Rule of Three: Space Cop (2016)

My intention with this year’s Rule of Three, as you might have guessed last week, was to spend some time up front discussing context, discussing the creators, discussing what the YouTube channel behind the film is known for. My reason for this is that the films we’re covering are labors of love first and commercial products second. (Or third. Or fourth…)

I went into this series not knowing if I’d enjoy any of the films. If I did, great. If I didn’t, however, the last thing I wanted to do was launch directly into a tirade against something that someone I respect put a lot of work into. I’d be honest, of course, but the least I could do was celebrate their achievements up front. Their appeal. Their ability to amass an audience in the first place.

But I’m not sure if I can do that with Space Cop, so allow me to put my opinion up front. Ready?

Thanks to Space Cop, I think I finally, truly understand the term “guilty pleasure.”

Space Cop (2016)

I’ve long known that term, of course. I’ve probably even used it, though until this point I never meant it.

The thing is, I like crap. I know that and I’m comfortable with that. The Room isn’t a guilty pleasure for me, because I feel no guilt about the pleasure it brings me. I love the pleasure it brings me. Ditto Miami Connection, Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny, and what I truly hope is the ever-growing filmography of Neil Breen.

As little genuine merit as those things contain, I feel no guilt about my love for them. I share them with friends. I excitedly seek out films with even less merit. I set time aside to watch them because I enjoy watching them.

Guilt never enters into it. It can’t. My love is genuine, even if it takes a different shape from the love I have for the truly great films that have moved me, inspired me, defined who I am.

Space Cop (2016)

Then I watched Space Cop, and I think I get it. It still might be a bit much to say that I feel guilt for loving it, but I am at least compelled to couch my love for the movie in apology. With admissions that it isn’t great. With the understanding that I am and will continue to be an outlier.

That may not be fair to Space Cop. It may also be the fairest possible way in which a human being can love Space Cop. To explain that, though, we’ll finally need to arrive where I thought this review would begin: with a discussion of Red Letter Media.

Red Letter Media as a channel is primarily focused on film criticism, with few excursions into other media. The three founders — Mike Stoklasa, Jay Bauman, and Rich Evans — started posting videos in 2007, which were mainly short films and low-budget experiments to keep themselves and their friends entertained. That’s okay.

Space Cop (2016)

Then, in 2008, the channel found a direction. Stoklasa — annoyed at a film that released 13 years earlier — created a longform video essay about Star Trek Generations. Rather than review it, y’know, normally, he assigned it to a character: Mr. Plinkett. Stoklasa affected a low, droning voice and didn’t appear on camera. Giving the review to a character meant that he got to write for a character, which itself led to jokes and ideas that probably wouldn’t have worked if he’d presented himself as nothing more than A Guy With An Opinion on the Internet.

From there, he — as Plinkett — covered the rest of the Star Trek: The Next Generation films. Then, in 2009, he decided to have Plinkett review Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.

This is when everything changed for the channel.

With four film reviews under his belt, a better understanding of his Plinkett character, and two friends still itching to produce more short films, he turned his Phantom Menace review into an event. For around 70 minutes, Stoklasa narrated a work of criticism that doubled as a comedy film in its own right, with elements of documentary and horror parody woven throughout.

Space Cop (2016)

The fact that it’s still so difficult to explain is a testament to just how unique that review is. Like Rolfe with his Angry Video Game Nerd character, countless people have attempted to duplicate it superficially, but nobody has really come close to recreating the magic underneath.

The Phantom Menace review was intelligent and insightful enough to earn Stoklasa fans in the film industry who were equally disappointed by how the movie had turned out.

He focused on larger issues in the film’s structure, production, and writing than on the more obvious missteps, such as Jar Jar Binks being a thing that existed in a major motion picture. That alone gave his review an air of legitimacy, elevating it well above the typical level of internet discourse. Combined with genuinely funny jokes, sharp observations, and the bonkers framing device of murderous monster Plinkett ranting about a long-ago-dismissed Star Wars film, Red Letter Media found itself with a worldwide audience overnight.

Space Cop (2016)

With an audience came expectations. Stoklasa, Bauman, and Evans rose to meet them.

The channel’s legions of new subscribers weren’t tuning in to see three friends screwing around with a video camera. A unique work of film criticism drew them to Red Letter Media, and Red Letter Media in turn started providing unique works of film criticism more regularly.

They introduced a number of shows over time. Half in the Bag featured Stoklasa and Bauman as VCR repairmen (and Evans as Mr. Plinkett, their recurring customer) who discuss — usually — recent releases. Best of the Worst sees a rotating panel including those three and a few other friends who watch movies they — usually — have not seen and then discuss them. Re:View stars two people discussing a movie they either already enjoy or have enough to say about that it warrants a dedicated conversation. Plinkett reviews continued, of course, and various other projects came and went.

Space Cop (2016)

The best of these was and remains Best of the Worst, which is probably my favorite show that’s ever come out of YouTube. It captures the giddy thrill of discovering terrible films with like-minded friends, and the resulting panel discussions range from fascinating and insightful to digressive and absurd. It’s a bit of an acquired taste, probably, but if you’ve ever spent a night watching bad movies with close friends and a case of a beer, it will feel familiar.

It also, I think, shows off the best aspects of the channel; the panelists bring a wealth of film knowledge, some degree of film-making experience, and great comic interplay that makes their discussions enriching and entertaining by turns, even if you don’t care about a single thing being discussed.

All of this is to say that — by every possible metric — Space Cop had the most to prove.

Space Cop (2016)

If James Rolfe or Stuart Ashen failed to make entertaining films, those movies would register exclusively as failed experiments.

Stoklasa, Bauman, Evans, and their collaborators, though, built their brand on some degree of expertise in this arena. None of them, I’m sure, would claim to be a master of their craft, but they at least present themselves as being in a position of relative competence. They regularly and consistently dissect films that have gone wrong and propose corrections.

With Space Cop, it was their chance to put theory into practice. It was also their chance to embrace once again their love of film production, this time with years of experience of movie criticism behind them. Surely whatever they made would have to be good.

Surely.

Space Cop (2016)

These film lovers, these movie buffs, these students of the medium, these preeminent voices who redefined the way amateur critics present themselves and their opinions, made a movie about an outer-space policeman who travels through time.

It feels (pardon the pun) like a cop out. There is no doubt in my mind that this particular creative team could put together a film worth taking seriously. It could still be a comedy, of course. It could be anything they wanted it to be. It could be a love letter to the great films that inspired their passion.

Instead, it’s a riff on some of the worst movies ever made. And that feels — correctly or not — like a barrier to criticism. Did you think Space Cop was bad? Well, it was supposed to be bad so, hey, big deal. If Stoklasa and co. could hide behind the pretense that they weren’t taking it seriously, they could also shrug off the criticism of anyone who did take it seriously.

Space Cop (2016)

I — a fucking idiot on the internet — believe that that was the wrong decision, because I think they could have achieved something of decent merit with their combined talent, knowledge, and experience.

But I didn’t get whatever else they could have produced together. I got Space Cop.

And I loved it.

Space Cop (2016)

This is where the guilt comes in. They could have delivered more, and I wanted more, but we ended up with this gleefully stupid pastiche of buddy-cop films, and I adored almost every second of it.

When I reviewed Deathrow Gameshow, I said that it was frequently dumb but never stupid. Space Cop is endlessly, bottomlessly, unapologetically stupid. It relishes its own stupidity, to the point that stupidity becomes a kind of language that it is speaking, a language in which it reveals itself to be fluent.

Space Cop (2016)

I could pull it apart. I could point out all of the things that don’t work, even on the film’s own terms. I could painstakingly detail the ways in which Space Cop holds itself back. Actually, that sounds like a great idea; I will do all of these things. But — and this is important — none of that matters. At all. Because even at its roughest, its shaggiest, and its weakest, Space Cop is brilliant in its stupidity.

The film stars Evans as Space Cop, a futuristic policeman who is accidentally hurled backward in time to present-day Milwaukee. Where he again becomes a cop. He eventually teams up with Stoklasa, who plays Ted Cooper, a cop who was frozen in the past and is unthawed in present-day Milwaukee. Where he again becomes a cop.

It’s impossible to summarize any aspect of the film without it sounding ridiculous, and you can probably guess why that is.

Space Cop (2016)

Evans plays Space Cop as a gruff, grumbling tough guy with absolutely no sense of self-awareness. He’s an imbecile, a slob, and a boob who believes himself to be — against all evidence — an unstoppable force of sheer badassery. And yet even when he does succeed and receive recognition for his achievements, he’s surly and dissatisfied. He’s a completely unlikable person and, debatably, no attempt is made to redeem him in the audience’s eyes.

That sort of character sounds tedious, and usually is tedious. Space Cop may be the only truly unlikable character that I’ve ever actually liked, however. He doesn’t soften as the movie progresses, he is not redeemed, and he ends the film bitching about nobody appreciating him immediately after the city of Milwaukee holds a celebration in his honor. But I love him.

I’m sure some amount of this is down to the writing, but most of the credit belongs to Evans. Within just about every Red Letter Media production, Evans is the funny fat guy. The chubby funster. He’s in on the joke; whenever we’re asked to laugh at him, he’s ahead of us, already laughing at himself.

Space Cop (2016)

He’s a figure of fun who manages to have most of the fun himself. He is innately likeable, and that’s the key to a character like Space Cop. A film has every right to give us a shitheel protagonist, but that film has to either be okay with us hating him or give us, at some point, a reason to reconsider how we feel about him.

Or it could cast Rich Evans.

It’s impossible to hate Evans, because even as he gives Space Cop (and Space Cop) his all, he’s such a fun presence. You don’t catch him smirking and winking his way through the film; he plays Space Cop exactly like the piece of shit that the character is. But there’s a kind of cuddly magnetism to the guy wearing the ridiculous costume that keeps things just detached enough to stay funny, no matter how awful a human being Space Cop is.

Space Cop (2016)

At first I was puzzled as to why Stoklasa wasn’t playing Space Cop, with Evans as the cheerier sidekick. Ultimately, though, as much as I like Stoklasa, I suspect he would have been a bit too believable as a grumpy misanthrope.

Evans is cast against type, basically, which ends up being a joke in itself. And that leaves Stoklasa — Red Letter Media’s resident souse and the endlessly griping voice of Mr. Plinkett — to play the chipper, can-do character of Ted Cooper. He’s no better a fit for his character than Evans is for his, which is exactly why he works just as well.

Stoklasa is a natural sourpuss, so seeing him in the role of the optimist is funny. Evans is naturally jolly, so seeing him as an emotionless hardass is funny. But that’s not quite enough for a film; I think we can all agree on that. And Space Cop sometimes fails to take the joke beyond the inherent comedy of these characters existing.

Space Cop (2016)

Throughout the movie, I kept wanting things to drift into more familiar territory, if only because there was so much potential there. The movie even butts up against that potential a few times.

Both of our main cops are out of their elements. Space Cop has experience of the job that no longer applies and Ted Cooper has experience of the job that no longer applies, and their experience doesn’t overlap. They should be struggling to fit in at the same time that they’re struggling to fit together. That’s what a movie with this premise should do.

Instead, we get little more than token nods to the characters having to adjust their methods. Space Cop’s ultraviolent solutions don’t fly in present-day Milwaukee any more than Ted Cooper’s casual sexism and racism do, but those things rarely surface for anything more than a couple of lines or a scene. It’s the barest of lip service paid to what would be the defining characteristics of these people if they existed in anybody else’s version of the film.

