Fannish odds and ends
I went into a black hole at work post-vacation and I'm just barely emerging, finally. I spent the day on the couch, watching TV and napping. I'm too tired for anything else! But I have tickets to Endgame for 11am Friday and 12pm Saturday, so that's exciting. It seems like a long time away, in internet years; every day, the odds of getting spoiled go up exponentially every time I load Tumblr and Twitter. I think I'll make Monday night my cut-off, so I can watch the livestream of the red carpet on premieres night, and then I'm going dark on the internet until Friday. TRUST NO ONE. I'm so excited for this movie. I'm entertaining no hate or gloom about it.
Meanwhile, Star Trek: Discovery wrapped up its second season, which I had no intention of watching until I was in Europe and the first 10 eps of season 2 suddenly became available to download to my iPad via Netflix, due to me not being in the US. !! (I got the rest by ponying up $6 to Amazon Prime last night for a one month CBS all access subscription.) And without spoiling, I can tell you - that's how I fell in love with Anson Mount's Christopher Pike. As I said on Twitter, it was perfect casting and a brilliant performance, and in 14 episodes of a bad show, he went from being a footnote in TOS canon/Spock's history to being my fave captain. Bar none. The end. I NEED A PIKE'S ENTERPRISE series. Why can't we have nice things??
So, Mount's performance in that moment where Pike's future was revealed was a perfect, crystallized summary of EVERYTHING Gene Roddenberry's vision of Star Trek was to be: optimism for the future, service, compassion, love. THAT MOMENT WAS EVERYTHING. "You're a Starfleet officer!" God, I can't. Knowing what he knows - that he just...bravely goes on into that future? DID HE TELL SPOCK AT SOME POINT??? I have to imagine they had a moment where he said - listen, at some future point, if ever I am injured so badly I can no longer breathe or stand or speak - please take me to Talos IV. And TOS Spock, who was willing to give up his career to save his former captain...I mean, this all puts EVERYTHING from The Menagerie into a crystal clear new light, doesn't it???? OH my god, I love Pike. His empathy and his humility and his kindness and his ease of command, I just want ten seasons of that kind of calm, smart leadership. Also, their re-creation of Enterprise is brilliant in its details, and Number One is perfect, and if I could cherry-pick Tilly and Saru and Ash and Engineer Smart Ass and Doctor My So-Called Life and throw them on Enterprise and have THAT be the series we're watching instead of Disco, my life would be complete. The rest of them can go into the wormhole. (Except Michelle Yeoh, I can't wait for her stand-alone series.)
Also meanwhile and on the men in love front lines of fandom:
The Magicians' finale pissed off a whole lot of its fans because it killed off a previously suicidal bisexual character in a way that puts his state of mind into question at the time he sacrificed himself, and I think it's safe to say that the showrunners and writers are just clueless and infuriating because they think they were being white-male-lead-killing edgelords or some nonsense like that.
Shadowhunters' Malec fans are melting down because Alec broke up with Magnus in EPIC and HORRIBLE fashion, even tho every single person in fandom (pretty much literally) seems to be spoiled for how the show is going to end. Or can guess. (It's not hard to guess; this is a self-aware bunch of showrunners and actors that have no intention of making their hardcore fans miserable.)
Then there's Roswell NM, which has a front-and-center-from-episode-one m/m (one gay, one canon bi) couple of which one half is played by an amazing actor who just came out Friday as queer and bi (<3 Tyler Blackburn!) but no one knows if there will be a second season so people are hesitating to get attached.
And then there's American Gods, which appears to have undergone a neutering operation before its second season started. So there used to be hot men in love on that show, but now there's just a motorcycle and an incomprehensible plot, because apparently the Djinn and Salim aren't allowed to touch each other anymore? IDK. It's bizarre. The show has gone down in quality by 1000% since Fuller split.
I love that there's more LGBT+ all shades of the rainbow representation, but sometimes it feels like two steps forward, one step back, and then a character trips and goes over the edge into the abyss and the showrunners are like, whoops! Sigh. When is season 2 of Pose coming??! I want my positive emotional and diverse found family show back.
Other media I'm watching: Warrior (which is sort of like Deadwood via San Francisco, but from the perspective of the Chinese re the Tong wars); Fosse/Verdon (unsure about this one; Michelle Williams seems like she's ACtinG! and it's putting me off); Billions (still a master class in acting from Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis); A Discovery of Witches (not sure about this one yet, either). Game of Thrones is back, too! Full of dragons, incest and treachery to the end, I'm sure.
