TV Review: Dawson’s Creek, season 6

TV #63 of 2021:

Dawson’s Creek, season 6

A regrettably weak ending to a series that I’ve never wholly loved, but have at least come to appreciate in its own way. The previous year was already a shaky departure from the show’s core strengths and character histories, and this final stretch reads like a faded copy of a copy, with minimal effort to tell either an engaging story in the present or a resonant continuation of anyone’s prior journey. The writers throw a dart and make Pacey a stockbroker of all things, introduce bland new jerks for Dawson, Joey, and Jen to date — and Jack too, arguably — and awkwardly force a mutual roommate / coworker / bandmate into the picture just so that the friends have more excuses to interact. (And then they ultimately forget about the poor linchpin, losing complete track of Emma after she mentions that she’s probably going to have her visa revoked.)

There’s an air of desperation to all this, but it’s hard to particularly care, given how utterly divorced the storyline feels from everything beforehand. Instead of natural follow-through, we get one last abusive teacher who hates his students for Joey to deal with, lots of time spent on Dawson’s big-boy Hollywood career away from everyone else, and far too many scenes of Pacey looking smarmy in a goatee and a suit. Audrey’s here as well, and even promoted to the main cast now, although she’s likewise handed mostly downbeat notes and inorganic plot developments that don’t receive much payoff in the end.

The best moments occur when the program does seek to tap back into its roots, revisiting a former relationship for an episode or showing how the old adolescent dramas continue to weigh on our budding filmmaker. Unfortunately, however, those are the infrequent exceptions amid a general sense that we’re no longer tethered to the existing audience investment throughout.

The initial showrunner transition from creator Kevin Williamson (seasons 1-2) to Greg Berlanti (3-4) was fairly seamless on-screen, but these Tom Kapinos college years (5-6) have been rough — though I don’t know if we can blame him or simply the inherent difficulty of reworking a teenage soap to function past high school. Anyway, I’m glad that Williamson returned to write the finale and try to steer the overall narrative towards a satisfying conclusion — give or take a few dubious events in the future-set two-parter that really could have used greater room to breathe — but even his clearer understanding of the protagonists and attempts to find thematic closure for them are too little, too late by that point.

[Content warning for homophobia including slurs.]

This season: ★★☆☆☆

Overall series: ★★★☆☆

Seasons ranked: 4 > 2 > 3 > 1 > 5 > 6

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

Book #226 of 2021:

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

Overall I find this retelling of The Great Gatsby to be an improvement on the original, to which it has added some light touches of sorcery and demons. The biggest change is its queer reading of most of the cast, with Daisy, Jay, Nick, and Jordan all canonically bisexual and involved in a convoluted love square with one another. This last figure has also been promoted to the story’s narrator, and given a new background as an adopted child from Tonkin / Vietnam. It’s much more interesting to me than the F. Scott Fitzgerald version, particularly for what it has to say about Jazz Age racism and homophobia.

The problem is that I don’t really enjoy the older novel in the first place, and this new one doesn’t deviate enough from the tedious plot that it’s inherited. I think the worldbuilding could have been further developed and incorporated throughout the narrative as well, rather than being largely limited to the occasional piece of exposition flavoring. As a genre reader who adores author Nghi Vo’s Singing Hills Cycle, I’ve perked up whenever the magical element comes into play, then almost inevitably slumped again soon after. This title technically lives up to its promise as a diverse fantasy Gatsbiad, but I wish it weren’t quite so beholden to that latter component at the seeming expense of the others.

★★★☆☆

–Subscribe at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke to support these reviews and weigh in on what I read next!–

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

Book #225 of 2021:

The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

Author Grady Hendrix’s latest novel diverges from his usual supernatural fare, while still delivering a killer [sorry] premise: that a collection of the young women who have survived till the end of slasher-movie style attacks are now in group therapy together, only for their recovery to be interrupted by someone targeting them anew. It’s a similar concept to Final Girls by Riley Sager and probably a few other titles as well, but I’ve found the execution [again, sorry] here to be superb. Hendrix’s work is always elevated by his deep knowledge of and love for the horror genre in all its bloody tropes, which he manages to simultaneously honor as a faithful example, send up as tongue-in-cheek parody, and deconstruct as reflective criticism. Although not as subversive as The Cabin in the Woods, the result is thrilling and funny in equal measure, not to mention insightful into what makes such stories tick and why audiences like them so much. A running conversation on how these slaughters differ from school shootings feels particularly illuminating.

