Category Archives: Television

Even More Spooky Season: Pickman’s Model

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Pickman’s Model is episode 5 of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities the anthology horror series produced by and streaming on Netflix.

Netflix Studios

Adapted from the short story of the same title Pickman’s Model is presented from the viewpoint of Will Thurber, (Ben Barnes) after he encounters in is art class Richard Pickman (Crispin Glover) a talented artist but whose paintings and drawing unsettle the viewer with their grotesque imagery. Thurber flees from Pickman after having been granted a viewing of the artists more private work and for the next twenty years seeming builds a normal life, but plague by nightmares induced by Pickman’s ghastly talents. Thurber’s world crashes when Pickman returns to his life with a planned public exhibition of his work.

Screenwriter Lee Patterson and director Keith Thomas while deviating in large measures from the source material have produced the most compelling and interesting adaptation of Lovecraft’s short story. A persistent and failed by most filmmakers challenge is depicting Pickman’s art. Particularly in an age where all manner of gruesome brutality is depicted not only in entertainment but the evening news it is nigh impossible for any film to present paintings as unsettling as what is described in the short story. Thomas avoids this trap by a couple of tricks, first never giving us a full dead-on look at the art. We see the images in shaky flashes and fragments, not in a static whole shot. Second, with clever lighting and small nearly subliminal changes in the art from moment to moment we can never be precisely sure what it is we see and what is some trick of the light. I found the presentation of ‘unnatural art’ as well depicted as in Gilroy’s Velvet Buzzsaw another fantastic piece of art inspired horror.

The performances, carried expertly by Barnes and Glover, are spot on and while depicting well-known character types never descend in tropes. Crispin Glover, donning a regional accent that avoids being overly broad, is perfectly placed as the disturbed artist Pickman.

Pickman’s Model is a perfect addition to this year’s Spooky Season.

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Happy Star Trek Day

Paramount Studios/CBS Home Video

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September 8th, 1966, Star Trek aired its first episode Mantrap, and the world has never been the same.

I was born in 1961 and as I mentioned in my post My Tangled History with Star Trek this series has always been a part of my life, re-runs of the original cast in the 70s and 80s, the one season of Star Trek: The Animate Series, and to limited amounts the various takes on the Universe and its characters since the show’s inception.

Beyond fandom Star Trek has left its imprint on the world and its events. In 2020 when a deadly pandemic swept the globe and the United States launched as massive drive to find a vaccine, and find it fast, the effort was named Operation: Warp Speed and no one had to have that moniker explained to them. Therapists speak of the need for people to ‘lower their shields’ and they are not referring to metaphorical iron and steel but force-walls of defensiveness. Perhaps the cultural impact that will live the longest beyond this beloved series is the concept that your evil twin sports a Spock style goatee.

Star Trek can be brilliant, such as combining the themes of Moby Dick and the madness of Mutually Assure Destruction in the unforgettable episode The Doomsday Machine. It could be profoundly silly with comedic episodes such as The Trouble with Tribbles, question the nature of identity with episodes like What are Little Girls Made Of, or The Serene Squall (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds), proving the versatility of the premise and science-fiction in general.

Of the show could be stupid too, taking swing that should never been attempted, Spock’s Brain, Turnabout Intruder, or Patterns of Force where I contend Spock uttered his most idiotic line in any film or episode when he named Nazi Germany as a model of efficient government. (Hell, man, The Fascists of Italy ruled longer than the ones of Germany. I have always envisioned someone off camera forcing Leonard Nimoy to speak such drivel.)

Star Trek has seen many series, movies, and even timelines. Fans can argue endlessly and to great amusement and entertainment which series or captain was best, which episodes were best or worst, which run had the best writing, which timeline which show is in, but what cannot be argued and must simply be accepted is that Star Trek made reality its own ‘strange new world.’

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I SUPPORT WGA/SAG AFTRA

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I have not made much in the any of public posts, but I want it to be clear that I support the Unions WGA and SAG-AFTRA in their fights for fair wages, fair compensation, and fair treatment particularly when it comes of residuals and abusive artificial intelligence application.