WHERE ARE MY PIKE FANS AT. Where are the people who are unspoiled for and excited about Endgame?! I know you're out there. *peers into the internet*
Meanwhile, Star Trek: Discovery wrapped up its second season, which I had no intention of watching until I was in Europe and the first 10 eps of season 2 suddenly became available to download to my iPad via Netflix, due to me not being in the US. !! (I got the rest by ponying up $6 to Amazon Prime last night for a one month CBS all access subscription.) And without spoiling, I can tell you - that's how I fell in love with Anson Mount's Christopher Pike. As I said on Twitter, it was perfect casting and a brilliant performance, and in 14 episodes of a bad show, he went from being a footnote in TOS canon/Spock's history to being my fave captain. Bar none. The end. I NEED A PIKE'S ENTERPRISE series. Why can't we have nice things??
So, Mount's performance in that moment where Pike's future was revealed was a perfect, crystallized summary of EVERYTHING Gene Roddenberry's vision of Star Trek was to be: optimism for the future, service, compassion, love. THAT MOMENT WAS EVERYTHING. "You're a Starfleet officer!" God, I can't. Knowing what he knows - that he just...bravely goes on into that future? DID HE TELL SPOCK AT SOME POINT??? I have to imagine they had a moment where he said - listen, at some future point, if ever I am injured so badly I can no longer breathe or stand or speak - please take me to Talos IV. And TOS Spock, who was willing to give up his career to save his former captain...I mean, this all puts EVERYTHING from The Menagerie into a crystal clear new light, doesn't it???? OH my god, I love Pike. His empathy and his humility and his kindness and his ease of command, I just want ten seasons of that kind of calm, smart leadership. Also, their re-creation of Enterprise is brilliant in its details, and Number One is perfect, and if I could cherry-pick Tilly and Saru and Ash and Engineer Smart Ass and Doctor My So-Called Life and throw them on Enterprise and have THAT be the series we're watching instead of Disco, my life would be complete. The rest of them can go into the wormhole. (Except Michelle Yeoh, I can't wait for her stand-alone series.)
Also meanwhile and on the men in love front lines of fandom:
The Magicians' finale pissed off a whole lot of its fans because it killed off a previously suicidal bisexual character in a way that puts his state of mind into question at the time he sacrificed himself, and I think it's safe to say that the showrunners and writers are just clueless and infuriating because they think they were being white-male-lead-killing edgelords or some nonsense like that.
Shadowhunters' Malec fans are melting down because Alec broke up with Magnus in EPIC and HORRIBLE fashion, even tho every single person in fandom (pretty much literally) seems to be spoiled for how the show is going to end. Or can guess. (It's not hard to guess; this is a self-aware bunch of showrunners and actors that have no intention of making their hardcore fans miserable.)
Then there's Roswell NM, which has a front-and-center-from-episode-one m/m (one gay, one canon bi) couple of which one half is played by an amazing actor who just came out Friday as queer and bi (<3 Tyler Blackburn!) but no one knows if there will be a second season so people are hesitating to get attached.
And then there's American Gods, which appears to have undergone a neutering operation before its second season started. So there used to be hot men in love on that show, but now there's just a motorcycle and an incomprehensible plot, because apparently the Djinn and Salim aren't allowed to touch each other anymore? IDK. It's bizarre. The show has gone down in quality by 1000% since Fuller split.
I love that there's more LGBT+ all shades of the rainbow representation, but sometimes it feels like two steps forward, one step back, and then a character trips and goes over the edge into the abyss and the showrunners are like, whoops! Sigh. When is season 2 of Pose coming??! I want my positive emotional and diverse found family show back.
Other media I'm watching: Warrior (which is sort of like Deadwood via San Francisco, but from the perspective of the Chinese re the Tong wars); Fosse/Verdon (unsure about this one; Michelle Williams seems like she's ACtinG! and it's putting me off); Billions (still a master class in acting from Paul Giamatti and Damian Lewis); A Discovery of Witches (not sure about this one yet, either). Game of Thrones is back, too! Full of dragons, incest and treachery to the end, I'm sure.
WHERE ARE MY PIKE FANS AT. Where are the people who are unspoiled for and excited about Endgame?! I know you're out there. *peers into the internet*