Star Trek reviews: Discovery season four

I spent the last three months watching the entire run of Star Trek: Discovery on Paramount Plus, finishing up last night. I thought the first season was good but uneven and padded out, the second and third seasons were great, and the fourth one was very good but again dragged in a few places. Here are some thoughts on the show in general and the fourth season specifically.

Discovery is a very character-driven series. One of the benefits of watching all the episodes to date in a relatively short period of time was that it enabled me to see just how much the various characters grew & developed. I feel the writers did a good job developing most of the cast.

From what I gather Michael Burnham played by Sonequa Martin-Green has proved to be a divisive character with some viewers. Her arc has certainly been highly unusual, to say the least. It was interesting to see Burnham at last become Captain of the Starship Discovery in the fourth season. I feel Martin-Green has done a solid job with the material given her, although at times she does perform her dialogue in what I can only describe as “a loud whisper” which comes across as odd to me. Still, she effectively carries the show most of the time.

Something I’ve noticed is that the writers aren’t at all shy about calling into question Burnham’s motives & actions and positioning other characters as adversarial counterpoints to her to push her to engage in some necessary self-evaluation.

Admiral Vance (Ohed Fehr) and President Rillak (Chelah Horsdal) are the two latest figures to do so. At first glance, given the parade of rogue Admirals and corrupt, self-serving politicians that have appeared in previous Star Trek series, one could be forgiven for thinking that Vance and/or Rillak were up to some nefarious purpose. But with both of them it eventually becomes clear that they are decent people attempting to do very difficult jobs under incredibly trying circumstances.

That’s a characteristic I’ve noticed about Disco. The challenge is often not some diabolical mastermind bend on galactic domination (although there have been a few of those); rather it is that you have different individuals who all want to achieve a greater good, but each of them disagrees, often drastically, as to the steps necessary to achieve that outcome, and everyone needs to work to find some sort of common ground within which to work together.

That’s certainly the case with Burnham and Booker (David Ajala) in season four. Both of them want to stop the mysterious Dark Matter Anomaly that is devastating the galaxy, but Burnham wants to try diplomacy, to reach out to the mysterious Species Ten-C to convince them to withdraw their creation, while Booker wants to attack it directly before it can cause any more harm. I found myself agreeing with Burnham’s approach, her desire to avoid escalating the crisis any further. But at the same time I have to admit, if I found myself in Booker’s shoes, with my home planet, my entire family, destroyed by the DMA, it’s quite likely I’d be making the drastic choices he did.

As much as I liked the first two seasons of Disco, I really feel like the show came into its own with season three. Yes, Enterprise and Strange New Worlds are both great shows. But Star Trek has always been at its best when it has looked forward, not backwards. For the first two seasons Disco was a prequel to the original series, and as strong as it was it felt too beholden to past incarnations of Star Trek. Having Discovery and its crew jump forward 900 years to the 32nd Century has allowed Star Trek to go in completely different directions.

I think that’s very well illustrated with the long sought-after reunification of the Vulcan and Romulan civilizations, which has finally been achieved in the 32nd century. It’s also demonstrated with the character of the half-Cardassian, half-human Laira Rillak. In The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine the Federation and the Cardassian Union were bitter foes; now a character who shares the dual heritages of those two once-implacable enemies is the President of the Federation itself.

I appreciated that Disco demonstrated that such change is possible, but also made it clear that it took a great deal of effort and a tremendous amount of time for those changes to be achieved, as well as showing that it is necessary to continually work to maintain that progress.

I also appreciated how Disco season four really leaned into the Star Trek mission statement “To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.” It’s rare that Star Trek has presented genuinely ALIEN lifeforms. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve always liked the original series: despite the limitations of the budget and the primitive special effects, it did attempt to present non-humanoid beings like the Horta, the brain parasites from “Operation – Annihilate,” Korob and Sylvia’s true forms in “Catspaw,” the Tribbles, the Melkotians from “Specter of the Gun” and so forth. Starting with The Next Generation the franchise became too dependent on bumpy-headed aliens.

It’s great to have Species Ten-C, a race that is SO alien that we never even find out their real name. The Ten-C are totally non-humanoid, and the Universal Translators used by the Federation are completely useless in communicating with these extra-galactic beings. It takes concerted efforts by both sides to cross that seemingly insurmountable gap, and when it is bridged, it feels genuinely rewarding.

That’s also why I like Saru the Kelpien, played by Doug Jones. At last we have a regular character serving in Starfleet who looks genuinely alien. Jones gives Saru an “otherness” through his performance & movements, and the make-up is stunning.

Looking at some of the other regulars on Disco, I really want to discuss Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz), the first same sex couple on a Star Trek series. That’s a development that was long overdue, one that both The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine were ultimately afraid to discuss. Stamets and Culber are both great characters. Like everyone else on the Starship Discovery, the two of them have some serious issues (this has got to be the most dysfunctional Star Trek crew since DS9) and both characters are really performed well by Rapp and Cruz.

I appreciated how the two were introduced back in the first season. When we first meet Stamets he’s an arrogant, impatient egotist. We then meet Dr. Culber, who’s shown to be a caring, empathic individual. And then suddenly there’s a scene where Stamets and Culber are in their pajamas brushing their teeth side-by-side in their shared quarters. My reaction was basically “Oh, wait, they’re a couple? That’s cool.”

I like that it’s underplayed and just treated as an everyday occurrence that Stamets and Culber are married. And the fact that they are in certain ways two very different people has enabled the writers to show all the work they’ve had to put into maintaining their relationship. Which, I suppose, goes back to that whole theme of working to find common ground that permeates Disco.

In any case, Stamets definitely went from being an annoying jerk to a warm, funny, nuanced character in fairly short time, and now he is one of my favorites.

Also great work in the writing and acting department with the character of Sylvia Tilly, played be Mary Wiseman. When we are first introduced to the babbling, insecure Tilly in season one it seems like she’s going to be the show’s comic relief. Instead she gradually grew to become one of the strongest characters on Disco, and by the end of season four she really had come into her own.

I’m looking forward to Disco season five next year because I really do enjoy the series. I’m glad to hear the episode count is reduced from 13 to 10. As I said before, season four had some pacing issues, so hopefully season five will have a leaner structure. I’m sure it’s possible to have a somewhat more streamlined season without sacrificing any of the excellent character work. I definitely want to see more development for the Discovery bridge crew, some of whom are still unfortunately underutilized.

By the way, as I alluded to before, I know there are some Star Trek fans who do not like Discovery. Some even seem to hate it with a red-hot passion! I understand; we all have different interests. I really don’t like Voyager, but I know there are Star Trek fans who do love it, and when they talk about that series, I hold my tongue because I don’t want to belittle anyone’s else’s entertainment choices. You can dislike something without attacking someone who disagrees with you. And I feel that right now there is so much Star Trek material out there that there’s something for everyone. It’s a great time to be a fan.

It Came from the 1990s / Star Trek reviews: Untold Voyages

Here’s a twofer for you, an installment of It Came from the 1990s and a Star Trek review.

In my last blog post I looked at Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which was originally released back in December 1979. So today I’m going to discuss a comic book series which serves as a sort of follow-up to that movie. Star Trek: Untold Voyages was a five-issue miniseries published by Marvel Comics in 1998. Untold Voyages was written by Glenn Greenberg, penciled by Mike Collins, inked by Keith Williams, colored by Matt Webb, lettered by Chris Eliopoulos and edited by Tim Tuohy.

Marvel had previously held the license to publish Star Trek comic books immediately following the release of The Motion Picture. Their Star Trek comic book ran for 18 issues between 1980 and 1982 and was unfortunately not especially well-received. (Apparently Marvel could only use elements that appeared in The Motion Picture, and anything from the actual television series was off-limits.) The license was soon acquired by DC Comics, who between 1984 and 1996 published a number of highly regarded Star Trek comics.

Marvel ended up picking up the license for a second time in 1996. Although they once again ended up holding it for only three years, during this brief period they released several Star Trek books of a high quality. A major aspect of this appears to have been that the terms of the license were much more flexible than they had been in the early 1980s, providing the writers with greater creative freedom.

Untold Voyages is set in the gap between The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, during a new five year mission for Captain James T. Kirk and crew of the Starship Enterprise. Each issue is set during one of the five years of that mission. As the series progresses we gradually see the transition of the Star Trek universe from the tone of the first movie to that of the second. As critic Darren Mooney observes on the m0vie blog, Greenberg’s stories serve to bridge Gene Roddenberry and Nicholas Meyer’s very different visions of the Star Trek universe.

