Value Subtracted @ ValueSubtracted @startrek.website

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I find it interesting that Capaldi seems quite determined to stay away from the role now that he's out of it.

It's absolutely his right...but it's interesting.

I think that was definitely the idea. I'm somewhat skeptical that it worked, but it would be cool if it was a gateway movie for someone.

it was ambiguous, did it really exist? Was it just one crazy guy?

This was never credible, and was never how it was presented in DS9.

Even in "Inquisition", Sloan had two other guys standing next to him, and an entire starship at his disposal. Starfleet Command covered for him at the end - something that was noted by the DS9 senior staff.

In subsequent episodes, Admiral Ross acknowledged their existence, and Bashir worked out what he believed to be the bare minimum number of operatives required to create the morphogenic virus (73).

Later, we saw them working for the United Earth Starfleet in the ENT era.

The only suggestion that it's just "once crazy guy" comes from Koval, who then helps Sloan fake his death and is revealed to be a S31 asset in the very next scene.

So no, that's not really something Discovery changed. People have had to wilfully ignore the DS9 episodes to buy into that theory.

the characters that we built and the rapport that we had with each other was amazing

I have to admit, I thought Alok was a pretty interesting character. Sam Richardson was also very charismatic as Quasi, though he didn't have much to do. And Young Garrett was okay, too.

I wouldn't mind seeing any of those characters pop up again, with a better story.

Yeah, it's a thing with federation - I see it on Mastodon from time to time.

I've raised it with the Lemmy devs, and they suspect it's some kind of caching issue that will be fixed in the next update.

We hope.

I liked that episode quite a lot, but it definitely coasts on pure vibes in places.

The Resurgence Switch release is the main reason I shared the post.

It's a shame the dev team seems to be gone, it's a great little game.

From the sounds of it, what it is is "expensive".

Y'know, as I typed it I thought, "I should probably fact-check this..."

I don't think that's ever been established - in fact, I don't think we've ever seen humpback whales in Cetacean Ops...

I think that's fair. I think I enjoyed the jokes more than you, but it's a pretty low-calorie episode.

At long last, the episode people have been anticipating/dreading since the preview scene dropped a year ago.

I dunno, I thought it was fine. It signals right from the beginning that we shouldn't take it too seriously, and it maintains that tone through to the end. The comparison that keeps popping into my head is "The Magnificent Ferengi" - transparently ridiculous, but enjoyable if you can get on its level.

The emotional core is the four "Vulcans" revealing their inner secrets because of their transformation. SNW has gone to that well before, but it works well enough. The dance fight was very nicely done.

Not a lot of meat on those bones, but there are worse ways to spend an hour.

I think that was tucked into the SDCC panel, though it was overshadowed by the SNW and SFA stuff.

I would imagine writing what is essentially a radio serial is a unique challenge.

Somebody attended Musk Junior High School...

Hmm, I don't know about that. It seems less to me like them trying to "match" TOS, and more like a continuation of the trends established on late-period "Voyager"...

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

The Bombers...are not going to be favourites in the LDC or the Banjo Bowl, but they're in "must-win" territory when playing teams in the West.

As much as "Me Too" was supposed to be about ridding the industry of sexual harassment (and worse), it also had knock-on effects in terms of storytelling, cast composition, etc.

I don't think it's controversial to say that "Enterprise" was not terribly progressive by modern standards (or, in my opinion, the standards of the time) when it came to female representation in particular.

the implication is that the Daleks have been pushing things for a lot longer than just 100 years anyway.

Yeah, I'm not convinced that the Daleks' Master Plan actually makes any sense, but I'm prepared to withhold judgment until I've rewatched the big finale.

"Society collapsing into a horrifying regime way more quickly than you'd expect" is actually a bit of an RTD running theme, and...I think history is on his side there, to be honest.

I kept putting this off all week, dreading The Reality Show Episode. On rewatch...it's silly and dated, but I didn't actually mind it.

Oddly prescient for them to feature game shows that are still around 20 years later.

The episode itself is pretty thin, though: the Doctor, Rose, and Jack get separated into different reality/game shows, discover that losers get killed, and find a way to esacape. The highlights are Eccleston and Piper's performances - they both do terrific work here, selling the emotions that they go through quite well.

They probably could have done more with the fact that Rose had to play that entire "Weakest Link" episode, sending quite a few people to their deaths.

Jack is...present. He seems somewhat stilted again, much as he did in "The Empty Child."

The guest cast all turn in good performances, which help elevate the overall episode.

I can't decide if setting the episode on Satellite 5 100 years later was simply an excuse to reuse the sets (which I likely would not have recognized anyway), but confronting the Doctor with the revelation that he's the cause of this divergence in history works pretty well.

And, of course, the whole thing is a setup for the full-on return of the Daleks in the big finale. The weight of their reveal is really felt, with the heavy lifting having been done back in "Dalek".

I don't know, this feels like a pretty scattered collection of thoughts, but...it's that kind of episode.

Yup. It's good to have some momentum, but the Labour Day Classic and Banjo Bowl are going to be big tests.