Reviews

As usual, Andrew Scott is really excellent here - he's a phenomenal talent. The rest of the cast are good too. The film is more political than I expected, but not preachy; there is an intelligent discussion of the relative merits of calling yourself "gay" versus "queer", and the way in which both have been used as an insult in straight culture; two characters from different generations each take a side and make their argument well. There is a subtle point made via the extensive use of period-specific music that, for all the 1980s were a less tolerant era for gay men in the UK, we had a far richer gay culture then than we do now - with acts like Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Erasure and The Pet Shop Boys making mainstream pop music that was interesting, genuinely countercultural and openly gay without being sanitized or stereotypical.

Much of the film is a comparison of what things were like for gay men growing up in the 1980s versus what they're like now: what has changed and what hasn't, and whether we're lying to ourselves about the realities of gay life in the present day. While elements of this rang true for me (like the main character's sensitivity and fear of fireworks, and his parents' concern at his lack of masculinity), the fact my own family background is so different to the one shown in the film meant I didn't relate to it as much as I expected to. As such, I liked All Of Us Strangers but didn't love it. If the script has a problem, it's that the characters are too obviously ciphers and lack specificity; Andrew Scott's protagonist is a default 2020s urban gay writer and his parents are a default 1980s English suburban couple. All of them feel too generic to be real people, and we actually learn very little about the protagonist's life. This is compounded by the twist ending, which I saw coming and think was possibly the worst way to end the story.

While the film explores gay loneliness, it lays the blame for this in the wrong place. Put simply, I'm tired of gay media blaming straight culture, heteronormativity and homophobia for gay men's problems when the way gay men treat each other is a far bigger problem - and no, the former is not the cause of the latter. The end of the film attempts to blame Andrew Scott's character (and by extension his upbringing) for a decision he made at the start of the film because he was "too scared", implying this fear was the product of his heteronormative childhood during the height of the AIDS crisis. However, I think his decision was absolutely the right one, that he was wary for entirely rational reasons that have very little to do with this. Sometimes when gay men keep each other at arm's length, it isn't because of internalized homophobia and fear of intimacy but because of red flags and the wisdom of self-preservation, just the same as for any other two people.

What's missing, particularly towards the end, is any practical aspect showing how gay men can overcome past trauma and build meaningful relationships and communities with each other. Instead, we're left with a beautiful tragedy, a tone poem mired in a morass of grief... but grief that feels overly elegant and artificial instead of truly earned.

The hurdle with this enjoyable series is mainly one pertaining to structure. In episode 1 we are introduced to Sam, Beth, Gemma, Adam, Owen, Ness, Gareth, Carys, Juno, Anita, Liz, Tess, Khalil, Hugh, Duncan, Maya and Luke, plus two police officers, and we also hear about Lydia, Dom, Phoebe and Amy (a character central to the entire storyline who died 10 years previously). This is simply far too many new characters to drop on your audience straight out of the gate. I had to take notes throughout the first episode to make sure I was following everything, as it's such an infodump of characters, relationships and backstories - too much at once in a non-streamlined way. There are flashbacks within flashbacks, and which timeline we're currently witnessing is sometimes less clear than it should be. It's the type of complex web of characters that a soap opera would build up over the course of a season. Here, you have one hour to familiarize yourself. The first episode really needs a total rewrite in order to be more comprehensible.

Happily, the rest of the series is watchable and coherent. The performances, dialog, production and story are all good, and the series's worldbuilding feels original and holds together. Most satisfyingly, all the questions I'd noted down over the course of the series were satisfyingly resolved by the final episode. There are no loose ends here, which is increasingly rare in TV drama.

Do I find the details of the deaths credible? No, not really, but the finale is still a great ride. Is the retention of CCTV footage and door entry data from a decade ago too much of a contrivance? Probably, but at least the plot mechanics actually hold together without the series contradicting itself or falling apart. And I loved how Sam remains a morally ambiguous figure to the very end, with Tess essentially becoming the series's conscience, ending the finale on a truly powerful and thought-provoking note. I also appreciated how the at-times annoying idealism of characters like Gemma and Maya was taken seriously - acknowledging that while young activists do sometimes go too far, that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't coming from a sincere place.

