TV Review: Phineas and Ferb, 2025

Still funny after all of these years, using the fantastical to poke fun at the everyday ridiculousness of life.

 

One of the best gifts you can give to parents of young children is kid friendly programming that somehow also manages to include sassy, cynical, funny content aimed at adults. Over the years, there have been a few shows that have done a good job of this combo technique, giving us a break from bland kids content. For years, Phineas and Ferb was such a show, one filled with bright animation, humorously designed characters, and lots of silly songs but, at the same time, highly entertaining for grown-ups due to its funny social commentary tucked into its fantastical premises. It’s been ten years since the last adventures of the two very clever step-brothers and their bossy big sister. But now Disney has revived this gem and brought it back for a new decade of viewers. How does it compare to the original? Weirdly, the transition feels seamless, despite the years that have passed since the last episode aired. Phineas and Ferb is still funny after all of these years, perfectly using the fantastical to poke fun at the everyday ridiculousness we must all face.

The series follows the adventures of small town grade schooler Phineas Flynn, a fearless inventor with genius level engineering skills, and his equally talented, but quieter, British step-brother Ferb Fletcher, as they find outrageous ways to entertain themselves during the “104 days” of summer break from school. The boys’ daily creations are always NASA-level outlandish to the irritation of Phineas’s teenaged sister Candace who is obsessed with revealing her brothers’ antics to her mom. The large cast includes Phineas and Ferb’s grade school classmates: sweet and charming Isabella, nerdy and sarcastic Baljeet, and tough, loud mouthed Buford, all of whom help with the brothers’ inventions. A regular subplot involves their pet platypus Perry who is secretly a highly athletic super-spy who regularly battles the town’s philosophizing and bumbling evil genius Dr. Doofenshmirtz. In addition to these primary characters who appear in almost all episodes, there are minor characters who appear periodically and many of them get a chance to shine in the new season, including Candace’s bestie Stacy; Doofenshmirtz’s cynical teen daughter Vanessa; and the five other girls in Isabella’s campfire scout troop who sometimes assist with the daily inventions. Each episode traditionally follows a repeating structure: 1) the brothers get inspiration for a complicated project to entertain themselves; 2) after starting they passingly notice that Perry has disappeared; 3)Perry gets assigned to thwart Doof’s next plan and 4) Doof has an ill-fated plan to take over the tri-state area; 5) Candace tries in vain to convey her brothers’ antics to her mom; Doof’s and the brothers’ unrelated inventions collide in a way that cancels them out without each inventor realizing why.

At the end of the 2015 season, Doofenshmirtz decides to take a break from being “evil” but in the reborn 2025 season, he decides to go back to his evil ways but on a smaller scale. As a result, Perry returns to duty as his super-spy nemesis. So, despite the storyline shifts in the original series finale, the new season has reset itself back to the plot rhythms of the original show. The 2025 revival continues the theme of using outrageous scientific inventions, along with humor and sarcasm, to discuss small funny elements or relatable irritations in the drudgery of life including topics such as the ridiculously long wait windows for repair or delivery appointments or the annoyance of having a long awaited television episode ruined by a co-worker’s spoiler comment. Another hallmark of the show’s humor is the way it interiorly breaks the fourth wall. The opening song always ends with Candace complaining to her mom that Phineas and Ferb are making a title sequence. The boys often reference the scientific improbability of some of their escapades. In episode 3 they create an infinite ice luge track that runs amok in the town. When Candace ends up accidentally covered in clothes from a boutique while chasing her brothers, the store clerk wants to charge her but gives her a break because he notices that she’s in a song sequence. In episode 4, the kids design the world‘s largest zoetrope using the campfire girl scouts as models, and this leads Isabella to note that animation is so easy. And one episode comments on the formulaic elements of the episodes. The revival also has lots of celebrities, including Michael Bublé playing himself and belting out a zoetrope ballad in the zoetrope episode.

In addition to the self-aware humor, the most fun thing about the new season is seeing the stock characters continuing to take on complexities and contradicting their stereotypes, including Isabella becoming a bold leader, Buford engaging in literary analysis, and Baljeet discovering his fierce side. If you have never watched the show, it’s best to flip through a few early episodes from prior seasons to catch the rhythm of the repeated plot set up and the side character arcs. Much of the show is laugh-out-loud funny but not all of the episodes land with the same top level humor and a few are a little slow. And the ongoing gag of Candace trying to convince her mom of the boys’ inventions does start to wear thin as you wonder why there’s never just a photo taken. But, for parents with younger kids or for grown-ups who just need a break, the return of Phineas and Ferb is a much needed respite of humor, sarcasm, and tight social commentary packaged in a range of subtle to over the top humor.

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The Math

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Highlights:

• Still funny after all these years
• Self-aware commentary and storytelling
• Using the outrageous to tell stories of ordinary life

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction-writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

Film Review: Predator: Killer of Killers

 All Killer, No Filler

Predator is one of my favorite franchises out there, possibly even rivalling my rabid Star Wars fandom. One of the things I love about the growing Predi-verse is that it is simply unapologetically what it is. The first two are tight, tense affairs, with a few hints at a larger universe and timeline. The years that followed brought some fun comics and video games, before the tepid AVP movie threatened to derail the whole endeavor. Then came the vastly underrated Predators, then Prey, and now the lid is off with Killer of Killers. It doesn't concern itself with silly frivolities like a super deep story, historical accuracy, subtlety or nuance. It gives us what we came for - scenery chewing hunters, wrecking everything around them and slaughtering redshirts in brutal and hilarious ways. 

Split into three(ish) parts, across the Viking era, feudal Japan and WWII in the Pacific, a different Predator (the species we now know to be called 'Yautja'), with different weapons, takes on a different warrior from each timeline. The extremely simple review is: It's really good. Like I said - it's exactly what it is. Each Yautja is unique, with badass weapons that slaughter everyone except their target in creative ways. Each target is likewise unique, a badass (with Torres, the American, playing a little too much into the aw-shucks-underdog American fantasy a little too much), that overcomes their pursuer with ingenuity and determination.

Thank god I'm safe, unless there is a drinking-game-driven Predator

This exposes the inherent flaw in the Predi-verse: They are presented as the ultimate hunter, killer of killers, etc, and yet... they always lose. Sure, they kill the NPCs with reckless abandon, but the main character always wins in the end, and sure, we see those people get picked up by squads of Predators, but the title card fight always ends with the humans on top. It was one of the things that drove me nuts about AVP - the tagline was "whoever wins, we lose", and yet, humans were the ones standing at the end. 

Perhaps the upcoming Badlands fixes this, but at a certain point, it takes the punch out of Predators treating Earth like a hunting preserve, but getting their asses kicked every time (that we see). To be honest - it's a fairly small complaint, and each one of the movies, including this one, is extremely entertaining in its own right. But like so many other cinematic universes, as it grows, it opens itself up to more and more scrutiny, especially of its own in-universe rules and composition. 

