Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 3, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. Things are getting easier following my grandmothers's passing, but I still miss them obviously. Today though I'm here to talk about this week's episode of SNW, "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow". There won't be a ton of spoilers, but there will be some as it's hard to talk about the episode without them. So if you watch the show and haven't seen the episode yet, please do so first, and then come back to read this review. Let's get into it.

Every so often there's an episode of a Star Trek show that isn't great. Especially in the less serialized shows like SNW, TNG, and TOS. So after the awesomeness of last week's episode, this one was a bit wonky. La'an ends up in an alternate timeline where Earth had been conquered by the Romulans and as a result, the Federation was never founded and Starfleet doesn't exist. The Enterprise belongs to the United Earth Fleet, and is commanded by James T. Kirk, played by Paul Wesley, instead of Pike. In order to fix the timeline, La'an and Kirk go back to Toronto in 2022 in order to prevent a Romulan agent, played by Adelaide Kane, from carrying out her mission that alters the timeline. And that event is the assassination of Khan Noonien-Singh, which makes it pretty personal for La'an.

Aside from La'an, the best part of this episode was Adelaide Kane. She played Tenaya 7/Tenaya 15 on Power Rangers RPM back in 2009 and was the sister of Tyler Hoechlin's character, Derek Hale, on Teen Wolf during the third season in 2013. She's also been on other shows such as Once Upon a Time as Drizella, one of the ugly stepsisters from Cinderella, Reign, where she played Mary, Queen of Scots, and is currently a main cast member on Grey's Anatomy. And she was also in a made-for-TV movie in 2010 called Secrets of the Mountain alongside Paige Turco, who was April O'Neill in the second and third Ninja Turtles movies made in the '90s, and Barry Bostwick, who played the mayor on Spin City alongside Michael J. Fox, and Charlie Sheen in the late '90s and early 2000s. 

I mentioned all of that to say that I was pretty surprised when I was hearing people expressing they weren't familiar with the actress while watching last night's episode. Especially because she wasn't put into the Romulan makeup for this episode, just looking like her usual self, like she has in every show and movie she's ever been in. I really like Adelaide Kane, and Tenaya is one of my favourite villains from Power Rangers, besides Goldar, Zeltrax and Elsa from Dino Thunder, and Diabolico from Lightspeed Rescue, so it was pretty great seeing her on Star Trek since I've only seen her in RPM and Secrets of the Mountain as I wasn't interested in Teen Wolf back when it was on, and I'd stopped watching Once Upon a Time after the first season had finished airing. 

I like Paul Wesley as Kirk and I thought that he and Christina Chong (La'an) had great chemistry together, but, the episode would've been more effective had the character been someone who was also part of the main cast or if the rest of the main cast had been in the episode alot more than they were. Though we did get to see Pelia and what she was doing in 2022, so that was fun. But, I dunno, there was just something about this episode that didn't feel right to me.

As a Canadian I did appreciate that the writer of this episode decided to set it in Toronto. Usually when a production that films in Toronto needs a city, they film on location in the streets of that city, but then alter things in post-production that makes Toronto look like New York City or something like that. Especially when it's an American production, like Star Trek. So I'm glad that they actually ended up in Toronto. I remember when I saw that in the season 2 teaser, and I was like, "why are they in 21st Century Toronto?" At the time I actually thought that it was part of the crossover with Lower Decks, like La'an and Kirk end up in Toronto in 2022 while Mariner and Boimler end up on the Enterprise, but it ended up being its own episode. Honestly, I think making it be part of the crossover would've made the episode better just because it would connect it to something. Not that I have a problem with it being personal for La'an, it's just this is supposed to be an ensemble cast, and it really feels like the majority of the main cast is being underused in this season so far. At least with Pike I understand, since Anson Mount's wife was pregnant and about to deliver any day while season 2 was filming last year, so they had write more episodes that didn't center around Pike in case he wasn't available for filming at any point during production. But, that doesn't explain why barely anyone else appeared in this episode.

Overall this was a good episode, but it wasn't amazing like the first two episodes of the season were. But, that's usually what happens when a season has as strong of an opening as this season of SNW has had. Not every episode can be a winner. Sometimes you gotta take the stinkers as well. 

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for this week. I'll be back next week for more reviews and posts, so until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Superman & Lois Season 3 Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. It's been a quiet week for me so far, but that could change at anytime. Today I'm here to talk about season 3 of Superman & Lois as the season finale aired last night. I will be talking spoilers a little bit because I'll be talking about the cliffhanger that last night's episode had, so if you're watching the show and aren't caught up on the season yet, please be aware that there will be spoilers. With that out of the way, let's get into it.

This season is really weird. Aside from it being only 13 episodes instead of 15 like previous seasons had been, I think the current state of Warner Bros. Discovery and The CW had a huge impact on how the writers went about the show. It was still pretty good, mostly, but I did find the latter half of the season to be lacking in comparison to the first half. Some episodes were very difficult to watch for me, but let me put a pin in that for now because there are other things that I'd like to talk about first.

The first thing that I'd like to talk about is Michael Bishop, who replaced Jordan Elsass as Jonathan Kent. It can be really hard for a TV show to recast a character when their actor leave the show. Especially after they've played the character for two or three seasons. In fact, these days, their character is simply written off the show in that situation. Unfortunately, because Jonathan is a member of the Kent family, and is one of the main characters, you can't just write him out of the show without damaging the dynamics of the show. And in this case, the only way to write him off the show is to kill off the character.

I'll admit that I was nervous when they announced that Jordan Elsass was leaving the show and that Michael Bishop was replacing him in the role. Honestly though, I think he did a really good job. I didn't notice anything that Bishop did in portraying the character that was inconsistent from what Elsass had done in the first two seasons, which is something that you don't want to see in a recasting situation like this since they're supposed to be playing the same character as the actor they've replaced. I also appreciate that they didn't try to contrive a reason for the actor change in show like they did 25 years ago on Big Bad Beetleborgs with one of their main characters, Jo. 