The casting choices are impeccable across the board: Rakhee Thakrar is excellent here, Maxine Peake her usual reliable self, and Zoe Tapper chews the scenery deliciously. I think Kieran Bew and Ben Batt nailed their roles as well - Gareth is the perfect mixture of sympathetic and abhorrent. Dominic Vulliamy is also fun as catty secretary Duncan, striking just the right note without going overboard. The setting is also well-chosen, with the series making good use of locations in and around the Cheshire town of Frodsham.

One of the series's strongest themes is the way in which some women (here Sam, Ness and Anita, and to a certain extent Maya's mother) excuse, turn a blind eye to, cooperate with, enable and even encourage certain men's predatory conduct, and why this happens. It's this multifaceted examination of complicity that gives Rules Of The Game more meat to its bones than it might otherwise have had.

The issue here is not the direction, production or cast, all of which are fine. The dialog, while not great, could also be a lot worse. What sinks this is the ridiculous plotting, which centres around a series of twee writerly conceits the mystery is inelegantly hung on - a pocket mirror, a comb, a mad woman, a shifty lodger, a glass dome containing taxidermed birds, a series of Post-It notes, and the song Powder My Nose With Sunshine.

The idea that a dementia patient would confuse a current missing woman (Elizabeth) with one from the past (Sukey) is strong, and could have been utilized much more effectively. That Maud's mind would blend elements of the two women's stories together is absolutely credible. However, the coincidence of Elizabeth living in Sukey's old house strains this credibility greatly. The weakest part of all? Both mysteries are solved when Maud simply remembers what happened. 60 years later, having never discussed it with anyone, she's suddenly able to recall the exact details of how and why Sukey was killed and even help her daughter locate the body. (The fact she knows this so precisely suggests she witnessed or overheard the murder. If so, why did she never report her own sister's murder until now?) Meanwhile, Elizabeth simply fell over in the garden and was hospitalized. This happens right in front of Maud, yet she instantly forgets it, which again strains credulity - the more unexpected, personal and traumatic an event is, the more a dementia patient is likely to remember it, even one with severe short-term memory loss. It would probably be the only thing that Maud remembered of that day... yet it's the only thing she forgets (conveniently, until the end of the film, to provide a dramatic "reveal").

The other big issue with Elizabeth Is Missing is that, like many dementia dramas, it requires that all the supporting characters handle Elizabeth in the worst possible way in order to create conflict and hammer the point home that she has dementia. Only Maud's granddaughter really knows how to interact with her; none of the other adults responsible for her care seem to have the slightest idea how to deal with a loved one with dementia, how to keep them calm and make them feel listened to and included. Given the stage of dementia she's at, this simply isn't realistic - but I suppose if the adults around Maud had spent the hour being nice to her, assauging her fears, de-escalating and distracting her with enjoyable activities, there wouldn't have been much drama. Instead, we get the full dementia horror-show which reduces Maud to a gurning victim trapped in a nightmare. I can't emphasize enough that dementia does not have to be this bad, that it is possible to live well with dementia for years. There's no sense here that Maud's family and friends have acclimatized to the situation and learned to modify their behavior, when in fact that's one of the first things that happens when you have a loved one with dementia.

What's missing here are all the moments of love and joy, an understanding that dementia patients can still have quality of life. I know people who have had dementia for many years, whose short-term memory is completely shot and who are reliant on others for help with certain tasks, but who can still cook, garden, read, do puzzles, follow politics and current affairs, engage with friends and family, and generally take an interest in the world - and who enjoy their day almost every day. Who still actively pursue and enjoy their hobbies and who have put all kinds of practical coping strategies in place (either independently or with their family's support) to ensure they can carry out their daily activities safely. That's what dementia can be too, and what it is for many, not just an unremitting horror show. Please don't think it has to be this bad, at least not all the time.

Everything about this episode is very stupid. The only good thing is Dwight Schultz's dual performance, and the fact Commander Harkins's character has been softened slightly since Pathfinder. He's fair and understanding with Barclay here, yet still firm.

