skywaterblue

Today, Slate's Matt Yglesias writes a long piece about the value of the Star Trek franchise focusing specifically on the message. That piece is entitled I Boldly Went Where Every Star Trek Movie and TV Show Has Gone Before and it is mostly a fine piece that I am mostly in agreement with that argues that Star Trek needs to come back as a DS9-like cable show in the vein of "Mad Men" to argue for a utopian progressive future.

I mostly agree with that assessment...except for this minor line: "Some of these one-offs—those set in the Mirror Universe especially—are fun. But others are dreadful (Sisko has to train his crew to beat a bunch of arrogant Vulcans at baseball) or simply bizarre (Sisko fights racism in the sci-fi industry of the 1950s)."

*record scratch*

SIMPLY BIZARRE?

Aside from being one of the best episodes of television on race ever filmed, "Far Beyond the Stars" is about the enfranchisement of black and female voices in fiction. It says more about racism in America in an hour than the entire series of Mad Men has in six seasons, because its point is simple. It says, quite simply says that our stories matter. OUR stories. To dismiss it as 'simply bizarre' is to show that no, you don't really get Star Trek at all. You're comfortable with a black male lead... so long as that black male never opens his mouth about race.

So yes. Star Trek needs to come back. And it needs to be a cable-drama in the vein of Mad Men.

And writers and fans like Matt Yglesias should have absolutely nothing to do with it.

-- Gallery show for my arts admin class, "Vitrine" went off really well despite being incredibly stressful.

-- Now I am stressing about my other art show, on May 8th.

-- I'm going to bum around Europe on the 15th.

-- The current plot arc on my Pern MUSH, 2pmush.net is incredibly absorbing. Also, we have a proper website now. How about that?

-- "Cabin in the Woods" - really, can Bradley Whitford be in all the Whedon things now? He fucking made that movie for me. I know I'm sad for him, but really. Bradley Whitford. Joss Whedon.

-- "The Hunger Games" - I also liked this. I thought it was very well directed, actually, to leave most of the emotional content unspoken in a huge Hollywood blockbuster is kind of a brave choice. Which speaks ill of Hollywood, but that is a film fan's prerogative, no?

-- "Game of Thrones, Season Two" - Dinklage is still awesome. Tiny dragons are awesome. Everything else about this show is barely tolerable.

-- "The Borgias, Season Two" - Honestly, I had forgotten the fine details of a lot of what happened last season. The first two episodes were a little meh, and although I'm inclined to like the Pope's newest girlfriend due to her proclivities (and I kind of ship her with Cesare as of last episode) I think she's allllmost on this side of Renaissance Mary Sue wish fulfillment. Last week's episode was a rush a minute thrill ride in terms of the plot, though. I like it better than "Game of Thrones" by kind of a lot.

-- "Mad Men" - Less Betty, slightly more filler. Highlights of the season so far have been the conclusion of the miserable "Joan's husband" arc, if only because thank fuck it seems over, and pretty much everything about Lane. And whatever Megan is wearing. I'm not entirely feeling it this season, I think, but I think Peggy continues to be my life model and I kind of ship her with Ginsberg even though my heart tells me that Peggy/Don is endgame.

-- "The Legend of Korra" - Everything about this show is fucking great. A 30 minute cartoon for tweens, but it's better than all three of the shows above COMBINED in terms of teasing a plot and then moving it the fuck forward. That is because the above three shows are the bastard children of the "Sopranos effect" whereas Korra is blissfully from another age of television. When they knew how to block an episode as an episode and not as part of a miniseries.

1. Rachel Maddow follows me on Twitter now. You are all insanely jealous, right?

This wasn't as big of a freak out for me as it was my other friends, because I don't write fanfiction about real people and thus never have to worry she'll find my Rachel Maddow/Ana Marie Cox stories. They don't exist.

2. Just Like Starting Over, a Mad Men Peggy/Don future fic. I'm not sure if there are a lot of stories in this fandom that project the characters forward - this one does a great job at applying the 1980s to the characters and style of the series. The little details are what makes this work - the opening gambit of Peggy's interview with Ms. Magazine, being asked about the Diana/Charles wedding. Don reading 'Rabbit is Rich'. It's the details that make the relationship seem believable.

And how can you not love the period-appropriate John Lennon title?

3. The cosmos own our luck. CJ and Toby, post series. Again, with the details. They're both political people, their lives take place in the background of big events - the choice to frame the dialogue as dashed off emails sent as CJ runs about fixing the world is inspired.

