Reviews

Based on the first two episodes and the preview, this series is off to a good start. But it's worth seeing more about the characters than the story.

Ten years ago a story about alternate universes might have been novel for the general public, but now it's old hat. As a result, it does take too long to set up the basic premise. We get it. There are actually several theories in physics as to how alternate or multiple universes could exist, so the particulars while plausible aren't all that important. What it does do is set the ground rules for switching between universes.

What does matter is that the two leads are smart actors playing smart people. They don't do dumb things. I have always been impressed with the roles Ms. Connelly has chosen throughout her career. While some of her projects have misfired, she always plays complex characters. Mr. Edgerton has one of those "I've seen him somewhere before" faces, but he carries off the lead character, even the science part.

It's clear that the author and scriptwriter Blake Crouch is equating alternate universes with roads not taken in life. We see it in lots of ways throughout both episodes. This provides the drama to what otherwise could be a rather dry subject. It's the real reason to keep watching.

What we are left after the first two episodes is more of a promise. From the preview at the end of episode 2, it looks like the pace is about to pick up. I never read the book, but hopefully Blake Crouch will have some new twists in store for the alternate universe meme. From a brief scene at the beginning of episode 1, there's even a suggestion of how it will end. Maybe you can always go home again, as long as you accept the fact that it might not be quite the same.

I wasn't expecting much, but this episode came out with a bang. It's action from the first second. Clearly the producers have gotten the word that we were sick of the endless talking.

For all the controversy around the show, it was always true that no show ever envisioned the far future better than ST:D. There's just enough "magic" that you believe you're beyond what we know without it becoming nothing more than magic. They make new rules and stick by them. Nothing shows this more than the opening sequence of. Burnham trying to bring a rogue ship out of warp. Her rescue is entirely believable given the tech they have, and no other SF show could have done it quite the way they did.

Some of the story seems stolen from other universes like Star Wars. Still, the visuals are absolutely stunning. I was never bored.

I hope this means that the producers have taken all the criticism as a challenge, and this last season will be truly memorable.

I finally got around to binge watching the final season of "Fear", and it was just as I feared. It limped to its conclusion, almost as if the producers had to make the season but didn't want to.

This final episode was so confusing I stopped caring. I couldn't understand the characters' motivations, which seemed to flip at a moment's notice. Old characters I couldn't even remember suddenly appeared out of nowhere. A new eight year-old child that nobody really cared about was introduced and became the center of the story. Hackneyed plot devices like physical traps which made no sense were used. Characters seemed to be able to travel hundreds of miles across very dangerous terrain at a moment's notice (in other series in the Walking Dead universe this took up the whole season). Even old, boring plot devices like a final herd of the dead were perfunctorily done.

I'll admit there was a lump in my throat at the final scene, but only because the series had a few good seasons early on where the characters and their stories actually meant something.

With this series the TWDU has jumped the shark. It bears only superficial resemblance to the original series.

With these kind of series, you need to give the writers one big pass. Time travel is possible, or there are vampires, or yes, a virus can reanimate the dead. If you go with it, the rewards can be huge. We saw that with the original series.

But they've pushed it too far. Somehow the dead are still walking around like energizer bunnies 20 or so years after the fall. There are huge herds of them wandering the streets of NYC and there are still lots of them falling from windows at the slightest sound. But think about it. Say 99% or 99.5% of the human race was turned. The dead don't reproduce (at least I hope the showrunners haven't decided to write that in) and only a few living humans are left to turn so the numbers can't increase significantly. That means if each of the remaining living took out only 100 to 200 of them they'd all be gone. We saw Rick's group do that before breakfast all the time. Over the 20 years since the fall, on average it would take less than one per month per living and they'd all be gone. But no, it's still such a convenient crutch for the writers to lean on. After awhile it becomes a cheat for cheap drama.

