Andor: Messenger

 "He's a messenger. There's some place he needs to be."

The moment epitomises by the quote is truly chilling to all those of us who have seen Rogue One. It's as though, via the Force, fate somehow exists, at least for certain individuals, and Cassian is one of them. Yes, there's some minor drama in that Cassian expresses scepticism about the Force healer and Bix can't help believing... but we, the viewers, know that Cassian is on an unavoidable journey to sacrifice and death.

As is Ghorman. Another year has passed, and the Empire has fine tuned its narrative of "terrorist acts", ready to justify its cynical destruction of Ghorman via propaganda. This thread has been woven very well indeed throughout the series (there are some very obvious real world examples!), and now a visibly nervous Dedra has to put the final stages of the plan into action. And Syril, despite her obvious affection for him, is kept in the dark, a pawn. No doubt this will go well and they will both live to enjoy their "reward"...

The Rebellion is now slowly growing at the base at Yavin which we know from the films. Yet there's starting to be a bit of a crack within the Rebellion, between Luthen and Yavin, which is interesting. So, when Cassian and Wilmon head to Ghorman to try to kill Dedra, this immediately causes conflict wit the Yavin hierarchy and Vel. Power seems to be shifting away from Luthen, perhaps?

Things are getting closer to the world of the original trilogy, yet the mood is one of deep foreboding. I'm absolutely fascinated to see where this is all going.

Andor: What a Festive Evening

 "You'll make up for this forever..."

Wow. Even by Andor standards this is quite an episode.

We begin with an intense and very revealing scene: last episode Cassian was distinctly unimpressed with the amateur and doomed nature of the putative Ghorman rebellion, seeing that it would be a self-destructive gesture. He cares about people. Yet Luthen sees things differently. He cares only for the rebellion, the greater good, and cares not if people have to be sacrificed... hence a fascinating row.

And then Cassian finds out about Luthen almost recruiting Bix for a mission last episode: Luthen, utterly amoral yet with a social conscience, in the abstract at least(!), is manipulating them. And, indeed, everyone. He's a fascinating character, on the side of "good" yet in some ways as amoral and manipulative as any of the imperials.

So, despite the imperials' plotting (poor Syril, for example, doesn't know the whole picture), Luthen's fingers are in all the pies here. Bix and Andor persuaded to go on a mission together. A genuinely captivating sequence, at at posh party (cameo from Bail Organa!) with Kleya trying to remove a listening device from an antique... successfully, but not in a way as to dissipate the general air of foreboding.

And, of course, the mission on Ghorman. As soon Cinta and Vel kissed I knew that happy-ever-afters were out of the question. But ouch, Vel's speech at the end is so powerful.

This is, so far, even better than the first season.

Andor: I Have Friends Everywhere

 "Revolution is not for the sane..."

I like where this season seems to be going more and more, as we dig ever deeper into both the moral compromises and the personal costs of rebelling against totalitarianism. All this, and it seems Ruby Wax is a big TV star in the Empire...

We see Cassian, with his new disguise, beginning to infiltrate himself into Ghorman and make contact with the rebels, at first disappointing them with his caution. The situation is, of course, highly complicated: the rebels think they're manipulating Syril, but he (with Dedra) is actually manipulating them. This is high stakes ten dimensional chess.

Meanwhile, Luthen sees that Bix isn't doing so well mentally- the constant fear and stress of rebellion takes its toll. But Luthen himself doesn't react well to the prospect of one of his bugs being discovered. The stress of spinning all those plates...

But most intense of all, perhaps, are Wilmon's experiences. He spends so long training one of Saw's underlings, only for said underling to be shot as a traitor... then we get a fascinating scene with Saw, who gets sort of his own version of Luthen's "What do I sacrifice? Everything!" from last season: he knows damn well he will never live to see freedom, so what's the point in maintaining one's grip on sanity?

Utterly gripping television.

Andor: Ever Been to Ghorman?

 "Everyone has their own rebellion, right...?

Yes, I know: I'm well behind on Andor. But I'll keep on at it...

A year has passed since last episode. Cassian and Bix are living in furtive domesticity on Coruscant, finding relative (but only relative) safety in being needles in the mother of all haystacks. But Bix is still troubled by flashbacks of a certain atrocity committed in the name of the rebellion, leading to some interesting debate between the two of them.

