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QuinnSlidr wrote:

Why do we have to make concessions on a problem that doesn't exist and is fueled entirely by rethuglican lies, hatred, and bigotry against races other than white people?

I mean do you want to end Trumpism and win in 2024?  To end that, you need a definitive win.  You can't win by minimal numbers in several states.  There needs to be an overwhelming statement from the country that we're not going to vote for a criminal to be president.  There needs to be an overwhelming statement that Americans don't want this and that republicans don't want this.  If you get that, the tide turns.  GOP people like Cruz and McCarthy are spineless and will only support Trump if it suits them.  If Trump gets steamrolled then they'll abandon him.

If it's close (or if Trump wins), then it won't stop.  You'll have President Don Jr. 

So am I willing to make concessions to stop that?  Yes.  Especially when Biden is struggling with support on the border isssue *with Democrats*.

With Biden's age, he's going to have plenty of skepticism going into next year.  Why not eliminate one of his biggest weaknesses?  Especially when it would be so easy with almost no negatives.

QuinnSlidr wrote:

There are no GOP values that align with progressives when their goal is to lie, lie, and lie to prop up their savior Trump.

As soon as they committed a violent insurrection to stop the certifications of votes for Biden on January 6th carrying a guillotine to the capitol, they ceased becoming a viable political party. They are equivalent to the Taliban.

They deserve arrest, conviction, and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.

Don't believe everything you hear regarding polls. CNN is now right wing and they are pushing immigration this and immigration that in support of their GOP mega donors.

Okay, but the population you're referring to (MAGA) doesn't explain any of this.  Unless MAGA is the majority of the country now, Biden is still underwater in his favorability overall and especially on immigration.  MAGA people are never going to turn on Trump no matter what.  MAGA isn't enough for Trump to win the election.

But there are people that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 that currently are disapproving of him.  There are clearly people that voted for Joe Biden that are currently saying that they'll vote for Trump over him.

Biden needs to be doing something differently because what he's doing now has him underwater.  That's not a MAGA problem.  That's not a GOP problem.  That's not a news problem.  That's a Biden problem, and it's one that he needs to fix or non-MAGA is going to vote for Trump over him.

But does that matter?  I'm not sure it does.

Recent polling (and I guess all polling) has shown that Biden's handling of the border is very unpopular.  He's extremely unpopular (38% favorable) on his handling of the border.  That's not just Republicans and it's not just the Fox News crowd.  That's a lot of independents and probably some Democrats.

So whether or not the GOP and conservative media is lying, the majority of voters think Biden isn't doing enough.  So my question is...what are some things that Biden can do that would improve the border situation in the 20-30% of non-MAGA people's eyes?  The economy is improving and there's not a ton more Biden can do there.  But the border is both very visible and it's easier to see progress.

If Biden announced that he was going to restart progress on the border wall, that wouldn't move the needle for any hardcore Democrats (who are voting for Biden no matter what) or Republicans (who would vote for Trump no matter what).  But would that convert some potential Trump voters to Biden voters (or non-voters)?  If only 38% of people approve of Biden on the border, would he lose any votes if he got more "conservative" on the border?

My point is this: Biden needs to win the next election.  And I think some out of the box things are going to need to be done to get the Independent voters and soft Republican voters that Biden is going to need.  They obviously wouldn't do everything the Republicans want, but I think they gotta do *something* besides putting Kamala Harris in charge.

Again, if it was me, I would be reaching out to conservative groups and getting their list of demands, and I'd be cherry picking the ones that are a) possible and b) won't conflict with progressive values.  And then I'd be going on Fox News every chance I got, and I'd be telling conservative voters what we were doing at the border or on the economy or whatever issues Biden polls poorly on.

Maybe Trump will lose votes as these court cases drag on, but he's not losing any support in the GOP primary or in national polling.  I don't think we can spend the next year hoping that will change.

Now would be the perfect time for the studios to do restorations of previous films and tv shows. I know Universal has in house workers for that, but even if they are on strike they could farm those projects out to other companies.

I liked the finale.  Very tense.

I will need our Trek historian ireactions to help me understand if we're screwing up continuity too much with this much interaction with the Gorn.  My limited understanding was that Starfleet hadn't really seen the Gorn until Kirk and that the Federation hadn't really interacted with them a ton.

I also struggle to see how this species became technologically advanced, but maybe I'm just not being creative enough.

QuinnSlidr wrote:

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

Does sliders have an equivalent?

https://youtu.be/Oz1c1xdoUFc

No. There was never a musical episode of Sliders.

The one episode that came close was The King Is Back, but I wouldn't call it a musical, since it wasn't a sing fest from start to finish.

I would watch it, though. I love Tracy's song writing and I think he would make it fabulous.

