Star Trek: Picard — Hits and misses

Star Trek: Picard attempted to go where almost no Star Trek has gone before: incorporating foundation laid by the episodic The Next Generation into the story-arc (read: “space opera”) trend that’s all but taken over modern science fiction.

I wrote “almost” because Enterprise went for an arc with its Xindi War storyline. But in doing so, it was using characters who were still relatively new to the Star Trek universe, not beloved characters from more than three decades earlier. (Has it really been that long?)

Predictably, there are some hiccups along the way. But Picard mostly succeeds, with more hits than misses.

The misses

In a word, pacing. The show starts too quickly and ends almost too abruptly. The first three episodes could have been condensed into one, and the whirlwind finish could have been drawn out for a little more suspense. As a storyteller, I know the importance of grabbing an audience quickly, and Picard doesn’t do that. It relies largely on our established connection to the main character to keep us interested.

It can afford to do so because, well, it’s Star Trek. But it’s sloppy and unnecessary. Star Trek: The Motion Picture did the same thing with its seemingly interminable prologue — and it’s still being criticized for it four decades later. Picard doesn’t step in it that badly, but if this had been a new series involving characters we didn’t know and love, would we have continued watching? I suspect many would not have.

Despite the slow start, I found myself wishing that Picard would have developed a deeper connection with Dahj early on. Most of his emotional tie to her is expressed in her connection to Data, and I wanted to see something a bit more explicit here: a scene where, perhaps, they bonded more personally. A minor quibble.

It was never entirely clear to me whether Dr. Agnes Jurati (Alison Pill) makes a certain fateful decision because she’s convinced or compelled to do so. It’s a muddled bit of storytelling that could have been cleared up by more precise storytelling. I wanted to like the Jurati character but found her annoyingly wishy-washy, especially for someone supposedly so accomplished in her field.

Samaire Wynne pointed this one out: In an early episode of TNG titled The Naked Now, Data moves at superhuman speed to replace the isolinear chips in Engineering. But Soji, though more advanced and clearly capable of superhuman fighting ability, apparently lacks this skill when working to assemble a piece of technology in the final episode. Or is she, subconsciously, holding back?

The new cast members were, for me at least, less interesting than the TNG-era characters who made guest appearances. Isa Briones turns in a strong performance as Soji, but my favorite was Santiago Cabrera as Captain Rios — and, in a fun twist, a handful of holographic alter-egos. He’s not Robert Picardo, but he does a kind of cigar-chomping twist on Han Solo.

Which brings me to another quibble: Picard needed more humor. It was a key element of most Star Trek series, but in the latest incarnations of Trek, it’s been sublimated to sense of gravitas that can feel stiflingly heavy. That’s especially in the self-important Discovery, but also, at times, here. The weighty musical score exacerbates the problem at times. Perhaps they could bring in William Shatner (who’s still very funny) or Seth MacFarlane from The Orville for some pointers.

The hits

First, it’s not Discovery. It feels like the producers have learned something about putting together a more cohesive, character-driven story, which is a very good thing. I’ve struggled to get through the first two seasons of Discovery, which I’ve watched only because they carry the Star Trek imprimatur. Still, Discovery doesn’t feel like Trek to me — not even as much as the often-flawed J.J. Abrams movie trilogy. This does. It’s not exactly the same as TNG, but it feels like a different perspective on familiar themes and characters. Ethan Peck will never be Spock to me, but Patrick Stewart will always be Picard.

The biggest hit is, in fact, Stewart as Picard, which is no surprise. But kudos, also, to the writers for taking us on a deeper exploration of Picard’s character, particularly his emotions and his connection to Data. This works so well precisely because Picard doesn’t typically wear his emotions on his sleeve, and because Stewart did such a remarkable job of crafting the character in the first place. We got a few glimpses into his feelings during TNG, most notably in The Inner Light (the flute episode), which many — not coincidentally — consider the series’ finest hour.

Star Trek has dealt with aging characters before, and has always done so with aplomb. Kirk’s use of reading glasses in The Wrath of Khan comes to mind. But Stewart’s handling of Picard’s aging and awareness of his own mortality is nothing less than masterful. He’s not entirely the same self-assured captain he was in TNG, but he’s anything but a doddering fool, and he can call on that old confidence and ingenuity when it’s needed most.

