I thoroughly enjoy this film every single time I watch it. It's pretty intense from start to finish in the best way. As crazy as Denzel is, he kind of has some good points to be made.
Movies & TV
Star Trek Strange New Worlds
Despite that I’ve been writing about Star Trek Discovery, what really brought me back to Star Trek was Strange New Worlds. I had tried and given up on Discovery several times, not making it past the first episode, and I wasn’t hearing much great and Star Trek Picard. I was hearing good things about Strange New Worlds. I know the timelines and continuity is iffy, but it’s essentially a prequel series to The Original Series.
Something I kind of realized when starting SNW, is that I have never really watched TOS. I have seen episodes here and there for sure, and I have watched the movies many many times. I even have a pile of notes on the Animated series somewhere so I could forget to blog about it. But I have not really watched TOS properly. I may have to fix that. I am fairly familiar with it, but more with elements from the movies. For example, I forgot Nurse Chapel was there on TOS quite a bit, she is a main character here in SNW. There are actually several minor crew members in SNW that are also minor crew members in TOS.
Anyway, I also am aware of Captain Pike and how he fit into TOS. He was captain in the TOS pilot, and in a later episode after he was basically crippled into a space wheelchair thing. Basically, he was Captain of The Enterprise before Kirk. Which is the story SNW is showing us. The more interesting TOS character here is young Spock, who served under Pike before serving under Kirk. Rounding out the TOS characters is Uhura, who served as Communications Officer under Kirk, though she is a lot more floaty in her duties here under Pike. Part of her story is sort of, finding her place.
The show has its own share of new characters though, or in some cases, fleshed out minor characters. Pike has his Number One, who didn’t have a name in TOS, or in her Season 2 Discovery appearance. She gets a name finally, though it’s funny because her first name is “Una”, which is suspiciously close to “Uno”. There is the previously mentioned Nurse Christine Chapel, and her partner in crime Doctor M’Benga. Chapel was fairly present in TOS, but M’Benga actually did appear as well in a couple of episodes. The main cast is rounded out with Security Chief La’an Noonien Singh, whom is a descendant of well known Star Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh. And lastly, probably my favorite of the new characters, Lt. Erika Ortegas, who helmsman under Pike.
Oh right, there is also Captain Christopher Pike. I am really enjoying Pike as captain, though he does come off as feeling very Kirk-like at times. That may be a side effect of just how much more like Star Trek this show feels as a whole. Especially next to Discovery (Though I watched Discovery AFTER watching SNW). Unlike Discovery, this show is all about the crew and their interactions with each other.
There is a lot of strange irony going on that Ortegas is my favorite character here, and Unlike her character and feel like I know more about her character than most of the Discovery Crew. The irony being that Ortegas isn’t even a very fleshed out character. There was even kind of a memory episode where everyone lost their memory and Ortegas summed up her entire character as, “I fly the ship.”
Which bring up another thing I like about this show, it’s much more episodic in nature. There are hints of an underlying narrative, but it’s just that, it’s an underlying narrative, and less so a running plot thread. There are also a lot of subtle nods to various things in Trek. Characters that show up later again and such. A lot of the show revolves more around the character interactions as well, which is so nice because part of what makes Trek enjoyable is a fun crew that gets along. We still get history for these characters as well, with touches on La’an’s unsteadiness about her ancestry, or Chapel and M’Benga’s time during the Klingon War where they did some.potentially shady missions. There is exploration of Spock’s relationship with his Vulcan fiance T’Pring, complicated by his increasing feelings for Nurse Chapel.
But there are also a lot of fun goofy stuff going on. We get an entire musical episode when the crew encounters a special rift with a proclivity for music. There is also a really fun crossover episode with Lower Decks, where two of the Lower Decks members, Ensigns Boimler and Mariner, are transported to the “real world” past.
We also get some nods at things to come. Pike is haunted by a memory he was given during his time on Discovery, about his future death. He knows he is going to die and he knows there is nothing he can do to stop it. There are also several cameo appearances by a young Lt James T. Kirk. I am a bit torn on Kirk. The actor does a really good job and I like his character, but he doesn’t really look or act like Shatner. Funny enough, he looks like Jim Carey, who is most responsible for parodying Kirk and basically creating the “Kirk… talks like … he hasa weird… speech impediment” trope, that isn’t really very accurate.
