Boys Will Be Boys

After five seasons and nearly seven years, the series The Boys ended last week. The ultra-violent take on superhero fiction spent 40 episodes constantly trying to top its own level of gore while stuffing in ever more strident social and political satire in an effort to outpace reality. Fundamentally, the show never really changed; if you're aware of it and at some point decided it wasn't for you, this isn't a post trying to change your mind. No, this is simply me throwing my hat into a crowded ring of people on the internet offering their opinion on the final season and episode. (And I'll do my best to avoid specific spoilers.)

I am reminded in many ways of the response to the final season of Game of Thrones. Internet fandom is by no means as animated in hatred of the way The Boys ended as it was about the end of Game of Thrones... but the spirit seems similar. There are actually plenty of people defending the end of The Boys -- and I'm mostly going to be one of them. But comparing the two shows and the response to them, I feel like a few previously amorphous notions are crystalizing for me.

First, it is impossible to end a show whose bread-and-butter is plot twists. You could argue that neither Game of Thrones nor The Boys were a "plot twist" show in the same way as, say, Lost (which has been waiting a long while for others to enter the chat). But both shows were absolutely crafted to shock, one with sudden deaths of major characters, the other with violent set pieces (and, nearer the finish line, sudden deaths of major characters). The thing is, good endings are about giving characters what they deserve. And "what they deserve" can't come out of nowhere; it isn't satisfying if it hasn't been telegraphed.

It seems to me that majority of the outrage around the final season of both Thrones and The Boys came from people who imagined some other fate for a character that really did not fit the ample telegraphing of a fate they deserved. I'm talking Daenerys... or Homelander and Butcher. For some people, it was a shock they didn't like because they refused to see it coming; for others, it was disappointment in not being shocked because they did see it coming. Two sides of the same coin.

I said that was the majority of the outrage. I'd say almost all the rest of it is not actually anger at Game of Thrones or The Boys specifically, but the modern television format as a whole. Thrones had just six episodes in its final season; The Boys had eight. We're a long way from the 20-plus episodes of classic network seasons, or even the common streaming model of 12 or 13 episodes. When a show costs a ton to make, you get 8 episodes a season or less... because it costs a ton to make. And when it's time for an expensive show to end, it almost always means "not enough episodes to get to the natural ending in a natural way."

I actually thought the finale of The Boys was basically pitch-perfect. I'm not holding it up as one of the great finales of television history... but it was a finale that basically served up "the right ending" for every single major character. And that show had a ton of characters. So that's no small feat. That can be true, while at the same time acknowledging that season five as a whole was rather uneven. The pacing sputtered around from too fast to too slow. Major interpersonal conflict that was teed up at the end of season four, seemingly to set the stage for the final run, was instead mended too easily to defer the conflict for the final episode. The writers made a choice to stick with their formula right up until the very end, not just the final season as a whole. And I can understand that choice. I think it made for a satisfying finale at the end of a not-completely-satisfying season... a B+ at the end of maybe a B- or something like that?

Endings are hard. That's why TV viewers seem pretty united around the canon of great ones we've gotten over the years. 

Enterprise Flashback: A Taste of Armageddon

If I'd had to name 10 episodes of classic Star Trek, rapid fire, I doubt that "A Taste of Armageddon" would have come time to mind. But having recently re-watched it, I think it may actually be one of the more important episodes of the show.

Under the direct orders of a visiting ambassador, Enterprise visits the planet Eminiar VII -- despite a regulation declaring it is not to be approached for any reason. There, the crew finds a government embroiled in a centuries-long war with another planet... which has nevertheless maintained society through an agreement to conduct that war virtually. Attacks are registered by computer, and victims dutifully report for disintegration when so ordered. But not the Enterprise, when it is logged as "destroyed" in an "attack." Not if Captain Kirk has anything to say about it. He's determined to end their computerized war and force the people of Eminiar VII to confront the real thing.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the writers of this episode -- Robert Hamner and Gene L. Coon -- had two key points of inspiration for this tale. Nuclear warheads were still a quite-recent invention, allowing for death at a previously unthinkable scale all at the push of a button. Also, the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was newer still, but had already reached the point where the gap had grown miles wide between the bureaucrats prosecuting the war and the people embroiled in it. Roll those ideas up, add the sci-fi twist of computerization, and I think you get "A Taste of Armageddon."