In my review of the season premiere, "Closer", I talked about how Bruno Mannheim hadn't grabbed onto me as a villain the way Tal-Rho and Ally Allston did in the first two seasons. That's because he wasn't supposed to be a major threat the way Tal-Rho and Allston were. In fact, this season was meant to be smaller, more intimate than previous seasons. Which is why there wasn't as much Superman stuff in the season. It worked for the most part, but there are a few things that didn't work for me quite as much as I'd hoped they would.

The first is the teenage drama between Jordan and Sarah. This show has handled the teen stuff a lot better in the first two seasons than it did in this one. Most of it felt completely unnecessary. Especially because they broke up during season 2. I get they were trying to do, since alot of it is very remiscient of interactions between Clark and Lana on Smallville. It just doesn't work quite as well here. Not that it worked well on that show, but it's even worse here.

The second thing that didn't work for me is Lois and Peia's cancer storyline. It wasn't bad, it was just incredibly difficult for me to watch due to the fact that both of grandmothers fought cancer and they both passed away while the show was airing. So it felt a bit too personal and close to home for me. At any other point I would've loved this storyline, but due to its personal nature for me, it ended up being the most difficult part of the season for me to watch. 

The third and final thing that didn't work for me, isn't something that didn't work for me, it just caused me some confusion. The Bruno stuff ended with episode 11, and that would've been the perfect place to end the season. Instead, we got episodes 12 and 13, which introduced Lex Luthor, played my Michael Cudlitz. He's an okay Lex, but he's my least favourite version next to Jesse Eisenberg. Even Jon Cryer was better in Crisis on Infinite Earths, and presumably season 4 of Supergirl, but I don't know because I didn't watch that season. Because Luthor was introduced so late in the season, his creation of Doomsday doesn't feel earned. Neither does the fight between Superman and Doomsday which ended up being the cliffhanger at the end of last night's season finale. It felt rushed, and might've been better if the Luthor stuff was moved completely into season 4 with that season leading up to the fight with Doomsday. Instead it was shoehorned into the season finale, despite the fact that the show didn't get renewed until a couple of weeks ago, long after production had been finished on season 3. Which would've been REALLY stupid if the show had been cancelled instead of renewed for a fourth season.

What did work for me was pretty much everything else. I wish Jonathan's girlfriend, Candice, had stuck around because I really liked her, plus of all the teen relationships on the show, theirs was probably the most solid, given that Jordan and Sarah were at odds almost all season, and Nat and Matteo had their own issues to deal with. Not to mention that Jonathan and Candice were the only teen couple on the show to cross over from season 2 Speaking of Nat and Matteo, I also loved their storyline and how it intersected with the stuff going on between John Henry Irons and Bruno Mannheim. I liked how the Kyle/Chrissy relationship was handled, and I loved the relationship that developed over the course of the season between Lana and John Henry.

Overall, this was a fairly disjointed season of the show, but, honestly, I still enjoyed it. I think it was disjointed because of the sale of The CW, as well as the fact that James Gunn has started working on a new Superman movie, Superman: Legacy, which isn't due to come out until the summer of 2025, which is still two years away from now. So that limits what the creative team working on the show can do with the characters, though new characters like Jordan, Sarah, Chrissy, and Kyle have a bit more leeway, as do legacy characters like Sam Lane, Lex Luthor, and John Henry Irons. It's going to be a while until season 4 comes out just because the writer's strike is still going on so they can't work on anything until that's over.

That's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back on Friday for this week's SNW episode review. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 2, "Ad Astra per Aspera" (2023) TV Episode Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay today. I'm back for my review of this week's episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, "Ad Astra per Aspera", which is the second episode of the second season. I'm planning on making this review very light on spoilers just because it is a heavy episode and the outcome was already spoiled due to the fact that Rebecca Romijn is still on the show as Una. So without further ado, let's get into it.

Star Trek is always at its best when it becomes a mirror for the way our society, in whatever decade the show was made in, handles things. And this episode is no different. While the episode is about Una Chin-Riley, the first officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise, and her breaking the law in order to get into Starfleet simply because as a genetically modified species, the Illyrians aren't allowed in Starfleet, it's really about our own prejudice, hatred, and racism. In particular the systemic racism, hatred, and prejudice that our own governments can be capable of, and have been capable of, through the lense of the Federation's fear of genetically engineered people, due to Khan Noonien Singh and the Eugenics Wars. Which of course is a very strong connection to Una's friend, and Enterprise chief of security, La'an Noonien Singh, who happens to be a descendant of Khan.

I loved this episode. From the courtroom scenes to the conversations between Pike and Captain Batel, who is Pike's girlfriend, and even La'an's fears that she's the one who inadvertently turned Una in by leaving an entry in her personal log back in season 1 after she discovered that Una was an Illyrian in episode 3. In fact one of my favourite scenes is at the beginning of the episode when Batel barges into Pike's quarters, complaining that Una didn't take her plea bargain offer, with Pike knowing full well that Una would never take that sort of a deal. Which is something that Batel should've known by now given how long she and Pike have been together for. Then again it's possible that she didn't know because Una was missing when Batel left for her ship's next assignment during the pilot episode. And we don't see her again until the season 1 finale, when she arrested Una at the end of the episode.

I loved the fact that Una's friend, Neera Ketoul, had planned to use Una's case as a platform for her own ends rather than to help Una, but when Una confronted her about it, after she basically roasted Admiral April in public, she changed tactics. While I applaud her for trying to hold Starfleet and the Federation accountable for their actions, that just as easily could've hurt Una's chances of being found not guilty in the long run even more than it already did since April was ready to defend her. 

I'm not familiar with the actress who plays Neera though. Yetide Badaki has several credits to her name, including Bryan Fuller's American Gods series, though she's not in anything I've ever seen or have been interested in watching. I really liked her though and I hope we see Neera again in a future episode, be it this season or in a later one.

Overall I really enjoyed this episode. It was powerful, engaging, and reminded me of so many other classic episodes of Star Trek that featured trials similar to this. Including the TNG season 2 episode, "The Measure of a Man" and the TOS season 1 episode, "Court Martial", both of which executive producers Henry Alonso Meyer and Akiva Goldsman mentioned that they took inspiration from when they came up with this episode, in their interview for the aftershow, The Ready Room on the official Star Trek website. 

