Quarantine Control #19: The Strange Animals Trek

It’s a sobering feeling to look at how countries like Germany and especially New Zealand have dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic while living in one that’s handled it particularly terribly — especially if that’s the United States. New Zealand somehow went over 100 days without a single new case, until the streak sadly ended when 17 people tested positive this week. But that’s nonetheless an amicable effort compared to a country that let the citizens fend for themselves against the so-called “invisible enemy,” only to get invisibly mowed down. We’re still far away from a viable vaccine regardless of what Russia says, so Quarantine Control’s sticking around.

 

Geoffrey Barnes

I watched some movies.

Doctor Strange (2016)
Source: Disney +
It’s a movie

Thus far, I’ve had an idea of what to expect from the Marvel movies I’ve watched as part of the backlog clearing in recent months. Doctor Strange, however, was different. I wasn’t that familiar with the character outside his playable appearance in the recent Marvel vs. Capcom games and his appearance in the 1990s Spider-Man cartoon. I’m know this is a crime against nerdom that demands a punishment of turning in my Nerd Cred Card, but this worked to my benefit. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the movie except that magic of some sort would be involved, which made this one of those times were ignorance was best.

The titular Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a neurosurgeon who helps people in dire straits, but he picks his patients wisely to ensure that he can handle the surgery well and advance his career. He started out as a cocky prick… until he ended up in his own accident, with injuries so severe that other neurosurgeons at the hospital he operated in couldn’t begin to fix them through surgery. So begins the Strange journey through the multiverse, to master mysticism and spirituality to regain the use of his body, all while using magic. It’s far from the most original concept, to no surprise considering this is an adaptation of an established comic book character. But that didn’t matter when it made for a fun and entertaining film, and a good introduction for the character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Strange masters his abilities in time to assist in the fight against Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) and his assistants, with help from a Cloak of Levitation and a relic containing an — uh oh — Infinity Stone, the latter of which lends this movie continuity. The movie is a briskly-paced quest that takes the viewer through Strange’s first adventure, one that thankfully doesn’t exist solely to further flesh out the MCU. It’s a good standalone adventure that contains just the right amount of nods and references to fit it into the ongoing adventure in the first MCU phase.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Source: Blu-ray
It’s a movie

It’s worth acknowledging how important of a movie Rogue One is, though it doesn’t quite feel like that now compared to when it released. This was the first non-episodic movie in Star Wars history, and a movie with a blatantly large nostalgia factor. It takes place just before A New Hope, chronicling the exploits of a Rebel Alliance-aligned group that intends to steal the plans for the Death Star. It’s usually fun when Star Wars works explore the less important stories in the universe, as they have in several entertainment venues as part of the now-noncanonical Expanded Universe. Disney retconned those after purchasing the franchise from George Lucas, but it’s good that they’re making movies that channel those works.

Rogue One’s prologue does a good job establishing three of the central characters, involving main character Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), Imperial research scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen — yeah, he’s in this one too), and Imperial weapons developer Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn). The tempo is a bit bizarre following that, where the story hops from one planet to another. But it doesn’t take long for it to settle on its narrative, when it reestablishes Jyn years after the prologue took place and introduces the characters that team up to become the titular Rogue One group.

The producers said this film would be made in the style of a war movie when it was first being promoted, but it wasn’t until watching it that I fully understood what they meant. This is reflected not only in the action sequences, since there are no Jedi and lightsaber tricks involved thanks to them mostly being wiped out in Revenge of the Sith. But it also feels like a war film in how fruitless the overall quest feels. There’s a good reason why none of the main characters here, outside those who make short or special appearances, are even mentioned in the subsequent three films of the original trilogy. I won’t spoil what happens to them, but the result is easy to guess.

I enjoyed the feeling of comparative unimportance, which gave the movie a different vibe compared to all the other Star Wars films. Make no mistake that it’s a blatant fanservice film that plays on the nostalgia of those who remember the original films fondly, not to mention the setup for A New Hope’s prologue. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have fun watching it.