It may seem over-the-top that a world's population would, without protest, consent to suicide whenever told to do so by a computer. Yet I think this episode has only grown more topical in the years since it was made. Now, computers really do play a much larger role in warfare. We have more precise forms of attack that can nevertheless feel as impersonal as the dropping of an atomic bomb. The line between combat drones and a realistic video game is so thin that the human mind may not be equipped to fully appreciate the difference. "A Taste of Armageddon" isn't exactly prescient, but I do think it feels less fanciful today.

Not that every aspect of it holds up brilliantly. The writers are already starting to lean too much on the Vulcan mindmeld as a plot device; it's gone from a dangerous and intimate exchange to a parlor trick Spock does through a wall to overcome a guard. The fact that every name on Eminiar ends with a number feels especially dated. It seems odd for the ships of the Federation to have a General Order they can call by number to exterminate an entire planetary population. And we have yet another overbearing, upholstery-clad bureaucrat wielding power over our heroes to artificially inject jeopardy into the episode. (A "popinjay," Scotty pegs him.)

The tone is also curious. We are talking about mass genocide, at a global level. But there's a lot of humor in this episode. ("There is a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder.") I can't quite tell if this is the show not quite knowing how to balance drama and comedy, or if this is actually part of the toxic allure of a virtual war... you can't really take it seriously.

But beside the searing metaphor, you get many great moments for the characters. Kirk's solution is so quintessentially Kirk. The banter between him and Spock is delightful. Up on the ship, Scotty has one of the first of many great runs taking the captain's chair in Kirk's absence. (And great banter of his own too, with McCoy.) For one of the first times, I felt keenly aware that Star Trek really had figured itself out by this point -- telling the kinds of stories it wanted to tell, actors playing the characters the way we came to know them, and more.

Other observations:

• The lighting of the hallways on Eminiar VII is wild -- real "aren't you glad you bought a color television set" stuff.

• At least this overbearing diplomat actually redeems himself at the end of the episode instead of being a heel to the bitter end.

I really appreciate the story of "A Taste of Armageddon," and the way it uses the regular characters. I'm less certain about its lighter moments, and of the several tropes employed along the way. But overall, this is one of the better episodes of the show... that maybe isn't as well-regarded as some of the most famous? I give it a B.

The Cinematic Adventures of Baby Yoda

The long-running Star Wars franchise added another movie to its ranks this past weekend with The Mandalorian and Grogu. And in my eyes, it's a strong contender for the "most OK" of the lot. Picking up on the three-season long television series The Mandalorian, the movie follows "Mando" on an action-packed adventure with the character people will always call "Baby Yoda."

The Mandalorian and Grogu is an entertaining movie. There are action sequences of seemingly endless natures and scopes. There's a surprisingly deep relationship between a character whose face you almost never see and a character whose face is rubber. Sigourney Weaver seems to be having fun, and it's kind of infectious.

But the fact that this comes after three seasons of television actually makes a huge difference. The Mandalorian has been around for years, bringing a lot of film-caliber action to our living rooms. The line between movies and television has never been thinner or blurrier than it is right now, yet the idea that a movie has to be "bigger and better" than a TV show persists. And so, to amp up The Mandalorian to cinematic size, they basically took what you could imagine as a "fourth season" of the show, and removed nearly all the quiet parts.

For nearly an hour-and-a-half, the movie bounces from one set piece to the next, deliberately leaving the audience with almost no time to catch a breath. Each sequence as an island is well-realized. Delivered as they were in assembly line fashion, I found myself getting a little numb to it all. Which is probably why I felt the best stretch of the movie was the 15-minute "end of act two" centered on Grogu. The pace relaxed, the stakes felt more personal, and character took center stage. Before, of course, an over-the-top final act.

Actually, it's probably not the shadow of three seasons of The Mandalorian looming over this movie for me as much as two seasons of Andor. It's not fair to now compare all of Star Wars to what I'm increasingly convinced is the best Star Wars there's ever been... but there's also some recency bias. Over the past several years, I've watched a lot of different "fine" Star Wars TV shows (and bad ones; looking at you, Boba Fett). I've accepted the tonal shifts between The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew. But when Star Wars is capable of being Andor instead? I understand The Mandalorian and Grogu wasn't remotely trying to be that. But also... most of me says, wistfully, why not?

