Star Trekking: Star Trek - The Original Series - Season Two - Part One

Welcome to another edition of Star Trekking, my weekly blog post for my Star Trek fandom.  

For the 60th Anniversary of Star Trek, I did some posts looking back on Star Trek - The Original Series - Season One:

Part One

Part Two 

Part Three 

Today we kick off my look back on Star Trek - The Original Series - Season Two.

Like I did with season one, I'm not doing a comprehensive list of the entire season.  

There are some episodes I barely remember.  ("Friday's Child")

And there were episodes that just plain stunk. (I'm looking at you, "The Omega Glory".)  

The criteria is if I watched it, I remember watching it and I liked it, I'm going to put down some words about it.

We're going to start with "Amok Time".  

This episode establishes some perplexing principles around the sex life of Mr. Spock. 

• Spock does not get horny all that often.
• When he does, he gets SUPER HORNY! 
• He will throw soup at you! 
• And if he doesn't get laid, he will die! 

Spock has entered a Vulcan phase of life called "Pon Farr"

No, Pon Farr, not Jamie Farr! 

Anyway, Spock is all sorts of moody, cranky and some other 3rd thing and Dr. McCoy's diagnosis is if Spock don't get him some, he's gonna die.

To cure him of his Pan Farr, the Enterprise needs to get Spock back to Vulcan where he can hook up with his fiance, T'Pring.

T'Pring has other ideas.

T'Pring has been banging with a Vulcan dude named Stonn who T'Pring prefers to Spock and so wants to break off her engagement to Spock.  

Which apparently involves a ritual combat known as the kal-if-fee. But instead of Stonn, T'Pring chooses another to combat Spock, Capt. Jim Kirk.  

Caution:  the kal-if-fee is to the death! 

It is a ritual overseen by T'Pau, a renowned matriarch who inexplicably speaks in quasi Shakespearean/King James Biblical lingo.  

"Thou hast made a challenge. Does thee accept?"  Stuff like that.

And after several minutes of hot, sweaty, only as gay as you want it to be grappling, Spock kills Kirk. 

SPOCK: Why the challenge, and why you chose my captain as your champion.

T'PRING: Stonn wanted me, I wanted him.

SPOCK: I see no logic in preferring Stonn over me.

T'PRING: You have become much known among our people, Spock. Almost a legend. And as the years went by, I came to know that I did not want to be the consort of a legend. But by the laws of our people, I could only divorce you by the kal-if-fee. There was also Stonn, who wanted very much to be my consort, and I wanted him. If your Captain were victor, he would not want me, and so I would have Stonn. If you were victor you would free me because I had dared to challenge, and again I would have Stonn. But if you did not free me, it would be the same. For you would be gone, and I would have your name and your property, and Stonn would still be there.

SPOCK: Logical. Flawlessly logical.

T'PRING: I am honoured.

SPOCK: Stonn. She is yours. After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true. 

(Translation: this bitch be crazy and will make your life hell.)

Seriously bummed out that he killed the Captain and his friend, Spock returns to the Enterprise to find out Kirk is actually still alive. 

Spock greets the news with the brightest, happiest smile you ever saw.  

A smile that launched a thousand ships and a plethora of gay themed fact fiction.

Spock ❤ Kirk =  Spork?  

Hey, wasn't Spock supposed to get laid or the Jamie Farr Pon Farr would kill him? 

Here's how Spock explains what happened.

SPOCK: When I thought I had killed the captain, I found I had lost all interest in T'Pring. The madness was gone.

WE ❤ SPORK! 

For a race that extols the virtues of logic and science,  Vulcans do seem to be caught up in a lot of rituals and superstitious nonsense.  

Here is a partial list of media outlets with their assessments of "Amok Time".   

