Hitting the Squids

Netflix has moved on at least one or two "can't miss TV shows" since the three-season run of Squid Game wrapped up a few months ago. But it loomed so large in the zeitgeist for a minute there -- and I haven't written about it since the first season -- that I feel like I have to go back to the well to offer an opinion.

Which, paradoxically, is that this is one particular well? I don't know if you can go back to it again.

Squid Game itself follows in the tradition of narratives like Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, putting a cast of doomed characters in a fight to death. The trappings of Squid Game were new and different, contributing to its success: it used the longer run time of a television season to more fully develop the characters, and the "child's game" hook of the competition worked even for audiences less familiar with the Korean games depicted.

But after an "unlikely protagonist" survives the game in the first chapter of one of these stories, there's kind of only one place for the sequel to go: back into the game again. And I sort of feel like whatever steps are taken to refresh that, the "been there, done that" feel of it can't be totally erased.

Seasons two and three of Squid Game (which really play more like one connected, extra long season) do bring some new ideas to the table. An elaborate subplot tracks the world outside the game as its being played. Another subplot takes us more into the world of running the game, following a character who has become involved for motives and principles of her own.

We also get a number of interesting new characters that double down on Squid Game's original premise of focusing on people who have been passed over (or even worked over) by society. An over-the-top, drug-addicted influencer makes a big splash. A mother/son pairing injects a fresh family dynamic into the story. A pregnant woman leads to a new set of complications, while highlighting some central themes. And the way the story weaves in a trans woman feels satisfyingly about more than just visibility -- it's real inclusion.

But all of that, no matter how compelling it can be at times, is always subsumed by other elements of the story. They still play all the hits of season one -- reality-show-style plotting and backstabbing, inevitable votes, wild games (though at least there are new ones). There's one truly new aspect of the story -- the main protagonist's quest to burn the whole system down -- yet even that fades into the background of the flashy, yet familiar. (Honestly, it feels super weird when we get a whole episode, as we do multiple times, in which he does and says almost nothing.)

It's possible I'm expecting too much of this show, this format. Like, maybe I'm asking for it to transform from Survivor to Andor or something, when all it can ever really do is be Survivor: Africa instead of Survivor: Micronesia. But if all Squid Game can do is offer diminishing returns -- I'd given seasons two and three a collective B -- then I'm glad creator Hwang Dong-hyuk has seen fit to end it at this point. And I can't say I'm all that enthused about the rumored English-language re-make/re-boot/re-heat.

For a few brief moments, tons of people were united in watching Squid Game. Let's go find the next big thing, shall we?

Strange New Worlds: A Space Adventure Hour

Season three of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds continued its apparent alternating pattern of serious and silly episodes with the fourth installment, "A Space Adventure Hour."

La'An is tasked with stress-testing a new holodeck system aboard the ship. She decides to cast herself as detective Amelia Moon, and is soon working to solve a murder behind the scenes of a 1960s science fiction TV show. But when the holodeck discontinues safety protocols, draws a crippling amount of power from Enterprise systems, and cuts off her communications with the world outside, La'An finds she must solve the mystery to save both herself and the ship.

In the chronologically ordered history of Star Trek, this episode is presenting the very first holodeck story. But in the real world, of course, The Next Generation gave us so many different malfunctioning holodeck episodes as to completely wear out the premise; later Treks would have to get increasingly clever in their narrative gymnastics to make the old feel new again.

Unfortunately, Strange New Worlds doesn't have a new take. (In fact, it's really close to "Elementary, Dear Data" in most key ways.) This episode is mostly just invoking nostalgia. There hasn't been a new holodeck episode of Star Trek in over 25 years, so you should be excited to see this one, right? (Assuming you haven't been watching old episodes -- like me and many Trekkers.)

But thankfully, there's another source of nostalgia here: for the original Star Trek series and the lofty and noble aspirations that have attached to it over the decades. La'An's holodeck excursion brings us into the world of "The Last Frontier," with a creator quite like Gene Roddenberry, a benefactor similar to Lucille Ball, a production budget befitting a 60s TV show, and a credit sequence exactly like the show that brought us all here today.

In the proud tradition of sketch comedy shows that have poked fun at Star Trek over the years, "A Space Adventure Hour" is Star Trek's chance to razz itself with hokey dialogue, exaggerated melodrama, technicolor lighting, rubber makeup, and cardboard props. Yet even as the episode has some meta fun at Star Trek's expense, it equally serves as a heartfelt love letter to some of the people who fought to keep it on the air in the beginning. Celia Rose Gooding (as Uhura, as "Joni Gloss") gets the most direct thesis statement in support of Star Trek that's ever been put into the mouth of one of its own characters. She advocates for the goodness of storytelling in the most abstract, television in general, and Star Trek in particular. I found it delightful.

So is the fun we get (as always) when the cast of a Star Trek show gets to cut loose and play other characters. Jess Bush gets to play things up in her native Australian accent. Anson Mount transforms completely into alcoholic writer "TK Bellows." Paul Wesley, who for seasons has perfectly walked the line of giving us James T. Kirk without giving us an impression of William Shatner, here gets to give us... a perfectly exaggerated impression of William Shatner. There is, in short, a lot here to love -- and likely the more minute trivia you have about the behind-the-scenes history of Star Trek, the more you'll find.

Yet even though the cast and director Jonathan Frakes inject this with every bit as much fun as last season's Lower Decks crossover, I still had a hard time getting over the "been there, done that" qualities of this being another holodeck misadventure. (And, if I may pat myself on the back for my own insightfulness, the rather easy-to-guess solution to the central mystery.) I had fun, but this was not an episode that put the "new" in Strange New Worlds. I give "A Space Adventure Hour" a B+.

Shuffle Up and Re-deal

It's been two years since I raved about the television series Poker Face. But now season 2 has come and gone, and I think it worth one more moment to highlight what a top-notch series it is.

Poke Face stars Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale, a woman who floats around the country bumping into crimes, and solving them thanks to her uncanny ability: she can instantly tell when a person is lying. The Columbo-inspired format generally shows us the crime in the opening act, before Charlie arrives on the scene. The game is not to solve the whodunnit, but to watch the dance between amateur detective and perpetrator -- how will Charlie figure everything out, and how long will the criminal be able to evade her?

Another big part of it is: what stars are going to show up this week? Natasha Lyonne has been working in the business for a long time, and has presumably developed a lengthy contact list of friends. The creator and sometimes-director of the show, Rian Johnson, has one too -- thanks in part to all the ensemble films he's been making. Add to that the fact that Poker Face has its own reputation now as a good show that's always going to have some juicy part for a guest star, and you shouldn't be surprised who's showing up each week.

Season two episodes include Cynthia Erivo, Giancarlo Esposito, Katie Holmes, John Mulaney, Richard Kind, Kumail Nanjiani, Carol Kane, David Krumholtz, Margo Martindale, Corey Hawkins, John Cho, Awkwafina, Alia Shawkat, Method Man, Justin Theroux, Haley Joel Osment... and a host of other television royalty who anchored a successful show at some point in their careers. It's easy to attract these kinds of people when you're offering them the opportunity to play characters from a set of quadruplets to grating internet personality to a con artist to a hitman. The invitation seems simple: come on Poker Face and have fun.

