Asking the Wrong Questions

It seems strange to say, but until yesterday evening, it had somehow never occurred to me that I would one day live in a world where Patrick Stewart did not exist. It's no surprise when a man well into his eighties dies, and when that death comes , as Stewart's did, as a relief from the degradations of Alzheimer's and Lewy body dementia, after a long and productive life and in the company of family and friends, it is not even a tragedy. And still, I find it hard to imagine a world without Patrick Stewart, which is probably another way of saying that I find it hard to imagine a world without Jean-Luc Picard, a character he not only played but put so much of himself into. I was a Star Trek fan before encountering The Next Generation , but Stewart was "my" captain, and he came to define Star Trek for me. More than that, however, he embodied an ideal of intellectualism, humanism, and restraint that, like so many other people of my generation, struck me to my core. A...

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I write about comics rarely, and about media tie-in fiction not at all, so I hope the fact that my latest review at Strange Horizons is of a book that is both of those things will, in itself, be a sign that this is a book worth looking at. Written by Ryan North, with art by Chris Fenoglio, Warp Your Own Way is a story set in the world of the just-concluded, animated Star Trek series Lower Decks . Also, it's a Choose Your Own Adventure-style story. The reader follows series lead Beckett Mariner on her day off, making decision as trivial as what beverage to order from the replicator, and as momentous as how to fight off Borg invaders. Which might sound amusing but slight, but before long Warp Your Own Way begins to hint that there is a meta-narrative at the root of this branching decision tree, and by its end the book reveals itself as a puzzle the reader must solve. I was so excited by Warp Your Own Way 's ingenious use of the CY...

Well, folks, what is there to be done about Star Trek: Discovery ?  Four months ago, writing about the season's first few episodes, I said that there were things about the show I really liked, and things I really disliked, but that it would probably take me until the end of the season to decide where I stood on the matter of the whole.  But here we are, nearly a week after the finale, and I'm no closer to a conclusion.  Neither, it seems, is the rest of fandom, which often feels like it's watching and reacting to several different shows.  And no one, no matter their opinion, seems very clear on what Discovery is .  Is it a bold reinvention of the franchise for the Peak TV era, or a shallow action-adventure whose ambitions often outstrip its capacity to execute them?  Is it the spiritual successor of the reboot movies, reveling in Star Trek tropes and fanservice without understanding the franchise's meaning, or is it a genuine attempt to grapple with the ...

I've been doing these fall TV reviews for more than a decade, and every year they feel less relevant, as either a guide to shows that people might like to watch or a commentary on the state of TV.  It's not that I believe that network TV is no longer capable of producing worthwhile, exciting fare--after all, my favorite show currently airing, whose second season is somehow managing to top even its stellar first one , is a network sitcom.  But pretty much everything the networks have trotted out this fall, good and bad, has felt inessential, like retreads of old ideas and trends that aren't really worth taking the time to talk about.  My focus in this post, then, is on the one thing that makes this fall unusual--the fact that in the space of a month, we've seen the premieres of four different SF shows.  Not all of them are good, but their subject matter means that all of them are sufficiently far from the standard network template that I can find something to say abou...

The first few days of 2017 have been rather interesting, as some tweets of mine went unexpectedly viral and sparked an interesting conversation about how Hollywood perceives the behavior, and fantasy life, of male versus female characters (you can read the whole thing here ).  But that feels like a distraction from the exciting news that there are finally films in movie theaters that I want to see.  For some reason Israeli film distributors have broken their habit of waiting until February to bring out the year's Oscar hopefuls, and of course there are the year-ending genre movies.  I didn't like all of these films, but I certainly enjoyed the experience of looking forward to them. Moana - Disney's latest attempt to reinvent the princess movie takes two novel approaches: drawing on Polynesian folklore and mythology for its story, and recruiting Hamilton wunderkind Lin-Manuel Miranda to write the film's songs.  Heroine Moana (Auli'l Cravalho) is torn between her ...

It's only the middle of June, but if there is, this year, another moment of unintentional comedy as richly hilarious as the putative climax of J.J. Abrams's Star Trek Into Darkness , I will be very surprised.  Going into the movie, I didn't expect that I'd find it funny.  Abrams's 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise left me genuinely outraged , and its sequel seemed to promise more of the same.  Perhaps because the film has opened so late in Israel, however, I've had the time to realize that more of the same isn't so bad.  It means that I knew what to expect (and what to steel myself against): a barely coherent plot, some fun but ridiculous action scenes, an approach to the original series and its appeal that runs the gamut from incomprehension to outright contempt, a vehement need to undermine and dismantle Vulcans despite the fact that the two films' best character, Zachary Quinto's Spock, is one, a borderline erotic fixation with Chris Pine...

For your convenience, a link post for my series revisiting Star Trek: The Next Generation . Introduction To Boldly Stay  - How The Next Generation changes its focus from exploration to politics "Optimism, Captain!" - On Star Trek's most contentious quality Keep Flying - The tragedy of Picard Odds & Ends - A few more thoughts on the characters and the actors who played them

Some thoughts about actors and characters. As I wrote in the previous entry, one of the pleasures of returning to The Next Generation as an adult was rediscovering, and learning to fully appreciate, Patrick Stewart's performance as Picard.  The rest of the cast, however, proved a less pleasant surprise.  Whether it's because the show was considered a bad employment risk when it first started casting, or because Gene Roddenberry and the other producers just had bad taste, The Next Generation 's starting lineup leaves much to be desired.  Jonathan Frakes has turned out to be a good director and producer, but his acting is hammy and overdone, and he's frequently stretched even by the material the first season throws at him.  It's almost amusing to watch the show try to pit him against Q in "Hide and Q," the trickster character's second appearance--one imagines the writers planning a series of episodes in which Q interacts with each of the cast in thei...