Mini-update to my previous post for the show... It's AMAZING. Watch this NOW!! The show only got better and better (until it sadly ended... for now). This is definitely not your traditional shoujo show. It has a great mix of that light shoujo humor that we all love along with some great animated action and pretty serious moments/feels that parallel some very superb character development. I got so addicted to Akatsuki no Yona that I already read ahead in the manga before the last episode and now I’m just waiting for scantalations (aka suffering). The next parts in the manga after the conclusion of the first season are even better.
This was probably my most surprising anime of the season/s. While the romance isn't full blown, it develops and is hinted at with lots of curves thrown our way. While it's a long ways away, there are just a few moments every few episodes that just make you ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
My best comparison to this would be a more of a romantic shoujo version of Seirei no Moribito with its protecting theme and the bits of fantasy elements and world building developed throughout.
I can't recommend this enough. A very solid 8/10 from me and I have the manga at a 9/10 (I just might be on a Yona high though). I try to recommend it to everyone as it has been criminally underwatched (but it is building a lot of good word of mouth).
I'm pumped for the upcoming OVA. Hopefully, a second season is announced after the OVA comes out. And I need my new scantalations in the manga. Being ~30 chapters behind sucks :(
tl;dr - Watch Akatsuki no Yona. Now.
Mini-update to my previous post for the show... It's AMAZING. Watch this NOW!! The show only got better and better (until it sadly ended... for now). This is definitely not your traditional shoujo show. It has a great mix of that light shoujo humor that we all love along with some great animated action and pretty serious moments/feels that parallel some very superb character development. I got so addicted to Akatsuki no Yona that I already read ahead in the manga before the last episode and now I’m just waiting for scantalations (aka suffering). The next parts in the manga after the conclusion of the first season are even better.
This was probably my most surprising anime of the season/s. While the romance isn't full blown, it develops and is hinted at with lots of curves thrown our way. While it's a long ways away, there are just a few moments every few episodes that just make you ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
My best comparison to this would be a more of a romantic shoujo version of Seirei no Moribito with its protecting theme and the bits of fantasy elements and world building developed throughout.
I can't recommend this enough. A very solid 8/10 from me and I have the manga at a 9/10 (I just might be on a Yona high though). I try to recommend it to everyone as it has been criminally underwatched (but it is building a lot of good word of mouth).
I'm pumped for the upcoming OVA. Hopefully, a second season is announced after the OVA comes out. And I need my new scantalations in the manga. Being ~30 chapters behind sucks :(
tl;dr - Watch Akatsuki no Yona. Now.
Mini-update to my previous post for the show... It's AMAZING. Watch this NOW!! The show only got better and better (until it sadly ended... for now). This is definitely not your traditional shoujo show. It has a great mix of that light shoujo humor that we all love along with some great animated action and pretty serious moments/feels that parallel some very superb character development. I got so addicted to Akatsuki no Yona that I already read ahead in the manga before the last episode and now I’m just waiting for scantalations (aka suffering). The next parts in the manga after the conclusion of the first season are even better.
This was probably my most surprising anime of the season/s. While the romance isn't full blown, it develops and is hinted at with lots of curves thrown our way. While it's a long ways away, there are just a few moments every few episodes that just make you ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
My best comparison to this would be a more of a romantic shoujo version of Seirei no Moribito with its protecting theme and the bits of fantasy elements and world building developed throughout.
I can't recommend this enough. A very solid 8/10 from me and I have the manga at a 9/10 (I just might be on a Yona high though). I try to recommend it to everyone as it has been criminally underwatched (but it is building a lot of good word of mouth).
I'm pumped for the upcoming OVA. Hopefully, a second season is announced after the OVA comes out. And I need my new scantalations in the manga. Being ~30 chapters behind sucks :(
tl;dr - Watch Akatsuki no Yona. Now.
Mini-update to my previous post for the show... It's AMAZING. Watch this NOW!! The show only got better and better (until it sadly ended... for now). This is definitely not your traditional shoujo show. It has a great mix of that light shoujo humor that we all love along with some great animated action and pretty serious moments/feels that parallel some very superb character development. I got so addicted to Akatsuki no Yona that I already read ahead in the manga before the last episode and now I’m just waiting for scantalations (aka suffering). The next parts in the manga after the conclusion of the first season are even better.
This was probably my most surprising anime of the season/s. While the romance isn't full blown, it develops and is hinted at with lots of curves thrown our way. While it's a long ways away, there are just a few moments every few episodes that just make you ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
My best comparison to this would be a more of a romantic shoujo version of Seirei no Moribito with its protecting theme and the bits of fantasy elements and world building developed throughout.
