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-.

Enterprise Flashback: Storm Front

Across the many incarnations of Star Trek, it was fairly common for the first episode of a new season to be the conclusion of a two-parter. It was quite rare for it to be the beginning of a two-parter, as was the case with Enterprise's "Storm Front."

Enterprise has been thrown back in time to Earth during World War II... but it's an alternate history where, with help from mysterious aliens, the Nazis have invaded the United States. Will Enterprise and Captain Archer each realize the other has also been transported through time, and reunite? Can the Nazis be stopped? What does all this have to do with the ongoing Temporal Cold War? What has happened to temporal agent Daniels? And what is the Suliban Silik doing here?

"Storm Front" was both a "part one of two" and a continuation of a cliffhanger. As I noted in my review of the season three finale, the writers didn't just wrap up the season-long Xindi story, they decided to play chicken with the network and challenge the show's possible cancellation by ending the season on a cliffhanger. While the gambit did work, I gotta say: I don't find the idea of this episode to be that compelling. Voyager very much got to "our heroes fight alien Nazis" first with their own two-part episode. (And, with decidedly less "alien" aliens, the original series encountered Nazis too!) If your cliffhanger is going to be just a quick tease like that, I feel you need to tease me with something I don't feel like I've seen before.

But in execution, there are some different elements here. The fact that this is no mere holodeck simulation raises the stakes. The Nosferatu-like appearance of these aliens, combined with their Nazi regalia, paints them as doubly-evil villains. And it's a hell of a thing seeing an image of the White House, one wing gutted, proudly advertising its allegiance to fascism.

(pauses; stares directly at camera)

On the other hand, Star Trek: Enterprise has been going back to the same well a lot when it comes to other aspects of this episode.. We just came off an entire season that featured cliché "villain moots" in almost every episode -- and now we get more between the aliens and the German Nazis. The completely nonsensical nature of the Temporal Cold War has escalated to the point where no story involving it can hold up under the slightest scrutiny. (Seriously, don't even bother asking why Silik is "good" all of a sudden.) This stuff is wearing thin.

So... just try and roll with the action, because (for the umpteenth time) that's what Enterprise does well. An aerial dogfight between a shuttlepod and airplanes is great fun (even if the CG renderings show their age a bit). Archer and gangsters team up against aliens and Nazis -- that's just gratifying on every level. Trip and Mayweather set their shuttle to blow up big when they're about to be captured.

And a few of the less action-oriented moments do land. Alicia Travers' experiences of living in Brooklyn under Nazi occupation don't conveniently omit the overt racism. The concept of an age-ravaged Daniels, subjected to all manner of temporal shenanigans, feels appropriately horrific. The reactions of Porthos to the apparent death, then return, of Archer pull on the heartstrings in just the right way.

Other observations: 

• I don't think we need to bring up again how Vulcans don't believe in time travel. T'Pol is on board at this point.

• Unlike the continuing story of season three, this episode ends with an explicit, on-screen "to be continued." The show is telling the audience that no, we won't be fighting Nazis for an entire season.

"Storm Front" is rather fun, but it also feels like well-traveled ground for Star Trek. I give it a B.

Starfleet Academy: Vitus Reflux

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy continues its first season -- and its exploration of tone -- with its third episode, "Vitus Reflux."

A prank war erupts between Starfleet Academy and the War College. As the Academy cadets struggle to respond, Lura Thok urges Chancellor Ake to shut down the shenanigans. But when it becomes clear other side is getting help from their faculty, she decides to embrace the situation as a teachable moment. Meanwhile, it's tryout time for the school's Calica team, and the competition for team captain gets heated between Darem and Genesis.

Star Trek is not above a fun, goofy lark of an episode. I could point to at least one from almost every series -- and Deep Space Nine in particular did one that feels somewhat similar to this one. But the big difference here is that Starfleet Academy is really making use of the fact that this is taking place at... well... it's right there in the name.

