the good news is, remember a couple days ago when i said the new star trek show was going to be the very best show ever?
well, i totally nailed that one. i mean, like, nailed it like i was a hammerhead shark that just ate m.c. hammer and got hold of mjolnir and was using it to hammer together a nail salon not even using any boards, just nailing together a whole bunch of nails.
whoooo!
watch out now, because i can't help going on and on about this show, so if you haven't seen it yet, go take a look and then come back before you read any further.
scene one is a bunch of aliens on their alien planet in a tizzy over something or other, alarms going off, big head honcho chick making her way into the command center room while there's this voiceover of number one talking about first contact being a sci-fi fairytale until it actually happens, and then the big reveal when they get it on the command center viewscreen ...
it's an old-school,
solo-nacelle
federation scout ship
straight out of the 1970s star trek technical manual!
squee!
(however, this is also foreshadowing of the bad news ... stay tuned till the end for that part ...)
scene two is captain pike making breakfast for this other (very hot) captain and holy damn, can this guy make breakfast! and he's watching the day the earth stood still while he's doing it and it's the scene where the space guy is telling the earthlings what's up and why he's there and how his civilization has moved past violence and all that jazz, and i'm just totally eating all of it up like captain pike just made it for me for breakfast.
and here's the thing, the whole scene is captain pike and this chick talking and they clearly got it on good the night before and she's about to head out and tries to get him to stop hiding whatever secret he's hiding that's making him doubt whether he ought to go back to starfleet, which of course we know is the kind of secret that would make any of us totally lose our shit, and pike is all, "well, i don't know, i just really don't" and he's not answering his phone and he won't let down his guard to spill the beans to her ... but he's watching the freakin' day the earth stood still!
i'm like, dude. you're not even fooling yourself. you're supposed to be all pretzeled up with self-doubt and thinking maybe you should hang up your captain's suit, and the show you put on to chill with while making breakfast is the biggest "hey, earthlings, get your damned acts together" movie that's ever been made?
and even if he's maybe a little fooling himself, he's sure not fooling anybody else ... not captain hotbabe mcgirlfriend, not admiral "stop making me chase you down in a shuttlecraft, chris" ... and definitely not spock, who's the only one smart enough to figure out what happened to pike even though he's getting the zipped-lip treatment too.
see, this is how you show us what a kickass captain this dude is: at the moment when he's having the biggest woe-is-me crisis of his life, everybody who knows him is like, "dude, just get back in the chair already."
so okay, we've got our setup of, pike's got to get back on the enterprise and go rescue number one because the first contact bit from scene one went bad. now it's time for ...
the credits.
it's got the famous intro music hook. it's got the lights coming on along the outside of the enterprise. it's got pike saying his version of the famous "space, the final frontier" spiel.
it's got everything.
theremin, baby!
so, well, shit, an out-of-the-park pre-credits opening and out-of-the-park credits with an out-of-the-park "where no one has gone before" and theme song, something's got to land back in the park soon, right?
nopesies.
cut to vulcan. spock and some chick are having dinner. it's t'pring! i'm like, watch out, spock, this chick is bad news! and then they start talking and i'm like, leaping lirpas, no freaking wonder spock was ready to cut kirk's head off over this girl, she's goddamn amok-awesome!
no, really, not only is she as sizzling hot as the vulcan atmosphere outside the restaurant window behind them, she's hilarious! i mean, vulcan-style hilarious, but that makes it even better. and she's obviously head-over-heels for him. and they're both just talking to each other like they're delivering astrophysics lectures, but it's so sizzling the waiter literally has to tell them, "geez, you two, get a room!"
so now they're engaged, and they're back in her pad about to get it on -- and spock gets a phone call and says he'd better answer it! he's got a very spock-like "duty and matrimony can be complementary" excuse or something like that, and even though her legs are actually wrapped around him, she just says, "i remain skeptical" and lets him up.
dude. suddenly i am so on her side in the amok time episode where i always thought she was the bad guy.
we're like, four-ish scenes into this show so far, it's pretty much all been meals and talk, and it's already the best star trek i have seen since ... maybe ever.
i actually watched it again this morning and then skimmed through it again making notes about what i wanted to blog about here, and honestly, i just have to stop myself because i can't even close to do it justice.
just let me say, kickass scene after kickass scene after kickass scene all leading up to pike saying "screw general order one" and bald-facedly interfering in these dipweed aliens' civilization to gort them out with his own version of the day the earth stood still speech.
with videos of our current political mess to show the aliens how they're heading into the world war iii situation that almost ended earth civilization in the star trek future history.
yeah baby. star trek doing social commentary from episode one!
and i've got like a whole other post's worth of stuff to say about cadet uhura. dayyum, lady!
so.
you've been dreading the bad news all the way through this, i know, and here it is.
remember that part about the federation scout ship from the old 1970s technical manual? when it came onscreen, msg wigged as much as i did, and said, "holy cow, that's straight out of the technical manual i had when i was a kid!"
yes, readers. he said, "had."
i like, literally had to make him pause the show right there so i could say, "what do you mean, you 'had' it when you were a kid? i hope to god you're going to tell me it was stolen or got burnt up in a house fire or something." (even though i'm pretty sure if he'd ever had a house fire i'd already know about it.)
no.
my boyfriend, the love of my life, bestest guy who has ever guyed on the planet actually had a copy of the original star trek technical manual (which i have never even laid eyes on in person), yes, had it and owned it from the time he was a kid up until this freaking century and then he just got rid of it because ... i don't even know why.
he made with some kind of weak-o explanation ... blah-blah-blah, voyager was awful, blah-blah-blah, couldn't even get through season one of enterprise, blah-blah-blah had it in a box of memorabilia that was only making him depressed and melancholy over the loss of all sense of wonder from his youth ... i mean, it was a lonnngggg excuse, and i finally just had to cut him off and say, "hit play on that remote before this gets to the point where i never talk to you again."
luckily, the show was so freaking awesome that by the end i was all sniffly and we were all cuddly and with a couple days gone by now, i think i'm mostly over the shock. also, a little googling tells me that instead of the $1,701 dollars i figured a copy would be going for, you can get these for maybe $50 or $100 these days, so. something that's now on my birthday list.
and there you have it, everybody.
live long and prosper!