I can't recommend this enough. A very solid 8/10 from me and I have the manga at a 9/10 (I just might be on a Yona high though). I try to recommend it to everyone as it has been criminally underwatched (but it is building a lot of good word of mouth).
I'm pumped for the upcoming OVA. Hopefully, a second season is announced after the OVA comes out. And I need my new scantalations in the manga. Being ~30 chapters behind sucks :(
tl;dr - Watch Akatsuki no Yona. Now.
We're up to episode 7 with Yona of the Dawn (Akatsuki no Yona) and it has been one of the most pleasant surprises for me this season. Yona of the Dawn is being animated by Studio Peirrot and I know that they got a lot of flack for Tokyo Ghoul (among other shows), so I was a bit hesitant to start this. However, so far the pacing has been great and Peirrot has stayed faithful to the manga. The ancient setting is pretty cool and immersive, and later on adds an interesting fantasy element that gives Yona of the Dawn its own unique world. There is also a solid romantic element (and quite a struggle involving it along with many will they/won't they moments), very well-animated action & fighting scenesn (Hak is a beast), drama/feels, and some nice comedic moments spread throughout.
As I said before, the gradual pacing of the show has been great. Because of this well-done pacing, the main characters of Yona, Hak and Soo-Won have gotten great opportunities and scenes to shine, develop and uncover some deeper feelings and emotions that allow us really connect a lot more to their situations and struggles. Yona has been one of the better versions of an estranged princess that I've seen, and Hak has served as an excellent foil to her (while being a complete bad ass and a gentleman and scholar at the same time). Soo-Won has been portrayed as a deeper and more conflicted antagonist so far especially due to his childhood friendships with Yona and Hak. I really hope that they keep him that way instead of going full classic bad guy.
I believe at the moment, Yona of the Dawn is set to be at least 2-cour. I've greatly enjoyed the adventure that Yona and Hak have set out on so far and I'm really excited for the future characters and developments (can't spoil it) to come. Definitely check this show out if you are looking for a new adventure anime with a splash of romance, an ancient setting, a bit of a fantasy element, and plenty of strong characters to bring it all together. Here's hoping that Studio Pierrot doesn't screw this up.
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.
I love October. You can practically hear all of my favorite shows coming back from hiatus.
This was a really good episode. Like, really good. Thankfully, Superman didn't overshadow Supergirl at all. I'd been worried that that might happen - the media had been massively overhyping his appearance on the show before the season started, but he didn't steal Kara's spotlight, for which I'm grateful. Tyler and Melissa work so well together. It was a pleasure to watch their characters interact.
Lena Luthor seems pretty cool. I hope to see more of her soon.
Cat Grant is absolutely fantastic. I love her. What a shame that Calista is no longer a series regular. Kara and Cat's relationship is a delight to watch.
Kara and James didn't even last one episode, which is hilarious. Honestly, I'm glad. Let Kara focus on herself before you put her in a relationship.
We also got yet another British villain, the first glimpse of Project Cadmus and Alex Danvers kicking some bad guy ass (hell yeah!).
After a pretty shaky start and some serious improvement in season 1, Supergirl is now a well-balanced superhero show and also one of my personal favorites. And boy, am I glad that they moved it to the CW. To be honest, I didn't know what to think when I heard the news back in May, but it worked out extremely well. The pacing and the flow of the episode were significantly better than what we'd got used to in season 1. The dialogues were better. The editing was better. The atmosphere was better. Supergirl has always been charming, colorful and fun, and now all these qualities seem to have been amplified somehow. If this episode was any indication of how the rest of the season is going to look like, we're in for a treat. And I couldn't be more excited.
You know who I love? Alex Danvers. Any episode where she gets her own scenes is a good episode in my book. Which is kind of sad, actually - she's a main character after all, arguably the most important one after Kara, and yet practically all of her storylines revolve around her sister. The showrunners promised that we would get to know Alex more this season and see more of her personal life, so I'm waiting for that. And I'm really happy that they acknowledged Alex's problems with Clark because she's right. 12-year-old Kara was willing to take care of baby Kal, but Clark, who was a grown-ass man when her pod landed, immediately dropped his cousin off at the Danvers family's doorstep like a stray puppy. Alex has dedicated her whole life to Kara while Clark has been flying around, showing up once in a blue moon. What's up with that, by the way? It took him like 5 seconds to get from National City to Metropolis. Can't they hang out for dinner every Saturday or something? Why do they see each other so rarely?
