Star Trek: The Next Generation #18: Q-in-Law (1991) Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing okay. Today I'm here with my review of Star Trek: The Next Generation #18: Q-in-Law by Peter David. Spoiler Alert: It's one of my favourite TNG novels from the '90s. Also, there won't be too many spoilers as these are the novels where there isn't a whole lot to talk about, but there are a few things I'd like to mention. So let's get into it.

Pocket Books put out two types of Star Trek novels in the '90s. The thicker, longer hardcovers that became paperbacks and told deeper, lore heavy stories, and the shorter numbered straight to paperback novels that felt more like episodes of the TV show. Q-in-Law is the latter. It's number 18 in the series and it feels like an episode of the TV series with a hint of "What if?" thrown in. The "What if?" being Lwaxana Troi, ambassador for Betazed and the mother of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D's counselor, Deanna Troi, meeting Q. Being a Peter David novel, things get really ridiculous. But it's still alot of fun.

So the story is that the Enterprise-D is hosting the wedding of two previously feuding houses of the Tizarin race and representatives from all over the Federation are invited to the wedding. Including Lwaxana Troi since she's the ambassador from Betazed. But all hell breaks loose when Q arrives and catches Lwaxana's eye. 

Peter David seems to have gotten all the fun novels to write for Star Trek. Particularly many of the Q books. Actually, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that Peter David wrote all of the Q novels in the '90s, as there actually weren't that many in the main TNG novel series. And even when Q appeared outside of that series, in the New Frontier series, it was Peter David who wrote them. What gets me is how the writers of the various TV shows, particularly TNG and DS9, never thought to have Q and Lwaxana in an episode together. Especially by the time this novel came out as that was as TNG was at the height of its popularity during the fifth season.

As I mentioned the story is pretty simple. The Enterprise is on a diplomatic mission with a race we'll never see again (the Tizarin), and Q interferes, as usual, with Lwaxana onboard as well. Typical episode format for TNG back in 1991. And that's what I like about it. It's not universe threatening, there's no high stakes for the crew of the Enterprise, and it's not convoluted at all. It's pretty straightforward.

One thing I love about Peter David's Star Trek novels is the witty dialogue. There's one scene, near the end, where Q has given Lwaxana the power of the Q, and she's found out that Deanna and the rest of the crew had been right about Q all along so she starts beating him up. The senior staff is just watching this happen and Riker is like, "She's really beating the stuffing out of him. What do you think we should do?" and Worf replies, "Sell tickets." Which is totally something Worf would've said on the show in a Q episode if someone was beating up on Q. Yet, it's not something you'd expect in a Star Trek novel as they tend to be a bit more serious, especially during this period in time.

According to the 2006 Star Trek novels compendium reference book, Voyages of Imagination, Q-in-Law was originally turned down by Pocket Books and Peter David went on to write the second TNG Giant Novel, Vendetta. But he was at a convention with Majel Barrett Roddenberry, who played Lwaxana on TNG, gave her the completed manuscript, she read it, loved it, and went to Paramount, basically forcing them to let Pocket Books publish the book. It's Majel Barrett, she got alot of stuff done for Star Trek when she was alive. Even after Gene's death in 1991.  

There really isn't much else to say about the book. It's good, but it's your typical early '90s numbered TNG novel by one of the more prolific Star Trek author of the time. It's funny, it's interesting, but ultimately it's a throwaway story that doesn't add anything to the lore and it doesn't contradict anything either. I recommend it if you can get your hands on it. It was never republished like some of the other TNG and TOS novels that got new editions in 2006 and in the early 2010s, so there's just the one edition. Though I think it's a pretty common book because I found a copy easily at a used bookstore that I went to back in December, so if you can find it, definitely pick up a copy.

That's going to be it for me for today, but I will be back soon with more reviews. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Stargirl Season 2 (2021) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. Kind of. It was snowing all weekend, and is STILL snowing today. Which is why I'm here to talk about season 2 of Stargirl. I finished watching it while I ate lunch. There will be spoilers because there's so much I want to talk about and I can't do it spoiler free. So if you haven't seen season 2 yet and you watch the show, please watch the season before reading this review. Let's get into it.

While season 1 introduced the characters, season 2 expanded on them and really made them into something unique among the CW DC Comics based shows. I'll be honest, even before I'd seen the first season, I knew that Stargirl had moved to The CW for the second season, and so going into the season I was concerned that the quality of the writing would drop with it becoming a CW show, same as what happened with Supergirl in its second season. So I was a bit hesitant to go into season 2 even though I loved season 1 alot. But, I was surprised to find that, the quality of the writing did not drop. In fact it got even better.

One of the things I loved about this season is that it was a slow burn. But it wasn't a slow burn in a bad way like it was on the Arrowverse shows. It's a slow burn so that we, as the audience can spend more time with the characters before Eclipso escapes from the Black Diamond that we saw Cindy retrieve at the end of the season 1 finale. As I said in my review of season 1, Geoff Johns and his writers understand that it's the characters, not the powers or the big battles, that make a superhero TV show or movie work, because they write some great characters, both on the hero side and the villain side. I have never been a fan of supervillains. Especially in the present day where they actually do more than simply rob a bank with tricks and gimmicks, and I don't think anyone should idolize characters like the Joker, Lex Luthor, or any other villains. However, the villains on Stargirl are some of the most layered, most fascinating villain characters I have ever seen in a comic book based TV show, even beating out Michael Rosenbaum's portrayal of Lex Luthor on Smallville. Especially Larry Crock/Sportsmaster and Paula Brooks/Tigress. Those two are also alot of fun to watch everytime they're on screen.

Of course my favourite character, Yolanda Montez/Wildcat, had so much more going on with her this season, which is great. One of the things that bothered me about the Arrowverse shows, particularly Arrow, The Flash, and Legends of Tomorrow, is that whenever a hero character killed a villain, they would either brush it off within an episode or two, or agonize over it and then never do anything about it until they had to kill another villain. But here, on Stargirl, it was tearing Yolanda up inside for most of the season, to the point where she quit being Wildcat temporarily, even returning the Wildcat suit to Courtney until the season finale. She eventually forgave herself for having to kill Brainwave last season, but it wasn't a quick fix. She also didn't drown in her sorrows until Eclipso tried to tear her, Beth, and Rick apart with their own fears. In Yolanda's case, it worked. Briefly.

