Succession (Season 2)

Coming after a solid first season, Succession's second season is a pretty big improvement, mostly because it feels a lot more real.

Succession's second season is pretty much split into two equally strong halves. The first half of the season is about Logan's attempt to acquire another media giant. This is a solid storyline, mostly because we get to see how that media giant's family compares and contrasts with the Roys. Of course, Logan's plan fall through when the cruises scandal from the first season comes to light, forcing the Roy family into damage control mode for the rest of Season 2, and it's fantastic. While it's always been fun to see the awful Roy family fail, this storyline really makes them flounder and squirm while unveiling just how horrid they are as people. Compared to the previous season, Season 2 of Succession is a lot faster-paced, with a much stronger overarching goal. However, I think it's a bit weaker with the character work. With the exception of the finale, which hints at a lot of exciting changes ahead, it never really feels like most of the cast changes throughout the season, whether it's developing or regressing. Kendall spends the whole season being depressed, Shiv spends the whole season being conflicted, and Connor still barely appears. I do, however, think Logan's slow fall is very compelling, and I also really enjoy Holly Hunter's Rhea. She's a great new addition to the cast.

The thing that really brought Succession's second season above the first for me, though, was the greater emphasis on the effect the Roy family have on the world around them, and how unafraid the show is to depict these characters in the worst possible light. The most obvious instance of this is how the family deals with the cruises scandal. With how many companies this situation resembles (looking at you, Activision), it's kind of horrifying to see everything from the perspective of the company that the scandal took place in. And it's not even from the middle class workers who have to consider whether or not to quit or protest, it's from the super rich higher ups that have hardly anything to lose. It's incredibly compelling TV made even more gripping thanks to its relevancy. But it's not just the cruises stuff. There's the episode where a worker commits suicide, and the Roy family immediately thinks it's "Antifa shooting up the place". Or when Kendall coldly shuts down a media startup so Logan can save money with user generated content. This season, it really felt like this Succession does a much better job of making the viewer hate the Roy family due to that extra level of realism and relevancy, but it also makes learning why they do these things all the more horrifyingly fascinating.

Once again, most of this season was great, but these episodes were the highlights:

Safe Room: I already mentioned how dark this episode's premise was. The fact that Waystar's workspace is so toxic that someone committed suicide, and that the Roys immediately thought it was a shooting by "Antifa", but aside from that, Safe Room is legitimately a really funny episode. From Tom and Greg going to the wrong panic room, to the water bottle scene, to the constant bickering between the cast during the shooting scare, this might be the show's funniest episode to date.

DC: I think this is the episode where the Roy family is at their most unsympathetic. Seeing them all band together to try and quell the cruise scandal in court is kinda hard to watch, and I felt like I was actively rooting against them all episode. Thankfully, the court scenes are also hysterical since most of the members of the Roy family end up embarrassing themselves in some way, especially Tom.

This Is Not For Tears: This was a fantastic season finale. It's tense and personal, as the family argues over who's going to have to take the fall for the cruises scandal. Pretty much everyone gets a character moment (even Connor), and it feels like the whole season went full circle. But best of all, This Is Not For Tears actually has a pretty massive shift in the status quo. The ending where Kendall publicly pins the blame on Logan is both ridiculously cathartic and pleasantly surprising, as it sets up an entirely new power dynamic for Season 3. Finally, Kendall got a win. 

Overall, while some of the characters remain static, Succession's second season is overall a massive improvement on the first, with stronger pacing, a fantastic finale, and much greater relevancy.

4/5 Stars

Succession (Season 1)

Succession is often referred to as a show about rich people ruining each other's lives, and you know what? That's accurate. Thankfully, it also happens to be pretty entertaining and fascinating.

Succession is about the uber rich Roy family fighting for control of their company, Waystar RoyCo, betraying each other any chance they get. While there's technically a main villain in Logan Roy, the aging patriarch of the family who refuses to release his iron grip on Waystar, I wouldn't quite say there's a single purely good character in this entire show. Pretty much the entire cast is composed of cruel, selfish assholes, and they've all led extremely screwed up lives. I think that's why so many people seem to get attached to the cast of Succession. Sure, they're all awful people, but they're also all incredibly well-defined characters with colorful personalities and at times genuinely sympathetic reasons for being the way they are. Succession is kind of an ugly show, and while I was mixed on most of the characters, I ended off the season mostly feeling one emotion: Pity.

Succession's first season got off to a pretty uneven start. While its pilot episode was great, the first half of the season felt a bit aimless at times, as if the series was just about the characters being shallow and awful without much in the way of long-term goals and motivations. However, once a pretty eventful "vote of no confidence" happens halfway through the season, Succession really starts to find its voice as it explores the cast in a bit more depth. It all builds to a pretty fantastic season finale that left me excited to see how Season 2 would continue. But while the plotting was a bit off at first, the dialogue and comedy was top-notch from start to finish. I was surprised at how much this series made me laugh. The black comedy is witty, sharp, and very effective. I also thought the acting was fantastic and elevated the series even more. Roman is cruel but Kieran Culkin's hammy performance makes him so much fun to watch, Kendall is a bit more sympathetic thanks to Jeremy Strong's puppy dog eyes, and Brian Cox makes Logan a truly terrifying force.

There are some notable highlights this season, particularly in the latter half:

Which Side Are You On?: As mentioned above, this episode was a big turning point in Succession, both plot-wise and quality-wise. I was expecting Kendall's attempt at a vote of no confidence to fail given that it was so early in the show, but I was not expecting Logan to intimidate half the board into abstaining and fire the other half including Kendall. It helps that this was an incredibly tense and well-executed sequence that served as one of the most memorable in the season.

Nobody Is Every Missing: This finale reminds a lot about the Season 2 finale of Breaking Bad, a tragic ending to the season that marks a big shift in tone. Kendall accidentally causing the death of a waiter is the point where the otherwise lighthearted war within the Roy family goes way too far, and it leads to a really bleak final few minutes. There's also Shiv and Tom having a big turning point in their relationship, and the reveal that Greg has been plotting something all season as well.

Overall, Succession's first season gets off to a bit of a slow start, but even its weaker first half is elevated by sharp writing, great performances, and the show's willingness to embrace the gray morality of its characters.

3/5 Stars

Arrowverse Retrospective

The Arrowverse rivals Star Trek as one of the most ambitious TV franchises to date, containing an impressive seven shows and is still going on today. I used to be a massive Arrowverse fan back in the days when it was just Arrow and The Flash, but eventually I fell out of interest once I started wanting to focus on catching up on shows I've never seen before. Still, the Arrowverse may be cheesy, soapy, and overwhelming to get into, I'll always have a soft spot for these shows and wanted to look back on the seasons I at least got to watch.

Arrow: Season 1

So I actually started watching the Arrowverse once the Flash came out and caught up with the first two seasons of Arrow afterwards, and I was surprised with just how different Season 1 is from the rest of the series at first. Oliver Queen has a pretty cheesy narration during the first few episodes, Felicity is a minor character for the first half of the season, and there isn't much of an overarching plot or villain until the Dark Archer (also known as Malcolm Merlyn) shows up. Arrow gets off to a bit of a shaky start, but once this season figures itself out, it gets so damn good. The storyline of Malcolm Merlyn trying to destroy the Glades is great, not just because Merlyn himself is a strong first villain, but because the involvement of Oliver's mom Moira leads to so much fantastic drama. Arrow is at its best when the characters get pushed to their limits and that's absolutely the case in the second half of Season 1. The tension really heightens up by the end of the season and it all ends in a shockingly devastating ending where Oliver fails to stop Merlyn's plan and his friend Tommy dies as a result. I think the finale would sell anyone on Arrow, it's that good, but the flashback episode The Odyssey and surprisingly intense Home Invasion are also high points this season. As a whole, Season 1 of Arrow got off to a pretty rough start but once Felicity joins the cast and Merlyn solidifies himself as the villain, the season proves what made it such a great superhero show.

3/5 Stars

Arrow: Season 2

Arrow's second season is one of the best seasons of any superhero show and probably one of the greatest seasons of any CW show. Not only are there rarely any bad episodes (just Birds Of Prey from what I remember), but the season just keeps getting better and better throughout. For starters, we get the introduction of Sara Lance who's not only a much cooler character than her sister but ends up becoming a very important Arrowverse member. Not to imply Laurel Lance is bad though, this might be her best season just because of how strained her relationship with Oliver gets in episodes like Blind Spot, Time Of Death, and especially Deathstroke. Speaking of which, the obvious highlight of Season 2 of Arrow is its antagonist, Slade Wilson. I love Slade as a villain so much. Not only does he have a great personal connection to Oliver, but he's cruel. The scene where he forces Oliver to have either Thea or Moira die is still one of the best scenes in the series, and it stuns me how much damage he did to Starling City by the season's end. We also have Barry Allen's first appearance in a great two-parter in the middle of the season, some great material for Roy who was kinda underused in Season 1, and even a bunch of fun one-offs like the creepy Broken Dolls. It's such a consistently strong season of television, easily the high point of the Arrowverse from what I've seen.

5/5 Stars

The Flash: Season 1

While Season 2 of Arrow is my favorite Arrowverse season, The Flash's first season is a very close second, and is still one of the best first seasons a show could have. As a matter of fact, Season 1 of The Flash is so well-done that nothing has been able to top it since. The Flash is much more lighthearted than the Arrow, focused on Barry Allen using his speedster powers stopping these other super-powered metahumans. Compared to the grounded crime drama of Arrow, The Flash feels more like your standard superhero show, but in a good way. Season 1 of The Flash does a great job of balancing a sense of fun with a genuinely compelling main storyline that feels perfectly paced. Not unlike Slade, Reverse Flash (aka Eobard Thawne) is a well-acted and intimidating villain with a compelling personal connection to Barry. As a whole, this show's cast is fantastic and probably even better than Arrow's. Everyone (except Thawne of course) is so likable and the actors have fantastic chemistry with each other, and Grant Gustin is just the perfect Flash bar none. The level of quality throughout this season is also really strong, from the stunning twists of Out Of Time and The Trap, to the lighthearted Rogue Air and Tricksters, to the fantastic midseason finale The Man In The Yellow Suit, all the way to the nearly perfect season finale Fast Enough, one of my absolute favorites. Fast Enough is so unique for an Arrowverse finale because there's hardly any action. It's just the characters talking about Barry making the toughest decision of his life, but the conflict is so personal and emotional that it feels far more impactful than any big superhero battle. Season 1 of The Flash as a whole just clicks. It's perfectly paced with a likable cast, strong villain, tons of great episodes, and a phenomenal ending to tie it all together.

