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Can Trump run for the presidency from jail? Could he win from jail?

Warner Bros. is giving serious thought to not releasing THE FLASH. I don't think they'll actually shelve it for a tax writeoff (SPRINGTIME FOR BARRY?), but they thought about it.
https://www.cbr.com/warner-bros-may-she … egal-woes/

I think that is a fair take on canon.

I'd like to say that all STAR TREK novels exist in a side-universe adjacent to the TV shows and movies... but then the novels went and blew up their continuity in the three volume CODA series.

**

Slider_Quinn21 said he'd heard that actor Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher) had a certain "dickishness" to people in his private life and at conventions. I finished reading STILL JUST A GEEK, the new edition of some of Wheaton's blog entries with new content. Wheaton was at the center of a seriously messed up situation from ages 7 to 30.

Wheaton annotates his original 2004 writings where he calls out a lot of his 1980s to early 2000s behaviour. He says that in the 2000s, he would blog about auditions and name the specific projects for which he auditioned before casting decisions had been made.

Speaking now in 2022, Wheaton says that it was grossly inappropriate for him to name the projects as it was putting pressure on casting directors. He also regretted taking each rejection at each audition so personally.

Wheaton also notes in 2022 that his 1995 - 2004 audition performances were probably not good; he'd been auditioning for roles where the character was "dangerous", where the character didn't care about other people's opinions.

Wheaton said he had played each (potential) character as unthreatening and insecure. It was perfectly understandable if people didn't hire him to perform as hyperconfident, reckless characters.

He observed: his best performances came from playing characters who didn't have a father. Who were trying to fill that hole with friendship, submachine guns, piloting a starship, or tormenting Sheldon Cooper. It was completely mismatched to the roles Wheaton was pursuing in the 2000s.

Wheaton in 2022 also apologized for the published 2000 - 2004 diary entries where he objectified women, saying it was crude to talk about female fans that way and disrespectful to his wife.

In the annotations, Wheaton describes himself as "an asshole" in his teen years and twenties, finally elaborating. He says that he was frequently moody, withdrawn and rude on the TNG set. He also looked down on the ORIGINAL SERIES actors for doing convention appearances and making a living off of decades-old work instead of doing anything new.

He was uncomfortable with fans talking to him because each interaction made him think he'd end up mining only his STAR TREK work like the TOS actors (and he notes the irony he ended up doing exactly that). He didn't want fans touching him; no hugs, no handshakes.

Wheaton explains: his mother forced him into child acting work when he was 7 years old. From that moment forward, Wheaton's life was going to sets to perform mostly among adults, doing photoshoots for teen magazines, and acting as a monetizable asset to support his parents' lifestyles.

He was repeatedly told by his mother that he'd wanted this career; he was repeatedly disparaged by his father if he didn't get a job. Wheaton felt under pressure (at age 7) to support his family as the only person working. His father mocked him when he felt tired from working so much. His mother told him he wasn't tired or upset about working so much. Wheaton barely spent time with friends his own age: his circle was the TNG cast (adults), and his manipulative mother and degrading father.

Reading between the lines, I'd guess Mr. Wheaton was insecure that his little boy was the family breadwinner; hating Wil allowed Mr. Wheaton to avoid any guilt for wringing all the money he could from the boy and working Wil until Wil cracked under the pressure and quit STAR TREK.

With all his film and TV work, young Wheaton had been too isolated to develop age appropriate social skills. His parents didn't love him, only the money he brought in. Interacting with fans or normal human beings felt like another form of being squeezed for profit. He became hyperaverse to physical contact and an anxious wreck of a human being.

Wheaton seemed to have a guardedly civil relationship with his parents from 1999 to 2009. Starting in 2009, before doing THE BIG BANG THEORY and getting a decent payday out of it, Wheaton decided to take over his finances as a grown-ass 30 year old man. He told his mother and father to hand over the financial details of the Wil Wheaton corporation (the registered business that received and processed all of his acting earnings and paid the taxes and union fees).

Wheaton's parents refused. Wheaton took action (or threatened legal action) and got all the banking information and receipts. Wheaton discovered that from 1986 to 1994, his parents had taken 85 percent of his earnings from his STAND BY ME and TNG performances and transferred that money into their own accounts. No savings, no investments. His parents took it and spent it.

Wheaton's parents had also taken 100 percent of Wheaton's residual payments from TNG from 1994 to 2009. These residuals for syndicated reruns and DVD releases had been hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, all of it going into Mr. and Mrs. Wheaton's pockets even as they watched their son -- whose work had earned all of this money -- facing crippling debt, foreclosure and potential homelessness, and starvation from 1999 to 2005.

Wheaton had borrowed money in 1999 from his parents for his wedding and house and frequently had to borrow additional amounts to buy food for his wife and adopted children (his wife's kids from a previous marriage). Wheaton discovered that the loans had come from his own corporation. Out of his residuals. His parents had lent Wheaton his own money and made him repay with interest.

Wheaton had spent 1999 to 2009 thinking all his STAR TREK money was gone (spent on a house for his new wife and her kids). Feeling stupid for leaving STAR TREK and its regular pay and savings. Ashamed for condemning his wife and children to life on the poverty line. But STAR TREK had never stopped paying Wheaton.

Paramount had been sending Wheaton six figure residuals every year since the mid-90s -- and his parents had intercepted the money for 15 years even as they saw Wheaton struggling to feed himself and his wife and his sons.

Wheaton demanded repayment, but his parents had spent all of the purloined funds, thinking they could appropriate Wheaton's annual STAR TREK payments indefinitely. Mr. and Mrs. Wheaton declared that as they had managed Wil's acting career on TNG, they were entitled to all of his residuals.

Wheaton promptly removed them from his corporation; his parents were enraged but had no legal recourse (it's the Wil Wheaton Corporation) and presumably didn't want their child labour exploitation in the press. Wheaton cut off any further contact and seethed for 10 years before making an angry 2020 Father's Day blog post where he raged about his father and mother (who, I assume, are still fuming that their abuse-fueled free ride is over).

When parents exploit their children this way, the children grow up believing that everyone on Earth will treat them the same way much as the Kaylon believed that any biological lifeform would be a threat. I can see why Wil Wheaton has a reputation for "dickishness". It could be well-earned, but he deserves pity. He is really screwed up.

I can see why Wheaton might be socially deficient, troubled, anxious, and suspicious of anyone and everyone after going through all of the above. The only winner here is Wheaton's psychotherapist; Wheaton is going to be attending sessions forever.

I will get to the other stuff later, but for now, I want to thank TF for his service to SLIDERS in watching the porn parody and encourage him to seek therapy and any other assistance needed in having seen even a few frames of what I am sure was a horrific and disturbing viewing experience.

I tend to highlight how Marc Scott Zicree risked life and sanity on that terrible day where he locked himself in an edit bay with all of Kari Wuhrer's direct to VHS movies to figure out how to write for Maggie in Season 4, but watching whatever the hell this thing was to make screencaps sounds much much worse.

