Unlocking a Galaxy Far, Far, Away....

Board gamers looking for the "escape room in a box" experience should, in my opinion, direct themselves to the Exit: The Game series, the most consistently fun games among many in the genre. But another popular series with many installments is Unlock! And one of those installments recently brought in a license for an experience you're simply never going to be able to get from your "friendly local escape room."

Star Wars: Unlock! includes three separate one hour escape room scenarios. In contrast with Exit, which always contains everything you need in the box, Unlock! is an app-enabled franchise, using your phone or tablet to let you enter passcodes, play mini-game puzzles, and more -- all while providing an hour-long timer for your game.

Star Wars: Unlock! uses the Star Wars universe in interesting ways. All the trappings are there, from desert planets to droids to ship combat to stormtroopers... but you're simply there in the universe and not interacting with any of the major characters (an approach that may have been forced upon the designers by deal terms, but which in any case will likely thrill some and disappoint others). I almost feel like the stories could have been set anywhere, Star Wars or not, with only a little adaptation... but at the same time, they're not unfaithful to the license.

As with the other Unlock! games I've played, the puzzles can be hit or miss. The series is a lot more "observation based" than Exit, and there are more ways to simply brute force your way to answers (that consequently don't feel as satisfying to me). But some of the Unlock! puzzles are really quite clever, and two of the three scenarios here are no exception.

The third and final scenario, though, is the worst of the box on multiple levels. You're given a map that's divided into grids, and you're supposed to use it to work through a story in a relatively orderly fashion. But intriguing details are visible all over the map, and there's nothing stopping you from exploring them in any order you choose. You can thus encounter plot points out of order, be told to resolve parts of puzzles you haven't even encountered yet, and generally gum up the works in a frustrating way.

Arguably worse is the theming of that final mission. Across the three scenarios, you are cast as a group of Rebels, neutral smugglers, and Imperials. There's a clear design symmetry there, and yet Star Wars is not a universe in which the villains have ever been rounded out in a way to makes me sympathize with them. (I'm including Darth Vader there.) I'm sure some people out there want to play "the bad guys," but I'm not among them when it comes to Star Wars. I could get behind that being "just one scenario out of three" that you play... but making it the last scenario played, combined with the weird trap doors in the puzzle construction, left me with a more bitter taste for the whole box.

But... two out of three ain't bad? (Maybe they're just giving us a more authentic Star Wars trilogy experience where not all three can be truly good.) If you've played other Unlock! games and enjoyed them, you'll certainly want to check out Star Wars: Unlock! I'd give it a B- overall.

Following the Plot

It's been about a year since people were really buzzing about The Plot Against America, but I only just got around to watching the entire six-part HBO mini-series. Based on a popular novel by Philip Roth, the show was written and created by the duo behind The Wire, David Simon and Ed Burns. So it came with quite a pedigree. It seemed like any viewer who'd ever made time for The Wire, at least, ought to give it a shot. (No... this is not going to become a post about how you should watch The Wire if you haven't.)

Set in the early 1940s in Newark, New Jersey, The Plot Against America is an alternate history tale that supposes the United States had not entered World War II... and instead had come under the thrall of a charismatic, xenophobic president whose tacit endorsement of Hitler's campaign against the Jewish people steadily inflames white supremacist sentiments.

From that brief synopsis, it's not hard to see why Simon and Burns would want to adapt that book to air on television in 2020. The novel might have seemed like a "what if?" look back to many readers when it was published in 2004, but seems more like a prophetic, cautionary tale these days. I've never read that book myself, but I would say the adaptation at least is good, more or less, if a bit on the nose.

Mainly, I couldn't help but wonder if The Plot Against America was doing a few disservices in the telling of its story. First, the extreme prejudice depicted against American Jews in World War II arguably minimizes actual extreme prejudice against Japanese Americans that really happened. When a plot point arrives that sounds suspiciously like plans to put American Jews in camps... well, it's alternate history, so there really isn't a way to mention that this really happened to Japanese Americans. And I feel like that bit of history isn't really known widely enough for me to be fully comfortable with the way this story is arguably "appropriating" it.

I also felt a little uncomfortable with the inflection point the narrative uses to spawn this alternate reality. Of course, alternate history fiction is always premised on the tiniest change leading to massive results: turn right somewhere instead of left, and soon you're on an entirely different road. Here, the departure point is that Charles Lindbergh decides to run for president. And if I felt that the underlying "moral" pushed by the mini-series was "we're always just one step away from a frightening swerve toward authoritarianism," I think I'd be more on board. Instead, I feel like the point the mini-series is making is that "at the right place and time, one charismatic bad actor can alter the course of history." Put simply, I worry the mini-series gives Lindbergh (and a certain inept, Cheeto-hued Mussolini who is clearly being framed as a one-for-one analogy) too much credit as being the sole cause of all America's moral failings (then and now).

In the moments where I could set those concerns aside, The Plot Against America is an engaging tale. It's focused on one family, the Levins, but really paints a complete picture through their eyes. The father, Herman, thinks he sees the worst coming, but has a little too much faith in the goodness and intelligence of the masses. The mother, Bess, embraces the role of dutiful wife for too long, until it's too late. Their two boys Philip and Sandy each have their own experiences with prejudice that split their views. Herman's nephew Alvin sneaks off to Canada so he can fight in the war. Bess' sister Evelyn falls in with a rabbi whose strategy of appeasement with the Powers That Be splinters the family unity. It's a good cast, with particular standouts being Winona Ryder as Evelyn, Zoe Kazan as Bess, and John Turturro as Rabbi Bengelsdorf.

