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I think the Epstein files are a hoax...not in the way that Trump says they're a hoax (i.e. not real) but in the sense that it affects nothing.  I don't think anything in the Epstein files, even if it's concrete evidence against Trump, will affect anything.  His voters do not care.  I keep hearing whispers that this would be the thing that takes Trump down, or it will lead to a bunch of Republicans abandoning him, or that it will lead to his impeachment.

There is nothing that will do any of that.  I think most people either already think that Trump is a rapist or don't care either way.  He's either a pedophile or he's a necessary evil.  That's the two camps.  I mean you already saw Megan Kelly come out and basically say that being a pedophile isn't even that big of a deal, and she has teenage daughters!  I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't see laws passed in Florida that lower the age of consent to below whatever Trump is accused of doing.  I think Republicans would be more likely to lower the national age of consent to 10 or 11 than do anything to Trump.

He's been in the public eye for decades and he's been under immense political scrutiny for a full decade.  If anything was going to take him down, it would've already happened.  Like I said, the only escape we have from Trump is how long modern medicine keeps him alive.

I agree that it would be illegal, but I struggle with understanding who would stop him.  Congress has decided to be impotent.  The federal courts have been an okay firewall (they recently forced Trump to fund SNAP), but the Supreme Court has gone out of its way to give Trump whatever power he wants.  And even when they disagree with him (potentially, on tariffs), Trump has already laid out the groundwork to de-legitimize them or bully them into obedience.

Trump runs the FBI, and their leaders are loyalists
Trump runs the military, and their leaders are loyalists
Trump has de-legitimized the media, and the media leaders are Trump loyalists
The people can still protest (for now), but the Republicans are trying to de-legitimize those.  And even internally, I've heard younger people are getting tired of the protests because they don't accomplish anything.  Whether its Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, or No Kings...there's great support and huge showings but what has changed?

But maybe you're right.  Maybe he wouldn't go so far as to simply cancel elections.  I don't know.  But I shouldn't have this little faith.

Oh sorry I guess I never gave an update.  I was able to get my dose of Moderna at a local pharmacy as well.  You have to meet one of the qualifications to get it, but a) my BMI is one of the qualifiers (because BMI is a sorta worthless metric) and b) they don't check so you can just say you do (not even which one) and get it.

So I got mine about a month ago.  My wife got hers a couple weeks later.  We didn't get ones for the kids because it's a bit more of a challenge, but they got their flu shots.  Hopefully it's good enough!

I think the DCU is going to be given a shot, even if Warner Bros is chopped up and sold for parts.  I think Superman was enough of a success to give Gunn another shot for the slate that he has coming up.  Nothing more than that is guaranteed, but that's true of any cinematic universe.  The MCU was able to keep going because they didn't really have any misses.  They had smaller movies, but the two biggest critical negatives from phases 1-3 were Incredible Hulk (which people don't even consider to be fully canon) and Thor: The Dark World (which was post-Avengers but still fairly early on).

So I think whether WB survives or not, Gunn will be given a chance because he's been successful so far.  Not billion dollars but still profitable and successful with fans and critics.  Now if Supergirl is a disaster or if Man of Tomorrow is a disaster, all bets are off.  But no matter who owns WB, I think Gunn will get an opportunity.

Yeah, I think that's fine.  I think LOST had a great character resolution but obviously not as concrete of a plot resolution, and I still think that's my favorite show of all time.  So I get that.

And I think the character resolution was really good.  I just wish the plot was either better wrapped up or the team was a little less aware of the villain plot.  As it stands, they basically ignored Flag's plan.

Yeah, I wonder how many new stories there could be, but if they really haven't gotten together after all this time, maybe some fun stuff came up.  Looking forward to it!

I think it will be a lot of fun to hear stories, maybe some stories we haven't heard before.  I assume they'll make some sort of vague reference to some kind of reboot / sequel shows.  Personally, I'm not going to put any stock into anything they say about that because I think Sliders was a hard sell 20 years ago, and I think it's going to be a harder sell today.  I maintain that there's no way they're going to do a show with JRD being 81 and Cleavant being 72.

The best bet has and will continue to be a show with Jerry as the mentor character to a younger cast.  You might be able to get the others for guest roles or cameos, but the Sliders cast is *way* older than the Golden Girls cast was.  So this would feel like that but much worse.