Stewart’s good friend Ian McKellen captured Gandalf perfectly in The Lord of the Rings, and Stewart himself comes across almost wizardly in Picard. He doesn’t have a staff or magic, but he has a few tricks up his sleeve and (most importantly for a wizard) the wisdom to know when to use them. Most of the time. As for LOTR, one new regular — a young Romulan played by Evan Evaroga — seems to be channeling Legolas, perhaps even a bit too much. Even his name, Elnor, is decidedly elven.

The Picard-Data connection is explored very nicely, with Brent Spiner taking a turn in multiple roles. Picard’s formerly hidden, or suppressed, emotional side is brought out by his now-kind-of-deceased android lieutenant commander. It’s a touching undercurrent throughout the season that taps into one of the most potent themes explored in TNG: What makes us human? The addition of the Borg to the equation adds to the complexity of that exploration and makes the season even more interesting.

The use of alumni from TNG and Voyager is welcome and inspired. The reappearance of Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) from I, Borg was a pleasant surprise, and 7 of 9/Annika (Jeri Ryan) played an integral role in the plot. Data, of course, was central to it. Less crucial were Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Troi (Marina Sirtis), whose appearance seemed more like a nod to nostalgia than anything else. Even so, it was satisfying, and I wouldn’t have changed it. I’m a sucker for nostalgia, and it was great to see them again. The story could have been told without them, but it was far more fun with them!

Note to producers: I’d love to see Worf make an appearance, or maybe Guinan, and it would be fun to see Quark from Deep Space 9.

Overall, I’d give Picard 4 stars out of 5. For comparison, I’d give TNG and The Original Series five stars, DS9 4.5, Voyager and Enterprise 4, and Discovery 2. After the slow start, Picard is, indeed, engaging.

Critics miss the point, and the charm, of Downey's "Dolittle"

Hey, critics, guess what? You aren’t my parents.

You weren’t there to take care of me when I got sick, and you weren’t there when my first girlfriend broke up with me. My parents taught me to think critically, but they also encouraged me to dream: They never told me my imaginary dragon friend wasn’t real or that I should put down The Hobbit and pick up War and Peace.

Which brings me to Robert Downey Jr.’s Dolittle, the latest adaptation of Hugh Lofting’s novels about a physician who can talk to animals.

The critics hate it. I mean they really hate it. As of this writing, critics have given it a 19% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But here’s the thing. Audiences don’t hate it – not at all. So far, they’ve given it a 76% rating.

It isn’t unusual for audiences on RT to like movies more than the critics do. But the spread is usually more like 10 percentage points. So, what’s going on here?

Here’s my hypothesis: Critics have become so jaded and “grown-up,” they’ve forgotten how to think like kids. Jokes that kids enjoy are dismissed as “juvenile,” and themes that appeal to kids are either simplistic or ignored altogether.

The themes addressed in Dolittle include:

• Learning to work together and appreciate each other despite our differences (Yoshi the polar bear and Plimpton the ostrich).

• Overcoming fear to stand up for ourselves and our friends (Chee-Chee the gorilla).

• Looking for the hurt behind someone’s bitterness and anger (the constipated dragon).

Perhaps most telling is the film’s message about grief, and moving past the cynicism it can cause in order to help others.

No wonder critics don’t like this film: Most of them are cynical by nature.

I suspect most of them were prepared to dislike this movie for a couple of reasons. First of all, word leaked out that the movie had been delayed for extensive reshoots after the film did poorly with test audiences. So, critics were looking for inconsistencies from the get-go and wound up labeling the film jumbled and disjointed.

But it’s not either of those things. There’s nothing difficult to follow about it, the plot is clear, and it moves quickly from scene to scene without any of the bloated storytelling that sank the first Dolittle adaptation, the 1967 musical featuring Rex Harrison.

Second, it’s geared toward a family audience. Remember, we’re dealing with an industry that almost never uses the “G” rating anymore because it’s considered the kiss of death: Not “edgy” enough; too “childish.”