Or just how did those steel cables get strung across the skyscrapers in NYC? It would take mechanical assistance since they would weigh hundreds of pounds each. But people ziplining between buildings is just too cool an image to give up, so they just throw it in there. And you don't snip a quarter inch steel cable with wire cutters. It takes a pretty hefty set of bolt cutters at least. But again, it's too cool an image to pass up.

Maggie and Negan are just empty shells of themselves. Once again Maggie is playing mamma bear saving her cub (who's now almost an adult and should be able to fend for himself). Negan is reverting back to Saviors Negan without the hard won complexity he had in the original series. You can't fault the actors for this, it's all the writers' fault.

If you liked movies like "Escape from New York" and the Mad Max series, this is for you. And there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes mindless action and violence in a fantasy world are just what you want after a bad day at work. But if you appreciated "The Walking Dead" for the detail it paid to the characters and to an examination of just what "family" is, then it's a big letdown.

The IMDb description says this drama is "a deeply personal coming-of-age story" and it certainly is that. Supposedly it's based on writer/director James Gray's own experiences growing up and I don't see how anybody could make up a complex emotional story like this. If you want tidy stories where everything is wrapped up at the end, then this isn't for you. Actual life isn't like that.

This is a drama that demands your complete attention. It's about a deeply flawed but loving extended family in 1980 struggling with a whole range of issues. Mostly it's through the eyes of young Paul who's James Gray's alter-ego. Paul is a second generation Jewish immigrant, sensitive and artistic to boot. He's the outcast in his school class, only connecting with Johnny, a young Black kid with lots of his own issues.

Paul's father has a tendency towards violence, especially towards his kids and his wife. But he's always able to catch himself before he crosses the line into actual abuse. This is not really a story about child abuse. He is aware of his weaknesses. Paul's mother is brittle but still the one trying to hold the family together. She's played by Anne Hathaway who completely disappears into the role. Paul's extended family includes his wise grandfather played by Anthony Hopkins, the only adult who connects with Paul. In the hands of any other actor the grandfather might have come off as a stereotype, but Mr. Hopkins lets you know that the grandfather earned his wisdom despite his imperfections.

The story mostly centers around how Paul is misunderstood. His teacher doesn't understand him, his parents don't understand him, and only Johnny among his classmates understands him. As a result Paul keeps getting into trouble. The tension centers around whether Paul will go down a path that will keep him from ever becoming a responsible adult. Often he's forced to betray his friendship with Johnny. It's painful to watch Paul going through this, especially when you know he's a good kid at heart.

If you ever felt misunderstood when you were growing up, then you will relate to this movie.

My biggest criticism is that James Gray felt compelled to drag the Trumps into his story. Fred Trump, Donald's father, is continually seen throughout the story. His daughter, Donald's sister, even makes a cameo. Mr. Gray even went to the trouble of getting Jessica Chastain to play the part. Clearly Mr. Gray's opinions about the Trumps are a big deal to him - today. But in 1980? Why would anybody care about the Trumps back then? The whole Trump subplot comes across as an indulgence.

This is easily the worst episode in "The Walking Dead" universe.

The premise is that Morgan keeps slipping between Clear and Red modes. Time and time again he gets himself into a corner with the dead, goes into Red mode, and suddenly we jump forward into the future where Morgan comes back to Clear mode and is surrounded by all the dead he's dispatched. Once he's apparently even cleared most of the port's hundreds of dead.

We jump all over the place, from the train car to the houseboat to the port where each time Morgan goes into Red mode and dispatches them all. It's a joke. Any one of these incidents would have been a mid-season cliffhanger, but no, Morgan in Red mode is some kind of superhero killing machine. Stay out of his way or he'll cut you down too!

And then there's the sudden conversion of the PADRE kids by the end of the episode to decide to work with their parents instead of killing them. It makes no sense. The whole PADRE story line is silly in the first place. Those two kids running the show would have quickly been found out and dispatched early on by the first adult they recruited.

