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#91 | |||
Part-Time Fan
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 266
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The thought occurs that perhaps I judged some of the episodes featured in the section “When It Rains” too harshly (not bloody likely) and without rewatching them, so because I will suffer anything not to be accused of rushing to judgement, I’ve decided to do what I guess you’d term more of a “deep scan” on those episodes. This time I will be watching them, doing a running commentary as I go, looking for something - anything - that I can point to that is decent about the episode, and that may help to lift it a few inches up out of the muck and mire I find it in, even if the overall weight of crappiness causes it to fall despairingly and irretrievably back down into the slime where, I have no doubt, most if not all of these episodes belong. As I go through the episode I’ll have a meter, which will begin at a neutral 5. This will be the starting point for all episodes looked at in this way, and as it begins to worsen or confirm my fears that it’s not worth watching more than once, the needle will slide more towards the lower part of the dial, from 4 down to a truly awful 1. If, by some chance, there are redeeming factors they may inch it more towards the other side, though I doubt it will ever reach 10 with any of these episodes! The needle will swing back and forth as the episode develops, and we’ll see where, in the end, it finishes up, and whether I was right to pan the episode, or whether it deserves another chance. Note: It should be clearly understood that the meter in this case is only relevant to the crappiness or not-quite-so-crappiness of the episodes, so even a reading of ten, while meaning not at all as crappy as I had thought, does not equate to or come near a normal ten like something say "The Best of Both Worlds" or "Yesterday's Enterprise" would get, a full five-Picard as it were. No. This is only the best of a bad lot, and the highest rating can still only be seen as a shrug of my shoulders and "meh, suppose it's not that terrible after all." I’m going to do them in the order I featured them originally, so this gives us as our first example Title: “Starship Mine” Series: TNG Season: Six Writer(s):Morgan Gendel Okay, well just before we get into the episode itself, let’s see what we can find out about the writer. After all, in general we’re talking about writing here, aren’t we? So it stands to reason that we should get to know a little about who was responsible. To my considerable surprise, I find that not only has Morgan Gendel written for Star Trek before - both TNG and DS9, so far as I can see - but he was responsible for one of the most excellent and well-written of the episodes, “The Inner Light”. Now, in fairness, I don’t regard “Starship Mine” as being in the same awful league as, say “Fascination” or “Fair Haven”, and the story certainly keeps you entertained. It’s just that, as I said in the shorter version when I looked at this one, it’s basically TNG Die Hard, though with less hair. And wisecracks. And explosions. And notes to the terrorists. And buildings. And Christmas. Hell, you know what I mean. A Star Trek episode - indeed, any episode of any series - does best either when it is original, or when it puts a clever twist on an old idea. Note the word clever here. I’ll see as we go on how that refers, or does not, to this episode. But it essence you have all the ingredients. Picard’s ship is taken over by terrorists who plan to blah blah, Picard is there by accident (McClane was certainly not meant to be in the Nakatomi Towers, but was just there to pick up his wife - he wasn’t even in his home city) and everything is set to go boom once the terrorists have carried out their evil plan. Okay, everything isn't set to go boom, but it, well, does. To their considerable dismay and without a single wisecrack from our so-serious captain. Oh, and the terrorists aren’t really terrorists, but mercenary sellers of tech. Morgan Gendel made his name writing scripts for shows like Law & Order and Nash Bridges, (come on really: if you're cursed with the surname Bridges, isn't it just adding insult to injury to call your son Nash? Meh, I suppose at least his fictional parents didn't live in Madison County!) which may go some way towards explaining why this episode is an action-packed rollercoaster which really belongs somewhere other than Star Trek. Not that there’s anything wrong with action in Trek, just that this has almost pretty much only that and nothing much else. Gendel also worked on The Dresden Files, which I did not like, but I won’t hold that against him. He did win a Hugo Award for - no, not this one, “The Inner Light”, which was almost assuredly deserved, making him the first TV writer to win one in 22 years. So what went wrong? Or did anything go wrong? Let’s find out. We open with Picard’s announcement that the ship is to undergo