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Reviews
Great British Ships (2018)
Engaging history
Just about finished with the series, with about 30 minutes of HMS Ark Royal left to go.
Seems to be fairly accurate. I've two-screened the episodes as I watched, checking facts stated by the presenter against Wikipedia, and they usually stand up, sometimes with a bit of squinting, but no standing on one foot and tilting my head needed to get the statements to square against the web's ultimate authoritative source of all human knowledge. Perhaps I exaggerate.
Note that the Titanic was indeed the largest ship in the world - at the time it was launched.
The presenter is downright exuberant at times, but for me not to the point of annoyance. He seems to genuinely enjoy being in the presence of the ships that still exist, pays respect to the service of the ships and crews lost while defending England and the UK, and left me with a desire to learn more and perhaps even visit the ones that are accessible by reasonable means (which rules out at least Titanic and Ark Royal).
The wooden ships of the past struck me as more romantic than the modern warships, but most any big ship fascinates me. I've been aboard the Queen Mary twice in Long Beach just touring her, and each time I am overwhelmed by her size. Large buildings don't have this power over me, except for the vertigo I feel when looking down from the overhanging balconies inside Embarcadero Center in San Francisco. But buildings don't move. Swaying in the wind doesn't count. The Trans America building hasn't budged if you rule out any contributions by tectonics.
I recommend this series for anyone with casual or greater interest in maritime history. True aficionados will no doubt find nits to pick. Give it a try. You might even like Rob Bell's enthusiasm.
The Blacklist: Hannah Hayes (No. 125) (2019)
The right way, and this way...
There are good ways and bad ways to approach social commentary. I enjoy it when it's done in thoughtful, clever, subtle, and humorous ways. Re-watch Boston Legal to see some of James Spader's best monologues, rants, humor, and chemistry with the cast.
The blacklister (aka filler) plot of this episode was not thoughtful, clever, subtle, or humorous. It took a hot-button social issue and beat the audience over the head with it. The script has heavily on one side of the issue, but did give a small amount of mildly thoughtful attention to the opposite side. However, the message became so obvious that audience members on the heavily supported side of the issue will end up cringing its coarseness, and those on the opposite side will simply dismiss it for the same reason.
The issue in question is one of the most divisive political topics of our time, and has only become more so since the episode first aired. Sadly, the script presents itself as a poorly drawn cartoon, and leaves me shaking my head wondering "Why?"
The small advancement of the Red/Liz/Katarina plot earns the episode a bit of redemption. Liz is still unbelievably oblivious, but I'm secretly hoping it's actually an act and she's not as obtuse as she seems.
The Blacklist: Guillermo Rizal (No. 128) (2019)
Sigh
Blacklist has fallen into the "Big Bad of the Week" formula of so many other mediocre shows. The deep story arcs that make Blacklist Blacklist are spread thin over so many episodes that they become lost in the weekly parade of fantastical James Bond villains. The big picture arcs and prominence of Reddington in the early seasons are what drew me into the show. Now I have to put up with the silliness of the weekly challenge to get a small advancement of the deeper story. At some point I may decide that I've had all the wheat bran I can tolerate, and the occasional blueberry just isn't worth all the chewing.
The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006)
Watch it again
Each year I watch my collection of Christmas movies, which includes the Santa Clause triptych. The first is my favorite. The second has some truly humorous and genuinely sentimental moments. The third has grown on me over the years. Initial I felt it was very weak, but now I see it as making several strong social observations on greed, remorse, redemption, and of course, family. Not to mention a show-stopper musical number.
The reviews here fall into two main categories: they like or dislike the movie based on their opinion of Martin Short. I like him in this movie, and I'm very impressed that he does his own singing. He has a good voice and good control, and delivers a musically enjoyable over-the-top performance of the "North Pole, North Pole" send up of "New York, New York". I would also dare say the young man "accompanying" him on the piano is really playing, rather than the usual cringy fake hand waving over the keys.
This movie is really more centered on Jack Frost than Santa, drawing heavily on the plot of "It's A Wonderful Life". Why not? It's a reasonable wish for a burned out Santa to make, and Martin Short makes Jack delightfully twisted in his sabotage and pathetic ambition.
Original? Nope. Deep? Nah. Enjoyable? Sure!
Turn on the tree, fire up the gas log, sit back with some milk and peppermint Oreos and just enjoy the ride. It's a pleasant 90 minutes of holiday "Escape."
For All Mankind: Triage (2021)
Better, but still room for improvement
Per the rating system I used on the previous episode, this one gets 6 stars for about 60% original premise content, and about 40% soap. I might have been a bit more generous if the Sea Dragon launch they finally gave us had blown me off the sofa. Instead we got an Estes 1/2A model rocket. Seriously, as the rocket was rising from the ocean, I initially thought it was just the escape tower. It turned out to be the whole rocket. After waiting all this season for the payoff on season 1's tease, we get a squib. Hang on for a minute while I go re-watch a Starship test flight... ok, I'm better now.
