Quite a ballsy move going for a bad end after all that. I see a lot of people are upset about it since this bad end was basically a combination of about 3/4 other route endings, but with only 13 episodes I don't see what else they could have done really. This makes sense, and it looks like there will be a Season 2 covering the Moon and Terra arcs (which are the true route of the story anyway). Hopefully it'll be a bit better in terms of quality too.
As a big fan of the VN I can't say this series is completely without merit, but I do think it makes for poor standalone piece and is definitely a "for fans only" series. So little time is spent explaining a lot of the elements of the plot that only someone who's read the VN will get it. The same thing happened with Grisaia and the same studio was behind that too. I'm not blaming them specifically, I just think it's a shame that the last few Key properties have ended up with sub-par adaptations that don't hold up on their own.
I will of course be watching the second series but I wouldn't blame anyone for not bothering after watching this. All I can say is that as if often the case with these things, the source material is far better and I would urge anyone who is willing to give it a chance - there's a reason I was initially looking forward to this adaptation so much and it's because the VN itself is great. If you do plan to check it out, be aware that whilst the original Rewrite VN has been fully translated, Key are also planning a release of Rewrite+ (the original game and the fandisc, plus some tweaks to the original story) in English in the future.
6.5/10. Look, I love John Oliver's commentary on Donald Trump as much as the next guy, and lord knows that Trump keeps generating material, but at some point it becomes hard to wring the comedy from it and not just be exhausted and dismayed by it, and I think I've hit that point. Oliver's doing a yeoman's job with the material, but it's just too much at some point.
The same, more or less, goes for Oliver's look at Jill Stein and Gary Johnson. In some ways, I think it's an important public service given the groups that I surmise make up his target demographics, and I appreciate the thesis of the piece -- that there are no perfect candidates out there and each vote you cast involves a certain amount of nose-holding, but pointing out the flaws in the two third party candidates felt, to some degree, like hitting easy targets. The closing message of the piece kind of saves it, but there's a certain amount of a "look at this asshole" tone in the segment that I wish Oliver would leave for purity test partisans like Samantha Bee.
That said, the interstitial segments about the infinite patience and internal workings of the mind of the man who runs CSPAN's call-in show was sublime, and the sort of off-the-wall but enjoyable stuff this show does better than any other. Overall, this one was a step behind usual offerings, but it's LWT, so there's almost always still something worth watching.
6.5/10
Homeland is what it is at this point. It's still adept at doing tense scenes involving the threat of a terror attack. It's still adept at Quinn: the badass spy sequences. It's still adept at showing scenes of backroom politics in the CIA. What it's not particularly good at anymore is making me care about the characters involved in those types of sequences.
I have a hard time getting on board with Carrie's 5-minute (or 2-year) retirement. The show has to hammer the point home that no one believes she's really out, and maybe that's in keeping with the audience's expectations -- there's not a show if Carrie doesn't get involved with the CIA again, or, at least, there's a very different show. So the scenes where she calls back home, where she talks about having someone there waiting for her, meant to show that she's different, feel cheap because it seems inevitable that she's going to fall off the wagon in more than one sense of the term this season, and showing us "how far she's come" is only a weak sense to give that predictable fall from grace some stakes. Obviously, your mileage may vary, but maybe I've just gotten too familiar with the structure of these types of stories for them to have meaning for me anymore. Or maybe the show will subvert my expectations and I'll look like a fool. But I'd be shocked if she doesn't end up sleeping with Quinn and/or the head of the foundation and getting involved with the CIA again by the end of the season despite her Brody-expy waiting for her back in Berlin.
The journalist story felt kind of perfunctory. The character's pretty annoying, even when she makes good points, but perhaps that's intentional. The power struggle with Saul, Dar, and Allison has promise, as does the hacker character, but it's a big "withhold judgment until more goes down" on that front.
And Quinn's hunt for his latest target, who appears to lead a number of western girls toward some kind of attack, was intriguing as to where that seed is going to pop up later in the season, but the teaser at the end where Saul(?) is telling him which target to go after next seemed strange and a little hacky.
Overall it wasn't the most inspiring episode of the show, but as usual, there were some decent elements and the promise of both well-done and facepalm-inducing things to come.
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!
This isn't a bad movie, but I also don't think it's particularly great either. The performances all around were good, save for maybe Kirsten Dunst who seemed to be trying a little too hard to be unlikable as a supervisor. The story was intriguing enough to make it all the way to the end of the movie, but I really feel like this story deserved a lot better, especially regarding the importance of these three women in our history.
The editing felt really off at several points, cutting to other shots far too frequently when it didn't need to. The music used also felt extremely out of place, especially for a period piece like this. Pharrell Williams shouldn't have been involved with this, with special regards to the song Runnin' which not only was overused but also completely unnecessary in trying to force a comedic tone when it didn't need to. They should've used more music from the time period the movie was set in.
I don't feel like I wasted my time watching this, but I wish there was more care put into this. I seriously don't get why it had so much Oscar attention, especially when compared to the nominees it was right next to.
The little suburb intro was funny. And it's nice that it wasn't too long.