Trying my best to set all that aside, I'd give The Mandalorian and Grogu a B-. I have a hard time imagining that it could ever be anyone's favorite Star Wars movie... or least favorite. But it's a serviceable action romp.

Dungeons and Aliens

From time to time, I've used reviews of books to shout out their audiobook narrators. And it almost pains me to say it, but Ray Porter no longer rules the roost as the best narrator I've listened to -- not now that I've listened to the first two books of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.

These books seem ubiquitous in the circles I travel in -- but on the off chance you don't know, Dungeon Crawler Carl is a book about an especially strange apocalypse. Abruptly, aliens arrive on Earth, utterly destroying all of civilization and forcing its decimated survivors into a fantasy-based dungeon game with real magic, real monsters, and real peril. And it's all televised like a reality program for a galactic fan base. The titular Carl finds himself woefully ill-equipped for the dungeon, but nevertheless endures with a healthy dose of gallows humor and the help of his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut.

Author Matt Dinniman is one of the latest success stories in self-publishing. Driven into writing full-time by the Covid pandemic, he began churning out books in this series that spread like wildfire and were eventually picked up by a publishing house. We're very recently at eight books and counting.

As I mentioned, I'm two books in, having completed Dungeon Crawler Carl and Carl's Doomsday Scenario. They're both fun and breezy thrill rides. I was perhaps not fully on board after book one. I had slightly mixed feelings about the way Dinniman had so blatantly scavenged his story from other places; had he truly assembled it all in a way that felt original? More importantly, was there really anywhere for the story to go that wasn't going to be repetitive? But those doubts were easily quieted. The book was laugh out loud funny, for sure. And it also did a pretty good job of not just going for laughs, with surprisingly earnest moments contemplating the actual scope of global apocalypse. Might as well try another book and see where things went.

Book two silenced the doubts completely. It's clear that Dinniman realized that the mere premise alone would not sustain a long-running series. I don't know whether he planned the larger sprawl of the story from the beginning and wisely kept things accessible to start out, or improvised his way into something bigger after having fun the first time around. Either way, there's plenty of "there" there.

But then there's the real special sauce of the series: audiobook narrator Jeff Hays. Dinniman himself has said that audiobook sales of this series have far surpassed book physical and e-book sales, and there's absolutely no mystery why. Hays gives an absolute tour de force performance -- about 50 times over as he voices character after character after character, so convincingly that you'd swear this audiobook had a full cast. Hays is picking up the sort of humor Dinniman puts down. I've had a chance to flip through the pages of a physical copy of Dungeon Crawler Carl, and I have to say, some of the jokes are only jokes because of the way Hays delivers them. I absolutely cannot recommend reading Dungeon Crawler Carl when the audiobook version exists.

But the audiobook? That I absolutely can recommend. I'd say book one lands around a B+ for me, and then book two jumped up to an A. I'm fully invested now in finishing the series... my only dilemma being how to pace myself with other audiobooks in between, to not overindulge in the delightful experience. And whatever awards exist for audiobook narration should all go to Jeff Hays for as long as he keeps doing these.

Enterprise Flashback: Observer Effect

The final season of Star Trek: Enterprise was mostly made up of multi-episode story arcs that each delved into key elements of franchise history. But then, in the middle of the season, the show zigged where you might have expected it to zag -- serving up two back-to-back stand-alone episodes. This is the second, "Observer Effect."

A pair of non-corporeal aliens observe the Enterprise crew as they face a crisis. Though they do not want to interfere, they want to be as close to the action as possible... and so they migrate around the ship, possessing different members of the crew with the best vantage points for scientific observation.

This episode is almost a throwback to the sort of self-contained science fiction parable that was classic Star Trek's bread and butter. The only "shout out to the fans" that connects this to Trek history is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it mention that these alien visitors are Organians, the powerful aliens who enforced a peace treaty of sorts between the Federation and the Klingons. It doesn't feel like we're dumping out the Star Trek toy box to play.

No, it's the actors who get to play in this episode. At some point in the hour, every one of the show's seven regular cast members gets to play one of the two aliens. Not only do they get to cut loose and play a new character, they're thrown the challenge of making that character seem consistent across multiple different actors, as the aliens hop bodies.

It's possible that the writers did most of the heavy lifting there. The script was written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, the Trek novelists turned show writers I've mentioned previously. The two "observer" characters are sharply drawn with their own personalities and motivations, and are easy to track as they pass from actor to actor.

