3+1 Short Paragraphs: Raya and the Last Dragon

 2021, Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada -- Disney+

Kent has already done some recent posts about classic Disney animations, and I have not finished watching our latest Loopty Loo choice, so I thought I would grab MY two animations from the Upcoming Posts bin. Also, pending, Snyderfuss, as I have to write that post with the video (re)playing next to me because 4 chaotic hours does not lend itself to cohesive memories. This standard fare Disney CGI animation and a more traditional animation venture from Apple TV (Wolfwalkers) bookend nicely against Kent's classic views.

Fantasy, to my cis white male world, has always been pseudo-European. Think Lord of the Rings, Shannara and D&D where all the main characters are white, and the Bad Guys are often depicted as foreign or at least foreign looking. But, other countries must want to do fantasy (easy definition? swords, magic, fantastic creatures) and not just find themselves beholden to historical, albeit often fantastical, fiction? I am saying, if LotR is not set in "real Europe", then why would other culture's examples have to be? That is a long way of coming round to saying Raya does not take place in Historical China as I first thought it did, based on the trailers, but in a more fantastical version of all of East Asia, in lands surrounding a vast river system in the shape of a dragon called Kumandra. All of the familiar East Asian cultures are represented in one form or another. Neat! 

Kumandra was once united before being attacked by dark creatures called Druun, that turned all they touched into stone. The dragons helped fight back, until Sisu the last Dragon was able to banish the Druun with a magic orb. She left the orb in the care of one tribe, Heart, which made all the other tribes jealous, Fang, Spine, Talon, and Tail. Five hundred years later the chief of Heart tries to reunite the tribes but is betrayed, which once more summons the Druun to plague the land. Raya escapes but feels her part in the betrayal heavy on her heart and begins a quest to find Sisu, so the Druun can once again be defeated.

What we get is a classic fantasy quest, with all the standard tropes of modern animation. Our plucky heroin deals with self-confidence, gains humorous sidekicks, has a really cute travelling companion (think giant pangolin meets dung beetle fitted with a riding saddle) and earns the respect of each tribe she goes up against. It is wonderfully colourful, incredibly visual and touches on all the right notes for this kind of movie. Sisu, played by Awkwafina is sooooo much better at being a dragon than Eddie Murphy. If I was 14 again, I would be hoping someone would be writing a world guide for a Kumandra based D&D setting.

T&K Go Loopty Loo: El Ascensor ("The Lift")

 2021, d. Daniel Bernal - AmazonPrime

How did the Loop Begin?

[Kent] It would appear that lightning has struck the apartment complex in Argentina that Sito and Ana live in during a storm.  When the squabbling couple, having gotten into an argument on their fifth anniversary, enter the elevator on the 10th floor to take out the trash, Sitio gets a shock pressing the "0" button and starts Looping. 

[Toast] Argentina? I was thinking it was Madrid. But let's not squabble. That lightning on the roof was odd odd odd, multiple hits on the elevator mechanism room. We just knew something was to come of it.

Why did they take the trash down together? Was it just because she walked out on the argument and he chased after. I am not sure why, cuz he had no way to win this one.

 

[Kent] I don't know where Argentina came from.

Sigh.  That's my brain.  You're right, it's a Spanish co-production with Mexico. 

Well, they live at Sito's parent's apartment, so if they wanted to quarrel with some privacy then the elevator was probably the better choice.

What was the main character's first reaction to the Loop? 

[Kent] Definite confusion. Sito makes a joke about sleeping with Ana's best friend and gets slapped for it. Then the elevator hits 0, he gets a jolt and they're back on 10.  It takes a number of loops before he's confident he understands what's happening and he references "That movie" to Ana, who doesn't understand what he's talking about.  It's not the movie you're thinking of.  They don't even mention Groundhog Day here.  Instead it's "Caught/Trapped In An Elevator" (the subtitles do both) he's talking about, a movie from the 1980's that was always on TV about a hitman hired to kill a woman but they get stuck in an elevator and Time Loop.  I have no idea if this is a real film or not.  I could find no mention of it after doing search after search for a solid hour.  I suspect it's just something they used for the film to get away from talking about Groundhog Day (a movie which may not have any real international appeal since Groundhog Day isn't a thing outside North America)

[Toast] Agreed. I don't think its a real movie, but it sounds so familiar. The whole assassin-in-the-elevator thing rung such a bell, I could almost see the actor playing the role in my mind's eye.  But given this is a Spanish movie, we are being rather NA-centric assuming he is referencing a Hollywood flick, or even a Spanish movie that broke barriers and reached us, or at least Wikipedia.

Though Groundhog Day (the day) is not a thing outside of North America, I would assume that Groundhog Day (the movie) is widely known. Its been around long enough to get wide exposure and is the epitome of Time Loop movies, so I am sure at least scifi buffs know it.

I like how he keeps on playing with the loop, given it is soooo fucking fast. And each time he is shocked by her slapping him. Also, did she change up hands on a few loops, cuz he definitely holds the wrong cheek a few times. 

WHY did the main character get put into the Loop? Can someone else be brought into the Loop? 

[Kent] Someone else can DEFINITELY be brought into the Loop as eventually after a few quick Loops Sitio thinks to stop the elevator in order to have a longer chat with Ana.  At one point out of frustration, Ana winds up pressing the 0 button at time of reset and she gets zapped into the Loop instead.  Eventually they both wind up pressing it at the same time and get stuck in the Loop together.  What's interesting is that when Ana zaps into the Loop, Sito completely resets, unaware that he was looping before.

Now... WHY?  Well, it's got everything to do with a secret control booth and a scientist who turned the elevator shaft into a time machine.  Yep, that's what happened.

[Toast] I love that Sito didn't get brought into her loop. So her loop reset his loop until they simultaneously get zapped and a third series of loops in which she gets to bring hers from the second series, and he gets to retain all forthgoing. I think we have a new trope that can be mined here. Imagine a group of people each adding in another person, occasionally losing someone, but eventually all working together to solve the Mystery of the Time Loop!

How long is this time Loop? What resets it? Can you force the reset?

[Kent] The Loop is however long the journey from floor 10 to the ground floor takes.  According the the recording from the scientist (when Ana and Sito accidentally stumble upon the control booth trough a pretty absurd scenario, they find his cassette recordings and listen to approximately 40 seconds total across 3 tapes which is even more absurd), he mentions the trip is 21 seconds long.  However if the elevator is stopped before it hits ground floor, the Loop can last indefinitely...although you definitely age within the loop and upon reset you return to your younger body.

The Loop can ONLY be reset by getting to floor 0.  The scientist guy never escaped the Loop and eventually died...likely due to starvation or dehydration.

[Toast] This whole scientist creating a weird bits-and-bobs time machine is just weird to me. It's very Star Trek:tNG hand-wavey scifi mumbo jumbo. I am never entrely sure what happened to his wife -- she left? she died? And if he was trapped inside the elevator (and shaft, and control room) how was that going to help get his wife back? I guess he died before he perfected what he actually wanted to do? Also, if he designed the whole loop to require two people to break, but he was only one person, WHY ? Dude, just reverse-engineer your OWN MACHINE and make a fail safe. 

[Kent] Ha! Yeah...just...yeah.

How long does the main character stay in the Loop? Does it have any affect on them, their personality, their outlook? 

