to allow nature to take its course when you have the power to intervene? Is it one thing to "intervene" for yourself and another to intervene for somebody else? When you begin to examine the entire realm of information that might inform your decision, how far do you take that inquiry? This episode does a good job of putting all that into question, while still making the fact that lives are at stake feel more centered in the drama.

If anything, it's possible that these elements of the episode play more strongly today than they did when this episode was brand new. Over 20+ years, people have grown more cognizant about oppression, and can sympathize more with the plight of the second alien species in this episode. But also, we've gone through a global pandemic of our own, making the situation that the first alien species faces feel more immediate and personal. (Indeed, it seems wild that none of the doctors on this planet are taking any kind of PPE precautions as they work with patients.)

And yet, this foundational Star Trek ethical construction has to share space in this episode with Phlox's letter-writing framing device. And for me, that simply does not work at all. Phlox makes his position abundantly clear to Archer in dialogue; we really don't gain much by having him pre-state it in a letter to a character we've never met. (Data, in his episode, at least wrote to someone we had.)

Moreover, there's simply too much "cutesy" information about Phlox in this episode. He eats bugs -- the same ones he feeds his menagerie of Sickbay critters. Like all dentists, he's determined to engage you in conversation while stuffing tools into your mouth so you can't talk. His culture is polyamorous, and he specifically is married. His species also hibernates. It's all fun stuff to put in a "learn more about Phlox" episode -- yet the breezy tone clashes with the serious A plot. Each half of this episode really strains against the fact that the other half has a different narrative agenda.

But Billingsley is good (as ever) as Phlox, and there are some fun moments for other characters too. The movie For Whom the Bell Tolls makes Trip cry. T'Pol hates getting dental work as much as anyone. That's if you like the lighter part of the episode. If you're here more for the heavier part, then you see Archer having to experience the "shoe on the other foot," as he comes to appreciate the position of the Vulcans, judging whether a species is ready to handle warp travel. But again -- these two aspects of the episode really aren't playing well off each other.

Other observations:

• Phlox actually has to hit a switch to turn on the lights in Sickbay; no voice commands. Technology is always outstripping writers' ability to conceive of what's possible, of course. And yet, I'm pretty sure motion-activated lights were a thing even when this episode was created.

• The aliens in this episode have met the Ferengi. Put a pin in that for later in the season.
  

• Hoshi talks to Phlox in his own language... and makes quite a few mistakes. Now sure, credit for this being like her 30th language when I'm not even fluent in a second. Still, I have to ask: is Denobulan an especially complicated language, or does Hoshi make this many mistakes in all the languages she speaks? 

I think there are two very good episodes here: an examination of the best character on the show, and a great moral parable. But stuffing them in one episode is not a peanut-butter-and-chocolate situation; the two things do not go well together. I think the two halves of "Dear Doctor" drag each other down a bit, rendering the whole a B.

Oh Boy

Boy Kills World is a wild action comedy released earlier this year, and now available on streaming. Set in a dystopian society, the story centers on "Boy," a deaf and mute man who is seeking revenge on the authoritarian family in charge, for the death of his own family when he was a child. He's been rigorously trained by a powerful Shaman, turning him into the sort of one-man wrecking crew that might just be able to get that revenge.

I knew going in that Boy Kills World was going to be a light-in-tone, but violent, action movie. I was perhaps surprised at how hard it leaned into both of those elements. The action is incredibly violent, and weirdly inspired in that regard. A memorable sequence features the use of a truly unusual weapon (you've never seen the like before), and it's a fight that will make you squirm. But that's only one dish in the buffet of gory deaths and brutal injuries this movie serves up.

As violent as it is, it's equally funny. This is an action-comedy, and it doesn't neglect that second part of the equation. Most of the humor comes from Boy's inner monologue, delivered to us in hilarious voice-over by H. Jon Benjamin, who animation fans will know from Archer, Bob's Burgers, and countless other places. Benjamin is the person you call when you want a voice that sounds badass, but who can undermine every bit of seriousness with winking comedy. I have to imagine they wrote this script with him in mind, and there was no "plan B" if they hadn't gotten him.

The movie blends these two disparate elements surprisingly well. In part, it's because that balancing act isn't overly drawn out. Video games are the in-story explanation for much of what we see, and so the movie is structured almost as a level by level fight through a cast of villains including Michelle Dockery, Famke Janssen, and Sharlto Copley. And it gets the job done in under two hours.