New villain starts a little weak. The whole, death is beautiful, it allows new things to grow speech ? Please can we do any more cliche than that ? Then you add the even more cliche where the villain kill his own man beacause he's displeased with his performance. Can we stop doing that please ? Isn't there any other way to say look, this is a bad guy! ? Neal McDonough though, there's some potential there. And despite that there's the You don't know who I am do you ? I'm Damien Darhk moment that is totally badass. So let's just hope that this beginning was just inclusive writing for the part of the audience that is too stupid to acknowledge a villain if it's not written in blood on his face and that we will move past that now that it's done.
It looks like they don't even try anymore to hide what they do. Like Laurel calls John instead of 911 and then gets away ? And then she's in the police hq, during an attack, and nobody questions her presence ? They're also openly discussing their night activities in the police station. Are all the cops in on it ? Oh look, it's Lance's daughter doing her vigilante thing again. And she thinks we don't know, how cute. How about the Green Arrow announcement ? Can anyone not recognize him ?
By the way the conversation between the Lances was surreal. They're explicitly looking for important city events, there's the main train station opening, he even lists it, that's probably the biggest thing to happen for months (years ?), and nobody registers it ? COME ON ! How bad can you be at your jobs.
Also Lance is working with the bad guy. So switching back again between good and bad, being friend/ennemy with Arrow's team. It already happened a dozen times, can we move past it ? Is this really the only thing he can bring to the show ?
Petty complaints at the train action:
1) How would the guy hear him jumping on the train over the noise ? And be stupid enough to open the door ?
2) We can see the length of the train during the first scene, and when they're next to it, there are definitely enough cars passing by to make the whole train, but it never seems to stop
3) How did Dig get on board ?
4) Did he not just blow the last wagons ? Would it be enough to stop the whole train ? Why not shoot the engine ?
5) Was the train empty ?
6) Wasn't the explosion a little weak ?
Flashbacks are back on Lian Yu again, without much surprise. They'll soon be out of time left for that, hope the story's interesting.
And the someone's gonna die preview. That sucks. This is something that will probably be ignored for 10 episodes, it was a really bad choice to put it there, even more because I bet it will turn out to be totally insignificant. Someone who's already dead ? Someone we haven't met yet ? From the Lian Yu flashbacks ? I'm willing to bet not a significant character. Barry's presence suggests Felicity, but I don't buy that. Or not dead for real maybe, just to protect her.
5.5/10. Pretty weak. You can definitely feel the comedy getting dumber in this one. The storytelling dichotomy of characters arguing over the right way to do something and then realizing that both of them has a point is getting a little tired, even if the show tries to subvert it a bit here. It's odd that being supportive means not being upfront about your own wants or needs according to this episode, but whatever, I guess I can accept some simplified sitcom relationship platitudes. The problem is that this show used to be above that, or at least used to add more of a twist to them. Lily confessing that being supportive with all that's happened, from Marshall's job, to his dad, to their starting a family, was a solid moment, but the rest of the episode largely devolved into sitcom cliches.
The same goes to Barney's whole abandonment issues-turned-exploding meatball sub bit. There's the hint of a good swerve there, and a touch of the old HIMYM meme-ing with "Graduation Goggles," but the execution is pretty uninspired. It was nice to get a good moment with Robin and Barney, but you got the sense a lot of this episode was stretching for time. Cracks in the foundation are starting to show, especially in terms of the humor, which is a shame coming right on the heels of a pretty great episode.
As I often say about the less-than-stellar episodes of the show, there's the germ of a good idea here. For one, using the frame story to comment on the silliness of the show's narrative conceit with Kevin the therapist constantly asking Robin to get to the point while she delves into a mostly-unrelated story about Marshall and Lily is a cute plot, it's just not especially well done. Kal Penn in particular joins the pantheon of people like Jennifer Morrison who are perfectly good at what they do, but don't really fit in with the show.
As for the rest of the episode, the Marshall-Lily-Ted bit about Ted getting too involved in their pregnancy and being a third wheel in general had a few good laughs (especially the photo montage at the end), but it had a weird message about not being skeptical about doctors who just tell you what you want to hear, especially when Lily shuts Marshall down about it. (Ted's obviously goes too far.) And the whole resolution of it is pretty strange.
And here we go with more of the whole Barney-Robin-Nora love triangle as the show goes headlong into super broad comedy and relationship melodrama. Barney's various schemes are even more outlandish than usual, and Robin feels out of character. Gone are the mostly real characters we knew and loved (Robin more than Barney) and in their place are caricatured duplicates whose every romantic trial and tribulation we're supposed to care about despite dull obstacle love interests in their way and their general incompatibility and jerkish behavior to one another. Sign of the times, especially Robin's trying to steal Barney and Barney's obliviousness about the whole thing.
(Oh, and if I'm not mistaken, this is the introduction of both Robin crying under the desk with a bottle of wine, which has been meme-ified to the extreme, and the running bit about Robin being unduly harsh with Patrice, which is probably my least favorite continuing gag on the show.)
Based on a novel of the same name, the premise of The Princess Diaries is certainly intriguing enough. A coming-of-age Cinderella story with a twist -- Cinderella is not the damsel in distress. She's comfortable in her own awkward shy teenager shell.
