Review of Stream this Next: The Start of an Indispensable Guide

I've been saying at least since 2015 that streaming -- in particular the capacity it gives viewers to watch as much of a television series as they like, at one time, as if reading book -- constitutes a third golden age of television (the first being what TV broadcast networks began to bring us in the 1950s, the second being the cable revolution which I take as beginning with The Sopranos on HBO in 1999).  Indeed, I watch a huge amount of television -- I find it good for my brain -- and I'd estimate more than 80% of the dramas and comedies are streaming (all the live news I watch is on cable -- mostly MSNBC, with a little CNN, if you'd like to know).

And the streaming world has grown exponentially since 2015, with Apple TV+, Paramount+, HBO Max, Disney+, and (I'm probably leaving some out) joining Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu as big-time streamers.  And  the nature of the streaming has evolved.  For example, several of the newer players -- especially Apple TV+ and Paramount+ -- have made binging possible only after a complete season of a series has been streamed, with each episode becoming available on a weekly basis, much as networks and cable still do, when they put up their new series.

The result is a still expanding avalanche of TV shows to possibly watch, on a growing number of venues with overlapping and different presentation modes.  A handbook or guide to at least some of these shows would be handy to have, and that's just what Liane Bonin Starr's Stream This Next: 1,000 TV Shows to Suit Your Mood is.  There of course are far more than 1000 TV shows now streaming or soon to stream, and this book does miss some of the best, in my view. For example, Star Trek: Discovery on Paramount+ is listed and well described, but there's no mention of Star Trek: Picard (the best of the new Star Treks, in my opinion) or Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, to debut next month, starring Anson Mount as Christopher Pike, in my view one of the best new captains.  It also would be useful to know whether the series streams all at once, i.e., is immediately available for binging, or doled out on a weekly basis for each new season.  Other meta-details, such as Paramount+ lacerating its shows with commercials, even though it requires paid subscriptions, would also be helpful to know.

But such perceived oversights, especially in terms of series that should have been listed, are inevitable -- different strokes for different folks -- and there's plenty of value in the categorization of the shows listed in Stream This Next -- ten categories ranging from comedies, thrillers ... to science fiction -- as well as is the show best watched with a group of family or friends, cuddling with someone as a couple, on your own, etc.  Liane Bonin Starr is listed as the book's editor, and she and her team have done a fine job in assembling this indispensable guide, published last month in hardcover by Universe, especially appealing if you like to put your eyes on the pages of a thick book, once in a while.

In fact, having just thumbed through this book, I realized I really wanted to see a streaming science fiction series I somehow must have missed in the past year. Want to know what it is? Keep reading my reviews ...

Star Trek: Discovery 4.1: Had Its Moments, But ...

Let's get a couple of things out of the way before I offer this non-spoiler review of Star Trek: Discovery 4.1, up on Paramount+ TV since this past Thursday, November 18, 2021.

First and most important, that "up on" does not include most of the world.  On November 16, 2021, Paramount+ announced that the new season -- along with everything else on Paramount+ -- would not be available outside the US until early 2022.  People around the world, who had been enjoying the rebirth renaissance of Star Trek on Paramount via Netflix, were suddenly unable to watch the highly anticipated debut of the new season.   This has to be one of the dumbest moves in the short history of streaming.

Second, and much less important, more of an annoyance than a major issue, but still worth mentioning: the new season of Star Trek: Discovery became available here in the New York area at 3 o'clock in the morning on Thursday.  Why not at midnight, the beginning of the new day, as Apple TV+ does with its new series? Again, not at the level of cluelessness as keeping all of Paramount+ from the rest of the world, but, still, an irritation.

Now as to episode 4.1.  I enjoyed it.  But it's worth mentioning that this is the first time I'm watching the series in real time -- I binged all the prior seasons of Discovery, as well as Picard.  And, well, as a standalone debut episode of a new season, this one didn't knock me out.

There was one great twist.  And it was fun to see all of our favorite characters who survived the previous season, as well as a new one or two.  The on-planet action had a technicolor Star Wars flavor, which is all to the good. And the repartee among the crew was customarily sharp.

But, I don't know, the hour lacked a gravitas, despite the serious issues at hand.  At times, the crew's banter was distracting rather than refreshing.  Possibly it was because I saw Star Trek: Discovery 4.1 within hours of seeing the season 1 finale of Foundation on Apple TV+, but this first episode of the new season at times had a lightweight quality, despite the enormity of perils Captain Michael Burnham and her crew gamely encounter and contest.

But next week will afford Star Trek: Discovery a standalone spot on the stage of incandescent 20th century science fiction reimagined and brought to the streaming screens of the 21st, and I'll back with another review.

