Category: TV

I have won the week

TV

My 85+ year old dad, who has been staying with me while his apartment gets asbestos remediation, watches a lot of TV. In the nearly three months he’s been here (insurance has been dragging their feet, don’t ask) he’s probably watched more TV and movies than I have in the prior five years I’ve lived here alone.

His tastes tend to run to action thrillers, spies and snipers and bounty hunters and cops and firefighters, although sometimes he branches out to simple comedies or family drama. He absolutely does not like sci-fi, fantasy, or superheroes, though, despite them being action-y spectacles. He’ll watch them if I put one on, but it’s not his favorite.

Because our tastes don’t always align, I don’t often make recommendations for him. Probably my biggest win in that area was putting him on to Hacks, on HBO Max, with Jean Smart. He loved it and is now recommending it to other people, too. If you like old cranky people and young smart-asses, you’ll love it, too. And that’s the biggest reason I thought my dad would love it, which he did.

Tonight, I went downstairs and he was doing the scroll-to-find-something-new and he had stopped on a comedy.

“Are you looking for a comedy to watch, dad?”

“Yeah, I thought I was in the mood for something funny.”

He was on Hulu. I laughed. “What do you think about… vampires?”

“Oh, I don’t like those horror things, blood and guts don’t do anything for me.”

I laughed again, leaned in close, put my hand on his shoulder. “What do you think about… funny vampires?”

He arched his eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Funny, sexy vampires, in fact.” I motioned for the remote, and scrolled through to the search, typed in “what we do…” and clicked the top result. “Oh, and it’s kinda-sorta British humor. Well, New Zealand, which is close.”

“What We Do In The Shadows?” dad asked.

“Yes. Just give it one episode. Watch the pilot, and if it’s not your cup of tea, you can go looking for something else, no strings attached.” I hit Play. “One episode, that’s all I ask.” I watched as Guillermo introduced himself to the camera and chuckled, then went back upstairs.

It is very much not like what dad normally watches. It’s weird. But it’s raunchy, and funny, and it’s one of the most amazing TV shows out there. It’s a Top 10 show for me, clearly.

Upstairs I texted my sister to give her the update. She loves this show, too. Her immediate response: “Keep me in this loop please!”

Just about a half hour later, i went back downstairs. On screen, Nandor, Laszlo, and Nadja were floating in the air outside a window, where inside some cosplayers were arguing. Guillermo said something, and Nandor hissed at him. “Please, Guillermo, you’ll frighten the virgins!”

Dad chuckled.

“Well you made it to episode two!” I said.

“Yeah, it’s OK,” dad said.

He was hooked. Nothing could have made me happier.

The Acolyte E1 “Revenge/Justice” and E2 “Lost/Found”

reviews, TV

The Acolyte is a new Star War, and based on the first two episodes, I like what I’m seeing so far. Here are some non-spoiler thoughts about the setting, characters, and story. The show is set in the time period called The High Republic: 100 years before the prequel movies, during a golden age of peace for the Old Republic. Jedi have established themselves as galactic diplomats and protectors but there are rumblings among the underclass that the peace is built on a lie. In the opening crawl, we learn that there are emerging Force-users that are not Jedi, something we’ve seen a lot already but is presented here as a new idea.

I like this setting. It’s one I’m not that familiar with, not having read any of the novels or comics that have been released to date, so this show is my first exposure to it. The reason that’s built in to the lore as to why Galactic citizens would think only Jedi can use The Force is the ethically-dubious practice of Jedi taking anyone who shows Force sensitivity in to their temple, taking them away from their families and friends. Legalized kidnapping has got to produce a lot of resentment, boiling out there in the billion-billion stars of that Galaxy Far, Far Away (GFFA).

We get to see a mix of Jedi and a handful of regular citizens. The Jedi are space cops, and they’re being led by a politician: Master Venestra, played by Rebecca Henderson, spends a lot of her time on screen shutting down discussion, diverting investigation, and shielding the Jedi from political scrutiny for their role in a crime spree. Luckily for the plot, a rough and clearly emotionally-compromised Jedi by the name of Master Sol (played by international star Jung-Jae Lee) feels motivated to dig deeper, out of guilt and a remorse that is only hinted at in these two episodes.

Backing up Master Sol is Knight Yond (Charlie Barnett) who’s a stiff, by the rules type, but somehow likeable for it, at least to me. His strictness is a weakness but his honesty is a strength. And Yord steams his robes, an act that TikToker Written In The Star Wars has pointed out just leads to a new question about every Jedi: do they steam their robes, or not? Master Venestra would definitely order an underling to steam her robes; Master Sol could not even bring himself to care.