• 1996:  TV Guide ranked "Amok Time" No. 2 on its list of the 10 best Star Trek episodes.
• 2012:  The A.V. Club ranked this episode as one of top ten "must see" episodes of the original series.
• 2018: Collider ranked this episode the second best original series episode.
• 2019:  CBR ranked this episode as one of the top 8 most memorable episodes of the original Star Trek.
• 2024: Hollywood.com ranked Amok Time at number 7 out of the 79 original series episodes.
• 2026:  Me, I would probably rank "Amok Time" in my Top 10 original Star Trek stories.  

Over a 30 year span, it does seem that "Amok Time" stands the test of time.

Next up on review of Star Trek season 2 is "The Changeling"

Nomad is a device of nearly unlimited power that has taken 4 billion lives in the Malurian star system and is on endless quest to exterminate all biological infestations.

And only the Enterprise stands in it's way. 

Nomad elects not to destroy the ship and crew because it detects it's "Creator" is on board.  

NOMAD: You are the creator, the Kirk. The sterilisation procedure against your ship was unnecessary.

KIRK: What sterilisation procedure?

NOMAD: You are the Kirk, the creator. You programmed my function.

MCCOY: Tell me what your function is.

NOMAD: My function is to probe for biological infestations, to destroy that which is not perfect. I am Nomad

What the hell is going on? Well, here's the deal, sparky.

Nomad started off a deep space probe created by Dr. Jackson Roykirk and launched from Earth in the 21st century.  Contact with the probe was lost and it was presumed the probe had been destroyed.

What happened is the Earth probe encountered an alien probe and the two devices merged giving us the Nomad now roaming the halls of the Enterprise. Nomad has the power to destroy worlds and has used it too.  

And that devastating power is held in check by Nomad's perception of Capt. Jim Kirk as it's creator, Dr. Jackson Roykirk.

Kirk's control over Nomad is hardly complete and as Nomad roams around the ship, curious about these biological organisms his creator allows to infest this vessel.  

Nomad attacks Uhura, draining her memories. 

Scotty lunges to protect Uhura from this menace* and winds up getting killed by Nomad for his trouble.

*Because he loves her so? Holy retcon! See Star Trek: Strange New Worlds "Tomorrow's Enterprise".

Don't worry, Uhura and Scotty will get better.

Kirk's losing his leash on an increasingly unstable Nomad. If he can't figure out how to stop Norad here and now, it will destroy the Enterprise and continue on it's merry way, killing planets. 

It's time for that classic Star Trek trope: Kirk turns a computer against itself.  

Nomad's mission: sterilize imperfections without exception.

Kirk points out that Nomad itself is imperfect.

1) Nomad made a mistake thinking Captain Kirk is its true creator Jackson Roykirk. 

2) He has not sterilized itself as an imperfect thing.  

Nomad starts sparking and buzzing from all the contradictions it's forced to calculate. The Enterprise crew beams the metal menace into space where it 'SPLODES!  

"The Changeling" is not a great episode and credulity is mightily strained in order to cobble together a raisin d'etre for Kirk's control over Nomad.

But the idea of a Earth space probe merging with an alien probe to become a stronger, more powerful and incredibly dangerous thing was good enough to use again.

It's the basic plot behind Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  

Rounding out today's post is "Mirror, Mirror".

Some cosmic hoo-doo causes the transporter to go kablooey and sends Kirk, McCoy, Scotty & Uhura to swap places with their counterparts in another universe.  

An evil universe.

A universe of evil.

We know it's evil because Spock has a goatee.

A goatee of... EVIL! 

It's like how can tell in Community if it's regular good ol' Abed or the Evil Abed from the Darkest Timeline.

Evil Abed has a goatee... of EVIL! 

Anyway, back to Star Trek...

So Kirk, McCoy, Scotty & Uhura have to navigate an Enterprise where treachery, torture and murder is just the way things are.  Kirk has to tap dance as fast as he can to keep anyone from realizing he's not Evil Kirk without actually killing anyone.  

Meanwhile Scotty is skulking about trying to reverse engineer the cosmic hoo-doo that sent them to this fascist porn flick and send them back to their Enterprise. 

