#like Michael did NOT need to be Spocks sister. not everyone needs to be related to Sarek.

[thedreadvampy]

My main commentary on new Star Trek is that Ethan Peck will never be Leonard Nimoy and accordingly I need this franchise to have like 70% less Spock-centric storytelling. You Will Never Be Him.

[theravennest]

“We will never relate as equals so long as you attempt to assume every burden is yours alone.”

**Spoilers for DSC S02E09.

This was such an interesting line to me.

Obviously Spock was angry during this whole conversation, during this argument, but I think people are confusing his anger and his frustration with Michael as somehow him not liking her or him wanting divorce her completely from his life.

But this line tells me that ultimately he does want to reconcile with her. “We will never relate as equals” is the kind of phrase that you’d say if you do have a desire to actually relate with somebody. Spock wants to relate to Michael. He wants that connection. He wants that reconciliation. He wants that relationship to be rekindled but he feels like the things that are holding them back is the way that she reacts to trauma.

I think he's a little bit right but I also think he's not taking into account what's holding them back from reconciliation on his side. I think he put up a wall between them and he retreated into his Vulcan teachings and kept her at bay. He's absolutely doing things in a way that's preventing their reconciliation even from his side but ultimately he has that desire to connect with her.

And I think there's something truly interesting about examining what it means for Spock and Michael to relate now as adults, as equals, versus when they tried to relate as children and it just went horribly wrong. 

He’d been so standoffish at first but then he really, truly embraced her. She was older and, based on that chess flashback, seemed to Spock at least to be so connected to her emotions in a way that he wanted to learn. He didn’t know what to think but he immediately found himself drawn to her strange humanness. 

But just like Sarek feared Spock would do with Amanda, Spock began to idolize and revere Michael too. And that put a lot of unintended but real pressure on her while setting them both up for a pitfall.

Then that happened. In her own fear and pain and grief, Michael wounded him. It just went downhill in one fell swoop. How could it not, tho? They’d both had trauma in their lives by that point but Michael's trauma was really, really fresh and her’s was, frankly, more aggressively tragic.

Her mom and dad died a few months, maybe a year earlier. Then these logic extremist terrorists tried to murder her by blowing up her school. She literally died and came back to life. While we don't know exactly the timeline of all this, considering the urgency with which she ran from home, I would say that the terrorist attack happened pretty recently for her, within a month or two at most.

So I think that there is something really interesting in examining how their relationship just didn't work when they were kids because of the circumstances that surrounded both of them. But now that they're adults with perspective, who have lived their lives and made mistakes or even made better choices as people...now they might be able to relate and connect in a much healthier and much more complete way.

I think it's super interesting examining siblings that are better older than they were when they were younger.

I feel like I have a similar experience with my siblings. I am blood related to all of my siblings, for the most part. (I had a half brother.) But, anyway, I'm mostly thinking about my sisters for this. When we were younger, it wasn’t as good as it is now. It's not that we didn't get along wholesale as badly as Spock and Michael post-Wounding. But, especially with my sister closest in age, we would fight all the time and it was really difficult to relate to her because of how close in age we were and we weren't anything like each other. It was different with my oldest sister cuz she was 7 years older so that made it harder to relate to her. When I got older, I grew closer to them and we were finally able to click. Far more as adults than we ever did as children. I feel like my relationship with my sisters now is much better and much healthier and much more complete than it was when I was a child.

I think that might be true for Michael and Spock as well. When they were kids, they weren’t ready to truly understand each other, whether cuz of lack of knowledge or wisdom or just experience. Too much had happened to them for it to work out well without some serious support from their parents, which they didn’t quite get.

Sarek brings Michael home and all he says to Spock is, “I expect you to be friends” and I'm sure that's what he meant for Michael to do as well. But it was like he didn't really think about how their negative experiences would clash. He thought theoretically about what it would mean to bring “a human child” into his home. He thought about how having a human playmate would help Spock with his empathy and his emotional acuity, but he didn't really think about what would make a good playmate for either Michael or Spock at that time in their lives.

It's not that I don't think that they were good candidates for siblings per se. I think they actually could have been perfect siblings and friends but mostly if they didn't have the kind of traumatic, terrible experiences that they’d had before meeting. But they did and so those things got in the way of them truly connecting because Michael was a traumatized girl who wasn’t taught how to deal with her negative experiences healthily.

The line that we have in this episode--“we will never relate as equals”--just telegraphed to me that Spock does want to relate to her and that he doesn't quite know exactly yet how to move forward. He's trying but he's trying in the worst way possible. He's doing it in the shittiest, brattiest, little brother way possible because he’s hurt and feeling angry. He wasn’t properly taught to handle negative emotions either.

Yet it's not a surprise to me later in the episode when he acts super worried about her dying. Of course he's worried about her dying. She's his sister! He may have said “not by blood” earlier but he was just being a petty brat, trying to get a rise out of Michael.

What he really felt was exposed in Burnham’s room, in that fight they had when he lost control of his emotions and he smashed the chess set. What he said in that scene was “we will never relate as equals.” With an implied “until” there at the end.

Then later when Burnham is in danger, Spock's literally witnessing the thing that he scolded her about: Michael being faced with grief or loss and not being able to handle it or move forward, stuck in this idea that she has to save everyone, that everything is her fault. He’s actually hearing Airiam tell Michael that this is all because of her.

