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matt_zimmerAlso reviews for the latest episodes of Star Trek: Lower Decks, and DC Super Hero Girls.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Bad Beginning: Part One"
I committed myself to watching this, and I can already tell you, this is going to be a slog. I don't like it. At all.
Like His Dark Materials, this show was a rare franchise based on a book that I hadn't read the books before watching it. After seeing a couple of episodes of His Dark Materials, I ordered the books off Amazon because the story so intrigued me. This? Not my jam.
Why? Because no matter how horrible things are, the tone is stubbornly comedic. It finds this funny. And maybe on some level it is. But that also means that whenever a bad thing happens it has no dramatic stakes because the show refuses to treat it with the seriousness it deserves. I will very much be shocked if I wind up liking this series. I am almost positive that there is very little chance I'll be picking up the books.
And what us up with that weird creepy baby? For some reason I think the show thinks Sunny is funnier than she is.
Off to a bad start. *1/2.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Bad Beginning: Part Two"
There were a few good jokes in this. Unfortunately, the episode's premise was outright appalling. I don't know what disgusts me more: The fact that the child bride idea was written in the first place, or the fact that the franchise crazily thought the idea was remotely appropriate for children. This wasn't "Unfortunate". It was skeevy and gross.
But there were a couple of good jokes and scenes. I liked the line that the back half of a horse's costume should only be worn by somebody you care about, and I'm wondering what Lemony Snicket's relationship to Count Olaf is and what their history entails. I also laughed upon the hook-handed guy asking if Sunny could play poker the subtitles reading, "I'm a fast learner."
But this episode made my skin crawl otherwise. It should call itself A Series Of Atrocious Events. It would be more accurate. Literally. **.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Reptile Room: Part One"
Less extreme and off-putting than the first two episodes, although one of the things I don't like is how stupid all of the characters have to be to make the story work at all. Fun Fact: This is my exact gripe with Harry Potter so this seems to be a common thread for kid lit. Rather than write believable stories, it's easier to write dumb characters. It's annoying especially because these characters seem MUCH dumber than the Harry Potter cast (which is saying something).
The white faced old women twins freak me out.
I liked the voice Neil Patrick Harris used for Stephano. It was pretty funny.
I think the tendency of Lemony Snicket and the children to overexplain the definition of words is going to get tiresome quickly. I don't think it was ever really funny so it's sort of frustrating how often they seem to go back to that well.
I liked the meta debate about movies vs long-form television. As I recall, this franchise utterly failed at being a movie so the argument for long-form television has actual merit here.
Less annoyed with that. **1/2.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Reptile Room: Part Two"
I liked the last 5-10 minutes. Jacqueline's stuff with Count Olaf was fun and I really like the fact that Mom and Dad seem to be swashbucklers.
But everybody in the rest of the episode was nonstop dumb. Including the kids. How many times are they going to lose track of Sunny while Olaf is skulking about, therefore giving him a free and easy hostage? And Poe's stupidity has gotten outright obnoxious.
I suspected from the first episode, this show would be a tough slog. It hasn't proven that wrong yet. **.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Wide Window: Part One"
More characters too dumb to be believable.
Alfre Woodard IS however pretty likable as Aunt Josephine. Too bad she is also an idiot.
I like that each arc has different lyrics in the theme tune and that it looks like Neil Patrick Harris will be doing a different wacky voice for each.
It's clear Olaf and some of the other characters have met Lemony Snicket, and I want to find out the deal with that. Lemony Snicket is pretty much the straightest role I've seen Patrick Warburton play. There's no real goofiness attached to him, at least compared to the other characters on the show.
I like the children deciding that because Aunt Josephine meant well they had no right to complain. And Klaus saying he wanted to complain anyways. They ARE kids after all.
Better than the first four episodes, but I still didn't dig it. ***.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Wide Window: Part Two"
That episode was basically every flaw in the series put into stark relief.
