Tag Archives: Star Trek

Some Comments About “Star Trek: Picard” @ The Halfway Point Of Season 3, The Final Season

Posted on by toddpanther

If the last five episodes are as incredible as these first five, this one season of this one streaming show will have made up for:

  • Every bad episode of TOS;
  • Every bad episode of ST:TAS;
  • Every bad episode of TNG (yes, even the race/ethnic stereotyping and overt racism of Seasons 1 and 2);
  • Every bad episode of DS9 (were there bad episodes of that? 🙂 );
  • Every bad episode of Voyager (and I love the fact that there are not many of those 🙂 ),
  • Every bad Trek movie (maybe even including the new ones, depending on how powerful this particular story and series ends!) and 
  • Every misstep of streaming Nu Trek, animated and live-action (including Picard Season Two)

This is an amazing time to love this franchise! Today is a good day to live đź™‚

[UPDATE AFTER SEEING FINALE ON 4/20/23: The finale might have been the weakest. With the amount of time spent, the showrunners are determined to set up Star Trek: Legacy–something that technically doesn’t exist (yet)! I can’t believe the Trek people allowed the showrunners so much setup for nothing. There was less setup for a new movie the Trek folks have already announced! The story as a whole is almost the GOAT, but perhaps time will push this to an A+.]

*****

A Related Aside: Between this and what’s going on with Star Wars streaming shows, it’s beginning to be understood that good writing fixes everything–even bad movie sequels and prequels. The Star Wars streaming showrunners are creating world-building that’s so well done [LINK ADDED 4/20/23] it’s actually showing the greatness of the content of the prequels and sequels. An example of re-evaluating and changing your long-held view of something based on something else new that puts the old in a new context, a la the maxim, “If you change the way you look at things, what you look at changes.” 

Book Mini-Review: Galactic Improvisation

Posted on by toddpanther

So Say We All: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized History of Battlestar Galactica.
Mark A. Altman & Edward Gross.
Tor Books. 718 pp., $27.99.

No, it wasn’t the record-breaking-rated, universally-loved show it is now seen as, almost ten years after it ended. No, it wasn’t unconditionally loved and cherished by its network–until the awards and critical acclaim came in, and the showrunners announced that the fourth season would be its last. From its beginnings 40 years ago as an often ill-fated attempt to bring the visual and spiritual power of Star Wars to ABC primetime screens every week, to its let’s-kill-every-rule-Star-Trek-ever-had-and-hold-up-a-mirror 21st century Sci-Fi (now SyFy) Channel revival during the post-911/War on Terror years, Battlestar Galactica was almost always an acquired taste, a pleasant, almost-mainstream discovery. But how powerful the concoction! Altman and Gross, who interview as many cast and crew members that a human mind can absorb on a given page, take us step by step through the mythology as it developed, the last three words being key; perhaps the biggest shock of the book–practically its thru line–is how much of the new version was editorially done on the fly, and how its showrunners, Ronald D. Moore and the series’ often-unsung hero, David Eick, trusted its writers to fly Galactica–a complex series about race/identity and its connection to current politics, ancient Earth history and world religion–to a powerful, albeit controversial to many, end. What a great way for Altman and Gross to end a trilogy (four books, technically) of fan-favorites–Star Trek, then Buffy/Angel, and now BSG. These kind of books, especially with its oral history formats, take the rabid deep into the rabbit(-ears) whole, allowing the reader to see into the experience, and stay there. For a BSG fan, this is essential, since the series presented much but purposely answered little.