I love the response and agree with you

However if you click the YouTube video in my post you'll see I was referring to something else

Honestly, the fact that Merrick Garland dithered this long and that none of Trump's indictments prevent him from running for office should tell you how dire the situation is and how democracy is in serious, serious trouble. I'm scared. I thought I was going to go blind in one eye last week and I'm more scared of Trump than I was of losing half my vision. But maybe, like my vision crisis, Trump in 2024 will turn out to be nothing to worry about and massively overblown.

But here's a more optimistic take from a prosecutor who thinks Trump's goose is cooked:
https://www.salon.com/2023/08/01/trump- … ing-cases/

is Jerry O'Connell noticably good and funny in lower decks?

His wife Rebecca is decent in the limited SNW I've seen although I guess doesn't offer anything extraordinary.  What do you guys think about her in that series?

QuinnSlidr wrote:

The problem is that now CNN has a right wing bigot at the helm of its news station and that drives the narrative. So we have Twitter with a right wing bigot billionaire who owns and incompetently runs it, CNN with a right winger in charge, leaving only MSNBC and smaller random local affiliate news as the real news station of choice that spread actual fact. So the facts get largely lost in the overall narrative web of lies.

We need another competing media ecosystem that tells the truth, the entire truth, and nothing but the truth, rather than the manufactured spin on it that the rethuglicans push from their hilltops.

To be fair, MSNBC is slanted to the left.  Not as bad as Fox but it also runs news that appeals to those on the left.  There's more complete charts than this, but this is a good one: https://www.allsides.com/media-bias/media-bias-chart

I say this as someone with a journalism degree that watched a lot of this stuff happen in real time.

As the chart shows, it isn't about accuracy.  It's about slant.  Slant can obviously be editorial, but it can also be selection of stories.  If an illegal immigrant were to commit a mass shooting with a gun obtained legally, Fox news and MSNBC would tell the story differently.  Fox News would report that he was an illegal immigrant with a violent past that was allowed into the country.  MSNBC would talk about how stricter gun laws would have prevented the man from getting the gun in the first place.  Both might be accurate, but the choice of which story to tell is the slant.

There are down-the-middle news outlets, but a lot of people (myself included) like reading/watching news that appeals to them.  I find myself reading stories from questionable sources because they imply all the bad things that are about to happen to Trump in his legal troubles.  I usually have to remind myself what source I'm reading.

To me, it's like watching sports.  I don't like listening to national sports media because there isn't enough focus on the teams that I like.  Local sports radio is slanted more towards the teams I watch, but the personalities on those stations are also fans of the team.  So there's a built-in bias both from them and from me.

You can also have an NFL game broadcast where both teams' fans will complain afterward that the announcers were obviously rooting for the other team.  Both sides heard the exact same thing, but they each interpreted it differently because of their inherent biases.  I think this happens with political coverage too - something that might actually be down-the-middle might seem right-wing focused to me because my own biases lean to the left.  Down the middle to me is slightly left. 

Not criticizing.  Just adding to the discourse.

The Benevolence of Ziggy

I liked how, despite my catastrophizing about Ziggy having become Evil, the closing episodes of Season 1 reveal that Ziggy's supposed treachery was inadvertent. Ziggy is a computer documenting Ben's leaps and Ziggy's records were being reviewed by Leaper X's handlers in the future. I don't know if that connects to Ziggy's malfunctions throughout Season 1 of QL2.0. It's possible that Ziggy's stalls were to render some of their data unusable for the Leaper X team to give Ben an edge; it's possible Ziggy's difficulties were due to glitches in the rushed upload of new code that Ben installed before his hasty leap.

It was a good finale and a good lead into Season 2. I liked how Season 1 feels complete, and Season 2 can be a new chapter of the same great formula.

Ian as Al 2.0

I'm concerned that Ian won't be Ben's hologram very often. While I haven't seen much of QL1.0, I listened to all of the Rewatch Podcast covering it and I can see why Temporal Flux prefers Ian to Addison. As a pair, Ben and Ian replicate the original tone of the signature QL1.0 chemistry which had an unassuming and wholesome character in Sam and an irreverent, hedonistic, bizarre, peculiar, fundamentally decent and loving human being in Al.

Ben and Ian feel like a second generation of the original double act: Ben is a mild-mannered scientist who can think on his feet; Ian is a flamboyantly clad figure of unusual life experience and their sardonic wit and loud fashion sense mask a somewhat shaky sense of self-esteem. Ian is both familiar to Al's fans but also an inversion because Al was supremely confident but bolstering heartbreak over his wife having given him up for dead when Al was thought lost to war.

