Lower Decks: The Inner Fight

I was, of course, expecting that Star Trek: Lower Decks would soon be tying up its season-long story about the mysterious alien ship. I wasn't expecting it to begin in the first half of a two-part finale. And I certainly wasn't it expecting to tie back to Star Trek: The Next Generation in such an important way. But that's what we got in "The Inner Fight."

When ex-Starfleet personnel come under specific threat, the Cerritos is assigned to locate and secure former cadet Nick Locarno. Captain Freeman is concerned about the danger, and more concerned that her daughter seems to be deliberately throwing herself in harm's way of late, so she assigns Mariner, Boimler, Tendi, and T'Lyn to a safe repair mission. But that mission takes a turn when the team is marooned on a planet with different aliens who have been abducted by some unknown force.

I want to praise the humor of this episode right at the top, because it was funny as always, with Trek canon references honed to razor sharpness. Boimler dreaming about getting tap dance lessons from Beverly Crusher made me laugh out loud; Freeman's awkward encounter with a Balok "puppet" had me howling.

Funny as the episode was, though, what really impressed me about it was how serious a story it actually took on -- and how that story was also deeply steeped in Star Trek history. We finally learned the reason behind Mariner's "forever ensign" energy, and that it's rooted much deeper than issues with her parents or disrespect for authority. A dear friend and Academy classmate was killed, and she has always associated that loss with the moment that friend was promoted to greater responsibility. Tawny Newsome has always been good for fast-talking quippiness, but she changes gears to deliver a genuinely haunted vocal performance in the scene where Mariner confesses all this. I was truly taken by surprise at how the show that had had me cackling minutes earlier now had me feeling this moved.

Of course, they were leveraging my longtime Star Trek fandom to get there, tying into one of the very best episodes of The Next Generation. But this was hardly "stolen valor"; that episode was "Lower Decks," the very namesake of this entire series. In the moment I realized what writer-creator Mike McMahan was doing (after the initial rush), I was actually impressed at the restraint in waiting this long -- until nearly the end of the show's fourth season -- to make this obvious connection. Sito Jaxa was one of the few deaths on The Next Generation that ever felt like it "mattered," and it's perfect that it still matters today for one of the characters on the series it inspired.

But "Lower Decks" was the second appearance of Sito Jaxa. The first came in the other episode heavily referenced this week, "The First Duty." We'll see what part two of this finale has in store, but for now I'll say that it feels like a bit of a stretch that any ship would be tasked to round up Nick Locarno -- one particular washed-out cadet from Academy history. But then, it turns out that he's at the heart of whatever plot we've been building this whole time... and I kind of have faith at this point that Lower Decks will find a way to make that work. Either way, we get Robert Duncan McNeill's return to the series (after voicing his other character, Tom Paris... and Boimler's commemorative plate of that character).

I give "The Inner Fight" an A-. Not only did it feel like a strong episode of Lower Decks, but depending on how the story concludes next time, the two-parter could be in contention for the best of the series.

Total Package?

Countless movies have been sold to Hollywood executives with the premise that "it's like [this movie] combined with [that movie]." But these "sold in the room" pitches don't always go on to wear their inspirations so prominently as Totally Killer.

Now streaming on Amazon Prime, Totally Killer is a mashup of Back to the Future and Halloween (both of which are directly called out in the movie). Back in 1987, a serial killer murdered three high school girls in a small town. In 2023, the daughter of one of the survivors is accidentally sent back in time -- where she must protect her own existence, try to stop the murders, and somehow find a way back to her own time.

Totally Killer runs a breezy 106 minutes, but feels even faster than that. Its plot unspools at breakneck pace, in part because it has to: the movie must incorporate all the required tropes of a slasher film and all of the mechanics of a time travel movie. Indeed, it's not always quite logical in doing so... but the speediness helps with that, giving the audience little time to dwell on some of the narrative leaps.

Overall, though, it does feel to me like "two great tastes that taste great together." Or good together, at least. Totally Killer is a lot of fun, generates a decent number of laughs, and has its share of clever slasher set pieces along the way. It's self-aware of its formula and its own shortcomings, and often hangs a lantern on those. It all comes together in a rather entertaining ending, too -- though the "time travel" half of the movie resolves more interestingly than the "slasher" half.

That it mostly works is probably due in large part to star Kiernan Shipka. This talented young performer has worked mostly in television (doing it since she was truly a little kid), but she proves just as up to headlining a movie like this. She's good with the comedy, the action, and the fast changes between the two. And she's basically the only familiar face you'll see in the bulk of the movie; Modern Family's Julie Bowen and Fresh Off the Boat's Randall Park are both here too, but in quite small roles.

Tis the season for a horror film... and if you're going to watch one specifically on Halloween night, you might need one that's OK to pause regularly while you tend to trick-or-treaters at the door. Totally Killer might be that movie. I give it a B.

Re-Nailed It!

If your tastes are anything like mine, you've been delighted by seasons of Nailed It! on Netflix, the goofy baking show where inexperienced chefs are given insufficient time to recreate impossible masterpieces to the best of their abilities... and to predictably poor results. I continued to watch each new batch of episodes when it arrived, even though I was becoming aware that each batch was a case of somewhat diminishing returns.

Part of the reason the bloom was falling off the Nailed It! rose was that the contestants themselves now knew what they'd be getting into before hand. You'd get the distinct impression that some of them were no longer trying to do their best in an impossible situation, but were deliberately setting out to make ugly, inedible cakes just for laughs -- and not generating as many laughs as earlier, more earnest seasons. That's because earnestness was actually Nailed It!'s secret weapon; even though the contestants were essentially set up to fail, even though the show was hosted by a comedian and a top-notch chocolatier, they never wanted to make the contestants feel bad about themselves. They always found a way to make sure the "bakers" were laughing with them, and would highlight the good tidbits amid the chaos.

Nailed It! returned a few months ago in a new format that leaned into that strength: The Big Nailed It! Baking Challenge. The show was now more long-form, with 10 contestants continuing throughout the entire season and being eliminated episode by episode in a more conventional reality/game show format. Repeat attempts at elaborate cakes would ensure they'd improve over time, and a bigger cash prize at the end of it all gave incentive to try to succeed, rather than deliberately fail.

