Redder Late Than Never?

Months ago, when my friends and I locked in a spring break getaway to Steamboat Springs, I might have imagined a few ski days in fresh mountain snow. But by the time the trip arrived, Colorado (and much of the west) was ending a near-record year of low snowfall since recording began -- with snowpack actually at the record low. The daytime temperature ranged between 65 and 80 degrees for the entire week. Over the course of that week, the ski resort went from over 100 open runs to just over 40, with the only way down to the base being to hop back on the gondola.

So for me, there was no skiing. But we checked out the new scenario at the great local escape room, The Crooked Key, enjoyed some great food and drink, and played lots and lots of board games. I hope to talk about some of those in the days and weeks ahead.

I'll start with a game that may have just been rescued from a crack it fell through several years ago. I brought The Red Cathedral back from a Gen Con some time ago, whereupon my group played it once and then completely lost track of it amid new releases and persistent favorites. But it was a great choice to take on this trip -- a crunchier game in a small box -- and I got to revisit it more than once on the trip.

Players take on the role of builders working to construct Saint Basil's Cathedral under the watchful eye of the tsar. A pattern of cards outlines the base, towers, and spires of the cathedral, with players sometimes using their turn to take ownership of a card -- and responsibility to provide the materials to build it.

Eight actions are arrayed in a circle around a central board. On most of your turns, you will select one of these actions by choosing one of five dice. Move the chosen die clockwise by the number of pips it shows, and the place you land will determine the action you take. But also, the number of dice on the space you land determines the strength of the action. So the game often asks you to weigh getting the thing you want most right now against changing your plans to take advantage of a dice cluster that's just emerged. These clusters don't last long, you see; after each action, the player re-rolls all the dice on the space they used, scrambling the options for the next player.

There are other wrinkles in the mix, such as bonus actions you can take on the different spaces, and extra resources you can collect if you've paid in advance to get a bonus for moving a die of a specific color. The most significant wrinkle is the limited number of "ornamentations" you can build during the game -- on any completed section of the cathedral. The more jewels you earn and set into an ornamentation, the more points it's worth immediately, pushing you to take the time to earn all the jewels you can. But where the ornamentations are placed figures large in endgame scoring, pushing you to move as quickly as you can.

At endgame, each tower of the cathedral is assigned a point value, 2 points for each of its completed sections, plus 1 point for each "ornamentation" that players have built there during the game. Those same sections and ornamentations each provide one point of "control" for the player who built them, with the player who did the most scoring the tower's full value, the second most getting half, and the third getting half of that. So a well-placed ornamentation can swing the ownership of a valuable tower your way.

After replaying The Red Cathedral a couple of times, I couldn't quite understand how it had slipped off our radar years ago. This game seems right at the center of what my group enjoys. The rules set is right about our speed, the play time a compact "hour or less" for experienced gamers, and the number of decisions it asks of you throughout satisfying. I guess I must have brought something else really good back from that particular Gen Con years ago.

I give The Red Cathedral a B+. I suspect that this time around, it may remain in the mix a while. 

Starfleet Academy: Rubincon

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy concluded its first season with an episode meant to make you ask, "is there a typo in the episode's title?" Let's talk about "Rubincon."

Nus Braka captures Captain Ake, then proceeds to put her and the Federation on trial -- with Anisha Mir serving as judge. Meanwhile, Jett Reno and the cadets race to disable the weapons Nus Braka has used to mine the Federation border.

I noted about the previous episode that the short 10-episode season of Starfleet Academy didn't seem like enough time to show us how the characters had grown as close as the story required. That "not enough time" issue hangs over this finale too, as more time was also needed to show Caleb Mir's growing relationship to Starfleet. This entire episode builds to a poignant Caleb monologue, where he must convince his mother not only that Starfleet isn't the force for evil she's known it to be, but that it was key in making him the man he's become. Because Sandro Rosta delivers the speech well (and Tatiana Maslany is the one reacting to it), the moment does work. Yet, to borrow the legal parlance of this episode, I feel like it assumes facts not in evidence from the season as a whole.

And on the subject of that trial -- I find myself very divided about it. There's a long tradition of great Star Trek legal episodes, in which characters deliver lofty speeches and score moral points. I get why Starfleet Academy wants to take a run at that. But then... this isn't actually anything like a real trial. Nus Braka wouldn't conduct one, of course; he'd do exactly what he does here and stage an opportunity to grandstand. But it's so "not a trial" that Captain Ake doesn't even bother to put up any kind of defense. She has arguments, but doesn't even raise them until the "verdict" has been delivered and Caleb has arrived on scene. So to the extent this episode "promises" a trial at all, I feel like it doesn't deliver -- and that left me feeling a little unsatisfied.

But I felt the rest of the episode offered enough pleasures to make up for that. Give me "Captain Jett Reno" all day, every day. I never imagined we'd get to see Tig Notaro in the captain's chair -- never mind so much, and all while never taking off the teacher's hat. I thought all of Reno's material in this episode was well written, and perfectly delivered by Notaro. There's just a solid link there, with the writers knowing how to write for her, and performer in turn making the words fit perfectly.

I thought the "degree of difficulty" for Anisha Mir was higher this episode, more worthy of what Tatiana Maslany can do. Specifically, most of her key scenes in this episode were reactive. She had to listen to Nus Braka and Nahla Ake trade barbs, listen to her son's impassioned plea... all of her most important moments of the episode had no dialogue. But I still felt a whirl of emotion emanating from her character. And I appreciated that she was not so easily won over; there were no magic words Ake could say that would do it. 

I gotta say, I don't understand why or how the Doctor, of all people, would suddenly understand the way to stabilize a dangerous particle that has stumped scientists for centuries. But work past the conceit, and I liked how it set up Sam to save the day. I also liked how it set up Genesis to be the one to help Sam reconcile her feelings about the two different lives she's led. (Though again, I would have wished for more episodes to showcase more of her differences since returning from her home planet.)

I could have wished for more of the characters to figure more centrally in the plot. (Jay-Den, Darem, and Lura Thok didn't get much to do.) But at least we know they'll have another chance next season; this wasn't the final Starfleet Academy episode, period. I'd say "Rubincon" landed around a B... but overall, I found season one of this show to be engaging. I'll be ready for more whenever season two arrives.

Enterprise Flashback: The Augments

Star Trek: Enterprise concluded the first three-episode arc of its fourth season with "The Augments."

As the Augments escalate their attacks, Arik Soong realizes the extent of Malik's depravity and commits to working against him. Can Soong get back to Enterprise and convince Archer of his intentions? And can they actually stop these genetically enhanced foes before they strike a Klingon world and provoke an all-out war?

I talked a little in my last review about how this Augment story line was a classic three-act story arc for Arik Soong. There's not much left to say there. There's not much to say generally, in fact. This last hour basically puts the pedal to the floor on big action with big stakes. It does briefly poke at one moral quandary -- whether it's right for Soong to further alter the DNA of the Augment embryos to reduce their aggression, changing their nature. It's interesting to put a kind of "born this way" argument in the mouth of Malik, who is 100% villain at this point. But the audience isn't made to think about it too deeply. With the commercials taken out, we're in the final act of a two-hour action movie here.

But there are still a few quiet moments. Soong tries one last time to appeal to Malik, who has become utterly disillusioned with his "father." Trip and T'Pol talk about her recent marriage, and the star-crossed nature of a human/Vulcan relationship. Mostly though, we get a wide variety of action.

It starts immediately with the daring rescue of Archer from space. (The CG isn't great, but the idea of this action set piece certainly is.) Along the way, Malik puts Archer in a classic hero's dilemma -- to catch the baddie or save the innocent -- when he dumps a Denobulan ship into a gas giant. There's cloak and dagger, as Persis smuggles Soong off the Augment ship, and Enterprise bluffs a Klingon ship into allowing them passage through Klingon space. Malik and Persis get into a climactic knife fight (in perhaps the fourth or fifth moment you're made to think, "oh, now Malik has gone full pyscho"). Enterprise gets into a scrape with a Klingon ship and uses its grappler of all things to escape.