The early-TNG-style Ferengi in this episode are like nails down a chalkboard. Harry is out of character - maybe he was this credulous in season 1, but not since. Tom and B'Elanna's mean teasing of him is also out of character. Admiral Paris and Troi are wasted. The score is really annoying: the episode seems to think it's much funnier than it is, and many scenes are scored cloyingly whimsically despite the fact that nothing funny or interesting is happening. (It's the worst Voyager score since the fake-Irish whimsy overkill of Fair Haven/Spirit Folk.) The beach scene is incredibly stilted, so singularly bizarre that it reminded me of the Crusher/Troi aerobics scene in TNG's The Price - the dialog, direction, performances and costuming are all weirdly off. And Troi is shot more exploitatively here than Seven ever was.

I always mix up this one and Repression, because they're just two episodes apart, both remarkably bad, and both based on the idea of the monthly Starfleet data stream being hijacked and repurposed by a dire unconvincing one-off villain from the Alpha Quadrant. But this one is worse - it's the different between 1.5 stars and 0.5 stars. Repression at least has Tim Russ's fantastic performance, and an engaging mystery/thriller tone that sustains interest; it only totally falls apart in the final third. By contrast, this episode starts well but falls to pieces less than halfway through, then somehow keeps getting worse and worse.

This episode is full of good acting and dialog scenes, but the basic plot doesn't make any sense. What is Winn's plan?

OK, so Secretary Kubus and Winn are working together, and she gets him to come to the station, where he is then recognized and detained. This is contingent on the Bajorans on DS9 recognizing him, but it seems he was a fairly notorious figure so we'll let that pass.

Odo then allows Winn to visit him in detention (which seems dubious, as Odo knows that Winn is a terrorist who ordered Neela to blow up Keiko's school and assassinate Bareil) and doesn't monitor or oversee their conversation (also very dubious). In detention, Kubus divulges to Winn that Bareil was the one who ordered Prylar Bek to tell the Cardassians the location of the resistance base. But we know that Winn already knows this, as the nod they give each other earlier in the episode indicates to us that they're carrying out a plan.

Winn then asks to use Odo's computer(!) and googles Prylar Bek and the Kendra Valley Massacre, something she could have just done on a padd or terminal. It's also not clear why she would need to look those things up, as nothing Kubus told her should require here to look up basic information on the events. Essentially she only does it in the hope that Odo will look in the browser history to see what information she accessed and then tell Kira, an obvious trap Odo falls right into. But that's moot because Winn comes straight out and tells Kira about Kubus's allegations against Bareil in the very next scene.

Kira is only able to find out the truth of the situation by getting Quark to hack into the Vedek Assembly (something Winn could never have been able to predict) then getting Chief O'Brien to retrieve the lost data in the erased logs, which requires unscrambling and reassembling the deleted file fragments that are still stored in the computer memory after deletion. Somehow this happens to include a retinal scan(!) that links back to Bareil. It's nigh-on impossible that Winn would have even known about these long-since-deleted files in the first place, let alone known that they would be recoverable or traceable to Bareil - it's not rational or feasible for Winn to have thought that Kira or anyone else would have been able to retrieve this information, even with Starfleet expertise - and as such Kubus's allegations against Bareil would have remained completely unsubstantiated, rendering Winn's plan moot. It's also completely unclear whether Winn knows that Bareil is covering for Opaka or whether she thinks Bareil genuinely betrayed the resistance. There seems to be no way for her to know (Bareil only does because he was Opaka's close confidant and protege), and in fact if we read the episode as if Winn genuinely believes that Bareil is guilty, all of her actions seem a lot more justified. Rather than mere outrage at his betrayal, she's more delighted and satisfied that she's finally found some dirt on him that she can use to her own ends, which is in character.

Even if Winn does know about Opaka, how can she assume that Bareil will withdraw or lose in order to keep the secret? If she and Kubus were to go public with the allegations, it would be far more rational for Bareil to come out and explain to the Bajoran public that Opaka betrayed the resistance base in order to save 1200 lives, sacrificing her own son in the process. This would complicate her legacy but by no means destroy it and would ultimately be very healthy, as would Bareil then becoming Kai. So Winn's plot, such as it is, rests on the assumption that Bareil will simply withdraw from the race to protect this secret, which isn't a logical deduction. Again, Winn's plot makes more sense if she really does believe that Bareil was the one who betrayed the resistance. When she blackmails him by threatening to reveal this information and he then capitulates and withdraws from the race in response, this can only strengthen her impression of his guilt. Yet somehow the episode wants us to think that Winn had a master plan and was pulling the strings on everyone all along and getting Kira to do her bidding.