a “routine sweep for baryon particles”, and so everyone is being evacuated. Hmm. If it’s so routine how come a) it’s the first time we’ve ever heard of its being carried out on any ship and b) why has it taken now six years (six seasons) for the Enterprise to go through this procedure? Supposedly it could have been done previously and we were just never told about it, but the crew all act as if this is something very new, nothing like venting the warp core or turning the deflector dish into a super-powered receiver to allow them to pick up broadcasts of The Galaxy’s Next Hottest Alien Model, so you would have to assume that no, this has not happened before, at least not to NCC-1701D. Picard looks harried and flustered as he is bombarded with questions, requests, information as he I guess tours the decks. Quite why he’s not just staying in his ready room or on the bridge I don’t know, but I guess this will be explained. Maybe. Okay well yeah, he’s on the way there. I guess he’s been supervising the shut down of the ship, making sure everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing and where they’re supposed to be. All right so far, given the not-exactly-routine sweep, but I’d put the marker in the middle right now. Clever exchange on the bridge, when Worf beats LaForge to the chance of being excused from the upcoming reception, which nobody, including Picard, seems to want to attend. Perhaps a little odd that he didn’t demand a reason for Worf’s request - excuse you to do what, Mr. Worf? - but he just accepts that as nobody wants to go, first in gets the prize. There’s a poignant moment when Picard leaves his ready room and walks out onto a now-empty bridge. In many ways, it must feel almost as if Stewart is leaving the show after its last episode, and all that’s missing are the cables hanging down from the ceiling, cameras and prop handlers everywhere, and the director shouting “Cut! That’s a wrap!” In another way, it’s reminiscent of both the opening scenes in Star Trek: The Motion Picture as the Enterprise is made ready for departure, and also of one of the last scenes in the earlier episode “Remember Me”, when near the end there are only Beverley and Picard onboard her version of the ship. Picard no doubt has mixed feelings. He knows this is a necessary, even vital procedure, but his clear uneasiness in handing over what is essentially his child to strangers shows very strongly, and you can almost see him thinking “take care of her” (or possibly it; I don’t think Picard, the quintessential pragmatist and realist, even anthropomorphised his ship, did he? Not like Kirk - "No beach to walk on..." Ah though wait: didn't he once say "She's a lady all right, and her name is Enterprise? Well, even so, overall I don't think he's that romantic about this Galaxy-class starship) and then at the same time his reticence in leaving could also have something to do with the fact that he is by no means looking forward to Captain Hutchinson’s dinner, and would probably prefer to remain onboard if he could. The way he runs his hand over the back of his chair is almost a loving touch, and the uncharacteristic smile is there, I think, only because he’s alone and can afford to show some emotion, read weakness, without diminishing his standing in the eyes of the crew. At the back of it, though, he must be remembering six years ago, when he walked onto the set, a fresh-faced young (you know what I mean) actor desperate to make his mark, probably worried about the massive burden of the legacy he was taking on, and wondering if he would be good enough, if the fans would take to him? Six years and six seasons on, near the end of his tenure as the captain of the new Enterprise, he has already become firmly entrenched in the mythology of the Star Trek universe, has made bald men sexy again, and can be mentioned in the same breath as Kirk and Spock without feeling inferior, overawed or unworthy. It’s been quite a voyage! The comfortable illusion is somewhat broken by the arrival of the Starfleet technicians, who bustle into the bridge with their tools and plans, and fail to give him even so much as a nod as he steps into the turbolift. For perhaps the first time since he took command of the ship, Picard is surplus to requirements, and no longer the centre of its universe. Another point in the episode’s favour is a star turn by Brent Spiner. Data’s attempts to appear more human always amuse, and here he is shadowing Hutchinson, watching his gestures, expressions, emulating him silently from a short distance away. Anyone not familiar with the android might think Data was mocking him, but he’s storing all this information away for later, when the over-chatty Hutchinson will meet his match. It’s hilarious seeing him lurking behind a pillar like some sort of 24th century version of an android serpent in the Garden of Eden, and Beverley and Riker are certainly amused by his attempts to emulate Hutchinson as he engages them in smalltalk. So far, yeah, we’re still