The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: 2021
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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…
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The nice thing about Eternals is the film’s most damaging element is obvious. Richard Madden is terrible. He’s not the lead—when Eternals has a lead, it’s Gemma Chan—but he’s top gun, so he gets a lot of screen time. And he’s terrible. What’s even funnier about Madden being terrible is the film leans into him…
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Outside the way too quick resolve to last episode's cliffhanger and either a continuity gaffe (or a lousy narrative choice), nothing is wanting about this episode. However, given its simplicity, it should be a slam dunk. And it is a slam dunk. It's maybe just not an exciting slam dunk. But, given the setting, the…
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A couple things jumped out from the opening titles for this episode. First, there’s a new director—Brian Kelly—but more interestingly, there’s a “story by” credit. “Around the World in 80 Days” is a novel adaptation. Debbie O’Malley gets the story credit, Jessica Ruston gets the writing credit. Jules Verne gets his credit, too (but not…
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While it’s not the concept episode I want (an hour of David Tennant, Ibrahim Koma, and Leonie Benesch waiting for a train), this episode does a fine job introducing new elements to the show while still sticking to the “formula.” Though calling it, a “formula” might be stretching it. The episodes cover salient experiences during…
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During the previous episode recap, I had the hope “Around the World in 80 Days” wouldn’t be formulaic—David Tennant gets in travel trouble, either due to historical events or his inexperience and anxieties. This episode’s formulaic. It does indeed involve travel troubles and a resolution—complete with Tennant’s thoughtfulness saving the day. It’d be nice to…
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So when they said Chris Noth would not be appearing on future episodes of “The Equalizer,” I guess they meant after this episode. Though the entire time it seems like they’re setting Noth up for a farewell hero arc and it as a surprise when he didn’t ride off into the sunset. What’s stranger is…
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The Matrix Resurrections opens with a "cover" of the opening of the original Matrix movie. It takes a while before it makes sense in the narrative, but basically, new cast members Jessica Henwick and Toby Onwumere are watching the scene where Carrie-Anne Moss escapes from Hugo Weaving. Only it's not Carrie-Anne Moss or Hugo Weaving;…
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It’s the Superman ’78 version of an action issue, which means a terribly written scene for Marlon Brando and Susannah York saying goodbye to adult Christopher Reeve this time, some boring Superman vs. Brainiac robots action, and Metropolis-in-danger montage shots. The montage shots have bad dialogue when they have it, but also a cameo from…
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Last episode, it seemed very much like David Tennant, despite being top-billed, was just going to be “Around the World in 80 Days” ’s monied catalyst. He can afford this great adventure, but it’s going to be Ibrahim Koma and Leonie Benesch’s story. Koma’s a working-class (Black) Frenchman on the run from at least responsibility…
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“Around the World in 80 Days” immediately showcases why adapting Victorian novels is a good idea right now. You can do whiz-bang CGI effects for them, but you can also make a white guy the hero and then have marginalized people in the supporting roles and get away with it. The white man was the…
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After three episodes away, Rhys Thomas is back directing this episode of “Hawkeye” for the grand finale, and… well, I wish they’d let Bert & Bertie do it. Thomas’s fight scenes aren’t any better than the previous directors’ fight scenes, and he doesn’t have the same light touch with the characters. It’s fine. It’s a…
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It’s the worst-case scenario for our heroes, with Henry Cavill racing to the Witcher Winter Wonderland where he’s sure an eternal evil spirit is after Freya Allan. Anya Chalotra is tagging along with Cavill, desperate to convince him she’s not just really sorry she was going to give Allan to that same evil spirit; she’s…
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Lots gets done this episode. An almost unimaginable amount, given all the characters in play. The episode begins with Henry Cavill apologizing to Adjoa Andoh for fighting in the temple (no fighting in the temple is one of the rules), but it’s not his fault; it’s bad guy Chris Fulton’s fault. Andoh forgives Cavill and…
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This episode opens with a profound downer. Henry Cavill and Freya Allan have left the Witcher Winter Wonderland and run into the new flying monster from last episode. Turns out the new monsters are all trying to get to Allan for some reason. There’s the most significant casualty of the season so far and possibly…