As far as adults go Aunt Josephine is a dud. Mr. Poe's stupidity is annoying, as is his unending cough. The series constantly correcting and clarifying grammar is neverending and obnoxious. And worst of all, none of the humor is actually funny.
I don't suspect this series strays too far from the sensibility of the books, which makes me question why they are beloved to begin with. If you ask me, the franchise is actually super dumb. *.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Miserable Mill: Part One"
The Mom and Dad fake-out was annoying and gratuitous.
But it summed up this show in general.
For the record, Catherine O'Hara still looks amazing.
Should also once again point out that I find Sunny the baby super creepy.
Annoying episode of an annoying show. *1/2.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Miserable Mill: Part Two"
I very much liked the ending to that. The song was melancholy and the photo raised more fascinating questions about Olaf and Snicket. I don't like the comedy, the tone, or the execution of the series for the most part. But I cannot deny many of the mysteries seem intriguing. Let's hope Snicket and Olaf wind up less of a cheat than Mom and Dad.
Not bad. ***.
Star Trek: Lower Decks "Much Ado About Boimler"
I liked it.
Jellico gets a shout-out as an infamously bad visiting captain. I'm glad. The dude legitimately sucked at his job, and I like that he's now a Fleetwide cautionary tale. I also dug the weird Mime special ops outfits from Chain Of Command reappearing too.
Anthony appears to have been turned into the creature that Janeway and Paris turned into on Voyager after hitting Warp 10. Yes, Brannon Braga, "Threshold" will always be canon, and you will always be one of the worst Star Trek writers of all time.
Speaking of making non-canon things canon, the Captain of the Farm was another one of those aliens from Star Trek: The Animated Series. I think the biggest reason that Star Trek: The Animated Series deserves to be considered canon at this point is that unlike many of the novels and comics, nothing canon has ever really contradicted it. There is an early prototype of a Holodeck in The Animated Series, but outside of that everything else fits (more solidly than Captain Kirk or Chief O'Brien's backstories at any rate).
The alien entity in the episode was probably the same type of creature seen in Next Generation's pilot "Encounter At Farpoint".
I kind of have always dug the idea that Mariner has a secret hang-up that we don't know about, but I don't like what they did with her here because it suggests even SHE doesn't actually know what it is, which makes the character lose a bit of her appeal and a lot of her mystery. I am not a professional writer, as in I don't get paid for any fiction I write. But this is not a mistake I ever would have made for one of my characters. It seems like a rookie writing mistake when dealing with characters with ambiguous backstories.
The rest of the episode was pretty good though. ***1/2.
DC Super Hero Girls "Awesome Aunt Antiope"
Antiope was a LOT cooler on Themyscria.
I love the dude saying he doesn't lose to girls and Kara telling him he was gonna hate this next part.
I laughed at Diana telling Antiope that's not how cars work.
Funny episode. ****.
DC Super Hero Girls "It's Complicated"
Hal Jordan is the worst and what I hate the most about him is that his repulsive behavior is constantly rewarded by the show. This was a particularly obnoxious episode for that reason. 1/2.
DC Super Hero Girls "The Bird And The Bee"
I loved that. Carter is the one boy hero who they've never done anything interesting with, so it was a good idea to give him a spotlight.
And I love that the solution to break the Curse of his and Shayera's doomed love is to simply stay away and not fall in love. That's just crazy enough to work.
I like how annoyed the villain was that he came early. That was a funny joke.
Fantastic episode. *****.
DC Super Hero Girls "Fantastic Beasts And How To Mind Them"
Nice ending.
Disposable but passable episode.
You'd figure the bloody hydra heads would have been a censor note, but since they grew back, it probably passed muster with CN.
It feels wrong that Ace is Babs' dog instead of Bruce's.
Not bad. ***.
DC Super Hero Girls "School Ghoul"
The first two thirds of the episode were awful because Kara and Babs are so annoying, but I found it weirdly compelling that Silver Banshee was not only sympathetic, but that she also made the right, moral choice at the end of the episode. It got better as it went along. ***.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Bad Beginning: Part One"
I committed myself to watching this, and I can already tell you, this is going to be a slog. I don't like it. At all.
