Reviews

7.5*

I liked season 2, probably more than the first one. It still has a lot of problems, but I think most of them are not so much from changes to the lore but just poor narrative choices.

That's not to say there are not some weirdly unnecessary changes - the main one comes from last season, with the elven rings being made first instead of last. At first I thought this was to accommodate the "where is Sauron" storyline, but I now realise it was not really the case - all it accommodated was the entirely pointless and somewhat silly "fading elves" story, which is fortunately forgotten quickly enough in this season.

The main strength is the more nuanced Sauron, who is much more than just an incarnation of evil (though evil he is). Even if the entire ring forging narrative has ups and downs, his manipulation and gaining control is the best part of the show, along with the deeply, deeply anti-Tolkienesque portrayal of orcs as an actual people. Christopher Tolkien is spinning in his grave (not so sure about JRR), but this was a correct departure from canon - even if Adar's fate was exceptionally obvious (I think corrupting him would be far more dramatically interesting, but no). One question that remains is why the orcs, who were for most of the season united against Sauron, spent last season anxious to find Lord Sauron, and why exactly did they change their mind now at the end (well, they had to, but I was not convinced).

On the other hand, one lore change I disagreed conceptually with was the extra corruption of the rings of men - canonically, the rings of the dwarves and the rings of men were the same, and neither batch was made for dwarves or for men. By implying the Nine are more imbued with evil, it takes away from the main point that men are simply easily corruptible, and just turns it into 'oh well, not our fault, we got the bad batch'.

The Numenore story was a bit disappointing - I don't get why Miriel still garners any support as she is just entirely unworthy of it, and Ar Pharazon I feel got too evil too quickly - Sauron corrupting an already obvious villain is far less potent a story. Isildur's plotline was even more boring, apart from the brief ent cameo.

The elves I think were on the whole improved this season - at least the generic background ones got decent hair, Celebrimbor shared some great dialogue with Sauron, and even though Galadriel for me could still be Lagadriel, a random elf, Gil-Galad begins to shine (at least after a few episodes when the two of them stop looking at their fingers in every single scene, as if they just got engaged). In this episode however, we had the bizarre presence of Arondir, who was clearly slain by Adar at the end of the previous episode but is now alive and not even a little wounded. And he stays alive, even though Sauron says 'slay all elves and bring me their leaders' - so why do they keep this entirely random guy unharmed?

The dwarves are always good and fun to watch, but their storyline had a few issues - from the way-too-much-influence of the ring on Durin III, to the Balrog's appearance a few thousand years too early. I suppose they will just seal him back in and in time forget about him or something, but that's...questionable. Also, why hasn't he already killed them all - surely not because he can't pass through a door, he destroys entire cliffs every time he moves.

The Rhun story was kind of the worst for me - not because it was boring, but because it was meaningless. Bombadil's presence was nice; the harfoots are fun; Gandalf is good too. But...for the second season in a row, the show spent all of his story with an entirely fake and unconvincing question as to who he is - only to say 'yes, it was Gandalf all along, as was obvious from the first moment'. Why? The only reason to drag this out is for him to end up being one of the Blue Wizards instead. As it is, we spent all this time and all this journey just so he could discover the obvious, in an entirely silly manner ('I must follow these random stars, because.'). All this for nothing (ok we also got Mad Max hobbits and fantasy Tuskens or something - sure). Worst of all will be if the Dark Wizard turns out to be Saruman (the showrunners apparently said it's 'highly unlikely', but I don't quite believe them - I think Ciaran Hinds is clearly mimicking Christopher Lee, and Saruman was the first Wizard to come to Middle Earth).

So, all in all there are still plenty of weak points, but it is true that the good parts are very good and the show as a whole enjoyable, largely thanks to Sauron carrying it. He is not the dark lord we deserve, but the one we need right now. My complaint is that a lot of these weak points seem totally unnecessary - and easily redeemable if they bothered.

Even though I do not hope From will ever provide satisfactory answers, until it disappoints me with its ending I will enjoy it. This episode has some nice moments (e.g. Tabitha's part is good and promises to give some more background to the story - eventually) and an ending that would be powerful if it wasn't the result of the people (or rather, the writers) being, arguably, very stupid.