The film has all the ingredients of a successful film. And the film was wildly successful. It has a dream team of cast where everyone is as perfectly cast as they can be, starting with Julie Andrews as the queen and Anne Hathaway in her breakthrough debut as Mia. Directed by the veteran of Cinderella films Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman), the film was a low risk bet for Walt Disney.
For the intended audience (young and preteen girls), the film hits all the right notes. Mia's transformation scene is easily the highlight of the film, and it is very effective and well shot.
Yet, the film just didn't work for me. The movie is just all too familiar and predictable. The scene where Mia discovers her heritage carries surprisingly very little revelation and reactions. And the climax just didn't arouse warm reaction it intended to generate. Worse of all, there are just too many cliched and cringe inducing scenes.
All in all, the film is worth casual family viewing. But for me, the strong cast and competent direction couldn't overcome weak screenplay.
This is the best episode of Silicon Valley in a few seasons. Richard's arc in this series frequently lacks context and judgment. I don't necessarily need to see him punished or learning from his actions, but I do wish that it was handled with more grace. His path towards megalomania is so steeped in a lack of self-awareness and arrogance that it seems to genuinely make me wonder how a guy like that wouldn't understand that he is no better than Belson. A few times Jared stepped in to attempt to center him, but it never works.
I don't think there's anything wrong with this execution so much as I don't feel like it resonates with me because I haven't really found a character to center myself around. In the sixth season, everyone feels to be their most caricaturized version of themselves. That's a frequent problem in comedy television, I know, but it's made worse by the fact that the first few seasons of this series did a really solid job at keeping the zany-ness of these characters limited to very specific moments, perhaps best characterized by Gilfoyle. In the early seasons, he was still the anarchy and code-loving satanist, but that humor became so good because it was rooted and really seemed to be the only guy really centering Richard. Now, that's all he is. He's not centered in anything other than messing with Dinesh.
This episode feels like it finally has the right balance between comedy and plot that the first couple seasons nailed so well. There's a drive to everything that we see that feels like it has a better understanding of doing bad things for relative good.
Whether you like this show or not, you must admit that it has one of the most memorable intros ever. A rap intro was perhaps more revolutionary in the 90s but it's still a work of genius: before every episode you get a story recap how Will ended up in Bel-Air in the first place.
I'm too young to understand many of the references and jokes. But sometimes it's like a fascinating time capsule bank to the 90s. I hate the fake laughter. The show is often a bit silly and shallow but now and then the show delves into more serious issues like parenting, race, puberty, coming of age, social injustice, capitalism and so forth. I don't even like Will best. I like Hillary, Phil and Carlton better to be honest. But all characters are likeable and it's a true feel good sitcom.
But that's perhaps not what the show was really known for. I guess it made a major impact during 90s TV. It's one of the first sitcoms and perhaps one of the first primetime shows with mostly black characters. And - as a surprise to many - they showed a regular all-American and financially privileged family.
Towards the end the show starts to limp and Will's one man show becomes increasingly annoying. I remember that I liked him a lot back in the 90s. My younger self was convinced he was the coolest guy ever. I think totally different know. He almost ruins the show.
Would I ever re-re-watch this show? Probably not...
PS: sadly this show was recorded on tape it seems, thus can't be remastered easily and looks horrible by today's standards
[6.8/10] It's not like this was a bad episode, but here's the thing. One of the things I've always liked about LWT is that Oliver feels like an honest broker. Sure, he has a certain slant, and always has, but it felt like he was spotlighting things that received too little attention to have political spin, or that he'd wade into more mainstream politics but try to approach the topics even-handedly.
That hasn't really been the case lately. Don't get me wrong, I can 100% understand not being able to keep your journalistic objectivity when you're talking about Donald Trump and the things happening in his wake, but it makes Last Week Tonight a more run of the mill program to me, just part and parcel with the scores of shows out there pointing to how terrible this stuff is with an admittedly amusing brand of snark. Sure, when Oliver talks about the new Republican health care plan, he's more informative about what's in it than most, but it comes off like doing the same thing everyone else is doing.
The best thing to say is that he does find a unique angle on it at the end, essentially saying that whatever you think of the bill, it's not the bill Trump promised, and it's likely to be the best he can do. But even that isn't a sterling or especially novel insight into it. There's some dada-ist glory to the show's "Catheter Cowboy" repeatedly asking Trump is he "gets it" but otherwise it becomes part of the din. And bits like making fun of local news anchors for their responses to International Women's Day or a MadTV level gag reel about Samsung products exploding doesn't do much to distinguish the show either.
Again, it's not bad. It's all sound enough and true enough and funny enough, but for a while there, it felt like Oliver had brought a different tack and a different energy to the political comedy show, and it's starting to feel like everything else.
