Genesis

 DVD, Survivors S1 (Genesis)

Bleak. Grim. Callousness. Cruelty. It doesn't start too promisingly, does it! We see the result of law and order lifted from humanity and the extremes of self-preservation or lust for power over others, Wormley and Anne the purveyors of all that's wrong in their kind. In that regard it's not a great watch: the worst instincts of our race shown to us. But it does at least finish with an optimistic flourish as our three wanderers finally converge after more close brushes, and it's surprisingly uplifting to see them, these few who demonstrate good qualities in some small measure that puts them high above the other characters we meet, purely for the fact they have any goodness to them at all! Greg is the big change from the first episode: there we concentrated on the two women, struggling to get to grips with their situation and make sense of it all and what to do next, but now we see someone who could be a leader, right from his first act: flying home in a helicopter, coming down from on high. That immediately shows his high competence in this new world where skills are king, Abby failing to react quickly enough to the passing aircraft that might have spared her the encounter with Wormley's gang of thugs, but it was for the best she went through that so her shocked eyes could understand what was coming.

Greg's shown to be just as human as anyone else by the fact when he goes home to his wife we realise they were estranged, he has no grief to spare for her, in fact saying he expected her to stay alive just to spite him, which suggests either he was a bad judge to end up with such a woman, or unfortunate - it makes sense of the story he tells Anne: how he was an engineer working in Holland when the event hit. It makes him both sympathetic and interesting, that he's had this life now rendered obsolete, but he seems like the sort that can adapt to whatever life throws at him. He doesn't give his wife a decent burial or anything, doesn't set the house on fire as Abby did (plus it'd take hours to dig a proper grave in hard, cold ground), I get the sense it's all irrelevant to him, he's not going back there, yet he must have cared enough to find out if Jeanie was still alive. He's a man that knows how to do things, his job was solving problems so he's the ideal person to be a survivor and Anne's quick to recognise that. At first you don't realise the depths to which this woman thinks - she 'must' be somewhat compassionate to go searching for help with her man Vic, whom it seems she joined solely because he was another practical type while she's absolutely not, a rich brat always dependent on others. But you see little signs of her scheming mind, always thinking of her survival, so in a way she's also the ideal survivor except she has no conception of the community, her selfishness not yet able to comprehend the need for mutual benefit, only an order with her at the top when she lays out her plan of trading things for payment to those working under her.

Arthur Wormley's the same: former national president of a union, he has a controlling streak in him and the language to make it seem legal, but most importantly the firepower to back it up. I must say the Colonel who defies him came across quite weak and not the brave soldier who faces his captors with disdain and pride, seeming unable to grasp the situation when you'd think someone of his age and position would have been more confident, but then this whole situation has shaken everyone. The parallels are clear between Wormley and Anne: both have stores of provisions and ideas about how they're going to order the world beneath them - the transitions between Greg and Abby's stories were particularly well done with Wormley's deputy carving a huge hunk of meat, then showing us Greg doing the same with a modest tinned spam, then we go from Anne pouring warm champagne out of a bottle to Wormley pouring tea into an elegant china teacup. They're two of a kind. His setup has the surface veneer of being very civilised: all mod cons, he's basically showing off to Abby, but beneath it all a raw glory in power - I didn't get the sense he was trying to recruit her. For all his self-assurance he proves not to be as much of a thinking man as he claims he's an organiser. Abby opens his eyes to the need for relearning all the old processes again to become less and less reliant on existing resources, while he's more interested in securing food dumps and gathering groups under his rule.

Abby's thinking about the general future and what they need to do to survive while Wormley's concerned with cementing his position and controlling what is, blinding him to the needs for actually living, too busy with the bigger picture with his grand plans of domination while Abby's only interested in the smaller group. At this stage she's allowed to go freely, Wormley hasn't quite fully become the little Hitler (or perhaps Stalin in his somewhat Communist outlook when it comes to others), so Abby dodged a major trap there. Which only makes it so much more satisfying when we find it's she who built the signal fire that draws Jenny and Greg into her orbit: three reasonable people in a world gone mad. Greg shows a lot of compassion in his handling of Vic, a Good Samaritan agreeing to the pleas of Anne to rescue him from beneath the crushing tractor, doing his best to set the damaged legs, reassuring, wiping his face, all the while Anne is absent of any caring nature whatsoever other than that which gives her protection or leverage (she's only latched onto Vic for her own good and now he's no use to her he's worthless), which explains her fury at Greg leaving. You can tell he's darkly disgusted by her proposal to have people work for them in exchange for food, yet also not surprised, perhaps throwing more light on his own wife and her nature. There's no hint of what's to come when he finally meets Jenny on the high street, but he's there once again because of a natural human feeling of duty to the sick or injured, going to get medicine for Vic. Jenny's so refreshing after horrible Anne, open and genuine, but at the moment it's purely happenstance that they go along with each other.

Anne proves she's not merely selfish, but actively evil when she lies and claims Vic's dead to stop Greg going back to the quarry - again, she shares with Wormley the lack of any moral compulsion, and just as Wormley didn't personally pull the trigger and execute the Colonel, she diverts needed aid, effectively condemning Vic to death. You feel for poor Jenny, alone and so desperate for company she wants to go along with Tom Price - I love that they bring back characters from time to time since they are inhabiting the same general area, not travelling far and wide, and with so few people alive it's a big thing to find another human face. We find another kind of reaction to the catastrophe in Tom, someone who's living a fantasy life, hasn't accepted that someone isn't coming to save them: the 'Yanks' in this case, whom he's still claiming to believe will come up with a cure. But cures are irrelevant now, as are status symbols such as the white Rolls Royce he takes from a showroom, as well as raiding a clothing shop. In his mind he's living the high life, failing to accept reality and just enjoying his freedom unfettered by law, his philosophy being to avoid people as much as possible since he still thinks germs are the problem. In his own way he's as callous as Wormley and Anne, denying Jenny human companionship (the Rolls last seen abandoned, perhaps crashed, as Abby drives past with brief interest, another failure to connect in people's stories, so who knows what would've happened to Jenny if she'd gone with him), but again, just as when Abby escaped the clutches of an evil regime, she gets in with the right people by the end.

Once again there are a number of ideas and themes that call stark attention to the plight of anyone left alive. Fired by Doctor Bronson's talk in the first episode, Abby's had time to think about what's needed, how no object is the exclusive creation or distribution of one person, even 'simple' products require knowledge, tools and skill to create. Loneliness was a major part of the episode though we don't get a strong impression of it since we only see a little of their daily living. I almost wish there'd been an entire episode focusing on, say, Jenny, simply doing everyday tasks, but for that era of TV I'm sure it would have been considered too much of an indulgence and they only had a certain number of episodes to play with, not to mention wanting to keep the audience hooked. Abby has all these ideas that come gushing out once she's settled at Wormley's with food, liquor and cigarettes (another running theme, but then it was the Seventies!), luxury loosening her tongue and the pent-up thoughts of days of ruminating. And of course Jenny, whose bedraggled appearance in muddy clothes, and the heartbreak of just missing Abby again when she heads to the smoke from the earlier fire by the road, finds it hard on her. Greg seems like he could be quite content without anyone to talk to, but for him it's more like a period of adjustment, falling in with Anne and Vic, then falling out, but with the decency to go back and help.

Abby's awakening from grateful relief at such basic amenities as hot water, to horror at Wormley's presumption at declaring capital punishment (the value of human life at an absolute premium now there are so few), was expertly portrayed with the image of her face looking through the bannisters at Wormley's kangaroo court, like a child sent to bed. You realise the fragility of individual people's personal safety in the face of self-deluded tyrants (he even claims, while not being a 'religious' man, that God must have left him alive to administer justice and control, a dangerous position to take), whose only real concern is that someone else will 'corner the market,' and then we see humans are at war already, only days and weeks after society collapsed. It shows what society is and that it depends on the majority agreeing on basic ideas, so it makes sense that war would break out when the fundamentals of life are at stake, though I didn't get the impression the Colonel's forces were any kind of ideological crusade against tyranny, merely the need for food - of course we only hear Wormley's side, it could just as well be that the house he commandeered belonged to the Colonel who was only trying to take back his own, but he wasn't shown to be much of a military mind, though again, we don't see any of what went on.

Anne, typically, is the one to vocalise the seriousness of even minor accident or injury with no healthcare or medication to hand, though she's most clear on one thing: she's going to get her full share of everything that's going, an understandable attitude, but one without any grace or sense to it. Even her clumsiness at dropping one bottle of champagne is meaningful, the camera looking at the spilled liquid as if in judgement at her carelessness about such things as can't be replaced. They do a good job with these little touches, like the sheep roaming free on the motorway, scared by the helicopter flying overhead. But even with all these interesting ideas and the cautious, gradual drawing together of our main characters, it's still quite bleak, and while enjoyable on the level of entertainment and wanting to see these people we've been following meet each other and work together, it's still full of unpleasantness. It does strike me that with one very competent man (played by someone called Ian!), one sensible woman, and one younger woman, all they need is the Doctor to recreate the early years of 'Doctor Who'! Sadly no sign of a time machine to allow escape, but I did notice a car in the background just flashing past when Tom was driving the Rolls, so the roads weren't as empty as we thought...

