Movie Time: The Women In Green

Last week, I posted about a murder mystery movie where the case was solved by sheep.

Which is admittedly a bit atypical for the whole murder mystery movie motif.

Today we tackle another murder mystery movie with a more traditional protagonist.

Perhaps the greatest detective of all time.

Elementary, my dear blog reader, it's... Movie Time! 

Today we pick up one of a series films featuring Sherlock Holmes starring Basil Rathbone as the great detective.

While others have portrayed Holmes in film and television such as Jeremy Brett, Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jr., many still consider Basil Rathbone as the ultimate archetype of Baker Street sleuth on film.

Today's post is about the 11th of the 14 Sherlock Holmes films made by Basil Rathbone with Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. 

From 1945, it's The Woman in Green.

London is in the grip of terror! 

Murder, it is! Murder most foul! 

Several young women have been murdered. And adding a gruesome detail to the most heinous killings is mutilation. Each young lady has her forefinger severed.  

Scotland Yard is baffled by these killing spree and turn to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. 

Right off the bat, Holmes... has no idea what the hell is going on. Hey, he might be a genius but give the guy a minute to sort things out, eh? 

Meanwhile and elsewhere, wealthy widower Sir George Fenwick has a romantic evening with glamorous young Lydia Marlowe.

The movie is in black and white so we need to assume she's wearing green.  

The evening takes the pair to her apartment for some wink! wink! nudge! nudge! where they share a drink and odd, he feels a bit... woozy?

Ten hours later, George Fenwick wakes up in a seedy room in a decrepit flop house.  Outside a newsboy is hawking his papers with the tawdry news of another mutilation murder.

George is already a bit freaked out about how he came to be in this awful place and wondering what the hell happened in his missing 10 hours.

His mental state is not helped at all by a woman's forefinger he finds in his jacket pocket.   

Meanwhile, at 221B Baker Street, Holmes and Watson are still pondering the murky mystery of the serial killings when a new client comes calling, Maude Fenwick, George's daughter.  She found the severed finger that George tried to hide and now Maude is worried about what the hell is going on her with her dad and wants Sherlock Holmes to look into it.

This investigation takes a dark and sinister turns when George Fenwick is found dead in his home.

Murdered!

Sherlock Holmes deduces his old nemesis Professor Moriarity is  behind all this.

I'm not sure exactly how Holmes makes this leap and even Watson calls him on it.  "It can't always be Moriarity!" 

Look, Watson, there's a formula here and everbody has to follow it! 

Evil shit happens.
Enter He-Man!
Who's responsible for the evil shit?
Skeletor! 

Evil shit happens.
Enter the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
Who's responsible for the evil shit?
Thrasher! 

Evil shit happens.
Enter G.I. Joe!
Who's responsible for the evil shit?
Cobra Commander! 

Evil shit happens.
Enter Perry the Platypus!
Who's responsible for the evil shit?
Dr. Dufenschmirtz! 

Everyone understands the deal, eh, Dr. Watson?

Evil shit happens.
Enter Sherlock Holmes!
Who's responsible for the evil shit?
Moriarty! 

Let's move on, shall we?  

YES, it is indeed Moriarty and after a few scenes of investigating and general poking at things with a stick, Holmes figures out what the big deal is.

• Lydia Marlowe seduces then hypnotizes a wealthy prominent man.
• Moriarty's men find some hapless female victim to murder then cut off her finger. 
• The wealthy prominent man comes out of his hypnotic stupor with a severed finger in his pocket.
• Moriarty shows up to blackmail the wealthy prominent man.

That's a lot of trouble to go through! Whatever happened to good old fashioned bank robbery, for crying out loud! 

Hey, that's quite a good yarn that Holmes has cooked up. But how to prove it?

Sherlock Holmes will allow himself to be seduced and hypnotized by Lydia Marlowe. 

Sherlock Holmes seduced? By a woman?!? I say, how will that ever work since Holmes is gay and in a committed relationship with Watson and remember this is a movie from 1945 and I'm just fucking with you.  

Surely a mind as strong and agile as that of Sherlock Holmes, the great detective could never be hypnotized, right? 

Lydia (who I presume is wearing green or the movie's title makes no sense) does indeed successfully work her wiles and Holmes succumbs to hypnotism. 

And Moriarty shows up to end his hated nemesis once and for all! 