For most of the episode the town worries about its food supply - I applaud that, realistic problems give believability to wacky plots. Crops are rotten, so all they have left is the farm animals (I'd argue the forest has to have something growing that is at least semi-edible though). So in the night, the creatures release the animals from their pens. They could have killed them but ok, they are more interested in being sadistic than efficient. The first question is why no one had bothered to install a talisman to the barn (or maybe the first question is why the creatures hadn't destroyed every food source long ago). Let's say it's reasonable to not think of it in the panic of the situation. But then, it seems to me the writers haven't actually ever met cattle. Not only do they sleep at night, but even if they go running off, they can come back on their own - where is there to run off anyway? So why on earth do they leave the buildings at night to round them up? If you really want to justify it, you can say the people knew it's a trap, but if the creatures saw that they didn't fall for it, they would eventually just kill the animals. But you could also just put the cow (or at least the goats and the sheep) in your own houses, outside of which they were roaming, instead of trying to get them aaaaaall the way back to the barn.

Yes, the creatures in From are pure, scary, palpable evil; that gives the series (and the episode) a boost, but the writing should at least avoid the more obvious holes.

I liked the first two episodes of the season - as I have to say that despite his mediocre makeover, I prefer this all too human (well, not literally) Sauron, even though it is a bit far from the original material, as well as the orcs occasionally being actual characters (that's even further form the original material, but still welcome). But it's a rather uneven show, and this episode is a good example.

The absence of solid source material allows the showrunners some creative freedom - for example, Tolkien wrote next to nothing about Rhun, so let's take the show there and do whatever we want. That's fine, but it also takes unnecessary (and hardly inspiring) creative freedoms - take this entire effort to sell the Rings to Dwarves. Much like with the Elves last season, it was unnecessary: you don't need the Dwarves to be faced with some catastrophe to sell them a magical (and frankly, very suspicious) solution. In fact that feels sort of against the point and the entire desire for power/greed, although at least the Dwarven problem is not as obviously against lore as the elvish one.

I couldn't help but notice that dwarven delegations come and go from Eregion, while Galadriel and company are taking the (very) long road, in a case of latter-season GoT travelling time problem.

But really the main issues in this episode are that 1) Isildur's story is sort of boring - mr Spock (I don't remember his name, you know the one) is not very interesting, the healer's son is annoying, and Isildur's impending romance with Soon-to-repent-her-treason is obvious (also, Isildur must have been in that spider cave for days if not weeks by the time the horse found him (sure), but phew, he woke up just in time) 2) the Numenor plot is sort of underwhelming - don't get me wrong, Ar Pharazon is my username in almost any site it's available, so I am excited to see this, but really, there is a sort of popular rebellion against Miriel because a few people died in a raid. It's...not much. And she used a palantir, oh no - but there's just not been enough world building to showcase the anti-elf/anti-Valar sentiment. Also, an Eagle makes another unwelcome (as ever) appearance, that seems a bit weird.

5 episodes in should be enough to form a first judgement of the series, and the assessment is simple: The Acolyte is not great, but deserves better treatment.

Meaning, it is better than Obi-Wan Kenobi as a series, but it obviously lacks the presence of a Ewan McGregor that would carry it. Is that enough to make it worth watching? Well, sort of - you are not going to miss much if you don't, but trust me, you won't suffer.

Then why does it get all this hate? Beats me. There are lots of reviews saying the creators/Disney/writers "do not get SW" - which is of course laughable. Star Wars is not David Lynch - it's a franchise about good and evil space wizards. It's not hard to get. In fact, I'd say the problems with the Acolyte is that it knows exactly what SW is and tries to be quintessentially starwarsy: evil master with misguided but redeemable student? Check. Family trouble between all too special family members? Check. Planet hopping almost every episode? Check. And what it does right is everything that separates it from this recipe: the bad guy isn't (as of now at least) intent on galactic domination, but just wants to carve out a place for people like him - he is not another cartoonishly evil monarch but a normal person (which I argue makes him a more nuanced character); the various Jedi exhibit some different traits (the somewhate goofy paladin type for instance); and crucially, this is not about the exact same characters and events, but the setting is new(ish).

Now, admiteddly the main character(s) are not extremely interesting (oh look it's a force sensitive with a troubled and 'mysterious' family past...), and the story is a bit derivative - but at least it's not treated otherwise: they don't treat the existence of a twin, or the revelation of the bad guy, etc as a twist (because they are not, you see it coming from very far) and do not drag the story with fake suspense. It's not the same as a more original story, but at least it's honest.

