EPISODE 505: In That Moment, It Was
This weekend someone introduced themselves to me as "a marijuana biscotti baker." I think we can officially register this civilization as over. (And also super down with the morning munchies.)
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Been traveling this week and haven’t had a lot of room for newslettery writing in the old brain space-time continuum. But I have somehow stumbled across a bunch of great little things which I’ll share below.
The one totally unexpected pleasure of the last few weeks has been watching old episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager. I am in deep on Picard, CBS Access’s new show following TNG Captain Jean-Luc 20+ years later on what so far has been an insane (and fantastic) adventure involving the Borg, Romulans, corruption within Starfleet and pretty much the greatest Data-related story I could think of. It’s been kind of a mind-blowing experience to go back through old episodes that relate to these storylines; I rarely give Star Trek TV (other than Discovery) much credit, but I am really learning to admire the work they did.
When I came through screenwriting school everything was about serialized TV; I scoff at your 22 unrelated episodes of police drama. I want 10-13 episodes of arc so form-fitted together and ultra-dense it makes War and Peace look soft.
But the thing is, when you have 22 episodes, while yes, there’s going to be some pretty ugly hours of television in there somewhere — including some involving mirror image version of characters sporting goatees — as a writer you also have a lot of room to explore characters and crazy ideas and questions about life. Because not everything has to connect intricately to The Story, you have the luxury of wandering down unexpected pathways, and discovering cool new stuff there.
It’s kind of blowing my mind, thinking about this.
Also, I have had these realizations:
Voyager’s opening credits music is so good you guys:
Just in that French horn alone you can feel all the loneliness and nobility of their journey. It’s so good.
Long time TV writers Ron Moore (Battlestar Galactica, Outlander) and Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, everything else) were full on scifi heroes from the beginning.
The engine that makes Star Trek shows work are characters who find themselves trapped between worlds and trying to chart a way forward for themselves. The formula begins in the original show with Spock, whose struggle between his human and Vulcan sides (usually exemplified via his relationship with Kirk) will become the heart of the series. TNG will have Data, the android who wants to be more human, and later Worf, the one Klingon on Starfleet.
At the start of Voyager we have Chakotay and B’Elanna, stuck on the ship but not Starfleet, rather members of a freedom-fighter cell; there’s also The Doctor, the hologram who attains a kind of independence; and eventually there’s uber-engine Seven of Nine, the freed Borg woman struggling to rediscover her humanity who becomes one of the greatest post-Original Star Trek characters.
Discovery in a sense takes this idea one step further by making that In Betweener character, the one in between, the main character of the series. Michael Burnham is a human raised by Vulcans trying to integrate the parts of herself, and also a disgraced officer trying to find her way back. And so far Picard seems to be nothing but In Betweeners — disgraced officers, a scientist who doesn’t know anything about outer space, Romulans living with humans and fighting their own kind, a girl who is a lot more than she thinks she is, a boy assassin in an order made up entirely of women and finally Picard himself, completely on the outside of Starfleet now and also old and still trying to make a difference.
From this perspective the Borg are maybe the perfect Star Trek villain, in that as they assimilate other groups they erase what makes them different or unique. They take away their “journey in between”.
Okay, that’s enough of me babbling. Here’s some fun stuff you might like:
Award Shows: The Real Story
This Week in Don’t Tell Me Animals Aren’t Intelligent: This video of Astronaut Christina Koch being greeted by her dog after a year away is very feeling-inducing:
Michael Bloomberg Makes a Funny
Say what you will about Bloomberg, his campaign sure seems to get the internet.
But Speaking of Say What You Will About Bloomberg…
Even the very serious Bloomberg points being made aside, this is an incredibly insightful piece into how it is different communities of Americans can so completely miss each other they don’t believe the other’s experience could possibly be true. A clip I wish everyone would watch.
Also in Politics, Bill Clinton’s Version of Between Two Ferns
In Other News: Refugee Kids remind us how amazing and special they are.
Look on Thy Mighty Works and Despair, Netflix
When the next generation of streamers comes for Netflix – and they will – they will talk about how insane its search algorithm is.
Damn You to Hell, Ray Bolger
And Finally, Dancing With Somebody
One of my new comic book/newsletter writer faves, Ram V, wrote this week: “The great hopes and joys are to be found in quiet corners where people whose names we will never know are making things, bringing light.”
I see you there in your quiet corner. And I hope you keep making your things. You may not even know it, but you are bringing light.
See you next week.