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for this week. I'll be back next week with more reviews. The season finale of Superman & Lois airs on Tuesday, so I'll be doing a full season review which will come out on Wednesday. Friday is of course my weekly Star Trek: Strange New Worlds review, and I have other ideas for next week as well. So until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

A Clash of Kings (1999) Book Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. It's been a rough week, but I'm managing. I had planned on doing a comic book review today, but then I finished reading A Clash of Kings last night and so I'm here to review it. Like with A Game of Thrones, this review will be spoiler free, though there will be minor spoilers from the first book mentioned. To be honest, I don't think I'm going to have as much to say about this book as I did about A Game of Thrones. So let's get into it.

Released three years after the first book, A Clash of Kings picks up where A Game of Thrones left off. At the same time though things in Westeros are much different than they were in the first book. They're more volatile than they were even at the end of the first book. The book is also slightly more disjointed.

In the first book, Ned Stark was the thread that connected all of the storylines together. But, with Ned having been beheaded following King Robert's death in the last book, there isn't a character who can be considered the lead character. The show tried to make it Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, but the books are written in a way where that's not possible since few of the POV characters interact with each other, once Ned is out of the picture. At the same time though it's much easier for some storylines to either be forgotten or to be cared about because there's so many. Not that any of them are poorly written mind you, but when you have such a rotating cast, that expands or contracts depending on the situation, it's easy for some to be lost in the shuffle.

Having said that though, Tyrion, Bran, and Daenerys had the richest storylines in this book. Bran was learning how to be a prince while Robb is away at war, while dealing with his disability. Tyrion was trying to keep both Joffrey and Cersei in check as the King's Hand. With Dany, she's trying to survive long enough to reach Westeros. Everyone else really didn't have a whole lot to do. Even Arya's storyline was kind of meh in this book. I know it picks up in the later books, but it wasn't great in this book. Even Sansa's storyline was meh in this book.

We had two new POV characters in this book, Davos, who served King Stannis, and Theon Greyjoy, Ned's former ward at Winterfell. Davos gets only a couple of chapters devoted to him, and they were good chapters. Theon on the other hand, was a weird choice given that he was such a non character for most of the first book. He was mentioned alot, but he rarely showed up, even in the chapters focusing on Robb and Bran at Winterfell. 

Overall this was a really good book. Not as strong as the first, but still very good. I particularly enjoyed the Bran and Tyrion chapters. Mostly because Tyrion was putting people in their place and Bran was still dealing with everything from the first book. I recommend this book, whether you've seen the show or not. 

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for my review of this week's episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is already out for some of you, but isn't airing until tonight here in Canada. So, until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Sesame Street: A Day in the Life of Oscar the Grouch (1981) Book Memories

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I had a rough weekend, but I'm here and today I'm going to do something a little bit different. I had alot of Sesame Street storybooks when I was a kid but there's one I wanted to highlight, A Day in the Life of Oscar the Grouch by Linda Hayward and illustrated by Bill Davis. The reason I want to highlight this book in particular is because Oscar the Grouch was my grandfather's favourite character on Sesame Street, to the point where we called him Grandpa Grouch. Yesterday would've been Grandpa's 88th birthday. So let's get into it.

A Day in the Life of Oscar the Grouch is exactly what the title suggests. It's Oscar the Grouch telling the reader about what a day in his life is like. That's the book. I got this book probably in 1990 or 1991, and, it being a Sesame Street book, I looked at it all the time. And I'm pretty sure it was Nana who got it for me too. Like I said, I had a lot of Sesame Street books when I was a kid but I loved this one because it is Oscar centric. While I loved Big Bird, Ernie & Bert, Grover, Elmo, and the Count, Oscar was my favourite too. He was mean, but he wasn't evil. He's not a supervillain afterall. There was just something about him that always made me laugh. I think it's because he's the opposite of all the other denizens of Sesame Street, who are all innocent and wholesome. 

The book later came out as a book and tape set, but I don't remember if I had the book and tape set or if I just had the book. Mainly because I had the book and tape sets for most, if not all, of the Sesame Street books that I had when I was a kid. I'm pretty sure I had the book and tape set for this one too. I just don't remember for sure. What I do remember is that whether or not I had the tape that went along with this book, I pretended I could hear Oscar's voice as I read the book, once I could read. It's pretty hard not to do that when looking at a Sesame Street book. Especially when you're so familiar with those voices.

One thing that I remember about the Sesame Street books in general is that the human characters, like David, Maria, Bob, Gordon, Luis, Susan, and Gina, very rarely appeared in them. I remember that David, Luis, and Maria appeared in Bert and the Broken Teapot, Maria appeared in Ernie Gets Lost, and David, Luis, and Maria appeared in When Grover Moved to Sesame Street, but those were the exceptions for the books/Book & Tape Sets that I owned. The human characters may have appeared in books that I didn't have.  

The illustrations in this book were great. I remember them being on point for the muppet characters though you see more of them since they aren't puppets needing to be hidden behind a counter or a table or anything like that. Though in this book we see Oscar in his trash can.  

That's all I really wanted to say about this book. I might do a Sesame Street book collection overview at some point, just to show off all the ones I had when I was a kid, but I wanted to highlight this one specifically because of yesterday being what would've been Grandpa's 88th birthday. I'll be back with a comic book review either tomorrow or on Thursday, and then on Friday my review for this week's episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will come out. So until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you later. Take care.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2, Episode 1 "The Broken Circle" (2023) TV Episode Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? It's been a rough few days, but I'm here to talk about Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Specifically the season 2 premiere. There won't be a ton of spoilers, but there will be some minor ones, so if you haven't seen the episode yet, please do so before reading this review. Let's get into it.

The downside to having to wait for any of the modern Star Trek shows to air is that I have to spend the day trying to avoid spoilers. Luckily I don't follow alot of people who watch modern Star Trek, so it's easier for me than for most people. However this episode was worth the wait.

I love how the episode picked up where the season 1 finale left off, but didn't immediately go into Una's trial. Instead, while Pike goes off to get a lawyer to take Una's case, Spock and the crew must steal the Enterprise in order to help La'an after Admiral April denies them permission to respond to her distress signal, despite the fact that an extremist faction wants to restart the war with the Klingons, as if the war we saw in season 1 of Discovery wasn't bad enough. Because of course Spock's first course of action is to steal the ship. As I said to my buddy Aaron after the episode finished, Spock's starting to pick up some of the bad habits he had in the original series. Which is great.