Most importantly, they'd all now receive instruction. Each episode of the new show begins with a sort of "warm up" task in which two coaches actually demonstrate a cake-art technique to be used in the episode's upcoming challenge. Now not only did the contestants have a fighting chance, but the audience at home could learn more too.

Don't worry -- there are still plenty of hilariously bad cakes on the show. Even with instruction, even with twice as much time to bake (or more), and even with incentives to succeed, the show is still fundamentally asking a fifth grader to paint a Rembrandt. But beyond the laughs, a new dimension has been added to the show: the feel-good story of actually watching people build skills at a thing. I've recently finished the 10-episode season, and the growth of the players who make it to the end, compared to where they started at the beginning, is stunning. It's an object lesson in the fact that one really can learn new things... and so long as you're not looking to become a "master," you really don't need the fabled "1,000 hours of experience" to become reasonably good at the thing.

So now, The Big Nailed It! Baking Challenge has kept the funny, but has made the whole thing inspirational too? I'm entertained, and maybe even a little bit impressed. If you've ever enjoyed Nailed It!, but fell out at some point, I'd encourage you to check this out. If you have ever enjoyed a reality show of some kind, I'd suggest you might want to give this one a shot. (Not that it will convert the reality-TV averse. The show is an even lighter, fluffier confection than the desserts depicted on it.) I give the show a B+.

Long View

When recapping my New England trip from last month, I mentioned that while in Maine, I made sure to read a chapter of a book by Maine's biggest celebrity, author Stephen King. That book was The Long Walk, originally published under King's short-lived pseudonym, Richard Bachman.

The Long Walk is set in some sort of dystopian alternate reality; maybe a (when written) near-future(?), but one in any case now over four decades past to the modern reader. An annual celebration of a totalitarian regime is taking place, in which 100 young men must walk non-stop, at a pace of at least four miles an hour, to the point of exhaustion, until only one is left standing. The book follows one "contestant" in particular, Ray Garraty (#47), as he suffers this grueling ordeal of hundreds of miles and consecutive days without sleep.

Much of this book is inner monologue, which is perhaps why it's one of the few Stephen King tales not yet adapted into a movie. (There have been a couple of failed attempts, though.) Moreover, it's almost more like a "writing exercise" than a novel. King has set himself the challenge of whether or not such a bare bones premise, with no real opportunities to change the environment or the characters, can actually be sustained over the course of an entire novel.

The good news is, it doesn't actually read as gimmicky as it might sound. Or at least, King rises to his own challenge enough to make the read compelling. The writing does an excellent job of putting you in the mind of its protagonist. You're convinced of the horrific difficulty and suffering of "simply walking," and you get a sense of all the pain -- physical and mental -- involved. Meanwhile, that inner monologue bounces around enough to keep the story from becoming static, while a small cast of characters drawn from the other walkers helps flesh out the narrative.

But there are some shortcomings here. One is a lack of suspense. Maybe that kind of tension has always been more the bailiwick of Stephen King adaptations more than the source material itself, but the life-or-death stakes of the situation aren't really felt deeply for the main character. That's simply because he is the main character, and the narrative never once shifts from his perspective. With that knowledge, the reader deduces that there can be only two endings for the story: Garraty "punches his ticket" before the Long Walk is over, or he is the ultimate winner.

But then, "endings" are famously one of Stephen King's weak spots. He's such a prolific writer that I've read only a tiny fraction of his catalogue, but I've only rarely been impressed by a King ending (fortunately, The Dark Tower series was an exception) -- and fans of his work never try to convince me I'm wrong in that assessment. The Long Walk has... well... let's say one of the better of King's bad endings? It's hardly out of left field, nor tonally dissonant, nor any of the things that I've disliked in other King endings that left me cold. But it is quite abrupt, and feels like it leaves a lot unresolved. It's really the kind of ending where, as you're pulling up on the final pages, you begin to wonder if your copy of the book is maybe missing a few chapters at the end. Basically, the story has put a lot of threads into play, but King seems to be interesting in resolving only one or two of them.

Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the journey, regardless of the destination. I give The Long Walk a B. It's certainly among Stephen King's shorter books, so if you've been curious about him (but avoided him for lack of desire to read a 1,000-page doorstop), this might be one for you to check out.

Lower Decks: Caves

In its latest episode, Star Trek: Lower Decks jettisoned many elements (the senior officers, the season-long story about the "mystery ship," T'Lyn) to focus specifically on how the promotions of the lower deckers has affected their friendship. Well, that, and the fact that "one-third" of all Star Trek missions take place in caves.

Mariner, Boimer, Rutherford, and Tendi become trapped in a cave while on an away mission, leading them to recount tales of other cave-bound missions. Boimer remembers being trapped with conspiracy-minded Levy. Rutherford tells of being trapped with Dr. T'Ana... and giving birth to an alien child! Mariner confesses to bonding with Delta shift during a cave ordeal. And Tendi just wants to talk about her non-cave story.

I've commented before that I think Lower Decks is at its best when its able to still be a legitimate Star Trek episode even as it's cracking jokes. This episode was that, the best it's been this season. First, they hit every joke about Star Trek's infamous "cave set" that you'd expect -- including the fact that the background is illustrated to look exactly like the set that appeared on multiple series. But then they move on to actually play several of Star Trek's "greatest hits" on the way to a wrap-up that makes a lovely, sentimental point.

Lower Decks has pulled elements from the original animated series before -- including the Vendorians specifically -- but using them here to do a take on the classic "alien morality test" plot line felt especially inspired. And spending time with the previously-mentioned conspiracy theorist Levy yields a bunch of fun jokes both about Star Trek specifically and the "do your own research, man" crowd generally.

"Having a surprise alien baby" is another juicy nugget of Star Trek past; playing that out in a cave, where it can be combined with the classic Horta "its protecting its young" ending, is yet another inspired writing choice. So is playing with the "sudden aging/de-aging" trope, in Mariner's story. And because these are all deliberately recycled plot elements, they very cleverly don't need any more screen time than they get, allowing this episode to be full to the brim without overflowing.

The real writing trick, though, is anchoring it all with Tendi's emotionally genuine story at the end, about recognizing the moment where she "found her people" aboard the Cerritos. It's a feeling so many in the audience will appreciate; I certainly did.

