markdavess Reviews

Carol & The End of the World (2023)

Schopenhauer meets the Simpsons?

[9/10 · 21 December 2023]

Sci-fi kind of, but not really, that a background at best; more a slowish, semi-humorous, dark(ish) comedy reflection on human meaning, purpose, pleasure, and togetherness; where it is, where it isn't, maybe.

A mildly oddball, sedately quirky psychological/sociological meditation on life and death, I guess. Or something.

Some seriously awesome imagery in here too; occasional frames of stunning or poignant or otherwise moving views.

And little moments of genius in situation or seemingly banal character interaction too, some things showing serious wisdom, intelligence, perception and not a little humour.

Our life and its values is being kind of laughed at, but also kind of very lovingly respected and mourned, all at the same time and all in this subtle blend.

And surprises in there too, while also not ashamed to play it simply sometimes.

Series ratings lower than episode ones as yet, probably due to hardcore sci-fi fans not finding what they really want.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Subspace Rhapsody (2023) Season 2, Episode 9

Awkward, but...

[6/10 · 4 August 2023]

I have some admiration for the daring behind doing this. Not just from the writers, producers, but also I have to have enormous respect for the actors who had to play it.

I can imagine a few rather stressed out actors at realising they would now suddenly find themselves singing in a musical. There must have been at least a couple of conversations like, "Can't you get someone else to do a song?" or "Can't you limit me to one song at least". I can only imagine what the actual behind the scenes and unsuccessful takes were like. Amusing, I'm sure. Maybe we'll see some of it someday.

The premise and the theory of how it all starts and how they solve it sound highly dubious, but then theories of infinite probability, multiple worlds, and the pure unfathomability of quantum theory do provide us with some science and philosophy to have to reserve judgment. This might be an interesting question to put to Michi Kaku or Lawrence Krauss someday.

I found it mildly entertaining to watch, the Klingons maybe being the best point (and nicely not laboured too long), but also awkward, reasonably irritating, and a little boring. I wanted to skip ahead a few times. I'll probably want to see that Klingon moment a few times, but I doubt I could ever sit through this whole episode again.

Also the way this series is leaning so far into the personal emotional lives in a nearly soap opera way is starting to grate on my nerves a little. I value the human element, but somehow it's a little simplistic, and it takes over the thought and actions of the characters far too often and too much when they have a far bigger context, and that context is what Star Trek always was and should be about. Maybe if some cleverer background to this phenomenon had been explained, maybe the involvement of an interdimenisional intelligence or something, it might have had a bit more of that context.

Also I have to wonder what would have happened had Uhura sent a Death Metal song in there, or some intstrumental free jazz, noise rock, musique concret, etc., etc. And the sort of 80's/90's American cheesy Broadway/Hollwood Musical vibe is one that sadly doen's 'spin my musical prop', so to speak. Plus it didn't quite have a coherent basis to its specific appearance.

And these kind of 'gimmicky' things reasonably irritate me, seemingly undermining the premise of the whole Star Trek universe and it's interest. The 'Mirror Universe' stuff, the 'Elysian Kingdom' episode, all of this stuff basically seems to taint the concept, maybe the 'brand' too. Other stuff irritates me in it's kind of unreality or ridiculousness, like the holo-deck stories, Q and his kind, etc.

A credible yet wonder-inducing scenario is what I enjoy.

But I see the reasons for doing this, and to appeal to other sensibilities is valid, and to get well outside the box, and to take risks and break new ground, has to be respected or even admired.

And respect to the actors too, again. I can't imagine being in a cool sci-fi series playing a bad-ass character and then suddenly having to shift to do cheesy musical numbers, to very middle of the road, even more cheesy, American quasi pop music.

Black Mirror: Demon 79 (2023) Season 6, Episode 5

A cuddly kind of violence?

[7/10 · 18 June 2023]

I'm watching this new season of Black Mirror in reverse order of ratings, i.e. Lowest rated first, highest rated last, so this is my second, after 'Mazey Day'.

As with that episode, this has strayed away from the near-future, tech-related scenarios of most earlier Black Mirror episodes, and drifted even further away in that 'Mazey Day' did all the same have, although very simply, that heavy theme of the insidious and oppressive manifestations of that broad, impersonal, multitudinous but faceless, mass culture, with its very lowbrow and dark appetites, maybe most grimly exemplified in 'Shut Up and Dance', but prominent in most of BM and not very far away at any time.

Both these episodes have too that supernatural element, very definitely taking it away from that 'hard sci-fi' feel of the believable tech and the also 'hard reality' feel of those believable dark sides of mass culture. And this is maybe where and why most people feel disappointed, having anticipated the same kind vibe and that similar dark hardness to previous seasons and their episodes.

But this is the creator's creation, after all, and a creator can take it in any direction they like, and it's hard for me to insist that this is a betrayal or let-down in any way really, even if maybe I might have preferred more of that vibe in some new and similary thought-provoking stories. If there was a desire to take it into murkier and softer realms, or to play around with other vibes, associations and ideas, then that's the creator's prerogative.

