Reading/Watching Log #33

The problem with movies and shows these days is that if you don't watch immediately, you'll inevitably get spoiled within a few weeks. I've never watched a single episode of Jane the Virgin or The Good Place, and yet I know about the massive twists that have recently taken place, and though I caught up with A Quiet Place, Solo and Deadpool 2 this month, I again went in knowing all about the deaths that took place.

I'm not that fussed about spoilers – in fact, I think it's my responsibility to simply stay off the internet if there's an upcoming film I want to see without any foreknowledge, but it's harder to avoid spoilers from long-running television shows that I simply haven't had the chance to catch up with. Ah well.

I got through a lot of stuff this month, which surprised me considering I feel as busy as ever, but since a lot of the books and DVDs came from the library, I suppose I felt the time limitations more keenly than usual. Below are pre-teen mysteries, renegade aliens, basement ghosts, vandalised cars, rebellious princesses, talking bears, spinster detectives – variety is truly the spice of life. 

The Five Find-Outers: Book 8 – 15 by Enid Blyton

I finished off the second half of Blyton's The Five Find-Outers series (give or take a few instalments), and by the end the nostalgia was beginning to wear off.

Once you get past the fun disguises and the lavish picnics and the "jolly goods" you start seeing the formulaic plots and the downright weird racism. At one point Fatty comes back from vacation and everyone exclaims at his tan, telling him: "you could pass for an Asian!" I just... what the hell?

And yet her books are still best-sellers – just today I unpacked a crate of new books at the library and The Secret Seven were among them, so clearly she was doing something right. I suppose it's just the comforting nature that comes with a certain kind of conservatism: clear-cut goodies/baddies, god-like parents, church on Sundays, home-cooked meals, hardworking servants, straightforward gender roles...

Whatever the secret ingredient, I don't begrudge her continued success – but I'm also glad that rosy depiction of the past has largely come to an end in children's fiction.

Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston

If you've been following me on Tumblr then you'll know I'm currently besotted with Ahsoka Tano, so picking up her first YA novelization was a no-brainer. And it was fine.

I've talked in the past about the "tiers" of Star Wars stories, with films being at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the television shows and then the comics, books and webisodes. Which means that spin-offs like this can only really nibble at the edges of the larger story, committing to nothing and refraining from depicting stuff the higher-ups might want to tackle themselves at some point.

So although Ahsoka can fill in a few little gaps, like where she got her white lightsabres and how she adopted the codename "Fulcrum", there's nothing particularly juicy here – especially when you consider some of what Dave Filoni had planned for her in the last few episodes of The Clones Wars (among other things, discovering a Sith Temple beneath Coruscant and unknowingly battling Emperor Palpatine).

So what we get instead is filler. This covers a time period after the Republic has fallen but before the official emergence of the Rebellion, and Ahsoka is leap-frogging from planet to planet, simply trying to stay out of trouble. Naturally, she can't help but get involved when innocent people are endangered (given the volatility of this fandom, I'm surprised no one has mentioned that at least one of these innocents is a female character who's clearly attracted to Ahsoka) which garners the attention of both Empire and Bail Organa.

And that's about it really. Johnston captures Ahsoka's spirit, but has her hands tied when it comes to writing a truly riveting story for her. Even little things stymie the flow of the tale: like the fact that Bail Organa (a relatively low-key player) knows all about Luke, Leia, Yoda and Obi-Wan, while Ahsoka (a crucially important figure in Anakin's life) knows nothing about the twins' existence and believes the latter are dead. It seems unfair, somehow.

The House on Parchment Street by Patricia A. McKillip

I love Patricia McKillip's fantasy/fairy tale novels, and on browsing the library catalogue noticed this title. Having never heard of it before, I figured it was one of her earliest ventures and put it on hold.

And yes, it's safe to say it was one of her first – if not her very first, as it bears almost no resemblance the rest of her body of work. In terms of genre, target audience and even prose I would have never in a million years pegged it as one of hers.