We're supposed to believe that 10 years or more after the apocalypse PADRE has a working locomotive which can move the train car around which has a working generator. Not only that, it also has working trucks and a working massive crane which can load a working container ship, along with somebody who knows how to load containers so the ship doesn't capsize. Somehow when the ship gets to all its seed ports it's supposed to be able to unload the containers, which will require other working cranes and trucks.

The episode ends with lots of maudlin callbacks to "The Walking Dead". It's supposed to tug at our emotional heart strings, but it comes across as shameless.

It's like the writers and show runners just don't care any more. The whole Walking Dead premise was always balanced on a knife edge. Without a lot of attention to detail and character motivation, it always could have easily slipped into C grade schlock. And here it has happened.

The script really gets in the way of this series. No, nobody expects deep insights. You just want to put your brain into neutral and just go with the flow.

But it's often very jarring between the home life, which is played as a rather dull sitcom, and life in the field. Both Luke and his daughter want innocent spouses who are oblivious to who they are on the job. Each of them wants a relationship where they can play a typical suburban spouse. But when in the field they both completely change character, as you might expect for spies. Trying to do both in the same episode adds nothing.

The bickering the two do on the job is overdone. There's one scene where the two of them are in a SUV trying to intercept an informant who will blow their cover. They roll over the informant a couple of times in their SUV without ever missing a beat in their bickering. They barely even notice what they're doing. It's just not funny.

But.it should be said that Schwarzenegger can still be an action hero and carry the story. It's clear his character is near retirement and not immortal, but Schwarzenegger displays a certain maturity that he didn't have in his younger roles. You don't have to make allowances for an actor that's clearly too old for an action part.

This is a story that could have been told in a movie, not a 7 part miniseries.

The central mystery of the story, that a husband suddenly disappears, can be solved in the first episode. When a US Marshall shows up and is worried about a national scandal publishing the face of the missing person, you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to know what is going on. But the series draws it out at least to episode 5.

Without the tension of the central mystery, the story centers on the relation between the stepmother and her stepdaughter. That's done well enough. You believe the bond that slowly grows between two people who don't much like each other at first. The supporting characters are also appealing. Everybody here acts in an intelligent way - most of the time - so it's pleasant enough to watch even when you know where it's going. If you're an "Alias" fan, there's a reunion of Jennifer Garner and Victor Garber that takes up most of episode 4.

Once the central mystery is revealed the last two episodes do provide more drama and more interest because there is a real danger to the people involved. But the series makes it a point that this will not end violence.

The location shooting also helps keep your interest. You see parts of Sausalito, CA and Austin that were new to me at least. However, I was surprised that a scene outside what was supposed to a local Austin bar was actually shot in my home town in Southern California. Why I don't know, because clearly a lot of it was shot in Austin.

When I first heard Spielberg was doing a remake of "West Side Story" my first thought was "Why?", followed by "What a colossal act of hubris." I avoided watching it for years.

Then the other night I happened to catch the original for the fourth or fifth time and I thought why not trying watching the remake for just a few minutes so I could see how badly it would compare.

But from the first scene it really delivers. It's far more authentic. It addresses the core issues of the movie head on when the original could only skirt around the edges because of the times. The Sharks are played by Latinos and Spanish is an integral part of their conversations, to the point that major characterization and background info is lost without understanding it.

In the original picture there was always a sense that you were watching a Broadway play. Much of it was stylized. In this picture everything is rooted in reality. You can actually believe that the people in these gangs could be dangerous. Unlike the original picture it's not a bunch of dancers playing tough. No doubt it helped that dance in general has become a lot more athletic in the ensuing decades.

Part of the tragedy of "West Side Story" is that it's about a bunch of kids with nothing fighting over nothing. What's the value of a few blocks of turf these kids don't even really control? The adults go about their daily business and most of them aren't even aware of what these kids are doing. This movie sharpens that observation by establishing from the start that the neighborhood is going to be torn down anyway in a month or so. Why fight over it? Why kill over it?

Spielberg takes time to explain the motivations of the characters. In the original picture it was hard to understand why Maria would stick with Tony after she learns he killed her brother. The new picture explains it better. It's like this throughout the picture.