**

The Fourth Horseman

 DVD, Survivors S1 (The Fourth Horseman)

The remake from the late 2000s was the first iteration of 'Survivors' I saw (and was very disappointed when the BBC cancelled the third series, seemingly in exchange for 'Outcasts,' a sci-fi series that lasted only one year, but which I came round to), and enjoyed, and was probably what planted the seeds of interest in seeing the 1970s original. But back then DVDs weren't cheap and I didn't have the mindset of buying any series I might like, concentrating on my favourite films and TV. So it was a good few years before I added it to my Amazon wish-list and waited for the right price. It came, naturally enough, during the Covid pandemic as people were going to be more interested in productions related to the current predicament. Some might have preferred not to watch what was so close to home, but there's also something to be said in encountering something in sympathy with your life, too. I didn't actually begin watching until January 2022 when the novelty had rather worn off lockdowns and things were beginning to return to some normality, though I suppose it wasn't until 2023 that we could really say things were normal again. In my case I don't think it was particularly wanting to see something virus-related, more that the price dropped as they thought people would be more likely to buy it en masse, I imagine, but either way I was interested.

The series is, of course, very much of its time, 1970s decor, beiges and browns the predominant colour palette, and even external scenes with sunshine somehow wan and pale - they hadn't quite worked out how to light things enough, or film stock of that time came out that way, or perhaps I'm discrediting them and the reality was they wanted it to look as it did. The weather certainly suited the mood of the story with dark clouds above, even while the opening scene of an optimistic, slightly oblivious Abby Grant enjoys herself trying out a mechanical tennis machine firing balls on her court. Clearly affluent, enjoying a life in the country with a housekeeper, a husband that works in the city, and a son away at boarding school, her life is about to be ripped up and turned on its head. How could she ever imagine in a few short days she'd be setting fire to the family home, her husband's dead body inside, and setting out on a mission to find her missing son? Seeing it again now, knowing how the world had changed forever for everyone left alive, it's quite horrible and yet also very realistic that we can have cosy domestic scenes of Abby frying up some eggs and bacon for her tired husband, David Grant (always gives me a laugh, knowing someone of that name!), who's had a terrible time getting home from work, travelling for six or seven hours because public transport has 'all gone to pot,' as the railway guard puts it.

You can see the parallels with our Covid experience - there was plenty of buildup in far-off lands (they mention millions dying in India and China, and how little it means on their scale), but it wasn't until all of a sudden, almost overnight, that things changed. In our case things were a lot less severe, fortunately (one reason to watch the series is to feel better about real life, I suppose), the government introducing lockdown and suddenly everyone had to stay indoors (except people like me who had to keep going off to work...). In this episode disruption is already happening, but it only takes a short time for the scale of death to become apparent. I like how they tell the story of this virus in the opening titles so simply and effectively. The theme music isn't up to much, but the visuals quickly whizz through what's happened: beginning in China, presumably an experiment gone wrong, spreading round the world (definite parallels with reality there). It's a handy recap for anyone that comes late to the series and misses this opening episode since this is fully serialised TV, though individual stories can be told each week. I also like how they go from one point of view in Peter Bowles' character going off to find help for his stricken wife, only for it to switch to hers when she finally comes round days later only to find the end of the world has come. It's somehow more striking to see the aftermath than to see David or their doctor sink into death, it's more like she's awoken into a nightmare whereas when she went to bed they were still discussing it rationally, as a problem that will have to be solved.

The real scariness of the premise is how radically society can change, how rapidly, and how it can bring out both the best and worst of humanity. I found it interesting they focused on only two of the main characters we'd be following, Abby, and Jenny Richards, the former living the good life in the country, the latter right in the heart of city life, both lifestyles equally and irrevocably affected, regardless of status in that life. Money no longer has any meaning, as shown by the stark emptying of a bag Jenny finds as a dead man's pillow: instead of the necessaries of survival; food, water, medical supplies, it's filled with banknotes only good for throwing on the fire. It's a great visual illustration of the sudden contrast between the dependent society we all live in, in the modern world, compared with the realities of having to survive without production and that dependence on a community and societal structure that had been built up for centuries - as they said, a generation that had put man on the moon, and the best they might be able to achieve would be stone tools. Clearly the third character we'd be following was deliberately not introduced so as to show the women as even more vulnerable. Not that Abby seems weak or hesitant, she did set her own house on fire, presumably since she wasn't going to be able to dig a grave for her husband - incidentally, you assume he'd be the one to survive since it's Peter Bowles, and his Abby is the one who gets ill, good misdirection there, though I don't remember if I knew she was a main character or not at the time - probably, since I knew Carolyn Seymour from other things.

We witness the great vulnerability of Jenny when she comes across three young men doing a spot of looting and they start pushing her around and threatening her to the extent she's put into shock so much that she later hides even when a small family party walks by. It isn't until she's out in the countryside in daylight and sees a man on his own (played by Talfryn Thomas, best known as Mr. Cheeseman of 'Dad's Army'), who warns her to keep away from people, she's comfortable enough to address him. She's such a compassionate person as we see so much in this first episode: rather than worrying about the massive implications of what the doctor boyfriend of her dead roommate is saying about the situation, her main reaction is horror and guilt that she left her friend to die alone when she went to get help. At the hospital she offered her services to help in any way she could while waiting for this man to come and see her friend - she even leaves money when she takes food from a shop, not realising civilisation has broken down and conventional rules no longer apply. She asks if Talfryn's character is okay as a way of introducing herself, and offers to make the man dying in the woods more comfortable when she stumbles across him. In every way she comes across as a decent sort who cares about those around her, in many ways an ideal survivor (though of course those positive traits can be used against her if her trust is misplaced or people don't deal with her as she would with them).

Abby comes across much more singleminded, but then she's got a determined personal mission driving her: hunting for her son. It comes to a realisation most when she meets what I assumed at first was the school caretaker, or possibly a teacher (credited as Doctor Bronson), at the boarding school who takes her through the practicalities of this new world. But even he is only thinking about the importance of learning the skills needed for society to pick up from where it was (suitably, considering he works in a place of learning), he doesn't even consider the reality of human behaviour and what's likely to happen with gangs and dangers, people no longer bound by law and morality that held them in check in a civilised society, the strong preying on the weak, although he does paint a bleak picture when he says the real survivors will be those who can come through what must follow. He's talking about the result of masses of bodies decomposing everywhere, the spread of disease and that side of the coin, but such a dark vision could also include humans and what they could turn into. It sets up the series very well, as you'd expect from the pen or typewriter of Terry Nation, most famous for creating the Daleks on 'Dr. Who,' this being his series.

While Abby is far from seeming lost and confused, even someone of her temperament finds herself drawn to the local church, but finds the pews house only the dead, it results in an anguished prayer to God that she isn't the only one left rather than being thankful for being alive. People tend to be drawn to the questions of life and death at such extreme times, in her comfortable life where she had so many options for entertainment, the domestic duties covered by a servant, I wonder if she ever had any time for faith or belief. It's not that the series is about devout believers or anything (the only other mention is Jenny telling Tom Price that she went to a church, but they wouldn't let her in), but I like that they at least touched on it - I'm not sure a modern series would even take the time to include such considerations, but then the country was a lot more Christian fifty years ago (hard to believe how long ago the 70s are now!), but even the title comes from Biblical prophecy. You see various attitudes on display, Talfryn's Tom has a completely different response to the situation: his hope is in the Americans, surely they'll come up with something to save them, and with so many dead there'll be lots of good jobs for everyone and 'big money.' Maybe he's being overly optimistic, or perhaps this is just what he tells himself to keep going and avoid a cloud overwhelming him, but he says it with such conviction you half believe it.

Belief and understanding are a big part of this first episode: it's hard for people to accept their well-established lives of mundanity and everydayness could be turned upside down, the order overturned and in its place complete individual responsibility for day-to-day survival. That's one of the things I find most appealing about this kind of story: it's 'Robinson Crusoe,' learning how to be self-sufficient and not reliant on others or the state. It's a strange one for me as I don't like post-apocalyptic stories where it's all miserable people doing horrible things (I remember seeing the awful Viggo Mortensen film, 'The Road,' with its cannibalism and bleakness), but when it's a real look at a world where the people are gone, there's something compelling about that. I've always imagined being in just such a world where suddenly there was only me, and what would that be like. You'd go out and explore, go through people's houses, find items necessary for life and make caches of supplies, drive around in any vehicle you found. It would be like a giant playground, only with dangers even without other humans, as dogs would form into packs, rats would increase exponentially, gas and electricity would become unreliable, but it's an interesting thought experiment and one that plays out to some extent in a series like this.

