I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of House of the Dragon last weekend, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at Matt Smith’s career. In particular, how the actor has cornered the market on a particularly modern take on masculinity.
As Daemon Targaryen, Smith was the breakout star of House of the Dragon. However, Daemon typifies the kind of roles that Smith has been drawn towards in the years following his departure from Doctor Who. In projects as diverse as The Crown, Last Night in Soho and Charlie Says, Smith exemplifies a fascinatingly contradictory portrait of masculinity, one that is by turns alluring and pathetic, powerful and fragile, arrogant and insecure. Smith’s ability to play these conflicting facets off one another is what makes him such a compelling performer.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Star Trek: Lower Decks, which is streaming weekly on Paramount+ in the States and on Amazon Prime in the United Kingdom. The first episode of the third season released this week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.
There is something very interesting about how modern Star Trek treats the idea of Starfleet and the Federation as sacrosanct. It’s very different from how shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine approached the idea of these authorities and institutions. It’s very strange to watch a television show in August 2022 that asks its black female protagonist to place her complete unwaivering trust in the system, and in particular in the judicial system.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I am doing weekly reviews of House of the Dragon at The Escapist. They’ll be dropping every Sunday evening while the show is on, looking at the Game of Thrones prequel as it progresses from one episode to the next.
Part of what is so interesting about the first episode, The Heirs of the Dragon, is the way in which the show immediately positions itself in the shadow of Daenerys Targaryen, perhaps the biggest breakout character from Game of Thrones. The first three scenes of The Heirs of the Dragon place the show firmly in the context of Daenerys, fixating upon the idea of what it means to be a Targaryen Queen of Westeros. It is a bold move from the show, and a strong statement of purpose, one that immediately establishes House of the Dragon as a series in conversation with Game of Thrones.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of She-Hulk, which is streaming weekly on Disney+. The first episode of the show released this week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.
Like a lot of these streaming shows, She-Hulk suffers from an identity crisis. It is caught between the show that it clearly wants to be and its obligations to the familiar formula of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In particular, She-Hulk begins with an extended and unnecessary origin story, which the show itself doesn’t seem particularly enthused about. It’s strictly formula. Giving the first thirty-odd minutes of the show over to this generic and paint-by-numbers exercise undermines a lot of the show’s potential appeal.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the upcoming release of She-Hulk, and news that the show will be responsible for folding Matt Murdock into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about what makes Daredevil unique.
The production team on She-Hulk have talked about how the series will showcase the “lighter side” of the Man Without Fear. This is somewhat worrying, given that part of what makes Daredevil relatively unique among the major Marvel superheroes is the fact that his stories are appreciably darker in terms of tone and content. Part of the appeal of Daredevil is the way in which the character allows the publisher to explore themes that it never could with more mainstream characters. It would be a shame to lose that while transitioning the hero into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I’m thrilled to be launching movie reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a three-minute television review of The Sandman, which is streaming on Netflix now.
I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is streaming weekly on Paramount+. The first season finale broadcast today, and so it seemed like a good opportunity to look at the culmination of these ten episodes.
Strange New Worlds has spent most of its first season riffing on familiar Star Trek narratives, offering retreads of classic templates. A Quality of Mercy takes the concept to its logical conclusion, and throws the cast of Strange New Worlds into a remake of Balance of Terror. Unfortunately, this becomes an extended argument about why Strange New Worlds is inherently inferior to Star Trek, with the show making a very literal and very aggressive argument for its own irrelevance while treating the larger franchise as a fetish object.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is streaming weekly on Paramount+. The ninth and penultimate episode of the first season released this week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.
All Those Who Wander is an interesting genre experiment, effectively providing an intersection between Star Trek and Alien. It’s an interesting approach, and very much in keeping with how the franchise has approached other iconic works of science-fiction. However, it also demonstrates the limitations of the approach taken by Strange New Worlds, which seems frustratingly uninterested in what it means to juxtapose the humanism of the Star Trek franchise with the bleak nihilism of the Alien franchise.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of the third season of The Umbrella Academy last week, it seemed like an opportunity to take a look back at the show.
The third season of The Umbrella Academy is not about the pandemic, but it stands as an interesting cultural marker of the moment. The show’s production has obviously been impacted by pandemic restrictions, with a lot of shoot on closed sets with a tight cast, and a recurring sense that the show’s world has become empty and withdrawn. While the third season of The Umbrella Academy is not explicitly about the pandemic, it is the rare genre show that manages to translate the experience of the pandemic into a more general mood or tone.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of The Boys, which is streaming weekly on Amazon Prime. The third season’s penultimate episode released this week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.
Herogasm is a show that the production team have wanted to make since the show premiered, and it represents an interesting acknowledgement of the show’s success: the series has been successful enough for Amazon to trust the creatives to build an episode around a superhero orgy. That said, it also demonstrates one of the key strengths of The Boys. Underneath the show’s cras and vulgar exterior, it is a show that loves being a superhero show. It is a deconstruction of the genre’s uncritical power fantasies, but a celebration of the genre’s pulpy potential.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
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