TV Round-Up: Star Trek: Picard & Quantum Leap

Star Trek: Picard, “The Next Generation”

I see what you did there, Star Trek: Picard – so, clever.

The Next Generation had a pretty good send-off in “All Good Things…” thirty or so years ago. The problem since that time is we’ve had four movies and two seasons try to achieve what that episode did so well – all with varying degrees of success.

So, as Picard starts its third season, we’re again assembling the Next Gen crew for a reunion and final send-off.

Let’s just hope it goes better than Nemesis.

So far, it’s off to an interesting start and following the 90’s Trek motto of “canon, we don’t need no stinkin’ canon!” I say this because, at the end of last season, we had just signed a peace treaty with the Borg – something that should be fairly huge and isn’t once addressed or even referenced.

Instead, there is some kind of new threat and it involves Crusher. She reaches out to Picard, who then starts assembling the TNG crew to go out and help her. Well, Riker at least, who is apparently estranged from Deanna and his kid because, well, reasons. Honestly, I keep thinking that the writers for Trek just haven’t embraced long-form storytelling – and it’s showing up again here.

Though it does lead to some fun moments like seeing how a more button downed, by the book captain views Riker and Picard’s exploits. The scene of them stuck in bunk beds as the best accommodations that could be come up with at short notice was a great moment. I couldn’t help but wonder if this sequence might have been a bit more fun if we’d referenced Jellico somehow – cause this captain seems like he’s of the same mold as Jellico and doesn’t love Picard and company playing fast and loose with rules and regulations.

Honestly, it made me wonder a bit about how certain figures in the Trek canon become viewed by their peers over time. It seems like the attitude of “y’all did what you wanted out there” was one that other TNG people have had toward a certain favorite TOS captain of mine. I wonder if this thread might be addressed as we go along in the show, or if it’s just a conflict to make Seven of Nine choose who she’s loyal to most.

I also wouldn’t put it past them to have an Admiral Janeway cameo at some point this season. It only feels like a matter of time.

As for the rest, the story does enough to intrigue me for the rest of the season, and wonder just how long until we see Geordi and Worf drop by for some wacky adventures.

Quantum Leap

I got behind on Quantum Leap but spent the last week or so catching up on things.

My issue with the series continues to be the same – for the most part, I like things unfolding in the past with Ben (the episode with him caught in a time loop and solving the mystery was a fun twist) but the stuff in the future leaves me cold.

It also feels like they’re stretching things a bit.

Every episode ends on some kind of cliffhanger designed to ensure we tune in next week for more answers.

It makes me think the original was onto something by not showing the future very often. It allowed us to fill in gaps with our imagination and to have a bigger connection with Al as a character. It also helped underscore the connection between Sam and Al.

But now, it feels like the show is leaning too hard into an arc for the sake of an arc. We’ve got another leaper out there and Ian is somehow connected. Is Ian a mole or does he become one? Does he turn against the team at some point? Has he been leapt into this whole time and we aren’t aware of it until now? So many questions and not enough answers to really satisfy me.

TV Round-Up: Quantum Leap: “Fellow Travelers”

When last we saw Dr. Ben Soong, he had just remembered the reason he stepped into the accelerator and began traveling through time – it was to save his fiancee, Addison.

Now, as we pick up the story, the fallout from that revelation is hitting everyone – and causing a bit of a rift between Ben and Addison. Addison is upset that Ben kept this from her and that he can’t remember why he did.

These feelings parallel his current leap where Ben is a bodyguard protecting a young singer from a threat to her life. Addison’s dialogue about Ben keeping secrets and not helping things takes on a huge double meaning, as do several of Ben’s conversations with the singer that could be directed at the singer and Addison. It’s not exactly subtle, but it is fairly effective, especially Ben’s promise that he and Addison are a team and moving forward he will keep her in the loop.

It echoes a bit of what we heard before the break when Addison confesses to Magic that Ben is different in the past, with parts of his memory wiped away. I do wonder if this is setting up some kind of conflict down the road between these two as Ben remembers why he didn’t or couldn’t tell Addison.

Meanwhile, Jenn catches up to Janice and brings her into the project for questioning. I can’t help but feel that somehow Janice is playing the crew yet again and that she wanted to get caught. Is this part of the plan she and Ben hatched? Also, will we get Addison to talk to Janice to try and discern why Ben started leaping and what will the consequences of that be?

Honestly, this is one of the first times since the episode Magic revealed that he knew Sam replaced him that I was as invested in the timeline of the current events as I was in the leap for Ben.

