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10/21/2023 0 Comments the full monty (season 1) It was purely by chance that I happened to revisit The Full Monty earlier this year - unaware that the cast had literally been reassembled Avengers-style for an impending follow-up series - and found it just as charming as it was upon release 25 years ago. The streaming iteration, however, proves a decidedly odd duck… and not only because it’s been entirely (and understandably) divorced from the original’s steelworkers-turned-strippers premise. The show is buoyed by an irreverent whimsy, full of unapologetically broad, sitcom-style hi-jinks (there’s a dog-napping plot connected to Britain’s Got Talent; a get-rich scheme involving racing pigeons and a Korean billionaire; and a hostage situation at the local job center that devolves into darkly comic folly)… but it also has a deep-rooted melancholy that pierces the film’s protective layer of fantasy hard and unforgivingly.
Part of the movie’s sweet-natured appeal was recognizing, deep down, that a striptease performance was unlikely to alter the hardscrabble lives of its characters in any significant way… and yet, as their moment of triumph was immortalized in freeze frame, we could pretend that it somehow did. But, as the show makes abundantly clear… it didn’t. If anything, working class Sheffield has become even more depressive in the ensuing quarter-century (the club where they performed has long since been shuttered). Gaz (Robert Carlyle), still cavalierly lives life day-by-day, always on the lookout for his next scheme and trying not to screw up his relationship with teenage daughter Destiny (Talitha Wing, a real asset) too badly. Dave (Mark Addy) and Jean (Lesley Sharp) are still married, but their attempt to start a family years ago ended in tragedy and they’ve never really recovered (Jean asks him point blank if there’s anything in his life he takes pride in). Lomper (Steve Huison) runs a semi-struggling cafe with his husband Dennis (Paul Clayton), but feels largely ineffectual in the relationship. Gerald (Tom Wilkinson) is basically limited to a handful of cameos within the cafe, quipping in a voice that sounds like warmed over death (seriously, Wilkinson appears in shockingly poor health - though if anything is going on, he’s done a good job keeping it private… either way, it’s unfortunate, given that he was arguably the best thing about the original). The saddest figure, however, is probably Horse (Paul Barber), aging and physically debilitated, doing his best to keep his spirits up in spite of constantly falling through the cracks thanks to a social services system that’s as uncaring as it is ineffective (Hugo Speer’s Guy, meanwhile, has limited screentime and abruptly disappears from the series altogether - supposedly due to accusations of inappropriate conduct on-set). In spite of going gray, Carlyle maintains his general boyishness; there’s no denying, however, that the cast (not to sound harsh) has otherwise aged rather starkly. It renders the undercurrent of their ongoing struggles that much more doleful. Original screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, who created and wrote the series along with Alice Nutter (formerly of Chumbawamba - yes, *that* Chumbawamba), made the somewhat debatable decision to build each episode almost entirely around a single character… which results in certain plot threads crisping unevenly. At first, Dave - who works as a caretaker at the badly neglected Sheffield Spires Academy (where Jean is the headteacher) - becoming a father figure of sorts to a bullied student (lessening his own paternal void ever-so-slightly in the process) feels like the relatable heart of the series… but the relationship is barely touched upon beyond the second episode. On the other hand, it’s a new addition to the cast - Miles Jupp, as the wincing bureaucrat Darren - who lands arguably the most well-rounded storyline, in which he finds unexpected happiness with a Kurdish refugee and her teenage son (speaking of offspring, Gaz’s son Nathan from the film is all grown up, and a policeman to boot, but he and his family mostly get the short shrift… one too many characters jockeying for screentime, it would seem). Without the stripping scheme to hold focus, the series tends to wander; it’s a good thing the cast remains so uniformly likable (it’s hard to tell if Gaz’s impishness is more or less exasperating now that he’s in his 60s, but this older, more weatherworn version of Dave gives Mark Addy a clear opportunity to shine). This new iteration of The Full Monty lurches between the farcical and the funereal, between easy levity and social didacticism and yet, in a weird way, that’s sort of its appeal. It has the rutted rhythm of life itself - the triumphs and setbacks, the jolts of joy and tugs of sadness, the cyclical interplay between absurdity and heartbreak. For an oddball continuation of one of the more unlikely breakout hits of the 90s, there’s a certain imperfect satisfaction in that, at least.
