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matt_zimmerAlso reviews for the latest episode of The Flash, the latest issue of Batman: The Adventures Continue: Season Three, and the novel Rose Madder.
Star Trek: Picard "Seventeen Seconds"
This is why this is my current favorite show on television and my second favorite Star Trek series after Deep Space Nine. It's just awesome.
I love when Worf tells Raffi everything she wants to hear about them working together from now on and being partners, she's struggling. She's not used to getting what she wants. When it comes to working with other people, specifically legends like Picard, her role is to be his thorn and to complain about every single thing. Worf taking her into confidence instead just blows her mind, and she's surprised into saying "Cool." This is the first situation we've seen Raffi placed in that she thinks is cool.
Changelings! Oh, big shout-out to Deep Space Nine and the Dominion War, and this suggests preventing the NEXT Dominion War is the ultimate goal of the season. Worf's contact is obviously Odo and because of Rene Auberjonois' death, he obviously couldn't appear, but hearing Worf refer to him as a friend was amazing.
Michael Dorn really, really, REALLY hated working on most of the Next Generation movies, because outside of First Contact, they had the habit of making Worf look silly for the sake of comedy. I'm betting Dorn jumped at the chance to play a version of Worf that is evolved, wise, and just purely awesome on every level. Worf tells Raffi he used to be like her. And he did. He was both Next Generation and Deep Space Nine's resident complainer. To have him turn out so emotionally healthy decades later has got to tickle Dorn pink. Worf was one of those characters that a LOT of people love, but like the Doctor on Voyager, Next Generation (and to a lesser extent DS9) misused him, usually in an effort to show what a bad father and husband he was. I loved Worf. But there were points I was annoyed by him. This version of him just instantly makes me forgive every last gripe I ever had about him. Worf on Star Trek Picard is not as awesome as Garak on Deep Space Nine. But after one and a half episodes, he's my second-favorite Star Trek character after Garak. I'm not joking.
Do you know the amazing thing? In the future parts of "All Good Things...", set only a few years before this show, it's shown that that timeline's Worf has sort of emotionally regressed outside of Starfleet after the loss of Deanna. Worf being granted this future instead is a gift.
I love Worf calling his dress Casual. Also beheadings are on Wednesday. Worf is cool now. Can you believe it?
I love Picard telling Riker to call him Number One, and I felt his shame when he let Riker down at the end. Riker's disgust with him broke my heart after seeing them grow closer all throughout the episode.
I love that Riker likes Jack a lot.
Seven of Nine had a great moment. After Jack punches out the guard watching her, she calmly says "Oh, you're insane." That kind of joke was frowned upon during the Roddenberry / Berman era. I think probably because the producers back then got it into their heads the show would feel more timeless decades later if the characters didn't speak as if they were from the given recognizable time period the show originally aired in. Sometimes a character would pump their fist and say "Yes!" but other than that, Old-School Trek had them speaking in a very arch, but reserved way. Seven's one-liner there is very much something a person in 2023 would say in those circumstances. And I think the Kurtzman era has more the right of that sort of thinking. I imagine in 30 years people will less notice the out-of-fashion way the characters speak as much as I noticed in 1996 how the Eugenics Wars never came to pass. I think worrying about music, and speech, and zippers was that era of Star Trek worrying about the wrong things that cause things to eventually be perceived as dated. I doubt audiences in 2063 will bat an eye as Seven's line and delivery here. Just like I can't remember which episode Bashir did the "Yes!" thing in anymore because it doesn't actually matter.
I love that Picard was furious at Beverly. I think he was right to be. But what I loved was his being angry and offended that she used a fear he told her in confidence about his father against him when making her decision to cut ties. And after seeing last season and how much Picard's childhood hurt him due to both his father and his mother, I think the viewer is much more over to his line of thinking than we would have been if we had seen all this occurring ourselves 25 years ago WITHOUT that context. I know it's Patrick Stewart's show, but I was honestly a bit surprised at how much on his side I was.
And that's why making him wrong on the bridge is such a huge dramatic moment that devastated me. I am totally Team Jean-Luc. But he still makes mistakes. Because he's human. Even though he's technically a synth. He's still human.
I knew they weren't going to kill Jack off in Episode 3, but that doesn't mean the show didn't play up the dramatic tension properly. At one point my mind stopped saying "There's no way they'll go through with this," and briefly shifted to "I wonder how the show would change if they DID go through with it." If the dramatic tension didn't work, I never would have thought the second thing.
My current favorite show on television. You know it's special because it's only the three seasons long. But I will cherish them as they happening (and afterwards as well). *****.