That said, they still manage to inject a little too much story in there. There's an "end of act two" twist that I'm not sure about. I can understand the instinct to make the move more than just a trifle, and the seeds are planted to justify what happens. All the same, I feel like everything that follows the twist simply isn't as entertaining as what came before. The comedy isn't as funny, the action isn't as clever, and the movie is starting to wear out its welcome before the credits roll.

Still, star Bill Skarsgård makes for an unexpectedly effective action hero (even more unexpectedly when paired with the voice of H. Jon Benjamin). I'd ultimately say that if you're in for a literally bloody good time, you'll probably enjoy Boy Kills World. I give it a B.

Prodigy: Brink

The sprint to the finish line of Star Trek: Prodigy season two continues with "Brink."

Voyager has been ordered back to headquarters, but the crew is reluctant to leave Asencia alone to continue building up her forces unchallenged. Gwyn suggests that the cadets be sent on a covert mission, off the Starfleet books. On that mission, they learn that two people are in need of rescue: Ilthuran and Wesley Crusher... and make the fateful decision to split up to try to save both.

I'd been waiting for multiple episodes to the get the context that this episode finally provides: the revelation that Wesley Crusher allowed himself to get captured on purpose as part of an elaborate plan to ultimately send the Protostar back in time. I think we needed this detail a lot sooner than this, as not only does it answer the question of how a Traveler could be imprisoned against his will, it helps explain the sudden elevation of Asencia as a galaxy-threatening villain.

Not that this episode had me thinking, "oh, this all makes complete sense now." Indeed, this was sort of the episode where I kind of gave up on trying to track the ongoing story. This episode introduces us to a second, non-evil version of Asencia, which I decidedly did not understand. Is she from the past? The future? An alternate reality? It probably doesn't matter; we've just reached the part of the story where Big Bad Villain with a Big Bad Plan must be stopped.

To that end, Wesley Crusher has offered the minimally helpful advice that the Protostar crew (and Ma'jel) have "got to stick together." The guy can see the future (or... I guess we're meant to assume from all the math scribbles that he's just really good at predicting it?), but he can't predict that a bunch of children might not take that advice in the literal way he'd intended it without more explicit directions. And so, his grand plan goes the way of most "let yourself get captured on purpose" plans in TV and movies go: not well.

However, I liked that this episode returned the kids to the center of the action. And I really like that their actions were quite smart for the entire episode. This was not a case of kids being kids, leading to jeopardy; I felt that they pretty much made all the right decisions all the way through the episode. (I don't hold their ignoring of Wesley's super-vague warning against them.) It was a good showing for Gwyn as leader, for Dal in following another leader, and for all the other characters in little moments where they got to use their best skills.

So, taken altogether, I'll give "Brink" a B-. We've definitely reached the customary "all is lost" moment of the story. Three more episodes left to put everything right.

Lower Decks: A Farewell to Farms

The latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks was the Klingon-centric "A Farewell to Farms."

Mariner tries to help her Klingon friend Ma'ah regain the captaincy he lost, using Boimler's extensive knowledge of obscure Klingon traditions. Meanwhile, the Cerritos hosts two esteemed scholar/food critics from the planet Klowahka, who focus their ire on Doctor Migleemo.

This has been a great season of Lower Decks already -- but this episode was my favorite of them so far. I have always tolerated Klingon episodes of Star Trek, finding them inherently a bit silly... and often bad when that silliness overwhelms the story. Lower Decks is a completely different context for a Klingon story, a place where being silly is the point. And so the show dives headfirst into Klingon tropes and invents a barrel load (of bloodwine, of course) of new ones.

Making sweet, soft Boimler the most enthusiastic fan of Klingon tradition was an inspired comedic choice. And having him team up with Mariner to game a system is a pairing that has worked time and again for the series. I could go on and on (tediously) about the moments that made me laugh out loud, but I have to give a few limited shout-outs: to the hilarious animation of our heroes getting painsticked, to the deep cut VCR game reference to "experience bIj," and to actually calling the most prominent feature of female Klingon armor a "boob window." This storyline of the episode went all out with the jokes.