Like His Dark Materials, this show was a rare franchise based on a book that I hadn't read the books before watching it. After seeing a couple of episodes of His Dark Materials, I ordered the books off Amazon because the story so intrigued me. This? Not my jam.
Why? Because no matter how horrible things are, the tone is stubbornly comedic. It finds this funny. And maybe on some level it is. But that also means that whenever a bad thing happens it has no dramatic stakes because the show refuses to treat it with the seriousness it deserves. I will very much be shocked if I wind up liking this series. I am almost positive that there is very little chance I'll be picking up the books.
And what us up with that weird creepy baby? For some reason I think the show thinks Sunny is funnier than she is.
Off to a bad start. *1/2.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Bad Beginning: Part Two"
There were a few good jokes in this. Unfortunately, the episode's premise was outright appalling. I don't know what disgusts me more: The fact that the child bride idea was written in the first place, or the fact that the franchise crazily thought the idea was remotely appropriate for children. This wasn't "Unfortunate". It was skeevy and gross.
But there were a couple of good jokes and scenes. I liked the line that the back half of a horse's costume should only be worn by somebody you care about, and I'm wondering what Lemony Snicket's relationship to Count Olaf is and what their history entails. I also laughed upon the hook-handed guy asking if Sunny could play poker the subtitles reading, "I'm a fast learner."
But this episode made my skin crawl otherwise. It should call itself A Series Of Atrocious Events. It would be more accurate. Literally. **.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Reptile Room: Part One"
Less extreme and off-putting than the first two episodes, although one of the things I don't like is how stupid all of the characters have to be to make the story work at all. Fun Fact: This is my exact gripe with Harry Potter so this seems to be a common thread for kid lit. Rather than write believable stories, it's easier to write dumb characters. It's annoying especially because these characters seem MUCH dumber than the Harry Potter cast (which is saying something).
The white faced old women twins freak me out.
I liked the voice Neil Patrick Harris used for Stephano. It was pretty funny.
I think the tendency of Lemony Snicket and the children to overexplain the definition of words is going to get tiresome quickly. I don't think it was ever really funny so it's sort of frustrating how often they seem to go back to that well.
I liked the meta debate about movies vs long-form television. As I recall, this franchise utterly failed at being a movie so the argument for long-form television has actual merit here.
Less annoyed with that. **1/2.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Reptile Room: Part Two"
I liked the last 5-10 minutes. Jacqueline's stuff with Count Olaf was fun and I really like the fact that Mom and Dad seem to be swashbucklers.
But everybody in the rest of the episode was nonstop dumb. Including the kids. How many times are they going to lose track of Sunny while Olaf is skulking about, therefore giving him a free and easy hostage? And Poe's stupidity has gotten outright obnoxious.
I suspected from the first episode, this show would be a tough slog. It hasn't proven that wrong yet. **.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Wide Window: Part One"
More characters too dumb to be believable.
Alfre Woodard IS however pretty likable as Aunt Josephine. Too bad she is also an idiot.
I like that each arc has different lyrics in the theme tune and that it looks like Neil Patrick Harris will be doing a different wacky voice for each.
It's clear Olaf and some of the other characters have met Lemony Snicket, and I want to find out the deal with that. Lemony Snicket is pretty much the straightest role I've seen Patrick Warburton play. There's no real goofiness attached to him, at least compared to the other characters on the show.
I like the children deciding that because Aunt Josephine meant well they had no right to complain. And Klaus saying he wanted to complain anyways. They ARE kids after all.
Better than the first four episodes, but I still didn't dig it. ***.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Wide Window: Part Two"
That episode was basically every flaw in the series put into stark relief.
As far as adults go Aunt Josephine is a dud. Mr. Poe's stupidity is annoying, as is his unending cough. The series constantly correcting and clarifying grammar is neverending and obnoxious. And worst of all, none of the humor is actually funny.