He's standing there, he's hearing this, he's seeing what he told her play out in front of him, and he's worried and he's like, “Michael, no. Michael, stop. Save yourself. It's her or you, and I want you to live. I want you to win. I want you to continue to be my sister.”

This entire scene, of course, reminds me of that line in S01E01 after Michael tells Sarek about her first encounter with the Klingons and killing one in self defense. He tells her, “If a death was necessary, I am satisfied it was not yours.”

That comment feels so much like Spock’s, “It’s her or you, Michael.”

Spock wants it to be Airiam because he does not want to lose Michael ever. Even in the midst of their fighting, of the schism in their relationship, he would never want her dead. He would never want her completely out of his life. He literally saved her right after she deeply wounded him when she left as a child. He still got panicked when the red angel made him dream of Michael’s death right after she said those cruel things. And he did everything in his power to save her.

I love the fact that Spock brings up that they hadn’t talked in years. He basically told her, “You don't know me; we haven't seen each other in years.” The way he says that last word was fantastic. He felt some kind of way about the fact that they hadn't talked to or seen each other in years. He never wanted it to go that way between them, but then it did.

And, you know, he’s angry. He’s lashing out at her. He's taking a lot of his personal issues with his identity, his rattled psyche, and his own feelings of failure out on her. She's absolutely right on that.

And she’s not letting him in. Oh, no...Her walls are up. He said so many hurtful things to her this ep and she’s got her shields up, guarding her heart. She’s ready or not willing to self-examine right then because of how spitefully Spock’s acting. 

Michael takes a lot onto herself and she never lets herself rest, mostly because so many people demand so much of her. They hold her to such ridiculous standards and expectations:

Sarek wants her to become a “being of exquisite logic”

Spock wants her to be his “human teacher”

Amanda wants Michael to be her emotional outlet that she couldn’t have with Spock

Philippa wants her to be the best disciple of a Starfleet captain

Saru wants her to be a surrogate sister to replace Siranna

Ash wants her to be his “tether” to his own identity

And that’s just a few expectations she’s been asked or expected to shoulder. Since Michael doesn’t like to let people down, she will take it all onto herself. 

She really needs to start putting herself first. Which I think Spock comes to realize by the end of the episode.

I truly think they will heal from this. It’ll be a journey.

This whole episode really made me believe they're going to reconcile and move forward. It may not be the way it could’ve been had they been in a better place as children but I personally hope that they'll be closer than ever going forward. I hope that they’ll have the kind of emotional and sympathetic sensibilities for each other that, even if they do kind of go years between seeing each other, they'll still be able to pick up right where they left off. They'll still have that kind of relationship where it doesn't matter if they see each other every day or once every five years, they still understand each other.

Maybe they still exchange letters or still talk to each other. Maybe they don't see each other all the time since they're both on spaceships that are going on years-long missions. But I think there's some hope that, by the end of the season or the series itself, they will have grown to such a deeper understanding of each other that their relationship will not just be reconciled but potentially be better than it ever could have been. Because they have gone through the forge together. They have done the work on both themselves and their relationship.

I think that there's a lot of merit in the idea of putting them in this kind of opposition as a start to their relationship then having them heal. There’s something to having it go all wrong when they were kids, putting the years between when they didn't talk and barely saw each other, and then having it explode when they're adults. There's some merit to showcasing a tumultuous relationship that settles into something deep and abiding.

I don't have any issues with canon afterword, either. People are like, “Oh my god! Oh, no! He never mentioned Michael. Why did Spock never bring her up?!” Like, really? When has Spock ever talked about his family until they were right in front of him?

That doesn't even matter to me. That's such a ridiculous thing to say. He’s extremely private. We never heard of her because Spock never mentioned it just like he never mentioned any of his other family members until they literally showed up on the Enterprise. He dropped the bomb that Sarek and Amanda were his parents as an afterthought because it didn't matter to him to bring that up to his shipmates.

But anyway, I wanted to get my thoughts down about Spock and Michael because I love them. I love them as individuals. I love them as siblings. I love them as just scene partners. Sonequa and Ethan were so good together. I am up for anything. I would love to just see more of that. I know that this season is all about how Burnham relates to her family, especially to Spock, but I hope we don't see the last of Ethan at the end.

There's the potential of a Pike spin-off show later and if they do that, they have to keep Ethan and move him over into that show. I would love it because I like Anson’s Pike and I like Ethan’s Spock. But I want to see Michael and Spock even more than that.

I want to see it in later DSC seasons. Maybe not another entire season that's focused so heavily on him and his relationship with Burnham, but I don't want this to be over in the future. I want to see the relationship moving forward just like with Sarek.

Last season was a lot about examining Michael's relationship with Sarek and then this season we see how that work that they put into their relationship has blossomed into this really beautiful and touching connection between them. They have grown so much even in one season. I want something similar with Spock and Michael where every now and then we meet Spock and we see how this season has really shaped their relationship going forward.

I would like to see the continued growth between them and the continued growth between Michael and Sarek, as well as Michael and Amanda. And, you know, if we ever get Sybok, that’d be kinda rad too. Even though people ridicule him I kinda want something about him, even if just a reference.