5/5 Stars

Arrow: Season 3

I won't lie, this season didn't make the best first impressive by abruptly killing off Sara Lance during the premiere in a pretty rough instance of Bury Your Gays. However, as Arrowverse redeemed itself by bringing Sara back to life and making her the head of her own TV show, it's much easier to look at what this season did well, and that's the pacing. While Arrow's third season does have an overarching storyline about Ra's Al Ghul (a not too great one), it manages to juggle all these smaller story arcs that range from alright to genuinely fantastic. Sara's death was cheap but the mystery of who killed her was really interesting. The team dealing with Oliver's presumed death during the midseason finale was also engaging, as was the small arc about Roy claiming to be the Green Arrow and ending up in prison, as was the first appearance of The Atom, as were the pretty fantastic crossovers with The Flash. Arrow's third season is so briskly paced and full of entertaining ideas and strong standalones that it does manage to make up for the pretty basic overall storyline. So overall, Arrow's third season may be a big step down coming after Season 2, I refuse to call it one of the "bad ones". It definitely gets worse from here.

3/5 Stars

The Flash: Season 2

Season 2 of The Flash is a bit of a mess, but I still enjoyed it quite a lot. While not as memorable as Thawne, Zoom is a great villain and the reveal of his true identity was a fantastic gut punch. We got a fun two-parter where the cast goes to Earth-2, multiple episodes adding lore to the speed force, a unique storyline where Barry loses his powers, and plenty of truly devastating moments like the death of Barry's father. However, I think this season kind of suffers from not quite adding up to the sum of its parts. The first half of Season 2 focuses pretty heavily on setting up for the Legends Of Tomorrow series, Barry loses his powers in one of the show's most contrived sequences, and the season finale was a bit of a disappointment. Still, I think the heights this season reached is enough to make it one of the better Arrowverse seasons, and it contains some of my favorite episodes in the series. It also contains King Shark, and that alone makes it a masterpiece in my eyes.

4/5 Stars

Arrow: Season 4

This season almost made me quit Arrow, and that's such a shame because the first half was so good! The writers of Season 4 wanted a season that was more lighthearted than past seasons of Arrow, and while it made me skeptical at first, it actually worked for a bit! The first half of this season was fun, with exciting action, a fun Constantine episode that brought back Sara, a likable villain in Damien Dhark, and a great midseason finale with a shocking cliffhanger. However, this season dramatically dropped off in its second half mostly due to one big reason: Felicity. Now I don't hate Felicity nearly as much as the fanbase does, even at her worst she can still be lovably adorkable. However, that infamous scene in Taken where Felicity breaks up with Olivier, gets out of her wheelchair and can miraculously walk again was awfully contrived, and it just got worse from there. The big hook of "who's gonna die" failed horribly when the writers decided to just fridge Laurel since they didn't know who to kill, the fight choreography gets worse, Felicity gets even more frustrating, and it all ends on a finale that while I didn't think was as bad as everyone claims, it was a pretty awful ending. But worst of all, Damien Dhark just wasn't all that intimidating compared to the first three villains. Seasons 1-3 (and eventually 5) work because Oliver is pushed to his limit constantly, but it rarely feels like he's in any danger this season. Everything that worked in the first half of Season 4, the light tone, fun villain, and great sense of intrigue all backfired by the season's end, resulting in an easy pick for the worst Arrowverse season of the bunch (so far).

2/5 Stars

Legends Of Tomorrow: Season 1

While I know this season isn't all that well-liked, I actually kind of enjoyed Season 1 of Legends Of Tomorrow. It's pretty obvious that its biggest weak spot is the myth arc about Vandal Savage and the two hawks, who are easily the least interesting characters in the show. The season also does get to a bit of a slow start, but I actually think the second half of the first season of Legends Of Tomorrow is legitimately really great. Episodes like Left Behind and Destiny develop the main cast a bit more, Leviathan and The Magnificent Eight introduced some really cool time travel setpieces, and the season finale is easily the best out of the three that aired that year. It helps that I do genuinely like a large portion of the cast and the fact that they got set up in previous series means that I already had an attachment to them right from the start. While Legends definitely improves in later seasons and this is easily the weakest of the three first seasons, I don't think it's as bad as people say it is. The first season of Legends is a good time, and the fact that it's the only one where Captain Cold is a member gives it some value.

3/5 Stars

The Flash: Season 3

Similarly to Arrow's fourth season, I was dangerously close to quitting the Flash during this season, but unlike Arrow's fourth season, the red flags were there from the first episode. After Season 2's ending sets up what could have been a really cool Flashpoint storyline, the series pretty much resolves it after a single episode, wasted a ton of interesting potential. Even more, the series introduced its new villain Savitar in the sixth episode, almost exactly like the previous season. I'm not a fan of Savitar, it doesn't feel like he was developed very much because we didn't learn his identity until three episodes before the finale. It's a shame because two of the season's best episodes were post-reveal, and dragging that plot thread out only hurt the show. Even more, there was an irritating storyline about Barry trying to prevent Iris's death that was similarly dragged out to the end of the season. I wouldn't say Season 3 of The Flash is the worst Arrowverse season. Between Killer Frost, Tom Felton's great Julian Albert, Tom Cavanagh directing a legitimately great episode, and Infantino Street being one of my favorite episodes in the series, there is a lot to like here. However, the majority of this season was a pretty big disappointment, and it ended on a dud note with one of the Arrowverse's worst finales.

2/5 Stars

Arrow: Season 5

After the rough Season 4, Arrow's fifth season was a massive improvement and easily one of the Arrowverse's best seasons. It's a fantastic examination of Oliver Queen as a character, exploring the impact he has on people he cares about and his reasoning for becoming the vigilante that he is. It ended up getting us some fantastic episodes like Invasion!, What We Leave Behind, and Kapiushon. Prometheus is also a fantastic antagonist with a strong dynamic with Oliver, and the whole season built up to one of the best season finales ever made. Lian Yu brings the series full circle in a tense and exciting final episode that really should have been the point where Arrow ended. However, Season 5 wasn't perfect. The many new characters introduced as a part of Arrow's team weren't at all interesting, and the season dropped in quality whenever it focused on them. I get that Season 4 was bad, but one of the best things it did was pare down the cast to focus on Oliver, Felicity, and Diggle again. Still, when it was focused on Arrow and Prometheus, Season 5 had some of the best moments in the entire Arrowverse.

4/5 Stars

Legends Of Tomorrow: Season 2

Legends Of Tomorrow's second season made the genius decision of shifting the show's tone to something a lot more goofy. With the dull Hawks gone, Legends is able to go completely nuts with the time travel shenanigans, leading to fun episodes like The Raiders Of The Lost Art, Moonshot, and the Doomworld arc that ends the season. Even more, the decision to make the antagonists the Legion Of Doom was a pretty clever move as it really gave the mustache-twirly villains like Damien Darhk and Eobard Thawne a chance to shine. It's not just hollow fanservice though, I love how these antagonists know they're going to die soon, as it gives them this vibe of desperation. While the lack of Snart is a bit of a shame, Steel and Vixen are both great additions to the cast and feel like they fit in a lot more than the Hawks ever did. As a whole, Legends Of Tomorrow's second season is just plain fun, and it was great to see the series begin to find a voice for itself.

4/5 Stars

I stopped watching the Arrowverse around Arrow Season 6 for a variety of reasons. For starters, I was pretty disappointed with the fact that the Lian Yu explosion only ended up killing literally the least important character. It was such a massive cop-out that already left me a bit soured. I was excited for a lighter season of The Flash, but the first few episodes of Season 4 just didn't mesh with me at all. Legends Of Tomorrow was pretty good, but at this point I was exhausted of keeping up three shows at once knowing that I only enjoyed one of the three. So I decided to stop at Crisis On Earth-X, probably my favorite out of the Arrowverse crossovers I've seen for its scale and emotional impact. For me, that was the perfect place to stop the Arrowverse. Apparently Arrow's seventh and eighth seasons have some good stuff, Legends is still going strong, and The Flash is a bit of a mess, but I just don't have the energy to catch up at this point. Still, I'll always have fond memories of the Arrowverse for helping me fall in love with television.

My ranking of the Arrowverse seasons I've seen would be:

1. Arrow: Season 2
2. The Flash: Season 1
3. Arrow: Season 5
4. Legends: Season 2
5. The Flash: Season 2
6. Arrow: Season 1
7. Legends: Season 1
8. Arrow: Season 3
9. The Flash: Season 3
10. Arrow: Season 4

My ranking of the Arrowverse finales I've seen would be:

1. Lian Yu
2. Fast Enough
3. Sacrifice
4. Unthinkable
5. Legendary
6. Aruba
7. The Race Of His Life
8. My Name Is Oliver Queen
9. Finish Line
10. Schism

And my favorite episodes from each show that I've seen would be: Lian Yu from Arrow, Fast Enough from The Flash, and Legion Of Doom from Legends Of Tomorrow

Favorite Games Of 2021

Well, 2021 is finally over, and not a moment too soon. This hasn't really been the best of years either, but it did end up producing some great games like Psychonauts, the new Ratchet & Clank game, and It Takes Two... that I'm not actually able to play. So to prevent this list from mostly just being Nintendo stuff, I wanted to also list some of the games I discovered this year that didn't actually come out in 2021. I highly recommend checking out all of these games.

My favorite games of 2021 are:

Metroid Dread: Easily my Game Of The Year, Metroid Dread was a game over a decade in the making, yet it somehow managed to completely surpass my expectations for it, becoming one of my favorite entries in the Metroid series. The level design masterfully guides you throughout the game so that you don't get lost while still being open to some really fun sequence breaks, the movement and combat is fluid and fast-paced, the boss encounters are tense and exciting, the art direction is striking, and the story does a great job at bringing many Metroid plot threads to a satisfying resolution. It's a miracle Metroid Dread exists, let alone the fact that it lived up to the years of hype behind it. 