With Natasha Lyonne remaining the magnetic anchor of this show, and a writing staff able to constantly find new twists on the core premise, I found myself looking to Poker Face more than anything else in my viewing rotation for the 12 episodes it was back on the air. To me, this show is the reason to subscribe to Peacock... and you can stumble across enough deals online to get an entire year's subscription for around $20 that I don't feel bad at all if I never watch another thing on the service in that entire time.

Right at the end of the season, Poker Face served up a two-part finale episode that personally wasn't my favorite -- its clear Sherlock Holmes inspirations didn't serve the show as well in my mind as the Columbo roots. But even that was only "slightly less enjoyable" to me, not "bad" -- and it came at the end of 10 other episodes that had made me smile every single time without fail.

If anything, season two of Poker Face was even better than the first. I give it an A- (the "minus" only because the finale wasn't as perfectly suited to my tastes as the rest). No word yet on whether they will get a season three, by I'm happy to let them take another two years making it if that's what's necessary to make it happen.

Strange New Worlds: Shuttle to Kenfori

The third episode of season three of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds picked up the story baton from an excellent season two episode featuring Dr. M'Benga... and gave us zombies! Join me on a "Shuttle to Kenfori."

When it becomes clear that Captain Batel has not recovered from her ordeal with the Gorn, Dr. M'Benga is forced to explored more radical treatments for her condition. Enterprise must retrieve a unique flower from a planet in disputed space, even as Klingons prowl the area, and an unexpected obstacle meets M'Benga and Pike on the planet surface. Meanwhile, the effects of encountering the Gorn also linger with Ortegas, who becomes increasingly insubordinate in clashes with Number One.

I cannot say enough about how much I like the way Strange New Worlds approaches serialized storytelling. Instead of devoting an entire season to an intergalactic threat, the writers honor continuity for the characters as they nimbly hop from one classic weekly episode to the next. A quick "previously on" catches us up (and you'd be forgiven for needing that after two years), and then we're onto an interesting tale about the consequences of M'Benga's actions against a Klingon war criminal, coming home to roost.

I'm pretty sure you have to reach all the way back to the Next Generation's Lursa and B'Etor to find Klingon women -- adversaries, at least -- as charismatic and fun as this episode's Bytha. She's a character with a legitimate grievance, a distinctly Klingon way of pursuing it, and the right concept of "honor" to serve up a great twist at the end of the story.

More compelling still, though, were the interactions between Pike and M'Benga throughout the episode. I enjoyed the silly moments (like when they lost their shuttle), appreciated the way the show depicted zombies (and then was unafraid to actually say the Z word we were all thinking), and applauded that M'Benga had to come clean and confess to Pike: he'd done exactly the morally-compromised thing Pike believed he'd never have done. What's more, Pike basically has to "be okay" with it -- whether that's his instinct or not -- because M'Benga is the only one who can save Batel's life.

Speaking of Starfleet heroes behaving in unheroic ways, the B-plot with Ortegas was an interesting look at PTSD and how it can alter someone's behavior, perhaps without them even realizing it. I like the way this subplot gave us a long stretch of Number One in command... and even included La'An in a nice scene where she weighed in. But then, this is another thing Strange New Worlds does so well -- finding at least one meaty scene for almost every character, even when they aren't the episode's focus. (They also did that here with Spock and Chapel in the mindmeld scene with Batel.)

The show continues to be ridiculously ambitious. It would have been so easy to save money in the script stage by cutting the two or three pages of zero-gravity aboard Enterprise during the final act... but the production decided to take that on just to add punch to a key action sequence. Add in dozens of background zombie actors in elaborate makeup, multiple indoor and outdoor environments on an alien planet, and extensive shots of spaceships navigating debris, and you get an episode that feels like it had a massive budget and put every dollar of it on screen.

Alright -- not every element of this episode felt pitch perfect. The idea that all this was motivated by a quest for a flower? I imagine that with choices like this, the series is trying to embrace its nature as a narrative prequel to a show made in the 1960s. Still, to me this felt like one step too hokey to gel with modern television sensibilities. And that climactic knife fight between Bytha and M'Benga gave such overt Michael Jackson's "Beat It" vibes that it was hard not to laugh.

Still, I think that even a Strange New Worlds that isn't hitting a homer on every pitch (like it seemed to be in season two) is still a Star Trek show I eagerly await each week. I give "Shuttle to Kenfori" a B+.

Drop In?

Earlier this year, I blogged about how a trio of films driven by some core gimmick all disappointed me in some way, and had me thinking it was time to take a break from what basically amounted to cinematic clickbait. I failed to clock that barely a month later, I watched a film that was decidedly gimmick driven, and absolutely loved it. So I suppose context matters: exactly what is the hook, who is delivering it... and maybe what is the environment you're watching it in.

They have done studies showing that your mood is affected by airplane travel. I can personally attest that when I watch a movie -- even on the tiny screen on the seat back in front of me -- I have found myself enjoying things I probably wouldn't have received as well otherwise. And so it was when, on my way to Gen Con last week, I watched Drop.

Drop is a tight 95-minute horror-thriller about single mother Violet, going out on a date again for the first time since the death of her husband. As she settles in at the table with her date, she's being pinged by annoying "drops" on her phone from some unknown party in the restaurant. When she's compelled to actually receive the messages, she finds herself in a blackmail situation -- steadily escalating demands are made of her, all as she must keep her date in the dark, and struggle on her own to discover who is sending the drops and putting her in this situation.

This is obviously quite a gimmick-driven premise. But unlike No One Will Save You, where the gimmick of no dialogue is a stylistic formality, here the gimmick feeds oddly into the thriller genre. "How will the writers navigate keeping the story alive in the confines of this one restaurant?" is kind of a suspenseful question of its own, echoing the plight of the main character. 

I won't pretend the movie excels in this. There aren't really enough suspects put in play to make a big mystery of it. And when the villain's motivations are finally revealed, it's impossible to believe there wasn't an easier way to achieve the goals than this. But set all that aside, and the movie is fully exploring the space it sets out for itself. The protagonist basically does try about every reasonable thing you could think of to get out of her situation. The movie itself basically deploys every twist you could imagine within the conceit of "being terrorized via text message." The movie eats, and leaves no crumbs.

Meghann Fahy stars as Violet, and makes a good horror heroine. I'd only ever seen her before on season two of The White Lotus, but that was very much an ensemble show. Here, she has the spotlight and manages to ground some rather unreal situations with a sense of reality. She won't win any awards here, but this kind of movie doesn't work at all without a strong lead.

And I felt that the movie does kinda work. Perhaps only in the context of "it'll do for an airplane flight," but I'd give Drop a B-. If you like thrillers, and are up for a more modern take on Scream's classic "spooky phone calls," it might be worth your time. 

Strange New Worlds: Wedding Bell Blues

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds has a well-established track record of mixing light and dark episodes. So after the heavy season three premiere, you might well expect the next episode to be something like "Wedding Bell Blues."

