Paul Levinson's Blog: Levinson at Large, page 39

Star Trek: Picard 3.2: Picard's Son

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

We found out at the end of Picard 3.1 that Beverly Crusher has a son in addition to Wesley.  And we find out at the end of Picard 3.2 that Jack Crusher's father is Picard.  That's a nice, game-changing development, and amply explains why we didn't know of Jack in previous Star Treks.

The other nice touch in 3.2 is seeing Worf.  Unfortunately, we see little more than seeing him.  But that's at least an intro to learning much more about where he's been and what he's been doing over these many years.

Otherwise, I have to say that this second episode was somewhat pro-forma and not exactly bursting with original scenes and stories.  At this point, the most interesting new character is Captain Liam Shaw, well played by Todd Stashwick.  It's fun seeing someone in command so unimpressed by Picard and Riker.  And it's entirely understandable, given that he's not privy to a lot of what we saw in Star Trek: TNG.

But, more seriously, I said last year* that I was enjoying Strange New Worlds much more than Picard, which was surprising, given how much I loved Star Trek: TNG.  And so far, though I very much enjoyed the first episode of Picard Season 3, the second episode alreadys seem to be suffering from the same ennui.  Seeing our favorite characters back in older action is great, for sure.  But I'm still waiting for a story as riveting as Strange New Worlds, and the original Next Generation.

*

See also Picard 3.1: Crusher's Son

And see also Picard Season 2 Finale: Resolves and New Vistas ...  Picard 2.9: Cooperation!  ... Picard 2.8: Borg, Q, Soong, FBI ... Picard 2.7: The Bread Was Tastier than the Meat ...  Picard 2.6: Borg and Soong .. Picard 2.5: Don't Walk Away Renee ... Picard 2.4: 2024 LA ... Picard 2.3: Agnes, Borg, Badge ... Picard 2.2: Q and Borg ...  Star Trek: Picard 2.1: Cameos and Time Travel ...  Star Trek: Picard (Season One): Non-Pareil 

                                                        a little time travel story -- free

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Your Honor 2.7: Satisfying and Powerful, Almost a Finale

Your Honor 2.7 was so good, so satisfying, so complete, it almost could have been a finale.  But I'm glad it wasn't, because I want to see more.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Probably the single biggest shocker is that Mayor Charlie is such a bad guy.  He was working with the dirty cops, and had them kill Robin because her investigation was getting too close. Or maybe did nothing when they killed her, because he had been working with then, which is almost as bad.  His good friend's wife.  Hard to believe, but New Orleans is not only a dirty city with dirty cops but a crooked Mayor.  Maybe not so hard to believe.  New York City, where I live and work, had one in the late 1990s.  I don't know if he was crooked then -- he certainly supported cops who attacked innocent people -- and then he went on to help inspire an attack on the US Capitol in 2021.

But I don't want to get too distracted in this review by real life, which I guess can often be worse than fiction.  Life is pretty bad for Michael Desiato, who lost his wife and then his son.  We see him crying at the end of this episode, and he has ever reason to cry.  I'm glad he has a grandson and a de facto daughter-in-law to comfort him.

Other important things happened in 2.7.  Somehow Eugene wasn't killed by that dirty cop's shot.  And he manages to survive in the hospital.  And Big Mama's people are finally beginning to realize that they're not going to have lives that are anyplace close to safe and secure, working under her.

What remains to be seen is how the Baxters play out in all of this.  Will they give up their attempt to kill Eugene?  If they find out that the Mayor was at least indirectly responsible for their son's death, will they let that pass?  I doubt it.  And I'm very much looking forward to the next three episodes.

See also Your Honor 2.1: Scorching ... 2.2-2.3: Who Knows What? ... 2.4-2.5: The Mayor and More ... 2.6: Pent-Up Angers

And see also Your Honor 1.1: Taut Set-Up ... Your Honor 1.2: "Today Is Yesterday" ... Your Honor 1.3: The Weak Link ... Your Honor 1.4: The Dinner ... Your Honor 1.5: The Vice Tightens ... Your Honor 1.6: Exquisite Chess Game ...Your Honor 1.7: Cranston and Stuhlbarg Approaching Pacino and De Niro ... Your Honor 1.8: Nothing More Important ... Your Honor 1.9: Screeching Up to the Last Stop Before Next Week's Finale ... Your Honor 1.10: Final Irony

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The Ark 1.4: Hallucinations

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

Well, I guessed early on that the source of the hallucinations in The Ark 1.4 was the water from the comet -- the giveaway was in the everybody drinking up (or down) the new abundance of water drained from the comet -- but that guess didn't stop me from enjoying this rollickingly good episode.

