Star Trek: Discovery and Blade Runner 2049, plus quicker takes on It, Will & Grace revival, Mr. Robot season 3, Vice Principals season 2, and Better Things season 2.

Elgin and Paul review #StarTrekDiscovery and #BladeRunner2049:

Star Trek: Discovery (20:15), created by Bryan Fuller and Alex Kurtzman and starring Sonequa Martin-Green, Michelle Yeoh, and Jason Isaacs. What does this latest entry into the universe dreamed up by Gene Roddenberry (technically, a prequel to the original series) offer that’s new and different from its predecessors? Is it worth signing up to the fairly new service CBS All Access to watch this show?

Blade Runner 2049 (42:15), directed by Denis Villeneuve and starring Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, and Ana de Armas. Not a reboot, but a true sequel to the 1982 sci-fi classic directed by Ridley Scott, this film is a visual and aural experience to be had within a theater. We analyze many aspects of this movie, including its lead performances and the tech within its world, some of which echoes what we saw in Spike Jonze’s Her.

Disjointed.

Paul and Elgin review #Disjointed:

https://youtu.be/ly019ZF0lsk

A new comedy about selling legal weed from Chuck Lorre (of CBS sitcom fame), Disjointed stars Kathy Bates and features a diverse supporting cast, including Tone Bell and Elizabeth Ho.

Does being on Netflix change things enough for this show to escape the conventions of multi-cam sitcoms? We reference Lorre’s recent interview to see what the showrunner’s aims were.

Columbus.

Elgin and Paul review #ColumbusMovie:

The debut movie by Korean-American director Kogonada, Columbus stars John Cho and Haley Lu Richardson (who also appeared in another recent film with an Asian-American male lead, The Edge of Seventeen).

With a Korean-American lead and with Sundance cred, the film, set in Columbus, Indiana, which has a rich architectural heritage, should be one we both can relate to and get behind, right? Find out.

For an in-depth interview with the director, Kogonada, check out this past week’s episode of Filmspotting (No. 650).

mother!, plus quicker takes on other screen-related stuff, including pilots for the Deuce and Mr. Mercedes, revisiting The Good Place, Bill Simmons’s The Rewatchables podcast, and season 2 of Insecure.

Paul and Elgin review #mother!:

mother! (31:25), written and directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem. Not a chamber piece, not just an allegory, the latest from the atheist auteur–drawing heavily again from the Bible–is not resonating with much with the public (an initial Cinemascore of F). But despite popular opinion, is this visually arresting (sometimes exhausting) film worth your time and money?

Comrade Detective, What Would Diplo Do?, and the annual Screenies awards (for best scene, performance, and overall work in the past 12 months).

Elgin and Paul review #ComradeDetective and #WhatWouldDiploDo:

A tongue-in-cheek Cold War satire from a communist perspective, Comrade Detective from Amazon Prime stars the voice talents of Channing Tatum and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, but not their faces.

What Would Diplo Do? from VICELAND, stars James Van Der Beek as the EDM star. The former Dawson’s Creek lead also has several writing credits for the episodes.

What do we make of these shows, which probably wouldn’t get made pre-Peak TV?

Elgin and Paul share their choices for the annual Screenies awards (27:20): Picks for best scene, best performance (by anyone), and best work on any screen over the past 12 months.

Ozark.

Paul and Elgin review #Ozark:

A new drama from Netflix, Ozark, by creators Bill Dubuque and Mark Williams and starring Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, and Julia Garner.

Does the shadow of Breaking Bad loom too large, or has Ozark differentiated itself enough to become a potential classic of its own?