StillPaisleyCat

joined 2 years ago

I hadn’t been aware that he’d also been a director for television. Truly a wide-ranging career.

[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

The two-letter system was already in place in the United States mail system before the 80s.

It wouldn’t be the first time Canada adopted a US data standard to ease utilization of US made or standardized equipment.

[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 4 points 3 months ago (4 children)

It was the old form. Other than BC, the old postal short forms were 3 or 4 letters.

BC

Alta

Sask

Man

Ont

Que

NB

NS

PEI

Nfld

The 2-letter acronyms came up from the United States relatively recently.

No worries, Dan Jeannotte has it covered.

I’m not attributing anything here. You’re arguably the one clinging to your head canon.

I’m an older person who was around to hear other OG fans complain about this ‘alternate universe/timeline for TNG’ theory in the late 1980s. And to see how the Great Bird himself responded.

Roddenberry went on the record saying that the timeline had to adjust to always keep the show’s future as a possible future for the audience. He defended the shift in the timing of WW3.

Goldsman, who has been a fan longer than almost any of his detractors, would have heard this more than I did. Goldsman organized one of the very first clubs and fanzines as a preteen, and attended the first ever convention in New York City.

[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 14 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Roddenberry himself was adamant that Star Trek’s history had to remain a possible history for viewers. So, the dates can slip as long as the major events don’t.

That is why he put WW3 later than implied by TOS, delaying it to the mid 21st century in the TNG pilot ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ even though that led to a contingent of TOS fans insisting that it ‘had to be a separate universe from the one of the original series.’

While writers never explicitly resolved this onscreen during the Berman Era shows, preferring to weasel with offscreen head canon in interviews saying that perhaps the Eugenics Wars were covert and going on unknown in the 90s, the new shows have dealt with this problem head on by acknowledging that temporal incursions do affect the timing of major events without making it a separate timeline.

SNW and Prodigy have been able to make this clear onscreen in canon with the expert help of the franchise’s excellent physicist science advisor Dr. Erin Macdonald. (She did her PhD with the team in Scotland that got the Noble prize just a couple of years later. She’s truly on top of modern theoretical physics.)

McCoy was in Encounter at Farpoint with one meta purpose - to counter the TOS fans that were campaigning hard to say that it ‘wasn’t the same universe.’

McCoy’s presence was a nice Easter Egg, but not much more. But he did the job of saying that it was the new Enterprise in continuity with the legendary ship on which he served.

Fans argued that because Roddenberry insisted on moving WW3 back to the mid 21st century as of Encounter at Farpoint, TNG had to be a different timeline.

TOS fans understood the Eugenics Wars to be the precursor to WW3, so they just didn’t accept WW3 was going to be another half-century away. Roddenberry’s directive was to always keep the Star Trek future in our future so WW3 had to be shifted to later in time and any specific mention of the date of the Eugenics Wars was avoided.

They also hated the carpet and many other things about the ‘luxury hotel in space’ Enterprise.

Yup, that happened and continued to happen until well into TNG season 3. The brigading Berman-era fans who rail unrelentingly against ‘Nu-Trek’ don’t sound any different, they’re just more visible than the 1980s fans that relied on mimeoed fanzines and Usenet. Fans that liked TNG kept quiet at cons until at least 1990, and vendors didn’t bring TNG merchandise.

No need to fuss about calendars. Just need to revisit Dr. Macdonald’s Temporal Mechanics 101.

There have been several temporal incursions since the DS9 crew did theirs - Voyager, Picard, SNW and Prodigy, not to mention the rippling effects of the Temporal Wars established in Enterprise and Discovery.

Dates and details can slip as long as the major events stay more or less the same.

From what I can tell Americans used to use scales for dry measures (in ounces) but somewhere along the line, they switched to volume measures for everything.

As a Canadian, it’s really frustrating because often will get the American versions of UK cookbooks here which are both not metric and not weights.

I enjoy my Australian cookbooks with metric weights.

[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 11 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Cook in metric and use a scale!

[–] StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If anything, Lower Decks has intentionally lifted some 7-note sequences from the TAS title theme.

The title theme for Lower Decks almost does a bait and switch riff of the TAS one.

 

The rebranded Star Trek magazine Explorer, published by Titan, is including original fiction.

For those who are fans of @DavidMack@davidmack@wandering.shop, this month’s issue may be one to add to your purchases if you’re not planning to already.

 

In honour of Star Trek day, this month Simon & Schuster is offering 23 ebooks at discount prices.

Books from every era are represented. (A special shout out from me for the Diane Duane one.)

As usual, look for the discounts in the US, Canada and UK through the major ebook platforms.

Enjoy!

 

An interesting, deliberately thought provoking 🤔 question for a lazy long weekend Sunday morning…

Setting aside whether specific fans like specific ‘gimmicks’ (crossovers, musicals, bringing back Kirk or Khan) or tropes (transporter malfunctions), Space.com is posing the hypothesis that the proportion was too high in Strange New Worlds second season.

There’s no arguing that the season was successful in drawing in large audiences week after week. Taking a look back though, was there too much trippy-Trek(TM) dessert and not enough of a meaty main course? YMMV surely.