Greenberg is a longtime Star Trek fan, and if anyone was suited to write a Star Trek series set in the aftermath of the first movie it was him. As he recently stated on Facebook concerning The Motion Picture:

“This was not my first exposure to Star Trek, but it IS what sparked my great interest in the series.”

I asked Greenberg how the Untold Voyages comic book series came about, and he explained its origins:

“Was hanging out in the office of my fellow Marvel editor, Tim Tuohy, who was editing some of the Star Trek titles. I mentioned that he should consider doing something in the post-TMP era, and we jokingly called it The Grey Pajamas Saga. But ideas started pouring out of both of us, in terms of what could be done with such a project, and before I knew it, Tim was telling me to go home and write up a pitch for him. Which I did.”

Reading Untold Voyages, Greenberg’s fondness for both this particular period, and for Star Trek as a whole, is readily apparent. I really feel that he successfully captures both Roddenberry’s optimistic, utopian awe that permeated the original television series and The Motion Picture and the more grounded, skeptical view of the future that Nicholas Meyer introduced to it with The Wrath of Khan. Greenberg successfully balances these two approaches in much the same way that later episodes of The Next Generation and much of the run of Deep Space Nine also did, resulting in some intelligent, thought-provoking stories.

I don’t want to get into too many specifics about Untold Voyages because I’d rather encourage Star Trek fans to seek it out for themselves. The issues can be found on eBay at affordable prices. The miniseries was also reprinted in Volume 120 of the massive Star Trek Graphic Novel Collection published by Eaglemoss Collections several years ago.

I will say that probably my favorite issue was the second one. The title “Worlds Collide” has two very distinct meanings in Greenberg’s story. In the “A plot” an alien planet is threatened with destruction as an asteroid hurtles towards it, leading Kirk and Dr. McCoy into a very heated argument over the Federation’s Prime Directive, and whether they should or should not interfere and attempt to save the world’s inhabitants.

In the “B plot” Spock is serving as a mentor to the young, troubled Saavik. Greenberg utilizes the half-Romulan backstory for Saavik that was filmed for The Wrath of Khan but ultimately never used but which was later explored in several prose novels and the DC Comics series. He effectively parallels Spock and Saavik, each of them only half-Vulcan, each in their turn struggling to find their place, and their identity, in the rigidly logical Vulcan society.

Another stand-out issue is the fourth one. “Silent Cries” sees Lieutenant Commander Hikaru Sulu briefly assume command of the Enterprise. Greenberg wrote this story to show the event that helped place Sulu on the path to eventually becoming captain of the Excelsior several years later.

I’ve often lamented that, due to the realities of television writing & production during the 1960s, outside of Kirk, Spock and McCoy the Enterprise crew were undeveloped. Therefore, it’s good to get a story like this that spotlights one of those other characters. That’s always been a strength of the tie-in media of comic books and novels, it’s enabled writers to flesh out Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and the rest of the ship’s crew.

“Silent Cries” also has one of those great moral quandaries that Star Trek is so wonderful at addressing. I’ve always appreciated the series for how it can challenge our assumptions and ask us to reconsider our views.

The artwork on Untold Voyages is very well done. Mike Collins & Keith Williams do a superb job rendering the characters, the technology, and the different alien worlds. I’ve observed before that drawing likenesses in licensed comic books can be incredibly tricky. If the artist is too faithful to the actors there is a danger of the characters not seeming real, instead looking like they were traced from a photograph. It can be more important to capture the personality & body language of the characters than the actual appearances of the actors who portray them. Collins & Williams do an admirable job rendering the rest of the Enterprise crew.

Collins also has a long association with Doctor Who Magazine as one of the artists on its ongoing comic book feature, so he clearly has a great affinity for drawing actors’ likenesses as well as sci-fi elements. I’ve always liked Collins’ work, and I think he’s somewhat underrated, especially compared to a number of his contemporaries who also made their debuts in the British comic book industry during the mid-1980s.

Collins’ layouts & storytelling on Untold Voyages are very strong & dramatic. Williams is a superb inker, and he does a great job on the finishes here.

Going back to “Worlds Collide” I appreciated that Greenberg & Collins created a totally non-humanoid alien species. It’s long been a running joke that in Star Trek most aliens look like human beings with bumpy foreheads or funny ears. Obviously the primary reason for that is the constraints of time, money & technology in creating truly alien lifeforms on live television. But none of that applies to comic books, where the only limitations are the talent & imagination of the artist.

Oh, yes, I cannot discuss Untold Voyages without mentioning Matt Webb’s vibrant colors. The mid to late 1990s was often a crapshoot when it came to comic book coloring as creators struggled to adapt to the brand-new computer coloring technology that was being utilized. There was a lot of gaudy coloring during this period. But Webb did superb work on this miniseries. The coloring is striking without being overwhelming. I love what he does with the warp speed effect.

As I’ve said before, one of the reasons why I like doing these It Came from the 1990s blog posts is that they allow me to spotlight some of the great comic books that came out during a decade that often gets a bad reputation. There are a great many underrated gems from the 1990s, and Star Trek: Untold Voyages is one of them. If you’re a Trekkie it’s definitely worth seeking these out.

Star Trek reviews: The Motion Picture

This month is the 43rd anniversary of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which premiered on December 7, 1979. The movie was helmed by veteran director Robert Wise. The screenplay is credited to Harold Livingston, based on a story by Alan Dean Foster, although there were a number of other writers involved in the protracted task of bringing the movie from concept to completion. Over four decades later TMP remains a highly contentious subject among Star Trek fans.

My own personal experience with TMP was that I had only seen it all the way through, from beginning to end, a few times, and always on television. Hey, I was only three years old in 1979, so I was too young to catch it in the theater! In general I found it to be fairly underwhelming.

A few months ago Michele and I finally got our first wide screen television. Over the years some people have argued that TMP works much better on a big movie theater screen than on TV. Since a widescreen television is closer to a “big screen” than I’ve ever had before, I figure it was time to watch TMP in a manner as close to the original experience as possible. In early September I streamed the 4K Ultra HD (high definition) version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture – The Director’s Edition on Paramount Plus. And, honestly, it WAS a brand-new experience for me.

I realize that part of that is also due to the fact that in the late 1970s TMP was an incredibly rushed production, and what ended up on movie screens was little more than a rough cut. Twenty years later Robert Wise was finally given the opportunity to conduct some badly-needed additional work on TMP, resulting in The Director’s Edition that came out in 2001. The 4K Ultra HD version further improves on the picture quality & special effects.

After I finished watching this version of TMP, I had to admit the movie was pretty darn cool. It definitely looked much better on a wide-screen television. This was the first time I really was able to take in the incredible visuals. Also, at 46 years old, I certainly had much more of an understanding and appreciation of the cerebral, philosophical nature of the story. So, yes, certainly the most enjoyable viewing of TMP that I’ve ever had. Here are some of my thoughts about the movie:

First off, whenever I watch the opening credits of TMP my mind automatically starts thinking “Why are they using the theme music from Star Trek: The Next Generation?” Yeah, yeah, I know… TMP came out eight years before TNG made its debut. But TNG was essential viewing for me when I was a teenager, so that theme song is very familiar to me, and I probably never watched TMP from beginning to end until after TNG finished up its run in 1994. Consequently whenever Jerry Goldsmith’s opening theme plays I just automatically think of Picard and Riker and Data and all that.

I understand that for a lot of fans in 1979 what Goldsmith produced was just too different from the already-iconic Star Trek theme composed by Alexander Courage. But the Goldsmith piece is well done, so it makes perfect sense that it was later repurposed for TNG, something that I feel helped that show establish its own distinct identity in a way that wouldn’t have been possible if the Courage theme had been used.

Moving on to the movie itself, that opening scene with the redesigned Klingons (sporting their bumpy foreheads & armor for the very first time) is actually a pretty good way to set up the central crisis. The Klingons were the closest the original Star Trek series had to a “big bad.” So it’s an effective method of establishing just how incredibly powerful & dangerous V’Ger is by having a trio of badass-looking Klingon battle cruisers get effortlessly obliterated in the very first scene. I guess this is an early example of what would later be known as The Worf Effect, which of course takes its name from TNG’s own resident Klingon warrior.

For years I had wondered why Wise had included that extended sequence of James T. Kirk in a shuttlecraft slowly, lovingly admiring the redesigned Starship Enterprise. This was but the first of several sequences that I feel works much better on a larger, wider screen. It really does look impressive.