I’d love it if they made the timelines line up where Sybok was in the house at the same time as Michael somehow. If I had to put a timeline on it off the top of my head, I would say that Sybok shows up when Michael and Spock are older. Just as she's about to leave for Starfleet, Sybok arrives because if I remember correctly, Spock says that they were kind of raised together after Sybok’s mom died. But that could be at any time and Sybok could’ve come into the house as a late teen. I think that they could find some way to do a story around that.

I don't know if they want to tho cuz Sybok is not the most popular character in the history of Trek. IMO, Michael is 100% the more successful attempt of creating a sibling for Spock. It might be just because of the limited time in a movie format. There’s only so much you can do with a couple hours. Whereas Michael was introduced as the leader of her own TV show, so she has much more real-estate to be fleshed out.

Still, think about what it would mean for them to bring in Sybok and have him relate to Michael. Sarek has this cobbled together, mixed family. He has a human wife, a full Vulcan son, a mixed human-Vulcan son, and a full human daughter. That's fascinating to me. Ripe for juicy family drama. So if they wanted to dig into Sybok, maybe they can re-contextualize him within the main TV canon. I'd be down for it. Bring him in! Let's do it. Let's give him the Pike-Vina treatment and expand on Michael’s relationship with Sybok. lololol

All right, that's everything. I'll talk to you guys later. I might have some more thoughts about Airiam but I'm still kind of hurt, so I’mma let myself ruminate on everything before I drop another post about that, if I do at all. I also may have some thoughts exclusively about Michael too that I might drop later.

[douxreviews]

Star Trek: Discovery - ‘Brother’ Review

"Space: The Final Frontier. Above us, around us, within us. We have always looked to the stars to discover who we are."

By nature I love brevity: Star Trek: Discovery takes a long, clean breath of fresh air in this big, bold premiere that sheds the burdens of Season One and lets them roll down the hill behind.

Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled in 2005. And in the Fall of that year, as shows premiered, fans were faced with a sad reality: for the first time in 28 years, a new season of Star Trek was not among them. And for 12 years, this continued. And then we Discovered a new frontier. Breaking the silence of more than a decade, Star Trek: Discovery was a sign that Trek was not dead.

But of course, it was not without its flaws. Discovery Season One had issues with its tone and its dialogue. The crew, above and beyond their stilted, grandiose speech, rarely seemed like a family, or even a group of people who like each other. And the levels of anxiety and brooding were at dangerously high levels. We're talking Superman from Batman v. Superman levels of anxiety and brooding.

The fans pointed out these issues, though the good parts still remained (excepting the 'fans' who actively went out of their way to be openly hostile towards the series, its creators, and its viewers). And the team behind Discovery listened. 'Brother' benefits from a light and relaxed tone that feels like the lifting of a heavy curtain. The crew speaks in a generally human and natural manner, and they work together like a tight family. Brooding is nowhere to be seen, and the anxiety present is of a different sort than the cloud of deep worry that permeated Season One. Instead the viewer felt more of an empathetic concern about the characters and their lives.

The first and most immediate effect of 'Brother' is, in fact, to distance the show from its past mistakes. Associating these issues with the influence of Captain Lorca makes a lot of sense from a story perspective, even if the creators' insistence that all the darker elements were only a result of him doesn't quite sit right. From the outset, Captain Pike makes it clear that he is very different from Lorca. Everything about his manner and bearing suggests a completely different man from Jason Isaacs' power-hungry warmonger. But Pike is no Kirk, either, as one might anticipate. Anson Mount gives his Pike a humility and a grounded feel that Kirk never quite developed.

The other proverbial elephant on the starship is the presence of Spock. Though the adult version of our beloved half-Vulcan does not appear, his importance in the events of 'Brother' and the impact the mere allusion to the character has on the series is clear. We learn that he and Burnham's strained relationship is the result of her decisions, not his. It's clear she views him and his legacy as an oppressive force in her life, perhaps as a standard she could never live up to? There's a great shot that really sums this up, when young Spock makes his holo-dragon. The dragon moves toward Burnham, and roars at her, and Spock walks in through its mouth. I think that's how she sees Spock.

Sarek and Burnham's conversation about reverence also factors in. This show has decided to include a character that most fans undoubtedly have a lot of reverence for. But to make him a useful character, with an arc and a purpose, reverence is not enough. The massive weight of Spock's impact on Star Trek and the fans' adoration of him will be a problem that Discovery will have to deal with.

Moving to our regular cast, I loved how they were dealt with here. The other side of Lorca's effect on the Disco crew is that such a major and personal adversary has brought them together and made them rely on each other. All of the returning cast felt like a family around each other, and their interactions made the ship feel like a real workplace run by a real team. This is a major improvement from last season.

It looks like Burnham's journey this season will be thoroughly intertwined with Spock's. I look forward to seeing her relationship with him and how it develops, but I do hope they give her a role to play apart from and outside of the shadow of her foster brother. Likewise, Stamets seems overshadowed by the impact of someone else. Everything around him reminds him of his lost love Dr. Culber, and he's having a very hard time dealing with it. It seems like the end of this episode was enough to get him at least a little bit excited about science again, though it's unlikely that this is the end of his plotline about leaving the ship. With Wilson Cruz brought on as a full cast member for this season, it'll be interesting to see where this goes.

Tilly and Saru don't seem to have much in the way of an arc yet, but I'm sure this will change. I expect most of Tilly's story this season will have something to do with her enrollment in the Command Training Program. Saru mentioned his sister Siranna, from the Short Trek 'The Brightest Star,' and the showrunners have stated that we may see other Kelpians this season, so expect to see a visit to Saru's home planet of Kaminar sometime in the future. Maybe siblings will continue to be a theme this season.