Enterprise has spent months undergoing repairs, and now Nurse Chapel is returning from her fellowship. But when she arrives with a new boyfriend, Dr. Korby, Spock is not quite able to control the resulting emotions. At one point, he makes an idle comment and suddenly, his wedding to Chapel is imminent -- without most people even realizing that reality has changed. But even when the fantasy is shattered, what can be done to stop the all-powerful alien entity who made Spock's "wish" happen?

This episode may feature Spock learning to dance, but I won't attempt to dance around spoilers -- if you haven't caught up with this episode, you might just want to skip to the final paragraph here. Because while the episode itself makes an effort never to say "Q," John de Lancie's vocal cameo at the story's climax tells longtime Trek fans exactly what's going on here.

Actually, what's going on is that the writers are finally making "canon" the lazy choice made by Gene Roddenberry back in 1987 for the pilot of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Looking for a subplot to pad out a one-hour episode into a two-hour premiere, Roddenberry lifted the idea of a powerful, playful alien -- Trelane -- from the original series, and grafted it into script. Q had massive staying power, arguably overstaying his welcome as he reappeared again and again throughout the franchise. Strange New Worlds makes Trelane and Q part of the same "family," with some hand-waving about the logistics that one is forced to allow when mixing "magic" and science fiction.

I personally feel like I did not need yet another Q story in my life. But if you're going to do it? I feel like this is how you do it. Strange New Worlds has a high hit rate with its comedic episodes, and leaning into the comedy of Trelane/Q felt to me like the right way to go for this appearance. What's more, I can't think of better casting for a comedic Trelane than Rhys Darby. He gives a pitch perfect performance that lands all the jokes, captures the moments of whiny petulance, and is tinged with just the right amount of dangerous menace.

But it's not like Darby is the only one having fun here. The show hilariously pokes fun at itself with jokes about everything from Samuel Kirk's mustache to Pike's hair style. It goes meta, with a musical score that mimics the memorable "something's sinister" music of the original Star Trek. It cuts loose, allowing music to be played at a wedding reception that isn't a string quartet from the classical era. (Admit it... Wham! was not on your Star Trek bingo card.)

Best of all, the episode isn't just about having fun. Even this lark of a story progresses the arc of Spock and Chapel, and finds room to develop story for most of the other characters too. We see a lighter side of La'An now that she isn't obsessed with the Gorn, Pike and Batel must face a crossroads in their relationship, and we meet Ortegas' brother (while seeing her mask a greater trauma by focusing on his flirtation with Uhura). There are even a couple of other new secondary characters that the writers skillfully imbue with personality in just a few well-crafted lines: the playful nurse Gamble and a new alien bartender (marking, I believe, the first appearance of the three-armed Edosians outside of an animated Star Trek, in an exceptionally well-done combination of stagecraft and camera work).

All told, "Wedding Blue Blues" isn't really an episode I would have thought I wanted... but it's still one I enjoyed reasonably well all the same. I give it a B+.

Modern Family

I have returned from Gen Con, with both my voice and brainpower feeling temporarily eroded from when the con began. So today I'm going to blog about something without high brainpower demands: Mid-Century Modern.

Mid-Century Modern is a Hulu sitcom created by Max Mutchnick and David Kohan -- the latter of whom was a co-creator on Will & Grace, among other shows. That sense pervades every frame of this multi-camera, "live studio audience" (juiced with laugh track) series that feels like a throwback to network sitcoms. It's even directed by James Burrows, whose direction of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cheers, Taxi, Frasier, Friends, and more basically defined what network sitcoms are.

But the show it arguably feels most like is The Golden Girls. The core cast of four is three older gay men -- crotchety Bunny, airhead Jerry, and sassy Arthur -- along with Bunny's mother Sybil. In some episodes, they leave the house; in some episodes, they don't -- but at every turn they're trading barbs with one another. All that's missing from a typical Golden Girls episode is the cheesecake. (Well... there is cursing. The Golden Girls could never do that, but this is Hulu.)

The characters are all big archetypes, and the actors who play them lean in. Nathan Lane plays Bunny with such a heightened panoply of neuroses that you can imagine the casting directive was for a "Nathan Lane type." Matt Bomer is channeling Betty White's clueless Rose with his guileless delivery of stupid one-liners. Nathan Lee Graham is a flamboyant force with bite. Linda Lavin has been doing sitcoms since Rhoda, Barney Miller, and Alice, and knows exactly how to deliver a line -- especially a "blow" to end of scene. And the four all work off each other well. 

Still, it would be generous to call the show "good." There are episodes that succeeded in making me laugh out loud once or twice. And they did an archetypal "very special" sitcom episode when Linda Lavin died of lung cancer in late 2024. But really, the thing about Mid-Century Modern is that it feels like a minor milestone in LGBT+ rights. This isn't subversively ahead of its time like Three's Company or Soap. It isn't blazing a trail for acceptance like a Will & Grace. Instead, it simply asserts that gay people too can headline a kinda-middling sitcom.

I give Mid-Century Modern a B-. It's hardly an essential watch in a crowded streaming landscape. Yet I didn't have much trouble finishing all 10 episodes, enjoying something that felt like warm and familiar "comfort food" even though it was released fresh this year.

Stepping Up?

The Fantastic Four: First Steps arrived this weekend, bringing these staple characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I never saw any of the previous Fantastic Four films, so I was unburdened by any comparisons to them (though I understand such comparisons would only have favored the new movie). Still, with the movie arriving so soon after the new Superman, it seemed difficult not to come burdened with any expectations at all.

My main takeaway from Superman was that it was overstuffed with ideas... though the virtue of that was that for every undercooked element that didn't work for me, somewhere in the movie was another element that really soared. I found The Fantastic Four to be a much more leveled-out experienced with neither any great peaks or valleys. The same things that might have excited me were inextricably linked to things that gave me pause. So while the movie was by no means "bad," I left not feeling particularly high about any it.

Here is the first Marvel movie in memory that truly required no "prior reading" from the ponderous MCU. Fresh characters, fresh story, fresh setting... and all of that felt great. Yet rather than embrace an opportunity to tell a story with more modest stakes, this franchise-within-a-franchise starts off immediately with an intergalactic villain whose evil scheme is literally to destroy the entire Earth. It's an apocalypse so vast that it almost instantly becomes abstract.

The cast is full of highlights... but then the movie doesn't really make room for anyone to shine. Pedro Pascal is a performer with so much charm and magnetism that he leaps off the screen even in a show where you almost never see his face. So something seems really wrong to me that in this movie, he seems "fine." Vanessa Kirby made the early episode of The Crown a true highlight of the season. She's "fine" too. Joseph Quinn stole season four of Stranger Things, making his character the most memed-about thing in that show since "Justice for Barbara." I'll leave it for people who have watched The Bear to opine on Ebon Moss-Bachrach's contributions to that show, but I'll wager they are noteworthy. Here? "Fine" and "fine."

Maybe even more emblematic of this issue is the inclusion of Natasha Lyonne in the movie. I get it, she's very much a secondary character. But I've enjoyed her charming... uh, Lyonne-iness... in everything from Poker Face to Russian Doll to even a voice on Big Mouth. I feel like something has gone very wrong somewhere with the script, the directing, the editing -- maybe all three -- that she's flat and forgettable in this movie. But basically, everywhere you turn in this movie, you see a performer who should be great, coming off as "good enough, I guess."