The characters and the cast would pull me back in whenever my doubts had me pulling away... but then the mini-series as a whole ended in an odd way that ultimately pushed me away again. The final episode is a bit too neat in ticking all the boxes: this character getting a come-uppance, that character admitting they were wrong, and so on. Plus, without giving away specifics, it ends on an ambiguous note about just which way history will turn next. It felt like such an odd choice that I had to research whether that was, in fact, the ending of the original book. No, it was not; the book concretely answers the question that the mini-series chooses to leave open.

So, all told, I think I would give The Plot Against America a B-. If you make the time for it, you'll probably find more to like than dislike. But I do still think it's poised right at the edge of being worth that time. Perhaps this is one of those cases that fits the adage: the book was better?

See: Monster

Pixar fans can once again look to Disney+ (or their nearby re-opened theater) for the latest film from the animation powerhouse: Luca.

Luca is the story of the young boy of the title... who also happens to be a sea monster. (Kinda-sorta: a merboy.) His fascination with the surface world leads him to discover that he can masquerade as a human when outside of the water, and together with his new friend Alberto, they have adventures in the nearby Italian village of Portorosso.

I found Luca quite good, and I think even more highly of it as I reflect on it. But part of why I had to warm to it is that nearly a third of its roughly 90 minutes come across as a knockoff of The Little Mermaid without the songs. Writer-director Enrico Casarosa says he was inspired mainly by other sources, and certainly most people don't have a problem with, say, 100 murder mysteries that all start pretty much the same way. But there just haven't been many animated stories about impulsive young mer-children who become fixated on the world of humans... so the similarities work against the movie for a bit.

Eventually, though, Luca does strike its own very distinct path. Things start to diverge when Luca picks up his best friend Alberto, and still more when both arrive at the village and pick up a third friend in misfit girl Giulia. Before you know it, the movie has introduced a lot of emotionally sophisticated material about remaking yourself to fit in, clashing with friends as you grow to want different things, and more. The metaphor of "hiding the truth about yourself" is very flexible and very relatable, and there seems to be a lot of online discussion about how an audience can map it to various situations. Many have likened it to the LGBT+ experience, and while it's pretty clear the movie itself is not interested in romance (another departure from The Little Mermaid), reading the film that way is not much of a stretch.

It's a Pixar movie, so it goes without saying (but really should always be said) that it looks amazing. Everything from setting to character design to costumes look fantastic. And the performances are great too. This one hinges on younger actors, an inherently riskier way to go, but Jacob Tremblay (as Luca), Jack Dylan Grazer (as Alberto), and Emma Berman (as Giulia) are all easy to cheer for and play well off each other. Maya Rudolph and Jim Gaffigan are well-chosen as Luca's parents; they get a largely comedic runner throughout the movie that makes good use of their comedic talents.

I had been thinking of Luca as about a B+ as the end credits rolled. But, like I said, I find myself thinking better of it ever since. So I think I'll just officially nudge that to an A-. I suppose that could be uncharitably described as "near the bottom of upper-tier Pixar"... but I think I'd be comfortable putting it in the upper tier.

Spoiler Alert?

I've written a few times recently about audiobooks in which I felt the performance by the narrator elevated the material and made me appreciate the tale more than I would have if I'd read the book myself. Now, I have an example of the reverse: the intriguingly titled They Both Die at the End.

This novel by Adam Silvera is hard to classify. It's technically science fiction, I suppose. It's set in a modern-day world exactly like ours but for one major distinction: a service called Death-Cast exists, and it knows with 100% accuracy every person who is going to die each day. With the stroke of midnight, Death-Cast begins calling that day's victims to inform them they're living their last day on Earth. Two young strangers, Mateo and Rufus, get the call. And their final day ends up being perhaps their most meaningful.

The book actually came onto my radar as an LGBT romance; I had no idea knowledge of the sci-fi trappings when I started. So for a long time, the book felt like a bit of a frustrating bait-and-switch. (Not that I can really hold this against the book. I deliberately went in knowing very little, so whatever expectations I set were clearly my own.) It takes a long, long time for the LGBT themes to firmly assert themselves. And at no point does any theme loom larger than the overriding issue: "what would you do if you knew you were going to die today?"

It sounds like a pretty bleak book, doesn't it? But honestly, not as much as you'd think. Adam Silvera restates his real theme again and again: this book isn't about dying, it's about living. It is certainly bittersweet, but there is sweetness, not only bitterness.

But, like I said, I wish that I'd simply read the book rather than listen to the audiobook version. First, there are awkward choices made in the production itself. The book gets three narrators: one to read chapters from Mateo's point of view, another for Rufus, and a third female narrator to read all the other chapters (third person vignettes dropped in about other ancillary characters). Each narrator is themselves quite good. But it's strange to hear "Mateo" speak when Rufus is performing; we know what Mateo actually sounds like! (And vice versa.)

It also feels like both those performers are constrained from putting a fully realistic spin on their situation. Mateo and Rufus are facing their final day, and though I did say that there are light and happy moments in the story, there are of course more serious and dark ones too. Moments that, I think, would naturally reduce a person to a blubbering mess. But of course, the first duty here is to read the book coherently, shading the words with emotion without collapsing into a tearful puddle as might be more realistic. It's the right choice for clarity, but I think it keeps the emotions of the book at a bit of a remove -- far more distant than I think they would have been to actually read the words. It's no fault of the performers'. I just don't think this novel is well-suited to the audiobook format.

...but it is a book I did mostly enjoy. I'd give They Both Die at the End a B. If you're up for something a little grim, but also oddly uplifting, you might want to add it to your reading list. Your reading list, not your listening list.

