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Impressions The Mandalorian Season 3
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I have to confess that so far Season 3 of The Mandalorian a space fantasy series set a few years 
after the downfall of the Empire in Star Wars has been less compelling than the preceding two.
In season one we had a clear narrative line, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) accepts a bounty to collect an asset and deliver it to remnants of Imperial Forces. The asset, an immature member of the same species of Yoda, wins his affections and the plot is about keeping the child safe.
Season two Din Djarin is tasked with returning the child to a Jedi who can complete its training while dealing with the powerful enemies still intent on collecting the child for their own schemes.
Both of these plots are clear and established early in each season with Din eventually sacrificing his commitment to his warrior religion to rescue the child.
The third season, with Din Djarin and the Child reunited, has so far displayed no narrative cohesion. Feeling much more like an adventure role playing game, the season has wandered from battle to battle, event to event, with very little plot connecting the various elements. Each week stuff happens but without revealing a goal that the characters are pursuing. The season seems to be comprised of side quests while forgetting to give a central one for the side ones to branch off from.
The show is still quite well produced and directed but lack cohesion to give it narrative gravitas making it by far the weakest season so far.
That Potential Harry Potter Series
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Deadline and other sources are reporting that Warner Brothers, a studio once known for its anti-fascist stances, is looking to move forward for a re-booting of the valuable Harry Potter IP as a series for its streaming service HBOMax. It is reported that WB CEO Zaslav has met with JKR in hopes of bringing this project to life and that JKR may even be producer on the series. JKR, in addition to the controversies surrounding her small-minded stance on trans issues, is notorious for demanding control over the property and would likely wield great influence over the series’ production.
It’s understandable that people became fans of the franchise either through the books or the films before JKR’s opinion became public poisoning, quite understandably, many against the author. With the proposed series all this is known ahead of time on this go around and raises ethical and moral concerns about financially supporting JKR as she continues with what many people feel are bigoted opinions.
I fully support those who protest and drag into the light the statements and attitudes of JKR, but I also think it would be wise and just to be prudent in who is targeted if this series continues to move forward.
For example, the young actors cast in the series I would not want to see hounded or harassed on social media. ‘We are not so smart when we are young,’ as one fictional character observed and it is already a very hard road to travel as a child actor there is little, very little, to be gained targeting them.
The writers of the ‘writers room’ are likely to be in the first stages of their careers, struggling with student debt, the high cost of living in LA, and the difficult task of landing any paying gig in Hollywood, refusing an assignment may not have been a viable option for them.
However, the show runner, as of yet unnamed, the person with creative control only checked by the studio and the dictatorial JKR is another matter. That person is likely to be an experience veteran of the business with the financial and career resources to walk away from the series. If they choose to get into bed with JKR, fully aware of the controversies she brings along, then they have made their decision and shouldn’t be surprised when it turns out to be far from popular.
I have read the books and seen the film adaptation and found them enjoyable but flawed. Others have done a fine job pointing out the antisemitic tropes and the ignorant racism in the text so I will not elaborate on that here just beware it is there. I have no need to purchase anything new from the franchise and I am quite happy leaving it behind, the proposed series holds no interest for me and hopefully not for you either.
The Clown Car Has Crashed Into The Police Van
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For the first time in American History a grand jury has indicted a former president of the nation on criminal charges. The exact nature of those charges are still unknown as the disclosure will occur at the defendant’s arraignment and everything said about those charges, their strengths or weaknesses is mere speculation. But hey, there are clicks to harvest and commercial airtime to sell so the speculation is not going to stop.
Of course, all of this is so utterly predicable that the most fraudulent telephone psychic of the 80s or 90s would have foretold its coming. Trump, a man who idolized and admired the organized crimes goons of his city, who famously stiffed nearly everyone single person he ever owed money to, and who envisioned himself, despite his soft doughy nature, as a hard man of cruelty, was always at some point exceed his limited intellectual capacity and finally violate the law in a manner that he would not be able to bribe, buy, or dodge his way out of. That was a predictable as the law of gravity.