My predictions about "Here's To You" are mixed, but they weren't predictions so much as worst case scenarios.
1. Danny did not participate in this episode. Ed is safely aboard Pathfinder, and Karen is smoking in the backyard rethinking her life. But Danny is still out there somewhere. This could come back to life like Christopher Reeve in "Death Trap".
2. I hadn't considered Karen telling Ed about her dalliance BEFORE the Pathfinder flight. We almost hit the fast forward button when Ed and Karen were arguing in the driveway. My wife gritted her teeth and waved me off the remote. Pathfinder is rerouted to the moon, and its missiles probably can't reach the Baldwin backyard past trans-lunar injection. But Ed is distracted, and the stakes couldn't be higher. Can he maintain focus? Can the writers?
3. The rabbit is still sitting inside a box waiting for a cesium atom to decay. Karen did mention "not feeling right" while arguing with Ed. It could be more than just a guilty conscience.
4. It turns out that an airlock at 1/6th g makes an adequate love nest. Clearly this melodrama is going to continue. Gordo and Tracey's indiscretion could lead to a technical plot thread of dealing with a low-g pregnancy. If so, I hope they keep the scandal aspect to a minimum and stick to the medical details. Better would be if the whole romance gets put on the back burner now that the Soviet's have opened fire on Jamestown.
New thread: Ellen now has a chance to weigh the burden of maintaining a show marriage against any political ambition she may have. I didn't realize she had any. Perhaps the writers will give her the hidden desire she always had to run for office so she can reveal it next week.
The good outweighed the bad this outing. The wounded Soviet astronaut wants to defect. I did NOT see that coming. Apollo/Soyuz is still on and the US commander quoted James T. Kirk in an amazingly relevant, poignant, and satisfying way for a lifelong Trekkie who watched the original series as it aired the first time. The Soviets have retaliated on Jamestown base as armed Soviet and American shuttles are heading for lunar orbit.
There's plenty of story here without adding plots about family stress that are irrelevant to the basic premise of the show. Ultimately a story about characters and their interactions with each other. But this show's premise is about how those characters participate in a grand story of technological goals and global politics. All plot threads should be evaluated through this filter. For examples of this done well, see "Apollo 13", "The Right Stuff" (1983), or Tom Hanks's "From The Earth To The Moon".
When "For All Mankind" is good, it is very good. But when it flounders in the suds, it's awful.
For All Mankind: And Here's to You (2021)
Don't. Please don't.
2 out of 10, because that's about how much of this episode was about the original premise, and the other 80% was soap opera. I was humming "Mrs. Robinson" to myself (the episode title sort of gives it away) as my wife was cringing while we watched Karen and Danny commit mortal sin. Yes, that sin. The one where they go irrationally out of character, and try to rationalize it with "Well, we both needed."
If any of the following happen, we plan to stop viewing. Here's the line in the sand:
1. Danny goes psycho over being jilted by Karen, and ends up with a substantial plot thread dealing with his conflicted feelings about Karen and guilt over attempting to kill her (and Ed, for good measure). The attempted murders fail, and we follow Karen and Ed through their tense but gratuitous convalescences.
2. Alternatively, Karen continues her romantic relationship with Danny, but confesses to Ed while he's in orbit flight testing Pathfinder and shooting at drone satellites. Ed writes Karen and Danny's names on a pair of missiles and conducts several unplanned orbit-to-ground tests.
3. Karen becomes pregnant. Is Ed or Danny the lucky dad? The writers have already set the stage for this imbroglio with Karen venting her lust on Ed after her kiss with Danny, then conjugating Danny the next day anyway. Ed thinks it's a miracle, assuming Karen doesn't tell Ed about Danny, and thus avoids death from an orbit-launch missile test.
4. Oh, I almost forgot about Gordo throwing down the gauntlet to get Tracy back. Tracy seems amenable to the possibility, so we may get treated to some low-g conjugating as well. Gordo! Stop mooning (couldn't resist) over Tracy. You made a great recovery, now move on and be all the astronaut you can be.
Delaying Apollo/Soyuz (isvinite, Soyuz/Apollo) into the 80's is very well written so far, and I'd like to see where they go with it. Is there going to be a race to Mars, and if so, what are the political consequences? And what about the shootings on the moon? That was a gutsy move, and the depiction of what might happen during a vacuum firefight was unexpected and shocking. More! More!
They teased an immense sea-launch rocket at the end of season 1. I was turning handsprings when I found out the Sea Dragon was a real design in the 60's by Robert Truax that dwarfed the Saturn V. It's huge, it's gorgeous, and... that's all we got to see of it.
The premise of extrapolating plausible twists of technology and politics is what attracted me in the first place. The shift to marital drama adds nothing, and is driving me away.