Kirby and the Forgotten Land goes places. Well, ok, maybe a few places, nothing out of the ordinary, but still. A post-apocalyptic Kirby game? Ok, the story has moments that justify that choice. Also, the final boss is… awesome! Other than that, it’s just a very good game.

Choo-Choo Charles is more silly than scary, really. But pretty fun.

I also watched more of the new Star Trek shows.

Question: What if something that checks most of the boxes but still doesn’t feel right? To me, that’s Discovery. The representation alone should be praised, loudly, but the overall feeling is kind of meh. It doesn’t help that basically everything good has a pretty noticeable stain on it. The show talks about mental health all the time, but uses ableist language. Representation is done in a very bizarre and awkward way, with a lot of obvious missteps. There are good characters, almost all of them, but again, I just don’t like the story.

Question: What if your expectations are pretty low? That’s The Orville. I can’t say I never liked MacFarlane, but I don’t like him now. But I can’t deny that first, the show doesn’t really feel like his show most of the time (when it does, it’s very jarring), and second, it’s not bad, not at all. If you add those low expectations, it’s a strong sci-fi series. It doesn’t do anything groundbreaking, but it doesn’t hide behind the humor (it’s barely there) and isn’t afraid to go for heavier subjects.

Discovery stumbled so Strange New Worlds can chill. Saying it’s low stakes is a little weird, but it kind of is. It’s not the first Star Trek show out of this new bunch, it’s doing safe, mostly episodic storytelling, its comfortable in bringing in a lot of characters from the original series. It’s, well, chill.