The Flash "The Mask Of The Red Death, Part One"
Favorable impression this week. It also makes me wonder what the heck happened to the real Ryan Wilder.
Good plan to bring Mark back to Team Flash. His heel-turn would have been interesting if he weren't now a series regular. But he is, so it was a mistake. Bringing him back to the good guys will make it easier to include him in future stories.
Iris was pretty insightful with Red Death in her apartment. And I like that fact, but the truth is it's unusual, and the characters usually run around doing stupid things on behalf of the plot. I am glad the show had her acting clever. But it usually doesn't, so it can argued she's acting out of character.
Iris' Royal Flush Gang trick was good because I certainly had forgotten those details myself. Well played.
The show asking me to believe Cecile is a superhero is still a really big ask. I'm not up to it yet.
The episode did a major mistake, one of the biggest I have ever seen in The Arrowverse, and I'm shocked it made it to air. But when Keon gave her defense of saving Mark, Barry says "Caitlin's right." Now if Keon had corrected him, it would have been an interesting plot-point that the team is still getting used to Keon. Because nobody did, that means it was a continuity and production error not a single person caught before it made to air. The show has never felt as sloppy as it did just then.
But like I said, the rest of the episode was pretty good all things considered. ***1/2.
Batman: The Adventures Continue: Season Three No. 2 "Old Flames"
I've gotten legit lukewarm on this title, but I liked the issue.
Mostly because it wasn't over the top, and because it dealt with character stuff. I think the moment I dug best was Harley saying that Batman looked like he wanted to slug Two-Face. One of the most interesting facets Paul Dini gave Harley Quinn is the idea that since she's a psychologist, she can get a good read on people and size them up well. Sadly, this invention happened later on in the comics, and was never explored on Batman: The Animated itself (or the rest of the DCAU after it). It was nice to see it in this comic, although let's get real, we probably should have seen it in the movie Batman And Harley Quinn too. Another reason to be underwhelmed by that flick in hindsight.
I liked this month. Celebrate the victories when you get them. ***1/2.
Rose Madder by Stephen King
"Rose Madder" is one of the least-favorite books of Stephen King he has ever written, but I've always liked it a lot. And part of me thinks he's being unfair not only on himself by dragging on it so much, but to its fans as well. It's been a few years since I read it last, but this time, as someone who has matured in their level of writing, I see aspects of it now that make me understand why King dislikes it. I still like it myself. But I understand why King doesn't.
Honestly, for years his disdain for the book pissed me off a little. Not because the book is great, or because I actually love it. But Stephen King has mentioned that women have come up to him and told him "Rose Madder" spoke to them so much, it was the thing to get them to finally leave their abusive husbands. And I don't care how disappointed King is in the story structure, or the fantasy mythology, as long as that is so, I'd take the friggin' compliment and consider writing the book entirely worthwhile. King not actually appreciating how important that is is why King is an imperfect ally to women at best.
I also need to point out that the book is a page-turner. With the exception of the boring 80 page chapter of Rosie inside the painting for the first time, the book is addictive to read. That is true of some of King's fiction but not his heavier stuff. This book is nearly 650 pages and it's still something to be devoured. I would not be ashamed of the book purely for that reason.
But this rereading I noticed a couple of drawbacks that would have made me uncomfortable if I were King too.
It's not just the Greek mythology allegory or tenuous Dark Tower connections that don't land perfectly. I have always thought that Norman Daniels was one of Stephen King's best and scariest villains. He's definitely in the running for most unambiguously evil. Like Annie Wilkes, Greg Stillson, Henry Bowers, Big Jim Rennie, and Brady Hartsfeld he seems to have no redeeming qualities, and fewer than those other five I mentioned for sure. And if I were King, I might dislike the book for that. Because King spends a LOT of time inside Norman's headspace in a way he didn't those other five loathsome characters I mentioned, even Brady Hartsfeld, and that had to have been hard on him. I don't mean hard for him as a writer. I mean hard on him as a person. I do everything is my power to stay away from evil characters who are realistically toxic, and those I do create I spend very little time in their headspace. Channeling a person like Norman Daniels in your writing is NOT fun. Some people might think writing villains is, and it can be. But when it comes to toxic people like Norman with mundane, base, real motivations it costs the writer a lot.