Speaking of Spock, it looks like he's got a little something going on with Christine Chapel since they hugged during Hemmer's funeral back in "All Those Who Wander" (SNW 1x09) and their kiss two episodes earlier in "The Serene Squall". Except that when Chapel first walks into Sickbay at the start of the episode, it's almost like she and Spock had a one night stand and are now in that post-one night stand awkwardness stage. 

I know that people don't like this change in canon, but honestly doing a prequel series such as SNW is a difficult thing to do. Particularly with legacy characters like Pike, Una, Spock, Kirk, Uhura, M'Benga, and Chapel since you know where they end up in their final appearances. And because the writers can't put the legacy characters in any real danger since they have to survive until their final  appearances in whatever their final appearances are, they have to do other things to keep the legacy characters as interesting as the new characters like La'an, Ortegas, and Pelia, who I will get to in a little bit. Which is why Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci chose to set Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), and Star Trek Beyond (2016) in a parallel universe so that they could do whatever they wanted with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov and have the movies not interfere with the original series. But with SNW, they chose to set the show in the main Star Trek Universe, so they had to change a few things still regardless of how well things meld with what came before in TOS.

I am absolutely fascinated by Pelia. She didn't have a whole lot to do in this episode, but she seems like a whole lot of fun and I'm looking forward to getting to know this new chief engineer. 

Overall this was a great start to a new season of Star Trek. It proved that SNW is a true ensemble show as Pike showed up for two minutes at the beginning of the episode and after that it's everyone else's episode with La'an, Spock, Chapel, and M'Benga taking lead for the rest of the show. Which is really what I've been wanting as a fan of Star Trek. 

Alright my friends that's going to be it for me for this week and for this review. I'll be back next week with lots of reviews and other posts. So until then have a great rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 Pre-season Thoughts

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. So today I'm here to give some brief thoughts on the second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds before the season premiere airs on CTV Sci-Fi Channel tonight. It's already dropped on Paramount+ but I haven't encountered any spoilers so far so I'm going solely based on the teaser trailers we've gotten. So let's get into it.

Considering I reviewed all ten episodes of season 1 last year, I think you can guess how excited I am for season 2. In fact, I'm planning on reviewing every episode of season 2 as they come out. So look forward to season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Reviews every Friday, since I can't watch SNW until it airs on TV on Thursday nights.

Season 1 was a major surprise for me last year. Given Star Trek's habit of having really bad first seasons for just about every series that's come out since TOS first began back in 1966, and given how much I disliked the first seasons of both Star Trek: Discovery (2017-2024) and Star Trek: Picard (2020-2023), I was concerned that the quality of SNW season 1 would also not be great. Luckily my fears were laid to rest after the pilot aired. 

The big thing that made season 1 so good is how much attention every character got. It was the first true ensemble cast that we had since Enterprise first went off the air back in 2005. Not only were the characters consistently well written, but they were also consistently well acted. 

For me season 2 has to continue developing all of these wonderful characters. Including the new characters coming in. Like Paul Wesley's James T. Kirk and Carol Kane's Commander Pelia, who is apparently the Enterprise's new chief engineer following Hemmer's death at the end of season 1. These characters are probably the best we've had in Modern Star Trek outside of the crew of the Enterprise-D and Captain Shaw in season 3 of Picard. Because, oh boy, Shaw was awesome. But the SNW crew felt like Star Trek characters. Which is something I felt we haven't truly had in Modern Trek up to that point. At least in live action, as the main characters on Prodigy feel like Star Trek characters too. Though they feel more like the classic TOS and TNG characters rather than the more flawed DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise characters. 

The trailers we got for the second season promised us Klingons, for an episode, dealing with Una's arrest at the end of the first season, further exploration of Spock and Chapel's relationship, and a growing threat from the Gorn. Personally, just for my personal tastes I'm more excited for the Spock and Chapel stuff than I am for the Gorn stuff. Not for the weird continuity reasons that some people have, but because the second Gorn episode that we got at the end of season 1 was the scariest episode of the season and I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I did the rest of the season. Though it wasn't as bad as it might've been on any other modern Star Trek show.

 The one thing that I am still concerned about is the crossover episode with Lower Decks. Not because Lower Decks is an animated comedy that gets so ridiculous that it's hard to take the show as canon, because as you know from my season 1 reviews, SNW got pretty ridiculous at times with episodes like "Spock Amok" and "The Elysian Kingdom". And I'm not even concerned about it based on my rather coloured history with Lower Decks which caused me to stop watching the show entirely. What concerns me about this crossover episode is the fact that crossovers are incredibly difficult to pull off.

Crisis On Infinite Earths was an incredibly huge undertaking for The CW back in the 2019-2020 TV season. It cost alot and the story was almost too big for only five episodes. Even some of the earlier Arrowverse crossovers were extremely risky to do on a logistics level, because not only were they filming the crossovers themselves, but they were also still filming regular episodes of Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow as well. Which meant Stephen Amell, Grant Gustin, Melissa Benoist, Caity Lotz, and whoever else from their respective casts were going to be in the other episodes of the crossover, could only be away from their own shows for a short amount of time before they needed to be back in time to film other episodes of their shows. 

With the SNW/LD crossover that isn't a huge issue since Tawny Newsome, who voices Mariner in Lower Decks and is playing the character in live action in SNW, and Jack Quaid, who voices Boimler, and is playing the character in SNW, are showing up in SNW for one episode, and maybe not even a full episode, I'm not quite sure how that's going to work. However Lower Decks is a strange Star Trek show to crossover with. Mainly because the show's brand of humour is more in line with the more inappropriate/adult comedy shows like Rick & Morty and so the Lower Decks audience is smaller for that reason. Don't get me wrong, Star Trek: Lower Decks is a super popular show, but its popularity isn't universal. So there's alot of people who watch SNW, who either don't like Lower Decks for one reason or another, haven't seen Lower Decks because they overlooked it due to it being animation, or are too young to be watching the show due to the nature of the show's humour.

