#(i think star trek is too much of an optimistic and thoughtful series to have species like that but so far snw is proving me wrong on that)

[funnywormz]

one thing about me is that whenever a series introduces a species of alien/monster etc and is like "these guys are all evil. every single one. completely irredeemable. they love killing and destruction and they have no function in the narrative outside of being awful and hurting people. they're all the same and none of them have the capacity to be good." i will always turn around and be like "but what if there was a nice and friendly one"

[miminmimikyu]

Prodigy episodes 19-20

This series has many moving parts on top of a time travel based plot that spans 40 episodes and yet it never needs to do to a “previously on…” Any reminders just appear organically.

Ascencia exhibiting peak “if I can’t have it no one can!!” behaviour

I really really like that Prodigy makes use of the current state of starflleet defined by Star Trek Picard to create this situation where the crew is alone!

Holo Janeway berating Chakotay took me by surprise!! She never did that with the kids

So Chakotay and the Protostar were lost 2 years ago, I missed that info! And the year the Protostar crashed onto Tars Lamora really is unknown! I was trying to figure that one out since episode 2, but they didn't know either!

But to get back to Chakotay’s timeline: so he left on the protostar in 2382, just 4-5 years after getting home!!! I’m absolutely fascinated by what possessed him to do that? I would have pegged someone like Harry or even Janeway as a person who couldn’t settle back into normal life and needed to experience horrors (, new) to distract from horrors (, old). Unless... something particularly bad happened around that time and Chakotay would rather take a deep space mission rather than hang around. On the plus side, that probably means while he lived on the island for 10 years he only lost 8 years compared to everyone else.

Oh no, Holo Janeway’s existential dread! I really wasn’t expecting that since she was so ok with blowing herself up at the end of S1. But I forgot that that time she wasn't losing 10 years of Chakotay. (seriously.. what happened during those 10 years?)

Omg omg omg it’s going to be a causal loop????? Maj’el mentioning the Bell Riots and First Contact in episode 3, Dal & co being the people who freed Chakotay in the first place… that’s all foreshadowing this??? :D

Of course there's Bad Future Solum and the info that Janeway dug out of the Protostar wreckage with Chakotay piloting the ship that doesn’t match up, but I suppose it’s more wibbly wobbly timey wimey than just one loop-- the Mirror episode (& Wesley's explanation) showed all those alternate timelines existing next to each other after all!

I think I forgot to write this for episode 9-10 but i was reminded of this again: it’s so brilliant to have the Prodigy kids helped by the OG Star Trek prodigy child Wesley Crusher!

This episode is really full throttling it on the visuals, woooow!! That visual representation of finding thr final wormhole!!!!!!!! magic!!!

back to the future moment with that ripped cable!!!!

Holy fuck Murf ripped off a head!!!!jesus this battle is so tense! I almost thought Dal would be blasted to the past there! And Gwyn’s fight was so exciting. “Gwyndala our will is yours" ;_;

I like that this final confrontation ended with Ascencia's own actions taking her down: She focused too much on her revenge and own idea of what Solum should be and abandoned any sort of alternative. Her actions made life on Solum actively worse, thereby alienating people, who became unwilling to follow her (including her young optimistic self). But Gwyndala did get that support and she used it not to hurt Ascencia, but to disarm her. It is so beautiful that the first two people who came to her aid were the young versions of the two last survivors of Solum. Young Ascencia and Ilthuran saw what this revenge quest would turn them into (Ascencia saw first-hand and Ilthuran saw it in the damage he inflicted/would inflict on his own daughter) and that was enough for them to end the cycle. And after being disarmed, Ascencia's final downfall was not at the hands of Gwyn and her reclaimed heirloom, but it was that she still wouldn't let go of her revenge and it literally burnt her out!!

Oh my god I am only like 5 minutes into episode 20 and I'm already in pieces.. is this what it’s like to get everything you want??? (from a season finale)

(The rest of the episode I was just frozen in amazement)

"Once more into the breach!" I;m dying I'm dying The whales navigating!!!! The wormhole interior and those temporal echoes my mouth is open it’s so beautiful!! Holo Janeway copied to an EMH backup module!! That flashback montage aaahhhhhhfjdhhhhhhhhhhh screaming crying throwing up The final returning of the combadge !!!!!! being able to communicate with each other brought all of this together aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh cutting beginning of the S1 loop off with them touching the combadge i can't

Wesley looks just the right amount of excited-deranged when he says "Things yet to come.. wondrous and terrible things…"

First contact with Solum!!!!!!!!!! Gywn finally gets to let go of that weight!!!!

This made me let out one staccato scream of laughter. That better not be libellous, doc:

Wesley going to see Beverly after who knows how many years is so lovely! And him meeting and smiling at Jack! At least was able to tell Beverly her secret to one person. But lmao this means even Wesley didn't/couldn't convince her to tell Picard. Also I guess the federation going to hell might have been the trigger for her to go into hiding properly.

I cannot picture Janeway retiring (she needs a break, yes, but giving up the stars?). But having her say “don’t we all deserve a new beginning?” when you know what’s coming is heartbreaking.

The Prodigy team has absolutely knocked it out of the park with the First Contact scene. What a contrast between Zero and Maj’el being so cute together and then the breaking news. Then the shutdown of the schools, ending scientific exploration and ushering the era of protectionism and turning back on the Federation’s ideals. It was like air leaving the room. What I like about this portrayal is that we've seen many horrible events in Star Trek but never from the point of view of people so young. They're watching as their entire future might be taken away from them.

(Tangent: and for what??? not that attacks like these are ever justified and if anything S1 Picard is big on “fear of the unknown makes people make the most stupid yet devastating decisions” but man… to torpedo your own people’s [Romulans] survival because you and your secret organization failed reading comprehension of a message in a language you don’t speak , then got mega racist about it? Such a stupid senseless thing to do. Which was the point. I know. Still.)

This turned into another tangent that got too long that I'll post later but Janeway putting the kids on the new Protostar and sending them away probably was the best thing she could have done for them... Too bad for Maj'el's Nova squadron friends...

I wonder if we’ll get to see what Vice Admiral Janeway and Captain Chakotay of Voyager-A (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) are doing in these dark times if we get a season 3 (!!!!!!!). If the Protostar kids are far away from the federation maybe they will only get a send off from them? Or an occasional message? Or will we actually see what the new status quo will make Janeway and Chakotay do?

Speaking of Janeway and Chakotay, ngl when I read months ago that J/C would be addressed in S2 I thought that their relationship would at least be verbally confirmed. But I do like the way the series portrays their relationship. To me they act like they've been in relationship for a while. I know they were already always in each other's personal space on Voyager but they seem even closer and more loving compared to then.

I'm not really into shipping and I'm also the first person to yell "PEOPLE CAN BE INTENSE AND PLATONIC" but the little things in their behaviour and the fact that S2 keeps paralleling them with Gwyn and Dal just screams "married for years" to me. (That Janeway POV shot in episode 11, what did we just walk in on?) I also get that in the end, this series is about the kids, not Janeway and Chakotay-- there's only so much you can do without overshadowing them. But it would have been nice to have an offhand mention that they're married, or that Chakotay lives at the farm when he's not on a mission (e.g. Janeway saying "You're back!" instead of "I wasn't expecting you"). (i mean I like the decision that their relationship is just existing quietly in the background, but i'm not a proper shipper. if i was i think i'd feel cheated)

ANYWAY Dal's arc!!!!!! my heart!!!! "Others came before me; others will follow."!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And captain Gwyn!!!! AAAAA. The three big character arcs this season were so nice: Dal's inferiority complex, Zero's exploration of their identity, and Gwyn dealing with her guilt and doggedness to fix everything herself to "deserve" a place to belong (-> accepting help and learning to lead and trust). Rok got her big arc in S1 but I can't wait to see more + what's in store for Jankom and Maj'el too!!

Prodigy is so good. I hope that Netflix realises what a gem they have obtained and lets it continue for many more seasons. This is seriously some of the best trek I’ve seen in years. So much care went into this series. It oozes love for Star Trek from every detail and yet it is something completely new!

Prodigy managed to tell a cohesive story over 40 episodes, carefully placing threads spanning 2 seasons, and having it come together in such a fascinating and satisfying way is incredible. The fact that this is a story that is so accessible to anyone who hasn’t seen any Star Trek, but weaves a complex story with an ensemble cast that hinges on legacy characters that nevertheless never overshadow the (new character) protagonists, is truly an impressive feat. I don't feel like a single one of the returning characters was there just for nostalgia's sake-- every single one ties into the themes of the story and plays a unique role in the kids' stories. And finally, the finale plants the seeds for the next season by seamlessly connecting to the events leading up to Picard S1. However, because the kids will be off exploring, you still have a sense of uncharted territory. Obviously I want a season 3 like you wouldn't believe, but I'm also so satisfied with how S2 ended that I don't actually mind the wait... if it means we get to see those "wondrous and terrible things" done with as much care as these last two seasons!

[animentality]

I’ve seen some of your posts about Star Trek, and decided that I want to start watching it. Where do you think I should start?

Oh BOY.

See, this is a fascinating question. Technically, there are several places you could hop in. I will give you the pros and cons of each.

The short answer is honestly The Next Generation (TNG) or Deep Space Nine (DS9).

TNG is on the edge of accessible and non-accessible. It's a little dated, but still stands up well to the test of time. Its stories are self-contained and often don't need context from the greater world or previous episodes. It's thoughtful and optimistic about the human condition and highly intelligent.

But DS9 is easier for the modern TV watcher to start with, because it's more realistic, grounded, and it fleshes out its characters and their interpersonal dramas more.

It's also this clean mix between episodic and more serialized, so you'll get the fun and outstanding standalone episodes, like TNG's greatest hits, but mixed in with a fascinating overarching narrative, which will have a lot of fun space battles and space politics and something you can really sit down and get invested in.

so I'm biased to DS9, as you can tell.

But I concede to TNG too.

That's my short answer.

I'll also give you my short answer proposed order too:

DS9 or TNG first

Then watch DS9 or TNG, depending on which one you picked to watch firrst.

Followed by VOY.

You don't have to watch TOS, but if you're invested by that point, it might be fun.

Then skip ENT.

And from there, you get into modern Trek.

I'd give Discovery a try, because it's definitely high octane, easy for a modern viewer to get into.

But skip Picard, which is just...awful.

Then definitely watch Lower Decks, which is really fun.

Then check out Strange New Worlds, which is pretty good.

That's my short proposed order.

But if you care...here is my LONG answer, where I explain the pros and cons of starting at different spots.

TOS: The BEGINNING.

The Original Series, commonly shorted to TOS by fans.

Pros: This is the literal beginning of it all. If you wanted to really get into the lore of Star Trek and be this mega nerd who has a strong opinion about every following Star Trek interpretation, and get your nerd credentials, then this is a good place to start. Plus, some people don't mind the "oldness" of it, because it's simple, it's silly, and it's fun. The characters themselves are fun, and memorable. The episode plots range from ridiculous and batshit insane to thoughtful and somber and philosophical. You get to watch the OGs, Spock and Kirk and Uhura and Scotty and Bones, who are all iconic in their own way. It's also a nice little ensemble of goofballs, and you'll get to understand and appreciate the silly little TOS memes. Plus, I personally find it iconic how the TOS fandom is still going strong...after literally fifty seven years. That's icon status, baby.

Cons: IT REALLY IS VERY OLD. And kind of hard to get into, if you're not looking to watch a show that is VERY dated. I fully admit that I haven't re-watched TOS much. It's just not everyone's cup of tea, you know? It has its great moments, but I very rarely recommend TOS to people because I don't want to scare them off from Star Trek! So I wouldn't recommend starting here. Maybe watch it later, after other series, to get a well rounded view of the world, but TOS is sort of an odd place to start for the modern TV watcher. Ironically.

TNG: The SUCCESSOR

The Next Generation, commonly shortened to TNG.

Pros: TNG is iconic in its own way. It has its own memorable crew of Jean Luc Picard, William Riker, Deanna Troi, Geordi LaForge, Beverly Crusher, Worf, our best robot boy Data. It has aged much better than TOS, with a greater number of standalone episodes and thought provoking plots. It has some of the most brilliant non-serialized writing of all time, with great social and political commentary that hadn't ever been discussed in TV at that point, and honestly aren't even being discussed now. Its highs are peak Star Trek, with some of the most intelligent analysis of what it means to be an evolved human being ever created for television. It takes a serious look at many aspects of humanity through the lens of "alien" troubles, and its philosophical ramblings are deep, rich, and often thickly layered. That being said...

Cons: It's highly episodic, so you won't find yourself really "gripped" by one single or even multiple plot threads. If you don't like non-serialized stories, then well, most of the stories are designed to be enjoyed without the context of the rest of them. Also, some of it is wildly dated. ESPECIALLY the first season, which is a fucking mess, with like...almost no redeeming episodes. The pilot is AWFUL. The female characters are handled...in such a sexist way that it's honestly kind of enraging. Now it DOES get better, much better, by mid season two, and pretty much starts pumping out nothing but bangers by season 3, but... there will still be some dated stuff. Plus, even the really good episodes are still paced rather slowly. So keep that in mind, if you want to start with TNG....

ALSO, extra note: The crew has great chemistry with each other, but it doesn't do much in terms of fleshing them out in the early seasons. Gene Roddenberry, the creator, really didn't want the crew to have interpersonal dramas, or even want to show them relaxing or hanging out at all. Later seasons you'll see more character moments, which are great, but... TNG and TOS kind of skimp out on showing you the human elements. You aren't often allowed to get close to the characters, see their inner lives, their personal feelings about situations, the issues they have, with themselves or others. There's a distance, this professional aura to the show, which can be kind of daunting and a little alienating, no pun intended. So keep that in mind...

But now we come to the show I am most biased towards, and shamelessly.

DS9- The REALIST

Deep Space Nine, shortened to DS9.

I must start this segment by admitting, DS9 is my favorite and I am fucking biased. That being said, I first watched it when I was 9, and didn't have any problem understanding it without seeing the other Treks. There are also a million other things it has going for it that would make it the easiest place for a modern TV watcher to hop in.