Long story made short: All is not what it seems and Moriarty will get what's coming to him, the scheming scoundrel.  

When the movie first started, I assumed the film was set in the Victorian era of the original stories by  Arthur Conan Doyle. But from his apartment at 221B Baker Street, Holmes looks out the window and sees automobiles from the 1940's.

Fun Fact: the Sherlock Holmes movie series starring Basil Rathbone did begin with mysteries set in Victorian England. After about 3 of those movies, the setting changed to 20th century England with some cases set around fighting Nazi spies and other World War II stuff.  

The Woman In Green follows premises originated in Doyle's stories  "The Final Problem" and "The Adventure of the Empty House".

The Woman In Green is a rather perfunctionary entry, checking off the boxes one needs to check off in a Sherlock Holmes mystery.  A lot of this is saved by the blustering Nigel Bruce as the frequently incredulous Dr. Watson and the sharp edged performance of Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. I can see why Rathbone's interpretation of Holmes stood the test of time as the peak iconic version of Doyle's great detective.

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We're back tomorrow with Star Trekking and the latest entry in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

 

Your Friday Video Link Set At Random

Welcome to this week's edition of Your Friday Video Link.

Usually for these YFVL posts, I come up with some kind of unifying theme.

Not this week.

I've set the YFVL controls for random and what do we get?

Unicorns! 

Unicorns, Charlie!  

Unicorns that will take us to Candy Mountain, Charlie! 

OK, the YFVL controls go all random and shit and gives us this:

Ryan George explains Q Tips!

What do you do with Q Tips?

You put them in your ear! 

NO! They don't go in your ear holes! 

Stop putting them in your ears!  

You have Q Tips in your ear holes, dontcha? 

Random! Random! Random! 

The YFVL gives us a penguin whodunit! 

OK, I think I need a break from Your Friday Video Link.

So no YFVL post next week.

Next Friday is the 25th anniversary of the September 11 the attacks and I'm going to need to be serious about that.

Tomorrow: it's another Whodunit and Howdunit and Whydunit! 

Sherlock Holmes solves a perplexing case of murder for this week's Movie Time.

Dave-El's Spinner Rack: Batman#156 - "Robin Dies At Dawn"

Last time I was at Acme Comics, I picked up a copy of a new DC facsimile edition.  Facsimiles are not mere reprints of old stories but a full reproduction of a complete comic as it originally appeared back in the day.

There is a small indicia on page 1 to show the current management of DC Comics and of course the price on the cover. $3.99 for a comic book? Fuck me, that's a lot! 

OK, other than that, it looks like it looked back in the day.

This facsimile edition I picked up was of Batman#156 which includes the seminal classic tale "Robin Dies At Dawn".

It's not like I haven't read "Robin Dies At Dawn". It's been reprinted before.  Still, getting the facsimile edition gave me to chance to experience the entire comic as it was presented back in the day.  

One thing I was not aware of is that "Robin Dies At Dawn" is not the lead story in the issue.  

Batman#156 kicks off with "The Secret of the Ant-Man". ostensibly a Robin solo story.   

Batman tells Robin he is off on a special secret mission and will be out of touch for awhile. Robin is left with the the task of patrolling Gotham City. 

It bears remembering that Robin is still a Boy Wonder but hey, if Batman thinks it's OK to leave it up to his kid to fight crime alone in Gotham City, who am I to judge?

Well, not quite alone.

While taking on some criminal nogoodniks, Robin gets an assist from a diminuitive doo-gooder called Ant-Man.  

Robin momentarily entertains the notion that Ant-Man may really be Batman and his secret mission is helping some scientists working on a shrink ray or something. 

It is the very sort of thing that was happening in Gotham City during this era of Batman comics.

But no...

Robin discovers Ant-Man is not quite so murdered mobster Jumbo Carson. His assisting Robin was part of his revenge scheme against the crooks who done did him wrong.  

in case you're wondering who came first in the Ant-Man sweepstakes, Jumbo Carson at DC or Henry Pym at Marvel, Pym made it to the comic book spinner rack a full year before.

Meanwhile, where the heck did Batman get to?

That brings us to our main event in Batman#156.  

Batman on alien world? Well, why not?

Under editor Jack Schiff back in the 1950's and early 1960's, the Caped Crusader was far removed from his dark and gritty source material on which he was founded.