And to me the title 'Black Mirror' indicated how these stories reflect dark places deep in the recesses of human culture and human psyche, and it seems to me that this episode is doing much the same, though in murkier and also more personal way, more focused on the internal emotional violence within people, and less on how some abstract psychopathic pattern of culture zoomed out far away from being able to see the individual is the driving force of the 'blackness' reflected by that mirror in previous BM stories.

We see and sympathise with a very likeable, unfairly harassed main character, but we also see the darkness within her in the exceedingly violent fantasies that lurk just a little out of reach of being implemented, and then in how she quite easily slides into violence when given an excuse, and takes it beyond the levels it needs to reach quite unnecessarily more than once, despite confusion, remorse, examples of empathy, etc. Etc.

Also we see 'bad people' who 'deserve' the violence but eventually in the light of their own confusion, remorse, fear, etc., etc. We also see a 'bigger picture' that seemingly justifies any level of violence towards anyone, but also feel the grim and unfair horror of that violence even when committed against those who 'deserve' it the most.

And then we have a big picture of violence, up to the largest and most destructive scale, all within the usual context of 'necessity', justification, supposed self-defense, or prevention of worse, or for the sake of 'justice', etc., etc.

'Good people' commit 'justified' violence against 'bad people' who 'deserve' it, but where really are the clear boundaries between a good justification and a forced and wishful justification for something that maybe you just want to do out of the pure violence in your heart. And where are the boundaries between 'deserving it' and being a 'bad person' and the contingencies that made that 'badness' manifest itself and the simple reality of a human subject caught up in all sorts of bad realities that led them to that place and condition.

The 'justifications' are maybe not such solid 'justifications' really, and whatever they are, maybe the reality of violence in its actualisation offsets that regardless, and the 'badness' is not necessarily simpy based on badness to the core and the 'deserving it' maybe don't necessarily 'deserve it' as much as we like.

In the end it's human culture and the individual human nature that that grows from, and it's impulses to violence that come from our hearts and our guts and come out in our rage, and with contexts and justifications that are real, but all the same it's all just violence. Violence is needed in this reality of contexts and contending forces, but violence is always horrific, but violence is a visceral impulse for us, so we're also looking for excuses for it. So it's never about 'good' and 'bad' or any other contrasting concepts, but about that tension of simultaneous duality and contradiction. It's made into comedy here, again adding ambiguity, but violence it is, and the whole world is seen to be violent.

In this way, in this vaguer, 'softer' but definitely violent way, this episode also reflects the blackness at the core of humanity, and of the big, impersonal context of humanity, and maybe even more bleakly in its inevitable relishing in having no real resolution to all these contradictions. Just violence or submission or oblivion. Definitely, in that way, a 'Black Mirror'.

And also in that is sympathy, shown not only directly to absolutely every single character in some mild way at the very least, but also in the portrayal of the place and time, with music probably very nostalgic and poignant for Charlie Brooker, with the nods to 70's British reality, fish & chips, Minis, boozing and swearing TV cops, even the streets and shops and tv shows and ads and fashions and wallpapers, etc., etc., etc., that made up the whole comfort zone of human tastes and imaginings in 1970's Britain. Humankind in its feeling reality in its messy context of distractions and contradictions. A mirror is being held up here. Not as vividly as earlier, maybe not as obviously, maybe not as successfully, but all the same.

Black Mirror: Mazey Day (2023) Season 6, Episode 4

Took a turn...

[6/10 · 18 June 2023]

...into something different from the usual tech-based kind of near-future sci-fi Black Mirror normally gives us.

The key moment is at the end, the last two shots, and what the main protagonist does at that moment. That connects to the whole issue under scrutiny here: that of the paparrazi, and beyond that of course to the culture that feeds them. Thus the dark social themes that are common to Black Mirror do come into sharp focus right at that point. It's a blunt, simple message, lacking a lot of the complexity of much else Black Mirror gives us. But with that maybe of some value in itself, as that blunt, direct, simple critique, despite what it lacks, and also an element from other kinds of horror that I didn't, and probably the rest of you wouldn't, expect from Black Mirror.

Rated lowest for this season, I decided I'd start with this. Now I see why, but it's worth a watch. Now I'll go and enjoy one of the others.

Persons Unknown (2010)

A ball of wool

[4/10 · 18 June 2023]

There's one thing most of us understand these days, and that's that people make serials like this with a big central mystery at the core of it that then seems to hint at some substantial and meaningful answer to it that we might get to via some interesting peeling back of that mystery that engages us positively deeper and deeper with that meaning. Maybe a thought provoking gradual discovery process that lets us look at a bunch of human questions from various angles as we approach it via the characters' experiences and then end up with a perspective-shifting viewpoint when we arrive at it. But much of the time we maybe get the whole mystery revealed eventually, maybe just a part of it, but however much of it is given to us in the end turns out to be a mystery for the sake of it and not of any real substance, or anything meaningful. Much of the time too the mystery isn't properly revealed even by the end of it all because, lacking meaning, there isn't actually a coherent one to ever be arrived at. Basically it was a fake mystery.

