The costumes look like decent San Diego Comic-Con cosplay. The commemorative mural on display at a big ceremony in Sabine’s honor is laughably amateurish. The children’s drawings Sabine finds in a bunk on Ahsoka’s ship are so obviously an adult trying to draw like a child that it’s almost a provocation to include them. The opening crawl is a syntactical nightmare. The score is frequently dreadful — a ghastly guitar-driven rock song here, lugubrious and out-of-place string sections there. Two lengthy sequences involve puzzle-solving you normally think of as the domain of the parts of Tears of the Kingdom you don’t like playing.

The performances aren’t helped by the dialogue, naturally. There’s only so much anyone can do with clunkers like “May their courage and commitment never be forgotten” or “Mentoring someone is a challenge” or “Sometimes even the right reasons have the wrong consequences.” (Jesus.) The ne plus ultra of this combination of bad writing and bad acting comes in this exchange between Dawson and Bordizzo’s characters:

“I go where I’m needed.” “Not always.” “You never make things easy.” “Why should I? You never made things easy for me, master.” “There is nothing easy about being a Jedi.” “Well, then I should have made a good one.” “Yes, you should have.” It’s like listening to an AI voice chat program train. 

I reviewed the series premiere of Ahsoka for Decider. Dreadful.

You know, when it comes to this week’s episode of Foundation, I think Tim Robinson put it best: What the fuck?! What the fuuuuuuuuck?!?!

I’ve been OOO but I cannot let the weekend pass without drawing your attention to one of the most insane things I’ve seen on TV in a long time: this week’s episode of Foundation, which I reviewed for Decider.

AI does not feel like the future, at least not the future I want. It feels like I’m watching a robot take a shit. It feels like I’m being forced to consume some kind of vile digital excrescence — a Silicon Valley Salò. Resnick, O’Brien, and Kelberman’s grotesque floating heads and their meaningless drivel got there ten years ago. It’s simply taken the real world this long to catch up, or more accurately, fall down.

I wrote about Live Forever as You Are Now with Alan Resnick, the old Adult Swim infomercial that predicted the vileness of AI to a tee

Foundation is funny, exciting, lyrical, dazzling to the eye, epic in scope, and horny at heart, in service of the refreshingly non-pollyannaish goal of limiting humanity’s next dark age to a mere millennium. Even its hero’s journey involves getting off a few stops early and walking. That’s just one more thing to admire about the year’s best comeback.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Foundation for Decider. More big-budget streaming-network SFF adaptations should feature plotlines in which the supreme leader is in serious diplomatic trouble because immortal robot lover never taught him that the cowgirl position exists.

Long one of the most purely entertaining shows on television, “Billions” has always preferred to let its message about the robber barons who rule our world play out amid the beats of a well-made financial thriller over the more direct and unmissable approach preferred by heavy-handed satires like “Succession” and “The White Lotus.” If what we’re seeing in this premiere holds true for the series’s remaining episodes, though, the show seems to have well and truly gotten religion at last. It will spend its final hours depicting our heroes, and many of our villains too, battling to prevent a dictatorial billionaire from becoming the leader of the free world.

Bobby Axelrod is back in the Billions business and so am I, baby. I reviewed today’s seventh and final season premiere (if you’re streaming, Sunday if not) for the New York Times.

I didn’t even realize Lee Pace wasn’t in this week’s episode of Foundation until after it was over. How’s that for a high compliment? 

I reviewed today’s episode of Foundation for Decider.

Right there you can see that Cloud’s range is astonishing, and this is what the contention that “he’s just playing himself” gets so wrong. Cloud and Fez may have had a similar vibe in casual conversation. But to access the comedic timing required to pull off that blackly hilarious interrogation scene, in which he conveys the largely accurate idea that the Jacobs’ lives are even more fucked up than his own? To convincingly portray a guy so thoughtful and attentive that a good girl like Lexi would grow closer to the town’s top drug dealer than to any of her own girlfriends? To voice the audience’s anguish as the adorable little psychopath Ashtray goes down in a hail of cop bullets? And to seem like exactly the right person for the job in every scenario? Any one of these tasks requires real talent, real effort, real work as an actor. Cloud did it all, and did it so seamlessly and so absent of ostentation that many viewers didn’t even notice his labor.