Realizing that this book’s plot likely had the general shape of a film like Friday the 13th or Scream, I went into the read predicting there’d be at least one surprise reveal of a false-faced ally, and it wasn’t too difficult to narrow my suspicions accordingly. But that’s not to the writer’s discredit, as this is really more of a thriller than a mystery. Even with calling the twist(s) correctly, I’ve had a blast following the protagonist as she demonstrates how capable she’s grown since her teenage ordeal and seeing a world in which that kind of real-life event inspired the well-known blockbusters.

The characters are all traumatized to a certain degree, yet they are also generally clear-eyed about the threat facing them and able to make effective choices against it. Fans of the cinematic equivalent should brace themselves for the same extreme levels of gore, accompanying plenty of overall entertainment transcending the written medium.

★★★★☆

–Subscribe at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke to support these reviews and weigh in on what I read next!–

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

TV Review: Leverage: Redemption, season 1

TV #62 of 2021:

Leverage: Redemption, season 1

I enjoyed the original 2008-2012 run of Leverage, but I’m not sure there was any pressing need for this modern reboot of the Robin Hood-minded heist show, especially without former star Timothy Hutton (and with costar Aldis Hodge limited to two appearances). While it’s as fun as ever to see the team of skilled grifters running elaborate confidence schemes on their latest scumbag millionaire targets, there’s not really a great justification for its existence or any apparent ambitions towards a larger plot beyond introducing a couple newbies and the updated New Orleans setting. The older program wasn’t always scrupulously plotted either, but to bring these characters out of stasis simply for a speedy return to business as usual feels disappointing.

I’m also irritated by the implications of a few writing decisions. In this franchise you kind of have to expect foolish marks being easily led astray by their greed no matter how paper-thin the protagonists’ operation, but the strategies to goad them along this year are sometimes needlessly cruel. I’m thinking particularly of the racial undertones present when the white Parker plays a socialite who taunts her Indian-American opponent that her family has been in the city for generations and a newcomer like him will never be seen as legitimate. Or when the gang intentionally triggers a man’s PTSD by bombarding him with sensory cues to recall his narrow escape from a collapsing building. And I get it — these guys are rich! They’re not nice people! Our heroes are supposed to be criminal antiheroes anyway! But it’s not punching up to attack the marginalized aspects of an elite person’s identity, and I don’t think the series wholly gets that.

(I should note that I haven’t gone back recently to rewatch the earlier episodes, so maybe this has been a problem throughout. I don’t know. But it certainly doesn’t make it any easier to root for our friends here.)

It’s not all bad, and if the only thing you want from this sort of TV revival is to see the familiar faces saying “Let’s go steal a whatever” again, you’ll probably look on the season pretty favorably. These eight hours largely play out as though they could have been unfilmed scripts of the classic production, and that’s honestly not the worst possible outcome of a venture like this. But to go to all the effort of digging up the IP, it just seems like we’re sitting on untapped potential for something a lot greater. A second ‘Redemption’ chapter is reportedly still ahead, so I hope it’s a bit more daring with its recurring guests and serialized narrative concerns than the somewhat-unremarkable filler we’ve gotten this time.

[Content warning for gaslighting.]