One thing you notice is the unfeeling mechanics of things designed to keep going: the clocks keep telling time even when there's no longer anyone around to see it, which is how we know the duration Abby was out of it for. But even those things will only go on until their power runs out and it's like a metaphor for everything - eventually all will run down, and without someone to replace it, will become useless and obsolete. Those who have survived must consider whether it's a blessing or a curse, so much is left unsaid about the state of the world, so much is given over to disbelief that things won't be sorted out - surely the government will save us. A state of emergency was declared, we learn, but it was too late with no one left to implement it. The main realisation is how important information and communication is. They didn't have a public internet back then and no mobile phones, reliant on public phone boxes or the phone lines at home, though if you think about it, it would be just as simple for satellites to be knocked out or powered down, and the internet cables interrupted or damaged, so although we feel smugly superior with all 'our' technological advances we'd have been in just the same boat if something so drastic happened in reality. We were fortunate Covid wasn't in the same league as this virus, and while the internet was useful, we weren't really in a much different situation - you can't send food or water across the ether now any more than you could then!

I found it especially interesting when they talked about a previous outbreak, a flu epidemic in 1918 that killed twenty-million. It's almost the same amount of time between now and when this series came out in 1975, as that between the series and the epidemic so we're looking back on the series in the same way as they looked to history, but it's all a bit vague to them and like us, they think they're in a much better position 'nowadays' with 'modern drugs.' It shows that human nature doesn't really change, no matter the advancements that come in the meantime. Even the fact that living in the country makes them feel secure, and they were better off than Jenny and others caught in a busy city, but ultimately it was only a little stay of execution, it barely made any difference. Perhaps the most distressing moment is when Jenny eagerly bounds down to the road when she sees a car driven by Abby, the only other human in the area, to arrive just too late and these two key characters miss each other. But it sets up anticipation for them to meet, and like the Bronson's grim accounting of the situation, warning about survival needed for what's coming next, it sets up the series nicely to draw you back. Peter Copley sold it very well - an actor I always liked since seeing him as the elderly Abbot Heribert in 'Cadfael,' and again in other things (the best episode of the Kenneth More version of 'Father Brown,' a scientist in 'The Champions' - he was in everything).

Carolyn Seymour was the main draw for me as I know her best from her Trek roles (aliens in 'TNG' and the scary holographic Mrs. Templeton in 'Voyager'), so I must have been aware she was a main character in this, and thus would survive (but for how long...?), but it's fascinating seeing her so much younger. And of course Talfryn Thomas was another face I knew well, mainly for 'Dad's Army,' but also other appearances, so the cast had some connection to me, but the main thing is that they seem like real people, they're not existing characters and you don't know what's going to happen to them. Of all the things to happen to Carolyn's character, the worst was probably getting spat at by the bacon as you see her blink when she's standing over it as if it shot towards her eye! And no Radio 4 on the 'wireless,' that's scandalous - you know you're in trouble when that happens! It also stood out to me when Abby's housekeeper is sent through to the station platform without a train ticket and the guard says she'd better get it at the other end - that wouldn't happen nowadays, you'd be held up by barriers and red tape. Mind you, it was a day of chaos where he doesn't even know if services are running as there's been no communication, but the sense of more honesty and obligation rather than being channelled into compliance by technology stood out to me. I also wondered how the medication at the hospital was being administered as they didn't see to be using needles, just stamping something on their arm and using it for multiple people. But regarding the story, it was a functional setup for the series, though I'm not sure I'd quite say it was a good one in itself.

**

Super Mario Odyssey

 Nintendo Switch, Super Mario Odyssey (2017) game

 

Odyssey is right: the game that keeps on giving... and giving... and giving some more. Until it hurts. Not that it hurts them (though I imagine some Nintendo staff probably needed a long holiday after this!), but it hurts you, the player. Those who have got to the hair-tearing frustration of the Darker Side of the Moon Kingdom with its one-death-and-back-to-the-start-with-you harshness, evoking the hardcore gaming of the 2D era, will understand. But the sheer... numbers of it all. 'Super Mario 64' had 120 Stars to find, I think 'Sunshine' had the same number of 'Shines,' then with the 'Galaxy' games it goes up into the two or three hundreds, I think, but here: 894 Power Moons to find. Some are in groups of three, some are very easy, many are repetitions of the same puzzles, but there really are a huge number of tasks, to the extent it can sometimes feel like a job. That's the quandary for Nintendo, over the years they've been praised for the revolutions (the control in 'SM64,' the auto-jump in 'Ocarina of Time'), then criticised for not innovating enough (probably 'Sunshine'), and their games becoming shallower and shorter for casual players (the Wii era), but with Switch they showed they cared about making games with good value for money, and this one is the most added value Mario game ever! And now here I am complaining there's too much to do. Actually that's not entirely accurate, it isn't the 'how much,' it's the 'what' you do - at the risk of repeating myself, there's a lot of repetition. A lot of repetition.

 

Go here, do this same puzzle you've done before, but at least you know how to do it, the real annoyance doesn't so much come with repeats (many of the concepts and ideas were invented in 'SM64'), as in working out the game's parameters, what it allows, what it doesn't allow. That's always been an issue in games, perhaps one reason why we're drawn back to play the same genres and even the same game series': the familiar. There are good puzzles in here, there are great challenges to suit every level of gamer, accessible for newcomers (including an 'Assist Mode'), yet remaining a suitably challenging task for experienced platformers (I like to think of myself as a pretty good gamer, not on the Olympic level or anything, but decent, and it took many, many attempts for me to conquer Darker Side, for example), but as I've played this and the 'Galaxy' games in recent years for the first time I've come to realise what it is about the Mario titles that doesn't quite work for me, and I sum it up with this: I prefer a playground to an obstacle course. 2D games, limited by their restrictions in memory, graphics and sound, were forced into memory games full of instant death, but that trial and error gameplay has always been rather too restraining for me - I still remember 'Link's Awakening' on the Game Boy that was my awakening to a new way of playing games which wasn't about preventing you from having fun, or mere relief for getting past difficult challenges of dexterity and reaction speed, but allowed a world to grow on you as you explored and investigated, meeting new people, fulfilling tasks and gradually piecing the story and the world together.

 

In Mario's games it's so often about bouncing around with the threat of instant death from falling into the voids all around or deadly lava/ whatever, even in the 3D versions. And that's another thing: the actions. I do find myself increasingly irritated by the fact he has to build up momentum, he doesn't instantly respond to your touch. Or when doing a long jump which ends in hitting something, stopping you dead rather than being able to jump out of it (changing direction in midair isn't realistic, but then what is in Mario's world?). And the impreciseness of stomping on enemies - if you miss slightly you get smacked yourself. Going down to one of the measly three health segments with its annoying warning tone (though this time the sound comes and goes so it's not as painful). These are all fairly irrelevant nitpicks, I'm noting the things I don't like without even acknowledging the many superb features of Mario's acrobatics which thanks to Nintendo's expertise have become practically taken for granted, but the point is, the little details do grate on me! And maybe I'm getting too old for such games, but I sometimes found the day-glo worlds to be off-putting - specifically Luncheon Kingdom with its bubbling pink gloop that simmers like a giant saucepan full of something thick and sickly. If I listened too closely to that noise as I carved through it in the guise of a fire thingy (sorry, 'Lava Bubble'), I'd occasionally feel slightly nauseous. Same with Bowser's Kingdom and its huge turreted castle architecture where flags all over the place are dancing a jig. Off-putting, to say the least. Even the music could sometimes get on my nerves...

 

I'm starting to sound ungrateful for the vast effort and creative reserves that went into this, what has to be the hugest Mario game of all (so far), because I don't mean to, I'm just setting the scene, and despite all the great things in a game, it's going to be the niggles you think of most (as in life - do one thing wrong and that'll be what's noticed, it's just a fact of life!). It always comes back to 'Banjo-Kazooie' for me, the first 3D platformer I ever played, and still my favourite. The variety of the levels (for all they still had desert worlds and snowy worlds, etc), there's something about that game that never gets old, partly nostalgic sentiment, no doubt, but also the inventiveness and perfection of its size and challenge, from collectables to tasks. 'Odyssey' puts 'BK' to shame in scale and textures (gold and stone especially), as you'd expect, but the actual individual worlds (or 'Kingdoms' in this case), are mostly not all that big. You have the towering skyscrapers of Metro Kingdom and its Big Donk City (Donkey Kong...), Seaside Kingdom stretches away clear to the horizon and some worlds are quite vertical (Wooded Kingdom comes to mind), but most are relatively compact when you think of the Switch version of Hyrule which is a realistically vast land full of exploration. The 'Zelda' series truly reached a new pinnacle with 'Breath of The Wild' (the only other first-party Switch title I'd played), and it makes Mario look as if it should have been... bigger.