there. I see from the cast list we have Babylon 5’s original telepath Leeta Alexander, as Patricia Tallman takes the role of one of the female terrorists, Kiros, while Voyager’s Tim Russ plays her counterpart, Devor. The wonderful Glenn Morshower, always a treat, is perhaps a little wasted in the role of Orton, the Arkanian leader, while Hutchinson is played in almost scene-stealing form by David Spielberg, who is, sadly, neither anything to do with the Spielberg and also no longer with us, having passed in 2017. Another note of negativity though: with how terrible Hutchinson has been built up to be, I find him not at all like that. He’s chatty, perhaps a little over-familiar, a tad overbearing maybe, but he’s friendly and engaging and not at all boring. He’s basically the life and soul of the party, and I think Gendel did the character very much a disservice, making it apparent that he is so universally disliked. He’s not a Father Stone (for those of you who watch Father Ted) nor that other priest who keeps asking ridiculous questions like what’s your favourite humming noise? I think he got a really bad deal from the writer. That’s not in fairness enough to tip the needle, but it is a factor slightly counterbalancing what has been, up to now (the first few minutes only) not too bad. But now I begin to wonder. Picard is interested in horse-riding? Has this come up before? Aren’t we talking about Kirk, through Shatner’s own love of horses here? Yes they rode together in Star trek: Generations but that’s well after this, when the precedent, if it’s being set here, had already been approached. It’s true that any device to get Picard back on the ship would have worked, so why a horse saddle? Are we really to believe - as Troi clearly has trouble doing - that the captain, this strait-laced, boring, grim authoritarian - keeps his own personal saddle on board, just in case? Half the time he doesn’t get to go down to planets anyway (that molly-coddling Riker!) and when he has done, has there ever been any mention of horses? When he went to Risa, did he take his saddle? One assumes one can engage in any activity they like there, so surely there would have been horses to ride, but he read a book instead (and then got dragged into a search for an ancient alien artifact with a beautiful feisty woman, but that’s another story)? I’ll give the episode the benefit of the doubt and not tilt the needle yet. His having to collect his saddle (and the somewhat unsettling vision of Stewart wearing riding boots - though thankfully not jodhpurs!) doesn’t impact on the storyline as much as it could have; as I say, it’s merely an excuse to get him back to the Enterprise and anything would have done. But you’re pushing it, Mr. Gendel! You’re pushing it… and here we go. Why does Picard suddenly attack Devor (Tim Russ) when all he says is “Excuse me a minute”? He doesn’t ask him anything other than a vaguely technical question, to which Tuvok sorry Devor gives a similarly vague technobabbly answer, and yet without warning Picard hits him and knocks him unconscious. Not only that, he seems to use something like a Vulcan nerve pinch! Given the role Russ would later play, is this pure coincidence? Surely it must be: Voyager didn’t hit our screens till two years later. But if not the nerve pinch, how did Picard disable Devor so quickly and seemingly painlessly? The needle begins to quiver... You know, now that I think of it, there’s a slightly uncomfortable racist tone here in Picard’s attacking Devor. With, so far as I can see anyway, no real reason for suspecting the man is doing other than just his job, Picard - a white authority figure - takes exception to what is on the surface anyway a black, menial worker and attacks him. There’s also a class thing here, Devor being a lowly blue collar worker, representative of the working class, while Picard comes from extreme upper management. Here I’m a little confused. My memory betrays me again: I could have sworn that at the beginning of this episode Picard was talking to Mott, the barber, and that later gave him the idea to pretend he was that person instead of admitting he was the captain. So if that’s not the case, why was Mott the first name that leaped to his mind? Given that he’s bald, you would imagine hair would not be the principle thing on his mind, and to my knowledge (unless it was in the prior episode) I don’t believe he has much interaction with Mott, again, being bald. It seems an odd alias to choose apropos of nothing. If he intended to present the least threatening identity possible, couldn’t he have said he was, I don’t know, someone from the canteen, or Ten Forward, or an orderly from sick bay? Why the barber? Another thing that doesn’t sit well with me in Gendel’s writing is the uncharacteristic manner in which he has Picard attack the terrorist in engineering. He knocks him over, destroys the containment vessel the terrorists had brought with them to take away the trilithium as Engineering begins to flood