Voyager Flashback: Death Wish

The character of Q had been a recurring fixture on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The attempt to cross him over to Deep Space Nine, however, had sputtered out after a single appearance. Still, no one was really surprised when the Powers That Be tried again on Voyager.

Voyager unknowingly frees a Q from imprisonment by the rest of the Q Continuum. He wants the freedom to end his life; the rest of the Q forbid that for the good of their society. Soon, Janeway is presiding over an asylum hearing to determine the outcome.

Trekkers began asking about Q appearing on Voyager pretty much as soon as the first episode aired. It was an enthusiasm encouraged by Kate Mulgrew and John de Lancie, who had never worked together despite knowing each other for many years, and were eager for the chance. The writers' room got wrapped around the axle on it for some time, though. Sure, Q could go anywhere -- but why does he only show up on Starfleet ships that happen to have TV shows about them? They wanted a story that justified it.

Ultimately, one was pitched by 23-year-old Shawn Piller, son of executive producer Michael Piller. Everyone involved insists that no nepotism was at play here; Shawn had to pitch his story to the entire writers' room (except for Michael himself, who stayed out of the room). Setting aside whether "a meeting with the boss' kid" could ever truly feel free of undue pressure, the fact remains that both Star Trek series at the time had a few standing rules for outside writers, one being: "Don't pitch us Q stories." So... yeah.

When you try to parse the stories told about the making of this episode, it sounds like the real nugget of Shawn Piller's idea was "they find some other Q first, and he soon has to call on 'the Q we know' for help." It's not clear whether the original pitch included the real ethical dilemma at the heart of the episode, or if that came later. In any case, that's where the real meat of the story here is: a reflection on the moralities of suicide (and assisted suicide), capital punishment, and life imprisonment.

That the episode dares to tangle with these issues at all puts it on solid footing. But there are times when it only scratches the surface before recoiling. Q2 talks enviously of Kes' short life span... but then comically erases all the men on Voyager before things get too serious. An in-depth talk about the way one life can influence others for the better is undermined with jokes about Isaac Newton's apple and hippies. Real talk about relief of suffering being moral justification for suicide is undercut by surrealistic humor about life in the Q Continuum: a gas station in the middle of nowhere.

The jokes are kind of funny sometimes. But the heady dialogue on serious topics is good too... and the two sort of clang off each other at times. Moreover, the pace is relentless. The episode reportedly ran very long and required extensive editing for time, and you can tell when you watch it. It starts in the middle of a scene, with us just suddenly looking at the viewscreen. Q's bribe to take the Voyager home to Earth, pretty much The Reason to bring Q to the show, is barely a few seconds of screen time.

But then, the flip side of the fast pace is that we (briefly) get a number of very compelling moments. Voyager as a Christmas tree ornament is delightfully meta. Jonathan Frakes notching an appearance on yet another Star Trek series is welcome. The argument that monotony and routine is itself a form of suffering is remarkably resonant. The sly inversion of Q's original Star Trek appearance is clever: this time, humanity is presiding over a trial of the Q. The line about "individual rights only being protected so long as they don't conflict with the state" is quite possibly one of the most salient observations ever delivered in a Star Trek episode. So yeah, there's plenty of good stuff here.

Other observations:

• The moment Janeway hears the name Q, she calls for a Red Alert. That's good policy.
  

• The appearance of Commander Riker was originally conceived of as a cameo for Geordi LaForge. (And knowing that, it seems more appropriate that the story revolves around a distant ancestor whose life was saved during the Civil War.) LeVar Burton was said to be unavailable at the time, so Jonathan Frakes got the call instead.

• The hippie Maury Ginsberg was played by an actor named Maury Ginsberg. Typecasting? No, the writers apparently loved his name so much that they replaced what was originally in the script.

• Q has always been a mocking character, but his antagonism toward the star of the show takes on some quite unsavory elements of sexism here. More than elements, really; Q's entire relationship with Janeway seems to be defined inexplicably by misogyny.
  

Tilt the kaleidoscope of this episode one way and it looks quite good. Tilt it another and it's easy to see a whole raft of flaws. Maybe it all comes down to your general attitude on Q episodes in general. I think I'm going to call it a B.

Ko-Compelling?

Board game design Stefan Feld is back -- with something I would never have clocked as a Stefan Feld game. Kokopelli is a card game for 2 to 4 players. In a break from most Feld designs, the rules are quite minimal, and the play time is short at perhaps 45 minutes. There's no track marking turn order or status. But I did find the game to be fun for its lighter complexity.

Players each start with an identical shuffled deck of cards: 10 sets of 3, plus 6 "wild" cards. Each turn, you get two actions from a short menu of choices: you can draw from your deck, exchange your entire hand for a new one, begin a new "ceremony" by playing a card to one of four empty spaces in front of you, or add a matching card to a ceremony.

That last option is where the strategic meat is. Playing the fourth card to a ceremony completes it, scoring points and removing it from the game. And you can add cards not only to your own four ceremonies, but to the rightmost two ceremonies of the player on your left, and the leftmost two ceremonies of the player on your right. In short, this is one of those games where you have to watch out that you don't set up an opponent to complete a scoring opportunity.

Of course, there's more to it than simply playing cards. Each of the 10 cards in the game has a special power while face up in front of you. One might score you a bonus point whenever you play a card into an opponent's ceremony. Another might score you a point whenever a wild card is played into any of your ceremonies. I say "might" because the game comes with more card types than are needed to play. Setup involves choosing cards (powers) at random and creating the specific decks you'll use for this game; interactions and strategy will change accordingly (much as it does in "fixed pile" deck building games like Dominion).

You always score at least 1 point when one of your ceremonies is completed, no matter who played the final card. But being the first or second player to finish a set of a given "suit" scores you a bonus. So there's an interesting tension between completing sets for bonuses, keeping sets open for the powers they'll give you, and trying to at least have a piece of any scoring opportunity that arises (even if you aren't the player causing it).

The game ends when one player draws all the cards in their deck, and then you simply tally up points to determine the winner. As I said, it's rather fast to play. And while it doesn't demand some of the deeper strategic thinking that so many Stefan Feld masterpieces do, I still quite enjoy the change-up here.

"Don't leave a great move for your opponent" games tend to be best at just two players, I think... but this one addresses some of those issues by forcing you to interact with just the players on your left and right. Because your deck contains 10 different powers, you can't just pick your favorite and reuse its power forever (as you can in a "stack deck-builder") -- you have to run through all your cards, and your opponents can play cards to close out any of your ceremonies they think are benefiting you too much. Put simply, there's some surprising depth here for a fairly simple rules set.

I'll need to play Kokopelli more (and experience more of its interactions between different cards) to get a sense of how much staying power it might really have. But for the moment, I'd give it a solid B+. It's a game I certainly want to play more of.

An Atypical Finale

Last year, I praised the Netflix series Atypical, which then had three 10-episode seasons. Now, the series has concluded with a final fourth season, and I felt like quickly revisiting the subject for anyone who might have missed my recommendation the first time around.

