I knew there was a new show coming called ST: Prodigy and that it was animated, with a holographic Janeway to help train a misfit crew. There have been other shows in the ST universe about raw cadets who are unseasoned but manning a star ship, but not animated nor as the full premise of the show. Episodes or books, not shows.
But I figured I knew a little of what to expect, as I’ve watched Lower Decks. I assumed it was similar in concept but with the LDers running the asylum. Star Trek shows are always good for multiple seasons, so I didn’t bother trying to predict renewal, it’s almost guaranteed to run two seasons at least.
Yet the show is nothing like what I expected. The animation and tone is way more like Star Wars’ The Mandalorian than it is traditional Star Trek. If it wasn’t for Janeway showing up at the end of the premiere to say hello, it could be AnyShip Inc.
The main character, Dal, is on a prison planet. There’s no explanation of why or how he ended up there, nor any of the other people in prison. Most of them can’t speak to each other as translators are forbidden. When a special psychic prisoner called Prisoner Zero shows up, Dal gets involved, a couple of them find an abandoned Starfleet vessel hidden deep in the planetary core, they recruit some other prisoners, and they try to get off the rock. Along the way, they kidnap the warden’s daughter.
The voice work is all well done, although I don’t recognize any of them from other stuff. The only one I do recognize is the warden, called the Diviner, voiced by John Noble. He’s always great to see/hear, but hard to say if it’s simply more of a show-by-show cameo or a regular full character.
As a Star Trek show, it fails completely. It is unlike any of the other shows and doesn’t even feel like it’s in the same lexicon. As a Star Wars show, I’d accept it in a heartbeat. It’s watchable, I’m curious to see where it goes. And I know there will be cameos of other ST characters (Chakotay shows up soon too, apparently). But is it Star Trek?
My first reaction to Apple TV’s “Invasion” series was based on the description and the trailer. And I was completely confused by two totally different marketing approaches.
Invasion on Apple TV is about an alien invasion, but seems like it is more about how one woman copes, trying to keep her two kids and herself safe, since the father is useless. But I can’t be sure as the description going around looks like “family-during-crisis” while the trailer looks like “monsters-are-here”. Pass, predict cancellation.
I gave EP01 a go, and well, I have NO idea where the woman’s storyline went. The episode looks like simply a generic “aliens are bad” plot. With completely unconnected storylines all over the place.
The only storyline that was mildly interesting was a sheriff who investigates a simple disappearance, assumes it’s the local yokels, and finds a strange crop circle and some crows. Later, there’s a storm of locusts, I think, and it looks almost biblical.
To be honest, I have no real idea what the plan is for the show. It jumped all over, nothing was really happening, and it was slow as molasses. I didn’t care about ANYBODY in the pilot. Well, maybe the crew going to the space station, but that lasts no time at all annnnnnd they’re dead.
Yawn.
I am giving it a hard pass, maybe the writers have some amazing story arc planned, and it takes several EPs to get going. In the meantime, I’m out. And I can’t see it getting renewed, despite the high budget commitment up front.
When I read about CPA in the previews, my reaction was this:
Chicago Party Aunt…an animated show on Netflix about a drunk 40yo woman partying in Chicago. Wait, isn’t there a show about a 40yo pretending to be 20-something in New York? Pass but I predict it will make it to at least season 2.
Then I watched EP1, and I’m changing that prediction to no renewal. Maybe the later EPs are good, maybe Netflix wants to be in the animated business, but EP01 is gratingly bad.
Low-bro lower-middle class can work with comedy, including 262 EPs of the life of shoe salesman Al Bundy and his wife Peg for the show Married…With Children. Or you can go wholesome family values for something like Roseanne which has some brashness but ultimately, everything comes back to family.
This show takes the worst of Peg and the worst of Roseanne, takes away any anchoring presence like kids or partners to call them on their bullshit when they’re acting looney-tunes, and ramps up the “if you judge me, I’ll judge you back, in-your-face, brashness is a virtue” motif.
There is no part of me anywhere in the entire episode that wanted her to succeed. She’s the worst of all of us, and you just want to see her fail. Hard. To get her come-uppance that being a rude asshat doesn’t get you ahead, and if you use other people, eventually the circle of life will come back and bite your ass. Nope. Her nephew loves her and needs someplace to live for a year, so his parents put him in their condo with her.
