As Per My Previous Email

We just got back from the San Diego show, and come on. That’s the Super Bowl for nerds; everybody just has the best time, and, if you don’t, you’re probably standing in line for four hours. But, and this seems weird to the civilians, but if you’re standing in line for four hours to see something or someone… a favorite cast from a show you love or a chance to interact with some celebrity you admire… you have a level of commitment to the things you love maybe a “regular” wage-slave isn’t going to understand unless you put it into perspective for them. There is really no functional difference between them painting their faces silver and suiting up in the Raiders jersey they won in the last office pool and you motoring down the aisles in your screen-accurate 12-foot high Galactus suit with the lights and the spinning motors in the ears looking out from a slit in the neck-join and wobbling around on three foot stilts. I mean, come on, man, it’s the same thing, and, if anything, the nerds have got you beat because who are you rooting for? The Las Vegas Raiders? Come on.

Anyway, you guys checking in may remember last year we handed out Miz Tiffany’s wooden quatloos to much acclaim and Brian Denham said something like, “I could use one of these if it was a coaster.” So I know a good idea when I hear one and made some, not out of porous wood (because, you know, coaster) but of whatever half-absorbent shellack they make bar coasters out of. Up top there is Josh Morgan and his family and me revelling in the show in general and Star Trek in particular, throwing Vulcan gang signs and just kind of having a blast. So, there are fans of Star Trek of all kinds everywhere but boy was that vibe sort of self-selecting. There was Tony Kim and his TOS chair at the Hero Within booth, guys like us there to work so can’t really join in besides be a destination for folks to make their quatloo pilgrimage and rap a bit with a guy who gets their love because he shares it too. Thanks to all the new pals who stopped by and the guys from the old days and thanks to Walker and Steve for crushing the publishing house booth and the Dork Court thing in general. What a blast.

We got home in record time (to the point Mimi, who was following our progress up the 5 texted Walker: “Daddy’s driving like a bat out of hell!”), mostly because I wanted to see my wife and cats and watch the latest episode of Strange New Worlds.

Oh, dear.

Captain John Price of the USS Kitty Hawk will be joining us at some point for the evisceration on Dork Court Actual but let me just say it was alarming, I say, alarming how many folks said a version of “finally, a Star Trek episode with zombies in it” to us like this was a thing serious fans have been clamoring for over the years. I mean, what? The dead rise again is about the most creatively bereft thing ST can do. Star Trek is a show that explores philosophical and ethical mores in the guise of science fiction, as I’ve said a million times. “l am black on the right side,” right? The most silly thing imaginable representing one of the most telling bits of human nature. It’s just an insane tightrope walk that always works. “l am black on the right side” is kind of a slap of awareness if you’re a kid or an adult, and it’s like that meme somebody wrote I half-remember some genius did about how all TNG episodes are called “Explosion” and it’s about a big explosion and all TOS episodes are called something like “Lo, There Shall Come the Stranger as But Soft through Yonder Window Dawn Doth Break” or whatever and it’s about an intelligent space frog with Daddy issues. His is better, but that’s the gist.

Anyway what does it mean if some rando like you or me understands Star Trek better than the present stewards? The Skydance purchase can’t go through quick enough so they can sit everybody down and have a goddamn think about what they are going to do to advance the property. Giving US Grade-A hunk of man Anson Mount a stupid haircut and waffling with indecision on the bridge every episode and crying that his honey is going to be half-Gorn? That’s insane. Kirk, Tracy, Picard, Jellico, even Lieutenant Castillo? Can you imagine anybody with Academy points and a firm grasp on the mission saying ANYthing they gave Mount to say last year much less these three eps of this season? Nossir you cannot, because it’s just so atonal to write one of the best shows ever made like it’s a CW soap opera revamp. It’s embarrassing and obvious and so, so minimum effort.

Give me STAR TREK: LAST SHIP or STAR TREK: M*A*S*H (Incoming transport. Incoming transport.) or STAR TREK: CYRANO JONES AS COLUMBO or whatever but make it STAR TREK. Scotty is younger than Kirk? Kirk is played by a timid skinny dude instead of a fireplug of a guy? Akiva begging the fans to write Skydance and tell them he should keep his job with this nonsense output is almost as bad if not a little worse than M’Talas Prime and Dave Blass begging for Star Trek: Legacy to continue.

Somebody needs to give us some Star Trek, and not this. M’Benga and Spock saving Captain Patel’s life by fusing the Gorn DNA is about the most Star Trek thing you can do to explore the human condition. What does it mean to be human? What does love mean in the time of cholera, or, you know, Gorn bites? What does it do to your self-image when bad luck changes your form and it wasn’t your idea? Explore those themes, not just nod to them.

I’ll tell you what, a captain of a Federation starship isn’t going to cry about his bad luck about what bit his girlfriend, I’ll tell you that.

These guys have lost the thread, and it’s embarrassing. Let it sit and then come back with people who understand the property, and how to write science fiction. I assume they’re hiring those guys, but they aren’t letting the targ off the leash and if not what are we all doing here?

Writing the same article until they smarten up, I guess. They’ll get tired from missing the target before I tire of telling them they have no clothes.