Atypical is centered around Sam Gardner, a young man on the autism spectrum who is navigating his early college years. His family has their share of challenges too: his sister Casey is dealing with the high pressure of a potential athletic scholarship, his mother Elsa is struggling to adjust to not being "needed" as much by her son, and his father Doug is facing a midlife crisis triggered by an unexpected death. The show is woven of dramatic threads, but an often-light tone and compact half-hour format positions it strongly as a "dramady."

I found Atypical when it had already been around three seasons. And while I don't really "binge" shows in the "multiple episodes a day" way that Netflix thinks everyone should, I did basically watch them back-to-back with few breaks in between. The fact that COVID then delayed their final season and imposed an extra long break really allowed for some distance from the series I hadn't had before.

Atypical is still very good. But when you take a break between seasons of a TV show, you can often see behind the curtain to how television is usually written. That's especially true of modern "family drama" shows; each season systemically assigns a problem to each character to be resolved over the course of "however many episodes this season is going to be." Atypical felt to me like it had maybe even a little more than the usual amount of "between season upheaval," as several elements of past seasons have basically been dropped. One character who was practically in the main cast is barely around in season four; two characters who fought throughout season three have completely made up in the final season.

But I'm really just picking nits. Most TV shows are artificial in these ways -- it's too hard to get away from if you're trying to tell stories worth watching. And the payoff is definitely here, as the final season of Atypical has the show's patented blend of heart and humor. Particularly strong in the final season is the ongoing story line built around Casey, who almost becomes more the focus of the show than Sam. Brigette Lundy-Paine is really asked to act her ass off in this final season, and is more than equal to the challenge.

Atypical's final season is perhaps not quite as strong as the years before, but I think that's more a mark of how much I enjoyed the rest of it. More importantly, it reaches a satisfying and appropriate ending in the final episode. I'd give the final season a B+. If you haven't given Atypical a try, I highly recommend it.

Lower Decks: Where Pleasant Fountains Lie

The latest episode of Lower Decks, "Where Pleasant Fountains Lie," was yet another solid installment in the series' excellent second season. It also marked a welcome return for one of Star Trek's most reliable guest stars.

Mariner and Boimler are delivering an "evil computer" named Agimus to safe storage when their shuttle crashes on a desert planet. As they try to survive, Agimus tries to turn them against each other. Meanwhile, the Cerritos meets up with the Hysperians, whose Queen Paolana is the mother of chief engineer Billups. She's looking for Billups to take the throne as the Hysperian king... by tricking him into losing his virginity.

There's a meme going around that shows a chameleon-like actor in an array of screenshots from their wide-ranging performances, with a firm declaration that "[This actor] always understands the assignment." Jeffrey Combs always understands the assignment. I've already revisited all of Deep Space Nine, enjoying his long runs as Brunt and Weyoun (not to mention his one-off appearance as the slimy Tiron). His Voyager and Enterprise appearances will come in future re-watches. Each of his characters was distinct, and perfectly calibrated to the story at hand. So it is again here for Lower Decks.

As megalomaniacal AI Agimus, Combs delivers every line with over-the-top commitment, whether threatening, cajoling, or anything in between. It's the type of intensity that lends itself perfectly to animation, and it's hilarious. In short: Jeffrey Combs understands the assignment. It's likely that Lower Decks just reached out to him in a bit of stunt casting for Star Trek fans, but based on his past performances, it should come as no surprise that Combs turned out to be really good at voice acting.

Lower Decks has a way of taking elements of Star Trek that were already dialed up to a 10, turning them to 11, and making comedy. Past Trek series are littered with dysfunctional family relationships, and no episodes loom larger in the minds of fans than The Next Generation's Lwaxana Troi episodes. Without ever poking fun at the (theoretical?) segment of fans that might have liked Lwaxana episodes (no one liked them all, surely?), Lower Decks gives us a great send-up of the premise by giving us an overbearing mother who also presides over a neverending Renaissance Festival.

This was all in service of featuring chief engineer Billups more than ever before, and giving us his wild back story: he needs to remain a virgin, lest he be drafted to rule his people as king and forced to leave Starfleet. I suppose people who might have had trouble with Mugato sex a few episodes back might complain about this plot, but Gene Roddenberry infused plenty of sex-charged stories into episodes in his time. It all walked a rather delicate line of making comedy without mocking Ren Fest lovers, virginity, or (as always) fans of Star Trek.

In the midst of all that, it wasn't as though the show abandoned its focus on its main characters, either. Although Mariner and Boimler had essentially "made up" already, Boimler's constant references to the Titan ripped open an unhealed wound and made for interesting drama between them. In the other plot, Rutherford's apparent death hit hard for Tendi in a meaningful way.

In short, Lower Decks has fully dialed into the kind of show it wants to be, and served up another solid episode. I give "Where Pleasant Fountains Lie" a B+. Let's see what Star Trek veteran they call on next.

Waterlogged

The movie Reminiscence opened last month to a most ignominious distinction: earning $18 million in its opening weekend, it was the lowest debut of all-time for a film playing in over 3,000 theaters. There's no telling how many people actually did watch it on HBO Max (like I did), but even in COVID-adjusted terms, the clearly expensive-to-make movie was a major bomb.

No, it wasn't a great movie. But it wasn't that terrible.

Reminiscence was the feature debut for writer-director Lisa Joy, co-creator of Westworld. Here, she was clearly interested in many of the same themes at play in that TV series: how memory defines you, dystopian futures, and that Thandiwe Newton is underappreciated by Hollywood. The movie stars Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, and Newton, and is a neo-noir mystery set "in a world" where technology can be used to relive memories, and people often use this to escape from the flooded, sun-blasted hellscape of the real world. Memory guide Nick is haunted by femme fatale Mae, who wanders into his life and then vanishes just as quickly. Was any of their relationship real? What truth was she hiding?

Like I said, Reminiscence isn't bad. It just doesn't cohere very well, feeling like there's only so good it could be (and this is basically it). The setting is far more grand than the story being told in it, and it isn't obvious why. The movie is set in future Miami, mostly overrun by flooding caused by climate change. It's a stylish and eye-catching take on a sci-fi dystopia, clearly made the movie cost tens of millions of dollars more to film... and really doesn't contribute much of value to the plot.

That plot is a quite rote "hard-boiled detective" story (minus the private detective), featuring an emotionally distant woman being chased by an overly obsessed man whose every thought is relayed to us by monotone voice-over. Because memory is a key element of the tale, the way the story is told is slightly novel compared to other noir -- the story can jump around in time for a dramatic punch (another element lifted from Westworld). It makes the story just interesting enough that it's hard to identify what you would ditch here to make a better movie: is it a cool setting lacking a great plot, or a good plot undermined by a distracting setting?

Also unclear: is it meant to be an action movie? There are perhaps two or three major sequences of chasing, gunplay, and underwater danger... but they feel a bit tacked on. This is what you do when you have Hugh Jackman (it's that, or have him sing). This is what you do when you make water a key element of your setting. But this definitely isn't a movie where the plot was crafted to connect individual, super-cool action ideas.

Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson are both relatively strong as their individual characters. But it's pretty stock for noir to button down the emotions, so there's only so much they can do together, and there isn't much romantic chemistry between them. Writer-director Lisa Joy knows enough to cast the best performer on Westworld, Thandiwe Newton... but apparently not enough to give Newton a really meaty part to play.