But I think that’s okay. What’s more, I think that’s deliberate.

Space Cop (2016)

I think I’m supposed to want a story like this to unfold according to a predictable formula. I think I’m supposed to anticipate story beats that either don’t arrive or that look quite different when they do arrive. I think, basically, I’m supposed to let the film tell its shaggy dog story, because it’s the loose, meandering style of the comedy that matters.

And when you do let the film take you in its own direction, it’s funny.

What seemed to be one of the movie’s strangest choices ends up being a key to understanding it. After Space Cop is hurled backward in time, we see him awaken. He stands up. He surveys his surroundings. He sees that he is trapped in the past, in a city he both knows and does not know, in a world that does not know him at all.

Space Cop (2016)

We then jump forward eight years and see that Space Cop is exactly as we knew him from the future. He’s a boorish putz, sick of the world around him and the people who occupy it, dissatisfied with his job, and uninterested in improving himself or his situation.

That narrative time jump — occurring immediately after Space Cop makes a literal time jump — baffled me. Couldn’t writers Stoklasa and Bauman have come up with anything for Space Cop to do in those eight years? Couldn’t they have come up with jokes about how he tries to fit in, how he grapples with outdated technology, how he adjusts to life in another time?

Again, that’s what a movie with this premise should do.

Space Cop (2016)

And I’m sure Space Cop went through all of that. I’m sure Space Cop was confused by doors that didn’t open on their own and cars that didn’t fly and a moon that wasn’t colonized…but we didn’t see any of it, because that’s not the story Stoklasa and Bauman wanted to tell. All we need to know is that whatever else Space Cop got up to in the intervening years, he ended up being exactly what he was before: a miserable piece of shit police officer.

Space Cop had a life he hated, then got a chance to start over fresh. Eight years later, his choices put him precisely where he was when we first met him…only displaced in time a bit.

It’s an excellent unspoken joke, and that eight-year time skip that drove me nuts at first now feels to me like a stroke of genius. It might be the only time I’ve seen someone attempt characterization by use of negative space.

Space Cop (2016)

There is a story to Space Cop, and it actually does unfold with some kind of recognizable logic, but the comedy — correctly — comes almost entirely from Stoklasa and Evans interacting. That makes it a bit unfortunate that Stoklasa’s character takes a while to show up, but that may be a symptom of poor pacing early on.

Essentially, the film introduces Space Cop twice. First, we see him in his element, dealing with a hostage crisis that ends in unnecessary violence and collateral damage. Later, we see him in our element, dealing with a hostage crisis that ends in unnecessary violence and collateral damage. The comic doubling is clearly deliberate, but I’m not sure how necessary it is to have both scenes, especially when all they really do is scoot the proper start of the film further and further back.

In between those two introductions, we get a long scene in Space Cop’s apartment that features two distinct stretches of endurance humor.

I like endurance humor, but I have to admit that sitting through two occurrences of it — sandwiched between two introductions to the same character — when you’re still waiting for the movie to get going is a bit much.

Space Cop (2016)

For those who aren’t familiar with the term, endurance humor refers to the comedy of things deliberately dragging on for too long. See Peter Griffin grasping his knee in pain, or Eric Idle monologuing endlessly at Michael Palin’s travel agent. The joke, essentially, is less about what’s happening than the fact that you in the audience are sitting through it.

The better stretch of endurance humor here is Space Cop opening his refrigerator, a process that requires Evans to punch button after button on a keypad long enough that we understand the joke and then just long enough more that it threatens to overstay its welcome. He then opens the refrigerator into his table, which falls over, in a perfectly timed visual punchline that we didn’t even realize was being built toward.

It’s executed well, and it’s a nice bit of ridiculous future technology that is funny for the mere fact that it exists.

Space Cop (2016)

This is followed by another stretch of endurance humor, though, in which Patton Oswalt — as the chief of the Space Police — places a video call to Space Cop, speaks with Space Cop, and then can’t figure out how to end the call to Space Cop. Space Cop stares blankly at him the entire time, and there’s no real punchline.

I understand what happened. Oswalt is a celebrity. Red Letter Media got him to appear in their film, and they were understandably proud of that fact. Oswalt riffed and Red Letter Media was reluctant to cut any of it. Because, hey, it’s Patton Oswalt in their movie, and he’s giving them material. Why not use it?

Well, for a number of reasons, but I’m sure I’d struggle when faced with the same temptation. I’m a nobody making a movie, and a celebrity just handed me an extended joke that’s mine all mine. Whether or not it fits the scene as I’d imagined it, it would be difficult to talk me out of using it.

Space Cop (2016)

Stoklasa and Bauman could have cut most of Oswalt’s shtick and the scene would have been better for it. (Their film would have been tighter as well.) Or they could have cut Space Cop’s refrigerator antics, but I think they realized — correctly — that that was the funnier bit. So they ended up keeping both, causing the already bloated introduction of their film to drag even more.

I’m also not entirely sure of the decision to make Space Cop a dunce and a lout in his native time period. I think the character would work a bit better if the more obvious flaws in his police work — a reliance on technology, a propensity for violence — were commonplace in the future. We should see them as flaws, certainly, but I think his colleagues in the future should have reflected the fact that this is what police work in itself has become.

Instead, Space Cop is demoted to Space Traffic Cop for his carelessness, suggesting that other Space Cops are more competent and reliable than he is. Which, in turn, makes him a poor representative of the future.

But even that, I’m sure, is part of the joke. I’m just not sure if it’s a joke that helps or hinders the film overall.

Space Cop (2016)

Like Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, Space Cop hurls out idea after idea without always giving them the appropriate time (and, ahem, space) to land. Unlike that movie, though, Space Cop establishes its reality as elastic.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie took place in our reality with our history. Rolfe and his cronies introduced some fictional elements to what he know to be true, and then used those fictional elements to bring to life a conspiracy. In short, it’s like most works of fiction: It takes place in a world we recognize, but with fictional characters having a fictional adventure.

That caused it to unravel whenever Rolfe steered the film into territory that is not recognizably of our world, whether it’s a vehicle exploding because it ran into a pane of glass, the AVGN projectile vomiting, or the strange Super Mario Bros.-inspired home-security sequence that I’m sure only exists because someone involved with the production remembered that the movie was supposed to have something to do with video games.

Space Cop (2016)

Space Cop, wisely, does not take place in our recognizable reality. The title character is from an imagined future, his sidekick is from an unseen past, and the present is presented (forgive that) as an amalgam of buddy-cop (has anyone made a film called Buddy Cop yet?) cliches and expectations. This film’s “reality,” in other words, is one we already recognize as fictional, because we’ve seen it exclusively in other films that we can’t take seriously.

This allows for some of the best stuff in the movie.

One of these things is Dale Jackson as Chief Washington. Modeled on Cameron Mitchell’s performance in Hollywood Cop, the specific recognition gets an extra chuckle. But everyone else has seen precisely this character giving precisely these speeches in precisely this context. It’s such a clear indication of how little we’re supposed to take what passes as reality in this film seriously. It’s also funny that he keeps Space Cop on the force only because Washington has stock in their insurance company. A lesser film wouldn’t have even thought to make that joke.

Space Cop (2016)

Another of these things is the exposition about Space Cop’s wife, who was killed by somebody out for revenge. “In the future, my wife’s dead,” Space Cop tells Cooper. “In the past, she’s not even born yet.”

That in itself is a concept that other films in this vein would treat seriously, but in Space Cop the mere fact that these two characters are having this conversation is hilarious. Simply mentioning backstory like this works as a joke when you’ve structured your absurd movie well enough.

Obviously, Space Cop has an opportunity to rewrite history. And he takes that opportunity during a long sequence that sees him driving drunkenly to the home of his wife’s killer — a nine-year-old boy at this point — and trying to murder him.

Space Cop (2016)

There’s narrative logic at play here — Space Cop is neither the brightest bulb nor the best shot — but really it’s an excuse for Evans to wear a ridiculous costume and shoot at a child who is desperately trying to get away. In the process of attempting to right a future wrong, Space Cop kills the kid’s father and causes the kid to get crushed by a train.

It’s absolutely stupid, but the sheer length of the scene and Space Cop’s inability to see that he is creating the reason for revenge that will get his wife killed is marvelous. (I could do without the scene during the end credits that spells this out for us. We get it. Nobody watching could be nearly as dumb as Space Cop.)

Then there’s Cooper, whose character arc should see him reconnecting with the wife and kids he left behind in the past, or at least attempting to find them and learning what’s happened to his family. And that does happen! Off camera. At some point. And it’s dealt with in the space of a sentence or two during the ending with a great handwave.

“We didn’t forget,” the moment seems to say. “We just don’t care.” And that was one of the biggest laughs in the entire film for me.

Space Cop (2016)

With few exceptions (such as the movie’s lone fart joke), just about every bit of comedy in Space Cop at least gets close to working. Often, to be clear, it works excellently. Other times, you can easily imagine a version of the joke that works just a hair better. Rarely does a joke land with a complete thud, though it stands out when it does.

At one point, Space Cop and Cooper visit a strip club. (You’ve seen these movies. Of course they visit a strip club.) An alien in human form takes the stage, played by Jocelyn Ridgely, who I only later learned appeared as Nadine in Mr. Plinkett’s Star Wars reviews.

She’s dressed inappropriately for a stripper, which is funny enough, and then does a bizarre sort of tremoring dance in front of our heroes. Clearly she thinks this is what human strippers would do, and just as clearly she is wrong. It’s a sequence that feels like it should be much funnier than it is, and I have a hard time figuring out why it isn’t.

Space Cop (2016)

I think, ultimately, it comes down to either the blocking or the editing. The dance is funny, but the presentation of the dance fails to help it feel funny. It does build to a moment in which Space Cop tears her face apart with his fingers so…okay, that checks out.

Space Cop (2016)

But it does feel a bit like Stoklasa isn’t able to give his supporting actors the same spotlight he’s able to give himself and Evans.

Another scene might illustrate this even better. Cooper visits Dr. Snodgrass to try to figure out the aliens’ plans. Both Cooper and Snodgrass are comedy characters, but only Cooper’s lines really feel funny. I don’t think this is down to any weakness in Bo Johnson, who plays Snodgrass. I honestly thought he was one of the better actors in the film, but nothing he says feels as funny as it should.

Cooper, on the other hand, gets almost every line to hit like a punchline. “Doctor, I don’t understand a single thing you’re saying,” Cooper tells him, “and that’s your fault.”

Space Cop (2016)

That hits in a way that you want all of this dialogue to hit, but outside of Stoklasa and Evans, it almost never does.

Perhaps they’re just not sure of how to bring other characters — characters they themselves do not play — to life. This might even be supported by the comic success of the Chief Washington character; they’re familiar enough with that type of role, and so they do know to frame the shots and present it in a way that every bit of business lands correctly.

Bauman shows up in the film as well, playing another one of the aliens, and he’s good with what he gets to do. That’s surprisingly little, though; I expected a much larger role for him, but seeing him briefly is certainly better than seeing him crammed into scenes that didn’t need him.

Space Cop (2016)

The film builds — as all great films do — to an intergalactic showdown, during which Space Cop, Cooper, and Ridgley’s alien try to stop a brain in a jar. The movie gets dangerously close to taking itself seriously…and maybe it actually does. At least in a sense.