[Kent] At one point they seem to imply that they've been in the Loop a very long time, but it really only seems like a few hours total...like, not even a day.   To answer an earlier question, the purpose of them being stuck in a loop is to work on their relationship, to communicate and understand each other's position.  At a certain point early on, at first when Sito is in the Loop alone, Ana suggests they break up, and then vice versa, when Ana is in the loop Sitio makes the suggestion, so clearly there's stuff to work on.  They seem to work through it and Sito seems to grow up a little and Ana seems to ...hrm...I guess lay off Sito a little.  I dunno.  She doesn't seem to be in the wrong, after all it's Sito who stole "their"(her) savings and gambled it away.  They're living with Sito's parents in an apartment, which sucks (and his parents are super racist about Mexicans apparently).  Are we supposed to think that Ana's old news about having slept with her ex one month into their relationship is somehow comparable to 5 years of Sito's lying, laziness and money mismanagement?

[Toast] I like how quickly she not only figures out the Time Loop aspect, even without getting Sito to mansplain to her via his recollection of the 80s movie (she obviously recalls it as well) but she also very quickly learns how to make use of it, getting out of him the information she wants. Its deceptive, but obviously, he has spent a good part of their relationship being deceptive, so she is due some. 

Does he grow? Once given the motivation that he will truly lose her, he seems to. He is a classic gambling addict, in that he sees nothing wrong with what he is doing, even when he loses the entirety of her savings... 6000 Euros (which supports my idea this is Spain) is a LOT of money.

The comparison against her transgression (she cheated early on in their relationship) against his (this is probably only the latest time he lost a bunch of their/HER money) is not comparable. While the movie seems to want us to believe sexual indiscretion means more than money (one could agree with that) it's more the circumstances. He repeatedly breaks her trust, obviously freeloads off her and his parents, while she had a brief dalliance (that word does forgive much, doesn't it) just after they started their relationship while she was away for THREE MONTHS -- I dunno, if you start dating someone and then go away for three months, I am sure that gains you some lenience. In case you haven't guessed, I am on her side.

[Kent] Me too.  Two "Team Ana" T-shirts please.  Or maybe "Team Ana" infinity loop scarves?
If you're dating someone for a month then you go away for three months, are you really even dating anymore at that point? Unless they were already at the "I love you" stage, one month in ...I dunno.  Not really that big a deal 5 years later unless you're really petty and insecure.... like most guys....

What about the other people in the Loop? Are they aware? Can they become aware?  Does anything happen if they become aware?

[Kent] This is our first loop where there are no bystanders.  This film only has three performers (the third being the voice of the scientist on the tape) an no extras.  It's all Sito and Ana.  But yeah, if somehow someone else came into the Loop, they could press the "0" button and join and/or take over the Loop.

[Toast] Yup.

What does the main character think about the other people in the Loop? Are they real? Do they matter?

[Kent] This is like writing "N/A" on a questionnaire.

[Toast] Yup.

Most memorable event in a Loop? Most surprising event during a Loop? 

[Kent] At one point Sitio leaves the elevator through the top hatch.  He slips and falls and his arm is severed off in the process. It's utterly ridiculous.  I don't get how it happened.  He even points it out and I still don't understand.  Ana has to press the "0" button with his severed arm in order to reset the Loop...after which they just hug for a full Loop, which was kind of sweet.

[Toast] It was the cockroaches. They have been affected by the space-time energies in the elevator shaft and he was attacked by them. They don't want the time loop to break until they have figured out how to control their own destinies. There are a bunch of loops, which we don't see, where its them experimenting so as to make him fall at the exact angle to slice off his arm. 

The prequel will be entirely from the POV of the cockroaches.

[Kent] I'm in for this.

How does this stack up in the subgenre? 

[Kent] This movie has both a Time Loop AND a hatch, two of my favourite things, and, somehow it's not great.  This falls in the "Technological Time Loop" category, and the technology is pretty bullshit... as is the solution for getting out of the Loop.  That the scientist, trapped in an elevator shaft still managed to make a perpetual motion machine...you know, something that's NEVER been done in the history of ever... which is able to create or harness the power of time and something something.  It falls apart as a movie when it stops focusing on the character drama and looks at the "science" instead.  It's thankfully only 71 minutes long, so it doesn't overstay its welcome and the performers playing Ana and Sito are pretty enjoyable.  I liked the way in which the director kept the confines of the elevator and the Loops visually interesting (circling the outside of the box, or changing perspectives from within the box), but at the same time, the visual language isn't always on point, and at times confuses what is actually happening.  The music is great, though, very Hitchcock-ian, and I particularly like the opening credits, both the music and the style of them.

[Toast] I also rather liked it, until we reached the end.

As I already said, the timey-wimey technological cause is bare-bones at the most, but it gives a reason and some method for the couple to break the loop beyond just a mystical time god (the cockroaches after a few million time loops??) deciding they need time to fix their relationship.

But that, after they actually figure out how to get out of the loop, they pick up at the beginning with no memory of having ever been in it. What? Other than reaching back to reference the tragedy of Sito's 80s movie, this served no purpose. They haven't learned anything, they haven't grown, they are still stuck at the exact point they were when the movie began. And that means, based on their emotional states, they will probably break up.

Maybe its for the best. Sito doesn't deserve her. She should go back to the hunky millionaire in Mexico.

Kim's Convenience (Seasons 1-5)

2016-2021. Created by Ins Choi, developed by Ins Choi and Kevin White - CBC

[Note: I wrote this when I thought episode 10 was the final episode.  I've since watched the final 3 episodes and mildy updated the below]
[Note 2: updated June 7 following statements from Simu Liu, Jean Yoon and series writer Anita Kapila]

I have a definite lack of respect for home-grown Canadian television programming, and I always have.  I don't think most of it is very good.  There's a reason for that.  Canada is a very small and very broad market.  Our small population is spread across vast distances which lead to big gulfs in regional attitudes and behaviours.  Just because we're all Canadian definitely doesn't make us all the same.  There's a wildly different attitude on one side of the Rocky Mountains versus the other, there's always distinct animosity between the rural and the cities, we're constantly failing our First Nations Peoples, and everyone hates Toronto except Torontonians.   It's a wild market to try and entertain, so putting money and resources into any program exclusively for this market is a rough proposition (and it sometimes seems like half of our programming is "government funded" via the CBC, the other half is sports).  The majority of our top notch talent gaining any traction up here invariably makes their way south of the border to bigger paychecks and brighter exposure, so it kind of leaves us with the sort of true patriots who don't want to leave and are satisfied with their small-c celebrity, or the young upstart talents who haven't found the nerve to migrate yet.

