What I Have Been Watching (Kent Edition) - sitcomedies, sit

Toast's latest hat-on-a-hat-on-a-hat entry pulling more of our subfeatures together than ever before (or ever recommended) made me laugh but exposed that many of our subfeatures have a tendency of overlapping.  So I'm stripping out a lot of the other subtitles and just going with the What I Have Been Watching feature (which is a feature all about the admitted state of spending too much time in front of the TV.  There are too many streamers, too much content, and it drives me bonkers just even thinking about it anymore.  Here's some of what I saw in the comedy category in, let's say, the past year of television)

This is a grammatical nightmare.

In this edition:

The Kennedys (1 season, 2015) - amazon

Murderville (1 season, 2022) - Netflix

The After Party (Season 1, 2022)- AppleTV+

Grand Crew (Season 1, 2022) - Global/NBC

Reservation Dogs (Season 1, 2021) - d+/star

Our Flag Means Death (Season 1, 2022) - Crave

Mythic Quest (Season 1, 2020) - AppleTV+

Kids in the Hall: Death Comes To Town (1 season, 2010) - AmazonPrime (rewatch)

I Love That For You  (Season 1, 2022) - Showtime

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The Kennedys seems to be a British take on, like, The Goldbergs or Fresh off the Boat or Everyone Hates Chris or Young Rock, a period-set sitcom that takes a look at a real person's amusing childhood experiences and family life, but, you know, turns them into sitcom fodder thus wearing away most of the autobiographical sensibilities that the show is premised upon.  In this case, it's actress and comedian Emma Kennedy telling tales about growing up in the late 70's in the Jessop Square subdivision.

Young Emma is played by Lucy Hutchinson who at about 12 years old has some pretty impeccable comedic timing.  As the series lead she's surprisingly capable and naturalistic.  She doesn't feel like she's acting or putting on a performance and she convincingly feels of the era, talking about Star Wars and whatnot.  Her mother,  Brenda (played by the IT Crowd's Katherine Parkinson) is the show's powerhouse, though.  A rampant feminist but still unaware of her own trappings in the patriarchy, she's defiant to a fault of her role as mother and homemaker.  She's a boldly entertaining character, both for her lack of hubris, but also not lacking in love or kindness.  Patriarch Tony Kennedy (played by Dan Skinner) is kind of an oblivious lunk, never quite sure what anyone is saying to him or why.  Not stupid, just not always present in the moment.  The family is best friends with the unwed couple Tim (Toast of London's Harry Peacock) and Jenny (Emma Pierson), the former a womanizing drunk, the latter a preening mess of a woman, unsure of what she wants out of life.  

Most of the episodes take place within the neighbourhood and over its six episodes starts to build up familiarity with its surroundings for the audience.  The comedy is multifaceted and quick, with a lot of wordplay, as well as utilizing the sort of late-70s naivety as a hindsight joke machine, and then a whole bunch of non-sequitur side-swipes, which seem to be the fashion of this nostalgiac subgenre of sitcom.

I was shocked to see that there were only 6 episodes in this series.  It's quite funny, well-produced, and exceptionally well acted with recognizable faces.  It's not innovating anything but it's rocksolid in what it's trying to do, and that's usually good for two or three seasons, at least in British terms.

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I don't want to talk about Netflix as an entity.  It's too complicated for this space.  But lets just say they've spent a lot of money trying stuff, most of which is forgettable and didn't work.  The odd thing is transcendant.  Murderville is somewhere in the middle.

It's a fully plotted, largely improvised comedy about a bumbling homicide detective who keeps getting a new partner each week and has a murder mystery to solve.  The partner is a real world celebrity (in this case Conan O'Brien, Marshawn Lynch, Kumail Nanjiani, Annie Murphy, Sharon Stone and Ken Jeong fill the role), playing themself, coming in cold to the situation and having to act along.   The episodes that pop are the ones in which the performers are actively playing along, versus the performers who are lost, sitting back, and just watching things happening around them.

Leading them along the way is Will Arnett as Terry Seattle, who is in the midst of a divorce with his precinct Chief (Haneefah Wood) and is, most apparently, living out of his office.  Seattle drives a pristine looking El Camino (so awesome) which seems to be the only light in his life.  He still mourns the loss of his partner (who is only ever seen in a photo hanging on the wall as Jennifer Aniston) 15 years ago, and puts his grief and anxiety upon the unsuspecting rookie.

Surprisingly the show, for all its improvisational set-up, has an arc.  It's not necessarily a thoroughly satisfying arc but it's surprising that they even attempted it within the format.  It's an enjoyable show, with even the lesser episodes still providing some good laughs within.  It's certainly strange, and unlike anything I've seen done before, but I could see some refinement of the formula into something that's consistently great fun.

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The one series I was most looking forward to on AppleTV+ when I started the service this year was The After Party.  It's the brainchild of Christopher Miller, one half of the great Lord and Miller comedy directing/producing team known for their ability to exploit genre tropes adeptly and shrewdly for maximum entertainment value (see Clone High, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, the Jump Street movies, The Lego Movie).  

This series I was hoping would be the next great one, a murder mystery in which each episode takes a look at one of the accused but from a different genre standpoint.  It sounded fantastic, and the cast, featuring some of the most underhyped comedic talent going (Sam Richardson, Ilana Glazer, Ben Schwartz, Ike Barinholtz, John Early) all held down by Tiffany Haddish's under-the-gun detective.   The crux is superstar Xavier (Dave Franco) is murdered in his own home during the afterparty following a high school reunion.

Well, I mean, I liked the series, quite a bit.  I enjoyed tremendously the performers, and I liked the characters, and I enjoyed the murder mystery angle certainly enough to eagerly come back from week-to-week, but my expectations of the genre-busting Miller were not quite lived up to.  True, each episode did focus on a different suspect, and leaned towards a specific genre/subgenre/storytype (like a Fast & Furious Movie, highschool drama, musical, animated comedy, psychological thriller) but the realities of trying to uphold a single story through these different genres meant the genres couldn't be exploited to their full potential.  So the show, while fully entertaining, doesn't hit that next level I had hoped for.

Season 2 is in the works.  I'll be there.

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You can't really rely upon network television to deliver anything innovative or surprising.  They are hanging on for dear life in this era of the streaming wars, and know that their key to survival is reality competition shows and programming that appeals almost exclusively to the Boomers, doling out of-the-week dramas in every possible high-stakes professional situation.  At this stage network comedies are life support, and even the mighty Chuck Lorre's laugh track adherence is failing to save them.

So when something like Grand Crew sneaks out quietly, and just as quitely maintains a consistent tone of hilarity and fun, well, it's always a shock.  Brooklyn Nine-Nine was the last great network comedy, and Grand Crew has the potential to be the next.  It's a dead simple premise, a group of Black friends hang out at a wine bar when not living their lives.  It's basically a modernisation of Cheers and Friends  but a lot less dependent on that single situational environment.  It's also thoroughly a Black-led and run show, from creator Phil Augusta Jackson, but it's also inherently accessible as any network comedy should be.  It's a Black-centric show, thus many jokes are very specific references to of Black culture, and I'm a middle-aged white guy so I may not catch all these references, aptly so, but being hyper-specific in comedy is always the correct way to go.  When I do get the references (which is more often than not), they are gold, so I can only imagine how good the deep cut ones I'm not getting are.  But the general sensibility of the show's humour is straight-up character silliness, like Brooklyn Nine-Nine or Happy Endings.  It really leans into the characters goofball traits, and their unique personas for the majority of the humour, and it's great.

