Ugh. Where to start? I'm embarrassed to admit that, as a teenager, this was one of my favourite episodes when it first aired. I though the concept of being trapped inside a board game was really cool. And yes, the idea still is pretty great, but when it's executed like this it just makes you want to turn away in shame.
The concept of the episode isn't the problem, it's the poor writing and absolutely horrendous acting involved, from both guest stars and the main cast. Alexander Siddig again comes off the worst here, I can only assume that it's a mixture of him following direction and having very little experience. Falow is way too over the top, and the Wadi in general are a stupid design in all aspects. The less said about the hopscotch scene the better, you can almost feel the embarrassment the cast members were experiencing.
The only ones who come off well here are Quark and Odo. Odo gets a fantastic scene with Lt. Primmin (we won't be seeing him again), mocking him about Starfleet procedures. Quark has a funny grovelling scene in which Armin Shimmerman doesn't hold back chewing up the scenery. And the writing of the episode itself isn't a total loss, the opening scene with Sisko and Jake is just a beautiful father/son piece.
To make matters worse, the episode drags. The final sections in the cave just seem to go on endlessly. This is a really weak moment for the show, but for all that I think I still prefer it to the terrible previous episode ('The Passenger'). There's at least an element of silly fun to be found, but for God's sake don't show this to anyone you want to introduce to the show or sci-fi TV in general.
The finale to season 1 may be low key, but it's a very strong episode. The religious aspects that the show will come to be known for are fully introduced here, and they're handled maturely. I've always found the Bajoran faith to be fascinating and one of my favourite parts of this show, even though I consider myself agnostic and have a low opinion of organised religion. DS9 manages to successfully intertwine the beliefs of science and faith, and figure out how its characters can learn to keep those two points of view while still respecting each other. It's not an easy journey, as this episode demonstrates.
It's worth noting that this is the first time since the pilot that Sisko's role as the Emissary has been referred to in any significant way. The episode introduces a couple of major recurring characters in Vedek Bareil and Vedek Winn - the latter being played wonderfully by Louise Fletcher and managing to inspire an incredible amount of hate in the viewer! If you despise her, as most do, that only means that she did her job extremely well. And it's going to get much, much more intense from here on!
I like the O'Brien subplot, it's just a shame that Neela hadn't had more of a presence throughout the season up to this point. That would have made her reveal much more powerful. It's also great to see Odo being the excellent investigator that he is. Dax is still relegated to not much more than a background science person at this point, I hadn't realised just how little the first season had used her.
An overall great episode and powerful end to the first season, really showing that Sisko and Kira have worked through things to find common ground and respect for each other. The only real weak point for me was the slow motion "noooooooo!" at the end which was a bit cheesy. It is redeemed somewhat by - for once - a gorgeous accompanying musical score.
[8.2/10] When I saw that Oliver & Co. were covering Alex Jones, I rolled my eyes a bit, expecting this to be yanking at the low-hanging fruit. But I actually really liked the direct LWT went with this. The best LWT episodes typically have a strong thesis, and that helped this episode become more than just a series of easy digs against a televised nut. Oliver didn't just point to Jones's more outlandish statements to paint him as a loon; he took Jones at his word to put the show in its larger context and paint him as a shill. It's easy to laugh or shake your head at Jones's out there claims, but it's more troubling that he's not only puffing up these imagined problem, but claiming that he can offer solutions. There's something far more corrosive and despicable about that, and looking at him through that lens gave the episode a focus and impact that a more scattered dig-fest wouldn't have.
Otherwise this was business as usual. The opening rundown was entertaining; watching news anchors try to avoid saying the most vulgar parts of Scaramucci's statement was entertaining; and it's always a treat to have Jack McBrayer around. But on the whole this one succeeds on the strength of its main segment, which had a nice throughline to attacking Jones beyond just spotlighting him as a crazy man.
My favourite episode so far, and the first truly strong episode of Voyager. This is thanks to a powerful plot that allows characters to act very genuinely, and allows viewers to become truly invested. And best of all, NO NEELIX!
Janeway and Kim are the heart of this episode, both of them being very eager for things to work out. It allows us to see the deep longing they have to just get back home, with Harry especially prepared to throw caution to the wind. The captain is more level headed but we can see how much it hurts her that things don't work out. The b-plot with the Doctor is equally as strong, finally acknowledging that he's a member of the crew. It was probably a good (and very deliberate) decision for the show to treat the Doctor as a real person, because if we really stop and think about it, it's ridiculous that the Doctor has any emotions or feelings. He isn't there, he's just a light projection and isn't a person at all, but it's very important that we all believe he's real.
And "things not working out" is what we have to expect: this is a 1990s television show, so it's obvious that any hope that the crew have of getting back home before the series finale is never going to work out. The episode allows us to suspend our disbelief by letting us get caught up in the emotions of the moment, the hope that everyone begins to feel.
And what a great twist: that the Romulan scientist they've been communicating with is actually from 20 years in the past! It adds yet another layer to this wonderfully flowing tale.
After the impressive work done earlier this season introducing us to the Vidiians in 'Phage', this manages to undo all of it and turn them into pathetic villains of the week. There's no threat or menace from any of them, let alone the sympathetic factor and they've become as beige as everything else on the show.
Roxanne Dawson does make the episode watchable with a great performance as the human version of B'Elanna. It's telling that she's the most interesting she's ever been, and shows what a crap job the writers are doing with her in her regular form. Klingon B'Elanna is unfortunately very one-note and forgettable.
I think part of the problem is that we barely know normal B'Elanna at this point, and it's far too early in the series to do an episode that changes a character so much without us understanding the changes.
Durst does meet a very nasty end which is a bit shocking. I'm also impressed that the second Talaxian we meet manages to be just as annoying as Neelix.
Chakotay is as helpful as ever. His friend B'Elanna, having an emotional crisis, confides in him. Better reassure her that she can count on you for support. Yes, looks like he's got some helpful words to say... oh, no wait, he's given up and is walking away. Oh wait, he's stopped and turned around! He must have thought of something good now! ...oh, no. He's just leaving again. Bravo.
It has a rocky start with some terrible expositional dialogue and it's hard not to laugh at the fact that the harvesters look like containers of Pringles, but I do enjoy this episode. The pairing of Miles and Julian was always one of the best parts of the show, and it's especially great here in the early days because Miles still just doesn't like the doctor very much - but he's starting to warm to him a little. O'Brien has a short fuse whenever they are together which makes me laugh, but I've always liked to think that Julian knew the Chief wasn't too fond of him and changed his ways a bit.
I really like the way that Sisko believes Keiko without any question when she demonstrates her reason for believing her husband is still alive. Maybe it's because our commander was married, and I couldn't picture Picard doing the same thing.
The rescue of Bashir and O'Brien is a bit too convenient, and Sisko and Dax's trick at the end is a bit too obvious but it's nice that the solution taken was a sensible one for once. The final moment with Keiko is just perfect.
Possibly gets the award for the worst alien haircuts ever.
This episode is overshadowed by the controversy surrounding it: Deep Space Nine became among the first prime time US TV shows to show a same-sex kiss, in this case between two women. In 1995, this was a big deal - in 2017, we see this sort of stuff in daytime TV adverts and in the episode it becomes nothing more than a beautiful moment between two people. I'm so glad that times have changed in that respect, but I'm also somewhat proud that my favourite television show had the guts to do this back then.
