We’re about to reach the end of David Tennant’s brief but welcome return run as the Fourteenth Doctor. So, it’s time to start anticipating which villains the new Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, will be facing in his upcoming run. Returning showrunner Russell T. Davies has already confirmed that the Fifteenth Doctor won’t be facing off against Daleks or Cybermen. At least not in his first season, anyway. Davies says both of the Doctor’s classic enemies need a “good pause.” As a long-time Whovian, I’d probably add the Master to that pause list as well, as excited as I’d be to see either Michelle Gomez or Sacha Dhawan, or, bless my hearts, both come back. 

Ncuti’s debut season will introduce new enemies. I’m always stoked for new and interesting villains. However, there are Doctor Who villains, fiends, foes, and frenemies from the show’s past and other mediums who can make a long-awaited return or a first-time debut onscreen. “The Star Beast” did excellent work of adapting a classic Doctor Who comic story and the Celestial Toymaker is coming back for the first time in decades in the final anniversary special, so digging into the past seems like a good move. Here are a few baddies we’d love to see face off against Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor in the near future.

The Rutans

One of the major bits of Doctor Who lore focuses on the Sontarans, a stout race of alien clones at constant war with their sworn enemies, the Rutans. We’ve seen the Sontarans make frequent returns to Doctor Who since their first appearance in 1973’s “The Time Warrior.” But the only time we’d ever seen a Rutan on TV was in 1977’s “The Horror of Fang Rock.” The Sontarans might not like to hear me say this, but it’s time for some more Rutans!

The Aggedor of Peladon

The Third Doctor serial “The Monster of Peladon” (1974) is one of the rare times we see the Doctor return to a planet to discover how its culture is progressing. (It takes place 50 years (in the series time, not ours) after the 1972 story “The Curse of Peladon.”) While the Aggedor wasn’t ultimately an antagonist, its role in the superstitions and reverence to the culture of Peladon would make a fun story. The show can revisit in perhaps another generation or two after we last saw them onscreen.

The Selachians

The Selachians are a frequent Big Finish audio antagonist. They are alien sharks who have been awkwardly shoved into big bulky battle-mech suits. They can roam outside the ocean and conquer the universe. I don’t know what else I have to say to convince you this would make an amazing monster to see on TV? You can call the episode “Shark Week.” Please make this Doctor Who villain come to life.

The Ravenous

We see a lot of the Doctor protecting others from their enemies, and we see the Master toy with the Doctor. But we rarely get a monster that exists as a direct threat to the Doctor. The Ravenous are Big Finish monsters and a total trigger warning for those with clown phobias. These killers are from a world inside the time vortex devour the regeneration energy of Time Lords. Given how few Time Lords are left in the universe after the Time War, the Ravenous hunting down Ncuti’s Doctor to feed on his energy could be a delightfully intense story.

Nobody No-One

Look, I like when Doctor Who gets weird. And you can’t get much weirder than this Big Finish foe who comes from an alternate universe where Word Lords exist instead of Time Lords. A being who travels in a CORDIS (Conveyance of Repeating Dialogue in Space-Time) and can manifest the spoken word into great power for himself is wild. Nobody No-One would make a great TV antagonist in this era of grand CGI budgets, and an excellent foe for a character whose primary trait is running his mouth. 

Gangers

One of the biggest themes of Doctor Who is having empathy and understanding the plight of others. But a lot of the villains we run into are fairly black and white as far as being “bad.” The Gangers, introduced in the Eleventh Doctor two-parter “The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People,” were synthetic avatars of humans created to do dangerous tasks. They gained sentience and then resisted the painful deaths they were often subjected to when seen as disposable.

When the Doctor left them, Gangers were starting to push for rights in society, but the episode did reveal that the technology for making them still existed centuries later in the future. Revisiting the Gangers at a later time when their ongoing fight for autonomy is still a struggle would be a great opportunity to show another antagonist with a morality that has to be addressed.

Raxacoricofallapatorians

This one is a stretch, but hear me out. The Slitheen, a family of criminals from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious (good luck, spell check!), appeared in three episodes of Christopher Eccleston’s first and only season in 2005. They were also in the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures. They’re also one of the most quickly mocked aliens in Doctor Who, with good reason. They’re a fart joke… and not a particularly good one.

But they’re also a weird relic of the last time the show was brand new again and struggling to find its voice, tone, and footing. And when Davies brought one back for “Boom Town” towards the end of that season, he still managed to do it in a way that made even these cringey characters interesting and layered. I would love to see him tackle this alien again with his contemporary sensibilities. Perhaps he can take this past punchline and turn it into something amazing.

Other Time Lords

The Master and the Doctor are fun and all, but there are a whole host of antagonistic Time Lords from Doctor Who’s history that could make a welcome appearance. While they’ve shown up in comics and audio dramas, sometimes the continuity for them gets murky and could serve to be solidified a bit more by the TV show. The First and Second Doctor’s time lord antagonists the Monk and the War Chief would be a welcome sight, as well as The Rani who vexed the Sixth and Seventh. 

Big Finish audios feature an interesting take on a Time Lord antagonist with the Renegade, also known as “The Eleven.” This character suffers from a regenerative dissonance. This means all of their previous regenerations still exist as separate, active identities within their mind. Basically, imagine a multi-Doctor episode played by one actor.

And let’s not forget Rassilon himself, who has appeared twice since 2005 played by Timothy Dalton and Donald Sumpter. Even if Gallifrey is still a smoldering ruin, Sumpter’s Rassilon was exiled by the Doctor and could still be out roaming the universe. And maybe he is still a bit annoyed by it all.

There are lots of favorite monsters from the 60 years of this show that would be a welcome sight, will we see any of them, or will a new cadre of baddies make us hide behind the couch? Only time will tell.

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Prime Video’s fantasy series Carnival Row introduces us to a brand new, original world to play in. Untethered to an adapted work or rebooted original, the ambitious series has a lot of world-building ground to cover. To help you explore this strange new world, we’ve assembled this quick primer of some of the major groups and locations you can expect to see in Carnival Row seasons one and two.

The Fae of Carnival Row

In the world of Carnival Row, the Fae are races of beings whose history extends well prior to that of humanity. Their homelands, such as Tirnanoc, were long considered a place of myth and legend. While the Fae races mostly kept to their ancient traditions, human technology grew. Eventually, the humans began to invade and plunder the Fae lands for resources. This ultimately led to a war between human nations. The Fae we encounter on Carnival Row are refugees from that war, living in the human city known as The Burgue, mostly laboring as indentured servants, paying off debts to humans who sponsored their voyages there. 

Carnival Row‘s Fae Races

The first season of Carnival Row primarily focuses on two races of the Fae: the “Pix,” full-sized pixies who would pass for humans if it weren’t for their fluttery wings, and the “Pucks,” satyr-like beings with horns and hooves. It’s unclear if either term originates from their own culture or are human slang terms they’ve had to begrudgingly adopt. But the term “Critch” is a collective slur term for all Fae in Carnival Row‘s universe. 

We do get glimpses of at least three other Fae races on the show. We meet Carnival Row‘s “Trows,” likely another slang term meaning troll, Kobolds, small, almost gremlin-like spritely creatures, and Centaurs who are, well, centaurs, varying from their more classic look with fur over the more humanoid parts of their body. 

The Burgue: Carnival Row‘s Primary Location

The primary setting for Carnival Row is called The Burgue. The Burgue is a sprawling city that resembles Victorian-era London and serves as the capital for a larger nation known as the Republic of the Burgue. This republic is led by a parliamentary-style government that meets in a shouty chamber full of Proctors, with clashes between its Chancellor, Absalom Breakspear (Jared Harris), and the leader of the opposition minority party, Ritter Longerbane (Ronan Vibert). Like London, the city has stark class divides, with living conditions ranging from aristocratic splendor to polluted squalor. The Burgue’s religion vaguely resembles Christianity, with iconography focused on a figure referred to as “The Martyr.”

The Burgue allows Carnival Row‘s Fae are to reside in the town, but heavily polices them and treats them as second-class citizens. Businesses won’t allow Fae to enter unaccompanied. Pix are prohibited from flying. Many working off debts must wear corsets designed to lock their wings down. Their magic is frowned upon and considered sinful by those who worship the Martyr. At the end of season one, all the fae in the Burgue were confined to The Row, setting the stage for conflict to come.

Tensions are high. The fragile peace between the humans and Fae of the city is on the verge of collapsing. An overworked Constabulary is barely keeping order in Carnival Row‘s world. 

The Constabulary

The policing organization of the Burgue has the name of Constabulary. The precinct tasked with patrolling the area nearest the Fae-inhabited Carnival Row is Constabulary No. 6. Most officers of the constabulary don’t tend to have much concern for the well-being of the Fae unless they can make a quick dollar off of them in the form of bribes, with the exception of Inspector Rycroft Philostrate (Orlando Bloom). Murdered Fae aren’t even given the courtesy of an autopsy. The Constabulary won’t risk squandering resources that could be focused on human victims. The Constabulary, however, become very aware of the Fae whenever they commit a crime, of course. 

Carnival Row

Carnival Row is where most of the Fae residents of the Burgue live. Originally a place of wonder and fascination, ‘The Row’ is now equal parts immigrant quarter and red-light district. Fae merchants hope to avoid bribe shakedowns from the uniformed constables. Street performers try to make some quick coin. Fae sex workers with brightly dyed hair catcall potential customers from the balconies of the Tetterby Hotel, a popular yet scandalous haunt for humans with money to burn seeking winged companions for the evening. The Fae residents of Carnival Row expect the constabulary to turn a blind eye to violence committed against them. Some, like the Black Raven’s underground criminal network, have taken up their own forms of justice. 

Other Places in Carnival Row‘s World

Tirnanoc

Tirnanoc is one of the ancestral homelands of the Fae, long considered a place of myth and legend to the nations of man, and the original home of Vignette Stonemoss (Cara Delevigne).  Seven years prior to the start of Carnival Row, The Burgue withdrew from the Great War. Tirnanoc fell under the harsh control of their rivals, The Pact. Bullets and barbed wire traps fill the air of the once-idyllic land. The Pact violently slaughter the Fae, forcing them to flee to the Burgue. 

The Pact

We don’t know much about the Pact, the chief rivals of the Burgue on Carnival Row, and the apparent victors of the Great War for Fae lands like Tirnanoc. Their soldiers’ uniforms resemble the Russian military uniforms of the same period. A nod to the Crimean War as an inspiration for the Great War over the lands of the Fae, perhaps. The Pact have far less regard for the lives of the Fae than even the Burgue. Or at least the Fae that fought against them in the war. Their tactics are far more brutal as well. The Pact shooting faeries on sight. They line the trees with barbed wire traps to tear them apart if they attempt to fly. They even utilize werewolf-like savage beasts in battle. 

We’ve only just scratched the surface of this new world, and who knows how different Carnival Row will look as we enter season two. In a world of faeries, anything could happen. Carnival Row and its world return for more episodes on February 17.

Originally published on August 27, 2019.

Editor’s Note: Carnival Row is a co-production of Amazon Studios and  Legendary Television. Nerdist is a subsidiary of Legendary Digital Networks.

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In May 2022, we got our first glimpse at footage from Lucasfilm’s Willow TV series. The trailer brought back Warwick Davis’ titular hero and that earworm of a theme song along with a sense of how the original film’s magical world would expand in an epic TV series. But, for certain viewers with a penchant for keeping an eagle eye out for any potential signs of queerness (it’s me, hi, I’m the problem), the most strikingly significant moment was a “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” frame of seemingly-romantic tenderness between two women. Could it be? Could the new Willow be kinda gay?! As Willow season one comes to a close, the answer to that question is a loud and resounding yes with Kit and Jade’s romance. And that is in large thanks to Willow doing what a fantasy should do: pushing back against the heteronormative systems of our real world.

That moment from the trailer wasn’t queerbaiting, which often shows a seemingly romantic scene only to have it be something different in the show’s context. It also wasn’t a quick kiss between background characters that could easily be lifted out if it bothered someone. It gave a teaser to a real honest-to-goodness moment of intimacy between two lead characters. Willow introduces tomboy princess Kit Tanthalos (Ruby Cruz) and her knight-in-training gal pal Jade Claymore (Erin Kellyman). As the series progressed, it became unambiguously clear that these two are lesbians in love with each other. 

To those who haven’t been obsessively searching for queer content in their fantasy media (again, hi), it may not seem like such a shock that this relationship exists the way it does in Willow. But despite fantasy’s recent major resurgence in popularity, finding positive onscreen depictions of queer romance in the genre still feels like a quest in and of itself. Fantasy stories present magical worlds where wondrous things are possible; however, they often feel locked into the overall cultural mores and righteousness of the real-world eras and cultures their authors inhabit. As a queer fan of this genre, the absence of people like me from those stories often give the sense that queer identities are disposable. Or even worse, that queer people are simply not welcome.

In some cases this is intentional. Despite being a fictional world with dragons, George R.R. Martin’s Westeros from Game of Thrones does often intentionally draw from real-world cultural inspirations. Its Faith of the Seven is a thinly veiled representation of historical Catholic, at times even Inquisitorial, Christianity. While the text isn’t homophobic per se, the Westerosi culture it depicts very much is. Queer characters such as Renly Baratheon and Laenor Velaryon must hide their gayness due to the risk it could bring to them. This is clearly conscious commentary on real-world homophobia. A condemnation of the culture, not the people who face oppression because of it.

Other recent fantasy shows struggle with adding queer depictions due to a complete absence from their source material. Romance in general is not a pressing issue in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth books. It’s mostly relegated to mentions of marriages within the texts’ many, many appendixes. Those adapting The Lord of the Rings to the screen already must do a lot of work to flesh out the heterosexual love stories within them, let alone adding layers of gay to the mix.

Similarly, Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time took a few steps, such as playing up the “pillow friends” relationship between Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) and Siuan (Sophie Okonedo). But the Wheel world has a hard line of binary gender concepts built into its magic system. Adding in trans characters that break gender boundaries would likely complicate the story so much that they’d require entire stories unto themselves. It is a needlessly limiting construct in a world full of magic.

The Willow TV series put itself in a unique position to push the sexuality envelope within the genre. The 1988 film of the same name shows a world in ruins, crushed under the thumb of a despotic sorceress, Bavmorda. This meant we learned very little about the customs and culture of the society. However, the show presents a world trying to mend, to rebuild communities in the decades following Bavmorda’s defeat. This gave the creative team the perfect blend of using names and a known story to draw from while almost having an almost blank slate to build out a new fantasy world. And it is one that avoids subscribing to a 1980s standard of “decency.” 

What is so absolutely refreshing about Kit and Jade’s love story in Willow is how utterly unremarkable it is. Other characters comment on the obvious sexual tension between the two; however, it’s never couched in the fact that both characters are women. The central conflict in the romance revolves around both characters’ awareness of their respective duties in the world. Kit, as a princess, rebels against the expectation that she must marry fellow royal Graydon (Tony Revolori).

Meanwhile, as a commoner knight, Jade is an unsuitable marriage for the purpose of solidifying any potential allegiances or treaties, at least at the start of the series. This pair fits so easily into a class-clashing friends-into-lovers trope. From the first episode, and teased with a kiss from Kit, they never even feel like a “Will they or won’t they?” Instead, it’s more of “When will they get to it already?” When Jade finally says “Shut up and do something about it,” the audience is in total agreement.

Fantasy worlds don’t have to be completely idealistic. Tales in otherworlds do allow creators the freedom to take elements of the real world and heighten them in ways that regular, non-genre fiction might not. It can be valid and often cathartic to see characters dealing with some of the same issues that we struggle with and overcoming them. It gives hope that while we may not sling spells or swing swords, we might too have a chance at overcoming our challenges. But seeing a fantasy world where two lead characters are just allowed to be queer and be in love is such an utter breath of fresh air. It is a welcome change to an often exhaustive sense of erasure. 

The fictional cultures of the Willow series aren’t perfect by any means. Societal gender roles still cause conflicts for both Kit and Jade. And revelations about Jade’s own history drop seeds of future conflict with Kit’s family and even their kingdom. And you know, evil monsters and stuff. Eschewing homophobia from this particular tale doesn’t undercut drama or tension from the story. But it does allow it room to breathe and grow organically rather than become the entire focus of the narrative. 

Willow‘s fiction allows for an effortless depiction of Kit and Jade’s lesbian love story. In fact, it almost makes one forget that there was likely a behind-the-scenes battle to make it happen. The culture war continues to put queer identities more in the crosshairs of what accounts for decency. Therefore, it matters that those creating media do the hard work of fighting for positive and caring depictions of rainbow romance that can’t easily be shaken from the spotlight, or from society.

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The nature of the beast when creating prequel content is a tricky one. The pursuit of the best possible story can often come into conflict with the stories we already know. None may have felt this strain more than Star Wars; lingering questions from its prequel trilogy and the tenuous connections with the original among some of the most hotly debated and even meme-ified by its fans. Truly, there’s almost no greater hive of continuity confusion than the hut of Ben Kenobi in the Jundland Wastes of Tatooine from Star Wars: A New Hope. We’ve had to question why he and R2-D2 don’t seem to know each other, why he claims Luke’s father wanted him to have his lightsaber, and now, thanks to Obi-Wan Kenobi, the recorded message that R2 brings from Princess Leia Organa. 

As an inciting incident, the kidnapping of Princess Leia as a move to draw Obi-Wan out of hiding is an extremely clever move, both by Third Sister Reva and by the creative team of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Leia being in danger is perhaps the only other thing in the galaxy that could have convinced Kenobi to even temporarily abandon his post watching over the young Luke Skywalker. Even then it took some persuading. Audiences who have been through Obi-Wan’s journey with him immediately understood why this was the thing that brought him back. 

But it also raises some eyebrows given the content of the iconic message from the first Star Wars film.  However, in looking at the text of Leia’s message and the events we’ve seen so far, the newly written relationship between Kenobi and Leia doesn’t undercut what has come before. It simply re-contextualizes them in a new and more nuanced light. 

General Kenobi. Years ago you served my father in the Clone Wars. Now he begs you to help him in his struggle against the Empire. I regret that I am unable to present my father’s request to you in person, but my ship has fallen under attack, and I’m afraid my mission to bring you to Alderaan has failed. I have placed information vital to the survival of the Rebellion into the memory systems of this R2 unit. My father will know how to retrieve it. You must see this droid safely delivered to him on Alderaan. This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.

Indeed, Leia makes no mention in her message of ever having met Kenobi herself. Her message is that of the daughter of an old war buddy, asking for aid with no immediate indication of familiarity. The thing to remember is that at the point in time when Leia records this message, the sky is falling for the Rebellion. A major offensive has just played out in the skies above Scariff (as seen in Rogue One). Leia and her crew carry the very plans at the center of that conflict. As the Empire boards her ship, Leia realizes that she has been compromised, and through her, so has her father. 

The Leia we meet at the beginning of the original trilogy is not the small, somewhat naïve princess of Alderaan that we see in Obi-Wan Kenobi. Nearly a decade has passed for her and she has grown into the shrewd rebel leader we know and love. This is not a Leia who minces words. This is not a Leia who will let slip her father has colluded with a known enemy of the Empire for decades, bringing even further scrutiny upon him than has already occurred. She is not in the business of giving out any more information than is vital to her mission. Because she knows it’s extremely likely her message will fall into the hands of the Empire before it ever reaches her old friend. 

But then there’s that little personal flourish at the end. In the earlier parts of the message, Leia speaks of Kenobi in relation to her father. This is his request, he will know how to retrieve the information, it must reach him on Alderaan. Then, at the very end of the message, she lets the veil slip for just a moment. “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.” An already iconic line which now only feels more poignant. This is the moment when Leia is personally pleading for help from her old friend, the man who saved her once before.

Rewatching the original film, it’s remarkable how well this new context works on that scene from 1977. When the message begins playing, we focus on her. But the moment she starts to explain that her ship has fallen under attack, the shot cuts to Kenobi, whose expression shifts from interest to concern. He glances at R2 who tilts forward in seemingly a nod, confirming the message is true. Upon hearing her personal plea at the end, he leans back in his chair, strokes his beard, and makes the immediate decision that he, and Luke, will go to Alderaan. When trying to convince the young Skywalker to come, it’s Leia, not the rebellion, he insists needs their help. Despite George Lucas having had no idea that the TV series would exist when he wrote this scene decades ago, somehow through the will of the Force it compliments it beautifully. 

Similarly, the events of the series add extra weight to another moment from the same film. When Luke rescues Leia from the holding cell on the Death Star and tells her that he’s here to rescue her, she’s hesitant at first. But the moment he says “I’m here with Ben Kenobi,” she gets a spring in her step and goes with him. The first time that Ben Kenobi came to her rescue she wasn’t sure she trusted him; now the mere mention of his name is enough for her to immediately trust Luke and go along with him. 

Prior to this series, it never made a lot of sense why Leia would’ve named her son after Ben Kenobi, the mentor of her brother whom she never met. Adding in this time between Obi-Wan and Leia gives the two characters a connection we’d never gotten a chance to see before. It allows the old Jedi to have a bond, albeit a different one, with both of Anakin and Padme’s children, furthering the narrative of Leia’s importance and her own connection with the Force as her story goes on. And of course, Obi-Wan Kenobi is no stranger to the power of revisiting the truth of past events from a certain point of view.

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As the Jodie Whittaker/Chris Chibnall era of Doctor Who awaits its final episode this fall during the BBC’s Centenary celebration, we’ve begun to get information about the show’s future. We know that Russell T Davies will be returning as showrunner. We know a lot about big casting details like the return of David Tennant and Catherine Tate. Plus there are new faces like Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor and Yasmin Finney as a mysterious new Rose. With both actors, the long-running series continues its slow but ever-improving work towards being a much more inclusive and representative work. But will this new RTD era, this post-60th anniversary be more than just another of the show’s traditional handoffs of writers and cast? Could we be about to enter a brand new epoch of Doctor Who as we know it?

Doctor Who‘s Holy Trinity of Eras (So Far)

Before we dive too far into what’s coming, let’s take a look at what has been. When talking about Doctor Who, fans usually divide it into two main categories. There’s Classic Who and Modern Who, or “NuWho.” Classic Who starts at the beginning in 1963 when the show was first created by Sydney Newman and shaped by Verity Lambert and Waris Hussein with star William Hartnell (a process lovingly dramatized in the film An Adventure in Space and Time). The Classic Era goes up until the initial cancellation of the series in 1989, seven Doctors later. NuWho, an increasingly inaccurate nickname, began in 2005. Russell T Davies brought the show back to television with Christopher Eccleston in the semi-titular role and it continues until the present. 

There is also a less remarked upon era of Who, yet no less important. Normally reserved to conversations of the sort of obsessive Whovians who might attend conventions, produce Who podcasts, or write articles with titles like “Are We at the Edge of a New Doctor Who Era?” is the Wilderness Years. It is the vague, semi-mournful, semi-nostalgic term for the disconnected space of time in between 1989 and 2005. Way back when the fans were lost in the wilderness, so to speak. 

A consistent TV series did not exist in that gap of time; however, Doctor Who was by no means dormant. The content produced during the Wilderness Era would leave a sizable impact on the show to come. The New Adventures novels, which began publishing in 1991, featured new Who stories by writers from the classic era, like Terrance Dicks and Andrew Cartmel. And, the novels included some of the voices that would later shape the NuWho era, like Paul Cornell, Mark Gatiss, and Russell T Davies. In 1995, an attempt to reboot the show as an American series ultimately became the Fox television movie starring Paul McGann as the Doctor. Then in 1999, Big Finish Productions began creating audio plays of Who stories. This took place the same year of the BBC’s official parody of the show for the Red Nose Day charity, The Curse of Fatal Death. 

A New Doctor Who Era on the Horizon: Welcome to Bad Wolf

As mentioned before, Doctor Who came back to TV in 2005. NuWho introduced us to five main Doctors, two significant secret Doctors from other points in time, and a whole host of companions, monsters, and feels. The BBC, either by BBC Wales or BBC Studios, is the producer behind the show. That is about to change. While not as attention-grabbing as the return of RTD or his big casting decisions, one major new development in Doctor Who involves this switch up. After Jodie Whittaker hangs up her iconic coat, the production of the series will go to a third-party production company, Bad Wolf. 

Bad Wolf comes with a Who pedigree of its own. The company’s founders Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter were both highly involved with the show’s return in 2005. In fact, their company name comes from the first revival season’s mysterious “Bad Wolf” arc. BBC Studios will continue to distribute the show; however, we don’t know how the co-production with Bad Wolf will work financially. We do know that about a month after the announcement, Sony Pictures Television purchased Bad Wolf. This acquisition is likely sweetened by the presence of a certain blue box that’s bigger on the inside. 

We can also assume that Bad Wolf’s new involvement plays a role in why RTD is back at the controls. His return announcement came at the same time as the Bad Wolf co-production deal announcement in the fall of 2021. What makes this so interesting is earlier that same year—before Chibnall and Whittaker’s departure had been made public—RTD gave Radio Times an interesting quote. He said Doctor Who should create expanded content at the level of Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek. Among his ideas were the return of Tate’s Donna Noble and further adventures of Tennant’s Tenth Doctor. Both of which are appearing in the 60th-anniversary special.

