Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, 109 (Mar. 14, 1993) - “Move Along Home”
Teleplay by: Frederick Rappaport, Lisa Rich & Jeanne Carrigan-Fauci
Written by: Michael Piller
Directed by: David Carson
This is the episode where…
Sisko makes first contact with a game-obsessed species, so they make him and his crew hopscotch for their lives, while Quark places bets because it’s his fault. No one thinks this is funny, and it is treated with the utmost seriousness, but also it’s fine for some reason.
The Breakdown
It’s an auspicious day on DS9 as Sisko and his chief staff (Kira, Dax, & Bashir) prepare to make first contact with an official delegation from ‘the Wadi’, a new species from the still-mysterious-and-exciting Gamma Quadrant. Naturally Sisko rolls out the red carpet, but his guests have little interest in diplomatic formality, and ask to be taken directly to Quark’s bar so they can play his games of chance. What could go wrong?
Initially, not as much as you’d think. …Initially.
The Wadi are quite taken with Quark’s Dabo table (essentially, Space roulette), much to Quark’s chagrin, because they keep winning. Since Sisko is also kinda bummed that his new guests seem to have no use for him, he selects Quark for babysitting duty, leaving express instructions to keep the Wadi happy. Unfortunately, Quark is… well, Quark, so he promptly orders his staff to start cheating so he can win his money back. Predictably, the Wadi call bullshit on Quark's scam, and insist that the only way to reconcile their grievance with him is to play “an honest game,” and they’re not talking about monopoly!
…because they’re aliens and that’s a human thing, but they did bring their own board game, called ‘chula’. With the opening of a box, Quark’s Dabo table magically scientifically transforms into another gaming surface [It’s hard to describe so feel free to reference the weird triangle frame, with multiple bridging levels, pictured above]. Basically, the game starts Quark off with four pieces which are placed near the top of the “board,” and then he rolls the space-dice in order to get them safely down to the lowest level, while placing bets. Simple enough, right? If you said yes, then …come on. Really? This is Star Trek, so clearly there’s gonna be a catch.
You see somehow the game has simultaneously transported Sisko, Kira, Dax, and Bashir (who were all asleep in their quarters) into some kind of virtual/alternate plane of existence (it is never explained). It turns out that the pieces on the board are all avatars representing Sisko and the gang, who are made to participate in a series of increasingly difficult (and seemingly dangerous) tasks. Of course all of this is unbeknownst to Quark, who unwittingly chooses the difficulty-and-nature of each new challenge, while placing wagers on their success.
Eventually Odo figures out that something is wrong when Sisko and his team fail to show up for work the following morning. His investigation leads him to Quark, who is finally brought up to speed, but unfortunately it’s too-little-too-late. The Wadi explain that the only way for Quark to get his people back is to safely navigate them to the end of the game. Naturally, this goes poorly, and Bashir is evaporated (he was kind of being annoying though, so honestly no big loss), and the others all fall down a bottomless cave shaft to their doom. Quark loses. The end.
Just kidding.
I mean, Quark does lose, but Sisko and co. are all perfectly fine, and instantly transported back into the bar safe and sound (somehow). Upon Quark’s realization that his friends (using the term loosely here) were never in danger, the Wadi are like “well duh, it’s just a game, man. But also you’re a douche,” and make their exit. Since a major diplomatic scandal has presumably been avoided on the grounds that no one died, the Wadi are free to go; likewise Quark is also off the hook for... reasons, I guess.
The end. For real this time.
The Verdict
There are a not-insubstantial number of fans who would regard this as the worst episode of the series, and I can see why, but I honestly can’t entirely bring myself to hate on it that much either. The main point of contention for most folk seems to be that the Wadi’s game is ultimately revealed to be harmless after 45 minutes of implying the severity of the situation. It’s a fair criticism, and certainly a part of the reason I won’t be giving this one a high rating, but I think the greater sin is that ‘move along home’ is mostly kinda boring.
Some of my favourite Star Trek episodes are also the most ridiculous, and they succeed specifically by leaning into that silliness. As alluded to in the opening paragraph, one of the games Sisko is forced to play does legitimately involve playing a game of hopscotch while reciting a children’s rhyme. Historically speaking, none of that is inherently out-of-place for Star Trek, and a perfect opportunity for some comic relief, but the scene falls flat, and feels kind of cringy, almost as if everyone involved was embarrassed (except Avery Brooks. That guy always commits). The rest of the episode tries to lean more heavily on traditional life-and-death drama, but even that feels stifled by (I’m guessing) budgetary constraints. Likewise, the sequence with the most impressive set piece (the rocky cliff that everyone except Bashir falls over), drags on for way too long, with the aforementioned lack of pay-off.