I have been chomping at the bit to see Dune pt. 2 since Part one finished screening the first time I watch it. This is a masterful interpretation and now the second part of the story will be play in theaters until next year.

Is this frustrating to me? Yes. Am I impatient for this move? Yes. Am I going to waver in support of the strikers for my personal entertainment desire? Fuck no.

There has been movement lately but the suits need to understand that while for them these issues are at the margin of how much profit they take back for their companies for the working actor and writer these are questions of career existence. You aren’t going to break them with PR pieces and low-ball offers.

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My Tangled History With Star Trek

CBS Studios

Credit: Paramount Pictures

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When Star Trek first hit the air in 1966, I was a wee lad of five. I have some memories of watching the series then, being confused as to how the Enterprise blasted-off from Earth, (I was an avid watcher of the American space launches) until the concepts ‘built in space’ and ‘never landing’ was explained to me. It was the 70s that cemented by love for Trek, with the afternoon ‘stripping’ of the series where episodes were shown in random order each weekday afternoon usually alongside other classics such as Gilligan’s Island or Green Acers.

When Star Trek: The Motion Picture hit the silvered screens in 1979 I was there for multiple screens in my local theater. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan remains one of my favorite films. Of course, in 1988 Star Trek: The Next Generation was released into syndication, and I was pleased to have new Trek in my life.

However, I never loved Next Gen the way I loved the original series. I watched it weekly for most of its run, but by season six found that the storylines and writing simply didn’t command my attention. I went to the theater for some of this cast’s feature films but was so repelled by Star Trek: Insurrection that even that stopped being one of my activities.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine came along and it was (shoulder shrug) alright. I watched a few seasons, but not as much as I had Next Gen and dropped out of regular viewership before they progressed to their ‘war’ storyline.

Star Trek: Voyager I managed to choke down three episodes before I fled from it. I found too much of that series either poorly thought out or simply stupid to continue watching save for an episode here and there written by a friend.

Star Trek: Enterprise held promise that enticed me. The idea of going back to a less tech advanced Federation I found fascinating, but I managed only the pilot episode and walked away. It was not for me, and I had absolutely no interest in a ‘temporal cold war.’

Star Trek: Discovery held my attention for several episodes, but I have a clear memory of switching off an episode when they mentioned a ‘space sonar’ and I never returned.

Star Trek: Lower Decks I watched several episodes and generally found I liked it on the same level as The Next Generation but ultimately the characters grated on my nerves. Farce is fine on limited doses, but I have a low tolerance for it as a running series.

Which brings us to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

I adore this show.

It is difficult to understand why this series is working for me when so many of the others repel me. I do think part of the reason is that it has embraced an episodic format. While not as episodic as television of the 1960s where the episodes were intended to be ‘stripped’ and shown out of order,Strange New Worlds has enough continuing storylines that the order of the shows is vitally important, but it also has the freedom to do episodes with standalone stories much like the original series. Not every episode is a banger and some certainly engage me more than others, but the series overall has grabbed.

This set of characters are far more interesting than the fairly bland set from Next Generationwho were presented as far too perfect for my tastes. Chapel has become one of my personal favorites instead of the one-note cardboard cutout as presented in the original run. After all, did anyone really notice her absence in Wrath of Khan?

For those people who love the various variations that didn’t work for me I am happy for you. What a boring world it would be if we only loved the same things. Strange New Worlds hasn’t worked for everyone and their big swings like the cross-over with Lower Decks and the musical episodes have sparked strong emotions but that is so far better than a bland meh. Take swings in your art, try something outrageous, most of all create what you want to see.

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Not a Proper Review: Ahsoka

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Last week on Disney+ the latest series et in the Star Wars universe, Ahsoka released the two episodes.

Disney Studios

Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) is a character from the animated Star Wars Series Rebels and has been briefly depicted by Dawson in the companion series The Mandalorian. The series Ahsoka centers on the chaos and rebuilding following the fall of the Galactic Empire including threats from still loyal Imperials along with the return of a much-feared Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen.)

