Ladies and gentlemen...
"And remember: If women don't find you handsome, well, that's their opinion."
— "The Gift"
"We'll need handcuffs, vibrating golf balls and a funnel. I'm sorry that's the best I can do; I'm no Slash Fic expert, I'm just a viewer with an opinion."
— "The Menagerie", and "The Game"
Data: I believe you will also de-evolve, into an earlier form of primate. Possibly similar to a Lemur or Pygmy Marmoset.
Chuck: Poor guy. Not only is he turning into an animal, he's turning into one that sucks. But then, I'm no special breed either, I'm just a viewer with an opinion.
Chuck: Poor guy. Not only is he turning into an animal, he's turning into one that sucks. But then, I'm no special breed either, I'm just a viewer with an opinion.
—"Genesis"
"Why, I am His Grace, Sir SFDebris, Duke of the People Who Don't Give A Rat's Ass and Knight of the Order of Go Fuck Yourself! ...And, of course, a viewer with an opinion."
— "Haven"
"Into my office walked a dame with million-latinum legs and a swing to her hips that could unphase a tacheon beam. She had trouble stuck to her like stink on Klingon, but the way she set my phaser to stun, I knew I'd be taking the case... But I'm no Sam Spade, I'm just a viewer with an opinion."
— "Ex Post Facto"
Quotes about Star Trek
"It's become my opinion over the years that Brannon Braga is kind like a multiplying factor: When you partner him with a stronger writer, you get an even stronger script. And when you partner him with someone like Rick Berman, you get a season of Enterprise so awful, the DVD should come with a coupon for a ladder and a noose."
— "Scorpion"
"Threshold" was a slow car wreck. "Twisted" is like watching tarantulas fuck."
—"Twisted"
"... I bring that up because the holodeck is just the final step in videogaming. Like I said before, its use in the second episode was to make a fake person so Tasha Yar could kick its ass. The more you down play the interactive elements of the game, the less it is a game and the more it is an episode. But, all that its become is an episode of a show we didn't tune in to watch. Jeri Taylor wanted to do more of this but terminated the holo-novel plot, lamenting that the fans didn't share her appreciation of gothic novels. Um, two things. First, just because I detest McDonald's french fries it does not mean I hate french fries. I just hate french fries that taste like they were fermented in an elderly whore's snatch. I don't hate whole categories just because the one you made sucks! And second (and more obviously) if we want some cheeseball-paperback-romance-ghost-story-Nancy-Drew-what-the-fuck, we'd be watching that show right now not the one with space ships and ray-guns."
"This episode is like getting your teeth done by having someone go through your eye sockets."
— "Carpenter Street"
"This episode combined hack storytelling at its most unimaginative with a hatred for women which could only be achieved if your family was murdered by angry tampons...It's the first Trek episode I've seen where the credits should've included, 'Based on Something I Left In A Sock'!"
—"Bounty"
"To remind you all I am not anyone special, I shall use the term 'magnetic balls.'"
—Prime Directive analysis
"The Prime Directive has good intentions in place: it's to protect other peoples from us, and to protect us from being embroiled in affairs that shouldn't concern us. Like many aspects of the original series, it was something latched onto as a sign of enlightenment of the Federation. But, as so often happens, support lead to devotion and devotion lead to worship, and something went from 'good idea' to 'inflexible dogma.'"
—Prime Directive analysis
"If a doctor had discovered a cure for AIDS, but refused to release because he felt that nature had selected it as a means of keeping homosexuals in check, would we as a society praise him for his choice? I mean, since we do not know nature's plan, then for all we know, the doctor could be correct! But I'm sure we wouldn't be quick to embrace that idea."
—Prime Directive analysis
"So if you are new here, here are the subjects which are not shown respect here: whites, blacks, Asians, Latinos, Indians, men, women, straights, gays, bis, the religious, the agnostic, and the atheist. We mock the left, mock the right, mock the center, mock the apathetic, mock consumerism, mock communism, spit on the socialists, laugh at the fascists. We'll pick on liberal President Obama and conservative PM Cameron, along with his wife Nick Clegg. We'll piss on the Hawkman, Cyberman, Tallman, Saruman, Batman, Beltran, Baldwin, and Berman. So if you were not aware of it until now, Star Trek is not sacred here."
"The only way Neelix is going to keep the Voyager crew alive is if they eat him!!"
— "Basics (Part 1)"
Tom: We've built an Edsel! A lemon! A disaster waiting to happen!
Chuck: (as Tom) It's called UPN!
Chuck: (as Tom) It's called UPN!