Overall, 'Brother' was a pretty epic way to kick off the new season. It's fun and engaging, with a lot of potential. I can't wait to see where we go from here.

Strange New Worlds:

This section will record the planets the Disco visits and the places they go. Not a whole lot of that in this particular episode.

New Life and New Civilizations:

Here I'll keep track of all the new species, ideas, and cultures the crew encounters. Again, nothing in the way of that here.

Pensees (Thoughts):

-Mia Kirshner (Amanda) looks a lot like Amy Adams. She also really resembles Amanda from TOS, so that's nice.

-Stamets has a botanist friend aboard the Enterprise.

-In keeping with the Trek tradition of altering the intro, we have some brand new graphics added to the opening theme.

-Regulation 19, Section C allows a higher-ranking officer to take command of a starship in one of three contingencies: 1. An imminent threat; 2. The lives of Federation citizens are in danger; 3. There is no more qualified officer available to deal with the situation.

-I love Doug Jones' Saru walk. It's just so much fun to watch.

-That's the first shot we've gotten of a turbo lift running through a starship in all of Trek, if memory serves. Pretty cool, too.

-Another Alice in Wonderland nod. Also, holo-candles.

-Sarek mentioned that he's reached out to Klingon High Chancellor L'Rell (Mary Chieffo), and she had no explanation for the red bursts either.

-The Captain goes on the away mission, in true Trek tradition.

-There was a bit of Spock's Jellyfish ship from Star Trek (2009) in the design of the pods they flew.

-How cool was the pod sequence? Also, it was admittedly rather satisfying to see Olson Connelly get his comeuppance when he failed to pull his chute crashed and died because of the dumb risk he took.

-One of the ads loaded at the wrong time when I watched this the first time. The long ad break split a shot in half.

-I liked Reno (Tig Notaro). The idea of using an engineering approach to medicine is interesting, although I wouldn't want to be one of the first patients it was tried on.

-The Red Angel is still very much an unknown. I partially expect it will have something to do with the Klingons, if not only because they seem from the trailers to have a big role to play.

-The asteroid material wouldn't beam up. That's intriguing. It may be the key to fixing the spore drive, too, as it looks from the trailer that we'll be jumping again this season.

-'Not every cage is a prison, nor every loss eternal.' That's very interesting, and it has a lot of significance for Pike.

-It makes sense that the crew of the Enterprise would have issues with sitting out the war while on their five-year mission.

-The Disco's new Doctor is named Dr. Pollard.

-One of the names in the credits was 'Matt Decker.'

-A lot of references to faith/religion and related subjects in this episode. I don't think it's necessarily significant, but I thought it was worth noting.

-Alex Kurtzman directed this episode. I thought he did a great job; maybe he should stick to that instead of the whole coming up with ideas thing. I'm still baffled by the seriously weird and unsettling bits about Klingon anatomy from Season One.

Quotes:

Amanda: "I bless you, Michael... all my life."

Pike: "Do not covet thy neighbor's starship, Commander."

Pike: "Why didn't we think of that, Connelly? Think of all the syllables that gave their lives."

Pike: "Sometimes it's wise to keep your expectations low, Commander. That way we're never disappointed." Advice to the audience, perhaps?

Tilly: "I put her in a Utility closet, and I put you in there. I'm drunk on power."

Stamets: "Tilly, you are... incandescent. You're going to become a magnificent Captain because you do everything out of love. But I need you to repeat after me. I will say..." Tilly: "I will say..." Stamets: "Fewer things." Tilly: "Fewer thi- okay."

Sarek: "Spock has great reverence for his mother, but reverence tends to-" Burnham: "Fill up the room." It's the shot of Burnham's fairly empty quarters just as she interrupts that sells this one.

Pike: "Detmer - fly... good."

Pike: "I was expecting a red thing. Where's my damn red thing?"

Pike: "Spock asked the most amazing questions. It's completely logical, yet somehow able to make everyone see that logic was the beginning of the picture and not the end."

Burnham: "There are so many things I wish I'd said to you; so many things I want to say now. I'm too late, aren't I? I can only pray I don't lose you again... brother."

A strong, solid premiere. 5 out of 6 damn red things.

CoramDeo is interested in things.

[anotheruserwithnoname]

New thoughts on The Orville and Star Trek Discovery

This post contains spoilers on both series up to “Cupid’s Dagger” for The Orville and “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” for Discovery. As I’ll probably get wordy, I’ll throw in a page break.

Before the break, though, the tl;dr is The Orville continues to be great (though this week’s episode is a bit controversial to some); meanwhile, approximately three episodes ago, Discovery finally became, for me anyway, proper Star Trek. And the renewal of both series is a cause for celebration.

I’ll start with Star Trek Discovery. Up to and including “Choose Your Pain”, the episode that reintroduced Harry Mudd, I was starting to lose hope in Discovery. It was too dark, too unlikeable, the characters were not gelling either as a team or as TV heroes, the Klingon subplot was - save for some unexpected in-show shipping of two Klingons - dull as an economics textbook. It was fading. And I speak as someone who gave both Voyager and Enterprise more than a year each to find their voice. The “icing on the cake” was having two characters unnecessarily utter the F-word for no other apparent reason than to justify the episode TV-MA rating. I was already saying to people that I gave it two more weeks and then I was probably done.