Speaking of Eclipso, he was absolutely terrifying. The Crocks and the other members of the ISA were delights to watch on screen because, they weren't super evil. Oh sure, the Dragon King was just insane, and Jordan Mahkent/Icicle had good intentions, he just went about them the wrong way. But Eclipso? He was pure evil. I don't have any experience with the character in the comics, but, I am familiar with the name because of the ads for the 1992 miniseries/crossover event, Eclipso: The Darkness Within, which were in issues of various DC titles that I have from that year. But, holy crap, this guy was extremely powerful. He was even able to take Rick out while Rick was within his hour of strength from the hourglass that he wears as Hourman. He was also stronger than Cindy Burman/Shiv. And Cindy was the best fighter in the ISA, aside from the Crocks. He also looked like a Skrull from the MCU or an Orc or any number of evil, mystical, creatures in a high fantasy movie or TV show.

I really enjoyed the Shade and seeing Jennie-Lynn Hayden/Jade, the daughter of the original, Golden Age, Green Lantern, Alan Scott. Shade was just so much fun, because you didn't know whether he was on the JSA's side or if he was the villain of the season, aside from Cindy and Eclipso. And it wasn't like he was evil or anything. He was just delightfully bad. And having Jade on the show is the closest we've come to having a Green Lantern on a CW DC Comics based show, despite Berlanti and Co. teasing John Diggle as a Green Lantern ever since season 4 of Arrow back in 2015. 

There wasn't a single storyline this season that I didn't like or that was bad. Even Cindy, who didn't have much of a storyline this time around, wasn't bad. Meg DeLacy has continued to play Cindy extremely well, and is always a delight on screen, but the writers have continued to write her well too, which isn't always the case with the second seasons of these shows. I do have to say though that I thought that Thunderbolt's introduction episode, which was Episode 3, was a bit on the weak side. Not BAD, just it wasn't as strong an introduction to the character as we'd had with other characters in these first two seasons. Jim Gaffigan voices him this season, but apparently he was replaced by Seth Green in season 3, so THAT will be interesting because I love Seth Green as an actor and have ever since I saw him in the Austin Powers movies in the early 2000s. 

Like with the Blu-ray for season 1, Stargirl: The Complete Second Season consists of three discs, with four episodes on Disc 1, five on Disc 2, and four on Disc 3. However, unlike the The Complete First Season, there is a full bonus feature besides a State of Georgia featurette and the gag reel. It's a 20 minute documentary called Never Alone: Heroes and Allies. It focuses on the heroes and supporting characters of The Flash, Superman & Lois, Batwoman, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, and Stargirl. Arrow, Titans, Doom Patrol, Supergirl, Peacemaker, and Black Lightning aren't mentioned as Titans, Doom Patrol, and Peacemaker don't air on The CW and Arrow, Supergirl, and Black Lightning had already ended by the time this set was put together, and Legends of Tomorrow and Batwoman are shown because neither show had been canceled yet when this documentary was put together. It's a decent set, though I do wish there were more Stargirl centric bonus features on it. Neither season has a behind the scenes documentary or a season specific Making Of documentary either. Which is disappointing as I would've loved to have gotten cast reactions to being on the show.

Overall season 2 of Stargirl was even better than season 1. Like I said, it has a slower pace that allowed us to spend more time with each character before everything went to hell. As Geoff Johns said in the Heroes and Allies documentary, the reason he introduced Beth, Yolanda, and Rick the way he did back in season 1 was so we, as the audience, could get to know them before they got their costumes and abilities, so that when stuff did happen we could feel a connection to them, not their powers and costumes. Which is what I've been saying about comic book based and superhero shows and movies all along. It's the characters that matter, not the costumes or the powers. Which is why we have Peter Parker taking the Spider-Man mask off constantly in every Spider-Man movie we've ever had, and why we spent so much time with Peter Parker in the Sam Raimi movies, particularly Spider-Man 2 (2004). It's why Grant Gustin only puts on the Flash mask as Barry Allen when there's a fight scene on The Flash (2014-2023). It's why I have my problems with the Batman and Superman movies as they tend to focus more on Batman and Superman, not on Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent. It's why I didn't care that they took forever to get Clark into the Superman suit on Smallville. 

So I definitely highly recommend season 2 of Stargirl. Especially if you watched and enjoyed season 1. It's still alot of fun to watch, even though it does go a little bit darker than season 1 did, simply because of the things Eclipso made our heroes see when he attacked their minds with his powers. So check it out if you're interested in it.

And that my friends is it for me for now. I'll be back soon though with my review of the 1991 Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, Q-in-Law by Peter David. So until then have a wonderful night and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Star Wars: Honor Among Thieves (2014) Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So I'm back with another book review. This time I'm reviewing the last novel to be published in the original Star Wars expanded universe before the current Disney canon began, 2014's Honor Among Thieves by James S.A. Corey. Like with my Kenobi review from the other day, this is my first time reading this book so I wanted to get my initial thoughts about it out there before I really delve into it later on down the line in whatever form I end up doing the Star Wars Expanded Universe/Legends reviews in. I have ideas on that, but I'm not ready to talk about it yet. So that means there won't be any spoilers in this review. That'll come later when I revisit the book down the line. With that out of the way, let's get into it.

Released on March 4th, 2014, Honor Among Thieves was the final book published that was set in the Legends continuity. Though I don't think anybody knew it was going to be the last Legends novel to be published as the Lucasfilm Story Group didn't announce that decision until April 25th, 2014, more than a month after this book was published. Also the new character, Scarlet Hark, the Alliance spy that Han is sent to recover, feels like someone who was meant to show up in more books, almost like Del Rey was trying to duplicate the success that they'd had with Mara Jade in the '90s and early 2000s, after the release of Heir to the Empire in 1991. But with this ending up being the final book in Legends, that never happened as she wasn't transferred over to the Canon continuity. 