But the bigger point is most Canadian television (until recently, but I'll get to that) didn't inspire on a technical level, it didn't really know what audience it was servicing, or what it was offering that couldn't be found elsewhere.  So I, generally, didn't watch it.  There are, of course, exceptions.  We have an incredible stable of comedic talent which bred sketch comedy like SCTV, Kids in the Hall, Four on the Floor, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and dozens of comedy gems that went completely under the radar (The Vacant Lot, Sean Cullen Show, Hot Box, Picnicface, the Jon Dore Show).  There's many reasons for such success, sketch comedy is cheaper to produce, broadcast standards for the longest time in Canada permitted edgier and weirder material, and the Canadian sensibilities are far less aggressive than our American counterparts. For some reason, though, that rarely translated into successful sitcoms.  I remember godawful 80's Canadian sitcoms like Learning the Ropes (about a single Dad who is a wrestler), Check it Out (which starred a slumming Don Adams as a grocery store manager), or Max & Me (from the interminable Smith & Smith, before Red Green Show became a fool's gold sensation).  The only unequivocal Canadian sitcom success for quite a long time was King of Kensington, which I can't comment on because it was before my time, but I assume it was just like a Canadian version of All In The Family.  We had modest successes dipping our toes into creator-driven sitcoms in the late 90s with Ken Finkleman's The Newsroom being the Canadian answer to Larry Sanders Show (instead of behind the scenes of a "Tonight Show" like talk show, it was behind the scenes of a "The National" like news program) and Don McKellar's Twitch City being one of the most gloriously odd things on TV as the decade came to a close.

The 2000s things started changing, dramatically.  I mean, our dramas were still pretty weak and unbearably "Canadian", but suddenly there were some actual sitcom successes.  Corner Gas and Trailer Park Boys were the two big shows of note, the former staying a home grown phenomenon about the pleasant goings-on in rural Saskatchewan, that managed to just be funny without pandering to anything overtly Canadian.  The same template could be said for Trailer Park Boys, about of trio of Maritmes degens which exploded beyond our borders but never really got too big for its britches.  

Both of these shows could be said to be the template for the Canadian successes in the 20teens.  Letterkenny is like the plus-sized offspring of both, marrying the cordial rural Canadian-ness with a sprinkle of the less savory aspects of rural life.  Arguably our biggest success, multiple (American) award-winning Schitt's Creek again exploited the rural Canadian vibes for big laughs without being cruel.  What all these shows understand is how to imbuing very Canadian sensibilities - rather than aping American sitcoms - is where you find a relatable truth and humour.

Which leads us (finally...get on with it Kent!) to Kim's Convenience, a show which I slept on completely for the better part of 4 years and I don't think I ever would have watched were it not for ...well, I'll get to that.  Developed out of Ins Choi's stage play into a sitcom, it's set in an East End Toronto convenience store and follows the Kim family, the dad and mom ("Appa" and "Umma"), their daughter/employee/college student Janet, and their estranged son Jung, who works at a car rental agency (so we in fact get two different situation comedies in one).

Appa and Umma are immigrants, but long-time Canadian citizens.  Appa is a bit of a crank but not a stereotypical curmudgeon...he likes to have fun (he can actually be pretty goofy) but only his way, and he always needs to be right.  But then so does Umma, and Janet...and Jung.  Umma is very involved with the Catholic church, which means Appa reluctantly is too.  Janet struggles to receive any overt support or validation from her parents, but she also understands that the way they treat her is a very misguided representation of their love. The show introduces these sort of character quirks - like, the constant needling of each other which is not malicious, but also not playfully innocent either - as the family dynamic, and although it's not directly called out, there's also subtext of Korean family culture at play. 

The convenience store presents an opportunity for regular customers to pass through as well as a hangout place where Mr. Kim can converse with his friends like Mr. Chin and Mr. Mehta when their nearby restaurants are slow.  Mrs. Kim's involvement with the church presents another setting where her circle of friends and acquaintances reveal themselves, as well as the delightful Pastor Nina who the Kims are always trying to suck up to.  Janet has a circle of friends from her art school (OCAD) photography courses (as well as a particularly awful professor), including Gerald, a nervous tick of a man who becomes Janet's roommate (and at one point briefly contemplated love interest that mercifully never takes form).  

Perhaps the meatiest part of the show is the decade-long strained relationship between Jung and his father.  Under his strict rules, Jung had acted out, and wound up leaving home at 16, causing a huge rift.  The show teases their reunion for a full season with occasional awkward encounters, and even when they do have a sort of meet-cute at a bar, their tension is never quite deflated even through to the finale...but there is a sense that they both want a relationship, but it needs a lot more time to develop into anything healthy.  Jung is still on good terms with his mother, who continues to both coddle him and judge him ferociously.  She is the chief instigator in angling for a reunion, for getting her family back together, but the pressure can be a bit too much for them.  Janet and Jung get along like siblings, with a very honest and sweet relationship that often masks some longstanding hurt feelings and resentment.  The show manages this drama very deftly over its 5 seasons, exploring the tensions and relieving them with just the right touch of empathetic comedy.

Jung works at a "Handy Car Rentals" agency with his best friend Kimchee, and though it's never gone into great deal, it's noted that Kimchee and his family supported Jung after he left home, and it's Kimchee who got Jung the job cleaning cars out back.  Shannon, their boss, is about the same age as them but she has her shit together as branch manager.  She talks a mile a minute, is delightfully awkward and confident at the same time, and starts off with a huge crush on Jung which steps over the border of workplace inappropriate often.   There's other Handy employees, including weird mama's boy Terence and a few other fun regulars who cycle in and out.  

The convenience store and the Handy family are kind of two separate world in the show, which in many episodes don't even cross over.  I struggle to think of a sitcom that operates in two situations so distinct.  But the magic is so often the worlds colliding.  Whenever Jung is in the convenience store, it's so rare, but there's a bit of awe to it, like there's walls he's subconsciously breaking down just by being there.

It's a very well acted show, and it was its performers that drew me in.  Mr. Kim is played by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, who made a couple appearances in The Mandalorian in season 2 to a LOT of Canadian fanfare.  The big deal was that not only was he already a Canadian TV star (for what that's worth) but also a HUGE Star Wars nerd, which instantly endeared him to me. It was watching some interviews with him (particularly the nerdy ones where he got to deep dive into Star Wars and answer geek questions about his cosplay) that pushed me towards watching Kim's Convenience. He seems so vibrant and youthful out of character, yet so grizzled and older as Mr. Kim.  On top of adopting a thick accent (which is rarely used directly as a punchline, but occasionally is the premise of a joke) it's a remarkable transformation he makes, how distinct his natural personality seems from his combative, selfish patriarch role.

Likewise I knew well that Simu Liu, who plays Jung, was cast as the lead in Marvel's big Shang-Chi movie (to be released later this year... maybe), and yeah, he's a tremendously handsome and charming presence.  He portrays vulnerability well, as well as insecurity shrouded by Jung's overt vanity.  His character is yanked around a bit in the show, when he graduates to a management role, only to leave for a better offer that falls through and come back to his very junior position (with Kimchee having taken over his management role).  The fact that Jung sits in this junior role for another couple seasons only serves the show in allowing it to keep its Handy set and cast but completely underserves the character.  The eventual Jung/Shannon pairing never fully makes sense, and yet the two actors make it work in the way that you might see a couple that doesn't make sense but you assume it must work somehow.  The finale addresses both of these points, but doesn't fully resolve as a satisfying outcome [this statement was made when I thought episode 10 was the finale...the actual finale does accomplish something a little more satisfying].

