To Boldly Nominate

From John Scalzi, here is the 2008 Nebula Awards Ballot. I am over the moon excited by this, because under the Scripts section you'll find:

"World Enough and Time" - Zicree, Marc Scott and Reeves, Michael (Star Trek: New Voyages, http://www.startreknewvoyages.com, Aug07 (Aired 8/23/07))

The New Voyages are essentially fanfic, filmed with pretty high production values. The episode in question is well worth seeing. George Takei reprises his signature role as Hikaru Sulu in an episode as well written as any TOS episode (other than maybe "City on the Edge of Forever"^*.) It's heartbreaking in just the right ways, funny in just the right places, and tight as a drum.

It almost definitely won't win, but just the fact that it's nominated is really encouraging to me.

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^*Did you think I *wouldn't* put Ellison's WGA winner ahead of this???

Ensign Crusher vs. Captain Kirk

Wil Wheaton has done such a great job reinventing himself, I sometimes forget where he comes from. He blogs that he and his son Nolan were watching ST:TOS and...well, Wil's incredibly self-deprecating:

We saw some other things that made us laugh and cringe, but people who fall over white barriers and crush plants shouldn't cast stones at white paper labels on the captain's chair, so that's all I'm going to say about that.

The Inner Light

Flipping through the channels this evening I saw the the G4 network was airing "The Inner Light", the finest episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Originally airing the end of May '92, I don't think I've seen it but twice, both in that same season, 15 long years ago. And still it lingers in my memory. In that the episode is a contemplation on life, love, death, and memory, it is fitting it should sit so deeply in mine.

The episode is as touching and wrenching today as it was in '92, a testament to some fine performances and the quality of the screenplay by Morgan Gendel and Peter Allan Fields (from a story by Gendel.) A very spare score, relying more on the mournful diegesis of a flute than the usual orchestral bombast of ST:TNG, sets the contemplative mood. I cried when I saw it back then, and I damn well cried again tonight when the probe launched, and at the episode's close while Picard played his flute one last time.

As the AMPTP shucks and jives and tries to kill its golden goose to save a few sous, I'm happy to be reminded that magic only happens because of writers. There's a reason this is the greatest of all ST:TNG episodes: the story.

HE is awake and HE is pissed

Far be it from me to give, or give a shit, about Star Trek XI rumors. My days of nerdy trials and Tribblations are long past. However, this...this is possibly the funniest thing I've read all week (it is only Tuesday.)

You'll remember that Moriarty at Ain't It Cool broke big news about the plot of Trek XI, especially about how the movie concerns a group of time traveling Romulans headed to the past to wipe out James T Kirk before he ever became a thorn in their side. One of the rumors IESB is running concerns how the Romulans get back in time - they use the time portal from the classic Trek episode "City on the Edge of Forever"¹. You know, the one where Kirk lets his girlfriend get hit by a car. I usually just don't return their phone calls when I want to break up, but then I'm not half the man Kirk is.

See, I didn't know about that rumor before or I could have told them about the shit-storm that was coming.

HE is awake.

Dudes, he's got a solo title card on Terminator because he was able to convince a judge that it was based on his Outer Limits episodes "Demon with a Glass Hand"² and "Soldier". I've seen both of those multiple times, I have copies of both the short story "Soldier" and the screenplay, and I love HE. Hell, you can't know how very depressed I was that the rumored "Demon..." tie-in never happened on Babylon 5. All that said, and I've still never been completely convinced the similarities aren't coincidental.

But City? The single greatest episode of ST:TOS to be crafted? Even after Roddenberry's tweaks watered down the story, it was still good enough for HE not to give it the Cordwainer Bird. The lyrical quality of that episode would not be matched until "The Inner Light" 25 years later.

Iff³ Star Trek XI really does utilize the guardians, or the city, or anything of Ellison's, Paramount is fucked. There's no hedging on this one. No arguing that the sf tropes in use are common. That's blatant thievery. He'll kick their asses.

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1 WGA Award for Best Written Dramatic Episode, 1966.
2 WGA Award for TV Anthology, Any Length, 1963.
3 Yes, I'm a logic geek.