Voyager Flashback: Innocence

It's famously hard to cast a good child actor for your movie or TV show. Harder still when you have to cast more than one. But Star Trek would continually put themselves in the bind of needing to do so, as they did once again in Voyager's season 2 episode, "Innocence."

Tuvok's shuttle crashes on a moon where he encounters three children stranded alone after a crash of their own killed their adult supervisors. As Tuvok tries to repair his craft and contact Voyager, the children warn him of a monster on the moon that has already claimed two other kids -- and of the threat from their own people, who specifically brought them here to die. Meanwhile, aboard Voyager, Janeway is attempting trade negotiations with an isolationist species -- negotiations that are complicated by Tuvok's missing shuttle.

I joked about the need for multiple child actors in this episode, but the truth is that among the many flaws in this episode, the kids aren't really high on the list. The three children cast here aren't amazing by any stretch, but director James L. Conway uses close-ups and extensive cutting to craft a credible performance from each of them.

No, the flaws are in the story itself. First, it's all built toward a big reveal at the end: this alien race ages in reverse, and these kids are all actually on the brink of a natural death. This twist reportedly was not a part of the original story pitch of "Tuvok's on a planet with kids who are disappearing one by one." When writer Lisa Klink struggled to make that concept work in script form, the writing staff reportedly gave her the idea for that sci-fi twist. But it doesn't actually serve to make the episode more interesting, because we don't know about it until the final minutes. It would have been far more compelling if Janeway and the Voyager crew learned of this information early so that they (and we) knew the score while Tuvok did not.

But no, the episode is built like a sitcom, centered on an elaborate misunderstanding that just wouldn't happen if characters would simply talk to each other. Yes, these Drayans are said to be isolationist, and therefore perhaps believably secretive. Still, their leader Alcia comes out with the aging twist so easily and matter-of-factly at the end (after being almost comically belligerent for half the episode) that you have to wonder: couldn't this all have come out sooner?

Perhaps another reason for revealing this information late is that the revelation doesn't hold up to any scrutiny -- so let's roll credits as soon as we can after telling the audience, so they don't think about it all episode. The Drayans have to go to this particular cave on this particular moon to die. What did they do before they had space travel? How did Tuvok happen to crash in sight of this particular cave -- is there a physical phenomenon that draws things there?

I'm not so bothered by any of that, though, so much as the fact that Tuvok doesn't really seem impacted by this experience at all. The episode actually ends before the moment that would be potentially most profound: him actually having to sit with someone as they die (for the second time in as many days, after the crewman that dies in the teaser). Yes, we get a sampling of what Vulcan parenting is like, and Tim Russ is quite good at playing "almost annoyed," skillfully singing a lullaby, and generally projecting a comforting presence despite being limited in what emotion he can show. But let's just say that when Tuvok gets back home some day, and is asked to recount stories of things that happened to him in the Delta Quadrant, I don't think this story is even going to occur to him.

Besides Tuvok moments that still shine despite script flaws, there are other good character moments peppered throughout the episode too. The Doctor's run at diplomacy (coached by Kes, we hear) is a lot of fun, and Robert Picardo excels at the humor in the scene (as usual). Chakotay's spiritualism is, for once, treated in a fairly interesting way, as he recounts past awkwardness in first contact situations, to turn around and "stick the landing" here.

Other observations:

• The Vulcan lullaby Tuvok sings is said to be his kid's favorite, with 348 verses. If you ask me, I think Tuvok's kid just found a clever way to stall bedtime.

• We actually see a shuttle leaving the shuttlebay in this episode, though the scale feels a bit awkward, like an SUV pulling out of a one-car garage.

• There's awkward continuity surrounding the level of damage on the shuttle. It doesn't look especially "crashed" as this episode starts. Tuvok gets it working and takes off, only to then say he'll be forced to land again before he can reach orbit. But then, when rescued, he says he'll be fine on his own and can take off again. Wait, what?
  

"Innocence" isn't a total loss, but small parts are far better than the whole. I give it a C+.

Sense and My Sensibilities

For years, I've heard it said that "the best concert movie ever made is Stop Making Sense," the 1984 movie featuring the Talking Heads live, captured over multiple nights by director Jonathan Demme. I liked Talking Heads well enough, I suppose -- as just one of many bands active in the 80s -- so the film slipped through the cracks. But I did recently sit down to see what all the fuss was about.

I can't really join the "best concert movie ever" chorus... though that's mostly because I really just haven't seen all that many concert movies. (Are there many?) But certainly, I was struck by the experience of watching this movie.

First and foremost, Talking Heads was clearly one of those bands that was way better live than on their studio albums. (The list of bands who have that the other way around is expansive, of course.) I'm not just talking about the orchestrated oddness of lead singer David Byrne as he flits around the stage... Byrning down the house. His endless front man energy is obviously a part of it, and maybe even the key part. But the entire band performed these shows that made up this movie with a clear "leave it all on the stage" mentality. It sweeps you up even from the remove of your couch nearly 40 years later.

Imagine having been there live to see one of these shows?! (Or any other Talking Heads concert.) The experience would have been truly... once in a lifetime. But the movie is here, and sure enough, it captures the infectious, toe-tapping joy to an effective extent. I may have turned out to know more Talking Heads songs than I'd have guessed, but I still knew less than half of the numbers in the movie -- and it simply didn't matter. Each song was outstanding, and delivered in a way that felt like it could have been another band's "best song of the night."

That the movie makes you feel all this maybe does sell the argument that this is the best concert movie ever made. Hard to argue with results, right? Yet I'd say that there's room for improvement, because there were aspects of the filming I didn't like. There are many points throughout the film where one of the musicians is taking a lead role in the performance, but isn't featured on screen. Sometimes, this is because David Byrne is wresting attention... but not always.

There are also songs that clearly incorporate a larger, presentational element that we really don't get to see. Amid many other small examples looms the song "What a Day That Was" in the middle of the set, where harsh upward lighting is casting ominous shadows on the back wall of the stage... which we get to see for only a tiny fraction of the performance. Sure, it's great to see faces and details you wouldn't get to see in a concert setting. But the people crafting the concert experience know what the audience will see, and design it for that. Stop Making Sense cuts out too much of that element for my taste.

But in any case, Stop Making Sense sure feels like it turned me from "sure, Talking Heads, they're ok" to "they're really good, I want to hear more of their music." I'm not entirely sure how to distill all that down into my usual, summary "grade" -- but I suppose I'll say it's a B+. I'm very glad I watched it.