Gosh, it sounds like it really wasn't very good, doesn't it? But if I'm harsh, it's because the whole thing felt like a bit of a misfire. It never once made me think of reaching for the remote to bail out... it just also never really lives up to its abundant potential.

Perhaps there was no point in me even posting this review now. As is the HBO Max formula, it was removed from streaming 30 days after its premiere (to be returned later); at the same time, its spectacular box office failure means you can't go to a theater to see it either. So you can't watch this movie now, even if you wanted to. But for what it's worth, you probably don't want to... unless perhaps you have more affection for the film noir genre than I have. Perhaps this might come near scratching a Blade Runner-esque itch as few things do? I'd give Reminiscence a C+.

Voyager Flashback: Dreadnought

Star Trek fans tuning in in early February 1996 got a new episode of Star Trek: Voyager that kinda wasn't really new: "Dreadnought."

The Voyager crew comes upon a deadly Cardassian drone that's wreaking havoc on the Delta Quadrant, after also being brought there by the Caretaker. Yet also to blame is B'Elanna Torres; as a Maquis, she reprogrammed the weapon for her own purposes. Now she must defeat her own programming to stop this "Dreadnought" before it decimates the population of an innocent planet.

"Dreadnought" is a fairly solid episode of Voyager. It's an ideal story for B'Elanna, leveraging her engineering skills and her personal history. She's undergone something of a Kira Nerys-like transformation; at the time she was a freedom fighter, the death of bystanding "collaborators" likely would not have bothered her much. Now, she sees more shades of grey -- not that this is a particularly "grey" situation.

Meanwhile, this episode nudges along three other continuing stories. We check in with the pregnant Samantha Wildman, reviving the "Doctor needs a name" thread and getting a sense of his feelings for Kes in the process. We see more of the Kazon conspirator Jonas, who gets a new "handler" (I assume because the previous Kazon actor wasn't available or wasn't invited back). We also get more of the unraveling Tom Paris, who gets dressed down by Chakotay in front of the captain, is said to get in a fist fight over bad punctuation, and inches closer to an eventual relationship with B'Elanna as he envies her ease aboard a Starfleet ship.

Unfortunately, the main drag on this story is that it's already been done. Recently. This is essentially the exact same plot as "Prototype," just four episodes earlier. B'Elanna creates a technological monster that becomes a threat, and ultimately has to destroy her own creation to save the day. What's more, as a performer, Roxann Dawson has basically no scene partner in either story: there, she was acting opposite a fully masked actor incapable of expression (whose muffled dialogue would be re-recorded later); here, she's playing opposite her own voice (to be recorded later).

It's too bad, because this episode is better than "Prototype," and would seem better still without the many points of comparison. LeVar Burton directs, getting two good performances from Roxann Dawson, and moving the camera in a dynamic and interesting way that makes "talking alone in a room" far more interesting than it has any right to be. Though you have to accept that Cardassian technology seems a hell of a lot better here than 7 seasons of Deep Space Nine suggested, you get a return on that suspension of disbelief. The cat-and-mouse deceptions between B'Elanna and the Dreadnought are fun, the "creator" metaphor is astute (can "God" make a weapon so unstoppable that even she can't stop it?), and the stakes feel much higher -- allowing Janeway and Tuvok to share a cool "go down with the ship" moment too.

The episode might have been stronger still with a little more budget. The Dreadnought has an interesting set (that's lit effectively), but it doesn't look like much flying through space. The launching of escape pods (and their later retrieval) happens off-screen, denying the audience a very cool visual. There's also not enough budget for a larger scene with the aliens to complete their story arc: after not trusting Voyager because of the preceding rumors, their planet is saved and we never get to see their gratitude.

Other observations:

• We seem to be moving away from the idea of photon torpedoes being a limited resource. Voyager fires half a dozen this episode, and no comment is made about how much they're giving up in their campaign to destroy the Dreadnought.

• When the Dreadnought's original programming re-asserts, we should get the female computer voice we always hear on Deep Space Nine. I presume they went with a male voice to better distinguish that "Cardassian computer" from B'Elanna's voice, but the lack of consistency there is unfortunate.

• Besides the similarities between this and "Prototype," B'Elanna's other major episode ("Faces") also had her acting opposite herself. In advance of season three, Roxann Dawson reportedly begged the writers to give her a normal scene partner in the next big B'Elanna episode.

• Staff writer Lisa Klink observed another bit of repetition at work in this episode: that season two had seen the Voyager interacting with Alpha Quadrant elements of Star Trek on too regular a basis (including their own past). (Plus next week's episode!) As she astutely put it: "Individually those episodes worked well, but I think in general they had the effect of making this a familiar neighborhood."
  

If "Dreadnought" had been more unique, or even had it been the first of these similar episodes to air, I think it might have earned a B+. As it stands, I'll scale back a little to a B.

Noice -- CoolCoolCool

This past week, the sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine aired its final episode. It was hardly an obscure show, running 153 episodes over eight seasons, conspicuously getting saved from cancellation in a network hop, and even racking up a few awards (and many more nominations) along the way. But on the off chance that you, reader, have not watched it, I want to mark the occasion by suggesting that you should.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine was the brainchild of Dan Goor and Michael Schur, who co-created Parks and Recreation. (Schur also wrote on the U.S. version of The Office and created the sublime The Good Place.) They perceived that there hadn't really been a sitcom about a police squad room since Barney Miller, and set out to fill the niche. What resulted was excellent, due to the same sensibilities the two brought to those other shows I named.

The series was a high-rate joke factory, increasingly seeking to overwhelm the audience with more jokes than you could appreciate in a single watch... but it also included the right amount of sentimentality, of caring about its characters and making us care too. On occasion, it would dare to walk the high wire of balancing comedy with social commentary -- especially in its final season, which acknowledged both COVID and the protest movement amplified by the murder of George Floyd. These rarely felt like the schmaltzy "special episodes" of 80s sitcoms.

All that, plus reliably great annual episodes involving a "heist" with Ocean's Eleven scope brought to bear on something of minimal importance.

As with other Goor/Schur work, the key seemed to be in the casting; Brooklyn Nine-Nine assembled both big names and then "lesser-knowns," harnessed their unfailing comic chops, and increasingly wrote to performers' strengths as those became apparent. This was the show that made me realize I'd previously and unfairly lumped in Andy Samberg with some other comedians I loathe; Samberg has a way of portraying the "man-child" trope in a way that actually is endearing. Andre Braugher was known before this series for super-intense dramatic acting; here we learn that when he brings that intensity to bear on comedy, it is laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Melissa Fumero, Joe Lo Truglio, Chelsea Peretti, Dirk Blocker, Joel McKinnon Miller... they're each just as funny, and nearly every episode gives every one of them the chance to show it. And collectively, they were an almost unthinkably diverse cast for 2013, when the show began. Sadly, they still beat many shows for diversity today. (Beatriz and Fumero have both spoken about how they always assumed they were reading against each other in casting sessions, and that there was no way any show would cast two Latina characters.)