It was fun to have Superman on the show. I really liked the way Tyler Hoechlin portrayed him.
Clark and Kara are adorable dorky dorks and I love them.
My favorite scene in this episode was the one where Cat told Kara she was leaving. I genuinely cried. I love Cat Grant and the show won't be the same without her. She'll return at some point, of course, but she'll probably never be a main character again, which sucks. Just like Kara, I don't like change, and I will miss Queen of All Media deeply.
Winn is absolutely hilarious. His reaction to Clark and J'onn arguing was the same as mine. And Star Wars references are always great.
Project Cadmus is super shady. I mean, I already knew that, but damn. They're much better villains than Non.
James is the boss, which is... actually good in my opinion? And it makes sense? Give him his own storylines outside of being Kara's (former) love interest. It'll be good for both of them.
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.
It's funny, before I'd even seen the title of this episode, I said to my wife, "I know it's going to be controversial to portray Carrie's mental illness as a super power." But however good or bad that depiction is, it's one the show has held to since its first season, and I think it worked surprisingly effectively here. As pleasant as it is for someone who's been watching Carrie develop as a character for four seasons, to see her in a place of stability, there is something undeniably compelling about Crazy Carrie, at least in small doses.
And to the point, the show doesn't use Carrie going off her medication as a means for her to solve the major mystery presented at the end of the last episode. Sure, it allows her to figure out that someone used the kidnapping of her boyfriend's son to figure out her location, but it's also shown as a way to remove the protective shielding Carrie's erected around herself to keep her from feeling all the deaths she's been responsible for. It's a little corny, but the image of Carrie sitting within a star made up of the faces of the people she's killed (including, as the episode's direction draws our attention to, a number of women and mothers) is a powerful one.
I must admit, I am something of a sucker for gut punch of a character on television hallucinating the presence of someone close to them who's passed on. House did it to great effect; it's been a reliable arrow in the quiver of The Walking Dead, and shows as varied as Buffy and The Sopranos used figurative (and sometimes literal) ghosts to bring the sins of the past to the fore. Having an innocent like Aayan be the manifestation of Carrie's misdeeds and the lives lost in the process was affecting, and I appreciated the surprise and the way it was used here.
I also liked that they developed Jonas a bit. Thus far he's been a pretty generic studly boyfriend, but it was nice to see him disgusted by Carrie's actions, but also strong enough to go toe-to-toe with her when she was going off the deep end. To the same end, I appreciate that the show did not hold back on showing how ugly and manipulative Carrie could be when she was off of her meds. They didn't sell the bipolar disorder as a magic cure-all, but rather as something with a pretty severe cost, which worked in the context of what we know about Carrie's prior condition.
As for the other storylines in the episode, Saul is pretty scary this year. Mandy Patinkin absolutely sells that Saul is a changed man from when we last saw him before the time jump. Sure, he could certainly be steely, but there was always a warmth behind the strength that came through. Now, despite the reveal that he's sleeping with his subordinate (and was that a baby bump?) he seems so cold, so angry, so harsh with everyone from During to the expelled embassador, that I completely buy him as both the kind of calculating guy who would be orchestrating a coup with Dar Adal and as a much different presence in the series than he's been historically. Patinkin's face tells the story in almost every scene, and it's great stuff.
Hacktivist/Reporter Lady story is still a little eh. As I've said before, it has promise, and I'm especially liking the way the Newman character is being developed, but I'm a little less confident in how the story itself is being developed.
In the same vein as Saul, robotic, chessmaster Quinn is frightening in his own right. The establishing of Jonas's ex wife and son was well done before I realized what was happening (a nice little twist), and he seems so single-minded and coldly effective in everything he does, from kidnapping Jonas's son to connecting with his old flame for equipment. The episode's final scene with his and Carrie's cat and mouse game was incredibly well shot and directed, with a great sense of building tension. The last little bit was a very Dexter-esque end-of-episode tease, but overall, I was incredibly impressed by not only how well each individual story was told and acted in this episode, but how all three were balanced together. One of the best episodes the show has put together since the end of the original Brody storyline.
This was the sort of episode where it felt like a lot of pieces were finally snapping into place. I liked the fact that Allison is having trouble coping with her role as a double agent. She's not just a cold and indifferent spy. She's caught up in something that's put her under a lot of strain and stress and while she seems cool and self-assured in the thick of it, she's having a lot of trouble in private moments. It's solid, character-based take on the hoary mole story that takes advantage of the actress's abilities.