It's not a memorable story: a young American girl is visiting relatives in England, and though she gets off to a prickly start with her cousin, the two end up bonding when they realize both can see the ghost that passes through the wall in the basement. From there, they naturally try to figure out why it's there and what it wants – though it's one of those ghosts that's more of a memory-echo rather than a sentient being.

Not worth tracking down unless you're interested in McKillip's early work, or you're just a completist when it comes to your favourite authors.

Remember Me by Christopher Pike

Staying on the topic of ghosts, who doesn't love a supernatural mystery involving a ghost who has to solve his/her own murder? I never read a huge amount of Christopher Pike as a teenager, but he was certainly one of the Big Name authors of my youth, especially with my cousins. He was capable of that rare combination: genuinely clever plots that were also reminiscent of B-grade horror movie trash.

Shari Cooper goes to a party, gets involved in a séance, heads out for a breath of fresh air on the balcony, and is thrown to her death. Now her ghost is haunting her friends and family, all of whom believe she committed suicide. Things look pretty grim on both sides of the equation: the detective investigating her death is an alcoholic, and there's a terrifying monster chasing her through the afterlife.

C'mon, who doesn't love a "ghost solves their own murder" plotline? In this case there were twists that were either clever or random, a nostalgic look back at the eighties, and an enjoyably self-absorbed nitwit for a protagonist (albeit one who tries to do the right thing in the end).

Moonlight and Ashes by Sophie Masson

I'd read the other two books in Masson's unofficial trilogy of retold fairy tales (the others based on Beauty and the Beast and Rapunzel, and all set in the same imaginary country) but this one managed to slip past me until now. It turned out to be the best of the three, basing itself on Cinderella but eventually steering itself into an adventure upon which the whole kingdom is at stake.

Once the endless self-pity comes to a close (yes, Cinderella has plenty of reasons to be miserable, but this one is particularly whiny about it) and the story kicks off, there's a lot to absorb: moon-sisters secret werewolves, disguised aristocrats, political intrigue, and even the magical hazel tree from the less-renowned version of the fairy tale. There's a surprising amount of depth to the world Masson creates, and Cinderella's own family history informs the plot in unexpected ways.

The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente

I was so inspired by this book that it led me to write a follow-up post about female characters who don't end up stuffed in the fridge, but there's always room to rave about it a little more! As you might have guessed, its title is a riff on The Vagina Monologues, and contains the testimonies of five women who have been... well, Stuffed in the Fridge.

The genius of the book works on several levels. First of all, it's giving voices to women – albeit fictional ones – that had their lives cut short in order to further the storylines of male characters. And so we never really learn much about said male characters; Valente determinedly keeps the focus on the women: their stories, their personalities, their dreams and aspirations that were cut short.

Which has an effect on the book's two settings: the world of the living, and Deadtown. In keeping with the aforementioned focus, we don't learn much about the "real world", outside a few tantalizing details: there are villains and vigilantes, epic battles across space and time, sprawling cities beneath the ocean and atop mountains, a massive history of conflict and struggle. We only ever catch glimpses of it, mentioning in off-handed passing by the women themselves.

It's in Deadtown that the women dwell, which is built with Valente's requisite quirky charm: gargoyles as bartenders, food and drink derived from plants/animals that are extinct, neon lights and endless freeways...

Valente is on record as saying she was moved to write this after her frustration with the treatment of Gwen Stacey in The Amazing Spiderman 2, so any long-time comic book fan can see the parallels she makes between her original characters and the (copyrighted) women who have been dying across comic book panels for years: there's Gwen of course, but also a superhero so powerful she has to be taken down by her own team (Jean Grey), a mother institutionalized for grieving the loss of her child (Mera), a psychotic wannabe villain who is murdered by her even crazier boyfriend (Harlequin), a young woman who dies of a drug overdose for no apparent reason (Karen Page), and of course, the girl who ends up in the fridge (Alexandra Dewitt).

