Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Know Your Onions Review

AOS "Know Your Onions"

Still in 1931, the Agents are afforded opportunities for more period dress (this time for Simmons and Yo-Yo), and Coulson the chance to cut a Dillinger-esque figure with a tommy gun. This is all before another time window shifts everyone forward in time - by the looks of it, the next episode takes place in the 1950s. By only sticking in the same year for two episodes, the structure of the season comes into clearer focus, and lends things a *gasp* episodic quality?

Two of the major engines of this episode are the ongoing moral dilemma of saving Hydra to preserve the future, and on the comic relief side, letting Patton Oswalt loose with the kind of vintage lingo that gives the episode its title. When Oswalt's Ernest Koenig says that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s world of super soldier serum and advanced robotics is like "something out of the funny papers", the writers run the danger of being too cute.

Energized from the twist at the end of the premiere, the team must protect Wilfred "Freddy" Malick, even though he and his son will grow up to be Neo-Nazi tyrants. At the eleventh hour, Daisy breaks ranks and manipulates an impressionable Deke to "take the shot" and kill young Freddy. Deke channels Draco Malfoy and shrinks from the task, and afterward this mutinous episode is forgotten, so it feels extremely shoe-horned in... but I sympathize with writer Craig Titley. There needed to be some direct reckoning with the cognitive dissonance of the team's distasteful duty to protect Hydra's origin story. So it's good drama artificially wedged in the episode, but artificially wedged in nonetheless. It would have been wise to pull back on the schematic plotting and make this moment of high drama the emotional centerpiece of the episode.

The action centerpiece of the episode, on the other hand, is Enoch's fight with a semi-recovered Melinda May. This unlikely pairing is enhanced by a quirk of May's recovery giving her the same clipped voice patterns of a Chronicom.

The major canon connection is the mention of the super soldier serum's development by Abraham Erskine, and administration to Hydra's Johann Schmidt. These respectively, of course, are Stanley Tucci and Hugo Weaving's characters from Captain America: The First Avenger.

"Know Your Onions" features a typical episode's balance of humor and action, so when it goes very dramatic, that feels out of place without further development. 6/10.

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: The Perfect Mate

TNG "The Perfect Mate"

A centuries-long war between two planets, coming to an end through an alliance sealed by marriage. An ambassador ferrying the bride on the Enterprise, and said ambassador falls victim to a violent mishap and ends up in sickbay. A romantic connection between the bride and the captain of the Enterprise. If this all sounds familiar, it's because "The Perfect Mate" shares many basic similarities with another episode we've recently covered in this random rewatch: the original series' "Elaan of Troyius"!

The skeleton of each episode is similar, but thankfully that's where they end. In terms of subtlety, and quality of character work and writing, "The Perfect Mate" is a drastic improvement. Famke Janssen guest stars as Kamala, a "metamorph" whose sole purpose is to tailer herself to the pleasure of their future betrothed. (In a subversive detail, it's mentioned that most metamorphs are male.) Naturally this doesn't sit terribly well with the Enterprise crew (particularly Beverly Crusher), but if Kamala truly derives pleasure from subsuming herself to someone else, the issue isn't as clear cut as one might think.

The episode teases out this dynamic well, articulating multiple sides, and taking unexpected turns in the plot. Alrik, the man Kamala will marry, is established to be rather dismissive of Kamala. In a haunting moment, Picard wonders to Beverly how Kamala will change to accommodate Alrik. The implication is clear: there's a danger that to please a man who doesn't respect her, she will void herself of the sharp intelligence that defines her now, and hollow herself out. There's a small victory in that Kamala makes clear that she will accommodate Alrik, but she won't change for him.

Kamala finds herself imprinting romantically on Patrick Stewart's Picard. This is quite something when you consider that in the X-Men movies, Janssen's Jean Grey is a professor who works for Stewart, who was recruited by Stewart when she was a little girl. Remarkably, Kamala even refers to herself as a mutant, just as Jean Grey and her fellow X-Men are mutants.

There's a notably dirty joke in the episode. After Kamala comes on to a flustered Riker, he calls in and says, "I'll be in Holodeck 4." What he'll be doing in Holodeck 4 is left to the imagination, but this is a true Jayne from Firefly, "I'll be in my bunk" moment.