The whole tone of this episode -- yet another big shift from what we got in the first two episodes -- feels akin a college or high school "raunch comedy." Everything stays squarely away from an R rating, but we're otherwise getting the sort of frat house tomfoolery you expect from a Porky's, Animal House, what have you. (Lura Thok uses the exact word for what we're seeing: shenanigans.) This is a genre that no other Star Trek series before this could plausibly approach, because we've almost always been centered on trained, adult professionals. These are untrained, screwball college students -- and it's totally reasonable to expect them to act as such. So while I can imagine online complainers griping that this doesn't feel like Star Trek to them (and well... Google quickly, and I don't have to imagine) I think instead that this is effectively using the backdrop of Star Trek in a unique way.

I can do my best to hold all that firmly on one hand... and with the other, still not be totally in for what I'm watching: the oneupsmanship between Genesis and Darem, goofy mascot costumes, and a climax reminiscent of the popcorn stunt from Real Genius. This sort of cartoonish behavior was easier to go along with when it was happening on an actual cartoon -- Lower Decks or Prodigy. So yeah, I'm a little bit of a hypocrite claiming to be open to something different, but not fully embracing something different.

But there are aspects of the episode I'm more enthusiastic about. Having already clocked Bella Shepard as one of the stronger members of the young cast, I'm pleased to see Genesis take a larger role in this episode. And as different characters paired off for scenes throughout the episode, it was made clear that the characters on this show are quite well-envisioned; when they interact in different ways, there will be a lot of fruitful pairings for storytelling.

And yes, this is Star Trek, and people are learning lessons. Darem had a nice arc for this episode, learning to dial back his "Alpha" personality and making room for other leadership. (We in the audience also learned some of the background for why he is the way he is.) And while you maybe have to squint and tilt your head a bit as you look at it, Chancellor Ake jiu-jitsued a justification of all this pranking as a foundational moral about being in Starfleet.

One final note: I loved learning that Jett Reno and Lura Thok are a couple. More than that, a couple that is able to work together and make it work. Delightful.

I'd give "Vitus Reflux" a B-. But I do want to be clear that even though my marks for each episode have gradually ticked down, I don't feel myself waning on the show already. To me, it still seems very much like they're playing around, figuring out what works and what doesn't. I'm hopeful that we'll start seeing more of the former.

Star Trek Flashback: Shore Leave

With the drunken antics of "The Naked Time," Star Trek showed that it could incorporate lighter, more humorous elements. But that episode was focused on dramatic themes like Kirk's profound sense of duty and Spock's inner torment over being torn between two worlds. Shirtless Sulu with a fencing foil was wild... but seems more grounded in reality than Doctor McCoy seeing Alice and the White Rabbit out of Lewis Carroll. So in my eyes, Star Trek's first true comedic romp comes in "Shore Leave."

The crew of the Enterprise is desperately in need of a break, and the uninhabited planet they've just found seems like just the thing -- until members of the landing party begin seeing all manner of impossible things. From fictional characters to classic airplanes to wild animals, antique firearms and medieval clothing, and even Kirk's Starfleet Academy foe and flame. It seems whatever someone imagines on this planet somehow becomes real... and deadly.

This is Star Trek's first real comedic episode because no one seems to be taking it seriously at any point. McCoy sees life on a supposedly uninhabited planet, but doesn't seem appropriately alarmed. Sulu finds a gun that should not possibly be there, and his first instinct is to just pick it up and start firing it for fun. Kirk encounters a former school bully, and is more interested in fighting him that asking what the hell he's doing there.

They're all so slow on the uptake that even after all that, when Yeoman Barrows shows up with her uniform half torn off by an assailant, Kirk asks if she might be imagining things. Of course, if anyone was reacting to any of this in a realistic way, it would be a horror show, not a light romp. And so we get wild decision making like finding a dress in the middle of nowhere and deciding to put it on. We get McCoy dismissing something as a hallucination even when he knows the person he's with can also see it. 

It's a shame that script is so rough and disjointed, because the production values are sky high for the time. There's extensive filming on location -- at Africa USA and Vasquez Rocks. (Though Star Trek's most famous trip to the latter spot would come later in the season.) An actual lion is brought to the filming. (Also, reportedly, an elephant that wasn't filmed when the shooting day ran long.) And no, the White Rabbit costume that kicks everything off doesn't seem especially expensive-looking... but that may be because all the money had been spent on an armored, mounted knight.

