Get Some

Across the social media I frequent, a huge number of the posts in the past few days have been about the Peter Jackson-directed documentary, Get Back. I've gone around and around with my own thoughts about the three-part, eight-hour film (and I've seen dozens upon dozens of other people's takes), and I've landed here: more than any other movie I can think of, this is a Rorschach test as a film. I don't necessarily mean that you'll find in it whatever preconceived notions you bring to it (though that is certainly a part of it), but that what you see in it is unique, not "wrong," and probably illuminating of something about yourself. So time to expose my own psyche a little, I guess, and tell you what I see.

It is very, very good. And too damn long.

Right away, I'm exposing what level of Beatles fan I am, I'm sure. I have absolutely no doubt that there are people who will lap up all eight hours of this, wish there had been more, and content themselves by starting it all over again. And why not? If I could watch, say, an eight-hour documentary of the making of... Back to the Future -- that actually focused on the making of the movie the entire time, was stuffed full of early takes (including loads of Eric Stoltz footage), and really showed every detail of the creative process and how the magic was made? You bet I'd eat that up and pine for more.

But to me, there is so much dead space in this documentary that maximum enjoyment can only be had watching it a "day or two" at a time. (The film chronicles the 22-day period of the "Get Back sessions," devoting 10-30 minutes to each day.) I certainly don't think you could sweat this down to a conventional movie's run time -- and I'd wager the attempt to do so is part of what made the original Let It Be movie (also made from this footage) so famously bad. But could I cut two to three hours from this and personally feel that nothing of consequence was lost? You bet.

Except... going back to that Rorschach thesis: my "trash" here is probably someone else's "treasure." I don't want to hear Yoko Ono audition as a car alarm, hear the 30th run at "Dig a Pony," watch them noodle on a stylophone for two minutes, or hear snippets of 50 different songs by other artists (would 20 be good enough?). Yet you can easily argue that all of that stuff is a key part of exposing the creative process -- any creative process. Paul McCartney's apparent creation of the song "Get Back" to perhaps 80% completion in the span of three minutes is impressive because it is very much not the norm. Seeing just how much time and tape the band "wastes" in the pursuit of their album is necessary to presenting an accurate picture of the process; to say how much is appropriate is probably quibbling over details.

Many viewers and critics have also said that a benefit in showing so much "down time" in this documentary is that it shows that the Beatles in this late period were not as acrimonious as many (even the surviving Beatles themselves) had believed. That's true to a degree, with highlights including the footage of the Maharishi retreat, John and Paul playing a song like ventriloquists for the hell of it, and the clear joy all of them show when Billy Preston arrives on the scene.

But another aspect of the Rorschach test emerges. I watch, and see Ringo Starr as the only one of the four who is reliably professional at all times. I see John quite disengaged some 75% of the time they're not working on one of his songs. I see no one taking much of an interest in numerous George Harrison proto-songs that would go on to be huge, instead continuing to drive at far less promising embryonic Paul/John tunes. (No one is going to defend Maxwell's Silver Hammer, right?) I see Paul irritating just about everyone at different points of the process other than the famous "George quits" confrontation... and why wouldn't he? No one else other than quiet, unflappable Ringo seems to care if anything gets finished. I see, in short, the inevitable end here, even amid the many moments of joy.

Even if I personally might have cut this tighter than Peter Jackson (who has a license to make long-winded trilogies), he and the team he made this with deserve a great deal of praise. The audio and video restoration on this old footage is jaw-droppingly, impossibly good. Without all the smoking and way everyone is dressed, you'd never know this stuff was 50 years old -- most of it looks and sounds like it could have been filmed this year.

And the presentation of the climactic rooftop concert is perfect. Liberal use of split screen serves to (seemingly) remove the editorial hand completely. You almost never wish they'd chosen this camera angle or that one, shown this performer or that performer... because it's ALL there on screen. You choose which panel you want to watch (or re-watch, if you're inclined), and see whatever you want to see. (The Rorschach test element, once again.) You even get to see the idiots complaining to stop the last live Beatles performance ever. (Can you imagine?)

For me, the stretches of... well, I have to call it "boredom," I think... in this documentary lower it to a B overall. For me personally. At the same time, I wouldn't begrudge anyone who thinks this is the best movie of 2021. But unless you hate the Beatles (seriously?), it's worth checking out at least some snippets of it.

Voyager Flashback: Basics, Part I

At the end of season two of Star Trek: Voyager, co-creator and executive producer Michael Piller decided to step away from the show into a less involved "creative consultant" role. (He would next write Star Trek: Insurrection, before continuing to non-Trek projects.) Piller's final scripts for Voyager were the season cliffhanger and its resolution, beginning with "Basics, Part I."

Still confined for committing murder, Suder wants to find a way to contribute to the ship. But Janeway has little time to consider his request, when Seska sends a desperate message to Chakotay: Chakotay's child has been born, and Maje Culluh is enraged. The crew resolves to help the commander go after his baby, on guard for the trap they sense it could be.

During this period of Star Trek, the writers regularly took a "we'll figure it out" attitude to each season's cliffhangers, writing their way into jeopardy and then figuring their way back out after the break between seasons. According to co-creator Jeri Taylor, that's what happened here too, with the staff working on part two after a six-week break. Still, this finale suggests to me that they at least had more of an idea than usual of how they'd wrap up this story. Escape hatches are meticulously put in place in the form of Suder, Tom Paris, and the Doctor. And indeed, the title itself, "Basics," seems to mean nothing here; it's only the second half that provides the context, that the crew must "get back to basics" to survive without their technology on a hostile alien planet. (What's more, the filming of the episodes reportedly took place back-to-back. A few early season three episodes were filmed -- out of order! -- at the end of season two before production took its break.)

The cliffhanger certainly works, in that the crew ends up in serious jeopardy unlike any they've faced before. The episode, I find more mixed, in that the Kazon-Seska plot is really wearing thin for me. Piller was reportedly keen to wrap up that story on his way out the door, where other writers were lobbying to introduce a new alien threat. Piller was probably correct that loose ends needed tying, but it's getting old to watch the Kazon (made out to be primitive and stupid) get the drop on Voyager. Or, if the argument is "well, they have Seska's help," then it's getting old to watch one person outsmart an entire crew with her plans-within-plans scheming.

But there is good material here. Chakotay's vision of his father is a rare case of the character's invented spiritualism being reasonably respectful of real-world American Indians. To my limited perspective, at least, it does a good job of voicing the history of babies forced by conquerors onto Chakotay's ancestors without actually equating his situation to rape. Interestingly, the episode doesn't shy away from that topic, though. It comes up both in that scene, and later when we learn that as cover with Maje Culluh, Seska claimed Chakotay raped her. Delicate material for a 90s TV series, but also not just included to be edgy.

As you'd expect, guest star Brad Dourif is great. To me, it's clear that Suder fears losing the stability he's found, like it's a fading memory. He's worried about backsliding into the person he was, and is desperate to avoid that. Although none of this subtext is voiced until part two, Dourif does an excellent job of conveying it without dialogue. (His scene with Janeway, in particular, speaks volumes.) But more on Dourif when I get to part two.

I'm divided on the character of Teirna. In a nutshell, I wish the prayer moment wasn't here. Even though this episode was made in 1996, and may not have meant what it looks like today, it sure reads in a very particular way to a modern audience. The thing is, the Kazon have never before been portrayed as especially religious; indeed, we know nothing of their religion at all. So the whole "wait, are they saying what I think they're saying?" aspect could just as easily been avoided. The toenail peeling, needle wielding, distending body elements would be as unsettling either way.

