Category: Technology

Spoilers follow for The Last of Us season two, episode one

The heart of all things The Last of Us, whether it’s the games or the first season of the HBO adaptation, is the relationship between Joel and Ellie. It was brought to life in remarkable fashion by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in season one; the pair’s chemistry was the show’s undeniable high point. So it’s a bit of a shock that they only share a few minutes of screen time together in the season two premiere “Future Days” — and that their time together is strained to say the very least.

That all comes near the end of the episode, though. Backing up a bit, the show resumes exactly where we left off, with Ellie saying “okay” to Joel’s lies about what happened in the season one finale. That episode saw him decimate the Fireflies to save the immune Ellie. The Fireflies were hoping to make a cure for the cordyceps infection that devastated the world, but it would have killed her in the process. “Okay” meant that she was accepting his story, even if she didn’t quite believe it. Fast forward five years, and things are tense — so tense that our hardened Joel is in therapy.

We get to eavesdrop on a session with Joel’s therapist Gail, played by the always-wonderful Catherine O’Hara. I’ve been looking forward to seeing how she’d be used since Gail was revealed in an early trailer, and both her and Joel are having a day when they get together. Joel’s relationship with Ellie is apparently what drove him to meet with Gail, and he’s going on about the distance in their relationship — she barely talks to him, sulks and acts distant, and Gail isn’t exactly impressed. She notes that Ellie is acting like every other 19-year-old acts towards their father, and also says it’s clear there’s a lot more going on between them.

Pedro Pascal and Catherine O’Hara in HBO’s The Last of Us season two

Gail then opens up to Joel in an effort to get him to be honest (and because she’s a few drinks in) and drops a bit of a bomb in the process: Joel shot her husband Eugene (a character from The Last of Us Part II who we never met in the game). She says she understood that he had to do it — an implication but not confirmation that Eugene had been infected — but can’t forgive him for the way she found out and can’t help but hate him for what he did. Not the kind of thing you usually hear from your therapist, but that’s The Last of Us for you. She then gets Joel to tearfully admit he did something to Ellie, but when she asks if he hurt her, he responds by saying he saved her and then gets the hell out of her house. Season one showed Joel as a more vulnerable person than his game counterpart, a change that benefitted him given the expanded drama and depth of the show, and I’m glad season two is emphasizing that in a way that’s pretty unconventional for the post-apocalypse world.

We also get a hint at the discord between Joel and Ellie via Dina, a new character introduced as Ellie’s best friend through a conversation she has with Joel. The two of them are getting along just fine; Joel even calls her “kiddo,” showing a similar dad-like affection for Dina that he usually does with Ellie. After a little chat she asks him point blank why Ellie’s angry with him, and he responds with more vagaries about the two of them figuring out what it’s like being a father and daughter at her age while asking Dina to keep the therapy sessions he’s having a secret — his therapy-speak when discussing how he’s dealing with everything was just too on the nose for her to miss.

Isabela Merced and Bella Ramsey in The Last of Us season two

But the most pivotal scene in this exposition-heavy episode is the New Year’s Eve party where Dina and Ellie share a dance, share a kiss and get shouted at by the drunk town bigot. Just as Ellie is about to treat him like a clicker, Joel intercedes, shoves Seth to the ground and asks if she’s okay — which gets him a disgusted look and verbal smackdown from Ellie, after which he slinks away in decidedly un-Joel fashion.

Things are decidedly unwell between the pair, and while it’s an intriguing note to start the story on, it’s also hard not to be disappointed about the lack of time together for Pascal and Ramsey. Having them at odds is a totally reasonable story beat — even if she was a normal 19-year-old, they’d be having their share of challenges. But the loss of their connection and the lack of interactions between the two put a subdued mood over everything, something that episode writer / director and showrunner Craig Mazin certainly intended and will exploit throughout the season.

Mazin also paid tribute to the game in some lovely ways in this episode, particularly with the town party scene. Right from the start of season one, I expected to see more scenes from the game done nearly note-for-note in the show, and my expectations have been largely defied throughout, right from the start of the series’ first episode. It’s been clear that the goal of the show is not to reproduce all of the game’s iconic scenes but expand on it while still picking the right moments to deploy some tributes to the source material. The party scene is a perfect example, starting off with a shot of Ellie’s back as she looks over the merriment in front of her; what follows is nearly identical to the pivotal game scene in dialog, set design and framing. What is different, though, is the timing — we’re getting this right off the bat rather than much later in the story as you’d find in the game.

Similarly, the episode’s other most significant scene takes place right at the beginning. After that quick flashback, we’re immediately introduced to Abby, one of the second game’s playable characters. We learn that she and her friends are survivors of Joel’s Firefly massacre at the hospital in Utah, and that Abby in particular is keen on revenge. Mazin and co-showrunner Neil Druckmann have already discussed how they wanted to introduce Abby and get into her motivations quicker in the show than in the game, largely because players build a relationship with her through gameplay. In this case, though, we already know that Abby is after Joel, and the episode ends with her crew reaching Jackson. While “Future Days” focused more on scene-setting than action (with the exception of some pretty tense scenes of Ellie and Dina against some Infected), things are clearly going to ratchet up next week — and not just with Abby, as the show also teased a major Infected threat as well. Let’s get those flamethrowers ready for next Sunday.

