Reviews

I've said it before and I'll say it again-- I wanted to like a new Star Trek series. I wanted *so badly* to like it. But good god, this episode was *peak* style-over-substance, and I'm now convinced this is being written by brick-stupid people. Which is especially frustrating when you're watching a show about presumably smart people-- smart enough to work aboard a starship-- but they're written by stupid people. So you get presumably smart people saying *stupid* things like "perpetual infinity," or "Planck energy" equaling a supernova (it's actually about as much as an air conditioner uses in a month), or "we're surrounded" by a 2d ring of enemy ships in 3d space.

Stupid people writing would explain firing two torpedoes at Discovery, learning the Sphere Archive had raised its shields, and then just giving up and having to devise a whole convoluted, time-crunched new plan, instead of just firing MORE torpedoes until you smash her shields and destroy her-- like you have in *every other battle ever fought.*

Stupid people writing also explains the notion that a unilateral insistence on never mentioning Discovery, her crew, her spore drive or-- I guess-- the Klingon/Federation war she won, would effectively bind the whole galaxy for the rest of time; but at least they "explained" that continuity problem, right? While removing Discovery from said continuity, so that her future travels can happen in total narrative isolation.

Speaking of removing her, why did they ever decide the Sphere Archive had to be sent to the distant future instead of the ancient past? If any vestige of Control had survived the events of the episode, it could have laid in wait in some form or another for the day the ship & archive reappeared. Send it all to thousands of years into the *past,* before Control was ever created, and 2-for-1 special, now you can try to prevent Control's creation and all the harm it would have done. OR, once Georgiou apparently neutralized Leland/Control, y'know, just abort the time-travel plan, because it's just been rendered unnecessary?

How about the absurdity that after decades of ST never bothering much with shuttles-as-fighters (other than a few DS9 battles and the abysmal ST Beyond), suddenly Starfleet ships are all fighter-carriers? The whole big battle sequence seemed desperate to plagarize Battlestar Galactica's aesthetics, even though it was completely out of place. That felt like someone told the producers "Galactica really set a new bar for sci-fi while Trek was off the air for all those years," and all they took from that was "our epic space battle should have dogfighting and that wall-of-explosions between the ships, that looks cool!"

Other people have already pointed out the absurdity of a blast door that only has an 'emergency manual override' on one arbitrary side of it, or that somehow saves the area behind it when the area in front of it is annihilated, but I'll do one better-- HOW does it accomplish the latter when it has a g-ddamn WINDOW in it? What in-verse sense does that make? It's *so* stupid as to insult the intelligence of the audience, and that's what bugs me so much about this show. They do all this *stupid* stuff and think that the Trek fandom won't notice or care.

And there's the constant fact of people stressing how little time they have, before proceeding on a twice-as-long-as-they-have expository or emotional monologue, or staring thoughtfully out a window, or otherwise wasting their limited time for dramatic effect.

I honestly don't know how much more of this frikkin' nonsense I can take. I wanted so badly to like this and I gave it two full seasons but it's been so much disappointment, and so much empty-headed fluff, that unless something changes drastically, immediately in the next season, I think I'm giving up on it.

I wanted to like a new Star Trek series, I wanted so much to like it. I still want to like it, but oh my god are they making it difficult.

If I had to summarize the plot, they want to blow up the titular ship, but the titular ship doesn't want to be blown up. So they decide Burnham will Red Angel the ship alone into the far-flung future, and bad guys are coming so they only have an hour to execute their plan, so they have to hustle. They say how much they wish there were more time, but there's no time to waste; then everyone-- Burnham in particular-- spends that hour staring meaningfully, and monologuing, and bidding tearful farewells predicated on never seeing each other again, even as they're repeating over the intercom "hey, you coming? I did say 'to the bridge *immediately.* Did I stutter?" TICK TOCK folks. Oh, but then all Michael's friends don't want her to go alone, so they're coming with her, so that hour of overwrought goodbyes was for nothing.

I have to wonder if they knew when they were writing & filming this that they'd been renewed for a third season, because it reads like a series penultimate episode. So now after all these dramatic tears, the characters will spend another season together and the next time they go through all of this it'll be far less potent.

Then the bad guys arrive and "surround" them in a flat 2-dimensional circle-- in space-- as though these ships can't move vertically FFS, and they're out of time, because of how much they *wasted* on staring and monologuing and tearful goodbyes, and I'm sorry but it's obnoxious. It's silly and it's style over substance and it's obnoxious, and I hate that because I so badly wanted to like Trek's newest iteration.