The episode pays plenty of fun homage to franchise history. The talk of whether Khan's lost ship is fact or myth is a fun argument, as are explicit "rhymes" in the story, like a burned Malik crawling around the wreckage of his defeated ship to set a self-destruct. But the episode also name-checks Insurrection's Briar Patch, and concludes with a playful nod to Soong's new interest in cybernetics, which he imagines will yield results "in a generation or two."

Other observations:

• There's fun makeup on Archer after he's beamed out of the vacuum of space. 

• The sequencing of action seems off to me in the middle of this episode. When Enterprise disguises itself as a Klingon ship, then encounters the Augments first, I found myself asking "what was the point of that? The Augments are going to treat any other ship as hostile." It's only later, when Enterprise encounters an actual Klingon ship in its territory, that the point of the ruse is made crystal clear.

• Enterprise's determination not to use its characters at all is so frustrating sometimes. Even Uhura got to say "hailing frequencies open" on the regular. At one moment in this episode, when Mayweather is issued an order, he doesn't even get a line of dialogue to acknowledge it.

• By this point, even Reed is aware of his own shooting accuracy. When Enterprise has to shoot down the Augments' weapon before it hits the Klingon planet, Reed fires three torpedoes. (And only hits on the third shot.)

• Malik is so tough, you have to shoot a "Death Becomes Her" style hole in him to finally take him out. 

• Even though Enterprise saves the Klingon colony, Klingons are always itching for a fight. Why wouldn't they still use this incident as provocation for war?

There's something about the conclusion here that feels awfully tidy. Maybe it's just that an entire 20+ episode season of Xindi stuff has conditioned me not to expect wrap ups to come so quickly. Still, even if it's tidy, the episode is fun. I give "The Augments" a B.

Starfleet Academy: 300th Night

I'm a bit late getting to my thoughts about last week's episode of Starfleet Academy, in part because it was a clear "part one" in need of a "part two" for full context. Ah... but if I wait to actually watch part two before I write about part one, I'll lose the purity of my current uncertainty about it. So here we go, my "still processing" thoughts about "300th Night."

As a year at the Academy winds down and cadets are bound for Betazed for the dedication of the Federation's new government seat, Caleb (with help from Sam) is finally able to retrieve coded messages from his mother, Anisha. But with her calling for a meeting outside Federation space -- whose borders are about to be closed due to a credible threat from Nus Braka -- the only way Caleb can get there is to steal a shuttlecraft. And Caleb's Academy friends aren't about to let him go it alone. As they proceed to their rendezous, Chancellor Ake takes a skeleton crew on a rescue mission. But all of them may end up on the wrong side of the border when Nus Braka springs his trap.

I think the biggest area of uncertainty for me in this story is simply that it doesn't feel like we've gotten enough Starfleet Academy yet for it to fully land. I understand that 10-episode seasons are all Star Trek in the streaming age can give us now; gone are the 20+ episode seasons of the last generation. And I'll be the first to admit that quantity over quality wasn't always a trade that worked in favor of some of those past series.

But the issue is, this episode asks us to believe in friendships that have built up over a year at school -- and it simply doesn't feel like even a fraction of that time has gone by. Sure, they've been telling us about the passage of time all season, giving us a mid-semester break, and saying very explicitly here that it's been 300 days that our cadets have been at school. But there just haven't been enough episodes to show, not tell, this passage of time. Not enough episodes that feel like they unfold over a course of weeks or months. Not enough episodes, period. So when Sam, Genesis, and (a more reluctant) Darem all throw in to help Caleb on his "mission to Mom," it's much more the performances and chemistry of the actors that sell their loyalty than the situation or script itself. 

Still... if you just get on board, the ensuing adventure is quite fun. They travel to an alien world that is rendered for the audience in rather elaborate and effective detail. And little time is wasted in finding Mom, bringing Tatiana Maslany back onto our screens. Of course, having seen Orphan Black, I'll pretty much always think that every movie or TV show she appears in is underusing her considerable talents, but she still elevates the story as she gradually realizes how her son her changed -- particularly in the past year.

It's kind of wild to me that another episode omits Lura Thok. (Is she not a main character on this show?) And I'll admit -- until we saw Darem "glitter barf" again, I wasn't entirely sure whether the first time really happened, or it was just Sam's perspective on what happened. But despite those couple of goofy choices, I found this episode overall to be a pretty rousing action-adventure.

But, like I said at the top... also an incomplete one. I'd call it a solid B. In the season one finale, I'm hoping for an episode that uses all the characters effectively in some way, like the premiere did. I'm expecting a big scene between Holly Hunter and Tatiana Maslany, and I hope it stuns me. I'm sure I'll get a big Paul Giamatti performance. But also -- with the show already set for a second season, I don't have to pin all my hopes on just the next episode to satisfy. 

Enterprise Flashback: Cold Station 12

When last we left the Enterprise crew, they'd been bested by a group of genetically engineered "Augments," aided by the devious Arik Soong. Fans tuning in for the conclusion were surprised, however: "Cold Station 12" turned out to be a continuation.

Soong and the Augments set their sights on a biological research station where genetically enhanced embyros are kept in storage. Enterprise may have help in stopping them, if Archer can get through to Udar, a "defective" Augment with limited gifts. But there's also a personal stake in the confrontation -- Phlox's longtime friend Dr. Lucas works on the station and is directly in harm's way.

With the decision having been made to tell this story over three episodes, it shouldn't be surprising that it essentially follows a three-act structure. What's perhaps more surprising is that this middle "act" suggests that the main character of the story is Arik Soong. At least, he's the character with the conventional story arc. Part one positioned him as a villain and the "smartest person in the room." Now in part two, he learns he's neither of those things; Malik is plotting deeds more clever and dastardly than Soong could conceive or condone. This episode sets the stage for Soong to turn against his "children" in the final act. 

I get it, Brent Spiner is Star Trek royalty, and they wanted to give him a juicy part to play. But that does come at the expense of other characters. I think the story line that suffers most is that of Udar, the non-augmented Augment. We don't get any sense of why he would be loyal to the siblings who teased and abandoned him. That in turn makes it less impressive when Archer talks him into turning good. (All it takes is some info on biological relatives he's never known?) Worse still, Udar doesn't really do much once he decides to help our heroes... before getting coldly executed by Malik. I suppose this is the skeleton of a story arc. There just isn't enough meat on the bones to be convincing.

Maybe that time could have been claimed by taking out some of the dull scheming between Malik and Persis. This is "sexposition" before Game of Thrones caused the zeitgeist to coin the term. But it can only be so sexy on network TV, and it doesn't do nearly as much to reveal Malik's psychopathy as his actions elsewhere in the episode. (Most of his plans go straight to "then we kill a bunch of people," which Soong has to regularly redirect.) 

But there are plenty of nice moments sprinkled throughout. There's talk about the consequences of banning genetically research -- which, given the time this episode was made, was probably intended as a proxy for stem cell research. Genetic manipulation might have saved Archer's father from a disease... that sounds a lot like a proxy for dementia. But the issue isn't painted as clearly black and white. Because human society's technological reach exceeded its moral grasp, we're told over 30 million people died in the Eugenics War.

Elsewhere in the episode -- when we finally get to meet Phlox's oft-talked-about friend Dr. Lucas, it's delightful to find that he's played by veteran character actor Richard Riehle. (You've seen him in many places. But for better or worse, he's probably best known as the "Jump to Conclusions Mat" guy from Office Space.) Not only does the episode benefit from latent affection we probably have for this actor, but John Billingsley does what he does so well as Phlox, making us feel for Lucas through the strong feelings he expresses. When Phlox's life is threatened, we TV viewers of course know that he isn't going to die... but we don't have to believe he will for Lucas' reaction to land.

The episode ends with a literal ticking clock: a countdown until every lethal pathogen stored on the station is released to kill all our heroes left aboard. It's mystifying why Archer is the one sent up a ladder to stop it (right after having caught the beating of his life from Malik). But it's a fun cliff to hang from until next week.

Other observations:

• Even the Augments' underwear has tastefully ripped holes in it. Although they're clearly not wearing it under their actual clothes, or we'd see it through the, you know, tastefully ripped holes.

• The FX shot of stored embryos inside Cold Station 12 is an unusually unconvincing visual effect for the series.

• As the Augments flee in a shuttle, Enterprise fires some torpedoes and misses. Reed's not at the trigger. So... maybe it's not that Reed sucks as his job? Maybe it's the ship?