All that being said, since Disney owns the rights to Predator and nearly every other IP in the known universe, and we are clearly trying to visit every era of human history with Predators, I am available to write any of the following movies for a modest fee:

• Predator vs Stitch - Stitch is ultimately accepted by the Yautja as one of their own; Lilo disembowels her bullying classmates. Post-credit scene teases Predator vs Toothless.
• Predator vs Terminator - Dutch is brought out of stasis to fight the OG terminator; this confuses the Yautja greatly.
• Predator vs the Sith - just two hours of lightsabers and Yautja weapons
• Predor vs Ewoks - Just two hours of Predators slaughtering Ewoks
• Predator in the era of the Aztecs. Two movies - in the first, a Predator defeats an Aztec warrior, immediately before the Spanish arrive. Post-credit scene shows them taking the Aztec gold, with the Yautja watching. They become the curse of the Aztec gold, slaughtering any who possess it for taking it dishonorably. 

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The Math

Baseline Assessment: 9/10

Bonuses: None, but worth mentioning the score above includes points for not trying to hard, and just focusing on the basics. 

Penalties: -1 for the humans winning.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10 - well worth your time and attention
See more about our scoring system here.

-DESR

TV Review: Ironheart

Not the usual superhero origin story

A flawed protagonist making repeatedly questionable choices does not fit the typical trope of a superhero story. Even as a slow-paced origin story, Ironheart avoids the traditional heroic hints or setups. For those seeking a save the world, save a friend, or get justifiable revenge premise, this is not that series. Instead, we have a complex character study in a uniquely paced story that’s hard to turn away from.

Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) is a genius MIT engineering student obsessed with building a perfect Iron Man-style suit. She earns money for her pet project by helping students cheat and she soon gets expelled and is forced to return to her mom Ronnie (Anji White) and their middle-class Chicago neighborhood. While home, she is tormented by memories of her step-father Gary and her best friend Natalie being killed in a drive-by shooting. With even fewer resources available, she accepts an invitation to join a high-tech crime gang to help them physically attack and coerce billionaires into handing over their corporate assets. The gang is led by the charismatic but clearly sinister Parker Robbins (Anthony Ramos), a.k.a. The Hood, who wants to use Riri’s suit in their heists. When Riri has an urgent tech need, she turns to insecure black market tech dealer Joe (Alden Ehrenreich), a.k.a. Zeke, and coerces him into supplying her. Riri notices that Parker’s hood is exuding sinister magic and tries to figure out how to control its power by consulting with a mother/daughter mage duo. Despite her descent of questionable choices, Riri is surrounded by a supportive community of allies, including her surprisingly patient artist mother Ronnie, her talented and supportive friend Xavier (Matthew Elam), quirky mage Zelma (Regan Aliyah), and her insightful and sentient AI NATALIE (Lyric Ross). Riri alternates between pushing them away and embracing them as she tries to stop Parker and the nefarious evil that lurks inside him.

Ironheart is a mix of high points and frustrating inconsistencies. Dominique Thorne is excellent as the tortured, stressed-out genius. Her character’s personality is completely believable and immersive. The ensemble cast is surprisingly appealing. Riri’s mom Ronnie defies the stereotypical hero mom portrayal by being patient, firm, and surprisingly practical when it comes to tracking down the supernatural help her daughter needs. The heist gang consists of colorful characters who steal the scenes they are in. On the other hand, the story suffers from inconsistencies that are hard to ignore. Riri is a genius but can’t get a high-tech job to support her hobby. She’s traumatized by her friend being murdered in a drive-by but chooses to work with a violent crime gang who knows where her family is. And the heist gang’s corporate theft goals seem confusingly unlikely to be sustainable from both a contract enforceability or ongoing criminal liability perspective. This is where you need your willing suspension of disbelief—for the real-life logic leaps, not for the sci-fi tech and the magic.

However, these conflicting plot elements work when filtered through the mind of a flawed protagonist. An unreliable narrator or flawed protagonist is always an interesting storytelling device. In many ways, she seems bent on self-destruction in a way that corresponds to some variation of survivor’s guilt for the loss of her friend. She is introspective, stubborn, and emotionally damaged, with behavior that seems intentionally focused on a series of bad choices. Riri draws her inspiration from Tony Stark, a character with significant personality challenges and anti-hero vibes. Although the two characters are from very different backgrounds and life experiences, they are parallel in terms of their arrogant and sometimes irresponsible worldview.

Surprisingly, my primary comparison for Ironheart is The Bear, another working-class Chicago-based introspective series. Both shows feature uptight genius creators whose internalized trauma leads to toxic behavior and trouble for those who care about them. The ensuing chaos is played out in a uniquely paced, personality-centered story that’s hard to turn away from. Some superhero origin stories involve an immature character making bad or selfish choices that come back to haunt them before they make the pivot to heroism. Peter Parker in Spider-Man had a rough start before finding his way. Rogue in the X-Men started out as a villain before she found her heroic side. Ironheart is a story I watched waiting for the heroic realization to arrive. But when it does finally arrive, Riri remains complicated and continues to make surprising choices in a way that is intriguing but different from the norm. If you are looking for a traditional hero epic, this is not that story, and you will likely feel frustrated. But if you are interested in a complex character study with solid acting and entertaining side characters, Ironheart is a show that will give you plenty to analyze.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

Highlights:

• Appealing, unevenly paced artistic vibe
• Frustrating protagonist making confusing choices
• Excellent lead and supporting cast

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction-writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

Goodbye, Fifteenth Doctor. Hope to see you soon, Doctor Who

A clumsy finale should not overshadow a cleverly written season and a fantastic protagonist

Recency bias being what it is, viewers of this season of Doctor Who (season 2 or 15 or 41, depending on how much of a completist you want to be) will probably keep a stronger impression of the subpar conception and execution of its finale than of the much better ideas explored through the preceding episodes. This is unfortunate at a time when the show's future is still an open question. There's the upcoming miniseries The War Between the Land and the Sea, but how BBC and Disney executives will end up weighing the worth of the franchise is anyone's guess.

The first half of the finale, "Wish World," is actually a strong start, which if anything worsens the disappointment to follow. In this episode, the Rani locates the most powerful of the gods, the one who grants wishes, and pairs him with a disgruntled conspiracy theorist who embodies all the annoying traits of the manosphere. Together they transform Earth into a cisheteronormative dystopia so transparently fragile that mere disbelief destabilizes the foundations of its reality.

This is an interesting way of exploring the incongruity of contemporary fascism: it is so contrary to human nature that it needs a continuous, exhausting pretense to stay barely functional. Of course, the Doctor (particularly this Doctor) loses no time in rebelling against such a bland and boring life, and that's precisely what the Rani is counting on: the Doctor's disbelief has the power to completely break down reality, and beneath the cracks is the hidden dimension from where she hopes to rescue Omega, the banished founder of Time Lord society. This reveal leads to "The Reality War" and the quick unraveling of what up to that point was a promising plot.

