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rsadelleI watched Ted Lasso season 3 a couple of weeks ago, and finished season 3 of Star Trek: Picard this week. I disliked both of them, and then I realized that one of the central things I disliked was the same thing in both of them. They both did things in season 3 that directly contradicted the themes and/or character arcs of the previous seasons.
Ted Lasso
I originally ranted about this in an email, so you're getting that casual version with some additions.
Okay, so, there were some things I really enjoyed:
-It still made me literally laugh sometimes. (I will never stop laughing at Beard saying, "In Co-Dependents Anonymous ..." and then, in response to a look from Ted, "Jane makes me go.")
- I LOVED Roy and Jamie's relationship. LOVED IT. (But in a platonic way. I had one brief moment of thinking I could be into the Roy/Jamie/Keeley threesome, but ultimately: No. I want Roy and Keeley basically being Jamie's parents/mentors/how to be a good person teachers.)
- I enjoyed that the moment we met her, I thought, "Jack/Keeley?" and then the show was like, "Jack/Keeley!" and they actually dated.
- Trent's sound for joining the Diamond Dogs is just a "woof," which was great in so many ways.
- We met Jamie's mom, and the whole sequence was great, although there was a kind of sexualized vibe there.
- I enjoyed Colin and Michael's relationship, especially the "sex when you get back?" bit.
- I expected Barbara to be sabotaging Keeley, but I enjoyed that she turned out to not be and became Keeley's business partner.
- The goodbye musical number at the end of a practice!
But also the closer we got to the end, the more annoyed with it I was.
- The pacing on Nate and Ted's storylines was completely off - Nate's was way too fast and Ted's was way too slow. Nate is slowly coming around, and then it's SO FAST that he quits his job. I also did not believe Nate's relationship with his dad being fixed so easily.
- There's a plotline where one of Keeley's private videos she made for Jamie gets leaked as part of a large leak of celebrity women's photos/videos. I wanted her to be way more decisive in telling Jack that she wasn't going to apologize for anything. Then there's a whole locker room scene where the guys are debating it - should they look at the leak, should you always delete photos off your phone - until someone reads the article and says that Keeley was one of the women, and then they immediately are like, no, we won't look, and McAdoo makes everyone delete all the private photos/videos off their phones. First of all, even for what Ted Lasso is, this is SO UNREALISTIC that I couldn't buy it. Also, this is a very individual solutions to structural problems thing - like, if you have that stuff on your phone and you get hacked, you are not a bad person for having it and the person who made it is not a bad person for having made it for you! It's fine to have naked photos. The problem is the people who think it's okay to distribute them without permission.
- Then there's the Rupert plotline. He's having an affair with his assistant, and Rebecca calls him on it, and then he replaces his assistant, and then his new wife and the assistant he was having an affair with show up at Rebecca's house (side note: when the wife says "we," I was hoping it was going to be her and the baby and that was how Rebecca ended up with a kid) and then there's a news article about allegations about him and inappropriate workplace behavior. (The discussion the other two women have with Rebecca is not shown or referenced on screen.) And, like, the show is basically a fairy tale, you don't have to do a #MeToo storyline, especially when you do it SO BADLY. It feels tacked on and not well thought out and it's all about what it means for Rupert, not what it means for the women.
- I think a lot of these things are connected: you can have a fairy tale world where the guys delete their photos and it's totally safe for Rebecca to take a shower on some strange guy's boat, or you can have a real world where it's a scandal when sexy videos of a woman are leaked and people are starting to realize it's bad to sleep with your employees, but not both at the same time. Like, they could have left the whole leaked videos out (and found another way for Colin to be outed) and made Rupert's scandal that he was having an affair and Bex left him and wouldn't let him see the baby, and then Rebecca being on the boat wouldn't stand out quite so much.
- I got spoiled by a Tumblr text post (because Trent and Colin are just basic men's names so I didn't catch on that it was about Ted Lasso until I'd read too much) that talked about how once Trent found out about Colin, then you could see Trent being a gay elder. And, I guess? There's some of that, and knowing that made me pay close attention to the two of them on screen, but it wasn't really much of what I was expecting from what the post said. Also: I thought that bit when they learn about Bantr without an e and Colin says, "Like Grindr?" and everyone pauses and looks at him was supposed to be a clueless coming out, but then they made his whole coming out story deliberate and not exactly full of angst but him weighing things heavily. This is one of the going back what they did before things.