In which we learned a bunch of things, in which most importantly not only is Garnet not the (or even a) killer, but she's a twin, which means the video that shows her slitting the guy's throat was not a deep space fake, it was a video of her twin sister.

Also, we learn about Garnet that she has some improved DNA which makes her especially fit to lead the ship, though that may not be exactly what the DNA was intended for.  We also learn about whom various other people on the crew have special affections for, and that both deepens these characters and gives us foundations to understand their future actions.

Strickland had a bigger role than usual, and that was welcome, as he's become one of my favorite characters.  Someone who's not bound to any code but his or her own is good for the ship, if that code seems logical and moral, which Strickland's apparently is.

But let's look at the very ending.  The Ark seems to make a habit of revealing very crucial and dangerous things in the very last scene, a time-honored but still very effective way of telling a story in a television series. This time the reveal is that the calamity that befell the ship might have been the result of an attack by a non-human intelligence out there in the depths of space.  So by this forth episode, the lethal danger facing the ship has ratcheted up from an asteroid to aliens -- though, come to think of it, the attack could have come from humans after all, maybe time-traveling humans from the future.

Whatever it is, bring it on.  I can't wait to see more, and I'll see you back here next week with my next review.

See also The Ark 1.1: Worth Watching ... 1.2: Why I'M Enjoying It ... 1.3: Asteroid and Comet

here's what happened to the first starship to Proxima Centauri

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The Last of Us 1.6: Joel

[Big spoilers ahead ... ]

Well, I should have known when Tess was killed so early in the season of The Last of Us -- played by no less than Anna Torv -- that anyone and everyone was expendable in this superb narrative.  (As I said in my review of the first episode, I haven't played the game and know nothing of its story.)

But I didn't expect that Joel would go, and certainly not in the way that he did.  The scene with him and his brother Tommy convinced me that Tommy would escort Ellie, Joel would stay behind in Jackson with the Christmas lights and the movies, and we'd see him again sooner or later in the story.  In fact, I thought his change of mind was not quite believable, at least not to me.

I have a principle regarding life and death on the screen, which I usually mention as soon as a major character is killed.  The principle is: if the head isn't severed or blown to bits, there's a chance the character survived.  I guess I saw too many characters on 24 come back to life, i.e., not really killed.

So although we didn't see Joel in the coming attractions, I'm holding out hope.  I assume he was killed in the game.  But even if he was, that doesn't mean he was killed in the TV adaptation.  Adaptations are by definition not the same as the original.

In any case, The Last of Us continues to be one masterpiece of a series.  I said earlier that it's become my favorite post-biological apocalyptic series, and that only becomes more so with every episode.

See also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun ... 1.5: Tunnels

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Your Honor 2.6: Pent-Up Angers

Your Honor 2.6 continued on its powerful pace with an investigation of Robin's (Michael's wife's) murder and a shocker of an ending not directly connected to Robin which I'm not going to tell you about, in case you haven't seen it.

And I'm not going to say "spoilers ahead" because if you thought for a moment that Michael killed his wife, you aren't worth warning.  Of course he didn't.  Whatever problems Michael and Robin had, he's no murderer.  The guilt he felt in Season One about Rocco's murder of the guy in prison, whom Michael set up to protect his son, is ample evidence of Michael's decency.

It was good to see Michael and Elizabeth join forces to find out who did kill Robin, starting with Elizabeth's declaration that she originally thought maybe Michael did kill her daughter, but came to realize he could never do that.  Their eventual discovery of who did kill Robin is not surprising at all, given the current state of those public servants' service in this country.

In addition to Robin's killing in the past, there are two other violent encounters which may or may not be murders.  One is the shocker at the end, which I said I wasn't going to tell you about.  The other is Jimmy hauling off on Frankie.   Which, frankly, is completely understandable, and I'm even not sorry to see.

If you think about it, Frankie is always offering advice, but has been pretty much useless in protecting the Baxter family, most especially Rocco, who could have been killed by Eugene's bullet last season had not Adam been in the way.  Jimmy must be plenty angry at his wife, but he's not going to hit her.  He has to take it out on someone, however.   If Frankie survived that pummeling, maybe he'll learn to do better and talk less.

Your Honor as a series can't do much better, because it's already top of the line, and I'll see you back here next week with my next review.