Yet this episode is clearly setting up all sorts of skulduggery, and deceptions within deceptions, as the Empire makes its plans ton seize Ghorman and mine it for its resources, rendering it uninhabitable. Hence a year of relentless anti-Ghorman propaganda, hence the Rebellion and the Empire turning their attention to it... yet Luthen can glean little, and the imperial manipulations proceed, with Dedra and Syril's undercover mission seeming to show the first fruits of success.

And it looks as though Cassian is about to go into Ghorman, too, to learn what's going on. I'm sure, with all this dialogue about him protecting Bix, that she'll be fiiiiine.

This is, really, an episode of set-up. Yet there's plenty of nuance and food for thought on the harsh realities and the compromises which must be made when living under tyranny. Superb television, as ever.

Andor: Harvest

 "I wish you were drunk."

Wow. Three episodes in and we get a truly great episode. All three subplots here deepen the series' theme- the grim reality of negotiating life under totalitarian tyranny. And it's done superbly, with script, acting and some particularly creative direction.

So we have Dedra meeting Syril's overbearing mother for the first time, petty tyrant that she is. One one level it's satisfying to see Dedra laying down the law against the abuse of her partner... but she does this by using her position in the Imperial state, with veiled threats. Still, given the initial inequality between them, Dedra clearly sees her new partner as highly capable, a kindred spirit, and worthy of respect. Interesting, too, to hear about her background, raised coldly by the state following her parents' arrest.

There's the tension of the imperial audit, as the net closes in on the fugitives... and the awfulness of that creep from last episode first insisting on sexual favours from Bix in exchange for not arresting her, a promise he may not even keep, and then trying to rape her, leading to her defending herself and ending up arrested. This horrible scene has no doubt played out many times over history, an appalling thought. Cassian may come to the rescue- although not without casualty- but the sheer horror of this lingers.

Then there are the multiple horrors facing Mon Mothma. There's the looming and imminent threat of blackmail, of course, but that can wait a few days. Even worse, as shown by the early scene between her and Leida, as Mon is forced to confront what she's done. She's doing what she's doing to help the rebellion, but at the cost of a forced marriage of her daughter to some oaf. No wonder she gets drunk, like her own mother at her own wedding... and the trippy camerawork is exquisite. Just like Andor as a whole.

Andor: Sagrona Teema

 "I feel... undervalued."

The "A" story here, of many plot threads, is the one featuring Cassian himself, and a lot of action, as he uses both manipulation and opportunism to finally escape with the TIE fighter, free... but very, very late.

But the other story threads are, interestingly, far deeper, with the more action-based "A" plot freeing the other threads to be a lot more about world building and subtext. So, yes, everyone is worried about what the Imperial audit will uncover... but the way this develops, at least initially, is with a seemingly jovial Imperial lieutenant trying it on with Bix, being "nice" about it but expecting to get his own way sexually. Brr!

Dedra resents her new job with the Ghorman project, but she's told it's a real opportunity... although, in this context, an opportunity is a double edged sword. And she's also plotting things with Syril, who is as intense as ever- Kyle Soller is excellent here.

Then there's the wedding, and Mon Mothma slowly realising that Tay, falling apart after his divorce, is coming back to the well for more money, and likely won't ever stop. Even worse than that, though, is Perrin's speech at his daughter's arranged marriage, which is bleak as Hell. Forget love, expect discord, find happiness where you can...

As ever with Andor, it's not simple and you have to pay attention. There's a lot going on. But this is a very bleakly real world of compromise and suffering under a background of real tyranny. And it's utterly gripping.

Andor: One Year Later

"If I die tonight, was it worth it?"

Before I praise this episode, a bit of a whinge: yet again, a streaming service has debuted a much-anticipated new season by dropping THREE episodes at once. Can we not do that, please? Many of us do have lives, and there's a certain pressure to watch the episodes quickly to avoid spoilers. it's a genuinely inconsifderate thing to do. So don't do it again, Disney Plus. Oh, and Amazon, I'm looking at you too. For this, in relation to The Boys, and also Jeff Bezos' recent behaviour in inserting his tongue up Trump's malodorous derriere. Because how one chooses to respond to the jackboot of fascism is very much Andor's threme, is it not? (The Boys too, come to think of it...).