I don't know how much Ian will be Ben's hologram. From what I can tell, QL2.0 brought in other holograms because Caitlin Bassett was, like Addison, experiencing exhaustion. Just as SLIDERS had to let Quinn Mallory hide from a dinosaur or be in a coma from time to time, QL2.0 had to bring in Ian so that Addison's actress could get some sleep. The Ben/Ian teamup seems to be more of a production strategy than a storytelling choice. I hope that could change.

Mirror Image and Mirror's Edge

Regarding the original QUANTUM LEAP: if QuinnSlidr and Tom of Rewatch Podcast really want me to see it, I will of course order the blu-ray. However, I have a request for QuinnSlidr.

The first time I ever heard of QUANTUM LEAP was through Temporal Flux back on the old Sci-Fi Bboard. I suppose it makes sense as QL was TF's show before SLIDERS. Temporal Flux posted about how the "Mirror Image" finale of QUANTUM LEAP had seen a mixed reception among fans. However, there was some news: the QUANTUM LEAP novels published after the show's cancellation (published at a rate of 2 - 4) a year were coming to an end, but their 17th and final original installment would come in February 2000 with a novel called "Mirror's Edge":

Mirror's Edge, by Carol Davis with Esther D. Reese
The last leap... ?

It's 1999 -- five years after the Leap that started it all. It's 1999 -- for Sam Beckett who has leaped into Joe Powell, one of the richest men in America, a potential presidential candidate, and a man who is used to getting his way.

It's 1999 for Al Calavicci, for Donna Alessi-Beckett, for all the people at Project Quantum Leap who know that Sam is in their present, home but yet not home. But the holes in Sam's Swiss cheese memory are starting to fill, the man in the Waiting Room is strangely, disturbingly calm, and Ziggy is dispensing information that can hardly be believed. Something is about to happen. Something that will change Sam's life and the lives of those who love him—forever.

"Mirror's Edge": the conclusion to the thrilling adventures based on the hit TV series.

The novel hit the shops shortly after SLIDERS had aired its series non-finale. Some Slideheads who were also Leapers thought "Mirror's Edge" might take the sting off with a post-"Mirror Image" story.

In the many, many, many years since then, I have always remembered this posting about a media tie-in novel that I never read regarding a TV show that I never watched.

The reason I've always remembered it: "Mirror's Edge" was the first time I had ever seen an unresolved live action story being addressed in another format. That fascinated me, and I later discovered STAR TREK novels that resurrected Captain Kirk, DOCTOR WHO novels that resumed the TV show storyline during the DW hiatus from 1987 to 2005, and wrote my own tie-in stories for SLIDERS. "Mirror's Edge" remains a beacon of media tie-ins in my personal, anecdotal experience.

However, I later did learn: some QL fans expressed frustration with "Mirror's Edge" for what they called false advertising. Despite being billed as a "conclusion", that turned out to just be referring to how this 17th book was to be the last. "Mirror's Edge", like every QUANTUM LEAP novel before it, takes place before the series finale of QL1.0. It is not a sequel to "Mirror Image".

However. While "Mirror's Edge" is set before "Mirror Image"; it is set at the very edge of "Mirror Image"; it is in fact a prequel seeking to offer context to the series finale that is either new or retconned.

Some fans were furious with the publisher and the authors. Primary author Carol Davis spoke with fans on fan forums and explained: due to diminished sales, the publisher had elected to end the QL book series and commissioned a final story. However, the licensing agreement with Universal had a stipulation: the publishers were not allowed to produce any novels set after the QL series finale. The studio didn't want a novel to potentially step on any territory to be left open for a potential TV movie or series revival.

Davis and the publisher were caught between the need to produce a concluding novel and the studio declaring that Davis' typewriter wasn't to produce a single page set after "Mirror Image". Davis came up with a solution. Her solution is either tactical brilliance that would make a lawyer weep with joy or a weak gesture that is grossly inadequate.

I've always wondered what a QL fan unhappy with "Mirror Image" would think of "Mirror's Edge". would think of it if they read the book. "Mirror's Edge" is out of print, but here is a PDF and an ePub from Archive.org:

PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zTRVtW … sp=sharing
EPUB: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t32dIK … sp=sharing

Will you read it and tell me what you think of it?

I would have asked Tom of Rewatch Podcast, but Tom actually likes the finale story that is "Mirror Image". "I like it, it made me feel good with the series ending where it did," he told me. "I know a lot of people don't like it, but I do. I will die on that hill!" I didn't think him the right person to read "Mirror's Edge" and tell me if it resolves his dis-satisfactions with "Mirror Image" because he wasn't dis-satisfied.

I feel so crushed, heartbroken, grief-stricken and betrayed by recent events. I honestly do not know how to process that Ziggy has turned against us and is no longer a friend.