See also Your Honor 2.1: Scorching ... 2.2-2.3: Who Knows What? ... 2.4-2.5: The Mayor and More

And see also Your Honor 1.1: Taut Set-Up ... Your Honor 1.2: "Today Is Yesterday" ... Your Honor 1.3: The Weak Link ... Your Honor 1.4: The Dinner ... Your Honor 1.5: The Vice Tightens ... Your Honor 1.6: Exquisite Chess Game ...Your Honor 1.7: Cranston and Stuhlbarg Approaching Pacino and De Niro ... Your Honor 1.8: Nothing More Important ... Your Honor 1.9: Screeching Up to the Last Stop Before Next Week's Finale ... Your Honor 1.10: Final Irony

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The Ark 1.3: Asteroid and Comet

Well, as I've been expecting and been told, The Ark keeps getter better and better with every episode.

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

The main event in episode 1.3 is what to do about the next-to-no water left on the ship, usurped by an even more deadly danger, an asteroid hurtling towards the ship, which will reach and demolish the ship in hours.   The resolution of this dilemma upon dilemma is one sweet piece of science fiction at its best: Alicia sees the asteroid has a tail, which means it's a comet not an asteroid, which means it's made of water.  Which means that, if The Ark can fly a shuttle near the comet and match its speed -- increasing its speed is not so hard, given that the The Ark is in deep space with no atmospheric resistance -- The Ark can siphon off some of the comet's water, and refill The Ark's nearly empty tank.

Which it does, after some defiantly heroic maneuvers by Brice.  So, Coleridge's "water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink," is surmounted and countermanded by the ingenuity of the crew, now working mostly together.

But, of course, this is not the end of this fine episode.  Before the credits roll, we learn that Garnet has a violent streak.  We already know that she's not averse to using physical force to get her orders obeyed.  But now we learn that she can slit someone's neck if she sees herself in any physical danger. 

The overall message: not everyone is what they seem to be on this crew.  The people who survived the catastrophe are not only survivors, but have histories that we don't know about.  A welcome element in a new series.

See also The Ark 1.1: Worth Watching ... 1.2: Why I'M Enjoying It

here's what happened to the first starship to Proxima Centauri

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Star Trek: Picard 3.1: Crusher's Son

Good to see Star Trek: Picard back with the beginning of its third (and final) season on Paramount Plus yesterday.  All kinds of fun things in this first episode, including Riker back with some great repartee.  But my favorite moment came at the very end, when--

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

We learn that the character played by Ed Speleers is Beverly Crusher's son.  This is very significant for one big reason:  He's not being played by Wil Wheaton, who of course played Wesley Crusher in the original TNG.  We don't hear the first name of the Speleers character, but IMDb says its Jack Crusher.

Speelers, by the way, is an excellent actor.  He played a sinister villain, Bennett, in Outlander.  And he checked in with a fine performance as another villain at the end of the first part of You, Season 4. (One of his specialities seems to be coming in at the end of an episode.)  But the question is: why didn't Picard bring back Wesley, played by Wheaton?

Well, he did appear briefly at the end of Picard, Season 2, as a Traveler, and I guess if this Traveler had been able to help Beverly out of her predicament in 3.1, he would have done so, making Picard's emergency visit, the motivation for this whole new season, unnecessary.  But there's no reason Wesley can't appear later in this season, and I hope he does.

Meanwhile, it will be wonderful to see how and when the original cast will be reassembled.  Good job so far by Terry Matalas

See also Picard Season 2 Finale: Resolves and New Vistas ...  Picard 2.9: Cooperation!  ... Picard 2.8: Borg, Q, Soong, FBI ... Picard 2.7: The Bread Was Tastier than the Meat ...  Picard 2.6: Borg and Soong .. Picard 2.5: Don't Walk Away Renee ... Picard 2.4: 2024 LA ... Picard 2.3: Agnes, Borg, Badge ... Picard 2.2: Q and Borg ...  Star Trek: Picard 2.1: Cameos and Time Travel ...  Star Trek: Picard (Season One): Non-Pareil 

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You 4.1.-4.5: So Far, Less than the Previous Seasons

So, I watched the first five episodes of the 4th season of You -- Netflix's new way of breaking the streaming of a series season into two parts, as they did with the final season of the superb Ozark earlier this year -- and well .... 

I thought this first part of the fourth season of You was ok at best, even lackluster in comparison to the earlier seasons, which were whip sharp and exciting.

Joe's in England, now masquerading as a literature professor, which of course he's very good at, given his past experiences in bookstores and libraries, and his easy way with speech.  He's trying to stay out of trouble, and resist getting involved with a woman he sees in the window, ala Hitchcock and lots of other stories.  Of course, he cannot resist her, and the only surprise in that is that it took so long.