But it’s not all bad either. We do get a chance to see a little bit of Quark’s humanity (for lack of a better word) shine through when he believes that he’s responsible for the safety of the players. It’s also nice to see the dynamic between Sisko and his officers in an unconventional situation, and there are a handful of other character moments (which I’ll touch on below) that were enjoyable, if not enough to save the episode outright. Ultimately, there’s no denying this is a ‘growing pains’ episode, but there is something to be said for watching the creative process unfold as the show finds it’s legs, even as it stumbles.
Less “Bleh,” and more “Meh.” I’m giving this…
2 stars (out of 5)
Parting Thoughts
Super-Tech: We need to talk about the Wadi’s technology for a second, because these guys seem pretty stacked, and it’s just sort of brushed over. For starters, they activate the “game board” by opening a small box, that instantly replaces/reconstitutes Quarks Dabo table into an entirely different structure (and then returns it to it’s original state, after they’re done). Then we have Ready-player-Sisko and his team, who are all transported from their bedrooms, and into… somewhere. We know their physical bodies are no longer on the station, and that’s about it. Are they in a holodeck of some kind? Has their consciousness been uploaded into a virtual plane? Are they in some sort of alternate quantum-game-realm? At one point Odo tries to beam over into the Wadi’s ship, hoping to find the missing crew, but he’s thwarted by a bright flash of light that just transports him back into Quark’s bar. However the Wadi do what they do, it’s clear they’re technologically advanced enough to give the Federation a run for it’s money. Bearing in mind, we’re only ever shown how these people apply their technology towards recreational games, but it doesn’t take much to imagine some fairly awesome (and potentially horrifying) alternative applications. At the very least, you’d think they would have made a valuable ally against the Dominion (I mean, who?), but this is the last we’ll hear from the Wadi; Well, at least on this show (they make a brief cameo on ‘Lower Decks’).
Diplomatic Cover-up: I feel like Quark would have faced considerably more severe consequences over scamming the Wadi if this had happened on the Enterprise, but upon further consideration it kind of makes sense that Sisko would let this one slide. After all, the Commander did abandon his guests (who he was responsible for establishing good relations with) just because he was bored; worse yet, he left them alone with Quark! Sure, he’s a lying-capitalist-scumbag, but Sisko knew all that when he blackmailed Quark* into staying on the station! So I figure ol’ Benny decided to keep things quiet, in order to avoid having Quark snitching to Starfleet about how their newly appointed Commander shit the bed on his first major diplomatic assignment. [*it happened in the Pilot, although I failed to mention it in my review]
Parental Guidance may be advised: The closest thing this episode has to a B-Plot, is when Sisko finds out that Jake and Nog spend their downtime together, scoping out the young Bajoran ladies. Sisko has misgivings over this, on the grounds that Nog is both a troublemaker and a Ferengi. Interestingly, I’ve seen a few online threads with people arguing that Sisko is being intolerant towards Nog’s cultural upbringing, but I’m more-or-less with him on this one. Amongst other things, the Ferengi tend to be deeply misogynistic (let’s just say, they got problems, as the show will go on to highlight), so I think it’s reasonable for Sisko to express some concerns about his son taking dating advice from a young man who was raised to believe that women shouldn’t have rights (or clothing). This also nicely plants a seed for Sisko’s own relationship with Nog, as that character becomes further developed.
Security Breach: The previous episode introduced us to Lieutenant Primmin, who was brought in as Starfleet’s Chief security officer (but second to Odo as “head of security” under the Bajoran Provisional Government; gotta love Politics). Primmin shows up again in this episode, when Odo goes up to ops in search of Sisko and Kira. Primmin’s main contribution is when he reluctantly (because regulations) beams Odo into the Wadi ship, and then he’s never heard from again. Like, ever. I’m assuming the original intention was for him to return as a recurring foil for Odo, and was then forgotten/dropped in favour of more pertinent characters and storylines. But according to my headcanon, he was quietly fired (aka “transferred”) due to his critical lack of care and initiative over the disappearance of four chief staff. The dude hardly even sat up in his chair when Odo brought the situation to his attention, which is not a great look. So long Primmin! I’d say you’ll be missed, but I’d largely forgotten you existed in the first place.