It's probably safe to say that if you loved Parks and Recreation, but somehow slept on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, you've been denying yourself 150+ episodes of hilarity. There might be the occasional weaker installment in there, perhaps enough to give the series "only" an A- overall. But to be clear: Brooklyn Nine-Nine was great, ended well, and if you haven't watched it: you should.

Lower Decks: The Spy Humongous

In the latest episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks, the series continues its ongoing story line with the Pakleds.

Captain Freeman beams down to the Pakled homeworld for negotiations, and a Pakled spy posing as a defector boards the Cerritos to gather intelligence. Boimler befriends a career-driven group of ensigns who want to help him get on the command track -- by encouraging to ditch his friends. And Mariner, Tendi, and Rutherford are put on "anomaly consolidation duty," cleaning up the dangerous space devices the senior officers have accumulated on recent missions.

The Pakleds themselves are dumb as bag of rocks, of course, but the choice of the Lower Decks writers to develop them as a recurring villain is incredibly smart. Given the desired tone of this show, the Cerritos simply can't mix it up with the Romulans, the Borg, the Cardassians, or anyone else Star Trek has cultivated as a serious bad guy... precisely because they were cultivated as serious bad guys. Any interactions with them could only diminish those villains, or threaten to sap the comedy out of Lower Decks. But the Pakleds are perfectly suited for the show's needs.

Sure, getting the best of Star Trek's dumbest aliens isn't a major accomplish, but I still appreciate that Captain Freeman gets a win this week. She's been screwing up a fair amount this season (no doubt to show that all the characters on this show are flawed in similar ways; it's not just the Lower Deckers who aren't ready for a front-line ship). That the Pakleds kept calling her "Janeway" was not only amusing, but perhaps a bit of commentary if you tilt your head and squint: is it sexism that they can only retain the name of one female starship captain?

The Boimler plot line was definitely commentary, a bit of insight on the sort of people who aspire to middle management. The group Boimler falls in with (the "Redshirts" -- ha!) seem to have convinced themselves that the entire job is telling people what to do. They don't actually want to make decisions, and they certainly don't want to do anything; they think an effective captain merely basks in the reflected glow of a competent crew. Unlike Boimler, they've clearly never "watched all those Star Trek episodes" (read the log entries?). This sub plot may not have generated loads of laughs, but it was fun to watch and was a nice little Star Trek-style morality play for the show.

For the big jokes, there was the "anomaly consolidation" plot line. The show took what I think was a wise rest from franchise in-jokes here. Mariner, Tendi, and Rutherford could have just encountered one past episode reference after another as they worked their way around the ship (like when they were escaping from the museum a few episodes back), but the random jeopardies were instead just that, calibrated for maximum weirdness and comedy. The one big shout-out (to Armus, at the end of the episode) was fairly low-hanging fruit that even most casual Trekkers would get.

"The Spy Humongous" was definitely not as funny as most Lower Decks episodes this season have been. But there was a trade-off: it was a more credible Star Trek episode than many Lower Decks episodes get to be. Overall, I'd give it a B+.

Zero Hour(s and Hours and Hours)

Pandemic Legacy didn't start the whole legacy board game craze, but it could still rightly be called the grandfather of the genre. I played the high quality Pandemic Legacy Season 1 and the absolutely superb Season 2. I was thrilled by the announcement last year that a prequel, Season 0, was on the way, and I was eager to play it.

Set in 1962, Pandemic Legacy Season 0 brings a Cold War spy vibe to the series' core gameplay. Instead of controlling and eradicating diseases, you assemble spy teams that travel the world keeping enemy agents in check. It sounded like a new and clever twist on the Pandemic gameplay: slightly familiar and yet slightly new. Unfortunately, by the time my group completed this installment, we all were disappointed by the experience.

Of course, a big thrill in Legacy games are the surprises twists -- in both story and game mechanics -- that you reveal along the way. I'll try to be somewhat cagey on the details here, but if you're planning to play Season 0 yourself, perhaps you'll just want to skip to the last paragraph of this post to completely avoid any spoilers.

If you're still here, then let be say that our sour experience with Season 0 stemmed largely from three things.

First was the concept of "aliases," an evolution of the characters you build in previous Pandemic Legacy games. (And something you basically know about from game 1, even though you don't really begin to develop it right away.) In all installments of the series, you essentially "level up" a character by stickering abilities on them that skirt the basic rules of the game; developing specialties for each player (and using them well) is a big part of the fun. Season 0 has you establish multiple different characters for each player, spy aliases you can switch between as an action during the game. It gives each player more options.

In practice, aliases seem too complicated, and they make cooperation with the other players terribly difficult. You can't just glance across the table and know what the other players can do... because part of what they can do is hidden on other pages of a passport book (which they have to flip to when switching to a new alias). If you go too long between games of the campaign, then each game essentially starts with a lengthy and overwhelming show-and-tell of everything each player's character can do.

Second -- and this is mildly spoilery -- the game foists "restrictions" on the players as the story unfolds. The story wrapper for this is that your group undergoes psychological evaluation by the CIA, your superiors don't like this or that aspect of the way you conduct yourselves, and then assigns you some kind of obstacle you have to work around during the game. There is arguably some fun in scheming to work around a given restriction, but the restrictions feel so arbitrary, so disconnected from your story choices, that they feel random and capricious.

Third -- and this is the most spoilery detail I'll share (yet arguably not a spoiler at all) -- is the way diseases ultimately show up in the campaign. It's probably no surprise that in a game called Pandemic, controlling the spread of viruses is ultimately going to be a thing. For me, the problem is that what starts out feeling substantially different from a "normal game of Pandemic" actually morphs to be too much like a "normal game of Pandemic" as the campaign unfolds. In fact, the worse you do (to bad luck or bad strategy) at key moments in campaign, the harder it swings into becoming like normal Pandemic.

There is an unassailable narrative logic in all this. This game is a prequel, and it's going to do what all prequel stories do and link up to the original story. I just don't think it's particularly fun from a gameplay perspective, though. I've played a hell of a lot of games of Pandemic -- most of them in the form of one Pandemic Legacy product or another. I was looking forward to a twist on the formula that threw new and unexpected challenges at me throughout a fresh campaign. Instead, Season 0 felt to me like it morphed gradually from something novel and new into something very close to classic Pandemic... just on some kind of Hard Mode. I've kind of "been there, done that," and didn't expect that I was signing up to do that again a dozen-or-so more times.

Pandemic Legacy Season 0 started out quite strongly for my group, and then the wheels came off the wagon with shocking speed. There was a period of time where it seemed like we might not actually finish the campaign. Certainly, we reached a point where continuing felt a bit like a chore -- we'd have fun moments within most games, but as a group, we really weren't having fun in a game overall. We did finish, but I honestly think that Season 0 is never quite as fun as it is in the first "Prologue" game you play before making any permanent alterations. I'd play that game again on someone's fresh, unplayed copy... but I would never consider replaying the campaign again (whereas I'm eager to one day play Season 2 again). Overall, I'd say that works out to a C for Pandemic Legacy Season 0.

