It’s the difference between “this story needs to be told” versus “there’s money to be made.” Ironic that one of the most incisive and fiercely anti-capitalist series in recent memory went back to the well purely to make more money.

He is a good actor. You don’t have to apologize for saying that.

You mean Ivana

I dunno, I can pretty easily come up with reasons why events would force someone to venture out into the world. See The Lord of the Rings and also basically every JRPG from the 1990s.

In my tabletop RPG campaigns I always make it a point for my characters to have at least one living parent, and usually two. These games are always so full of haunted orphans whose villages were burned to the ground or whatever.

Most movies and TV shows are created these days with the assumption that people are on their phones at the same time. I mean actual studio notes to that effect when the plot becomes too difficult for the average person to follow when they have it on while they’re also watching TikTok.

For all the faults of the final seasons of Game of Thrones, I appreciated that this was the consistent message in the novels and show: beware powerful men and women, and those who aspire to be, because your interests are not their interests. The government formed at the end of the show was basically the least-worst option available in a feudal society.

Zombies in the George Romero tradition are basically just animated through magic. Otherwise it would be a World War Z (book) situation where the zombies would eventually just decompose entirely.

The expert who somehow knows all things science and engineering, like they’re all just basically the same. Just once I’d like to hear, “I’m an astrophysicist, not a cybersecurity expert. I don’t have the first clue where to begin hacking any computer, let alone an alien one that I’ve never seen before.”

Bonus points if the characters have to look for a different solution due to their lack of on-hand expertise in a particular area.

Why is it being review bombed?

I believe the in-lore explanation is that the teleporter always has to be in the path of any transport. So if going from the bridge to a planet, the teleporter actually teleports you twice: once from the bridge to the teleporter buffer, and next from the buffer to the planet. The room was where the teleporter was physically located.

With improved technology later in the timeline (Discovery), they did in fact abandon the need for the teleporter room altogether.

For what it’s worth, they never did address the most fascinating aspect of teleporters: that in the future they solved the problem of how to transfer consciousness. Though the existence of Thomas Riker does raise issues that are unresolved unless you accept that either teleporters do in fact kill you or consciousness can be copied. Based on how willing people are to step into them, you would imagine it’s not the former.

After I watched this when it came up in my YouTube feed today, I went back and rewatched a couple of the older “Fuck You, It’s January” videos. They were so pessimistic, and yet it’s somehow only gotten worse. It really feels like the wheels are coming off on film and television.

With the exception of a handful of series like Only Murders in the Building, I don’t watch much new TV anymore. Since I’ve watched just about everything I’m interested in over the years, I’ve actually just started going backwards. It’ll take me years to get through, but I’m up to shows from the late 1980s to early '90s now that I either missed the first time around or caught episodically and out of order. I’m halfway through Quantum Leap, and although there are hokey episodes here and there, the quality of the writing is generally pretty strong. A well-crafted, strongly humanist anthology series doesn’t really seem like the kind of thing that would ever get greenlit these days.