Jean Yoong's Mrs. Kim at first seemed to be too underwritten and underrepresented in the show's early seasons. [As Jean Yoon has noted since the end of the show, there was a lack of female Korean representation in the writers' room, and Liu noted that attempts to influence character story or direction were basically ignored]. But her character really flourishes as Yoong's ownership of the role strengthens by the start of the third season. The fourth season introduces that Mrs. Kim has Multiple Sclerosis and these latter two seasons give her much more spotlight time.  Yoong and Lee make Mr. and Mrs. Kim sing.  They are a long-term married couple who absolutely adore each other but also drive each other mental.  Their relationship makes total sense, and I like it when the show revels in their affection.  It's very sweet.

Andrea Bang's Janet is the show's undervalued lynchpin though.  With Lee and Liu getting big Disney roles it's easy to think that Mr. Kim and Jung are maybe the leads of the show, but it's Janet, her individual relationships with each of Appa, Umma and Jung that underline everything.  Where Jung seems very distant from his family connections, Janet is right in the thick of it, still struggling with her identity and the expectations for her...what she's studying, who she's dating, where she's living are all under the microscope of both Appa and Umma, in large part thanks to Jung's rebellion.  Janet was also the bearer of responsibility for educating her parents of modern societal constructs, though the show does take pains to show that the Kims are open to such ideas, even if they don't always completely understand them.  Janet's college apartment with Gerald (and Gerald's in-her-own-world girlfirend Chelesea) serve as the setting of some of the show's biggest highlights as a respite for all of her family from their typical environments, or just as some weird web that Chelsea has caught Janet in.  

The show, in general is pretty gentle in its humour.  Like Schitt's Creek it's trying to play nice with everyone, but often the characters own natures get in the way.  As such, it dabbles in cringe comedy from time to time, where the characters find themselves digging their way deeper and deeper into a situation that would be easily escaped if they could get out of their own way.  Janet is the key perpetrator of the cringe comedy with Mr. Kim definitely second and Shannon third (though she's pretty good at speed talking her way through a bad situation)...but no regular is able to escape it in its 65 episodes.  Its perhaps what I like least about the show, how often they go to the cringe well for their comedy.  It's not a stark as the Curb Your Enthusiasm or Seinfeld cringe, but I think back to Schitt's Creek season 1 and how they basically abandoned cringe altogether after that, and it seemed to be something Kim's Convenience never managed to shed.

There's much been said of late about Kim's Convenience's cancellation, which the CBC noted was due to the show's creators moving on.  But there must have been something else at play.  The cast genuinely seem to love each other and the roles they play, and there was decidedly more to be explored with each of the main characters (Jung and Appa had some more bridges to build, Janet still had a lot of life to figure out and a late stage bisexuality reveal dropped like a bomb, Mrs. Kim's struggles with her disease were really well integrated and good awareness but there was certainly more to expand upon, and Jung needed a real job).

If there's a reason for the show existing (beyond just being very entertaining) it was bringing some much needed representation to screen.  There's been scant few Korean-North American led shows (I remember Margaret Cho had one in the 90's and the very fun Fresh off the Boat in recent years), that it was certainly filling a void.  The show, with both Lee and Liu's new Star Wars and Marvel playing fields bringing even more attention to the show (which had become a Netflix hit worldwide), why wouldn't they want to continue?  There's more to be said about what's happening behind the scenes, but the cast and the creators/execs aren't talking quite yet.  It's still an open wound.  [The Hollywood Reporter, as of June 7, has a pretty good summary of grievances.  Counter-points have been made but they don't address well enough the lack of collaboration from writers and producers with the cast, nor what prompted the unduly abrupt cancellation of what's become a globally popular program.]

 Season 5, produced during the pandemic, suffers from its restrictions.  A lot of the usual customers and performers are absent (no Mr. Mehta and his dramatic line readings), and Liu was stuck in Australia doing Shang-Chi reshoots for part of the season and literally Zoomed in his performance.  It feels like a placeholder season, only inching Janet and Mrs. Kim's stories forward (but lacking some key components).  There must have been larger ideas for the show going forward, which will sadly not be coming to fruition.  There's nothing to say they can't pick up the show in a couple years, for another run, especially as, no doubt, viewership will pick up even more on the show worldwide when Shang-Chi hits, but the talk right now seems pretty finite.

I really liked this show, and I'll miss its cast and characters.

3+1 Short Paragraphs: I Think We're Alone Now

 2018, Reed Morano (The Rhythm Section) -- download

This one has been sitting in my downloads folder for ages, at least two years. It was constantly skipped over, in favour of the latest Big & Shiny, or a rewatch of something easily digested. I could probably do a '31 Days of...' of the rewatches I have consumed in 2020-21 in favour of seeing something new, or more importantly, something more challenging for my brain to consume. I should have, but we both know I won't, at least used the rewatches to make posts for movies I had not yet posted here. But is this blog about completism or just about writing when the whim hits. There are arguments in favour of both.

Even during these Plague Years, I am still drawn to plague fiction. Surprisingly, not much more (or less) than I am during non-Plague Years, as I was always drawn to plague fiction, especially, the apocalyptic kind. I Think We're Alone Now picks up after a world ending plague has stripped Del's (Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones) small town of life. But likely in order to do more than just survive, Del has given himself a mission, a routine, an activity that keeps him sane (?). He goes from house to house, wrapping and gathering the dead, cleaning their houses and collecting the pictures of their happy family lives. Eventually he buries the remains in a mass grave at he edge of town. He then returns to the library where he lives, heats a meal, opens a bottle of wine and eats in front of the large windows with a lovely view. A routine centered around finding a peace of sorts, I would think.

And then he finds Grace (Elle Fanning, Maleficent). Her car has crashed in(to) his small town. Not only is someone else alive, but someone from somewhere else, who has ended up in his small town. Unlikely, and not easily trusted. And she breaks his routine. At first Del is upset she is around, and then he learns to be upset that she might not be around. And then the movie derailed itself, using that oft suggested aspect of the third act, where you make things go wrong for the main character(s) and then you make things go REALLY wrong.

Grace is from a community on the west coast that gathered many who survived, and not being satisfied with being a pleasant, powered, thriving place of post-apocalyptic peace, they decided to mess with people's brains, so as to never return to the world that was all but destroyed. Its this wonky, out of place, stretch of the imagination danger for Del to deal with, so he can rescue Grace and the two can return to his small town. To do what? We don't know, but I imagine it has to do with cleaning more houses. Once the introspection of being the last man (and woman) on Earth was dispensed with, I had no idea, nor any desire to know where it was going to go.

T&K Go Loopty Loo: Star Trek: The Next Generation

[Toast and Kent love time loop stories.  With this "Loopty Loo" series, T&K explore just what's happening in a film or TV show loop, and maybe over time, they will deconstruct what it is that makes for a good time loop]

(because they talked about this show in The Mindy Project...)
Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 5, Episode 18 - "Cause and Effect" 

How did the Loop Begin?
[Kent] Apologies for starting this post with a bit of opining instead of just the details, but I found this episode tedious and exhausting, even while being somewhat engaged by the episode.  I really don't want to have to rehash it..but here I go...

The Enterprise encounter a temporal distortion that knocked out their engines, thrusters, and shields, when out from the distortion pops an 90-year old Federation ship, the Boseman (named in honor of Chadwick Boseman, I've retroactively decreed....whoops, nope it's "the Bozeman", to which I have no pop culture figure or item to attribute it to).  The Bozeman collides with (to quote a wiki) "the Enterprise's starboard nacelle and its pylons exploded" destroying the ship...but in the process catching them in a "temporal causality loop".