Other observations:

• While actor Henry Darrow had played Chakotay's father before, this was the first time Robert Beltran actually got to work with him.
  

• The Doctor works great for comic relief. The whole sequence where he's projected into space is superfluous and silly... but it also kind of works.
  

• The lava footage on the viewscreen doesn't feel like it matches the location where the crew is dropped off at all.
  

• Director Winrich Kolbe is quite dynamic with his camera choices, without being too showy about it. Interestingly, he himself was kind of mixed on this two-parter; he praised the work while critiquing the very premise: "...why are we going after a baby if we're running out of fuel and everybody wants to get home?" I think only being on the set a few times a season, Kolbe came to the job with Voyager's original premise more in mind: the situation is going to be desperate and resources will be scarce. But over an entire season he wasn't always around for, the writers seemed to gradually blur the line of just how limited resources really were (like shuttles, torpedoes, etc.).
  

I must admit that despite some quibbles, my main takeaway from this episode is still an interest in seeing what happens next -- exactly how they will get out of it (even if clues point the way). I give "Basics, Part I" a B.

That brings me to the end of season two of Voyager. I'd call it a fractured effort. When it was good, I found it measurably improved over season one; I rated only two first season episodes a B or B+, but 11 episodes (over 40% of the season) got there for me in year two. On the other hand, I'd say the season average was only barely better than year one -- when Voyager was bad in year two, it was worse that year one. From this "tale of two seasons," I'd select these five as the best Voyager episodes of season two: "Projections," "The Thaw," "Meld," "Basics, Part I," and "Lifesigns."

On to season three!

Prodigy: Terror Firma

For the first time in more than two decades, last week gave us new episodes of two different Star Trek television series in the same week: as Discovery began season four, Prodigy headed into a mid-season break.

Still trapped on "murder planet," the crew of the Protostar tries to reach their ship. Dal and Gwyn's adversarial relationship begins to soften. Holographic Janeway struggles to keep the ship intact on her own. And the Diviner arrives to threaten them all.

On the one hand, part two of this adventure on planet "Larry" (as Roh-Tahk would call it) was less sophisticated than what we saw in part one. We were getting insight into the hopes and fears of each of the show's characters; now they basically spent an episode running from vines. On the other hand, having already done the more introspective thing, it's good that part two of the story didn't just give us more of the same.

Besides, the episode still found a few moments to highlight character amid the vine-fleeing. It isn't surprising, of course, that Dal and Gwyn were going to stop being at each other's throats at some point. Still, it was satisfying to actually have them drop their guards -- a relief, even, that the show isn't going to continue to draw things out when we all know where it's going ("friendship" perhaps being the kids' show version of "will they, won't they?").

Other characters were still illuminated too, in the group's big fireside chat. I'm particularly enjoying Rok-Tahk's childlike innocence. It seems to me that with Dal around to take some of the flak (deliberately written in some of the ways that early Next Gen writers made some fans hate Wesley Crusher), it clears the way for Prodigy to really let Rok-Tahk be a kid -- not precocious like Naomi Wildman, tortured like Icheb, or often without anything to do like Jake Sisko.

Prodigy ends on a mild cliffhanger of "where did they go?" -- but the larger feeling is that the "prologue" of the series is now essentially complete. The crew has their ship, they've learned one of its major mysteries, and they've united more with one another. The table is set for new adventures when the series returns in January.

Still, it remains the new Star Trek series I'm least engaged with. But it continues to give me just enough to keep watching anyway: I'll probably be there when the show returns. I'd give "Terror Firma" a B-.

Mass Effect

Following The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor, writer-director Mike Flanagan's latest horror mini-series for Netflix is Midnight Mass. Set on a tiny island, the story follows Riley Flynn as he's forced to return to his parents' home after being paroled from prison. He finds a shrinking, declining community, suspicious not only of him, but of a new priest, Father Paul, who arrives to replace the aging local monsignor. Paul soon proves capable of performing actual miracles, but the dark truth behind them threatens the entire island.

This new series is quite different from the previous two (and not just because "The Haunting of" is missing from the title). Hill House and Bly Manor were largely about delivering the scares expected of the horror-thriller genre. There's nothing wrong with that, and I found Hill House in particular to be especially entertaining in its visceral thrills and tricky craftsmanship. But Midnight Mass is something deeper, with a strong point of view and a message at its core.

As you would guess from the title, religion plays a huge role in Midnight Mass. This is a story about things that are objectively horrible, truly "evil," and how some people would use religion to couch that evil in righteousness. It's sometimes subtle, and often not, but the series beats a steady drum against a performative strain of religious fervor, denouncing the sort of person who can justify anything and slot into their preexisting narrative. Indeed, the show is so scathing at times, and such a slow burn in its initial episodes, that you may well find yourself saying, "wait... I thought this was supposed to be horror."

Then a massive curve ball arrives in episode 3 to remind you that, oh yes, this is firmly a horror tale. It's just one that aims to be particularly meaty and thought-provoking along the way.

The cast features many of the "repertory company" Flanagan used in the two Haunting series, including Henry Thomas, Annabeth Gish, and Rahul Kohli. And lest you think it's only favoritism that sees his wife Kate Siegel back in the mix again, she really delivers on key scenes in the series that draw the themes of life and death into sharp focus.

There are several standouts new to the Flanagan fold, though. Zach Gilford is effective as the noble-tortured Riley. Samantha Sloyan is infuriating as the holier-than-thou zealot Bev Keane. And Hamish Linklater excels in the weighty role of Father Paul.

If you're like me, Midnight Mass won't set its hook in you right away. But it absolutely rewards patience. I give the series an A-. It surpassed The Haunting of Hill House to become my favorite of Mike Flanagan's Netflix horror series.

Discovery: Kobayashi Maru

Star Trek: Discovery is back for season four. (For the U.S. and Canada. Some last minute shenanigans between corporations is delaying the release for the rest of the world. To the international fans: that sucks! And also: don't read this! There be spoilers!) As much as I've loved Lower Decks, I'm ready for some new, serious, one-hour Star Trek.

Discovery is dispatched to rescue the crew of a repair station after a powerful distortion in space... under the supervision of the Federation president herself. Meanwhile, Book attends a coming-of-age ceremony for his nephew on Kwejian, while Saru -- settled into a new life on Kaminar -- gets wistful for his time on Discovery.

When new, live action Star Trek returns after a break between seasons, I'm always blown away by the look and feel of it. I continue to watch old episodes of the 90s-era Trek series, and the difference in production values is almost incomprehensibly vast. It's not just about what you can do with CG and AR walls (although that's certainly a big part of it). The makeup, the costumes, the lighting, the sound design, the sophistication of the camera moves. Quality television often feels indistinguishable from major movies these days, and Star Trek hasn't slept on that.

The visuals on Discovery look so good now that a station careening off its axis through space can actually give the viewer vertigo. Debris impacting a shield is something you feel viscerally. The destruction of an entire planet hits you with emotional weight. It's been said that this is the new "Golden Age" for Star Trek fans, in that there are now four current series airing new episodes in turn (with at least two more on the way). But you could also say it's a Golden Age in that any of the cheapness or cheesiness that fans once had to overlook or apologize for are just gone.

Star Trek, at long last, looks just as good as Star Wars. It can be just as effectively "action-adventurey" too, as the opening sequence with the strange moth aliens showed. But Discovery hasn't ditched what Star Trek is really about (despite what a few trolls might say). This was a squarely character-driven episode, centered on Michael Burnham and who she is (now that she's finally a captain!). And serious discussion of morality was woven throughout, as the titular Kobayashi Maru was brought back from Star Trek II in service of the question: "Duty: but to whom?" Different command styles are right for different situations and crews, as any fan who has debated Kirk vs. Picard vs. Sisko. vs. Janeway is silently agreeing. (Would anyone say "Archer?" I'd guess not. But it was fun that he got name-checked. We even got a phrase from his character theme when the Archer Spacedock was unveiled.)

