On January 20th, BBC America is finally committed to showing Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Time to dive in and appreciate it.

In 1987, original programming on syndicated tv was a wasteland. There were tons of reruns of Gilligan’s Island but not much in the way of new product. Enter Star Trek: The Next Generation. Us Star Trek fans were STARVED for new Trek. We would gladly take anything. ANYTHING. So when we got two over all crap seasons with Picard, Data and Worf with a few real wonderful episodes scattered throughout, we hung on and as of season 3, they brought up their game and all in all, it was a really good show. But several years later, a better Trek show started. It was called Deep Space Nine.

This was January of ’93 and the previously barren syndicated landscape was now jam packed with a TON of shows, in which DS9 was the latest drop of water into this ocean. It wasn’t even the only show about a space station! Right along side of it was Babylon 5, by JMS (famous writer whose name I never get right). 

I like to give shows a chance, so I watched the pilot for both shows, as space stuff like this is usually my thing. B5 was boring, amateurish and even with the nice effects, it looked cheap and the characterization was hollow. DS9, on the other hand was more solid, interesting and even with the religious overtones added in–not to be preachy by any means but to add more conflict–it seemed a lot more solid all the way around and it also had the added advantage of the familiar Star Trek trappings. So I stuck with it. 

Now admittedly, the first two seasons of DS9 had their slow moments too but they were still much much better than the first two years of TNG. Plus, the foundations for quite a few momentous and spectacular storylines were laid in those first two seasons. We were introduced to characters who would just get better and better as their personal stories grew and they evolved. There were a few characters I actively disliked at the beginning, yet I grew to love them as the seasons went by, just because of the superlative writing mixed with their acting. 

And conflict, yes there was. The thing is, Gene Roddenberry envisioned that in the far flung future, all humanity had evolved above and beyond all prejudice, materialism, the need for money, etc. The crew of the Enterprise in TNG was the nicest around, all the time. Almost never a harsh word spoken. That, along with the endless conference meetings made for some bland stories. Not so on DS9. On that space station, you had flawed, real humans from Starfleet living with the extremely religious Bajorans, the greedy, latinum loving Ferengi, the fascist Cardassians and whatever other alien species moved in, though or out of the station.

The basic thrust of the series is that disillusioned Starfleet Commander Benjamin Sisko accepts a backwater posting at the very edge of the Alpha quadrant, taking his young son Jake with him as he continues to drift through life after the death of his wife three years earlier at Wolf 359, where Starfleet got its ass kicked by the Borg. The space station itself is of Cardassian design, left behind when they pulled out of Bajor, in orbit below, after a 50 year occupation. So Starfleet moved in to help out the now recovering Bajor and has to make do with the station, warts and all. It might seem a somewhat sedate posting out in the middle of nowhere until miraculously, a wormhole appears nearby. What’s more, it’s a stable wormhole that leads to the Gamma quadrant of space. Basically, going through the wormhole is a 60,000 light year short cut. Suddenly, this sleepy, backwater station on the outer frontier of space is perhaps the most economically and strategically important spot anywhere in the known cosmos. 

Aside from Cmdr. Sisko and Jake, you had Miles O’Brien, transferring over from TNG to basically get the wrecked station Starfleet ready, bringing his wife Keiko and daughter Molly with him. Major Kira Nyris, the hot headed second in command of the station and former Bajoran resistance fighter against the Cardassians during the occupation. The headstrong and verbose Dr. Julian Bashir, a brilliant doctor who craves the frontier medicine aspect of it all. Security chief Odo, a shape shifter and seemingly the only one of his kind. Odo’s “nemesis”, Quark, the scheming Ferengi bar owner, his dopey brother Rom and Rom’s delinquent son Nog. You also had Lt. Jadzia Dax, a young woman from Trill in her 20’s who was a brilliant scientist but also the host for a 300 year old symbiont who had 7 other hosts before Jadzia, who now had all the memories and knowledge of all of them. There was Gul Dukat, the former Cardassian prefect of the station who came around to be a general asshole and pain in the ass too. Vedek Wynn, a duplicitous Bajoran cleric and another pain in Sisko’s ass who would routinely kill you with passive aggression. And Garak, a Cardassian tailor, who’d been exiled from his home planet for some reason. All brilliant characters, wonderfully written and inhabited by fantastic actors. The *least* of these characters proved to be every bit as alive and fantastic and fleshed out as the *most* important character in any other Trek series, including TOS.

The writers really did go where no man had gone before in the way they built the relationships, the stories, the epic multi-part stories, the over arching, world changing themes, you name it. If you’ve never watched show, treat yourself. Let them establish what they need to in the first season. It all pays off. There are a few clunkers in the first season and then maybe one or two the next but it’s rare. You’ll be glad you stuck through it, because the thing IS.

There used to be a show on about 30 years ago called The Sports Writers and it was these four old time newspaper sports reporters, one was around 70, one was in his 60’s, one was around 50 and the youngest was late 30’s and they sat around this table, with an all black background, two of them smoking cigars and just talking sports. These guys were crusty old pros talking about boxing, baseball, football, all sports. And they were entertaining as hell.

I’m really only into baseball and only somewhat interested in boxing but just listening to these guys talk passionately about all the sports was just fascinating. They’d go on about interesting tidbits regarding soccer or behind the scenes with college football– I didn’t care, it was all just extremely compelling. Because they were passionate, plain and simple. It also helps that at least two of them almost appeared to be straight out of central casting, chomping on cigars, on the ragged edge of yelling for the copy boy or “Get me editorial” or “Stop the presses!” The show was on for a decent amount of time here in Chicago and had a pretty decent following. Just a simple premise. Four guys at a table. Nothing else. No background, no nothing. Just them talking about what they love.