In November 2021, a month after Sony’s purchase, Bad Wolf filed for a new subsidiary company. Whoniverse 1 Ltd. is an almost blatant nod to RTD’s above statement. Looking at the facts together seems to signal what is in the works. A former showrunner make ambitious statements about the potential future of the show. Then, he gets hired for his old gig but does it alongside a new deal. One that could potentially establish exactly the sort of big picture future he laid out. 

We can’t say for certain what Doctor Who will look like in 2023 and beyond. But it feels very likely that it will be as new and different from the Who we’ve seen so far. And there’s a good chance that the Bad Wolf era could be a distinctly fourth epoch in Doctor Who‘s history. Another regeneration, if you will.

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At that point, the plucky little starship Discovery was getting chock full of gays. Anthony Rapp, Wilson Cruz, and Tig Notaro were all playing major roles on the show as out queer folks as well as Michelle Paradise, who had moved up to become a co-showrunner. Adding in Blu del Barrio and Ian Alexander as Adira and Gray, respectively, was something I’d never even imagine Trek doing any time soon. 

“Bury Your Gays” Makes Its Way to Discovery

My excitement quickly turned to major disappointment, gut-sinking heartbreak. We finally met the two new characters in a pair of episodes early in season three. It became increasingly clear through a series of flashbacks that Gray, the first out transgender character in Star Trek, was already dead when we were meeting him. The USS Discovery had time-traveled to the 32nd Century and crashed right into the “Bury Your Gays” trope.

It was a particularly harsh pill to swallow. Star Trek: Discovery had already gotten caught in this same trope in its first season.  The show killed off Dr. Culber, played by the aforementioned Wilson Cruz. (He later recovered from his case of death.) It felt like more of the same issues from this franchise. Once again queer stories were marinated in trauma, even in the distant future. I’m not someone who needs stories to serve me constantly; however, this particular case hurt deeply.

If the story ended here, I’m not sure what my own future would’ve been as a general fan of the Trek franchise. Several friends in my community took a break from the show or quit watching altogether following Gray’s post-mortem introduction. I will always maintain my position that Trek fumbled on the introduction; however, I had enough goodwill towards the world, its crew, and the team of writers, that I was willing to give them a chance to adjust.

Star Trek: Discovery’s Changes to Improve Trans Representation

Blu’s character Adira came out and declared they/them pronouns soon after. And Gray, despite his death, remained a presence on the show, a vocal but sentient memory living within Adira. The show’s collaboration with GLAAD on developing storylines made me want to see the ultimate payoff. 

And season three of Star Trek: Discovery did do a lot to earn back my goodwill with those trans representation changes. It began airing in late 2020, at a time when connection and distance was such a part of our world. The show made empathy and connection part of its mission statement. It is the core thesis of what the United Federation of Planets meant in a modern TV program. I even spoke with Cruz about how Dr. Culber’s journey back into life led him through post-traumatic growth. These effects resonate from his presence as a force for healing throughout the season.

As the season progressed, Culber and his partner, Anthony Rapps’ Lt. Commander Stamets, came to view Adira and, by extension, Gray as their surrogate children. Found family narratives are particularly important to me with regards to the queer experience. And with the exception of a few shows like Pose, it rarely presents in a way that incorporates the nurturing and developmental aspects of familial relationships. Seeing these four characters grow into a strong family unit was absolutely beautiful for me. 

The Importance of Gray Being a Trill

There’s also the aspect of Gray’s alien culture, the Trill. Some Trills serve as hosts to symbiotic organisms which hold on to all of the previous hosts’ memories. They also allow the host to maintain their independent identities. Trill characters, like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) have long been lauded as examples of language mapping for real-life gender identity understanding. A Trill may have memories of living as another gender. So people often have to learn to use new names and pronouns. It’s always been a bit of a double-edged sword for me when sci-fi uses alien beings to serve as representation for humans who actually exist. The depiction is never a one-to-one ratio of real experiences, it is literal alienation or othering of identities. 

What makes the choice of Gray being a Trill, a host to a symbiont who is distinctly identifies as trans, different is how it marries two distinct things. There are the alien aspects of fictional culture along with the real-life experiences a person with dysphoria or a different gender assignment at birth goes through. Gray would be trans whether he qualified to be a host or not, and that matters. The Trill are defacto claimed by trans Trekkies as a sliver of representation. So Gray felt like the show’s way of truly acknowledging us and saying, “yes this is yours now.” 

Gray’s Ultimate Fate and the Power of Found Family

Finally, there’s Gray’s ultimate fate. In the climax of season three, the Discovery crew find themselves inside a virulent nebula. It has advanced holographic technology that weaves thoughts into simulated matter. And, standing next to Adira in this place is Gray. He is visible not inside their head, but by Culber and the rest of the present crew.

Many trans people can relate to the feeling of being seen for the very first time, to have people look at you and know you for who you are. And in a time when so many anti-trans discrimination bills were beginning to fly through American statehouses with almost no awareness from the general population, this story about being visible hit very close to home. 

The storyline ends with Gray starting to vanish back into Adira’s mind. However, the pair’s father figure, Dr. Culber, promises to do what he can to make Gray return. That he would be seen by everyone around him, permanently. Dr. Culber previously going through a similar trauma and vocally committing to helping him recover from it, as well as giving him the tools to heal and thrive from it is why showing found family narratives are so vital. This mirrors the way that older generations can, should, and often have guided younger ones. They protect them from dealing with the same traumas they did, or at least don’t leave them to deal with it alone. 

Now, in the fourth season, the show allowed all of these characters to continue to exist as their authentic selves. They struggle with stresses and dangers in the world the same as any Star Trek character would. But they are not burdened with the weight of their gender identities in a future that is past such things. 

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While the movie sidesteps the obvious potential joke title of The Matrix Rebooted in favor of Resurrections, a central concept to the story, it is nonetheless very self-aware that it is a distant sequel following a popular trilogy. The first act is especially littered with many jokes underlining that detail, centered around Thomas Anderson, the Matrix identity of Keanu Reeves’s Neo, who is working on the fourth video game in a series he created. There’s even a moment that may nod toward the truth of the genesis of the movie itself; Jonathan Groff, who plays Mr. Anderson’s business partner, states that Warner Brothers wanted to go forward with another installment regardless of their involvement. One has to wonder if this moment is a sincere tip of the hat from Lana Wachowski. A declaration that she’s only here to avoid watching someone else try to tackle their world.

This air of cleverness, the self-awareness of what is happening, hovers over the entirety of the film. While the original Matrix films had their comedic moments, it’s a bit surprising how many of the events of Resurrections play for laughs. Too many, to be quite honest. Like many of these contemporary retreads of popular stories, Resurrections is weakest when it favors the originals over its own new story. The movie introduces a fun concept to justify many of the new faces in the cast and explain away the absences of those who haven’t returned. But it quickly turns into a tiresome gimmick. At first, it’s an interesting method for making the audience question the story but devolves into a carousel of recycled characters from the previous trilogy.

If all this is an attempt to satirize the concept of reboots, which dialogue early in the film suggests it may well be, it does so at the expense of everything new that does exist in the film. The real world that a redpilled Neo awakens into is now mired in a new conflict, one that is as much machine against machine as against humans, but it doesn’t ever clarify what that conflict is. There are many moments in the film where it’s not clear who the villain actually is. A pair of opposed adversaries torment Neo but what their actual goals are, the who or what they ultimately serve, remains unclear even in a movie full of the franchise’s trademark exposition dump speeches.

Resurrections treats these new ideas and the new characters like the Copper Tops, the human batteries plugged into the Matrix. They are simply vessels sacrificed to keep the energy pumping from act to act. Of all the new characters introduced, it’s hard to say if any actually got an arc, and even when it seems like the momentum is building for these fresh faces to get a hero moment, their story threads end up discarded by the intense focus on Neo and Trinity.

This is especially true for Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jessica Henwick who we both meet in the cold open. The movie sets them up as co-protagonists in the film, only to end up as glorified rabbits for Neo to follow. Both of them essentially fill the same role and neither fully gets to. It’s a true loss considering a generation of filmgoers may not have even seen the trilogy and might have viewed these characters as entry points. 

That’s not to say the movie doesn’t have plenty to enjoy. Similar to the previous sequels, when it hits its highs, it delivers. The ambition of it is obvious, the pacing rarely stalls out, and Keanu has a lot more fun with the role than he did in the trilogy. He brings a lot of his relaxed vibe from more recent years. Though Lana Wachowski directs solo this time, fans of the sisters’ trademark visual styles will be happy to know there’s plenty on display here. We have no modern equivalent to the groundbreaking bullet-time moment of the first film. However, a series of visuals in the final climactic action sequence that is skin-crawling, visceral, and horrifying. And both Jonathan Groff and Neil Patrick Harris bring in surprisingly menacing performances which is not a sentence I expected to ever type.

It seems both praise and condemnation to say it, but the legitimate best way to sum up the feeling of watching Resurrections is “my, that certainly was a fourth movie in the Matrix film series.” Which, depending on how you felt about the last two movies, may or may not be a hard pill to swallow.

3 out of 5

The Matrix Resurrections opens December 21 in theaters and on HBO Max.

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To help out, here are some of the big mysteries your TARDIS Team here at Nerdist picked up on during “The Halloween Apocalypse.” We could spend all day asking questions about how “species recall” works, so we’ll try to limit it to the important plot questions as best we can. In case you too wondered what the Flux was happening.

What exactly is the Division? 

The big revelation in series 12 was that the Doctor is much, much older than we, or even she, knew. In a controversial reveal, we learned she has a deep connection to Time Lord history and the discovery of regeneration. Why doesn’t the Doctor remember any of this? Because of the work she did for a mysterious, seemingly clandestine organization called the Division, which erased all of her pre-William Hartnell era memories. Memories that we learned this week also include a pretty intense nemesis, Swarm. Swarm has been held captive “since the dawn of time” in one of those solo sci-fi prisons for really bad types. The kind of shackled incarceration where the only daily activity seems to be nursing a grudge against the Doctor. And helping optimize social distancing for the cast. 

At first, the Division seemed like a sort of Time Lord spy agency, but with the Halloween Apocalypse, we learn that members of other species can also be agents of the Division, such as Karvanista, of the dog-like Lupari. The Doctor has hunted Karvanista to find out any information on the shadowy organization. While the Division is part of the Doctor’s distant past, we’ve seen much evidence of Division operatives working in an era contemporary to modern Earth, both last season and with Karvanista now. It seems this organization exists beyond the capabilities of the Time Lords and Gallifrey, a planet existing in a sort of Schrödinger’s Cat of destroyed or not destroyed depending on who is showrunning Doctor Who at any given time. 

If the Division has operated all this time, who is actually in charge of it? What is its goal? And why have they worked so hard to keep the Doctor blissfully unaware of their presence? 

What is up with Dan?

Look, we’re not buying Dan’s “aww shucks” demeanor. There are a lot of questions swirling around the new companion, played by John Bishop. First off, we learn in the episode that the Lupari are sending 7 billion ships to Earth to save all of humanity from the Flux. Yet Karvinista, who we know is a Division operative, arrived much earlier in the evening to snag Dan. He handwaves away the Doctor’s question about this with a quick response about a time distortion. However, it’s still very sus. Especially considering he puts Dan in a cage and is pretty annoyed when Yaz lets him out.

Furthermore, Karvanista’s attempts to hypnotize Dan with some sort of Jedi mind trick fails, catching even him by surprise. Finally, when remarking on the “bigger on the inside” nature of the TARDIS, Dan mentions he has a friend who had one but it was bigger. This comment is brushed aside by Yaz and the Doctor, but is it a simple joke or a hint at something more going on with Dan? 

We know from this episode and series 12’s “Fugitive of the Judoon“ that 21st century Earth is a popular spot for hidden individuals associated with the Division, could that include Dan? 

And if Dan is so good at giving tours at the Liverpool museum and seems to like it so much, why don’t they just hire him? Or, heck, let the nice harmless guy lead a few free tours? 

What’s the deal with all the aliens? 

What connection, if any, do all of these alien races have to each other, and this specific Halloween night in Liverpool? We’ve seen a Weeping Angel, the Lupari, the season’s apparent big villains Swarm and Azure, and even some Sontarans on the way. Are any of these groups working with or against each other? Are they all up to their own unconnected different plots and are maybe feeling a tad bit awkward that they all ran into each other here?

And that doesn’t even take into account the two Statler and Waldorf looking guys in 1820s Liverpool that we met right after the credits and then, let’s be honest, completely forgot about till they showed up in the “let’s all look at the camera” montage at the end. And what do all of these species have to do with the Flux, the raging time and space hurricane tearing its way through this arc? 

What’s the purpose of Vinder’s outpost? 

We meet Jacob Anderson’s Vinder while he’s filing his report on his 21,754th rotation in a distant outpost. We’re not sure exactly how much time passes in any given rotation; a day, a year, twenty minutes? The weariness and hostility in his voice, however, implies he’s been stuck in this isolated observation role for a while. Given how unhappy with the assignment he is, we are deeply curious who it was that put him there in the first place. Does the outpost also have Division ties? Why has Vinder felt obligated to stay, until permitted to leave by an abandoned ship order? Is the name of the outpost, Rose, simply a coincidental reference inspired by the same of the station? Or is Chibnall tossing some teases at fans of the modern era’s first companion, once a love interest of the Doctor?

Why was there only one bed!?

Speaking of teases! In the opening sequence of the episode, the Doctor and Yaz escape from Karvanista’s Bond-villain worthy death trap, involving two pairs of handcuffs that happen to be in the Doctor’s pocket. This pandemic-era green screen sequence builds to the pair diving into the TARDIS and landing softly in an unmade bed that just happens to be right in the main control room of the ship. There is only one bed. Was this truly just a prop placed in the scene just to facilitate the landing? Or did Chibnall, Whittaker, and Mandip Gill know they were about to send Thasmin shippers to their keyboards demanding answers? Is Thirteen truly the Doctor Who Flux?

Like we said, the important plot questions only. 

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But hardcore fans of Rat Queens such as myself may have noticed a pretty big face missing from the lineup. No shade on the initial lineup of Queens, but we must pay respect to Braga the brutal Orc barbarian. While Braga is not an original member of the Rat Queens, she is a major character in the first comics’ storyline. She lends her sword to their aid after the deaths of her squad the Peaches. Her eventual induction into the group is a mere formality by the time it happens. By the end of the comics’ run, Braga remains a member; she even takes on the duties of training a replacement when one of the initial characters steps away. 

Deep Water Games

Braga’s omission from the game seemed glaring to me. For one thing, Braga was revealed in a one-off comic to have been assigned male at birth, having transitioned off the page prior to her first appearance in Rat Queens #1. This does bring an often unseen perspective to the fantasy setting. But Braga’s story is not about being transgender, it’s simply a detail about her past. 

It turns out that the makers of Rat Queens: To the Slaughter had no intention of leaving this vibrant character in the dust, and they have let Nerdist know in an exclusive reveal that when the game launches, Braga will be the first playable character added to the game in her very own expansion pack that features details from her own comic story arc and even a brand new boss for the game players to fight. We also received this exclusive reveal of her very own game piece design:

Deep Water Games

The gameplay mechanics of the Braga deck will lean into her ability to charge through the battlefield. But it will also make use of her intelligence. The game gives her a tactical skillset that allows players to cut through the fodder of the battlefield in order to get to the main prize. So, not unlike her membership into the Rat Queens, she might be a little late to the party, but when she gets there is going to come out swinging. 

What most drew us to Braga as a character, even more than the sheer force of her great axe, were the moments where she would dismiss her own intellect. Not as if she doubted it, but as if she were afraid of it. She’d lament that she was better with a sword than a sentence; but it’s easy to imagine that Braga may have made a better Bard than a Barbarian had the dice landed differently. 

Despite being the most brutal member of the team, she rivals Betty as the Rat Queen with the most heart. As we observe, the Rat Queens quickly become the exact home that Braga always wished for. It seems likely that she’d remain with them forever, training new members and serving as something of a den mother. 

More information on Rat Queens: To the Slaughter’s upcoming Kickstarter campaign will be announced soon and can be followed on the official website. The final volume of the Rat Queens comic run will be released on April 7. 

Featured Image: Deep Water Games

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album ‘Intimate Apparel’ is available digitally online.

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7. “Boom Shakalaka”

The soundtrack considered this a song, but what is there to even say about it? Sure, it draws from the Robert Louis Stevenson novel. But watching it in the movie now? It’s just a chant that feels like it’s about to get cut out of the Jungle Cruise ride when Disneyland reopens. 

6. “Love Led Us Here”

This feels like they realized they hadn’t given either Kermit or Miss Piggy a song and needed to rectify that. Despite that, parallels between pirates finding treasure and a fairly sincere love ballad (or as sincere as a love ballad between Kermit and Piggy can be), make this land fairly well. Still, I just watched this movie last summer and forgot this song was in it until now, so…

5. “Cabin Fever”

Maybe a little too close to home these days. The crew of the Hispaniola find themselves stuck on a Zoom ca—er, in a calm in the ocean. This song… it’s a lot. It’s one of the songs I best remember being in the movie, but also one that I almost always forget anything about except that it existed. That largely has to do with the fact that it has no real consistency to it; it changes almost every other stanza to reflect each sailor’s delirium. 

4. “Something Better”

One of the most cut-and-dry “I Want” songs in the entire Muppet discography. That’s exactly why it ranks so low for me. Even with Rizzo and Gonzo doing their best to inject the Mupper humor, the number feels like it could have been lifted from a standard Disney film. It’s not a bad song per se; it’s just an aggressively adequate song from a company that I hold to a higher standard. It also seemingly lives in that space just before movie musicals started taking their vocals way more seriously. And it shows. 

3. “Sailing for Adventure”

Okay, here we go! The third song in the movie, “Sailing,” is the first to feel like a true Muppet song. This song is doing a LOT of heavy lifting. It layers in the elements of Jim’s adventures, the scheming plans of the pirates, and even the running gag of Rizzo’s secret cruise business for the rats. On top of all that, it’s also the act break. Despite how easy a song could collapse under its own weight, it manages to get the movie out to sea and inject that mutual spirit of adventure into all of the characters. 

2. “Shiver My Timbers”

To quote Rizzo the Rat when Billy Bones dies, “This is supposed to be a kids’ movie!” A necessity of the source material to be sure, but opening your Muppet film with a song about greedy pirate murder is a big swing. But they pull it off. The song nails the creepy vibe of the moment, while still injecting the levity of the various puppets creatively laid out across the island in the form of things like animals and idols. 

1. “A Professional Pirate”

Two of the best types of movie songs: villain songs and Tim Curry songs. And this one joins the ranks of songs that get to be both. And hey, even fishnets are involved, sorta! It’s honestly ridiculous that it takes this far into the film for Curry to lead a song. The film is even aware of that fact and has Curry sing about it. And yet it’s such a fun song that we forgive the whole movie for this sin!

“A Professional Pirate” captures the exact joyful love of pirate stories that are instilled by a book like Treasure Island, or the Pirates of the Caribbean rides at Disney and the subsequent film adaptations. It says a lot about this song that it ranks where it does on this list despite including the painfully ham-fisted On the Waterfront reference line. (That is my absolute least favorite joke in this or any other Muppet media, perhaps ever.)

The Jim Henson Company

There is a lot to love in Muppet Treasure Island, and many claim it as their favorite Muppet film. However, this revisiting of the songs does reveal perhaps why this adaptation of classic literature format didn’t become a new ongoing standard for the Muppet movies. While Muppet Christmas Carol stands out as one of the definitive adaptations of the Dickens classic, Muppet Treasure Island frequently struggles to blend the tone of the ensemble with Stevenson’s pirate tale.

It is telling that it’s easier to remember and love a song that wasn’t even in Carol‘s theatrical release than ones that did end up in Island. Those looking for this type of work from the Muppets may be better off revisiting The Muppet Show on Disney+.

Muppet Treasure Island is currently available for streaming on Disney+ in the US.

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For those of us who grew up in the ‘80s, Fraggle Rock was our Pixar. It was the cute, adorable means by which we learned about things like found family, the freedom to feel our emotions, and accepting the reality of our own mortality. While the iconic theme song may have encouraged us to dance our cares away, the actual stories taught us how to approach very real issues in our lives.

With that in mind, we set about the laborious task of combing through every single song from the original Fraggle Rock series in order to make our ranking of the best of them. At 204 songs, this was no small task. We have compiled them down to our top five, as follows.

The Jim Henson Company

5. “Children of Tomorrow”

This one is one of the hokier songs in the entire repertoire, it’s true. It’s essentially a “We Are the World”- or “Voices That Care”-style piece, bringing together Fraggles, Doozers, and Gorgs alike. The show often depicted the three groups as not understanding and sometimes fearing each other’s cultures and social norms. It was rare to get a plot or song that connected all three so perfectly like this.

4. “Festival of the Bells”

While a lot of songs that made this top five are here for thematic or emotionally resonant reasons, sometimes there has to be room for just a straight banger. So among the sea of Fraggle songs that just actually do want to make you move a little and perhaps, leave worries for another day, you can’t go wrong with this high tempo pseudo-holiday jam.

3. “Goodbye, Goodbye (Just a Rainbow in the Sky)”

And now we get to some of the heartbreak. No one does sad songs in puppet stories like the Jim Henson Company (see “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday,” or “When Love Is Gone”). Saying goodbye to the home you’ve known is a fairly universal experience; maybe you’re a kid whose family moves somewhere far away, or an adult who has had to pack up your childhood home. The Fraggles took on this topic long before Sia even began to pen “Breathe Me.” Gobo Fraggle lies, of course—every eye is not dry.

2. “The Preachification of Convincing John”

Muppet-related properties have a knack for filtering real-world concepts through the absurdity of the felt characters. Fraggle Rock aired in an era when revival evangelicalism was defined by the lies of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. “The Preachification of Convincing John” manages to be both homage and satirization in a way that feels as timely today.

1. “Let Me Be Your Song”

Let’s set aside the poignancy of this song being performed by Jim Henson and the man who would serve as the steward for Kermit after his passing, Steve Whitmire. “Let Me Be Your Song” is Henson music doing what it does best. This haunting melody carries with it the notes of art as a living, breathing thing. It also touches on the power inspiring others. It’s an extremely mellow track, but it conveys the heart and soul of Fraggle Rock in an episode all about the melodies that belong to each of us.

Honorable Mention: “The Fraggle Rock Theme”

One cannot simply walk into Fraggle Rock and talk about music without giving a respectful nod to a veritable member of the TV theme song pantheon. The second those first funky beats pop into our heads we can visualize the entryway into Doc’s workshop window. We can imagine Gobo bopping down the Fraggle hole to meet his friends. Frankly, any song that can get a sincere, instinctive clap out of us this many years later deserves our undying respect.

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By jumping to the 32nd Century, Star Trek: Discovery could pull off something of a hat trick. It distanced itself from the creative voice struggles it had in its first season; it presented an opportunity for a massive overhaul of the Federation universe; and it could reframe familiar elements without pushing too har against accepted continuity.

The time jump transformed the entire crew of the Discovery into audience surrogates. Everything they encounter in their future of our future is as new to them as it is to us. This is never more apparent than in the fifth episode of season three, “Die Trying.” The crew completely squees at the smorgasbord of new Starfleet vessels at the Federation’s hidden base. We shared that same sense of wonder with Michael Burnham when she learned that the Vulcan and Romulan peoples had rejoined on the planet Vulcan, now renamed to Ni’Var.

CBS

Discovery‘s stories have been especially timely and emotionally mature this season. Now, we see this sophistication in the way that Discovery has crafted its antagonist, the Emerald Chain. In episode eight, “The Sanctuary,” we finally meet the the head of this criminal syndicate, the cunning Osyraa (Janet Kidder). This marks a huge departure from previous versions of Star Trek.

Individual characters like Khan or Seska have served as villains on the show before. But most of Trek’s villains have been belligerent alien races. Over the years, entire cultures like the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Ferengi have been represented as the biggest nuisances for Starfleet. Or, at worst, enemies in warfare.

There is a tragic flaw in this setup. Star Trek is ultimately about what people can accomplish when they see past what divides them. As such, every alien race is on some level an allegory for humanity. That’s why almost every new Star Trek era spends at least some time deconstructing the villainous side of these alien races. Ultimately, the franchise fleshes them out into three-dimensional cultures with full, rich identities. Some of the best episodes of The Next Generation enriched our understanding of Klingon culture, for instance.

CBS

Star Trek has made great gains to sidestep this allegorical stereotyping in its most recent shows. Discovery reconceptualized the Klingons with concerns about assimilating to Federation society and losing what made them Klingon. With the Romulans, they’ve acknowledged the way these groups have been treated in the past. For example: Picard struggled to get the Federation to commit to a massive refugee program largely because of the negative relationships they’d had with the Romulans. On Discovery, Burnham assume it was the Romulans who chose for Ni’Var to leave the Federation. In fact, they wanted to stay; it was the Vulcans who pushed for the Ni’Vexit.

