Yes We (Vati)Can

This weekend, I went to see the newest movie starring Ralph Fiennes, Conclave. The movie centers on the election of a new pope, as one cardinal must oversee the proceedings while balancing ritual, propriety, and his own wishes.

The studio marketing team knew what they were doing when they made sure this film was in theaters ahead of the United States presidential election. This is a political thriller, through and through. It mines all the tension you'd expect from backroom conversations, shrewd manipulations, and words wielded as weapons. And while it's not like there are tons of political thrillers out there, there are still enough for me to really appreciate how this movie refreshes the genre with its different setting. Putting these familiar machinations inside the Catholic church simultaneously makes them feel novel and different -- and subtly makes the point that it is ever thus.

There's a great cast here, headlined by Ralph Fiennes as I said, but also including Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini. These are all performers who don't have to raise their voice to convey an intensity of emotion, and all of them heighten the tension of the story by how constrained they all behave. Rossellini in particular is a valuable addition here; in a movie that inherently will come nowhere close to passing the Bechdel test, you need to be certain you've cast a powerhouse performer in the one significant female role. The film gets that with her.

Of course, thrillers (political or otherwise) often rely on twists, and so you go in expecting Conclave to have its share. One of them, the question of who ultimately will win the election and become pope, is pretty loudly telegraphed from far out. (At least, it felt that way to me. I think any audience familiar with how these sorts of plots tend to work will sniff it out.) Despite knowing that element of the ending, I didn't feel less enjoyment from the events along the way.

But Conclave has one more twist up its sleeve, and I'm much more conflicted about it. The movie does "earn" the twist; it is very much in keeping with the values espoused throughout the story, most centrally by Fiennes' main character. But it also feels so far-fetched, in terms of what could plausibly happen in a setting that has otherwise been hyper-realistic. I suppose the story is embracing an element of fantasy here, even wish fulfillment. This isn't a documentary, and never pretended to be... so if it gets a bit fanciful at the end? Maybe that's ok if it's in service of a good message as it is here.

I would give Conclave a B. I'd heard some small buzz that it might be in the mix for the next Academy Awards. I feel like it won't be terribly competitive if it is... and yet it's a far more active and approachable film than a lot of Oscar fare. I enjoyed it overall; perhaps you might too.

Lower Decks: Shades of Green

The final season of Star Trek: Lower Decks kicked off with two episodes, the second of which is called "Shades of Green."

When the Cerritos visits a planet with a society converting to post-scarcity, away teams are sent to help the inhabitants tear down the vestiges of capitalism. Boimler is behaving differently, believing it might be the key to jump start his career. On the ship, Rutherford is less chipper than normal without Tendi around. Meanwhile, on the Orion homeworld, Tendi's family is drawn into a struggle for its continued existence... as Tendi learns that her sister is pregnant.

With the season five premiere so masterfully balancing comedy and introspection, a half-dozen character story lines, and a bucket of obscure Star Trek jokes... it was kind of inevitable that the next episode might not reach the same heights. "Shades of Green" is still a good episode with all the same elements that make for the best Lower Decks installments; it just isn't as deft in balancing it all in a perfect "meal."

A lot of the best comedy here is pretty subtle. Star Trek has always been set in a "post-scarcity" society, where everyone's needs are satisfied by a replicator or socialist ideals. How a society gets there has always understandably been waved away. By focusing on this moment of changing over for some random alien planet, Lower Decks gets to present a lot of jokes (mostly sight gags) about the end of capitalism.

It's against this background that we get a subtle story about Boimler learning he has to be true to himself (and not to the thing he perceives as a "how to succeed" manual that he stole from his doppelganger in the previous episode). Still less subtle is a nice subplot about Rutherford, wallowing in his feelings about losing his best friend. To be clear, his "wallowing" looks like many other people's best day, in terms of keeping a positive attitude. Which makes it all the more remarkable (fascinating?) that T'Lyn is able to pick up on this and react appropriately. Vulcans don't tend to be emotionally intelligent (and I've been watching a lot of Enterprise lately, where they're portrayed as especially dim in this regard), so it's refreshing to see a Vulcan character who gets it.

Meanwhile, Tendi spends the episode inside a 1980s sitcom. That's what the "D'Erika doesn't know that D'Vana knows that she's pregnant" plot feels like. You know that sitcom way in which one question would puncture the whole premise, but no one asks it? That way that someone behaves so outrageously that everyone around them ought to notice, but no one says anything? It's not only the stuff of 80s sitcoms, but cartoons, of course. So it doesn't feel too out of place here, even though it isn't my favorite element of the episode.

Still, this subplot does contribute other things I like. Star Trek has done "solar sailing ships" before and "stellar racing" before; the way both are incorporated here sort of feels like a chocolate and peanut butter thing that "just tastes great together." And I love that the writers aren't going to stretch the taffy any longer about Tendi being separated from the Cerritos. We got a few episodes out of it, and now we're going to put the crew all back together for the too-few episodes of the series we have left.

I give "Shades of Green" a B. It wasn't a favorite of mine, but it did at least set the stage for the rest of the season.

Time Slipping Away

I am sure you have too many shows in your television diet to make room for a recent single-season show that was canceled on a cliffhanger. And yet, I feel compelled to say a few words in praise of Time Bandits.

Streaming on Apple TV+, Time Bandits is a series re-imagination of early 80s film written by Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin. It's about a young British kid who falls in with a band of utterly inept thieves who bounce around time looking to steal valuable loot. They brush up against historical figures while trying to avoid the agents of the Supreme Being and Pure Evil, both of whom want the magical map they use to move through time portals.

It's been a long while since I've seen the original movie. I imagine it will be heretical to many for me to say this, but I don't remember it being particularly good. And more heretical still to say that my comic sensibilities don't really overlap much with Monty Python. But they do tend to overlap with the sensibilities of Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, creators of What We Do in the Shadows and Wellington Paranormal. Here, they've teamed with Iain Morris to put their own spin on the Time Bandits premise. And if you like either of those other two shows, I feel confident you will enjoy Time Bandits.

But perhaps the real secret sauce of this TV series is its main star, Lisa Kudrow. She plays Penelope, the leader ("but really, we have no leaders") of the bandits -- and her comic skills and timing make everything about this show measurably funnier. Friends fans: imagine a character as flighty and scattered as Phoebe, but give her a massive ego and exaggerated self-confidence. That's Penelope. And she's hilarious. (Really, the whole cast is solid. But Lisa Kudrow is next level.)

Over the course of 10 episodes, you quickly come to understand how Time Bandits was canceled. It looks like a preposterously expensive show to make. There's constant jumping into new time frames, requiring new sets, guest actors, and costumes. And this isn't Doctor Who style time travel, where most things can look like someplace within a short drive of London. The Time Bandits visit the Prohibition-era United States, the African desert, the Mayan Empire, and the Ice Age, among other stops. Time Bandits surely would have needed an off-the-charts viewership to justify these costs. And given that Apple TV+ has already announced the cancellation of the show after one season, it's clear they didn't get that.

I'll be direct: the show ends on a cliffhanger (that will now never be resolved). But personally, I find it light enough to not be too upset by that. After 10 episodes of watching these characters bumble their way out of any crisis they bumble into, I really don't need to know the particulars of how they get out of this last one. I think I can just appreciate that I got 10 half-hour episodes that made me laugh. Maybe they want to make me try the original movie again some time, even. (But What We Do in the Shadows made for a far better TV series than a movie; why can't it be the same for Time Bandits?)

I give Time Bandits a B+. It may not stand the test of time, I suppose (ha!), but I think many people reading this would find it fun.

Prodigy: Ascension, Part II

I last left Star Trek: Prodigy right in the middle of a two-part episode. So even though Lower Decks premiered with two episodes this week, I feel compelled to circle back and pick up "Ascension, Part II."

The showdown against Acensia's massive warship continues. Voyager is critically damaged -- but the Protostar is still in action, as is a fighter squadron with Dal and Ma'jel. To save everyone, one of our heroes must make a major sacrifice.