Anyway, we begin right on theme, with Cassian on a mission to steal a new model of TIE fighter- or perhaps TIE fighters themselves are new? Either way, we first see Cassian through the eyes of his accomplice, already a legend of the Rebellion after just a year. She's in awe of him, but some wonderful, world-building dialogue shows us, as ever, the scrifice of resistance. She can never go back after this, even if she survives, and her sacrifice will never be rewarded.

Elsewhere, an imperial census promises trouble for Bix and the others. Mon Mothma's daughter's arranged marriage proceeds as there is much intrigue. Tay Korma- now separated from his wife- wants to discuss matters with Mon, which seems ominous. Luthen is there, waiting anxiously for news from Cassian but clearly up to something. So much going on... as we see, in a long scene that seems to be a single shot. The costumes and decor, too, very much seem to evoke the late Roman Republic, which is a very obvious historical paralle.

And then there's the top secret Imperial plot, known only to a small group convened by the Emperor himself, to undermine the planet Ghorman and claim it for the empire. Not for its spider farms producing fine twirl, no: for its minerals. And they care not that it seems very likely to destabilise the planrt itself. Such is totalitarian. Indeed, our gimpse into the methods of the "Ministry of Enlightenment" is chilling.

And this is where Dedra is now ensconced.

Much of the episode, nevertheless, concerns Cassian, and best laid plans gone agley. Yet it's not the action and excitement that makes this such bloody good telly. It's the themes. Fascism and resistance. For those the other side of the Atlantic- and also many this side- this is a timely thing.

Morbius (2022)

 "I'm going to get hungry. And you don't want to see me when I'm hungry."

I'm not too familiar with the Morbius character; he tended to not really be around when I was reading Marvel comics in the '80s and very early '90s, when I stopped due to shiny covers, too many crossovers and too much indulging of arrogant star artists. Anyway, here we are, and I believe (although there may be one or two TV movies and the like) that this is as of now the last Marvel film of any kind that I hadn't seen...

Oh. I still have to see Madame Web. Gulp.

I'm well aware of this film's... mixed reception, shall we say, but I rather enjoyed this rather straight riff on Michael Morbius' origin story, despite the modern directorial techniques as seen in the overly CGI'd action bits and the literal darkness pervading everything. I mean, can't they turn the lighting up a bit, just occasionally? But the script is solid and, while I wouldn't use a stronger word, so is Jared Leto. The character of Morbius is nice and nuanced, despite Martine, Nicholas and even Milo being a bit one-note.

The highlight of the film is, of course, Matt Smith making the very wise acting choice to chew as much scenery as possible while having fun as the baddie, as without him the film was threatening to be far too po-faced. There's not a lot of humour in the rather straightforward, competent yet workmanlike script, so this redresses the balance a bit.

The film, then, is quite good. No more than that: it's an unusually expensive looking B movie. It's fine. It's fun but doesn't pretend to have any depth.

That post-credits, mind... the Vulture is in the Venomverse (are we saying that?) and... he's doing a Nick Fury and assembling a super team of Spider-Man adversaries. Er, that's bonkers. Which is excellent. Bring it on.

Andor: Rix Road

" Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that."

This is, if not unexpected in what happens, a tense and taut finale with lots of intense character moments as everyone gathers round for Maarva's funeral- with her fiery death speech inspiring the people of Fennix to rise against the empire. Hope may, indeed, lie in the proles.The riot is glorious.

Other sruff happens; Mon Mothma lays the ground of a cover story for her financial doings, but nevertheless introduces her daughter to that dodgy bloke's son in a possible forced marriage, Ouch. But it's mostly focused on and around the funeral, with Andor rescuing poor Bix and getting his friends a way off the planet. Interesting that Syril Kane should save Dedra from certain death. He clearly has not only ambition but a huge crush on her. To be continued, I've no doubt.

The ending is something of a cliffhanger; will Luthen, who will do anything for the cause, murder Andor to keep him quiet? Cassian calling his bluff is an extraordinary piece of acting from Diego Luna. And this is an extraordinary finale.

Andor: Nobody's Listening

 "I can't help him. I can't help anyone."