The paperback was published on February 24th, 2015, only six days shy of the first anniversary of the hardcover's release. This edition, which includes the Legends banner across the top, came out around the time that several of the Bantam era novels from the '90s were re-released with the Legends banner across the top of the front covers. This is the edition that I have in my collection. It includes an excerpt preview of the Canon novel, Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp, as well as the short story "Silver and Scarlet", which was the introduction of Scarlet Hark, and was published in Star Wars Insider #148, only a week after it was originally published in the hardcover of this novel. I'll talk about that a little later though.

I had such a good time reading Honor Among Thieves. It was fun, funny, and exciting all at once. Honestly, it felt like a throwback to the Bantam era novels from the '90s. The pacing was similar, the humour felt like the type of humour that Aaron Allston had in his entries in the Star Wars: X-Wing novel series, and the action was pretty great too. 

Something that I've found with alot of Star Wars novels that have come out since The New Jedi Order started in 1999 is that they've gotten alot heavier in terms of the aspects of the Star Wars Universe they explore. Some are darker than others, but they overall became alot more introspective and more character focused. And I think that's because the franchise started evolving and moving in that direction with the Prequel Trilogy. And by the time books like the Fate of the Jedi series started coming out in 2009 and 2010, we were already getting fairly heavy character pieces in the Clone Wars TV series, under the watchful eye of Dave Filoni. So the novels and comics were reflecting those changes that the movies and TV show were making. And because the novels are more dense, they take longer to read than the Bantam era novels do. So it was nice to read a more modern Star Wars novel, which is only a little over a month away from being nine years old now, that is lighter and fast to read. I started it on Monday night after I'd finished the Kenobi review, and finished it just before bed last night. That's how quick of a read it is. 

Unlike with Kenobi, Wookieepedia has nothing on the development of this book and no behind the scenes info on it either. It was written by James S.A. Corey, who is a pseudonym for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, and are the authors, under that pen name, of the Sci-Fi book series, The Expanse, which is what the TV show of the same name is adapted from. But, having never read the The Expanse novels, and having never read anything else by these authors, I don't know if I should be surprised that they wrote a light-hearted Star Wars novel or not. My buddy Aaron, who is a fan of The Expanse, told me that while humour is in The Expanse, it's not anywhere near as light-hearted as this book is. So that's interesting.

This is also a Han Solo focused novel. Which isn't all that surprising since Han did get shafted in the Original Trilogy, but I think that's simply due to the fact that Harrison Ford was only involved on a movie by movie basis, so after the first movie came out in 1977, George didn't write a whole lot for Han to do in each subsequent movie knowing that Ford might not be available for the next movies. And of course we know what would happen to him in the Sequel Trilogy, so I don't blame authors for wanting to tell more stories with Han being the focus. It's just interesting that this book came out 14 months after the last Legends novel written by Timothy Zahn, Scoundrels, came out, and was also a Han focused novel. Though in that case it was a Han and Lando focused novel. It's also interesting that both novels take place at some point during the three years between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back (1980). 

The short story, "Silver and Scarlet" is okay. Like I said with the short story in the paperback for Kenobi, there isn't a whole lot to say about it. It was a decent introduction to Scarlet Hark. But that's it.

Overall this was an awesome book and a great way to end off the Legends continuity. I highly recommend reading it if you can get your hands on it. Like I said earlier, I will be revisiting this book at some point during my Star Wars Legends review series that I'll be doing later on down the line. There are a few other novels that I want to get to before that though.

That's going to be it for me for today. I will be back soon with my review of Stargirl season 2. I'm aiming for either Friday or Saturday, leaning more towards Saturday, because of when I decide to watch the show. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

How I Met Your Father Season 2, Episode 1, "Cool and Chill" (2023) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? So I was wrong about the season 2 premiere of How I Met Your Father. It did drop on Disney+ internationally the same day as it dropped on Hulu. Which is today. So I'm here to review the premiere of the season, "Cool and Chill". There will be some minor spoilers because there was a cameo at the end of the episode that I really want to talk about in this review. So let's get into it.

As much as I enjoyed the first season of How I Met Your Father, season two was not off to a great start. I mean I enjoyed Sid because he was my favourite character in the first season, and Hannah, his girlfriend, now wife, was great too. But, nobody else really had much going on except for wrapping up loose ends from the first season. Which is kinda of why this episode wasn't great. Too much of the drama from the season one finale carried into this season and it made the episode too clunky. It also painted Ellen in a really bad light in this episode. Which really sucks because I liked Ellen in season one. She was goofy but sympathetic, but here, here she's just annoying, and not funny. Almost as if the writers forgot who they were writing for and then the actress who plays her, Tien Tran, forgot how to play her. 

Even Jesse and Sophie weren't great this episode. And Sophie, played by the still wonderful Hilary Duff, is the show's main character. So it's not good when your main character isn't great in the season premiere. I still loved Charlie and Valentina though. They didn't do much in this episode, but being that they'd just broken up in the season one finale, they had that to deal with, and it was done decently. Kind of. And by kind of, I mean that they'll probably be back together at some point in the next five or six episodes. 

So I'm kinda thinking that this show isn't going to get renewed for a third season. The reason I think that is because they have Barney Stinson coming in this season. Yes, they had Robin in the season one finale, but they didn't foreshadow it in the pilot by having her appear as a quick cameo in a flash forward sequence at the end of the episode. In fact, I don't think they even announced that Cobie Smulders was returning as Robin until like a week or two before the finale dropped. Here though Barney shows up in a flash forward sequence at the end of the episode and there doesn't seem to be a story or character reason for Barney to even be there. So I think they're trying to boost views by teasing Barney's appearance in a later episode. I don't know for sure though.

Overall this was not a great start to a show that's already on shaky grounds as a weird retread of a show that is completely outdated in 2023. Don't get me wrong, I love How I Met Your Mother, but I love it for what it was for the time it was on TV (2005-2014), and it had already outstayed its welcome by the time it got to its ninth season. So this show doesn't work quite as well because of that connection. It's a 20 episode season though, so I'm hoping it gets better. 

Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I'll be back on Friday with my review of season 2 of Stargirl. Hopefully. Though I might do another blog post before then. We'll see. Until then have a great rest of the day and I'll talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Wars: Kenobi (2013) Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Monday. I hope you all had a good weekend. As you saw from the review I posted yesterday I had a pretty great weekend. Today I'm here to take a look at Star Wars: Kenobi by John Jackson Miller. I ended up finishing it last night before bed though I had originally planned on waiting to review it until after I'd finished watching season 2 of Stargirl since I really need to get that review done. But, here we are, so let's get into it. Oh, and there won't be too many spoilers, if any, because I'm planning a Star Wars books thing for the near future. Which means that at some point I'll be revisiting this book in more detail. This is just to get my initial thoughts on the book as it's my first time reading it. Let's get into it.

Published on August 27th, 2013, Kenobi was one of the last novels published in the Star Wars Expanded Universe before the entire EU was moved into Legends and Disney began publishing new novels in the new canon set up by Star Wars Rebels in 2014. In fact the paperback includes an excerpt from the first adult novel in the new Expanded Universe, A New Dawn, also by John Jackson Miller.

For years now I've heard about how good Kenobi is and how it's one of the best Legends novels out there, but I never really knew anything about the story or characters in it. There aren't even previews for the book in the paperbacks for the novels I have that were published in 2012 and early 2013. So I knew nothing going in. And I was surprised. I was expecting some contrived plot to either get Kenobi off of Tatooine or to put Luke in danger. But what I got was not that at all. In fact Obi-Wan is hardly in the book at all. The focus is on Orrin Gault and Annileen Calwell, ordinary settlers trying to make a living on Tatooine, while dealing with the Sand People and their own children, Jabe and Kallie, Annileen's son and daughter, and Mullen and Veeka, Orrin's son and daughter. Because the novel was hyped up for me, I was expecting an epic novel full of Stormtroopers, kidnapping plots by the Imperials. Instead I got a traditional space western. 

I really enjoyed this book. As I said, I was expecting a plot heavy novel. Instead I got a much smaller character piece. While we do get Obi-Wan's feelings on the events that happened in Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith (2005), they're confined to meditations where Obi-Wan talks to Qui-Gon Jinn through the Force, though, like in the Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney+ series, Qui-Gon doesn't answer.

Speaking of Obi-Wan Kenobi, according to Wookieepedia, the Star Wars Wiki, not only did Ewan MacGregor read this book after he'd finished filming the series, but series showrunner, Deborah Chow, said that she had used the book as a guide to where Obi-Wan would be in his life during the ten years between Episode III and the series, as well as let the book influence the tone of the series, even if none of the plot was used. Honestly though, some of the plot of the book reminds me of what was going on in The Book of Boba Fett with the Tusken Raiders, Boba, the Pike Syndicate and the Hutts. 

I don't really have a favourite character in this book because, aside from Orrin and his kids, they're all pretty great so it's hard to pick one. But, having said that I do like Annileen quite a bit. Well, besides the fact that she put up with the Gault family a little too long, simply because Orrin was her late husband, Dannar's best friend. Yeah, I don't care if a person is my late partner's best friend, if they're a slimy businessman or just an overall bad influence, I'm not keeping them around, no matter what the personal cost to me would be. That's just me though.

I'm not a big fan of the Sand People, but I really enjoyed what they did here. It's better than what they tried to do with it in The Book of Boba Fett. I also like how it tied into the Sharad Hett stuff from the Star Wars: Republic comic book series that Dark Horse published from 1998 until 2006 before it became the Dark Times series, which then ran until 2013, when this book was published. For those of you who don't know who Sharad Hett is, he was a Jedi Knight from a world whose name was lost to history for some reason. Anyways, once his world and family were destroyed, he left the Jedi Order and exiled himself to Tatooine where he joined the Tusken Raiders and had a son, who would eventually become Darth Krayt in the Star Wars: Legacy comic book series. I think that, aside from the Junior Jedi Knights young readers book series by Rebecca Moesta and Nancy Richardson and the Republic comics, we don't get much with the Sand People in Legends. We don't get anything in the adult novels line until this book despite the fact that we go back to Tatooine quite a bit in Legends. So it's nice to get something here, even though A'Yark doesn't interact with the rest of the main characters until the final act. It's interesting to get the thought process of a Tusken Raider though.

As mentioned earlier, Kenobi was published in paperback around the time that Legends was wrapping up and the first new canon novel, A New Dawn, was going to come out. Which makes it one of the first books to come out with the Legends banner. However I don't know for sure because Wookieepedia doesn't have a record of the release date for the books being released with the Legends banner that had previously been published without it, like the Bantam era books, the books like Splinter of the Mind's Eye that were published during the time when the Original Trilogy movies were being made, and the books that came out between 2000 and early 2013 where the books that initially came out in hardcover, came out in paperback before the Legends banner was added to the covers. But, I think I'll do a post about the Legends banner reprints at a different time, because they are worth talking about. This is the edition that I have in my collection as I asked for it for my birthday, along with Honor Among Thieves by James S.A. Corey, the last Legends book to be published.

Included in the back of the book, along with an excerpt from the canon novel, A New Dawn, was a short story called "Incognito" also by Miller. It was originally published in Star Wars Insider #143, which came out in 2013 for the 30th anniversary of the original theatrical release of Return of the Jedi. The story is good. It's basically Obi-Wan taking a transport to Tatooine, with baby Luke Skywalker following Revenge of the Sith. It's fine.

On April 5th, 2022, Kenobi was re-released, this time as a trade paperback in the Essential Legends Collection. I actually considered getting this edition rather than the regular paperback, but decided that I just wanted the regular paperback edition to keep my Legends novels consistent as the Essential Legends Collection editions are bigger than the regular paperback editions. I might actually do a post on this series too just because it fascinates me as a fan of Star Wars Legends novels. 

Overall I really enjoyed reading Kenobi. I think I'll need to read it again in the very near future though. Just to give myself time to sit with it a bit more because it's not something I was expecting from a Legends novel. Especially not one that was written in the early 2010s. Most of those books were more action oriented with some character stuff going on. If you've never read this book then I recommend you do so because it's definitely worth the read. Just be aware that the entire book takes place on Tatooine. So if you don't like sand because it's coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets everywhere, then you might not enjoy this book, but definitely give it a try as it's well written with a good pace, and it's probably the best way they could've told Obi-Wan's early days on Tatooine. And yes, I used Anakin's line about sand from Attack of the Clones.

