ramblearama.

If I could introduce a regular character to Star Trek...

2020-08-29T13:57:43Z

Ten word pitch: Parasocial relationships; Shannara Troi-Rozhenko, from "Parallels" reality; Lenora Crichlow.

A psychological issue that has become more and more prevalent in recent years is that of parasocial relationships. For anyone not sure what that means, it's basically a phenomenon arising from the fact that human brains really aren't very sophisticated; they only have one storage compartment for familiar faces and voices, and that compartment is labelled "people I physically interact with, who know me as well as I know them". It's why meeting celebrities is so flippin' awkward - your monkey brain is telling you "This person is friend! Treat them as friend! It's unreasonably cold and and hostile to not even offer to pick fleas off them!" while your rational human brain is telling you "This person is a stranger. It would be inappropriate and potentially creepy to treat them with the informality of a long-established personal relationship; you do not know each other." Parasocial relationships have existed for as long as there has been broadcast media with personable hosts and presenters, they fostered them deliberately to keep the audience coming back, but it's become more acute in these days of Youtube when the people on the screen are perfectly normal and exactly the sort of person you could know and be friends with in real life. There's far less in the way of reminders that these familiar faces and voices are not personal acquaintances.

In the brilliant TNG episode "Parallels", Worf(thanks to some quantum [technobabble] shenanigans) bounces around between several parallel universes. In two of them, he is married to Deanna Troi. In one of those, they have children: Eric-Christopher and Shannara. They never appear on screen, but they're canon. As of Picard, they would be 32 and 31, respectively. I would like to tear a hole in the barrier between worlds, and pull Shannara through to the Prime timeline(and not just because she has the most titles of any Star Trek character thanks to her dual aristocratic heritage). Yoinking her out of her universe and plonking her into the one we're all familiar with would offer a great vehicle for a sympathetic exploration of the parasocial phenomenon. She grew up on her version of the Enterprise, she knows virtually every legacy character that we know - but in the Prime timeline, none of them have ever met her. Watching her interact with people she(and we) knows intimately, getting polite distanced coolness back, would be relatable and could be educational.

My dream casting is Lenora Critchlow.
Seen most recently in "Avenue 5" as engineer Billie McEvoy, Crichlow is almost exactly the same age as Shannara, looks like she could be Worf and Troi's daughter(I mean, if you add the forehead, but she already has hair that Mr. Mot would go into ecstasies over and that could come from either one of them), and has sky high emotional intelligence in her acting which would be exactly what you'd want for a quarter Betazoid character. That's not so obvious from "Avenue 5" - watch "Being Human" to see a more impressive range.

"Star Trek" has a well-earned reputation for tackling sociopolitical issues of its time, but it has been considerably less overt about it in the recent shows. I think parasocial contact is a worthy topic for the franchise to explore, and Shannara Troi-Rozhenko, Daughter of the Fifth House and of the House of Mogh, Heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed and Holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx(who - I remind you - is canon) would be a great focus for the issue.

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The lost sons of “Picard”

2020-08-05T20:57:48Z

The very first teaser trailer for 2020’s “Picard” ended with a hint of the iconic Ressikan flute theme from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”(TNG) episode “The Inner Light”. This classic episode featured Captain Picard experiencing an entire lifetime from a long lost civilisation, in which he lived as a man who - unlike Picard - married, and had two children. Patrick Stewart has named “The Inner Light” his favourite episode of TNG, on the basis that he got to work with his real-life son(Daniel Stewart, also an actor) in it. So by referring to this episode musically, the trailer seeded the idea(in a meta way) of sons being lost to another life, long gone.

The trailer released on the 18th of December, 2019, introduced us to this new face:

He’s clearly a Borg drone, and one we’ve never seen before.
Images of him appeared under a voiceover from Picard, the words “I was haunted by my past, but now I have a mission”. Single frames of this new drone alternated with single frames of long-established and beloved TNG character Data.