 

Yet there are so many Kingdoms and, as mentioned, 894 Power Moons to collect, the currency to collect in each world that buys multitudes of souvenirs, costumes and hats for Mario's wardrobe (which doesn't make a lot of difference other than entertainment value and the occasional puzzle where someone wants to see a certain profession or whatever - the Mario 64 outfit was my favourite, it being from my number one Mario game), and coins? SO many coins. I maxed out my 9999 coin purse three times across the course of play (since you have to spend so much, then there's one costume that costs all 9999), but I was disappointed there's still no option to see your coin count record in each world because they aren't finite, they'll just regenerate, which means you don't get an impression of value much of the time, even if you do lose coins each time you die, which is really the only penalty. The missing coin record is a small thing, and I don't think other Mario games did it in recent years, either - in any case, nowadays I don't have the time or inclination to go back to a game I've thoroughly played in order to see if I can beat a high score. It was a great sub-game within 'SM64' and I can see why they didn't bother in later games, but it was one little thing missing.

 

There, see, now I'm complaining about the absence of things I didn't really even want! Where will it end? The actual ending did summon a little emotion for me - not the usual silliness of Mario, Peach and Bowser, that's same-old, same-old, but that final, final moment when you're climbing up the spire of the Empire State (or New Donk State, or whatever), building and the music changes and you realise this is it: it's finally over, those last three Moons hanging at the very top are the final ones in the game, and something I'd played across three months has come to an end... Nintendo are good at building an emotional tie with the player, even to silly, colourful worlds like this, and though Mario is more about cartoony nonsense in its own fanciful, wacky world where everything has eyes, it touched home even here. And it has been an adventure of epic proportions in terms of things to do, I'll say this for the Switch, the games I've played on it so far have exceeded the length of most games on other Nintendo consoles. Part of it is the head-scratchers that cause you to whizz around trying to suss them out, and again it's all part of learning the game's boundaries or style so that once you've found a Moon by spinning your cap on a piece of building you'll start doing it to everything.

 

The cap. That's something I hadn't even mentioned, the big USP of 'Odyssey' - or gimmick, depending on POV. It's a great system, how did we not do that before in the other games: use Mario's headgear as weapon, platform and general tool. We've had other, similar devices, it's true, but this was simplified down and more personal, and works very well indeed to unlock a whole host of other moves (if the tubby little plumber didn't already have enough! - it took some time for me to get used to so many moves and I even had to refer back to the Action Guide on plenty of occasions, not to mention occasionally hitting the wrong button at an awkward time and, oops... dead), not to mention the Capture Actions, where you take over denizens of the various Kingdoms to use their special abilities ('BK' - I'm telling you...), adding another level to puzzles. Some might complain about the purity, but I liked it, it took me back ('BK' - I'm telling you...), and was fun in its own right. But some tasks were a real trial: the skipping in Metro or beach volleyball in Seaside where you get the impression the speed is just going to keep increasing till its impossible, but persevere and you find it plateaus at a high, but possible rate and you eventually succeed (after trying, trying, trying again).

 

No, it's the puzzles that really foxed me that caused (almost), the most frustration, because as much as a physical challenge can be so irritating and dispiriting (see: Darker Side), you know if you keep repeating the same actions you'll improve and eventually win out, but with a brainteaser there's only your two brain cells to rub together to create heat, and that's no guarantee. I remember seeing the hint options early on, the parrot and the mushroom guy, and thinking they must be there for the young children playing this game with no hope of working it all out for themselves. To my shame I eventually had to make use of some of them in just about every level, I should think. Not many, only the last couple or so Moons where I thought I'd done everything, but I used them, I can't deny it, and as I came to the end and was impatient to finish, it was too tempting to give up searching and get a hint. But it was one of those things where you don't realise you have to do such a specific thing, like look through the binoculars dotted around levels to allow a view into the distance and 'see' specific things in the sky. I didn't even realise Mario could go into first-person view on his own until some way into the game and was annoyed such a basic feature didn't seem to be available - my own lack of reading all the control options, though in my defence I'm still not used to discovering things through menus and such, rather than reading a manual, part of the experience I miss in modern gaming and its apparent march towards less and less physical media - ugh!

 

I really did enjoy the Kingdom Art, images in each world pasted on the side of walls which you can then take a photo of to refer back to (although it would've been better to be able to flick to them in-game rather than having to exit to the Switch's main menu - unless I missed a way to review in-game photos). I got most of them no problem, but there were a couple that forced me to go outside the game for help, the ultimate shame, if it wasn't bad enough I was using the in-game hints sometimes - to have to go to YouTube for a solution was very galling, but I was at wit's end, having searched the desert all around that stupid red-shelled Koopa in Sand Kingdom (as usual I should've persevered and gone to the very edge of the land), and as for the 'KEEP' clue, well, I overcomplicated it in my own brain, not remembering anywhere in which words were written out so it must be a subtle hint to pound the ground above the Keep of the Castle, yes? There was a flag in Bowser's Kingdom that was marked 'below the keep,' so that must be the solution, then on YouTube I saw the guy going to Metro Kingdom, instantly realised my mistake, went there and found it immediately as it's not far from the start. One and a half caves to inability isn't too bad, I suppose, but I always prefer to work things out for myself.

Trouble is, I did get a little blasé about it all towards the end, just wanting to finish everything, so I was quicker to look to the in-game hints than earlier in the game. But even if you wanted to be methodical and carefully track down every Moon in each level before moving on, you can't because certain of them only become available after getting further in the game (a lot don't even become accessible until after you first complete it, from opening up the metallic cubes in every Kingdom that previously couldn't be meddled with). But I love it in games where you have to revisit old levels with a new perspective or skills, things have changed or you've gained new insight later in the game, it's all good fun. And as I mentioned, this is one generous game: you've got to the end, beaten Bowser (I can't remember the minimum number of Moons needed to activate your ship that far, but a lot less than the final number), then you can go searching for Peach who's gone off on a travelling holiday, plus races against Koopas, the multitude of Moons to find once the metal boxes have been smashed open... It's a lot more extracurricular gameplay than 'SM64' boasted (find Yoshi on top of the castle! Race against the penguin again!), probably a third more game.

Then there's the in-game camera option where you can pause at any time to take in the whole view, use a variety of filters to have fun and create, it's an astonishing level of detail for a mere extra that no doubt someone had the bright idea to throw in, and if you wanted, could provide endless entertainment (even more than pulling Mario's face on the title screen of 'SM64'!). My favourites were the Game Boy filter to make everything black and green pixels, what a great idea! And the silhouette mode so you could recreate those arty levels from 'Aunt Arctic Adventure.' Hours of fun, should you so wish. There's also a move towards more realistic, real-world graphics at times, so you'll have a full-size Tyrannosaurus Rex to control, or you'll have humans and taxis, Metro Kingdom is obviously a stage more real world than anything else. It was slightly disconcerting to see that graphical style in such a generally stylised game, but they had the power to do it, and why not show 'our' world as being one of the many Mario can visit (technically it isn't ours, I should've said a human world). They even pay a lot of tributes to their own history with lovely adverts and posters of the old style Mario and Donkey Kong, and of course the Mayor is Daisy herself, the original girl Mario had to save from Bowser before Princess Peach barged in, so having been connected to the history for so many years it was an added joy to have it acknowledged. I must also mention the great 2D sections where the music goes retro and whatever costume Mario's wearing is recreated in 8-bit (or was it 16-bit), cleverly combining the 2D gameplay over 3D surfaces, quite innovative.

The reason for my ultimate score, which marks good, solid, and replayable-at-a-future-date kind of titles, rather than a terrific or outstanding game, is I can't quite get past the sensation of redoing the same tasks repeatedly. What environments haven't been done in a game world? I don't blame them for including desert worlds and ice worlds, etc, these places would be missing if they weren't there, and to its credit they do try to bring in a great variety, as well as a large number of lands, but it also means you're going to end up with things like giant food as a source of inspiration. Unlike 'Galaxy 2,' there's no throwback world, which is fair enough, you don't want to directly recycle too much, though I could imagine them having the console power to be able to merge multiple past levels into one Nostalgia Kingdom if they'd wanted. Mind you, the whole game is full of that, anyway (and there is that specific courtyard from 'SM64' in Mushroom Kingdom). Maybe story is a weak point as I feel the old Rare platformers were much better at that, though of course it's really all about the gameplay more than anything. But I always come back to the fact I haven't quite gelled with Mario games post-'SM64,' I've never felt as impressed by them since that title. This one is not bad, but not really pushing it far enough, despite all its technical achievements of scale - and it's very unfair to say this, because it's the old conundrum of giving the people what they want, but more importantly, what they didn't even know they wanted, without being too different. And so you end up with a bit of a job to do. But saying that, if it was my job I'd be happy to go to work every day and will still look forward to clocking on for the next big Mario adventure.