And then came “Lethe” and something great happened. It felt almost like having Stamets and Tilly drop F-bombs caused the show and its writers to snap to attention and snap out of whatever TV-MA/streaming cliches rut they’d fallen into. Maybe hearing two people in Starfleet uniforms make like Malcolm Tucker made them realize they’d taken things too far. Because all of a sudden we began a run of episodes that truly felt like Star Trek, the characters snapped into place as a team and as TV heroes, the plots were interesting, Michael dropped the woe is me routine (for the most part) and even the Klingon stuff became less boring. OK, the tech is still too advanced, the Klingons look awful, and there are a few other problems, some of which (like the fact it’s a prequel) cannot be fixed ... but the show felt like Trek, finally.

“Lethe” gave us some valuable insight into Sarek and Michael’s backstory. And while I still wonder how they’ll reconcile not having any past reference to Spock having an adopted sister (maybe Sybok will show up and whisk her away somewhere), and the new abilities related to the mind meld are coming close to deus ex machina territory, it still seemed to work. Having Canadian actress Mia Kirschner as Amanda - who resembles both a young Jane Wyatt as well as Abramsverse Amanda Winona Ryder - was a bonus and I hope we see her again.

Then came my favourite episode so far, “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad”. Hopefully this episode will silence those Discovery fans who keep harping about The Orville borrowing/stealing/revisiting storylines and concepts from Trek considering this episode was basically a remake of the classic TNG tale “Cause and Effect” with a touch of Battlestar Galactica 2004′s “33″ tossed in for good measure - and even hints of Doctor Who’s “Heaven Sent”. And it works. Stamets finally became a character I enjoyed watching, and Tyler also became more interesting. Some are complaining about him and Michael becoming an item but, again, this is Star Trek and while TOS never went there, all the other shows had on-board romances. The time loop was intelligently played and out and Rainn Wilson was terrific as Mudd though I hope his cold-blooded killings early in the episode were done with his assumption that time would reset and everyone would be fine - I’m OK with Wilson playing Mudd as a darker character (so far he’s been the best part about Discovery), but making Mudd a cold-blooded murderer crosses the line. It’s also a shame they couldn’t put Mudd in the title of this or the Choose Your Pain episode, as that’s always been a bit of a tradition in the franchise, but they obviously didn’t want to give the surprise of his appearance away.

“Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum” was not as much fun as the last two, but it gave us some valuable character development for Saru, making him less of an Odo clone. And the subplot where the female Klingon operative teams up with and then appears to betray Admiral Cornwell was interesting. I think there’s more there than we think. By the way, I’ve been a fan of Jayne Brook since she was in WIOU back in 1990 so I’m glad to see her on this show. I hope they don’t kill her character off.

So, yeah, Discovery suddenly got good three weeks ago (and to be fair, “Choose Your Pain” was a good episode too; they just didn’t need to have the juvenile swearing; I was reminded how in one of Torchwood’s first episodes they had Jack announce he was taking a pee mainly because that was something they couldn’t do in Doctor Who. It just served to cement some folk’s negative first impressions). If it keeps on going this way, it’s going to become appointment viewing for me.

The Orville, meanwhile, continues to go from strength to strength. After the surprisingly grim “Krill”, we had “Majority Rule”, which tweaked today’s knee-jerk “like-dislike” culture. (Don’t let that stop you from clicking that little heart at the bottom of this article, though! 😂) I’ve heard people compare it to Black Mirror. Having never seen Black Mirror, my comparison is actually more towards The Outer Limits. It raised some interesting questions and right after watching the episode a friend sent me a video of Katy Perry doing an “apology tour�� type TV appearance for some indiscretion of hers, much like LaMarr has to do in the episode. I enjoyed seeing the crew in (sort of) modern day outfits, too.

Then we had “Into the Fold”, a great spotlight episode for Penny Johnson Jerald (formerly Kassidy Yates on DS9) with the surprising reveal that she’s a single mom raising her two boys on board the Orville. The fact we’ve already been introduced to the concept of families on board a starship both with Bortus and his husband - and in TNG before that - makes it less of an ass-pull than such a sudden introduction might usually appear. And it works really well as a character builder for Isaac as he becomes the boys’ surrogate father when Dr. Finn goes missing. I have some issues with Dr. Finn’s rather violent escape (I don’t think shooting the guy was justified) but the episode holds together well otherwise.

Last night’s episode, “Cupid’s Dagger,” was the first overtly comic episode of the series, and it rubbed a few people the wrong way. The same way comedic episodes of TNG and DS9 often did. (Two decades of brain bleach have yet to wipe away the memory of Quark’s head superimposed atop a woman’s lingerie-clad body. 😱) There are also those who questioned the wisdom of an episode about a Deltan-like race that causes anyone who comes in contact with them to become sexually infatuated airing during a time when so many people are accusing or being accused of sexual misconduct and assault. I won’t go into those arguments. I’ll just say the episode was a very strong character building episode once again which gave some closure to the scene in the pilot where Kelly cheats on Ed, while raising more questions. We also saw some resolution to the Finn and Yaphit relationship (uh ... yeah ... I’ll just leave that with a “no comment”), some great Alara moments, and an interesting resolution to the episode’s B-plot involving preventing a war. We also get to enjoy the first appearance by one of Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy co-stars, as Mike Henry appears in a very funny running gag about an alien who wants to start piping elevator muzak into the Orville’s turbolifts.