Very good episode on a character, performance and dialog level, but one of a number in early DS9 where the writing is too neat and the writer's hand too evident on a plot level. The entire plot rests on the MacGuffin of a list of 8 names written on a piece of paper hidden in a wall by a collaborator, and the other characters' actions are driven by trying to get this list of names - Kira so that the resistance can track down and kill the collaborators listed, and Pallra so she can blackmail them for money now that she's fallen on hard times. But why would Vaatrik even need to write down a list of just 8 names instead of simply memorizing them, let alone on a piece of paper?

The direction and set design are great, but the episode is a little too much of a stylistic exercise - the 40s-inspired noir homage complete with femme fatale and Odo as hard-boiled private detective actually overshadows the nuts-and-bolts reality of the situation. Kira lying to Odo on their first meeting also shouldn't be the big deal the episode thinks it is because it was the only thing she could do in order to survive: it was either lie or be executed, and Odo was working directly for Dukat. Present-day Odo already knows that Kira was a resistance member, so should already know that she had to make moral compromises and get her hands dirty in the fight to free her people. It's not like she was living in a free society and freely chose to lie about something bad she did - she was a soldier operating under great constraints (the threat of discovery and death).

I've been heavily critical of season 3 so far, in many ways not really seeing it as a meaningful improvement on seasons 1-2 despite the spacebound setting and roster of familiar faces. Too much bad dialog, bad plotting and poor characterization got in the way.

This episode is a triumph. It's intelligently written with smart, emotionally weighty dialog that rings true to the characters and the situation. It's an episode about consequences, one that takes time to look at everything that has happened in the past four episodes, what it meant and what it augurs. Picard, Riker and Seven hijacking the Titan has consequences, Worf decapitating Sneed has consequences, and the fallout from TNG's "Preemptive Strike" - which this episode is a completely unexpected yet shockingly skilful sequel to - has consequences. It's a very accomplished hour.

No, not everything is perfect; I'm slightly frustrated that Ro was killed off at the end of the episode when it would have made more sense for her to stay on the Titan and flee with them. But I think this episode is the best marriage of plot and characterization that a NuTrek script has ever achieved, getting both so right in a way that drives the plot forward in logical, credible and thrilling ways while being deeply true to character for pretty much all players and functioning as a character study that deeply understands and cares about its players. The dumbed-down repetitive dialog of just two episodes ago feels light years away.

Huge credit to the writers of this episode. The script truly understands the events of Preemptive Strike from both Ro's and Picard's perspective and how much it cost both of them. There were many lines of dialog I was impressed with, and not just in the Picard/Ro storyline. It's clear the actors connect with the material just as much as the writers did, and it's wonderful to see Picard and Ro truly hash it out in a meaningful, realistic way that's informed by both characters' histories, before achieving resolution, healing and trust in a way that feels real and truly earned - Picard possibly truly understanding Ro, her choices and why she made them for the first time.

On other fronts, Michael Dorn is wonderful, and the changeling plot is here progressed in ways that I find logical, credible and grounded. Is it realistic that there would be a breakaway group of changelings who don't want peace with the Federation? Yes, absolutely, because the swiftness and oversimplicity with which the Dominion War plot was wrapped up was one of the weaknesses of DS9's ending. Is it realistic that changelings would evolve and become better able to mimic humans? Yes, especially as we already see indications during DS9 that changelings are learning to pass the blood test. I was also happy to hear that Starfleet has indeed kept up anti-changeling measures on board ships and facilities ever since the end of the war, something we find out from Seven in a dialog scene that brings us up to speed but doesn't remotely feel like the clunky exposition of previous episodes.

Everyone here feels like themselves. I love that the episode remembers that Shaw is in the right and allows him to be so, that what Picard, Riker and Seven did was by no means OK. His decision at the end, which brings him over onto their "side", again feels earned, realistic and non-forced - he's a pragmatic man responding practically to a rapidly changing situation.