Please have a hot beverage and think of better days.

I can't tell you what a SLIDERS porn story would be in terms of actual pornography because I don't watch porn. I'm not against it, but they don't make it for me. An... acquaintance showed me a few clips once during a very awkward evening and what it comes down to: most porn available is, from what I've seen, all about women as objects to provide male pleasure. That simply isn't what I want to see of women in media.

My desires are very different. My favourite episodes of ARROW are when they introduced the character of Mia Smoak, a college-aged girl who is revealed to be the daughter of the Green Arrow. She is played by the extremely athletic Katherine MacNamara (SHADOWHUNTERS). And I would feel my heart soar every time I watched Mia run, jump, dive, roll, punch, kick, swing, pivot, ricochet, dodge, block, parry, grapple, or nock an arrow to her bow and fire.

All I can tell you is that if SLIDERS -- for whatever reason -- had to have sex scenes inserted into its stories, well, there are already SLIDERS stories that were broadcast where their plots and character arcs would have been deepened and enhanced and further explored by sex scenes which are already in the stories -- they were just offscreen.

Interesting theory that Zaslav cancelled the BATGIRL release to try to save WB's DC slate from Ezra Miller: https://www.cbr.com/batgirl-dceu-contin … cellation/

In this other post, I remarked that with "The Breeder", SLIDERS tried to make a sexy porn movie and through incompetence made a body horror movie that isn't sexy but in fact repulsive in every way.
https://sliders.tv/bboard/viewtopic.php … 123#p13123

I wonder: if SLIDERS can do any sort of story in any genre, what are the pornographic, sexual stories of SLIDERS? Oddly, I don't think anyone needs to make them up; they have already been told but the sex was offscreen. By this, I mean that if SLIDERS were to do a sexually charged story that had sexual fantasies, the sex should be character and plot relevant. And SLIDERS has (mostly) written, filmed and aired these stories. However, there is not one SLIDERS sex story; there are four, one for each of the four original sliders.

I think Quinn's SLIDERS sex story was probably in "Love Gods" where he agrees to father Jane Hills' child. If there had been an actual sex scene, I think it would be about this older lady trying to make it as pleasant and romantic as possible for this reluctant but understanding college kid and also show that Quinn is someone who guards himself very much, holds himself apart -- and that he's giving Jane Hills a degree of intimacy that he doesn't usually grant anybody at all and trusting her to love and care for the daughter he'll never know. A sex scene would have added a lot of weight to Quinn bidding her farewell at the end of the episode.

I think Wade's SLIDERS sex story would probably be in "Obsession" where Wade has intense memories of having sex with Derek during their past life where their sex scene would be intensely trusting and warm and add to why Wade feels an instant connection and familiarity with Derek when she meets him again. This would make Wade feel more violated when Derek reads her mind without permission and add to the theme that consent is a conversation and Wade having consented to sex and intimacy and potential mindreading with Derek in the past does not mean that consent is eternal.

I think Rembrandt's SLIDERS sex story is probably in "The Weaker Sex" where Serena flatters, wines, dines, seduces and dumps him and a sex scene would be a parody of the male gaze where Rembrandt is the object of conquest which would make his lie about him dumping Serena when she dumped him funnier.

I think the Professor's SLIDERS sex story is probably in "Double Cross" where his double was cheating on his wife with Logan. I imagine that a sequel to "Double Cross" could reveal that the Professor found a disturbingly detailed diary from his double about having sex with Quinn's double. This leads to the Professor and Quinn have to deal with the painful awkwardness that their two doubles had a sexual relationship and think about how gender in some ways dictated their father-son bond. Meanwhile, Rembrandt finds it hilarious and Wade is mortified.

I think "Love Gods" might have benefitted from some more characterization via a Jane/Quinn sex scene, but "Obsession" and "Weaker Sex" would not have been deepened by additions; what's already onscreen is completely sufficient. And a Professor/Logan sex scene might have been interesting character work for a sequel to "Double Cross" where Quinn and Arturo are desperately trying to never ever ever discuss how how their doubles were having an affair, but it wouldn't be worthwhile for "Double Cross" itself.

If SLIDERS were to tell sexually-charged stories well, these stories would require the sexuality and fail to function if the sex were taken out. It wouldn't be like "The Breeder" where the sexuality is completely at odds with a non-humanoid biological form seeking to reproduce through infestation.

Sorry, I misunderstood the question which I see now was a request for the SLIDERS episode that one finds relaxing.

I am not sure such an episode of SLIDERS exists for me. As far as I can tell, only one episode of SLIDERS was ever made specifically to make the viewer 'relax' (in a way) and it was a failure. I myself don't really watch SLIDERS to take it easy. SLIDERS at its best is too engaging, too thought provoking, too challenging, too stimulating.

I guess "Summer of Love" is pretty lighthearted and "The King is Back" is pretty low stakes; so long as Tracy Torme is running the show, Rembrandt is never in real danger.

But even then, "Summer of Love" and "The King is Back" are fascinating explorations into rhythm and blues, black families and black pop culture and all the characters strike me as Torme writing loving pastiches of all the black people he and his father Mel must have known.

The way Torme writes black characters is interesting. A lot of TV in the 90s like BABYLON 5 wrote black characters as white people played by black actors. Torme writes black people with the knowledge that to be black is to have experiences that are unique to them.

Rembrandt-2's family in "Summer of Love" is in a constant state of competition and control. They constantly need to show off and show each other up; even Rembrandt being (presumed) dead is viewed as a chance to one-up him. But Torme renders that with loving amusement. These characters are all obviously based on people Torme knew in real life.

I think Torme can tell that black people have always had to work twice as hard as white people just to earn half as much if not less. Privileged or racist white writers often paint black people as greedy, but Torme quietly observes that black people are denied so much economic opportunity; it isn't greed as much as survival.

Rembrandt-2 in "Summer of Love" clearly hated the competition (and his wife) so much that he joined the army to fight in a hopeless war. Rembrandt-2 in "The King is Back" couldn't stand having to represent all black people and fled the spotlight, but his absence hurt his bandmates and closed doors and opportunities.

I find myself thinking about all these things and these are supposedly my two 'relaxing' episodes of choice. I think only one episode of SLIDERS was ever made for relaxation: it was "The Breeder", an episode explicitly designed as a brainless, male gaze driven, masturbatory fantasy to stare at Kari Wuhrer's liposuctioned stomach and scalpel refined brows and collagen-inflated lips and the two leaky bags of saltwater pressed into her chest.

But even when SLIDERS aimed for this very low-hanging, very easy target, it failed. It completely crashed. Let's take this seriously: let's say SLIDERS, being a multigenre series that can do any kind of story, decides it wants to do a pornographic film that could be broadcast on FOX. What is the format of pornography? I'm somewhat speculating here; I don't object to pornography, they don't seem to make it for me, but the goal in this instance would be to create a sexual fantasy in which the average male viewer can imagine themselves having sex with a sexually liberated Maggie Beckett who propositions Rembrandt, random male strangers and a random woman. This would be the porn episode of SLIDERS. This is the only format that would make sense for goal of this episode: to let the viewer vicariously enjoy Kari Wuhrer's body.

