Star Trek: Discovery
I’m gonna watch this cause, like, Star Trek, but I’m only so-so on the trailer and it’s probably gonna need to hook me fast. Cause this CBS All Access crap? Bullshit.
Initial random thoughts:
A. Great to watch awesome ladies Sonequa Martin-Green and Michelle Yeoh share the screen.
B. Wish I had some measure of assurance that Michelle Yeoh is going to make it past the first episode, considering her ship isn’t the titular Discovery and it looks like something bad is about to go down. (IMDb has her listed for 13 episodes, but . . . IDK. I still worry. If she makes it past the pilot, then I guess I can graduate to concern about her surviving the first season . . . assuming the show does well enough to have a second season, which I think is a big if at this point.)
C. I’m totally cool with James Frain as Sarek.
D. I’m interested in our MC’s backstory. Is she a human raised on Vulcan? She seems to have rounded ears, so I’m assuming she isn’t half-human and half-Vulcan, although introducing more genetic diversity into the universe wouldn’t be the worst idea ever.
E. Still kind of bummed this is a TOS prequel.
F. Still deeply not okay with how we’ve changed the Klingons AGAIN. How do they keep looking worse? (TNG Klingons for life!)
G. Happy to see Doug Jones appears, as always, to be playing the weirdest and most ominous character in the show. Love you, Doug Jones.
The Orville
Can’t discuss Star Trek without discussing our new Star Trek spoof, The Orville.
I could give this a try. I’m not sold on this being the next Galaxy Quest or anything, but parts of it did make me laugh. Like the crew listening in on the captain and his ex-wife XO (Bobbie!) arguing, and acknowledging, oh, this is gonna be a fun trip. That whole part was great. Also, the anti-banana ray bit. Other jokes fall pretty flat for me, though, so my interest is there . . . but mild.
Okja
I’ve been interested in this one for months, so I’m excited to finally see a full-length trailer for it. The story presented thus far is only so-so for me, but I like the look of the trailer, I’m interested in seeing more of Bong Joon-ho’s work (I swear, I SWEAR, I will finally watch The Host this year), and oh my God, the cast is amazing: Tilda Swinton, Steven Yeun, Paul Dano, Giancarlo Esposito, Jake Gyllenhaal, Shirley Henderson, Devon Bostick, and Choi Woo-sik, who I just watched in Train to Busan. (Although, not gonna lie: I’d probably just watch this for Steven Yeun alone.)
GLOW
OOOH. This looks FUN.
Like Okja, I’ve been interested in this one for months, ever since looking up what Betty Gilpin was up to and finding out she, Alison Brie, and Ellen Wong were all going to be in a show together, like, YES, these are all ladies I’ve hoped to see more from. (Maybe especially Wong, who sadly doesn’t really feature in this trailer, but who I adored in Scott Pilgrim and haven’t seen much of since, with the exception of her guest-starring in Dark Matter.)
But it’s not just the cast. This show looks funny and feminist as hell. I love the bit about the man’s part versus the woman’s part (it’s funny because it’s true). Also: the alpha/omega/submit joke, the blood/tits/storytelling joke, and the ‘you mean stereotype’/’exactly!’ joke. Plus, just some of the ridiculous costumes: sexy lady astronaut, anyone?
This is the extremely rare non-speculative and/or non-mystery show that I’m actually geared up for. I definitely plan to check this one out.
Dark Matter
Speaking of Dark Matter.
I was pretty lukewarm on this show during the first season (although it did pick up towards the end), but I really enjoyed the hell out of second season, and now that we’re back for a third? Baby, I’m there. This trailer doesn’t tell you too much, other than Ryo has become our new villain. Curious to see if he’ll stay that way; he did betray the team, although not quite to the extent that they believe. Doubt Ellen Wong is going to make it, but happy to see that she’s coming back too.
