The Streaming Wars Hangover Era

It's a weird time in television.  There's plenty of good TV, with fun new titles like "Widow's Bay" and "Furious" in the mix.  However, we're several years past the peak prestige television years, when the streaming wars were really in full sway.  Instead of the calendar being full of splashy new event titles like new Marvel and "Star Wars" franchise spinoff shows, or ambitious star vehicles like "Big Little Lies," we're seeing episode orders shrink across the board, lots of belt-tightening, and long-in-the-works projects being cancelled left and right.  Linear television is still on the decline, but the enthusiasm for streaming has hit some bumps.

 Disney+ has cut way back on Marvel and "Star Wars" television projects, to the point where the majority of what's still running are animated shows.  A third season of "Daredevil: Born Again" and a second season of "Ahsoka" are the only live action offerings we appear to be getting in 2027.  Part of the reason is that theatrical revenues have recovered since COVID, so what might have been a fourth season of "The Mandalorian" became the theatrical feature "The Mandalorian and Grogu," and episodes of an intended "Moana" television series were hastily reworked into "Moana 2."  This leaves the Disney+ slate feeling awfully empty.  Meanwhile, over at DC, the Wonder Woman and Amanda Waller TV projects are no longer in development. 

There are signs everywhere that streaming event television is hitting the skids.  There was a lot of chatter earlier in the year about how Netflix couldn't seem to keep audiences around to watch the second seasons of their shows like "One Piece" and "The Four Seasons."    I don't think that Netflix's shows have been particularly lacking compared to their competitors, but the streamer just hasn't done a good job of marketing and supporting many of the shows that they have, and the long waits between seasons have made it impossible to keep some fandoms going.  "Stranger Things," their biggest hit, went out with a bang at the end of last year, but nobody actually seems to have liked it all that much.  However, Netflix does have plenty of more modest hits in their catalogue, and I think they'll be fine in the long run.  Hopefully no more of "The Witcher" though.  That ship has sailed, hit the rocks, and sunk forever.

What prompted me to write this post was watching several lackluster seasons of Apple TV+ shows that I couldn't bring myself to write reviews for: "Silo," "For All Mankind,"  and "Sugar."  All three were a bore this year.  I love that Apple is funding all of this science-fiction programming, but their shows have been severely hit or miss.  "For All Mankind" had a fantastic first year, and has been in a steady decline ever since.  A sixth and final season will premiere in 2027, but there's more excitement for the "Star City" spinoff.  I really like "Silo," but it's been going around in circles without much story or character progression for the last two seasons.  Meanwhile, "Sugar" really should have stayed a miniseries like Colin Farrell's last big TV outing, "The Penguin."  The second season had an incredible cast, but felt aimless.  These were all shiny prestige series that really distinguished themselves at first, but weren't very good at being television shows over the long run.  I also skipped the new "Ted Lasso" season, by the way.  That show felt like it was over after the third season, and the fourth looks too much like a spinoff of itself.

Then there's "House of the Dragon" over on HBO Max, which feels like it's the poster child for this whole, messy, current streaming era.  It's an epic scale franchise show that is chasing the popularity of a progenitor that everyone loved, but was so mismanaged that it completely lost its cultural cachet and audience goodwill years ago.  It's been beset by production troubles - reduced episode counts, big gaps between seasons, and trying to stretch out the source material beyond what it can sustain.  I liked much of the third season, but feel no small amount of relief that the show will be ending with the fourth.  The smaller scale "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms" will hopefully fare better trying to do less.   

While we're on the subject of HBO Max, there are still a lot of big event shows on the horizon, not the least of which is the new "Harry Potter" reboot that everyone is already fighting about.  However, there are noticeably less of them now than there were three years ago, and expectations are much more measured.  Sure, I want to see "Neuromancer."  Let's just hope that this one stays a miniseries.

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"Lanterns" Sheds Some Light

James Gunn's DC projects have a very mixed record, but I'm not surprised that the most successful so far has been the "Lanterns" series.  The talents assembled for the show are considerable, including Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof, and comic book scribe Tom King, who are credited as the show's creators.  Based on the DC comics about multiple superheroes who have fought evil as the Green Lantern, "Lanterns" gives us a grounded detective series that takes place in the DC universe.  It rarely leaves the small Midwestern town of Rushville, Nebraska, and doesn't show off many flashy special effects.  Super-powered showdowns are backgrounded in favor of nuanced character portraits and complex interpersonal drama.  Anecdotally, fans of the original "Green Lantern" comics don't seem to like the show as much as adult viewers with less knowledge of the characters and their comic book histories.  