SLIDERS didn't make a porn movie with "The Breeder" which is odd because they were trying to make one. Somehow, they made a horror movie instead. Maggie isn't an enticing male fantasy in this episode, even in terms of the male gaze. She's hideous and the episode is nauseating. Yes, Kari Wuhrer wears a very tight, very low cut dress and gets naked and slips into a pool and is absurdedly sexual with every male character. But Maggie maims the one man who takes an interest in her and kills everyone else whom she seduces.

Maggie snaps their arms. She strangles them. She chokes them to death so that the parasite can infest their bodies with its offspring. It speaks to how broken and damaged David Peckinpah and Alan Barnette were that they sought to make porn and somehow made repulsive, sickening body horror.

This is not anybody's sexual fantasy no matter how much they might like undernourished women who have been surgically-augmented for the male gaze. I'm not a very sexual person, and some people might appreciate bondage and sadomasochistic sexuality, but would even those people want to be drowned in a pool or strangled and infected by a savage parasite in a gym shower?

"The Breeder" was SLIDERS one and only attempt at an episode for its audience to watch to 'unwind'. I find it unlikely that this bleak, angry, hateful, contemptuous episode could ever be appreciated even in terms of a sexual fantasy. Would people watch it just to see Kari Wuhrer in states of undress? I find that impractical; anyone who wanted to watch Kari Wuhrer's nude scenes could have gone to a video rental store to find her direct to VHS features.

I do have a certain fondness for relaxing TV shows. VIRGIN RIVER is a show where the stakes are so low and the consequences so mild that I watch it while doing laundry. I have similar feelings about THE BIG BANG THEORY and YOUNG SHELDON. Another super low-stakes TV show I love is the 90s ELLEN sitcom in which my favourite episode is the one where Ellen has to move a fridge.

If SLIDERS had been set in a fast food restaurant called Sliders (mini hamburgers!) with Quinn on the grill, Rembrandt on cash, Wade on drive-thru and the Professor as the manager, then SLIDERS would have been a lightweight product. But SLIDERS is not a product for relaxation. It isn't a low-stakes show and even when it tried to do that (once), it couldn't pull it off.

I felt that SLIDERS fans might relate to this story. As SLIDERS fans, we have an interest that is very much a niche subject, even among science fiction fans.

Niche: Adjective denoting products, services, or interests that appeal to a small, specialized section of the population.

Even with SLIDERS itself, our fondness is niche. Of the 88 episodes, even diehard fans only unreservedly like about 15 - 25 of them. SLIDERS isn't a mainstream interest like LOST; it isn't a science fiction mainstream hit like STAR TREK and STAR WARS. A lot of the fun we have here on this message board is behaving like SLIDERS is a STAR TREK level franchise when the truth is, in terms of viewing figures, SLIDERS might find itself competing with STAR TREK novels and the novels might still win.

When we talk about interdimensional travel in other TV shows, we can't refer to it as "sliding" with any certainty that others will know what we mean. I refer to Quinn Mallory as the definitive science hero of the twentieth century, but I am fully aware that the definitive science hero of that era is Mr. Spock, not Quinn.

To me, this puppet wedding concept where all wedding guests were required to puppeteer puppets is an example of two people with a niche hobby (puppeteering) that they are insisting is mainstream and universal; they have vastly overestimated the appeal of an extremely specialized, small-scale interest; they have fallen into magical thinking where they assume anyone who holds a two pound puppet will instantly infuse it with characterization and animation. In reality, an untrained person holding a two pound puppet will get tired and bored after five minutes.

Something a writing mentor once taught me about writing: the best writing comes when a writer creates a scenario and then lets it play out naturally, letting characters act and react according to their natures and the elements around them rather than dictating who does what and what happens.

I feel that HAT BOY AND DAISY MUST DIE! had some strengths and weaknesses. The main weakness, I feel: I don't think the bride and groom have enough characterization beyond their inability to socialize outside of puppetry.

The story is not clear on why these characters need everyone in their lives to love puppets as much as they do; I don't need everyone in my life to love SLIDERS (in fact, I advise against it; SLIDERS is a pretty abusive TV show). At the same time, if the story were to offer an overly sympathetic explanation, the frustration with the couple might seem hurtful.

The story works right now with the couple not knowing where to draw the line: it was reasonable for the professional puppeteers to bring puppets to perform; it was destructive and pointless to demand that civilians also be puppeteers.

Anyway. Every time I visit my niece, she gives me five cards with the SLIDERS logo on it. Each time I mention SLIDERS, she takes away a card and after she has all five cards, I am not allowed to bring SLIDERS up again. "SLIDERS is a niche interest," she explained to me. "It shouldn't dominate the conversation."

My understanding of the tax writeoff strategy: if WB-Discovery goes through with it, they can never release BATGIRL. Ever. If they earn so much as a penny in even indirectly, BATGIRL is no longer a writeoff and WB will lose its tax break. And having read more: I understand that writing BATGIRL off makes financial sense even if it's terrible from a fan perspective. There might even be some creative sense given the dire state of THE FLASH, as you've noted.

It wasn't very fair of me to say that WB-Discovery's decisions don't make sense. It would be fairer to say that the previous WB regime's decisions didn't make sense and the new WB-Discovery team are in a bad situation with a lot of bad options.

The BATGIRL movie was greenlit by the former WB regime for the HBO Max streaming service. WB was aiming to replicate Netflix's business model: infinite subscriber growth fuelled by exciting films that would draw viewers to sign up for the service. WB was releasing its entire theatrical slate to streaming.

But Netflix and all streaming services hit a wall; subscriber growth wasn't infinite. Netflix peaked and is now losing subscribers. All streaming services are struggling. After BATGIRL was greenlit for $70 million, studios found that movies don't draw in subscriptions as well as ongoing TV shows.

In the past year, it's become obvious that BATGIRL's two hours won't bring in $70 - 90 million worth of HBO Max subscribers. In contrast, a single season of SUPERMAN AND LOIS is $120 million, offers 11  -  14 hours of content, and brings in subscriber revenue over years because it's a series and not a single installment product.

Even before the streaming crash, BATGIRL was a very peculiar financial proposition. It was basically a TV movie, the streaming time equivalent of three episodes of SUPERMAN AND LOIS, but the WB studio set BATGIRL up to be three to four times more expensive than three TV episodes.

The reason SUPERMAN AND LOIS produces more for less: a TV show's extended lifespan allows longterm planning. TV shows can spend big on sets, effects models and costumes and use those assets across multiple seasons. A superhero movie has to produce those startup items for short-term use, producing less with more in terms of dollars-to-content.

A TV show uses TV salaried-actors and can take advantage of Vancouver TV tax credits because they're creating longterm jobs and longterm community investment. BATGIRL filmed in Glasgow, Scotland for a limited period with Michael Keaton and JK Simmons and its $70 million budget went to $90 million with pandemic protocols.