The cast is tremendous.  Echo Kellum (Arrow) is the lead of the ensemble, a flitty, hopeless romantic who just broke up with his girlfriend and is learning to live without love for a while, despite his impulses.  His sister Nikki is played by Nicole Byer, a hypersexual alpha who's also a realtor.  Carl Tart plays the perpetually unemployed, always calculating, boisterous Sherm while his roommate Aaron (Anthony Jennings) is the buttoned-down professional accountant who has to be the responsible yin to Sherm's yang. Then there's married friend Wyatt (Justin Cunningham) who is a stay-at-home husband (and still uncertain how he feels about it).  They make a new friend who works at the wine bar in Fay (Gracie Mercedes), who is relatively new to L.A. but still uncertain about her place there.

This is very much an episodic show, with only a little bit of character and/or relationship development happening from episode to episode.  They're a tremendously fun crew, some might say "grand".  Even when the show tackles the impact of yet another tragic murder-by-police shooting of a black youth, they still manage to find some levity within the resonance without dipping into "very special episode" terrain.  A second season is on its way, thankfully.  The current 10 episodes just isn't enough.  Grand needs a nice long life.

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Reservation Dogs is a comedy in the vein of vanity projects like Atlanta, Master of None, or [edited...let's not go with that suggestion, apt as it was].  Normally "vanity project" has a negative connotation, but for creative performers like Donald Glover, Aziz Ansari and [redacted] their vanity projects give them a chance to hone and showcase all of their skills, including writing and directing, as well as delve deeper into more thoughtful exploration of subjects that aren't explored elsewhere, and certainly not with their point of view.  These projects take on their own rhythm, their own style, even though they're of a type together, they feel the impact of their creators' visions in letting creativity be the star.  Episodes tend to feel more like mini-movies than serialized television.

With the support of producer Taika Waititi, Reservation Dogs was given life at FX from director and sketch comedian Sterlin Harjo, but unlike many a vanity project, Harjo remains off camera and uses the platform as an showcase for Native American performers, writers and more (both Ansari and Glover, though, it should be noted, use their platforms to elevate others too, but the talk of those shows is still centers so much around them).

The show is a comedy (but also has some weight behind it) about life on an Oklahoma reservation, following the "Reservation Dogs" crew, four teenage friends who steal shit to make money for a good cause, getting the fuck off the reservation and going to California.  They recently lost one of their crew to suicide, and the loss haunts them each in different, sobering ways. Things get further complicated when the NDN Mafia, a rival quartet of teens arrives on the scene and start taking shots at them.  What could have been a very straightforward series based off the setup quickly reveals itself within its first three episodes as something much more contemplative than that.

The episodes all vary in tone and subject matter and even who is starring in them, but they're all amazing, exploring so many different facets of res life, Native heritage and culture.  While there are some amazing guest stars (Gary Farmer, Zahn McClarnon, Jon Proudstar, and Kaniehtiio Horn among may) throughout the season, the stars are the four young members of the Dogs.  Devery Jacobs is Elora, the de facto leader of the crew, and the one who maybe feels the most outwardly motivated to leave the res.  Her spotlight episode finds her attempting yet again to get her drivers license only to get embroiled in her instructor's whole side deal.  Bear is played by D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, an awkward young man who needs the gang to bolster his sense of confidence and masculinity (but he also has a bold but equally awkward spirit guide, hilariously played by Dallas Goldtooth).  Bear's spotlight episode finds his estranged father, a successful rapper, returning to the res for a charity event, and Bear's mom tries to brace him for disappointment, but he starts spending the California money to try and look a big shot for his dad which raises tensions with Elora.  Willie Jack, played by Paulina Alexis, is tough-talking and hard-as-nails but is very connected with her family and was hit hard by her cousin's Daniel's suicide.  Her spotlight episode finds her going hunting with her father, but flashing back to memories of hunting trips with Daniel, and it's a very emotional journey that explores the problems of depression on the res, and the lasting impacts they have.  The final member of the crew is the youngest, Cheese (Lane Factor).  Quiet and laid back, he gets on with everyone and just kinda of seems to tag along with the dogs with no personal agenda.  Cheese's spotlight episode is actually more a spotlight for McClarnon's Officer Big and a showcase for the town as he has the young man as his ride-along partner for the episode.  

As many shows have keyed into over the past decade, you get a lot of mileage out of building out the population of your environment.  What used to only be seen as a thing in prime time animation (The Simpsons primarily) has now become a staple for all the great network comedies in recent years, and the same occurs here, with the res feeling full of interesting and fun people.  

It's a fantastic series. 

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While Waititi only served as producer (and co-writer on the pilot) for Reservation Dogs -- thus his influence is limited -- Our Flag Means Death is a Waititi production through and through, catering much more to the comedic writer/director/performer's goofier sensibilities.  Here he has developed a semi-epic, 1700s-set, pirate comedy that kicks off with a soft, upper crust man abandoning his family for a life of skullduggery on the high seas.  It is a life for which he is ill-equipped, using his money to buy his ship and hire a crew of largely inexperienced scalliwags.

Taking to the seas, Stede Bonnett (Rhys Darby) and his ensemble pretty much immediately are boarded by the Royal Navy, led by an acquaintance from Stede's aristocratic past. Stede kills him accidentally, but it's unknown to the crew, and he earns at least a little of the respect that was missing from his men.  Stede's general management style and general world outlook could be considered progressive (adopting a lot of current managerial philosophies) but this all seems counterintuitive to a pirate crew, and the general amount of high seas piracy, kidnapping and murder is kept pretty much to a minimum.  Things like forced vacation days, a flag-making competition and a talent pageant, not to mention bedtime storytime (in which Stede reads the crew a story) all seem kind of...soft...for the lifestyle.  Stede gets nicknamed The Gentleman Pirate, which isn't meant as a compliment, despite how he takes it.

Things get more complicated when the Revenge encounters Blackbeard's ship.  The crew is direly intimidated by the men of Blackbeard's crew, and of course, of Blackbeard himself (Waititi performs the role).  A strange turnabout happens, however, when Blackbeard takes a shining to Stede's erudite lifestyle, moreover he wishes to escape the pirate's life and live a more humble existence in the world of high society. Stede offers to teach him about high society in exchange for lessons in piracy.  A deep kinship is borne, much to the dismay of Blackbeard's grizzled right hand, Izzy Hands (Con O'Neill).  Izzy conspires against the pairing only to his own detriment, as the rest of Blackbeard's crew start to glom onto Stede's way of leadership.  Of course, the Royal Navy is pursuing Stede with ruthless abandon, and things come to a glorious head in the final three episodes after threatening an amusing status quo.

This is, on top of it all, a large ensemble piece, which includes Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting), Samson Kayo (Truth Seekers), Vico Oritz, Christian Nairn (Hodor from Game of Thrones), Nat Faxon, and many more, with guest appearances from Rory Kinnear, Leslie Jones, Fred Armisen, Claudia O'Doherty, Kristen Schaal, Nick Kroll, Kristen Johnson and Will Arnett among others.

The crux of the series, though, comes down tot he different ways people express love to each other, and particularly the relationships between men and how they show affection for one another, whether it's platonic, idolisation, as brothers-in-arms, or as lovers.  It's not dissecting these with any great zeal, but it seems that love, and how people care for each other, is the great unifier of most of these episodes.

