Happy National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day! Ya know, I’ve never really liked that whole concept, as it always felt sort of mean-spirited. I mean, most Ugly Christmas Sweaters™ didn’t start out that way. A lot of them were just these gaudy, tacky things that were actually beloved by our nation’s grandmothers and spinster aunts. They thought these things were “neat” and “unique”. Then, it’s like some Big City Executive’s car broke down in one of their towns, and noticed the sweaters. “What have we here? Look at that godawful thing! Ya know, I should take some of these back to New York, and hand ’em out. My buddies will have a laugh!” So spread the concept of The Ugly Christmas Sweater™ but, to a lot of folks, it’s merely a Christmas Sweater. We always talk about how “flyover country” gets ignored and/or ridiculed, and this just feels like another example of that. Maybe I feel like this because I’m the son of a Christmas Sweater fan. Who knows?
Ya know what else really grinds my gears? All of these two-part movies! Stop splitting your movies in half! I know nobody wants to sit in a theater for 4 hours, but it’s nothing a good editing bay can’t fix. It’s one thing if you set out with a planned trilogy or something. It’s another, though, when the studio realizes they’ve got enough footage to split the narrative in half. Back in the day, all that extra footage would have just been thrown on the DVD, and they’d call it a day. I mean, there’s an entire Anchorman “sequel” that’s made up entirely of deleted scenes from the first movie. I can’t tell you how many folks I’ve spoken with who went into Wicked not knowing it was only “Part 1”. They’ll keep making Dune movies as long as folks buy tickets, as Herbert wrote, like, 87 books in that series, but have they told an entire story yet? The biggest sin, however, is how the second Spider-Verse movie was a two-part affair, yet they didn’t even have the decency to make them back-to-back. I wouldn’t be surprised if that third movie never got made. Then, you’ve got Costner out here, with his Horizon passion project, which clearly should have been a TV series, but the production quality, as well as Costner’s ego, insisted it be a theatrical release. This is almost like how comic publishers announce books that are nowhere close to being ready to go to print on the date specified. Get all your ducks in a row, narrow your focus, and stop trying to milk the audience for all they’re worth!
I bring all this up because the release date for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple was revealed this week: January 16, 2026. Yeah, they announced this before 28 Years Later even hit theaters. We just got the trailer last week! What’s even more odd here, though, is that Bone Temple has the same cast, yet a different director. Whereas original franchise director Danny Boyle returned for 28 Years Later, Nia DaCosta (The Marvels) is directing Bone Temple. Both share the same writer in Alex Garland, but is this a unified vision? Is this really a sequel or a spinoff? Will 28 Years Later actually tell a complete story?
Trailer Park
Superman (Theaters, July 11)
Ya know, I’ve been on this earth almost 43 years, and in that time I have witnessed NINE different live action Superman actors. Yes, that’s 4 theatrical, and 5 on television. I don’t even have to count Nic Cage in that total! And, really, it’s always pretty much the same thing. There’s always a Lex Luthor, and they tend to find some way to make him end up being bald (even when it doesn’t make sense). They cast a striking brunette as Lois, which tends to somehow ruin that actress’s career prospects going forward. I’m just sort of like “How many times are we gonna do this?”
Folks watched this trailer and they all fell in love with it, but I’m not one of them. You see, I think folks are suffering from “recency bias”, in that everyone still has the taste of the Snyderverse in their mouths. I, however, remember all the way back to Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns. In case you’ve forgotten, the whole purpose of that film was to rekindle the feeling the audience got when they first believed a man could fly. Hell, they went out and got Brandon Routh mainly because of his resemblance to Christopher Reeve. And while that movie ultimately disappointed audiences, it was still marketed well, and its trailers had the same themes of Hope and Heroism that they’re trying to capture here. So, while people are seeing this, and finding it “refreshing”, I’m more of a “Been there, done that” with it all.
I know there’s a lot riding on this, but I don’t know if Gunn’s The Guy. Yes, he will take things in a new direction, and put his quirky stamp on things, but he’s not the guy you give the keys to the kingdom. He works well on underrated D-listers than the Heavy Hitters. You give him the Suicide Squad, but not the Justice League. You see Guy Gardner and Mr. Terrific in that trailer, looking like they’re wearing Spirit Halloween costumes? THAT is the movie James Gunn usually makes. It might even be the movie he makes here. It’s just gonna “feature” Superman. I say the same thing when folks mention Superman III: “It’s a fun movie if you think of it more like a Richard Pryor movie, featuring Superman”. Well, this looks like it’ll be fine if you think of it as something of a Justice League International movie, featuring Superman. Anyway, there was a dog, so a lot of folks lost all sense of reason once those paws hit the screen.