But honestly, even if all that didn't have me laughing regularly, I'd have found the Migleemo "B plot" hilariously funny too. Just as Klingon society has for decades been built out in borderline cartoonish ways, so this episode built out Klowahkan society in... well, literally cartoonish ways. From viewing everything through the lens of food, to the amusing physical displays that accompany emotion, everything about these aliens was built for laughs. And all the details were perfect, from the idea of an amuse bouche as a last meal before prison, to the beak-like silverware a Klowahkan uses to eat.

No, there wasn't much of a story here. We got another tease about this season's "rift" Macguffin, and some sort of tacked-on morality about hiding your struggles when you could ask for help. (Lessons never go down as effectively when it's a guest character learning them.) I suppose an absolutely "best of the best" Lower Decks episode would have nailed those elements too.

And yet, I laughed a lot. That's not all Lower Decks can do, but I really couldn't ask for anything more from this episode. I give "A Farewell to Farms" an A.

Along Review

The prevailing wisdom about the Marvel Cinematic Universe on television is that everything started off with a bang with WandaVision, and then has been a parade of diminishing returns ever since. Personally, I was never that high on WandaVision, and have enjoyed several other series in the meantime (Hawkeye especially). But one part I did love about WandaVision was Kathryn Hahn. And I was all on board for her to take center stage as the title character of the spin-off, Agatha All Along.

This... mini-series (?) / first season of an ongoing series (?)... focused on witch Agatha Harkness embarking on a quest to regain her powers, bringing along a mysterious companion known only as "Teen," and a coven of other witches with their own emotional and supernatural baggage. Adventure -- and sometimes hilarity -- ensued.

Shockingly, despite this being a spin-off of another MCU property (that itself served as a sequel to other Marvel stories), I felt like the "required reading" of Agatha All Along was relatively low. And I found that wonderfully welcome at this convoluted point in the franchise's ongoing (and sometimes abandoned-midway through) story arcs. Agatha's a witch who has lost her powers, and wants them back. For at least half the run of the series, that's really all you need to know; not even the particulars of how she lost them feels all that important. And while Marvel's "it's all connected" ethos does assert itself more fully by the end of this nine episode run, this did feel like to me like one of the more "stand-alone" offerings in the MCU in quite some time. (At least, one of the only enjoyable ones.)

The writing of the series was clever as hell. For one thing, it presented twists that felt genuinely earned. More than once in the run of episodes, things were revealed that made you want to go back and watch the show again from the beginning -- because you recalled where you'd noticed some seeds planted earlier, and suspected that you'd spot even more if you were to go back looking for them.

But more importantly, the show used essentially every episode to give one character the spotlight (even as Agatha herself remained the gravitational center of the proceedings). This worked brilliantly because each of the characters was well-drawn, fascinating, and different. Every episode about a new character was a story I felt eager to see. Not only did I love seeing performers I knew doing great work -- people like Aubrey Plaza and Patti LuPone -- I enjoyed the work by performers I did not know well before this -- people like Sasheer Zamata and Ali Ahn. (And watching Joe Locke in something other than Heartstopper was both jarring and entertaining as well.)

Kathryn Hahn, handed a starring vehicle, came across like a star. Anyone who has seen her anywhere else in her long career would know that she excels at getting laughs, particularly when she's playing a prickly, strong-willed character as she does here. But over the course of Agatha All Along, Hahn is also called on to be dramatic and show real vulnerability. And often, she has to turn on a dime in the same scene. She is, simply, great throughout.

But... I unfortunately must agree with the prevailing wisdom I've seen about the show: it did not stick the landing. The first eight episodes of Agatha All Along are a triumph, among the best television of the year. And if you were to cut off that eighth episode a minute or two from the ending, I think you'd have a satisfying and complete story. But of course, nothing is "complete" in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; we have to leave open some possibility of bringing it back if it's successful, some tease for fans who read the original comics, some connective tissue.

Episode 9 is all of that. There is more great work from Kathryn Hahn in a series of flashback scenes -- but the audience has already gleaned the context that these scenes make explicit. And then the rest of the episode is a lengthy exposition dump that undermines parts of what you've watched so far in the season, followed by a long runway lining up the next "take-off" for these characters. It simply doesn't feel necessary to me; all of it could have been episode 1 of a prospective season 2, if indeed the story does continue. It isn't needed here.

