Converting people to the light

I just convinced my coworker who has never seen Trek to watch Star Trek 4 because Catherine Hicks is in it. Good times.

What's wrong with Jasmine

Why do I hate the fourth season of Angel so much?

Probably several reasons.

I came to Angel fairly late in the game, in what I think may have been a massive conspiracy among my friends not to let me get addicted to yet another show (probably a good plan), so they never talked about it in front of me. I caught the last season of both Buffy and Angel and got hooked from those - honestly, not the finest moments of either show.

I like Season 3 of Angel the best.

Anyway, why is it that I dread watching Season 4? This time through, I'm watching less in chunks than normal, so I'm seeing it more spaced out (like, one or two a day instead of eight). It's better this way - but I don't like it.

I think the problem lies in the villain. Something about me sees her point - she's saving a lot more people than she's killing. Lots more. And that scares me more than anything. Of course, like Janeway, I don't want to let numbers solve this. She's eliminating free will in the name of universal peace. Not cool.

Also, the fact that Joss essentially pulled the Jasmine plot out of thin air because Charisma Carpenter was pregnant sucks. He should have just ignored it and gone with Plan A. Would have been better.

You know those things you put off?

Turns out they're not worth it, I've decided.

Like Braveheart. I'm bored.

Don't know why I never saw it before. Wanted to at the time. My ex made me rent it once and then wouldn't let me finish watching it. It's dumb. I don't like it. And boring. And the kind of movie I hate that has everything I despise about movies in it.

Also, Mel Gibson is rubbing me the wrong way.

I hate that man.

Too bad, because I actually saw the spot where they executed William Wallace when I was in London, which might be the problem - I know what happens. Been there.

I've been thinking about JJ Abrams...

And Time.

We start... with Forever Young. Written by JJ ages and ages ago when the Earth was young... or at least before my tenth birthday. Mel Gibson was still cool and we didn't see Frodo when we looked at Elijah Wood. Those were the days. Anyway, the thing that really calls out to me here is the use of time as both an enemy and a friend, and how much time works for the people in the movie. It's undeveoped, but even though I was seven years old when this movie came out, I still remembered it fifteen years later. That counts for something, right?

Moving on, we see Alias. And the answer to the question: what do you do when you screw the show up? Most producers move on. JJ jumps two years into the future. Didn't work of course, but A for effort. I think maybe the having Vaughn's wife be evil was what lost you the gig dude.

And then there was Lost, and now he's really got it going on, because... okay, remember in The X-Files season 7, when Scully got pregnant? Remember when she gave birth one year later? Obviously not one year in the show, but one year of our lives? Remember how annoying that was? Lost is like the opposite of that. The polar opposite. In four years, the characters have lived for less than one.

That's freaking awesome.

Anyone else feeling pretty good about him doing a time-travel based Trek movie?

Pictures!

Because... Pictures!

That's right, we can now see inside a Star Trek (movie) shuttle. And for those of you who were worried about the look of things, that maybe it would be more reminiscent of Enterprise than TOS...

Don't be.

There's a bunch more where these two (my personal favorites) came from at AICN, including what may be a Starfleet uniform, possibly belonging to Spock (I don't remember the insignia ever looking like that before!)

It frees up a lot of my concern, because the console looks awesome. And very TOS-y.

Is this really it?

This picture may show JJ on the Bridge. Anyone?

Holy Spoilers!

Chris Pine just revealed by accident - I assume - a teensy tinsy little spoiler - he has scenes with Leonard Nimoy.

This is not big, earth shattering news, but they've been so careful not to let anything slide that anything at all is huge.

Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger died today.

I've loved his work for some time, ever since I really became aware of him in A Knight's Tale. So this tragedy runs especially deep for me.

Also, I'm pissed because someone told me he O.D'd in Mary Kate Olsen's apartment.

Mary Kate Olsen!

This is the kind of rumoring that just makes bad celebrity gossip worse.

Anyway, here's to Heath Ledger. I really wish he'd been on Star Trek once.

A Lesson Learned

When I started this blog, it was intended as a purely nerdy outlet. And while I still intend that, I'm hoping to expand a bit. I've been reading Just a Geek and it's made me realize how much better these things are when you add your real life to them. So that's my promise to myself and to whatever loyal readers I have, to include more of myself in these posts.

Which means: Rant Time!

The other day my computer stopped charging. Just stopped. And then my identity was stolen. I'm kind of curious, in a morbid sort of way, to see what's gonna happen today. I mean, what did I do anyway?

Stupid stupid stupid.