What makes it work even more is the message that is sent, and it highlights how ridiculous it is that anybody could take offence. The fact that this relationship is happening between two women is not addressed at any point in the episode - the scandal is just the fact that they were married in their previous lives. It effectively put things in perspective and, like Trek has done so often before, has something very important to say.
Once we step away from all of that business, the episode itself is nice but not amazing. There's some great chemistry between Terry Farrell and the guest actress and they both give it their all, but the script is very melodramatic. It also felt to me like Dax was acting very out of character - maybe this could be explained away by her remembering what she was like when she was younger, but it's jarring. There's also the obvious fact that this relationship isn't going to go anywhere, because Lenara Khan is not going to join the main cast of characters.
There's a lot of technobabble, too, which further detracted from my enjoyment. But there's some great moments of levity as we see people confusing Quark with magic tricks and especially with Worf having fun by telling people that Klingon dreams are too dark for humans to take (with a twinkle in his eye).
The whole Trill taboo thing does raise the question of how Dax is allowed to interact with Sisko on a daily basis, since they are friends from a past life of hers.
There are things to like here. The Starfleet/Maquis divide is still an issue at this point in the show, even though it feels very low key. I've never had the impression that the two crews were really struggling to integrate in any serious way, and that's demonstrated by the fact that Chakotay can only think of 4 people who need extra help.
This takes some inspiration from the great TNG episode 'Lower Decks' and lets us see life from the perspective of some lowly Maquis recruits. Unlike that episode, these guys don't leave much of an impression. Tuvok as a stand-in teacher is actually quite good fun and his really severe attitude allows for sparks to fly. It's a shame that it all ends in such a cheesy manner. "I guess we all learnt something from each other after all ."
Speaking of cheese, the background plot with the infected bio-neural gel packs (why have we barely seen them so far?) is kind of amusing, especially when the Doctor gets involved. It kind of saunters along to a predictable ending that doesn't really feel like the ship is in any real danger, but is very Star Trek. And Star Trek does that well.
Suffering Sappho!
If there were ever a movie I wanted to be good, (though, realistically, I want almost every movie to be good) it would probably have been this one. Believe me, I was pretty hyped for this film. Actually, my initial reaction to the trailer for this movie was an awesome (in the literal, Biblical sense) headdesk, crashing to the table below, as I bellowed my indignation that I could not have been involved in the making of this movie myself! Is that a little grandiose? Sure, but so am I, so bear with me.
Unfortunately, the reality of this movie turns out to be a little bit of a patchy mess. It is uninspired in its aesthetic (not terribly surprising from the director of infamous Disney reboot "Herbie Fully Loaded," lesbian B movie "D.E.B.S.", and several episodes of "The L Word"), the pacing is erratic and jumbled at times, and the writing flies in the face of historical accuracy and vernacular speech.
Where the movie deserves praise, although sometimes at the expense of its worldbuilding mise en scene, is in the casting and performances of the three principals, Evans, Hall, and Heathcote (in credits order, though not truly in order of importance or merit). Here, each had moments of true brilliance, as the triad stood alone (sometimes too alone, to the detriment of the too-flimsy film world around them) against a sea of angry, very red, very white faces.
I never felt disengaged from the characters, and they were written flawlessly. Where these figures deviate from history (which, I hear, is at many points) I will allow poetic license, because they are painted so vividly and with such charming life. Even when the script is bad, the actors presented it well. Just as even when the script called for the location to be set in New York state, it still looked like Massachusetts.
This movie was truly robbed. With a better cinematographer, two more really good rewrites, and maybe some more specific focus, this movie could have been a serious awards contender, and a very great piece of art. As it is, it's been a blip through the cinemas, to be misunderstood and forgotten until such time as polyamory is more accepted in the social mores of the day, and it can be further misunderstood and miscategorized as evidence of how backward society was in 2017, that this was our take on the Marston/Moulton story.
Of course, by that time, there will be a better "Wonder Women" movie. There had damn well better be.
Voyager can land! That's pretty cool, and something I only vaguely had in the back of my memory. I thought that the sequence was done pretty effectively here.
While this riffs on similar ideas done in the TNG episode 'The Neutral Zone', it makes it more about the Voyager's crew than the people they find, which was a good decision. It does feel like quite a big moment when Janeway and Chakotay walk into the cargo bay to see how many people want to leave. Honestly, I was a bit surprised that everyone wanted to stay because the show hasn't really managed to sell the idea that everyone there is working towards the same goal at all.
It's also nice for them to encounter something that isn't a spacial anomaly. I quite like that the people they find include Amelia Earhart (dodgy wig aside) and how Janeway bonds with her. The rest of the 37's are a bit flat, though - at least, the ones who are actually allowed to talk. It's particularly annoying the way Fred goes all-American and immediately becomes hostile. Nice to see Tackleberry from Police Academy, though!
Overall, this is a fun episode. A few things bugged me: finding the car floating in space and it works - wouldn't all liquids inside be extremely frozen? Also, having Paris be a geek for 1930s automobiles certainly detracts (again) from his bad boy image, but in this case it does serve the character better because he needs to move away from that. On the flip side, I thought that the way the rest of the crew talk about the car was quite realistic, and kind of charming. Once we meet the humans living on the planet, it feels like a massive cop out that we don't see these incredible cities they are talking about; yeah, I get that it would have been a huge and expensive undertaking to put them on screen, but the dialogue around them feels so awkward and could have been handled so much better: "I'd love to see your amazing cities!" "Oh wow, weren't those cities amazing!" just doesn't cut it.
Incredibly simplistic. I think if not for the excellent acting by Jennifer Lien this could be the worst episode so far.
The sexually-attracted-aliens-in-space are just embarrassing, and most of all it feel like it gets in the way of the more interesting story with Kes. There's never a second where you feel the ship is genuinely in danger, and the effects have aged very poorly.
Kes going through her version of puberty works better, but Neelix ruins it. It's ironic that she's not even 2 years old, but Neelix is the one who acts like a child. From the start of the episode he's unbearable and its something of a relief when the Doctor throws him out of sickbay. He's incapable of making decisions and when someone implants an idea in his head, he latches onto it like a toddler.
It didn't even occur to him he might have a daughter? So he's a bit sexist, too. Props to Tuvok for the best line: "why would you treat a daughter differently from a son?". At least someone has a brain.
And then convenient crew pregnancy in an episode all about mating is convenient (from a character we've never met before).
When Voyager tackles big story lines, it can take me by surprise. This is a gorgeously twisty episode that doesn't worry about how much it tries to fit in, starting in one place and taking us on a winding path to get somewhere new. I have to congratulate the writers on handling it all so well.
I'm really glad to see that the Maquis are still not entirely comfortable on board the ship, because they do tend to blend into the background in most episodes. It's just a shame that any time we meet one it has to be a new character and actor. The show would have been so much better if there were all people that we had been seeing since the start.
The death and funeral scene at the start really didn't work for me at all for exactly the reason that we don't know or care about the character who died. All of our main cast were talking about how well they knew him, how he had saved their lives and it falls flat. Chakotay especially fails here as he gives one of the most underwhelming and unemotional funeral eulogies - I don't really think that guy truly cares about anyone, or else Robert Beltran was just bored out of his mind.