The Emerald Chain’s Osyraa, and many of her lackeys, are Orion—a race that past Trek has shown as villainous. (In fact, Lower Decks‘ first season even included a potline where an Orion crewmember expressed her discomfort with being cast as a space marauder.) But there seems to be a very different tone to how Osyraa operates than previous Trek antagonists have..

CBS

At first glance, it may feel like the Emerald Chain’s members, mostly Orion and Andorians, are simply the two races teaming up as mutual marauders. Discovery implies that Osyraa’s organization has conquered and claimed the worlds of the Orions and Andorians; she has subjugated their citizens into her service in a somewhat twisted mirror version of the Federation. The droplets of lore indicate that the Chain has filled in the power vacuum left after the mysterious Burn. This gives its origins way more of a real-world historical feel—the way that most conflicts grow out of the wake of the previous conflict.

It’s a welcome change for the franchise. Ultimately, the idea of specific races being evil is antithetical to the entire philosophy of Star Trek. At its very core, the franchise is about seeking out and understanding infinite types of life. It’s an outdated trope from fantasy and sci-fi stories of a different era that has less and less of a place in the storytelling of today. And Star Trek is exactly the kind of show that is at its best when it leads rather than follows. Discovery is perfectly situated to help us abandon this kind of concept.

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Muppet Christmas Carol-ers may know the story of “When Love Has Gone.” For those who do not, the song was originally written and shot for usage in the 1992 film as a sort of anti-love ballad; it reflected a moment in Ebenezer Scrooge’s life when he let the great romance of his youth fade. Anyone who has seen the end of a once fulfilling relationship can empathize with this heartbreaking number. 

Disney

However, Jeffrey Katzenberg (then chairman of Disney) felt “When Love Has Gone” was too “sophisticated emotionally” for children to relate to it. Brian Henson, son of Jim and director of the film, said in an interview with the BBC that he felt pressured to go along with the cut: “So I reluctantly agreed [to remove it] because he said: ‘If you say you’re not going to do it, you don’t have to do it’, and I was like: ‘Well now, darn it, I guess I will because you want me to.'”

“When Love Has Gone” did initially appear on the VHS release of the film. After its removal from the theatrical cut, however, the master and negatives for it were misplaced, and they were unable to include it in any future releases. But it appears the song has been found again and will be restored to its rightful place in the movie for the 4K release. According to Henson, it will eventually return to the Disney+ version of the film, though possibly not in time for Christmas this year. 

Henson’s team revealed the discovered footage to him in the most adorable way; they called him into the offices simply to review the 4K print before surprising him with the found footage.

“I was so excited. They actually hid it… so I went down and they said: ‘But before we show it to you, we’ve got something else we want to show you’. And they put up reel four of Christmas Carol with ‘When Love Is Gone,'” Henson told the BBC, “I was like, ‘No, you did not!’ and they said, ‘Yes we did! We found it!’ I was so happy, I was so happy.”

Fans who grew up with the theatrical cut from the film may indeed be surprised by just how sad and moving the number is. Ultimately, this is the kind of thing the Muppet works can do at their best. The world of Henson’s creations doesn’t believe that material can be too sophisticated for children; rather, they create works that any age can feel and appreciate. The Muppets have always added a little bit of gloom in extremely effective ways. Take songs like “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday” and some of the quieter numbers from the Muppet Show. These have stayed with us over the years, even having first experienced them as children.

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As an avid lover of all things Jim Henson, and as someone who can be easily taken in by the corny cheer of a season, I live in the perfect center of the Venn diagram of folks for whom Emmet Otter is for. It was cute for me as a kid, charming for me as I got older. As versions of it came and went from print, it took on a mythical quality—a chase. Many a season I’d spend trying to find that YouTube video someone posted of it last year. Or I’d look for an elusive DVD copy on eBay, or hope someone was showing it on TV. Was it the Kermit version, or the one where he was edited out for copyright reasons?

I own it digitally now, and currently, it’s available on Prime. But last year, as I booted up my copy of it and pressed play, something new happened with me. Something had changed about my favorite Christmas special. I came to a sudden and somewhat horrific conclusion. 

Emmet Otter would always hurt a little now. 

The Jim Henson Company

The thing is, last November my father passed away. Losing a loved one is an experience I’ve been through far too often in recent years. But losing someone as important to me as my dad just before the winter holiday season was especially cruel. Just as the malaise of the funeral process and a numb Thanksgiving began to recede, every Christmas carol, every movie about the importance of being home for the holidays, even commercials of families in matching pajamas—a tradition we never, ever partook in—was gutting. If you’ve never had the experience of sobbing openly in the middle of the World of Color holiday water light show at Disneyland’s California Adventure, I can tell you that I do not recommend it. 

Those of you who know the story of Emmet Otter probably can see where this is heading. For the rest, let me just mildly spoil it for you here. Emmet (Jerry Nelson) and his mother Alice (Marilyn Sokol) are the two main characters. Both attempt to make a Christmas that is joyful for each other in a Gift of the Magi-style situation involving the prize in a local talent contest. And the reason they need to do that is that this is their first Christmas following the death of Emmet’s father. 

Right now you’re probably thinking, Riley, why would you possibly choose to sit down and watch a special that is literally specifically about the exact thing that has been a constant sort of pain for you? And the honest answer looking back is that I simply hadn’t thought about the plot. I was on semi-autopilot mode and Emmet and his Ma have been sources of comfort for me throughout the years. It was something I just gravitated to. It wasn’t until I was too far in that I realized it would never feel the same for me again. 

The Jim Henson Company

Yet here I am a year later, in full awareness of what this special did for me last year, and reaching for it now all the same. Despite the number of times I’ve seen this thing in my life, I wasn’t prepared for the way it has come to mean something fully different for me now. Look, I still love the Muppets, the cute story, and the rock-and-roll showmanship of the Riverbottom Nightmare Band. But this thing that was once just a silly little throwback has found its way into a new space in my heart. 

It’s very strange to see myself and my own mother in these two almost expressionless otter puppets. And yet here they are both just trying to move forward as much as they can. But the presence of Pa looms large over them. The stakes of this little small town talent contest mean everything to them. Because they’d both give everything to just make the season a little bit happier for the other. 

I will never view Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas the same way I did prior to a year ago. But I’ll still reach for it as much as I always have. Sometimes growing up with something means exactly that. It was there when I needed it back then. And it’s here for me now.

Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas is currently available on Amazon Prime for streaming in the United States.

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album Intimate Apparel is available digitally online.

The post The Catharsis of EMMET OTTER’S JUG-BAND CHRISTMAS appeared first on Nerdist.

Leave Ezio Alone

Ubisoft

Ezio Auditore da Firenze is the bomb. His arc from Assassin’s Creed II through Revelations is one of the most fully realized and awesome storylines throughout the game series. All this makes it extremely tempting to use him in an adaptation. But it’s hard to imagine improving upon what was already done. That’s not saying it couldn’t work; after all, The Witcher managed to make a version of Geralt of Rivia that book readers and gamer audiences adore. But he’s also the literal namesake of The Witcher, whereas the AC series offers loads of other paths. 

Kassandra

Paramount Pictures

Here’s one of those contradictions. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was an immensely popular addition to the games’ roster. Odyssey helped give it a much-needed boost of adrenaline after some less than ideal product launches had caused it to stumble. This was in no small part aided by the charisma of its two potential leads, Alexios and Kassandra. And no shade to the Alexios fans out there, but our allegiance lies with the one true Eagle Bearer. What makes Kass different than Ezio is that the game’s own storyline has built-in longevity for her. While adapting her own story could be rife with the same issues, there are literally centuries of her life during which she could reappear in other assassins’ stories. 

Plan. Out. Your. Meta. Plot.

Ubisoft

Each AC game manages to tell a (mostly) stand-alone story set in a past era while advancing a modern-day plot that stretches out over several games. This can be good or bad, depending on which stretch of games you look at. The current run from Origins through Valhalla has had a lot of success with Layla Hassan. But there was a five-year period there where the meta plot meandered greatly. It’s unlikely that the series will jettison something so iconic to the series (though some claim that the games could afford to do just that). So instead, those crafting the show should simply have multiple seasons’ worth of a very clear and distinct storyline for the modern-day stuff that the audience can follow. (Also we hope that not reviving Desmond Miles for the TV series is just a no-brainer.)

Don’t Try Too Hard to Replicate Gameplay

Ubisoft

There are a few visual elements of the Assassin’s Creed games that we expect will find their way into the show. Things like the stylistic assassinations, the eagle eye effects, and the occasional visual glitches that remind us that these characters are actually playing out a computer simulation of dead assassins’ memories. But let’s not forget that much of the early criticisms of the game is that many of the missions can get pretty repetitive pretty quickly. No one wants to watch a TV hero constantly dipping into a crowd of clerics with his hood up or climbing to the top of every single tall structure or mountain she can find just to look out and unlock more of the map. This may seem like an obvious suggestion, but that’s only if you didn’t watch the Battleship movie bend over backward to make the board game’s playstyle work for their alien invasion plot. 

Show Us Something New!

Ubisoft

Similar to our initial point about Ezio, the thing that makes Assassin’s Creed’s narrative so cool for a game series is that it absolutely is not married to a single protagonist or even time period. The fact that every major new chapter of the games has brought us a brand new assassin from a different time period is a huge, huge part of its longevity. There are so many other historical eras of the world and different famous assassins from different cultures and ethnicities with stories that can inspire new tales. This TV series feels like a perfect opportunity to expand the lore rather than tread old ground. Like we said above, the repetitiveness has always been the weakest part of the games. So why risk it for the show? 

Featured Image: Ubisoft

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album Intimate Apparel is available digitally online.

The post 5 Things We Want from Netflix’s ASSASSIN’S CREED Series appeared first on Nerdist.

Star Trek is no stranger to storylines involving the mental health of its characters. Counselor Troi’s role on the Enterprise-D, after all, was indeed that of a counselor. We occasionally saw the impacts on Jean-Luc Picard from his time amongst the Borg as Locutus. Miles O’Brien dealt with PTSD on Deep Space Nine after having memories of imprisonment implanted within him. And Charles Tucker on the NX-01 Enterprise struggled to even acknowledge his grief for his sister’s death for almost an entire season.

But with Discovery’s third season, the serialized Trek show has turned its viewscreen towards the idea of mental health with a level of care and compassion. Discovery‘s understanding of the subject’s importance has been hitherto unseen within the realm of the long-running franchise. The first significant moment of that was when Lt. Keyla Detmer (Emily Coutts) wandered zombie-like away from sickbay following a catastrophic crash of the ship. The fallout for her, and the overall crew of which she serves as the face, has been present as the season has progressed. 

But then there’s Dr. Hugh Culber. The once-murdered, since-revived ship’s physician portrayed by Wilson Cruz has taken on a major new role in season three as the vocal advocate for the mental health of the crew. To put it bluntly, Culber has taken on big Deanna Troi energy and we are here for it. Nerdist spoke to Cruz himself to discuss the journey from a character that many saw as once unfairly fridged, into a mouthpiece for some of the most timely and important elements of the show right now. 

Previous Trek shows have often had these moments where the bridge is destroyed and the characters have been through hell, and then the credits roll and next week we’re back and everything is just spotless, replicated back to new, and the crew is fine. But Discovery seems to linger in a way that Star Trek never has before. 

Wilson Cruz: I think the fact that Star Trek historically has been so episodic hasn’t allowed it to really delve into the ramifications of what their crews have endured; right? And what the emotional price has been for one traumatic event or another. So, you know, with Discovery, we have the ability to remember, as we say, on the show, right? 

In terms of Dr. Culber, he went through the most traumatic event, which is death itself, and was given a second lease on life. And so in my research in season two, in which Dr. Culber comes back from the dead, I was really trying to think about what that meant for him emotionally. And I just started to do some research in terms of soldiers, essential workers, and emergency medical providers, and how they dealt with their own trauma. 

I came upon this theory called post-traumatic growth, which holds that because of a traumatic event, we can learn to look at life differently. And perhaps even lead a different kind of life because of the traumatic event. 

Michael Gibson/CBS

That rings really true with not just your portrayal of Culber but also how his role in the writing has evolved. He was the one in “Forget Me Not” who set off the B-story with Saru (Doug Jones) by telling him, “Hey, none of your crew is okay.” And then we had this moment in the most recent episode, “Die Trying,” where he’s telling Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) that she needs to be the one to talk to this survivor on the seed vault ship because Nahn (Rachel Ancheril) is just too close to him. 

WC: Michelle Paradise, who came on as our showrunner along with Alex [Kurtzman] last season has been incredibly open to conversation. I wanted to be hands-on in the development of this character. I have opinions. And I’m very free with sharing them and luckily I have Michelle and the writers who are very open to receiving them.

I really wanted to see a different Culber emerge from this traumatic experience and so I came to Michelle with this idea of post-traumatic growth. And she was really excited to learn more about it and so I sent her what I had read about it, and she did her own research and she wrote the scene. She actually added that theme into [“Forget Me Not”] after I presented it to her.

And it really kind of set the stage for who Culber was going to become. I really wanted him to be someone who, yes, found the joy in life, but also was willing to be honest with people. I think what is missing from some people’s ideas of how to get past trauma is that they don’t actually face the trauma and deal with the issue at hand in order to let it go. I think in that dinner scene in [“Forget Me Not”], that’s what that was about. It was, for lack of a better term, an opportunity for some truth and reconciliation. Which, by the way, we could use more of in this country.

CBS

That actually brings up another thing about that episode, it was shockingly timely.

WC: It was a great parallel. It was a great thing for me to play, but also these stories of resilience are something that I think we need in society right now. I would hasten to argue that the last four years for many people have been quite traumatic. And accidentally, Star Trek: Discovery took on this issue last year when we shot it. And it couldn’t have been more relevant when it aired this past week when we were all facing the possibility of the end of the trauma. And the possibilities that the end of that trauma presented. Yeah.

I found it equally important that this week in “Die Trying,” that it’s also Culber who has to nudge Burnham towards actually completing the mission and fulfilling their obligation to Starfleet. 

WC: Right. The needs of the many, which is what Star Trek is all about. Taking care of our communities. You know, I just think that Dr. Culber is always going to speak truth to power, even when it’s uncomfortable. And that was an uncomfortable conversation to have. I think he doesn’t shy away from those things anymore I think he’s willing to go there. I’m an acolyte of Brené Brown, and she talks about having a strong back, a soft front, and a wild heart. And I think about that a lot when I think about Dr. Culber.

Michael Gibson/CBS

Touching on that community point, do you think there’s something to the fact that it’s specifically your character who has become the voice of empathy and healing on the show? Star Trek has always strived to present this very idealized version of the future, which is why so many of us can connect with it. But the drawback with a utopian narrative is that it can, from a certain angle, whitewash away some of the attempts to empathize with the things the audience is still dealing with.

WC: Yes, I do think Star Trek finds interesting and creative ways to make parallels to our current condition. But I have to tell you, for me, as Wilson playing Hugh, it’s been transformational. Because I, as this Latino gay man, have to imagine what it would be like if I was free from all of those isms. If I was allowed to live a life in which I didn’t have to think about racism and homophobia. And what kind of person… what kind of life could I be free to lead if I was unshackled from all of that? And I have to tell you, it’s been really moving to me.

And, like I said, transformational. Because as Wilson I’m thinking, why the hell can’t I have that now? And what can I do, immediately, to help us be on the path to that reality? And so I understand you and I hear you when you’re saying Star Trek has a responsibility to speak to our current condition, but it also has a responsibility to help us imagine a life in a world that we should be working towards.

Star Trek: Discovery is now streaming on CBS All Access in the United States and other streaming outlets worldwide.

Featured Image: CBS

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album ‘Intimate Apparel’ is available digitally online.

The post Wilson Cruz Talks Trauma and Healing on STAR TREK: DISCOVERY appeared first on Nerdist.

What is The Burn? And how does it (what’s the word…) burn?

CBS

Possibly the biggest new bit of lore in the Star Trek universe’s new 3188 era is The Burn. The cataclysmic event occurred sometime in the 120 years prior, destroying the dilithium within just about every warp-capable starship. The Burn ripped the United Federation of Planets asunder and sent the galaxy back into a new semi-isolationist Dark Age. (But, you know, with spaceships.) What exactly caused The Burn is a big mystery that we’re unsure we’ll ever solve. This season could see the Discovery crew seeking out the cause of this enigma. Or it could go the Leftovers route and leave it as an unsolved riddle that serves only as the backdrop for this huge new future we find ourselves in. Both options have their potential for good story, but it does feel like we’ll find out more about this catastrophe as the season unfolds. 

What exactly is Mirror Georgiou’s alignment, anyway?

CBS

Michelle Yeoh seems to be having a wickedly fun time playing the Mirror Universe version of her previous character, Phillipa Georgiou. While it’s a shame that we’re not sure we’ll get the Section 31-oriented series she was alleged to be a part of, Mirror Georgiou brings a fantastic energy to Disco. (Even if she just happens to have once been a universe-conquering despot who ate sentient species as a delicacy.) While it would have made sense to have set her loose upon the prime universe as a villain, MG has been handled with a lot more nuance. Despite her previous life, she’s not entirely evil. She has a legitimate concern for the ongoing wellbeing of Michael Burnham, and though her ruthlessness shone through in the second episode especially, she’s not entirely self-serving either. We’re putting her firmly in the Chaotic Neutral camp for now and will watch her development this season with great interest.

When are we going to get more Grudge?

David Ajala’s new character, Book, was a delightful infusion of charm and roguishness in the new season. But it was his chonky crewmate Grudge that stole the show. Our interest in the character has to do with more than that fluffy face. In both the first and third episodes of the season, Book refers to Grudge deferentially as a queen. One time is a cute line; twice has gotten our attention. If Grudge does turn out just to be an adorable fluffy kitty, we’re cool with it. However, if we find out that there’s a real plot a-brewing where she is actually a queen? I for one welcome our new feline overlord. 

(Update: You can now bring Grudge home with this official stand-in!)

What’s up with Detmer?

Michael Gibson/CBS

As season three of the show begins to expand the roles of Discovery’s bridge crew, Lt. Detmer’s recovery following the crashing of the ship caught our eye, even Doug Jones pointed it out. While given a clean bill of physical health, it was clear from her lingering dead gaze that she has a bit longer a road to recovery than patching up a few cuts and bruises. Trek shows have rarely dug into the lingering traces of trauma from intense situations—especially not ones that continue past the end of a given episode. Is Detmer’s PTSD something we’ll see build into a larger storyline as the season continues? It’s an intriguing bit of space for the show to try to occupy. 

How the heck are we gonna get Riker and Troi into this show now?

CBS

Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis are the undisputed reappearance champions of Star Trek. Frakes has appeared on every single Star Trek spinoff since The Next Generation as either his character Will Riker or his somehow evil transporter accident clone Thomas Riker. Sirtis is right behind him, having appeared as Counselor Troi on all but Deep Space Nine. They’ve even appeared on the animated Lower Decks. While Frakes has put in a lot of hours behind the camera as a director for Discovery (including the just-aired “People of Earth”), we’re not sure how exactly we’ll find our Imzadis in the 32nd century. But we don’t see that as any reason why we shouldn’t!

Featured Image: CBS

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album ‘Intimate Apparel’ is available digitally online.

The post 5 Questions We Have About STAR TREK: DISCOVERY Season 3 appeared first on Nerdist.

With season three of Star Trek: Discovery now two weeks underway, we rejoin the NCC-1031 as it arrives in its new home, the year 3188. Though absent from the premiere episode of the season, we catch up again now with the crew of the ship as they begin the new phase of CBS All-Access’ flagship Trek series. Doug Jones, who plays Commander Saru on the series amongst other beloved roles, sat down with us to discuss episode 3×02, “Far From Home.”

Nerdist: This is the first episode of Discovery where Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) plays almost no role. And it’s the first time you’ve been given a major plot to carry as Saru without Michael by his side. 

Doug Jones: You’re right, but turnabout is fair play. She had episode one to herself.

Very true! What was it like finally getting the chance to stand on your own two feet and be the episode lead?  

DJ: Right, those were some big hoof-boots to fill, being Burnham-less. We all needed a chance to get back on our feet again. Literally, because you find us all crashed around the bridge of the ship. So, it was waking up and sitting in the captain’s chair and starting with the barking of the orders. Not knowing what the heck happened, someone’s got to be in charge… Oh, golly, shoot, that’s me. 

I think that was my biggest fear as Saru and Doug Jones. We don’t have a captain still. I’m the highest-ranking one sitting here so I gotta take this chair. I’ve got to get us through this very traumatic thing. Saru has been through this before every time the captain has left the ship or, you know, turned out to be a bad guy from another universe. 

Yeah, Same old, same old.

Michael Gibson/CBS

DJ: Yeah, So he understands leadership. And now without his threat ganglia, he can meet that leadership and those responsibilities with less fear and more confidence. So I tried to take my cues from Saru. As an actor that’s like, okay, I have a very heavy workload in episode two, where it is very Saru-and-Tilly-centric. With us leaving the ship and trying to make first contact with this new world and time that we’re in. We have so much we don’t understand. 

I feel that way every day as an actor. There’s so much I don’t understand. I feel like, oh gosh, any minute right now they’re gonna find out I can’t act and it’s all gonna fall apart. So I had Saru to inspire me. Because of the journey he’s been on and the fears he’s overcome—I can do it too, dang it.

It’s interesting that you mentioned the threat ganglia, because we’d seen Saru step up to the plate prior to losing it; like his “this is our ship” speech after the Lorca reveal. That was prior to the metamorphosis and the confrontation with the Ba’ul. Did you make conscious choices to play him as more assertive or bold after that than you previously did or does it feel more like a natural character evolution to you?

DJ: Yeah. I think it ended up being a natural evolution. It was a surprise to me I couldn’t pre-think any of this. When I got that script of episode four (“An Obol for Charon”) last year in Season two and thought: Oh… are they gonna kill me off? You know, cause he thinks he’s dying. Reading that script was the first I’d heard [that] he loses his fear. I’d developed the entire character with a cloud of fear over him since season one. So this was all news to me. I did have a bit of a reset to deal with him. Like, how is he going to wake up tomorrow without threat ganglia? How’s that gonna feel?

He’s still very much a gentleman. I think that’s his number one thing is he’s very prim and proper. If you’ve noticed the way he carries himself, he’s like the butler of the ship. He wants everything to run smoothly and by the book. And he’s very refined and very gentlemanly. So he hasn’t lost that core being of who he is. 

CBS

But he might go through a little bit of teenage liberation where it’s like, “I’m 18, I can do whatever I want!” Having that kind of a moment, right? Especially when he steps up into Captain Pike’s face. When we find Kaminar again and Captain Pike (Anson Mount) suggests that I not be the one to go down and investigate. I was like, oh huh-uh! And I got up in his face. That’s something that Saru would never have done before.

And even when Dr. Culber (Wilson Cruz) and Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif) got into a lunchroom brawl, and I held the crew back saying, “Nope, let them fight it out.” Probably another decision that Saru would not have made before. One of my favorite lines ever delivered was in the turbo lift with Pike, explaining that we’ve never faced these two personality types ever before having a conflict. It’s not in the Starfleet guidebook. 

Speaking of personality types and conflict, I love the interactions between you and Michelle Yeoh as Mirror Georgiou in this episode. It’s like Saru’s Lawful Good meets her Chaotic Neutral. It’s fascinating as a viewer because we also know Saru’s warm history with the Prime Georgiou. She’s the one who saved him from Kaminar; she was his mentor. Does that inform your choices as an actor playing off of her?

DJ: We definitely do have butting heads with different forces. And especially, he has not forgotten that this Mirror Georgiou used to eat his kind [as a] delicacy. He hasn’t forgotten that. But what keeps him civil with her is that she wears the face of that beloved Captain that was a maternal figure to him. So that’s why he can tolerate her. And we’ll see how that relationship grows in season three. But without his threat ganglia, he gets to have moments where he can be very curt with her about not taking her with him for this first contact. And later when she just wants to level all the bad guys, the most poignant thing he said was just getting her face one more time to say, “This is not who we are.” So he does have Starfleet and all that it stands for in his heart and he carries that true and blue. 

Feels like a running theme we’ll see a lot of this season, this heightened emphasis on what Trek is about at its core when put to the test. Another big Trek element is the camaraderie between the crew. It seemed to me this episode was an indicator that some of the crew that had been previously mostly supporting cast in a serialized story are being bumped up into more of a traditional Trek ensemble?

DJ: Yeah, we have the luxury now, of a third season, thank heavens, to find out more about some of those characters that have been playing on the bridge all this time. We’ve already been given a hint of that in episode two with Lt. Detmer (Emily Coutts) our pilot. 

Michael Gibson/CBS

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I’ve been watching Star Trek my whole life. I’ve seen the ship crash and I’ve seen the ships get destroyed multiple times. I’ve never seen the crew in such a realistic state of panic while it’s happening. Like, people are in pain. People recovering from injuries. Stuff like that Detmer situation; you have a doctor there saying that she has no physical injuries, but you can viscerally feel that something is up with her.