That's going to be it for me for today. But I'll be back soon for more reviews. I originally planned to review the season 2 premiere of How I Met Your Father tomorrow, but then it dawned on me that it's only dropping on Hulu tomorrow, not on Disney+ internationally. So that probably won't be happening until February or March. Which means I'll end up doing a comic book review this week afterall. But we'll see. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

That '90s Show Season 1 (2023) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Last night I went over to my sister's place and we binged the first season of That '90s Show, the sequel series to That '70s Show (1998-2006). So that's what I'm reviewing today as we finished the entire first season. There will be some minor spoilers as I want to talk about where Eric, Donna, Fez, Kelso, and Jackie are in their lives when we see them in the season, and I wanna talk about the new characters a little bit too. So with that in mind, let's talk about season 1 of That '90s Show.

When That '90s Show was announced back in October 2021, I was excited, but nervous at the same time. That '70s Show was one of my favourite shows when I was in high school. In fact I would often skip episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005) to watch That '70s Show because they were on on the same night, at the same time during pretty much all of Enterprise's run on TV. So for me the prospect of seeing Red and Kitty returning to look after their granddaughter was exciting, but also pretty scary because I'd been down this road before a few times, with varying degrees of success.

In 2014, Michael Jacobs and April Kelly, the creators of the 1993 ABC sitcom, Boy Meets World (1993-2000), created Girl Meets World, a sequel to the original show with Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel reprising their roles as Cory and Topanga from the original show. And while the show was fun and it was interesting to return to those characters, particularly when characters like Eric, Shawn, Jack, and Mr. Feeny pop up from time to time, they made a mistake by having it on the Disney Channel. Meaning it couldn't talk about many of the social issues that Boy Meets World tackled in the '90s.

Then came Fuller House (2016-2020) the Netflix series that served as a sequel to Full House (1987-1995), but went too far in the opposite direction. The show was stifled by being a sequel to Full House in that it wasn't allowed to do its own thing and relied too heavily on contrivances for why Danny, Jesse, Joey, and Becky kept showing up despite the fact that they'd all moved away in the pilot episode, and for why DJ had to move back into the original house with her three boys and I stopped watching it after like six or seven episodes, though I did keep up with what was going on in the show anyways. These last two examples aren't ones I'm heavily invested in but I thought I'd still mention them anyway.

In 2020 a revival of Saved by the Bell (1989-1993) began its two season run, also under the name Saved by the Bell (2020-2021). This one I didn't care about all that much since I didn't really watch Saved by the Bell as I was only 2 years old, almost 3, at the time it aired, though I do remember seeing a little bit of it with my mom so I thought I'd look up the sequel series. It was nothing like the original, in terms of the tone of the show, feeling more CW teen drama than late '80s/early '90s NBC sitcom.

The weirdest sitcom sequel is the current iCarly series. I watched maybe a part of an episode of the original series with my sister, but the show was after my time so I never got into it the way I did Zoey 101 and Radio Free Roscoe when they were airing earlier in the 2000s. And because I never got into the original iCarly, I didn't bother with the revival series. 

As for That '70s Show, I didn't start watching it until season 4 as it began in the fall of 2001, when I was just starting high school and I'd just gotten a TV in my bedroom for the first time. To this day season 4 is still my favourite season because it had so many great episodes, like "Class Picture" which is basically a flashback episode to where the gang all met each other, and "That '70s Musical" which is the show's musical episode, because alot of shows did musical episodes in the 2000s and 2010s, but in a series of sequences in Fez's head.

 Even when season 8 aired, I wasn't as upset about the season as other people ended up being. I think it's because the writing was still decent, even if some decisions weren't great. I mean c'mon the writing on That '70s Show wasn't Shakespeare and was never going to be, so there wasn't much of a downgrade in the quality of the writing in the final season as some people think there is. They just made really bad story choices. 

I went on that really long tangent to say that I was nervous and excited for That '90s Show and that of all of the revival shows that have come out in the last nine years, this one is the best. It balanced the nostalgia of That '70s Show and the stuff with the new characters, particularly Eric and Donna's daughter, Leia Forman. I'll be talking about her in a little bit. It was such an easy series to binge, with each episode only being between 20 and 30 minutes in length. It was enjoyable too. They weren't trying to invent the wheel with this show or prove anything to an audience that largely forgot about the original show. Trust me That '70s Show, while not super popular during its original run on FOX, gained new popularity once it got on Netflix and once the Blu-ray and DVD sets started getting re-released in the 2010s. 

One of my favourite parts about this show is, like the original, the decade it's set in is only the backdrop to the story it's telling. First kisses, fitting in with friends, coming out as gay, and escaping the shadow of your parents are all themes that are explored on this show, and they're timeless themes that the original show also tackled, except that it was set in the '70s instead of the '90s. While other period piece shows like The Goldbergs and Schooled were all about the decades they were in (the '80s and '90s respectively) the people behind That '90s Show remembered that That '70s Show was about the characters, not the events and pop culture of the 1970s and so they chose to do the same thing with this show and made it about the characters, not the fact that the show is set in the summer of 1995. And like the original show, they still mentioned certain movies and TV shows. Like in one episode the kids mentioned having tickets to see Batman Forever in theatres.

One of my favourite things about the second episode is a scene that takes place in a video store. Leia and Kitty are there to rent a movie, and on the shelves you can see movies like FernGully: The Last Rainforest, Jurassic Park, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, Apollo 13, True Lies, Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, and The Blues Brothers. But the tapes that I loved seeing the most were the 1988 release of Disney Sing-Along Songs: You Can Fly!, the 1990 or 1992 VHS release of Star Wars, the 1989 VHS release of The Wizard of Oz, and the 1991 and 1993 editions of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, as I either own them now or owned or rented them when I was a kid. Yes, I made a mental list of all the tapes I saw in the video store in that one scene. I'm a VHS nerd guys. Anyways it was pretty great seeing that many different movies. Normally when you have scenes set in a video store you either don't see the original slipcover or clamshell cases, just the particular rental cases, or if you do see the original slipcover or clamshell cases the camera is at an angle where you can't really tell what the movies actually are.