To the same end, I also appreciated Jonas, of all characters, in this episode. He's something the show's desperately lacked for more than a few seasons now -- a regular individual who can look at the world of spooks and spies and remark as to how batshit insane that entire sphere is. It helps ground the show a little, and to put Carrie's transition into civilian life into perspective. He's not my favorite character on the show or anything, but he's a voice of reason to some extent here, in opposition to the take-it-for-granted personalities of everyone in the muck of intelligence gathering on the show, which makes the role he plays in the episode interesting.
I do appreciate that they're shining some light and connecting a number of dots here. Carrie puts together the general nature (if not the specifics or motive) for the people who put a hit on her. We understand the goal of the Russians and it's set up nicely with what we've seen from Saul and his colleagues so far. There's even some legitimate connection between Carrie, Laura, and Numan via the documents, to where it seems like they're legitimately positioning them to come together (as is inevitable) in a way that feel's natural rather than contrived. The disparate threads of the plot are all being tied together nicely so far, and it helps.
The weaker parts of the episode, however, were the hacktivist story and Quinn's wounded duck routine. The hacktivist protest, with Numan's mask and the lowgrade "I am Spartacus" routine just reeked of watered-down attempts at topicality, though having witnessed a couple of Occupy protests, it wasn't necessarily off the mark. It still just feels like this storyline was stapled into Homeland from a different show. The tone is a little off, and while Homeland is not always subtle, there's a bluntness and an all-too-tidy nature to how this plot is depicted that renders the storyline less than pleasing.
In the same vein, Quinn's weak-willed suicide attempt to protect Carrie felt like too much. He loves Carrie; we know that, but I thought this was a bridge too far and not necessarily depicted artfully either. Plus, I have no idea where they're going with the religious guy following him around. I suppose I should withold judgment.
Those griefs aside, I appreciated how this episode put an interesting spin on some spy cliches, like the troubled mole or the concerned civilian, and how it's started assembling the plot and bringing disparate elements together in a way that both makes sense and is intriguing.
I like the idea of this episode--slowing down a bit and telling the story of how Allison got involved with the Russians in the first place--but the execution was pretty clumsy.
I don't mind the flashback interspersed with developments in the present structure, but it is a bit played out and they made it really obvious when scenes from the past were meant to inform the present. For instance, Carrie telling Numan to google "Banana Joe's in St. Lucia" after seeing the guy's screensaver was more than enough to let us know that she'd put two-and-two together without needing to cut back to the scenes where Allison mentioned St. Lucia.
The story itself was a bit too paint by the numbers. Spy gets frustrated and wants to escape, skirts the rules, gets caught and turned is pretty standard stuff, and it's not as though there was some specific twist on it here than made Allison's journey through it more interesting. The dialogue didn't help either. Both the actress who plays Allison and Claire Daines haven proven themselves to be superb actresses in the show so far, but their exchanges in the flashbacks were awkwardly worded and pretty stilted. What could have been an interesting dive into Allison's psyche and what brought her to where she's willing to play turncoat became more of the facile backstory type bit that wouldn't feel out of place on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
The other big stories are puttering along. I'm still not a fan of the Quinn story the show's embarked on in the second half of the season. Him becoming the pirate king was suspect to begin with, and again, it feels a little too convenient that he just happens to fall into the gang of terrorists who are planning to unleash a dirty bomb of some sort on Berlin. If too much of your story relies on coincidence, and the reasons for getting all your major players in one place are a bit contrived, it's hard to buy in.
Saul's story continues to be a highlight. I've always enjoyed the backroom dealing and horse trading sides of espionage that the show occasionally traffics in, and there's enough twists and turns in his story to make it interesting. I assume Etai is lying to Saul or at least not telling all that he knows (collaborating with the Russians?) so I'm curious to see where it goes.
Similarly, there continues to be more to During than meets the eye, but I can't for the life of me figure out what his game is. Maybe he's trying to embarrass the intelligence community writ large? Sleep with Carrie? Both? Who knows.
But overall, this was a weaker episode that had the right idea in deepening Allison's character and making us care about her journey, but couldn't really get the execution right to make it actually happen.
Certainly one of the most taut thrillers of an episode the show has done this season. Giving the episode a more singular focus, the hunt for Allison, not only allowed the episode to feel more direct and powerful, but it led to the smaller details around that main story feeling more salient as well.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the acting on this show is what has kept it worthwhile even as the storytelling has been more uneven from season-to-season and even episode-to-episode. The quiver of Carrie's lower lip as she looks at Saul for the first time since he told her off before he embraces her, the light in Saul's eyes when he tells Alison "I was asleep for ten years. You woke me up," the subtle pain and mild regret in Alison's eyes when she hears those words, was all masterful and added personal stakes to the larger spycraft story being told. The actress who played Alison did a particularly good job here, communicating her characters steely grace, fear, and determination in equal measure.