I don't have a great affinity for pirates, but Waititi's style, as upheld by his writing staff and his remarkably unique cast of performers, helps the adventure of it all go down smoothly.  It's kind of telling that the bits that take place on land (like at Spanish Jackie's pub or Stede and Blackbeard imprisoned at the Royal Privateering Academy) were my favourite parts of the series, thought he finale where Stede returns home to his family was easily the best episode for its wildly unexpected twists.

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After basically writing it off after its initial announcement as another dumb workplace comedy on a topic I have little investment in (MMORPGs), it took all of one episode for AppleTV's Mythic Quest to hook me in.  It's a damn funny show.

From Always Sunny in Philadelphia creatives Charlie Day and Rob McElhenney with Megan Ganz (writer on Community, Always Sunny, Modern Family), and starring McElhenney as the self-aggrandizing creative head of the Mythic Quest Massive Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game, I was expecting a tepid retread of The Office but with more nerd shit.  

I'm not a devoted follower of Always Sunny but from what I've seen of the show (a couple dozen random episodes) I shouldn't have been surprised at how whip-smart Mythic Quest is, and how it knows how to present an egomaniac as a fool (Always Sunny is basically a show about watching a crew of sociopaths get their come-uppance episode after episode).  What's also most immediately surprising is how tailored the show is as an ensemble piece and not a solo showcase for McElhenney.   Even as the creative head of Mythic Quest, his Ian (pronouced, annoyingly, "eye-ann") is still not the top dog.  He has (unseen) corporate overlords that he has to appease, an ineffective middleman to patronize in stammering beta David (David Hornsby), and he of course needs the support of his hyper awkward development lead Poppy (a transcendent Charlotte Nicdao).  Then there's the borderline psychopathic head of monetization, Brad (always great to see Dany Pudi), David's full-on psychopathic assistant Jo (Jessie Ennis),  the head writer, legendary 70's award-winning, over-the-hill sci-fi novelist C.W. Longbottom (F. Murray Abraham doing great work...at least on camera), and repping hard for the female gamers, game testers Rachel (Ashly Burch) and Dana (Imani Hakim).

The show quickly eases into its status quo.  It finds its groove rapidly in its first two episodes, and it feels like it's going to have a nice long life of great nerdy jokes (with a full understanding of the world it's operating in), great character conflicts, and gentle world building (its game, the economy and society that surrounds it, and the meta world around Mythic Quest as a company and property).   But by episode t it rapidly upends any expectation of what it should be.

Episode 5 is a full detour in the life of a female game developer and her relationship with her boyfriend-turned-business partner-turned-husband.  The episode is a mini-movie spanning three decades, starring Cristin Milioti (Palm Springs) and Jake Johnson (Stumptown) as the lead couple in this romantic comdey-drama that really takes you through a tour of the highs and lows of video game celebrity and evolution.  It has an impact on the world of Mythic Quest but in a way that is not immediately apparent, and takes some time to reveal its ultimate point within the show.  It's a special thing, though.

Following that episode, Mythic Quest emboldens itself to actually embrace some dramatic storytelling within its otherwise riotous framework.  There's a gutpunch of an episode that introduces Ian's son, and a COVID special that stands as one of the best snapshots of what the first wave lockdown really felt like.  

There's something tremendously special about Mythic Quest, as such I haven't binged it like I normally would a series I enjoy this much... I savour its episodes, and they root down in me with the time that I give them to breathe.

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Amidst the new Kids in the Hall series appearing on Amazon and my ongoing rewatch of the original series (plus the recent acquisition of Brain Candy on blu-ray) I thought it time to revisit the Kids' 2010 serialized mini-series Death Comes to Town.

I caught a few episodes of the series as it aired originally but its scheduling on CBC was a mess as it was interrupted by the Winter Olympics, and I had to purchase the series on Apple in order to watch the rest.  I don't recall loving the series and had little desire over the past dozen years to revisit it.  But with time comes fading memory so I was going into the series with near-fresh eyes.

And a rapid 175-minutes later, I did not come out with triumphant adoration for the series.  It does not feel unfamiliar to Kids in the Hall (more akin to the tone of Brain Candy than sketch comedy), but at the same time it lacks a specific drive.  It's effectively a murder-mystery, but it's a murder-mystery that's kind of disinterested in the fact that it's a murder-mystery.  It really wants to build characters and build a character out of the town of Shuckton, but with the death of its mayor (who everyone seems to idolize) in the first episode, Shuckton loses the one thing that really seems to define it.  As much as the series wants to build characters, it has a much harder time with building relationships between the characters.  Sure, it finds connective ties for the characters to share with each other, mostly as comedy, but few of the characters have any real, defining traits to their relationship with other characters beyond forgetful delivery lady Marnie (Kevin McDonald) and disgraced hockey wonderkid Ricky Jarvis (Bruce McCulloch), now obese and housebound.

Scott Thompson takes the ill-advised role of Crim Hollingsworth, adopting a Native Canadian patois, and adorning himself in style and symbology of, supposedly, Ojibwe culture, of which Crim puports to be 1/16th heritage.  I'm not sure why Thompson, of all the kids, tends to be the one in brownface all the time, but there's a trend.  It's an uncomfortable pattern.  While it's not necessarily mocking any culture, and there is the sense of trying to develop a character, it never seems the right thing to do, particularly inexcusable for 2010.  Likewise the amount of fat jokes and sight gags about Ricky Jarvis seem like they should have ended with Fat Bastard in Austin Powers.  And then there's the weird references to trans people, in a way that seems to be meant to be inclusive, but is edited with comedic timing to be a punchline.  This stuff has aged poorly and in much faster time than most KitH sketches.

There's plenty of silliness and a lot of conceptual comedy within Death Comes to Town but it does tend to be overshadowed by the sheer lack of laugh-out-loud comedy within.  Besides their post-Brain Candy

disbanding, this is a real low point for the troupe.  Not embarrassingly bad, but certainly not meeting up to expectations (even when they're low).

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And if this wasn't a long enough post already, we ploughed through I Love That For You with reckless abandon.  I didn't want to.  I put it off for some time.  I mean, I liked Vanessa Bayer as an SNL cast member and have enjoyed her in her cameos in other things like Barb and Star Go To Vista Del Mar and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but the setup for this series felt just...too...cringey for me to want to sit through.

Created by Bayer (and Jeremy Beiler), the story of I Love That For You finds Bayer as Joanna Gold, a lifelong fan of the SVC home shopping network.  She would watch religiously as a child while going through chemotherapy for leukaemia, and as a remarkably awkward adult, she seems her most comfortable and confident selling people seemingly worthless things.  She's always had a manipulative streak in her, but it's not malicious so much as a coping mechanism for her trauma.  She finally gets her shot at an open casting call for SVC and absolutely nails the audition.  She's elated to find she's gotten the job, only to blow it on her first on-air showcase.  As she's getting fired she blurts out that she has cancer, and there are dollarsigns in  network owner Patricia's eyes.  Joanna is suddely the new "it-girl" at the network, to the delight of some, like her idol Jackie (Molly Shannon) and to the chagrin of others she's displacing, like the preening, self-obsessed Beth Ann (Ayden Mayeri).

The show then has to deal with Joanna going deeper and deeper into her lie, and what should be unbearably cringe is somehow, in Bayer's hands, nearly effortlessly watchable and just straight up amusing.  Bayer has always been fantastic at being uncomfortably awkward in her performance without being cringe about it.  She does this by way of acknowledging she's aware of her own awkwardness, and Bayers one of the few people who can do this with just a look, but she's also equally clever at delivering lines that highlight how aware she is of her own social ineptitude.  Even within the show, this winds up endearing Joanna to her colleagues more than alienating her, but it never lets her off the hook for her lying, and she knows she's not capable of keeping it up forever.  It's more of an "I'm in too deep, and I don't know how to get out" kind of situation.