Next week’s Orville is looking to be another dramatic one, and if the promo images that have been released are anything to go by, it might be an Alara-centric story, and more Halston Sage is never a bad thing.

---

So basically where I sit now is that The Orville is still amazing, a lot of fun, and still gives off classic Trek vibes with a little modern edginess, though “Cupid’s Dagger” probably pushes the show as far as I’d like it to go in terms of the comedy. Discovery, meanwhile, appears to have undergone some sort of slight internal reboot/reset after its initial set of episodes. Which is good because I want to be able to enjoy both shows, both for the remainder of their first seasons, and into next fall, too.

As a side note, it’s been announced that a book on the making of The Orville is going to be published in January 2018: The World of the Orville by Jeff Bond.

A North American DVD release for Season 1 of The Orville has also been indicated on Amazon, though no date has been announced yet. I’m assuming sometime early 2018, though with Season 1 ending in early December there’s always a chance they might try to sneak in a release for Christmas.

As for Discovery, a novel based on the show is already out in Canada and the US and IDW is gearing up to start publishing a spin-off comic or two. No word on a DVD/Blu-ray release. Being a streaming series doesn’t disqualify it from physical release (Netflix issues most of its shows on DVD eventually, with House of Cards and Orange is the New Black usually coming out within months of their release - though I wouldn’t be marking any calendar dates re: House of Cards at the moment) but I wouldn’t expect to see anything until at least fall 2018 assuming they release the complete Season 1 at once.

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Halloween: 10 Hidden Details About The Horror Movie Costumes You Didn’t Notice

John Carpenter's original film Halloween is the first installment in one of the most famous and successful horror movie franchises in film history. The concept, story, and execution of said story is incredibly simple, but that simplicity is a huge reason why the movie is so effective. Halloween's popularity has endured since it was initially released in 1978, and it has been cemented within the horror genre as one of the pillars on which slasher movies stand.

RELATED: Game Of Thrones: 10 Hidden Details About The Costumes You Didn't Notice

One of the aspects that made Halloween such a breakout success is that it feels like the kind of horror movie that could be real and that could actually happen to you. A lot of elements of the film had to come together to make it feel so real, and a lot of small elements of the production had to be just right in order to make it an effectively scary movie. The classic Halloween Michael Myers costume is now one of the most recognizable costumes in all of horror, but here are 10 details behind all of the Halloween costumes that you probably didn't notice.

10 They Asked For Help From A Mask Making Company

Obviously the mask that Michael Myers wears in Halloween is one of the most important aspects of the movie as a whole, and having the exact right mask to convey the terror that the audience should feel from the moment that Michael steps on screen is an essential part of making this horror movie actually seem scary. So it's no surprise that the producers of Halloween solicited the help of a mask making company to create the perfect villainous face from scratch. They asked a company called Don Post Studios for their help and offered back end points on the movie's profits in exchange for that help, but the company declined.

9 The Mask Could Have Been Other Celebrities

The importance of choosing the right mask for Michael Myers certainly cannot be overstated. It could have been the difference between creating one of the most frightening and iconic movie villains of all time and creating a villain that feels like more of a joke than a real threat.

RELATED: Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland: 10 Hidden Details About The Costumes You Didn't Notice

And although one particular celebrity face wound up being the face of Michael Myers in the end, there were other masks of famous people that were under consideration for the "role". The producers of Halloween considered using a Richard Nixon mask, an Emmett Kelly mask, and a Spock mask before deciding on their final choice.

8 The Costumes Were The Cast's Clothes

Although Halloween is now one of the most famous, successful, and long running franchises in the history of horror films, no one had any idea that it would become the success it is now. The movie was initially being produced on an ultra shoestring budget of about $300,000, which meant that there was basically $0 available to buy a wardrobe for the cast. But since the cast is mostly populated by average people living average lives, the production just had the cast members use their own clothes as their on screen wardrobe. It was certainly the cheaper and more convenient choice for the production.

7 Jamie Lee Curtis Bought Laurie's Clothes At JC Penney

The cast members of Halloween provided their own wardrobe for the movie because the production just didn't have even a couple hundred dollars to shell out on costumes for the characters, but the film's lead actress Jamie Lee Curtis went slightly above and beyond what the producers had asked and expected of the cast members. In order to create a specific character style for Laurie Strode, Jamie Lee Curtis went shopping for her own wardrobe. And even though Jamie is the daughter of superstars Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, she went to the department store JC Penney to shop for all of Laurie's clothes.

6 Laurie's Wardrobe Cost Under $100

Obviously we need to look at the cost of Laurie Strode's on screen wardrobe relatively, because in the late 1970's a hundred dollars was worth a lot more and went a lot further than it does today. But even in that era it was pretty impressive to score an entire wardrobe for a lead character in a movie for under a hundred dollars.

RELATED: The Tudors: 10 Hidden Details About The Costumes You Didn’t Notice

Jamie Lee Curtis was presumably raised in a world where money was no object, but apparently she really knows how to get a lot of bang for her buck, especially since she was literally the one paying for the clothes she wore in the movie.