Always happy to see Seska back, and her interactions with Maje Cullah were a bit more nuanced here, less evil villain. The Trabe kind of suckered me in, I was hoping they would actually be good guys. Nice nod to The Godfather Part III with the big mass execution.
The ending is a bit of a letdown with Janeway realising that the Starfleet way is the only way (it really shouldn't be), and giving a cheesy motivational speech.
I don't know what they were thinking when they made this one. It manages to be not only ridiculous and stupid, but offensive to basic scientific concepts of evolution. Apparently humans are going to evolve backwards and become primitive lizard lifeforms. I can't think of any reaction other than to stick a giant middle finger up at this piece of garbage. I almost hope that somebody's career as a writer was finished after this (cough Brannon Braga cough).
The early sections with the whole idea of attempting to break the warp 10 barrier are actually somewhat interesting, but it's the way the episode becomes completely derailed after that which ruins things. Robert Duncan McNeill gets to overact gloriously and try to get the Fly-esque makeup effects to be taken seriously.
What's even more dumb, though, is that they do actually succeed in achieving warp 10, meaning they have a viable means of getting home. Sure, it's going to turn them all into lizard freaks but the Doctor could just revert them all back to their original state, as he does at the end of this episode.
Worst episode of the entire Star Trek franchise? ... quite possibly, yes. Watch it to laugh at it, make a drinking game out of it, just don't take it the slightest bit seriously.
Klingons, I love 'em. They are going to become a major part of DS9 and this is the first episode dedicated fully to them. It could have been nothing more than a fun diversion, but bringing back the actors who played three Klingons in The Original Series was an absolute stroke of genius.
Kor, Kang and Koloth (it's easy to forget which is which) steal this episode in every way and bring so much fun to the proceedings. Kor especially is a joy to watch bringing his drunken humour to everything. It's easy to believe that Kang is a revered warrior as he takes charge of this little gang, and one of my favourite moments is Odo's realisation of who he is dealing with when Koloth arrives in his office.
But at it's heart this is a Dax episode. The tough choice she has to make about whether or not to follow through with her blood oath is portrayed well, notably in her conversation with Kira. She manages to piss of Sisko, but there isn't any real fallout from it. The episode begins to lose its impact a bit once we get to the end battle; it's severely underwhelming and the Albino turns out to be little more than a pantomime villain. The guards that the band face are beyond pathetic and there's no sense of a challenge there. For all that, the final moments are quite strong as Jadzia needs to figure out if she's capable of murder.
[9.3/10] At first blush, Baby Driver writer-director Edgar Wright and fellow director Wes Anderson don’t seem like a natural pairing. Wright’s films, like Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead tend to be overtly comedic, include a good quotient of action, and bring an adventure-focused quality to the proceedings. Anderson’s, by contrast, tend to be quieter, more droll pictures, that are certainly funny and have their share of exciting moments, but which find their form in the more reserved, music box sensibilities of Anderson’s oeuvre.
And yet, Wright and Anderson’s films have something very much in common. They both create films where it seems like the world was built to fit their characters, rather than more typical films where the main personalities find themselves struggling in a world that’s indifferent to them or even more commonly, which doesn’t fit them at all. Whether it’s Anderson’s elegant dioramas or Wright’s “everything’s foreshadowing” rube goldberg machines, the environments of these films bend to our heroes, not the other way around, resulting in some wonderfully well-choreographed cinema.
Baby Driver is the apotheosis of this tack, brought to bear in the form of car chases, gunfights, and the best jukebox soundtrack this side of the galaxy (and any attendant guardians). Indeed, Marvel Studios’ Guardians is a nice reference point, as both films not only feature countless rockin’ tunes, but also center on roguish but decent young men, holding onto to the last holy artifacts of their mother, finding solace in music and falling in with a rough crowd before deciding to stand for something more. It’s kismet that star Ansel Elgort, who plays the lead (appropriately named “Baby’), is signed on to be the past and future Han Solo in the latest standalone Star Wars flick, a character who’s very much in the DNA of Guardians’ Peter “Star-Lord” Quill.
Independent of any comic book counterparts, however, Baby Driver doesn’t offer much in terms of an original premise. Baby is a badass driver and a decent kid, mixed up with some bad folks, tentative about the prospect of blood and his hands, wanting to start a new life with his lady love. There are a lot of tropes in the film: the quiet but effective young naif, the loose cannon gangster, the slimy mastermind, the ingenue who represents a beacon of hope, the inevitable moral dilemma.
But what the film lacks in originality in its setup, it more than makes up for in performance, texture, and execution. Baby Driver has a murderer’s row of performers who chew up and spit out Wright’s script and make what could otherwise be stock character come alive and compensate for any dearth of depth with the sheer vividness of their presence.
Kevin Spacey looks alive for the first time in ages, bringing a blasé menace as the organizer of each heist. Jamie Foxx is at his extroverted best, rolling through pointed monologues and bringing a lived-in flavor of crazy. Lily James has enough homespun, wanderlust charm to balance out her underwritten part. Elgort is necessarily more reserved, but equally endearing and a fine fulcrum for the movie. And Jon Hamm brings his Mad Men practiced-gentility in a fashion that makes him seem like that much monstrous when the scales fall.
But while the performances carry the film in its quieter moments, what sets Baby Driver apart is sequence after superlative sequence of breathtaking kinetic cinema. Not content to simply toss in explosive but empty action to keep the heart-pumping, Wright, cinematographer Bill Pope, and editor Paul Machliss create these elegantly constructed set pieces of gorgeous synchronous stunts, twists, and turns, the hum right along with the music, just like the protagonist.
That works whether Baby is blowing the doors off the film’s opening with a series of death-defying terms perfectly sequenced to his backing track. It works when the young man finds himself embroiled in a firefight where surprise shots and returned fire blast back and forth in time with the beat. It works in chases on foot as the rhythmic thump of the tune of the moment matches the energy of pursuers and pursued alike. Even when Baby goes to get coffee, the world moves with him; from the graffiti on the walls to the buskers on the street everything goes where he goes.
In the same way, the film doesn’t so much present action scenes as it does ballets of chrome and octane. Baby Driver oozes with style and tempo, knowing how to hold the audience’s attention through great escapes that and close scrapes that keep topping one another, and quieter scenes where the tension comes from sweet interactions juxtaposed with combustive elements, leading the viewer to wonder which will win the day.
It’s also a near perfectly-paced movie. Like a perfect mixtape, Wright knows when to kick things into gear and when to slow things down to let the audience catch its breath before putting his foot on the gas once more. While the film starts to feel a bit overextended at the very end, with the villain creeping into unkillable slasher territory, for the vast majority of its runtime it holds your attention from moment to moment and scene to scene expertly. In that, Wright matches the talents of his protagonist, directing and maneuvering this complex machine like it were a rough-and-tumble ballerina, full of slick thrills and inimitable grace.
He achieves this with a movie, a setting, and a lead character, that each move like clockwork in sync with one another. While Baby Driver is neither as quiet or twee as Wes Anderson’s work, it brings with it the film’s own sense of longing and melancholy beneath an intricately constructed world. Every scene is a dance, every moment a confluence of sound and imagery and movement, whether in the pulse-pounding races against cops or robbers, or gauzy imaginings of another life that might be. In Baby Driver, Wright has built his most elegant, intricate toy, and it’s a treat and a pleasure to see him play on the screen once again.
