The seventh and final season of YOUNGER suffered from the pandemic delaying it to two years after the last season, which I assume is why Diana (Miriam Shor) and Zane (Charles Michael Davis) disappear from the cast. Much like S6 it feels like a lot of shuffling pieces across the board to keep the game going: Kelsey (Hilary Duff) gets a big promotion, gets sidelined, leaves, comes back … And Josh (Nico Tortorella) continues feeling like a fifth wheel. Maggie’s (Debi Mazur) arc, on the other hand, felt like two season’s worth of episodes crammed into a handful of scenes.
That said, I think they stuck the landing: Kelsey, once again unattached to a guy, heads out to LA to start fresh in a new job (there were hopes for a spinoff but Duff picked another show); Charles and Liza break up (but Liza’s last-minute rush to the airport to encourage him to marry someone else was a great twist on the cliche); and Liza (now promoted to publisher) and Josh maybe start over. I’m not sure that resolves anything given Josh wanted to marry her too (the sticking point for Charles was Liza ruling out getting married again) but nonetheless it worked for me. “He’s iconic — like, genuinely iconic, not millennial-stanning-kombucha iconic.”
STAN LEE’S LIGHTSPEED (2006) is a SyFy direct-to-video in which Jason Connery gains super-
speed from a freak accident, dons a costume and goes to work against the nihilist reptilian terrorist the Python. On the level of the 1970s TV pilots I watched as a teen, then again for Cyborgs, Santa Claus and Satan, and I do not mean this as a compliment. It’s lacking in imagination (Lightspeed never does anything beyond run fast), acting (Connery, Lee Majors and Nicole Eggert are the big names) and very sexist in the gratuitous torture Python inflicts on Eggert.
SHALLOW GRAVE (1994) has three obnoxious roommates take in an older man as fourth only to have him die on them, leaving behind a suitcase full of cash — well, obviously no downside to keeping it for themselves, right? With Ewan McGregor and Christopher Eccleston as two of the roomies this is a solid little British noir that would double bill well with A Simple Plan.“I would do the same thing only I’m not his type.”
THE CRADLE SNATCHERS (1927) is another early Howard Hawks film, wherein three wives decide to teach their straying husbands a lesson by hiring young collegians to flirt with and thereby make their husbands jealous. This fast-paced comedy feels more like a Hawks film than Paid to Love, but the story is too busy and disorganized to work. “Being Spanish and an osteopath is what got you this job.”
PIRATES OF PENZANCE was last year’s Durham Savoyards production, which I bought on DVD and finally got around to (it’s a shame I didn’t switch the viewing order for this and Lightspeed as the latter wouldn’t have suffered from the dogs distracting me). Not as distinctive in style as many of the Savoyards’ productions but a fun performance of the Gilbert and Sullivan pirate spoof nonetheless. “With courage rare/and resolution manly/For death prepare/unhappy General Stanley.”
Fraser Sherman's Blog 