—"Timeless"
"Perhaps the saddest thing about "Threshold's" presence on our list is that its problems are just that it's an exaggeration of Voyager's biggest problems. Technobabble! Genetic idiocy! A fundamental misunderstanding of science both in general ideas as well as in specific terms! Absurd dialogue! Pointless meandering! Even a "Will They Get Home?!" plot thrown in for good measure!"
— "Worst of the Worst"
"Now, spoilers if you haven't seen the other finales, but we've had a pretty impressive run with them: Janeway battling Borg every step of the way to thwart their menace and get her crew home; Sisko bringing final victory in their war against the Dominion and ending the Pah-wraith threat against the Bajorans; and Picard preserving the very existence of humanity and likely every other sapient species in this entire quadrant. And now, Archer shall get into a small firefight with some criminals on a CATWALK!" (cue music
)
)"The plot is— (groans) It's one of the absurdities that you might expect from season one TNG that was actually based on an Animated Series episode which was done there because it was considered too idiotic for The Original Series. Yes, "Move Along Home" puts DS9 at the end of a big damn human centipede."
— "Move Along Home"
"In their attempt to address the elephant in the room, they've unwittingly called attention to the mammoth standing next to it."
— "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang", on how Sisko complains about racism in the 1960s, but not about the sexism also present in that time.
"Look, here's the problem we have. It's the lack of cohesiveness in Janeway's character that I think is bothering people. Because, you see, they just had trouble establishing her, so she basically became a kind of generic authoritative figure with an 'I'm woman and therefore must nurture' vibe tacked onto it. I hate to say it, but I think that that was where the writers, male and female ones, made the mistake; they just couldn't stop slapping 'woman' on as a character trait for Janeway. Now, let me explain what I mean by that. Sisko was not written with 'black' as a character trait. It was a 'characteristic', that's different. It means that it informs his tastes, his views of history, but he didn't walk around with that label on him. That's why I've said before he was never written as 'the black captain'. Sisko is likewise a widower and a single parent, and those were never seen in how he operated as an officer either. People follow him based solely on his rank and leadership, and his race didn't matter; people criticize and shout at him, and his race didn't matter; he gets assignments and promotions and reprimands, and his race didn't matter. Which is how it should be! That's the Star Trek ethos. It's not that he ceased being black; it's that it only matters, just like being a widower, just like being a single parent, when it matters, and the rest of the time, he's just a person, no adjective in front. The writers seemed unable to divorce that with Janeway, so her personality became ill-defined. Because when your character traits include something that applies to 3.5 billion people, and a range from a submissive who will literally let men crap on her, to the leader of the most economically powerful nation in Europe, then that seems like you’ve put down something more useless than her astrological sign."
"Poor Insurrection. It isn't loved like Two, popular like Four, prescient like Six, exciting like Eight. It doesn't have people rushing to defend it, saying it's cerebral like One, significant like Three, ambitious like Five, landmark like Seven, or theatrical like Ten. Insurrection stands alone: bad enough to be hated, but not bad enough to be loved."
Quark, modified through surgery to look like a woman: So how do I look?
Chuck: Well, don't take this the wrong way, but... you are a nightmare made flesh! You have passed "Coyote Ugly" and have entered into some Twilight Realm beyond! If a man woke up in bed with you, he would happily chew through his own neck! No no no no no, don't give me that, HE WOULD FIND A WAY.
Chuck: Well, don't take this the wrong way, but... you are a nightmare made flesh! You have passed "Coyote Ugly" and have entered into some Twilight Realm beyond! If a man woke up in bed with you, he would happily chew through his own neck! No no no no no, don't give me that, HE WOULD FIND A WAY.
— "Profit and Lace", one of only a few episodes in the entire Trek franchise to receive a rating of "0" by him.
"There are some people in Hollywood who insist on beating a dead horse. But then there are those with creativity and vision, who come along and say, "I bet there's some good fucking left in that horse." Those men of vision, who molested dead horses, went on to create Enterprise — because nobody had the courage to stop them. I think we can all share a little bit in that blame; we could've done more to avert this if we really tried, but in a climate of fear, we did not act and it happened."
—"These Are The Voyages..."
"There's the old adage about odd and even-numbered Trek films, but I'll let you in on a secret: it's a bad Trek film when any of the main characters sing. The only exception is TMP, which has no singing, because that would distract from the boredom."
"Assimilation. What a word. It doesn't carry emotions like rape, murder. Like the Borg, it's a cold and sterile word, for something that's like both. We take you against your will, make you feel powerless, then we violate your mind and your body until you are virtually unrecognizable as you once were, and all that made you 'you' is destroyed. You're consumed, and now are part of the machine that had consumed you."
