IN THE DARK REVIEWS

Spending the week after the Port Townsend Film Festival in quarantine due to COVID allowed me to catch up on old and new streaming series.

"Reservation Dogs"

After three seasons and 28 episodes, "Reservation Dogs" went out without a single misstep, wrapping up its multigenerational saga of the oddball everyday lives of the fictional Native American reservation of Okern, Okla., by bidding a farewell to Old Man Fixico, the medicine man who served as the glue holding the community together.

The last episode saw a few members of that community choose to head off "the rez" for education and employment, but their relocation wasn't treated as a tragedy or a betrayal of their roots. It showed their kinship with their people will endure, regardless of where they reside.

When the young "Reservation Dogs" made their pilgrimage to California at the end of Season 2, to honor their fallen friend Daniel, Bear was the most reluctant to return to Okern, but coming home the long way 'round allowed him to make an unexpected connection that brought one of the reservation's long-lost elders back into the fold.

Season 3 continued this show's streak of successful celebrity stunt-casting, with Ethan Hawke, but I was more impressed with how consistently all three seasons showcased solidly talented indigenous actors, including Zahn McClarnon, Gary Farmer, Wes Studi, Graham Greene, Kimberly Guerrero and Lily Gladstone.

Television historians will talk about this show for decades, so check it out now to get in on the ground floor as a fan.

Check it out on Hulu. The last episode aired Sept. 27.

"Ahsoka"

While this show has managed to bring a live-action "Star Wars" fan like me up to speed on previously animated characters such as Ahsoka Tano, Hera Syndulla, Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger, they still feel more like my old friends' other friends at this point.

They're pleasant characters, and if they're hitting all the right buttons for my fellow "Star Wars" fans who grew up watching "The Clone Wars" and "Rebels," then I'm happy for them, but watching them interact exclusively with each other feels like sitting through forced small-talk with your ex-college roommate's coworkers.

I've been digging the Cobra Command vibe that's been developing among our cadre of villains, which now finally includes Lars Mikkelsen as Grand Admiral Thrawn, whose patience and optimism make him that much more sinister.

Between Mikkelsen's long-awaited Thrawn, Diana Lee Inosanto's smoldering glower making the witchy Morgan Elsbeth intimidating and compelling, and Ivanna Sakhno radiating angry, unresolved daddy issues as the Dark Jedi apprentice Shin Hati, one might overlook the relatively understated (and sadly departed) Ray Stevenson, delivering his career-best performance as the gruff, merciless and contemplative Dark Jedi master Baylan Skoll.

Bonus points for former "Doctor Who" David Tennant's voice-acting as Jedi- training droid Huyang, and Hayden Christensen delivering his best performance as Anakin Skywalker, in flashback and spirit-form (it's complicated).

It's on Disney+. The last episode aired Oct. 3.

"Encounters"

This documentary miniseries was produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin, so don't be surprised when its allegedly real-life accounts of UFO sightings and claimed moments of contact between humans and aliens carry the tone of the director's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," even though he had no direct involvement in this project.

The geographically eclectic accounts hopscotch from rural Texas and coastal Wales, to a schoolyard in Zimbabwe and even the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, while spotlighting testimonials from observers and ostensible experts alike who manage to comport themselves credibly on camera.

If "Encounters" had any definitive proof of its theories, you'd have heard about it from serious news sources, but it does offer corroborating evidence in the form of radar data and video footage to confirm that unidentified objects were apparently in the air, and when and where they were reported spotted by many onlookers.

Regardless of whether one believes these "Encounters," this show is at its strongest when it highlights how our cultural perspectives affect what we perceive, whether it's U.S. or U.K. children potentially falling prey to the sci-fi pop culture they've been raised with or the Japanese contactees acknowledging their culture's tendency to regard ephemeral entities as restoring a natural cosmic balance.

It's on Netflix. All four episodes went online Sept. 27.

"The Continental: From the World of John Wick"

The irony is that this three-part miniseries' worst drawback is its star. Mel Gibson brings his by-now-notorious brand, but none of his former talent or charisma, to the role of lead villain Cormac O'Connor, to whom we're introduced as a former street gangster who's been promoted to the manager of the "John Wick" films' Continental hotel during the 1970s.

Gibson is more than balanced by an appealing cast of actors who are convincing at playing younger versions of characters previously depicted in the present day. The other actors include Ian McShane, Lance Reddick and Laurence Fishburne (I might be wrong on Fishburne, but the Bowery King needs an origin as much as Winston and Charon, and one actor mimics his vocal cadence very well).

If you're going to do "John Wick" without Keanu Reeves' John Wick, then exploring the rich and still largely untapped mythos of Wick's world is the perfect choice.

Setting this flashback heist caper in 1970s' New York City lends what's a glorified MacGuffin hunt the air of chronicling an empire in decline as we see time-honored agreements ground down by the grasping ascendance of crude new crime bosses.

Casting 1990s indie film mainstay Peter Greene as a younger version of David Patrick Kelly was an unconventional choice, but we're all nursing our own nostalgia.

It's on Peacock. The last episode airs Friday.

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
[email protected]