Yes, I have been super-behind on QUANTUM LEAP, but I finally caught up with the public defender episode and the mental asylum episode. Whoa. I don't even know the original QL that well and I was deeply shaken to learn that Ziggy is the traitor on Project Quantum Leap.

Has this always been the case? Has Ziggy always been against Sam and now Ben? Will this throw our entire understanding of Ziggy and The Project into a state of upheaval? Has Ziggy's treachery been hiding in plain sight all along every time my mother's Google Nest Hub froze up, every time her smartlights didn't come on, every time Google Assistant sent me down a dead end in Google Maps? Every time Bing AI gave me incomprehensible explanations of inverse telecine or anything else pneumatic talks about?

Is Ziggy behind all these DeepFake phone calls that have been scamming people out of thousands of dollars by impersonating loved ones in need of emergency funds? Did Ziggy come up with the moral abomination that is DeepFake porn?

Was Ziggy behind the creation of the death robots of "State of the ART"? Was Ziggy steering the automatic little toy cars with laser cannons in "Please Press One"? Is Ziggy preventing me from mounting a solid AI upscale of Season 1 of SLIDERS? Did Ziggy get SLIDERS cancelled?

It's time Ziggy answered for all of the above.

I don't believe that the events of Season 2 are an alternate timeline. Picard recalls that his ancestors were mystified by the strange damage to Chateau Picard; the damage is caused by Picard and his friends in a firefight with the Borg. Guinan tells Picard she always remembered meeting him in 2024 (just as she remembered meeting him during that run in with Mark Twain) but withheld it until now. The time travel events were always a part of the original timeline.. although I admit, Season 2 of PICARD is very narratively shaky.

In the Season 2 finale, the Cooperative asks to be granted provisional entry into the Federation. Therefore, the Cooperative, in the context of the Season 2 finale, is representing itself as all Borg. Except... given that history hasn't been altered, doesn't that mean that the Cooperative must exist alongside the Collective Borg that's out there invading and assimilating? Wouldn't the Collective still be out there? How can the Cooperative also engage in diplomatic relations on behalf of the Collective?

But the story presents itself as the start of peace between the Federation and the Borg, so the implication would be that Cooperative has replaced the Collective at this point in time; that in the decades between FIRST CONTACT and PICARD, the Collective has either died out or given way to becoming the Cooperative.

Season 3 discards this implication and sticks flatly to what was onscreen: the only Borg who are our friends are the individual Cooperative Borg we saw onscreen in Season 2. Those are the only ones to be trusted; all other Borg are our enemies. It's kind of rude, but given how muddled and confused Season 2 was, I can't blame the Season 3 writers for being dismissive of it.

Awhile ago, QuinnSlidr posted:

Dr. Soong on Star Trek...Dr. Seong on Quantum Leap...they just don't even try to be creative anymore do they? I can imagine the writer's meeting: "Just replace one o with an 'e'. Nobody will know the difference."

I accused QuinnSlidr of racism for claiming that it was stealing from Gene Roddenberry to have South Korean actors (like Raymond Lee) playing South Korean characters (like Ben) with South Korean names (like Seong). QuinnSlidr apologized and said it was a mistake; he hadn't been aware of Seong being a South Korean surname.

Since this same person started a thread talking about how much he loved EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, a film about parallel universes headlined by Asian actors, we have to conclude that QuinnSlidr is not racist.

On a side note, NBCUniversal executives clearly read this thread and asked the QL2.0 producers to change Ben's name from "Seong" to "Song".

Still. What would Marc Scott Zicree have said to QuinnSlidr? How would he reboot my remarks and do better?

The name "Seong" actually appears in Korean history as early as 1418. The role of Ben Seong is played by South Korean actor Raymond Lee, so this is an Asian name for an Asian character played by an Asian actor.

Noonian Soong's great. One most memorable characters ever created, along with Khan Noonian Singh, another unforgettable creation from Gene Roddenberry. Both were named after a friend Roddenberry made during World War II, a (supposedly) Chinese pilot (supposedly) named Kim Noonien Wang (supposedly as no record of any pilot by anything resembling that name has ever been located).

The name Khan Noonien Singh for the 1967-debuting character is a mix of Muslim (Khan) and Sikh (Singh) names. The name Soong for Data's creator, who first appeared in 1988, is an unusual English transliteration of the Chinese name Sung.

I'm reasonably sure that a name that first appears in 15th century South Korean history isn't stolen from Gene Roddenberry. I'm sure that there's no slight against Roddenberry when Asian characters played by Asian actors have Asian names.

I also don't think Roddenberry stole his names either; he was honoring a friend he missed and wanted to see again (and whose name he may have had some trouble remembering).

We should remember: when something seems reminiscent of STAR TREK, it's not necessarily ripping off STAR TREK as much as it's drawing from the same cultures and influences that Gene Roddenberry drew upon as well.