andraste: The reason half the internet imagines me as Patrick Stewart. (Default)
So, this week's Star Trek: Discovery got me thinking about moments when you realise that your favourite character is your favourite. Because, at least for me, with some characters it's practically instantaneous, and with others it takes a while, and sometimes I don't figure it out until later.

Spoilers for this week's Disco. And also for who my favourite Disco character is, I guess. )

This is not the first time that this has happened - believe it or not, it took me until I got on the internet and started looking for fanfiction to realise that Charles Xavier was my Best Beloved. (Keep in mind that this was 1996 and there was basically no fanfic about him at the time. Had I a time machine, I would love to pop back to my annoyed teenage self and reassure her that this was not going to be a problem for her twenty years down the road ...)

On the other hand, I knew that I loved Magneto basically as soon as he appeared and began talking. There's also the time the Twelfth Doctor was talking to a tramp about his face and I thought 'he is my favourite Doctor.' (I then told myself I was being ridiculous because it was far too soon to make up my mind after less than half an episode, but my love never wavered after that.) With Londo Mollari it took until he told Adira was his password was, and with G'Kar it was the singing to his lunch, so both of those happened pretty early. I think Merrill became my favourite Dragon Age character somewhere during that first hilariously awkward conversation with Hawke, but I don't think I knew that until at least the second time I played the game. I don't even remember a time when I didn't love Starscream - I definitely did by 1987 when I was distressed by his death. (Little did I know that he would end up dying and coming back in most versions of the canon to the point where I would become completely blasé about it.)

... all of which to say, if there's a pattern in any of that, I do not know what it is. But sometimes you really don't know you love a thing until you think it might be gone. Or you cannot find any fanfic about it.
andraste: The reason half the internet imagines me as Patrick Stewart. (Default)
... or whatever they actually call it, anyway.

Hurrah, my best beloved actor is going to be playing one of my best beloved characters again! Which is especially nice to hear because I've had a hell week and am going to have another hell week starting tomorrow. I'm especially glad he's coming back to the roll now that he's done playing Charles forever.

Fingers crossed this makes it to local Netflix like Discovery, otherwise I will have to return to my pirating ways. (These days I have a rule where I don't illegally download any new shows, although I keep stealing the ones I was already watching before I instituted the rule and cannot otherwise get in a timely and legal fashion without signing up for pay TV packages I can't afford and don't want. This is still a stupid number of shows, because Australian TV distribution is often ridiculous.)

I have already spotted a few instances of 'TNG is the worst Trek and Picard is the worst Captain'. Which is .... definitely an opinion that people are allowed to have on the internet? Also a few rounds of 'I hope Q is not in this because I hate him' which actually surprised me more. Do people not at least appreciate the funny hats???

I do not much care what Picard is doing in the new show, but it will be nice to get back to the 24th century main timeline again. (Or maybe we'll get into the early 25th? No word yet on how long after TNG this is set.) And I really hope Q does turn up and flirt with bother him again.
andraste: The reason half the internet imagines me as Patrick Stewart. (Default)
This week, I started rewatching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from the beginning, partly because I am out of TOS and DISCO withdrawal is still a problem, and partly for vidding purposes. (The vid is likely to be a looooooong time coming, but it will not get here any faster if I don't start looking for clips at all. Especially since I expect that most episodes will have zero relevant clips, but I watched the show so long ago that I have no idea where most of the things I might need are.)

This has reminded me of several things I had forgotten, like how rude everyone is to each other in the first episode, that Quark and Odo are already fighting like old married people by the time the audience arrives, and how I will be mad forever that Garak/Bashir is not a canon pairing.

Usually I am philosophical about this sort of thing, but it will always be my go-to example of fictional same-sex relationships that would have happened on screen in a just universe. Every time I watch Bashir freak out about Garak spying on him and everyone else react with 'um, I am not sure that is why Garak is interested in you???' I remember how stupid this is all over again.

Now, I am not saying that they should necessarily have lived happily ever after together - Garak is Garak and the relationship would have had plenty of challenges to face. But we should not have been presented with a situation where they basically stopped talking to each other for three seasons for no reason that the writers ever bothered to explain on screen. I mean, the logical conclusion is that Bashir is upset about Garak's attempted genocide, but it would have been nice if anyone had actually said something to that effect. And I still cannot believe that we never get a proper reaction from Garak about Bashir's big secret. (I mean, one of the good things about the later seasons is that Garak gets to interact with people other than Bashir more, but they could have had that and still let him talk to Julian!)