Of course, Star Trek: Discovery is all about season-long story arcs, and this premiere certainly tees up a big one. Giving Book such high personal stakes here will be good; I'm glad to see him continue on the show after season three, and glad to see that the writers know he'll need a role for himself that isn't tied solely to Burnham. Is this planetary-level threat a natural phenomenon? One directed and controlled by someone? Lots to get into.

Without a sense yet of where Saru will fit into the season as a whole, I can only feel that his scenes were a bit of a drag on an otherwise excellent episode. Still, I'm excited Discovery is back. I give "Kobayahi Maru" a B+.

No Filler, All Killer?

I like to think I have a little more variety in my reading than most, but one "genre" I don't often try is pure, easy-reading pulp. (Not that's set on Earth, in the present, anyway.) But recently, a Kindle download I picked up for free sneaked into the queue at a moment where I was looking for something different than my usual.

A Killer's Wife centers on Jessica Yardley, a Las Vegas prosecutor with a horrifying past: her husband was a serial killer, and she had no idea until he was caught. Now, years later, a copycat killer is on the prowl, and the only lead is Yardley's connection to her past. Can she get any insight from her imprisoned ex-husband? Does she even want to ask?

It's clear from the first chapter (or the plot summary) exactly what tone author Victor Methos is trying to strike here. But the whole is a little bit greater than the sum of the parts. In the early going, the book seemed like "warmed over" The Silence of the Lambs, with "Clarice" a prosecutor rather than an FBI agent (but basically operating in the same way). But if that's the base of this soup, the spices sprinkled in help distinguish it. A Killer's Wife has a pinch of Gone Girl, a dash of What Lies Beneath... and ultimately swings hard into legal thriller in the final act.

Still, if this show doesn't map exactly to many television crime procedurals, it still has many of the trappings. The book seems to want you at arm's length, always referring to its protagonist by her last name, and not developing most of the side characters beyond their function in the plot.

It has other tricks for pulling you in, though. Short chapters with plenty of punchy cliffhangers, just enough twists you don't fully see coming to keep you engaged, and a general desire for the gift-wrapped ending it seems to promise... it all makes for a brisk read. Like I said in the beginning: it's pure, easy-reading pulp.

On those terms, if you're looking for what I'd literally call a B-grade read (not outstanding, but a fun diversion), you might consider giving A Killer's Wife a try. It even has sequels, if you wind up loving it.

Voyager Flashback: Resolutions

There is a segment in Star Trek: Voyager fandom that "ships" Janeway and Chakotay as a couple with an almost religious fervor. Their holy text is the season two episode "Resolutions."

Janeway and Chakotay are stricken with a lethal virus that remains dormant only so long as they remain on the surface of the planet where they contracted it. So reluctantly, Voyager leaves them behind to survive on their own. As the two set about making a life and learning to live outside a command structure, the Voyager crew must cope with the loss of their leaders. And some of them are willing to risk a dangerous confrontation with the Vidiians in search of a cure.

As Voyager season two is winding down here, I've found that it was much more daring than I remembered. This episode showcases several of the ways it played with format: this is another episode that opens with "the problem" already in progress, it's one of several late season episodes to unfold over a period of weeks, and it also dares to weave in continuity as it references multiple past confrontations with the Vidiians.

But "daring" and "good" don't always go hand in hand. This isn't a particularly "good" episode of Voyager, in large part because it lacks the courage of its convictions. The romance here between Janeway and Chakotay is extremely chaste, and the question of how far it gets is left entirely to the audience's imagination. Worse, it's all just put back in the box at the end of the episode, with no exploration of what it's like for the two to go back to business as usual, captain and first officer, after... whatever they had here. (Even if they had nothing more than a "closer friendship" after this experience, some examination of that was certainly in order.)

Actor Robert Beltran felt pretty much the same way about this episode as I do, saying in one interview "It's Star Trek romance, which means we touch hands and it's supposed to be thrilling." Beltran was never reluctant to criticize weak aspects of the show. And by my memory, at least, this might have been the last straw. I don't recall Chakotay getting many meaningful episodes after this one; it's understandable that the writers didn't feel much like giving him stuff to do when he called them out publicly so often. And yet... every one of the Chakotay-centric episodes he groused about deserved some measure of scorn.

So much of the planet-side story here feels incomplete. We're told the two have been left with a shuttle... but we never see it, and it doesn't figure into Janeway's obsession to find a cure (even after losing all her other equipment). The emotional resonance of the "alien" monkey Janeway keeps seeing is vague and ill-defined. The fact that Janeway's fiance Mark is never even mentioned seems an egregious oversight. The mostly bland civilian costumes seem off the rack from Little House on the Prairie. The mix of filming on set and on location doesn't quite blend credibly.

But the ship-side half of the story does save the episode from being a total loss. Tuvok has a nice arc, learning that whatever his own emotional control might be, he is leading an emotional crew. The crew processes Janeway and Chakotay's experience more than the two themselves do; in particular, we see how Harry Kim and B'Elanna Torres are affected (including more scenes between the two of them, showing that they're a good character pairing). Also, Kes gets another solid scene, when she approaches Tuvok with just the right blend of emotion and logic to actually change his mind.

Other observations:

• They really have to start this episode in the middle of the problem, not just because they have a lot of story to tell, but because it glosses over the fact that this situation should be impossible in the first place. There are few plausible scenarios in which both Janeway and Chakotay would be down on a planet surface together, and I dare say none where they'd be there without other crew members -- at least one of whom surely would also have been bitten by this virus-carrying insect.

• There sure are a lot of extras around the ship during Janeway's "farewell to the crew" speech. Maybe they could have gone with the normal amount of background crew and made more futuristic civilian clothes for Janeway and Chakotay?
  

• It's amusing that Chakotay tells another "my people have this legend" story that smells like bullshit -- and admits it is when Janeway calls him on it.

Perhaps it's unfair to penalize this episode for the fact that later episodes never picked up on the dangling plot threads. Then again, maybe they never wanted to revisit it because this episode itself wasn't very successful. I give "Resolutions" a C+.

Soho, Yet So Far

While I wouldn't have said that I'm an "Edgar Wright fan," I think the evidence says otherwise. I enjoyed all of his movies with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost well enough, loved Baby Driver, and was curious about his latest, Last Night in Soho.

This twisty mystery focuses on Ellie, a fashion school student who begins having vivid dreams of the 1960s. In these dreams, she follows -- and sometimes is -- would-be singer Sandie, as her efforts to pursue her own dreams descend into degradation and abuse. Ellie's life begins to fall apart as reality and vision bleed together, but she may be alright if she can solve a 50-year-old crime she witnesses.

Last Night in Soho includes a lot of what I loved about Baby Driver. The soundtrack plays an integral role, with exceptionally well-curated songs serving the plot and highlighting the action and emotion. The visuals are crafted with an obsessive degree of precision, yet they maintain a spontaneous and loose feeling. There's spectacular use of visual effects to render the impossibilities of dreams in clever, but rarely overly "showy," ways.

But the story is sadly just so insufficient. The movie clearly has a lot to say about women in the 60s versus today, but it only "half says" it; the movie transitions from enthusiastic nostalgia trip to deadly mystery without lingering very long on the social commentary. The side characters in the movie are so thinly developed that they can do nothing but service the plot; any examination of why they behave the way they do would only leave you frustrated.