R.E.V.I.E.W.

I'm really not looking for any more "superhero shows" to watch right now -- but one managed to slide in there basically by being nothing like the others: M.O.D.O.K.

This Hulu series is outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity when all their other products these days are within. It's a half hour long when nearly the other super-shows run an hour. It's primarily a comedy when so many other superheroes seemingly couldn't crack a joke to save someone's life. And it's stop-motion animation, from the studio that makes Robot Chicken.

The differences in M.O.D.O.K. are refreshing... and yet I found myself still only "mostly" enjoying it. I think that's in large part because the one show it is most like is a serious contender for the best thing on television right now: Harley Quinn. M.O.D.O.K. is not quite as funny, its characters not quite as engaging, its ongoing story not quite as compelling.

But even without Harley Quinn to compare to, I think M.O.D.O.K. would be good-but-not-great. It's one of those shows that feels like it's still trying to figure out exactly what it wants to be as the first season unfolds. Is it a workplace comedy in which the "workplace" happens to be an evil lair? Is it one of those "schlubby man with a hot wife" sitcoms about family awkwardness and togetherness? Is it a loving parody of beloved pop culture characters, poking gentle fun with just a hint of bite? Yes, it's a smoothie of all those things... that needs to be run through the blender a bit longer to mix together well.

One element I have no reservations about is the voice cast. Patton Oswalt is great as the title character; his deadpan delivery of jokes comes as no surprise, of course, but it still impresses several times an episode. His two children Melissa and Lou are voiced by "Michael Schur comedy" veterans Melissa Fumero and Ben Schwartz, who respectively help ground and bring anarchy to the episodes. Guest voices include Jon Hamm, Nathan Fillion, Whoopi Goldberg, Bill Hader, Meredith Salenger, Chris Parnell, and Alan Tudyk -- each well cast.

If you're the sort of person reading this, you're almost certainly the sort of person who would enjoy M.O.D.O.K. Still, it was no threat to snap me from my "I don't tend to binge shows" pattern. I'd give it a B. I would look forward to a season 2, if a renewal is announced. It feels like the sort of show that will improve moving forward.

The Devil Is in the Details

A couple of days ago, I wrote about The Conjuring 2 on my way to watching the newest installment in the franchise, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. The action advances from the 70s to 1981, but we are of course still following Ed and Lorraine Warren on another of their investigations, this one one involving a murder committed by someone while possessed by a demonic entity.

I've heard a pretty healthy split among horror movie fans about whether the first Conjuring movie or the second was better. But there's little doubt in my mind that all will regard this new one as the weakest. It's not "bad," in large part because the template for these movies is now pretty well established. But I think it falls short, mainly for the ways it does depart from that template.

The Devil Made Me Do It is really lacking the great "set piece" scares of the first two movies. There are scenes clearly intended to be that, but they just don't pack the punch of their predecessors. A new director, Michael Chaves, takes over, and is not nearly as clever as James Wan was about how to stage scenes and use the camera. There's no indelible figure like Annabelle of the first movie or the monstrous nun of the sequel to linger in your mind's eye long after the movie is over. There's great makeup work, the right touch of CG, and appropriate music, but it all just doesn't reach as high a mark as its predecessors.

In fact, I'd say the story is almost too grounded in realism. For a few minutes in the middle, it seems as though the movie is going to veer into full-on courtroom drama -- so much effort is devoted to establishing this as a legal matter that there seems to be a real danger that the supernatural trappings are going to fall away. And without giving away too much of the climax (I hope), this script feels like it goes unnecessarily far in justifying why this is all happening, to these people in particular. Too much real world drama underpins the supernatural hijinks you came for.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are back again, of course, and as good as ever at infusing mystical mumbo-jumbo with gravitas. But after the second movie gave a meaningful plot line to their characters, I feel something lacking in this third film, which turns the dial back much more toward making them observer/chroniclers.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is still certainly watchable if you're a fan of the horror genre. But I think those fans will inevitably feel it compares poorly to classics, and the prior Conjuring films. I give it a C+.

Voyager Flashback: Elogium

"Amok Time" is one of classic Star Trek's most beloved episodes. I can imagine the Voyager writers wondering how they could inject some of those "alien mating practices" into their own series, with "Elogium" being the misguided result.

The ship is ensnared in a swarm of space-dwelling life forms in the midst of a spawning ritual. Meanwhile, proximity to the creatures triggers a physiological reaction in Kes, who experiences the changes associated with Ocampa fertility, and then must decide whether to have a child with Neelix.

This episode was actually first pitched by outside writers Jimmy Diggs and Steve J. Kay, in the form of the ship jeopardy and the creature swarm. (Which was reportedly "sold in the room" when he suggested Tuvok's line "Captain, I believe that we've lost our sex appeal.") But co-creator Jeri Taylor brought in the Kes elements that seemingly grew with each re-write of the script. The last of those re-writes was by another outsider, Kenneth Biller, and earned him an offer to join the staff. I confess, I don't see what enamored them so.

The entire Kes storyline feels like an improv sketch out of control, where every zany idea is one-upped. She stuffs her face... and eats bugs! Then she goes a bit feral... and starts writhing on the Doctor's desk! She gets veiny, clammy hands... and then has to mate for six days! It's all profoundly silly and stupid, because it doesn't hold up to even the slightest bit of scrutiny. How can the Ocampa have survived as a species if they have to go through all this -- the foot rubs, the tongue swelling, the dirt eating -- just for a once in a lifetime chance at procreation? Though nothing in this episode suggests it, Ocampa pregnancies must be veritable litters for this to work at all. (Or maybe the men are not so limited, and the Ocampa population as a whole is far from evenly split?)