This serial has some aspects that frame it that potentially could have some substance under them that similarly suggest to viewers that there might be something deeper and more interesting to arrive at via the investment of your time in watching it. The main mystery is why they've been put into the situation they find themselves in and what is the rationale and aim behind the process they are being put through; we then naturally hoping the answers to those questions will come, make sense, and reveal something meaningful about human beings and the world they live in via that revelation.

And there is some hint of this, or even some direct and clumsy explication of it; there seemingly being an attempt to alter people in some way via the process, 'The Program', reminiscent of other things (a more quality example would maybe be John Fowles' novel 'The Magus'), and to perhaps get at some deeper and useful state of mind underlying human nature that could be arrived at via this process, that then connecting with the other clear aim, which is to find specific types of people who will somehow rise to this challenge and fulfil this aim the best, providing something useful by the end of it.

But there is no coherent substance beyond that. In fact, my previous paragraph suggests more depth than is here at all. It's kind of a consequence of the fact that I was looking for meaning in this as I watched it. What we end up with is these mere shallow, faintly-drawn ideas of a potential something, but underlying it all is a huge chasm of emptiness; a bottomless pit of 'how much time did I waste on this?' There is no deeper rationale below it, no nuanced situation or process that gives us cause to reflect on anything of particular meaning. It's just a shallow conspiracy of people doing something to mess with others with no coherent point to it, beyond getting us to wonder and keep watching. It's a mere product of the business-minded people who just want us moving forward to each new episode to keep the revenue coming in.

We keep watching stuff out of our inability to solve the 'sunk costs fallacy', in that we will always watch further if we're being teased that there might be some valuable reveal just coming along soon. I started watching this years ago, gave up on it as shallow quickly, but somehow, tired and chilling out at home with little I could find to watch, decided to give it another shot recently. It's true to say that maybe, if it had been longer, I might have given up on it sooner, but knowing there were just a few more episodes, I continued, with less and less, but all the same some hope, that some substance might coalesce sooner or later. But, no, we still find ourselves in very shallow water right at the end of it. Maybe there was hope for a second series, it potentially lined itself up for one at the end, with more reveal maybe to come as they went through 'Level 2', but I suspect in this case it would have never come to anything worthwhile, so it's better we weren't tempted to check it out any further.

Sadly this business model controls everything nowadays, so good serials that have depth but require attention and thought are cancelled because they don't suit a mass of demand for showy spectacle above substance, or because they in some way offend someone's black and white and often fantasy politics, while most stuff is designed and made for as many episodes and seasons as they can keep getting us to fall for it, in order to pull us along waiting for an opening up of the mystery or plot or whatever that will give meaning. Better we switch off most of the time. Read a good book, maybe. Luckily with a few other serials I could mention I've done this, but I shouldn't have given my time to this one. It pretty much gives nothing. We're like kittens being led along with balls of wool, but as we chase it it's just more wool.

Moonhaven (2022)

Maybe don't jump to conclusions

[7/10 · 5 September 2022]

I'd say it was hasty to conclude that what's being portrayed here is some kind of 'liberal wet dream' of an ideal woke culture to be imposed upon the world, as seems to be one of the biggest general issues behind a bunch of negative ratings and reviews that arrived only after the first episode. Any show with that simplistic intent would be shallow by definition, so it's hard to imagine many professional story-tellers starting from such a point, but also there's no evidence that that's the point here, because a broader story is plainly being told as we watch it unfold, but there wasn't even reason to believe such a thing after only one episode. The opposite claim, that it's intending to show how an imposed society is bound to be a disaster, i.e. A warning against 'wokism' or 'socialism', etc., also seems dubious, the story again having more to it when given a chance. Again, such a one-sided and simplistic didactic intent would be shallow. The show simply, as far as I can see, taken on either one of those one-dimensional approaches.

It's OK for people, of course, to dislike whatever they do, but a lot of negativity seems focused on this alleged 'wokism' , and many of them do seem to me to be hurried conclusions. For example, I've seen claims that men are deliberately made to look inferior and weak here, but they actually in no way lose out to the female characters as the story develops. And claims of politically correct diversity quotients are equally debunked when you simply compare the admittedly diverse population with one that would actually be representative of the earth's population. But these are maybe clumsy and minor points, the main issue being the very nature of the culture shown on this moon colony.

And there indeed is a kind of 'woke', 'hippy-like' society shown on this moon colony, with their kind of 'uncool' singing, 'cheesy' dancing, differently constructed family relations, and rituals and odd turns of language that convey kind of 'sickly sweet' concepts obviously aimed at a similarly 'hippyish' focus on wellbeing and harmony. One of my first thoughts about them was "if anyone needs punk rock, it's these people". But the reasons for this scenario could be more interesting than just showing 'woke' is good vs 'woke' is bad. It's not portrayed as imposed nor as even developed from outside of the people themselves, but shown as evolved within the reality of dealing with their specific context and purpose, and in their interaction with the AI that supports both their colony and that purpose, and in their interaction with each other within all of that. They are portrayed as free to act, beyond doing actual harm to others, and their beliefs and ways are shown to come from their reaction to that context, and its mission, not coercion.