Science!

[Toast] Hah! I felt the same way. Oh man, another loop? Data, just figger the fucking thing out already so we can find out who is on that obviously really OLD ship.

Hah! I felt the same way. That ship is definitely named after Chadwick, as they were running out of impactful, historical important names and a guy who was reaaaally fond of Boseman just blurted out the name. Everyone assumed he was talking about the place in Montana and went with it. Little did they know.

Hah! I felt the same way. OK, this is getting as tired as the episode. Yes, they come across a temporal anomaly, and the USS Bozeman emerges, grazes the nacelle and BOOM goes the Enterprise. My thought is that their proximity to the already existing temporal anomaly combined with a warp core explosion is what creates the time loop. Meanwhile, the Bozeman just happened to wander through a breach in the space-time continuum into the current nG day. Their experience had nothing to do with a time loop, but DID add an additional 17 days to their jump into the future.

[Kent] Reading a wiki or two, yeah, they basically say the Bozeman time traveled through the anomaly rather than being stuck in a time loop for 90 years, but I like the latter idea better.

What was the main character's first reaction to the Loop?
[Kent] In this case, it's not the main character, as ST:tNG is an ensemble show.  But Dr. Beverly Crusher is the first one to discover that something is up.  She keeps having a repeating sense of deja vu.  As the loops keep happening more and more of the cast start to experience the deja vu too. 

[Toast] Why Crusher? What about her gave her insight into the loop before everyone else? Is it because she is the mother of Wesley? And as we know, Wesley ends up becoming some ultra-powerful being with awareness of all space and time. So, he's having a drink with friends, after Riker's wedding, and, "Hey, can you hold me beer? My mom is caught in a time loop a few years ago and I have to assist her getting out..."

[Kent] Hah! I felt the sam... *cough*. I mean your retained knowledge of Star Trek lore is much deeper than mine, but I like this explanation.

WHY did the main character get put into the Loop? Can someone else be brought into the Loop?
[Kent] It was accidental, obviously. But also...science!

Everyone on board the Enterprise (and I guess, the Bozeman as well, though we never see events from their POV) is brought in the loop, and I'm assuming at some point the whole crew is aware that something's up.

[Toast] I can see why there is an organization in the Federation's future that is tasked with policing the space-time continuum. These anomalies are just littering the universe, causing enough havoc without people purposely messing around with them.

Yeah, as I said above, I think the Bozeman was just dragged into this loop after their emergence from the past. Now they are in the show's current date. That must be a bitch. Like the Fringe team emerging from the amber 20 odd years later, everything they knew is gone, people are aged, the Federation has had about a dozen uniform updates and its a whole new normal to deal with.

[Kent] Man, they could have done Season 3 of Discovery so long ago with a Fraser-captained starship.

How long is this time Loop? What resets it? Can you force the reset?
[Kent] Hard to say.  I'm never quite certain how time passes in a Star Trak. It's definitely not a 24 hour loop.  It always starts with Crusher, Riker, Worf and Data playing poker (which the show opens following their game in excruciating detail) and ends with the Enterprise exploding.  In between, Crusher is getting ready for bed, sometimes having drinks with Picard and wearing a weird ribbon in her hair that seems to do nothing to keep it under control. 

I do like that the show's cold open (the sequence before the opening credits) finds the Enterprise in distress, and then exploding... very bold open...too bad the poker game just murders that tension and momentum.

The crew is more trying to discern how to get out of the Loop, or prevent it rather than exploring what resets it.  I like that at one point they're basically resigned to the fact that they're going to blow up, but plan to send a message to themselves in the next iteration.

Science!

[Toast] Given that they are in Space, where day and night don't mean much, and the chronometer must have to arbitrarily choose a point in the 24 hr clock, as the Federation standard, it is hard to tell a day from another day. 

This episode dispenses with many of the tropes of the time loop, but for one -- the waking up suddenly to become aware that something is not quite right. Well, Beverly never really gets to sleep. Nor is she awoken by a Sony & Cher song, but she does keep on knocking that glass of something off the table. Does that correlate to Mindy and her phone falling into the big gulp?

[Kent] *snicker*

How long does the main character stay in the Loop? Does it have any affect on them, their personality, their outlook?
[Kent] The Enterprise's chronometer is off by 17.4 days, which implies they were in the Loop for that long.

[Toast] Not all that much time to be frank. Oh this Enterprise crew being so on the ball, that they catch the time loop so early on. Of course, they have Data around to make sense of the thousands of voices from previous loops so he can key on the points of "Abandon Ship!!"

To the crew, this is just another day, another space time anomaly that almost got them. So, no personality changes, no great revelations about how Picard and Beverly should just quit beating around the bush, waking each other late at "night" to do things other than boink.

[Kent] TOS was a very horny show.  TNG is so largely chaste and sterile.

What about the other people in the Loop? Are they aware? Can they become aware?  Does anything happen if they become aware?
[Kent] Everyone is aware in this Loop, since they're all in it together.  I'm not sure why it's Crusher that picks up on it first (other than Toasty's perfectly reasonable explanation above), but they're all students of science so it makes sense that they all would think somewhat scientifically about the shared experience of deja vu.  I kind of wish it was only Crusher though that was retaining memories, and that we had the more conventional trope of trying to convince others that the Loop is happening.  Dr. Crusher is kind of our focal figure, but when it comes time to work on the resolution she's cast aside for LaForge, Data and Riker to work it out...  I know she's *just* a doctor, but I wish they had given her the full spotlight in being instrumental in figuring this out.  

[Toast] Well, she is key in them even starting down that path. She could have just ignored the voices she heard, assuming she had a bit too much of whatever was in that little glass she's nipping at, but she actually looks into things and finds the reports of others having the same experience. Also, once she's a few loops in, she connects it to LaForge's visor. By now she knows, its always the visor. But, of course, once she has them all convinced, even before the shared card counting experience, she has the most appropriate minds (LaForge and Data) working on it. What a good crew working together!

What does the main character think about the other people in the Loop? Are they real? Do they matter?
[Kent] Not really relevant in this Loop, methinks.  In a Star Trak everyone works on the same problem as a team, so there's no sense of prioritizing the individual over the others (except in how the scripts are written).

[Toast] Yup. Just another time anomaly challenge for the log books, and the eventual talk at the annual Space Time Anomaly conference circuit that Beverly gets into after she retires from Star Fleet.

Most memorable event in a Loop? Most surprising event during a Loop?
[Kent] The way Picard is sitting reading his book in his very salmon-coloured room.  We stan a comfy Patrick Stewart in repose.

Maybe not most memorable, but most confusing...why did Crusher keep moving her long-stemmed cordial glass around her room?  What was she trying to get at with that?  By not keeping her as the focal character of this episode, some of her actions are puzzling. Although, I do like the refined, erudite drinking habits in this show.

[Toast] My memorable moments hinged on the fact that they turned over one of the technical tropes of this subgenre, wherein they re-use the same shot over and over, but tweak it at the end. I loved how they kept on shooting from new angles, new perspectives as they went through each loop. It was because of these that I was able to notice those giant granite... arm rests (??) ... on the conference table in the Ready Room. WTF Star Fleet designers? Those big, stony protuberances are just asking crew members to bark their elbows on them.

