Lost in Space (2018) s03e01 – Three Little Birds

When I said “Lost in Space” was going the “Battlestar Galactica: The Revival” route, I didn’t realize how far “Space” remake creators Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless were going to go with it.

This season premiere opens soon after the previous one, with Taylor Russell in a spacesuit in the spaceship wreckage they found last season finale, looking for information about her dad. Her real dad. He was lost in space too! And he was lost in this ship, information the show didn’t divulge until the very last moment it could. If it was always in the show bible, someone did a lousy job surfacing it.

Because it’s “Lost in Space,” there’s a disaster, and Russell has to leave the ship without the desired information. We get a teaser—there’s an evil robot on the wrecked ship—and then we resolve the “Parker Posey stowed away” hint from last time real quick, with Posey saving Russell from tumbling through space for eternity.

Then it’s a year later, and the humans live in encampments under Cylon control and… wait, wrong show. But only sort of.

The year later jump lets the show account for Maxwell Jenkins having his big boy voice now and being much taller and barely looking like his kid-self. They’re stuck on a destroyed planet in the one good valley, where they can farm and mine for titanium to repair the spaceship. It’s taking longer than anyone expected, which is just aggravating the tension between siblings. First, Mina Sundwall is mad at Russell for saving her and all the kids from death last episode, then Jenkins is just being weird (which makes less sense after a plot reveal), and Russell is feeling the weight of leadership.

Russell’s trying to contact her real dad if he made it to the planet, something Sundwall resents. Sundwall’s busy with hot boy Charles Vandervaart, which makes ex-boyfriend and frequent collaborator Ajay Friese very sad. It’s actually a good subplot, even if Friese’s mooning gets obnoxious, just because he’s at least likable in it. Sundwall, Russell, and even Jenkins are positioned not to be particularly likable initially. It’s about how much they’ve lost their luster without their parents around.

Or because they’re marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet. I was worried “Lost in Space: Season Three” would be a Children’s Crusade and obnoxious with all the little kids, but so far, the show ignores all them kids. Posey’s teaching them French, which is apparently giving them structure—and Posey positive purpose—but otherwise, the kids are just worker drones, mining titanium.

The second half of the episode has disaster imminent—because, of course—and Sundwall, Russell, and Jenkins having to work together to save the day. It feels more like a big-budget kids’ show than any other time at that point. There’s a lot of Jurassic Park-y music throughout, and director Frederick E.O. Toye does the Spielberg-esque “Space” take.

Now, also like “Battlestar” are parents Molly Parker and Toby Stephens’s story. The adults have mostly survived, hiding from the robots and doing guerrilla missions to get resources from planets. Parker’s lost purpose without having children, leading to a rift in the actually quite tenuous marriage.

Stephens has his beard back, which helps his performance. Shouldn’t, but it does.

Ignacio Serricchio’s clean-shaven and somehow an officer now. He’s charming but doesn’t have much to do.

It’s kind of a good episode for Parker, acting-wise. Like, the “why live without my kids giving me attention” reveal is terrible, but her performance itself is darn good and raises the show above its even more than usual derivative feel.

“Lost in Space: Season Three” is off to a much better start than I thought it’d be.

Evil (2019) s02e03 – F Is for Fire

This episode opens with an added for Paramount+ (presumably) bit of nudity as Katja Herbers has a sexy dream out of a “Red Shoe Diaries” commercial. That superfluous nudity, plus Herbers dropping an f-bomb in what seems again to be ADR, is how “Evil” is upping its game from broadcast to streaming. And while those additions aren’t helping the show—and just make it seems silly (though Herbers’s “I’m so horny I could die” subplot this episode is pretty silly)–“Evil” continues its strongest uptick maybe ever. Could “Evil” actually end up being something good?

It’s only got another ten episodes to figure it out (while I’m very hesitantly positive about the show’s creative potential, its renewal potential seems absurdly low—but no, they just renewed it for Season 3). But what if “Evil” just ends up being a bunch of people acting varying degrees of absurdly evil? Like Herbers. Herbers is showing some decidedly evil traits this episode. Ditto mom Christine Lahti, who uses a lot of manipulation and subterfuge to reinsert herself in Herbers’s life.