It’s also important to remember the context. In 1979 Star Trek had been off the air for ten years. Yes, it had been in endless syndication during that time, but this was the first live-action Star Trek in a decade. It was also the very first time the series was ever seen on the big screen. So it makes sense for Wise to really take as much time as he did to spotlight the Enterprise, which literally had never been seen like this before.

I do have to give William Shatner credit for really selling this scene, for showing Kirk’s understated yet nevertheless palpable joy at once again seeing his beloved Enterprise. Shatner would have been looking at a blank wall or something when that scene was filmed, with only Wise’s direction and his own imagination to go on, but he totally sells it. Shatner has an admittedly well-deserved reputation for being a large ham. But given the right material and a strong director he could turn in powerful, subtle performances, and he did good work in this movie.

I still do think the new Starfleet uniforms and interiors of the Enterprise are “Meh.” I don’t know what it was about the 1970s that resulted in such a preponderance of subdued beiges and greys in fashion & decor, but all of it makes the future seen in TMP very bland. The red uniforms that were introduced three years later in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan were a vast improvement.

It feels like new characters Will Decker and Ilia, played by Steven Collins and Persis Khambatta, should be more important, that their ultimate fates should be genuinely dramatic. But neither character is given enough material to really develop within the confines of movie’s roughly two hour runtime. I believe Ilia does get slightly more emphasis in The Director’s Edition — apparently a scene showcasing her empathic abilities was absent from the theatrical cut — but it’s only a slight improvement.

I think both characters had potential, but there just was not enough time in an already-packed movie to develop either of them sufficiently. So I can understand why series creator Gene Roddenberry essentially recycled them in TNG, with young, ambitious Will Decker becoming young, ambitious Will Riker and the empathic Deltan Ilia becoming the empathic half-Betazoid Deanna Troi. A weekly television series certainly afforded more of an opportunity to explore the characters and their complex relationship.

For me the standout element of TMP was Leonard Nimoy’s superb performance as Spock. I feel TMP is essential viewing for Star Trek fans because it is a crucial moment in the character arc of the half-Vulcan, half-human Spock. In the original series Spock was a figure torn between two worlds as he struggled to reconcile his rigidly logical Vulcan heritage & training with his very emotional human heritage.

The first time we see Spock in TMP he has returned to his home planet where he attempts a Vulcan ritual to at last purge himself completely of emotion, only to meet with failure. He then telepathically senses the approach of V’Ger, a being possessing “thought patterns of exactingly perfect order.” And so Spock rejoins the Enterprise because he believes this mysterious entity may contain the solution he has sought for so long.

When Spock subsequently mind melds with V’Ger he confirms the entity is indeed a being of pure logic… yet for all its phenomenal power & knowledge V’Ger’s existence is incredibly barren. Spock discovers that logic alone has not been able to provide V’ger with true meaning & purpose:

“V’ger has knowledge that spans this universe. And in all this order, all this magnificence, V’ger feels no awe…no delight… no beauty… no meaning… no hope…”

For the first time Spock realized just how empty the path of pure logic can be. This really carries over through the remaining appearances in the Star Trek franchise, where he is finally at peace with himself, having at last found a balance between his logical Vulcan and emotional human sides.

DeForest Kelly isn’t given nearly as much to do in his role of Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy. For the most part Bones is his typical curmudgeonly self. But occasionally there are glimpses of the humanistic warmth that lies beneath his irascibility.

When Kirk drags McCoy back into service early on, there’s a great exchange between the two that really establishes the later character:

Kirk: Well, for a man who swore he’d never return to the Starfleet…

McCoy: Just a moment, Captain, sir. I’ll explain what happened. Your revered Admiral Nogura invoked a little-known, seldom-used “reserve activation clause.” In simpler language, Captain, they DRAFTED me!

Kirk: They didn’t!

McCoy: This was your idea. This was your idea, wasn’t it?

Kirk: Bones, there’s a… thing… out there.

McCoy: Why is any object we don’t understand always called “a thing”?

I’ve always appreciated that last line, as it gets right to the heart of what I feel is one of the central tenets of Star Trek: exploring the unknown, seeking to understand that which seems different & frightening.

I also appreciated how in TMP we see how McCoy is the one person who won’t put up with Kirk’s bullshit. Bones readily perceives that Kirk, tired of riding a desk at Starfleet Command for the past two and a half years, exploits the V’Ger crisis to take back command of the Enterprise, in the process trampling over Decker, who was supposed to be the new captain, and the doctor has absolutely no qualms on calling Kirk out on his behavior.

As for the rest of the Enterprise crew… uh, yeah, they really don’t get all that much to do, unfortunately. But I’m sure that it in 1979 it was awesome to see all of them back together. And I appreciated that Christine Chapel and Janice Rand, now promoted to Doctor and Transporter Chief respectively, were among the characters who returned. One way in which the original series is a product of its time is that there were very few prominent regular female characters. So it was good to have Majel Barrett and Grace Lee Whitney appear here, however briefly.

I certainly can’t write about TMP without discussing V’Ger itself… or Voyager 6, as it is revealed to be in the climax of the movie. V’Ger does look absolutely spectacular, and I suppose I can forgive those looooong tracking shots the immense living machine. And in the 4K Ultra HD version we finally get to see exactly what V’Ger looks like.

It’s certainly a legitimate criticism to point out the similarities between V’Ger in TMP and Nomad from the original series episode “The Changeling” broadcast in 1967; they’re both space probes from Earth that merged with incredibly advanced alien technology, becoming immensely powerful beings that threatened the galaxy while seeking out their “Creator.” But whereas Nomad was merely a dangerous foe for Kirk to defeat, V’Ger is ultimately the equivalent of a lost soul, one that is finally helped onto the next step of its evolution by the Enterprise crew.

As I said at the outset, as an older and (hopefully) more mature viewer I now appreciate that the crisis in TMP is ultimately resolved peacefully, and everyone involved emerged with a better understanding of themselves and each other.

So, looking at Star Trek: The Motion Picture, it’s a good yet flawed movie. It had a lot of potential & ambition, but regrettably it sometimes falls short. It sacrifices some of the warmer, human aspects of the show to focus on Big Ideas. At times the movie’s pacing is a bit too languid. I like TMP, but I also agree that the next entry, The Wrath of Khan, is much stronger and ultimately helped to save the Star Trek franchise. I do feel that if you put the two movies side by side it demonstrates the diversity of the series, in that there are a lot of different types of stories you can tell. As far as I’m concerned, that’s one of Star Trek’s greatest strengths.

Star Trek autographs and New York Comic Con swag

There were so many comic book creators, publishers, vendors and other guests at New York Comic Con this year. Michele and I tried not to spend too much money, or buy too many things, because we’re on a budget, plus there’s only so much you can fit into a one bedroom apartment.

One of the major highlights of NYCC for me this year was meeting actors Anson Mount and Melissa Navia from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

I’ve been a Star Trek fan since I first watched the original series in reruns on Saturday evenings at 6 PM on WPIX Channel 11 when I was a kid in the early 1980s. As a long-time Trekkie, I really enjoyed the first season of Strange New Worlds. It was very cool to meet Anson Mount and Melissa Navia, who both did great work on the show. Mount and Navia really made the time to greet all the fans such as myself. I’m definitely looking forward to season two.

I purchased the first Quad trade paperback from publisher Sumerian Comics, formerly known as Behemoth Comics. Quad is a very well done post-apocalyptic dystopian anthology series by South American creators Aluisio C. Santos, Diego Sanches, Eduardo Ferigato and Eduardo Schaal.

I also purchased the John Carpenter’s Tales of Science Fiction: Twitch graphic novel from Storm King Comics. This one is written by Duane Swierczynski, drawn by Richard P. Clark and lettered by Janice Chiang. It was cool seeing both Clark and Chiang at NYCC again.

Last year at NYCC we met creator Sara Richard in Artist Alley. Michele really enjoyed her artwork, so this year she purchased Richard’s book The Dead Hand Book: Stories from Gravesend Cemetery.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I bought a copy of Empty Graves: 31 Horror Portraits by Dave Fox at NYCC. Fox really knocked it out of the park with these spooky illustrations.

I also got the Forbidden Planet variant cover for Sweetie Candy Vigilante #1 published by Dynamite Entertainment. Artist Jeff Zornow, writer Suzanne Cafiero and editor & art director John Cafiero were doing a signing at Forbidden Planet NYC on Thursday evening after the show.

Michele bought a copy of Highball #2, published by Ahoy Comics, from artist Fred Harper. She also got the NYCC convention exclusive cover to Godzilla vs. Mighty Morphin Powers rangers from the IDW Publishing booth as a gift for me.

