Tuesday TV Touchbase: Star Trek Picard

Hey, it’s Tuesday which means it’s time for the Tuesday TV Touchbase.

Maybe I should retitle this feature the Tuesday Trek Touchbase.

This will be the 3rd week in a row I’ve focused on Star Trek.

Yes, I have caught up on Outlander and Stumptown but given that last week was the season finale for Star Trek: Picard, we’re doing more Trek today.

(Next week, honestly, I will be talking about Outlander.)

Anyway, over the last two weeks, Picard’s quest came to a calamitous and climatic conclusion.  Picard and his crew on the La Sirena have made their way to Soji’s home planet, Coppelius.  It is here that we find a group of synthetic beings, androids, some like Data, others a bit more advanced. And one human: Dr. Altan Soong.

Yep, Brent Spiner is back playing a member of the Soong family again.

About 218 Romulan ships are blazing across the vast reaches of space to lay down a shit ton of fire and death on Coppelius  and destroy the androids who live there.

The knowledge that  218 Romulan ships are blazing across the vast reaches of space to kill them leads the synthetics to do the very thing the Romulans were afraid they would do: declare war on all organic life.

It doesn’t help that Narek (that treacherous Romulan son of a bitch) is on the planet and already killed an android named Saga.

Jean-Luc Picard lays down some classic Picard speechifying about working towards a better way.  It does not do one damn bit of good. Nope, the synthetics are going to do their thing. Picard is arrested while the androids with help from Soji and Agnes Jurati set up a beacon thingy to open a portal and summon some nasty mechanical life that will destroy everything.

Agnes, already duped once by Commander Oh, is not getting fooled again and springs Picard and they book it back to the La Sirena.

Meanwhile, Raffi, Chris and Narek (that treacherous Romulan son of a bitch) have teamed up to take out the beacon thingy before it can open a portal and summon nasty mechanical life that will destroy everything.

Meanwhile, back on the Borg Cube, Seven finds Narissa (that murdering Romulan bitch) and Seven kills her for killing Hugh (and maybe just for being a murdering Romulan bitch in general.)

Meanwhile, Altan Soong finds out that it wasn't Narek (that treacherous Romulan son of a bitch) but Sutra who killed Saga. A synthetic killing another synthetic in a plot of deception to convince the other androids that organic life cannot be trusted? Soong is, to say the least, disappointed.

Dr. Soong shuts down Sutra but Soji is still setting up the beacon after the plot by Raffi, Chris and Narek (that treacherous Romulan son of a bitch) to stop the beacon comes up short.

Meanwhile, Jean-Luc and Agnes are in space in the La Sirena, the only ship standing between Coppelius and the 218 Romulan ships that have shown up to blast everything synthetic to smithereens on orders from Commander Oh, no longer hiding by the façade of a Starfleet officer but showing her true colors as a Romulan commander.

Then a shit ton of Starfeet ships show up with (Ta da!) Captain William T. Riker all ready to chew gum and kick Romulan and damn it, he's out of gum.

Seriously, Riker's threat to Oh is probably the most bad ass thing I've ever seen Riker do on Star Trek. 

Here! Take a look! 

Damn, son! "Nothing would make me happier than you giving me an excuse to kick your treacherous Tal Shiar ass!"  

Whoa!  

Jean-Luc makes one last appeal to Soji to shut down the beacon thingy that will summon nasty mechanical life that will destroy everything.

It works, the Romulans haul ass out of there and then...

SPOILER ALERT!

I mean, seriously...

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Jean-Luc Picard dies.

I mean, really. The brain thingy Dr. Crusher detected way back in the final Next Gen episode, "All Good Things". finally kills him.

Seriously, Jean-Luc Picard is dead.

And then...

SPOILER ALERT!

I mean, seriously...

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Jean-Luc Picard get better.

What?

Altan Soong and Agnes Jurati did a cut and paste of Picard's brain and put his mind into an android.

OK, not a Data type of android with super smarts, super speed and super strength. It's an android body that looks and feels like Jean-Luc's old 94 year old body and with an algorithm that will allow him to eventually die.

What? What?

And then...

SPOILER ALERT!

I mean, seriously...

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Data dies.

Hold on! Hold on!

What?

What the what what?

Isn’t Data already dead?

OK, Data dies… again.

