Collin Stoll

With a name like Armageddon backed by the intelligence, insight, wit and timing of Ricky Gervais I was expecting something on the level of Carlin's classic Jammin in NY. Instead I was exposed to the proverbial angry bullied 11 year old who for fun and revenge takes a dump on the kiddie table at a family gathering and then hides behind the couch and giggles. When the kids and adults in horror, disgust and sadness confront him he responds, no one got physically hurt just inconvenienced. After a very light hour filled with half truths, lazy rehashed jokes and tired tropes I felt inconvenienced.

Strained New Worlds a pablum of scifi past. While Star Trek has always told allegorical stories of the human condition (we aspire to be more than we are through the joy of discovery and the relief of suffering) through the lens of sometimes cheesy science fiction this series does not raise the bar much above Discovery. Again relying on flashy FX and now poorly fitting uniforms and over (or under) the top hair cuts ( looking at you Spock!) over writing and complex adult character development, the first and now second season mine the detritus of Scifi of yore to deleterious ends. Case in point, The Gorn have become a cheap stand in for xenomorphs of the Alien franchise. Although the above examples do reflect our emotionally fragile, soft sided, zero sum game, hapless current condition of our species. May bold writers return to put hope back into humanity.

Compared to the series it is a pale shadow with slow and inconsistent pacing, two dimensional lackluster character development, a bad guy who is right out of a early 1990s Tarantino script left on the floor, unlikable child acting, tired racial and national stereotypes and Timothy Oliphant and his daughter, who I'm sure is a nice person, sleep walking their way to another series. Let's hope the return of Walton Goggins injects some life into this walking corps of a franchise. Yes I'm irritated I wasted my time.