The Value of a Good Running Gag

Back when bar trivia was a regular thing, places would often run theme quizzes built around some particular bit of pop culture. Television shows are great, owing to the larger volume of source material. So I heard about (but never participated in) quizzes for The Office, Parks and Recreation, Friends, and more. One time, a quiz was coming for a show called Letterkenny. I'd never even heard of it; how had there come to be so much of it that you could build a pub quiz around it? (It turns out that I'd never heard of the Canadian series because it was "airing" on Hulu, which I only finally added to my streaming arsenal not so long ago.)

So what is Letterkenny? A half-hour sitcom set in a fictional rural town in Ontario. The show loosely follows life for three different groups: the Hicks (farmers), Skids (opinionated lovers of drugs and black clothes), and Hockey Players (who... play hockey). Sometimes the groups interact with each other in an episode. Often, they're each in siloed subplots of the show. Actually... "subplots" might be a generous term. Sometimes, not much happens in an episode of Letterkenny -- that's its formula and its weapon.

Letterkenny is a straight dopamine hit, conditioning you over time to love recurring jokes, catch phrases, and clever wordplay. Sometimes, a "story line" is little more than a gimmick to arrive at a three minute exchange of puns about 80s sitcom titles, famous wrestlers, or words people don't like the sound of. Often, the cold open of an episode is an extended stand-up set on one topic, the dialogue simply broken up among three or four characters.

That might sound like a negative, and for some people it probably would be. But Letterkenny feels like a sitcom with none of the pretense. "We know you're here for the jokes, so here are the jokes." The rapid fire pace and the thicker accents (to a non-Canadian) might have you reaching for the rewind button on occasion, but still, you've never seen 22 minutes fly by so quickly.

The characters on Letterkenny barely ever change, but that's not to say there aren't some great characters on Letterkenny. If you've ever laughed at Kramer zooming through a door, or Cliff sharing a "little known fact" with the bar, or Sheldon glaring at someone in his seat, you've appreciated the value of a comedic pattern. When Letterkenny finds one, they are eager to return to the well. What starts as a show centered on maybe 8 characters quickly becomes a show where you look forward to 20 or 25 characters, as wild and fun recurring people are added on the periphery. You aren't ready for the highly strung Coach, the lascivious McMurrays, horny bar owner Gail, even hornier gay couple Dax and Ron, or doting groupie Roald.

But you have to get enough of the Letterkenny "drug" into your system to start wanting more. If you're at all like me, you'll need most of the 6-episode first season to even wrap your head around what the hell it is you're watching. The show started off for me as a B- at best, and I almost bumped off of it. But the thing is, I kind of want to go back now and watch those early episodes, because I'm not sure the show was actually any different then. I think I just grew to love it: every wacky side character, every deep cut song they found to underscore a fight montage, every running gag.

By the time I'd finished the (currently) nine seasons of Letterkenny, I was completely under its spell. (That may sound like a lot, but each season is just 6 or 7 episodes, and they've generally released at least two each year.) Letterkenny is arguably empty calories, but it's delicious. I'd give the series an A- overall, and I'm waiting eagerly for new episodes to arrive.

Voyager Flashback: Meld

Not many Tuvok-centric episodes of Star Trek: Voyager speak to his character as security chief and as a Vulcan. "Meld" does both, starting out as a Whodunit and then quickly becoming a WHYdunit that cuts to Tuvok's logical core.

When Tuvok investigates a murder aboard the ship, he quickly finds the culprit in Suder, an icy Betazoid out of touch with even his own emotions. What Tuvok doesn't find is a motive; Suder claims simply to have snapped and murdered without reason. Unsatisfied, Tuvok suggests a Vulcan mindmeld to provide himself with answers and Suder with emotional stability. Instead, Tuvok's own darkest impulses are unlocked. Meanwhile, Paris starts a lottery from which he skims a cut of the profits.

Though most television scripts are group efforts, the background on this one is more well-documented than most. Executive producer Michael Piller had been receiving pitches about Tuvok confronting random, senseless violence -- anathema to Vulcan logic. Intern Michael Sussman finally cracked that story when he suggested a mindmeld with a killer as the gimmick. Actor Tim Russ was told about this story in advance, and suggested that the killer be a Betazoid, reasoning that too many successful mindmelds with humans had happened in Star Trek history, and that using another species with mental abilities might explain the complications here. And executive producers Rick Berman and Jeri Taylor steered Piller in a rewrite of the episode's final act, featuring Tuvok's long, chilling rant.

The result is one of Voyager's most solid scripts so far. But it's the acting that really makes the episode shine. Tim Russ is excellent when freed from the constraints of emoting only with his eyebrows. He's better with each new scene, from dialogues with Suder to initially hiding his condition to Janeway finding him broken down in his quarters. And that final act scene, three real time minutes of ranting and raving, are a real tour de force, perhaps the most effective work from any series regular on Voyager to date.

But of course, Russ is also given a hell of a scene partner to work with in Brad Dourif. Dourif had already built a reputation in this kind of role, after winning a Golden Globe and BAFTA for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and scaring the crap out of audiences in The Exorcist III. He's riveting here: eyes darting about as though literally reading Tuvok like a book, somehow berating without ever raising his voice, and warning about the allure of violence. It's not a one-note performance either; Suder has moments of wry humor, and Dourif's portrayal is noticeably different after the mindmeld.

There's a "big idea" being explored here too, surrounding the morality of the death penalty. There's effective discussion about whether it's ever appropriate, or called for in certain circumstances, or the most just things for families of the victims, and more. There's also meaningful dialogue around violence itself, including Star Trek's most unvarnished examination of the inherent violence of mindmelding (outside of the memorably unsettling mindmeld/rape in Star Trek VI).

This would easily be the first A-grade Voyager episode in my book, were it not for a real anchor attached to it: the subplot of Paris' gambling racket. To be fair, the series is actually trying something pretty advanced here: setting up a plot to run across multiple episodes without even telegraphing that it's an ongoing story. That's more what we see a modern TV series doing. But I find it ineffective here because the story clangs so hard against the more compelling A plot. Are we meant to perceive a throughline between the crime of murder and the "vice" of gambling? What are we to make (at this point) of Paris suddenly regressing to a pilot episode badboy after a season-and-a-half of growth?

Other observations:

• I noted of the notorious "Threshold" that it felt like a horror movie script that wasn't filmed, lit, directed, or scored like a horror movie. "Meld" is more effective on all those counts, conjuring a much darker and unsettling atmosphere that suits the material.

• The writing continues to encourage the audience to hate the character of Neelix. We're with you, Tuvok, we want to strangle him too.
  

• The Doctor makes some good points about violent tendencies (perhaps even in himself, as he was programmed by people with violent tendencies). But he also talks a lot about mental health in now-outdated ways.
  

Excise the Paris subplot here, and I think you'd have a near-perfect episode. As it is, I'm going to give "Meld" a B+. Still good, but still not as good as it could have been.

Lightning in a Bottle?

Last year, I blogged about Something Like Spring, book 4 of author Jay Bell's appropriately named "Something Like" book series. At the time, I hadn't necessarily planned on continuing to read the series... yet here I am, just shy of a year later, having finished book 5, Something Like Lightning.