I wish this episode budgeted its run time a little better. But there's still enough I like about "Cold Station 12" to give it a B.

Enterprise Flashback: Borderland

After a season-long story arc, a season opening two-parter, and an epilogue to wrap it all up, the time had finally come for Star Trek: Enterprise to "get back to normal." But it had been so long, what even was normal for the show anymore? Star Trek fans would find out with "Borderland."

A group of "Augments" -- genetically-enhanced humans -- is stirring up trouble at the edge of the Klingon Empire and Orion Syndicate territory. Their actions threaten to destabilize the region and incite war. But how can these super-powerful beings be stopped? For that, Enterprise must turn to the unethical scientist who raised the Augments as children, Dr. Arik Soong.

The very first episode of Enterprise set the stage for an intriguing series: humans were stepping onto the interstellar stage for the first time. They were closely monitored by skeptical Vulcans, but they deftly managed their first encounter with the Klingons. Set aside the gobbledygook of the Temporal Cold War, and the prurient titillation of the decon chamber, and you could see the promise being offered by a "Star Trek prequel series." How did we get from there to the more distant future fans knew?

In my eyes, Enterprise stopped being about that almost immediately. Instead of charting a course for the future as we knew it, the show became a less interesting repetition of previous Star Trek series. The only real nod to it being a prequel was that everything was less polished -- the technology was less evolved, and the characters less intelligent. There are many theories about why the series steadily lost viewers. I offer this one: who wants to watch "Star Trek, but everything and everyone is dumber?"

Writer Manny Coto might not have been thinking in exactly those terms -- but when he was put in charge of the series for season four, he clearly had the same sense that Enterprise wasn't fulfilling its prequel promise. He had a vision for what the show should be like: constantly mining the franchise's rich history of hundreds of episodes for intriguing and underexplored ideas, and developing them in "mini-arcs" of two- and three-part episodes. More simply: let's dump out the Star Trek toy box and start playing.

"Borderland" is the first episode of this new format. And while I won't claim that it's instantly a top five episode of the series, I think it does immediately feel like "what the show should have been like all along." I understand, they were trying to attract new fans to Star Trek. So maybe the show never could have been this from the beginning. I'm certainly not the person who can imagine what it's like to watch this episode without knowing who Klingons or Orions are, grasping what Augments are and how they relate to one of the most beloved Star Trek movies, or understanding that Arik Soong is supposed to be the great-(times-several)-grandfather of the creator of a fan favorite android. Is "Borderland" asking a Marvel Cinematic Universe level of "required reading" to be enjoyable?

Maybe. But I've done the reading.

I'm perfectly situated to pick up everything this episode is putting down. I already know that Brent Spiner is at his best when getting to cut loose and play any character other than Data, so I'm here for his take on the villainous narcissist Arik Soong. He's so irreverent, he even makes fun of some of the deficiencies of Star Trek: Enterprise -- what a non-character Reed is, how you can just go to the Trip/T'Pol relationship for a cheap thrill, how whatever is happening with the Augments seems far more Enterprise than anything happening aboard Enterprise.

Well... on that last point, I maybe don't quite agree. A lot of screen time this episode is given to squabbling among the Augments, which amounts to a lot of plotting and backstabbing (and so much villain monologuing) between characters we don't know. The actors in these roles are all cast for their looks. (And to be clear, I mean their model-like appearance, not for a match to the character names that are meant to imply a lineage with Khan.) Alec Newman, who plays Malik, is arguably the most recognizable -- at least, if you remember that there was a Dune TV mini-series in between the version David Lynch disowned and the modern Denis Villeneuve take. But Brent Spiner is in no danger of having to share a spotlight with any other actors in this story; the Augments can all just look good in their so-tastefully ripped outfits.

They can also kick some ass. With Wrath of Khan being the memorable "Augment" story in Star Trek, and with the conflict there being more psychological than physical, it's easy to forget that these guys are basically supposed to be Superman without the flying and laser eyes. So it's great fun watching two Augments take down the entire crew of a Klingon ship. Or watching Malik threaten Archer in slow detail because he knows that no one is fast enough to stop him. These Augments may not be the most charismatic villains in Star Trek, but they do feel menacing.

Along the way, there's a side trip into an Orion slave den -- a setting that holds an outsized position in classic Trek lore. It's entertaining to see professional wrestler The Big Show manhandle T'Pol, and even more entertaining to watch the big action set piece that follows. There are great moments of T'Pol getting even with her captors, Archer outsmarting Soong with a set of magnetic handcuffs, and more. I keep saying it: this kind of action stuff is what Enterprise is best at.

Other observation:

• J.G. Hertzler appears too briefly at the start of this episode as a Klingon. At first, I thought it was weird to cast such a fan favorite Trek actor in such a minor role. Then I decided that actually, who better than Hertzler to help kick off this new, past-honoring incarnation of the series? 

• Star Trek has a long history of luxuriating in "spacedock launch" sequences set to triumphant music. It's a bit weird how late the music begins in this one.

• T'Pol now sports Starfleet pips and an Enterprise arm patch. Of course, there's no way they're going to switch her to one of those jumpsuit uniforms.

• In the brig scene where Archer confronts Soong, I found the editing to be distracting. Most of the cuts are on "the other side of the glass" from the person speaking, so most of the dialogue in the scene is oddly processed and muffled.

I don't know that there's any kind of moral to "Borderland." And not every part of it works. But it is a lot of fun. It's a well-planted flag to mark this new (final) era of the series. I give it a B.

Starfleet Academy: The Life of the Stars

It's been a long time since I was involved in theater and acting. But even though you lose the "kid" over time, you never really lose the "theater kid." So you might think I was the prime audience for the latest episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, "The Life of the Stars." But as it turned out, it was the series' first real miss for me.

After a long recovery period, Tarima Sadal returns... but not to the War College; she has been transferred to Starfleet Academy. Her arrival does nothing to help mend a group of cadets still deeply shaken and fractured by recent experiences. So Chancellor Ake brings a new teacher in to help them confront their feelings: Lieutenant Sylvia Tilly is coming to teach them theater. But soon into the course, Sam collapses from the cumulative effects of a malfunction she's been hiding from everyone. Her only hope is for the Doctor and Ake to take her back to her homeworld... and more, for the Doctor to ultimately face the reason he's been so cold to her.

Simply put, I have a lot of issues with the episode. But most file under the heading: "you can't expect genuine participation under duress." That starts right out of the gate, when we're told Tarima has been transferred from the War College to Starfleet Academy against her will. It sure doesn't feel like it should work that way; if you enlist in the Coast Guard, they can't just transfer you into the Army instead without your approval.

There's a saying that describes art -- often: film, television, and theater in particular -- as an "empathy machine," and I believe that's true. But I don't think it follows that being forced to do theater against your will is just the thing to surface and process buried emotions. It certainly shouldn't help more than a skilled therapist could -- even though the episode tries to hang a lantern on that with a throwaway line saying therapy hasn't helped.

Even if you could accept the supposition that "everybody should do theater!" (too drama nerdy even for me), you then have to get over so many other hurdles. This show is set just shy of 1200 years in our future. Yes, there are plays in the real world that are that old and still performed today -- but not many. (Notably, Shakespeare isn't even half that old.) It's a big ask to think that a bunch of eager cadets (and one reluctant drifter) are going to connect deeply with, of all plays, Thornton Wilder’s "Our Town."

And even if you could accept that, how is Sylvia Tilly the right character to take them on that journey? Sure, Mary Wiseman is a trained stage performer, but I don't recall Tilly expressing any aptitude for theater (or even any interest in it) in five seasons of Star Trek: Discovery. And in any case, how can you bring Tilly onto the show about young cadets and not once have her address with them the fact that "I was a cadet like you not so long ago, and here's how I grew?" I liked the character of Tilly more than many, but I didn't feel this was a good way of having her cameo on another Star Trek series.

Over in the other plot line, we watched the Doctor amplify his already brusque behavior toward Sam with a parade of coldness designed to make us ask, "what's up with him?" Of course, we have to see a character be one way for it to matter when we see their conversion to being a different way. But the hole the writers dug for the Doctor here and throughout this season was so deep (he won't even hold her hand when she asks for comfort?) that I don't think there was a way to climb back out of it.