"If there's a three-word phrase that will forever be associated with Star Trek fans, it's not gonna be 'this is real.' It's 'Get a life!': dismissing your emotions simply because they don't come from that source, treating it as something to be embarrassed or ashamed of. That is something members of geek culture have been singled out for for a long, long time, that their emotions that stem from the works they love are laughable and are to be mocked for taking those feelings seriously about something that's not real. Fiction is often called an escape, but I think it's more accurate to say that in certain fiction, you get to experience feelings that you normally don't in your daily life, whether it's science fiction or fantasy or horror or romance. Whatever it is, your life is not giving you the feelings, so you have to find it elsewhere."
—"Fair Haven"
"The Prime Directive is good idea being used for bad ends the moment we think it is anything more than a philosophy, a guide, and instead turn it into a religion on which we sacrifice others so we don't have to make decisions and own the consequences. Indeed, that is the very irony of this warped application of the Prime Directive: a philosophy that we will not impose our values on others means we're willing to let others die for the sake of our values."
—"The Masterpiece Society"
Quotes about Doctor Who
"Remember at the end of "An Unearthly Child" when they landed on that alien planet? That planet was where we would meet what would become the Doctor's most well-known enemy: the Daleks. Shaped like an knobby buttplug and armed with a toilet plunger and laser-firing egg whisk, that might seem hard to believe, but there are several reasons for the Daleks being more menacing than what they might appear at first glance.
First, inside the Dalek is, well, the actual Dalek itself. It's a tentacled blob with a genius-level IQ controlling what is effectively a cross between power armor and a tank. Imagine if Stephen Hawking were a supervillain. That is what just one Dalek is.
Second, being part-machine and part-living creature, the Dalek has the most frightening reasoning of both. It has the unfeeling nature of a machine, a total absence of pity, remorse, or empathy, and yet, it harbors an intense hatred for that which is different, and its solution can be summed up in just one word: 'exterminate.'
Third is the voice: it's wrong. This is evident in the rare situations where the Daleks feign being useful. It sounds almost like a children's toy. But then it gets that clip tone to it, and it snaps at you, and tells you in that unfeeling way the terrible fate that's in store for you. But, unlike other adversaries like the Borg or the Cylons, there's no detached mechanical tone to it. Every Dalek, while in control, sounds like at the slightest provocation, it's just this side of madness and ready to topple over the edge."
First, inside the Dalek is, well, the actual Dalek itself. It's a tentacled blob with a genius-level IQ controlling what is effectively a cross between power armor and a tank. Imagine if Stephen Hawking were a supervillain. That is what just one Dalek is.
Second, being part-machine and part-living creature, the Dalek has the most frightening reasoning of both. It has the unfeeling nature of a machine, a total absence of pity, remorse, or empathy, and yet, it harbors an intense hatred for that which is different, and its solution can be summed up in just one word: 'exterminate.'
Third is the voice: it's wrong. This is evident in the rare situations where the Daleks feign being useful. It sounds almost like a children's toy. But then it gets that clip tone to it, and it snaps at you, and tells you in that unfeeling way the terrible fate that's in store for you. But, unlike other adversaries like the Borg or the Cylons, there's no detached mechanical tone to it. Every Dalek, while in control, sounds like at the slightest provocation, it's just this side of madness and ready to topple over the edge."
— "Dalek"
Quotes about (gulp) anime
"Well, look, no judgement. Your old boyfriend rolls into town, you're upset, you drink too much, you fuck a penguin, these things happen."
— Rebuild of Evangelion 2.22
I'll be honest here. As usual, I tried to go into this knowing nothing about the material so I could have a fresh perspective on it, and... I was not too optimistic about this project. I figured, combined with the Evangelion stuff I was doing, basically I could have a new line called "Chuck's Baffled by Anime". I was practically snarling when I was checking out at Amazon. "Would you like to announce on Twitter you just bought this?" Fuck you.
In short, this had a lot to prove to me. By the time I was finished, I was amazed at some of the beautifully crafted storytelling, with amazing artwork and strong character elements, that made the entire piece flow naturally.
If I could convince you to sample any one series that I have reviewed, this would be it. I'm sorry to gush, but, it was just a true pleasure to cover this work. It challenged me both as a viewer, and as a critic. And the only satisfaction I take in this project now being finished, is that I can now examine other Madoka stuff without worrying about mixing up the details in my head."
In short, this had a lot to prove to me. By the time I was finished, I was amazed at some of the beautifully crafted storytelling, with amazing artwork and strong character elements, that made the entire piece flow naturally.