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I neglected to mention there’s a scene last episode with Joey Batey defending his popular song’s use of deceptive timeline chicanery (oh, if they’d called it Westworlding). It’s only important here because the first scene in the episode doesn’t resolve anything from last time; it instead introduces an evil mage, Chris Fulton. Fulton was imprisoned…
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Spider-Man: No Way Home’s got a very appropriate title. There’s just no way to bring this one home, not for any of the things it tries to do. Though “tries” might be stretching it, No Way Home’s script feels like it’s four different ideas strung together with plot points dependent on the latest Academy Award-nominated…
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Lots goes on this episode, including the return of a season one regular, the return of a season one guest player, and a new political intrigue subplot. Still, nothing’s more important than the Kevin Doyle guest spot. It’s the episode of “The Witcher” with Mr. Molesley from “Downton.” Everything else is secondary. The episode opens…
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It’s old home week on “The Witcher,” with Anya Chalotra getting back to the Mage Fortress just as MyAnna Buring has finally come to terms with Chalotra’s presumed demise. We also find out when Buring tortured Eamon Farren in the season premiere, and they cut away… they cut away from Buring not finding anything out…
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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…
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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…
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Okay, now I’m “worried.” They’ve only got one episode left, they just introduced the big bad, and it’s a surprise reveal for… streaming media rights disputes geeks (like myself), but otherwise, it’s just a Marvel property. I’d seen the rumors, and then this episode, there are some big hints, but it turns out the villain…
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I’m verklempt. I wasn’t expecting to be verklempt. But writer Sam Hamm is going for it with Batman ‘89, with artist Joe Quinones going along with all of it—try to make a community march, but in Tim Burton’s Gotham City, you got it—and this issue might be where the elevation is permanent. Hamm’s taken this…
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Well, it’s easily Robert Venditti’s best writing of the series so far. After an utterly pointless waste of a couple pages on Brainiac’s origin story, we get to Kal-El in the Bottle City of Kandor. Where, surprise, it’s not the adventures of Nightwing and Flamebird, but the continued adventures of Marlon Brando and Susannah York.…
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It’s a shorter episode, but a lot is going on. Especially since it’s often a bridging episode setting up the rest of the season, which is only two more episodes, which is frankly terrifying given all they’ve got to do. But more on that bit later (I’ve been thinking “Hawkeye” ran eight, not six, so…
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What a lackluster conclusion. There’s actually a bunch of good stuff, including a triplicated Jodie Whittaker they should’ve been doing since the cliffhanger on the first episode. Still, as the finish to “Doctor Who vs. The Flux,” it’s minimally successful. The resolution with rubber mask supervillains Sam Spruell and Rochenda Sandall is lousy, and then…
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I don’t think I’d ever have foreseen the Heartland Family Crime Saga genre. Or how it basically employs every white actor who isn’t in a Marvel movie (currently) or once tangentially appeared in some East or West Coast Crime Saga. For example, I didn’t recognize George Carroll from his Ben Affleck Boston Crime Sagas. And…
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According to the "About the Creators" section, the 2004 prose non-fiction book, The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, is based on declassified documents and interviews with participants, which raises the question of whether or not Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors comic adaptation writer Doug Murray ever read the book. Or were…
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This episode has some real highlights, including a great New York action sequence, but the most impressive one has got to be the comic book talking heads sequence. Jeremy Renner and Hailee Steinfeld are sitting and talking to each other. They’re staring almost directly into the camera in one-shot close-ups, and they just have a…
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Since I never got comfortable recommending the show, it’s fitting “Superman and Lois: Season One” finish on something of a fail. It’s not terrible. I don’t think it’s the worst episode, but it’s definitely in the bottom three. Not because there’s anything particularly wrong with it; there’s just nothing particularly right with it. It’s a…
The Stop Button 