All in all, it's s decent show - just that. Which brings us back to the question: Why is there a whiny mob of Sith so keen to review-bomb it so viciously? It is not its writing or the acting - these are certainly not great but again, probably better than in Kenobi (let alone the JJ Abrams movies) for instance; the series has a 3.3 rating, which to any reasonable human is an obviously extremely dishonest take. All I can think is that these 'fans' (in the lack of a more widely accepted and descriptive term) are terrified when they see SW content that does not tell the exact same story they have seen 100 times (even though it kind of does), and whose protagonist does not look like them. Weirdest thing is that they will all watch it fanatically while screaming how bad it is.

Overall, Sweet Tooth does its job well: it's a series that is oriented towards a younger audience, it has nice messages, very good acting, beautiful scenery and good pace.

However, the story gradually becomes less and less coherent, especially in this last season: we started off with a viral disease that could be at least temporarily treated and potentially cured; we end up with a magic tree and a vengeful personified Nature. There are two issues with this; first, it's lazy. Secondly, and more importantly, it's a very sudden change, which makes it feel even lazier. Take Dr Singh: last season he was looking for a scientific cure to help humanity and his wife. Now, he is like "oh yeah, I had a prophetic dream and I believe in destiny and the magic deer child." An outlook that is not immediately laughed at by anyone, as if it's a normal thing to happen. Instead even the bad guys trust the fate of the world (and of their scheme) to this deranged person. Magic was NOT a part of this series, up until in the last season finale Gus suddenly summoned bisons or something (by the way, no, that skill was a one-off trick that is neither explained nor used again).

But even if it was sudden, the supernatural (or maybe super-natural since the supernatural is nature?) element could work if it was a little thought out. Instead, we have essentially a Tree of Life, which was wounded and is basically leaking the whatever creates hybrids and the disease. It's an idea but explains little. We never are told what exactly the Fort Smith scientists were doing in there (remember, the wound to the tree actually did absolutely nothing for 100+ years) and how they release the virus. Let alone telling us why Gus is so special to the cure (even though he is actually NOT the first hybrid - though why that should matter is also never explained).

Instead we get very poorly thought out arguments about why humanity deserves to die off (largely expressed by Gus' "mother", a person whose crimes against humanity are unfathomable), and why hybrids deserve a chance. News flash: humanity surviving / being cured doesn't prevent hybrids' survival - sure, there is a half-assed attempt to say that if humanity is cured, the bad guys will kill all hybrids, except: 1) ALL the bad guys except their leader prove not so vicious in the end 2) another news flash, the world is not a small region of North America - for all we know this hybrid-human clash is really local (and, let's face it, it probably would be).

What I would expect is for someone to say to Gus: "having antlers and furry ears doesn't make you a deer - give it a few years and you all will be in each others' throats because YOU ARE JUST FURRY HUMANS" - but maybe I'm bitter and wanted an ending where they've learned nothing.

Lastly, there are many plot points that are just so, so lazy: from the aneurysm-inducing answer to the question of how the hell do we find our way in this blizzard in the middle of nowhere in the polar night ("let's follow this miraculously visible constellation"), to the oft-repeated line by Dr Singh "it all started when I sacrificed the deer" (nope, we never learn what that refers to), and from the bad guys very, very long struggle to turn on a bulldozer to the fact that Birdie was looking for the church for a decade and it was right there, with a well-kept cemetery outside, or to Gus just magically ad-libbing his way to the cave by hearing a heartbeat because yes, they couldn't think of something else.

I will say that the episode on the ship of the dead was quite moving, even if it did try to convince us that a 10 year old could carry and throw hundreds of corpses off the ship (as well as learn what he could about the dead people) in less than one night (maybe not hundreds: the ship that was packed with people and was doubtful if it could take the protagonists too was really not that full).

Still, if you are not in it for the story, Sweet Tooth is pleasant and I have to applaud the acting (though the villains in this season could not hold a candle before General Abbott); just know what to expect.