with - presumably lethal - gas, rolls under the descending door and leaves them to it. Of course, he couldn’t save them all but I’m surprised he leaves them all there, potentially to die. Then again, they are - so far as he has worked out anyway - attacking his ship. But even if these were, say, Cardassians, would he just condemn them to death in so cavalier and, let’s be honest, somewhat cowardly a manner? The Picard we know? Doesn’t sound right. I think, given all my complaints above, and the general way in which the story is now heading, the needle has moved. I would also question Picard’s rather deadly treatment of the terrorists/thieves/maintenance crew. He tricks one into being killed by the Baryon sweep. I know he realises something is up with them, that they’re not who they say they are, but has he, definitively, confirmed they’re up to no good, to the extent that he’s prepared to use lethal force against them? Isn’t this still, at this point, a little premature, a slightly disproportionate response from the captain? I feel this may edge us slightly further in the same direction. There’s a touch of Rambo/First Blood here too, when Picard takes a crossbow as a weapon rather than a phaser, which will not work while the Baryon sweep runs through the ship. And oh dear! Picard beaten up and bested by a woman! That’s gotta hurt! For that alone I think we can swing the pointer back a little. And there’s a decent, somewhat plausible and satisfying ending, which I think in fairness moves us back to the centre. Die Hard in Space? Since I made the comparison (it’s not mine alone, and it’s certainly a very obvious one) I’m here going to list the similarities this episode holds towards the movie that kicked off Bruce Willis’s career properly. I’ll do them in order as they occur. There’s a party/reception being held. Admittedly, this is not at the location where the action takes place - is in fact somewhere entirely else - but it’s still part of the story and does become a part of the conspiracy when the Ankarians turn weapons on the Enterprise crew. In Die Hard of course the Christmas Party was in full swing when Alan Rickman spiced it up by appearing as the terrorist/thief Hans Gruber. Kelsey calls Devor on his communicator, but he has already been disabled by Picard. This happened with one of the guards in Die Hard. I suppose at least Picard doesn’t take the opportunity to make some quip over the comm to her. While snooping around, Picard suddenly feels a phaser at his head, and turns to find Kiros there, asking who he is and what he’s doing there. Again, admittedly, this was the other way around in Die Hard, when Gruber, laying the charges, felt Willis’s pistol against his head. Somebody gets shot (Geordi) but unlike in the movie, he’s not killed. Picard crawls around in jeffries tubes to get around the ship, with the power to the turbolifts off. Willis did travel in the elevator, but mostly spent him time… crawling around inside ventilation shafts to get around the building. Picard leaves a booby-trapped “present” for one of his pursuers. Willis did similar things, including sending a chair with some computers and C4 explosive lashed together down into a lift shaft where it exploded. And of course, Willis also ran into an advancing Baryon sweep coming towards… oh no wait, he didn’t. Oh well, I guess in that at least there is a difference between the two. Picard’s true identity and rank become clear when his Starfleet badge is found. Willis was betrayed by his badge too, technically, marking him as a New York cop. Picard does speak to Kelsey over the comm, as Willis does to Gruber. Unsurprisingly, Kelsey sends one of her men to find Picard, as Gruber did with John McClane. The “terrorists” turn out to be nothing more than thieves, though as Gruber says in Die Hard when accused by Holly of being a “common thief”, they are extraordinary thieves. They are, however, stealing the trilithium for sale to terrorists, so that kind of makes them the same as them or at best, middle men. And women. And of course, in the end it’s an unexpected “concealed weapon” in both cases that undoes the bad guy and allows the hero to win. So in the end, certainly not the worst episode ever; very far from it in fact, but still, given all the cliches and unlikely circumstances - to say nothing of it being almost seventy percent Picard with the other main characters really fulfilling backup roles, I believe it does deserve its place in the section, though perhaps not as much as other episodes there do. I’m going to give each episode the chance to be judged as one of five outcomes. Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night - this is where my decision was correct, the episode was terrible and there is little to redeem it. Necessary Evil - Still terrible but it has a few good points I may have missed, or which I may not have allowed it credit for. Second Chances - Obviously, not as bad as all that on second viewing and might have been a little hasty in my original judgement of it. Resurrection - Nowhere near as bad as I had thought, and in fact, I might have been very unfair to it. Still some points about it I don’t like but overall a great improvement. Redemption - Far better than I remember. I doubt many, if any, will reach this point. I didn’t choose these episodes at random. Verdict: Necessary Evil |