"Real Life" was one of the most pivotal Doctor episodes of Star Trek: Voyager -- and when I reviewed it, I called it clearly the best episode of the series to that point. But to undermine the Doctor's character growth there by saying that after that, he retreated from any meaningful relationships for centuries? It's a weird choice, and doesn't feel consistent with subsequent episodes of Voyager. I felt his decision to parent Sam had the same core flaw as the episode's other story line: how much can you commit to something that you're doing (mostly) against your will?

Though I found the storytelling to be quite a mess, I did at least enjoy a lot of the acting throughout the episode. Robert Picardo gave the Doctor's big confessional speech everything he had. Kerrice Brooks really gave us new shades of Sam; the situation actually felt serious simply because she wasn't the usual, bubbly personality she's been in previous episodes. And speaking of bubbly, I do love seeing Mary Wiseman again, especially in her interactions with Tig Notaro. Also, props to Zoë Steiner, who did great with one of acting's underestimated challenges: believably acting drunk.

Still, the good performances didn't really save this for me from being clearly the weakest Starfleet Academy episode we've gotten. (Not to mention one of the weaker episodes of "modern Star Trek" generally.) I give "The Life of the Stars" a C.

The Lowdown on the Lowdown

I haven't formally made a list of my favorite actors, but if I did, I think Ethan Hawke might be on it. It's not necessarily that I think he's one of the strongest actors -- he's not a performer who leaps to mind when you're thinking about either breadth of roles or depth of chameleon-like abilities. But I really like his tastes.

Hawke has starred in some of my favorite movies of all time: Gattaca and the acclaimed Before trilogy. And usually, even when I'm not as over the moon about one of his movies, I find something interesting about it -- from the examination of faith that was First Reformed, to the little-known science fiction film Predestination, to the inverted vampire story that was Daybreakers. When he decides to make a horror movie, it's something a bit outside the norm for the time, like Sinister. When he decides to do Marvel, he picks Moon Knight -- one of the more interesting of the franchise's television shows. Basically: I'm usually picking up what Ethan Hawke is putting down.

That long preamble brings me to Hawke's most recent television project, The Lowdown. He stars as Lee Raybon, self-dubbed "truth-storian" who runs a rare book store and writes for a small local newspaper in Tulsa. A classic "man who knows too much" scenario unfolds when he writes an article about a recent suicide, rousing the ire of his subject's brother -- who is running for governor. Has Lee stumbled onto a secret conspiracy? Will proving it get him out of trouble? Can he find proof?

I'd heard good things about The Lowdown when it ran last year -- but even with my stated interest in whatever seems to interest Ethan Hawke, I didn't get around to the show right away. It arrived when there was a lot of competition for TV time, and I hadn't really received personal recommendations from friends steering me toward it. But I have finally caught up with it... and I think I'd put it in that category of Hawke projects I'm "not over the moon for, though I do find something interesting about."

You could make the argument that whatever niche The Lowdown is serving is already served by the TV series Fargo; both shows tend to center on "regular people getting caught up in extraordinary events." But  Fargo's showrunner, Noah Hawley, now has his hands full with Alien: Earth. And more crucially, most seasons of Fargo are period pieces. The Lowdown is set in modern day, making the main character's almost anachronistic work in newspapers and old books a key element in his crusader complex.

Still, if you do want to go with "The Lowdown is like a season of Fargo starring Ethan Hawke," that works too. Especially because its interesting cast also includes Keith David, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tim Blake Nelson, Kyle MacLachlan, and Graham Greene. The overall story doesn't always feel airtight or edge-of-the-seat compelling... but the characters are always fascinating. (And perhaps never more so than when Peter Dinklage swings in to guest star in one episode.)

Besides Fargo, I could say The Lowdown is "kinda like" Justified, or maybe even Better Call Saul. Articles on the internet have compared it to True Detective, Peaky Blinders, and many others. The bottom line here, I think, is that there are probably many paths into this show. Once there, you'll probably find a show you don't like quite as much as the thing that led you there... yet you'll like enough to scratch the itch of the original thing you loved. In that spirit, I'll give The Lowdown a B.

Starfleet Academy: Ko'Zeine

I think one of the early strengths of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has been variety of interesting characters in the cast, ready-made to shuffle into different combinations for new storytelling. That's exactly what happens in "Ko'Zeine."

It's spring break, and the cadets are leaving on a variety of vacations. Jay-Den's plans with Kyle are disrupted when Jay-Den witnesses the abduction of Darem, and gives chase through a dimensional portal. It turns out this is all part of pre-wedding tradition; Darem's arranged marriage is at hand, and Jay-Den is to serve as his "ko'zeine." Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, Caleb has received dispensation to remain at the Academy under the watch of Jett Reno. But his own relaxation plans are thwarted when Genesis returns and goads him into escalating hijinks for her own secret ends.

I don't feel like there are any "major problems" with this episode... yet all throughout, I felt like little things about it felt just a bit off. Given the title of the episode, I'll dub the Darem/Jay-Den storyline the "A story," and start there. After a previous episode spelled out so clearly for us that Darem has issues with impossible-to-please parents, it feels a little off to now learn that Darem was already destined to be royalty-by-marriage. It's not that it doesn't track, exactly. (Impossible-to-please people are impossible to please.) It's just weird that no hint of this came up earlier.

The weirder behavior comes from the significant others in the story. Kyle is not at all put out by Jay-Den bailing on their Ibiza vacation. Jay-Den doesn't ever really show any impulse to reach out and let Kyle know he's alright. Darem's bride Kaira absolutely must have Darem at her side right now... until one speech from Jay-Den makes her decide that actually, it'll be just fine if she rules alone. And all of this transpires in a story that doesn't follow-up on the interesting tidbits we've already been given about Khionians: what's with the changing forms, why do they just look like humans on their own homeworld, are there more forms than "human" and "spacewalk-proof", are there any societal norms about any of that, and so on.

Over in the "B story," does it seem plausible that Caleb could have survived on his own for so long if he can be this easily manipulated? Has Genesis shown any indication that she's so sensitive to criticism that her "big dark secret" is hacking her records to remove any? Would it really be Jett Reno and not the Doctor watching over the Academy during spring break? And is a big reason this episode doesn't hit as well as the others because there's so little Nahla Ake (and Holly Hunter) in it?

What I do like is the writers resisting the obvious love triangle between Caleb, Genesis, and the off-screen Tarima. On the typical teen show, Genesis absolutely would have taken this opportunity to "take Caleb away" from a romantic rival; instead, Genesis pushes hard for Caleb to express his feelings to her. (It's less clear, though, if the writers are resisting a love triangle between Jay-Den, Kyle, and Darem... in part because Kyle hasn't been developed enough yet to be around to stay.) I liked the reinforcement of character growth for both Jay-Den (who keeps getting better at public speaking) and Darem (who, as Jay-Den points out, is really discovering himself at Starfleet Academy).

As a side note, in online circles, some credited this episode as the one that "revealed" Jay-Den Kraag is gay. I felt this was pretty clear in earlier episodes from his flirtation with Kyle, but since this is the moment many are commenting on it, I'll offer a commentary of my own. I really like the idea of Star Trek giving us LGBT characters in places you "wouldn't expect." It's interesting to show us that even a strong, warrior culture like the Klingons has gay men. But it's playing a bit into historically negative cliches to have Jay-Den be softer and more sensitive, and be an outcast from his family. And while we're on the subject, it's also playing into cliche for the show's other (half-)Klingon LGBT character, Lura Thok, to be coded as "butch lesbian." Fortunately, both characters have already been written as more than their respective cliches; I just wish they weren't starting from those positions.

"Ko'Zeine" wasn't a bad episode by any stretch. But I think it was the weakest so far of the series. I give it a B-.

Good Knight

After the series finale of Game of Thrones received "whatever the opposite of rapturous applause is" from the public at large, its spin-off series, House of the Dragon, became "whatever the opposite of eagerly anticipated is." Could there be an appetite for a third series based on George R.R. Martin's hugely-sprawling (but never finished) fantasy setting? That's what A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms sets out to test.