Kirk doesn’t yet serve on the Enterprise though, so he only shows up occasionally.
Anyway, rather than push seasonal write ups, I figured I would wrap Season 1 and 2 up into one, general thoughts, write up. Overall, Strange New Worlds is really great though, and it’s done a great job of pulling me me back to Star Trek.
Star Trek Discovery – Season 5
And now for the final season of Star Trek Discovery. I have a whole mess of notes to make sense of, and a lot of them are more just, about the series in general. So let’s see where we boldly go on this one.
Actually, it turns out it’s not that much. I kind of had a hard time caring enough to finish this series and season and the whole series has felt a bit downhill for a while.
After feeling a bit more like Star Trek for the last few seasons, Discovery seems like its fully embraces its Not Trekiness. It feels a lot more like Star Wars for some reason (again). They even picked up that Sith girl from Ahsoka. Ok, not really, they just told ok her hair and style.
They also pulled Tilly back, though she doesn’t really feel like she does a lot this season. The cast on this show has been so weird all around, and I wonder if it’s something behind the scenes happening or what. The Bridge Crew is almost entirely new people, and the few remaining old characters, Tilly and Saru mostly, feel like they have been shoved off to the back burner the way the old Bridge Crew were.
Owosekun and Detmer get their leave “explained” and “acknowledged” but neither even appears in the episode where it happens.
We do get a new First Officer, again, and Adira is more interesting again, without Grey, except the writers completely forgot they were a Trill. It really has not come up at all since Season 3, and it amounted to, knowing where the Federation is, and suddenly knowing how to play the cello. I mean, why don’t we get to see that more? It’s little things like, “Let’s show this character playing cello” that make Star Trek interesting. This whole series really is just ‘The Michael Burnham Show.” Adira being an Ensign is fine, they are inexperienced in Starfleet. Adira being and acting like a know nothing after having many lifetimes of memories, is a whole new annoyance.
Just to wrap up the Adira thing, they did go back to Grey again, on Trill. And they broke up. It kind of felt like their story was going there, as I mentioned in the Season 4 write-up. I am surprised they didn’t just do it back then, but I guess they didn’t have time with the Burnham show going on.
As for the new First Officer, he is a disgraced captain, whom Burnham decides will be her new bestie. The whole setup is honestly kind of weird, they meet up on Not Tatooine and ride together on some Not Speeder Bikes and then he gets in trouble for screwing up and letting the bad guys get away. It’s kind of forgivable because he is probably the most interesting character in the season. It’s kind of a shame that the rest of the old regulars all seem to have been dumped with not a lot of characterization while this guy swoops in and gets to be interesting.
Back to the core plot.
It’s another MacGuffin Hunt chase. And it’s very literal this time. Find a thing, solve a puzzle, find the next thing, repeat.
In general, I actually really really really hate this specific plot device in everything, not just here. Indiana Jones, for example, uses it. My main problems are, traps and puzzles which survived hundreds of thousands of years undisturbed. I could go with it for 1 or 2 parts of these puzzle chains, but half a dozen?
Plus, anyone could stumble upon the middle section of a puzzle chain, or even the end, but generally speaking, only the last step actually matters.
The puzzle chain leads to quite a bit more surface level action, which is part of why this all feels more like Star Trek again.
They did do a little nod back to the Mirror Universe, though it really leans into the whole “how did this all survive hundreds of years? At least they are consistent with the Mirror Universe references. No mirror people, but they find the abandoned Mirror Universe Enterprise and pull it through the wormhole. It’s basically an excuse to reuse the Strange New Worlds sets.
Also the Federation is going to be really confused when Burnham shows up with yet another 23rd century star ship in nearly perfect condition.
They also found logs that implied the Mirror Universe Terrans from the ISS Enterprise managed to escape to the Prime Universe. Which feels odd because Georgiou had an ENTIRE plot around having to leave, due to some universe sync issues.
The puzzle chain is following through the path of these Romulan Scientists in search of Progenitors Technology. The Progenitors were in an episode of TNG where the crew, along with some others, discovered this species called The Progenitors, whom had essentially created all life in the universe. It was partly used as an explanation as to why all the aliens look “more or less like humans.”
There is also a nod towards Deep Space Nine with the Breen being the main antagonists.
