Which is a lesson he'll be returning to over and over again. But it was so sweet here.
Spoilers Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x05 - "Charades"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
Like the actual starship battles have never been mine. (Although there have been some very tense, exciting ones in SNW.) I like the personal stories AND exploration/discovery stories and when the two happen in the same episode that's magic for me.
Funny side-note: I remember Rick Berman stating in an interview they HAD to make all the 90s casts (TNG, DS9, VOY) at LEAST 2/3 male 1/3 female, otherwise the studio was afraid that they were labelled as "women shows" by advertisers and program managers (and that they stuck exactly to that quota, to get as many women main characters as possible).
And now I think of PIC and SNW as "traditional" shows because both have a white, male lead character.
I don't know, I didn't find the execution of this particular episode more than average. For a comedy I didn't laugh once, it was mostly medium cringe, not even super cringe, but sometimes unplanned.
However I just love these characters, in their costumes, on these sets, talking about their character drama or weird techno-bubble science. It just gives me a fuzzy warm feeling.
Also I absolutely adore how much of a friggin' dork Pike is - standing in the background giddily presenting his Vulcan cooking attempt
No wonder every woman in "the cage" was lusting after him - I always find him (Jeffrey Hunter) rather dry and boring. But with the new backstory - a hunk of a man that can also cook - I just get it.
Damn. Thanks for making me feel really fucking old. I remember nurse Chapel always as relatively old - a mature woman with grey hair. Because I was a teenager when I watched TOS reruns. Now she looks absolutely primeI watched the first few scenes with Chapel and Spock from TOS again. It actually fits
Their very first scene together. She holds his hands, tells him she loves him. He doesn't resist, doesn't withdraw his hands, doesn't tell her to not touch him. Instead, he gets to a point where he has to tell himself to stay in control.
Chapel jokingly asks him this, to explain why she knows it's Korby's voice. Could easily be irony now, since she knows Spock was engaged. He doesn't say yes or no, just has a surprised face reaction.
Note Spock's face as Chapel is about to meet her lover...
...he does not seem neutral about it.
So there's no obvious reason to assume Spock didn't have any interest in Chapel at all in TOS. Nothing is contradicted, instead it adds to canon, enhances it. Just like Disco showed why Sarek was so opposed to Spock refusing the VSA admission he had saved for him at Burnham's expense.
I think the difference was that all Farscape, Stargate, Trek and others still were supposed to take place in "our" universe - just the television-brands version of it (with Oceanic Airlines and Red Apple cigarettes).
They weren't really supposed to be alternate dimensions - whenever these shows visited one, they would look obviously different than "our" world, not just "movie different".
PIC season 2 really is the first time Trek does seem set in a parallel universe - but IMO SNW already walked back on that again to realign with "our" world.
But that's my point... it doesn't need to align with our world to tell the stories. We can still get the messages and what the story is going for without the need to make it match so much with real life.
It was all overly cautious execs worried about ad money. People were (and always have been) more likely to call in complaints. very few people would bother to call in their "likes." Companies were very reluctant to sponsor Nat King Cole's show because of feared reactions in the southern states, but not ONLY the southern states.
You can have more than one crush, sweetie. You're allowed.
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That's very clever.
He's had two episodes this season (this one and the trial one) where he was the absolute MVP just standing the background and reacting!
Apropos of not much, I just discovered that Eddie Murphy was 23-24 when he made Beverly Hills Cop. Even younger in Trading Places and 48 hrs. Blew my mind.
Majel was ~34 in season 2 of TOS. Jess Bush is 31 right now.
Paul Wesley just turned FORTY! So he's five years older than Shatner was in Corbomite Manuever! (And they're ALL way younger than I am!)
The worst offenders are like "Oceans 12", where Julia Roberts plays a character that is mistaken for Julia Roberts the movie star, all while a character played by George Clooney goes unnoticed. That stuff takes me out of the movie.
Media HAS to create a "parallel universe", simply to avoid it's own existence. This applies to ALL media. Differently named presidents, fake brands, companies & media ("Wormhole X-Treme!") are just part of that "game".