This in turn makes the mystery quite superficial, as there really aren't enough "suspects" to keep the audience guessing. And so, in an effort to complicate the story, the movie doesn't play fair. While dreams can certainly be metaphorical and non-literal, nothing about the movie suggests this story is working that way -- until quite abruptly it does, in order to deliver a not-very-smart plot twist.

So, how much you like Last Night in Soho may have a lot to do with properly calibrating your expectations in advance. Don't go in expecting a compelling mystery; what's compelling here are the visuals. If a stylish, sleek, engaging first half is enough for you to forgive an unsatisfying conclusion, this first half is as stylish and sleek as they come. If you like Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Diana Rigg, Terence Stamp, or Matt Smith -- but are also fine if really only some of them actually get much to do, you'll find something to like here.

What Last Night in Soho does well, it does very well. But there's a lot it just doesn't do well. I give it a C+.

Prodigy: Dreamcatcher

In two previous episodes of Star Trek: Prodigy, I felt that the show delivered one (two-part) episode very much "not just for kids" and one episode very much "for the kids." The latest episode, "Dreamcatcher," charted a course between the two.

Janeway urges the crew of the Protostar to explore as a Starfleet crew would, to land on an alien planet and conduct a survey. But when the group splits up, they become easy prey for the hallucinogenic plant life on the surface.

Almost every Star Trek series serves up an early episode where the sci-fi premise is contrived to let the audience see "what each character wants." This episode serves in that long tradition, being a bit more subtle than most, in fact. As each character falls victim to a vision tailored specifically to them, we learn about their fears, desires, level of innocence, and more. It's certainly more deep in some cases (Dal, Gwyn) than others (Jankom Pog, Rok-Tahk, Zero), but it's overall nice character building for a half-hour series.

But also, most of the reason the character work comes off "subtle" is because the episode is hanging a blinking neon sign around its more prominent theme: teamwork. Fine; most of the best Star Trek episodes have a moral component, and in a show aimed for a younger audience, you can expect that the "lesson" is going to be more direct. But I'm also already looking forward to the day we get to see Dal get out of jeopardy he didn't put himself into.

Where it comes to Dal, we're clearly playing a long character arc -- perhaps over the entire season. That could be a bit tough to handle in a season that's reportedly going to be 20 episodes, and split into three different runs with several months off in between. (The next episode of Prodigy, for instance, is going to be the last one until January. It seems Prodigy is going to fill in "gaps" between other Star Trek shows.) Dal's stubbornness is already wearing thin. But I suppose this is another lesson this show is trying to teach, so his flaws need to be made really clear, so that his eventual growth can drive the lesson home.

Still, there was some spooky atmosphere. We also got nice dramatic stuff around Gwyn's need to please her father -- and the quite sad fact that she realized the plant organism wasn't her father because she was able to please it. Plus, it ended on a rather compelling cliffhanger to make us look forward to the next episode. I'd give "Dreamcatcher" a B-.

But... I'm also glad that Star Trek: Discovery is returning with its new season this week.

My Dispatch on Dispatch

If you're a fan of Wes Anderson -- director of movies like The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Grand Budapest Hotel -- then it's happy times for you, as Wes Anderson has released the most "Wes Anderson" movie I've ever seen, perhaps the most "Wes Anderson" movie possible with his latest: The French Dispatch.

In theory, The French Dispatch is a look at the "French foreign bureau" at a Kansas magazine, by way of a series of stories published in its fastidious pages. In practice, this is a bunch of short stories, featuring at one point or another nearly every actor Anderson has ever enjoyed working with. And it is a monument to Anderson's incredibly cultivated, visually precise, quirky-twee sensibilities.

Though that may sound like I'm against Anderson's way of making movies, I'm really not. If I were, I simply would stop seeing them and leave them to the fans. But even though I may have thought I knew what I was in for with a Wes Anderson movie, I wasn't prepared for this one, which swings so hard at the signature style that it almost feels like a parody, like what someone else would do with an unlimited budget and the "Anderson Repertory Company."

A jumble of different film aspect ratios? You've got it, with even less consistency than normal. The French Dispatch slips in and out of 4:3, 16:9, split-screens, animation, black-and-white, and more. It rarely stays in one mode for long, using the switches not to ground time frame (as in The Grand Budapest Hotel), but to simply provide occasional thematic emphasis on certain moments and ideas. It's very artistic, but also not at all subtle (even, I think, for people who don't ordinarily take any notice of film aspect ratio). Subtlety is the one thing you should never expect from a Wes Anderson film, but still, the director has "leveled up" his approach here.

Oh-so-serious acting delivering unbridled absurdism? Oh yeah, you've got that too. Indeed, this might be one of the more overtly comedic Wes Anderson films I have seen. It delivers several laugh-out-loud funny moments, all throughout the movie. Most of these stem from the cast being in a sort of Matter-of-Fact-Off to deliver the most ridiculous one-liners with the most authentic earnestness. At different times in the movie, you'll be convinced the winner of the contest is Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Timothée Chalamet, Adrien Brody, Benecio del Toro, Jeffrey Wright... or nearly any of the ludicrously "deep bench" this movie has on the roster. Owen Wilson, Elisabeth Moss, Frances McDormand, Liev Schreiber, Edward Norton... ah, I'm just going to give up, because we'll be here all day if I try to list all the people in this movie you would recognize.

But as funny as the movie often is, it's also equally a sensory assault at times. Besides Anderson's own relentless visual tone, Alexandre Desplat delivers a score so repetitive and plucky that it'll remain stuck in your head for days. In total... I did mostly like The French Dispatch. Mostly. But it's Just. So. Overbearing. Yet at the same time, it doesn't feel like it adds up to much in the end. And yet it is well made.

Yeah, my feelings are complicated on this one. I think I'd only call it a C+ for myself, but I'm sure there are many who are going to love it.

Game On

The algorithm says we've all watched it, right? Now I too have watched the South Korean sensation Squid Game, and I have a few thoughts.

Yes, it's quite good, just like they say. The Battle Royale / Hunger Games / gladiatorial premise seems not to be played out yet, because this "struggle to the death for the sake of entertainment" story has plenty of fun new elements to refresh the concept. The idea of playing lightweight children's games with your life at stake is a clever juxtaposition. The visuals are striking and memorable; they've already launched endless memes and Halloween costumes, and it seems like they'll linger in the pop culture zeitgeist for a while yet.

Where I think Squid Game succeeds best, though, is in actually presenting a number of characters who are compelling to watch, even though we know they're all fated to die in the course of the series. Squid Game is full of flawed but likeable heroes, entertainingly detestable villains, and characters who float in between. I've heard a little bit of "just get to the games" sentiments from a few who watched the series, but I found the "in between parts" very well constructed to invest me in the people before each new game.

Squid Game is not flawless... but I'm also not sure how many of my nitpicks can be chalked up to how I viewed it. I am not usually one to binge a series, no matter what Netflix encourages; I've settled into "opening my presents" at a measured pace. But the outside pressure to get caught up with Squid Game (lest it be spoiled for me), combined with the accelerating pace of the narrative, meant that after starting with one episode every few nights, I watched the last three all back-to-back in a single night. I'm pretty sure I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't done that. That's important background, I think, before I point out that the weaker aspects of Squid Game all manifested for me in those last three episodes. (I'll try to thread the needle here of being specific enough that those who've seen it will know what I mean, while those who haven't won't be spoiled too much.)

