Entertainment
Starfleet Academy Lifted Avery Brooks's Voice For Their Show, He Did Not Participate At All
By Joshua Tyler
| Updated
Star Trek’s Starfleet Academy dropped an episode centered entirely around the commander of Deep Space Nine, Captain Benjamin Sisko. It’s titled “Series Acclimation Mil” and the plot involves Cirroc Lofton returning as Jake, in hologram form, and it ends with a voiceover that sounds like a cameo from Sisko himself, Avery Brooks. It’s not. It’s a lie.
Avery Brooks did not participate in this episode of Starfleet Academy and has, in fact, retired from acting in general and Star Trek specifically. He has no intention of returning, let alone for a show like this.
The voice you heard at the end of Starfleet Academy was Avery Brooks’s voice, but it wasn’t something he recorded for the series. Instead, the show’s producers lifted Avery’s voice off a spoken word album he once did, and they’re now passing it off as the return of the Sisko.
Here’s what Avery Brooks said in the stolen dialogue: “Divine laws are simpler than human ones, which is why it takes a lifetime to be able to understand them. Only love can understand them. Only love can interpret these words as they were meant to be interpreted.”
If you watched the episode, you probably thought that dialogue sounded weird, out of place, and didn’t obviously fit exactly what was going on in the show. Now you know why. It wasn’t meant for the show.
Avery Brooks Was A Not Part Of This And Likely Did Not Speak With Producers At All
The show’s producers are trying to make it seem like the theft of Avery’s voice was done with his blessing, but that doesn’t seem to be strictly true. Alex Kurtzman claims, “I had a very beautiful interaction with Avery.” Who knows what that means? It could have been an email or a call from his lawyer.
The rest of what the Starfleet Academy team is telling the media suggests that Cirroc Lofton spoke with Brooks about it for them. Lofton and Brooks have maintained a close relationship over the years since the end of DS9, with Brooks becoming something of a surrogate father to Lofton.
Other than whatever private discussions Cirroc may have had with him, Avery Brooks had nothing to do with Starfleet Academy. Writer Tawny Newsome says Brooks was “aware of the project.” Being “aware” the show exists is the full extent of Brooks’s involvement, according to the show’s creative team. Cirroc Lofton seems to indicate that when they talked about it, Avery was OK with it. Not involved, but not going to sue them either.
Aside from lifting Avery Brooks’s voice from some unrelated material to capitalize on his legacy, most of the episode was terrible and involved an annoying girl reducing his role as the Emissary to some sort of superhero trope that would spawn a legion of Emissaries, or something equally ridiculous. It was dumb and childish, but didn’t trample on the excellence of Deep Space Nine, which is a win.
Cirroc Lofton Is Still Excellent As Jake Sisko
If there’s a positive in the episode, it’s Cirroc Lofton, who was dignified and insightful. I have a hard time believing all of his dialogue was written by the Starfleet Academy crew; much of it sounded very different from the usual dreck they spew, and I found myself wondering if he’d come up with some of it himself.
We learn that Jake Sisko never published the novel he was writing. The reason given is some strange justification about how not publishing it made him feel close to his father. That’s a shame, since there’s nothing Ben Sisko would have liked more than to see Jake publish his book.
However, Lofton delivers the best performance we’ve seen from anyone on Starfleet Academy so far while focusing his discussion of Benjamin Sisko on Sisko’s role as a great father. That was always a key to the character, and one of the most beautiful and unique things about Deep Space Nine.
Cirroc Lofton proved he’s grown into the kind of man that both Ben Sisko and Avery Brooks would be proud of. Unfortunately, the episode itself ruined it by robbing Avery Brooks of his voice and using it to trick viewers into putting up with their streaming service.
Entertainment
Best Buy is running free Pokémon Trade and Play events this weekend — score free packs, trade, and shop exclusive collections
TL;DR: Best Buy is running free Pokémon Trade and Play events on Feb. 28 (12-2 p.m. local time). Participants can score free packs, trade cards, and shop exclusive collections.
We’ve made a lot of noise about Pokémon’s 30th birthday celebrations, and so has the rest of the world. We’ve seen genuine excitement over new Pokémon TCG releases, the first-ever Lego Pokémon sets, and the return of nostalgic Pokémon games, and it feels like there’s more to come from this special anniversary.
Best Buy is clearly feeling the party vibes. On Feb. 28 (12-2 p.m. local time), Best Buy stores across the country will host in-store Trade and Play events, with demo stations, Pokémon TCG trades, exclusive card drops, freebies, expert tuition, and a whole lot more. Attend solo, bring a friend, or gather together everyone from your neighborhood. This is going to be big.
Mashable Trend Report
Somehow still on the fence? Here’s a snapshot of what you can expect from these special events:
Before you set off, it’s important to check out Best Buy’s Pokémon page to find a Trade and Play event at a store near you. Once that’s sorted, you’re all set to capture the magic of Pokémon this weekend.
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Pokemon
Trading Cards
Entertainment
Get the 65-inch Samsung The Frame Pro for $600 less at Amazon
SAVE 29%: As of Feb. 27, you can get the 65-inch Samsung The Frame Pro LED Smart TV (LS03FW, 2025) for $1,497.99, down from $2,097.99, at Amazon. That’s a 29% discount or $600 savings. It’s also the lowest price we’ve tracked to date!
