Star Trek Flashback: The Man Trap

In 1966, the very first Star Trek that people ever saw was "The Man Trap."

Enterprise is dispatched to conduct health exams on a remote scientist and his wife, the latter of whom has a romantic history with Dr. McCoy. Soon, crewmembers begin to turn up dead, drained of all salt from the bodies -- and Captain Kirk must deal with an adversary that can hide in their midst.

Network executives reportedly selected this as the first Star Trek episode to air because it had a conventional alien menace that they felt positioned the show as proper science fiction. Leonard Nimoy once claimed that of all the episodes filmed to that point, it was the cast and crew's least favorite. I do find it marginally better than "The Cage" as a "beginning for Star Trek" -- though perhaps only because now, many characters who would become familiar are now in place.

It's interesting just how many scenes in the episode are purely about building these characters. Uhura has a flirtatious scene with Spock, in which she complains playfully about how tired she is of the word "frequencies." (I'm afraid I have bad news about your future.) Yeoman Rand and Sulu have a relaxed exchange in the arboretum -- and this follows a scene in which Rand effectively stands up for herself to a group of horny crewman. (That scene is dated, but Rand comes off well.) And at the center of the story, we get to see a lot of Dr. McCoy (even if Kirk accusing him of "thinking with his glands" seems pretty rich, in the fullness of time).

Like the characters, some aspects of Star Trek writ large are still being dialed in. What would become Sickbay is here called the "Dispensary." When Robert Crater is stunned by a phaser, his voice is pitched down and slurred in an unusual way that would eventually be abandoned. Kirk's log entries come from some unspecified future in which he knows more about what's happening than he actually does in the moment as the action unfolds. Of the four crewmen killed in the course of the episode, none wears a red shirt. And the moral consequences of exterminating a species are only reckoned with in a wistful line of dialogue at the very end of the episode.

But considering the limits of a television budget and schedule at the time, it's impressive just how much ends up on the screen. There are lots of background crew people to make Enterprise feel like a crowded ship. (And many are given a speaking line or two.) A shootout on the planet surface includes an impressive-for-the-time explosion of rock. And the salt monster costume, even though only shown on screen for a few seconds, is a creepy success. (Because of the money spent there, the plant puppet shown earlier in the arboretum is laughably simple.)

There's are still 1960s trapping that are hard to overlook. The storytelling is glacially paced. The repetition of plot points to make sure a less television-savvy audience follows along gets pretty awkward. Cringey dialogue pops up on a regular basis. And yet... yes, squint and tilt your head, and you can see signs of what Star Trek would become.

I give "The Man Trap" a C-. It's not a great start. But it is the start, the thing Trekkers celebrate every September 8th. (Fun trivia fact: two days earlier in Canada, which aired it first!)

Looking Back on the Years

Hollywood has plenty of sequels and franchises, and seems constantly on the prowl for any older films that can be rebooted. Still, I can't really think of many examples where, after two decades have passed, a writer and director both reunite to make sequel. Yet that's what happened with 28 Years Later.

In the decades after a "rage virus" has swept the United Kingdom, the world has responded by cutting off the islands from the rest of the world. But humans still live in isolation, raising new generations to survive. Jamie is taking his 12-year-old son Spike on a hunt for the first time, during which the boy learns of a long-shot possibility to aid his ailing mother. Defying his father, Spike takes his mother to go find a doctor. But has he learned enough from his father's training to keep them both alive? And will they really find what they're looking for at the end of the road?

The original 28 Days Later was a super-low budget movie that put director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland on the map. (Star Cillian Murphy as well, who returns here as an executive producer.) I could not help but be curious about what kind of story the two would tell now. Why look back when most creatives would rather push forward? What could they add to the zombie genre, which has overflowed in the time since the original movie?

The answer, partly, is that they want to bring "art house" sensibilities to zombie movies. While the budget of 28 Years Later is inconceivably higher than that of the original film -- and it was released to theaters in the summer -- it doesn't look like summer blockbuster fare. The movie plays with unusual frame rates, odd lighting choices, moments where the narrative timeline is made deliberately murky, and more. Yet at the same time, it's not like the movie is pushing to be "anti-blockbuster." It's the first of a planned trilogy, and explicitly sets up the next film (due to release early next year).

It's hard not to push away comparisons to The Walking Dead or The Last of Us while watching 28 Years Later. But I also found it unnecessary to do so to enjoy the movie. Where those other zombie tales have focused a lot about what it means to make and live with hard choices, 28 Years Later is much more about learning to live with hard truths -- when you have no choice at all. The young protagonist, Spike, still feels like he's got more growing up to do than, say, Ellie of The Last of Us. He still has more to lose than characters of the countless Walking Dead spin-offs I hear about, who have already bleakly lost everything. To me, these key elements mean that even if 28 Years Later isn't going to be something radically  different, it still has different ground to cover than other zombie tales.

And if you don't buy any of that, then maybe you'll be pulled in by some good performances. Alfie Williams is great as Spike, the kid on whom the whole movie rests. Ralph Fiennes brings a soulful stillness to a role that could have been played far more over-the-top. Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson have very different roles as Spike's parents, but each brings the right tone to their roles. And Edvin Ryding provides some much-appreciated comic relief.

I'm not sure I liked 28 Years Later enough to be clamoring for next year's sequel the moment it arrives. But I did enjoy it. I'd give it a B. I can understand if you're feeling zombie fatigue right now. But if you have room for one more, you might want to check it out.