DJ: She’s going through something, and we don’t know what that is yet. So we have some onion layers to peel back there and find out what she’s going through. All of us on the crew have left something behind. And all we have right now is each other. So that’s a storyline and kind of a family feeling, a nurturing environment that, you know, we have to cultivate and we have to use in order to survive this new world we’ve jumped into.

Do you think that’s what this version of the show is in a nutshell? Taking previous versions of what Star Trek was and giving it more of a modern, more nuanced understanding of how this stuff would work?

DJ: That’s part of the dance that the writers have had to do, and they’re doing it so beautifully. They have two audiences to appeal to. One is the traditionalists that came up with it from the 1960s. Like me—I’m a 60-year-old fella who saw Kirk and Spock for the first time on network television. That generation, along with a modern audience that has a sophisticated need to see visual effects, to see more reality, even in a fantastical setting. So, it is quite a dance to do. 

And more serialized now too, like you said. The bottle episode was how Star Trek started, where the story starts and ends all in one episode. But this overall arc has to cater to the binge-watching crowd that we have now. Once the season is all done, there are many fans who wait until it’s all watchable in one click. And there are also ones who want to watch it one week at a time. They have to balance out their storytelling for both audiences. 

Switching gears now: Be honest, how comfortable is that Captain’s chair? 

DJ: Well, Saru has been in and out of it a lot. He’s had the role of acting Captain as First Officer a few times now. So it’s familiar. But now it carries some uncertainty to it, because we don’t know… we’ve come to the future. It was hinted at; he looked at Michael Burnham when we were talking to Captain Pike before he left us back to the Enterprise. He suggested that we have to talk about the Captain seat here. And I’m the one who said, “Let’s get through this task at hand. Let’s jump to the future, then we can talk about that.” And I gave a look to Burnham and she gave a look back so it’s kind of hinted that it’s going to be between us. 

And yet, when we jump to the future is… are we going to find the Federation? If we do find them, what condition are they going to be in? Are they going to be up and running? Are they going to be failing? And will they have a captain that knows the future better than we do that’s assigned to us? Or will we self govern that?

He’s feeling more capable himself. But also, as the relationship with Burnham has grown, he also wants to encourage her to also think of herself as a Captain. She’s extremely capable, and he believes in her and she believes in him. So they want this for each other. They know each other is capable. But they also both joined Starfleet in hopes of having a Captain’s chair of their own one day. So it’s another little conundrum we find ourselves in.

CBS

I feel like, regardless of what rank Saru holds, he’s definitely the unofficial ‘papa bear’ of Discovery at this point.

DJ: I feel that too; thank you. I guess he learned from the best. He learned from a very mama bear figure, which was Captain Georgiou. She scooped him up and found him on its own planet and nurtured him. He was right there growing with her and learning so much from. So that parental thing. Now that we have jumped to the future and we left all of our families behind and all our homes behind, all we have each other now. So we have this new chosen family that the Discovery crew is. Yes, I believe that the papa bear figure, fatherly parental sort of feelings, Saru does take that on and takes it on gladly.

And one last question for you, and this might be a stumper. As current Acting Captain, who is your favorite Starfleet Captain, outside of those on Discovery?

DJ: Okay, well I… gosh. Can I give you a two-pronged answer?

You can give me all the answers you want!

DJ: For nostalgia’s sake, I’m gonna say Captain Kirk, because that’s my childhood. And just for utter awesome, oh-my-gosh ‘Best Actor in the World’ sake, I’m gonna say Captain Picard. 

Star Trek: Discovery is now streaming on CBS All-Access in the United States and other streaming outlets worldwide

Featured Image: CBS

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album ‘Intimate Apparel’ is available digitally online.

The post Doug Jones Talks Saru’s Next Chapter on STAR TREK: DISCOVERY appeared first on Nerdist.

It was clear by the end of Star Trek: Discovery’s second season that the show was about to undergo the most dramatic narrative leap of any Trek show in history. While leaving its charismatic new/old characters like Captain Pike and Spock behind to spinoff on their own adventures, Discovery would leap forward from its quasi-prequel timeline and into the distant future. After much anticipation, season three is here to show us just what that future will hold for its crew, and for fans. 

After a brief mysterious intro, reminiscent of the hatch from Lost, we rejoin Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) in the thick of it, literally bursting through the walls of the universe in her time suit from the finale of season two. As her suit collides with the future in the form of a ship, Michael repeatedly shouts for a full system reboot. It’s hard not to interpret that as a fourth-wall-breaking reference to the fact that Discovery itself is performing a hard-reboot on its own premise as a show. 

By the end of the opening sequence, Burnham sends her suit back in time to close off the time travel loop with the last of the red signals. (We saw this sequence from her brother Spock’s point of view at the end of season two.) As Burnham orders the suit to self-destruct once it arrives in the past, the show effectively jettisons all ties to the stories of the first two seasons. Burnham, repeating her name rank and serial number to herself, compels herself to walk, to continue moving forward. 

While we’re almost certain to catch up with Saru, Tilly, and the rest of the crew of the U.S.S. Discovery in the next episode, the premiere chooses instead to affix its eye on Burnham. Michael leads the audience through an infodump disguised as a fetch quest with a smuggler—sorry, “courier”—Book (series newcomer David Ajala). The year is 3188. A cataclysmic event called “The Burn” has undone centuries worth of galactic travel advances and all but erased the United Federation of Planets from existence. The only trace of the intergalactic diplomatic body that remains is a patient man, doing his multi-generational due diligence on an abandoned space station, just waiting for a signal. 

CBS

The easy, knee-jerk reaction to this particular plot point might be one of frustration. An often expressed criticism of the modern Trek shows concerns a tonal shift into darkness. Note the war-torn Federation of Discovery’s first season, and the isolationist ( and genocidal at worst) aspects of Picard. But then there’s Michael. 

Michael plainly states, “The Federation isn’t just about ships and warp drive. It’s about a vision, and all those who believe in that vision.” While we may be two seasons and 930 years away, that moment serves as a direct throughline to the Michael Burnham of the first season. She who stood at the precipice of a victory in the Klingon-Federation War and insisted that if they followed through with their plan to destroy the Klingon homeworld of Qo’noS, they would lose themselves in the process. The same Burnham who made the choice in season two to lead herself and her ship into the future, abandoning the world they knew in order to preserve life in the universe. 

CBS

There is so much light to be found even in this introduction to a galaxy at its most downtrodden. The show has picked up a little of Lower Deck’s humor in the mundane aspects of its futuristic life. A comedic sequence involving Burnham and some truth gas serves as a perfect cover for a plot refresher, reminding the audience of season two’s arc. A final sequence involving the aforementioned “hatch” watchman couldn’t be more obviously designed to pull at the heartstrings. But it succeeds in doing so all the same.

For multiple Trek shows, the Federation has served as a shining example. The bright city on a hill that mankind could strive for. This newer generation of shows, written by those largely inheriting the world from the stories they were inspired by, have a unifying new vision that the Federation is more than just a utopian goal, but an important ideal to strive for. Taking their cues from stories like the Dominion War arc of Deep Space Nine, this next generation has taken a hammer to the Federation. Not to destroy it, but to show that for those like Michael Burnham and her crew, it can never truly be broken. Book refers to her as a “true believer,” first with cynicism, but later with a nod of respect. 

The Federation of previous Trek shows is an important one. Those stories’ places in the pantheon of television and film are not to be discarded or forgotten. But in the way those that came before allowed us to imagining such a future for humanity, maybe these new stories can help us to imagine we can actually build it. 

Star Trek: Discovery is now streaming on CBS All-Access.

Featured Image: CBS

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album ‘Intimate Apparel’ is available digitally online.

The post STAR TREK: DISCOVERY Season 3 Offers Hopeful New Beginnings appeared first on Nerdist.

Arista Records

The show’s earworm of a theme song begins with the line “It’s time to play the music.” And for good reason. The irreverent comedy and lovable characters contribute to the charm and longevity of the Muppets. However, there’s something truly electric about the show’s musical numbers. And since we here at Nerdist love us some Muppet songs, we thought it might be time to praise the music. Here are our choices for the best musical numbers in the show:

5. The Muppet Country Trio – “To Morrow”

This Kingston Trio homage is one of the show’s more simply staged musical numbers. The twangy little music group has a special power over us though. That’s because the three band member puppets look like their puppeteers, Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and Jerry Nelson. While all their personalities, as well as their collaborators’, was all over the show, the trio serves up an extremely clever bit of reverse fourth-wall-breaking.

4. “Time In a Bottle”

As zany as the show could get, sometimes the things that stick with us the most are the extremely poignant numbers. Especially ones like this cover of Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle.” It depicts an aged scientist’s futile attempts to reclaim his youth. The song is a deep and moving look at accepting our own mortality, made all the more bittersweet given the tragic early deaths of both Jim Henson and Croce. 

3. “Mahna Mahna”

Do doo de-do-do.

2. “In The Navy”

The Village People expertly served up gay anthems as disco hits for the masses. That made seeing even the most conservative of grandmas thrusting their hands into the air in the shape of the YMCA on the dance floor at your cousin’s very straight wedding a common sight. Henson and company were no doubt extremely aware of the subversive nature of the group’s music. They served it up even further by taking “In The Navy” and making it work perfectly for their all-ages variety show.

1. Harry Belafonte – “Earth Song”

Jim Henson loved the power of puppetry far beyond the realm of the Muppets. Some of the best moments on The Muppet Show were when they would expand into puppets that weren’t their primary design style—like this number with Belafonte. It’s hard to find the long version of this song online these days, which is sad because the entire sequence is beautiful. Belafonte gently reassures Fozzie while he struggles with his creativity by telling him a story from African Folklore that inspired him. That leads into a performance with puppets that breaks out of the typical Muppet mold. It allowed Belafonte to share a cultural element that often wasn’t seen on television at the time. Or still today. The song was such a favorite of Henson’s that Belafonte sang it at his memorial service. 

Honorable Mention – “Just One Person”

This performance technically didn’t happen on The Muppet Show (although Bernadette Peters and the rest of the company performed another version of the song). This came from the ending of the tribute special released to honor the passing of Jim Henson. The special gave young fans a way to say goodbye to him and understand his loss. As a child at the time that it happened, it remains a defining memory for me. This song will never not make me cry as I remember sitting in front of my family’s TV hearing the Muppets sing it, as well as the performance at his televised memorial service.

As an adult, knowing that real people coping with the loss of someone who they truly loved is underneath the stage using the world Henson created to help others say goodbye makes it all the more powerful. 

Reactions to Muppets music can be personal. So we know that this list might not match up perfectly with your own. What are your picks?

Featured Image: Arista Records

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album ‘Intimate Apparel’ is available digitally online.

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BBC/Big Finish

It is impossible to overstate how big a deal this is. Even with Big Finish audios that mitigate many of the production costs associated with the long-running TV series, multi-Doctor stories are rare.  More significant is that Tom Baker has historically not done any of them. Even “The Five Doctors,” the 20th anniversary special that teamed Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor up with all of his previous incarnations, had to make do with unused footage from the show because Baker didn’t think he should return so soon after having left. While Baker also appeared as a cameo Day, he did so not as the Fourth Doctor, but as a mysterious character known as the Curator, which was ambiguously implied to be potentially a future incarnation of the Doctor but never explicitly stated on screen. 

It makes the most sense that Tennant’s Doctor would be the one that would finally pair up with Baker’s. While individual Whovians have their Doctor, Tennant’s role as the modern statesman for the show is undeniable. Baker holds a similar sway for fans of the classic series; there’s a reason his trademark scarf stands alongside the blue police box as one of the most enduring, iconic images of the show. Even people who’ve never seen the show would recognize it. 

For Doctor Who fans who haven’t listened to a Big Finish audio drama before, and perhaps have hesitated to wade in, “Out of Time, Vol 1.” is an excellent starting point. It’s a self-contained story, one that fits perfectly within the timeline of the TV series and only enhances the events that occur around it. While it may take a few moments to adjust to an audio-only version of the show, the sound editing and production values help greatly. You would almost swear you can see it unfolding in front of you. 

BBC

With “Out of Time,” writer Matt Fitton crafts a story that serves perfectly as the garnish to the gravitas of these two Doctors meeting. It is by no means a filler tale; the Doctors team up against their most persistent of foes, the Daleks. The Doctors must prevent them from wresting control of the Cathedral of Contemplation, a powerful quantum gateway that rotates between all moments of time and space. Yet, as high as the stakes are, and as much as Fitton even manages to sprinkle in solid moments of human drama for the other characters in the story, he also knows that everything happening stands as B-story for the two icons, face-to-face for the first time. 

The crossover is the meat and potatoes of this story and it doesn’t try to hide it. There’s an incredible amount of charm in the conversation between them. There’s always a playful amount of competition and ribbing between different versions of the Doctor, but as previously seen in the Children in Need short “Time Crash” where he met Peter Davison, it’s impossible not to have Tennant’s own fanboy nature shine through. Rather than sidestep it, “Out of Time” leans right in, allowing the Tenth Doctor to gush over the Fourth Doctor as he watches him, that shine of admiration never far from his voice. 

BBC/Children in Need

Something that Fitton excels at in writing different Doctors is not just managing to craft their unique voice in the overall Who mythos, but even nailing down their perspective and persona at a specific point in their timeline. Both actors’ Doctors have their unique and recognizable elements to them, but both also go through a lot during their run. The story heavily implies Tennant’s Doctor is in the period just before “The End of Time,” when he would reluctantly regenerate. It’s a very different time than say, early in his run when he’s still gleefully running around with Rose Tyler (although the audio drama does drop a nice little nod to the Rose/Ten shippers out there.)

While the gleeful, almost Bugs Bunny nature of Tennant’s Doctor is never far from the surface, this era in his life is brimming with anger and pain, he’s been traveling alone too long and it shows. 

In that way, “Out of Time” shares some DNA with the last onscreen multi-Doctor story, “Twice Upon a Time,” in which the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) came face to face with the First Doctor (David Bradley, taking over for the late William Hartnell.) In that story, the two Doctors helped each other make peace with their own impending regeneration, although in Ten’s case the issue is in wanting to keep going where Twelve feels ready to stop for good. One of the highlights of “Out of Time” is a sweet, touching conversation between Tennant and Baker about the longevity and mortality of the Doctor’s incarnations. It’s even more bittersweet given that both actors have long since passed the baton of the show on to other actors. 

This episode is only the first in a planned trilogy, each intended to include a different set of Doctors crossing over, in combinations that may play out very differently, although the casts of these have yet to be announced. Still, if the goal was to kick things off with a bang, then “Out of Time, Vol 1.” certainly delivers, and will likely leave listeners with a thirst to hear these two paired up again as well. 

Doctor Who “Out of Time, Vol 1.” releases on August 26th, 2020, on digital audio and CD.

Riley Silverman is a contributing writer for Nerdist. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album Intimate Apparel is available in digital formats. 

The post DOCTOR WHO Audio Brings Tennant and Baker Together at Last appeared first on Nerdist.

Television is the primary source of new Doctor Who stories and the medium which most folk know it from. For many fans, however, the Big Finish range of Doctor Who stories are their Doctor Who, and it’s not uncommon to see Whovians wandering conventions like Gallifrey One juggling a collection of CDs they’ve either just purchased or are eager to get autographed.

In a few notable cases, the Big Finish versions of the Doctor have breathed a completely new life and energy into a specific iteration, or revisiting aspects of their era that weren’t fully explored by the show, sometimes decades after their run ended. Here are some Doctors whose audio versions have arguably surpassed their TV ones. 

The Eighth Doctor

BBC

Paul McGann’s Doctor made his first appearance in the 1996 TV movie Doctor Who, which was created to serve as a back-door pilot for a revival of the series. The revival didn’t go forward and Doctor Who would not return to screens for another nine years, with Eccleston now in the role, as the regeneration (at the time) following McGann’s. For a while, the Eighth Doctor only lived on in print media, and McGann had the strange distinction of being the actor who had held the role of the Doctor the longest while also portraying him the least.

Since first joining the main range of Big Finish stories and then the launch of his own Eighth Doctor Adventures range, McGann has gone on to star in over 70 audios. For most fans of McGann’s Doctor, the audio adventures are his definitive stories, and his primary existence within the theater of the mind is part of the appeal. His presence in audio form is so significant that in 2013, then-showrunner of the TV series Steven Moffat wrote a mini-episode, “Night of the Doctor,” that featured McGann’s return to screen for the role, and directly named his companions from Big Finish, implying that those stories might even be series canon. 

The Sixth Doctor

Big Finish Productions

While Colin Baker’s tenure of classic Doctor Who has its fans, it’s an era that was, let’s just say, a bit rough. Baker got a little bit of a raw deal. His Doctor was intentionally written as rude and cantankerous and even went so far as to strangle a female companion. This combined with some not unrelated drama behind the scenes with the BBC culminated in Baker’s early dismissal from the role by the network. 

With the Sixth Doctor’s audio adventures, however, Big Finish began to soften the portrayal of the character with energy that ultimately was far more in line with Baker’s own kind demeanor. He was given a companion, Dr. Evelyn Smythe, who helped him smooth out his rough edges, and even got a new costume for his cover art that’s a little less intentionally tasteless as his TV wardrobe, and a bit more in line with the darker, stealthier colors that Baker originally asked for.

There’s such a stark difference from TV Six to Audio Six that Big Finish even released a story, “The Wrong Doctors,” written by Matt Fitton, that features the character bumping into himself from across his own timeline. Through the Big Finish era, and Baker’s own gentle appreciation of Whovians, he was able to go from the Doctor who was fired by the BBC to a warm statesman of the series.

The War Doctor

BBC

Interestingly, John Hurt’s War Doctor only exists because Eccleston had previously declined to return to the role of the Doctor for the 50th anniversary special, “Day of the Doctor.” Intended as a one-off character for the series, the War Doctor was so popular among fans that he eventually got his own books and Big Finish audios as well. It’s likely the character would have been given even more time to travel in our headphones were it not for the tragic loss of Sir John Hurt in 2017. Still, thanks to the War Doctor series, fans of his character were able to travel with him again, if only briefly. 

Charlotte Tromans/BBC

Time will tell if Eccleston’s Doctor will be more remembered from his on-screen stewardship of the role, shepherding the Doctor back into the hearts of audiences the world over, or from the new portrayals he’ll bring to it over time. Given his recent re-embracing of the series and his immense expressions of love for its fandom, it’s hard to imagine that these new stories won’t be something to cherish. 

Featured Image: BBC

Riley Silverman is a contributing writer for Nerdist. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album Intimate Apparel is available in digital formats. 

The post Could New DOCTOR WHO Audio Dramas Redefine the Ninth Doctor? appeared first on Nerdist.

The premiere of Star Trek: Lower Decks on CBS All-Access brings us the second fully-animated series in the Star Trek family, and the third new Trek show to premiere on the streaming channel, after Discovery and Picard. As a comedic departure from typical Trek shows, Lower Decks shares as much of its DNA with Galaxy Quest and The Orville as it does the Next Generation or Discovery. So does this bold new direction for Trek pay off so far? We think so. Here are a few things we loved about the premiere episode, “Second Contact:” 

It’s Not “Too Cool” for Trek

CBS

One of the biggest fears of the concept of a comedic series set in the Star Trek universe is that it would roll its eyes at the institution of the show. It’s clear, however, that the writers of Lower Decks love Star Trek; the series’ humor feels like a natural progression of the types of jokes Trekkies have cracked for decades. It takes the Galaxy Quest-meets-Parks and Recreation route of realizing you don’t need to sacrifice sincerity for the sake of comedy. 

The Characters Are Not “Too Cool” For Trek

StarTrek.com

The nature of a workplace comedy often leads to characters who hate where they are, hate their place in the world, and hate the company they work for. But for fans who have dreamed about serving on starships for their entire lives, seeing a group of crew members who hate being there would have been a huge bummer. The refreshing thing about the Ensigns of the USS Cerritos is that they are all in-universe Star Trek nerds in their own way. Even Ensign Mariner (Tawny Newsome), the rebellious (secret) daughter of the captain, doesn’t rebel because she finds Starfleet lame. By the end of the first episode, we learn she’s actually a gigantic Starfleet nerd. Her behavior is her attempt to emulate the heroes of the Federation that she (and we) have been obsessing over for years.

Mariner’s Holodeck is Horny on Main

CBS

Okay, for sure Mariner springing her naked gymnast holodeck program on Tendi (Noël Wells) without warning was low-key a 24th Century dick pic. But given how many times we’ve seen Janeway or Data dive into a stuffy old holonovel, it’s refreshing to see a character get freaky with it. We’d all do it at least once. Not counting that time Geordi LaForge went full creep, obviously. 

It’s Great To Just Enjoy The Federation Again

CBS

There are a lot of great things to say about Discovery and Picard, but both series rely heavily on the “dark sides” of the Federation for their stories. This is all well and good for weaving sophisticated narratives within the Trek universe, but gosh it’s refreshing to just see a show where the Federation serves as the more shining beacon of potential peace and prosperity in the Alpha Quadrant again. Despite the zombie rage-virus, this is the most we’ve wanted to serve on a Federation Starship since pre-Dominion War Deep Space Nine. 

World-building Through Shipbuilding!

CBS

Part of taking the universe seriously even through a comedic lens, showrunner Mike McMahan and company crafted a class of Starship, the California-class, for the show. Different ships within this class have specific functional duties within the Federation that extend the color-coding system of crew uniforms. This type of detail really helps make the show feel like a truly lived-in and functioning part of the Trek universe and not just a tacked-on, jokey extension. 

It Feels Good To Feel Familiar

CBS

After prequel and sequel shows, it’s really fun to see a series that drops into the continuity of the Trek timeline right after we left it following Nemesis all the way back in 2002. The series taking place in 2380 means we’re passed the Dominion War, and have a good five years of potential stories that feel like the TNG/DS9/Voyager era of Trek before the Romulan Supernova and the Synth attack on Mars. It also leaves the door open for potential guest appearances from characters of that era. And via the magic of voice acting and animation, they won’t inexplicably look 20 years older than the last time we saw them. 

CBS

With all these things going for it, and pretty exciting-looking trailer of things to come at the end, Lower Decks feels poised to be a series that recaptures some of the more wild adventuring fun of the Original Series Trek, with the optimism and idealism that so encapsulated the Next Generation era that many modern fans grew up in. We’ve already seen with Star Wars how animated shows can vastly expand on the mythology of a universe while also providing an entry point for younger fans. Here’s hoping that Lower Decks finds success on its similar mission. 

Featured Image: CBS

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What might have been more surprising for younger me, going by a different name, living as a different gender, and not imagining that such a thing could ever truly change, is that Blue the half-orc was a female character, and that the process of creating her for the game that night was incredibly simple. No agonizing over her creation, no debating if I could pull it off. Just rolling up a character and taking for granted that I could make her whatever leaped out at me. It’s the other end of a decades-long journey through my own private dungeon. 

Were I able to speak to the late Mr. Gygax today*, I’d hope to thank him for what I assume would be an aspect of his legacy that I don’t think he or co-creator Dave Arneson had ever considered. The way that Dungeons and Dragons and the games it inspired helped me find my real self.

(*Writer’s Note: In the time since this article was published, quotes from Gygax regarding his opinions on women in gaming have come to light. While disregarding his role in the creation of Dungeons and Dragons would be an erasure of history, it must be stated that I do not share his opinion and that type of gatekeeping is antithetical to my entire philosophy of D&D.)

Riley Silverman

In the very first tabletop roleplaying game I ever played, the second edition of Werewolf the Apocalypse, I found myself tempted by the possibility of exploring gender through my character. I had pitched to my GM (game master) the idea that my character was someone who would adopt a female persona as part of his litany of disguises. It was rejected, and I went with a more simplified concept, but I always found myself drawn to those types of ideas. I had neither the courage or self-awareness to just flat out pitch playing a female character. Even amongst a group of nerdy teenage outcasts rolling dice in a basement I saw this as likely a step too far. 

While speaking with other gamers in the LGBTQ+ community, comedian Älia Meth told me she felt similarly as a teen, never feeling comfortable exploring female characters at the table. “I tried to affirm what I thought was my gender for so long to fit in, that I did that with RPGs too,” Meth said.

I was told almost the opposite from Em, a lesbian who told me that she doesn’t think she’s ever played a female character in an RPG, “but I’ve been out since I was a child so I don’t know what influenced what in that regard.”

Absent a steady source of in-person gaming outside that group, I took my desire to play RPGs online, to the early days of the internet with dial-up connections and text-based chatrooms on America Online. Here there were countless communities with dice-roller macros built into chat; making a character sheet was as easy as filling in a PDF and creating a new screen name. I found it safer to be myself by proxy through a monitor.

I took a bit of a hiatus from RPGs in college, distracted by school and the time consuming early days of my stand-up career. I returned in my mid-20s by joining a local live-action roleplaying group that played regular games in a small underground strip mall next to a boba tea shop on the Ohio State campus. While I created typical male characters again when joining the group, I quickly became aware of how much more diverse the voices were. While no one was explicitly trans, there were multiple queer identities present, with characters that reflected that, and even the seemingly hetero cis man who ran one of the groups would often play female characters while DMing. Soon I started to feel like maybe the waters were in need of testing.