I think that final episode takes down to a B+ a series I might have otherwise called an A-. But whether or not we're quibbling over which side of that line it should be on, I was pleasantly surprised by the show. I feel like it was a series that stretched the MCU tropes about as far as they're ever allowed to be stretched, absolutely knew what its strengths were and leaned into them... and had a hell of a catchy song from Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez to burrow into your brain.

Most of you who'd be reading this probably watched the show already. But in case you didn't -- check it out!

Lower Decks: The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel

Last week's episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks saw the Cerritos checking in at "The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel."

A vacation destination is beset by a growing infestation of nanites, which a Cerritos away team must find a way to eradicate. Mariner must figure out how to work on that team alongside Jennifer, her ex-girlfriend, who doesn't seem to understand the "ex" part of that. Meanwhile, Boimler joins Ransom and Billups on an undercover mission to recover a wayward admiral who seems to have abandoned his post.

This episode of Lower Decks turned the balance between comedy and "Star Trek morality" very much to the side of comedy -- and to great results. Mariner trying to get out of an awkward break-up conversation felt like a straight-up "live studio audience" sitcom plot... that nevertheless incorporated hijinks culminating in an attack from a rampaging (huge laugh for me as Mariner pauses to count the sides) icosahedron. Along the way, there were more good laughs as T'Lyn struggled to contain her decidedly non-Vulcan enthusiasm for the vibe tube stylings of an alien pop star.

Still, there was an undercurrent of something more serious here that I appreciated. When Mariner and Jennifer (Mannifer? Jenniner?) broke up last season, there was some grumbling in fan circles about an LGBT+ relationship being written out of the show. But I really like the way this episode circled back to address that. Queer people can break up, that can be a good thing (not tragic, as media so often portrays), and hell... they might even be better in navigating the emotions of an ending relationship than a straight couple. (Also, side note: they don't stop being queer just because they aren't in a relationship!)

While the Mariner storyline was serving up all kinds of deep cut Star Trek references from nanites to vibe tubes to Gallamites (we finally saw these infamous aliens with the transparent skulls!), it was the Boimler story serving up a classic Star Trek plot line. The "Starfleet person goes rogue, adopting the culture of a local planet" story is an absolute tentpole of the franchise, going back to the original series in the 1960s. But of course, it was the 1970s that brought us one of pop culture's best-known incarnations of the "going native" story, Apocalypse Now. And I love that Lower Decks mined comedy from overtly paying homage to that film.

Boimler may or may not have learned a lesson about assuming others' intentions toward you. He certainly struggled in his continued attempts to grow a beard. (Oh my God... am I Boimler?) Add in the best "Boimler scream" ever, plus fun jokes about needing recreation in a society where you can kind of do whatever you want, and I found this subplot to be just as satisfying as the main one. (Also, we seem to have learned what the major story arc of the season will be, as the quantum fissures of the season premiere made a surprise return as the true cause of the "nanite" infestation.)

This episode was an A- for me. So far, it looks like Lower Decks is having a strong final (sniff) season.

My Favorite Take

This blog is going to go back to "business as usual." Tomorrow. I felt like I couldn't just jump right back into my normal thing without first saying something about why I'm choosing to do that.

In my copious doomscrolling of the last 36-or-so hours, I've come upon hundreds of takes about the results of the U.S. presidential election. One in particular has resonated with me above all others:

There were no winners. We all lost. It's just that some of us aren't going to understand that until later.

The more I think about this, the more impressed I become about just how much is packed into that punchy summation.

The thing that really resonated with me on first blush is the whole "forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" tone of it. I have always felt that non-evangelicals and atheists understand and demonstrate Christian values more than the performative evangelical crowd. I believe that most voters did not cast their vote as a personal "fuck you" to me. (Though side note -- here in Colorado is evidence of around 921,000 losers who very much did.) A lot of voters, and absolutely a lot of non-voters, "knew not what they were doing."

There's clear proof of that in the results. Montana and Missouri passed ballot measures they think will protect abortion access, even as they elected a president almost certain to curtail it at a superseding federal level. North Carolina voters rather emphatically rejected a candidate for governor who clearly did not align with their values... while choosing for president a candidate who espoused all the same values of (and who explicitly endorsed) the reject. It seems to me that any split-ticket voters in these states "knew not what they were doing."

