Marvel's What If...? "What If... The Watcher Broke His Oath?"
Also reviews for the latest episodes of Spidey And His Amazing Friends, Chip 'N' Dale: Park Life, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Stargirl, Supergirl, Titans, and Doom Patrol.
Marvel's What If...? "What If... The Watcher Broke His Oath?"
It is beyond ironic that the first Marvel Studios TV show to ever have a satisfying finale is What If...? The least satisfying premise in the entire Marvel Universe is the first show that had an ending that didn't jerk us around. For Loki it was appropriate. For WandaVision and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier it was annoying, especially in hindsight. I felt those two series were nothing but promotional bridges for the movies instead of great series in their own right. Loki found its way, but stuck us with a cliffhanger, but frustration is part and parcel to the character. I like that this episode of What If...? did the surprising thing and basically wrapped up all of the crazymaking cliffhangers they had been giving us all season. What a nice surprise.
I wondered what on Earth possessed the Watcher to recruit Killmonger, particularly THAT version of Killmonger. It's because his role is that of Gollum to the destruction of the One Ring: He's the sacrificial lamb. The Multiverse cannot be saved unless Killmonger is damned. Which by the way, wraps up the cliffhanger to his Universe.
I think Natasha was speaking a bit for me at the end over her outrage at the Watcher's passivity in allowing what he did to happen. And The Watcher can claim he loves them and their stories. That's not damn good enough. At all. But I think the Watcher actually realized that, and since he couldn't restore her Universe, he did the next best thing, and placed her in a one where she was missed and needed. It's giving her everything she ever wanted without doing so. Does it break his Oath? Absolutely. But it's literally the least he can do.
I bowed my head realizing this is the final performance of Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa. The significance of that did not escape me. And Starlord T'Challa is my favorite version of the character, so I'm glad he got a happy ending and fixed his Universe. He deserved it.
Even Captain Carter gets a happy ending. And for that version of Doctor Strange? A happy ending isn't in the cards. But perhaps he can find a measure of purpose in the meantime, which is something to hold onto.
These last two episodes pleasantly shocked the hell out of me. I have been going back and forth all season over to whether or not I liked the show (I hated the comics) and it turns out Marvel Studios knew what it was doing. It doesn't ALWAYS. But it does USUALLY. And it was great. *****.
Spidey And His Amazing Friends "Gob-Zilla / Speedy Spidey Delivery"
Gob-Zilla:
Did Peter's voice change?
Cute. ***.
Speedy Spidey Delivery:
Everyone was in this one.
I like that Hulk likes green smashed cake.
Also cute. ***1/2.
Episode Overall: ***1/2.
Chip 'N" Dale: Park Life "Night Of The Pizza Moon / Who's Your Granny? / Summer Sidekick"
Night Of The Pizza Moon:
I like that the pizza thief was one of the Beagle Boys.
Cute. ****.
Who's Your Granny?:
Didn't get this one. **1/2.
Summer Sidekick:
Didn't get this one either but the cat chasing the "laser pointer" was funny. ***.
Episode Overall: ***.
Star Trek: Lower Decks "wej Duj"
I think we have a lot to talk about. Just a feeling.
The most important thing is that the Klingons ARE the Klingons again and not the grotesque monsters from Discovery and Into Darkness. This suggests Viacom buying CBS means that CBS has access to the Paramount design likenesses again. I don't know what this can mean for Discovery's future, but Star Trek: Picard's suddenly looks MUCH brighter.
Klingon Lower Decks SUCK. Although Vulcan ships aren't great either. I liked the Vulcan we were following. She may consider Starfleet a punishment but I think they will be lucky to have her. She's pretty quick-witted and can counter any hoary old Vulcan cliches with real-world logic, which is probably why she pisses everybody off. Her gut feelings out-logic the logic Vulcans have understood and practiced for centuries. The fact that's she right just pisses off the rest of the crew even more.
It's interesting we never generally saw Vulcan ships out and about on Next Generation and DS9. We really should have.
The idea that the Pakleds were being controlled by a rogue Klingon Commander makes a lot of sense. Hopefully the Cerritos meeting with the High Council will occur next week. I would very much love to see Chancellor Martok, and maybe even freaking Worf. Rogue Klingons threatening peace have ALWAYS been a problem but Gowron was sympathetic to that idea. Martok and Worf will probably nip it in the bud. If they are the ones still in charge. And the show would be crazy not to have them be.
The end credits being Borg Lower Decks was funny.