I will not dwell on the infinite silly things like the bad guys stopping and staring at the "emotional" (it's not) scene instead of killing the good guy as they planned (or, for that matter, how Birdie spent a decade not finding a church that was not hidden and even had a cemetery outside). I will wonder only a little at why the bad guys need to drain the power station to turn on a bulldozer (?????). I will ignore how the bad guys follow the good guys and all the magical family magic that is sort of sickening, because I am not the target audience, and I didn't expect something else.

But some things I cannot ignore. You see, my problem with sweet tooth since season 2 is philosophical. So i don't care if the 'cure' to a global pandemic is to pull an axe out of a tree and everyone thinks that makes sense - it's ridiculous but you know what, sure. But I get livid at arguments of how humans deserve to die off - by a "scientist" that knew, as we saw in last season, from the very start that this special child was the key to a cure and chose to let billions die. Worse than that though is that the argument is nonsensical: either hybrids can reproduce or not. If they can, saving humanity in no way affects them, there are enough of them already. If they cannot reproduce and need human parents, then humans dying off kills all hybrids too. Does no one think through this nonsense?

Season 4 rating: 7.5/10

The season has an excellent premise, great cast and acting, good characters, and atmosphere (though the latter is really easy to achieve in this setting). It's still got its flaws, but it keeps your interest, even if the ending is a little bit underwhelming.

Things to appreciate:

• the acting is obviously great, and not just by Jodie Foster. John Hawkes is particularly great as the utterly miserable Hank Prior, Fiona Shaw gives Twin Peaks vibes, Kali Reis is very good for the part she has, generally there isn't one sub-par performance.

• any murder/supernatural mystery set in the Arctic night works. That's just a fact

• I personally appreciated the slow-ish pace, the clear but not over-shouted environmental message, the feminist undertones, all that stuff

• The fact that the resolution of the case did not require (though it heavily implied) the supernatural

Things that didn't work:

• Ghosts. I didn't mind the existence of the supernatural element, but the setting calls for something very different than 'ghosts of loved ones'. You have ancient ice caves. Summon a Great Old One from the depths of the Earth; or at least find an indigenous goddess to refer to, don't just throw vague references and ghosts of relatives: this is not the place.

• I get the appeal, but not every lead investigator needs to be a poorly mannered brute with a dead kid in their past.

• Lastly, and this bothers me: as much as I like the growing representation and recognition of indigenous people and cultures, and of their plights in tv series, I do not appreciate the 'bad scientists / good housewifes who talk to spirits' dichotomy. Firstly, you are trying to have an environmental message and you end up portraying the scientists (not even the mine company!) as the villains. Secondly, and this happens in every similar plot, no one even considers for a split second the dilemma: is this research/discovery worth this price? Cause you know what, based on what we are told, it kind of might be worth it, and nobody cares.

All in all, if you are into these darker mysteries (and this does get pretty damn dark at times, not just literally), True Detective Season 4 is worth your time. Unless you are a bizarre cultist of season 1, for whatever reason, who cannot help but constantly whine like a banshee about some imaginary betrayal of some non-existing principle. Which, by the way, could be a decent plot for a future season.

Of course nothing of what Assane does was ever plausible, but the plans he hatced were clever enough to let you enjoy the ride. In the first two episodes of the 3rd season though, the effort of the writers to outdo themselves backfires, as it becomes more and more obvious that everything in his plans depends on literally everybody being extremely bad at their job. And that's not even considering all the things that could very well go wrong even if the plan works, or how he doesn't even try much with disguises any more.

The characters are still fun, and the plot with the kindapping of his mother adds some more stakes, but if Lupin keeps depending on things like the police not actually checking if the guy is dead because an actual doctor got fooled by a fake stethoscope and got scared of a random fake doctor pulling rank on him (????), it's going to go downhill.

The problem with this spinoff/sequel of Castlevania is that it looks a lot like the first show, but is just less good.

The setting seems like a fabulous idea: against the backdrop of the French Revolution, the (vampire) nobility seeks to fight back, with the aid of the local clergy. But if you are hoping to see the Incorruptible Robespierre sending the undead to the guillotine, you will be sorely disappointed; the Revolution is nothing but a backdrop, a minor plot device to justify a couple of decisions without being used to even a fraction of its potential (at least in this season 1).