Finally, I bought Michele one of the absolutely adorable Purritos from Uncute. I was tempted to also get one of those eerily cute Tentacle Kitty stuffed animals. Maybe next year.

Michele and I both had a lot of fun at New York Comic Con, and as you can see we picked up some cool stuff at the show.

Star Trek reviews: Strange New Worlds season one

A couple of months ago I subscribed to the Paramount+ streaming service. My primary motivation was that I wanted to finally start watching all of the new Star Trek shows. So far I’ve seen Picard season one, Strange New Worlds season one, and the first couple of episodes of Lower Decks. I didn’t think all that much of Lower Decks, but the show does have its fans, so I’m glad they’re enjoying it. I liked Picard, and I thought Strange New Worlds was great. So I’m going to share a few thoughts on the later.

I knew that Strange New Worlds spun out of Star Trek: Discovery. I asked around to find out if I needed to watch Disco to understand SNW. A couple of people said that the first two seasons of Disco really set the stage for SNW and recommended watching it. On the other hand, my friend Colin had no idea that Disco occurred first, so he just watched SNW, and he had no trouble understanding or enjoying it.

So I just leaped right in on SNW. It was immediately apparent that a number of events from Disco were being referenced or alluded to… but it was so well-written that someone such as myself who had not watched Disco was very quickly able to figure out what was going on and understand the important plot & character development that had occurred previously.

SNW stars Anson Mount as Christopher Pike, who was the Captain of the starship Enterprise before James T. Kirk. Pike was originally played by Jeffrey Hunter in Star Trek’s first unaired pilot “The Cage.” Scenes from that story were then used in “The Menagerie” which revealed Pike became horrifically crippled by radiation saving a group of Starfleet cadets.

I expect even the most casual fans of Star Trek were aware of Pike’s ultimate fate. So rather than just ignoring the elephant in the room, SNW’s writers have tackled it head-on. Before the events of SNW season one (in an episode of Disco, I imagine) Pike is given a vision of his terrible fate a decade in the future. One of the central themes of the first season is Pike wrestling with this knowledge, wondering if he should attempt to change his future, as well as worrying his awareness of his ultimate fate is going to negatively impact his command decisions and jeopardize the crew of the Enterprise.

Anson Mount gives a really solid performance as Pike, bringing all of this internal conflict to life with subtlety & nuance. His version of Pike is intellectual, soulful, contemplative and irreverent, a really solid balance of the serious and the humorous. It was Mount himself who suggested having Pike bonding with his crew over his cooking sessions in his quarters.

Ethan Peck portrays science office Mr. Spock. It has got to be a daunting prospect stepping into the shoes of an iconic, beloved character previously brought to life so memorably by Leonard Nimoy, but Peck does a fine job. He really captures the younger, more uncertain qualities of Spock, who at this point in his life is still not as sure of his footing in attempting to balance his logical Vulcan and emotional human sides.

The third member of Enterprise’s command triumvirate is Rebecca Romijn as Number One, aka Una Chin-Riley, a character previously portrayed in “The Cage” by Majel Barrett. Just like Pike, Una was practically a blank slate. I feel the writers and Romijn did a good job developing a character who many viewers, myself included, found quite intriguing from her one-and-only appearance all those decades ago.

Rounding out the SNW cast are Jess Bush as Nurse Christine Chapel, Christina Chong as Security Chief La’an Noonien-Singh, Celia Rose Gooding as Cadet Nyota Uhura, Melissa Navia as Lieutenant Erica Ortegas, Babs Olusanmokun as Doctor Joseph M’Benga and Bruce Horak as Engineer Hemmer.

One of the most noteworthy aspects of SNW for me was Gooding’s portrayal as a young Uhura, as I watched it just a short time after the passing of actress Nichelle Nichols, who originated the role back in the 1960s. Nichols did a good job with the material she was given, but she sometimes lamented that her character, who was theoretically in a command position and an accomplished linguistic expert, was nearly always reduced to being a glorified receptionist on the Enterprise. I appreciated how SNW gave Uhura the development she was never really afforded in the original series, and Gooding is great in the role.

One of my favorite characters on SNW was actually Ortegas, the Enterprise’s pilot & navigator, who is played by Navia with a wry sarcasm. As the season progressed I kept hoping that Ortegas would receive more material, but she never got to step into the spotlight, other than the very offbeat episode “The Elysium Kingdom.” So I was glad to hear that Navia will be returning in season two, especially as a preview clip shows Ortegas front & center, getting ready to join an away team mission.

Speaking of “The Elysium Kingdom” by Akela Cooper & Onitra Johnson, it was a really enjoyable, moving conclusion to the extended plotline involving Dr. M’Benga’s daughter. The structure of SNW season one consisted of 10 relatively standalone episodes that nevertheless had several subplots and character arcs running through the entire season. As I said, I liked Picard season one, but I felt there just was not enough material to stretch a single story across 10 episodes. So I appreciated how SNW balanced self-contained stories with long-term plotting.

Speaking of balance, I feel like SNW has a nice proportion between the pulpy two-fisted space opera action of the original series and the more cerebral, philosophical tone of The Next Generation.

I know some people were unhappy with the season finale “A Quality of Mercy” as it appeared to show Pike’s humanist approach fail spectacularly. But I think the point was to demonstrate the need for balance & flexibility. Yes, it is vitally important to have empathy & understanding. Tragically, though, there will be occasions when this is simply not possible, when you are dealing with people who are unable or unwilling to respond to either logical arguments or appeals to decency.  I felt like “A Quality of Mercy” was an illustration of the advice “Never start a fight, but always finish it.”

One of the more outstanding episodes this season was “Ghosts of Illyria” written by Akela Cooper & Bill Wolkoff. It had such a mournful, contemplative quality.

Something I have always appreciated about science fiction, and Star Trek in particular, is that it enables us to examine our societal problems from an alternative perspective. In this case, it looks at the Federation’s ban on genetic engineering (due to the horrific events of the Eugenics Wars on Earth during the mid 21st Century) and how, even though it was initially implemented with the best of intentions, such a policy can all too easily lead to fear & discrimination.

As Dr. M’Benga says in this episode:

“Prejudice has kept people from helping each other for centuries with no scientific justification. And after we met our neighbors in the galaxy, we found new bigotries. Human and Vulcan blood. Now it’s human and Illyrian. In any case, they’re meaningless to me. I am a physician.”

Some people were not happy with this scene, because it seemingly flew in the face of Star Trek continuity. The thing is, though, the Federation in the original series was not a utopia. For all its tremendous strides, humanity was still very much a work in progress. As Captain Kirk himself said in “A Taste of Armageddon” written by Gene L. Coon & Robert Hamner:

“We’re human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it! We can admit that we’re killers, but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes… knowing that we’re not going to kill today.”

“Ghosts of Illyria” reveals that Una Chin-Riley is from a genetically engineered species, something she has concealed so that she can serve in Starfleet. She loves her job, and she is damn good at it, so it’s heartbreaking when in the final scene of the season her secret is discovered and she is arrested by Starfleet. Definitely leaves me on the edge of my seat waiting for season two.

Another great character is Hemmer. At first I thought he was an Andorian, but he’s actually a member of the Aenar, a blind, telepathic offshoot of the Andorians introduced in Enterprise season four. As someone who found Enterprise underrated, I’m glad to see it acknowledged here. Hemmer starts out as a seemingly-unlikable asshole, but he soon is shown, underneath his gruff façade, to be an intelligent, thoughtful, caring individual. I enjoyed the mentor-student relationship that developed between him and Uhura.

Hemmer was also a pacifist… although that did not mean he would just stand on the sidelines while others were in danger. As he explains it:

“Pacifism is not passivity. It’s the active protection of all living things in the natural universe.”

In hindsight, I realize this later ties in to the themes in “A Quality of Mercy,” the idea of striving for peace but being aware that it is sometimes necessary to fight in self-defense.

I grew to like Hemmer, and I was sad that he got killed. Since I watched these episodes a few months after they first streamed I unfortunately had his death spoiled online. But even there I figured he’d get killed at the very end of the season… so when he sacrificed himself to save Pike and the others in episode nine, “All Those Who Wander,” it was still a surprise. I just wish Hemmer had appeared more prominently throughout the season before this, as it would have given his death even more of an impact.

