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What I’m Watching: April 2023

What I’m Watching: April 2023

I haven’t done a What I’m Watching this year, so here’s a new installment.

DANGER! THERE BE SPOILERS

I’m talking about shows I’ve watched. I won’t give away anything huge, but in the context of the discussion, there will probably be spoilers. You have been warned.

STAR TREK PICARD: SEASON THREE

Prior to Strange New Worlds and the terrific job that Anson Mount continues doing as Captain Pike, ST: The Next Generation, was my favorite Trek series.

I wrote about ST: Picard a couple times here at Black Gate. I struggled through the plodding season one. With John de Lancie (Q) in the picture, season two was much better – excluding Picard’s child-hood angst.

Season three brought a wrap-up to TNG. More Picard-centric emotional angst slowed things down, but it was tremendous closure for TNG. Just about any face you wanted to see popped up.. It was wonderful to see Trekkers from the past (and not just TNG). And on the new side of things, Todd Stashwick as Captain Liam Shaw is in my Top Five for all time Trek-verse characters. He was terrific.

Phasers on Stun – I cannot believe I watched this entire season without realizing that Jack Crusher was the same actor who played James Kent in Downton Abbey. Completely didn’t register until I looked him up for this essay. Man, did I miss that one!

Quite simply, season three of Picard was fantastic, and the series finale was outstanding. They closed out the franchise in wonderful fashion. There was also a Marvel-esque credits scene which certainly could be the basis for a spin-off show.

Nothing has been announced in any fashion for one, but it would be nice.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Alexandre/Alexander

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Alexandre/Alexander

William Shatner in Alexander the Great (USA, 1968)

To explain the title: this week we’re covering a lesser-known version of Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers, plus a movie about Alexander the Great. If this seems like a weak pretext for a Cinema of Swords article theme, you’re right — mea culpa, it’s a fair cop, I’m busted. The fact is, I was desperate for an excuse to bring you a review of an obscure adventure film about Alexander the Great that stars — wait for it — none other than William Shatner and Adam West!

But we’ll start with the other Alexandre, a French Three Musketeers from the mid-Fifties, preceded by Fanfan la Tulipe, the hit film that brought swashbucklers back to the French cinema. However, if you feel the need to skip ahead to the Shatner flick, hey, this is the internet, no one’s looking.

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What I’m Streaming – May 2022

What I’m Streaming – May 2022


Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Man – last week I realized how many good shows I’m streaming these days. Not too long ago I wrote this post about shows you should be streaming. And with almost no overlap (Bosch), I realized I could write one on the things I’m watching now.

You can click on this link to go to last week’s post, which included my thoughts on Halo, Outer Range, Star Trek: Discovery, and Star Trek: Picard: With a little more on one of those today. But let’s look at even more!

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To Boldly Go – Star Trekking

To Boldly Go – Star Trekking

I like Star Trek well enough, but I’ve never really been a Trekkie. I watched reruns of The Original Series, growing up; Then the movies (that first one was terrible). I liked The Next Generation and it has remained a favorite, including the movies. John deLancie’s Q is my favorite character across the entire franchise (even making up for Whoopi Goldberg). Deep Space Nine was okay, though I gave up on it before the end. I doubt I’ve seen half of Voyager – Kate Mulgrew (Mrs. Columbo) didn’t work for me at all. And I haven’t even seen the pilot of Enterprise. I like Scott Bakula, but it just didn’t appeal. I haven’t read any of the books, though my buddy David Marcum loves them (I read a ton of fantasy, but not much scifi).

The past month-plus, I’ve been on quite a Star Trek binge. I find myself watching episodes of Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, ST Continues, and The Original Series. And overall, it’s been great!

I got CBS All Access last summer to watch season one of Lower Decks. I liked it. I didn’t bother with Picard, or Discovery. Just wasn’t interested in live-action Star Trek. I preferred Galaxy Quest, and the TERRIFIC documentary (streaming on Prime), Never Surrender.