I don't suspect this series strays too far from the sensibility of the books, which makes me question why they are beloved to begin with. If you ask me, the franchise is actually super dumb. *.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Miserable Mill: Part One"
The Mom and Dad fake-out was annoying and gratuitous.
But it summed up this show in general.
For the record, Catherine O'Hara still looks amazing.
Should also once again point out that I find Sunny the baby super creepy.
Annoying episode of an annoying show. *1/2.
Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events "The Miserable Mill: Part Two"
I very much liked the ending to that. The song was melancholy and the photo raised more fascinating questions about Olaf and Snicket. I don't like the comedy, the tone, or the execution of the series for the most part. But I cannot deny many of the mysteries seem intriguing. Let's hope Snicket and Olaf wind up less of a cheat than Mom and Dad.
Not bad. ***.
Star Trek: Lower Decks "Much Ado About Boimler"
I liked it.
Jellico gets a shout-out as an infamously bad visiting captain. I'm glad. The dude legitimately sucked at his job, and I like that he's now a Fleetwide cautionary tale. I also dug the weird Mime special ops outfits from Chain Of Command reappearing too.
Anthony appears to have been turned into the creature that Janeway and Paris turned into on Voyager after hitting Warp 10. Yes, Brannon Braga, "Threshold" will always be canon, and you will always be one of the worst Star Trek writers of all time.
Speaking of making non-canon things canon, the Captain of the Farm was another one of those aliens from Star Trek: The Animated Series. I think the biggest reason that Star Trek: The Animated Series deserves to be considered canon at this point is that unlike many of the novels and comics, nothing canon has ever really contradicted it. There is an early prototype of a Holodeck in The Animated Series, but outside of that everything else fits (more solidly than Captain Kirk or Chief O'Brien's backstories at any rate).
The alien entity in the episode was probably the same type of creature seen in Next Generation's pilot "Encounter At Farpoint".
I kind of have always dug the idea that Mariner has a secret hang-up that we don't know about, but I don't like what they did with her here because it suggests even SHE doesn't actually know what it is, which makes the character lose a bit of her appeal and a lot of her mystery. I am not a professional writer, as in I don't get paid for any fiction I write. But this is not a mistake I ever would have made for one of my characters. It seems like a rookie writing mistake when dealing with characters with ambiguous backstories.
The rest of the episode was pretty good though. ***1/2.
DC Super Hero Girls "Awesome Aunt Antiope"
Antiope was a LOT cooler on Themyscria.
I love the dude saying he doesn't lose to girls and Kara telling him he was gonna hate this next part.
I laughed at Diana telling Antiope that's not how cars work.
Funny episode. ****.
DC Super Hero Girls "It's Complicated"
Hal Jordan is the worst and what I hate the most about him is that his repulsive behavior is constantly rewarded by the show. This was a particularly obnoxious episode for that reason. 1/2.
DC Super Hero Girls "The Bird And The Bee"
I loved that. Carter is the one boy hero who they've never done anything interesting with, so it was a good idea to give him a spotlight.
And I love that the solution to break the Curse of his and Shayera's doomed love is to simply stay away and not fall in love. That's just crazy enough to work.
I like how annoyed the villain was that he came early. That was a funny joke.
Fantastic episode. *****.
DC Super Hero Girls "Fantastic Beasts And How To Mind Them"
Nice ending.
Disposable but passable episode.
You'd figure the bloody hydra heads would have been a censor note, but since they grew back, it probably passed muster with CN.
It feels wrong that Ace is Babs' dog instead of Bruce's.
Not bad. ***.
DC Super Hero Girls "School Ghoul"
The first two thirds of the episode were awful because Kara and Babs are so annoying, but I found it weirdly compelling that Silver Banshee was not only sympathetic, but that she also made the right, moral choice at the end of the episode. It got better as it went along. ***.