Rounding out the investigative team is Padawan Jecki (Daphne Keen) is curious, competent, and eager; she’s a great help to Sol, Yond, and, eventually, Osha. Jecki might steam her robes for specific purposes.

Sol’s remorse concerns Osha (Amandla Stenberg), a former Jedi student who now takes on dangerous repair work as a meknek for the Trade Federation out in the Corporate Sector. If it’s unusual for anyone with Force sensitivity to escape being taken to the Temple on Coruscant, how more unusual is it for someone to leave the Temple untrained? And did it involve steaming or not steaming her robes? She definitely doesn’t steam her work outfits now.

Her departure from the Jedi Order is where the central mystery lies and I am intrigued. My own thoughts about the Jedi and their place in the history of that GFFA have certainly evolved over time; when I was a kid they were kick-ass religious fighters, but eventually, seeing how the Jedi actual acted in the prequels and main stories, I’ve seen that they were arrogant, stubborn, and duplicitous, preferring to run away and hide than deal with the consequences of their decisions. The Acolyte, so far, looks ready to peel back those layers and show how that Jedi arrogance got its start.

The show looks great, especially the action sequences. As should be expected, the fights and escapes are well-shot, easy to follow, and high-energy. These are trained Jedi at the height of their powers so they fight like the professionals we expect.

I’m looking forward to more, and if you have an interest in a story that’s equal parts action and politics set in a well-developed fantasy setting, you should give it a try, too. It’s streaming on Disney+; new episodes drop every Wednesday in the US.

Big Iron on our hips

Daily Story Project, Gaming, Tech, TV

With the release of Fallout on Prime, the new TV show set in the Fallout universe, interest in the post-post-apocalypse wasteland has never been higher. I mean me, my interest, mostly. I want to reinstall and play all the games, now. And I have at least reinstalled several of them (Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 76) but haven’t yet found the time to start a new journey in that wild far future.

It’s been fun going through the process of getting a nice clean install, patching the older games to run on modern hardware and software, and picking out a few good mods to make it more stable, improve the graphics and gameplay, and fix the more egregious bugs. OK, again, that’s probably just my own quirky tech-focused kind of fun; your mileage may vary. For Fallout 3, it took maybe an hour’s worth of googling, downloading, and a scosche of trial-and-error. But I got it all running.

Stay tuned to this channel for the possiblity of me streaming a playthrough of Fallout 3, playing as myself… I’m working up the nerve to try it.

Screenshot from the game Fallout 3, opening credits: an old TV test pattern in black and green saying "Please Stand By" in retro-futuristic text and graphics.
Coming soon: me making a fool of myself in the Capital Wasteland

That being said, my nephew also wants to play some Fallout, excited by the new show and especially for it being set in the game’s continuity, being a true follow-on to the game chronology. Max and I have been texting each other questions, theories, and memes about Fallout since the show dropped. This is actually fun for lots of people, not just computer geeks like me! Surely anyone reading this has one or several friends they share memes with, right? Not just me? It’s a universal thing these days?

The other day, though, he sent me a link to a Steam Community guide about how to install and run Fallout: New Vegas and asked me if it was a good how-to. I took a look and it seemed pretty comprehensive, and offered to help him out if he ran into any troubless. I felt a bit of a duty; I had helped him build his current computer a couple of years ago. Mostly though I’m excited to see him play and happy to help him get the most out of his rig. He’s been mainly a console player; mods aren’t a normal part of his gaming experience; whereas I’ve been modding games since Skyrim. I may not be an expert but I would consider myself a competent modder.

He started to get it going the other day but I didn’t hear anything more. When I pinged him to ask how it went, he said he got distracted, totally understandable. Today, though, he had the energy to get it going, and I was able to screenshare with him and walk him through the trickier parts, like making sure to back up the default files and folders before messing with them, which saved us in at least one instance. The instructions for the mod that enables scripting support, NVSE, said to copy the entire contents of its mod to the main game folder, it wanted to overwrite the Data folder already there. I backed him out of that, had him rename the old folder, and then copy everything.

Once we got the mods installed, though, the game crashed to desktop on launch, throwing the error “missing masters.” When I had Max launch the game normally, it didn’t appear any of the DLC was available; turns out they all lived in the old, renamed Data folder. Copying them to the new modded Data folder fixed the issue.