Enterprise Flashback: Chosen Realm

If you're telling a story inspired by the terrorist attacks of 9/11, sooner or later you probably need to engage with the topic of religion -- specifically, violence and martyrdom in pursuit of a religious cause. "Chosen Realm" is Star Trek: Enterprise's run at that. 

The Enterprise aids a damaged ship of religious pilgrims who travel the Expanse because they believe its distortions are the work of a godly power. When their leader D'Jamat orders his people to commandeer Enterprise and imprison its crew, Archer and his people must find a way to drive a wedge between them and retake the ship.

Star Trek has sort of a mixed record on stories about religion; even Deep Space Nine, the series with religious themes baked explicitly into its premise, had hit and miss episodes on the subject. But there isn't much of a message at all here. In the mode of many original series episodes of Star Trek, this episode is content to just paint religion as idiotic, full stop, with a simplified conflict over minor differences ultimately destroying an entire alien civilization. It's probably asking too much for the writers of Enterprise, only a couple of years after 9/11, to have a profound perspective on the themes they're writing about -- yet I do wish for something a little more thoughtful than "aren't these people stupid?"

On the other hand, it's not like the episode shies away from all controversy. The alien Triannons don't just threaten Enterprise, they are specifically suicide bombers (with the sci-fi detail that the bombs are in their bloodstream). There are scenes specifically contrasting their religious beliefs with scientific principles. Some of their dialogue feels quite authentic, from the declaration that they oppose "enemies of truth" to the justification that "in the service of the makers, all actions are blessed." And an important subplot centers on one of the aliens being pregnant and seeking an abortion from Phlox. With the regressive direction the United States has moved on this subject since this episode was made, it's kind of wild to see this story tucked away in the B-plot and not the sole focus.

There are a few nice moments for characters sprinkled throughout. Phlox makes a determined stand to help his patients. (I can't tell if the writers actually do like his character, or if John Billingsley just makes an effective moment out of every scrap he's thrown.) Archer carries out a Kirk-like ruse in faking his death. (Though if the aliens have access to the Enterprise database, they should know what a transporter is.) Reed actually wins a fistfight. (He's gotta do something right eventually.)

The guest cast is full of actors that few would know by name, but who seem instantly recognizable from long careers. Conor O'Farrell, who plays the alien captain D'Jamat, would be familiar to sci-fi fans from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dark Skies, or From the Earth to the Moon, but he's also worked outside the genre on Desperate Housewives, 24, Boston Legal, and so many more. You've absolutely seen this guy somewhere. Same goes for Vince Grant as Yarrick, whose IMDb page shows he's basically never played a recurring character on anything, but has probably done one episode of just about any television show of the 2000s that you could name. Meanwhile, Taylor Sheridan -- who plays Jareb -- would move into writing more than acting, creating shows like Yellowstone and Lioness.

Other observations:

• T'Pol keeps getting new outfits this season -- all with similar cuts, but in a wide range of colors.

• The leader D'Jamat's name kind of sounds like "Digimon" when people say it. Which was a property that existed in 2004, so... was it intentional? 

I'm glad Enterprise didn't avoid telling a story about violent religious extremists amid their "9/11 allegory." But still, this episode feels like it's reaching at something it isn't effectively grasping. I give "Chosen Realm" a B-.

Earth Tones

This week brought us the end of the first too-short season of the TV series Alien: Earth. To say that it was the best content in the Alien franchise since the original movie and James Cameron's first sequel isn't setting the bar high at all. So let me expound upon that in a few paragraphs.

As the title suggests, Alien: Earth finally takes the Alien franchise to the setting fans have been clamoring to see for over four decades. Set only a few years before the original film, the show tracks what happens when a ship full of alien lifeforms crashes on Earth, and two powerful corporations go up against each other to control the contents.

Alien: Earth comes from creator Noah Hawley, who's also behind other shows including the excellent Fargo and subversive Legion. Through both those shows, he's demonstrated an ability to work within an established style without being overwhelmed by it, telling his own powerful stories that take advantage of franchise trappings rather than being hemmed in by them. He now brings all that to bear on Alien.

To be sure, the show feels absolutely set in the established Alien universe. It brings us the gritty "future" (as imagined in 1979) with the highest fidelity we've ever seen; every single thing you see on screen feels contemporaneous with Ridley Scott's original film. With those bona fides established, the show has leave to add to the universe.

To me, the best thing about Alien: Earth is that it dares to assert that the xenomorphs we all know might not be the most dangerous (or even most interesting) form of life in the universe. The show introduces a number of nasty new creatures, and any one of them feels like it could have carried its own iconic 70s horror film. In particular, a horrifying new "eyeball octopus" is an effective and creepy invention that could easily fuel more seasons of this show just as surely as the original creature of Alien fueled myriad sequels. Moreover, the final episode of the season (without getting too specific) squarely hits on another theme that previous Alien films have tried to center with varying success: it might be that the most diabolical menace of all comes from our own home planet.

But novel creatures are only the beginning of countless clever creative choices made by the show. At the core of the story is a project to transfer human consciousness into synthetic bodies, using children as the initial test subjects. The premise allows adult actors to play pre-teen kids, and is the most brilliant way to "have your cake and eat it too." It allows the show to use the Alien in a completely new context: we've only really seen one child in an Alien movie (Newt in Aliens), and that was just one specific story. Yet at the same time, it doesn't feel like the story is crassly putting children in harm's way. And it also provides a neat workaround for one of the enduring problems of horror storytelling: the characters often have to make dumb choices to perpetuate the danger... and dumb choices don't feel as illogical when a sheltered young child is making them.

