Entertainment
The Peaceful Star Trek Episode Inspired By The Vietnam War
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
For better or for worse, Star Trek has slowly morphed into an action franchise: the Kelvinverse films were powered by nonstop lens flares and explosions, and Discovery began with a season focused on the brutalities of war with the Klingons. Soon, other NuTrek shows took a similar tactic, which is why everything from Picard to Section 31 to Starfleet Academy focused on the scary prospect of a mustache-twirling villain threatening the galaxy with a superweapon.
This is markedly different from the Golden Age of Star Trek, where shows like The Next Generation were focused on the peaceful exploration of the galaxy. One Voyager episode, “Elogium,” is particularly chill. It was a bottle episode where Captain Janeway had to figure out how to rid the ship of some tiny space creatures who were sucking power from the helm and shields. Interestingly, though, this peaceful Star Trek episode was secretly inspired by the last thing any fan would suspect: the Vietnam War!
To Explore Strange New Fish
In “Elogium,” Voyager encounters a cloud of critters who swarm the ship and begin draining power. This presents Janeway with an interesting dilemma: she has to save her ship and escape the swarm, all while not hurting or killing the tiny lifeforms she just discovered. Meanwhile, in a particularly weird B plot, Kes goes through a Pon Farr-like mating cycle and must ponder whether she, at the tender age of one, is ready to start pumping out Neelix’s children.
Now, one thing that made the Golden Age of Star Trek so cool is that, with so many episodes per season, producers could afford to entertain pitches from any fans who had a cool story to tell. The story for “Elogium” was based on an idea from freelance writers Jimmy Diggs and Steve J. Kay. Diggs served in the Navy during Vietnam, and he had a vivid memory of a time when he and the rest of the crew had to clean the ship ahead of an inspection. However, neither the moon nor the stars were very visible, so the only illumination came from the ship’s own lights.
A War Story With A Happy Ending
As a deckhand, Diggs soon noticed that the lights of the ship were attracting fish. A lot of fish: by the time the ship docked for its upcoming inspection, there were thousands of them. As he later told The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, Diggs was moved by the strange beauty of a peaceful night in the middle of America’s most controversial war. “The way the fish glistened in the water from the lights, it seemed, surreal,” he said. It felt like we were in outer space surrounded by millions of moving stars, and we were on a starship, our own, Enterprise.”
The memory stayed with Jimmy Diggs for many years. When he was pitching Star Trek: Voyager ideas to Jeri Taylor and Brannon Braga, the memory resurfaced, and he suggested an episode in which tiny space creatures are attracted to the ship because of its unique resonance signature. The producers liked the idea, incorporating it into one of the quirkier episodes of Voyager’s second season.
“Elgoium” would have never been written if not for Diggs and his experience during the Vietnam War. He transformed a moment of transcendental beauty amid horrifying conflict into a memorable story for the greatest sci-fi franchise ever created. In this way, Voyager demonstrated that art really does imitate life. Fortunately, Diggs’ wartime memories were never sullied by the most traumatizing sight of all: a sweaty Neelix pondering whether he and his leola root were ready to get his one-year-old girlfriend pregnant!
Entertainment
Babylon 5 Is The Reason Millennials Love Ghostbusters
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Ghostbusters has had far, far more staying power than any other 80s comedy. It’s been quoted for decades, parodied since the moment it hit theaters in 1984, and there have even been two legacy sequels. What’s interesting about the franchise, however, is that as great as the original film was, it’s been able to remain popular thanks to the boost from the Saturday morning cartoon, The Real Ghostbusters.
Running for five years, the cartoon’s popularity helped the series reach a new audience and is as responsible, if not more, for the millennial generation’s love of the franchise as the movie. As it turns out, J. Michael Straczynski (JMS), the man who would go on to create Babylon 5, worked on the cartoon as one of his first jobs and wrote most of the series’ greatest episodes.
From Citizen Ghost To Midnight On The Firing Line
J. Michael Straczynski’s eye for detail is legendary in the world of sci-fi. He wrote out the entire story for Babylon 5 before even pitching the project, and his run on The Amazing Spider-Man is one of the greatest in history. His impressive ability to write and develop entire scripts at superhuman speed led to him getting called in when The Real Ghostbusters received a massive, 65-episode syndicated order from ABC.
