By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated 20 seconds ago

While I mostly lurk these days, I’m still hanging around on X, formerly known as Twitter. Admittedly, the place has become a real hellscape, with a feed constantly serving up ragebait and idiots constantly asking Grok to do their thinking for them. Speaking of idiots, X is filled with people who pay for blue checks, and as you might imagine, the people who pay extra to force their comments to the top almost never have anything interesting to say. Why am I still there, then? Because every single day, there’s some insanely brilliant bit of sh*tposting that makes me utter the motto every Twitter veteran: “I’m never leaving this site.” 

For example, even though the last House episode aired nearly a decade and a half ago, new fans are constantly discovering the show. New haters, too, as evidenced by one user (@jan_murray) starting Season 1 and griping about the show’s repetitive episode formula. Normally, this would be no big deal; people posting bad media takes on X is hardly anything new. What made her critique noteworthy, though, is that House star Hugh Laurie actually provided a response so wonderfully sarcastic and withering that it’s like he brought his famous TV doctor back for one last rodeo. A Golden Globe-winning actor dunking on a random fan out of nowhere? Man, I’m never leaving this site!

The New Main Character Is Here

All of this began with X user Janet Murray’s capsule review of House. Admitting that she was “late to the party,” she described starting Season 1 and getting annoyed with its repetitive story structure. “Patient has mysterious illness. Hugh Laurie (House) gets diagnosis wrong. Patient nearly dies.” She goes on to describe how the titular characters will get the diagnosis wrong again and nearly get fired, with the patient almost dying again. Finally, “Hugh Laurie has last minute leftfield idea. Gets diagnosis right. Doesn’t get fired.” She ends her critique with a rhetorical question: “Eight seasons of this?” 

As expected, many House superfans began mocking her criticisms. But that was nothing compared to Hugh Laurie, House himself, coming into the comment section like a wrecking ball. He immediately began with his character’s signature snark, criticizing her use of brackets in the original post. The actor then sarcastically noted that the crew tried a couple of episodes where “House gets it right the first time, but they were only 6 minutes long. NBC weren’t happy.“ He then joked that they tried episodes “where House never gets it right and the patient dies. The audience wasn’t happy.”

Making A House Call

Honestly, this was already brutal enough, but Laurie wasn’t done. Continuing, he wrote, “One could apply your trenchant analysis to other art forms: JS Bach wrote 30 Goldberg variations on the same chord structure; Frida Kahlo painted 50 portraits of herself…The point is, or was, variations on a theme; if all you see is hospital, medical blah blah, then it wasn’t meant for you.” As if he could hear the House fandom crying for him to finish her, Laurie added an absolutely devastating final sentence: “Nonetheless, I look forward to your first novel!”

Aside from the relative novelty of a famous actor talking sh*t to a sh*t poster, what makes Hugh Laurie’s response so great is that it might as well have been written by House. From the initial mocking of her communication to dragging her for not understanding media, the whole thing feels like a (slightly) more polite version of the TV doctor’s famous onscreen takedowns. Plus, Laurie’s final dig, essentially pointing out that this is creative criticism from someone who hasn’t created much, feels like the kind of thing House might throw out, mid-argument, before dramatically walking away.

The Diagnosis Is Correct

Beyond the sarcasm, Laurie offers some pretty spot-on media analysis. Most great new stories are, in fact, variations on stories we have seen before. Joseph Campbell pointed this out in his groundbreaking 1949 book Hero with a Thousand Faces. According to him, most great myths (ranging from The Odyssey to the Bible) tell the same essential story using different variations of the same tropes. He called this the “monomyth,” and his theories influenced George Lucas. This is why the first Star Wars, despite being sci-fi, has so many King Arthur callbacks: a magical mentor, an enchanted sword,  and a hero of destiny who has to rescue a damsel in distress from a terrifying castle.

While many fans and even a few of the show’s actors have been hoping for a House revival, nothing has been announced. Realistically, we may never get another TV series that brings back Hugh Laurie’s famously cantankerous physician. However, this hilarious kerfluffle over on X is a reminder that fans can effectively summon House back for more wit and wisdom whenever they want. All they have to do is say something really, really stupid where Hugh Laurie can see it, and then brace themselves for the most hilarious clapbacks in celebrity history!

