Star Trek in Film and TV (and The Orville, too!) (Page 9 of 9)

That is... less than accurate.

The novella SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL is written by Seth MacFarlane and the audiobook version will be read by noted actor Bruce Boxleitner (BABYLON 5). The story was originally a script for Season 3 that could not be filmed due to pandemic restrictions. (I don't think you can describe it as a "popular episode" if it was never actually filmed.)

"Just came out" is also... less than correct. It's coming out July 19.

https://orville.fandom.com/wiki/Sympathy_for_the_Devil

I assume it's because I have young daughters, but the newest Strange New Worlds made me cry like a baby.  I don't remember being that emotionally attached to a plotline in a long time.

I've also noticed that the comedy in the Orville is all but gone.  I know they're handling heavier topics, but I liked that the Orville felt like a real place with real people.  Real people make jokes, are late to work, tease each other.  I know the Enterprise would be a great place to work full of very nice, hard-working people.  But the Orville (and the Cerritos) feel like real places.  You can be a hard worker and a goofball.  You can crack jokes even when your life is in danger (tons of people use humor to cope).

I agree that MacFarlane doesn't just want to be known for his comedy, and I think the Orville is really good even without it.  But I do miss that part, which separated his show from others.  I've also noticed that shows like Strange New Worlds are adding more humor and more "real people" to their shows.  Ortegas on SNW feels like someone who would fit in on the Orville.

I think the Orville is a modern version of Trek.  It's a society that is a lot like Roddenberry's vision - free of prejudice and fear and focused toward a better tomorrow.  But unlike the TNG crew, they're flawed and silly and human.

I think it's so much fun.  I do think Strange New Worlds is fantastic, but other than that, I think Orville is better than every other modern Trek show.  And I'm not terribly sure it's close.

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Just a couple episodes ago, the Union was aggressively trying to pursue an alliance with a species that didn't value men.  This week, they kicked out a species that didn't value women.  Is the Moclan's crime that they're actively destroying and hunting females?  I don't want to evoke a former member here, but are those two situations all that different?

I just found that a bit wild.  I think they could've told some interesting stories about the compromises we make in the name of safety.  That the Union disapproves of both cultures, but that they need to overlook that in the name of protecting against the Kaylon.  The Janisi and the Moclans seem like such clean parallels, but I can certainly see that the Moclans are much worse.

But I'm still surprised the Union and the Moclans decided to end their partnership.  I assume if the Orville goes long enough, the Moclans would come back to the Union with news that they've allowed females in their culture to live.

Michelle Nichols, most known for her role as Lt. Nyota Uhura on Star Trek, has passed away at 89.

Nooooooooooooooo!!!

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/31/entertai … index.html

Spoilers

Season 3 of THE ORVILLE was very good. The "crew becomes monsters" and "crew encounter deadly fantasy scenarios" episodes were misfires. But the other eight episodes went from strength to strength. The Charly character was very well-handled. Given that the actress, Anne Winters, is reportedly dating showrunner Seth MacFarlane, some eyebrows were raised, but the optics seem okay given that Charly was meant to be a one season role with a clear conclusion and exit no matter how her relationship went. And given that THE ORVILLE brought Alara back again for a brief cameo when the actress (an ex of MacFarlane's) had no contractual obligation or financial need to return, it seems likely that, as Temporal Flux said years ago, MacFarlane's conduct is professional and appropriate.

Season 3 did a good job using its extended-length episodes to sell developments that most shows would force like the Krill and Moclan alliances with the Union falling apart and the Kaylon peace accord. Season 3 did a great job of making seven out of ten episodes focused on important social issues from DeepFake and politics to transphobia to intergenerational trauma to bigotry and then doing a sequel to "Majority Rule" for the season finale.

I felt like Season 3's last episode was a series finale. It ends with a gathering and almost all loose ends resolved and Alara returning so that all original cast members are present. It ends with a guardedly hopeful note for our own present day climate emergency and global war. It ends with nuance, both allowing Lysella to 'escape' from a troubled planet but carry the wounds of her world with her. It ends with warning that ORVILLE can't save us, only inspire us to save ourselves. It ends.