I had been hoping for some answers in the second part of this episode: where did Acensia get all these wonderful toys, and how did she capture Wesley Crusher? Nope. This episode is really just the second half of a more traditional one-hour episode of Star Trek. Though it is an especially cinematic one, with loads of big space combat action.

But the action is more tailored to the characters in this second part, which I found to be an improvement over part one. The fighter squadron subplot allows room for two big character moments. Dal gets to show his doubtful fellow pilots that his more instinctual brand of wild flying has its merits. And Ma'jel actually adopts those methods, in a moment where she finds the limits of pure Vulcan-style logic and is able to think outside the box.

Everything builds to a big hero moment for Zero. On the one hand, Zero has made sacrifices a few times already this season, arguably undermining the impact of this moment now. But on the other, everything leading up to this has demanded less of Zero than now. This is the moment where they actually must choose to sacrifice their corporeal body to save everyone. Intellectually, it feels like an easy choice -- and Zero being such an intellectual character, of course that's the choice they're going to make. Still, Zero is giving up a lot, and I think the show makes the emotional weight of this clear.

The battle may be over, but there are still a few episodes left -- and Acensia is not yet defeated. So I'll give "Ascension, Part II" a B-, and continue the march to the end of the season.

Night of 1,000 Laughs?

Saturday Night Live has been running 49 years. It's been the subject of countless retrospectives and documentaries, and has spun off dozens of feature films. But now there's a feature film about it --  specifically, the 90 minutes leading up to the very first episode in 1975. Recorded, on my blog, it's Saturday Night!

I don't know exactly what I was hoping for out of this movie, but in retrospect, I was certainly kidding myself if I expected it to be anything other than the frenetic sprint it was. That isn't inherently a bad thing. If you recall Aaron Sorkin's single-season television show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, this feels like the vibe he was trying to capture: all of the pressure cooker action of the West Wing, in an environment of entirely different stakes. Loads of rapid-fire dialogue, punctuated by purposefully lowbrow moments of physical comedy. If you like this style of entertainment, Saturday Night is very faithfully working within the style.

But don't hope to scratch beneath the surface of anything here. Outside of the central figure of Lorne Michaels (and to a lesser extent, writer Rosie Shuster -- also Michaels' wife), each person gets perhaps 5 minutes of total screen time sprinkled throughout the movie. That's because between all the actors, producers, writers, executives, and guest stars, there are simply too many characters in this story to service with any meaningful personal arc. The story can only be "the chaos." 

To heighten that story, the movie condenses everything. Much of what is presented is based on real events (though some of it is only loosely inspired by them). Yet events that actually unfolded over months or even years are all crushed into the 90 minutes before the original Saturday Night Live premiere. I don't say this to claim that this movie should have been more realistic, but rather to say that you will know it isn't. No, it's not meant to be a documentary -- but it sometimes feels like it's going so far over the top that it's gilding the lily.

Still, the sprawling cast made me enjoy it most of the way. There are lots of fun renditions of celebrities we know well -- not quite impersonations, but performances that do feel like they capture the essence of the person: Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Dylan O'Brien as Dan Aykroyd, Matthew Rhys as George Carlin, and J. K. Simmons as Milton Berle. Other performers are making the most of their precious moments on screen, like Rachel Sennott as Rosie Shuster, Willem Dafoe as David Tebet, Jon Batiste as Billy Preston, and Nicholas Braun as both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson. And Gabriel LaBelle is a good "ringmaster" of it all as Lorne Michaels.

But ultimately, Saturday Night feels like it's going to be much like a typical episode of Saturday Night Live, not one of the landmark episodes like the premiere it dramatized. You might enjoy it while you're watching, and have a few laughs. But it isn't likely to have any staying power, or to be thought of much in the future. I give it a B-.

Lower Decks: Dos Cerritos

Star Trek: Lower Decks is back for its (inexplicably) final season. And even though many fans are still enjoying the 20 episodes of Star Trek: Prodigy that were dropped by Netflix all at once, we get a double dose of Lower Decks to kick things off. First up is "Dos Cerritos."

The Cerritos passes through a spatial anomaly into an alternate universe, where crewmembers interact with versions of themselves whose different choices make them question their own. Mariner faces a version of herself who captains the ship. Boimler sees a version of himself whose achievements seem to be keeping up with his ambitions. Rutherford meets a version of himself who has more deeply embraced mechnical implants. And T'Lyn meets an alternate who says "remarkable" instead of "fascinating!" Meanwhile, Tendi tries to honor her pledge to Orion piracy without compromising her core Starfleet ideals.

It is remarkable/fascinating to me how well Lower Decks continues to concoct its episodes. They almost always manage to tell a "Star Trek" story (complete with moral) and keep jokes flowing at a fire hose pace. This time, the characters have to reckon with "the road not taken," using the tried-and-true Star Trek gimmick of an alternate universe. (And thank goodness, not the Mirror Universe again.)

While everything is presented in a light and humorous framework, there are legitimate crises of identity being expressed here. Rutherford is going through emotional pain and gets to learn whether taking it away really would be better. Boimler deals with a near-universal question about wondering whether he has achieved enough with his time in this universe. Mariner is at a crossroads where she fears slipping back into bad habits, wanting to make different choices this time. And Captain "Becky Freeman" has decided the grass is greener on the other side of the rift. (Even in the "B plot," Tendi is trying to stay true to herself in unusual circumstances.) That all of this fits comfortably in 24 minutes is impressive. That it's funny at the same time is miraculous.

While some alternate (prime?) universe doppelgangers have big, clear differences from our heroes, I enjoy the fun in the more subtle changes -- Ransom's mullet, Boimler's beard (but not a goatee; that would mean he's evil), the slightly darker uniforms, and so on. And speaking of differences, that battle sequence in the opening credits keeps getting freighted with more and and more action; this season, perhaps knowing it was to be the last, they dumped out the toy box and added V'Ger, Tholians, and Apollo.

The Tendi subplot was an equally skillful balance of character and comedy. I appreciate that her sister D'Erika is not simply an unreasonable baddie poised to hold Tendi hostage (and separated from the other main characters) for half the season. D'Erika and D'Vana are sisters, and Lower Decks really is committed to showing that this can be a complicated relationship. Also, it's committed to the deepest of deep cut jokes, bringing back the blue-skinned "Or-ee-ONS" of the original Star Trek: Animated Series to exist alongside the more familiar (to everyone except, apparently, the makers of the original Animated Series) green-skinned Orions.

Lower Decks shows absolutely no signs of running out of steam. And as an animated show, it could run for years and years, longer than any other Star Trek series. It is frustrating to know that behind-the-scenes issues about streaming services, corporate buyouts, and tax loopholes are likely the real reason why the show is ending this season. Still, I'll enjoy what's left while I have it. I give "Dos Cerritos" an A-.

Enterprise Flashback: Silent Enemy

By halfway through the first season of Enterprise, each of the seven main characters had had at least one episode centered on them... except one: Malcolm Reed. Then, with "Silent Enemy," the writers made the unusual decision to create an episode all about how nobody actually knows anything about Malcolm Reed.

When Enterprise encounters a mysteries species that turns out to be hostile, Archer faces a return back home for a weapons upgrade before continuing the mission of exploration. But in quieter moments between alien encounters, Hoshi Sato is at work on a special assignment from the captain. Malcolm Reed's birthday is approaching, and Archer wants to acknowledge him by having chef prepare his favorite food... if only they knew what that was.

There's no getting around it: this episode is pretty terrible for all the characters. The writers are hanging a lantern on the fact that they haven't bothered to flesh out one of their characters, and it feels like an elaborate punking of actor Dominic Keating. This is finally "his episode," you'd think, but he's actually not in it much. This is the moment we'll learn about Reed, but by the end we only know that he's secretive and reclusive, has allergies, and likes pineapple.

All the other information we pick up in the episode is about other people in Reed's past. He comes from a family of Navy men. (What would the Navy even be like in the future of a unified Earth? What would be the point?) He has a sister and two living parents, and a former Starfleet Academy roommate, all of whom profess not to know anything about him.