And I see King's struggles with it. For the first half of the book Norman is so damn scary and plausible, I think King spooked himself so badly, he pulled back on the realism for his own sanity. What King did midway through at the point Norman discovers the bull mask, is turn the character semi-comical. Him running around and crazily talking to the mask turns him into a parody of himself. For the first half of the book he's so horrible because he's realistic. He seems a LOT less realistic once King decided he had enough trying to believably write a person this terrible, and understand things from his viewpoint.
And if I were King, THAT'S the thing I'd dislike about the book. Remembering having to write Norman would be what left me creatively unfulfilled. But if it were me, I'd set aside every single misgiving I had about it and call the many abused women it's helped take back their lives it a damn win.
What's interesting about Rosie to me is that she is a seriously bad judge of character. Because Norman messed her up that badly. She is always shocked at how decent everyday people are, and how society sort of exists to look out for each other. Part of this outlook makes her seem naive and childish, but it's also a very good demonstration of what a number this guy did on her. Stuff we take for granted (like people being allowed to stay in a shelter for a few weeks) amazes her for existing at all. It's both endearing and frustrating.
I don't feel like Rosie's violent rage at the end of the book felt as well resolved a plot thread as it should have. I probably just noticed it this time out because when Rosie asks Rose Madder at the end if she's her, I realized for the first time that she might be thinking Madder is a future version of herself that eventually wound up trapped in the painting, and feared that maybe her life was headed towards a predestined time loop with her someday turning into this bitter, diseased, and insane supernatural creature. The rage being cured by planting the tree instead means that isn't the case, and that also makes the rage seem both pointless and too easily solved. And set up far too late to truly effect the reader.
Gert is awesome. Her pissing on Norman's face was as satisfying to me as a reader as it was for her as a person with a full bladder and no toilet. Ahhh. That felt GOOD.
I love the downstairs neighbor's gunshot wound in the arm being described as "a flesh wound with pretensions". King knows the best expressions.
King connections of note: Ka is straight out of "The Dark Tower", and the character of Cynthia also later pops up in "Desperation" (and an alternate Universe version of her can be seen in Richard Bachman's "The Regulators"). Susan Day from "Insomnia" is mentioned, and both Rosie and Anna are fans of Paul Sheldon and Misery Chastain from the novel "Misery". Sheldon seems to have gotten his second writing wind, and is still churning out Misery books, which makes me smile.
I would not have enjoyed writing this book if I were Stephen King. But considering that the book actually HELPED women who were suffering and abused, I also wouldn't ever talk smack about it and would just accept the damn compliment. ***1/2.
Star Trek: Picard "Seventeen Seconds"
This is why this is my current favorite show on television and my second favorite Star Trek series after Deep Space Nine. It's just awesome.
I love when Worf tells Raffi everything she wants to hear about them working together from now on and being partners, she's struggling. She's not used to getting what she wants. When it comes to working with other people, specifically legends like Picard, her role is to be his thorn and to complain about every single thing. Worf taking her into confidence instead just blows her mind, and she's surprised into saying "Cool." This is the first situation we've seen Raffi placed in that she thinks is cool.
Changelings! Oh, big shout-out to Deep Space Nine and the Dominion War, and this suggests preventing the NEXT Dominion War is the ultimate goal of the season. Worf's contact is obviously Odo and because of Rene Auberjonois' death, he obviously couldn't appear, but hearing Worf refer to him as a friend was amazing.
Michael Dorn really, really, REALLY hated working on most of the Next Generation movies, because outside of First Contact, they had the habit of making Worf look silly for the sake of comedy. I'm betting Dorn jumped at the chance to play a version of Worf that is evolved, wise, and just purely awesome on every level. Worf tells Raffi he used to be like her. And he did. He was both Next Generation and Deep Space Nine's resident complainer. To have him turn out so emotionally healthy decades later has got to tickle Dorn pink. Worf was one of those characters that a LOT of people love, but like the Doctor on Voyager, Next Generation (and to a lesser extent DS9) misused him, usually in an effort to show what a bad father and husband he was. I loved Worf. But there were points I was annoyed by him. This version of him just instantly makes me forgive every last gripe I ever had about him. Worf on Star Trek Picard is not as awesome as Garak on Deep Space Nine. But after one and a half episodes, he's my second-favorite Star Trek character after Garak. I'm not joking.
Do you know the amazing thing? In the future parts of "All Good Things...", set only a few years before this show, it's shown that that timeline's Worf has sort of emotionally regressed outside of Starfleet after the loss of Deanna. Worf being granted this future instead is a gift.
I love Worf calling his dress Casual. Also beheadings are on Wednesday. Worf is cool now. Can you believe it?