Mario Party Superstars: I hated Mario Party: The Top 100. The lack of content, mismatched music, and questionable minigame selection wasted a pretty exciting premise, so I'm glad Mario Party Superstars ended up being a fantastic course correction. With 99 of the series' best minigames (and Cast Aways) and five incredibly fun and devious boards, Superstars feels like a love letter to the series that has an insane amount of love and care put into it. The graphics are amazing, the controls feels great (once again, outside of Cast Aways), the remixes are fantastic, and the sheer attention to detail shines through from the recreation of Mushroom Village, to the tweaks that make boards like Woody Woods and Peach's Birthday Cake more fun, to each board getting a unique remix for the last five turns of a match. Superstars is already becoming one of my favorite entries in the series, and DLC with some more boards, minigames and characters could be enough to bring it to #1.

Chicory: A Colorful Tale: Chicory: A Colorful Tale is probably the friendliest video game I've ever played. It's a Zelda-like adventure where you use a paintbrush to paint the environment, both for solving puzzles and just simply expressing yourself. There are so many options to use when painting, from brush sizes to stencils, and that's not even going into the remarkable amount of accessibility options. The dialogue has a charm and sense of positivity to it not unlike the Animal Crossing series, but the game still manages to tell a heartfelt and engrossing story about imposter syndrome that can and will punch you in the gut. The artstyle is clean and charming, Lena Raine's leitmotif-heavy soundtrack is fantastic, and the simple act of running around and drawing the environment is just so addicting. Chicory is easily my favorite indie game of the year and it deserved way more recognition than it got.

Warioware: Get It Together: This game was easily the most pleasant surprise of the year, as it was actually one of the games I was less excited about at first. The decision to have each microgame be played by controlling a character had me worried that Get It Together would lack the sense of unpredictability of other entries in the series, but wow, was I wrong! Get It Together's gimmick allows for fun physics-focused microgames with multiple solutions to them, and learning to master all the different characters was a ton of fun. The emphasis on multiplayer and tackling the microgames in different ways adds a lot more replay value, and the different characters makes trying to master each microgame individually a lot more fun and challenging. The artstyle is charming, and the soundtrack ranks as one of my favorites of the year.

Also, here's some of my favorite games that I discovered in 2021:

Katana Zero: I was not expecting to like Katana Zero as much as I did, but this indie gem is fluid, challenging, and a ton of fun. Controlling Zero feels great, and taking down all the enemies in each room without getting hit once feels incredibly satisfying, especially after dozens of failed attempts. I especially love being able to replay footage of your completed run at the end of every stage, it's always fun to have features like that. The pixel art graphics are super detailed, the music is banging, and most surprising of all, the story is genuinely great. I didn't know what to expect plot-wise going into Katana Zero, but the sheer amount of story routes and dialogue options here put Telltale's games to absolute shame. 

The Messenger: I actually went into The Messenger knowing about the game's big twist, but even that didn't stop me from absolutely loving the game. The standard Ninja Gaiden-esque first half was fun if a bit too difficult spike-y for my tastes, but once the game opened up in the second half, I was absolutely hooked. Being able to return to past levels to search for collectibles was a ton of fun, the new levels like Elemental Skylands and Riviere Turquoise are some of the best in the game, and being able to master the controls and traverse entire sections of the game in minutes flat felt really satisfying. It all culminates in one of my favorite final levels in any game ever, a true test of your skills that ends The Messenger on a high note. And of course, the soundtrack by rainbowdragoneyes is absolutely fantastic and makes the game even more fun to play.

Ristar: I got the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass, and while it was great to return to old gems like Sonic 2 and Paper Mario, it was especially cool to discover entirely new favorites. Case in point, Ristar is a platformer so good that I immediately wanted to play it again upon finishing. It takes a simple concept of being able to grab onto pretty much anything and really pushes it as far as it can go, forcing you to really master the controls by the end of the game. The level design is creative, the boss fights are godly, the difficulty curve is great, and the soundtrack is one of the best on the Genesis. If you have NSO, I implore you to give Ristar a shot.

Sin And Punishment: Another gem I discovered through the Expansion Pass was Sin And Punishment, probably my favorite out of the three Treasure games I got to play (though Gunstar Heroes and Dynamite Headdy were great too). Sin And Punishment is a run-and-gun shooter with quirky controls that feel surprisingly natural once you get the hang of them. It's short, but chock full of creative and bombastic setpieces, fun boss fights, and a great scoring system that incentivizes shooting as much as you can. Similarly to Ristar, I replayed this one immediately after completing it for the first time, and now I really want to get my hands on the sequel one day.

Daredevil (Season 1)

With Kingpin's appearance in Hawkeye, I knew it was finally time to cover the greatest television show that the MCU has ever produced. Actually, I don't think that even sums it up. Daredevil ranks among some of the best superhero movies and TV period.

The first season of Daredevil is pretty much a standard origin story in a lot of ways, for both the titular character and major antagonist Kingpin. It's about blind lawyer Matt Murdock becoming the vigilante Daredevil, while Wilson Fisk becomes a crime lord to be reckoned with. Matt has to find a way to take down Fisk both as a lawyer and as Daredevil, which is tough given how Kingpin always seems like he's one step ahead of him. That's probably my favorite thing about this series, the titular character fails a lot, both in fight scenes and in general. But it's also not for a lack of trying either. I never get the impression that Matt is a bad lawyer or a bad fighter, it's just that Kingpin is such a difficult villain for him to take down. Both characters also have their own subplots that range a bit in quality. While watching Matt try to get his law career started is fun especially in the court scenes, his friends Karen Page and especially Foggy Nelson are two of the less interesting characters in the series. Karen gets better, but I don't think I ever end up finding Foggy interesting. Meanwhile, Kingpin gets a romantic subplot that does a great job of highlighting his softer and more human side, as we learn more about his pretty dark backstory throughout the season.

Where Daredevil really excels, however, is in its fantastic production. For starters, the cast is phenomenal. Charlie Cox makes for a great Matt Murdock, as he's able to play both the charismatic lawyer and angsty vigilante sides of the character. He does most of the fights himself, and it's obvious he put a lot of effort into making sure he plays a blind person respectfully and accurately. Then there's Vincent D'Onofrio as Kingpin, who rivals Ron Perlman's Hellboy, Heath Ledger's Joker, and JK Simmons' J Jonah Jameson as some of the best comic book casting ever. Kingpin is still as brutal and rage-filled as you'd expect, but D'Onofrio's performance imbues a sense of tragedy into the character. As much as he is a criminal mastermind, Fisk is also a pretty pitiful figure in this series and D'Onofrio does a great job of making him sympathetic while also making sure you hate his guts. And when Cox and D'Onofrio are on screen together, it's absolutely magnificent. Of course, Daredevil is also known for its amazing fight scenes. While the long-take in Episode 2 is rightfully the most praised one this season, the majority of Daredevil's fights are well-choreographed and nearly movie-quality.

While the whole season is great, there are definitely some noticeable highlights in Season 1 of Daredevil:

Cut Man: This one's a bit of a no-brainer. The hallway fight in this episode put Netflix's Daredevil on the map and ranks as one of the best fight scenes in the series. It's brilliant in how exhausting it is, putting you in Matt's shoes as he slowly gets more and more worn down by the nearly endless wave of mooks. But this episode is more than the fight. It feels like a standalone Daredevil story, with great banter between Matt and recurring character Claire Temple, plenty of scenes outlining Matt's backstory, and a simple plot of Matt trying to save a young boy.

Condemned: After the previous episode ended with city-wide bombings and Matt getting caught by the police, Condemned is an intense outing about pretty much the entire cast having to survive the whole affair. It's an exhausting and relentless episode that all builds up to the incredible first interaction between Matt and Fisk.

Speak Of The Devil: The In Medias Res trick works really well for this episode, as much of the plot is intercut by a brutal and impressive fight between Daredevil and Nobu, one that perfectly encapsulates Daredevil's resilience in the face of repeatedly getting beat up. But the real highlight of the episode is Daredevil coming to blows with Kingpin only to predictably get beat nearly to death and come face to face with Foggy, who now knows his true identity. It's an episode that really kicks the final act of the season into gear.

Daredevil: Saving the best for last, Daredevil is a fantastic finale that finally gives the viewers what they wanted to see. Daredevil gets his iconic costume, and Kingpin is defeated multiple times. Not only is he defeated in court, not only are all of his workers arrested in a fantastic sequence, but we also get a lengthy and fun fight between Daredevil and Kingpin that uses both of their abilities to the fullest. Fisk is the highlight of the episode though, between his iconic monologue, his tragic goodbye to Vanessa, and his unbridled rage towards Daredevil.

Overall, Daredevil's first season is an incredibly well-crafted season of television with a great cast, well-done action, and a strong dynamic between its main hero and villain. It's probably my least favorite season due to still mostly being an origin story, but the fact that it only gets better from here is a testament to how great this series is.

4/5 Stars

Aggretsuko: Season 4

Aggretsuko's fourth season feels it should work more than it does. It brings the focus back to the office stuff, features the side characters a lot more, and has Haida and Retsuko actually try to be friends and get to know each other. However, it doesn't address the show's current fundamental problem: I, and a lot of other people, don't really care about Haida and Retsuko anymore, and the more the writers drag it out, the worse it'll get.

Season 4 of Aggretsuko has two central storylines. The first, and probably the better of the two, is about the office's CEO briefly getting replaced. The new CEO Himura makes a lot of changes to the office that the workers aren't okay with, most notably firing Retsuko's boss. I like this storyline since it gives many of the side characters in the office a lot more focus, especially Ton, who gets a lot of development and depth. Kabae, Anai, and even Tsubone get the most screentime they've had in a while. When the season is focused on its side characters and corporate commentary, it's just as fun and quirky as it's always been. The final arc where Himuro gets Haida to commit fraud does a solid job of heightening the stakes and there's definitely a fun spy-ish vibe to it all, but this is where the season gets shaky. Because Season 4 is also supposed to be about Retsuko and Haida getting to know each other and easing into a relationship, which doesn't quite mesh when one of those two characters gets fired for committing fraud. And that's the least of that storyline's problems.

