Tag Archives: representation

Review of “Captain America: Brave New World” (2025)

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© James Pyles

Last night, I watched a couple of movies I got from my local public library branch. The first one was Captain America: Brave New World (2025). I have to agree with the opinions of most of the other folks who have long since seen this film. It wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t great either.

Spoiler Alert: Before I go on, be aware there are plenty of spoilers below. You have been warned.

I should say that I’ve never seen any episodes of the TV show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021) nor do I intend to. I’ll assume that the little bits and pieces in the movie I didn’t understand such as who the heck Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) was supposed to be were introduced in that series.

It seemed a little improbable that Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross (Harrison Ford) was President of the United States given how hostile and aggressive he had been across his military career. Then again, there were a few small parallels to our real-life President Donald Trump, so maybe it wasn’t such a fantastic leap.

The movie, from what I understand, was styled after any number of political thrillers involving dark conspiracies. That said, I think Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) did a better job in that arena.

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“Quantum Leap” Not Renewed For Season 3

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The cast of television’s “Quantum Leap,” (L to R) Mason Alexander Park, Ernie Hudson, Nanrisa Lee, and Caitlin Bassett.

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After watching all of season one and several episodes of season two, last November I parted ways with the modern “continuation” of Quantum Leap. It wasn’t a bad show. In fact, some of the episodes were rather compelling and they had interesting guest stars.

But in the end, like so much of entertainment “updated for modern audiences,” good writing and appealing to a wider audience took a backseat to representation, diversity, equity, inclusion, and so on.

Look, like I’ve said before, it’s not that science fiction can’t have a message. Very often it does. However, when the message and the demographics of the characters, actors, and writers are more important than the actual story, the television show, movie, novel, or whatever, becomes lost.

When I “hung up the phone” on “Quantum Leap” last Fall, I had no idea if it would be renewed for a third season. I was sort of afraid it would. That would mean everything that is wrong with shows emphasizing DEI over substance and depth was winning and the days of really great television were gone forever.

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Leap into the Panderverse: The End of Quantum Leap

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Promotional graphic for “Quantum Leap” season 2

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I really thought One Night in Koreatown was going to be the Let Them Play episode for season two of the current version of Quantum Leap starring Raymond Lee and Ernie Hudson.

I thought this because of how the showrunner and writers seriously spun the story, emphasizing only some aspects while ignoring the more important facts.

That episode, if you’ve read my blog or have seen the show, depicted the beginning of the 1992 Rodney King riots. I remember them well, because I lived only thirty miles or so from L.A. at the time.

Four white cops had been videoed brutally beating a black suspect named Rodney King. The officers were charged, arrested, and went to trial. All four were found not guilty. Outraged, the black community rioted and looted, but get this. The primary damage almost all in L.A.’s Koreatown.

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Review of Quantum Leap S2E2 “Ben & Teller”

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From the Quantum Leap episode “Ben & Teller” Ben (Raymond Lee) and Rebecca (Janet Montgomery).

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I just finished watching the Quantum Leap season 2 second episode Ben & Teller, apparently a pun on the magicians Penn and Teller. This also references that in this leap, Ben’s (Raymond Lee) “host” is a seventy-year-old bank teller named Lorena Chavez.

First of all, commercials are back, which is fine.

After the intro, the show opens with Jenn (Nanrisa Lee) at a high stakes poker game, apparently cleaning up. Somehow Ian (Mason Alexander Park) knows where she is, peeks their head in the door, and whispers “Turtle Time.” This is a code phrase Jenn made up in case she became a leaper and needed to identify herself to Quantum Leap project personnel.

It’s sort of like in the 1971 film The Andromeda Strain when project personnel were called to duty with the phrase, “There’s a fire.”

Jenn responds to Ian with, “Tell me you’re not about to say what you’re about to say.”

They find Magic (Ernie Hudson) at a jewelry store asking the person at the counter if the earrings he’s looking at would be an appropriate first anniversary gift. So Magic is married or re-married?

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Review of Quantum Leap S2E1 “This Took Too Long!”

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QUANTUM LEAP — “This Took Too Long!” Episode 201 — Pictured: (l-r) P.J. Byrn as Sgt. Enock Abrams, Aaron Abram as Sgt. Ronny Abrams, Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song, Melissa Roxburgh as Lt. Ellen Grier, Francois Arnaud as Sergeant Curtis Bailey — (Photo by:NBC)

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So, against my better judgment, I decided to watch the season 2 opener of the current Quantum Leap television show titled This Took Too Long!

For S1, I tended to “soft soap” my reviews, giving the show the benefit of the doubt, even though I knew it’s stated intent was to completely highlight representation as it’s top priority, even above entertaining the broadest possible audience.

All of those episodes piled on top of each other had pretty much convinced me to abandon the show at the end of season one’s run. It wouldn’t be the first time. I watched the first seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (and boy am I glad I missed season 2).

For “Quantum Leap” I think I was just curious about why Ben didn’t leap home when Ziggy’s programming said he really should. Of course the real reason is that the show won a second season so Ben (Raymond Lee) needs to keep leaping.

I was also curious after the nature and character of S1 plus the recent writer’s strike, if the tone and content of the show might try to be more egalitarian. That is, would the showrunners stop trying to alienate large numbers of old school television viewers, science fiction fans, and time travel buffs like me. Never mind that I’m too old, too male, and too white to come anywhere near their target demographic.

Okay, that’s probably too much to ask for, but I thought at least the season opener should be pretty safe. After all, you want to re-engage the audience and pull them in again before blasting them with controversial content. Right? Am I right?