But back to the take:

There were no winners. We all lost. It's just that some of us aren't going to understand that until later.

As I pondered that even more, a new layer hit me -- one I'm really going to strive to embrace. Later. That word is carrying a lot of weight.

For one thing, nothing I say (no matter how long I might spend laboring on exactly how to say it) is going to change anyone's mind now. People are going to have to come to the realization of what has happened later. We've "fucked around." It's not time yet to "find out."

I believe that so much damage is about to be dealt to the United States that I question whether it can even be repaired within my lifetime. But... it's happening later. As in, literally, not today. For my own mental health (if nothing else), I think I must choose to squeeze every bit of joy out of the two-and-a-half months we still have before our newly-reelected, self-described "dictator on day one" takes office. There are going to be enough bad days to come without me giving potentially good days I have right now over to dread.

And so, to the best of my ability, I am choosing not to. Business as usual (for now, at least).

As for later, we'll all see.

Yes We (Vati)Can

This weekend, I went to see the newest movie starring Ralph Fiennes, Conclave. The movie centers on the election of a new pope, as one cardinal must oversee the proceedings while balancing ritual, propriety, and his own wishes.

The studio marketing team knew what they were doing when they made sure this film was in theaters ahead of the United States presidential election. This is a political thriller, through and through. It mines all the tension you'd expect from backroom conversations, shrewd manipulations, and words wielded as weapons. And while it's not like there are tons of political thrillers out there, there are still enough for me to really appreciate how this movie refreshes the genre with its different setting. Putting these familiar machinations inside the Catholic church simultaneously makes them feel novel and different -- and subtly makes the point that it is ever thus.

There's a great cast here, headlined by Ralph Fiennes as I said, but also including Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini. These are all performers who don't have to raise their voice to convey an intensity of emotion, and all of them heighten the tension of the story by how constrained they all behave. Rossellini in particular is a valuable addition here; in a movie that inherently will come nowhere close to passing the Bechdel test, you need to be certain you've cast a powerhouse performer in the one significant female role. The film gets that with her.

Of course, thrillers (political or otherwise) often rely on twists, and so you go in expecting Conclave to have its share. One of them, the question of who ultimately will win the election and become pope, is pretty loudly telegraphed from far out. (At least, it felt that way to me. I think any audience familiar with how these sorts of plots tend to work will sniff it out.) Despite knowing that element of the ending, I didn't feel less enjoyment from the events along the way.

But Conclave has one more twist up its sleeve, and I'm much more conflicted about it. The movie does "earn" the twist; it is very much in keeping with the values espoused throughout the story, most centrally by Fiennes' main character. But it also feels so far-fetched, in terms of what could plausibly happen in a setting that has otherwise been hyper-realistic. I suppose the story is embracing an element of fantasy here, even wish fulfillment. This isn't a documentary, and never pretended to be... so if it gets a bit fanciful at the end? Maybe that's ok if it's in service of a good message as it is here.

I would give Conclave a B. I'd heard some small buzz that it might be in the mix for the next Academy Awards. I feel like it won't be terribly competitive if it is... and yet it's a far more active and approachable film than a lot of Oscar fare. I enjoyed it overall; perhaps you might too.

Lower Decks: Shades of Green

The final season of Star Trek: Lower Decks kicked off with two episodes, the second of which is called "Shades of Green."

When the Cerritos visits a planet with a society converting to post-scarcity, away teams are sent to help the inhabitants tear down the vestiges of capitalism. Boimler is behaving differently, believing it might be the key to jump start his career. On the ship, Rutherford is less chipper than normal without Tendi around. Meanwhile, on the Orion homeworld, Tendi's family is drawn into a struggle for its continued existence... as Tendi learns that her sister is pregnant.

With the season five premiere so masterfully balancing comedy and introspection, a half-dozen character story lines, and a bucket of obscure Star Trek jokes... it was kind of inevitable that the next episode might not reach the same heights. "Shades of Green" is still a good episode with all the same elements that make for the best Lower Decks installments; it just isn't as deft in balancing it all in a perfect "meal."