The episodes he wrote included the Season 1 standouts “Take Two,” where the Ghostbusters go to Hollywood to consult on a movie about them, and it includes footage of the live-action movie. “Citizen Ghost” explains why Slimer is hanging out with them after being a villain in the original film, “Chicken, He Clucked,” about a man using magic to get rid of every chicken on the planet, and “Knock, Knock,” featuring a door not supposed to be opened until Doomsday, and well, it opens a little ahead of schedule.
It might be hard to imagine the same man who wrote “Midnight on the Firing Line” and “Between the Darkness and Light” for Babylon 5 also wrote “Doctor, Doctor,” the closest the series ever got to body horror. Some of the best cartoons of the 80s were written and edited by JMS. In fact, it’s not a stretch to say that his contributions to The Real Ghostbusters are why the entire franchise is fondly remembered today.
The Real Ghostbusters Was So Good You Forgot It Was A Commercial
Ghostbusters was such a runaway success that nothing the franchise has done since has come remotely close to replicating its success. Ghostbusters II couldn’t even reach the level of the first movie, and by the time of the legacy sequels, it had been so long that even die-hard fans thought they’d never see another official entry in their lifetime. It was the cartoon, with its resulting wave of action figures, playsets, and comics, that kept the franchise going.
Cartoons of the 80s were toy commercials, and The Real Ghostbusters was no exception, but in part thanks to the talented and creative mind of JMS, it overcame the low expectations to become a generational favorite. It’s not uncommon for fans of the franchise to say that the original movie is the best part, but close behind is the cartoon.
You can stream The Real Ghostbusters for free on The Roku Channel if you want to appreciate JMS’ writing a decade before Babylon 5 redefined sci-fi.
Entertainment
What Star Trek And Star Wars Must Learn From Netflix’s Most Popular Show
By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated
One of the more underrated parts of marriage is that you’re involved in a kind of ongoing cultural exchange. Over the course of a lifetime, both of you will introduce each other to various things you love. This includes favorite songs, foods, and books. Of course, if both of you are pop culture junkies, it also means favorite TV shows. Once you binge enough series with your partner, you’ll know plenty about what makes them tick, all while watching shows you might not otherwise check out.
That’s how I ended up watching Bridgerton, the breakout Netflix hit that all the ladies love. I was surprised by how much I liked this show that drives all the girls crazy, and equally surprised by how much I enjoyed its sprawling cast of quirky characters (#TeamBenedict over here). But as a lifelong sci-fi nerd, I was also struck by how much Star Trek and Star Wars could stand to learn from this Netflix show. You see, Bridgerton specializes in doing something that these legendary sci-fi franchises have forgotten how to do: simply giving fans more of what they love, year after year.
The Ultimate Ladies’ Show
Bridgerton is a show that takes place in an alternate universe 19th century and focuses on the titular Bridgerton family. Each season focuses on marrying off one of the Bridgerton brood, and there is plenty of drama about who they will end up with, along with plenty of scheming from the wealthy families of Regency-era London. Hovering over all of these proceedings are two powerful women: Queen Elizabeth, a monarch who loves nothing more than romantic drama, and Lady Whistledown, the anonymous author of a self-published tabloid who entertains everyone with gossip about the local residents.
What does a romantic drama aimed squarely at women have to do with Star Trek and Star Wars, two franchises that have often (though not exclusively) been aimed at men? The short answer is that, unlike these iconic sci-fi brands, Bridgerton never changes its essential formula. Sure, each season focuses on a different primary character and different stories among supporting characters. However, you can bet your latest copy of Lady Whistledown that each season will feature the following: a Bridgerton falling in love with an unlikely partner, drama about how they come from two different worlds, a handful of steamy sex scenes, and a big wedding.
The Farce Awakens
Mind you, this isn’t a criticism: the people making this show know exactly what their audience wants, and they deliver it each season, like clockwork. The first season of the show had over 82 million viewers, instantly becoming Netflix’s most-watched series of all time. Now, Netflix is on track to adapt all eight of Julia Quinn’s best-selling Bridgerton books into their own season. While the streamer has tweaked certain storylines, they generally hew close to the vibe of Season 1 because of a fairly simple philosophy: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The two biggest sci-fi franchises in the world didn’t get that memo. While The Force Awakens was a soft reboot of A New Hope, Disney spent the rest of the Sequel Trilogy trying to do something completely different than the original Star Wars trilogy. The failure of these movies was so complete that the House of Mouse pivoted to the small screen, where the biggest failures (like The Acolyte and The Book of Boba Fett) were the ones that deviated the most from the original formula. Successful shows, meanwhile, built off existing mythology (like Ahsoka and Obi-Wan Kenobi) or at least leaned into the spirit of the OT (The Mandalorian and Andor).