4. Malice Aforethought - DS9 needs a few more lawyers. I don't want to spoil it, but this is a fic about how Kira is awesome. Everyone likes that, yes?

5. That I can rec new fic from twenty and eleven year old fandoms makes me happy. Continue shining on, you crazy diamonds.

Did I not post about Mad Men 4.3 last week? That one was really amazing and had me on the edge of my seat. By contrast, this week's had a bunch of important plot stuff that I couldn't really get worked up about...

( More specifics. )

Oh, and Rubicon was on. I think I skipped a week, maybe? This week's was pretty awesome because it was more about the nutty analysts having to decide whether to kill a guy based on sketch intellegence and less about the crappy metaplot which even Miranda Richardson cannot save. As I said on Twitter, show would be awesome if it were more 'West Wing with spies' and less whatever the fuck with this conspiracy plot.

I heard they fired the head writer and retooled it after this episode, so that's interesting?

First, Mad Men 4.1: ( Some thoughts. )

Interesting start to the season. Not entirely clear what the season's themes are, but I only watched it once.

Rubicon

This is the new show that AMC is pushing hard to air after Mad Men. It's your basic LeCarre-esque espionage saga with a heavy dose of 'this has a series mystery'.

The problem is that the pilot episode deals so heavily in tropes - there's a message hidden in the crossword which starts a chain of assassinations, the head boss is clearly a double spy, and the main character is supposed to be a genius analyst. Yet when his boss gets killed despite leaving him a not at all cryptic message about what train he was going to be on and a motorcycle encouraging him to leave, and then creepy boss offers him old boss's job at the funeral, main character suspects nothing.

I'm spoiled by Garak. If anyone had killed one of Garak's associates in a 'train accident' after they left him keys to a shuttlecraft and a cryptic message, he would have been on to it like scales on Cardassians.

What I'm saying is this: Spy Dramas? The ONE PLACE it's okay for your character to have 'genre savvyness' as a trait. Because that's THEIR FUCKING JOB.

Also, the writers maxed out the main character's manpain attribute: his wife and kids DIED IN 9/11.

Skip skip skip.

Inception: Too complex to really review after only seeing it once. At a certain point in the movie there are at least five layers of story you have to be keeping track of, and while I'm pretty sure I know what happened, jeez.

I actually don't think it was as meaningful a meditation on the act of filmmaking as the Prestige is, but I'd have to see it a second time.

The special effects are really astonishing, though, and I didn't even hate Leo DiCaprio that much... even though I never am able to watch a film with him in it without thinking 'that's Leo DiCaprio'. I understand why people think this indicates he's Old Hollywood Like That, I just find it fucking annoying in 2010.

OH: The real astonishing bit is how good Joseph Gordon-Levitt is in this film. I bought him completely as an action hero. I would love to see some more movies with him as the lead. The end.

Sherlock 1.1: WHOA THERE. It's awesome and hella slashy. I love the way they use mobile phones in this - probably the most natural use of phones I've seen in anything in some time.

Mainly I want to say this:

BENEDICT CUMBERPATCH IS THE PERFECT CASTING FOR DREAM OF THE ENDLESS

MOFF, GAIMAN: STICK SOME BLACK CONTACTS ON IT AND GETTER DONE BEFORE HE'S TOO OLD.

I'm repasting this from madmen_tv, with some tweaked thoughts:

( Analysis of the symbolism of the May Pole scene in Mad Men s3: Love Among the Ruins )

I thought it was pretty laden with obvious sexual imagery, but I guess there are people really confused by the whole scene.

This chart on legal immigration to the United States from Reason. Mainly because having to work with My Previously Crazy Not!Boss and having to listen to her talk racist smack all day made me long for something like this that I could tape to her forehead.

In conclusion: IMMIGRATION = NOT AS EASY AS YOU THINK IT IS.

More cute Mad Men illustrations!

I think I might buy that one of Joan and the Copier.

Wired article on the utter timelessness that is Weird Al Yankovich.

( Mad Men )

Next week's episode looks compellingly amazing.

The new Microsoft ad campaign is WEIRD. WEIRD. I mean, Bill Gates seems so normal and funny and Jerry Seinfield is so obnoxious (well, nothing new there, I guess.) It's sort of like the ramped up the Apple Mac v. PC ads with more surrealism and more annoying.