Andor continues to be the best television exploration of totalitarianism. Where to start? With Dedra being menacingly evil while having Bix tortured, with her being scarily efficient at uncovering everything? With Mon Mothma be caught with her funding rebel activities, and by the way Vel is her cousin? 

All these things emphasise the sheer intensity of Imperial oppression. Yet there are those who benefit. Dedra, despite the tightrope she walks. Syril Kane, who seems to be obsessed with her as much as his own ambition. That's a fascinating and creepy dynamic.

But the focus is on that prison, The horror of it, the hopelessness of escape. Yet, slowly, even Andy Serkis' prisoner supervisor starts to see the hopelessness as an old man, forty shifts from release, has a stroke and is euthanised. And it's realised that no one ever leaves; released prisoners are simply reassigned. There are only life sentences. That's evil.

And even the supervisor turns against them.

This is bleak, powerful stuff.

Andor: Narkina 5

 "You think the Empire stops to catch its breath?"

The episode begins like the Space Fall episode of Blake's 7 as a pseudonymous Andor and others are transported to a  prison planet, but soon takesa darker turn as we are forced to see the shher awful grind of life in an Imperial factory prison.

Yet the prison works also as metaphor for totalitarianism under Empire, with all civil liberties and natural justces eroding into utter tyranny. Yet, like a boiled frog, much of the populace, particularly privileged senators on Coruscant who, unlike a Mon Mothma desperately trying to hide her illicit funds, come out with statements like "If you're doing Nothing wrong, what is there to fear?" 

Yet all prison sentences are doubled. Arrests and imprisonment are, as we've seen, arbitrary. One is reminded of the vile, disgusting, tyrannical leaders of Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, Belarus, Saudi Arabia and others. Palpatine is no different, but there is hope despite the oppression. As Luthen says, tyranny begets rebellion. And I suspect we're seeing that in the person of Kassian. Even Bix is arrested...

Absolutely first class.

Andor: Announcement

 "Watch your back..."

And so we have the aftermath. Luthen got what he wanted: the Empire has been rattled. On the one hand, some are inspired to resistance, such as Maarva. She refuses to leave with Kassian, inspired to work with the Resistance against the Empire.On the other hand, we have a crackdown. Hence Andor returns home briefly home to find Stormtroopers everywhere. And then, as an anonymous rich tourist, he is arrestedand sentenced to six years on trumped up charges.

Such is totalitarianism. And that's the side of the Empire that Andor shows so well. No Jedis. No magical thinking, just the hard moral choices one must face while living under tyranny. Some, like Mon Mothma, try and undermine it from within, but take enormous risks. The stakes are high. 

I see many parallels with Iran today- death to the dictator. Women, life, freedom! And with Russia- may Putin die horribly. Living under tyranny, it iseasy to conform, as Maarva kindly admits to Kassian; she makes no mora judgement. Why rebel if it means your kids will suffer? Such is the harsh reality. Yet brutality begets resistance. And glorious revolution.

I love the secret service intrigue on Coruscant, too, with Dedra this time getting the upper hand. But this is all very much Gestapo on Trantor. And I'm loving this very political approach to the Star Wars universe.

Andor: Reckoning

 "What have you done?"

The series is hotting up now, with this episode beting the finest so far. Syril Karn, Sergeant Mosk and their other soldiers arrive on the planet, and Cassian's future looks bleak as his home is ransacked, his adoptive family threatened, and poor Bix loses her lover, despite realising earlier that it was Timm who sold out Andor.

The episode is crammed with both tension and action. We can almost smell Andor's desperation. Meanwhile, the dynamic between Mosk- the person really in charge- and Karn, a young officer deeply out of his depth and ultimately humiliated, is extremely well done.

 So is the meeting between Kassian and the mysterious yet charismatic Luthen- Stellan Skarsgard is superb- as it becomes cleare that Luthen wants not merely Andor's goods but Andor himself; his talents for sneaking about have not gone unrecognised.

It's a;so a nice touch, in the flashback scenes, to see how Cassian came to be adopted by the Andors, and their departure by starship is paralleled in the present day.

This, I suspect, is where the prologue ends...

Andor: That Would Be Me

 "I messed up..."