 

Angela Moseley

I’ve been chugging along with more anime and video games. I have pretty much settled into Monster Hunter World: Iceborne and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse as my main sources of gaming entertainment. It’s not like there’s much else to do with trying to stay safe at home and having both my planned summer conventions (Otakon and Furrydelphia) cancelled.

Brand New Animal (2020)
Source: Netflix
Episodes: 12

2020 may be a terrible year for just about everything, but it has been great for anime. Especially for those of us who are fans of anthropomorphic tales. First we had the English premier of Beastars in March on Netflix. Then at the end of June Brand New Animal dropped on Netflix. If that weren’t enough, a new season of Aggretsuko is coming at the end of this month. Ah, but I’m not here to extol the amount of new furry-themed anime on Netflix, I’m here to write about Brand New Animal. 

In this version of Earth, the world is populated by regular humans and human-like animals, aka beastmen who co-exist to a degree. Many humans fear and despise the beastmen, so the latter live segregated in Anima City for their own protection. Michiru Kagemori was a normal human teenage girl. One day she suddenly turned into a tanuki beastman and flees persecution from the humans. She makes it to Anima City and meets a powerful wolf beastman named Shirou Ogami. He’s dubbed himself the protector of the city. Once there, she seeks a cure for her condition. Instead, she finds herself in possession of unusual shapeshifting abilities as she gets involved in a series of mysteries and misadventures in Anima City.

I did enjoy BNA. However, it was somewhat disappointing despite being a Studio Trigger production. It isn’t as bad as Darling in the Franxx or Kiznaiver, but all of the ideas it presented fell far short of excellence. The show was only 12 episodes long, but realistically needed 24 to properly stretch out all of the ideas presented. The show felt incredibly rushed by episode 11 and two major plot twists seem to come from nowhere. Furthermore, before this happens we don’t get a proper feel for Anima City and its residents which could have alluded to the plot twists. Yes, we learned that discrimination, crime, class, and poverty are issues that can plague any society. Yet, not seeing more issues unique to a city filled with beast people was a loss.

This is doubly true when the real plot comes into a play. This problem is hinted mere moments before it happens, but the event is confusing. When the plot point is further explained, it becomes clear there wasn’t nearly enough foreshadowing. A major event shouldn’t feel like an asspull. The second major plot twist it was a bit more predictable as the show’s main antagonist had vibes that screamed “I’m the villain!” the moment he appeared on screen. He had no one fooled, and I’m certain that wasn’t the point. However, what he ultimately came to represent and his ultimate goals also had zero foreshadowing. It felt like they were pulled from a bag of villain tropes and randomly thrown at a wall.

Again, many of these problems could have been solved with more episodes. Perhaps the director and script writers thought they had more episodes to work with than they were actually allotted. Perhaps, they couldn’t bring themselves cut out the failures of society, religious cults, physical gods, and eugenics that mark the second half of BNA. To be fair, all of these issues were worth exploring and are an integral part of BNA’s message. Nevertheless, the short episode count made for a crowded mess of a series.

Flaws aside, I still enjoyed my time with Brand New Animal. What puts this series in the “okay to decent” column instead of the “bad” are the facts that fight scenes were a joy to watch, the action was well animated, and what was explored of the world was engrossing. For example, episode five could be considered filler as Michiru plays baseball, but it was a great exploration of sports in Anima City and how they differ from human society. (It was also a hilarious baseball episode.) More episodes exploring the past and present of the beastmen would have been helpful. BNA is a series brimming with creative potential, even if the execution could have been better.

If you enjoy anthropomorphic themed shows or Studio Trigger series, Brand New Animal is worth checking out. Just don’t expect this show to reach the highs of Kill la Kill or Promare.

 

Joseph Daniels

This week, instead of recommending things, I would like to instead harken back to my contribution to the eleventh Quarantine Control column and give my brief first impressions of two new entries in established franchises.  They say there are no new ideas under the sun, but some franchises are trying to stay relevant by proving that old adage wrong.  Do they succeed?  Let’s find out.

