By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 43 seconds ago

Ever learn about someone for the first time and feel an immediate kinship with them? Recently, I learned about the late, great Evan Carlos Somers, someone who wrote for the best Transformers show ever made: Beast Wars. He also wrote the episode “Melora” for Deep Space Nine, which just happens to be the greatest Star Trek show ever made (I said what I said, haters!).

What intrigued me most about Somers is that he wrote “Melora” out of spite. Part of that spite was for the Paramount production offices and the DS9 set itself. As a man in a wheelchair, Somers discovered how tough it was to get around the studio, and he made sure the wheelchair-bound Melora faced the same difficulties navigating the most famous space station in the quadrant. On top of that, he wrote “Melora” largely to wave a middle finger at the writers of “Ethics.” That’s the TNG episode where a paralyzed Worf wants to (as the kids on Starfleet Academy might say) unalive himself with the help of Commander Riker.

The Best Parking Spot On The Station

This tale is gonna need a double dose of context, so buckle up. The most notable thing about the “Melora” is that even in the 24th century, the titular Starfleet officer must use a wheelchair to move around the station. This is because she comes from a low-gravity planet, and her fancy hoverchair is incompatible with the station’s Cardassian technology. The episode was pitched and originally written (it got later rewrites) by Evan Carlos Somers, who felt that his life as a handicapped person would help him more authentically write for a wheelchair-bound character.

The big emotional thrust of the episode comes when Dr. Bashir develops a “cure” for Melora that would allow her to easily walk in Earth normal gravity. However, it would keep her from returning to her homeworld. It would also fundamentally change who she is, and she eventually decides not to go through with it just to make Bashir happy. In this way, the handicapped Somers wrote a quintessential Star Trek episode in which a character refuses to be defined by her disability and, instead, fully embraces it.

Today Is A Good Day To Die

While he was motivated to write “Melora” largely out of his desire to honestly portray the lived experience of a handicapped person, Somers also wanted to write a response to the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Ethics.” This is the episode where Worf gets paralyzed by some falling barrels, and he considers committing ritual suicide because of Klingon cultural customs. They believe if you can’t walk, you can’t fight, and if you can’t fight, you might as well be dead. Worf is unable to convince Riker to help with his assisted suicide and is unwilling to ask his son, so he reluctantly agrees to an experimental medical procedure that allows him to walk again.

In an interview with The Official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine, Evan Carlos Somers revealed that “Ethics” was an episode that “had gotten a little under my skin.” While acknowledging that Klingons have their own cultural values, he still felt that “we’re making statements with Star Trek” and that “messages and values are being broadcast loud and clear.” In this case, he “reented the message in ‘Ethics’–that Worf is worthless now that he’s disabled and therefore must kill himself.” This motivated the writing of “Melora” because “I always thought it would be nice to create a disabled character who’s accepted for what she is and doesn’t have to change.” 

In retrospect, “Melora” did have a nice message, but I find it personally hilarious that this progressive episode was written out of spite for the writers of an earlier TNG episode. Even funnier, “Ethics” was written by Ronald D. Moore, the Klingon expert who later went on to create the acclaimed Battlestar Galactica reboot.

He’s considered one of Star Trek’s best writers, but that didn’t keep a young intern-turned-writer from calling him out with one of DS9’s craziest episodes. Somers was powered by spite the same way the Enterprise is powered by the warp core, and like Scotty, he was giving it all he’s got with “Melora.” Real talk? As a cranky writer myself, that’s the kind of motivation I can get behind.

By Jennifer Asencio
| Published 33 seconds ago

The Grim Reaper has already had a fruitful year in 2026, taking from Hollywood stars like Robert Carridine, Catherine O’Hara, Robert Duvall, James Van Der Beek, and even the invincible Chuck Norris. Now Nicholas Brendon has died. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer actor was 54.

