Further evidence, as if any was needed, that the universe has no concept of fairness: the actor who played Nog has died, but Star Trek: Discovery continues to survive to further trash the legacy of Trek.
“Star Trek: Captain Nog” is a series I would’ve watched.
It is with extreme regret and sadness to announce that my love and best friend, Aron Eisenberg, passed away earlier…
Posted by Malíssa Longo on Saturday, September 21, 2019
If you’re like me, your first thought on reading that headline is “Walter Who???” So I looked him up on Wikipedia and, much to my surprise, he actually has a *few* science fiction titles under his belt. However, the great bulk of his writing is crime fiction. Maybe he was supposed to write Dixon Hill holodeck scenarios or something.
His trouble sounds, at first glance, like the sort of nonsense we’ve come to roll our eyes at… he was called up by HR and told that his repeated use of the “N-Word” in the workplace was a firable offence. But he claims that he did not use it to refer to other people there, but instead while describing what he said were autobiographical tales of Los Angeles cops using that word on *him.* At that level, it certainly sounds like he is in the “if this was a rational world” clear. But there are other factors to consider. Look at his Wikipedia writeup. It certainly *seems* like he may have a bit of an obsession on the subject of race; while he’s publishing books, getting paid for movie rights and working on Star Trek, he’s doubtless also complaining about how he’s oppressed by white privilege at the same time I can’t find a publisher to even look at my work and I’m pulling books off my shelf to sell. My sympathy for him declines somewhat. So it may well be that what annoyed whoever it was ho snitched on him to HR wasn’t his use of the “N-Word,” but his incessant, nonstop harping on on the subject
What’s better: when called on the phone by HR, he promptly quit. Didn’t fight it. Now, if *I* was working on a Star Trek series that I truly believed in and someone tried farkin’ with my job there, I’d fight it tooth and nail. This guy? “Meh, I’m out.” Says much about not only his devotion to crafting quality Star Trek, but also about everyone else there as well if he is the kind of guy they bring in to write.
Even betterer:
Mosley ended his op-ed by saying, “The worst thing you can do to citizens of a democratic nation is to silence them.” He elaborated, “And the easiest way to silence a woman or a man is to threaten his or her livelihood. Let’s not accept the McCarthyism of secret condemnation. Instead let’s delve a little deeper, limiting the power that can be exerted over our citizens, their attempts to express their hearts and horrors, and their desire to speak their truths. Only this can open the dialogue of change.”
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! yeah, good luck with that, bucko. Your pals are trying to “cancel” Dave Chappelle for saying things that hurt their feelings. The outrage mafia is taking down comedians for stuff they did *years* ago. Entire fire departments are getting shut down because one volunteer had gone to a few Proud Boy meetings. So don’t act shocked when you get a call from HR for saying The Naughty Word repeatedly in the workplace.
And this pretty much defines the problem with Star Trek today:
It’s worth noting that Discovery has a particularly inclusive writers room that includes three African American scribes, two Asian American writers, a Native American and Latinx woman, among others.
Inclusivity in modern Star Trek covers ethnicity, but not, it seems, a diversity of *quality* science fiction authoring experience.
So driving along I listened to Science Friday on NPR today. They had a segment about poetry based on science, a concept which at least seemed like it aught to be promising. But the poems they read… wow, just, just awful, including one by the worlds most over-rated hack, Maya Angelou, which sounded like so much word salad. (Rather tellingly, both the description of the “poem,” that it was “an absolutely stunning poem,” and the title of the poem, “A Brave and Startling Truth,”are the sort of SJW buzzwords that make you sit up and take notice that you are about to be barraged with self-important nonsense.)
Everything they had on display sounded like the “poets” not only had the level of science understanding of your average Star Trek: Discovery writer, but the poetic skills of a lobotomized Speak N Spell. This crap is to “poetry” what low-end rap lyrics are to opera. I know art is subjective, but shouldn’t poetry sound, you know, like poetry, and not the stream of consciousness gibberings of someone whose experiences with science is restricted to “experimenting” with shrooms?
If you want to listen to this drivel… well, here ya go.
Gaaaaaaaggghhhhhhggkgkgkgkgkkkktttpppbblblblbllbtttt…..
Gah. I needed to wash this gak out of my brain with something that actually *could* pass for “science poetry,” both the words and the images.
Anybody have any favorite poetry about science that is actually poetry, actually about science, and actually good?
I was never all that likely to pony up cash for CBS’s paid streaming service. The world is already far too full of such things. The only show they had that even close to tempting me was “Star Trek: Discovery, and that was only *before* I started seeing what a trainwreck the show would become; once I saw the pilot that aired on regular CBS, the whole idea of signing up became laughable.
I never spent a dime on CBS All Access.
But after seeing how they are now advocating violence against American citizens who express political views they don’t like… I want my money back. They have a show called “The Good Fight,” which is apparently about people trying to overthrow American society and replace it with a Lenin-approved wokepocalypse, and recently posted an ad to Twitter. This ad advocated physical violence against those you (or at least the writers at CBS) disagree with. The Twitter ad seems to have been pulled down, but chunks of it are up on YouTube:
This is based on the tired “is it ok to punch a Nazi” thing. Sure, if there’s an *actual* Nazi advocating violence…. then, maybe. But the far left has so futzed with the culture that virtually *anybody* can be declared a Nazi. I was originally going to type “anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders can be declared a Nazi,” but then I remembered that BLM didn’t think he was woke enough and took the mike from him. Raving loonies on Twitter are claiming that Disney polling indicates that more than a quarter of Star Wars fans are literal fascists. Clown world, indeed.