Those battles at the end were amazing. While I think DS9 and the series past it could have pulled them off, there is no way the Filmation cartoon could have come close. This may be a comedy cartoon, but I can take the visual effects seriously.
Speaking of which, the underling Klingon killing the Captain was a pretty great dramatic moment, mostly because I didn't get the sense it was being played for laughs (which it shouldn't have been). I thought that was cool and admired the series for it.
I noticed two continuity mistakes, but I won't heavily penalize them for it, because both of the things this episode contradicts have also been contradicted elsewhere.
But as far as the bright magenta Klingon blood goes, that was only present in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and used to prove that the assassin at the end was human. It existed for a story reason. Whenever Worf bled (and the dude bled a LOT) it was red. Same with Martok. Star Trek VI IS the most famous Star Trek project dealing with Klingon blood. But it is the one project inconsistent about the blood's appearance with everything else.
The other mistake could actually be considered a mistake on Deep Space Nine's end. But in the DS9 episode "The Ship" the Benzite crewperson doesn't use the famous breathing device. The Okudas speculated in The Star Trek Encyclopedia that in between the last Benzite appearance in Next Gen Season 2 and that episode, that Starfleet technology found a way for Benzites to breathe our atmosphere without them, and that was the agreed upon solution. But the air device is back here, and this episode is set after "The Ship", suggesting either this episode made a mistake, or The Ship's lack of the breathing device was ALWAYS the real mistake. To be honest, I would go with either. You cannot BELIEVE some of the more sloppy and outrageous excuses the Okudas were able to come up with in that Encyclopedia. A lot it is outright ballsy in its audacity to beggar our belief and not call them on it. I love the Okudas. But I think the worst part about the Roddenberry / Berman era of Star Trek was the inability to either admit mistakes or course correct when something didn't work. It was easier just to come up with an excuse, no matter how flimsy it sounded. Now you can argue the continuity of the first five series and ten movies is FAR more consistent and that actual explanations existed. I agree. If you asked me if those explanations were always credible, I'd have far a harder time doing so. If you asked me that despite what an utter, disastrous mess for the canon Discovery's first two seasons were, if it was actually better than most of Next Gen and ALL of Voyager and Enterprise, I'd tell you unequivocally yes, and suffer those looks of disgust from hardcore Trekkies. I think so much effort has been put into explaining why much of those first five Star Trek series didn't actually suck. I wish they had put that much effort into writing better scripts back then. In my mind, only Deep Space Nine did. And whether you want to say that Discovery and Picard are great Star Trek series or not, I would argue that (Discovery in particular) are great science fiction series. If Discovery had the exact same characters, scripts, and visual effects, but used different aliens and had no ties to Star Trek, I'd love it unreservedly. It may be a bad Star Trek show (at least for the first two seasons) but it's a great sci-fi show.
But maybe this episode saying DS9 was the one that made the mistake is the right move. The original canon wasn't perfect, and a LOT of it was sloppy. Maybe acknowledging mistakes as mistakes in hindsight instead of saying "Star Trek meant to do that" is what is called for at this point.
I said we'd have a lot to talk about didn't I? Whoo!
Great episode. *****.
Stargirl "Summer School: Chapter Nine"
That was dark and scary, and frankly there have been too many dark and scary episodes this season. I don't approve.
Jay Garrick showing up is good continuity for The Arrowverse, but he didn't have much important to do in this episode.
Eclipso being a little kid this time out means they are going to find a different way to defeat him.
Not liking this season. **1/2.
Supergirl "Magical Thinking"
To be honest, I didn't see much of anything in the episode to complain about. And yet, I didn't see anything I liked either. And that's the real dealbreaker. It's not fair to the many good and great shows and movies I review to give this a positive grade simply because it didn't actually offend me like most weeks do. My standards need to be higher than that.
As an episode I didn't feel strongly about either way, this review will be brief (because it doesn't NEED to be in-depth). I wanted to mention two things, both surprisingly involving William: It's ridiculous William can't tell Supergirl is Kara when he's talked to both up close. Also, I think it's cool he's gotten out from under Andrea's thumb. I think Andrea is a particularly sucky character, and I find that I'm annoyed she is STILL on the show. Anything that gives her less future relevance is a good thing.
But this episode was only okay. **1/2.
Titans "The Call Is Coming From Inside The House"
Sigh. That was mostly crap. I'm debating how long I should spend deconstructing that and itemizing the crap. Like my Riverdale reviews, Titans is a show I put a lot more effort into bashing than I get out of watching. Some weeks it's okay to just throw up my hands and say "That sucked."