I have to confess that, while this is an improvement, I'm still not really feeling this series. That's not to say there isn't a lot to like about it, of course. The whole episode consists of deepening paranoia as Kassian comes under suspicion and the net tightens and tightens. Suddenly, Kassian is in an awful lot of danger, and at this point he's still young and inexperienced.

There's more backstory; we learn that Kenarii is a polluted and abandoned world, and there are more childhood flashbacks. The mined out terracing vista is an awesome bit of CGI.

Then there's the characterisation. Andor and his mother. Lovers Bix and Tim casually lying to each other and failing to communicate. And Deputy Chief Inspector Kyle Soller falling deeper into the rabbit hole as a naive young officer who, like many a dim young officer, finds a grizzled old sergeant to manipulate him. The awkwardly bad speevh scene is brilliantly acted.

There's real potential here. But I'm waiting for it to really take off.

Andor: Kassa

 "This case appears to bear all the hallmarks of what I like to describe as regrettable misadventure."

Hmm. This isn't bad telly. It's perfectrly fine. But so far that's all it is. Perfectly decent but no more than that.

I suppose Cassian Andor was always going to be a harder sell than Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi or even the Mandalorian- a new character but a familiar look. These shows harked back to classic Star Wars; Andor appeared only once in Rogue One. Like many others, I've seen the original trilogy many times over the decades, but Rogue One only once. So Andor is a perfectly decent character, but he doesn't have the resonance.

Also, while this is clearly set in the lived-in future of Star Wars, with the tech and general look being unmistakeable... but there are far fewer Easter eggs than previous series on Disney Plus, and all the planets are new. No more Tattooine!

The story is engaging enough, and it's good that we aren't spoon fed either what Kassian is doing or what happened with him and his missing sister as children. It's a nice touch that, so far, the Imperial forces are a distant threat, the immediate problem being highly militarised corporate security.

It's all set-up, of course, but this is nothing special so far. But this is but the first episode...

Good Omens: The Very Last Day of the Rest of Their Lives

“Just imagine how awful it might have been if we'd been at all competent."

It's the end, then. oh, I'm aware of what's been said in the media; Gaiman hasn't ruled out a second season, and he and Terry Pratchett even had at least some discussion way back when about a novel. But really; there are obviously no particular plans to continue and it all seems pretty much well-wrapped up to me.

It's a splendid finale, too. Oh, I realise it ends about halfway through with Newt breaking all the world's military computers with his superhuman klutziness while Adam firmly insists that a CGI Benedict Cumberbatch is not his father, in a bizarre reversal of The Empire Strikes Back, and we proceed to spend the rest of the episode in an indulgent celebration of Crowley and Aziraphale's six thousand year friendship. And why the bloody hell not? It's all highly entertaining, and the swap between the two of them to survive their respective punishments is, er, devilishly clever. Never mind that Mrs Llamastrangler guessed what they'd done, or that they're lucky that their respective punishments were indeed holy water and hellfire respectively. I'm far too entertained by this to be churlish about plot holes.

Even better, we get Agnes' new prophecies, and shipping of Sergeant Shadwell with Madame Tracey, as soon as he's checked she has an acceptable number of nipples. But best of all are our two friends, those magnificent actors Messrs Sheen and Tennant, and a superb adaptation of a splendid novel after three bloody decades. Wonderful.

Good Omens: The Doomsday Option

"Your car is on fire!"

Mrs Llamastrangler and I are somewhat distressed that there’s only one episode left to go, and a second series is unlikely given the sad, untimely death of the wonderful Sir Terry Pratchett. This is, if anything, the least good episode so far, much of which can be put down to its being Part Five. It’s still bloody brilliant.

We begin with Crowley at the bookshop, distressed that someone has apparently killed the man he now calls “my best friend” (although I love how Aziraphale, now partly played by Miranda Richardson whole role is suddenly no longer a bit part, has such a very English reaction to realising this), spends the whole episode in a state of furious, heroic, utterly David Tennant determination such that it’s tempting to call Crowley the central heroic protagonist of the entire series- I mean, he gets through the impassable hellfire that is the M25 in a burning car to get to Tadfield, where the delightfully British reaction of the local man whom he stops for directions and is too polite to point out that his car is on fire is one of the funniest scenes so far.