The casting is great. Timothy Olyphant is the scene-stealer as Kirsh, in large part because he's playing so against type. He still shows the wit and cleverness you expect if you know him from, say, Deadwood or Justified -- but all the charm and intensity is held at at an eerie, icy remove. Playing "Wendy," Sydney Chandler delivers on the most complicated story arc of the season, and has to step out of the shadows cast in a franchise with a long history of complex female leads. Fantastic villains are played by Samuel Blenkin, who gives us a delightfully awful narcissist, and Babou Ceesay, who negotiates the nuance of a villain who "has his reasons" that never actually seem all that good to the audience. And as the "Everyman" plopped down amid the chaos, Alex Lawther is quietly collecting major science fiction franchises (after portraying perhaps the single most influentual character in the story of Andor).

You might argue that Alien: Earth is a bit slow to get going. The first two episodes seem a bit limited and cramped -- even more so when you realize there are only eight episodes in the entire season. But once the story gets going, it's fascinating -- and satisfies even as it sets the stage for future seasons. I give it an A-. No word yet on whether there will be a second season, but it feels impossible for the Powers That Be to not see they have a good thing here. I wait with hope and eagerness for a renewal announcement.

Star Trek Flashback: The Cage

I'm still working my way through my re-watch of Star Trek: Enterprise. But a Star Trek podcast I listen to has just embarked on the original Star Trek. So in an effort to keep pace with them, I'm embarking on my own trip back through Star Trek. That project starts literally where it all began, with the original series pilot, "The Cage."

When the Enterprise finds survivors of a years-old ship crash, it seems too good to be true. And indeed, it is soon revealed to be the illusory creation of a powerful alien species of telepaths. They abduct Captain Christopher Pike, imprisoning him in a sort of "menagerie" of creatures, and forcing him into imaginary situations with the same human woman, Vina. What are their motives? And how can Pike overcome an adversary who can read his thoughts?

"The Cage" is an interesting place to start a Star Trek journey --it is literally a television pilot that wasn't good enough to make the cut. But the reasons that TV executives disliked it (famously, they declared it was "too cerebral") aren't necessarily the reasons it comes off "less than great" today. No, Star Trek did not spring into being fully-formed, and this episode is full of examples. The setting is much more militaristic than what would ultimately develop. The sound effects are obtrusive. Few of the characters pop, and even the familiar one -- Leonard Nimoy's Spock -- isn't being written they way we'd all come to know him.

But there are other ways "The Cage" clangs that I'll have to reckon with repeatedly as I watch the original series. It is very much a product of the 1960s. How could it not be, no matter its futuristic setting? It features a stilted and distant style of acting that's the product of another time; only Jeffrey Hunter as Pike and John Hoyt as Doctor Boyce give anything approaching the sort of lived-in performance that reads as "natural" today. Still... it's one thing to know intellectually that "this is the style of the time," and another to try to overlook the snail-like pace of the editing and storytelling.

It can be harder still to overlook some of the content. In the fullness of time, Star Trek would grow to be respected as years ahead of its time in matters of race and civil rights. But it's not immune to the occasional gut punch of six-decade-old cultural norms. There are a lot of awkwardly sexist moments in "The Cage": Pike's discomfort with women on the bridge, a starship captain speaking admiringly of women who "like being taken advantage of," Spock's alarm at the abduction of "the women!"... and the fact that Gene Roddenberry thought the right button for his episode was a female crewman asking her captain who he would have picked to be "Eve" to his "Adam."

But despite all that, there's still something here. I mean, there had to be, since this pilot did earn Star Trek a second chance. It is exotic and intriguing, and it does make you think (even if a few TV executives didn't see that as a good thing). It seems like an intractable problem to go up against aliens who can make you see anything. (Maybe too intractable? They sort of have to just "change their minds" in the end for Pike to get out of his situation.) Already, the perhaps subversive idea that force won't save you in every situation is being planted here.

Since the last time I watched "The Cage" (as the re-master of the original Star Trek was airing in the first decade of the 2000s), the context for viewing it has changed a bit. Trekkers used to look for it for small hints of what Star Trek would become in the years after it was made. Today, you can look to it more specifically for any hints of the what would become the spin-off, Strange New Worlds. Even though the answer to that might simply be "there aren't many," the fact that there are now nearly a dozen Star Trek series just highlights even more: it's all here because of this. Without it, we wouldn't have any of it.

Don't worry, I'm not getting too sentimental. I'd say "The Cage" deserves a C-. No, it's not the most auspicious start... but then, it wasn't seen as such in its own time, either.

Walk On

I've seen many movies over the years that are based on Stephen King novels, but this past weekend marked an unprecedented first for me: the first time I saw one after having read the original novel on which it's based. That's because only now, over 45 years after it was published, has The Long Walk been adapted for the screen.

In a dystopian version of the late 1970s, an autocratic leader has seized power in the United States after a brutal civil war. One of the "circuses" he uses to keep the populace entertained is the Long Walk, a competition in which 50 young men must walk without stop at a pace of at least three miles per hour until all but one remains -- the others being executed along the way if they fail to heed "warnings" to keep pace. Contestant 47, Ray Garraty, has a deeply personal reason to participate -- and big plans with the "wish" he'll be granted if he wins. But he doesn't plan on the friendships he forges with other Walkers along the way.