M. Night Shyamalan was once asked why his movies had gotten so terrible and why he improved on TV; Shyamalan said that big budget films had made him self-indulgent while TV's lean resources forced him to shed his excesses. Berlanti Productions, which produces SUPERMAN AND LOIS, seems to run a tighter financial ship than WB's film studio with WB's costly and unprofitable reshoots of SUICIDE SQUAD and JUSTICE LEAGUE.

Why won't WB-Discovery just eat the cost and release BATGIRL? After any merger, corporations try to cut costs and they clearly think BATGIRL will lose money as a streaming release but lose less as a tax shelter.

Writing BATGIRL off is terrible from an optics standpoint. BATGIRL had a Latina lead and a female-forward media profile. While cast and crew were paid, they now likely have no reel to showcase their skills for future jobs (as the movie, if a tax writeoff, can never be released or used for profit), no profit participation earnings and a massive public embarrassment.

It looks like WB-Discovery is paying bonuses/kill-fees to Leslie Grace, directors Adil El Arbi and bilall Fallah, Michael Keaton and other cast and crew to try to soothe the ruffled feathers.

Looking at it now, I don't understand why BATGIRL was a $70 million TV movie. It would have made more financial sense as a PEACEMAKER-type streaming series. A $70 million BATGIRL series of 10 episodes (effectively the SUPERMAN AND LOIS budget) with guest appearances from JK Simmons and Michael Keaton would have been a far better streaming service product than a two hour movie. Ten episodes can be marketed as an event. Ten episodes draws an audience to a streaming platform, gives them more time to sample that platform's other content and decide to stick around.

Even so, will creators who are female and people of colour ever want to work on medium-budget projects with WB-Discovery? Whatever loss is staunched by BATGIRL now being an unreleased tax shelter may not be worth the terrible PR and the sense that WB-Discovery is erratic, flaky and unreliable.

But even creatively, the new WB-Discovery regime is in a very difficult position. Their precedessors hired Ezra Miller whose violent rampages made THE FLASH a radioactive property. THE FLASH was supposed to start a revitalized DC Extended Universe by integrating Michael Keaton's Batman into the new Miller-led DCEU and removing Ben Affleck as Batman. BATGIRL was set in this post-FLASH, Miller-led DCEU.

BATGIRL had Keaton's Batman with JK Simmons' Commissioner Gordon from JUSTICE LEAGUE. But now, there will be no Miller-led DCEU. BATGIRL became irrelevant to the future of DC properties.

The Miller-led DCEU is dead. WONDER WOMAN and AQUAMAN will probably see a third and final installment each as films independent of the Millerverse and the Snyderverse.  The ARROWVERSE is wrapping up.

Still, I think WB-Discovery would be better off just releasing the BATGIRL movie as a purchase-to-view product to iTunes and Google Play. Charge $15 to download it. For HBO Max subscribers, offer the movie for a $7.50 payment for the first three months before making it subscriber-available without additional cost.

Release BATGIRL to a limited edition $200 blu-ray with the digital BATGIRL YEAR ONE comic, audio commentary from cast and director, all the Yvonne Craig episodes of BATMAN, a storyboard-edit of the movie, deleted scenes, CG animatics and other special features of random crap sitting on WB's hard drives that won't take any money to assemble.

Accept that any losses are better than coming off as a studio too incompetent to release the films it makes.

After that, WB-Discovery might want to start over with the DC feature properties. I think the best thing for WB-Discovery would be to hire Berlanti Productions to steward their feature films from now on. Berlanti Productions has been making $25 million SUPERMAN movies at a rate of five movies/15 episodes a year. 

In contrast, MAN OF STEEL cost $225 million and there is no real sequel. BATGIRL cost WB at least $90 to make and not release it. THE FLASH has cost $200 million, taken a decade, isn't in theatres and is already a slow-motion bus crash of a movie.

I don't think you can make a Henry Cavill SUPERMAN movie for $30 - 50 million, but you can definitely make a SUPERMAN AND LOIS movie for that. And a SUPERMAN AND LOIS movie with an entry-level storyline and a $50 million budget doesn't need to earn $1 billion to be profitable.

Season 9 of THE FLASH will be 13 episodes and be the final year for the show and the Arrowverse as a whole: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv … 235190162/

The plot of "Pilot", by David Liss, has Mulder and Scully encountering a visitor from a parallel universe in which THE X-FILES is a TV show. This visitor offers Mulder and Scully VHS cassettes of the "12" seasons of the show so that they can watch them and learn "the truth". Scully protests that a fictionalized version of their lives from a parallel reality may not offer any answers; Mulder counters that surely a TV version of their lives would have "narrative coherence" and a conclusion (hahahahaahahahahahahhahaah). The argument is rendered moot when the visitor and the tapes are blown up.

I guess it was okay.

**

If I had my way, there would be numerous anthologies of SLIDERS stories. However, the stories would all be written by Nigel Mitchell and edited by Temporal Flux. I guess then it wouldn't be an anthology if only one writer writes all the stories. But... I'd still rather all the stories be written by Nigel Mitchell and edited by Temporal Flux.

There are three people I know to be utterly without fear. Matt Murdock. Hal Jordan. Merrick Garland.

(Steve Rogers is only mostly fearless; he's still scared of his dad.)

Sick at home today, turned on Season 2 of STARGIRL and... couldn't follow what was going on at all. Who are these people? What are they talking about? What are their powers and codenames?

I realized, despite adoring Season 1, I had somehow forgotten all of it. But that's okay. STARGIRL is a great show and I'm happy to start at Season 1 again.

I listened to the first episode. Welling and Rosenbaum are avoiding saying the words "Chloe Sullivan" and "Allison Mack", not discussing any of her scenes or character. It'll be interesting to see how long they can maintain that avoidance of a critical character and performer who has ended up exactly where she deserves to be (jail).

Very interesting recollections with Welling and Rosenbaum remarking that Lex has barely interacted with Clark at the point when Lex is declaring that the Clark/Lex friendship will be "the future" and Rosenbaum noting how weird it is that Lex is clearly meant to be a college graduate who is almost seductively befriending a high school student (who, despite Welling's age, spends four seasons in high school and is therefore 15).

Welling and Rosenbaum say SMALLVILLE had no choice but to do monster-of-the-week episodes in almost every single episode of the show's lifespan. That is nonsense and it speaks to how neither Welling nor Rosenbaum are showrunners or television writers. Welling was a good producer in Seasons 8 - 10, but he was not a writer. The television shows GILMORE GIRLS and EVERWOOD were set in small towns and neither needed to introduce monsters of the week. SMALLVILLE could have told stories about the crises facing Smallville as a small town: farms getting squeezed out, the gradual breakdown of services and local businesses, the menace of Lexcorp, prejudice, poverty, education, loneliness.