Some aspects of the episode play well. Spock essentially tricking Kirk into going on shore leave is a fun exchange between the two. Kirk's pining for a lost love is an intriguing thing to learn about the character. The fistfight between Kirk and Finnegan is full of some pretty great stunt work (even if you can clearly see that stunt performers have replaced the actors). And if you'd been watching this at the time, in 1966? With all the characters coming and going from one episode to the next, you might have actually believed that Doctor McCoy gets killed halfway through the episode! 

Other aspects of the episode haven't aged well. The soundscape of the alien planet is a constant background drone that sounds distractingly like a transporter. Composer Gerald Fried's Irish jig for the character of Finnegan is a cringe-worthy cliche. (Though not the worst thing Star Trek ever did to Irish people.) Yeoman Barrows' strange interactions with Doctor McCoy reflect a decades-old thinking that a woman can go from being assaulted to feeling flirty in the span of a few minutes.

Other observations:

• When Yeoman Barrows tries to massage the kink out of Kirk's back, he mistakes her for Spock. She must have some serious finger strength.

• In the natural outdoor lighting of this episode, you can sometimes see the true green-like color of the famously "gold" uniforms.

• We seem to be back to "pre-shuttlecraft" thinking. In another crisis where a shuttle would be really handy, they apparently don't exist.

• Not only does the airplane footage clearly come from a different source, but it's not even the same kind of airplane in different shots.

• There is one unbroken camera take where you see the tiger in the same space as the actual actors. And you can also see the chain on the tiger's neck that of course is there.

• When Barrows changes out of the princess dress back into her ripped uniform, it's now ripped on the opposite side.

• Spock behaves in a weirdly suave manner with with McCoy's go-go dancers.

• This is one of many classic Star Trek episodes that ends with everyone on the bridge having a hearty laugh. Though it's not clear exactly what "joke" has been told to spark the laughter.

At some point, if you can make peace with the fact that no one in this episode is going to behave rationally, you can extract some small pleasures from it. Still, I'd say "Shore Leave" is a C+ at best.

Starfleet Academy: Beta Test

The newest Star Trek series kicked off last week with two episodes. And since a third episode has been released since then, I'd better get on it! Here are my thoughts on episode two, "Beta Test."

A delegation from Betazed is being hosted at Starfleet Academy, where it is hoped that negotiations will lead to the planet rejoining the Federation. Their leader is apprehensive -- but the younger members of the delegation are more eager to end their world's isolationist ways. One in particular, Tarima Sadal, is drawn to cadet Caleb Mir. But Caleb's main focus is on the hunt for his missing mother -- to a degree that threatens his academy enrollment and any mutual attraction with Tarima.

Launching a new series (or even season) of a television series by releasing multiple episodes has become quite common in the streaming age. But it feels more justified here than it does for most shows. First, it turns out that we're still introducing the series' main characters. Zoë Steiner is credited as a series regular, but this is the first appearance of her character Tarima. And while romantic possibilities are understandably the focus of her first episode, her actual character backstory seems good to have in the mix. She's a privileged person from a cloistered society. But it's a society of mind-readers, so it may not be so hard for her to integrate with others. BUT... her abilities are so strong that she wears a device to inhibit them, so it's unclear just what her capabilities might be. On paper, she seems almost like a one-off character from The Next Generation, Tam Elbrun, has been promoted to series regular -- which seems like a fascinating wild card to toss in the mix.

This second episode of Starfleet Academy also plays more with tone (and the mixing of it), which is especially interesting after a first episode that itself worked to juggle several tones. There's no sign of Paul Giamatti as Nus Braka, which immediately makes the episode feel more grounded in reality (if also maybe just a touch less fun). The vibes between Caleb and Tarima begin to paint the show as the "Dawson's Trek" that I think many viewers were anticipating... except that Caleb being far more driven to get his mother (rather than to "get the girl") keeps the most extreme "teen drama" vibes at arm's length.

But those vibes are also kept distant by the relatively minor roles that so many of the main characters play in this episode. The rivalry between Darem and Caleb does continue, in the form of the episode's most trope-tastic element: them being forced together as roommates. But we get hardly any Jay-den, SAM, or Genesis in this episode -- which I keenly miss, since two of the three were the characters I felt most interested in after episode one.