Maybe there’s some story arc here that turns her from a disaster into a functioning human being through the time with her nephew as he figures out his life, but honestly, she’s skated through her entire life with virtually no consequences, and just as they are about to land squarely on her head, there’s a reprieve. Really? I kind of wanted to see her squashed like a bug. I had no compassion for her character as she isn’t deserving of any. She literally tries to use anyone and everyone, and laughs about it.
As I said, maybe the show will go somewhere. But I sure hope not.
The original CSI was awesome, and it really started a whole genre of shows where it was not about a pathologist going rogue or detectives doing their thing, it instead put forensic science front and centre. It grossed some people out, inspired others to go into science, and tricked entire populations into believing you could do a full DNA test while someone was getting coffee. If the science said you did it, the science was always right.
With a relaunch of the series, technically a spinoff of sorts and hence the “: Vegas” name to distinguish it from other CSI shows in the franchise, they start with an idea to refute that premise…what if someone misused the science to get false convictions? It is clear to the viewer and the main character that it’s obviously a frameup, but there is evidence by the end of EP01 that all of the previous show’s cases could be in jeopardy because one of their techs seems to have been fabricating evidence and then using the fake evidence to support lab results that led to convictions.
I liked the original series, but it was never “must-watch” TV for me. I suspect I could binge it all at some point, but it’s not THAT compelling to me. I’d rather read a good novel about a forensic scientist than watch their shows, although the diorama episodes were pretty cool. Anyway, I watched the first EP to get a feel for it. There’s no real need to predict, since it is clearly going to get renewed, it’s an existing fanbase and existing syndication deal. No brainer.
Original CSI stars Jorja Fox and William Petersen are back as Sara and Gil, with the first episode tied to their former cop friend, Jim Brass, played by Paul Guilfoyle. They were good in EP01, as they always were, stepping back into roles they know well.
The current head of the lab, Maxine, is played by Paula Newsome and I found her EP01 persona confusing. She’s very open to Sara being there, yet guarded in other interactions with her own staff? Weird. I have seen her in lots of shows over the years — Castle, Heroes, Flashforward, Suits, No Tomorrow, and Magnum PI — but I have no real memory / image of her in any of those EPs. I also couldn’t place her as the wife of NCIS Director Vance, and she did 4 EPs at least. Meh then, meh now.
The various crew members — Matt Lauria (Josh), Mandeep Dhillon (Allie), Mel Rodriguez (Hugo) — are all fine, but it feels like you’re stopping by mid-show, like they’ve been doing this on their own for a while and we just happened to stop by to see what they’re doing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it doesn’t scream “Welcome to meeting your new characters!”.
I feel like the producers felt “Hey we know you’re going to watch, we don’t have to sell you on the show”, and they jumped into EP05, screw any backstory. Okay, but for me? Meh. I didn’t care about any of them and I saw nothing that made me want to learn more. Well, maybe the coroner. He was creepily interesting.
One of the pop YA novels in recent times is the book, “One of Us is Lying”. The premise? A merger of Gossip Girl and The Breakfast Club.
You may know that Gossip Girl was centred around an anonymous social media feed that dished all the dirt from the high school. Who was doing who, whose parents were having blowout fights, who was bribing who, etc. It didn’t stop with simple teen angst, it went deeper at times. The ultimate addiction. If you were in the school, you had to read it to know what everyone was talking about.
Switch to OoUiL, and the premise is adjusted. Instead of being anonymous, the author is known. Which is a ridiculous premise. Based on the stuff he’s posted previously, it’s clear that someone would have beat the crap out of him daily the entire previous year at least. Or a group of them. He talks to people who actually respond to him frostily as opposed to smashing him in his face or walking away the moment he opens his mouth. But whatever. He’s isolated except for a girl who has the not-so-secret hots for him, and maybe she did it, but hard to say.
Anyway, it’s the first day of the new school year, and he’s promising to reveal what they all did for the summer, starting with a big news dump on the upcoming Friday. The sports guy who has a huge secret; the skank who has been stepping out; the A student with another huge secret; and a felon who has been, well, felonious.
And what a coincidence, they all end up with detention on the first day. Enter the Breakfast Club. The teacher in charge is not quite as stupid as the BC teacher, but she is pretty rude and off-balance. There’s a distracting event, the student takes a drink of water, and BAM! down he goes choking. Yep, dead of either poison or some sort of allergic reaction, and the kids are the prime suspects. If the teacher doesn’t turn out to be the killer, I’ll be very surprised. I never read the book, but she makes the only obvious NON-suspect which means she’s my prime suspect.