SMALLVILLE was unfortunately showrun by two privileged, wealthy residents of Los Angeles who had likely never set foot into a small town and did no research whatsoever on what stories could be told in this setting, nor did Alfred Gough and Miles Millar devise and execute any ongoing character arcs and conflicts.

The argument that SMALLVILLE needed weekly freaks-of-the-week for superhero action sequences was soundly disproven over 10 seasons. SMALLVILLE never had a real superpowered fight. It never had the budget to pull it off except in brief flashes. This repetitive plot device to create enemies for Clark to fight was pointless. SMALLVILLE never pulled off superhuman combat; it was only good at doing the supersaves as Clark pulled people out of crashing cars or yanked them away from bullets and train wrecks and collapsing buildings and explosions.

SMALLVILLE fell into this error because the pilot was scripted with little to no thought as to how the ongoing series would work. Welling and Rosenbaum have noted how the age difference between Clark and Lex was not considered for their weird friendship nor was it ever really explored. Jonathan took issue with Lex's presence in Clark's life, but he never said anything as cutting as remarking that surely Lex could find some twentysomethings to be friends with instead of a high school student.

The other lack of thought: SMALLVILLE made Clark invulnerable right from the start and gave him superspeed that let him transform into a red blue blur. This made Clark so powerful that SMALLVILLE struggled to come up with situations where Clark would struggle to save someone or defend himself. IF SMALLVILLE had kept teenaged Clark Kent's powers at the level of Angel on ANGEL (enhanced strength but not enough to lift trucks; able to leap 1/4 of a tall building at a single bound, injured by gunfire but able to recover over days), Clark would have been a lot easier to write and his powers could have increased gradually over time.

Writer Doris Egan offered Gough and Millar a solution: the Kryptonite freaks had Kryptonite in them, so they could be more capable of hurting and injuring Clark. Gough and Millar refused, insisting on Clark being invulnerable which then required a level of threat for Clark that the show could never produce. Egan quit after Season 1 along with most of the Season 1 writers.

Throughout SMALLVILLE's lifespan, the actors and directors and set designers and costumers and effects artists -- basically anyone who worked in Vancouver -- seemed to be super-invested in the series. However, the showrunners -- who worked in Los Angeles -- seemed deeply uninterested in their show. In Season 8, the oriignal creators left and that changed, but in Season 10, the writers being at a distance from the Vancouver set caught up with them again.

I don't know what the hell that is, but I'm not sure what scares me more: the listing describing how this DVD set somehow contains a sixth season of SLIDERS or the fact that Quinn and Rembrandt nonsensically appear on the box art twice in the same panel. The side art panel with the vehicles is also deeply disturbing. I may actually buy this box set just to safely detonate it.

Spoilers

I don't have the best or strongest connection to the Dr. Strange character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Was he out of character in NO WAY HOME?

I am a fan of Benedict Cumberbatch's performance in SHERLOCK. But I confess, I'm not a huge fan of him in general. I find that he has a tendency to offer extremely lazy performances. James McAvoy (young Xavier) once referred to a certain class of actor/performance where the focus is on maintaining an accent and behaving as though affecting a voice that isn't the actor's natural speaking is the only effort needed in a performance.

I find that Cumberbatch, when using an American accent, is so focused on tweaking and adjusting his accent that there is little characterization in his body language, expressions, movements, reactions, etc.. Dr. Strange, at least for me, is one of those roles for Cumberbatch where he's too accent-focused and not character-focused. Cumberbatch's limitations/laziness as an actor weren't an issue for Sherlock Holmes, a character who is extremely mannered and theatrical; the lack of characterization comes off as Holmes' relentless focus on deductive reasoning. But when Cumberbatch is playing a more vulnerable character, it's awkward.

Anyway. Most people don't seem to mind or enjoy Cumberbatch's work, and that's personal taste. But for me, I don't have a good handle on the character because the actor throws me off.

**

MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS seems really hated by WANDAVISION fans who say Wanda being evil is out of step with the WANDAVISION TV show where she kidnapped / imprisoned / brainwashed an entire town and became physically violently and dangerous when peacekeeping forces attempted to free her prisoners and when her captives demanded an explanation and their freedom and ultimately gave the townspeople their freedom because the illusion became unsustainable due to an interloper's interference (as opposed to any moral realization on Wanda's own part).

On the subject of changes... can Disney release the Original Trilogy in 4K without all the Special Edition changes? Is it physically possible at this point? It unfortunately won't be as simple as rescanning the masters.

I just finished some upscaling work on STAR WARS (fan-made 4K77 version) and EMPIRE (fan-made Despecialized version). The 4K77 version of STAR WARS was a 4K scan of a 35mm film print meant for theatre projection. It definitely didn't have 4K-level detail because a projection print is at least two generations removed from the original master negatives and the original is covered in mismatched levels of grain that change from shot to shot due to the mutiple layers of film to create effects.

After downscaling it to 1080p and running it through Topaz AI's grain-to-pixel algorithm, the film now has consistent grain across all shots and within that 4K scan was a 1080p level of detail. Some of the more heavily grainy scenes, after the cleanup, have a slight flickery quality. It looks like a well-presented 1977 film in 1080p.

The Despecialized EMPIRE was a 720p project combining 1080p blu-ray content with 35mm film scans for the original effects footage that looked grainy and blurry amidst the sharp blu-ray footage. But with Topaz AI upscaling it to 1080p, the sharpness and grain levels have all been levelled out; the film no longer looks mismatched. There will be a 4K80 fan release of a scanned 35mm theatrical print eventually and I imagine it'll look a little sharper than what I have here, and be a 1080p level release in a 4K file.

RETURN OF THE JEDI has a 4K scan of a 35mm release print that was fade-free and only needed to be cleaned of dirt and scratches after the scan. However, some scratches and dirt remain (although it isn't distracting). It doesn't look like a 4K level of detail to me; still it's 1080p quality.

I think Disney could get a 1080p release through scanning theatrical release prints for cleanup, but not 4K. They could definitely do a better job than fans at cleaning up scratches and dirt since they have entire facilities for that.

I suspect that George Lucas destroyed any master negatives of the Original Trilogy that contain the theatrical releases, meaning Disney can't simply rescan those in 4K.

I would like to think that Disney has all the original film elements, however, meaning that all the composite shots (locations, effects, lightsabers) could be recreated from the raw film recordings and then reassembled into a matching cut. They could scan the Special Edition masters, remove the CG scenes, and replace them with recompiled versions of the original effects footage made from the raw elements.

Alternatively, they could take any of the missing effects footage 35mm release prints, clean up the film stock, scan it and then perform AI upscaling to get it closer to a 4K presentation (although it'll still look less than 4K, just without the blocky blurriness of a stretched-to-4K image). As effects footage in motion, it might be close enough to not be distracting.