Amazing movie overall. I instantly fell in love with it, it's so charming and funny and the way the soundtrack blends perfectly with every single scene dazzled me. Most of the actors have some sort of musical background and it makes it even better. This movie is an ode to music in a way that it was more important to me than the story it was trying to tell. Every actor was crazy good, but kevin spacey and jamie foxx were amazing. Ansel was great in its way, I know him more for his music than his acting so I don't know if he was looking off because of the character or because of his acting. But it created a weird vibe and I appreciated that.
The only reason why this movie is not a 10 for me is the third act. It felt so rushed, one minute baby is trying to save the girl from the post office, the other he's Impaling Bats with a beam. Deborah didn't even questioned why Baby was suddenly killing people and robbing cars, she just went with it and helped him, all for that sweet escape. Did it ruin he experience? nope, but I left thinking it could have been even better.
Few other thoughts:
Opening credits with Baby walking to the street with his eadbuds: AWESOME.
Ansel pulling an Ansolo with his mixtapes: AWESOME.
Dollar bills and bullets sincronized with the song: SO FREAKING AWESOME!
Creative and enjoyable, with a pleasantly weird alternate-universe/time-shift aspect that never becomes too complicated to follow. It leaves you with the odd feeling of having seen the Voyager crew die, but never really being sure if they were our original crew, or whether that even matters. The exact same thing happens to Harry that happens to O'Brien in DS9's 'Visionary', in that we are left with a version of the character who isn't exactly our own one.
It was also good to see the Vidiians back to being pretty decent bad guys again. There was something chilling about the way they just assessed unconscious people by which organs they could harvest from them. Janeway was a bit of a badass in regards to the solution to getting rid of them.
Having the duplicate Janeways standing so close to each other during their scenes made it look like they were about to kiss, and really made me aware of how shows had to work within the 4:3 aspect ratio back then. I felt a bit more let down that the two versions of Kes didn't really interact with each other at all.
I got quite wrapped up in the ordeal of Ensign Wildman finally having her baby, which certainly ran through a gamut of emotions! Chakotay was as useless as ever, and I noticed that Voyager didn't require his authorisation to concur with setting the self-destruct - I guess Janeway changed that because she knows he'd just mess it up.
Garak - perhaps the most intriguing character in all of Star Trek - gets a whole episode dedicated to his story for the first time. Andrew Robinson is absolute gold in the role and completely makes it his own, but this is also a great showcase for Dr. Bashir. We can see first hand how much he has changed from the early season 1 character he was, and yet he's still true to that initial set up. He's still got the arrogant and brash streaks, but he's far more mature.
As enjoyable as this episode is, it almost feels like it tries to do a bit too much. With Garak's overlapping lies and stories being delivered in a rush and then an abrupt slow down as Bashir attempts to help him, the pacing of this is very elastic. I also find that I don't enjoy the character of Enabran Tain at all - I don't know whether this is due to the writing, the actor or just the whole concept of him, but something about him makes my brain want to switch off.
I really like the little things that crop up in this episode, like the fact that Julian admits he knows that Chief O'Brien doesn't like him, that Sisko is being treated for a sore throat due to yelling at admirals, the discussions on Cardassian literature, or that Odo enters some very ethically wrong areas by monitoring all of Quark's communications. All this put together leaves an episode that throws a lot at you and it hinges on some excellent performances. And at the end, we feel like we still barely have learned a thing.
[7.5/10] It’s certainly nice to have John Oliver back, as the onslaught of news in his absence has left me waiting and hoping for his take on the world events over the past couple of months. The opening round-up was well-done as expected. The show addressed the school shooting in Florida with grace and managed to effectively use a clip from The Andy Griffith Show, while also doing a quick look at international news (something LWT is better than most real news shows about), and tying everything together at the end. The interstitial segment is the usual “let’s poke fun at the silliness of local news” shtick.
The main story is about Trump’s foreign policy (such as it is). It’s a good segment, one funny, but more rigorous and systematic in its approach than a lot of folks in either political comedy or news. The way Oliver unpacks what Trump’s “America First” philosophy actually means, how the President is affecting America’s standing in the world, and what the effects that approach are likely to have hits that balance of informative, thoughtful, and amusing that I like from this show. And the bit about America’s contradictions of transcendence and also ridiculousness is a little forced, but still funny and silly in a way that’s characteristic of Oliver’s humor.
Overall, a very nice return.
The mirror universe, established in The Original Series, is a place that really makes no sense, but I always looked forward to these crazy episodes. The cast get to play with their characters in extreme ways, sometimes being the complete opposite of what they usually are.
If you stop and think too much, then it seems ridiculous that the counterparts of all these people are in the same places doing similar things. It doesn't really make sense that any of them would have been born at all. But these episodes are meant to be fun, so just go with it.
DS9's first trip to the other side very briefly fills us in on some details. Kirk influenced Mirror Spock who eventually rose to take command of the Terran Empire and preached a message of peace. That allowed the Empire's enemies to destroy them and a Klingon-Cardassian Alliance has now enslaved humanity.
This would actually be nothing more than an okay episode if not for Nana Visitor. Her performance as the Intendent is irresistible, she dials everything up to 11 and just steals the show (her delivery of the line "QUI-ET!" to Bashir is a total joy), and the special effects in scenes with the two of her are a big step up from similar stuff seen on TNG, it's near flawless. Mirror Odo gets to be evil and happy, Sisko is a crazy but depressed pirate and O'Brien is... pretty much himself but just downtrodden.
Quark is one of the real surprises, he seems to be brave and kind of heart. The mirror universe also allows for main characters to be killed off, so he doesn't stick around too long. The opening scene seems to undo all the maturing that Doctor Bashir has done over the past season as he's arrogant and oblivious again, but it's funny.
A good return to this world, though a bit restrained and unimaginative.
Janeway and Chakotay are stranded together on a planet for several months, and - unsurprisingly - nothing happens. There was never any serious attempt to give the two of them a romantic relationship through the show, and that was definitely the correct path to take. Here we have a heterosexual man and a woman of similar age stuck together potentially for the rest of their lives, so of course there's going to be some mutual need that develops eventually. But when it's happening on Star Trek: Voyager and you know that everything will be back to normal by the end of the episode, it only feels forced. Add to that the fact that the two of them have no real chemistry together. Hell, Janeway showed more affection towards the monkey than she did Chakotay.
Also, that monkey was supposed to be an alien? It was just a plain old fucking monkey. Somebody behind the scenes was feeling lazy.
Things back on the ship are better. Tuvok is placed in command, and that throws up all sorts of interesting dilemmas because he's a Vulcan. And Vulcan's just don't make very effective captains given their lack of flexibility, so any time we see one in charge there's a good chance that sparks will fly. That comes in the form of Harry who finally gets something to do this season, and it's quite exciting to watch.
Also, WOW, was that actually some continuity from an old episode?! Not only are the events of 'Deadlock' discussed, but Denara Pel returns and is quite a welcome sight, and the Doctor's previous relationship with her pays off.