"True Detective" is the clear template for the plot, which follows an ongoing mystery unraveling in two different time periods.  In 2016, the current Green Lantern, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler), and his intended replacement/trainee John Stewart (Aaron Pierre) come to Rushville suspecting alien activity in the area.  They're met by the doubtful Sheriff Kerry Kane (Kelly MacDonald), part of a complicated family that runs the town.  She warns them not to pry too much into local affairs as they're carrying out their investigation.  In 2026, John returns to Rushville and finds himself in the middle of a mystery again.  This is connected to the fallout of events from 2016.  Lots of flashbacks are involved, but the structure of the show is interesting in that the 2016 and 2026 mysteries largely play out separately, and in very different circumstances, rather than being intercut together.  The cast also includes Garret Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Ulrich Thomsen, Jason Ritter, Laura Linney, Nathan Fillion, and Jasmine Cephas-Jones. 

At the center of "Lanterns" is the difficult relationship between the two leads, who are never on equal footing.  Beloved hero Hal Jordan is getting old, but clings to the power granted to him by "the Guardians," who designate each member of the specially chosen intergalactic Green Lantern Corp by bestowing them with a matter-controlling power ring.  Hal is supposed to be training John with the ring to be the next Green Lantern of Earth, but mostly just treats him as an unwanted, bothersome sidekick.  As for John, he's been preparing himself for the superhero job for his whole life, as a part of a deeply troubling family legacy, and has a lot of personal baggage to work out.  His frustrations with Hal grow steadily, episode by episode.  The show examines the racial and generational distinctions in play here, and offers a lot of interesting commentary on the nature of heroes, power, and self-determination.

The show has admirable ambitions, but "Lanterns" was met with an unusually contentious reception because of some wildly mismatched expectations.  To be blunt, "Lanterns" is an HBO prestige drama targeting adults, but its original source material is a comic book aimed at children.  Some existing fans didn't take too well to these larger-than-life characters being brought down to size and treated like fallible, flawed human beings.  Also, those who were expecting a more traditional superhero narrative, replete with cosmic green light shows and alien fisticuffs, instead got a very dialogue-heavy drama about morality and the responsible use of power instead.  The last episode doesn't even have a big fight scene in it.  Despite having clear connections to the 2025 "Superman" movie, "Lanterns" is tonally very different, with much smaller, more personal stakes and a far more complicated moral framework.        

The bigger question is whether or not this works as a television series, and my first instinct is to say yes.  The characters and their quandaries are interesting enough to follow whether or not you have any knowledge of the Green Lantern and the wider DCU.  You don't have to like superheroes at all, because superheroics are so peripheral to the concerns of the story.  "Lanterns" is better described as neo-noir and detective fiction.  However, as with much detective fiction, the plotting is sometimes rushed and messy, with some notable logic gaps.  The emotional payoffs and character arcs, however, are all very solid, which I consider much more important.  

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"The Invite" is a Delight

"The Invite" is one of the vanishing breed of relationship comedies for adults, a mature dramedy about four people in an apartment spending an eventful evening together.  As you might expect, it's based on a play - the Spanish "The People Upstairs" - which has now been filmed half a dozen times in nearly as many languages.  The American version is written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones.  Olivia Wilde directs and also stars in one of the major roles, doing a fine job at both.

Angela (Wilde) and Joe (Seth Rogen) play an unhappily married couple in San Francisco.    Joe comes home one day from work to discover that Angela has invited over the couple who live upstairs, Piña (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton).  Joe wants to cancel, but Angela is very invested in the get-together, sparking a fight.  This is interrupted when Piña and Hawk arrive, but tensions are high throughout the evening as the four characters make introductions, get to know one another, and it turns out that there's another invitation on the table.