Two actors in the this picture stand out. Ariana DeBose as Anita almost steals the movie and she deserved her best supporting actress Oscar. And then Spielberg made room for Rita Moreno as Valentina, the widow of Doc who now runs the candy store after Doc's death. Her story, married to a white man, becomes a case of what might have been if Tony and Maria had both lived and married. You see the tragedy of Tony and Maria reflected in her eyes. She almost deserved a second best supporting Oscar for this performance. And let's face it, seeing Rita Moreno as the young Anita in 1961 and the older Valentina in 2021 leaves you wondering about the arc of life. It's unavoidable.

Finally, it's just a pleasure to see a master at work. Spielberg has learned so much since his earliest days and it's all on display here. The movie industry has also progressed so much since 1961 as well. While the original broke new ground, technically it still can't compare with the tools Spielberg had at his disposal.

The original still takes your breath away. On the whole I would give it an edge in the dance and musical numbers. But this movie doesn't disappoint in the music and dance numbers and it far exceeds in everything else.

I don't know why this series gets such a low rating, other than perhaps people gave up after the first couple of episodes.

Sure, it started out as a teen angst drama with the action dialed down, but by the end of the first season it had gotten better. I don't know if the second season was retooled during the long pandemic break, but it's a lot more in keeping with the standard Walking Dead mythos. By the end fans certainly got their share of action.

The actors all did a good job and you do come to care about the characters.

At the end of it I wouldn't consider it essential viewing for anybody who doesn't care about the Walking Dead universe so much as they just like the action. A few things that happen in the rest of the Walking Dead universe are foreshadowed, but you can get by without it. You don't learn a lot more about what happened to Rick, for example, with only one major crossover character from "The Walking Dead". Nor do we really learn all that much about the military CRM and even less about the civilian CR government which is supposed to be out there somewhere. An explanation for a mass murder at the start of the series is exceptionally weak. And frankly the standard of living in the CR is a lot higher than a few hundred thousand people could manage after the apocalypse even accounting for all the scrounging of stuff from the before-times.

But as a Walking Dead fan I did find the series binge-worthy.

This is the first time I can remember a SF show getting Einstein's relativity right. This is hardly the first show where the crew of a starship gets stuck in the past and must somehow get back to the future. The original Star Trek had at least one such episode. Always the problem was that the time travel device was broken or something was malfunctioning and our heroes could be stuck in the past.

But of course the answer was always that if you go fast enough - which any starship could do - relativity says time dilation will take you back to the future in what to you can be as short a time as you want. For the first time the writers of a show got it right, and I commend them. Even the explanation that normally a space-time bubble forms around the ship to prevent time-dilation is also an accurate depiction of one legitimate theory of how to do warp travel faster than light speed.

They did get one minor thing wrong. When you move at relativistic speeds, the light ahead of you is blue-shifted, not red-shifted. It's the light coming from behind you that is red-shifted. Others have also pointed out that the speed of the ship needed to get the crew back in a couple of minutes their time was too slow, but that's a nit.

The rest of the story was fun and the episode was one of the better ones, particularly in facing the consequences of time travel.

The theme of this episode was what would you do if you could go back in time and change something. Throughout the episode the other characters express deep regrets, but Saul is apparently without any. Until the end.

Of course, nobody can really go back in time and undo past regrets. But Jimmy ultimately does the most anyone can do, come clean, admit their mistakes, and own them. People ask how could Jimmy throw away his deal for seven years and take 86 years? Because it was Saul who negotiated that deal with a typical sob story. Jimmy couldn't take the deal with a clean conscious. And besides, just what would Jimmy have done after getting out in seven years? What life would be left for him? Kim is on a different path now, it's clear she and Jimmy wouldn't be sailing off into the sunset together. Inside prison Jimmy at least is with his people. His past choices have made them his family.