★★★☆☆

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: The Gap Into Conflict: The Real Story by Stephen R. Donaldson

Book #224 of 2021:

The Gap Into Conflict: The Real Story by Stephen R. Donaldson (The Gap Cycle #1)

This is a difficult book to read, putting us into the mind of one of the vilest science-fiction protagonists ever created. Angus Thermopyle is not an interstellar pirate in the charming rogue sense; he’s an amoral loner who murders without hesitation merely to finance repairs to his patched-up garbage heap of a ship. He’s also a rapist who kidnaps a police cadet and inflicts himself on her over and over again after implanting an illegal neural device that can inhibit all motor functions at his command. He beats her up on several occasions too, while she’s forced to stand there unresisting. This is so much worse than author Stephen R. Donaldson’s classic Thomas Covenant antihero, who famously assaults a girl at the start of his own first novel then spends the rest of his time in her world repenting and atoning for the crime. I know plenty of readers who can’t stomach the fantasy saga because of that inciting event, and I’d advise all of them to give this one an even wider berth.

The writer isn’t interested in rehabilitating or redeeming Thermopyle, however. We learn enough about his background to grasp that he’s caught in a toxic cycle of abuse, yet we’re never really encouraged to root for the man, at least in this debut title. At best, we can maybe sympathize as his options claustrophobically collapse around him, but for the most part we’re simply presented with a wicked little character study, well-drawn and thoroughly despicable.

As described in the Afterword, Donaldson’s goal is to establish a trio of archetypal figures — the villain, the victim, and the rescuer — and then gradually shift our understanding of which is which. So the evil brute is transformed before our eyes into a pitiable wretch, his captive finds the inner strength to become a savior to them both, and the dashing captain who seems like the hero she needed is ultimately revealed to be just as cutthroat and dangerous as her original captor. (The latter two arcs occur mainly in the sequels, although we see their initial steps here.)

All of that is interesting on a technical and cerebral level, but I’m not sure if it can quite make up for how unpleasant an experience it is to actually get through this portion of the plot. This volume is strange as well in the light of those ahead, reading almost like an abstract morality play as compared to their more epic scope. The Gap Cycle is literally a space opera, modeled as a loose retelling of Wagner’s Ring Cycle, but you wouldn’t necessarily realize that from this premiere, which includes basically only three people and maintains a tight focus on the one. The worldbuilding isn’t totally absent, but we’re lacking the rich detail and supporting cast that will fill out the larger narrative. There isn’t even a whisper of aliens yet, despite how prominently they’ll eventually feature. It’s a bit like The Gunslinger in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, an important prologue that you shouldn’t skip, but that stands out as an imperfect fit for the sweeping tale that follows.

Overall, I guess I feel sort of neutral towards The Real Story. It’s better than I had remembered and feared from half a lifetime ago in high school, and there are ambitious structural complexities that speak to why Donaldson is one of my favorite authors in general. But the subject matter is too grim and too limited to such an odious person for it to be an altogether enjoyable venture.

[Content warning for sexism and racism.]

★★★☆☆

–Subscribe at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke to support these reviews and weigh in on what I read next!–

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: The Change by K. A. Applegate

Book #223 of 2021:

The Change by K. A. Applegate (Animorphs #13)

True to its title, this is one of the most consequential early Animorphs novels, coming just late enough in the franchise (around a quarter through) that the disruption to the prior status quo is completely unexpected and thrillingly carried off. That element is unfortunately difficult to discuss without the degree of spoilers that I generally try to avoid in my reviews — but luckily, there are plenty of other great aspects of this book to cover too.

To begin with, the main plot involves the team helping a pair of Hork-Bajir, whom they discover breaking out of the heavily-guarded Yeerk pool during the slim window when the evil parasites relinquish control of their host bodies to feed. This is the first look we’ve gotten at this extraterrestrial species as anything but enemy shock troops, let alone as individuals with personalities and names. Finally meeting Jara Hamee, his pregnant wife Ket Halpak, and the culture they represent adds welcome depth to the worldbuilding of the setting, in addition to establishing new allies who, like the Chee androids of a few volumes ago, are now situated to generate story ideas or introduce future complications. We learn that these beings, though fiercely built, are incredibly docile — their bladed limbs evolved to facilitate a diet of tree bark, not the combat they’ve been enslaved into — and while perhaps of somewhat lower intelligence, they clearly understand and yearn for freedom.