There's still plenty of comedy here, with Star Trek's take on the old "take care of a 'baby' egg for school" schtick, the Doctor still at his old ways of making everything he can about him (even after centuries), and the always-welcome dry wit of Tig Notaro as Jett Reno.

So all of that is on the counter, and the recipe is somewhat different (or at least, in different proportions) than episode one. The show seems to be trying to demonstrate that even though its core premise might seem like the most inherently limited of all the Star Trek shows, you shouldn't assume you know exactly what any one given episode will feel like. That's a good marker to establish early.

But, if there are only two of a thing, one of those is going to be the "best ever" and one will be the "worst ever." Picking between the two episodes of Starfleet Academy, I'm going to say the first one was the "best ever." Not that episode two was bad; it just wasn't as good by comparison. I'll give it a B. The series feels like it has potential to me, if it gets the time to figure things out. 

A Familiar Destiny

In my post about board gaming in 2025, it turned out that one of the games I'd played most in the year was Avatar: The Last Airbender – Aang's Destiny. But I said only a few words about it, and I'd never previously posted about the game. I feel like it's time to address that.

Aang's Destiny is fundamentally a reskin of another licensed game, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle. But Harry Potter has become a toxic brand for many licensees. J.K. Rowling's own reputation seems disappointingly robust despite her shitty transphobia -- but in the board game world, publishers of Harry Potter products have faced everything from lagging sales to protests to boycotts. You can't blame The Op Games for deciding to attach a new property to their otherwise well-regarded game.

People who love Avatar: The Last Airbender really love it. And while those fans seem less enthusiastic about the live action adaptation, Netflix racked up enough views to renew it for two more seasons to complete the story. So it's an appealing license right now. It's not a "one for one" analog for Harry Potter -- but it is set in a world of magic, with a young "chosen one" whose friends help him stand against the forces of evil. Converting a Harry Potter game into an Avatar game doesn't seem like a big stretch.

Hogwarts Battle is one of the very few campaign games that my friends and I continued to play even after completing the campaign. It's the rare cooperative game where everyone has a chance to shine, and even experienced players can still be challenged by it. But I already own that game. I don't need an exact copy of it in Avatar clothes. And smartly, Aang's Destiny is not exactly that. The designers made two notable changes to the game. Both were interesting ideas for changing things up, enough to make the new, seven-game campaign feel like a sufficiently different experience. But I'd say both ultimately make the game a little less good overall.

The first change was a necessary one for an Avatar game -- a representation of bending, by tagging a group of cards with the elements of air, water, earth, and fire. These cards each have an additional effect for a player with the proper bending ability. It feels really good to play one and collect on that bonus; you feel powerful. But for players familiar with Hogwarts Battle, it amplifies the already-loudly-telegraphed strategies attached to each character. Even more than before, cards in Aang's Destiny clearly "belong" to specific characters, leaving you with the feeling of less tactical flexibility.

The second change was less clearly "necessary," but also seems inspired by Avatar as a property -- specifically, by the desire to portray its story as faithfully as possible. Hogwarts Battle captured the seven Harry Potter books with a series of boxes, opened one by one, gradually adding more content to the game. The game didn't mind if players encountered "what if?" variations that differed from what really happened in the books; for example, characters who died in one book could still show up in games based on a later book.

Aang's Destiny doesn't play so fast and loose. As you open boxes to progress through the story, you also remove content from the game, looking for marks on certain cards that indicate their time in the campaign is over. On the plus side, this allows each game to feel more like a "scenario" with unique gameplay. On the down side, it means that once the campaign is said and done, it feels less like you've created a "permanent state" for the game to live in for subsequent plays.

In a world where I'd never played Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle, I might have been more enamored with Avatar: The Last Airbender – Aang's Destiny. But that not being this world... well, I liked the game; just clearly not as much. I give it a B.

Starfleet Academy: Kids These Days

We've recently been seeing the end of quite a few Star Trek series. (Certainly more than we should be.) But we're also still getting the start of new Star Trek series too, as we did last week with Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. The loudest voices on the internet seemed to be preemptively grumpy about this show... but if you're here, you're probably curious to know what I thought of the first episode, "Kids These Days."