***

 

The New Next Generation

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (The New Next Generation)

It's best to remember this series is a bit of parody, not all that serious much of the time, and it was going to go out that way. Still, there are some questionable choices for the series finale, but then again they had to do something. I'm slightly conflicted - for the most part I found it to be a middling episode for the series, but it had its good points (middling, with good points tends to describe the series as a whole), and it ended quite nicely, even if there's some ridiculousness there, too. One thing I thought maybe wasn't the best idea was introducing a new villain, the Klingon sister of Klingons Ma'ah had killed. I can see they wanted to tie in some series lore, bringing back the Klingon farm brothers and having a big Klingon adversary story... But I wasn't completely sold on the whole idea, I felt like we should have had a story more concentrated on the Cerritos and its crew, which we get, but not quite in the way I'd like to see a series close out. There were a lot of colourful and beautiful ship and space shots (and ship to ship shots, literally - in battle!), reminding us how good Trek ships can look and how well this series presented them compared to the rest of its modern generation, so I'd say the visuals were a highlight, I really do like the clean lines and distinct visual style as one thing that worked for the series. And there's a nice reminder of why Trek appeals: seeing people work together, demonstrating their skills, not being superheroes, but real, talented, gifted, trained crewmembers. Similarly, I like that we see T'Lyn being so Vulcan, calm even under the pressures of battle.

The pseudo-science of the Schrödinger Possibility Field that 'remaps' matter into other quantum reality variations is about as silly as you can get, but said in all seriousness you can get away with it and it is a sort of tribute to all the wacky ideas of past Trek (a Salamander is shown onscreen when illustrating what effects the field could have as if to put an exclamation point on the end!), but really it's just an excuse to whizz through a load of classic ship designs (Oberth! Galaxy! Miranda! Sovereign! But could have been an opportunity to cycle through all the old main ships and station...), as both the Cerritos and Klingon ships transform mid-battle into alternate reality versions - the best joke comes from Dr. T'Ana (in a rare non-swearing moment...), when she responds to Captain Freeman questioning why Relga's Klingon vessel isn't changing within the field as the Cerritos is, by saying it probably is, but Klingons hardly ever update their design. It's exactly the kind of wry observation about Trek codes and practices that's fun to have pointed out - the series is, after all, a celebration of past Trek. And this episode tries to be a celebration of past 'Lower Decks,' too.

They bring back many faces from the crew who went from being people I didn't keep track of in the first season, to gradually becoming more and more regularly featured to the extent you knew their particular gag or purpose (Goodgey, Ensign Olly, Livik, the Cetacean Ops mammals, etc...), and it helped sell the fact this was a crew on missions together. It's bad for other Treks when even minor recurring characters in a comedy animation become more dimensional than the Bridge crew ('DSC'!), but it was another part of showing the level at how much this series understood Trek and knew what appealed about it. The montage at the end raised the level of the episode as we hear Mariner talking positively about the ship and her crew and we see several scenes of various such characters, a loving and lovely touching on the people we've spent (relatively), so much time with that somewhat captures the essence of what a Trek series (or any good series, indeed), could be and the note it should end on. While also setting up a 'Phase II' for the series had it had any opportunity to continue: a new potential premise with a permanent rift that could lead into a new series of adventures as Starfleet explores other realities (although... wasn't that what caused the possibility of total universal annihilation in the first place... hmmm...).

And the Cerritos herself? What of her? Such a simple design, not going far from the Starfleet design handbook (another reason to appreciate the series and its deliberate attempt to stay true to the design lineage of the era it was set in, in direct contrast to everything else in modern Trek). Yes, the ship still has a life, the little California-class has ensured its respect (being basically the only ship in the area, that old trick - the Enterprise-E was en route, but there wasn't enough time, handily, though we do get to see the big 'E' at the end, maybe the last time it'll ever be on screen?), and with Captain Freeman moving on to command Starbase 80, the much-maligned, battered old station finding redemption as being old enough not to be affected by the rift, Ransom becomes Captain. I was wondering why we didn't see a First Officer, perhaps leaving it open for a future production, but it's all part of the closing gag of his return to the old tactics of pitting Mariner against Boimler for the Acting First Officer role. It shows both the good and bad of the series since it's both supremely, annoyingly silly not to have someone lined up in their career to take Ransom's place, but also the kind of stupid thing he would do, because for all his secret cunning he's still a bit of a bozo, as evidenced by the final gag of the series being his concern over needing a quote to say when they go to warp (because that had become a terribly stupid trope of modern Trek in line with everything being branded with the Delta Shield Starfleet logo), and settling on "Engage the core!" to tie into his obsession with physical exercise, while Mariner and Boimler gabble away in horror.

It's a tribute to the series becoming almost like a 'proper' Trek of old that I almost found myself inwardly groaning at the choice, then catching myself as I realised it is silly, but it's meant to be, lampooning all those other times it had happened (even on 'Picard,' the closest live action to old Trek). Maybe Ransom secretly has a 'real' First Officer squirrelled away somewhere like he did with Malor and it's all a trick to get Mariner and Boimler to rank up, stretch them, force them to keep excelling. I can believe he'd do something like that. It wasn't a bad way to end the series: with redemption. Starbase 80 and its newfound role as guardian of the gateway. Boimler having sacrificed his alternate universe PADD for a split second of helping Mariner when Ma'ah thinks his hidden brother's location is on it (maybe not the best way to end that arc, but probably for the best to get rid of the PADD). Rutherford finally ditching his cybernetics for an optical replacement (and no longer having the advantages therein). Admiral and Captain Freeman getting to work together after so much of their career having to live apart (the secret of a happy marriage?). Even lazy slacker Malor is shown to have surprising skill in a pinch, recalling Rom, though it still irritates that even while he has the ridged feet and toe claw, he's missing the chest exoskeleton!

There are always going to be bugpicks and nitbears, or something, I understand that. Others would be: why would an Admiral and a Captain work together on a station (or at all?). Why is there a guy wearing glasses? Is he one of those rare people, like Kirk, allergic to Retinax, the cure for ocular degeneration in the future? What was Relga's plan, merely to kill Ma'ah in revenge - if so she could have just destroyed the Cerritos instead of wanting them handed over. You could argue she was observing decorum since the Federation are allies, but like seemingly most Klingons she was pretty much without honour, so she eventually does decide to fry the Cerritos anyway (and at the start of the episode she wanted to rile the Federation into war!). It just seemed a bit of a holey story. There are a couple of fun little Trekferences to established technology - early on they're discussing something that sounds totally ridiculous and made up, but it's to do with the mystical artificial gravity for which the explanation has fortunately and sensibly been avoided most of the time because it's one of those things related to the budget of a TV show, so that was fun. The other big Trekference was when the Cerritos gets turned into a one-nacelle ship and Freeman voices the fan query of how that could even create a warp field since we all know it takes two, and Tendi's about to give an explanation before she's cut off. It could be seen as a dig at 'Star Trek XI' and its one-nacelled USS Kelvin.

There were a few Trekferences like that, pointing to other, less well received versions of recent times (I can only imagine the pasting 'Section 31' would have received if it had come out during the run of 'LD'!), so we get Klingons turning into the ugly, bulbous-headed version with spiky clothing and big, nondescript ugly ships from the first season of 'DSC.' Maybe even Ransom's belief that a little interpersonal conflict is the best way to learn, which he espouses in support of having Mariner and Boimler in competition with each other, and is obviously in direct contradiction of the Roddenberry ethos of no conflict between the crew, something common to modern Trek (and far from unseen in old Trek, too, in all honesty). But they do the little things well, like when a main character leaves their seat on the Bridge and there's someone there to jump in and take over. Only a little thing, but so Trekky! The ancient Klingon sailing barge was fun to see (even if its appearance makes no sense since how would a sailing ship be in space - perhaps part of a zero-g museum?), as were the 'proto-Klingons' Relga and her crew turn into (with the fun full stop being her tiny Targ becoming an oyster!). One of my favourite lines for its innocent humour was Ransom saying a little bird told him about the updates Rutherford made to the ship, he replies "Dr. Migleemo?" and Ransom admits it was. Silly, but nice use of its own lore. Or the bit where the guy from Season 1 who 'ascended' suddenly drops into Sickbay looking bewildered.

Unfortunately, for all the goodnatured silliness, attention to detail and adherence to established canon, the series was never far from its 'adult comedy' roots that took things to excess, whether it be bleeped-out swearing from main characters, gory visuals, or the infuriating slang and modern speak of today's world pushed into the 24th Century, and although it was less in evidence than its stablemates, there was plenty of pushing ideological content, too (notice the religious garb, for example), though generally speaking it was subtler than other Treks, more in keeping with the old style. Its faults made it less watchable and I don't feel they had a strong enough plan on where to take the characters or how to develop them, at least not always, it sometimes seemed like they were simply surprised and grateful to be able to do more and focused on jokes which maybe wasn't enough to hang a series on. I've said it before and I'll say it again: it remains the only Trek of its era that I actively looked forward to seeing more of, and would happily rewatch. Partly the length made it more manageable (so many 'DSC,' 'Picard' and 'SNW' episodes were plain boring and dull), but it was fun, and not just for the cameos of old characters returning, though that was a big draw. It was the unpredictability of the kind of stories they might tell and in the age of heavy, monotonous, drawn out serialisation, it proved you can have fun with the Trek concept while being mostly true to it. I'm also grateful it all came out in a time of physical media releases, because as much as I dislike 'SNW' and the idea of 'Starfleet Academy,' I am a completist and want the whole era on my shelf, and I don't know if these latter seasons will ever come out on disc under the new regime. Not a problem for 'LD,' it's all there and complete and will be a series I watch again (especially now I've made edited versions of episodes to enjoy without the offensive bits!). It might have been called 'Lower,' but compared to the rest of the Kurtzman output it was 'Higher' by some way, and while that still doesn't mean I rate it on the level of 'classic' Trek ('66-'05), it's the only complete series I can imagine going back to for fun. I'm surprised it didn't end with a joke about all this taking place on a Holodeck... Too obvious?