AoE2 has a number of systems that are sufficiently compelling in isolation that they have gone on to become separate genres unto themselves. Here, they mesh together, creating pressures on one another to demand the player perform well at each one, while also multitasking between them – a sum greater than the parts. The systems are so gratifying that they all tend to induce a state of hyperfocus in me, which is disastrous, since it causes me to neglect the others. Over time, this caused me to develop a sort of generalized anxiety, where I emotionally associate "satisfaction" with "impending defeat".
I love the television show MAS*H, so I thought it would be fun if I rewatched every single episode and recorded a review of said episode. Join me today along this five year long mission as I review every episode of Season 1
Breaking Late: My Adventure into Breaking Bad in 2022
It should go without saying but the following blogpost contains spoilers for Breaking Bad.
It's taken fourteen years for me to finally watch this TV show and this is my third attempt at writing a blogpost about it.
(23/11/2022) Addendum: This post has taken me around 2 weeks to put together and I've rewritten and reworked it 4 times now. I currently have three, full and completely different drafts of this article. Even now, looking at this one (my best one), I still don't feel that it's good enough. The problem is Breaking Bad is one of these shows that offers so much to think about that it continues to unravel itself the more you think about it. I have to stop now because it's getting silly. This is as much as I'll ever do on the subject. As I write this, I have already seen El Camino and the first two seasons of Better Call Saul and if I don't publish this now, I never will. The long and the short of this post-script is that I'm sorry if I couldn't go into enough detail; There is literally no more room for it anywhere.
I always knew that this was a huge deal but lately, with Better Call Saul coming to a close, the hype around the universe that's been built as a result has been inescapable. There was no way I was avoiding it. I've been putting off watching Breaking Bad for an exceptionally long time but I've done it. Over the period of around a month, watching between two and four episodes a night, I have documented my experiences, thoughts and feelings over the course of the series.
I thought it would be interested to to hold up my late arrival to what is frequently labelled "The Greatest TV Show of All Time" as a document of interest for the avid Breaking Bad fan.
This has taken a very long time to convert my notes into something presentable and after chopping and changing various approaches, this task has been completed. I hope you enjoy and settle in, this is going to be a long one.
Walter White: The "Protagonist to Antagonist" Experiment
The raison d'etre. The whole point of Breaking Bad. The goal. Let's start there.
So I knew the basics of the story structure going into this. Walter White is a chemistry teacher, he gets cancer, enters the meth production business with his knowledge to pay for it and then becomes a drug kingpin. I don't know doesn't know that about this. This is where it becomes difficult for me to judge because I am waiting for it. The changes aren't unexpected but I still appreciated the incredibly carefully structured character arc.
Everything about was growth was totally believable and logical. Especially in the first season because it perfectly demonstrates his thrill of taking a walk on the wild side. This comes full circle in the final episode where he admits that he did it for himself because he enjoyed it. You really get behind the sense of reckless abandon that comes with mortality, the addiction to money and the deflation that Walter feels when he finds out he'll survive the chemotherapy.
All this being said, I found him to be a prick from the very beginning. His interactions with Jesse lead him to come off less bookish and more bitter. Bitter about the situation that he consciously put himself in to use a former student that he has a dislike for to pay for his treatment. I have to say that from the beginning, Mr. White is pretty unlikeable already. He had his moments of sympathy alongside his moments of evil but he reached peak bastard when he killed Mike Ehrmantraut. Everyone surely must love Mike and that moment has to be the pinnacle of his alienation to the audience (More on that later).
Personally, I found that the actual character development of who he was becoming wasn't actually the most compelling thing about his character. It was the consequences of his actions and his efforts to escape, rectify or outright ignore the falling dominoes. His hand being forced to do bad things before slowly seeking them out and relishing it. There's nothing more I can say that hasn't been said before on the subject.
They succeeded in their mission to draw his character arc in the end. I don't think anyone can deny that. I wouldn't blame you if you just scrolled right past this bit.
A Fresh and Clear Attitude to Television
I prefer the filmic approach that they take to make Breaking Bad the programme that it is. My favourite part of watching this was something that I came to realize around the middle of the second season. It hit me that this show hasn't, at any point, treated me like an idiot. What you see is exactly what you get with Breaking Bad and it's one of the few times where you can view that phrase as a positive.
All the tension, the comedy, the drama, the tragedy; it is created organically. There is no manipulation of the audience with obnoxious editing and garish music. Sure, there are musical cues but the purpose is to punctuate moments not to carry the weight of them. Even then, score is used very sparingly in favour of a perfect, hand-picked soundtrack. The outcome of these creative decisions is the feeling that you're actually watching a movie, not a TV show.