Even the setting left me of two minds. The retro-future world of this movie is really delightful, something fun and different that looks... well, fantastic... and deftly skirts the issue of making classic superheroes work in a modern world. It certainly helped this movie stand apart from the raft of other superhero movies. And yet... I often found myself thinking, "they're doing The Incredibles." Yes, from the vantage of superpowers and family dynamics, I'm well aware of who was ripping off who. But in feeding the snake its own tail here, this movie really leans into a few elements of The Incredibles plot that kind of make it impossible to ignore. They even get the same composer, Michael Giacchino, to do the score. (He does his best not to copy himself, but you're not going to get two completely different takes on similar material from one composer.)

Still, when I add everything up, I feel I land on giving The Fantastic Four: First Steps a B-. Any less, down in C territory, and I feel like I'd be saying it was a bad movie. But there really are no bad performances, it looks great, and no serious missteps like some of the muddled entries in the MCU. It's probably a movie I should have let myself just catch up with late on streaming at some point, without getting caught up in the "fantastic" hype.

Strange New Worlds: Hegemony, Part II

I was on vacation when Star Trek: Strange New Worlds finally returned after a painfully long, nearly two-year absence. It returned with two episodes. And next week, I'll be off to Gen Con. All of that pretty much guarantees I'll be behind on the show (or at least, blogging about it) for most of the season. But I'll never catch up if I don't start. So, here I dive into the season three premiere, "Hegemony, Part II."

Enterprise is severely damaged in battle with the Gorn, but new arrival Scotty may have a way for the ship to at least stay in the hunt to track their abducted landing party. Yet still -- the ship can't be in two places as once... and it soon becomes clear that it also needs to be warning the rest of Starfleet of an imminent invasion fleet.

It's been so long since Strange New Worlds last delivered a new episode that I'd honestly forgotten we left on a cliffhanger. (Certain other episodes in season two loomed so much larger than the finale.) And now that we're back to resolve it, we're kind of forced to confront the fact that resolving cross-season cliffhangers is not something Star Trek has ever done especially well. Even their best could only be a letdown from an excellent first half. (And let's put a pin in "The Best of Both Worlds" for a moment here.)

However, I was coming to Strange New Worlds in the middle of a re-watch of Enterprise, and the contrast was striking. I've noted before that Strange New Worlds really strives for different genres and tones in different episodes, and here the aim seemed to be for a straight-up action affair. In my re-watch of Enterprise, that's been what that show tries to default to. And I feel like Strange New Worlds was running circles around Enterprise with this episode.

Sure, television production and visual effects have advanced more than two decades, so Strange New Worlds can put more bang for the buck on the screen and gin up thrills. But that's not what I'm talking about. In "Hegemony, Part II," I felt more connected to the stakes and the characters than I ever have watching Enterprise -- and I chalk that up to the fact that even amid an episode that's essentially trying to be a summer action movie, it made room for important character beats.

For Captain Pike, every action he took was colored by the circumstances of knowing the woman he loves might be dying right at that moment. Chapel and Spock were put in a challenging situation where they had to work together despite their own personal situation. Every moment of La'an's struggles aboard the Gorn ship were steeped in her own past experiences, a sense that her life may have all been building to this moment of revenge. Ortegas being forced to endure a horrific situation while rising to the occasion resulted in a clear trauma that will have ripple effects later in the season. (Because this is a show that cares about consequences.)

And there was at least one solid character moment that wasn't just about life and death. Pelia putting on her teacher hat to motivate Scotty in exactly the right (if slightly cruel) way was a great moment for her. And positioning her character to show us "how Scotty becomes Scotty" is just great for the show overall. 

I didn't exactly love the story as a whole. I was particularly bored that the convenient resolution of the crisis -- putting all the Gorn to sleep -- was essentially the exact resolution of the "Best of Both Worlds" cliffhanger I mentioned earlier. But as I basically said about the season two finale, even a "bad" episode of Strange New Worlds is really just a "not as good" episode.

I kind of waffle on what mark to give "Hegemony, Part II." Maybe a B+, because it's clearly better than this kind of episode on Enterprise, and should get a mark that clearly reflects that. Maybe a B, because that's what I gave "Hegemony" part one, and I don't think I want to say I liked this better. But flip the coin either way and my feeling is basically the same: I love the way this show does what it does, and I'm so glad its back.

And They're Off!

"Previously on... my vacation..."

On mid-afternoon of day three, my husband and I were just heading to our second event at Bardstown Bourbon Company, Rickhouse Thieving. A guide led us across the grounds and inside one of the distillery's many rickhouses. There, he talked about the distillation process -- with an expected emphasis on maturation -- as we were served samples of three bourbons pulled straight from the cask. That itself was not a completely new experience, as we've attended the annual Cask Thief event at Stranahan's in Denver several times now. Still, the massive scale of this rickhouse, with its seemingly endless rows and towers of barrels, was quite a sight to see. (And for me, Bardstown Whiskey in pretty much any form is a delight.)

While we were in the rickhouse, another afternoon downpour opened up like it had on our first day. The rain on the roof made quite a roar inside the massive building, and the claps of thunder echoed throughout the space in a slightly eerie way. Our tour waited inside as our guide called for a cart driver to come shuttle us all back, a few at a time, to the main building.

Even though the rain let up before too long, it left mud everywhere -- and continued to come and go over the next hour. So we had to cancel a short hike we'd found in the area, one of our planned non-whiskey activities. But... checks notes... beer is not whiskey. So after making our way back to Louisville and regrouping for a while at our hotel, we headed out to hit a couple of breweries that came highly recommended by online enthusiasts.

The online community went two for two this time. First up was Atrium Brewing, where a whole flight of taster glasses we shared didn't have a single dud in the bunch. One of the apparent regular beers there, Key Lime Cheesecake Boy, was delicious -- and the focus that day of a special release of variant flavors. Sadly, all but one of the variants had already kicked, but there were too many delicious alternatives on their beer list to fret much over what we'd missed.

Second was Gravely Brewing -- a music and retro themed spot -- where there was one thing in particular I wanted to try: Sable, a dark cream ale. I'd never even heard of such a thing, but it was a delightfully different mashup of a cream ale and a... porter, maybe?... that gave "dark beer" richness and "light beer" drinkability. We sat at the bar and slowly enjoyed vintage reruns of The Price Is Right played on the TV. (Staying home sick from school had never been like this.) Dinner that night was at Parlour, a great pizza place in walking distance of the hotel that I'd never hit on my work trips. (But if I go back for work again, before GAMA moves to Baltimore, I definitely will go there again!) And with that, we called it a night.

We were heading home to Denver the next afternoon... but with just enough time after breakfast for something else. So we headed to Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby. Absolutely perfect would have been to see a horse race (and place a small, utterly uninformed bet). No races were scheduled for that day. But we did the next best thing. We cruised through the on-site museum, and went on a brief guided tour that took us out the stands to overlook the track itself.