[4.2/10] I had essentially forgotten about this one, and on rewatch, I can only assume that it's because my brain mentally blocked it out. This is pretty much as bad as Bob's Burgers gets. A love pentagon where Tina wants Yap, Yap wants Gail, Gail wants Bob, and Linda is involved and egging the whole thing on is just weird, and there's a lot of uncomfortable sexual stuff to boot. I'm no prude, and it didn't offend me, but Bob's sister-in-law haranguing him for sex while her wife pushes him into it despite his clear discomfort is just not amusing or enjoyable for me. It's a strange episode, without many laughs (Ken Jeong finds the more annoying side of Chang from Community with Dr. Yap for most of the way), and little to recommend it.
The B-story, with Louise and Gene having continual contests regarding a jawbreaker has some funny moments (mostly their endurance test for listening to Teddy's story) but peters out pretty quickly as well. Really, the only source of laughs is "The Prince of Persuasia." Mrs. Bloom and I will still randomly crack one another up by quoting "push her in a lake" or insisting the other push a higher floor in the elevator and "make a big deal out of it." Still, making fun of The Pickup Artist isn't enough to redeem this pretty crappy episode.
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.
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.
6.9/10. Did we really need a payoff to the Pumpkin girl story? Probably not. It's a subtle indication that the show was running out of places to go and had started eating its own tail to compensate. That said, I really like where they went with it. It would have been easy to turn the Pumpkin into another major season-spanning relationship for Ted. Instead, the episode dealt with the idea that you can build something up in your mind based on a brief encounter, and that the fuller experience reveals a lack of a real connection. The twist that for most of the episode, Ted wasn't feeling it and thought Naomi was kind of nuts, only to find out that Naomi wasn't feeling it either, but was equally trying to play up to the moment since she too had built the potential for their relationship up was a nice way to illustrate that.
The rest of the episode didn't quite measure up. Lily having "pregnancy brain," which rendered her dumb had some amusing, if fairly stock humor with her forgetting words and handing out staplers as Halloween candy and whatnot, but the whole premise is super-broad and a symptom of the increased cartoonishness of an already decently cartoony show. Still, the metaphor of pregnany Lily as a drunk girl that Marshall was trying not to take advantage of, while Lily tried to "seduce" him with a house in the suburbs was worthwhile premise, even if the way the show went about it wasn't as sharp as I might have liked.
Robin discovering Barney's Canadian heritage and rubbing it in his face was definitely the lightest of the stories in the episode, but chuckle-worthy enough. Robin ribbing Barney about it as payback was entertaining, and Barney's Rocky IV reference in lieu of donning the Mountie costume was pleasant if, once again, pretty cartoony. The end tag with Barney fighting the Canadian version of himself was a bridge too far though.
Overall, some decent laughs, and a nice main story, but a lot of hit or miss stuff at the margins.
5.7/10. This episode basically has two genuinely good moments. The first is Barney's speech at the beginning, which again, feels like the genuine side of him that the relationship between Barney and Robin was and is mostly missing, but which is problematic for reasons we'll get to a little ways down the road. The second is the tag where Marshall and Lily get revenge on Ted by taking his daughter to do a bunch of her firsts. It's the kind of timeline-jumping gag that this show is pretty unique in being able to pull off.
But the rest of it is a reaaaaallll mixed bag. There's meat to the idea that Robin only wants something when she's told she can't have it. (And it even ties into Barney and Robin's previous deal at the end of S3.) But Robin turns into the broad crush-having-machine so quickly that it doesn't click. Her trying to run plays is a nice change of pace, but in contrast to that speech, it's all a big Road Runner chase, so the lack of a grain of realness into it robs it of its power, comedically or dramatically.
At the same time, Ted's realization that he was making Marvin his "baby" now that the GNB building, his prior "baby" is done is a nice enough emotional beat for the character. (And it led to the other good comedic moment -- Marshall explaining why Ted cannot give his lollypop to a kid at the pool), but the jokes weren't really there and the ramping up to get to that point is a little easy. The C-story with Barney's Bro Bibs is pretty slight, but it's good enough for a larf.
7.2/10. A perfectly fun Kill Bill homage (which is itself a pastiche -- we're through the looking glass here people). I remember some controversy about the gang dressing up in Asian garb for the "training" scenes, but I think it's in the spirit of kung fu movies the show is imitating here. Like I said the last time we did one of these, I'm pretty tired of the slap bet business, and frankly I think it should have been a one hit wonder, or at least something brought out to punctuate an episode like it was with Barney's one-man show than building entire episode around it.
Still, it was a fun entree into seeing Marshall go all Enter the Dragon. There was a lot of physical humor here, between the rapid-fire slaps and the slapping tree and the slow motion (poorly green screened) slaps. There was also a lot of the usual slap-related word play. It was fairly enjoyable, even if it's more of the broad humor and empty calories the show seems to have given into at this point. It was nice to have the angle that Barney had become inoculated against the fear of the slap, and then the kung fu story restored his anxiety, only for them to treat it very matter of factly afterward.
The Boys II Men appearance was pretty superfluous, but there's a bit of a pointless guest star-palooza going on this season anyway. This all makes me sound pretty down on an episode that I mostly enjoyed. It was basically cotton candy -- perfectly nice but pretty empty after the fact.
Another amazingly well done episode. The pacing was perfect. Slow parts, fast parts, drama, action. Everything was well balanced.