This is not a proper review because I feel that to fully analyze the success or failure of a piece you must continue to the conclusion. It is in the ending that films and stories ‘come together’ and a botched ending can undermine and ruin an otherwise strong piece. I will not be following Ahsoka to its conclusion as the series in the first two episodes failed to give me any sort of emotional connection that compelled anymore of my time.

I have seen on social media that a number of fans are quite pleased with the series and thrilled to watch more. I am happy for them. It is good to find the art that speaks to you and thrills you and makes you happy. Happiness is a resource all too scarce in these days and years and I will not gainsay anyone for the art that gives it to them.

For me, however, Ahsoka, came across as flat in its characterizations. Not one the major characters presented in the first two episodes seemed to have any real interior life, speaking and acting solely in service of the plot. The plot itself felt like a retread, a McGuffin hunt with a device already employed in the sequel trilogy, a map to lost character. While the visual effects, particularly the ‘Volume’ set are impressive and make locations unavailable to television budgets a reality, and the fights are well-choregraphed there is not enough on the screen to hold my interest.

I hope the fans are happy and I hope for them that the series delivers the excitement and drama that it promises but for me this is a miss.

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Foreign Series Review: Shadow Lines (Nyrkki)

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Finland, 1955, following the cataclysm of the Second World War, is a country caught between the East, dominated by the Soviet Union and the West, led by the Americans NATO. After fighting two wars within 20 years with Soviets the Finns are rightfully apprehensive about their nuclear armed, expansive, and communist neighbor maintaining a knife’s edge neutrality in the freezing danger of the growing Cold War.

In this environment of lies, shadows, and covert threats the ‘Fist’ as dedicated group of Finnish Security agents conducts operations against Soviet and American intelligence agents and even against their own political parties to defend, protect, and ensure Finland’s independence.

The television series Shadow Lines is quite difficult to review and discuss in a short article because it is so dense with characters and plot lines that weave together is a tale of shadowy warfare that would have made John le Carré proud. The series’ various factions include;

  • The Fist – The above-mentioned Finnish security team, with member willing to murder their own to secure Finland’s future.
  • The KGB – Soviet Intelligence working in both the USSR and Finland. Itself riven by political dissentions as power struggles continue at the USSR’s highest levels.
  • The CIA – working to elect, by any means within their ability, their preferred candidate to Finland Presidency, but riven with agents harboring personal secrets utterly unacceptable in 1950s.
  • Rogue Soviets — The political warfare within the USSR includes officers and politicians willing to risk war defying their own leadership to seize control of Finland and its vital strategic location.

Shadow Lines is a compelling cynical and realistic espionage series. The program avoids the glitter and glam of a James Bond adventure for the dirty and ambiguous approach of realism. The technology presented isn’t the Sci-Fi of Q branch but the crude and often dysfunctional machinery of the post-war world. Characters, nearly every single one, harbors secrets and agendas that motivate them and bring them into conflict with their factions and fellow agents. While the high-level plotting of the series is about geo-politics and the gamesmanship of the Cold War the stories at the ground level are about people, their messy lives and loves, and the faults and flaws that drive them on.

Shadow Lines streams on Sundance+ and is available to purchase on VOD. We watched it via DVDs loaned from the local Library.

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Deadloch; a Companion Piece to Barbie

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Set in the small Tasmanian town of Deadloch this series is a satirical black comedy that pairs wonderfully with Gerwig’s whip smart Barbie.

Amazon Studios

A murder disrupts Deadloch and a royal visit in the region means that former Detective and now Senior sergeant Dulcie Collins (Kate Box) must partner with the abrasive and outspoken out of town detective Eddie Redcliffe (Madeleine Sami) while managing the drama of small-time life and the turbulence of her marriage to Cath (Alicia Gardiner.) As the number of murders and suspects explodes Dulcie, Eddie, and the residents of Deadloch are forced to confront long buried secrets while navigating a changing culture.

Deadloch‘s satire is sharp, delivered with perfect wit, and never plays favorites. The more ‘enlightened’ townspeople are targeted with equal ferocity as the sexist men and boys of the ‘footy’ club. Never shying away from topics as charges as sexuality, changing demographics, or even colonialism the show’s creatives explore each without a need to become preachy or lose track of either the murder mystery or the near farcical comedy.

