Author of sci-fi/fantasy, horror and adventure/thriller fiction

THE MANDALORIAN, Season 1

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THE MANDALORIAN (streaming on Disney Plus): I just finished Season 1, and while I liked it, thought it was fun, and saw it as having all the elements of a powerful series, it’s so connect-the-dots it feels empty and I ended up with a largely meh reaction.

It’s a great idea. The rebellion has succeeded, the Empire has fallen, and a lone bounty hunter works the Outer Rim. When tasked by a minor warlord who was once an Imperial officer to recover a child (now famous as “Baby Yoda”), he decides to protect it instead of hand it over, resulting in a series of adventures and ultimately conflict with some type of Imperial resurgence.

The series borrows a ton of tropes from old Westerns, films like THE SEVEN SAMURAI, and even a typical heist movie, a fun mashup. I loved little moments like when the Mandalorian sees mangy stormtroopers at his new client’s office, a comical moment between two speeder-riding troopers about whether to bug the commander, some terrific action, and similar cool elements pulled from the STAR WARS series but now showing the aftermath of the Empire. Baby Yoda is awesome, and I loved all the droids. The presentation is solid.

I think where the story became meh for me is in the length. The episodes are around 20 minutes long. As a result, the cool elements become a quick connect the dots with little real tension and heavy reliance on tropes, and I don’t feel anything, especially when I’m supposed to (e.g., “I’m done for. You go on without me.”). Same as every STAR WARS movie since the original trilogy. Maybe I’m showing my age and simply want, I don’t know, gravitas and real wonder from STAR WARS, instead of my favorite numbers repeatedly served hot off the menu.

So overall, I liked THE MANDALORIAN but didn’t fall in love with it. It’s the best STAR WARS showing since the original trilogy in my opinion, but I just found it hard to truly invest in it.

CATCH 22 Series

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Based on Joseph Heller’s classic antiwar novel CATCH 22, the 2019 Hulu series of the same title lovingly adds depth and dimension to Heller’s absurd world but tonally sacrifices the dark humor. I enjoyed it but found myself unfavorably comparing it both to the novel and the brilliant, tightly written 1970 movie starring Alan Arkin and many other great actors.

Produced by several people including George Clooney, who also directed and stars in several episodes, the six-part series describes the tribulations of John Yossarian (Christopher Abbott), an Air Force bombardier serving in Italy during World War II. He hates being there and wants to go home, but his brutal commander keeps raising the combat missions quota, making him wonder who the real enemy is.

The book is packed with absurdity to a Monty Python level. The tone shifts from dark comedy to just dark by its last act, with the horror closing in on Yossarian until he makes the ultimate choice to save himself. The series takes a different tack, playing it serious for the most part and sacrificing most of the books’ humor, but punctuating the otherwise serious story with absurd comedic moments that feel disjointed and not very funny. There’s a ton of filler plot stuff that doesn’t seem to go anywhere, and a lot of shots of Yossarian moping. The ending doesn’t really end.

That being said, the cinematography is lavish, as is the attention given to historical detail. The story starts off really well and is basically enjoyable, the acting is good, the potential of the story eventually hitting its stride is inviting. So in the end, I liked it, though I wanted to love it. I just ended up feeling like the show couldn’t decide what it wanted to be.

THE EXPANSE, Season 5

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THE EXPANSE (Amazon Prime) is one of my favorite shows and probably my favorite sci-fi show ever. Everything from the rich world-building to the three-dimensional characters to the crisp dialogue to the sense of realism to the incredible action, it’s just amazing. In particular, I love how the plot rarely takes the easy way out, how the characters struggle with physical and ethical dilemmas, and how every action has far-reaching consequences. In short, it may be a fantasy world, but this is a grownup story that treats its viewers like grownups while providing a sense of childlike wonder.

Season 4 had me a little worried. The first three seasons were incredible, and then the show ended up moving to Amazon. With its limited scale, the fourth season was solid but wasn’t the strongest of the lot. Then Season 5 arrived to deliver multiple tight plot lines converging on an incredible finale.

In this season, the crew have scattered on more personal missions. Amos wants to go to Earth to pay last respects to somebody important in his old life. Naomi wants to find her son. Alex goes to Mars to try to patch things up with his family. Holden, meanwhile, stays behind to hold the fort. While all this develops, Marco Inaros, Naomi’s ex who is now the leader of a navy intent on fighting the inner planets and establishing the Belt as an empire, puts his grand plan into motion. In the ensuing chaos, the crew finds itself facing their hardest fight to survive yet.

I won’t say more, see for yourself. Suffice to say I love this show, and Season 5 was as strong as if not better than the preceding seasons, which shows the power of anchoring a TV show to great books as well as what can happen when the owners of a beloved show respect that love by not cutting corners and phoning it in. Highly recommended.