Muppets Now (2020)
Source: Disney+
Expected first season: 6 episodes, 2 released so far
Airing Fridays

In American pop culture history, few franchises are as lauded as the Muppets, and for good reason.  Kermit and the rest of the gang built themselves up gradually to a position of strength from where, starting in 1976, they dominated for sixteen years.  Their dominance began with The Muppet Show and continued on the big screen through four relatively successful movies.  I say relatively successful because although most of these movies only brought in between $20 and 30 million in total, their budgets were also very low, between $8 and 14 million were spent on each of them (The Muppet Movie is the only one of those early films to be really successful, returning $76.7 million on an $8 million investment).

It wasn’t long after the death of Jim Henson that the Muppets seemed to lose a bit of their magic.  Muppet Treasure Island barely broke even and Muppets From Space didn’t quite make back its budget.  On television, Muppets Tonight was an attempt to return to the earlier success of The Muppet Show but failed to gain traction with audiences.  A couple made-for-television movies also didn’t leave a very good impression, especially The Muppets’ Wizard of Oz.

But just when it seems like the Muppets are down and out, they come back swinging.  2011’s The Muppets is their highest grossing theatrical release to date, and Muppets Most Wanted was also decently successful.  Was this the comeback they were after?

Sadly, it doesn’t feel like The Muppets Studio knows what to do with the franchise on television, because 2015’s The Muppets met the same fate as Muppets Tonight.  Whereas the latter was trying to recreate the style of The Muppet Show, the former was taking the franchise in an entirely new direction, reinventing the Muppets for a modern audience and turning them into sitcom characters.

Muppets Now represents the latest attempt to breathe life into the franchise, both returning to its roots and trying to take it in a new direction.  Each episode is made up of several skits, somewhat like The Muppet Show and Muppets Tonight, but now the framing device is an Internet streaming site that Scooter runs rather than taking place behind the scenes of a theatre.

If there’s one thing I’ve been noticing lately in regards to the Muppets, it’s that the franchise used to pull in the biggest stars and nowadays seems to work from the same list of B- and C-list celebrities that Hollywood Squares uses.  They don’t seem to know how to put on a show anymore, either.  Compare the extravagantly dressed Elton John from his appearance on The Muppet Show, where he dressed “like a stolen car” according to Sam the Eagle, to the more conservatively-dressed RuPaul in his appearance on Muppets Now.  Anyone would’ve expected RuPaul to be flamboyant and fabulous, but I guess the show could barely afford him, let alone his costumes.

Long time fans of the Muppets would’ve noticed that the new series breaks with a long established formula and doesn’t feature heckling from Statler and Waldorf.  Not that the show needs it, many of its segments miss the mark.  The aforementioned RuPaul segment is an interview which various members of the Muppet cast constantly interrupt.  Økėÿ Døkęÿ Køøkïñ somehow fails to capture the same physical comedy the Swedish Chef is known for by having him share the spotlight with someone who actually knows what they’re doing; it turns out that by showing how to actually cook something, we see just how much of a buffoon the Swedish Chef actually is.  Also, I think Pepe’s Unbelievable Gameshow is supposed to be a parody of American prime time game shows, but they’re already a self-parody at this point.

There is one thing that remains consistent throughout the franchise.  The Muppets have always acted like they either don’t know what they’re doing, or they do know what they’re doing but are terrible at it.  This extends to the new show.  But that said, I am getting a little tired of that style of self-deprecating humour.  Not only that, but the new show is supposedly made of improvised humour rather than being scripted, and I already have my improv troupe who uses self-deprecating humour all the time quota filled by Loading Ready Run, which I’ve mentioned in a few Quarantine Control columns already.

I feel like Muppets Now is a failed attempt at a television comeback for the franchise, and perhaps they should stick to the big screen for a while, since there finally seems to be an audience for them there.  They certainly won’t be bringing a lot of new subscribers to Disney+, that’s for sure.

Star Trek: Lower Decks (2020)
Source: CBS All Access (United States), Crave (Canada), worldwide release pending
Expected first season: 10 episodes, 2 released so far; second season already ordered
Airing Thursdays

I almost want to be silly and review the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called Lower Decks, but I won’t.

Lower Decks is a second attempt to make an animated series based in the Star Trek franchise.  The original animated series continued the adventures of Captain James Kirk of the first televised Enterprise and had a minimal budget.  Lower Decks looks like it has a bit more of a budget and features an all original cast.