Ben’s leap is a fairly standard one – save someone from getting killed. It feels like this was a go-to for the original and it works well here. What made the originals work is what works here – an interesting mystery full of red herrings and the show giving us characters we can invest in. Yes, it’s fairly cliched that you’ve got a successful singer who is killed by one of three people who can benefit from her being gone. And maybe it’s because Debra Ann Woll is well-known enough in genre roles that I’m conditioned to root for her. Whatever it was, it worked.

I do wonder if and how the news that the series is picked up for season two will play into the long-term arc. Will we now have to wait until the season finale for Ben to recall why he started leaping as a cliffhanger for next season? Or will they follow the map for season one and worry about season two later?

TV Round-Up: Quantum Leap, “Stand By Ben”

One of the running threads of the original Quantum Leap was the long-standing friendship between Sam and Al and the lengths that each side would go to for the other. Early on, Al was established as a guy willing to bend or break the rules of time travel for his friend Sam – providing details on where to find Donna, helping Sam save his brother, and telling Sam he had a brother named Tom. Sam was a bit more of a stickler when it came to the rules, as witnessed in “MIA” when he chastises Al for not researching fully the reason for Sam’s leap and instead desperately working to get Sam to sabotage Beth’s new relationship.

Over the course of five seasons, we saw Sam slowly begin to realize that his mission wasn’t only to put right wrongs in the lives of people he didn’t know, but also to change his friend’s life for the better. This beautifully hits home when Sam leaps to the final moments of “MIA” as himself and asks Beth to wait for Al. The reveal is that Sam succeeds because he’s finally willing to bend the rules to help his friend. The cost is Sam never returns home.

It’s one of the reasons that the original Quantum Leap still resonates with me today.

It’s also why I’m slowly becoming frustrated with this new version of the show.

As good as the show is at giving us compelling, character-driven stories in the past, it is completely dropping the ball when it comes to the future storylines and the implications they have on Ben’s journey and his decision to start leaping through time.

This week was another example of this. Ben leaps into a teenager, who with three other teens has escaped a deprogramming camp in 1996. Ben helps them survive and turns the tables on the camp administrators. It’s all solid enough and the story hits the right emotional beats.

TV Round-Up: Doctor Who, “The Power of the Doctor” #SciFiMonth

Doctor Who specials have to walk a fine line between pleasing hard-core fans (like myself) and not being so dense that the casual fan tuning becomes lost and frustrated with the viewing experience.

Like many specials designed to celebrate something – anniversary, holiday, etc, “The Power of the Doctor” also faced the climb of sending off the Jodie Whitacker era. Given how I feel that Chris Chibnall is like the Doctor (good at starts, not great at endings), my biggest concern going into the episode was that Chibnall wouldn’t be able to stick the landing – just as he hasn’t in three previous series finales.

For the most part, “The Power of the Doctor” did well enough, though even at close to ninety minutes, it felt like it needed about five more minutes. Of course, that could be the classic Whovian in me who’d gladly take as much time for the Doctor’s former companions meet to share stories time as they wanted to give me.

“The Power of the Doctor” isn’t a perfect episode, but it still leans heavily into the strengths of this era – namely, Sasha Dhawan as the Master and the give and take between the Doctor and the Master. I’ll admit that the 80’s weren’t exactly kind to the Master and the new series take on the character has been hit or miss. But what Chibnall did with the Master during this era really resonated, simply because Chibnall made the Master into a legitimate threat again. The big criticism I have of Ainley’s Master is that too many of his plans were half-baked at best – and while the Master not thinking things entirely through goes all the way back to Roger Delgado, it just felt a bit too campy many times in the JNT era.

TV Round-Up: Quantum Leap, Oh Ye of Little Faith

The problem the new Quantum Leap faces is the original did one hell of a Halloween episode back in its third season. Fans who only casually watched the original know about “The Boogeyman” because Sam met Stephen King and faced off against the devil.

Topping “The Boogeyman” in terms of sheer shock value was going to be difficult to do.

Give “O Ye of Little Faith” credit for trying, even if the final result isn’t exactly as memorable or over-the-top bonkers fun as the original version.

Ben leaps into a priest, who has been summoned to perform an exorcism on an apparently demon-possessed young girl who just turned eighteen. Eerily enough, as Ben attempts to follow the script for an exorcism, he’s cut off from Addison.

As with most of the episodes of the new Quantum Leap, the stuff in the past works very well (even hitting a few, great creepy moments) while the things in the present feels like it’s being forced on the script. This week’s biggest culprit is a conversation between Addison and Jenn where we discover that Addison had never vowed to get married – until she met Ben. I’m all for character development for all the characters on this show (quick tell me one thing about Ian besides he’s good at computers), but even this one felt like it was written to get screen time for Narisa Lee and less about advancing the plot or characters in any significant way.

Plus, I think it fails the Bechdel test on just about every level.