**

Fissure Quest

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (Fissure Quest)

Before the modern era of Trek [checks... we can still call it modern, can't we? Yes, there's still some new stuff coming out, so it's still current for a little bit longer...] there were a number of people that were unlikely ever to come back to reprise their characters: Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard, Brent Spiner as Data, Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine, and yet they all returned, but some were even less likely. Other than Avery Brooks bringing Sisko back, the most unlikely returnee was probably Jolene Blalock as T'Pol, and here they achieved that in their wishlist (even if she preferred to be credited as 'Jolene' - it sounds more personal, like a sign-off akin to the signatures at the end of 'Star Trek VI,' but she probably just didn't want her new surname to be widely known and perhaps didn't want to use her old surname). Blalock had been part of what was considered during its time the least successful Trek series, 'Enterprise' cancelled after only four years where all the other Treks of the Berman era made it to the magic seven. She was criticised for wearing catsuits, moaned about for being too emotional (for a Vulcan), and I get the impression, judging by her relative lack of involvement in either acting or Trek since that time, she wasn't best pleased by the experience overall. She appeared a couple of times in 'Stargate SG-1,' but otherwise she went pretty quiet, married into another sphere and all but disappeared, so it was a lovely surprise that McMahan was able to bring her out of retirement to voice her famous character once more.

It really was a coup to get her, and though it's slightly disappointing we're not treated to the real T'Pol (this version had been married to Trip Tucker for decades, which is a nice thought), since William Boimler's crew are made up of denizens of many quantum realities (mostly Harry Kims for some reason!), her distinctive Vulcan tones were exactly as they had been and should be back in the day: none of this Jeri Ryan messing with the voice and the character claiming she didn't remember how to play it! And it does give us the opportunity to see a variety of classic Berman-era characters interacting, and since the series was coming to an end, throws in as many of them as they could afford, I imagine (I do wonder if the Dax part was written with Terry Farrell in mind, but with so many signed up they couldn't get her?). So we have the aforementioned Kim(s), Dr. Bashir, Garak of all people, and even a fun return for Lily Sloane almost thirty years after Alfre Woodard last played her (if only we could've had James Cromwell back as Zefram Cochrane, but they'd already used him in Season 3). The season had been light on cameos and classic appearances, presumably as they were saving it all for this episode and it almost makes it worth watching just for these voices... almost.

I'm not complaining, the storyline of the quantum fissures had been a more subtle and muted ongoing plot for the year so it hadn't played itself out, but I can't say the story of the episode was among the better ones. It's more about the novelty value of all these characters from different times and places serving together (I almost wish they'd been plucked exclusively from the 'Prime' Universe as it gets called now, so we could have the original versions of characters, but that's beside the point), and they do at least prevent it being yet another villain deliberately interfering in realities for nefarious purposes but merely the well-meaning, if misguided intentions of a different version of Starfleet accidentally messing up all known reality! Lily gets a typical humanist speech about how they're all about exploring humanity and how it has no limits, aren't we just grand, etc, but ironically were almost responsible for the total destruction of the multiverse which unintentionally proves exactly the opposite of the kind of message Trek really wants to convey! It reminded me so much of the scene in Lily's film, 'First Contact,' in which Picard distractedly explains to her how 'evolved' humanity has become that they don't even use money any more and everyone works to 'better themselves.' The way Patrick Stewart played it, it sounded like he really didn't believe what he was saying - I know the reason is all the while they're creeping down corridors half expecting Borg to pop out any moment, but I always found it quite hilarious that such a pro-humanist speech was said with so much distraction and so little conviction, in reality a hollow philosophy that, while seemingly good, is actually a lie about the state and direction of humanity.

But enough about the confused and failed heart at the centre of Trek, its ideas generally allow for it to create fine, upstanding and optimistic stories of professionalism and heroism so I wouldn't be too down on it for what it is (plus that attitude had been largely ripped asunder by the Kurtzman-era's preference for grim, misery Trek or cartoonish buffoonery Trek), and for all this series' flaws it had still somehow managed to stay truer to what Trek was when it was good, than any of the other recent iterations, so in some way it is quite sad the series was ending. At least on this viewing I understood better what it was doing: one last push into the past when Trek was so great with a Defiant-class ship accurately and lovingly portrayed in every way, from sound effects to Viewscreen, setting up the story for the final episode. When I first saw it I wondered if Wilbo's (as I'll call William Boimler - member of the organisation he's not authorised to name which features a silly black badge, one of 'DSC's stupidest ideas!), crew were going to join forces with our characters and we'd see more of them in the final episode, or even just the renegade Kim who steals the ring ship Beagle (surely named in honour of Archer's love of the dogs?), but it's much clearer to me now that it was all setup for the Cerritos crew to deal with one last massive problem (and Kim clearly explodes!), so of course it wasn't going to be about stunt guest casts, it had to rely on the crew of the series. I like what they did there, having the cake of a Trek guest star flurry and then setting it up for our crew to take it on next, and last.

The Defiant, as much as it was called the Anaximander (a play on Axanar?), was just beautiful, a guest character in its own right, reminding just why that ship from 'DS9' was so wonderful: it looked incredible soaring through space like an eagle, the Bridge, Engineering, Sickbay, all lovingly recreated - but they didn't stop there, they also gave us the ring ship which showed how superbly designed it was in operation, the rings folding down horizontally for planetary landing, and you really get a sense of how impressive such a design could have been had it been realised for live action, a fitting tribute to an earlier era while taking it even further - fitting also the internal design is just like the NX-01 Bridge and corridors since it's meant to be a similar era. Featuring Lily Sloane as the Captain of a human and Vulcan mixed crew was a great extrapolation for the time it's from, even if it is an alternate reality we can imagine something similar in the pre-NX-01 period. 'LD' has always been good at acknowledging Trek's rich history and playing with it, unlike the other series' that so often trampled over it for whatever easy, lazy options they could get. I wondered if Wilbo's line about how his Starfleet goes out into the galaxy and explores strange NEW worlds was a dig at 'Strange New Worlds' and its general lack of exploration? I wouldn't be surprised. We also get his universe-weary attitude to the multiverse idea, that it's all lazy, derivative remixes - that's got to be directed at the Kelvin Timeline films, though it could just as easily be aimed at the myriad superhero films of our time!

One little joke that worked very well was the latest Kim addition to the crew - when they're talking about multiple dimensions he expresses surprise there are more than two. Because of course animation is a two-dimensional medium. So they're breaking the fourth wall. Or is it the second wall in this case? I noticed their version of LCARS is called DCAF (very good, well done), and when wondering what they'll find next, Wilbo suggests Neelix with a crew cut or a really big Spock (one last 'TAS' Trekference?). They had some fun with all the Kim stuff and 'Voyager' - he expresses disgust that every other Kim is still an Ensign, mirroring Garrett Wang's own feelings, I'm sure, since other characters on his series were demoted and promoted again, yet he never made it past his original rank. You hear some asking if his Voyager made it home, he asks what they did with their Tuvix', it's all fun and affectionate and coming from the fan queries and comments over the years, I recognise a lot from podcasts and message board comments. But the Kim with two pips proves promoting him might not have been a good idea since he becomes a megalomaniacal version (and gets himself blown up in the process when he tries to take the Beagle through another rift). We see the white-striped racing uniform of 'Drive' (which had already been seen on this series previously), the clarinet, and the general sticking to the rules Kim was so careful about.

The one thing missing was Tom Paris being there as Kim's best mate (especially as Robert Duncan McNeill had been in two seasons, first as Paris and second as his original character, Nick Locarno), but then we did have Garak and Bashir... That's one choice I didn't like, they really messed with those characters, and once again, though they aren't meant to be the people we knew, it makes you wish we could have returned to the great friendship and respect shared between Garak and the good doctor. This Garak is a surgeon, while Bashir is a medical hologram (which he'd been seen as on 'DS9,' too), and the voices were still distinctively and clearly those original characters, but I can't help feel disappointed they were misused. In fact, I almost wished we'd had the best mate thing again with O'Brien and Bashir (Colm Meaney being another of the least likely actors to return to their character), or alternately, bring in all three actresses who voiced Tora Ziyal and pair them up with Garak, which would have been a terrific joke. Woodard definitely sounded old, but then it had been almost thirty years and when you realise 'First Contact' marked the 30th Anniversary of Trek's actual debut (or, technically, was first shown on TV), it's stunning to think we're now another thirty years on, and counting. It's lovely we could still get actors from the Golden Age of Trek now, in today's world, but with the end of 'LD' and even the Kurtzman-era, it probably means we won't see any of those people ever again, and, if the world's still spinning in another thirty years, I doubt we'll still be harking back to those actors, if any are even still alive.