So marrying the more traditional Star Trek tone with the more out there tone of Lower Decks is going to be difficult. It can work, but it's probably going to take many SNW fans off guard if they aren't already familiar with Lower Decks. Personally, I hope it works, but I'm not sure if non-Lower Decks fans are going to like it or not. Particularly those who didn't like the more ridiculous nature of "Spock Amok" and "The Elysian Kingdom" in season 1. Or if the episode is going to work or not. We shall see when that episode airs. I'm not sure when that will be since I don't know what number that episode actually is in the season. 

I think that's all I wanted to say about season 2 prior to watching the season premiere. I'm really excited to have this show back. It was my favourite season of the modern era of Star Trek last year and I can't wait to dive back into the world of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds for another ten episode season. 

That's it for me for today, but I will be back tomorrow for my review of the season 2 premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, "The Broken Circle". So until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Why Does Warner Bros. Keep Making Live Action Batman Shows Without Batman?

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. I decided that, instead of doing a comic book review, I was going to talk about a comic book related topic instead. Today I'm going to be talking about Batman in live action TV shows and why Warner Bros. doesn't seem to be able to produce a live action Batman TV series that has Batman in it, as Batman, not just as Bruce Wayne. So let's get into it.

From 1966 until 1968, 20th Century Fox Television, in collaboration with Greenway Productions, produced a TV series based on DC Comics's Batman, which aired on ABC. But since then there hasn't been a full on live action Batman TV series, though there have been several attempts. Which we will now get into.

Smallville had been a big hit for The WB when it first started airing in 2001. As a result, The WB wanted to capitalize on its success by turning to their next biggest character...the Birds of Prey? Sort of. Birds of Prey told the story of a Gotham City where Batman was no longer around. Instead, Barbara Gordon (Dina Meyer) protects the city as Oracle, having been shot and crippled by the Joker as some point, alongside Batman and Catwoman's daughter, Helena Kyle (Ashley Scott), who patrols the city as the vigilante, the Huntress, and Dinah Redmond (Rachel Skarsten) who is the daughter of the Black Canary, Carolyn Lance (Lori Loughlin). Unfortunately the series was canceled after 13 episodes due to low ratings.

The next attempt was more successful. Airing on Fox for five seasons from 2014 until 2019, Gotham stars Ben MacKenzie (The O.C.) as a young Jim Gordon, who is trying to discover who killed the Waynes after promising their son, Bruce (David Mazouz). Over the show's five seasons the shows explores the origins of all of Batman's Rogues Gallery, as well as many of his allies, including Alfred, Harvey Bullock, Renee Montoya and many MANY others. Like Smallville did with Superman in 2011, Gotham ended with Bruce returning to Gotham City as Batman.

In 2018 Berlanti Productions developed a Teen Titans live action series for the DC Universe streaming service called Titans (2018-2023). While the show was more focused on Batman's proteges, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Barbara Gordon, along with the other Titans, Bruce Wayne did appear in seasons 2 and 3, played by Iain Glen. 

Bruce Wayne appeared once again in season 1 of Batwoman (2019-2022). This time he was played by Warren Christie. I think he actually appeared in the Batsuit in the pilot as part of Kate's flashbacks. But that's not the only time he showed up.

Bruce Wayne also appeared in the Arrowverse crossover, Crisis On Infinite Earths, in the episode that was produced as part of season 1 of Batwoman. In this iteration, he's an evil version of the character who killed Batwoman and Superman. This time he was played by Kevin Conroy, who had originally voiced the character in Batman: The Animated Series and its spin-offs in the early '90s to mid 2000s. Other references to previous Batman shows and movies appeared throughout the crossover, including the return of Ashley Scott as Helena Kyle from Birds of Prey, Burt Ward as Dick Grayson from Batman (1966), and Robert Wuhl as Alexander Knox from Batman (1989). 

The most recent attempt to do a Batman series without Batman was once again done by The CW, the successor to The WB. Gotham Knights is about Turner Hayes (Oscar Morgan), the adoptive son of Bruce Wayne/Batman, who's a brand new character created for this show, trying to figure out who murdered Batman and framed him and some characters from the comics, including Stephanie Brown (Anna Lore) and Duela Dent/Joker's Daughter (Olivia Rose Keegan), among other characters new and old. At the time I'm writing this post, the show has already been canceled by The CW due to the show being expensive to produce, and the fact that it hasn't been profitable for the network. But why have all these attempts been made over the years?

The reason that Warner Bros. hasn't been able to make a full blown live action Batman series is the same reason that it took more than 20 years for a full blown Superman show to be produced after Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman went off the air in 1997, there can't be a live action show airing on TV if there's a movie in production as per the studio's agreement with the Kane and Finger estates, who own the Batman character. And since 1979, when the first Tim Burton movie first went into development, there has been a live action Batman movie in various stages of development and production. Between the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher movies from 1979 until 1997, the unproduced Batman movies from 1997 until 2002, The Dark Knight Trilogy from 2002 until 2012, and then the most recent DCEU attempts and Matt Reeves's 2022 film, The Batman, there has never been a time that a Batman movie hasn't been in development and/or production in the last 44 years. Because of this the studio and the various networks haven't been able to produce a live action, Primetime, Batman television series. The only reason these attempts were even made is because they involved characters who were created by other people after Batman had been sold to DC Comics in 1939. 

As you can see, Bruce Wayne himself, either as Batman, or as Bruce Wayne, has shown up in most of these shows, he just couldn't be the lead character. Even the Max The Batman spin-off, The Penguin is allowed because Batman isn't in the show, or doesn't play a major role in the show. It's why the original concept for Smallville, which was Batman's origin story, not Superman's, was rejected by The WB as WB's film division had already decided to do a Batman: Year One inspired movie, which would eventually evolve into Batman Begins (2005).

That's all I have for today. I just wanted to go over the various attempts at bringing Batman's world to the small screen as there have been so many in the last almost 21 years, and they've all had some degree of success, with Gotham probably being the most successful of all of these attempts. I'll be back tomorrow for some pre-season thoughts for season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. So until then have a great night and I'll talk to you later. Take care.  