Space Cop branches here, with Cooper and Ridgley taking one path and Space Cop himself taking another.

Cooper and Ridgley work together to figure out a way to disable the spaceship, helping Cooper to realize that his understanding of women as inferior creatures is outdated and unfair. There are jokes here, but not many of them. It’s played exactly the way you’d see this played in any other movie.

On the other branch, however, we have Space Cop being Space Cop. (Which allows Space Cop to keep being Space Cop.) While the other two characters put their heads together and attempt to find an intellectual, non-violent solution to the problem, Space Cop roams the ship’s corridors, beating the living shit out of everything he sees.

Space Cop (2016)

In one particularly great moment, he meets Bauman’s alien, who explains to him that all they are trying to do is save their planet. Space Cop, in a rare moment of understanding, tells Bauman that they should have just been clear with that up front, and he wouldn’t have fought them.

“I’m not a monster,” Space Cop says, and he may even believe it right up until he’s finished speaking that sentence, at which point he blasts a hole into space that sucks Bauman to his death.

It’s great because I believe both bits of Space Cop’s personality in that moment. He doesn’t think he’s fucking awful even as he’s demonstrating beyond the shadow of a doubt that he’s fucking awful.

Space Cop (2016)

Eventually he even saves the day by punching a brain to death. (Actually, Cooper and Ridgley saved the day, but then Space Cop un-saved it and saved it again in a much dumber Space Cop way.) I honestly cannot think of a more appropriate climax for the film, and though I sincerely mean that as a compliment you are welcome to see as much backhandedness in it as you like.

I love Space Cop for what it is. I don’t think it shows the extent of the Red Letter Media team’s talents, and I wouldn’t dream of recommending it to someone as their first experience of these guys, but it’s a sincerely funny film that knows exactly how to regulate its stupidity. It drifts near enough to the structure of other films that we know what it’s doing, but stays reliably in its own little realm of absurdity.

Space Cop feels like a trip into somebody else’s mind, where much of the fun is in figuring out just how these thoughts are connected and how everything works. It’s not the movie I would have made, and it’s not the movie I would have hoped Stoklasa, Evans, and Bauman would make, but it’s a fascinating window into the love this little team has for awful, awful movies.

Space Cop (2016)

It doesn’t deconstruct genre tropes intelligently, it isn’t all that sharp in its parody, and it really doesn’t say much at all. But I think that’s kind of the point, and right or wrong, the team bet on the appeal of that point.

Red Letter Media gave us a satire that doesn’t satirize anything. And while it’s far from perfect, once you get over that hump of expectation, you have a comedy that’s successful more often than it’s not, with some of the most genuinely funny stuff I’ve seen in a film in years.

I think they could have made a great movie. Instead, they made Space Cop.

Maybe that’s the film’s best joke.

Space Cop (2016)

Rule of Three: Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

YouTube is fascinating. I’d like to say that it has democratized entertainment — putting programming into the hands of the people — but it’s not quite a democracy. Even unpopular channels can crank along, creating videos for an audience in the single digits with no risk of cancellation and no pressure to evolve or reach more people. It continues as long as the person who owns that channel stays interested. It’s a hobby, but one that just so happens to observable by people almost anywhere on the planet.

The vast majority of channels on YouTube are self-funded. We’ll ignore channels that are part of a brand’s marketing arm — their videos are essentially digital advertising — and focus on people who create videos, more or less regularly, about topics that interest them. These creators pay for a camera. They pay for their internet connection. They may — and often do — pay for more than that, but that’s all they need.

For a negligible investment and with the approval of no other human being necessary, people can start sharing their passions with the world.

It’s important to keep this in mind, because it’s exactly what enabled YouTube to flourish and become a legitimate medium of its own.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

In television, you have a crew. You have a cast. You have advertisers. You have censors. You have strict schedules. You have executives. In short, there are a lot of people you need to hire, keep happy, and work to retain long before you get to create and distribute any content.

On top of that, there’s the audience. People sitting on their couches with a remote control in their hands at 8:30 p.m. have a level of quality they expect from broadcast television. Not in terms of the writing or creativity, but in terms of the production. These are things of which they usually won’t be conscious. Things like the attractiveness of the actors, the familiarity of the setup, the rhythm of the show, the formula of the plot, and — we can’t forget — the precise length of the experience.

Do any of those things truly matter? Of course not, but audiences are comfortable with them. It’s what they expect. Mess with them and you don’t just end up with a show that doesn’t appeal to someone; you end up with something that feels wrong.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Let me use a real-world example here: This is the second-most-popular video by Technology Connections. (The most popular just happens to be video-game related, so we’ll skip that; I don’t want to overlap too much with what we’re going to say about The Angry Video Game Nerd.)

Click that link. You don’t need to watch beyond the opening second or two (though feel free to watch the entire thing if you are interested) to see that this is the sort of thing that would baffle audiences if they stumbled upon it on NBC…or even PBS.

I say that with love. Technology Connections is an excellent channel and — in my humble opinion — is a good representation of the absolute best of YouTube. Alec Watson is an intelligent person talking about fascinating things in a way that a fucking imbecile such as myself can follow.

Let’s imagine this same host with this same idea in 2004, the year before YouTube went live. Miraculously, Watson has landed a meeting with television executives. He pitches them the concept for exactly what you see in that video. How many confused looks would you see in that room? The answer depends solely on the number of executives present.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

He wants to do a show about air conditioning? No, he’d cover air conditioning in this episode, then color theory in another episode, then maybe hand-warmers, and then a ride at Walt Disney World. Okay, and he’ll explain how they work? Sometimes, but other times he’ll just point out things he finds interesting, or he’ll try to make his own lava lamp, or he’ll tell people why not to buy a product. Okay, well, that’s not going to fly with advertisers…who will host this? Watson will, with a disheveled head of hair and a thrift-store blazer over a nerdy T-shirt. Also he will write it himself and deliver puns with a monotone directed into one camera that never moves. Good lord…at least he can fill a time slot, right? Of course, except for the times when he can’t; depending on the topic he’ll produce an episode running anywhere from six minutes to an hour and a half.

Does Watson’s show make it to air? You already know the answer.

Even if the network wanted to move forward, they’d hire researchers so that he could cover more topics more regularly, they’d hire editors to keep everything snappy and engaging, they’d build a set instead of letting him use a cluttered background, they’d probably hire someone a bit more at ease in front of the camera…and once all of these things are addressed, is it the same show?

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Technology Connections could not have existed in 2004. Television would have been his only option, and his job wouldn’t be discussing household objects that he finds interesting; his job would be keeping his bosses happy and getting more people to tune in each week. I can’t speak for Watson, but the odds are good he’s passionate about doing one of those things more than the others.

2005 hits and everything changes. Technology Connections can exist as we know it and as Watson wishes to make it. Vloggers can exist, rambling about their mundane lives without preparation or direction. Musicians can find audiences without having to go through record labels or even their local music scene. Friends can write and produce comedy skits without trying — perhaps without even desiring — to get the attention of Saturday Night Live.

Suddenly, practically overnight, anything goes. Things that no network executive would ever commission are attracting legions of dedicated fans. People unbox toys on camera, annoy professional scammers, or throw eggs at things. Millions of people are suddenly enthralled by everything they would never watch if it were on television. Lucas Cruikshank can yell in a pitch-shifted voice, Tom Dickson can stick objects into blenders, and James Rolfe can spew profanities at old video games.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

And I don’t mean profanities that are humorously bleeped. I don’t mean TV-friendly profanities, like “Hell” or “frigging” or something that a scriptwriter made up because he couldn’t have a character say “fuck farts.” I mean long stretches of obscenity that may or may not contain the germ of valid criticism.

However much they despised a film, Roger Ebert or Rex Reed or Gene Shalit would have lost their jobs if they resorted to foul language when describing a film on the air. (And may have found themselves embroiled in scandal if they were taped doing so off the air.) For Rolfe, on YouTube, that would be his entire appeal.

There might be no better or simpler illustration of just how clearly YouTube served as television’s puckish opposite.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Rolfe — a film buff and budding director — created his Angry Nintendo Nerd character in 2004, before YouTube existed. There was no way to share those earliest episodes with a wide audience. They were confined to a VHS cassette, sitting in a drawer. Making them amused Rolfe and a handful of his closest friends. It could go no further than that.

When YouTube came around, he uploaded the two episodes he’d already made: reviews of NES games Castlevania II and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. With a virtual snap of his fingers, something that had once amused only him had a chance to amuse the world. And it did.

Rolfe continued reviewing games with his character, soon to be renamed the Angry Video Game Nerd, and he did it only because he’d found an audience who wanted more. Left to his own devices, he would have ended up doing something else with his life. Why not? He’d made his couple of profane game reviews and gotten his share of amusement from doing so. There would have been no reason to continue.

The AVGN was one of YouTube’s earliest true success stories. Rolfe inspired countless imitators who rarely had even a fraction of his appeal. He signed a deal with another website to produce videos for them. He found celebrity fans, including Troma Entertainment’s Lloyd Kaufman. Allow me to emphasize that: The film director who created so many movies that had entertained Rolfe was now being entertained by Rolfe. I can’t speak for Rolfe any more than I could for Watson, but that must have been surreal.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Yelling bad words at old video games in his spare room first gave Rolfe an audience, then a source of income, then a career that continues to this day.

As his mass of imitators know — consciously or otherwise — Rolfe’s ascent is neither easy to understand nor easy to duplicate. There was luck involved, certainly. There was an element of perfect timing, with Rolfe having episodes ready to go in advance of YouTube becoming popular enough to support its own star. But the AVGN was more than the superficial thrill of seeing a man in a button-down shirt get angry at the same games that made us throw our controllers as children.

The AVGN was James Rolfe. Anyone could yell at a TV screen, but nobody else was James Rolfe.

I have to hypothesize a bit here, but I think Rolfe’s appeal was rooted less in what he was doing than in who he was. He’s an eminently likeable person. The AVGN is — and always was — a character. The actor behind the character was clearly soft spoken. His genuine love for the games he was yelling at was obvious. He was a funny person who understood the power of language, the cadence of comedy, and the necessity of careful editing.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

There was a person there, and he was a person we liked. The fact that he was on YouTube rather than CBS meant (among many other things) that we felt closer to him. There were fewer degrees of separation. There was no filter. Rolfe clicked “upload” on one end and we clicked “play” on the other. Nobody and nothing stood between Rolfe making a joke and us laughing at it, making him feel as much like a friend as he felt like an entertainer.

We will address this question more thoroughly in the next two films we cover, but for now it’s at least worth raising it: How, exactly, does somebody take this very particular appeal and translate it into a film?

With 2014’s Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, the answer seemed to be “quite poorly.” I say “seemed to be” because, prior to this review, I’d never seen it. I could only go by fan reception, which seemed to range from abysmal to “well, it looks like he was having fun.”

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

The truth is, of course, more interesting than that. Having now watched the film I can see why so many people dismiss it, but I’m not sure it is worth dismissing, even if it’s not great.

I don’t know what inspired Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, nor do I know what inspired the other two films we’re covering this year. It’s very possible that in any case or in every case, somebody woke up one morning with a profound desire to get one specific story out and then set about doing so.