So full disclosure, this IS where I would recommend you start. But anyway:

Pros: Like I said, it did away with some of that professional distance that TNG was so well known for. The characters are richer, more fleshed out, more flawed. They don't like each other in the beginning. They have to earn their found family, and that just makes it sweeter and more poignant when they finally begin to see themselves as a family. DS9 is the "grittier," edgier Star Trek, the one that seriously tests the hopeful optimism of the future...but it never breaks it. That's important to note. It still understands the idea that humans have evolved to be better.

It covers more controversial topics in a more straightforward way. War, genocide, fascism, political instability, coups, war crimes, espionage, propaganda, religious dogma, trauma, it can get pretty heavy. But there still is this hopefulness to how characters grow and change and heal from past traumas. It also fleshes out the aliens more than TNG or TOS, taking a more nuanced perspective of them, and even has individuals who fight back against the "mono" culture that was so popular in early star trek.

As mentioned above, it also blends serialized with non serialized. You get standalone episodes, and episodes that follow up on pre-existing plots. That's where you get the nuances and the depth and the richness of the universe, as well as the interpersonal relationships of the crew.

Now for the Cons:

NONE. It's perfect.

Just kidding.

Some people don't like DS9 because of its darkness, but in just terms of where to start...I agree that there ARE some things that come from TNG that you might appreciate more if you watched TNG first. It does mostly explain these things, but the flesh comes after the bones, you know. Also, DS9 has its weaknesses in season 1, same as TNG. It has some real stinkers. It doesn't get going until season 3, and also? You know how I said it's political?

Well, some of the politics are reallllly boring. Not very sci fi, dare I say. You might find it better to watch with a guide that can tell you what to skip, because some of the early stuff is pretty bad. It also took some time to find its footing, which means there are some elements to it that might come across as just bizarre.

But anyway.

As I said, my favorite Star Trek, and where I personally started. But anyway.

Moving on...

Voyager- the Troubled

Voyager, commonly shortened to VOY.

Pros: First female captain, and she's very charismatic. For feminism reasons alone, you could start with VOY. It also has the most interesting beginning concept too. Voyager is a warship that gets dragged out and stranded in the Delta Quadrant, which is far, far from where Star Trek normally operates. So it's about a crew, stranded in what is essentially hostile alien territory, with no one to help them. Their whole mission is just to get back home, which will take them 70 years to get back to. So it has that going for it. It also has its own fascinating little crew, which has great interpersonal relationships and some great sci fi standalone stories. It does have its own overarching stories as well, which makes for some fun action and drama. Also in terms of understanding what's happening without seeing other Star Treks? Pretty good. Less connected than DS9, mostly, with a few glaring exceptions.

That being said...

Cons: Just like TNG and DS9, atrocious first 3 seasons. Also, Voy is sort of known for being a little sloppy. The writing is all over the board, ranging from mediocre to absolutely dogshit to not bad actually to pretty decent. It's a fun premise, but it's squandered a little. Characters are also inconsistent, depending on who's writing that particular episode. Unlike other Treks, it also doesn't quite meet the standard of mediocre, not even by season 3. It also doesn't flesh out some of its characters, and squanders a lot of their potential. It also has a very strange and rushed ending...also, it tries to be as edgy as DS9, but without the emotional depth, which often comes across as distasteful and even dare I say, boorish. So it has a lot going against it.

Moving to....

Enterprise- the Yikes

Shortened name: ENT

Full fucking disclosure. I fucking hate Enterprise.

Its stories are bad, most of the time. Its best episodes are still mediocre, by other Star Trek standards. Its overarching stories are terrible, with only a few even potentially interesting.

Also it got fucking cancelled by season 4, so its finale is baaaad.

Don't start with Enterprise.

Pros: Archer is great. I love Trip. T'Pol is adequate. So that's three good characters. There's one plot that's kind of cool.

Cons: It only has 3 good characters. And they are so waaaasted. As is that one plot.

So.

Moving on.

Now we get to modern trek.

Star Trek Discovery - the Doing Its Best

Nomenclature: DIS

Alright, full disclosure again. I watched two seasons of it, before quitting. But I can tell you this.

Pros: It's exciting and fresh and high quality. No more dorky little alien suits. State of the art CGI. High octane sci fi stories. Lots of death and drama and characters all hate each other and have trauma and don't want to deal with it. It's definitely made for the modern audience, and it has this like...disdain for other Star Treks. So if you haven't seen the other Star Treks, don't worry, it also has not. Not a bad place to start, if you don't care much for older shows and want something fun and new and set in space, and you like seeing phasers blow stuff up.

Cons: If you were interested in Star Trek for its hopeful future, that isn't what DIS is. DIS is more like, what if we had this one character and we focus on just her, and the rest of the crew doesn't matter? It's also sloppily written.

Now extra note: my MOM says Dis gets good by season 3. And I am inclined to believe her, because she is a diehard trekkie, and a true trekkie knows, season 3 is like...always where a Star Trek show gets off the ground.

But again. I have to admit, I never got there.

And I don't know if you'd personally like it. Maybe, if you're a fan of the more..exciting space action sci fis. If you like mega gritty war stuff, and torturing aliens to make your warp drive go fast.

But in terms of places to start...? Again, not a bad place if older star trek seems dull.

Discovery certainly is modern and not dull.

Picard- the Cash Grab

Name: PIC

Do not start with Picard. You won't get much out of it if you haven't seen TNG. You won't get much out of it if you have seen TNG.

Pros: It's good for...if you haven't seen Patrick Stewart play Picard in along time.

Cons: It's kind of terrible and messy. It also relies way too much on nostalgia and preexisting knowledge of TNG. So definitely do not bother with Picard as your first Star Trek.

Lower Decks: The Satirical Love Letter

Just called Lower Decks, I think.

Don't start here either, it is VERY dependent on you having seen every Star Trek ever. It's pretty good, but...it's satirical and to understand it well, you would've had to have seen the other Treks.

Strange New Worlds: the Fixer Upper

Shorthand: SNW

Pros: It's the only modern Star Trek that actually seems fond of the original Star Treks, while also being pretty decent just on its own. It brings back the optimism, while maintaining the high quality CGI. Its interpersonal relationships aren't bad. The overarching plot is only somewhat important, and it goes back to form, on that whole episodic thing. If you were allergic to bad rubber alien masks, and wanted to watch something from this era, SNW is the best place to start.

Cons: It might bore you a little if you weren't already a diehard Trekkie. It does depend a little bit on you knowing preexisting properties, just so far as the little wink wink, nudge nudges. It's also a little weird in that the crew doesn't quite live up to the fleshed out nuances of DS9, nor does it rise to the intelligence of TNG's plots.

So there you have it!

This took me almost two hours to write!

I don't know why I wrote it.

Something is wrong with me.

I love Star Trek.

Even the ones I criticized the most, I still like most of them.

I fully accept the Star Trek fandom's wrath too.

I know some people are bigger fans of the other Treks.

But this is my opinion, you know?

Which means I'm right, and everyone else is wrong.

[cazort]

So my fiance and I had recently finished watching Star Trek: Voyager (after completing watching TNG, DS9, Enterprise, and TOS, in that order) and we decided to give Star Trek: Discovery a try.

Two episodes in, we both agree that, so far, it’s trash, and we don’t want to watch any further. I don’t think it even really qualifies as Star Trek.

Am I being unfair or wrongly jumping to conclusions? Here’s what I dislike about it:

The writing of the dialogue feels unnatural, with the exception of the character Saru who I liked. The dialogue between Captain Georgiou and Michael Burnham feels particularly unnatural. The show also seems to omit a lot of “normal” dialogue, only showing isolated bits of dialogue focused around action/plot scenes, which seems really acharacteristic of Star Trek and also makes it hard for me to get to know the characters as normal people.

There are very few regular characters introduced. Whereas nearly all prior Star Treks introduce most of the main crew in the first episode, at least in passing, Discovery goes two episodes in and really focuses only on a small handful of characters (Burnham, Georgiou, Sarek, Saru, T'Kuvma, Vok) and kills off two of those characters in the second episode. I’m not against characters dying in the opening episode: DS9 shows Jennifer Sisko’s death and how it affects Commander Cisko, and Voyager’s opening episode features the death of many characters, but it didn’t pour energy into developing them only to kill them off.

The cinematography is low-quality and trite, which seems absolutely inexcusable given the modern tools available nowadays, I would expect it to be better, not worse, than prior shows. It is WAAAY too dark, even to the point of being completely unrealistic (why is a Federation court of law so dark at the end of episode 2? why is the ship’s bridge so dark? It’s darker even than Ops on DS9 and that was designed by Cardassians, which live in a lower-light environment. It doesn’t make sense) and to the point of making the episode hard to watch because I can’t see what is going on, even turning the brightness up fully on my monitor. Overall the cinematography looks like that of a bad action movie, or at best, some of the worst episodes of Enterprise’s season 3, not like most Star Trek.

There is too much angst and graphic violence and the overall vibe is too negative, and negative issues are not resolved. Both of us said we felt bad, emotionally, after watching each episode. This is very different from the sort of thought-provoking-but comforting effect that nearly all other Star Treks have. Other Star Treks did not shy away from tough subjects: war, genocide, torture even, but they framed it within a bright, optimistic view of the future in which there were mentally-healthy, mature characters who set a good example even when placed in tough situations. That’s the whole point of Star Trek.

So for people who have watched more of this, is my analysis spot-on? Does it get better after these episodes or does it stay this way? Is it really trash the way we think it is?

TBH the vibe I got from watching the first two episodes is that I felt frustrated at all the money and resources and time put into creating something that seemed to be damaging the franchise by taking something negative and angsty like any bad Hollywood action movie, and calling it “Star Trek”. I found it offensive. But I don’t know if I’ve judged it too early.

I didn’t initially like Voyager when I started watching it, but I ended up watching the whole thing and loving it, especially when I rewatched some episodes. And TNG’s first two seasons were pretty rough, and it has a few abysmal episodes in those seasons, but I still consider it one of the best series of all times, in part because from season 3 onward, they figured it out.

[isoscele]

Lumberjanes Week Day 4/5 - AU Day & OTP Day

Was a day late and a dollar short with my planned Infinity Train AU, so I decided to make it extra Hes/Diane and give you two for the price of one. I don’t know if they’re actually my Lumberjanes OTP, but goddamn are they the most fun to write. 

.

The second most infuriating thing about the Evil Forest Car (as Wren had so optimistically dubbed it) was that the door was absolutely impossible to find.

The most infuriating thing, of course, was its goddamn denizen.

She looked so human that, for a moment, Hes had really thought that they were going to get another member of their sad little party. This fantasy had lasted for most of the day, during which time the denizen had hacked away a cluster of branches and led them to a river of clean water with an unerring sense of direction. She had looked more irritated than afraid, and Hes had suddenly found herself dreaming of getting some actual competence into their group.

But then, of course, Hes had to glance at her hand. For two beautiful seconds, she forgot where they were, forgot that a normal hand was a Bad Sign. Diane had long fingers, well-trimmed nails. Her skin looked smooth, but Hes knew that was kind of a weird thing to think about. 

It hit her like a train from the Getting Hit By Trains Car: no number. Not a passenger.

Diane was something else.

For a moment, Hes could only stare, too freaked out to even tell the others. She had no problem with denizens; some were pretty awful, but most that they’d encountered were either pretty neutral or outright benevolent. Barney had even adopted a cat from one of the earlier cars that could do some really weird stuff, but seemingly only when Hes was keeping watch (Hes could now say that she had seen a magical kitten ask who’s going to believe you with just its eyes). 

Denizens were like people. Some of them sucked, some of them were great, but a lot of them were just trying to go about their super-weird days. Still, though, Hes had never seen one look as human as Diane did. That was a terrifying thought, that all their cars could be filled with people who acted like passengers but weren’t. Who had motives that Hes was so far from ever understanding.

So she handled the situation in the most graceful way she could think of, which was to stop short in a pile of rotting leaves and yell “Denizen!”

Diane threw her a look of pure loathing. “Dude.”

“Oh dang, where?” Emily scanned the tree line with interest. “I thought I saw a funky-looking squirrel a moment ago, is that it?”

“Um.” Hes glanced, panicked, at Diane, whose mouth was pressed into a thin line. “Um, it’s gone now.”

“I hope it’s another moose,” Mackenzie said reverently.

“If we meet another talking moose, you are not allowed to talk to it,” Wren shot back. “Jeremy would have helped us if you’d just shut up.”

Mackenzie was unapologetic. “He was wrong about hockey teams.”

“--that’s it, I’m going squirrel hunting. Wren, you wanna come squirrel hunting with me?”

“No squirrel hunting,” Hes said, because there was really no world where that didn’t end in fire and tears. “I guess if it . . . wants us to know, it’ll show itself.” She pointedly wasn’t looking at Diane, which wasn’t helped by the fact that Diane was staring at her.

Hes clenched her right hand behind her back. She knew she was making a bad call, and she didn’t need some stupid mathematician train god to tell her so.

Shockingly, they didn’t find the door. Hes, Diane, and Emily were supposed to take watch that night, but Emily went up the nearest tree about six seconds in, so then it was just Hes and Diane and the terrible inscrutable look on Diane’s face.

They were getting nowhere. They were totally lost, and Diane was probably evil and they were all going to die in what was easily the lamest car so far, and it was going to be all Hes’ fault.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she mumbled.

“What is up with you?” Diane said. “Do you hate denizens or not?”

“I don’t hate denizens,” Hes said. “I just think it’s weird that you’re pretending to be something you’re not.”

“I’m not pretending! You’re pretending, keeping your hands shoved in your sweatshirt all the time like you don’t want us to see that you’re, like, quantifiably messed up even though all of you are. And I never said I was a passenger, you just assumed.”

“Yeah, okay,” Hes said. Diane was deflecting. Hes wasn’t hiding anything, her hands just got cold a lot. “But you were acting like--like you want to get out. Like us.”

“Uh, newsflash, I do want to get out.” Diane said. “This car straight-up sucks. But I don’t need your help to do it, by the way, ‘cause I bailed on my original car ages ago. I’m helping you. Out of the goodness of my heart.”

Hes stared at the ground. She hated the cars that looked like places that could really exist. She wanted to go back to the Cotton Candy Car, or the Literally Just a Huge Washing Machine Car, or any of the six Star Trek cars (excluding The Animated Series, because that one was just. So weird). Here, though, it kind of looked like she could pick a direction to walk in and find a ranger station and a place to buy Cool Ranch Doritos and her mom, who was probably really worried about her. 