I think what bothers me the most about this whole enterprise is all of the “I feel Hope again!” reactions. I mean, part of it is cute, but the biggest issue with Superman is that I think we, as a society, have become too cynical to appreciate him. Snyder, for all of his faults, gave us a Superman for the modern day, and folks didn’t like that. They said “He doesn’t understand Superman!”, but I think he understood Superman for 2013. Maybe a little too well. Singer didn’t get it totally wrong, either – he just needed more action, and got way too concerned with pushing the Messianic angle of the character. Superman is timeless, but that doesn’t mean society is always going to react to him the same. I guess I’m saying y’all need to stop looking to the skies for “Hope”. Chances are, even if Gunn “gets it right”, folks will still think he got it wrong. And we’re all suckers for a good trailer.
Will Around The Web
Earlier this week, I had some thoughts about whether or not our biggest pop culture franchises are reaching new fans, or just getting diminishing returns from their dwindling fanbases.
Links I Loved
It seems like it was the Week of the Stealth Drop, as a couple of friends did some sneaky releases online:
My buddy Chad, aka HorrorMovieBBQ, unveiled a new blog concept he calls The Saturday Morning Express. I love any time someone refuses to give up on the blog format (blog brothers!), so I’m looking forward to seeing where he takes this. His first post went up this week, where he celebrated the return of WWE’s Saturday Night’s Main Event by looking back at the history of the show.
Meanwhile, my buddy Corey unveiled his new nostalgia podcast, Cor Memories. Described as “the ultimate nostalgia trip for kids of the 80s and 90s!”, it’s clear that this is the worthy successor to his old podcast, UnderScoopFire! I don’t feel like I need to explain what this means, but then I remember some of y’all are new here.
So, one of my big things is “community”. I say I do all of this to find My People. Well, when I first really got into social media, the first group of folks I found ran a website and podcast called UnderScoopFire! Even though they were a group of guys who grew up together in central New York, it was fun to discover how much we all had in common. But they were also engaging, meaning you could talk to them and they’d talk back. What a novel concept! Some of my earliest podcast appearances ever were on their show, and look at me now! I’ve hung out with them at Retro Con, I check in with them via DMs every now and then. Plainly put, I love those guys, so it was quite the blow when the USF! enterprise shut down. Life happens, and they all went their separate ways.
Well, Corey’s first episode included former USF! cohosts Joe and Tank, and it’s like they never left. Corey reminisced about how Santa’s gifts were never wrapped when he was growing up, and he’s the first person I’ve encountered who could relate to my experience. Folks have always been like “Santa didn’t wrap your presents?!” NO! He’s busy and he just worked a double! Anyway, if you’re a child of the 80s and 90s, you’ll love this show, and for a lot of us, the existence of this show is just a reminder of a time when social media didn’t totally suck. Welcome back, Cor!
Things You Might Have Missed This Week
- In the world of Revivals Nobody Wanted, it was announced that Malcolm in the Middle will be returning for a 4-episode stint on Disney+.
- In other renewal news, Netflix has ordered another season of the Ted Danson hit A Man on the Inside
- For all these renewals and revivals, it means some shows must go. This week, Netflix canceled Girls5Eva, FX canceled The Old Man, and Apple TV+ canceled Sunny. Also, Apple TV+ renewed Silo for 2 more seasons, with the show set to end with season 4.
- Remember when Star Trek: Voyager was on UPN, and network synergy resulted in WWE SmackDown star The Rock guest starring as an alien? Well, they’ve got wrestling in my Trek again, as WWE Superstar Becky Lynch confirmed she will be appearing in the upcoming Star Trek: Starfleet Academy series on Paramount+
- The second part of Wicked will officially be called Wicked: For Good, which I guess sounded good to someone…
- It was confirmed that the 5-part “The Sign” will end up being the series finale of Bluey, but all is not lost, as Disney and the BBC are developing a Bluey movie set for a 2027 release.
- Speaking of Disney, the company is in hot water for reportedly removing an episode from the upcoming Disney/Pixar animated series Win or Lose that focuses on a trans kid on the softball team. Disney released a statement that the decision was made with the belief that some families would rather address these topics with their kids in their own way.