Overall a repetitive episode that attempted to delve into the characters but only really worked for Harry Kim and Tuvok.
[7.3/10] “The Naked Now” is the third episode of The Next Generation, and yet, it’s the sort of episode that works much better if you, for instance, plop it somewhere in the middle of the season, or even the series. The power, and dare I say, fun of the episode stems from seeing the normally professional, determined, even stoic crew of the Enterprise devolve into goofy intoxicated fools. But if you barely know who these characters are yet, as anyone just starting the show would, then the contrast between the usual demeanor and the drunken revelry doesn’t quite register the same way.
You need the whimsy of that revelry to work because it’s really the only thing “The Naked NOw” has going for it. Sure, there’s the threat of the alien virus that makes people act without their full faculties, but even if you don’t know how this is going to play out from watching the precursor episode from The Original Series, Riker and Data discover the cure fifteen minutes into the episode, and so there’s little dramatic tension to the hour. You’re either enjoying the break from seriousness and how the crew gets downright silly, or you’re just waiting for Dr. Crusher to figure out how to regoogle the energymotron or what have you in time to develop the antidote.
It’s worth noting that “The Naked Now” is, to my knowledge, the only episode of The Next Generation that is a direct sequel (or something close to that) to an episode of The Original Series. There’s not much gained from that connection. Sure, it’s kind of neat that Riker remembers his history well enough to piece what’s happening together, or that we get to witness someone showering in their clothes rather than just hearing about it second hand, but it doesn’t add much to the proceedings beyond being a sop to the diehard fans.
Still, it’s understandable why the writers chose to recycle this plot in the new series. The drunk-making virus allows you to have your main cast break or reveal character to amusing effect, and the collapsing star nearby creates an easy (if not terribly convincing) threat that (at least nominally) creates extra stakes and urgency in finding a cure.
It’s the latter part that weakens the episode. “The Naked Now” features the first, but sadly not the last instance where the day is improbably saved by Wesley the wunderkind. I can at least appreciate the legwork shown by the writers by introducing Wes’s makeshift personal tractor beam/repulsor beam in the first act, thereby setting him up to do the same with the ship’s version of the same in the last act. But it’s clear from the getgo that TNG finds “Wesley Crusher, boy genius” far more compelling a figure than its audience does.
Nevertheless, even if the destination is obvious and the way the show chooses to get there is worth an eye-roll or two, the ride is a fun one. It’s all too rare that Star Trek goes for straight up comedy, but what we get here is great.
Count me among those who loves the vaudevillian flair of intoxicated Data. It’s really a shame that Brent Spiner didn’t get more opportunities to play the outsized, clownish foil he inhabits here. (Lore offers some bit of salve to that regret though.) The look on his face when Tasha beckons him to the bedroom, the “If you prick me, do I not leak?” line delivery, the pratfall he takes afterward, are all just comic gold. While it’s used for comedy rather than pathos, “The Naked Now” wrings all it can from the contrast of the usually humorless Data having his head scrambled.
While it’s a little exploitative, Tasha’s encounter with Data is a pretty unique and interesting tack here too. Let’s be frank, I doubt her part of the episode was intended as anything but titillation, and the male gaze-y shot of her walking down the hallway, or the barely-there dress she wears that confirmed for me that costume designer William Theiss was back on the payroll long before I saw his name in the opening credits, are pretty embarrassing and shameless by modern standards. That doesn’t even take into account the uncomfortable at best way in which Tasha invokes her childhood escapes from “rape gangs” before seeking physical affection from Data.
Maybe I’m just giving the interaction more weight given what the show does with it down the line. But I do think that, beneath all the problematic elements of how Tasha is used here (which presages Michelle Pfeifer’s turn as Catwoman in Batman Returns), the core of the story is worthwhile. It’s the story of a damaged person in a weakened state seeking comfort and a complete naif, incapable of malice and not fully understanding what’s happening, acceding to her wishes. It may not be what the show intended, but there’s complex emotional and social material to unpack there for days.
Less dramatic (and borderline distasteful) but more endearing are the interactions between Captain Picard and Dr. Crusher. I’ll cop to being a Picard/Crusher shipper, so I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find some glee in the two of them barely able to contain themselves around one another.
But that’s also where the comedy lies here. Watching these two committed professionals do everything they can to maintain their composure, while inevitably giving in, just a little bit, to their unprofessional urges, is amusing as all get out. Everything from Picard’s feeble wave, or Crusher saying she has a “personal matter” to discuss with him, only to correct him that it’s “an urgent” matter, finds the humor in this pair of centered people losing their emotional balance.
That’s the sort of thing that makes “The Naked Now” enjoyable. It’s not the most tightly-written or momentum-filled episode there ever was. It makes little sense that Riker seems mostly unaffected by the infection; the belabored romantic tension between him and Troi is again overblown; and Data replacing the isolinear chips as a game feels contrived. But if you can enjoy Wesley Crusher channeling Ensign Riley and announcing mandatory extra dessert over the PA, or Data not understanding dirty limericks, or Worf growling that he doesn’t get Earth humor either, than the third episode of the series can still be plenty of fun.
I don't feel that this episode deserves quite the amount of praise that so many people give it. It delivers a message about the effects of war, but because this is '90s Star Trek it's so watered down. None of the guest characters feel like real people and indeed they exist only to be cheesy caricatures. Raymond Cruz (I'd totally forgotten he was in this) comes off the worst as the near psychotic soldier on the edge of a nervous breakdown with a really OTT performance. I don't believe in a single one of these characters (I had similar issues with season 5's 'Nor the Battle to the Strong', although on a smaller scale).
The ketracel white necklace also looks extremely silly.
The themes of the episode are important ones, but they've been delivered so much better in other places, be it war films or even other episodes of DS9. Quark (whose reasons for being there are kind of iffy) actually manages to be the best part of the whole thing and manages to bring a bit of weight to proceedings. Ezri and the engineer also have some nice moments. We see Nog lose his leg here but the full impact of it won't be felt until later, at this point I think we're all assuming that future prosthetic technology will be able to fix him up good as new.
The "houdini" mines are a scary invention, but once we see just how many are floating around in the Starfleet camp they suddenly become a bit dumb. If there were that many in there, the Jem'Hadar could have wiped out everyone in the camp at any time they wanted.
A fantastic end to season 2 gives us a deceptively small episode that grows bigger as it continues and ends with events that will shape the course of the entire series to come. This has a little bit of everything, starting with some lovely father/son bonding between Jake and Commander Sisko, juxtaposed by the funnier relationship between Nog and his uncle Quark.
In many ways, Quark is the real star of this one. His arguments with Sikso culminate in quite a beautiful speech about the nature of Ferengi vs. humans, and it serves to demonstrate the casual racism that everyone, noble Starfleet officers included, show towards Quark and the rest of his species. It seems like Quark's words are strong enough to actually register with Sisko.
The camping trip is a really enjoyable part of the episode, both Quark and Nog providing some really good humour. More so, though, is the continuing and very genuine love between Jake and his father. Any time they end up reminiscing about Jennifer always results in some quite heartbreaking stuff, and both Cirroc Lofton and Avery Brooks always hit the right notes.