I suppose Disney could do what fan editors have done: scan 35mm prints in 4K, choose the best video quality shots and scenes from each of them (the prints are all of differing quality), reassemble the theatrical cuts, do cleanup of scratches and dirt, do colour correction based on 16mm fade-free prints and then use AI upscaling to clean up and sharpen the 4K resolution image to have a 4K-approximating level of clarity. It still won't be 4K detail, but it won't have the mild blurriness of a 1080p image being displayed at double its true size.

Disney might even pay the fan editors for their fan-created digital scans of release prints. Disney could then do AI upscaling on those scans to get them closer to 4K. Disney would have more time and graphics processing power to spend on each scene. It could pass for 4K.

Passing for 4K without being entirely there might be a good option, however. If the image quality is too modern, then the 1977 limitations of the image content can seem incongruous. If the image is always slightly less sharp than a movie that was released last week, then it's clear throughout that is a piece of art from a bygone era.

Slider_Quinn21 wondered why Leia in A NEW HOPE didn't mention her adventures with Ben Kenobi in OBI-WAN KENOBI. Why does Leia's message to Ben say, "Years ago, you served my father in the Clone Wars"? Why doesn't her message instead say something more relevant to herself and Ben, something like, "Years ago, you saved me when I was kidnapped by Imperial Inquisitors?" I offered a long, convoluted explanation about the geopolitical alliances and covert conflicts of the STAR WARS universe that I nearly fell asleep writing.

But recently, I found a simpler explanation. Apparently, A NEW HOPE has a deleted and extended scene of Leia recording her voicemail for Ben.

I swear I will read this soon. I just finished SHANG CHI and the ETERNALS, so I am ready to get into the MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS.

It's interesting: the CW executive team says they warned the showrunners on THE FLASH, BATWOMAN and LEGENDS: 2022 could potentially be their final seasons. The CW told all the shows that series finales were strongly advised. In response, THE FLASH wrapped up Diggle's plot (and, I guess, decided not to license the GL logo?). BATWOMAN had a finale to their season but had less a cliffhanger ending and more a teaser for Season 4; if there were no Season 4, fans could, in rewatches, stop watching a couple minutes early. But LEGENDS went for a full-blown cliffhanger and after the cancellation, showrunner Keto Shimizu apologized, saying it wasn't the CW's fault and that she'd been given advance warning, took a gamble and it didn't work out.

**

In a podcast recorded before LEGENDS' cancellation, Michael Rosenbaum interviewed Caity Lotz. She said that the first two seasons of LEGENDS were filmed with the showrunners in Los Angeles and the production team in Vancouver having no creative control over the show, forced to follow whatever direction came out of LA even when it was at odds with the on-site situation. This apparently led to rampant overwork for the actors and Lotz, while not naming names, said that several actors were keen to quit.

This explains why LEGENDS lost Rip, Hawkgirl and Hawkman. It is also likely why a lot of LEGENDS' scripts didn't seem to be properly edited; whenever filming issues arose, there was no on-set writer to amend the issues. Lotz says that only with Season 3 did LEGENDS have an on-set producer with authority to make creative changes in response to production issues.

There's another fan reconstruction of the original trilogy: the D+77, D+80 and D+83 series. The D+ fan editor took the Disney 4K versions of the movies and also acquired 4K scans of the 35mm film (a theatrical print) with the special effects sequences. This editor removed the special edition additions and put the original footage back in place.

I didn't watch the RETURN version because the 4K83 project found such a great print of the film that it doesn't really need any more reconstruction projects. I did check out the STAR WARS and EMPIRE D+ reconstructions.

The D+ reconstruction uses the 2020 4K blu-ray so the picture quality is extremely crisp and sharp with excellent saturation throughout (but relit to be closer to the original theatrical presentation). RussianCabbieLotteryFan would approve of the colour and lighting.

But then we have the 4K scans of the 35mm film for the special effects sequences and it does not look 4K. It looks like 720p stretched to 4K because the 4K scan is made from a semi-degraded theatrical print whereas the blu-ray is a 4K scan of the master negatives. The 35mm film sequences have a muddy, flickery quality. Even if you ran this reconstruction through Topaz to get the grain consistent, the sharpness wouldn't be consistent. The grain would be normalized, but the image would persist in going from razor sharp 4K blu-ray footage to muddy or smeared 35mm print material.

When Ben and Luke speed into Mos Eisley, D+77 retains the blu-ray landspeeder footage so the shot is sharp and the original Vaseline smeared on the lens to create the hovercraft effect is absent. But we get into Mos Eisley and suddenly, the shots are fuzzier. The Millennium Falcon descends towards Cloud City looking crisp, but D+80 replaces the CG Cloud City shots with the 35mm matte paintings and practical Falcon model, and suddenly, the movie becomes flickery with large grains.

I think it is preferable to go with the 4K77 scan of a 35mm film print of the 1977 STAR WARS where. Even after AI grain-to-pixel conversion, it isn't as sharp as the D+ reconstruction, but it's consistent and you get used to it. I haven't seen the full rescan of 4K80 yet (the fan editors are still cleaning and colour correcting it), but I would expect it to, like 4K77, be consistent in its flaws where a reconstruction will always have a quality gap between the baseline footage and the footage being stitched back in.

Curiously, another path to consistency for EMPIRE is to run the 720p Despecialized version through Topaz and bring it to 1080p. The AI upscale will smooth out mismatches between the 720p and 480p-approximate footage (the scans of 35mm film with an older, lower-res scanning process). There isn't as much of a gap between mildly fuzzy 720p video and fuzzy 480p video. Topaz can make the inconsistency consistent and the Despecialized EMPIRE after Topaz AI cleanup will look... actually a lot like the 35mm print of STAR WARS after a Topaz AI cleanup.

That is... less than accurate. From NBCUniversal:

QUANTUM LEAP 2022 is a revival. It is not a reboot. The lead character is investigating the disappearance of Sam Beckett from the 1989 show.

It was the SLIDERS writers intention that Maggie Beckett is Sam's niece. The General in "The Return of Maggie Beckett" is supposed to be Tom Beckett, the brother Sam saved from death in Vietnam via time travel. Possibly more an in-joke than a direct crossover.

In my head canon, the Quinn we met in the Pilot and the Quinn we met in "World Killer" had one key difference: the Quinn we met in the Pilot spoke with Dr. Sam Beckett in his childhood, but the "World Killer" double didn't.

I imagine that when Quinn was 11, Sam gave a lecture on engineering and quantum mechanics at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Sam brought along his niece, 17 year old Margaret-Allison, as she'd recently had a fight with her father over something or other and needed some time away.

Both versions of Quinn attended this lecture. Afterwards, 11 year old Quinn rushed up to Sam as he was leaving with a question.  Margaret-Allison instinctively jumped in front of Quinn to block Sam from a perceived threat. 11 year old Quinn smashed right into Margaret-Allison. Both toppled over. Margaret-Allison's bottle of water drenched her white T-shirt rendering it near-transparent.

The "World Killer" version of Quinn tried to take control of the situation by saying something grotesquely oversexual to Margaret-Allison. Margaret-Allison shoved Quinn in disgust. He landed on his ass and crawled to his feet. Sam restrained his niece from beating up a 11 year old and told Quinn to run before Maggie killed him. "World Killer" Quinn fled.