The rest of the story is not bad, except the characters don't support it; you got a newer, far less interesting Belmont (who happens to get powers, which he instantly knows how to use, exactly when convenient); a few sorceresses none of whom are forgettable, but neither are they particularly interesting (the former slave might have potential, but her backstory is just so generic); a forgemaster who is at least five steps down from the first series' forgemasters (especially Isaac was such a fantastic character); and lastly you have a supervillain who just doesn't convince: Erszebet Bathory. Except it's not the Hungarian Countess, it's a person with an eastern European accent who is also...Egyptian? The Goddess Sekhmet (I have no idea why) except in fact much closer to a Thundercat? It simply makes no sense - they wanted a vampire name of some renown, so ok, Countess Bathory, who else? But they also needed a villain even bigger than Dracula, and she just didn't cut it, so they thought ok, let's make her a God. And just threw everything together in the mix, except none of the ingredients fit. I was also not too happy with the voice acting, although that may be the somewhat random accents and again, comparison to the previous Castlevania. To be fair, I watched half the episodes at a low volume.

There are some redeeming features to the plot and character weaknesses - Orlox the gay Aztec vampire plays the role of villain who is actually not a villain quite well (although he turns into a dragon, not the most Aztec-y thing?), Grandpa Belmont adds some pizazz to the mix, and the redeemed Night Creature (as well as the use of music) is a beautiful touch.

Overall, worth watching but god I hope Robespierre brings the Terror next season.

The Orville's greatest accomplishment is that it manages to capture the spirit of Star Trek. It has the necessary ethical dilemmas and analogies to parallel humanity's current conundrums and problems, and in most cases it approaches them thoughtfully. It also manages to have distinct races, which follow known tropes but are not carbon copies. And its own cast of characters is as a rule memorable, fun and with good chemistry.

Still, I do feel the series misses a chance to be more. At first glance it's a perfect homage to -primarily- Star Trek, with a very light touch of spoof. But as many reviewers have noted, it's so good at it that it practically becomes Star Trek, a fascimile rather than an homage.

Is that bad? Not really. But with the notable exception of the transporters, Seth McFarlane does not stop to rethink any of the silly tropes, many of which were put there out of necessity and could be avoided nowadays, especially when what you are doing is not in fact Star Trek. What I mean is, I understand it's hard to avoid a omnipotent and selective translator, it would be too much trouble, but I would like for the series to treat the field of medicine as a real thing, rather than doctors again being people with a magic glowing stick. I would like to hear so much less Treknobablle - sure, I can stomach a rare 'reverse the polarity' as a nod to times gone by, but do you really need to constantly 'divert power to the deflectors', detect 'spatial anomalies' and my personal bête noire 'losing structural integrity', as if structural integrity is a flux quantity, or gas? Personally I would also like a little more comedy, because it does work (in the case of the Isaac-Claire romance it is the only aspect that works) very well when it's there.

There are also some ways in which the series shoots itself on the foot: you cannot present the Kaylon plot as a twist (and it could have been) after making them so obvious a reference to Cylons.

However, I also have to applaud the show for taking some difficult decisions - the storylines might all feel familiar but the Orville does not always pick the obvious resolution, and often opts for the harder, more realistic, and dramatically more powerful path.

The 3rd season's episodes are super-long, which I don't mind, so there are multiple storylines. Expectedly, some work better than others.

The John - Talla affair makes for decent comic relief for the episode. The negotiations with the Janisi also work as a secondary storyline, even though it is a bit of a stretch to suggest this civilisation knew nothing about the social hierarchy of the Union.

The two main storylines are interconnected: the crew discovers a reformed Kaylon who can feel - the best part, and perhaps underutilised, is the flashbacks from when "Timmis" was a slave. This backstory was powerful, and it does feel like it could have been an entire episode all on its own. Certainly I would have preferred that over the overused and unnecessary trope of 'robot wants (or at least is asked) to be a real boy'. I am not simply questioning why the robot would ever accept, even as a favour: you have a character who is fundamentally different, superior in mind and body, exactly because it is a machine. Suggesting that it would be, in any way, an improvement for this character to demean themselves to the level of a human is just an instant "No" from me - too anthropocentric, science fiction ought to embrace the value of unimaginably different types of existence, not blatantly suggest the human paradigm is best. What's worse, it is suggested that being able to experience emotions immediately turns Isaac into some kind of "singing in the rain" character - why so cheesy? For example, I think it would be more reasonable if the procedure had failed because the only thing Isaac felt was anger, hatred, fear. For that matter, Timmis should certainly be said to have started from that point, even if during the year he spent being rehabilitated he was changed.