But the direction and cinematography deserve serious kudos as well. There were several images of the same person duplicated in multiple frames in this episode -- Alison on multiple surveillance screens, Quinn being videotaped by the terror cell, his soft-hearted would-be savior walking into his own reflection in a room full of reflective glass. The easy read of this motif is the multiple sides to these individuals, the way that Alison is a double agent, that Quinn cycles through identities, that the man who sympathizes with Quinn is both a terrorist but also a human being with empathy. But at base, it reflects the idea that there are multiple sides to these individuals.
And the way the episode's director put together the scenes of Allison's attempted escape and capture were superb at conveying the tension and pressure of the moment. Surveillance has been a recurring visual theme in this show, people's most personal moments watched through a digital frame, and it worked well here. But even when the show switched to steadicam and showed Alison weaving through the Berlin train station, it conveyed her sense of panic, of how tenuous Saul and Carrie and the Germans' hold on her was. It's one of the series' stand out sequences, and the (momentary) payoff to this season's game of cat and mouse was a satisfying one.
Unfortunately, Quinn's storyline was something of a drag. His plotline has been the weakest on the show since he all-too-conveniently found his way into a terror cell planning an attack on Berlin. The idea of the terrorist who has second thoughts about what he's planning and who is both humanized and sees the humanity in the people he's fighting against is a legitimate story beat, but it's also a bit of an easy one,, and there's not much of a distinctive take or twist to it here. Chekhov's sarin antedote injenction was a predictable turn in the story, and the entire enterprise feels like something to keep Quinn busy until it's time for him to rejoin the main plot of the season.
But still, the effort to trap Alison, the personal moments between Carrie and Saul, and the bits of spycraft we witnessed in both efforts, elevated this episode to being one of the best of the season so far. Alison's attempt to spin the events with Ivan as her asset is an interesting story direction, and while I have no doubt that Quinn will survive, there's still lots of intrigue going into the final three episodes of the season.
Another very solid episode from this season. I appreciated the twist that even if Dar doesn't buy Allison's story, he is--as he is wont to be--concerned about the political fallout if they were to reveal that the CIA had been duped by the SVR for 12 years and so he tries to maintain the status quo. But at the same time, I appreciated that Saul was clearly so betrayed by what had happened that he couldn't play along, if he was even trying to. Allison is playing this perfectly, and it's an interesting direction.
The other strongest element of the episode was the bonding between Carrie and Astrid. Nobody does a cryface like Claire Danes, but there's a dry steadiness to Astrid to where the clear hurt on her face after she found out about Quinn conveyed just as much as Carrie's tears did. The actress who plays Astrid is always a strong (and often funny) presence on the show, and I'd like to see her get more to do.
On the other hand, the pair's ability to find Quinn based on the floor tile pattern in the video was a little convenient, but they at least laid the groundwork with some CSI-esque technobabble to try to make it plausible that the BND and CIA could narrow down the possibilities enough for Carrie and Astrid to track him down. And the scene where they realize he's alive was a joyous one, even though it was inevitable--again, thanks to the great acting from the actresses who portray Carrie and Astrid.
I was less moved by the story involving the terrorists. Sure, there was tension in the scenes where Bibi discovers that someone helped Quinn, and Qasim is sweating bullets. But Qasim's the only character here who has more than one-note to him. Maybe the show is trying to develop Bibi a bit, but in the mean time, the whole crew just seems like the plot brigade boys, only there to introduce the season's big terror threat without much development.
And at the same time, I got a bit tired of the debate between During, Jonas, and Laura over what to do with the falsely accused electronics store owner who may have information about the attack. The debate itself is kind of facile, and none of these people are in the category of the show's most interesting characters. The intelligence agency (CIA? BND? SVR?) picking him up after Otto tries to bargain for his protection was a semi-interesting way to go with it, but still, meh. In my continuing speculation as to Otto, I'm now wondering if he specifically tipped someone else off to get the electronics store owner taken in away from Saul, but I'm sure we'll get the reveal of Otto's larger game plan somewhere down the line.
Otherwise, I appreciate the focus that an impending terror attack with Peter Quinn as the poster boy gave the episode, to where everything else could revolve around that plot point. It wasn't as strong an hour as some in this season, but it still did a good bit to advance the ball as to the larger season arc, and to give us some insight into the major characters and where they are after all that has happened. That makes it an above average entry in Season 5.