"Caves" is my favorite episode of the season so far. (Yes, even more than the Deep Space Nine cameos.) I give it an A-.

Weird At Last

Last year, a movie was released that I very much wanted to see, but I was basically denied the chance to do so -- Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. It wasn't released in theaters or (at the time) on physical media. I don't have a Roku device, or a desire to get one. (I actually did have a friend offer to have me over to watch the movie on his Roku, but we never quite got around to it.) Finally, in what felt like a quite random moment, I found the movie available for in-flight viewing on the plane out to Boston.

The movie is, ostensibly, a biopic of "Weird Al" Yankovic. But just as many of his songs are parodies of popular music, so this movie is really a parody of biopic movies. That isn't a wholly original idea, of course. Most notably, we already have the very funny Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. And at first, the movie sort of feels like a "Walk Hard Lite." For one thing, Weird is cleaner than Walk Hard (because that's Yankovic's brand; he never swears, and rarely dips into anything you'd classify as "adult humor"). That's fine, such as it is... but Weird also starts out as a less-funny Walk Hard: a bit less clever, a bit more toothless, as it kind of tells all the same jokes winking at biopic movie tropes.

But right around the end of the first act, the movie begins to loosen its grip on reality (that wasn't exactly tight to begin with). "Weird Al" the character becomes more untethered from his real world counterpart, and the farther apart they drift, the funnier the movie gets. By the time the movie was earnestly saying how Al was ripped off by Michael Jackson, I pretty much had a perpetual smile on my face. By the time the character of Madonna shows up (and I do mean a character; she's even further from her real-life counterpart than Yankovic), the movie is pure, anarchic fantasy. It's also much, much funnier for the huge swings it's taking.

Parody so often hangs on the commitment of the actors, so it helps that Weird has an excellent, committed cast. Daniel Radcliffe shines as Al himself, delivering deadpan lines with steely intensity in a way I think we haven't seen since Leslie Nielsen built his second career on that. Evan Rachel Wood seems like she's having the time of her life as Madonna. Rainn Wilson's take on Dr. Demento is a ton of fun, and actually delivers my favorite joke of the movie (in response to Al asking if Demento will be his mentor; it's all about the long pause after). As Al's parents, Toby Huss and Julianne Nicholson play their biopic cliche roles to the hilt. Then there's the staggering number of cameo appearances throughout the movie, from Will Forte, Jack Black, and Lin-Manuel Miranda to the real "Weird Al" himself.

To make a metaphor inspired by how I finally watched the movie, once Weird: The Al Yankovic Story reaches its "cruising altitude," it's a lot of fun... even if the takeoff is a bit rough. Overall, I'd give it a B. If you're at all a fan of Yankovic and haven't yet seen it? Well, first: I understand, it's been basically impossible to do so if you don't have a Roku. But it's worth seeking out if you can.

Hitting the Rhode

Day 8 of our New England trip was the final full day of our vacation, and perhaps the rainiest of all. The drizzle was steady and unending from sunrise to sunset.

We began with a few last Connecticut stops before crossing the state line, first at the Mystic Seaport Museum. It's a maritime museum that includes what felt like a dash of "Renaissance Festival" to it -- a collection of old buildings is clustered right on the shoreline to display different types of services you'd have found in an historic port. They're kept right alongside several old ships, including a whaling vessel.

Yet even though this was a Saturday (or maybe because it was a Saturday?), most parts of the museum were closed. Maybe it was the rain, maybe we were "out of season," but for whatever reason, you couldn't go aboard most of the ships, and only a couple of the buildings were staffed with people to fill you in on more of the history. We tried to give the place a chance, but quickly lost our patience for ambling around in the rain, not seeing much. Unfortunately, the Mystic Seaport Museum turned out to be one of the few big "busts" of the trip.

So, we went on to Clyde's Cider Mill, a buzzing spot open only in the fall, pressing regular and hard apple cider with an old-time steam-powered press you can see in action. It was oddly fascinating to watch, as we snacked on a few more cider donuts.

Next, we proceeded into Rhode Island, specifically to the coast near Newport. Our plan in going there had been to head to the Cliff Walk, with not only a lovely view of the ocean, but of a number of mansions built nearby. Unfortunately, the rain soaked all the fun out of that. We did see people on the Cliff Walk, but they didn't look especially happy, and we were in no mood to join them. We stopped at one mansion in particular, the Breakers, but opted not to go inside when we saw the high price for admission. (I think we were shy about it after our lackluster experience at Mystic Seaport Museum.)

Still, Newport wasn't a loss. For one thing, we collected our "gold brewery pin" for Rhode Island, at the Coddington Brewing Company. Not only was the beer pretty good, but I enjoyed a cup of lobster bisque to warm me up. Then we drove along the well-known Ocean Drive, a 10-mile stretch of road that takes you right along the water -- a rather striking sight even on a gloomy day.

We also had an indulgent dinner at White Horse Tavern, touted as the oldest operating restaurant in the United States; it's been serving guests since 1673. Knowing that my time for great seafood was running out, I went back to lobster again, this time with a lobster ravioli served in a delicious, creamy sauce.

Finally, it was on to Providence for our final night. We had options for a couple more activities in the area that we might have done. But the rain was still on. Also, in the way of many good vacations, as we were here nearing the end, we were actually looking forward to home and ultimately were not up for leaving the hotel room until morning.

When that morning came, we just had the drive back to Boston to make our noon flight home. We did squeeze in one more minor tourist attraction, though, by grabbing our breakfast at the original Dunkin Donuts location in Quincy, Massachusetts. The classic look of the exterior has been preserved, while the interior has large photos blown up on the walls, showing what the place looked like back when it was new. Not worth going out of your way for, by any stretch, but it was basically right on the drive back.

The flight home was uneventful. (It landed early, even!) Our cats were happy to see us. We were happy to reach our own bed (and pillows!). We'd had a wonderful time. I doubt we'll return to New England to do another "full circuit" like this. But there were certainly particular areas that we enjoyed a lot, and I could see going back one day to really explore those, without moving onto somewhere else each day.

Maybe we'll even manage to time it better with the fall leaf colors.