But it's not just profoundly silly, it's also profoundly creepy. Kes is so very young, not just in the sense that her character is literally two years old, but in them telling us that an Ocampa doesn't usually experience this until age 4 or 5. (Would Kes even know this much about her species' "puberty" when she's still so far away from it?) And while Jennifer Lien actually gives a really great performance with an off-the-charts level of commitment, she can't escape the unsettling, upsetting shadow of being 20 years old playing all this with a man literally twice her age as her love interest.

And they could scarcely write Neelix to be less likeable here if they tried. He's consumed with jealousy. He calls Kes "an innocent" in the most condescending way, not with tenderness, but with anger. He annoys the Doctor to a degree where he's (rightfully) tossed out of Sickbay. He's sexist, getting called out by Tuvok about his differing attitudes on having a son versus having a daughter. He feels less mature than Kes, despite the age difference, and so it hardly feels like he's made "the right decision" when he gets on board with wanting to parent.

But in spite of itself, the episode does stumble backward into a few good moments. The realization that Voyager might need to become a "generation ship" is a very interesting one, and unique to this among all Star Trek series. Setting aside Chakotay's whiplash opinion (from "let's restrict couples" to "let's encourage them" in 20 minutes), the debate over how to raise kids on the ship, and what kind of life they'd have there, is deep stuff -- and given space in which that depth is explored.

Also, Ensign Samantha Wildman is introduced here, and she is a compelling concept for a character: forced into single parenthood by the circumstances, facing a pregnancy on her own and separated from a spouse who doesn't even know she's pregnant. Because this was another of the four episodes filmed for season one but delayed into season two, the timeline doesn't make a lot of sense -- Voyager has been in the Delta Quadrant for about two-thirds of a pregnancy before she learns she is pregnant (which I think was later justified by giving her an alien husband). Still, both the personal and the professional elements of this story are really meaningful, and I'm glad the show continued to explore it after this.

Other observations:

• When Kes "locks" herself in the Doctor's office, can the Doctor really not get in? Can't he just shimmer out and back in on the other side of the force field?
  

• Neelix truly has an enormous tower of garlic in his kitchen.
  

• Writer Jimmy Diggs named the character of Samantha Wildman in honor of the young girl whose organ donation saved his wife's life.
  

Three-quarters of the script here is so dumb... and yet the other quarter is really load-bearing in terms of making the episode at least watchable. Add in Jennifer Lien's performance, and I think the episode is far less bad than it could have been. I'd say "Elogium" is (just barely) a C-.

The Re-Conjuring

Before I could watch the newest movie in The Conjuring horror franchise, I felt compelled to catch up with the second installment, which I'd missed back in 2016. The original movie had grown a bit in my estimation since I first saw it (both in my memory, and in re-watching it years later with my niece); I figured two more entries would be worth the ride.

The Conjuring 2 has paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren heading across the ocean to the U.K. to tackle a case with undertones of The Exorcist: a young girl is the focus of an evil spirit, possessing her to terrify both her and her family, and seemingly aimed at scaring them out of their house. The Warrens are there to bust ghosts, as Lorraine deals with her own frightening and recurring vision of Ed's death.

This sequel is considerably more story-driven than the original film. The first film focused almost entirely on the haunted family, whose isolation out in a rural area meant they were really the only characters to deal with; the Warrens and their team were used as accents, but to some extent were only secondary characters. The Conjuring 2 spends a lot of time on depicting the struggles of a single mother, setting up the family dynamics among the four children both at home and at school, gives them neighbors with a bit of personality too, and even fleshes out a few tidbits about the man who owned the house before. On top of all that, the Warrens themselves get a full story arc this time, centered on the danger of their work, their relationship to each other, why they do what they do, and more.

Because this tale is so dense, it's almost a half hour longer than the first installment. Unrelated, I think: the big set piece scares here aren't quite as effective as those in the first movie. The Conjuring 2 certainly has a "breakout character" in its creepy nun (who would spawn a spin-off franchise). But there's nothing here that rises to the level of the memorable "hide and clap" sequence of the original, or even its secondary "big moments."

Still, there is a low-grade tension that's held effectively throughout the entire movie. Mostly, this has to do with outstanding camera use by cinematographer Don Burgess and director James Wan. Light and shadow are super-effective, making your eye work just the right amount to discern detail. Frames are staged with carefully chosen empty space and background objects, constantly drawing your eye in nervousness over what you might see that the characters don't. Long camera takes are used to draw out chilling scenes, though rarely to a showy extent that make a scene more about the technique than the emotion its meant to evoke.

I think I liked The Conjuring 2 a little bit less than I now like the original. But not much. At a very solid B, with so many horror movies being subpar schlock, The Conjuring 2 is very much a horror movie that fans of the genre should watch and would enjoy.

Time for a Game

A few years ago, I played a real beast of a board game called Cerebria: The Inside World... and didn't like it very much. It had wildly complex rules, taking almost as long to explain as it did to play, and didn't feel to me like it had enough strategic weight to merit such complexity.

Three of the designers involved with Cerebria --  Dávid Turczi, Richard Amann, and Viktor Peter -- collaborated on an earlier game, Anachrony, that remains in the Top 50 at Board Game Geek. Because of that experience with Cerebria, I was a bit reluctant to try it. But I was pleasantly surprised when I did.

Anachrony has a somewhat involved back story, but the main thrust is this: a cataclysm has come to the planet, but you have the opportunity to use time travel to send resources back in time and prepare a group of people for evacuation before the last city on the planet collapses. Four players each embody a different "path" for how to do this best, each with a slightly different emphasis on what types of people to evacuate, and each with different "main characters" you can select for a game (each with a unique power).