I kind of wish they had brought back and explained what happened with the Klingons. Even just maybe putting one of the puzzle steps on a Klingon planet would have been nice. Actually, a fun idea may have been to revisit the Time Crystal planet, and basically, because time is wonky there, they have to kill time and wait for the clue to be deposited first.
Now I am just making up fan fiction.
The Breen plotline is just, kind of weak. Some sort of Breen Prince or something falls in love with a human girl, who just happens to have connections to Book. The Breen Prince kills some Breen and now they are hunting him down as a traitor, so the Breen dude wants the Progenitor tech to trade for his life.
But then he dies, and the Breen just sort of, decide to follow his human girlfriend. I think maybe she was his wife by that point.
Anyway, Burnham managed to solve the puzzle of course and gets the opportunity to turn down becoming a literal God level Mary Sue.
But not before we get the most ridiculous Spore Drive moment in all of the series. Oh the Spore Drive. The magic mushrooms that can always save the day. The Breen have this massive ship, and the Discovery needs to stop it, and apparently, despite never coming up once before, the ship can suddenly separate off the saucer section. And they do this sort of, Spore Drive Magic, using the two halves, to transport the giant ship away. It’s neat to watch, I guess, but it kind of breaks an already broken magic plot device in an annoying way.
Speaking of random out of the blue never mentioned plot device. Saru is doing some side plot stuff involving the Breen, and he needs to get somewhere fast, and the Federation suddenly has this thing called the Pathway Drive. It’s never explained or anything, but it’s basically just “The writers hate that Warp Travel is slow”, much like the Spore Drive.
Another thing that I mostly just want to gripe about, the Progenitor puzzle “make the shape out of the one between the many” really, REALLY felt like it was trying to hard to echo “The Needs of the Many” line.
Also, why don’t shuttles get cute names anymore. It’s just “Disco #5”
S.W.A.T., 2003 – ★★★
Starts going off the rails a bit during the climax, but the build up is fun and the plane bit during training was great.
Why did they keep foreshadowing that big harpoon gun then nothing came of it?
Also, it felt like they made the villain as multinational and ambiguously racial as possible to avoid offending anyone specifically.
Star Trek Discovery – Season 4
As expected, despite there technically being ways, the crew is just staying in the Future’s Future. This season has been kind of meh overall, it really really feels like a rehash of the last two seasons except now Space Elon is the bad guy.
Also, are the actors getting bored with the show? Or maybe just, COVID messed up everyone’s schedules? It feels like a lot of the lesser characters started leaving near the end of the season. At least, the ones they didn’t give some characterization to. Last season they sort of gave Detmer a few bits of actual characterization beyond “pilot”. This season’s spare characterization cycles seem to be going to Owosekun. The other “person who sits up front.”
And of course, Tilly left, (she comes back). It really feels like they got rid of Tilly as Stamits’ engineering buddy and replaced her with Adria. More specifically, they took everything interesting about Tilly and put it in Adria, and everything kind of annoying about Tilly, and put it in Gray Tal. And neither half works as well when it’s split. Tilly is the Gestalt.
Speaking of Adira and Gray, they had a sort of, subplot going on early in the season, that stemmed from the weird Holo version of Gray. I am glad it ended fairly early on, with Gray leaving for Trill. I feel bad, but I found Gray to be incredibly annoying as a character. Way way too chipper, he made Adria’s character extremely wishy-washy and worse from her previous time, and he wasn’t ever actually part of the crew, which made him doing crew things (rarely) weird.
Not to mention the whole, “Lets synthesize you a body so you can be a real boy and extract your Trill consciousness,” kind of feels like it’s really screwing with Trill Lore.
It feels like they wanted to make Wesley seem less annoying by comparison. I suspect he will show up again more, and that’s fine, I just kind of hated him as a “regular.” And after his departure, Adira already feels more like their old self a bit more. Which is great.
The core plot arc for the season involves this giant black hole anomaly thing that sort of, showed up out of nowhere and started gobbling up planets. But it’s “random and unpredictable”. Eventually Space Elon (Tarka) shows up to be smug and annoying and screw things up for his own gain.
The black hole eats Book’s planet which kind of turns him into a huge emotional mess because we just got to meet his family (how convenient) who were of course, on the planet. This all leads to a lot of discussion a d politicking by the Federation leaders. It’s kind of crazy how suddenly the Federation is this whole thing again after being in literal shambles even BEFORE the Burn happened. Anyway, Burnham wants to negotiate with whomever is controlling the wormhole.and Space Elon wants to nuke it. The Federation decides to vote on whether or not nuking black holes is a good idea or not and decide that no, it’s not, that’s a stupid idea.