We get quite a bit of other characters in this episode, but none of them come off looking especially good either. Phlox basically violates doctor/patient confidentiality to help Hoshi. Trip had a girlfriend, we learn, but the long distance relationship didn't work out. T'Pol once again gives great advice that no one wants to listen to -- if you want to know about Malcolm Reed, ask him. Hoshi is so awkward in her sleuthing that she's mistaken by Reed for having a romantic interest.

Not that that last one is really Hoshi's fault, because Archer set her on this "mission." His behavior in this episode is most chaotic of all. At a time when Hoshi is trying to configure communications relays so that everyone can talk to loved ones back home, Archer has her drop everything to plan a surprise birthday party for Reed. (Even if this is a priority, literally anyone else would be less crucial right now to task with that.) When Enterprise comes up against a superior enemy, Archer refuses the  suggestion to ask the Vulcans for help, for no discernible reason other than straight-up racism.

And yet, as bad as this episode feels for all the characters, it feels equally and oppositely good in its "A plot" centered on the mysterious aliens. These unnamed adversaries are one of the creepier things Enterprise has done to this point, and their behavior feels genuinely alien and unknowable. What makes them escalate from observation to aggression? What was their shrill, static-filled transmission -- a threat or an unanswered greeting? (Or something else?)

When the aliens ultimately board Enterprise, we get a long, suspenseful sequence with dark lighting, well composed music, and very little dialogue. The aliens are CG, allowing a look that's a step or two distant from "human actor in makeup." Their attack leaves people comatose, arguably even scarier than if the victims had been killed outright. When they return yet again near the end of the episode, it's with a taunt stitched together of Archer's own words, like a ransom note cut from magazines. In short, I'm really into everything about these aliens. (Even if their ship, being green, kind of reads like "Romulan" early on.)

Other observation:

• Archer at one point refers to "Mount McKinley." In the time since the episode was made, the mountain's name has reverted to what it was always known as by the indigenous population: Denali.

I really feel like they did Reed (and everyone else) dirty in this episode. But they also managed to present a truly alien race, and build genuine tension and suspense. (And if I recall correctly, these aliens never recur, so this menace is never later undermined.) In all, I'll give "Silent Enemy" a B-.

Prodigy: Ascension, Part I

Star Trek: Prodigy headed into the final act of its season two story with another two-part episode. First up, "Ascension, Part I."

Reunions have come at last -- Janeway and Chakotay, Voyager and the Protostar. But it's not all happy. The ships have been ordered back to Starfleet Command for a sure-to-be-contentious debriefing. The timeline is still damaged. And now, Asencia has somehow taken control over her planet using advanced technology, and threatens our heroes with a massive warship.

If you rewind back to the very beginning of the season, Asencia was the main villain of the story, wresting control of the planet Solum before Gwyn could persuade them to follow a more peaceful path. I thought all of that played well. But now, escalating her into a menace that threatens all of Starfleet (and really, all of reality)? I just can't traverse the distance between A and B.

Part of it is that Asencia's vendetta with Starfleet doesn't make a lot of sense to me. There has been some track laid here going back to season one, stemming from the Diviner's hatred of Starfleet and blaming them for... something. But Asencia's anger feels greater and more particular, without (that I recall) us ever getting a real explanation why. If she hates Starfleet this much, could she even stay undercover with them for long without giving herself away? Did Starfleet values not rub off on her in any way? This might all be stuff beyond the scope of a half-hour kids' show to explain, but the absence of it just leaves Asencia a generic mustache-twirling villain.

How exactly she wields so much power is inexplicable too. By the end of the episode, you get a hint of how this might be -- she has captured Wesley Crusher, and perhaps she has extracted some sort of advanced temporal knowledge from him. Though there's a bit of a paradox implied here too. How did she get advanced technology that would allow her to capture Wesley in the first place to then extract advanced technology? Perhaps future episodes will address this (this is, after all, part one of two)... but leaving this unanswered for so long, combined with her already generic villainy, really just feels like it's asking a lot of the audience. Asencia's just the Big Bad now. Go with it.

I suppose at least Asencia does twirl good mustache. Jameela Jamil certainly leans into the vocal performance, relishing all the eeeeevill dialogue and claiming a worthy star in the constellation of Big Bads with powerful ships. (Chang from Star Trek VI looms large; Shinzon from Nemesis is a far dimmer star easily outshone here.) And certainly, Prodigy takes full advantage of its format, serving up nearly 20 solid minutes of action featuring two starships, a squadron of fighters, and all the wild maneuvering you could ever ask for.

But I found it all kind of aimless, and I'm really hoping for more out of part two. I give "Ascension, Part I" a C+.

From Summer to Fall

Now that we're in the final months of 2024, lots of movies I missed in the theater earlier in the year are starting to pop up on various streaming services. I remember during the brief theatrical run of The Fall Guy, the popular consensus seemed to be: "Why is no one going to see this? It's fun and good." But like most people, apparently, I did miss it at the time. Now that I've caught up, I can agree: it's fun and good.

Loosely based on the 1980s TV show of the same name, The Fall Guy follows stuntman Colt Seavers on a wild adventure in Australia. His ex is directing her first major movie, but her star has quietly vanished without a trace. Colt is brought in by the producer to track him down and bring him back to set before the multi-million dollar shoot is derailed.

...not that the plot matters all that much. This movie "understands the assignment," and it is two-fold. One, because the movie's main character is a stunt performer, the movie needs to have some incredible stunts. Two, because The Fall Guy aims to be a "four quadrant movie," the bickering romance between the two leads has to generate sparks. Everything else is incidental.

To the second point first, by casting Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt as the leads, the movie skillfully checks the box. Both actors have plenty of action movies under their belts, and both have played romances on film as well. Asking them to bring both to one movie is straightforward enough. Of course, Hollywood has given us countless rom-coms where two individually appealing actors have zero chemistry with each other... but fortunately, this is not one of them. This movie calls for the two to bicker with one another more than canoodle, but the relationship feels real all the same.

That's critical, because very little about the rest of the movie is meant to feel real. Ultimately, The Fall Guy is a patchwork quilt of wild stunts, but it works because each stunt works. You get car chases, fire gags, motorcycle gags, an extended sequence with a helicopter, fist fights, and everything in between.

It may be that The Fall Guy is just as much a "big dumb action movie" as other action movies I've accused of being too dumb. Maybe I just enjoyed the way that insider humor about movie-making is used as a glue to join all the disparate set pieces together. For whatever reason, I found it to be a fun, breezy watch that fully met its modest goals. (If millions of dollars of high-powered stunts can be called "modest.")

I give The Fall Guy a B+. I'll admit, it's a real cotton candy of a B+, that will evaporate from my brain and probably be completely forgotten at some point. But it's delicious while you're consuming it.

Enterprise Flashback: Cold Front

In late 1990s television, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was one of the few shows blazing a trail for numerous ongoing storylines and plenty of multi-episode arcs. Meanwhile, The X-Files was charting a different course: sprinkling in the occasional "mythology" episode amidst a run of stand-alones. The latter model is what Star Trek: Enterprise adopted for its "Temporal Cold War" story. And its first revisit of this after the pilot episode was a mid-season installment, "Cold Front."

Suliban Cabal leader Silik goes undercover aboard the Enterprise, with an apparent mission to... prevent the ship's destruction? Still, he must be up to no good, asserts a strange new ally named Daniels, who claims to be from the future, fighting for the opposing faction in an elaborate temporal cold war. Archer must decide whether anyone can be trusted.

I feel like The X-Files wasn't just a model for Enterprise in a more sparing use of its overarcing storyline; The X-Files also feels like an inspiration for the notion that "none of this needs to be planned in advance, or make a lick of sense." This is only the second time we're checking in on this Temporal Cold War business, and the storytelling already seems to lack a steady hand at the wheel.