I'm not quite there this week. Mostly because the episode was MOSTLY crap, not entirely so. I liked the stuff with Donna and Tim, and Crane's stuff was okay.
I think the show is trying to raise a Trump allegory with Red Hood and demagoguery, and while the show seems to have a point that even the most loathsome people can gather a loyal following in the right circumstances... these aren't the right circumstances. Red Hood is NOT the charismatic leader that would inspire loyalty instantly. For one thing, Trump took a few years to get the following he did. His voters were not brainwashed all at once. This has been the status quo in Gotham for like two days. Even with the serum messing with people, it's not credible. Because him speaking into the camera in the mask makes him look and sound a like a supervillain. Crane admires him for losing the mask, but the show is dumb for trying to get me to believe he'd be inspiring with one in the first place.
So Dick knocks out Conner and Krypto when he takes on Jason. Why? What about that specific scenario said that he couldn't use that kind of back-up, especially a big gun like Superboy? Dick says "I'm sorry I had to do that." He didn't HAVE to. It was in fact a dumbass move made by one of the most dumbass characters on television.
For the record, Starfire has been spending the entire season whining about how much Blackfire sucks, The reality is, the only Tamaranian the show ever lets us see doing sucky things is Kori herself. A better show might have made that the actual point, but I think the writers are simply too stupid and broken to understand that's what they've been portraying. It makes me a little bit sick.
That's all I got this week. About six paragraphs that took me ten minutes to write. It was more effort than what I just saw deserved. *1/2.
Doom Patrol "Dada Patrol"
Interesting. Very.
I liked the bit with the scorpion coming out of the gun followed immediately by Larry's son Paul saying some completely puzzling, random nonsense things. David Lynch could have wrote and directed that scene and I can give it no higher compliment.
Fog's an interesting character. Unlike the rest of the Sisterhood, I sense she's bad.
Frenzy is a cool character too, and in just one appearance he's already a far cooler character than Vic.
I did like that Vic made a measure of peace with Silas at the beginning.
The Japanese girl in the glass cage is also something Lynch might do.
A lot of striking and dreamlike imagery makes this episode very much like a David Lynch film. And like Lynch, it's open for interpretation (so far). I expect more answers here than Lynch usually gives. But for now, it's irresistible not actually knowing what the hell is going on. ****1/2.
Marvel's What If...? "What If... The Watcher Broke His Oath?"
It is beyond ironic that the first Marvel Studios TV show to ever have a satisfying finale is What If...? The least satisfying premise in the entire Marvel Universe is the first show that had an ending that didn't jerk us around. For Loki it was appropriate. For WandaVision and The Falcon And The Winter Soldier it was annoying, especially in hindsight. I felt those two series were nothing but promotional bridges for the movies instead of great series in their own right. Loki found its way, but stuck us with a cliffhanger, but frustration is part and parcel to the character. I like that this episode of What If...? did the surprising thing and basically wrapped up all of the crazymaking cliffhangers they had been giving us all season. What a nice surprise.
I wondered what on Earth possessed the Watcher to recruit Killmonger, particularly THAT version of Killmonger. It's because his role is that of Gollum to the destruction of the One Ring: He's the sacrificial lamb. The Multiverse cannot be saved unless Killmonger is damned. Which by the way, wraps up the cliffhanger to his Universe.
I think Natasha was speaking a bit for me at the end over her outrage at the Watcher's passivity in allowing what he did to happen. And The Watcher can claim he loves them and their stories. That's not damn good enough. At all. But I think the Watcher actually realized that, and since he couldn't restore her Universe, he did the next best thing, and placed her in a one where she was missed and needed. It's giving her everything she ever wanted without doing so. Does it break his Oath? Absolutely. But it's literally the least he can do.
I bowed my head realizing this is the final performance of Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa. The significance of that did not escape me. And Starlord T'Challa is my favorite version of the character, so I'm glad he got a happy ending and fixed his Universe. He deserved it.
Even Captain Carter gets a happy ending. And for that version of Doctor Strange? A happy ending isn't in the cards. But perhaps he can find a measure of purpose in the meantime, which is something to hold onto.
These last two episodes pleasantly shocked the hell out of me. I have been going back and forth all season over to whether or not I liked the show (I hated the comics) and it turns out Marvel Studios knew what it was doing. It doesn't ALWAYS. But it does USUALLY. And it was great. *****.