The shots and the settings they use are tremendous for building the universe. Especially, the shots in the Navajo canyons and deserts. Junk food for the eyes.
It doesn't over-explain anything either. You don't have to be told every little detail about a story and it doesn't have to show absolutely everything if it isn't essential to the viewing experience. That sums up why I love the directorial style so much. It's utterly economical in it's delivery which adds to the rawness of the telling.
The Neverending Tragedy of Jesse Pinkman
They are so brilliant at forging this fantastic, pitiful loser because it isn't enough to have him simply exist. He is unwittingly way out of his depth so often that you feel sorry for him. A lot of what happens to him is not his fault which compounds his self-destructive behaviour. The changes that character goes through is the most intriguing in the series for my money because Walter White's perception to begin with is essentially our perception because we have little else to go off of. We see him as a meth-dealing lowlife who takes the shortcut through everything but as the show moves forward, it becomes apparent that all he needed was a push in the right direction.
The way they execute Walter White's manipulation of Jesse makes for a delicious kind of dramatic irony that I certainly haven't seen before. Dramatic irony is usually used for creating an air of igorance around the main character to then be instrumental in their downfall. Traditionally Shakespearean, it is used theatrically to create alienation. What sets this show aside from the traditional tropes is that they treat violence and murder with weight and attention. It's not entertainment. It's damaging the main characters, especially one Jesse Pinkman. I loved the gravity that comes with Jesse finally realizing that he's being manipulated and to do the right thing for once in his life. If we're talking theatrical theory, that's his carthasis: survival.
I found that I became frustrated with Walter from the get-go because he was already using him and wouldn't give him the time of day. The moments in "Fly" and "Bug" when Jesse gets his own back on him are incredibly satisfying and he literally has the last laugh in the final episode after years of pain and suffering.
My favourite scenes are the introspective recovery meetings because it's the only time that Jesse questions himself and his place on Earth. The rest of the time, he is being used by Walter White and made to do incredibly immoral and illegal things in the face of his evident moral compass. That's the perfect brew for making a tragic character because the end result is the audience not really knowing what to make of him saving his own skin when it means he is unsuccessful with nowhere to turn. The universe and the cosmos views him as expendable and his fighting of a losing battle makes for fantastic tragedy.
I Hated the Season 2 Finale: The Wayfairer 515 Disaster
This was where things started getting rocky for me and I think the problem is how they built up to it. There all these mysterious teasers in the episodes "Seven Thirty Seven", "Down", "Over", "ABQ" so there is a certain degree of expectation piled on what the meaning of said teasers are. They're all super moody in their atmosphere by playing on your senses. The image of a fire-damaged pink teddy in a swimming pool, the presence of hazmats and contamination connotations create the unsettling, uncomfortable feeling. The mystery is further explored upon when we see Walter's car windshield smashed open and the two bodybags.
When the monochrome filter disappears and reveals the colour and the widespread damage of whatever this mystery has caused, you're fastening your seatbelts because you know it's going to be revealed. You're waiting for it all episode, all season. Then what happens?
Two planes crash into each other in the air, the bear drops in Walter's swimming pool and the episode ends.
Irrespective of the likelihood of the actual moment (which, upon reading, is exceptionally unlikely), it just fell flat and I know what they are trying to illustrate with this. Walter letting this man's daughter die and he returns back to work, ill-prepared and his lapse of concentration causes this crash. My problem with that angle is that it isn't really Walter's fault necessarily. Someone in that important of a job shouldn't be returning to work so soon and if they want to get the impact of the deaths caused across to the audience, then do that.
They didn't. It just happens and it's done. Aside from a few instances where it's referenced in the following series, the actual impact of this supposed huge tragedy isn't touched upon nor does it have any bearing. My point is this: They didn't execute the actual event with enough punch. I don't feel sorry for Donald Margolis because I barely know him. I feel sorry for him that his daughter died and that whole scene is done expertly but him crashing the plane? I've only just this minute found out that he's a traffic controller.
I might get flak for this but whilst credit where credit is due, criticism is where criticism is due. This moment in the series sticks out like a sore thumb. I just wish it wasn't here. I can tell that they want to try and do something a bit different and bit unexpected because the obvious thing to do would be to show Donald angry, a loose cannon, trying to kill Jesse etc. Instead, his reaction is more true to life at the end of the day. The only plane crash-related moments I liked is how Saul Goodman is constantly trying to capitalize on the disaster in the background, long after it's actually happened.
I'll talk more about Saul Goodman when I've finished Better Call Saul.