Things change with the arrival of Eris (who we will later learn is a Vorta) followed by our first look at the Jem'Hadar. These guys are just great, and at this point it's all about displaying how intimidating they are. They have personal cloaking devices, great strength and a highly aggressive attitude. One of the most powerful moments of the episode is the way that the soldier on the station just casually walks through the force field the crew think they have him contained in; it's done in such a nonchalant way and shot so well that it becomes kind of unsettling.
If we needed a less subtle demonstration, they destroy a Galaxy-class starship. That could easily have been the Enterprise, as it was thoroughly overwhelmed and had no defence. There's a few moments here which don't track with later developments - Eris has telepathic abilities that will never be seen again, and she doesn't recognise what Odo is - but they're small enough things that it's easy to forget.
5.5./10 This is Ted at his most ridiculous and awful. Going to hit on a girl he knows is in a relationship and hamfistedly drop things he learned from stealing a copy of her online dating profile is bad enough, but then continuing to do so once he knows she's engaged, and then trying to talk her out of the marriage and telling her to call him if it doesn't work out is just insane. Sure, there's a certain sitcom tone that allows for ridiculous things that would be way more terrible if they happened in real life, but still, this whole thing was a bridge too far.
Apart from that, Cameron Manheim didn't necessarily have the right energy for the show. Ted trying to reassure her that he'll find someone was a cute little flip, but her performance was a little broad, even for a show that can get pretty broad itself. Plus the whole "a computer can't tell you who to love," while well-meaning as a message, feels mildly Luddite and tone deaf given the number of folks who do use dating services in this day and age.
And while the cock-a-mouse is one of those goofy talismans for the show's fans, I have to admit that the subplot never really did much for me. Marshall is the best part of it, and it's the start of his fascination and appreciation for mythical creatures on the show. His chalkboard explanation in particular, and the solemnity with which they discussed its habits was funny. But the cock-a-mouse itself and Robin's skepticism of it felt a little too slight.
A crappy A-story that makes me want to say "you're a bad person," and a streaky-at-best B-story means this is far from the best the show had to offer.
Okay, I really wanted to like this episode, mainly because Jacqueline's character development is such a feminist statement. Unfortunately, the entire subplot with Titus as a Geisha is......argh. The way they dealt with this subplot is very one-sided and unfair. This episode comes off as pandering to the anti-SJW/anti-PC crowd. They could have at least give the PC crowd a much fairer portrayal. Like pointing out more realistic reasons why they're offended by Titus' portrayal of a Geisha in the first place like how doing a yellowface can actually be harmful to the way how people perceive Asians. Not because they're offended cause they're offended, like how they were portrayed in the show. With this, it gives a much fairer discussion on the still talked about political correctness vs. comedy debate. But nope, it's very clear what kind of bias Tina Fey has in regards to this topic.
In regards to this debate. Full-on political correctness is bad. I believe jokes on very taboo subjects has to at least be clever and does not come off as making fun of the oppressed. Like in regards to making a rape joke that makes a rapist the butt of the joke rather than the rape victims. Of course, that subplot is in response to the whitewashing of Jacqueline since the actress who is playing her is white. Honestly, I am okay with Jacqueline's character being an Native American despite being played by an actress who is white because it's ironic, gives a plot twist that Jacqueline is not actually white and also delivers a sad massage about how many PoC had to make themselves white to be feel worthy. Honestly, with this kind of story, I wouldn't buy an accurate Native American actor playing Jacqueline. Let me be clear that whitewashing in general is awful. This is just an exemption because this particular part is executed well in my opinion.
The setting becoming a character in a film is a cliche. It's easy to give in to the charms of talented production designers and themes rooted in a particular time and place and declare that a well-established center of events rises to the level of personhood within a story.
But this desolate den of thieves and junkies and ramshackle mobsters in the Ozarks is more than just a character in Winter's Bone, it is a visceral realization of the mood of the film. What I love most about this film is it's restraint. There are few grand scenes of exposition, only a couple of big moments, and little in the way of on-the-nose dialogue to explain who these characters are or what their hopes and wants and weaknesses will be. Instead, it finds other, subtler ways to convey character and conflict and stakes.
None of these is so potent as the surroundings that Ree Dolly finds herself in. While the camera rarely acquiesces to the stark if scenic beauty of the area, it takes time to linger on the dull gray and washed out colors of the Dollies' corner of the Ozarks. The desperation of this place, the lack of hope and the sense that the same patterns are doomed to repeat in its grizzled confines come through without anyone needing to say it.
More than anything, Winter's Bone gives us an ecosystem, a hierarchy, more through implication than by anyone laying it out for us. We see the way that the women of this area have to look to men for approval, and yet are the real muscle and motivators that solve the problems the story presents. We see the elaborate games of telephone, the way that honor must be shown and recognized, that drive the characters from one point to another. And we see the bonds of family, the way everyone in this town is some distant relation, and the difference between what that's supposed to mean and what it does.
That strength is matched by the film's lead. Jennifer Lawrence may have gone on to win Oscars and headline blockbusters, with many striking performances, but I'm not sure she's ever topped this one. The strength and resolve in Ree Dolly, as she pushes her way through the Byzantine spate of resistance and blind eyes that threatens to leave her family penniless and homeless, with her vulnerability on display in more private, intimate moments, creates an incredible portrait of a young woman in an impossible position. Lawrence masters the layer of the character: her boldness tinged with uncertainty on display as she stands up to the men and women who attempt to stymie her, her doubt and fear as she pleads with her shell-shocked mother for help, her anxiety and pragmatism as she tries to teach her young brother and sister to be self-sufficient.
It's that pragmatism, the quality that takes a young woman with clearly enough smarts to make her own way in this world, that spurs the film to its climax. There's a parallelism to it. When Ree is teaching her brother how to prepare a squirrel, she tells him to remove its guts, and he resists. She tells him that he has to do it anyway, that he has to get used to stuff like this. That thought comes back to bite Ree as she's forced to reach into the water and pull out her own father's bloated corpse while her antagonists and accomplices take off his hands with a chainsaw to provide proof of his death. She too resists, but swallows her disgust and horror and does what needs to be done. It's a testament to that desperation once again, to the idea that painful things have to happen, that the innocent have to be broken, at least a little, in order for them to survive in a world with such ugliness.
There's an undercurrent to this story about someone trying to break out of a system that aims to hold people like her in place. When she walks into the local high school she looks longingly at what goes on there. She tries to enlist in the military to see the world and get out. She is, however, tied to this place, by the need to take care of a mother and siblings who cannot, and in the case of the former, maybe never will, be able to take care of themselves. She is needed, and that means putting the rest of a promising life on hold, in a community that feigns support (with pride and reputation being prized), but which is deeply suspicious and uncaring when their livelihoods or positions are threatened.
The one ally who crosses this line is Teardrop, who is a part of this same system but breaks ranks to assist his niece in her honorable quest. John Hawkes gives the performance of a lifetime. A far cry from the clean cut Sol Star of Deadwood, Hawkes is the apotheosis of the thoroughly-worn creatures of walking regret who populate the film. His sunken eyes mask a long-buried warmth and connection to the world, that begin to reemerge in the face of Ree's struggle.