This episode really works, right down to the direction (one of the only things to have been consistently good this season), the pacing and the structure. This is why I was so tough on the previous four episodes, which despite a few overtures in the right direction were still riddled with quippy wannabe-MCU dialog, huge logical oversights and soap-opera characterization. This is why I was so tough on them, because then when the show truly steps up its game, when it truly delivers an episode that excels on all fronts, that doesn't rely on appeals to nostalgia and superficial call-backs but treats Star Trek as literature and functions as a literary response to and continuation of a gritty TNG episode that no-one expected it would ever attempt let alone pull off, then I can dish out the praise it truly deserves.

This is a decent but underwhelming attempt at doing a classic standalone disaster/submarine episode within the confines of the show's overall arc. What works about the episode is its tone, not the details. There are fairly significant improvements to the dialog and characterization, though the plotting is still a mess.

First off, the quippery is dialled back and the characters feel much more like professionals in this episode. There is much, much less of the constant paraphrasing and reiteration that littered previous episodes, especially last week's. The script trusts us to be able to follow what's going on without it constantly being re-explained to us in overtly expository dialog and vernacular analogies. This is a very low bar but I'm happy to see it cleared. The couple of moments of exposition that don't work are bad because of plotting and logic, not the way they're written and delivered.

The Riker scenes are worthwhile and meaningful, and are actually thoughtfully written. Likewise Shaw's scene with Picard - even though I'm pretty much over the idea of Starfleet officers blaming Picard for Wolf 359 or being embittered towards "ex-Borg" generally, this was still well-written and performed. Seven and Shaw are used well and have meaningful stuff to do, as does Beverly. The main characters feel more like themselves than in previous weeks, and there's a TNG movie vibe to the episode, particularly towards the end.

The plot issues which nevertheless bring the episode down:

• Seven is told to hunt the changeling by finding its bucket(!) and scanning the "resi-goo"(!!) so as to enable the computer to locate the changeling on the ship. She then actually finds a hidden bucket(!!!) near-identical to Odo's (!!!!), but is unable to scan it before the changeling attacks her and mercifully puts this plot thread to rest. This is facepalm-level stuff. Yes, all changelings need to regenerate but there's no reason to think they would need a bucket to do so - and we've often seen that they don't need to spend long in their liquid form, it's more just the case that they can't maintain the same solid form for more than 16 hours without reverting to a liquid, however briefly. Odo outgrew his bucket right after discovering his true nature and instead regenerated by adopting different forms and "flowing around the room", so an experienced changeling would likely do similar. If a changeling who had replaced a Starfleet officer did need to use a receptacle for whatever reason, they could simply replicate one then put it back in the replicator when finished. The idea that every changeling operative uses a secret bucket that they have to hide somewhere is nonsensical, let alone the idea that they leave a residue, which likewise goes against everything we've seen before. I could give the show some leeway on this if the residue turned out to be microscopic, but it's clearly visible.

• The nebula turns out to be a "giant womb" for space jellyfish. How convenient, because if it hadn't, everyone would be dead. Picard, Riker and Seven hijack a starship with 500 innocent people on board and the only reason they escape is because of a completely unforeseeable fluke factor like this. It's lazy and cheesy plotting that does the characters a disservice by making them look like reckless idiots even as it simultaneously tries to portray them as heroic. They decide to "ride the wave" (sigh) not because their plan to escape the nebula makes any logical sense but for emotional reasons, because "this is what we do best". The plan is based around timing the nebula's contractions, which speaks for itself. The idea of space jellyfish was lame and cheesy in previous iterations like Farpoint and is lame and cheesy here, though it's the completely illogical escape scenario that's the problem here, not the corny jellyfish in and of themselves.

• All this, and Jack Crusher is still the main problem, and this week it's not even because of his dialog. In the holodeck scenes, Stewart and Stashwick give emotional and grounded performances, but Speelers again kills the scene with bad line readings that are glib and without any emotional weight whatsoever. Many of his lines are good on the page and would be perfectly effective with another actor, but he delivers them as if he hasn't read the script, hasn't thought about anything he's saying, isn't listening to it or feeling it while he's saying it and his mind is on his next job. It'd be an insult to call it phoned-in. You know the audition scenes in Mulholland Drive where Betty first gives an adequate, competent, entirely conventional performance of a scene, then a sensual, knockout, explosive performance of the same scene shortly afterwards? Speelers's acting here is way, way below the "badly acted" version of that scene. Isa Briones may have been given a lot of bad material in S1-2 but she herself was consistently strong whatever else was going on around her. Speelers is the opposite.