To Coldly Go
The same thing happened once Star Trek returned to the small screen. The most beloved shows have been the ones recreating the formula of The Original Series (like Strange New Worlds) or serving as a love letter to the Golden Age of ‘80s and ‘90s Trek (like Lower Decks). Some shows half-assed it: Picard only got good in the final season, when Paramount finally gave us the TNG reunion we wanted from the beginning. Discovery, however, only got canceled when it stopped trying to update TOS and tried doing something new. Disco spinoff Starfleet Academy was the most unconventional Trek ever made, and it was canceled immediately after its first season.
The lesson is so simple a blind man could see it (sorry, Geordi): the producers of these blockbuster sci-fi franchises need to stick with what works. Star Trek and Star Wars fans aren’t going to suddenly wake up one day and want something completely different than what they fell in love with in the first place. Like Luke Skywalker and his obsession with colorful milk, these fans know what they want. Simply put, they want the same formula with just a few minor tweaks and surprises. In other words, they want what Bridgerton fans are getting each season!
I’m no Lady Whistledown, but this is what I hope Disney and Paramount will learn from the success of Bridgerton: nobody wants you to change the formula and create, say, the “New Coke” of Star Wars. They want the stories of tomorrow grounded very firmly in the successful stories of yesteryear.
The more producers try to subvert our expectations and completely change what has worked before, the more they ruin what made these franchises successful in the first place. Netflix figured it out, and it’s time for other streamers to internalize the simplest message in the galaxy: if you keep giving the people what they want, they’ll keep wanting what you have to give!
Entertainment
Netflix Is Turning The Best Ever Superhero Crime Story Into A Series
By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Comics haven’t been only for kids for a very long time, if ever, but the general public has had a perception that they are primarily superhero stories about good vs. evil and everything is resolved with a fight. There’s a whole world of comics out there that are different, but straddling the line between noir mysteries and cape-filled superheroes is Powers by Brian Michael Bendis.
The award-winning series follows two Chicago homicide detectives investigating the deaths of “powers” (superheroes). It’s a police procedural mixed with superheroes, and Netflix is making an animated series out of it, finally giving fans the adaptation they’ve wanted for 25 years.
One Of The Best Crime Comics Ever Printed
Powers starts off with a bang with the “Who Killed Retro Girl?” story arc, which introduces us to the detectives, rookie Deena Pilgrim and the veteran Christian Walker, both of whom have connections to the powers community that slowly come to light over the series. The blonde bombshell Retro Girl was one of the most popular superheroes, which means the list of suspects is long, from villains to those jealous of her success. It’s a classic noir storyline filled with red herrings, and it slowly peels back the layers of Bendis’ superhero universe, with each new revelation bringing with it even more questions.
The second arc, “Roleplay,” involves a college LARP (live-action roleplaying) club in which, of course, the members are being murdered one by one. It’s not as good as the first arc, but that’s more a testament to the quality of the first murder mystery than it is the second. No matter the story, it looks incredible thanks to the artwork of Michael Avon Oeming, with big, bold characters, colors, and matching the noir story by evoking the classic comics of the 1930s.
Second Time’s The Charm For Powers
Netflix’s choice to bring Powers to the service as an animated series makes sense not only because of the success Amazon has found with Invincible, another adult superhero series, but Sony’s 2015 live-action Powers series was a complete disaster. Starring Sharlto Copley as Walker, the show was the first original series for the PlayStation Network. If you forgot PSN ever had original shows, don’t worry, everyone forgot this happened despite the show airing for two full seasons.
This time, Powers is being handled correctly, and the move to animation means, hopefully, it will be closer to the source material. Invincible proved there’s an audience out there for animated adult superhero shows. It remains to be seen if there’s an equally massive audience for Netflix’s new show, which is more police procedural than action epic.
In September 2025, Powers came back for a new 12-issue run, proving that there’s at least an audience of comic readers out there anxious for more adventures in Bendis’ original universe. Advertising “from the creator of Miles Morales and Jessica Jones” will go much further in 2026 than it did in 2015. There’s still a wait to see if Netflix can pull it off, with no announced release date, but that’s alright, it gives you more time to hunt down the collected editions and enjoy one of the best superhero crime comics of all time.
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