By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated 1 hour ago

Right now, Starfleet Academy is in a very weird place. The show was canceled almost immediately after Season 1 ended, and the most likely reason is that it just didn’t have enough viewers to justify a renewal. However, Season 2 has already been filmed, meaning that we are (unless the network Batgirls the thing) likely to see more adventures of these controversial cadets. That means that Paramount can’t really say anything definitive about why the show ended for fear of diminishing the audience even further. For that same reason, none of the powers that be at Star Trek can say anything even remotely critical about it.

Or can they? Recently, Strange New Worlds showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso gave an interview explaining what fans could look forward to with this show’s fourth season. This mostly concerned character development and just how much work went into the dreaded muppet episode. However, they also went out of their way to emphasize how this season wasn’t going to have its own “Big Bad.” Goldsman elaborated that this meant nothing like the Gorn or the Vezda, but these guys were never Big Bads in the traditional sense of the term. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but this sounded like a different reassurance altogether: that SNW would be nothing like Starfleet Academy!

Big Bad Or Just A Big Bite?

In a recent interview with Polygon, Strange New Worlds showrunner Akiva Goldsman said that Strange New Worlds Season 4 is going to have more of an episodic, Original Series style of storytelling. That means no “Big Bad” whose story would take multiple episodes to complete, like the Gorn in the first two seasons and the Vezda in Season 3. However, these guys weren’t Big Bads as we know the term. The Gorn made a couple of scary appearances in Season 1 and were part of a Season 2 cliffhanger, but they weren’t an ongoing concern. Similarly, the Vezda appeared in only two Season 3 episodes, where they showed the ability to possess various bodies.  

Both the Gorn and the Vezda are faceless bad guys. Like, the Gorn are presented as Star Trek’s version of the xenomorphs, and they are scary because they are unknowable. The Vezda, meanwhile, are quite literally faceless, having to take over others’ bodies to give themselves a properly corporeal form. The term “Big Bad” was coined by Buffy the Vampire Slayer writers to refer to the dominant villain of each season. Big Bads included demons like Mayor Wilkins, former allies like Angelus and Dark Willow, occasional gods like Glory, and so on. These villains usually had at least half a season of development and served as big personalities for our heroes to consistently bounce off of.

Star Trek’s Latest Big Bad

What does this have to do with Starfleet Academy? Strange New Worlds didn’t have Buffy-style Big Bads: the Gorn and the Vezda were minor parts of their respective seasons, and they aren’t exactly villains for our heroes to bounce off of. The Gorn don’t talk, and the Vezda can only hop into others’ bodies to spout vaguely threatening comments about evil. But there was a recent Star Trek show with a larger-than-life villain whose oversized personality dominated the entire season. In Starfleet Academy, Paul Giamatti’s Nus Braka appears in half of Season 1, including an explosive entrance in the first episode and an extremely memorable bow in the last episode.

Nus Braka cast a long shadow over Starfleet Academy’s entire first season. He’s part of Caleb’s dark origin story and has an outsized effect on the cadet’s development. He outwits the cadets and their mentors, managing to blow up a Starfleet vessel and steal classified research with which he used to threaten the entire Federation. While I personally thought Giamatti gave a great performance, the fact remains that if you don’t like his character, you’re probably not going to like the show because he’s just in it so much.

Big Bads? Zero. Muppets? One

That brings us back to Akiva Goldsman’s comments to Polygon about Strange New Worlds Season 4 having no Big Bads. Because the show never really had proper, Buffy-style Big Bads, my theory is that the showrunner was quietly distancing his own show from Starfleet Academy. His comment is a way of saying that SNW didn’t go all-in on a single villain, so you don’t have to worry about an overused enemy driving you away. That is, of course, part of the show’s episodic charm: as with earlier shows like The Original Series and The Next Generation, the sheer variety of stories means that even if you hate one episode, you may love the next.