Young career criminal Caleb Mir is trying to find his mother Anisha, from whom he was separated 15 years ago as a young boy. Former Starfleet officer Nahla Ake regrets her role in that separation, and now has a chance to do something about it. She's been called back into service as Chancellor of Starfleet Academy, and persuades Caleb to enlist so together they can use Federation resources to track down his mother. But on the way to Earth, another figure from their past re-emerges: pirate Nus Braka, who is responsible for Anisha's arrest and holds a vendetta against Ake. For a group of new Starfleet cadets, the first expected to train on Earth in over a century, their first test will be very dangerous and real.

To internet complainers fearing some "teen drama"-fication of Star Trek, one can clearly argue that at least this first episode of Starfleet Academy is not that. (Whether it would even be a bad thing if it were that is a debate you'd never win with them.) That said, this first episode also doesn't quite make clear exactly what this show will be, since there's quite a jumble of contrasting tones in the mix.

One prong of this show sets a conventionally dramatic tone. Oscar winner Holly Hunter quickly asserts herself as a compassionate leader out to atone for her own mistakes. Her character, Nahla Ake, has lighter moments (like when she drapes herself across the command chair like a sleeping cat), but that's because she's no stick-in-the-mud captain of Star Trek past requiring two-or-more-seasons to develop. Her scenes with Sandro Rosta (playing Caleb Mir) feel grounded and important. And in the flashbacks setting up this story, we get another performer I love: Tatiana Maslany plays Caleb's mother -- and I immediately hope they do find her just so we can get more Tatiana Maslany in the show.

But when Caleb Mir is in a scene without Ake, the tone shifts a lot, to follow the quirky band of Starfleet cadets who are the focus of this show. I imagine that for many viewers, some of these characters are going to be a lot. The Caleb Mir we get in these scenes is as brash and pompous as Star Trek: Prodigy's Dal (and yet, not actually a cartoon character). Viewers who didn't like the bubbly bundle of nerves that was Tilly on Star Trek: Discovery will likely be repulsed by SAM, the "newborn" photonic life-form. Your reaction to Darem Reymi will likely depend on how much you enjoyed the movie Top Gun -- particularly, the rivalry between Iceman and Maverick, because that's totally what it seems we're getting between Darem and Caleb.

Still, from the brief glimpses that just one episode gives us of these characters, I find myself interested in several. I'm definitely into Jay-Den Kraag, a long overdue twist on a Klingon who gives us all the same sense of honor funneled through an interest in science. (Actor Karim Diané really has the "Michael Dorn voice" down too.) Genesis is a character I hope is destined for more than being one point of a love triangle, because she seems the most smart and capable of the lot. (And again, just based on one episode, Bella Shepard seems like the most natural actor of the young cast.)

Among new characters, I also think Lura Thok is compelling, because she gives us so many "first time ever on Star Trek" qualities in a single character. She serves drill sergeant vibes. She's a female Jem'Hadar. She's a hybrid of two different warrior species, that and Klingon. But she showed lighter moments and a sense of humor too, and not simply a collection of stereotypes.

But there's a third tone in the show too: that of Paul Giamatti as the villain Nus Braka. He's here to have fun and chew scenery, as though he watched Christopher Plummer's delightfully unhinged performance as Chang in Star Trek VI and shouted "hold my Romulan ale!" I think Star Trek could benefit from a new, broad, memorable villain; I feel like it's been quite a while since we had a good one. Still, words fail to describe just how big a performance this is. How well it works in the series overall may well be a factor of how frequently the character appears. We can only wait and see.

So it's a fun counter full of ingredients. (And I haven't even mentioned the return of The Doctor from Voyager, and Admiral Vance from Star Trek: Discovery.) Plus, it's all presented with modern Star Trek's sky-high production values, including fantastic special effects, huge casts of background actors, massive sets, and cinematic camera work. Where we go from here will depend on how those ingredients are combined into the stew.

I'm interested to see how these writers navigate the most apparently "stationary" show since Deep Space Nine. (Though that show did fine with the constraint, and Starfleet Academy has already established the ability to move if and when they choose to use it.) I want to see how these characters develop. Generally, I'm curious for what happens next. I give "Kids These Days" a B+.