Then I spent over an hour watching him start a new playthrough, MST3K-ing and joking and googling things for him (like what is a hot plate used for, anyway? And did the Brotherhood try to take over Hoover Dam (they got distracted by Father Elijah’s fixation on HELIOS-1)). Fun times!

I’ve spent so much time in these worlds, playing, learning the characters, maps, and lore. Even making up my own wasteland lore (which has yet to be contradicted by the official material, yay!) Fun times, indeed. And I’m so glad that non-gamers are learning how rich and weird the Fallout universe is. I welcome new fans with open arms.

Feel free to ask me any questions. Love to help.

Star Trek Discovery S5E04 “Face The Strange”

Daily Story Project, reviews, TV

This week’s Star Trek Discovery Season 5 Episode 04, “Face The Strange” was SO MUCH FUN. The show has finally found its footing. The writers know the characters well, they put them together in interesting ways, and they play to their strengths, which is emotional connections amid bonkers Star Trek science. Minor plot spoilers ahead for this episode.

This week, the ship gets sabotaged by the crime couple that are the big bads for the season in the form of time bugs, literaly spiders that somehow tap into EPS conduits and force the ship to jump backward and forward in time. For Reasons(tm) Captain Burnham (played by the delightful Sonequa Martin-Green) and grumpy new First Officer Rayner (played to perfection by Callum Keith Rennie) are immune to the time loops so they keep getting reset and have to figure out a solution. They do get some help from Chief Engineer Stamets (Anthony Rapp) because, of course, he’s got mushroom in his DNA. If you aren’t following this show you will probably think I am making this up but I assure you, I am not.

By having the leads jumping through time, but being tied to the ship, the writers get to have them interact with the history of the ship, and all the crazy shenanigans that have happened over five seasons of off-the-wall Star Trek nonsense (I say nonsense with love; I love this show, flaws and all) and even get to finally tie up a loose end that was introduced in a Short Trek a few years ago (“Calypso” if you’re curious) to my satisfaction, at least. Even Captain Burnham gets to see just how far she’s come from her origin as Star Fleet’s first and only mutineer, to sitting in the center seat.

Just really well done, y’all. I am sad that this is the final season because it feels like the show runners, cast, and crew are firing on all warp cores. Just this episode has so much payoff, it was a joy to watch.

The thing about Star Trek, for me at least, is it was my first fandom. I was too young to see it when it originally aired, or at least too young to remember that (I was born in late 1964, the first episode aired in September 1966) but I was old enough to watch it when it ran every afternoon on KPTV-12, Monday through Friday. I watched it and I loved it; it showed a bright (literally colorful) and hopeful utopian future, a future of adventure and science.

It remains the one major science-fiction franchise that says we can be better, that life can be more than war and hate and strife. Everyone gets second chances in Star Trek. Everyone tries to know themselves, and improve the universe they live in. Everyone tries to find solutions to problems by talking it through and appealing to our better selves. Even steadfast enemies become allies, in time. I love it so much, and am happy that for all my life, I’ve had stories that point the way to the good world I know is possible.

Fallout is not a cartoon

Gaming, TV

A squad of Brotherhood of Steel knights in T-60 power armor approaches the camera.

Credit: Courtesy of Prime Video

This isn’t a spoiler but a funny story I wanted to share. My dad has been staying with me since his apartment got flooded and they found asbestos. His normal TV viewing is procedurals like NCIS or The Rookie, or westerns.

When Fallout on Amazon Prime came out earlier this week, I showed him the trailer to see if it’s something he’d like to watch and his response was “I’m not a big fan of cartoons.” He is entirely unfamiliar with the games.

So I started watching it anyway and now, three episodes in, he’s just as hooked as I am. I think he likes the dark humor and ultraviolence.

That being said, I, too, like the tone of the show as well as the fact that they’ve spared no expense in making the digital world of recent Fallout games into real actual props. Seeing T-60 power armor in action is amazing. There’s a scene near the end of the first episode where someone is being interrogated and they just have the power armor pacing back and forth menacingly. You don’t even see the whole thing, just what passes behind the person being questioned, and the sound effects. Just amazing. Yeah, I imagine that would be intimidating as fuck.

I’ll write a fuller review when I’ve finished it but so far it’s great. I hear the people who whine about things whining about this and The Lore but fuck ’em. I’m not a slave to the lore and neither is Bethesda. Just tell a fun story, that’s all I ask.