It's presented as a societal model in which to embed new technological implementation on Earth to save it, so it may not be an ideal of a permanent or general set-up, but, whether it's that or not, can simply be seen to raise questions via the contrast of different cultures about what makes a successful society and what kind of behaviours or attitudes might undermine it. There definitely is a contrast; the 'earthers' in the story being as dubious about this curious 'hippy moon colony' and their cheesiness as we are. But there is potential for this to get us to ask ourselves why maybe we get embarrassed at shows of emotional expression, or manifestations of community spirit, open sentiment, 'weird' rituals, and a general tendency towards community wellbeing instead of 'cool' stark individualism. We can maybe reflect on what perhaps developing these rituals has given them when they're fortunate to have not come with the baggage of that embarrassment, but also at the same time to ask if there may be problems all the same in such a model (and it is shown somehow to be hitting some internal problems). It doesn't feel like any imposition of one answer, but a contrast that can stir reflection.

And another interesting aspect is that this society is clearly quite conservative in some ways; it has developed its own conventions and traditions that it's reluctant to change quickly, and they've arisen to keep society safe, stable and productive; they may have rethought familial relationships, but they're very real and strong, and they still honour the biological ones in ways that they take very seriously; and they have a philosophy of embracing difficulty, and being useful and honourable. It's all more a way of presenting a different view of human society, so that we can reflect on the workings of its development and set up, via human motivation, and maybe even reflect in more nuanced ways about what things like 'liberal' and 'conservative' might actually and usefully mean. It wouldn't surprise me if the writer has read a few works by Ursula Le Guin, but is trying to make this kind of 'sociological sci-fi' more closely relevant to our current situation. It seems to be no imposed idea of either an ideal or a non-ideal society, but a way to shift our perspective into an odd viewpoint in order to reflect on how that might or might not work at all, on the larger scale, in individual behaviour, and even deeper than that at the level of human preferences and emotions. Whether the story will develop to adequately interesting and successful remains to be seen.

Then questions can be asked about the science. It's legitimate to question how earth-like gravity and day and night cycles can be created on the moon, and other things that we see as the story develops, but even before the explanation comes (which it does) most of us nowadays know ideas about how an AI would not only not be limited by the material of the brain or the size of a human skull, but also would think at the speed of light, and be able to increase its intelligence exponentially. An AI like this could quickly move beyond anything we could understand, and create capabilities we would deem impossible or which might even be unimaginable to us. And its abilities would ever rapidly accelerate away from our ability to conceive them. And we do see that here. This AI has almost inconceivable abilities, most of which have probably not even been shown by the 5th episode (as I write this). Oh yeah, and someone claimed that it doesn't make sense that this AI developed on the Moon; but it didn't, it was created on Earth.

There are other criticisms, and again I get the feeling people are looking for anything to attack. Fair enough that you'd imagine a flight to the moon in those days to be much faster, but the AI's science has not been released to the world yet, and, in fact, even if technology has got faster, those things are not certain. There are other contexts for how things develop, and you all know that we don't have commercial aircraft faster nowadays than they were even in the 60's. Why would they need to go to sleep for only a short journey? Well maybe something to put you to sleep properly and safely is cheaply available by then and it's done simply to skip the tedium of a day of travel, or even a few hours. I'd have certainly taken such an opportunity when I flew for 14 hours. Why is the ship landed manually? Well, maybe there are random peculiarities about landing in this odd situation of flying into an AI-generated and controlled environment from space that require the more intuitive response of a human, and not automation. Probably the AI could land it, but maybe its powers don't stretch beyond the moon colony. It's questionable, it's true, but a little thing. I'm surprised I saw no-one question why they all have different accents, but maybe there is a reason that will come out later, I can think of one, but maybe it's simply they thought it a minor thing and chose simply to let people ignore it. Someone reasonably questioned why a 'perfect society' would need a police force, but, besides no-one having suggested it's a 'perfect society', there is an explanation given. Attacks are made on the acting too, but I'm not sure how qualified people are to make those judgements, and it's interesting to me that 'hamminess' doesn't get noticed in other places. It seems mainly OK here, though maybe not consistently, in my non-expert perception. So maybe there are some issues with this show, but we can't really judge until we've gotten far enough to have a fuller context. I'm just suggesting that maybe we can put the picking fault everywhere aside for now and give the story a chance to create a big enough context to get a better idea of what it's trying to show or to say before we start judging it too conclusively.

The carrier of all of this is a basic political story of subterfuge, sabotage and conflict of interest, and other elements that start to creep in, so those who enjoy that kind of process might like that for itself, but it has all the above extra 'meat' on it. And it's not your standard sci-fi with big space battles and exotic worlds and aliens (though there is a hint that aliens may be around), so it could disappoint from that point of view, but it has other elements for people to potentially make something positive of, and gets increasingly mysterious.

