Damn, another one down! Patrick Stewart died last Wednesday, so now I need to create a new commemoration meme:
We’re starting from the top this time.
Tag Archives: Star Trek
Only Two Left
With the passing of Walter Koenig last Sunday, memes like this have been making the rounds:
I made the one above from a good quality photo, but I don’t like how Uhura is hidden behind Spock. For that matter, can’t see much of Chekov, either. So, I made another one from a different photo:
Though this photo isn’t as good as the first one.
TV Tuesday 12/9/25
I’m starting to feel a bit repetitious with the several TV Tuesday posts lately, not to mention the monthly Friday Notes. It’s starting to feel a little obligatory. They both serve a useful purpose for me, which is why I write them, but sometimes I chaff under the regularity.
Perhaps what feels especially repetitious is ranting about so many modern TV shows and films. That gets as old for me as I’m sure it does for readers. But venting also serves a purpose according to some studies.
Consider that a forewarning, for this one too has a bit of ranting…
TV Tuesday 5/28/24
Bye-bye, TARDIS, bye-bye!
It’s TV Tuesday and time for another episode of channel surfing over what I’ve been watching on the TV machine. Speaking of which, I kind of miss channel surfing. It was fun seeing what else is on. (It’s how I stumbled on Little Big Town, now a favorite band.)
People with my (take your pick) interests, background, point of view, do not find most modern fare favorable. I’ve gone on about that plenty in the pages and years of this blog.
And that’s mostly what this post is, so caveat lector.
Does Transporting Kill You?
It’s actually an old debate — in fact, it’s a variation on the Ship of Theseus — but modern day science fiction gives it a new spin. At root it’s a question about exactly where our identity as self-aware conscious beings actually resides. I don’t find it paradoxical so much as intriguing.
Recently Sabine Hossenfelder jumped into the discussion with a video asking whether Captain Kirk dies every time he uses the transporter. Not just him, of course, but everyone who uses it.
As with trees falling in forests, the answer depends on defining key terms. This case depends on exactly what we mean by “dies” and “Kirk” — the latter being the Ship of Theseus.
Bad SF TV Shows
Synchronicity pops up a lot in my life. Between working on drafts about my disappointment with a science fiction series, I took a break to read my news feed and saw an article asking why so many popular SF TV series are so awful. The article made a number of points that resonated a lot with me.
The article calls out Westworld (season three), Star Trek: Picard, and Devs, as examples of awful science fiction television, which seems to match what I’ve read. By which I mean, just about everything I’ve heard, both negative and positive, doesn’t incline me towards these shows (I might check out Devs at some point).
Unfortunately, I don’t think the author answered the question.
First Trek, Now Who?
If you know me at all, you know I was already a science fiction fan when Star Trek began. (It’s a rare occasion I get in on the ground floor of something.) I adored Kirk and crew. It took some episodes, but I came to love Picard and crew even more. The Trek story still unfolds, but I left that fold around the fifty-year mark. (Or rather, Trek left me.)
More recently (the rebooted) Doctor Who became my favorite SF TV series, but it’s starting to look like it won’t have the staying power that Trek did. I haven’t been as engaged the last many seasons, and the shift to the 13th Doctor hasn’t worked for me.
Currently I’d have to say my favorite SF TV series is The Expanse.
Do You Darmok?
Okay, here’s one that’s been sitting in my Drafts folder since 2012. The last time I even edited it was back in 2016. (Wow. Four years already?) The problem has been turning it into a post. At this point it’s like a lazy twenty-year-old who won’t move outta the house.
If you were a serious fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the post’s title might ring a bell. It involves an episode with a very interesting idea about a communication problem between different species despite a “universal translator” that makes the words clear.
It isn’t a matter of language, but of metaphor.
Scalzi: Redshirts
I just finished reading Redshirts, by John Scalzi, and it’s just about the best, most entertaining, brilliant story I’ve read in a good long time. It’s so good that I have to place it with other best-of-kind laugh out loud science fiction delights such as Galaxy Quest and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
It has a lot in common with Galaxy Quest in being a multi-level utterly ingenious send up and hysterical deconstruction of Star Trek (The Original Series). Scalzi has captured and lampshaded so many of the things fans have discussed over the years. And, as with Galaxy Quest, it’s a pretty good story all on its own.
But it is an absolute must-read for any fan of the original Star Trek.
Fans: Not A Fan
Star Trek wasn’t hugely popular right off the bat, or even for a long time. The first series, after all, lasted only three years and had to fight for survival for most of that time. But it did catch on hugely with us fans; many of us fell in love right away.
From an early point even within the fan community, let alone to mundanes, some of us were careful to identify as Trekkers rather than Trekkies. As I used to put it, “Trekkers are grown ups who love science fiction. Trekkies own a pair of Spock ears.”
Then, because of a little movie, named Star Wars, science fiction went mainstream. And so did the divide between two rather different kinds of fans…
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