And Klyden returns! He is such a great character. So easy to hate, but so much more complicated. There were glimpses in previous episodes of his internal struggle. We finally get to see the walls broken down. Hopefully, we get to see more of Klyden now that he has realized the error of his beliefs and has opened up to Grayson. It really was a touching moment at the end.
And Dolly! I never would have pegged her for a cameo on the Orville, but she is wonderful as always. I loved reading about how they filmed the scene twice. Once on set and once in Dolly's sound stage so they could get around potential COVID exposures. Amazing!
I do have to wonder, though. They appear to have left the Moclan collaborator high and dry. If Topa really did give the name of the collaborator, nothing appears to have been done to help him. If she didn't actually give the name and lied to the Moclans, then they left the the audience without resolution. A very big complaint considering the rest of the episode was finely crafted. This is a major screwup to not spend 30 seconds to resolve this in this episode.
This one provided some decent backstory for AltClare and even generated a fair amount of sympathy for her from me...until she showed me that the same events that generated my sympathy had turned her into someone who could kill an innocent bystander with no apparent issues of conscience. I also found it interesting that, prior to her insertion on "our" side of things, she showed intermittent signs of warmth mixed in with the general coldness. Other than that, there were a few things that bothered me with this one. (1) There were ways that AltClare could have mirrored Clare's lost virginity that would not have involved potential exposure to STDs or pregnancy, either of which would have not only presented the usual problems but would have killed the mission. And there's the fact that someone who knew "her" could have seen enough of what was going on to report it back to Peter. I assume that the writers intended this to serve as more evidence of her automaton personality at that point, but I couldn't ignore the lack of common sense. (2) The lack of a team in place to assist her and the resulting "You're on your own" sort of mentality were more than a little hard to accept, especially given the importance of her particular mission. (3) Would it have killed Peter to stash those cigars somewhere else? Someplace far, far way? Or at least in a locked drawer? Or at least in a drawer that he freaking shuts all the way? Oh, well. At this point, now that Peter has made it clear that he knows what's going on with her, I'm all the more curious about how things will move forward with our not-so-happy couple...
Though stylish like all the previous entries, this one simply felt like it had been directed by someone who had played a bit too many sessions of online shooters or really enjoyed the 'new mission / new setting' feel of the Hitman series. The fact that Keanu's word count in this movie is probably lower than 200 further cements this feeling.
There is almost no content of worth. The movie achieves something previously unimaginable by this series by making the fights feel like repetitive cookie cutter clutter and thus extremely boring to sit through. We get it, John is a superhuman assassin who's GunFoo is better than most. We do not need the same fights 7-8 times to hammer that home. With the body count growing to match that of a warzone, and not a single scratch on John, where are the stakes? Why should the audience care?
Then there are the spectators.
During some of these fights there are masses of spectators, just normal folks either dancing at a club or driving around Arc de Triomphe, that do not even blink as John is peppered with machine gun fire and men with axes come after him. As the bodies pile on, these spectators just continue their NPC activities like they are in a badly coded 90's video game.
It should be obvious to anyone that the series is running out of ideas when it needed to up the ante so much with the firefights that John's most used item is not the guns he wields, but the bullet proof suite he wears.
For most of the fights we see him cover his head with his jacket as he returns fire in generic setting after generic setting.
At the entirely too manieth such fight, roughly 2 hours into this 3 hour bore fest, I walked out.
[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.
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.
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.
Pros
+The Flashbacks/background info added a lot of bridge information while still adding to the plot at hand (including the full introduction of the information broker aspect of the business)
+The Man in Black reconnecting with one old friend and being cheated by another
+Dolores seems to actually have some sort of plan
+The action was all fine as well
Cons
-Dolores is literally saying the same thing over and over "I'LL MAKE YOU PAY FOR WHAT U DUNNN................................ to robots that can be repaired, reprogrammed and shouldn't be able to remember anything past a few hours......."
Great episode and the flashbacks particularly added much to the story. Far better than the first one this season. I'm scared this show is going to become extremely monotonous and boring throughout this season. The first season was so great because we saw this interesting and thorough dissection of how our ideal dreams and world are selfish and have consequences to everyone else if we were unleashed and allowed to do whatever we wanted, this season it seems completely fixated on this revenge aspect. I understand that they want to show the extent of the pain caused to other but at the same time, the audience already understands this pretty well. The writing for Dolores has been the same, scene to scene and when you make a character monotonous and boring the audience will lose compassion for her. Dolores was amazing in season 1 because of the range she showcased, hopefully they will allow the same for her this season.
[6.3/10] I walked away from Ready Player One the movie feeling the same way I did about Ready Player One the book -- that this a stellar premise wasted on a mediocre-at-best story. The idea of a worldwide, all-consuming online gaming sphere, like World of Warcraft or Second Life taken to the extreme, is fertile ground for social commentary and storytelling. Even with middling execution, you can’t get away from the power of themes about identity online, the effects of screen time, what it means to know and connect with someone, and cultural tastes in lieu of personality. You also can’t get away from the thrills of a digital world where anything is possible with the right imagination.