The Rani and Omega are so underutilized in this two-parter that they could easily have been replaced by new characters without changing anything about the plot. It's not like these two had a lot of runtime in classic Doctor Who, but their weight in terms of lore deserved a more expanded treatment in their reintroduction. Instead, we get a rehash of "The End of Time" from 2010, when the Master almost helped the Time Lords return to our universe, only for the Doctor to slam the door in their faces. Replace "Master" with "Rani" and "Time Lords" with "Omega" and you get the idea. Once that problem is dispatched, there's still a lot of episode left, and it's dedicated to what actually mattered all along: the fate of Poppy, the little daughter of this season's companion Belinda.

We first met Poppy in "Wish World" as a putative child of the Doctor and Belinda, and the dilemma at the end of "The Reality War" is that restoring the baseline reality might delete Poppy from existence. After a barrage of technobabble, the Doctor saves both reality and Poppy, at the cost of one of his lives, and then learns that Poppy isn't actually related to him. This is a notable difference between the style of current showrunner Russell T Davies and that of his predecessor Steven Moffat: whereas Moffat relied too often on giving supporting characters a cosmic destiny, Davies is more comfortable with letting them be ordinary people. Even when companion Rose Tyler became the Bad Wolf, or companion Donna Noble became the DoctorDonna, they immediately had to be depowered for their own protection.

Also, the resolution of Poppy's story follows a thematic line that has been present since Davies's return to Doctor Who: stories about lost children. Episodes like "The Church on Ruby Road" and "Space Babies" were the most obvious examples, but if you look closely, all through these two seasons with the Fifteenth Doctor there have been various iterations of a child separated from their parents or vice versa. Davies has taken the thread left by the Chibnall era, which redefined the character of the Doctor as a lost child, and extended it to a point where it could connect with one of Davies's own signature moves: giving the Doctor a cosmically small but personally meaningful reason to sacrifice his life. In 2005's "The Parting of the Ways," after the Daleks have already been defeated, his Ninth Doctor still chooses to die to save Rose. In 2010's "The End of Time," after the Time Lords have already been defeated, his Tenth Doctor still chooses to die to save Wilfred. Likewise, in "The Reality War," after Omega has already been defeated, his Fifteenth Doctor still chooses to die to save Poppy.

Despite this neat bow with which Davies ties up the seam between Chibnall's work and his own, the execution of the season finale is too chaotic to be satisfying. The Time Hotel from "Joy to the World" makes an entrance as a deus ex machina, only to quickly be swept to the side for the rest of the episode with no more function than dropping an obvious tease for future plots; Rose Noble literally appears out of thin air as a didactic device and does nothing else; Susan Foreman's random appearance in "Wish World" is left hanging in the air; and Belinda is put in a box for most of the final battle. In fact, the way Belinda's arc concludes comes off as too underwhelming for the symbolic importance it should have. During the entire season, she provided an interesting counterpoint to the usual Doctor/companion dynamic, in that she very emphatically did not want to explore the universe. Her vehement urge to return home raised the question: what could be so important in your normal life that you'd throw away a trip through time and space? The finale answers: she has a child, and that's more important to her than billions of galaxies. It's for that child's sake that she can't wait to leave the TARDIS. It's for that child's sake that the Doctor gives his life. It's a potent statement to close the season with. And yet, the final scene in Belinda's home, once the proper reality has been restored, presents us with a muted version of Belinda, without the energy and the spark that distinguished her character. She is more interesting to watch in all the episodes preceding the finale, which deserve a rewatching as great pieces of science fiction in their own right.

Finally, the return of Billie Piper in the last shot of the finale feels like a desperate choice, on the same level as David Tennant's return two years ago. Don't get me wrong; she's a great actress. But bringing her back at this precise moment gives off the vibe of a calculated tactic to wish the show into continued existence. It's hard to tell whether this idea came from Davies or from Disney; Davies has a known tendency to repeat himself, and Disney has a known tendency to be self-sabotagingly risk-averse. The worst thing that can happen to a show about an alien who can cheat death via endless reinvention is to get stuck replaying its greatest hits.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Review: Skeleton Crew

A fun romp through the Star Wars universe with kids, pirates, aliens, robots, and a gigantic homage to The Goonies (Spoiler-free)

Before we dive in, make no mistake: Skeleton Crew is a tween-focused show, and it follows four kids who literally get lost in the Star Wars galaxy. Some folks may be surprised by this POV, but it's definitely still enjoyable for adults at the same time. This may sound corny, but watching it made me feel like I was young again. Kids deserve a show like this! I found myself thinking frequently, which is a thing I have never thought before about anything.

The four main characters are all likable and adorable, especially Neel, the looks-like-Max-Rebo youngster that somehow ISN'T an Ortolan. The show also gives the emotion, agency, and complicated backstories, which is kind of rare for most kid content.

While exploring an underground, abandoned-looking starship, a quick press of the start-engine button sends the kids blasting off into hyperspace (This part of the plot was giving me 1980s Space Camp and Explorers vibes). But where they live isn't your regular Star Wars planet—it's a world called At Attin that appears to be hiding from the rest of the galaxy.

As they search for someone who has the coordinates to guide their way back home, they encounter fearsome space pirates and all sorts of well-done CGI aliens and creatures, and even unravel a potential conspiracy about the very existence and purpose of their home world.

Being a kid's show, the subject matter is fairly light, but it's still entertaining. Jude Law joins up with the crew to become their de facto Adult, and is hiding a shady past and also Force skills. He's very good in Skeleton Crew, and manages to strike the right balance of funny, menacing, and chaotic.

As a lover of all things nautical, I adored the way the showrunners combined space piracy with actual classic pirate tropes. You get the faithful robot mate SM-33 (voiced by the wonderful Nick Frost) who has one metallic eye, pirate-y grammar (I'll be repeating "Can't say I ever heard of no At Attin" for the rest of time), and an incredibly deep knowledge of pirate lore and legend.

The bad-guy group of pirates in Skeleton Crew are also after plunder that looks straight out of the 1650's—or One Eyed Willy's ship, the Inferno, in The Goonies, all gold bangles, pieces of eight, and pearl necklaces. You'd expect Star Wars space pirates to be after digital data or Republic space credits, but that, of course, would be boring. So I'm glad they combined two worlds to make something new and different—that's been missing in Star Wars for a while. I like that there's no fan service in Skeleton Crew. You won't get Boba Fett riding a rancor or Luke Skywalker deepfakes. You just get small glimpses of the things you love about the world, fun easter eggs like random Hutts in mud baths, eopies, and even visual recreations of classic Star Wars scenes.

I don't have kids, but watching this with one would be an absolutely incredible experience, and a great way to give them a show that's their own but also something you could enjoy as an adult Star Wars fan, too. I hope more people give Skeleton Crew a shot. The short, 7-episode season flies by and actually ends on a cliffhanger so here's to a renewal!