Evil Spock might be evil but he's still Spock and too damn smart not to realize that something, as the humans say, is up.  

Uhura is fending off advances from Evil Sulu and damn, girl! Uhura can hold her own on the Evil Enterprise.

Scotty is able to technobabble a solution to their predicament but time and resources are tight so nothing can go wrong.

Something goes wrong: Evil Spock confronts our intrepid quartet at the same time Evil Sulu tries to stage a mutiny.  There's a fruckus in which Evil Spock is severely injured.  Even though the window for getting out of this godforsaken universe is about the close, McCoy insists on staying to save Evil Spock's life. 

This moment of compassion compels Evil Spock to help the four escape and promises Kirk that perhaps there is a better, more logical way than serving the evil empire.

Back on their Enterprise, Kirk, McCoy, Scotty & Uhura discover that their evil counterparts were immediately exposed and detained. 

SPOCK: It was far easier for you as civilised men to behave like barbarians, than it was for them as barbarians to behave like civilised men. I assume they returned to their Enterprise at the same time you appeared here.

KIRK: Probably. However, that Jim Kirk will find a few changes, if I read my Spocks correctly.

MCCOY: Jim, I think I liked him with a beard better. It gave him character. Of course almost any change would be a distinct improvement.

KIRK: What worries me is the easy way his counterpart fitted into that other universe. I always thought Spock was a bit of a pirate at heart.

SPOCK: Indeed, gentlemen. May I point out that I had an opportunity to observe your counterparts here quite closely. They were brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilised, treacherous, In every way, splendid examples of homo sapiens, the very flower of humanity. I found them quite refreshing.

KIRK: I'm not sure, but I think we've been insulted.

 

If you are from an evil universe and wanna be sure no one confuses you with your lame, pathetic "good" counterpart, you can use this:

Your Evil Abed Insta-Goatee! 

Neither Star Trek nor Star Trek: The Next Generation would revisit the so-called Mirror Universe again.... at least on TV.  There's a ton of tie-in books, comics and stuff.

But the Mirror Universe would be revisited on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  Hell, they installed a frickin' revolving door to the place.  

And the MIrror Universe would be instrumental to some plot points in Star Trek: DIscovery. 

OK, that is that for this week's look back at the second season of Star Trek, the original series.  

Next week, we will continue this retrospective with another implacable machine of DEATH, more back story for Mr. Spock AND Capt. Kirk.

And if we have time: Tribbles! 

Live long and prosper, y'all!  

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

TREK meets TREK!

It's another edition of the Dropping Names as Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner sit down for a chat with William Shatner.

I know you're all excited that Riker and Data chat with Kirk about cool stuff.

It's better described as two old guys talk with another even older guy about old guy stuff.  

Thanks again to  Chrissie's Transcripts Site for the script excerpts.   

Movie Time: Spider Baby

Last week I noted we're on a countdown to the cold clammy embrace of Halloween and as such, the weekly movie post is on a downward spiral of a tour of older horror films of questionable quality and taste.

Today's post is not an exception to that.

This movie is a bad one, folks! 

It's... Movie Time!  

Today's movie was shot in 1964 but was not released until 1967.

Starring Lon Chaney Jr and no one else you've ever heard of, this is Spider-Baby.

Bear witness to the Merrye House, a large decrepit structure on the edge of town, a  fearsome and foreboding place.   

Locals know to keep their distance. Because of the children.

The children are mad, malevolent.  And if you believe the stories, they are murderers as well.

The Merrye children Ralph, Virginia, and Elizabeth live in seclusion with the family chauffeur Bruno since the death of their parents.  

The children have advanced Merrye Syndrome, a genetic affliction unique to members of the family.  Upon entering late childhood, the condition causes them which causes them to regress down the evolutionary ladder mentally and physically. 

They exhibit a playful innocence of younger children interspersed with fits of psychotic feral madness.

Ralph is a mentally deficient simpleton who moves through the house via the dumb-waiter. His mental and emotion regression is further confused by his growing adolescent sexual awakening. He's a horny teen trapped with the brain of a toddler. 