- Meanwhile on Twitter, Elon asked users to stop using hashtags, as he said they’re no longer necessary to organize and search trending topics on the site.
Man, I’m just an ol Ebenezer Scrooge this week, ain’t I? Well, let’s keep that energy, shall we? I hate Space. Yeah, yeah, “the final frontier” and all that, but I’ve never really seen it that way. Growing up, even jaded Young Will was sort of struck by how we’ll aim for Mars but not deal with any of the problems going on here, on Earth. I know that the whole Space Program is something of an aspirational institution, which inspires growth in tech and creativity. But still… As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see Space as merely “a cold place to die”.
I think a lot of this had to do with my introduction to comics, and how they’d use Space – the X-Men, in particular. If things got dicey with all the anti-mutant activists on Earth, the X-Men would take a jaunt into space, hang out with the Shi’ar, and then return to an Earth where most of the problems they’d left had either been resolved or replaced by new problems. One of my earliest X-Men crossovers was “Operation: Zero Tolerance”, which introduced the villain Bastion, of recent X-Men ’97 fame. At this time, the team had split up, so all the popular characters who sold lunchboxes were in space – with the Shi’ar – while all the lames, like Iceman, were fighting off Bastion and being rounded up into camps. Once the space team got back, they were all “Did we miss anything?” Frickin’ space, man…
So, this is why I find it odd that I’ve loved Star Trek so much. I mean, it’s a franchise set in the stars. When you really think about it, though, the setting is space, but that’s not what it’s about. There are very few spacewalks. No one gets asphyxiated, as there’s always a forcefield over open bay doors. Nah, in Star Trek, space is about exploration, and the Human Condition – contrasted with the Vulcan Condition, Cardassian Condition, etc. Yet, you know how we hate the things we see in others that we fail to see in ourselves? I hate Space because I hate how the X-Men used it (to hide) because that’s what I had been doing. Growing up, I looked forward to nothing more than Star Trek: The Next Generation. Baby, when that thing hit strip syndication, and was airing, like, 4 times every night? Heaven! I didn’t hang out with friends, or skip down to the malt shop. I was watching Picard fight his brother in mud, or Worf getting space paralyzed, or Data straight up punishing Tasha Yar (that may have been the first time I saw underboob on TV!). I loved Star Trek. So, so much. And then, one day, I didn’t.
Nothing really happened. If anything, it just got harder to access. It became exclusive to UPN, and Cornell didn’t get that channel. In fact, I watched the premiere of Enterprise by downloading it from somewhere. Once I finished the pilot, I was like “Yeah, I worked too hard to get…this.” And I was done. I’d check back every now and then. Before covid, I discovered the digital subchannel Heroes & Icons showed the 4 different series nightly. In fact, there was quite the livetweeting community around it, but they were really weird. They never really “picked up what I was putting down”. I tried out Discovery. Wasn’t for me. I figured my time in Starfleet had passed.
Over the past few years, I’d heard that the animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks was really good, but I don’t really trust online strangers. And I had no interest in watching what appeared to be “They got Rick and Morty on my Enterprise”. When it was announced that the fifth season would be its last, I thought “That’s a shame, but that’s still longer than I would have expected.” Just glib ignorance! Then, the election happened. We’ve already talked about that. I wasn’t surprised by what happened, but rather how it happened. I lost a lot of faith in “my fellow man”. “Aren’t we better than this?”, I wondered. And, really, isn’t that what we’re trying to discover via all this exploration. So, I retreated. I decided to hide somewhere familiar, yet uncharted, and I knew just the place.
I did the math, and realized that I had just enough time to not only start Lower Decks, but also finish just as the series finale was about to drop. Not only would I be “current” with something (a rare feat), but I also might enjoy something along the way. Well, to say I enjoyed it would be quite the understatement. You know how y’all felt this week about that Superman trailer? That’s how I’ve felt during this entire binge!
For those not familiar, Star Trek: Lower Decks follows the lowly crew members who make sure the ship functions, yet don’t get to make the important decisions. Historically, they’ve been called things like “Red Shirts”, due to the frequency at which unnamed crew members in red uniforms managed to meet their end in horrific ways. These are the crew members who are canon fodder for the next conflict with The Dominion. The thing is, though, they’re still people – people with thoughts, feelings, and wants. We got a taste of this in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode also called “Lower Decks”, which focused on a small group of these crewmembers on the Enterprise-D. Taking inspiration from that, this show focuses on Ensigns Brad Boimler, Beckett Mariner, D’vana Tendi, and Sam Rutherford – all “Lower Deckers” on the USS Cerritos, which is a California class ship that focuses on Second Contact. Yup, they don’t get to discover new races, but rather they do the follow up work after a more important ship, like the Enterprise, has handled the history-making part of the experience.