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, growing corn and giving them pun names like Timothee Chalamaize, and thinking about fried chicken.

The Acolyte: the polemical side of the Force

Canon exists to be reshuffled every once in a while

From the Star Wars prequels we learned that the so idolized Jedi were too drunk on their own importance to notice the falling dominoes until it was late. However, the self-inflicted decline of the Jedi developed over a long time; Anakin Skywalker was born in a galaxy that was already headed for chaos. The Disney+ series The Acolyte takes advantage of this narrative opportunity and shows us the widening cracks in the Jedi Order a century before the prequel trilogy. Predictably, it was a bad idea to try to maintain a monopoly on the Force and treat alternative doctrines with suspicion, although it would take many years, until the time of the sequel trilogy, for a Jedi to learn that lesson. In the manner of classical tragedy, The Acolyte illustrates the lamentable consequences of sticking to a rigid view of who should have the right to wield power. And just like happens in tragedies, the characters who are unable to evolve and adjust their views end up dead, but not before leaving behind a trail of ruined lives and numerous regrets.

While yet another story about the mistakes of the Jedi shouldn't have surprised anyone, The Acolyte has ideas of its own to propose. First, the use of twin protagonists who take opposite paths challenges the narrative of fate that has so often prevailed through the Star Wars timeline. Osha and Mae, born of the Force in probably the same manner Anakin would a century later, lead parallel lives that almost feel like diverging timelines. This is reinforced with the reveal that, at some obscure metaphysical level, they're actually one person. The same girl could as easily have gone the way of good or evil. If there are Chosen Ones, it's each of us who does the choosing.

The flat opposition of good vs. evil is another of the Star Wars staples that The Acolyte dares to challenge. Back when the Jedi where the only authorized enForcers in the galaxy, back when there was no big baddie to rebel against, it was dangerously easy for the Jedi to accumulate bad habits and lack the perspective to correct them. It's no wonder that the series inserts a couple of scenes where there's friction between the Jedi Order and the Galactic Senate; as a rule, things get nasty when spiritual power and military power are in the same hands. As a crude analogy, let's remember when the Catholic Church was the sole authorized (indeed, self-authorized) provider of salvation in Europe, and then Luther's dissent gave rise to competing institutions. The Catholic Church's insistence in removing all other spiritual practices led to millions of deaths.

At the time of The Acolyte, the Jedi Order is taking the first steps on the road to a similar catastrophe. Much like the medieval Church, it's adamant about not answering to secular power and in preserving its exclusive position as arbiters and teachers of spiritual matters. When four Jedi arrive in the planet Brendok to investigate a possible miracle and end up finding a secret sect of independent Force users, their unquestionable belief in the wrongness of dissent is what sets the tragedy in motion.

The doomed hero is Jedi Master Sol, who until the moment of his death remains convinced that Osha and Mae needed to be protected from whatever tradition their mothers wanted to teach them. In a display of arrogance resembling the real-life kidnapping of the boy Edgardo Montara, Sol decides that he knows what's best for these girls who are growing up in a culture he never bothers to try to understand. At some level he must be aware that he acted wrong, because he's taken pains to hide the truth of what happened, but he's too good at lying to himself.

The Acolyte follows the example of The Last Jedi in deconstructing the myth of the Jedi Order and the dichotomy of the Force. However, unlike The Last Jedi, it's limited in how much it can deviate, because The Acolyte is a prequel and events need to lead to the status quo we met in The Phantom Menace. What is nevertheless gained by placing The Acolyte so far back in the past is an unspoken denunciation: the fall of Anakin is not an isolated event. Sooner of later, the institutional power of the Jedi was going to be demolished by one of their own. But this was not destiny—The Acolyte doesn't subscribe to such a simplistic view of history. The hard truth is that the end of the Jedi is the result of a chain of avoidable choices.

What is lost by the choice of temporal setting is what has always been lost in the Disney era of Star Wars. Disney is way too cautious about rocking the boat, and The Rise of Skywalker demonstrated how far the company is willing to walk back to please everyone. Even if the Jedi are sincerely sworn to the goals of peace and harmony, their discipline does deep harm to the children they remove from their families. It shouldn't be shocking to lay bare the self-destructive tendencies that the Jedi have been cultivating for the centuries they've spent dominating the galaxy. Yes, it's true that the enemies of the Jedi turn out to be space nazis (there's only so far you can buy into a "power through emotion" creed before you fall into irreversible fanaticism), but that doesn't automatically turn the Jedi into saints. Treating the Force as a dichotomy is part of the problem. The Jedi antagonized Osha for mourning her family, the same way they'd later fail to see Anakin's emotional needs.

Everyone has flaws. What dooms the Jedi is that their method for overcoming personal flaws doesn't comport with psychological reality, the one type of reality we should ask of a story about space wizards. Admitting this does not negate the evil of the likes of Palpatine. Rather, it helps understand why the Jedi, with all their lofty ideals, were so unprepared against the formation of the Galactic Empire. The Acolyte, despite its uneven pacing and its tangible fear of its own ambition, adds to the picture of an institution that did more than any enemy to undermine its own cause.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Recap: The Acolyte Episodes 1 & 2 — Lost / Found and Revenge / Justice

The latest Star Wars TV series kicks off with a bang chronicling the adventures of Jedi 100 years before the Skywalker era. 

It's been a long time since we've had a Skywalker-less Star Wars TV show. In fact, it's been nearly two years since the epic and extraordinary Andor.

With The Acolyte, we get our first glimpse of the High Republic, a time of peace of stability in the galaxy with few (if any) of our favorite characters. Yoda is definitely alive during this epoch, but it remains to be seen whether he'll make an appearance. Star Wars shows do love their easter eggs (though often times it's blurry distinction between a knowing wink and just blatant fan service — looking at you, Boba Fett-riding-a-rancor).

Episode 1

Carrie Anne Moss Was Born to Play a Jedi

The first episode opens with a mysterious cloaked figure asking for the local Jedi, then proceeding to pick a fight with Master Indara, who's played by none Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity from the Matrix movies). Moss was absolutely born to play a Jedi, as she oozes effortless cool, calm, and zen-like wisdom. 

Mae (the unidentified, force-using attacker) cites "unfinished business" as they begin fighting. The stunt choreography is stellar, and it's fascinating to see a Jedi ward off steel edge weapons. That is, until Indara succumbs to one planted right in the chest. 

I refuse to believe that they'd only have Carrie-Anne Moss play a bad-ass Jedi for just a few minutes, so I hope that she'll be shown in flashbacks in future episodes. It's clear that Mae has a vendetta against Jedi, so we'll have to eventually learn the reason for her vengeance. 

This Is Getting Out of Hand. Now, There Are Two of Them!

Across the galaxy, a woman who looks identical to Mae wakes up on a spaceship clutching her chest — was she dreaming about the events that just took place? It's unclear. Her name is Osha and she's a meknek, a spaceship mechanic on a Trade Federation cruiser. Turns out she's a former Jedi who left the order, which becomes clear when two Jedi arrive unannounced to speak with her. 