So, still early days. What it is, and how good really, remains to be seen. From what I've seen so far, I hope there's a second season.

Paper Girls (2022)

Worthwhile

[7/10 · 31 July 2022]

I didn't know it was adapted from a comic, and it could well be that the comic is better, as some have said, but all the same I liked this in general. Though maybe the comic carries some elements better, and maybe this format offers other possibilities.

The basic threads of it are:

1.'a time war', with a few of the weird juxtopositionings of perspective via jumping around time you might expect, with no serious paradoxes or weird loops or whatever (as in a movie like 'Primer' or 'Timecrimes' or 'Summer Time Machine Blues') so far, but some of that feel all the same, particular as regards death and life; e.g. Seeing a character die, but then they're alive again, or a character being in a time after their own death.

2. the idea, perhaps the main core of the story, of seeing or even meeting yourself at different ages and all the issues that might bring out, particulary in your own perception of and expectations about yourself. The idea of life and death comes in here again too, about yourself and others, but also general issues of family, friendship, sexuality, life goals and meaning, personality growth and change, etc., etc.

3. 12 year old girls getting together and squabbling and bonding and various whatever as people do as they get together and turn into a unit, all the relationship dynamics, plus some of the specifics of being girls, also again accentuated by the weird perspectives created via the things I mentioned in the first two points.

It seemed a little clumsy or forced in some points, and also some parts seemed laboured, me wanting it to move on already at times, but on the whole this was minimal, and the general thrust of it all mainly kept providing new perspectives and revelations and new stages of the situation with new problems to solve, and it cohered pretty well as a kind of fusion of a the personal perspectives of these young girls learning about life and themselves, and the more general simple time war thing with its various confusing perspectives.

The main carrier of it all, the 'time war', could be probably torn apart in various ways, but it's science fiction. It seems to follow reasonably logic. This also provides a bunch of kind of deliberately classic and cool sci fi tropes. Portals, future tech, giant robots, etc.

In the end its whole thing is that 'coming of age' aspect aided by the serious extremity of seeing yourself very intensely via having whole chunks of your whole life, and its most serious revelations and unpleasant realities and contradictions, thrown in your face quite violently and in 'survival mode' as a 12 year old girl over a few days. I guess perhaps for that reason it may be a very valuable thing to people around that age, and not just girls, though I think it even gives some of us much older viewers perspectives to dwell on too.

I hope there's a second season, or more even. Maybe I'll check out the comic.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021)

Trying to be instead of trying to be something.

[7/10 · 29 January 2022]

I don't have a huge amount to say about this movie. It's rather simple when looking at the main thread of it at least, though that's maybe a strength.

One thing I feel I have to mention though, is about the question of sentimentality. This film has plenty of it, kind of banal, 'cheesy', 'corny', predictable, etc., etc., though kind of 'calm sentimentality' on the whole. But I wonder if we have a problem with that. I'd agree that making any reflection of life into simplistic 'schmaltz' is a problem, but maybe our reaction against that kind of dumbing down of it is too strong in itself, maybe not a 'dumbing down' of it, but a kind of alientation from ourselves that is 'low resolution' maybe in another way. Like we took the overconsciousness in relation to our feelings that turn it into cheese and used that same overconsciousness to turn the dial in the opposite direction, when that kind of consciousness itself is the problem, thus we're solving nothing.

It needs to not be in a cerebral response to that problem, and then an equally cerebral countering of it, but in a simple letting go of that and finding a proper response in ourselves, without that tug at imposition of our self-consciousness. There's that analogy about if you want to breathe properly, don't consciously breathe in, but just push as much air out of your lungs as you can, and then relax and let your unthinking body do the inhalation for you. The way you breathe will be simple, and maybe not so 'interesting', and certainly not 'cool', but...

I've noticed about a lot of Korean cinema, and maybe not only Korean, but that's where it struck me, that they're not as scared of sentimentality as western audiences and therefore also filmmakers are. Paradoxically we show our fear in both our total rejection of it, in all that cynicism and darkness and laughing off the tragic aspects of our lives, but also in the utter schmaltz, cheesy corn that another demographic in our culture is into, that makes it all too easily digestible; ultimately an equal rejection of our real feelings about our lives, which we do have, as much as we seem to wish we didn't.

This movie also could be better in this sense, but I feel it's a reasonable balance. There's lots of simplicity in it, banality, predictability, etc., and 'cheesy' for sure, from some point of view or other, but life is what it is, not an overthought representation we come up in accordance with coolness or danger or something. So, you know, I think it's cool in that way.

There are also some nice elements of the structure of it, even in the simple kind of form that comes together as it develops, and an almost literal structure at the end, but also, when you think about it, in executing the same moments again and again but from different perspectives, the same events seen with different elements, even if as banal as there being different people standing there watching it. It's nicely constructed, structured, balanced, and comes together smoothly, and that maybe is also kind of 'cheesy', but, you know...