She didn’t know why she couldn’t just wake up the others and tell them that Diane was a denizen. They deserved to know. They probably wouldn’t be huge jerks about it like Hes had been. Maybe it wouldn’t even change anything.

“What car are you from, originally?” Hes said, instead of doing that.

“Why? Trying to take me back?” Diane said, with a snideness that probably hid some real anxiety.

“No! I just--I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about how a denizen like, knows where they are. Or what to do.”

“We know a lot more than you think,” Diane said,  which had the dual effect of being genuinely chilling and making Hes feel a little guilty. Then, for whatever reason, Diane softened. “I’m from the Greek Mythology car. I don’t know if you’ve been through it.”

Hes hadn’t, but her capacity for surprise was basically nonexistent at this point. “Sounds kinda nice.”

“Gets old.” Diane picked an acorn from the ground and started throwing it in the air and catching it. Hes tracked its motion with her eyes. “Anywhere would. The only way to do it is the way you guys do. Always moving around.”

Hes curled into the tree. She thought about the constant low-grade snarl of hunger, how much her feet hurt from weeks of walking. How even the fun cars were a little scary, in their own ways. “That gets old, too.”

“Then I guess we’re at an impasse, huh.” Diane flashed her a rare smile. “Only thing you can do is get your number down and get out.”

Hes started. She’d sort of guessed some of that, but confirmation from a denizen was something else. “We can leave? Like, leave-leave?”

“Think so. Not like anyone tells us anything.” Diane was quiet for a long moment--maybe thinking about how leaving was a passenger’s privilege. For her sake, Hes hoped they ran across some really amazing car soon, someplace Diane would be happy. Sarcasm Car. Puppy Car. I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Not-Earth! Car. 

“Well, okay.” Hes watched the acorn, going up and down with a kind of lovely carelessness. “Thanks for helping us, I guess. Sorry for, um. All this.”

“No worries.” Diane turned to face Hes all the way. She had startling eyes. They were altogether probably the most human thing about her, and the rest of her was very human. “Can I tell you something? I think the door is behind the waterfall.”

Hes squeezed her eyes shut. She knew.

Everywhere they went, there was always some catch. Some waterfall, infested with something darker and bigger and more watchful than Hes had the words to describe. The thing about the insane creativity of all these cars was that the horrors were always inarticulable. Bad in ways you had never known anything could be bad.

The waterfall had one slick hand around Hes’ thoughts. It made quiet sounds when none of them were talking, like a low laugh or else a funeral bell. The water seemed very swift and very cold, and behind it there might be a door or there might be something that they would never recover from.

“Maybe you’ll all get out before we have to check,” Diane said, but she didn’t sound hopeful. “What’s your number?”

Hes removed her hand from her sweatshirt pocket and gave it to Diane. Diane turned it over and over, staring at the number as if it had some hidden depth. Hes normally didn’t like people looking at it for too long, like they were just trying to peer through to see what was wrong with her, but she didn’t mind when Diane did it. 

And then they were just holding hands, and Hes had to admit that that was pretty nice, too. 

[punkpoemprose]

December 3rd- To Boldly Go

Universe: 1990′s AU/ Star Trek Convention AU Rating: G (General audiences, cleavage as a plot point but otherwise it’s a meetcute) Length: 3107

A/N: Thanks so much to @karis-the-fangirl for the idea to do a Trekkie convention for the 90′s AU. I actually got really into TNG around the same time I got into Frozen, so this was a fun callback for me. Also as a sidenote, this fic involves side Elsamaren, because meddling siblings and their equally as troublemaking significant others are always fun for me to write!

You don’t need to know a lot about Star Trek to get this fic, but you’ll get a kick out of it sooner if you do know at least a bit about Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Anna tugged up on her collar, trying to keep her top from plunging quite as low as it had. She was having some regrets when it came to her choice to dress up for the convention. She’d been so excited by the possibility to be like her favorite character for the day that she’d forgotten that Counselor Troi was clearly much more comfortable showing off her decolletage than she was, and was now paying the price for that as she walked around the convention center with her sister and her girlfriend.

They had made the better choices of dressing in general Star uniforms and were making a particularly cute and comfortable couple of science officers. She couldn’t help but smile as she watched them out of the corner of her eye, Honeymaren was helping re-pin Elsa’s Starfleet pin and Elsa was smiling at her like she’d hung the stars. A part of Anna was a bit jealous. While she was, of course, thrilled for her sister to have found someone who made her happy, she also wished that she’d be so lucky in love.

“Having issues with your uniform Deanna?” Elsa asked when she took note of Anna tugging her top up again.

“No more than you are,” Anna grumped, trying and failing to play it off like it was nothing.

She had been so excited when the convention had been announced. She’d never really considered herself the nerdy type, but as soon as she saw her first episode of Star Wars: The Next Generation she’d been hooked. That her sister had been willing to watch it as well had given them something to bond over after years of not having very much in common. This convention had been the ultimate way for her to enjoy the show and to meet other fans, but she just couldn’t stop thinking about how this wasn’t at all what she had planned.

When the announcement was made, she’d immediately gone to the nearest box office to her that was selling tickets and picked up three. One for her, one for Elsa, and one for her now ex-boyfriend. Honeymaren was just filling in so that the ticket purchase wouldn’t be a waste. She of course liked the show too, but hadn’t been watching it for years like they had, her fascination with it being a much more recent development.

She was glad that it had actually developed though, given that after Elsa had come out to Anna and introduced her to her girlfriend, they had needed something other than Elsa to talk about. Hans, her ex, had only feigned an interest, and like many other parts of their relationship, he’d not paid any attention to it.  

“You do look great though, just so you know.”

Honeymaren offered the compliment without any hint of placation. She wasn’t saying it because she thought Anna needed to hear it, she was saying it because she meant it. It was one of the things that Anna appreciated most about her sister’s girlfriend. She was honest, sometimes to the point of accidental injury to others not so versed in her frankness, but Anna was always glad to know exactly where she stood with her, and she thought that after the many years Elsa had spent second guessing everything, she deserved someone whose love she would never have to doubt.

“Thanks Honey,” she replied, “I’m sorry I’m being such a bummer.”

Elsa shrugged, “You’re usually Ms. Mary Sunshine Anna, you’re allowed a sad day. Just let us know what we can do. I know we both want you to enjoy the convention.”

“You can find me a Riker,” Anna teased, already feeling better knowing that she could enjoy the convention in the company of people who cared about her. And who, she was certain, would keep her from having an accidental nip slip.

***

Kristoff had been happy enough to take some of his siblings to the Star Trek convention they’d been talking about for weeks. He hadn’t really known what to expect, but when it came to his brothers and sisters he couldn’t really deny them anything. Well, at least he couldn’t deny them anything reasonable. They had asked him to dress up as Spock, and that was, ultimately where he drew the line.

They had begged and pleaded, but as much as he liked Spock, and generally enjoyed watching the Original Star Trek series with them, he didn’t really consider himself the dress-up type beyond his little sisters sticking him in a tutu here and there.

“Krissy!” his sister Crystal called, tugging on his hand, “Come on, there’s going to be a panel in a minute about how to make your own tribble!”

He huffed but smiled down at her. “How about you go grab Ben and Gemma from the merchandise table over there and head on over without me. If you promise to stay together you can go by yourselves and I’ll go figure out something for lunch.”

She grinned and then took off toward her other two older siblings. He could tell she was giddy about the trust he was placing in her and couldn’t help but feel glad that despite their high energy, his siblings were very good kids. Crystal was the youngest at nine, and then Gemma was the eldest excluding him at fourteen. Ben was smack dab in the middle at twelve, and while they still needed a chaperone to go to such a big event, he knew that he could trust them on their own for a little while. Especially because they’d be sitting.

He’d been adopted when he was five because his parents thought that they couldn’t have kids. That had seemed to be true for a little over a year until they discovered that they were expecting Gemma, and from there Kristoff never had a moment of silence to himself. It was a blessing of sorts, to go from no family to a small family, to having three younger siblings who loved him unconditionally.

It was worth all the diaper changes when they were small and now it was worth taking them on trips on his days off. His parents always appreciated the help, but really he enjoyed it more than they needed it.

As he watched them run off, Gemma holding Crystal’s hand and Ben following directly behind, he turned off the path of the convention floor and found a pillar to lean against. He just needed a minute to breathe before he went to find lunch for the kids. As much as he loved spending time with them, he wasn’t fond of the crowded convention space. It was too many people for his taste, and while he did enjoy the show, he didn’t really know much about the newest incarnation and that seemed to be most of what was highlighted at the booths and panels. He didn’t particularly have the urge or interest to investigate, but he did need a break, and he would take it where he could.

***

“Oh my gosh,” Honeymaren exclaimed, taking Elsa and Anna both my surprise.

Elsa tried to look in the direction that Honeymaren had been, but Anna watched as she quickly turned her to the side with a tug on her hand.

“Don’t look!” She chided.

“Look at what?” Anna asked, feeling just as confused as her sister looked.

She was quickly shushed and then Honeymaren grabbed her hand and dragged both her and Elsa off the show floor’s path and into a lull area by a merchandise table.

“What?” Elsa asked her girlfriend once she seemed to have settled from the whiplash of being dragged away from where they’d just been walking.

“Okay, keep your voice down, and don’t be obvious.”

“Obvious about what?” Anna asked, feeling like she’d fallen into an episode of Star Trek and some alien with an inability to explain its actions had taken over her sister’s girlfriend.

She gestured to the side, nodding her head in the direction of a pillar filled empty space off the show floor. It was near the hallway entrance that lead to the panel rooms, and Anna didn’t notice anything at first except for the fact that many people in and out of costume were resting in the space. She saw a Worf standing off to the side talking to a redshirt, an Uhura checking her lipstick in a hand mirror, three kids heading toward the panel hall together, and a handful of aliens eating snacks or sitting on the floor with their backs to pillars.

“What? Do you see Wil Wheaton or something?”

He was the only actor that was particularly close to their ages that was potentially coming to the convention and Anna knew that Elsa found him particularly charming on the show. There was probably a kinship for her in his character, a young kid who suddenly has to deal with the death of a parent and who is constantly trying to find his place.

“No, against the pillar, don’t be obvious.”

She was giggling now, and after a moment so did Elsa.

“Oh.”

“Oh what?” Anna replied still trying to scan the pillars, being quite obvious probably, to figure out what the two other women were looking at and giggling over.

“Oh.”

She spotted him after a moment. Tall, broad and handsome, leaning against a post with a short beard and a black turtleneck.

“You told us to find you a Riker,” Honeymaren said gleefully, “Well there you are.”

“I mean, he’s blonde and not in uniform, but she’s got a point Anna.”

She did, in fact, have a point. If one took a moment to slap a Starfleet uniform on him he’d make a pretty convincing Commander Will Riker. Except of course his blondness, but given that she was a red-haired Deanna Troi, she supposed that could be excused.

“You have to go talk with him,” Honeymaren said, seeming very convinced that it would be a good idea despite Anna, who normally considered herself an optimist, already forming doubts to how that would work out.

Anna looked to Elsa for assistance, but she was just smiling at her sister sheepishly, as if silently wishing her good luck. Honeymaren had a firm belief that things happened for a reason, one that had only been reinforced when she and Elsa had accidentally got trapped in an elevator together for three hours which was certainly the strangest meeting she’d ever heard of for a couple.

“I couldn’t. I mean, he looks like he wants to be left alone, and…”

“And nothing,” Honeymaren said, pushing her towards the pathway again, intending fully to make her cross it and walk over to the not-costume-wearing-Riker-like-gentleman leaning against the post.

Anna tried to turn back, but if there was one thing that her sister’s girlfriend and the Borg had in common it was that once they had a plan for you, resistance was futile.

***

“Uh… hi!”

Kristoff opened his eyes. He’d been taking a moment to decompress while his siblings were in their panel and had all but forgotten for a second, other than the loud noises of chatter and phaser sound effects, that he was in the middle of a room full of people.

He wasn’t sure who he expected to see when his eyes opened, but it was not a beautiful redhead with her cleavage on display right in his sightline. He flushed and averted his eyes, trying to burn away the mental image of freckled breasts that within a half a second were already lodged deep into his memories.

“Can I, uh…” he met her eyes and forced himself to maintain contact, “Can I help you?”

She flushed in return and he thought for a moment that she might have thought that he was someone else and had approached him by accident or something. It had never happened to him, but there was, of course, a first time for everything.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, sounding sheepish, “But uh, do you see those two girls across the way? The blonde and the brunette? That’s my sister and my friend.”

Not really sure where any of this was going, Kristoff awkwardly raised a hand to wave to the two women who were watching their exchange with interest. The brunette waved back, but the blonde, realizing they’d been caught, or more accurately ratted out, flushed and covered her face with her hand.

“They well… they think they’re funny and because you look kind of like Will Riker they told me to come over and talk to you. Stupid, I know.”

She had him until Will Riker. He thought that maybe he was an actor he didn’t know about or something. His Trek knowledge really was limited to just what his siblings had him watch, so he didn’t know much about anything else.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know who that is, but you’ve got the wrong guy.”

“Oh,” the girl said looking nervous and turning redder by the minute, “I didn’t mean I thought you were him I mean obviously… wait.”

She gave him a serious look for a moment, then continued.

“You’re at a Star Trek convention and you don’t know who Commander William Riker is?”

The accusatory tone to her voice almost made him nervous, like she was going to call the convention police on him or something.

“Uh, is he from The Next Generation?”

She nodded then, looking a bit confused still, but also a bit satisfied.

“I’m sorry, I’ve never watched it. I’ve only seen parts of the Original. Mostly I’m here watching my younger siblings. They’re in a panel.”

He didn’t know why he was telling her that. It didn’t really matter after all, there were no Star Trek convention police who were coming to kick him out for not knowing enough about the show. Yet he told he anyway, maybe because she was clearly in this situation under duress, or maybe because he’d stared at her cleavage and felt that he owed her for it, even if it was unintentional.

“Oh,” she said, “Well, um… that’s nice of you. I’m so sorry I bothered you. I’m sure you can understand siblings trying to talk you into things…”

He nodded. He did get it.