I've pretty much settled on the conclusion that my only hope for enjoying this is to mentally divorce it from the Star Trek I've known and loved for so long. I mean I know the Federation's humans have never been perfect, and the vulcans have always been kind of smug/arrogant, and past captains have engaged in questionable fraternizations... but Discovery presents us with humans who are just a******s, and racist vulcan 'logic extremist' terrorists who use suicide bombers and try to assassinate children, and a captain hooking up with a shrink-turned-admiral and then scheming to leave an her in enemy hands to preserve his own position. Seriously!? It's downright *grotesque.* Then there's just the (continuing) annoying anachronisms- holo communications everywhere, and now holodecks decades too soon- and WTF is up with the chatty, editorializing ship's computer? No one wants canned commentary on their replicator selection.

They wear the delta but I have to dissociate this from Trek. I have to, to avert heartbreak. It's like answering a knock at the door and finding an sociopath wearing the hollowed-out skin of your first love-- you must immediately give up hope that you'll have that first love relationship and try to find whatever appeal, if there is any, in the sociopath. I've watched enough Trek (all of it) not to have a totally rose-tinted view of Roddenberry's universe, and I accept that audiences have changed in ~20 years (we enjoy morally ambiguous characters, anti-heroes, complexity, all of that) but this just concedes *too much* of the idealism and optimism for dull 'edginess' and pandering to 'grittiness.' It doesn't just fall short of utopia, it scorns it. And there's so much style over substance.

So I'll try to take it for something new- a dumb action show with some tech and alien concepts pilfered from a franchise I love- but I can't see this as Star Trek, because it's faithless to the Star Trek I know.

So, it's the second-to-last episode of the series, and the writers knew it was coming, so surely- SURELY- this hour would begin to "answer all the big questions," right? To give us viewers what Laurie told us everyone wants following an end: closure. Instead we get a somewhat farcical, far more intimate character study.

Why Kevin Garvey? What's so special about him? Why does he seem to be immortal? Is he Jesus? Will he be able to deliver the messages in the afterlife? To tell Evie she's loved? To find out where Grace's kids' shoes are? To get the song from Christopher Sunday? Will he see Laurie there? Well, sure, those are all good questions-- but instead, let's watch Patty moderate a sit-down between two 'aspects' of Kevin, to try to figure out *why* he keeps running from the women who love him. Oh, and he has to use his dick- now practically a character unto itself- to open a door, nothing to interpret there. {thump.} (Yes, it *thumps* when he sets it on something.) Genius.

And how answers were encoded in Patty's dialog with Kevin after he 'summoned' her? Telling him that she was there because he chose her; that he could have turned back at any time, but he persisted despite "knowing what was inside him;" that killing everybody on the anniversary was just 'giving them what they wanted,' because they expected something to happen? One hour of TV, endless hours of analysis! Which, in the end, is all some of us want from our fiction, and why we'll miss this show so much after next week.

There was some gripping drama, yes, and some heartbreak (literally)- it wouldn't be The Leftovers without that- but this episode was also wickedly funny in its absurdity. Which may be exactly what we need between a deeply-moving-but-sad "Certified" and what may end up being a *really* heavy "Book of Nora." So in the end, it doesn't feel wasted, despite setting aside, or alternately just taking for granted the supernatural questions (okay, I get it, season 2 theme song, "let the mystery be"), because it brought everything back 'home' to the character who's at the center of the story, and dug into his heart to try and understand, at long last, what drives him.

As to what next week will bring, the last moments of "The Book of Kevin" suggested that he and Nora won't be reuniting next week, but there might still be hope: if this week ended with Kevin "nuking the afterlife," clearing out the souls held there and preventing him from ever returning, then just maybe he and Nora can reconcile and spend the rest of their lives together (naïve, maybe, but one can hope), but not 'eternity' afterwards... Six more days until we find out.

Unless we don't.

I'm not going to rave about "The 100," but I do feel it's earned some credit. When my partner started watching it and I 'tagged along' I was ripping on it pretty hard. I said it was "awful teen-romance melodrama," and thought it was sinking under the weight of its tropes, and I thought it had a lot of potential it was failing to fulfil. I found the two main antagonist characters unlikable, hackneyed clichés of dumb villainy and was annoyed at the stupidity of the very notion that anyone should follow them.

But, while I still find many of the plot turns predictable, I've gotta say that I grew to like it specifically because I saw growth in the characters. Specifically in the antagonists-- both went from two- dimensional 'bad guys' to characters I could relate to, with motives I could understand, transformed for the better by their experiences and interactions. And that surprised me. I like being surprised by television-- it doesn't seem to happen that often anymore-- so I have to give credit where it's due.