Infected score: 6/10

One of the main complaints from fans of the video games during season one was a relative lack of Infected. The showrunners say they’ve changed things up in season two — let’s see if they’re sticking to their word.

Episode one was mostly an exposition episode without a ton of action, but we did see Ellie and Dina stealthily take down a pair of Clickers. But the most exciting bit was seeing a Stalker in action for the first time in the show. It had Ellie completely fooled, even giving her another bite that she had to hide from Dina. Here’s hoping we see more of these creepers as the season goes on. And, of course, the threat of tendrils lurking in the pipe in the middle of Jackson promises bigger problems soon, but we’re not there yet. I’m giving this episode a 6 of 10 — there wasn’t all that much action, but the stalker reveal was intense enough to up this episode’s rating.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-last-of-us-season-two-premiere-future-days-highlights-the-fracture-between-ellie-and-joel-020029565.html?src=rss 

Spoilers for “The Robot Revolution.”

The start of any season of Doctor Who is important, doubly so when there’s a new co-star to introduce. “The Robot Revolution” has to get us to fall in love with Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), ensnare new fans and keep existing ones hooked. Especially since it’s the second of two series that Disney paid for, meaning it’s got to do well enough to keep the money flowing.

We open “17 years ago” with Belinda Chandra staring at the stars next to her boyfriend, Alan Budd (Jonny Green). It’s an awkward teenage date, with Alan clearly trying to win the heart of his beau by buying her one of those star adoption certificates. In 2025, Belinda is now a nurse at a busy London hospital where, in the background, the Doctor is searching for her.

Belinda goes home to bed, and we see that she’s got the star ownership certificate framed on her wall. But she’s rudely awoken by a squad of retro-futuristic ‘50s robots in a Tintin rocket who have come to abduct both her and the certificate. The Doctor reaches her home just in time to see the rocket take off, and cue the opening credits.

The certificate wasn’t a gag present, and she is actually queen of the planet BelindaChandra, populated by BelindaChandrians (I’m calling them humans from now on). The Doctor gives chase in the TARDIS but both the rocket and TARDIS get caught in a vaguely-defined time fissure. When Belinda arrives, she’s greeted by the human Sasha55, who tells her the robots are in charge, having overthrown and subjugated the people in a bloody uprising a decade prior.

          “Oh, this is a bit like Jupiter Ascending,” I wrote in my notes.

Belinda is taken to a throne room where she’s told that she must merge with the planet’s evil ruling supercomputer, the AI Generator. AI Generator, all skull shapes and Tesla coils, intends to bond with Belinda. She is shown an animated demonstration of her fate, as she is wrapped in machine parts and made into an unthinking cyborg.

          “Oh, that’s like the scary bit from Superman III,” I wrote in my notes.

Who’s been lurking in the background of the scene all along? The Doctor, who has adopted the title of Planetary Historian. (Thanks to the time fissure, he arrived here six months ahead of the rocket, the Robots seized the TARDIS and he’s been working with the rebellion. He’s even got a new companion, Sasha55, who he’s promised to take to the stars when this is all over.) He tells Belinda the robots can’t, for some reason, hear every ninth word spoken, and gives her a coded message telling her he, and the rebellion, are here to rescue her. In the ensuing fight, Sasha55 is vaporized, much to the Doctor’s admittedly brief horror and grief.

The surviving rebels, along with a little Roomba bot assigned to clean Queen Belinda’s pathway…

          “Oh, like the floor-cleaning robot M-O from Wall-E,” I wrote in my notes.

… escape to a teleporter, after which the Doctor disables the Roomba to ensure the robots can’t track them down, then kisses the ‘bot by way of apology. Then comes time for the episode to stop while we see the Doctor and Belinda interact properly for the first time. The Doctor was told about Belinda’s plight by someone from their future, and he can’t say more lest he muddle the timelines.

The time fracture both vessels passed through has caused plenty of time-bending issues, like the fact the robots have their own copy of Belinda’s star certificate. But it’s not a copy, it’s the same object from another point in time, and nobody knows how or why they have it. Belinda, like Ruby Sunday before her, is trope-aware enough to know that two of the same object from different points in time cannot occupy the same space, lest it cause an explosion.

           “Oh, like in Timecop!,” I wrote in my notes.

There are wounded at the base, and Belinda instantly kicks into nurse mode, grabbing IVs and treating patients. She’s quick to take charge and has no patience for nonsense, quick to defend herself from any hint of condescension when the Doctor suggests something “timey-wimey” is going on. She refuses to allow anyone to fight her battles for her and is determined to grab the narrative and shape it her way, no matter the cost. So, she sneaks off, reactivates the Roomba and offers herself to the robots in exchange for them sparing the lives of the rebels.