“You know, they tried to get me to dress up as Spock. Not Kirk, Spock. I had to tell them no, but it was a battle anyway, so I get it. And, uh, also… you weren’t really bothering me.”

“Oh, that’s nice of you to say. But I just interrupted your sibling break. I wish I could catch one of those, but if I walk away on my own I know those two are going to follow me anyway. Also, if your younger siblings watch Next Generation they’ll want you to be Riker next time.”

“Would they follow you if we walked to the café together?”

He didn’t know why he asked. He didn’t even know this girl’s name, but she seemed nice and he was starting to get a bit of a sense that she might be a kindred spirit. Clearly, he thought, she was a much more social kindred spirit, but someone he thought he might like to talk to nevertheless.

She flushed again and he was trying to think of how to backpedal when she answered, “Probably, but they might leave after a little bit. I’m their ride so they’d need to find me eventually, but it might be nice to spend a second alone… or alone together I guess. Until your little siblings get out of their panel that is.”

He nodded, and let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He wondered if she would let him buy her lunch. Because of the cleavage staring thing of course, to fix his karma, nothing at all to do with the fact that his treacherous brain was already filing away the details of her smile and ascribing labels to them like “cute” and “beautiful” which he rarely if ever did. He was the sort of person that fell in love with a personality before he did with looks, but he had to admit he wanted the opportunity to get to know her a little better.

“Oh!” she said, “And I’m Anna by the way… or Counselor Deanna Troi if you don’t want my real name. You don’t watch the show so you probably wouldn’t have known that anyway.”

She let out an awkward little laugh, and he couldn’t help but smile.

“I’m Kristoff,” he replied, “Just, uh Kristoff. I could’ve been Spock though, or I guess this Riker guy. Why did they think you should come talk to me anyway? I mean I get it’s because I look like the character, but is he important or something?”

He saw her blush brighten before she shook her head and took off towards the hallway that would lead them to the café. He followed behind and realized suddenly that he really needed to watch The Next Generation.

***

“What do you think?” Honeymaren asked, flapping a polaroid in her hand.

“You’re not supposed to shake them you know,” Elsa teasingly chided, “It says so on the package and everything.”

“Well I just wanted to make sure quickly that it was a good photo,” she explained, “I mean it’s their first date after all, I want to make sure we have pictures to show your future nieces and nephews.”

Elsa chuckled, “You’re always so sure of these things, aren’t you?”

She took the photo from her girlfriend’s hands and couldn’t help but grin when she saw that despite the distance, you could clearly tell that Anna-Deanna and her mystery not-Riker were smiling at each other and blushing in a way that very much indicated that Honeymaren was right to send Anna over to him.

“Of course, I mean this one was just too easy. I mean I know he wasn’t in costume, but he does look like Riker, and Anna makes a good Troi even if she’s a redhead and since those two are getting married in the show, we might as well assume our real life analogs will get there too.”

Elsa shoved the photo into her canvas bag, tucking it between a zine and a headshot of Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher. Anna would, no matter the outcome, probably want it later for the memory. She only had to hope, grabbing Honeymaren’s hand, that her girlfriend’s romantic sense was as good for others as it had been for them.

“Come on,” she said with a sigh, “Lets stalk them to the foodcourt.”

[stonerspock]

hiiii 3, 10, 13, 14 and 23 please 😌💚

3. If you could be a character for one day who would you choose and why?I’m definitely inclined to say Guinan because i simply LOVE her and I think a day in her shoes would be fun no matter what I’m doing… It would be fun to just hang out in ten forward and talk to different people. But I’d also want to tap into her mysterious past and go meet with really cool people around the galaxy that she knows. OR to fence with picard would totally be worth it. 

alternatively, i think it would be fun to be Odo and just mess around with the shapeshifting like fuck it. vanilla extract on the wall <3 

10. Headcanons on a character 

I have headcanons on essentially every character lol. I mean in terms of being LGBT i hc pretty much everyone (except obr**n) as being in thee Community, and I think most of my HCs there are usually popular opinions. 

Here’s one I have: Guinan and Q were romantically involved in the past BUT at a time where Q was appearing as a woman (because I hc Guinan as a lesbian lol). I headcanon the version of Q we see interacting with Picard 100% as a gay man BUT i think that as a Q he would technically be bisexual/cannot be accurately defined in human concepts of sexuality. But in the same way the Q can appear physically in any form, I like to think that they can appear in the form of a human with a specific sexual orientation (since that also may impact their gender presentation!). So I like to imagine that when Guinan and Q were involved, it was the same being that we know as Q but at that time as a woman. And that definitely ended in a dramatic break-up that we clearly see the repercussions of in TNG haha. 

13. What's an aspect of the fandom, series that resonates with you? 

Simply put: the optimistic vision of the future that has a genuine belief in humanity to tap into goodness and fix the broken world we’ve created. I love love the notion of “infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” I think star trek is genuinely a socialist dream lol. I just love the vision of a future that has abolished capitalism, poverty, and money and that prioritizes and values unity among not only all humans but different alien species too! And the value of improving ourselves through knowledge and our relationships with others, rather than being driven by profit. 

14. If you could write an episode or book on the series what characters would you pick and what would be the plotline?

Ok I’m actually so glad you asked this because i have an immediate answer… There is SO much potential Saavik content. In the novelizations for Wrath of Khan and Search for Spock, we find out more about Saavik’s past, her being half-romulan and half-vulcan and raised in horrible conditions from which she was eventually saved by Spock. They flesh out her own thoughts on being half-romulan and how she’ll never know her birth parents because (presumably) her vulcan parent was killed by the romulan parent, and there is no way to identify them. I envision an epic story about her after we see her left on Vulcan in the beginning of TVH where she goes on a journey to learn more about her past and then ultimately has to encounter Romulans and struggle with the romulan part of her identity but she ultimately chooses the peaceful and logical vulcan values she learned from spock. I also would LOVE more content exploring Spock’s relationship with Saavik as a father figure. I honestly might have to start writing fic lol 

23. Who do you ship yourself with? 

saavik (search for spock version is my girl lol), ensign ro 🥵🥵, jadzia, kira. i’ve had my fantasies about troi, dr crusher, guinan, even milf icon lwaxana troi… i love most of the women on star trek lol 

[kinetic-elaboration]

November 13: 1x23 A Taste of Armageddon

Feeling pretty tired now, and it’s been a rough day, but I did rally to watch, and enjoy, an episode of Star Trek.

A diplomatic mission today. The Enterprise comes with friendly intentions!

I don’t entirely get this Ambassador or the back story here. They want to set up diplomatic relations with this solar system, because Federation members somehow get killed there a lot. But the Eminians don’t ever leave their solar system, so if the Federation is having problems with them it must be because the Federation is messing around in their space. So perhaps you could just no go there?

Mmm love Kirk being A Captain. “I’m thinking about this ship, my crew.” He’s not a fan of Ambassadors or people usurping his power.

And Spock seems very interested in all of this.

Aw yeah another cool 50s sci fi background! There are more of these than I remembered.

All of the interior hallways, as well as the exterior painting, are all nice and bright and multi-colored for those new color TVs.

It’s hard to pinpoint why, but I feel like this is an effectively Alien culture. Like maybe it’s the weird hats or the colorful hallways or the initial mysterious nature of them, but they just feel very not human, in a way ST alien guest stars don’t always manage imo.

Those annoying colonists lol. Sent them to a new planet and now they’re attacking us.

“If this is an attack... where’s the attack?”

Everyone in Star Trek does a lot of scanning and surveillance.

“Our civilization lives--the people die--but our culture goes on.” Literally America’s COG plans.

“I do not approve. I understand.” I love Spock so much.

The target has been “classified destroyed.” Kirk is confused and rightfully so.

Hmm, is Spock meditating?

Oh, there’s McCoy! Guess he didn’t get the memo yet that he and everyone else is dead.

Scotty know when Kirk’s voice isn’t Kirk’s voice. I love Scotty also and appreciate that he’s getting a bigger role at this point in the series.

I guess Spock is still a “Vulcanian.” Ngl... kind of wish they’d stuck with that. It has a certain ring. I feel like this is the first mention of their telepathic abilities--aside from the mind meld specifically. And they’re “limited” abilities. But not so limited that he can’t control that dude’s mind without touching him--and through a door. Mom suggested the ability is stronger with touch, which makes sense, especially as they do have psychic bonds with each other. But still. That looked pretty powerful to me.

Kirk is so apologetic about possibly being forced to kill.

“I’ll cover you.” It’s probably because of STXI that that affects me so much lol.

I can’t believe “there’s a multi-legged creature on your shoulder” worked! I remember seeing this ep for the first time and just completely losing it at that.

No one’s even gonna talk about the Prime Directive today, I guess.

So it’s already escalating as Anan said: real weapons used to destroy their weird suicide machines, now real weapons to attack the Enterprise.

Scotty’s not impressed by their fire power though.

If only Spock were here to be reminded of his father.

“The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank.” But they’re not military lmao.

Kirk is so turning up the charm again with Mea. But she’s not very susceptible to it and he’s getting kind of impatient, so it’s like Aggressive Charm.

I feel like this ambassador isn’t very smart. He’s too trusting, doesn’t seem to have great instincts. As opposed to Scotty, who is also Brave and Good, taking a stand.

“The haggis has hit the fan.” Please tell me that is not a real Scottish saying.

I know Kirk and Anan are supposed to be, like, tense and dangerous and threatening in this scene, but it’s reading almost flirty. “Would you...like a drink?” Kirk’s little finger crook thing.

You can tell he already has a plan at this point, which is kind of unusual in terms of Star Trek structure imo. Like usually you’re more with Kirk as he develops a plan, and here you’re watching him hint at the plan. “I don’t need my ship to destroy your whole planet” and so on.

“A man like that would have preferred to die fighting.”

How’d the diplomats get down to the planet? I thought the shields were still up.

They’re really giving Fox the Cliff’s Notes version of their society, huh? “Nice to meet you, you’re off to die now, sorry, really.”

Spock’s like “Oh, no, an Ambassador being killed?? How terrible...”

“Keep her from leaving. Sit on her if you have to.” Unexpectedly hilarious like wtf kind of order is that. And then the Yeoman like trying to look all fierce and Mea’s like “Yeah, okay,” eye roll.

“I’m practicing a peculiar variety of diplomacy.” Spock is such a bad ass. And he’s having a good time being action hero.This is why Vulcans think he’s weird.

Now he needs to find the Captain!

Kirk and Spock both using schoolyard tactics to win fights: tripping someone, the old spider trick. And they’re effective!

Quite possible even better than the spider scene is this ‘Spock comes to rescue his boyfriend and Kirk already has two guns trained on the room’ scene. “I thought you needed help.” / “Oh, I need the help.”

“We’re not going to kill today.” Honestly this one speech is deeper than all 7 seasons of the 100. Also more optimistic and nicer.

Kirk versus the computer again lol. This time, with firearms!

“A feeling is not much to go on.” IT IS IF IT’S A SIMPLE FEELING AMIRITE FELLAS?

“You almost make me believe in luck.” / “You almost make me believe in miracles.”

Honestly where the fuck is EITHER of those things coming from? Like no one was talking about luck and they definitely weren’t talking about miracles!! No one mentioned any miracles, Jim!!

He always gets so flirty after the danger is over, though. Every single time. “Ah, yes, all is well, now time to say something romantic or suggestive. As a treat.”

And then they play that weird comical music over Spock’s confused face as if that made it less queer.

So anyway this isn’t the official Vietnam War Episode but it’s kinda giving me Vietnam vibes. (According to the amazon trivia, I’m right: the computer tallies of the war dead was inspired by Vietnam causalities being shown on tv at night.) From an American perspective, it’s far away, it’s largely invisible, but it’s also long, it seems to exist for its own sake.

Also interesting that no one ever mentions why the two sides are fighting--probably because after 500 years, they don’t know. They just continue on in this mechanized, unceasing way.

That was a really good episode, and even though the actual danger of computer isn’t really what they predicted, I think it holds up regardless, in a different way.

I mean first of all technology has done a fair bit to sanitize war--the use of drones, for example, that allow the aggressors not to see their damage.

But also, and this is like only a half-thought really, but... One thing I think about a lot that the show didn't predict is that the internet allows us to see so much more than any other group of people in history. everything is very close, and there are pictures and videos and so on, from all over the world, available to you at any given time. I think this is very hard to deal with psychologically. So thinking about that in relation to this...it's a different balance but for the Eminians, war was both very real and close--it's constant, and people die all the time in huge numbers--but also very far away, because it's happening essentially hypothetically. So the dichotomy doesn’t line up in the same way but it still exists, imo.

And wow, that “we’re not going to kill today” speech. That was an interesting little wrinkle: that part of why the Eminians continued warring was because they felt like it was just inherently who they were. Their nature. Same philosophy espoused by all the grimdark showrunners of today. “I’m smart and brave and deep because I’m showing a mirror to humanity!! A MIRROR!”

And then here's Kirk, a Classic Hero, coming in and saying, "Yeah, wow, deep, you've determined that your species has a violent history. That's cool and all but have you considered that every single day you can consciously choose to make different, better choices?"

This was a good Kirk ep, a good Spock ep, and a good Scotty ep. It bums me out that he’s seen as comic relief now I guess... as my mom said, Scotty liked a joke but he was never comic relief.

I think it would be interesting to hear more of Spock’s thoughts in this ep, though. He’s the son of an ambassador and his people also had a warlike history that they dealt with in a way different to how humans do. But the method of problem solving of the Enterprise Captain and crew today was very martial, much more about brute force, and strategy as well, than peaceful talking--an overall plan I doubt many Vulcans would like. It would be interesting to hear how he thought of it all to himself.

Anyway, it’s getting late! Next up is a very decidedly good Spock ep, This Side of Paradise. Might be watching it on Wednesday so..not too long to wait!

[chucklestheechidona]

Red Dwarf: USA

AKA: One week into isolation and a Welshman drunkenly types out his most controversial opinion

One of the first sci-fi shows I ever watched, at least, without realising it was science fiction, before even Star Trek, of which I vividly remember seeing Patrick’s face and voice on my thick arse grey heavier-than-sin Television, would have been that of the 1988 comedy - Red Dwarf.