Backstabbing Pirates

One of the things that I think makes "hidden role" games unpopular in some gaming groups is that there's not generally a lot to them beyond the act of lying to your friends within a slim rules framework. So it is interesting when a "social deduction" game tries to build up that experience with something more strategic. Battlestar Galactica the Board Game is one of gamers' most beloved entries in that space. Recently, I got to try a less involved take on a similar thing, with Tortuga 1667.

Players are secretly assigned to either the French or British fleet (with, in games with an odd number of players, a Dutch player looking to play both sides). On your turn, you take one of a limited pool of actions -- starting mutinies aboard your ship, hopping in a rowboat to head toward the island (where treasure lies), or firing on a rival ship. Many of these actions involve "blind votes" with the other players in the same area of the board as you, leading to suspicion over who with you is truly on your side.

There is a series of face down cards you can also either peek at (in limited fashion, for information) or turn over (one) to reveal an effect. These inject chaos into the game, undercutting plans and even perhaps swapping two players' allegiances. The game ends when you reveal a particular card near the bottom the deck, at which time the country with the most treasure amassed wins.

There are a lot of things this game is smart to incorporate. It offers up a goal besides "hide from suspicion." It casts neither side as "the bad guys" as in many hidden role games. Both those choices mean that players usually loathe to "lie to their friends" can find this more pleasant.

Unfortunately for fans of hidden role games, there's not enough incentive here to really "hide from suspicion" at all. You have a task to fulfill: amass more treasure. And it's too important for you to really remain hidden for long. You won't get far into a game before everyone's role becomes pretty apparent. This leads to a period of time where teams jockey against each other, trying to undermine each other's strategic moves -- which at first seems like its own brand of fun, even if it isn't the one that seemed important at the outset.

But ultimately, the game has so much chaos in it, injected by that deck of cards, that it looms larger over the outcome than any strategic moves your team could make. The winning side seems to end up being the team who just happens to be ahead when the ending of the game just happens to be triggered. While it's nice that it takes 30 minutes or less to play a game that's so ruled by chance, the fact remains that hidden role fans could instead play a couple rounds of, say, Secret Hitler in the same amount of time -- and be much more satisfied. (Or they could embrace the desire for more than just deception and play Battlestar Galactica.)

Tortuga 1667 is ultimately fun-ish, but not one I'd personally choose again over other games in the genre. I give it a C+.

Paranormal Activity

What We Do in the Shadows has been one of my true entertainment revelations in recent years. The television series is hilariously funny, every minute of every episode -- a fact which especially delighted me, since I felt the movie on which it's based was basically "fine." But creators Taiki Waititi and Jemaine Clement aren't done making fake documentaries with supernatural trappings. Their latest TV series is Wellington Paranormal.

Wellington Paranormal is essentially What We Do in the Shadows meets The X-Files. A pair of cops in Wellington, New Zealand become part of a paranormal investigations unit in their department, and each week lead a documentary crew on their supernatural adventures. The series debuted in New Zealand in 2018, but has only recently made its way to U.S. audiences (with a handful of its episodes held for the future).

Mockumentary sitcoms are a well-worn trope at this point. At the same time, visual effects have advanced to a point where truly convincing imagery can be pulled off even in shots using a handheld camera. So it really isn't the alchemy of "fake documentary" and "supernatural adventures" that is the main stunner in Wellington Paranormal. There are good gags built around these things in just about every episode, but I actually don't think it's the most distinct thing about the show. That, I think, would be the characters.

Pretty much every sitcom has "the dumb character," the implausibly-but-hilariously stupid/naive character who serves as the vehicle for clever wordplay and misunderstandings. There are three main characters on Wellington Paranormal: Officers Minogue and O'Leary, and their boss Sergeant Maaka. On any other television series, any one of these people would be "the dumb character." On this show, it's a race to the bottom with O'Leary being sort of "sitcom normal stupid," Maaka being perhaps twice as dumb as that, and Minogue being at least twice as dumb as that. It's an entire show of Homer Simpsons, Joey Tribbianis, Woody Boyds.

This unusual recipe for a show turns out to be pretty funny a lot of the time. But I'd say it's not nearly as funny as What We Do in the Shadows. Yes, that's a high bar, so arguably not a fair basis for comparison. Perhaps a better way to say it is that I'm not sure that each of the characters on Wellington Paranormal has a distinct enough voice. They're called "situation comedies," but often the real laughs come from the characters being in the situations. Wellington Paranormal, however, is often more about the situations. Which are very often funny. But I don't feel like any of the characters really crackles like any one of the core cast on What We Do in the Shadows.

All that said -- I definitely enjoyed watching Wellington Paranormal. I'd recommend it, and I will certainly be watching again when the next crop of episodes is brought to America. But I also can't make the recommendation as simple as "if you like What We Do in the Shadows, you'll like Wellington Paranormal." I think that's setting the expectations too high. I'd call Wellington Paranormal a B. If you like What We Do in the Shadows... well... maybe give it a try.

Now: Sea Here

A while back, I wrote about Wolfsong, a supernaturally-themed gay romance novel from author T.J. Klune. I didn't enjoy the book enough to continue with that series, but I did recently decide to give the writer another chance: a read his stand-alone book, The House in the Cerulean Sea.

The book centers on solitary Linus Baker, a paper-pusher at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He is dispatched to an island in the English countryside, there to evaluate the care of a half dozen magical children under one Arthur Parnassus, mysterious and charismatic head of an orphanage. The children are among the harder cases in the system, so this will be no common evaluation like the hundreds of his career. And the supervisors have hidden motives for this assignment.

At first blush, this story suggests a bit of a Harry Potter vibe, a tale of young magic-users being shepherded through a real world of non-magic users. As I progressed through more chapters, what it really began to remind me of was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (the film, at least; I haven't read the book).

For a time, the odd kids of Marsyas Island take center stage, largely because they're not simply magic-wielding children. Characters include a were-Pomeranian, an amorphous blob, and the literal antichrist. All this oddness is typically played with the whimsy of a Tim Burton or Wes Anderson film. The bizarre is overlooked as commonplace, with protagonist Linus as the reader proxy. Juxtaposition is the writer's key tool in establishing tone. And indeed, it is all pretty fun.

Parallel to all of this is a gay romance on a very slow burn. Well... not so much parallel as secondary, and that actually makes for a (for the moment) distinct reading experience. There's something quite "adaptable for film" about this whole book -- save for the important fact that right now, there aren't any films that include an LGBT relationship like this. Movies either focus on the gay romance (and are generally small budget, indie dramas)... or the love lives of gay characters are so shunted to the side that they can be excised completely for certain international movie markets.