Batman and Robin were frequently dealing with otherworldly threats and menaces.  Aliens came to Gotham or summoned the Dynamic Duo to extraterrestrial worlds. 

Interest in the burgeoning space race and fear of atomic annihilation fueled a boom in science fiction in movies, TV shows and comic books.  Even Batman and Detective Comics.

In Batman#156, Batman and Robin find themselves on a desolate and dangerous alien world.  Various menaces arise to attack them, perpetually keeping the Dynamic Duo in danger.

Danger with a fatal outcome.  

Robin is dead and Batman is devastated. The Caped Crusader might be the most physically and mentally awesome person ever but even he has his limits.  

It turns out the alien encounter has an Earth bound source.  

Batman has volunteered to take part in a special military experiment to test the long-term effects of isolation on the human psyche. 

Batman walks away from the experiment seemingly none the worse for the wear.  But despite being "a hardy specimen with an above average mind", Batman still experiences relapses into his trauma inflicted by the hallucinatory alien world.

Watching Robin die hits him hard.

While on patrol with Robin and fighting crooks, Batman keeps seeing stuff from the Gotham landscape turn into threats from the alien world.

Unable to trust his own senses, Batman has to take himself out of action and leave the crime fighting to Robin going solo.

A gang of criminals dressed as gorillas are committing crimes because they, it's a DC Comic, of course you dress as gorillas. 

So they capture Robin and Batman has to suck it up and get out there and save his ass.

But....

Batman finds the Gorilla Gang and Robin tied to a giant balloon because...  you really need to stop asking so many questions and just accept what's going on.

Oh no! Is Batman going to have a relapse and think he's back on that alien world? 

No! With Robin in actual real danger (death by balloon? Noooo!), Batman gets the shock he needs to snap put of his traumatic reverie to save Robin and stop the gorilla goons.

Despite some inherently absurd elements, writer Bill Finger treats this story with some seriousness.  Often Batman writers indulge in the overused trope that the Caped Crusader is ready for anything.  Here we have a story that reminds us that Batman is still human and subject to the same levels of trauma we all can experience.   

This story also allows Bill Finger to indulge the era's sci-fi mandate but still tell a grounded story.

In this era, Bob Kane's ghost artist Sheldon Moldoff was employing a more cartoonish, blocky look.  With inker Charles Paris, Moldoff seems to tone down that approach, on occassion evoking hints of Batman's early shadowy self.   

The facsimile edition of Batman#156 includes all the ads from the era.

• A comic strip PSA urging kids to not be a high school drop-out.
• A DC house ad featuring new comics with the Atom, the Flash, Doom Patrol and Adam Strange.
• A "Letters to the Bat-Cave" with readers apparently delighted with the "Prisoners of Three Worlds" in Batman#153.
• An ad for your own collection of missiles for only $1.25!
• Or you can buy up to 104 knights for $1.49!
• Or 100 toy soldiers for a buck and a quarter! 
• Why take chances on missing your favorite DC comic at the spinner rack? Complete the handy-dandy subscription form! 

Here are some covers from Batman as the Dynamic Duo have to contend with alien shit.

Howl in the Dark Wilderness

Today is Wednesday.  Guess what that means? 

It's HUMP DAY! 

I want to take a moment to ponder Monday's blog post.  

It was a standard issue rant that Donald Trump is a lying, petulant, bullying, unintelligent, yadda yadda yadda piece of shit.

And I'm a bit disappointed in it.

Not because the feelings expressed are not valid or the facts addressed are in question.  

But I am disappointed in that this is not what I wanted for this blog and for the moments of my life I invest in it.

Just for the record, we are now about 12 entries away from BLOG POST 5000! That's a lot of posts and quite frankly it's a disappointment to me that so much of the space on this blog and in my head is occuppied by that lying, petulant, bullying, unintelligent, yadda yadda yadda piece of shit.

I think my main motivation is to make sure there's a record that in this awful time of division of hate and fear mongering, that a regular schmuck like myself could see what was really going on.

I have no power to affect change. I can only howl in the dark wilderness that in this time I can see the truth about Donald Trump and the gutless cowards who capitulated to his reign of corruption and contempt out of ignorance, hate and a desire for power.  

When this time is over and when (or if) we survive it, I have a record, however remote and unread it may be, that I saw the terrible truth of our world. 