Belinda and the Doctor are taken to meet the AI Generator which turns out to be… the AL Generator. When Belinda was kidnapped by the robots, she mentioned her ex Alan had bought the certificate, and so they went to kidnap him as well. But the time fracture meant Alan arrived a decade earlier, fused with the machine (becoming a creepy cyborg) and started the robot uprising.

Even so, Belinda’s happy to sacrifice herself to him until she spots Alan holding his copy of the star certificate. She opts to Timecop the two pieces of paper together, causing a big timey-wimey explosion that only the Doctor can pull her out of. Belinda is safe, but the Doctor mentions that he’s now intertwined with Belinda’s timestream. Alan, meanwhile, has been regressed to a sperm on the floor that the Roomba bot quickly mops away.

Reunited with the TARDIS, the Doctor scans Belinda and reveals he’s already met her descendant — Mundy Flynn (also Varada Sethu) from last season’s “Boom.” Belinda may be curious as to how someone that far removed from her may be identical, but she’s not embracing the mystery. She’s angry with the Doctor for scanning her without consent and that he’s treating her like a puzzle to be solved.

Having seen Sasha55 die, she knows trekking around with the Doctor is dangerous, and wants to get back to May 24, 2025. But the TARDIS won’t land on present-day Earth, and even the Cloister Bell begins ringing a warning. They open the TARDIS doors to see empty space before the Doctor decides to take her back home “the long way round.”

Once the ship disappears, a series of objects start to float in front of the camera: A smashed up black cab, the twisted wreckage of the Eiffel Tower, Belinda’s star adoption certificate and a calendar with all the days in May but the 25th ticked off. Uh-oh.

It’s a lot to get through in such a short episode

Like a lot of Disney-era Who, “The Robot Revolution” feels overstuffed to the point of bursting. On one hand, nothing overstays its welcome. On the other, it feels like the show is burning through a movie’s worth of plot on fast-forward. It’s hard to get a tangible sense of the stakes given how rushed everything is, and there’s a lot of telling, rather than showing. We’re told the planet is under the brutal thumb of an evil overlord but it plays out as little red ships firing at buildings in the digital matte paintings. We’re told Alan is a creep but we never really get any sense of that until after he’s revealed as the villain. We’re told the Doctor is operating on instructions from a figure from his own future, but it’d be nice if some of this was depicted.

Davies was pivotal in reviving Doctor Who and building the cultural juggernaut it became under his leadership. His role in the show’s history is secure but, even so, his Disney-era series seem to be in thrall to the work of his own successor, Steven Moffat. “The Robot Revolution” features a macguffin found inside a mundane trinket, a split narrative and time-bending shenanigans. It’s not that Moffat owns these ideas but you can almost feel Davies trying to bend his less formal, more character-driven style into something else. A cynic might suggest Davies is reacting to the slight of not having a single credited episode in Doctor Who Magazine’s most recent poll of the series’ greatest, while Moffat has five.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the slightly frantic, gappy nature of this script is a deliberate ploy to lay the framework for the rest of the season. But, even so, you can feel a degree of straining for a storytelling model that doesn’t quite work.

If the script is the weakest part of the episode, then the production design has to take the crown for strongest. The retro-futuristic robots call to mind a bright red Ford Thunderbird or Chevy Bel Air while the cleaning robot is clearly styled on a VW Beetle. It’s a rather humanistic design I wish the robovac makers of today would emulate.

Behind the scenes

Doctor Who is a regular source of gossip, especially given the permanently tenuous nature of the star role. It’s easy to say the lead is about to quit and for that to sound true, given they leave after three or four years in the role anyway. There are a number of recent reports suggesting Ncuti Gatwa has already quit the show, or is about to. Many of them also suggest the BBC and Disney are refusing to greenlight new episodes until they see how successful this season is. In addition, the BBC says funding cuts and inflation has seen its budget fall by £1 billion (around $1.3 billion) in real terms since 2010. It doesn’t help that, when asked directly about the future of the series in an interview with (the BBC’s youth-orientated news show) Newsround, Russell T. Davies opted to equivocate in a way that suggests the show is about to back on ice.

I mention this because of the sequence where Belinda defeats Alan with the certificate, and the Doctor pulls her out. He says she needed a Time Lord to absorb the enormous amount of energy kicked out when she touched the paper together. The Doctor then clutched at his back as if he was in a lot of pain, but shrugged it off and was fine for the rest of the episode. Fans with long memories, however, know that absorbing a lot of energy from the time vortex is what killed Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor back in 2005. Well, that and Eccleston’s decision to leave.

Mrs. Flood Corner

It seems Mrs. Flood enjoys moving in next door to whoever is winding up as this year’s companion. While being abducted, she calls to her neighbor to call the police and tell her parents she loves them. As the rocket lifts off, she tells the audience that we haven’t seen her, and goes back indoors to avoid encountering the Doctor, who sprints out in pursuit.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/doctor-who-the-robot-revolution-review-meet-belinda-chandra-190054697.html?src=rss