Funnily enough too, there's an almost 'hard sci-fi' aspect throughout the movie when you get to look back from the perspective of how it comes together; with the tesseract thing, and what it means, and how it functions, etc., and, again, it's actually quite admirable that that is simply there but done in such an understated way that's fused with the whole structure of the story, that you could easily miss it. Any story that's not trying to shout out about anything it's achieving but just able to let it sit there lightly, along with its equal disinterest in being 'cool', has something very admirable about it, I would say. Like maybe made by somebody who doesn't have to be seen on instagram, but is just living in their own space, and the image of everything, all events and images, being washed away by the rain at the end, seems to be saying I must be onto something.

Invasion (2021–2024)

You don't build a nuanced story quickly

[8/10 · 26 November 2021]

All the people commenting or even complaining about the slowness of this story have a very valid point, but, I hope at least, and the show is definitely showing signs of it now, the point of all this may be to build a reasonably rich world of human characters, and of the complex realities, motivations and meanings of their lives, and for the threads of the fragments we've had so far to come together both into a more united, coherent and purposeful bunch of activity, as well as to have this inevitable more serious encounter with the alien invaders all embedded in that human richness. Episode 8 now shows it coming together, even potentially too quickly. I can see how many of the threads are likely to come together, so that could potentially happen in too forced, shallow or quick a way. But you can see all these threads are intended to intertwine and make something bigger and more structured as it goes on, and, to some extent, why they will come together. But, as I say, this could be forced and clumsy. But, hopefully again, the fact that the writers have not pandered to the viewers and those who want to sell quickly (cancel or not) to those same viewers, by creating quick paybacks for viewing, easy answers, quick little conflicts to solve for a mini-story, over explication in the action or dialogue, flashy action and spectacle, etc., is maybe a sign that we'll end up with something just richer than the norm by the time it's reaching its conclusion. Fingers crossed.

Another Life (2019–2021)

Stitched together

[5/10 · 18 October 2021]

This is maybe an interesting potential project for analysis of how it might have been constructed.

I imagine perhaps seperate writers tasked with little elements to fill in with certain separate objectives in mind, and then it all kind of stitched together, probably at short notice and with a kind of panicked buffeting up against the limits of resources.

The result is some overarching kind of interesting ideas here and there, in terms of a galactic-scale main plot, some imagined human future technology, some actual aliens that are not just humans with different foreheads or skin colours, and a range of human often moderately likeable characters and their story arcs, with the odd character to be (too easily) repulsed by here and there for good measure.

But the stuff doesn't go together smoothly at all. There are sudden shifts in human motivation or attitude from one person that are ridiculously unnatural, shallow personalities and decision-making processes on an intellectual level that would find it hard to aquequately stack shelves, let alone be half useful on a world-saving space misssion, chance events that actually go well beyond ridiculous, solutions equally preposterous, easy, and quick to arrive at, representations of human value and anti-value that are equally clunky. And quick-shifting caricatures of ideas just stuck on top to score some point or tug at some concern here and there, and basically a bunch of everything just cobbled together from a seeming variety of sources, and of a very wide range of quality, and then patched together densely, hoping the disparate bits will bring in an equally disparate patchwork of viewers to add up to enough cumulatively to bring the money in.

And maybe that worked. Maybe it's all down to algorithms taking the economics of viewership into account.

Sci-fi is basically my go to chill-out genre; something that lingers from the curiosity of childhood and that I can't resist because I basically like anything that will let me immerse my brain in possibility, but the truth is that the vast majority of it does not deliver. This series was an OK way for someone like me, with those issues and motivations, to unwind, but not a genuinely rewarding one, and for most people, those free of my quirks, issues and special tastes, will most likely seem a waste of their time.

It's like at some level there was intelligence involved, someone painting a reasonably coherent draft image, and if that intelligence had been allowed to infuse the whole project and keep things consistent all the way through, and at every level of definition, and consistently, it could have been good, but that was taken only to the level of a rough draft, and then the rest was filled in in a mad rush, on the fly, by a replacement team of disconnected and interchangeable amateurs, but, by that mere process, with the odd moment of something OK, or worth thinking about, randomly turning up here and there.

Definitely an odd kind of mix, a peculiar kind of patchwork. You might find it OK to chill out like I did, but if you're looking for something coherently convincing or thought-provoking on the larger scale, it's likely to frustrate and disappoint.

Solos: Jenny (2021) Season 1, Episode 5

Great acting

[7/10 · 21 May 2021]

It's true, I've done only a very little "acting", and what I have done definitely deserves those qualifying speech marks, and I can't claim to have expertise to properly qualify my assessment, beyond the usual years of viewing we all have 'under our belts' just from living post mid-20th century, but I felt almost 100% convinced by Constance Wu here. A very authentic-feeling range of expression and emotion.