8.5/10. There was what seemed to be a recurring theme in this episode, and it was an interesting one - whether a personal cost is worth the greater good.
It started with Allison, asked to weigh the lives of all those individuals who would be hurt or killed by a terrorist attack in Berlin, with her own personal freedom and financial security. She obviously chooses the latter, but it's an interesting position to put the character in. It's arguable whether she had crossed the moral event horizon so far. Sure, she'd played the CIA for suckers to the Russians after being caught in a similar position, but there's a certain "it's all in the game" quality to the double-crosses among spooks. And yet there's something about shooting an innocent person, one who believes she's been framed, in order to save her own skin and ensure a terrorist plot goes forward that feels unforgivable.
Allison has been one of the most interesting and compelling additions to the show this season, and much of that is due to the actress, who tells so much of the character's story with her expressions, and who has the perfect "I'm faking, not acting" tone when she talks to Saul after the attack.
Mandy Patinkin as Saul is another actor who brings his A-game every episode. In his story, the question is whether the possibility of preventing a terrorist attack justifies harassing an innocent person who may know something about it. When that man commits suicide, the fact that Ingrid (who is also great) just keeps rolling, and Saul has to stop to process and tap out for a moment is a quiet commentary on that idea. Saul is an old hand. He's been through this sort of thing before, but the bodies keep piling up, and even he can't help but feel like he's had enough when his hard-nosed (if softer than the Germans') interrogation leads a man to take his own life.
And then there's he and Carrie risking Quinn's life in the hopes that it will prevent the same attack. Again, there's the same issue of balancing a single life to potentially save dozens, if not hundreds more. It's heartbreaking to see Carrie clearly conflicted, using her genuine feelings for Quinn to try to bring him back to consciousness, but then aghast at herself when he provides nothing useful and seems worse for wear. The fact that they're playing in the space between Carrie the spy devoted to stopping terror at any cost, and Carrie the human being who feels a connection to this poor man who's spent most of the season in some state of being near death's door is interesting moral territory.
Even Laura Sutton, likely my least favorite recurring character this season, has an intriguing storyline where she puts her own safety and security and job on the line for what she believes is the greater good. When she threatens to release the hacked documents until she's given access to the man being held by German Intelligence, it seems far nobler than her general browbeating of the intelligence apparatus to Carrie or During or whomever, not just because it's for one man, but because she sees it as for every man, as her standing up for common citizens everywhere, and every time that a government decides it can suspend people's rights because of an imminent threat. It may seem misguided, at least to me (who knows how many lives will be lost if those documents are released -- though Lockhart handing over documents to terrorists didn't seem to have too much collateral damage last season), but there's at least something that feels self-sacrificing about it.
And then there's Qassim, who starts to question whether the larger goal of driving the West out of his homeland is worth the smaller, but still very significant loss of life -- from the woman in a hijab to a father and daughter -- that the attack would inflict. Again, there's a personal cost to these innocent people that Qassim cannot shake, even in the face of his larger goals, goals that seem all the more hollow when Professor Aziz is an atheist who is disdainful of the country that took him in.
Of course, in the background of all this high-fallutin' thematic material, there is the veritable ticking time bomb of an impending terrorist attack that gives the episode a sense of urgency through it all. We see Carrie at her best once more, running down leads and talking her way through corrupt Hezbollah leaders, good Samaritan doctors, and even strangers on the subway to try to save the day. There's an excitement, a build to all of this that feels very earned and well-realized after the progression of the season as a whole. Let's see if Homeland can close it out at as high a level as the show has been able to maintain so far.
Something like this comment was originally a reply to @Pedro, but I thought I'd put it here.
This show starts a little slow. It does that thing where the first few episodes are your typical boring cop procedural to show the network they know how to paint by numbers. Then it picks up.
It starts actually exploring the morals of mass surveillance, and (minor spoilers) it turns out the Machine is an AI, and they deal with all the interesting ramifications of living in a world secretly run by a benevolent(?) AI. One of the nice aspects of this show is the only fictional element of the Machine is software. Makes for a very grounded science fiction.
The characters start to deal with total corruption of the police system and attempt to take it down, meanwhile learning and redeeming themselves from their dubious past.
They also deal with taking down organised crime, and what to do when someone tries to consolidate power within the families, even though the new boss is less violent.
They get caught up in vast government conspiracies waging massive secret intelligence wars, and must stop innocent people from getting killed while remaining hidden from powerful people.
Heartbreak, romance, homoerotic sexual tension, SciFi, shooting people, explosions!