Our Quinn didn't make a joke. Our Quinn got up and immediately pulled off his brown jacket and offered it to Margaret-Allison to wrap around herself. Our Quinn yanked off his flannel shirt as well to let her wear it (Quinn had a T-shirt underneath). Our Quinn apologized with each article of clothing he handed over.

Maggie was furious, but Sam intervened, saying it was obviously an accident as Quinn was sorry and Quinn was literally offering Maggie the clothes off his back. Maggie softened, recognizing that Quinn was a child.

Sam asked Quinn why he had been running. Quinn said he had a question for Sam but had been to shy to ask in the lecture. Quinn said he wanted to study quantum chromodynamics but didn't have the equipment for a physical Lagrangian gauge model. Could Sam give advice to a boy wanting to do science in his basement?

Sam said that as a boy, Sam developed his interest in string theory from the nearly two-dimensional shape of his brother's guitar strings. Sam suggested that rather than attempt a full size model, Quinn could instead use analogues: a football dangled from a hockey stick above a kettle, perhaps.

"Good scientists start small," Sam explained to our Quinn. "World Killer" Quinn never received this advice and made a sliding machine that slid away the entire planet's population.

I'm sure that the QUANTUM LEAP revival (which is a sequel) will focus entirely on the complex relationship between Quinn Mallory, Sam Beckett and Sam's beloved niece, Maggie.

I am certain that the catalyst for Dr. Ben Seong to locate Sam will be Quinn Mallory himself. I can't see how a QUANTUM LEAP revival would be about anything other than the secret and shared history between two science heroes, Dr. Sam Beckett and grad school dropout Quinn Mallory, eventually bringing in Mr. Spock, Sherlock Holmes, MacGyver, Dana Scully, and Dr. Miles Hawkins from MANTIS.

**

On a more serious note, one of my favourite shows in recent years was KEVIN CAN **** HIMSELF, a sitcom/drama where we get two different versions of the same reality: one a sitcom with a laugh track, one a bleak HBO Max style drama of desperation and pathos.

Raymond Lee is one of the high points of the show, putting forward a truly excellent performance in his role. He's very good and I'm glad he'll be the lead of the new QUANTUM LEAP.

I feel like fans might prefer that Scott Bakula be the lead, but creatively, there seems to be the sense that without Dean Stockwell as Al, the Sam character can't work in quite the same way and Bakula might be best as the former generation appearing to pass the torch.

I don't necessarily know what I'm talking about, I've seen very little QUANTUM LEAP. However, I did listen to all the REWATCH PODCAST episodes covering it, so I can bluff through any conversation about it.

I wonder if the endless cleanup of STAR WARS for blu-ray, polishing every single image to a low brightness, high contrast sheen is not helpful in this instance. STAR WARS on 4K looks too crisp for a 1977 movie, it has too many shots that look like it was filmed in 2007 and then when the limitations of 1977 arise, it's awkward.

I wonder how it'd have looked to Slider_Quinn21 if the image on Disney+ weren't so pristine but truer to the original presentation, looking like this:

The light levels aren't relentlessly refined; the grain patterns are present. It looks fine on a 4K TV, but it also looks like a product of 1977 and it doesn't raise expectations that can't be met.

My cleanup isn't going to remove the grain, just remove the sense of static being baked into the picture and make it so that the grain level is consistent throughout instead of going back and forth from thick to thin.

I would say that CW has done extremely well for Berlanti Productions and for Warner Bros., propping up content that Berlanti and WB have sold to international broadcasters, to streaming services, all of which greatly enriched BerlantiP and WB while the CW was only seeing money from commercials during their broadcasts. Since CW was a joint venture between WB and CBS, WB was inclined to keep it going by managing its debt and covering its operating costs -- except WB now has HBO Max that it owns outright, at which point CW became a less attractive location for WB programming.

I've read that Nexstar's primary interest in CW is not their content and licensing deals or anything to do with WB's DC properties. They want the broadcasting infrastructure: the networks and channels across every state. Their goal is to sell mid-range priced air time to political parties, thinktanks, support teams and publicity/propaganda organizations for American elections. They want to be a platform that can be rented to anyone who has the money and interest in trying to get themselves or someone else elected to any and every political office in the United States.

I was rewatching STAR WARS Despecialized on my 55 inch 4K TV. The TV was big when I bought it, now it's average. The Despecialized Edition by Petr Harmacek was great when first released in 2011, removing all the special edition changes, but it doesn't work as well on bigger, higher resolutions. The video quality keeps jumping back and forth from strong 720p quality to poor 480p quality that's been stretched to 720p.

The issue: Harmacek started with the HD blu-rays and the below-SD DVDs. The sub-SD-DVDs are unaltered, but they were released in a resolution that's only 640x480, so the video actually exists in 640x270 pixels instead of the full 720x480 of a DVD.

Harmacek rebuilt a cut of the original version with the blu-ray versions and reversed the odd colour alterations made to it, using a 16mm film scan as reference. Harmacek then intricately transferred the unaltered effect shots from the DVD version onto the blu-ray version. This means that entire shots or rotoscoped portions of shots are stretched, sub-standard definition effects on top of the HD shot.

Over time, Harmacek made a lot of improvements: he and other fan collectors and restorationists located scans of the original matte paintings as well as original 16mm, 35mm and 70mm negative prints of the original films. Harmacek was able to a good chunk of the DVD-sourced SD effects with HD scans.

However, these scans, done on second generation film prints that weren't well stored, are only a small upgrade from the fuzzy subSD-DVD effects; they're still not entirely matched to the underlying blu-ray quality.

Watched on a 1080p TV in the 32 - 40 inch range, the despecialized STAR WARS looked fantastic to me. The mismatches weren't really very glaring and if you're caught up in the film, it doesn't matter. But watching it on a bigger and higher-resolution TV, the despecialized versions are really distracting in how the film quality jumps from sharp blu-ray to fuzzier digital scans of old film.

I think the despecialized fan restorationist stuff was great from 2011 - 2021, but now, it's time Disney did its job and released the unaltered original trilogy. I suspect that George Lucas destroyed the original film masters that would allow Disney to rescan and rebuild each shot and each scene in a true remastering; I've read that the only master film negatives available with all the complete effects is the SPECIAL EDITIONS.

However, Disney has plenty of options: they can AI-upscale the unaltered, low-res DVD release of 2006. They can secure a theatrical print of the film, clean it up physically, scan it at 8K, and then subject it to AI-cleanup for dirt and lines and scanning issues. Given their resources, this shouldn't take more than a week for an AI-upscale of the 2006 DVDs or a year for a new scan.

Footnote: The blu-ray/special edition of EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is fine. The additions were so minimal. The light level conversion isn't great, but given the 1080p detail, it's acceptable.

Caution: this post suggests a Crossover for a SLIDERS revival series premiere (dun dun dunhhhhh!).