The main thing that was announced when this show was announced was the fact that Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp would be reprising their roles as Red and Kitty as part of the main cast, AND would be involved in the development and production of the series as executive producers. Cast members becoming executive producers on a revival show isn't new as Sir Patrick Stewart is an executive producer on Star Trek: Picard (2020-2023), John Stamos, who played Uncle Jesse on Full House, was an executive producer on Fuller House, half the cast of Saved by the Bell were producers on the 2020 revival series, even if none of them were executive producers, and Miranda Cosgrove is an executive producer on the 2021 revival of iCarly as well as reprising her role as Carly. So it wasn't a big surprise to find both Smith and Rupp assume that role on That '90s Show. But as soon as they appeared on screen as Red and Kitty it felt like they just fell right back into the roles. Both are retired, though Kitty decides to become the nurse at the high school once Leia goes back to Chicago at the end of the summer.

Eric and Donna also showed up in the first scene and Donna went back to being a redhead at some point as she'd been blond since season 7 of That '70s Show. She's also an author. Which is cool because she did alot of writing on the original show. Eric on the other hand is a professor at a university where he teaches a course called, "The Religion of Star Wars", because of course Eric Forman would teach a university class on something related to Star Wars since he was a huge fan of the movie in the original series. I wonder what his thoughts are on the Prequel Trilogy, since the season takes place in the summer of 1995 and the prequels had been announced the year before. Again, both Topher Grace and Laura Prepon both fell back into their roles as soon as they appeared on screen.

We only got one scene with Jackie and Kelso. Just enough to establish that they're back together despite Jackie having been with Fez at the end of the original series, and that they have a son, named Jay, who I will talk about later. Of course they had the same dynamic as they did in the original series with Jackie bossing Kelso around, and Kelso pretending to fight back, but ultimately doing what Jackie tells him to do anyway. Like I said, we don't get very much time with them unfortunately.

And then there's Fez. He's got a larger role in the new show as he's dating the woman who lives next door to Red and Kitty. In the house that used to be Bob and Donna's house. He also owns a local salon called Chez Fez. Fez was always one of my favourite characters on That '70s Show so to see him return and have as big of a role as he does is pretty awesome.

And then there's the new kids. Besides Leia Forman and Jay Kelso, you have Gwen Runck who is Leia's best friend and lives next door (Fez is dating Gwen's mom), her half-brother Nate (they have different fathers), Nikki, who is Nate's girlfriend, and Ozzie, who is basically the Fez stand-in for this show. My favourite characters from this group are Leia, Gwen, and Ozzie. I can't really relate to Jay, Nate, and Nikki, but Leia is how I was when I was in high school. Awkward, never been kissed, never done drugs or alcohol, and, if it weren't for being the only handicapped person in the entire school, I'd be as invisible at school as both Leia and Gwen feel. Ozzie is hilarious, and I love how the show handled his coming out to Kitty as a gay person too. Then again, That '70s Show handled that sort of thing pretty well for a late '90s/early 2000s sitcom on FOX, so it wasn't all that surprising that this show would tackle those kinds of things. What was surprising was that it was a main character who is gay on this show. Since whenever That '70s Show dealt with that, it was a guest character. Plus, Ozzie is short, like me.

And also, like Leia, I not only found my people when I was 14 going on 15, but I had a group of friends up at the cottage when I stayed at my grandparents for a few weeks one summer, which was probably the summer of either 1996 or 1997. And if I arrived at Grandma and Grandpa's house by early afternoon, I'd walk over to my friends's house (they were all siblings) and say hi. If I got there after dinner or right as dinner was being made then I'd wait until the next morning. I continued doing that well into adulthood, and only stopped when I stopped going up to the lake in 2016. Big life changes happened that year. My point is I could relate to Leia Forman the most, just like I related alot to Eric during the original show's run. 

I do think it took a few episodes for the chemistry of the six teenagers to really kick in. With the exception of the actress who plays Gwen, I think this was the first major role for these kids so it was a bit awkward with them on screen for the first two or three episodes. By episode 4 though they were firing on all cylinders, which was great to see. Especially these days where it's more common for actual teenagers to play teenagers on TV, and in movies. Which was only kind of the case when I was growing up in the '90s and 2000s. And only on family shows like Full House and Boy Meets World. 

Overall season 1 of That '90s Show was alot of fun. I really hope it gets renewed for a second season because apparently the creative team has a plan where each season is going to be set during the summer of each year of the '90s from 1995 to 1999, which will give us a total of five seasons if it gets renewed. Which will be awesome. If you're a fan of That '70s Show, I highly recommend watching That '90s Show, if you haven't already. 

That my friends is it for me for today. I will be back soon with more reviews. Hopefully one of those reviews will be season 2 of Stargirl, but I have a dental appointment on Thursday and the season 2 premiere of How I Met Your Father drops on Tuesday so I'll be reviewing that this week as well. So there probably won't be a comic book review this week, unless I decide to pull one out of my longbox tomorrow or Wednesday, since I won't have time for any blog posts on Thursday. Regardless, you'll hear from me at least twice this week with two TV show reviews. So until then have a great night and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

The History of Gargoyles in Comics

 Hey everyone, I'm back with the final post of the day. This time I'm diving into the history of Gargoyles in comics. There will be some spoilers for the 2006 comic book revival of the series, but that can't be helped since I need to talk about particular things as part of this history. So just be aware of that as you read this post. With that out of the way, let's get into it.

Gargoyles was an animated series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and created by Greg Weisman, who, as I mentioned in my review for the first issue of the current comic book series, was the co-creator of Star Wars Rebels, along with Dave Filoni, creator of Young Justice and The Spectacular Spider-Man, among many other animated series. It aired in syndication on The Disney Afternoon from 1994 to 1996, and then got moved to Disney's One Saturday Morning on ABC from 1996 to 1997 under the title, Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles, which Weisman had very little involvement with, aside from writing the season premiere, which he would later go on to adapt into comic book form in 2006. But we'll get into that. The series focused on a clan of Gargoyles, led by Goliath, who wake up in 1994, in New York City, after having been in stone sleep for a thousand years having been cursed by magic during medieval times. The show had lots of references to Shakespeare and Mythology and it was pretty cool, very different from the other cartoons on The Disney Afternoon.