The final "act" of Squid Game attempts to flesh out "the people behind the game" more than I think it should. A not-so-subtle part of the horror here is that faceless elites are forcing the poor to their deaths for... well, frankly, reasons we don't know, though we can probably guess. Well, we don't have to guess, because a lot of time in the final three episodes is devoted to revealing the people behind the game. In the course of this, we get a subplot that artlessly incorporates the contemptible "gay people are evil" trope, some plot twists that are thematically on point while straining logic, and some not-entirely-motivated changes in character behavior. That all wasn't collectively enough for me to say the ending of Squid Game was "bad" (as some have said). But hey, endings are hard, and Act I and II of Squid Game are notably better than Act III.

Of course, episode 9 here is not the end. Regardless of what creator Hwang Dong-hyuk might have originally been thinking, Netflix backed up the money truck the moment the series crushed all their standing records. A season 2 has now been announced -- though scripts haven't even been written yet, so it may be a while before we see it. There are places for the story to go, and I'll certainly be there to watch whatever comes next. But I can't help but feel that some of the "forces behind the game" material that seemed sometimes awkward to me at the end of season 1 would have been better deferred into a season 2 that opened up the world outside the game.

Overall, I'd give Squid Game an A-. It was a lot of fun, delivering plenty of great tension, pathos, and thrills. I guess nearly everyone has watched it already (so says Netflix), but if you haven't: I'd recommend checking it out.

Deep Thoughts

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine was a true phenomenon in board gaming that spread throughout 2019 and 2020. Its compelling cooperative gameplay and low price point ensured that copies would spread to basically anyone who would enjoy it, and it took a well-deserved place in the Top 100 games at BoardGameGeek. Now there's a sequel, The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. And it is another triumph.

Thematically, Mission Deep Sea switches from a peril-ridden journey through outer space to a peril-ridden journey beneath the ocean. How much the story even matters in these games will vary from gaming group to gaming group. Mechanically, the skeleton of the game is the same: you deal a custom 40-card deck evenly among the players (containing cards 1-9 in four suits/colors, and 1-4 in a unique suit that trumps everything). You are then tasked with goals collectively, for certain players to win certain tricks in traditional "I lead, everyone follows suit if possible" gameplay.

In The Quest for Planet Nine, a given player goal was generally to win specific cards from the deck in the tricks they took. The game was such a runaway hit that additional "missions" were released online, giving players increasingly bizarre goals to pursue. Mission Deep Sea is passed that baton, and picks it up wonderfully. It comes with a secondary deck of cards showing tasks of varying difficulties: goals to win specific numbers of tricks, to win multiple cards of particular suits (often in particular numbers), to avoid ever having to lead a specific suit, to win certain numbers of tricks relative to other players, and more.

These tasks make the game somewhat less friendly to brand new players, especially players who don't have a background in Hearts, Spades, Bridge, or some other trick-based game. If you're teaching non-gamers to play, you'll want to start with the original Quest for Planet Nine. But for experienced gamers, Mission Deep Sea is a marvelous step up. The goals here are very well-designed to encourage even more cooperation among the players. "That player needs to win only 1 trick, so now that she's got it, I need to step up to make sure she doesn't win any more." "That player wants an equal number of yellow and pink cards overall, so I need to help keep count and be ready to throw cards that help maintain balance where I can."

The Quest for Planet Nine is still fun, and very replayable. But Mission Deep Sea is even more replayable. Even if you've succeeded at all the scenarios presented in the storybook (and my group has), you can start over again (just like we did with the original game) and have a completely new experience (more so than the original) as new tasks from the deck mix in different combinations to present different challenges. I feel it would be very hard to play this game out... unless you play it so much that you simply need some variety in your gaming. (I could see that happening.)

I encouraged just about anyone who likes games to play The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine. And anyone who liked that is sure to love The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. I give it an unreserved grade A. Designer Thomas Sing has pulled off the rare feat of delivering a sequel that satisfies just as much as -- even surpasses -- the original.

Voyager Flashback: Tuvix

When Star Trek: Voyager was in its original run, I saw "Tuvix" as just another episode -- one with an especially ridiculous premise at that. Over the years, it has become a favorite among Voyager's most passionate fans, and a focus of moral debate.

A transporter accident fuses Tuvok and Neelix into one person. When no quick solution can be found, "Tuvix" settles into life aboard Voyager. But weeks later, when it seems that restoring the two individuals is possible, a moral dilemma manifests.

Outside writers Andrew Price and Mark Gaberman pitched the story of blending Tuvok and Neelix in a transporter accident -- as little more than the comedic "Odd Couple" fusion that the opening scene of the finished episode would prime you to expect. But staff writer Kenneth Biller was keen to make it more serious. And when executive producer Michael Piller suggested a twist ("what if Tuvix isn't willing to be switched back?"), Biller crafted the ending that would make this episode notorious with fans.

This episode is almost literally the famous "Trolley Problem" (which The Good Place nudged into more mainstream thought). Captain Janeway can do nothing and "let two people die" (twist: they're already dead in this version), or she can throw the switch to divert the trolley and kill one person to save the other two. In the abstract, that is a challenging moral quandary.

But there's additional context here, of course. The most famous moral axiom ever taught by Star Trek is clearly in play here: "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one." It's Tuvix versus the lives of Tuvok and Neelix, and the loss felt by Kes in particular (and the rest of the crew). The deck seems pretty stacked there. And while Voyager has recently been playing with story lines that span multiple episodes, we're not yet at a sophisticated enough point in television where they'd dare to leave Tuvix around a few episodes: we know Tuvok and Neelix are coming back somehow by the end credits.

On the other hand: would you sacrifice Tuvok in order to have Neelix permanently off the series? Hmmm.... that's tempting.

Alright, kidding aside (but was I?), there is a lot to like in this episode. Kate Mulgrew and Jennifer Lien give some of their best work to date. They're great both individually -- Janeway indicates very subtle early discomfort with Tuvix that telegraphs her final decision, and Kes navigates the challenge of losing her boyfriend and her mentor, and having both reconstituted as one person. Mulgrew and Lien are even better in rare scenes that pair them together for deep, personal discussions. Their relationship is parental without being overly so; Janeway gives voice to feelings over losing her fiance that we've never heard before, and Kes must wrestle with whether saying what she wants makes her a bad person.

The idea of Tuvix on paper feels too wacky to be credible, but the episode pretty much pulls it off. The makeup is a compelling blend of Vulcan and Talaxian, and the "spiraled" Starfleet uniform he first appears in is a clever bit of costume design. Guest star Tom Wright gets a basically impossible assignment to believably mimic two regular cast members and fit in with the others as though he's always been there, all while under a mountain of makeup and appearing in almost every scene. Oddly, director Cliff Bole indicated in some interviews that he thought Wright was overwhelmed by this impossible task, but I think he does a pretty good job under the circumstances. (He's helped by solid dialogue writing that deftly includes both "Tuvokisms" and "Neelixisms.")

But for all that the episode does pull off, there's even more I feel it leaves on the table. Tuvix is far too functional an individual. Remember, Tuvok and Neelix do not get along at all. In a past episode, when dosed with post-mindmeld negativity, Tuvok literally fantasized about killing Neelix. The moral dilemma this episode poses is clever, but a dramatic exploration of schizophrenia, or quite literally being at war with oneself, is another direction this story could have taken.

Tuvix submitting to the separation in the end feels like it takes some of the responsibility off Janeway (and the rest of the crew). What if he'd gone basically kicking and screaming (as he basically was on the bridge) to the very end, having to be restrained or sedated? And most importantly of all, how do Neelix and Tuvok feel about all that happened once they're restored? Do they even remember being Tuvix? If so, what are their thoughts on Janeway's decision? And if they support it, do they carry any guilt for the sacrifice of Tuvix? Does either man retain any of the knowledge or memories of the other from being blended? The episode doesn't get into any of that.