- So they were willing to take on homophobia in Colin's story, but they weren't willing to actually deal with it in the Jack/Keeley story. Like, the text is that Jack is embarrassed about Keeley's leaked video, but introducing your same-gender partner as a "friend" is a classic not really willing to take the heat of actually being out behavior. I was so disappointed about how that relationship played out.
- Ugh, Roy and Keeley. They're broken up at the start. I know people were upset about the conversation on the couch in the last season, but I remember really liking it because it was an honest emotional conversation. And then the whole season's arc about them is that it's all about Roy not thinking he deserves Keeley, but that IS NOT what their conflict was before! It made it all about him. AND THEN there's a thing where Jamie and Roy get in a fight over who should get to be with Keeley and they go to Keeley and tell her about it and say that she gets to choose between them and she kicks them out. THEY WOULD NEVER DO THAT. The WHOLE point is that (a) Roy was always very respectful of Keeley and her agency and (b) Jamie is learning to be a good person.
- They clearly thought they had to Resolve Everyone's Problems (particularly their daddy issues), but sometimes the resolution is that you get free. Jamie's being free of his dad was so much more powerful than the oh, his dad will go to rehab and then everything will be okay ending. UGH.
- All of this just made me think about the tiny bits I've seen about Jason Sudeikis being not great to Olivia Wilde and how the writers' attitudes are probably bad.
Star Trek: Picard
I loved the first two seasons of this show. The major theme of both of them is that mortality gives our lives meaning.
In season 1, we saw that with Data asking to die and Picard not wanting an android body that would live forever. There was also an excellent found family vibe and an amazing sequence where they go visit Riker and Troi. The season ends with Picard on a ship with two couples (Agnes and Rios; Raffi and Seven) and his Romulan nun son (Elnor) and android daughter (Soji). (Note: not his literal children. Found family children.)
In season 2, the final reveal is that all their time travel world jumping is being directed by Q, who is dying. He cups Picard's face (I genuinely thought he was going to kiss him) and says, "Even gods have their favorites, Jean-Luc." He says he's dying alone, and then Picard says he isn't alone and hugs him. I LOVE IT. In the meantime, during all their adventures, Agnes and the Borg queen merge. At the very end, Q sends them back to where they started (and revives the formerly dead Elnor), and Agnes the Borg queen links all the Federation ships and the Borg ship together to repel an energy blast technobabble thing. Picard ultimately goes home to the vineyard to have a relationship with Laris.
And then there's season 3. Okay, so, the main plotline of season 3 is that Beverly Crusher sends Picard a message asking for help and telling him to trust no one. He leaves Laris behind (we never see or hear about her again) and retrieves Riker to help him go find Beverly. Crusher is traveling with her son Jack, who of course is also Picard's son. Anyway, things happen leading up to the reveal that the Borg and some Changelings are working together to take over the world by blowing up Earth on Frontier Day. (Side note: I know they're stuck with "the final frontier" thing because it comes from original Trek, but now that I know more about indigenous issues, it gets a yikes from me every time.) Picard's time with the Borg left him with some sort of genetic code that he passed on to Jack and the Borg are looking for Jack so he can be the voice of the Borg. Are you wondering what happened with Agnes being the Borg queen? Me too. That is not explained, and I spent a lot of the season asking, "But what about Agnes and his Romulan nun son?" (Elnor is not in this season either.)
Along the way, they collect everyone from the original TNG cast, including Data. Because there's some nonsense about how he's been preserved, whatever. There is also a whole storyline about Riker's grief over his son's death and how that's taking its toll on his marriage that comes out of nowhere because he and Troi seemed good when saw them in season 1. There are some very funny bits, particularly with Worf, but you can tell that the whole season is just an excuse to get the original TNG crew back on the bridge of the Enterprise - with some additional guests: Ro Laren and Tuvok make brief appearances, and we even see Data's hologram portrait of Tasha Yar - even if that means negating or outright ignoring everything they did in the previous two seasons. As a final indignity, there's a scene right at the end where Q appears to Jack and says that Picard's trial of humanity is over but Jack's isn't. UGH, WHY? I mean, I know why, because they could use the nostalgia factor to get people to watch it (and also, apparently, TV shows are obsessed with father-son issues), but still: not a good choice.
