The change in Darem was the whole point of the Calica/prank episode. He went from needing to be the best (because of his parent issues) to apologizing to Genesis, supporting her as their team leader (with the prank as well), and telling his parents he’s found another way.

With the Miyazaki episode, he immediately gave Genesis credit for the idea of how to find the cloaked ship, and while he didn’t have lines for it, when she was getting frustrated with the search, his body language and gestures were essentially encouraging her.

Hello Karim, what are you most recommended/most stay-away-from-this experiences in Toronto (and area) so far?

I watched every episode, all the seasons. It does get better over time, and the last season is the best of them (imo). I feel like they started to actually figure themselves out by the last season, but I’d still say it was okay, not “good”. I think I would have liked a sixth season to see if it would have become “good”.

If we think of Discovery as a drama show that’s about people’s relationships that happens to be set in a sci-fi universe, I guess it’s an okay show. It’s just not what Trek or sci-fi fans want: sci-fi. Was it a good choice to make that kind of show? Well, you know, I wouldn’t necessarily say “no”, but I don’t think it should have been “Star Trek”. You can have drama shows in space, just call it something else. Trek as a franchise has a certain level of expectation, and disappointment exists in the gap between expectation and reality.

I watched all of Discovery. It is, by far, the worst of all Star Treks. (Disclosure: I have not seen TAS.)

The reason is simple: Discovery is really the Michael Burnham show. She is the Mariest Sue who ever Mary Sued. Discovery could have been a really great show if it had been an ensemble show because it has a lot of very interesting characters whom we never explore.

Instead, everything centres around Burnham. She is the reason for the war at the start of the show. She is the magical, fated solution. She is Spock’s (adopted) sister and had immeasurable impact on his life. Even through timey-wimey things, her (biological) mother comes to save her and the universe.

And on top of all that is the crying. Oh, gosh, everything is so emotional on this show. There is a time and place for emotions, but Discovery was too much of it, including inappropriate times. Burnham and her maybe-broken-up-boyfriend stop in the middle of an infiltration in a hostile station to talk about their relationship.

Even the really great characters, Saru and (Emperor Georgiou) centre around Burnham. She is like a sister to Saru, she saved his life, he gives up being a Captain to continue serving under her captaincy. Burnham is Georgiou’s daughter (not actually), and Georgiou’s love for her (as much as she can love) changes her.

No one has a story unless its actually about Burnham. Or they get a story and then get killed off.

The best thing about Discovery is it brought Trek back on TV and it gave us the rest of this era of shows.

The story progression was predictable and the pacing was not the best. Still, I appreciated the focus on Ortegas and Navia’s acting. In this interview she alludes to not being able to dance when others are; I presume she’s talking about the death of her partner late 2021 (which was after the worst of covid restrictions, but not so long after them). When it came to the rescue scene and La’an killed the Gorn, Ortegas’ only friend in a lonely time and place, it made me sad to think Navia was probably going back to that loss.

But this episode was really made to retcon people not knowing the Gorn in TOS. The writers needed to make up a reason for people to forget a species they’ve now encountered several times, including medical breakthroughs (Batel). Still, more Ortegas, please. And still more range, please.

Since La’an doesn’t make it to TOS, my guess is she dies by the end of the show and the pain of losing her drives Spock to push his humanity aside. I was expecting that to happen with the Chapel break-up, but then they brought La’an into things, so I transferred the theory onto her instead 😂

Why would you deliberately use a resource that is going to lie, just not predicably?

I can give a real-life answer to that. I was working on an assignment where keyword searching journal databases was not really helping because the while the primary keywords have specific meanings in the context I was intending, the words themselves have different meanings and uses. So I had to weed through a ton of articles in order to get just a few useful ones. Asking ChatGPT to give me 10 peer-reviewed journal articles about X and Y topic would return maybe three or four real articles, but it took me a lot less time to identify the three real ones from a set of 10 compared to locating three on-topic articles from, say, 100 results.