If I could convince you to sample any one series that I have reviewed, this would be it. I'm sorry to gush, but, it was just a true pleasure to cover this work. It challenged me both as a viewer, and as a critic. And the only satisfaction I take in this project now being finished, is that I can now examine other Madoka stuff without worrying about mixing up the details in my head."
Rise and Fall of the Comic Empire
In an earlier draft of this I apologized for my seeming obsession with bashing Rob Liefeld. I have since stricken that and offer no apologies because, even though he is the whipping boy of comic book fans every time he comes up it's obvious why. From his business decisions to his laughably bad stories to his unprofessionalism to the fact that the one area where he possesses anything that could be considered a skill "art". (And believe me the internet has archives that challenge that assertion.) So me even suggesting that he has some skill there if anything threatens my credibility with comicbook fans for being to generous to Rob Liefeld. Which is the point, the one point I argue that the degree of skill suggesting the possibility of one day showing talent. That position puts me on the fringe. So I'm giving up all pretense, I will almost certainly be bashing Liefeld every time he comes up. I would like it to be clear that's not simply of the sake of bashing him. Because I could list all the comments and antics such as his outrage after creating countless forgettable characters that he wholly owns, he publicly loses it when one of his creations that Marvel owns was revealed to be gay. Or, repeat the hilarious observation that the first character he did when he left was one that looked like himself, was leader of a celebrity superhero team, and was named Shaft. But I'm not going to make any further remarks like that because as fun as that would be this series is not dedicated to Rob Liefeld and everything he's done wrong. This is about comics, where he is a player and he has done a lot of things wrong. And even then the snide remarks are only because of virtually every time he comes up he is in some way connected to something that defies common sense or human decency.
— Rise and Fall of the Comic Empire Part 3: Image Problem
"At Marvel, there was this sense of growing doom. Twelve years before, DC was looking for them to make their comics, and now they were outsourcing them to those who had defected while laying off loyal writers and artists. [Mark] Gruenwald, one of Marvel's most supportive creative forces for two decades, became dejected at the way the universe was treated and the company was collapsing, unwilling to leave for greener pastures but miserable with his current job. Gruenwald's favorite character was Captain America and he'd worked on that book, in one form or another, for fourteen years. Then it and the character was taken away from him and given to Image. Gruenwald was heartbroken, in quite a literal sense. The rebooted Captain America #1 was absolutely dreadful: a terrible story and the Liefeld artistic foibles dialed up to eleven for it. The issue sold well but was a creative black hole; all the history of the character sucked out and replaced with this new figure. Gruenwald took the preview copy Marvel had been delivered home with him on Friday; he never showed up for work on Monday. A non-smoker and a health freak, and yet he had a heart attack and perished. The toxic environment of Marvel had destroyed a good man. And plus it should be noted, and I'm actually being serious here, ROB LIEFELD MADE A COMIC SO BAD IT MAY HAVE KILLED A MAN!!!"
— Rise and Fall of the Comic Empire Part 8: The Trenches
Misc Quotes
Sparkle, Twilight Journal, longest day of the Thousandth Year. Unicorn in alley this morning. Tire Cutie Mark on his stomach. Equestria's afraid of me. I've seen its true face. The Mare in the Moon is coming, and when the night foams up around their waists, all the horses and politicians will look up and shout, "Save us!" and I'll look down and whisper, "Neigh."
— My Little Pony
"It's like we as a species have collectively pulled the pin on a grenade. We're not sure we can put it back in, we know we better not drop it. We can only hope that the brain that figured out how to make that grenade can figure out a way to save us from it."
"Alright, let me explain: A guy with a mustache like Charlie Chaplin by name of Hitler took over the country of Germany thanks to the support of a group called the Nazis. (Or Narzis if you're Churchill. Or drunk. Or both.)
After hosting the Olympics to mess with future ignorant protesters, the Nazis started their plan to take over all of Europe, thanks to various mad scientist plots, the Red Skull, and artillery shells that didn't work, made by Ras's Al Ghul, who trained his protégé Christian Bale to be a Hitler Youth by day and a swing kid dressed like a Bat by night.
Hitler's ambitious plans to win victory using the Ark of the Covenant was thwarted by Indiana Jones, succeeding only in drawing Hellboy to Earth. Wonder Woman and The Rocketeer tried to stop him, but soon, Hitler's forces took over most of Europe along with the Italians, whom they were allies with because Germany drew the short straw.
America stayed out of it because of Edith Keeler, but some drunk asshole ran her over, so in 1941, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor despite Cuba Gooding Jr.'s best efforts, the United States decided that that was an act of war, and not a reason to just impotently shake our fist at the sky."
