Tag: Television

Two Days, Not Three

Today is Sunday. I went into this weekend expecting to have a three day weekend. My beloved bride had a medical thing scheduled for tomorrow (Monday) and it was my job to get her there and back so I took the day off from work.

Well… she’s not feeling well today and it was recommended that she reschedule the appointment. I could keep the day off but my staff at work is going to be super short handed tomorrow so I have decided to cancel the time off request and go to work.

That sucks.

Change of subject…

The Patrick Stewart Memorial Star Trek the Next Generation Rewatch is nearing the end of season one. I have watched this show all the way through multiple times, but it’s been a really long time since I’ve seen this stuff. I remember the first two seasons being rough. It often took Star Trek series’ a few seasons to figure themselves out and Next Generation was the template for that. There are only a couple of major plot points from season one that affect the overall course of the series. They meet Q in the pilot episode. That’s one. Another is in episode 22 and I watched that one today. Spoiler alert for a nearly 40 year old show but Security Chief Tasha Yar gets wacked in episode 22.

Back in 1987 when this episode aired it was unusual for a TV show to off a main character. These days, in the post-Game of Thrones and Walking Dead world, main character deaths are common. I found it pretty funny that Star Trek actually followed one of the character death tropes. In the first scene of the episode Tasha has a really nice character moment. She’s talking to Worf, the guy who by episodes end takes over her job, and he says something nice about her and she lights up like she’s the happiest she’s ever been in her life. If you see that in an episode today it is GUARANTEED that the character’s death is imminent.

As I approach the end of the first season how has the show lived up to my memories of it? I remember thinking Denise Crosby (Tasha) and Marina Sirtis (Councellor Troi) were… lets just say they weren’t the best actors. Now? Maybe I’m just more forgiving than I was 30 years ago or so but I thought they were both fine. I didn’t have a problem with either of them. I remember thinking that Brent Spiner (Commander Data) needed some time to figure out his character and I think now that was probably accurate. I remember everyone on Earth hating Wesley Crusher but I didn’t have a problem with him. Now? Same. I don’t really get what all the fuss was about. He was a kid. He acted like a kid. He was normal. I thought he was fine. The thing I did not remember was Lavar Burton (Geordi Laforge) is absolutely killing it in season one.

I think I have 3–4 episodes left in season one. After that, obviously, we move on to season two… also known as the dark ages… the black hole… the Doctor Pulaski year. Yikes!

Change of subject again…

I have been playing guitar since the mid-1980s. When I first started playing, Star Trek the Next Generation had not premired yet. That’s how long I’ve been playing. I like to think that I have developed a certain level of skill. I’m not saying I’m good or anything, I just feel that I can play well enough that I can get stuff done. Why then does all of my skill vanish down the crapper every time I put down an electric guitar and pick up an acoustic guitar. I just suck. I suck so bad.

I’m working on this National Solo Album Month thing. I have 10 songs in progress. I am putting acoustic guitars on all of them. Not necessarily playing all the way through each song, but at some point there is an acoustic guitar part in every song. I’ve finished those parts on eight of the 10 songs and my playing is just awful. Terrible. I have worked all of the parts out in MIDI before I even looked at a real guitar and on a few ocassions I’ve actually had to dumb down the part so that I could get through it. Damn, do I suck.

And that, friends and neighbors, is the state of my Sunday night. Here’s hoping that work is quiet tomorrow and I don’t regret not keeping my day off. Fingers crossed.

The Handmaid’s Tale Finale

The final episode of The Handmaid’s Tale is out. I watched it before work this morning. I have two spoiler-free (or if not spoiler-free, then spoiler-light) thoughts.

First, I was curious about how they were going to set things up for the sequel show, The Testaments. I thought maybe they would resolve some story lines in ways that would change things for the next show. They did not. They left almost everything right where it should be. I was of two minds on that. On the one hand I thought it was good because I want the next show to succeed. On the other… I really wanted to see some happy endings that would have ruined The Testaments. Maybe not ruined, but significantly altered. So… yeah.

The other take away is pretty much the same as last week’s episode. Did I ball my freakin’ eyes out while watching it? Why yes, yes I did.

I seriously hate what this phenomenal show does to me. I don’t want to feel those feelings. I don’t want to live in a world that is sliding out of control toward the seemingly inevitable Gilead outcome. Can’t reality just fast forward through all of that shit and treat it like an archeological study?

Yeah, it’s a fantastic show and my tears and I are going to miss it when it’s gone.

Art Imitating Life

Sometimes I hate it when art has to imitate life. I hate it even more when the people being called out metaphorically by said art are too fucking stupid to realize the art is talking about them.

Mild spoilers for Andor season two episode nine. If you haven’t seen the episode, or if you haven’t seen Star Wars Rebels season three episode 18 (I think that’s the one), stop reading. You have been warned.

Last chance to bail (Bail Organa, if you will)…

In Star Wars The Return of the Jedi, a rebel leader gives a briefing spelling out the details of the second Death Star. It’s the “many Bothans died” speech. That character’s name is Mon Mothma. She was a senator who became one of the primary leaders of the Rebel Alliance. She shows up in a deleted scene in Revenge of the Sith, then she shows up for real in Rogue One and Rebels and Ahsoka and she’s one of the main characters in Andor. In a novel that is canon and takes place after Return of the Jedi she is actually elected to be the first Chancellor of the New Republic. Pretty sure that’s the job she’s doing in her brief scene in Ahsoka, but I have to go back and watch that entire series again just to be sure.