But Ready Player One manages to stumble over these ideas time and time again, when it’s not smacking the audience in the face with them. At base, the movie is fine as a disposable adventure, one to put on while folding laundry and glance up at when something exciting is happening. But its action is flashy yet forgettable, and it seems to think it’s making grand statements about life and friendship when it only offers the most trite, bargain basement observations about humanity and how we relate to and interact with one another.
Some of those flaws come from the source material. The hackneyed “evil corporate guys want to turn our free online playhouse into an ad-scattered cash machine” conflict is right there in the manual. The thinly sketched-characters who are more quirk and wish-fulfillment than fully-realized human beings is a fault on the page as well as on the screen. And the rudimentary, teenage boy view of awesome that colors every choice and development in the story is true of the novel as well. Original author Ernest Cline worked on the screenplay here too, and unfortunately, it shows.
But the film manages to correct a few things from the novel. While there’s still problems of insta-love and barreling through plot points, the script from Cline and superhero screenplay scribe Zak Penn changes the structure of the story for the better. In-person meetings happen earlier. There’s role reversals for certain captures and rescues which makes Parzival less of an all-consuming protagonist. And despite an exhaustingly lengthy and overstuffed third act, many of the quests and story beats are streamlined or reimagined to both make them more suitable for the medium and cut out some of the fat.
Still, even with Spielberg behind the camera, Ready Player One can’t avoid feeling like a missed opportunity. It’s a boatload of characters who are either rote or underdeveloped, of clichés and truisms played as novel and profound, and of nominally thrilling action that ends up feeling static an hour into the film. Spielberg knows how to hold the tension in a scene, and every payoff has a setup, which boosts some of the film’s weaker moments. But between villainous corporate hacks and generic good guy kids, there’s just nothing to latch onto here.
Thankfully, the movie manages to sidestep at least some of the novel’s reference-heavy bent (or relegate it to the background) and fanboy fetishism. And yet, at the end of the day, it’s probably the thing I unexpectedly wanted more of. While the book was overly awash in pop cultural shout outs that clogged the story, the movie only feels alive and different when it’s borrowing the power of seeing The Iron Giant in flight again, or transporting our heroes into a classic horror movie. The latter sequence is the highlight of the film, embracing the crossover fun that the premise promises, but using it to advance the story and the characters. Strip away cameos from Freddy Krueger and Van Halen tunes, and all you have is a standard issue adventure story without much to distinguish it.
Despite the structural changes made by Cline and Penn, Ready Player One still feels overstuffed, rushed, and contrived in several places. The movie wants the viewers to see the “High Five” (its team of heroes) as special and uniquely devoted to the cause of dethroning the evil empire. It shows them understanding the clues and life of their benefactor who set out the film’s great quest in a way that their rigid corporate antagonists don’t. But the solutions to his problems often seem overly simple or too obvious not to have been discovered before by the thousand monkeys at a thousand laptops trying to do so. Heroes succeed and villains stumble more because the plot needs them to than because of any genuine insight or hubris.
There’s also the film’s aesthetic, which is a bit cold and antiseptic, but which can at least be excused for being set in a virtual fantasyland. There’s a certain amount of prequel-itis here with the digital overload, but that’s arguably a bug, not a feature, even if none of the character or world designs are especially memorable. One expects better in a Spielberg joint, but there’s at least some high-intensity thrills to be had, even if they end up feeling fairly empty in the final tally.
That’s my biggest problem with Ready Player One. At the end of the day, it just feels empty. The romantic tension between its two leads is stock and tired. The friendship between Parzival and Aech is underfed, and our heroes’ success in the main adventure seems preordained rather than earned, without enough twists to make the inevitable interesting.
At times, Spielberg & Co. seem to know how deeply silly this whole enterprise is and wink at the audience, occasionally verging into satire in the vein of Starship Trooper. It’s these occasions where the film is its most enjoyable. But in others, it seems painfully sincere about a story, character, and theme that have all the gravity and substance of saltwater taffy. The film’s message of valuing friendship and real world interactions beyond the glow of online escapism is laudable enough, but shallow and dissonant when plastered into the movie’s cinematic theme park ride. Ready Player One is empty calories, and not even especially tasty ones, that are delivered with the message that the viewer should go on a diet. It’s not outright bad by any stretch of the imagination, but you can’t help but wonder how the great ideas bubbling around in this mishmashed bag of Halloween candy could be put to better use.
[5.8/10] Oh god we’re doing space AIDS. And to make matters worse, it’s in a quasi-sequel to the episode where T’Pol was de facto raped, and the show didn’t know how to handle it. Suffice it to say, we’re in for some tough sledding here, folks.
“Stigma” reveals that T’Pol is suffering from “Pa’nar Syndrome”, a degenerative, and potentially fatal disease that Dr. Phlox can’t cure. The Vulcans refuse to help, because the disease can only be contracted by mind melding, and Vulcan society has a, say it with me, stigma, against the minority who engages in such uncondoned practices. They would rather turn their backs on people who are dying than to implicitly vindicate such deviance.
Do you get it? Do you get it? To be honest I never know what to do with these sorts of episodes. Some of the best episodes of Star Trek, and the best science fiction stories in general, have used the emotional distance that comes from speculative fiction to tackle contemporary social problems. And despite how ham-fisted the racism metaphor of The Original Series’s “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” was, apparently large swaths of the audience didn’t understand it at the time, so maybe some shouting and obvious signposting is necessary.