Gustavo Fring: An All-Time Great Villain
I love, love, love this character. I cannot get enough of Gustavo Fring. The writing of him, the acting by Giancarlo Esposito, the painting of his backstory. All of it is pure genius. Easily the greatest part of Breaking Bad. The best villains are the ones with very good reasons for their actions, ones that create conflict in the minds of the audience. Fring is vindictive, calculated, intelligent and he is one of those characters where you feel that something important could happen at any time whenever he is on screen.
I could gush about how much I loved this character and talk about how they made him a wonderful example of Machiavellian evil but I'll be here all day. So instead, in no particular order, my favourite scenes and moments featuring Gus.
I thoroughly enjoyed Gus' behaviour when he is shown to be working at Los Pollos Hermanos and hiding in plain sight. The best example of this is when Walter is told by Hank to put a tracking device on Gus' car when Mike is clearly watching and Walter is struggling for a reason not to do it. The scene itself manages to be both tense and comedic at the same time somehow but what makes it is when Walt goes inside to see Gus to inform him about what's happening. Fring calmly tells him to "Do it" with a smile and a cursory nod. Like in every scene, all the actors do a wonderful job at portraying human reaction to ridiculous situations but Esposito's malicious smugness is just gorgeous.
Fring's revenge on the cartel is beautifully done but his interactions with the empire undoubtedly reaches a peak when he steps out of the laundromat to face the music with his arms in the air. You cannot help but think that he's cool when he walks through those sniper shots and looks directly down the scope. That's something else about his state as an antagonist, he is frustratingly likeable because of how brilliant he is.
Gus is so good that I feel silly even writing this much about him because it's so obvious that he's a brilliant character. You get the picture. I can't get enough of Gustavo Fring and he is sorely missed in the fifth season.
Hank Schrader: A Study of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
I was pleasantly surprised with the direction that they took Hank Schrader's character. Not only does it differ massively from the regular outlandish cop going against the grain of the police force trope but it subverts your expectations of who Hank is to begin with. I feel like the show really, properly analyses the comparitive realities for the kind of person Hank is presented as in the office, particularly in the first episode. As a result of things that he's seen and done, he changes and evolves beyond just being a policeman with a glock who busts drug dens and batters minorities. The "Not the man I thought I was" monologue with Marie in the bedroom perfects the character they're aiming for and the stark differences between who he's around dictates his behaviour and actions. The outcome of discovering who he is really hiding behind his boardy exterior is beautiful.
I love that he goes well beyond the bog-standard comic relief character and that he is actually a brilliant deducer when it comes down to it. My favourite part of his character arc is the realistic nature in which he questions the clues and the hints presented to the DEA to throw him off the scent. I feel as though the progression is natural. The game of cat and mouse doesn't go in to the staggered, drawn-out territory nor does it venture into ridiculous. Hank isn't a clever individual but a committed and experienced one.
The actual catching of said mouse, I'll go into more detail in my next point. How the fifth season plays out and my reaction to it factors in ASAC Schrader amongst other things.
My Strange Feelings about The Final Season
I'm just going to come right out and say it. This was a fucking weird season in the grand scheme of things. IN MY OPINION.
The first part struck me as especially odd, pacing-wise. The first few episodes struck me as a dwindling. Random characters and elements of the scenario are being stuck on to the end of the previous season which I feel has a pretty satisfying conclusion. Now I get it; Hank needs to catch Walter, Walter needs to become like Gus, Jesse needs to conquer Walter's manipulation and get his comeuppance. Walter ends the series by saying outright that he "won" and I was comfortable with that.
However, there's all this rigmarole with the extremely irritating Lydia, the exceptionally bland Todd and his army of Nazi biker dickheads, something about Mike needing money to pay off imprisoned people in the know. It just felt glued on to the fourth season as a way of continuation, for the sake of Hank finding Walter. I get the point that Walter seeking out this kingpin, empire lifestyle that Gus had isn't all that it's cracked up to be. It isn't that easy to be Gus and I liked that they tried to get across that Walter wasn't realizing that he was trying to become like him. Gus worked for this empire and influence his whole life and Walter is never satisfied with money he's earning.
I also find that everyone in this season is acting incredibly weirdly and out-of-character and I have reasoned with myself that Walter's actions have changed those around him as well as himself. But it still strikes me as odd that everyone in the story is so keen to dismiss this man that they've known their entire lives because he has meddled in the drug industry. I feel as though the only one with real solid reasons for complaints are Skyler because of the danger he's put his family in. But Marie is supposedly angry because she has blamed Walter for Hank's troubles when there isn't really concrete evidence that he had anything to do with Hank being shot. I get that she is supposed to be an irrational person. I get that Hank has been after Heisenberg the whole time and is driving himself stir-crazy with it.