Between the museum and the tour, we learned all kinds of fun, random tidbits about the 150-year history of the Derby. (Fillies have won three times; general admission in the center of the track on Derby day unofficially makes that field the third-largest "city" in Kentucky; no horse has ever won starting from the 17th position.) And though I've never in my life had a Mint Julep before this, it felt as though when you're at Churchill Downs, that's the drink you have to try. (I liked it far more than I expected. Let's just say they'd be dangerously refreshing on a hot day.)

 

With our souvenirs padded the best we could inside our luggage, we finally headed back to the airport, dropped off our Bette Midler karaoke car, and brought our Louisville trip to an end. We had a great time, and I especially enjoyed seeing other places beyond a half-mile from the convention center. But as soon as I pickup that set of cylinders and eye droppers for whiskey blending, I'll be able to revisit the trip any night I want to.

House Blend

For day three of the Louisville trip, my husband and I headed south to Bardstown -- the city generally, and ultimately the distillery specifically.

First, we stopped at Heaven Hill, having heard they had both a nice distillery and good bourbons. As to the first -- I can confirm. Heaven Hill is a mega-conglomerate of the bourbon world, and they've used their success to build massive and modern buildings across a huge sprawl of land. That includes a museum you can walk through, full of exhibits detailing the growth of the bourbon industry in Kentucky and many of the people who were pivotal in that history. We walked through (in part because it was interesting; in part because so many people come to Heaven Hill that you can't really do anything else without having booked an experience in advance).

As to whether Heaven Hill has good bourbon? That's almost certainly true as well, no matter your particular taste. That's because they are ultimately the parent company responsible for a huge number of well-known brands. Besides one actually branded "Heaven Hill," they make Elijah Craig, Evan Williams, Pikesville, Bernheim Original, Rittenhouse, and a bunch of others. Of the few we sampled, Larceny struck me as the best -- a brand I certainly remembered seeing back in Denver, though couldn't recall having had before. Your tastes may differ, but Heaven Hill probably has you covered.

We had a little time before scheduled events later in the afternoon, so we made another short stop at the nearby Preservation Distillery. This was the antithesis of Heaven Hill, a place that proudly proclaims itself to be "Bardstown's smallest distillery." Lots of distilleries in the area are set on farmland, but Preservation is still using it that way -- cows roam the grounds, and just a few small buildings are devoted to making bourbon. A lazy cat lounged outside the tasting room entrance, caring nothing for us or anyone else going in to sample. We tried just one whiskey each -- all we had time for, and all they would pour in any case. (Either they don't want to deal with sloppily drunken tourists, or you have to have more money and clout to serve any more than that in Kentucky?) Small though Preservation is, a map on the bar showed the other states they have managed to distribute in, with Colorado being one. So perhaps in the right mood, I might have some bourbon from them again some day.

The next stop was the focus of the day. We went to Bardstown Bourbon Company, a relative new kid on the distilling block, but already a personal favorite of mine. We had booked two experiences in advance, and the first one turned out to be one of the great highlights of the trip -- a one-hour session called "The Art of Blending." A guide took us into a backroom they call "The Library," a fancy, decorated room where the shelves were filled not with books, but with bourbons -- from throughout history, and from a wide variety of distilleries. Our guide pointed out a number of interesting and rare bottles, from one actually distilled in the late 1800s (and containing the original spirit!) to a souvenir bottle of Dickel with a distinctive shape that made it a go-to prop on the original Star Trek. 

In this unique setting, each participant in this small event found a station with three drams of different bourbons set up -- two completely different 4-years from Bardstown, and a 12-year from an (officially) unspecified third party. One of Bardstown's own "Fusion Series" of bourbons was made from exactly these three components, with the exact ratios specified on the actual bottles and on a reference sheet in front of us. We got to taste each of the three separate components, and then -- using graduated cylinders and an eye dropper -- measured out the exact blend of the Fusion for ourselves to compare the results and see how each separate whiskey might have influenced the results.

Then it was experimentation time. Each of the seven people attending the event played around with mixtures of our own, ultimately writing down the one we thought turned out best and handing it to our guide. (Remember to pay attention to color, aroma, and taste, we were reminded.) Then one blend was selected at random for everyone to make, sample, and comment on. It of course totally helped my enjoyment of the experience that mine happened to be the selected blend... and it seemed to be well-received by all.

Our guide in the class gave us ideas to bring blending home with us from this short class. This can be a way to use up a random, disappointing bottle of whiskey you might have; just grab your own tubes and droppers and start blending -- maybe you can save it! Or this could be the basis of a party with your whiskey-loving friends: invite everyone to bring a bottle, and then get everyone engaged in making blends from those ingredients. You can even make a little competition out of who creates the best blend! I must say, I've already done some "window shopping" for the tools to blend at home.

We had tickets for a second event at Bardstown, but with enough time in between to have lunch at their restaurant. After having been told by both our waiter and our blending class guide that the chicken sandwich in the restaurant was famously good, we decided to put it to the test. Test passed, with flying colors... it was the tastiest fried chicken we had during the whole trip (among more examples than is probably healthy).

Since this post is starting to run long, I'll take this moment to pause the narrative until tomorrow, when I'll pick back up with the rest of this day and the final morning before our flight home.

This Space Is Reserved

For the first full day of our Louisville trip, my husband and I drove east toward Lexington. You can head pretty much any direction out of town and hit half a dozen major bourbon distilleries who distribute nationwide, but our first stop was actually a smaller, local place. In Lawrenceburg, in an unassuming, warehouse-looking building (with a kangaroo statue out front), you'll find Larrikin Bourbon Company.

We were prepared for this place to be hit-or-miss; it was really just a convenient stop before a scheduled tour we had a short while later. But it turned out that this random small batch distillery made really solid stuff. We sampled several good options, with the clear winner being their American Maple -- with just the right amount of "drenched pancake" flavor to be different without actually tasting like syrup.

Well... strike that. Their clear winner was their "Smidge of Maple Bourbon Cream," with a taste surpassed only by the bartender's endless suggestions on how to use it (as an ice cream topper, in hot chocolate, just to name a couple). But leaving a cream-based spirit in a hot car all day just seemed like a supremely bad idea, so the American Maple was the souvenir we took back home.

The next stop was Woodford Reserve, a more-well known brand with a huge operation on a sprawl of beautiful land. We took a guided tour of the place and saw all parts of the operation in full swing -- from fermentation (with giant two-story vats of sweetly bubbling goodness) to barreling (with freshly-filled barrels rolling down a gently-sloping track) to storage (with towers of racked barrels signed by everyone from state celebrities to fellow tourists sneaking in their graffiti) to bottling (sorry, you can't go in that room, but by all means take a peek through the door). Of course, the tour concluded with a guided tasting, sampling five different whiskeys in Woodford Reserve's repertoire.

I have no doubt that you could have a similar tour experience at whatever large bourbon maker might be your personal favorite -- all the big names have built grand buildings that are as much about impressing tourists as making whiskey. But Woodford Reserve has been around long enough for their buildings to receive historical preservation status, and to me the setting felt especially beautiful. I expect the sights we saw on the tour will flash to mind now whenever I have a pour of their bourbon.

