Quarantine Control #79: What If… We Featured Dropouts and Foxgirls?

DC Staff | October 7, 2021 | Animation, Features, Television | No Comments

After the fun that accompanied last week’s Super Nintendo-themed Quarantine Control special, we’re back to the usual routine this week. But let’s not fret too hard, because the news isn’t all bad. COVID-19 cases are down from the height they reached in the United States, but remain high in certain parts of the country — particularly in the south. But there’s still time for the fall season to be as dreadful as health experts predicted over the summer despite vaccinations remaining at a fair pace. Let’s not entertain precisely how that could happen, because the chances of anyone jinxing anything should be kept to a minimum.

Geoffrey Barnes

Marvel’s What If…? (2021)
Source: Disney Plus
Episodes: 9 (the first season)

The concept of Marvel’s What If…? couldn’t have been more intriguing for anyone who’s thoroughly enjoyed the majority of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s progression. Like the comics of the same name, each episode explores the potential of specific scenarios to veer in alternate directions compared to what actually occurred in several MCU films. The series features most, though not all, of the talent who played the characters in the movies in a bid to feel more authentically like the MCU films despite being animated with pretty cel-shaded 3D models.

Expectations for this might have been a bit too high, though. Most episodes have no ostensible connection with each other, making the tales feel largely standalone. Just as these always go, some episodes are better than others.

Case in point: The first episode, which starts the series off on the wrong foot. It delves into the scenario where Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) takes the Super Soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans, though voiced by Josh Keaton here) to become Captain Carter. It’s a fine concept to explore, but the episode’s progression suggests there wouldn’t have been many differences outside acknowledgements of circa-World War II sexism and the early debut of a piece of technology. The story beats nearly make for an abridged version of The First Avenger, down to Captain Carter being transported to the future and greeted by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson). Carter herself was a joy to watch in action, more than in a good chunk of Agent Carter, but the story let her down.

Fortunately, it only took until the second episode to see the series’ real potential. This episode featured T’Challa becoming Star Lord instead of Black Panther, with the late Chadwick Boseman reprising the role for the character’s final appearance in the MCU. The scenario involves characters engaged in actions they never approached in the MCU, even including characters who were villains suddenly playing heroes — and doing it well. This episode revealed how much potential lied in the concept, but also how inconsistent the quality would be from here.

It’s good for the premise of What If…?, then, that more episodes work than not. Alongside the T’Challa Star Lord episode, the Doctor Strange episode that explores how Strange himself could have lost his heart instead of his hands (almost literally titled this) represented the first season at its peak in quality, while episodes like those tackling the Marvel Zombies and Party Thor were good fun. The full point of the show comes into full view by the end, which further elaborates on The Watcher’s goal and how the Multiverses can intersect. There is one tale missing in particular, but I can’t hold that against the producers given the difficulties working during the pandemic.

The concepts for some episodes were good enough that I wished some could have been given a movie-style treatment — especially the Doctor Strange episode. Now that the producers have become accustomed to working on the series and with the pandemic fading in most parts of the world (though this still requires knocking on wood), I hope this is explored more fully in the next season.

The overall voice acting was solid, though inconsistent. There was a gulf in talent between the A-list starts who’ve also done their fair share of voicework and those who obviously haven’t. This, for instance, is clearly not the format Jeremy Renner was accustomed to when he reprised the role of Hawkeye, and the same could be said of Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes. Meanwhile, the experience actors like Samuel L. Jackson and Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Strange) had with previously doing voicework helped immensely.

The replacement soundalike voice actors all did good jobs, despite how slightly jarring it was to see this set in the MCU when they couldn’t get a good chunk of actors back. Lake Bell’s performance as Natasha Romanoff in lieu of Scarlett Johansson was a standout performance, and there’s a good chance I would have included Robert Downey Jr. alongside Renner and Stan if Mick Wingert didn’t provide the voice instead of Tony Stark instead.

I’m seriously hoping the production team can fully capitalize on the concept’s potential for the next season, beyond the never-aired Tony Stark/Gamora episode delayed thanks to pandemic production issues. The first What If…? season could have been more consistently good, but it was fine enough that I’m glad Marvel/Disney are keeping it around for another go.

Angela Moseley

The legend of a startup company myth is something else. Usually a small, scrappy company comes along, gets some venture capitalist funding, and promises to change the world. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes consumers and the news media are wowed by the disruptive nature of the company and how every day norms are upended. It may take years, calls from whistleblowers, and obvious downsides to see problems with a company that were there all along. This week all eyes are on Facebook between the revelations about the company putting profits over the safety of people and the six hour outage on Monday. A little closer to home, Twitch was hacked on Monday and 128GB of data was leaked. (Change your Twitch passwords, by the way.) While lots of eyes are on Facebook and Twitch, I’ve been keeping an ear on a very different tech company.

The Dropout (2019, 2021)
Source: ABC News
Episodes: 15 (as of this writing)

Three years ago marks the fall of tech medical company Theranos. When I heard of the story of the founder and CEO in 2018, I remember turning to a co-worker, showing her the news article and saying “all of this would make a heck of a movie.” The rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes is covered in one book (Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup), one podcast (The Dropout), a documentary movie (The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley), and an upcoming Hulu TV series based on The Dropout. Today, I’ll be talking about the only media I’ve consumed from this list, The Dropout podcast produced by ABC News.