"Cold Front" is peppered with little details that are meant to tease. We see just how much the shadowy "Future Guy" controls the Suliban. We're told that Daniels is from 900 years in the future, and notably only "more or less" human. Daniels claims he's the good guy, yet it's Silik who saves Enterprise from destruction. Daniels gets hit once by weapons fire and basically explodes! We're left at the end of the episode with an ominous locked room, behind the door of which future episodes might spring at any moment.

Yet even with just two data points to pin up on our conspiracy wall -- "Broken Bow" and this -- it's already impossible to consider any of this story without seeming unhinged. Last time, Silik was charged with killing Archer; now his mission is to save his life. How does that make sense? T'Pol points out plot holes in the time travel that aren't actually explained away later. And how do you square any of this with the series' overall ambition to be a compelling prequel? By bringing in future timelines, the series seems to be admitting that being a prequel alone just isn't enough.

But suppose you really do find all this tantalizing, rather than annoying. It's still hard to reckon with the fact that all this material takes up barely half the episode. For some reason, "Cold Front" is also saddled with a story about encountering aliens on a religious pilgrimage to see a solar flare. And this is no minor B plot. Much is made of welcoming these aliens aboard Enterprise and giving them a tour, of Phlox exploring the tenets of their faith, Reed complaining (rightly) about whether they should be allowed into sensitive areas of the ship, Trip "warp-splaining" technology to them they already understand, and more.

And the thing is, all that B plot stuff is the more interesting part of the episode! Because John Billingsley is so strong in his role, Phlox's earnest interest in alien religion is oddly compelling. Because Hoshi Sato and Travis Mayweather have been so underserved as characters, a lengthy scene in which she puts him up to sitting in the captain's chair -- and he is then embarrassingly caught there -- is quite endearing. Give us more character-building scenes like these!

As always, the production values feel sky high. We get a big crowd of alien extras in full makeup. There are fun CG moments surrounding Silik's inhuman flexibility. There's big action, culminating in what amounts to a skydiving escape. It may not make any sense, but it looks great!

Other observations:

• Ultimately, Star Trek: Discovery would, in passing, tie back to all this Temporal Cold War stuff.

• Of all the things they do to make Silik seem villainous, somehow the thing that affects me the most is the way he calls Jonathan Archer "John." It's just so condescending -- and a great performance by actor John Fleck.

"Cold Front" seems to demonstrate that the writers already have no idea where any of this Temporal Cold War stuff is heading. It jams in two story lines, each one feeling like a distraction from the other. It's not an encouraging start for serialized storytelling on Enterprise. I give it a C+.

Prodigy: Cracked Mirror

Fresh on the heels of serving up tribbles, Star Trek: Prodigy delivered its take on another classic franchise concept -- the Mirror Universe.

The Protostar returns at last to a rendezvous with Voyager. But Voyager is trapped in a schism of reality, with different parts of the ship existing in different parallel universes. Crossing between realities, the Protostar crew tries to restore Voyager... and faces a big obstacle from the Mirror Universe.

I feel like this won't be a popular take among typical Star Trek fans -- but I am well and truly tired of the Mirror Universe. Yes, "Mirror, Mirror" was one of the best episodes of the original series. And Deep Space Nine's initial revisit there was a fun bit of fan service. But as the Mirror Universe continued to crop up on that series, then Enterprise, and then became the core of an entire season of Discovery? Well, sure, it could still be fun on occasion... but it sure felt tired a lot of the time. And yet, if Star Trek: Prodigy is to be Star Trek 101 for a new, young audience, I suppose you have to do the Mirror Universe at some point.

I do find Prodigy's take on it quite strange, though. Maybe the Prodigy writers are as tired of the Mirror Universe as I am, because they don't even devote a full 22 minutes to it. First, they offer up a spiritual sequel to the Voyager episode "Shattered" (albeit involving reality instead of time), a fact which Chakotay even acknowledges in the episode. I have no idea why they did this, except perhaps to bring back Okona one more time "just 'cause." (Or maybe it was to tease us with bringing back Tuvix?)

By giving half the episode's short run time over to other, non-Mirror universes, we admittedly don't have time to tire of what we get here. On the other hand, there's no time to bridge the gap between the state of the Mirror Universe the last time we saw it (chronologically) and now. The Terran Empire is somehow right back on top in a decade? Maybe the real message here from the Prodigy writers is that none of this should be taken too seriously (as the Discovery writers did?).

Or maybe "the message" is not to look for messages in a Mirror Universe episode. (I'm pretty sure there hasn't been one since the original "Mirror, Mirror.") What you're supposed to look for is actors hamming it up and having fun, as Robert Beltran and especially Kate Mulgrew do voicing the Mirror versions of Chakotay and Janeway. And even the whales are evil! That's just fun.

"Just fun." That's the overriding thing about this episode, in the moments I can manage to set all that other baggage aside. Since I thought "Cracked Mirror" was by no means "bad," I suppose I'll give it a B-. But I'm glad that by the end of it, the stage is set for the final act of the season -- the Protostar and Voyager are back together, and it's time to conclude the story.

Misunderstanding the Ass-ignment

This weekend, I went to see a movie, armed with some seriously flawed expectations about the content. Still, once I acclimated to what the movie actually was, rather than what I'd expected, I still enjoyed it.

My Old Ass is a comedy starring Aubrey Plaza as a woman who travels back in time to convince her teenage self not to make some life-altering mistakes. At least... that's the movie I was expecting.

In reality, the movie is actually rather wistful and bittersweet. Aubrey Plaza isn't actually in it very much. And it's not remotely as science fiction as the premise suggests. Really, My Old Ass is a rom-com / coming-of-age hybrid, with a few unusual trappings to distinguish it from the wide number of movies in those two categories.

Once you accept that this isn't going to be a "laugh out loud" kind of movie (you get maybe one or two such moments), you become open to the notion that this might be a movie with something to say. "Will they / won't they" dominates the story, but the final act actually swings in with a deeper message about what you might really tell your younger self if you somehow had the chance. 

The movie is written and directed by the up-and-coming Megan Park. This is only her second movie wearing both hats, but I get the feeling that we'll see more from her. Of course, this is movie-making at a level where every dollar of a modest budget has to wind up on screen, so there really aren't any big names in the cast. They spent the money to get Aubrey Plaza. Other than that? You might recognize the star Maisy Stella from the TV series Nashville, or her love interest Percy Hynes White from Wednesday. Still, the movie demonstrates that a rom-com doesn't have to be about two A-list stars you want to see together; it can be carried by believable chemistry between two actors with good dialogue.

I'd give My Old Ass a B. It's a brisk 90-minute watch, though perhaps better enjoyed when you're prepared for some of its more bittersweet elements. If it sounds interesting to you, you should check it out.

Prodigy: A Tribble Called Quest

Season two of Star Trek: Prodigy has been playing a lot of "the hits" -- we've had time travel shenanigans, cameo appearances, hologram hijinks, and more. Why not throw in some tribbles?

The Protostar crew is looking to collect a special compound to fuel their unique propulsion system, and they find it in abundance on a nearby planet. But that planet is infested with tribbles -- and not just "cute but threatening" garden variety tribbles. These have been genetically modified by a Klingon scientist looking to rid the Empire of its "greatest enemy," and they can now grow to gargantuan size... with deadly teeth.

Yes, this episode is pretty goofy. Still, I think it's actually less goofy than any of the other tribble stories Star Trek has served up before this. The Protostar crew faces a serious problem here, and these tribbles feel considerably more dangerous than usual. (If we hadn't already seen the Loom, I'd have said this might be as much menace as I'd expect this kids' show to depict.)

There's also a serious message at the heart of this too. Just as the best Star Trek episodes usually have some sort of moral at the heart of their stories, the best Prodigy episodes tend to center some key lesson about growing up. Here, it's that mistakes are part of living, and that you need to learn not to dwell on them.