Developed and produced in Australia the regional accents and slang may cause some viewers to be momentarily at sea with precisely what a character said or meant but turning on subtitling will alleviate that issue for viewers in need of a little assistance.

Season one totals just eight episodes with the finale just a bit longer that the preceding ones. Shot like a feature film and with a large cast of memorable and quirky characters Deadloch is a good fit for people who not only enjoyed Barbie but Twin Peaks as well.

Deadloch is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

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Of Parallel And Duplicate Earths

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For its season Finale Star Trek: Strange New Worlds revisited one of classic Trek’s most used budget cutting tropes, a world that looks exactly like out real world. This time instead of a parallel Earth that somehow evolved the exact same continents the justification was a settler colony obsessed with 20th century Earth cultures. (hmm, sound like my book. Same idea deployed for different reasons.) As ‘parallel’ Earths go this was a pretty decent justification and really just there to allow for backlot and location shooting instead of expansive and expensive set construction.

It did get me thinking about those old episodes where the Enterprise discovered a planet exactly like Earth but lightyears distant. It was while watching an old episode of classic Trek that I had one had the idea of writing my own parallel Earth short story.

The possibility of a star system evolving in a doppelganger version of out own is absurdly improbable and the answer to that ‘why is it there?’ question formed the central conceit of the story A Canvas Dark and Deep. Which sold to the fine internet magazine NewMyths.com. You can read it here in their archives.

A gentle reminder that I have my own SF novel available from any bookseller. Vulcan’s Forge is about the final human colony, one that attempt to live by the social standard of 1950s America and the sole surviving outpost following Earth’s destruction. Jason Kessler doesn’t fit into the repressive 50s social constraints, and he desire for a more libertine lifestyle leads him into conspiracies and crime.

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More Thoughts on Star Trek Strange New Worlds

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As I write this, we are one episode away from the conclusion of Season 2 of Star Tre: Strange New Worlds. This season has brought more episodes that swung at new things and new styles than season one, a crossover episode with an animated Trek Series, and the franchise’s first foray into musical territory, while also exploring the deep dark of some of their characters.

The series remains straddling the two worlds of television, being both episodic with each episode pretty much a self-contained story but also with one foot in the saga format as events

CBS Studios

Credit: Paramount Pictures

from previous episodes reverberate both in plot and emotion for the characters.

The series is Canon breaking. The events and experiences of the characters cannot be reconciled with the depictions first aired more than 50 years ago. I am fine with that. The nature of televised story telling has changed dramatically over the last half century and what was acceptable writing and plotting in the middle of the 1960s would never fly for today’s audiences. I would rather the series creatives break Canon and continuity in the furtherance of good character development and story revelations that commit to slavish devotion to a Canon that wasn’t adhered to even during the original broadcasts. There are of course limits. A story that requires that James Kirk joined Starfleet because he was on the run as a serial killer would be a Canon breaking event far too great to accept but having original series characters meeting people that in the first broadcasts that they had no knowledge of. No big deal if the final effect is to tell a good story.

The entire cast continues to deliver stellar performances. (Pun intended, fully and without regret.) The storylines give most of them more to do than any series airing in the 60s would have dared. This season’s treatment of Jim Kirk has felt more in keeping with the original character than his guest appearance in season one. It is quite pleasant to see some of the more supporting characters from the original series getting a deeper backstory and more emotional exploration than they received originally. Spock’s stories seem to create the greatest conflict with ‘Canon,’ but I remind you that even the original series couldn’t make-up its mind on what exactly was the truth. In the episode Where No Man Has Gone Before he refers to an ‘ancestor’ that one married an Earth woman and later this is simply ignored to make his mother human. Having Spock explore and experiment with allowing his human side to be expressed more freely may be a Canon violation, but I find it fascinating.

The characters I am most interested in and have the greatest emotional attachment to are Dr M’Benga, La’an Noonian Singh, and most of all Christine Chapel.

La’an, torn between her nature, button-downed and controlled, and her desire to be more open, expressed in her solo in the musical episode but contained within Christina Chong’s performance well before that is emotionally powerful.