The VHS Corner: Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Borg Collective VHS Box Set (1996)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. I'm back with another edition of the VHS Corner. This week I'm going to be talking about another Star Trek VHS box set. It's a Star Trek: The Next Generation this time called Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Borg Collective. So let's get into it.

Originally released on November 19th, 1996, The Borg Collective is a collection of the first four Borg episodes which aired as part of season 2, season 3, season 4, and season 5 of TNG from 1989 to 1993. I got this for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa in 1996 as it was the first Christmas we ever had up at the cottage after Grandma and Grandpa had started living there full time and it was the same Christmas that we got Toy Story on VHS. As mentioned, this box set contained the home video releases of the first four Bog episodes, three of them had previously been released individually and this box set was the first time one of them had been released on home video. I'll talk about that more when I talk about the episodes. What was cool about this set is that the outer box that the tapes came in was designed like a classic TNG Borg Cube with the side that you see in the image above being a flap that you can open, revealing the four tapes in their individual packaging, the designs of which you will see shortly. I mean who wouldn't want a Borg Cube containing four TNG episodes on VHS sitting on their shelf? Let's get into the individual episodes themselves shall we?

First we have "Q Who?" from season 2. Originally released on its own on October 12th, 1994 as part of the season 2 home video line, I had already gotten this tape by itself from Nana and Grandpa, as a Christmas or birthday present in 1994. The cover design for season 2 was similar to the design for season 1, though instead of just the Enterprise-D flying through space, it looks like its flying through a nebula, and the planet that the screenshot from the episode was changed to an oval and moved to the bottom centre of the cover, with the episode title underneath it, removing the yellow box that the episode title had been in previously. The character art was updated too with Tasha Yar having been removed entirely, Doctor Crusher having been replaced with Doctor Pulaski, Commander Riker having gained his almighty beard, Wesley gaining his acting ensign's gray jumpsuit, and La Forge, Worf, and Troi updated to their season 2 look. I'm planning to do a big Star Trek VHS cover art overview in the near future, so look out for those in the future. The episode is pretty good and it pulls double duty because not only is it a Borg episode, but it's a Q episode as well, AND it's also the very first Borg episode ever. 

Next up is the season 3 finale, "The Best of Both Worlds Part I" and had originally been released on home video by itself on October 3rd, 1995 as the final season 3 release. Once again the cover art was changed. This time the episode screenshot is slightly bigger and has a pink arch at the top, in the shape of the top part of a circle. The Enterprise was removed entirely and the only difference in character art is that Doctor Crusher has returned and the uniforms introduced at the beginning of the third season are shown, rather than the jumpsuit versions used in seasons 1 and 2. This time the episode title is in a blue bar with the Starfleet delta symbol behind it. "The Best of Both Worlds Part I" was the very first time that a season of Star Trek ended on a cliffhanger and was a gamechanger for Star Trek as a franchise. I remember watching it on VHS as a really little kid because my dad taped it off TV at some point. I don't remember if it was when the episode first aired in 1990 or if it was a rerun that he taped. I just remember seeing it and "The Best of Both Worlds Part II" on for the first time, on VHS.

Speaking of "The Best of Both Worlds Part II" that's the next tape included in this box set. It was originally released on February 6th, 1996. The episode is great, and is one of my favourite Riker episodes. The cover art is completely different than the tapes from the previous three seasons. This time we have the season 4 cast shot, which includes Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan and has Wesley crusher in his late season 3/early season 4 Starfleet ensign's uniform rather than the provisional gray jumpsuit that he'd gotten in season 2, and there's a purple cloud with some stars behind them. The episode screenshot is in a triangle shape with a purple border at the top and a purple triangle at the bottom with the episode's title inside. Which is pretty cool since, like I said, the first three seasons were pretty generic. I haven't talked about the pre-episode stuff on the tapes yet. That's because for these first three tapes, there isn't anything besides the Paramount Feature Presentation logo, the Paramount warning card, and the Paramount Home Video logo. 

As you can see, "I, Borg", and the season 5 VHS releases as a whole, have a completely different cover design. This time the screenshot and episode title are on the top, instead of the bottom and the image is surrounded by a trapezoid with the episode title in an orange bar at the bottom of the image. Like season 4, the season 5 tapes have the season 5 cast shot instead of the generic character art from the first three seasons, and the Enterprise has been restored. However, unlike the seasons 1 and 2 VHS releases the image of the ship is actually a shot of the 1992 Playmates Toys Lights and Sounds Enterprise toy, which is what I have. Because the individual release of this tape didn't come out until late 1997, which was after this box set had been released, this is the first release of this episode on VHS on its own, since it was paired with the next episode, "The Next Phase" for the Columbia House Video Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Collector's Edition release, which came out in 1994. As a result this edition of the tape includes the Star Trek 30th Anniversary preview which features Kate Mulgrew in costume as Captain Kathryn Janeway on Voyager's Engineering set. The preview first appeared on the VHS release for Star Trek Generations, which came out on February 16th, 1996, the same day as "The Best of Both Worlds Part II". So that's cool.

And that my friends is the Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Borg Collective VHS box set. It's the only Star Trek TV show VHS box set I ever owned or saw when I was a kid. I'm probably never going to find it again given that it was a box set of episodes that were on VHS elsewhere and so I'd probably find the individual episode VHS releases before I find the box set. It was still pretty cool to own at the time though since I only had one other season 3 episode on VHS and no other episodes from seasons 4 and 5 outside of ones taped off TV by various family members. 

That's it for me for today, but I'll try to be back tomorrow for a comic book review. If not I'll be back on Thursday to share some thoughts on season 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which starts on Thursday. And I will definitely be back for my review of the season 2 premiere of SNW on Friday. So until then have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

The VHS Corner: My First VHS Tapes

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing okay. I'm cooped up inside the house due to the smoke from the wildfires happening all over Canada. I had planned on doing a comic book review today, but I didn't feel like it. Instead, I'm doing another VHS Corner post where I talk about the first VHS tapes I ever got when I was a kid. There are five in total and I have photographical evidence of when I got three of them, though I don't have the pictures at hand right now. So let's get into it. My first five VHS tapes.