It's just so annoying, I mean I just submitted to Trekdom *crosses fingers* and now my computer's busted and I'm working off a crappy borrowed computer that I can't even type on with out L....A.....G......

It sucks.

I found where I could buy the replacement part I need online but I can't buy it because my new debit card won't arrive for 8-10 business days.

Arrrrrgh!

Invocation

The X-Files

There is no mention of Scully's pregnancy, but there's a little hint that Doggett has issues. Also we got to see him run, which is always a kick because it brings me back to when he was a Terminator and movies were decent.

Why do you call it that exactly?

I Am Legend

They said it sucked. They lied. While it's nowhere near perfect and the premise is from an era where you could write a book about a disease that turns people into vampires, it lacks several problems with previous incarnations. The vampires are NOT trying to take over the world this time, they just wanna eat. Robert Neville is played by someone hot, not someone with freakishly ginormous teeth, and there's a dog for you pet lovers out there.


Spoiler warning.

The dog dies. So does Will Smith.

Ultimately, it was way way better than The Omega man, which I had the misfortune of seeing six weeks ago.

And now I know why they call it that.

Cloverfield

So that's it, folks. I saw it.And let me tell you: I now trust J.J.

Despite what they said on AICN, I see something diferent. J.j. shows that he understands sacrifice, which means that he understands love. Which means thatt he understands e and mine, namely the Trekkies.

I am scared, of course, for Star Trek, as I should be, but more than that, I believe that this movie can succeed in being a new era. I saw the trailer. I saw the Enterprise - my Enterprise - being built. I heard Leonard Nimoy's voice. And I believe.

And I saw the movie. I saw what J.J. Abrams can do - could do - if he puts his mind to it. And then I believed again, that Star Trek has a future.

And Cloverfield is what brought me that future. And for that, I will always owe it.

More than that, I liked it. For all the formula plot, it spoke. And what it spoke of was the things that I have felt in my own life - loving someone so much that you're willing to give up everything, even your own life and future, to see that they don't die alone.

And then there's the fact that there are no answers to be found - just like life. It doesn't wrap up in a neat little package. Everyone dies, and no one learns the answers.

Now, please, don't ruin it by making a sequel.

I seem to have made a very disturbing discovery

Star Trek: The Animated Adventures

Star Trek V is a ripoff of an ep of The Animated Adventures called The Magicks of Megas-Tu.

An episode, which, btw, is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.

Murasaki 312

The Galileo Seven takes place in a "quasarlike" phenomenon called Murasaki 312. In the TNG episode "Data's Day", they are doing sensor observations of "the Murasaki quasar". That's continuity, folks.

Waiiiiting, little mammals!

How many of you remember "Prime Directive"?

Moving on.

Where is startrek.com? I'm waiting!

Why I hate Alias

I hate how complex situations are usually solved in one little ep. Vaughn's sick with the most evil disease imaginable! Oh, look, cured next week.

Crazy.

Minefield

Enterprise

In the early days of TOS, there was a great debate about salt shakers. Someone bought the most futuristic shakers they could find, only the one they used needed to be recognizable as a salt shaker. So the salt shakers became McCoy's medical instruments.

Today, watching Entersuck, I noticed Archer waving this little wand over his food. And then I realized, he's putting salt on it!

Now first of all, Archer likes a high sodium content on his eggs. Second, that thing is not remotely recognizable as a salt shaker.

Broken Bow

Enterprise

I know a lot of people won't be happy that I'm doing this.

Sadly, I don't care.

I want everyone to know, though, that it wasn't easy for me.

My history with Enterprise began on the day Enterprise began in 2001. I was excited, a little scared, and very very happy that Star Trek was continuing.

By the credits, I was in tears. I never watched an episode of the original run again.

I've seen it, of course, but not because I particularly wanted to. After it was over, I watched a few of the DVDs from Netflix. I sat through Connor and Dominic at the Vegas con, and I even watched the Anthony Montgomery segment (boring, FYI) but I never took the time to enjoy Enterprise.

I don't intend this entry to be a laundry list of complaints aimed at Brannon Braga's head, but I do want to rewatch Broken Bow and give Enterprise another chance - this time the whole show, with a lot of preconceptions and having read all the transcripts. I don't expect to be pleased, but I do expect to be more levelheaded than I was at eighteen.

Without further ado...

I think, at the time, we weren't ready to take a lot on faith. Production wise, it would have been better for the Klingon in the cornfield to be a TOS Klingon, and let the fans breathe a sigh of relief. I also think that introducing the Suliban at this stage was a very risky move, and the fans were not ready to accept risk like that after Voyager.