Like most animated shows in the '90s, Gargoyles had toys, books, VHS tapes, and other merchandise. Naturally this included a comic book series. 

In 1995, Marvel Comics, who had had the comic book license for Star Trek, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Transformers, and G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero in the '80s, gained the comic book license for Gargoyles as they also had the comic book license for Aladdin: The Series, another animated series that aired on The Disney Afternoon, as well as the comic book license for the 1991 movie, Beauty and the Beast. Unlike the later comic book series, this series is not canon to the TV series. With it being out of print for as long as it has, I've never read the series before.

The series ended with issue #11 as Marvel backed out of its deal with Disney, effectively canceling both the Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast comics as well as this one. Apparently though Dynamite is planning on re-releasing facsimile editions of certain issues of this series, along with trade paperback collected editions of the series as well, similar to what Boom! Studios did with the Power Rangers comics a few years ago.

While the Marvel series was coming out, Disney Adventures Magazine was publishing comic book stories based on Gargoyles in their Comic Zone section. These comics were a mix of ongoing stories and one and done stories, though they stopped publishing them once the TV show was over, after a total of nine stories were published.

The year was 2006. Gargoyles had been off the air for nine years at this point, though reruns still aired on The Disney Channel and Toon Disney at this point, and Greg Weisman managed to convince Disney to let him do comic book stories that continued the plot of the series, where season 2 ended as he was not pleased with what Disney had done with The Goliath Chronicles after kicking him and his team off the show after the season premiere. 

A spin-off, called Gargoyles: Bad Guys, was in publication at the same time. This series focused on the bad guys in the Gargoyles universe, though they aren't the ones you would think they'd be. Rather than it be about Xanatos, Fox, Demona, and Macbeth, it's more like the Suicide Squad, with Dingo from the Pack, Robyn Canmore a.k.a. the Hunter, Matrix (a computer program created by Fox's Earth mother, long story), Yama, a Gargoyle from Japan, and Fang, a former member of Talon's Mutate clan. Talon was originally Elisa's brother, Derek, but was transformed into a Gargoyle like being by a mad scientist under the employ of Xanatos. He and others like him formed a clan known as the Mutates.

After the first two issues of the main series, which were an adaptation of the season 3 premiere, which Weisman had written, the new series, published by Slave Labor Graphics, or SLG, went off in its own direction, expanding on the mythos of the TV show in the way that Weisman had planned to do during the third season, but obviously never got to since Disney went in a different direction with the third season. Aside from the first issue, I never owned these comics, though I did read the whole thing in trade paperback form that I borrowed from the public library. 

However, due to Disney increasing the licensing fees, SLG couldn't afford to renew the license for the Gargoyles comic. The president of the company was still interested in the property, they just couldn't afford the increased cost of licensing it from Disney, despite the fact that Disney wasn't doing anything with the franchise themselves at the time. So the series was abruptly ended, as was Bad Guys.

 The remaining issues of the "season" were published in volume 2 of the trade paperback collection, Gargoyles: Clan Building, and the remaining two issues of Bad Guys were published the trade paperback for that series as well.

Dynamite picked up the license for Gargoyles in either 2021 or early 2022. Aside from the "fourth season" comic book series it's publishing, and the re-release of the original Marvel Comics run, Dynamite is also planning on reprinting the entire SLG run, both in single issues and in trade paperback, which will make it easier to read the "third season" of the series in full before diving into the new series. Hopefully this series will continue to be published beyond the 11 or 12 issues that the previous comics based on Gargoyles were.

And that's the history of Gargoyles in comics. It's also it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow though for some pre-series thoughts on That '90s Show before I watch it at my sister's place on Saturday. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Gargoyles (Dynamite) #1 (2022) Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm here for a comic book review of a recent single issue. That issue is Gargoyles #1, published by Dynamite Entertainment and came out back in December. I'm also going to do a second post that will cover the history of Gargoyles in comic books since it goes all the way back to when the TV show was airing on The Disney Afternoon in 1995. So stay tuned for that. There won't be any spoilers for this issue in this review, but there might be some spoilers for it, as well as some minor ones for the previous comic book series that have been published over the years in the next post, so just be aware of that as we go along. Right now, let's get into it.

I was honestly surprised when I came across this issue on the rack at the comic book store when I was there with Brad back in December. Being that I don't follow Dynamite Entertainment on social media, and I don't generally pick up other comics they publish, I had no idea that this comic was even coming out. So when I saw it I grabbed a copy, though because they didn't have the main cover, which you see above, I grabbed a copy that had cover B on it, with artwork done by veteran comic book artist, Amanda Conner. In fact, here's a look at the cover I have in front of me.

As cool as the main cover is, I actually prefer this one. Mainly because Gargoyles is an animated series, and the main cover makes them look too realistic. Conner's cover maintains that animated quality to the characters that is missing from the main cover. Though I am surprised that Angela is missing from this cover.

Not a whole lot happens in this issue. It's basically a re-introduction to the world since it's been about 25 years since the original show ended its run and about 15 years since the series published by SLG Comics ceased publication. Like the previous series it was written by series creator, Greg Weisman, who many of you might know as the co-creator of Star Wars Rebels (2014-2018) and the creator of Young Justice (2011-2022) as well as a ton of other animated series in the last 34 years. It's really good though.

Greg Weisman knows these characters inside and out and while I don't necessarily agree that these comics should completely ignore the official third season, The Goliath Chronicles, as that's what aired on TV and Disney isn't exatly ignoring it since the third season is on Disney+, I do think that Weisman is probably the best person to continue the story of Gargoyles whether the comics ignore The Goliath Chronicles, or continues the story from there. And because Weisman has been involved with the Gargoyles fandom for the last 29 years, he knows what the fans want to see, because he himself wants to see it. I love it when the creator of a franchise is just as enthusiastic about the franchise as the fans are. 