I enjoyed the show, even though I found the whole cancer-ploy of Joanna really held the show back from being a proper workplace sitcom.  It's a time bomb just waiting to go off, and so you can't ever rest or rely upon the dynamics as they're set up.  When the bomb goes off in the penultimate episode you have to wonder how the show could possibly set up a second season given what the fallout *should* be.  Yet, it does its thing, and finds a way, and things are perhaps more awkward for Joanna than ever as the season closes out.

The show struggles with it's shopping network within the show.  It doesn't know whether it should be lampooning hope shopping channels and the products they sell, or if it should be earnestly presenting something possible, something real.  It often wavers between the two in a gentle fashion, and it never feels comfortable.  When the hosts start being goofy or unprofessional on camera (and they all do it), it really diminishes what Joanna initially got fired for and thus betrays the whole crux of this first season.  At the same time, when the sales pitches are completely po-faced, it's not very engaging and I want them to move faster through those parts.

There's a solid supporting cast, topped by Jennifer Lewis as the no-nonsense Patricia is credibly intimidating but gets the best through-line in the show, and Punam Patel as show producer Beena develops into a complete scene stealer with both her micro- and macro-agressions (and her beautiful Bernese Mountain Dog who's always at her side).

It was a pleasant surprise of pleasantness, especially give to how easily it could have been full-bore cringe.

 

What I Have Been Watching: this pile

What I Have Been (or Am) Watching is usually the domain of Toast admittedly spending too much time in front of the TV. Kent's stepping on toes (Toastoes? Toestys?) here mainly because he has a piles of TV shows in progress and maybe doesn't have too much to say about any of it. Maybe(?)

Best In Miniature Season 2 - CBC (8/8 episodes)

The Mrs. Kent has really gotten into miniatures over the past few years, and the first season of Best in Mini was a real kick in the pants for her start tackling doing her own minifying. I'm kind of envious of her dedication to the art form and the increasingly impressive results she's achieving.  As a competition show, Best In Mini stands out because it doesn't drown itself in contestant's personalities like far too many other shows of this ilk. It's about skills, and in the community of miniature artists, the skills are appreciated. These contestants, though all trying to win, aren't in competition with the others, they're in competition with themselves, pushing their skill sets to the limit, to try and meet or exceed the expectation of the judges. We only get the slimmest of glimpses into the personal lives of these artisans, and usually only in as much as it's relevant to the pieces that they're working on. It's a quiet, low-stakes, relaxing, and fascinating discipline, and it's amazing to see each artisan's strengths employed, but even greater to see them try something new and succeed or fail at it. 

Like the first season, it starts with building the house. Each subsequent episode is furnishing a specific room, with specific requirements, and it ends with the external setting. The level and depth of knowledge on design and multidisciplined craftsmanship required to succeed in the show is astounding, making the frontrunners evident from the get go, but also impressive to see artists find their groove, and improve and grow as the show goes on.  I felt the winner of the season came down to the one judge not understanding one of the contestant's stories and subjectively wanting something out of the story that the artist didn't feel fit, and was penalized for being true to their own sense of the story. 

Lego Masters Australia Season 3 - Discovery Canada (10/14 Episodes)

I freaking love Lego Masters Australia. After the Mrs. and I ploughed through season 1 & 2 on demand I craved more. Each episode is a freaking dopamine hit of giddy plastic joy. Each episode ends with a teaser for the next episode and I.just.want.it.now! 

Unlike the North American Lego Masters, the Australian version feels so much more connected to its builders, the community of Lego aficionados, and to the participants in the show. You get the sense that host Hamish Blake is having an absolute blast on set, as are the contestants, and they start to form kind of in jokes between them. It's very personable in a way that the spit-and-polish of the (North) American Lego Masters, as hosted by Will Arnett, is not. Likewise, the solitary judge, "Brickman" Ryan McNaught, seems to be personally invested in the brick building journey of the contestants. The level of emotion that comes out of him as he has to eliminate a duo, especially later on in the season, is so heartfelt and genuine. These aren't just contestants to him, they are proteges or pupils. He will lean into someone mid-build and offer a gentle suggestion, whether it's to help them get unstuck from a particular problem, or to try and push them past their comfort zone. The US Lego Masters judges, while definitely interested observers, do not seem to have nearly the same investment level.  There is a reason for that, and it's how the shows are structured.

The Aussie Lego Masters, unlike any other competition show, really wants to spotlight the builders skills, and gives them many, many opportunities to shine. It's a show that starts with 8 groups of contestants and this season didn't eliminate an group until episode 3, giving each team at least three or four builds before elimination. That's a lot of opportunity for them to prove themselves and something which I wish other such shows based around skill sets would take to heart and employ (Best in Miniature could do well with a structure like this at least early on, although, there's only so many rooms in a house).  Past contestants come back as special guests to great fanfare which speaks to the sense of community the show builds...it creates legends even in the losers of previous seasons (that young season 1 contestant Jordy is now a regular player on the show as a production assistant, but onscreen seen typically in a janitorial role, is a perennial delight).

It's the highlight of my week, tempered only by the fact that Discovery has started editing the shows down to an hour, which means there are dramatic jumps in the episode timelines and we miss some delightful content (in the Marvel themed episode, we missed an entire judging segment, much to our disappointment and frustration). 

Doom Patrol Season 4 - HBOMax (6/12 episodes)

[Season 1, Season 2, Season 3]

I think my problem with Doom Patrol at this point rests entirely in how disconnected the characters are from each other in this series. This season seems to be trying to reconcile past lives, as Vic (having had all his cyborg parts removed and is now just a boring normal guy) gets reacquainted with old friends in Detroit, Rouge tries to atone for her past misdeeds (which Rita cannot let go of, for obvious reasons), Larry is still wrestling with his closeted past as well as his alien offspring/parasite, and the saga of Jane and the war of her personalities continues. We meet a new character, Casey, as we return for a one-off with Dorothy, both of whom are dealing with daddy issues. Despite all the continued weirdness (which I love) and the great scoring from Clint Mansell and Kevin Kiner, it feels like we're treading so much water with these characters, particularly waters we've tread before.

I am, however, torn by my fatigue with the show because, at its heart, it's a show about trauma, surviving it, coping with it, and moving past it as much as one can. It's very potent, and kind of important in this regard. It's a show that uses its weirdness expertly as metaphor, without ever bashing you over the head with what they're doing. If you want to approach it just as a show about weirdos facing weird things, it works on that level, but digging even one layer deeper reveals so much more complexity, and there's a lot to identify and/or empathize with. But it just feels like it doesn't quite know how to get to where it wants to go, or how it wants to say things. It's like when I write my long-winded reviews that circle the point I'm making but take forever to get there.  Except I know I don't need to pad for time.  Hoping the "part 2" of this season brings the series to a satisfactory conclusion.

Ted Lasso Season 3 -Apple TV+ (6/12 episodes)

[Seasons 1 & 2]

The good news is Ted Lasso is funny again. Where the second season seemed really, really weighed down, and troubled, this season has inflated the flat tires and replaced the busted rubber. Its nowhere near as tight as the pretty-much-perfect season 1 -- its massive success means the show can run episodes at whatever length it wants, and it does.  I can only imagine how tight a comedy it might be if held to a 25 minute standard...or it's quite possible it might not even work.