5 Five Different People Donned The Michael Myers Costume

Michael Myers is an incredibly effective movie villain for a lot of reasons, but the biggest is probably that he is literally the boogeyman in real life. He's a silent, diligent, and inscrutable killer who doesn't even have a face or anything to distinguish himself as a human. But even fans of the movie have no idea how indistinct his character really was, because a grand total of five different people donned the Michael Myers costume for different scenes. One actor did do the majority of his scenes, but sometimes they just slapped the costume on any random person who was on set and available to do it.

4 The Mask Was Almost A Clown Mask

The decision on what exact mask that Michael Myers was going to be wearing throughout Halloween was one of the biggest and most thought out decisions for the entire movie. The blank white face that everyone now recognizes as Michael Myers was obviously the mask that the producers chose in the end, but one of the biggest contenders for the mask was a clown mask. It was an understandable option, as many people were already afraid of clowns and putting Michael in a clown mask would give a kind of deranged and gleeful attitude to this silent and stony killer.

3 Which Was Why Michael Was Dressed As A Clown

One of the reasons that the clown mask was such a strong contender as the mask of Michael Myers in Halloween is because of Michael's first murder. When Michael is just a little boy, he inexplicably murders his older sister on Halloween night.

RELATED: The Crown: 10 Hidden Details About The Costumes You Didn't Notice

And because it's Halloween, Michael is in a costume, more specifically a clown costume. So aside from the general fear of clowns and how creepy their masks can be, the creators of Halloween considered making the Michael Myers mask a clown mask as a call back to Michael's very first murder. And while the connection made sense, their final choice was clearly the best one.

2 But It's Actually A William Shatner Mask

This one is strangely unsettling, but the creepy blank face that Michael Myers has worn through a million different Halloween movies is actually that of William Shatner. The mask that was used was specifically a mask of Star Trek character James T. Kirk, and somehow this rubberized copy of Shatner's face has become one of the scariest and most iconic masks in horror history. But necessity is the mother of invention, and it was undoubtedly very convenient that this low budget film managed to make a scary mask out of a cheap Star Trek Halloween mask.

1 And The Mask Has Been Modified

James T. Kirk may be the obvious face that is hiding within the classic Halloween mask, but clearly the mask itself has been modified to the point where no one would recognize it as William Shatner unless it was pointed out to them to begin with. The most obvious modification is that it's been painted white, but it has also had it's eyebrows and sideburns removed, it's hair has been painted brown, and the holes for the eyes have been cut out to be even larger. And this mask was ultimately chosen because when they tested it out with the crew it was pretty much unanimously considered to be the creepiest option.

NEXT: Handmaid’s Tale: 10 Hidden Details About The Costumes You Didn’t Notice

source https://screenrant.com/halloween-10-hidden-details-horror-movie-costumes-didnt-notice/

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All images: CBS

Hey, did you hear there’s a new Star Trek show starting September 24? Anticipation is mighty high here at io9—but for everyone who hasn’t been cataloguing every bit of info that CBS has revealed about Star Trek: Discovery on the long road to its debut, we’ve assembled this handy guide to get you up to speed.

Timeline and setting

Discovery, the sixth live-action Star Trek series, was initially announced as taking place in the prime timeline, the same universe as the other TV shows and their related films—but not the recent J.J. Abrams directed and/or produced movies. Since it takes place 10 years prior to the events of The Original Series, it’s more relevant to that show than Enterprise, which took place a century prior. That also means we’ll be seeing some retro-future takes on the classic show’s signature tech flourishes, including a variant on the phaser (though the badges and the flip communicators look fairly familiar). The Starfleet uniforms, however, are closer in look to Enterprise’s blue jumpsuits, rather than the classic colorful costumes of original Trek. (For once, though, away teams will get body armor, an idea that clearly fell out of fashion by the time Captain Kirk and company were boldly going beyond.) As the title implies, most of the action will center on the USS Discovery, though it won’t start there; instead, it seems we’ll first meet the main character when she’s serving aboard the USS Shenzou.

Main characters

Lt. Commander Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green)

Discovery’s protagonist is unique in the Star Trek pantheon for a variety of reasons. One is that—unlike Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and Archer—Burnham is not (yet) a captain. Another is that she was raised on Vulcan after her birth parents (both human) were killed by Klingons. Her adoptive parents just happen to be Spock’s parents, Sarek and Amanda Grayson, and her unusual upbringing means she’s the first human to have attended both the Vulcan Learning Center and the Vulcan Science Academy. (This is the first we’ve ever heard that Spock had a sister, though one of Discovery’s producers insists there will eventually be an explanation for that.) Based on ominous hints we’ve seen in the trailers, an early episode will explain the incident that causes then-First Officer Burnham to leave the Shenzou, where she’s serving under Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh), and end up on the Discovery, to be Number One under Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs).

Sarek (James Frain)

We learned way back in January that Spock’s father was joining the show—as a younger version, quite obviously, of the character we first met on The Original Series. But it wasn’t until July’s San Diego Comic-Con that his specific connection to Burnham became known. In the first Discovery trailer, Sarek appears in a Vulcan flashback, as well as in hologram form to Burnham to counsel her about leadership. Sarek has a long history in Trek, first appearing with a strained relationship with his half-human, Starfleet son and eventually dying on The Next Generation, after sharing a number of intense scenes with Picard.