Virginia has an obsession with spiders and likes it play a game with hapless wayward visitors called "spider". This game involves trapping the victim and stabbing them repeatedly with butcher knives. 

Elizabeth is the youngest but paradoxically also the most responsible. But even she is compelled by the family genetic mutation to emotional outbursts. She is conniving and manipulative with an obsession with the concept of hate. 

They are quite a lot of manage, almost more than Bruno can handle. But a made a promise to their dying parents to always take care of them and protect them from the world and by golly, the old miserable sonuvabitch is gonna keep his word. 

A hard promise to keep that gets harder still when the outside world comes calling.   

Entering our dreadful tale of terror:

• Peter Howe, distance relative of the Merrye family
• Emily, Peter's sister.
• Schlocker, Peter and Emily's lawyer
• Ann, Schlocker's secretary.

Peter and Emily have arrived to claim the Merry House as their property, as heirs to the Merry family assets.  

Bruno tries to coach and guide the children to at least try to act like normal people but hell, Bruno himself is not exactly a master of normal social skills.  

Our intruding foursome insists on sticking around to check out the place. 

Good! It'll make it easier for the children to kill them.  

Realizing the gig is up and he's kept his promise to the parents as long as he could, Bruno makes plans to end things once and for all.

There's a highway construction site up the road with some handy dandy explosives.

Any resemblance of a civilized facade falls away as the four visitors realize that these kids are weird as fuck and may be about to kill them. 

Virginia and Elizabeth murder Schlocker. He's the lawyer so we don't care.

Emily discovers Schlocker's body and freaks out. Ralph chases her out of the house and into the woods where he makes her his special friend (I.e. sexually assaults her).  

Virginia ties Peter to a chair to play a game of "spider".

Ralph returns to the house to corner Ann to be his next special friend.

Yes, I agree! This is some sick shit! 

Emily returns to the house, traumatized and delirious from her assault and she attacks Ralph in a murderous rage. Virginia and Elizabeth intervene to protect Ralph and...

Whoops! Now Emily's dead.

Peter gets loose and recovers Ann to escape from the house just as Bruno returns with the explosives.

As Peter and Ann flee, the house explodes, killing everyone inside.

Ten years later...

Peter and Ann are married with a daughter.  Peter is relieved there is no sign of the "Merrye Family Syndrome".

But... 

(You knew there was a "but".) 

We see Peter and Ann's daughter playing outside when she becomes obsessed with watching a spider.

The nightmare still lives?

But the movie has ended and...

Holy hell! What the fuck was all that?

Jack Hill wrote the script with the idea that the role of Bruno would go to  Lon Chaney Jr.

• Chaney read the script.
• Chaney liked the script.
• Chaney has questionable tastes in movie scripts.

But the producers could only offer him $2,500 to take the part and that was such a lowly pittance for an actor like Lon Chaney Jr. 

Upon hearing that John Carradine was up for the role, suddenly Chaney decided $2,500 was just fine. 

Before landing on the title of Spider Baby, other titles were considered: 

• The Liver Eaters
• Attack of the Liver Eaters
• Cannibal Orgy
• The Maddest Story Ever Told

While the opening titles identify the movie as Spider Baby, there's also a secondary title card that calls the film The Maddest Story Ever Told.

Lon Chaney Jr's opening narration also promised us a "cannibal orgy" but sorry to get your hopes up but there is no orgy, cannibal or otherwise. 

If any of this movie sounds familiar, it's pretty much the template for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  

And the most controversial episode of X-Files about a house full of devolved mutant freaks owes a lot to Spider-Baby.  

Next week for Movie Time's countdown to Halloween, the movies are not going to get any better.  

Next week we descend into a bloody pit of horror for a movie called (wait for it!) Bloody Pit of Horror! 