But they're not exact replicas and Valente's original details make the stories all the more creative and enjoyable, despite their tragic endings. There's also some fun poked at the familiar components of comic-books: a vigilante called Grimdark, an insane asylum that's remarkably easy to escape from, and plenty of reality-bending shenanigans.

And though it focuses mainly on comic book heroines, it's clear that Deadtown is packed with women: somewhere in there is Claudine and Veil and Maid Marian and Shado and Miranda Barlow and Mary Winchester and any woman who appears in a Christopher Nolan film and countless more – so by the end of the book it's not surprising the tone has gone from righteously furious to rather sad and resigned. I can't say I blame Valente for this shift, as it's not like current events give us any more reason to be upbeat.

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

The direct sequel to The Raven Boys in Stiefvater's four-volume Raven Cycle, this one focuses more on Ronan Lynch than his peers, leading me to suspect that each of the four books will centre on one of the four Aglionby School friends. All of them (plus Blue Sargent, raised in a house of clairvoyants) are drawn together by their de facto leader's quest to find the resting place of a mysterious Welsh king, though it becomes apparent that all of them are deeply unusual in one respect or another.

As revealed in the final pages of the last book, Ronan has the ability to dream things into existence. It's a gift/curse that's defined most of his life, including his education, relationships and family, not to mention outside forces. There are people looking for Ronan who are well aware of his power and their ability to exploit it.

Despite the popularity of these books on Tumblr (my dash is often filled with quotes and fan art) I'm still left a little cold. I can't really connect to any of the characters, and often Stiefvater's prose feels like it's trying too hard to be clever – at the cost of naturalism in the way people interact, or dialogue that isn't endless witty banter. Yes, I realize that's an opinion that's extremely hard to articulate or quantify, but I also know I whizzed through at least three other books while struggling to maintain the motivation to finish this one.

Maybe the story will work better (for me at least) on the screen, as I've just found out it's being adapted for television.

Paddington (2014)

Everyone told me that this movie was delightful and charming, and they were right. Which is funny, because despite actually playing Paddington in one of my childhood drama classes, I never read any of the books, or felt particularly compelled to. I see that I'll have to rectify that, as Paddington is the perfect remedy to the state of the world at the moment.

A series of unfortunate events brings Paddington from Peru to London, where he's desperate to find a family and a new home. If your heart doesn't melt at the sight of him trying to navigate the bustle of Paddington Station, then perhaps you haven't got one.

But as chance would have it, he's taken in by the Brown family, a perfect nuclear family of mother, father, daughter, son and live-in housekeeper (that last one perhaps the final remnant of the book's original publishing date). They're keen to help him find the explorer who originally discovered Paddington in Peru, but along the way there are plenty of mishaps involving everything from a flooded bathroom to a wicked taxidermist.

Nicole Kidman looks like she had a blast as villain of the piece, though the character is perhaps a little too dark for what is otherwise the movie equivalent of a warm blanket. It wasn't something I would have sought out without so many recommendations, but I'm glad I did.

Lion (2016)

Even without seeing a second of the film, the true story behind it is enough to get you teary-eyed: at five years old Saroo accidentally climbs onto a train that takes him thousands of miles across India, separating him from his family with no way of returning to them (especially since he doesn't know the name of his village). After a few harrowing months on the streets of Calcutta, he's eventually adopted by an Australian couple and starts a new life on the other side of the world.

The film's second half is less successful: now a twenty-six year old (played by Dev Patel) Saroo is trying to get on with his life, though is constantly haunted by the knowledge that his mother and brother would have spent the last twenty years without any clue as to where he disappeared to. And so he's gradually consumed by his attempts to track down his home on Google Earth, guided only by his vague memories of certain landmarks.

This part is frustrating because it focuses on the wrong thing: instead of exploring his relationship with his adoptive parents and fraught feelings about his foster brother (who hasn't adjusted as well as he has), the film feels the need to introduce Rooney Mara as a love interest, a completely superfluous character who grinds the film to a halt every time she's onscreen. Perhaps she was based on a real person, but here you could remove her scenes entirely without it having any effect on the story.