But it’s hard to watch “Stigma” and not roll your eyes at how transparent and self-righteous the whole thing is. Enterprise has a message, and by god, you are going to hear it! As I said about “Fusion”, this show just isn’t really equpped to handle a topic like someone contracting a fatal disease after being sexually assaulted, even if it’s caked with layers of metaphor. Beyond the troubling implications of Archer again white knighting for her rather than letting her make her own, the show just seems so loud and blunt in trying to use its story to comment on the plight of the gay community and those with AIDS.
The other side of the coin is that maybe that’s an easy criticism to level in 2019, where companies are tripping over themselves to celebrate Pride, and AIDS is, while still used as a basis for fear and ostracism in many places, much more understood and accepted than it was twenty years ago. It’s hard for me to treat Enterprise as “of its time” like I do with the 1960s series, since I’m old enough to remember the 2000s series’s debut. But society’s treatment of homosexuality and AIDS has changed a great deal since this episode aired, and I’d do well to remember that before I slate “Stigma” too harshly.
That’s the thing -- Enterprise’s heart is in the right place. However thin the analogy may be, the series is right to call out real life unethical indifference to a fatal disease just because it’s transmitted by a group of people, and through a practice, that American society disapproved of. As facepalm-worthy as Archer’s speech about eliminating bigotry is, or the mind-melding Vulcan’s spirited defense of allowing for different kinds of intimacy is, or the final cornball dialogue about inspiring people to speak out is, these are all laudable aims, even if they’re executed with all the grace of a Klingon in a tutu.
What adds to the problem of Enterprise’s attempt to do a Very Special Episode is the fact that they include a wacky, comic relief B-story in between the “space minorities are mistreated and it’s wrong!” bloviating done with deadly seriousness. That alone would be a bad move tonally. But what’s odd is that in an episode about treating different forms of love and intimacy with acceptance, the humor of the B-story basically comes from Trip feeling awkward about Dr. Phlox and his wife’s polyamorous relationship.
And yet, I laughed, so I suppose I don’t have a right to complain! I think the best analogy I could use to explain the subplot to people is “What if, in an episode of Frasier, Frasier and Lillith not-so-subtly invited Roz to a threesome.” That’s the bizarre sort of broad comic energy this has. It works though! Connor Trineer in particular does a great job at facial expressions and reactions to make his discomfort at Mrs. Phlox’s come-ons and Dr. Phlox’s encouragement funny. Though it’s worth considering how different this comic setup would feel if it were, say, a male alien continually hectoring Hoshi despite her obvious discomfort with the situation.
Either way, it’s an odd fit for the gravity with which Enterprise treats its A-story. The progression of events is predictable, with T’Pol being reluctant to ask for help, the Vulcans being their usually snooty disdainful selves about the situation, leading to a stand-off between our heroes and their uptight antagonists that ends in big speeches and a preservation of the status quo.
The one interesting wrinkle is this -- T’Pol refuses to disclose the fact that she only contracted this disease because she was attacked to the council that’s passing judgment and recalling her to Vulcan, even though it would (and eventually does) help her avoid that result. She chooses not to tell them because she doesn't want special treatment, or to be the beneficiary of a double standard, simply because she’s not a member the mind-melding minority that the Vulcan establishment so disdains.
There’s something potent there -- a refusal to take privilege when you might otherwise benefit from it, in the name of not reinforcing an unfair system you despise. There’s also some juice to the fact that one of the doctors on that council is a closeted mind-melder, who has to balance his desire to help his kind with his desire not to be shunned by a society that has no tolerance for the way he was born. Again, Enterprise is overly direct and didactic on both of these fronts, but there’s more depth to each of these parts of the stories than the dumbed down “bigotry is bad!” sentiment that otherwise pervades the rest of the episode.
“Stigma” wasn’t made for me, though. It wasn’t meant for people in 2019 who already accept that gay people have a right to live and love as they please, and that America’s response to the AIDS crisis was awful. It was meant to sway the hearts and minds of people in 2003 who might not have seen the issue that way, or thought of it at all, if it weren’t delivered through the lens of some of their favorite science fiction characters. It’s hard to know if an outing this blunt and transparent really swayed people. But however much an episode like “Stigma” fails as storytelling, if changed just one person’s mind, it’s still a social good.
[7.6/10] Lots of good stuff in this one. The main debate gets a little cartoony with the soul-patch douchebag opponent’s desperate gambit. But this is really the first gasps of Jeff and Annie as a pairing, and it’s not hard to see why fans latched onto them, with the sort of uncomfortable but undeniable chemistry between the two of them. I like the idea of Jeff thinking this is stupid and doing it just for a parking spot, then doing it because he actually cares about losing and is more bothered by the prospect of being beaten than he lets on, and then realizing that he’s more affected by Annie than he lets on. The whole “man is good”/”man is evil” thing gets a little silly, but overall, still good.