The show focuses mainly on a group of four ensigns on the Cerritos split into two pairs, the main duo of Beckett Mariner and Brad Boimler taking a seemingly starring role, and the duo of Sam Rutherford and D’Vana Tendi acting as supporting cast, at least in the first couple episodes.  As all four are given star billing, it’s possible that some future episodes might focus on the latter two more.  Of note in the rest of the cast is the doctor of the Cerritos, a Caitian named T’Ana.  This is the first Caitian to be featured since M’Ress from The Animated Series, and she kind of sounds to me like a female Leonard McCoy (the DeForest Kelley version, in other words, the real McCoy).

I know this show is supposed to focus on the “lower decks” of the Cerritos and its humour revolves around the lowest of low quality officers, but the theme song seems to also be of a lower quality than other current shows in the franchise, and even the franchise in general.  The theme song is kind of generic, and actually, the entire underscore is a bit generic, too.  It’s not the kind of work I’m used to hearing from the Star Trek franchise.

That said, the series is strong on character writing, and in the first couple episodes, you get a good sense of who the characters are.  Boimler is as by the book as they come, but his field skills are woefully lacking.  Mariner is pretty much his exact opposite and is basically meant to be his foil.  She is excellent in the field but adherence to regulations isn’t her strong suit.  She’s even visually the opposite of Boimler and this is most definitely done on purpose; he’s a white-skinned male and she’s a darker-skinned female.  Rutherford is in love with all things engineering, to the point where he got a cybernetic implant installed inside of him, although it has a tendency to malfunction at the worst possible times.  Tendi is basically Webby from the DuckTales reboot, I could totally see Webby acting just as enthusiastic if she were required to hold someone’s heart in her hands for a bit as Tendi did in the pilot episode.

As for the actual episodes, it depends.  Star Trek has historically taken itself incredibly seriously, and if that’s how you like your science fiction, you’re going to hate Lower Decks.  Lord knows the alt-right neckbeard community on YouTube have already decided to hate the series, even when all we had to go on was a rather poor showing of a trailer.  There was not a lot about the trailer that was subtle, and there’s not a lot about the show that’s subtle either.  When an unknown infection spread among the crew of the Enterprise in the classic episode The Naked Time and the same infection spread in the less classic episode The Naked Now, it spread gradually and was mainly played like the characters were getting drunk.  In the Lower Decks pilot episode, Second Contact, the infection that spread on the Cerritos manifested itself very quickly and violently, and those infected would try to bite other crew members, spreading the infection instantly.  The infected also spewed a fortunately harmless black bile.

Lower Decks is supposed to be an animated comedy like Rick & Morty, but my impression is that it’s closer to the adventure comedy style of DuckTales, but aimed at an audience a few years older.  Also, by making each episode a self-contained story, Lower Decks succeeds where Star Trek: Picard stumbles.  Honestly, did no one learn anything from the Xindi arc in Enterprise?

Lower Decks is basically a love letter to The Next Generation, right down to the font used in the show.  Every other series has picked out its own font to use in its opening and end credits and it’s certainly no accident that Lower Decks uses the font from The Next Generation.

I’m hoping that, as the series continues, we see some growth in both the characters and their capabilities, so that eventually these ensigns might get the opportunity to rise in the ranks and maybe in the eventual series finale, actually get assigned to some of the important, first tier ships.

Anyway, my first impression of Lower Decks is that, even if not every joke lands, I don’t think they need to.  This is a fairly decent substitute for classic Star Trek in a world which seems to think we need season-long story arcs in our shows.  Story arcs do have their place, but I also like shows which aren’t afraid to tell one complete story per week.  I also hope that, if Lower Decks is successful, future seasons might be extended to 16 or hopefully 22 episodes.

 

It’s getting tough to think of what to write for the conclusions here after all this time. If you’re reading, I hope you know to listen to trusted medical experts and not anyone who puts on a white coat and says they’re a doctor on TV. Especially don’t listen to anyone who says this is all a hoax, or says “fuck that COVID shit.” This is the best that can be said for now, without copying and pasting previous conclusions.