By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 1 hour ago

Star Trek is a franchise that most fans love to watch because of its heroes. It’s genuinely thrilling to see characters like Captain Kirk overcome insurmountable odds (he doesn’t believe in the no-win scenario), or Captain Picard overcome unstoppable villains (the line must be drawn here!). However, I’d argue that the villains of Trek are actually much more compelling. Characters like Gul Dukat, Q, and even Nus Braka steal every scene and leave us quietly rooting for the bad guys to finally win.

Believe it or not, this is a franchise tradition that goes all the way back to the beginning. In addition to those recurring baddies mentioned above, Trek has always had memorable guest villains played by actors who show up and immediately blow everyone away. The Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Charlie X” was one that the network absolutely hated, but fans came to love. Of course, most of that affection is because of one man: Robert Walker, whose method acting turned a frightened 17-year-old boy into one of the scariest villains the Enterprise crew ever encountered!

Get Out My Ship, Charles!

“Charlie X” is an episode where the Enterprise crew rescues a young man named Charlie (played by Robert Walker) whose ship had crashed. The crew tries to help the kid out, including Captain Kirk, whom he sees as a father figure. However, things take a sinister turn when the crew discovers that Charlie has the powers of telepathy and transmutation, which he uses for horrific acts like making everyone who annoys him disappear. Eventually, the godlike aliens who gave this kid superpowers show up to take custody of him, reasoning that he is now too dangerous to be raised among humans.

These days, “Charlie X” is considered a fairly strong episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. At the time, though, NBC really hated the episode because they thought Charlie’s presence made the story feel too much like a teenage melodrama. Plus, everything took place aboard the Enterprise, so the episode didn’t have any of the “strange new worlds” the show would become famous for. That second factor ended up being a blessing in disguise, though: postproduction was very easy on “Charlie X” (especially after they recycled some footage), so it became the second episode of Star Trek to hit the airwaves.

Boldly Going Where No Villain Has Gone Before

Fortunately, the episode didn’t need exotic locations to be memorable when it had a killer guest star. Robert Walker played a young man with fantastic powers, and he blew the cast and crew away with his acting talent. In The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy, Janice Rand actor Grace Lee Whitney explained that Walker was a method actor who deliberately avoided interacting with the cast between shots so that he could stay in character. She claimed that “it worked” and that “You can see it in his performance, a subtle yet persistent air of estrangement from the Enterprise crew, and indeed, from the rest of humanity.” 

She gushed that Walker’s “careful effort to stay in character added a convincing dimension to his performance,” which helped the actor “[capture] the perfect balance, projecting vulnerability, innocence, and horrifying menace at the same time. A lesser actor could not have handled the range and depth of the character.” In a later interview with the Television Academy Foundation, “Charlie X” writer D.C. Fontana agreed, noting that Walker “was excellent as Charlie.” She also commended the then-26-year-old actor for successfully portraying a 17-year-old character, noting that “he looked young enough to pull it off.”

“Charlie X” was a Star Trek: The Original Series episode that NBC hated but that fans loved. They wouldn’t have loved it nearly so much, though, if Robert Walker hadn’t turned in such a chillingly perfect performance. He’s one of the best guest villains in the franchise, and his method-acting talents give us a one-off villain that fans love to hate. It’s an approach that would inspire later Star Trek actors, including Michael Dorn, whose own method acting made Klingon security chief Worf one of the most beloved characters in Star Trek history.   

By Zack Zagranis
| Published 16 seconds ago

Paranoia Agent is the best anime you’ve never seen. The twisted, psychological thriller was originally deemed too intense for both Japanese and American broadcast standards and was eventually aired in both markets in a heavily edited format. Luckily, the entire uncut series is available to stream on anime streaming service Crunchyroll.

Paranoia Agent is the brainchild of creator Satoshi Kon. Kon was initially a feature film director responsible for such anime classics as Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers. During the production of his films, however, Kon found himself with an excess of story ideas and themes that didn’t fit with any of his projects but intrigued him nonetheless. As a result, the director decided to take these discarded concepts and weave them into a television series.

Prior to the creation of Paranoia Agent, the creator had spoken at length about the filmmaking process and its rigidity, how he would work for two years on the same project, being in “the same mood” and using the same method over and over again.