It seems that Bruce Maddox had saved a neuron from Data's brain and transferred his awareness into a computer thing, existing in some kind of quantum state.

Before Jean-Luc's marbles are transferred to his new home, he has a heart to heart chat with Data in this quantum realm. 

It is very sweet and moving reunion, giving Picard the closure he was denied when Data was killed back in Nemesis. 

Before Picard leaves this realm to go to his new body, Data asks a favor: to terminate his consciousness.

So Picard honors his promise. As the isolinear chips are removed, we see Data slowly fading, his pallid android features aging as Jean-Luc Picard, in his Starfleet uniform, hold's Data's hand as Data dissipates into nothingness.

Why should I suffer this sadness alone? Watch this and try not to cry.

I'm not crying. You're crying.   

It is, maybe, the most emotionally wrenching moment in the history of Star Trek, right up there with a dying Spock telling Kirk he will always be his friend.

Damn!

So Jean-Luc Picard is a synthetic lifeform now?

OK, that's weird.

No, more than weird.

This off the hooking friggin' insane!

The episode ends with the a very crowded bridge of the La Sirena with Picard, Agnes, Chris, Soji, Elnor, Raffi and Seven (who apparently might be a couple now?) 

I gotta say that enjoyed the hell out of these 10 episodes of Star Trek: Picard. Yes, there were the touchpoints of nostalgia but it also challenged me as the universe of Star Trek moves forward in new and unexpected ways. 

I have NO idea where Star Trek: Picard might go next for Season 2.

And I can't wait to find out.  

______________________________

Next week on Tuesday TV Touchbase, we will catch up on Outlander.  

Doctor Who Is (Sort Of) NEW!: Things She Thought While Falling

Wait! Doctor Who is.... NEW?!?

Well. sort of.

To help us get through the dark times of the coronavirus pandemic, the Doctor sent a message of hope to the world.

And here it is! 

Well, that was nice of her.

And I feel better for hearing that. 

Thanks, Doctor! 

Also Whovians around the world got together (virtually, of course) for a collective re-watch of Day of the Doctor.  As a prequel to the event, Dan Starkey returns as Strax to provide an introduction. Since Dan is stuck at home like the rest of us and cut off from the make up and costume professionals of Doctor Who, a unique way was found to bring Strax to life.

And by and by, the intro was written by none other than Steven Moffat himself. 

Next up is a short story written by Chris Chibnall which I will present here. 

Things She Thought While Falling

by Chris Chibnall 

She was cold.

The Doctor was cold.

The ragged clothes weren't helping. She was cold, and in someone else's ragged clothes.

She felt a little peeved that the ragged clothes did not include a built-in parachute. That felt like an error.

Wait, she thought. Why would I want a parachute? Oh yes, that's right. She remembered.

She was falling.

Air was rushing past her. Or more accurately, she was rushing past air. Tumbling through the cold night sky.

Also, she was fizzing.

Remnants of regeneration particles were still skittering off her. The process was still… in process. Her newness still in train.

The Doctor looked up, mid-plummet. Oh dear, she thought.

Far above her, the TARDIS was exploding.

That is very unhelpful, she thought.

No, wait, not just exploding. Now the TARDIS was dematerializing – while it exploded. 

Dematerialexploding, thought the Doctor. 

That's not a word, chided the Doctor. 

Alright, replied the Doctor, I'm only a few minutes in here – you're lucky I've got any words at all. 

Will you two stop arguing, chimed in the Doctor. 

Only if you stop sub-dividing us, replied the Doctor, this is all the same brain. Don't confuse matters.

As the blue box vanished, leaving the Doctor looking up at a starry black sky, the Doctor wondered if she'd ever see her TARDIS again. No time to feel sorry for yourself, she told herself. Too much going on!

Yes, she thought. There was a lot going on. A large dark painful ground mass was rapidly approaching, and inside the Doctor's body her cells continued to burn and reshape and reform.

Well, thought the Doctor. All of her. This is a conundrum.

Her newly minted mind had already had three thousand and seven thoughts over the course of three seconds. She knew because she counted, and she only realized she'd counted once she'd finished counting, and then she wondered whether the counting made three thousand and eight thoughts and then she realized that the ground was another second closer, and a plan would probably be in order.