I loved many of the exit scenes by past characters. Because I'm an engineer, Walter White for me was the most fun. He approached his as a man of science which was still a part of him even as his story was ending (I also got a laugh because the thermostat on my water heater went out recently with the same results). Even the throwaway line about time travel violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics is a legitimate argument about why time travel isn't possible.

But the other swan songs were just as poignant. The only one that struck me as false was the one by Michael McKean. He never showed such concern for Jimmy as a lawyer and sadly the actor himself does not appear to be in good health.

There were little things that rang false. Nobody would buy the "They made me do it." story. Every gang member uses the same story (let's start with Nacho). Prosecutors would certainly roll the dice on that one and take Jimmy to trial. Jimmy's crimes in Omaha were completely separate, must have been known to the local prosecutors there after he and the others were caught, and would have gotten him decades in jail all by themselves.

But overall, a very satisfying finale, one of the best in memory. Before the episode aired, I was afraid that Jimmy would go out in a burst of violence just like others in both series. The writers were wise enough to end that possibility quickly and put Jimmy in the court room where he belonged. Brilliant.

It must be nice for Disney to have so much money to spend on what is basically a Saturday-morning kiddie show. The production values are so high that I spent more time watching the background montages than I did the actual storyline. If you stick around at the end to watch all the credits, there are just as many FX houses working on this show as there it in a mainstream Marvel movie production.

Iman Vellani and the other actors are fine, but they don't get a lot to work with. It's a distraction that the pilot deals with "AvengerCon" with all the self-references to Disney properties. We are led to believe that all kids think Marvel and the Avengers are cool (they don't), and clearly it's just one big ad for Disney and Marvel. That's a distraction and an annoyance.

It also doesn't help that the plot of the pilot where Kamala and Bruno are trying to secretly get to AvengerCon when no adults will take them and they have to take the bus is a direct ripoff of a "Young Sheldon" episode earlier this year where Sheldon (also in costume) has to take a bus in secret to get to his first ComicCon because no adult will take him. The half-hour "Young Sheldon" episode was a lot more fun than this pilot episode of "Ms. Marvel".

After the mess of Alicia Clark's exit without a reunion with her mother, this episode at least explains why it couldn't happen (then again, if Alicia can forgive Strand, she certainly could forgive her mother).

The action moved along, with just enough of an explanation about what happened to Madison. But again too much happens off-stage such as how the group of parents got ambushed by PADRE at the dock and how their walker bodies just happened to show up later on the shore where Madison is buried.

It is interesting that nobody in this universe has figured out how you can be bit by a walker and yet not die. We were told at the end of the first season by an army doctor that there is a virus that everybody is infected with that turns you into a walker after you die, and a separate bacteria that if you get infected with it, you will certainly die and thus turn while spreading the bacteria with every bite. Yet nobody seems to have figured out that while most people in this universe have died because of a walker bite, some people have not. They could have been shot, died from an accident, etc. And never come in contact with a walker. Thus when they die they turn, but because they don't have the bacteria in their system if they bite somebody they can't infect them with the bacteria. It's just a nasty bite. The odds of this are very low, but it could happen.

This series has become sloppy. Character motivation is often implausible, and the writers go for cheap thrills. You have to wonder how Madison's need for redemption is any different than Strand's, and why do we have to go through this story arc again after spending all of season 7 on it. But it was a decent cliffhanger, I do want to know what PADRE is about.

This is a very well-done dramedy that's highly binge-worthy. Each episode is short, and moves so quickly that you can't believe that it's over. The chemistry between the two leads is tremendous. Even though there probably wasn't a big budget for special effects, what you see is well-spent.

But like all such stories, it doesn't hold up the closer you look at it. There's supposed to be a cosmic connection between Gary and Mary that causes them to keep running into each other (literally), but it's never explained. And of course much of the drama in such thrillers only can happen because the characters make really dumb choices.