Captain Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh)

As mentioned above, she’s the top commander on the USS Shenzou. In the trailer, we learn that Burnham and Georgiou have been working together for awhile, and Georgiou has become confident that it’s time for her protégé to get her own command. That is, until something (maybe an alien object?) makes something (maybe very bad?) happen to Georgiou. We aren’t certain of her fate yet, but you might not want to get terribly attached to this particular character.

Captain Lorca (Jason Isaacs)

He’s the captain of the Discovery—but he’s not the star of the show, and that’s not the only thing that makes Lorca different from previous Star Trek captains. According to Isaacs, the character is “probably more fucked up” than most Starfleet officers, which means he’s been through some exceptionally crazy shit during his time in space. That’s a quality that could create an interesting dynamic between Lorca and Burnham; in the second trailer, he seems stern when speaking with her: “You helped start a war. Don’t you want to help me end it?”

Lt. Commander Saru (Doug Jones)

The alien science officer aboard the Discovery, Saru’s the guy who delivers the trailer’s most chilling line: “My people were biologically determined for one purpose alone: to sense the coming of death. I sense it coming now.” He’s a Kelpien, a race that’s new to both Starfleet and the Star Trek series overall; their ability to sense death evolved on a home planet where they were hunted as prey. He stands almost seven feet tall on his hooved feet. At SDCC, it was mentioned that Saru and Burnham have a “brother/sister relationship;” Jones has also said that Saru is a character equivalent to the Spock or Data of this series. That’s a telling description, since Trek loves to have a character with an alien point of view and, specifically, one who can comment on human characteristics.

Lt. Stamets (Anthony Rapp)

He’s another science officer aboard Discovery, an astromycologist (translation: this dude knows a lot about space fungus). A far more exciting fact about Lt. Stamets is that he’s Star Trek’s first openly gay character (on TV at least; in the movies, Sulu has a male partner). As it happens, Discovery also has Star Trek’s second openly gay TV character as well, in the form of Lt. Stamets’ partner: ship’s doctor Dr. Hugh Culber (played by Wilson Cruz).

Cadet Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman)

She is an eager young Starfleet cadet assigned to Discovery, specializing in engineering and reporting to Lt. Stamets. After she becomes Burnham’s roommate, they form what Wiseman describes as “an unlikely friendship.”

Harry Mudd (Rainn Wilson)

This character—full name: Harcourt Fenton Mudd—is a con man, smuggler, and delightful sleaze who first appeared on The Original Series and has since become a cult favorite, largely thanks to Roger C. Carmel’s over-the-top performance. You can get a quick glimpse of Wilson’s take on Mudd as a younger man (“Are you mad?” “I’m MUDD!”) in the second Discovery trailer.

T’Kuvma (Chris Obi)

He’s a Klingon leader seeking to unite the 24 great Klingon houses—no easy task, especially since (as the second trailer reminds us) “the Klingon Empire has been in disarray for generations.” Klingons are the primary antagonists on Discovery, but the show will portray them as honorable warriors with—as you can see on T’Kuvma here—some really fantastic battle ensembles, not to mention new ships, at least one highly elaborate coffin, subtitles (when they’re speaking Klingon), and a biological reason for those distinctive forehead ridges.

Story and conflict

As mentioned above, Discovery will find the Federation at war with the Klingons. The show will run 15 episodes and we know a teeny bit about the first four installments. Episode one is titled “The Vulcan Hello,” and the description is nearly exactly what the two trailers have already revealed:

While patrolling Federation space, the USS Shenzhou encounters an object of unknown origin, putting First Officer Michael Burnham to her greatest test yet.

Subsequent known episode titles include “Battle at the Binary Stars,” “Context Is for Kings,” and “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not for the Lamb’s Cry,” though we don’t have plot descriptions for those yet. Based on hints from showrunners Aaron Harberts and Gretchen Berg, however, the season will also focus on how the characters work through their differences together. Based on what the showrunners have said, he war with the Klingons will be in some way a comment on current political events, much like The Original Series reflected then-contemporary Cold War tensions. And Burnham will have to cope with whatever happened on the Shenzou, growing into the kind of leader that Sarek encourages her to be. She may also find herself caught between Vulcan and human cultures, much like her adoptive brother Spock was.

And the rest

The Discovery is a science vessel, which sets it apart from the Enterprise, which, as the flagship, was tasked with all sorts of things; with Voyager, which was designed specifically for long-term exploration; and Deep Space Nine, which was a space station. (And also very different from the Defiant, Deep Space Nine’s ship, which was designed to fight.) According to Memory Alpha, science vessels aren’t meant to be out in space for long periods of time, so maybe Discovery will be docked more often than in the other shows.

The design of the Discovery itself can be described, in the words of io9's Katharine Trendacosta, as being “sort of like Ralph McQuarrie’s original concept art for a new Enterprise and the original show’s ship had a baby. A baby about to go where no one has gone before.”

Composer Jeff Russo’s Discovery theme song calls back to Alexander Courage’s iconic original, while also doing its own melodious thing.

There will be a Mirror Universe episode.

After some initial misinterpretation, it’s actually totally fine to say “God” (as in “For God’s sakes!”) on the show.

There will be Tribbles.

Star Trek: Discovery premieres September 24 on CBS and CBS All Access. The rest of the series runs through November on CBS All Access, before taking a hiatus until January 2018. Each episode will be followed by Talking Trek, a live aftershow available on CBS All Access.