And it's a shame, as there was plenty of material to be mined from the contrast between Saroo and Mantosh, and the tragic implication that Saroo thrived and Mantosh didn't simply because the former was loved in the earliest years of his life, and the latter wasn't. It made all the difference to their ability to adjust in Australia.

Paddington 2 (2017)

Between all the recommendations and the 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I ended up watching the two Paddington movies on the same night – and this is one of those rare sequels that expands on the original rather than just repeating itself, making it even more heartfelt and charming.

This time around, Paddington wants to buy a pop-up book of London for his Aunt Lucy's birthday, but having been framed for its theft, ends up in prison. But Paddington's super-power is his kindness and good manners, and soon the rest of the prison inmates are won-over by his sweetness. In the years 2018, I needed this movie.

However much fun Nicole Kidman had as the villain in the last movie, Hugh Grant is having even more, and is a much better fit for the movie's tone. It's more his own self-absorption than a vendetta against Paddington that makes him the bad guy, and his preening vanity is so over-the-top that it eventually gives him away.

And the Brown family are as lovely as ever, with a special bond between Paddington and Mrs Brown that comes close to one of mother/son, and a more expansive look at the other residents of Windsor Gardens which alleviates the extreme whiteness of the previous film. It's just lovely. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

Mary and the Witch's Flower (2017)

Aww, this movie tries so hard to be a Studio Ghibli film that I almost want to give it an A for effort. It's certainly very beautiful, with a couple of scenes that are reminiscent of Miyazaki at the height of his power – and yet there's some indefinable quality that's just missing. Don't ask me what it is, but it's just not there.

Based on one of Mary Stewart's more obscure children's books (she's most famous for The Merlin Trilogy) it involves a little girl discovering a magical broomstick which promptly transports her to a beautiful school for magic in the clouds. There she discovers a propensity for magic that makes her feel special for the first time in her life – though she also spots a few strange things that puts her on edge.

It's certainly worth watching, if not simply for the animation and atmosphere, and the story itself is also relatively compelling, with a few interesting twists and ideas along the way. It pays homage to Miyazaki's work with a headstrong, kind-hearted female protagonist, and theme of finding the balance between your true self and your responsibilities to others.

But like I said before – you can just tell it isn't a Miyazaki film, a man who can make the mundane just as fascinating as the magical.  

A Quiet Place (2018)

SPOILERS

I watched after all the hype had died down, and found that it was a solid horror/suspense film – though not quite as riveting as I had expected. And with a premise as good as the one it's got, I was expecting to feel on-edge from start to finish.

Starting in media res with a title card that tells us "Day 83", A Quiet Place explores the life of a family that must live in silence after aliens with advanced hearing invade the Earth. Newspaper clippings on the wall silently give us the exposition we need about the state of the world and the basic biology of the aliens, and then it's down to business: watching the challenge of raising a family and living day-to-day in utter silence.

Of course, sooner or later someone is going to make a noise. Accidents happen, exceptions are made, and Evelyn's pregnancy looms over everything.

There's also an interesting (albeit subtle) commentary on gender roles. Evelyn is usually seen doing things like cooking, cleaning, washing, teaching, and is quite literally barefoot and pregnant throughout most of the film. In these tasks, she's helped by her daughter Regan, who would much rather be doing the "manly" tasks of hunting and scavenging with her father, though he takes her brother Marcus – and one suspects this is only partly because Regan is deaf.

As it happens, this rings true to me. I think if society had to start living in survivalist conditions, a lot of people would fall back into traditional gender roles, at least for a little while, and the nice thing about the film is that neither is treated as more important or interesting than the other.  

Yet by the end of the movie, things have been flipped on their head. Lee dies in order to protect his children, Marcus is sent to hide in a corner while holding his infant brother, and it's Evelyn and Regan who team up in order to kill the attacking aliens. I only mention it because no one else seems to have brought it up, but it's a fun and surprising twist on expectations.