Looks like I’ll be marathoning this on Netflix to remind myself of everything that happened. And to watch every Android scene possible cause let’s be real: we’re ALL here for the Android, right? She’s the best.
The Gifted
I’m . . . sort of interested in this? Like, I kinda like that it centers on a family, specifically a brother and sister. Mom is the most interesting, of course, because she’s played by Amy Acker. Bill from True Blood is fine, too. But there’s nothing about it that’s exactly drawing me in, either. Perhaps even I’m getting a bit worn out on new superhero shows, or at least ones that aren’t doing anything fantastically different. This is kinda different, but . . . I don’t know. I might try it, but if I do, it’ll probably be mostly for Amy Acker.
Black Lightning
Speaking of superhero shows.
I’m actually a little more interested in this one, despite the very CW voiceover that I’m hoping will go away after the pilot. CW superhero shows generally skew young, so having a middle-aged family man and high school principal as a superhero is kind of a bold move for them. Also nice to see what looks to be almost entirely a black cast. I am disappointed, though, to hear that Black Lightning won’t be a part of the CW superhero multiverse, like, that just feels like a missed opportunity to me.
I’m not sold, but I’m sure I’ll check this one out for at least a few episodes.
The Crossing
Meh. I might try this. The shot of all the bodies in the water is great, like, that’s just a fantastically haunting, creepy image. And this could be an interesting way to tell a story about refugees and the serious problems with our established immigration system . . . but for some reason, my hopes aren’t high. Obviously, I like me a good speculative element, but the whole ‘time travel into the past to escape the war that’s coming’ thing isn’t quite working for me, maybe because it seems like a pretty short-sighted plan for time travelers, or maybe just because as much as I like trying them, most time travel stories don’t end up working for me.
If I hear good things, I might give this a whirl, but as is, I’m not that interested.
The Good Doctor
Although. I would watch The Crossing 24 billion times over before I watched this show. No. So much no.
This is one of those shows that looks like it’s going for inspirational (admittedly, not really my bag) and is landing somewhere around offensive instead. And let me be clear: I am absolutely not an expert on autism, and I welcome the comments of anyone who knows more on the subject than me, but . . . we seem to have problems here. Briefly putting aside that this is yet another show about A Super Special Dude With Poor Social Skills Who Sees Things No One Else Sees, and even putting aside that this show appears to be portraying autism in the Standard Hollywood Way (savant, speaks in a stilted, almost robotic manner, etc.) . . . what I mostly take from this trailer is that people on the autism spectrum aren’t capable of being surgeons, and the only reason that this guy can is because he’s a savant, like, no one else on the spectrum could possibly do it. Which, like, no. Pretty sure that’s not the case.
To be clear, a show about the difficulties that people on the autism spectrum face, specifically in regards to workplace discrimination, would be totally fine. I think that maybe that’s what this show is trying to be, but based on the trailer, I don’t think that’s what it is. There are a lot of solid actors in this–Freddie Highmore, Richard Schiff, Antonia Thomas, Nicholas Gonzalez, Tamlyn Tomita–but not one of them would make me give this a shot. No, Richard Schiff, not even you.
American Assassin
Man. I want to be interested in a movie where Dylan O’Brien is playing both a grown-up and a badass, but . . . oh God, not this.
Generic ass title? Check. Refrigerated girlfriend? Check. Angst beard? Double check. Islamophobia? Probably. I’m torn on Michael Keaton’s character: he could be a mentor that dies, but I’m kind of getting a diabolic double agent twist or something from him? I don’t know, maybe not. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to watch this movie to find out, either. I’ll just be here, re-watching the episodes of Teen Wolf that make me happy, like, mostly ones prior to 6A. Sigh.
Finally . . . Blade Runner 2049
I kind of need to watch the original Blade Runner again. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, and I feel like I missed half of what was going on anyway, since I had to keep the volume real low (I was trying not to wake somebody up).