And honestly, the JOC thing isn't even the best bet.  The best bet is a bigger named actor pushing for the series to be made with a complete new cast, a la Quantum Leap.  I know there were some bigger named actors that liked the show back in the day (Kelsey Grammer?) that could maybe make it happen with a new, younger cast.  But I assume if that was going to happen, it would've happened already.

I think, besides the colors being totally different, the tone of the character is so much different in Gunn's film.  Snyder's Superman doesn't seem to care at all about humanity, and I can't imagine he cares at all about any other Earth animals.  Snyder's Superman is sad that his father dies, but he still allows it to happen.  At the end of the day, he agreed that his father should die to protect his secret.  I think Gunn's Superman would've found a way to save his dad, even if it meant sacrificing his identity.

I'm also pretty sure that a comic-accurate Superman could've saved Jonathan without anyone even noticing he left.  Clark in Smallville was able to save someone during a football game without anyone noticing he'd moved.

I think Gunn's Clark will always do the right thing.  I think Snyder's Clark will do the right thing as long as it doesn't make his life any harder.  I think Gunn's Clark is there to protect humanity with no interest in allowing any collateral damage if he can help it.  I think Snyder's Clark is there to protect some humans and willing to accept as much collateral damage as it takes to get the job done.

There is a very dark moment in Gunn's Superman, but other than that, it's a very hopeful and bright and character-forward movie.  I could easily see Gunn making a pessimistic/hopeless Superman movie like Snyder did, but I think he did a good job of making Clark more comic accurate.

Yeah but would you say any of that was in Superman?

I think the idea of a recurring villain is interesting, but I'm not sure it's necessary.  I probably would've rather had Logan be the "recurring sliding villain" since she's a flip side on our main character.  I think there's also an argument to be made that maybe you replace the "which Arturo slid?" story with a Quinn double that can't complete sliding on his own and steals Quinn's place.  Then you have a villain inside the group, and the person "chasing" them is our original Quinn.

This might be too mystical, but I'm thinking based on what ireactions and DMD said about a villain that can somehow "slide" their consciousness from place to place into a new double.  Maybe they interact with a villainous Bennish on a world, and they leave him behind.  But then in future episodes, they keep running into doubles of Bennish on each new world.  And like ireactions said, each time they run into him, he seems more of a threat.  And it turns out it was the villainous Bennish each time.  Maybe each time he enters a double, he gets more control, and by the end of the arc/season, he can finally do whatever he wants.  Or maybe he has full control each time but is playing the long game.

Sorta like Sliders meets Quantum Leap.

I don't think we've ever had that here.

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So I think this is an instance where more episodes would have been useful.  The big bad for the season was introduced midway through the season and then wrapped up in a single hour.  In a pre-streaming Trek season, the finale would've at least been a two parter, and I think you could argue that it could have been longer.  Even commercials vs non commercials, a two-part finale would have been 82 minutes-ish vs 60 minutes-ish.  And I think we probably needed those additional twenty minutes.  Some of the episode felt very rushed.

I think you could argue that maybe you get rid of the documentary episode or the "everyone is turned into a Vulcan" episode and give more time to this.  You could've probably done an entire episode of the future scenes if you wanted and give additional weight to Pike's life with Batel.  I know the crew probably had fun doing the Vulcan episode so they'd probably vote to get rid of something different, but I wish they'd used their time a little more wisely.  And, honestly, I thought they got the opportunity to ham it up on the proto-Holodeck episode (and that episode also covered "why Star Trek is important" which was sorta covered by the documentary episode).

And when there's going to be a muppet episode next year when they're going to be trying to wrap this whole series up, I have concerns.

But again I really liked what they aired.  It had a lot of heart.  Like Pike, I wish there was just more time.

I heard the other day that Gunn used to have some sort of substance abuse problem, and he's replaced that in his life with writing.  Good for him.  I think he's a great writer, and I'm impressed with how much he's been able to do and how fast he's been able to do it.

At the same time, I don't think the DCU can succeed with Gunn throwing it on his back.

James Talarico is running for US Senate in Texas.  If you don't know him, do yourself a favor and look him up.  He's the son of a Baptist minister, he's gone to seminary, and he's a Democratic state rep in Texas.  Every time I've seen him, he's impressed me.  I don't know if he has a chance to win, but he's been on Joe Rogan and he's been on different talk shows and I think he has the potential to be presidential.