Here, the romance does feel almost wedged in, in exactly the way that superfluous heteronormative love interests are wedged into action blockbusters in an effort for "four quadrant appeal." It wouldn't have to be here -- but it's also too big a character element in the story as constituted to be cut out. It's a kind of fascinating kind of representation: "Hey, queer people! You too can be less compelling romantic element that is kind of unnecessary in a larger narrative!"

That surely makes it sound like I didn't enjoy the book. In fact, I rather did. The children in this book are, simply put, very entertaining. Their quirky personalities, their youthful innocence played off of their great powers, and the way the easily-flustered Linus warms to them as expected... it all works. I don't imagine this ever will get made into a movie, but I feel confident it would make a better one than Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. And it has some lovely sentiments along the way to underpin the whimsy.

I give The House in the Cerulean Sea a B+. It was pleasant, escapist fun.

How You Dune?

Director Denis Villeneuve's new adaptation of Dune has arrived. For me, it's almost hard to believe; because of the Dune: Imperium board game that my company released last year (and had been working on well before that), Dune has been a major part of my life for quite a long time now. But yes, it's finally here, in whatever format suits your tastes and comfort, from streaming on HBOMax to towering above you in natively-filmed IMAX spectacle.

It's yet another in a solid run of movies by Villeneuve -- better to me than Blade Runner 2049, if perhaps not quite as strong as Arrival. But even a statement like that sums up my overall feelings about Dune pretty well: pointing out what little might be "wrong" with it is quibbling over fairly minor details.

There's a lot this new Dune does with unassailable excellence. It's loaded with amazing visuals, dynamic and striking, and managing to seem alive even working within the narrative constraint that most elements are supposed to be brown. The execution is great in taking a lot of incredibly cerebral and inherently non-cinematic concepts from the book and transforming them in a perfect way: preserving the underlying meaning while presenting them more visually. That's maybe a long-winded way of saying that, for the most part, it is an incredibly faithful adaptation. Even scenes that are invented wholly are there to effectively convey meaning from the book. And the occasional story tweaks here and there (for example: changes to Liet Kynes, and not just making the character female) often feel like improvements on the book that remain tonally consistent.

The cast is excellent and extensive. I found Rebecca Ferguson as Jessica to be especially moving, Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto to be every bit as charismatic as the internet identified from the trailer, and Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho to be (perhaps surprisingly) some much-needed lightness and levity in an otherwise extremely serious tale. But there's no weak link anywhere in the cast; if anything, the weakness is in not getting to see enough of many of them.

And that steps into where the shortcomings of this movie might lie. It's an incomplete story, even beyond "ending on a cliffhanger." It just sort of ends, not at what feels like a "right time," and it's hard to know what "the right time" might have been. I'd consider arguing that something like the last 15-30 minutes of the movie are the letdown, ending things on decidedly less adrenaline-pumping action than came earlier in the movie. On the other hand, there's important character growth in this last chunk, and without it there, you'd see even less of characters this movie short-changes. Regardless, you know what would fix this? If Villeneuve and this cast get to make "part two" and finish the first novel, rendering the question of "where the story break should fall?" nearly moot, and bringing us more of characters we deserved here.

Another small quibble? There's a betrayal in the story that is played for "ominous dread" in the book, where the movie opts for "surprise." The latter choice leaves the motivation for the betrayal thinly explained, and blunts the magnitude of the betrayal considerably. Also, I found Hans Zimmer's score to be oppressively loud in the sound mix -- at least, in the particular IMAX theater where I saw the film. It being so prominent made me appreciate it less; it felt like the same "BWAAAAAAAA" he's been delivering us for a decade, with just a sprinkling of Middle Eastern flourish on top.

But to harp too much on those quibbles would be to lose sight of the overall achievement here. Dune has long been considered to be unfilmable, and any look at the past efforts (the abandoned Jodorowsky version, the David Lynch film, the Sci Fi Channel mini-series) would only confirm that assessment -- those efforts did not succeed in making others see what fans of the book love. This movie feels like it can, and I would eagerly look forward to any sequel(s) this director, with this cast and crew, could produce. I'd give Dune a very strong B+, which I expect to rise on repeat viewings (or if we do get a follow-up).

Voyager Flashback: Deadlock

Most episodes of Star Trek focus on a specific character. But some are just intriguing "sci-fi problems" that the whole crew gets caught up in. The Voyager episode "Deadlock" is one of the latter.

Hoping to avoid a Vidiian fleet, Voyager passes through an odd space phenomenon and is duplicated. Two copies of the ship and everyone on it now exist in the same space. But they draw upon the same antimatter in their warp engine, and that stress threatens to destroy one of the ships if they can't find a way to re-merge.

Star Trek isn't generally "hard science fiction," but I don't mind when it brings us a high concept like this. But I do wish that this "two ships" story had gotten into the philosophical material that's so obviously right there. There's no talk of "which ship is the 'real' one?" There's hardly any talk of the responsibility any of these people might bear for their duplicates, or what having a duplicate really means for their own identity. The closest we come to any of that is at the very end when Harry Kim (the one adult from one reality who survives and ends up in the other) tries to broach the deeper subject here... only to get a "that's Star Trek, kid" slide whistle from the captain.

Still, set aside the wish for deeper meaning here, and this is a pretty good bit of action-packed fun. Watching one Voyager get the stuffing beaten out of it before we even realize there's a second Voyager is a nice way to kick things off. We see waves of extras pour into Sickbay, damage that threatens to take the Emergency Medical Hologram offline, and the death of Ensign Wildman's baby -- all of which makes this feel like a very real and dire situation. Only when Harry Kim is blown out into space do you truly begin to suspect some shenanigans that will be "bought back" somehow by the end of the episode.

Director David Livingston does a great job differentiating the ships and crews through Dutch angles and other visual language (with excellent work from the set crew, realizing the wrecked Voyager). There's clever camera work to minimize the need for split-screen visual effects (watch for a moment where Jennifer Lien sneaks behind the panning camera to appear as two different Keses in a single shot).

The Vidiians feel extra menacing this episode -- as I think they should have been all along. Their wild new "grappling" ship here is a neat idea. The reversal it brings into the story is quite clever: the version of Voyager we thought was going to survive turns out to be the one that has to be sacrificed.

Other observations:

• More "not a good look for Neelix," as he badgers a very pregnant woman with so much work that she goes into labor.

• If "fetal transport" is a thing, one wonders why it isn't employed more often.

• The shot of the two Janeways talking to each other in Engineering isn't great. They're so unnaturally close together to fit into the "pre-widescreen television" frame that it looks like they're about to kiss.