If you've seen any of the trailers or advertising for the film, you know that "The Invite" broaches the topic of partner swapping and discusses other titillating sexual acts, though nothing explicit is ever shown onscreen.  Piña and Hawk turn out to be very sexually open and adventurous, and offer some new possibilities to Joe and Angela that might help get them out of the rut that their lives have fallen into.   However, this in turn throws some of the issues with their marriage into sharper relief.  "The Invite" is built on performances, where the conversations are the set pieces, and the reaction shots are as funny as any of the dialogue.  Olivia Wilde and Seth Rogen are both unusually committed here, very well matched as scene partners, and I would have happily watched them argue and verbally spar with each other for an additional hour or two.  

As much as I enjoyed "The Invite," it took me a while to warm up to it.  Part of it is due to the subject matter and part of it is due to the kind of film this is.  "The Invite" is very good at being a very talky, small-scale feature that I would have expected to be made by an independent director with a cast full of theater stalwarts.  I went into the movie mistakenly expecting something bigger and broader, and spent a considerable amount of time waiting for fireworks that weren't there.  "The Invite" is actually quite grounded and intimate, with some sentimental edges.  Also, as much as I liked Wilde and Rogen, I found Cruz and Norton pretty uninteresting - more like caricatures of what sexually adventurous people are supposed to be rather than the real thing.  Their performances are engaging and convincing when they need to be, but the characters are very slight.  There's a theory floating around that Piña and Hawk are not real at all and Joe and Angela just got drunk and imagined them, which I could see.

Though the comedic energy is high and the ending is hopeful, this can't negate the fact that "The Invite" is about the end of a relationship.  There's a bittersweet undercurrent running through the whole movie that really hit me when I realized it was there.  Part of the reason why the laughs are so big and hit so hard is that there's a lot of pain and frustration behind them.  I've never seen Seth Rogen in a role this serious before - and the more serious he is, the funnier he is.  As for Olivia Wilde, frankly, she has never had a screen role this good.  It's unfortunate that she apparently had to direct the movie herself to land it.  I don't think of these two as dramatic actors, and it was a nice surprise to discover that they are, in fact, capable of sincere drama when they feel so inclined.

And I don't think it would hurt if they were so inclined more often.  I'd really like to see more films like "The Invite," and Rogen and Wilde stretching their acting muscles more regularly too.

  

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The First Five of "Stuart Fails to Save the Universe"

I was a casual viewer of "The Big Bang Theory" for years, but never got invested enough to catch up on any of the episodes I missed or check out any of the earlier spinoff shows.  However, "Stuart Fails to Save the Universe" was such a weird prospect that I had to give this thing a look.  After all, I was paying for the HBO Max subscription anyway.

So, the guy who owned the comic book store in "The Big Bang Theory," Stuart (Kevin Sussman), is positioned as the star, joined by his assistant manager and ex-girlfriend Denise (Lauren Lapkus), and two CalTech academics, Bert Kibbler (Brian Posehn) and Barry Kripke (John Ross Bowie).  All four end up on a universe-hopping adventure together, thanks to a device that Sheldon and Leonard from "The Big Bang Theory" purportedly created.  A push of a button allows them to bounce from universe to universe, which is very handy in the first episode, since our heroes start out in an apocalyptic version of Pasadena and need a way out.

I've watched five episodes so far, and the show is not very good.  Creator Chuck Lorre and his longtime collaborator Bill Prady are joined by Zak Penn, who has written an awful lot of superhero movies.  They've taken a collection of minor characters from "The Big Bang Theory" - who I barely remember and haven't seen onscreen since 2019 - and promoted them to series leads.  Meanwhile, the main cast of "The Big Bang Theory" occasionally drop in for cameos.  And this doesn't really work.  Kevin Sussman is a character actor in his fifties, playing an unremarkable schlub who isn't very amusing or sympathetic.  Brian Posehn is born to play sidekicks, so he and a cartoonishly evil, lisping John Ross Bowie muddle through okay.  I don't feel I've seen enough of Lauren Lapkus yet to say much, though I've liked her previously on "Comedy Bang! Bang!" and other shows.