I didn’t watch it live of course, I was born in 1993, by the time I could actually start remembering things the show had already ended. Like many people, I watched it on someone’s recorded VHS tape, among others in our house such as Duckman. Like Duckman, Red Dwarf was a bit out of my depth, but I liked it all the same. Some of the jokes landed and the slapstick and (not)aliens were enough to capture my attention.

Of course, I grew older, my appreciation for the show changed over time. The jokes obviously landed a lot more, but what I appreciated more was the character building, the acting, the writers and the cast having an appreciation, even through troubled shooting or grievances, towards what they were working through.

As anyone would expect though, I have my thoughts on where the series’s high’s ended, can see the flaws in some writing and some episodes, and overall the direction it headed after series 6, but yet, it still holds a special place in my heart.

Something I didn’t figure out until I was much older was the existence of a USA version. There was a pilot, then a failed attempt at another pilot/episode 2, and it was never heard from again.

Anyone from Britain could have told you this was a terrible idea from the start, anyone who’s watched it will tell you how awful it is.

In a DVD extra on one of the boxsets, both writers lamented what could have been if things went right, the misery of working in an American environment which didn’t appreciate the British insight. Rob, who plays Kryten, speaks about how the American cast thought the script the American execs were pushing on them to be terrible. But Rob got paid a lot of money to eat food and do some scenes, so he enjoyed it for the most part.

But if you like Red Dwarf, you already know this. If you didn’t, thanks for staying with me.

There are many reasons for why Red Dwarf USA didn’t work. “You can’t just take a British thing and try and localise it.”

Yet The Office USA is a massive hit, and has its fan-base here. 

Craig Charles, as in, Lister’s actor, reckoned it was because of a lack of a class system, although Doug, one of the writers, would disagree.

I get Craig’s feelings, mind you. In the UK, I have more in common with people who are on the same pay-grade as me than anything stupid like race, sex or religion. Which isn’t to say there aren’t those divides in the country, but the class system is very heavy here. The Lower and Working class bond knowing they’re working harder than those above for not as much pay.

But as Doug says, the people on Always Sunny/Malcolm in the Middle aren’t the same people who are on Friends/Frasier, for example. He uses a different example, for it’s an old documentary, but the point still stands. There is class in America, even if it’s implemented differently in media and IRL

(As an aside, Malcolm in the Middle was fantastic.)

Craig Bierko (the USA Craig and the USA Lister) said it was just a mistake to do, that they shouldn’t have even tried to localise an exceptional program. I mean, he partook in it, but the actor had to eat and food isn’t free.

But after all that, here’s the thing.

I think it could have worked.

It would need heavy editing mind you. A proper look into why it didn’t work in the first place. More of a look into an American future, rather than a future which was (despite original intentions) still heavily British. 

The jokes would need localising, the actors would need a bit of a workaround in terms of personality, but here’s why I started this.

Where the story would go next.

Dave Lister (UK) was a happy-go-lucky carefree scouser, who worked as little as possible, chased impossible dreams while playing a guitar he never put any actual time into learning. He got along with people quite well, despite being on the bottom of the pecking order. He got in trouble with authority, but he was doing it out of good intentions. 

This was mostly to balance out his bunkmate, Rimmer, who was in every way opposite. He was a stressed pent up ball of worry and anger, who had one dream and one goal only, of which he failed constantly. He was liked by no-one, the only person he was above (Lister) he took extreme measures to exercise the little power he had.

On an aside, UK Lister wasn’t conventionally attractive. Craig Charles is a good looking bloke mind you, he’s not ugly, but his looks managed to sell the underdog achiever. He looked very much the part of a low-life Liverpudlian drunk. (despite being a wordsmith and successful poet in real life, not to mention his impressive DJ’ing)

USA Lister however, was played by this HUNK.

Dave Lister USA was shown to be the same kind of person, but hinted at was his more roguish cheeky nature. A more... American view. While Lister UK, when talking to his crush, would be almost awkward, never really sharing many words with her, despite being madly in love with her, Lister US had gone out with Kochanski.

(True, UK did past series 5, but a retcon to match the books is still a retcon)

Lister US was cheeky, cocky, a bit arrogant to Kochanski. He hadn’t taken the relationship seriously. She was a Flight Navigation Officer, he was the lowest rank on the ship, a Third Technician. He had no aspirations, no dreams. He had a plan, much like our Lister, but hadn’t even seemed to save up pay for it. He mentions it once in passing to Kryten at the start, but the way he talked to Kristine, the way he spoke about it to Kryten, it seemed that he’d given up, more than our more hopeless UK Lister. 

UK Kristine knew Lister but had hardly shared words with him, and it was all Lister’s fault, as Kris would have been kind enough to actually talk to him. UK Lister’s story overall is of a man who had the chance to be better, but gave himself excuses why he couldn’t, or didn’t. UK Lister could have talked to Kris at any time, but had been his own obstacle.

USA Kristine however, had had USA Lister actually get her to go out with him. It was nice, they still talk. But Kris had ended it. Kris had career aspirations, and Lister had not.

(This kept close to the UK books, but UK Kris had somewhat used UK Lister as a rebound. It was still a nice enough break-up, but Lister then careens down into depression. Unlike AmeriLister who’s optimistic he can pick it back up. Gotta love America and their hope.)

This culminated in the final scene we see of pre-accident Kris, where she sees David did a noble gesture by sacrificing himself to save his cat, and (even though oddly paced) tells David she loved him.

Heat of the moment it may be, but USA Lister immediately cracks, telling the crew that he’d give up the cat’s location. It’s played for laughs obviously, but maybe this is what’s more important to USA Lister.

But these very differences, like angles, could stretch further than just copying the show. By leading on from what made AmeriDave different than BritiDave.

What I would do

First, we make USA Lister stand out more. His dress attire seemed Han Solo-esque, so let’s put a bit of that personality into him. This Lister, would have been an under-acheiver his whole life, maybe after the event, he wouldn’t be. This Lister would be brought back with a new sense of determination. He has to prove to Kochanski, Rimmer, his Cat and Holly that he’s no longer this Third Technician, he was capable of getting back the human race.

Where UK Lister (at least, in the show) would try and see in what ways he could kill time, in a sobering kind of malaise that strikes a man three million years into deep space, USA Lister would be trying to get his head around how to get back. In the final part of the show, after they see their future selves, he knows he actually has to do something. Back to earth? Sure, he wouldn’t know, and finding out would be hard, but USA Lister would actually have to learn to apply himself early. 

This doesn’t sound like Lister! (or more accurately, isn’t this just the Book Lister) British people like seeing despair. We long to see Del Boy fail, we want to see Basil Fawlty have a meltdown. Americans have hope. They want to see Ross get with Rachel, they long to see their hero win. Or if he can’t win, have a snarky comment about it. We want to see UK Rimmer and Lister fail in their attempts to get back, because it’s funny. USA have hope. They’d want to see Lister get home.

USA Rimmer would make learning hell for USA Lister. Rimmer, thinking he knows more, would foil the attempts at Lister, but not out of malice, out of incompetence on Rimmer’s part. “Thermodynamics, let me teach you, Dave, no-one’s taken that test more than I have!” Que the failed test.

Unfortunately, the Cat, Kryten, Holly and Rimmer in the US version are almost all carbon-copies of their UK counterpart. I haven’t thought this through enough, obviously. They’d have to be changed, Episode 1 would have to be rewritten, but with changes in mind.

I’d have USA Lister be an actual hero, but a kinda useless one who takes a while to get things done, consulting with his equally useless crew. Rimmer, to be a dick, but with a lot of the bitterness taken out (because American’s can’t really pull it off), but with the same inferiority complex. He’d make hell for Lister, but under the genuine reason of “I want to see you do better. (cause right now you’re an embarrassment to the human species)“ The last human, trained by the best of what was left of humanity. Or at least, Rimmer would see it that way.

The rest of the cast could be figured out later. Honestly, too much like their counterparts. I guess that was the point of the show when they tried to release it, it was only a localisation after all.

Conclusion

We’ll never know what Rob and Doug wrote that the other actors liked, I doubt a copy was kept after it was butchered by the Americans.

But I think what little made it different, was the bit where it shone. Sure, shone as in behind 4 panes of glass and a sheet of paper, but still, it could have been something.

I’m a sucker for “What could have been.” Even for money-grabbing USA executive schemes such as trying to make RD: USA

And hey, maybe it could have. And I like all that alternative stuff. When Mortal Kombat actually included bits from the movies, that made me smile. If Sonic ever had a nod to Fleetway, I’d be happy enough.

Maybe one day we’ll have an alternative Lister played by Craig Bierko, and he’d be an actual space-wanderer hero. And then our UK Lister can call him smug smeghead. And he’d be right.

(About USA Lister, not Bierko)

Final Conclusion

The word count on this went way out of hand. This killed an afternoon and I’m stuck in my house, I have a backlog a mile long to go through

Need to finish ‘Off’, ‘Torchwood’, DW, and possibly watch some Red Dwarf before the new one is out.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

Smegheads

[fyrapartnersearch]

Chapter 1; In Which Death Awaits and a Plot is Hatched

"You're fucking persistent, I'll give you that," Izar growled, planting his foot in the snow and pivoting around to face the wards. He slammed his hands on the wards, causing a deep resonance to sound across the snowy grounds. He was lifted off his feet and sent flying. Izar clenched his lips together before he gave a delighted laugh, not even stopping as he was deposited harshly onto the ground. He spread his arms out around his body, making tracks in the snow beneath him. Odd… he never had made a snow angel before.  Izar leaned his head into the snow, ignoring the eerie quiet that reverberated across the grounds. The army was flabbergasted at what had just happened, Izar knew. Though, hopefully they were impressed, because he was even impressed with himself. Sadly, it didn't take long for the fighting to continue for he heard magic and curses being passed back and forth between the crowds a few yards away from his current position. Chaos would erupt shortly. The two groups were still in quiet surprise over the areas lack of magic. Soon, the students and the professors would either herd together inside the castle, escape, or join the fray. Until that time… Izar kicked his arms and legs out, creating a snow angel beneath him. His green eyes stared at the sky above him, observing the snowflakes as they slowly drifted into focus. Without the soft and yellowed glow from Hogwarts, the only thing left to light the grounds was the half moon and the curses being released from their owners' wands. He smiled thinly, finding himself feeling rather numb despite the situation that transpired earlier. He issued a controlled moan. "What… are you doing?" Izar gave the towering man a look of disdain. "Exactly what it looks like, My Lord." Voldemort's lips thinned as he watched Izar create a deeper snow angel. "They did warn me that the insanity was strong within you. Obviously, I hadn't given it proper consideration." A pause. "Until now." While his Master’s tone was light in his mocking, Izar could see the man deeper than that. There was a knowing glint in the crimson eyes as they watched Izar in the snow. The Dark Lord believed Izar was averting his focus and attention away from reality in order to avoid thinking about his near-death experience. Was he? Possibly… no, most certainly. He had almost been absorbed into the castle’s wards. Izar had been taken off-guard. There was this nagging feeling that Izar could have prevented everything that transpired in the last few minutes.  -- Did the above introduction catch your interest? I sincerely hope so. I also hope that, from there, your eyes continue on, trifling through this post, absorbing the information I offer and nurturing a growing interest that will lead you to my door. Writing is not just a pass-time. It's an adventure, an extravagant and deeply fulfilling world created for our very own enjoyment - this is the reason I am now here in search of partners. Optimistically thinking, I have not scared too many of you away with my mutterings and lavish vocabulary! Let's move on, shall we? Who am I? Online I go by the alias Ariikos Melanthios, but Ari or Arik is just fine. I'm a 19+ British Roleplayer employed by a fabulous company that sometimes requires my absolute attention and - at other times - lets me relax within my home while they look for something for me to do.  I can reply a minimum of once a day, often more, but attempt to always assure my partner when I need to delay a response. I play both male and female characters (as well as those between and far from that spectrum) and am open to all pairings, with experience thereof. How do I write? Usually over email or google docs, but I could always give letters a try! Sorry, that was a poor attempt at humour. My posts tend to cross the line of 1000 words as a constant, but can sometimes dip below when replies require a faster-paced thought process, such as in combat or conversation. They also have a tendency to far surpass that, such as in the case of a recent roleplay in which my starter post was over 5000 words! Fear not, weary traveller! At no point will I expect you to match these lengths, only wishing for a response that carries your half of the story. I'd be happy to share some examples upon contact - just ask. Am I missing anything?  Probably. Almost definitely, so feel free to ask any questions. I'm not particularly shy! So, what do I want from you? - 3rd person, multi-paragraph to novella, eligible responses.  - Active participation in the musing and creation process.  - Uses Google Docs or Email for roleplay reponses, and either Google Hangouts or Discord for musing (sorry the Discord word limit is too much of a hassle). Fandom's or Originals? I enjoy roleplaying in both, so let me know what you're interested in. I will not play a Canon for your OC, or a Canon/Canon relationship 99% of the time. However, you may be the single person to convince me of otherwise if the plot is juicy enough! - Harry Potter; please bring me your ideas. This is my favourite series (if you couldn't tell from the opener) and I can do anything from starting with kids in their first year, to Professors or Aurors. Good guys or bad guys. AUs, Crossovers or Canon!  - Dragon Age; huge nerd of this game, please send any ideas my way, including obscure settings in the general universe but separate from the canon storylines. All of the games are fantastic! - MCU; comics and films, preference towards X-Men but generally open to anything. - The Witcher; books, games or TV series! - Telltale The Walking Dead; a little more obscure, but believe it could make for an interesting take on the original story.  - Star Trek; new or old generation, or our own take! - Resident Evil; preference towards the films, but familiar with the games too.  - Sword Art Online - Doctor Who; any doctor, or our own. Honestly, I'm missing so many here, but just ask and I probably know it! If not, I'm always willing to do the research and put in the effort.  Onto original plots - in general I want to create a world with you! - Fantasy - Sci-Fi - Urban - Dystopia - Mythology - Medieval - Superpowers - Darker Themes - etc I'm usually up for anything though I'm not a huge fan of slice-of-life. Anything with action and I'm in. Well, I think that's about everything. If you've made it this far, congratulations! Please introduction yourself upon first contact, letting me know what you're looking for! If you can provide information about yourself, your likes and dislikes then you'd gain extra points in my book! You will absolutely be judged by your introduction, aha.  Find me @ Ariikos#3683 AriikosMelanthios@gmail.com Looking forward to hearing from you!