Though this game isn't quite as elaborate or involved as Cerebria, it is a lot of game. But more so than Cerebria (by far), it does start to make sense once you're a round or two into play. Systems do dovetail together well, goals are pretty clear, and your options on each of your turns are fairly easy to grasp. It's just that it's all connected in a way that defies easy explanation; I won't attempt to summarize here a rules set that easily takes half an hour to an hour to explain.

However, there are a few mechanics in particular that are the real meat of play, and worth highlighting. Anachrony is a worker placement game. First, each player has their own private placement spaces on a personal board (and constructs more throughout the game). Those are fairly low cost to utilize. But then there are the shared spaces on a central game board, which have a higher cost to access -- and which you essentially have to plan for at the start of each round, by choosing to "power up exo-suits" that allow your workers to go out onto the harsh apocalyptic surface of the planet. There's a tricky needle being threaded here, in that you need to know at the start of a round just how many exo-suits you're going to want for actions on the central board... yet it's also OK not to have every action you'll take planned precisely. You can't, because your opponents might beat you to the limited spaces.

There's also an interesting "time travel" mechanic at the core of play. At the start of each round, you can give yourself limited resources from the bank, for free, figuratively "sent from the future." But in future rounds, you have to "pay back" those resources (to the bank) by "sending them back in time" to preserve the timeline that gave them to you in the first place. If you fail to do this, you risk a paradox that can gum up your personal game board, cost you victory points, and threaten your win. It's an interesting mechanic that I think I was too risk-averse about when I played. This is a time travel themed game, after all. I'll be curious to explore the mechanic more in subsequent plays.

When I tried out Anachrony, all players were all buckling under the weight of the rules explanation, and pretty skeptical at first about how this game found its way to the top of the Board Game Geek chart. But by halfway through our play, all four players agreed that this was fun, had a lot of potential, and that we'd definitely want to play again before the rules faded from our memories.

I'd say Anachrony merits at least a B+, and I wouldn't be surprised if my opinion of it grows when I get to play it more. That it hit in my group, despite being a good deal more complex than we generally like, I think says a lot.

To New Heights

The wild, unprecedented success of Hamilton makes it easy to forget (if you even knew to begin with) that Lin-Manuel Miranda had previously created a Tony winning Best Musical with In the Heights. Like many, I'd never seen that earlier effort... but was now given the chance to see the movie adaptation. Judging by the box office report, not many others took that chance. But I'm here to say they are definitely missing out.

In the Heights focuses on a few hot summer days in Washington Heights in New York City. Interwoven personal narratives follow several young characters at major life crossroads: one looking to return to the Dominican Republic where he was born, one torn over revealing that she's dropping out of college, one dreaming of becoming a fashion designer, and more. The plot is serviceable, dutifully checking the boxes of many stage musicals. And as with most stage musicals, the real draw are the songs.

The music of In the Heights is bubbly and infectious in all the right ways. The songs drill into your head, make you move while you watch, are clever and fun, and linger in your mind long after. Fans of Hamilton who've never gone back will recognize some similar building blocks here... but there's also some clear influence on other writers who followed later. (I personally find hints of both Kinky Boots and Dear Evan Hansen.)

Having never seen the original production on stage, I'm not keenly aware of how the story was enlarged for the screen. But it very clearly was; the scale of production is enormous, to a degree where it feels like it could have been written originally for the movie screen. There are numerous settings, clever usage of visual effects to expand the presentation, and oh so many background dancers. Why have a dozen when you can have hundreds?! That's particularly moving for a film arriving in the wake of COVID-19, seeing so many people gathered in one place, and in a celebration of pure joy.

There is a knock on the film being widely discussed online: the fact that while the movie does include some Afro-Latinx actors, they're all notably light-skinned. (The one lead -- and character -- with a darker skin tone specifically does not have any Latinx roots.) It's not truly representative of Washington Heights, many say... and moreover, another form of racially insensitive casting from a Hollywood you might have believed had already discovered all kinds. There's really not much I could contribute there, but I mention it because it doesn't seem right to praise members of the cast without acknowledging the criticism that perhaps some of the roles should have been cast differently.

Having said that -- the four leads are all excellent: Anthony Ramos, Leslie Grace, Corey Hawkins, and Melissa Barrera. Olga Merediz is wonderful as "Abuela" Claudia.  Original Rent cast member Daphne Rubin-Vega plays a supporting character who absolutely steals the show with her songs. If you only know Stephanie Beatriz from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, her role here will blow your mind. And yes, Jimmy Smits, Marc Anthony, and Lin-Manuel Miranda himself (and his Hamilton co-star Christopher Jackson) are here too, all in entertaining roles.

In short, In the Heights is just plain fun. I'd call it an A-, and well worth checking out for any musical fans.

Voyager Flashback: Projections

The season one Star Trek: Voyager episode "Heroes and Demons" established the Doctor as a character who could carry his own episode. This status was truly cemented by "Projections." (Another of the four season one episodes held to air in season two.)

The Doctor is activated to find Voyager nearly deserted after a Kazon attack. But as strange inconsistencies strain the credibility of that story, a holographic Reginald Barclay appears with a remarkable claim: the Doctor is really Lewis Zimmerman, the inventor of the Emergency Medical Hologram, trapped in a simulation that threatens his life.

"Projections" is, in my view, the best episode of Star Trek: Voyager to this point. From an immediately engaging teaser of the Doctor "waking up" to an empty ship, the story builds a fun mystery that zigs and zags through one plot twist after another. It has a good horror-movie-esque "one final scare" false ending. And the material is elevated by another great performance from Robert Picardo, blending anxiety and comedy and adventure.

