CAPTAIN FANTASTIC (2016) is a drama about a reclusive, left-wing anarchist family that lives off the grid in the wilderness of Washington State. When Lesley Cash, the mother, dies, Ben, the father (Viggo Mortensen), takes his six children on a road trip to the funeral, where they hope to honor her last wishes in opposition to her father, Jack (Frank Langella). The film is interesting throughout if a bumpy ride.

This is what might have been if the hero of MOSQUITO COAST had been a left winger. He raises his children to be critical thinkers, educates them far beyond their years, and teaches them to live without reliance on modern technology. They celebrate Noam Chomsky Day instead of Christmas. They live according to a strong philosophy and seem the better for it, but when they road trip into modern America, two of the kids begin to question their father and his methods, one believing that their lifestyle comes at a cost, which is inability to function socially in the real world. When Ben begins to question himself, it begs whether he can preserve his approach to life while compromising.

Overall, the film is pretty entertaining. Ben’s philosophy is great, challenging, and uncompromising without being preachy or overly belligerent. The acting is terrific across the board, particularly from Mortensen, though the child actors all pull their weight, and the side part adult actors are all recognizable, solid character actors. The moral of the story–live life on your own terms, but learn to give to get along–is good, though not quite strong enough to pull the film to a really satisfying finish, which is sweet but a bit weak.

Overall, I loved elements of the film, and I liked the whole. Usually, supposedly liberal Hollywood serves up cranky, belligerent but endearing right wingers but not left wingers on screen, so the film earned props from me for that alone. Noam Chomsky Day sounds good to me.

Okay, today, I’m going to step in it. Feel free to disagree, but after a stellar first season of FOR ALL MANKIND (Apple TV), I was hugely disappointed in the second, which changed writers and leaned heavily into kitchen sink melodrama. What began a brilliant science show took a hard turn into becoming a soap opera.

It’s 1983, Reagan is president, and both the USA and USSR have bases on the Moon. As Cold War tensions escalate over rival lunar mining claims, the Department of Defense gets involved in the space program, resulting in militarization. To alleviate tensions, the superpowers plan a joint Apollo-Soyuz mission with astronauts and cosmonauts shaking hands in space, but it may not be enough to prevent hostilities from breaking out on the Moon and spilling down onto Earth as World War Three.

What I liked: anything having to do with the Moon and space program. Seeing Marines fly into combat on a lunar lander was fantastic. The Jamestown base is awesome. The problem solving at NASA is less prevalent but when it happens is terrific. One thing I particularly appreciated was seeing how the space program produced consumer technology far ahead of its time, just as the real space program eventually gave us things like videocameras and so on. I also loved how NASA licenses mining rights and tech to the private sector, resulting in the agency becoming self financing. It’s beautiful and sad to see what might have been, particularly in light of seeing billionaire tax dodgers taking vanity rides in space yachts. The season begins with a series of quick news images showing how history changed because of the space race.

What I didn’t: New writers were brought in to pump up the drama, which takes over the show, forcibly shoves out the hard sci-fi focus, and kitchen sinks it with melodrama in which characters do all sorts of what-the-hell things the show didn’t need and I didn’t care about. As a result, the climax, which is brilliant, wraps up too quick and neat, robbing the show of what really makes it work for me. As a side note, Reagan is continually lionized as some kind of poetic, saintly cartoon character of how he’s remembered rather than who and what he was, which was off putting.

Overall, I was disappointed, as the show’s roaring first season had set me on a path of high hopes for the second. I understand I’m in the minority here, as the second season was highly praised by critics and fans. For me, though, it took a bad turn into becoming a soap opera.

The Marvel movies don’t do much for me–for me, they’re terrific but ultimately paint-by-numbers epics–but I was impressed with WANDAVISION and came away equally impressed with my more recent watch, LOKI (DisneyPlus), which I liked quite a bit.

I absolutely loved Hiddleston in HIGH RISE, and watching him in this show, I totally get why LOKI is such a beloved villain, which has a lot to do with his acting. As for the story, it’s smart, fast-paced, and loaded with interesting ideas and characters. The false-antagonist-ally-antagonist, if you will, is excellent, and Loki’s path to something like redemption is convincing and engaging.

On the downside, the ending sags a little with an incomplete feeling of closure as it leaned into setting up a second season.

Overall, these Marvel series are really impressing me. The length and format allow the makers to take more risks and flesh out engaging, creatively stretching stories with a fresh identity. I like them better than the movies and hope they keep making them.