• The Doctor's "our baby" running joke doesn't seem cute to me.
  

Overall, "Deadlock" is a reasonably fun sci-fi take on a "disaster movie" (if not as good as similarly themed episodes of The Next Generation). I give it a B.

Projecting

Terra Mystica is quite highly regarded within the board game community. But even more highly regarded is its "sequel," Gaia Project. It's substantially the same game, but with the fantasy theme swapped out for science fiction, and some new wrinkles added.

They're not trying to obscure the fact that this is much the same game as Terra Mystica -- it's subtitled "A Terra Mystica Game" right on the box. I'm also not experienced enough in Terra Mystica to know exactly what's changed between that game and this one; I can say when you don't remember the old game super clearly, learning this game feels like a lot. But I can also say that based off of what I do remember of the original game, there are at least benefits for the added complexity here.

For example, a sideboard to the game displays several tracks that players advance on throughout the game. While this was an element of Terra Mystica, Gaia Project ups the number from 4 to 6, and sprinkles gameplay rewards -- some fixed in each game, some randomly assigned in different plays -- along those tracks. There's more ability to pursue a long-term strategy here, which can change from game to game as you focus your advancement on different tracks.

And not all the changes in Gaia Project are about making the game "more involved." One aspect of play is about terraforming worlds to one specific type (among seven) suited to your particular color's tastes, before building on it. In the original Terra Mystica, remaking terrain was done with a set of punch tokens you would place on the board -- and it could sometimes lead to odd disputes between players where someone would wrench a territory one way, but then another would wrench it a different way before it could be built on. Gaia Project eliminates these silly squabbles (and that pile of tokens) by making the terraforming a more conceptual thing that has to happen all on one turn, right when you want to build.

I did enjoy Gaia Project, but with some of the same reservations that struck me about Terra Mystica. It's a game where the players have asymmetric powers -- each player can do something just a little bit different from every one else. That's good for replayability, if you aim to try all the available powers. It can be difficult to balance. It's next to impossible when you take player experience and skill level into consideration. Powers that are perfectly balanced between two players both equally savvy about all the games ins and outs? That's one thing. Balanced between new players who might not be learning at the same pace, or who might both be focused on one aspect of the game (and not this other, where a particular asymmetric power shines)? Basically: chalk me up with the chorus claiming that "this part" of the game feels "too good," and give me about equal weight with anyone else in that chorus.

Gaia Project is actually a Top 10 game over on BoardGameGeek. It's not a Top 10 for me personally -- not even close -- but I think I can see why it would be for some. And I certainly see how it would reward repeated play, which any game so beloved must do. Will I play it myself long enough to tap into those layers of strategy? Probably not. I think I would rather play this more than Terra Mystica. I also think that it's just way too complex overall for me and the gamers I most regularly play with. For me personally, I'd grade Gaia Project a B.

As Promised

I fell several movies short of watching all the 2020 Oscar nominees for Best Picture. But I recently did catch up with one of the movies I missed, Promising Young Woman.

The debut of writer-director Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman is part thriller, part revenge flick, part black comedy. It follows Cassie, freshly turned 30 and living with her parents since her life unraveled in college. The exact story of her past remains for the film to reveal to us in time, but it's quickly clear that she's full of rage toward predatory men who would take advantage of vulnerable women. She's decided to teach guys a lesson one "date" at a time, feigning drunkenness at bars, going home with the first guy to hit on her, and making them regret their actions.

This is one of those movies that you just know within the first few minutes is going to end badly somehow. Some would call it a "car crash in slow-motion," but it's hardly a slow-paced film. The audience's relationship with the protagonist is tricky; you're meant to root for Cassie at times, wish better for her at others, and recoil at still others. After a punchy opening I feared might set up a repetitive movie, I was pleasantly surprised that the story did have interesting places to go.

Not only did this movie get a nomination for Best Picture, it won for Best Original Screenplay. Both of these things are a rather remarkable barometer of where the tastes of the Academy membership have moved. The branch of writers has sometimes been edgier than the rest of the Academy voters; nevertheless, this doesn't feel like typical "Oscar fare." It almost feels like a summer blockbuster without the expensive visual effects, a John Wick movie with no gun play or martial arts. You could argue that it doesn't feel particularly novel... except that putting a young woman at the center of a story archetype that's historically been reserved for a brooding man is a difference (and it makes a difference).

In any case, I really enjoyed it -- and that's largely due to the great cast. Basically every role here is filled with "someone you know from somewhere." Often, they're better known for comedy, but they're dialing it down and in for a more serious turn here. Somehow, a first-time director assembled a cast including Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Clancy Brown, Jennifer Coolidge, Alfred Molina, Laverne Cox, Molly Shannon, Connie Britton, Chris Lowell, Adam Brody, Max Greenfield, Sam Richardson, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. And in the lead, Carey Mulligan gives a great performance as self-appointed avenging angel Cassie.

I'd heard not to expect much from this movie from a friend who saw it, and perhaps those lowered expectations set me up to instead enjoy it. However it came about, I found Promising Young Woman to be a solid B+, earning a slot in my COVID-compromised Top 10 Movies of 2020 List.

Lower Decks: First First Contact

This week brought us the season two finale of Lower Decks, and it was a great ending to a great season.

Captain Freeman is receiving a promotion to another ship, and when word leaks (through Mariner), her senior staff aren't happy about being left out of the loop and abandoned. But there's no time to address it, as the starship Archimedes is in danger, and only the Cerritos can rescue them -- through extreme measures. Meanwhile, Boimler craves more of the unknown, Tendi thinks she's being transferred against her wishes, and Rutherford's implants are malfunctioning in a way that leads him to an emotional revelation.

What was so striking about this episode of Lower Decks is that it wasn't actually all that funny. There were the runners of Boimler copying "Captain Picard Day" for Captain Freeman, and of the horny Belugas working in "Cetacean Ops" -- and that was about it. Actually, what was really striking is that this was still a very good episode of Lower Decks. With fewer jokes, the series served up fairly straight Star Trek that in many ways could have worked on just about any of the other series.

There were emotional stakes all over the place, with each of the major characters given a meaningful thread in the story. There was a nice cliffhanger worthy of the live-action Treks -- not just Freeman's arrest, but the tease about Rutherford's buried memories. And there was a lot to feast the eyes upon. The idea of stripping the hull off to save the day is one of those concepts (that often show up in the movies, because they're expensive) that doesn't really feel like it makes sense, but it looks cool. But unlike submerging the Enterprise, or a shuttle chase inside a bigger spaceship, there was actually more to this than "looking cool." Stripping the hull was a moment that brought the characters together and reinforced the Cerritos' reputation as the scrappy ship that gets things done.