All of the central characters of Prodigy are young adults, but Rok-Tahk usually feels like the most child-like of all. I think that can sometimes make her difficult to center in an episode story. This feels like the perfect story for her, though. Plenty of adults struggle with the stress of perfectionism, and I think children who deal with it feel the stress even more acutely. Sure, you have to shorthand things a lot to fit it into 22 minutes of television; nevertheless, the way Rok-Tahk beats herself up over her mistakes during "act two" of this story feels quite genuine.

The larger, ongoing narrative still progresses amid this clear "side adventure," though. Chakotay continues to be a mentor for the kids. Zero's injury, and the acknowledgement that it is unlikely to heal, is a reminder that their new body isn't going to last for long. And it looks like we've picked up a new character (of sorts) in the form of the ready-to-be-merchandise Bribble.

I'd give "A Tribble Called Quest" a B. Sure, it feels a bit like "filler," but it has something to say -- an impressive feat, given the (admittedly fun) pure silliness of your average tribble episode.

The Hunt Is... A Bit Off

As often as I gush about the quality of the shows on Apple TV+ (and yes, I do that often), not every show on there is amazing. I recently finished one that was much more average-at-best... but I think still worth talking about.

Manhunt is a 7-episode mini-series chronicling the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Adapted largely from a book by historian James L. Swanson, the show follows the flight and pursuit of Lincoln's killer, John Wilkes Booth.

I was warned in advance by a friend that this series was a disappointment. And while that put me off it for a couple of months, I ultimately couldn't not watch it. This was covering a bit of history I found particularly interesting, and the show featured a number of actors I quite enjoy. In the end, those very elements are probably what makes Manhunt feel like more of a letdown that it would otherwise be -- there's the sense that some great potential is going unrealized here.

The story is fascinating, and that's what kept me watching through all 7 episodes even after I'd concluded, "there are many shows I watch (and should be watching) that are better than this." In hindsight, what I probably should have done was read Swanson's original book. But in either form, you're experiencing more of the history that doesn't feel as vital as in, say, a Wikipedia article. You see just how fraught the end of the Civil War really was. You see what a turning point Lincoln's death really was, for how sharply his successor Andrew Johnson turned the country in the wrong direction. You appreciate how wild it is that the lesser-regarded actor brother of a super-well-known actor became an assassin. (It would be like if Liam Hemsworth assassinated the current president or something.)

All of that still comes through... but as a TV series, Manhunt doesn't give it to you in the best way. The writing is pretty rough. Ham-handed dialogue very often gilds the lily. The degree to which said dialogue tries to be period accurate (versus lapsing into something that sounds more colloquially modern) is frustrating. And all of that dialogue is in service of an unnecessarily complicated narrative structure: each episode jumps around in time more than an episode of Lost (and without the same thematic resonance), with on-screen captions informing us that we're "24 Hours Before the Assassination" or "3 Years Before the Assassination" and so forth. The gymnastics don't feel like they amount to much to me.

But the actors sure try their best. Like I said, many of them are another reason I wanted to watch the series in the first place. Tobias Menzies has been great in Rome, The Crown, Game of Thrones, and more. But here he's finally in the lead role, as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Anthony Boyle, whose grounded performance and effective narration guided viewers through the compelling Masters of the Air, here twists his skills to play the depraved John Wilkes Booth. Perennial "that guy" Glenn Morshower (who 24 fans will certainly recognize) gives a great turn as Andrew Johnson. Patton Oswalt and Matt Walsh are cast wonderfully against their comedic personas in a pair of dramatic roles. Lovie Simone is part of the most emotional story arc of the series, as Mary Simms.

...but all of them are having to wrestle with that unpolished dialogue I mentioned, having to rise above the oddball non-linear narrative. They all give good performances that might otherwise have been great performances.

I'd say Manhunt still manages to reach something like a B- overall. But that's less than I would have hoped for -- and, like I said, less than a dozen other shows I could rattle off the top of my head without pausing for a breath. Still, if you're interested in the chapter of American history, there might be something here for you?

Prodigy: Last Flight of the Protostar, Part II

Picking back up with a two-part episode amid the second season of Star Trek: Prodigy -- this is "Last Flight of the Protostar, Part II."

The marooned Protostar has been repaired... but without critical fuel, it cannot reach space. The deuterium that the ship needs can be harvested from the intense storms on the planet, but this means Chakotay and the cadets must sail into the heart of the storm. Quite literally, in fact, as the Protostar sails along the planet's clouds like a boat on the ocean.

This is a really fun episode, with a clever premise that somehow hasn't been done before on Star Trek. Despite countless references to "old sailing vessels" throughout multiple Star Trek series, this is the first time we're seeing a starship used as one. And I'm glad the idea was left for Prodigy to present, as animation seems like the perfect medium for it. From the colorful backgrounds of the "calm seas" to the dangerous swirling maelstrom of the climax, every part of the voyage looks beautiful.

Not all the animation in the episode is top-notch, though. Prodigy has generally been good about capturing the likeness of the established Star Trek characters brought onto the show. Another such character makes a cameo appearance here... but Beverly Crusher looked so unlike Gates McFadden (at any age) that it undermined the moment. It seemed so "not right" to me that it even made me question the voice; I wound up checking the end credits to confirm that it was indeed McFadden voicing the character.

Which is a shame, because the content of the scene was wonderful. Having Crusher speak as a mother to give advice to Janeway was a brilliant way of connecting the characters. And the writers also wove a great connection to the final season of Star Trek: Picard, with Crusher hinting at the growing distance between her and Jean-Luc at this point in time. It's kind of wild how McFadden played this character for 7 seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but only now in the 2020s is she getting her best-ever material to play. (It surely helps to have more women in the writers' room.)

I was also pleasantly surprised by the scenes between Chakotay and Dal. I really do find Dal to be the most annoying character on the show (though I think that's intentional), and so I'm often wary when a story focuses more on him. But Chakotay's mentorship of Dal is a good story for both characters, and I love that the lesson here was essentially that one can be valuable without necessarily being the "leader." (That's something Dal could really take to heart.)

Part II of this story was as good as part I -- and taken together, the real high point of the season so far. I give "Last Flight of the Protostar, Part II" a B+.

Body Positivity

When someone gives me a recommendation of some TV show that seems right up my alley, yet I've never even heard of it before -- chances are it's streaming on Netflix. No other service seems as skilled to me at hiding interesting content in a deep dark hole. The latest example of this was an 8-episode mini-series from last year that I heard about only in the last few months, Bodies.

Bodies begins with a brain-teasing hook: in multiple different time frames -- decades apart -- London cops discover an identical dead body. He appears to have been stripped and dumped, but there are no signs that he's been transported there. He appears to have been shot dead, but there's no bullet in the body and no sign of an exit wound. And as each detective in each time frame pursues their investigation, they find only ever more strange mysteries at play.

Assuming that you're hooked in by the bizarre premise, you're in for a wild ride. Over 8 episodes, Bodies undergoes a massive shift in tone and scale. That initial mystery is clear science fiction... though mixed with a healthy dose of CSI-style crime solving. But each episode becomes more overtly sci-fi. In short order, you come to feel like you're watching some spiritual successor to Lost, spooling out odd mysteries. But the science fiction keeps amplifying, and soon the show feels like it's inspired most directly by Dark (a tragically underseen German show, also buried in the depths of Netflix).

One advantage Bodies has over either of those inspirations is that it was only ever conceived to last 8 episodes. Any mystery it introduces does have an answer, and not one that will be withheld for long. But there are disadvantages too. Lost was operating on a second level apart from the "island mysteries," telling moving stories about the characters and quietly commenting on the human condition. Bodies is not remotely so profound; there are subplots involving each detective in each time frame, but their personal trials never seem drawn as sharply as the overall sci-fi elements. And Bodies isn't ultimately as clever, either; Dark does a much better job at crafting a labyrinthine puzzle that still holds together once you've seen all the pieces.

Still, it doesn't have to be a competition. After all, there's neither new Lost nor new Dark on your TV screen anymore, so if another show wants to come along and scratch that itch -- even if somewhat less effectively -- why not let it and enjoy yourself? There are numerous actors in the cast that will be unfamiliar to you, and you'll probably find at least one you want to look for in the future. There's a stylish production quality throughout -- no small feat for all the radically different time periods that must be portrayed.