Spidey And His Amazing Friends "Gob-Zilla / Speedy Spidey Delivery"
Gob-Zilla:
Did Peter's voice change?
Cute. ***.
Speedy Spidey Delivery:
Everyone was in this one.
I like that Hulk likes green smashed cake.
Also cute. ***1/2.
Episode Overall: ***1/2.
Chip 'N" Dale: Park Life "Night Of The Pizza Moon / Who's Your Granny? / Summer Sidekick"
Night Of The Pizza Moon:
I like that the pizza thief was one of the Beagle Boys.
Cute. ****.
Who's Your Granny?:
Didn't get this one. **1/2.
Summer Sidekick:
Didn't get this one either but the cat chasing the "laser pointer" was funny. ***.
Episode Overall: ***.
Star Trek: Lower Decks "wej Duj"
I think we have a lot to talk about. Just a feeling.
The most important thing is that the Klingons ARE the Klingons again and not the grotesque monsters from Discovery and Into Darkness. This suggests Viacom buying CBS means that CBS has access to the Paramount design likenesses again. I don't know what this can mean for Discovery's future, but Star Trek: Picard's suddenly looks MUCH brighter.
Klingon Lower Decks SUCK. Although Vulcan ships aren't great either. I liked the Vulcan we were following. She may consider Starfleet a punishment but I think they will be lucky to have her. She's pretty quick-witted and can counter any hoary old Vulcan cliches with real-world logic, which is probably why she pisses everybody off. Her gut feelings out-logic the logic Vulcans have understood and practiced for centuries. The fact that's she right just pisses off the rest of the crew even more.
It's interesting we never generally saw Vulcan ships out and about on Next Generation and DS9. We really should have.
The idea that the Pakleds were being controlled by a rogue Klingon Commander makes a lot of sense. Hopefully the Cerritos meeting with the High Council will occur next week. I would very much love to see Chancellor Martok, and maybe even freaking Worf. Rogue Klingons threatening peace have ALWAYS been a problem but Gowron was sympathetic to that idea. Martok and Worf will probably nip it in the bud. If they are the ones still in charge. And the show would be crazy not to have them be.
The end credits being Borg Lower Decks was funny.
Those battles at the end were amazing. While I think DS9 and the series past it could have pulled them off, there is no way the Filmation cartoon could have come close. This may be a comedy cartoon, but I can take the visual effects seriously.
Speaking of which, the underling Klingon killing the Captain was a pretty great dramatic moment, mostly because I didn't get the sense it was being played for laughs (which it shouldn't have been). I thought that was cool and admired the series for it.
I noticed two continuity mistakes, but I won't heavily penalize them for it, because both of the things this episode contradicts have also been contradicted elsewhere.
But as far as the bright magenta Klingon blood goes, that was only present in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and used to prove that the assassin at the end was human. It existed for a story reason. Whenever Worf bled (and the dude bled a LOT) it was red. Same with Martok. Star Trek VI IS the most famous Star Trek project dealing with Klingon blood. But it is the one project inconsistent about the blood's appearance with everything else.
The other mistake could actually be considered a mistake on Deep Space Nine's end. But in the DS9 episode "The Ship" the Benzite crewperson doesn't use the famous breathing device. The Okudas speculated in The Star Trek Encyclopedia that in between the last Benzite appearance in Next Gen Season 2 and that episode, that Starfleet technology found a way for Benzites to breathe our atmosphere without them, and that was the agreed upon solution. But the air device is back here, and this episode is set after "The Ship", suggesting either this episode made a mistake, or The Ship's lack of the breathing device was ALWAYS the real mistake. To be honest, I would go with either. You cannot BELIEVE some of the more sloppy and outrageous excuses the Okudas were able to come up with in that Encyclopedia. A lot it is outright ballsy in its audacity to beggar our belief and not call them on it. I love the Okudas. But I think the worst part about the Roddenberry / Berman era of Star Trek was the inability to either admit mistakes or course correct when something didn't work. It was easier just to come up with an excuse, no matter how flimsy it sounded. Now you can argue the continuity of the first five series and ten movies is FAR more consistent and that actual explanations existed. I agree. If you asked me if those explanations were always credible, I'd have far a harder time doing so. If you asked me that despite what an utter, disastrous mess for the canon Discovery's first two seasons were, if it was actually better than most of Next Gen and ALL of Voyager and Enterprise, I'd tell you unequivocally yes, and suffer those looks of disgust from hardcore Trekkies. I think so much effort has been put into explaining why much of those first five Star Trek series didn't actually suck. I wish they had put that much effort into writing better scripts back then. In my mind, only Deep Space Nine did. And whether you want to say that Discovery and Picard are great Star Trek series or not, I would argue that (Discovery in particular) are great science fiction series. If Discovery had the exact same characters, scripts, and visual effects, but used different aliens and had no ties to Star Trek, I'd love it unreservedly. It may be a bad Star Trek show (at least for the first two seasons) but it's a great sci-fi show.
