StillPaisleyCat

Earlier this week Disney announced (whinged) that it expected a $ 300 million revenue loss attributable to the strike.

Today, The Hollywood Reporter says sources are reporting cost-cutting at Warner Brothers Television Group.

the studio has suspended a number of overall deals for its top creatives including J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot (Duster), Greg Berlanti (Superman & Lois), Chuck Lorre (Bob Hearts Abishola), Bill Lawrence (Shrinking), John Wells (Maid), Mindy Kaling (Sex Lives of College Girls). Sources say Lorre’s multiyear pact with his decades-long studio was quietly suspended in May, a week into the strike, with Wells’ deal a month later.

Deadline has a similar report but interprets the news as more likely ‘suspend and extend’ arrangements.

One has to wonder why the major content producers are continuing side with Netflix, Amazon and Apple which are primarily streamers.

I was initially delighted to see BBC amplifying the celebration of TAS’ 50th anniversary. Then I read this piece.

Half a day later I’m still annoyed at the number of easily verifiable errors and that with the BBC’s trusted source credibility, the power that this piece can have to create uncertainty on settled issues.

First there are 22 episodes of TAS not the 20 claimed in the article.

Second, it’s established that Gene Roddenberry’s rejection of TAS as canon was overstated or at least inconsistent (and that Richard Arnold’s own view was a factor in magnifying this question in early TNG production). The BBC article overstates this as fact.

Third, it ignores the fact that Paramount as the rights holder has decided to treat TAS as canon. The article concludes with a statement that this continues as an open question. While it might have been fair to say that for a number of fans, this remains a question, it’s not accurate to portray this as an official position even just implicitly.

Anyone else irritated by this?

As previously advertised.

The rebranded Star Trek magazine Explorer, published by Titan, is including original fiction.

For those who are fans of @DavidMack@davidmack@wandering.shop, this month’s issue may be one to add to your purchases if you’re not planning to already.

Labour Day statement from guild/union leadership as cited in article …

Keyser called out these contentions on Monday, emphasizing that, “These things must be resolved. And not with contract language that has a one-to-one ratio of promises to loopholes. Truly resolved.”

“Of course, that’s not the AMPTP way. And it’s a hard thing to give up on something that has served them so well for 40 years,” he continued. “They are in the process of wrestling amongst themselves, ramping up their public relations, and coming to terms with the fact that – with writers on strike – and actors on strike behind them – this negotiation is different. And they are going to have to do more – offer more – than they usually do. Much of our frustration with how long this is taking stems from that – from their internal bargaining. But they will get there.”

In honour of Star Trek day, this month Simon & Schuster is offering 23 ebooks at discount prices.

Books from every era are represented. (A special shout out from me for the Diane Duane one.)

As usual, look for the discounts in the US, Canada and UK through the major ebook platforms.

Enjoy!

An interesting, deliberately thought provoking 🤔 question for a lazy long weekend Sunday morning…

Setting aside whether specific fans like specific ‘gimmicks’ (crossovers, musicals, bringing back Kirk or Khan) or tropes (transporter malfunctions), Space.com is posing the hypothesis that the proportion was too high in Strange New Worlds second season.

There’s no arguing that the season was successful in drawing in large audiences week after week. Taking a look back though, was there too much trippy-Trek(TM) dessert and not enough of a meaty main course? YMMV surely.

For my part, I can both agree that trippy Trek is something I’ve been wanting more of, and that I would have welcomed 2 or 3 more episodes were more grounded or gave the opportunity to see more of Una as a leader and dug into Ortegas backstory.

The 90s shows seemed to be bit embarrassed by trippyness, although Voyager found its pretext allowed even stern Janeway to pronounce ‘Weird is our business.’ One can argue that the high proportion in SNW is a feature, not a bug.

I’d still prefer a 12-15 episode season though.

Interesting extract from a longer /Film interview with in-demand director Roxann Dawson.

I appreciate how she speaks with respect for the shows of the new era.

Season-long prerelease reviews are an exception to this community’s rules about posting reviews. (The mods prefer our members to prefer to post their own episode reviews here.)

It seems that today’s the day that Paramount’s embargo on ‘spoiler free’ (in theory) season reviews for Lower Decks season 4 comes off, and the first pro reviews are now posted by some who have seen the screeners.

From Inverse:

• each one of these 30-minute episodes is nearly perfect. Just as the USS Cerritos presents the workhorse of Starfleet, with Season 4, Lower Decks again proves it is the workhorse of the entire Star Trek franchise.

From SlashFilm - view with caution, a bit more spoilery

• /Film Rating: 9 out of

Any to add to the list?

Couldn’t resist sharing this video trailer.

Horak continuously overturns preconceptions about integrating differently-abled actors.

Apparently, in addition to the upcoming run of Goblin: MacBeth at Stratford Festival, Rebecca Northan (Horak’s collaborator) is already working on developing Goblin: Oedipus for an Alberta production next year.

@Nmyownworld@startrek.website spotted Murf in the poster in the promotional announcement for Star Trek Day.

Nmyownworld’s mention on the Star Trek Day thread was great, but I thought it would be great to amplify it. So here is the image with the colour intensity dialed up a bit and Murf circled to be easier to spot.

StarTrek Prodigy Lives!!!

This is good news for assuring that SNW’s 3rd season production will move ahead after the strike.

Greenlighting a couple of extra episodes and a 4th season would make strategic sense, but I’m just not willing to give Paramount the benefit of the doubt on that.