With any acting probably it's probably always visible to some small extent at least that the person is saying words they knew they were going to say, and reacting in ways that they're thinking through to some extent in advance, even if in microseconds, and I guess that might be one of the key aspects of good acting, but Constance almost totally gets it here, and beyond that is a completely believable character with totally familiar characteristics of behaviour and relatable reactions, though also specific enough in a way to a certain type of character. And there's a range of stuff here, and some very hard emotions at the end. So, the acting to me was the best so far in this series. I'll see how the later episodes compare as I continue through them.

The story itself is more a personal story than anything else, giving all the context and reason for the reactions and emotion, the picture growing as we progress through the retelling, and the sci-fi element is merely the reveal of the context it all turns out to be happening within at the end, so perhaps not what many watching this kind of series are looking for, and maybe also not the most unpredictable story outside of that, but for what it is, for those less bothered about the sci-fi, and for the performance particularly, worth seeing.

Code 404 (2020–2022)

Very low-level humour

[4/10 · 26 June 2020]

It feels like it was written as a school project by 12 year old boys.

The Man in the High Castle: Fire from the Gods (2019) Season 4, Episode 10

Paths reconverge?

[4/10 · 25 November 2019]

I can only offer a potential reading of the ending that I haven't quite seen here among other reviews, though some have similar ideas. Probably the helped me. I'll get to it at the end of this. Skip ahead if you want.

Of course I'm coming up with a reading of the ending for the very reason that no satisfying closure was offered by what we saw, which someone might say was good, but ultimately something more coherent and less sudden than this was needed, especially with various loose ends, possibilities and questions left hanging. It looks like there were all sorts of potential ideas for things to be led into, developed and then tied together and tied up that were dropped by a desire to cut this serial short.

As is almost the rule these days the show is made to keep people coming back for more, not so much with an idea of a whole, and probably isn't even written with an idea of a satisfying conclusion to reach, but even if it is, as maybe this was, money dictates that the creators will veer from that course into something that finishes it up quickly as soon as they don't see it as profitable as they would like. Thus we should put our time more into watching stuff that is written with a conclusion from the start, not designed to go on and on and then be crashed clumsily when the money's not good enough. Maybe 'True Detective' or something.

So, they crashed this one clumsily too, when a more thought-out and gradual, organic, comprehensive and satisfying conclusion could have been reached, had money not been the main object. For that it hardly deserves a good rating.

I was drawn into watching this serial more, after almost leaving it after the first season, by the insight into John & Helen and their family's story, and all its contradictions, mainly in season 2. This kind of paradox, where we see the humanity of people who we might otherwise see as evil, is the serial's main strength, shown not only with the Smiths, but with Kido, with Joe Blake, etc.

This is the main thread of this season too, and there are some reasonable developments and conclusions drawn as concerns that story, particularly showing how the weight of a world around you, to which you have to conform, can draw you further and further into becoming something very different, and something you can't live with. John's having to encounter those he betrayed and an alternate way of being clearly shook him, but sadly he took the path of running away from that heavy realisation. This episode shows how that heavy fate inevitably will turn out, just as it did for the Nazis in our real world. Better of course to have been a travelling insurance salesman, as unglamorous as that might be in comparison with the power the Nazi John Smith had. Helen was able to be more honest, though of course was maybe less corrupted by power, and took a different path, and I guess was redeemed in the end, having arguably saved the world.

As for that ending: the most satisfying idea I can come up with is that those people are people from 'everywhere', i.e. multiple universes who have come to this one because, as awful a destination as it might seem to us, it offers them something better. Probably people they have lost. They can only pass into a universe where they are dead, thus where they are probably missed, and also perhaps where they hope to find someone who they lost in their universe. The majority of people probably stay put, but those who have lost someone enter the portal, and end up somewhere where they are absent. Maybe it's not going to work out for all, but it's a chance.

Maybe you even end up in the universe that is closest to your own, thus where you were alive, where you were more likely with the same loved ones, etc., etc. Thus what we see are people maybe even coming from millions of universes, who end up where they are missed, leaving somewhere where they have lost too much to want to stay there, taking a chance of a better life. Thus they come through not really knowing what they're coming to, but accepting of it and hopeful all the same.

Perhaps the reason they suddenly are coming through to this universe is because now that this one has shifted from the hell it was, it now actually is closer to those people's previous universe, does offer them something, whereas before they were travelling to other places, this one just being one offering very little if anything. So ultimately it's a bunch of people who died in this bad universe, who are missed in it, coming through to find those who they lost in their universe, and seeing it positively because they know that's what it should offer them.

It also becomes symbolic of that same theme explored with the Smiths about how choices made can lead to starkly different outcomes, and that the better outcome is always there as a real possibility, tormenting us, but also giving us a way to consider different paths and how we might move back towards them now. Here it's made literal, those 'other universes' being the possibilities we lost when other choices were made, by us or by others or by both, in our universe.

So, taking on this idea, there's a kind of symbolic tieing up of the idea of bad choices and negative paths taken being redeemed by something (basically Helen's choice to 'fix' this world) and the different paths taken being able to come back together again.