Theranos was founded as a startup in 2003 by the 19-year-old Stanford School of Engineering dropout, Elizabeth Holmes. She left college early in order to create her company and become a CEO, change the world, and to make lots of money. Holmes even modeled herself after the late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, down to wearing an iconic black turtleneck shirt. Theranos would create a small medical device named the Edison that could test blood for a range of issues just using a single drop. Normal blood tests require several vials of blood. If the medical devices could work using so little blood it would be a medical revolution. The startup would receive lots of early funding between 2004 and 2010, would go public in 2013 and partner with Walgreens to test blood, would expand, and ultimately end up closed and under investigation in 2018. Furthermore, Holmes and Theranos COO (and Holmes’ boyfriend at the time) Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani would be charged with fraud by the federal government.

First season of The Dropout covers Holmes’ early life, including the fact that her father Christian Ramsus Holmes IV was a vice president at the energy company, Enron. (Yes, THAT Enron.) The wealthy lifestyle the family enjoyed had an effect on young Holmes, in addition to powerful tech startup companies and CEOs. Five 45 minute episodes are dedicated to her rise, how she as the head of Theranos charmed investors (including making her voice deeper), overpromised on the technology, and outright lied in many cases. Customers who received faulty test results were hurt. Theranos employees who tried to warn Holmes the technology didn’t work were told not to worry or bullied into compliance. Others who blew the whistle were harassed and intimidated. Interviews were obtained from former employees, people who know Holmes, and by deposition testimony from Holmes herself.

Season two of The Dropout is the latest and goes over what Elizabeth Holmes has been up to since she lost control of Theranos and it was forced to close its doors. The trial of Holmes and Balwani are being held separately because Holmes’ defense team is actually claiming Balwani abused and manipulated their client in attempt to pin problems at Theranos on him.

Holmes’ trial is first, so that is what’s being covered through reporters although live coverage of the trial is prohibited. Interviews from and jurors not selected, experts and people who knew Holmes is also a part of this season. ABC News often recaps Holmes’ defense team versus federal prosecutors and how witnesses and questioning might be perceived by the selected jury. Even with delays because of COVID and Holmes becoming a new mother this coverage is riveting.

What makes the Theranos and Holmes story extraordinary to me is the medical angle of the company. Had she founded a regular tech company and failed so spectacularly, she might have been a passing mention in the news. But playing with the lives and well-being of people is no trifle matter.

Joseph Daniels

Another Thursday and it’s business as usual today. Another Quarantine Control, there’s not really anything special about that. Just another week where we’re reminded that people suck and refuse to put a simple cloth over their face. Clearly they did not have enough discipline when they were younger, for how childish they’re acting now.

So yeah, I guess there’s nothing all that special about today.

KONOHANA KITAN (2017)
Source: Crunchyroll
Episodes: 12

When I played Final Fantasy IX, I fell in love with the world and the characters. It felt like the kind of world that I’d love to live in (minus the life-threatening peril). The world was full of characters and races that weren’t just “humans with one modification”. There were genuine different races.

It wasn’t just one of them, either. There were Burmecians as playable characters, sure, and they resembled tall rats, but there were other unnamed races that resembled animals with a bit more human to them. Even Zidane himself wasn’t fully human. Although I’m usually not fond of monkeys, I warmed up to him and was glad to have him along.

There were also the Qu as playable characters, lest we forget about them.

In contrast, Final Fantasy VII had basically an entire human cast and one non-human. Aeris was technically also not human, being an “Ancient”, but she looked human and talked like a human. There was nothing physical to differentiate her from any of the other human characters.

A series like The Helpful Fox Senko-san is sort of like Final Fantasy VII to me, where it takes place in a world of humans, but has a fox spirit or two. And I like that because I want there to be magic in this world too. But when I watch Konohana Kitan, I find a world that I’d love to visit and maybe live in.

The main cast are fox women, and are basically kemonomimi (read: fake furries, because they have the ears and tails, but are otherwise human; that said, I do like tails). However, even in the opening shot of the series, we see that the world is populated with a variety of species, both kemonomimi and proper furry. The species are all sizes, too, like they are in Zootopia and Beastars. You have to be careful not to step on any sentient rodents.

The series mainly follows Yuzu, a new fox maiden at Konohanatei as she learns how to serve the customer at a “hot spring hotel”, or as it’s known in Japan, an onsen. Fellow fox Satsuki is rough on her (and it’s a little uncomfortable for me to watch poor Yuzu have to take Satsuki’s treatment of her), but the relationship gradually improves over time.

As such, I’d say watch the first episode and if you’re not on board with the interactions between Satsuki and Yuzu, then at least you can say that you gave the series a try. I find it to be a very cute and elegantly presented show and with how much of a delight the world is, I wish there had been more than twelve episodes, or at least a second season.

Let’s hope that COVID cases stay low and that the vaccination pace continues to increase, especially with how kids could soon be able to get vaccinated in the US. But again: Let’s be careful about playing the speculation game regarding how this could still get worse. Time to stop right here. Until next week.

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