Mistaking child-friendly for childish is something critics seem predisposed to do, and that’s a huge mistake. When it comes down to it, the messages you’ll find in Dolittle are the kind of messages good parents teach their kids. They also serve as reminders to adults who can become exhausted and even lost as we navigate a challenging, difficult world.

They’re the kind of messages that go down best with a spoonful of sugary sweetness. That’s not a quality critics like. But in a world often defined by conflict, defensiveness and fatalism, it’s precisely what we need – whether we’re kids or adults.

Mild spoiler: There’s a scene in which Dolittle encounters a bitter old tiger named Barry who’s always been told he isn’t good enough. The Doctor’s treatment? Reflect a bit of sunlight on the floor and have Barry chase it around like a kitten. On the surface, it’s a simple device to distract the tiger from attacking our hero; but it’s also a metaphor for the lost innocence of childhood.

That’s one reason this is actually a good film: It encourages us, like Barry the Tiger, to put aside our bitterness and play at being a child again.

Critics either missed this or don’t care, but audiences get it.

An approval rating of 76 percent isn’t perfect, and neither is the movie. Robert Downey Jr.’s weird accent makes him sound like he’s hoarse or whispering half the time. And at one point, he states there’s no map to their destination – so it’s a surprise to see the characters consulting maps later on. The villain, played by Michael Sheen, appears to have been left behind on the open sea, but somehow arrives at the island ahead of Dolittle.

But these things are quibbles when measured against the movie’s overall tone, which is upbeat and hopeful: something we could use a lot more of these days. Downey plays Dolittle as a very quirky but very human character, striking a good balance between lighthearted fun and insight into the human condition.

It’s also worth noting that this Dolittle film, at least so far, has easily the best audience rating of any Dolittle film on Rotten Tomatoes. Its 76% rating compares to a 57% mark for the 1967 film, a 34% rating for Eddie Murphy’s 1998 remake, and a 26% showing for Murphy’s sequel three years later. Three further sequels in the Murphy movies (without Murphy), garnered scores of 45, 45 and 52%.

The takeaway: Downey’s version scores nearly 20 points better than any of the others among audiences.

But critics somehow think it’s the worst.

Can we say, “Out of touch”?

George Bernard Shaw wrote that “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” I’d add this: “Those who can’t do either one, criticize.” Teaching requires in-depth knowledge of a process that can be passed along to students; criticism requires just one thing: an opinion.

Well, to quote Dirty Harry Callahan: “Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one.”

In this case, critics seem to have more than their share. I’ll take a constipated dragon over a constipated critic any day.

Bohemian Rhapsody: Right tone, wrong timeline

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

The opening lines of the Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody are also the question viewers are left asking after seeing the film of the same name. At least this viewer.

This this is the kind of thing that happens when the fan and the historian are the same person. You love a movie that paints a triumphant picture of your favorite band, but you hate the fact that it paints outside the lines to do it: especially when it messes with the chronology.

Granted, Queen and frontman Freddie Mercury painted outside the lines all the time. It’s part of what made them great, and band members Brian May and Roger Taylor did produce the movie, so ...

Bohemian Rhapsody is epic. I loved it. But it’s also wrong, and what’s troubling about that is that it exposes something about propaganda in general: It gives us not the whole truth, but what we want to believe. The truth on steroids, which is, in the end, not the truth at all. What we end up with is what’s convenient to the storyline, and history be damned.

In an era when politicians rewrite history – without apology – for their own exaltation, that’s even more worrisome.

The Real Rio

The moviemakers decided to make Queen’s inspiring Live Aid performance the lynchpin of Freddie’s life. The film begins with him about to step on stage at Wembley, then ends with the band whipping the massive soccer stadium crowd into a frenzy. That moment was a kind of magic, no question. Queen stole the show. You couldn’t imagine a greater triumph if you tried.

But the film does try. Too hard. Sometimes, it seems like it doesn’t want to be a Queen biopic, but Rocky VII. To create an epic comeback story, it has Freddie quit the band (something that didn’t happen), and posits that he found out he was HIV-positive just before that epic performance. The truth? He wasn’t diagnosed until two years later.