What if... the QUANTUM LEAP revival had an episode that served as a backdoor pilot for SLIDERS? What would it be like?

What if... Dr. Ben Seong needs an outside perspective on Project Quantum Leap? What if he decides to go to his local Doppler Computer Chain and talk to the Repair Squad clerk behind the counter, an awkward grad school dropout named Quinn Mallory (played either by Jerry O'Connell or... I dunno, Corey Fogelmanis (genius eccentric on GIRL MEETS WORLD) if it's a young version).

What if Dr. Seong think fondly of his old classmate Quinn as a brilliant, clever scientist who was more interested in practical engineering than quantum mechanics?

What if we learn that Quinn was a well-regarded grad student until his foolhardy effort to build a quantization field generator in the faculty basement accidentally burned the building down, but Dr. Seong still likes to meet up with Quinn now and then and bounce ideas off him and offer him freelance work (as Quinn's lack of credentials has reduced him to fixing computers at the Doppler Electronics chain for minimum wage).

Perhaps Quinn alludes to his own projects that he's been working on.

Perhaps Quinn brings Dr. Seong back home to The Basement show him his attempts at anti-gravity to solve an immediate problem Seong is having in trying to retrieve the long-missing Sam Beckett.

Perhaps Quinn's demonstration knocks out the power to half of the Western coastal area of America.

Perhaps the last we see of Quinn on the QUANTUM LEAP revival, Dr. Seong is grimly waving goodbye to Quinn as the police march Quinn out of The Basement.

Perhaps later, Dr. Seong realizes Quinn's idea sparked something in him that lets him resolve the issue of the week, and in gratitude, Seong has Project Quantum Leap pay off Quinn's legal bills and get him out of jail.

Perhaps Project Quantum Leap Administration declares that Seong is to never involve Quinn in Project Quantum Leap again and pre-emptively declares that Quinn will be shot on sight should he ever be within half a city block of the building. (Shot with paint, but still.)

Perhaps this leads into a SLIDERS pilot where Quinn is further disgraced in the scientific community and now hated by his neighbours (he knocked out the power during an important game of sportsball, I'm sorry, I don't know sports, but people seem to care about them). Quinn helps his neighbour, Stephanie, retrieve her runaway dog. Stephanie proceeds to set her dog on Quinn because Quinn made her miss the super... plate... something. (I am sorry. I don't know sports, but people really care about them.)

Perhaps after a mild mauling, Quinn is now ready to give up on science, take everything in the basement to a landfill and call it a day on Science.

Perhaps, as Quinn is packing up, he accidentally reboots his hardware and then something appears in Quinn's basement. A burst of light. A light that does not fade but remains suspended in the air. The light begins to widen. What could it be?

Perhaps it is split in the very skin of reality itself. A split that becomes a gateway.

And perhaps the adventure begins again...

I am as caught up with THE FLASH as I can be. The Season 8 finale isn't on Netflix until tomorrow for me.

I guess... the episodes are okay. They're trying to give Grant Gustin less to do, so the supporting cast is coming to the forefront. It's weird that Season 7 was all about Barry and Iris nonsensically addressing the grown adults who were the "Forces" as their children and accepting them and loving them; now the Forces are villains and none of them have costumes.

When Thawne returned at the end of Episode 19, Barry had a bleak, resigned look on his face like he was once again facing down that annoying uncle who keeps showing up at family dinners and it'll be up to Barry to steal his car keys so he can't drive drunk and to lock him in a bedroom to sleep it off before he starts a fight. Thawne is just that obnoxious relative with whom Barry has developed a grim acceptance in knowing he'll never truly be rid of him while noting that this relative is too inept and clumsy to ever do any more damage at this point.

In 1971, George Lucas couldn't imagine what steps would exist after the telephone, civilian band radio, and fax machines that would take us to spaceships and laser blasters. In 2022, it's hard to imagine that an interstellar civilization could have built a spacefaring, galaxy-wide Republic or Empire without wireless data transmission to coordinate construction, resources, supplies, transportation, etc.. But STAR WARS is using space opera equivalents of landlines, radio and fax.

If one had to rationalize it based on the Original Trilogy alone, the explanation might be that there was once a STAR TREK-level of technological achievement that was society wide, but then some devastating, apocalyptic war reduced everyone to using only what scraps remained of the previous generation. Perhaps that series of Clone Wars that Luke refers to. But the prequels dismissed that notion.

STAR WARS was imagined as a legally-dissimilar FLASH GORDON. It was meant to be a science fiction technological universe. But the Force, in addition to making STAR WARS safe from copyright infringement by disassociating from FLASH GORDON, repositioned STAR WARS as a mystical fantasy universe.

George Lucas was not faithful to STAR WARS as (techo)mystical fantasy, introducing midichlorians as a pseudoscientific explanation for the Force, emphasizing machines over magic. He didn't really think through the mythology of his universe; he just focused on the cool visual moment and then the next one after that. The cool visual moment was generally driven by machines (pod races, hoverboards).

But I think a lot of the oddities of STAR WARS from inconsistent technological development to droids would make a lot more sense if it were technomystical like, say, the videogame FINAL FANTASY VII.

In FF7, all the technology of FF7 draws on the "Lifestream", a river of spiritual and metaphysical energy that is the Lifeforce of the planet which people with the right talent can tap into to perform superhuman feats. The Lifestream can also be exploited by technology with FF7's machines, weapons, power plants drawing on Lifestream.

It might make sense to someday reveal that STAR WARS technology is powered by the Force. It would explain a lot. For example: why do the droids have personalities? What computer programmer would create a machine to do a task, but then give that machine fear, reluctance, hesitation and all the emotions that prevent C3PO from doing his job?

Why would a computer programmer take the time to create an artificial intelligence that can experience fear; wouldn't the task of programming a droid to translate or hack computers or fight intruders be enough work?

It could be explained that all machines in STAR WARS draw on Force energy, a living, collective entity and each droid is a unique expression of the life of the Force; droids are lifeforce in a mechanical body. The specific 'magic' of the Force could then be tailored to whatever limitations are needed to maintain a recognizable version of the STAR WARS universe.

Why isn't there galaxy-wide data transmission? Because communications tech that uses Force energy generates electromagnetic interference with engineers being blind to the Force as a psychic and telepathic power. Do people in the STAR WARS universe recognize that all their fuel and power is actually different forms of the Force and that their use of it strictly in terms of physical fuel is self-limiting?

My guess is there's an underlying zero point energy technology in STAR WARS that few understand, all of it copied or replicated from an original source blueprint, the origins of which are lost and long forgotten, and because all power sources in the STAR WARS universe are copies of copies of copies, the technology that makes it to remote places like Tatooine and Jakku is the bottom of the barrel.

That's my fan theory. But as for why the Jedi are government appointees known to the public in THE PHANTOM MENACE but urban legends dismissed by Han Solo in A NEW HOPE... well, I like Slider_Quinn21's theory that the Jedi were not well-known outside of the galactic capital.