I love Picard telling Riker to call him Number One, and I felt his shame when he let Riker down at the end. Riker's disgust with him broke my heart after seeing them grow closer all throughout the episode.
I love that Riker likes Jack a lot.
Seven of Nine had a great moment. After Jack punches out the guard watching her, she calmly says "Oh, you're insane." That kind of joke was frowned upon during the Roddenberry / Berman era. I think probably because the producers back then got it into their heads the show would feel more timeless decades later if the characters didn't speak as if they were from the given recognizable time period the show originally aired in. Sometimes a character would pump their fist and say "Yes!" but other than that, Old-School Trek had them speaking in a very arch, but reserved way. Seven's one-liner there is very much something a person in 2023 would say in those circumstances. And I think the Kurtzman era has more the right of that sort of thinking. I imagine in 30 years people will less notice the out-of-fashion way the characters speak as much as I noticed in 1996 how the Eugenics Wars never came to pass. I think worrying about music, and speech, and zippers was that era of Star Trek worrying about the wrong things that cause things to eventually be perceived as dated. I doubt audiences in 2063 will bat an eye as Seven's line and delivery here. Just like I can't remember which episode Bashir did the "Yes!" thing in anymore because it doesn't actually matter.
I love that Picard was furious at Beverly. I think he was right to be. But what I loved was his being angry and offended that she used a fear he told her in confidence about his father against him when making her decision to cut ties. And after seeing last season and how much Picard's childhood hurt him due to both his father and his mother, I think the viewer is much more over to his line of thinking than we would have been if we had seen all this occurring ourselves 25 years ago WITHOUT that context. I know it's Patrick Stewart's show, but I was honestly a bit surprised at how much on his side I was.
And that's why making him wrong on the bridge is such a huge dramatic moment that devastated me. I am totally Team Jean-Luc. But he still makes mistakes. Because he's human. Even though he's technically a synth. He's still human.
I knew they weren't going to kill Jack off in Episode 3, but that doesn't mean the show didn't play up the dramatic tension properly. At one point my mind stopped saying "There's no way they'll go through with this," and briefly shifted to "I wonder how the show would change if they DID go through with it." If the dramatic tension didn't work, I never would have thought the second thing.
My current favorite show on television. You know it's special because it's only the three seasons long. But I will cherish them as they happening (and afterwards as well). *****.
The Flash "The Mask Of The Red Death, Part One"
Favorable impression this week. It also makes me wonder what the heck happened to the real Ryan Wilder.
Good plan to bring Mark back to Team Flash. His heel-turn would have been interesting if he weren't now a series regular. But he is, so it was a mistake. Bringing him back to the good guys will make it easier to include him in future stories.
Iris was pretty insightful with Red Death in her apartment. And I like that fact, but the truth is it's unusual, and the characters usually run around doing stupid things on behalf of the plot. I am glad the show had her acting clever. But it usually doesn't, so it can argued she's acting out of character.
Iris' Royal Flush Gang trick was good because I certainly had forgotten those details myself. Well played.
The show asking me to believe Cecile is a superhero is still a really big ask. I'm not up to it yet.
The episode did a major mistake, one of the biggest I have ever seen in The Arrowverse, and I'm shocked it made it to air. But when Keon gave her defense of saving Mark, Barry says "Caitlin's right." Now if Keon had corrected him, it would have been an interesting plot-point that the team is still getting used to Keon. Because nobody did, that means it was a continuity and production error not a single person caught before it made to air. The show has never felt as sloppy as it did just then.
But like I said, the rest of the episode was pretty good all things considered. ***1/2.
Batman: The Adventures Continue: Season Three No. 2 "Old Flames"
I've gotten legit lukewarm on this title, but I liked the issue.
Mostly because it wasn't over the top, and because it dealt with character stuff. I think the moment I dug best was Harley saying that Batman looked like he wanted to slug Two-Face. One of the most interesting facets Paul Dini gave Harley Quinn is the idea that since she's a psychologist, she can get a good read on people and size them up well. Sadly, this invention happened later on in the comics, and was never explored on Batman: The Animated itself (or the rest of the DCAU after it). It was nice to see it in this comic, although let's get real, we probably should have seen it in the movie Batman And Harley Quinn too. Another reason to be underwhelmed by that flick in hindsight.
I liked this month. Celebrate the victories when you get them. ***1/2.
Rose Madder by Stephen King
"Rose Madder" is one of the least-favorite books of Stephen King he has ever written, but I've always liked it a lot. And part of me thinks he's being unfair not only on himself by dragging on it so much, but to its fans as well. It's been a few years since I read it last, but this time, as someone who has matured in their level of writing, I see aspects of it now that make me understand why King dislikes it. I still like it myself. But I understand why King doesn't.