Subs, Trains, and Automobiles

Day 7 of the New England trip was Connecticut day -- the only day since Boston where we woke up, spent the day, and fell asleep all in the same state.

We traveled first to the Submarine Force Museum. It's actively managed by a division of the Navy. In fact, there was some sort of ceremony going on when we arrived that we felt like we didn't want to intrude on; a large group of sailors and their families were gathered for some sort of event in a wing of the museum. (Like I said, we didn't want to intrude, so we never found out exactly what it was.)

But we did get to see the centerpiece exhibit of the museum, the U.S.S. Nautilus. It was the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, and you can go aboard to tour it. It was an interesting juxtaposition with the Revolution-era Constitution we'd been able to see earlier on the trip; positively luxurious by comparison. But of course, even the Nautilus is some 70 years old, and as cramped and claustrophobic as you'd imagine a submarine to be.

As we rolled into the early afternoon, we went to collect our gold "Beer Map" pin by visiting Fox Farm Brewery, surprisingly not our first "brewery in a barn in an out of the way location" for the trip. (Not that anything in Connecticut feels truly out of the way when you're used to a state like Colorado.) This is another highly regarded brewery among beer snobs, and once again it seemed to be for the same reasons: they do very true Czech/German-style beers that are proudly pure... but also pretty good.

We thought their beer reminded us a little of a place back home, Prost Brewing, and so we got it into our heads to ask for a specialty you can get at Prost: the "Dunkelweiss," a blend of their Dunkel and Weiss style beers. I could almost see the bartender's brain melt when I asked for it... but we had tasted both the beers separately and liked them, making us wonder about the combo. Even though I assured the bartender that yes, we'd combined these styles before, and yes we liked them, he ultimately just refused to try it. As Marty McFly might say, "I guess you just aren't ready for that yet."

The rest of our afternoon was spent on the Essex Steam Train and Riverboat. The still-operating steam train doesn't really take you to any meaningful destination per se, but you can still take a scenic ride. Once again, this turned out to be an experience that was good even as it was, but would have been better still had we been just a few weeks later for peak fall leaf colors. (It also didn't help that the steady drizzle that we'd left behind from the opening days of the trip had now returned.) Still, we got to sit back, relax, and watch the countryside roll by.

After an hour on the train, we transferred to a riverboat that brought us back -- another vantage point on the lovely scenery. We sailed by Gillette Castle, an elaborate early-20th century home built by actor William Gillette, who made a fortune playing Sherlock Holmes and funneled it into this eccentric home. We saw interesting birds, and enjoyed a cocktail on the hour-and-a-half return trip.

From there, we dropped things off at the hotel near the Rhode Island state line where we'd stay the night, before heading to a delicious dinner at a restaurant called On the Waterfront. The location of the restaurant was just where the name would suggest, though we were there past dusk and not fully able to appreciate the view. (The food was delicious, though.)

The next day would be our final full day of the trip...

Lower Decks: A Few Badgeys More

Lower Decks has given us episodes that aim right for fan nostalgia of Deep Space Nine and Voyager. But this week, they dip heavily into their own backstory for "A Few Badgeys More."

Three evil AIs from the Cerritos' past have returned to menace the crew. In deep space, Badgey has commandeered a Drookmani ship and is determined to destroy his creator Rutherford. On Earth, Agimus and Peanut Hamper are plotting together to escape from imprisonment -- and Boimler and Tendi are caught up in it all as they try to gather intelligence from Agimus.

All three of the main guest stars this week have given excellent performances in their previous episodes of Lower Decks -- Jeffrey Combs, Jack McBrayer, and Kether Donohue. Getting all three together in one episode is almost overload. It feels like it should be, and yet the episode is written deftly enough to balance all three of the villains. (But then, I think Peanut Hamper is better in small doses anyway.)

Of course, the episode doesn't find room for just those three characters, but for (as the title says) all the versions of Badgey that split off. That's a wild concept, and Jack McBrayer goes above and beyond voicing Goodgey and Logic-y in the episode's most fun storyline. It's great that Rutherford's boundless positivity winds up being a "weapon" of sorts against Badgey. Better still that for once, Star Trek shows us a lifeform that ascends to omnipotent godhood and doesn't turn irredeemably evil.

Reform is also part of the B plot with Boimler, Tendi, and the other two AIs. While Agimus talks a hilarious game in which even everyday activities merit maniacal laughter, it's nice that he's made a turn for good. I guess that when you spend a lot of time with your light turned blue, it sinks in. It's maybe a little weird how far Boimler and Tendi let Agimus go before "escaping" (even if Boimler thinks Starfleet can undo plantary subjugation in "an hour"), but that's just one of those moments where you have to let Lower Decks be funny first and foremost.

One area where I'm less sure about letting Lower Decks do its thing, though, is the late revelation about what's been going on with the mysterious alien ship all season. We learn that it has been capturing, not destroying, all the aliens it has encountered this season -- which doesn't feel like a twist, but a disingenuous bait-and-switch. We were shown a debris field in this very episode, left by the Bynar ship; it feels like the writers deliberately misled the audience about the ongoing plot, rather than simply nudging us to a wrong conclusion. (I also didn't find much humor in seeing the Bynars in this context. You have to understand the dialogue for a visit to an alien "lower decks" to be funny.)

But I found that a minor quibble amid a mostly delightful episode. Badgey has been one of Lower Decks' most fun and anarchic creations. And I love me some Jeffrey Combs. So I give "A Few Badgeys More" an A-. It was one of my favorite episodes so far this season.

Beam Me Up

Day 6 of the New England trip with my husband was going to be a big day of driving. We were far north in New England, and needed to make it back down south to hit Connecticut and Rhode Island. So we began with a big breakfast. We went to a place near Burlington, called Sneakers. We had to have a meal with Vermont maple syrup before leaving the state, of course. And that's just what I did, with pancakes. And a maple latte. Delicious.

We then headed south and stopped at Woodchuck Cidery. Over the years, my tastes in cider have shifted to less sweet options... but I, like many, first grew to love cider in large part due to the widely available Woodchuck. Their factory is in a huge, welcoming barn. The front is dedicated to a vast tasting room which we, arriving just as the place opened, had all to ourselves for a while. We enjoyed a sampling of Woodchuck, including offerings not distributed outside Vermont.