Rewatching the beginning of Twin Peaks on Paramount+ (CBS All Access was rebranded), I kept seeing the icons for Picard and Discovery. Late one night, I decided, ‘Why not?’ and I watched the first ten minutes of Picard, with as much interest as watching paint dry. It was dull: Battlestar Galactica-pacing dull (I gave up on season one of that show. I don’t know how it could have moved any slower). Clicked over to Discovery.

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The Season of Gaming: Star Trek

The Season of Gaming: Star Trek

There has been something of a Star Trek television renaissance in recent years. Ranging from the all-too-near future (first contact with the Vulcans is slated to take place in 2063, after all) to the far distant future, the ever-growing setting provides ample fodder not only for new episodes and storylines, but for gamers who want to experience the universe by diving into the setting, there are a variety of different games that offer different levels of engagement with the themes of the show. And ones which, if you’re looking for a game to play while in lockdown with family over the holidays, might do the trick … particularly if your family consists of Trek fans.

One of the more curious Star Trek games I’ve run across was the Ferengi-themed sales game Star Trek: Galactic Enterprises, a card game where you spend bars of gold-pressed latinum in an effort to corner the market on a given product. There are of course the various games that are just re-skins of existing games that incorporate elements from the setting, like Star Trek Monopoly, various editions of Star Trek Fluxx, Star Trek Risk, and even Star Trek Catan.

But beyond those games, there are some which delve much more deeply into the concepts, alien species, and lore of the Star Trek universe to provide a more immersive gaming experience, boldly going where no game has gone before.

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The Continuing Mission: Star Trek Adventures

The Continuing Mission: Star Trek Adventures

Star Trek Adventures-small

Star Trek has been a revered franchise for decades, and the FASA Star Trek RPG released in the 1980s is a oft cited classic game. The current RPG, Star Trek Adventures, is published by Modiphius. Supported by multiple supplements, adventures, and a forthcoming Klingon core rulebook, Star Trek Adventures is a compelling RPG that will let you live out your own Star Trek stories, regardless of era.

The game is oriented toward The Next Generation era of Star Trek, but the rules allow and often speak specifically to running games in the Original Series and Enterprise eras (Deep Space Nine and Voyager fall within The Next Generation era). Even the Kelvin timeline (i.e., the new film series with Chris Pine as Captain Kirk). Modiphius does not have the license rights to the newer Discovery, Picard, or Lower Decks series showing on CBS All Access, but adapting the game to suit those settings is readily done.

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Star Trek Brought Women into the Science Fiction Community

Star Trek Brought Women into the Science Fiction Community

Mudds-Women-Star-Trek

In an August 7th post on his Whatever blog, “Oh, Christ, Not the Science Fiction Canon Again,” John Scalzi said, “As a practical matter, the science fiction “canon” is already dead.” The term “literary canon” refers to a body of books, narratives and other texts considered to be the most important and influential of a particular time period or place. (The Daily Nebraskan)

For me, and this is personal experience, the field began changing when Star Trek brought a flood of women, fans and then writers, into the science fiction community. That was at the end of the 1960s, when the first show was running. I was hanging out in Devra Langsam’s living room in 1967 or 8, when the first Star Trek convention was being planned. I don’t know if her Spockanalia was the first ST fanzine, but it was damn close, and I was in one of the issues. I also had a story in Star Trek: The New Voyages, a collection of ST stories written by fans, which was published in 1976. (I want my ST credentials to be clear. The story is listed as being co-authored by me and Ruth Berman. I helped come up with the plot, but Ruth did almost all the work.)

I was away from SFdom while I lived into Detroit, though I published my first stories while I was in the Motor City. I rejoined fandom in the 1970s, when Patrick and I moved to the Twin Cities. Sometime, either in the late 70s or early 80s, I noticed that most of the fans of color and GLBTQ fans were coming from media fandom. It struck me as very important that media fans be made welcome in book fandom and at cons, or else fandom as I knew it was going to wither and die. I started doing GLBT panels and panels on race and science fiction. The GLBT panels went well mostly. The race panels were problematic, largely because there were too many white people on the panels, including me. I also did a few class panels. These tended to blow up, because the issue of class is both hidden and highly emotionally charged in the US. Race in also hidden, at least to white people, but it wasn’t a topic I could handle.