Perhaps the supernatural elements are supposed to be a metaphor for what goes on in real relationships. Somebody has what they think is a deep flaw or dark secret that prevents him or her from even trying a relationship. Mary has her terrible secret, and Gary has his. Both have a hard time sharing (that's how the first episode starts with Gary). But I kept wondering, what if the series had played it straight? The writing and the acting was so good that it could have carried a more traditional relationship story without relying on surface thrills. But would it have been so enticing, or just another maudlin rom-com?

Still, it was so good that I'm writing this review only a couple of hours after binging the whole thing. But I suspect it's one of those dramas that will fade from memory over time. And that's too bad.

A lot going on in this episode, with everybody making amends and making peace stateside, only to leave us with a gigantic cliffhanger. Is this the end of Bravo, or will they escape yet again for another season?

It seems the producers want to force CBS/Paramount+ to keep them on for another season. If they cancel the series now, imagine the outcry.

With the move to Paramount+ the series has gotten grittier and better - until now.

While it's good that Jason finally confronts his TBI, after an aborted suicide attempt he goes off to be treated with psychedelics by a former US soldier who just happens to be in Columbia. While it's nice to see some old characters from the series during his trip, we're supposed to believe that this will rewire his brain. Yes, I know they're doing research on it, but it's all too convenient.

Meanwhile Sonny goes off and takes out drug gang members, steals their drugs and women, and goes on a bender partying. It takes Saint Clay to find him, sober him up, and then the two of them fight their way through the rest of the gang wanting revenge. It's just too much.

This episode had the feel of the second half of "Apocalypse Now" where they went far into the jungle away from command. Bravo without supervision on its Omega mission is falling apart and is dysfunctional, and yet we're supposed to believe that they can still take out a large covert Iranian nuclear bomb program being run in Venezuela.

The best part of this season was that it looked like the characters were permanently changing. The whole premise of the series is the personal collateral damage suffered by the best of us in defending our country. And yet with Jason's magic cure for TBI it looks like the series is going to put the team back together again like Humpty Dumpty just so we can see the further adventures of Bravo.

I hope the series can pull itself back from the edge.

Nothing much happens in this movie. In a nutshell it's the old cliché where a girl realizes she's with the wrong guy who's cheating on her and after an accident comes to her senses and realizes she should be with the guy from a trailer park. There's not a lot of character development.

In between there are lots of shots of Bella Thorne but it can't carry the picture.

Surprisingly they got the quantum physics part right, except where Bella's character says quantum physics is easy. No, it's really hard.

There's nothing wrong with "Foundation" as a SF series. But the showrunner's (David S. Goyer) big mistake was trying to adapt Asimov's Foundation trilogy. He just doesn't understand it.

In the series podcast Goyer explains how he came to this project. Basically Asimov's Foundation trilogy was Goyer's father's favorite books. Goyer and his father didn't have much contact while Goyer was growing up, but when his father was on his deathbed many years later he asked Goyer to adapt the Foundation trilogy if he ever got the chance. So I understand why this is a sentimental project for Goyer.

Asimov when he was alive always said that anybody who did a visual version of any of his works should always have some leeway in changing the details. But Goyer has completely subverted the core principles of the trilogy and the larger Foundation/I, Robot mashup.

It's not that Goyer changed the sex of several characters. It's not that he did things like show a terrorist attack on Trantor and other relatively minor events like the murder of Seldon that are not in the books. It's not even that Goyer apparently has changed the location of the Second Foundation. No, it's much deeper than that.

In the first place, psychohistory is a statistical mathematical theory. The idea was that nobody could predict exact details of the future, but with psychohistory Seldon was able to see that no matter what happened the Empire would fall. The statistics of what could possibly happen always led to the fall. He was also able to see how the establishment of the Foundations would shorten the fall with a high probability of success. The statistics guaranteed that. Thus even though in the books Seldon dies early on, what he predicted still happened without any effort on his part once he established the Foundations.

Asimov the scientist was well-aware of the meaning of statistics, but Goyer is not. He apparently assumes that Seldon's plan will not happen without active participation of Seldon's AI manipulating every detail. What we are apparently going to see is an epic struggle over much if not all of the 1000 years between the Cleon clones and the Seldon AI. And this is completely against the spirit of the trilogy. What Goyer seems to be doing at this point is not even as interesting. We've seen this particular story of a struggle between two adversaries many times before.