And yet, notwithstanding all that the Republican Party, lashed themselves to his fate and, depending on your point of view, either revealed their utter hypocrisy or shredded their final and weakly held principles as the party of ‘individual responsibility’ and devoted their time and treasure to this small, weak, and stupid man’s defense.
Having spent the previous decades chasing away anyone with a modicum of decency towards their fellow person while making every effort to enrichen the wealthy the elites and powerbrokers of the GOP transformed their once proud vehicle into a clown car and then handed the wheel over to the biggest clown of all.
Now devoid of principles save the authoritarian ‘my way!’ they GOP as shocked and terrified to discover that the clown car has ended up into the police station and there is little chance to escape the terrible, inevitable, and wholly foreseeable fallout of their self-destruction. They fervently pray that a conviction or a Big Mac will remove the orange clown from their care, but even if that were to come to pass it would change very little. The army of clowns that they had spent decades building, fooling themselves that it obeyed their commands, has taken control and will remain there for at least another decade.
The Coming Election ‘Fraud’ No One is Talking About
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An oft repeated observation about Trump and his approach to elections is that he can never lose, he can only win or be cheated.
We saw this in the run up to the 2016 election where he voiced, repeatedly, his willingness to dispute the results if he did not win. Again in 2020 when he launched a coup attempt in part by convincing millions of people that the election had been ‘stolen’ from him. And we are bracing for the coming cries of fraud should he once again be the presidential nominee for the Republican Party.
Among the political talk there is a great deal of chatter and debate concerning Trump’s chances of grabbing that nomination. ‘Is he slipping? Who can beat him and take the base away from him? Is Candidate X the Trump-killer?’
Not once in all the articles I have read or the podcast I have consumed has anyone addressed the most glaring and obvious fact about the GOP primary and Trump.
He can’t lose, he can only be cheated.
Even if some other rabid and foaming at the mount southern governor wins the contests, Trump will concede to reality. That mad narcissist is incapable of admitting any sort of error or defeat. He will take the air, to the social media, and to his rallies with cries that the ‘establishment’ colluding with the ‘deep state’ has stolen the primary election and even if the convention goes against him, he will claim that ‘rigged’ that too.
What happens then?
What happens when he insists he really won the primaries and demands all those spineless, sniveling, cowardly politicians who have bent the knee to this obscene protofascist once again repeat his lies and throw themselves on those electoral grenades?
Would that finally explode the GOP? Shattering it with schisms and internecine warfare? People talk of a GOP civil war now, but I think the debates and appeasements we see now would fade into invisibility compared to this scenario. Elected in solidly gerrymandered districts might survive reject his lies but not the next primary or even possibly recall elections, but candidates in more evenly distributed districts would face losing voters from their base because they didn’t back Trump or losing voters from the middle because they did while still facing the wrath of the base in the next primary.
The GOP is far from done with Trump and he is far from done with them.
Little To Say This Morning
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The rains have returned to San Diego and with the fluctuations in barometric pressure so have my headaches. Not with the force that would require me to stay at home and endure the stink of painting as the contractors continue to reconstruct our condominium but enough pain that conjuring a subject for an essay seems to be an impossible task. So, once again, here a few bits and bops on my mind without any particular theme or connection.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns for season 2 on June 15, 2023. Yay. I am an old fart and for me when someone mentions Star Trek my mind flies instantly to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. I watched most of TNG and very little of the other series offerings, but SNW seems to scratch that ich quite well and I am happy to have it back.
A new short story idea. For the first time in a few years a short story idea has popped into my head. It is mystical supernatural horror. Inspiration struck while I was giving a rewatch to The Last Wave an arthouse horror movie from down under.
I am annoyed that Disney+ has released no behind the scenes/making of documentaries for the Star Wars series Andor. Andor is the best thing to happen to the franchise in The Empire Strike Backand I desperately want that bonus material. I suspect, without evidence, that since the decision has already been made that there will be only two season they are going to hold off on that stuff until the series is finished.
Those Organians Doors
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Errand of Mercy is the 26th episode of season one of the original series Star Trek, notable for the debut of the Klingon Empire and god-like Organians that prevented a disastrous galactic war.
In the episode Spock and Kirk end up trapped on the seemingly technologically stunted Organia, a critical star system on the Klingon Empire’s expected invasion route. The Klingons arrive and what follows is a series of captures, escape, and acts of sabotage as Kirk and Spock
CBS Home Video
do their duty while the Klingons as brutal occupiers seeming slaughter Organians by scores. At every turn the Organians are pacifistic and welcoming, seemingly untroubled but disgusted by the overt acts of violence. Everything resolves when the Organians, revealing themselves to be beings of ‘pure energy’ and unlimited powers, stop the war and force a peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
There is a subtly to this episode that I have admired for some time, and I can’t recall someone drawing attention to it.
Kirk and, along presumably the Klingon characters, have for all their lives known doors that operated automatically at their approach. It is a classic bit of blooper footage watching the actors of Star Trek slam into the set door when a stagehand missed the cue and they remained closed. The faux setting created by the Organians was one of a society which technologically had not yet advance beyond animal power with massive wooden doors bound with iron like some absurd D&D setting. It is revealed that the god-like aliens crafted all this to make it easier for the humans, Vulcans, and Klingons to interact with the Organians, presumably drawing inspiration from their own biases and preconceptions. Including the bias that doors open themselves.
Throughout the episode every ‘primitive’ wooden door swing open or closed without anyone touching it. Kirk, Spock, Kor, and everyone else simply walks towards the doors and they sweep aside for the characters without a single character every commenting or noting the anachronism.
Of course, for the production of the episode there are stagehands watching intently and pulling on ropes operating the set. Everyone is keenly aware of what is happening in these scenes but the characters, in a beautiful and subtle obliviousness, fail to notice because it is how door always work. The strange working of Organian doors is never brought directly to the viewer’s attention. Not cut away shot focusing on the effect is revealed. The magical doors are simply part of the environment left to be noticed if one is not fully engaged with the story as it unfolds.
When you do notice it, and think about it, its beauty is apparent. A tiny little story element without any direct effect on the plot but establishing the ‘reality’ of the characters and their preconceptions of their world.
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 attempts 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.
Movie Review: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
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This past Saturday the 25th I had the good fortune to see an advance screening of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves a big budget cinematic adaptation of the tabletop role playing game. As a gamer for more than 40 years I had a keen interest in the film and when a fellow writer popped up with invites to the screening I had to attend.
There have been other attempts to leverage the game into popular media. From 1983 through 1985 saw the production and airing of an animated series Dungeons & Dragons with the three season clearly target for a younger audience. 2000 saw the release of a live-action film Dungeons & Dragons that was poorly received by both critics and audiences. (Though successful enough for two direct to Home Video sequels.) This production, Honor Among Thieves is boasts the most resources and well-known names to adapt the property.
The film, like most sessions of the game, is an ensemble piece, though more focus is given to Edgin (Chris Pine) a man who through tragedy has turned to thievery and Holga, (Michelle Rodriguez) his dangerous barbarian partner in crime. They assemble a team, Simon (Justice
Paramount Studios
Smith) a Sorcerer with self-esteem issues, Doric (Sophie Lillis) a tiefling druid desperate to save her people and wilderness from encroaching ecological devastation, Xenk (Rege-Jean Page) a paladin with ties to Edgin past before Edgin fall from grace. What starts as a heist, with a few side adventures to gather the materials required, transforms into a battle against a vast and evil conspiracy with thousands of live and the future in the hands of the thieves.
Each character has an arc of character development and with the story compressed to a single film none are particularly deep or complex. Honor Among Thieves is not a contemplative examination of the human condition but romp, an exercise in fun with just enough character to allow the actors to invest, engage, and embrace their roles. No third act twist is truly shocking or surprising, but the film isn’t relying on that approach. It expects, with reasonableness, that characters and the actors portrayals with keep the audience emotionally invested and not some amazing reveal to recontextualize the story.