We stopped for lunch at a small local place called The Stave. The extensive whiskey list might have you expecting a fancy restaurant, but really the place was a small bar with shelf after shelf of Kentucky bourbons stacked all the way the way to the ceiling -- because of course it is, when you can drive half a mile down the road to get some of them.

We were less than a mile away from another distillery called Castle & Key that merited a much quicker stop. I'd never sampled their stuff before -- but the distillery itself is built on the grounds of a much older, defunct distillery. Those grounds include a stone castle that's been standing since the 1880s, and a large garden area you can wander around. (And on an afternoon not at the height of summer, you might actually want to.) I wasn't wowed by the few things we tasted here, but the stop was more about the venue than the whiskey, so I can hardly say I was disappointed.

The afternoon was slipping away by this point, so we headed back toward Louisville for a non-whiskey activity, a trip to the Louisville Mega Cavern. It's a massive underground space left behind by limestone mining operations, and now you can tour the place... or, in our case, zipline through it. Ever since a trip to California, my husband and I had kept an eye open for novel places for a new zipline experience, and decided to take a chance on this one. I would say it wasn't quite as enjoyable... as you might expect, what really makes the experience is being able to see everything around you (and you obviously don't get that in a cave). Still, it was a fun change of pace -- and you can't drink bourbon all the time, even on the "bourbon trip."

We closed out the evening with a late dinner at Buck's Restaurant, which served a decadent meal of things wrapped in other things (shrimp in bacon, lamb in prosciutto...). When the waiter learned we were in town sampling whiskeys, and had visited Woodford Reserve that day, he brought a tiny splash of an 18-year bourbon from their own extensive collection (arrayed alphabetically around the bar).

Having had a delightful and full day -- and determined not to burn ourselves out with another full day ahead -- we decided that was a fine time to call it a night.

Bourbon and the Rose

I've been to Louisville, Kentucky twice for work. (Attending the GAMA Expo, since it moved there in 2024.) But in the way of work trips, all I got to see was a limited number of things within walking distance of the hotel and convention center. And with all the bourbon (and a few non-bourbon) activities in the surrounding area, is seemed like it might be a destination worth an extended weekend without work. So that's what my husband and I just did for the past four days.

We flew in on Thursday afternoon, rented a Honda Civic Sport... and I briefly wondered why I found those chords it played when you started the car to be so familiar. I put it out of my mind as headed out, checked in at our hotel, and made the most of the remaining day.

I've talked before about the large, canvas craft brewery map we have at home, where we stick pins marking all the places whose beers we've tried over the years. Gold pins mark the places we've been to in person, and my husband and I always look for an opportunity to add one to a new state. We decided to take care of Kentucky right away with a stop at the Bluegrass Brewing Company. Unlike the beer purists in Connecticut (who were shocked when I suggested that two of their beers together might taste great), this place had a blend right on their menu: "Schmeade," a combination of a wheat beer and a fruit beer influenced by the taste of raspberry mead. And it was quite good!

Now -- pausing for a moment to give some background: there's a place in the Denver area that hosts "Whiskey Wednesday" events all summer long, focused on different brands. When we attended one a few months back centered on one of my personal favorites, Bardstown, they revealed that they were now partnered with Green River, and so we got to try one of their offerings as well. Now, on the drive into Louisville, we saw a billboard proclaiming that a new Green River tasting room had opened on Whiskey Row. So with a little time to fill before a scheduled event, we went there and got to sample more of their bourbon and rye. (They don't supplant Bardstown for me, but they're a worthy partner.)

Unfortunately, this was the point where an unplanned activity interrupted the fun: a torrential summer afternoon downpour. I mean downpour. Thankfully, we weren't completely unprepared, having brought rain jackets with us. But we had a place to be at a specific time, and no choice but to go walking out in the weather. The jackets worked, but our shorts, socks, and shoes were utterly waterlogged, causing us to make a quick stop at the hotel to swap out for pants before moving along (still in the rain).

Next up was something we'd bought tickets for ahead of time: a "fill your own bottle" event at Angel's Envy. (Another personal favorite of mine.) You got to taste their standard bourbon (which I know quite well), alongside an ultra-limited single barrel that was exactly what you were about to bottle. You walk up to the counter, apply your own labels, stick the bottle under the machine, fill it, then use a clamp to get the cap on good and tight. (And then, due to some bizarre local liquor law, an employee has to literally take your bottle through the doorway to the next room to hand back to you.) I had imagined that perhaps you'd get to sample a few small batches to pick your personal favorite, so in that sense, this experience didn't quite live up to the imagined hype. Still, I liked the sample taste well enough, and now I have a "bottled by me" Angel's Envy in my cabinet for special occasions.

Everyone was quick and efficient with their bottling. (Even the poor woman from Down Under who was clearly being dragged along to a ton of bourbon activities despite her overwhelming dislike of the stuff. Those friends clearly wanted an extra bottle of single barrel for themselves here.) Because we finished up early, our host took us back to the distilling area to see where most of the magic happens. (Not all; the aging happens in large rickhouses outside of town.)

We had dinner at Merle's Whiskey Kitchen, where we enjoyed some Kentucky fried chicken (no caps on the "fried chicken"). But with the rain a clear deterrent and all the distillery tasting rooms closing early for the evening (our guide at Angel's Envy had called Louisville "the city that sleeps"), we decided we weren't walking anywhere else that evening. So instead, we went for a bonus gold pin on the beer map. We drove north across the river to Indiana and got a gold pin in that state for Floyd County Brewing Company -- a place with less memorable offerings. (But a gold pin is a gold pin.)

And on that journey, with a few more times starting the rental car, I finally clocked what it was about its slow, pulsing chords that sounded familiar. It's 100% the opening of Bette Midler's song, "The Rose." You might not recognize the song by name, but if you've ever seen Napoleon Dynamite, you absolutely know the song. And now you know exactly what it sounds like to start a Honda Civic Sport; the chords finally cut out just a moment before "some say looooooove......"

Considering that we'd only arrived mid-afternoon, we'd fit in a ton of stuff on our first day of the trip. But there was so much more in the days ahead. 

Getting Away, With Murderbot

Many years ago, I blogged about a novella I caught in audiobook format: the first book of the Murderbot Diaries series. Now, that book has been adapted into season one of Apple TV+'s newest sci-fi show, Murderbot.

Alexander Skarsgård stars as the self-named Murderbot, a security droid who has hacked his own systems, freeing him from the requirement to take orders from humans. Yet he must still play along enough to deceive the members of the planetary expedition he's been assigned to. He'd rather just take time to watch his favorite TV shows, but those hapless humans keep putting themselves in mortal danger.

After finishing (and mostly enjoying) All Systems Red years ago, I didn't continue on with the Murderbot Diaries series. In retrospect, I think I allowed my expectations to get the better of me. I had listened to the story in ignorance, enjoying the quirky tone that author Martha Wells had brought to her pastiche of science fiction tropes. Then after the fact, I heard of all the prestigious awards the novella had won, decided "I didn't think it was that good," and drifted away from the follow-ups.

This new Murderbot series gives me a new re-entry point, and I think it's just different enough in all the right ways that this time, it just might stick. If the problem was that the Murderbot Diaries didn't seem like prestige fiction to me, then "problem" solved: Murderbot the TV series does not feel anything like "prestige television."