Not one to take no for an answer, he convinced Book to sneak away on their own to blow it up anyway. They also steal a prototype new Spore Drive, to put in Book’s ship, because the writers realized how impossible the story would be with regular Warp.
There is some chasing for a while and relationship drama because Burnham isn’t real happy about Book going against her and trying to nuke a black hole. Eventually, Discovery stops them, but Tarka manages to pull off his plan anyway.
This literally amounts to nothing.
They blow up the core. The thing goes away, then it just, come back. Like less than a minute later.
But a long the way we learned that the source is coming from our beyond the Great Barrier. We went to the Future’s Future, now it’s time to go to Outer Outer Space. Also Book and Tarka escape away, and we learn some backstory that is supposed to make Space Elon sympathetic but mostly just makes us wonder if he was gay for that alien dude or if they were just “roommates”.
It’s never stated. Potentially killing billions of people for a “roommate” feels a little extreme though.
So Discovery, because it’s the only ship that can do anything, Spore Jumps to the edge of the galaxy, because apparently, the Spore Drive doesn’t work outside of “the known universe”. Somewhere a sleeping Chief Engineer had to wake Up and tell Jett Reno to clean the dust off the warp core, because they were stuck using traditional warp for a while.
After passing into Outer Outer Space, Discovery encounters a giant shielded egg thing belonging to the unknown aliens. They make a detour to a nearby planet and find some long dead original civilization of these aliens. The President of the Federation also shows that she doesn’t know anything about how the Federation operates here too, because she protests that Burnham should not be beaming down to the planet. It’s like she doesn’t understand that even.on a ship with hundreds of crew members, only the senior officers and Captain ever get to actually leave the ship.
On the away mission, they discover that the aliens communicate through emotions. My first thought was, too bad they don’t have a Betazoid on board, but then I remembered that Book is also an Empath. Seems like the logical plot run, but nope, they don’t go that route.
Instead they use some sciencey stuff to work out the emotion language.
I want to touch on an issue with Discovery here. It’s become increasingly annoying, and by the end of the series, it’s bad enough that it’s literally used for jokes in the finale. They really really really gloss over the science parts. Like, all Trek science is kind of techno babble.mumbonjumbo, but it’s somewhat consistent and at least pays lip service to making sense in world.
Science in Discovery feels like the writers took a bunch of Trek science terms, put them in a tumbler, and started pulling them out randomly.
It’s like when CSI talks about “Port Forwarding the dev shell antivirus driver over the RAM chip interface”, but with Trek terms. It’s all words that mean something, but it’s output as gibberish.
Anyway, they work it out and start negotiations with the aliens. And they have to because suddenly both Vulcan (Sorry, N’Varr) and Earth are being threatened by the black hole thing now. Which feels weird because those two planets feel like they aren’t close enough to be threatened, but then it’s the Michael Burnham Show, and those are both her home planets, so, WE GOTTA UP THOSE STAKES FOR HER!
Burnham, Saru, and the various Federation emissaries on board, all beam down to start negotiations.
Also Book and Tarka also came to join the party, in secret, and somehow they don’t have nearly as much trouble getting around and through the barrier as Discovery did. Tarka, still hell bent on ….
Fuck it, it’s actually not clear WHAT Tarka is even doing.
He was a prisoner, he met a smart alien he may or may not have been in love with, he escaped the prison, but his friend didn’t, but he seems to think his friend escaped to another dimension. The pair had been working on a dimension-jumping project while in prison. Anyway, Tarka needs the power source the aliens use to power the dimension thing, but he also wants to blow it up, for, some reason.
It’s all very, kind of dumb.
Anyway, Tarka threatens the aliens, which freaks them out but then Discovery proves themselves to be true by stopping Tarka.
This also involves several moments of “This character is going to sacrifice themselves or die” that never happen because, Transporters exist and we can’t kill off characters anymore, I guess.
Overall the season felt kind of weak, and the show is starting to fall deep into iffy territory. I’ll probably go on about a lot of this for the Season 5 write up, or if it gets long, it will just be its own post.