At least they get a great scene together in the final episode. (And my headcanon that three months after that, Ezri dumps him and Julian finally gets a clue and runs off to Cardassia.)
andraste: The reason half the internet imagines me as Patrick Stewart. (Default)
Recently, I finished watching the original Star Trek, beginning to end. Which actually makes it the first complete Trek that I have seen every single episode of! (I skipped an episode of DS9 - Covenant, I think? - because Selena advised me I was better off without it and I trust her judgement on these things, and I didn't watch all of the first two seasons of TNG because life is too short.) On the whole I enjoyed it, the irritations of television produced in the sixties not withstanding.

Things I had not previously realised about original Star Trek:

1. Random crew members wearing red die a lot, but not as often as I was expecting from the legendary power of the curse. (According to statistics I googled, it's really just being security personnel that you need to avoid. Those guys die incessantly. Which I guess is kind of their job.)

2. It's much funnier than I was expecting. I mean, intentionally. It's also the other kind of hilarious sometimes, but that's only to be expected after a gap of so many decades. I still think my favourite joke is the look on Kirk's face in The Trouble With Tribbles when Scotty explains why he had to beat up those Klingons. (Oh, like you wouldn't have punched the guy who called your beloved a garbage scow, Jim.)

3. Wow, Leonard Nimoy truly was the Most Valuable Player here, and it becomes particularly obvious whenever he's called on to play something other than Spock. Or to play Spock who has temporarily been afflicted with ~feelings~. This is not any insult to the rest of the cast, but he earned his reputation.

4. That said, Shatner is way better than pop culture osmosis would lead you to believe. (Especially in the first two seasons - I think he got a little lazy in the last one. Maybe one of those actors who needs a director to reign him in? Which would make sense given the stories of his behaviour on set.)

5. It's sort of boggling just how often Kirk's plan boiled down to 'seduce the closest pretty girl.' Except when he delegates that part of the job to McCoy or even Spock if she's a Romulan. It's even more boggling how often this works.

6. OMG, Kirk is lucky that his command style works out for him. The number of times the whole senior crew could have been taken out by one unlucky transporter accident is pretty frightening. I know they called this out in Generations, but still.

7. There were definitely more cats than I was expecting. Or, more aliens disguised as cats, anyway. It's a shame that later Trek series don't contain so many felines - I guess that after the various Spot actors were such a pain to work with during TNG they swore of animals that were difficult to wrangle. (Beagles are better behaved and fish just do their thing and look pretty in the back of the shot.)

8. I remain unconvinced that anyone understands or has ever understood the Prime Directive.
andraste: The reason half the internet imagines me as Patrick Stewart. (Default)
Since I am, like much of fandom, in acute Star Trek: Discovery withdrawal, I have been treating the symptoms with the original series. (I've already seen the good seasons of TNG, all of DS9 and all the Voyager and Enterprise I care for, so I may end up with only the animated series for comfort before long.)

Since I have not watched the show in any organised way before, this has lead to many glorious moments, like the one where Kirk has a boring conversation with some aliens and then teleports back to the ship and SPOCK HAS A GOATEE OMG. This is almost as good if you don't bother reading episode titles as it must have been for people who didn't know what was going to happen in the rest of the episode.

This week I reached another milestone: Spock's Brain. It's notorious for being the worst episode of Trek ever made. I don't think I actually agree with that assessment, if only because The Omega Glory and Code of Honor and Threshold and The Q and the Gray are all things that exist. However, I do think it's the BEST bad episode of Star Trek I have ever seen, by a lot. It's like a perfect storm of everything that has ever gone wrong with a Trek episode!

The script is awful, the sets and effects and costumes are, um, special and there's all the background radiation of sexism and dumb racist assumptions about how civilisations develop that you find in sixties Trek. (And later Trek, alas, but usually with less frequency.) But I was too busy laughing to actually be bothered by any of that. Everyone being VERY SERIOUS while McCoy operates Spock's body with a remote control may be the single funniest thing in this Star Trek series or any other.