Of course, with everyone acting evil—or at least getting excited at the possibility of it (culturally Muslim Aasif Mandvi letting his sex demon, voiced by Ciara Renée, costume-acted by Ashley Edner, convince him his Christian friends are dissing his background while taking out her retainer for business time)—it gives poor Mike Colter even less to do. Last season was all about Herbers getting hot and bothered at the idea of Colter. Now Colter just disappears when not needed—after a good opening where he explains the show premise to new cast member Andrea Martin (playing a nun in his parish who he doesn’t think can know foreign languages because she’s a girl)—because he’s no longer the object of Herbers’s lust. It’s a bummer for Colter… but seems to be a plus for “Evil” overall.

Though the show could’ve gotten more milage out of dueling exorcisms. The case this episode is Matilda Lawler, a nine year-old fire starter. She lives with foster parents Ben Rappaport and Zuleikha Robinson. Rappaport’s Catholic, Robinson’s Muslim, so you know they didn’t get Lawler from Catholic Social Services because mixed marriages but—right after Mandvi and Renée’s tête-à-tête—the foster parents decide to exert their respective faiths and demand both a priest and imam for the exorcism.

You’re just waiting for someone to say the other one’s not real. Of course, since in “Evil,” religions are apparently all real (and Wyze Cams are not, because tech expert Mandvi can’t get a webcam to try to catch Renée, he instead hooks his phone up to something), Colter steps in to suggest the exorcism off.

Those scenes could be better, but thanks to Lahti’s arc, Kurt Fuller’s fun, steady turn as Herbers’s psychiatrist, and great direction from Frederick E.O. Toye—though truly terrible editing from Edward Chin—it all works out.

Maybe “Evil” really is finding its stride.

And also maybe not. But I’m more invested in the show than maybe ever before.

Watchmen (2019) s01e09 – See How They Fly

I’ve been trying to gin up enthusiasm to write about this “Watchmen” finale all day. Though, if I think hard enough, I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with a compliment. Something like… thanks to “Watchmen: The Series,” Robert Wisdom’s most… unappreciative recent casting is no longer “The Alienist.” Wisdom shows up in this episode as the newspaper vendor who gets to do a newspaper vendor stand-in for the end of the world (again), though this time he gets paired with Ozymandias (Jeremy Irons).

And, I guess if I’m continuing on the qualified compliments… Irons is a lot better this episode than expected. Sure, it’s because Hong Chau is not, but it’s not like Chau is James Wolk or something. Wolk is truly godawful. Chau’s just disappointing.

Jolie Hoang-Rappaport’s still good as Chau’s assistant though. “Watchmen: The HBO Event Mini-Series”’s successes are few and few between. Cherish them. Even if they don’t make the viewing experience any less ponderous. Though, yeah, if you’re willing to let “Watchmen” get away with a lousy Clair de Lune accompaniment, maybe you’re going to let it get away with a 2001 rip-off. I mean, after the Schindler’s List thing, doing an obvious 2001 callback… well, no, the former is just an excruciatingly cynical eye-roll, the latter is actually comically godawful.

But if you’re willing to cut “Watchmen” that amount of slack already… who cares if the ending is an intentional cop-out, but before that cop-out lazy and trite. I mean, at least the original score functions like an old John Carpenter score again?

I do like how little respect the show has for its audience, when it draws attention to things and tells the viewer to pay attention, then does a flashback anyway because it doesn’t trust them to pay attention. Just like Watchmen the comic. As well as short-changing the entire cast. Because Watchmen the comic did the… oops, no. No, it did not.

The show uses some cheap tricks to get things done in the episode, which “corrects” the ending of the original series. Or something.

If Damon Lindelof had any gumption, he would’ve done a show about trying to adapt Watchmen and why everyone fails at it and sequelizing it. Or do something about how DC and Warner Bros. screwed Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, lying to them for years. Not to mention propping up the Watchmen trade sales while waiting for Hollywood to figure out how to exploit the property.

But he doesn’t. Because Lindelof’s got no gumption. No spoilers but he’s a lot more Return of the Jedi-era George Lucas than anything else… which makes him perfect for a “Disney Star Wars” show.

I think the most disappointing thing is I really thought the show was going to give Lou Gossett Jr. a great mainstream role.

It does not. But it gives him even less of one than expected. And expectations have been dwindling for a while.

As for Regina King… she doesn’t make it worth watching, which is a travesty. It wastes her. Completely.

Back when the Watchmen movie came out a friend who I don’t think had read the comic said it (the movie) proved you could do a different kind of superhero narrative, even if Watchmen didn’t do it successfully. The TV show doesn’t even reach that level; it doesn’t prove its conceptual case, much less do it successfully. It really does make me wonder how people experience reading the comic book, because clearly they’re getting something very different from it than I ever do.

All that said, I really hope I remember not to get roped into Season Two in a few years after they say they’re not doing another season then do another season a little later than expected; maybe an HBO Max exclusive.

A sellout’s adaptation of Watchmen needs the sellout Alan Moore and Damon Lindelof is not the sellout Alan Moore. I mean, have you ever read a Damon Lindelof comic book? They’re terrible. Like his TV shows. Sellouts can make good sellout product, which Lindelof utterly fails at doing here.

Evil (2019) s01e09 – Exorcism Part 2

This episode actually surprised me, which I didn’t realize “Evil” could do, but I was wrong. I really didn’t expect the show to head-on confront the Catholic Church enabling, supporting, and facilitating child rape with it being a-okay and turning their number one “defending child rapists” lawyer Renée Elise Goldsberry (from the show creators’ previous success, “The Good Wife,” playing a character named Renée, and giving a terrible performance) as a super-sexy woman from Mike Colter’s past who’s going to coerce him into physical relations or die trying.

When Goldsberry showed up in the first few minutes, after the show established it’s a follow-up on the episode where Colter and Katja Herbers argued over an exorcism but also Michael Emerson’s incel shooter training camp (are all psychologists bad for incels, or just the white men?), I was happy to see her. Any good guest stars would help, especially since incel shooter-in-training Noah Robbins is so bad it’d make more sense if his character were an undercover cop trying to bust Emerson and also Herbers’s decidedly not sexy husband Patrick Brammall is back and, after briefly seeming like he and Herbers might be good together, decidedly is not good with Herbers or anyone else. So, Goldsberry, who’s been not bad in the past but I’m now wondering, was a welcome sight.

Then she started acting.

I mean, the deposition thing is really bad—who wrote all “Good Wife”’s realistic-y lawyer stuff because they ain’t working on “Evil”—where Goldsberry tries to out-lawyer Jennifer Ferrin (who probably ought to find a better agent, like, real talk) while trying to obscure Herbers and Aasif Mandvi being atheists who don’t think Colter should’ve tortured the plaintiff in her exorcism. The best part is how the case resolves because it’s so obviously how poorly thought-out the plotting.

Also Peter Scolari is Colter’s new boss at the Church and he’s terrible.

The big surprise, besides the Catholic Church propaganda (guess who the incel wants to shoot? Good Catholics who don’t abandon the Church because of child rape, isn’t it progressive) and Goldsberry being bad, is Emerson’s ostensible demon. He’s less an evil mastermind and more an incompetent jackass. He has a silly “break stuff in my room” scene like he thinks he’s Kylo Ren, he’s just in his late sixties or whatever. It’s buffoonish. Though I suppose at least it’s not as gross as if “Evil” really is about being Catholic Church propaganda.

Also, also. A correction from an earlier post. Black Catholics are a thing in urban areas and “Evil” supposedly takes place in New York, just a really poorly shot one. They still aren’t in that survey I mentioned and they still seem overrepresented on the show.