We also got some completely unexpected fan service in the return of hot chocolate lover Sonya Gomez, now a captain. It felt like a weirdly specific reference, but paid off in the scene making the point that "it's ok to be awkward; you have a place here too." Gomez was a somewhat Boimler-esque character, come to think of it. Lycia Naff's performance was at times flat, but in some quick Googling, I learned that she has essentially retired from acting since appearing on Star Trek. (She had to be completely floored when she got the phone call for this.) Worth it for the point they were trying to make.

I give "First First Contact" an A-. I really have to say that by "average quality per episode," season two of Lower Decks has to be right up there with the very best seasons in all of Star Trek. That's perhaps an unfair metric for other shows that were making 25+ episodes each year (and necessarily would have stinkers in the bunch) -- but there you have it. I think Lower Decks is top shelf Star Trek, and I'll be eagerly awaiting season three.

Another Iron in the Fire

About a year ago now, I posted about the first book of Kevin Hearn's Iron Druid Chronicles, a long-running fantasy series about an ancient Earth-magic user hiding out in modern-day Arizona. I noted that it gave me Dresden Files vibes, but that I'd enjoyed it a bit more than the last book or two I'd read in the Dresden series. I planned to give book two a try at some point, and now I have.

Hexed sees protagonist Atticus facing threats on multiple fronts: there's an angry witch coven after him in the wake of book one, a fallen angel committing grisly murderers all over town, a mysterious pair of men arriving on the scene with unclear intentions, and a Celtic goddess looking to extract knowledge from him by any means.

If that sounds like a lot, it is. Though Hexed is a tight and brisk book, I found it surprisingly muddled. I must confess, I finished reading it a while ago and simply didn't get around to blogging about it right away. In that time, my memory of the plot dimmed to a degree where I needed to revisit a synopsis to recall all the different threads in play. It's like three or four episodes of an "Iron Druid TV series" all got mixed together, each taking turns "on screen" until they finally converge in the last fifth of the book. It seems to be made for Netflix-style bingeing more than it is "a chapter or two before bed each night for a few weeks."

Two books into this series, it seems pretty clear to me that Hearn's main strength as a writer is character. In another similarity to the Dresden files series, the Iron Druid books seem to be adding in plenty of people to recur later. The personalities are vivid, even if some of the names derive from languages that don't come so easily to an American reader.

But plot? It's pretty typical evaporating pulp: entertaining enough to pull you through a short read, but little more than that. If clever language is the thing you prize in a writer? Don't look for that here either. I find Hearn's prose well up to the task of painting a picture in the mind's eye, but you never "sit up and take notice" of a sentence for its own sake.

Still, Hexed did deliver on its main promise of serving up some fluffy, escapist fun. I'd give it a B-. That moves it into territory where book three will really have to compete with other things in my queue (perhaps Dresden most of all). It's "good enough," but not so great that I want to reach for the next volume above other waiting books. We'll see what happens.

Voyager Flashback: Investigations

For several episodes in season two, Star Trek: Voyager set up a slow burn of a story involving a traitor aboard the ship. It all comes to a head in "Investigations."

Tom Paris' discontent aboard Voyager reaches the breaking point, and he makes arrangements to leave and join a Talaxian convoy. But as Neelix digs into Paris' departure (looking for content for his new daily "streaming show"), he uncovers evidence of a traitor on board the ship.

When it comes to Neelix at this point in the run of Voyager, I think there are basically three possibilities. One, the writers have no idea how annoying Neelix is; they think he's great, and they actually enjoy writing for him. Two, they know exactly how annoying he is, and they're making a writing exercise of trolling us. Three, most Voyager fans actually like Neelix?

Reading some of the background of this episode, I think it was probably "one." Executive producer Jeri Taylor felt that the "Tom Paris behaves badly" and "traitor aboard the ship" subplots hadn't been playing particularly well. (I think she was right about that.) In her own words, "bringing it to a conclusion felt obligatory rather than challenging." With the writers looking for a way to ignite their imaginations for a story line that wasn't doing it for them, they hit on the idea of Neelix starting a "newspaper."

That idea enchanted them so much that they actually wrote an episode entirely from the point of view of Neelix and his recordings. Nothing happened that Neelix himself wasn't there to see. And apparently they actually started filming the episode this way before a Paramount studio executive read the script and intervened, saying (as Taylor recounts): "You can't do this. We've got to have the action. We've got to see Tom be a hero." A rapid rewrite added the scenes of Tom Paris aboard the Kazon ship.

That no doubt helped. But a fundamental problem still can't really be solved. Neelix has been consistently written as so cloying, so bumbling, so unaware of how others see him, that any episode designed to make him look good almost by definition has to make everyone else look bad.

That Neelix ultimately cracks the case when Tuvok could not makes Tuvok look dumb. That Chakotay is left out of Janeway and Tuvok's plan to expose the traitor makes Chakotay look dumb. Jonas throwing up a force field but doing nothing to Neelix (who is already inside) makes Jonas look dumb. Not ordering all lifesigns beamed out of engineering (when we're shown that transporters can get through this force field) makes Janeway look dumb. Seska leaving Paris alone in a room with a fully functioning computer makes her look dumb. The Doctor wanting more desperately than anything to be on Neelix's video podcast makes him look dumb. Kim encouraging Neelix to dig up divisive material for his show among an already fractured Starfleet/Maquis crew makes Kim look dumb. Basically, everyone in this episode -- regular and guest star alike -- has a moment where they look unreasonably dumb. (And Neelix also usurps the "touching goodbye" scene with Tom Paris that should rightfully have been between Tom and his best friend Harry Kim!)

While the episode certainly could have been executed better (say, by centering it on almost any other character), the overall resolution of the traitor arc does still have its moments. Paris being the hero is sort of a restatement of his entire character thesis: he's a bad boy who's made a turn for good. There's some decent (if simple) action aboard the Kazon ship, and lots of dark and moody lighting over there too -- the production is really doing a lot with a little (and on short notice too, given that that material was all a late rewrite).

Other observations:

• "I'm a doctor, not a performer." While the Doctor says he doesn't have time for such nonsense, he certainly will later in the series.

• The camera lingers unusually long on a no-name, non-speaking character in the hall with Harry Kim. That was then-prince, now King Abdullah bin al-Hussein of Jordan. A set visit was apparently arranged for him, as he was a Star Trek fan; that turned into a cameo (non-speaking, as he was not a Screen Actors Guild member).