And there's that part where Juliana's in the tunnel and has the memory of being shot by Joe Blake in there, but remembers it 'internally' not simply as witnessed on film before. That was some other universe, not this one or the one she'd travelled to, and also there was a sense there that Joe killed her with the idea that it wasn't the end, alluding to an idea of her living all the same in another universe. Perhaps this means that memories of separate lives in different worlds are coming together, or at least perhaps of death in other timelines. Or maybe not full awareness, but some connection across lifes all the same. Thus perhaps the people coming through are actually aware of what this place was, what was lost here, of their death here, and who is here missing them. Or at least they have some underlying sense of it, some feeling based on that connection driving them. Abendsen goes into the people, it not being clear whether he's going into the portal or just looking among the people, but presumably it's because he realises his wife is out there, perhaps coming through with this crowd, or perhaps to be found somewhere on the other side. Everyone is choosing to find what they lost and to find themselves in a better place.

Anyway, a kind of idea of a person being not just their one timeline, this one life, arises when you look at it like this. Thus again an evocation of a person being deeper than their acts and history, there being good behind it all the same, if it weren't for circumstances, and then that they can always work their way 'back' to a better path, and that they're always redeemable. Thus, for the starkest example, John Smith, who we empathise with all the same when he's a Nazi, is not only this John Smith, a mass murderer and dead by suicide, but also the John Smith who gave his own life to save Juliana in another world, and, of course, every other possible John Smith, ultimately as human a human being as anyone when circumstances allow.

So that fits with the idea of being pushed along by different tides of history, of there being humanity in there all the same, even when the external behaviour is inhuman, and that there are always possibilities and the chance of redemption. So, symbolically at least, that would be a reasonable tieing up of the theme of the show.

Maybe this means it deserves a better rating? I'm not sure. If I could, I wouldn't rate it at all. All the same this was a clumsy push to a quick end, with other reviewers pointing out other rushed and clumsy elements. Most serials are disappointments. I'm not sure they give us much. So much good literature out there.

The Orville: Majority Rule (2017) Season 1, Episode 7

Positively Shameless

[9/10 · 27 October 2017]

The strength of this episode for me is in how it seems to deliberately use familiar tropes and implausible scenarios (e.g. the type of planet and its earth-like culture, familiar from Star Trek, which this series so far has generally and seemingly deliberately referenced), and blatant near-stealing of an idea from elsewhere (one specific Black Mirror episode in particular -it seems hard to believe that the writers didn't know it was obvious, though maybe they'd come up with the idea earlier, and just decided not to worry about it, which is kind of equally shameless).

To add to this apparent coarseness is the dubious ignorance and lack of forethought of the main characters, the clumsy arrival of problems to solve, contrived turns of events and reasonably trite solutions to them, and a heavy-handed allegory of our own contemporary society and our specifically very recent problem of how information is exchanged and opinion formed around the world and the kind of negative consequences that has.

It ends up a kind of cartoon idea of the power given by the common mass feed of information to uninformed or ill-considered opinion, and of the unstoppable weight of the negative consequences, with its actual utter shallow, childish arbitrariness shown up as laughable at the end.

There are consequences shown for individuals and also for the quality of the wider culture, only stopping short of having an allegory for some of the world-shaking dumb decisions that have been made in our world as a result in recent years, but is clearly topical, obviously talking about how we are forming our large-scale culture and political structure, as well as limiting the smaller space of each individual within it, with the 'big data' of 'everyone's opinion' becoming the main arbitrator, regardless of knowledge, thinking skills, conscientiousness or any other quality by which you might arguably need to earn respect for that opinion. "A voice should be earned not given away", says Bortus.

So, the way it's conceived and executed is sufficiently contrived, derivative and predictable, using tropes that we've seen again and again, and making the allegory so blatant, towards the end at least, that you almost expect the actors to start winking at the camera, that you could easily fall on the side of heavy negative criticism, if you were to doubt that this was deliberate, and that making that point in that almost clichéd way was the whole central thread of the episode and the main carrier of its qualities, in ideas, in comedy, or whatever else..

I was worrying a little at first at all of this, but as the culmination approached I realised I was overthinking it and shifted towards admiration at the creators for this shameless surface clumsiness, making a point many of us don't need explaining to us, but that somehow benefits very well from being made in this way. Maybe the main thing isn't any conscious admiration though, but more that I couldn't help but laugh loudly at the whole picture of it as it came together.

It's a kind of a 'punk rock' attitude that brings everything down to a simple and obvious core that results in an effective delivery; no need to be so 'clever', 'original', 'or whatever else; just making a sharp and shamelessly coarsely-made point, and adding to the enjoyment and humour all the more for that shameless 'cheapness', with maybe a good serving of 'self-deprecation' implied in there to add some more sauce.

It has the potential to become a classic episode on the basis of the very quality of not trying to be anything clever at all, but just to shamelessly make a point humorously and to laugh at itself for how it's making it. A direct and effective simplicity, not scared to be 'D-U-M- B', just like your favourite Ramones song.