For my part, I can both agree that trippy Trek is something I’ve been wanting more of, and that I would have welcomed 2 or 3 more episodes were more grounded or gave the opportunity to see more of Una as a leader and dug into Ortegas backstory.

The 90s shows seemed to be bit embarrassed by trippyness, although Voyager found its pretext allowed even stern Janeway to pronounce ‘Weird is our business.’ One can argue that the high proportion in SNW is a feature, not a bug.

I’d still prefer a 12-15 episode season though.

 

Interesting extract from a longer /Film interview with in-demand director Roxann Dawson.

I appreciate how she speaks with respect for the shows of the new era.

 

Season-long prerelease reviews are an exception to this community’s rules about posting reviews. (The mods prefer our members to prefer to post their own episode reviews here.)

It seems that today’s the day that Paramount’s embargo on ‘spoiler free’ (in theory) season reviews for Lower Decks season 4 comes off, and the first pro reviews are now posted by some who have seen the screeners.

From Inverse:

  • each one of these 30-minute episodes is nearly perfect. Just as the USS Cerritos presents the workhorse of Starfleet, with Season 4, Lower Decks again proves it is the workhorse of the entire Star Trek franchise.

From SlashFilm - view with caution, a bit more spoilery

  • /Film Rating: 9 out of

Any to add to the list?

 

@Nmyownworld@startrek.website spotted Murf in the poster in the promotional announcement for Star Trek Day.

Nmyownworld’s mention on the Star Trek Day thread was great, but I thought it would be great to amplify it. So here is the image with the colour intensity dialed up a bit and Murf circled to be easier to spot.

StarTrek Prodigy Lives!!!

 

This is good news for assuring that SNW’s 3rd season production will move ahead after the strike.

Greenlighting a couple of extra episodes and a 4th season would make strategic sense, but I’m just not willing to give Paramount the benefit of the doubt on that.

 

For those not already aware, Michele Stokes a fan in the UK raised over $US 1200 through a GoFundMe to pay for a skywriter with a #SAVESTARTREKPRODIGY banner.

It flew midday today in LA. The ScreenRant article captures much of the social media including a few videos, and the reactions of the Hageman Brothers and @GoodAaron@startrek.website.

Michele Stokes is also the fan who started the change.org petition to Save Star Trek Prodigy. It’s been progressing slowly since it surpassed 30k signatures during SDCC, and is very close to 33k now. If you haven’t signed and are willing to deal with the platform (which is now monetized), Prodigy could still benefit from your support.

 

Working from the oral history in The Five Year Mission: The next 25 years, this is a fascinating deep dive that answers the question “How did a recycled cover of a 1998 song written for Rod Stewart, ‘Where My Heart Will Take Me’ aka ‘Faith of the Heart’ become the title music for Enterprise?”

Also, after resisting melodic scoring in all the 90s shows, it turns out this was the music Rick Berman liked?!!

“…I, for one, can tell you that I thought it was a great opening and I'm not alone in that. I don't think I'm in the majority, but I'm not alone."

And it seems the song does have its own subniche of supporters who share Berman’s view. (But not I.)

 

@GoodAaron@startrek.website has shared the news on Mastodon.

The GoFundMe has exceeded its goal. The organizer described it as follows:

The plan is to hire either a skywriter or sky banner to make passes over the offices of potential new homes for Star Trek Prodigy, namely Amazon, Netflix, etc. The more we're able to raise, the more streamers we'll be able to lobby and the louder we'll be able to shout about what an amazing show Star Trek Prodigy is - for fans of all ages.

 

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/1026553

Here’s something to fill some gaps in your viewing schedule. While not science fiction, this show could appeal to SNW fans and deserves a bigger audience.

SurrealEstate is a Canadian live-action supernatural drama with a light leavening of horror, produced for CTV Sci-Fi Channel, and picked up Syfy. The first season also ran on Hulu in the US after its linear run. It was canceled by Syfy US, then uncanceled when it got picked up by the Syfy channels in Europe.

It’s quirky, full of gentle ironic humour, in the way Canadian shows can be. Tim Rozon of Wynonna Earp stars along with Sarah Levy of Schitt’s Creek. Melanie Srofano (Captain Betel in SNW) directed two episodes in the first season and was reportedly back to do more.

Similar to SNW, SurrealEstate mainly episodic with light serialization coming from character arcs. It has a generally positive vibe, with a team of intriguing and diverse characters solving mysteries and clearing houses of supernatural detractions so that they can ‘achieve their true market value.’

From the season one promotional listing:

Real estate agent Luke Roman is the owner of The Roman Agency, a boutique residential real estate brokerage specializing in "metaphysically engaged" properties, also known as haunted houses. Luke has a special connection to the spiritual realm; he can not only sense the presence that might inhabit a client's house, he can often communicate and negotiate with it. Along with his team, Luke takes on the houses nobody else can or will.

If you haven’t seen season one, I firmly recommend catching it on demand on CTV (which is offering it currently offering it free to non-subscribers), on the Syfy app or on Hulu.

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