I’m just this crystalline entity, y’know?
In terms of wall to wall far out aliens, Earth’s future, Rose all giddy traveling with a new Doctor, and of course Cassandra, my mind went to The end of the world, but that was probably too in the nose.
I quite agree about The beast below, also a companion’s first space jaunt, right? And boom, Amy get to walk away from Omelas, but it’s future UK in space. Can we just stick to Moffat episodes?
We may both rag on the silliness and threadbare stories in this show, particularly in this episode — but I don’t need any more detail on Jack Harkness turning into a giant head in a fish tank. You die and revive enough times, that’s the end result 🤣
I think that’s the sort of gaps that could never be filled satisfactorily on screen. They’re much better as a space where viewers’ imaginations roam wild instead.
I was going to rewatch this, but reading @ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 's rundown soured the memory of it a bit. It’s an episode I’ve watched a bunch, and it has some elements I really like:
The allure of the body swap has worn off the more I watch this, though. Not a lot of actors can pull it off, much less so when the person they’re impersonating is Zoë Wanamaker at her peak of campiness.
By now when I think back on this episode, I remember Billie Piper complimenting her own arse, and skip to the one with the werewolf instead. Oops, spoilers for next week’s throwback discussion!
This is honestly not a terrific story as a whole — VS has already pointed out the biggest pratfalls — but at least it’s so full of wacky characters and running away from human guinea pigs, you won’t have time to say “that’s not how medicines work”.
Oh, so jealous. TBF, it’s still hilarious on fourth and fifth watching.
Barclay was evading real life conflict and pressure for sure, but also doing erotic power play with holo-versions of his crewmates… I think that last part was an early taste of our current deepfake porn reality 😬
Either way, Lower decks made it clear that into the 2380s, cleaning out the holodeck biofilters was still the worst job on a starship:
People really use it for that?
Oh yeah. It’s mostly that.
There may be a joke flying over my head here, but Barclay only appears, having rather consequential holo addition issues, two full seasons after the Bynars’ upgrades?
I dunno, it’s almost too neat and tasteful, isn’t it? I checked out Matt Ferguson’s other anniversary posters, and they have a lot more going on visually.
Sure, this movie’s tone is very different, but still.
Oh mam, was there a four month gap between the christmas special and this? And people moan about “Space babies” being a poor season opener…
Looking forward to it. The Chinese scifi I’ve watched hasn’t been great, but I’m hoping this will serve as the gateway I need to start the original language Three body problem series… No pressure!
The script where Alexander interns behind the counter for a week just writes itself.
WORF: [exasperated sigh]
If a bit squirmy.
Hm, interesting. I’m a bit wary of science fiction’s ability to grapple with “AI” while techbros crowbar their glorified Tamagotchi into anything with a chipset — promoting the products with allusions to scifi that the eager marketers clearly haven’t understood.
But I’ll give this a watch on your suggestion that it has Star Trek elements, or vibes 🙂 As long as it isn’t “The measure of a man” with Grok in the defendant’s seat…
Testing… Testing…
Whew, it wasn’t my time to be hit with the ban hammer! 🥳
Call me an epicurean, but
and
Well, only if you have occasion to send it somewhere exciting. Like an intercontinental package, a mesaage in a bottle or something.
Oh, I really enjoyed Llewellyn, too! I think it’s sometimes overlooked that these early revival seasons had excellent casting for minor roles as well. This actor just sells his excited, flustered engineer immediately, you are genuinely happy for him and his Mars probe making it (and then clearly not making it after all) 😄
Where did he get the blood? Probably from a colleague, maybe even Sally. Scientists aren’t too bothered about proper procedures sometimes. Carl Sagan’s wife did most of the artwork for the Pioneer plaques, just some convenient nepotism to get it done on time.
Edited to add:
Harriet Jones, prime minister
Yes, we know who she is.
Somehow, the news that Looney Labs are reprinting Star Trek Fluxx made me unreasonably happy. And honestly, Lower decks is a perfect fit for the game.
They probably could, technically speaking. The “audio clip show” episode they did on Prodigy felt a little graverobber-y, though. I loved seeing Spock and Odo again, even in animated form, but I thought the archival restrictions on the dialogue emphasised that.
On the other hand, I would spit bile at any attempt to “reanimate” (ie, deepfake) late actors on the show. It was creepy when Star wars did it with Peter Cushing, and it’s the same now, with “genAI”.
One exception IMO might be Majel Barrett. As I understand it, she consented before her passing to having her voice and speech patterns digitised for such a purpose. Somehow, it would be fitting for her to always be the voice of Trek computers ❤️
Geez, those Ferengi vendettas go darker than the show let me believe.
It certainly lowered my enthusiasm for SFA s2, knowing they went hard with a cliffhanger finale… That show had a lot of spirit and promise, I wanted to follow those kids through the academy.
SNW — I know I’m in the minority here, but I couldn’t get into the show’s tone, and especially the way it’s leading doggedly towards TOS, literally checking boxes for each continuity item. It feels like a dead man walking, and even more so now. This is actually the first time I’ve looked forward to a Trek show ending.