"Something Like" is... well... something like a gay romantic soap opera in literary form. Book 1 set up a love triangle, and then books 2 and 3 approached the relationship from the perspective of the other two men in the triangle. Book 4 represented sort of "The Next Generation" of the saga, moving the existing characters into supporting roles and spinning up a whole new love rhombus to explore in new books.

This new book focuses on Kelly, a character we met in book 4 who was dealing with a lot of rage and no good place to put it. His is a tale of what it's like to "have loved and lost" -- though those two things aren't really as intertwined with each other as it might sound.

If you've come this far in the series, Something Like Lightning will probably work for you. Arguably, the formula is starting to wear a little thin... but also arguably, the formula is the point here. Don't go expecting it to change much. There's pleasant wish fulfillment built on finding "the one for you," and nice representation you don't get in more mainstream romance fiction.

On the subject of representation, Something Like Lightning is looking beyond just the LGBT label. Kelly is a young black man, and he's missing one leg below the knee. Writers should be able to write with empathy about characters who are not themselves, but I think Jay Bell's stretch here has mixed results. Put simply, this book was published in 2014, before Black Lives Matter made more visible aspects of racism and policing (that should have been better understood sooner). Some of the ways Kelly acts in this book simply don't feel credible to me -- where, admittedly, I might not have noticed had I read it years ago.

If Bell stumbles occasionally with the character he's writing about this time, his writing itself seems a bit stronger to me -- or at least, the plotting certainly does. My memory of earlier books in this series was that when the viewpoint changed from book to book, too many scenes were repeated, with the "inner monologue" not quite justifying the repetition. There's very little overlap here in book 5, though; Kelly's story covers a lot of new ground.

I'd say Something Like Lightning manages a B- overall. I find myself in much the same situation I did after book 4: I probably have enough in my reading queue that I'm not sure I'll keep reading this series. But you never know...

Lower Decks: An Embarrassment of Dooplers

The latest episode of Lower Decks was, to me, the weakest episode so far in the second season. Even at that, it was a solid and entertaining one.

The Cerritos is escorting a diplomat from a race that self-duplicates as an emotional response to stress; stress ensues. Mariner and Boimler try to sneak into an exclusive Starfleet party. And Tendi and Rutherford are building a working model of the Cerritos, which begins to make Rutherford doubt his engineering skills.

The fact that Lower Decks is an animated show is sometimes used to help normalize its wackier concepts. This week, it was used to realize a huge new environment that none of the live action Star Trek series would ever be able to afford on its budget. Starbase 25 is enormous as depicted here, with a huge mall that one imagines the Deep Space Nine promenade was meant to be, a lakeside retreat, a massive ballroom, and much, much more. Whether you have a hard time reckoning with Lower Decks as "Star Trek canon" or not, it can nevertheless engage in world-building on a fun and epic scale.

This episode made me realize just how important the characters have become to the Lower Decks formula, even in relatively few episodes... because the focus was pulled away from them at times in this episode that didn't feel natural to me. Richard Kind is a funny actor (and he can pull on your heartstrings too)... but he's always going to be 100% recognizably Richard Kind. His distinctive voice featuring so prominently in this episode subconsciously steered me toward thinking of American Dad, Big Mouth, and other animated shows he appears on.

Then there was -- as far as I can recall -- the first instances of "cutaway gags" (or something close to them) in Lower Decks. More than once during the "car chase" sequence, the camera lingered with random characters as they delivered zingers almost to the camera. It's a kind of joke that's very cartoony, but thus far not very Lower Decksy, and they felt quite jarring and off to me.

Still, the show once again served up some effective and poignant stories amid the jokes and Star Trek fan service. The two stories of friendship -- Mariner and Boimler fully reconciling, and Tendi reassuring Rutherford -- were typical of the non-cynical course that Lower Decks charts for its humor, stories that would fit in just fine on any Star Trek series.

If this is what now qualifies as a "bad episode" for Lower Decks, then it has quickly found its way and might just be the most consistent, quality Star Trek series yet. I give "An Embarrassment of Dooplers" a B.

Voyager Flashback: Threshold

"Threshold" is a notorious episode among Star Trek fans. Many declare it to be the worst episode of Star Trek: Voyager. A few go even farther, calling it the worst episode in the entire franchise. Certainly, I remembered it being bad, bad, bad. But what was it like watching it again for the first time in 25 years?

Paris, Torres, and Kim believe they've found a way to break the Warp 10 barrier, a limit beyond which one's infinite speed leads you to occupy all points in the universe simultaneously. Seeing a potential route home (and his name in the history books), Paris conducts an apparently successful test flight... only to begin a rapid and frightening mutation.

I am not here to offer a full-throated defense of "Threshold." It's not a good episode of Star Trek: Voyager. But I think there actually isn't much wrong with it that's not wrong with most Voyager episodes -- at least, until the last five minutes.

The episode does try to connect with Star Trek history in ways that no doubt rub the purist/purest fans the wrong way. Warp 10 is the "transwarp barrier," we're told. Any higher Warp factors that we heard on the original series must have been using a different scale or something. (From The Next Generation on, anyway, they were consistent on this point.) Was Excelsior's "Transwarp drive" from Star Trek III really supposed to be capable of crossing the threshold? Would it have actually worked if Scotty hadn't sabotaged it?

"Threshold" also does disservice to several characters, though not in new and uncharacteristic ways. Neelix once again forces himself into conversation, and even the other characters try to shoo him off from the adults talking. (The audience is going to take its cues from the other characters. If they don't like Neelix, why should we?) As Paris comes unraveled, more of the unsavory characteristics they've been slowly purging from his writing come roaring back: he whines endlessly about how bad he's had it in life (when the truth is, he's probably the most privileged character on the show), he wants Kes to kiss him (haven't we gotten over that?), he babbles about losing his virginity. The Doctor backslides enormously in his bedside manner -- though this at least leads to multiple genuinely funny moments throughout the episode.

Yes, there's a lot here that doesn't quite make sense, but it whips by fast enough that to me, it's not really asking for more suspension of disbelief than any other Star Trek episode, good or bad. That they skip the obvious step of an unmanned transwarp test flight is obviously just a function of the episode's time constraints. That Paris "evolves" into an apparently unintelligent life form is a bit weird, but sure, whatever.

But really, until those last five minutes, I'd say the only thing truly wrong with "Threshold" is that it lacks courage in its convictions. This is a story clearly inspired by the movie The Fly, and it does deliver us some body horror moments as gross as broadcast television could probably allow in 1996: Paris' head breathes (a fantastic bit of makeup), and he rips out his own tongue on screen. Robert Duncan McNeill does a pretty credible job selling all this wild stuff too. But the director doesn't embrace any typical horror camera techniques. The lighting is the same as always. The musical score hasn't gotten the "we're making a horror movie" memo either.

Then those last five minutes make such a lasting impression. Ultimately, this isn't remembered as the episode where Paris faces his Daddy issues, or Jeff Goldblums around in creepy makeup. It's not remembered as the episode where the first hints of a romance between B'Elanna and Tom are planted. It's the episode where Paris turns into a salamander and has salamander babies with Captain Janeway.