Honestly, for years his disdain for the book pissed me off a little. Not because the book is great, or because I actually love it. But Stephen King has mentioned that women have come up to him and told him "Rose Madder" spoke to them so much, it was the thing to get them to finally leave their abusive husbands. And I don't care how disappointed King is in the story structure, or the fantasy mythology, as long as that is so, I'd take the friggin' compliment and consider writing the book entirely worthwhile. King not actually appreciating how important that is is why King is an imperfect ally to women at best.
I also need to point out that the book is a page-turner. With the exception of the boring 80 page chapter of Rosie inside the painting for the first time, the book is addictive to read. That is true of some of King's fiction but not his heavier stuff. This book is nearly 650 pages and it's still something to be devoured. I would not be ashamed of the book purely for that reason.
But this rereading I noticed a couple of drawbacks that would have made me uncomfortable if I were King too.
It's not just the Greek mythology allegory or tenuous Dark Tower connections that don't land perfectly. I have always thought that Norman Daniels was one of Stephen King's best and scariest villains. He's definitely in the running for most unambiguously evil. Like Annie Wilkes, Greg Stillson, Henry Bowers, Big Jim Rennie, and Brady Hartsfeld he seems to have no redeeming qualities, and fewer than those other five I mentioned for sure. And if I were King, I might dislike the book for that. Because King spends a LOT of time inside Norman's headspace in a way he didn't those other five loathsome characters I mentioned, even Brady Hartsfeld, and that had to have been hard on him. I don't mean hard for him as a writer. I mean hard on him as a person. I do everything is my power to stay away from evil characters who are realistically toxic, and those I do create I spend very little time in their headspace. Channeling a person like Norman Daniels in your writing is NOT fun. Some people might think writing villains is, and it can be. But when it comes to toxic people like Norman with mundane, base, real motivations it costs the writer a lot.
And I see King's struggles with it. For the first half of the book Norman is so damn scary and plausible, I think King spooked himself so badly, he pulled back on the realism for his own sanity. What King did midway through at the point Norman discovers the bull mask, is turn the character semi-comical. Him running around and crazily talking to the mask turns him into a parody of himself. For the first half of the book he's so horrible because he's realistic. He seems a LOT less realistic once King decided he had enough trying to believably write a person this terrible, and understand things from his viewpoint.
And if I were King, THAT'S the thing I'd dislike about the book. Remembering having to write Norman would be what left me creatively unfulfilled. But if it were me, I'd set aside every single misgiving I had about it and call the many abused women it's helped take back their lives it a damn win.
What's interesting about Rosie to me is that she is a seriously bad judge of character. Because Norman messed her up that badly. She is always shocked at how decent everyday people are, and how society sort of exists to look out for each other. Part of this outlook makes her seem naive and childish, but it's also a very good demonstration of what a number this guy did on her. Stuff we take for granted (like people being allowed to stay in a shelter for a few weeks) amazes her for existing at all. It's both endearing and frustrating.
I don't feel like Rosie's violent rage at the end of the book felt as well resolved a plot thread as it should have. I probably just noticed it this time out because when Rosie asks Rose Madder at the end if she's her, I realized for the first time that she might be thinking Madder is a future version of herself that eventually wound up trapped in the painting, and feared that maybe her life was headed towards a predestined time loop with her someday turning into this bitter, diseased, and insane supernatural creature. The rage being cured by planting the tree instead means that isn't the case, and that also makes the rage seem both pointless and too easily solved. And set up far too late to truly effect the reader.
Gert is awesome. Her pissing on Norman's face was as satisfying to me as a reader as it was for her as a person with a full bladder and no toilet. Ahhh. That felt GOOD.
I love the downstairs neighbor's gunshot wound in the arm being described as "a flesh wound with pretensions". King knows the best expressions.
King connections of note: Ka is straight out of "The Dark Tower", and the character of Cynthia also later pops up in "Desperation" (and an alternate Universe version of her can be seen in Richard Bachman's "The Regulators"). Susan Day from "Insomnia" is mentioned, and both Rosie and Anna are fans of Paul Sheldon and Misery Chastain from the novel "Misery". Sheldon seems to have gotten his second writing wind, and is still churning out Misery books, which makes me smile.
I would not have enjoyed writing this book if I were Stephen King. But considering that the book actually HELPED women who were suffering and abused, I also wouldn't ever talk smack about it and would just accept the damn compliment. ***1/2.