Your Friday Video Link Gets Sidetracked

When I'm travelling, I will see a road veering off the main highway and I will wonder where that road goes to, what sights may be seen by going off on a thin strip of road curling through the trees or around a hill or over a river.

On Your Friday Video Link today, we're going to meet a man for whom such quests and questions are a way off life. 

This is Sidetrack Adventures hosted by Steve! 

Based out of San Diego, Steve ventures forth to explore all sorts of roads: 

• back roads
• side roads
• abandoned roads 
• the roads less travelled

Along the way, Steve discovers historic and hidden landmarks. 

Let's start with a trek Steve made on a 100 mile stretch of read described as "The Most Desolate Highway In California". 

Desolate? But Steve will still make this journey interesting. 

Steve tracks Route 66 through the Mojave Desert and explores some ghost towns along this iconic route.  

Sidetrack Adventures is more than just Steve fixing a camera on his dashboard and randomly babbling about what he sees. This guy puts some serious work into these videos. 

He incorporates drone footage to provide context for the roads he explores. He researches the history of the places he journeys to and includes archival maps and photos.  

This next video is a bit long but I found it particularly fascinating.  Steve explores the entirety of Las Vegas Boulevard miles and miles before it becomes the iconic stretch of highway known as The Strip.

Every road begins somewhere and this journey starts with a stretch of highway that is barely more than rubble and sometimes not even paved.  

Here is an interview with Steve about who he is and why he does what he does.

I'm enjoying these Sidetrack Adventures and Steve's exploration of the question, "Hey! Where does that road go to?"

That's is that for this week's edition of Your Friday Video Link.

We're back this weekend with Movie Time and Star Trekking.

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

And safe travels exploring the road less traveled.  

Dave-El's Spinner Rack: Batman-palooza!

 A recent visit to Acme Comics of Greensboro NC procured me some new comics books.

Especially a whole bunch o' Bat books.

Which will be the focus of today's post.

Batman#12

Matt Fraction and Jorge Jimenez bring Verity Pennyworth into the Bat-Family.

It looks like Alfred is going to stay dead.

Bruce Wayne is a bit gob smacked by Verity's arrival.

Alfred the A.I. Hologram informs Bruce it was all there in the paperwork: final wishes, last will and testament, household transfer plans, et cetera. 

Paperwork that Bruce has been reluctant to read.   

Verity is a remarkable woman. She gets Damien to laugh.

Meanwhile,  a strange eclectic variety of specialty assassins are arriving in Gotham City.

Target: Bruce Wayne.  

Batman's got some cleaning up to do.

Batman - Bad Seeds: Sunset#1

Oh shit, it's a crossover event?!?!

Taking place over 10 (Count 'em---TEN!) weeks and a multitude of Bat Fam titles.

I ain't got that kind of time or coin! 

I'm gonna try to keep up through the book end specials and Batman and that's it! 

So what the hell is going on?

Co-written by Matt Fraction and G. Willow Wilson, the special sets up what will be on very long, very dark and very bad night for Gotham City.  

Gotham City Mayor Pamela Isley (AKA Poison Ivy) plans to make the city a gift to the Parliament of Trees (it's a thing Alan Moore created in the Swamp Thing series about 40 years ago) by overrunning Gotham with prehistoric plant life.

Isley is doing this for... reasons. 

Well, it makes sense to Pamela Isley. 

By sunrise, Gotham City will be subsumed and lost forever.

Commissioner Vandal Savage meets the problem with the only solution he knows, brute force in the form of his paramilitary police force.

Batman and his associates are spread out over the city, trying to save lives, stop Savage and his police goons from making things worse and head off the problem at the source: how to convince Isley to stop doing this.  

Will this really need 10 weeks of comic books to sort out this one night of terror?  The greedy bastards at DC are getting enough of my money.

Batman#13

Is this Matt Fraction's first misstep in his epic run as writer?

Well, that can happen when you have to sublimate your long term plans to a larger crossover event.