Of course I thought the same thing about Beto O'Rourke, but I think Talarico is different.  He's an evangelical himself, and he wears his Christianity on his sleeve.  I think he can talk to Christian nationalists in a way that other Democrats can't.

Wouldn't that cause the same issues, though?  If Supergirl starts preproduction but isn't ready to be filmed, it still puts the next project to feature Supergirl in some kind of limbo.

Imagine if Endgame needed additional work on the script but Spider-Man: Far From Home was ready to shoot.  Do you wait to start filming Spider-Man until Endgame is filmed?  Go ahead and film but wait to release?  I guess the other option is to remove all the references from Tony from Far From Home, but I don't think that's even possible.

I assume James Gunn would say that they'd prioritize fixing the Endgame script and there wouldn't be a significant delay, but I don't know if you can do that for everything.

I've seen a lot of this sentiment.  I think the episode was entertaining, but I think there were a lot of issues with it.  I think the issue mainly goes to the idea that the writers and/or the cast had a fun idea, but they didn't really think through some of the issues.  And in an attempt to get an idea they liked on screen, they (pun intended) made the episode illogical.

The whole premise was a little flawed.  So they needed Vulcans to do the repair work, but Spock is the only Vulcan on board the Enterprise?  I know there aren't a ton of Vulcans in Starfleet compared to humans, but no one besides Spock?

Second, they made a joke of the repairs taking hours and then only taking seconds.  But if the repairs only took seconds, couldn't Spock have done it by himself?  Did it really take five people?

Third, they made some sort of implication that Spock's DNA allowed the converted Vulcans to show Spock-like emotion and logic, but that's done with training, not DNA.

Then there's silly cartoon stuff like Pike's hair changing.

So the question has to be asked - do writers of modern Trek know what Vulcans are supposed to be like, or do they know archetypes?  Are these Trek writers or just Sci-Fi writers?  I don't really know, but are there signs that these writers revere Trek?  Are there easter eggs and references that only true Trek fans would know?

Yeah, I agree.  I also think Vance would respect the job and the history of the presidency.  I think he's been bought and sold, but Vance used to be a reasonable person.  I think Trump has always been someone with fascist tendencies because he was raised in a world where he was in charge and what he wanted just happened.  He wants to run the country like he ran his company, and that's just not how it works.  I think Vance might enjoy the power of being a dictator, but he's only been MAGA for a short time.  And I think if he actually had the big job, he'd understand the historical significance of the job in a way that Trump just has no interest in or understanding of.

That's not to say he wouldn't be a bad president or even a worse president.  But I think Vance would allow there to be elections in 2026 in a way that Trump might not allow.  And I think Vance would be softer on the media (which might allow more scrutiny on the office as journalists feel emboldened to actually do their job and ask tough questions).  And while I assume some of the Cult of Trump would pass to Vance, I think a lot of it is directly tied to Trump himself and those people might abandon Vance.

That being said, Vance is infinitely more capable and intelligent than Trump so if he wanted to ruin the country in 3-3.5 years, I think he'd be able to do that.  I'm optimistic that he'd be more of a standard Republican president than a Trumpish president, but I don't know.  I don't have a ton of optimism left in general.

I'm doing my physical in a couple weeks.  I'll ask my doctor.  I know her office doesn't carry the Covid shot (I asked) so I'd have to get referred to someplace that does have it.  I have a couple of nurse friends, and they've said they're seeing a lot of cases so I'd like the additional protection.

I don't know if a trip to Canada for a vaccine is an option.  If I can just pay for it out of pocket somewhere, I'd just do that I guess.

One of my friends talked about giving up on Strange New Worlds because he thought the show was too hard on Spock.

I do feel like Spock gets the short end of a lot of things.  He's constantly being teased or transformed or heartbroken or whatever.  I think we sometimes ignore the emotional damage that things would cause when they happen to Spock because he always bounces back.  But, man, if he was a human, this show could be downright depressing for Spock.

******

I know it will never ever ever happen, but I would really love either a full season with Kirk in charge or a second spin-off with Kirk in charge or a Paramount Plus movie with Kirk in charge.  I think we've never really seen in Trek an established ship adjust to a new captain.  Not like Voyager where the whole crew is new to each other, but a crew that already works together well adjusting to a new voice.  And I think Paul Wesley is really really good in the role, and I'd love to see more of him.  He adds something to every episode he's in, and I think that's why they loop him in whenever possible.