The look of this sequel is pretty great: dark, gorgeous, uber cinematic. But because I don’t have much feeling about the original film one way or another, my interest in this is only mild. At this point, I figure I’ll probably watch it eventually, but I doubt I’ll see it in theater unless somebody I know really wants to go.
My Geek Blasphemy 
I never got into Star Trek, but Galaxy Quest is amazing, so I’m slightly disappointed that The Orville doesn’t look better. The trailer aside, the involvement of Seth MaCFarlane does not have me optimistic.
Not sold on The Crossing yet, but the concept is intriguing and I’ll keep an ear out for how it’s received. I do kind of like that the time refugees came here primarily just to escape, rather than to rewrite the future, if only because I haven’t seen the former story before. (There was Terra Nova, but them arriving in a populated era/area would change the premise a lot. Plus I only saw one episode of Terra Nova, and it seemed pretty dull.) Not that this rules out characters trying to change the future.
It being a short-term solution doesn’t bother me, since I don’t think people tend to worry too much about what will happen to their distant descendants hundreds of years in the future. (See also: Climate Change.) Your concerns do beg the question though – did they get to pick what year they’d come back to? Were there like, arguments about whether it was worth putting up with the increased documentation and scrutiny of the modern day in exchange for the internet and widespread flushable toilets?
Ditto to every single damn thing you said about The Good Doctor. Ugh. I first saw that trailer when someone I knew in high school posted it on Facebook exclaiming about how good it looked, and it really bothers me that people are going to be watching this thinking it’s an accurate portrayal of autism. (Not that she knows I’m autistic anyway, since I wasn’t diagnosed until I was about 20.) At least they don’t appear to be going the arrogant asshole genius route, which that “From the creators of House,” had me a little worried about.
By the way, have you seen the IMDB synopsis?
“A young surgeon with Savant syndrome is recruited into the pediatric surgical unit of a prestigious hospital. The question will arise: can a person who doesn’t have the ability to relate to people actually save their lives?”
First of all, barf. But also, that is a really dumb question. I guess it would make sense if Freddie Highmore was trying to become a suicide counsellor or something, but relating to people and performing surgery on them don’t actually have a lot to do with one another? Really, it just seems all round like this premise was designed for another profession – something revolving around social skills.
About The Crossing: I guess it depends how far back the time travelers went back. I can’t remember if that was addressed in the trailer. I kind of got the sense, though, that things started Going Wrong in the present time, which to me meant the travelers should have considered going back a little further. But it’s possible I misread that.
I, too, saw exactly one episode of Terra Nova and was deeply, deeply bored. Which was sad cause, like, DINOSAURS.
I had not seen that IMDB synopsis of The Good Doctor yet, which, yes, is even more awful. I can see where strong social skills would be useful for a surgeon: explaining the risks/considerations to a patient, talking with the family, particularly when things have gone badly, etc. But the idea that you can’t be a good surgeon without the ability to relate well to people is pretty ridiculous.
One of the time traveler’s DOB was mentioned as being 150 years in the future, so I think it’s a few decades over that? I didn’t pick up the vibe that things started going wrong in the present, but I can see how that would be a fairly likely route for the writers to go down.
Yeah, it’s not like being a surgeon doesn’t involve social skills at all, but the way
empathy is presented as like, the only important part of being a doctor is kind of silly.
I also find it hard to believe that the Board of Dicks would openly try to block him solely on the basis of his diagnosis like that – and apparently just on the basis of what autism generally entails, without looking at his case specifically? I mean, not that ableist hiring practices wouldn’t happen, but I would think they’d come up with some bullshit excuse to cover their ass from a discrimination lawsuit. Oh well. Guess a lengthy string of potential employers saying “Sorry, we found someone more qualified,” wouldn’t exactly make for the kind of dramatic, inspiring television these people are trying to make.
I might check this out, as bad as it looks. I’m curious to see whether it’s going to keep being this kind of condescending, offensive bullshit, or whether it settles down a bit after the first few episodes.