Then we headed into the back of the building, where you could look down into their large canning and bottling facility. This was rather more like what I'd been expecting of Ben & Jerry's the day before. (They even had a display case full of discontinued and seasonal bottles to serve as their sort-of Flavor Graveyard.) 

Next, we made the one non-New England stop of the trip, swinging about 45 minutes over into New York to head to Ticonderoga. Being so close, I simply had to. The most dialed-in of Star Trek fans will know why, and what is in Ticonderoga. There, in an abandoned grocery store, a Star Trek superfan with access to old blueprints (and a lot of time spent scrubbing episodes of classic Star Trek) has built a full recreation of the original series' sets. (OK, not quite "full." The one significant set yet to come is auxiliary control, but it's on the to-do list.)

Short of inventing a time machine (and squandering it on something trivial like this), this is the closest anyone will ever get to going back to the late 1960s and seeing the actual sets. You can stand on the transporter pad...

walk down the corridors...

peruse the weird items on McCoy's sickbay shelves...

hang out in Kirk's quarters...

stand in Engineering next to the warp core...

...and, of course, sit in the captain's chair on the bridge.

Later Star Trek series are more "my" Star Trek series than the original series. But I enjoy that one too, and found it oddly thrilling even to visit this facsimile of the classic sets.

That feeling had to sustain us for the next several hours as we worked our way back into Vermont and on south across Massachusetts. Ahead of time, we'd looked into a couple of possible short hikes in the Green Mountains, but in the moment, we decided we weren't in the mood for any extra walking that day. But we had a couple more small adventures all the same.

We stopped in Massachusetts at a well-regarded brewery called Brick and Feather. They were pretty good, but it was all we could do to finish the one drink as we heard the poor bartender being harangued by a conspiracy-minded patron monopolizing his time. Then we grabbed dinner at a random restaurant in Springfield. There were really sketchy vibes when we got there, such that we almost turned around and left immediately. Only one other couple was there eating. The place had no liquor license. To reach the bathroom, you had to cross over into an adjoining building, into a vast reception-type area where one guy at a laptop was just sitting there.... cooking the books, for all you knew. The whole place felt like a weird money-laundering front for something. But the food was better than it needed to be for that purpose, at least. Pretty good. Having accused the place of being a possible crime front, though, I don't think I'll recommend it by name.

We continued driving until literally the first exit off the highway past the Connecticut state line, and that's where we stopped for the night. Two more full days left in the trip, and two states left to see.

Good Times, Good Company

 "Vermont day" was a milestone day in the New England trip my husband and I took. It was literally the middle day of the trip, we had a number of big stops planned, and I was going to see a dear friend for the first time in more than a decade.

But it began at Sunset Hill House, the bed and breakfast where we'd stayed the night. We'd talked the night before about how maybe in the morning, we'd sip coffee at one of the tables out front and enjoy the view. But now that morning had come, it felt a touch too cold. That turned out to be fortuitous, because we instead found the reception room at the back of the house, where we could comfortably sit inside, on couches, enjoying this view out the large windows:

Then we hit the road, driving into Vermont to the Rock of Ages Quarry. Vermont is known for its granite, and this quarry has (they say) a supply of thousands of years to take from. Their white granite doesn't end up as anyone's kitchen countertops; their specialty is enormous pieces that have become parts of solemn memorials and stately buildings around the world. On their tour, you go to an overlook on the massive quarry pit itself, where you see all manner of machinery busily at work. Occasionally, a useless piece of slag is dumped over the side wall, where it splashes down in the water hundreds of feet below in an echoing boom that sounds like explosive blasting. It was quite a sight (and sound)! A second leg of the tour would have let us see inside the facilities where they polish up the massive chunks for ultimate use... but we had a schedule to keep that day and unfortunately couldn't linger for more.

Next we drove to Hill Farmstead Brewery, a significant stop for a couple of reasons. First, it has an elite reputation in beer snob circles. Year after year, it places at or near the very top of the list of rated craft breweries. It is often claimed to be, put simply, The Best Brewery in the United States. Occasionally, it's even held up as one of the best in the world. If we were going to put a gold pin on our brewery map for the state of Vermont, it could hardly have come from anywhere else.

The brewery is quite out of the way, a trek to quite literally a farmstead on a hill, at the end of a long dirt road that apparently becomes completely impassible for anything but a truck in the winter months. It made for a beautiful view on this early fall day, though. And the beer? Well, let's be honest: no thing is going to stand up to the billing of being best in the country. But what we had was tasty; not especially experimental, but rock solid.

The company I kept, however? Delightful. Years ago, while working at Decipher, I forged a friendship that would last a lifetime. My dear friend and I literally live in different countries now, and I hadn't seem him in over a decade. But we still text and email each other all the time, sharing all the important developments in our lives. It doesn't feel like it's been a decade. Nevertheless, it was a thrill that my friend drove down from Canada to spend the afternoon with us. It was especially great that my husband at last got to meet my, as he liked to put it, imaginary "Canadian boyfriend." We enjoyed beers at Hill Farmstead... not exactly "catching up," as there was no need for that. Just enjoying that we actually got to spend time together.

As a trio, we headed south into Vermont toward the Ben & Jerry's factory. But we had a little time before our scheduled tour, so we stopped at the nearby Cold Hollow Cider Mill. We'd hoped to get some late lunch there, but unfortunately arrived just as they'd stopped serving anything but cider donuts. Those New England treats, somewhere between a cake donut and a bread, were something I'd heard I had to try on the trip, and so having that chance here was fine. But sweet dessert on top of sweet cider, with ice cream just around the corner? It quickly became too much.

When we did make it to Ben & Jerry's a short while later... I have to admit, I was a bit underwhelmed. I don't know if I was expecting an operation on the scale of say, Coors, whose massive facilities I've toured close to home here in Colorado. But it turns out that Ben & Jerry's ice cream is made in a single room that seemed shockingly small -- and you weren't allowed to take pictures of it. The entire process, through 8 stations, was described to us in a few minutes. Then everyone was led into another room for a free sample. And that was the whole tour. More fun was the "flavor graveyard" on a hilltop outside, where dozens of headstones marked different flavors of ice cream that have been discontinued by the company over the years.