• The big reveal is... Jack Crusher anonymously talked to Picard a few years ago and Picard happened to say that "Starfleet is the only family I need", and that's why Jack is resentful of him. This is utter juvenilia, perhaps even worse than the big reveal in DIS S2 when we find out that the reason for the rift between Spock and Burnham is because she white-fanged him. Picard thinks he has no family, and Jack knows that, so of course he's going to say that. It's exactly what a man who had experienced a lot of loss would say. If Picard had actively chosen to leave Beverly and Jack, and then said "Starfleet is the only family I need" despite knowing he had a son, the scene would make sense.

• Nitpick, but one that points at greater issues: when did Picard have an encounter with the Hirogen (post-Voyager) where "Lieutenant Commander Worf" (pre-S4 DS9) saved the day?

While this episode is quite ambitious and makes an effort to be focused and tense - and Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden and Jonathan Frakes are all good here - its effectiveness is undercut by the ongoing issue of poor dialog and characterization. In short, no-one talks or acts like a Starfleet officer or like the characters we know.

• Why doesn't the Titan go around the portal? This may be an issue with the special effects shot, but the second time Vadic deploys the portal, there is plenty of time for the Titan to swerve it by going above it, below it, to the side or it, coming to a dead stop or even reversing. Instead, it flies straight into the portal despite the fact they now know what the portal is and what it does.

• Why doesn't the changeling just shoot out two tendrils and strangle Worf and Raffi dead? That way it would remain undiscovered and survive. It's not like there's a quantum stasis field like in The Die Is Cast. Instead, the changeling dies and blows its cover for no apparent reason - other than so there can be a double reveal for the audience's benefit synced to Jack's discovery of a changeling on the Titan. The scene would have made much more sense if Worf, having been forewared of changeling activity by Odo and having been aware that the individual they captured may well be a changeling, had indeed brought along a quantum stasis field generator and activated it during the interrogation. We could still have had practically the same interrogation scene and the same reveal but with the changeling crumbling at the end.

• On that note, why is the changeling still in the same form it was when it posed as a human to buy weapons from the Ferengi dealer? That seems like terrible strategy, which is very un-changeling-like - you'd think that to avoid any risk of detection it would have adopted a different persona straight away.

Worst scene, and one that epitomises all of the other problems:

• Riker has to explain to the captain of the Titan that you can't go to warp inside a nebula.

Other bad scenes:

• Seven kicks the unconscious security guard's foot out of the way, just like she kicked the dead bodies on the Artifact out of the way in S1, because it looks sassy. This is not how you do characterization.

• Riker tells Picard "you've killed us all" despite the fact he's equally culpable in getting them into this situation. The bar scene near the start of the episode was pretty good, but far too much of Riker's dialog is expository and out of character, mainly serving as a clumsy way to tell the audience things (often things that have already been shown or communicated just minutes earlier, but that slower viewers or those less familiar with Star Trek may not have understood).

• Sidney, who was having a perfectly normal day at work on a routine mission before Picard, Riker and Seven hijacked her ship, is now somehow on Seven's side and goes to her quarters to say she understands why Seven, the ship's first officer, threw away her career and put 500 people's lives in extreme danger to help her "friends".

The other big problem to this season, and (for once) one that isn't the fault of the writing: Ed Speelers is absolutely wooden, it's a really bad performance that is sub-soap opera level. It's not that he's playing the character in an overly cliched or obvious way, as that would at least be recognisable as a performance and as an informed choice; it's that his acting is simply poor, his line readings are so stilted and unconvincing that he doesn't remotely feel like a real person or believable character, let alone Picard's long-lost son who the entire plot supposedly revolves around. McFadden and Dorn haven't exactly acted a lot in the past 20 years and they're MUCH, MUCH better. Michelle Hurd is better. The Vulcan lady on the bridge is better. Speelers is a serious casting mistake.