With Stephen King's writing almost always a hit on page and screen, you should probably be wary of any of his stories that hasn't been adapted for film; there's probably a reason. As a book, The Long Walk plays mostly as internal monologue, with little variation and even less doubt about how it might all end. It's not the most "unadaptable" story in King's collection (Mike Flanagan got to that), but it's close. Though it may have worked out the way it was meant to, with this tale about a fascist regime normalizing the ghastly arriving in theaters in this particular moment.

In a way, the movie version of The Long Walk has it easier than the book. It has to sustain the premise not for hundreds of pages, but only two-or-so hours (and indeed, clocks in at 108 minutes). But at the same time, it has it harder, as it must also maintain visual variety in a story that's just set on mile after mile of endless road. Director Francis Lawrence is well aware of this (and knows a thing or two about dystopic competitions). The movie makes great use of location shooting, and makes sure to deploy every possible camera placement (at the right moments) in the telling of the story.

As for the "unadaptable" part, screen writer JT Mollner is well aware of the issues he faces. He's given the protagonist Ray an extra motivation here that wasn't present in the book, increasing the stakes and allowing for a few flashbacks to break up the story. But also, he doesn't feel obligated to put every passing thought that went through Ray's head in the book into his screenplay; instead, he seizes the opportunity to build up other characters, especially Peter McVries.

As for the feeling that you know how this story is going to end? Mollner takes that on too. Stephen King is famously slapdash with some of his endings, and his novel The Long Walk is decidedly meh in that regard: more poetic and thematic than satisfying. I really don't want to spoil the movie at all, but Stephen King has long been open to adaptations that end differently from his original material, and he was open to that again here.

Except... if I can take one paragraph to get a bit spoilery (so skip ahead if you want to), I'll say that the new ending definitely makes you think in a particularly topical way about how to oppose fascism. (The movie is specifically timely in a way its makers could never have known.) I'm reminded of a subplot from Saving Private Ryan that made a big impact on me. (Here's a link to the time I wrote about that, but seriously -- if you go read that, it will absolutely spoil the ending of The Long Walk, if you haven't figured it out already.)

The movie is anchored by several strong performances. You might say that Cooper Hoffman got this role as the "nepo baby" of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, but he's absolutely as natural on camera as his father was, and is a relatable anchor for the story. David Jonsson is excellent as Peter, a beacon of light in dark times, who makes clear the effort it takes to be a person like that. Meanwhile, Mark Hamill is giving a fun turn as the villainous "Major."

I give The Long Walk a B. It's a heavy but well-made tale, and does a credible job in adapting an "unadaptable" story.

Enterprise Flashback: Carpenter Street

After 10 episodes of season three of Star Trek: Enterprise, you'd probably expect that with the Xindi arc in full swing, the show had left behind its convoluted "Temporal Cold War" storyline. Not so fast! The cryptic agent Daniels is back for a new time travel adventure, "Carpenter Street."

Agent Daniels appears to Archer with grim news: a group of Xindi have traveled back to Earth in 2004. There, they're conducting research on a biological weapon that will wipe out humanity just as surely as the superweapon weapon Enterprise came to the Expanse to stop. Daniels is going to send Archer and T'Pol back in time to prevent this new threat.

This episode very quickly reminded me of the reasons I'd grown tired of Enterprise's Temporal Cold War episodes: they don't make a lick of sense. Daniels is aware of this 2004 threat. He looks human. He's traveled to the past before on a mission of infiltration -- that's how he met Archer in the first place. So... why isn't he the one traveling to 2004 Detroit to do something about it? Why does he need Archer and T'Pol? (Aside from the extratextual answer: because then there wouldn't be an episode.)

When Archer was snatched forward to the future previously, the timeline changed to an apocalyptic hellscape, changes permeating instantly through time. Here, Daniels tells Archer that the changes of 2004 haven't yet rippled through to the future, in a direct contradiction. Why aren't there one or two consistent rules about all this stuff? (Again, aside from the extratextual answer: because then there wouldn't be an episode.)

Daniels isn't the only one with an overly complicated plan. In the past, its true that these reptilian Xindi can't exactly blend in. But still, is the easiest way to collect one sample of every human blood type to get some junkie blood bank worker to gather them? How did they meet him? Where are they getting these briefcases of money to pay him? (Blah blah, wouldn't have have an episode.)

Once Archer and T'Pol travel to the past (side note: where did they get the costumes when they don't have replicators?) T'Pol holds on to her "I don't believe in time travel" shtick for far longer than seems logical. Archer impulsively puts himself in harm's way, apparently unable to think of any other way to deal with the situation. T'Pol speaks with weird certainty about how to block time travel. (Acceptance comes with complete scientific knowledge?)

In short, there's a mountain of nonsense you have to try to overlook here -- including the fact that we kinda-sorta just had a "time travel" episode when Enterprise found an Old West planet. But assuming you can get on board, there is some fun to be had too. A lot of it is the sort of humor that made Star Trek IV so entertaining: the comedy of seeing our future characters interacting in the present day. If they steal a car, can they operate it? What will they make of a fast food drive-thru lane? There's good action too. An early chase ends with a satisfying Vulcan neck pinch. A climactic rooftop shootout features stunt performers jumping between buildings. The camera work dares to go over the top, with fast zooms and melodramatic slow motion.