But these aren't the stolid, over serious, and brown-robed Jedi from Attack of the Clones, though. During this era, their uniforms are white and gold, and they wear their lightsabers in leather holsters. They seem, for all intents and purposes, more like space cops than a mystical order of warriors. Like NCIS: Coruscant.

This new Jedi, a serious and stilted man named Yord, is a former colleague of Osha, and he's here to confront her about the murder of Indara. The suspect in the crime matches Osha's description, but it's clear that Osha has an alibi (on the ship working and not across the galaxy, girl has an alibi). Despite this, they take her into custody because they suspect her of betraying the order. 

Take Me Down to the Coruscant City

At the Jedi Temple, Master Sol (played by famed Korean actor Lee Jung-jae of Squid Game fame) is teaching younglings about the nature of the Force. Some things never change, and I shall never tire of seeing tiny baby alien versions of young Jedi. After class is dismissed, he speaks with Vernestra Rwoh, a Mirialan Jedi that hardcore Star Wars fans may recognize from the High Republic comics and novels.

She informs him of Indara's death, and that the suspect is one of his former students. He seems skeptical of Osha's alleged crime, and it's touching to see him appear so emotional. In contrast, the Jedi we know and love from the original trilogy and prequels are near-monastic in their devotion to being unattached to human connections. 

Master Sol sets off to see about this situation with his current Padawan Jecki Lon (who is a delightfully precocious and capable student). Meanwhile, on the prison ship transporting Osha to Coruscant, there's a mutiny by hardened and very weird space criminals (the whole scene is super entertaining, especially the strange fleshlike, alien-mouth cover). She declines to participate and crash lands on a frozen planet (thankfully not Hoth — it seems like we're foregoing the monoclime planets that dot the Star Wars galaxy). 

Osha is approached by a child, and she chases after her. We're not sure if this is a real or a dream, but it turns out she's talking to her twin sister (as a child) on her home planet of Brendok. 

From this premonition, she learns that Mae is still alive in fact, and that Mae killed Indara. We also learn that Osha used to be Sol's Padawan — he rescued her from a fire as a child. And he was certain that Mae died there. The backstory is slowly building, but there's so much we still don't know. Fortunately, Sol and Yord arrive to rescue her, and they believe that she's innocent. 

A Red Lightsaber

The final scene we see Mae walking up to a mysterious figure at a distance wielding a red lightsaber and wearing some sort of helmet, and he challenges her to kill a Jedi without a weapon. She, it seems, is the acolyte of the show's title. 

But who is this man?!!? In The Phantom Menace, everyone's favorite conehead Ki-Adi-Mundi says that the Sith have been extinct for a millenium. So who's this new guy? We'll have to see. 

Episode 2

One of the coolest things so far about The Acolyte is that we get a look into the regional offices of Jedi across the galaxy (more evidence that Jedi are cops). This episode opens with Mae blasting her way into a temple on a remote planet and attempting to murder Jedi Master Torbin, who's hovering in a meditative state. She can't break through his force field, however, and flees. This sort of transcendental meditation is impressive, and the kind of bad-ass Jedi power I've always wondered about. 

Good Twin / Bad Twin

Master Sol informs Coruscant that Mae (the evil twin) is the one killing Jedi, and he learns that she's taken another victim on a different planet. She's working with a crook named Qimir (incredibly played by everyone's favorite Floridian from The Good Place, Manny Jacinto) to concoct a poison to kill the meditative monk.

Sol and Osha discuss what's going on while traveling en route to the latest crime, and they come to terms with the fact that Mae may be alive. It's got to be hell on both of the dealing with the trauma of their joint past, as well as the truth that a long lost sibling is now alive and possibly evil.

And evil she may be, but there's possibly a reason. Mae returns to the meditative Jedi and offers him the chance of either confessing a crime to the Council or killing himself via poision — and he selects the poison. Is this a confession of guilt? As more time passes, we learn more hints that maybe Mae isn't acting out of pocket, that maybe her vengeance is earned. 

After Mae flees the scene, Osha approaches Qimir pretending to be Mae so she can learn what's going on. It's here that we see what a great actor Amanda Stenberg is — she portrays both characters so well and so differently so when she pretends to be one playing another, it's so clear that it's not the truth. (Fun fact: Stenberg had her breakout performance as Rue in the Hunger Games.)

Qimir feigns innocence but gives up Mae, claiming that he just gunruns for Hutts and provides supplies to criminals. Apart from that, he doesn't seem to know much, but what he does know for sure that Mae wants revenge on four Jedi. She's gotten two already, which means that now we're in a time crunch as she's only got Kelnacca and Sol left. 

Master Sol manages to confront Mae, and they have a fairly epic fight. Truly, the fight choreo continues to be super entertaining. He outfights and outsmarts her, though, in a scene that almost feels like something from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Sol demands to know who's training her, but we don't learn. That's the million dollar question these days, and I can't WAIT to find out, too. He's apparently taken great pains to hide his true identity, even from Mae as Sol force probes her mind. He shocks her by informing her that Osha is in fact alive, and she seems aghast. What happened to these sisters?

She flees, but we know that she has two targets left — including Kelnacca on Khofar.

A WOOKIEE JEDI IS EVERYTHING I'VE DREAMED OF

Kelnacca, we learn, is a Wookiee Jedi, and it's absolutely incredible. Everyone knows Wookiees are fantastic, brute-strength warriors. But when you combine mystical Force powers? How would they not be unstoppable! When we see Kelnacca in action taking out some raiders, it's jaw dropping. He uses the Force to pull the attacker's weapons then literally rips the metal guns in two.

Next week we'll see him in a more epic battle, I imagine. Can't wait! These two episodes have definitely introduced more questions than answers, but I think it's setting us up for something awesome. 

--

The Math

Baseline score: Both get a solid 8.

Bonuses: This is a brand-new glimpse of a different Star Wars era than most of us are used to, and it's fun; You don't know have to be a big fan or know any easter eggs to enjoy the story.

Proto Gonk droid count: 1 

POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, new NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, Vidalia onions, and growing corn and giving them pun names like Anacorn Skywalker. 

TV Review: X-Men '97

A nostalgic return to the addictive X-Men adventures of the '90s

Back in the '90s—before iPhones and streaming apps—a long week of work or school would be rewarded with a lazy Saturday morning of sugary breakfast cereal and X-Men cartoons. The original X-Men: The Animated Series stood out from the other Saturday morning entertainment because of its diverse characters, edgy storylines, heavy social justice commentary, and soap-opera-level romantic entanglements. Although X-Men comics had been around for decades, the weekly episodes brought the adventures of billionaire mentor Charles Xavier and his team of sarcastic, imperfect, stressed-out superheroes to a wider audience.