So, call me a conspiracy theorist if you must (don’t make me wear one of those neck bugs from “Conspiracy”), but Akiva Goldsman’s comments about no Big Bads in Strange New Worlds Season 4 seem like a coded way of saying “don’t worry, it won’t be like Starfleet Academy.” That might upset some fans who would prefer more solidarity between shows and showrunners. But to anyone who hated SFA (especially if they hated it because of Nus Braka), this might be just enough reassurance for them to tune into Strange New Worlds when it premieres July 23rd on Paramount+.

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 26 seconds ago

It’s been a pretty weird decade to be a Ghostbusters fan. Paul Feige’s all-female movie was supposed to reboot the franchise for modern audiences and make the franchise mainstream again. Instead, it became a firestorm of controversy, and we eventually got Ghostbusters: Afterlife. While it was more about Spielbergian wonder than cynical wisecracks, Afterlife appealed to the old-school fans, earning enough money to warrant a sequel: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. However, Frozen Empire was a crowded, somewhat sloppy film that cost more and made less than Afterlife, leaving the future of the franchise uncertain.

Now, the latest iteration of Ghostbusters will be on the small screen rather than the big screen. A new, animated show is launching on Netflix in 2027, and fans have been eager to hear more about what this cartoon will be about. Recently, Sony unveiled the show’s logo as well as its provocative new name, Ghostbusters: Night Shift. Many are buzzing with excitement, but some can’t help but ask the obvious question: “wait, that’s it?” This cartoon has been in the works for several years now, and the fact that it is still so shrouded in mystery is starting to feel like a very, very bad sign.

A New Take On A Classic Logo

When Sony unveiled the logo for Ghostubers: Night Shift, fans were divided. On the one hand, it’s nice that this logo shares so much in common with the original film logo; most reboots and revivals change so much that we love, so it’s nice to know that this upcoming cartoon isn’t shaking things up too much. On the other hand, the new logo is so close to the original logo that it seems almost odd that they changed it. The changes are also so odd and minimalist (like yellowed teeth and a beastly claw on the ghost) that it seems like a borderline AI creation. The prompt? “Make the Ghostbusters logo look scary.”

Additionally, the subtitle “Night Shift” has caused speculation about who the core Ghostbusters team will be and what the show will be about. The name implies that the cartoon likely won’t follow the original Ghostbusters, who (in addition to being very old) didn’t answer many calls in the wee hours. The show is also unlikely to follow the core crew of Aferlife and Frozen Empire. It’s possible that the new show will go full meta and feature the Ghostbusters as an in-universe franchise. Therefore, we might be following a new team of a local Ghostbusters branch, one that covers the titular night shift.

Trusted Names And Plenty Of Secrets

Aside from the new name and new logo, we know very little about Ghostbusters: Night Shift. The show will be a Netflix exclusive and is set to premiere in 2027, though an exact release date remains unknown. It’s not entirely clear what kind of animation style we are likely to see, either. While the smart money is on the show having the uncanny, CGI-animated look of Netflix’s Stranger Things cartoon, the show may end up with a more traditional 2D style, like the streamer’s steadily-growing list of exclusive anime titles. One thing we do know about Ghostbusters: Night Shift, though, is that it is being made by some names we can trust.

The show is being executive-produced by Dan Aykroyd, the franchise star who originally came up with the idea of the Ghostbusters in the first place. Other EPs include Jason Reitman, Gil Kenan, both of whom co-wrote Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. Finally, Elliott Kalan is serving as writer and co-showrunner of this new cartoon; if his name doesn’t ring a bell, Kalan has written for The Daily Show and Mystery Science Theater 3000, and he’s the motormouthed, show-stealing cohost of the hit podcast The Flophouse. Kalan is also a comics writer who gave us the often-memed scene where the villainous Sauron tells Spider-Man he’d rather turn people into dinosaurs than cure cancer.

Akyroyd is the OG talent, Reitman is the shepherd of the modern movies, and Kalan is the passionate fan working on his dream franchise. Together, they might just have what it takes to make Ghostbusters: Night Shift into Netflix’s latest killer cartoon. Otherwise, this beloved franchise may fade away and become the worst kind of ghost: one that nobody even cares about watching, much less busting.