But I find that Hank becomes pretty unlikeable in this season because he seems to only be angry on deadset on catching Walter because it will be good for him. He isn't really bothered about all the damage he's done and all the people he's killed despite him listing all of it off in a confrontation with him. It comes across like he's miffed that Walt lied to him. At no point does anyone in the story go "Can we just hear Walter out? Maybe he has some kind of explanation?" but they don't and it's incredibly infuriating to sit through.
I have to reason that this is the point, however. Conquering. Comeuppance. Consequences. Conclusion etc, etc, etc. Total alienation is reached. As an audience member, not only do you not know who Walter is anymore but you don't really know anybody. The unconscious evil has to be met with unconscious good to be conquered. You're just watching a car crash happen at this point. Post Mike's death, it's almost feverish chaos. The only one you have left to root for is Jesse and that's famously snuffed out in "Ozymandias" - the prime example of narrative alienation. All that being said, it still makes for an unpleasant watching experience.
Walter White's Ending
"Granite State" and "Felina" almost feel seperate from the final season. It's a redemption arc or an epilogue. A full stop to a journey and I loved both of the episodes. Controversially, I preferred the former episode to the much lauded "Ozymandias" - the only episode that I knew the title of before watching because of how famous it is. It's not that I didn't like it or even love it;- Maybe expectations were too high, I don't know.
Anyway, I thought that despite my grievances about the last season, Walter White's conclusion was done expertly. There aren't many finalés you can say that about. TV shows rarely end with unanimous agreement. The cartharsis of him finally admitting that after all this time, he did all this for himself. He just wanted to live a little and any excuse will do to make money. It wasn't that it became clear throughout the show that he was finding reasons to keep going further and further to the point where money had nothing to do with it. It's not enough to just want money and to do anything to get more of it, it's to have an insatiable greed that makes evil.
The cerebral nature of Walter's actions remains present throughout the shooting of the nazis and the threatening of the Schwartzes and that works so much better than White giving up and turning himself in or going out in a blaze of glory. The reason being is that he knows that he has done so many wrongs that righting them is herculean task. The least he can do his enact poetic justice on those who have it coming to them and finally allow Jesse to run free of his own authority and agency.
It was perfect.
Conclusion
To say I was pleasantly surprised by Breaking Bad would be an understatement. Without hyperbole, it has restored my faith in television. Truth be told, I find myself to very skeptical and outright cynical about the medium. My general view of TV is of endless, disappointing monotony of an exploited, decaying premise. All shows die on their feet before they're firmly in the coffin and six feet under. I've started many, many shows but never, ever come close to finishing them. You can only borrow so much of my time. Part of why I tend to write about animé and video games is because there is an ending. Even if you don't complete a game to it's entirety, you still feel like you've experienced enough to put the controller down and still feel positive about it. What I enjoy about animé is that often, there are only one or two seasons of them. Short and sweet. If it's too much, then I won't bother.
Breaking Bad opposes every complaint I just had. It is NEVER boring, it is NEVER disappointing, it is NEVER monotonous. It ENDS. The seasons aren't chocked full of episodes that are a thousand hours long, written by a million people. It starts and it ends. That's it. There is something to be said for concluding.