This season seems to have clear directions, chief of which is to conclude with Ted ultimately no longer being Coach of AFC Richmond, but also it seems like the show is setting itself up for life without Jason Sudekis. It's trying for a redemptive arc for Nate (after his flat-out villainy last season, it's a tall order), it's setting Rebecca up for a pretty big journey, and the triangle of Keely-Roy-Jamie finds a fourth participant pushing the edges out. The members of the team, so far, are treated almost exclusively as a collective unit, with individual personalities and stories dismissed in favour of the hive, but a few wrinkles such as eccentric superstar Zava joining the team or reporter Trent Crimm being ever present as documentarian shakes things up in a very enjoyable way (James Lance's Crimm is such a welcome addition as regular cast member).

The show seems less interested in driving towards a happy ending than it does settling in, and I think that could ultimately be a good thing. I mean, if people want 3 seasons in-and-out with Ted as the gravitational center, it might be less satisfying as a result, but if the show is pivoting to a Ted-less spin off, it's certainly setting a good foundation for it.  Either way, I'm much happier with this season than the last one, and feel more entertained, and maybe even more invested, as it slips a bit more into sit-com mode than "prestige TV". Excited to see where it goes.

Stargirl Season 3 - AmazonPrime (5/13 episodes)

[Seasons 1 & 2]

Superhero fatigue is definitely real. I'm a lifelong comics reader and I used to devote myself to seeing every tangentially superhero-related mass media product out there. These days my comics pile is so much smaller than ever before, my investment in big superhero universes has dwindled to almost nothing, I'm not rewatching the big tentpole movies as frequently as I used to, and even good superhero TV, like Stargirl, feels exhausting to me. 

13 episodes? Why?

I like Stargirl, it uses themes of legacy (my favourite subject matter for comic book superheroics) to build its own in-world history, so it has a setting where battles between superheroes and supervillains existed before its first episode began. Over the past two seasons its teenage characters have been thrust into the midst of all that history and it all seems to come spiralling back improbably to this quaint town of Blue Valley.  It stretched that credibility for all it could, this season, everything comes springing back, and it feels like we're treading familiar ground. Getting caught eating your own tail is something all TV shows have to face inevitably, but it seems like superhero shows do it more frequently and more often than regular programming. I'm not sure what it is. Probably budget and contractual limitations, forcing the re-use of characters and sets and effects and whatnot... it means that the superhero worlds on TV don't ever really grow, they just get more crowded.

What Stargirl really needed, at this stage, was to break out of Blue Valley, to go out into the world beyond, but the show couldn't afford it, so instead we're stuck with new angles on returning villains to a not-unwatchable but ho-hum result.  Season 3 is the series' final run, and we'll probably get around to finishing it, but it seems like it's going to be a chore, rather than a delight, despite the presence of Joel McHale as series regular.  Hoping to be proven wrong.

Grand Crew Season 2 - NBC/City (8/10 episodes) 

[Season 1]

I was so excited for Grand Crew to return, that I kept looking and looking and looking for it since the start of the year, with no trace. Then, suddenly, I was three weeks behind. They just snuck out the gate as seems to happen with big three network TV shows that aren't returning reality TV competition shows. It's seriously to the point with network TV where it feels like legit dramas or sitcoms don't even belong there anymore.  Eyes are always upon cable or streaming, it's like nobody's paying attention to what ABC/CBS/NBC is doing unless you're over 60.

Grand Crew exists in the tradition of hangout comedies of yore. It's basically contemporary Friends, but, you know...LA instead of New York. And a wine bar instead of a coffee shop. The gender balance is also off, with Nicole Beyer's Nicky and Grasie Mercedes' Fay as the two lone female leads, and Fay is kind of positioned more as a romantic foil for Aaron Jennings' Anthony and Nicky's immediate new BFF rather than as a lead all her own.

It's a really funny show, with Carl Tart (playing Sherm) the clear breakout of the cast. I knew Tart from before the show from his devastatingly hilarious character improv on Comedy Bang Bang, and he delivers just as large here. My biggest worry is that nobody's really noticing. 20 years ago he would already have a movie.

This second season doesn't quite hit as high or as funny as last season, primarily because the writers are trying to involve us too deeply and seriously in the characters lives and their romantic entanglements. Where 25 years ago two seasons of a show could spread out this kind of storytelling over 50 episodes, here they're trying to do the same amount of investment in less than half the time, and I'm just not that into it. I would rather the funny over the character beats any day.  This is a proper sitcom, it's not "prestige TV" so its attempts at serializing even light melodrama comes off as too heavy for its weight class.  Still, it's a good crew, and I would like to spend more time with them. Hoping the season 3 pickup announcement comes soon.

Rewatch: Galaxy Quest

1999, Dean Parisot (Master of Sex, Justified) -- Netflix

This movie has a fonder place in my brain than in my reality. In my mind's eye, it's a perfect movie, a playup on fandom and classic science fiction TV series that may or may not age well. In reality, it also hasn't aged so well. But damn, it is still a lot of fun.

So, Galaxy Quest was a TV show in the late 70s, early 80s science fiction show about the crew of the NSEA Protector. No, not really, but in the movie. Eighteen years later, the cast travels the Cons peddling their fading fame to the fans. Most of the cast hates it, having done nothing significant since. Tim Allen, who played the Kirkian captain, seems to have done well for himself (based on his house) but is as much seated in the past as the fans. And then the Thermians show up; real aliens in need of real help, but without a comprehension of fiction. Thus they assume Galaxy Quest was historical information and the crew just needs a new ship to save the Thermians from an evil reptilian enemy.

I guess the Thermians are also not very observative or they might have noticed Earth's technology level ain't that hot. But the ones on the fake ship made real are the last of their race, so maybe they aren't very focused. Among the aliens is Enrico Collantoni, pre-Person of Interest, Missi Pyle and Jedd Rees, who is distracting me in the trailers for Deadpool, as I expect him to have his weird alien accent.

The cast/crew includes Sigourney Weaver (forgive me, but I don't buy her as the hot blonde female lead; just because she ruled as Ripley doesn't make her this show's Tasha Yar), Alan Rickman (who spends much of the movie sealed under his alien prosthesis head piece), Tony Shalhoub (never sure if he was a stoner or just heavily on antidepressants) and Sam Rockwell (token redshirt).

For some reason Tim Allen never gets around to explaining to the Thermians that he is a fictional character, until it becomes far too late. Once the Thermians realize their naive mistake, they are lost. So, as in all great Hollywood traditions, the crew decides to step up and play the charade for real. The villain is in on the joke, knowing the Thermians made a grand mistake, and is just as surprised when these washed up actors go up against him.

Like many comedies based on miscommunication, you are supposed to go along with the ideas, ignoring the plot holes. Multiple viewings lends to noticing them more. But I still love the execution of the story, from the playup on Star Trek -- Tim Allen's shirt doesn't take long to be torn off and the encounter happens on a planet full of "Star Trek rocks", to the frustration of the cast -- Sigourney's character only lines always repeat whatever the computer is saying, and Alan Rickman,  the Spock analog, just hates hates hates the fans. Amusingly enough, the movie is old enough that the special effects look as dated as the show they are referencing back to.