I would give Bodies a B. Sure, there are things right now that better earn the mantle of "must watch TV." But it deserves to be watched more than I expect it will, deep in the Netflix basement.

Enterprise Flashback: Fortunate Son

On Star Trek: Enterprise, the character of Travis Mayweather was created to be the experienced space traveler of the bunch, a young man who had grown up on an interstellar freighter. The first episode to really focus on the character, "Fortunate Son," centered on this history.

The Enterprise is sent to aid a freighter that has been attacked by Nausicaan pirates. But the freighter's acting captain has taken matters into his own hands, imprisoning one of the pirates. He only escalates from there, attacking the Enterprise and threatening to spark a diplomatic incident. Through it all, Travis Mayweather may be caught between his loyalty to Starfleet and his own history on freighters like this.

...except that he really isn't, at all. It seems like every opportunity this episode could take to create a meaningful moral quandary, it takes a less compelling path. Mayweather could feel true, deep sympathy for this freighter to a degree where he really questions his loyalty; but no, Archer asks about this, and Travis totally deflates any tension on this issue. The episode could make it really seem like the freighter crew has a point here; after all, these are pirates, and Nausicaans are a notably brutal (through sparingly used) alien in the Star Trek universe. But no, the only brutality we really see in the episode is torture inflicted on a prisoner by the acting freighter captain. The Nausicaans look tame, perhaps even innocent, removing any moral ambiguity in the story.

The fact that it's an acting freighter captain also robs the story of potency. This situation could have been that pirate activity is so relentless and hostile that even an old, grizzled veteran of the space lanes has decided enough is enough. Instead, that guy gets wounded to make room for a young hothead, whose lack of experience only further goes to paint him as the one "in the wrong" in this situation.

It all culminates in an action sequence where only characters we've never met before now are actually in any jeopardy -- and we've been manipulated to have such specific feelings about them that it's impossible to care about what happens. The episode is so devoid of suspense, in fact, that conspicuous efforts to inject some feel really awkward. When Mayweather delivers the climactic monologue in the final act, director LeVar Burton understandably wants to put some movement in the scene. But the answer can't be to have Mayweather abandon his post during a battle to walk around the bridge and speechify. The composer wants the music to escalate the emotions of the scene... yet strangely, the biggest action music comes after things have been resolved, accompanying the Nausicaans' withdrawal from the freighter.

When the story itself is a real dud, you have to draw entertainment from the accents along the way. There's interesting universe building that's different for Star Trek -- talk about the difference between slow warp and fast warp (and "enjoying the trip"). We learn of entire generations of families who spend their whole lives on the same interstellar freighter. It's an interesting and especially "primitive" look for Star Trek, even on the series that, being a prequel, is supposed to look more primitive than we're used to.

But there are also accent moments that don't work very well. Fans know that the claim that "Vulcans never lie" has always been itself a lie. But they don't lie for no reason, so T'Pol's decision to "lie by omission" to help a kid playing hide and seek feels like an odd choice for her character. Mayweather's more "insubordinate moments" (one even earning a "look" from a stunned Hoshi Sato) lead to no real repercussions.

Other observations:

• Vaughn Armstrong makes his first repeat appearance here as Admiral Forrest. Enterprise is just going to take a different approach than The Next Generation. Story structure on both shows often requires the captain to communicate with an Admiral back at Starfleet. But where The Next Generation would just cast a new actor every time, Enterprise is going to reuse the same one.

• Granted, there are only so many ways to show a shuttlepod being launched, and it's probably not worth the cost to render a lot of new CG of the same kind of thing. Still, it's already noticeable that we keep seeing the same shuttlepod launch in episode after episode.

I suppose the writers didn't want to go with a trope and have Mayweather really contemplate turning against Starfleet in this story. Yet while I appreciate not wanting to do the trope, they didn't really replace it with anything. That leaves "Fortunate Son" a boring episode. Good looking, as Enterprise always is, and with a few nice scenes. But boring overall. I give it a C.

Prodigy: Last Flight of the Protostar, Part I

Star Trek: Prodigy season 2 didn't just have a two-part episode as it arrived at the midpoint of the season, it immediately had another to begin the back half. First up, "Last Flight of the Protostar, Part I."

The cadets have found Chakotay, marooned with the Protostar on a mostly desolate world -- and he's been there for ten years, with only the holographic Janeway for company for most of that time. Chakotay is determined to keep the ship safely out of reach from forces that would harm the Federation... and the Protostar is unable to take off in any case. These are two problems the cadets must solve: first helping to restore Chakotay's spirits after his long isolation, and then helping to repair the Protostar so that they all might leave this planet.

This is a really nice episode for all the characters. After the previous installment centered so much on Voyager and to some extent sidelined the cadets, this episode puts them front and center, and with a mission that's decidedly out of their element. For the entire first season of Prodigy, these kids were the ones getting the pep talks (from holographic Janeway). Here, they must give the pep talks, motivating a truly broken Chakotay to jump back into the action.

It's an equally good story for Chakotay -- quite possibly one of the most effective for the character including all seven seasons of Star Trek: Voyager. "Chakotay episodes" have been few and far between, and always seemed to be either centered on the inauthentic culture crafted for him, or high-concept sci-fi stories that could just as easily have centered on any other character. This Prodigy episode is a story that centers on the profound sense of duty Chakotay has always had... though it is now firmly centered on Starfleet (instead of the Maquis, as it was so many years ago). Chakotay has experienced things that have stripped away pretty much everything but that duty, putting him in a deep hole to crawl out of. It's a credit to him, and the cadets who persuade him, that he does.

And while holo Janeway isn't a major player in this episode, it is certainly nice to spend time with her again. Kate Mulgrew has been on the show all along, of course, but there are subtle differences between this character and the Admiral, and it's this character that we came to love in season one of the show.

But of course, this is quite literally only half a story, with more to see in Part II. But I think this Part I was absolutely the high point of Prodigy season 2 so far. I give it a B+.

Enterprise Flashback: Civilization

As a prequel to all Star Trek that had come before, Enterprise sometimes had a "throwback" quality to its episodes. The early season one episode "Civilization" was the purest example of this to that point.

When Enterprise detects signs of advanced technology in a pre-warp civilization, Archer orders a covert mission to the planet. There they discover a group of aliens working toward nefarious ends, and Archer finds himself drawn to one of the locals.

In this series' model of "becoming Star Trek," it seems early on like this episode is going to show us why the Prime Directive, a rule to avoid interfering with less advanced societies, is needed. Yet the episode becomes an unexpected subversion of that. It turns out that other aliens are interfering with these aliens, and it's incumbent on our heroes to interfere themselves to restore the status quo. Not that the episode spends much time contemplating the morality of the situation. Mostly, it's just an adventure very much in the mold of the original Star Trek series -- a Vulcan hiding their ears, cloak-and-dagger mischief on the planet, and an alien romance for the captain.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. I actually found this to be the most entertaining episode of Enterprise so far, in large part because it doesn't try for too heavy a tone. There's time for humor: jokes about alien abductions and UFOs landing in corn fields. There's time for action: shoot-outs, a face-peeling homage to the mini-series V, and a classic "which wire do we cut?" climax. And hey, there is light-touch morality in there too, as the problem of the episode ultimately turns on poisoning of ground water and the resulting health issues that causes.

Along the way are some nice little character moments. Hoshi is thrilled about the number of languages spoken in this alien society. Phlox is impressed at the scientific advances of the local apothecary. T'Pol takes command of the Enterprise and excels. (Best not think too hard about the moment where Trip flies off the handle, questioning her judgment.) And, of course, from beginning to end, the episode is a chance for Archer (and Scott Bakula) to engage in some classic Kirk (and William Shatner) swashbuckling.