I'm not wowed by much of the acting, or the performance of most of the dumb angsty teen drama material, but there are characters with admirable moral qualities, competently portrayed, and backed up with decent production work (though it's never been explained to my satisfaction why everything in the forest stopped glowing after the first couple episodes-- in retrospect, as a one-off "wow" thing, it cheapens the 'wonder' of the characters when it isn't consistent).

By the end of the season, I found myself actually wanting more. I mean I wouldn't drop what I was doing to see it at first-airing on TV, but for something to watch on Netflix with the bf when we're both a little bored, it's alright.

As in... (spoilers!) WHY would Briggs, Colony-7's best shot at maintaining strong-but-humane leadership, go all dead man's switch with the dynamite instead of setting it down and running? WHY would the roving cannibals choose to live such a stupid existence? Because if you're on the ragged edge of survival and you come across a safe, warm place where 50-some people are renewably cultivating food and long-term survival is a viable option-- yeah, slaughtering those people for meat and wrecking up the place is a *stupid* choice.

WHY did the cannibals apparently forget how to speak when it would have helped them coordinate their senseless violence? Why just ineffective howling and grunting? WHY would Mason try to force people who wanted to leave to stay, under conditions he'd resolved to make miserable (virtually guaranteeing an erosion in his leadership capital), if he didn't believe that danger really was coming? Why not let them leave with what little they can carry (up to what you can afford to part with) and then you aren't responsible for taking care of them anymore? But making them stay-- and what, work?-- at gunpoint is a recipe for bad work and inevitable mutiny.

And finally, WHY the transparent, hackneyed attempt at the end to draw some kind of equivalence between the cannibals-- who kill people wantonly-- and Sam beating the 'feral leader' to death in justifiable defense of himself and his people? Because the long, "look at his savagery" shot of Sam was clearly intended to depict him as not much better when his reason for violence was completely different. Hell, he *wanted* to run, not fight, and he only flipped out because he was cornered by a relentless aggressor.

I gave it three stars for the design/use of sets and for the visual effects, and Fishburne's competent acting of his character despite writing that didn't stand out at all. That said, I really can't recommend this. It's too formulaic, too superficial, and the motivations of the antagonists are absent-- they're just stereotypically 'bad' for no good reason.

If you hated the ending, and don't want to hear why I think your complaints are probably petty, by all means please skip this review.

Whereas Mass Effect 3 was tasked with ending the story of Shepard's accidental drafting as the vanguard against the Reapers and their existential threat to galactic life, I think it succeeded spectacularly. Whatever technical imperfections and gameplay quirks (for me, all the new 'mobility' sometimes hindered me as much as it helped), my focus is on the characterization and narrative, which I found on-par with or superior to any other game I've ever played. I felt moved to more-- more warmth, awe, sorrow, affection, humour, and anguish-- than any other piece of fiction in memory, and I was an English major with a love of stories.

The characterization was riding on the writing, the acting, and the character visualizations. I felt the latter was the weakest-- some of those facial expressions... yikes. But the script showed some real growth in the characters, and made them feel 'alive.' I also loved how-- unlike the mere stationary 'conversation dispensers' of ME1& 2-- NPCs aboard the Normandy and the Citadel moved around, interacted with one another, and revealed their own 'relationships.' Eavesdropping on their supportive intercom conversations and their banter, listening to Joker and Garrus tell racist jokes about each others' species-- some of it was hysterical and some of it was quite touching. There were also some great scenes with Shepard that really showed how close these imaginary people have become.

None of that would have 'worked' if not for some praise-worthy performances by the actors, most of whom 'sold' me almost all of their material very effectively. And at risk of playing unfair favourites (because I've waited 5 years to romance Kaidan Alenko as another guy), I was especially wowed by Raphael Sbarge. He sounded superbly authentic to me, none of it came off as forced or fake, even in the novel role of the finally-realized same-sex romance. (Though Shepard's part in that first 'date' fell a bit flat for me-- equal parts the lines and the delivery, I think-- Kaidan felt really 'real.') And his 'farewell' at the London FOB was heart-wrenching, and changed my mind from "I want him safely as far away from me as possible" to "I couldn't imagine doing this without him by my side." It *would* have been nice to have seen a bit more of our ME2 squad-- I didn't realize how attached I'd actually gotten to them until their bodies started piling up-- but the story was coming full-circle and ultimately I don't mind that they were 'bit players.' They were assembled for a specific mission, it was accomplished, and not having experienced the Reapers' threat as directly as the original team did, they had lives to get back to. Even so, the QEC farewells from London were nonetheless really emotional for me.

