Category Archives: Spoiler Alert!
“Star Trek: Voyager” Season 3: The Skip It/Watch It Guide
Guys, if the marvelous Whitney Bishop is gonna keep telling you which episodes of “Star Trek: Voyager” to skip/watch, then I’m gonna keep publishing them. Enjoy! –Liz
It seems weird now that it’s pretty much the norm, but serialization is actually something that television — and Star Trek in particular — used to hate. The syndication model meant that shows had to be airable in whatever order the local broadcasters wanted to air them in, which didn’t lend well to embedded cumulative plots. Sure, there were certain shows that demanded strict continuity (see: Twin Peaks), but Star Trek series weren’t supposed to be among them. Deep Space Nine, in fact, got on the wrong side of its production company more than once when it made plotlines that stretched over several episodes. If you go read around on Memory Alpha, you see tons of instances where Voyager‘s cast and crew
alike make mention of this, usually grumbling all the way. Good for business, bad for art.
Season three is where the show’s lack of short-term memory really starts to show. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In “World War Z” (The Movie, Mostly)
Dear Frank,
You and I have been through this already, the whole thing where I don’t love zombie stories as a rule. BUT! That rule has plenty of exceptions, including the times when those zombie stories go post-modern.
Which is to say that yes, Frank, I am one of those people who has read Max “Son of Mel” Brooks’s (wonderful!) World War Z. It’s a really cool book! I mean, I read it years ago, but I have noble intentions of rereading it soon, and appreciating its intelligence in approaching the idea of a zombie outbreak post-facto.
I have also read a draft of J.M. Stracynski’s attempt to turn Brooks’s book into a screenplay that would then become a movie. And I have read so many of the articles about how making this movie was a major kerfuffle.
::SARCASM VOICE:: Oh, you mean attempting an intellectual approach to a classically low-brow genre wasn’t warmly embraced by a major motion picture studio? I AM SHOCKED. ::END OF SARCASM VOICE::
My point is: I saw World War Z with the lowest of expectations… Read the rest of this entry
“Star Trek: Voyager” Season 2: The Skip It/Watch It Guide
Hey, did you ask Santa for more advice on avoiding the worst of “Star Trek: Voyager”? Only took him six months, but he’s finally delivering — in the form of Whitney Bishop. She’s already done Season 1 — now it’s time for Season 2! Enjoy. –Liz
One of the first problems with Voyager‘s second season is that… well, parts of it weren’t intended to be in the second season at all. The first four episodes were filmed to be part of the first season, but they got moved over and that weirds a lot of the timing.
So this season is bumpy from the get-go, and it doesn’t get much smoother as it goes along. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In “The Mighty Ducks”
Dear Frank,
HOCKEY FEVER! Do you have it? Probably not, as you are an educated man of letters — not to imply that educated men of letters are immune from enjoying the spectacle of dudes on skates pounding the shit out of each other… What was I talking about again?
Ah, yes. HOCKEY FEVER! As I write this, Frank, the NHL is deep into playoff season, and because I have a surprising amount of friends who are super-into hockey, I have also been following along casually. (I am a fan of sports, but only on a very low-key level — I can only consume content on the regular when it comes in half hour or one hour chunks.)
My point is — HOCKEY FEVER! If you and others reading this are not hockey fans, I feel bad for you son, but I have two suggestions that might help you get back on board with the game:
“Star Trek: Voyager” Season 1: The Skip It/Watch It Guide
This might be one of the greatest public services Liz Tells Frank has ever performed — and I say that as a “Star Trek” fan. This Skip It/Watch It Guide comes courtesy of Whitney Bishop, who has found herself in the midst of watching the “Trek” universe’s voyage into progressive gender roles, and volunteered for this most sacred of tasks. Godspeed, Whitney. Godspeed. –Liz
The fourth series in the Star Trek universe, Voyager was an attempt to boldly go where nobody else we’d seen had gone yet, though in a manner that was pretty familiar. Long story short: a Starfleet ship goes looking for a Maquis (they’re the anti-Cardassian resistance-slash-terrorists, if you missed that bit) ship, both ships get pitched to the other side of the galaxy (the Delta Quadrant, as opposed to the Alpha Quadrant we all know and love), survivors of both crews wind up on the same ship (the eponymous Voyager), and they have to band together despite their differences to travel the 70,000 light-years back home. On the way, they have wacky adventures! So wacky. So incredibly wacky. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In the “Red Wedding” on “Game Of Thrones”
Dear Frank,
I’ve been trying, of late, to be a bit more conscious of how much profanity I use. I mean, I am after all a lady, and ladies don’t say things like “motherfucker” on a regular basis, best I’ve been lead to believe.
But any effort to reign in profanity is OFF THE MOTHERFUCKING TABLE this week, Frank. Because we have SERIOUSLY FUCKED-UP BUSINESS to discuss.
I told you about the Game of Thrones pilot, Frank, once upon a time, and since then the show has been a consistently exciting and entertaining presence on HBO’s schedule.
As Ben Wyatt (the closest thing to a dude version of me currently on network television) puts it in an episode of Parks and Recreation, “They would never cancel Game of Thrones. It’s a crossover hit! They’re telling human stories in a fantasy world.” Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In... 