The first VHS tape I ever owned when I was a kid was the 1986 Walt Disney Home Video release of Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966). This was the first time this animated featurette was ever individually released on home video, though it had been previously released as part of the feature film, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977), in 1981. I think Nana and Grandpa got this tape for me. The picture that I have is of me on the couch with Grandpa, and I'm holding the tape, in its box, in one hand and pointing at the TV with the other, indicating that I wanted Mom or Nana to put the tape on for me. I love this cover. I think I need to do an entire post on Disney's late '80s/early '90s home video packaging because they're so colourful. I watched this tape endlessly when I was a kid and it was one of my favourites. 

The next tape I got, which was the 1986 release of the second Winnie the Pooh featurette, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968). I'm pretty sure I got this tape at, or around, the same time as I got Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree because some of my earliest memories are of me watching both of these tapes. I actually had two copies of this tape. One I had at home, and the other Nana and Grandpa kept at their place for me. In fact, the copy that I had at Nana's and Grandpa's is currently sitting on my shelf, with the rest of my VHS collection. Along with the previous tape on this list, I watched this one endlessly. 

Now, this next one I'm not really sure about. The reason being is that I didn't have the 1986 release of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974) at home. It was at Nana's and Grandpa's along with the second copy of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. In fact it wouldn't end up in my personal VHS collection until three years ago when I grabbed it, along with Blustery Day, just after Grandpa passed away, and just before the pandemic hit and we all went into lockdown. So it's possible that I got it at the same time as the other two, but I don't know for sure. 

Now, this next one I remember very VERY clearly. It was early 1989, and Nana and Grandpa got me the original 1987 release of Disney's Sing-Along Songs: The Bare Necessities. I've talked about this tape endlessly on this blog, so I won't say too much more about it here. However, the picture I have that has this tape in it, is of me, simply holding it while sitting in my highchair at home, without any tubes or wires attached to me, which was extremely rare back in those days.

The last tape on this list is, of course, The World of Teddy Ruxpin Vol. 2: Guests of the Grunges. I think I got this tape for Christmas in 1989 at the same time that I got my original Teddy Ruxpin talking toy, or maybe I got the tape three weeks earlier, for my third birthday. I know I definitely had it by the time my sister was born, because I have a picture of me, wearing a DuckTales sweatpants and sweatshirt matching outfit, holding my sister, and the tape is on the floor near me, beside my original copy of the first Teddy Ruxpin book, The Airship, which was open. So I'm pretty sure I got it in 1989, either for my third birthday or for Christmas. I've also talked about this tape alot on this blog, so I won't say too much more about it.

And that my friends are the first five VHS tapes I ever owned when I was a kid. These five tapes, along with many MANY others that I would get over the years, kept me entertained for many hours. And while I only have three of them still in my collection, two in my physically, and one digitally, I hope to have all five of them back in my physical media collection someday. 

That's going to be it for me for today. I'm not sure if I'm doing any other blog posts this week, but if I do, it'll be on Friday. So until then have a great rest of your day, and if I don't post anything on Friday, then I hope you all have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Star Wars Rebels (2014-2018) TV Show Review

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm good. Sorry this review is a day late, but I decided to take yesterday to think about how I wanted to do this review. As you can see from the title of this post, I'm taking a look at Star Wars Rebels as a whole, since I've already done individual reviews of all four seasons, all of them relatively spoiler free. I toyed with the idea of going super indepth about all of the main characters, the major storylines, and the production history of the series from start to finish, but since this is a wrap up for the series as a whole, I'm still gonna go spoiler free, as much as possible anyway, and just give my final thoughts on the show as a whole now that I'm finished the entire thing. I'm also going to talk a little bit about where Star Wars was as a franchise when Rebels started in 2014. So let's get into it.

 2014 was an interesting year for the franchise. Disney had already owned it for two years at this point and everyone was waiting for the first movie in Disney's planned Sequel Trilogy. The Clone Wars which had started back in 2008 with George Lucas and, then newcomer, Dave Filoni producing it, had been canceled the year before, but Netflix had dropped a surprise sixth season, dubbed "The Lost Missions" in March of that year. Also the final novels in the original Expanded Universe continuity, rebranded as Legends in early 2014, were being published, ending a continuity that had been going on longer than the movies had been, as the novelization of the original 1977 movie was the first thing to come out that had the title "Star Wars" on it. 

In doing some research for this review, I discovered that fans hated this show before it had even come out. The Clone Wars had been so beloved and it had been the entryway for a whole new generation of fans as the Prequel Trilogy and the Star Wars Trilogy Special Editions had been for people born in the early '90s had been and the 1995 VHS release of the Original Trilogy had been for my generation. But Disney canceled it, though, as I already mentioned, they produced a thirteen episode sixth season for Netflix, though it was far from completing the series as Filoni and Lucas still had several unproduced scripts left. I think part of the reason that The Clone Wars was canceled is that the show aired on Cartoon Network, which is owned by Warner Bros., and streaming services were just starting to come into prominence with Netflix, though it would still be a year before Marvel's own Netflix sensation, Daredevil (2015-2018) would debut, and two years before Stranger Things (2016-present) would really popularize original programming for streaming platforms. And because of that weird ownership where The Clone Wars was now owned by Disney, but airing on a network owned by Warner Bros., I think Disney just wanted to start anew with a series on one of their own networks, Disney XD, which was relatively new at the time, having been launched in 2009 following the closure of its predecessor, Toon Disney.

The idea for Rebels came from co-creator, Carrie Beck, though it mirrors an idea that Filoni originally came up with for The Clone Wars in either 2006 or 2007. A group of characters on a Millennium Falcon type ship, causing problems for the Empire. That idea morphed and changed until it essentially became the story of the birth of the Rebel Alliance and the people who aren't Princess Leia, Bail Organa, and Mon Mothma, though all three characters make appearances on the show. In a way it's almost like the X-Wing book series by Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston in that it focuses on the normal, every day people who fight for the Alliance, rather than the highest ranking leaders of the Rebellion. 

