Quarantine Control #67: Imaginary Mischief

DC Staff | July 15, 2021 | Features, Television | No Comments

There was, for a short time, a hope that the pandemic would be coming to an end in the US and a number of other countries with vaccines now widely available for free. But it’s a wonder as to why that thought process ever took off, given how the supposed “best country in the world” massively screwed up the response to the virus. There are too many states in the country where the death cult is still running local governments, and they’re all too enthusiastic about risking their lives and those of several saner people. But the risk of dying from this virus is real, and no one should think they’re protected from it because they’re young.

Geoffrey Barnes

Loki: Season 1 (2021)
Source: Disney Plus
Episodes: 6

(Yes, this post will contain spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and a small-though-well-known one for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. The first two could not be avoided.)

There was a point where I started wondering if this whole Marvel Cinematic Universe TV series initiative may not work out. WandaVision (Drew’s thoughts) was fine, but the resolution of its intriguing setup wasn’t satisfactory, an ending the show’s writers and directors perhaps felt it had to have for the MCU’s future. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier had several high points, particularly with establishing Sam Wilson as the new Captain America (this is not a spoiler anymore), but they weren’t enough to overcome the lowlights. I didn’t have much faith that Loki would be much better thanks to its ostensible concept appearing to be an excuse to keep a character who died in Avengers: Infinity War alive because he’s a fan favorite. Fortunately, that assessment ended up being far too cynical.

The series follows the fate of the Loki (Tom Hiddleston) featured in Avengers: Endgame, when the Avengers team travelled to the past in their quest to gather the Infinity Stones before Thanos could assemble them and snap half the world’s population away. During that period, Loki escaped with the Tesseract. But anyone who’s seen all the MCU films knows this isn’t what was supposed to happen within this timeline, which leads to Loki being transported to the Time Variance Authority (TVA). Here, Loki is given an ultimatum after being introduced: Either help them fix the timeline and stop a greater threat that’s initially left vague, or be erased. To no surprise, this doesn’t all go according to plan.

I mentioned above that I wasn’t sold on the ostensible concept, but I still wanted to give it a chance thanks to liking Loki in the MCU, thinking the previews looked good, and being taken in by the series’ retro futuristic aesthetic. I’m glad I did. Its six episodes move the story along at a good pace, as Loki battles against TVA members like Mobius M. Mobius (Owen Wilson), Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), and Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) and the risks from messing with timeline intensify. The episode count didn’t seem like much for a first season, but the producers jammed a lot of content into them. The TVA initially felt like it appeared from thin air after not being mentioned in any previous MCU work, but the writers did a convincing job in making it feel like it was always in the background.

The Loki series benefits by not being too attached to the MCU despite taking place within it. Outside small cameos, flashbacks, and minor mentions, not many characters previously introduced in the MCU make appearances. That’s all for the better. The focus is squarely on characters introduced in this series and the establishment of the TVA. Since most of the adventure occurs between specific places in time, it’s one of the closest things we’ll get to a standalone tale within the MCU. There’s plenty of CG and special effect use, but the focus isn’t actually on fighting the enemies encountered, nor did it feel the need to force that in for the finale.

Not that I didn’t have small issues with Loki — and I do mean “small.” The series takes a little too much time to establish the purpose of the TVA and, which makes the characters sound like they’re babbling explanations to fully ensure the viewer can follow what’s happening. This risk paid off considering what happens later in the series, but it admittedly hurt the pacing a bit early on. It was also peculiar for Disney and Marvel to confirm that Loki is bisexual but then put him with a blonde woman, which made that confirmation feel superficial. And while I’m intrigued about what will happen next, I was a little disappointed with the sheer number of plot threads left hanging at the end of the first season.

Those problems were minor in the grand scheme, and I think it’s clear by now that I enjoyed the show. It felt as if a team at Marvel wanted to make their own take on Doctor Who, and succeeded — perhaps better than the current Doctor Who series, to the chagrin of Jodie Whittaker. This series proves that Marvel’s producers are indeed capable of pulling off a great TV series. But this also means expectations for shows like Hawkeye, Miss Marvel, and She Hulk will be even higher, so good luck to them. Even if they don’t reach Loki’s heights, at least this particular series will return for a second season in the hopefully-near future.

Joseph Daniels

If it’s not one thing, it’s another. We’re still dealing with COVID-19, but in my neck of the woods, we’re bracing for another bad fire season, too. I’ve been taking more headache medicine lately due to smoke, and if this is going to be a repeat of 2018, I already don’t want to be here any more.

Imaginary Worlds (2014)
Source: Podcast
Episodes: Ongoing (currently 176 + bonus episodes)

I’m a fan of science fiction and fantasy, and I love listening to stuff related to the genre. I used to love listening to Moviebob’s “The Big Picture” series, but he’s lately been focusing a lot on the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I’m a little bit behind on all things Marvel, so in order to avoid spoilers, I’ve been skipping his videos.

I’m probably going to have to eventually skip a few episodes of this podcast too, but who knows? There are enough episodes that I might be able to get away with listening to quite a bit of them before they hit upon a subject with spoilers in it.

Although come to think of it, these episodes are short so listening to them is like eating popcorn, and I’ve been listening to them while working on my next retrospective article, so the spoilers might come sooner rather than later.

It’s great being able to listen to a general interest science fiction and fantasy podcast structured like the kinds of short essay pieces that I loved listening to The Big Picture for, and topics are as varied as I like them to be. One episode could be about the reason why Captain Kirk was killed off, and then the next episode covers time travel and the episode after that is about a relative unknown in the world of animation who was hyping himself up as the next Walt Disney.

If you’re going to hype yourself up as something, you’re likely not that something. It’s just like “This game is a WoW killer” but as we’ve known for years, there’s no such thing as a WoW killer. Only World of Warcraft can kill World of Warcraft, and it’s been doing a damn fine job of it lately.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a podcast with easy to digest episodes that talks about your favourite genre of fiction and explores many different ideas, this could be the podcast for you.

It’s possible that health officials were too optimistic when they approved the reopening of America, underestimating just how stupid this country is. There are countries worse off in the world with high COVID-19 case counts, where vaccines aren’t as available as they should be by now. But the US continues to be very dumb at handling this, and it shouldn’t be as much of a surprise at it is. While the UK hasn’t been much better these days, we continue to be number one. Let this be a lesson to other countries with vaccines making their way to them.

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