unbibium

hbomberguy's YouTube video, Sherlock is Garbage, explained not only why I started retro-disliking Sherlock after season 4, but also why I stopped giving lots of other TV shows a fair chance. I watched it again to see if it might provide insight into The Last Jedi, which I liked, but everyone else hated. Are they seeing something I'm not because the tricks worked on me? Or should I anticipate Episode 9 being bad in a way that reveals that Star Wars was never good?

The video is long, so I'll just point out Sherlock's relevant crime against the viewer: the things that it sets up but never pays off. For example, season 1 ended in an unnecessary cliffhanger where instead of walking away, Moriarty comes back and decides to shoot Sherlock. Season 2 begins where Moriarty receives a phone call and then decides to walk away anyway – no payoff, but maybe we'll find out what the phone call was? Well, either we never find out, or I don't remember. This happens repeatedly in Sherlock, and probably in many other shows you binge watch, as if they're doing it on purpose so you have no choice but to binge watch. At this point it's almost better to stop watching an episode in the middle.

People I've spoken to are upset with Last Jedi because we don't really get a satisfying answer to who Snoke is or who Rey's parents are. I suppose that didn't upset me because I know Snoke is just some evil rando whose only job is to be one-dimensionally evil like Darth Maul. And I'm a bit relieved that there wasn't a big subplot where the identity of Rey's parents are a driving force. The answers to these questions proved to be just Mad Libs; they have no bearing on the fate of the rebellion, or any other aspect of how the story was about to unfold. Indeed, Snoke's backstory isn't even a question posed by episode 7; it's just something the fans feel entitled to. And the identity of Rey's parents is important to Rey, but it's only important to the audience if it's of consequence to the story. And indeed, if they had revealed that Snoke was Rey's father, then that would have been total bullshit, and you know it.

But the Last Jedi did have story arcs that changed the characters. Poe doubled down on his recklessness, and was proven wrong every single time. Rey's training cast her faith into doubt, until confronting Kylo Ren cast her doubt into doubt, and now she has rejoined the rebellion to look forward and not backward. Finn and Rose, well, I'm still figuring that out. And the porgs taught Chewbacca to accept and embrace his own role as a marketing gimmick. So when you concentrate on what the movie itself is presenting, you have a lot to work with.

In "The Riches", you get to hear how people would talk if they were allowed to say "shit" as often as they like, but never "fuck".

In "Battlestar Galactica", you get to hear how people would talk if they were allowed to say "fuck" if they said it wrong, and they never said any of the other six forbidden words.

I'm used to normal television, where people don't swear at all and just use cute euphemisms for everything. Or radio, where people are talking normally and then suddenly it's 30 seconds in the future and everyone's laughing and you have to guess what you missed.

And I can handle "frak" when it's just people screaming or being inarticulate to each other. "Clusterfrak" last night was a nice touch. But when it's a deep dramatic scene where Starbuck is trying to talk all slutty to her husband? Fuck that. I dare anyone, male or female, to use "frak" in bed.

I might have felt better about it if they'd kept the rest of the vocabulary from the 70's show. All the funky time measurements, and definitely "felgerkarb", because I find that "bullshit" is a much more useful word than "fuck" any day of the week.

Met Walter Koenig and Wil Wheaton.

Saw the first act of "Star Trek: Of Gpds and Men" where all the Trek actors with nothing better to do show up. Not bad; effects and set design are spot on, but the script is a bit amateurish. I was surprised at how good the blooper real was.

I am running into a lot of friends.

I wish I had brought my copy of stacebass's Violet compilation to show around. There are other local cartoonists here, and I got some of their work to see how it stacks up. I gave one of them the URL to Violet Moore.

I have two hours to kill before Wil Wheaton does his reading. Am I a bad enough dude to mutilate a song in the karaoke room?

If you want to revisit fantasy worlds with a dark, modern point of view, rent The 10th Kingdom on DVD instead.

And if you want to revisit the Wizard of Oz universe specifically, rent Return to Oz. I saw that one growing up; it was pretty good. It's a little steampunk, what with the wheel-guys and the new wind-up robot guy.

"The Outer Zone"? Surely that's not the best they could do. I guess they'd call it a "zone" considering a bunch of misfits can cross it on foot. And, key, best method of summoning flying monkeys ever!

Forget about Enterprise vs Death Star.

Who would win in a space battle: the Boston flying saucer, or the Journey Escape ship?