I’ve been wracking my brain tryna think of parallels in other long-running fan communities - from Trekkies to Whovians to Baker Street Irregulars, even. Trek in particular has some capacity for toxicity, but also has some bona fide stinkers in the franchise, and doesn’t quite reach the operatic crescendos of fanboying…

In one fell swoop, Johnson addressed my one overarching point in the eternally useless Wars vs. Trek nerdsquabble - that Wars, for all its engagingly fantastical saga, can be readily distilled down to a family soap opera. Which is not a point of criticism, mind you - it’s a feature common to the fantasy inspirations…

This is wholly correct, but I’d only add that Luke is by far the most central point of identification in the Original Trilogy. Sure, Leia and Han get plenty to do - and there’s plenty reason to find one’s self more attached to and enamored of them. But Luke is not only the entry point into the broader narrative in A…

“Fine” is an interesting take. Certainly not wrong in any way.

Random ‘pinions:

For my money, it was probably the single most awkward part of the retro-re-retcon built into the premise of Enterprise.

I caught it on Netflix US. I’m not certain about your location, but I see it available for rent on YouTube:

That’s why I present it as a tension of gradient, instead of a black-and-white binary choice. The episodic format certainly has its strengths - it lets the writers play with tone and structure, it allows certain characters to rotate into the foreground. It’s certainly clear to me that some of the series most…

I get that you’re shading the boots offa Enterprise, but I’ve staunchly defended the last season of ENT as a winning formula, balancing short, digestible serialization against the episodic format in a way that was - alas, too little, too late. But I still stand by that last season as some of the most consistently…

That last season of Penny Dreadful - I mean, the show already operated at such operatic heights of Grand Guignol, I found his Dr. Jekyll to be just that much more thinly sketched and one-note a character that already spent a lot of time playing against and into well-established genre archetypes. In Latif’s defense, I…

I don’t think it a certainty - but it’s certainly consistent with the nebulous ethic we’ve seen Lorca operating by these past few episodes. It’s part of what makes him a compelling, interesting character, that Isaacs’ performance and the writing support this view where we get to see both ruthless pragmatism and a…

I’m guessing you’ve seen Shatner’s Chaos on the Bridge documentary. Which mostly just crystallizes the rumors and open secrets that’ve floated about the anarchic first couple of seasons of TNG’s production. In that frame, it’s astounding that TNG managed to right its ship at all.

I beg to differ. The first season or two of DS9 had plenty enough clunkers - ‘Move Along Home’? ‘If Wishes Were Horses’? ‘Melora’? In your credit, though - those entries were probably no worse than anything the first season of TNG had to offer.

One realizes that the terrible tension Discovery has to walk upon being that there are fundamental, structural, tectonic issues with the Trek formula that this show has got to address. At least, that’s been to my eyes, the most distinct source of consternation going on amidst the fans in the months, years of buildup…

FWIW, Zack and the other AV Club writers that’ve given treatments to the various Trek shows over the years have a clear fondness for the property. But moreover, have given decent indication they approach each series as its own unique entity. But one that still exists within a meta-continuity and franchise that goes…

Walter White. Don Draper. Tony Soprano. Whatever iteration of Bruce Wayne is on television this week.

I mean- the tricky part about any prequel being that every word in every minute of every episode is by definition, ret-con. Some certainly more noteworthy than others. There are certainly more central criticisms in that vein - not the least of which being Spock’s adoptive human sister that he never mentioned.

Not that it’ll necessarily be consolation - but remember when TNG premiered? Essentially the same kinds of arguments were bandied about. And again, when DS9 premiered, if phrased differently. Voyager got off relatively scot-free in this regard, by virtue of prior spin-off successes. But Enterprise certainly took on a…

Speaking only for myself - I’m cool with the show putting the Klingons on a backburner for a bit, as we can stand to get to know the core ensemble on Discovery a little better. Even if I’m not certain this particular episode delivers so much on that regard.

I mean - I don’t think it’s unreasonable to acknowledge that certain franchise properties carry the weight of certain kinds of expectation surrounding them. For comparison, when Star Wars movies come out - the fan chorus of naysaying and fanboying swell operatically, even before the broad ubiquity of social media.…