More likely, I think, these creators realized that they had audiences. Real audiences, who would be willing to support other creative endeavors. Audiences who, hopefully, would be willing to take a chance on a decidedly different format from the one that attracted them in the first place.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Everybody believes that they have some film inside of them, or story or novel or painting or composition, and I’m willing to believe that every one of these people is correct. They may never spend the necessary time to develop their craft or may never end up with an audience interested in whatever they produce, but each one of us has something inside that we’re capable of producing.

When you already have millions of people tuning in regularly to see what you have to say, well, what are you waiting for? Show them what you can do.

Rolfe could — probably pretty easily — have just written and performed an extra-long game review. He could have covered a bunch of different games while a loose narrative unfolded in the background. He could have created an entertaining history — or even a documentary — about the making of some particular game or series. In short, he could have given an audience exactly what they were getting from him already, only more of it and with higher production value.

Instead, he pulled the camera back a bit and let the AVGN have an adventure that had nothing to do with anger, hardly anything to do with video games, and which had the word “nerd” in it a few times. It’s the same character, but not the same context.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

It’s taking a character designed and developed for one purpose and forcing upon it a different one. It’s sending Indiana Jones into space, or sticking Cookie Monster into a hospital drama. A character we enjoyed when he did A is now suddenly doing B, and whereas it cost us nothing to enjoy A, we’re being asked to part with our money to experience B.

Rolfe is an intelligent enough guy to understand this. He must be; he shaped the entire plot of Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie around the character’s refusal to review a game. He’s aware of his audience’s expectations and he has a bit of fun toying with them. But being aware that the audience wants something different isn’t quite enough; it’s what you do with that awareness that matters.

Ultimately, he doesn’t do much with it.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

The film makes overtures at being “about” video games. Specifically, the notoriously terrible E.T. for the Atari 2600, a game which is frequently — and not totally fairly — blamed for the video game crash of 1983. The AVGN finds himself badgered by friends and fans to review the game, and early in the film he sets off to Alamogordo, New Mexico, the real-life location where unsold copies of E.T. were destroyed and buried.

All of which sounds like this film has quite a lot to do with video games. Really, though, E.T. could be subbed out for anything else. And, in fact, the film does sub it out at least twice: first, and most directly, for a copyright-friendly equivalent called Eee Tee, and then later for Area 51.

Half of the AVGN’s name stands for “video game,” but here it’s really just an excuse to get him on the road. That, in itself, makes sense; Rolfe may have had a road movie in mind with lots of jokes to make along the way. All E.T. (or any game) needs to do is serve as a destination; the journey is the story.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Or so it would be, except that the entire journey is skipped right over. The AVGN and his two hangers-on might as well warp directly to the New Mexican landfill for all that the trip itself matters.

That’s because the trip itself is no more interesting to Rolfe as a filmmaker than E.T. is. What he really wanted to make, it seems, was a comedy about breaking into Area 51. Everything else just happens, and any time it ties into video games — or, indeed, the AVGN — it feels incidental.

I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, Rolfe could obviously have made a non-AVGN film with very, very few tweaks to this script. James and Friends Meet an Alien would be damned similar to what we have here and it would be free from the expectations people have of the AVGN character.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

On the other hand, Rolfe — correctly — understood that far more people would watch (and purchase) the film if it had the AVGN name on it. If he wanted to make more money, it needed to be about the AVGN. Ditto if he wanted to secure distribution, if he wanted to attract talent, and if he wanted any kind of media attention at all.

He could make a movie without the AVGN, but then he’d be back to where he was before he created the character; he’d be making a film with pocket change and a few close friends that nobody else would care about. If you think I’m being harsh here, ask yourself how many people care about The Wizard of Oz Part III: Dorothy Goes to Hell or The Head Returns, two post-AVGN film projects by Rolfe that you likely didn’t even know existed.

Rolfe could make a film about three dimwits rescuing an alien or he could stick the AVGN name on it, feint toward some vague video-game content, and reap infinitely higher viewership and profit. He’d been doing the former for decades. I can’t and won’t blame him for trying the latter. I understand how tempting it must have been.

Of course, we all know what happens after the people who lined up for the AVGN actually see the film.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

I can’t and won’t blame them, either. Rolfe set an expectation for his audience, and it’s not his audience’s fault if the film didn’t match it.

Fans who had loved — and in some cases grown up — watching him play the old games they remembered and put into profanity all of the things they were never able to say watched a movie that contains none of the games they remember and nothing in the way of observation.

What’s worse — even if it’s understandable for an indie film — is that any game footage we do see is the same kind of off-brand equivalent we might see on a sitcom…a sitcom made by writers and executives who probably don’t care enough about video games to get them right, and won’t bother trying because they don’t think their audience will care, either.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Rolfe’s sincere love of the medium — the love that inspired the AVGN series and which was felt by every viewer who ever enjoyed it — was absent, because the medium wasn’t putting in any real appearance here at all. Rolfe has no nostalgia for the bland recreations we get here, the sort of thing we might have seen on Full House if the show ever had to let us see the TV screen for some reason. He can’t have any nostalgia for these games, because these aren’t real games. For the same reason, we can’t have any nostalgia.

The common ground we felt with Rolfe does not exist within the confines of this film. He can call it the AVGN, and dress up like the AVGN, and repeat the same strings of curse words we remember from the AVGN, but the very heart of the AVGN is nowhere to be found.

What do we get instead? I’m not entirely sure.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Each of the films we’re covering this year seems to fall somewhere between the creators making a movie and the creators making fun of movies. There’s nothing wrong with poking fun at the very concept of film — parody does sometimes outlive sincerity — but it can also seem like a crutch, as though the filmmaker isn’t confident enough in their own talent to play things straight. “I was only kidding” is an all-too-easy excuse. If an audience laughs, great. If they don’t, you don’t have to take it to heart.

Watching Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, I kept wanting Rolfe to take it just a hair more seriously. Some of the biggest laughs came from the parodic moments — his friend turning into a dummy whenever he takes a nasty fall, or a battle segment being played out by toys instead of people — but they didn’t help me to enjoy the film more.

They were a second or two of laughter rather than anything that enhanced or improved the experience of watching the movie. Instead, moments like this just muddy the film’s reality and make it difficult to know what we’re meant to take seriously.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Rolfe overall gets close to making a screwball comedy as opposed to a parody, and I think the film would have been stronger if he focused on that aspect of things.

There’s a scene in which he dresses up as an alien and launches a homemade UFO into Area 51. It’s in no way realistic but it is at least anchored in a recognizable semblance of reality. It’s a buffoonish sequence, but it works for a buffoonish character in a buffoonish movie. Cutting to a prairie dog puppet saying curse words simply because that’s ostensibly something somebody might laugh at…well, even if that does work, it’s incongruous. It doesn’t fit. (And it also doesn’t work, but that’s beside the point.)

For two more-easily comparable examples, we can look at the film’s pastiche sequences.

In one, the AVGN essentially finds himself in the middle of a zombie film. Rolfe, horror buff, gets to live out what I’m sure was a lifelong dream as he’s munched on by the undead. The AVGN then wakes up from the nightmare, and rightly so, because zombies would break the reality of the film. Rolfe, correctly, corrals this sequence off from what actually happens in his movie.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

In the other, the AVGN’s buddies essentially find themselves in the middle of a kaiju film. Rolfe, again a massive fan of the genre, gets to live out what I’m sure was a lifelong dream by directing a huge monster as it smashes through a model city. The difference is that this actually does happen in the movie. It’s not a dream. It breaks the reality as much as zombies would, except that this has no narrative handwave. We are just suddenly watching a little bit of a kaiju film when the majority of the movie was grounded in a world we recognize by a logic we understand.

Again, I mean to make clear that either approach is okay. You can have wacky stuff happen in dreams or you can have wacky stuff happen in reality, but you need to decide before you make the film what things can only happen in dreams and what things can actually happen in reality. There is no wrong answer, but if you don’t have an answer — or your movie makes it seem like you don’t have an answer — people will be confused at best.

Rolfe didn’t make a parody, but he wants viewers to excuse Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie whenever it briefly becomes one. The fact that it does keep abruptly becoming one (and then just as abruptly stops being one) is evidence of a lack of restraint on his part as a filmmaker. Then again, we may not need even need that evidence; the fact that Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie is almost two fucking hours long is evidence enough.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

It’s difficult to see a running time of 110 minutes on a YouTube vanity film and believe that the length is justified, and Rolfe seems to take every opportunity throughout the film to even further convince you that it’s not. Between fantasy sequences, montages of fans gushing about the AVGN, lengthy flashbacks, and a deeply strange animated tangent about his buddy Cooper’s wackadoo beliefs, the film didn’t just have opportunities for tightening up; it’s practically pleading with the audience to edit it themselves.

Speaking of tightening up, I guess I might as well talk about what little story there actually is in this film. I wish I could say that without sounding dismissive, but there are so many false starts, abandoned threads, and left-field developments that it’s less a narrative than a bulleted list of things that happen. Still, we’ve come this far…

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Cockburn Industries decides to develop an intentionally terrible Eee Tee 2, expecting it to sell well due to its predecessor’s infamy. Coincidentally, somewhere else, the AVGN exists. A woman who works at Cockburn decides to get the AVGN to review and endorse the game. This inspires the AVGN to do nothing. Coincidentally, somewhere else, the AVGN’s friend Cooper exists and is inspired to inspire the AVGN to do something. The AVGN says no and then says yes.

The two friends and the woman arrive in New Mexico via the magic of editing, where the Eee Tee cartridges are buried. This angers a bunch of soldiers and government officials, because the kids might find Area 51 which is in a different state. Meanwhile, only one person in the world can tell them the secret behind the development of Eee Tee. Instead of finding him, the kids find someone else who can tell them the secret behind the development of Eee Tee.

A soldier kidnaps the woman and brings her to Las Vegas while a giant monster rises from Mt. Fuji and the AVGN’s friend plays Eee Tee which either causes an alien to escape from Area 51 or doesn’t have anything to do with the alien’s escape from Area 51, so the AVGN and the alien fly a plane and then the AVGN and the alien get out of the plane. Then it’s night time and the movie ends.

Watching Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie is a weird experience, because it stumbles across as many terrible ideas as it does good ones and then can’t seem to decide what to focus on. It’s so disjointed that I often couldn’t even tell what I was meant to feel while watching it.

Near the end of the film, for instance, the AVGN’s friend kisses the woman, and they had so little to do with each other prior to that point that I expected it to be a joke, with the woman saying to him, “Why did you do that? Who even are you?” But instead I guess they’re in love. And, hey, good for them! Love is a wonderful thing. I just wonder if I should have seen any of it since I did watch the entire film and all.

Also, the woman pretends to be a nerd — I guess? — so that she can get closer to the AVGN and get him to endorse Eee Tee 2. But she also never makes a secret of who she works for or what she wants from him, so why bother pretending to be a nerd? And why does it feel like a betrayal when the boys learn that she doesn’t actually need glasses? She went through some degree of effort to lie to them, but the lie didn’t conceal anything at all. She comes to them in nerd form but is still openly trying to get them interested in endorsing Cockburn’s product. What was the point of lying if she wasn’t lying about the only significance she had in the story?

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

You can play with things like this — have plot developments happen due to expectation alone and have that be a joke — but I don’t feel as though the film actually builds to these moments as punchlines. They’re just things that happen, which might be another symptom the fact that the film can’t decide what constitutes its own reality.

