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Come hear my weird voice as I talk for barely 1 minute about Star Wars: Visions. I might be making a mistake!
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Andor E9: Nobody’s Listening
Comments: Andor gains a friend, ISP lady gains a stalker, and... uhm, this show continues to be amazing. I hope there’s like, 37 episodes more of this.
I think I said it before, but I'm not willing to believe Disney allowed this to be created. Like, honestly, what happened? How could Andor be created by the same studio that produced Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett?
I'm afraid that, with its success, those in charge will notice and kill it. So everyone ya gotta promise, okay:
Praise Andor enough to get it renewed; Don't praise Andor enough for Disney to notice.
That's how it works, right?
My enjoyment: 5/5
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Star Trek: The Next Generation: Clues (S4E14)
Comments: So the other day I watched the first 30 minutes of a three-hour long review on Star Trek Discovery and could not believe—even though I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes—that a television show could possibly be as bad as Discovery. For a moment I thought that maybe the problem wasn’t that Discovery should be legally classified as a war crime but rather that my basis of comparison was too high. Maybe, I thought, "classic Trek" wasn’t as good as I remembered. Maybe, I thought, if I were to watch a random episode of TNG I would realize it wasn't as good as I remember.
Well, it turns out I was wrong: TNG is actually a f—ing fantastic television show.
Okay, so the plot here is that the Enterprise encounters a space anomaly. There’s a burst of energy and everyone but Data is knocked unconscious (screenshot). The first act opens with Data explaining to the just-awakened crew that the space anomaly rendered them unconscious for 30 seconds but they good now. As the episode progresses, the crew discovers clues that lead them to believe they had been unconscious for much longer than 30 seconds (and almost an entire day) and therefore Data is lying. Upon being questioned, Data refuses to give a straight answer, only stressing that he’s not allowed to talk about it.
A core value of this show (and what makes Star Trek Star Trek to me) is its ability to elevate itself above simple entertainment and impart some valuable lessons or morals through the telling of a good story.
Practically, I gained a new perspective on the value of rehearsals, learned a lesson that I've already applied to my professional life, and found a valuable negotiation tool that I expect to make good use of.
There’s also a central theme of mysteries and the human inability to resist them. The execution of that idea (the episode’s plot) is both an illustrative portrayal of its theme as well as the theme in action itself: the crew is driven by their desire to resolve a mystery while the audience is driven from scene to scene as things start to add up, as more clues are discovered, as the mystery builds. That very immersion is direct evidence that the episode’s central theme is valid and true.
It’s just... ah, such good shit...
My enjoyment: 5/5
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The Bad Batch S2E16: Plan 99
Comments: Wait a minute, is this the last episode? I seriously gotta start paying more attention... Damn.
Right, so we open on the cable car stuck on its track. Tech is sent along the rail to restore power, which he does, but in the meantime Tarkin has sent air support to destroy the cable car. In the mayhem, Tech sacrifices himself to save the others.
I have a minor and a major comment regarding this.
My minor comment on Tech's not!death is that Tech's final line is "When have we ever followed orders?" He says this in response to Wrecker saying "please don't do it"... which is not an order. It's more like a wish from a friend/comrade. So... it’s unfortunate Tech's "final" words were clunky dialogue.
My major comment is that Tech is obviously not dead, this being Disney Star Wars. So I basically have zero emotional response to this, despite him being my second favorite character.
Let's examine!
Boba Fett is eaten by the Sarlacc but later shown to survive so that the Boba Fett show can happen
Chewy is exploded but immediately (the very next scene I think) shown to be alive
Young Reva is stabbed through the gut, but just... survives
Adult Reva is stabbed through the gut, but just... walks it off
The Grand Inquisitor is stabbed through the gut, but just... doesn’t die
Maul is cut in half only to be revived with spider legs
Kylo is killed but then revived by God Empress Rey Palpatine
Literally No Flaws Rey Palpatine is revived after duel with her grandfather
Leia as Mary Poppins
Poe (somehow) survives a TIE fighter crash and just kinda shows up again later without explanation
Fennec is shot, left for dead in a desert, and dies but comes back later just patched up with some droid guts
The Marshall is shot and killed, but revived in some Bacta
And, of course, somehow Palpatine returned
The only significant death that Disney has followed through on was Kanan's in Rebels, which was generally satisfying and competently handled. It's important to mention this isn't the fault of The Dad Batch, but rather Disney Star Wars in general, so it's a shame that otherwise good, competent content (like TDB) suffers from the larger universe in which it lives.