• The name "Jonas" has to have been deliberately meant to sound a bit like "Judas," right?
  

At this point, I think the writers need to seriously rethink their approach to Neelix. I don't think they're going to hear me from 25+ years ago, though. I give "Investigations" a C+.

Lower Decks: wej Duj

Every episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks is sprinkled with references to the rest of the Star Trek franchise. But the latest episode, "wej Duj" (Klingon for "Three Ships"), used that history in a different and clever way.

There's a long warp journey ahead for the Cerritos, and the Lower Deckers are spending the time with senior staffers they've grown close to... except for Boimler, who needs to find himself a "bridge buddy." Meanwhile, we see what life is like for the Lower Deckers on the Klingon ship Che'ta' and the Vulcan ship Sh'vhal.

This episode isn't so much riffing on the plot of a specific Star Trek episode (save, perhaps, "Lower Decks" itself). Instead, it's leveraging the fact that 50+ years of Star Trek have taught us all exactly what Klingons and Vulcans are like. Where another animated show might need seasons of setup to do an episode like this, Lower Decks can just drop us into the honorable violence of a Klingon ship, or the restrictive logic of a Vulcan ship, and it almost already brings a smile to your face.

Of course, they didn't stop there. The comedy was inspired, particularly aboard the Vulcan ship, with constant wry jokes about T'Lyn's "emotional outbursts." (You know Vulcans have to be well aware that the surest way to rile someone up even more is to say, basically, "you mad, bro?")

The Klingon ship was perhaps not quite as funny, but only because Lower Decks actually dared to tell a fairly complex story there. Hints of a Pakled alliance have been dropped throughout the season, and here that was paid off with the revelation that in between the one-liners and sight gags, Lower Decks has also been giving us a gentle season-long story arc. Ambitious stuff, and it worked pretty well.

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again, but the Pakleds really are the perfect baddie for Lower Decks, a not-to-be-taken-too-seriously threat that doesn't disrupt the flow of comedy that's the show's main agenda. There seems to be an inexhaustible well of "how dumb is a Pakled" jokes to be mined; this week, we learned that this Pakled ship (and quite possibly all of them) is named "Pakled," and that a crisis triggers a hilariously whiny "red alarm!"

While this episode did represent a break in formula for the series, it still made room for the usual one-off references: the "we need to keep a PG rating" pinkish Klingon blood from Star Trek VI, Boimler donning Kirk's rock climbing shirt and Spock's rocket boots from Star Trek V, and Freeman wearing a "RITOS" shirt just like the Discovery crew's "DISCO" off-duty wear.

It all added up to yet another excellent episode for season two of Lower Decks. I give "wej Duj" an A-. I'm both excited for the finale next episode, and disappointed that it means it'll be the last new episode we get for a while.

Do You Have the Time?

At last it has arrived: Daniel Craig's final turn as James Bond, in No Time to Die. Over 15 years, most of the audience his grown to love his gritter, more dour take on the celebrated secret agent. But how is his final film? In the canon of Craig Bond films, I'd say in the middle of the pack.

More than Craig's serious take on the role, the distinguishing mark of this Bond era has been continuity. Each movie has fed into the next in explicit ways, and that in turn makes it meaningful that Craig says this is his last time in the role. This is not "one more adventure" as it was when each previous Bond actor delivered their final performance. This episode is determined to bring everything together and put a definitive ending on it -- a tall order, since Spectre was (to mixed results) also trying to do that.

In that aspect, No Time to Die is excellent. The movie not only acknowledges what we've seen before in Craig's films, but in numerous scattered Easter eggs, the whole franchise running back to the 60s. Before the movie, I wasn't necessarily sold on the fact that any given James Bond needs a declared finale to the franchise -- not when there's always going to be another movie, another Bond. But No Time to Die convinced me. It ended well, both as a movie and as a collection of five movies.

There was also a lot of other great things about the movie, and perhaps the second biggest flaw of No Time to Die is not finding time (in a 163 minute opus) to give us more of those great things. Ana de Armas is possibly only in this movie because Daniel Craig had fun working with her in Knives Out, but in too-few minutes on screen, she makes a far better case for the female-led James Bond spin-off than the one they tried to set up for Halle Berry in Die Another Day. So, to a lesser extent, does Lashana Lynch as Nomi, the character they might actually be setting up to spin off. But those women are critically underutilized in this movie, given how good or great we see they are in the brief moments they get to shine. Perhaps it's no surprise, though... they've been underutilizing Naomie Harris since the pre-credits sequence to Skyfall ended. (I guess there's only so much you get to do in a James Bond movie if your name's not James Bond.)

The biggest flaw of No Time to Die? That would be -- sorry to say -- Rami Malek as the villain, Lyutsifer Safin. It starts with what feels like a lackluster character on the page. Safin really doesn't do much (though sure, Christoph Waltz's turn in Spectre was the highlight of that movie, and a tough act to follow). The character also has a scheme that simply doesn't make sense. It starts out clear enough as revenge, but morphs somewhere along the way into unexplained genocide, and would completely fail the movie if Bond didn't also have personal stakes.

From that major weakness of the script, there's just incorrect casting in putting Malek in the role. The logic of the story would suggest that someone 10 or 15 years older was called for, but one can understand that a red-hot actor (who would win an Oscar between the filming and release of this movie) made them turn a blind eye to the inconsistency, pretending that makeup explains it away. Having landed Malek, though, the filmmakers must have been quite disappointed by the performance they got. He's shockingly boring -- not emotionally pent-up in his trademark "beneath the surface" Mr. Robot way. Just flat. Not the least bit charismatic or compelling, and somehow surpassing Quantum of Solace's Mathieu Amalric as the least memorable villain of the Craig era.

Fortunately, Craig is good enough to overcome it all -- the weak villain, the long run time, the forgettable opening theme song (which is forced to compete with other, more indelible themes from other Bonds that composer Hans Zimmer weaves throughout the score). To really hone in on what works here would, unfortunately, spoil some of the fun in watching it yourself. But suffice it to say, Bond fans will like this one. A few may even love it. I give No Time to Die a B.

Mal Content

Horror movies will come out pretty much any time of year (and especially in any month with a Friday the 13th). But October truly is the season for horror films, and I recently watched one of the newest, Malignant.

Malignant was marketed squarely at horror fans as writer-director James Wan's "return to form" -- in that after making several comparatively toned-down films, he was going to return to the "hard rated R" genre of Saw that put him on the map. I'm skeptical that he would see his intervening films (starting the Conjuring and Insidious franchises) as "lesser" efforts... but whatever. Gotta get butts in seats. (Including possibly "couches," where you can stream this movie for a limited time on HBOMax.)