The series turns up the volume on quirkiness of the source material. The core behavior of each of the human characters is magnified -- everyone a shade odder, more irrational, more creepy, what-have-you. It's possible they aren't even tweaked that much, but that the mere fact of having them embodied by a solid cast of skilled actors makes it feel that way. David Dastmalchian is the one I readily recognized from other work, but it's really a well-cast ensemble throughout, including Noma Dumezweni, Sabrina Wu, Akshay Khanna, Tamara Podemski, and Tattiawna Jones. Together, they really nail the comedy of it all.

Yes, I said comedy, because Murderbot definitely leans into the humor of Wells' writing. This science fiction show is in a half-hour format -- and we're talking half an hour that leaves room for commercials (if there were any). Each of the 10 episodes of season 1 breezes by faster than you could ever imagine. And you have to pay attention, lest one of Alexander Skarsgård's quippy voice-overs slips by unnoticed.

Those TV shows that the Murderbot loves so much? In the series, you get to actually see scenes from them, starring the likes of John Cho, Clark Gregg, Jack McBrayer, and DeWanda Wise. That ensemble within the ensemble serves up the hammiest sci-fi you've ever seen, almost hitting too close to home in showcasing how thin a line really exists between Your Favorite Sci-Fi Series and... whatever this is.

It feels like the mission statement of Murderbot (the show) is to have fun, first and foremost -- a tone well-telegraphed from the opening credits (frenetic animation backed by slightly wacky theme music) to the exasperated voice-over that invariably ends each episode. I give Murderbot a B+. I'm looking forward to the recently-announced season two. And between now and then, I might just make it back to the books that started it all.

Enterprise Flashback: Twilight

If you go by the ratings on IMDb, the highest-rated episode of Star Trek: Enterprise is season three's "Twilight." (8.6 out of 10, as of this posting.) So what happens in that episode, and what did I think I of it?

Twelve years have passed since Enterprise entered the Delphic Expanse. An unfortunate accident has stripped Archer of the ability to form long term memories, and without his leadership of Enterprise, the Xindi succeeded in destroying Earth. The handful of human survivors live on a remote colony, where T'Pol personally cares for her former captain. But now, Phlox may have discovered a way to cure Archer's condition. And because of the strange temporal component to his affliction, the cure may be the key to winding back the clock.

I will come right out and say that I do think "Twilight" is a pretty good episode of Star Trek: Enterprise. But I truly hope it's not literally the best one in my eyes once I've finished this re-watch, because there's a ceiling on how much I truly enjoyed it. Mostly, that's because I find it to be a Frankenstein's monster of sewn-together bits lifted from other previous Star Trek episodes. It's a bit "All Good Things...", a bit "The Visitor," a bit "Year of Hell," a bit "Timeless," and possibly a few other episodes too. Since some of those episodes are regarded among the absolute best of their respective Star Trek series, a tinkered version of them will inevitably come out worse in comparison.

On the other hand, there's something about "Twilight" that defies an across-the-board one-to-one comparison to any of those episodes. It's taking single ingredients from all of them, and incorporating them in a new recipe that does somehow feel new, if familiar. Plus, there are a few new ingredients that make all the difference. Some are just fun Trek fan service, from seeing first T'Pol and then Trip become ship's captain, to seeing aged-up characters with new hairstyles and the haunted looks of what they've endured over a decade. Especially fun is the twisted irony that the last survivors of Earth set up on Ceti Alpha V -- a planet that we know from Wrath of Khan will become a barren wasteland in a century or so.

But there are more emotional elements that I find more worthwhile than all that. In the midst of this arc about saving the Earth from destruction, it's clever for this episode to find a way to show us just what that would look like. It's smart to position T'Pol as the caretaker for Archer when he develops a kind of dementia, an intriguing way to showcase the subsumed emotion beneath her logical exterior. We feel for her, imagining the way she had to repeat the same story to Archer, day after day, for over a decade. We feel for him, watching him struggle to still contribute to the mission, but being frustrated at every turn by his condition.

It's too bad, though, that it all has to end with yet another "total reset" like Voyager's "Year of Hell" two-parter. For me, it renders the story just a notch above "it was all a dream," stripping it of its full impact as it literally removes any lasting consequences. To me, it undermines the complete enjoyment of the admittedly cool moments we got along the way: T'Pol's desperate battle tactic to ram a docked ship into the enemy, the wild frenzy of Archer stabbing an invader with his Zefram Cochrane statue, or seeing the bridge torn open to space in an inspired VFX shot.

Other observations:

• This episode serves up an almost-Quantum Leap-style shot, where Scott Bakula looks into a mirror and his character is surprised by his own reflection.

• The writers continue their poor treatment of Travis Mayweather, this time killing his character off in an early attack so that he doesn't even live to the future with the rest of the main characters.

• There's a weird subplot about the Xindi paying a Yridian to track Phlox. The implication seems to be that they somehow know that Phlox is on the cusp of figuring out how to cure Archer and reset history. But... how do they know that? Phlox himself doesn't even know that curing Archer will defeat the Xindi, until he begins to actually do it. (But if they don't know it, why are they after Phlox at all?)

• Lots of great stunt work in this episode in the two separate sequences where Enterprise is boarded.

• Reportedly, the idea for this episode was originally pitched on Star Trek: Voyager, and centered on Janeway and Chakotay. It was apparently rejected because the Powers That Be refused to pair the two romantically in that way, even in an alternate future that would be undone.

I feel like "Twilight" centers on character in a way few Enterprise episodes to this point have. It's a shame that any emotional development is rolled back by the ending. But for spectacle alone, I'll put it a notch ahead of "Year of Hell"... which puts it at a B+ in my book.

Better Than Average Man

This weekend, people flocked to movie theaters to see writer-director James Gunn's newest superhero film, Superman. I'm people! I have thoughts! Since you know exactly who Superman is and what he's about (an approach the movie itself also takes), there's really nothing I can say about the story that won't get spoilery. So in lieu of a synopsis, let's jump right in.

There are a lot of successful ideas in this movie. It makes pointed commentary on weaponized social media and the systemic smearing of well-intentioned public figures by self-interested bad actors. It has an incredibly smart and topical take on the character of Lex Luthor -- painting him as a raging tech bro surrounded with young sycophants. It carves out its own niche for Superman himself, giving him more youthful dialogue that humanizes him and makes him less self-serious than other incarnations.

And the casting of it all is really great. Rachel Brosnahan should instantly be in the conversation for best Lois Lane ever; she commands each scene with her knowing delivery, never getting lost amid the comic book antics and generating sparkling chemistry with her lead. And while it feels like a far less crowded competition, Skyler Gisondo may also be the best Jimmy Olsen ever; it certainly helps that he's given one of the film's meatier subplots, but he really does give a pitch-perfect comedic performance that gets laughs without feeling like it's just clowning for the camera.

When it comes to the superpowered characters, Edi Gathegi makes a welcome splash as Mr. Terrific, Anthony Carrigan brings unexpected pathos to Metamorpho, and Nathan Fillion channels Captain Hammer in all the right ways as Green Lantern. At the top of the cast, David Corenswet and Nicholas Hoult feel like the perfect performers to capture Superman and Lex Luthor as this movie has written them.