[Some big spoilers ahead...]

Of much greater interest, and what could be the saving grace of this season in its second part, is Joe finding a dead body in what looks like an attempt to frame him for the murder.   Further, he finds a wall with all sorts of news clippings that relate to his escapades in previous seasons.   His wrongly guessing as to who could be this new culprit is mostly tedious.  Until ...

We get to the single best part of these first five episodes, when this nemesis is revealed as Rhys, played by Ed Speleers, who did a top-notch villainous job as Stephen Bonnet in Outlander.  So now at last we have a strong, charismatic, potentially lethal opponent for Joe:   Rhys (Ed Speleers) vs. Joe (Penn Badgley).  That's a fight I want to see.

I'm also looking for a little more development of Joe and his possible new true love Kate (Charlotte Ritchie).  As of the first five episodes, their relationship is short of what we saw of Joe and his previous incandescent relationships and their complexities in the previous seasons.

See also:  You: Review from an Unconflicted Fan ... You 2: Killer Charm ... Spoiler-Free Review for You 3

 
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The Ark 1.2: Why I'm Enjoying It

Checking in with a late review of The Ark 1.2, which was on the SyFy Channel last Wednesday.

And here's what I think: I know a lot of the character interactions are close to sophomoric.  But there's still something I like about this series.  Actually, at least two or even three things, and they're important.

1. There's a freshness about this series.   Although the acting is sometimes not the greatest (but see #3 below), the ambience is realistic.  Maybe that's because the situation is real -- an interstellar cryogenic voyage disrupted before the destination is reached, putting everyone in imminent danger.  Maybe it's because I don't think I've seen any of the actors before, so they seem like real people.  But I find myself believing what I'm seeing on the screen.

2. The imminent dangers may be all or mostly created by either some person or group attempting to sabotage the mission, or the incompetence of some of the crew.  Both of those sources of peril are also realistic, as well as being fun to watch.

3. And some of the acting is very good.  I'm thinking of Garnet (Christie Burke), thrust into the leadership, now reluctantly but effectively in charge.  Also, Brice (Richard Fleeshman) and even Medford (Ryan Adams) are putting in strong, i.e., believable, performances so far.

So count me in as a fan.  I'm glad The Ark is up on the air.  The third and final season of Star Trek: Picard debuts on Paramount Plus this Thursday.  I'll of course be watching and reviewing that too.  I don't expect The Ark to be anywhere near Picard.  But, hey, it's a good series so far.

See also The Ark 1.1: Worth Watching

here's what happened to the first starship to Proxima Centauri

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The Last of Us 1.5: Tunnels

Another superb episode of The Last of Us on HBO Max -- 1.5 -- in what is shaping up, hour for hour, as the best post-biological apocalypse series I've ever seen (and that includes, yes, The Walking Deads).

[Spoilers ahead ... ]

I entitled this review "Tunnels" because they play a crucial role in 1.5.  First, they almost provide a safe escape route for Henry and Sam and Joel and Ellie out of Kansas City.  And when they're attacked near the end by the fascist anti-Fedra militia, it's the horde of fungus heads coming out of tunnels -- well, at least from under the ground -- that saves the four again.

Again, but not for long:  in one of the most profound series of scenes in the series so far, it turns out Sam has been bitten ... Ellie tries to save him by coating some of her blood on Sam's wound ... but that doesn't work, and Henry kills what Sam has become and then himself.

But why didn't Ellie's blood stop the infection in Henry?  I had a feeling it wouldn't, as she was painting her blood on the outside of Sam's wound, because the fungus infection was likely already inside and all over his body via his circulatory system.  Maybe a blood transfusion would have saved Henry.  But Ellie's curative blood on the outside of the wound just wasn't enough.

The truth is, we still don't know much if anything at all about why Ellie has survived.  Maybe it was something in her lymphatic system, and not in her blood at all.  Or there could be something else in her DNA that makes her resistant, which cannot be transfused via her blood or lymphatic system at all.  We see a bit of discussion in the coming attractions about why Ellie's attempt to save Sam didn't work, and I'm looking forward to finding out more in the episodes ahead.

Which I'll be reviewing here every week.

See also The Last of Us 1.1-1.2: The Fungus Among Us ... 1.3: Bill and Frank ... 1.4: Gun and Pun

lots about tunnels in this short story -- get it on Kindle, or read it free on Vocal

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