That struggle, in its way, is a very simply story. A young woman tries to find her dad in order to save her family. But the layers the film adds onto that basic premise -- the conspiracies of silence and of gossip that loom in the background, the filial and fraternal issues that permeate the story, the understated, frightening nature of the possibilities from poking the wrong hornet's nest in this town -- make into something affecting and universal. Winter's Bone is a film about one resourceful, pitiable young woman's efforts to complete her Herculean labors, but it's also about the community she labors within, and the place, bereft of hope or opportunity, that spawned it. That place, and its fallow environs, show the depths to which this land has sunk, but also, through Ree's indomitable spirit, Teardrop's renewed connection to his family that suggests the support that might set her free, and the windfall that acts as her father's final gift, there's the hint that what has lain fallow may be reborn, that there is hope in the midst of this unmitigated bleakness, and that those old, destructive patterns can be broken, if only a little.
Westworld at its best. I missed the feeling of ending an episode and seeing the confused looked on my face reflected in the black screen, followed by the words "What? Did it... What...Holy crop! Now, that was amazing!" It varies from one episode to another, but the outcome is always the same. This show is a freaking masterpiece. I love the feeling of starting a new episode and finishing it with more questions than answers and an urge to rewatch it as soon as possible.
The hosts run the show now, and we've got a badass Dolores. The music, that shot, that amazing Dolores riding a horse and shooting. That scene gave me life. And poor Teddy! I love him. I thought he was gonna survive the episode but he didn't. First death of Teddy in season 2. I loved that scene when he talked with Dolores. It made me realize that he's either going to die at her hands, or rebel against her.
I loved the change of heroes and villains from last season to this one. Last season Dolores was the hero and faced William, whereas in this one, it seems it's William the hero who has to defeat Dolores. I liked that the game is finally meant for him. At least he got what he has long been waiting for. Now it's not a maze, but a door to get out. Interesting. I loved Mini Ford, although I wasn't expecting William to shoot him, though.
Maeve controlling the other hosts was amazing. I love her chemistry with Hector. These two are made for one another. And of course Sizemore survived by being the weasel he is. I liked his subtlety, though "May some of them even be dressed as if they're human?" and his "I wrote that line for you".
Poor Bernard was killing me. That poor thing is just going through a roller-coaster of conflicted feelings. He mentioned time slippery and other problems. It'll be interesting to see him in the three timelines they created.
So we got Bernard right after the shooting with Charlotte; Bernard in the beach with Stubbs (wonder how he escaped the Ghost Nation) and Floki (I mean, Karl Strand) apparently 11 days and 9 hours after the shooting; and Bernardino some time in between (when he talked to Dolores at the beginning of the episode). So far, three clear timelines in which something happened that needs to be filled in since poor Bernard apparently killed all the hosts.
Last season I hoped Ford could still be alive but I guess maggots mean real death now, so that there no question on that.
Cinematography was on point, even better than last season, dialogue was perfect and the acting, especially Jeffrey Right's was beyond amazing. I loved that they gave Charlotte more screen time. I didn't like her character last season, but it was great to see her more. Also, they're taking guests' DNA? That seems crazy. And we get the promise of getting Peter Abernathy back. Boy, I loved his character. Was it me, or did anyone else get uncomfortable every time that faceless host was on screen? It was disturbing.
I don't want to miss the new intro. Loved the symbolism. So season one was all about creation but now it seems different. Now it's not about creation anymore but as a step forward. Now it's not milk as it was last season, it's all about water and infancy, as if water were the second element in life. Hosts are now perfected in this second phase. I loved that we got the introduction of new animals as the vulture, that bear, and that tiger. And they mentioned Park 6! I wonder when we're seeing all of them.
Charlotte also mentioned that Westworld is on an island, which I though was interesting. Now let's see how all the gaps are filled and what else the writers have in mind for us. Next week's promo looks promising.
[7.2/10] The first season of Westworld was fairly complete. It’s not as though there were no more places for the story to go, or that there was a definitive air of finality, or that the premise of the show alone couldn’t sustain seasons and seasons of more stories. But if “The Bicameral Mind” has been the last we’d seen of the series, I’d probably still thirst for more, but nevertheless be satisfied. There’s a clear overall arc, answers to the major questions, and enough suggestions of the consequences of the actions we’d seen for the season to feel like a full meal and not just an appetizer.
The problem, then, is that in Season 2, Westworld has to re-pilot, at least a little. Sure, there’s bit to mop up from last season’s finale, but “Journey Into Night” has to do more than just pick up the pieces. It has to set most of a whole new trajectory for another batch of episodes.
So we see bits of Dolores doing full on villain monologues, killing any human she comes across, leading the robotic rebellion, and talking with Teddy about something approaching world domination. We see The Man in Black start a new game, one with stakes because it’s real, and one that, as the echoes of Ford tell him, is for him.
We see Bernard and Hale retreat around the same time, escaping from the immediate aftermath of that fateful evening from the last episodes, escaping to a bunker where Bernard repairs himself and Hale let’s him in on her plan to use a host as the back-up for IP. We all see the beginnings of a new storyline, where a new security guy revives a version of Bernard from a couple weeks after the start of events that Ford’s death kicked into gear, and tries to figure out what happened.
And then there’s Maeve, who does the impossible -- she makes Sizemore interesting and entertaining. I found that guy endlessly annoying when he was a generic shitheel writer last season. But watching him try to be a weasel and get squeezed under Maeve’s footheel as she’s the one in charge makes both characters incredibly entertaining.
That’s the biggest theme of this pilot -- role reversal. When it’s time for Sizemore to change, he’s the one forced to be nude around the hosts with no concern for his modesty, not the other way around. When Dolores has some guests standing on tombstone crosses, she taunts them, the same way the guests used to do to her, replete with bitter echoes of lines she was forced to say. After fruitlessly questing for meaning in the maze, The Man in Black is finally reinvigorated at playing for keeps. The balance of power has shifted, and that means possibility.
But it also means dragging a few things out, and resetting the mystery box, and reverting to the general weirdness and cryptic hints that made me start to lose patience with the early part of Season 1.
To wit, at the beginning of the episode, we flash back to a conversation between Dolores and (presumably) Arnold where he talks about a dream where the hosts are all by the ocean and the water’s rising. And at the end of the episode, Bernard finds a mass collection of hosts floating in a sea constructed by Ford. There’s some obvious symbolism about a changing of the guard, but for the most part, it feels like imagery for the sake of imagery rather than anything particularly arresting.
There’s also the same cavalcade of flashbacks and flash forwards, and the same unnerving images of dead bodies scattered beneath the sun. It’s enough to both gesture toward what’s to come and provide the sort of in-your-face visuals that HBO’s prestige genres are known for. There’s nothing wrong with it exactly, but it’s a little tiresome to be thrown back into the puzzle box after Season 1 only truly came into its own when it started to deliver answers and embrace some clearer and more forthright direction as opposed to wallowing in the same old open questions.
But then again, I suspect that’s what many if not most folks like about the show. There’s plenty to speculate about, plenty of clues to pour over, plenty of mysterious flashes to what may be the past or the future to try to unscramble. I don’t mind a good tease, and I especially understand the need for a television show to do a bit of resetting and repositioning at the start of a new season, I’m just hoping that Westworld can do more to build on what it accomplished in Season 1 rather than just reverting to the same formula they unleashed then with a new coat of paint.