Onyx Path Publishing

I joined in on a session of Changeling the Lost, a game that centered around humans who had returned to the mortal realm after having been kidnapped and held in captivity by the fae. It was fertile ground to create a character dealing with trauma, and I planted my seeds in the form of Simon Verona. Simon, who I played with an atrocious Northern English accent, had been transformed by his fae keeper into a form of feminine beauty, only to have his mortal form restored upon his return. Simon was an angry, bitter character, who hated the very vision of his face in the mirror. Simon would cross-dress to attempt to recapture that form only to find it fueled his self-hatred in preferring the beauty of his captured changeling form to his human body.

I only got to play as Simon for a few sessions before the game fell apart due to unrelated group dynamics, but I look back at him now and recognize it as the first time that I truly addressed head-on the trauma of my own sense of dysphoria. Absent a few metaphorical magical ingredients, Simon was an extremely literal depiction of my own struggles with identity and loathing. Of my anger and frustration at my own closet, that I didn’t know at the time I was on the very cusp of finally leaving.

For a Vampire the Requiem LARP, I created a character that allowed me to explore gender in a less angsty way. Inspired by Bowie and the Velvet Underground, I created a bisexual, androgynous vampire who had been turned during the heyday of glam rock and still clung to the aesthetic. Roleplaying in a very public space, the monthly Gallery Hop in Columbus’ Short North, I used the freedom of the character to indulge in making my look a little more femme, women’s pants, boots with a bit of heel, and a dash of eyeliner. Those gaming sessions were some of the first times I’d ever dressed in women’s clothing in public, feeling protected in my armor of being able to say “Oh this, it’s for an immersive gaming thing, no big deal,” if I ran into anyone I knew. 

Ryan Omega of the Twitch gaming shows Scabby Rooster, Blank Slate, and Life. Action. Roleplay! also found LARPing to be a great place to test the waters of coming out. “I used LARP to do some self-actualization by dressing better and playing out my sexuality,” he told me. “Luckily, I also had anime. Yaoi was the gate. LARP is where I put those theories to the test.” 

White Wolf Entertainment

Dash Kwiatkowski, GM of the Lost in the Multiverse podcast, unexpectedly found themself in a similar path. “I think voicing female characters, specifically for the format of theatrical liveplay podcast, really got me thinking about ‘performing gender,’ and what that means,” Kwiatkowski said. “Taking the time to consider what it meant to perform gender in terms of female characters made me deeply aware of what it meant to perform gender for male characters, which ultimately let me reflect on how I was performing ‘male’ gender outside of the context of this podcast and game table.”

Kwiatkowski continued, “Once you start acknowledging that your perceived gender isn’t necessarily intrinsic, but instead something you play into for society, I think you have the space to figure out what you actually are.”

For some, not playing into their own gender identity can actually be the thing that adds value to their game. Sy Clarke-Chan, a transmasculine non-binary writer, plays femme characters almost exclusively, and never questioned the choice until conversations about it on social media made them think they were supposed to. “I mainly play as femme characters because it feels a little freeing not to constantly be grappling with gender issues that need to be explained carefully to other people,” says Clarke-Chan. 

I came out not long after that Vampire game. My road to transitioning and living openly as myself was hardly short, but it also led to my being able to focus on other elements in my character building and storytelling. I’ve even managed to do a small amount of self-representation, choosing to play trans characters like Velma Sweet on the D&D series The Broken Pact, or even playing as Braga the orc barbarian from the Rat Queens comic book in the official tabletop adaptation last year. For both characters, their gender origins mostly existed in the periphery, not a matter of plot but simply a matter of fact. And thanks to a long journey that included the occasional dice rolling and the slaying of a few personal demons, so is mine. 

Featured Image: Art by Tyler Jacobsen for Wizards of the Coast

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album ‘Intimate Apparel’ is available digitally online.

The post Finding Our Queer Identities in DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS appeared first on Nerdist.

In 2018, after decades of owning both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic the Gathering, Wizards of the Coast finally decided to mine popular settings from the card game for new D&D settings. The first Magic block to get the D&D sourcebook treatment was the planetwide city Ravnica. Now, D&D has returned to the Magic multiverse, with a new sourcebook, Mythic Odysseys of Theros.

Originally slated for a June 2 release, the physical book was pushed back till July 21. Third-party digital toolset site D&D Beyond, however, gave users access to a digital copy on the original date. We took advantage of this opportunity to check the book out to give you, our readers, a rundown before the physical book is released.

A Unique Setting

Svetlin Velinov

Inspired by Ancient Greece, Theros is a setting for players looking for a little more Clash of the Titans instead of Lord of the Rings. It’s a world where mythology is history, where minotaurs and humans war at the borders of new emerging cities, and gods wander the landscape looking to be empowered by the worship of mortals. It’s not the first tabletop RPG to explore Ancient Greece; games like Mazes and Minotaurs and Agon have explored the era as well. But what Theros does is highlight the versatility of the D&D system by showing how effectively their Fifth Edition can port over to a wholly different world setting.

Because the world is steeped in myth, the setting book makes an active choice not to rely as heavily on maps and defined geography. Players are encouraged to think of the world as shaped by the very idea of belief itself. Histories and locations may often be as contradictory as they are mutually true. Locations may be found better via the journey itself than the plotting of a specific course.

Though based on a card game block and inspired by Ancient Greece, the Theros D&D setting is entirely self-contained within the gaming system. You don’t need to know the card block or even any Greek mythology to play it. The pantheon and worldbuilding is given expansive detail within the book so that even someone, such as myself, who has never played Magic can fully imagine the world. One simply needs the Odysseys sourcebook, and an understanding of the info within the Player’s Handbook or Dungeon Master’s Guide, like most D&D settings, to proceed.

Gods Amongst Us

Jamie Jones

One of the biggest departures from other D&D games is just how active a role gods play within Theros. While pantheons of deities exist in most other fantasy realms that the game has to offer, on the plane of Theros they’re active characters. The gods of this plane have an investment in the world. Their massive forms can be seen traversing the sea, ruling over expansive cities, or guiding lost souls to the underworld. DMs are encouraged to craft stories and campaigns where the gods themselves are active characters, rather than mysterious beings lurking unseen on the sidelines, speaking only through spells and divinations unless all hell has literally broken loose

I particularly love the way the book incorporates the flavor of the gods themselves in their individual chapters, including examples of myths the folk of Theros might have about them. These myths flesh out their personalities but also give glimpses into how a player’s character might have learned about them in-universe growing up, giving the world a very lived-in feeling. For those who have no interest in that, an iconoclast feature exists, allowing for characters who aren’t atheists per se, but for whom the gods just aren’t worth the time and attention they crave.

New Goodies

Johannes Voss

A new setting book wouldn’t be complete without new races and subclasses, of course. And while Theros is actually missing some of the major D&D races like elves and dwarves, the minotaurs and centaurs from Ravnica make another appearance, as well as two new races, the jovial Satyrs, and the lion-inspired Leonid. There’s also a new Bard college that plays into the philosophical roots of Ancient Greece, the College of Eloquence, which gives power to the character’s spoken word, and feels like it’d also be great for players looking to play a version of The Doctor from Doctor Who.

While most D&D settings intend for the player characters to heroic in scale, Theros views them as full-on mythical champions. Players are invited to imagine themselves as a Pericles, an Achilles, or a Cassandra, wandering through their own great epic tales. The game cleverly adapts the optional Feats rule from other D&D settings into a Supernatural Gifts mechanic, a special benefit that characters begin the game with that grant them abilities and features that reflect their epic destinies. Player characters might be an oracle of a specific god, or perhaps they’ve got a destiny that allows them to survive a round of saving throws to reflect their unusually tough time being killed.

Overall

With every new D&D setting, there exists the added difficulty of needing to assign homework to a whole player group in order to play it. This is a big reason why most adventure books, like the upcoming Icewind Dale, are set in the Forgotten Realms. It’s already understood as the default setting by most D&D players who can leap in with just their Handbook. But if you’ve got the time to invest and a group willing to look over a new setting, Theros offers a unique D&D experience that allows for a break from the type of story without having to learn another gaming system, and it’s a vibrant and exciting setting that is definitely worth a look.

Mythic Odysseys of Theros will be available at gaming and book stores on July 21, it is currently available digitally on D&D Beyond.

Note: The author of this piece was a cast member on a D&D-sponsored Twitch stream set in the Ravnica setting.

Featured Image: Wizards of the Coast

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album ‘Intimate Apparel’ is available digitally online.

The post Take an Odyssey in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS’ New THEROS Setting appeared first on Nerdist.

BBC

Thirteen, basically a Whovian mod of the popular 2048 mobile game, invites players to a 4×4 game board and challenges them to slide matching Doctors into each other, regenerating them into the next Doctor in the show’s cycle. So, two William Hartnells (the first Doctor) becomes one Patrick Troughton. Two Troughtons become one Jon Pertwee, who in turn become Tom Baker and so on. Whenever you side the pieces in a given direction, a new William Hartnell joins the board, filling up space and making it almost impossible to get to Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor. (Technically the fourteenth Doctor in the game, as in the show, since John Hurt’s War Doctor is placed between Paul McGann’s Eight and Christopher Eccleston’s Nine.)

The simple enough seeming game is actually a very devious and addicting time drain. Over at Nerdist, we’ve tried a variety of strategies and even just taken to randomly pressing buttons in a left and right, or up and down pattern, or doing a repetitive up, right, down, left sequence to see how far we’ve gotten. 

BBC

The highest we’ve managed to get to is a single John Hurt, whether we’re seriously focusing on the game or leaving it up to chaos. Once. Typically, the appearance of a Paul McGann on the field feels like a harbinger of defeat. Which, frankly, is a terrible way to feel about poor Paul McGann. 

Radio Times published several reactions from readers and fans of the show attempting to succeed at the game. We especially loved this one from Twitter user Max Curtis, who basically did the digital version of removing and replacing the stickers on a Rubik’s Cube. 

@MaxCurtis

Just as the slides move back and forth on the board, we continue to slip between loving the challenge and hoping that Jo Martin arrives to break the glass and toss the entire thing into a hole at the end of the galaxy. 

Have you been caught up in the Thirteen madness yet? Tell us your strategies, success stories, or share your own defeats in the comments!

Featured Image: BBC

The post This DOCTOR WHO Game Will Consume Your Time(y Wimey) appeared first on Nerdist.

RCA Records

That’s why we were so delighted to stumble upon this YouTube video from a pair of 21-year-old twin brothers from Gary, Indiana getting their introduction to the crooner and Buffy producer. Posting as TwinsthenewTrend, the twins have been posting a series of videos where they listen to audience-recommended tracks for the first time. In between our searches for Muppets doing covers and deep dives into the soundtracks of Disneyland, we got recommended this clip of Tim and Fred Williams listening to Parton’s ‘Jolene’ for the first time. 

There’s a certain delight that one gets when hearing that funky opening riff of the song, even after countless plays. But seeing that same reaction for the first time on both of their faces as soon as it kicks in really takes us back to our own initial hearing of it. Watching them both get into it is just an injection of pure joy. 

The Williams brothers have a whole series of reaction videos. Others include the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun,”  Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer,” and another one of our Parton favorites, “9 to 5.” We’re not alone in this recent discovery—their subscribers are quickly rising. And when researching them, we even discovered they just got covered by People. But this Jolene video made our day and we had a feeling you’d appreciate it too. 

Are there any classic hit songs you’ve never listened to? Give them a spin and let us know how you felt about them in the comments!

Cover image: 20th Century Studios

The post Twins Listening to “Jolene” for the First Time Is Delightful appeared first on Nerdist.

Often referred to as the “HamilFilm” by die-hard fans of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical, the film is not a cinematic adaptation of the show. Shot all the way back in June 2016, this filmed version of the stage production stars the entirety of the original Broadway cast before they scattered to the winds into other projects.

Nerdist recently sat down with cast members Leslie Odom, Jr., and Phillipa Soo, who originated the roles of Aaron Burr (sir) and Eliza Hamilton on Broadway. We discussed the feel of the new production, what the prevailing message of Hamilton is in 2020, and the overall legacy of the show. 

On the filmed version of the stage musical

Disney

PHILLIPA SOO: Being out in the audience, you see a very wide scope of things. In this film version, I felt like it’s as if somebody asked me to come see the show. And not only did I get to switch seats and be in the most ideal position for every single moment, but I got to also come up on stage and live in a dream where I’m surrounded by the storytelling and almost have an immersive experience too.

LESLIE ODOM JR.: Well, I mean, my favorite thing about this show besides just as a piece of writing, was that all-star ensemble that put the thing together. So just as a fan of those performers, the fact that I got to change my seat from either stage left to stage right or just upstage of them. The movie allows me to sit out front. It allows me to have that vantage point and take them in that way. It’s a great gift.

I’m a theatre practitioner, I’m a fan of the theater. I’m a fan of what happens in theatre, the catharsis and conversations, and the entertainment and the way that I’m changed and moved in the theater. That’s one of my favorite things in life. And so that is my favorite thing about this presentation of the show. That I get to really enjoy some people who are really skilled at what they do, who are some of the best at what they do, and I’ll get to cherish and hold on to these performances.

On how this film version translates some of their most intense moments in the show, like “Burn” and “The Room Where It Happens,” both actors had lots of praise for Thomas Kail, the director of the musical and the movie. “

LOJ: Film is a director’s medium so Tommy gets all the credit for that. I can’t imagine a better version of it. It honors the performances. It honors the choreography. It honors the live aspect of it. It honors all of the people that it took to make that moment happen.

PS: I am so grateful to how Tommy has captured all of us in this. I think especially in a moment like “Burn,” it felt so… it did feel intimate. He’s just so smart in the ways that he wanted to capture particular moments and getting in, in places where you can’t get in when you’re watching the show in an audience. He really pushes in, in the moments where we sort of want to move closer. My breath was just taken away.

On the message and legacy of the show

Disney

Hamilton is, of course, a show about revolution. A violent, chaotic revolution. It’s a show that challenges the narrative of America’s own history through the choices it makes in its storytelling and its casting.

LOJ: It’s just a piece of art at the end of the day. But I think you can hold it up as a symbol of what’s possible when we invite more than just straight white men to the room, quite frankly.”

Given that aspect of the show, how do those who performed in it feel about its place in the voice of America in the summer of 2020?

PS: What is true is that revolution is messy. Creating a new nation back then was an imperfect experience. And I think our experience now is also an imperfect experience. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t strive to participate as citizens in this country to make it the world that we want to be.

LOJ: The conversation has progressed, the country has progressed. You know, you may not feel like it, there’s new information, there’s more history that gathered behind us every year that we’re on this planet. You know, it’s funny. When these protests started, and people were like, “No, no, the way to do it is through peaceful protest.” It’s like, okay, let me remind you of the last Black man to try and peaceful protest. His name’s Colin Kaepernick. And you called him a son of a b**** and you said, “Son of a b**** is off the field.” Some people’s memories are very short, but the facts are the facts and there’s more history behind it that we can point to.

My final show I dedicated to Philando Castile. I was so hurt and kind of grappling with his death. I think he was murdered on the 6th of July [2016] and I think my final performance was on the 9th or the 11th. So I was still trying to untie that. And I remember when Sandra Bland mysteriously turned up dead in her cell. I remember thinking about the women in my show, the Black women in my show, and what they must have been going through, what I was going through at that time.

We’re seeing the same things continue to happen, what we’re not seeing is people sitting back and taking it anymore. So people out there,  they want to see something done about it. We’re seeing some small changes happen, and some large changes happen.

PS: I think that more than ever, we need something like this to remind us, of the places that we want to go to. To give us some hope to give us some inspiration. And to know that, you know, even in even amidst chaos, there’s something to be found there. There’s something to be searched for. Which might be, you know, it might be dangerous, it might be messy. It might be loud, it might be violent. But in the end, as long as we’re working towards building something, you know, we can, we can set our eyes towards that.

Joan Marcus

LOJ: Theater is dark, theaters are dark all over the country all over the world. It’s not happening. But because we were able to preserve the show in this way Hamilton will maybe get to continue to be a part of the national conversation. I’d like to see how people pick it up. If it inspires, does it do anything for that? I really don’t know.

PS: I think it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. What all great art is supposed to do, which is to hold a mirror up to society, to give people a chance to ask themselves, “Who are we? What do we stand for?” And I think back [in 2016], some of us maybe had a different answer. And I think that answer has changed for a lot of us now. I think that if we can accept the things about ourselves that are dark and imperfect and flawed, but that is the first step in really creating a country that we want to be in.

Hamilton premieres on July 3 on Disney+.

Featured Image provided by Disney

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In honor of the fifteenth anniversary of Doctor Who’s modern incarnation, and the entirety of the revived series finding its new streaming home on HBO Max, not one, not two, but three of the modern Doctors made a historical joint appearance this week. David Tennant, Jodie Whittaker, and Matt Smith all sat down via streaming chat to discuss their part in the decades-spanning series.

There is no such thing as enough time for a Doctors panel, but some of the interesting things that the trio discussed with IGN’s Terri Schwartz were dream co-stars. When asked which other Doctor’s companions they’d love to travel with, Smith enthusiastically picked Rose Tyler so he could work with his close pal Billie Piper again. Jodie picked Rory Pond, er, Williams, for the same reason—working with pal Arthur Darvill. Tennant picked a more bittersweet choice: Brigadier Leftbridge-Stewart played by the late Nicholas Courtney in the classic run of the series. Tennant revealed he was set to film an appearance with the Brig actor towards the end of his run on the show before Courtney became too ill for it to take place.

Whittaker echoed the sentiments of, I venture to say, Nerdist‘s entire Doctor Who coverage team when asked which deceased character she’d like to bring back. Her answer: Sharon D. Clarke’s Grace O’Brien, with whom her Doctor shared the titular role in Jodie’s debut episode “The Woman Who Fell to Earth.” Same, Jodie. Same.

BBC

After the panel, Nerdist was able to obtain an exclusive three-on-one with the stars to discuss their history (and current experiences, in the case of Jodie) playing the Doctor.

Did any of you make any conscious changes in your performance in between your first and second season, once you had a chance to kind of wear the Doctor a little bit and have some space from it before going back into the role?

David Tennant: Don’t remember making any conscious decisions. I remember feeling that a lot of it was to do with just relaxing a bit just sort of going, “It’s okay.” It’s a big thing to take on. There’s so much pressure before you shoot a single scene. It’s very hard to keep the noise out of your head. And I think once you’ve got one season under your belt, it was easier to go back and go, “It’s all right, I’m allowed to be here now.” I don’t know if that was conscious as much as just sort of a benefit of having survived.

Matt Smith: Yeah, there’s sort of more pressure on the writers for the second season, isn’t there? They sort of tend to panic because they’ve got that first season in their head generally. And then the second one is often it’s a bit like kind of second album syndrome. I think they sort of panic a bit but we just crack on with it, don’t we?

Jodie Whittaker: Yeah, and I think what’s exciting for us is that we’re coming in and knowing that we’ve explored so much. The first season is quite an adrenaline for yourself. But then actually when it is your second season, like you say about the writers, Matt, it’s them that generally lets you explore a different side. And so it feels like maybe this massive choice that you’re gonna play it differently. But it’s like well, no, it’s just these episodes are new and the pace is being mixed up. But that’s what’s great about it, is that you get more than one season. You get to put your you’ve toes into all these different like emotions and sides to the Doctor.

BBC

What was the most gut-wrenching scene that you had to film during your run as the Doctor?

DT: Oh, for me, probably the last ones. Yeah, ‘cause it’d been such an exciting, wonderful, happy sort of vivid time. No matter how resolved you are to moving on and however right that might be—that it may absolutely be the right time to do that—it’s still a tough thing to leave. Because you sort of know that whatever else happens, and however you’ve felt about it, that there will be no job that will be quite like this job ever again.

JW: I think I know I haven’t had that yet. And I think I already can… If I think about leaving, it makes me cry. The actual thing when it happens… I can preempt that that will be my devastating moment.

MS: And you’ve got to be really nice about it as well. That’s the other thing.

JW: You guys were nice to me. Peter [Capaldi] was lovely. Peter is the most extraordinary artist and so he wrote a card and it had the TARDIS and a welcome mat on and I was so blown away. I’ve got to work on that. Like I’m going to do like some crap thing. Be all like, “Good luck… there you go.”

BBC

What was it like going into your first iconic “Doctor speech.” How did you get into the mindset for that?

JW: My first Doctor speech was day two, on a crane. And so the brilliant thing was I was completely obsessed with the health and safety on the crane. Once we went and we realized…it was all right, me and “Tim Shaw” weren’t gonna fall off, I got into it. And weirdly that adrenaline, and the fizzing of everything, the elements. It was [pouring] down. It was really Welsh weather. Everything about it was epic.

It felt like any self-conscious elements in my actorness kind of had to go away, because I had too many other things to think about. So I think I was really lucky. I was angry when I saw the call sheet. And I was like, “You kidding me?” But then actually, in hindsight, had it been three weeks in, it’d have been this big oh my god moment.

DT: In my first story, I’m unconscious for like, two-thirds of it, and then I wake up and kind of talk for the final third. So it was all stacked in that way, too. There was a lot of waiting and it all ended with a sword fight. It was a bit silly, but in a way, I liked that, because it meant you could rehearse that like a play. It was just you talking to some monsters who just had to stand there and listen and then you fought one of them at the broadsword.

MS: Cunningly, they shot episodes five and six of my series first, purposefully, because Alex Kingston was in it heavily and they thought she’d be a good conduit for me. And then they shot episode one. But my first day on the set of Doctor Who was on a beach. It was a bit like you, Jodie.

We had to shoot because the tide was coming in and just came in early. And we’re looking up at this big cliff and it was me, Alex, and Karen. The elements just completely screwed us, really. And so we just cracked on with it. That’s what’s great, isn’t it? You film it in Wales and there’s nothing you can do. It’s either raining freezing or raining or freezing. Yeah. It means you just sort of literally dive in with both feet.

BBC

DOCTOR WHO is available to stream exclusively on HBO Max and future season/special will premiere on BBC AMERICA.

Featured Image: BBC

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album Intimate Apparel is available digitally online.

The post We Talked to 3 DOCTOR WHO Doctors at the Same Time appeared first on Nerdist.

So, in honor of that film, I decided to take on the arduous, thankless, and utterly terrifying task of attempting to rank all of the Williams/Ascher songs from The Muppet Movie. (Sorry, “America the Beautiful.”) 

7. “Never Before, Never Again”

As a Muppet fan, you either love Miss Piggy or you don’t. Sadly, as much as I want to support one of the only major female characters, and pretty much the only one in the main Muppet lineup, I have never really loved her. She has some great moments, like leaving the movie midway because her agent calls her with a commercial deal; it felt like the Muppet Show was always more conducive to letting her shine with those kinds of moments. My least favorite moments with Miss Piggy are the ones like this that revolve around her and Kermit as a romantic pairing. Toss in the piercing shrillness of the song in such high falsetto, and it’s maybe my only clock-glancing number in the whole film.

6. “Can You Picture That?”

Nothing but love over here for Doctor Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. This song also sets up one of my favorite jokes in the movie: “I don’t know how to thank you guys.” “I don’t know why to thank you guys.” Out of all the songs in the film, though, as catchy and fun as it is, “Can You Picture That?” feels the most like Paul Williams could have just plucked it from one of his albums. I think if this song had appeared in an episode The Muppet Show, it might have been more of a standout than it is. 

5. “I Hope That Something Better Comes Along”

Admittedly, I might rank this song higher on my list here more because of what I love about it as an avowed Jim Henson fanatic. There’s something magical about Rowlf, one of Henson’s earliest Muppet “stars”; he’d perform on The Jimmy Dean Show, in an era Kermit was still a sort of an amorphous lizard thing. By the time of this scene of course, Kermit was undeniably the most iconic Muppet. Indeed, he’s the one most closely associated with Henson and his own personality. It’s like Henson singing a duet with himself and celebrating his own work’s history. Plus the joke of Rowlf saying he takes himself for a walk will remain with me forever. 

This is where the rankings start to get really hard. 

4. “Movin’ Right Along”

There’s really nothing bad to say about this song. It’s a purely charming, catchy banger between Kermit and Fozzie. The sequence is full of silly gags and feels like it echoes the friendship of performers Henson and Oz. As someone who has driven across the country multiple times, it’s almost impossible not to have had this song in my head at some point. And it does perfectly represent that sort of lost but not really feeling, the haziness of the brain from staring out a windshield for double-digit hours. Especially with a bear in the car. 

3. “Finale: The Magic Store”

Along the same lines as the connection between Henson and Oz in “Movin’ Right Along,” it’s hard not to feel a little bit of autobiographical glee coming off the entire company in this closing number. That the Muppets had grown from coffee salesmen and local TV wunderkinds into the stars of their very own motion picture is huge. And the message of the song, the self-empowerment to take the things you dream about and fantasize about and work to make them your own, is an optimistic and enduring one. 