One other character I want to bring up is Spock’s fiancée T’Pring, played by Gia Sandhu. T’Pring was previously seen in the original series episode “Amok Time” where she was very much depicted as a cold, manipulative bitch. It is to SNW’s immense credit that it develops T’Pring into a fully realized, three-dimensional character. As the season progresses it becomes apparent that Spock and T’Pring did at one point genuinely care for one another and fully intended to marry, but over time, as Spock became more and more invested in his Starfleet career, their relationship became strained and they grew apart, their love turning to bitterness. It’s definitely a tragedy, and SNW lets us see it from both their points of view.

SNW was such an enjoyable series that I was disappointed it was only 10 episodes long. On the other hand, I have to acknowledge that back in the day when The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine were churning out 24 episodes per season there were inevitable at least a few duds in even the strongest of seasons. Fewer episodes means that the writers & other creative personnel can focus their energies more on producing as many quality stories as possible. On the whole I thought SNW season one was of a high quality, with only one episode, “The Serene Squall,” feeling underwhelming.

It’s interesting: sometimes people can look at the exact same thing and come away with radically different opinions on it. I know there are Star Trek fans who dislike SNW. There’s even a critic & blogger whose opinions I typically find to be highly insightful who refers to SNW as “bad Star Trek karaoke.”  I guess the nice things about having several different Star Trek series being produced nowadays is that hopefully there’s something for everyone.

There are so many other aspects of Strange New Worlds season one that I want to discuss. I could write several paragraphs just on the episode “Lift Us Up Where Suffering Cannot Reach” (and maybe I will one day soon). But then this blog post would be at least twice as long, and I’m already over 2000 words! Suffice to say, as someone who has been a Star Trek fan since I was a little kid watching reruns of the original series in the early 1980s, I really enjoyed it.

David Warner: 1941 to 2022

Prolific character actor David Warner passed away on July 24th, just five days shy of his 81st birthday.  I think that my fellow blogger A Middle Aged Geek summed up Warner’s appeal on his own retrospective:

“The actor’s range was his shield from typecasting, and he could play deeply sympathetic characters just as he could play the very embodiment of evil–all with complete believability.”

Warner was born in Manchester, England on 29 July, 1941. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, and in 1962 joined the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company. Warner’s stage work brought him acclaim, but due to a case of stage fright in the early 1970s he made the decision to shift his career to movies & television, where he would work regularly for the next four and a half decades.

David Warner in Nightwing (1979)

Warner is one of the first actors who I became aware of, as he was regularly appearing in movies that I saw in the theater and on television when I was a kid in the early 1980s.

Acting opposite Malcolm McDowell as novelist H.G. Wells, Warner played John Stevenson aka Jack the Ripper in Time After Time (1979) directed by Nicholas Meyer. His identity as the infamous serial killer uncovered in Victorian England, Stevenson flees to then-modern day San Francisco via Wells’ time machine, with the author pursuing him in the present in an effort to finally bring the Ripper’s killing spree to an end.

Warner played the physical embodiment of Evil in Terry Gilliam’s fantasy adventure Time Bandits (1981). A year later he appeared in the triple role of Ed Dillinger / Sark / the voice of the Master Control Program in the groundbreaking sci-fi virtual reality movie Tron.

Also around this time, in the 1979 horror movie Nightwing, Warner was cast in the somewhat more sympathetic role of scientist Philip Payne, who assists Nick Mancuso as Native American police officer Youngman Duran in fighting a swarm of vampire bats infected with the bubonic plague.

David Warner in Tron (1982)

Having seen Warner in all of these, I was subsequently very pleased whenever he would turn up in a particular movie or television show.

Warner was cast as the human diplomat St. John Talbot in the underwhelming Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) and as such he was quite surprised when he was then asked to appear as a different character in Star Trek VI: the Undiscovered Country (1991) by Nicholas Meyer, who had previously directed him 12 years earlier in Time After Time.

Years later Warner would jokingly suggest that everyone had simply forgotten he was in Star Trek V when they asked him to appear in the next one, and truthfully I barely recall him from it. In contrast, his performance as Klingon Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI, who Meyer conceived as a cross between Abraham Lincoln and Mikhail Gorbachev, was incredibly memorable. Warner brought genuine dignity & compassion to the role of Gorkon. As a result, it carried a real impact when the Chancellor was assassinated, and with his dying breath begged Captain Kirk not to let the peace negotiations between the Federation and the Klingon Empire die with him.

David Warner in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered County (1991)

Warner made one last Star Trek appearance a year later when he played sadistic Cardassian interrogator Gul Madred in the two part Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Chain of Command.” Warner made Madred a figure of quiet menace. It was such a powerful, sinister performance, and it was surprising to learn that Warner had only been cast shortly before filming began when another actor dropped out at the last minute. As he explained to The A.V. Club in 2017:

“So I took over with three days notice. And I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but there was a lot of dialogue in it. And I said, “Look, I’ll do it, but I’ve got three days, and I can’t learn that kind of dialogue in three days.” So they wrote it all up on boards for me to read. So if you ever see it again, you won’t see my eyes moving, but I read every single line that I spoke, because I just couldn’t learn it in time.”

Also around this time Warner appeared in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze as Professor Jordan Perry, the scientist who was indirectly responsible for the Turtles mutating. Now, I was a huge fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic books at the time, but even so I’ll readily admit The Secret of the Ooze was quite a silly movie. I feel Warner brought a touch of class to the proceedings. He apparently enjoyed working on it, as he told The A.V. Club:

“It was just great fun being in a movie like that. You know, for kids. I didn’t often do kids pictures… it was just great fun to be on the side of the good guys!”

David Warner voiced Ra’s al Ghul on Batman: The Animated Series (1992 to 1995)

From 1992 to 1995 Warner voiced Batman’s immortal adversary Ra’s al Ghul on Batman: The Animated Series, reprising the role on Superman: The Animated Series in 1999 and Batman Beyond in 2000. Voice director Andrea Romano made some brilliant casting decisions on Batman: The Animated Series, and Warner as Ra’s al Ghul was absolutely one of them. The first time I saw an episode with Ra’s and heard him speak I knew that Warner, with his rich, theatrical voice, was the perfect casting. To this day whenever I read a comic book in which Ra’s al Ghul appears I “hear” Warner’s voice in my head whenever I read the character’s dialogue.

Another solid performance by Warner was archeologist Aldous Gajic on the Babylon 5 episode “Grail” (1994). Gajic comes to the B5 space station in search of the Holy Grail, which he believes to be alien in origin.

In his later years Warner became associated with the British science fiction series Doctor Who. He acted in several of the Big Finish audio plays, including two, “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Masters of War,” where he played an alternate-reality incarnation of the Third Doctor who, instead of being exiled to Earth in 1970, arrives in 1997, where in his absence events have taken a definite turn for the worse. Warner also voiced the villainous Lord Azlok on the Doctor Who animated serial “Dreamland” in 2009.

Warner at last had the opportunity to appear in a live action episode of Doctor Who in 2013, guest starring in “Cold War” as the lovably eccentric, pop music obsessed Soviet scientist Professor Grisenko. “Cold War” was definitely one of the best episodes from Matt Smith’s tenure as the Doctor, and I feel that’s at least partially due to Warner’s presence. Grisenko and Clara had some good scenes together, with Warner and Jenna Coleman playing off each other very well.

David Warner in Doctor Who “Cold War” (2013)

All of this is only just a small portion of Warner’s career. Following has passing earlier this week, his career was covered in a number of retrospectives, and on several occasions while reading them my reaction was literally “Oh, I forgot he was in that one!” The IMDB lists 228 acting credits for him.

Warner leaves behind an impressive body of work. He will definitely be missed by his many fans.

Nehemiah Persoff: 1919 to 2022

On April 5th prolific character actor Nehemiah Persoff passed away at the age of 102. Given his lengthy career and his long life, I wanted to share a few highlights about the man and his work.

Persoff, who was Jewish, was born on August 2, 1919 in Jerusalem, in what was then known as the British Mandate of Palestine. When he was 10 years old Persoff immigrated to the United States with the rest of his family.

Persoff initially trained as an electrician at the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York City, from which he graduated in 1937. However he was possessed of a love of acting, and when drafted into the United States Army during World War II he was part of an acting company that entertained soldiers overseas.  In 1947 Persoff was accepted into the Actors Studio in Manhattan, and a year later he began his professional career.

Nehemiah Persoff in The Twilight Zone episode “Judgment Night” (1959)

As with many foreign-born actors in the American movie and television industry in the mid 20th Century, Persoff was cast as a wide variety of ethnicities & nationalities, and frequently portrayed villainous roles.  Most notably, between 1959 and 1962 Persoff guest starred in six episodes of the Prohibition era crime drama The Untouchables, three of those featuring him as Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, financial advisor and bagman to Chicago mob boss Al Capone.