I must have been doing feminist panels in this period, but I don’t remember them, except one at Minicon when one of the women on the all-woman panel said, “We are never going back.” I said, “It is always possible to be pushed back. Look at Nazi Germany.”

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Robots, Deep Space, and Star Trek: Free RPG Day at Games Plus in Mount Prospect

Robots, Deep Space, and Star Trek: Free RPG Day at Games Plus in Mount Prospect

Games Plus Free RPG Day-small

Free RPG Day is not something I can remember ever taking part in…. mostly because the only local gaming store here in St. Charles died ten years ago. But when I saw the Facebook announcement from Floyd at Games Plus on Friday (above), I was intrigued enough to make the 30-mile drive to Mount Prospect Saturday morning.

Games Plus is easily the best gaming store in the the Chicago area — perhaps in the entire country. It’s the home of the Games Plus auctions I’ve written about extensively for the the past 10 years. Like all retail stores, it’s struggled as a result of the pandemic, and I was overdue for a visit to show my support (and spend some money) anyway.

And several of the items in Floyd’s pic grabbed my attention, especially the Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure from Goodman Games, the Root the Tabletop Roleplaying Game adventure, and the Warhammer Wrath & Glory module. It’d be a challenge narrowing my selection down to two items, but I figured that’d be part of the fun.

So what is Free RPG Day?

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One Impossible Thing at a Time: Star Trek: Picard

One Impossible Thing at a Time: Star Trek: Picard

Picard 1

It’s not the way I would have done it.

But it is pretty close!

Star Trek: Picard (ST:P), now available for free at CBS All Access, is the antidote to Star Trek: Discovery. As opposed to the heedless headlong rush of Discovery, Picard takes its time, building a story slowly and meticulously.

Others have said it before and likely better, but I’m going to say it myself — ST:P is made to appeal to people of, well, a certain age. Maybe age is not the right word, maybe it is made to appeal to people of a certain mileage. A mileage that includes some success, some failure, some pain, some loss, and some punishment for good deeds. ST:P has, as some of the best Star Trek has, a kind of multi-level relevance that is hard to beat.

Speaking of which, some people object to the overt political message of this series. I am not one of those people. If you are one of those people, hey guess what, we’re not gonna agree.

And, of course, it has Patrick Stewart, an iconic actor, reprising his iconic role as Jean Luc Picard.

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Rogue Blades Presents: Who Was Your First Hero?

Rogue Blades Presents: Who Was Your First Hero?

Kirk-Spock-McCoyDo you remember your first hero? Any kind of hero. It could have been a hero from a movie or a book or a television show, even a hero from real life.

As a child of the 1970s, one might think Luke Skywalker was my first hero, but I would turn eight years old a month after the original Star Wars was released in theaters, and by then I already had plenty of heroes.

Re-runs of the original Star Trek TV show from the 1960s were still airing, and I watched every one of them. Of the crew of the Enterprise, Captain James T. Kirk seemed the most heroic of the figures presented to us viewers, or at least he stood in the most traditional of the heroic modes.

Then there was the Six Million Dollar Man, starring actor Lee Majors from 1973 to 1978 on television. For those not familiar with the series, Majors played U.S. astronaut Steve Austin who was seriously injured in an accident. Not only did Steve survive his accident, but the government decided, “We can rebuild him. We have the technology.” And they did. Steve got some bionic legs and an arm and an eye. He fought crime. And Bigfoot. It was awesome.

Some might not consider Godzilla a hero, but by the time of my childhood in the ’70s, Godzilla was mainly a good guy, so he was a hero of sorts to many of us. For better or worse, my first Godzilla movie was Godzilla vs. Megalon, a film sometimes not remembered fondly by Godzilla fans. Either way, I was maybe five years old when my dad drug me into an old downtown theater to witness the spectacle of this movie, and again, I have to say it was awesome.

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