lowercase tv journal: star trek discovery (2017)

tv journal: writing + journal + review

star trek discovery (2017) – cbs

i can’t say i was waiting anxiously for this but there was a buzz amongst my friends.

i’m a guy who loves primarily the next generation-

if i have insomnia, i put tng on my phone,

i set the phone upside down on the bed frame,

i listen to the opening scene of whatever episode

and it leads in to patrick stewart monolog,

and the familiar chimes and theme,

and by the time the theme is done, i’m usually passed out.

i have a fondness for this show that lulls me into sleep.

 

comfort watching.

 

so i put my credit card in for cbs all access so i could watch

discovery.

the lighting and sets,

special effects all look great.

 

the klingons- i’m sorry, i can’t help thinking that the klingons

are just a metaphor for black people, and that bothers me.

the white albino klingon doing… something? lighting the beacon.

 

they put a twist on the usual do-gooder mentality of star trek and the

federation by focusing

on sonequa martin-green’s character- the half-vulcan half-human (i think?)

who ultimately (spoiler spoiler) winds up betraying the asian

captain.

 

i had no idea where this series was going to go until the

trailers for next time

popped up.

 

michael (sonequa’s character) winds up heading to prison,

and then it looks like jason isaac’s character recruits her

to be on the discovery.

 

okay so some weirdness and dislikes i had: 

-the musical theme wasn’t strong. just kind of a bland strumming of strings with a couple of musical familiar elements thrown in.

-the opening credits of blue printy type
michaelangelo drawings was just okay.

-i already talked about how i think the
klingons are a not good race substitute.

-just go to war and shoot first:
are they trying to grab the republican audience?

-doug jones’s science officer character is
basically an alien c3po but that’s great.

-i’d like a little more “star-trekky” moral
conundrums and sci-fi stuff.

-the gender-mixing of captain and first
officer was good – even down to the stereotypically
male first name given to a female character

ultimately: i liked it.
it was less action-y than i thought it was going to be,
in a good way.
i don’t like the star-wars-ification of the trek franchise.

big question is: should I keep forking over 6$ a month to watch it? mayyyybe.

 

Preacher – S2 Ep 13 (Finale) The End of The Road

Review: Mostly worth your time.

The series really felt like it was trying to push the narrative along, but got stalled out in Louisiana. Jesse teams up with Starr. Eugene teams up with Hitler and inadvertently sets him loose upon the world. Cassidy and Tulip begin the process of leaving New Orleans. Denis’s evil ways get to Cassidy. Denis doesn’t eat or kill the dog, but he makes creepy intimations to Cassidy about doing something with Tulip. Maybe the best scene of the episode came when Cassidy pushes Denis out the window only to burn to death. That was Cassidy’s attempt at not becoming an evil vampire as opposed to the good vampire he is right now.

Tulip gets shot as she’s saying goodbye to the Grail lady whose name I never bothered to remember because her character is pretty bland. Jesse rushes back after we see him unable to use the Word on a bunch of fake terrorists. Cassidy offers to save Tulip by turning her into a vampire, and Jesse says they should just let her die.

The final scene shows them headed to the ranch / plantation that Jesse lived in with his grandmother (probably?), with a dead Tulip in tow. They’re referencing the first scene of the episode where his grandmother apparently revived a chicken after Jesse killed it in a fit of Rage.

This episode, like others, is doing a lot of setting up to get from one point to another. Again, I keep thinking about that first Preacher episode from season 1. The violence was stylized and brutal. The characters were sympathetic and complex. This season just doesn’t seem the same. The fight scenes are kind of what you’d expect, and we don’t really have any sympathetic “regular mortal” characters this season at all.

I hope next season gets off to a better start.

I’m sick. So here’s what I’m watching.

I’m working on the second day of being sick- a head cold- the dog’s helping, of course. He’s laying on the couch in front of a space heater, and nudging me to take him out on walks. I’m Google Hangout-ing into my work meetings and keeping my microphone on mute so they can’t hear me hack and they can’t hear me talking to the dog as he’s pestering me.

When you’re sick, it’s the best time to binge watch TV. That’s definitely what I’ve been doing.

Community – Last part of season 1: 

My friend dog-sits for me and lets me use her Hulu account. I log in and see the “Shows You Watch” category. We have clear differences in what we like. You can pick them out: Hers- Kardashian things, Grey’s Anatomy, uh… actually I have no idea what else is on there because they all seem like variations of those two things. Mine: Community, Seinfeld, Adventure Time, Stephen Universe, Samurai Jack.

Community is finally getting good. I’ve heard friends say how they love the show because it plays with the format of the sit com itself, but I hadn’t gotten to that part until now. The first part of season 1 is kind of mood-setting, treating the characters as you would in any sit com: the weird one, the shy one, the cool one, etc etc. But after a certain point in season one they start being self-referential. It’s starting to get good. I dose up and… oh great my ADD or cold meds are kicking in. Here’s what else I’m watching-

Hell On Wheels : 

Cheesy at parts, but then it redeems itself with some beautifully screwed up racial politics and dynamics. It’s like Deadwood-light. With less likable characters.

Batman: Year One : 

I’m sure I watched this before at some point, but I can’t remember. This is the adaptation of the comic that began my love of Batman and gritty comics. It’s a faithful retelling of the comic book story. The best part is Bryan Cranston as Gordon. Oh and you wouldn’t know it from listening to her, but it’s Katee Sackhoff as Ellis. Or is it Ennis? I’m still on cold meds. I can’t wait for The Killing Joke to be released next month, even if Rotten Tomatoes did rate it pretty harshly.

Sleepy Hollow (the Tim Burton movie) : 

I rated this on one of my blogs a couple of years ago and I think I was more disturbed by it back then as opposed to now. It’s a good movie. Bloody as hell but that’s part of the fun. It’s cool to see Christopher Walken have no lines in the movie and yell like a madman. Netflix informed me that Big Eyes was also directed by Tim Burton, and I’ve yet to see that so I suppose that’ll be coming up soon in my sick-watch list.

Soundbreaking (PBS series): 

It looks like George Martin (Not R.R.) helped fund this cool series about music that’s kind of divided up into weird sections. Voice, electronic music, producers- each episode takes a different facet of each of those and then lets the pros in the field do the talking. There’s no voice over narrator. It’s great zoning-out TV, with a parade of all these people from every musical genre talking about how they make music. It made me plug in my guitar and pedals and start noodling around on it. My dog woke up and gave me the stink eye for a bit so I stopped.

Spotlight:

Holy shit, this movie is fantastic. (No pun intended there.) It’s along the lines of Woodward and Bernstein uncovering stuff, but it’s great and if you’re like me and despise organized religion, this will just get your ire up even more. I love watching Michael Keaton act in just about anything (maybe Mr. Mom is an exception). It’s appalling how many priests got away with molesting kids and how the Catholic church covered it up. The movie making is kind of on the dull side, as my friend Bill pointed out when I texted him about how great this movie was. He’s right, but I think it works for this narrative. There’s also only one black guy in the whole movie. Hey if we’re making a movie I think it’s okay to cast against type and race every once in a while. Just try that more, Hollywood. Okay?

I’m sure there’s more but I can’t remember them. Didn’t John Donne keep some kind of diary about when he was surviving the plague? I’m sure if he had Netflix, he’d be much happier. Did he have a dog? He needed one of those, too.

(Forgive all the misspellings in this post. I’m not 100% with it.)