$1,497.99
at Amazon
$2,097.99
Save $600.00
To say I despise the look of a giant TV sitting at the front of my living room would be putting it lightly. It’s just not my idea of a relaxing setting. That’s why I’ve always loved the concept of Samsung‘s The Frame TV. It’s designed to blend in with your decor and doubles as a piece of art when it’s not on.
As of Feb. 27, you can get the 65-inch Samsung The Frame Pro LED Smart TV (LS03FW, 2025) for $1,497.99, down from $2,097.99, at Amazon. That’s a 29% discount or $600 savings. It’s also the lowest price we’ve tracked to date!
The 2025 Frame Pro upgrades the standard viewing experience with a virtually glare-free screen featuring a subtle matte texture that makes the digital artwork look like a real, physical print. When you aren’t watching your favorite shows, it shifts into Art Mode, which lets you display a curated collection of museum-worthy pieces from the Art Store or even upload your own photos. Bonus: It comes with a Slim Fit Wall Mount to ensure the TV hangs nearly flush against your wall.
Mashable Deals
It uses a Neo QLED panel with mini LEDs for precise lighting, and it features a Wireless One Connect hub so you can hide all your messy cables away from the screen itself. It’s basically the most aesthetic TV on the market.
Entertainment
Raunchy, R-Rated Action Comedy From South Park Creators Nearly Broke Them
By Robert Scucci
| Published
There’s only one thing more amusing than watching 2004’s Team America: World Police, and that’s listening to the Season 8 commentary tracks on the South Park DVDs. Not only did Team America: World Police require a biblical amount of work from Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and their puppeteering production crew to pull it off, they were also concurrently working on their flagship series, a time they now refer to as the year from hell when looking back at this era of their careers.
Parker and Stone worked themselves into the ground with Team America: World Police, resulting in some of the most unhinged episodes South Park has to offer.
Episodes like “Cartman’s Incredible Gift,” which I consider essential viewing and a perfect entry point to the series, have commentary tracks from Parker and Stone suggesting they don’t even remember making the episode because they were so locked in at that point that they were putting very little thought into the minor details. They were contractually obligated to stick to their grueling production schedule, and relied on their manic, do-or-die energy to pull it off. The finale, “Woodland Critter Christmas,” one of South Park’s most notorious episodes, is another example of a zero-hour effort that was constantly reworked until just a day before it aired.
Team America’s Grueling Production
Always leading with what’s funny and figuring out how to do it later, Parker and Stone had no idea how complicated it would be to pull off their movie, which they fully intended to play like a Jerry Bruckheimer production starring marionettes. Dozens of scale replica set pieces were constructed, including Paris, Cairo, the Panama Canal, Mount Rushmore, and North Korea.
Their vision was simple. They wanted each location to look like how it’s depicted in action movies, and therefore how the average American thinks it looks.
Additionally, 270 puppet characters had to be built, along with over a thousand costumes to make Team America: World Police possible. Given the puppets’ roughly two-foot stature, countless props had to be custom made to accommodate their size, along with multiple animatronic heads that would be attached to their bodies. Controlling the puppets proved exhausting, resulting in unthinkably long shooting days with only a handful of usable dailies passed off to editors compared to films made through more conventional means. Rumor has it that designing Kim Jong-il’s glasses was a painstaking process due to camera glare, making them one of the most expensive props in the movie.
America, F*** Yeah!
Team America: World Police centers on the titular international counterterrorist organization, run by its fearless leader, Spottswoode (Daran Norris). Under his command are psychologist Lisa, psychic Sarah, martial arts expert Chris, Carson, and all American jock Joe. Together, they fight terrorism by causing so much collateral damage to whatever locale they visit, that a terrorist attack would actually leave the area better off. When Carson is killed and a new threat reveals itself, Spottswoode recruits Gary Johnston, a Broadway actor, to use his acting skills to infiltrate various terrorist factions.
Meanwhile, Kim Jong-il is revealed to be the true mastermind behind the terrorists, and the supplier of WMDs, unbeknownst to Team America, resulting in the Film Actors Guild throwing Team America under the bus for their sloppy, reckless work.
If you’ve never had the pleasure of watching Team America: World Police, all you need to know is that it carries itself like every over the top action movie, but with enough raunch that it almost landed an NC-17 rating.
By then, knowing exactly how to work with censors, Parker and Stone knew what they had to do. By filming a prolonged sex scene with the puppets that was far longer than what they needed for the film, they simply waited for the production notes explaining how short the scene would have to be in order to secure an R rating.
Appreciate The Hustle
Though it’s not my favorite Trey Parker and Matt Stone vehicle, Team America: World Police is indirectly responsible for some of the best episodes South Park has to offer. Had they not taken on such an ambitious project while also working on the series in tandem, we may have never gotten episodes like “Good Times with Weapons,” “Awesome-O,” “Goobacks,” “Something Wall-Mart This Way Comes,” “Quest for Ratings,” or “Cartman’s Incredible Gift.”
Don’t get me wrong. Matt Damon only being capable of saying his own name, poorly, in Team America: World Police because his puppet came off the production line looking a little dim is comedy gold. But topical political humor is fleeting. South Park is forever.
Team America: World Police is streaming on Paramount+.
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