This isn’t all dumped upon us as exposition, either. Instead, the information comes out gradually over the course of the text, which is more immediately concerned with the Animorphs rescuing the escapees from the increasingly daunting containment and retrieval efforts of their adversaries. It’s an action-packed race through the woods, made additionally exciting by a fun reversal of usual roles at the end, with our narrator Tobias right in the thick of things and Jake providing air support in his sharp-eyed falcon morph up above. The narrative also carves out room for an emotional running thread about how being stuck in a hawk body is keeping the protagonist from participating in regular kid stuff like an awards ceremony to honor Rachel — and from getting together with her romantically, although their mutual feelings for one another are mainly relegated to subtext rather than handled overtly.

The nothlit’s perspective is always refreshingly different from those of his fully-human friends, as is the alien Aximili’s, so it’s neat to see the outsiders continue bonding so closely here. In fact they’ve got even more in common than they realize, as revealed in The Andalite Chronicles, a companion volume / prequel to the series released the same month as this in 1997. But on this reread, I’ve made the largely arbitrary decision to tackle this one before the other, so I only have my memory to guide me. As far as I can recall the two books aren’t directly linked beyond the reappearance of the all-powerful Ellimist, whom we haven’t seen since his original introduction in #7.

That meddler is the single item that doesn’t quite work for me, I think. He’s the reason Tobias is on the scene to spot the Hork-Bajir in the first place, and he later makes a bargain with the teen to enlist his further aid. But at this point, we still don’t really know any details regarding constraints on his seeming omnipotence, so when he bends time and space to his will yet refuses to answer a straight question or otherwise perform some concrete task requested of him, it reads less like a mysterious benefactor doing everything he can for the shared cause and more like Q on Star Trek impishly pranking Picard out of boredom and spite. It works to keep events moving, but it’s not entirely satisfying on a character level.

Nevertheless, the presence of that entity breaks all the normal rules, enabling the game-changing development(s) which again, I won’t spoil here but will prove fruitful going forward. Overall it’s a terrific and propulsive ride, and arguably the conclusion of the preliminary arc of the wider storyline. The stakes and the heroes alike are well-established by this juncture, and despite a few hiccups along the way, the YA sci-fi saga is off to a fantastic start.

★★★★☆

–Subscribe at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke to support these reviews and weigh in on what I read next!–

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie

Book #222 of 2021:

Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot #19)

This 1938 novel doesn’t quite have that subtle spark of ingenuity that distinguishes the stronger Agatha Christie titles from her typical output, but it is overall a fine caper with the erstwhile detective Hercule Poirot. Still on vacation abroad, he stumbles upon yet another murder, this time of a family matriarch seemingly hated by her daughter, her three stepchildren, and her stepson’s wife, all of whom are traveling together and have been variously overheard wishing her dead. This deep into the writer’s corpus of work, I’m definitely starting to recognize some stock figures and recycled plot developments, but those elements remain successful enough, for the most part. I always appreciate this sort of case that spends a while introducing us to the victim too, rather than jumping immediately to the death and investigation. The coincidences and dubious motivation(s) may be a bit much on balance, and the random matchmaking that pairs everybody up at the end makes it all feel like a weird Shakespearean comedy, but generally speaking the story acquits itself well.

[Content warning for racism, sexism, and antisemitism.]

★★★☆☆

–Subscribe at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke to support these reviews and weigh in on what I read next!–

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: Doctor Who: Adventures in Lockdown edited by Steve Cole

Book #221 of 2021:

Doctor Who: Adventures in Lockdown edited by Steve Cole

This 2020 publication is a lovely collection of short fiction, all either written during the COVID-19 pandemic or at least unreleased until then. Only three of the sixteen entries are brand-new for this title; most were posted free online over the course of last summer as a way to rally the spirits of Doctor Who fans in a time of global uncertainty. And that’s the thematic link between these pieces: they are generally not canonical Whoniverse adventures taking place throughout the lockdown — although I’m sure those will come eventually — but rather tales in the continuity of that franchise that we all could use right now. Some involve similar periods of isolation for the Doctors and their companions; others are heartwarming deep dives into beloved corners of fandom history, revisiting favorite episodes with a new perspective, scene, or entire sequel event.