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#92 | |||
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Joined: Jan 2007
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Title: “Explorers”
Series: DS9 Season: Three Writer(s): Hilary J. Bader (teleplay by Rene Echevarria) Compared to this, “Starship Mine” is an action-packed, thrill-filled rollercoaster with no bad points. I mean, in some ways it is, but compared to this watching the grass in my garden grow would be an action-packed, thrill-filled rollercoaster with no bad points. If “Starship Mine” moved at warp seven, this moves at the pace of a nasally congested 1960s VW Beetle trying to get up a steep hill. It’s just bloody awful; I remember it not so much for the story as for the lack of one. But has it any good points? I suppose you’ve got to allow for the interaction between Sisko and Jake as father and son, but then I’ve never rated Jake’s character much, and Sisko I feel always performed better when he has someone to spark off, be it the diametrically-opposed Kira or the scheming Quark. Here, it’s just his son, and there’s not a whole lot of scope for conflict. I mean, at the heart of it he has to have respect for his dad, right? So we’re not exactly going to see them come to blows or anything. So let’s set the meter at neutral and see where we go from here (can only be down) As before, let’s look into the writer. Well, sad to say, Hilary J. Bader is another who is no longer with us, having passed away from cancer in 2002 at the rather young age of 50. She seems to have been an accomplished writer, penning episodes for both TNG and DS9 among other series, and in fact won awards, so where this came from I don’t know. The telepay was written by series regular Rene Echevarria, and it sort of annoys me to see he got his break by sending a god-damn unsolicited script to TNG and they accepted it! How do people do these things? If I had sent a script in it surely would have ended up in the proto-quantum-bin! Anyway, his didn’t, and he began writing as a staff writer for the show. So basically there’s good pedigree here, so no excuses that the episode is bad. On to it then. Sisko, sporting a brand-new bag, sorry beard, returns recharged and revitalised from a holiday checking out Bajoran women I mean museums, and shows his son a schematic of an ancient Bajoran ship, which used (apparently) solar sails to navigate the depths of space, eight hundred years ago. So, says Jake, fascinated despite not wanting to be, the Bajorans were sailing space while humans were still sailing the seas? He wonders if such a ship could really, as his father claims the records say, make it to Cardassia, and Sisko says he’s going to build one and see if it can. There’s a subplot, which at least gives the episode a little more interest, but then again it’s Bashir, who at this point in the show is pretty much still the self-satisfied, overconfident, aloof prig we’re presented with when he arrives at the station. We’re warming to him a little, but it won’t really be till the next season’s “Hippocratic Oath” that we see him in his true character. Right now, his story concerns the arrival of the doctor who took valedictorian status (first in class) from him in the academy, someone he does not wish to see again. By itself a little throwaway, it does provide a small clue to a larger truth about Bashir which will be revealed later on in the series. I’ll allow a movement of the needle in the right direction for Leeta’s attempts to chat up Bashir (that cough!) which are then rather callously cut short by Jadzia with the information about the arrival of the ship bearing his classmate. I mean, come on! When does it arrive? In three weeks! And she couldn’t hold back that information to allow him to get in there with the Dabo girl? What a bitch. Kira and O’Brien’s somewhat heated exchange, where he doubts the possibility of the success of the captain’s venture and she calls him a Cardassian (surely the worst insult you can level at the chief?) then he in turn mocks her, as he calls it, claim to having invented and done everything before everyone else and calls her a Romulan, doesn’t push the needle but it does allow it to remain where it is. That’s some well-written character interaction, and a clash of civilisations in a microcosm: Kira, the tough, mostly self-reliant Bajoran versus O’Brien, the tech geek who can build it if it can be built. And if it can't be built, just give him twenty-four hours and he'll get back to you. You would have to wonder though at how Sisko gets all this spare time to build the ship. Are there no crises demanding his attention? No