My favorite subplot, is the one where Abed, as a studier of human character, is basically able to predict the future. It’s a little fourth wall-breaking, as Abed should be, but it’s just chock full of great setups and payoffs, particularly when it comes to Shirley being so freaked out by it and the hints that a professor is a werewolf.
The one real weakspot in this one, as is sadly becoming common, in the Pierce storyline. Him doing a terrible job of being a hypnotherapist for Britta is pretty weak, and the twist that the image of a threesome in his hottub is what dissuades Britta from smoking is a pretty mild payoff.
Overall, a quite good episode that launched a thousand Jeff/Annie ships!
Verdict: Better than Season 4! If not by much. Definitely not good enough to justify the constant self-referential jokes about Season 4 being bad when there's still a lot of episodes that aren't much better than Season 4 (I hate it when shows make jokes about their past seasons without being good seasons themselves so this automatically causes it to lose points). Season 5a was a lot stronger than Season 5b - and I felt like this show lost a LOT when Donald Glover left, and it's going to lose a lot next season with no more Jonathan Banks and John Oliver too. Feels like it's a show that gets worse the more self-indulgent it becomes and it's very much a case of Dan Harmon being caught up in his own hype.
I talked about Pierce and Troy's farewell episodes a few days ago - and they're the high-point of the series I think for me. It handles Troy's farewell brilliantly and manages to get Pierce perfectly even in an episode without Chevy Chase ever actually being there at all, Walton Goggins showing up was hilarious and Troy's send off in a mostly Britta-centric episode worked well and made the best use of a LeVar Burton cameo. Also, this is probably due to the fact that I'm watching this much later after the app-rating parody trend seems to have passed - but App Development and Condiments just felt there to me; other shows have tackled a similiar subject so much better. And there's yet another trap that the show falls into of tackling high-concept episodes - they're fine in their isolation but there's just too many of them and they just feel like once again, the show's doing them just because they can and hasn't really learned anything. They keep repeating concepts without trying something new, and even the season's best episode - Basic Intergluteal Numismatics, which I liked - isn't as good as the Law & Order parody that came before it.
I'm fine with the odd one or two concept episode but they're still really overbearing - the Dungeons & Dragons episode felt a bit too repetitive and just a weaker retread of what had come before; and the G.I. Joe episode just felt like a weaker version of the Christmas animated episode and it felt really hollow as a result (especially given the lazy copout of the It was all a dream ending, which feels like a direct retread of the Season 4 finale). And even given the choice as much as I loved Geothermal Escapism, I'd take the paintball episodes over it. Community used to be a show that was able to balance emotional stuff with the concept episodes and although it does it with Troy's departure, that's probably the only time it manages this season as even Jeff and Britta's on/off marriage proposal/breakup just feels flat and forced like they needed to get two characters together and - yes, they called out on the trope but they didn't do anything with it. Also: Abed realising that he's on a show... didn't work for me, as much as I love Abed's character.
The characters don't feel anywhere near close to what they were in the past especially by the end - in part due to how plot-driven the finale is, there's a few quiet moments but mostly they just feel there to react to the news that there's buried treasure and that's all we get. Most of the time they're all pretty much interchangable now to the point they all feel like shadows of their former selves. Also: Chang just becoming part of the group still feels odd especially given everything that happened in Season 3 - did they really forget about him essentially TRYING TO KILL THEM?, but I did like some of the material that Chang had this season. Even Season 4 had a better ending than Season 5 - at least they actually tried to give Jeff a character arc.
If anything - Season 5 feels like The Rise of Skywalker (although that's not to compare Season 4 to The Last Jedi because I loved TLJ and didn't click with Season 4). It feels very much like a course-correction, over-reactionary, safe and ambitionless when Community previously was daring, risk-taking and always trying out new things. And what's arguably made it worse is that this time it feels self-indulgent and self-righteous (see back to the constant gags about Season 4 being a 'blip'). When I started Season 3 I was worried it would go full Sherlock and jump the shark completely - and it looks like it has done. Now it's just - aside from the odd exception - stale and lifeless. Still: one more season to go! (If I ever do rewatches, unless Season 6 salvages it I'm sticking with Seasons 1-2).
Favourite episodes from the season:
Cooperative Polygraphy
Geothermal Escapism
Basic Intergluteal Numismatics
Stargate did clipshow episodes, a money-saving measure that was an unfortunate necessity for many American television shows at that time. They are never fun to watch. This franchise did at least try to make the episodes as interesting as it could, though. In fact, the Stargate clipshows could sometimes be some of the more important ones for pushing the overall story forward. 'Politics' definitely falls under that description, making it a necessary watch.
Outside of the clips, the episode is actually fantastic. The introduction of Senator Kinsey gives us a really loathsome villain who is a lot of fun to watch, especially with all the verbal sparring that accompanies him. The SGC become ever more desperate as they attempt to defend the Stargate program to a person who has already made up his mind. It's a one-room episode that works really well, and the introduction of more political elements to the show opens things up for some good future conflicts.
But, I just can't excuse the use of all the clips from previous episodes. They are also taken from a number of the more awkward episodes, making them even less appealing. Well, at least we can be thankful that they didn't use anything from 'Hathor', I guess.
