Last week, we reported that Alex Kurtzman would be stepping in to replace Star Trek: Discovery showrunners Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg (who just announced that they’re leaving the show in the midst of production on its second season). According to Deadline, though, that’s just a small part of Kurtzman’s new …
Poor ol’ Star Trek: Discovery: Despite moderately positive critical response to its first season, the CBS All Access series just can’t seem to get its production parents to stick around, with Variety reporting that showrunners Aaron Harberts and Gretchen J. Berg are now departing the series in the midst of filming for…
It’s 3 p.m.! Let The A.V. Club briefly make use of the waning hours of your productivity with some pop culture ephemera pulled from the depths of YouTube.
Welcome back to Pop Lexicon, The A.V. Club’s series with Kory Stamper, Merriam-Webster lexicographer and editor, where she reveals the origins of America’s favorite colloquialisms. Today, Kory explains not only how science can inform science fiction, but how science fiction can influence scientific discovery, starting…
Well, that was fast: Just a few hours after we reported that Paramount was developing two new Star Trek movies, specifically Quentin Tarantino’s weird thing and a sequel to Star Trek Beyond that we knew nothing about, the studio has shared some major new details about one of them. As reported by Variety, S.J. Clarkson…
During the same CinemaCon presentation today that featured J.J. Abrams shooting down our Cloverfield theories, Paramount noted that it has two Star Trek movies currently in development. That’s all the studio said, but Fandango editor Erik Davis said that Paramount initially phrased it “several new Star Trek movies”…
Tech writers have been playing the tech prediction game—usually pretty poorly—for as long as people have been attaching sticks to rocks, and then getting jealous because someone else’s stick-and-rock was sleeker and had a nicer case. Among all this talk of microprocessors—or the laughable notion of a computer that…
Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d…
Over the decades, fans of the Star Trek franchise have come to represent the prototypical obsessive sci-fi nerd. This is due, in large part, to Trekkers’ penchant for going beyond just an intimate knowledge of the show’s lore and characters, and delving into fastidious cataloging of alien species, uniform designs,…
“USS Callister” isn’t really about Star Trek. Oh sure, it has the trappings. There’s a ship crewed with people in colorful outfits, a paternalistic white guy captain, a fair amount of sci-fi jargon. The episode’s ultimate villain (aforementioned white male captain) gives a speech at one point outlining the ideals of …
The idea of Quentin Tarantino not only pitching but possibly even directing a new Star Trek movie is still one of the most baffling things to come out of 2017, and it would be further evidence that the whole year has been some bizarre dream if we didn’t keep getting news stories like this one that claim the project is…
The news that Quentin Tarantino is developing a Star Trek film was met with a fair amount of skepticism and early script suggestions (“Revenge is a Royale with cheese best served cold,” etc.). But there’s at least one person who’s ready to beam aboard: Patrick Stewart.
On Monday, we reported that Quentin Tarantino had decided he wanted to make a Star Trek movie, developing a pitch with J.J. Abrams that he had then sold to Paramount. The studio thought his pitch was a “great idea” and quickly began looking for writers who could flesh out his concept into an actual movie idea, all…
We live in a very bizarre world, and these days it’s usually scary bizarre instead of just weird bizarre, but entertainment news has finally swung back to weird bizarre with the announcement that Quentin Tarantino is developing a Star Trek movie. This comes from Deadline, which says Tarantino sold Paramount on a…
I’ve spent so much time in these reviews talking about the ways that Discovery isn’t Star Trek (or at least, it isn’t what I would typically expect from Star Trek) that I might as well spend column space this week saying what the show does get right. It’s a very specific thing, but it’s important, and while “Si Vis…
The problem isn’t that Star Trek: Discovery is terrible. It’s not. It’s not great; it’s not even consistently good. But it’s not the worst, and if this wasn’t a Star Trek show, I think I’d be more inclined to be favorable toward it. “Lethe” has some decent emotional beats, particularly in Burnham’s storyline. And…
With more than 5.4 million articles, Wikipedia is an invaluable resource, whether you’re throwing a term paper together at the last minute, or looking for a station in your area that carries good power converters. We explore some of Wikipedia’s oddities in our 5,497,456-week series, Wiki Wormhole.
The fifth episode of Star Trek: Discovery ventured into old territory and new, pairing the return of classic Trek character Harry Mudd (really just known as Mudd, and played here by Rainn Wilson) with a couple of firsts for the franchise. As promised, there was the sweet reveal of Discovery couple Stamets (Anthony…
Anyone disappointed by Star Trek: Discovery’s grim/dark view of the future past will likely leave “Choose Your Pain” still disappointed. The episode continues the trend of stark conflicts, bad vibes, and interpersonal squabbling. Even the introduction of one of the original Star Trek’s most memorably campy creations…
With the prologue officially over and Star Trek: Discovery well under way, “The Butcher’s Knife Cares Not For The Lamb’s Cry” has got a lot riding on it. Beginnings pose their own set of challenges, but at least they have the benefit of built in urgency and structural need. Michael Burnham’s journey from First Officer…