See also Star Trek: Discovery 3: Fulfilling the Promise ... Star Trek: Discovery 2: Tour de Force Story and Characters ... Discovering Star Trek: Discovery ... Star Trek: Picard: Non-Pareil

Star Trek: Discovery 3: Fulfilling the Promise

Checking in with a review of Star Trek: Discovery season 3, which was on CBS All Access now Paramount+ nearly a year ago, but I just had a chance to binge-watch the past few days. 

The first 10 of its 13 episodes were a mix of good, ok, and very good.  The final three episodes were pure gold, with outstanding hand-to-hand combat, and some of the best personal stories and trials and tribulations in any Star Trek, of whatever vintage, on whatever kind of screen.

First, it was ingenuous to move the storyline in this season from before the start of Star Trek: The Original Series to further in the future than any other Star Trek narrative has been located.   I won't give away too much of the plot in this review, but I will say that although we've seen plenty of time travel in many a Star Trek season, the goal of Discovery in staying in this far future -- what it must do -- is original, unexpected, and sufficiently cosmic to motivate all the twists and turns and surprises in the story.

The continuing characters, especially Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Saru (Doug Jones), really come into their own.  And lots of memorable new characters this season, too.  My favorites were Booker (David Ajala), Admiral Vance (Oded Fehr), Osyraa (Janet Kidder), and Kovich (David Cronenberg -- yes!).   There was good integration of Vulcan and Romulus into the story, and a nice shout-out to "City on the Edge of Forever," with Paul Guilfoyle (CSI's Jim Brass) playing the Guardian of Forever.

I've come to realize -- and I may have said this is in an earlier review, but it's worth repeating -- that the Star Trek franchise is more than a superb one-of-a-kind series of television series and movies.  It's a blueprint for our future, a blueprint which is helping that future come into being, by being such a continuing inspiration.  Or, as I said my essay, The Missing Orientation, published late last year, "my lifelong commitment to doing what I could via writing and speaking to help lift our species off this planet was baked in for life by Star Trek in the mid-1960s."

The third season of Star Trek: Discovery amply continues that inspiration.  I'll be back here with a review of the fourth season, which will start on Paramount+ on November 18, and everything Star Trek that comes after.

See also Star Trek: Discovery 2: Tour de Force Story and Characters ... Discovering Star Trek: Discovery ... Star Trek: Picard: Non-Pareil

Star Trek: Discovery 2: Tour de Force Story and Characters

I endeavored in my reviews of Star Trek: Picard and the first season of Discovery to keep them free of specific spoilers. But it is not possible to review the tour de force that is the second season of Discovery without them, so expect plenty of spoilers in what follows.

First and foremost, as what was hinted at/promised at the end of Discovery 1, the emergence of Spock and his self-transformation from a troubled young man/Vulcan to the Spock we came to know, blue Star Fleet uniform and all, was one of the main and most gratifying themes of Discovery 2.  There is a great call-back in "If Memory Serves" (2.8)  to the two-part classic TOS episode "The Menagerie" (which incorporates the unseen pilot for the series, "The Cage") in which Spock violates Star Fleet quarantine (an unfortunately apt word in our current, real world) to help his former Captain, Christopher Pike, reunite with the love of his life on Talos.  Spock's defiance of Star Fleet for a greater good was a rare occasion in TOS, but in Discovery 2 we see that this is a fundamental part of his nature, which as a younger person is much closer to the surface.  Meanwhile, "If Memory Serves" shows some actual clips from "The Menagerie" - meaning "The Cage" actually figured, literally, in two Star Trek episodes, more than fifty years apart - and it was great to see Melissa George as Vina (originally played by Susan Oliver) and Anson Mount as Pike (originally played by Jeffrey Hunter and Sean Kenney) who, in a later episode in Discovery 2, palpably sees his future in a wheelchair, courtesy of a time crystal in a Klingon monastery.

About Mount, last time I saw him was in the lead role in Hell on Wheels, where he was outstanding.  If anything, he was even better as Pike in Discovery, with the result that Pike has now become, at least in my opinion, one of the most memorable Captains in all of Star Trek, second only, I would say, to Kirk and Picard.  And that's after just one season.  It's not clear how much more we'll be seeing of Pike, since Discovery 2 ends with Pike on the Enterprise - with Spock, beard shaven, his science officer - on the way (in some near-future date) back to Talos, and what awaits them there in "The Menagerie".  The Star Trek: Discovery series is of course about the ship Discovery, which is last seen hurtling into the future, following Burnham the Red Angel's lead, with Saru in the Captain's seat.