I was already a bit unsure about the show's central relationship when Haida broke up with Inui, who is literally perfect for him, but I did really want to see them start to get to know each other a bit better. However, the more this season progresses, the more I realized this show doesn't do a great job of convincing the audience that Haida and Retsuko need to be together. The first half of the season has the two be incredibly uncomfortable and awkward with each other. Fenneko and Tsunoda got a lot of great material as they play wingmen together, but the fact that I felt like I shipped those two together more than the series's central relationship wasn't a good thing. The second half was a bit better as they started to feel more comfortable with each other, but then the fraud stuff happened. Haida's insecurities and jealousy of Tadano got frustrating as well, and I came out of the season not really wanting them to get together anymore. As a whole, I think the romantic subplot dragged down the whole season, and that's just a shame.

Still, there were some episodes I enjoyed this season:

Options: It really took them four seasons to give Ookami more than like two lines. No, but seriously, this was what I wanted to see from Haida and Retsuko's relationship all season. Their date this episode was legitimately cute and amicable, and it's a shame we didn't get more of that. Ton's subplot was also heartbreaking, and his scene at the train tracks hit me like a truck.

Rendezvous: Despite all my gripes with this season, I think this was a pretty good finale. Retsuko slapping Haida was honestly all I needed to see at this point, and it does at least seem like Haida has grown a bit after this episode. He willingly quit his job, gets over his jealousy of Tadano, and generally seems to be a lot more confident. As rough as this season was, I do think this finale showed that the show can still salvage Retsuko and Haida, I just hope that this episode's development will end up sticking.

Overall, Aggretsuko's fourth season just didn't fully work for me. While the office storyline was pretty great and I liked the fact that the side characters got more focus, the storyline about Haida and Retsuko's relationship just ended up outlining why the two don't work anymore. 

3/5 Stars

Farscape (Season 4 + Peacekeeper Wars)

Following the dramatic and climactic Season 3 is a tough task, and while Farscape's final season fumbles a bit out the gate, it does prove to bring the series to a fantastic, if sadly immature, end.

After the third season's weird finale, Season 4 starts with the Moya crew separated and John stuck on a dying leviathan, and it continues that same odd vibe. The entire first half of the season doesn't quite feel right, even once the team reunites within the first episode. John and Aeryn are particularly angsty, new member Noranti was very irritating, and there didn't quite seem to be any overarching storylines. There were still some great episodes and aspects of Season 4's first half, like Scorpius joining the crew as an untrustworthy ally, the crew entering Tormented Space, and John working out how to use wormholes, but for the most part, it felt kind of aimless. But that's the interesting thing about Farscape, because that's also how I felt with the first halves of Seasons 1 & 2 as well, and I came out praising the hell out of those seasons. If there's one thing Farscape can do well, it's sticking the landing to the point that it makes the entire season seem better in hindsight, and damn, does Season 4 do that brilliantly.

The second half of Farscape's fourth season is fantastic. Above being just a great streak of episodes, they also payoff a lot of the plot threads planted in the first half. John and Aeryn are angsty and awkward because John fears Scorpius is spying on them, Noranti integrates with the crew putting her quirkiness in a much more endearing context, and biggest of all, John's wormhole experiments pay off with him finally returning to Earth. I never actually thought John would return home, and the episodes that ensue explore how humanity would deal with first contact as well as if John would even have a place back home. I'm not over-exaggerating when I say the Earth storyline is some of the best stuff this show has ever done, and it was probably the point where I realized Farscape might just be my favorite sci-fi series out of the ones I've seen so far. Not to say the non-Earth stuff isn't also great. The underwhelming antagonist from the first half of the season Grayza is replaced by the far more intimidating Scarrans, leading to a fantastic final few episodes where the Moya crew has to save Aeryn from a Scarran base. However, despite this being the last season, Farscape got cancelled, resulting in the finale ending on a pretty massive cliffhanger. And if this was any other show, I'd feel kind of burned...

Thankfully, the story doesn't end there. Rather than getting a Season 5, Farscape got a three hour long miniseries called The Peacekeeper Wars, which aired a year after Season 4's finale. As the title suggests, it's about the Scarrans and Peacekeepers finally declaring war, with the Moya crew being stuck in the middle since both sides want John help them make a wormhole weapon that could decimate the other. This really does feel like a natural end for the series, with all of the major conflicts coming to a big head. On one hand, yeah, you can definitely tell that this was a compressed Season 5. You can even mark points where the story would be split up into episodes, like that bounty hunter sequence. However, while that might make this miniseries a bit rushed, it also makes for one of the most epic series ending events I've ever seen. It's a cavalcade of returning characters and big dramatic moments that still manages to give everyone a satisfying conclusion. Outside of a few differences from the series, it still feels like Farscape in every sense of the word.

Once the Moya crew arrives to Earth, there are a lot of fantastic episodes this season:

Kansas: Kansas is essentially a cross between Back To The Future and The Voyage Home, and is thus easily the funniest episode of Farscape. It's a joy to watch the Moya crew fumble around Earth causing more and more damage to the timeline, especially considering that unlike Different Destinations, they don't end up killing hundreds of people this time. There's also a pretty great subplot that reveals Braca has been a spy for Scorpius the whole time.

Terra Firma: Continuing from the already fantastic previous episode, Terra Firma has the Moya crew return to Earth, but this time, it's actually current day. It just feels so big for John to finally be able to reunite with his family, and we actually get to learn a bit about them. But even more interesting is watching Earth deal with the arrival of aliens, and the conflict between John and his dad over whether or not to disclose their information to the rest of the world. I also like that John realizes he's spent so much time in space that Earth doesn't quite feel like home anymore.

A Constellation Of Doubt: I loved the documentary episodes of Babylon 5, and I loved this one too. Despite being released in 2003, A Constellation Of Doubt is impressively ahead of its time, and is probably even more striking and accurate nowadays. The Earth documentary that serves as the framing device for most of this episode is a cynical depiction of the outrage-fueled news cycle, along with just how unprepared humanity truly is for something as life-changing as first contact. But it also offers a bit of optimism in how wholly accepting the 13-year-old Bobby of the aliens, and isn't just empty filler as it sets John on the path to saving Aeryn.

Hot To Katratzi: I love the main premise of this episode. The Moya crew inciting a civil war within the Scarrans is like if DS9 won the Dominion war by having the Jem'Hadar and Vorta kill each other, and it actually works! Ben Browder gets to ham it up harder than ever before as he manipulates the Scarrans, revealing a bit more of how they work on a political level, and Scorpius's betrayal is a nice hook for the final entry in the We're So Screwed three-parter.

La Bomba: So most Farscape seasons tend to end with the cast blowing something up, but it's usually supposed to be a triumphant event. La Bomba, on the other hand, takes a different approach. With John having brought a nuke on board, there's a lot of tension built around whether or not it does. And not unlike Arcane, when the bomb does inevitably explode, it's absolutely devastating, putting the entire cast in danger and leaving John pretty much traumatized. It also had Braca take over command from Grayza is a pretty cool sequence.

Bad Timing: Abrupt cliffhanger aside, this still is a pretty great finale, and even could have been a great place to end the series. Just like the best Farscape endings, John is forced to make an incredibly difficult decision, that being to destroy the Earth wormhole to stop the Scarrans from destroying it. Bad Timing definitely has that series finale vibe to it, from John's emotional goodbye to his father, to John and Aeryn getting engaged, to Pilot actually disconnecting himself from Moya and going on a mission.

The Peacekeeper Wars: As mentioned above, I loved this miniseries. I'll always wish we had a full-on Season 5, but there's also something fitting about Farscape ending with what is essentially a 3-hour-long movie. The Peacekeeper Wars is grand, episode, maybe a bit rushed, but undeniably huge in scale and scope. To list everything I loved about this episode, I'd have to bring up the wormhole weapon, Rygel's admittedly hilarious pregnancy, D'Argo's noble death, the tense confrontation on the Dominator, Harvey's goodbye, and I still wouldn't even be scratching the surface.

Overall, even despite getting screwed over by SyFy, Farscape ended on a pretty great note. Season 4 got off to a weird and confusing start, but the second half had some of the best material in the entire series. And while The Peacekeeper Wars was a tad rushed, it was also incredibly epic and satisfying. Farscape isn't perfect, not in the slightest, but its willingness to always swing for the fences made for probably one of my favorite shows I've seen in a while.

Season 4 gets a 4/5 Stars

And the Peacekeeper Wars gets a 5/5 Stars

My ranking of the Farscape seasons (+ Peacekeeper Wars) is:

1. Season 3: Pretty much the climax of Farscape, the perfectly-titled "Season Of Death" is a perfect blend of compelling drama, bizarre experiments that almost all work, and bonkers twists.
2. Peacekeeper Wars: An epic, bombastic, and grand three-hour series finale to Farscape that gives the show's big final conflict the scale it deserves. It may be a bit rushed, but it hits all the right notes.
3. Season 2: While its first half is incredibly uneven, the moment Harvey is revealed, this season goes all out and ends on an absolutely phenomenal streak of episodes.
4. Season 4: The first half was once again not that great, but Season 4 does still have the phenomenal Earth storyline in the middle and stays great for pretty much the rest of the season.
5. Season 1: While it takes a while to really find its groove, this is still a really solid first season with a great central story arc that adds up to a fantastic final stretch of episodes.

And my ranking of the Farscape finales is:

1. Die Me, Dichotomy: Rarely has a show been this willing to completely demolish itself, and the audacity and guts of Die Me, Dichotomy's series of cliffhangers continues to astonish me.
2. Family Ties: Though a bit subded at first, this is a satisfying and personal finale that ends on one of the craziest and most visually-stunning series of cliffhangers I've ever seen outside of Die Me, Dichotomy. 
3. Bad Timing: The cliffhanger is a bit cheap but the rest of this episode would've worked really well as a series finale, it has a really great sense of finality to it.
4. Dog With Two Bones: A truly surreal season finale with bizarre pacing, a strange cliffhanger, and an incredibly unnerving tone. I'm not all that sure if I like it.

Favorite Episode: Liars, Guns And Money, Part 3: Plan B

Favorite Christmas/Holiday Episodes

Despite me not actually being religious, I really like the holidays. As a matter of fact, December is my favorite month of the whole year, there's just such a warm cozy vibe to the winter holidays. And as Christmas approaches, I wanted to think back to some of my favorite TV episodes based around Christmas or the holidays. I'll be limiting it to one per show though, so that series like The Office, Frasier, or Arrow don't completely flood the list.