The flexibility of television enticed Kon because he wanted the freedom to explore a variety of themes and topics rather than be confined to a single concept throughout a feature film. Kon was also drawn to the speed at which television animation is produced vs. movie animation because it allowed him to “Realize instantly what flashes across my mind.”

The result was 2004’s Paranoia Agent—a frightening mix of anxiety-inducing thrills and dark themes that made viewers question the sanity of the characters on screen as well as their own. Paranoia Agent revolves around a mysterious assailant known only as “Lil’ Slugger” who skates around on rollerblades attacking seemingly random victims with a dented golden baseball bat. Each episode focuses on a different victim and the detectives working to catch Lil’ Slugger.

Paranoia Agent Censored

The series features the usual adult anime tropes, plenty of nudity and profanity, but it’s Paranoia Agent‘s dark, taboo themes that got it temporarily banned in certain countries. Scenes like the one in episode 8, where a character commits suicide, caused the anime to be partially banned in Japan after being deemed “too harsh” by the Japanese government. This partial ban meant the anime had to air on Wowwow, a Japanese satellite station, rather than on the country’s regular broadcast channels.

Meanwhile, in North America, the series was initially banned from airing on TV and was only available on DVD in late 2004. The following year, a censored version of Paranoia Agent began airing on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim late-night programming block.

Along with being scrubbed of any references to suicide, this watered-down version of the series also took great pains to remove any nudity and swearing that might offend sensitive US audiences. The suicide scene was also removed before the series aired in the UK.

Paranoia Agent has been compared to the works of David Lynch for its, at times, dreamlike, surreal quality, as well as Kon’s other psychological thrillers Paprika and Perfect Blue.

In 2020, Adult Swim again aired Paranoia Agent, this time in a form closer to its original vision. This new edit included the blurring of certain body parts during nude scenes instead of cutting the scenes out completely, and an intact suicide episode, albeit with ads for suicide prevention airing before and after.

Satoshi Kon’s dementedly brilliant debut anime was unanimously praised by critics and audiences alike, despite most of those audiences being unable to experience the series as intended.

Paranoia Agent‘s Rotten Tomatoes score is as high as it can be, at an impressive 100% critic approval rating. The site’s consensus praises “Anime auteur Satoshi Kon” for bringing his “feverish vision” to television and delivering a “disturbing meditation on individual and societal anxiety.”

Paranoia Agent has been compared to the works of David Lynch for its, at times, dreamlike, surreal quality, as well as Kon’s other psychological thrillers, Paprika and Perfect Blue. The feeling among many fans is that Paranoia Agent isn’t something you turn on to zone out to, but rather a deep experience that will stick with you for a long time, whether you want it to or not.

You can check out Paranoia Agent right now courtesy of Crunchyroll , where the anime is streaming in its original format.

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May is an extra special month for astronomy fans, because there isn’t just one Full Moon, there’s two. The first is the Flower Moon, named for the time of year when little signs of Spring start to appear. At the end of the month, we’ll see a Blue Moon. This doesn’t have anything to do with its color, but simply the name given to a second Full Moon within the same calendar month.

Keep reading to find out more about this month’s Full Moon.

When is the May full moon?

The full moon will occur on Friday, May 1. Time and Date estimates it will peak at 1:23 p.m. ET.

What is the May full moon called?

One of the most beautiful parts of Spring is the return of flowers blooming. Daffodils are in full swing and wildflowers start to reappear, and summer starts to feel closer. This very experience is why the May full moon is called the Flower Moon, explains Royal Museums Greenwich.

When is the next full moon?

There are two Full Moons in May, with the next due to take place on May 31.

What are the lunar phases?

The Full Moon is one of eight stages the Moon moves through during its roughly 29.5-day orbit around Earth. At each stage, a different portion of its surface is illuminated by the Sun from our viewpoint on Earth. Although we always face the same side of the Moon, the shifting position of sunlight across its orbit is what creates the changing appearance, from fully lit, to partially bright, to almost dark as the cycle progresses.

The phases are:

• New Moon — The moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (so, we don’t see anything).

• Waxing Crescent — A small sliver of light appears on the right side

• First Quarter — Half of the moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-moon.

• Waxing Gibbous — More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

• Full Moon — The whole face of the moon is illuminated and fully visible.

• Waning Gibbous — The moon starts losing light on the right side

• Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) — Another half-moon, but now the left side is lit.

• Waning Crescent — A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

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