And when I say he’s the gateway between Euphoria-as-melodrama (complimentary) and Euphoria-as-thriller (also complimentary), I mean it. Take a look at the episode I consider to be the show’s masterpiece, the fifth ep of Season 2, “Stand Still Like the Hummingbird.” It’s a showcase for Zendaya first and foremost, as she first has a mortifying emotional battle with her friends and family when, first at her house and then at Lexi and her sister Cassie’s, they attempt interventions to get her clean. It’s absolutely savage work by Zendaya, as raw and riveting as any of the New Golden Age dramas of yore.

But by the end of the episode, all the manipulation and gaslighting and guilt-tripping is over. Rue’s no longer lambasting her mother for being a shitty parent or accusing her best friends of betraying her or airing out other kids’ dirty laundry to take the focus off of her — she’s on a high-speed foot chase with the cops, breaking into houses, jumping over fences, landing in catctuses, and generally participating in crime thriller antics. Again, the transition is so seamless that you barely realize you’re suddenly watching a different kind of show until you’re knee-deep in some unsuspecting family’s backyard with the police on your tail.

What happens in between? Fez. When Rue has exhausted all of her family and friends, it’s Fez she turns to. When she tries to rob Fez’s grandmother’s meds, it’s Fez who turns her away. She approaches him via the show’s first brand of ugliness, the reality of addiction and confrontation, and departs him for a journey deep into the second variety, the heightened kill-or-be-killed reality of a Boogie Nights, a Pulp Fiction, an American Psycho. Fez is the fulcrum.

I wrote about the late Angus Cloud and his crucial, wonderful work on Euphoria for Decider.

But that’s just it: This a documentary about a current WWE wrestler, produced by WWE. That means you’ll be hearing a lot of the bizarre, cult-like lingo developed by Vince McMahon to describe the product he’s been selling for forty-plus years. For example, both the narration and multiple interview subjects, from Cody on down, use the sanitized word-salad phrase “sports entertainment” in place of “professional wrestling”; it’s a McMahon innovation you will never hear a human being not on WWE’s payroll say, unless they’re doing a bit.

Similarly, the adversity Cody faced during his initial WWE stint — bad gimmicks, bad ideas, writers and executives who refused to listen to him — is treated like some kind of natural phenomenon rather than the result of actual decisions made by people with names and addresses. The result is an onslaught of passive verbs that would make reporters about “police-involved shootings” blush, in which Cody is repeatedly fucked over by figures unknown.

But it’s a documentary’s job to make the unknown known, right? Like, when Cody says his demand to revert to “Cody Rhodes” from “Stardust” after his dad’s death “was met very much poorly” — met very much poorly by whom? Elsewhere, Brandy describes the situation that kept her husband down thusly: “Somebody said to somebody, ‘Not you.’” Who said it? To whom did they say it? Who are the somebodies? If “they” wouldn’t let Cody do what he wanted, who are “they”?

The answer, of course, is Vince McMahon himself, the man who for decade after decade has overseen WWE’s creative decisions on the most macro and micro of levels alike. The documentary treats this man like Zeus, a figure of might and legend who occasionally descends from his Stamford Olympus to bestow his blessings upon the worthy. Cody gets there eventually, but the years in which McMahon — who it’s widely believed bore a grudge against his one-time rival businessman Dusty Rhodes to the man’s dying day, even during the periods during which Dusty worked for WWE — kept him down are glossed over.

This is to say nothing of the well-documented series of incidents in which McMahon engaged in illicit sexual conduct with his own employees, then paid millions in hush money to cover it up. Or about how he “retired” when this news broke, then forced his way back into the company to oversee its sale to perhaps the only potential buyer willing to leave him in charge, Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor — which also owns UFC, run by the similarly politically reactionary and personally abusive Dana White. Or about his Succession-like power plays against his daughter Stephanie and her husband, former wrestler Paul “Triple H” Levesque, both of whom hold (or held, in Stephanie’s case) executive positions within the company. 

McMahon’s conduct (and of his years-long track record of creative bankruptcy; whatever juice the guy once had, it dried up 20 years ago) got me to swear off watching WWE shows unless and until he’s gone for good. Stand-up guy though he might be, the same cannot be said of Cody. All of this is worth exploring in a way an official WWE documentary can and would never do, yet it’s exactly this stuff that would make the doc worthwhile.  

I had a grand old time writing about American Nightmare: Becoming Cody Rhodes and the ways it both does and doesn’t escape WWE’s weird gravitational field for Decider.

I’m about to say the most “I’m a professional television critic” thing I’ve ever said, so please bear with me: This week’s episode of Foundation was a hell of a good time, and I have my reservations about that.

I reviewed this week’s episode of Foundation for Decider.