Other observations:

• Tuvix is increasingly portrayed as "the best" of both Tuvok and Neelix. But it's quite fun when, early on, the Doctor suggests that actually he's the worst of both.

• When Tuvix is asked to "hold still" for a medical scan, he absolutely does not do that. To be fair, though, he's asked to basically sit holding his arm in the air without support for 20 minutes.
  

• Reportedly, in early pre-production planning for this episode, there was some discussion that Neelix actor Ethan Phillips would play Tuvix. Not doing it that way was such a smart choice on so many levels. The blending would have been skewed toward Neelix, no matter how credibly Phillips might have pulled off "the Tuvok half." And that decision would have essentially put Phillips in the position of performing in blackface. Yikes.

• It's a small but great moment that the Doctor refuses to perform the procedure he invented, because the patient himself does not want it.
  

That such a wild premise is at all "good" could well mean that "Tuvix" deserves the highest marks possible. But there are enough "roads not taken" here -- and major unanswered questions about how Tuvok and Neelix process this experience -- that for me, the episode comes out at about a B.

Prodigy: Starstruck

After a two-part premiere that suggested the series could be enjoyed by a wider audience, the first regular episode of Star Trek: Prodigy, "Starstruck," swung hard into the kid-oriented show it was always more likely to have been.

Dal R'el is determined to assert himself as captain of the Protostar, and deeply mistrustful of the assistance that the holographic Captain Janeway is trying to provide. But his reckless leadership soon puts the ship in the path of danger.

The story in this episode was pretty stock fare, and seemed especially aimed at a younger audience because of just how obvious the point was being made, and for being compressed into 30 minutes. Dal has a character flaw -- a lack of trust, excessive pride, or both -- and he needs to learn to get over himself. But he's going to keep making that mistake, repeatedly, until the final moments when the lesson really sets in.

The comedy felt more broad this week too, just like the drama. Zero seemed a much more put-upon, quippy character this episode than in the first installment. Rok-Tahk felt extra young, though perhaps because it was only in the premiere that we ever perceived her as bigger, older, and more intimidating. Jankom Pog still wants to make sure that if you know the name of only one character on the show, it's his. Coffee-sipping Janeway was a fun spiritual cousin to the tea-drinking baby Yoda meme, before being welcomed in at the end with advice and positive reinforcement.

If this is the show that Star Trek: Prodigy is going to be, that's great. It's definitely a different tone for the franchise, and is meant to play to a different audience. (And it seems to be finding that audience: though we've barely started the 20-episode first season, a second season renewal has already been announced.) That said, if episodes are more like this than the premiere, I'll probably drift away from it and not watch it myself.

There are certain hallmarks of the best "childrens' entertainment" that adults can still enjoy. Prodigy is doing well in some of those aspects. Its humor isn't solely juvenile. The production values are clearly high. But, this week at least, it felt a bit "dumbed down" for kids. The tone it ultimately strikes in that area is really going to determine whether this show not really meant "for me" is enough "for me" to keep watching. I'd give "Starstruck" a C+.

Eternals Your Heart Out

While the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been juggernauting along for years both financially and creatively, DC's attempt at a mega-film franchise has come in fits and starts: a blend of effective and ineffective, received with mixed reaction by audiences. You have to admit, though, that DC seems to know what it wants (or, at least, Zack Snyder knows what he wants); despite many points of evidence suggesting how a DC film might be tweaked to be more well received, they've largely stuck with their brand as they've defined it.

Now, Eternals has arrived in the MCU, and if you didn't know better, you could easily mistake it for a DC film. And so far, at least, it seems to have produced DC-like results: critics are generally pretty down on it, it still pulled in good box office numbers despite the reviews, and fans are somewhat divided (though even the supporters' responses seem to be mostly in the "it's pretty not bad, I guess").

Well, put me in the detractors camp. I found Eternals to be the one thing the MCU has avoided being in a long time -- boring. And the "half life" on the movie has been brief indeed, as my general boredom while I was watching it has shifted into something closer to contempt the more I think about what I saw (which hasn't been often).

The Eternals is an incredibly dour movie. In focusing on characters who live for millennia, who are instructed to place themselves "above it all," the story itself winds up feeling at a similar remove: monotonous and uninteresting. MCU movies often devolve into a CG spectacle at the end (with the effectiveness of that depending on how well the characters were drawn in the first two acts). Eternals drowns in CG from beginning to end. The monsters, meant to be alien, come off lifeless -- and the fact that the heroes are literally fighting them with finger guns and quasi-intangible weaponry gives the whole thing the feeling of children pretending in the backyard (with a similar level of coherence).

There is comic relief in this movie, but it's quite sparse. The characters who might be said to be having the most fun are also generally the ones with the least screen time. And even many of the fun characters seem to be more defined by their angst. Kumail Nanjiani's Kingo is kind of an exemplar for a lot of what's wrong here; Nanjiani is actually pretty funny in most of his scenes, and a welcome pressure release valve on the film. But why did he have to get ridiculously jacked to play this part? Because in this movie, everyone has to be just That Serious.

It's not just about whether the right amount of comic relief is here, though. In fact, it's more about the emotional stakes not really landing. Recently at the movies, you might just as easily accuse Dune of being a dour movie with very little comic relief. But where some people have pointed to Rebecca Ferguson's Jessica as a weak spot of the movie (because the character gets quite emotional relative to anyone else), I feel like her swinging for the dramatic fences generates most of the stakes. There's very little of that in Eternals; the characters played by Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, and Salma Hayek are the ones largely freighted with the emotional stakes. Yet while I've seen every one of them act effectively in other things, they're quite lifeless and dry here. (Yes, even Gemma Chan, whose best known performance before this, as an "emotionless" android in Humans, is far more moving.)

I did appreciate the use of the character of Phastos, the much-touted gay character in this movie whose sexual identity actually isn't marginalized in the story. (Indeed, his attachment to his family offers up pretty much the only effective emotional stakes in the movie.) I also applaud the diversity here among this large new cast of characters. Indeed, generally, I appreciate the idea that they tried to do something here that wasn't simply copy-pasting the MCU formula. But I generally haven't liked the DC superhero movies, and I didn't like this one either.

I walked out of the theater thinking I'd been quite bored, and for quite a long run time. I wasn't necessarily thinking that I'd just seen the worst MCU movie. But when I pulled up Flickchart and added Eternals to my list, that's where it landed: dead last in the franchise. I give Eternals a D.

Behind the Masks

I've been slowly working my way through The Dresden Files book series, liking it a fair amount at first, and then gradually fading on it. Fans of the series say I'm roughly at the point where it started to really pick up for them (book four or five-ish), so I'm resolved to push ahead just a little bit farther to see if it starts clicking for me again.

That brought me to book five, Death Masks. It sees Harry Dresden hired to track the theft of the Shroud of Turin. At the same time, he juggles the return of an old flame, a challenge from a rival to a duel to the death, and the capture of a friend by a dangerous new enemy.

Death Masks is a jam-packed book. More than the four prior books, it feels to me like the moment where a television producer would have looked and had the "this could really be a TV series" thought that inspired the 2007 effort (that lasted just one season). This novel totally has the feeling of a made-to-binge season of Netflix television, with multiple soap-operatic plot threads woven throughout the "episodes" of the novel, in a lead-up to a massive "season finale" that also serves as a cliffhanger for "next season."