3 Short Paragraphs (Probably Not): Project Hail Mary

2026, Lord & Miller (21 Jump Street) -- cinema

Yeah, ok wow -- actually in the cinema. It was worth the inevitable fidgeting I ended up doing.

So many thoughts about the movie, but unformed, chaotic thoughts. Such as, are all Andy Weir adapted movies going to be Feel Good epics where a really smart (mostly) solo astronaut has to "science the shit" out of things to accomplish his goals, and uses video recordings as a method of exposition? Or perhaps, how is Gosling able to so effectively depict a socially awkward loner who is so charming and handsome? Also, I wonder why I am so attracted to the Lone Astronaut trope. Also, why was Pacific islander music so effective in a movie set In Space? And like I said to Kent, as he was kind enough to re-watch the movie with me, I am not at all surprised at how charming the puppetry-based anthropomorphism of Rocky could so easily be accepted, considering it was our generations that fell for Muppets.

Project Hail Mary is the Lord & Miller adaptation of Andy Weir's third (published) novel of the same name. They are about an astronaut who wakes up on a spaceship that has been sent out to deal with the phenomena that is literally eating suns. The spaceship, Hail Mary, has been sent 11 light years away to a sun that ISN'T dimming despite the presence of the lifeform eating our sun. His crew has died enroute, in their sleep, and he is alone, until an alien spacecraft appears, and Ryland Grace meets Rocky the alien. The two become fast friends, working together to solve the problem. 

I often opine the state of film, in that most of what I (chose to) watch is, "Just OK." And as I am forgiving of much, I imagine a lot of what I am OK with is actually, objectively, terrible -- not including the, subjectively, terrible stuff I watch. And while I repeatedly hold admiration for hard working film makers, even those who may not be making "art", I often tire of just OK. This movie was not OK; it was great. It is what Hollywood subjectively was about. It is blockbuster, it is grand, it is funny, it is tear-inducingly touching, its is so clearly well-structured, and it benefits from a large budget handled by very skilled story tellers & makers. And yet, the story is so very thin -- man wakes up on spaceship, man meets alien, together they save the world, while the plot keeps us watching. And it stars, not including significant flashbacks, a single human, and a puppet alien.

Project Hail Mary is about saving the world, something we are not doing IRL. Where The Martian is about how the world came together to Save One Man, this is a tad more realistic, in that the world comes together to save itself; kind of. But it slides right past the world coming together as, once again, its about One Man. Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling, The Fall Guy) doesn't want to be a hero, even at the expense of the world. He doesn't want to join a suicide mission to another star system. But he does, just not in the way you think. 

Why is the world coming together to save itself, more realistic? I guess incrementally more realistic than it wasting millions of dollars to save one man. My dark thought on that is that he would have just been abandoned, not even mentioned, swept under the rug and just become a Top Secret Confidential note that would come up in people's therapy sessions for the rest of their lives.

The flashbacks allow you to see not only the fun, revealing science he leads, but also the weight of it all. If they do not see this through, then the sun will dim incrementally, over time, and the planet will cool, crops will die, life will become unsustainable. Its like what we are currently doing, but much more clearly defined -- and with a clear villain. Its a dark future for humanity that requires sacrifice.

There is one scene that has stuck with me -- the logistics leader of this whole endeavour is the cold, almost emotionless Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall), and she stands apart from the teams she is sending to die in space. Until she sees Grace is lost in the mission, unable to connect with others, get out of his own head. Despair is the mind killer. So, at a karaoke party, she does the unexpected -- she sings the Harry Styles song "Sign of the Times" in a startingly clear and loud voice, with all the anguish and emotion all these people must be feeling. Then she walks away.  Its not like we see Grace suddenly change because of this one event, but it feels pivotal. Good story telling lets us become one with all the messy, confusing emotions, to feel part of it, in this instance all due to a powerful song and voice.

And I don't even like the song, but its been emerging in my earworms non-stop since....

And then there is Rocky (James Ortiz, primarily a puppet designer; World's End). The alien who is shaped like rocks, not the movie. And yes, that's a comical line from the movie. When Grace recovers from the amnesia induced by the long sleep that kept him alive during the journey, there is no tenable way for him to complete his mission -- his crew is dead, and he was the secondary choice; all the other better trained scientists died in an accident before they left Earth. But Rocky is a brilliant engineer. The movie covers it in a toss away line, but the book had Grace marvel at exactly how utterly brilliant Rocky is. So, for every scientific theory that Grace can come up with to study the sun eating astrophage, Rocky can build what they need. Grace is no pushover, a brilliant man himself, but without Rocky, none of it would happen.

This First Contact is only briefly scary, and then it all becomes two people who are the only survivors of their crews, both trying to save their worlds. I love how this story abandons 75 years of first alien encounter mythology for comedy, heartfelt connection and mutual support. Basically, fuck the differences, and whoah are there differences, let's do this! The movie depicts it all so well, so light heartedly but with such conviction. And we all fall in love with that lumpy, rocky puppet. Ortiz, the voice of Rocky, is also one of the puppeteers. Actually he's the lead puppeteer, and it sounds like their plan all along was to have the lead also voice the character, which is a brilliant decision, as instead of choosing a famous voice actor, they go with ... an average guy? The choice is even played up in the movie.

Lord & Miller have done something special with this movie. I think back to how marvellous Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was, and especially, how it handled its visuals. Sure, its animated, so you can be impressive with anything depicted, but most don't. While this movie doesn't spend all its time in the grand majesty of Outer Space, when it does, its beautiful. Juxtaposing grand scenes with buddy comedy; brilliant. 

We Agree.

Battle Of The Sexes

2017 - d. Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton -- crave

On Saturday, September 7, 2019 my wife and I sat down to watch 19-year-old Canadian Bianca Andreescu take on the legendary -and formidable- Serena Williams in the final of the U.S. Open.  Andreescu defeated Williams in a tough but very confident 1h40minute 2-set performance, becoming the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam title in singles competition (Daniel Nestor had won 8 Grand Slams in men's doubles and 4 in mixed doubles).  During the awards ceremony, Andreescu was presented with a cheque for US$3.85 Million, the same amount that Rafael Nadal would get the next day for a 4h50minute, 5-set win.  This type of payout for Andreescu would have been unfathomable in the early 1970s, not just because the prize purses weren't nearly that big at the time but also because the women's game wasn't seen as equal to the men's and as such weren't compensated.  The average disparity was around 2.5:1, but at its worst was 12:1 between male and female winners of the same tournament.

Billie Jean King never argued that the men's game wasn't faster, stronger, more dynamic than the women's game, but what she did argue that the women put just as many butts in seats as the men did, sold just as many tickets, so why shouldn't they be compensated the same?  When rebuffed, King and many other women players left the US Lawn Tennis Association and formed the Women's Tennis Association.  The WTA would organize their own tournaments, obtain their own sponsorships, establish their own TV deals, all benefiting the players.  In the cinematic version of these events, King and crew are presented almost as a travelling road show, going from city to city, sharing hotel rooms, managing press together.  It feels not unlike like GLOW only set in the 70's and with less spandex.

The film was sold as sort of a light drama-comedy, and as much as a movie dealing with incessant sexism can be funny, it is.  King, as played by Emma Stone, is the center of the film, not only combating systemic sexism, but also dealing with her homosexuality - something that could have been a career-killer at the time had it gone public.  The film's co-lead (but lesser so) finds Steve Carrell in the role of the affable Bobby Riggs, at the time a mid-50's retired tennis champion caught in a spiral of gambling addiction and questions of self-worth.  A consummate showman, he saw King's plight for equality not as a threat but an opportunity for him to exploit national sexism for his own financial and egotistical gain.  The film lays down the risks that King took in accepting Riggs' challenge but also highlights her intelligence and savvy both on and off the court.