The caliber of the central guest star helps a lot. Leland Orser may be best known for his brief but intense performance in Seven, but he's a face familiar to Star Trek fans, having appeared a few times before. He has to carry the early part of this episode -- which luxuriates in mystery for a long time before showing Our Heroes -- and is more than up to the challenge. (Though I ultimately don't care enough about his character to want the episode's final scene, showing his arrest in 2004.)

Also, the lead Xindi is played by a very young Jeffrey Dean Morgan, completely covered in makeup. Years later, he gave an interview in which he revealed this experience was so unpleasant that he almost quit acting. Fortunately, he'd soon land roles without the extreme makeup, becoming the charismatic badass he'd play in many shows and movies.

Other observations:

• Who keeps day-old pizza in their bathroom? Leland Orser's character Loomis, that's who.

• When T'Pol refuses to try fast food, Loomis gets in a sly joke by invoking Burger King's long-running slogan: "have it your way."

• Most of the main cast gets the week off. Trip is shown only briefly, and we just get Reed's voice. No Phlox, Hoshi, or Travis at all.

"Carpenter Street" is mostly fun once it gets going. But it also feels a bit aimless, and I felt keenly aware of the storytelling mechanics. I give it a B-.

Who's a Good Boy?

For years now, cooperative trick-taking games have been a staple in my gaming group -- both versions of The Crew, and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game. But those games have loosened their grip a little in the past few months. The Gang has become our go-to cooperative card game. And now a new competitive game seems to be filling the trick-taking niche.

Vivo is played with a custom deck -- though not far from standard: 48 cards are divided into four suits with one card each numbered 1 through 12. (They're also adorned with illustrations of singing dogs, blending cuteness with the game's musical theme.) As usual, you deal out the deck evenly to all players to begin a round.

Then come the clever twists that make the game unique. There's also a small, shuffled side deck: multiple cards labeled "solo," "duet," "trio," or "quartet" that shift the rules of each trick played. (You see the current round's card, as well as the upcoming rule for the next round -- if you're growing skilled enough at the game to take advantage of that preview.) The rule card governs how you must "follow suit" for a trick, in the common parlance of trick-taking games. "Solo" is what card gamers will know well: only one suit can be played to the trick; one person leads, everyone else must follow if they can, and the highest card wins the trick.

The other three cards shake that up. In "duet," two different suits can be played. After one player leads the trick, the next player can choose to follow, or can introduce a second suit into the trick. Whichever player plays the highest card of the first two suits in the trick will win it (with ties going to the most recently played card). "Trio" allows three suits in the trick, while "quartet" effectively reverses the rules for four players: each player must not follow any suit already in the trick.

On top of this break from the familiar comes Vivo's intriguing method of scoring points. Winning a trick will net you 2 points: you take the card you won with and place it face down in front of you as a marker. But also, the lowest card in a trick scores too; its owner places that card face up in front of them, where it's worth face value. So while winning tricks is certainly good, the real path to victory is trying to sneak into tricks with the highest-numbered card you can that's still the lowest card in the trick. The same tiebreaking rule -- most recent card wins the tie -- makes for thrilling swings as a trick unfolds. And the fact that the low cards are scored face up is also informational; you may not be good enough at counting cards to know for certain what specific cards are still out there, but you can look around the table and see several that definitely aren't.

The clever intersection of the solo/duet/trio/quartet deck with the game's clever scoring make for one of my favorite kinds of games: easy to teach, yet satisfying to play. If you're explaining the game to someone familiar with Hearts, Spades, Bridge, or the like, you can be playing in only a minute or two. But just a few tricks in, you quickly realize that not every strategy you might bring from one of those games applies here, and you'd better develop some new ones.

I've played a fair number of new trick-taking games over the past couple years. They've all had their intriguing tweaks to the familiar, but for me none have satisfied as much as Vivo. And extra points to Vivo for doing it with simpler rules than many of the others. (I'm looking at you, Cat in the Box.) The game is still rising in my esteem each time I play it; right now, it feels like an A-. I can easily imagine wearing out the cards with excessive use... and then happily buying another copy for the group.

Disheartened

Some serialized TV series wrap up each season with a "leave it all on the field" sensibility. The recent cancellation of Resident Alien was only announced midway through the already-filmed season 4, but the finale was satisfying -- either because they knew in advance that it was the end, or they dared to take big swings that would be challenging to deal with if they'd been given a season 5. The Morning Show began its season 4 this week with a premiere that reminds viewers just how much the formula was upset at the end of season 3; the episode had to spend a lot of time putting things in a place where there could even still be a show.

I wish the MCU and its television shows would be a little more like this.

I recently finished Ironheart, a series centered on Riri Williams, a brilliant young scientist who sees herself one-upping Tony Stark with her inventions. The fast-paced six-episode story follows her mixing up with a criminal element, getting in too deep, and then trying to dig out and do right by her friends and family.

There's a lot to like about the show. Dominique Thorne is compelling in the role of Riri. She's skilled in throwing one-liners and shade to make you believe in the character's quick wit. But she's also emotional and sympathetic in ways that make you feel the stakes that Riri faces, more strongly than you do in many stories about superheroes.

Lyric Ross is a performer that fans of This Is Us will remember well; she swooped into that established show with a new character that instantly clicked, and rose to the occasion of every meaty story line they gave her. Here on Ironheart, she plays Natalie, the friend at the core of Riri's trauma -- but also the spirited light who makes the whole adventure fun. Just like on This Is Us, she's giving a performance that elevates the show.