After hosting the Olympics to mess with future ignorant protesters, the Nazis started their plan to take over all of Europe, thanks to various mad scientist plots, the Red Skull, and artillery shells that didn't work, made by Ras's Al Ghul, who trained his protégé Christian Bale to be a Hitler Youth by day and a swing kid dressed like a Bat by night.
Hitler's ambitious plans to win victory using the Ark of the Covenant was thwarted by Indiana Jones, succeeding only in drawing Hellboy to Earth. Wonder Woman and The Rocketeer tried to stop him, but soon, Hitler's forces took over most of Europe along with the Italians, whom they were allies with because Germany drew the short straw.
America stayed out of it because of Edith Keeler, but some drunk asshole ran her over, so in 1941, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor despite Cuba Gooding Jr.'s best efforts, the United States decided that that was an act of war, and not a reason to just impotently shake our fist at the sky."
Franklin D. Roosevelt: The only thing we have to fear is Batman.
"They were almost stopped by Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen and their time-traveling aircraft carrier, but were themselves stopped by all the time travelers arriving to kill Hitler ripping a hole in the space-time continuum. So all that happened was that Kurt Vonnegut had this crazy idea for a story.
So while Rosie the Riveter built a bunch of tanks back home, we sent Patton over to Europe to tell a bunch of people to "make those sons 'o bitches die for their country", but mostly just to show off his awesome giant flag. He fought in North Africa so we could have a place for Cpt. Yossarian to launch his airstrikes from, until he got upset by his buddy Snowden getting taken out (not realizing that he's actually hiding out in Russia now.)
Arthur Lowe was put in charge of defending England while Steve McQueen tried to escape from a POW camp, but stopped just short of the Swiss border because the Von Trapps had gotten there first, and Richard Attenborough only succeeded in a plan to house cloned dinosaurs — all while Colonel Klink patted himself on the back.
A girl named Anne Frank comes into this somewhere, but I think she was rescued by a boy who had control over magnetism with his mind.
Then they started the D-Day invasion, once a group of twelve angry men led by Lee Marvin are told not to shower and to invade first so that we can send Forrest Gump to go looking for Matt Damon. While that's going on, Robert Conrad shot down Japanese planes in the Pacific, so to pay them back, the Japanese made Obi-Wan Kenobi build a bridge.
As the end draws near, Hitler had dead Nazis turned into zombies, but still Germany itself was invaded and in the end, he hid in his bunker until the pranks of Fegelein got to be too much and he blew his own brains out.
And Oppenheimer built a big bomb to blow up Japan, and after it was sent, the Japanese blew up the boat and sent sharks to eat all the sailors, so Slim Pickens dropped the bomb on them, and they gave up, aaannd.... somewhere in there is a submarine, I don't know what it does though. Anyway, that's what I got off Ask.com, so it's got to be true."
So while Rosie the Riveter built a bunch of tanks back home, we sent Patton over to Europe to tell a bunch of people to "make those sons 'o bitches die for their country", but mostly just to show off his awesome giant flag. He fought in North Africa so we could have a place for Cpt. Yossarian to launch his airstrikes from, until he got upset by his buddy Snowden getting taken out (not realizing that he's actually hiding out in Russia now
.) Arthur Lowe was put in charge of defending England while Steve McQueen tried to escape from a POW camp, but stopped just short of the Swiss border because the Von Trapps had gotten there first, and Richard Attenborough only succeeded in a plan to house cloned dinosaurs — all while Colonel Klink patted himself on the back.
A girl named Anne Frank comes into this somewhere, but I think she was rescued by a boy who had control over magnetism with his mind.
Then they started the D-Day invasion, once a group of twelve angry men led by Lee Marvin are told not to shower and to invade first so that we can send Forrest Gump to go looking for Matt Damon. While that's going on, Robert Conrad shot down Japanese planes in the Pacific, so to pay them back, the Japanese made Obi-Wan Kenobi build a bridge.
As the end draws near, Hitler had dead Nazis turned into zombies, but still Germany itself was invaded and in the end, he hid in his bunker until the pranks of Fegelein got to be too much and he blew his own brains out.
And Oppenheimer built a big bomb to blow up Japan, and after it was sent, the Japanese blew up the boat and sent sharks to eat all the sailors, so Slim Pickens dropped the bomb on them, and they gave up, aaannd.... somewhere in there is a submarine, I don't know what it does though. Anyway, that's what I got off Ask.com, so it's got to be true."
— The Doctor explaining World War II to Seven, "The Killing Game Pt. 2"