I don't want to lose Pike, but seeing Kirk take command and having him earn over the crew would be really interesting television, I think.

No I get that and I assume that young children who loved Superman aren't going to be forced to watch an NC-17 rated TV show on a premium network to enjoy the next movie.  But I do think it might be funny for someone who only knows James Gunn for the Guardians movies, jumped over to Superman and enjoyed the wholesomeness there, and then to immediately jump into Peacemaker Season 2 and see a dramatic shift in tone.

And technically Gunn has written the entirety of the DCU.  Creature Commandos, Superman, and Peacemaker Season 2.  He's also writing the Superman sequel.  I assume he's a guy who either works really fast or really loves working.  I do worry he's either going to have to do the whole thing himself or the whole thing will lose momentum.  Supergirl will be the first thing released he didn't write, and I don't know how Clayface really fits in with the overall narrative.  After that, it's a lot of question marks.

I agree with having a final script before proceeding and I think he's learned a lot from working in the MCU.  But they gotta make stuff that he doesn't make himself, I think.

Hahaha I can't help it.  I really can't.  The past and the present and the future have to matter or none of it matters.  Headcanon to make it all work is half the fun

Well, I think it might be more complicated than explaining it.  The rest of the episode doesn't feature Star Trek - like ships with futuristic tech.  It's just more modern-looking technology.  But since the rest of the show takes place on Earth, it's possible that technology is better there and people have more access.

But honestly I think the in-universe explanation is that the Weyland-Yutani ships shown in Alien and Alien: Earth are blue collar scavenger ships.  It would be like aliens finding a fishing boat made in the 90s and assuming that's how technologically advanced we are. 

To me, I just liked that they went out of their way to completely re-create the aesthetic of Alien for this.  I don't think the rest of the episode abandons the aesthetic at all, but it secures the 70s aesthetic, at least for this portion of the universe, as how things look.  They could've easily reimagined how people look or act or how the ship looks and operates.  But they didn't.

Again, I assume the juice isn't worth the squeeze if the whole show took place on a ship (it doesn't).  But for that section of the show, I liked the respect for continuity.

*******

Okay so I finished Dexter: Original Sin.  I really liked it.  The show absolutely takes liberties with continuity with characters' ages being off, people joining the police force earlier than they were supposed to, things happening differently than they were originally explained, etc.

But I think there are two reasons I'm okay with that:

1. Dexter is our narrator - modern Dexter - and, while there has never been any evidence that he's an unreliable narrator, he's still a psychopathic serial killer.  So if an unreliable narrator explains things two different ways, that's not a huge deal to me (think the Joker in the Dark Knight).  There's also the fact that Dexter is, canonically, retelling his origin story to the "audience" as his life passes before his eyes as he believes he's dying (at the end of New Blood).  So even if Dexter is a reliable narrator, maybe his brain isn't functioning properly

2. The show is just a lot of fun.  I tried to explain to my wife that the show isn't scary at all.  The concept of Dexter is dark, but I don't even know how violent Dexter is.  Some of the people he kills are violent, but Dexter usually stabs his victims one time in the chest with a big knife.  There's blood, but it's usually captured by the plastic wrap that Dexter uses to contain his crime scenes.  He chops up the bodies, but either I'm completely desensitized by it, or it's shot in a way that isn't gory.  I don't like torture porn, and I'm skittish at stuff like Saw so I don't think it's the former.

But Dexter is a charming guy, the side characters are all interesting, and Dexter never tries to convince the audience that he's not a monster.  He's just a monster who is doing good in the world.  I think you can root for Dexter to keep doing what he's doing since he's getting rid of worse people, but I don't think Dexter even wants you to like him as an audience member.

I'm going to try and show my wife the original series.  I'll let you know if she likes it.

I finally saw Fantastic Four.  I thought it was a lot of fun.  I think the whole cast did a great job.  I only read a handful of Fantastic Four comics so I can't speak too intelligently about how they nailed their characters, but they all felt like individuals.  Let me do a couple spoilery thoughts:

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- I liked that the characters felt evolved.  I like that Ben seemed like he had come to peace with what had happened to him.  He's not yearning to go back to the way things were, at least outwardly.  I liked the Chiklis version, but this one felt like a matured version of that.  I like that Johnny got his own little side quest where he can show that he's also really smart.  I liked everything about Sue.  I liked that Reed was very smart but also cautious and anxious.  I think a scene with him and Tony Stark would be interesting because they're both smart leaders, but they approach things very differently.  I think he'll make a good Avenger.