Reality check: Queen released an album called The Works the year before Live Aid, and toured in support of the album after that. That record-breaking Rio performance, depicted in the film as happening sometime in the seventies? It actually took place during this tour, in 1985. The band hadn’t even performed in South America before that. This was during the time the movie suggests Queen was “broken up,” but the Rio show was part of a tour that ended just two months before Live Aid.

Broken up? I don’t think so.

Freddie as Rocky Balboa

None of this is a problem for me as a moviegoer. I happen be a sucker for “Rocky” movies, and the story, as told by the movie, was inspiring. But as a Queen fan and history buff, it made me cringe: The movie should have carried the tag “based on a true story,” because it fudged so many things. Yes, I know Hollywood does this. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

When Ron Howard made Cinderella Man in 2005, he didn’t add to the drama by having Jim Braddock knock out Joe Louis in the final scene. He didn’t have to. Braddock’s shocking win over Max Baer was epic enough. The fact that Braddock lost to Louis in his next fight was no shame, especially when Braddock knocked down the greatest heavyweight of his era in that fight. (There were, to be fair, a few inaccuracies in that film, too; most notably, Baer was portrayed as a jerk, when the real Baer was apparently a teddy bear.)

Some of the historical inaccuracies in Rhapsody don’t add to the drama, but seem wedged in where they don’t belong for no particular reason.

Why, for instance, does Queen play Fat Bottomed Girls on a tour that supposedly took place years before that song was released? And why does the film show We Will Rock You being conceived after Crazy Little Thing Called Love was a hit? Contrary to what the film would have you believe, WWRY came out two albums earlier, and Freddie was not sporting his famous mustache at the time. There’s just no reason to do this sort of thing. Even casual Queen fans will know you’ve gotten it wrong.

What’s there, what’s not

Others have had different problems with the film. Some, for instance, say it glosses over Freddie’s hedonistic lifestyle. I’m OK with that, because the movie made it quite clear that he loved to party and have casual sex. Sometimes, inference is a lot more effective than hitting someone over the head. I don’t need to see one sex-and-drugs scene after another paraded in front of me to get that point; if the movie had done so, it would have bogged down the narrative. I think the moviemakers took the right approach to this one.

They also got the casting right. Rami Malek doesn’t look as much like Freddie as I had hoped, but he makes up for it with a standout performance. And the rest of the band? Gwilym Lee and Ben Hardy are dead ringers for May and Taylor, respectively, and Joseph Mazzello looks a lot like the real John Deacon, too. The hair stylist deserves a shout-out for getting Deacon’s oft-changing coiffures dead-on most of the time.

(If you’re wondering, the photo above shows the three-quarters of the real Queen – Deacon, May and Mercury – on tour in 1977. Notice Mercury does not wear a mustache.)

The film’s lighter moments, such as the argument over Taylor’s tune I’m In Love With My Car, are a lot of fun, if perhaps a bit too few.

The film misses a few gems. David Bowie, whose memorable duet with Freddie on Under Pressure was the best thing about Hot Space, doesn’t make an appearance, and the film also fails to mention that Queen snagged its first Top of the Pops appearance because Bowie had canceled out 24 hours earlier. (Another connection: Queen’s first tour supported Mott the Hoople, whose biggest hit was penned by Bowie.)

Fans love this sort of trivia, but the movie was created for a mass audience, and it’s probably too much to ask that such minutiae be squeezed into 2 hours and 14 minutes of screen time.

And mass audiences seem to love the film. As of this writing, they’re giving it a 94 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while less enthusiastic critics have it at 59 percent. As is often the case, I’m with the fans on this one. To reiterate, I loved the movie.

I would have loved it even more if the fictional Queen had played We Will Rock You in 1977 and Fat Bottomed Girls in 1978, the way the real Queen did.

Was that really too much to ask?

Discovery vs. Orville: Where no one has gone before ... and back again

On stardate 1672.1, Captain Kirk was the victim of a transporter accident that split him into two distinct sides of himself. (Actually, this happened in 1966, in an episode of Star Trek called The Enemy Within.)

Flash forward 51 years, and the same thing has happened to Star Trek itself. It feels like the franchise has been caught in a transporter accident and split in two, with the result being one show that expands on the vision and scope of its predecessors, and another that has inherited many of the qualities that made it so much fun to watch.