I found it a little too dense -- at least, for the way I was reading it, a chapter or two most nights before sleep. With so many plot elements in play at once, I found the "turn taking" between them tough to keep up with. As different subplots would come into focus, I'd find myself sometimes struggling to remember the situations surrounding them when they last appeared several chapters earlier. I suspect it's not that the plot was really that complex, but rather that it just wasn't holding my interest.

The problem, I'm beginning to suspect, is the constant on every page of a Dresden Files book -- the character of Harry Dresden himself. He's far and away the least compelling thing in the series. Surprisingly not bright, not as witty as he thinks he is, and perpetually horny, I just don't really enjoy reading his first-person narrative for hundreds of pages. I'm much more drawn to the vast (and growing!) cast of secondary characters that pop in and out over the course of a Dresden book. My interest in a particular subplot seems fairly proportional to which side characters figure largest in that subplot.

I'm particularly drawn (no surprise) to the characters who seem to offer the most challenge to the behavioral rut Harry Dresden is entrenched in. This book gives us noble Knight of the Cross Shiro, introduces smart and savvy thief Anna Valmont, and gives more page count to Charity Carpenter (wife of knight Michael) than earlier books. To varying degrees, all of these characters spend much of the book asking Dresden why he must always be the way that he is, and I'm so here for that.

Of course, I can't realistically expect Dresden to stop being so Dresdeny, so this probably means that I should just accept this book series isn't for me and give up, right? Well... probably. But the thing is, Death Masks just introduced a major villain who (small spoiler) escapes at the end of the book to surely return again. So, as lovers of the series have suggested, it does indeed appear that this is the moment that things are going to pick up. Yeah, I kinda do want to know what happens next.

On the other hand... I probably can't have high hopes for a series that's completely centered on one character that I'm really growing to loathe. Yet, having perhaps now identified exactly what it is about these books that isn't working for me, can I better compartmentalize that when I read the next book, to focus more on the things I like? We probably can't drop much lower than the C+ I think I'd give this book, can we?

Maybe we'll see. (After I make some time to read some other books.)

Calls Me, Maybe?

What if a podcast could be a television show? If you're familiar with the big hit podcasts, you might think I'm talking about Song Exploder, or Limetown, or Lore -- each of which has been turned into a streaming TV series of varying success. But no, I'm talking about an original TV series conceived with essentially the same sensibilities as a podcast: Calls.

If you haven't heard of Calls, I'm not surprised. It runs on Apple TV+, which many don't have, and many more pick up only to binge a new season of Ted Lasso in a month before cancelling. Calls is a 9-episode series, each episode running a brisk 13 to 20 minutes. It unfolds as a series of "recovered" calls -- between friends, to 911, radio communications, and so forth. A science-fiction-tinged tale unfolds about some unexplainable event, a sort of Twilight Zone installment.

And without visuals... in, at least, the conventional sense.

There is something on screen when you watch Calls, but predominately, it's just the transcript of the dialogue being spoken, like when a newscast plays back a phone call and also shows what's being said. Behind the dialogue, a kaleidoscopic pattern provides a subtle emotional echo of the scene -- showing sound waves, suggesting topographic landscapes, depicting the thin thread connecting the speakers, and more.

The visuals are not "nothing," but essentially, Calls could be a podcast. You could listen to it rather than watch it. And its tone of "freaky, unexplained weirdness" would probably put it second only to "true crime" podcasts as a successful and widely listened-to podcast at that. At first, I wondered if this was a bit of pandemic-inspired creativity. This show premiered in March of 2021, and was doubtlessly made in the pre-vaccine period of the pandemic. The sound isn't meant to come across crystal clear, so while it could be recorded clean and processed, you also could just get it by literally getting an actor on the phone and recording the call. That said, Calls is actually based on a pre-existing French TV show of the same name, dating back to 2018 -- so perhaps the inspiration was pitching an adaptation of that material in a COVID environment.

There sure is a wide-ranging cast of actors in Calls. Different episodes of the show feature Clancy Brown, Rosario Dawson, Mark Duplass, Karen Gillan, Judy Greer, Nick Jonas, Jaeden Martell, Pedro Pascal, Aubrey Plaza, Danny Pudi, Ben Schwartz, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jennifer Tilly, and many, many more. They were no doubt enticed by the ease of making this, of the appeal in doing a one-off episode of eerie fun. (Though -- small spoiler -- the episodes turn out not to be as self-contained as they seem at first.)

Calls is by no means a reason to get Apple TV+ if you don't have it already. It's fascinating in being so different from anything else on TV, but it's not "can't miss" entertainment. Still, I would give it a B+. I appreciated the wild swing here at something different.

Voyager Flashback: The Thaw

Joe Menosky had been on writing staff of Star Trek: The Next Generation for most of its run, and was responsible for most of its wilder concepts. He would join the writing staff of Voyager as well, starting in season three. But before that, he worked remotely from France, occasionally lobbing scripts over the figurative wall. One of these was season two's "The Thaw."

Voyager encounters a planet recovering from a climate catastrophe, finding a small group in cryostasis, meant to have awakened to shepherd the recovery. Their system, which creates a shared simulated environment during their sleep, has not malfunctioned. Yet they simply haven't awakened. When Harry Kim and B'Elanna Torres enter the simulation to investigate, they soon learn why: the anxieties of the inhabitants have coalesced into a tormenting clown manifestation of fear, who holds them all hostage to continue his own existence.

Going up against literal Fear is exactly the sort of high concept that Joe Menosky was known for on The Next Generation. At its best, his writing sensibilities gave us "Darmok." At his not-so-best, he gave us "Masks." This episode falls somewhere in between. It does a decent job of explaining the situation (a few years before The Matrix would drop into the zeitgeist and give us all a shorthand). It addresses potential "quick fixes" with tight exposition -- you can't just unplug the simulation, you can't wake them up fast enough, you can't just transform "fear" into something else (stupid Neelix).

The metaphor, however, doesn't work nearly as well. There's good talk about the up sides to fear, and intriguing philosophy about what fear wants. But unless you happen to be afraid of clowns, I don't think the script does an especially good job of convincing you that our heroes are up against "Fear." There's danger here, for sure -- being at the eternal mercy of a whim-driven menace who utterly controls your environment... and wants it to be the same monotony, every day, punctuated by the occasional death threat? Yeah, sounds like hell. But while "dread" or "torture" might be close cousins of "fear," I'm not sure they're really the same.

But I think the episode comes out better than it looks on paper, thanks largely to two people. One is Michael McKean. Today, we have many roles (particularly, Chuck from Better Call Saul) hinting that "the guy from This Is Spinal Tap, Clue, and Laverne & Shirley" would be good in this sort of dramatic role. In 1996? Feels like a gamble. But someone suggested McKean would be right for this, and he was reportedly a longtime Star Trek fan happy to do it. To the degree that the clown is menacing, I chalk it up to the performance of McKean... him, and his mannerisms as often mimicked by the background performers (literal Cirque du Soleil performers who were hired as a group to fill the scene).

The other main contributor to this episode's success is the director, Marvin V. Rush. Rush was a regular director of photography on Voyager (as well as The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Enterprise). He knew Trek inside and out, and would occasionally be given an episode of his own. His work here is outstanding, suggesting that as as important as he surely was to daily production of the franchise, they really should have found more opportunities for him to direct.