Another of Persoff’s memorable television appearances was The Twilight Zone episode “Judgment Night” written by Rod Serling and broadcast in December 1959. He played Carl Lanser, a ruthless Nazi U-boat captain who is now doomed to spend all of eternity trapped on the British cargo liner he ordered destroyed in 1942.

Among the other genre roles Persoff was cast in were brilliant South American scientist Professor Moreno in the Wonder Woman episode “Formula 407” (1977), the supreme leader of the totalitarian Eastern Alliance in the Battlestar Galactica episode “Experiment in Terra” (1979) and Palor Toff, a very odd-looking alien merchant & collector of rare items in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Most Toys” (1990).

Nehemiah Persoff in the Wonder Woman episode “Formula 407” (1977)

As he grew older, Persoff was afforded more opportunities to portray sympathetic roles, and was often cast as characters who shared his own real-life Jewish heritage, something that was of great personal importance to him. He played a Jewish refugee fleeing from Nazi oppression in the 1976 historical drama Voyage of the Damned and portrayed Rebbe Mendel, the father to Barbara Streisand’s character in the 1983 musical Yentl. Persoff later gave voice to another Jewish patriarch, Papa Mousekewitz, in the 1986 animated movie An American Tail and its three sequels.

Persoff’s acting career lasted thru 1999. After suffering from a stroke he retired, but he then took up watercolor painting, on which he spent the next two decades. He also wrote an autobiography, The Many Faces of Nehemiah, which was published in 2021.

Persoff met his future wife Thia during a visit to Israel in 1951. They married later that year and remained together until her own passing in 2021.

Interviewed in 2008 by James Rosin for Films of the Golden Age, Persoff reflected on his lengthy acting career and his continued creative endeavors as a painter:

“It was a wonderful sixty years, but at this time in my life, I love solving problems on the canvas; trying to find the beauty and essence of a subject. It’s a fascinating, challenging, yet calming and most fulfilling process, finding colors that like each other, not only the basic colors, but the infiinite variations, starting with a fresh canvas and suddenly seeing it come alive. That gives one a tremendous feeling of satisfaction. I feel very fortunate in being able to continue my creative life; but this time without the tension, frustration and conflicts of an acting career.”

Star Trek and Star Wars signings at New York Comic Con 2021

New York Comic Con 2021 was held a couple of weeks ago, and it was a tremendous amount of fun! After a one year absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was great to have NYCC return to the Big Apple.

In addition to a wide variety of comic book creators (please read my write-ups on First Comics News) I got to meet a couple of actors who have been involved in Star Trek and Star Wars.

It’s odd: I’ve been a fan of both series for many years, but until now I’ve never obtained autographs from actors who appeared in those franchises. Well, okay, in the past I met a few people who had appeared in Star Trek, but I got their autographs for other roles. So I’m glad I was finally able to rectify that with two great actors who appeared in Star Trek and Star Wars, respectively.

I’ve been a Star Trek fan since I was a little kid, watching reruns of the original series on WPIX Channel 11 on Saturday evenings in the early 1980s. It was definitely a thrill to meet actor George Takai, who portrayed Hikaru Sulu on the show and in the first six movies. I really admire the fact that Takai has utilized his fame from Star Trek to promote progressive political & social causes.

They Called Us Enemy, the graphic novel George Takei wrote about his childhood imprisoned in an internment camp, is a sad, moving book. I am Jewish, and when I was growing up I was taught about the Holocaust, about the Nazis forcing the Jews into concentration camps. So I remember that when I first learned about the internment of Japanese Americans I was horrified to discover that nearly the same thing had happened here, in this country. It is definitely one of the darkest chapters in American history. Unfortunately I now realize that there are many dark events and periods in this nation’s history. So I am grateful for works like this. They bring those failures to light, and serve as warnings as to what can happen again if we do not learn from the the past. They Called Us Enemy is a great example of how comic books & graphic novels can play a valuable educational role.

Takei came across as a good person. It was a pretty long line to get his autograph, but he took the time to speak with everyone for a minute or two. The day after I got Takei’s autograph, he had a panel discussion at NYCC. He was such an engaging, entertaining speaker.

Another guest at NYCC 2021 was Dee Bradley Baker, the actor who voiced Captain Rex and all of the other Clone Troopers in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series, among his many, many other voice acting credits in numerous other series.

My father and grandfather took me to see The Empire Strikes Back in the theater for my fourth birthday, and I’ve been a Star Wars fan ever since. Admittedly, I only saw a few episodes of The Clone Wars during the original run from 2008 to 2014, and at the time I didn’t really care for it. However, I recently watched the entire series on Disney Plus. While the first two seasons were uneven, there were still several good episodes. The show then got consistently good with season three, and steadily improved from there. George Lucas, Dave Filoni & their collaborators also did a great job utilizing the show to explore adult topics such as war and politics, loss and faith, duty and patriotism. The later seasons are among the best SW material ever.

I was on line to get Dee Bradley Baker’s autograph, and at 45 years old I was literally the oldest person waiting to meet him. Everyone else on line was either in their late teens or in their 20s. These fans literally grew up on The Clone Wars animated series. For them, this is their Star Wars, just as the original trilogy was my generation’s Star Wars. I think it’s great that The Clone Wars became an entry point for a new generation of fans.

So I got Baker’s autograph… but until now I had no idea Momo and Appa were in the Grand Army of the Republic. Hmmmm… Star Wars / Avatar: The Last Airbender crossover, anyone? Now I’ve got this image stuck in my head of Ahsoka Tano riding around on a flying bison!

Seriously, I was saying to myself “Oh no! Did he mean to write ‘Captain Rex’ instead but I distracted him by gushing about how much I loved his work on Clone Wars and Bad Batch?” Eh, whatever the reason, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, it’s still his signature, and I got it personalized, so I’m obviously not going to be reselling it, and I got to meet him, which was very cool. I guess the Avatar reference just adds to the piece’s uniqueness.

Anyway, Baker is incredibly talented, I love his amazing work on the various Star Wars animated series, so it was cool to meet him & get his signature.

Star Wars reviews: The Bad Batch part two

The first season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch concluded on Disney+ last week. I previously took a look at the first eight episodes, and here’s my thoughts on the second half of the season.

When we last saw Omega (Michelle Ang) she had been captured by ruthless bounty hunter Cad Bane (Corey Burton) who was acting on behalf of the Kaminoans. I was expecting the rest of the Bad Batch to have to come to Omega’s rescue. Instead, she nearly succeeded in rescuing herself, and then the arrival of Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) did indeed enable Omega to escape, requiring only a last minute assist from the rest of the Batch. Omega is definitely no damsel in distress.

It was surprising to learn that Fennec Shand had actually been hired by Kaminoan scientist Nala Se (Gwendoline Yeo) to protect Omega. Back during The Clone Wars animated series Nala Se had actually been one of the most ruthless of the Kaminoans.  She regarded the Clone Troopers merely as property, and helped the Sith cover up the true purpose of the Clones’ inhibitor chips, thereby indirectly assisting them in wiping out the Jedi with Order 66. So I am curious why Nala Se is now acting so benevolent and trying to save Omega’s life.

The next episode, “Common Ground,” sees the Bad Batch (Dee Bradley Baker) sent to rescue Avi Singh, a former Senator in the Separatist government, from the Empire, who are now occupying his  world. Echo, who was previously a prisoner of the Separatist military and who was experimented on by them, is understandably reluctant to help Singh. However, as was seen in several episodes of The Clone Wars, many of the Separatist’s civilian leaders did genuinely want what was best for their worlds, and just like the Republic’s Senate, were being used & deceived by the Sith. Such is the case with Singh, who is truly despondent at the thought of the Empire enslaving his people.

Singh is voiced by Alexander Siddig, formerly Dr. Julian Bashir of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, making him the latest actor to have roles in both franchises. I hope the character will return again in the near future. Perhaps he will become a founding member of the Rebel Alliance?

The next two episodes shifted the focus to a few familiar faces. Hera Syndulla was one of my favorite characters from Star Wars: Rebels, so I really enjoyed seeing a two-part “origin story” for her and her sassy astromech droid Chopper.

I thought Vanessa Marshall did an incredible job portraying a teenage version of the Hera, clearly making it the same character that she previously portrayed in Rebels, but distinct enough that it’s clear this is Hera at a much different time in her life. Marshall is definitely a talented actress. I really appreciated the fast friendship that develops between Hera and Omega, who plays a major role in setting the Twi’lek teenager on the path to eventually becoming an accomplished pilot and an leader in the Rebel Alliance.