The filmmaking is solid, competent, but not groundbreaking or visually stunning. For the most part, with the except of one shoot, the directors, Jonathan Goldstein a & John Francis Daley, avoid drawing attention to the VFX with ‘impossible’ camera moves and Barry Peterson’s cinematography is perfectly serviceable with decent compositions but never remarkable.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a ‘popcorn movie,’ one meant to provide a short diversion from the grind of reality and give some thrills, laughs, and a touch of real emotion. In the matter the film succeeds. It is fun and worth the hair over two hours spent watching it.
Streaming Review: Bad Sisters
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Adapted from a Flemish television program Clan, Bad Sisters is an Irish comedic drama centered on the five Garvey Sisters, and their recently deceased under questionable circumstances brother-in-law, John Paul, JP, who had been a controlling, emotionally abusive, and belittling
Apple Studios
husband. The story follows twin linear timelines, one after JP’s sudden death with a private insurance firm suspicious of the circumstances, and the other a few months prior as the other four sisters plot his murder.
JP, played with excellence by Danish actor Claes Bang, manages in every succeeding scene to justify the audience’s sympathy with the Garvey sisters and their desire to murder the man. Even in Episode Eight when, after witnessing the emotional abuse he suffered at the hands of his father, and I found some measure of pity for hi, the character managed to destroy that ember of good will with his own selfish and evil actions.
Each of the sisters is a well-drawn and performed character in their own right with their own motivation for their hatred of JP.
The series maintains a careful balance between drama, with JP’s cold, hurtful nature a dagger to anyone with a heart, and the comedy of errors as the sisters, not one with any sort of criminal experience, fumble repeated attempts to rid the world of JP’s baneful existence.
Complicating the situation are the half-brothers Thomas and Matt, inheritors of the small insurance firm responsible for JP’s policy, facing criminal charges and bankruptcy due to their deceased father’s fraud and mismanagement. Their only salvation would be finding the truth to avoid paying on the claim.
Bad Sister is a native Irish production and filled with familiar Irish actors. The program’s cinematography is lush, fully capturing the Emerald Isle’s beauty while never losing focus on the characters and their dilemmas. At the heart of the story is family and the bonds of blood that can drive people to extremes to defend and protect their siblings.
Currently streaming in Apple TV+, Bad Sisters, is enjoyable excursion and a welcome diversion.
Bits and Bobs
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So here are some quick thoughts on various subjects some with fuller elaboration to come.
Bad Sisters: an Apple TV+ comedy/drama series about the five Garvey sisters and how four of them plot to murder the brother-in-law who is crushing the life out of the fifth. We have one episode to go to finish the first season and I adore it. I marvel at how every scene in which the brother-in-law appears makes me more and more appreciate the sister’s motivation. I suspect that they will stick the landing, but I have been burned by endings before. (Looking at you Game of Thrones and The Rig.)
The Thaw: Polish police procedural following a female detective, recently widowed after the suspected murder of her husband, thrown into a case with political implications and a missing newborn. We are one episode in on this one, but the writing and production values are quite good. Streaming on HBOMax.
The Mandalorian: Season three is airing on Disney+ and while I thoroughly enjoyed the first two seasons this one feels a bit off. It is not bad, but the narrative seems to wander about, and it lacks story momentum. Pedro Pascal continues to be quite good, and the puppeteering is outstanding but after the outstanding drama that was Andor the bar has been raised and the writers of this show will need to step up.
I have run my first role playing game via Zoom and aside from a sore throat that manifested during the game, things went quite well. In some ways this is superior because with my desktop computer and two monitors it is far easier for me to use all the spreadsheets that I have created to manage FGU’s quite elaborate game system.
Our condominium remains in a state of partial disassembly following the water damage from February, and we are still without a functional kitchen or able to entertain friends.