A lot of the best comedy here is pretty subtle. Star Trek has always been set in a "post-scarcity" society, where everyone's needs are satisfied by a replicator or socialist ideals. How a society gets there has always understandably been waved away. By focusing on this moment of changing over for some random alien planet, Lower Decks gets to present a lot of jokes (mostly sight gags) about the end of capitalism.

It's against this background that we get a subtle story about Boimler learning he has to be true to himself (and not to the thing he perceives as a "how to succeed" manual that he stole from his doppelganger in the previous episode). Still less subtle is a nice subplot about Rutherford, wallowing in his feelings about losing his best friend. To be clear, his "wallowing" looks like many other people's best day, in terms of keeping a positive attitude. Which makes it all the more remarkable (fascinating?) that T'Lyn is able to pick up on this and react appropriately. Vulcans don't tend to be emotionally intelligent (and I've been watching a lot of Enterprise lately, where they're portrayed as especially dim in this regard), so it's refreshing to see a Vulcan character who gets it.

Meanwhile, Tendi spends the episode inside a 1980s sitcom. That's what the "D'Erika doesn't know that D'Vana knows that she's pregnant" plot feels like. You know that sitcom way in which one question would puncture the whole premise, but no one asks it? That way that someone behaves so outrageously that everyone around them ought to notice, but no one says anything? It's not only the stuff of 80s sitcoms, but cartoons, of course. So it doesn't feel too out of place here, even though it isn't my favorite element of the episode.

Still, this subplot does contribute other things I like. Star Trek has done "solar sailing ships" before and "stellar racing" before; the way both are incorporated here sort of feels like a chocolate and peanut butter thing that "just tastes great together." And I love that the writers aren't going to stretch the taffy any longer about Tendi being separated from the Cerritos. We got a few episodes out of it, and now we're going to put the crew all back together for the too-few episodes of the series we have left.

I give "Shades of Green" a B. It wasn't a favorite of mine, but it did at least set the stage for the rest of the season.

Time Slipping Away

I am sure you have too many shows in your television diet to make room for a recent single-season show that was canceled on a cliffhanger. And yet, I feel compelled to say a few words in praise of Time Bandits.

Streaming on Apple TV+, Time Bandits is a series re-imagination of early 80s film written by Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin. It's about a young British kid who falls in with a band of utterly inept thieves who bounce around time looking to steal valuable loot. They brush up against historical figures while trying to avoid the agents of the Supreme Being and Pure Evil, both of whom want the magical map they use to move through time portals.

It's been a long while since I've seen the original movie. I imagine it will be heretical to many for me to say this, but I don't remember it being particularly good. And more heretical still to say that my comic sensibilities don't really overlap much with Monty Python. But they do tend to overlap with the sensibilities of Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, creators of What We Do in the Shadows and Wellington Paranormal. Here, they've teamed with Iain Morris to put their own spin on the Time Bandits premise. And if you like either of those other two shows, I feel confident you will enjoy Time Bandits.

But perhaps the real secret sauce of this TV series is its main star, Lisa Kudrow. She plays Penelope, the leader ("but really, we have no leaders") of the bandits -- and her comic skills and timing make everything about this show measurably funnier. Friends fans: imagine a character as flighty and scattered as Phoebe, but give her a massive ego and exaggerated self-confidence. That's Penelope. And she's hilarious. (Really, the whole cast is solid. But Lisa Kudrow is next level.)

Over the course of 10 episodes, you quickly come to understand how Time Bandits was canceled. It looks like a preposterously expensive show to make. There's constant jumping into new time frames, requiring new sets, guest actors, and costumes. And this isn't Doctor Who style time travel, where most things can look like someplace within a short drive of London. The Time Bandits visit the Prohibition-era United States, the African desert, the Mayan Empire, and the Ice Age, among other stops. Time Bandits surely would have needed an off-the-charts viewership to justify these costs. And given that Apple TV+ has already announced the cancellation of the show after one season, it's clear they didn't get that.

I'll be direct: the show ends on a cliffhanger (that will now never be resolved). But personally, I find it light enough to not be too upset by that. After 10 episodes of watching these characters bumble their way out of any crisis they bumble into, I really don't need to know the particulars of how they get out of this last one. I think I can just appreciate that I got 10 half-hour episodes that made me laugh. Maybe they want to make me try the original movie again some time, even. (But What We Do in the Shadows made for a far better TV series than a movie; why can't it be the same for Time Bandits?)

