The bodies on the gears of the culture industry

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L.I. Underhill is a media critic and historian specializing in pop culture, with a focus on science fiction (especially Star Trek) and video games. Their projects include a critical history of Star Trek told through the narrative of a war in time, a “heretical” history of The Legend of Zelda series and a literary postmodern reading of Jim Davis' Garfield.

8 Comments

  1. Jack Graham
    August 27, 2014 @ 12:57 am

    This'll take an entire blog post. In fact, I'll do the series.

    Reply

  2. Cleofis
    August 27, 2014 @ 6:55 am

    @Jack: GOS YES PLEASE

    As to the post in question…well, I don't really have much to add here, as I'm in basically complete agreement with you on everything! Although I will say, I think you can see a lot of Ripley in Kira, come to think of it…

    Reply

  3. Josh Marsfelder
    August 27, 2014 @ 9:57 am

    Uh oh.

    Reply

  4. Josh Marsfelder
    August 27, 2014 @ 9:59 am

    Well, thank you-I'm glad you liked it!

    Although I don't recall Nana Visitor or any of the writers citing Ripley as an influence, now that you mention it there are some similarities, yeah.

    Reply

  5. K. Jones
    August 27, 2014 @ 5:49 pm

    The Tasha thing is huge, insofar as wasted potential goes. My revisionist memory always sells that character very short, but my most recent TNG re-watch, particularly when I got to "Yesterday's Enterprise" just demolished my longstanding notions. Wasted potential, wasted use of an actress's skill, and arguably, ignoring only the indomitable Doctor Pulaski, waste of the strongest woman in the cast.

    More later, but I obviously feel the Tasha-to-Sela transition was a bad, bad call. Far more powerful for both Tasha, deconstructive utopianism, and the Romulans themselves, would have been if she'd been a proper defector.

    Reply

  6. K. Jones
    August 27, 2014 @ 5:52 pm

    Suffice it to say, on repeats, ignoring Sir Patrick's startlingly good leading man status, Season 1 Tasha is second only to Riker in interest levels, beating early Data by a little bit.

    Reply

  7. Josh Marsfelder
    August 27, 2014 @ 6:30 pm

    Right, so I guess this proves that the site is gonna have to become the "Passionately Defend Marina Sirtis and Gates McFadden" Blog for a large portion of the TNG section…

    Obviously, Tasha Yar is one of my favourite characters in Star Trek, or rather, my favourite character concepts. She's a big, big part of my history and experiences with the series and is going to constitute a heavy portion of the narrative. But I gotta say…When I rewatched TNG Season 1 recently I personally got the impression Denise Crosby was maybe miscast. Naturally the writers screwed her over, and we'll talk about that, but I'm not entirely convinced this was the role she should have had in the first place. Maybe my views will change when I rewatch it again.

    There is more to the story here, and it explains how all of TNG's women got screwed over in one way or another in its first year, not just Denise Crosby. By my calendar, I'll be writing a lot more about Crosby, her role and her castmates in a week or so…

    Reply

  8. Jack Graham
    August 27, 2014 @ 9:08 pm

    Tasha is a great idea for a character but the scripts don't deliver, and nor does the actor. That bit in the second Q episode where she's in the Waiting Zone or Penalty Zone or whatever it's called, and she gets tearful and semi-flirts with Picard… ewww. And I don't rate Denise Crosby, I'm afraid.

    Reply

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