2. “Rainbow Connection”

Undoubtedly the most iconic song from the film. It earned Williams and Ascher an Oscar nomination. Countless musicians have covered it. It was the song that the 2011 The Muppets movie chose to use as a tethering track between the two films. It’s such a simple, stripped-down song, but not simplistic. Williams and Ascher crafted it specifically for Kermit’s speech patterns. Like “The Magic Store,” it contains a message of the power of thought and imagination that could easily be a thesis statement for everything that Jim Henson, and by extension, the Muppets, stood for.

1. “I’m Going To Go Back There Someday”

For all the joys and excitement of “The Magic Store,” and “Rainbow Connection,” there’s just something truly remarkable about this song. “Someday” isn’t just my favorite song from The Muppet Movie, it’s a song that is a strong contender for my favorite out of any Muppet property, including The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and any subsequent movie following this one. Maybe I’m biased by my memories of being a young queer kid who didn’t know how she fit into the world. I feel like anyone who felt like a lost outsider could relate hard to Gonzo, the “weirdo” in a group even as offbeat as the Muppets. Him wandering off into the darkness to ponder the nature of longing and belonging is something that has only grown to hit me harder and harder as I’ve grown older.

The other songs in this movie often inspire me,  “Someday” haunts me. The Muppets have never been explicitly for children, and running gags throughout this movie drive that point home. Even so, this song’s placement in this film, during the collective and literal dark night of the Muppets’ soul remains one of the most universally beautiful things about it. 

The Muppet Movie is available to stream on Disney+. 

Cover Image: The Jim Henson Company/Disney

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album ‘Intimate Apparel’ is available digitally online. 

The post Ranking the Songs in THE MUPPET MOVIE appeared first on Nerdist.

On June 18, 2005, the first season (or “series,” if you want to be properly British about it) of the modern relaunch of Doctor Who came to a close with “Parting of the Ways.”  The episode marked the departure of Christopher Eccleston from the iconic role and the very first appearance of David Tennant as the newly regenerated Tenth Doctor. (Or Eleventh, or… well how do we even count them anymore?) To mark this fifteenth anniversary of Tennant’s Who debut, several Nerdist writers decided to share our favorite stories of his popular run, and why they matter to us.

“The Girl in the Fireplace”

BBC

My favorite episodes of Doctor Who are: the ones that make creative use of time travel as a plot device, the ones that explore unique and interesting worlds, the ones that utilize legitimately scary aliens or monsters, and the ones that really push at your emotional limits. “The Girl in the Fireplace” stands out for me because it accomplishes all of these. The clockwork robots with their painted French aristocracy masks are terrifying while also scratching that itch for steampunk fandom, holding me off from purchasing a tiny, bespectacled top hat.

The time warp portals serve as an early peek into the “Timey Wimey” nature of time—built upon in the next season’s “Blink”—and set up the destiny of Madam du Pompadore at the episode’s end. As an added bonus, “Fireplace” serves as one of the few adventures where Mickey gets bumped up from the earthbound (ex-) boyfriend into full-fledged, traveling-in-the-TARDIS companion. On top of all of that, Tennant’s Doctor leaps through a mirror on a horse, like the swashbuckling hero icing on the creepy, heartbreaking cake.

-Riley Silverman

“The Impossible Planet” / “The Satan Pit”

BBC

In this two-parter from David Tennant’s first season, the Doctor and Rose Tyler end up trapped on a base along with its human crew, who are exploring the blackhole they’re orbiting. But strange things start to happen as they drill further into the crust of the planet to find the source of the gravity funnel that’s keeping it stable. This marks the first time we’re introduced to the Ood, the obedient, peaceful race whom the humans make subservient and whom the Beast trapped within in the core possesses. There’s plenty for Doctor/Rose shippers to swoon over, as they discuss how being stranded together forever (with a mortgage payment even!) might not be so bad.

The episode deals with some major existential questions, as the Beast claims to be what some people on Earth would call the devil. It’s a solid story all around, boasting a strong guest cast and compelling mystery, but it’s the climax that seals it for me. As the Doctor contemplates whether destroying the creature (who he has determined to be a fraud) will mean sacrificing Rose, he proves to the Beast that its power pales in comparison to hers. “I’ve seen fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods, and out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing, just one thing…I believe in her.”

-Sage Young

“The Shakespeare Code”

BBC

Doctor Who sings to my heart when its adventures center on historical figures. Given that, the third series episode “The Shakespeare Code” remains my favorite Tenth Doctor episode. He and Martha travel to 1599 in her first trip in the TARDIS; they meet William Shakespeare and go to the Globe Theatre. Poppets, aliens (Carrionites) using word-based science, decadent sets and costumes, plus the introduction of Queen Elizabeth I and her mistrust of the Doctor—it’s a powerhouse episode. In some moments, Martha schools Shakespeare about what women are capable of—particularly Black women. It’s her first journey through time and space, and she’s already fierce and formidable. And it’s just the beginning for her and the Doctor.

-Amy Ratcliffe

“Midnight”

BBC

For an episode written at the eleventh hour when another fell through, “Midnight” might well be the best, darkest, and most emblematic episode of the David Tennant era. Without Donna to buffer him, the Tenth Doctor shows all of his sides, from the boyishly exuberant to the exceedingly pompous. We never know what the creature is or what it wants, but we know how easily it can wear down a group of people. Fear through paranoia, distrust, and scapegoating. It was a ferocious episode in 2008 and it’s just as upsetting today. And Tennant shows the full range of his acting ability, to devastating results.

–Kyle Anderson

“The Stolen Earth” / “Journey’s End”

BBC

This two-part season finale is the Whoniverse’s version of Avengers: Endgame. I love how it includes all of Ten’s companions and friends—Martha, Rose, Jackie, Mickey, Jack, Sarah Jane, Harriet Jones, and Donna—for an epic adventure to save a couple dozen planets. “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End” tie together the arcs, themes, and breadcrumbs scattered from Doctor Who’s previous three seasons, as well as giving fans a fun Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures crossover.

There’s a lot of unexpected plot twists and strong character moments for all as The Doctor reckons with his influence on others. It sets the Tenth Doctor up for his final episodes as Russell T. Davies finished the first chapter on the revived series. I will never get over Donna’s heartbreaking ending, but the scene where everyone celebrates and pilots the TARDIS together is still one of my favorite Who moments of all time.

–Tai Gooden

Honorable Mention: “Time Crash”

BBC

Filmed for the Children in Need special in 2007, “Time Crash” features the meeting of Tennant’s Doctor and (his future father-in-law) Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor. Though not an official part of the season, the short explains the reason the Titanic was able to collide with the TARDIS at the end of “Last of the Time Lords” following the departure of Martha Jones. Seeing Tennant, a lifelong Doctor Who fanboy himself, gush over meeting one of his heroes but also his own character’s past self, is just utterly charming and delightful. Though he’s in character as the Doctor, when Tennant states to Davison, “You were my Doctor,” it feels very much like he’s speaking as himself.

-Riley Silverman

Featured Image: BBC

The post Nerdist Staff’s Favorite David Tennant DOCTOR WHO Episodes appeared first on Nerdist.

Fuzztopia

I spoke to Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend co-creator and star, as well as close friend of Schlesinger, about the album and her contribution to it. She performs a lounge rendition of “Stacy’s Mom” that she described as their favorite thing to perform together live. “I never thought I could mourn by singing a song about crushing on a MILF but it was a surprisingly great way to process emotions,” Bloom said. “My original pass was recorded on a shitty mic that I’ve had for years, on GarageBand. Then Jack Dolgen talked me through production and had me order some proper equipment.” Dolgen, a music supervisor and staff writer on CEG, contributes a cover of “What’ll It Be” to the mix. 

The album features tracks that span the entirety of Schlesinger’s prolific career. It includes artists like Ted Leo, Nada Surf, and a duet from Ben Lee and Sarah Silverman. The latter was collaborating with Schlesinger on a stage musical of The Bedwetter at the time of his passing. 

“This is the closest thing to a mass memorial that his friends and collaborators are gonna get for now,” says Bloom. “You can feel the love pouring out from each track.”   

Saving For a Custom Van is available on Bandcamp

Featured Image: Father Daughter Records

The post SAVING FOR A CUSTOM VAN Album Pays Tribute to Adam Schlesinger appeared first on Nerdist.

D&D Beyond

It’s not the first time that D&D Beyond has made unofficial D&D content available for its users. As part of their sponsorship of Critical Role, they added a character class based on Matthew Mercer’s Blood Hunter concept, and a Gunslinger subclass to the Fighter class. (Disclosure: Critical Role has previously been affiliated with Nerdist sister-site, Geek & Sundry)

The Runeterra campaign module is based in the city of Bilgewater within the world of Runeterra. The module describes the city as “an independent port city founded by sea-monster hunters, smugglers, and pirates”. It’s a setting rife with opportunity for those who love to roll up adventures on the high seas. 

The most exciting aspect of the module is the inclusion of three homebrew subclasses for the Fighter, Barbian, and Rogue. Each is incorporated into D&D Beyond’s interface making them accessible for players and DMs who want to incorporate them into their own home games. 

D&D Beyond

The Renegade archetype for Fighters gives a touch of Rogue-like scoundrelness to the combat-oriented characters, allowing them to craft custom firearms and develop specific ways of using them. The Wild Card Rogues add a bit of randomness to the game, with gambling-inspired abilities that integrate dice, cards, or chess maneuvers into unique battle moves or advantages. 

As far as pure flavor is concerned, the standout is the Barbarian Path of the Depths. With shades of the Flying Dutchmen from the Pirates of the Caribbean films, this subclass infuses characters with eldritch features from the darkest depths of the sea. Features include the ability to grow extra limbs and to magically teleport up to 30 feet within a body of water. It actually feels remarkably similar to the Lurker in the Deep, a playtest subclass of Warlock Patrons that Wizards of the Coast released as part of their Unearthed Arcana specs last year. Both types of characters would compliment each other well in a seafaring adventure like Bilgewater, or perhaps D&D’s Ghosts of Saltmarsh. 

D&D Beyond

This isn’t the limit of the new goodies players can find in the module. The adventure also comes with a pirate’s booty of magical items like the Bilgewater Cutlass which deals extra damage and slows down enemies. It also includes a host of new monsters and enemies to face off against, like the half-rat, half-shark Wharf Rat, or the Pool Shark which loses points for not being a literal shark creature that plays pool. 

At the end of the day, this module is precisely what it sounds like, an advertisement for an app game. It seems that as tabletop RPGs grow into a new popularity, brands are increasingly seeing them as a way of getting eyes on their product. But at a time when access to home entertainment is at a premium, a free adventure with a wide assortment of pieces to be inspired by is still pretty great. It’s a swashbuckler’s toy chest that can be run as written or sprinkled across your own home game. 

Cover Image: D&D Beyond

Riley Silverman is a Nerdist contributing writer. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album ‘Intimate Apparel’ is available digitally online. 

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For years now, Big Finish audio dramas have allowed Doctor Who fans to travel with their favorite Doctor long after they’ve left the show. They’ve provided listeners with countless hours of content from the Time Lord’s adventures, as well as those of their noteworthy companions, and even a few one-off standouts who have gotten fresh days in the sun. The audio serials have also allowed writers to dig deep into areas less explored on the show, like the Time War, the subject of a large selection of Big Finish dramas.

The audio series allows for other avenues of exploration as well. Big Finish dramas can bring fresh new writers into the world of Doctor Who storytelling, like Lizbeth Myles, longtime cohost of the Verity podcast who began penning Big Finish Doctor Who audios last year.

This month, the audio series will mark a milestone in trans representation for the series. It’s the next in a series of trans voices to be involved with the long-running show. Bethany Black appeared in the television series in the ninth season’s “Sleep No More” as Number 474, a synthetically created human laborer known as a Grunt. On the writing front, Lilah Sturges, Juno Dawson, and Niki Haringsma have written Doctor Who comics and novels.

Now, with the upcoming audio series “Stranded,” part of Paul McGann’s Eighth Doctor Adventures, Doctor Who will introduce the first openly transgender character into the canonical narrative: Tania Bell, portrayed by British actress Rebecca Root. Root previously starred on the BBC comedy series Boy Meets Girl, making her the first trans actress to star in a sitcom. Nerdist spoke with her about her new role.

Big Finish

Nerdist: You’ve done a few different dramas already for Big Finish’s Doctor Who line, what’s your approach to acting for an audio-only format? How does it differ from your work as a screen actor?

Rebecca Root: Acting for audio really only differs in that you don’t have to learn your lines—something of a relief when life is super busy—and you don’t need to move about as much. Apart from that, I approach an audio role as I would any other. Certainly, I have to prepare my voice rigorously and do all the character homework I would do for any other character.

 You were pretty highly praised for your performance as Sable in “Zaltys.” How does your character in “Stranded” differ from her? 

RR: Was I? Thanks! Well, for a start, Sable was an alien, and Tania Bell is human…I would also say Sable was a bit of a badass, while Tania is much nicer. I hope that comes across!

“Stranded,” as its name implies, is an earthbound story. “Zaltys” was an alien world, and you were a Gallifreyan in the Time War series. If you had your pick your next Doctor Who setting, where would it be? Another alien world? The future, the past?

RR: I would love to see a story set in the distant future, in a different galaxy/universe, to see whether the human race got their crap together and survived being such idiots. Similarly, it would be fun to do something set in the past to see if you could influence humanity’s idiocy differently…

 Your character in “Stranded,” Tania Bell, is the first trans companion for the Doctor in canonical Doctor Who. Does that influence your performance at all?

RR: Not really. She’s a person like all the other people I have played and hope to play in the future. She’s not perfect, but she’s not a mess, and certainly, I don’t think her gender identity has any influence on her behavior in the story.

What would it have meant for you as a kid to have had a character like Tania adventuring alongside the Doctor?

RR: It would have been amazing to see a Trans person in a show like Doctor Who. In fact, to see a Trans person period would have been amazing. But I [grew] up in the ’70s and society was differently populated back then, and gender ID was not really “a thing.”

Is there any hope of Tania continuing to adventure with the Eighth Doctor after “Stranded”?

RR: I hope so, very much. Perhaps even in a spinoff too, somewhere along the line, somewhere in time…

Featured Image: BBC

Riley Silverman is a contributing writer for Nerdist. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram. Her comedy album Intimate Apparel is available in digital formats. 

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Now, modern audiences can experience these original dramas for themselves. A YouTube user named Nige L has compiled all of the NPR adaptations into a series of fan edit files. These “Nigel Edits” remove the intros and outros between the individual episodes in order to allow them to flow more seamlessly into each other and tell more cohesive, albeit much more expanded, versions of the original Star Wars trilogy. 

“I have combined all episodes of the original radio drama using excerpts from John Williams’ original soundtrack and Ben Burt’s sound effects for a more seamless blending from one episode to the next. This is how I want to experience this fantastic piece of work.” -Nige L

Ralph McQuarrie / LucasFilm

For many fans, this will be a brand new way to experience the original trilogy. For others, this may be a way to revisit an experience from a bygone era. But either way, it’s a fascinating way to re-enjoy a trilogy that has made such an impact on generations of fans. As Colin Marshall of Open Culture said, “The episodic nature of such source material resonated with the similarly episodic nature of classic radio drama.”

Listeners can expect a lot of added details to the story. (Details that likely won’t be considered canon with the new chronology of Disney-era Star Wars, which may or may not be a plus for some.) Those looking to find the audio files in their more original form or one easier to load onto their phones for easier on-the-go access can also find them on Archive.org. 

Featured Image: LucasFilm

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LucasFilm

River Phoenix’s role as the teenage version of Indy felt like a nod to us. We had spent our childhoods with Henry Jones Jr.; now, here was his own younger self leading us into his next adventure. And what an adventure it was. In addition to Phoenix, we met Indy’s father, played by James Bond himself Sean Connery. And there were familiar faces! Sallah and Brody were back! The Nazis were the villains again! 

I often go back and forth on what I consider the best Indiana Jones movie. My preference fluctuates between Crusade and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Usually depending on whichever I’ve most recently watched. But when it comes to being the third movie in an iconic trilogy, I maintain you almost can’t do better than Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. 

(Personal note: I will begrudgingly admit that there is a fourth Indiana Jones movie. Given the nearly two full decades between them, I will still always consider Crusade the end of an era. Raiders, Doom, and Crusade are the Original Trilogy of Indy and anything else that comes along is extra. I don’t make the rules. Wait, I do, and them’s the rules.) 

The trilogy format perhaps could take a bit of a break. We’ve seen with the success of the MCU that franchises can work well in a looser, more interconnected structure, albeit with a lot of planning. And with the, let’s say… mixed? response to The Rise of Skywalker, it’s also fair to say that the very concept of trilogies often leads filmmakers and studios into feeling like the last film has to pull off some epic moves to cap it all off. This can sometimes work, especially in the case of a trilogy like the Lord of the Rings, which like its source material is really just one long work split into three. 

LucasFilm

What works so well about The Last Crusade is that it doesn’t try to be anything of the sort. The Nazis aren’t digging through that government warehouse from the end of Raiders looking for the Ark of the Covenant. Belloq hasn’t returned from the dead in some mystical revenge plot. Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. takes yet another leave from his job as a college professor and must travel the world to recover a dangerous artifact so the Nazis don’t get it. The one major addition is the introduction of a double chase, with Indy on the trail of his father while also trying to avoid the Nazis across Europe.

Rather than raise the stakes of the plot itself, the movie instead raises the stakes on the adventure. Instead of simply facing Nazis in North Africa, Indy spends time in Berlin, meeting them at the seat of their power. The car chase sequence in Raiders becomes boat and airplane action scenes in Crusade. The simple task of swapping a bag of sand for an idol turns into an entire Dungeons and Dragons puzzle dungeon towards the climax of the film. 

The movie ups the stakes emotionally as well. Once they jettison the love story after Elsa’s jackbooted heel turn, the relationship taking center stage is between Indy and his father. The two gruff slightly estranged men have to work together, they have to mend fences with each other. And Henry Sr. even ends up being basically the damsel in distress, with Indy driven to recover the Holy Grail specifically to save his father’s life. 

Lucasfilm

And it’s funny! One of the most memorable moments of Raiders of the Lost Ark is when Indy chooses to shoot the swordsman instead of fighting him with his whip. This famously impromptu joke wasn’t in the script but it’s a perfect example of the kind of humor that works so well in an Indy film. Moments like Henry Sr. shooting the tail off of their own plane while they dogfight the Nazis. Moments like Indy breaking through the floor of the library while the librarian stamps books. Crusade expertly weaves these types of bits throughout the movie without feeling like a farce or parody. 

The genius of Crusade as a trilogy capper is in that it isn’t really made to be one at all. Yes, the Nazis are back. Yes, the plot follows a similar structure to Ark. And yes, there’s a very real indication that God exists and gets really, really pissed, and melty, when you cross Him. Crusade plays homage to Raiders. It dances with the audience’s familiarity with it. It even subverts expectations via the reveal of Elsa as a villain instead of a love interest. While all of this happens, the film still stands on its own two feet. It is not the epic culmination of Indy’s story. It’s just another fun adventure. And that’s what Indy deserves. It’s what we can hope his future holds.

Cover Image: LucasFilm

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Before we look too far into the future of Star Wars, it’s important to remember what came before. As such, here are some of our favorite things about Yoda. 

Wendy Froud of Dark Crystal fame helped create the Yoda puppet

Lucasfilm

While the look of Yoda was the brainchild of makeup artist Stuart Freeborn, inspired largely by Einstein, the actual puppet was created by a team including Wendy Froud. Wendy was working on the early stages of designs for Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal, co-directed by Yoda performer Frank Oz. The Yoda puppet served as something of a prototype for the Crystal team, who used it as a way of trying to make a puppet with a bit more realism than the Muppets. 

“Frank [Oz] was going to be doing the puppeteering and we needed someone originally to do a prototype. Something just made out of foam, a foam that I had. So that he could practice and get some of the characterization of Yoda because nobody knew. I made one that was just the size that it would be and everyone really liked it. So they said, “Well, we love the puppet and Frank’s already working with it, why don’t you just sculpt it as well?” – Wendy Froud

Froud would go on to create the Gelflings for the Crystal film, the creatures that also vastly populated Thra for the Netflix prequel series, Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. 

Yoda is the unsung spoiler of The Empire Strikes Back

Lucasfilm

The “I am your father” moment of Empire is a go-to example of a movie reveal that has become all but impossible for audiences to avoid in the wild. Whether a new Star Wars fan starts with the prequels or not, it’s unlikely that they will go into Empire not knowing what Luke is about to discover. And the same thing is true of the identity of Yoda. 

There was a time in the ‘80s when viewers did not actually know that the little green alien annoying Luke in the Dagobah swamps was, in fact, Yoda. It was initially a twist. Luke, and the audience, expected some imposing warrior; together they realize that the revered Jedi Master was this eccentric little wrinkly guy. Due to the sheer popularity of the character since then—the toys, the Disney ears, etc.—means that anyone watching Empire is already picturing Yoda the first time Force ghost Obi-Wan says his name to Luke on Hoth. 

Yoda’s scenes are different because of other Star Wars stories

Lucasfilm

The special editions and rereleases altered Star Wars movies. Yoda’s scenes in Empire play differently now due to the existence of the prequels and the Clone Wars series. For instance: The prequels establish that R2-D2 knows who Yoda is. This adds a totally different perspective on the droid and Luke’s arrival on Dagobah. 

In an original trilogy vacuum, Artoo might just be a bit hesitant to arrive on a strange undeveloped planet and separate from the rest of the group. But in a prequels universe, R2-D2 likely knows that Dagobah is where Yoda lives. So why then would he be nervous? Artoo also knows what happened to Anakin Skywalker. His reluctance to take Luke to the Jedi Master might actually be out of legitimate concern that his new friend could meet the same fate that his father did.

But this also means that Artoo and Yoda should recognize each other immediately. All of the goofy, somewhat hostile interactions between the droid and the Jedi are, then, likely staged. It’s as if Yoda and R2-D2 enter into an unspoken agreement to mutually raise the tension and drive Luke to the heights of frustration. We can read Yoda’s motives the same as we did before: he’s testing Luke’s patience while weighing his capacity for training. For Artoo, it’s apparently just a lot of fun. 

Yoda has one of the most poignant lines in Star Wars 

Lucasfilm

Fans make much of Yoda’s Confucius-like sayings. Most famously, “Do or do not, there is no try.” But one line really sticks with you once you notice it. It’s the comment he makes to Luke as he prepares to enter the dark side cave. When the young Skywalker asks his master what’s in there, Yoda responds, “Only what you take with you.” 

It’s a sentiment that really resonates with a lot of the themes and plot lines of Star Wars. But it’s also something that speaks to the way we experience things in our own lives, and our consumption of fandom—especially Star Wars fandom.

There are many reasons to criticize or feel let down by films. Sometimes we take issue on a technical level, in creative decisions, or the quality of production. But often in the realm of fandom, we’re most disappointed or led to call something bad because it didn’t live up to our expectations of what it was going to be. Sometimes we would be wise to heed Yoda’s advice and leave our weapons outside as we wander into the cave. Maybe then we won’t be so ready to do battle once we’re in there.

Lucasfilm

Yoda has grown from an experiment in the realism of puppetry into one of the most recognizable characters in all of media. He’s become a symbol of a specific type of playful wisdom. He’s even accidentally wound up in the pages of real-world history. It’s truly remarkable that this quirky little green creature with a backward way of talking has managed to remain so indelibly part of our hearts and make such an impact upon the world. But unexpected people making a big difference in the world is at the heart Star Wars at its best.

Featured Image: Lucasfilm

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In the most recent Clone Wars episode, “The Phantom Apprentice,” fan favorites Darth Maul and Ahsoka share a series of confrontations, both of the verbal and lightsaber variety. It’s just before the last of these, a lightsaber duel that will likely get high placement in the saga’s all-time rankings, that we get a pretty intense conversation between the two. Maul reveals what he knows about Darth Sidious, and he attempts to enlist Ahsoka’s help in bringing the Sith Lord down. 

Lucasfilm

This offer is reminiscent of several such offers in the Star Wars saga. Darth Vader asks Luke to join forces and take on the Emperor together. Kylo Ren asks the same of Rey. It’s a move from a dark side user to lure someone to embrace the dark side and become their apprentice. Maul himself has taken on an apprentice previously on The Clone Wars, his brother Savage Opress. He’ll attempt to do so again with Ezra Bridger on Star Wars Rebels. Here and now, he has his sights on Ahsoka. And for the faintest glimmer of a moment, she considers his offer. 

There are two ways to read what happens next. When Maul holds out his hand and offers Ahsoka her first steps down a potential path towards the dark side, she says she will help him. It could be a ruse on her part. It could be that she is simply saying what she knows Maul wants to hear to give herself leverage to ask her next question. She may be working Maul to find out what he wants with Anakin Skywalker. But perhaps it truly isn’t. Perhaps her initial acceptance of Maul’s offer to take down Darth Sidious is legitimate. 