This series is based on a prequel trilogy of novellas by Martin. (He's said he intends to write more, but we all know the punchline of that joke.) Lowly hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall, called Dunk, gets into misadventures with his young squire Egg -- all some 90 years before the events of Game of Thrones. Season one of this new show, based off the novella The Hedge Knight, chronicles the duo's first meeting, and sees Dunk raising the ire of a powerfully-positioned enemy. A secret harbored by the young Egg may be all that stands between Dunk and a swift, unjust punishment.

I hope that any fans who soured on the original Game of Thrones open themselves up to this new show. The first spin-off, House of the Dragons, doubled down on many of the original series' excesses, with a tale spanning dozens of years, involving hundreds of characters, and featuring more CG dragons than a server farm could render in a year. (Which is why it takes two or three between seasons.)

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is, in almost every way, everything the first two series are not. It's succinct; the first season is only six episodes long, and the typical episode runs barely 30 minutes. It's focused; the story is squarely centered on Dunk and Egg, involving only the people who come into their orbit. It's grounded; while CG is certainly employed to enhance the setting, it is a tale of knights and jousting -- with no dragons or magic anywhere to be seen.

Also, perhaps most strikingly: there's humor! A Song of Ice and Fire is famously a book series that tried to take all this swords and sorcery stuff more seriously than the typical epic, and Game of Thrones took the lead from that when adapting the tale for television. But there were lighter moments -- in the early books, certainly -- that became but a distant memory by the show's final season. House of the Dragon is, if anything, even more mirthless, depicting Westeros as a cruel place devoid of lightness in any measure. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms manages to find the fun again. There are certainly dark moments, and the sort of monumental character deaths that are the bread and butter of Martin's writing. But also, there are a lot of jokes -- some actually laugh out loud funny.

With a story focused on just two characters, the dynamic between those two -- and the casting of the roles -- is of utmost importance. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms hits the bullseye with its two leads. Peter Claffey plays Dunk with a lovably perfect mix of intimidation and oafishness. Dexter Sol Ansell ably captures the wise-beyond-his-years qualities of Egg in one scene, while being an impulsive and immature young boy in the next. Together, the two have a tremendous rapport -- not quite father-son, not quite mentor-student, not quite brothers... but always just what the story calls for.

And again, what that story calls for is thrillingly tight. I've seen a few complaints online from people disappointed that when all was said and done, this new show gave them barely three new hours of Game of Thrones-related content. I myself found that quality over quantity was the order of the day for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. This lean, enjoyable story felt to me like the most consistently entertaining thing to happen in Westeros since at least the fifth season of Game of Thrones. By being something rather different, it effectively reminded me of what I like about it all in the first place.

I give A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms an A-. I find myself looking forward to its second season far more I am to the third season of House of the Dragon (coming later this year). And since they're reportedly already filming that second season, signs point to us getting it without the too-typical-these-days delay of several years. 

Enterprise Flashback: Home

After Star Trek: The Next Generation resolved its most famous cliffhanger, the show served up an unusual "part three" with "Family," an introspective episode that examined the personal stakes undergirding the galactic ones. Following the season-long Xindi arc and the "Storm Front" two-parter, Star Trek: Enterprise attempted a similar epilogue with "Home."

At long last, Enterprise returns to Earth. But after an initial heroes' welcome, the crew spends time apart. Trip accompanies T'Pol to Vulcan for a difficult visit with her mother. Reed tries to enjoy newfound fame, but while out in public with Phlox, encounters ugly xenophobia. And Archer avoids a debriefing by escaping into the wilderness with the captain of Enterprise's sister ship.

"Home" is a decent episode, though it doesn't quite have the clarity or focus of The Next Generation. "Family" was unified by the overarching theme stated in the title. "Home" is more disjointed, with no one theme bridging all the story lines.

To some extent, the episode presents a take on a classic war theme that "you can't go home again." Reed and Mayweather discover a streak of racism against Phlox, and T'Pol's visit with her mother exposes just how wide the gulf between the two has grown. But Archer's story is not about him confronting changes in himself or on Earth. He has changed, as his interactions with Captain Hernandez make clear -- but not only is Archer not forced to confront his changes, he's rewarded for them by a congratulatory Ambassador Soval.

In two of the stories, our heroes are forced to ask themselves "what were we even fighting for?" The racist attack on Phlox exposes how humanity seems to have regressed in its moral progress. Archer spends much of the episode grousing about how Starfleet probably should be more of a military force. But then T'Pol's story doesn't really continue that theme into the third story line; her plot is about her feeling coerced into an arranged marriage.

Two of the stories are united around the theme of obligation. Archer has done his duty with the Xindi, and now must face an uncomfortable duty of a different kind in recounting all his morally questionable decisions to Starfleet and the Vulcans. T'Pol faces a two-fold obligation, to the fiance she's pledged to, and to her mother, whose troubles can be resolved if T'Pol helps her. But then the story line on Earth doesn't touch on obligation at all; it's a vignette about xenophobia in a time of war.

What I'm getting at is, "Home" is a bit jumbled. That said, focus on any one of the three main stories, and you'll find something to like. I find Archer's rock climbing themed booty call with Hernandez the least compelling story of the three, but even that is interesting for the contrast between Archer as dispirited veteran and Hernandez as hopeful neophyte. And they didn't skip on the production, taking the show on location for the mountaineering scenes.

The message of the Phlox story line is most engaging to me, even if that story gets the least screen time. Phlox's strange "puffer fish" face moment is just weird, but the scene itself gets something exactly right. In the 9/11 allegory that is the Xindi arc, it's important to note is that bigotry against an "other" -- even if they had nothing to do with it -- lingers for a long time. There's a particularly good scene between Phlox and Hoshi, in which Hoshi gives what should be the right answer (hiding away isn't the way to redress prejudice), but Phlox gives a more nuanced take (that trauma is real, and you can't rush the time it takes to heal).

Most of the episode focuses on T'Pol and Trip on Vulcan. While I'm not as invested in their on-off relationship as the writers, I do like the complications of this episode as a way of keeping them apart. It's so Vulcan to cloak an emotional urge to help family in a sense of moral obligation. It is, well... fascinating to see what a mob-style shakedown looks like when delivered in a Vulcan way. And the ending is especially poignant, as Trip must stand there as T'Pol marries someone else.

Also, T'Pol's mother T'Les -- as played by Joanna Cassidy -- is really an interesting character. On the one hand, she's all about tradition (providing a vehicle for this episode to have fun showing us some Vulcan customs). But at her core, T'Les shows unusual emotional intelligence for a Vulcan, revealing that she knows about the feelings her daughter has for Trip -- and even encouraging him to talk to T'Pol before it's too late.

Other observations:

• The show's CG may not always look top notch (though for being two decades old, it's great). But they often know exactly how and when to use it. The opening shot of the packed stadium welcoming Enterprise back is very effective, as is the vista of Vulcan with its colossal statues.

• Enterprise's sister ship, Columbia, was of course named for the space shuttle -- which had been lost less than two years before this episode aired.

• Yes, imagine the shame of the child of a Vulcan and human. (wink wink)

• When Archer and Hernandez make camp for the night, they weirdly seem to have made a point of laying their sleeping bags directly on hard rocks rather than the softer ground visible all around them.

I wish "Home" hung together thematically a bit better, but I do like that the show took a moment for this Xindi "epilogue" before rolling on to new stories. I give the episode a B.

Starfleet Academy: Come, Let's Away

The first season of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy has already crossed the halfway mark. It's high time for a return appearance by Paul Giamatti as the season's "big bad," Nus Braka. Which is exactly what we got in "Come, Let's Away."

The Starfleet Academy and War College cadets are on a training mission to a derelict Starfleet ship when a team is captured by dangerous marauders known as the Furies. Out of options to stage a rescue, Admiral Vance and Chancellor Ake turn to Nus Braka for help. His history with the Furies could prove decisive, though the price for his help may be too high. But maybe the newly-forged telepathic link between Caleb and Tarima will offer a way out of the crisis.

This was a very carefully crafted machine of an episode that really used the characters in just the right ways. The problems our heroes faced aboard the Miyazaki were constructed in such a way to give nearly every main character a role in the story and a moment to rise to the occasion. And while some of it may have been laced with a tinge of contrivance (Sam's ability to talk to the ship's communicator being both helpful and not too helpful), the situation felt effectively tense overall.