There are only two duds in my opinion (including an embarrassment of a Steven Moffat poem), and on the opposite extreme Neil Gaiman’s contribution “One Virtue, and a Thousand Crimes” about his original character the Corsair is practically worth the price of admittance on its own. I’d also highlight Pete McTighe’s “Press Play,” in which the Thirteenth Doctor is surprised by a hologram recording of her granddaughter Susan, and Paul Cornell’s “The Shadow Passes,” in which the latest TARDIS team has to shelter underground on an alien planet for a few weeks, as additional favorites. Like the rest, these items have been penned by authors who know and love the series well, and their fondness shines through just as intended.

Granted, the heavy male skew is disappointing, but that’s probably part of a larger conversation on who gets invited to participate in this sort of thing by sci-fi genre gatekeepers even in the era of the first female Doctor. And while I can’t predict how the book will age overall, it certainly feels welcome in our present moment.

★★★★☆

–Subscribe at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke to support these reviews and weigh in on what I read next!–

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett

Book #220 of 2021:

Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett (Discworld #40)

Author Terry Pratchett is pretty reliably funny, and if you approach his individual books as scaffolding devices for his specific brand of clever humor, outrageous puns, and insightful commentary on our own society by means of its satirical fantasy version, this one is another success. I also understand that it’s the last title he finished writing prior to his death, and so functions as an unintended but poignant sendoff to the long-running Discworld franchise, give or take the additional volume The Shepherd’s Crown that was posthumously patched together from his notes.

All of which is to say, this story of the setting’s first steam-powered train and latest dwarven civil war is solid enough to be worth the read for fans. It continues the theme of encroaching modernity’s effect on traditional ways of life that Pratchett has tackled several times before. It’s just not particularly character-driven, or built around the sort of personal stakes which make previous ventures like Night Watch or Monstrous Regiment so endearing. I won’t speculate about what role the writer’s illness may have played in that, especially since plenty of the earlier novels have a similar lack of protagonist motivation at their core, but will simply note that in my opinion, this doesn’t reflect the fullest potential of the series.

★★★☆☆

–Subscribe at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke to support these reviews and weigh in on what I read next!–

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Book Review: Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal

Book #219 of 2021:

Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal

Given the title of this YA novel, I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to mention that there’s a literal werewolf in it, even though that fact isn’t confirmed until almost a third of the way through. But both before and after that point, it is mostly the story of a girl taking a medical leave of absence from college due to a bad case of Lyme disease, and the online support group of other chronically ill people who help her vent and cope. Author Kristen O’Neal is a member of that demographic herself, and the #ownvoices details she builds into the perspectives and daily lives of her characters are most appreciated. (Although I should note she’s been criticized in some circles for appropriation as a white person writing a Tamil protagonist.)

I also think this book is a great representation of digital friendships, and how strangers can click and grow close over social media, gradually opening up and sharing more personal aspects about themselves as a mutual trust is established. Tumblr messages and Discord chatlogs constitute a decent portion of this text, and this too feels organic and authentic, right down to the brand of weird humor so common in that sort of virtual space. In short, I’ve been charmed by this tale well in advance of any supernatural element, which is only a further delight once it finally appears.

Because yes, again, the malady afflicting one of Priya’s new friends is that she occasionally turns into a hulking furred creature with an appetite for raw flesh. (When do you break that kind of news in the getting-to-know-you stage?) I love the parallels that the writer creates between that condition and those of the rest of the group, from lingering aches to unpredictable debilitating flareups to difficulty in securing a diagnosis. On one level, this is a new take on a classic horror monster and what it might be like to care for someone who can become one. On another, it’s a fantastic metaphorical exploration of living with any chronic illness. These layers feed into and reinforce each other throughout the plot, to rather brilliant effect.

[Content warning for body horror / gore, hospitalization, gaslighting, depression, and suicidal ideation.]

★★★★☆

–Subscribe at https://patreon.com/lesserjoke to support these reviews and weigh in on what I read next!–

Find me on Patreon | Goodreads | Blog | Twitter

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started