According to a statement released by his family, Brendon died in his sleep from “natural causes.” If that sounds like a young age for such a cause of death, it is. The actor’s health was actually complicated by a lot of factors. He suffered from cauda equina syndrome, a spinal condition that required several surgeries. He revealed in 2023 that he had a congenital heart defect that had recently been diagnosed after a 2022 heart attack. All of this was exacerbated by mental health and substance abuse battles that he struggled with all his life, but his family reported that he was in good spirits and maintaining his health schedule before he died.

Brendon is best known for playing Xander Harris on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Xander was that awkward teen who was supposed to be the stand-in for the audience with his everyday reactions to his spreading awareness of what is out in his world. He was the Scooby gang’s broad generalist, ordinary and plain, while the other characters have their own skills or abilities, either as the Slayer, witch, or demon. Often overwhelmed, underprepared, and clearly misinformed, he was somehow the heart of the group, and he always managed to deliver. What kept Xander so relatable was that he was “everyone,” that very human connection.

Sarah Michelle Gellar was slated to be in the Hulu reboot of the Buffy series, and rumors abounded that other characters were going to be returning for the show. However, there were questions about Brendon’s participation because of his mental health and addiction struggles, especially as they resulted in numerous run-ins with the law. At the time of Brendon’s death, it did not seem that Xander was going to be included in the reboot, a fact the actor was not happy about.

Immediately following the success of Buffy, Brendon starred in Kitchen Confidential for 13 episodes. This half-season series was based on Anthony Bourdain’s novel “Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly,” with the lead Bradley Cooper playing “Jack” Bourdain for Anthony himself. Brendon plays the pastry chef and friend of Jack’s, Seth Richman.

He maintained steady acting roles in his post-Buffy career, with another highlight being the film Coherence. In this 2013 psychological sci-fi thriller, he plays Mike as he and his wife Lee, played by Lorene Scafaria, host six of their friends as Miller’s Comet passes the Earth. What follows is a story where time no longer moves in a linear fashion. Out-of-sequence events culminate in the comet breaking up and a rather surprising ending.

Following this film came his return to the small screen in a major role as character Kevin Lynch in the long-running series Criminal Minds for 21episodes over the course of eight seasons. A technical analyst with prodigious technical computing ability, he is brought in to hack the computer of one of the series stars, fan favorite Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness), to find out who shot her. Over the episodes, he is depicted or referenced and goes on cases to many locations with the team, even starting a relationship with Garcia. Although this character wasn’t one of his more admired roles, he nevertheless left his mark with fans.

Despite his struggles, Brendon continued acting until 2024. He even had two upcoming projects. With his untimely death, it appears that the IMDB page for his project Best Sheep is no longer available and was taken down during the research for this article. Once in a Blue Moon is written and directed by Valeria Sweet, and the role that Brendon was to play was that of Matt; little else is available about the production, so we will see what ultimately happens with the series.

Nicholas Brendon left us too soon. His wholesome on-screen persona masked serious struggles that the actor bravely faced while trying to maintain his career, constantly picking himself up whenever he fell. He may not have had the most stable off-screen life, but what he brought to fans was important enough to him that he kept fighting for it until his very last breath. Hopefully, he has found peace.

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 51 seconds ago

Recently, the controversial Star Trek show Starfleet Academy finished its first season, and the online discourse about the show has been endless. Defenders of the series have constantly pointed out that because it took shows like The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine time to achieve greatness, everyone should give Starfleet Academy some grace during its initial shakedown cruise. To this, critics always have a simple response: that because modern seasons are less than half as long as they used to be, Star Trek shows can no longer afford to waste time getting good.

Whether Starfleet Academy gets renewed for Season 3 (Season 2 has already been filmed) may come down to various factors, including streaming numbers and decisions from upper Paramount leadership. Recently, however, it occurred to me that it would be easy for an upcoming series to finally make the divided fandom happy. All Paramount needs to do is give Tawny Newsome’s upcoming Star Trek spinoff a tighter per-episode budget and more episodes per season.

The Office In Space?

If you don’t know, Lower Decks legend and Starfleet Academy writer Tawny Newsome is currently working on a Star Trek show that is supposed to function as a workplace comedy. This unnamed series is set on a vacation planet (not Risa, though). Beyond this and the fact that she wants to set it in the 25th century (so, the Picard era), all we know about the show is that it involves helping the planet join the Federation. Oh, and the original pitch for the show involved some unspecified shenanigans that would somehow broadcast everything our Federation workers are doing to the entire quadrant. 