She saw the ground and calculated her own velocity. Ooh, this is going to hurt, she thought. Even with a soft landing. And it probably won't be a soft landing. She crossed her fingers and hoped she was heading for an open air trampoline factory.

Like that planet, what was it called, Fintleborxtug! 

Fun fact about Fintleborxtug, she told herself, the creature that named it did so when it was hiccuping and just before it was sick. Nobody knows if it was really the name or just the sound it made.

You don't have to tell me that, thought the Doctor tetchily to herself, I know! I know the planetary surface of Fintleborxtug is as soft and bouncy as a trampoline, because I went for a long bounce there once among the mountains, and the purple sky. I'd just had ice cream sundaes. That was a mistake. Can you please concentrate, the Doctor thought to herself again!

She concentrated. She confirmed she was still falling. 

Disappointing, but not that much of a surprise given her circumstances hadn't changed in the second since she last checked.

She wondered where exactly she was. Which sky she was falling through. Which ground she was heading for. She stuck her tongue out. It was buffeted by the air. Tickled. Ah. That tasted like Earth. Northern Europe. Britain. Wood smoke, diesel, grass, fast approaching concrete, lot of moisture and attitude in the air. Yorkshire. Possibly South Yorkshire.

She snuck another look down. A train track. A stationary train. She tried to recognise the livery on the outside of the train, so she could absolutely nail precisely where she was but it was distant and dark and regeneration had once again failed to deliver the super powered, see in the dark, X Ray vision she had always craved. Ah well, she thought, maybe next time.

Now, the train below was insisting on getting even closer. 

The train, or the tracks, were where she was going to land. 

She pondered her limited choices – tracks would hurt. Mouth full of gravel and two big metal lines all the way down her new body. 

Ouch. 

Train might be better – the roof, if she could crash through it, would soften her landing a bit (though smashing through was most likely going to hurt a lot).

With a bit of luck any injuries would be taken care of by the still fizzing regeneration process. Like those injuries the Doctor had got after he'd crashed through the roof at Naismith manor. Or the hand he'd managed to grow back after the Sycorax had lopped one off. Watch out Doctor, she thought, your personal pronouns are drifting.

That roof was super close now. She flapped her arms a bit to make sure her trajectory was bang on. As she did so, she saw that the train lights were out. She saw sparks of a light flashing in one carriage towards the back of the train. Something was wrong. And if something was wrong, she was the man to sort it out.

You're assuming you're going to make it through this fall alive, she reminded herself. Now, don't be gloomy, she chided back. Things will be alright. Right now, they're not ideal. But I can muddle through. Probably.

That's interesting, she thought. I seem to be an optimist. With a hint of enthusiasm. And what's that warm feeling in my stomach? 

Ah, I'm kind! Brilliant.

This was going to be fun, thought the Doctor, as she crashed through the roof of a train, on the outskirts of Sheffield, not far from Grindleford.

Then, having hit the floor of the train, and felt extra little regenerative energy particles heal where things had scratched and broken and hurt — newness, in train, on a train — she thought to herself: this is going to be a very interesting night!

The Doctor jumped up, zapped a creature she couldn't quite understand and immediately made new friends.

____________________________________-

Well, that was a lot of fun. 

(OK, will it spoil the mood if I ponder why the TV show couldn't be more like that?) 

OK, that's that. 

Stay safe and remember to be good to one another.

Cinema Sunday: Forgotten Cinema

Today's Cinema Sunday will not be about a particular movie. 

It was going to be. I gave myself a challenge to write about a science fiction movie that I had seen that was NOT part of a franchise. 

Which knocked all the Star Wars movies, every Star Trek feature film and anything in the Marvel cinematic universe. 

I thought I might write about 2001: A Space Odyssey but then I remembered there was a sequel, 2010 so I guess that sort of disqualifies it from the "NOT part of a franchise" criteria. 

Then I came across a cable listing for the movie Contact, a standalone sci-fi film starring Jodie Foster about making first contact with intelligent alien life. I had seen that movie. I could write about that.

Except...

I don't remember one damn thing about it. 

Of the movies I have written about for Cinema Sunday, I've done some research for some factual data and fill in some gaps of some things my memory was a bit hazy on.  But I still not only remembered seeing the movie but remembered the movie itself.

But not Contact starring Jodie Foster. 