Drawn by guest artist Matteo Scalera (who does a fantastic job), the bulk of the issue involves Batman engaged in a siege of Gotham City Police HQ to get to Vandal Savage for...  reasons.

It seems that Savage has a chemical weapon that he intends to use to kill Pamela Isley.  But that won't stop what she's started, the overpowering of Gotham City with prehistoric plant life.

Batman needs Isley alive to stop what she started and Savage is threatening all that with his brute force agenda.

I asked if this issue was a misstep because as much as it's cool to watch Batman by his own damn self take on the entire Gotham police force, I expect more from Fraction that one issue long fight scene, no matter how cool it's written or how well it's drawn.

And goddammit, it is a very well done sequence. But...

These comics cost to damn much to not have more meat on the bones than this issue delivers.

Batman of Two Worlds#1

This is a special issue released for Batman Day.

It is NOT a team up between our main universe Batman and Absolute Batman as many fans may have anticipated.

What we get are two short stories.

The main universe Batman gives us the tale of a high tech robbery told from the perspective of a small, downtrodden security guard who sold out for a million dollars to leave the keys out for the robbers.  

The Absolute Batman story tells of a similar tale of a robbery aided by an inside man. 

Both stories highlight the differences in the two version of Batman.  In the first story, Batman employs tactical strategies to catch the escaping robbers while the Absolute Batman confronts the robbers head on with brute strength and heavy self made armaments.  

Absolute Batman exists in the universe created by Darkseid.  This version of Batman does not have the resources of near unlimited wealth.  Bruce Wayne is a blue collar civil engineer.

If you want to know more about Absolute Batman, click here for the Wikipedia entry.   

No, I have not been following Absolute Batman due to the aforementioned lack of time and coin to keep up with every damn thing. 

Batman & Robin: Year One: Dynamic Duos#1-#2 

Mark Waid and Chris Samnee are back with a follow up to my favorite Batman series from last year as they continue to explore the formative first year of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson as Batman and Robin.  

Why does the title of the book have the word "Duos" (plural)?

Perhaps it's because Catwoman is flitting around the edges in her classic purple dress/green cape ensemble? (My favorite look for Catwoman, I will admit.) I suppose the Cat will entice the Bat at some point to create a different partnership than the one Bruce has with his young protégé.

There's a new criminal conspiracy afoot. It's Gotham City, there's always some damn criminal conspiracy or whatever going on.

This one centers around a gang of criminal urchins. Batman has sent a disguised Dick Grayson to infiltrate the gang. 

Things take a turn when the the undercover Robin is ordered to shoot Catwoman! 

Holy deadly dilemmas, Bat-Fans! 

Next week, Dave-El's Spinner Rack returns with DC super teams: Justice League and the return of the Legion of Super Heroes! 

The Secret To Marriage

I can't believe I let last week go by without mentioning this: last Friday was Andrea and I's 32nd wedding anniversary.

Last year I was chatting with a young man who had just gotten married and he was impressed that Andrea and I had been married for over 30 years.  He asked me what was the secret to our marriage lasting so long.

So I hauled out this old chestnut: "Never go to bed angry."

Then I added this: "I'VE BEEN AWAKE FOR OVER THIRTY YEARS!!"  

The young man laughed and laughed and laughed and then he sold us a new HVAC system for the house.

But seriously, what is the secret to our marriage?

Andrea gave me an anniversary card that I think perfectly encapsulates our long and enduring partnership.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

If you're familiar with this blog, you might've guessed we went to Olive Garden to celebrate our anniversary.

Why?

• Because Olive Garden is Andrea's favorite restaurant.
• I love my wife.
• And I had a free Olive Garden gift card I won at work.

By the way, Andrea's gift to me inside the anniversary greeting card was (you guessed it!) another Olive Garden gift card.

Which I will likely use when her birthday comes 'round next year.

• So we understand each other.
• And we love each other.
• And yes, we annoy each other. 

And that is the secret to marriage. 

And I'm so glad my suffering amuses you. 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Lanterns

Sunday, the season finale of Lanterns dropped and wow! What a wild ride!

