Lost in Space (2018) s02e09 – Shell Game

This episode may be the perfect example of “Lost in Space: Season Two.” It’s got a bunch of problems, and they’re all ginned up and exacerbated by the main cast. Mostly Toby Stephens and Molly Parker because they’re the parents. But this device—ignore an obvious problem and then act surprised when it becomes a dire situation—kind of sums up season two’s storytelling. When JJ Feild and Douglas Hodge joined the supporting cast as the eventual villains, “Space” had a chance to go somewhere.

Instead, it keeps creating problems to delay any movement. If these were actual problems—which might have been what made the metal termite episode so good—it’d be one thing. But this episode’s all about how Parker Posey teams up with Hodge after Stephens pisses her off by dismissing her. Posey and Stephens were temporary pals—Stephens gave speeches about how he learned as a Navy Seal to lead people, but then it turned out he was full of shit as far as reading his comrades. Sure, Posey had the sads because she saw Nevis Unipan, the daughter of the guy she killed, but Stephens doesn’t know she’s a second-degree murderer; he just saw her in distress and ignored it. It’s not so much inconsistent characterization as lack of it. “Lost in Space: Season Two” lets the events dictate character, only there aren’t enough events, so the characters are spinning out.

So Posey and Hodge are after the kids. Maxwell Jenkins and Mina Sundwall are going to help the robots, even if it means Hodge and Feild don’t get to torture the regular robot until a little later. Jenkins remains entirely obtuse to what’s going on around him, which would work if the show were from his perspective, but he’s not. He’s too befuddled to be functioning as well as he does here. Though it’s Sundwall and Taylor Russell who come up with the plans. Once the kids are all together, the episode works better, so it’s weird they keep the kids apart so much this season. The show refuses to play to its strengths.

Feild, Hodge, and Posey are hunting the kids through the mothership while Stephens is out in space rescuing Parker. Except since Stephens didn’t do anything about Hodge being murderous last episode, Hodge has locked them out of the ship, and they’re going to run out of fuel and die in the gas giant together. There’s a bunch of busy sci-fi action tropes they go through while in orbit, but no heart to any of it. Director Stephen Surjik can do all the effects stuff. He just can’t pretend it matters.

Things only go wrong at the end because of a character’s lack of, well, character and whether it can be overcome. It’s an episodes’ long C-plot at this point, and it was apparent from jump what needed to happen. But instead, the show moped along for four episodes just to get a drug-out finale before the season finale.

If the show’s only got as much story for the season as it seems now… the meandering to get here hasn’t been worth it. There’ve been some nice moments for the actors this season—primarily Russell and Ignacio Serricchio (who’s unconscious this episode, apparently Hicks’ing for the grand finale)—but I’ll bet it finishes with the exact narrative stakes where it started with. There’s been no progress, just a bigger supporting cast.

Fingers crossed I’m wrong.

Lost in Space (2018) s01e08 – Trajectory

Will Robinson, falling for Dr. Smith’s shit since 1965. Having not seen the original show and not having great memories of the obvious evilness of Gary Oldman’s Dr. Smith in the Lost in Space: The Movie, I don’t know how this show’s version of Will Robinson, played by Maxwell Jenkins, falling for Parker Posey’s very obvious machinations—“Your parents lie to you to make you feel better because you’re just a kid”—when she’s literally locked up for being a supervillain… I’m not sure if Jenkins’s is a particularly dippy Will Robinson or just the norm.

Posey tricking Jenkins into helping her escape and wreck havoc doesn’t happen until the third act and then mostly just to screw up the imminent resolution to the rescue A-plot. It’s all for the cliffhanger, which is fine. Jenkins and Posey have the least amount of charisma together, and it’s thankfully not a running subplot.

The episode’s kind of an Apollo 13 riff. There’s a quick resolution to the previous episode’s hard cliffhanger, which had colony leader Raza Jaffrey being a bigger dick than usual and then losing his authority to Toby Stephens and Molly Parker. They’re a team now too. It makes Stephens more likable when he admits he needs to check with his wife.

But now all the survivors know there’s not much time left before the planet self-destructs—or at least burns all the humans off the surface—and there’s barely enough fuel for one ship. Parker’s got to figure out what to do, then Jenkins somehow makes her think of the time she saw Apollo 13 and how they should do a science no hyphen fiction episode where they need to strip down a space-camper, so it can get to the atmosphere with less fuel.

There’s a very brief thread about Yukari Komatsu having to fly it because she weighs the least, which upsets Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa—the scene where they argue in Japanese makes you wish the show were about them. And in Japanese.

Turns out the only person who can wake up from unconscious in time is Stephens, which means Parker, Jenkins, Mina Sundwall, and Taylor Russell all have to work out dad going on a potential suicide mission while training him for it. Luckily, they’ve got a few days, so they’re going to work it all out.

Not. The mother-ship has to leave sooner, so it’s now or never.

Probably series best acting from Stephens, which isn’t too high a bar for him to clear, but also terrific acting from Parker and Ignacio Serricchio. Even though Parker knows how the ships are supposed to work based on the manuals, Serricchio knows how they really work. It also gives Serricchio time with the other kids—not just Russell, though they have a rushed resolve to their investigating Posey plot—and it works.

Sundwall’s got a little to do with Ajay Friese—dealing with the fallout from her parents usurping control from his shitty dad, but otherwise, she and Russell end up all support to the main plot. Appropriately end up all support to the main plot. It’s a “clocks ticking” science and engineering action story.

Stephen Surjik directs Ron Howard-style just fine. Katherine Collins and Kari Drake (who are both producers as well) get the script credit. It’s most enthusiastic when on the main plot, which is enough to cover for the drags.