It's a clever enough story, and entertaining... and yet watching it actually makes me feel sorry for the actors. Reed and Mayweather haven't really had anything good to do on the show in ages. So while I'm glad that Dominic Keating and Anthony Montgomery finally get to headline an episode, it's a shame that we don't learn anything at all about their characters. Hoshi Sato hasn't figured meaningfully into a story all season; now we actually learn a few new details of her back story... but only in the context where she expects to die. (I feel like the Star Trek: Discovery writers saw this and thought it was a good approach they should run with for a while.)

It's more enjoyable to take a step back and appreciate this episode as a sort of inversion of Star Trek. So many episodes of the franchise turn on our heroes butting up against the Prime Directive of non-interference with alien cultures. Here, an alien culture has the exact same policy, and the consequences harm our heroes. The shoe is on the other foot, in a cheeky way. And the moral summation of the episode dances dangerously close to repudiating the Prime Directive, noting the importance of compassion in considering what is moral and just.

Other observations:

• When they don't actually have to show a movie the characters talk about, they aren't limited to old films in the Paramount archives. (Hence, the reference to The Andromeda Strain here.)

• Trip and Hoshi seem to become closer friends from their trial here. I wish the show had been able to make more use of that in the future.  

This episode kind of works better for me if you imagine it as a one-off of some anthology series. In the context of Star Trek: Enterprise, it's still decent, but foregrounds the way the series doesn't seem to care enough about its characters. I give "Observer Effect" a B.

Star Trek Flashback: Space Seed

Plenty of episodes of the original Star Trek would inspire writers in the franchise many years down the road. But no episode affected the future of Star Trek more than "Space Seed."

The Enterprise encounters a centuries-old "sleeper ship" from the Eugenics War on Earth. Its leader, Khan, is both enigmatic and charismatic -- revealing little of his own past, and sparking the adoration of Lieutenant Marla McGivers. When Khan revives his crew of genetically-enhanced followers and launches a takeover of the Enterprise, McGivers is torn between her attraction and her duty. Can Captain Kirk defeat an enemy who is superior, both physically and mentally?

When Gene L. Coon was polishing the final scene of this script (co-credited to the story author Carey Wilber), he had Kirk give the villainous Khan a punishment not really intended as a punishment. Khan wanted a world to conquer, so Kirk gives him one... and then muses with Spock about what might come of the "seed" planted that day. It was a rhetorical flourish to justify a rather obtuse episode title. It would have been impossible to imagine that Coon was really planting a seed that 15 years later would inspire Nicholas Meyer to write the Star Trek movie most revered by the fans. (And that would be re-packaged by J.J. Abrams' writing team another 31 years after that.)

Still, while there's a lot to like about the script of "Space Seed" (especially McCoy's defiant bravery when threatened by Khan, and the brinksmanship between Kirk and Khan) that isn't really where the magic happened. For one thing, the general admiration for the dictator Khan is strange -- though at least Spock points that out. Khan isn't truly Hitler, to be sure; we're told his rule had not even a fraction of the death toll. But all the ideas about a superior race, and what that entitles said race to do to their "inferiors," are just the same. On a scale of dictatorship, "not as bad as Hitler" is a woefully low bar to clear.

But more centrally, I find the character of Marla McGivers pretty hard to take. She's a 60s cliche of a fickle woman who swoons and un-swoons and swoons again according to the needs of the plot. Who knows why the Enterprise even has a resident historian of 20th-century Earth, but she of all people ought to know what a person like Khan really represents... if he weren't just so hot. At least Kirk gives her no points for bringing about the solution of a problem she largely causes.

No, the strength of "Space Seed" is in the casting of Ricardo Montalban as Khan. He really is magnetic in the way the script demands. He almost never delivers a line the way you'd expect, and the regular Star Trek actors actually change up their game in response. Kirk has to be as cool and calculating as Khan to beat him (even if the final victory is in a fist fight). And Khan is oddly magnanimous in defeat. There's just an alchemy here that works, which is why, of all the one-off villains the Enterprise vanquishes over three seasons, this is the one who would make a comeback for a feature film.

They may not have known at the time that "Space Seed" was a special episode, but the production values are pretty good. They build quite a large set for the Botany Bay, and add the "never seen again" decompression chamber to Sickbay. In the remastered version of the episode (where the production team did know of the importance of this episode), the effects get a bigger-than-usual boost.