In Rebels we learn that her last act as a senator was to give a speech where she called out the Emperor as the bad guy for the whole galaxy. She gets chased out of the capital and smuggled to the rebel base by our Rebels heroes. Once at the rebel base she gives another speech that basically calls for revolution and the rest is Star Wars history.

This week’s third episode of Andor gave us the speech at the senate. It was perfect. Both in terms of the story itself and for our current shit show of a country. Replace the name Emperor Palpatine with Donald Trump, or even Orange Shit Clown, and it stops being fiction and starts being reality.

The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss. Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest.

“This Chamber’s hold on the truth was finally lost on the Ghorman Palaza. What took place yesterday… what happened yesterday on Ghorman was unprovoked genocide. Yes, genocide. And that truth has been exiled from this Chamber. And the monster screaming the loudest, the monster we’ve helped create, the monster who will come for all of us soon enough, is Emperor Palpatine.”

Like I said… I hate it when art has to imitate life, and I hate it even more when the monster and his cult are too fucking stupid to realize they are the monsters and not the heroes. Fucking maga cult bullshit.

That’s all I have to say about that.

Season Two Episode Eight

Two new episodes of Andor down and still one to go. My spoiler free review of episode eight:

HOLY SHIT! Andor s2e8. Was that the most intense 40 minutes of television ever? I say again, HOLY SHIT! I swear my heart rate increased by about 300% over the course of the episode.We are the Gor!

— Rob (@robj1971.bsky.social) 2025-05-07T03:16:48.385Z

I was planning on watching seven and eight tonight and then watching nine in the morning. It’s 11:20pm now and I cannot wait until tomorrow. On to episode nine, right now. HOLY SHIT!

Another Crazy Day

Hope you are all having a happy, fascism-free Tuesday.

I was having a calm, yet somewhat productive day today. The minute I finished lunch all hell broke loose. It became a crazy, hectic, tense, productive day. You know how it is.

Now I am about 20 minutes away from the end of my work day and hopefully things are calming down. Everything seems covered at the moment. Breath in, breath out. You’ve got this, Robert.

I have half a personal day booked for tomorrow. Robin the Cat has a vet appointment. Just her annual check up. I have meetings booked all afternoon though, so it’s going to be busy tomorrow too. At least I’ll have three episodes of Star Wars Andor to plow through before the work day starts. They come out at 9:00 Eastern time tonight. I am ready. There was a new episodes of The Handmaids Tale over night last night. I watched it while doing my morning exercise today. It was excellent. Here’s hoping Andor holds serve on the which-show-about-people-fighting-fascism-is-more-awesome sweepstakes. At this point it’s anyone’s game.

Oh good. 10 minutes away from quitting time and it just started to rain. It’s freakin’ pouring out. Good, good.

No Spoilers

It’s frustrating. I watched last night’s three episodes of Star Wars Andor and I want to write a 100,000 word essay on how incredible the show is right now but I don’t want someone who hasn’t watch the new episodes yet to accidentally come to this page and read what I wrote and get spoiled.

I want to talk about what’s happening on Ghorman. I want to share what I was thinking about Bix’s future and how wrong I was (for now at least). I want to rave about the Krennic/Mon scene and how fantastic it was. I want to praise Disney for the Vel/Cinta scene and Vel’s rant at the end. I want to mention how weirdly relieved I was when Syril went home to Coruscant. I want to admit that I had to fight back the urge to literally cheer out loud when Bix and Cassian completed their mission at the end of episode six.

I suppose I could go to reddit and find their Andor sub and write it all out there, but there has been so much shit posted on the other Star Wars shows from people who hated the show based on things that had nothing to do with the show (looking at you, assholes who spewed bile at Acolyte). I just don’t want to be any place that would draw people like that. I am sure I could find other forums somewhere but I don’t know.

I am listening to a two hour podcast episode recapping episodes four, five, and six (Children of the Watch). Once that’s finished (about 25 minutes from now) I might just start watching the three episodes again. I am that invested in this show right now. I just don’t want it to end.

In the Office

Today is Wednesday and Wednesday is an in-the-office-day. Welcome to Wednesday in the office. Here’s a cat:

235/365

Did you see the season premier(s) of Star Wars Andor last night? Three episodes. I watched them all before I conked out for the night. I only got about five hours of sleep because somehow I managed to get up when my alarm went off without hitting snooze 10 times. How did I do that?

My spoiler free review of Andor season two episodes one through three, which covers the year BBY4 (four years before the first Death Star battle from the original Star Wars movie [so… 1973? Haha!]):

I dug these three episodes so much that I cannot wait for the next three episodes that are coming out next Tuesday!

There you go. There’s my review. Let’s celebrate with another cat pic:

I took that picture last night while sitting up in bed watching Andor on my laptop. The cat is laying against my foot. Perv.

Okay. Time to publish this puppy and dig into that customer issue that I am covering while the assigned programmer is on vacation. Nose to the grindstone. Crack that whip (give the past the slip).