What. The. Hell.

There's no Venn diagram where "able to still operate a shuttle" and "driven by raw animal lust" credibly overlap. There's no way to forgive the decision to abandon three lizard babies on a strange planet somewhere to keep on Trekking. There's no way to look at the Doctor's ability to restore Paris and Janeway as anything other than magic.

And on that last point in particular -- the Doctor does restore them. So how is this not a viable means of returning home? I understand if transwarp technology doesn't transform the entire Federation here; you can't "de-salamander" after every trip you take somewhere. But in this special situation, this one time, why not take the whole ship home and then quickly deal with the medical consequences?

Let's say that with little warning, the entire life you knew was upended, and you were suddenly cut off from the people you loved and the things you liked to do. For an entire year, you got by, hoping for a return to normal. Then, a solution appears. It's a solution that has you not feeling like yourself for perhaps a day, but through a modern medical marvel, it will be okay if you just go through with it. How crazy a decision would it be not to take the goddamn vaccine cross the transwarp barrier?!

Other observations:

• Paris has to describe what being everywhere at once is like, because of course there is no practical way to show it.
  

• I like that they're keeping the "Jonas is a traitor" story line alive... though it is a little wild that he's still scheming with the Kazon when it looks as though they may have found a way home.

• There's a great moment where the Doctor almost touches Kes' shoulder for reassurance, then thinks better of it. It's a great acting choice by Robert Picardo.

Yes, the ending of this episode is cuckoo bananas. But if you consider the entire hour as a whole, I just don't think this is the worst hour of Star Trek: Voyager. It's not even the worst hour of Voyager so far -- "Elogium" is so much worse as a script (and made watchable only by Herculean acting efforts by Jennifer Lien). Will I ever watch "Threshold" again after this? Almost certainly not. But still, I think it's fair to call it a C-. Better to be wild than boring.

Perfect 10?

This past weekend, the bulk of my online feed went to see Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. I joined them. (Not all in the same place.) Though I'm perhaps a touch less effusive than the many who are putting it in the highest tier of Marvel movies, I am generally in the same spot as the consensus: it's a well-executed and very fun film.

I think the reason my enthusiasm may be just a little tamped down is that I think a fair amount of Shang-Chi has been done before. It's largely new and different for the Marvel Universe (and welcome for that), but also a bit grab-bag-like in lifting elements of other movies. The magical fighting elements of Ta Lo were reminiscent of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the fight on the scaffolding was a Jackie Chan fight premise in Rush Hour, and of course we had the obligatory CG-overloaded finale you get in every Marvel movie.

But I don't get too wrapped up in the similarities, because everything the movie does -- from the quite novel bus fight to the quite repeated training montage before the finale -- is really done well. In particular, the fight choreography throughout the movie is sharp and clear, easy to follow even though the fighters are frequently pulling fast and unexpected moves. Even more importantly, the camera itself is treated like another dancer in the choreography, moving smoothly (never jarringly) to always capture the action from the best vantage point. (Nowhere is that more masterful than in that scaffolding fight, with the camera soaring in three dimensions to oversee everything.)

Even that "obligatory CG climax" is far better than most Marvel movies. It does a very good job of finding individual confrontations within the larger one, and of having personal stakes that matter more than the abstract "save the NPCs" vibe we usually get. And baked into premise is a gimmick that actually makes any incidental deaths matter in a way they rarely do in other superhero movies that collapse cities around the clashing characters.

It's also a very solid cast. I might argue that the lead, Simu Liu, comes across as the most limited actor... but he's very, very good at doing the thing he was hired to do: look awesome doing crazy martial arts moves. So leave the rest to a very capable supporting cast: Awkwafina, who makes a hilarious sidekick; Meng'er Zhang, who carries much of the movie's pathos as Xu Xialing; Tony Leung, who gives great villain; and Michelle Yeoh, who at this point I would watch read the phone book (knowing that at some point she will knock someone out with the phone book too).

The only truly discordant element of the film to me is one of the most spoilery, so I'll try to dance around it for the sake of those still unwilling or unable to brave the movie theaters in the current environment. Shang-Chi reaches back a bit to retcon a bit of MCU history... and while I do appreciate how it comments on the theme of cultural appropriation, it feels shoved in to me here, a "hat on a hat" of giving something the movie already had plenty of.

Still, no one who likes Marvel movies should dare skip out on this one. And for the most part, those who don't watch Marvel movies (but like action? who might that be?) should find this a reasonably separate, approachable, and enjoyable time. I give Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings a B+.

Lower Decks: Mugato, Gumato

Star Trek series are known to shift tones from week to week, offering a comedy one week, a mystery the next, something else the week after that. In its latest episode, Lower Decks seemed to do its own version of a tonal shift, veering into more crass humor than it has generally embraced.

The Cerritos is sent to investigate the sighting of a Mugato on a planet to which the alien creatures are not native. Rutherford and Boimler get separated from Mariner during the away mission... and aren't too keen to reunite with her, as it appears a rumor about Mariner has been confirmed: she might be a Starfleet Black Ops agent on an assignment to kill them all. Meanwhile, Tendi is tasked by Dr. T'Ana with completing scheduled physicals with reluctant crew members.

If I rewind in my head and try to remember what I thought Lower Decks might be before I watched the first episode, "Mugato, Gumato" might be it. In teasers, it sure came on with strong Rick & Morty vibes -- and no wonder, as it was created by Mike McMahan, a staff writer for that series (who also co-created Solar Opposites). This episode is actually written by another writer, Ben Rodgers, but it includes a lot of jokes that I'm sure some viewers will take offense to (despite the content warning clearly displayed at the start of the episode).

So yes, we got an episode that includes one character repeatedly tasting animal scat, two characters hiding as alien creatures energetically mate nearby (with an enthusiastic audience), and a guest star getting his head bitten off as a major laugh line. Not only will all that shock some section of the audience, I imagine another handful will be turned off by the "obvious" jokes involving Dr. T'Ana as a cat -- hiding under the shuttle, and fighting a medical exam with every fiber of her being. (I found those hilarious.)

Personally, I'm fine with Lower Decks stretching its legs and getting a bit "PG-13" every now and then. It was a bit more "sitcom-like" too, with the main plot being a take on a classic sitcom formula: one main character is humorous misunderstood by another (resulting in a half-hour of hijinks before they finally talk to each other). If Lower Decks is going to run for the long haul -- and I truly hope it does -- then it will need to try different things like this along the way.

Beside, there were still plenty of in-jokes here for the long-time Trekkers. A lot of these were of the "pointing out when Star Trek has mustard on its chin" variety, jokes that I'd say would also annoy a small slice of the audience -- though I reckon the Trekkers who can't take such jokes stopped watching Lower Decks long ago. Mariner smashed the fourth wall commenting on the transformation of the Ferengi from "Last Outpost" whip-cracking baddies into their more familiar form. Rutherford and Boimler totally built an "Arena" style Gorn-buster gun. Boimler rattles off a parade of increasingly implausible starship infiltrators from franchise history.