This year's Star Trek: Discovery and The Orville are both descendants of Gene Roddenberry’s original series, a family of shows that has now evolved beyond next generation.

What’s happened to the Star Trek franchise is kind of like what happens to a rock band when the guitarist and singer have a falling out, and each starts a separate band that sounds a little (but not exactly) like the group they formed together. The result will be endless comparisons, with fans likely enjoying both but, at the same time, many wishing the guitarist and singer could just bury the hatchet and make music together the way they used to.

Now, imagine one of those bands returns to the studio and spends a ton of money recording an ambitious new rock opera, while the other goes out on tour, playing all the old hits and having a little fun at its own expense. The first band is Discovery, and the second is The Orville.

Four episodes in, I’m watching — and enjoying — both. But I’m also, if the truth be told, wishing for a reunion tour.

Discovery is the more focused of the two. So far, it’s zeroing in on a single character, the disgraced but brilliant Michael Burnham, and following a unified story arc that involves a nascent war between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire. Star Trek started using story arcs, to fine effect, during the 1990s with Deep Space Nine, but before that served up mostly self-contained episodes. It also became adept at introducing us to a large number of interesting regular and recurring characters — who we came to care about because each explored the nature of our own humanity in his or her own way.

Perhaps ironically, this is where The Orville has the advantage in the early going. We’re already painfully aware of the awkwardness between the captain and first officer, who've been through a painful divorce; of the challenges facing the super strong security chief in dealing with her youthful insecurity; and of the family dynamics involving a crew member, his same-sex spouse and their newly hatched (yes, hatched) child.

All very human and all very familiar. They can’t call Seth MacFarlane’s series Star Trek, because CBS owns the rights to that name. But Brannon Braga, who’s created or developed several corners of Roddenberry’s universe, is an executive producer, and the cast includes members who seem a whole lot like Worf and Data from The Next Generation.

Indeed, The Orville is more like that show than it is like Galaxy Quest — the comedic send-up that both spoofed and payed homage to the original — and the humor can be unevern (the sniping between Capt. Mercer and his ex, Cmdr. Grayson, has already started to wear thin). But at least there is humor, which can be hard to find — apart from the stray tribble or a, subdued one-liner — on Discovery. No incarnation of Star Trek has ever aspired to be a laugh-fest, but there’s always been enough humor to leaven the heady, ambitious storylines.

When it comes to special effects, Discovery is light years ahead of The Orville — although it’s odd how sophisticated the technology looks compared to that in the original series, which was filmed a half-century earlier but is supposed to take place a decade after Discovery. Unaccountably, Discovery’s sleek starship with its rotating saucer section looks like it belongs 100 years in Kirk and Spock’s future, not their past. (At least Enterprise, which was set before either series but filmed more than three decades after the original, was designed to look like a bridge between NASA and the Federation.)

The Orville’s sets look like throwbacks to Next Generation or the 1980s movies, even though it doesn’t (technically) even take place in the Star Trek universe — and isn’t therefore bound by any constraints of continuity. It’s not as impressive to look at, but neither are reruns of earlier Star Trek series — which are still just as much fun because of the stories they tell and the insights they provide into our own humanity.

I trust Discovery will delve into some of those insights. The most intriguing human relationship, between Burnham and Capt. Georgiou, was short-circuited by the latter’s death at the end of Episode 2. But the Discovery’s captain, Gabriel Lorca, shows signs of developing into an interesting, multi-faceted character and, given time, here’s hoping others in the crew do, as well. The large amount of time spent developing the Klingons has slowed things down a bit, especially considering the large amount of Klingon dialogue presented in subtitles — which may please Star Trek geeks but frustrate newer fans. (For the record, I’ve seen every episode of every Star Trek series; I don’t know whether that makes me a geek or not, but I still find the subtitles get in the way).

That’s a minor quibble, and I’m not complaining. Two heirs to the Star Trek television legacy are infinitely better than what we’ve had for more than a decade: zero. Still, I can’t help but hope each will learn a little something from the other.

That would make the future — imaginary, visionary or otherwise — even brighter.