The original Saturday morning animated series ran from 1992 to 1996. Eventually, three feature films were made, followed by other animated X-Men shows and even more feature films. However, after all the expansions in film, television, and comics, Disney+’s X-Men '97 instead returns to the retro format of the 1990s series and picks up where the '90s show left off. X-Men '97 is not a reboot, adaptation, or sequel. It is a continuation. Watching it feels like stepping back in time. X-Men '97 assumes viewers know the entire previous backstory of the characters, so viewers who have never consumed X-Men in any form may need to skim a few episodes of the original show (also conveniently available on Disney+).

Here’s a quick refresher: Charles Xavier is a powerful telepath who runs a school for “gifted” children in an era when humanity is evolving to a new level of superhuman capabilities. “Gifted” means mutated into having some sort of superpower. (Younger viewers can think of the story as a precursor to My Hero Academia.) Contrary to other superhero stories, in X-Men those with special powers (mutants) are hated and feared by the rest of humanity. As a result, they often hide their true nature or must face overt racism and abuse. Xavier builds a school where young mutants can learn in safety and hone their special powers. As the students grow up, they become X-Men, a team of superbeings who act as guardians and protectors from various villains while still trying to live their day-to-day lives. Each member of the team has their own terrifying power, tragic backstory, and complicated emotional baggage to navigate as they learn to trust each other while battling powerful villains. A primary antagonist in the show is Xavier’s lifelong best friend/frenemy, Erik Lehnsherr a/k/a Magnus (a/k/a Magneto). Magnus wants to violently confront the oppression mutants face from humans while Xavier wants to pursue peaceful co-existence. The struggle is a general allegory of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Throughout the series, the two philosophies battle as Magneto wreaks havoc and Xavier tries to save and protect. In the finale of the first series, a critically injured Charles Xavier says an emotional goodbye to his young students, leaving original X-Man, Scott (Cyclops) as de facto leader.

X-Men '97 opens in the post-Xavier era. A well-armed hate group, the Friends of Humanity, is using newly acquired weapons to hunt down, neutralize, and kill those with special powers. Scott struggles to lead the team in Xavier’s absence while also dealing with the rise in hate crimes against mutants and dealing with his wife Jean’s pregnancy. Telepath Jean wants Scott to abandon the X-Men so they can raise their child in peace. But things take a turn when long-time adversary Magneto appears with a startling message from Xavier.

As in the original series, the core members of the team are the focus of the show. The new show particularly focuses on Scott, Jean Grey, and Storm/Ororo, who can manipulate the weather. Also featured is Rogue, a southerner who debilitatingly absorbs the powers and memories of anyone she touches, so she spends her life avoiding direct contact with others. This complicates her romantic entanglement with Remy (Gambit), a Louisiana native who can charge objects with energy and use them as weapons. Additional returning characters are fan-favorite Wolverine, Beast, Jubilee, Bishop, and Morph.

Despite the advances in animation since 1996, X-Men '97 maintains the old, slightly stiff animation style of the '90s show. The show also maintains the original visual design and voice style of the characters, which further draws viewers into the retro effect. Many of the characters, including Rogue, Storm, and Wolverine, have the same voice actors from the original series. For those looking for nostalgia, this will be a welcome surprise. Although the character design for most of the X-Men remains the same, a few are slightly changed. Jubilee’s face and eye design is updated; and Morph, the shapeshifter, now has a pale, helmet-like head versus the regular, average human face he had in the original series. Morph is also used as a gateway to brief visuals of other X-Men when he momentarily shapeshifts into offscreen heroes, including Colossus, Angel, and Psylock. His flash transformations into familiar old characters are a fun surprise each time.

The initial episodes of X-Men '97 each end with great plot twists to hook viewers, especially if they’ve never read the comics. Wild plot twists and mature themes were a defining element of the original series, making it a gateway for future animated stories like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Naruto, and other animated series that move beyond surface fights and adventures and dig into emotions and relationships. X-Men '97 continues to lean into that original storytelling strategy, and will fill a nostalgic place in the hearts of long-time viewers. And, with the intense and expansive source material to draw from, X-Men '97 should have plenty of complicated and emotional plot twists to maintain the new show for as long as needed.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

Highlights

• Lots of nerdy nostalgia
• Old-fashioned art design and animation
• Strong social commentary and great plot twists

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

Zootopia+ expands on the secondary characters from the movie

A series of vignettes on how these talking animals of different sizes and habits make coexistence work

Since 2016, we've been wishing for a sequel to Zootopia. The concept of a prosperous city where all kinds of animals live together in peace is endlessly fertile with story material, which makes it odd that it hadn't sparked its own franchise until now. Just over the past couple of years, Disney+ has streamed Monsters at Work, Olaf Presents, Baymax!, Cars on the Road and Forky Asks a Question. It was well past time to revisit Zootopia. If we can't have a second movie, this series of shorts is the next best thing.

Zootopia+ is composed of six episodes, ranging between 7 and 9 minutes in length, that expand on the lives of secondary characters from the 2016 film. These episodes are arranged in chronological order to match each character's appearance in the story. This narrative device has the advantage of satisfying the curiosity of viewers who were left hungry for more time with characters who hadn't been given enough focus, and the disadvantage of limiting itself to the events of the original film, as if reinforcing the suspicion that there aren't more stories to tell in that setting.

Hopp on Board follows the parents of Judy Hopp right after she left her hometown for the big city. This episode is a breakneck chase that confronts the Hopps with the realization that their daughter was right: life outside Bunnyburrow can be fun and exciting.

The Real Rodents of Little Rodentia is a parody of reality TV, complete with stressful wedding planning and bridesmaid jealousy, centered on the ostensibly mafialike family of Fru-Fru the shrew, who after a close brush with death decides she doesn't need so much drama in her life.

Duke: The Musical is a jaw-droppingly bleak episode, disguised as an absurdly over-the-top monologue sung by the small-time thief Duke Weaselton, a man apparently fated to stay broke the rest of his life.

The Godfather of the Bride continues from where we left Fru-Fru, whose father takes a moment at her wedding party to answer the biggest lingering question from Zootopia: how on Earth did a tiny rodent climb the ladder of power and become a mob boss? Turns out he made the right friends and replaced a band of bullies with one of bigger bullies.

So You Think You Can Prance puts the spotlight on the cheerful and soft-hearted Officer Clawhauser, who briefly gets to indulge his dream of sharing a stage with the superstar Gazelle, and in the process reveals an unseen side of his boss, Chief Bogo.

Dinner Rush is a simple but effective comedy sketch about a restaurant waitress struggling to finish her shift in time when the sloth Flash brings his girlfriend for a painfully slow date. This episode leads directly to the ending scene of the movie, where our protagonist Judy stops the same sloth for speeding.

With regard to comedy, this series fulfills its mission easily. The animators at Disney know their art, and here they showcase their ability to provoke laughter with simultaneous layers of slapstick, parody, innuendo, absurdism, hyperbole and expertly timed rug-pulling.