I hope there's a Season 4, but there are difficulties. Season 3 took so long to make that all cast and crew contracts have expired. If Disney+ renews the show, not everyone may be available. Most cast members, Seth MacFarlane included, finished working on THE ORVILLE and have found other jobs. There is no contractual agreement to bring them back if they won't or simply can't leave their current jobs. Even MacFarlane is busy running his new TED series. A Season 4 could conceivably have a very different if not completely new cast with a new writing team and MacFarlane only consulting if he isn't free to return fully. I think MacFarlane knew this and therefore wrote and filmed Season 3's finale as the last ORVILLE story ever.

"Sympathy for the Devil". Holy S-word, this book is amazing. Drop whatever you're doing and go buy and read or listen to this incredible ORVILLE story right now. It's stirring, powerful, disturbing and highly relevant to our world. It's too bad they couldn't film this story for Season 3. This was Seth MacFarlane doing the ORVILLE version of SCHINDLER'S LIST. I accept it as canonical and as Episode 8-B of Season 3.

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.

Yes, but is it canon... ?

**

Really enjoying LOWER DECKS this season. Spoilers for Season 3, Episode 8, "Crisis Point 2: Paradoxus":

The transporter duplicate of Boimler fakes his death and joins Section 31 at which point he's handed the black Starfleet badge that Section 31 agents used in DISCOVERY (but not in ENTERPRISE or DEEP SPACE NINE).

BOIMLER: "Isn’t Section 31 supposed to be like a big secret? I mean why would we wear special comm badges that advertise who we are?"

SECTION 31 AGENT: "You could still be dead."

BOIMLER: "... you know, I like the badge. I like the badge!"

Hilarious wisecrack at DISCOVERY making Section 31 exist within Starfleet's chain of command sharing information with starship crew and taking orders from Starfleet Command when DEEP SPACE NINE had presented it as an officially non-existent, covert operation with the Federation pointedly ignoring its existence.

No news is... no news.

At this point, none of the actors are contracted to return. Season 3 took so long to film and edit due to the pandemic that all extension options for Season 4 would have expired by now. Since Disney+ and Hulu don't pay cast and crew to work on shows that aren't in production, everyone is doing other work now.

However, Seth MacFarlane has given his word that if ORVILLE is renewed, he will work it into his schedule and the other actors are keen to return if Season 4 can be scheduled after the jobs they are doing now to earn a living. This is most unlike SLIDERS where the second Jerry's contract expired, he was out the door.

It could also be a situation where Disney+ and Hulu never actually cancel THE ORVILLE but also never renew it, much like FOX never cancelling THE X-FILES after the 2018 season but never ordering Season 12.

Usually, networks and streamers announce cancellations so that cast and crew contracts can be closed and concluded, allowing the studio to cease paying staff to keep their schedules available and allowing employees on a now cancelled show to find other work.

But Disney+ and Hulu don't have to do that with THE ORVILLE because the Season 4 options in the cast and crew contracts have expired by now. THE X-FILES starting with Season 10 only signed David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson to one season at a time, so no cancellation notice was needed.

It's entirely possible that Disney+ and Hulu might never officially cancel THE ORVILLE and would simply never address it.

Sorry, I don't think I'll get to PICARD or PRODIGY for awhile. I still have two seasons of DISCOVERY to watch and one of STRANGE NEW WORLDS. *sigh*

I'm looking forward to seeing PICARD soon.

I think what happened that makes Season 3 feel disconnected from the show: PICARD was originally run by the very eccentric and individual Michael Chabon. Chabon has a certain style of storylines that don't entirely cohere in theme and purpose until the purpose is revealed. Season 1's arcs felt really detached and isolated: then it became clear that Season 1 was really an extended eulogy to Data, a character who exited the series rather severely in NEMESIS. Season 1 gave us a chance to revisit Data and say goodbye to him in a "gentler" way, as Brent Spiner put it. It's a very unusual narrative style that is very specific to Chabon.