Malignant was scripted by Aleka Cooper (who collaborated with Wan and Ingrid Bisu on the underlying story). It's about a woman who is psychically seeing the horrific killings of a serial killer as though there in the room when they happen. There's something creepily inhuman about the killer, and getting to the nature of their connection is the core of the story.

I will say that Malignant starts out pretty clever. If you don't know much about it in advance (and I think I knew even less than my synopsis above), then the opening act is a wild fire hose spraying all over the place. Where is this going? Are we still setting things up? What is happening? Once you get your bearings, however, you rapidly catch up with the script... and then overtake it. Ultimately, it's not nearly as clever as it thinks, and you suss out most turns in the plot well ahead of their reveal.

But OK, maybe surprise isn't everything. How's the rest of the movie? Well, as advertised: incredibly gory. Horror is really too broad a genre in my mind; people who like a chilling mind game aren't going to like a violent slasher. Malignant is very much the latter. The "monster," if you will, is quite visually distinct, and is involved in several evocative set piece scenes. You even get a couple of John Wick style fight sequences. If you like your horror movies artistically bloody, Malignant has got your back.

There are no big names in the cast, though everybody is good enough for a story that isn't often interested in deep character moments (other than stunned gasps). The musical score, by longtime Wan collaborator Joseph Bishara, is wild and unrestrained -- at times more orchestral and at times almost like a rock band.

I have to say, though, that I don't think Malignant is going to stay with me for long. It's hard to say whether COVID-depressed box office has cut down another hit franchise in the making here, but it's probably not one I would have continued with. Fans of gory horror should absolutely watch Malignant, but for me, I'd say it's only a C+.

Voyager Flashback: Lifesigns

Recently in my re-watch of Star Trek: Voyager, I came upon a B'Elanna Torres episode that would have been stronger were it not a (better) version of a story the show had already told. Now the episode "Lifesigns" is the same thing, for the Doctor.

When the crew rescues a Vidiian near the brink of death, the Doctor turns to extreme measures to keep her alive, transferring her consciousness into a hologram. Rid of the Phage while in holographic form, Danara Pel has a new sense of self-worth, and becomes romantically involved with the Doctor. Meanwhile, Tom Paris' attitude problems turn to open insubordination.

Although later in Star Trek: Voyager, it would come to feel like every other episode (that wasn't a Seven of Nine episode) was about the Doctor, at this point in the show's run, there had only been a couple. And so it's quite conspicuous that one of those was about the Doctor developing feelings for a holographic woman. This is a more sophisticated, better written take on that plot synopsis... but having seen it done before stops this from being as good as it might have been.

But there's a lot to like here. For one thing, the stakes seem more important. Danara Pel is an actual, living person only temporarily in a holographic body. And the episode is interested in her side of the relationship; several scenes are devoted to how her disease (and in particular, her appearance) has destroyed her self esteem, to a point where she can barely conceive that someone would love her. She still feels attraction herself though, clearly flirting with the Doctor long before he begins to pick up on any of her signals.

The episode also does a good job involving other characters in the Doctor's story. In a role reversal, Kes becomes the one giving advice to the Doctor, not realizing how literally he will interpret it. The Doctor goes to Paris for solace on dealing with rejection, who actually helps expose the misunderstanding (before forcing more of his holodeck predilections on the matter). The episode could get uncomfortable in how much it focuses on appearances, but manages to steer away from the rocks: there's no doubt that the Doctor's feelings have nothing to do with appearances, and it's clear that both he and Danara Pel are each helping the other discover things about themselves they didn't know were there. That's some pretty heavy lifting for one hour minus commercials.

They don't even get the whole hour to themselves, actually... which I found to be a drag on the episode. The story of Tom Paris the malcontent continues as it has for the last several episodes. As I've said before, this sort of serialized storytelling is pretty advanced for television of this age. Yet while I appreciate that, it feels like screen time that could have been better used in tangents from the main plot.

One of the more effective scenes in the episode is when B'Elanna has to come to terms with what happened to her the last time they encountered the Vidiians. Even compressed into a single scene, where she arcs from refusing to help to agreeing in two minutes, it has an impact. I can't help but wonder how more time could have been used there. Could there have been a meaningful exchange between Danara Pel and Neelix, who has also experienced horrors at the hands of Vidiians? What if Danara had been seen as a security risk at first, and had to earn Tuvok's trust before she was allowed to leave Sickbay? What if she had a talk with Harry Kim about their shared near-death experiences? It feels like there were more "ripples in the pond" that could have been explored here, had the Tom Paris B plot not been crowding them out.

Other observations:

• There's no reason for the Doctor to build the Danara hologram in "layers." (Skeleton, internal organs, muscle, skin, clothing.) I think it may have been meant to build up to the reveal of an "unPhaged Vidiian," but it's just showing off some now-dated CG.
  

• Danara Pel has some dialogue about life in a pandemic and avoiding contact with others that hits a whole lot differently now than it did in 1996.

• Parking in a classic 50s car can't possibly mean anything to the Doctor or Denara, but it is an incredibly rare moment for Star Trek to use real world music that isn't from the classical era. "I Only Have Eyes for You" by The Flamingos is a pretty good choice, given the setting.
  

Though this episode is better than "Heroes and Demons," I think it would have landed stronger still if the earlier installment simply didn't exist. And I think it could have been stronger still without the B plot wedged in. Still, it's not bad by any means. I give "Lifesigns" a B.

'Doon

Ted Lasso has emerged as "the show that makes people get Apple TV+." But once/while you're there, there actually is other great content on the service worth your time -- some of which I've blogged about before. Let me add to that the sweetly funny Schmigadoon!

Schmigadoon! (bang included) is a 6-episode series of half-hour episodes. It's also a musical. Dating couple Josh and Melissa have hit a rough patch in their relationship and decide to go on a forest retreat. They emerge in a clearing at the magical town of Schimgadoon, a pastiche of classic Broadway musicals. Their modern sensibilities clash with the town's antiquated values, and hilarity ensues (along with catchy songs).

Series creator Cinco Paul was reportedly inspired by An American Werewolf in London -- though his "wandering backpackers" would stumble into a musical rather than a horror movie. Paul had the idea many years ago, but it finally happened in the age of COVID. With Broadway closed down, a lot of incredibly talented musical performers were available for a gig, and so Schmigadoon was able to line up a deep bench of great actors.