And I did not care for it.

It's a pathetic motivation but damn, it's all I got.

Writing for The Hill, psychotherapist and author Jonathan Alpert postulated on the obsessions of Trump's critics.  

 Alpert wrote, "Many people who wish Trump would disappear from public life nevertheless follow him relentlessly. They monitor his speeches, dissect his social media posts and debate his every move." 

 

I must cop to that.  I frequently find myself distracted as I scan the headlines on my various news feeds anxious about what fucking dumbass thing this lying, petulant, bullying, unintelligent, yadda yadda yadda piece of shit has done now. 

Alpert continues, "Trump has supplied something modern politics rarely offers: genuine uncertainty about what comes next. Tomorrow may bring a policy announcement, a personnel decision, a courtroom development, an impromptu exchange with reporters or the renaming of some major body of water."  

 

In my years on this planet, there have been times I've almost forgotten who the President is. OK, not really "forgotten", but I can honestly say I never got up every morning wondering:Gee, what goddam thing is Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton or Barack Obama going to fuck up today.  

I may not have always agreed with everything any given President did but I felt confident that whatever they did, I didn't have to hear that whatever they did was goddam fucking "unprecedented".  

Alpert describes the self-perpetuating cycle. 

• Trump says or does something unexpected. 
• News organizations rush to cover it. 
• Critics condemn it. 
• Supporters defend it. 
• Television panels debate it.

I would posit that "something unexpected" is a nicer way of expressing "something stupid or crooked" or some other 3rd thing.  

 

Alpert says, "Attention is not the same as approval."

Donald Trump is delusional in thinking he has the approval of the American people even as poll after poll shows a precipitously declining approval rating. 

But mostly, like the lying, petulant, bullying, unintelligent, yadda yadda yadda piece of shit he is, he mostly longs for the attention.

Trump lives by the adage "the only thing worse than bad publicity is NO publicity."  

There's a reason he ends his godforsaken posts with "Thank you for your attention to this matter."  He's literally just wants your attention.  

And as much as I hate the motherfucker, damn it, he has my attention. And he eats up space on this blog on Mondays.

And by the looks of it today, Wednesday too.

But this was supposed to be about me and what I write. 

I've seen my blog stats and I know I have no power and no influence.  I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You is little more than a journal of a barely interesting man who wants to share the TV shows and movies I watch and my comic book and sci-fi fandoms and whatever first world foible frustrated me lately.

As I approach the 5000th post, I am sorry that Donald Trump and his snivelling syncophants take up so much space on this blog and in my head. 

But when history looks back on this abyss in American and world history and wonders, did anyone not see what was happening, I want this on record: I did see it.

God help me I could not do anything about it but I will speak to history and say, at least I could see it.  

It's only a mournful howl in the dark wilderness. It's all I got but it's mine. 

_____________________________

Tomorrow: comic books!  (YAY!)  

 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Blue Skies and Jeopardy Masters

 

I'm going to start today's post about a show:

• With a police officer.
• Whose partner is a dog.

Now you're thinking that sound like Hudson & Rex, well, yes, it does but that's not the show we're talking about today.

The show is called Blue Skies and it's about a police detective named Jodie Larson played by Scarlet Hunter.

Now THAT is a NAME! Scarlet Hunter!  

That could be a super hero name!

"I am vengeance! 

I am the night!!

I am Scarlet Hunter!!!"

OK, some back story: after finishing up her tour of duty in the military, Jodie Larsen has returned home to rebuild her relationship with her father after the death of her mother.  Jodi has a job as a police investigator with the National Park Service.  Her beat: Crystal Ridge National Park. 

Apparently national parks are a hot bed of criminal activity as there is always something to keep Jodie and her team busy.

Like Jesse on Hudson & Rex, Blue Skies has their resident tech nerd who can call up anything on his 'puters. 

Like Charlie and Sarah on Hudson & Rex, Blue Skies has it's own chaste as hell heck flirtatious relationship between Jodie and Ryan, a high school "friend" who runs a coffee shop and also is an expert climber who helps with search and rescue missions in the mountainous Crystal Ridge National Park. 

And like Hudson & Rex, Blue Skies has... a dog.

Blue is a yellow lab who just shows up at Jodie's cabin one day. 

Efforts to extricate herself from Blue do not succeed.  No matter what Jodie does, Blue inevitably appears by her side.