But maybe this episode saying DS9 was the one that made the mistake is the right move. The original canon wasn't perfect, and a LOT of it was sloppy. Maybe acknowledging mistakes as mistakes in hindsight instead of saying "Star Trek meant to do that" is what is called for at this point.
I said we'd have a lot to talk about didn't I? Whoo!
Great episode. *****.
Stargirl "Summer School: Chapter Nine"
That was dark and scary, and frankly there have been too many dark and scary episodes this season. I don't approve.
Jay Garrick showing up is good continuity for The Arrowverse, but he didn't have much important to do in this episode.
Eclipso being a little kid this time out means they are going to find a different way to defeat him.
Not liking this season. **1/2.
Supergirl "Magical Thinking"
To be honest, I didn't see much of anything in the episode to complain about. And yet, I didn't see anything I liked either. And that's the real dealbreaker. It's not fair to the many good and great shows and movies I review to give this a positive grade simply because it didn't actually offend me like most weeks do. My standards need to be higher than that.
As an episode I didn't feel strongly about either way, this review will be brief (because it doesn't NEED to be in-depth). I wanted to mention two things, both surprisingly involving William: It's ridiculous William can't tell Supergirl is Kara when he's talked to both up close. Also, I think it's cool he's gotten out from under Andrea's thumb. I think Andrea is a particularly sucky character, and I find that I'm annoyed she is STILL on the show. Anything that gives her less future relevance is a good thing.
But this episode was only okay. **1/2.
Titans "The Call Is Coming From Inside The House"
Sigh. That was mostly crap. I'm debating how long I should spend deconstructing that and itemizing the crap. Like my Riverdale reviews, Titans is a show I put a lot more effort into bashing than I get out of watching. Some weeks it's okay to just throw up my hands and say "That sucked."
I'm not quite there this week. Mostly because the episode was MOSTLY crap, not entirely so. I liked the stuff with Donna and Tim, and Crane's stuff was okay.
I think the show is trying to raise a Trump allegory with Red Hood and demagoguery, and while the show seems to have a point that even the most loathsome people can gather a loyal following in the right circumstances... these aren't the right circumstances. Red Hood is NOT the charismatic leader that would inspire loyalty instantly. For one thing, Trump took a few years to get the following he did. His voters were not brainwashed all at once. This has been the status quo in Gotham for like two days. Even with the serum messing with people, it's not credible. Because him speaking into the camera in the mask makes him look and sound a like a supervillain. Crane admires him for losing the mask, but the show is dumb for trying to get me to believe he'd be inspiring with one in the first place.
So Dick knocks out Conner and Krypto when he takes on Jason. Why? What about that specific scenario said that he couldn't use that kind of back-up, especially a big gun like Superboy? Dick says "I'm sorry I had to do that." He didn't HAVE to. It was in fact a dumbass move made by one of the most dumbass characters on television.
For the record, Starfire has been spending the entire season whining about how much Blackfire sucks, The reality is, the only Tamaranian the show ever lets us see doing sucky things is Kori herself. A better show might have made that the actual point, but I think the writers are simply too stupid and broken to understand that's what they've been portraying. It makes me a little bit sick.
That's all I got this week. About six paragraphs that took me ten minutes to write. It was more effort than what I just saw deserved. *1/2.
Doom Patrol "Dada Patrol"
Interesting. Very.
I liked the bit with the scorpion coming out of the gun followed immediately by Larry's son Paul saying some completely puzzling, random nonsense things. David Lynch could have wrote and directed that scene and I can give it no higher compliment.
Fog's an interesting character. Unlike the rest of the Sisterhood, I sense she's bad.
Frenzy is a cool character too, and in just one appearance he's already a far cooler character than Vic.
I did like that Vic made a measure of peace with Silas at the beginning.
The Japanese girl in the glass cage is also something Lynch might do.
A lot of striking and dreamlike imagery makes this episode very much like a David Lynch film. And like Lynch, it's open for interpretation (so far). I expect more answers here than Lynch usually gives. But for now, it's irresistible not actually knowing what the hell is going on. ****1/2.