An aspect of Ahsoka that I find fascinating is that while many want to consider her a “Grey Jedi,” this feels like a mistake. Despite her independence from the Jedi Order, she remains firmly rooted in the light side of the Force. She’s a ronin but a noble one. Despite her issues with the Jedi Order, despite bearing witness to the fall of the Republic and the Jedi and the rise of the Empire and Sith, she never falls. 

Lucasfilm

But there is rarely anything interesting about perfection. It’s not enough for Ahsoka to merely never encounter the temptation to fall and thus avoid it. It is far more interesting for Dave Filoni and the Clone Wars team to orchestrate a moment like this, to put a path before her that she could legitimately take, and surprise us by showing her actually consider doing it. We see what it would take to get Ahsoka to fall, a path to hell paved with the grandest of intentions. 

Taking the interpretation that Ahsoka is legitimately tempted by Maul, that for that half-second she almost followed him down his path, really ramps up what happens next. She asks Maul about Anakin and he lays her former Master’s fate, the fate we as the audience know to be true, out for her. He then states his plan to kill Anakin and foil Sidious’ plot. It’s this threat to Anakin that snaps Ahsoka out of it, that allows her to see Maul’s plan for what it really is, not an attempt to foil Sidious but simply to overtake him. To replace him. Using the death of Anakin to do it. 

This episode makes great use of Ahsoka’s attachment to Anakin. First, Obi-Wan presents her with the Jedi plot to have Anakin spy on Chancellor Palpatine—something Obi-Wan tacitly agrees with her is the wrong move. Now, her concern for Anakin is what pulls her from the edge. It foreshadows “Twilight of the Apprentice” on Star Wars Rebels. In that story, Darth Vader himself declaring the death of Anakin Skywalker is what draws Ahsoka into combat with him. Then, the tiniest ray of hope, the oh so quick re-emergence of Anakin from beneath the helmet before being overtaken again by Vader’s rage, is what draws her compassion. In both cases, it’s what saves her. 

Lucasfilm

It is exactly these kinds of moments that show why a character can still surprise us, even when her past and future are extremely well documented. This is why it’s so amazing that The Clone Wars got to come back to finish out their tale. Seeing her slip and regain her footing at this moment gives a new angle on Ahsoka as a character that still feels organic to the trajectory of her story. Episodes like this are exactly what we were hoping for with this return. It has made the sometimes impatient journey through the previous two arcs completely worth it. And there are still two episodes left! And… oh no, there are only two episodes left.

Featured Image: Lucasfilm

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Rachel told me the story behind the song. Series co-creator Aline Brosh McKenna lovingly shared it on Twitter in the wake of Adam Schlesinger’s passing. That the song had come almost fully formed directly from Adam himself. This was when I learned Adam was working on the music for the series. As soon as I heard that, it seemed so obvious. 

Of course this show, which so exquisitely embraced and twisted the tropes of every genre of music it played with, had Adam Schlesinger’s hands all over it. When it came to understanding the complicated ways that different pieces of music could hit you as a person, the intricate combinations of math and poetry in composition, there was perhaps no one more skilled or gifted than Adam. 

I should state I’m not a music writer. I’ve never claimed to be an expert on music or a music critic. I’m sure that there are thousands of writers more qualified than me to dig into the specifics of what makes Adam’s work tick. To me, music has always boiled down as living in the spaces where it reaches me emotionally in my own life, and the ways it is used in film and television. Those are mediums I am much more intimately familiar with. And perhaps that’s why Adam’s music meant so much to me. It existed in exactly that intersection. 

As a teen in the ‘90s who practically lived in her local Blockbuster, That Thing You Do! was an inescapable, but always welcome earworm. As a young college student still harboring her high school crush on Rachael Leigh Cook, the Josie and the Pussycats movie and its soundtrack became permanently embedded in my psyche. And as a young, struggling comedian driving hours at a time across the midwest to underpaid gigs in the middle of nowhere, in the days before the prescience of podcasts, Fountains of Wayne was a significant part of the soundtrack of my actual life. 

I recall a weekend driving around Clayton, North Carolina with Traffic and Weather on repeat in my CD player—largely due to the fact that “I-95” was on the album and my own proximity to that interstate. As someone in a long-distance relationship, that same song has been ever-present in my mind for the last year and change. It’s taken on an additional layer recently. Physical distancing makes it harder for me to see my girlfriend again. While our trips to visit each other have been more about airports and layovers than truck stops and billboards in Virginia, the song so perfectly captures the poignant recollections of the familiar sights and experience while traversing distances to see the one you love. That sense of longing for even the journey itself. 

There was a joy to Adam’s work that never sneered even when it was an intentional parody. Regardless of whether it was supposed to sound like one of the biggest hits of the sixties or the ballad sung by Hugh Grant trying to win back Drew Barrymore in Music and Lyrics, Schlesinger understood that these songs mattered to the people singing them.

Collective tragedy will mark this era. Many will lose someone very close to them, maybe friends and family and coworkers. Adam was all of those things to a lot of people. His loss is so gutting for so many of us. In a series of decades often marked by cynicism, Adam consistently put out music that was aggressively pleasant and insistently joyful. It was music that cared about you, that understood your emotions, music that wanted to wrap you up when you were sad and dance with you when you were happy. It was music that loved us. 

And perhaps that’s why this one hurts so much. Because we know that when we get to the other side of this ordeal, our collective trauma will be such that we’re going to need more of exactly the kind of art that Adam Schlesinger created. 

Featured Image: Fuzztopia 

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Usually, we rank songs instead of rating them. But given that there are so many musical numbers in the film, we decided to keep them in their original order and rate them all, on a scale of 1 to 5 toe beans. I did this so that you don’t have to. I’ve also tried to focus on the songs themselves and not really tear down any of the actors’ performances because I feel they’ve suffered enough. 

Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats

The big introduction number. “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats” is a bit of a shock if you’re uninitiated, but it’s definitely got a lot going for it. The song starts off kind of ominous, then moves into more of a banger. It’s the musical version of what the cats on screen are doing, sniffing you out as a newcomer and making sure you should be here. And once it knows you should, it is time to party. The song is a little all over the map, which frankly is a great introduction to the film. 

Rating: 4 toe beans

“The Naming of Cats / Invitation to the Jellicle Ball”

Both are more of an exposition device moment than full-fledged musical numbers. They serve their function, and they set up the purpose behind most of the other songs. These are “the song(s) of themselves of course, who they are and what they do,” which could be said of these particular melodies and how they relate to the overall film, but still, they’re mostly bridges. 

Rating: 3 beans

Jennyanydots: The Old Gumbie Cat

This one gets old for me fairly quickly. The mice and cockroaches are a bit of a mind-freak as they are introduced, but those lessen on repeat viewings. Overall there’s just too much reliance on the gags of Jennyanydots scratching herself or other similar physical gags, a joke that wears itself out fast. Plus all of the jazz scat breaks feel a bit laborious in an operetta like this. 

Rating: 1 bean

The Rum Tum Tugger

The upbeat nature of this song is fun, and it’s refreshing to get Jason Derulo in here because I firmly believe that most musical adaptations really need to prioritize actual singers over famous actors when it comes to casting. Especially in a film where the most famous faces are being covered by CGI “fur.” The standout here is the insanely catchy melody. The lyrics are a bit repetitive, which is fitting given the context. Mostly I just focus on the ethical quandary of a cat wearing a fur coat.

Rating: 4 beans

Grizabella: The Glamour Cat / Memory (Prelude)

Gonna put these two together because while they could technically be categorized as “asides” type songs, there’s just something compelling about whenever Jennifer Hudson shows up and delivers performances for the movie she thought this was going to be in her head. If nothing else, you kind of have to respect these repeated attempts to put the movie back on the rails that it insists on rushing right off of again. 

Rating: 5 beans

Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town

Did Broadway and Hollywood make some sort of deal that each and every adaptation of a musical must now include a spot for James Corden? That’s just the way it is and there’s no use fighting it. Having said that, this does feel like one of the better uses of him. The movie already feels like an extended sketch from The Late Late Show and this song just leans on into that. Yet, despite that, it also feels like he’s sincerely delighting in being here, which lends some charm. 

Rating: 3 beans

Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer

Overall I’ve tried not to use the stage musical’s versions of the songs as a factor in this ranking, but I have to point out that this song suffers the most in translation. It’s the song that most stuck in my head as a kid from the live show, and it just feels so deflated in the film. It goes from an upbeat high energy number to kind of a sleepy, skulky number. It’s just far too mellow for how chaotic these cats are supposed to be. 

Rating: 2 beans

Growltiger’s Last Stand

I just want to see every moment of Ray Winstone being pitched this role, showing up on set, preparing to play a cat, and singing this song. 

Rating: 3 beans

Old Deuteronomy

This song serves a purpose, but it doesn’t make you as awestricken by the arrival of Old Deuteronomy as it wants you to be. Judi Dench is the only reason that the song really lands. The Dench creates her own anticipation. 

Rating: 2 beans

The Jellicle Ball

It’s got Dench. It’s got creepy harmonized whispering. And it’s got Ian McKellan who was seemingly given a script and then just shook his head and said, “Oh I got this, don’t worry.” All of this builds anticipation and once the song jumps up in tempo, you’re on board and excited. A solid on-its-feet landing for sure. Also, cats in sneakers doing cocaine nose sniffs? I gotta give it the edge just for that. 

Rating: 3 beans

Beautiful Ghosts / Reprise

Many Cats fans were annoyed at Taylor Swift’s involvement when it was first announced. It’s also risky to have a pop star, even a hugely successful one like Tay Tay, pen an original song to stick in amongst T.S. Eliot’s poetry. But we’re here to tell you that it absolutely paid off. This song is a highlight of the film. “Beautiful Ghosts” both fits in seamlessly and stands out immensely. The movie’s notably shaky release really killed the momentum on a potential campaign for Best Original Song at the Oscars this year and that’s a legitimate shame. 

Rating: 5 beans

The Moment of Happiness

Ain’t never gonna be mad at Dench. Our cat grandma loves us all. 

Rating: 3 beans 

Gus: The Theater Cat 

I don’t know how to say this without it sounding weird, so here it goes. Ian McKellan is very good at playing a cat. Out of all the cats in Cats, there’s just something so much more natural about his feline movements, how he drops them when necessary so as not to overdo it.  Even the way his CGI cat work blends into him. Not unlike Corden as Bustopher, this one slips by on pure charm, even with McKellan mostly talk-singing his way through it. Having said that, Tom Hooper did him dirty by leaving that very last note of the song in the final cut. 

Rating: 4 beans

Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat

The first time I saw this, I was torn between loving seeing the wood planks being laid out like train track and angry that in a movie with so many ridiculous sets, that they were going to just hang out in the Egyptian during a song about railways and trains. So when the train sets came in, I was delighted. We got both! But also this song is a much welcome burst of energy back into the film, after several slower numbers in a row. It’s the number where Robbie Fairchild’s Munkstrap actually seems really excited about the cat he’s introducing to us.

Rating: 5 beans

Macavity: The Mystery Cat

This truly is the number where you either give into what this movie is doing or you’re probably just done. It’s just got so much of what the initial trailer drop brought to the table. Taylor as Bombalurina dropping catnip like drugs while sporting kitty sized high heels (but not, it should be clarified, kitten heels). To cap it all off, Idris Elba suddenly realizing he’s in a film version of Cats and going whole-hog with it. This is the moment where the movie is trying its hardest to have a plot aside from a series of cats saying their names. And it definitely thinks it got there. 

Rating: 3 beans

Mr. Mistoffelees 

Like Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, this is the only other song where the notable change from the stage musical factors into my feelings towards it. I go the other way with it this time though. Switching the song from the boastful anthem into a rallying cry to get the shy Mistoffelees to believe in himself was an interesting choice. Following the Macavity song, the original version might’ve felt repetitive. Here, it’s actually kind of sweet. The only real ding to “Magical Mister Mistoffelees” is that it does slightly undercut what happens next with Memory. 

Rating: 4 beans

Memory

Look, this is the most popular song from Cats for a reason. There’s also a reason why Grizabella is picked to go to the Heaviside Layer. Jennifer Hudson brought it so hard to this movie and if Leonardo DiCaprio won an Oscar for what he made himself endure for The Revenant, she should’ve had one literally driven to her house. This is one of the rare moments in the film where it completely flips its ridiculous script. It is achingly beautiful. But, you know, with the human cats still. 

Rating: 6 beans, the Hemingway

The Journey to the Heaviside Layer

If you’ve hung on this long and this song doesn’t get you in the feels, you might be a little dead inside. It’s pure schmaltz, but it’s fun schmaltz. The Macavity moment is… unnecessary, but the movie really wants to pretend it has a plot. 

Rating: 3 beans

Finale: The Ad-Dressing of Cats

This one really goes on for quite a while, doesn’t it? I don’t wanna feel like I need Dench only in moderation but here we are. 

Rating: 2 beans

What do you think? Do you agree with our ratings? Are you still hung up on the concept of a “butthole cut” of the movie? Let us know in the comments below!

Featured Image: Universal

Want to watch for yourself? Cats is available for purchase on Amazon Prime.

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It’s tough to say “when last we left Ahsoka,” because that can mean so many things. For some, the last we saw of Ahsoka was the end of her previous Clone Wars arc, “Trial of a Jedi.” There, we saw her turn her back on the order that had turned theirs on her. For others, she may have just faced Darth Vader in the temple on Malachor, her fate uncertain. Or perhaps she’s heading out into the unknown with Sabine Wren looking for Ezra. Or, maybe, they last heard from her as a voice through the Force, calling out to Rey on Exegol. 

Lucasfilm

But therein lies the fascinating thing about Ahsoka and specifically the place that these new episodes fall in her overall arc. These are technically part of the original plans for her from before The Clone Wars was canceled. They were written and storyboarded for use then, but never made it to air until now. As a result, Ahsoka has accidentally embodied the same non-linear serialized storytelling that George Lucas championed.

In the time since the show went off the air, however, we’ve gotten a lot more Ahsoka content. She showed up on Star Wars: Rebels running intelligence operations for the Rebel Alliance. We also got Ahsoka, the novella by E.K. Johnston that picks up one year after Revenge of the Sith and shows us how she initially got that gig, as well as her cool white lightsabers. 

All of these have essentially been sequels to the original run of Ahsoka stories. Now, we’re getting episodes that were written first, but by virtue of their long-delayed production and release, feel like prequels to tales we already know. In essence, we’re getting the chronological opposite of the Original Trilogy for Ahsoka. While that trilogy got prequels and sequels, where Ahsoka is now could almost be referred to as “midquel.” A set of tales inserted in between where she came from and where she’s going. 

Lucasfilm

 Knowing where her arc ends up might undercut the drama in her current circumstances for some. But it’s actually an opportunity for a more character-based understanding of her. As we watch Ahsoka now, we can focus less on the “what happens” and more on the way those things impact her. These are the moments that will lead her to find her own path. She is no Jedi, yet we know she grows into someone who never truly rejects the ideals of what the Jedi should have been. These are the stories where she’ll begin to understand that for herself.

It’s also a rare situation where getting a backstory on a character feels like it won’t be rife with forced or retcon attempts to tie the future story to the past. In this case, those future details were written based on the beats that were already laid out for her. The things that Ahsoka does in the novel or in Rebels happen because of what happens in the remainder of this season. Which means, hopefully, there’s not going to be any “Oh hey, wouldn’t it be great if she built L3-37?” type moments. Only the things that were always planned for her in the grand scheme. 

It likely won’t be the last time we get Ahsoka stories in this somewhat disjointed nature. Rumors have spilled about a potential appearance of her in season two of The Mandalorian. The finale of Rebels also hinted at possible future stories of Ahsoka and Sabine Wren. And of course, the ominous inclusion of her voice calling out from the Force in The Rise of Skywalker’s climactic moment. For those still eager for stories about what happens next, there’s still plenty of room for Ahsoka on the horizon. 

Cover Image: Lucasfilm

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The Introduction of the “Bad Batch” 

It might seem late in the game to introduce a whole new roster of characters, but we really loved Clone Force 99, AKA “The Bad Batch.” Named after Clone 99, the heroic character featured in some earlier arcs of the series, The Bad Batch gives us a version of war movie tropes that Clone Wars hasn’t fully explored before. While Rex and the rest of the 501st are hardly by-the-book under the command of Anakin Skywalker, the Bad Batch is a distinctly special ops team of commandos with highly specific skills, the kind you might see in a film like Dirty Dozen or The Guns of Navarone (or Rogue One, for that matter). Also, introducing a squad of clones who specifically thrive because of their individualism feels especially tragic this close to the big Order 66 betrayal. 

“I hope you at least told Padmé I said hello.”

For an arc that seemed to de-emphasize the Jedi drama in favor of Clone dynamics, this moment in the second episode, “A Distant Echo,” overshadowed almost everything else. This isn’t the first time Obi-Wan has shown some awareness of Anakin’s feelings towards Padmé. The second Rush Clovis arc, in season 6, brought stern warnings about jealousy and duty. However, Obi-Wan calling out the obviousness that there’s more going on between them serves as a nice plot bridge to his confirmation that Anakin is the father of Padmé’s children in Revenge of the Sith. We certainly had to stop and rewind the scene after our jaws dropped.

Anakin flat out murdering Admiral Trench

One of the common praises of The Clone Wars series is that it “fixed” Anakin as a character. Regardless of how one feels about his portrayal in the prequel films, it is definitely true that the animated series has managed to depict Anakin as a powerful Jedi Knight whose victories helped win the Clone Wars. It even helps us understand why he feels so betrayed at not being promoted to Master in Sith. But the series is not without those moments of pure anger and lashing out; these are essential flaws in Anakin’s character. We’ve seen the aforementioned jealousy towards Clovis turn to violence.

This moment with Trench was equally important. We really can believe that the dashingly heroic Anakin of The Clone Wars is also the man who, in Sith, would murder Dooku at the mere gasp of suggestion from Sheev Palpatine. 

No Order 66 Reveal

As important as the above inclusions were, we were equally surprised to not see something. We discovered that the Clone Trooper Echo had been captured and used torturously by the Separatists as a living algorithm to undermine the strategies of the Republic Clone Forces. Given that we know from the Rebels series that Captain Rex, along with Clone Troopers Wolffe and Gregor, are able to remove the biochip implants that cause them to mindlessly follow Order 66 to carry out the Jedi Purge. (Moment of silence for Fives, who tried to warn everyone.)

Echo having been tapped into the command strategies of the Separatists feels like it might have been an opportunity for him to deliver this secret info to his old friend. But it seems that info is off-limits for anyone outside of Dooku, Palpatine, and the Kaminoans who misunderstand its purpose. Sounds like Rex’s discovery is still yet to come. 

There was certainly a lot to be excited by and celebrate in this initial arc, but now we’re really hoping to see some more Ahsoka!

Featured Image: Disney Lucasfilm

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It’s also safe to say that in the most recent era of the show, the attempts to tackle these types of stories have been about a subtle as Harley Quinn with a baseball bat. From the literal “Dregs” of humanity surviving in a scorched future Earth in “Orphan 55” to the plastic-loving space contagion setting up shop on earth in “Praxeus,” it has felt like the Doctor is literally breaking the fourth wall to ask us to please save our own planet. Noble sentiments in both cases but also quick to make many viewers roll their eyes. 

This is why it’s even more impressive that, in the case of more internal conflicts, ones dealing with mental illness and distress, the show has been doing some of the most interesting work it’s ever done. One of the most unusual episodes of last season, “It Takes You Away,” exquisitely dealt with the pain and torment of grief. This year, with “Can You Hear Me?” works similar storytelling magic on depression and anxiety. 

BBC

This isn’t the first time that Doctor Who has addressed depression, most notably it was featured in 2010’s “Vincent and the Doctor.” But while that story’s plot was pretty standard for the modern historicals, “Hear Me?” takes a much broader approach to the topic. It weaves a tale of both science fiction (and a little supernatural) elements alongside very real, very human feelings. Its villains are metaphors, but its symptoms are real. 

The symptoms being real aspect is one of the most important parts of the episode. Through this, it was able to do such an effective job with its subject matter. It would have been utterly irresponsible for the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) to encounter someone struggling with clinical depression only to learn it was simply some external force she could easily defeat. This sort of ending works when the enemies are potato heads carrying guns; it does not work with real mental health issues. 

In fact, the show has actually handled this poorly in the past. 2014’s “In the Forest of the Night,” which featured a fairly common “The voices this little girl hears are real!” twist, even had the Doctor mock the concept of giving the child medication, to begin with. 

BBC

Not so in “Can You Hear Me?” Yaz (Mandip Gil)  struggled with depression in her past. A flashback about running away is a stand-in for a suicide story, palpable for the show’s younger audience. Meanwhile, Ryan’s (Tosin Cole) friend Tibo has nightmares that draw the attention of the episode’s villain, Zellin (Ian Gelder). The nightmares are not caused by him; the show makes a point to show Tibo needs a support group to continue to deal with his issues once the TARDIS has gone.

We even see a moment where the Doctor herself isn’t able to magically disappear a problem when Graham (Bradley Walsh) confesses his anxiety about his health. She actually can’t handle it at all. Her reaction is one of the most simultaneously alien and human moments Whittaker has had in her run as the Doctor. 

The episode does excellent work to make sure that the science fiction elements all also work as extended metaphors and allegories for the issues at hand. The villains, Zellin and his partner Rakaya (Claire-Hope Ashitey), are immortals, eldritch beings from beyond the scale of our own universe. They literally cannot be destroyed or killed, only contained. They don’t create the symptoms upon which they feed; instead they only cultivate them, draw power from them to become stronger. 

BBC

Meanwhile, Tahira (Aruhan Galieva), whom we meet in an ancient Aleppo hospital, faces physical manifestations of her nightmares as a result of the pair. These creatures don’t exist, according to the Doctor. However, despite coming entirely from her head, the threat they represent to her and the people she cares about is very real. Her turning the creatures against her tormentors feels very much like someone taking some control back of their brain. Control after a particularly rough struggle with a down cycle and getting much needed medical care. 

We should commend episode writer Charlene James and current showrunner Chris Chibnall for taking the episode’s issues seriously. They even worked alongside the UK’s mental health advocacy group, Mind, and their media advisory service to ensure that the episode’s script avoided common stigmas and risky failures in misrepresenting the issues. They also worked with the actors to make sure they understood the complex things their characters were struggling with internally.

BBC

“Done badly, a mental health storyline will these days attract a ferocious backlash from an increasingly vocal public that cares about how the issues are portrayed. But done well, it has the power to give a voice to the one in four of us who experience a mental health problem every year, make us feel less alone, and encourage people to seek support for the first time.” – Jenni Regan, Mind.

 “Can You Hear Me”, like “It Takes You Away,” is a welcome departure from the standard (and also very welcome) story we expect from Doctor Who. While we wouldn’t want these stories to become all that the show is, they help to enrich the palette from which the long-running series can paint in order to continue to innovate. If that same care is applied to episodes featuring other issues that plague our society, maybe we can look forward to some plots that are a little more “Enemy of the World” and a little less “Orphan 55.” 

Header Images: BBC

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The long-awaited, pulled-from-oblivion final season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars is due on Disney+ on February 21. Many fans have long speculated as to what we’ll see in these final episodes. But with the easy access to Disney’s streaming service, new fans will flock to watch the animated series for the first time. It truly wouldn’t be Star Wars, however, without some confusion over which order one should watch it in. Should you watch it in the release order, which attempts to replicate classic film serials by jumping around with seemingly reckless abandon? Or should you go via chronological order, placing related story threads together?

Normally when it comes to Star Wars, I’m a release order purist. You will never convince me that it’s better to watch Phantom Menace before A New Hope. But when it comes to Clone Wars, I feel the exact opposite. While your overall viewing experience may not be extraordinarily different based on which order you watch it in, certain arcs just feel much more cohesive and stronger when viewed together. The series itself switches to a fully chronological format midway through its third season. This certainly suggests even the creative minds behind it decided it was the better way to go. Even StarWars.com has made an official chronological order guide available since 2014.

Regardless of the decisions behind why the show was ordered the way it was, here are a few arcs that are dramatically improved by watching them chronologically. As this is a guide for viewers who may not have yet watched the series, they are light on spoilers except on when needed to give context.

The Clone Training

Disney/Lucasfilm

One of the most interesting aspects of the Clone Wars series it’s that it’s, well, full of clones. The series pulls off an incredible feat with the Clone Troopers introduced in the prequel films. Despite all being voiced by the same actor, Dee Bradley Baker, and having roughly identical character designs aside from a few strategic tattoos or hairstyle choices, they all remarkably come across as different characters. Throughout the series, we come to care deeply about some of the individual clones we meet.

While season one does give us an introduction to a squadron of clones that we’ll meet over and over again with “Rookies,” that same episode has a prequel, “Clone Cadets,” that didn’t air till the beginning of season one, and a sequel, “ARC Troopers,” that aired immediately after that as episode 302. When placed chronologically, “Cadets” really helps us better follow the journey Hevy, Echo, Fives (oh, Fives…), Cutup, and Droidbait.

By placing “Cadets” as one of the first episodes viewed and leaving “Troopers” ’til later, it affords more gravitas to the characters’ journey by spreading it across the three first seasons. It feels more like an arc than a simple two-parter. When Fives returns for a heartbreaking storyline in the final season, we feel all the more connected to him because of how much time we’ve spent with him before that.