(Edit: After Googling a bit, those fucking things are its LEGS ?!?!?)

How does this stack up in the subgenre?
[Kent] I would say, hands down, the most boring time loop story I've seen.  It predates Groundhog Day so the subgenre was still pretty nascent with only a few examples preceding it (12:01 PM, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time).  I'm a casual fan of Star Trek, but I forget how tedious TNG can be sometimes, and this is so mercurial in its pacing.   I'm sure when I was a younger lad watching this show the first time through, week-to-week, this was a mind-blowing episode in how it breaks from any sense of TNG format.  However watching it solely in the context of watching Time Loop stories it's just so staid in how it wants to play with the concept of a Loop.  It's so full of mumbo jumbo Star Trakky dialogue that I couldn't help but laugh.  This was Frakes' fourth directorial effort, and, you know, he's still learning.  It's pretty perfunctory. My wife commented on how funny it was that the show hinged completely on Riker's solution being the right one to get them out of the loop.

[Toast] Yeah, being so early in this subgenre, the tropes didn't really exist fully so they didn't have them around, to have fun with them. Like 12:01 this is more like a Twilight Zone what-if-this-happened exploration. But it is prime tNG in that its about the crew coming together to figger something weird out, and finding a novel, invent new things, way out of the predicament.

I like to think of Riker's solution as a prime example of KISS, keeping it the simplest it needed to be. In the end it wins out.

P.S. I experienced a micro-version of our own time loop, in that, as I was making my final edits on the last post, the Mindy one, the text kept on reverting, or changing. I must have published and re-edited three times, only to find old text back in there. I realized the other day that you must have been editing at the same time I was, and we must have been reverting each other's particular edits.

 

3+1 Short Paragraphs: The Princess and the Frog

 2009, d. John Musker and Ron Clements - Disney+

I'm slowly working through both the Princess and Renaissance-era Disney pictures, and not finding a whole lot of joy in most of it.  They don't feel like they were made for me to enjoy.  They never have.  They feel very much like the refined output of a factory that has a specific consumer profile, and hey, more power to those people that they were made for, and do enjoy them.  The straight, white, gen-xer male that I am has, and continues to have, more than enough product targeted at him. But I really like movies, and I like to see things that reach and try to be different.  Pixar came along in the middle of the Disney Renaissance and kind of embarrassed them making Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2 all which appealed to all types of children and parents, feeling contemporary and entertaining in a way that musical princess/romance/fairy tale movies just weren't, and hitting audiences in a way that made Disney seriously question what they were doing.  The course correction away from "girl-centric" features, into non-musical things like Atlantis and Treasure Planet basically sunk both the art form of American-originated hand-drawn animation and the princess story for nearly a decade.  With Disney suddenly under Pixar's influence in the late-aughts (rather than vice versa), The Princess and the Frog was the return, short-lived though it was, but it showed that some lessons had been learned in the intervening years.

From the title alone, The Princess and the Frog is so pointedly an attempt at recapturing the little-girl-princess market, but the story, and how it's told, feel like a distinct deviation. It's a story set in 1920's New Orleans, but it breaks from a lot of the tropes that they had established with The Little Mermaid (another Musker and Clements picture).  Tiana is a hard working young Black woman with a dream she's dedicated to fulfilling: saving her money to open her own restaurant, the same dream her father had but died before he could realize it.  She's self actualized which is quite a refreshing switch for a Disney Princess (which she isn't yet).  The film is also astutely aware of the economic and racial disparity in New Orleans, but only plays at it subtly, not seeking to make the whole affair too uncomfortable.  It's a visiting prince (from a made up, Spanish-ish nation, which gives only the skightest feel of Netflix's live action princess romances) that sets the town abuzz, and catches the attention of Dr. Facilier, the Shadowman, a voodoo priest and trickster. He set into play an overly complicated scheme to acquiring riches to pay down some debts he owes to some very vengeful spirits.  In the process the prince is turned into a frog. Tiana, kisses the frog to help him out of his jam, and turns into a frog herself, and they wind up on the run together.

The film puts the pair on a bayou adventure seeking out a voodoo priestess, and they meet some charming friends along the way, including a trumpet playing gator named Lewis and a creole firefly named Ray who is in love with a star. The quartet and their journey is a lot of fun, like a Pixar movie, putting the audience into a reality that's quite a different perspective on the world... a frog's eye view if you will.  While the romance between Tiana and Prince Naveen feels somewhat forced, it also doesn't feel like the goal the film is trying to get to.  It may be a flaw, or a strength depending on your perspective.  Of course, Tiana becomes a princess by marrying Naveen in the end, thus validating the title of the film.

The film is quite enjoyable but at the same time, there's definitely cultural criticism that can detract from the enjoyment of Disney's first Black princess musical romance, such as the fact that there's a big opening sequence with music from Dr. John, a white jazz musician (he's from New Orleans, I guess is the reasoning here) and that the music and songs of The Princess and the Frog (which are admittedly quite good...I learned Keith David can sing and he's amazing) come from Randy Newman.  It just seems a little off key to include these two figures as the musical representation for this film.  And the exact same criticism leveled against Soul (Pixar's first film with a Black lead character) is somehow apparent in a Disney film released a decade earlier, where the character's visual representation as a Black person on screen is taken away from them. It's kind of astounding that it happened again.  Just like Soul, there is an entertaining product here, but in both cases it just calls out to the fact that maybe in this Millennium you need to originate your stories with Black leads with Black creators.  That's not to say that all stories with Black characters have to be created by Black creators, but if the only Black stories you have are only originating from white creators, that's a real problem that needs addressing.

3 Short Paragraphs: Treasure Planet

 2002, d. John Musker and Ron Clements - Disney+

Big ol' sailing ships in space?
Big ol'  no thank you.

Treasure Planet is one of the most notorious expensive budget turned box office disasters in cinema history...stacking up there with Cleopatra and Ishtar.  It's earned this reputation not because of its quality but because, of well, facts.  The numbers don't lie.  Plus, it was such a bomb, it was single-handedly responsible for Disney killing its hand-drawn animation department, its bread and butter for three quarters of a century, and killed the Disney renaissance period.  I remember it coming out at the time thinking, foremost "who cares about seeing "Treasure Island" but it space, like, at all" and secondly that it looked like it was trying too hard to get out of "Princess mode" and appeal to boys (if you look at what Disney was releasing beforehand - eg. Tarzan, Hercules, Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis) but it just couldn't shake appearances that it was young girl fodder. Clearly others thought as I did, particularly about not caring about yet another adaptation of Treasure Island.  I mean it would be another year before anyone would care about pirate tales again, and then Pirates of the Caribbean would be the only take, and they would run it into the ground. 

The insinuation of a box office bomb is that it's a bad movie, with a bad story, told badly.  And frankly, this is not that.  It's a beautifully animated movie with some real eye popping sequences, more than a few curious design delights, and it blends CGI and traditional hand drawn animation about as well as had ever been done at that point. The story itself is a somewhat straightforward take on Treasure Island with acceptable modifications made for the setting, so it's hard to mess up when you're working with a classic structure like that.  But therein lies the problem.  It feel old, dated, and the attempts at making it contemporary feel somewhat shoehorned or overblown (a "yahoo" surfing action sequence basically opening the film, a montage sequence of Jim bonding with Silver over the full song from Goo Goo Dolls).  Directors Musker and Clements had this on their wishlist for almost two decades, so they had time to work it through, and it's pretty tight, in terms of storytelling, and yet I really couldn't engage with it at all.