1. Christmas Eve Party (Toradora)

If you've seen Toradora, which Christmas episode is the best shouldn't even be a question. It's not enough that the anime already has an entire Christmas arc, but the ending of said arc just so happens to be the best in the series and is often referred to as one of the best in all of anime. And you know what? I agree! Toradora is one of my favorite romantic comedies and this episode is a big reason why, it's the ultimate Christmas episode. We got singing, we got a party, we got heartwarming moments, tearjerking moments, and a nearly perfect second half. Ryuji comforting Taiga by dressing up as Santa is one of the most wholesome things I've ever seen, only to be followed up by one of the most heartwrenching things I've ever seen as Taiga realizes she likes Ryugi right as he proceeds to ask Minori out. Taiga's breakdown makes me tear up every time, especially considering that Minori actually ends up rejecting Ryuji anyway. This isn't just an amazing Christmas episode, it's a massive turning point in Toradora and a truly emotional rollercoaster. Christmas Eve Party is unequivocally the best Christmas episode in all of television.

2. The Final Page (How I Met Your Mother)

How I Met Your Mother has pulled off some pretty solid Christmas episodes, but there's no doubt in my mind which one is the best. Unlike the rest of this list, The Final Page is a two-parter, and it absolutely earns that length. The whole episode is a build up to Robin and Barney finally getting back together, and it's masterfully done. Barney's plan to win over Robin is intricate and hilarious, especially with memorable side character Patrice involved, and that final scene where Barney proposes as snow starts to fall is just so beautiful. But The Final Page also makes sure to capture the other side of the holidays with Ted's subplot, the fact that if you don't have anyone, it can feel even lonelier.

3. Holly Jolly (Stranger Things)

As much as I love the happy Christmas vibes, there's also something haunting about dark and depressing Christmas episodes as well. Case in point, Holly Jolly is one of my favorite Stranger Things episodes to date for managing to punch me in the gut repeatedly and landing one hell of an impact. Because yes, this is the episode where Barb is confirmed to have died. And it's also the episode where the police pull what is thought to be Will's body out of a lake leaving everyone thinking he's dead, as a tearjerking version of David Bowie's Heroes plays in the background, truly chilling stuff. On the other hand, we also get Joyce finally managing to communicate with Will through Christmas lights, and that's just as jolly as it gets.

4. Merry Christmas, Mrs Moskowitz (Frasier)

So there aren't really any amazing Hannukah episodes out there from what I'm aware, but this is probably the next best thing. Frasier has a lot of great Christmas episodes, but this is my favorite of the bunch, a hysterical farce that forces Frasier to fake being Jewish to appease the mom of his new girlfriend Faye. There are so many amazing bits here, from Niles speaking Yiddish, to Martin acting like a Jewish parents, to Frasier making sure the wine tastes bad (felt that, by the way!). But the highlight is Faye's mom walking in on Niles dressed as Jesus in the bathroom with a giant Christmas tree. Absolute genius payoff right there.

5. What We Leave Behind (Arrow)

Arrow is the king of "Twisted Christmas" episodes, and there were so many amazing choices here, but What We Leave Behind is probably my favorite one. It's pretty heartwrenching just how much things completely fall apart in this one, starting with a bit of holiday cheer and ending with a lone Oliver lamenting the fact that he pretty much ruins the lives of everyone he meets. The episode ends on an inversion of the usual festive Christmas montage, as we see the whole cast have a pretty crummy Christmas, from Curtis's breakup, to Felicity lamenting her boyfriend's death, to Diggle getting captured, to Oliver returning home to find Laurel there... a literal ghost of Christmas past. Seriously, what an amazing finale. 

6. Noel (The West Wing)

Noel is probably the most emotional episode of The West Wing, and a pretty massive shift in tone for the series. Unlike the majority of this series, Noel focuses almost entirely on a single person: Josh. At the end of Season 1, the entire cast was caught in the middle of an attack on the president, and Josh ended up getting shot. Noel finally deals with Josh's trauma from the event, and features Bradley Whitford's best performance in the whole show. So what does this have to do with Christmas you might add? Well aside from the White House celebrating the holiday like normal, Noel reveals that one of Josh's biggest triggers from the event is music, specifically the jolly Christmas music that he hears all over the place. It's heartwrenching stuff, but that "man in the hole" speech ends the episode with a nice bit of hope.

7. Christmas Party (The Office)

The Office is filled with fantastic Christmas episodes, but I definitely have to give it to the show's first. Christmas Party doesn't quite have a storyline to it, rather it's just the cast having a chaotic Christmas Party where literally anything goes. The scene where Michael has everyone swap their gifts is one of the most hilariously cringe-worthy scenes in the series, Jim's secret gift for Pam ends up being a really important plot point in the last few episodes, and pretty much every character gets a chance to shine. It's funny, uncomfortable, and jolly in all the best ways.

8. Chuck Vs Santa Claus/Yippie Kayak (Chuck/B99)

I decided to group these two episodes together because they're both Die Hard parodies, and they do have a lot in common. Both involve the cast being split up, with some characters being trapped inside a store with some criminals, and they both end with a pretty compelling hook for the second half of their respective seasons. Yippie Kayak is a fairly idealistic episode that has Jake live out his dream of being John McClane, brings back the Vulture, contains a cute subplot about Amy swimming in cold water, and ends with Holt telling Terry he could become lieutenant. Chuck Vs Santa Claus is a bit darker, though, separating Chuck from his handlers and ending with Chuck watching Sarah kill a Fulcrum agent in cold blood, easily one of my favorite moments from the show.

9. Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas (Community)

I'll admit it took me some time to really come to appreciate this one due to my lack of familiarity with the Rankin-Bass shorts. However, I feel like I like it more every time I watch it, mostly because of its clever message. Quoted from Abed himself: "The meaning of Christmas is the idea the Christmas has meaning. And it can mean whatever we want." Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas is not only insightful but just as funny as any other episode of Community (Season 4 excluding, of course), and you can't deny how damn ambitious the crew is for making an episode nearly entirely in stop-motion, a medium that takes a notoriously long time to animate with.

10. The One With The Routine (Friends)

I had to include at least one New Year's episode, and I don't think anything quite tops The One With The Routine. As a whole, this is a solid midpoint for Season 6. Joey ends up with his love interest, the majority of the cast gets a cute subplot about looking for Christmas presents, and Ross and Monica have a nice bonding experience. But let's face it, the high point of the episode is easily the titular Routine that manages to be both hilariously goofy and impressively choreographed. Schwimmer and Cox absolutely killed it in this one and it led to an all-time iconic moment of the show. 

Honorable Mention: Lost's The Constant does have scenes that take place on Christmas, and is probably a better episode than any episode on this list. However, despite its heartwarming ending, it's always felt more Christmas adjacent than anything else since I tend to forget it even has that connection to begin with.

Serenity

It's been years since I first watched Firefly, years of being completely unable to find Serenity on a streaming service. Well, I finally saw it, and while much has changed since then, I still thought it was pretty great.

Before I start praising Serenity, I do want to get the Whedon-shaped elephant out of the room once and for all. So every since I wrote my Buffy reviews, it has since been revealed that Joss Whedon is a pretty awful person. I mean, we all knew that he was a jerk and that some of his works like Buffy and "Joss-tice League" had production issues, but these past few years have been pretty sobering, between stories of abuse and toxicity from Ray Fisher, Charisma Carpenter, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jason Momoa, Amber Benson, and even his own ex-wife. It's always a gut punch when someone you look up to turns out to be a horrible person but Joss Whedon hit me the hardest because I looked up to him as a screenwriter. Buffy is my favorite show, and it sucks that it's been permanently stained by this fact. However, Buffy will still be my favorite show, and while his work has been rightfully looked at a lot more critically, I still think Whedon is a good writer. There are some aspects to most of his stuff that hasn't aged well in the slightest, and I've made sure to be aware of that, but stuff like Buffy, Firefly, and especially The Avengers are much greater than him. Since last year, I've been trying to give more credit to everyone in Buffy's massive writer's room, many of whom have gone on to work on amazing series like 24, Lost, and Daredevil. So here's my stance: Joss Whedon sucks, and I won't support any of his future stuff. But, his being a bad person doesn't make stuff like Buffy and Firefly bad as well, and even with that cracked lens, I still enjoyed Serenity immensely.

I think the most impressive thing about Serenity is how economical it is. It manages to introduce newcomers to the show's universe, bring all of its major storylines to a head, and give all of its characters time to shine all in the film's less than two hour runtime while still not feeling rushed. This film basically chronicles Serenity's fight with the Alliance to stop them from kidnapping the psychic River Tam, and is fittingly high stakes and large in scale. This storyline works, especially once we get that genius reveal that the terrifying Reavers were created by the government itself, and the main villain, The Objective, is really intimidating. As much as "snarky meta writing" has been criticized lately, I think Serenity does a good job at not going too far with it. None of the dramatic moments are interrupted by a joke (looking at you, MCU), and there are plenty of calm character moments scattered throughout the film. However, there are definitely some cases where you can feel Whedon getting a bit self-indulgant. This is generally a funny film, but there were definitely some jokes that didn't sit too well with me, notably anything involving Mr Universe. I also found both death scenes to be like they were there more for shock factor than anything else, even if Wash's death did admittedly hit me pretty hard.

On a production level, Serenity is pretty fantastic. The cast is still as great as ever, and Nathan Fillion continues to prove that he makes a fantastic action hero. Summer Glau acts her heart out as River as usual, Alan Tudyk and Gina Torres killed it during Wash's death scene, and Chiwetel Ejiofor is terrifying as The Objective. The Firefly universe does an amazing job of adapting to the big screen, with more detailed sets and environments, much better special effects, and really dynamic lighting. Given how much the Star Trek films can struggle to adapt for its movies, it's impressive how well Firefly managed to nail that transition in its first attempt. The action scenes probably got the biggest jump in quality, though. The fights in the original series were fairly standard TV show fare, but that first chase scene with the Reavers alone was leagues better and more intricate than anything from Firefly. Something that really stuck with me about Serenity was its willingness to go for sheer unadulterated Rule Of Cool, from Wash piloting Serenity through a space battle to River killing an entire room of bad guys off screen. I have a lot of respect for a movie that's willing to be shamelessly badass.