[douxreviews]

Babylon 5 - Series Review

"Now get the hell out of our galaxy."

J. Michael Straczynski’s Babylon 5 was the last, best hope for a rival sci-fi television franchise to challenge the dominance of Star Trek. It failed. And let’s be glad it did. Last thing we needed was another bloated franchise knocking out a never ending cycle of naff spin-offs. Instead let’s be thankful for what remains to this day as one of the finest sci-fi series ever made. But it did take some time before it became that.

[Warning: This review contains spoilers]

Season One - Signs and Portents

Straczynski envisioned the series as an epic novel for television told in five volumes with each episode being an individual chapter. JMS wanted to tell a universe changing saga of heroes and villains, epic battles and the rise and fall of empires. Something akin to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, only in space with aliens instead of hobbits and on a limited television budget. Surprisingly, this didn’t turn out to be as impossible as it might have seemed.

The year was 2258. The name of the place was, duh, Babylon 5, a massive five-mile long space station built by humans after the devastating Earth/Minbari war -- a place where aliens could meet to talk out their differences. Straczynski presented us with a future that was a far cry from the optimistic utopia of Gene Roddenberry. Crime, poverty, corruption and prejudice still existed. The various races were constantly at each other’s throats. Many of the alien races felt genuinely extraterrestrial, not just a load of humanoids with bumpy foreheads and pointed ears, although the station did have its fair share of those.

B5 first aired in 1993 with the (not very good) feature length pilot ‘The Gathering’. A year later the first season began airing with ‘Midnight on the Firing Line’ on the now defunct PTEN network, the show’s home for its first four seasons. In truth the first season is not the series’ strongest. No doubt in an effort to not alienate a potential audience, the season is driven more by predominantly naff standalone episodes, than the show’s signature story arcs. These standalone tales were often just sub-Trek nonsense that did little to help B5 to stand out from its rivals. Nevertheless there was still some good to be found in amongst the crap. After all, as rubbish as ‘Mind War’ was, it still gave us Walter Koenig as that slippery Psi Cop Bester (still B5’s finest villain).

In the second half Straczynski gradually started to move away from alien of the week tripe like ‘TKO’, ‘Believers’ and ‘Infection’ and began to lay the foundations for the awesomeness that was to come in episodes like ‘And the Sky Full of Stars’, ‘Signs and Portents’ (the introduction of Mr Morden and the Shadows), the two-parter ‘A Voice in the Wilderness’ and ‘Babylon Squared’ in which the crew investigate the sudden and mysterious reappearance of the missing Babylon 4 station. The big season finale ‘Chrysalis’ is a veritable congregation of ‘holy shit, did they just do that?’ moments as earth shattering cliff-hanger follows earth shattering cliff-hanger. Sinclair’s final lament “Nothing is the same anymore” couldn’t have been more appropriate.

At this early stage the characters were also something of a mixed bag to be sure. While G’Kar and Londo arrive practically fully formed (despite some rough early make-up effects) the rest of the cast all needed a little more work. Sinclair was too often stiff and po-faced while Ivanova had yet to develop something resembling a sense of humour. And I can’t be the only one who thought that Jerry Doyle looked like the product of a failed attempt to clone Bruce Willis?

The first season was certainly a patchy start for Babylon 5. Much of it hasn’t dated well. While they were groundbreaking and innovative at the time, much of the CGI effects now look rather primitive but still manage to stand up a lot better than most of the shows from the time (Space: Above and Beyond for example). The costumes and alien make up are all a little rough. And the dialogue constantly veers between clunky and cheesy. But the series potential was still there for all to see. By the second season the show would improve by leaps and bounds, culminating in some of the finest TV drama of the last 25 years.

Season Two - The Coming of Shadows

It was a year of change in season two of Babylon 5.

Due to illness, Michael O’Hare amicably agreed with creator J. Michael Straczynski to depart from the show. He was replaced by Bruce Boxleitner as the new station commander, Captain John J. Sheridan. The former Tron fitted in quite well on B5 and after a few episodes you’d easily be forgiven for thinking he’d been there the whole time.

The first episode ‘Point of Departure’ serves to introduce and establish Sheridan as the new station commander and show how he handles a crisis. It’s not until episode two ‘Revelations’ that JMS got around to resolving all the cliff-hangers from the previous season. Delenn came out of her cocoon with L'Oreal hair (because she’s worth it) and instantly caught Sheridan’s eye. Garibaldi woke from his coma to expose the man who shot him in the back. And G’Kar returned to the station with grave warnings about the darkness to come (that no one would listen to until it was too late).

Season two has the look and feel of a show more assured of its self, more confident in what it can accomplish. This was the year Babylon 5 stopped looking like just another Star Trek clone and became a small screen sci-fi epic to be reckoned with. There were still a number of rubbish standalone episodes such as ‘The Long Dark’ and ‘GROPOS’ to put up with, but they weren’t as bad as they had been in the first season. Besides, when you have episodes as good as the Hugo Award winning ‘The Coming of Shadows’, ‘In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum’ and ‘The Long Twilight Struggle’ what are a few duff ones here and there?

Walter Koenig returned as Bester in ‘A Race Through Dark Places’ and continued to make us forget he was ever Chekov. ‘And Now For a Word’ looked at life on the station from the perspective of a news program. Later in the season Lyta Alexander, not seen since the original pilot, would return in ‘Divided Loyalties’ to expose a sleeper agent on the station that had devastating consequences for Ivanova. And ‘Comes the Inquisitor’ sees the Vorlons test Delenn with the help of Jack the Ripper (no, seriously).

With the addition of Boxleitner the main cast was considerably stronger this season, albeit there were still a few redundant characters that needed to be gotten rid off such as Lt. Keffer, a hotshot fighter pilot character the network insisted that Straczynski add to the line up. But JMS was not one to let even an unwanted character go to waste and used Keffer’s fate to further along the Shadow War arc. The same could not be said for G’Kar’s aid, Na’Toth, who just sort’ve vanished after two episodes without anyone, her boss included, noticing.

It’s no small thing to say that Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik were the series' best actors and this season they took their performances to another level. For most of the first season Londo was nothing more than the comic relief, but this season Londo’s story went in a much darker direction as he grew closer and closer to Mr. Morden and his ‘associates’. Similarly as Londo fell further into darkness G’Kar began his long and painful journey towards redemption and spiritual enlightenment.

The season finale ‘The Fall of Night’ managed to end the season on a suitably downbeat note, but lacked the universe shacking impact of ‘Chrysalis’. While the future looked bleak for the characters the show’s future looked ever brighter. With the flaws and weakness of the first season overcome Babylon 5 would continue from this point to go from strength to strength.

Season Three - Point of No Return

In my humble little opinion season three of Babylon 5 is one of the greatest seasons of television in the entire history of the medium. This was the absolute peak of Straczynski’s small screen space opera. Admittedly, it’s not 100% perfect. It was at this point that Straczynski started writing every single episode himself (an impressive achievement to be sure) so inevitable dreck like ‘Grey 17 is Missing’ gets sandwiched in between all the great stuff. And we were pretty much spoilt for choice with great stuff this season. After two years worth of build up this was the season where things finally started to pay off.

The season started quietly enough with a group of mostly standalone tales of varying quality and significance. But by the time we got to ‘Messages from Earth’ the fan was well and truly hit and hit hard. The entire status quo of the series was suddenly turned upside down and there would be no going back. Straczynski didn’t so much as jettison the reset button as completely obliterate it. ‘Point of No Return’ saw the Earth Alliance become a fascist dictatorship under President Clark forcing the crew of Babylon 5 to break away into an independent state. This all lead to the epic ‘Severed Dreams’ (another Hugo winner) in which our heroes fought to defend the station from Clark’s forces. From now on Sheridan and company were cut off from home on their own (and got some nifty new uniforms to boot).

The season settled down for a bit after that until the Shadow war finally kicked off in full. ‘Interludes and Examinations’ sees Kosh make a devastating sacrifice on Sheridan’s behalf. The two-parter ‘War Without End’ saw the return of Sinclair and finally revealed the true story behind the disappearance of Babylon 4. After the big battles of ‘Shadow Dancing’ everything comes to a head in the season finale as Sheridan goes with his not-so-dead wife, Anna, back to Z’ha’dum. They should really use this episode in media studies classes as an example of how to write a truly great season finale. It’s simply a breathtaking 45 minutes of television that (again, IMHO) no one has yet to come close to equalling or surpassing.

With so many big events jostling for screen time JMS wisely doesn’t let the characterisation get lost in amongst the explosions. Sheridan and Delenn kept making gooey eyes at each other. Ranger Marcus Cole arrived on the station and wasted no time hitting on Ivanova. G’Kar finally found inner peace and a new purpose in life. Franklin struggled with drug addiction and resigned. And Londo’s decent into darkness continued despite his best efforts to escape his destiny.

Season three was the middle chapter of Babylon 5 and the point in which it got seriously worse for our heroes before it could eventually get any better. Creatively the show was riding on a high. From the acting to the special effects everything was at its absolute best. Sadly the show would never be this good again. Outside factors would eventually derail Straczynski’s carefully constructed five-year-plan. But season three still stands as a shinning beacon of everything that was, and still is, great about Babylon 5.

Season Four - No Surrender, No Retreat

So much for best laid plans, eh?

When he first conceived of Babylon 5, J. Michael Straczynski had a definitive five year plan for the series. By the fourth season that plan was in serious danger of falling apart. The Prime Time Entertainment Network, the series’ home from day one, was not long for this world and as such the future of the series was uncertain. Fearing that his show would be cancelled before he could conclude the story, Straczynski went in to emergency damage control and started wrapping up the all major storylines far earlier than he’d initially planned. As a result season four is the most densely packed season of the show’s entire run, as barely a single episode is wasted in Straczynski’s mad rush to bring his story to what seemed at the time to be a premature end.

After nearly three years of planning and build up, the Shadow War, the very driving force of the entire series, was over in the space of just six episodes. The whole thing raced to an underwhelming conclusion that basically amounted to nothing more than Sheridan telling the Shadows and Vorlons off for being naughty and sending them to their rooms without any supper for the rest of eternity. Babylon 5 was the first notable sci-fi series to start using extensive story arcs (something that’s practically the norm nowadays) but it was also the first to bring its story arcs to a disappointing resolution (something else that's practically the norm nowadays).

With that major arc out of the way Straczynski got to work setting up the Drakh threat, built up the growing conflict between Sheridan and Garibaldi, dashed through a Minbari civil war in record speed before finally kicking off the war against President Clark’s fascist government in ‘No Surrender, No Retreat’. The conclusion of the Shadow arc might’ve been a letdown but the Earth civil war was Babylon 5 at its absolute best. Only problem was that it was over almost as quickly as it had started. Originally the plan was for the Earth conflict to be carried over into the fifth season with the fourth season ending with Garibaldi’s betrayal and Sheridan’s capture. But with the show’s future in doubt everything was wrapped up with ‘Endgame’ and ‘Raising Star’. Straczynski was all ready to end the series then and there, but when cable network TNT agreed at the last minute to finance a full fifth season the final episode 'Sleeping in Light' was pushed back a year and a new season finale was quickly shot on the cheap.

Despite it's ups and downs season four is still a strong season. Although there are no Hugo winners, there are still several standout episodes, most notably Sheridan’s brutal interrogation in 'Intersections in Real Time'. The acting was excellent across the board this season, but if there’s a single standout star without a doubt it’s Jerry Doyle. Straczynski sent Garibaldi to hell and back this season and Doyle rose to the challenge with gusto. Sadly this would be the final season for Susan Ivanova as a contract dispute would prevent Claudia Christian returning for the fifth season. With no time to shoot a proper goodbye scene her departure is clumsily handled in voiceover, a disappointing exit for one of science fiction's finest heroines.

Season Five - The Wheel of Fire

The last minute renewal for Babylon 5 was something of a mixed blessing. On one hand it meant that the show would continue and J. Michael Straczynski would now be able to complete his much talked about five-year-plan. But since Straczynski had wrapped up almost every single significant plot thread during the previous season he was now stumped about what to do next. Sure, he had a lot of great stuff with Londo planned, but that didn’t get going until towards the end of the season. So what the hell was he going to do until then?

Straczynski had twenty-one episodes to fill up and barely enough story material to cover a quarter of the season. Rather than relinquish some creative control by bringing in a load of new writers and some fresh ideas, Straczynski continued to write virtually every single episode himself even though it was clear by this point that he’d reached his burnout stage. Granted, the only time he did allow someone else to write an episode it resulted in Neil Gaiman’s dreary ‘Day of the Dead’ but that's still no excuse for not sharing your toys, Joe. Actually, in many ways the series came a full circle with season five as Babylon 5 went back to the sort standalone filler dreck everyone thought we’d seen the last of in season one. Worst offender being the abysmal Tom Stoppard homage ‘A View from the Galley’ which looks at an attack on the station from the perspective of two repair workers who sadly, unlike Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, don’t end up dead at the end.

The lack of decent episodes wasn't the show’s only problem this season, as its previously strong characterization seemed to have vanished entirely. They might’ve looked the same, they might’ve even sounded the same, but these were not the same characters we’d been following faithfully over the last four years. Despite now being President of the Interstellar Alliance (with all the power and influence of a UN Secretary-General) Sheridan still stomps around the station like he owns the place becoming the type of character you’d rather punch in the face than follow into the jaws of hell. Delenn, meanwhile, has been relegated to the prestigious role of ‘her indoors’. Elsewhere, Garibaldi roamed aimlessly around the station in a futile search for a decent plot line, while Londo and G’Kar spend most of the season working on perfecting their buddy comedy routine. And with Claudia Christian gone (but sure as hell not forgotten) Tracy Scoggins was brought in to replace Ivanova as Captain Elizabeth Lockley, the station’s new commander and Sheridan’s ex-wife (huh?). Try as she might, it is difficult to take Scoggins seriously as a tough military leader.