Some of that was the alien design of the Furies, whose weird phasing in and out felt like a fun way to "not show the monster" in an age where visual effects allow you to credibly show the monster. But I think more of it had to do with another page from the horror movie playbook: racking up a body count. Star Trek has always used dying redshirts to heighten the danger (to diminishing effects as it became a cliche), but there's something next level about the implied ripping apart of the cadets' teacher and tossing him into space for a bunch more cadets to see. And... bigger spoilers!... that danger is borne out when not only do the Furies claim the life of B'Avi, a character we've now spent a few episodes with, but also, defeating them winds up putting another character, Tarima, in a coma.

But while the bulk of the cast were thrown into this action-adventure stand-off, Holly Hunter and Paul Giamatti sat apart in a one-on-one character drama that let the two skilled actors simply trade barbs with one another. The odd stillness and serious of Nahla Ake, rather at odds with the free-spirited whimsy she displays most of the time, was a strong signal to the audience that Nus Braka is a threat to take seriously. And Nus Braka? Well, Paul Giamatti made another delicious meal out of every over-the-top line he was given.

Nus Braka's "wheels-within-wheels" scheming wasn't exactly hard to see coming, but there are more ways to make a villain shine than making him smarter than anyone else. (Though, aside from the audience, I guess he was that here also.) A great villain bends the arc of the story to them, as Giamatti's character did here. And as fun as all of his boisterous grandstanding was throughout the episode, I found the best moment for both actor and character to be his final scene, where he dropped all the bluster to explain his core hatred for the Federation. I don't actually agree with his Reagan-esque suspicion of "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you," but this is absolutely a recognizable type of attitude that resonates today. When governments fall down on the job, as they did in this Star Trek future after the Burn, people like Nus Braka are ascendant.

I find myself hoping that this villain lasts more than just one season, because I find him a great asset for the show... that I also don't want to be too overused by having him appear too frequently. In any case, I felt he was a big part of what made this one of the stronger Starfleet Academy episodes so far. I give "Come, Let's Away" a B+.

Devilish Fun?

David Dastmalchian is one of those actors whose face is much more widely recognized than his name. He's been "that weird guy" in things from Dune to Dexter to Murderbot and many, many more. But he's invariably a secondary character who isn't anchoring the film or TV series he's appearing in. In that way (among many others), the movie Late Night With the Devil is something different.

Late Night With the Devil is a fictitious documentary of 1970s talk show host Jack Delroy. Through increasing fame and sudden personal tragedy, his talk show Night Owls has always finished second to the legendary Johnny Carson. But his special episode on Halloween night in 1977 may change all that. With guests including a mentalist, skeptic, and a parapsychologist and her subject, Jack Delroy may have stumbled into a harrowing situation bringing more than he ever bargained for.

This movie uses a "found footage" conceit. After a brief introduction setting up the alleged documentary we're here to watch, the action unfolds as the "actual" Halloween broadcast as it went out live into America's living rooms. During the commercial breaks, the "documentary filmmakers" have restored "behind the scenes" footage taken in the studio. Thus, the movie is a 90-minute, real-time descent into darkness.

The structure is clever in theory, but in practice presents as something like a bell curve. The opening 15 to 20 minutes are very much a "slow burn" bit of storytelling. Anything else simply wouldn't be believable. If a 1970s TV audience was to turn on, say, the Dick Cavett Show and be confronted five minutes in with scenes from The Exorcist? Well, not only would that strain credulity, but it really wouldn't leave the story anywhere to go. Still... it means the movie requires the sort of patience that horror movies actually made in the late 70s demand: the tension ratchets up oh-so-slowly before all hell finally breaks loose. (Perhaps literally.)

At the end of the movie, without getting too spoilery, the movie lost me for another reason -- specifically, it abandons the "found footage" conceit it has so carefully established, showing us events that could not have been part of the live broadcast. It is at least in service of a fitting ending for what we've watched unfold... but it's presented in a way that doesn't have the courage of its narrative convictions.

But, for one hour in the middle, Late Night With the Devil is a pretty fun ride. We get entertaining jump scares, motivated characters gradually-but-believably making bad choices... all the best horror movie staples that makes the genre fun when done right. And a lot of what makes it work is the casting. David Dastmalchian really does carry this movie, and his casting is interesting in that he's not playing an overt creep like he usually does. His character is, as the old cliche goes, someone America would want to invite into their living rooms, and he definitely captures the patter and demeanor of a talk show host.

And really, the rest of the cast is pretty good too. To be blunt, even when the story of this movie is at its best, the dialogue isn't. This isn't an award-worthy script. But Dastmalchian, Ian Bliss, and Ingrid Torelli are particularly key among the cast in delivering what thrills there are here.

I would give Late Night With the Devil a B-. I feel that horror movies are a genre that's much like panning for gold; you have to give it a while to come up with anything valuable. This "find" is no fist-sized rock of gold... but neither is it a lump of iron pyrite. If you enjoy horror movies in generally, you might find enough gold flecks in here to feel this movie is worth your time.

A Bad Movie With a Powerful Kick

These days, I tend not to blog about entertainment I don't like. But I'm going to make an exception today for a movie I basically hated even as there were things I appreciated about it. I'm going to focus more on the latter as I tell you about If I Had Legs I'd Kick You.

Linda is at the end of her rope. Her young daughter has a condition that requires constant care and supplemental medical feeding. Her husband's job has him almost always absent. A massive issue at her apartment forces her to move into a hotel and fight constantly with her landlord for repairs. And there's a crisis at her therapy practice involving a patient. Can she hold herself together as it feels like everything is falling apart?

There are times it feels like If I Had Legs I'd Kick You barely has a story at all. It's a parade of horrible events, at best uncomfortable to watch, and at worst being a potential reminder of things in your own life you might have been watching a movie to try to escape. This is not a fun watch. It's not a movie from which you will take away anything uplifting. I deeply disliked the experience of the two hours I lost watching it.

But... there are some aspects of this movie I really want to praise -- in part because the Award Industrial Complex has turned its eye toward this movie, and I actually can see why.

Rose Byrne has the film's one Academy Award nomination, a Best Actress nod for her performance as Linda. It's absolutely deserved. Byrne has been on such a long run of comedic roles that I find myself forgetting she first came onto my radar as the star of Damages, a great psychological drama where she held her own opposite Glenn Close. In If I Had Legs I Kick You (yes, a great title I'm deliberately repeating for the fun of it), Byrne captures all the complexity of a mother on the edge: pushing herself well past the point of exhaustion simply because a) society unfairly expects it of her; and b) there's no one else.

Byrne's performance feels utterly real, because it's utterly without vanity. Through intense close-ups (more on that in a moment), she is able to give a remarkably subtle performance where you can see every crack in the facade as it develops. There's scarcely even gallows humor here; this is simply a raw, authentic performance that she inhabits so deeply that the audience can't help but feel it themselves.

She's aided in this feat by the choices of writer-director Mary Bronstein. Bronstein is doing things that on paper sound overly auteurist, navel-gazing, and pretentious. In practice, they're absolutely crucial to narrowing the spotlight on the film's central theme, and they help make Byrne's performance come off as powerfully as it does.

In If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (yup, I did it again), Linda's daughter has no name. We don't even see her face. The focus is entirely on Linda -- and the camera stays in tight close-up on her face for the vast majority of the movie. This doesn't just put the focus on what Linda is going through, it utterly strips away any chance for the audience to bond with her daughter. We never get any of the young girl's human characteristics, any hint of why anyone would sacrifice anything to care for her. As an off-camera voice, the daughter is rendered a whiny, insistent, never-ending black hole of need. Everything Linda has sacrificed in her life that got her to this point feels in fact completely pointless, since we don't even see what any of it was for.

If you've ever found yourself skeptical of highbrow art criticism ("see, the artist's choice of blue is meant to convey a unfulfilled yearning"), you might actually want to watch If I Had Legs I Kicked You. It's as pure a demonstration as I can imagine of the way that particular film-making choices can have a powerful effect on storytelling.

And yet... I didn't feel there was much of a story here to tell, beyond being made to sit and stew in one woman's awful predicament, watching helplessly as it grows more awful by the minute. I actually give If I Had Legs I'd Kick you a D-. Frankly, I hated this aimless, uncomfortable, oftentimes boring... well-made, well-acted, hyper-focused movie. Love it or hate it, you may well find there's something here for you too.