It has some nice moments. I like the way it explores Rolfe’s own legacy, which is worth doing; there’s a reason I spent so much time discussing it myself up above. The fact that the vitriol he (sometimes literally) spews at terrible games results in people tracking down and playing those games instead of avoiding them is funny. It’s also a valid observation and a weird enough phenomenon that it’s worth poking fun at.

Then there’s the cast, and I can’t fault any of them. Rolfe is as naturally likeable as ever. Jeremy Suarez as his friend Cooper is perfectly fine. Sarah Glendening should get to do more than look pretty behind nerd glasses, but she’s fine with the material she gets.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

The film does manage to intermittently shine with a couple of bit parts. The first is the AVGN’s boss, played by the consistently reliable Eddie Pepitone. Pepitone is a riot here, shifting from flattering the AVGN to verbally abusing him to pulling a gun on him, selling every step in the process. I don’t know how much of his performance was scripted and how much was improvised, but it’s a great little scene that is elevated for its craziness.

The other, maybe not coincidentally, is another crazy old guy, this time played by Stephen Mendel. Mendel’s general is fueled by pure rage and is quick to violence, which usually ends with him getting gruesomely injured. He’s funny, and due to the nature of the sight gags I’d guess most of his performance was dictated by the script. If that’s the case, good on Rolfe and his cowriter Kevin Finn, who here did manage to create a zany character without throwing the film’s reality off kilter.

I also liked the alien’s voice, which I could have sworn I recognized. I looked him up and it’s Robbie Rist, who has been in too many things to mention and I can’t possibly narrow down where I thought I knew him from. I did learn, however, that he played the notorious Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch, so good lord am I glad the guy still had a career after that.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie

I remember when Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie was released. It came to a tiny little movie theater just a few blocks from me, and I had every intention of seeing it. I had some other things going on in my life at the time and the theater stopped showing it before I had a chance to check it out. Then I heard about the film’s negative reception. I still wanted to make up my own mind, but I felt quite a bit less compelled to seek it out.

Fans weren’t happy. I don’t think I saw anyone saying they liked it, at least not without qualifying the statement by adding “for what it was.” At worst, people started accusing Rolfe of misusing the funds that fans had given to him to make the movie. They called it a scam. They called Rolfe a thief.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

They’re idiots. At this point I can safely say that I don’t like the movie, but I’m nowhere near moronic enough to suggest that I know how much the film should have cost or how much Rolfe obviously stuck into his pocket instead. Even carefully planned professional productions go over budget. They face unforeseen obstacles or see costs inflate from what they estimated. Nobody can know in advance what a film will cost; they do their best to estimate it and then do their further best not to exceed that estimate.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie was neither carefully planned nor professional. Whatever it cost, it cost. And, frankly, I think people know that Rolfe didn’t use this as some kind of elaborate embezzlement scheme. (There are far easier ways to steal money from fans; just ask the Nostalgia Critic.)

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Instead, the accusatory blowback was the internet’s predictably awful way of saying, “I did not enjoy your film.”

That sentiment, at least, I get. Rolfe put the name of his show in the title of a film that had precious little to do with his show. He stuck his character into a movie that neither needed nor benefited from that character’s presence. He was willing to gamble some degree of credibility against the potential for a larger audience.

I understand that temptation.

In that situation — being loved for one thing and really hoping to transfer that love to something else — I quite possibly would have done the same thing. And, like him, I would also have known the risk of taking that bet.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Even now, after watching the film, after knowing it would sour a decent chunk of his audience on him, after seeing that people would accuse him of criminal activity expressly on the grounds that they didn’t think his space-alien movie was funny, I can’t blame him.

For whatever reason, he wanted to make this movie. He did what he had to do in order to make it. In a very large and legitimate way, that is an achievement.

And in another way?

Well, it looks like he was having fun.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014)

Announcing: Rule of Three 2021

I’d like to interrupt this period of not watching “Spock’s Brain” to announce this year’s lineup for Rule of Three. If you aren’t familiar with Rule of Three, that’s your own fault; I provided a link to it at the end of the previous sentence and you chose not to click it.

In short, every April I take long, meandering, patently unhelpful looks at three related comedy films. The series begins April 1, with the second and third posts following one and two weeks later. It’s extremely complicated.

This year, I’m covering something I’ve been considering since the very start of this series: films made by YouTube celebrities.

You will probably read that and think it’s a chance for me to pick on some low-budget films and make fun of people I don’t like. And that does sound like a hell of a lot of fun! But in the interests of fairness and basic human decency, I’m choosing to focus only on YouTube celebrities I actually enjoy.

These are three films that — for one reason or another — I haven’t gotten to see yet. This series gives me not only an excuse to watch them, but to discuss the creators and their work.

Maybe I’ll enjoy the films. (I certainly hope I will.) Maybe I will not. Either way, these are people I respect, and critically discussing what they did when they asked audiences for 90 minutes of their time is my way of saying thanks. You know, like I said thanks to Purple People Eater.

At the request of a few kind folks, I am now providing links to help people watch the films in advance. Please know that these are not affiliate links; I make no money from any purchases you may make, so feel free to buy them from any other service that works for you.

And now, the schedule:

April 1: Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014) (Amazon Prime)
April 8: Space Cop (2016) (Amazon Prime)
April 15: Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild (2013) (Vimeo)

Be sure to tune in Thursday, April 1, for my full review of Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie. Followed by, hopefully, some better movies.

Thank you all, as always, for your support. I hope you enjoy this year’s essays.

What the hell, I’ll keep watching Star Trek

I’m going to open my discussion of Star Trek: The Original series season two with some unexpected disappointment. Why not, eh?

My journey through Star Trek has taken place almost entirely offline. You got my summary post of season one, and I’ve exchanged messages with a few friends, but nearly all of my discussion about the show has occurred in reality, with the friends and coworkers I interact with normally.

They’ve been very — impressively, even — good at allowing me to come to my own conclusions. Very, very rarely do they tell me ahead of time of a development to come or how an episode is overall received by fans. When it does happen, it’s been stuff that’s pretty obvious. (Chekov joining the cast for the second season, “The City on the Edge of Forever” being rightly beloved, etc.) Beyond that, they’ve volunteered very little that I didn’t bring up — or question — myself in the course of conversation.

And yet — and yet! — there is one thing I heard many times over: Season two is a huge improvement over season one.

This made so much sense to me that I didn’t really think twice. Honest question: Can you name many successful series in which the second season did not represent a notable improvement over the first?

In a collaborative medium — such as television, of course — there’s a lot to learn. No matter how well you plan ahead of time, you’ll face a deluge of curveballs once things are underway.

Actors will bring with them their own talents and limitations. Costumes and sets will be limited by a budget, which itself is likely to fluctuate. Continuity (correctly, in my opinion) goes out the window as the writers discover better, more fruitful ideas as the series progresses. Tight deadlines prevent you from producing a show as strong as you might like. Injury or illness takes people out of the rotation when you need them most.

And that’s just a small sampling of very superficial considerations. My point is that you can’t predict or account for every obstacle you will face, and that’s especially the case in season one of whatever show you’re making.

By season two, you’ve necessarily had to adjust and account for those things at least once. New obstacles will certainly present themselves, but you’ve at least got a handle on the old ones. The pool of “unknowns” has shrunk. You are in a position now to create something that is more in line with the vision in your head.

So of course season two of The Original Series would be a huge step forward. I could have guessed that on my own, but it was nice to have it confirmed by long-time fans. It meant that I had something to look forward to.

Then I watched season two, and…man, I am not sure that I agree.

I do believe it’s better. Full stop. But I don’t think it’s better to any degree that is worth mentioning.

The great episodes don’t really stand above the great episodes from season one. The lousy episodes are no better than their earlier equivalents, either. And I’m not sure that there are a larger number of great episodes or a smaller number of lousy ones.

I think I can say that the baseline level of competence has risen, but not enough that it has any measurable difference on the quality of the season as a whole.

Of course, I ended up liking season one — quite a lot — so this is a relative disappointment only. I was prepared for season two to blow the previous season away, and it really, truly did not. I’d love to know what folks believe sets season two so high above season one, because as a newcomer I’m kind of baffled.

What I can say for sure is that the pacing is, on the whole, much better this time around.

Better pacing doesn’t turn a bad story into a good one (nor does poor pacing turn a good story into a bad one), but the journey is much more enjoyable for it. Rarely did I feel that an episode dragged (“The Immunity Syndrome” aside, as it was clearly intended to drag and is just as clearly fucking unwatchable), whereas the majority of episodes in season one had at least one dreary stretch that had me checking my watch.

But that’s about the only real improvement I can cite. I’m genuinely curious to know what other folks think.

The most obvious change is the addition to the cast of Chekov, played by the fucking adorable Walter Koenig. I love Chekov, but I can’t imagine that his debut is the reason people rate season two so highly.

Regardless, he’s an excellent addition. Everybody on the Enterprise has their lighter moments, but young Chekov has a far higher percentage of them, which means that nearly all of his scenes are pleasant and entertaining.

His youth also allows him to illustrate something we saw very little of in season one: a lack of discipline. Chekov is intelligent and accomplished (is there a greater intellectual honor than filling in for Spock whenever necessary?), but he lacks the gravity and authority of his older comrades.

In season one we definitely met some flawed crewmen, but Chekov registers more as someone who just hasn’t had enough time to iron out his flaws. He’s competent and capable, but needs a bit of polish. It’s an interesting kind of character to have as a fixture on the bridge.

In my season one post, I spilled a lot of ink wondering why it took until season two for anyone to think to fill the navigator’s chair with a single, recurring character. Ultimately, I let the issue drop because I knew this would happen with Chekov in season two.

…and yet, now that I’m here, I’m not even sure that that’s the case.

Chekov’s arrival coincides with Sulu’s absence. George Takei was unavailable for many episodes because he was off filming a movie, apparently. So I wonder, was Chekov introduced — as I’d assumed — because it was wasteful to invent / cast a different navigator for every episode? Or was he introduced because Sulu, the only other recurring character on that part of the bridge, would be absent for much of the season?

The amount of puzzlement the navigator’s chair has brought me is beyond measure, and I won’t belabor the point any further, but good lord, what a strange situation.

This is a case in which the BluRay running order is clearly much different from production. Surely Takei would have been absent for one long stretch of recording, but in my experience watching season two, Sulu is there one week, Chekov is there the next, then Sulu, then Chekov. Rarely are they both in the same episode; one really does feel like a replacement for the other.

That’s a bit disappointing, because some of my favorite material ended up being the rare interactions between the two.

Chekov and Sulu have this natural, recognizable sort of default camaraderie that comes from sitting next to each other every day. They don’t necessarily know each other very well, but they share little quips and commiserations out of proximity alone. They are coworkers who don’t dislike each other but who also — almost certainly — spend no time together after the shift ends.

That, to me, is so much more interesting than two lifelong chums would be. And it’s probably more believable, as well.

Surprisingly, Nurse Chapel becomes a semi-regular character in season two. She existed in season one, but only barely, appearing in just one or two episodes (if I remember correctly), and those were early in the season.

I was glad to see that a character who seemed forgotten ended up playing a larger role this time around. I’d be lying if I said she got all that much to do, but her presence meant that we could get scenes in sickbay whenever Bones was out gallivanting with the landing team.