The big selling point of "Stuart Fails to Save the Universe" is that Chuck Lorre decided to give genre-bending storytelling and meta-humor a try, abandoning his usual realm of sitcom couches for a show that features an entirely new universe with totally different rules each week.  We jump from the apocalypse, to a world run by robots, to a world where magic is real, to a world where Stuart is in a mental hospital, to a world inhabited by pre-civilization collectivist tribes.  Also, being on HBO Max means fewer content restrictions and a bigger budget for all the CGI in the show.  The result is similar to watching a live action "Rick and Morty."  Alas, it soon becomes apparent that  Chuck Lorre is no Dan Harmon.  

The pacing is frantic and the dangers are grandiose, but the humor in "Stuart Fails" amounts to the same old Chuck-Lorre-sitcom one-liners, middlebrow manchild shtick, and caricature based humor.  Stuart isn't really friends with the other two guys, so there are no existing group or family dynamics to play off of the way that "Rick and Morty" does.  Stuart still holding a torch for Diane is the only sign of any sort of real emotional connection anywhere.  So far, there are also no compelling stakes to the story aside from finding a "normal" universe somewhere that the group can call home.  Though, as the title indicates, Stuart and his travelling companions usually leave each universe worse off than they found it, the show never really gets very dark or satirical.  Frankly, the characters are too simple-minded for that.

So far the most clever bits are usually in the opening sequence, which prominently features snarky signs and messages that change in every episode.  All the episodes also have spoiler titles, such as the pilot being called "Spoiler: Gary Dies."  And a character named Gary does in fact die.  There's not much cleverness that makes it into the actual episodes, which are keen on using all the tropes and tactics of smarter, geekier shows, but don't put them to particularly good use.  Since Lorre and his collaborators are new to this kind of material, I expect that they'll improve over time.  The show has already been renewed for at least another season.

I, however, don't think I'll be sticking around much longer for "Stuart Fails."  "President Curtis" is a similar show that premiered around the same time, and is already much more promising - but that's another post.

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The New Devices of "Toy Story 5"

It's been thirty years since the original "Toy Story," and it's interesting to see how the franchise has evolved over time.  It's become more and more clear that the toys, especially our most prominent major characters like Woody, Buzz, and Jessie, are really stand-ins for parents.  Their relationships with the children that they safeguard have become more and more explicitly parental over the last few movies.  And what are parents worried about these days?  Electronic devices.  It was one of the neatest tricks of advertising that I saw this year, putting the new tablet character Lilypad (Greta Lee) right in the middle of the poster, representing a massive existential threat to the "Toy Story" gang, and instantly grabbing the attention of every concerned parent who has had to wrestle with the screentime question.

Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) is now eight years old, as imaginative as ever, but having trouble making friends because it seems like every other kid is spending so much time online.  Her well-meaning parents buy her a kids' tablet, Lilypad, to the consternation of her toys.  Jessie in particular is worried that the "devices" make kids grow up too fast.  Initial encounters with Lilypad do not go well, and Jessie and Bullseye mistakenly end up far from home, in the custody of another girl, Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris).  Meanwhile, Sheriff Woody and Bo are called in as reinforcements, and there's a whole subplot involving a lost army of the newest generation of Buzz Lightyear toys, which come with some interesting new hi-tech features.  Conan O'Brien, Shelby Rabara, and Craig Robinson voice new characters, and nearly everyone from the older "Toy Story" films reprises their roles in some capacity.

The franchise is definitely feeling its age.  "Toy Story 5," directed by Andrew Stanton, has a lot of jokes about Woody being old and out of shape, a lot of freak-outs about technology, and a lot of nostalgic callbacks to earlier films, especially "Toy Story 2."  The voices of several of the actors, like Tom Hanks and Joan Cusack, have noticeably changed, and the performances have changed with them.  Moreover, it feels like the movie was marketed more towards adults than children, though there are plenty of elements in the film that kids will enjoy watching.  PIXAR finally gives into toilet humor in the best way, introducing a toilet training toy named Smarty Pants (O'Brien) to deliver several very silly and mild scatological jokes.  While the animation is as eye-catching and detailed as ever, and all the actors and artists clearly remain very committed to delivering quality entertainment, there's a safeness and overly familiar quality to the film that left me comforted, but largely unmoved.  There are no big set pieces, no feats of animation spectacle, or any innovations in animation or storytelling that we haven't seen before.  They also feel a little slower, a little gentler, and more tentative.