Starfleet Academy: Series Acclimation Mil

Almost every Star Trek series has a character positioned "outside humanity, looking in." These characters -- including Spock, Data, and Odo, among others -- are usually fan favorites. Starfleet Academy has a novel take on this archetype in the form of Sam, a bubbly, boisterous hologram who is actually even younger -- far younger -- than her teenage appearance. Will fans embrace her? If so, the latest episode of the show will be a key moment in that, "Series Acclimation Mil."

Sam is pressed by the leaders of her world to make faster progress in her evaluation of organic life-forms. She is their emissary, and they need her to find out if organics can be trusted. She finds herself drawn to history and another emissary, Benjamin Sisko. Solving the mystery of his fate, she reasons, will help her better understand her own role. Meanwhile, Commander Kelrec will soon host a group of alien dignitaries with their own elaborate rituals, and Chancellor Ake sets out to help him prepare.

I want to come to this episode by way of Star Trek: Lower Decks, for a few reasons. For one, it was co-written by Tawny Newsome, who starred on that series as Mariner and appears in this episode as Illa. But more importantly, I think Lower Decks worked because even though it was an animated comedy, it came from a place of love. Everyone involved with the show clearly loved Star Trek, and so it never felt mean when it would point out when the franchise had figurative food stains on its shirt.

For me, that same love of Star Trek manifests in a different way in this Starfleet Academy episode. I didn't feel they were here simply to trade on goodwill for Deep Space Nine. The story worked hard to honor the ambiguity of that show's finale, while also addressing a real-life concern actor Avery Brooks had previously expressed: that regardless of narrative fit, it didn't feel great for a black father on 90s television to be abandoning his children. Bringing Cirroc Lofton back to play an adult Jake Sisko let this episode speak to all of that, while the revelation of Ilia's true nature was a delightful surprise.

Interestingly, this story subverted much of what I said here in the beginning. Yes... on paper, Sam is very much the Spock/Data/etc. type of character, there to say: "you are all so perplexing" and make the audience reflect on the human condition. But then this episode said actually, Sam is also in a very large way like this other Star Trek character you probably weren't thinking about: a reluctant emissary on a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance.

But... Sam does come on pretty strong, doesn't she? Kerrice Brooks admirably performs the role as written, complete with this episode's direct camera address, bouncy personality, and complete lack of social awareness -- though it can seem at times like this is trying to bottle all of television's most wacky character traits in one package. This hybrid Sheldon Cooper / Patrick Star / Phoebe Buffay character is out here Fleabagging / Clarissa Explains It All-ing / Ferris Bueller-ing her way through this episode like a force of nature. And I'm not sure the broad swings between that tone and the more serious "fate of the Emissary" material always worked.

Though the episode does try to add still more comedic elements to support the big swings. The Kelrec subplot is there basically just to get four actors around a dinner table for some broad comedy. And it doesn't hurt that two of them happen to be Robert Picardo (reliable comedy go-to from Star Trek: Voyager) and Tig Notaro.

Sam may not be my favorite character on this series, but I found enough to like even in an episode that centered on her. I give "Series Acclimation Mil" a B.

Starfleet Academy: Vox In Excelso

In the first episode of Starfleet Academy, one of the characters who most caught my attention was the Klingon Jay-Den Kraag. Luckily for me, I didn't have to wait long for an episode centered on him, "Vox In Excelso."

When word arrives at the Academy that a fleet of Klingon ships may have been lost, it's a deeply complex and personal tragedy for Jay-Den Kraag. He is estranged from his family, particularly a father who did not understand his interest in Starfleet. And the Klingons themselves stand at the brink of extinction, having lost their homeworld in the Burn. With the potential loss of many of the few remaining Klingons, and a sense of honor preventing them from seeking help, this may be the end of the once-strong people.

This episode marked the first time that the tone of Starfleet Academy didn't catch me off-guard and make me think, "oh, so maybe it's going to be like this?" That's because this was a classic Star Trek story formulation, presented in a mostly classic way. A crisis at large scale has especially personal stakes for one of the characters, who has to grapple with their own complicated feelings. (It seems no one in Starfleet comes from a healthy, stable family background.)

I won't pretend this was a best possible execution of that tried-and-true formula. Is it plausible that one cadet -- and only that cadet -- understands Klingons well enough to come up with the solution that's enacted at the end of this episode? Not really. Is Chancellor Ake's relationship with an old Klingon leader a convenient way to shoehorn in why any of this story would involve the Academy in any way? You bet. Pushing all these revelations through the Play-Doh Fun Factory of "debate class?" Pretty silly -- but this is Starfleet Academy.

I'll allow the writing contrivances, because this framework did allow for a number of great scenes. I appreciated the dynamic between Caleb and Jay-Den. In both life and fiction, it's expected that people with (supposedly) similar backgrounds should naturally be friends. But a real friendship develops from more than tropes. Caleb coming on strong about how much alike he and Jay-Den are created the perfect situation for Jay-Den to withdraw. The subtext was clear: I thought you saw me, not a version of yourself. And I also appreciated how the one cadet to actually swoop in and help was the character you probably least expected it to be, Darem Reymi. Maybe it's all the Heated Rivalry in the zeitgeist, but I found myself wondering if the show is trying to "ship" these two characters. But whether as friends or something more, I found Darem and Jay-Den to be a pairing I'd like to see more of.

And so what if the Chancellor Ake's scenes were a conceit to give Holly Hunter something to do. We have freaking Oscar winner Holly Hunter anchoring a Star Trek series! I love how she's taking the quirky behavior of Carol Kane of Strange New Worlds, embracing some part of it as "whatever a Lanthanite is," and making it her own. Specifically, what she's made is the captain who seems to be consistently having the most fun in the captain's chair since James T. Kirk.

Plus, Lura Thok might be emerging as the series' biggest not-so-secret weapon. We're already used to Thok as drill sergeant and so-serious-it's-funny comic relief. But here, actor Gina Yashere showed us another gear in a great scene with Jay-Den, recontextualizing his past as only another Klingon could and helping him find peace.

Overall, I thought this was a pretty good episode. I give it a B+. I hope that as the show inevitably focuses episodes on other characters, the results are at least as compelling.

Win Some, Lose Some

Pixar has been slowly branching out from movies into television mini-series on Disney+. I've blogged about their Inside Out spin-off, Dream Productions. But now I've watched a wholly original show, Win or Lose.

A middle school softball team is set to play in the big championship game at the end of the week. But it's going to be a big week for everyone: the young players dealing with problems at school, the parents trying to juggle their own lives with their kids', and even the umpire who will be calling the game.

I noted that Dream Productions felt like a Pixar movie that had simply been chopped into four pieces. But Win or Lose makes specific use of the television format. Each of the eight episodes centers on the perspective of one character. Some events replay in multiple episodes, with added context coming from the viewpoint shifts. The result is a surprisingly layered story with an accessible and potent message: everyone is out there, going through their stuff that you might know nothing about. 

Also different for Pixar is the relatively grounded nature of the story. Many of the characters' inner thoughts are realized in the form of a unique animation style that gets shuffled in with the "Pixar standard." But still, it's their inner thoughts. The story isn't taking place in a fanciful rendition of a teenager's mind, or a farflung post-apocaylptic future, or a world where you can attach balloons to your house to make it fly away. Win or Lose is unusually realistic for Pixar, which serves its realistic message well.

In different episodes, we see characters battle anxiety manifesting in many ways, using many tactics. One person seems to literally armor up to repel the negativity of others. Another character summons a professional alter ego, prepared for any situation. Still another refuels with likes from social media... and so on.

It's actually a sprawling cast of characters, played by a wide variety of comedians, voice-over artists, people you might know from any number of places. Will Forte is the "big name," but you might also know Josh Thomson, Rosa Salazar, Lil Rel Howery, Melissa Villaseñor, Scott Menville, Rhea Seehorn, or others. You need this many people to tell this many intersecting stories.