As others have said, it's easy to poke holes in the story's setup. Like, how idiotic to you have to be to get pregnant under these conditions? How did no one figure out that aliens with super-hearing would be vulnerable to high-pitched noises? And the death of the youngest son in the opening sequence is just stupid: when you're walking around in a highly dangerous area, then for God's sake, your children should be walking between you, not trailing behind!

All that said, I question the complaint that the family should have just gone to live at the waterfall. Gone to live... in what exactly? A house has a degree of safety, warmth and comfort that the outdoors just doesn't have, especially when you consider they would have either had to build a new house (by themselves? With what? And without making noise?) or gone camping (in the cold, with minimal resources). Nah, it makes more sense to have stayed in the house.

And yet all this makes for a great movie in terms of the discussions it creates. Such a high concept premise naturally leads to the question of: "what would I do in this situation?" and the whole scenario is milked for every last drop of tension (even if that damn nail ends up more horrifying than the aliens).  

Deadpool 2 (2018)

Yeah, it was fun. There's not much else to say really; I'm a complete sucker for time-travel in the X-Men universe (whether or not it makes actual sense) and though this was a largely self-contained adventure (let's face it, the aforementioned X-Men universe is so sprawling that you need a long-running television show to really do it justice) it was the humour and characters that everyone turned up for.

I would have been furious about Vanessa dying had I not already been spoiled over Wade saving her in the end-credits sequences (let's hope all that was canon), though I have to say that although it was very much a Fridged Woman scenario, it was played with a lot more nuance than usual. For instance, Wade is devastated over her death for the entire movie, instead of just shrugging it off, and the plot that follows isn't "must get revenge over by dead girlfriend," but "must honour my girlfriend by saving this child."

As for the rest, Domino was heaps of fun, Cable was the requisite straight guy, Yukio and Negasonic Teenage Warhead casually drop in as the first same-sex couple of the franchise (and hey, no executive felt the need to advertise how amazingly progressive they were being!), as a kiwi it was fantastic to see our own Julian Dennison as Russell, and there are plenty of fun cameos throughout. 

I went in with no expectations, so enjoyed what it delivered. Especially Juggernaut's theme, and I say that as someone who hates Juggernaut.

Solo (2018)

Ditto what I just said about Deadpool 2: I went in with no expectations, and so liked it more than I thought it would. Between the replaced directors and the toxic fandom and the questionable casting and the fact that I wasn't hugely interested in a Han Solo origin story anyway (like Hannibal Lector and the Joker, this is a character whose mystique is part of his characterization), it seemed impossible that I'd be able to just switch my brain off and just enjoy a damn Star Wars movie. But I did.

First the negatives: that the franchise introduces its first significant black female character and female-coded droid, and so naturally barely waits three seconds before killing them both off. I can't even muster the energy to be mad about it; it's just too predictable and tedious.

And I can't say I was that impressed or interested in Qi-Ra either: I give them credit for not killing her off or making her evil (most of us would have bet good money on either/both of these things setting Han off on his "scoundrel" path) but despite Emilia Clarke's charisma, she isn't given much to work with, and can't elevate the character into anything hugely memorable. Easily the most bland female lead of the entire franchise.

Then there's the fact that all the epochs in Han's life (meeting Chewy, meeting Lando, winning the Falcon, flying the Kessel Run) all happened within a few weeks. What are the odds? In the same vein, for every cute or clever in-joke (thanks to this movie, Lando's greeting of Han outside Cloud City now has an extra bit of amusing resonance) there are plenty that fall flat (how he got the name Solo, the "I hate you"/"I know" exchange, those inexplicably important dice).

Oh, and that Darth Maul cameo was downright random – not to mention totally confusing to anyone who hasn't watched the animated television shows.