Now, I’m no media studies buff, but I’m pretty sure that when you have 750 frames(at 25 frames per second) to make a teaser for an upcoming show, you don’t waste any of them giving full-screen close-ups to irrelevancies. And you wouldn’t interleave a major character with an unimportant one at such a speed that they almost blur together; equal screen time gives them equal weight. This teaser gives this new character equal importance to Data, as well as positioning them on opposite sides of the screen so that they appear to be having a quickfire conversation. That’s pretty high billing.
Initially, it looked like he was supposed to be Locutus, the Borg drone Picard became in TNG’s “The Best of Both Worlds”. That was a time in Picard’s life that left him scarred and traumatised; a haunting past. But Locutus looked like this:

Note the different appliances stuck to his head. When you get a proper look at the new drone, one that lasts for longer than .4 of a second, you can see that he isn’t Patrick Stewart. He does bear a bit of a resemblance to him, enough that you might be forgiven for mistaking them as he flashed past; although not as much of a resemblance as he does to Daniel Stewart. He was hitherto unseen, but reminiscent enough to seem familiar, and his inclusion in the trailer implied that he was significant.

( Read more... )

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mazz0626 @ 2019-03-17T23:06:00

2019-03-17T23:08:06Z

I finished putting the subtitles on.

Well, 98% finished. If anyone speaks Hindi and feels like transcribing those bits, I'd be grateful.

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I really ought to use this blog.

2019-02-21T10:34:24Z

We worked it out

Why Mary didn’t shoot Magnusson.

He needed to still be alive later so that Sherlock could shoot him.

That’s it. That’s the reason. There is no in-universe explanation, there is no character motivation for why someone who broke into a man’s office and was pointing a gun at him when found did not shoot him, when he knew who she was and she knew he couldn’t be intimidated, but she did murder a different man in cold blood and for no reason(okay, it didn’t stick, but she deliberately shot him and he did die). I’ve been puzzling over this one for ages, trying to think of a plausible explanation for her actions - why she didn’t shoot them both and put the gun in Sherlock’s hand, or something like that, which would fulfil her original purpose in being there.

But when thrashing this out on Discord, I realised I’ve been looking at it all wrong. I’ve been thinking of Mary Morstan as a character, with internal motivations and goals, whose actions are a result of what’s going on in her personal journey. That was never going to prouce a result, because she is not a character. She was not written as a character. She was a loose collection of plot devices in an overcoat, looking like a character from a distance but not standing up to any kind of scrutiny if you got within ten feet. All the details that made her look like an intriguing, conflicted person with a whopper of a backstory to come, and maybe a decent redemption arc, were accidental.

It’s the answer to all of her mysteries. Why did she choose John? No reason, she didn’t. She does not have the capacity to choose. She was plopped into place because that was where she was needed. Why did she shoot Sherlock? So that he could forgive her for it, no other reason necessary. There is no deeper meaning to anything she does, because the writers did not consider her to need it. She was just there to do what they needed someone to do, to be something for the actual characters to react to.

Magnusson had to survive his encounter with her, so that Sherlock could shoot him later. Therefore, Mary could not kill him. This was not justified within the text because they didn’t see why anyone would ever think it should be.

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mazz0626 @ 2018-12-05T22:54:00

2018-12-05T23:00:25Z

I think what I'm already missing from tumblr(before I've even left) is the multiple levels of effort and interaction it provided.

Top level - create a new post.

Next level down - reblog a post, with commentary.

Below that - reblog without commentary.

Tiniest bit of visible interaction - hit that heart and like a post.

Lurking passivity - just read.

I expect I'll get back into the habit of how livejournal worked, but it's a bit jarring to now only have post, comment, and read to choose from.

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mazz0626 @ 2018-12-03T23:07:00

2018-12-03T23:08:33Z

Things are getting interesting on tumblr.

By which I mean, it's in meltdown.

I expect this place is about to get busy.

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Captain Morstan's Daughter

2017-09-30T15:34:39Z

Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences

Fandom:
Sherlock (TV)

Characters:
Sherlock HolmesJames Sholto (Sherlock)

Captain Morstan's Daughter

Summary:

Something of an outtake/missing scene idea - what if Sherlock's suspicions of Mary didn't arise on their own?

Notes:

I really like Major Sholto as he was reimagined for BBC Sherlock, but aside from the name and occupation, he had nothing to do with the original character from “The Sign of the Four” at all. So I’ve tried to address that a bit.

Captain Morstan's Daughter

“Thank you for meeting with me.”

“Not at all, it’s been stifling in London. A trip out to the countryside is just what I needed.”

( Read more... )

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