The film negotiates the personal and the public exceptionally well and gives a sympathetic eye to both sides of the picture.  There are actually two villains in the piece, the first being Jack Kramer (Bill Pullman) - a former tennis champ and now tournament organizer - who embodies the worst of male chauvinism in the film (where Riggs is the avatar of casual sexism) - and Margaret Court (Jessica McNamee), the Australian women's champion whose portrayal here is of a staunchly conservative, know-your-place type.

It's an exceptionally well-crafted film, which leads into the titular spectacle which serves as a legitimately exciting climax even if the tennis isn't shot (or played) particularly well.  I always thought of the Battle of the Sexes as an important moment in women's tennis, but it's so much larger than that.  The penetration the event had in the public consciousness at the time - with a viewership of estimated 50 million in the US and 90 million worldwide - made for an important moment in the women's liberation movement, showing that women can compete and even outcompete men.  It allowed for many men to confront their own prejudices (while others would remain in denial and call the event a sham).

Today, women's tennis is the only sport paid in parity with the men's profession.  They may not play the same style of game or the same length of match in a Grand Slam but they are still selling tickets just the same and creating headlines.  One has to wonder if women's sport was compensated the same, would that lend credibility and equality?  Today the WNBA players are calling attention to their pay gap, facing a similar struggle, but there is proof the gap can be closed.

T&K's Xmas (2020) Advent Calendar: Bonus Day 1 - Random Acts of Christmas

This is how Hallmarkies are meant to be watched, in my household. It came on while we were re-heating Xmas leftovers, and we just left it on, as we passed in and out of the living room, and when we sat at the table. We never sit at the table, and if we hadn't most likely it would have been flicked away from.

Note: This is directed by Marita Grabiak, whose name rang a bell, and turns out she was a TV show director from the heyday of Buffy and Angel. She's done a TON of genre TV, and more recently, fell into these Hallmarkies.

OK, as my attention faded in Sydney is a reporter covering something happening in their Big City, someone who is doing Random Acts of Xmas, not quite kindness, but grand gestures of Christmas theme decorating that inspire people to get into the holiday spirit. Tagging along side her is competitive journalist Cole, but he quickly just tags along with her, instead of actually covering the story.

By reporter, I mean freelance journalist, I mean vblogger who basically has someone hold up her phone and record her. And she sells those stories to a local station. Is this really a thing? Of course, in today's age of social distancing, and locked down crew, it could happen, but in the "real world" of Hallmarkies? Whatever, its a premise.

The events continue, including one where a truck arrives with cake. Cole just takes it upon himself to open the back of the delivery truck and grab one for himself, and Sydney. They chow down on a cake by themselves, and nobody screams "THIEF!" so I guess it was alright. And then there is the crew lining the streets with poinsettia, which happens to be Sydney's street, and also arranges to cause magical poinsettias to appear in the sky. Sky writers? Holograms? Is Cole an Xmas Angel?

No, just a rich guy. He runs that world's analog for Hallmark, an ornament company, that makes him Richie Rich. He and his dad.... no business partner... no, personal valet? I never really did figure out what Patrick Duffy (The Man from Atlantis) was playing, but he is Cole's (whose real name is Colin, but I will call him Richie Rich) best buddy and always around. When they did the poinsettia setup, I assumed that was the same crew that decorated Sydney's street with all the cotton batting snow, so commonly used in these movies. 

So, while Richie Rich continues to feed story information to Sydney, he is also getting quite attached to her, and her son, who looks like Dewey from Malcom in the Middle. And there is a competing reporter, a real reporter this time, who is catching on that something isn't right with this guy Sydney is hanging out with. By this time, Sydney is as well, and catches Richie Rich in his Mansion! And Evil Reporter captures their interaction, assuming they were colluding to make the great story. His story will be even better, as he Outs the town's Secret Santa.

Instead, Evil Reporter is given a cookie and some free hot chocolate, and his heart grows three sizes bigger. Sydney forgives Richie Rich, puts on a red dress and they make up. They spend Xmas Day at her place, where Not Dad makes moves on Sydney's mom, played by Jaclyn Smith and Richie Rich, now Colin, gives Dewey a gift that is pretty lame, considering he is a billionaire.

The Draw: It was on. I didn't turn the channel.

The Formulae: Missing Dad? Not sure if he was dead or divorced, but Richie Rich also had Dead Parents. Red Dress! I have been missing the red dresses this year, and I was glad to see this one. I blame 2020 for the dearth. Sydney may not be going for a promotion, but I imagine her exclusive on the Secret Santa will upgrade her from using her mobile phone for reporting, after which 2020 will knock her back down.

Unformulae: Not sure where this was set, but it wasn't a PST. Also, there wasn't really any big Xmas Event, unless you consider the whole Secret Santa thing going on, as one long event.

True Calling? They may have started as Richie Rich's desire to play nice nice with his money, but eventually they ended up being solely for Sydney's benefit.

The Rewind: His last gift is a giant sky writing Merry Christmas message in the sky, but it looked more like a really bad photoshop with a Smoke Brush.

The Regulars: Sydney is played by Erin Cahill, who has over a 100 entries in IMDB to her name. She is one of those hard working, single episode actors who just never stops shooting stuff. And she started as Pink Ranger! I respect her a lot. She also does a lot of these. Richie Rich, played by Kevin McGarry was on the next Hallmarkie (Christmas Scavenger Hunt) when I turned the TV channel, so I guess he does a lot of these.

How does it Hallmark? Its very seasonal, very charming and despite not being about an PST and old BF scenario, I rather liked it, so yeah.

How does it movie? Nopers.

Picard Season 1

2020, CTV SciFi - 10 episodes

(Note: I originally wrote this review after episode 6, and then forgot to save it.  Then I wrote it after episode 8, not knowing how downright awful the finale would be...so bear that in mind reading the following words)

I've had a few conversations with a few different people about Picard at this point and it seems like everyone had different expectations about what this show should be, and now that we're pretty deep into the season order, those differing opinions seem to now be about what's working and what isn't.

My expectations were something more character-specific, after all, this is the very first Star Trek show that is named after one specific character.   Episodes of the various shows do often center around one figure or another, but never have they been dedicated to following one journey or one point of view.  The first season of Discovery did that a bit with Michael Burnham, but it was still very much and ensemble show that did share the spotlight.

The first half of the inaugural episode of Picard seemed to be giving me what I want.  It caught us up on the character's current status (retired from Starfleet in protest many years ago, living at his familial vineyard full of trauma and regret).  The last Star Trek film, Nemesis, was a defining moment for Jean-Luc, his attempts to lead Starfleet's efforts at rescuing and relocating the Romulans (their most hated enemy) was aborted after synthetic beings went rogue and assassinated everyone at a Mars colony destroying the rescue fleet in the process. This not only was detrimental to the Romulans' desperate plight but also caused a ban on all synthetic life across the Federation.  Both of these decisions were a slap in the face to everything Jean-Luc thought Starfleet was about.

But these scars have started itching again when Jean-Luc learns of Data's twin daughters and the secret Romulan cabal that is determined to destroy them. Obviously, this is all connected.