Cecily Strong and Keegan-Michael Key anchor the cast as Melissa and Josh, each absolutely perfect for their role. Much of the comedy revolves around how quickly Melissa eases into the trappings of a musical, and how much Josh resists it, and both play their roles to the hilt. Meanwhile, the town of Schmigadoon is populated with TV and Broadway stalwarts like Kristin Chenoweth, Alan Cumming, Aaron Tveit, Ariana DeBose, Fred Armisen, Jane Krakowski, and Martin Short.

Schmigadoon! does what the best send-ups do: it's also a credible incarnation of the thing it's poking fun at. It calls out one cliche of classic musicals after another, then unironically embraces them for the purposes of its own narrative. Every episode is delightful and fun, and the songs are wildly clever. They're also more enjoyable the more steeped in old musicals you are -- that way, you can recognize the song that's a clear parody from "The Sound of Music," the one that's a clear parody from "The Music Man," and more. (The characters themselves all draw clear inspiration too, from the likes of Oklahoma, Carousel, and others.)

Cinco Paul says he envisioned more than one season of the show, and I do hope his vision comes to pass. Still, Schmigadoon! may be the sort of quirky thing too weird to last for long. If that's the case, I'm glad at least for these six whimsical episodes to enjoy. I give Schmigadoon! a B+.

Lower Decks: I, Excretus

Last week, Star Trek: Lower Decks kept doing what it's been doing all season, delivering another hilarious episode. And what I hope is a very small (though obviously very vocal) contingent of gatekeeping Trekkers kept doing what they've been doing: complaining about it. The difference is that their complaints broke through on my social media a bit, as those who can take a joke responded to their concern trolling. But we'll get to that.

In "I, Excretus," consultant Shari yn Yem arrives on the Cerritos to run a series of holographic drills on the entire crew. Bridge crew and "lower deckers" are made to trade jobs, and everyone faces challenges beyond their expectations... save for Boimler, who expects to complete his Borg scenario with 100% success, and is determined to repeat the scenario until he gets there.

The premise of this episode allowed the writers to cram in little bite-sized send-ups of dozens of past Star Trek episodes. I thought they were generally handled with the series' trademark balance: respecting most ideals of the Star Trek universe while pointing out moments where it had soup stains on its figurative tie. For example: "Ethics" is a really good episode... even if Worf's injury looks utterly ridiculous in the moment. "Spectre of the Gun" is a creative classic... even though its surrealistic set design had everything to do with budget restrictions and nothing to do with plot. "The Naked Time" was a just-this-side-of-campy romp that The Next Generation cranked up the volume on (before Lower Decks yanked off the knob).

Basically, "I, Excretus" was a Snack Pack of mini-episodes like season one's fantastic "Crisis Point," bound together loosely with a "learning to work together" moral that I thought gave it just the right touch. I laughed a lot, from still more jokes about Dr. T'Ana as a cat, to bringing back Alice Krige to comedically reprise her role as the Borg Queen, to daring to mine one of Star Trek's most powerful dramatic moments -- the end of Star Trek II -- for humor. (And shout-out to composer Chris Westlake, who very meticulously mimicked the original scores for many of these classic Star Trek moments.)

Needless to say, there are others out there who were rubbed the wrong way by all of this. Why they're still watching Lower Decks at this point, I couldn't say. Hate watching? Some sort of Clockwork Orange scenario? (Most likely: they're not actually watching it, but whining about what they hear online.) And once primed to see this episode as a tasteless puncturing of their favorite Star Trek moments, they focused their real ire on the nudity. Never mind that Star Trek had shown brief nudity before. Never mind that Star Trek has featured plenty of horny characters, none more so than Captain James T. Kirk. Never mind that, judging by some of the original series costumes, Gene Roddenberry clearly would have shown naked people if the network had let him.

You know what? Actually, just never mind any of that. Never mind the people who've been "not my Star Trek"ing the "CBS All Access / Paramount Plus" era of Star Trek from the very beginning. It's fine to say, "you know, that one part of that episode wasn't great." That's basically what "I, Excretus" was doing to past Star Trek. But to let that sour the rest of a fun episode? What a shame.

Because, yeah: this was a super fun episode. I give it an A-.

Clover Word Play

The party game Just One was a hit with my gaming group (and, indeed, a lot of gaming groups). Now, its publisher has brought us another word-driven, cooperative party game to try to capture our imagination.

From designer François Romain, So Clover is a clue giving game. The game revolves around a large deck of small square cards with "peg holes" in the center. Each player is given a dry erase board (shaped like a four-leaf clover, for the flavor), with pegs that hold cards in a 2 x 2 grid. (Not very securely... but maybe they can improve the prop in a second edition.)

Each of the square cards has one random word printed on each of its four edges. When you place the cards on a clover, you wind up with two different words on each of the four edges of the clover. Your job is then to write a single word clue on each edge of the clover, something you think somehow links the two words on that edge as a clue for your fellow players. Once you have a word on all four edges, you remove the four cards, add a random fifth card without looking, shuffle them, and then turn things over to the other players.

Everyone else now works as a team, looking at the five cards and trying to place the right four onto the clover board, each in the right position and orientation. They get two chances to do so correctly; if they miss any cards the first time around, the player who wrote the clues removes any cards that are not perfectly placed before the group's second attempt. A game of So Clover involves each player taking a clover and writing clues at the same time, then going around the table one by one for everyone to present their clovers for guessing. Nominally, there's a score system that let's you see how well your group can score collectively. In practice, as with Just One, the activity itself is fun enough for us.

The first time you sit down to play So Clover, the task feels impossibly difficult. What one-word clue could possibly connect those two different words? But once you get into the feel of it, the challenge is actually a lot of fun. Not that it's easy, though: you have to watch for the three other words on each of your cards and make sure a clue you're writing doesn't seem like a clue for those. You have to hope that the fifth added card doesn't bring complications you couldn't plan for. You have to realize that no matter how clever you think you're being, you need at least one other (assertive) person in the group to pick up on what you're implying.

The game is not a "Just One killer" (and I certainly hope no one is expecting it to be). But it scratches a lot of the same itches in a fun way. It's quite fast to play, is easy to play for multiple back-to-back rounds, is quick to explain to newcomers, takes a decent number of players (6), and puts the players in full cooperation. We've been playing it a lot in my group of late, but I think soon it will settle in a good place as a go-to game... on a night when things might otherwise be winding down, good to kick things off with while waiting for players to arrive, or something light and fun when you're not in the mood for deep strategy over a couple of hours.

I'd give So Clover a B+. If you're a fan of word games and you liked Just One (or Codenames, Decrypto, or Master Word), you'll probably want to check it out,