There's nothing ostensibly wrong with this movie, but it doesn't do anything daring.  I like some of the alien creature designs (and the addition of a shapeshifting ball of cuteness called Morph was just the right amount for a Disney movie) but the overall aesthetic of spaceships that look like traditional sailing ships of the 18th century and the wardrobe design also looking like space versions of 18th century costuming...well, it's just not to my taste.  I don't dig on that aesthetic, like, at. all.  I think the same tale that really steeped itself in a sci-fi aesthetic (clearly NOT what the directors wanted) would have appealed to me (and a broader 2002 audience) much more.  I did like that Silver and Jim developed a bond that wasn't really in the original story, and it made for the most interesting dynamic of the film, but it left Captain Amelia (a lively Emma Thompson) and family friend Dr. Doppler feeling completely ancillary to the story, and their "romance" very perfunctory.  But I was thinking instead Jim's mother should have joined them on the trip, there should be a romance between Jim's mother and Dr. Doppler and that Doppler should become Jim's mentor on their journey even though he's not as cool or tough as Silver who would be vying for Jim's affection but only to get the map.

T&K Go Loopty Loo: The Mindy Project

[Toast and Kent love a Time Loop. We love watching them, thinking about them, wishing we were in one...(better that than a zombie apocalypse, amiright?). Ahem. The subgenre has basically exploded over the past decade, so we thought we would take a guided look at as many of them as we can. Maybe by the end of it we'll have deconstructed what it is that actually makes a good Time Toop versus a bad one...? Who knows. Maybe we do. Tomorrow.]

The Mindy Project - Season 5, Episode 8, "Hot Mess Time Machine"

[Toast] Scriiiiiiiitch. Waitasec Kent my "good" man, you do know this is exactly the kind of comedy show I do not like, right ? RIGHT ?

Well, I suppose I should at least thank you for confirming that I will not watch the show.

Wait. Is this an April Fool's thing?

[Kent] *snicker* not intentionally

How did the Loop Begin?
[Kent] At this point we can basically break down a Time Loop cause into one of three categories Technological, Timey-Wimey Sciencey, or Fantastical(or a combination thereof).  Toasty, do you agree with these categories? 

[Toast] I agree.

[Kent] This one falls squarely in Fantastical/Mystical/Spiritual/Magical realm where there's no discernible reason why this is happening beyond the universe has deemed it so in order to teach the person a specific lesson or achieve a desired result. 

[Toast] Because the writers deemed it was time (season 5 ?!?!?) that Mindy learned she is a self-centered, terrible person ? So, she does learn that, but then only applies it to get what she wants. Did I mention, I don't like this show already?

What was the main character's first reaction to the Loop?
[Kent] It's Wednesday, humpday of the work week.  Mindy's knocks her phone into a super-gulp cup, her period has just hit its peak flow and is out of tampons, her son is away with her ex, and she's kind of having a bad day (at work she gets made fun of, sneezed on, poked with a knife, has to deal with her worst patients, and runs into her ex).  The next morning, her phone is knocked into he same cup, her period cramps are just as bad, the box of tampons is empty again and the news report about single women over 30 being more prone to adult acne is on.  She name checks Groundhog Day to her lackey/sidekick/confidant Morgan, so she's totally aware of what's happening but is more confused than anything.  It's during the second Loop that she totally freaks out just screaming at everything.  Loop three she's just frustrated.  Loop four she starts considering why she's Looping but then decides to just enjoy it for quite a few weeks worth of Wednesdays before she decides to fix things.

[Toast] I have to say I laughed out loud (LOL for you kids) at the "AAAARGH !!" and "DAMMIT !!" loops. More loopy episodes need one or more full loops with nothing but those reactions.

So, is Morgan always completely, utterly work-place inappropriate? Also, Mindy's a doctor? Seriously? SHE'S a doctor? Well, I suppose many doctors are self-centered dicks, so that is on point.

[Kent]  It's a sitcom so EVERYONE in this show is completely work-place inappropriate.  Morgan is a definite oddball among oddballs.  He's utterly subordinate to Mindy, happily so, and Mindy totally takes advantage of it.  It seems to be a win-win relationship for them both. 

WHY did the main character get put into the Loop? Can someone else be brought into the Loop?
[Kent]  If you haven't watched The Mindy Project before, which, I'm assuming Toasty you haven't (Adj and I were avid watchers, but I've never actually written about it here)... the helpfully concise recap has reminded us Mindy, an OB-GYN, was feeling self-conscious about her relationship with Ben the Nurse and "accidentally" kissed an ex, which caused Ben to break up with her. "All this time you've been wondering if I'm good enough for you... you know what Mindy? I don't think you're good enough for me."

[Toast] And he was right. She's a dick. Can I just say I love that they used the epitome of the beginning of the loop, the waking up at about 7:30am and a song kicks off your day. The same song, every day. Would Mindy be tired of that ear worm by the end of the loop?

[Kent] I get the sense that Mindy will never tire of "Call Me Maybe"

How long is this time Loop? What resets it? Can you force the reset?
[Kent] It's a 24 hour time loop. We never actually see it reset, though it seems to happen while Mindy is sleeping.  Mindy would never miss sleeping no matter how many Loops she goes through.  Beyond the first two Loops, she seems to really enjoy waking up every Wednesday.  No testing boundaries on forcing the reset with this one.

[Toast] Yeah, this is admittedly a rather fun spin on the trope, in that she just goes with it and goes with it and goes with it. No ennui, no depression, just, "visit every single Starbucks on Manhattan."  Also, she really doesn't care about her job, does she, given that this implies she takes every single one of these days off.

How long does the main character stay in the Loop? Does it have any affect on them, their personality, their outlook?
[Kent] Mindy is in the Loop, she discerns with Morgan, because she needs to get back together with Ben the Nurse. "The only thing consistent every day is Ben hates me."  In order to get back together with Ben she needs to be less self-involved and more considerate of Ben and pay more attention to him. She needs to be a better partner, but not a better person to end the loop.  Basically she learns about Ben's family history, his favourites, but mainly she nerds up for him (watching Star Trek, reading comics, cosplay outfits).  By the time the loop ends she says "it's been months".

[Toast] So, she learns the things he loves, but does she actually learn anything? This is kind of creepy, in that she becomes an expert on a topic, not actually appreciating it, only to convince her ex that she actually listened to him. She didn't. She gained enough knowledge to pull the wool over his eyes.

[Kent] I don't know if she winds up appreciating most of this nerd stuff, but she seems to have fun swinging the lightsabre around, and she actually likes Star Trek:TNG, so it's not all an act.  She intakes enough to at least have opinions on stuff.

What about the other people in the Loop? Are they aware? Can they become aware?  Does anything happen if they become aware?
[Kent] Mindy confides to Morgan (nurse/ex-con/weirdo/dog collector) that she's in a Groundhog Day, every day, and he's basically in immediately, because he odd like that.  At one point Morgan is already keenly aware she's in a Groundhog Day..."you finished a crossword puzzle, and I saw you dunk."  Morgan, becoming aware, seems to insinuate he's going to do things because he knows the day will reset.  Unfortunately when the Loop ends he's done some horrible things, including calling his Grandmother a slut and joining the Navy.