The treatment of the devices, for instance, turns out to be very even-handed.  Maybe a little too even-handed.  Though initially viewed as threats, Lilypad and a few other tech-enabled toys are eventually revealed to be just as concerned about the well-being of their owners as the toys are.  The negative aspects of too much screentime, and the dangers of online interactions are highlighted, but it's the human beings who are at fault, not the technology.  With an eight year-old at the center of all this, the examples of online bullying and irresponsible behavior are understandably very mild.  However, I still raised eyebrows at the amount of bad screen habits we see in the movie that escaped comment.  It feels like a missed opportunity for PIXAR to more definitely take a stand for toys and offline play over screens.

It's been seven years since "Toy Story 4," so I'm not as worried about the franchise being overexposed as I once was.  This is one of the rare cases where I believe that new installments don't get made unless someone has a really good idea for one.  However, "Toy Story 5" feels so remote from those first three films now, and the filmmakers seem reluctant to handle the characters too roughly anymore.  Maybe this is just a rare misstep that will be righted eventually, but I think it's more likely that "Toy Story" has inevitably plateaued, and may be on the decline. 

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"House of the Dragon," Year Three

Spoilers for seasons one and two, and the first two episodes of season three ahead.

So, this is the season where "House of the Dragon" made some fundamental mistakes.  The most obvious one is not its fault.  HBO has cut down on episode orders, so the second season that premiered in 2024 had to end before its planned finale, the Battle of the Gullet.  This exciting naval battle ends up opening the third season instead, delivering lots of action and thrills that nothing else in the season matches up to.  An eight episode season would seem to be a perfectly fine length for "House of the Dragon," but there are a lot of characters who still don't have much to do between the violent clashes, and the showrunners seem determined to drag out the series for as long as its source material will allow, so the pace has slowed to a crawl.    

Most of the season is spent exploring the new status quo, with Rhaenyra having finally ascended the throne at King's Landing, but finding governance extremely difficult in the unsteady circumstances.  Up until now, Rhaenyra has been the most sympathetic of the main protagonists.  However, as the show moves into its later seasons, she's clearly not supposed to remain so.  The audience really should also be rooting for some of the other characters left on the board too, like Aegon II and Aemond, who are still on the run, or the scheming Ormund Hightower (James Norton), who has custody of Viserys's youngest son Daeron Targaryen (Benjamin Ainsworth), and is set up as a major foe of Rhaenyra's this season.  Though attempts are made to get us more invested in all of them, it doesn't work.  A few cool moments doesn't make up for Aegon being a brat for most of the year, and Aemond has gone from fun psycho to angst-ridden brooder.  Ormund is entertaining while he lasts, but reeks of cannon fodder and desperation.  Alicent and Helaena, put under house arrest, are still around, but too passive and ineffectual to really be players this season.  

I was still invested in Rhaenyra's reign and her relationship with Daemon, but watching her flounder as a monarch really tested my patience.  Rhaenyra's been interesting so far because she's a strong character blinded by tragic flaws, far too self-obsessed and conceited to believe she could be in the wrong.  Once she's installed in King's Landing, all these new anxieties and self-doubts kick in, rendering her weaker and more unlikeable with each episode.  And it's absolutely maddening to watch this play out.  I don't like that the show seems to so often be making Rhaenyra a victim of bad circumstances instead of letting her decisively make the mistakes that will lead to her ultimate fate.  It might be an issue with Emma D'Arcy's performance, but the writing is not doing her any favors.

This leaves me without many sympathetic characters left to follow through the story.  There are several secondary characters who still have my attention, though.  Baela had a great tragic turn this year, and was at the center of a major action set piece. Gwayne Hightower has weirdly emerged as one of the more heroic characters.   Ulf and Hugh are decent enough wild cards.  Alyn, Addam, and Rhaena feel like they're stuck on standby after the premiere, unfortunately, along with Lord Corlys.  I think the less said about Mysaria - a problematic figure from the start - the better.  

There is plenty of potential in this show going forward, but "House of the Dragon" has already fallen back on some of the worst habits of "Game of Thrones."  The third season was better than the second because it was more eventful, but it's still moving too slowly and getting repetitive.  Nowhere is this more apparent than with the Harrenhal subplots.  Daemon was stuck there for most of the second season, with Alys as his enabler, and once he left, Aemond showed up and went through almost the exact same experience.  