Anyway, I'm three chapters into Maureen Ryan's Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood, which is both excellent and stomach-churning, and I do not have positive feelings about people in charge of TV right now.
Ted Lasso
I originally ranted about this in an email, so you're getting that casual version with some additions.
Okay, so, there were some things I really enjoyed:
-It still made me literally laugh sometimes. (I will never stop laughing at Beard saying, "In Co-Dependents Anonymous ..." and then, in response to a look from Ted, "Jane makes me go.")
- I LOVED Roy and Jamie's relationship. LOVED IT. (But in a platonic way. I had one brief moment of thinking I could be into the Roy/Jamie/Keeley threesome, but ultimately: No. I want Roy and Keeley basically being Jamie's parents/mentors/how to be a good person teachers.)
- I enjoyed that the moment we met her, I thought, "Jack/Keeley?" and then the show was like, "Jack/Keeley!" and they actually dated.
- Trent's sound for joining the Diamond Dogs is just a "woof," which was great in so many ways.
- We met Jamie's mom, and the whole sequence was great, although there was a kind of sexualized vibe there.
- I enjoyed Colin and Michael's relationship, especially the "sex when you get back?" bit.
- I expected Barbara to be sabotaging Keeley, but I enjoyed that she turned out to not be and became Keeley's business partner.
- The goodbye musical number at the end of a practice!
But also the closer we got to the end, the more annoyed with it I was.
- The pacing on Nate and Ted's storylines was completely off - Nate's was way too fast and Ted's was way too slow. Nate is slowly coming around, and then it's SO FAST that he quits his job. I also did not believe Nate's relationship with his dad being fixed so easily.
- There's a plotline where one of Keeley's private videos she made for Jamie gets leaked as part of a large leak of celebrity women's photos/videos. I wanted her to be way more decisive in telling Jack that she wasn't going to apologize for anything. Then there's a whole locker room scene where the guys are debating it - should they look at the leak, should you always delete photos off your phone - until someone reads the article and says that Keeley was one of the women, and then they immediately are like, no, we won't look, and McAdoo makes everyone delete all the private photos/videos off their phones. First of all, even for what Ted Lasso is, this is SO UNREALISTIC that I couldn't buy it. Also, this is a very individual solutions to structural problems thing - like, if you have that stuff on your phone and you get hacked, you are not a bad person for having it and the person who made it is not a bad person for having made it for you! It's fine to have naked photos. The problem is the people who think it's okay to distribute them without permission.
- Then there's the Rupert plotline. He's having an affair with his assistant, and Rebecca calls him on it, and then he replaces his assistant, and then his new wife and the assistant he was having an affair with show up at Rebecca's house (side note: when the wife says "we," I was hoping it was going to be her and the baby and that was how Rebecca ended up with a kid) and then there's a news article about allegations about him and inappropriate workplace behavior. (The discussion the other two women have with Rebecca is not shown or referenced on screen.) And, like, the show is basically a fairy tale, you don't have to do a #MeToo storyline, especially when you do it SO BADLY. It feels tacked on and not well thought out and it's all about what it means for Rupert, not what it means for the women.
- I think a lot of these things are connected: you can have a fairy tale world where the guys delete their photos and it's totally safe for Rebecca to take a shower on some strange guy's boat, or you can have a real world where it's a scandal when sexy videos of a woman are leaked and people are starting to realize it's bad to sleep with your employees, but not both at the same time. Like, they could have left the whole leaked videos out (and found another way for Colin to be outed) and made Rupert's scandal that he was having an affair and Bex left him and wouldn't let him see the baby, and then Rebecca being on the boat wouldn't stand out quite so much.
- I got spoiled by a Tumblr text post (because Trent and Colin are just basic men's names so I didn't catch on that it was about Ted Lasso until I'd read too much) that talked about how once Trent found out about Colin, then you could see Trent being a gay elder. And, I guess? There's some of that, and knowing that made me pay close attention to the two of them on screen, but it wasn't really much of what I was expecting from what the post said. Also: I thought that bit when they learn about Bantr without an e and Colin says, "Like Grindr?" and everyone pauses and looks at him was supposed to be a clueless coming out, but then they made his whole coming out story deliberate and not exactly full of angst but him weighing things heavily. This is one of the going back what they did before things.