Like Jenkins somehow never realizing, after so much recent experience, it’s not okay when adults talk to children the way Posey talks to him.

The Witcher (2019) s02e02 – Kaer Morhen

The episode opens with Anya Chalotra having a domestic bliss dream about Henry Cavill. Last season it seemed like “Witcher” was setting up Cavill, Chalotra, and Freya Allan as a surrogate family unit—seemed might be too strong a characterization, but there were definite tones. The dream sequence is very… lovey-dovey. Very unlike “The Witcher.” It goes to a nightmare, sure—a horrific one—but the sentimentality’s interesting.

Chalotra wakes up to discover she and her former classmate, now enemy Mimi Ndiweni are being held prisoner by elves. There’s a bit with the elves before elf magic boss lady Mecia Simson shows up. It turns out Simson, Chalotra, and Ndiweni are all having similar dreams, which will lead to a pretty good episode for them. Simson’s strong, and Ndiweni’s excellent. It’s the first time Ndiweni’s really gotten to do anything on her own—albeit while held prisoner by elves—but she’s real good.

Their plot will involve a Baba Yaga house and a “be careful what you wish for” deal with the proverbial devil. It’s good. And a lot more sympathetic than the A-plot with Cavill and Allan, who finally arrive at the Witcher Winter Wonderland. It’s a keep in the side of a mountain, where all the Witchers get together and get drunk and train and make potions.

Well, if Cavill had his way, they’d be doing those productive activities. But we find out immediately Cavill’s not a Buzz Killington because he’s a Witcher; he’s just a Buzz Killington. The other Witchers are all a barrel of laughs who really want to drink and carouse and make slightly creepy comments about Allan.

Except for Basil Eidenbenz, Cavill’s best friend, who’s just straight up intimidating to Allan.

Kim Bodnia’s the boss Witcher, who rescued all the mutant kids back when and trained them to be Witchers. Cavill clearly models himself off Bodnia, while everyone else is rambunctious.

The plot is ostensibly just Allan and Cavill’s first night in the keep, where Allan’s got to learn not to expect luxury even though she’s a princess (and even though she rarely had any in the first season), but then a monster makes an appearance.

The episode’s been awkwardly foreshadowing the monster the entire episode and how it’s going to appear and why, but it’s still an effective sequence. Cavill and Bodnia have to save the day while Allan’s got to maintain composure. Rather good effects for the show, which often has wanting composite shots. They can do plant monsters just fine, it turns out.

The episode feels very much like the setup for season two—without any apparent Westworldling—with Cavill and Allan figuring out what they’re going to be doing (training her to fight). Then Chalotra’s got her surprise arc of the season.

It’s an all right episode, though the majority of the other Witchers—those with lines, anyway—being a gaggle of jokey, drunken bros is surprising. It seemed like a solemn calling, but they’re just jackasses for the most part. The Chalotra and Ndiweni material is the best.

The Witcher (2019) s02e01 – A Grain of Truth

Despite “The Witcher” taking place in a world of magic and monsters, they don’t come up with a cool way to explain why Freya Allan’s all of a sudden got brown eyebrows this season. This episode picks up immediately after last season’s cliffhanger, with Henry Cavill and Allan finally united and trying to find Anya Chalotra. MyAnna Buring’s also trying to find Chalotra, who tapped into the fire magicks to defeat the bad guys last time, and everyone sort of thinks she spontaneously combusted from the effort.

So fire, lots of fire, potentially could’ve singed Allan’s eyebrows, made them visible. Instead of the transparent blonde they were the entire last season. Allan’s aged a little between season filming, no doubt, but with the different eyebrows—it takes a while to get used to her new look. Especially since the season one recap has a bunch of the transparent blonde eyebrows.

After finding out Chalotra’s presumed dead, a stoically mourning Cavill heads toward the Witcher winter palace, Allan in tow. It’s where Witchers go to chill and prepare for a summer of monster hunting. It’s unclear. Especially since the episode opens with a group of travelers stopping in a small village and being picked off by a flying monster. When Cavill and Allan show up in the town, it plays like it’s their destination. But apparently not. Luckily Cavill’s got a friend nearby, and so he takes Allan into a Beauty and the Beast adaptation.

Kristofer Hivju—Tormund from “Game of Thrones” but beastly most of the episode—looks like a warthog man but has a bunch of fun magic and is old friends with Cavill. He doesn’t know anything about the village being empty, also ignore he’s apparently got something living in his attic.

Meanwhile, Buring is back at the Mage Fortress trying to figure out how to get prisoner Eamon Farren to talk. Buring’s upset about Chalotra being dead and will make Farren pay. Except, of course, Chalotra’s not dead; she’s really being held prisoner by Farren’s mage pal, Mimi Ndiweni.

The main plot with Cavill and Allan getting more and more suspicious at Hivju’s, even though he seems trustworthy, is pretty good. It’s maybe not the best adventure for Allan and Cavill if you just binged the first season and were waiting for them to get together, but it’s a well-executed Beauty and the Beast riff. Agnes Born plays a mysterious woman Allan encounters—who knows Allan’s got magic too—and she’s good. It works out, mainly because it finds a good balance for Cavill and Allan.

It’s good because the other plots go nowhere. The Buring plot goes nowhere, while the Chalotra one at least gets to be the cliffhanger. Though they could’ve introduced her being alive and done the cliffhanger as the cliffhanger. The plot’s nothing in between, except a little banter between Chalotra and Ndiweni.

It also doesn’t help for the first half of the episode; I kept trying to see if they were Westworlding the timelines to gin up the narrative like they did last season. They aren’t, and they don’t draw attention to it, but it does imply this season of the “Witcher” will be less manipulative than the first.