One of my favorite TV shows and shared universes celebrates being on the air for 55 years! It’s amazing it ever existed given how much NBC behaved like they never wanted the darned thing. Then history repeated itself with Next Generation but I’m glad it gained its momentum while still being syndicated as it gave birth to three more spinoff shows. There was a short break for about a decade while Hollywood thought we needed the shitty reboot films which demonstrated how the current wunderkind didn’t know shit about the franchise or how to make a film with a plot.
Today, I’d say we’re at overkill thanks to Paramount+. Picard was solid until the ending. Discovery is a chore to watch whenever Rainn Wilson’s Mudd isn’t around. Lower Decks I haven’t seen and I remain skeptical about Star Trek being inherently funny. Strange New Worlds appears interesting yet I dislike shows set in the “past.” Like Enterprise, either it’s hemmed in by what happens in the “future,” or more often, the writers just make shit up contradicting the stuff which was pretty established. I do like the Burnham character very much and her being raised by a Vulcan family is great. Just why does it have to be Spock’s parents? There’s never been a mention of an adopted sister. Audiences both diehard and novice can follow Star Trek if a different Vulcan family adopted such a cool heroine.
I know, I know, it’s just pretend. Given how the Klingons were “re-imagined” into Space Orcs, Paramount+ is definitely destroying the maxim of “bad Star Trek is better than no Star Trek.” If it’s J J Abrams dumbing it down, I think I can live with the reruns until somebody who can do it better comes along. A new Nicholas Meyer, Harve Bennet or DC Fontana is what I think it will take to save Discovery from its mess and dependency on pissing away Ace-card enemies: the Terran Empire, the Borg and Section 31.
Well, it’s great to finally make it to 6000 posts! I think the past versions of me wouldn’t be too shocked to find out how much I like writing. I was bitten by the letter-writing bug in 1982 at age 14 and being a stranger in Houston. Being born 10 years later? I think the 1992 14-year-old me would be addicted to e-mail; I still miss it outside of work. Mills and Gen Z are in for a shock, e-mail isn’t going away if you want a job with decent wages, none of this Twitch or SMS bullshit. Not sure which medium a 2002 or 2012 teenage version of me would pursue. I can see 2002 going with a blog, they weren’t passé yet nor was the smart phone the preferred solution. There are days I miss making my newsletters and fake magazines I used to do, sometimes they came with a mixtape!
Speaking of the mixtapes (aka WMAG/KMAG), I’m nearing the end of the original 20 I put together in the Nineties as they pop up wherever you can download/listen to podcasts. A quick thank you to my friend and Gifts of the Maggi engineer Kathy for increasing the KMAG brand’s distribution by submitting my over 100 varying episodes to additional sources: Google, Amazon, etc. OK, where am I going? Yes. The original 20 will end and I thought about starting new ones. The burning question was, do I continue with 21 and go forward…or do I start over, doing a hard reboot like I mock previously? The decision was to continue at the suggestion of my friend, co-worker and only active listener Cyril. You all had your chance to participate in a poll but screw it. I vowed in 1986 to push forward against Classic Rock, not going to stop now.
Get ready for the return of KMAG! It’s been 25 years and the pool of material to work from has probably increased five fold; when KMAG 20 was made, I owned roughly 1000 CDs. Today, my music collection nears 5000 CDs alongside vinyl I can digitize and downloaded sources. Things begin next month, what used to be called Rocktober.
Thanks for reading this. Now it’s time to keep writing, reviewing, watching, whatever it takes to get to 7000 posts and other upcoming milestones. Now if I could find a way to get the Comments to keep pace.