There's a lot to recommend about the show -- though I do have to acknowledge one place where cowardly interference by Disney compromised the Pixar team's original intentions. The Pickles are a co-ed softball team, and one of the characters was written as a trans girl. Disney reportedly asked Pixar to remove any specific mention of this. While you can still read between the lines and see the intention in the finished product, I feel like a more spelled-out portrayal would have been better. It's really kind of disappointing, though sadly not surprising, that in a show all about "not knowing what other people are going through," the trans story line gets compromised in this way.

But overall, I found Win or Lose to be a successful experiment for Pixar -- well-made generally, but especially well-crafted for the television medium. I give it a B+.

Star Trek Flashback: The Galileo Seven

One of the first things the original Star Trek locked in on early was the character of Spock, who always extolled the utility of logic in the counsel he gave to Captain Kirk. But what if Spock were to find himself in command? That was the tantalizing idea behind the episode "The Galileo Seven."

When the shuttlecraft Galileo goes missing inside a quasar, its disruptive effects threaten the search efforts. So does an insistent passenger, Commissioner Ferris, who sets a tight clock on the search before he will use his authority to order Enterprise to another mission. Meanwhile, the passengers of the Galileo try to survive on the planet where they've crashed. Can they repair the shuttle and lift off, or will they fall prey to the monstrous inhabitants? And will the more emotional crew members on the shuttle mutiny against the dispassionate orders of their leader, Mr. Spock?

Focus on the most successful elements of this episode, and it comes as perhaps the best of classic Star Trek to this point. It is, quite simply, a brilliant idea to put Spock in command. Let him put his money where his logical mouth is. Let's see how he reacts when logic fails to anticipate the reactions of illogical others. Let's force him to reconcile the Vulcan and human halves of his nature. Let's run him through the ringer and see how he acquits himself. And, most importantly, let Spock not always be right in his decisions.

To bring all this out in Spock, he must be surrounded by characters who are falling apart emotionally. But necessary though that is, I feel this is where the episode starts to show some weaknesses. The four potential "redshirts" of this episode -- Boma, Gaetano, Mears, and Latimer -- are all varying degrees of unrealistic. They have weird priorities for survival, a general disrespect for the chain of command in general that suggests they've never been on any mission before, and (in an instance or two) borderline bigoted attitudes.

But the drama unfolding aboard the Enterprise is even weirder. Commissioner Ferris is a naked plot device, offering absolutely nothing helpful and existing only to remind Captain Kirk of the ticking clock in the most annoying way possible. He needles Kirk about the hopelessness of the situation, delights in counting down the minutes left in the search, and generally fiddles (in the form of casually sipping coffee) as Rome burns (in the form of a missing crew facing certain death).

The most maddening thing, though, is that Ferris is 100%, indisputably right about one thing. The mission he wants Enterprise to get back to is delivering medical supplies to another ship that in turn will get them to a planet experiencing a global plague. He has a very good case he could be making to Kirk. Rather than constantly being a heel, he could be empathetic about the missing shuttlecraft while reminding the captain that literally millions of lives hang in the balance.

Though maybe it's for the best that Ferris doesn't bring any of this up... because if he did, Kirk's behavior in this episode would be highlighted as unconscionable. Even if you accept that there's no point in the Enterprise reaching the rendezvous point early (can Enterprise not just keep traveling toward wherever that ship is coming from?), there's no moral defense for leaving that ship hanging with a planet full of lives on the line. Kirk's orders to stretch the deadline by not calling back the search shuttles ahead of time, and to then depart at presumably snail-like "space normal speed," are childish at best, psychopathic at worst. I love that Kirk is a captain who stands up for his crew, but the script for this episode doesn't balance the scales in a way that makes Kirk's actions look noble.

The stagecraft of 1960s television is goofy but charming. Building props in two scales to suggest the giant size of the alien inhabitants is great fun. But the sense of danger is undermined by lumbering Frankenstein-like movement, and the lazy way that "weapons" are lobbed into frame by off-camera stage hands. One bit of 60s production that gets a major facelift, though, are the visual effects. In some episodes of the "remastered" Star Trek, the new effects artists go to great pains to depict something you might imagine was possible if unlimited time and money were available to the series at the time. Not this episode. The roiling quasar, upgraded shuttlebay, and the final flight of the Galileo -- all are well beyond any capabilities of the time. (But hey, they do look good!)

Other observations:

• I'm not sure why half these people would be put on a shuttle mission to survey a quasar, but it turns out to be good that an engineer and a doctor are there. (Maybe this should be Starfleet standard procedure.)

• There's a fun moment when Kirk has to go use the science station because Spock isn't there. But Kirk seems more like he's "listening" to the device that Spock traditionally looks into.

• Aboard the shuttle, you get a healthy dose of 60s TV lightning, with actors casting multiple, massive shadows on the wall behind them.

• Star Trek of this era definitely thinks that every alien planet has to have its own unusual soundscape. This planet sounds distractingly like a transporter in mid-cycle.

• It seems like being able to set phasers to stun would be a helpful way to balance Spock's desire to minimize balance with the need to show force to the aliens. But neither characters nor writers seem to remember that this capability was previously established.

• I believe this might be the first Star Trek episode to implement what would ultimately become a budget-saving common practice: scoring the episode with music from previous episodes. If not the first instance, then it's the first time I noticed it, because they're playing a lot of the "hits" that classic Star Trek fans can hum from memory.

• In the final scene, everyone has a laugh at Spock's expense. Like, a weirdly huge laugh. As in, it's a good thing Spock does suppress his emotions, because a whole room of people is just riotously, uncontrollably laughing at something he said that was not intended to be funny.

I love how Spock is used in this story. Many of the trappings of the story definitely hurt its execution. I give "The Galileo Seven" a B.

Enterprise Flashback: Storm Front, Part II

Fresh off the long Xindi arc of season three, you might be surprised that Star Trek: Enterprise decided almost immediately to wrap up another of its long, ongoing stories. But that's exactly what happened in "Storm Front, Part II."

Trapped in an alternate past, Archer and his team confront the alien Vosk. He claims he will restore history and take the Enterprise crew home to their own time... if they just leave him alone to complete a device that will turn the tide of the Temporal Cold War. But with unexpected help from the Suliban agent Silik, perhaps they can stop Vosk and reset time.

On the one hand, I don't find this episode to be a particularly satisfying wrap-up of the Temporal Cold War storyline. We've seen many gambits by many ill-defined factions before, and even when they're stopped, it's never been "the end." Nothing about this scenario implies things would be any different, aside from maybe (20-year old spoiler!) Silik's death. But then, Daniels apparently comes back from the dead (for the second time) to tell us "it's all over now," so how can we even take that to be real? How can you put a bow on a story that was always vague and malleable? But then, that's exactly the point. Nothing they could have done here would have been conclusive or satisfying -- so why not stop stretching the taffy and just declare in a Nazi-fighting two-parter episode that the series is done with this narrative boondoggle?

So, for the last time, let me stop trying to make sense of the Temporal Cold War episodes, and just enjoy what can be enjoyed. I like that no one ever seriously entertains Vosk's offer; you can't trust someone in a Nazi uniform. The action is off the charts, from a great aerial dogfight over the Manhattan skyline to a big ground assault on the villains' compound. Actor John Fleck must be thrilled that Silik's disguise abilities allow him to appear without makeup for a good chunk of this episode.

This is a fast-moving episode, but it still makes time for more dramatic moments. Travis and Trip both get to react to Archer being alive after all. (In a bit of fun subterfuge, Trip does twice, in fact.) We get a quintessential "Star Trek vision of the future" conversation between Archer and Alicia Travers. And while I wouldn't have pegged Silik as a character who deserves an "emotional death scene," he does get one -- and it plays well enough.

Other observations:

• Alternate history stories almost always posit "the one moment" where events diverged from reality. This episode does so too, telling us an assassination of Lenin in 1916 led to this timeline.

• Silik squeezing through a tiny air vent is one of those visual effects that doesn't really look right even when it probably looks as good as it could.

• The episode is essentially bookended with "archival footage." The teaser is a fake news reel about Hitler, while the wrap-up scene with Daniels takes place in a sort of dreamscape with all sorts of real-world footage and Star Trek clips playing on "TVs" in the background.

Despite some visual thrills, "Storm Front, Part II" is another nonsensical look at the Temporal Cold War. But at least it's the last one. I give it a B-.