I said this in my season 1 review, but it bears repeating here. While I knew about the show as I kept up with its production through Star Wars Insider magazine, I didn't have access to it as Disney XD was simply a spin-off of Family Channel, both owned by DHX Media, and we wouldn't get Rebels here in Canada until Disney Channel Canada began airing it in 2015, with it bouncing back and forth between Disney Channel and Disney XD throughout its run. Even if that hadn't been the case, I wasn't watching a whole lot of cable television in the mid to late 2010s, outside of the DC Comics based Arrowverse shows, Star Trek shows, and The Orville (first two seasons only, it moved to Disney+ in 2022), and I wasn't as interested in modern animated shows as I felt many of them talked down to their audience and felt completely aimed at children, compared to the majority of the animated shows that I watched when I was a kid, growing up in the '90s. And because Rebels looks cheap compared to what we'd been getting in The Clone Wars, it kinda turned me off of it a little bit. It was made even worse when I finally got around to watching the first season when my buddy, Jonathan, lent it to me on DVD back in 2018 or 2019 because that first season feels more aimed at children than the first season of The Clone Wars had in 2008-2009. 

The first season is still really good, don't get me wrong, but given that the show apparently had half the budget that The Clone Wars had, even in its early seasons, Filoni and his crew had to make sacrifices when it came to the animation and the design of the characters. Yet, things got better as the series went on because by season 2 I kept having to remind myself that this is an animated show, as many of the scenes looked like they'd been filmed in live action, particularly the space battle scenes.

I think the more child friendly version of Star Wars that we see with Rebels is a good move for the franchise. George Lucas always intended the movies to be for kids. He had ten to twelve year olds in mind when he made Star Wars in the '70s and again when he made the prequels in the mid '90s to mid 2000s, yet so many other creators, including Dave Filoni and George himself, made the franchise for everyone, no matter how old you are. Though many modern incarnations of the franchise, particularly the Sequel Trilogy, Rogue One, Solo, and the Disney+ shows The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi, The Bad Batch, The Clone Wars, The Book of Boba Fett, and Andor have all been aimed at older audiences. In a way it kind of started with Revenge of the Sith in 2005 as that was a much more intense and brutal film than the previous movies in the franchise had been up to that point. Though I think most people will agree that The Empire Strikes Back is a darker, more intense, film than Star Wars had been too.

While The Clone Wars recontextualizes the Prequel Trilogy and is so inherently connected to it, Rebels stands on its own as a complete story within the Star Wars Universe. While well known characters from the movies like Leia, Lando, R2-D2, C-3PO, Wedge, Hobbie, Mon Mothma, and Bail Organa show up, and Ahsoka, Captain Rex, and Bo-Katan Kryze from The Clone Wars also make appearances, Rebels isn't about them. It's about Kanan, Ezra, Hera, Sabine, Zeb, and Chopper and their roles in the fledgling Rebel Alliance. The pre-established characters serve as guides for each main character and their respective journeys. Which I really appreciate because when legacy characters are in play, no matter what the show or movie is, they tend to overshadow the new characters, no matter how long the legacy character is part of the story for.

I love the fact that for the ship and some of the character designs, Filoni and his team went right to Ralph McQuarrie's designs, which are featured in the book, The Art of Star Wars. In one of the DVD bonus features, which I watched on YouTube for research purposes, Filoni is even shown holding a copy of The Art of Star Wars and explaining WHY he made that design choice. And you know what? It makes sense. Kind of. It makes sense for the ships, and Chopper and Zeb, but for Vader, it doesn't. Only because we've seen Vader in movies, and shows, set prior to the beginning of Rebels with Revenge of the Sith and Obi-Wan Kenobi, where he's wearing the final design of his helmet, while here he's wearing a slightly older version taken directly from McQuarrie's design sketches, so it's a bit harder to line up with the other movies and shows. HOWEVER, because Vader is only in a few episodes of the second season, it's not a bad design choice for him, it just feels weird when you compare it to Vader's appearances in the rest of the franchise.

I also love that they drew elements from Legends for this show too. Aside from Thrawn, his TIE Defender project was from Legends, as were his assassin, Rukh, and Pellaeon, though we only hear Pellaeon, we don't actually see him like we did in season 3 of The Mandalorian. 

Of the main characters, I don't think there is a single one who didn't get a rich and interesting backstory and didn't get something to do in every season. And all of them aren't just likeable, they're all lovable too. Even the little psychopath, Chopper. I know I brought this up in my season 1 review, but I could not believe that Chopper has the highest body count of all of the characters and that he has a higher bodycount than R2-D2 does. That's even with us seeing R2 roasting a couple of Super Battle Droids in Revenge of the Sith. And of course, his dynamic with AP-5 in seasons 2 and 3. According to Wookieepedia, AP-5's voice and personality, provided by voice actor Stephen Stanton, was based on Alan Rickman, his name is a tribute to producer Athena Portillo's name and height. Only Dave Filoni could get away with such a thing. I love little behind the scenes facts like that. Speaking of fun behind the scenes facts, Athena Portillo also contributed to the 20th Anniversary of Star Wars article in issue #32 of Star Wars Insider all the way back in 1997, before she'd been hired by Dave Filoni in 2006 or 2007 to be a line producer on The Clone Wars, which is pretty cool.

I think I've gushed about this show enough. If you have never watched Rebels before, even if you're not a Star Wars fan, I highly, HIGHLY recommend doing so. Even if you're not doing it in preparation for Ahsoka to come out in August. The only reason I decided to go ahead and watch it is because elements from this show have appeared in The Mandalorian, particularly seasons 2 and 3, and many things will be followed up on in Ahsoka, and being that, aside from season 3 of Superman & Lois, none of my other shows are on right now, I decided to take the opportunity to watch Rebels and I am very glad I did. Not only did it introduce me to new characters and their stories, but it also introduced me to a whole new generation of Star Wars creators at Lucasfilm Animation. Some of their names were familiar from when The Clone Wars was in production back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, but there were still a bunch of them that I was unfamiliar with or didn't remember from those Star Wars Insider interviews from before the show started airing in 2014.

And that my friends is it for me for today. Thank you for sticking with me through these Rebels reviews. Someday I'll go back and go through The Clone Wars because I haven't seen anything from halfway through season 2 all the way to season 7, which came out in 2020. I know bits and pieces thanks to the internet and Star Wars Insider, but I haven't seen anything since 2009. I also have other reviews and posts coming up next week. So until then have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.