"The Perfect Mate" is a tender and well-told tale of space romance, and one-ups "Elaan of Troyius" in every way except camp value. 7/10.

Canon connections:
- One of the Ferengi is played by Max Grodenchik, who will in future play the Ferengi Rom in Deep Space Nine.
- Geordi asks the Ferengi if they want to see the dolphins on board. I believe this was a cute detail in the Next Generation Technical Manual, which identified an area for dolphins on the Enterprise-D.
- Kamala's ceremonial line, "I am for you, Alrik of Valt", calls back to Losira's siren words in the original series episode "That Which Survives". She too said ostentatiously "I am for you".

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: Repression

VOY "Repression"

The raison d'être of the unusual psychological thriller episode "Repression" is to exploit the Starfleet/Maquis conflict at the heart of Voyager's premise. The catch is that this is done the only way the show can: when that conflict is totally due to an outside influence.

In this case, mind control, courtesy of a deranged Bajoran vedek named Teero Anaydis (Keith Szarabajka). In a very brief and disorienting teaser, Teero is introduced, flanked by what looks like Star Trek concept art, chanting in Bajoran, and hatching a plan to brainwash Chakotay's former Maquis crew, including Tuvok (undercover at the time) and B'Elanna.

The whole issue of the collegiate partnership between Starfleet and Maquis crews on Voyager speaks to the writerly problem of Star Trek. The crews must be in harmonious lockstep because of Trekkian idealism, so the only time their tribalism can be a factor is in an extraordinary circumstance like this mind control. Star Trek is being circumvented to take advantage of a major aspect of the show's basic premise. It's a fascinating and convoluted dynamic.

The episode finds levity in a holodeck replica of a Chicago movie theater. At first hosting a relatively small audience, there's a spectacular amount of leg room, but for a packed house, the seating arrangement becomes more packed. In a nice touch, the carpets suggest the basic yellow and black holodeck grid.

The mind control plot is resolved extremely quickly at the end, Tuvok's psychological unrest overcome. "Repression" has issues as a piece of drama, but stands out for its attempt at askew psychodrama. 6/10.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: The New Deal Review

AOS "The New Deal"

"Nineteen-thirties baseball reference." - Daisy Johnson

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is back for its final season (or as the promotion puts it, The Final Mission), and it begins with a breath of new life for the series... ironically found from traveling into the past. ABC Marvel, accustomed to mounting a period production by way of Agent Carter, is starting Season 7 in the 1930s. (And the team passes the Bela Lugosi Dracula poster to prove it.) Aside from the superficial entertainment value of seeing Phil Coulson, Daisy Johnson, Alphonso Mackenzie, and Deke Shaw in vintage costumes, the show is on fine form as far as action, humor, and revelations go.

It makes perfect sense to have Coulson (albeit a Life Model Decoy replica of Coulson, but still) walk amongst his agency's origin story, given his historical neediness. Look no further than his geeking out at meeting future President Franklin Roosevelt (whose eventual New Deal gives the episode its double-meaning title). The action in the episode has some nice touches, like Daisy's inflicting a sonic uppercut on a Chronicom Hunter, and Mack using what basically amount to wrestling finishing moves on smaller human beings.

The episode runs through the standard season premiere playbook. There's a reveal for a new command center (read: new fancy set). Characters are established as easing back into an old status quo, or adapting to a new one. Coulson adjusts to his new synthetic third chance at life; Jemma Simmons guards her future knowledge and shows a bit of a sadistic streak; and Melinda May and Elena "Yo-Yo" Rodriguez are recovering from the events of the Season 6 finale.

There's a sense that some of these dynamics find the show repeating itself. As alluded to before, this is the second time Coulson has been brought back to life, after Project T.A.H.I.T.I. And Leo Fitz is missing yet again.

In any case, the episode ends with a fantastic twist: the team's new charge, who they must protect from Chronicom assassination, is none other than Gideon Malick's father as a young man, a future Head of Hydra! Suddenly this phase of the story clicks into focus, and I look forward to this being milked for drama next week.

A solid new status quo is established in the 1930s, topped by a devilishly clever twist. 7/10.

