For the Record: Space Opera

 

This is just to get Jordan to go nuts in the comments. A glorious time for once and all! My expressed opinions are not to be taken very seriously.

My "red flag" is "anybody who thinks a movie or television show form of society* is something we should be working towards."

* Except Star Trek fans because the Federation pretty much gets it right. :)

— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) August 23, 2021

It's an updated western movie.

— TimeLovesAHero (@time_loves) August 23, 2021

OK but there's a lot of 'Manifest Destiny' in many of the show plots. Taming the wild west with bribes or force if required.

— TimeLovesAHero (@time_loves) August 24, 2021

Space soap operas.

— TimeLovesAHero (@time_loves) August 24, 2021

I was in the 6th grade in 1966 and I was glued to the TV for Star Trek, The Wild Wild West, and any NASA news.

— TimeLovesAHero (@time_loves) August 24, 2021

Ah, I'm a little older and was too cynical in 1966. Didn't discover Star Trek until after I discovered weed sometime later.

— CHANNEL YOUR PARANOIA (@Yastreblyansky) August 24, 2021

That's actually literally true. I'd fled the family home with the totally irrational idea of playing piano in a rhythm and blues band led by my friend Adrian, who unlike me had finished college and was going to grad school in Buffalo, and the band wasn't in fact going anywhere (I couldn't join a gig except at one of the very rare venues that had a piano anyway, since nobody had the money for an electronic instrument), and I had a restaurant job, but we hung out for a long time, including a lot of afternoons spent getting high and watching endless Star Trek reruns. I'd missed it all in 1966, but it was terrific. They were hilarious! They were cheesy! They were full of unexpected depths! And suited to complicated snacks.

Decades later, at the end of October 2016, and this is where the story may start to sound meaningful, I was having a once-every-five-years-or-so lunch with Adrian in Manhattan, and he mentioned that he was going to be voting for Trump. and I was actually kind of spooked, but I didn't let on how much—it didn't make any difference in the long run, since Hillary was obviously going to win, so why should I hurt his feelings? And then came the election.

So we didn't speak for another five years, but something very odd happened the other day. Adrian got a series of texts from me, rows on rows of irrelevant emojis, an extraordinarily complex butt-dial I can't explain at all, except with the hypothesis that the gods wanted us to talk. And we did! He sent me a text to ask what was going on and I called back, with pleasant results. We haven't discussed Trump yet, and maybe it doesn't matter, but, precisely, maybe it doesn't matter.

Star Wars I was straight for, and overwhelmed. Politically it's terrible IMO; the galaxy needs to be ruled by a hereditary caste of people with occult powers? Because a democratically elected senate is intrinsically corrupt? But it's great cinema and the politics doesn't matter.

— CHANNEL YOUR PARANOIA (@Yastreblyansky) August 24, 2021

I hated episodes 1-3, as I may have mentioned—I couldn't follow the action, because there didn't seem to be any characters or clear motivations for anything—and enjoyed episodes 7-9 but thought they were not good. 

But I'd like this post to be about you. I'll back off and let you all geek out.