And it turns out that Blue is an extraordinarily gifted tracker. 

Who is this dog? Where did he come from? These are mysteries the show will explore.

I'm gonna call it: Blue is Jodie's reincarnated dead mom! 

I'm gonna admit: that's probably not it.

In addition to the mystery of what is the deal with this dog, Jodie has questions about the death of her mother.  She presumably died in a mountain climbing accident but there are questions about this "accident". 

The location of the fictional Crystal Ridge National Park is left vague. I thought it was a Canadian park but it might be in Colorado.  

Blue Skies has a lot of gorgeous park scenery to look at and the calm, measured pace of the show is in line with all the natural scenery. 

Blue Skies is very family friendly as befits a show that is on UP TV and it's UP Faith and Family streaming service.  

Like Hudson & Rex, we came to Blue Skies for the dog and Blue is quite the scene stealer.  

But the mysteries around Jodie, what happened to her mother and where the hell heck this dog came from, is keeping our attention.  

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ABC has launched a new season of Jeopardy Masters.

 Victoria Groce, Yogesh Raut, Andrew He, Paolo Pasco, Juveria Zaheer and Long Nguyen are the players for this year's contest.

Yogesh is as insufferable as ever, cocky and arrogant when winning, pissy and grumpy when he's not. 

Victoria is as charming and delightful as ever. 

But....

After three episodes, Andrea and I came to a most unfortunate conclusion: Jeopardy Masters is boring.

It's hard to play along. The clues are more obscure and trickier than regular Jeopardy.  

It always seems like a foregone conclusion on which 2 of the initial 6 contestestants are going to wash out. This year does not look good for Long Nguyen.  

But after Andrea and I said the quiet part out loud about how Jeopardy Masters just wasn't doing it for us, the game got interesting on night #4.  

Long Nugyen has a kick ass dominating game and vaults into the top 4.  

You just never know with Jeopardy.

We've got another week and a day of this fershlugginer thing.

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Late Nite With Seth Meyers is on a very long hiatus (from August 1st to September 21st) as I wrote about here.  

But we are not being denied A Closer Look.  Seth is joining writer  Sal Gentile for podcasts to cover some of the Trump world shenanigans going on while the show is in reruns. The podcast series is called A Closer Look: Out of Office  (or AKA "Proof of LIfe").  

While a typical Closer Look segment can run on average about 10 minutes or so, the podcasts are nearly an hour long as we watch Seth and Sal talk it out in real time all the bullshit that Donald Trump and his syncophants are up to and it's a lot.  

As such, the podcasts are a bit unfocused, a major pet peeve I have with a lot of podcasts. Still, the form does allow Seth to stay in the loop while he is away.    

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That is that for this week's the Tuesday TV Touchbase:

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.  

 

Ubu really likes it when we watch crime shows about dogs! 

A Good Man And A Great American Leader

Well damn it, it's Monday again and that means it's time for the blog's weekly look at this royally fucked up world and the principal reason it is so royally fucked up.

Because once again we must address the sickening reality that 

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.  

And it's THIS guy who's in charge?!?!  

Fuck! 

Fuckity fuck fuck!!

FUCK!!!

I hate Mondays!!! 

What I have is a bad case of waking up in a world of the perpetually and dangerously absurd.

Everyday der Führer does something so blatantly stupid, immoral, criminal, cowardly, disrespectful and contemptuous.

And everyday I live in a world with people who do not see this.

What is wrong with these people? 

There are some who would suggest we should try to understand these people, their perspectives, their values, etc etc.

My assessment of these people is more blunt and admittedly less empathetic: these people are STUPID! 

Over in Baltimore MD, writer James Cecil is trying to be a more understanding person than I am.  

James Cecil wrote a piece about dealing with MAGA Trump cultists.    

He writes of a relative who put her devotion to Trump over family, posting on Facebook "Trump’s a good man and a great American leader!”  Then she unfriended James.  

James writes of a woman "who makes the best crab cakes in Maryland, which is a real claim. She also believes the election was stolen, which is not. I fix her screen door anyway."

James notes of his relationships with friends and family who have cast their lot in fealty to one man.  "Nothing visible has changed. Everything that matters has."

I'm not sure that statement is completely true.  

Everything that matters is so terribly visible if you ask me.  