I was genuinely surprised to learn that, due to the COVOD-19 pandemic, all of the actors in The Bad Batch recorded their parts separately, and that Marshall had no idea who Omega was or what she sounded like until the two Ryloth episodes were broadcast. Credit to Marshall and Ang for their performances, really making it seem like they were acting opposite one another in the studio, giving the two teenage girls a genuine friendship & chemistry.

By the way, it was interesting to watch these two episodes and then read the novel A New Dawn written by John Jackson Miller, which explores how Hera first encounters Kanan Jarrus. I really appreciate the thought Dave Filoni & Co have given to how Hera develops as a character throughout the years.

What I found really surprising about these episodes is that Hera’s father, the militant Cham Syndulla (Robin Atkin Downes), is shown as initially being willing to give rule by the Empire a chance. After the Clone Wars, he wants peace for his people, and his family. Unfortunately the fascist, duplicitous Empire is completely uninterested in acting in an honorable manner

I like how these episodes also continued to examine the reasons why the Empire chose to replace Clone Troopers with Stormtroopers. On the face of it Clone Troopers were much better soldiers. But as we previously saw in the Umbara and Fives arcs on The Clone Wars, the clones are intelligent beings who are capable of independent thought, of feeling compassion & loyalty, and of disobeying orders that they feel are morally wrong. The Bad Batch has further explored that.

It’s very obviously that without the inhibitor chips the majority of the clones would never have turned on the Jedi, and even with the inhibitor chips functioning we still see Howzer and other clones on Ryloth questioning orders. So from the Empire’s perspective it makes sense that they switch to Stormtroopers, who may be inferior, but who they can just draft wholesale from the populace and indoctrinate to be complete loyal and follow orders without question.

Anyway, props to Dee Bradley Baker for getting so much of Howzer’s internal struggle across vocally. And the animators did an amazing job at the very end when we see Crosshair’s expression, and rather than being gleeful at the idea of finally going after his former comrades, he looks genuinely ambivalent. The animation for the planet Ryloth was also stunning.

The next episode “Infested” was a heist-type episode, with the Batch and their manipulative employer Cid (Rhea Perlman) stealing a shipment of spice in order to pit wannabe crime lord Roland Durand (Tom Taylorson) against the Pyke Syndicate. This one was fun, although it did seemingly come across as unimportant. However, I do wonder if this was a setup for future developments, and if we will see Durand again in a larger role.

This brings us to the final three part story of the season. The Empire accelerates its plans to transition to Stormtroopers, bringing in the clone Gregor to train them. Rex asks the Batch to rescue Gregor, but that leads to Hunter being captured by the Empire. The rest of the Batch now must return to Kamino to save their leader, who is in the custody of their former comrade Crosshair.

The surprising development about Crosshair was his claim that his inhibitor chip was removed some time before (perhaps destroyed in the starship graveyard on Bracca?) and that he’s now acting of his own free will in working for the Empire. Unlike the rest of the Batch, who remain loyal to the principles of the fallen Republic, Crosshair regards himself as a superior being who has an important place within the Empire’s fascist system. The rest of the Batch are despondent at the possibility that their brother is willingly working for the Empire, and that he actually wants them to join him.

There’s a brief interaction between Crosshair and Tech where the later explains that Crosshair has always been like this, and his behavior actually makes perfect sense. It’s one of the very few times Tech has ever been developed at all this season. He remains the most thinly-drawn members of the Batch. I hope that next season he is actually given more material.

The Empire, having seized the Kaminoans’ cloaning technology and forcibly recruited Nala Se, destroys Tipoca City. The finale has the Batch struggling to escape the rapidly-sinking ruins. Truthfully I found this episode to be a bit drawn-out, consisting of an extended action sequence. Nevertheless, it does set the stage for the second season.

There were some criticisms that the first season of The Bad Batch was tonally inconsistent, alternating between light family fare and exceedingly grim, depressing violence. I think that description pretty much sums up the entirety of the Star Wars franchise! After all, in the original movie one minute R2D2 and C3P0 are engaging in their latest round of comedic squabbling, and the next the Death Star blows up Alderaan. Personally I’ve always found Star Wars to be at its most effective when it can successfully shift its tone back & forth between comedy and drama.

So what happens next? Well, I guess we’ll have to wait until 2022 to find that out! A few bumps in the road notwithstanding, I did enjoy the first season of The Bad Batch, and I look forward to season two.

Twenty-Five Years of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

It’s a bit difficult to believe that this month is the 25th anniversary of the Star Trek series Deep Space Nine, which premiered on January 3, 1993. Time really does fly.

Unlike other Star Trek shows, DS9 was set on a space station, not a starship. Spinning off from events in The Next Generation, the premiere of DS9 saw the planet Bajor achieving independence after four decades of brutal occupation by the militant Cardassian Union.  The space station Deep Space Nine was originally Terok Nor, a former Cardassian outpost orbiting the planet Bajor.  Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), a Starfleet Commander mourning the recent death of his wife, is assigned to the newly rechristened Deep Space Nine, to help oversee the restoration of the devastated Bajor in the hopes that it can join the Federation.  In this unpredictable environment Sisko also sought to build a new life for himself and his young son Jake (Cirroc Lofton).

Sisko’s assignment appears to be very much a dead end for his career, until a stable wormhole opens nearby, a shortcut to the far distant Gamma Quadrant. The alien beings who occupy the wormhole are worshiped by the Bajorans as their gods, the Prophets.  For seemingly-inexplicable reasons the Prophets have now manifested for the first time in centuries, and have anointed Sisko their Emissary.  Instantly Sisko becomes one of the most important figures in the Alpha Quadrant, in charge of the station guarding a strategic wormhole, the sole individual with whom the entities occupying it will communicate.  Sisko is, to say the least, ambivalent about his position of Emissary, especially as many Bajorans now see him as the representative to their gods.

Star Trek: DS9 had a dual focus. It examined the efforts of Sisko and his crew to aid Bajor in recovering from 40 years of foreign occupation, a task complicated by both the ineffectual, corrupt provisional government and by the continuing machinations of the Cardassians, who were still stinging from the humiliation of being driven from the planet.  The show also concerned itself with the Federation’s explorations of the mysterious Gamma Quadrant, which until the discovery of the wormhole was a region of the galaxy that would have taken decades to reach via normal warp drive.

Due to the fact that it was set in a fixed point in space, DS9 was able to examine how various cultures grew and developed over time. The Bajorans, after spending 40 years fighting a desperate guerilla war to liberate their planet, now had to figure out how to work together to restore a stable system of government.  The return of their Prophets also brought about conflicts between science and faith, further threatening to fragment Bajor’s people.

Meanwhile the Cardassians, after centuries of militaristic expansion, were beginning to enter a period of steep decline, with various factions within the corrupt government attempting to exploit the chaos for their own personal benefit. The proudly nationalistic Cardassian people also struggled to deal with guilt over the crimes their military had perpetrated against the Bajorans, and with the inconvenient truth that if their society did not change then it would eventually perish.

Beginning with the season two finale “The Jem’Hadar” and continuing until the conclusion of DS9’s seven year run, the Federation was faced with an existential threat in the form of the Dominion, a vast alliance of powers based in the Gamma Quadrant that was obsessed with bringing “order” to the galaxy. The Dominion was, in a way, a dark mirror of the Federation.  Whereas the Federation relied upon diplomacy, the gift of technological advancement, and the promise of a “better” way of life to attract new member worlds, the Dominion utilized brute force and terror to expand its reach.  DS9 was a show that was skeptical of institutions & authority, and it would make the case that though their methods differed dramatically, the Federation and the Dominion were alike in each arrogantly believing that their system of government was the ideal one.

The conflict with the Dominion enabled the show to take a close look at the United Federation of Planets. In both the original Star Trek and The Next Generation, the Federation was typically characterized as something quite close to utopia, a near-perfect society seemingly without any significant injustice or inequality.  In spite of its occasional excesses and various blind spots, the Federation was, at least in theory, fundamentally based upon the principle of the rights of the individual.  The Dominion, in contrast, was a fascist structure that demanded absolute obedience from its subjects.  Not only was the Dominion diametrically opposed to the ideals of the Federation, it was also a vastly superior military power.

DS9 addressed the question of what happens when a utopia like the Federation encounters an adversary inimical to its very ideals, a foe that can neither be negotiated with nor outfought. Faced with the very real possibility of its destruction, the question repeatedly arises as to how far the Federation will go to achieve victory, how much it will compromise its principles to ensure its survival.