Here's the level this show is written on:

Picard and Riker beam onto the Eleos, apparently bringing transport inhibitors with them. When they realize Vadic is trying to beam Jack Crusher off the ship, they activate the transport inhibitors in order to protect him. The Titan then arrives and tries to beam the four to safety. Picard says it's "not a moment too soon" and Riker comments that Seven needs to "hurry up". Neither Picard nor Riker can figure out why the Titan's transporter isn't reaching them, until Jack suddenly remembers "The transport inhibitors!", which Picard then shoots.

What am I watching?

Not even the lamest, most dunderheaded episode of the Next Generation, DS9, Voyager or even Enterprise would have inadvertently written its main characters as this stupid, unless their odd behavior or forgetfulness was a plot point. Janeway or Archer or Trip being an asshole and having kneejerk reactions to situations is one thing, something that plenty of fans including myself criticized. But to watch a tense action scene shot in real time where Picard and Riker activate transport inhibitors, explaining their function to the person they're protecting as they do so, then 2 minutes later wonder why they can't be beamed up and have to have the guest character explain it back to them? This is off the charts. It's absolutely incredible to watch an episode where someone *throws a starship at another starship* (in a scene played entirely seriously rather than as goofy Orville- or Lower Decks-style comedy) and yet that ISN'T the stupidest scene in the episode.

It feels like the entire content of what was supposed to be this season was shunted into different properties or scrapped outright, and this is the hastily-dashed-together replacement season we get instead. The original plan for the season would likely have kept Mando and Grogu separate - Grogu would have stayed with the Jedi and developed his skills, while Mando's storyline would have made heavy use of both Bo-Katan and Cara Dune. But the studio edict that a) Grogu must remain with Mando b) Gina Carano's character can no longer be used made the plan for the season unworkable. Maybe the Mandalorian movie will contain the material originally intended for this season. In any case, what we have is a season almost entirely comprised of filler episodes and wheel-spinning - and not even the same kind of filler each week, but different filler in a way that feels completely haphazard. (E1-2: Mando bathes in the waters. E3: Side story on Coruscant involving two unmemorable minor characters. E4: Monster babies. E5: Pirates! E6: Robot chase and Lizzo tea party.)

Ever since it resolved its primary narrative arc at the end of season 2, this show has no idea what it actually is. I think The Mandalorian's problems were already in evidence before this, though, because season 2 - while good - derived much of its purpose from setting up other future shows and seasons. S2E1 is a backdoor pilot for a potential Cobb Vanth series, S2E5 is a backdoor pilot for the Ahsoka series, and S2E6 is a backdoor pilot for the Boba Fett series, while S2E3 exists to set up what would have been the next season of The Mandalorian. Other than the finale, the remaining instalments are filler (S2E2) or formulaic heist episodes (S2E4, S2E7). The middle of S1 also has a run of poor filler episodes, particular S1E6 with its terrible Suicide Squad-knockoff characters, most of whom we thankfully never saw again. It's a wonder that S2 handled its main storyline and characters as well as it did given the amount of screentime devoted to setting up spinoffs.

Going forward, this show needs to re-commit to its main characters and decide what it actually is. Not a vehicle for lightweight filler episodes, a commercial for Grogu toys or a mechanism for promoting other shows, but a compelling character-driven story in its own right. The last two episodes of season 1 got this just right.

This episode's deterioration into beyond-parody fan service is the exact opposite of good storytelling, and its tone is the exact opposite of The Best Of Both Worlds. The entire Starfleet fleet has been taken over by the Borg, and our heroes treat the fact they now have to make their last stand in an untested museum ship like a fun day trip and are relaxedly sharing wisecracks and engaging in nostalgia. There is no gravitas or appropriateness, and if the characters don't seem to believe in the stakes at hand, then I certainly don't. How has Starfleet been instantly taken over? Because all officers under 25 have been "organically assimilated" because Changeling infiltrators put Borg DNA in the transporter systems. This is dire fan fiction "plotting" that I would never expect to see made into an actual television production. It's the plot of a bad theme park ride. I wouldn't even expect it in a Trek novel.