It was because of that show that I put together “Talkin’ Comics” here at a local high school that had it’s very own cable access channel. This was the mid ’90’s. I first somehow convinced the school to let me do the show. Then, I contacted three comic book loving friends of mine, Seitu Hayden, Lou Cella and Mike Edsey and convinced them to come to the school for a days’ shooting where we’d film several episodes. I picked topics for each episode like comics to films, events and crossovers, etc. each show was a little under 30 minutes and we even had commercial breaks. I think we did about 8 eps total. It was pretty cool, as it was the whole shebang with commercial cues, opening theme music I brought in that I created in the Garage band program on my Mac, did some art cards for the intro, etc. Damned if we didn’t put on a show! Just four guys, sitting around a table, no background, just talking passionately about what they loved.

For the next 7 or 8 years, I kept hearing from the school that this was the most popular, best rated show they ever had. They kept running the same 8 episodes for years! Yet they never asked us to do more. They weren’t really into taking the initiative, which was odd for a class that was all about learning how to run a professional tv station. Curious.

Then ten years later, I bugged them again and we did another round of shows with the same guys. It was all great fun again but the follow up by this bunch of kids was even more lacking because they never even gave us DVD’s of the episodes. I don’t even have a visual to provide, sadly. Just kind of disappointing but eh. Live and learn. We lived and I hope they learned something, because the thing IS.

Spyfall part 1

I went into Doctor Who Series 12 very warily. Series 11 was mostly a mess and the worst over all series of the show since its inception in 1963. And 90% of the problem was new showrunner Chris Chibnall. His horrific scripts mainly. 

He was socially progressive in casting the first female Doctor. Yet he held no auditions to get the best candidate for such a momentous occasion, he just hired someone he worked with on Broadchurch. A friend. He created a racially diverse cast of Tardis regulars but neglected to develop any of their characters except the middle aged white guy. It was pretty bad. The only bright spots were some of the guest writers who actually did a better job writing the characters than he did. 

Oh, I could go on but suffice to say, it did not inspire confidence as Series 12 approached. It premiered last night with Spyfall, part 1. Spoilers ahead, you’ve been warned. 

Actually, I was pleasantly surprised. Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor still doesn’t inspire confidence n the role but here was a rare Chibnall instance of the story being good enough to do the heavy lifting. There were proper, evil, scary, unknown aliens. An actual, credible threat, which was missing throughout Series 11. Graham, the middle aged white guy was still the best character in the Tardis, again, more so than the Doctor –an ongoing issue– BUT, the Doctor was actually okay at times, taking a break from being wacky and managing to step up here. Yaz, the police officer who mostly stood around in the corner all last season doing nothing actually had some screen time. More than all of last year really. Ryan….was still fairly useless but over all, this ep was a step up from last year, which is encouraging. Here comes that spoiler…

Sasha Dahwan, who played “O”, a former MI6 operative, turned out to be The Master, which frankly, blew me away. I did not see that coming. We’ll see where this goes but myself, I’m hoping A) he’s not another frothing, maniacal idiot like John Simm’s version of the Master. Missy did the role better, handling the evil and the crazy better. B) technically, Missy would have been unable to regenerate after being shot in the back by her predecessor, so I’m really kind of hoping that this new Master is a much much earlier incarnation. Earlier than Simm, Jacobi, Roberts, Pratt and Ainley (all actors who played the part in years and decades past to varying degrees of quality). Maybe so far back that he came right after Roger Delgado, the original and the gold standard, the true, worthy Moriarty to the Doctor’s Holmes. 

We will see. We’ll see if Chibnall can stick the landing in part 2 this Sunday night. We’ll see if he can keep his scripts above average through the season and service all his companions well enough. We’ll see if dire situations bring out the steel in Whitaker’s Doctor. We’ll see, because the thing IS.

Evidently, I have a lot of “lead ins” or qualifiers (?) to most things I say. 

“The thing is…”

“Anyway…”

“I also wanted to say….”

“In any case…”

“Evidently…”

Christ, I’m annoying. I really should just get to the point. Here goes…I guess that’s another one! Jesus!  My wife suggested I start a blog just because I need an outlet? Because I always seem to be going on about something? To get me out of her hair? All of the above. 

I’ve usually maintained that no one wants to hear what I have to say. Mine is just one opinion among the millions out there. Then again, the same could be said for literally a billion other people who already have blogs about pretty much anything and everything voicing their opinions and I don’t give a crap what they’re saying so turnabout is…. fair play? 

I must say “The thing is…” fairly regularly, plus I am a pretty big fan of The Thing from the Fantastic Four, so combine those two shining elements and you have the name of this new, fresh, steaming blog. I suppose “New, Fresh, Steaming, Blog” would work too but I already have a title! So, I’m throwing together a separate website from my others and I’ll occasionally just add to it when I can. 

Side note: (there’ll be a lot of this too) I do have a Thing collection, which is mostly action figures but includes a couple pages of original artwork as well. The collection numbers almost 150 pieces now. Yes, I’m sure you’re very very impressed probably.

The blog entries will be fairly straightforward, not a lot of bells and whistles, just me observing, ranting about or relaying stuff in general. I’ll post up a link to FB and Twitter whenever I blog but if I forget, you can always check in once a week or so and see if I’ve started a new government, lost a limb or done something of note. In the end, it’ll usually have a humorous component regardless of however serious the topic is because that seems to be how I roll. 

Also, the majority of these topics will probably be written while I lay awake at 4am worrying or thinking or thinking about worrying. So, until next time….the thing IS.