The above was using the public version of ChatGPT. Partway through the semester, my school got ChatGPT Edu. Interestingly, the Edu version, given the same prompt, did not return fake articles, but it included somewhat related, but not-relevant ones. In either case (public or Edu), I still had to check all 10 results, but it was still less time consuming than trying to search on my own.

DEI can still be achieved without using that terminology directly.

I agree that not longer having a policy or metrics around diversity doesn’t mean that the people in a company won’t still value it. I’m a part-time student and the school’s director recently did an AMA. He said an upcoming event was renamed to avoid the threats that are being directed at “DEI”, but the event itself is still about cultural diversity. I forget what the new name was, something about the stories of our people or something like that.

There’s no point in not buying one day, people should permanently be switching stores to support good, or at least less bad, ones.

Last year Canada got pissed off at a grocer (Loblaws) for price gouging and a boycott movement started. It was kind of amazing to see the desperate lengths the company went to to try to keep customers, everything other than lower prices.

They gave (crappily made) trading cards for minimum purchases, their hired media mouthpiece insulted their customers (basically called them stupid so they may as well stop boycotting), introduced monthly loss leaders, and most recently had a scheme where if you buy enough, you can get pots and pans (for the cost, you may as well have just bought better ones, plus they didn’t have stock).

Loblaws is nkw, IIRC, 14% down compared to last year.

Now Canada is pissed at the US over threats of annexation and tariffs. Buy Canadian Bye American has been going on a few weeks now, and while I’m sorry for normal American people suffering economically for the President’s doings, it’s been a boost to the smaller Canadian economy and suppliers. Long term it’ll hurt both countries economically, but my point is finding permanent alternatives is how to actually send a message.

I’ve been waiting five years for Ruthie!

The movie ended up being what I expected from the trailer: a disappointment. This should have been a movie just about Georgiou, and a movie about Section 32 should have been something else a entirely.

The Hunger Games concept was kind of dumb, but I actually liked the San story. It gives Georgiou more depth and complexity, but it could have been a lot more. Unfortunately, it was just sandwiched in between an action-whodunnit with a lot of new characters (who were not adequately developed on their own rights) instead of being a drama with some action scenes, as a story like it should have been.

I love Michelle Yeoh, and I’ll watch her in anything, but this was a poorly written and directed movie that didn’t know what it should have been.

Trip was a complete gentleman… that time. He made no guarantees or warranties for future missions.

I pay about $200 CAD per visit for cleanings and x-rays, so about $400 per year. That is an acceptable amount for me, personally, but that can be a lot for some people, especially low income households that have more than one child.

The showrunners said from a very early point that the two would not get together during the shows run

I had missed this. I’d hung five season’s worth of ship-hope on them, but I regret nothing because they’re adorable and they had better get together in the comics!!!

This makes this season’s Rutherford make a lot more sense. I am definitely a Rutherford-Tendí shipper, but even my friend who is significantly less so of one than me noticed that the two of them seemed to barely interact after she returned from Orion. They didn’t have a lot of screen time, but even the screen time they did have was more being in the same scene together than interacting together which seemed so unlike them. But I thought the whole Tendi-T’Lyn rivalry was very unlike Tendi, too.

I am very displeased that they left the Rutherford and Tendi relationship hanging.

How deeply disappointing. Yes, Nana will make money from sales, but it’s so clearly not about money. The idea of women viewing other women as competition is just another thing that keeps women down. This reflects so poorly on Sirtis, especially since she could have so much to say about how Troi’s character was treated and eventually became (a little) more than just feelings.

Well, you know, there are a few dozen Star Trek fans in Ontario. Dozens!
I actually quite enjoyed that it wasn’t a typical entertainment-type interview, and what other interviewer is going to ask him about taking the subway? 😆

The one comment I’d make is that Toronto and Vancouver are major Canadian cities, while Manitoba is a province. It’s corresponding major city is Winnipeg, which is the name I’d expect of a ship of the same class. But while I most people around the world have probably heard of Toronto and Vancouver, Winnipeg is probably less familiar a name outside Canada. At this point I’m expecting every little mention to pay off in the finale, so perhaps we’ll find out then.

What I’d love is if her brother showed up with her too. (I love the rel-life connections.)