59/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A fun, quick adventure with the Prodigy crew as they try to acquire a replacement part at a disreputable market, and Dal learns a bit more about command. The first of three middle-grade books released to tie into the show.
star trek
Trek has been part of my life since I was an infant. I have bookcases full of Trek books. One of my tattoos is the Vulcan calligraphy for “kol-ut-shan” (IDIC). This is my home fandom.
Prodigy Saved, But Netflix Makes Me Grumpy
First, the good news: Star Trek Prodigy, including its second season, will end up on Netflix. From Executive Producer Aaron J. Waltke on Mastodon:
At last we can share the news… Star Trek: Prodigy has landed!
Our show is beyond thrilled to be joining NETFLIX for the ongoing adventures of the Protostar crew.
[…]
The possibilities are endless now that the world can see all 40 episodes of Prodigy’s first and second seasons in one place…with the potential for more….
If you wish to see more…viewing the show on Netflix as soon as it drops…is unequivocally the way.
I must admit, I have mixed feelings about this.
The good side, obviously, is that Prodigy’s second season will actually be seen. And Aaron implies that there’s even a chance that, with enough viewership, they might get the option to continue on.
I just hate that this is going to end up (heck, it’s already there in Aaron’s post) being a “PLEASE WATCH IT ALL IMMEDIATELY YOU CAN’T WAIT YOU MUST BINGE IT ALL NOW BECAUSE THAT’S THE ONLY WAY NETFLIX THINKS PEOPLE WATCH ANYTHING AND THE ONLY CHANCE OF EVER GETTING ANY MORE” campaign.
I don’t like binging. I like watching an episode at a time, enjoying the story, letting it play out over time. Especially in shows I really enjoy (like the Star Trek universe), being able to think about an episode, enjoy the fanservice and callbacks, nitpick apart the retconning or mistakes, and generally geek out about it. But with full-season drops and the pressure to watch it all immediately (or, if they do decide to do weekly single-episode drops, to watch the newest episode within 24 hours of its appearance, preferably two or three times)…ugh.
And as someone who has a partner who isn’t as much of a Trek geek as I am, sometimes I don’t get a chance to watch a new episode for a few days — which by today’s standards, apparently means I’m not a real fan, and doesn’t count towards Netflix’s labyrinthine accounting of whether a show actually sticks around and gets more seasons, or suddenly disappears with the next budget cycle.
If it’s something I watch on my own, I watch when and as I can; if it’s something I want to watch with my partner, we watch it on our own schedule, and either way I resign myself to our numbers possibly not counting. Which is unfortunate, but I want to enjoy the things I enjoy, not feel like I have to rush through them faster than I like out of some weird sense of duty or obligation.
I also wonder how physical media factors into this. For instance, I’ve re-watched all of Lower Decks a couple times — but only the first watch was streamed, all re-watches were from the Blu-ray I purchased. Are home media purchases weighted higher because we’re likely to be re-watching things more, even if it’s not tallied in a database somewhere? Or, since there’s no way to tie an individual streaming account to a physical media purchase (well, in a perfect world; these days, who knows?), do they just look at my account as only having watched it once, so I must not be that interested?
Sigh. Streaming sure is convenient, but the backend business model is such trash.
So, yes, I’m happy that Prodigy will continue. I just wish Paramount had actually treated it like a full-fledged member of the Star Trek family and given it the support it should have had from the get-go.
Fingers crossed that this option goes well, though. And all grumbling aside, I really do wish Aaron and everyone else the best with this!
📚 The Romulan Prize by Simon Hawke
52/2023 – ⭐️⭐️⭐️
A better-than-average Romulan villain and a quest for a mysterious quarantined planet make this one quite enjoyable. Wraps up a bit quickly at the end, but even so, does so while bringing in some fun threads that could lead to more stories down the line (though I have no idea if the author wrote more Trek or followed up on any of those threads).