And, of course, the episode title itself is the biggest Star Trek in-joke of all. The "Mugato" was inconsistently named in the original series episode where it appeared ("A Private Little War"), including in that episode's own credits, where it was called a "Gumato." The story goes that DeForest Kelley kept slipping up on the intended "Gumato," so they decided on the fly to change it to "Mugato" -- which Shatner and Kelley then went on to just call a "Mugatu" more often than not. Lower Decks turned that joke up to 11, giving us countless more ways to pronounce the creature's name -- often by the same character, in the same scene. It made me laugh every time.

More than perhaps any other Lower Decks episode, I suspect "Muagto, Gumato" won't be to some people's tastes. I quite enjoyed it, though, giving it a B+.

Voyager Flashback: Alliances

Deep Space Nine became the Star Trek series of its era best known for serialized storytelling. But Voyager also dipped its toes into that pool with an ongoing Kazon storyline in season two. "Alliances" was the third big Seska episode, but also marked the point where other new elements were introduced.

After repeated attacks by the Kazon, Chakotay persuades Janeway to pursue an alliance with a Kazon sect. But while those efforts fizzle quickly, Neelix soon makes contact with another race known as the Trabe. Once the oppressors of the Kazon (but now the oppressed), their ideals seem to comport with Federation's. Still, not all is as it seems -- including the Maquis' acceptance of the status quo, as disgruntled crewman Michael Jonas makes a first covert contact with the Kazon.

Although this Voyager story arc is not as intricate as the ones Deep Space Nine would present in later seasons (and is not the sole focus of consecutive episodes), I do still find a lot to like here in what it attempts. Rekindling discontent among the Maquis feels good for the series; it wasn't realistic to assume easy assimilation of freedom fighters with the people they were fighting. The characters of Hogan and Jonas aren't really the best here -- it's hard to even remember their names -- but the show is at least doing something it could have benefited from earlier: introducing people to make us care about over time. (Imagine if we'd known the late crewman Bendera that the Maquis are so worked up about here?)

The way the episode picks up on what we know of Seska and Maje Culluh works fairly well. Culluh's sexism -- his need to insert something into negotiations that wasn't dictated by a woman -- sinks the entire thing, and the reactions surrounding it are great: his attempt to appeal to Tuvok, Janeway's appropriately enraged response, and Seska's deserved berating.

The Kazon in general are made more interesting here. It's probably "too little, too late" in terms of making the audience see them as something other than junior varsity Klingons, but it's nice to get a context for why they squabble so much, and what they've overcome to get where they are. The Trabe are an illustrative brand of "white supremacy," animated not so much by open hatred as a complete inability to perceive Kazon as equal beings. You get the feeling that if Mabus had spent more time with Janeway, she might have seen the betrayal coming when Mabus casually slipped some form of "I'm not racist, but..." into a conversation. (I'm a bit disppointed that neither Mabus nor the Trabe show up again in the Kazon story line. Perhaps they were too humanizing for people who were intended to be villains for the show?)

But there are also some missteps in this episode. One is timing. The immediately previous episode was also about stumbling into the middle of a conflict and helping one side without understanding the broader context. The details are rather different here, though Janeway does look a bit hypocritical for arguing one way with the robots last week and a different way with the Trabe here this week. Her final speech lands with a thud for me too: a high-and-mighty declaration of how she was right all along and how one should never compromise one iota on one's values, regardless of circumstances. It just feels so black and white.

It also feels like the Maquis characters should be coming in hotter than they are. B'Elanna's anger seems to meet the moment when she shuts down the people complaining to her about Janeway (in much the same way she complained to Chakotay in the first episode). But Hogan's anger feels performative, and Chakotay doesn't seem upset enough for how well he claims to have known Bendera.

Other observations:

• There's some solid action in this episode, from the frenetic opening battle that ping-pongs around to different sections of the ship, to the assassination attempt at the end that shows a ship firing through a building window. The pace is solid -- though you could also imagine this as a two-part episode, to give more background for all the characters.

• Recently, Voyager has been unafraid to reference other Star Trek. Last episode included talk of Data, and this week features talk of Spock and the plot of Star Trek VI.

• This era of Star Trek does not do bars well. Their bar settings always feel incomplete, too well lit, and sparsely populated.

• Dumb Kazon guard has apparently never seen a grenade.

Overall, I'd give "Alliances" a B. I could imagine a stronger version of the episode, but it's still fairly interesting.

Roundly Dismissed

The descriptions of some movies are better than the movies themselves. The stories behind the making of some movies are better than the movies themselves. Both of these are true of Another Round, the Danish film (originally named Druk) that won many awards, including the Oscar for Best International Feature Film.

Four friends, all teachers at the same Copenhagen college prep school, get together to celebrate a 40th birthday in the group. Conversation turns to a theory of psychiatrist Finn Skårderud, that human beings are more creative and relaxed with a slightly elevated Blood Alcohol Content. They decide to conduct a scientific experiment using themselves as test subjects, and are soon living their lives drunk at all times.

It's sort of a tantalizing premise: a group of guys think they're better people when maintaining a buzz every waking hour. But there aren't actually many places to go with that premise. Either they're right, and you don't have much a story... or they're wrong, and the end of the story is inevitable. Bristling against either of these natural outcomes, Another Round charts an odd path where "hitting rock bottom" doesn't actually seem to mean much for most of the characters. Any consequences they face are held up by the movie not as tragic, but as a bizarre celebration of life. It doesn't work for me at all; I found it more "foreign" than the Danish language spoken throughout the film.

I can't help but feel like the many awards given to this film (including the Oscar I mentioned, a BAFTA, and a European Film Award) are actually prizes of another sort being given to the director and co-writer, Thomas Vinterberg. He had adapted his own stage play, taking inspiration from his daughter Ida, who was set to play a role in the movie. Four days into filming, Ida was killed in a car accident. Production limped along for another week with the other writer, Tobias Lindholm, taking director duties. The script was re-written on the fly, and Vinterberg then returned to complete the new version, reportedly more uplifting and life-affirming than the original.

It's hard not to be moved by Vinterberg's personal story here. In the face of one of the worst tragedies life can deal you, he threw himself into creating art, dedicating it to his daughter's memory and trying to wrest something positive from the sorrow. I like that story very much. But as I said above, the story of the movie itself feels forced and unnatural to me. I can't be sure what the original script looked like here, but I would wager it seemed more realistic (to me, at least) than the finished version. Some people might truly like this version. But I feel that many of these awards recognized the accomplishment here (considerable, to be sure) more than the film itself.

The one thing I would recommend about Another Round is the chance to see star Mads Mikkelsen in the lead role of Martin. Hollywood has embraced Mikkelsen as a villain in everything from a James Bond movie to the Hannibal TV series -- and he is excellent in those roles. But Mikkelsen is equally strong here in a role that's not larger than life, and is comparatively more sympathetic and sweet. (As much as a raging alcoholic can be, anyway.) I think anybody watching Another Round would commend this performance; I'm not glad to have seen much else here.

I'd give Another Round a D+. I can imagine strong reactions different from mine, though I'm also a bit hard-pressed to identify just who I think would like the movie more than I did.