But I think part of the reason this movie has so many successful elements is that it has so many elements. To say this movie is overstuffed with ideas doesn't begin to do it justice, gang. There are so many characters, so many narrative threads, that it was easy to forget about them entirely until they magically reappeared at some later point. This is supposed to be the beginning of DC's new movie universe, but to me it felt more like James Gunn feared that he might never get to make another movie again after this one -- so he stuffed every last idea he had into it. Consequently, there are a lot of misfires in the movie too: plot threads that don't feel fully developed, characters that are woefully underused (sometimes despite excellent casting).

While I'd give marks to a lot of these weaker elements for at least being fun, I have to take a moment to call out the musical score as being a real disappointment. Sure, when you're using John Williams' iconic Superman theme, it's going to be a tremendous challenge to create other themes remotely as memorable to live alongside it. Still, the score always just gives up when it matters and trades on Williams' work to generate the feelings it can't make for itself. And it doesn't even deign to use ALL of the John Williams march, instead just regurgitating the same couple of phrases over and over again in the least inspired ways possible.

But despite its many flaws, I do feel like this Superman movie at least has its heart in the right place. And rising above the less successful elements is the overall feeling that the movie is fun -- exactly what it should be, and what a lot of superhero movies of recent years have forgotten to be (famously DC, but some Marvel efforts too). I give it a B-.

Well Seasoned

Everyone laments how "Hollywood has no original ideas" anymore, churning out little but remakes and reboots. So I have to acknowledge that maybe I'm part of the problem when I recommend a new series on Netflix, The Four Seasons.

The Four Seasons tracks three couples over the course of four group vacations taken throughout one year -- in the spring, summer, fall, and winter. (Classical music fans will know exactly what Vivaldi music accompanies these trips.) Relationships experience turmoil and fractures over the seasons... though comedy often ensues.

I think myself pretty well "read" in film history, but I wasn't aware of the 1981 movie from which all this was adapted. Written and directed by -- and starring -- Alan Alda, The Four Seasons apparently told a similar story. In my book, it's kind of the perfect thing to remake 44 years later. I presume that many people are like myself and had no awareness of the original. But even if they were, the changing nature of the world means that some differences would be baked right into the adaptation. The Four Seasons series leans into that in one way by changing one of the original movie's pairings to a gay couple. But brushes with social media, broader global awareness, and a widening generation gap all play small roles in the story.

The show has quite a cast, starring Tina Fey, Will Forte, Steve Carell, Colman Domingo, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Marco Calvani, and Erika Henningsen. Much of the surface appeal of the show is getting just what you'd expect from some of those names; there are moments of the show virtually guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. But at the same time, don't go in expecting a conventional half-hour sitcom. This is a heavy dose of humor mixed with a lot of relationship drama. Couples argue and reconcile, come together or break up, in a wide variety of situations over the course of these 8 episodes -- two each devoted to one of the titular four seasons. If you come to this because you liked 30 Rock, The Office, Saturday Night Live, or "whatever thing you liked that star in," I expect you will like The Four Seasons. You'll just also think, "but it's not as funny as that other thing." (Nor is it intended to be.)

Intriguingly, the show hit well enough (by murky Netflix metrics) to be renewed for a second season. So regardless of how closely the first season did or did not follow the original movie (which I have yet to watch), they're going to have to blaze their own story trail to continue things for another season. (Well, four seasons, I guess.) The writers of the series (which also includes Tina Fey) seem to have considered this possibility, with the final episodes teasing new potential ground for the story to explore.

I'd give The Four Seasons a B+. Moreover, it's probably going to be my "have you watched this?" option to inject into TV talk for the foreseeable future. I mean... by this point, I think everyone knows that Star Wars: Andor is not to be missed. But how many people have even heard of The Four Seasons?

Well... now you have.

Enterprise Flashback: The Shipment

The Xindi story arc on Star Trek: Enterprise was inspired by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. But it being Star Trek, with inspiration also coming from the franchise's core moral code, some nuance surrounding the enemy was called for. "The Shipment" was a big step in providing that.

The Enterprise travels to the planet where the Xindi are refining fuel for their planet-killing weapon. Yet even as they have an opportunity to strike a blow against their enemy, they learn that not all Xindi are their enemy. A local scientist they capture knows nothing of humans, and is appalled to learn that his work is being co-opted for a genocidal purpose.

"Not all Xindi" might seem like a simplistic message, but at the time this episode first aired -- 2003, as the United States lashed out in all directions in response to 9/11 -- it's one that really needed highlighting. (And it's sadly an "evergreen" message that bears repeating.) The Xindi Gralik Durr is an interesting character. He's not a straightforward analog for an Oppenheimer; he's much farther down the chain of people whose life's work unknowingly feeds a war machine. And it feels like classic Star Trek in all the best ways that when he learns the hard truth, he quickly reforms and wants to make amends.

But despite Gralik Durr's nobility, he remains a rather shallow character. There isn't much sense of what he risks by helping Archer and company, nor hint of whether and how his "resistance" might continue once Enterprise takes off. And he isn't the only thin character in the episode. Even though the MACO Major Hayes reappears (again played by TV "that guy" Steven Culp), the episode doesn't devote any time to fleshing him out either -- or even having him contribute meaningfully to the mission by his presence.

Instead, time that could have bulked up character is given to odd world-building details, dropped in as if by a dungeon master who is really disappointed his players didn't more naturally come across all this background work he put in. By that I mean: why is it important that there was a sixth, now-extinct Xindi species? We don't need proof of the Xindi's genocidal proclivities; this whole story arc kicked off with that. We don't need reminding that Xindi sub-species don't get along with each other; episodes regularly start with mustache-twirling meetings of the Xindi's Evil League of Evil (including this episode). Why is a whole subplot devoted to tinkering with a captured Xindi hand weapon? It's novel and weird, I guess, that the gun is "slug worm operated," but it isn't clear there will be any impending ramifications to this knowledge in the plot at large.

It also feels a bit odd to me that the entire climax of the episode revolves around a plan to "tag" this new shipment of fuel in a way that Enterprise will be able to track... only to have that tracking fail the moment the shipment leaves this planet. Sure, sometimes plans fail, and that's bound to happen a few times over the course of a 24-episode story arc. But it undermines Gralik Durr's decision to help if that help amounts to little. And it's weird that Archer is the one to sneak aboard the Xindi ship to plant the tracker (as opposed to Reed or Hayes, also there with him on the planet).

Other observation:

• This episode must have come up short in the edit. I say this because it begins with a "previously on" clip package to orient you to the Xindi arc, for the first time this season. And while that does sound useful in principle, this package is a weird assembly of that telepathic alien hitting on Hoshi, as though the only important detail viewers need to watch this episode is "how we found out about this planet." (Which Reed actually answers anyway, in a bit of early exposition.) Why not remind us where the hand weapon came from that's the focus of the B plot?

I feel like the instincts of this episode to provide nuance to the Xindi are good. The specific message, that some Xindi are horrified by the actions of their leaders, is better still. But I find the execution a bit lacking. I give "The Shipment" a B-.