I dunno, respect for the chain of command is one of the first things they drill into you in any form of military training. These are the equivalent of the kids who, as Zack says, study 6-7 hours a day, so it's hard to believe they're going to turn the ship into Lord of the Flies when there's still anything remotely…

Wow, that's like pulling a straight flush the first time you sit down at a poker table, except in reverse.

This is my boom stick.

Yeah, for all the Bajoran religions' problems, it does feel a lot more complex and fleshed-out than the Minbari religion, which is a problem because the two main Minbari characters are PRIESTS.

It's been a while since I've seen "Inquisition" and its follow-ups (SPOILER) but from what I recall, weren't Section 31's claims to being an all-powerful Illuminati-esque organization eventually revealed to be somewhat dubious? I got the impression that it was just a handful of people in a room somewhere—the better to…

Plus, y'know, on TOS. Well, they were Space Pirates on that show instead of Space Mafia, but it's a lateral move really.

Yep. DC is being run by Bob Harras, who's a 90s guy through and through, and wants to go back to that era of stupid, "edgy" comics filled with gimmicks and endless #1s, never mind that it ended up basically destroying the comics industry. Ironically, DC managed to avoid it the first time around.

Well yeah, that's my whole point. There was no reason for him to be Khan, and in making him Khan they created an incoherent character. Even if he was one of Khan's supermen they would have had to move his whole backstory offscreen. (Which of course highlights a big problem with AbramsTrek: someone ELSE had to discover…

I guess so, but I got the impression this was more of a John W. Campbell-style "hard" SF mag. Bradbury (and Ellison) could sneak in there, but I'm not sure Moorcock would (and he was mostly published in British magazines anyway, wasn't he?)

The thing is, Cumberbatch's Khan has NOTHING in common with Montalbahn's, even aside from the ethnicity thing. His Khan-backstory is shuffled offscreen hastily in order to present him as an entirely new character, basically. It's…really kind of dumb.

I don't think this was clunky and crazy at all, Zack. I thought it was a great review. Of course maybe I'm just saying that because you nailed what I was trying to say when we were arguing about this episode in the comments a couple months back, but hey…INSIGHT!

That's an entertaining notion, that you can map them all onto real SF writers. That would make Visitor's character Leigh Brackett, right? And if Siddig is a fantasist, he could be…hmmm…well, I want to say Michael Moorcock, even though the timelines are a little early, just because he's British. He probably wouldn't be…

Then there's Marc Alaimo, who is frankly terrifying without his makeup.

"Want to discuss sexual orientation and gender issues? Put everything on another planet, with aliens who look just like us but are slightly different, and have a ball."

That first post sure sounds like he's specifically arguing that they're both on the same level, creatively, which I can't agree with. They both became bland sellouts, but that's not the point. There is definitely a reason why classic Peanuts is revered above Garfield.

I was a budding cartoonist (am now a wilting cartoonist) and I think it was just the thing that was in front of me that let me study cartoons in depth. I had a buddy who had all the Garfield books at the time, so I was kind of immersed in it; he gave me a signal boost. If someone had given me a stack of superhero…

I know plenty of Gen-Xers like myself who revere Peanuts, despite reading it long after it had passed its prime. And I think they're right to. What you're missing is that Peanuts, for all that it sold out, was legitimately great in its heyday, whereas Garfield was merely OK at its best. I'd argue some of the animated…

I can vouch for this. My dad took us to see Gremlins when I was around…5, I think? I was terrified, but my little sister just sat there munching popcorn. It didn't register with her.

That's classic ghost story logic. The idea being that they were driven by greed in life, so they still haunt the world, claiming their treasure, long past the point when it makes any sense for them to do so.

Hang on just a moment, though. You can argue about the 90s being somewhat toothless for kid's entertainment (though that was also the era of Batman: The Animated Series, The Nightmare Before Christmas, some surprisingly dark stuff in Disney movies, etc.) but the 80s had its own watchdogs. I'm pretty sure it was…