Maybe HBO could have gotten away with this if "House of the Dragon" was being released yearly, but my interest is already on the wane, and I don't see any end in sight.  As someone who wasn't too impressed with "Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," it might be time for me to take a break from this franchise for a while.

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My Favorite Andrzej Wajda Film

I don't think there's been a Polish filmmaker who has been as focused on Polish culture, politics, history, and national identity throughout his long career as Andrzej Wajda.  So though I was initially going to write this entry about "Danton," one of the great movies about the Reign of Terror, I feel it's far more appropriate to write about a Wajda film examining a period of Polish history through the lens of an investigation into the life of a fictional Polish hero.

"Man of Marble," like many other Wajda films, is about disillusionment and living in a corrupt system.  It follows a filmmaker named Agnieszka in the present day and her subject Mateusz Birkut in the past simultaneously, intercutting between their stories.  It emerges that Birkut was built up as a hero for propaganda purposes during Poland's Communist era, but once he actually undertook a heroic action in defense of a friend, he was brought to ruin by those in power.  "Man of Marble," made in the 1970s, was particularly notable for reflecting the social discontent of the Polish populace at the time of release, alluding to events that would be central to Poland's workers' movement of the 1980s.  "Man of Marble" would be followed by a sequel further exploring these themes, "Man of Iron."  Set five years later, it reveals the fates of several characters in "Man of Marble."  The political climate by that point was in such tumult that Wajda had to work outside of Poland for the next few years.

These two films are often discussed as a pair, but "Man of Marble" is more interesting for me for the way it engages with and is critical of Polish media.  The format of the film is similar to "Citizen Kane," with our heroine conducting interviews with people from Birkut's life, uncovering a little more about him with each encounter.  However, she is also working with researchers who unearth old films and newsreels about Birkut, many of them suppressed, censored, or never released at all.  The accounts of Birkut's life that they offer are usually deeply misleading.  Agnieszka even finds the director of the propaganda film that helped to lionize Birkut's image, who offers a more nuanced version of events.  However, there are also rare segments that contain fascinating glimpses of the truth.  Wajda created all of these archival materials himself in the style of the Communist  propaganda of the 1950s, highlighting their manipulative nature, and allowing him to contrast their narrative style with his own.

Wajda's frustrations as a filmmaker were also evident in the way he portrayed Agnieszka's struggles to make her film.  She has to fight for everything - funds, equipment, access to materials, approval of subject matter, and control of the project.  Agnieszka is played by Krystyna Janda in her debut role, this wonderfully modern, confident woman who struts through the opening sequence with determination and purpose.  I immediately sat up and took notice.  I appreciate that as much as the film is about Birkut, this forgotten hero figure who represents all the noble values of the Polish workers of his generation, it's also about Agnieszka, who resists the coverup and seems to embody all of Wajda's hopes for his country's future.  And it's her decision to keep going with her work, despite apparent defeat, that allows Wajda to end "Man of Marble" on a hopeful note.            

Andrzej Wajda isn't well known outside of his native Poland, despite being very highly regarded.  His work was a regular presence at the major European film festivals for decades, and four of his features nabbed Oscar nominations, most recently in 2007.  Many of his contemporaries like Roman Polanski and Krzysztof Kieslowski, however, are far more popular.  I suspect that this is because the degree of difficulty that comes with watching Wajda's films is higher - they are more culturally specific, more political, more ideological, and often very lengthy.  I confess that I watched "Ashes and Diamonds" and "Kanal" a few decades ago and didn't finish the trilogy until this year.

Finally, I should acknowledge that 35mm.online featured Wajda in 2026 for his centennial, and put several of his films online for free over the summer.  Without them, this entry would not be possible.   

What I've Seen - Andrzej Wajda

A Generation (1955)

Kanał (1957)

Ashes and Diamonds (1958)

Innocent Sorcerers (1960)

Everything For Sale (1969)

The Wedding (1972)

The Promised Land (1975)

Man of Marble (1977)

The Maids of Wilko (1979)

Man of Iron (1981)

Danton (1983)

Katyn (2007)

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