Let’s find out.

Oh, it goes without saying that this is a Spoiler Alert so if you haven’t seen the episode and don’t want to know all about it beforehand, stop reading now.

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Science Fiction Featuring Commentary vs. Commentary Disguised as Science Fiction

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Cover art for the novel “Ancillary Justice”

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Oh good grief.

I signed up to receive email notifications from Tor.com because they occasionally offer free downloads of books that I (or someone) think I should read. I opened up one such email this morning and discovered this article: Power, Responsibility, and Revenge: Ancillary Justice Ten Years On.

Whenever the word “Justice” is used in a title or text of a work, and given Tor’s obvious political bent, I start to make assumptions. In this case I wasn’t wrong. Here’s a couple of quotes from the article by Adrienne Martini:

With her first book, (Ann) Leckie recombined the DNA of a space opera into a surprising work that captured all of the gee-whiz of empires in space while at the same time interrogating what such empires were good for.

And…

In that early scene, Leckie efficiently sets up one of the key features of this world: the Radchaai language doesn’t gender people. Breq defaults to she/her pronouns for everyone unless she is speaking the language of the colonized. We only know Seivarden is a “he” because a bartender on Nilt refers to him that way. Frequently, Leckie shows Breq struggling with finding the right pronouns for the languages that require them.

And…

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Review of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

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Poster art for the film “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”

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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) obviously would have been a completely different film if Chadwick Boseman hadn’t died. However, it also would have been a very different film if the role of the Black Panther/T’Challa had been recast.

As it was, the movie started with T’Challa’s funeral. Later in the film T’Challa’s and Shuri’s (Letitia Wright) mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett) tragically dies. Shuri has to bear the burden of both their deaths and indeed, the overarching theme of the film is loss, remorse, vengeance, and recovery.

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Scene from the film “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”

Add to this the story of how Namor (Tenoch Huerta) lost his mother. In fact there’s a scene toward the end of the film of how both Namor and Shuri each “buried” their mothers. Riri (Dominique Throne) recalls her father’s death as well.

We can only imagine the ultimate resolution for Namor and Rini but we see Shuri’s acted out as she has to decide who it is she will be as the Queen of the Wakanda and the Black Panther.

Overall, the film was satisfying. I can’t say it was on par with the Black Panther (2018) but (and this is going to sound bad) it was much better than I expected.

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Season One Wrap Up Review of Quantum Leap

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Promotional image for the television show “Quantum Leap.”

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I won’t lie. What kept me coming back to Quantum Leap each week for the first season was “the mystery.” Who is Janice (or Janis) Calavicci? Why did Ben leap? Eventually that mystery included Who is Leaper X? Why did Ian of the future leap back? What danger is Ben supposed to save Addison from?

But let’s go back to the beginning. I’ll take a selective tour of my previous reviews. It wouldn’t be a very good season review if I didn’t start with my review of the pilot.

Oh, I should say it’s impossible to watch and review this series without delving deeply into the social meaning of the stories involved. Science fiction and time travel are only transport mechanisms for discussing social justice, representation, and inclusivity issues from the perspective of the 2020s.

As the show opens, we are introduced to co-workers and friends including Ben, Addison, the engaged couple, as well as Magic, Jenn, and Ian. Addison is revealed to be the potential first leaper, but the project is years away from human trials.

We see a mysterious woman at the project going over information at a computer terminal and saying, “That can’t be right.” To this day, I’m not sure I know what Janice was talking about, especially if Ben’s leap were already planned and programmed into Ziggy.

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Review of Quantum Leap Ep 15 “Ben Song for the Defense”

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QUANTUM LEAP — “Ben Song for the Defense” Episode 115 — Pictured: (l-r) Isaac Arellanes as Leo Diaz, Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song — (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff/NBC)

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Last night, episode 15 of Quantum Leap called Ben Song for the Defense aired. The synopsis goes:

Ben Leaps into a harried public defender trying to prove one client innocent when everyone else believes he’s guilty, as well as juggle dozens of other case as well as a romantic relationship inadvertently threatened by a corrupt ADA. Jenn is called in as Observer because of her knowledge of the legal system.

Oh, “ADA” just means Assistant District Attorney.

Although the leap centers on a single client of Ben’s (public defender Elena Ramirez), we see Ben trying to juggle several cases feeling as overwhelmed as the real Elena probably did. In the original timeline, 18-year-old Camilo Diaz (Michael Garza) is on trial for the murder of a gang member who was trying to recruit Camilo’s younger brother Leo (Isaac Arellanes). Camilo threatened the gang member and later was seen fleeing the crime scene. No other suspects present.

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The Future of Quantum Leap and Other Stories

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Promotional image for the television show “Quantum Leap.”

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If you’ve been reading this blog regularly, you know I’ve been watching and reviewing the 2022 continuation series Quantum Leap starring Raymond Lee, Caitlin Bassett, and Ernie Hudson. As far as I can tell, the series was originally green lit for eight episodes but was recently given an extension for a full 18. We know the description for the already shown episodes of course, but episodes 9-18 remain undefined at IMDb.

This is probably good since the show has introduced a collection of mysteries such as why Ben (Raymond Lee) leapt in the first place, what his relationship is to the mysterious Janice (or Janis) Calavicci (Georgina Reilly), and the secret around the leaper from the future Richard Martinez (Walter Perez). All that and, in the episode O Ye of Little Faith, Janice shows up as a hologram to warn Ben about something, but he leaps before she can tell him what…or who to be worried about. Eight episodes is just barely enough to get all that started.

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