TV Round-Up: Quantum Leap, “What A Disaster”

After seeing “What a Disaster!” I can see why the producers shuffled the order of things, moving this from the pilot to the sixth episode of the season. That’s not to say “What a Disaster” is bad, so much as to say asking the audience to invest as much in Ben’s background in episode one would have been a larger ask.

Ben leaps into a John, a man facing imminent divorce from his wife, just moments before the San Francisco Earthquake in 1989. The series is doing well at having Ben cover his initial confusion upon entering a person’s life mid-drama, and this week is no exception. Ben having to cover for gaps in his knowledge of John’s wife as his wife asks for divorce works well enough, though I keep wondering why no one notices that Ben is focusing on Addison and her advice from the future.

Speaking of Addison, can I just say that I liked the handlink used here a lot more than the one we’ve seen until now? If there’s one aspect of the original pilot they can and should use again, it’s the link.

Back to our story. Turns out John is there to save the couple’s son from dying and reunite an estranged mom and son. This mission has a personal note for Ben, who once got B’s on his report card because he was tired of his mom telling him he was special and then after they got in a huge fight about it, she died. So, Ben’s carrying around a bit of guilt over that (as one would) and it all comes bubbling back.

Some of the better emotional beats of the original series came when Sam connected with the leapie due to some emotional connection. So, Ben’s connection here worked, as did his call to his mom seconds before he leaped.

TV Round-Up: Quantum Leap, “Salvation or Bust”

No matter how good or bad “Salvation or Bust” is, most of the conversation about it will probably cover the last thirty seconds of the show when another Leaper shows up who knows Ben and feels that Ben is following him through time.

The implications of this to the overall arc of why Ben leaped and what his destination is are fascinating. And given the pace at which revelations are coming in the show, I don’t think it’s something that will exactly be swept aside for an episode or two.

Part of me says that this new leaper is somehow connected to Janice and that the imaging chamber she’s building isn’t to try and contact Ben but to contact whoever this other leaper is. A big question it brings up is just how many accelerators there are and just where are they located? Given that leaping seemingly takes a huge investment of power, how exactly are the other leaping group keeping their tracks hidden?

Or is this all part of the time travel thing where the new leaper is from our future but ending up in the past.

Give the show credit – it’s got me intrigued to see where this all goes.

TV Round-Up: Quantum Leap, Somebody Up There Likes Ben

Can I just start this off by saying I want an episode of this show written by Donald P. Bellisario and/or Deborah Platt ASAP?

With that out of the way, we can move onto the third installment, which shows further steps toward the show finding its own voice.

Ben leaps into the body of a young boxer, who is about to go lose the title fight of his career due to being distracted. Is it because he’s seeing the girlfriend of his rival boxer or that his brother is suffering PTSD from his tours in Nam?

“Someone Up There Likes Ben” leans heavily into the relationship between the brothers, giving us an emotional hook to root for. This includes up to and including the fight, when Ben has memorized the original fight and found a moment he can score a knock-out, thanks to Addison’s help (more on this later). Of course, this being Quantum Leap, what should have knocked out the opponent doesn’t work and Ben has to improvise.

Luckily, he does and wins the fight, thus putting history onto a new and better course.

As with the first two installments, the storyline in the past works on just about every level. While Ben isn’t Sam (again, who could be?!?), it feels like they’re working to make him a likable hero that we can root for and one who is driven to do the right thing, as Sam was at times. I would like to see a story where we get an unexpected twist or cameo like the original did, but it’s only the third episode and I don’t think we got the Buddy Holly twist until five or six episodes into the original.

Meanwhile, back in the present, I do like the series looking at the toll physically and emotionally Ben’s leaping is taking on Addison. Her driving herself to exhaustion to link with Ben and keep him from getting lost in time is nicely done. Again, the original often felt like there was a lag time between Sam leaping and Al finding him where Al could rest/date Tina/do whatever. The ending made it feel a bit like they are trying to help Addison find that here with the new crew.

The plotline that really didn’t engage as much (and it should) was Janice. I keep asking myself if Janice weren’t somehow connected to Al, would I be as annoyed about her storyline and I can’t quite decide. Janice is obsessed with the project, though we haven’t yet really discovered any good motivation for this. Was it that she missed her dad, who was obsessed with finding Sam? Did Al’s death send her down this path? Why is she building what appears to be an imaging chamber? And what is the connection she and Ben share?

I have a feeling we are going to find out Janice wrote the new code Ben put into Ziggy and she knows more than she’s telling about his endpoint.

And while last week, I felt the endpoint had to be Sam, perhaps the endpoint is the bar where Sam leapt to in the finale. Or is it something else entirely that is connected to the original’s emphasis of Sam and Al’s friendship?

