Lost in Space (2018) s02e10 – Ninety-Seven

After spending most of the season away, this episode’s writing credit goes to reboot creators Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless. I figured they were back to get the show in shape for season three, but I didn’t realize it’s all they were going to do. Sure, they spend fourteen minutes to resolve all the cliffhangers and themes from the last two or three episodes (including opening credits). But once Molly Parker and Toby Stephens stop the bad guy, the episode’s all about staying busy until the season cliffhanger.

There’s a reasonably good action plotline involving dozens of robots trying to take back their warp drive. The episode teases the idea Maxwell Jenkins isn’t okay with Parker’s plan to vaporize all the robots—he says they’re intelligent beings, she says they’re not. But, as it plays… they’re kind of one-note villains, so she’s more right than wrong. There will be a big-budget rock’em sock’em robots sequence, and it looks excellent—Alex Graves does a good but indistinct job directing—but there’s no character there. Not even the vaguest implications. So, basically the old series Cylons? Only CGI.

The mothership is once again in danger. This time from a robot alien fleet, and they only have two hours to get out of there. Two hours quickly because thirty minutes, as the show gets ready to set up season three. The script lays in heavy on the foreshadowing, too, possibly because the hook for next season is… well, a big change for the show. A potentially obnoxious big change for the show.

The episode’s got some good acting from Parker Posey and Ignacio Serricchio. Taylor Russell’s arc is all about her being ready to be a grown-up, so it’d usually hinge on her acting. But it barely gets a focus—though Russell gets the only real arc, with even Jenkins (who’s got lots to do with robots) getting downgraded as the episode progresses. There’s just so much other stuff going on.

For a season finale, it feels off. Between blowing off the resolution to the outstanding arcs and rushing into another crisis… I mean, I guess “Netflix Lost in Space” really is just “Battlestar Lost in Space,” or so it seems whenever it’s Sazama and Sharpless on the writing credit. Heck, the episode title, *Ninety-Seven*, is a “Battlestar” nod (or rip).

The second season started much stronger than it finishes, even without the concept refresh for next season. The cast still—mostly—got it through, but there’s a lot of excess material in “Season Two,” which is particularly bad since most of the episodes ran forty minutes. They just didn’t have enough story. And no one seemed particularly invested in the story they did have.

It’s a better episode than the worst in the season, but the next season teaser seems like it’s at best slowed the decline, not stopped it.

The sci-if special effects are excellent, with Graves seeming to get the Star Wars feel of it. There’s also a nice Alien 3 nod. “Lost in Space” is still okay, just less so than before. And next season's setup is primed for a game of chicken with a shark tank.

Lost in Space (2018) s02e02 – Precipice

Alex Graves is back directing this episode; unlike last time, he lets “Lost in Space” take advantage of its John Williams theme music to do some Williams-esque riffs. The major disaster sequence, which sets up the rest of the episode, gets very emotive music.

The action immediately follows the last episode, with the family assembling and going over what they’ve learned and got to do. There’s a great moment when Ignacio Serricchio asks Molly Parker to repeat his assignment for the sake of exposition. Then things start going wrong immediately, with the kite Doc Brown ties to the clocktower in hopes of collecting the 1.21 Gigawatts–wait, wait, wrong movie. But something does go wrong with the kite. And then something else goes wrong. And then once they figure out the next thing to do, something else goes wrong, then something else.

Then killer seaweed starts attacking the cast, getting Serricchio the worst and putting him in sickbay for the rest of the episode. Unfortunately, the only person onboard matching his blood type is Parker Posey, who’s been reading Mina Sundwall’s memoir of their voyages and discovered Serricchio’s got some secrets to hide. It’s interesting to see Posey be straightforward in her machinations with Serricchio and their scenes are funny thanks to his partial paralysis.

Meanwhile, Taylor Russell feels like Toby Stephens doesn’t trust her enough when he says she needs to recognize she’s the doctor and can’t be doing the grunt work. This episode’s grunt work involves dangling the SUV out the back of the space-camper by a metal cable to save the family and refill the battery. But, unfortunately, the killer seaweed and various convenient inconveniences hamper their progress.

There’s a lot of character drama for Sundwall and Parker. They find themselves unexpectedly paired for the episode’s adventures, and Parker has to acknowledge maybe Sundwall’s not as useful as her other kids. Of course, given these crisis activities are the areas where Jenkins failed on his colonial tests and Sundwall passes, it plays like the show just ran out of stuff for Sundwall to do and gave her a gripe arc.

Their arc’s not great but does end up having a fairly reasonable conclusion.

One big change in the family’s reaction to the life-threatening crises is no one seems worried they’re going to die. Last season, there was always a lot of angst around imminent failure and destruction. This season, no one gets very worked out about it. They just have to complete all the tasks, and somehow it’ll work out. It’s very much doing disaster movie. Though not pacing-wise. Credited to Zack Estrin, the script plunges from one disaster to another.