Anyways, Cid sells out TDB in their moment of need and we end on Omega being taken captive to Mount Tantiss. Any additional comments are just praise for the music, execution, writing... I mean, this show's not Andor-levels of amazing, but it's definitely enjoyable. I look forward to the next season. Fun stuff.
My enjoyment: 5/5
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The Bad Batch S2E15: The Summit
Comments: We open on Pabu to establish this episode’s premise: Tarkin and Hemlock are having a meeting on some planet, so TDB will infiltrate Tarkin’s compound and place a tracking beacon aboard Hemlock’s ship. This will allow them to track Hemlock and identify the location of his secret base.
At the meeting, Tarkin asks for details on Hemlock’s plan, but he just sorta monologues about some bullshit for a bit before Krennic (of Rogue One) has a cameo. Couldn’t Tarkin et al. just Zoom chat this one? There’s no reason why it needs to be an in-person meeting beyond, I suppose, the top-secret nature of the discussions. Am I to believe there’s no encryption protocols for long-range communications in the Star Wars universe?
Anyways, TDB infiltrates the compound by hitching a ride on a cable car, which—just like in that stupid Solo movie—brings into question the practicality of trains in a universe that has ubiquitous floating/flying vehicles.
As an aside, characterization is good, I like it, but highlighting Wrecker’s fear of heights literally every single f—ing time goes too far. Yes, we get it. We don’t need a line of dialogue every single time; there’s other ways to show this. It’s like the one absolute guarantee of this show.
Right, so during their infiltration, Omega successfully places the homing beacon, but Hunter/Tech discover that Saw Gerrera is also here, up to his ‘ol shenanigans. Saw’s plan is to destroy the entire compound, with all the high-ranking Imps inside, which is in direct opposition to TDB’s plan (which is to allow Hemlock to leave aboard his tracked ship).
There’s a nice debate here on contrasting methods, with Tech/Hunter wanting to gain intel to help their cause while Saw wants mindless, ill-considered violence. Tech points out that Saw’s plan would only produce short-term gains but Saw retorts with something about “the greater good” (the greater good)... Y’know, I get the sense Saw isn’t very smart? I’m starting to view him as a big reason why the Rebel Alliance didn’t succeed earlier in their fight against the Empire. But, anyways, this debate is solved with writing contrivance, as an underling interrupts the debate with the announcement that stormtroopers are on their way.
In the end, Saw blows up the compound (along with the tracking device) and TDB ends up stuck in a cable car above the mist.
My Enjoyment: 4/5
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Picard: S3E8 Surrender
Comments: Aaaaand they've killed off Amanda Plummer.
So now I have nothing to look forward to. Goodbye, queen. Goodbye, my sanity, my very soul...
Hey, but at least I’m just one “Beverly takes a life” away from winning bingo!
So, uh, at least I've got that going for me.
Pretty sure Jack Crusher has Borg in ‘em though, which is f—ing lame. Seriously, you're doing the Borg again?
Wilted cabbage? Is that the only thing inside the writers’ heads? Just a single leaf of wilted cabbage?
My enjoyment: 1/5
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Picard: S3E7 Dominion
Guys, I found the perfect screenshot for this show!
Well, despite the over-the-top expository dialogue, I actually liked this one since it was 80% Amanda Plummer just killing it. The rest was icky and stupid, so let’s see how I’m doing after the first day:
Right.
In case you don't read every single post in detail, UEM = Unearned Emotional Moment.
My enjoyment: 4/5
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Tales of the Jedi E6: Resolve
Comments: We open on Ahsoka attending Padme’s funeral and being told by Jimmy Smits to contact her in the future if she needs anything. That takes about 1/4th of the episode.
The remainder of the episode involves Ahsoka hiding on a farm, apparently trying to start a new life, but after her powers are revealed (by using the Force to save a girl), an Inquisitor shows up, burns down the village, and so Ahsoka kills him. She then calls Senator Jimmy Smits to come help the survivors...
There’s a tonal disjointness here where Kiner’s score has a nice epic Western showdown feel and is generally competent, but it’s overlaid by this most ridiculous dialogue between a character we’ve just met and... an Inquisitor.
Hah! Jokes about Ahsoka’s lack of character. I love ‘em!
Anyways, that was the last episode of this, so now I can cross more Star Wars content off my list.
My enjoyment: 2/5
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Tales of the Jedi E5: Practice Makes Perfect
Comments: Well, I watched this one on a business trip a few weeks ago, but let’s see...
The episode begins with Master Sinube administering a test on Ahsoka, who needs to cut apart floating balls with her lightsaber. Yoda, Prequel!Wan and others apparently have nothing better to do than sit around and watch Ahsoka perform (ew). She asks Anakin how she did and he complains that the floating ball test is not a real test.