- I liked that the movie was its own thing.  I think previous versions were supposed to include Kang in some way, and as far as I know, there are no references to any future crossover in this.  I was sorta blown away that the movie didn't end with them crossing over into the main marvel universe.  I wonder if that will even be a permanent thing, now.  Like will Fantastic Four: Second Steps (fake title) be in this universe or will they be crossed over?  Or will the multiverse be gone by that point and there will just be one universe?

- I understand all the reasons.  Covid.  Jonathan Majors.  Shakeups at Marvel.  But we've had 29 movies and TV shows in Phases 4 and 5, and the main villain for the next two Avengers movies has barely appeared.  Now I know that Thanos barely appeared before Infinity War, but we at least understood who he was and what he wanted to do.  Doomsday is going to have to do a ton of work in the first 30 minutes to get us up to speed.  Maybe it'll be great - the Russo Brothers know how to make that work.  But it just makes me nervous that we've had so much runway and haven't done a ton with it.

Thank you all for your Spock answers.  Clearly I need to go back and watch more TOS

By the way, I'm still really liking Dexter: Resurrection.  It's inspired me to watch Dexter: Original Sin (which I also really like), and I'm considering a rewatch of the original series.

So there's three ways to look at this.

1. The Republicans will succeed in further gerrymandering Texas and gain five seats that the Democrats won't be able to recover, either by their own gerrymandering or by simply winning back seats.  Trump will keep the House and the Democrats will continue to be powerless to do anything.

2. The Texas Democrats will be able to delay the vote with their current stall tactics, and the gerrymander won't happen.  Democrats will have a good shot at getting the House back.

3. This will backfire.  Texas Republicans have gone to extreme lengths to gerrymander as much as possible, but there's a limit.  Texas is red, but it's not deep red.  Democrats did terribly in 2024, but Texas has been moving purple for a while.  Maybe it'll never happen, but the shift has happened.  Beto O'Rourke almost beat Ted Cruz.  For a time, it looked like Colin Allred could beat Cruz.  At the moment, it looks like Allred could beat Ken Paxton.

And it's possible that they could stretch their Republican votes too far.  If 2024 Republican votes either shift back to Democrats or stay home and/or Democrats show up in 2026, Democrats could gain seats with the gerrymander.

The problems I see:

1. Democrats have, for the most part, decided to either voluntarily not gerrymander or to make gerrymandering impossible.  It's the right thing to do, but doing the right thing has gotten them where they are now.  I think it's time to fight dirty as well.

2. The Democrats are extremely unpopular in polling right now.  Maybe more unpopular than Republicans.  At least some Republicans still like their people.  No one likes Democrats right now.  Democrats told everyone that the world was going to end if Trump won.  Well Trump won.  So Democrats think the world is over.  Some are sad, some are angry, and no one is hopeful.

Can't have a blue wave if no one wants to step up.

You're correct.  Complaint withdrawn.

I thought the episode might have been a tad bit too meta.  I do like the idea of a proto-holodeck, and I like that it gets indefinitely delayed.  My only issue with that is that it took 100 years to solve for it?  I figure that would be a fairly big priority, and I feel like Scotty could've solved it if he had enough time.

I am mixed on this whole thing.  I do want the series to continue to move forward.  TNG was exciting because it was a new era.  Things could look modern and new and we could rationalize that with all the time that passed since TOS.  It made sense and that continued into DS9 and Voyager.  It looked brighter and more "futuristic" as technology in universe continued to get better.

I think it's really genius.  TOS looks old because it's in the past.  Now TNG looks old because it's also in the past.  We keep moving forward with leaps and bounds as the technology from our world (in some cases) eclipses what Kirk had.

Strange New Worlds is a lot of fun, but it would've been just as much fun if they'd used this cast to have a new show post-Picard.  Or even post-Discovery.  This is supposed to be about new frontiers, and the TOS is well-covered ground.

So I like that we're jumping way ahead to the 32nd century.  There's some "dark age" in there but now we can think ahead to what over 1000 years in the future would look like.  Everything is new.  I think the only problem is that I'm struggling to really identify with this universe or how it's supposed to work.  It's hard to know what the Federation looks like or what Starfleet is or how the universe works.  Hopefully a new show will sort all that out.

"Parts: the Clonus Horror" is my favorite MST3K.