The series has not yet gotten the green light from Paramount, and it has reportedly evolved (albeit in unknown ways) since the original pitch. Personally, I always thought the “broadcast to the whole quadrant” thing meant they were doing a Star Trek version of The Office. At any rate, Newsome’s workplace comedy show provides the perfect opportunity for NuTrek to boldly go where it has never gone before: 20+ episode seasons, with a more modest budget for each episode.

The Numbers Game

Back in the Golden Age of Star Trek, shows like Voyager had 26-episode seasons, and this offered a number of advantages to the writers. On the most basic level, they had an extended runway: with this many episodes per season, you could flesh out your main characters and even give your side characters extended screentime. Most importantly, having so many episodes each season meant that Paramount could afford to have a few stinkers; the awful quality of early TNG episodes like “Code of Honor,” for example, would ultimately get outweighed by better episodes like “Conspiracy.”

However, the network could only do this because of the cost factor. Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes cost about $1.3 million to produce, which was admittedly a pretty penny back in the day. Now, though, Star Trek: Discovery previously cost about $8 million per episode, and there are persistent rumors that each Starfleet Academy episode costs Paramount $10 million. If that’s true, then it costs almost the same amount to produce one season of Starfleet Academy as it did to produce three seasons of The Next Generation.

That’s bad enough, but three seasons of The Next Generation add up to 78 episodes; meanwhile, one season of Starfleet Academy is only 10 episodes. That’s not enough time to develop every character, which is likely why Genesis never got her own episode like everyone else. Furthermore, short seasons lead to killer ratios: if, say, four of your episodes are stinkers (a very generous estimate for SFA), then 40 percent of your entire season sucks. That’s enough to make fans tune out and possibly seal a show’s fate long before it finally gets good.

NuTrek Goes Old School

What does this bleak numbers game have to do with Tawny Newsome’s Star Trek show? Simple: one of the big reasons that shows like Starfleet Academy are so expensive is because of all the top-notch special effects needed for stories where the entire galaxy is in danger. The crew is always visiting new places (exploring strange new worlds and all that), meeting exotic aliens (seeking out new life), and generally having ambitious adventures that are very expensive to bring to life.

However, if Newsome’s workplace comedy show really is like Star Trek meets The Office, it could potentially be far cheaper to create. Characters could stay in a fixed location, effectively turning almost every episode into a bottle episode. Residents of the vacation planet don’t need to have elaborate makeup; in fact, the show could return to the grand Trek tradition of having aliens who are just humans with something funny on their foreheads. Finally, the show doesn’t have to have legacy characters or other big names; instead, the cast can be comprised of almost entirely unknown actors.

Put it all together, and you have a new Star Trek show that is infinitely cheaper to make than Starfleet Academy. But I’m not suggesting Paramount lower its overall budget; instead, the amount of money they would normally allocate to a NuTrek show should go to creating seasons with at least 20 episodes. This would allow for greater character development and more rewatchability. Best of all, there would be a built-in grace period: even if the show’s first five episodes are awful, fans would forgive that if the next 15 are solid Star Trek.

The Best Of Both Worlds

Realistically, I know this isn’t likely to happen for many reasons, including Alex Kurtzman’s inability to try anything new. But Paramount is currently exploring whether or not to keep Kurtzman around, and new leadership seems eager to shake things up with the franchise. A smaller-budget Star Trek spinoff could be a return to the Golden Age, where classic episodes were created with killer writing and not a small mountain of VFX.

Done right, Tawny Newsome’s show (assuming it gets the green light) could be the best of both worlds: it would give NuTrek fans more show than they can handle while finally making old-school fans happy. Plus, it would give its biggest fans more episodes per season to stream, giving this series the coziness of shows like Voyager. But the only way this can happen is for Paramount to embrace some very unconventional wisdom regarding the budget for each episode: make it low, Number One!