However these are still all supposed to play in "our" universe, no matter if it's "Emergency Room", "The crown", "Stranger Things", "Lost in Space" or "The X-Files". And IMO "Star Trek" also belongs there, too.
Whereas stuff like "Game of Thrones", "Man in the high castle" or "For all Mankind" (and PIC season 2 which I absolutely hate for that) are absolutely set in "not our" universe.
As such, Khan leaving to space in 1996 should IMO more be treated like a mistake, like when the Enterprise shot a phaser beam from it's photon torpedo launcher, or when Data mentioned his RAM size, or Khan remembering Chekhov, and not indicative of this being another universe. YMMV obviously.
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Also shout-out to that fairy-tale episode from season 1, where he plays an absolute cowardly wimp as a background character.
I know going back to a straight, white male leading guy is a bit of a step backwards. But I love how Pike is the absolute positive counter example to toxic masculinity and cringe "tough guys". And still (or because?) manly as hell. Go be proud of your cooking, Sir!
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Imagine what would have happened if they had added a non-cis-straight character! SHEER MADNESS!
Pike does his job very well as a soft approach leader. He's not loud, he's not boisterous, he is confident in his people and their ability to do their job.
He reminds me of Colonel Potter in all the ways that matter.
He reminds me of Colonel Potter in all the ways that matter.
Pike has a lot of the qualities I love about Sisko. One of the most important is approachability. For example, you see Sisko host and cook dinner for his crew on multiple occasions. He takes them to baseball games. He finds a cargo bay for O'Brien to convert into an arboretum because he wants to make her happy, and has a heart to heart letting O'Brien know he understands that seeing someone you love being unhappy is difficult and you would do anything to make them happy. Sisko understands that a happy crew is not only a productive crew, but a crew more willing to go that extra mile for even tiny tasks.
Pike is a captain that truly understands this, and he's quickly becoming my second favorite captain.
Pike is a captain that truly understands this, and he's quickly becoming my second favorite captain.
Yep. This is a myth that keeps growing in the retelling, to the extent that too many folks now take for granted that it actually happened.
My understanding is that, yes, there was concern that Southern stations might boycott that episode because of the Kiss. And NBC was braced for lots of angry letters and phone calls. People did indeed worry about what might happen.
But, in the end, there were no boycotts and no big controversy. As historic as that episode was, the response was actually fairly muted at the time.
This is not a very dramatic punchline, however, so, over the years, the fact that NBC was nervous about the Kiss morphed into the myth of widespread boycotts, probably because that makes a better story. As is often the case, a kernel of truth got widely exaggerated over the years.
I watched this one the other night and I thought it was pretty good. Excellent performances by the cast. Honestly, the actress who plays T'Pring is absolutely amazing at playing a Vulcan. She somehow has charm, wit, humor, etc all while under the "mask" of the supresed Vulcan. I loved the non-corporeal species the encountered...they were funny and interesting all at once.
Jess Bush is also absolutely amazing in this show.
Here's the catch, though. I don't care about Spock and Chapel as a couple, and I really am starting to get nervous that, only 15 episodes in to the series, we have a whole bunch of T'Pring / Spock / Chapel focus. It just seems weird. I LIKE them in a bubble, but I think this is a well that can't be gone too as often as they are if they want to keep the series fresh and interesting for me. And I get a little tired of "Loss of Control Spock" to be honest.
7/10 Good stuff, nothing shattering though.
Jess Bush is also absolutely amazing in this show.
Here's the catch, though. I don't care about Spock and Chapel as a couple, and I really am starting to get nervous that, only 15 episodes in to the series, we have a whole bunch of T'Pring / Spock / Chapel focus. It just seems weird. I LIKE them in a bubble, but I think this is a well that can't be gone too as often as they are if they want to keep the series fresh and interesting for me. And I get a little tired of "Loss of Control Spock" to be honest.
7/10 Good stuff, nothing shattering though.
I've always had a problem with that.
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