alien races threatening the station? Nothing to be arbitrated or decided that needs his input? True, we’re in the late stages of season three and the Dominion are only beginning to make their presence felt, with no sign of a war yet, but still. Cardassia’s opposition to Sisko’s attempt is understandable and well underlined too; the last thing they want is for evidence to emerge that the Bajorans, whom they hate (and whom I feel are a pain in the arse anyway, and Kira the biggest) were able to steal a march on them technologically by travelling to their home planet before the Cardassians even had spaceflight. I do admit though, I thought Dukat’s veiled threats were going to amount to something more, and, well, they don’t. An “accident” would have been easy to arrange, hard to prove a connection to Cardassia, but nothing doing. A nice part I had forgotten about this is that Jake uses the time alone to break the news to his father that he doesn’t want to follow in his footsteps and join Starfleet, but rather, his choice of career is as a writer. I also like the blow to Bashir’s inflated ego when his classmate walks right past him and doesn’t notice him. Hell, that’s got to raise it another point. Then the one piece of action in the whole episode, when the ship experiences some sort of difficulty. It’s nicely juxtaposed with Jake’s revelation to the captain that he has been offered a writing fellowship, breaks the tension nicely. Ah but then one of the pieces that annoys me most in any Trek episodes. As Bashir and O’Brien sing drunken songs they choose “Jerusalem”, which contains the line “in England’s green and pleasant land.” Now, no proud Irishman would ever sing that. Sure, it’s a hymn, but what’s wrong with, I don’t know, “The Green Fields of France”, "The Fields of Athenry" or, hell "The Irish Rover" or something? I’m not sure what Bashir’s heritage is meant to be, but the actor is Indian, and Colm Meaney is Irish and also his character is clearly Irish, referred to many times, so using this hymn is, I feel, a big mistake, and so much so that I’m going to shove the needle back. Bashir and O’Brien’s slowly blossoming friendship, after the two being so cold towards each other, is touching, or would be if cared about either character, which I really don’t, so that doesn’t swing things either way. Sisko’s comment “Hammock time!” as they set up the mentioned hammock is clever, bringing back to memory for those who remember MC Hammer, but the idea here is floated of bringing in Kasidy Yates to the series, and for me, other than her eventual connection with the Maquis and finally, her removal from the series, I felt she added nothing to it. Dukat’s grudging acceptance of the superiority of the ancient Bajorans in matters of spaceflight, and the “coincidental discovery” of a crash site proving the annoying aliens did indeed travel to Cardassia, is well handled, but overall it’s still an episode with not much in it, moving about as fast as the ancient Bajoran ship Sisko replicates. So we end up where we began, with the dial in the middle. While there were a few half-decent things about the episode, it’s still way way way down there in terms of entertainment, quality, acting and, well, just justification of its existence, and I pronounce it as one the first of my Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night |
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#93 | |||
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You've been watching a lot of Trek lately.
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#94 | |||
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I should rewatch some of the OG Trek. I have the DVDs with the updated CGI effects, but I sometimes thing that those versions kind of take something away from the original versions.
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#95 | |||
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I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes the cheesiness of the original effects contributed to the overall vibe of the show.
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#96 | |||
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Quote:
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Icon by Me "Of my friend, I can only say this: Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most....human" |
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#97 | |||
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Watched All My Puny Sorrows with Allison Pill last night. The storyline is a bit dark, looking at how suicide effects a family, but overall well done.
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#98 | |||
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You watched it with Allison Pill? What was she like in person?
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#99 | |||
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Guess I should have phrased that better
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