We do get some more of the Cylon mythology, with the family discovering giant metal lightning rods built by the same intelligence as built the robot. They also find—six months after the previous season’s finale—the second, always evil robot’s lopped-off arm, which means they didn’t clean the garage in six months.

The disaster dramatics are a little much, but the actors carry it—and the special effects are excellent—making the episode more effective than it would be based on the plot machinations. There are a couple cliffhangers, one sort of rewinding the stakes two episodes back to last season finale, and then one where Posey shows she hasn’t learned anything as far as planning ahead.

Lost in Space (2018) s02e01 – Shipwrecked

After a reveal about last season’s finale, the episode reestablishing the ground situation—the Robinsons and friends have been marooned on a mostly water, very toxic planet for six months because the Cylon engine has stopped working. I may just call the robot’s “species” the Cylons. I haven’t decided. After they set it all up, the episode quickly becomes a “Murphy’s law” disaster movie, sort of like it was getting at the end of last season.

Murphy’s law—I already googled it for us—meaning “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.”

The family has the space-camper set up on a beach, and they’re growing corn and other vegetables. They don’t have enough power for the lights, but they’re trying with the solar panels and so on. The first act is all about the Christmas they’re having, what with Parker Posey still a prisoner in part of the ship and then Ignacio Serricchio being the slightly exasperated live-in handyman. For Christmas, Maxwell Jenkins has published—unclear with what resources—sister Mina Sundwall’s memoir about season one, Lost in Space. Everyone reading it or not reading it will be a subplot.

But they’re one big happy family given the circumstances—they still think the mothership will come to get them even though they clearly wormholed to the Delta Quadrant last season finale—and dad Toby Stephens is going to teach Jenkins how to drive. But it’s really boring to drive one of the future SUVs, so they have to make it sound like driving a car in the dialogue. Sundwall’s super snarky about it, which isn’t funny, just justified. The first act kind of drags.

Especially since, even though last season established Molly Parker and Stephens were partners now when she wants to go and try to refuel the ship at some regular lightning storms, Stephens says no.

Then something bad happens, and all of a sudden, they’ve got to do it. And time, as it has to be, is going to be tight.

The episode takes a few extra beats to reveal Parker’s plan to allow the audience to have an “ah-ha” moment, which is probably the weirdest move in the entire episode. The script, credited to remake creators Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, is relatively well-balanced, but they do not want to lean in on science and engineering in their science fiction. It’s not a significant problem. The episode’s got a new-to-the-series director, Alex Graves, and a really nice special effects budget given who difficult the journey will be for the family. It looks good. Probably the best the show’s effects have ever looked. So the season’s off to a good start on that front.

Character-wise… since they’re marooned, they’re mostly spinning wheels. Jenkins is mooning over the robot, Russell and Sundwall are bored (though people reading her book gives Sundwall a plot). Serricchio’s in stasis, ditto Parker to some degree. Stephens is thrilled playing extreme farmer, which could be interesting but isn’t. Posey’s going to have the most significant arc in the episode. She’s currently trying to manipulate Sundwall (in addition to everyone else), but mostly Sundwall.

It’s dramatically far more rewarding than when Posey was grooming Jenkins.

There’s a cliffhanger with a reveal, then a tag with another reveal, but the show never resolves some of its season one leftovers. The six-month jump-ahead also helps them ignore treacherous Posey in their midst.

But it’s a great-looking, entertaining start. The character dynamics are down, the actors are more comfortable—though Jenkins is growing fast, and Stephens shouldn’t have cut off his facial hair. Instead of looking like budget Michael Fassbender or Hugh Jackman, he seems like budget Damian Lewis, which isn’t the same thing.

Michael Hayes (1997) s01e20 – Devotion

It’s an almost entirely middling episode with a great as always guest star performance from Joanna Gleason—she’s married to family values congressman, Jim Haynie, who’s schtupping Godly campaign worker Gina Philips—and they’re getting death threats because Haynie wasn’t pro-gun enough with the Republican party’s white supremacist base. The episode opens with David Caruso on a politics talk show opposite Haynie, who just rambles about the culture war, before we find out Caruso’s only on the show because he’s dating host Susanna Thompson.

The episode’s B plot is Thompson getting a job offer in Los Angeles and having to figure it out with Caruso whether or not they can keep going. They’ve only been dating a few weeks (at most) but it’s ostensible character development for Caruso so the show’s going to pretend Thompson might stick around. Who knows, maybe they’re floating second season possibilities by the network (though at this point “Hayes” was in summer burn-off so they were probably already not renewed). It’s hard not to see Thompson as a stand-in for Helen Slater, a similarly blonde, similarly upwardly mobile girlfriend Caruso had a while back. Maybe if she’d stuck around the story would have some heft to it. With Thompson, it’s fine, but it’s obviously filler.

The A plot is almost entirely Caruso and Rebecca Rigg, with Ruben Santiago-Hudson out of commission due to a foot injury—he at least shows up for a couple scenes throughout, whereas Peter Outerbridge and Hillary Danner are as forgotten as Caruso’s extended family. It’s such a weird show; they aimed low, they aimed high, they aimed desperate, and it turns out their best goal was just being middling. Get good guest stars, do a reasonably engaging investigation procedural (it’s inexplicable why Caruso and company—i.e. Caruso and Rigg, though Jodi Long gets a bunch to do presumably because it wasn’t in her guest star contract to shoot pilots or get to run away after the show didn’t get renewed). Both Rigg and Caruso have acting moments where you remember the show used to be better, used to require better acting moments. Not anymore.

As “Michael Hayes” heads towards its sunset, it’s nice it isn’t going out on its low point (there’s still time of course) but it’d almost be better if it had. Reminding of all its potential—and its occasional successes—doesn’t do it any good.

Michael Hayes (1997) s01e08 – Death and Taxes

It’s the first episode without either show “developer” Paul Haggis or show co-creator John Romano getting at least a co-writing credit so I thought “Michael Hayes” must be on solider ground. If they’re going to trust credited writers Richard Kletter and Gardner Stern, it must be because it’s safe. Or Haggis and Romano just didn’t want this turd on their official WGA filmographies.

About the only thing the episode does right is Ruben Santiago-Hudson. Santiago-Hudson usually gets a crap part in Romano-credited episodes, this episode he’s fine. So it’s not hard to write Santiago-Hudson, the other folks apparently just really can’t do it. Because Kletter and Stern being able to do it… it ends up being the only thing they can do. If Death and Taxes isn’t the worst episode so far, it’s bad enough it’s making me forget any lower.

It’s a nineties Russian mob episode, with David Caruso trying to get earnest gas station owner George Tasudis to flip on bad guy Shaun Taub; there’s a vaguely interesting description of the gas scam Taub’s running and the episode would’ve played much better if it’d just been them trying to beat him with taxes or whatever. Instead, it’s thirty-five minutes of energetic water treading until the plot’s finally to a point where Caruso can convince Tasudis. What’s hilarious about the episode—which gets on a high horse with the differences between what the U.S. government can do to protect people versus the Russian government—is how badly Kletter and Stern work through that equation. It’s actually impressive how poorly the episode executes its conclusion—with a Russian music themed juxtapose, along with Caruso running around with a gun. I really thought we’d left the “U.S. Attorney packs heat” behind in the pilot, but I imagine—outside Hillary Danner, Peter Outerbridge, and Rebecca Rigg appearing—this episode looks a lot like what Romano had in mind before whoever with an eye on quality and competence brought in Haggis.

Outerbridge gets like three scenes and at least there isn’t a vague implication he’s working against Caruso because Caruso’s not a WASP, Danner gets maybe two scenes… Rigg also gets two, but only gets to speak in one of them. Otherwise she’s just there because they need a familiar face. It’s an abject waste of the regular cast. Though, then again, given how well the episode does with David Cubitt and Mary B. Ward, maybe less is better. It’s the inevitable episode where ex-con Cubitt gets brought back into crime because he can’t cover his debt to the loan shark–something the show’s been forecasting since it started—and also Cubitt confronting Caruso and Ward about the affair he imagines they’re having. Except the writing’s really bad and the episode’s already established Caruso and Ward have negative romantic chemistry; after this episode it’s impossible to imagine Ward having chemistry with anyone—she’s actually worse than Cubitt, which is an achievement of sorts. It’s such a bad subplot. And then for the main plot to go worse….

There are lots of one-liners for Caruso, which are both tiresome and inappropriate (at one point he forgets how many victims they’ve got and it’s not a number he ought to be forgetting because it’s a very low number), but it’s more of a “good actor in a bad show” situation than anything else. Alex Graves’s direction is a little more ambitious than it needs to be, especially when he’s so bad with the performances.

It’s a stinker. If it were episode two or three, it might be a jumping off point. It’s such bad writing. Just… such bad writing.

Theodore Bikel pops up for a couple scenes as a Russian mob specialist working for the FBI (he accepts his salary in paid dinners); he’s fine. Crap part, but he’s fine.

Last thing—and another whack at Kletter and Stern—Taub’s crime boss name is “The Little Turk,” presumably so they don’t have to keep saying Russian names, but there’s also something kind of bigoty about it. Like every time they use it they’re getting away with something. Not to mention at the time of the episode, less than 95,000 Turkish people lived in Russia? Maybe the episode’s just before Hollywood was comfortable with blond haired, blue-eyed Russians being the villains.

Whatever; it stinks. Kletter and Stern are bad at their job.