ValueSubtracted

This one won't be going down in history as my favourite episode.

Much of the episode is devoted to zombies, and zombies are boring. Moving on.

This might just be reflective of where my headspace has been at lately, but it bugged me that the crew showed absolute contempt for a treaty. There was absolutely no discussion of whether it was moral or just to violate it - they just wanted something, so they went ahead and took it. This isn't exactly new ground for Star Trek, but it wasn't something that I enjoyed watching in 2025.

I can't decide if this was a bad Pike episode, or a good Pike episode that happened to reveal things about the character that I don't appreciate. It's telling that Batel didn't tell him about her treatment because she knew that he would react in exactly the way that he did.

I wasn't sure how I felt about clearing up the ambiguity of what happened with M'Benga last season, but I think it was handled pretty well - the strongest part of the episode by far. It seems like he might have a...different career path ahead of him when he leaves the Enterprise.

The Ortegas/Una story wasn't bad, either. I do find it interesting that Pike will not be filing a report on this mission because it was off-the-books, but Ortegas gets reprimanded and sent for remedial training. I'm not sure how that works when there's no mission to log.

I thought the directing and/or editing was pretty lifeless (heh) in this one, too - not a lot of tension throughout.

Here's the platform.

We are also committed to capping, not cutting, public service employment. Federal workers deliver essential services to Canadians and are critical to helping Canada meet this moment of crisis. As part of our review of spending we will ensure that the size of the federal public service meets the needs of Canadians.

I don't remember reading anything about them being "directed" to do so by the government, and even if that's the case, that was last year, well before the election.

I'm honestly relieved - if there's one area in which I think his government has been lacking, it's been the environmental portfolio.

This restraint is a positive step, even though it's been framed as a reconciliation concern.

On Tuesday, the premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario also signed memorandums of understanding to build new pipelines, railroads and energy infrastructure to move oil, gas and critical minerals between the provinces. Manitoba did not sign the agreement.

Kinew said Manitoba's major infrastructure projects must first have a consensus from Indigenous stakeholders before putting shovels in the ground.

I'm glad to see this, and also very curious to see the consequences.

Yeah, and I think it also makes sense to assume that Paramount+ produced "The Ready Room", considering they wouldn't acknowledge that the second season of "Prodigy" existed.

I'm loathe to support layoffs, but I'm not that opposed to taking things away from the streaming platform and giving them to the production studios.

It took me forever to find the story, but I think what happened is that they sit down the Paramount+, which handled "publicity, photo, events, awards, talent relations, etc.".

Those roles have been offloaded to the studio (CBS Studios), and I guess this event, and probably the recent Universal thing, have been put together by them?

An e-ink phone, you say?

Question #1 would have to be about responsiveness.

a CGI design that has aged incredibly poorly...I don’t like the whole body horror “you can see inside your brain” stuff, even with the dated CGI

I don't mind the CGI creature-that-I-can't-be-bothered-to-look-up-the-name-of - it's dated, but decent-looking IMO, but I don't think those brain ports ever looked good.

It's strange to me that we're going to return to Satellite Five in the finale...I'm looking forward to keeping an eye on that one to see whether it was a budgetary move (I don't remember them re-using the sets, but maybe they did?).

The Bombers may have a get-right game against the struggling Boatchildren.

🤞

The Big Blue have some things to figure out, especially on the defensive end of things.

The Calgary/Montreal matchup should be pretty interesting.

I've struggled with this question for years, and haven't been able to come up with an answer I feel good about, so the "correct" answer is probably, "consider the person's tastes and cater to them."

I do believe that it's probably not a good idea to start with the "best" episodes - they tend to break the usual format, and once you've seen them, there's nowhere to go but down.

Instead, I'm on a continuous search for the most "average" episodes - solid, enjoyable, and representative of what the series and franchise are as a whole. But I still don't have a simple answer.

I avoided watching this one all week, because I don't remember liking it very much, and...well, I was right.

It's not that bad, really. Thebasic story is fine, and themes of the media shaping the way people think are evergreen. But it's directed like something from at least 10-20 years earlier, and the whole thing is sort of lifeless and boring. This is Brian Grant's only DW directing credit, and that's a mercy.

The Adam arc...maybe it should have had one more episode than it got. His initial culture shock is done pretty well, and his greed makes perfect sense, given his previous job. But his (non-) relationship with Rose is rather undercooked - there's no reason to get invested either way. It also serves to paint the Doctor and Rose's relationship in a more romantic light, and...I love Ecceleston and Piper together, but they just don't have that kind of chemistry.

Simon Pegg is rather wasted as the Editor, neither interesting nor funny enough to justify his casting. Suki and Cathica are both more compelling, and the nurse is portrayed in a memorably unusual way by Tamsin Greig.

I keep having the stray thought that "The Interstellar Song Contest" seems like a bit of a do-over of this one. It doesn't map 1:1, but the similiarities are strong enough that I keep drawing that line.