All in all, this does nothing to add any spark to the anyway uninteresting romance between Isaac and Claire - a plot that would have much more potential if the doctor was not a stock character. As expectable as it was, I was glad we didn't stick to the cheesy beyond belief humanised Isaac.

I might be wrong, but the impression i got was not that the writers went for an "oh, he's schizophrenic" ending. That said, I am not sure what exactly they did go for: My take was that Magne gave the Ragnarok battle in his head and had to let go of his divinity and powers to accept the new order and make peace.

If that is the case, I call it a decent if underwhelming ending. If I am wrong and the whole appearance of the comics and the toy hammer indicate that he was indeed hallucinating this whole time, then I redact 4-5 stars from my rating as this would not only be a ridiculous and unjustifiable ending dramatically speaking*, but the resolution where he just realises all on his own that none of it is true and everything goes back to normal is a rather poor representation of mental illness to begin with.

* such a 'twist' can work only if you look back at events and realise for instance that "oh, they have been building towards this from the start, because e.g. We didn't see Fior feed anyone to the monster, this was just Magne's conclusion", or "the only times when god/giant stuff is discussed is when Magne is present". This NEVER happens, on the contrary, we see the rest of the supernatural beings discuss the issue ALL the time, we see Fior, Lauritz and Jens interact with the serpent independently, etc. Therefore I refuse to believe the writers were THAT sloppy.

Devs is very, very well made. From the cinematography to the music, to the use of sound, to the acting (well, maybe not the lead, but that recital by Stephen McKinley Henderson is sublime).

But while the execution is great and the concept is at times fascinating, the problem is that it's also so glaringly wrong: not in a nitpicky sort of way, but exactly because it tries to be just correct enough to make sense. So it suggests a more or less plausible (at least to suspend disbelief) mechanism of 'prediction' but then never answers the most obvious question: how could their machine ever have enough data to do what it does? That's just skipped over - I know there is no good answer that could be given so it's best that none is, but it's such an obvious problem with what it proposes. Then, it (seems so far that it) argues for both a deterministic universe AND a multiple worlds interpretation at the same time; and of course, it makes the classic film/series blunder of reducing infinite worlds/outcomes to two. In this episode for example, Lyndon is told he will balance on the ledge, to prove he is right about the multiple-world interpretation, because in the universes he lives, he is accepted back into Devs (or something, it was not a very convincing argument to throw your life for). Except of course, there isn't a number of possible universes where he falls and another set of them where he doesn't; there are also universes he refuses to do it. There are also infinite universes where he, and all life anywhere, simply doesn't exist, but in any case, NOT doing it is what would prove the many-worlds. Conversely, doing exactly what he is told he will do suggests that the many-worlds interpretation is wrong and this is the ONLY possible outcome - but that does not seem to be what the series is suggesting, based on how the scene is shot. Arguably, the very fact of seeing what happens means "the wavefunction has collapsed", and the experiment has been ruined. Lastly, I hope the last episode explains what Forest actually wants, because so far everything he has worked towards is really not that much more than watching home videos.

That said, it's still a great episode; but I think overall judgment needs to wait for the finale.

There's always been a little Twilight Zone in Black Mirror, but that is just about all I can say to justify this episode's existence in the series.

Much like the Loch Henry episode, it is a rather generic, VERY well made but predictable (I guessed "werewolf", and I suppose I was not alone) episode that has absolutely nothing to do with the black mirror concept. Is that bad? Well, not necessarily, but imagine watching an episode of the Twilight Zone, to continue this analogy, that turns out to have nothing supernatural or otherworldly in it. What's the point?

So it's understandably disappointing, especially considering the very long time between black mirror seasons. Still, objectively the episode is by no means bad, though it in fact never tries to put any spin to its theme.

As a finale, Endgame gathers all the ingredients it can to be successful: The Borg, a way home, time travel, even some Klingons, the most woefully absent element from the series (B'Elanna barely counts as a Klingon). Unfortunately, it also brings to the table all that has been problematic with the show too, first and foremost the fact that Janeway is a captain taking some very, very questionable decisions.