M’Benga and Chapel’s traumatic war wounds are touching and heart rending giving each of them far deep characterizations that the original series ever allowed. While the war itself was explored in the series Star Trek: Discovery, which didn’t quite work for me, I am thoroughly enjoying the exploration of war’s lasting effect on the people forced to endure it. Like Frodo they carry wounds that will never fully heal.

One more episode to go but since this is a not a season long story but a series of interconnected ones, I do not feel that the finale is as critical to the whole season as it would be for another series. So, I can render a judgement without episode 10 and I am enjoying the series even more than I had during season one. In my opinion the best Trek since the original.

A gentle reminder that I have my own SF novel available from any bookseller. Vulcan’s Forge is about the final human colony, one that attempt to live by the social standard of 1950s America and the sole surviving outpost following Earth’s destruction. Jason Kessler doesn’t fit into the repressive 50s social constraints, and he desire for a more libertine lifestyle leads him into conspiracies and crime.

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Series Review: Secret Invasion

Marvel Studios.

Thirty years after the events of Captain Marvel Nick Fury and Carol Danvers, now aware that the
shapeshifting Skrulls had been the oppressed and not the oppressors and had promised to find
the aliens a world to be their new home, it is revealed that the search for a home has failed and some Skrulls are intent on removing humanity from the Earth and taking it as their own. Secret Invasionfollows Nick Fury as he attempts to save the Earth and humanity from the rebel Skrulls and their genocidal plot.

While Secret Invasion did not actively repulse me as did some non-MCU series such as The Rigand Silo, it failed to engage or enthrall my attention and failed as an example of its subgenre the MCU rendition of a spy story.

Spy fiction exists along a spectrum with Ian Fleming’s super-spy James Bond, filled with gadgets, glamor, and megalomaniacal villains at one end and John le Carré’s George Smiley’s world of disloyalty, moral compromises, and cynicism at the other. Secret Invasion however seems to exist outside of the spectrum, playing closer to the superhero nature of its universe and ignoring the spy element of its central protagonist, Nick Fury. The series is neither the clear good vs evil romp that many Bond plots are nor does it delve beyond the surface concerning the moral costs and corruption of intelligence work. Without either element the series floats from set piece to set piece, each other its own escalating stakes but missing the essential tones that creates genre. This is not a failing due to due to the story being placed within the MCU, WandaVision embraced, exploited, and satirized the American sitcom genre while still exploring grief, destiny, and superpowers. Captain American: The Winter Soldier, while remaining an extension of Steve Rodgers’s MCU journey, captured the paranoia and feel of a 70s political thriller. Secret Invasion’s failure at genre leaves it lackluster and pointless, serving only to setup other franchise entries and having no essential reason for its own existence.

In addition to its failing as a spy genre Secret Invasion also presented plot inconsistencies that undermine the show’s suspension of disbelief. For 30 years Captain Marvel and Fury has searched for a new home for the Skrull population and failed to find a single planet for them. Really? In a universe as teaming with life among the star, see all the aliens represented in Guardians of the Galaxyfranchise, which also posits that there are abandoned habitable worlds, the failure to discover a place for the Skrulls becomes a leap of logic too great for a setting that includes magic and talking trees.

For a story about shapeshifting aliens and a secret world-wide threat, Secret Invasion does so little with this element that it is utterly lacking in paranoia. The story doesn’t utilize the concept that everyone is suspect because anyone might be the worst person to interact with. Bond usually had the ‘bad Bond girl,’ le Carré is rife with ‘who can you trust?’ issues but Secret Invasion rarely employs such a rich plot point and when it does it lacks any real weight.

Secret Invasion is not bad, but neither it is good. Of the newest television series, I have added to my recent watching it is the least interesting. I do not regret the time I spent with the series, but I shall not be looking to experience it again as I did with Loki or WandaVision.

A gentle reminder that I have my own SF novel available from any bookseller. Vulcan’s Forge is about the final human colony, one that attempt to live by the social standard of 1950s America and the sole surviving outpost following Earth’s destruction. Jason Kessler doesn’t fit into the repressive 50s social constraints, and he desire for a more libertine lifestyle leads him into conspiracies and crime.

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