Then there's the matter of Demerzel, who we know to be R. Daneel Olivaw, a robot that has managed to survive for millennia even before the Empire was established. Asimov created his robot series by establishing his Three Laws of Robotics. Most of his robot stories were about the consequences of the three laws and how it drove robots to do unusual things. The greatest of these stories was how R. Daneel Olivaw was driven by the First Law which dictated that he protect humans at all costs to actually create and guide the Empire and to protect the human race across the galactic civilization. It was interesting because in doing so R. Daneel Olivaw had to accept allowing -- even causing -- some humans to die for the greater good. But in Goyer's version Demerzel apparently is a robot captured at the end of the robot wars and reprogrammed to serve the Cleon clones. The Three Laws don't even enter into it. Once again, a complete subversion of Asimov's Foundation/I, Robot series.

If you can stop trying to believe that Goyer has any understanding of Asimov's Foundation and instead focus on "Foundation" as just another SF series, it actually is entertaining and well-done. The characters can be subtle, the acting is generally terrific, and the CGI is impressive. But Apple and Goyer have perpetrated a massive hoax on us.

So finally we got the big reveal episode where all the truths are exposed. And yet at the end nothing had changed.

Yes, yet another layer was added to the Blacklist mythos. We find out that once again everybody is not whom they seem to be. At the crucial moment when Liz is about to find out who Raymond really is and where her actual mother is, Townsend conveniently shows up. Townsend was created by the showrunners just for moments like this because they had killed off all the earlier bad guys. He serves no other purpose. Maybe he's gone, but does it matter? They'll just create someone else.

I get the feeling this episode exists only because the showrunners found out earlier this year the show would get another season. They were headed to a series wrap-up this season, and found out they had to go another. So they tapped danced and this episode was the result. Does anybody actually believe that 8 years ago when this series started that they planned to arrive here?

The characters are the only reason to what this show, especially James Spader as Raymond. Some of the others such as Dembe are also worth tuning in for. Several of the episodes this season have been enjoyable simply because of them. But for all of Ms. Boone's efforts, Liz is the character I care about the least. Liz's quest to find her identity is the least compelling thing about this show because the showrunners have robbed it of all meaning. It's like watching the last season of "Lost".

The series of character vignettes in this story as they scramble to avoid the warheads raining down was disjointed and didn't add up to anything. People settling grudges in their last moments when everybody thinks they're going to die anyway just doesn't make sense. Why would, for example, June and John Dorie Sr follow Dakota and Teddy around? Dakota herself became less of a person and more of a convenient deus ex machina to end a storyline. She turned out to be a killing machine, nothing more, and all the effort the writers spent to gain our sympathy for her over multiple episodes was wasted. We have no sense where the characters are among all the nuclear blasts so the fact that some died and some lived comes off as hand waving by the authors, just another way to prune the cast. There's no drama in their choices.

There are plenty of technical issues with the storyline. Trident missiles can't be launched from the surface, Ohio-class subs have to be submerged. Teddy talks about surviving and firing the other missiles when once more he doesn't know where the keys are (is he going to go through another big search?). All the characters start fleeing the warheads from the sub location. Some people riding horses somehow get far enough away to survive while others in cars get incinerated. This event presumably takes place before the big time jump in Walking Dead and the events of World Beyond but nobody in those shows talk about the nuclear blasts that turned Texas into a wasteland. The idea that somebody in the world has access to working nuke missiles and that a big part of the country must be avoided (especially in the World Beyond journey) would normally come up at some point.

There are some great shots. A character being incinerated is especially good. And those of us who lived through the Cold War can still imagine the terror that happens in the 20 or 30 minutes between knowing a nuke is headed your way and the time it hits. What everybody would do during this time is an old meme, but the writers did not choose wisely.