Overall, while it can be a bit self-indulgant with its death scenes at times, Serenity is a worthy finale to Firefly that brings all of its major conflicts to a head while still being well-paced and accessible to newcomers. With a great cast, mostly strong script, and seriously improved production values, Serenity was still pretty gorram fantastic.

4/5 Stars

Farscape (Season 3)

Season 3 of Farscape is one of the gutsiest seasons of television I have ever seen. It takes a lot of risks, many of which truly pay off, and they all make for the show's best season by a long-shot.

As a whole, Season 3 of Farscape is generally about the conflict between the Moya crew and Scorpius. Now that Scorpius has the wormhole technology and is working on trying to build it, there's a bit of a race against time as the crew has to figure out how to stop him before he does something seriously dangerous. Scorpius gets a lot more development and depth throughout the season, and it really starts to feel like this big arc is coming to a close. This season builds up to the fantastic final confrontation in the last few episodes that feels like a series finale in a lot of ways (with the exception of that baffling denouement finale), but that also leads for a lot of room to experiment throughout the first two-thirds of the season. Season 3 does two really gutsy things this season. First, it classifies itself as the "Season Of Death", meaning that anyone and everyone could potentially die, and it works! While plenty of characters die temporarily this season, Zhaan, Jack the Ancient, a John clone, Crais, Talyn, and Aeryn's mom are among the many characters to die for real. It really creates a lot of tension whenever anyone is close to death because it genuinely feels like the writers could kill them off. 

The other big thing Season 3 does starts with the episode Eat Me, which has John split up into two identical clones of himself. Normally that sort of plot point would get resolved by the end of the episode (hell, it was resolved in a Season 2 episode), but it didn't. As a matter of fact, the writers took it a step further by splitting up the crew among Moya and Talyn, with one Crichton on each ship. Most of the middle of the season is spent alternating between episodes focusing on each crew. This could have been a disaster but it managed to work really well. I generally preferred the more dramatic Talyn episodes, but the lighter and more experimental Moya episodes were a nice breather to prevent the season from getting too bleak. This season also had some pretty great subplots for a lot of the characters. Aeryn was probably the highlight between reuniting with her mom and dealing with the death of a John clone she started a relationship with, but there's also Crais having a bit of a redemption arc, Chiana gaining precognitive powers, and the appearance of Jool. I can imagine Jool being grating for some people due to her loud screams and bratty attitude, but I thought she was great comic relief and it was nice to see her slowly adjust to being on Moya. On the other hand, Stark is still the worst, but he does develop a solid rapport with Rygel (who I really liked this season) that makes him not as intolerable as he was last season.

This entire season was fantastic, but these episodes are the highlights:

Season Of Death: Whereas Season 2's premiere was a bit messy and resolved things a bit too easily, Season Of Death was a much stronger opening for the titular season of death. It was tense, surprising, and managed to pay off all the plot threads meticulously place in Die Me, Dichotomy. It also managed to resurrect Aeryn without removing any tension, as now Zhaan is on track to die in place of her.

Different Destinations: Different Destinations felt like Farscape's attempt at making a standard Star Trek episode. We got a one-off alien civilization, time travel shenanigans, and what should be a fun premise about "setting right what once went wrong". But this is Farscape, of course, so Different Destinations is actually a tense and heartwrenching episode where the Moya crew continues to screw up time all the way until the end of the episode where we learn that their actions caused the death of dozens? (maybe even hundreds?) of nurses. 

Eat Me: And if Different Destinations wasn't bad enough, Eat Me is by far the scariest episode in the series to date, as the already nightmarish Farscape goes full gothic horror. The Moya crew having to escape from a mad cannibal that clones people for infinite consumption is truly terrifying, but Eat Me manages to rise above just being a standard one-off by ending with John getting permanently split in two.

Relativity: Relativity was just a great episode all around. Aeryn finally encounters her mom, who is revealed to have killed her father to get back in the Peacekeeper's good graces, Rygel actually develops an entertaining rapport with Stark and dies (at least temporarily), and John and Crais actually get the chance to work together, even if begrudgingly.

Infinite Possibilities: This entire two-parter was just fantastic. Jack The Ancient gets a lot more screentime before getting killed off (hey, season of death!), Furlow reappears and makes much more of an impact after the pretty underwhelming Till The Blood Runs Clear, we get to see just how powerful the wormhole technology really is, Rygel almost dies again, and we get a pretty fun fight with the Scarrans. But let's face it, we all know the highlight of these episodes was Black Tee John's death, a plot twist as heartwrenching as it is genius. John gets pretty much everything he wants in this episode only to get it ripped away from him, while the fact that there's another Crichton on Moya means that Aeryn will have a lot to deal with in future episodes. 

Fractures: As great as it was to see the two crews finally reunite, Fractures was also just a really fun episode. It introduces a one-off crew that parallels the Moya crew, and the whole episode is a neat whodunit that gives the whole cast something to do. It was neat to see another Hynerian, as well as an actually nice Scarran, and the ending where John says he wants to storm the Command Center is an exciting bit of set-up for the rest of the season.

Into The Lion's Den: This was easily the best multi-part episode in the series to date. The first half was tense and exciting, as the Moya crew had to try and acclimate to being in a Peacekeeper base, with everyone conspiring against each other. I like how learning about Scorpius's backstory left John wondering if he's really doing the right thing by trying to stop him. The second part is even better, though, the big final battle where Crais and Tayln completely demolish the Command Center once and for all. After an entire season's worth of death, this was incredibly satisfying. I just think it should have been the finale instead of whatever the hell "Dog With Two Bones" was.

Overall, with the exception of that bizarre finale, Season 3 of Farscape is nearly perfect. It's dark and dramatic while still managing to be experimental and fun, and nearly all of the risks it takes manage to pay off. It builds towards a phenomenal conclusion that ends the show's biggest story arc on a massive note.

5/5 Stars

Farscape (Season 2)

Farscape is a weird ass show. Season 1 was already strange enough, but Season 2 is experimental, ambitious, and just plain bonkers. Not everything it tries works, but I do admire its guts.

Season 2 of Farscape is about John Crichton's descent into insanity. No, seriously. As the Moya crew tries to stay away from Scorpius, John starts going crazy because of a neural clone of Scorpius that was implanted in his brain at the end of Season 1. I'm honestly not the biggest fan of this storyline. It reminds me of the fourth seasons of Angel and Babylon 5 where you know there's something wrong with a character but the show waits for over half the season to tell you what it is. In general it felt like this season got off to a slow start, with an abrupt opening and some particularly rough episodes. However, just like Season 1, the last four episodes are so great and dramatic that it makes all the at times painful buildup worth it. I think Season 2 excels more with its more personal character arcs. Chiana gets multiple episodes exploring her backstory, D'Argo gets an entire story arc about his attempts to save his son, John and Aeryn's romantic subplot gets a lot more attention, Crais actually manages to run off with Talyn leaving us in constant suspense of what they're doing, and the general lore around Moya continues to be uncovered. On the other hand, the inconsistently written and endlessly klutzy Stark gets a lot more focus this season, and I really wish he didn't because he's the worst. 

While the main storyline of Season 2 isn't quite as strong, this season was absolutely carried by its fantastic standalones and creative ideas. Some of the best episodes of the season that weren't at the very end were almost entirely episodic, such as The Way We Weren't, Crackers Don't Matter, Out Of Our Minds, and The Ugly Truth. This season was willing to experiment a lot, from doing a Rashomon episode, to a trilogy of heist episodes, to a body swap episode, and that's just scratching the surface. But despite all of this experimentation, Season 2 was probably more consistently strong than the first all things considered. Another thing I noticed about Season 2 is that all the production quirks from the first are pretty much gone. The music has been toned down, the camera is far less schizophrenic, and those godawful slow-motion effects are nowhere to be seen. While I'd admit that those odd directoral choices did have their own charm, I think their removal was generally a net positive for the series.

There were many really fantastic episodes this season, including:

The Way We Weren't: Pilot sadly doesn't get too much focus, and that's a shame because The Way We Weren't is fantastic. The flashbacks to Moya's origins are pretty crushing, especially once we learn of Pilot's involvement. The scene where he rips himself from Moya is so raw and emotional. Aeryn also had some great material as well, as the episode explores her desire to atone for her past with the Peacekeepers.

The Maltese Crichton: While the entire "Look At The Princess" trilogy was generally pretty good (if a bit convoluted), the final entry was my personal favorite of the three. For starters, I love the absolute gall to have the first third of the episode make Crichton's stone head the MacGuffin of sorts. I also liked seeing D'Argo and Scorpius briefly become allies, John having to give up his son, and of course, the final scene with the compatability test.

Won't Get Fooled Again: This episode was really funny at first. I liked that John knew instantly that he wasn't really on Earth, so seeing him mess with his surroundings was hilarious. I also loved the bizarre versions of the Moya crew, from stoner D'Argo to Pilot on the drums. However, just a few minutes into the episode, Won't Get Fooled Again turns from hilarious to an absolute mindfuck, to the point where I still don't even know what happened in that final act. The big plot point that stuck is the reveal of Harvey, John's neural clone, but he wouldn't come to learn about it for real for another few episodes.

The Ugly Truth: I've probably said this before but I adore Rashomon episodes, and it's especially fun in Farscape because none of the characters are reliable narrators. I don't think the differences between everyone's flashbacks are quite as cartoonishly apparent as in something like Leverage's The Rashomon Job, but you can get a pretty good sense of what the crew thinks of each other. I also like that an otherwise standard episode happens to end with the (temporary) death of Stark. Maybe he should have stayed dead.

Liars, Guns, And Money Trilogy: This entire trilogy was fantastic, at least outside of Stark.

  A Not So Simple Plan: Out of the trilogy, this was the most standard heist episode, and thus was probably the most fun. It was exhilirating seeing the crew panic once Scorpius arrives, and we get some pretty big reveals. John has a fantastic run-in with Scorpius and learns about Harvey, and we also learn that Scorpius is half-Scarran.

  With Friends Like These: I'll always be impressed with Farscape's willingness to embrace its continuity, as With Friends Like These has the crew create a ragtag team of past one-off antagonists in a bunch of really fun sequences. I especially liked seeing Durka appear for one scene only to be decapitated by a surprisingly badass Rygel. It was fun to see the crew frantically try to get rid of all the money with legs, and the cliffhanger where John sacrifices himself for Jothee was pretty great.