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 In a certain sense, it’s not terribly difficult to understand why Star Trek fans have been so quick to embrace what Strange New Worlds is selling. Given Picard’s fumbling and floundering (admittedly redeemed by its far superior third and final season) and the increasingly lamentable dirge of Discovery, the basic SNW pitch - vibrant color palette, aspirational-in-tone, with an emphasis on weekly, stand-alone adventures - is mighty tasty. It feels like a correctly modulated retro throwback to the halcyon days of Roddenberry. But one can’t help but feel as if the show is being graded on a significant curve - it performs the Trek basics well, but frankly not a whole lot else. Its core competency has been largely misconstrued as greatness. Two seasons in and I’m not sure you could claim a single episode has been a genuine banger (the closest was season one finale “A Quality of Mercy,” and that’s only because it was doing a karaoke version of “Balance of Terror,” not unlike the way Into Darkness utilized Wrath of Khan as a creative crutch).
The funny thing is that the cast, by and large, is excellent. Anson Mount, as the Enterprise’s patriarchal Captain Christopher Pike, offers a near-perfect balance of humor and gravitas (not to mention a spectacular head of hair). Celia Rose Gooding plays a deliberately desexualized version of Uhura, but brings a brainy pluck to the role all her own. Ethan Peck and the recurring Paul Wesley deliver perfectly palatable modern TV versions of Spock and Kirk, respectively (Peck in particular has grown into the role after an understandably trepidatious start). Rebecca Romijn rarely feels fully utilized as Una Chin-Riley, aka “Number One,” Pike’s second-in-command, but is a reliably sturdy performer whenever called upon. Melissa Navia has an outsized daredevil charisma as Erica Ortegas, the Enterprise’s gifted helmsman, while Carol Kane brings her usual inimitable daffiness and singularly off-kilter acting choices to the role of chief engineer Pelia (an inspired second season addition). Best of all is Christina Chong as the ship’s taciturn chief of security La’an Noonien Singh (yes, as in *that* Noonien Singh), whose prickly demeanor (her eyes narrowing warily until her gaze could cut glass, her lips compressed so tightly they’re almost colorless) is a considerable asset. With this much acting talent on display, it’s a puzzle why the show itself feels so commonplace. If anything, the second season offers up an even slighter batch of episodes then the first. A measure of gimmickry is inevitable - some of which pays dividends (the Lower Decks crossover is actually a major hoot, mainly because Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome are so great as the live-action versions of their animated counterparts), and some of which doesn’t (the musical episode, I’m sorry to say, was one of the more torturous hours in recent memory). Una faces dismissal from Starfleet when her genetic modifications as an Illyrian come to light (classic Trek always trafficked in political allegory, though rarely this ham-handed), La’an gets pulled into an alternate timeline where she and Kirk strike romantic sparks in modern-day Toronto, while hi-jinks ensue when a higher-dimensional race rewires Spock’s genetic coding so that he’s fully human… right as he’s set to undergo a Vulcan engagement ritual with fiancée T’Pring and her disapproving parents. All of this is fine (mostly), but it doesn’t engage the imagination the way the best Trek episodes do. There’s no particular sense of wonder to this final frontier. It’s a well-executed but bloodless facsimile. As a direct prequel to the Original Series, Strange New Worlds is uniquely positioned to engage in rampant fan service re: established Trek mythology (remember when Spock’s half-brother Sybok was teased in the first season?)… but the show is frankly better when it keeps that powder relatively dry. Pike gaining foreknowledge of the disfiguring accident originally established in “The Menagerie” raises one’s Vulcan eyebrow (“Intriguing”)… but the eyebrow remains raised in less complimentary fashion when Pike uses a Klingon time crystal to try and alter his fate, only to inadvertently destroy the galaxy. Meanwhile, the show seems to have embraced the lizard-like Gorn as their primary antagonists (the orphaned La’an’s colony ship infamously encountered them when she was a child) - a one-off race from the Original Series that mostly endure thanks to to Kirk’s unintentionally hilarious fisticuffs with a lumbering brute in a rubber suit. This less-humanoid, more-reptilian iteration of the Gorn could (generously) be compared to the Xenomorphs from Alien (and not only because they seemingly copped the basics of their reproductive cycle) - intelligent and highly evolved pack predators. Fearsome indeed, but how are these creatures piloting advanced starships, let alone building them in the first place? When we finally get a good look at one, it’s basically a velociraptor with a space helmet. There’s little of thematic note to the depiction beyond basic savagery. The Borg, they are not. Strange New Worlds, to its credit, maintains a mostly relaxed and accommodating vibe… it’s free of the drab self-seriousness and narrative pretzels that have afflicted much of the streaming era of Star Trek. But it still feels too often like a show that’s venturing forth tepidly, rather than boldly. |
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