But... a lot of this concoction is made up of familiar ingredients. This "what is real, what is a delusion" premise is quite similar in presentation to the Next Generation episode "Frame of Mind." (So perhaps its fitting that Jonathan Frakes, featured in that episode, directs this one.) The "alone on the ship and maybe losing your mind" elements recall another Next Generation episode, "Remember Me." And with Reginald Barclay present, it's easy to see "Ship in a Bottle" as another source of inspiration here. All of those being "very good to great" episodes, this episode is almost inevitably going to come up short.

Yet there are just enough unique flourishes here to latch onto. For eeriness, there's the moment when the command to end all holograms erases everyone but the Doctor. For comedy, there's the Doctor going for a hypospray as an impromptu weapon, and quipping about the size of the bridge. For cleverness, there's "resetting the program" to the events of the pilot and having the Doctor play around with them a bit.

Although this is a "bottle episode" (filmed on existing sets to save money), the scope feels bigger with it being the Doctor's first time moving so freely around the ship. And the budget is used smartly in key places for good effect: showing the wrecked bridge, unconventional lighting and lenses to heighten the tension... and, of course, visual effects of holograms winking in and out.

As for putting Reginald Barclay in this episode? I think it works well that the first crossover character from The Next Generation is a recurring, secondary character. And Barclay is a very logical choice for a story revolving around self-doubt, paranoia, and hologram trickery. (The detail that he was responsible for testing the EMH's interpersonal skills says a lot, in a fun way.) Dwight Schultz gives a good performance, and is a good foil for Robert Picardo.

Other observations:

• Don't think about it too much, but... it doesn't really make sense that the holographic Doctor would need to talk -- physically, out loud -- to the ship's computer to access information.

• Neelix's role as the Jar Jar Binks of Star Trek: Voyager is really calcifying here. (Actually, Voyager premiered four years earlier, so I guess Jar Jar Binks is the Neelix of Star Wars.) Anyway, Neelix's food fight with a Kazon is ridiculously over the top, and too big a hint, I think, that this scenario isn't real.
  

• Putting Chakotay into the Doctor's hallucination as a calming voice does make some sense, I suppose. Though I think it would have been even more natural for Tuvok to serve as the voice of reason.
  

• Ultimately, how and why the Doctor wound up in this scenario is a bit of hand wave. Which is good, because the bit we do get is "something something yet another trapped on a malfunctioning holodeck" story.
  

As I said, this is Voyager's strongest episode yet. But it's not as good as the Next Generation episodes which serve as "comparables." So I think I'd call it a B+. Very good, but not "great."

Before It Was a Coin, It Was a Game...

Included among the many games I played during my week-long "retreat" were a few I haven't played in years. Decades, in fact, in one case: Doge. It's a game that was published back in the year 2000, which I picked up on a trip to Essen for that year's Spiel (Essen Game Fair). I suspect it's been out of print now far longer than it was actually available, and it has been gathering dust on my game shelf for quite some time.

Doge is set along the canals of Venice, and pits the players in a political competition to build houses in the different districts. Those are ultimately converted into palazzos, the final victory condition. By the standard of many modern games, Doge has shockingly simple rules. You can teach it in less than 5 minutes, and play it in 30-45. There are really just a few mechanisms in the game... one of which works very well (and deserves to be reused in another game), and one of which makes the game nearly unplayable to my modern eye.

The winning element is the voting system used to establish control of districts each round. All players have 7 identical "voting chips" valued at 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, and 3. In a round of voting, each player chooses between one and four of those chips to place somewhere on the board, along with the card representing their secret choice of where to place the chips. Once everyone chooses, the districts are revealed while the votes themselves remain hidden. The process then repeats twice more, until all chips are placed and each player has voted in three (or sometimes only two) districts. Votes are then tallied district by district, establishing a winner (and second place player) who gains houses and a bit of extra voting power to wield in another district.

There's a lot of play within that simple system. Watching people gradually expend their voting chips creates fun "double bluff" scenarios. Next round, can you go to that district everyone else is ignoring... or will the other players also seize upon the fact that it sits empty? Did your opponent who went big with four chips make a huge play for one district... or are they bluffing you with low value chips? How few votes can you get away with in a district to pull off a useful second place finish?

Unfortunately, this compelling system is in service of a game that's decided in the first two rounds. The system for converting houses into game-winning palazzos is even simpler than the voting: the first palazzo in a district is built as soon as one player has 3 houses there; the next takes 4 houses; the next 5; and so on. To win the game, a player needs to get one palazzo in each of the six districts along the canal... or add an additional palazzo for each district they're missing. (That is, seven palazzos in five districts, or eight in six.)

Through clever play or sheer luck (or both), one player usually succeeds in creating at least two palazzos by the end of the second round. With the rising costs of subsequent palazzos, this is enough to create an insurmountable lead. Players can plot openly about where to try to block the leader, but there's a little too much flexibility in moving houses around, cheaply picking up second place bonuses, and exploiting competition between your rivals. I think this game is essentially decided 5 to 10 minutes in, even though it's likely to last a half hour more. Even for a rather short game like this is, that's not really a fun situation.

The designer of Doge, Leo Colovini, has had many popular and well-received designs over the years, including sequels and re-releases. But Doge has never been revisited, and I'm now pretty sure I know why. But I also think there's a real gem of a mechanic here, paired with an unfortunate victory/scoring system... a gem that I truly hope Colovini himself (or some other designer with a clever twist) revisits some day.

