December 4, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
the evil captain Janeway…
“The Warship Voyager”
Season 4, Episode 23
https://youtu.be/TWfSvBGtYYI
(3:23)
Wayne: What a bad television series Voyager was. This clip only remained me of that.
Mr. Z.-
Have an opinion on ST: Discovery?
“In A Mirror Darkly” intro
ST: Enterprise (evil captain Archer variant) [se4ep18 & 19]
https://youtu.be/qXw6hC7hxBA
(3:03)
Wayne: No opinion. Haven’t seen it, and actually have very little interest in seeing it.
VOYAGER really was a major disappointment.
It was bad enough, as Ronald D. Moore (who bailed out after just a couple episodes and went on to helm BATTLESTAR GALACTICA instead) objected at the time that they took an intriguing premise and basically tossed it aside to fall back into a typical TREK template of monster-of-the-week with ship and crew intact and unchanged as if they’d just been back to spacedock for repair and R&R. But even that might have been worth watching if they’d bothered to write some appealing characters. Which they did not.
Trek was successful above all because of its main characters – Kirk-Spock-McCoy in TOS, and to a somewhat lesser degree, Picard-Data in TNG. But the VOYAGER characters were pretty much unwatchable. At that point, TREK was dead to me.
P.S. Great podcast as always, Bob. The Russians are in a world of hurt, and it is only going to get worse.
Richard–
Have an opinion on ST: Enterprise?
Wayne: I can tell you that I found Enterprise to refreshing and a joy to watch, once they decided to do what they called a 26 hour single episode. The first season was annoying and bad. The second season improved. And then the third and fourth seasons became great, telling a single overarching story with muscle and intelligence. It was a shame the series was cancelled after only four seasons, just as they were beginning to pick up steam.
They still ended it nicely however. The final moment of the last episode was perfect.
Mr. Z.–
If you are referring to the “temporal cold-war” story line, I would completely agree.
-Captain Janeway would have agonized endlessly over every decision and gotten everyone killed and/or enslaved, across all of space & time. (Her lingerie would have been in a state of constant upheaval.)
-I don’t like Scott Bacula as an actor, so it took me awhile to warm up to his character, but definitely, Enterprise over Voyager. Archer over Janeway.
-There’s ‘like 500+ hours of Star Trek across the variants & movies, so there’s a bit of “blah-bah-blah” going on. As well, I’m biased toward the original series (which holds up incredibly well over time, but does have a lot of the Monster-of-the-Week going on) and while I don’t like Captain Sisko, I’m partial to DS-9 over Next Gen.
The First Captain Janeway
(Genevieve Bujold)
https://youtu.be/O2W0Q9bBfRs
2:36
Wayne: While Kate Mulgrew is definitely not as good an actress as Genevieve Bujold, the problem here was not the actress, but the writing. Had the writing of Voyager been any good at all, Mulgrew could have risen to perform it. The writing however was not good.
My wife and I last year completed watching, in order, Star Trek, Next Generation, Voyager, and Enterprise. We had previously seen Deep Space Nine. Without question, the original series stands out as having the best writing and ideas. The later stuff is saddled with political correctness and liberal politics, and thus often has trouble telling stories with muscle.
I have no interest in seeing the newest stuff, a decision I made after watching Star Trek Into Darkness, one of the stupidest, most predictable, and boring films possibly ever made. It combined all the worst problems of the later Star Treks while adding all of the typical cliches of all modern actions films. Yuch. What a waste.
It may be that the reason we liked the original series is because it was morality plays. It would ask a question of when is it acceptable to do something not so moral — questions that were topical then and often continue to apply now. The logical character and the emotional character would debate the issue, then the command character would make a decision, but it up to us to consider whether it was a good idea to break or follow The Prime Directive, or whatever rule or moral code.
The other Star Trek versions devolved into mostly space ships and aliens, with the occasional good story line.
This is why I so much like “The Measure Of A Man” in the Next Generation series. It asked a question that we are now beginning to ponder, when is an artificial intelligence its own person rather than property, like a toaster, and deserves Saudi Arabian citizenship ( http://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/saudi-arabia-gives-robot-citizenship/ ). The episode uses a combination of logical and emotional arguments to make its point.
[!!! *** SPOILER ALERT *** !!!]
The following clip gives away the ending of the episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjuQRCG_sUw (7 minutes)