I’ve often said that all I’m looking for when I go to the theater is “a fun time at the movies,” and the same can be said of television. Transcendent experiences are nice, but being solidly entertained by serious people at the top of their craft for six episodes is, as I said above, plenty. It’s a circle I don’t mind standing in.

I reviewed the finale of Full Circle for Decider.

But you want to know what my big hope is for the finale, more so than wanting this or that character to get freedom or justice or their comeuppance? It’s that the deal at the center of the circle never gets fully explained. The way writer-creator Ed Solomon and director Steven Soderbergh have depicted the chaos that followed from it is good enough for me. Some mysteries are best left unsolved.

I reviewed the penultimate episode of Full Circle for Decider.

If I were to construct a Prime Radiant based on all my knowledge of all the shows I’ve ever reviewed, I’d gaze into its holographic projection of the future and tell you that if things continue along their current path, there are warning signs for what might happen. It happened to Billions, for example. It happened to The Leftovers. Closest to home of all, it happened to the earlier Lee Pace starring vehicle Halt and Catch Fire. What happened, you ask? (“What happened, O Prophet?” is also acceptable.) What happened was that shaky shows with glimmers of promise in their first seasons became dynamite in their second. If I’m not mistaken, if there’s no intervening Crisis, Foundation is on that golden path. 

I reviewed the new episode of Foundation for Decider.

I think I’ve sussed out what Full Circle is up to. Besides being the quintessential Gripping New Crime Thriller, that is. The show’s fourth episode (“Safe in the Circle”) is like a Jenga tower made of lies, dating back decades from the kidnapping at the center of the show, and the characters spend it pulling the tower apart piece by piece. Everyone lies, as (unfortunately) Morrissey once sang. That’s the big idea.

I reviewed the fourth episode of Full Circle for Decider.

Move over, Transformers: There’s a new “more than meets the eye” show in town. Returning for its second double dose of twisty crime hijinks, Full Circle spends its third episode (“Jared’s Body”) revealing one surprising connection between the players after the other. It does so with minimalist precision, serving up just enough information to get the audience on the right track, confident everyone watching is smart enough to keep up. Personally? I appreciate that vote of confidence. Everyone else seems to be getting in on the investigation; why shouldn’t we?

I reviewed the third episode of Full Circle for Decider.

That Andor, a Star Wars television series on Disney+, received an Emmy Award nomination for Best Drama doesn’t tell you much about Andor. Like all awards shows, the Emmys are ultimately about themselves; following their nominees and winners from year to year is less a way to keep track of what’s actually good and more a way to track the values of the Academy of Television Arts & Science’s values and preferences as they change, or don’t change, over time. For example, the acting on the satirical HBO dramedies Succession and The White Lotus was very good, but please take it from someone who covers this stuff for a living: In no way did these two shows alone contain the eight best supporting actor performances of the year all by themselves, unless they were the only two shows you watched.

Similarly, Andor’s nods for Best Drama, Best Directing, and Best Writing — three of its total of eight nominations — are very nice for Andor, a show acclaimed by nearly every critic from nearly every quarter. But please note that the rote exercise in IP management Obi-Wan Kenobi, aka Ewan McGregor’s Divorce Attorney Needs a New Pair of Shoes, also landed a nomination in the historically competitive Best Limited Series category. Put it all together and what you have is evidence that Emmy voters listen when the Mouse tells them something is For Your Consideration, that’s all. It’s just like how the capture of an entire category by two shows that aired on the same network/streamer in the same time slot on the same night while parodying the same kinds of people tells you more about how Emmy voters like spending their Sundays than anything else.

Fortunately, what Andor’s success in the gold statuette realm really means is that we have another opportunity for us, you and me, to talk about just how good Andor is. 

I wrote about Andor for Decider.

“Rip-roarin’” isn’t an adjective I’d use to describe Foundation, science-fiction godhead Isaac Asimov’s heady tome (is there any other kind of tome?) about a rogue mathematician’s plan to save humanity from itself. I do not mentally associate the novel with the phrase “psychedelic freak-out.” Nowhere in its pages do I recall a chapter entitled “The Emperor Fucks a Robot, Then Has a Fight Scene in the Nude.”

And yet, my friends. And yet!

Bombastic, lascivious, arch, gorgeous — “In Seldon’s Shadow,” the long-awaited return of David S. Goyer’s epic-scale adaptation of Asimov’s magnum opus, is all of the above. Written by Goyer and his fellow genre luminary Jane Espenson and directed with verve and grace by Alex Graves, it indicates that this show learned every possible lesson from its inconsistent but entertaining first season. It leans hard into its strengths, shores up its weaknesses, and provides enough beauty — both science-fictional and human-physical — to leave me as optimistic about this show as I’ve ever been. 