  Plan B: This episode had a bit of a build-up to it, but that big siege in the second half was absolutely movie-level quality. It was tense, exciting, action-packed, and shocking, between the several deaths, Natira switching sides, Talyn and Moya destroying the whole goddamn building, and the fact that the crew actually ends up making money. This could have easily been the finale if not for that painful cliffhanger.

Die Me, Dichotomy: What an insane finale. It feels like everything that can go wrong did go wrong, from Aeryn's crushing death, to that bizarre Chiana/D'Argo/Jothee love triangle, to that horrifying cliffhanger that leaves Scorpius with the wormhole info and John condemned to live (what a badass line, by the way). I may still prefer Family Ties as this episode does feel a bit more blatantly like the first-half of an incomplete larger story, but this is easily one of the most bonkers series of cliffhangers I've ever seen. I don't know how anyone could have waiting all summer for the followup.

Overall, while Season 2 got off to a slow start and didn't have the best central storyline, but its creative standalone episodes, great character arcs, and fantastic ending made for a season that was generally an improvement on the first, even if Stark is still the worst.

4/5 Stars

Best Year For Indie Games

The rise of indie games has only been a good thing for the video game industry, as it opens the doors for anyone to work on their own title while also allowing for tons of amazing games that just couldn't be made by a AAA company. Some of my favorite gaming experiences from the last few years were indie games, so I wanted to reflect on how indie games became as big as they are know, highlight some games that I think are worth checking out, and ultimately answer the question: What was the best year for indie games?

2008: With the release of the original Spelunky along with Braid, I think it's fair to say that 2008 was the first year where indie titles really started to gain attention outside of the odd Cave Story. While neither of them would qualify as one of my all-time favorites, the influence of Spelunky and Braid cannot be understated. Meanwhile, World Of Goo also came out and became the headlining title for Nintendo's Wiiware service, which would eventually help to kickstart the 8-bit resurgence with games like Mega Man 9. I still love World Of Goo, it's such a simple but fun title with a lot of charm. Other games worth noting include Castle Crashers, the hilariously difficult QWOP, and popular rhythm game Audiosurf. My personal favorite indie game from 2008, however, is Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism, which just so happens to be my favorite in the series. Between plenty of truly influential titles and one of my favorite games of all time, 2008 was a pretty alright year for indie games, even if it was just the beginning.

3/5 Stars

2009: 2009 wasn't quite as big as the year that came before in terms of indie games, but it still had some pretty notable stuff. We got the visually stunning Machinarium, the nearly iconic Canabalt, and the simplistic Flower. It was a good year for mobile indie games, with the releases of Angry Birds and the absolutely fantastic Plants Vs Zombies, which might be my favorite indie game of the year. But probably the biggest thing about 2009 are actually the indie games that are yet to come. The original Meat Boy came out in 2009, as did the very first version of Minecraft. I wouldn't call 2009 one of the best years for indie games, but between Angry Birds, Minecraft, and Meat Boy, it still holds a ton of importance for at least laying the groundwork for some of the biggest video games of all time.

2/5 Stars

2010: All the groundwork that had been laid in 2009 finally got paid off in 2010. While Minecraft still hadn't officially released, it was gaining popularity by the day. Meat Boy's success paved the way for the release of its phenomenal sequel Super Meat Boy, a game that established the "rage platformer" formula that so many of my favorite games follow. However, my favorite game from this year was actually the inventive gravity-shifting platformer VVVVVV, which did technically have its beta version released in 2009, but I'll count it as a 2010 game. Outside of that, Vlambeer released their first game Super Crate Box, Playdead released the haunting Limbo, and we also got Amnesia: The Dark Descent, an apparently good horror game that I have no intention of playing since I'm not great with that kind of stuff. We still haven't gotten to the point where indie games are releasing nearly daily, but it's another solid year with some really notable titles like Super Meat Boy, Limbo, and VVVVVV.

3/5 Stars

2011: Minecraft has finally released, and so did Terraria! Both games are easily some of the biggest of all time (Minecraft still being the best-selling game ever made), and are still being played by tons of people today. Additionally, Supergiant Games made their debut with the great Bastion. Keep this company in mind, they'll be very important around ten years later. We also had the releases of Frozen Synapse, The Binding Of Isaac, and Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. I don't want to bring up Touhou too often since that series gets a game nearly every year, but 2011 had the release of Ten Desires, which is another one of my personal favorite games. I'll be frank and say not many of these games are actually my cup of tea, but Minecraft alone should be enough to make this another pretty great year for indie games.

3/5 Stars

2012: I think 2012 was the year that indie games started to come out really regularly. We got Fez, Mark Of The Ninja, FTL: Faster Than Light, Hotline Miami, Journey, Dust: An Elysian Tail, Thomas Was Alone, Dustforce, Super Hexagon, and the much improved Xbox Live Arcade version of Spelunky. Fez is now one of the most iconic indie games of all time, but I actually think Hotline Miami had the biggest impact here. While they got their start with the Serious Sam games, I think Hotline Miami was the point where publisher Devolver Digital started to become really well-known. I also think Journey should be worth noting for being just the most beautiful game ever. Overall, 2012 not only had a lot of indie games, but a lot of great ones too. Definitely one of the better years for indie games.

4/5 Stars

2013: 2013 was another pretty solid year for indie games, though probably not as noteworthy as 2012. We got Papers Please, Don't Starve, Rogue Legacy, Guacamelee, Antichamber, and The Swapper. None of these games are groundbreaking, but they're all really solid in their own right. Ridiculous Fishing came out in 2013, and is easily my favorite of Vlambeer's titles for its ridiculous premise. Towerfall came out for... ugh... the Ouya, and mercifully managed to survive the whole ordeal so that its developers could make Celeste in a few years. And we also got The Stanley Parable, which is absolutely genius in its writing and usage of multiple endings. All in all, a solid year, but it pales in comparison to what comes next...

3/5 Stars

2014: Where do I even start with this year? Oh, I know where: Shovel Knight. I definitely remember how much buzz that game got, and I think it showed a lot of people how much potential the indie game scene has. It definitely helped peak my interest in games that weren't made by Nintendo, that's for sure. The other big game for me was Freedom Planet, which is still one of my favorite games of all time. We also got the first Five Nights At Freddy's game, and say what you will, that game got huge. And that's still barely scratching the surface, as we also got Shantae And The Pirate's Curse, Subnautica, Luftrausers, OlliOlli, Threes, Transistor, The Talos Principle, Monument Valley, Nidhogg, Goat Simulator, Octodad: Deadlist Catch, and Duck Game. From those last few, it seems like developers felt more comfortable being weird and wacky with their games this year, which is always a good thing. But I think overall, 2014 was the year of stories. Games like Shovel Knight, Flappy Bird, and Five Nights At Freddy's all became known for the fact that they were made by either a small team or just a single person, and still became successes in spite of it. I think that inspired a lot of people to take up game design, it definitely did to me.

5/5 Stars

2015: Oh, 2014 wasn't good enough? How about 2015, the year of Undertale! I don't need to explain how influential and big Undertale is, and it's still one of my favorite games ever made. We also got Rocket League this year, which is now one of the defining E-Sports games. Ori And The Blind Forest and Crypt Of The Necrodancer also came out this year, and are both fantastic titles, and we also got another one of my favorite Touhou games in Legacy Of Lunatic Kingdom. OlliOlli and Hotline Miami both got sequels, Downwell helped make roguelikes accessible for people who just couldn't get into Spelunky, and I known a bunch of people who are still really into Kerbal Space Program. Not to mention Nuclear Throne, Her Story, Axiom Verge, SOMA, and N++. I think 2014 was more impactful, but in terms of the games, 2015 is easily one of the best years for indie titles.

5/5 Stars

2016: 2016 wasn't a very good year for Nintendo or video games in general, which explains why it was the year I got Steam and really started to get into the indie scene. The most noteworthy game from this year was Stardew Valley, a farming simulator that really took the world by storm. Some big indie titles got their long-awaited followups like The Witness for Braid, Inside for Limbo, and Shantae: Half Genie Hero, my personal favorite game in the series. We also got No Man's Sky, but maybe it's best we don't talk about that initial release. There was also Enter The Gungeon, Oxenfree, Darkest Dungeon, Owlboy, Hyper Light Drifter, Furi, Superhot, ABZU, Overcooked, Thumper, Slime Rancher, and Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight. There was definitely no shortage of great games on offer this year, but I also wouldn't call any of them my personal favorites. Being stuck between the Undertale year and one of the best years in video game history can make 2016 feel a bit lacking by comparison, but it did serve one important role. As most AAA companies were busy transitioning consoles or preparing for big releases in the coming year, 2016 proved that indie games alone could carry a year.

4/5 Stars

2017: There's no sugercoating it, this is one of the greatest years in video game history. Not just for indie games, but for the industry as a whole. Thankfully, the release of the Nintendo Switch and 2017's many big releases didn't limit the amount of fantastic indie titles. As a matter of fact, some of the biggest games of the year were indies. For starters, we got Hollow Knight, one of the greatest metroidvanias ever made. Cuphead finally came out after years of hype and absolutely lived up to it all. What Remains Of Edith Finch and Night In The Woods both gave great story-driven experiences, and Doki Doki Literature Club took the medium in a completely new and terrifying direction. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice proved you can make an indie game that looks like a AAA release, and Hat In Time managed to rival the latest Mario game in sheer platforming prowess. Shovel Knight got its big Specter Of Torment update, Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap got an amazing remake from Lizardcube, and Playtonic released its first game in Yooka-Laylee, which wasn't amazing but it was a solid stepping stone for its much better sequel. Not to mention games like Snake Pass, Slay The Spire, Pyre, Little Nightmares, Golf Story, Nidhogg II, Rain World, The End Is Nigh, and Flinthook. Where 2016 proved indie games could sustain a year, 2017 proved that indie titles could stand up with the best that the AAA companies had to offer.