Now that the Shadows were gone and President Clark had been overthrown there were no more enemies to fight and our heroes were all getting ready to live happily ever after. As a result virtually nothing happened for the majority of the season. The only significant event in the first half was a limp rebellion by Gap model telepaths lead by Byron, a walking personality black hole. The only upside to this arc was more focus on Patricia Tallman's underused Lyta Alexander and the always welcome return of Bester, who even gets his own episode this season, the disappointingly bland ‘The Corp Is Mother, The Corp is Father’. Once all the dull telepath malarkey is done with the season finally starts to pick up some much needed steam as the Interstellar Alliance goes to war with the Centauri. But even this conflict fails to provide the same kind of high drama and epic battles the show used to give us. Only the tragic conclusion of Londo’s story in ‘The Fall of Centauri Prime’ makes any kind of emotional impact.

The remaining episodes are all used for some last minute wrap up and a shed load of teary goodbye scenes to rival anything Peter Jackson could come up with. After everyone has gone their separate way Straczynski closes the book with ‘Sleeping in Light’ an elegant and beautiful epilogue to the series and one of the best series finales of all time. Although it did manage to end on a high note (notably with an episode left over from the previous year) overall season five is a disappointing dud.

Despite this less than grand farewell, Babylon 5 still remains one of the greatest sci-fi series ever produced. Admittedly it was something of a flawed masterpiece thanks to the occasional wooden acting, clunky dialogue, dodgy standalone episodes, cheap sets and a tendency to get lost up its own mythology. But with this show Straczynski created something truly unique, an epic science fiction novel for television with a definitive beginning, middle and end. Yeah, the beginning was a bit uneven and the end part didn’t work out as planned, but that middle section, boy, was that good.

Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011.

[animentality]

The Orville (some spoilers for the most recent episode)

I've been a huge fan of Star trek since I was a kid, I've seen every one. I loved Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Stargate SG-1, and Atlantis (watched universe, wasn't a huge fan but I watched it, gdi).

And this show is just wonderful. It's wonderful, knowing all I know about the space faring sci fi shows that came before it.

When I started watching it, I had a feeling that it wouldn't be a mean parody.

See, i watch the show with my friend Liz and she was initially leery of it because she's not a fan of Seth McFarlane and she thought oh he's just going to make fart jokes in space and mock TNG and all of the sci fi we grew up with as kids.

She sort of thought it'd be like...the disaster movie or some silly scary movie type schtick where Seth is the lazy and irresponsible captain of a cargo ship that does drugs and has sex with loose women, you know.

A stoner's idea of hilarious subversive comedy.

But I told her to give it a chance because I knew Seth McFarlane was a fan of Star trek, and I just knew, or maybe hoped, that the Orville would be a light hearted, but affectionate parody of Star trek.

It turned out to be much more than a parody. If anything, it's more of a tribute to star trek, if not simply another version of it.

It feels so much like star trek that I'm addicted to it. And she loves it too. She wasn't sure about it at first, but as the series progressed and we started to see that it was taking itself seriously, but not too seriously, she really got into it.

Now we both love it.

The optimistic view of the future, the believably goofy and lovable cast that has both comedic timing and the capacity for dramatic acting, the crew's relationships with one another that feel an awful lot like TNG's. All of this stuff is addicting to me, because all of those sci fi shows I talked about before are older shows. They're sci fi that was more optimistic, for the most part, and weren't quite as dark and edgy (with the exception of BSG). The Orville reminds me of all those more light hearted sci fi shows.

And you know what, I find a lot of the episodes very predictable, but it doesn't stop me from having an absolute blast while watching them?

I've seen so much sci fi that YES, I do think that the Krill woman who captures Captain Mercer is going to end up getting marooned on a planet with him where they, mortal enemies who have lied and hurt one another, are going to have to cooperate to survive.

Yes, I did guess that Rob Lowe's character was making everyone horny. I'm not sure on this but I'm pretty sure every star trek has at least one episode where something is making everyone horny with some pheromone induced sex pollen.

Yes, I did recognize Bortus' episode in court as being that Sci Fi episode where humans try to explain their values to an alien culture and race radically different from their own, thus revealing the creators' beliefs in how humanity "should be."

But did that make those episodes any less enjoyable?

No.

I loved them.

I knew what was happening and I smiled and went along because it felt so classic sci fi, but with refreshing twists in dialogue, with interesting characters, who'd make self aware referential humor. Who'd also take the situations they were in seriously. And who make serious attempts at social commentary too.

And I'm sorry for the word vomit, it's just that I finally got caught up with the Orville and saw the new episode, identity?

I mean holy crap that was amazing.

(Spoilers for identity part 1)

I knew from the begining as Isaac shut down, oh they're going to Kaylon where they will most likely be weirded out by Kaylon culture.

I predicted that they'd find out that the Kaylon were secretly organic.

Boy was I wrong.

As the episode went on, I started to guess that the Kaylon were probably going to be evil in some way.

I thought, and Liz did too, that they probably feed off of organic life forms and will possibly try to kill the Orville's crew.

I was wrong again.

And when the actual reveal came, I thought oh my.

Not a concept I've NEVER heard before.

Kind of like the Borg, kind of like the replicators from Stargate, even kind of like the machines from the matrix, kind of like skynet, but does that make it any less fun and exciting?

Not at all. I actually yelled a little with excitement when I saw the Kaylon Rollie pollie ships rising into the sky.

They just looked so cool and it was like, seeing O'ri ships, or Go'auld ships attacking earth, or a Borg cube entering Federation space or the Cylon fleets closing in on Battlestar Galactica, or like, insert other nerdy shit here.

It just made me so happy to see because this show can go from having an entire episode dedicated to Bortus' porn addiction to an episode about a racist genocidal robot species that's set on destroying other life forms and taking over their planets because their own planet has reached its limit on RAM.

I just love that range. I love the casual episodes, and I love the surprisingly serious and thoughtful ones.

I just love the series in general and I've never posted on this subreddit before, so I'm sorry if this is something people talk about all the time, I just really wanted to express some of my love for not just the Orville but sci fi in general.

[republictrooper]

Star Trek Discovery Season 2 Finale Thoughts.

Ok, so like. I finally got to watch the last episode since I was on Vaycay last Thursday.

I like the ending. It was 90% explosions and 10% plot, but I liked it, a lot, some reservations aside.

I mean, I always felt like we needed a new Trek series set in the future instead of all these prequels (one reason I’m not on the “Pike Miniseries” train), but sending the prequel series into the future to BE that series was... actually a pretty smooth move.

On one hand, it’s a little ingenious how many holes it plugs up from the timeline perspective - Spock never talks about his sister because it’s a matter of temporal security, the Spore Drive never sees wide use because both ships that used it met a grisly,grisly end, Cornwall never showed up in TOS because she was KIA in a battle that was at least partially classified, etc.

On the other hand, I found that most of the people concerned about that stuff were of the whiny fanboy brigade angry that the SJWs were taking over their beloved trek, and honestly, screw those guys. Retcons are a standard of most longrunning series, so just retcon that Michael took her wife Tilly to the Enterprise for regular visits with Spock and constantly teased him about how he was obviously smitten with Jim, and that Hugh and Bones constantly traded tips about how to be gay doctors in space and the Red Lizard alien bridge crew member actually always existed on the bridge even during the TOS era and was Uhura’s beloved wife and helped Spock spirit Pike away to Talos after his injury and etc, etc, etc... Cuz retcons can be ok in a lot of cases and the fanboys could learn some humility.

So it’s comme-ci, comme-ca, I guess. Overall, I do think releasing the series from the shackles of being a lore-friendly prequel was a GOOD thing for sure.

Other thoughts:

We finally got the promised Paul/Hugh reconciliation and it was everything I hoped for and more.

Jet Reno has seen the future, and says she has “at least” 5 lives left? 

Did she see herself almost die 5 more times? 

Did she see herself DIE?

Or was she just using a colloquialism and I’m reading too much into it?

Nhan definitely likes ladies, I’m pretty much convinced of it given how she and Phillipa were basically flirting while they pursued Leland. Hopefully she gets with a nice girl who’s not a backstabbing evil bisexual empress from an alternate dimension, though, tbqh. I could see her and Jett or even her and Michael making a great team, tbqh. I’m pretty sure she survived the fight with Leland, at least.

Speaking of the fight with Leland, the fact that he WAS Control in the end (enough such that his fleet couldn’t keep fighting once he was magnetized) makes me a little nervous that he went to the future with everyone else. I don’t trust those magnets to completely stop him. Or even if they did, what if he reconstitutes in the future and keeps the apocalypse going? Frick, I hope they manage to completely erase and dispose of EVERY SINGLE NANITE. Or do future nanites get their data erased by magnets like old school floppies?

On the other hand, maybe Zora evolves in part because she IS the remnants of control. Which uh. might explain why she was abandoned. Control starts reconstituting again, gets full sapience via the sphere data on Discovery’s computers, so they have to leave her in a space storm in the past in hopes it prevents her from going full Borg again?

Man, I really hope Control isn’t somehow the protoBorg. THE BORG ARE ALWAYS AT THEIR BEST WHEN THEY’RE MYSTERIOUS DAMMIT.

I like to think that shot of Detmer getting back to her chair after Leland left the bridge was because she was making sure her girlfriend was alright. I am glad Owosekun looks alright, when she got hit I was bracing for the worst.

Still not sure I get the whole Ash Tyler situation. This is one of the biggest weaknesses of prequels, at least for me, and one of the few loose ends they didn’t actually tie up with the time jump, oddly enough. You can talk about Ash reforming Section 31 into something better and more transparent, but we already KNOW he fails. At some point in the future, Section 31 will be the horrific secret police of the DS9 era, even grimmer, more nihilistic, and less transparent than pre-Control Leland. I was never an Ashburn fan, and I’m still a little sore at him for killing Hugh, so I’m not especially mourning the fact he stayed in the past, but frick, at least let him go back to Earth and sail boats for the rest of his days. He deserves that more than vainly struggling to reform an organization we already know will fail to live up to the goals he has. 

Anyway, Section 31 was a mistake and Ash Tyler was too good of a character to waste on that. Given they sent Phillipa into the future, I was hopeful they had cancelled the S31 series in favor of keeping her on the main series cast and the concept of S31 as anything other than the clear villains could die a quiet, peaceful death, but I GUESS NOT.

Also, still a little weird that the Klingons are gonna be cold war enemies for the next few decades/centuries. I guess at some point L’Rell is no longer able to hold the Chancellorship solely on strength of threatening the other clans with blowing up Quo’noS and/or doing the whole “Mother knows best” thing? Or then again, they never quite established how or why she gave up the whole Klingon supremacy movement, so maybe she just goes ahead and gets back on that now that most of the Starfleet-aligned people keeping her in check on that are either dead or 900+ years in the future.

Anyway, the biggest question is, what happens in the future?

Do we have a weird Voyager-like situation in which they are so far in the beta quadrant and in time they have to work with limited primitive resources and/or try to make it to federation space despite a travel time of multiple decades, whether because Paul can’t jump anymore due to his injuries, or Phillipa fried the spore drive when she killed Leland?

Or are we gonna have a full on Federation that’s spread between Quadrants, and if so, how does Discovery slot into that? Do they just get reintroduced and get the Discovery retrofitted to full futurosity? Does Tilly get to fulfill her dreams of captaincy in the future Federation, or does she just have to hope Saru or Michael passes the captaincy on to her when they die or retire? Or does she give it up because everything’s gone sideways and instead stays on the Discovery (possibly as chief science officer, while her wife moves up to 1st Officer)?

I mean, I have always loved Trek for its optimistic view of the future, so I hope the Federation is around and basically a forward-looking, peaceful organization, but given the brief glimpse we got from Calypso was of a warn-torn future, I’m a little iffy. S2 was great in part because it dared pull away from the overly darkness-filled S1, I hope we don’t plunged back into a grimdark future. I guess there could also be a plot twist with Zora and Craft. Maybe the Alcor IV folk are human separatists and the V’draysh are the peace-loving forwarding thinking Federation.

The spirk nod was amazing and gdi, I would pay like a million bucks for a retcon somewhere down the line that establishes Kirk and Spock got married at some point and settled down somewhere, where Kirk died peacefully of old age (and not on some dusty distant planet after being swallowed by the metaphysical concept of heaven then spit back out to get unceremoniously bodied by Malcolm McDowell) sorry Generations) before Spock went back to being an ambassador and doing all the stuff in the TNG-era shows/movies/novels/etc.

I don’t even necessarily ship Spirk that hard, Spock is just undeniably queer as hell and we deserve that reading of him finally being canonized. 

Anyway, I liked Season 2 overall. I look forward to season 3!

[ericdesmarais]

Star Trek: Discovery; I finally finished it

Star Trek: Discovery; I finally finished it

https://is.gd/8Bf1T2

http://www.jeneric-designs.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Star-Trek-Discovery-115-001.jpg

Hello My Imaginary Friends,

I had a hard time finishing Star Trek: Discovery. That says a lot considering I’ve happily watched every Star Trek series to come out since TNG.

I have a lot of thoughts that I’ll share after the cut.

Star Trek: Discovery (l-r): Oyin Oladejo as Joann Owosekun; Sara Mitich as Airiam; Anthony Rapp as Paul Stamets; Mary Wiseman as Sylvia Tilly; Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham; Ronnie Rowe as Bryce; Patrick Kwok-Choon as Rhys; Doug Jones as Saru; Emily Coutts as Keyla Detmer © 2017 CBS Interactive. photo by Jan Thijs

Edgy for Edgy’s sake

One of my biggest frustrations was that the show felt disjointed. Like too many writers were trying to do to many different things.

The most annoying was trying to paint a Star Trek show to look and feel like Game of Thrones. You might get a few people to believe that your cat is a rhinoceros, but why are you trying to sell pictures of it to cat lovers?

The stories they tried to tell with the edge (Klingon hybrid dude, Klingon war, Traitor’s redemption, Mirror Universe, etc) were really just shallow gimmicks. They could have spent a lot more time on these stories and flesh them out. Before I got the chance to start really thinking about the implications of a story they took a ninety degree turn.

Stop trying to appeal to other show’s fans and try to appeal to yours. (Granted, that might not always work. Look at the Star Wars fandom.)

Tone Death

Star Trek is meant to show us what the human race could become. It’s optimistic and annoyingly moralistic. All this comes through the character’s words and speeches but not in the writing.