They stop making another cop show and start making some really compelling television.
6.3/10. I thought that Quinn was dead. In some ways, I was hoping he was, not because I dislike the character, who quickly became one of the show’s best, but because I thought it fit with the themes of Season 5. This type of life is difficult, both to live through and to escape. It forces people like Carrie, Quinn, and Saul to make hard choices, to perhaps even have to kill people they love. Saul had to kill Allison, a woman he cared about but was deceived and betrayed by, for the greater good. And it seemed like Carrie had to make a parallel choice, to kill Quinn, a man whom she, in her own fractured Carrie ways, loves, because she believes it’s a mercy when the alternatives are a difficult life he faces caused by her own choices.
The major theme of Season 5 was the quest for a normal life and whether it’s possible after all these people have seen. Including a major casualty in these events, let alone one caused by the show’s protagonists, seemed to drive home the costs of being in this world.
But Quinn, as you know if you’ve watched this episode or any Season 6 promotional material, is alive. And as I rewatched the end of the Season 5 finale, the intentions of that last scene were more ambiguous than I’d recalled. Carrie still seems poised to end Quinn’s life rather than face the difficult and uncertain road to recovery, but then there is that flash of light – the titular “Glimmer,” that seems to symbolize the possibility of a life apart from all of this misery and mayhem – and she pauses.
There is that same glimmer present in “Fair Game,” when Quinn is sitting in some drug den, looking squirrely, disheveled, and thoroughly not himself. He writes it off a glimpse of another life, a sign that he views himself as a lost cause. And after some reflection, I think the move works as a narrative choice, that it turns the final scene from an (admittedly compelling) symbol of the darkness that comes with this career choice, to a symbol of hope, that no matter how deep in you are, it’s worth the strain and struggle to get your head clear and your feet on the ground again.
The problem then becomes how Homeland depicts that path back to normalcy for Quinn and for Carrie. The idea of a guilt-ridden Carrie checking in on a resistant Quinn every day in the hospital gives us a cliché “let me go” story thread. Claire Danes and Rupert Friend are superior actors who can elevate the material, but it doesn’t make the setup any less tired. What’s frustrating is that there’s potential there. In my write up for the Season 5 finale, I compared Carrie to Tony Soprano, with the idea that both shows depict their protagonists as tainting the things they touch to some degree. The idea that what Quinn needs to recover is to be away from Carrie, and that Carrie’s guilt over being a cause, if not the cause, of his current condition prevents her from being able to do that, to Quinn’s detriment, is an interesting one.
But the depiction of Quinn’s downward spiral is hokey as all get out, with this damaged individual going full Riley Finn/Trainspotting to signify the depths of his despair and his hopelessness. Again, Friend is a great actor and makes these scenes work better than they have any right to, but it’s all just well-worn shorthand for rock bottom that doesn’t feel as real or pathos-ridden as it ought to. By the same token, Carrie and Quinn going full Odd Couple (with a side of Bubs from The Wire) has some mild potential given the themes in play, but comes off as more of a conceit to keep them around one another than a natural story development.
But that’s part of what a season premiere, especially for a show like Homeland, has to do – establish the plots and the premise of the upcoming season, even if it has to contort itself a bit to set everything up. We can see that in Saul and Dar Adal’s storyline, where the President Elect seems skeptical of the CIA’s “lethal programs” and proposes pulling out, or at least severely scaling back America’s military efforts in the Middle East and elsewhere. Dar Adal ascribes it to the President Elect having lost her son in Iraq, something she apparently would not discuss publicly and, if the closing scene where she lingered on a locket is any indication, it’s a good guess.
Saul is bullish on the President-To-Be though, wagering that she’s right where it counts and persuadable on the margins, while Dar is a “paranoid fuck” who’s chatting with others in the intelligence committee—without Saul—and presumably deciding how to continue on the same path regardless of the President. We only get the first wisps of this storyline in “Fair Game,” but the promise of a conflict between the President and the intelligence community (something that could only happen in fiction, clearly) with Dar on one side and Saul on the other portends intriguing things.
But it’s the other major storyline introduced in “Fair Game” that holds the most promise, or at least potential. Sekou Bah is a young American Muslim who is painted as a terrorist by the generic special agent who takes him in, but is, through the scenes where we’re introduced to him prior to his arrest, presented as a young man who clearly sympathizes with terrorist actions and is devout, but who is also principled, who believes in a seemingly justified different perspective, and who knows and appreciates his rights in this country.
