@avclub-d80126524c1e9641333502c664fc6ca1:disqus Baltar wasn't really a cult "leader," though, more of a cult figurehead. One or two of the women seemed to be calling all the shots, and even when he did take more of a stand, it was at Head Six's behest (leading to the greatest twisted moral in history: "There is a way…

It also squicked me out, for the same reason. The Dresden Files has been building something similar for the last several books, but I'm giving it the benefit because it's been much slower to develop (as opposed to a near-retcon introduced in the sequel series) and half the characters, including the protagonist, think…

I might do something incredibly annoying when I see "Man of Steel" for that very reason.

That joke was better as the swordfish bit in the "Get Smart" movie.

They kind of did against Clark's advanced destroyers near the end of season 4. I don't think it was the animator's intention to show a new capability of the ship, but when Ivanova has the White Stars attacking in formation, they pinwheel around the lead ship in such a way that would require a tremendous amount of…

@avclub-e53fc2424af041d07a7eef5cd8773505:disqus It's essentially what he had in the show. I don't remember if it was in this episode or one of the later ones where he and Franklin start becoming Space Bros 4 Life (or maybe the Minbari rebirth ceremony one), but he sums up the way he joined the Rangers is he lived his…

It could've been improved with better staging. If Ivanova just turns her head slightly so she's talking to Marcus, Delenn, or Lennier after the "No, and neither should you!" outburst, when she explains what they're subtexting about, it makes more sense.

I think that was why he was trying to cut them loose. He wanted to end the relationship with the Shadows before they had wrung Centauri Prime dry and decided to dispose of them.

There was an early version of the Crusade pitch where Marcus was part of the crew. I don't know about when the precise dates line up or when JMS decided what would happen to him, so it might've been during season 4, before JMS decided he'd go on ice, or after that, and part of the Crusade pilot would involve Marcus…

@avclub-b31df16a88ce00fed951f24b46e08649:disqus @avclub-945ba977c27d196cdeaf6cbe4ff682f4:disqus It's just gotten a bit frustrating that the chief complaint about the books (more often than not from people who have just heard about them second-hand) is that they either are sequels to on-screen events, or use one-shot…

@AmaltheaElanor:disqus Shale! It's all lies and shale!

@avclub-4c9aab06f63ad6870758bb31de6ecec1:disqus I knew some people in college were big Ayn Rand fans (and I'm talking about the ones who liked her for political/libertarian reasons, not the artsy-types who liked her for the iconoclastic themes in "The Fountainhead," and were only sociopathically individualistic in…

I remember that one (okay, there was more than one, but one of them) kid with more hormones than sense in High School suggesting on the bus that you should be allowed to kill one person a year as a freebie.

The part in the review saying, "…it speaks to a conflict at Worf’s heart, the struggle that defines the Klingon soul," reminded me of T'Pau in "Amok Time." Which made me wonder about some kind of insane alternate universe where they remade that episode for TNG instead of "The Naked Time."

Context matters. I don't remember if they said if past-Worf was involved in the founding of the Klingonesque faction, but if he was, he doubtless had his reasons that present-Worf wouldn't share on the day when planting was this society's (or the crew's) last great life-affirming act, and if it happened after he died…

@avclub-0c3e626d1a287cdc48c77515c8dcc243:disqus There was a bit in the "New Frontier" novel series (which, in part, was a 24th century throwback to the brand of Weird Outer Space Shit™ that happened during TOS) where, in response to one of the more unbelievable adventures the ship went on, an Admiral talked about how…

It's Star Trek, though. Meeting people whose existence depends on your future actions isn't too far off from them being merely hypothetical (or rather, hypothetical people are just your future descendants from timelines that haven't come back to visit yours). The characters in Star Trek have frequently met people from…

"Rodek" was one of the characters in a relatively Klingon short-lived Klingon-focused series, because apparently the writers and editors never got the memo that using Star Trek characters in Star Trek stories makes you worse than Hitler. He was on the featured ship, along with an about-equal mix of on-screen…

@AmaltheaElanor:disqus There was a record (later re-released as a CD with some extra bits) called "Inside Star Trek" that had an "interview" between Gene Roddenberry and Sarek (played by Mark Leonard, in character), and one of the things they went over was the technical details of the birth of Spock. It's not…

@avclub-ee5bfdf797c80ececac6473cf1e8407d:disqus I don't think I have the book handy, but now that you mention it, I believe Stoner was an intermediary.