I spontaneously invented a drinking game while watching: sip every time someone says the title in a portentous voice, drink every time William Shatner pretends to writhe in agony, and drain the glass when the famous quote in the title of this post is spoken. The episode will still be terrible, but at least you will be making good use of it.
andraste: The reason half the internet imagines me as Patrick Stewart. (Default)
So, Star Trek: Disco Edition has completed its first season! It was not perfect, but was a much more auspicious beginning than, for example, the first season of TNG. (Which was frequently downright awful. I feel like many people critiquing Discovery with comparison to the past have blocked the likes of Encounter At Farpoint and Code of Honor from their memories more successfully than I have.)

I love a lot of elements of the show, especially the characters. I have never fallen in love with such a high percentage of a Trek cast so quicky. (I think Saru is my favourite, but ask me tomorrow and it might be Lorca or Burnham or Stamets or Tilly. Especially if Tilly is really high and/or becoming the first person to say 'fuck' and 'shit' in Star Trek.)

Spoilers are Starfleet. )
andraste: The reason half the internet imagines me as Patrick Stewart. (Default)
Courtesy of [personal profile] honorh. (Forgive the repost, but I couldn't resist.)



Behold, as the crew of the Enterprise corpse, forget their lines, argue with doors, and molest the props. And each other.
andraste: The reason half the internet imagines me as Patrick Stewart. (Default)
Since real life spent most of January kicking me repeatedly in the head and forcibly separating me from my DVD collection, this has been a week for comfort television. Star Trek: The Next Generation is always good for that, since I would probably be comforted listening to Patrick Stewart read the phone book. (Of course, listening to Patrick Stewart read the phone book would probably be more interesting than parts of Encounter At Farpoint, but never mind.) Since the part I actually own on DVD is mainly the Q box set, there has been lots of Q, and that only makes the comfort television factor better.

Something I have always wondered what on earth Starfleet makes of the reports they get about Q. We know they've had at least one conference about him, and they must be keen to hear about the omnipotent species who have taken an interest in humans. Yet I imagine he's often difficult to explain. It cannot be easy for the Enterprise crew to write serious reports containing things like '... and then we were teleported to Sherwood Forest, because Q's idea of being nice to the captain involves kidnapping him, his crew and a woman he had a fling with and forcing us all to re-enact an Errol Flynn movie.' Luckily Encounter At Farpoint suggests that there are cameras on the bridge so there's at least footage to confirm some of what they say. Otherwise Starfleet might think they were making up the incident with the cigars, the half-naked women and the Mariachi band.

Of course, Starfleet are probably missing some of the finer points completely. I can't imagine that Picard ever informed them of Q's habit of leaning over to whisper in his ear or showing up in his bed. So their analyses probably lean more toward 'Q put humanity on trial and introduced us to the Borg' and less to 'Q flirted outrageously with Picard and wore a series of ridiculous hats.'

Although if I were going to hold a conference about the Q, there would definitely be a panel about the hats. It would have plenty of pictures and possibly a silliness rating for each one. I suspect that if the Q continuum ever have conferences about humans, the Q we know and love includes some kind of 'great hats in human history' presentation and uses this as an argument against destroying the species.
andraste: The reason half the internet imagines me as Patrick Stewart. (Default)
Greetings, everyone! I am not dead! I have merely been stuck in the country with a horrible cold and terrible internet reception. (Even once I got my DNS issues sorted, turns out the network would only let me log on when nobody in town was using their mobile, or so it seemed.)

It only takes a few days in the country before I remember all of the reasons I've lived in the city for ten years. Libraries that are open every day! Movie theatres! Toy stores! Easy access to food! (I could not buy sheep's milk cheese or preserved lemons where I was. This is clearly unacceptable.) Most importantly my desktop and a semi-reliable internet connection. I owe several of you comment replies, which I will get to in due course. (In particular, to people who read That Thing I posted under lock: thank you so much! Your comments are so useful, I will respond to them ASAP. To people who asked to read That Thing and haven't seen it yet, the crosspost to Livejournal didn't work. I'm making a few more revisions and will try it again soon.)

I am in the process of catching up on everything I missed while I was gone - I've seen the season finales of House and Fringe, perhaps more later. All caught up on Transformers: Animated, which I will post about when it's all done next week, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which I really should squee about here soon.

I've not managed to see Wolverine: Origins yet, because I elected to go see Star Trek this afternoon instead. I enjoyed it immensely. Funny, pacey and engaging even if TOS is not your Trek of choice. (I'm a DS9 girl.)

A completely random thought, spoilery. )

Profile

andraste: The reason half the internet imagines me as Patrick Stewart. (Default)
Andraste

June 2025

S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags