I watched the first fifteen minutes of Halo and the first fifteen minutes of Strange New Worlds. I couldn't take any more.

Halo is still fascist propaganda, just with a more neoliberal veneer this time. The show starts with a bunch of characters in the future playing cards while watching CNN. I don't know if it's the writers or the producers or what, but people don't seem to understand that only boomers watch CNN. (I know it's just an extremely lazy way to quickly explain the universe to viewers with limited attention spans.)

But whatever, the characters are like mining rebels or something and they hate the UNSC. One of them has an impenetrable Scottish accent. Two others speak Korean because Korean is cool. Everyone needs to explain their relationships to each other and also explain the universe. This is like you saying to your best friend: "You're my best friend and we live in the evil United States of America, which is so powerful nobody could possibly stop it!" This is also the planet of bad haircuts. For whatever reason, every woman in every SF show now needs to have some kind of mohawk.

Anyway, a bunch of kids run off into the woods to play, even though the mining colony appears to be surrounded by an endless desert, and, huge surprise, evil aliens randomly incinerate them. The evil aliens attack the mining colony and kill everyone. They're unstoppable—until, of course, the Master Chief jumps in and slaughters all of them with his friends. It turns out the UNSC isn't that bad after all. It's wrong of us to distrust the military and the government. Scottish rebel miner guy looks at the covenant—the elites are taller and fatter for whatever reason—and says something like: "I thought they were just UNSC propaganda!" At this point I couldn't take any more and switched to Strange New Worlds.

My theory about this show is that Pike is basically the way liberals view Biden. He actually looked super handsome with his beard and I think he should have kept it. Regardless, we have once again returned to Star Trek: Where Nothing Makes Sense. The windmills near Pike's house honestly really bothered me. This lack of attention to detail is extremely grating. They live in the 23rd century. A typical warp core puts out as much power as thousands of nuclear bombs detonating at the same time every second. What need could they possibly have for windmills???? Then Pike gets in a shuttle, checks out the Enterprise, and just randomly beams aboard before they can dock. Why??

A big problem I saw was that the characters are just...not interesting. What do they desire, fear, hate? I was only fifteen minutes in, but I basically saw Starfleet be like, hey Pike, can you do this thing? And Pike is like, no. Then Starfleet is like: pretty please? And Pike is like, okay. The same thing happens with Spock, who is now buff for some reason. The characters put up a brief show of resistance, then surrender. It's just lazy writing. As a writer, it's hard to make characters really fight and sacrifice for what they want. What is it that these characters desire? At least in Halo, one of the characters said: "I want to do this." No one said that in Strange New Worlds. They just kind of go along with whatever is happening. Starfleet should have had to wrestle them back into the Enterprise. They should have fought as if their lives depended on it. That would have been interesting!

Everything looked cool, except for the fake CGI, but try to imagine the actors reading through the script in a bare room, just wearing ordinary clothes. Take away everything fancy and just have the actors and the writing. How interesting is this show now?

I was curious to see if all these new shows Paramount is pumping out are making a difference for the company, but the stock has been steadily declining for years. To borrow a metaphor from Ishmael...they're basically in like an old flying machine that doesn't really work, and they've gone off the cliff, and they're pumping the pedals as hard as they can, so maybe it seems like they're flying, but they're actually still just falling.

Computer programmers look at programs differently compared to ordinary people. Musicians hear music differently. (I'm a pretty mediocre musician but I can belt out a few songs on a guitar, and it amazes me when people don't seem to hear all the mistakes I'm making.) Writers read stories differently. I'll still take Farscape over any of these shows. The first two seasons are kind of hit-and-miss, but by the third season the show really finds its footing. Every character is interesting, wants something, and is constantly fighting, betraying, and allying with the other characters to get it. It's a lot like Battlestar: Galactica, where everyone is constantly pointing guns at each other. In a movie like The Blues Brothers, half the film is about convincing the band to get back together. They almost need to have their nails pulled out before they give in. As The Jam says, that's entertainment.

You could argue that it's not fair of me to judge these shows after only fifteen minutes. But to toot the Farscape horn again, within fifteen minutes we have a bunch of characters who all really want different things. John wants to go home. Crais wants to kill John. And the other characters want to escape the Peacekeepers. All of these people really want these things and are willing to kill, lie, betray, or really do anything to get them. This is not the case in the other two shows.

Edit: it seems people think I’m being unfair! Let’s get one thing straight. I do the criticizing around here, not you libs! /s