- So they were willing to take on homophobia in Colin's story, but they weren't willing to actually deal with it in the Jack/Keeley story. Like, the text is that Jack is embarrassed about Keeley's leaked video, but introducing your same-gender partner as a "friend" is a classic not really willing to take the heat of actually being out behavior. I was so disappointed about how that relationship played out.
- Ugh, Roy and Keeley. They're broken up at the start. I know people were upset about the conversation on the couch in the last season, but I remember really liking it because it was an honest emotional conversation. And then the whole season's arc about them is that it's all about Roy not thinking he deserves Keeley, but that IS NOT what their conflict was before! It made it all about him. AND THEN there's a thing where Jamie and Roy get in a fight over who should get to be with Keeley and they go to Keeley and tell her about it and say that she gets to choose between them and she kicks them out. THEY WOULD NEVER DO THAT. The WHOLE point is that (a) Roy was always very respectful of Keeley and her agency and (b) Jamie is learning to be a good person.
- They clearly thought they had to Resolve Everyone's Problems (particularly their daddy issues), but sometimes the resolution is that you get free. Jamie's being free of his dad was so much more powerful than the oh, his dad will go to rehab and then everything will be okay ending. UGH.
- All of this just made me think about the tiny bits I've seen about Jason Sudeikis being not great to Olivia Wilde and how the writers' attitudes are probably bad.
Star Trek: Picard
I loved the first two seasons of this show. The major theme of both of them is that mortality gives our lives meaning.
In season 1, we saw that with Data asking to die and Picard not wanting an android body that would live forever. There was also an excellent found family vibe and an amazing sequence where they go visit Riker and Troi. The season ends with Picard on a ship with two couples (Agnes and Rios; Raffi and Seven) and his Romulan nun son (Elnor) and android daughter (Soji). (Note: not his literal children. Found family children.)
In season 2, the final reveal is that all their time travel world jumping is being directed by Q, who is dying. He cups Picard's face (I genuinely thought he was going to kiss him) and says, "Even gods have their favorites, Jean-Luc." He says he's dying alone, and then Picard says he isn't alone and hugs him. I LOVE IT. In the meantime, during all their adventures, Agnes and the Borg queen merge. At the very end, Q sends them back to where they started (and revives the formerly dead Elnor), and Agnes the Borg queen links all the Federation ships and the Borg ship together to repel an energy blast technobabble thing. Picard ultimately goes home to the vineyard to have a relationship with Laris.
And then there's season 3. Okay, so, the main plotline of season 3 is that Beverly Crusher sends Picard a message asking for help and telling him to trust no one. He leaves Laris behind (we never see or hear about her again) and retrieves Riker to help him go find Beverly. Crusher is traveling with her son Jack, who of course is also Picard's son. Anyway, things happen leading up to the reveal that the Borg and some Changelings are working together to take over the world by blowing up Earth on Frontier Day. (Side note: I know they're stuck with "the final frontier" thing because it comes from original Trek, but now that I know more about indigenous issues, it gets a yikes from me every time.) Picard's time with the Borg left him with some sort of genetic code that he passed on to Jack and the Borg are looking for Jack so he can be the voice of the Borg. Are you wondering what happened with Agnes being the Borg queen? Me too. That is not explained, and I spent a lot of the season asking, "But what about Agnes and his Romulan nun son?" (Elnor is not in this season either.)
Along the way, they collect everyone from the original TNG cast, including Data. Because there's some nonsense about how he's been preserved, whatever. There is also a whole storyline about Riker's grief over his son's death and how that's taking its toll on his marriage that comes out of nowhere because he and Troi seemed good when saw them in season 1. There are some very funny bits, particularly with Worf, but you can tell that the whole season is just an excuse to get the original TNG crew back on the bridge of the Enterprise - with some additional guests: Ro Laren and Tuvok make brief appearances, and we even see Data's hologram portrait of Tasha Yar - even if that means negating or outright ignoring everything they did in the previous two seasons. As a final indignity, there's a scene right at the end where Q appears to Jack and says that Picard's trial of humanity is over but Jack's isn't. UGH, WHY? I mean, I know why, because they could use the nostalgia factor to get people to watch it (and also, apparently, TV shows are obsessed with father-son issues), but still: not a good choice.
Anyway, I'm three chapters into Maureen Ryan's Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood, which is both excellent and stomach-churning, and I do not have positive feelings about people in charge of TV right now.