For the remainder of the episode, Anakin tortures Ahsoka in his version of a “test.” So the setup is that Anakin orders his soldiers (Rex and Jesse are named) to stand around her in a circle and shoot at her with stun blasts until they succeed in stunning her. After the first time she succumbs, it takes her an hour to wake up, barely able to stand, her vision blurred, clearly delirious, and so Anakin orders his soldiers to go again.
This horrific scene of child abuse repeats again and again as this poor child is rendered progressively less able to defend herself and Anakin becomes increasingly annoyed with her failure to die.
After what I assume to be several hours, Rex wonders aloud how much more she can take. Anakin dismisses his (completely legitimate) concern and, in true Anakin style, continues to order his troops to shoot her without offering any insight, instruction, or lesson. There’s some training montage music but she’s not actually being taught anything. She’s just being tortured, her body broken down, her mind shattered.
Eventually it’s implied that she gets better at this, but we never see how and—like most TCW content—we’re once again subjected to the abhorrent message that, in order to get better at something, you just gotta really believe in yourself!
I was only a teacher for six years, but never in that experience did “believing in yourself” prove to be an effective teaching tool. There’s a quotation from The Wee Free Men (Terry Pratchett) that I feel is relevant:
“If you trust in yourself... and believe in your dreams... and follow your star... you’ll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things [...]”
The episode ends with a cut to that scene at the end of TCW where Ahsoka must fight Jesse and a bunch of other troopers in the hangar bay... meaning this entire episode was intended as an explanation for how Ahsoka could fight so many troopers trying to stun her. But—just like the entirety of that stupid Solo movie—no one needed or even asked for that explanation.
My enjoyment: 1/5
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Well, I'm finally back from my business trip / vacation, and so that means I have to finish watching Picard...
I've created a bingo sheet for the rest of the season (E7 onwards) based on my predictions and knowledge that the writers are shit.
Not the shit, just shit.
Let's see how I do!
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Tales of the Jedi E4: The Sith Lord
LOL, we open on Dooku literally deleting the location of Kamino from the archives. If there was ever any mystery regarding that, this show just evaporated it at the one-minute mark of this episode. Dooku literally just pressed two buttons and deleted it. That’s it, that’s what happened.
We get a scene of Yaddle, Qui-Gon, and Dooku chatting in the Jedi Temple in the immediate aftermath of Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon having just met Maul. We then cut ahead to Dooku standing by the tree in the Jedi Temple, having just learned of Qui-Gon’s death. It’s suggested that Dooku blames the Council for this.
Dooku flies to meet with Uncle Palps and Yaddle follows him, to see where he’s going, but like... right behind him. Somehow Dooku doesn’t notice and there’s no precautions in place to ensure he’s not being followed. There’s an awkward lightsaber fight (tiny-ass Yaddle v. six-foot-four Dooku) and Dooku ends up just smashing her into the ground with the lightsaber after she’s defeated, defenseless, and barely alive. Good stuff, Disney.
I think I enjoyed this episode way more than I should have because, from that screenshot, I honestly thought Disney gave Yoda hair. They've done fucked up pretty badly in the past, but no where nearly as bad as giving Yoda hair . So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it was Yaddle, and not Yoda-with-hair.
My enjoyment: 4/5
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Tales of the Jedi E3: Choices
Comments: We open on Windu and Dooku explaining to the audience what’s happening: some Jedi lady was killed while protecting a Senator and they’re going to the planet where it happened to retrieve her body. They arrive, investigate, and reveal the Senator’s guards as the real murderers. A half-baked explanation is offered, but the episode isn’t really about what’s happening on screen, but rather what’s happening with Dooku as a character.
There’s undoubtedly a wealth of storytelling and character work that can be done with Dooku’s character during the time he was a Jedi knight, but this show seems unable to engage with that material or really explore its potential. Instead, we get heavy-handed evidence that Dooku was a bad apple from the start (Anakin-style) with just as much subtlety as Anakin’s “fall” to the Dark Side. He uses Dark side powers, he’s overly aggressive, accuses people of crimes on scant evidence, quick to activate his lightsaber...
For example, during their investigation, Dooku examines the ship they arrived on. He asks why, if the Jedi lady was supposedly attacked by people from the direction of woods, why are there no blaster marks on the ship? There can be any number of reasons to explain this (namely, it’s a different ship, or, they had it washed), but Dooku uses it as evidence of them lying. It’s all terribly forced and blunt, with the script taking shortcuts to tell us Dooku is a bad guy (and has always been).