And I found overall narrative outstanding; the invasion seemed urgent, its spread felt foreboding, Cerberus' interference sincerely made me *angry* at their meddling, and the push to reclaim Earth really had an 'epic' feel to it. Standing out as emblematic of how immersed and how invested I'd become, during the final battle through the streets of London, it was like I forgot medigel even existed and I fought harder than I think I ever have-- poetry in motion-- to 'defend' Kaidan. Nothing else I've watched or read or played has made me feel so protective of an imaginary person.

As for the much-derided ending(s). I'm unsympathetic to the complaints-- they strike me as churlish and smacking of "the customer is always right" entitlement. Yes, it was sad. Broke my heart in half a dozen different ways, but none of them because "I didn't get" my way, or all my questions answered, or a ticker-tape parade at the end. 'My' Shepard heroically offered up his life to end the threat to everything he loved, and while I could have asked for more-- I deeply longed for a 'happy ending'-- I couldn't presume to expect it given the scope. By that I mean: if Shep had survived then what? A hum-drum retirement? Death of old age? Because that would have been so much more satisfying. No, this was a good old fashioned epic-- given the stakes, victory was always bound to be pyrrhic and agonizing. You don't give birth to a new age without pain.

In the end I felt beat up. I was a mess. But I'd done what I set out to do. The Reapers were stopped and the people I cared about had a chance. There was ambiguity and worry and there were questions, but there was hope. I'd been reminded of feelings that often go untapped by blowing the reservoir wide open, and reminded I was alive by making me think about what a death could 'mean.' The notion that I deserved more-- that BioWare's storytelling artists "owed" me exactly what I wanted because I'd *chosen* to pay to experience this journey they crafted-- strikes me as self-centered. It was always their story to tell and ours to participate in, and I wasn't robbed at the end of any gun. That they gave me some freedom in how I experienced 90 or 99% of that story, that I got to see certain decisions play out over time and certain consequences reach fruition, never deluded me into thinking that I was the ultimate author. But I think audiences today are spoiled for information (the information age tells us nothing need go un-answered) and for 'choice' (often the choice is to escape, to shirk responsibility, and to brush off real consequences to have everything our way), and I think that makes the uproar over ME3's conclusion an indictment of 'bad readers' more than 'bad writers.'

This review contains some spoilers.

Well I gave The Day After Tomorrow 4 stars: one for Jake Gyllenhaal (why, oh why couldn't they have prolonged the scene where he was stripping out of those cold, wet clothes???) and three for the special effects. Watching LA get ripped up was... well, just cool. And it was nice to see the streets of NYC get a good wash. As for the plot, though... Yeesh. Clichés up the yin-yang. The general format of the movie, the dad/son schtick, the ignored scientist with one obscure supporter pitted against the disbelieving plebians, the teenage geniuses (whole teams of them, no less- how many of those are there in the US anyway? I thought the education system down there was in shambles!), the token homeless guy (with a dog), the self-sacrificing sidekick, the heroics performed by someone unaware of the looming death and getting plucked from its clutches by the love interest, etc, etc, ad nauseum.

But some of it got laid on extra thick. The vice-president was eerily reminiscent of the political leadership that's actually in place in the States right now-- a Republican idiot more concerned with looking out for the interests of his big business campaign supporters than the environment (or the lives of the electorate to whom he's *supposed* to be accountable, for that matter). Personally I found his transformation at the end dubious at best. I *loved* the American swarm of immigrants into Mexico and the closing of the border, it was just delicious. Imagine what it'll do for the wages in Mexico! For years they've been slaving away like chumps producing goods for the US that they couldn't afford themselves.

Then there was the guy in the library clutching at his old Bible, insisting that if they were facing "the end of Western civilization" and he could only save one piece of it, his reverence for the written word compelled him to save... the Bible. Buddy... check any hotel nightstand on your way out of town; there are way smaller copies that would be easier to carry and not as delicate. Besides, considering all the villainy that people over the centuries have carried out, claiming religious doctrine as their endorsement, I think in a whole library you could find a better piece of literature. Maybe the Boyscouts Handbook? Anyway, was there anything in that Bible about an ice age, among all the "accurate predictions?" If not, you gotta stop clinging to it. No deity saved your butt. Fire did. Boyscout Handbook tells you how to make fire. Drop the Bible, take the Boyscout Handbook. On a lighter note, while it was nice that Canada was at least mentioned in this movie (thanks for nothing, Independance Day), they didn't indicate whether there could have been survivors. I say it's a moot point. OF COURSE there were Canadian survivors! While New Yorkers were waking up the the worst weather in 10,000 years, Canadians looked out their windows, and our first thought: "great, eh, more snow. Good thing I didn't put my shovel in the shed yet." Our second thought? "Looks like the hockey season's gonna run long, eh?" We probably just dug out, drank some beer, and noticed there was a really big new rink south of the border waiting to be skated on.