Media Anatomy

 Some of my favorite shows growing up were the Star Trek shows as supervised by Michael Piller or made in the legacy of Michael Piller. I characterize this era from TNG season 3, when Michael Piller took over as a show-runner, to the end of DS9, the departure of Ira Stephen Behr, the last hand picked show-runner by Michael Piller. These shows were strongly interested in character and exploring fascinating thematic ideas and have played a critical role in shaping who I am. Dr . Who is a show I barely knew until recently but over the last few months I have been watching every episode of the Davies Era from Rose onwards I have really come to love the show and the warm humanism embodied in the episodes. This post is a tribute to these two men.  When Michael Piller took over TNG, the show was frankly in disarray. To be charitable, the first two seasons had been messes with no real clear vision and characters who seemed overly stiff both literally and figuratively. Scripts often se...

  The film, Conspiracy, depicts the events of the Wannsee Conference where the infamous Final Solution was revealed to various members of the German bureaucracy for the first time. The film does a good job of presenting the events in a way that aligns with the historical truth but its greatest strength is how it fully shows how complicit the people involved were, as even those who were against genocide were still highly reprehensible, such as Wilhem Stuckart. Adding to the film’s power is Kenneth Branagh’s performance as Reinhard Heydrich and Stanley Tucci’s performance as Adolf Eichmann which are both excellent and bring these people to life with frightening realism. The frightening realism is most realized in the final scenes when everybody goes home like they have just discussed a game of golf. The film is interested in painting a portrait of a society that is rotten to the core and in that, the film succeeds beautifully. The main content of what was presented at the Wannsee...

  Star Trek: Discovery launched on September 24, 2017  marking the first time Trek was on the small screen in over ten years. I went in with hope and optimism as I was encouraged by the show's decision to have a black woman be the show's lead for the first time in the franchise's history. Those feeling of hope and optimism are very hard to remember now as over the last three years, which have felt like 30 years, my interest in discussing Discovery, and the other CBS Trek shows, have been slowly crushed.  Soon after Discovery aired, there began to be a wave of bad faith critics who ranted about how Trek had been taken over by "wokeness" or "SJWs" which was obviously nonsense. Nevertheless despite my disagreements with these bad faith critics I did think there were major problems with the story and sometimes acting in Discovery. I hoped to be able to air my critiques and offer good faith criticism that would represent a counterbalance to the overwhelming w...

Is anything truly not alive? I often hear things, and have even said myself, like "it's only a movie" but is that really true? I would argue no for one simple reason. While much of the media we watch might not have actually happened, our memories and our emotions that we feel are very real to us. I would argue that this is why remakes or bad sequels hurt so much. We remember how we felt when we saw the original piece of media, and thus to see something so similar but just off, is painful. It is like seeing a pod person of a beloved family member. Our memories come back to us but in a distorted reflection. Nowhere was that more painfully evident for me than when I was watching the live action Beauty and the Beast. I would hear the words of the songs, and the words would remind me of the joy I feel watching the animated film. But then the flat autotuned of Emma Watson would kick in and that joy would distort into revulsion.  How I saw the Live action Beauty and the Beast Th...