[Toast] That was hilarious. He seemed to know the base of Groundhog Day but didn't pay attention to the cardinal rule (well, neither does anyone, ever, really) which is, "Watch what you do, because any day, the loop could end."

What does the main character think about the other people in the Loop? Are they real? Do they matter?
[Kent] Given it's only a 25 minute comedy, there's not a lot of room for wild deviations.  Mindy goes to work every day, I'm sure delivers that same baby to the worst couple every day, and spends a coffee/fro-yo hour with Ben every day.  She still treats her colleagues with as much respect as she ever does (and vice versa) though at certain times she does act pretty out of character towards them because she can.  But mostly it's all about Ben.

[Toast] She ditches work pretty much every loop !! She binge watches a ton of TV shows, she reads reams of comics, she visits every Starbucks! Are you saying that amount of attention paid to her job is normal? Does she work at my business?

[Kent] Well, as an OB-GYN I guess her day is typically based around appointments.  I think this Wednesday she's showing up to the office for the meeting and maybe some paperwork, and then to the hospital to check in on that awful couple.  So I get the sense she can push off the paperwork and just do the Star Treks and play basketball etc.  She still seems to go into the office every day.

Most memorable event in a Loop? Most surprising event during a Loop?

[Kent]  It's a comedy, so yeah, I like the comedy part of the show (see some of my favourite lines at the end of this post).  But I obviously liked Mindy's stabs at nerding out.  I think Mindy trying to be sexy in a terrible Robin costume was pretty shocking for all the wrong reasons... but Ben says he's more of a Marvel guy (Mindy - "Henh? Who Marvel?") so she turn up the next day in a Halle Berry Storm cosplay and she looks amazing.  

[Toast] "The next day..." *cough* 

I was disappointed we didn't get a focused loop of her REALLY committing to being a dick, i.e. having fun doing malicious things to all the people who annoy her, which seems to be pretty much everyone. But I do get that she is not truly a malicious person, just incredibly self centered.

I like the ST:tNG reference :)

How does this stack up in the subgenre?
[Kent] Time Loops, fantastical or otherwise, make no sense within the context of a "real world" sitcom set in an OB-GYN office.  But examining the meta side of it, The Mindy Project is a sitcom built around romcom tropes, and Groundhog Day has basically established that Time Loops are a romcom trope almost foremost (people probably consider it a romcom trope more than a sci-fi trope), so it does fit well for the show.  In terms of the end result though, this sort of fantastical time loop usually sees a character fundamentally changing in order to be appealing to their potential partner, but for a sitcom Mindy can't fundamentally change as a character, so she more just superficially changes to be more appealing to Ben.  I mean, they were already dating before this episode so clearly there was already an attraction, so she doesn't need to change too much, just enough for Ben to see her in a new light.

Spoiler Alert, it's kind of all for naught as her and Ben break up after hastily getting married at the end of the season but things getting pretty dicey at the start of the next season.  The Mindy Project as noted, started out as a series-long romcom, and she does a lot of dating along the way but her and coworker Danny (Chris Messina) are set up as the will-they/wont-they long game.  They get married, have a kid, and get a very, very rocky, divorce, return to their initial antagonistic relationship but with no sexual tension underlining it, and Messina leaves the show only to cameo here and there (the series kind of lost a bit of its purpose when Messina left).  Their kid is only sporadically seen after the divorce (they clearly did not want the kid interrupting the romcom-yness of it all).  But I guess if looking at the long game, the time loop makes Mindy a better partner for Ben, and when she gets back together with Danny in the series finale, it's maybe because she learned to just be a better partner overall.

Toasty, how was your (assuming first) trip into The Mindy Project? 

[Toast] *evil glare*

Seriously, I see the appeal, it is just not for me. 

But as an example of the subgenre, I thought it was spot on. I think, as you said this subgenre is almost more romcom than scifi (but that's more to Hollywood's adaptation of the concept given what they believe the "source" is) so this one episode in Mindy's dating life lent itself to looping. It's a weird way for the writers to address her self-centered attitude. Does it ever play into the show later on?

[Kent] Well thank you for making the trip...and sorry.

---

Graig's favourite lines:
- Mindy, looking for a tampon substitute..."Hot dog buns...very absorbent...could I...?"
- Mindy, binge watching Star Trek TNG - "This is show is so good, and it raises a lot of moral questions....like, if Data is a robot, does he have a penis?"
- Beverly, after accidentally pokes Mindy with her knife while cutting an apple, "Relax, this is my fruit knife, not my people knife."
- In the next loop, "Ow! Beverly, keep your fruit knife in your knife drawer!"
"I can't, it's full of bullets."
- Mindy, to the Petersens, her worst patients, "Congratuations...you are the mother of a beautiful 7 lb baby girl."
Mrs Petersen weighing the baby in her arms: "She doesn't feel like 7lbs. I know that trick, that's what they do at the deli."
- Ben, upon learning of Mindy's ruse to get him to go to coffee: "You are...unbelievable! This is classic Mindy."
Mindy, delighted, "Thank you."
"Not a compliment!"
-Morgan, upon easily accepting Mindy's Groundhog Day scenario "You know what, the universe is a crazy place.  Do you know in Canada...they drive on the exact same side of the road we do."

3 Short Paragraphs: Space Sweepers

 2020, Sung-hee Jo (Phantom Detective) -- Netflix

There is an early 2000s anime I am fond of, called PlanetES, about the Space Debris Section. They are tasked with the cleanup of NEO (near Earth orbit) as it has become increasingly full of junk that can endanger satellites and orbital stations. Its a rather low-tech near-future kind of story, about the crew of a small ship that goes about collecting nuts & bolts before the become hurtling projectiles of doom. This movie sort of hinges on the same premise, but only in the thinnest of uses. They collect, competing with many other crews & ships, the massive scrap that seems to be out there, derelict ships and space stations and whatnot. The movie never really gets into why there is so much debris, as it focuses on the melodrama of the scrappy crew finding a possibly walking bomb, in the shape of a little girl, left behind in an abandoned ship cargo hold.

Space Sweepers is a bombastic, over the top, often silly, scifi spacer flick along the veins of Luc Besson meets Michael Bay. Its the distant future, Earth has become near uninhabitable, but few living in the orbital structures can afford more than subsistence living. There is a rebel force against the ruling body / corporate force that controls everything and a scientific endeavour to ... transform Mars? Replenish the Earth? To be completely honest, I lost track of the plot very early on, eventually only looking up from my phone for the action sequences or any sequences with the sentient robot who was a member of the scrappy crew.

Don't get me wrong, this movie looks incredible and if I can enjoy the visual pleasures of space operas like Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets or Jupiter Ascending then I can enjoy this. It was just that there was soooo much going on, so many nods to other movies, so much on the screen competing with the family melodrama of the ex-govt/corp soldier who just wants to raise the money to find the body of his little girl, in amongst the space junk, that I short-circuited and tuned out. Still, there are so many enjoyable set pieces, characters and scenes in this flick, it was still an enjoyable watch, and maybe even a more-focused rewatch will come in the near future.

(Kent's view in among the 10)