Enterprise Flashback: Zero Hour

It's been a long road getting from there to here. "There" being the start of Star Trek: Enterprise's Xindi story arc. "Here" being the season three finale, "Zero Hour."

As Enterprise attempts to destroy the sphere network of the Expanse, a small crew aboard a Xindi ship attempts to infiltrate the Xindi weapon and destroy it before Earth is destroyed! Can Hoshi recover from her recent ordeal in time to help? Will Archer put himself in harm's way, despite a warning from future temporal agent Daniels? And are our heroes unknowingly stepping into another crisis?

One could debate (and I have) the degree to which all 24 episodes of Enterprise's third season were truly connected. But undeniably, a multi-episode story of some length is culminating here in this final, big episode. So it's wild to me just how far it goes to try to catch up an imagined audience tuning in for the first time. Dolim monologues about his plans to destroy Earth. The team chasing him has a hero moot about their plan to stop him, even though everyone involved already knows the plan. The sphere builders bicker with each other about the same plans they've bickered about for several episodes. There's simply no faith in the "previously on" package opening this episode.

On top of all that, we get a big dump of the "rules" that will govern what's about to unfold: the Xindi weapon can't fire immediately, the infiltration team can only get so close to the core, Enterprise's journey to reach the critical sphere will be slow, on and on and on. What I'm saying is: this episode has kind of an excruciating amount of exposition before it finally gets to the action this whole season has been building toward.

Also standing in the way of us and the action is a visit from Daniels, which plays out in the usual way. Daniels tells Archer he's important to the future. Archer seems to take whatever Daniels tells him and does the opposite. The only twist here is Daniels' unintentionally hilarious assertion that Hoshi Sato and Malcolm Reed "aren't important." The writers have certainly treated them that way, but do they have to make a character actually say it?

But I've said it before, and now say it again: what Star Trek: Enterprise does best is action. And once that finally starts, this episode is a fun romp. Aboard the Xindi weapon, dangerous catwalks over huge, empty spaces make for delightful (if gratuitous) danger. As Enterprise attacks the sphere, our heroes must contend with skin lesions, wild visual effects, and invading Sphere Builders. We get fist fights, heroic moments, and a truly great way of taking out the villain. (Unusually gory for network TV of the time.) And if you, like most Star Trek fans, agree that Jeffrey Combs makes every episode better? Then a last minute rescue from the Andorian Shran is a welcome thrill.

The 20-or-so minutes of action that is the beating heart of this episode does everything it's supposed to do. But behind the scenes, the show was at serious risk of being canceled. And so the writers tried a ploy that while commonplace now, was rather novel for the time. They decided to write for a cliffhanger, daring its network (UPN) to anger fans by not letting the show come back for a resolution. Captain Archer is presumed dead. The Enterprise is thrown back in time to World War II... where we find an alien in a Nazi uniform?! I have thoughts... but I might as well save them for next time, since the ploy worked: Star Trek: Enterprise was indeed renewed for another season.

Other observations:

• The reptilian Xindi eat live mice. A bit on the nose. 

• Holy crap. Malcolm Reed actually beats someone in a fight! 

• There are some nice moments for T'Pol. She confesses her age to Trip, revealing intimate information. And she empathizes with Porthos over the apparent death of Archer.

• It might be the presence of Scott Bakula making me think this, but this seems like a distinctly "Quantum Leap" way of ending an episode -- with the barest tease of what will happen in the next.

There are well-executed, visceral thrills in the action portions of this episode. But they're undermined a bit by the awkward boat loads of exposition, and the crass tease of Enterprise's next adventure. Overall, I give "Zero Hour" a B.

That brings us to the end of season three of Star Trek: Enterprise. Ironically, some of its truly best episodes were almost totally divorced from the machinations of the Xindi story arc. Still, I'd say that the season overall is a step up from the first two. My picks for the top five episodes are: "Similitude," "Stratagem," "Twilight," "Zero Hour," and "Azati Prime."

The desperate ploy to save Star Trek: Enterprise worked only once; season four would be its last. But did they save the best for last? We'll get into that next time!