There was a time I may have suspected the politics of others did not necessarily align with mine. But I did not know. Which was OK with me.  

It was possible for me to believe people with different political affiliations were still good people at heart. 

But when that political affiliation is in deference to a reprehensible man and his culture of hate, fear and anger, it's difficult to square that circle.   

And people aren't shy about expressing their political affiliation with the reprehensible man.

I had a friend at work who I suspected of some extreme cultural and political reviews. But it never got in the way of our work. We would collaborate on special projects and genuinely enjoyed each other's company.

After he left the firm where we worked, he posted on Facebook that Donald Trump was an agent of God and doing divine work to save America,

I generally had understood him to be a rather intelligent sensible person and might have worried he was having some kind of episode and may need some kind of intervention.

But I realized that with Donald Trump in the White House, my earstwhile friend was showing me who he really was, a reality I had been willing to turn a blind eye to before.

What I suspected but was able to overlook was now known and I could not.  

I unfriended him.  

I haven't been home in years to see my family in my old home town because I know what I would be putting up with.  I know their politics and their "religion".

Even as Donald Trump burns down the world with a war he started with no provocation and with no clear strategy for victory, even as America crumbles under an economy riddled with inflation and a declining job market, as the rich become richer and the middle class falls closer to the poverty line, his devotees remain loyal.  

Only Donald Trump is their salvation and their retribution against all that is woke, those would would drag their children down to the school nurse to forcibly have their genders changed or the whores burning through abortions while they're in labor and some other third untrue outrageous thing.

As long as their beloved "good man and great leader" is protecting them from all that, who cares what else he's up to.

Like Li'l Donnie getting into a trade war with a longtime friend and ally.

In the aftermath of trade talks with Canada falling apart, Donald Trump chose to take revenge on Canada by renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America.  

As I watched him sit at his desk, mumbling and slurring his words like a dementia addled mob boss, "All it takes is a good pen and some intelligence", drawing a line through "Lake Ontario" on a map and writing in "Lake America", all I could see and hear is a whiny little ignorant bitch! 

And I was frustrated by the knowledge that someone else seeing this same pathetic display came away with the conclusion that "Trump’s a good man and a great American leader!”  

NO! He is NOT!  Can you not SEE?

A good man and a great leader would not be sitting at a desk with a Sharpie playing childish games with a goddam map! 

By the way, what got us to the absurd point? Trade negotiations with Canada got blindsided by some last minute demands. 

Prime Minister Mark Carney was all "fuck this shit" and ordered Canada's trade team to walk away.  

Here are the key demands the United States made of Canada.

So the United States demanded the right to approve or veto any trade agreements Canada might make with another country.

The United States was all "we ain't gonna speak no French" even though Canada's Quebec province speaks French. 

Whatever the fuck this has to do with trade but the United States wanted to include control over Canada's military spending? 

Canada can't sell it's energy to whoever Canada wants but must sell it to the U.S. first?

This is not a trade negotiation between two nations.  This is a capitulation, a surrender of Canadian sovereignty to the United States.  This is a step closer to making Li'l Donnie's dream of Canada being our 51st state come true.

Trade negotiations fell apart to appease Trump's delusions of power and superiority over our neighbor.  

Of course Canada would not be on board with any of that.

Of course Canada said no.

And Donald Trump does what he always does when someone has the temerity to say "no" to him: he threw a temper tantrum like a goddam toddler and slapped 50% tarrifs on Canadian goods (which only hurts the Americans who buy their stuff) and scrawled on a map to make Lake Ontario into Lake America.

A good man? A great leader? How can ANYONE look at this debacle of incompetence and hubris and think that?

Because he will occasionally waddle his way to a microphone (with Natalie Harp scampering behind him) with some nonsense about fighting a WOKE DEI agenda, about protecting his base of supporters from transgenders, immigrants, communists and whatever else he decides is a threat to "real" Americans.

"Real" as defined as white, straight, Christian,  Republican and male.  

Yes, I included "male" on that list. The utter contempt Trump and his cohorts like Peter Hegseth have for women is unfiltered and on constant display. Which doesn't stop James Cecil's female relative from declaring "Trump’s a good man and a great American leader!”   

He shows his utter contempt for things that are important to Americans.

• The price of food.
• The price of gas.
• The price of healthcare.

Remember his own words on the problems of inflation.