Still, the episode is hardly top notch. Archer is so "Kirk" in this story that at times it plays too chauvinist and paternal. For the second time in just eight episodes, we've got a story about aliens with a hidden underground installation -- is Enterprise already running out of ideas? And some of the performances feel a bit extreme, low-key one moment and full-tilt the next. (Though there's context for that; see below.)

Other observations:

• The first day of filming on this episode was September 11, 2001. They'd just begun their day when news of the terrorist attacks came and filming shut down. Some of the people involved in the show have said that they feel the shadow of that all over this episode when they watch it, and I think perhaps they're right. Not that you'd ever put your finger on what exactly is going on, but sometimes the performances feel just a little off somehow.

• In a fun Trekker detail, the transporter is a new enough technology that the ability to do a "site to site transport" doesn't exist. They have to beam up the alien reactor to the ship, and then turn around and beam it into space.

I'd probably wish for Archer to be a little less Kirk-like, but I ultimately enjoyed the simple pleasures of this episode. I give "Civilization" a B.

Back to One

Although I liked the first two A Quiet Place movies well enough, I'd waited to watch the sequel at home -- and did the same for the newest film in the franchise, A Quiet Place: Day One. This prequel takes the audience to Manhattan, on to the day of the alien invasion that started at all, for another round of "don't make a sound" suspense and horror. Ultimately, I enjoyed the movie and I'd recommend it (certainly for anyone who liked the first two)... but I also found it to be something of a mixed bag.

This series doesn't exactly have the most complex "mythology," but if you're looking for this movie to add to it, you're going to be disappointed. Going back to day one of the invasion sounds like a compelling hook for a story, but it turns out that everyone who doesn't quickly get with the "be quiet" program winds up dead in very short order. And that quickly leaves the movie without many new gimmicks to present. It turns out that "being quiet on an abandoned New York street" doesn't ultimately feel much different from "being quiet one year later in a more rural setting." To the extent that a horror sequel thrives on providing new twists on the core premise, A Quiet Place: Day One doesn't really deliver.

On the other hand, this story does focus on new characters, and that does make a difference. Part of the appeal of the original A Quiet Place was that it centered on people that aren't usually the stars of a "post-apocalyptic survival story": a family of four (and, most notably, a non-hearing character). Day One continues that model of centering characters you don't see in horror movies -- and as long as you can keep doing that, one could imagine a fair number of new Quiet Place movies that do feel to some extent different despite the familiar trappings.

Minor spoilers here (all revealed very early on in the movie): the lead character of this prequel is dying of a terminal illness. That's an inspired and novel choice. Audiences are used to a cast of horror movie characters being figuratively the walking dead, each waiting for their turn to be killed by the monster. But it's truly a different thing for a character to know they're fated to die. And this one winds up falling in with another character clearly suffering from some form of anxiety. We have seen versions of that character in horror before, but always as the "first to die" or "comic relief."

A typical horror movie simply asks, "can anyone survive?" If you can set aside that understandable expectation, you'll find that A Quiet Place: Day One is focused instead on "smaller victories." What these two characters quest for is a detail I won't spoil -- partly because it is the true driver of the movie, and partly because it would sound ridiculous out of context. But suffice it to say that the movie opts for low stakes in a way that shouldn't work, but then winds up packing a surprising emotional punch in the final act.

It's not the only chaotically strange choice in the script writing, either. Djimon Hounsou is back to play his character from A Quiet Place Part II again... and while he does get one of the more powerful moments in this prequel, he also gets maybe five minutes of screen time total. Why bring him back? Then there's the most wild choice of all, giving the main character an emotional support cat. "Don't work with animals" is a famous Hollywood cliche. I figure above all, don't work with a cat, who can barely be trained (if at all). But the script writer was also the director here, choosing to inflict this difficulty upon himself -- and indeed insisting on it after star Lupita Nyong'o asked if the cat could be changed to another animal... revealing that she was actually afraid of cats! (She got over it to make this movie.)

Speaking of Lupita Nyong'o, she's absolutely dominated a horror movie before, with Us. It's no surprise (but still welcome) to see that she's good in this movie. More surprising is the strong performance of Stranger Things season four fan sensation Joseph Quinn, and the great rapport the two have together. A "two-hander" movie ultimately lives or dies by the casting of those two, and A Quiet Place: Day One definitely has Nyong'o and Quinn going for it.

Still... I find the movie fades fast from memory. By ultimately not adding much to the "franchise," the movie doesn't offer much that I think will stick with you in the long run. So I think I'd say A Quiet Place: Day One is a B-. It's not essential viewing, though I do think that horror fans who check it out will ultimately enjoy it.

Prodigy: The Devourer of All Things, Part II

The first half of Star Trek: Prodigy season two concluded with "The Devourer of All Things, Part II."

Voyager arrives at the same planet as the cadets... to find they must stage a rescue amid a dangerous fight for their lives. As the Loom erases crew members from existence, Ma'jel is part of an away team and learns that she has an important role to play in finding the Protostar.

This is an unusual episode of Prodigy, distinct even from part one, in that the main characters -- the Protostar cadets -- aren't actually in it very much. And when they are, they're not driving the action at all, but going along with (uh, spoilers incoming, folks!) Time Lord Wesley Crusher's hectic plan to save the universe.

Now usually, when a Star Trek episode becomes too much about the guest stars, I tend not to like it. But there are two things working in this episode's favor. One, of course, is that Janeway is also a main character on this show -- albeit one traditionally in a supporting role. Here, there's a lot of action set aboard Voyager, and Janeway is at the heart of it all, in her biggest episode of the season to this point.

Two is that, like Deep Space Nine before it, Prodigy has been steadily building up guest star characters over multiple episodes to make them feel like an integral part of the whole. Maj'el has already had an interesting character arc this season, starting as something of a nemesis for our heroes and now positioned to join their team in as "official" a capacity as she can. (Wesley says she has to be there -- so the writers have laid down a big marker.)

Meanwhile, the elements of part one that I found most interesting continued into this part two. The Loom continued to be a surprisingly scary and dangerous monster for this kids' show. We continued to get answers to the questions the season has been posing; by the time the episode ends, we don't just know where Chakotay is, our heroes have found him!

In short, the momentum of this two-part episode carried successfully through both installments. If anything, I thought things picked up a little. (Or maybe I just acclimated to any annoyance I felt over hyper-caffeinated Wesley Crusher.) I give "The Devourer of All Things, Part II" a B+.

Found in Translation

This past weekend, Shōgun won a large pile of Emmy Awards (joining the large pile it won weeks earlier at the Creative Art Emmy Awards). I'm taking that as the nudge I need to get around to posting my thoughts on the series. (While Shōgun went on my "to watch" list as soon as it arrived, but it was only around a month ago that I finally finished the final episode of the mini-series-turned-first-of-three-planned-seasons.)

Many will know that Shōgun is based on the doorstop of a novel by James Clavell in 1975. In this day and age, probably fewer will recall that it was made into an epic TV mini-series back in 1980. But this is 2024, and we've come a long way since 1975 and 1980. The ground was fertile to revisit Shōgun, bringing modern awareness of cultural sensitivity, gender issues, the toxic pervasiveness of the "white savior" narrative, and so very much more.

The new Shōgun deals with all of that, while never forgetting its first and foremost job: to tell an engaging story. It also helps that it arrives in a TV landscape that's no stranger to tales of political machinations, from The Wire to Game of Thrones to Succession. (Maybe a few that weren't on HBO too.) While the setting of Shōgun is quite different, the calculations and manipulations feel universal. At the same time, it doesn't feel like any concessions were made to make the show more broadly "accessible" -- and I do mean that in the best way. The vast majority of the dialogue is subtitled, the societal roles of most of the characters are very slow to be revealed, and you generally have to work hard as a viewer to keep up. And I find that all part of the appeal.

Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai both won Emmys for their performances in the show, and both are well-deserved. As Lord Toranaga, Sanada's entire performance hides in the subtext; his character is planning many moves ahead, and the actor has to walk a tricky line to walk between "keeping his cards close" and not appearing to be "doing nothing." As Mariko, Sawai takes a character who I can't imagine was so compelling in the original novel, and makes her the undeniable star of the show. While the character's main function in the plot is as a translator, the writing is excellent in how the character approaches this duty, and Sawai is always able to convey everything in her considered pauses before she speaks.

All that said, I did find viewing Shōgun to be something of a "bell curve" experience. Getting into it during the first few episodes is demanding -- and while I wouldn't have that otherwise, the fact remains that in this crowded TV environment, it can be rough to not know that you like a show right out of the gate. Then there's the final episode, which feels oddly truncated -- as though everything we've been building toward is dispensed with in an off-screen coda. (I guess the book did this too; being a prequel release amid a longer series?)

In the middle, though? The show just works, so effortlessly that it almost undermines the great care that went into making it. It's smart without feeling too clever, suspenseful without feeling drawn out, violent without feeling gratuitous, insightful without feeling didactic, and so much more. Definitely worth watching, worth the awards love, and worth looking forward to in the future to see how they'll handle additional seasons. (I guess there are other Clavell books to work from?) I give Shōgun a B+.

Enterprise: Breaking the Ice

Here's a small peek behind the curtain about my reviews of Enterprise. I'm actually many episodes ahead in my viewing, beyond what I've been able to keep up with writing about. And while I would like to close that gap at some point, there are moments when the lag between the two helps lend some perspective. It is with that perspective that I now offer this "hot take": the most pivotal episode of Enterprise's first season (and thus, perhaps, the entire series) is "Breaking the Ice."

The Enterprise encounters a comet, and Archer decides to send Reed and Mayweather down to land on it for some exploration. When a Vulcan ship arrives, seemingly to observe the Enterprise more than the comet, Archer tries to play nice. But he must ultimately swallow his pride to ask the Vulcans for help when an accident jeopardizes the landing party. Meanwhile, T'Pol receives unsettling news from Vulcan, and can only discuss it with Trip.

"Breaking the Ice" is notable as the first episode in which neither Rick Berman nor Brannon Braga have a writing credit. They'd crafted the script or story for every episode to this point, setting the course for the series. Here, two staff writers -- Maria Jacquemetton & André Jacquemetton -- are the sole writing credits. And I think this is significant because "Breaking the Ice" is not a good episode; indeed, it's the worst episode to this point.

I'm not saying that this episode marks any kind of big tonal shift from what's come before. I'm certainly not saying that the episode lacks any "Berman and Braga magic." But this is a weird, meandering episode that seemingly lacks enough story to fill 42 minutes, and doesn't really have much in the way of action or suspense.

No doubt Berman and Braga had some role in this -- that's how writers rooms work, and showrunners ultimately give their "stamp of approval" to every episode that goes out. (Even if it goes only because the clock has run out.) But I can easily imagine those two looking at this weak episode -- and it is objectively dull -- and saying to themselves, "see what happens when we relax the reins and let someone else write an episode? We're the only people who understand our show." I think Berman and Braga looked at the failures of "Breaking the Ice," decided to assert their will even more upon the show, and that then set the course of it for the rest of its shorter-than-normal-for-the-time run.

First, there's what's nominally the main story: Reed and Mayweather explore a comet. There's some dressing up of the idea -- it has a rare mineral; it's bigger than any other comet ever seen -- but this is ultimately this is all just to show us something that looks different for Star Trek. We've never landed on a comet before! And yes, those sky-high Enterprise production values make it look pretty good too, both in space and on the surface.

But not much happens once we're there. They build a snowman. (Which, come on, looks nothing like a snowman is supposed to look. Three stacked balls, people! Not this weird baby bottle nipple blob thing.) They blow a big hole in the comet, which for some reason is necessary before they can drill (but is really necessary just so they can cause themselves some jeopardy). Then, because the show is somehow already running out of ideas, a shuttlepod is lost in cave-in, exactly as it was just two episodes ago.

Even less is happening on board the ship. An unbearably long scene about recording a message to school children back home seems to be a long setup for a poop joke. Phlox drones on about germs in a way that's not quite funny. I guess I like that we're seeing the characters unwind a bit in a moment that's not about crisis, but it robs all of what little momentum the episode had. Another scene, nearly as long, is about hosting the Vulcan captain at dinner. There aren't really any real stakes there, either -- it's just a thin comedic premise about the Vulcan being rude (without realizing it? I doubt it), and Archer twisting in the breeze.

The one subplot that works here -- though it has nothing to do with anything else -- is T'Pol receiving word that she must leave Enterprise for her arranged wedding. I like the "odd couple" pairing of T'Pol and Trip as the characters who must talk through the differences in cultural values between Vulcans and humans. Seeing Trip be thoughtful and kind here makes you realize that in so many moments we've seen him in the series so far, he's been rather standoffish and belligerent. (He's had Archer acting even more so as "cover" to this point.) It ends up being nice growth for both characters. And the conclusion is well-written too: there's no big speech in the end where T'Pol announces her decision in an un-Vulcan way. Instead, we simply get it from context.

Other observations:

• The episode opens with physical letters and drawings that Enterprise has received from school children on Earth. How did those get all the way out here?

• Shouldn't the cliche be that Trip likes key lime pie, not pecan pie? He is from Florida, after all. But then, that fact itself is chaotic and strange, after they asked Connor Trinneer to do a Southern accent (which sounds like no one from Florida I've ever met).

I suppose there are nice character moments throughout the episode. But they come almost entirely separated from anything like a "plot." The episode winds up feeling meandering and dull. For the worthwhile Trip/T'Pol subplot alone, I'll give "Breaking the Ice" a C+. But it's clearly the weakest Enterprise episode to this point.

Prodigy: The Devourer of All Things, Part I

Star Trek: Prodigy arrived at the middle of its second season with a two-part episode. First up, "The Devourer of All Things, Part I."

Our heroic cadets arrive at the strange planet that's the source of the signal from Chakotay. Except... the message turns out not to be from Chakotay, but from a surprising source. They soon learn that the temporal paradox they're caught in is a threat to the entire universe, and if they cannot repair it, strange time-stopping entities known as The Loom will devour their entire reality.

There's a bit of Stephen King's The Langoliers in the mix here: mess with time travel and you'll come at risk from omnivorous monsters that will swallow you and the world itself whole. Needless to say, CG has come a long way since the goofy-looking TV adaptation of The Langoliers made decades ago. Here, the Loom look as terrifying as anything that would ever be allowed on a kids' show, and the danger to our heroes feels real. (Not so much in a "someone might die" kind of way -- this isn't that show. But in a "they're right to run for their lives" way.)

But then, the kids do find an unexpected ally in this episode. (And I have to get spoilery here, so you can jump down to the last paragraph now if you haven't watched the episode yourself.) Star Trek: Prodigy has been using animation to bring back all sorts of characters from Star Trek history, and now we get a second "new Trek" appearance by Wesley Crusher in his "Traveler" persona.

This is a wild performance. Wesley Crusher was already far from the character we knew on The Next Generation; when he appeared in the season two finale of Star Trek: Picard, Wheaton was already allowed to portray something much closer to himself: the effusive, bubbly personality he displays in the "Ready Room" recap shows he hosts. But here, Wesley and Wheaton both go full cartoon, infusing that core persona with inexhaustible energy.

Granted, we've only ever seen one other Traveler, and by no means should assume that all such entities have that guy's morose and constrained mood, Traveler Wesley is basically playing the Doctor here. (Not Robert Picardo; Doctor Who.) He's talking a mile a minute and spewing babble about timey-wimey-ness, a sort of motormouth magician who doesn't feel to me like he really belongs on Star Trek. But... you know, in small doses like this (and a two-part episode of a half-hour show is basically just a regular episode of most Star Trek -- that's just math), I suppose I can accept it.

I may be uncertain about that aspect of the episode, but I'm totally down with the genuine scariness on display here. Not to mention, we get a lot of answers in the season-long story arc we've been following. So overall, I'm going to give "The Devourer of All Things, Part I" a B.