When the episode is compelling in the questions it asks (e.g. Tuvix), I don't care how profoundly wrong the decision taken is; here however, time travel opens a can of worms, as it so often does, which is why they should really, really stop making time travel episodes unless they have something really good at hand. I mean, Janeway plans to go back in time and speed up the voyage home, in order to save her favourite crew members. Why stop there? Why not go back to the very start and prevent Voyager from getting stranded (maybe this is as far back as she could go, which is of course a bit convenient). But in any case, she is willing to UNDO 26 years. And some of the people who lived these 26 years are like "sure, ok, I have no problem with you erasing my life, and everybody else's, just because you like Seven". This is a bit too much to accept for the sake of the plot. Especially when you actually remember the rest of the series: Admiral Janeway laments Captain Janeway's decisions, but both seem to forget there are at least 2 Q-centred episodes where they gained the gratitude of the Q Continuum and then just forgot to ask that they be taken home through their divine powers.

As for the Prime Directive(s), I stopped caring long ago - nobody ever respects them, it's a wonder this Federation still exists when no one obeys its fundamendal laws.

Other than that, there is also the question of the Borg; for one thing, I feel the tendency to make the Borg Queen, of all things, gullible, naive and impulsive, vastly undermines the Collective as a villain. As does the fact that throughout the years, they are more and more beatable. The appeal of the Borg is not simply the hive mind conception, but the fact they are a terrible, almost unstoppable foe; a foe you need to run away from as fast as you can, rather than be able to blow up with 'transphasic torpedoes' and such thingamajings.

Of course, this is a show that finished in 2001: while I would rather see the entire temporal rescue effort fail and the original timeline kept, that would be too much to ask at the time. All in all, the episode does provide closure to the series, and it has its moments (dementia-Tuvoc for example, although any emotional investment there is gone since you know, time travel). But despite its truly great premise and with the exception of a few excellent episodes, Voyager stands certainly lower compared to TNG or DS9.

My take on the first season was "generally enjoyable, but that's a very goofy premise". This second season sort of tries to give some more context, sometimes successfully, sometimes not: the connection between virus and "hybrids" is given, and well, it's up to the viewer to decide whether that's enough.

The positive of the season is the more time afforded to the Last Men - the negative is that, try as it might, the show fails to convince you that the Last Men are the problem. I mean, I am sorry, but humanity is in palpable danger of extinction, and General Abbott, this Rob Halford of survivors, is literally the only one who gives a damn. Is finding a cure worth experimenting on and killing the hybrid children? No - there has to be a better way, but in the face of actual extinction, this is not a clear-cut dilemma. And if it is clear-cut for the zoo-keeper mother and Big Man, how is it so for Birdie? There are flash-backs that show you that Birdie, a scientist directly involved in the project that killed billions, is told from the very start of the pandemic that the special child is special and holds the key to a cure. And what does she do? NOTHING. She lies and hides. "Who the hell cares? I will allow hundreds of millions, billions of people, to die, rather than maaaaybe risk that one kid I decided is mine." And we are expected to like this character because it's "his mom"? HELL NO. She is 1000 times the Nazi that General Abbott is.

A similar problem exists with the doctor Singh storyline: he, at least, cares, even if his main motivation is not to save the species, but a blend of the cliches of 'scientist obsessed with a project' and 'guy does everything to save wife'. However, his wife doesn't care for a cure. And while it's perfectly understandable that she is tired and cannot stomach what keeping her alive requires, the entire issue is shown as if this is just about her - it's not. You do not want the cure, but does that give you the right to demand that a cure is never made? Also, all season long I expected that she would be shaken to the core by the presence of elephant boy, given how much we see that Ganesha statue, but nope, it wasn't even implied that this played a role.

There are some other issues too: like the bit at the start where Wendy tells us that part of the reason they have developed a sign language is that not all hybrids have the capacity of speech - logical given their animal heads - except that then every single one can, at least a little: elephant? Can talk; hedgehog? Can talk; groundhog(?)? Can talk; crocodile? Yep, even him. Or how an entire squadron of soldiers is defeated by a few Home Alone traps (there is an entire forest, but the bad guys step into every single booby trap) and very special deer boy is also able to summon bisons, because hell, he might as well, right?

4 stars for General Abbott, 1 for Big Man, who remains likeable, zero for the rest.