Speaking of Bones, the only other casting change that I noticed was the overdue promotion of DeForest Kelley to the main credits. He appears in every episode now, which is very welcome as far as I’m concerned. The guy is still my pick for MVP from both an acting and characterization standpoint. There’s never a scene with Bones that is not elevated for his presence.

And since I’m destined to gush about Kelley / Bones all over again, I might as well tie it into my favorite thing about the season: its willingness to explore character.

We had plenty of opportunity to discover who these people were in season one, and I’d argue that just about all of the characterization was effective and well handled. Season two, though, gets to take it a step further. Since we already know who these people are, we are able to delve into what makes them that way.

Perhaps because Bones was already damned well realized in the first season, we don’t get too much that centers around him here. His “big” episode is “Friday’s Child,” which I quite liked in spite of its obvious flaws.

The crew journeys to a planet that Dr. McCoy has visited in the past, where he attempted to bring medical knowledge to the civilization there. His experience of this culture — his understanding of their nature and their customs — proves invaluable in a way that I thought was great. He even gets to do some excellent work with guest star Julie Newmar, seeing him pinched between his obligations as a doctor and his obligations as a visitor on behalf of Starfleet.

Overall, though, Bones shines mainly in support roles. I’m hoping we get at least another episode dedicated to him in season three, because I really do think the character can carry more than he’s been given, but the guy is so great as a sidekick that I can’t complain.

He’s insightful and hilarious by turns. The hardest I’ve laughed in a while came in “Bread and Circuses,” when he is tossed into a gladiatorial fight to the death. His opponent — who is a friend — goes easy on him, but tells Bones to at least defend himself. “I am defending myself!” he responds, and Kelley’s delivery is absolutely perfect. There’s surprise, frustration, and fear behind it, and yet it’s still comical.

In fact, “Bread and Circuses” might be one of his best episodes, even if his presence there is no larger than in most others.

There’s a lovely scene in which he and Spock are imprisoned together, and he’s worried to the point that he lets his gruff demeanor fall just enough that he’s able to speak to Spock like a friend, with genuine warmth. Spock responds…well, like Spock. Cold and detached, same as ever. “I’m trying to thank you, you pointed-eared hobgoblin,” McCoy says, and it’s funny and emotional at the same time.

I’ll give the writing its due credit here, but Kelley absolutely elevates this stuff, giving it resonance that works far beyond the words typed onto a script. (However good those words might be.)

Spock gets a pair of important episodes about who he is, and they’re both among the season’s best. Each of them focuses on the struggle between his Vulcan half and human half, and each of them tips the balance in a different direction.

“Amok Time” is by far the more famous one, showing his Vulcan urges completely overtake his humanity to the point that he finds himself in a fight to the death with his best friend. (McCoy is the hero of this one, settling matters in a way that’s both entirely out of left field and completely appropriate to the situation. Just need to toss my man Bones another high five.)

It ends with Spock asserting his human side, in spite of the fact that he knows his fellow Vulcans won’t understand. Having lost his betrothed to another man, he congratulates him, but then adds, “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.”

It’s a pained and painful acceptance of the part of himself he works hardest to keep hidden, and it’s executed brilliantly.

The other one, “Journey to Babel,” approaches things from the other direction. Here, it is Spock’s humanity that is tested to the point of agony.

His father falls ill and is in need of a transfusion, which only Spock can provide. Easy enough, except that with Kirk indisposed, Spock is in command of the Enterprise. No Vulcan would shirk his duty for the sake of something as sentimental as saving a loved one. Spock’s father is one person, after all; there are hundreds aboard the Enterprise. Clearly the logical thing is to fulfill your obligation to them. No Vulcan would disagree. In fact, Spock’s father won’t even disagree as he finds himself at death’s door.

But that human side of Spock — personified in this episode by his human mother — won’t let the matter remain settled. He ultimately gives into this side, but bonds with his father afterward by picking on her (in a genuinely good-natured way) for her tendency to put emotion over logic. After an episode of human struggle, he snaps back to being a Vulcan.

Each episode raises the question of Spock’s nature, and each one provides a different answer. It’s interesting, and though I far prefer “Journey to Babel,” they’re both handled extremely well, with a level of care and intelligence I wouldn’t have expected.

Even Scotty — who I have to assume was an unexpected breakout character last season — is explored in a pair of episodes. In “Who Mourns for Adonais?” we see him fall in love with a woman who doesn’t quite feel the same way toward him, and he’s willing to sacrifice himself to keep her safe. In “Wolf in the Fold,” we see him work through some off-screen trauma, though it does land him in a different kind of hot water, which ends up being even worse.

Then there’s “The Trouble With Tribbles,” which sees him calm and clear-headed as a rowdy group of Klingons insults their captain…but he throws a punch the moment they insult his beloved ship.

His runaway highlight of the season though is his attempt to outdrink an alien visitor in “By Any Other Name.” The drunk acting between the two characters is a fucking delight. It’s played for obvious comedy, but there’s something genuine and identifiable about the way they go from being distant to being pally to seeming like they’re about to fight before they both pass out.

Absolutely wonderful stuff.

Kirk, understandably, gets the most attention as a character, and the criticism of Shatner’s acting that I’ve been hearing for years seems even further divorced from reality.

I’ll put it right out there: I love Kirk. He seems to have been written in a way that positions him as a role model, but also, crucially, as an achievable one.

He’s not infallible; he is a human being as flawed as any other, but he works through his flaws. He earns every ounce of respect and admirability he commands. Kirk doesn’t coast on his good looks or his charm, and he doesn’t take his success for granted.

All of which is very interesting, because season two explores him mainly through other characters. Characters in positions similar to Kirk, but who have let their flaws take over, or who have thought too much of themselves, or who have taken something for granted with disastrous results.

We encounter a number of other members of Starfleet who Kirk remembers fondly, and then we see just what could happen if Kirk were to fail to think through the results of his actions, or let himself take the easy way out at any point.

In “Bread and Circuses,” Captain Merik turns his crew over to a brutal world because he doesn’t have the integrity to fight back…and though he finds himself rewarded for doing so, it’s hollow, and feels like no kind of victory to him.

In “Patterns of Force,” a historian attempts to provide a framework for order to a chaotic society, without quite thinking far enough ahead to realize that Nazi Germany might not be the best example.

In “The Omega Glory,” Captain Tracey has manipulated a civilization into a state of eternal conflict simply to keep himself safe after being stranded among them.

All of these examples suggest alternate paths that Kirk could follow. He won’t, but he could. What’s more, each of these men could be said (to varying degrees) to have been doing what they felt was right, given their difficult situations. Kirk follows his gut on a weekly basis. Surely it’s just a matter of time before that gut leads him to the wrong decision…

In each of these cases, things have spiraled out of control. In each of these cases, the men in question probably got to enjoy a good, long stretch of believing everything has worked out correctly. In each of these cases, we meet them after they can no longer convince themselves that that’s the case. They’re lost, and the best they can do is try endlessly to justify to themselves what they’ve done, because nobody else is around to listen.

But these are all hypothetical paths for some alternate version of Kirk to take. There’s another alternate Kirk we meet this season, and it’s far less hypothetical.

In “The Doomsday Machine,” we meet Commodore Decker, who has lost his entire crew and his ship to a creature of unknowable power. He made the decision to beam them down to a planet, in the hopes that he could save them. He could not; when Kirk finds him, he is the lone survivor of the attack.

Decker made the best decision he could possibly have made at the time, but that didn’t matter. It was a no-win situation, and he lost. The experience broke him. It’s a tragic performance that does excellent work selling just how busted up this man is, just how much he’s lost, just how tormented he feels about outliving the crew that was entrusted to him.

He’s beamed over to the Enterprise for bed rest while Kirk attempts to get the disabled ship up and running. While there, the Enterprise spots the beast…and Decker, out of his fucking mind, assumes command.

He outranks everybody else on the ship. There’s nothing they can do aside from follow his orders. He single-mindedly pursues the monster that could — and certainly will — eat the Enterprise for lunch. The desperate glances between crewmen who reluctantly carry out the orders that will bring them to their deaths are chilling.

They are marching, step by step, into their graves, and there is nothing they can do.

In the end, surprise surprise, Kirk comes back and takes over. The entire crew is understandably relieved to have someone sane in the captain’s chair again.

They all mop their brows and say, “Whew!” A close call, but they will never serve under Decker again. Roll credits.

Then, many episodes later, we have “Obsession.”

Here, Kirk encounters a beast that killed his crewmates early in his Starfleet career. He always believed he made the wrong decision, though he was found to have not been at fault for the disaster. Regardless, Kirk unexpectedly crosses paths with it again, and is determined to destroy the thing this time. He orders the ship onward, toward the unstoppable beast, against all reason, against the counsel of his most trusted friends, against the protestations of his crew…

And suddenly they are serving under Decker again. But it’s Kirk. Which means they can’t sit around waiting for Kirk to beam over and get the crazy man out of the chair. Nobody else is coming.

Kirk meets many alternate versions of himself — versions with different appearances, ranks, histories, but versions of himself nonetheless — and gets to end each episode thankful that he’d never make the decisions that would get him to that point.

Except in the case of Decker, because he makes exactly the same decisions, endangers his own crew in exactly the same way, failing to learn one of the most important lessons this season tried to teach him.

In my rankings below, I honestly wasn’t sure whether to place “The Doomsday Machine” or “Obsession” higher. They chart similar ground and they each do so excellently. You can swap those two around if you like; I won’t mind.

Ultimately it came down either to giving the nod to a truly fantastic guest character, or to the horror of seeing Kirk drift so easily and naturally into the status of “cautionary tale” for whatever captain would happen to come along next. I went with the latter. I’d be no less satisfied with the former.

We get some other confirmations of flaws in Kirk along the way, though they aren’t given nearly as much time as we get in “Obsession.”

In “The Deadly Years” we see him clinging to command of the Enterprise well after he’s lost his faculties and mental acuity. In “The Ultimate Computer” we see him fret about losing his job to a machine, with McCoy both comforting and chiding him: “We’re all sorry for the other guy when he loses his job to a machine. When it comes to your job, that’s different. And it always will be different.” (Guys, McCoy is fucking great.)

Possibly not coincidentally, that episode also gives us an alternate Kirk: Dr. Daystrom, another hotshot who showed promise young, and then became desperate to avoid falling into irrelevance.

All of which sounds like this season was pretty excellent, right?

Well…yeah! Kind of. For the most part. At times.

Not all of the episodes I’ve highlighted above are actually good…it’s just that, as with season one, even the worst episodes have something to recommend them.

Also like season one, but which I didn’t discuss there, the episodes have a strange tendency to take a hard left turn at various points, becoming something else entirely.

“The Omega Glory” is a particularly egregious example; it begins promisingly, with the Enterprise finding a derelict ship full of crystalized crewmen. What happened? It’s a good mystery and, as cheap as it certainly was, a nice visual. Then we take a hard left turn to a planet on which Americans and Communists both sprouted up independently of Earth and Kirk explains their — also identical — U.S. Constitution to them in what I hope to Christ is the most embarrassing thing Star Trek ever does.

“Wolf in the Fold” is a strange one, too. It starts with a decently effective whodunit, at the heart of which is poor, baffled Scotty. He’s the only suspect in a series of grisly murders. We know he didn’t do it, of course, but we can still have some fun learning how, exactly, he was framed. Well, the joke’s on us because after a hard left turn the episode is about the ghost of Jack the Ripper who now haunts the Enterprise‘s computers.