Time travel, indeed, plays as important a role in Discovery 2 as space travel (which, as readers of this blog will know, makes me very happy, since I'm a fan and a writer of both kinds of travel stories).  Spock even mentions the "grandfather paradox" (which could also be "grandmother" or "parent" or any recent or remote ancestor), noting that future Burnham has no choice but to save her younger self (but Spock missed the point that any member of the crew could also have saved the younger Burham). And in a nice sprinkle of humor, Tilly mentions "time bend"; Pike replies "time bend ... I like that"; and Tilly comes back with "everything sounds cooler when you put time in front of it". I completely agree.

There's also some unintentional humor afoot or onboard.  The Ba'ul, the predator species on Saru's world, is pronounced by most of the crew, including Saru, who should know, just the way it's spelled.  But at least one crew member referred to the species as "The Bowel," and I'm pretty sure I heard another call them "The Bowl".  On the plus side, it was good to see Pike have some of the subtle mannerisms of Kirk, including the way Pike stands when he's at the helm and delivers the truth to difficult-to-pronounce species like the Ba’ul.

But Discovery 2 evokes a wide range of emotions, including tears, sense of wonder, edge-of-your-seat excitement, and deep satisfaction in following a story not only very well done, but fitting in beautifully with not only the past Star Trek corpus, but ongoing new series, such as Picard, which addresses the same AIs wanting to destroy all organic sentient life as Discovery 2 confronted in the epic space battles at the end of the season.

Count on me to be back with more after I see Season 3 whenever it airs this year.

See also: Star Trek: Picard: Non-Pareil ... Discovering Star Trek: Discovery

 

Discovering Star Trek: Discovery

One of my favorite lines in any movie or television show is Jake Houseman (played by the inimitable Jerry Orbach) lamely apologizing to Johnny in Dirty Dancing - "when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong".  That's what I have to say about not watching Star Trek: Discovery until the past few days.  I wasn't in the mood for another Star Trek series, I didn't like paying for or even just watching yet another streaming service.  But I was wrong.

I saw Star Trek: Picard on CBS All Access and loved it (here's my review).  But I of course was already very well acquainted with the character, so how could I resist not viewing his further adventures and tribulations?  Most of the characters in Star Trek: Discovery are new - the series takes place about ten years prior to Star Trek: TOS - and I wasn't eager to meet yet another whole new group of people in this saga.  But I did enjoy the new characters in Picard, and I figured, ok, it can't hurt to watch a least the first few episodes of Discovery.  I watched the whole first season of 15 episodes in three days.  And as soon as I finish this review, I'm going to start watching the second season of Discovery.

In case you haven't yet seen Discovery, I'm going to avoid specific spoilers.  I can tell you that time loops, alternate universes, Klingons, new modes of faster-than-light travel, and characters with all kinds of surprising true identities figure in this first season.   One major character from the original series plays a major role in Discovery, and at least one minor but memorable character pops up.  If you think about it, a narrative that takes place just a decade prior to the original Star Trek series has an enormous burden, to get it just right. The "it" is a story that is captivating and satisfying in its own right, while both setting up and not disrupting or contradicting what we know is coming next - what we know, and, in the case of me and many other people, have loved and treasured now for some fifty years.  I'd say Discovery by and large succeeds in this, admirably.

There's some distracting burlesquing and caricature - especially in a few of the Klingon scenes - but this is balanced by a winning subtlety, as when we get confirmation of the time in which this story takes place with a list that's called up of the greatest Star Fleet captains, which ends with Christopher Pike.  The science is by and large ok, though I caught a gaff from one of the new major characters, who reminisces that "I was in a wonderful cafe on Alpha Centauri" (Alpha Centauri is a star not a planet).  But speaking of the new major characters, they all were excellent, and more than enough to make me want to see what happens to those who survived.

I'll tell you what I think of their story when I post my review here of the second season of Discovery, likely within the coming week.

See also: Star Trek: Picard: Non-Pareil ... Star Trek: Discovery 2: Tour de Force Story and Characters

 

The Orville 1.1-5: Star Trek's Back!

I'd planned on catching up on all the episodes of The Orville thus far before writing a review, but episode 1.5 was so good - and a time travel story to boot, my favorite kind of science fiction - that I couldn't wait any longer.  So here's this, and then I'll post another review when I'm caught up, and then I'll review every episode that comes after.

First, let me thank my colleague at Fordham University, Lance Strate, who recommended The Orville to me just last week.  He has a pretty good track record, his best recommendation so far being the reboot of Battlestar Galactica, which was much better than the original and superb.

I'm tempted to say The Orville is to Star Trek: The Original Series as Battlestar Galactica 2004 was to Battlestar Galactica 1978, but that wouldn't be quite right, because: (1) The original Star Trek was one of the best series ever on television, and the first BSG was, if not one of the worst, certainly nothing special, and (2) Battlestar Galactica 2004 was so dark as to be apocalyptic whereas The Orville is laugh-out-loud funny.