Ziro the Hutt

Disney/Lucasfilm

Ziro the Hutt is first introduced in the 2008 Clone Wars animated film. His later appearance on the show, however, is maybe the most bonkers story in the entire Clone Wars run. And that’s saying something, considering how many Jar Jar Binks stars in, or the entire arc involving R2-D2 and a mission staffed entirely by droids and one angry lizard guy.

Anyone who doesn’t think all genres can be reflected in Star Wars needs to experience the old-timey Guys and Dolls-meets-A Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil gangster melodrama complete with a nightclub music performance. It makes perfect use of drawl-talking bounty hunter and wide-brim-hatted aficionado Cade Bane. Not to mention Ziro’s inexplicable Truman Capote-esque voice.

But the release order layout of this arc is pretty confusing. Two third-season episodes, “Assassin” and “Evil Plans,” serve as prequels to the season one finale, “Hostage Crisis,” which then has a sequel, “Hunt for Ziro” which aired immediately after “Evil Plans.”

For those who just went cross-eyed, the third part of this four-part story aired over a season before the first and second parts. When placed in chronological order, it flows so much nicer. We get a reminder of Ziro in “Assassin,” we get hints of the machinations of the Hutts in the episodes in between, then “Plans,” “Hostage,” and “Hunt” flow nicely together as a three-part story.

Heroes on Both Sides and the Senate arc

Disney/LucasFilm

One of the most interesting and important episodes in the entire Clone Wars series is “Heroes on Both Sides.” Fans may recognize the title as a reference to a line from Revenge of the Sith’s opening crawl. “Heroes” is the first major episode to give us a glimpse at the government, and civilian life, of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, otherwise known as the Separatists. Normally depicted only as cartoonishly villainous leaders like General Grievous, “Heroes” takes us behind the curtain to meet its civilian government. Like the Republic, the Separatists have a legislative body, a parliament mostly made up of representatives that once served their worlds in the Galactic Senate before the civil war.

The episode on its own does so much legwork to show that the Separatist citizens themselves aren’t evil. They have been manipulated and are secretly being betrayed by Count Dooku, in the same way the Republic is by Chancellor Palpatine. This is underscored immediately by the following episode “Pursuit of Peace,” which follows Padmé Amidala as she attempts to maneuver a senate that has been corrupted by Palpatine’s machinations.

Those two episodes fall back to back in season three, but they’re both prequels to “Senate Murders,” which originally aired in the middle of season two. These are all fantastic stand-alone episodes, but when watched together, and with the weight of two and a half seasons of the war behind them, Padmé’s frustration becomes palpable.

Sith and every Star Wars movie set after it tells us how inevitable the fall of the Republic is at this point, but this story is where Padmé seems to truly begin to understand that for herself. If you’ve ever heard people talk about how The Clone Wars fixes Padmé as a character, this is probably the arc they were thinking about. If for that reason alone, it deserves to be seen in order.

 Featured Image: Disney/Lucasfilm

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Doctor Who‘s series 11 introduced a new Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) and her “fam” trio of companions. But when it came to plot, the strongest thread was, basically, “Hey, that blue guy likes teeth a lot.” In his sophomore season, however, showrunner Chris Chibnall has gone from being stingy with plot to giving us all the plot, all at once (oh, and here’s some more plot).

While the sheer volume of story threads we’ve gotten in series 11 might feel like it’d be top-heavy, it somehow instead is just, well, awesome. The big question now is: with all of this plot delivered to us just five episodes into a ten-episode season, will we even begin to see resolutions to most of this before season’s end? Or are we strapping ourselves in for Chibnall’s Master Plan? Here’s a quick rundown of all the major plot threads now dangling from the TARDIS. 

The Timeless Child

Image: BBC

This bit of info was first introduced to us in series 11’s second episode, “The Ghost Monument.” Whispered to the Doctor by the Remnants, it hints at a mysterious past that the Doctor herself doesn’t know about. This term came roaring back to us in “Spyfall Part 2,” when it came angrily out of the Master (Sacha Dhawan) while he tried justifying the destruction of Gallifrey at his hands.

We know nothing yet about who this Timeless Child is, or what it actually means. The Remnants scene makes us think it could be the Doctor herself but there’s just not enough info yet to go off of. Heck, for once, the oft-cited fan theory “Maybe It’s Susan!” could actually be in play. (But probably not, though it would be hilarious if Chibnall did that to us on purpose.)

The Return of the Master

Image: BBC

Sacha Dhawan’s “Brief History of the Master” video suggests that his Master is a regeneration following Missy. But why he returned, what all he learned on Gallifrey, and what about it pushed him back to scenery-chewing evil is still without explanation.

The Doctor has been going on secret missions alone to try to find him (most recently in “Fugitive”), not believing that he’s remained forever in the parallel universe of “Spyfall”’s antagonistic aliens, the Kasaavin. The Doctor knows as well as the audience does that the Master is never gone forever. It’s likely we will see him again before this season’s finale.

The Return of Jack Harkness

Image: BBC

Fans of the Torchwood series were hoping that John Barrowman’s omnisexual, immortal Captain Jack might make a return, given that Chibnall had worked as showrunner on that series while it ran alongside Doctor Who’s third and fourth seasons. But his instantly recognizable offscreen voice in “Fugitive of the Judoon” was the first anyone knew of it actually happening, pulling off a shocking surprise return for a show known for getting major plot points revealed before a season even airs. What is Jack doing back, why is he so plagued by nanobots, and how much of Torchwood: Miracle Day is still considered canon? 

The Lone Cyberman

BBC

Harkness’s return came with it a warning from a vague future and an idea about some “alliance” about one of the Doctor’s oldest foes the Cybermen. According to Jack, the nightmares in silver have seen their empire crumble into ruin. Yet one survivor remains out there somewhere, and it is imperative that the Doctor not give it what it wants.

We know from flashes of a decaying Cyberman in the series 12 trailer that we will see it this season, but does it have anything to do with the Timeless Child? Or were parts of two different plots putting down rails in “Fugitive?”

Who is this Cyberman, what does it want? Is it going to be a new character, or is it another jaw-dropping reveal—perhaps the return of one of many characters we’ve seen turned into Cybermen over the years, like Danny Pink, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Bill Potts, or alternate universe Jackie Tyler? Honestly, if Chibnall found a way to bring Camille Coduri back to the show as Jackie, more power to him.

Just what is going on with this new… er, old… er… surprise Doctor? 

BBC

“Fugitive of the Judoon” managed to dwarf the return of Jack Harkness with the even bigger reveal that Jo Martin’s Ruth was secretly an incarnation of the Doctor hiding under the Chameleon Arch first introduced by Paul Cornell in series three’s “Human Nature.”

This isn’t the first time in Doctor Who’s run that we’ve been surprised by the sudden existence of a Doctor we didn’t know about. (Last time, it brought John Hurt into the canon.) Theories of just who ‘Doctor Ruth’ is and where she falls in our Doctor’s timeline, or even if she falls in the Doctor’s timeline, run rampant right now. But the normally tight-lipped Chris Chibnall himself, in an exclusive to the UK’s Mirror, has stated that there is no alternate universe situation happening. (He also stated that Jack Harkness’s return in “Fugitive” would be his only return during series 12.)

Chibnall said:

“The important thing to say is – she is definitively the Doctor…There’s not a sort of parallel universe going on, there’s no tricks. “Jo Martin is the Doctor, that’s why we gave her the credit at the end which all new Doctors have the first time you see them. John Hurt got that credit.”

Altering the past of the show, however, is not without precedent. The series has attempted to pull an upheaval on the Doctor’s entire history. The Colin Baker serial Trial of a Time Lord ended with a big reveal that the Valeyard was an evil future amalgamation of the Doctor’s dark side. Producer Philip Hinchliffe once admitted on the Evening with Philip Hinchliffe DVD that the faces that appear in the classic Tom Baker serial Brain of Morbius were his attempt at implying Doctor regenerations prior to William Hartnell’s. And lore-obsessed fans have made much ado over the years of the “Cartmel Masterplan,” which sought to similarly bring some mystery into the history of the Time Lords and the Doctor. 

What we do know is that as of “Fugitive,” Chibnall has taken a big flag with his name on it and claimed a huge chunk of the show’s canon for himself. Is he attempting to convert some of the Cartmel Masterplan into a new “Chibnall Masterplan”? Or is he expertly using the info about that thematic shift that the fandom has chewed on for years to misdirect us all again?

Given the slow burn of series 11, we know he has it in him to be patient. So, despite the deluge of new plot, we can’t be certain that he’ll wrap up any of this within the next five episodes. Heck, we don’t even know for sure that we won’t even have yet another set of mysteries to add to the pile by the end of next Sunday’s “Praxeus.” 

Just about the only thing we know for sure is that it’s the most interesting time in years to be a Whovian. 

Featured Image: BBC

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The following contains spoilers for Doctor Who’s “Spyfall” parts 1 and 2

The long-awaited return of Doctor Who is finally here. The British sci-fi series came back into our lives this week with “Spyfall.” The two-parter is a welcome return to form after a somewhat shaky series 11. The big shiny new toy is Sacha Dhawan’s newest incarnation of The Master, giving us a proper villain again. But while we were about as full of fannish glee as the Master was during his reveal at the end of part one, the two-parter did leave us with just a few questions. 

Why is The Master… The Master?

Image: BBC/Doctor Who

When we last left the Master he was a she, in the form of Michelle Gomez’s Missy. Gender-swapping Time Lord regenerations are now an established part of the series’ continuity of course. But what about all that character development that Missy went through in series 10? Missy’s face turn was a huge part of that season. She so far as to betray her own former self, John Simm’s Master, only to have her shoot her in the back in return. This double murder/suicide scene implied that Simm’s Master had dealt his future self a final death rather than side with the Doctor.

Now, Dhawan’s Master is back to chaotic evil at a level that rivals Simm and Anthony Ainley’s classic series scenery-chewing. We know that whatever the Master learned about showrunner Chris Chibnall’s potentially game-changing mystery box, the “Timeless Child,” seems to have enraged him but what could be so devastating to have forced such a dramatic heel turn again? Is he even the incarnation after Missy at all?

(We do love his Missy meets Patrick Troughton look, though.)

When do we learn more about the Timeless Child?

The rumor mill was rampant before this season that a big reveal about the Doctor and her history was on the way. Doctor Who rumors are a bit flimsy on the accuracy scale, so let’s instead think about what we do actually know. The concept of the “Timeless Child” was first introduced by the Remnants invading the Doctor’s mind in “The Ghost Monument.” If you’d forgotten about that, “Spyfall” conveniently edited in a flashback reminder.

Now that it’s come up again it seems Chibnall’s meta plot for his tenure as showrunner is gaining steam. But will it dangle over us for just this season, coming to a head in the finale like Russell T. Davies’ disappearing planets in series four? Or will it take all of Jodie’s Doctor tenure, like Steven Moffat’s “silence will fall/Trenzalore” plot did for Matt Smith? We’re hoping sooner rather than later as mystery boxes can be a somewhat tedious device for moving the plot forward. Let’s find out what’s going on and deal with it instead of dangling it in front of the Doctor for years.

Is Gallifrey really toast for good?

Image: BBC/Doctor Who

It feels like we just got Gallifrey back after it having been “destroyed” but not really during the Time War and then missing but not really after the “The Day of the Doctor.” We just can’t have nice things apparently because the Master went and blowed it up. But are we truly back to a last of the Time Lords situation again or can we expect to find a New Gallifrey somewhere down the line, or an arc that restores the planet once again? It would be a bit of a shame to just discard the planet once again after the Doctor went through so much to find it again.

Can the Doctor not use the Nazis as a weapon ever again, please?

Image: BBC/Doctor Who

The Master is a baddie, we get that. But seeing Sacha’s Master in an SS uniform felt like a bit much, to begin with. Then we add in that the Doctor, a blonde white woman, defeats him by removing his perception filter as the Nazis close in so that they see him as a man of color? That’s a yikes from us. It also doesn’t even make sense. The whole point of her telegraph code trick was to make the SS think the man he was posing as was a secret British spy. Why make him look like a different man to them? The character whose last face emphasized “be kind” as a motto as his dying words should absolutely not be employing even the hint of racist genocide as a tactic for defeating her enemies.

Also, can the Doctor please stop erasing people’s memories willy nilly?

This has been a recurring trope on the show. The Doctor erased Donna’s memory against her will to save her life. He tried to do it to Clara Oswald only to have her refuse and explain why. He realizes the harm it does when Bill pushes him on it “The Pilot.” So why is Jodie’s Doctor back at it again? It’s not like we don’t have loads of examples of historical figures with whom the Doctor is flippantly BFFs. It was cool of the show to highlight two historical women of STEM, but Ada Lovelace vocally begged to not be erased and the Doctor just did it anyway.

What did the Doctor do with the Master’s TARDIS?

Image: BBC/Doctor Who

The Doctor used the Outback hut TARDIS to get back to the present day after leaving him to the Nazis (again, yikes.) But what does she do with the spare TARDIS once she’s done with it? This also begs the question of just how many random Master TARDISes are just strewn about the place from all the other times they’ve squared off. And did the Master seriously not even attempt to help out his previous regenerations in the decades he was stranded on earth and attempt to foil the Doctor’s previous foiling of his own plans? He must have at least wanted to meet up with Delgado’s OG Master at some point, right? Who wouldn’t?

Where do we get Yaz’s shiny tux jacket?

Image: BBC/Doctor Who

For real though. Maybe our most pressing question.

Featured Image: BBC

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In The Last Jedi, Rey stands in a cave on Ahch-To expecting to find some great truth about her family. She believes that she’ll find answers but finds only herself. The message of the scene and her arc in the movie itself is that it doesn’t matter who her parents are. What matters is who she is.

For those of us who were massive fans of the film, myself included, this message was a big deal. It’s not only poignant, but it also feels very in line with the idea that the Force connects all life. Plus, the rules of the Jedi canonically prohibit the kind of attachment that comes from marriage and children. Thus, the most powerful Jedi in history likely weren’t from long legacy bloodlines. The concept of this legacy of powerful Force-sensitives has been almost exclusively Skywalker baggage.

Lucasfilm

Kylo Ren stands in the docking bay of his ship in The Rise of Skywalker. He’s just revealed to Rey and the audience that she is, in fact, a Palpatine. She’s the granddaughter of Emperor Sheev Palpatine; the Dark Side is in their bloodline. It is her destiny to join Kylo and rule the galaxy together.

Like all of Kylo’s attempts to turn Rey, this one fails. And though Rey struggles with the darkness she feels inside of her, and fears the source of her power, she ultimately doesn’t turn. Rey instead defeats her grandfather, theoretically ridding the universe of Palpatine once and for all.

Many saw this revelation of Rey’s past as a retcon that immediately undid the important character work of the previous film. And to some degree, this is true. Rey as a descendant of a powerful figure is a different story than Rey as a “nobody.” But while the retcon is understandably disappointing for some, for me, it made things much more personal and meaningful.

Lucasfilm

I am not the granddaughter of a totalitarian Sith Lord. But I am someone for whom the very essence of my identity forever set me apart from the course of life that my family expected for me. I am also someone that, for several very important and formative years of my life, found myself cut off from a large portion of my blood relatives. This estrangement was largely due to very toxic divisions.

Like Rey, I found a direct conflict with the person that I knew myself to be in my heart and the things that were expected of me because of where I came from. One of the largest critiques of the Rey Palpatine reveal is that it suggests that her story is valid because she is the granddaughter of the former ruler of the galaxy. But the importance of this connection is that this same man is also the total embodiment of everything that Rey finds abhorrent.

Rey learns that her legacy is directly linked to the pain and suffering of the people she most cares about. As someone who has blood relatives make decisions that have made life harder for me, and for people I care about, I felt closer to Rey than I have in any of the previous two films. Since I’ve been stanning her from the jump, that’s saying a lot.

Lucasfilm

For me, it only heightens that moment in The Last Jedi. The message is still that it doesn’t matter where Rey comes from; she has the power to forge and shape her destiny. And while choosing her path may mean forsaking her blood family, it only means giving her the space to forge stronger bonds with her found family. This a profoundly meaningful experience for anyone who has ever had to do it. For much of my recent life, found family became my lifeline.

Kylo holding his hand out yet again at the edge of his ship is the perfect depiction of their dynamic up until this point. To Kylo at his most broken, his place in the Dark Side is an absolute. The film’s narrative leaves it unclear in if he knows that his revered Sith grandfather was turned back to the light by Luke. But while he speaks of their family legacies as an inevitability, he seems to be oblivious to the fact that both his mother and uncle were able to shed that same fate.

As Kylo begs Rey to stand at his side, he’s already allowed himself to be defeated by the assumed weight of his bloodline. Rey is given that same choice and instead chooses to run, to keep searching for answers, and to keep fighting alongside her friends. Rey chooses her found family, and in doing so, chooses herself.

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Yet when the initial “standalone” projects were announced, I raised my eyebrows. A semi-prequel about the Death Star and the Young Han Solo Adventures? They seemed to tie in too close to the Original Trilogy to really fulfill this idea of expanding the universe. Though I ended up loving both movies, I never fully shook that feeling about what I saw was the wasted potential of the idea of non-Saga Star Wars movies. 

Lucasfilm/Disney

It wasn’t until I got Disney+ that a few lingering feelings about both movies fell into place. Finally, after years of not having the cable package for it, I was able to binge-watch the Star Wars Rebels animated series. Rebels serves as something of a sister series to Clone Wars, featuring characters and resolving plots from that show. But it’s the way that it also ties into both A Star Wars Story films, especially Rogue One, that made me feel like the two films and the series function as an almost unofficial fourth Star Wars trilogy.

This trilogy doesn’t tell the story of one specific set of characters. Instead, it tells a visual and thematic one. One that gives a previously unseen glimpse into the age in between Republic and Rebellion. A trilogy about the age of imperial dominance and the build-up to the Galactic Civil War.

In the original Star Wars film, we know the Empire is bad, sure. Vader and his crew capturing and torturing the princess, of the Stormtroopers’ murder of Luke’s family and the Jawas, and of course the utter destruction of Alderaan. But we never see Alderaan. Its loss is only felt through Leia and Obi-Wan. Troopers poke around Tatooine. Vader and company arrive at Bespin for the first time. We never see life on an occupied world.  Our awareness of the presence of the Empire is almost always through the lens of military engagements.

With Rebels, Rogue One, and Solo, we instead witness the imposing presence of the Empire over the lives of its civilian residents. These works show us what it actually felt like to live under the reign of Palpatine. While The Last Jedi lets go of the past, these works give the past life. 

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The city of Jedha lives in the literal shadow of a Star Destroyer hanging over it. The citizens of Lothal are forced to work in the Empire’s labor facilities building TIE Fighters. The streets of Corellia are locked down, controlled by criminal organizations with only a privileged few being able to barter their way through the Empire’s checkpoints.

Each of these stories features characters for whom these worlds are home. From Ezra Bridger to Chirrut and Baze, and young Han Solo himself. We feel the presence of the Empire in a visceral way. And Solo takes us even further, following Han into an invasion of yet another world, the boots on the ground assault of Mimban. The combination of this, the “Zero Hour” arc of Rebels, and the epic Battle of Scariff in Rogue account for some of the finest examples of what a “star war” looks like in the entire Star Wars canon. 

The real throughline of these stories is their combined depiction of how a loose assortment of insurgents grew into an alliance of rebels that could legitimately challenge a galactic empire. Though told entirely out of sequence via their individual releases, the story is clear to follow. Solo shows us Enfys Nest and her Cloud-Riders. This swoop bike pirate crew and erstwhile rebels push back against Crimson Dawn and their ties to the Empire.

With Rebels, set about five years later, we see how the crew of the Ghost, a similar rebel cell. The Ghost slowly starts to link up with other cells. Covert operators like Ahsoka Tano’s Fulcrum network, connect them into a more organized Rebel Alliance. And with Rogue One, we finally see those disparate bands of rebels come together and declare open war on the Empire at the Battle of Scariff. Which, of course, ties directly into the beginning of the Saga as we know it.

Lucasfilm/Disney

Solo’s novelization defines this throughline even more. It reveals that Enfys Nest delivers the Kessel Run coaxium to Saw Gerrera and young Jyn Erso. This ties not only Solo and Rogue One directly together but Rebels too. Saw, originally a Clone Wars character perfectly drops back into the Rebels series including an arc that ties directly into the plot of Rogue One. The film, in turn, features easter egg references to Rebels, including the Ghost itself being present at the Battle of Scariff. 

So while the legacy of the Story anthology films may not be one of showing us a whole new era of the Star Wars universe, it does something else equally impressive. It takes an era that utterly defines the world that the characters in the original trilogy are escaping. They expand it into something that feels incredibly real, and lived-in, complimenting those films and bridging the gap between Episodes III and IV. And with the upcoming pair of Cassian Andor and Obi-Wan Kenobi-based shows for Disney+, it’s an era we’re only going to get to explore further. 

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Throughout the summer con season, countless barrels of virtual ink have been spilled detailing the slate of Disney+ original shows. Fans of franchises like the MCU and Star Wars have a lot to look forward to, with the Mandalorian, WandaVision, What If?, and other shows. But that isn’t the only reason we’re excited about Disney’s gauntlet throwing new service.

For anyone who didn’t wisely hang on to their VHS collections in those thick plastic cases, Disney+ represents the chance to finally revisit some of the studio’s classic films. While the “Disney Vault” technically only refers to its animated classics, the fact is there are decades of films that are either out of print or simply haven’t been made available in this volume on streaming services despite some DVD or BluRay releases in recent years.

Attractions Magazine compiled a list of all the movies that appear to be launch-day titles, which we’ve dug through looking for personal gold. While the honest answer to “What are you going to watch first?” is “Yes,” here are some of the movies we’re most excited about.

Walt Disney Pictures

The Sword in the Stone

This 1963 animated Arthurian tale was the last animated movie released before the death of Walt Disney. It’s also the animated Disney film to feature music by the prolific Sherman Brothers, the architects of some of the most popular and catchy Disney songs of all time. While it’s not surprising that Sword in the Stone hasn’t had as much staying power as other Disney classics, it’s still one we’re excited to revisit. It’ll be worth it if only for one bizarre quirk: its main character, Wart (a.k.a. Arthur) is voiced by three different actors, and even blends their work together often within the same scene.

Walt Disney Pictures

Pete’s Dragon (’77)

Those who only saw the 2016 non-musical remake of Pete’s Dragon might be tempted to think of it as the grittier, darker version. But that lumberjack-Jungle Book wannabe can’t hold a candle to the original. While both tell the tale of an orphaned boy, Pete, who befriends a sometimes invisible dragon Elliott, only the original version features the literally gritty (of the covered with dirt variety, see above image) seaside hamlet of Passamaquoddy. Plus it has not one but TWO different upbeat wacky songs about child slavery (“Happiest Home in These Hills,” “Bill of Sale”). Last but not least, it also features a villain song in which two snake-oil salesmen gleefully sing about how they’re going to chop up the titular dragon for parts and profit (“Every Little Piece”).

Walt Disney Pictures

The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes

Audiences today likely know Kurt Russell either for his many collaborations with John Carpenter or as Star Lord’s dad-planet Ego in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. But many may not know that he was once the star of a trilogy of sci-fi comedy films for Disney that began with The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. In this precursor to Chuck, Russell stars as Dexter Riley, a college student who gets infused with a supercomputer (or, since it was 1969, a computer) and becomes a human computer who runs afoul of a gangster played by Cesar Romero, so technically this movie could be considered another Joker origin story.

Walt Disney Pictures

The Black Cauldron

Though released theatrically in 1985, The Black Cauldron didn’t receive a home video release until 1998. As such, Black Cauldron remains the white whale of many Disney film fanatics. Disney Studios had spent the entirety of the 70s attempting to adapt Lloyd Alexander’s book series into a film. The result was Disney’s first PG-rated animated film, which so upset then-Chairman of Disney Studios, Jeffrey Katzenberg that he tried to take the movie into the editing bay to re-edit it himself. After failing to make back even half of its $44 million budget, The Black Cauldron was known as “the film that almost killed Disney.” Perhaps its most prevailing legacy though is that it served as inspiration for what the Defunctland YouTube series calls “Disney’s Scariest Attraction.”

Walt Disney Pictures

A Goofy Movie

There are a lot of other movies that we could round this list off with. It could be the kind-of-steampunk-but-not- quite-and-kind-of-Sherlock-Holmes-but-not-quite-but-also-a-mouse The Great Mouse Detective. It could be the Witch Mountain series, which is deceptively actually about aliens and not witches. Or it could be the Brave Little Toaster’s two sequels, which Disney owns (but not the original, which they don’t). But no, it’s A Goofy Movie because for some reason there is a not-insignificant amount of people online who unabashedly stan for this movie. It was finally released this year in an exclusive for Disney Movie Club members, but launch day at Disney+ is the first chance many of us will have had to find out just what our friends have been talking about this whole time.

Featured Image: Walt Disney Pictures

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