I’ve never really done a full proper review on this blog, but I was inspired to rewatch the cartoons I was nostaglic of, but hadn’t seen in forever and a half, and chose to start with Danny Phantom to see if it held up after all these years, or if it was a cheesy product of its time. Danny Phantom was a cartoon created by Butch Hartman, who also created the Fairly Odd Parents and TUFF Puppy, which aired on Nickelodeon for three seasons from 2004 - 2007. The show starred Danny Fenton, a 14 year old boy who acquired ghost super powers from a portal mishap. He’s joined by his friends: the meat obsessed tech nerd Tucker Foley, and the goth eco-friendly feminist “ultra recyclo vegetarian” Sam Manson. Danny also has an egghead older sister Jasmine, a clueless father Jack, and a hyper competent badass mother named Maddie who doesn’t get the recognition she deserves. It’s also remembered fondly as the only show in history with a rap theme song that isn’t cringey, and hasn’t aged poorly either. It’s held up well, and the tempo and rhythm feels like it’s pumping you up for some superhero action. Danny Phantom mostly sold itself as a comedy, and while my adult sense of humor didn’t have me splitting my sides, it was still chuckling or smiling while I watched their goofy antics. The slow progression of Danny’s powers was well structured, the characters were pretty likeable, and for the first two seasons, the dynamics were good. The show addressed real teenage relationship drama in a good and meaningful way, especially in the second season. Even antagonist characters like Mr. Lancer get scenes where they’re gentle, soft-spoken, and make it clear to the viewer that they’re not out to get Danny, he just has a bad knack for getting into trouble. Danny Phantom has a truly memorable rogues gallery of villains, and that’s not something you can say for most cartoons. Skulker, Ember, Johnny 13 and Kitty, the ghost bounty hunter, and of course, Vlad Plasmius. The only other cartoons I can think of that aren’t comic book cartoons with memorable rogues galleries is Xiaolin Showdown, the Powerpuff Girls, and Codename: Kids Next Door. Courage the Cowardly Dog and The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy had some recurring villains, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call them a rogues gallery. Yes, the show had its... Butch Hartman-isms. There’s also some things that are a bit squicky now that weren’t as big of a deal at the time, like Danny straight up is shown using his powers to sneak into the girls locker room, and the musical cues play it off like a joke. The show also just shows its time period on its sleeve, like how all the female characters are overqualified badasses, while the male characters all share one brain cell, and Vlad Plasmius stole it. But the tone, characters, and story are good, in the first two seasons at least. Unfortunately, in the 3rd season, it all goes to crap. Danny doesn’t know how his parents will react to him being a ghost, even though he’s told them before and he has seen how they responded to it more than once. Vlad primes the bounty hunter to do... something to aid his plans. But she never gets around to it and they forget that final confrontation between them. Even Vlad goes out like a punk and Tucker is the 14 year old mayor because.... anyway, I’d give it a B- as a collective, and an A- for just the first two seasons on its own. All in all, it’s a solid watch. It’s certainly no Avatar: the Last Airbender, but in an age when serialized storytelling in kids shows wasn’t the norm, I remember rushing home from school to catch the latest episode, and happily watching the marathon of the show before the finale. (for you younger kids, a marathon is when a network airs a long stretch of episodes in chronological order, usually as a promotion or as a ratings trap. It was the closest thing to binge watching before streaming existed.) It’s on Paramount+, so if you want to give it a rewatch to relive your childhood, or you’ve never seen it, I think it warrants a view, as long as you remember it came out in the early 2000s, and lacks modern sensibilities in certain areas as a result.
I can still clearly remember the morning I was given the Nintendo 64 and a copy of Super Mario 64 almost 25 years ago. It was a very dark Christmas Eve Eve morning, but not because it was early, but because a storm was rolling in overhead. If you can believe it, getting this present would cause this to be a holiday to be one of the longest in my life. Every year, a couple days before Christmas, we would make the 300 mile drive to my mother’s family home to share in the festivities of gift giving and in-law fighting. Now, if you can imagine, since we weren’t having Christmas at home, that would normally mean our presents would migrate with the child for whom the gifts were for (ahem… me). However, because I was but a child and was prone to mistakes and forgetfulness (a family trait I assure you), one Christmas I forgot a few of my presents at my mother’s family home, an error in which I would continue to be punished for year after year, for I was no longer allowed to bring any presents my parents bought for me. As we all know, your parents get you the best things, the things you actually asked for, the expensive things. This was the first year of the new rule and I got to choose whether I would open my presents before or after the trip. Because I was 10 and waiting is not something kids know how to do, of course I made the terrible mistake of choosing to open them before we left. And wouldn't you know it, right before my eyes was a brand new Nintendo 64 and a copy of Super Mario 64. All this rich three dimensional goodness would have to be left under the tree in my house, far from my grasp for several days. Like burning your hand on a hot stove, it felt like every second I was away from my new gift was another second with my hand over the fire. The 4 hour drive, which as a kid already felt like 40 hours suddenly felt like 400 hours. No Gameboy, comic book, or cassette tape would soothe my aching soul. Oddly this has become one of my favorite memories, maybe more than actually getting home to play Super Mario 64. However, I haven’t actually been back to play the game since about 1998. Time moves ever forward and I had the good luck to find new games and new friends to play them with every year. While I have replayed many other games across many different, this 64-bit wonder wasn’t one of them. After having waited 4 years since the Nintendo Switch released, hoping to hold out for a “Switch Pro”, I finally broke down and bought the OLED edition, along with Super Mario 3D All Stars and Super Mario Odyssey. When both games game in, I was suddenly struck by how long it had been between the newest Mario adventure and the 64 juggernaut. I wanted to get a feeling for how far Mario has come, how far Nintendo has come, so I decided I would complete Super Mario 64 before moving on to Odyssey. I was shocked by how much I never realized about Super Mario 64. Specifically, it's very creation is the foundation for all first party, 3D Nintendo games.