But on the whole, it was nice to finally get a Star Wars story that wasn't about good versus evil: just a low-key story about some colourful characters trying to survive in a dangerous galaxy. There were some fun set-pieces, some cool new planets, a few clever beats, nice costumes and aliens, plus a better look at the seedier side of the universe.

And of course, there's always something to be said for a massive budget. I'd been watching Killjoys at the same time I saw this, and was downright shocked when we got a wide-shot of a bustling spaceport stretching as far as the eye could see. You just don't get that on television.

And it turned out that fandom had left me one surprise: though I knew that Enrys Nest would turn out to be a woman, I had no idea that she would be a) a good guy, and b) so impossibly young. I doubt we'll ever see her again, and yet her unmasking was a true joy – a revelation even! The first seeds of the rebellion are being sown, and they're in the hands of women like Enrys Nest. It's enough to make me forgive what they did with Val, L3 and Qi-Ra.

Agatha Christie's Miss Marple: Collection 1 (1984 – 1985)

So I feel like I'm about to commit heresy with this, but although Joan Hickson is generally considered the best Miss Marple, I prefer Geraldine McEwan. That's probably because she was the first Marple I ever saw, and so her high little voice and bird-like mannerisms imprinted themselves on me. In comparison, Joan Hickson doesn't bring many distinctive idiosyncrasies to the character. A lot of the time she fades into the background.

I will say this though: Hickson got the better screenplays. The most recent offering of Marple on ITV (which is now over ten years old – yikes!) got rather over-the-top with its depictions of violence, sex, and other sordid bits, whereas these definitely remember that they're meant to be cosy mysteries, and so adhere much more closely to Christie's original text.  

This one covered The Body in the Library, A Murder is Announced and The Moving Finger, all of which are faithfully rendered and provide a snapshot of post-war Britain as envisioned by the eighties. So that's two levels of nostalgia for the price of one!

Fresh Off The Boat: Season 1 (2015)

Everyone is talking about Constance Wu in Crazy Rich Asians, so naturally it was time to track down the sitcom that put her on the map: Fresh Off the Boat.

Based on the memoirs of Eddie Huang, it involves the Huang family (comprised of Eddie, his two nerdy younger brothers, hardworking father, high-achieving mother and wheelchair-bound grandmother) moving from Washington DC to Orlando in the nineties. His father desperately wants to escape employment under his brother-in-law and open a steakhouse restaurant; though the fact Orlando has a significantly limited Asian-American population makes the transition a challenge for everyone.

It's a pretty fun offering, though never quite laugh-out-loud funny (at least not yet) and one that doesn't mine the poignancy of the family's situation to its full extent (the most memorable event of the first episode is Eddie's desperation to eat "white people food" after his noodles are derided as "worms" by his classmates, and Jessica's half-exasperated, half-saddened steps to accommodate him – a culture clash that's never recaptured to the same heart-rending extent in any of the following episodes).

Constance Wu as Jessica is by far the stand-out character, who's highly reminiscent of other frighteningly strict sitcom wives (Lois from Malcolm in the Middle certainly springs to mind) though everyone gets their chance to shine sooner or later.

American Vandal: Season 1 (2017)

I was planning to get Making of a Murderer and a few seasons of Serial under my belt before watching this, knowing that it was a satire of true-crime documentaries, but the praise being lavished upon it meant it got bumped up the queue.

During a teachers-only day at Hanover High School, twenty-seven faculty cars are vandalized with spray-painted dicks. The finger is pointed at Dylan Maxwell, a dim-witted idiot of a teenager whose hobbies include filming himself farting on toddlers at the park and playing elaborate pranks on his neighbours. He's also a known dick-drawer (in his words: "I dabble") and is a constant menace to the Spanish teacher Mrs Shapiro who led the charges against him.

But two other students aren't that convinced – as they point out, Dylan's dicks have ball-hairs on them, and the graffiti in the carpark doesn't. Could he be innocent?

This is incidentally the crux of the humour in American Vandal: it treats the vandalism with as much weight and seriousness as an actual murder would be, with Peter and Sam carefully parsing evidence such as prank phone calls, text messages, rumoured hook-ups, and the aforementioned ball hairs in the quest to prove Dylan's innocence.