Year 50 Day 133
Day 133: It’s my first day back in the office in a month, after vacation and a week of working from home. The Head seemed a little put out by being ignored for a month, but was mollified when it saw that my desktop Star Trek ship collection is gaining the USS Cerritos from Lower Decks.
📚 Grounded by David Bischoff
47/2023 – ⭐️
Uff. Bad enough that the characterizations are off for everyone, especially Picard, and that the threat comes off as a bad B-movie monster. But on top of that, one of the introduced characters is described as “having Autism”, which is presented as a disease in a way that may have been acceptable 30 years ago, but is just offensive now, and, of course, which later gets tied to psychic abilities and is apparently curable. Cannot recommend.
Year 50 Day 129
Day 129: Happy Star Trek Day to everyone* who celebrates!
* Everyone except whoever decided to pull the plug on Discovery so suddenly that they had to re-shoot key moments of the last few episodes to cobble together a series finale instead of a season finale, whoever decided to pull the plug on Prodigy so suddenly that they’re still finishing the second season and hoping that someone else picks it up to broadcast it, and whoever decided that an appropriate Star Trek Day celebration was a 22-minute “special”, the first two episodes of Strange New Worlds on broadcast TV, five “very” short animated bits (only one of which debuts today), and a 25% discount on the online Star Trek store. Seriously, why are the Ferengi Pakleds in charge of this franchise?
(Updated to change Ferengi to Pakleds. The Ferengi are far too profit motivated to do this bad of a job keeping the fans engaged.)
📚 Nightshade by Laurell K. Hamilton
44/2023 – ⭐️⭐️
Some potentially interesting situations hobbled by poor writing and in need of at least one more editing pass. Characters seemed to make out of character decisions because that was what was needed to move the plot along. Not one of the more impressive TNG novels.
Year 50 Day 97
Day 97: At yesterday’s Norwescon picnic, I got a couple fun gifts from one of my friends. A full set of Star Trek glassware, with four glasses representing different planets and a shot glass representing a Borg cube, and a very cool but terribly impractical pizza cutter in the shape of the original NCC-1701 USS Enterprise. My friends know me well!
📚 Imbalance by V.E. Mitchell
35/2023 – ⭐️⭐️
This one starts with an interesting premise, as the Enterprise is sent to negotiate with aliens only briefly encountered before, the Jarada (the unseen, highly demanding aliens that were the B story in “The Big Goodbye”). But while there are hints of an interesting society, the rest of the book doesn’t hold together well. Actions are taken by the aliens that are never really explained, and Enterprise characters are either reduced to repetitious mannerisms (Dr. Crusher brushes locks of her flaming red hair out of her face nearly every time she’s mentioned) or simply badly portrayed (I know Keiko and O’Brien have difficulties, but in this book they’re both rendered nearly incompetent by their insecurities). Toss on a rather abrupt end to the whole thing, and this is one I wasn’t disappointed to reach the end of.
Turn on the lights!
This YouTube video shows how impressive of a job the Strange New Worlds/Lower Decks crossover did with reworking the opening credits in the Lower Decks style.
But part of what stands out to me is how well this highlights how woefully under-lit the live-action Enterprise is. There’s a ton of detail in the animated version that I’m sure is drawn directly from the live-action version (especially since, really, they’re both animated versions, just in different styles), and it’s gorgeous!
I understand that it’s a stylistic choice on the new shows (Discovery and Picard also did this a lot) to go for more “natural”/”realistic” lighting on their ships, and a ship traveling through deep space isn’t likely to have a convenient light source nearby to make it all pretty and shiny.
But — spoiler alert — none of this is real! (I know, I know, I struggle with this as well.) I’m entirely okay with adding “we can actually see the ships even when they’re in space” to the same base-level suspension of disbelief necessary for enjoying visual science fiction in general.
Update: Thanks to @kamartino@mastodon.online for pointing me to this video from Douglas Trumbull where he discusses directing the space dock sequence in The Motion Picture. At four minutes in, he specifically notes that they wanted to create a lighting design so that the Enterprise appeared to light itself, so even when the Enterprise was out in deep space, it would still be visible.