Interestingly, there’s far less piss-taking of the American military in the US airbase than there is in the novel, but everyone is gravitating towards there- the Four Horsemen, Anathema and the now-deflowered Newt, and of course Adam- who, having not been properly raised as an Antichrist, is sounding a little more sane. But there’s still time to mention Crowley’s intense dislike of the 14th century, something I was beginning to expect would remain only in the novel. And there is, of course, the ultimate nuclear cliffhanger...

It’s an energetic, fast-paced, apocalyptic penultimate episode. I suspect the finale will be anything but.

Good Omens: Saturday Morning Funtime

“Did you count their nipples?”

Adam, very much a Boy's Own Antichrist, is starting to affect reality in visually expressive ways which are a good opportunity for actor cameos but, of course, being exposed to New Age Twaddle can have a highly deleterious effect on any child, Beast or not. We meet a new Horseman of the upcoming Apocalypse- Pollution, Pestilence being a bit too old-fashioned these days. Apocalypse, though not quite now, is clearly quite soon.

I like the bit with Death following soon after although it's unfortunate that, unlike in the book, we don't really get the Terry Pratchett version. But then the Pratchett version can only really exist effectively in print. Far more televisual is all the palaver at Megiddo, but things are now too far advanced for either Crowley or Aziraphale to be able to square things with their respective Head Offices; both are rumbled. This episode mostly concerns their trying to deal with this fact, in Crowley's case a highly entertaining series of attempts to escape from everything. Hastur being trapped on a cassette tape is genius; Neil Gaiman was quite right to take this wholesale from the novel, our modern digital world be damned.

The bits with Newt and Anathema meeting being blown about and shagging, all as foretold by Agnes Nutter, is fun, as is any scene containing Shadwell. Derek Jacobi is nice in his little cameo as Metatron, a Kabbalistic figure who I just had to look up. And yes, that's quite the cliffhanger. More please.

Good Omens: Hard Times

"I didn't really fall. I just, you know, sauntered vaguely downwards..."

A surprising start, this time, as an extraordinarily long pre-credit sequence charts the history of what both Aziraphale and Crowley would no doubt refuse to call a friendship, and has a lot of fun along the way. So Crowley raises an eyebrow at God's genocidal plans as Noah builds his Ark, and it's in fifth century Britain that both of them realise they've been cancelling each other out with their various schemes so they may as well achieve the same thing by doing precisely sod all. It's all a rather funny addition and ends with a highly entertaining Second World War scene containing 66.67%  of the League of Gentlemen, which can never be a bad thing. and the other 33.33% is William Bloody Shakespeare.

Meanwhile, in the present day, the plot doesn't really advance much, but it fails to do so most entertainingly. We, and Adam, learn that Anathema is a new age type. Shadwell hasn't got much of an imagination. Crowley and Aziraphale are a superb double act, and both Sheen and Tennant are amazing. There's a new horseman- Famine.

It's all very silly in a very Douglas Adams kind of way. And there are few more pleasurable ways to spend fifty minutes.

Good Omens: The Book

"Let us discuss my purchase in a private place, because I am buying... pornography!"

The quality and the humour doesn't let up for the superb second episode. The entire exchange on pornography in the bookshop between Angel and Aziraphale had Mrs Llamastrangler and myself in stitches. But this episode actually has a lot to do- it introduces the story of Agnes Nutter (the brilliant Josie Lawrence) and her Nice and Accurate Prophecies, and how she avenged her own death by blowing up the splendidly named Witchfinder Major Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer and his silly underlings. It introduces Anathema Device, a very different, very Californian character than she appears in the novel; Newton Pulsifer and his Tom Baker scarf tie; and Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell. It also introduces young Adam and his friends properly and, of course, in an amusing scene, War. I rather suspect the next three episodes will all feature a similar scene with a Horseman of the Apocalypse...

A lot of the laughs, though, still come from Crowley and Azirophale, despite their reduced screen time this time around, with Tennant and Shen again excellent. But one has to credit Gaiman's script, with so much plot to cram in, for managing also to cram in so many funny lines. I love how Crowley's car radio always seems to play the most appropriate Queen song, and how 666 is literally the phone number of the Antichrist, a nice resolution to our pair of angel/demons hunting Adam down without either of their respective Head Offices being in on what they're up to.

This is bloody brilliant. And we're really still only in the set-up phase.