In Season 2, Chabon laid out the storylines, but then he left for another job. Terry Matalas and other writers handled converting Chabon's storylines to actual scripts and all the on-set rewriting. And... it wasn't quite the same. Chabon's gift for building in the themes gently and subtly with the points being overt and clear later was not present in the writing. It's unclear how Picard's mother, Q's fondness for Picard, the redemption of the Borg and other elements really tied together or why they were in the same season of TV. Chabon is too eccentric and peculiar a writer for someone else to write scripts out of Chabon's plots.

You might say Season 2 of PICARD was the equivalent of SLIDERS' "Revelations"; a story outline written by one person, converted into a script by somebody else who either couldn't or wouldn't execute the outline coherently.

And in Season 3 -- which I have not seen -- I would imagine that Terry Matalas was finally writing his own material instead of converting Chabon's bullet points.

It's not necessarily that Terry Matalas didn't believe in Season 2's storylines. My personal opinion on Season 2: completing Michael Chabon's unfinished stories is an impossible task and no one should ever have to try. Even a resurrected Ernest Hemingway wouldn't have been able to handle this nightmare assignment.

Chabon's sudden departure from PICARD was not expected, and it happened too late into Season 2 to start over with storylines. And Chabon has a difficult style for another writer to adopt.

My take on Chabon: he introduces a ton of story elements, but he is not entirely aware of how it all ties together when he starts. He lets the story's meaning reveal itself to him.

With Season 1: he knew that it was about artificial intelligence and Data, but it may not have been clear to him until scripting that it was all about Picard getting to see Data one last time, to tell Data how much he loved him, and to say goodbye to him fully, wholly and meaningfully -- in all the ways Picard didn't get to in NEMESIS.

I think in Season 2, Chabon again came up with story elements: Picard's mother, Q being sick, the Borg wanting peace, a fascist alternate Starfleet, time travel -- but when the time came to start writing the scripts, Chabon wasn't around to weave his story elements together. All the beats were handed over to Terry Matalas. Matalas tried and... it just didn't work.

Season 2 was like one of those Netflix Marvel TV show where there is a lot of random material to stretch out the episode count. What did the Borg have to do with Picard's mother or Project Khan or Wesley Crusher or Q dying? Matalas didn't know, Chabon wasn't there to find out.

Chabon has a rather abstract approach to story conception that's hard to replicate.

It's true that lots of shows have a head writer leave material for other writers to expand upon in the house style. But Chabon's style is very difficult to adopt in his absence. Chabon's writing is low key subtlety that is severely underplayed. It is very difficult for another writer to identify what defines Chabon style in order to extrapolate and continue what Chabon might have done. He's more M. Night Shyamalan than, say, Tracy Torme.

Maintaining a house style is all about knowing the specific identifiers of that style, maintaining them while bringing in your original ideas and perspectives. Tracy Torme's SLIDERS is about the American Dream; Jon Povill's SLIDERS questions that Dream, but both versions have Torme's style for the jokes.

In terms of Chabon's PICARD, Chabon's stylistic identifiers are so low key and chameleonic, with Season 1 slowly exploring the artificiality of life whether it's sex or machines or borders. Chabon finally offers the contemplation (as opposed to a conclusion) that artificiality is about defining beginnings and endings, and so, artificial intelligence like Data can't technically be life unless it's capable of experiencing death, a thought that Data offers in his final moments with Picard.

It is a moment that seems to have come intuitively and emotionally rather than through carefully plotted calculation. And since pastiche and maintaining a house style are fundamentally exercises in calculation, trying to predict what Chabon would have improvised is futile.

With Season 3, I think Matalas was out of Chabon beat sheets and ready to turn to do TERRY MATALAS' PICARD rather than TERRY MATALAS' MICHAEL CHABON'S PICARD.

For better or for worse. (Not sure which one, eager to find out.)