Balancing those two extreme elements, I think I'd call Doge something like a C+ in the grand scheme of my game collection. I intend to hang onto it as a reminder, as potential inspiration... even though I wouldn't be surprised if I never actually played it again.

Goddess on the Mountaintop

The blog is back! (Assuming you even noticed it was gone.) I've returned from a week's vacation at a mountain hideaway, playing board game after board game with a few fully vaccinated friends, enjoying the air, and really enjoying the "not being at home for 95% of life's activities."

I'll probably have a few more board game posts than usual in the coming days, as I pass along thoughts about some new games I got to try. But I wanted to start with Concordia Venus. I loved the original Concordia from the first time I played it, and I've only grown to like it more since. (I would revise my original review to give it an unreserved A.)

Concordia Venus was released first as an expansion and then as a stand-alone version of the game, raising the cap of 4 players to 6 by pairing players in teams of two, seated opposite from each other around the table and each taking the same actions at the same time. The core gameplay is still the same: gathering money and resources to expand around a map, buying cards to enable more game actions and to multiply your scoring potential at end game.

Venus adds a few wrinkles specifically to support team play. There are now cards that allow you to take one action while your partner takes a different one. There's a scoring condition based on both partners building in the same province on the board. And while one half of each team starts in one city, the other half pick different starting positions on the board, allowing them to carve out a powerful territory that remains theirs alone for the early stretch of the game -- a strong advantage in Concordia.

But what's more fascinating about team play is how much the core Concordia rules already produce interesting decisions in the format, separate of the specific additions. Expanding on the map takes both money and other resources, and the easiest way to amass the money cuts your partner off from amassing the resources; you quickly reach a state where you must be mindful of actions that are good only for you versus actions that benefit both you and your partner.

Building in occupied cities is more expensive than building somewhere new, and yet there is also an advantage in being where other players are: when they elect to generate resources in a province, your cities there generate them too, even if it isn't your turn. In team play, you can use this to make things for both teammates at the same time... if you paid that extra setup cost to get into the same locations together.

Most importantly, seating the partners opposite each other helps mitigate the "down time" that would otherwise result from a game structure like this. In a 6-player game, rather than waiting for five others to act (even if you have a vested interest in your partner's turn), you get to do something every three turns, as if in a 3-player game. You sometimes get a thrill when you and your partner are clearly on the same wavelength, and sometimes get a challenge figuring out how to use an action your partner selects that you weren't expecting.

Bottom line: Concordia Venus doesn't seem to compromise anything I love about the core game, while raising the player count to 6, making you not mind the extra time that means the game will take, and adding a few new strategic considerations. In my book, that makes it a masterpiece (built on top of a masterpiece). I give it an enthusiastic A. I hope to be playing it a lot more.

Voyager Flashback: Initiations

As season two of Star Trek: Voyager began, the writers felt that season one had underutilized the character of Chakotay, so they put him at the center of the first new episode filmed, "Initiations."

Isolated on a shuttle in Kazon space, Chakotay comes under attack by a young Kazon man looking to prove his name in battle. The two come to understand one another more over a gradual exchange of cultural ideals. Meanwhile, Voyager looks for its missing first officer.

In only a handful of appearances in season one, the Kazon were already looking like a fairly weak adversary for the Voyager crew. But it's this episode that really cements their reputation as "B-grade Klingons." We learn how they look to prove themselves in battle at a young age, and how they'd rather die than live and be shunned for failure. Their rival sects vying for power start to sound a lot like the rival Houses of the Klingon Empire who squabble for control of the government. We see the inside of one of their ships... and it's a bunch of Klingon style harsh lighting through metal grates.

As for the "B-grade" part? Chakotay easily bests one of their "fighters" in a shuttlecraft. They're so stupid that they don't even take Chakotay's tricorder from him when they capture him. Tom Paris, commanding Voyager for the first time (so far as we know), is able to extract information from them without even really trying. Neelix is able to effectively taunt them. An Away Team is able to escape one of their force fields in moments. And a visual cherry on top of it it all: their planet looks exactly like the most recognizable Star Trek planet ever. (More location filming at Vasquez Rocks, with no apparent attempt to hide it.)

One bright spot to the episode is guest star Aron Eisenberg as the young Kazon. Still, it's hard for any Deep Space Nine fan to watch and not just see Nog. The production reportedly turned to Eisenberg only after trying to cast other young actors in the role and not finding anyone they thought could do the job. Yes, his Kazon makeup is quite different. This character does bluster where Nog cowers, and Eisenberg gives a more physical performance. But the two also aren't that different; this episode landed early in Deep Space Nine's third season, at a point when Nog was still a young troublemaker who hadn't announced his intentions to join Starfleet. And Eisenberg's voice is unmistakably the same.

But yes, it is a story particularly suited for Chakotay, as the writers hoped for. He of all characters is a good messenger for a gentler way to "be a man." For once, the phony Native American sentiments written for him don't clang too hard; his speech about territory and not owning land is reasonably effective. (Though I don't buy the reverence he expresses for the Federation uniform. He was a dedicated Maquis only months ago.)

Other observations:

• The writers continue to dig a hole for Neelix, who whines more about being left out, and believes it when Janeway straight up lies about the quality of his cooking. (Knowing what Janeway thinks of Neelix is another strike against the Kazon, when she specifically asks that Neelix be on the bridge if they come around. We know what she really thinks of his capabilities, so how worried can she be about the Kazon?)
  