One last stop with my friend joining us: that was at Smugglers' Notch Distillery. This was notable as a place that makes both its own spirits and its own maple syrup. And of course, it uses its own barrels from the former to make variants of the latter. I'd imagined visiting the actual site of all that tasty work, but the location turned out to be more of a retail front for the operation. Still, the bourbon and rye were fine, and the syrup sample good enough for us to get a variety pack to bring home and enjoy in the weeks ahead.

I wish that there had been time for a board game with my friend. But alas, we now parted ways, promising not to let it go another decade-plus before we meet again. Then my husband and I headed on to Burlington, where we had a nice dinner at a place called Leunig's Bistro, followed by one after-dinner drink at a bar across the street called The Whiskey Room (with a huge selection of whiskey, including scotches that would have cost as much for a single pour as every hotel room we stayed in for the entire trip).

The next day would be our biggest travel day of the vacation... but with interesting highlights nonetheless.

New Hampshire Vistas

We began the fourth day of our New England trip with a stop at the Portland Head Light before driving west out of Maine. The lighthouse, built in 1791, has been carefully preserved -- along with other bits of history from the interim. (One of the odder details was an old-timey set of pay-to-use binoculars, complete with instructions on just what this fancy gadget could do and how you operated it.) While you can only go inside the lighthouse itself on rare, special days (and this was not one of those), we still got a beautiful view of the coastline at Cape Elizabeth.

From there, we drove into New Hampshire and visited Diana's Baths. The series of small waterfalls is nestled back in the woods, a short half-mile hike in. It was also near the Cathedral Ledge Distillery, a spirits maker in a spacious, newly built barn, where we stopped for a few samples. The surprising hit was their horseradish vodka, which we sort of tried "on a dare." Milder than we expected, we were told that people liked it for making Bloody Maries (which neither my husband nor I drink... but we could see it). I also tried their version of aquavit, a spirit I must confess I'd never heard of until recently (in the board game Distilled). At some point, I suppose I'll have to try the genuine, Scandinavian article.

For the next hour-plus, we drove along the Kancamagus Highway, a 30-mile-plus stretch between Conway and Lincoln that's The Spot for watching the leaves turn in the fall. It turned out that unfortunately, we were a couple of weeks too early to get the whole show. But even with only a few splashes of yellow and orange, the drive was truly one of the most beautiful areas of our entire trip. It was easy to see how this scenic byway got its reputation.

We stopped for lunch at the Woodstock Inn Brewery, a combination craft beer maker and bed and breakfast. (We actually even looked into staying there at one point in trip planning, but the two-night minimum didn't fit with our goal to hit all the New England states in the course of the trip.) We'd find out on Facebook that people we know had visited that very inn/brewery, so I guess it's the place to go when you visit New Hampshire. I imagine its proximity to Kancamagus Highway doesn't hurt.

We spent the rest of our afternoon hiking at Flume Gorge, a particular spot in Franconia Notch State Park where a deep natural gorge has been cut into a forested, fairy-like nook. The 2-mile round trip hike to see it takes you by a covered bridge, to some scenic views of the White Mountains, and by other lovely sites.

And while we'd pass on staying at the Woodstock Inn Brewery, we did decide we wanted to try one bed and breakfast along our journey, and found it that evening at the Sunset Hill House. If we were golfers, we might have looked into the 9-hole course out front. Had we not been looking to head back out for dinner, we might have appreciated the stunning view out back. (Though we saw it the next morning before we left; I'll come back to that in the next trip post.)

Dinner was the Little Grille, a rather unassuming bar and grill in the area. Maple syrup is a Vermont thing, but New Hampshire was close enough to get in on the action, and the Little Grille was happy to serve me a delicious, sticky burger with maple-glazed bacon and maple aioli. They also offered fresh-made caipirinhas, a cocktail my husband had encountered on a past trip to Brazil. So, mixed in one of those, I tried my second spirit of the day I'd never had before, cachaça. A tasty drink, and a nice cap to one a full day.

Next up, Vermont!

Lower Decks: Parth Ferengi's Heart Place

Season four of Star Trek: Lower Decks continues with "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place."

The Cerritos arrives at the Ferengi homeworld, where Captain Freeman sits in with an admiral for a formal meeting with Grand Nagus Rom and First Clerk Leeta... and watches as he's totally blowing it. Tendi and Rutherford must pose as a newlywed couple to research local hospitality. Mariner also visits the planet to blow off steam with an old friend. And Boimler's planet-side plans are disrupted when he becomes addicted to the hotel television.

There's a lot of story packed into this single episode. Hell, I didn't even mention the opening sequence that continues the season-long tease of the "mysterious ship" by taking us to yet another alien culture's "lower decks." Life in the low ranks aboard a Ferengi ship is hilarious, and a fun table-setter for a fun episode. And while I'm starting to get a bit tired of how slowly this overarcing story line is being spooled out, I'm loving all these vignettes aboard different starships -- and actually looking to a few more before the season ends.

It's another good episode for Captain Freeman, achieved by putting "some admiral" in the role often given to her in a story: the hubris-stuffed know-it-all who causes more troubles than they solve. It's classic sitcom stuff, and indeed we have seen it before on Lower Decks several times. Yet I don't mind the repetition here at all, because it's the way we get the return of Rom and Leeta!

I love that this half-hour comedy series gets to pick up on the situation left at the end of Deep Space Nine, showing how Rom and Leeta are slowly transforming Ferengi society. It's still the capitalist fever dream we've always known (and were meant to laugh at; that's why it fits so well here on Lower Decks), but it's now softened enough to be moving to join the Federation. And how they're joining is delightful to watch. I love the con set up by Rom and Leeta... and I can believe that, given a little time to adjust to their powerful new roles, they'd actually be capable of clever manipulations like this. (After all, they once spear-headed a labor strike together.) Most of all, I'm happy that Max Grodénchik and Chase Masterson get to come back one more time to play their characters again.

The rest of the episode isn't as strong, though it does have its moments. Boimler isn't up to much this week, but the conceit of "stuck watching TV" allows for a series of funny one-off gags in the form of the shows he watches. Plus, of course, best of all was the gag about putting commercials directly into the show, staged in front of a twinkling proxy for the Paramount logo.