And the theme song was a mistake. First, the song part. And also the title of the show - no Star Trek. That was a mistake. Because while the fans have "faith of the heart", we also have the strength to walk away when we are displeased - unlike, apparently, Rick Berman.

So, yeah, the first four minutes were a disappointment. Even the opening lines, and the spacedock aren't enough to counteract what has been done by the first four minutes.

The depiction of the Vulcans is also very disappointing. They were supposed to FIX our problems, not help to cause them. And there are Klingon cultural inconsistencies that date back to the first season of TNG. That's more than a decade. The transporter looks better than Kirk's did - more futuristic. There's Brannon's little philosophy come to life.

And having Porthos around doesn't seem that great an idea. T'Pol's such a bitch that I can't imagine she came from the same planet as the same people who saved humanity in First Contact. Good movie.

They got James Cromwell to reprise Cochrane and coin the phrases that are known in the openings of TOS and TNG. That still doesn't make up for what seemed so frighteningly wrong with this show.

Again, I feel that including the Suliban this early in the game is a bad idea, because if it's not working (which it isn't), there won't be any more chances.

Which, for Brannon Braga and Rick Berman, there aren't, of course.

I keep trying to think if Spock or Tuvok ever ate with their hands. Not to mention Vorik or Sarek.

The controls look NOTHING like the ones on TOS. More like TNG with physical things to manipulate. URGH! Ugly and inconsistent. Also the fact that they are so different from TOS aliens is disturbing to me, because this is, you know PRE-TOS. It should be kinda like TOS, but with starting-up difficulties. Maybe some actual relationships instead of Archer just kissing every girl he meets. Instead? Decon rub-downs and sexual tension between just about everyone and T'Pol, despite the fact that she's a bitch. And no one has sexual tension with Hoshi because she can't do much more than scream.

I'm trying to see the good.

Really.

Now, what I would have liked to see was T'Pol going onto the Bridge and coming over to Archer's side. But they don't show that! Apparently the crew wanders around in BoxerBriefs, BTW. But the viewscreen is way more advanced than TOS's also.

But I love that they don't have shields yet. Or a tractor beam. Or phasers. These things are good. They make me happy. But the pre-tricorders should be a lot bigger - like a laptop. Hoshi's earpiece is too non-metallic - especially after Nog had the same thing Uhura used to use when the comn went out in DS9.

Since Klingons are so cold-sensitive, there is a big hole when they show Kronos to be such a cold-looking place. Of course, I never liked that whole "Klingons hate cold" bit anyway. And then the bit with the info-storing DNA.

Well, screw you too, Braga.

Dirty Girls

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer

And then it all goes to hell, because Caleb is waaaay more annoying than Glory ever was.

The dream Xander has about the two girls that want to have a threesome with him is hilarious.

Faith and Willow are back from L.A. and find the girl - Shannon - who was stabbed by Caleb. Faith goes after Buffy to say hi, and finds Spike chasing some girl through a cemetery, so she steps in to help. Only Spike's not evil and the "girl" is a vamp. And then they meet Buffy and everything gets straightened out and Faith kills the vamp so everyone's happy.

They take Faith back to the house and show her off. Spike fills her in on the source of the tension.

Caleb hangs out with the First for a while. God, he's boring. He does reveal that he blew up the council.

Andrew briefs the girls on Faith - mistaking the vulcanologist for an acutal Vulcan.

Principal Wood fires Buffy to give her more time to prepare for the First.

Faith and Spike smoke together in the basement and figure out they've met before. She kinda hits on Spike. Anyway, the girl from the beginning wakes up and Buffy goes to talk to her.

The girl tells her story and they get a picture of the burn Caleb left on her neck. And then she gives the message "I have something of yours."

So Buffy decides to take the girls on a little outing.

Caleb and the First play kinky games. Really.

Buffy fights her friends about her plan, but in the end she leaves Giles and Willow behind to protect the girls who don't know what they're doing. She and Faith go find a Bringer to follow and Buffy admits that she's glad Faith is there. They talk about Angel.

Xander gives the girls a pep talk about how great Buffy is and off they go to fight Caleb. They end up in the basement of this Vineyard and then they run into Bringers - and Caleb. Xander's team comes in to help and lots of slashing later Molly's dead, Rona's hurt, and...

Xander's lost an eye.

Because he trusted Buffy. He trusted her with his life and his world. And now he should have died - but he didn't. He just lost an eye.

Satan is a little man.

-Caleb

Night

Star Trek: Voyager

Janeway finally figures out that her actions in "Caretaker" were not a good idea. Which, duh.

Perhaps you could teach a course at Starfleet Academy: Satan's Robot: An Historical Overview.

-The Doctor