That's not surprising, since Seth MacFarlane not only stars in this latter day Star Trek as Captain Ed Mercer but is the creator of the series.  And the jokes are not only funny and continuous, with words like "dick" tossed around in just about every episode, but they don't interfere in the slightest with the outstanding science fiction in every episode, which was the strong suit of the original Star Trek.

In fact, I'd say The Orville is more like Star Trek the original series, truer to its pace and elan and sense of wonder, than any Star Trek since, with the exception of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was in some ways better and some ways worse (and, come to think of it, The Orville is in some ways more reminiscent of the best parts of TNG and its interspecies-diverse crew than it is of TOS).  But everything else that's come since, whether on TV or in the movies, is just not as good, whatever their redeeming qualities.  (Ok, I only saw the first episode of Discovery, because I'm too cheap to pay for yet another streaming service, but that first episode was at best only all right in comparison to the first episode of The Orville.)

I won't summarize that for you - if you haven't seen it, do - but each of the five episodes I've seen so far packs a different kind of punch.  To return to episode 5, it's not quite as good as "City on the Edge of Forever" from TOS or "Yesterday's Enterprise" from TNG -- which are about the two best hours of time travel ever on television -- but it's pretty close, has respect for all the paradoxes of time travel, and like almost all fine time travel, even a thread I don't quite get.  When Kelly confronts Ed about telling the time traveler about Kelly and Ed's marital problems (they got divorced, because Ed found Kelly in bed with an alien who came in blue),  Ed says of course the time traveler knew, she came from the future, and Kelly says no, our problem took place in the past, and Ed admits he told the traveler.  But ... wait a minute, maybe that was a joke!

Kelly, by the way, is played by Adrianne Palicki of Friday Night Lights, and I'm always happy to see a star from that great series on TV again, just as I am about anyone from The Wire.  The crew, by the way, consists of five humans (Ed and Kelly, a woman doctor, and two guys on the bridge or whatever that is), a younger officer who looks like a Bajoran (well played by Halston Sage), a Lt.  Commander of some sort who looks like a Klingon (and lays an egg - not a bad joke, as Ed quips, but offspring), and some kind of highly intelligent android who sounds like Data but looks like the Tinman digital edition and maybe a little C3PO.  There's also an intelligent kind of slime with Norm MacDonald's voice, but I'm not sure if he's part of the crew.  These homages to Star Trek are of course deliberate and delightful, as is the music and the overall feel of the series.

Star Trek's back!

See also: The Orville 1.6-9: Masterful ... The Orville 1.10: Bring in the Clowns


1st starship to Alpha Centauri ... had only enough fuel to get there

Star Trek: Discovery 1.1: Klingons and Hitchcock

Star Trek: Discovery debuted on CBS tonight.  Alas, it won't be there long - in fact, after this first episode, viewers will need to pay for CBS All-Access to continue watching this latest Star Trek series.

Which is a shame, because the first episode has a lot of promise.  It takes place a few years before the original Star Trek - aka Star Trek: TOS - and so far has at least one familiar character, Sarek (well-played by James Frain) whom we got to see, a little older, in TOS, and even older in some subsequent movies, etc.

Discovery also has a feisty #1 - Michael Burnham (a woman, well played with style and spunk by Sonequa Martin-Green), a human woman, to be more precise, who was raised by Vulcans.  She thus combines of the best of both species, for reasons different from Spock, but also governed by logic on top of emotions, but much more in play than Spock's.  In a decisive moment, she gives the Captain a Vulcan nerve pinch to knock her out, when she (the Captain) is not willing to listen to reason regarding an imminent Klingon threat.  That's what I meant by feisty.

And the Klingons are indeed a threat, emerging as the full-bodied danger we saw so well in TOS. But the Federation is not yet aware of this, so we're set in a tense Hitchcockian suspense rather than surprise mode.  (Hitchcock thought it was better movie-making to show people on a bus when we the viewers know a bomb is ticking away - suspense - than the surprise of a bomb shocking us with an out-of-the-blue explosion.)  We viewers in 2017 know what threats to humans the Klingons will soon pose, so Discovery is well positioned just on that verge.

Will I subscribe to All-Access so I can continue to watch this series?  My wife and I were tempted with The Good Fight, but decided that Netflix and Amazon Prime were enough great streaming to pay for. I'm a little more interested in this new Star Trek, but hey, we're still inveterate cheapskates, and we just paid plenty for great Paul McCartney tickets at the Nassau Coliseum.

So I can't tell you I'll see you next week here with another review - but, maybe, someday, if this new series shows up streaming somewhere else.  Or if someone in Hollywood picks up my novel below.


a different kind of space travel