And I’m not gonna bury the lede here: Lee Pace has a naked fight scene in it.

I reviewed the terrific season premiere of Foundation for Decider.

Everyone says you can’t make a good thriller in the age of cellphones. Ed Solomon and Steven Soderbergh just said “bet.” “Charger,” the portentously titled second episode of the duo’s new crime pulse-pounder (is that a word?), bakes ubiquitous smartphone usage into the drama so smartly and organically that you’d be amazed anyone ever considered the devices a problem for stories involving mystery and suspense. Maybe people just aren’t trying hard enough?

I reviewed the second episode of Full Circle for Decider.

The Road Warriors never stayed put. Considered one of the greatest tag teams in the history of professional wrestling, the two muscled-and-mohawked behemoths known as Hawk and Animal brought their Mad Max–indebted brand of post-apocalyptic style and mayhem to wrestling promotions across the country and around the world, never staying in one place for very long. They’d dip in, wreck shop, and bounce. It made them superstars.

At the risk of being the first person in human history to compare Steven Soderbergh to a couple of gargantuan ex-bouncers who entered the ring wearing spiked shoulder pads while blasting Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” the director’s career reminds me of theirs quite a bit. Bouncing from genre to genre, style to style, tone to tone, and in this particular case film to television — a medium he visits every few years, directing the shit out some show or other before departing for the movies once again — he’s a journeyman filmmaker in the very literal sense that his filmography is a journey across one boundary after the next. 

Soderbergh’s latest trip to the small/streaming screen, Full Circle, is a reunion with his frequent collaborator, comedy-turned-crime screenwriter Ed Solomon. And based on its trickily plotted, emotionally earnest first episode…well, go ahead and cue up “Iron Man.”

I’m covering Steven Soderbergh and Ed Solomon’s quintessential Gripping New Thriller Full Circle for Decider, starting with my review of the series premiere.

At any rate, presented with a starring vehicle he himself helped build, Tesfaye proceeded to get in that vehicle, aim at the wall, and plow into it at full speed throughout the course of The Idol’s five episodes. I’m not talking about the strength of his performance, which I’ll get to, or the critical and commercial reception of the show, which is irrelevant. I’m talking about the deliberate damage he did to his image as a suave, sophisticated, ice-cold Hollywood vampire. The goofy name, the rat-tail hairdo, the rehearsed pickup lines, the corny daddy-dom sexual antics, the on-screen comparisons to parasitical showbiz-adjacent cults run by weirdly charismatic grifters like the Manson Family and NXIVM, the backstory of decidedly unglamorous pimping and abuse, loudly jacking off in the dressing room of an upscale clothing boutique, getting hammered and trying kung fu to intimidate his inamorata Jocelyn’s (Lily Rose Depp) ex-boyfriend, obnoxiously heckling Joss after she rejects him and plans her next career move without him, visibly struggling not to puke after a multi-day bender as industry bigwig Nikki (Jane Adams) tells him what a genius he is — Tedros, the character Tesfaye created with showrunner-writer-director Sam Levinson and co-creator Reza Fahim, is a stake driven through that Hollywood vampire’s heart, over and over again.

I wrote about Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye’s performance in The Idol for Decider.

Anyway, does any of this resemble how the music industry works? I don’t have a clue, and I don’t really care. For one thing, I don’t think any of that matters much for visual fantasias about pop stardom. Velvet Goldmine changed my life and I don’t think it was a realistic look at how David Bowie’s management screwed him contractually. For another, realism in this kind of satirical erotic-thriller thing is beside the point: I don’t go to Body Double for a look at the adult film industry of the early ‘80s, which I’m reasonably sure involved fewer Frankie Goes to Hollywood performances IRL. I don’t think Basic Instinct is an accurate portrayal of homicide detectives or novelists, and I wouldn’t want it to be. Once it became clear what The Idol was doing — and that what it was doing was good shit, in the vein of much good shit from days of yore — all I wanted, and what I got, was for it to keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it well, as the song goes. It hit an unpleasant note there at the end, but that’s by design. If it were any more pleasant, they’d have been doing it wrong.

I reviewed the finale of The Idol for Decider. I am not in the prognostication business but I’ve read enough recently from sharp writers to lead me to suspect the tide will shift in favor of this very good show.