Various and Sundry

Skydance to Buy Paramount*

As John Oliver might say, “A lot happened last week,” but there’s one news story that I wanted to highlight. Paramount aka Paramount Global aka the latest incarnation of CBS Corporation & Viacom aka Mithrandir (for certain brain-addled elves) has a buyer. You can learn about it from an official notice, their own news division (CBS) talking about it, as well as: Both NPR and Variety have some questions about the deal and what this…

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Acting Raves

Doug Jones aka a Tall Drink of Water: Horror Edition

As mentioned the other week, Star Trek: Discovery has begun its final season. One of the highlights of the series for me has been the character of Saru, played by Doug Jones. There are a lot of actors whose mere presence bodes well for a production, but Doug Jones is one who historically has done so with his physical presence. In fact, one one level, he’s harder to spot than Gary Oldman, because while Gary…

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Producing Various and Sundry Writing

Star Trek’s Mission Log: 58 Years & Counting

The beginning of the end of Star Trek: Discovery‘s five-year mission streams this Thursday, April 4th. Originally, this fifth season of Discovery was apparently not intended to be the final one, which has caused all kinds of rampant speculation online. However, Trek overall, is not only not going anywhere, the powers that be want to maintain what isn’t just a franchise, but a veritable Intellectual Property (IP) empire. In a longform cover story for Variety,…

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Various and Sundry

A Viewing Guide for Star Trek: Voyager

One aspect of Trekdom I discovered when I released my rankings of all the Star Trek series was how many people loved Star Trek: Voyager. Oh sure, I knew people were fans. And I became a bigger fan on my rewatch. But I hadn’t counted on the love. And just as with all Star Trek series, there are wonderfully Trekkish episodes to love here. So if you haven’t watched Voyager since the 90s — or…

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Rants Various and Sundry

The Promise of Star Trek: Prodigy Cut Short

I debated whether or not to mention what has been widely reported in both trade publications and fan sites, but so many visitors come to my blog for the Star Trek content. So here’s the deal: Star Trek: Prodigy has been removed from the Paramount+ less than a week since the decision was announced. Why, it’s almost like they forgot their declared goal of not quite a year ago: Sigh. Yeah, it won’t be the…

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Various and Sundry

A Viewing Guide for Star Trek: The Next Generation

With the airing of the final season of Star Trek: Picard, my ranking of all the Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) episodes is getting a steady amount of traffic. So going from the viewing guide for one of the least watched series in the franchise, Enterprise, let’s go to a Trek series that still ranks as the most watched… and based on feedback is clearly one of the most beloved. Much like many of…

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Various and Sundry

A Solid Reason to Watch Star Trek: Picard

On Saturday, I linked to an article about actor Michael Dorn and his long-running portrayal of the character of Worf across multiple Star Trek series and movies. Last week, the third episode of Star Trek: Picard‘s final season gave him a glorious (formal) introduction that is already spawning memes across the Interwebs. In fact, the whole season promises to give us a measure of closure with the TNG era on many fronts. There’s the main…

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Various and Sundry

The Final Act of Worf’s Klingon Opera

I never wanted a Next Generation (TNG) season eight out of Star Trek: Picard as many fans did, but I did want more satisfying closure with the Next Generation characters than was offered by Nemesis. With that in mind, I’ve enjoyed this latest and reportedly last season of Picard, still underway. As Dylan Roth explores for Polygon, perhaps no character deserves closure more than that of the quintessentially non-Merry man: Worf. As a huge Deep…

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