I give Time Bandits a B+. It may not stand the test of time, I suppose (ha!), but I think many people reading this would find it fun.

Prodigy: Ascension, Part II

I last left Star Trek: Prodigy right in the middle of a two-part episode. So even though Lower Decks premiered with two episodes this week, I feel compelled to circle back and pick up "Ascension, Part II."

The showdown against Acensia's massive warship continues. Voyager is critically damaged -- but the Protostar is still in action, as is a fighter squadron with Dal and Ma'jel. To save everyone, one of our heroes must make a major sacrifice.

I had been hoping for some answers in the second part of this episode: where did Acensia get all these wonderful toys, and how did she capture Wesley Crusher? Nope. This episode is really just the second half of a more traditional one-hour episode of Star Trek. Though it is an especially cinematic one, with loads of big space combat action.

But the action is more tailored to the characters in this second part, which I found to be an improvement over part one. The fighter squadron subplot allows room for two big character moments. Dal gets to show his doubtful fellow pilots that his more instinctual brand of wild flying has its merits. And Ma'jel actually adopts those methods, in a moment where she finds the limits of pure Vulcan-style logic and is able to think outside the box.

Everything builds to a big hero moment for Zero. On the one hand, Zero has made sacrifices a few times already this season, arguably undermining the impact of this moment now. But on the other, everything leading up to this has demanded less of Zero than now. This is the moment where they actually must choose to sacrifice their corporeal body to save everyone. Intellectually, it feels like an easy choice -- and Zero being such an intellectual character, of course that's the choice they're going to make. Still, Zero is giving up a lot, and I think the show makes the emotional weight of this clear.

The battle may be over, but there are still a few episodes left -- and Acensia is not yet defeated. So I'll give "Ascension, Part II" a B-, and continue the march to the end of the season.

Night of 1,000 Laughs?

Saturday Night Live has been running 49 years. It's been the subject of countless retrospectives and documentaries, and has spun off dozens of feature films. But now there's a feature film about it --  specifically, the 90 minutes leading up to the very first episode in 1975. Recorded, on my blog, it's Saturday Night!

I don't know exactly what I was hoping for out of this movie, but in retrospect, I was certainly kidding myself if I expected it to be anything other than the frenetic sprint it was. That isn't inherently a bad thing. If you recall Aaron Sorkin's single-season television show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, this feels like the vibe he was trying to capture: all of the pressure cooker action of the West Wing, in an environment of entirely different stakes. Loads of rapid-fire dialogue, punctuated by purposefully lowbrow moments of physical comedy. If you like this style of entertainment, Saturday Night is very faithfully working within the style.

But don't hope to scratch beneath the surface of anything here. Outside of the central figure of Lorne Michaels (and to a lesser extent, writer Rosie Shuster -- also Michaels' wife), each person gets perhaps 5 minutes of total screen time sprinkled throughout the movie. That's because between all the actors, producers, writers, executives, and guest stars, there are simply too many characters in this story to service with any meaningful personal arc. The story can only be "the chaos." 

To heighten that story, the movie condenses everything. Much of what is presented is based on real events (though some of it is only loosely inspired by them). Yet events that actually unfolded over months or even years are all crushed into the 90 minutes before the original Saturday Night Live premiere. I don't say this to claim that this movie should have been more realistic, but rather to say that you will know it isn't. No, it's not meant to be a documentary -- but it sometimes feels like it's going so far over the top that it's gilding the lily.

Still, the sprawling cast made me enjoy it most of the way. There are lots of fun renditions of celebrities we know well -- not quite impersonations, but performances that do feel like they capture the essence of the person: Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Dylan O'Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Matthew Rhys as George Carlin, and J. K. Simmons as Milton Berle. Other performers are making the most of their precious moments on screen, like Rachel Sennott as Rosie Shuster, Willem Dafoe as David Tebet, Jon Batiste as Billy Preston, and Nicholas Braun as both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson. And Gabriel LaBelle is a good "ringmaster" of it all as Lorne Michaels.

But ultimately, Saturday Night feels like it's going to be much like a typical episode of Saturday Night Live, not one of the landmark episodes like the premiere it dramatized. You might enjoy it while you're watching, and have a few laughs. But it isn't likely to have any staying power, or to be thought of much in the future. I give it a B-.