It's a sad realisation, but I suppose one of Trek's mandates was to get people to think. Nowadays it's more about curbing people's thoughts in certain directions, or subverting the positive qualities of Trek past, something even this series has been more than guilty of. Which is why I wasn't actually that sad to come to the end (it was almost more that I was relieved it was all released on physical media which seems to be once again on the wane if gaming's plans to go digital-only is any indication...). To return to this episode, however, it was a functional tale, fun, but gimmicky, nothing the series has done in its last two seasons came close to its Season 2 finale which stands as the high point for me. It remains to be seen if the series finale will improve for me on second viewing, but it will at least have been a pleasure to make it through and review every episode of a Trek series, since that hasn't been the case for any other modern Trek, so 'LD' was unique in that way. Was the episode title a play on 'SeaQuest,' by any chance?

**

Upper Decks

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (Upper Decks)

I can see what they were doing. It took a while to get it, when it should have, shall we say, 'clicked' from the title: it's meant to be an inverse of the 'TNG' episode, 'Lower Decks,' which was a series based around the command crew with one episode showing what the perspective was like for the lower ranks. But 'Lower Decks' (the series), is all about the perspective of lower-deckers, so this is an episode showing what it's like from the command crew's POV. On paper a fun twist on the usual course of proceedings, except that from the first episode they've never been able to focus solely on the lowest ranked on the ship because it's difficult to be in on the action when you're mostly following orders from above and not actually making the big decisions (see 'DSC' which was also supposed to be from that perspective, only Burnham had to be injected into the higher echelons of command for anything to happen and came across as the worst version of an insubordinate Wesley Crusher in consequence), so while it could work, on this series we already get a whole lot of the Bridge officers, etc, so it doesn't seem all that different except for a slight shift in emphasis (maybe that's why most of the upper ranks were barely in the last few episodes, to prepare us for this, their 'starring' moment?).

They did 'succeed' in one thing: doing the inverse of 'Lower Decks' (the 'TNG' episode), because that was a great story, while this was falling back on silly, 'Dr. Who' space monsters/creatures, swearing and gore for most of its 'humour' and 'entertainment.' It really did take me back: back to the lower-ranked days of Season 1, ironically, which I still consider to be the weakest the series ever was on a regular basis, even while I can find things to like now that I care about the characters. But while Shaxs' brush with flashbacks to the Bajoran Occupation were fun to see (including a younger version of himself with dark hair, showing how much time has passed since then), facing off against a Borg version (not sure where that came into it - I don't remember the Borg ever showing up on Bajor...), or a Pah-Wraith-possessed Shaxs, other diversions weren't as successful: it's back to tiresome T'Ana, the cat with the bad attitude and mouth full of dirt they seem to think is so hilarious, this time having Nurse Westlake inflict pain on her so she can update the pain charts, whatever that even means. Ransom showing what a boring oaf he is by failing to do anything useful when these Buhgoon, giant space woodlice or armadillos, make a mess of the Cargo Bay and Beta- and Delta-shift scientists are running round like headless... Buhgoon.

Captain Freeman's story isn't much better, Steve Stevens (in his last appearance), ferrying her from one appointment to another showing a Captain's work is never done, while Chief Engineer Billups has to deal with various technical problems in Engineering. In the meantime our 'main' characters aren't to be seen, so again, it doesn't quite work as a riff on the 'TNG' story since in that one the senior staff were dealing with issues and the lower rank group were wondering and speculating. Granted, this episode has half the running time so you can say they simply cut out any scenes of Boimler, Mariner, etc, but it's supposed to be highly amusing that they stroll onto the scene at the end wondering what all the fuss is about with rumours of an invasion having happened, while at the start of the episode they break the fourth wall by talking about how their command crew are no Janeway, Kirk or Sisko, and they, themselves, seem to be the stars of the show. Not that I'm against focusing on the other characters for a change, I just found far too much of an impression of being wacky for wacky's sake, the kind of episode that demonstrates the bad side of the series, that if you were going to point a Trekker to an episode this is exactly the kind of crude, gross, ridiculous story you'd aim to avoid because if they saw it they'd think it was exactly the kind of thing they feared it would be, when in fact at its heights it can be as good as 'proper' Trek.

Not that there weren't any humorous moments, a small handful of gags or lines worked nicely - Billups talking about refreshing the rocks in the ceiling panels that Ransom says he hates because they drop on his head when the ship comes under attack, followed by Billups spitting out a technobabble reason they're there (when in fact in 'real' Trek it's just meant to be burnt bits of bulkhead or console exploding around people), is quite funny, if silly. Ransom's line about the Buhgoon after seeing they can cloak when they curl into a ball 'using their hide to hide' was a simple piece of punnery, but I much prefer that to the gross stuff like the guy violently giving birth, or whatever. Seeing one of the scientists use the patented double-axe punch when fighting a Clicket is always fun, and T'Ana replying to a Clicket threatening his weapon is set to kill by replying, "So am I," was just a great moment (Westlake making her purr by stroking her head at the end, while not original for the series, is always amusing), as was Stevens' wide-eyed confusion that Freeman is going off the carefully arranged schedule when she says it's time to repel the invaders.

Leaving aside any grossness, the thing that can often annoy most about the series (also forgetting the contemporary dialogue which nonetheless is actually more suited to this high-paced cartoon than the far more egregious uses in live-action Treks), is showing Starfleet officers up as incompetent, useless or simply owners of bad attitudes. When you think how it was supposed to be only the best of the best that graduated Starfleet Academy it's galling how often characters do badly and fail to inspire, though it's what the whole premise of the series is: a second-rate, second-class tier of Starfleet, which if you think about it goes against the entire Trek ethos, mostly for cheap laughs. Looking at the series in that light I can see why some can't stand it, though as I've said, it's the only one of the modern variations that grew on me to the extent I looked forward to seeing more. The worst example in this episode is probably the Beta- and Delta-shifters (how would two such shifts even be working together anyway?), whom can't stand each other and have to go through a crisis where they depend on each other in order to learn to get along. I'm not saying some variation of that hadn't been done many times before (though it tended to be Starfleet and civilian or Starfleet and Maquis), but badmouthing your First Officer and saying he's the worst is quite demeaning to the ship and crew.

The episode is 'saved' from complete ignominy with its successful flourish of happy endings, so they pull it out of the oven before the concept is burnt to a cinder: Ransom is shown to be more cunning than his subordinates give him credit for (something we'd seen before in such tactics as his treatment of Mariner or Boimler), by forcing the squabbling underlings to cooperate 'just to spite him,' so that worked. T'Ana realises she needs more pain medication for patients (if not empathy, which she's never going to have), Shaxs beats up a load of Clickets in his meditative sleep, Billups... merely solves the Engineering problems so that didn't really go anywhere, and Freeman remembers how Clickets are defeated by compliments (I'm with her - I'd completely forgotten they'd encountered the race before in 'Veritas,' unsurprisingly a Season 1 episode), a suitably silly solution (but not far off some cultural snags seen in Trek before - like the race that hate politeness from 'Coming of Age,' or the Tak Tak who have extreme rules on body language, or the ones from 'Enterprise' that find eating in public obscene). The best is Stevens arranging for Admiral Freeman to come aboard for a surprise visit to celebrate his Captain-wife's anniversary (was that the same restaurant seen on the Holodeck in 'We'll Always Have Paris'?).

The big missing piece for me was naming the visiting scientist as a Grazerite, which he obviously was, since we'd only ever seen one before (Federation President Jaresh-Inyo on 'DS9'), and it would have been an ideal time to explore that culture, but since he was only a Clicket in disguise (the skin-shedding being the most disgusting Season 1-esque moment), I suppose it was all rather redundant and we should be grateful we even got to see an example of the race, even a fake one. There are the usual little Trekferences (Rutherford carves an image of V'Ger into a pumpkin - not sure how Mariner would know about all that in such fannish detail, but that's nothing new; Barnes had been turned into a cavewoman like Riker in 'Genesis'), but even they aren't necessarily of the best calibre. I was surprised to discover I'd actually liked this one on my original viewing, I'd completely forgotten that, and while it shows how varying the reaction to this era of Trek can be, it's surprising I can go from one (relative) extreme to the other in such a (relatively) short time! In my notes for the original viewing I wrote, 'Maybe I was just in the mood for it?' Well, maybe this time I wasn't in the mood for it. And maybe next time I'll swing back around to liking it again? It's possible. It's also possible that watching in a relaxed way merely as entertainment can be a different experience than watching with a view to reviewing the episode, so that's also a factor. But I'm still recovering from finding out this was my highest-rated episode of the season on original viewing so I need to go and sort my head out like Shaxs did...