I'm sure people can dislike a show and still be fans of the franchise.

I've finished the first four episodes of PICARD Season 3 and it's very enjoyable. Season 1 with Michael Chabon was a dark, operatic and somewhat nihilistic story of Picard in retirement and bitterness and regret, healed and made whole through a final reunion with Data. Season 2 was a puzzling attempt to do another Michael Chabon season without Michael Chabon and it was bizarre: it created a new trauma for Picard within Season 2 to resolve it in Season 2.

Season 3 so far for me feels like Season 8 of THE NEXT GENERATION. It's Picard and Riker on a mission. It's arguable that Season 1 of PICARD should just have been TNG Season 8, that PICARD was always going to be another season of TNG at some point, and doing something else was just wasting time.

However, I think there's something to PICARD and Stewart deciding that the world didn't need TNG back in its sunny, corporate optimism. Instead, they spent the first season establishing that the 25th century was a darker world where Picard and his TNG attitude had been defeated by cynicism and abandonment. Season 2, though -- it didn't seem to add very much to the show beyond the Seven/Raffi relationship. It didn't have much of anything to say about Q or the Borg. Then the second season might as well have been the third season: TNG, Season 8.

The problem with Dr. Jurati and the cooperative that everyone who is complaining about that particular plot hole misses is that that was an alternate timeline Borg, so it is not relevant to mention in the prime timeline.

What do you think of this, presented by Den Of Geek?

https://www.tiktok.com/@denofgeektv/vid … 5969375530

I actually missed this line on my initial watch and only went back after episode 9.  But here's the problem: Shaw is not a reliable witness.  And Shaw has no idea - he's speculating.  Just like he refuses to acknowledge Seven's Borg-ness, I think he refuses to acknowledge that the Borg might have evolved.  Even if the Jurati Borg were the real Borg, I think Shaw would've said it.

Now it's obvious that it was intended to be the truth.  But I would've felt better if this were delivered by someone with a little less Borg baggage.

One more thing I forgot to add to my list:

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The Frontier Day stuff and the "whole fleet" being there.  Ummmm....what does that mean?  The entire Starfleet fleet?  Every ship everywhere?  That can't be what they mean, right?  Because I assume Starfleet exists both as a peacekeeping force and a deterrent to other forces, right?  If the entire US military decided to have a big celebration in Washington, DC...I imagine there are a handful of nations/rogue nations/terrorist organizations that might take advantage of that.

Maybe it is simply all their non-essential ships?  Maybe it's all their ships that were going to be in Sector 001 anyway?  I have trouble visualizing what the entire fleet would even look like.  I assume it would be thousands of ships, no?

Yeah, I guess we don't know a ton about the current politics of the Alpha Quadrant.  The Romulans aren't in any position to make a move.  I assume the Cardassians aren't either.  The Klingons are an ally.  So maybe there isn't really anyone that could make a move.  And even if they did, it would be a short move since the fleet probably was going to go home right after the festivities.

So do we think the intention was that it was *every* ship?

Is there a real-life explanation for why DS9 doesn't get as much love from the producers of modern Trek?  I think it's overwhelmingly thought of as the best Trek, but it's also overwhelmingly the black sheep of Trek as a whole.  Worf's DS9 ending was ignored essentially and he simply showed back up in the TNG movies with less and less explanation.  Chief O'Brien was essentially a TNG castmember (50 episodes) but showed up in none of the TNG movies and none of the seasons of Picard. 

The show is happy to borrow plot elements from it (mostly the Dominion War), but in terms of actual appearances, the only DS9 castmember that got any love is the Defiant (showing up in First Contact and season 3 of Picard).  I know some of the producers of DS9 rubbed people wrong at the time, but that was over 20 years ago, and I assume most of the people have left the franchise by this point anyway.

I get why Enterprise is ignored - it was a massive prequel and wasn't as beloved.  But DS9 takes place at the same time and is beloved.  Why no love for Deep Space Nine?