• There's a lot of unusual camera work in the episode, and not all of it effective. During the opening battle sequence, Chakotay gets the upper hand with a loop-the-loop maneuver; I think the upside-down camera (in space) is a rather unnecessary flourish. And throughout, there are quite a lot of arch, upward angles. (Perhaps to de-emphasize the height difference between Robert Beltran and Aron Eisenberg?)
  

The scenes here between Beltran and Eisenberg are fairly good, but it's impossible for this episode to escape the shadow of the damage it's doing to the Kazon as a credible or interesting adversary. I give "Initiations" a C+.

What a Difference 17 Years Can Make...

There's an adage about art that it stays the same, while the viewer changes. I had such an experience with the movie Sideways.

Sideways was the 2004 award contender about a pretentious writer-in-the-making who takes his C-list actor friend to Santa Barbara wine country on a week-long bachelor party. Miles, the writer, is still reeling from his divorce two years earlier. Jack, the actor, is an irrepressible horndog looking for more action before marriage. They wind up spending time with Maya and Stephanie, two wine aficionados who we're meant to understand deserve way better than these guys. Insight, snobbery, and occasional hilarity ensue.

In just about every significant way, I was not the same person a decade-and-a-half ago, when I first saw this movie in the run-up to the Oscars. And that person didn't like this movie much at all. It had a few memorable one-liners (including, notably, one that apparently destroyed real-life sales of Merlot for years and years). But none of the subject matter felt familiar to me, and it wasn't a movie trying to draw you in at all -- it wanted you at arm's length from its major characters.

Now, much has changed to make me more receptive to Sideways. I'm roughly the age of the characters in the film. I've developed some modest appreciation for wine (and have even been to wine country myself -- twice). Sideways is still in many ways unlikable, but to me it is now in many more ways understandable.

What I think I appreciated the first time, and certainly appreciate now, is just how good the acting in the movie is. Thomas Haden Church (as Jack) and Virginia Madsen (as Maya) were both up for Supporting Role Oscars here, and deservedly so. It's a bit of a cliche when you know you're hearing the One Speech a character has that is the movie's "hand extended for an Oscar" moment, but they both get it and they both nail it -- Church for Jack's complete emotional meltdown, Madsen for her quiet and introspective monologue about what wine means to Maya. Sandra Oh is solid too; this is far from her first role, though this may have been the turning point where more people would begin to recognize her.

But Paul Giamatti dominates this film. And while other awards like the Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globes, and the Independent Spirit Awards did have him as a nominee, the Oscars leaving him out feels like a pretty egregious snub. Giamatti is so natural as this character that I suppose it's easy to overlook the tightrope he's walking: Miles is sympathetic but also unlikable, a victim of circumstances but a misanthrope of his own making, a walking contradiction. He's sweet in one scene, horrible in the next, and quite interesting throughout.

The acting is the draw here, though. The plot of Sideways is rather thin and very low stakes; it's a bit of a wonder to me that the one Oscar it did win was for Best Adapted Screenplay. Even though I like it now, quite a lot more, it would still be a stretch to call it an essential movie that "you have to see." But I would call it a B+. If you're into quiet little movies driven by dialogue and character, you're likely to be a fan.

Does this mean I'm now going to be looking out for more movies I once disliked to give them another chance? No, not really. There's too much new out there to see, or too much to revisit that I know I loved. But something about Sideways was speaking to me, telling me I should give it another chance -- and I'm glad I did. Perhaps another case like that will come along at some point.

Soaring Above the Crowd?

I've reached my saturation point with superhero TV shows, but I really don't want to hold that against Invincible, the recent arrival on Amazon Prime.

Based on a comic book series by Robert Kirkman (creator of The Walking Dead), Invincible follows 17-year-old Mark Grayson as he develops superpowers and begins learning how to use them from his father, the most powerful superhero on Earth.

Invincible is an animated show, which does immediately separate it from many of the other superhero shows out there right now. But it's rather interesting that it's on Amazon Prime, which is also home to the subversive (and awesome) The Boys -- a show that started strong and kept getting better by messing with genre tropes. Invincible does include some surprising story developments, but it's also generally playing it pretty straight. Invincible is a very earnest show that I occasionally found myself comparing unfavorably to The Boys -- unfairly, as the two have pretty different aspirations.

Invincible is quite good at doing what it wants to do. It has a likeable hero at the heart of an engaging superhero origin story (yes, engaging even though you've seen dozens of superhero origin stories). There are mysteries to ponder... which get answered quickly as the 8-episode first season unfold.

And the cast is exceptional. Steven Yuen voices Mark Grayson, bringing just the right combination of youthful energy and adolescent angst. J.K. Simmons is perfectly cast as his father, Omni-Man, a character with a lot of layers for the season to mine. Sandra Oh is great as Mark's mother Debbie; the "unpowered" character in the superhero show is usually a snooze, but the Debbie gets a great story line in the season, and Oh winds up playing the most complex emotions of anyone of the show. The extended cast features Gillian Jacobs, Andrew Rannells, Walter Goggins, Zachary Quinto, Jason Mantzoukas, Mark Hamill, Clancy Brown, while guest stars include Jon Hamm, Mahershala Ali, Seth Rogen, Nicole Byer, Mae Whitman, Reginald VelJohnson (at the center of a great in-joke), Michael Dorn, Ezra Miller, Jonathan Groff, Justin Roiland, and half the cast of The Walking Dead. It's unreal how deep the "bench" is on this show.

I like Invincible, and the announcement that it was picked up for at least two more seasons was welcome news to me. But I also hope that when those seasons do come around, I'm not juggling it with the latest Disney+ Marvel show, whatever DC is now doing on HBOMax, and more. I think I'd give Invincible a B+, but it might feel even better if it were not squeezing onto a crowded stage.