Did they really need to kill the Doctor? The first openly gay relationship and Latinx character and they kill him off for… Wait, why did they kill him off? It didn’t advance the plot, or give motivation to his significant other. It did give us a silly yoda like scene in the fungus dimension…. I guess. (Yes I know he’s not really dead.)

And then they called it Racial reassignment surgery… as if there wasn’t enough stigma around the Trans community and what’s in their pants.

Predictable

Maybe it’s just me but once I realized they were going for Edgy-Shock-Trek, I saw every plot twist three episodes in advance. Not in the, “I’m a crazy fan and know so much about the world I can guess” kinda way but in the, “What’s the laziest, least interesting plot twist,” kinda way.

What did I like?

Despite the rhino costume, I liked the loveable Trek morals underneath.

I liked the beeps and blerps lifted from the original. I liked the Klingon language being spoken consistently.

I liked the special effects, the anachronistic tech, and the Tardigrade mushroom drive. I loved the corny Da Vinci intro.

Most of all, I liked the characters. The core crew; Burnam, Saru, Stamets, and Tilly; were fun interesting characters. Once the show got going, and got it’s head out of GoT’s bum, the characters came together as quirky space misfits. That’s what I love to watch.

Conclusion

I’d give Discovery a 2 out of 5 for its first season. It wasn’t good, it was Trek trying to be something it wasn’t.

I hope we see something better in the second season. From this trailer I have high hopes:

What did you think of Discovery?

Éric

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[calliecat93]

Star Trek: TNG Season 2 Episodes 1-4

The Child: So after several months, we are FINALLY resuming the series. And… we begin with an episode about Troi being impregnated without her permission. Ho boy. So… let’s talk on our new CMO first, Dr. Pulaski. I am VERY aware of her hated reputation and I am very curious to see her in this season so that I can see if I can figure out why and if it’s justified. Honestly I thought that she was fine until the second half when it was just her and Data. Otherwise she seemed like a perfectly competent CMO, but her mispronouncing Data’s name and not caring when he corrected her and acting pretty condescending towards him… yeah if they were trying to recapture the Spock and McCoy dynamic, they failed miserably since McCoy may point out and be an ass about Spock’s supposed emotionlessness, but he never acted all hugh and mighty or purposefully mispronounced Spock’s name. But we’ll see what happens in the following episodes and I was fine with her otherwise.

As far as main plot goes… yeah I see why Linkara compared this with the Avengers 200 comic in his review of the latter cause it follows a VERY similar plot. Now Troi not wanting an abortion was her choice and as such I’m not gonna go into it, and I do like Data staying with her during the birth. It was a nice moment for both characters. But the birth being protrayed positivly with no negative side-effects, no one seeming to want to look into what impregnated Troi to begin with or seem to cate that it was essentially r*pe, and while there are concerns about the rapid aging otherwise the kid is allowed to roam freely despite the circumstances. Which with the final reveal… yeah it makes what I could at least kind of understand since the circumstances wouldn’t be the child’s fault into a WTF moment cause… yeah, no. Nooooooo. It had a few okay bits like Riker FINALLY has his beard, Worf and Geordi have been promoted, and we’ve got Whoppi Goldberg at long last! Even Wesley dealing with having to eventually leave the Enterprise depsite not wanting to felt really nice and at meast why he’s sticking around was adressed. Still, I think we could have cut out this whole pregnancy plot because all the changes and cast additions with maybe some minor issue thrown it would have been more than enough to sustain a plot for a premiere. This just added unecessary squick/implications that they came up with to give Troi something to do cause I guess counseling the others as they deal with the changes wouldn’t have been good enough. IDT it’s as bad as the Avengers comic if you know what happened in that, but still… yeah no. 2/5.

Where Silence Has Lease: Well this was nuts. So we have our heroes enounterong an empty space where they find a Starship that shouldn’t be there and weird stuff happens as a result. A lot of weird stuff. They essentially end up lab rats in a… weird, ugly face… thing’s experiments of observation. Seriously, WTF WAS WITH THAT FACE THING?! Anyways, it was overall good! The characters were all good, I liked the Riker and Worf interactions, aside from one jab at Data Pulaski was otherwise much better here (here questioning why she joined the ship got a BIG laugh out of me), and the climax was pretty dang wild. When “Data” (actually the face thing) asks Picard what death exactly is and Picard’s philosophical respose and what his own view is… dang. That was deep. Then him realizing that Data and Troi are acting, his gamble at the end, and his final confrontation with the entity where he subtly points out it’s hypocriscy about humanity’s worst traits when it displayed those same exact traits itseld? Daaaamn. I’m already enjoying Picard MUCH more here than all of S1 and seeing an improvement from S1. I don’t have any major complaints not any notable observations. Overall a solid episode. An improvement over the first for sure and if this is the kind of quality that’s upcoming, I’m feeling a LOT more optimistic~! Only real complaint is Data saying that such an area like the void hasn’t been seen before… when The Immunity Syndrome in TOS had a similar deal with the amoeba. But otherwise, it was a nice watch! 4.5/5.

Elementary, Dear Data: Well this was a fun one! First, another holodeck episode! I think that this one was much better than the other two from S1. It was really fun, then took a shocking turn all because of Geordi making a poor word choice. Ain’t that just their luck. I loved the Sherlock Holmes mystery and I loved the Data and Geordi dynamic. They’re very much my two favorites so far and Levar Burton and Brent Spiner have some really great chemistry. Pulaski… I get what they’re trying to do with her. I really, really do. But I think they really didn’t get why the Spock and McCoy dynamic worked in TOS (or McCoy’s character in general), and thus are failing to recapture it in TNG with Data and Pulaski. Plus there’s no need for it in TNG since so far whenever they try to copy TOS, they fail miserably. But otherwise, I really had fun with this episode. Also that ending… dang did NOT expect the extesential part to come in, but it was very well acted. Also loved all the costumes! 4/5.

The Outrageous Okona: The theme of the day is comedy! Also Okana is Han Solo. They do not even try to hide who they are making an expy of. Not a very good expy either. He’s a cocky creep and I legit cannot tell if they were trying to make the character a deconstruction or not. Also the plot of Data learning humor could have been entertaining/insightful and comedy is subjective… but it didn’t do it for me. It makes me like Data more cause he’s just so loveable in his effort, but still the only scene I found funny was Worf interrupting Okona’s recent romp. But yeah if I was supposed to find Okona entertaining, I don’t. He feels like what popular media tries to say that Kirk is. If the episode was trying to convince me to like him and see him like I do Han Solo, even with everything turning out to be a huge misunderstanding, I just didn’t feel they did it well. The very least he’s just uninteresting. The actor was fine though. But yeah after two solid episodes, this was a disappointment. It’s not unwatchable, but still not all that worth looking at. If I want Han Solo, I’ll go watch the original Star Wars trilogy. 2.5/5.

And I posted it before trping the final thoughts. Whoops. Anyways, I had fun leaping back in. We got two good episodes and two… not too good on different levels. But I can see an improvement in the writing already and I’m glad to finally be back on track. I am hoping to not delay viewings with that large of a gap again and that I can at least finish up to Enterprise before the year is over. Still got a long ways to go, so onward we go.

[jbk405]

With the season three premier, I think Supergirl turned a corner

I did not enjoy seasons one and two of Supergirl.

I need to say that up front because you have to understand where I’m coming from on this: The first two seasons were downright incompetent when it came to making a professional TV show for the US market.  The camerawork, set design/construction, editing, directing, and even the lighting were shoddy and sub-par.  The writing was often moronic and the storylines made no sense.  I’ve seen better production on web series and fan works, and I mean actual production, not just the quirky charm that we love about fanworks.

The only things the series had going for it were its cast and chemistry, and being the one DC production that wasn’t ashamed to admit it was based on a comicbook and be happy and optimistic.  Everything else was just a trainwreck.

I actually got so frustrated and angry watching it every week that I had more than one follower tell me I should leave the series for the sake of my blood pressure.

The first episode of the third season, however, showed me a series that had grown up.  It’s still not perfect, still not great, but it’s finally pulled itself up to the level of “adequate”.  And given what has come before, I will take an adequate show with a big grin and say “thank you sir, may I have another”.

I’m going to begin by focusing on the first scene, and a shot which recurred throughout the episode: Supergirl high above the city, listening to the sounds of its entire populace.  This is classic Super iconography.  This has been used by comics, in the Superman films, and in many other installments of the franchise, and each time it’s used to portray something different.  This time it highlighted Kara’s isolation and separation from humanity and the people in her life.  She might be hearing the sounds of people, but she’s not among them.  She’s deliberately putting herself where they can't follow.  Even before we see Alex or James talk about how she’s withdrawn and missing events, we know that she’s shut herself off from the people in her life.

I’m not saying that I’m happy with their decision to write Kara’s self-defense manifesting as condescension and isolation.  I found her harsh words to Alex to be out of character, and they would be indicative of deep-seated human-contempt that is completely at odds with her personality for the first two seasons.  It comes across as “person who looks down on humans is finally letting it out after covering up those feelings”, and that’s just not Supergirl.  What I am saying is that, even though I don’t like it, it’s competent.  Through scene setup and staging we already know that Kara’s isolating herself and is being buried by her feelings over what happened.

What the episode also did right was accepting the scale of Supergirl’s powers.  This was something they previously struggled with heavily, always having her be challenged -- or even defeated -- by people who should pose no threat at all.  I understand that the special-effects budget is limited for a TV show and they can’t have her fighting Mongul every other episode, but when a human with a ray handgun can challenge her I tear my hair out.  Here they had her shrug off the mini gun to the chest without blinking (Clear homage to Superman Returns there as well) and then effortlessly beat the human mook when he kept fighting.  Even though he had a electro-stick of some kind the the show never tried to say “Oh no, this might be challenge!”, they had her toss him aside practically as a side thought.

The power scale again manifested when she lifted the entire submarine at the climax.  I’ve got problems with the submarine plot as it is, but nonetheless I liked that they had her completely lift it clear of the water.  She is SUPERGIRL, her strength is on a scale unrivaled by anybody on Earth, and the show needs to show her doing stuff like this to drive home that she’s not just a ‘little bit’ strong.  Too often the series seemed to think that she was only at human bodybuilder levels instead of being a flipping alien.

They also did a sufficient job of bringing the supporting cast in to emphasize her different personal troubles.  Alex talking to her as a sister, Lena talking to her as a friend, James talking to her as friend and boss, etc.  Each one has a different relationship with her, a different history, and so they each approached her in a different way.  It acknowledged that they’re in each others lives, but not that any one person is the entirety of Kara’s human life.

Where I think they excelled was in how they handled Mon-El: Namely, they didn’t focus on him at all.  “But wait,” you might say, “the entire episode was about how Kara missed him and was dreaming about him”.  “Yes”, I would respond, “It was about Kara missing him”.  How she is feeling and how her life has changed.  This episode stayed focused on Kara, and didn’t try and make it about him.  Oh my lord did season two bungle that mess by making it Mon-El’s story instead of Supergirl’s.  The story-arc was about how he was becoming a superhero, how Kara was making him a better person.  All about him.  This episode instead spent zero time on his character.  They never talked about what he was like, or what he did, or how he changed, it was all about Kara.

I hate Mon-El.  Hate HATE HATE him so much.  I would say he single-handedly ruined the second season if it hadn't had so much help from other quarters.  But even though I hate him, we can’t just ignore what happened.  He was integral in the show’s story, and even though I can’t fathom why Kara would love him, it has nonetheless been established that he did.  As such, they do need to deal with his absence, and they handled it with just the right touch: They addressed that he was gone, and to Kara that is a tragedy and a Big Deal, but that is where it stays: A big deal for her.

What got me giggling were Lena Luthor’s scenes, because she is still my favorite character.  I love that she’s apparently gotten the public adulation she deserves since she was the invited speaker for the unveiling of the Girl of Steel statue, and is no longer under the Luthor cloud despite Morgan Edge alluding to it.  Having her buy CatCo was an unnecessary story (Having CatCo be at risk at all was an unnecessary story), but I honestly don’t care how unnecessary it was because that is straight out of fanfic.  I’m not even exaggerating, I have literally read what must be a dozen stories about Lena buying Kara her own publication.  The scene where Kara got fired back in season two has had more than a dozen recreations where Lana goes “Oh, so you can come work for my magazine!”.  I know that it’s never going to happen, I’ve got zero doubts, but it’s pushing so hard on SuperCorp that I’m just smiling.

The only real legacy of seasons one and two that I could see was in the main story threat of the episode, which unfortunately made very little sense.  I get what they’re trying to do here (Morgan Edge is going to destroy the Waterfront so the city will green-light his proposed luxury construction) but the execution is ridiculous.  Construction as an industry comes with very high overhead and relatively modest profit margins, and according to Lena, Morgan’s companies don’t skimp on the work quality itself so he can’t be skimming too much off the top.  That means that the one billion dollars that he spent on building or buying a fully functional modern submarine just wiped out his company in a single shot.  Why not just sell the cloaking device itself for a billion dollars and call it a day?  Or if you’re committed to the waterfront, why not use the cloaking device to hide a bomb that they delivered by a truck the night before?

Companies destroying property in order to make way for their own work is a tragic real-life event, but because it’s done in real life we know that you don’t need a warship to do it.  Late-night arson and equipment sabotage suffices to level a neighborhood without fronting hundreds of millions of dollars.  This scheme was just stupid.

All told this episode was “okay”, and I am fine with “okay”.  Let’s set this up as the new standard, a baseline for the rest of the show.  Once they catch their balance they can build on it to make better episodes later on, and hopefully never again tread down into the muck that we’ve had before.

I’m actually reminded of season three of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the new start they had there.  The first two seasons had been just as rough as Supergirl (Maybe even rougher), so they made a conscious effort to start anew. They got rid of an extremely unpopular character that had been brought in for season two (Dr. Pulaski and Mon-El) and brought back a great character that and been sidelined (Dr. Crusher, and hopefully James stepping back in).  They used the first episode to set the tone (”Evolution”) and made a deliberate attempt to almost use it as a second pilot and reintroduce everything to the audience with a fresh take.

I can only hope that Supergirl manages to hit its stride like TNG did.