It’s not always a bad thing. I really liked “By Any Other Name,” but I don’t know if I’m impressed or confused by how easily it swings from being an episode with a genuine threat to being overtly comic. Both halves work well on their own, but it really feels as though everyone involved with the first half of the episode died suddenly in their sleep and a completely different set of folks were brought in to finish it.

That about does it for anything I can really say with any thought behind it, but I do have a few other, scattered thoughts.

Firstly, Harry Mudd got robbed. Roger C. Carmel is an absolute riot in the role, but “I, Mudd” and last season’s “Mudd’s Women” are abysmal pieces of television. I’m told he doesn’t appear in season three, and that’s unfortunate because if any character needs an episode good enough to redeem him, it’s poor old Mudd. The guy should have been the show’s Sideshow Bob, but it feels like the writers just sort of shrugged and figured Carmel could carry his episodes on charisma alone. I can’t blame them — dude is amazing — but come on.

Secondly, I had somehow gotten it into my mind that “The Gamesters of Triskelion” was the episode with television’s first interracial kiss. I was wrong — that must happen in season three at some point — but I do sort of wish it had happened in this episode. It would have been one of the only redeemable things about that fucking mess.

Thirdly, “Mirror, Mirror” is a god-damned masterpiece. I think I still prefer season one’s “Balance of Terror,” but I was genuinely impressed by every last one of the choices made in “Mirror, Mirror.” It’s not surprising to me at all that the concepts of mirror universes and evil versions of characters became so common after this. Many Star Trek episodes have solid concepts, but this one nails the execution as well anything possibly could. It’s as brilliant as “Catspaw” is dumb. And “Catspaw” is really, deeply, profoundly dumb.

Fourthly, I prefer the theme tune without vocals. No idea how much sacrilege I’m practicing here but, well, there ya go.

Finally, I’m sorry, I almost touched upon this in my season one review but I can’t keep it inside anymore: Everyone on this show is hot as fuuuuuuuuck.

Shatner is gorgeous, and he’s gorgeous in a way that doesn’t lock him into “1960s heartthrob” status. He is just a genuinely great looking human being. Spock isn’t my cup of tea, but his beard in “Mirror, Mirror” absolutely had me swooning. Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov are all adorable in such very different ways. Uhura is quite possibly perfect; if there is a straight man out there who isn’t attracted to her, I’d have to ask what it is they find attractive about women; she certainly seems to satisfy every possible answer to that question. And Bones is probably the least conventionally attractive character on the show but let me be very, very clear about the fact that I would make out with him and I’d do it proudly.

Whew. Okay. Anyway, point is, season two was pretty great, but season one wasn’t much less great. If season two’s quality was inflated, I’m glad to hear it; all I’ve heard about season three is how much of a step down it is, so maybe that will turn out to be an exaggeration as well.

I’ll find out soon enough, I suppose. I’ll be diving into that next. And I can finally reveal that, in all honesty, I only started watching Star Trek so I could eventually see the legendary “Spock’s Brain.”

Anyway, everything above is just my opinion and you are more than welcome to disagree. In fact, please do! I’d like to end on some indisputable fact, though, so here is every season two episode of Star Trek: The Original Series ranked from worst to best.

26) Catspaw
25) Who Mourns for Adonais?
24) The Immunity Syndrome
23) The Changeling
22) The Gamesters of Triskelion
21) The Omega Glory
20) A Private Little War
19) The Apple
18) Assignment: Earth
17) Return to Tomorrow
16) A Piece of the Action
15) I, Mudd
14) Wolf in the Fold
13) Patterns of Force
12) Metamorphosis
11) Friday’s Child
10) Bread and Circuses
9) The Deadly Years
8) Amok Time
7) The Trouble with Tribbles
6) By Any Other Name
5) The Ultimate Computer
4) The Doomsday Machine
3) Obsession
2) Journey to Babel
1) Mirror, Mirror

Images throughout courtesy of Warp Speed to Nonsense.

What the hell, I’ll watch Star Trek

What did you accomplish during the deadliest year any of us have experienced? If you’re like me, you’ve accomplished the square root of jack squat. But you’ve probably consumed a lot of entertainment, perhaps even stuff you’d never gotten around to experiencing before. For me, my big “late discovery” was Star Trek.

I’m a nerd. (DID YOU KNOW?) For whatever reason, though, Star Trek never appealed to me enough to sit down and watch it properly. I had an interest in it from a historical standpoint — it’s an important part of television history, before we even consider whether or not it was any good — but that was about it. I figured I’d get to it eventually, but there was certainly no rush.

Then 2020 happened, and nearly all of my time was spent alone, indoors. If not under those circumstances, when?

Let me say one thing up front: I will not be reviewing each episode of Star Trek. A friend of the website — and all around ace human being — has done that already. She’s done it better and more thoroughly than I possibly could. Go read those. If you’d like to pretend I wrote them, just imagine they contain a lot more spelling errors. Instead, I think I’m just going to record some loose and disconnected thoughts as I go. Lucky you!

Anyway, Star Trek. It was the first iteration of the show — what we now call The Original Series, the Kirk ‘n’ Spock one — that interested me. I had and have no doubt that the later series are worth watching. People adore The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine sounds like it’s right up my alley. It’s The Original Series that I figured I should start with, though. Even if it were terrible, I at least knew I could enjoy its importance.

It’s taken me a few months to get through the first season. That’s because…well, I have to be honest here: Much of Star Trek is rough going.

Prior to starting this proper watch through, my experience of The Original Series was limited to a few bits caught on TV here and there, some hand-selected episodes that were officially posted to YouTube around a decade ago, and The Motion Picture. When I tell people that, they say, “But that’s the worst movie!” Maybe that’s true, but I liked it; it didn’t sour me in any way toward whatever the show would or wouldn’t offer.

That was the entirety of my first-hand experience. I don’t remember why those episodes were posted to YouTube, but I imagine it was to celebrate some kind of anniversary. William Shatner provided some intro clips, but I don’t remember if I watched those. Some of the episodes I enjoyed. Some of them I did not enjoy. Nothing, apparently, encouraged me to sit down and watch the show from beginning to end.

Starting The Original Series in mid-2020, I wasn’t convinced I’d get much out of it. The season is very slow to start, and it’s clearly finding its footing. I mean that in every regard, by the way. The writing isn’t great. The actors don’t get much to work with. Characters change roles a number of times before they settle into their actual stations. (Or get ejected without comment.) The pacing is slow to the point that genuine boredom set in many times.

All of which…well…it’s a new show doing new things. It’s going Where No Man Has Gone Before. There’s bound to be some teething trouble. I’d find those things easier to excuse if there were interesting ideas behind them. Basically, I’d go easier on the execution if I recognized a strong vision or if it had compelling stories to tell. Maybe the show didn’t quite know how to tell its stories, but if they were worth telling, I’d sympathize with the difficulty it has in getting them out.

Instead, though, a long run of episodes in the first stretch can be boiled down to “something weird got on the ship.” It feels almost daringly uncreative. I realize that fans reading that sentence will think I’m being dismissive of the show, and I understand that perspective. Instead, though, I’m really just trying to convey my bafflement. The show isn’t uncreative, and yet it takes many, many episodes before it demonstrates its creativity in any narratively notable way.

Sitting down and setting an hour of my time aside to watch yet another installment in which Kirk and Spock try to identify and stop whatever weird something got onto the ship this time was not compelling to me. Each of those episodes, to some degree, had interesting ideas scattered around, but it felt so dull and repetitive that I’d have to make myself watch the show.

I’m glad I did, however, because around halfway through the season, something unpredictable happened: The show got very good, and reliably so.

I’ll mention here that I’m going entirely by the running order on my BluRay box set. I understand that the episodes may have aired in another sequence, and they were certainly produced in another sequence, but around the rough midpoint of the season as I experienced it, things actually started to click. The stories got more creative. The characters started interacting more believably. I wanted to know what weird something would get onto the ship next because I could count on it being entertaining.

At the beginning of season one, I wasn’t quite sure why I was bothering. Now that I’ve hit the end, I’m excited about the prospect of season two.

All of which is to say that season one of The Original Series retroactively became a fascinating study of a show finding its footing. Of course, we’ve all seen shows struggle a bit at the start, but The Original Series finds its footing so slowly — with so many false starts and dead ends and lessons stubbornly unlearned — that it’s ripe for autopsy. Whereas most shows make the bulk of their mistakes off camera, The Original Series seems to be making every last one of them in public. I’m sure that’s incorrect, but compared to most shows it feels correct.

My intention here isn’t to beat up on Star Trek. Its accomplishments are genuine and rightly celebrated, but I will say that there are clear examples of the show not quite understanding itself.

Sometimes it’s superficial. Spock’s Vulcan makeup gets less extreme (perhaps just better applied) as the season progresses. Also, he’s sometimes referred to as Vulcan and sometimes Vulcanian.

Even when terminology is consistent, the cast doesn’t always agree on how to pronounce it; it’s both Klingon and clingin’. Costumes change. The ship has a crusty old doctor with no personality until it gets McCoy, though the sequence of the episodes makes it feel like McCoy was the first doctor and was temporarily replaced. Yeoman Rand is an important recurring character until she vanishes and is replaced by rotating yeomen who are neither important nor recurring. Sulu was on the medical staff before he was suddenly, without explanation, the helmsman.

Then there’s The Guy Next to Sulu, the navigator, which is the most puzzling thing of all. I know Chekov shows up in season two, filling that role permanently, but how in the heck did that position survive all of season one without a regular actor?

This might take a bit of explanation, but bear with me, because it both irritated and fascinated me.

There are many miscellaneous crew members who dot the background, even on the bridge. That’s okay. I’d wager most of them only appeared in a single episode, but I can’t know that for sure because they’re rarely the focus of any given shot (and never the focus of any given scene). They come and go as extras do.

The navigator is another story. In every episode, a different person is in that seat, which is notable because that seat is near the center of the frame any time we get a good shot of the bridge. The navigator — whomever he is during any given week — is at the focus of many shots. What’s more, he’s sometimes even important to the plot. He gets lines. Kirk issues commands; he replies. He interacts with the others. He’s always a different person but he’s often involved with the larger goings-on.

Which means that — for each episode — they had to go through the trouble of finding somebody. Of auditioning him to make sure he could act. Of fitting him for a uniform and tailoring it to him. Of rehearsing with him. Of reshooting scenes when he inevitably botches his lines. It was a process to keep recasting that position. Surely at some point somebody would have said, “It would be easier to just cast one actor and keep him around.” Right? Well, maybe they did say that between season one and season two, but good lord, how did nobody say it sooner?

It’s strange. The easier solution — creating a character — was also the better one. They made it more difficult on themselves for no true benefit to the show, themselves, or the audience. Many positions on the ship had rotating crewmen, but this one was front and center in every episode. It’s bizarre.

Of course, the lack of a recurring character means you could do stories in which that character has a memorable disappearance. I’m thinking of Bailey in “The Corbomite Maneuver” or — more notably — Gary Mitchell in “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” In neither case, though, did that character have to be the navigator. One just had to be kind of shitty at his job and the other only had to be on the bridge at an unfortunate moment. Those could be any position on the ship. And even if you disagree and feel that both characters had to be navigators for whatever reason, quietly rotating cast members for 29 episodes only so it could be important to two episodes is a monumentally lousy idea.