The pilot builds this story very well, and centers it around Jean-Luc's anger, shame and trauma.  When one of the daughters of Data is destroyed on Earth, he must venture off world and find her twin.  But without Starfleet's support he must find a new crew to help him.  Up until this moment, the pilot, shot in widescreen format, was very cinematic, letting the emotions and weight of history settle in on Picard.  It took its time, and it felt like a small, personal story with a very grand scope was ahead of us.  But as soon as the show dovetailed into "getting the crew together" it lost all its intimacy and just seemed like another TV show ahead of us.

The subsequent episodes (I'm up to episode 8 as of this writing) have all been fine, but the show's focus on Jean-Luc Picard is not there.  In some episodes it's very much like Picard is a supporting player in his own series. (Patrick Stewart is very much looking like a fragile senior at this point, which may be why he isn't in complete focus. Getting old sucks.) Episode 6 finds Picard returning to a broken Borg cube (now a Romulan reclaimation project) which has a potent effect on him, which is then followed by his hasty escape to his old crew.

We've seen a few returning characters.  The spectre of Data in Jean-Luc's dreams in the pilot, Seven-of-Nine pops up as a badass vigilante, Hugh the ex-Borg is around, and in episode 7, Deanna Troi and Will Riker help counsel their mentor and friend in a very emotional reunion. But that return, while catching us up on the beautiful existence of old friends, is still so much about Picard, how others see him and how he sees himself.

I was worried the show would get lost in nostalgia, and thankfully it does not, but at the same time it too often gets lost in the weeds necessitated by being a TV show.  I wish the series was instead a movie, one with dedicated focus and a streamlined story.  It's not that I dislike the new cast of characters (in fact I think Captain Rios may be one of my favourite all-time Star Trek character at this point, and his ship, La Sirena, may be my all time favourite Star Trek ship at this point as well).  I recognize that were this a movie we would have been robbed of the beautiful reunion of the Picard, Riker and Troi, so there are aspects of it being a series that have paid off, yet I feel it's taking more time than necessary to tell it's story.  (In this age of over-saturation on TV, who has time for shows that are biding time to fill out an episode order?)

I enjoy the series for how it ventures outside the conventions of Starfleet, which is, from what I gather, what some people really don't like about the show.  Some people want more nostalgia, others want less.  Some want more focus on what's familiar, others want more that's new.  I've fielded complaints that the technology has advanced too much from when last we saw this universe, while some think it hasn't advanced enough (given Moore's Law).  A lot of that is just background, however, and the ultimate point is whether the show is telling a compelling story or not.  

I would say it is, but it's definitely not perfect.

[POST SCRIPT: contains SPOILERS]

Way to not stick the landing.  The, effectively, two-part finale was a big ol' whiff at bat, if we're using tired sports metaphors.  They forgot to get a target lock before firing phasers on this ending.  Jesus it's bad.  Real bad.  It's trying not to be that bad, but it is one of the most manipulative things I've watched in some time. 
 

And another thing...he doesn't even take
the dog with him. He just abandons it on
earth.  We need a space dog, dammit!!!

The series establishes early on that Jean-Luc has something wrong with him, terminal.  Once or twice, and once or twice only, we see signs of that terminal affliction affecting him.  Jean-Luc is too stoic and won't comment further on what's happening.  Then in episode 9 it comes back in full force, all of a sudden, meaning Picard has to fight through the symptoms of this disease ex machina in order to fight for (and against) the synthetics.  I'll get to where this all leads in a moment.

The planet of the synthetics is quite the let-down, yet it feels almost a part of the 60's Trek, complete with the hippie commune mentality.  The orchids that La Sirena first encounters defending the planet are terribly cool and inspired, but the society down below is much less so.  Just a group of weirdos standing around awed by everything.  Certainly not what we'd been led to believe we'd be encountering, but that was the point.  The stories were of terrors in the unknown, instead we find a band of pacifists whose survival is suddenly threatened.

In the span of one episode, there's a mini-rebellion and the threat of "old god synthetics" who the Romulan Prophecy warned about.  For fear of getting too nerdy, this whole angle doesn't jibe, but I won't get into it.  A Romulan Armada shows up, threatening to eradicate the planet, but Jean-Luc saves the day with ingenuity, guts, determination and powerful diction.  Then he dies.

Yep, they kill off Picard.  We get to see everyone be sad an mourn him.

Except moments later they resurrect him as a synthetic, but in the same body he's known, with the same life expectancy otherwise.  Why?  There was no reason for any of this beyond sheer audience manipulation.  And we don't see those same characters who were in such mourning discover his rebirth.  It's cursedly stupid and I hate it so much.
 

Catching Up: Movies for Maybe Kids ?

Divorced or widowed daddies are such a jewel to Hollywood, depicting exactly how far a good man can go to support his family.  Yeah, the myth of the great man doing only what he really should be doing in the first place, is still pretty stuck in Hollywood.  Add to that the standard factor of the man having enough money to do "what needs to be done" and you get something which is probably already a trope.  We Bought a Zoo (2011, Cameron Crowe) is one such movie.

But despite my cynicism I rather liked this Happy Happy story about a man who buys a failing small California zoo and decides to reopen it.  He believes it will help his grieving / emo kid recover from the death of his mother and give his daughter another perspective on which to focus. Given that the source material is British, and I am always rather fond of these British flicks where people overcome insurmountable barriers to achieve a Happy Happy goal, it was expected I would be fond of this.  Yes, he depletes his bank account, yes he fights with his kids and yes he runs into more trouble than he is due, but with the hard work of the motley crew and a very fresh looking Scarlett Johansson, they succeed at opening the zoo (to Kevin Costner & baseball style crowds) and healing his family.  I wonder how the real zoo is doing?

Hugo (2011, Martin Scorsese) was something I should have seen in the cinema instead of Netflix. It is a grand scale mystical movie along the lines of Jean-Pierre Jeunet, where Hugo, a boy who lives in the Gare Montparnasse train station (yes, that one we see in any period movie about Paris) after his father passes away.  He repairs the clock while being obsessed with the toys sold by Papa Georges, the toymaker.  Hugo believes the toys are important to his repair of an automaton his father was working on before he died.

The movie, you might think, is going to be a journey of discovery for a boy who still understands whimsy, in a setting full of incredible sets, over the top characters and brilliant costuming (just my allusion to Jeunet) and, well, it is.  But that is not what the movie is about.  It is really about Scorsese's love of film and cinema.  It is a love story, in truth and in metaphor, for the golden age of film making before the rules were made, when everything was silent and the special effects were hand made.  Which is kind of odd, considering the grand amount of CGI used in the movie.

Speaking of CGI, do we still use that term for entirely computer generated animated movies?  Or are they now just animated movies as I don't think many are done without computers these days.  Brave (2012, Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman) was one I was looking forward to, the latest from Pixar.  We have Merida and her nest of red hair, a princess for the 21st century, rebellious and definitely not looking for her Prince Charming.  Despite knowing of her family obligations, what she wants most in this life is to choose her own destiny. Of course, her parents need to marry her off.

I expected a movie where we focus on her being at odds with the obligations but end up with her understanding why she had these obligations while still retaining her own self-direction, all wrapped in a pseudo Celtic mythos in Hollywood Scotland / Ireland.  What we got instead was a slapstick comedy of transmogrification hi-jinx with rambunctious baby broth... bears. Most of the magic was replaced by chase scenes and a movie that mostly left me feeling flat.  Maybe a second watch will improve my impression?

Oh, at least I enjoyed catching the Pizza Planet truck. And Kent's somewhat similar view.... darn, we don't disagree much more these days :)