It’s bold territory to not only present but to humanize a young Islamic kid who praises the actions of terrorists. While Qassim, the terrorist with the heart of gold from Season 5 felt like something out of a generic action movie, Sekou feels far more real, far more three-dimensional already, and, true to the spirit of Homeland, far more relevant to the current issues the country is facing at the intersection of radicalization and xenophobia. Again, this is Homeland, so there’s plenty of ways for this to go off the rails (and please, for the love of god, don’t have Carrie sleep with him), but it’s a promising start.
But “Fair Game” spends so much time on the poorly executed Carrie/Quinn business – Quinn’s unfortunate jaunt, Carrie acting as a civil rights lawyer(?) for people targeted by the CIA/FBI, and other “Hey! We’re in New York now!” moments that it drags the whole thing down. There’s a lot of dull setup that even the consistently good acting on the show can’t overcome.
If the theme of Season 5 was the cost of trying to get a normal life back, the theme for Season 6 appears to be the cost of trying to go it alone. Otto tells Carrie that she cannot make it as a loner (which feels like groundwork for she and Quinn getting together); Saul and maybe the President Elect are being isolated by the rest of the intelligence apparatus, and Sekou finds himself separated from his family, his home, and his life. “Fair Game” isn’t a great start, but like most of Homeland’s premiere, at least offers the possibility of interesting things to come, even if it presents them in a fairly uninteresting way. Let’s hope it can make good on that promise.
[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.
While I walked in the theater I expected a good movie. Because I liked the concept of the story as it was set-up in the trailer. But mostly because I 'trusted' Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman to pick a good movie to play in. While I walked out the theater I had different thoughts unfortunately. The film was disappointing to me and I will try to explain why. It wasn't the acting and 'world building' but I disliked the directing, screenplay and filming.
First of the directing and filming, all of the action scenes where flooded with shaky cam. This was handled very badly in my opinion. I couldn't figure out what was happening most of the time. Due to the shaky cam, number of cuts, close-ups and the peace of all that. That was the main reason why I disliked 'Safe House', which is also made by Daniel Espinosa. It almost felt like he was trying the make the filming and directing 'not perfectly on purpose' to make it 'real' but it didn't worked out at all! It all felt kinda clumsy and there were way to many meaningless shots overall. There were some exceptions, some shots of the cities and area's they visited where beautifully. They really landed the rough and dark tone that they successfully tried the show. Although they over did it sometimes.
Then the screenplay or script, which is based on a 'best selling novel', again! First of you get a nice back story of Tom Hardy's main character, which felt real to me. All of the other characters felt a bit empty, like they were there to fill a place that was written for them. That made it almost impossible for my to understand the characters and the decisions they make. I also missed the whole balance in the story. The first part was way to long ( set-up ), the middle was rush ( plot kicks in ) and the final party ( ending ) was also rushed and kinda unbelievable. I think because of this I wasn't sucked in to the story. The second and third party felt way to easy and straight forward. Like solving a child murder case which is spread over thousand of miles is easy. I think the story could be told in a better and more interesting way.
Overall I was disappointed by Child 44. The dark Russia after WWII was displayed intense but the story lagged suspension and balance. The action scenes sucked even more than the conversations because of the directing and filming methods they just. Tom Hardy did is part good but not brilliant and unfortunately Gary Oldman's characters was barely in it. I give Child 44 an 5 aka 'Meh'! Thanks for reading!
[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.
6.5/10. There's a few times when I know a subject and feel like Oliver & Co. are giving the other side the short shrift, but there's also episodes like this, where I know very little about dialysis but something feels off. Little details like treating settlements as admissions of wrongdoing (90+% of cases settle) and taking individual testimonials rather than pointing to survey data or broader figures makes this feel like bending things to make a point rather than making a fair assessment. And what's particularly frustrating is that I completely believe there are problems in the commercial dialysis industry, but contrary to the show's usual M.O., Oliver doesn't really offer a solution or a proposal to how it could be improved. He just concludes with a meh riff on Taco Bell and encouragement to donate your organs after you die which, hey, I am totally on board with, but doesn't feel like a real policy answer to the problem identified.
The top of the show was just okay as well. Again, sometimes Trump is hard to make fun of because the stuff he does is so ludicrous in and of itself, but this was another instance of Oliver offering pretty much the same take as other late night commentators. His gags about New Zealand's leader were amusing enough, but as John himself pointed out, it's not like they haven't done this sort of thing before already, and the terrible pizzas was kind of an easy gag.
Overall, I'm glad to see the show doing a main story on a little-known issue again, but this didn't feel like as fulsome or fair a look at the problem as I've come to expect from LWT.
[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.
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.
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).
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.