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: Wolf in the Fold

ST "Wolf in the Fold"

"Wolf in the Fold" doesn't do much by halves. It's an insane episode, and with every passing improbable turn of the plot (like the twist of a stage knife), it becomes even more of a helium-laugh fest.

On the face of it, the premise would be anything but amusing; Scotty is accused of murder, his bloody hands on the murder weapon. There is a thread throughout the episode of, shall we say... exaggeration. Kirk, McCoy, and Scotty are taking their shore leave on a planet home to a "completely hedonistic society", to allow Scotty to get over a recent development in his psychological makeup: a "total resentment of women", because a female engineer was involved in an accident that gave Scotty a head wound.

So from the start, two things are clear. We are in the realm of cartoon psychodrama. And the original Star Trek finds itself once again on shaky misogynistic grounds. Writer Robert Bloch (of the novel Psycho) deploys his big twist late in the game: the murders were in fact carried out by Jack the Ripper, who all these centuries has lived on as a non-corporeal entity! And if that's not enough of a WTF'er, the crew foils Jack's plot while extremely high!

That's right, McCoy injects the crew with a tranquilizer that has a blissing out effect. Add to all this that the primary human antagonist of the episode and vessel of Jack the Ripper, Hengist, is played by John Fiedler, also known as the voice of Piglet.

"Wolf in the Fold"'s gender dynamics haven't aged well, but the episode is a bonkers laugh riot. I don't know how to rate something like this but on balance we'll go with 6/10.

For a less campy take on Jack the Ripper in the 23rd Century, check out the Babylon 5 episode "Comes the Inquisitor".

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: The Lorelei Signal

TAS "The Lorelei Signal"

"We must go." "Obstruct them!"

The Randomizer finally brings me to The Animated Series, a charmingly cheap-looking cartoon with an impressively full (though Chekov-less) lineup of original Trek actors... and not many other people. Watching the series, you will easily recognize the scores of secondary characters Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, and Majel Barrett lend their vocal talents to.

The titular "Lorelei Signal", sent by bewitching alien "sirens", incapacitates the male members of the Enterprise crew, so it is up to the women to save the day. And specifically, for Uhura to take charge. The episode's greatest strength is as an overdue showcase for Uhura the competent command officer.

There's also a Trekkian resolution where the sirens are revealed to be misunderstood, and the crew helps them no longer need to feed off derelict starships. A win-win all around.

A constant baseline of silliness animates this episode, a part-campy, part-consequential SF runaround. There's a quaint and endearing quality to this series: the re-used character articulations, the jazzy music, the abundance of pink. Any future animated stops along the way will be a welcome pit stop.

A fluffy episode that nonetheless laudably spotlights Uhura and Chapel. 6/10.

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: Conundrum

TNG "Conundrum"

"Conundrum" has a singularly clever premise, as an alien erases the Enterprise crew's memory and inserts himself in the command structure of the senior staff, in order to use the Enterprise's tactical features as weapons of mass destruction against an enemy. By instantly retconning himself into the crew, the alien (MacDuff) becomes an early example of the "Dawn from Buffy" phenomenon. Dawn was also inserted into the cast of the show, and the artificiality of that was a major plot point.

The initial disorientation of the crew is captured by rare handheld camerawork, from director Les Landau. I love how the initial reveal of MacDuff is done subtly; no particular musical sting accompanies his first appearance, and the camera quickly cuts away. Of course, later MacDuff's cover is violently blown.

What saves the day is Federation ethics. Picard has a great scene in the Ready Room with MacDuff, forcefully saying that he requires a moral context for orders that involve killing. Before things turn around, the Enterprise is treated as a warship even by the show itself. Dennis McCarthy's score follows the ship with a percussive martial cue.

Perhaps the episode's biggest flaw is a quick resolution, so common in Star Trek. MacDuff is phasered into submission, and there's only the briefest reflection on what has happened. What's missing, on the nose as it might have been, is a moment of summation.

With Star Trek: Picard hindsight, we have any seed that pays off in that later show. Data speculates that he could hail from a race of artificial life-forms, who live on a home planet they claim as their own. Such a planet directly factors into Picard.

A clever episode that slightly fizzles out at the end. 7/10.