And note in the video that even thought they show Richard Spenser, white nationalist, the riotous actions shown are from an American point of view almost entirely the province of *left* *wing* activism, and the “blue vest” rioters seem to be a takeoff on the French “yellow vest” protestors, who seem to be to a very large degree leftists.
So CBS All Access is openly declaring that it is not only acceptable, it is *right* to commit acts of violence against people who express views you do not like.
So, yeah, no STD for me.
Is it OK to clothesline a commie yet? “Some speech is not equal. Some speech requires a more visceral response.”
The makers of Star Trek: Discovery got themselves sued over allegedly stealing a small video game makers concept and design for a tardigrade-based FTL propulsion system. A few days ago STD ran a new episode that featured some cartoonishly evil new alien race what looks like this:
From what I can see in this one still, it’s a humanoid with black shiny skin, long clawed fingers, no obvious eyes, tentacles hanging from the face, undefined lower extremities and it reportedly lives under water (or under some liquid… dunno, haven;t seen the episode, just going off reports).
A random YouTube recommendation tonight brought me to this image from 2014. It’s a humanoid with black shiny skin, long clawed fingers, no obvious eyes, tentacles hanging from the face, undefined lower extremities and it lives under water.
So Star Trek: Discovery season 2 premiered a little over a week ago behind the CBS All Access paywall. It has been such a staggering success that they have made the first episode available for free on YouTube, and it was there that I watched it. I had heard from some reviewers that the producers had listened to the complaints about season 1 and tried to make season 2 better, more like an actual Star Trek show. And having watched it… they failed. It’s bad.
The writing is bad. Things happen without cause or consequence; people do inexplicable things. The episode starts off with a mangled version of the “Space: the final frontier” monologue that promptly goes wrong and turns into a myth from some African tribe 100,000 years ago (I have doubts that even with advanced technology that people in the 23rd century would have clue one what beliefs people had 100,000 years ago)… and that myth is just thrown out there and not referenced again. The writers think that “smartassery” is what the fans want in lieu of wit. And the writers threw in a bunch of what they seemed to think were jokes, presumably to help capture the “Orville” fanbase.
The acting is bad, in particular the horribly named “Jet Reno.” A character clearly thrown in in order to Seem Cool.
The action is bad and inexplicable. The little landing pods are straight out of a video game, and make as little sense. Why the frak do they spin around like that? If they are meant to head into dangerous environments, why are they one giant transparent and relatively fragile bubble?
The technology is bad, such as the small device set up on the shuttlebay floor that magically transforms into a *giant* device. Apparently it was folded up into a pocket dimension, a technology you’d think Starfleet would have made a bit more use of in later centuries. Or any use of.
Kid Spock sucks.
Everyone is a jerk.
Captain Pike actually looks like Jeffrey Hunters Captain Pike, but is entirely unlike him. OG Pike was serious to the point of morose, weighed down by the burdens of command. This one is a smirking wisecracker.
It is clear that the producers tried to make the premiere of season 2 more like Star Trek, but it’s a bad imitation.
“The Orville” has also recently premiered its second season and has five episodes under its belt so far. They, too, have retooled the show, though not nearly as much. “The Orville” has turned down the comedy; personally, I’m a bit disappointed by that. But “Orville” was always a mix of comedy and good sci-fi, and the sci-fi remains good. Just… not quite as funny.
STD is Star Trek for people who don’t like Star Trek. Orville is non-Star Trek for people who *do* like Star Trek. I have high hopes (but low expectations) that I’ll live long enough to once again see Star Trek for people who like Star Trek.
If you feel the need to watch the STD season 1 premiere episode, it’s HERE. It’s free, which seems a bit overpriced.
Everything about Star Trek: Discovery has screamed “trainwreck.” But this latest nugget tells me that the people behind the show are actively trying to sabotage it. Is it possible that at some point the producers of the show realized they had a disaster and rather than going to the considerable expense of scrapping and retooling, or just plain scrapping, they decided to make it an unwinnable suckfest? Is there some Hollywood-advantage in making it so bad that the studio pulls the plug with extreme prejudice?
Since ComiCon is currently ongoing in San Diego, a lot of trailers for forthcoming movies and TV shows have been released. Some of ’em:
Westworld, season 2, which looks to continue to be spectacular.
Thor: Ragnarok, which looks like more fun than it has a right to be:
Stranger Things, Season 2. GIMME NOW
Star Trek: Discovery, which continues the downward spiral by turning the main character into not just someone who knows Sarek (Spocks father) but was actually adopted by him… making her Spocks human sister. Which he and Sarek failed to mention EVER.
Since STD will only be available in the United States on CBS All Access – which is six bucks a month just to watch CBS shows, of which STD: Lensflare is probably the only one most people will give a damn about – I don’t expect too many people will actually watch the whole first (and potentially only) season.
On the other hand…this autumn *does* see the appearance of a Star Trek show people can actually watch, and that actually looks good: The Orville dropped another trailer. GIMME NOW.
New photos released from Star Trek: Discovery show three things of interest:
1: Have these people never seen a transporter room in *any* star Trek series? STD is set approximately at the same time as the original Star Trek pilot, “The Menagerie.” Which looked like this:
2: They’re wearing some sort of minimal body armor. Not entirely new for Star Trek… security guards wore armor (including helmets) in ST:TMP and STIII)
3: Their phasers, at least, look like they are actually based on TOS-era phasers. It would be odd if the one design element that they actually carry over from actual Star Trek is the one design element that they should feel pretty free to change. After all, during “The Menagerie,” starfleet’s sidearm looked like this:
This first real look at “Star Trek: Discovery” just makes me that much more excited for “The Orville.” Especially the wholly, utterly, ridiculously redesigned Klingons, and the fact that everything looks much more advanced than in TNG/DS9/Voyager.
Ugh.