These ideas were, of course, examined via the regular characters of DS9, how they acted and reacted to the events of galactic importance taking place around them, how their lives were affected over the show’s seven years.

Sisko often saw his principles tested. He was stationed far from the peaceful center of the Federation, commanding a space station occupied by a diverse population of alien species.  Helping the devastated, divided Bajor to rebuild, fighting the dissident Maquis who had dropped out of the Federation, and serving on the front lines of the brutal war with the Dominion, Sisko regularly struggled to live up to both his personal ethics and the ideals of Starfleet.

The season six episode “In the Pale Moonlight” pondered just how far Sisko would go in compromising his morality in his quest to prevent the Dominion from conquering the Alpha Quadrant. All these years later the episode remains one of the most riveting, thought-provoking, unsettling installments of the entire franchise.

Another character who was repeatedly challenged throughout the run of the show was Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor), the station’s First Officer. As a member of the Bajoran militia Kira was often pulled between her loyalty to her homeworld and her responsibilities serving under Sisko.  Additionally, Kira had been born during the Occupation, and has spent most of her life fighting against the Cardassians.  To be blunt, Kira and her compatriots in the Resistance could be regarded as terrorists.  She had a great deal of blood on her hands, having been required to commit numerous violent acts in the struggle to liberate Bajor.  Kira was unapologetic for her actions but at times was nevertheless haunted by her past.  She also struggled with having to shift from being someone who had fought tooth & nail against an unjust status quo to being a member of the establishment.

One of the most fascinating characters on DS9 was Odo (René Auberjonois) a mysterious shapeshifting entity who had been discovered by the Bajorans during the Occupation. Odo had no knowledge of his past.  Surly and brooding, he had fallen into the role of Terok Nor’s chief of security while it was still under Cardassian control, but was trusted enough by the Bajorans to remain in that position once the Federation moved in.  Odo was the ultimate outsider; he was literally one of a kind.  There were times when it seemed the only reasons why he stayed on DS9 were that he literally had nowhere else to go, and because he carried an unrequited love for Kira Nerys.

Odo’s sad story took an even more tragic turn once the Dominion entered the picture. Early in season three Odo was reunited with his shapeshifting people, only to quickly learn that they were the Founders, the ruthless rulers of the Dominion.  Having spent centuries subjected to mistrust, the shapeshifting Founders had established the brutal Dominion, believing that the only way to escape being persecuted was to seize control of the galaxy.  Odo, in spite of his sympathies for the Founders’ cause and his longing to rejoin his people, was nevertheless revolted by the Dominion’s horrific tyranny.  He reluctantly returned with Kira and the other “solids” to DS9.  Despite having found his people, he was in a way now more alone than ever.

DS9 seemed to be a port of call for people who had no roots, no place to call home. Worf (Michael Dorn), the only Klingon to serve in Starfleet, was one of the most popular characters on The Next Generation.  Beginning in season four Worf joined the crew of DS9.  He once again found himself expelled from his own society after he objected to the Klingon Empire’s war against the Cardassian Union.  Worf correctly perceived that the Klingon Chancellor, by making spurious claims that Cardassia had been infiltrated by the shapeshifting Founders, was using the threat of the Dominion as a pretext to invade Cardassia.  Unable to abide by the Empire’s dishonorable actions, he again pledged his loyalty to Starfleet.  Worf was in for a shock, though, as he quickly found the colorful mayhem of DS9 to be very different from the orderly routine of the Starship Enterprise.

Another former member of the Enterprise crew who found himself stationed on DS9 was Miles O’Brien (Colm Meany). O’Brien was very much a working-class everyman who had a grounded, stoic perspective on the strange events that frequently beset the station.  The station’s Chief of Operations, O’Brien had transferred from the Enterprise at the start of season one.  He had hoped to give his wife Keiko and their young daughter Molly a more stable life than on a starship, although he quickly discovered that the station had its own particular brand of chaos.  O’Brien seemed to be a magnet for trouble, often becoming mixed up in all manner of bizarre and horrifying events.  He was undoubtedly the hard-luck hero of DS9.

Deep Space Nine found its feet much quicker than The Next Generation had, generally offering up some pretty good episodes during its first season. Nevertheless the writers did take a while to figure out what to do with the characters of Jadziya Dax (Terry Farrell) and Doctor Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig).  Eventually the show settled down into having Dax as a purveyor of dry wit and confidant to Sisko.

Jadziya Dax was actually a composite of the Trill woman named Jadziya, the very long-lived symbiont slug-like entity Dax, and the memories of Dax’s previous Trill hosts. Dax’s prior incarnation, a charismatic diplomat named Curzon, had been a mentor to the young Sisko.  Now that relationship evolved into a close friendship between the vivacious Jadziya and Sisko.  Eventually, at the end of season six, Jadziya was killed, but the symbiont Dax survived.  In season seven Dax was joined with another Trill, a young woman named Ezri (Nicole de Boer).  This led to an interesting reversal of roles, with the now-seasoned Captain Sisko serving as a mentor to the inexperienced Ezri Dax.

The arrogant, ambitious Bashir, who probably would have been much more suited to service on the Enterprise, was often the odd man out on the dysfunctional DS9. However, as the series became more and more morally ambiguous, Bashir was often used to demonstrate how the ideals of Starfleet were being challenged, and how he refused to let his own ethics to be compromised.  Bashir and O’Brien, in spite of their very different personalities & backgrounds, also developed an odd but endearing friendship over the course of the show’s seven years.

A discussion of DS9 would not be complete without mentioning the Ferengi. Originally conceived as uber-capitalist baddies in the first season of The Next Generation, the Ferengi were an immediate flop, and that series very quickly reduced them to comic relief.  DS9 set out to rehabilitate the Ferengi, to make them into a three-dimensional, believable species.  To a degree the show was successful.  While the Ferengi were still rather implausible, and often silly, they nevertheless came across much better on DS9 than they had on TNG.

One of DS9’s regular characters was Quark (Armin Shimerman) a Ferengi bartender & club-owner operating out of the station’s promenade. Quark was always looking to make a quick buck, and often fell afoul of Odo, who was determined to halt the Ferengi’s extra-legal activities.  As we got to know Quark, however, it became apparent that he did operate according to his own particular code of ethics.  He wasn’t evil; rather his pursuit of wealth caused him to have a number of rather glaring moral blind spots.  Quark’s main failing was that he was often unable, or unwilling, to foresee the negative consequences of his actions on both himself and others, at least until some particular scheme happened to blow up in his face, sometimes literally.  To his credit, Quark would usually attempt to make things right with those he had harmed, albeit somewhat reluctantly, while also trying to recoup as much of his investment as possible.

I could also discuss such fascinating recurring characters as Gul Dukat, Garek, Nog, Winn Adami, Weyoun and Martok, but we would be here all day. Suffice it to say that DS9 had a rich, fascinating, colorful ensemble.

Deep Space Nine had been described as the most multicultural of the various Star Trek series. It was the first Star Trek show to feature a black man, the superb Avery Brooks, in the lead.  Miles O’Brien was played by Irish-born Colm Meany, and Julian Bashir was played by English-Sudanese actor Alexander Siddig.  Nearly all of the other characters on DS9, both regular and recurring, were members of different alien species, with their own cultures and mores, their different perspectives on the events that unfolded.

The show is also noteworthy for being one of the first American genre series to experiment with serialization. Various storylines played out across multiple episodes, and the final season concluded with an ambitious, epic nine-episode serial that worked to resolve as many of the plotlines and character arcs as possible.

Deep Space Nine was produced at a time when American television was at a crossroads. It definitely was a forerunner of the now-standard model of serialization, yet at the same time it was still being made when 26 episode seasons were the norm, to crank out as many hours of television as possible to sell to syndication.  Inevitably each season had at least a few subpar installments.  As the show progressed, and became more involved in long-form storytelling, those surplus episodes inevitably became somewhat more glaring, especially in the final two seasons.

While DS9 has for the most part aged exceptionally well, its treatment of women and sexual relations does feel rather dated. Dax and Kira were the only two significant female characters among the very large ensemble.  Bashir’s almost stalker-ish pursuit of Jadziya Dax in the first couple seasons, Ezri Dax in the final season, and a few other women over the course of the show, sticks out as an especially poor choice in today’s climate.  The relationship between Odo and Kira also has problematic aspects.

Nevertheless, despite certain missteps, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine remains a quality show. For the most part it was well-acted, well-written, and well-produced.  It was actually quite ahead of its time in its examination of the challenges presented by multiculturalism, and its debate concerning liberty vs security during times of war.  It is definitely a favorite of mine.