You've got Anthony Ramos mugging as an increasingly unhinged villain, and Alden Ehrenreich bringing some of the roguish charm that made a casting director pick him to be Han Solo. When Riri joins a group of techno-thieves, the crew is populated with the sort of fun characters you expect in a heist story, played by a diverse group of actors each making a meal out of their small part.

But then Ironheart doesn't end. We're now several years into the MCU trying to launch things that, for one reason or another, explode on the launch pad. We've had major characters disappear, post-credits teases that lead to nothing, cliffhangers that will never be resolved. That they're still leaving loose ends that will never be tied up is becoming actively annoying.

The final episode of Ironheart deploys some wild stunt casting of a brand-new villain, and ends on an explicit cliffhanger of Riri in a terrible position worse than anything she's faced before. The final episode came ever-so-close to tying off the major plot elements of the prior five, but then swerves right at the end to leave characters in play rather than embracing the natural conclusions of their stories. Everything about the final episode is setting up for a season two -- a season two that it seems like they knew was never going to come even when they were making it. (Certainly not by the time they streamed it; Ironheart was burned off in two consecutive three-episode weeks.) 

Ironheart was a show that I'd been enjoying well-enough along the way as some B+ish escapism. But the annoying finale felt like punishment for investing in the show at all. Maybe I shouldn't have expected a good ending from a show that clearly wasn't stand-alone going in (what with all the explicit connections back to Iron Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, and maybe half a dozen other previous MCU entries). But also... maybe this is why recent MCU movies and shows haven't amassed as many viewers. I know I'm getting tired of this narrative treadmill.

Strange New Worlds: New Life and New Civilizations

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has concluded its third season with an episode that, like the show itself, takes its title from the franchise's well-known "captain's poem": "New Life and New Civilizations."

When the malevolent creatures from an alien prison are poised to escape, only the heroes aboard the starship Enterprise stand in the way. Though it soon becomes clear that one hero in particular must literally stand against them and save the galaxy.

There is a lot I like about this episode... though I'll get to that in a moment, as the episode itself kind of took a while to get to any of that. Instead, I'll start with the shaky setup of the story, which left me feeling like I'd watched every part of a rickety machine being tenuously snapped into position.

The reappearance of Ensign Gamble as a Big Bad approached "somehow, Palpatine returned" levels of convenience. The revelation that everything that's happened to Captain Batel in her dozen appearances were somehow leading to this inexorable destiny felt awkwardly tacked on. The presence of a second starship right when it's needed, basically at the beck and call of its first officer, seemed like a contrivance. The finale didn't feel to me like it had been carefully seeded throughout the season, but rather the best attempt at using all the toys that had been dumped out on the floor along the way.

But, as I have said repeatedly, Strange New Worlds always does right by its characters. So once all that narrative legwork was finale complete, the back half of the episode featured some excellent character moments that to me made the awkwardness worthwhile.

If you were making a list of the prequelly moments that Strange New Worlds had to show us eventually, I'm not sure I would have thought to put "Kirk and Spock's first mindmeld" on it. But seeing that dramatized seemed perfect and obvious. And I'll forgive any mechanics needed to set up the situation, because the requirement for "two people to work exactly as one" was kind of the perfect dramatic thesis for the Kirk/Spock relationship.

Similarly, though I wasn't sold on the idea that Batel's destiny was always this, I did appreciate what the situation meant for her and Pike. It's a double gut-punch for our captain, who not only loses the woman he loves, but does so in a way that underlines how destiny is inescapable. Still, it wasn't entirely bleak, as an "Inner Light"-style vision of an entire alternate life with Batel gives Pike warm memories he can use to process both her fate and his.

I doubt it will be controversial to suggest that season three of Strange New Worlds was the weakest so far. And this episode, a B- in my book, was one of the weaker of the bunch. Still, I'm always eager to sit down for a new episode, and I find there's something good in every single one. I will remain eager for the fourth season, coming some time next year.

Form Over Function

The Emmys were last night, a night that saw one program -- Adolescence -- dominate the Limited Series categories. I recently finished watching the four-episode mini-series on Netflix, but hadn't gotten around writing up my thoughts. Now, I can take a somewhat contrarian stance to the widespread industry praise.

Adolescence kicks off when police come to arrest 13-year-old Jamie Miller for the murder of one of his classmates. Each episode follows the effects of the crime throughout the community: on police who have rarely witnessed something so tragic, on a student body whose school is affected by the news, on the accused boy who is detained for psychological evaluation, and on his family who is torn apart by the revelation.

One of the many wins for Adolescence was for writing, and I find it easy to see why. The story very quickly moves past the "did he do it?" tropes of the typical crime drama, expanding to show just how many people are affected by violence like this. I found episodes two and four to be especially powerful in this regard. The former episode is set at Jamie's school, and makes abundantly clear how much pressure teenagers deal with on a daily basis -- as the adults in their lives remain utterly, almost callously, oblivious. The latter episode shows how even more than a year later, Jamie's family has still barely begun to reckon with the emotional effects of his crime.

However, I've thus far not mentioned the series' big hook: each episode is filmed in a single take. In the film industry, most "oners" often involve some sort of technical trick to hide cuts and stitch multiple takes together in an illusion of continuity. No such fakery was employed here. Each episode is one truly uninterrupted hour, staged for one ever-present camera. Nearly every bit of press about Adolescence mentions this fact, and the creative team behind the show has spoken extensively about how they pulled it off and why they felt it was important to film this way: they claim the technique puts the viewer right inside the action. The implication is that there's some sort of "chocolate and peanut butter" kind of harmony here between powerful storytelling and powerful filmmaking. My own experience was starkly different, a jarring "chocolate and sushi" experience not only of two things not fitting together, but of one totally overwhelming the other.

The one-take staging of Adolescence is far too fancy. On multiple occasions, the camera gets in a car with characters as they move from one location to another. There are tricky moments where it gets passed through a window, races along with running characters, moves backward through complicated hallways and up staircases, and at one point even gets secretly mounted on a drone to allow for a sweeping "god's eye" shot. Different sequences in the series are set in a police precinct stuffed with dozens of workers, and at a crowded hardware store full of shoppers. Most mind-boggling of all is the school episode, with literally more than 300 students moving this way and that under the watchful eye of the camera.

At almost no point can you not be aware of what a massive, logistical nightmare all this was to execute.  And invariably, the most challenging moments fall very late in each one-hour episode: a complicated camera move that has to work, or an actor called upon to deliver a deeply emotional moment as the camera closes in mere inches from their face. You can easily imagine how many times that 45 minutes of an episode was perfectly "in the can," only to be spoiled late in the game by something going wrong on a given take.

Don't get me wrong, all of this is a jaw-dropping marvel. You cannot help but be impressed how the show at every turn selects for the "hardest degree of difficulty"... and pulls it off. But none of that pulls me into the action. Quite the opposite -- it forcefully keeps me from engaging with the emotion of the story, pulling me out of the moment every time I'm forced to ask "how did they do that?"

I felt there was only one episode where the single-take technique actually worked: episode three, centered on a psychologist interviewing young Jamie. That episode takes place mostly in a single room, and is centered on the interaction between two people. It's a proper one-act play that just happens to be performed for the camera rather than on a stage, and truly hinges on two actors really responding to each other in the moment. (Unsurprisingly, both of those performers, Erin Doherty and young Owen Cooper, won Emmys for this work.)

In my mind, there at least two major reasons to watch Adolesence: for the unyielding and powerful look at the consequences of violence, or for the high-stakes acrobatics of the cinematography coupled with keen coordination and careful rehearsal. I might well be inclined to give either one of those things, in isolation, an A grade. But I felt the latter massively detracted from the former, leading to a whole that was not as good as the sum of its parts. I felt Adolescence was still good -- a B+ perhaps -- but I might not have been as reflexive to shower it with all the industry rewards it just collected.

Strange New Worlds: Terrarium

At one point or another over the first two seasons of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, every main character was the focus of at least one episode... except for Erica Ortegas. That finally changed near the end of season three in "Terrarium."

While piloting a shuttle to chart a region of spatial distortions, Ortegas is pulled through a wormhole and crashes on a small moon of a gas giant. Soon, she learns she is not alone -- a lone Gorn pilot is also stranded there. Can the two work together to help Enterprise locate and rescue them? Does the Gorn even want to be rescued? And are the constant pitfalls the two face some indication of something more at play?

Because Strange New Worlds does such a good job with character -- painting them in many dimensions and including them in episodes even where they aren't the focus -- it hasn't exactly felt like Ortegas was an "underdeveloped" character. Still, it's well past time that she gets "her own" episode. (Though I do find it interesting that it seems featuring her apparently means leaving many other characters out of the episode entirely; M'Benga, Chapel, and Scotty don't appear at all.)

Unfortunately, the writers kind of do the "Ortegas episode" on the highest degree of difficulty. Having a solo character talk to themselves is one of the toughest things to make believable on film. It's hard in the writing, and even harder in the performance. In my view, Melissa Navia does absolutely the best she can with it... but there are still moments where you just don't buy -- for example -- that Ortegas is going to stop and doodle in the sand to explain something she knows to herself.

Overall, the plot is very familiar. Star Trek has done "Enemy Mine" before, on the Next Generation and then even more directly on Enterprise. Even the plot twists here are familiar; the episode initially makes you wonder if they're going all the way back to classic Trek to do "Arena" before settling into "Enemy Mine" mode... then comes back around to very explicitly do "Arena." Because I was familiar with that original series episode, I figured out early on what the "mysterious light in the distance" really was -- but kept hoping I would be proven wrong and the they weren't going to do such a needlessly direct prequel to such an iconic episode.

Still, there are parts of the episode I did like more enthusiastically. Another classic Star Trek trope is not repurposed so exactly: the "holding out hope for a lost crewmember until the very last moment" trope. Here, it's packaged in an interesting subplot about Uhura coloring outside the lines a bit to get what she wants. And that subplot makes for nice moments with some other characters too -- Pike revealing that he knows exactly what Uhura is doing; Spock tempering cold logic with friendship and supporting her. 

Also, I really could never say enough about how great this episode looks. You could easily take for granted how Strange New Worlds' use of an AR wall allows them to present alien landscapes that are far more realistic than the Star Treks of past eras could manage. You shouldn't take that for granted; this asteroid-like moon looks amazing on screen. But even more impressive is the realization of the Gorn pilot. She is truly alien, but also just expressive enough. She feels like a real character. And again, Melissa Navia gets a hard assignment acting opposite her. Her work here is a big contributor to being able to take the Gorn seriously. We've come a long way since William Shatner fought a guy in a rubber suit.

"Terrarium" wasn't a favorite of mine this season, but was yet another example of a "weak" Strange New Worlds episode not being bad at all. I give it a B.

It's Elementary Magic

One hazard of reading fantasy fiction is that most of the books held in highest regard are part of some epic, unfinished series from an author who putters around for years on the next book. I'm currently lost in the middle of more such stories than I can hold in memory, and not looking to start another. Except I just did. Fortunately, though, this one has turned out to be different.

The Tainted Cup comes from author Robert Jackson Bennett. It's the story of Dinios Kol, a young assistant assigned to brilliant investigator Ana Dolabra as she investigates a bizarre magical death. Din is an engraver, a person who has been magically altered to possess perfect memory. Ana dispatches him to go examine crime scenes without her, coming back to recount all the details. She remains blindfolded and shut away in her own thoughts as much as possible, bringing her intellect (also magically altered) to bear on solving cases. Together, the duo has stumbled onto a conspiracy that threatens the empire they serve.

The Tainted Cup is the first book of a trilogy dubbed "Shadow of the Leviathan," and bears all the trappings readers expect from high fantasy. The author has envisioned an elaborate world full of details that dance at the edges of the narrative: squabbling fiefdoms within a large empire; monstrous creatures that attack with regularity (and the efforts keep them at bay); and a unique system of magic with numerous facets, nooks, and crannies for the story to take advantage of.

And yet, the story of The Tainted Cup is not the typical "cast of dozens" set loose in that vivid world. It's the first-person narrative of Din, and is very much focused on the "Holmes and Watson"-like relationship they have in solving crimes. The book is almost as much a mystery novel as a fantasy novel, and I find the two genres play very well together. The instinct of a fantasy author to embellish a tale with elaborate details plants a perfect garden in which a mystery author can hide clues to a whodunnit. The presence of magic opens up whole new methods of how a crime can be carried out -- and so long as the rules of those magic are fixed and fair, the mystery can still be satisfying.

I'm not prepared to anoint The Tainted Cup as the beginning of my newest fantasy obsession. Still, Robert Jackson Bennett has crafted an enjoyable story featuring memorable characters and an overall setting worth going back to in future books. And on that front, there are two bonuses here:

First, The Tainted Cup is an almost-wholly self-contained book. By the end of it, the mystery has been solved. Tendrils of narrative certainly gesture at what will come next -- but plenty of conventional mystery novels conclude with less of a sense of closure than I found here in book one. This is a book that in my view doesn't require committing to the trilogy.

Second, following quickly on the heels of The Tainted Cup's publication last year, book two has already been released this year. And while you might well think, "sure... but how long until book three?", a quick search of Robert Jackson Bennett's bibliography shows he's been publishing with regularity since he first arrived on the scene in 2010 -- he's written a dozen books in 15 years, with never more than two years between them. Let's just say I'd put money on book three arriving before The Winds of Winter or The Doors of Stone.

I'd give The Tainted Cup a B+, and I plan to give book two a try at some point. If a high fantasy tweak on Holmes and Watson sounds like it might be for you, give it a try! 

Strange New Worlds: Four-and-a-Half Vulcans

Although Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has already served up a couple of comedic episodes in season three, neither approached the zaniness of "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans."

A special undercover mission requires members of the crew not only to appear Vulcan, but to actually become Vulcan in a complete physical transformation. Pike, Uhura, La'an, and Chapel are all successful in their mission with Spock. But in the aftermath, all of them remain as Vulcans -- at first involuntarily, and then by choice. The crew must find a way to get through to them as their extreme demeanor causes all kinds of disruptions.

There's no denying this episode is fun... or that Strange New Worlds has taken bold comedy swings before that I've loved without reservation. But I found myself having some reservations this time. The "Vulcan" behavior of the four transformed characters is just so over-the-top that it's paradoxical. Is it logical to behave like this? Each of them is acting more like a computer with a buggy program than a living, thinking person. (And Pelia is almost the strangest of all -- as though her behavior has to be extra wacky to rise above in an episode this wacky.)

Still, assuming you do reach the point where you settle in and accept that this is the tone, there are laughs to be had. Everyone seems to be having fun, from the new "Space... the final frontier..." monologue from Vulcan Pike to the choreographed fight/dance between Spock and La'an that rides the line between comedy and drama and represents getting through to her. Along the way, Scotty and Kirk have an adventure together, and Number One swoons for an old Vulcan flame.

And, as Strange New Worlds so often excels, most of the particulars of this episode work in support of ongoing story lines for the characters involved. Yes, seeing Pike's hair reach Johnny Bravo-esque heights is reason enough to pick him as a character to be... Vulcanized? But it also feeds into his relationship drama with Batel. Same goes for Uhura and Beto, Chapel and Korby, and La'an and Spock.

Then there's the cherry on top of this sundae: getting Patton Oswalt in a Star Trek episode. He is delightfully deadpan as Doug, and is great playing off of Rebecca Romijn and Ethan Peck. "Post-credit scenes" are wearing awfully thin in general these days, but not the ones we get here: several straight minutes of riffing between Oswalt and Peck that playfully pokes at human oddities, Vulcan cliches, and more. And Peck's break at the very end hints at just how much this episode must have been to make.

I give "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans" a B+. It's not my favorite of the lighter Strange New World episodes, but it's still a good time.