Aside from being wholly unnecessary, it’s also a little disappointing: if this show can be seen as a “prequel to the Prequels”, then the more interesting story is showing how Dooku became a bad guy, not simply showing him as already a bad guy with no room for his character to grow, TCW-style.
This is a shame, because it can be argued that there’s the necessary distance to comprehensively delve into all the questions and ambiguities raised by the issue of Dooku’s fall and subsequent rise to power. Although, it’s also possible that Tales of the Jedi is simply not a show well-equipped to deal with a character study this big, or central to this universe (or this complex). There’s three episodes left and by the time they air, I’m sure the events of this one will have been easily forgotten.
Anyways, the episode ends on a scene that strongly implies that Windu is at least one reason Dooku began to hate the Jedi, meaning that, now (after watching this), Windu was the reason both Dooku and Anakin fell to the darkside. At least in Revenge of the Sith, that simplification could be justified on the grounds that, in a two-hour movie, there’s only so much you can show to explain Anakin’s fall, and encapsulating “the Jedi” into a single character (Windu) was perhaps a necessary shortcut. But here, when you’re free to do whatever you want, it’s just disappointing that everything is treated so simplistically and the same thing being done yet again.
In the end, the episode has nothing meaningful to say about Dooku or his motivations. I can’t believe it’s 2023 and we’re still doing TCW.
My enjoyment: 2/5
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Andor E8: Narkina 5
Comments: Hey, it’s Forest Whitaker!
This show continues to be mature, intelligent, and well-written. I’m not willing to believe Disney made this.
My enjoyment: 5/5
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Andor: E7: Announcement
Comments: Compelling characters and great writing. The scene between Maarva and Cassian is so real and well-written (and acted) it felt like I was actually in the scene.
At this point, if this show can manage to stick its landing, it might be my favorite show of all time.
My enjoyment: 5/5
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Tales of the Jedi E2: Justice
Comments: Apparently, this story takes place before every other Disney Star Wars movie or show (so, not including books or video games).
Dooku and his padawan (a young Qui Gon) go to a village to rescue a Senator’s son, who’s been kidnapped by people demanding a better life for themselves. There’s a lightsaber fight and Dooku (the Jedi knight) force-chokes someone.
OP!Jedi just be like “oops-a-daisy just makin’ violence happen again”
My enjoyment: 3/5
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Tales of the Jedi E1: Life and Death
Comments: I had no idea this existed, but 20-minute episodes of Prequel-era “characters”? Let’s go!
So we open on some asshole waking up an entire village to announce his baby girl is born. It’s Ahsoka. We jump ahead one year and Ahsoka’s mom is taking one-year-old Ahsoka on a hunt. The father rightfully objects to this child endangerment but she wins the argument by stating that the trees are their ancestors.
???
On the hunt, Ahsoka’s mom dishes out some wisdom, such as “Look, ahsoka, everywhere there is life. Value it. Honor it.”
*twenty years later* Ahsoka commits violent, unprovoked murder, takes pleasure in torture, and makes decisions that lead to the death of thousands.
It’s also a strange thing for someone to say while hunting. Immediately after saying this, she discovers some deer and shoots one. The mom physically forces her child to watch the wounded animal suffer before sliding a knife into its chest. Good stuff, Disney.
Oh, a tiger then attacks them, and steals Ahsoka (for some reason), Ashoka uses The Force (I’m assuming) on the tiger, and rides the tiger back into the village, bringing a violent and probably hungry monster right into their midst... So, we’re at least consistent with Ahsoka’s characterization. The plot asks the tiger to leave and Ahsoka’s mom asks what the hell she just watched.
My enjoyment: 2/5
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Picard S3E6
Comments: Nothing makes sense and I don’t know who these characters are.
But it finally happened: they’ve worked Geordi into the show and honestly, it wasn’t as painful as I was expecting. For about eleven seconds, when he was talking technobabble beside not!Data, it actually felt like his character. I’m unsure if I’m more happy by them not butchering his character or by the fact that they’ve run out of characters to butcher, but regardless, I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Once this nightmare is over, I can rewatch TNG and pretend this show doesn’t exist.
Regarding not!Data, the showrunners really really don’t give a shit how far backwards they need to bend to work Brent Spiner into their shows. They even created a reason to explain why he looks like an old man now, undoubtedly to save on make-up and uncanny-valley CG.
Crazy villain lady has more scenes and, even though her dialogue continues to be terrible and super cliché, her delivery and execution makes it fun and enjoyable, so... best episode yet?
My enjoyment: 2/5
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