**

Fully Dilated

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (Fully Dilated)

They both win! Tendi and T'Lyn are both in the running for Senior Science Officer on the Bridge and throughout the episode Tendi desperately competes with the Vulcan woman, even while they're both trapped on a time-dilated planet living out life while they wait for Boimler and Rutherford to beam them back way out of schedule. On the face of it, it's a charming end to a fun episode where the Captain, listening to the advice of... none other than Lieutenant Commander Data (or more precisely: Data from a purple universe - yes, typically wacky idea), decides they can both have the position. At the same time it's typical of modern Trek (and modern life in general), that people have to be placated when things don't smooth out for them, so instead of having to face a hard decision and deal with it as a fact of life, we have to find a way to please them both. It might sound a touch crusty and complaining to point this out, but Trek was always good at dealing with difficult things, disappointment being one of them, and teaching the audience while our characters learn something. Of course this series tends to subvert things a lot, even while paying tribute or making callbacks to a better era of Trek production, so it's not exactly out of character, and really, it is a... let's say 'sweet' ending. Tendi's always been sweet, T'Lyn is the epitome of the professional Vulcan character modern Trek's always lacked, so I can live with what is a concession to the sensitive in this case, and while I don't remember how it plays out, I'm now curious to see how the roles will work.

The big, nay, massive boon of this particular story is having Brent Spiner along to play Data's head, in what I assume will be the last ever time he plays his famous character (or a variation of such). It may not be The Commander Data of our (and 'Lower Decks'), universe, but apparently this purple alternate is pretty close judging by the way Data talks of his best friend, Geordi, whom he has to get back for, or Lieutenant Worf who he's seen chew ropes with his bare teeth, and Data himself experienced the same events of 'Time's Arrow' where he was stuck in a cave for hundreds of years only to be rescued by Picard, himself, and 'a guy in a silver jumpsuit'! It's all very appealing, jumping back into a version of Data that's much closer to the original 'TNG' character than the later (or current, in this episode's time), Data of the films, since he'd be dead at this point, yet would return in 'Picard' set much later than 'LD,' filmed before this episode... It's simply charming to hear the old Data way of speaking, still on the Enterprise-D, albeit a purple version (Data's take on his universe's penchant for purple is why wouldn't you use the colour if it's available, which is as good a justification as any!), and of course he and Tendi go together perfectly, both nice, thoughtful characters interested in science, while Data is more sensible, able to provide moral support and see past Tendi's issues. It does highlight the difference between this series and 'TNG' in that even one of the calmest and sweetest-of-temperament characters seems scatty, manic and a touch cruel (she turns Data off mid-sentence), compared with 'TNG,' but in Tendi's defence she was going without sleep and her urge to 'win' against T'Lyn had clouded her judgement.

It's never a good idea to try and compete with a Vulcan, and T'Lyn is typically adept at whatever physical tasks she puts her mind to, whether it be instantly performing expert juggling she's never attempted before (a bit like Data dancing in 'Data's Day' - he'd have made a good Vulcan), a gardener of great distinction, able to grow giant vegetables, then becoming rich through turning the vegetable skins into beauty products the natives love, it's both ridiculous, yet grounded in typical Vulcan behaviour of excelling at all they do - most importantly for me after so many bad versions or performances of the race in recent decades, she does so much to remind us why Vulcans are the coolest race, and the reason they're my favourite. The only missing element for me was when she decides to withdraw from the running for the Science Officer position due to believing she was unable to communicate well enough after Tendi had withdrawn into her competitive bubble. It's endearing she blames herself for Tendi's mistakes, but I felt she should have made the choice as she saw the issue had come between their friendship, something she valued and would not want to damage. It's possible she meant that and was choosing to focus on the 'faults,' but she seemed quite genuine and there are plenty of times we've seen her make a pretence for the sake of reverse psychology or whatever, so you can tell the difference.

As it is, the story is quite a pleasant undercover mission on an alien planet, the trio of Mariner, Tendi and T'Lyn are trapped there and just start living lives with different emphases for each so it becomes a fascinating look at what they'd do in such a situation as it has been for plenty of characters before (the obvious ones being both Trekferenced when Mariner realises this is her chance to have a 'probe life' like Captain Picard, and also calls it a 'Carbon Creek' situation after the 'Enterprise' incident of Vulcans crashing on Earth and having to make a life there). Aside from Mariner's bad language and the writers still finding a way to bring some disgust into proceedings (Boimler and Rutherford have to lick the Transporter console to remove their spilled drinks, getting repeatedly electrocuted, and suggesting the operator doesn't wash his hands... unlikely consoles would be affected by a liquid spill as Starfleet would be wiser than that, or that they'd get spiked by electricity - on the other hand the consoles do often explode in battle, so maybe it was a comment on their apparent unreliability at sensitive times), this is one of the most gentle episodes of the series, what with Data there to share wisdom, and an agrarian community, there's very little seen of the Cerritos and the other characters so it gives them an opportunity to do something different, all while still playing with familiar Trek tropes.

The idea of every second aboard the Cerritos equalling a week on the planet is played out well as we keep cutting back to the brief, but unrestrained panic in the Transporter room as time ticks by - the fact Voyager encountered a similar planet is mentioned and the Trekferences seem generally very apt and organic to the story, only adding to the pleasure of it all (such as 'Edo-level' stupidity as Mariner describes her two-month sentence in gaol for a mere eye-poke, yet that hints at the reality of a culture in which the people have horns growing out of their heads, so they would need to be careful!), an alternate Tasha Yar gets a mention (shame we never had Denise Crosby back in modern Trek, other than the old hologram recording she gave Data, seen again in 'Picard,' as a voice role would have been perfect), and the beam-out location is definitely reminiscent of Vasquez Rocks seen throughout Trek productions across the decades! Reflecting before rewatching the episode I wondered if Data's colour was meant to be a Trekference back to when they were experimenting with his skin tone before 'TNG' began, with bubblegum pink and battleship grey variations until the gold we know was settled on (even carried across to action figure variants of the time!), so it was a shame the purple wasn't named as bubblegum pink, though they do get in 'neutral grey' when describing our Enterprise.

It's somewhat surprising they mention neither the D's demise nor Data's, but I suppose they didn't want to bring down the mood, even so, it would have added to the continuity and seems conspicuous by absence - it's more the simple pleasure of meeting a legend for our characters rather than the poignancy of meeting him after he was dead and long gone, which of course isn't the case for viewers with 'Picard' to come a couple of decades later, with a new Data, but the 'LD' characters don't know that and shouldn't react in that way. If I'm nitpicking (and you know it's a good one when there's less to point out), it was not so Vulcan of T'Lyn to be taken out so easily by the Ferengi-like, sneering Snell (voiced by Eric Bauza, his last of numerous roles across the series), the village lurker who's a constant thorn in their side, able to leap from the rafters and knock her unconscious. But in general the Vulcan greatness was on pronounced display, even the attitude toward them was spot-on, Tendi worrying she's in competition with her back on the ship, and Rutherford reassuring her it's probably that Vulcans just forget about feelings (I know, technically Vulcans are supposed to know feelings very well in the sense they experience them tenfold compared to most races, but the point is they use such strong control to bury them that they are alienated from them, not barely contained just under the surface of their persona as is so often wrongly portrayed in Trek from 'Enterprise' onwards!). Oh, and I noticed a rare misspeak from a cast member that apparently wasn't caught at any stage: when commenting on the beverages Rutherford and Boimler have rustled up, Nöel Wells says: "This is something the other Boimler drink, isn't it"!

I enjoyed the classic plot of crew having to be physically transformed into aliens to infiltrate their pre-warp society, Tendi and T'Lyn's inadvertent competition and Mariner's eagerness to live out an alternate life while she has the chance, only succeeding in being imprisoned for her lack of awareness of the society's rules. Having Spiner was a high point of the season (better than the other cameos to come later), he really is Trek royalty, and I especially appreciated they treated him right, didn't have him do anything wacky like swearing or saying ridiculous lines for a gag, but played it straight as the real Data would (even while they technically had licence to do whatever they wanted since it's not The Data, after all!), and while he's now at the age the voice can't be disguised for being old (it sounds like he's got marshmallows in his mouth), he still gets the tone and readings perfect, and if this is, as I suspect, the last time he plays the role (though twenty-odd years ago we thought it was over then, so never say never!), it was a charming performance that expertly harks back to an earlier time. All that and the typically boisterous ending with Mariner playing her soap flute badly which closes out the episode beautifully and amusingly, means I liked this a bit more than when I first saw it, and it was always the high point of the season even then, meaning this is another season to have at least one episode that breaks into the 'standard' quality of old Trek, well done. Even the title is a play on Worf's famous line about Keiko being fully dilated so she may now give birth, another nice 'TNG' Trekference, yet also well suited to the dimensional fissures arc of the season - nice one.

***