Again, though, I’m not intending to nitpick; as a study of television production and the creative decisions behind it, though, the omni-navigator is so odd and interesting to me. I can’t figure out the reasoning behind it, and I can even less understand the reason they didn’t cast someone the moment they realized the position might be an important one. There’s even precedent for it; as I mentioned, McCoy wasn’t originally the doctor, and Scotty and Sulu are both examples of permanent characters taking over previously rotating roles.

Ah well. Overall, once the series hit its groove at about the midway point, it got genuinely good. Okay, I admit not all of them were genuinely good, but they at least stayed interesting, and the characters were finally strong enough that it was worth spending time with them, even if you couldn’t care less about what any of them were actually doing.

The biggest and most pleasant surprise to me was DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy, who is easily the best actor of the bunch. (Which I don’t say lightly. Read on.)

That was another puzzling thing to me; I’ve always heard people talk about Kirk and Spock in regards to The Original Series. Those were the two characters who took up the bulk of the discussion around the show. Every so often, to varying degrees, I’d also hear about Sulu, about Uhura, about Scotty. And that’s all fine and good, but why did I never hear much about Bones?

Sweet lord, McCoy is far and away the best part of the show. He’s the most consistently human and interestingly characterized person on the ship, at least so far. He’s competent but not infallible. He’s intellectual but able to fight back. He’s stern but fucking hilarious.

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy also get a nice range of material to work with, but with Kelley, I rarely feel as if he’s acting. When he’s invested in his work as a doctor, I believe he knows what he’s doing. When he pushes back against his superiors because he disagrees with them on moral grounds, I believe in his convictions. When he deadpans a killer punchline, I believe that he knows exactly how funny he is but isn’t impressed with himself. There’s so much going on nearly every time Bones is on the screen, and I was always disappointed when he didn’t show up at all in an episode. This is the guy I would have liked to spend time with.

As I said, The Original Series stumbles with some of its characterizations. For the most part, though, those are confined to the season’s earliest episodes. By the midpoint, they’ve settled into who they are. By the end, they seem to be fully formed. Bones, weirdly, had the opposite trajectory. He arrived fully formed, then, at the very end of the season, the show wasn’t quite sure who he should be.

He goes from being reliably (and crucially) competent to being a fucking boob and getting dangerously close to being a shitty doctor. In “The City on the Edge of Forever,” he accidentally jabs himself with a needle, something no sober doctor has ever done in the whole of human history. In “Operation — Annihilate!” he blinds Spock as part of a medical experiment, learning a matter of seconds later that there was no need to do that.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone has a bad day at work. But when it’s a doctor — and when that doctor’s bad days involve blinding crewmates and rewriting history so that the Nazis win the war — you really can’t write these things off as moments of inattention. He goes from being the crew’s prize asset to being its biggest liability.

That is, of course, a problem with the writing rather than the acting, and please allow me to say that the criticism I’ve been hearing for decades about terrible acting on The Original Series has been completely overblown. Nearly always, the moments of bad acting — which do exist — go hand in hand with bad writing. In short, nobody could deliver some of that dialogue effectively, and it’s wrong to blame the actors in those cases. When the writing is good, the actors inevitably rise to meet it.

This is especially true of Shatner as Kirk, which surprises me because he’s usually the one singled out for ridicule. Shatner does excellent work most of the time, and serviceable work in nearly all other cases.

People like to poke fun at how stilted his line delivery can be, and his seemingly unnatural pauses, but in context there’s nearly always a reason. Sometimes it’s because he’s shifting between demeanors, moving from a personally emotional response to a professional response of leadership. His pauses indicate an internal effort to move from one “voice” to another. Out of context, it sounds like an actor struggling to deliver a line. In context, it’s a character sectioning off parts of himself and opening up others.

I’ve noticed also that the “unnatural pauses” come when Kirk is thinking on his feet, buying himself time. When he’s on the spot — and potentially in danger — he chooses his words carefully. He starts a thought not knowing where it will end up because he has to say something. A lesser actor would communicate this by saying “ummm…” or “well…” or stammering, but Kirk has enough control that he’s instead able to parcel out silence as he navigates his conversational way forward. Again, out of context it seems like the guy forgot his line. In context, it can be riveting, as we discover Kirk’s next bluff or linguistic feint right along with him.

And since I’ve spoken about both McCoy and Kirk I might as well share my thoughts on Spock, which aren’t entirely solid at this point. I like Nimoy and I like the character, to be clear. What I like most, however, is how wonderfully his lack of emotion turns out to be bullshit.

One other thing I did during 2020 was work my way through the Witcher books. (I’ve finished all aside from one stand-alone novel.) In those books, Witchers — like Vulcans — are said to be without emotion. Yet, it’s not true. Geralt, our Witcher protagonist, falls in love. He fondly raises a young girl entrusted to him. He cares about his mentor. He regrets many of his decisions. He frequently helps others not for coin or through obligation but because it’s the right thing to do.

And yet characters in that world meet him, assume he feels no emotion, and treat him as such. He doesn’t correct any of them. Some folks see through him, yes, but Geralt himself allows them to believe this. He even, I think it’s fair to say, does his best to believe it himself.

Why? Because it is a very useful fiction. If Witchers don’t feel emotion, people won’t try to appeal to it. They won’t try to guilt him into certain actions. They won’t attempt to manipulate him, at least not in that way. They will deal with him on a more superficial level meaning he can deal with them the same way, and maintain a kind of distance from the reality of his situation.

Watching The Original Series, I see a lot of that in Spock. It’s a similarly useful fiction. Do Vulcans really lack emotion? They might! I haven’t seen enough of the show to know for sure, but I do know that half-Vulcan Spock does not lack them.

Instead, on some level he knows that if he allows others to believe that he lacks them — and if he convinces himself that he lacks them — he is able to maintain a kind of distance from others that both protects him from emotional pain and reinforces his value to the crew. Spock is often consulted when they need a strictly logical perspective. Anyone can provide a logical perspective, but Spock has made logic His Thing. Just as they might as well have Dr. McCoy patch up every wound, even though anyone can learn basic first aid. That’s why he’s there.

We see Spock demonstrate fondness. Playfulness. Selflessness. The only two-parter of the season, “The Menagerie,” is about his willingness to sacrifice his own career to give his disabled former captain a second chance at happiness.

I’m willing to believe Witchers have a reduced emotional capacity, but I’m not sure I do believe it. Similarly, I’m willing to believe Spock being only half-human means he doesn’t experience the full range of emotion, but I can’t say for sure.

At the end of “This Side of Paradise” he says he’d never been truly happy before. I believe him when he says that, but the fact that he’s never been truly happy doesn’t mean he’s incapable of being happy. That’s what he meant, yes, but I don’t know that that’s the truth. Certainly having to consciously stamp down your own emotions is an unpleasant experience; being freed of that obligation for the duration of the episode…well, of course that would be the first time he experienced happiness. He let himself experience it.

I’ll be interested to see what they do with this, but I love that they didn’t wait several seasons to peel back the “lack of emotion” aspect of the character and reveal the truth. Instead, they more or less immediately cast doubt on it, and continued casting doubt on it throughout the season. The lack of emotion is a coping mechanism for Spock, not an inborn limitation. What could have been a one-dimensional character trait is immediately revealed to be deeper. It’s good characterization and it leaves so much room for exploration.

One thing I knew I’d enjoy was seeing high-minded concepts collide with weekly television budgets. And, sure enough, you have aliens who are just people painted another color. You have parasites that I’m pretty sure are made of novelty rubber vomit. In one episode, you have Kirk and Spock fighting a giant Meat-Lover’s Pizza.

What I didn’t expect is how often the series is able to move beyond its cheapness and engage you in ways that are not bogged down by cost limitations. What I mean to say is that The Original Series has so far produced some truly compelling villains — however you’d like to define villains — and it’s done so while offering up visuals that dare you to take them seriously.

The best episodes let you understand what drives the force opposing Kirk & co. that week. A Godzilla Halloween costume in “Arena” ends up being in the right. In “A Taste of Armageddon,” a race fighting a centuries-long virtual war makes a damned good case for their horrifying reality. The pilot in “Tomorrow is Yesterday” is understandably mortified by the crew’s reluctance to return him home now that he’s seen a glimpse of the future. Our heroes are rarely revealed to be The Bad Guys, but they’re often shown to have their perspectives challenged, shaken, and broken.

That’s something else I ended up enjoying a lot. I expected all-American spaceman Jim Kirk to be the perfect hero. Several times throughout the season, though, he was shown to have an awful lot in common with his enemies.

The best example is the episode-length game of cat and mouse that was “Balance of Terror,” but there are a few other great ones as well. In “Errand of Mercy,” he has a similar mindset to the conquering Klingons about how to deal with a neutral planet. Different methods, sure, but ultimately both sides end up in frustrated alignment in a way that’s downright chilling. In “Space Seed” he even expresses his admiration for conquerors like Khan. It’s important writing; the difference between Kirk and his adversaries isn’t that one is Good and one is Evil. The difference is far smaller than it might seem, and that balance could always tip the other way.

In fact, in “The Enemy Within,” Kirk is split into positive and negative versions of himself in a transporter accident, allowing us to see exactly how much shittiness he carries within him. And the fact that the positive Kirk is almost completely worthless at addressing the situation shows us that it’s not “perfection” that makes the character who he is.

Don’t worry; we do get Perfect Kirk at various points. “Court Martial” is the worst offender, because it begins with a great concept — what if Kirk, under duress, made a bad decision that got someone killed? — and ends by painstakingly dismantling that concept so that we don’t have to question our hero after all. Even so, as of right now, “Court Martial” feels like the exception; Kirk often does make the right decision, but damned if we don’t see him suffer through the process of making it. He’s not perfect; he’s working hard, constantly, to get things right.

There’s not much I can say about the show that hasn’t been said elsewhere and better. But for such an important piece of TV history, I wanted to at least share that I’ve been watching it and get a few of my thoughts down in writing. All of them could be wrong. I might write up another one after season two and completely change my opinion.

For now, though, it’s been an interesting experience. Season one of The Original Series started as one of the most frustrating things I’ve watched and ended as one of the most intriguing. It’s given me bad television to pick apart and great television to savor. Honestly, that’s everything I could have hoped.

On to season two.

Oh, and, as your reward for being good, here is every season one episode of Star Trek: The Original Series ranked from worst to best. Come at me.

28) The Naked Time
27) The Man Trap
26) Charlie X
25) Shore Leave
24) The Squire of Gothos
23) Miri
22) Mudd’s Women
21) Where No Man Has Gone Before
20) The Menagerie
19) What Are Little Girls Made Of?
18) The Alternative Factor
17) Operation — Annihilate!
16) Arena
15) Court Martial
14) Return of the Archons
13) This Side of Paradise
12) Dagger of the Mind
11) The Corbomite Maneuver
10) The Enemy Within
9) Tomorrow is Yesterday
8) The Conscience of the King
7) The Devil in the Dark
6) The Gallileo Seven
5) Errand of Mercy
4) Space Seed
3) A Taste of Armageddon
2) The City on the Edge of Forever
1) Balance of Terror

Images throughout courtesy of Warp Speed to Nonsense.