REVOLUTION

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REVOLUTION (Netflix) is a French zombie series that reimagines the history of the French Revolution as being caused by a disease spreading among the nobility that turns them into undead creatures with an appetite for flesh. Sort of a French version of South Korea’s excellent series KINGDOM, though in this case the zombies retain their faculties. It’s moody, cool, and interesting. Overall, I liked it, though with its complex plot and sometimes sluggish pace, it’s no WORLD WAR Z.

Working at the Bastille prison, Dr. Joseph Guillotin meets a new prisoner alleged to have murdered and partially eaten a number of peasants. He suspects something isn’t right, and eventually uncovers a plague that could transform humanity into a direct food chain. Some in the nobility know something isn’t right and resist; others go along with it; and a resistance group hoping to overthrow them all and institute a republic finds an even greater reason to take action. It’s all leading to a revolution with even greater stakes than its real historical counterpart.

The colors are dark, the actors often somber, the plot complex, the atmosphere moody. And it’s slow, which is probably its biggest difference with KINGDOM, which used humor well, offered plenty of action, and didn’t take itself as seriously. Despite this, I liked REVOLUTION quite a bit and regard it as a terrific reinvention of the zombie in a unique historical context.

The first season ends in a way that promises a second, though unfortunately the show was canceled, which may leave viewers expecting the full-on revolution by the end of season 1 hanging. Regardless, it’s a solid watch, particularly for those looking for something new and interesting with zombies.

POSSESSOR (2020)

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Brandon Cronenberg’s POSSESSOR (2020, Google Play) excels at visual style, a powerful and immersive atmosphere, and an amazing cast including Andrea Riseborough, Christopher Abbott, Rossif Sutherland, Tuppence Middleton, Sean Bean, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Nonetheless, in my opinion it fails to live up to its intriguing premise.

The story stems from a corporation that hires out assassins to high-paying clients. Tasya is one of them, and she remotely inhabits other people’s consciousness to commit the assassinations. She’s given a big job to inhabit a man and kill a CEO before turning the gun on himself. But things go wrong.

It’s a premise with enormous possibilities. Remote assassination, a woman in a man’s body, hiding not just in plain sight but right in front of somebody you are going to kill–there’s a lot of intriguing stuff here, though much of it is goes unexplored. Where POSSESSOR shines is in its atmosphere and world building. It’s a nicely imagined alternate world, the visual style is artistic, and the atmosphere is moody and immersive.

Where it lost me was the characters. Maybe it was just me, but it felt like the film didn’t mind creating an emotional distance between me and the major characters, and as a result I didn’t care about Tasya, and I didn’t care about the man she inhabited. Without more than a marginal character arc or even basic investment, I looked to the plot to move things along, but the pacing is very slow, and plot wraps up while leaving a lot of potential story on the table. The film is spiced with ample, graphic body horror and gore, so over the top I found it discordant and indulgent.

So in the end I kind of liked POSSESSOR for its strengths, but I didn’t connect with it in any meaningful way aside from its artistic direction, solid acting, and for what I wished it had been. It’s getting rave reviews, so maybe it’s just me, but this one was a beautiful swing but a miss for me.

SHIRLEY (2020)

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SHIRLEY (2020, streaming on Amazon Prime) is a biopic about novelist Shirley Jackson. It’s a slow burn, and, while it will appeal to people who’d never read Jackson’s work, it’s not for everyone. That being said, it really stands out for its terrific acting performances, direction, and rejection of the usual phoned-in laundry-list scripting that plagues biopic films.

The film’s main protagonist is a fictional character Rose, whose husband Fred has been hired as a lecturer at Bennington College, where Jackson’s husband works as a professor. The older couple invite the younger to stay with them until they get settled, which turns out to be a ruse to get Rose to take care of Shirley, who is hard drinking and lethargic to the point of appearing clinically depressed. Over time, finding themselves in similar circumstances in life, the women form something of a symbiotic connection, each learning something important from the other. All the while, we see Shirley writing her 1951 novel HANGSAMAN, gaining small insights into her torturous creative process.

The film is based on the novel SHIRLEY by Susan Scarf Merrell, which fictionalized Jackson’s real life around this time period. This was a great decision, as biopic films tend to be boring and by the numbers. They fictionalize what shouldn’t be fictionalized to create shortcuts, while staying so true to real life otherwise that there’s often simply a series of events and no real plot or character arc. SHIRLEY goes the other way, keeping the essence of truth but then telling a fictional story within it and finding themes in it, in this case a study of the madness of creative genius and a subtle feminist critique of the lack of choices women faced at the time. It worked for me.

The acting is great, particularly Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Odessa Young. They have plenty to work with, though Jackson and her worshipful but controlling and enabling husband are often performative to the point of edging on grating and unlikable. (If I had to live with these people, I would have run screaming or throttled them.) Young is great as Rose, who gives us somebody to connect to, understand, and root for. The directing is also good, with its visual styling evoking the feelings of disorder and dread produced by Jackson’s novels.

So again, while this film is not for everyone, I liked it quite a bit.