Lanterns has been challenging and I mean that in a good way.

Expectations were set and then defied.

The core mythology of the Green Lantern comics was embraced and then reshaped into something new.

The TV series set a course for somewhere new while twists and turns in the narratives carried us through to a surprising destination.

Who knew that HBO's next Game of Thrones level hit would be based on Green Lantern comic books? 

I want to take a moment to speak in defense of Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan.  Yes, the concept of Hal could be a struggle to accept as this character was frequently an ornery old often unlikeable sonuvabitch. 

And yet he was also funny, charming even and yes, insightful.  

Hey, comic book nerds complaining Kyle Chandler's NOT the Hal Jordan from your precious comic books, I would assert you weren't paying attention.

Comics Hal could be an arrogant asshole with ring but  a constant fuck up without it.  

As I covered in this post from last month, comics Hal complained to the Guardians that if they didn't stop mucking about with his life, he was gonna quit. Then he whined like a bitch when they let him.  

As for the TV version of Hal being cranky about training John Stewart to be a Green Lantern, you may recall from this same post that comics Hal griped about recruiting John to the GL Corps in Green Lantern#87.

Look, TV Hal may have dialed up his asshole quotient to "11" (twice he abandoned John in a crashing automobile) but Kyle Chandler's take on Hal Jordan was not as far removed from the comics as the fan boys were complaining about.

Here's an adjective I can apply to Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan that I rarely could apply to comic book Hal: "interesting".

A word also about Aaron Pierre who takes John Stewart on quite journey over the course of the season, from the cold stoic soldier just following orders to an older, wiser and crankier person who has had enough of this shit. I've enjoyed watching Aaron's John Stewart evolve.

So we come to the end of the season? How did the season finale unfold?

We find out Zoey was not the last Manhunter; her grandson Noah is a Manhunter.

But Noah isn't the one who shot Hal Jordan; it was Kerry.

So Halogram (Ring created Hal Jordan hologram) was right about who murdered him!

John Stewart gets his own ring and power battery and lays out the deal with Guy Gardner what's what regarding Green Lanterns on Earth.

Halogram says good-bye! (Forever? We're told it is but yeah, probably not.) 

John Stewart powers up and learns to fly! About damn time! 

And we've reached the end! 

I think I'm happy with the how when where & why things ended up.

So whazzup with season 2?  While the Lanterns production team has assembled a writer's room to plot out season 2 and apparently HBO Max would love to sign off on that, DC Studios has not made known it's intentions on that subject. 

So that is that for this week's Touchbase. 

Next week it's all ABC with Scrubs. Abbott Elementary and Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune.  

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.

Other People Have Something To Say

If you read today's earlier post on my thoughts about Christa Pike and the death penalty, well, God bless you and thank you for your sacrifice.

But you might wonder, "Gee! Dave-El, where is your weekly diatribe about whatever fuckery Donald Trump was/is/will be up to?", well, sometimes I need a break and will turn to others to do the heavy lifting.

First up, here's Dave Columbo with his "Week In Trump" to catch you up to speed of the most recent 7 days in hell.

Feeling despair over the god forsaken world that Li'l Donnie has made for us?  Here's Elle Cordova to provide some context and perhaps a glimmer of hope. 

But if the words of other people are not sufficient, let me remind you of the official position of yours truly, Dave-El and I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You Inc..

Donald Trump is a  lying, petulant, bullying, unintelligent, sociopathic, dishonorable, treasonous, gutless, moronic, heartless, soulless, slimy, loathsome, vile, incompetent, psychotic, crooked, disgusting, reprehensible, revolting, horrible, malicious, obnoxious, hateful, narcissistic, small-minded, despicable god damn, motherfucking piece of shit!

There! I hope that tides you over for your weekly Trump post.

We're back tomorrow with the Tuesday TV Touch base.

Remember to be good to one another and...

HELL YEAH! BRING ON THE DAMN MIDTERMS!