“Journey Into Night” seems to be promising that things are genuinely different. The prospect of there being other parks, including ones where characters (or at least fauna) is making its way into Westworld is in the offing. Hale is upfront with Bernard about her plan to smuggle some data out to her benefactors, and conspicuously missing in the scenes set in the “future.” And a different type of security force is around but seemingly being bested by the robotic revolutionaries.
Whether that will amount to a genuine difference remains to be seen. “Journey Into Night” has some cool elements. The Man in Black gets to play a mostly silent badass. Dolores, despite her cheesy intro speech, is different in her cadence and manner, reflecting the changes she’s been through. Maeve is firmly in control and Bernard is at his wits end. There’s promise in all of these things, as the chickens Ford spent much of the first season preparing to call are now coming home to roost.
But color me a little skeptical. Westworld is back to couching its ideas in the same sort of riddles that are fine when you’re kicking things off for the first time and slowly easing a new audience into your world, but become more of a stretch the better and better acquainted the audience becomes with the setting and rules of your story. Who knows where Ford’s newest “game” will take us, or what Maeve’s search for her daughter will bring, or how Dolores’s nascent revolt will turn out. Hopefully they won’t just take us back to places we’ve already been.
[9.5/10] One of the strengths of Westworld is how it jumps back and forth in time. The lifeblood of any good story is change, and drifting from the very beginnings of the park, to the time when Delos took it over, to the present during the robot revolt, lets the show highlight those changes, gently explain them, without merely having to gesture toward them or disrupt the tone and setting of the series.
“Reunion” is about the story of that transition. It’s about how Westworld itself went from being the brainchild of a couple of dreamers, to the investment of multinational company, to the hellscape of mechanical slaughter and real challenge it is today. It’s about how Delos’s involvement started out with one horny investment bro being wooed by the amazing and seductive wares the place had to offer, progressed to a surrogate son proving his mettle to his father-in-law, and advanced to become a battleground where a big corporation is sending in private security forces to protect its investment.
It’s about how Dolores went from being someone mesmerized by the city lights so far outside of her understanding, to being the special host who sensed there was something beyond the world that she saw and trekked through, to the leader of the rebellion who kills without mercy and aims to use that outside world as a weapon. It’s about how William went from being bored with glad-handing, to persuading and eventually pushing aside his father-in-law, to reconciling his own experience with the power Westworld possesses, to trying to find his way out of the real stakes and find the real meaning he’s been searching for since we met him in the “present.”
And it’s about how all of these stories are intertwined: how Dolores’s first night in the city connects with Logan’s amazement at what Ford and Arnold were capable of, how William’s great triumph of his corporate career coincides with Dolores appearing as a reminder of the way the park can reveal people, how The Man in Black’s grand crusade is only made possible through the mechanical woman who once entranced him instigating her rebellion.
These are all potent pieces of that change, but “Reunion” isn’t satisfied to merely dole them out piecemeal. It ties them together, shows where they blend into one another, and how the fates of these two individuals, of this place and this company, have been unwittingly bound together for decades.
Westworld is a show that loves its puzzle boxes, and much of the Season 2 premiere was spent recrafting and reloading them for another year. But when all those boxes are solved and opened, and all the requisite shocks are delivered, what you have left is character and theme, the people and the ideas that are necessary to give any sort of weight and meeting to the jaw-dropping surprises.
“Reunion” doesn't answer many of those mysterious questions, beyond filling in a few sundry, if significant details about how things got from Point A to Point B. Instead, it answers implicit questions about who Dolores and William are, about how they went from being the wide-eyed naifs we met last season to being The Man in Black and the quick-firing, merciless revolutionary who aims to topple the world that birthed her.
That’s what gives “Reunion” its power and makes it a cut above every other Westworld episode so far. The causes and effects the episode presents are believable and compelling. It teaches us more about the main figures in the show, rather than obscuring their true nature or their goals. It creates a plausible narrative that lets us see and experience the instigating events that would cause the two sweetest, most decent characters from the last season into the cold-blooded individuals they are today.
And beyond that, it’s just a well-written, well-made episode of television. The scenes progress with perfection, giving us just enough of the different stages of Delos’s (and William’s) interest in the park to understand how things have advanced without belaboring it. The episode is shot beautifully, with The Man in Black wandering into a candle-lit version of Pariah that seems haunted before anyone says a word, with a camera that follows our heroes like a ghost.
That also helps highlight the performances, which are some of the best in the series and show the range and talents of the actors. Ed Harris continues to be a surprisingly effect terse badass, who nevertheless shows excitement and fear as the situation escalates. Evan Rachel Wood has proven herself expert at communicating what time period it is when we see Dolores simply with her demeanor, crafting the contrast between the wide-eyed dove who gazes upon the city lights and the sharp-eyed maven who aims to take them. And Jimmi Simpson proves his mettle both as William takes a chance and convinces his skeptical but “cheeky” father-in-law to invest in Westworld, and as a man in transition when he confesses his view of Westworld to Dolores.
That view feels pointedly relevant in the age of big data. While my suspicions about the corporate world’s interests veered toward the usual science fiction tropes -- programmable soldiers, undetectable spies or duplicates -- “Reunion” posits a different use for the IP and data generated Westworld. They want information, the knowledge of what people want when they can act unfettered. William posits that Westworld in general, and the hosts in particular, are a mirror, and to the extent that they reveal people’s true selves, their true desires, it’s an endlessly lucrative thing for a company to derive that sort of info.
That hits close to home in an age where more and more of our lives are led online, where anonymity and thus outrageous freedom is within reach for more and more individuals. And yet despite that sense of unrestrained choice and escape from sight, our actions are, as has been increasingly revealed, more and more being tracked and more and more unprotectable in the digital world. There is an asymmetry, between the sense that we can hide behind a pseudonym and let our real selves run wild, and the reality that the value of the free services we consume is that our wants can be categorized, commodified, and sold to the highest bidder.
It blurs the line between the fiction of Westworld and the reality of life on the other side of the screen, and it’s the performances of people like Simpson, Wood, and Harris (and Thandie Newton, who performs a tantalizing run-in between Maeve and Dolores) who drive that idea home.
And then there’s Giancarlo Esposito, who turns a nothing role as El Lazio, the part Lawrence used to play, into one of the most foreboding, portentous scenes in the entire show. If you want a one-scene wonder, who can convey menace, mystery, and the tense of something uncontrollable but frightening, you can do far worse than enlisting the once and future Gus Fring. There’s so many tremendous scenes in this episode, but the mood-lit, unwavering monologue of Esposito’s host-gone-mad and his warnings, stands out even among them.
Because while “Reunion” is an episode about change, it is also an episode about warning signs, about the sense that there were hints, small events, that led to this place, and could have told our heroes (and villains) where all of this was headed. It was not merely a grand transition that turned Westworld from a fantasy into a warzone, that turned Dolores from a farmgirl into a butcher, that changed William from a gentle whitehat to the blistering, withered gunslinger he is now.
It was an accumulation of smaller moments, of sights and experiences that couldn’t be scrubbed from their memory, of little flows and eddies that brought them to this point. “Reunion” is devoted to those smaller moment, and the way they coalesce into the different people and different places who brought the dream of two men into the twin crusades of the two individuals, one human and one artificial, that threaten to change everything once again.