I'm not as thrilled about the "will they, won't they" of the Tendi-Rutherford relationship; I really just like that they've been 100% in-sync, guileless friends. (Though one of the TV shows Boimler watched had a fun meta-commentary on this.) Still, watching them band together to make it through an uncomfortable situation was nice. And I loved the sight gag of them basically visiting the now-defunct Star Trek Experience that used to be at the Hilton Las Vegas years ago.

I give "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place" a B+. Realizing we're now on the downhill stretch of the season, with fewer episodes ahead than we've already watched, I feel like I'm already starting to miss Lower Decks a bit.

Witch Way to Maine?

Day 3 of our New England trip was when the extended road trip section of the vacation began. We set out north from Boston, stopping for breakfast at a tasty little Brazilian breakfast shop called Bread of Dreams. Then it was on to Salem.

Salem is a recipe made of historical buildings and Renaissance Festival, covered in Hot Topic sauce. There are a few notable locations spread around the town; we started at The Witch House, the last standing structure with direct ties to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. It's where Judge Jonathan Corwin, one of the key forces in the events, lived with his family. Touring the house offers not so much a taste of the Witch Trials specifically, but of what life in the late 17th century was like generally.

The main streets of Salem, though, have been taken over by bespoke black magic shops, all mostly selling their own grab bag of candles, incense, spell books, and dark clothing. This part wasn't exactly our scene (particularly since walking around meant walking in the rain that had stalked us since Boston the day before). But we needed to kill a little time. We had tickets to a performance by a group called Cry Innocent, who several times daily in the fall stages a witch trial reenactment.

A small troupe of four actors played multiple characters in a presentation based on the real trial of Bridget Bishop, staging the pre-trial inquiry into whether an arrested woman would be prosecuted for witchcraft. The audience served as votes whether or not to prosecute, and were invited to ask questions (and take pictures) of the different figures as they presented their evidence. It was an interesting hour of guided-tour-meets-theater, and a nice pairing with our earlier Witch House tour. Our audience voted to acquit by a razor-thin margin of votes, if you're curious. (My husband and I both had voted guilty to play along; we were there to see a witch trial, after all.)

From there, we continued north into the tiny little spur of New Hampshire that divides the Massachusetts coast from the Maine coast. There we stopped at Smuttynose Brewing Company, named for a local island. They had a nice selection of mostly fruited beers that weren't overpoweringly sour. They also had a nice setting overall, including a beer garden adorned with a statue of their mascot (which we might have sat in, were it not for the continuing rain).

Heading further north, we passed into Maine. An emerging theme of the trip emerged, as we noticed just how many old cemeteries we were passing -- and would continue to see everywhere, all throughout New England. I never made a serious effort to count, but would have lost track anyway before we even reached our next stop, Marginal Way. A scenic walk along the Maine coast, we stopped for a bit to take in the view. We'd finally traveled beyond the reach of the rain, which made for a lovely setting.

Finally, we drove onto Portland, where we stopping for the night. We hit up a Maine brewery, Liquid Riot (a cool setting, but rather forgettable beer) before a dinner at Gilbert's Chowder House. You can imagine what we ate there. And their seafood chowder (in a bread bowl) was as tasty as you'd hope from a place that dared to advertise their chowder in their name.

A little footnote on the evening; before going to sleep, I made sure to read a chapter of the book I was reading at the time. It seemed appropriate, while in Maine, to be sure to read a little Stephen King. The fact that I was reading The Long Walk, about being forced to essentially walk yourself to death, may have been a little too close to the mark for all the sightseeing we'd been doing... but I'll circle back to "book review" at some later date.

We'd gotten a little taste of New Hampshire that day, but the next day would be all about that state....

On a Scale of One to Tano?

Earlier this week, the newest Star Wars television series, Ahsoka, wrapped up its first season. (Only season? A renewal has yet to be announced.) I went on a bit of a roller coaster ride with how I felt about the show, but now that "the ride has come to a complete stop," I want to weigh in with my thoughts before the zeitgeist collectively moves on (which I expect it will quickly).

As many people observed, Star Wars: Ahsoka played out very much like a season five of Star Wars: Rebels. Usually, this observation was made to point out how Ahsoka was picking up the story threads of the animated series, or to speculate whether someone could even enjoy the new show without having watched the earlier one. But I think that specifically overlooks how important characters were on Rebels, and how that in turn was the foundation of what was best about Ahsoka.

In my review of Star Wars: Rebels, I noted how it took me a while to warm up to the show -- largely because of the focus on the brash character of Ezra Bridger. I didn't expound upon that to say that I grew to enjoy the show in large part because the characters themselves grew. Ezra did not remain the boy he started as, nor did any of the characters on Rebels. They changed, developing ever-stronger and more interesting relationships with each other, and by extension, with the audience.

There are moments in Ahsoka that really pick up that baton and carry it forward. Mostly, they come in the middle of the season. Ahsoka becomes more interesting after a key mid-season episode, and subsequently has more interesting interactions with other characters. Sabine begins the back half of her own personal hero's journey. Interaction and banter become more entertaining across the board, particularly with Huyang, and (spoilers here), once he returns, Ezra Bridger.

So those parts that work well, I think work really well. I also love the focus on female characters overall; there's one episode here (the fourth, I think?) that has even less screen time for men than the original Star Wars had for women. And I feel a lot of goodwill about the casting -- seeing Rosario Dawson in the title role, hearing David Tennant as a put-upon droid, or watching Ray Stevenson bringing maximum gravitas as Baylan Skoll. I'd say I'm positive on the series overall.

But man, I feel like there's also a lot to be negative about here. A lot of people noted how much The Force Awakens was a repackaging of the original Star Wars. But I don't think anyone appreciated how many new elements there actually were in that movie until this season of Ahsoka repackaged all of those plot points. Both stories turn on a mysterious map that somehow leads to the location of a powerful missing figure... and (another spoiler) both stories end just when that figure returns and is about to do something interesting.