The first thing I realized about playing Super Mario 64 after being locked in my mind palace for 25 years was how often I played every other Mario game in its orbit. It could be that the game was locked behind the toyish and annoying N64 controller or that games on either side of it were just better. It was the former, and that was something I realized almost immediately. Controlling Mario and the camera was a real blast to the past. About midway through the N64/PSOne era of games, game developers realized how to merge camera, character, and player; how to allow us to move in a three-dimensional space. But you have to walk before you can run, and Super Mario 64 was basically the Microsoft Solitaire of the Nintendo 64 world. Microsoft Solitaire and Minesweeper were game tools built to teach users how to use the mouse to interact with their new Windows desktop. It was the Super Mario Bros. of the Nintendo Entertainment System, a game that taught us to run to the right. It was a tool to teach us, the player, what it would be like to play in a Nintendo’s 3D space. It was also a learning experience for their development staff, training them how to implement and design challenges. The N64 only had a single joystick with D-Pad and “C”-Pad buttons on either side. This limited the design of 3D camera movement, locking character and camera movement to a single axis with auxiliary control to the C-buttons. Primarily, Super Mario 64 was a demonstration to gamers and third-party developers of everything they expected was capable of their system.
This led me to my second realization: the sheer lack of actual world creativity. For as challenging and interesting as the game was, it lacks any real cohesive world. If you imagined you would be playing the Super Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. evolved into the third-dimension, you would be severely disappointed. Or you should have been, but the sheer spectacle and scope of this new game was unlike anything we had ever seen. It was a truly accessible challenge for any gamer of any age. It was a smokeshow meant to redirect our attention from what Super Mario Bros was and what the new dimension could be. A challenge. They constructed over 15 worlds, 3 Boss worlds, and some Sub-world challenges, a series of increasingly difficult stunts that would require us to learn a whole new set of skills that we would use to play every single new Z-axis addition game. Nintendo basically did a service to the entire gaming sphere, to anyone who would pick up their flagship game on their new console; they taught an entire generation to walk so that we could run. In a way, Super Mario 64’s possible evolution was a sacrificial lamb; the next evolution of Super Mario world building was left behind so that they could learn to build and we could learn to play.
This led me to my final observation, one about the Mario-verse as a whole and how it relates to my taste as a fan. Super Mario 64 makes every other Mario game around it much more significant. It spends no time at all building a world you will truly write to memory. Super Mario Bros. for the NES did the job of world building and teaching us to play. With Super Mario 64, Nintendo chose to focus on the end game, to look to the future, knowing they would be making 3D games far into the future, they taught us to play instead of building a real world. They taught us how grass would feel beneath Mario’s feet, how sand would slow him down, how ice would make us slip, how water would cause us new nightmares in learning to swim, and how hard it is to learn to fly. Nintendo has been known to read the future wrong, to be a bit of ahead of themselves, but teaching people to play in the 3rd dimension wasn’t one of them, even at the sacrifice of world building. Super Mario Bros gave us a fictional landscape. Super Mario Bros 3 gave us a theatrical conceit for our imaginations to grab. Super Mario World a literal connective tissue for the landscape of Peach’s kingdom. Super Mario World Yoshi’s Island gave extended character’s real agency. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars an extended universe. They abandon all of this in favor of teaching us to play in a new world. They put their best story building bones on hold just to teach us to lean a stick and turn a camera. It was that important.
In the end, I stopped just short of all the available stars in Super Mario 64 in favor of moving on to my next Mario led adventure. I completed every star in all 15 stages and then some, but still not 100% complete, just like my original file on my significantly heavier N64 cartridge. In my lack of completion I somehow feel more complete. I admire Nintendo’s resolve to learn and teach their audience. None of the other companies are quite as well known or devoted to this level of pedantism. They create for the future, peering into a crystal ball and sometimes getting it wrong. They knew people would want to wear goggles and play in a more immersive world… they just did it 25+ years too early. They knew old people wanted to just point at the TV, so they created the Wii-mote. They just overestimated the overall novelty outside of… older people. Nintendo may steer wrong, but when it comes to Mario, they always read the current correctly, even in retrospect. Super Mario 64 is a well made game with a shallow world that does more for gaming than it does for Mario, but still comes out the other side an incredible feat. Super Mario 64 is a good game.