I want to hate the show. I want to tell you it’s stupid, teen angsty, terrible premise, and totally unwatchable. The first three are true, the last one is not. It’s pretty good. If I was about 35-40 years younger, I’d probably tune in.
Marianly Tejada plays Bronwyn, aka the brainy A student with a secret. In the premiere, she also stole the dead guy’s laptop to protect her secret, and then someone stole it from her. Which pretty much eliminates her as a real suspect, I guess, but they’ll come back to her for awhile. I still think it’s the teacher, but hey, that won’t come until near the end of the series. Tejada doesn’t have a lot of previous experience, and I haven’t seen her in much, but if you want to know what she’s like, picture Kaylee Bryant from Legacies. She’s basically channelling an almost carbon copy of her academic intensity. Sounds bad, but it’s not, she’s watchable but you’ll have to wait to see if she’s given something else to do in the series.
Cooper van Grootel plays Nate, aka the felon. His character is the one that makes zero sense as the dead guy has been banging on him for a while, revealing secrets that could get him sent to jail, and he’s like, “Yeah, whatever”. Really? Not too likely. Anyway, whatever, I like his presence. It’s more than simple blonde hair dude, he has a bit of presence and gravitas. I haven’t seen him in anything before, but he’s decent.
Chibuikem Uche plays Cooper (yep, there’s an actor named Cooper on the set and a character named Cooper, so I’m sure that’s not confusing at all to anyone), aka the athlete with a secret. Which you find out pretty early on is that he’s gay, but doesn’t want to come out because then nobody will draft him to play baseball. I swear someone called Central Casting and said, “You know that show All-American? Find me a Daniel Ezra-like face to be our Spencer James”. Oh, but we’ll pair him with a dad who’s been training him rather than single mom. Uh-huh. And yet I like All American, so I like him too.
The skank, Addy, is not really a skank, just a blonde girl who is a bit superficial, has a healthy libido, and doesn’t quite hew to monogamy. Played by Annalisa Cochrane, I swore I had seen her in other shows before. She has one of those faces where you think, “I’ve seen you in 20 other shows playing the same party girl, right? Maybe as a scream queen in a horror flick?”. According to IMDB, nope. Of the 10+ credits she’s had, all the way back to soaps and before, I have never seen her in anything. I don’t want to watch her full time as the character isn’t very interesting, but the actress is fine. She looks like Tara Reid a bit, but isn’t so flighty.
And while there are various other actors running around, I’ll skip them to talk for a second about the victim/blogger aka Simon, played by Mark McKenna. He’s listed as appearing in multiple episodes, so I assume there will be flashback scenes. He is cast to look like John Cusack from a variety of John Hughes shows, and the script even drop-references Hughes at the start. He has the most presence of all the actors, annnnnd then he’s dead. But to be honest? He seems to deserve it. He fashions himself as the avenging journalist who roots out secrets, but his first reveal is a new girl who has started at the school and is trying to start her new life. So he outs her as having stabbed her English teacher the year before. Which no doubt is going to turn out to be some sort of sexual assault thing that she was avenging, and his reveal was just mean-spirited, but regardless, that’s already clear. As someone else confesses anonymously from his laptop (ignoring the fact that a hacker would have had it password protected, particularly as he was posting at school and could get expelled), he deserved to die and everyone hated him.
If I had to choose a killer, I’m going with the teacher. If I get two choices, I’ll throw in the girlfriend who has been following him around and would know he would need water during the detention. However, for plot, there’s only two characters who could guarantee all five of them would be in detention — the teacher or the victim. Unless it’s a revenge suicide, I’m going with the teacher.
Except, I confess, I won’t be watching. It’s well done. It’s compelling. And if I was in my teens, I could see a reason to watch. But I’m not the demographic for this show, and I’ll pass. Yet there is still one other factor that bothers me. All of the actors seem to be channelling other actors/characters. It is not a coincidence that I see Legacies’ Josie, or John Cusack or Tara Reid or All American’s Spencer…or any of the other derivative choices. Someone deliberately cast them that way, and that disappoints me. It’s almost like someone threw elements from seven different shows together and said, “Hey, let’s try this”. I’m also disappointed that it turned out well.
I think it is better done than Gossip Girl too, so I’m going to predict renewal. I have no idea what they’ll do for S2 as a premise, but hey, that’s someone else’s problem. I suppose they could pull the Cold Case episode that was Breakfast Club-like that led to a possible suicide that was actually murder and rip that show off too.
