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Reviews
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Ad Astra Per Aspera (2023)
Beautiful episode
A wonderfully written piece of TV fiction that showcases the absolute best of what a series like Trek, with one-off episodic storytelling, can be. In the best tradition of the series, it presents a fascinating premise that serves as a kind of ethical prism, through which various reflections of the theme can be explored, without being too directly allegorical to any one specific thing. It can be read as a civil rights metaphor, a don't-ask-don't-tell-metaphor, an apartheid metaphor, you name it.
The result is a beautiful hour of television that's able to pirouette like any good courtroom drama across a variety of heady subject, including race and rights in a stratified society, the letter of the law vs the spirit of the law, the realistic day-to-day of any advanced bureaucracy vs its idealized self-image, etc. (Though oddly, for a story that hinges on genetic modification, it doesn't touch on the actual bio-ethics of that much at all.)
It also helps that, like a lot of classic 80's and 90's TV, it's anchored by an outstanding actress in a walk-on role just knocking it out of the park.
I loved it.
Blue Eye Samurai: The Tale of the Ronin and the Bride (2023)
Spellbinding
A towering accomplishment of animation and storytelling. Everything that makes this show great, this episode delivers in spades. The flashback framing device is the beautifully poetic stuff of episodes that win Emmys, the visual presentation is the most lavish it's ever been, the actual story is heartbreaking, and the writing shifts gears from myth to harlequin romance to ghost story to kick-ass action epic until it's coming on like a thunderstorm.
And the FIGHTS. Man, the fights. This episode plays it close to the chest for a while, opting for the unsatisfying grittiness of realism for much of its runtime. But when it finally cuts loose and goes full anime, it SOARS. I went from tears to fist-pumping "HELL YEAH" in record time. There's a particular moment with a transforming naginata that is one of the coolest moments I've seen in anything in years.
It hits like a graphic novel. It moves like a videogame. It evokes awe like a great fantasy novel. It touches the heart and speaks to a particular corner of the human condition with all the tools of pulp and genre, like a bona fide piece of cinema.
It is a masterful piece of work.
Blue Eye Samurai ROCKS.
Blue Eye Samurai: A Fixed Number of Paths (2023)
Outstanding
A simply excellent episode of television, animated or otherwise. The dialogue is great, the pacing is tight, the suspense is killer, and the character dynamics are spot on. Mizu continues to be a wonderfully complicated main character, whose every scene keeps the viewer on the knife's edge, wondering if her ferocity and skill will win the day again, or if that cocky arrogance of hers is about to get her into trouble.
Honestly, I haven't seen an animated series do an episodic adventure story this solidly, and with such consistent scene-to-scene storytelling competence, probably since Avatar.
It's just GREAT!
Rome: Triumph (2005)
Best episode so far
"Rome" is generally a pretty good show, but this episode is something else entirely. Everything takes a sudden, sharp upward increase in quality, spellbindingly cinematic. Nothing particularly shocking happens -- it's more like all the dominoes you didn't even realize the show has been setting up just quietly fall over. Every story pivots sharply, conspiracies that will shape history are hatched, friendships are irreparably shattered, the scope and grandeur of the moment in history made apparent -- it's really gorgeous, haunting work. One of the better episodes of TV I've seen in a long while.
All Rise: Truth Hurts (2022)
Strippers Unite!
A very solid hour of TV, with important and deftly-handled subject matter, that flies by as breezily as an episode of OG Law & Order. I caught this episode on its own out of context (haven't even seen the rest of the show) and enjoyed it a lot. I especially like how well the strippers were characterized as people, rather than just plot devices (having the main plaintiff one be a D&D player who runs a Discord server was great) and never used as the butt of the joke, opting instead to get laughs out of the cast's various levels of starchy, squirming discomfort. I enjoyed it a lot.