I am reasonably sure I sat in a theater and watched Contact starring Jodie Foster. 

But the movie itself is completely deleted from my memory.  

Which concerns me. 

There's a thing I've seen in crime noir thrillers from the 1940s that goes something like this.

Cop: All right, Johnny! Where were you on Tuesday night when Miss McCallister was murdered? 

Johnny: Tuesday night? I was at the movies

Cop: The movies, eh? 

Johnny: Yeah, right. The movies. 

Cop: What movie did you see? 

Johnny: I don't remember.

Cop: You don't remember, eh? 

OK, let me call bullshit on that. Johnny couldn't just come up with something like, "it was a Western, you know, the new one with John Wayne".  If you're going to lie, put some effort into it. "I don't remember"? Who would ever believe that? 

Well, maybe it's not so incredulous now? 

I could've moved on and picked a different movie but my mind went even further down the rabbit hole of wondering what else has been deleted from brain and why other things have not been deleted.

"Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" is still there in my head. Why, God, why? 

My apologies to Jodie Foster who is an amazing talent and a consummate professional who I am sure turned in a wonderful performance in Contact.  

Stay safe and remember to be to good to one another. 

Songs For Saturday: David Byrne, Peter Gabriel, Sugarland and Sara Bareilles

Hey guys! It's Songs For Saturday! 

So let's do some songs, yo!


If the whole social distancing during the coronavirus epidemic has got you down, maybe some live music will help lift your spirits.

First up is a performance from about a month ago. It's 
David Byrne on Saturday Night Live with a really astonishingly good take on the Talking Heads classic, Once In A Lifetime.  

EDIT: Well, darn it! The grand poo-bahs of You Tube or NBC/Universal took that down.  

Here is a 1980s take on Once In a Lifetime with the Talking Heads from their concert movie, Stop Making Sense.

Next up is a live performance of Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel.

Peter sings while riding a bicycle? Wow! I'm out of breath just watching him do that. 

Up next, we have Sugarland and Sara Bareilles cover "Come On Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners. 

Yowza! I love that cover.  

Sara Bareilles makes everything better. 

That's that for this week's Songs For Saturday! 

Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, be good to one another and keep the music alive. 

Judging Comics By Their Covers

My Twitter "pal" Aaron Meyers  is an aficionado of all things comics. He's always browsing comic shops and flea markets for unique finds in classic comic books.

He likes to post pics of these books he finds on Twitter.

And I like to post snarky comments about the covers. 

So here we go. Here's the cover of a romance comic that Marvel used to publish. 

OK, who the hell is she looking at?
That pensive dude in the foreground
is not in her line of sight.

Well, this is cover by John Romita is fraught with drama and heartbreak. A woman in tears as the man she loves is leaving her as he pensively avoids her gaze.

Assuming he's the one her heart is breaking for. 

She's not looking at him. 

Maybe she's in love with this dude's driver, maybe? 

Ooh! Maybe I figured out this story's secret twist! 

Up next from the mid 1970s, Aaron scored a nice copy of one of DC's mystery titles, House of Secrets.  

"We've got trouble, right here in the House of Secrets!
And that starts with T and that rhymes with P
and that stands for POOL!"

DC's mystery titles like House of Secrets, House of Mystery, Witching Hour and Ghosts usually boasted some wild and eye catching covers by artists like Bernie Wrightson, Mike Kaluta and Nick Cardy. This particular cover is by Luis Dominguez who did a lot of work for DC on its mystery and war books as well DC's western star Jonah Hex. 

The caption is a riff on a song from The Music Man and if yo don't get the reference, well, I'm old, you're probably not and let's just move on from there.  

Man, what a total icehole!

You see, he's in a HOLE in the ICE, you see. 

(He's not going to explain the joke, is he?) 

You know, an ICE HOLE, right?

(Oh, God! He is explaining the joke.) 

And ICE HOLE sounds like ASS HOLE, you know? 

(Well, that was awkward.)  

You may notice none of these covers are from super hero books. Aaron collects those as well. But the ones that are not always interest me the most, from those halcyon days when the comic book industry was not mostly about super heroes and would throw anything at the wall to see what would stick. 

Aaron hasn't been feeling well lately and he's also stuck in pandemic exile like the rest of us which isn't helping. 