The bulk of this episode takes place on a single set -- and a rather "classic Star Trek" set at that, tiny and brightly colored. Rush manages to expand the space enormously through inventive camera placement. He sells it all as a nightmarish fantasy through incongruous cutting that instantly moves the clown and his entourage from one place to another. He manages to keep focus on the central performances even while more background performers than Star Trek sometimes gets in an entire season are moving around wildly. And it all builds perfectly to a final scene that takes place in a quickly disappearing black void, simultaneously intimate and intense. Rush deeply understood what this episode needed -- to be, I imagine, what Deep Space Nine's "Move Along Home" was probably trying to be -- and delivered it perfectly.

Other observations:

• The opening scene (apparently filmed for and cut from an earlier episode) shows Harry Kim playing his clarinet. He actually performs a rather complex piece, and we can see that actor Garrett Wang really is doing the correct fingering -- it isn't faked with another person's hands coming in from below frame.
  

• Perennial Trek guest stars include Thomas Kopache (who later played Kira's father) and Carel Struycken (who played Lwaxana Troi's valet, Mr. Homn).

• The old age makeup on Harry Kim is far better than usual for Star Trek. Perhaps this is because we only see it for a moment, and actor Garrett Wang doesn't have to do much in it but look pained.
  

• The music in this episode is especially strong. It's allowed to be more brazen and obvious than usual, and it suits the environment of the simulation very well. That in turns adds to the impact of the final act, when Janeway enters the simulation and all that bombast recedes.
  

I didn't remember enjoying "The Thaw" quite as much before as I did this time, but I was really taken by the craft of it in this viewing. I'd give it a B+.

Give 'Em Hail

Author Andy Weir arrived with a bang when he published The Martian, a very good book turned into an even better film. He stumbled with his second book Artemis, universally agreed to be weaker (though I liked it better than most readers). Now, Weir is back with his third novel, Project Hail Mary.

Ryland Grace awakens in a strange environment, tended by a robotic system with no memory of where -- or even, at first, who -- he is. Soon, he discovers (early book spoilers here) that he's aboard a spaceship in another star system, sent there in a desperate attempt to find a solution for a global catastrophe threatening all life on Earth. The narrative switches back and forth from his research in the present and the memories he's gradually recovering about how he got here in the first place.

While Andy Weir has only published three novels so far, it didn't even take that long for his writing style to be made abundantly clear. Weir's brand is to pepper a breezily readable pulp premise with lots of hard science details, featuring a snarky protagonist. I noted in reviewing Artemis that it was possible this formula, this writer's voice, could wear thin after a bit of repetition, but it hadn't then. And it hasn't now. In fact, I'd say Project Hail Mary is his best book, better than The Martian.

If you read The Martian and Artemis and enjoyed either of them, even a little, you will definitely enjoy Project Hail Mary. It's another puzzle box of a tale about solving problem after problem in a seemingly never-ending string of crises. It's about being smart under pressure, and celebrating intelligence -- things that feel sorely lacking in the real world sometimes.

What makes Project Hail Mary better, in my view, is that while retaining that core of what makes an Andy Weir book, Weir does show improvement on the things that felt like flaws to me in his previous books. The protagonist does still feel like a quippy extension of the writer himself (though it's hard not to when writing in the first-person)... but there are now secondary characters with stronger personalities that don't merely feel like lesser versions of the main character. Two in particular really pop in this novel, one even becoming more enjoyable than the protagonist himself, in a marvelous bit of literary sleight of hand.

Also, significantly, Ryland Grace has a meaningful character arc in the story. Where both The Martian and Artemis leave their main characters more or less the same flippant people we found them as (albeit, having gone on quite an adventure), Grace has something to learn -- more than just the secret of his own past. He is fundamentally changed by his experiences, making this a tale not just of fun science and clever situations, but of character growth. Andy Weir is getting better at delivering more than just a gripping plot. (Though once again, he does that.)

On top of all that, I'll note that for the first time, I listened to an Andy Weir book in audio format (rather than reading it). And special praise must go to this presentation. Narrator Ray Porter is the perfect choice for this main character, handling all the technical jargon with aplomb, shading everything with the right amount of snark, and really acting more than just reading. On the production side, there are well-chosen audio effects used throughout the story (in ways that simply shouldn't be spoiled beforehand). It's not remotely a "full cast production," nor is it trying to be one, but it definitely adds to the experience in a great way.

Yes, word is that a movie adaptation of this book is already in the works (starring Ryan Gosling). But I really wouldn't wait for that -- I enjoyed the book too much. In fact, I'd give Project Hail Mary an A. It's the most I've looked forward to "another chapter" in a long time.

Prodigy: Lost and Found

Last week, the newest series in the ever-expanding Star Trek franchise made its premiere. Star Trek: Prodigy is the second modern animated Trek series, albeit with very different visual and narrative sensibilities than Lower Decks. Made to air on Nickelodeon, Prodigy is a series ostensibly aimed at kids. But is there anything there for adult Star Trek fans?

Definitely maybe?

In a two-part episode, "Lost and Found," Prodigy set into the place the premise for the series: a group of children from a forced labor planet in the Delta Quradrant discover an apparently abandoned Starfleet ship, and use it to escape to future weekly adventures. To me, Prodigy compared most to the beginning of Star Trek: Discovery, in that its first episode wasn't exactly itself "a regular adventure," but rather setting things up for future "weekly adventures."

It was an intriguing setup, introducing a lot of distinct and interesting characters. The fact that they're mostly children and/or cute creatures is, I suppose, what ultimately makes this a show "for kids." But the same show heavily featured themes of child labor, torture, and subjugation. Future episodes could be a good deal lighter, for all we know, but Prodigy sure seems geared "for the whole family" and not just for a younger audience.

Prodigy also seems to be taking a run at being the most accessible Trek show for non-Trekkers. It has steep competition there from Lower Decks, which tries to be inviting through humor (while flinging more franchise in-jokes than even the fans can always keep up with). Prodigy -- at least, before a holographic Kathryn Janeway arrives on the scene -- tries pretty hard to stand on its own from existing Star Trek. Sure, Medusans, Tellarites, and Kazon are all things from Trek history, but you don't need to know any of that to watch Prodigy. And by setting itself in the Delta Quadrant (and not a part we saw on Star Trek: Voyager, at that), the show is well-positioned to include or steer clear of existing Trek lore in whatever balance the writers deem best.

Indeed, the tone of the first episode was partly Star Trek in its optimism and depiction of "skilled people working together," but was also equally something else. I've seen online reviewers compare it to Star Wars a fair bit, but I'd say it felt most like the Marvel Cinematic Universe -- specifically the Thor / Guardians of the Galaxy / Captain Marvel side of the MCU. (You know, "the weird space stuff" about to be joined by Eternals.) Prodigy felt grand and colorful, and in many ways "bigger" than Star Trek sometimes feels, because it showed us this part of the universe we hadn't really seen before.

The voice cast seems interesting -- a mix of actual young actors, actors known for giving good villain (Jimmi Simpson and John Noble), and actors who have done a lot of voice-over work (Jason Mantzoukas) and a lot of voice-over work (Dee Bradley Baker). As is Star Trek tradition, the secondary characters -- with their wilder, alien personalities -- are off to an early lead in likeability, but there are plenty of episodes ahead to get to know them all. (I do feel compelled to point out, though, that in contradiction to screenplay law, they literally did not Save the Cat. And it was a really cute, young cat too. Weird.)

I figured I would know in just one episode of Star Trek: Prodigy if it was going to be too "kiddie" for me. And sure enough, it feels like I know: it's not. Whether I'll enjoy it as much as I have Discovery, Picard, and (most of all) Lower Decks remains to be seen. But also, that's probably not where the bar is really set. If Prodigy can be entertaining and carve out its own distinct niche in the Star Trek franchise, I'm happy to keep giving it a chance. I give "Lost and Found" a B.