5/5 Stars

2018: This is my favorite year for indie games. Better than 2014, better than 2015, and even better than 2017. I realized just how good of a year it was when I realized that the majority of games in my Top 10 list for that year were indie titles. Let's get the obvious out of the way, Celeste came out this year, and it's my favorite indie game of all time. We also got The Messenger, Iconoclasts, Touhou Luna Nights, and CrossCode, all of which would easily count as some of my other favorite indie games of all time. Games like Into The Breach, Return Of The Obra Dinn, Dead Cells, and Gris are also worth noting for their sheer critical success. As a matter of fact, between those four games and Celeste, this might be the best year for indie games critically. Guacamelee and Overcooked both got great sequels, Beat Saber became the VR game to own, Yoku's Island Express somehow managed to prove that you can make a pinball metroidvania and have it work, and we got the first chapter of Undertale's excellent sequel Deltarune. Not to mention Moonlighter, Donut County, Wandersong, Minit, Moss, Just Shapes & Beats, and Dandara, among many others I can't even begin to mention. Oh, and there's the fact that Hades and Among Us both had their initial releases in 2018, and would both become two of 2020's biggest titles. Just listing all the games out like this makes it all the clearer, 2018 is hands-down the best year for indie games especially on a quality level.

5/5 Stars

2019: The momentum from 2017 and 2018 still hasn't slowed, and while I wouldn't say this was as good of a year as those two, it still had a ton of fantastic titles. Untitled Goose Game, Disco Elysium, Katana Zero, Outer Wilds, Baba Is You, A Short Hike, Ape Out, Wargroove, Sayonara Wild Hearts, My Friend Pedro, Bug Fables, Superliminal, Gato Roboto, Yooka-Laylee And The Impossible Lair, and Dicey Dungeons all came out in 2019. While I wouldn't call any of these games truly influential, there's such a strong variety that there's bound to be something you end up liking. Personally, I ended up loving Baba Is You, A Short Hike, Katana Zero, Bug Fables, and Yooka-Laylee this year the most. 2019 was also a pretty good year for indie game crossovers, as Zelda crossed over with Crypt Of The Necrodancer in Cadence Of Hyrule, Toby Fox ended up making a bunch of music for Game Freak, and we got Sans in Super Smash Bros. There isn't much else to say, 2019 was just a really solid year for indie titles.

4/5 Stars

2020: Despite the fact that this year has generally been pretty awful, it somehow managed to be a really good year for indie games. The biggest one is definitely Supergiant's Hades (told you they'd be important), a game so unanimously praised that it won nearly every award imaginable. And then there's Among Us, which rivaled Animal Crossing as the quarantine video game, managing to overtake the already really fun Fall Guys in popularity. And say what you will about Genshin Impact, you can't deny it's probably the most ambitious gotcha game ever . Then there's the sequels. Spelunky 2, Ori And The Will Of The Wisps, and Shantae And The Seven Sirens came out this year and they're all fantastic. As for the original titles, we got Spiritfarer, Ooblets, Carrion, The Pathless, Bugsnax, Ikenfell, Phasmophobia, Umarangi Generation, Alwa's Legacy, and Going Under. And those aren't even my favorite indie games of the year! One Step From Eden is my favorite roguelike ever made and is a game I haven't stopped replaying to this day, and Omori managed to barely edge in my pick for Game Of The Year after coming out on the last week of December. Similarly to 2016, while the general video game industry and world as a whole was pretty much in disarray, leave it to the indie titles to carry the otherwise awful 2020 as best they could.

5/5 Stars

2021: After a really impressive streak of fantastic years, 2021 wasn't quite as strong for indie games, though by no means bad. Death's Door, Eastward, Cyber Shadow, Loop Hero, Everhood, TOEM, Here Comes Niko, Demon Turf, Sable, Kena: Bridge Of Spirits, Phoenotopia: Awakening, and Kaze And The Wild Masks all came out this year to pretty great reception. It was also a really solid year for sequels, as Touhou made its big comeback with a whopping two new titles, and both Little Nightmares and Axiom Verge got followups. Personally, my favorite indie game of the year was the effortlessly charming and accessible Chicory: A Colorful Tale. However, you can also tell that this is the year where the pandemic really hit indie developers, as many games ended up getting pushed to be released in 2022, and the long-awaited sequel to Hollow Knight is still MIA. But honestly, I'm fine with getting a much calmer year for indie games seeing as we were getting amazing game after amazing game pretty much nonstop for seven straight years.

3/5 Stars

So what was the best year for indie games? For me, it was 2018. There were so many phenomenal games that year, several of which ended up becoming some of my favorites of all time. But there are other great choices as well. 2014 gave the indie game scene a big boost of recognition, 2015 had the releases of Undertale and Rocket League, 2017 had too many amazing entries to count, and 2020 was a year pretty much carried by indie games. It all shows that it's really worth looking into indie games if you haven't already. There are so many amazing and well-polished experiences despite their small development teams, and you're bound to at least find a few that you'll come away loving. Whether its the retro throwbacks, avant-garde art pieces, or single-developer passion projects, indie games can prove to be even better and more impactful than their AAA counterparts.

My general ranking of indie game years would probably be:

2018 > 2017 > 2020 > 2014 > 2015 > 2019 > 2016 > 2010 > 2008 > 2021 > 2013 > 2011 > 2009

Farscape (Season 1)

I've been a bit exhausted with Star Trek lately, 17 seasons straight of the same franchise will do that to you, so I decided to take a brief detour to a much darker and stranger sci-fi world. Farscape's first season mostly lays the groundwork for the series, but has a great payoff and succeeds at establishing its own unique vibe.

Farscape is a series about an astronaut named John Crichton going through a wormhole and ending up on a Leviathan (basically a living ship) with a bunch of criminals escaping from what is essentially the space police, known as the Peacekeepers. The two major storylines of Season 1 are from John being pursued by the brother of a Peacekeeper he accidentally killed and the Leviathan herself giving birth, but the plotting of this season as a whole is really intricate and impressive. The entire first half of Season 1 is pretty episodic, but the last few episodes of the season bring pretty much all of those disparate threads together, revealing that many episodes ended up being far more important to the overall story than it initially seemed. I'll admit the first half of this season was a bit of a mixed bag, with plenty of unoriginal or bland episodes, but those later revelations at least made some of them better in hindsight. The characters are also pretty great, with everyone being simultaneously likable and morally gray. The whole cast gets at least one episode to flesh them out, from D'Argo revealing his backstory, to Rygel confronting his past torturer, to Zhaan dealing with her dark side. Even the less prevalent characters like Crais, Gilina, and Stark manage to be interesting.

Farscape has a pretty offbeat sense of humor, and isn't afraid to be horny and a bit crass. I don't think every joke landed with me (Rygel's helium farts just grossed me out), but I can't deny that this show carved out an identity all its own. But an even more important aspect of Farscape's identity is its phenomenal production. It's shocking how good this show looks even today. The set design is intricate and used to its fullest, the makeup and costumes are immaculate, and the usage of Muppets for some of the aliens actually works surprisingly well. Characters like Rygel and Pilot blend in with the other characters way better than they would have with CGI, and are expressive to the point where I often forget that they're not actually real living creatures. The CGI has definitely aged the poorest out of the effects, but there are still some moments where it looks great. I especially love how big and explosive the bullets are during the action scenes. The only aspect of Farscape's production that I don't quite love is the at times bizarre cinematography and score. There are some ambitious camera movements and angles that feel kind of distracting, the eclectic music can be just as annoying as it is atmospheric, and don't even get me started on those awful slow-motion effects. However, I do think the last few episodes do a better job of reigning in the quirks of the cinematography and music without losing their unconventional charm. I also think the main title theme is an absolute banger.

Highlights:

DNA Mad Scientist: This is the episode where you start to realize: "Oh, it's that type of show". DNA Mad Scientist is bleak, disturbing, and almost genius. The highlight is the moment where, without hesitation, D'Argo, Rygel, and Zhaan cut off Pilot's arm for a chance at going home. There's no complex discussion about whether or not it's "morally right" like in something like Star Trek, this happens in the first ten minutes and the rest of the episode has the characters facing the grisly consequences. Aeryn's transformation may be gross but it's also a fantastic showcase of just how phenomenal and realistic the practical effects look in Farscape, and overall, this episode does a good job at hammering home the fact that even though you may be rooting for the Farscape crew, it doesn't change the fact that they're still criminals.

Durka Returns: This was definitely one of the more plot-heavy episodes this season. As the title indicates, Rygel's torturer Durka is revealed to be alive, and he definitely lives up to all the hype. Once he snaps out of his Nebari-induced trance, Durka proves to be one of the best Farscape villains yet. Speaking of which, the Nebari are a super fascinating species whose desire for conformity can put even the Borg to shame, and Chiana is a great addition to the cast.

Nerve: This episode was a fantastic game-changer that brought all of the season's big threads together. Gilina is back, the events of A Human Reaction actually kickstarted the overarching storyline of the series, Scorpius and Stark make their fantastic debuts, Crais has been going renegade, Aeryn's stabbing from the previous episode actually put her in mortal danger, we get to see the inner workings in a Peacekeeper base, and John begins his descent into insanity. It's impressive just how much was crammed into Nerve, and to think it's only Part 1.

The Hidden Memory: While Nerve was a bit more shocking, The Hidden Memory was another incredibly eventful and surprising episode. The rescue mission to save Chricton was a lot of fun and led to a pretty fantastic shootout. Gilina's death was predictable and a bit disappointing, but between Moya's birth, Stark taking off his mask multiple times, Scorpius putting Crais up to be tortured, and the many loose ends, this episode was more than impressive.

Family Ties: What a phenomenal season finale. I love just how character-driven and personal much of it is, giving pretty much the entire cast a chance to connect, interact, and resolve their big seasonal arcs. While not much actually happens throughout the first 35 minutes outside of Rygel's betrayal and Crais's defection, there's a real sense of finality and impending doom, especially when it's made clear someone will have to sacrifice themselves. And then the cliffhanger happens, easily one of the most bonkers I've ever seen. Crais stealing Talys, Moya having to starburst away with half the crew, Aeryn being left behind, John floating in space as a planet blows up behind him, and of course, D'Argo going unconscious made for a killer ending to the season.

Overall, Season 1 of Farscape is a pretty good start to the series. Despite a weaker first half and some odd directoral choices, the likable cast, interesting plot, fantastic payoff, and truly impressive production make for a strong first outing.

3/5 Stars