Donald Trump. Does. Not. Care.

Hey, he's getting rich! Fuck anyone else who is not.

And the people who are being fucked over the worst by der Führer's callous disregard, his utter stupidity and his complete incompetence still insist "Trump’s a good man and a great American leader!” 

James Cecil in Baltimore MD may be trying to understand and hold out hope for the redemption of family and friends lost to this goddam narcissistic buffoon.

I have lost all hope because I think I do understand.

Even if we somehow break the inexplicable spell Trump has over them, they have shown us who they really are.

And I can't forget that. 

StarTrekking: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - Season 4 - “Off-Hour"

So we're halfway throught season 4 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds so let's take stock of the first 5 episodes.

#5 - "Human Best Friend"

This is the first true mis-fire of the season so far. Other than furthering the relationship of Ortegas & Scotty, the episode offers little of value and the broad comedy of having the entire cast be intoxicated falls flat.

#4 - "The Griffin Incident"

I feel a little bad for ranking this so low as it a well made horror tale, something that is atypical for Star Trek. But I have to admit that this sort of thing is not in my wheelhouse.  

#3 - "Level-Five Transporter Accident"

I know, I know, the infamous puppet episode. Whatever the question of whether this should have even happened or how it happened, the thing is I like the Muppets and Jim Henson's Creature Shop does an amazing job with the puppets on this episode and what can I say? Muppets are in my wheelhouse.

#2 - "Valles Marineris"

I'm a little surprised I'm ranking this at #2. I mean, it had spacey-wacey, timey-wimey and a classic Star Trekkina moral dilemma at it's core. 

#1 - "A Case of Chiaroscuro"

What can I say? My love of classic black & white film noir and anything that puts the spotlight on Rebecca Romijn as Una Chin-Riley has my attention.  Yeah, doing the episode in B&W is a gimmick but damn, it's a gimmick done very well in terms of story and style. 

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That's all in the past.  This week was episode 6 as we move into the back half of season 4.

"Off-Hour" presents a tense and frantic episode as the Enterprise runs into some unexpected cosmic hooziwhatzit that cripples the ship and puts everyone in danger.

The Enterprise is not dead in the water but caught in a sort of warp slipstream in an ever increasing acceleration towards the warp threshold. When the Enterprise hits that threshold, the whole ship will fly apart.

(Or the crew will be turned into salamanders. Click here for more about that.)  

The obvious call back for Trekkers is to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Disaster" where the Enterprise runs into some unexpected cosmic hooziwhatzit that cripples the ship and puts everyone in danger. Which I wrote about here. 

The biggest medical emergency in "Disaster" is Worf has to serve as midwife when Keiko O'Brien goes into labor.

In "Off Hour".  Nurse Christine Chapel, faced with diminishing resources and time, has to scramble for solutions when Dr. Joseph M'Benga gets cut in half!  

OK, that's some serious shit! 

It's a very powerful moment for Chapel who has not gotten a lot to do this season.  

This episode hurts a lot of people besides M'Benga: 

• Pike gets electrocuted.
• Una's leg is shattered.
• Spock and La'An get zapped with lots of radiation.

Of particular interest in this episode is Scotty's development. Far from the "miracle worker" of the original series, Scotty is overwhelmed by the rapidity of the Enterprise's collapse. For every one thing he fixes, 3 other things break.  

The older Scotty we know has an abiding love for the Enterprise.

Young Scotty is pissed that this bucket of bolts is actively trying to kill him. 

Pelia guides Scotty towards thinking that starships are capable of miracles.

There's a line from Scotty's appearance in the TNG episode "Relics" where he tells Capt. Picard, "I could tell you the speed that we were traveling by the feel of the deckplates."

In "Off-Hour", with the Enterprise rapidly approaching it's breaking point, Scotty reaches out and silently places his hand on a deck plate, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he reports to Capt. Pike, "The Enterprise will hold. She'll keep us alive."

It's a powerful moment towards this Scotty becoming the Scotty we will come to know, the miracle worker engineer. 

I know this fan boy got a shiver up his spine at that moment.  

For everyone bugged by puppets, horror, comedy and black & white, "Off Hour" is a return to form: the crew of the Enterprise being smart and brave, sciencing the shit out of an intractable problem.

That is that for this week's Star Trekking.

Until next time, live long and prosper, y'all!