Each is such a vibrant character, bringing different things to the table. Boimler is the eager-to-please doormat, who dreams of one day making Captain; Mariner is the daughter of the Cerritos’s captain, and she’s always acting out in an effort to both set herself apart from her officer parents, but also find her own place in Starfleet; Tendi is the one of the few Orions in Starfleet, and she follows her passion for science in a quest to change folks’ perception that Orions are merely pirates and slave girls; Rutherford might even be a better engineer than Geordi LaForge, and he’s trying to adjust to his newly-acquired cybernetic implant. They’ve constantly working beneath – and alongside – senior officers, such as Tactical Officer Shax, a Bajoran war hero from the days of Bajor’s occupation by the Cardassians; Lieutenant Andy Billups, chief engineer and also heir to the throne of Hysperia; Dr. T’Ana, a vulgar Caitian, which is a species not seen since Star Trek: The Animated Series; Commander Jack Ransom, who puts on the veneer of a vapid himbo, but is a much better First Officer than anyone gives him credit for. They all report to Captain Carol Freeman, who tries to balance being the capable leader of an overlooked ship with being the mother Mariner needs her to be. Over the course of 5 seasons, you watch all of these characters grow closer to each other, while growing more confident in themselves.
When Star Trek: Picard ended, folks were clamoring for its showrunner Terry Matalas get a chance to continue with those storylines, preferably in his rumored Star Trek: Legacy series. After watching Lower Decks, however, I’d argue that its showrunner, Mike McMahan, has an even better handle on Trek lore than Matalas. The deep cuts this show was able to pull out! At the end of the day, this is a show that shouldn’t exist, for several reasons. First off, it’s rare for a corporation to let its “jewel” be roasted in a project that it produces. Like, historically, to get a good Trek parody, you’d have to resort to Galaxy Quest – something produced by another studio, but with enough parallels that you know what’s taking place. Here, the call is coming from inside the house! While I’m sure there were studio edicts (for example, Jerry O’Connell recently said that he wasn’t allowed to film any scenes with his wife Rebecca Romijn during the Lower Decks/Strange New Worlds crossover because it wouldn’t mesh with “other plans” the studio apparently has for his character), it feels almost like CBS said “Have fun!” At times, it’s almost like someone said “I dare you to surprise me”, and McMahan always rose to the occasion.
And while self-referential, it’s equally strong when it does its own thing. Sure, it’s fun to see Captain Riker show up, or any of the many surprising cameos from Season 5, but it’s not entirely dependent on those. It also does something sort of slick that I didn’t immediately catch in the beginning: early in Season 1 (it might have even been the pilot), they mention that log entries are public. So, when a crew member later references something the audience might remember from DS9 or TNG, you initially think “Hey, why would they know about Picard’s flute life?”, but then you remember “Oh, the logs! EVERYONE knows about Picard’s flute life!”
Out of the whole series, there are only 2 things that may have bothered me. First off, Beckett comes in hot! I mean, she is annoying right out of the gate, but if you give it time, it allows the character to breathe, and you start to understand where all that manic energy is coming from. I had managed to “match her speed” by the second episode. The other thing is the show doesn’t seem to know what it wants to do with Vulcan T’Lyn. She’s introduced in something like the Season 2 finale, where her insubordination got her transferred to Starfleet as a form of punishment. She’s not seen again, however, until the 3rd season finale! Then she sort of inconsistently pops in and out, like Tori on the senior year episodes of Saved By The Bell. It feels like they maybe wanted her to be the Fifth Beatle of the Cerritos, but perhaps voice actor Gabrielle Ruiz wasn’t available? It’s just odd how the character is handled.
I could be here all day, going over everything I loved about the series. I finished yesterday, and I’m ready for a rewatch. It’s THAT good. So, I guess I’m back! I’m glad to have Star Trek back in my life, and I feel it’s gonna be a needed escape for things to come. I’m also ready to finally tackle all of the other Paramount+ Trek shows I’ve been ignoring. That’s why Star Trek: Lower Decks had the West Week Ever. Beam me up, Scotty, ’cause mama I’m coming home!