Part of me also wonders if this somehow ties into the whole evil leaper thread from season five.

TV Round-Up: The Patient

After watching and loving The Americans, I was intrigued to see what series creators Joel Fields and Joseph Weisburg would do next.

So, when ads started cropping up for their new series, The Patient, I was intrigued. Now, three episodes into the miniseries and I am firmly on the hook, ready to see this all will lead. Like The Americans, The Patient offers a unique premise from which to begin its storytelling.

Alan Strauss, played by Steve Carrell (another selling point) is a successful therapist and best-selling self-help book author. Alan senses that one of his patients, Sam, isn’t being entirely honest with him, thus hindering the therapeutic process. Alan challenges him to dig deeper, resulting in Alan waking up, chained to the floor in Sam’s basement with Sam asking Alan to help him curb a violent impulse – one that has resulted in Sam’s being a wanted serial killer known as the John Doe killer.

Despite his early protestations, Alan realizes he has little choice but to try and help Sam if he wants to be released or escape.

Interspersed with scenes from Alan’s life pre-captivity, we find out that Alan is recently widowed and possibly estranged from his son. This does answer an early, niggling question of why no one might miss Alan when he suddenly vanishes.

So far, each episode has ended on a tension point, designed to ensure you’ll want to come back next week. The second installment ended with someone coming down the stairs to the basement while the third ended with Sam bringing back someone to the basement and the sound of duct tape being used to bind that person (it could be the next victim Sam desperately wants to kill but hasn’t yet because there is a connection to him that could be traced).

Again, this is a premise that requires a bit of willing suspension of disbelief, but it’s working so far. Part of that is the strength of Alan as a character – from his backstory to his growing reluctance to engage in therapy with Sam and later his mother (who is the person who comes downstairs. The mother, in fact, refuses to help Alan because Sam needs him so much). So far, the only things we know about Sam are limited, though I expect we’ll see these filled in later. He apparently is a bit of a foodie, bringing Alan various dishes each evening to share together and raving about them and he’s also got a dark side that can be pushed. So far, he hasn’t physically hurt Alan, though he does seem a powder-keg ready to blow at any moment.

Three episodes in and the show is a compelling one – a lot of that credit going to Carrell, showing a flare for the dramatic. I do wonder if we will find out more about the process Sam used to select Alan for this radical therapy process as the series goes along.

Each episode is under a half-hour, feeling like just enough without overstaying its welcome. Again, I’m hooked and intrigued to see where this all goes.

The Orville: New Horizons – “Electric Sheep”

Multiple episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation involve Data or Worf going rogue, seemingly abandoning their lives in Starfleet only to see the light by the end of the episode and be assimilated back into day-to-day life on the ship with little or no mention of the incident or any consequences.

The Orville has been an homage to TNG since its beginning so the fact that no one on board has said much about Issac’s betrayal and then reinstatement in season two just feels like it’s the nature of the series. Until the third season premiere, which finally looks at the consequences of Issac’s decision not only on him but the various characters around him. In the end, “Electric Sheep” ends up feeling a bit like what “Family” was to TNG – the opportunity to examine the consequences of what could and should be a fundamental shift in a character’s life.

And yet, I can’t help but think “Electric Sheep” isn’t as strong an entry as “Family” was, though it was probably just as necessary to The Orville.

Issac’s ostracizing by the crew, especially the new character of Charly Burke (who has a legitimate bone to pick with Issac), works well enough and sets up some interesting questions and moral concerns. Seeing the crew struggle with their relationship with the artificial lifeform worked well as does the dichotomy of knowing how to feel when Issac decides his continued existence is harming crew efficiency and he takes his own life. I have to admit I didn’t necessarily see that coming, though I did like the choice. Also, allowing the episode to not be constrained by a running time because it’s streaming now allowed us to live in the grief for a bit longer. Seeing the crew’s reaction to Issac’s decision and the various points of view worked well and walked a fine line.

I do wish that same restraint extended to other areas of the show. Because Seth McFarlane is one of those creators who does better when he’s not allowed to roam free. As much as I liked seeing everyone live in the grief, I felt like there were some other “look, we’ve got new toys to play with” moments in other spots. One particular sequence is the introduction of the shiny new shuttlecraft and the games played to break it in. It also feels like McFarlane and company put in a lot of new exterior shots of the ship simply to show off the exterior of the ship and not to add to the overall story as a whole. (And this comes from a fan who loves and defends the Enterprise fly-by in The Motion Picture).

As with most things The Orville, it’s hit or miss for this fan. The parts that work, really work. The parts that don’t connect really take me out of it.

However, it’s fun to have this show back and I am looking forward to seeing where this season may take up.