News Around the Net

September 8th was the 57th anniversary of the launch of Star Trek.  Wow!  To celebrate that milestone, Variety posted a list of their 57 favorite episodes of Star Trek of all time, from across all the Trek series.  That’s quite an endeavor!  The list is a wild one.  There’s too much Discovery on this list (there shouldn’t be any), and while I was thrilled to see so many Deep Space Nine episode on the list (DS9 is my favorite Trek show), weirdly they chose a lot of DS9 episodes that wouldn’t rank anywhere near the top of my list of my favorite episodes.  (Seriously: “Family Business”? “Who Mourns for Morn”?  “A Man Alone”?  “Covenant”?  They wouldn’t be in my list of my favorite 57 episodes of DS9, let alone all of Trek!!)  There are some fun choices in here.  From modern Trek, I liked seeing “Kobayashi” from Prodigy (in which they painstakingly pulled audio clips from throughout the Trek franchise in order to recreate various famous Trek characters on the holodeck) and “A Mathematically Perfect Redemption” and especially “An Embarrassment of Dooplers” (the episode guest-starring Richard Kind) from Lower Decks, as well as two episodes from the excellent third season of Picard.  I was happy to see a lot of great DS9 episodes on the list (including “In the Hands of the Prophets”, “Blood Oath”, “Duet”, “In the Pale Moonlight”, and “Far Beyond the Stars”).  I’d rank TNG’s “The Measure of a Man” much higher, and “Redemption” much lower.  Voyager’s “Timeless” in the top ten?  Crazy!  (That’s one of the best Voyager episodes, but no way does that crack the top ten of all Trek shows.)  On the other hand, I loved seeing “The Defector”, an amazing third-season TNG episode, in the top ten!  That’s not one of the more famous TNG episodes, but it’s always been one of my favorites.  DS9′s “The Visitor” as number one is a choice that makes this DS9 fan very happy!!!  That wouldn’t be my #1 choice, but it’d probably be in my top ten, and I love seeing DS9 in the top slot.  (Hmmm…. maybe I need to create my own “57 favorite episodes” list??)

September contained another important anniversary: September 10th was the 30th anniversary of the launch of The X-Files.  Wow, I used to love that show.  Here’s a look back at the series’ seminal villain, the Cigarette Smoking Man.  Rolling Stone decided to rank all 217 episodes of the series from worst to best.  (There are some crazy choices in their list — “The Field Where I Died” in the top ten is lunacy — but choosing “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” as the #1 episode is a great choice, even if I myself am partial to another amazing season there episode written by Darin Morgan: “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space”.)  Click here for another “best of” list; this one is a top 30 episodes lists, done in order of appearance.  It’s a great read.

Here’s a trailer for Wes Anderson’s short (approx. 40 minutes) adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar:

Wes Anderson plus Roald Dahl? I can’t wait for this!!

I’m excited for this clever teaser trailer for season four of For All Mankind:

I love this show!!  (Click here for my review of season three.)  I can’t wait for it to return!

I’m looking forward to the upcoming five animated Star Trek shorts, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the classic Star Trek: The Animated Series from the seventies!  This trailer is a hoot:

Here’s our first look at the upcoming Frasier reboot:

I have warm feelings for this character, and I’m happy for Kelsey Grammer that he’s found a way to bring Frasier Crane back in yet another new incarnation, though I doubt I’ll actually watch this.

Here’s a trailer for the long-delayed Aquaman sequel:

Will I go see that?  I’m not sure.  It’s hard for me to stay away from a Marvel or DC superhero movie, though I strongly disliked the first Aquaman film…

I never thought that Disney would ever release any of their Marvel or Star Wars TV shows on DVD/blu-ray.  I’m so happy to have been wrong!  I’m excited that at the recent announcement of the release of the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, as well as the first wave of Marvel shows… I hope the rest will follow!

In less-great news, we’re going to have longer than expected to wait for any new Marvel shows on Disney+.  Click here to read about the latest reshuffling of dates…

Here’s a fun look back at J. Michael Straczynski’s sci-fi series Babylon 5.  I really enjoyed the series’ recent return, in the form of the animated movie The Road Home!

This is a fascinating look at the well-known “Spicediver” fan-edit of David Lynch’s Dune!  Got three hours?  Settle in and enjoy that fan-edit by clicking here.

Another librarian has been fired, this time in Wyoming, for refusing to remove LGBTQ+ books from library shelves, including the graphic novel Gender Queer.  Chilling.

Click here for an interesting and in-depth interview with the wonderful actress Saoirse Ronan.

I was saddened to read of the passing of Arleen Sorkin, who voiced Harley Quinn on Batman: The Animated Series and many subsequent animated shows and movies.  Ms. Sorkin’s magnificent vocal performance is a huge part of what made Harley such a memorable and beloved character.  Click here for a beautiful remembrance of Ms. Sorkin by her husband, writer and show-runner Christopher Lloyd.

Speaking of Batman: The Animated Series, click here for something very cool: posters for Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, made in the style of Bruce Timo’s artwork from Batman: The Animated Series!  I loved these!

The long-rumored Donald Glover Lando TV series is now apparently going to be a movie?  I’d love for this to happen, though I’ll believe it when I see it.

This is cute: Michael Cera revived a long-dormant chat-group from the cast of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  (I love that film!!)

Click here to read Rolling Stone’s wonderful oral history of The Fugitive movie from 1993, starring Harrison Ford.  (I just recently rewatched that film, and it holds up very well!)

I’ll close with this — a lengthy and fascinating look back at what went wrong between Bob Iger and Bob Chapek and the troubles Disney has been grappling with at the highest levels over the past several years.  This is a long read, but if you’re at all interested in this detailed look into how the sausage gets made (or doesn’t) behind the scenes at one of the largest media companies in the world, this is worth your time.

Thanks for reading and for supporting my site!  Please remember that using my Amazon links to click through to Amazon, whenever you do your shopping, really helps me!  Hope to see you back here next week.

Please support my website by clicking through one of our Amazon links the next time you need to shop!  As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  That means I’ll receive a small percentage from any product you purchase from Amazon within 24 hours after clicking through.  Thank you!