I don’t think that’s true, at all.

I mean, what you’re describing is a character arc. He started off that way and it’s still showing glimmers, but the entire point of the book (and series) is that, over time, he slowly sheds that arrogance and appreciates, respects, and participates in that culture and society.

If John Blackthorne, 1600s English pilot,…

This was a really enjoyable piece - it’s nice to have criticism about a current show that isn’t just an episode or whole-series review, which don’t always feel like the best format for TV writing.

Congratulations, you’ve discovered what Shogun has deliberately been about since the original book. Even being entirely from Blackthorne’s perspective doesn’t hide that he’s an idiot blundering around and wrecking everything he touches, and for years now my line to sell the story to people curious about it is “Imagine…

This is a great write up, but I have to disagree with you about the courtesan scene. He wasn’t trying to avoid making it seem like he thinks all Japanese women look alike, he was trying to hide his disappointment that it wasn’t (he is lead to believe) Mariko.  

This is actually an enjoyable and fairly well written article on what’s turning out to be the best show on TV right now. Whoever decided to saddle it with this asinine title should be fired.

Good think Gregory Peck is dead or else people would be mistakenly sending him abuse too.

The cast is insane. Will be a shame if such an opportunity is wasted. Burnett will indeed wake up at some point and if anyone can liven things up, it’s her.

“Try Maxine,” comes a male voice, in the tone of a therapist.

And wanted Ferengi to wear giant 12 inch + cod pieces that curved upwards. Yes.

I’m a much bigger Star Trek fan than Star Wars, but Roddenberry was problematic as hell and shouldn’t be remembered half as fondly as he is.

The difference between George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry is that Roddenberry died relatively early in the lifetime of the franchise, and since he is no longer around to remind us all how terrible he is, then it’s easy to fill in the gaps and pretend like he was a saint who made no bad decisions whatsoever.

DS9 violated a bunch of Gene Roddenberry rules (no religion, no wars, no inter-personal conflict) and is the best Star Trek there is.

I treat Roddenberry Rules as the Star Trek version of What Would Walt Do at Disney. Who cares? Walt has been dead and gone for 50 years. And Gene was kind of a hack. If it didn’t grow beyond him it would, and maybe should...die.

People seem to forget that Roddenberry was quite a horndog. Might be why he hired Rick Berman, lol

Huge respect to Roddenberry for kicking off Star Trek. But TNG didn’t get really good until they kicked Roddenberry to the curb, so I don’t see his “vision” as necessarily being all that great. And, by all accounts, he didn’t like Wrath of Khan, so his tastes are questionable.

Shatner’s Kirk would have been court-martialled before the end of the first OG season in any real military. What an inane argument for him to make.

I get it, Bill.

that includes crew members not making out with each other

Shatner states, “If they wrote something that wasn’t a stunt that involved Kirk, who’s 50 years older now, and it was something that was genuinely added to the lore of Star Trek, I would definitely consider it.”