However, as a broader look into the world of Zootopia, we get very little. A second season, if it ever comes to pass, needs to unshackle itself from the timeline of the film and go deeper into the dynamics of this extremely diverse and complex society. The original Zootopia was good comedy, but it was better social commentary, and that's where this setting can truly shine. For the time being, these animated shorts will have to suffice.

 

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

Marvel remains faithful to its TV formula: start promising, end meh

Yet another Marvel character with great potential becomes trapped by the insatiable sequel-teasing machine

Once upon a time, a short scene after the ending of Iron Man 2 sufficed to tease Thor. That's no longer satisfactory for Marvel continuity completists. Now the stories themselves are being increasingly invaded by the promise of later stories, with less and less space for what they have to say about themselves. If there's a unifying theme for the MCU Phase 4, it seems to be about successively sacrificing each character in the service of selling another. Thus a discussion of the problems with She-Hulk needs to be, unfortunately, a boring retread of the current problems with the rest of the MCU. Black Widow exists to set up Hawkeye, which exists to set up Echo. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is a 5-hour ad for Captain America 4. The latter half of WandaVision is derailed by the need to set up Doctor Strange 2 and The Marvels. This trend reached its self-devouring culmination in the miniseries She-Hulk, which was hijacked since its very first episode by the decision to tease whatever movie Bruce Banner will next appear in.

In a rare example of human-sized stakes, She-Hulk's ongoing quest through her series is to land a decent boyfriend. That's a perfectly valid quest; the current state of society has relegated love and happiness to Holy Grail status. To write a superpowered woman in a dating plot lends the story a magnifying lens with which to explore contemporary gender politics, body image issues, unfair double standards, online harassment, work/life balance, and the still unfinished work of 21st-century feminism. However, since one of She-Hulk's superpowers is to cross the metafictional barrier, her quest becomes one of seizing control of her own narrative and defeating the usual entitled manchildren who throw a fit whenever there's a strong woman on the screen.

The metafictional layer placed on top of She-Hulk allows for further development of a fascinating concept that was first hinted at in WandaVision and then explored more overtly in Eternals: Marvel heroes are prisoners of the franchise. They can never have their own lives. They're toys for Kevin (sorry, K.E.V.I.N.) to play with again and again and again. Since Disney can never have enough money, the story can never be allowed to end. At the extradiegetic level, this means that every movie has another one looming in the horizon, with the actors being replaced as they age (so we have rising characters written as successors to Captain America, Hawkeye, and soon Iron Man). At the diegetic level, this means that the original status quo must prevail. One brief line in She-Hulk establishes that the Sokovia Accords have been repealed, which returns things to the way they were before Civil War (not that our heroes paid any attention to the Accords after Civil War either). From watching Moon Knight or Ms. Marvel, you'd never guess that the Blip happened at all. Spider-Man: No Way Home is so averse to having a plot of its own that it unburies five other movies and then removes itself from the continuity. Things must remain just as they've always been, because the road must remain open for the next movie.

The perennial present isn't a big problem in comic books; readers accept that the heroes get rewritten and rebooted and updated all the time. That's how Batman has stayed at the age of vaguely thirty-something since 1939. But maintaining an unchanged state of affairs in the MCU demands resorting to overcomplicated excuses because this franchise burdened itself with the impossible pretense that all its stories happen together, so the setting must be kept as generic as possible to accommodate every bit of the story, because every bit of it is equally inviolable canon. Here we have an interesting case study in how far narrative conventions can be stretched before they break: this is a story that has been stuck in a neverending second act since 2012. Instead of pulling a Days of Future Past and restarting the timeline, the MCU doubles down and insists that even the other Marvel movies not made by Marvel are part of the same big story.

What this means for Phase 4 is an unsolvable dilemma. If the writers of a new show want to focus on their plot and not have to bother with the rest of the MCU, we get an isolated oddity (like Moon Knight). But if the writers want to build links that establish where their show is relative to the rest, we get not so much a show as an extended trailer for what's next (like She-Hulk).

She-Hulk could have been so much better. I've said the same of WandaVision, and Shang Chi, and Doctor Strange 2, and Eternals, and for exactly the same reason: the story cannot move past its To Be Continued status. Forget about this story, because The Show Must Go On. She-Hulk's desperate efforts to make her show her own stood no chance against the popularly awaited return of Daredevil and the news that Bruce Banner has a son. Although the writers of She-Hulk are obviously aware of the problem (just look at the title of the finale), their solution comes off as disingenuous. After an intentionally ridiculous number of Final Boss fights pile up simultaneously, She-Hulk decides that her actual enemy is Marvel Studios, so she breaks into the corporate headquarters and makes a reasoned speech about the clichés of the superhero genre and the intrusion of cameos into what should be her moment of triumph. The irksome thing about this writing choice is that it means Marvel acknowledges the problem with the Marvel formula, but can't be bothered to innovate. The protagonist states what we've been saying about the MCU, only to give us—not even more of the same, but less than the same. Somehow she saved the day. What happened, you ask? We've got no time, and look, Bruce has a son!

Having She-Hulk name the bad writing we've been complaining about for quite a while, only to railroad the ending of the show with the same old sequel bait we know to expect, feels like an extended version of another irritating Marvel tic: I point out the absurdity of my joke, so that when I go ahead and tell you the joke, you can no longer point out the absurdity. In this case, She-Hulk's monologue is presented as: I write my own harsh review, so that when I give you a mediocre ending anyway, you can no longer give me a harsh review.

I'd say good try, Marvel, but it isn't really a good one.

You see, there's a deeper problem in how She-Hulk pretends to listen to an alternate opinion before giving its protagonist her happy ending: the underlying conflict, which we're suddenly expected to believe is between She-Hulk and Marvel Studios, is pulled out of a hat. When She-Hulk visits the Al G. Rhythm in charge of all Marvel content, it fails to convey the same gravitas as Neo visiting the Architect. By superhero rules, this is supposed to be her ultimate epic battle. Not against the Abomination, not against Titania, not against Intelligencia, but against K.E.V.I.N., a surprise villain we'd been given zero hints about. For a moment there's the faintest hope that Marvel Studios will show some honest introspection, but it turns out to be a big joke. How are we meant to read the power dynamic here? Did She-Hulk defeat K.E.V.I.N.? Does K.E.V.I.N. still control her life behind the scenes? Will She-Hulk win all her future battles by rewriting the script? Depending on the answer, either K.E.V.I.N. or She-Hulk hold omnipotent control over the MCU, but knowing Marvel, this possibility is unlikely to be revisited. The purpose of inserting K.E.V.I.N. here is not to criticize Kevin Feige's stranglehold over the franchise, or address the machine-like uniformity of Marvel plots, but to sneak in the word "Nexus" like WandaVision did earlier. The great reveal bears no relation to the story we're watching. The ending bears no relation to the story we're watching. The story we're watching bears no relation to the story we're watching. It's Easter eggs all the way down.