My goodness, the script is absolutely superb... the episode (particularly the first half) is just a cascade of beautifully directed, beautifully acted, beautifully characterised and beautifully written scenes one after the other. These characters are so lived-in. The actors playing Ryan and Cesco are great - the scenes where they get into a conflict with their teacher are so naturalistic and realistic in a way that TV depictions of schools rarely achieve. Everyone is three-dimensional and there are lots of excellent directorial choices, particularly in the scenes where Catherine follows Clare and during the spousal abuse scene which happens off-camera and we see from the child's perspective. Great work by all.

It's not that the show has gone "woke" - it's more that Call The Midwife is rehashing storylines and themes that it has already handled in previous series with much more dexterity and sophistication. Take the hard-hitting and period-appropriate episode about male homosexuality back in series 4, Patsy and Delia's closet relationship in series 5, or the occasions on which Lucille encountered racist attitudes in series 7 and 8. All were much better scripted and characterised than in this episode, and I'm concerned about what this augurs if race is going to be the central topic of this year's series.

Lucille is a highly professional, devoutly Christian and socially conservative character, and in previous episodes when she encountered racism, she kept a stiff upper lip and got on with the job, then dealt with it afterwards with grace, dignity and wisdom. She was never one to go into meltdown or get outraged over something. However, since her miscarriage she has been written as increasingly flaky and histrionic, which is a sexist stereotype and not a good direction to develop this well-acted character in.

No-one likes to feel they're being preached to, even if they completely agree with the message, and I found that tonight's episode was just too didactic and overwrought to be dramatically effective. Even back in the Jenny Lee days the show sometimes handled race issues, but did so far more naturalistically.

With decent child acting, an enjoyably unsettling score and good direction and pacing, this series is great... until the final episode, which is a mess. The painting? The serpent? The amulet? The kids' equations? It all adds up to nothing. Really seems like the writers were just throwing a bunch of ideas up in the air to keep the audience engaged but had no idea where the story was actually going. The final episode is an exercise in atmosphere with zero logic. The overall result is a lot like Lost or The Leftovers - mystery-box storytelling that wants to seem a lot smarter than it actually is.

...the ending should have been that when they got back to the 25th century, something was wrong and they realised Gordon was always supposed to have stayed. After all, the sandwich arrived before John sent it, so Gordon living out his life in the 21st century was always part of the show's timeline.

Either that or they should have brought his family to the future with him. The ending is too much of a reset button and too callous, triumphant even, given the cost of what has happened.

I've always said the great thing about The Orville's Moclan storyline is the fact that it isn't a direct analogy for any LGBT issue on Earth. That's part of what makes it so interesting to explore and why the show has repeatedly struck gold with these thoughtful episodes. That's partly why I'm surprised to see reviews seeing this as a simple trans story when it's far from that.

Consider this: at this moment in time in the West (but particularly Anglosphere countries), we have a mass social contagion of teenage girls identifying as non-binary or as male, only to desist within a decade. Some of these girls never go as far as hormones or surgery, so detransition isn't too much of a problem. Yet many in their early teens are put on an affirmative pathway leading to permanent and irreversible physical changes up to and including double mastectomy and even phalloplasty the moment they're old enough to consent. Instead of addressing the toxic culture that leads tomboys and girls who don't fit in to think they're actually boys, we surgically change them into approximations of boys. Once they hit their early twenties and are in a different peer group environment without the influences and stressors that drove their transition, increasing numbers of these girls are realizing that they made a mistake and reclaming their femalehood. Yet it's not as easy as the procedure shown in this episode. As relevant and hard-hitting as this episode is now, it's going to look brave and prescient in just a few years' time when the class-action lawsuits of detransitioned young women start hitting the headlines.

Topa's detransition is also a great analogy for the kids out there with Munchhausen's by Proxy parents who have deliberately raised their child as the opposite sex due to the desire to have a trans child. This is increasingly happening under the radar - abusive parents (often the mother) do it for social media clout, because they wanted a girl but got a boy (or vice versa), or as a way to get back at their ex-partner. Topa discovering that she was forcibly transitioned as an infant and brought up as the opposite sex purely to satisfy her zealot parent's gender ideology is a powerful scene that recalls the case of David Reimer.

It's an incredible episode with stellar performances, writing and direction, somehow even more powerful than the season opener which deftly addressed the topic of suicide. Peter Macon is just fantastic as usual, Adrienne Palicki is really great too, and Imani Pullum is to be highly commended in a difficult role under heavy makeup.