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I finally watched Star Trek Discovery Season 4
I gave up on Star Trek Discovery after Paramount began messing around with where and when Season 4 would be shown. This wasn’t a hard decision because the show had, by the end of season 3, essentially completed the broader story. After a long, circuitous and often grim path, Michael Burnham had become the captain…
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Strange New Worlds Season 2
In a different timeline I could have had twenty posts instead of two but Romulan time agents stopped that happening. Another fun season. I enjoyed even the weaker parts. I like how this show tribute to Majel Barrett is to have two very different-looking but quite stunning actors play the characters she originated. In season…
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Strange New Worlds Season 1
In November 2021 I gave up on Star Trek: Discovery when it was pulled from Netflix with the international roll-out of the Paramount+ streaming service. I was OK with that. Discovery wasn’t over but it had reached a sensible endpoint. Time has passed and for reasons unrelated to my interest in Star Trek, I have…
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Picard Season 3
I’ll avoid spoilers for those who have yet to see the finale. What to say? if you were a fan of The Next Generation then season 3 was aimed at you, particularly if you were feeling nostalgic. The final episode was stupid in a very fun way with some excellent comedic parts, especially for Worf.…
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Could Star Trek do a series like Andor?
Sure, why not? After all, it wasn’t obvious until Andor had been going for a few episodes that Star Wars could do a series like Andor. The world is full of surprises. If somebody wanted to do a series very specifically like Andor, that followed a character as they are radicalised into a liberation struggle…
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Starfleet and fascism
It would be odd to call Starfleet, as portrayed in various versions of Star Trek, as fascist. Yet there it is, a large military organisation with uniforms and ranks that appears to have taken on multiple state functions: science, diplomacy, policing, exploration. What we see looks like a state run along military lines, which, sounds…
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Review: Picard Season 3 episodes 1-4 (spoilers)
It was definitely worth waiting to see where this season was going. As it turns out, the first episodes have their own semi-complete arc. The story is far from finished but this is a distinct chunk of storytelling. Overall, this season of Picard is playing it safe and leaning into nostalgia and classic plot elements…
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Not really a review of Picard Season 3 episodes 1 & 2
Luckily (or perhaps unluckily), Picard Season 3 is still available in Australia on a service I have rather than Paramount+. I’m watching it and two episodes in, it is fine so far but…well we’ve been here before and both previous seasons have ended up weaker as they progressed. This final season appears to be leaning…
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Could you rewrite the Lord of the Rings as a techno-thriller?
Despite my attempt to resolve forever the difference between fantasy and science-fiction, apparently, my typography-based typology has yet to catch on and the never-ending discourse continues. I have mentioned before that while we make conscious attempts to define categories by sharp rules, our brains do weird things with them. One model (disputed) for the underlying…
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The problem with streaming era Trek
Star Trek has had a number of incarnations and has had a fair share of dud episodes, inconsistent ideas and poor choices. Nonetheless, it has pushed forward as a franchise that delivers interesting science fiction stories and ideas. I believe we can draw a relatively neat circle around a current era of Trek that distinguishes…
Camestros Felapton
FELAPTONL
Camestros Felapton 