Aside from the comedy, it's a great look at the impact of social media and devices in our everyday lives (Peter painstakingly puts together a timeline of events at a party through seconds-long footage collected on dozens of phones, and the documentary becomes viral in the show itself, leading to a whole range of problems that comes with the publicity).    

It can also get surprisingly poignant at times, especially when the time comes to wrap things up. A lot of people get hurt through both the events the documentary inspires and the documentary itself, and the real genius of the whole thing is how real the writing manages to make all the characters. They could have easily come across as caricatures (the jock, the slut, the activist, etc) but instead they feel like real people dealing with an absurdly serious situation.

Poldark: Season 4 (2018)

As with the third season, this snuck up on me and had fully aired before I even realized it was back! It was thankfully much less repetitive than season three, though it still revolves around the Poldark/Warleggan feud, with an increasingly-unhinged George fuming every time Ross gets the better of him – which is often. 

By this stage the show knows what its strengths are, with Aidan Turner emerging from the ocean sans shirt as its very first shot, and crafting a reasonably satisfying arc between London and Cornwall that involves all the main characters to one degree or another. Yes, once again Ross's hair-trigger temper becomes a massive liability, but this time around at least it's got more to do with his defence of other people than his own personal pride.

Yet for the first time the dynamics between George/Elizabeth and Drake/Morwenna are more interesting than those between Ross/Demelza, with genuinely interesting obstacles and challenges to overcome. Elizabeth in particular gets a good run of episodes, returning to her core decency and compassion after getting dangerously close to becoming a mean girl last season, and gaining a certain amount of tragic gravitas in the way her life turned out. Raised to be little more than a trophy wife, a poignant conversation with a visiting Verity makes it clear she's all too aware of the choices that have been inflicted upon her throughout her life.

Apparently the fifth season will be its last – is it too much to hope for a time-skip that will allow the second generation to be more than just toddlers?

Killjoys: Season 4 (2018)

I watched this on a weekly basis – which is a big deal in these days of binge watching – and it passed in a bit of a blur. By this point I've given up trying to fathom the plot: there's green goo that contains the memories of all sentient life, as well as a being called The Lady who wants to escape so she can reshape the universe, a plan that somehow involves a baby that combines the DNA of D'avin and Aleena, who is the source of Dutch's entire existence, due to the former drawing the latter out of the green fully-formed. Is that right?

It doesn't really matter, because anyone watching this is doing so for the character dynamics, particularly the three leads: Dutch and the Jaqobis brothers. By this point their easy chemistry and banter is the heart of the show, helped along with an incredibly strong supporting cast. Zeph in particular comes into her own this season – still arrogant about her intellectual prowess, but starting to hero-worship Dutch in a way that inevitably disappoints her (my heart broke when she faces a no-win situation and objects on the basis that: "Dutch is magic!")

As with Poldark, the fifth season will be the last, but everything is in place for the creative team to stick the landing.

Disenchantment (2018)

After tackling the present (The Simpsons) and the future (Futurama) it was only natural that Matt Groening would go back to the past for his latest project. Disenchantment is set in the fantasy-medieval kingdom of Dreamland, where Princess Bean decides to go on a quest of self-discovery after refusing to marry for political convenience.

Of course she's joined by two more misfits: the cheerily optimistic Elfo (who is actually downbeat in comparison to his fellow elves – it's all relative) and actual demon Lucy (who everyone assumes is a cat) who coaxes Bean into making really bad life-decisions for reasons that aren't fully clear yet.

Yeah, it's a rough start. Many of the jokes fall flat and the story doesn't seem to know where it's going until the last couple of episodes, but I love good animation and I adore Princess Bean. She's vulgar and directionless and petulant and curious about life. She makes mistakes and speaks her mind and offers friendship to unlikely people and is looking for her true calling in life. I'll be there for season two.