She-Hulk's style of self-reference and self-parody is the kind of daring experimentation that WandaVision should have ended with. Instead, we're left with a more troubling reminder of WandaVision: perfunctory gestures toward a pending conversation on how society responds to strong women. This is a topic both shows allude to, but don't actually want to discuss. The internet trolls recruited by Intelligencia end up serving as a mere reminder that internet trolls exist. She-Hulk doesn't use them to say anything about online misogyny, only to point at it. The real-life manosphere has spread nonsense about this show in the same terms the script gives to its fictional trolls. OK, we get it: Marvel knew there would be a nasty reaction from an annoying minority. The producers did their homework: the leader of the hate group regurgitates old talking points we're tired of seeing repeated a thousand times in YouTube comments. The bad faith arguments are copied beat by beat and left untouched. Most crucially, the show pretends to engage with the discussion by merely representing it. But don't be fooled: She-Hulk has no time for taking a stance on toxic masculinity. Intelligencia is not there to add meaning to the story; it's only there to let us know that Marvel knows. It's like the studio naïvely believes that its tactic of preemptive self-deprecation will work on meta-ironic edgelords (i.e., "Twitter armor").

Such anxious defensive moves (the return of fan-favorite Wong, the return of fan-favorite Daredevil, the return of fan-favorite Hulk) feel calculated as a way of apology for daring to waste fans' time with a woman-led series. She-Hulk got trapped between her natural impulse to grow as a protagonist and the producers' unconfessed fear that too much growth would provoke another Captain Marvel-type backlash. This aversion to growth was literal: the digital design of She-Hulk was reportedly made smaller, the only conceivable explanation being that the studio was worried that a more muscular shape in a woman would turn off male viewers.

What results from this intricate web of preventative counter-counter-measures is, at the end of the day, the addition of She-Hulk to the pile of toys in Kevin Feige's drawer. He'll take her out to play again some day, and then she'll go back into storage. Like Wanda, like the Falcon, like Loki, like Ant-Man, She-Hulk is a tool, useful for promoting upcoming releases. The story is not about its characters. The story is about the imperative to prolong the story. Perpetually deferred resolution is the curse of being an MCU character. That is, too, the curse of being an MCU viewer.

The Math

Baseline Assessment: 7/10.

Bonuses: +1 for effective jokes, +3 for opening the MCU to the mundane side of superpowered life.

Penalties: −2 for the frustratingly bumpy pacing of the first episode, −3 for demonstrating the exploitation of digital artists.

Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.

POSTED BY: Arturo Serrano, multiclass Trekkie/Whovian/Moonie/Miraculer, accumulating experience points for still more obsessions.

This is Not a Review of The Book of Boba Fett

 

Unlike the other properties which I have written non-reviews of, I actually watched this one. That's just the journalistic integrity you get at an Award Winning Fanzine(tm). I also am eschewing my usual weekly post about shows I love, because, well.... The Book of Boba Fett isn't very good. There, I said it. That's your review.

But this isn't a review, because, for very different reasons than Joker, it doesn't need one. This show, I think, was made for me, because if you take a bad-ass killing machine and put it in some sweet armor, you are like 75% of the way there already. It's not good, but am I going to watch every episode on release day? Absolutely. So I am also unqualified to review it.

The problem with TBoBF (aside from that title, dear lord, careful not to cut yourself on your edge, Star Wars), is that it attempts to cruise on Boba Fett's cool factor.

I actually touched on this early on in my Mondays on Mandalore series, but it bears repeating here: Does Boba Fett work without the mask? Just like the Joker, part of that cool factor comes from mystery, and that is exceptionally true of villains and morally grey characters. Boba Fett became the legend that he is (in real life), because he was mysterious and you could imagine any amount of fantastical back story for him. Then we got his back story, and it was dumb.

***Tangent alert***

There has been a lot of chatter lately about how George Lucas would have done the sequels better, which, ok yeah, they weren't great (more on that in a second), but seriously y'all? Did you watch the prequels? Is that what you want? Trade federations and board meetings? Stop it. 

***End of tangent alert***

I guess that's where I sit with TBoBF - it's watchable, I guess. I actually enjoyed the sequels while I was watching them - there are some great scenes and good characters, it's just edited about as well as Suicide Squad. Two episodes in, and I am hoping for more - although I am pretty sure everything right now is just getting us caught up with where Boba is at, and there will be some big twist shortly.

To me, it's a question of intent vs execution - and what it's standing up against. We have had a run of really great Star Wars shows - the conclusion of the Clone Wars, the Bad Batch, and obviously, The Mandolorian. All of those had deep themes and strong emotional cores. Again, maybe it's coming, and this is all preamble, but so far we have a crime lord who hasn't committed any crimes, and is in the middle of Dances with Tusken Raiders. 

It's not unwatchable, but it took off his helmet, put him in pajamas, and tried to sell us on it being the same Boba Fett. Hopefully they get back to him being cool, and fast.

Sorry for all the Futurama gifs

Dean is the author of the 3024AD series of science fiction stories. When not holed up in his office tweeting obnoxiously writing, he can be found watching or playing sports, or in his natural habitat of a bookstore. 

Thursday Morning Superhero

In this month's installment I wanted to focus on the comic book streaming content that is landing on your television for May and June.  Invincible reached its upsetting conclusion and the Falcon and the Winter Soldier finally gave us the Captain America I have been waiting for since Steve hung up the shield.  Invincible, despite the upsetting ending which I anticipated after reading the series, has been renewed for two more seasons and I couldn't be more excited. 

Sweet Tooth:

Last week Netflix surprised us with an official trailer for the upcoming series based on the phenomenal series Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire.  When it was first announced I was very excited, but am always concerned when a series I love gets adapted. Sweet Tooth tells the story about a hybrid kid named Gus who is raised during a mysterious plague.  Humans who catch the disease are dying and there isn't a cure, but a new breed of part human and part animal children are being born and are immune.  Gus is part human and part deer and quickly learns that life outside of the sheltered farm his dad raised him on is much more complex.  This is possibly my second favorite comic book of all-time and I really hope that it is as good as it looks.

Loki:

The next Marvel series that is hitting Disney Plus is Loki and is much different than I expected.  Launching in June, Loki is tasked with traveling through time to undo the damage done during Infinity War.  The cast features Owen Wilson and feels oddly similar to a certain time travel episode of Gravity Falls. That is intended as a compliment and I can't wait to see what Easter eggs are sprinkled throughout.

Jupiter's Legacy:

It has been a long time since I read this series, but I remember enjoying it.  Mark Millar books tend to be hit or miss with me, but you have to credit his ability to get his work adapted for both the small and large screen.  Most of his work that has been adapted (Logan, Kingsman, and Kick-Ass) has been enjoyable and I am curious how much of this series I remember.  It hits Netflix this Friday so I am not sure I will be able to locate the correct long box to check it out, but I am still excited to fill the void that the end of Invincible and Falcon and the Winter Soldier left.

POSTED BY MIKE N. aka Victor Domashev -- comic guy, proudly raising nerdy kids, and Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012.