Actually, let me just drop another spoiler warning on this whole paragraph -- because I need to say more about Thrawn. Of all the elements of Ahsoka that required having seen Star Wars: Rebels for full context, his character was the biggest. The threat he posed in Ahsoka was all talk; we never saw him do anything especially clever. We got no depiction at all of why he inspired so much loyalty, why his forces stuck with him in exile after all those years, why the witches obeyed him, or why specifically anyone believed he'd single-handedly be able to restore the Empire. And while actor Lars Mikkelsen's voice is as perfect for the character as it ever was, he really just failed to look the part for me here in live action. Almost every other Rebels character was recast for Ahsoka; I think maybe Thrawn should have been too.

I also feel like the parts of Ahsoka that showed the most imagination and originality were the least developed. (Key exhibit: what was Baylan Skoll even all about? And will we ever find out now, after the unfortunate passing of Ray Stevenson?) Meanwhile, so much of what we did see showed such a lack of imagination -- particularly the final episode which (spoilers) decided zombies would be cool, and gave a witch a sword because sword fighting is kind of all we do here, I guess.

I sort of wish I'd been blogging about Ahsoka on a week-to-week basis, because there were some episodes in the middle there that I found quite enjoyable. But the season got started rough, and it really failed to stick the landing for me. So overall, I'm going to give it a B-.

Maybe it's just that all live-action Star Wars TV falls short of Andor...

Walking Around Boston

My husband and I spent day two of our New England vacation in Boston. It began with a great breakfast at a place called Cafe 26, and then we set out to walk the Freedom Trail. It's a sequence of more than a dozen historically significant sites spread out over around two-and-a-half miles, all strung together by a thin line of red bricks to lead you from one site to the next. You start out from Boston Common park, then just keep walking.

Some of the sites are truly inspiring sights. The Old South Meeting House presents as an unassuming old church at first, but it's where Boston colonists gathered on December 16, 1773 ahead of the Boston Tea Party... and when you try to imagine five thousand people crammed into the space, the mind reels. Other sites present history only in the mind's eye, such as the marker noting the location of the Boston Massacre.

You pass through several cemeteries where many noted figures are buried; Paul Revere is the most popular, and his original, modest headstone is preserved right alongside a later, more conspicuous monument. In sharp contrast to this preserved history, there's another old building -- the Old Corner Bookstore -- whose original structure is still there, but which today is home to a Chipotle.

We had cool but nice weather until we reached my favorite stop on the trail, the USS Constitution. Also known as "Old Ironsides," the ship is the oldest commissioned naval warship still afloat. You can go aboard and see for yourself what it might have been like to go to war at sea at the end of the 1700s. Befitting the moment, that's when the rain opened up (and drizzled basically nonstop until we left Massachusetts the following day).

I was told I had to have a lobster roll at some point on the trip, and that's exactly what I did at Pauli's. The place proudly trumpeted how Guy Fieri ate there and endorsed it, if that means anything to you; it doesn't really matter much to me, but it was a tasty lunch.

Then we headed over the MIT Museum. It's a strange fusion of modern art museum, children's museum (but for adults), and factory floor (for strange inventions). There we saw a wide range of scientific oddities. In some cases, you could easily imagine that you were glimpsing the future, such as when you looked upon an impossibly tiny new kind of solar energy collector. Other displays presented passion projects of varying degrees of scope that nevertheless suggested future applications -- like a low-viscosity compound that slides easily across surfaces without sticking, or a semen created using only female-contributed DNA.

Still other displays seemed like pure pop art, though many were still fun to experience. I was amused by the "Arachnodrone," a musical instrument that's really just an empty cube of space. You stand inside the area to trigger sounds by breaking "web strands" of light with your movements, like a giant theremin you play from the inside or something. I also enjoyed the wild clockwork machines of Arthur Ganson, elaborate contraptions built only to do some odd, repeated task like keep a severed doll's head looking in the direction of a tiny, orbiting ball.

We capped our day with a beer at Trillium before dinner at Fox and the Knife. Trillium is a well-regarded brewery in beer enthusiast circles; in the way of many such breweries, their focus seems to be on more "pure" beer styles and doing them well. Fox and the Knife was a fancy Italian restaurant; maybe we could have had seafood the whole time we were in New England (and maybe we should have), but we went for something different on this occasion.

The next day marked the beginning of our steady circuit from state to state... which I'll pick up in my next trip blog.

Lower Decks: Empathological Fallacies

One new episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks was released while I was on vacation. Before I fall behind with the release of another, let me catch up with my thoughts on "Empathological Fallacies."

When the Cerritos hosts three Betazoid ambassadors, things quickly get out of hand as the crew begins indulging out-of-control emotions. Signs point to the Betazoid visitors -- who are indeed harboring a secret. Meanwhile, T'Lyn is frustrated in her efforts to contact her Vulcan superiors about being reinstated. And Boimler gets to spend time with the security team... only to find it nothing like what he'd hoped.

This episode feels like a bit of a commentary on how Star Trek actually re-uses its plots, particularly from one franchise to the next. The main plot turns on the belief that these Betazoid ambassadors have the same condition Lwaxana Troi psychically unleashed on Deep Space Nine in the (not very good) "Fascination." Spoiler alert, it turns out to actually be the condition Sarek psychically unleashed on The Next Generation instead (in a much better episode).

But the best Lower Decks episodes don't just bring the funny, they actually find a way to squeeze in some commentary in the way a live-action Star Trek episode usually does. And I'm not quite sure what this "you ever notice how many emotional outburst episodes there are?" observation is really getting at, if anything. For a little deeper meaning, you have to look to the otherwise slim Boimler subplot, where Shaxs is reminding Boimler (and us) that mental health is connected to physical health.

Ultimately, though, I don't think a Lower Decks episode has to be "deep" to be good. The question is, are there laughs here? Sure. This isn't top-shelf Lower Decks, but there are funny recurring gags about Dr. T'Ana and her feline hunting nature, good sight gags in the games off-duty security officers play, and a fun subversion of the Lwaxana Troi character archetype into (another spoiler here) badass spies.

Plus, Captain Freeman actually gets to solve a problem this episode rather than be the cause of one -- a nice change-up for her character. And T'Lyn is integrated even more fully into the mix.

Overall, I'd give "Empathological Fallacies" a B. It wasn't a favorite, but it was a better "psychically-caused emotional outbursts" episode than some.