Hope things get better soon. Thanks for sharing the fortunes of searches with us on Twitter, Aaron. 

Songs For Saturday coming up tomorrow.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another.  

The Coronavirus Conflagrations

So it's another day in coronavirus exile paradise.

Is the pressure getting to you yet?  



So the coronavirus has taken another life. 

Well, not the disease itself but fear of the disease. 

An Arizona man died after ingesting chloroquine phosphate — believing it would protect him from becoming infected with the coronavirus. The man's wife also ingested the substance and is under critical care.

The man's wife said she'd watched televised briefings where Trump talked about the potential benefits of chloroquine. Even though no drugs are approved to prevent or treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, some early research suggests it may be useful as a therapy.

The toxic ingredient they consumed was not the medication form of chloroquine, used to treat malaria in humans. Instead, it was an ingredient listed on a parasite treatment for fish.

There’s a good reason why there’s distance between potential drug therapy and actual drug therapy. People who know what they are doing need a chance to sort out how drugs work, get the drugs made and then get them to the people who need them who can take them safely and for the purpose they are intended.

Talking about potential drug cures leads to tragedies like this one. People who are scared make desperate decisions to protect themselves.

And there’s a good reason why Donald Trump needs to shut the fuck up.

You know this moron is actually pushing to get the United States out of our current lockdown mode early? He seems to think 15 days is some kind of magic number that when we reach it, everything will be hunky dory, rainbows and lollypops and, most importantly, the stock market will be great again.

Except every damn medical expert is telling us we’re going to need more time than that. Including Tony Faucy who has now been put on a short lease and told not to speak to the media again without permission after apparently one time too many of Faucy contradicting Trump on the seriousness of the outbreak, the expected time line for social distancing and potential drug therapies.

Look, if given a choice on who to believe, Trump or the medical experts, there’s a sick and grieving widow in Arizona who might take issue with the wisdom of listening to anything Li’l Donnie has to say.

The Olympic Committee isn’t listening to Trump and have decided to postpone the summer Olympics that were scheduled for Toyko. This annoucment was not a total surprise.  A couple of days ago, a Canadian member of the committee named Dick Pound said that….

OK, stop giggling! It’s the man’s real name, OK?

Anyway, Dick Pound had warned that…

I mean it! Stop giggling!!!

So… this guy said the committee was leaning in that direction to cancel the games and perhaps in the long term, reschedule them for 2021.

How sweet! He thinks we’re going to be here next year.

Also gone: comic books.

This week, Diamond Distributors announced that starting with books with an April 1^st sale date, they would no longer be distributing new product.

The next day, the printing plant in Canada that prints books for DC and other publishers announced a three week shut down, effective immediately.

Well, that sucks!

What does this mean for comic book shops like Acme Comics here in Greensboro overseen by the wise and benevolent Lord Retail, Jermaine Exum or Sterling Silver Comics in California, owned and operated by friend of the blog Mike Sterling?

Obviously without the weekly Wednesday fix of new comics, there will be less incentive for customers to come in on a regular basis. With the whole state of California on lockdown, Mike’s shop is not even open but he can still do business with customers online looking for back issues. Acme’s doors are open and they have curb side service and delivery for those customers who are trying to stay hunkered down away the virus as much as possible. And Lord Retail has a thriving business with back issues with clients all over the country including Twitter buddy Aaron Meyers.

But long term, even with creative marketing and having a substantial amount of classic product, the prognosis for comic book stores is not good.  Just because books are not being printed and not being delivered doesn’t mean that comic books are not available for purchase.  But while a spike in digital sales may help DC, Marvel and other publishers to weather the storm, such a dramatic shift in the paradigm from print to digital could have long term consequences beyond the current duration of the pandemic.  

Me, I still like me comics in print form but I’m old and ornery and most decidedly not part of a growing demographic. 

I imagine clever and sensible people like Mike and Jermaine will find a way to survive and even prosper. 

But a broader view of the comic book retail industry is not a particularly positive perspective. 

It's hard to be positive about anything. I believe this will not last forever and we will be more or less OK when this all over.

But I think the world will be fundamentally changed in ways that I cannot anticipate.

That's all for today's post. I think that maybe tomorrow I will do a FUN post about comics, how about that? 

Until next time, remember to be good to one another.

And to yourself, while you're at it.