One concern I do have is that this issue picks up right where the 2006 series left off in 2009, I'll get to that in the next post, as the SLG books, including the trade paperback collections, have been out of print for the last ten years or more, and I never see them at cons or comic book sales or other geek events. The trades are also super expensive online too. So it's extremely difficult to pick up the series at all. And while Elisa's narration tells you who everyone is, there aren't any details so unless you were lucky and actually picked up the single issues up to #8, as #'s 9-12 were only published in the second trade paperback collection, or were able to pick up the trades when they were first published, or borrowed them from the library, there is no way to read those issues before picking up this one. It's still a fun read if you're a Gargoyles fan and haven't read the 2006 comic book series. But be prepared to be confused by Brooklyn wearing the same outfit he did in the last episode of the Avalon World Tour arc in season 2, where Goliath, Angela, Elisa, and Bronx find themselves in a false future where Xanatos somehow conquered the world before disappearing, and why he has a mate and a child, and a few other things as well.

Overall this was a good issue. It had all the elements that made Gargoyles what it was during its first two seasons, and I'm interested in seeing where Weisman takes these characters next. Like I said, if you're a fan, you owe it to yourself to read it, even if you missed out on the 2006 series.

That's it for this review. I'll be back shortly with the history of Gargoyles in comics. Until then I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Could the Sailor Scouts/Senshi Use Their Attacks in Civillian Form?

 Hey everyone, how's it going? Did you all have a good weekend? I had a quiet weekend for a change. Today I'm going to be doing something a little different. I'm a geek and this blog is called Josh's Geek Cave, yet, I don't really talk about things from the shows, movies, comics and books that I like outside of my reviews. And now you're probably asking why I'm doing this instead of working on my review for season 2 of Stargirl, right? Well, because my brain is funny and thinks about the most random stuff. Like take earlier today for example. There I was sitting at my kitchen table, eating lunch when I asked this question: Could the Sailor Scouts use their attacks in civillian form in Sailor Moon? After looking it up on the Sailor Moon Wiki, the answer is sort of, so that's kinda what I want to dive into right now. Before we get to that though I will be using the names from the original '90s English dub for the most part when talking about the original '90s Anime as that's what I'm the most familiar with. So, yes, I have read the Manga, have seen the other TV show versions, and am fully aware of everyone's Japanese names. With that out of the way, let's get into it.

Created by Naoko Takeuchi in 1992, Sailor Moon is about a girl named Usagi Tsukino (Serena in the original English dub) who becomes a warrior with magical powers named Sailor Moon. Together with her Sailor Senshi (Sailor Scouts in the original English dub) friends, Usagi fights the forces of evil to protect the remains of the Silver Millennium (the Moon Kingdom in the original English dub). While dealing with all the trials and tribulations of being a teenager. Sharing alot of similarities to Power Rangers and its parent series, Super Sentai, because Naoko Takeuchi was a fan of Super Sentai, Sailor Moon started out as a Manga series and has been adapted into two Anime series, as well as a live action Sentai-like series. And like Power Rangers, particularly the early seasons that aired in the mid to late '90s, the Sailor Scouts can't, or don't, use their powers in their civillian forms. Except, that's not entirely true. It depends on the medium the story is being told in. For example, the Manga might have extra abilities for the Sailors that neither the Anime nor the live action show would have for them. And vice versa, the Anime and live action show might give the Sailors extra abilities that the Manga didn't.

Earlier, when I said that the answer to the question in the title of this post is sort of, what I mean by that is that it not only depends on the medium the story is told in, but on which character we're talking about. For example, Rei Hino has the power to ward off evil spirits that she can use as Sailor Mars and in civillian form, but that's because she learned it at her grandfather's temple, prior to her becoming Sailor Mars. 

In the prequel Manga, Codename: Sailor V, Minako Aino, a.k.a. Sailor V, has a disguise compact that allows her to disguise her appearance without having to transform into Sailor V, but otherwise Sailor V doesn't have any attacks or abilities that she can use in her civillian form.

In the Manga, while the Sailors do have different variations on their main attacks or extra abilities from what they have in the Anime, I think Rei is the only one who has a civillian attack. Because, I don't think we even see the Crescent Moon Wand or any of Sailor Moon's scepters when she's in civillian form as Usagi. 

The original Sailor Moon does away with much of Sailor Venus's backstory as Sailor V, particularly in the original English dub, which didn't even translate and adapt the one episode where that backstory is shown, it's only Sailor Moon and Sailor Mars that have civillian form abilities. Sailor Moon has the disguise pen that's similar to the compact that Minako had in Codename: Sailor V but that's the extent of it for her. Though we do see the Crescent Moon Wand and the Imperium Silver Crystal when she's just as Serena, since that's how she transforms into Sailor Moon, and the wand acts as a homing device for the carriers of the Rainbow Crystals so that they can act before Zoycite gets to them. Plus Serena uses the Crescent Moon Wand and the Silver Crystal as Princess Serena and Neo Queen Serenity in Sailor Moon and Sailor Moon R. It's just she's always as Sailor Moon when using her basic attacks.

The 2003 live action series, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, which was produced by Toei, was extremely limited when it came to the effects budget, despite it being produced by the same company who produce Super Sentai, and Kamen Rider. As a result, even Rei doesn't have any civillian attacks like she did in the Anime and the Manga. At least none that I can remember. And definitely not up to the point that I finished off, as I didn't actually finish watching the series when I first got the DVD from a friend of mine. 

Because the 2014 Anime remake, Sailor Moon Crystal, sticks much closer to the original Manga, as far as I'm aware all of the Sailor Senshi have all the abilities they had in the Manga rather than what they had or didn't have in the '90s Anime series. So other than Rei, none of the other Senshi have any abilities they can use in civillian form.

And that, my friends, is it for me for today. I don't even know why I was thinking about this today, but whatever the reason, I thought it'd be fun to talk about it on here, since like I said at the beginning of this post, this blog is called Josh's Geek Cave, but unless I'm reviewing something I never just talk about something like this from my favourite franchises. And maybe I am misremembering something from Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. It's on my list of shows to review for sure. In the meantime though I'll be back tomorrow with a comic book review and on Thursday I'll be coming on here for a pre-series thoughts on That '90s Show, the sequel series to That '70s Show with Friday being when I'll have my season 2 review of Stargirl out and Sunday will be my review of however many episodes my sister and I end up watching of That '90s Show as we don't actually know if the season is dropping all at once, or if it's dropping one episode a week. So until then have a great evening and I'll talk to you all later. Take care.