Other observations:

• Uhura knows Morse code. Kirk acts like he knows it, but it kinda feels like he's making that up.

• This episode "predicts" a 1990s around 30 years in its future. We're now about that far after that point.

• Some fun goofs: When Khan first wakes up and everyone gathers around his hibernation chamber, DeForest Kelley drops something, and you see him look back on the floor for it for a split second. Later, when Khan smacks a guard so hard he somersaults, you can see the stuntman split the crotch of his pants.

• Much is always made of the fact that Chekov isn't in this episode, even though his "history" with Khan is key in the movie Star Trek II. Of course, his character hadn't been introduced to the show yet. But notably, Sulu also isn't in this episode.

• Ultimately, Star Trek lore would brand Khan and his people "Augments," and make them the product of genetic engineering. Because that wasn't really on the radar in 1967, this episode instead suggests they're more the product of selective breeding. 

"Space Seed" really is a great episode, though I also think that the writing of Marla McGivers punches a great hole in it. Overall, I give it a B.

Crime Doesn't Pay?

We're still relatively early in the film year, but 2026 has already served up one of its biggest box office bombs in Crime 101, a film you can now stream on Amazon Prime. Was it actually bad, or just a movie that many (like myself) just didn't even hear about during its money-losing theatrical run?

Crime 101 centers on Mike, a jewel thief whose jobs are meticulously planned and precisely executed. But the story also tracks Detective Lubesnick, the cop hot on his trail; Sharon, a high-end insurance broker who's grown increasingly dissatisfied in her job; and Ormon, the young psychopath who Mike's fence is grooming as a replacement. This film noir-type stew of shifting agendas and loyalties keeps the audience guessing what will happen next, and even who they should be rooting for.

Earning back less than its $90 million budget in movie theaters, Crime 101 can only be regarded as a flop. But is it one of those flops that years later comes to be well-regarded? (Can that even happen when no one is watching the cable networks that would constantly run the same movie to build such whispering campaigns?) Probably not (to both questions), because Crime 101 turns out to be a movie that feels less than the sum of its parts. And yet... the parts, even on their own, are pretty good.

Let's start with the absolutely stacked cast. Chris Hemsworth stars as Mike, bringing his trademark charm to yet another action role. Mike is more intellectual than physical, and part of the fun here is seeing Hemsworth as a character looking to avoid the confrontations we know he excels at on screen.

Hemsworth is having a Marvel mini-reunion with Mark Ruffalo, who plays the detective. But for Ruffalo, the throwback most likely to be in the audience's mind is his similar role in Zodiac. It's been almost two decades since that movie, and Ruffalo's character feels like he's been on the job living every one of those hard 20 years. He's easy to root for, which makes it even more fun to have Hemsworth as his criminal foil.

The insurance broker, Sharon, is played by Halle Berry. It's a bit of a different role that allows her to act her age (though to be clear, she does not for one moment come across like one of our "aged" movie stars). It never quite seems like Crime 101 might suddenly turn into a Halle Berry star vehicle, but she elevates the role she's playing in the story.

Barry Keoghan is the one indisputable villain of the piece. His is a fun bit of casting too; many of his movies have him buttoned up tight, or perhaps showing one brief explosion of energy. In this movie, he's all volatility. And while I've now said a bit about all the main stars, I should note that Crime 101 also features Monica Barbaro, Corey Hawkins, Jennifer Jason Leigh (for like, a minute), Nick Nolte, and more.

It's a very stylish movie too. Writer-director Bart Layton is clearly a student of film noir, and has studied the classics. But he's also clearly influenced by more modern makers of noir and noir-like films; in particular I felt the influence of Steven Soderbergh and Michael Mann all over the movie. If you like a gritty movie that feels dark even when the sun is shining, Crime 101 might be for you.

But like I hinted... for all the appeal, it does feel to me like the movie should end up better than it is. I enjoyed the ride, but I never really felt like Keoghan's character was a serious threat to Hemsworth's. I never really felt like the story would give Halle Berry as much to do as it should. I certainly never invested in the perfunctory romantic subplot for the main character. Yet I did to some extent enjoy all the chess pieces being steadily marched into position for the final gambit.

I'd give Crime 101 a B-. It's not essential viewing, but it probably deserved better than the chilly box office reception it received. And perhaps by me doing my tiniest part to spread the word a little, it'll find its way to a person or two who might really like it.