'Mrs. Davis' succeeds so far; 'Peter Pan' fails to fly

'Mrs. Davis' on Peacock

I should have suspected I'd encounter this problem with a miniseries co-created by Damon Lindelof.

Between co-creating the ultimately disappointing TV series "Lost," co-writing some of the worst installments in the "Alien" and "Star Trek" film series, and helming the controversial TV adaptation of the "Watchmen" comic, Lindelof has a checkered record.

But "Mrs. Davis," which he co-created for the Peacock streaming service, came with positive recommendations from folks I trust, so I decided I'd catch up on it.

And my verdict is ... it's OK?

Full credit, "Mrs. Davis" presents a succession of cute, mildly clever ideas in enough of an effectively engaging fashion that I continue to want to see what will happen next, but unfortunately, much like his fellow "Lost" co-creator J.J. Abrams, Lindelof is a big believer in the "Mystery Box" method of storytelling, which means this entire exercise still depends on how satisfying its conclusion is.

If its final episode is a damp squib of a reveal, it will retroactively ruin the whole thing. Glancing back at Lindelof's resume, I'd say I have ample reasons to be worried.

Setting all that aside, I will reiterate "Mrs. Davis" is a solidly OK show, with amusing and intriguing concepts being navigated by multifaceted characters who possess a suitable sense of the absurd.

In a world where an artificial intelligence algorithm named "Mrs. Davis" has become the Alexa-meets-Google internet-based boss of the world, gently guiding everyone through the earbuds of their smartphones, a lone nun has been tasked with first locating, then destroying the legendary Holy Grail.

The series' narrative borders on metafiction, as the characters comment upon how the algorithm is manipulative enough to stage false narratives of its own, that deliberately lean on popular dramatic cliches, such as the myth of the grail itself.

This builds a paranoid tension, as we see early on how those whom we're initially led to believe are serving Mrs. Davis are instead acting on behalf of competing interests, which has left me wondering whether all the parties involved are ultimately doing Mrs. Davis' bidding without realizing it.

After all, more than halfway into this miniseries, the questions have been raised, but remain unanswered, about who created Mrs. Davis in the first place, who maintains the algorithm, and for what purpose, never mind the question of why an AI algorithm would seek the destruction of a religious artifact like the grail.

Our protagonist nun, played with just the right pitch of skepticism and exasperation by Betty Gilpin, has a rich, sympathetic backstory that continues to unfold throughout the series, and an island castaway played by Ben Chaplin turns out to have an emotionally moving connection to the grail.

And there are some well-built running jokes that send up the action-thriller genre as a whole, mostly supplied by a testosterone-charged resistance movement to Mrs. Davis, whose gratuitously bare-chested leader (Canadian actor Chris Diamantopoulos, donning an intentionally terrible Australian accent) has all his agents constantly destroying dozens of burner phones for security purposes.

And yet, as much as I welcome broad parodies and ridiculous portrayals of our ridiculous world, my lingering problem with "Mrs. Davis" is it feels far more like a constructed premise than an organic reality, since its quirks call attention to themselves so self-consciously.

In particular, the supposedly shocking revelation that winds up driving one of its protagonists (the nun's ex-boyfriend, played by Jake McDorman) is presented with so many heavy-handed affectations that I couldn't take it seriously.

At its best, "Twin Peaks" was able to transcend the boundaries of our reality while still feeling grounded in the everyday world, because its kooky small town felt like an actual place, where real people lived, whereas "Mrs. Davis" could culminate in a "Matrix"-style twist that everything we've seen has been a virtual reality simulation, for as staged and surface-level as its locales and too many of its inhabitants have felt.

I'll weigh in again once all eight episodes have aired, but if this turns out to have been a stealth first season, rather than a miniseries with a decisive conclusion, do not expect me to be kind.

'Peter Pan & Wendy' on Disney+

This latest live-action take on J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan has nothing remotely offensive or objectionable, and that's precisely the problem.

I support its racially diverse casting of the Lost Boys, Tinker Bell and Peter himself, because none of those characters need to be white, and having them come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds actually underscores the patchwork quality of the adoptive "found family" that Peter has assembled for himself.

And I'm glad to see Tiger Lily cast specifically as a Cree Indian, rather than as a generic "All Native Americans are interchangeable" indigenous role, even if the part she plays remains that of building up the hero.

But I think any adaptation of Peter Pan loses something without at least an initial rivalry between Wendy, Tinker Bell and Tiger Lily, because part of Peter's immaturity involves his selfish disregard for the emotions of the women who care for him the most, since as a boy who refuses to grow up, their feelings are too intense and real for him.

And while this adaptation of the Peter Pan mythos adopts perhaps one of the more popular subversions of the source material to date, regarding the backstories of both Peter and Captain Hook, the result is that the film's first half is a relatively rote, uninspired run-through of the obligatory bullet-points of Peter whisking the Darling children off to Neverland, followed by a dour deconstruction of Peter and Hook's relationship, devoid of joy or wonder.

I get that the entire point of Disney's live-action adaptations of its own animated children's films is to provide slightly edgier takes on those tales, while remaining mostly safe for the family, so I wasn't expecting anything as experimental or audacious as Benh Zeitlin's "Wendy" from 2020.

But "Peter Pan & Wendy" pales in comparison even to the 2003 live-action "Peter Pan," with Jason Isaacs playing the dual roles of Captain Hook and Mr. Darling, which I still consider the gold standard of Peter Pan depictions.

If your kids want to see this one, there's no reason to warn them off of it, but neither is there anything to recommend it.

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

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