Entertainment
The Tragedy That Gave Us Star Trek’s Greatest Guest Star
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
One of the best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation is “The Most Toys,” in which Data gets kidnapped by a collector obsessed with owning the rarest items in the galaxy. That collector is played by Saul Rubinek, who arguably gives one of the best guest performances in the entirety of this beloved franchise. However, it’s a performance rooted in tragedy because Rubinek only got the role because the actor originally performing his part nearly died!
In “The Most Toys,” Rubinek plays Kivas Fajo, an amoral collector who kidnaps Data, making the advanced android his most prized possession. When the episode came out, however, many fans were confused by the appearance of Star Trek’s latest villain. That’s because David Rappaport was originally cast in this role, and Paramount had already distributed promotional photographs of him as a very different-looking Fajo.
The Toys Are Back In Town
Why, though, did Star Trek: The Next Generation have to replace Rappaport in the first place? “The Most Toys” director Timothy Bond is quoted in Captain’s Log: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages that “[T]here was a story going around that they had found him in his car with a tube running from the exhaust.” This created a major liability for the network, and the stress of filming might have contributed to a potential act of self-harm, so the director ended up replacing Rappaport with Saul Rubinek.
Sadly, David Rappaport continued to sink further and further into depression after he was ejected from the role. Only two months later, he was found dead in a Los Angeles park from what was apparently a self-inflicted gunshot wound. It was a tragic end to a troubled life, creating a permanent stain on one of the best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Hailing Frequencies Open
Fortunately, Timothy Bond was able to quickly find a replacement for Rappaport, and he was able to refilm all scenes featuring the deceased actor’s character with equal speed. How, though, was he able to recast the important role of Kivas Fajo so quickly? As it turns out, everything started with a phone call from an old friend!
At just the right time, Bond received a phone call from Saul Rubinek, an old schoolmate who was passing through town to film Bonfires of the Vanities, a movie that would later flop. As luck would have it, the actor was a huge fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and he asked Bond if he might be able to swing by and visit the sets. Knowing that he had to recast the crucial role of Kivas Fajo, Bond responded with a question of his own: “How much do you want to see these sets?”
A Fanboy’s Dream Come True
The director formally offered the role to Rubinek, and the actor happily accepted the opportunity to become part of the show he loved so much. If he hadn’t been a fanboy, he might have otherwise declined the offer. As Bond (quoted in Captain’s Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages) noted, “He never does guest spots on television, but I persuaded him to do it.”
The recasting worked well for a number of reasons, including the fact that Rubinek is much taller than David Rappaport. This helped him look more physically intimidating onscreen, which is always an important quality for a villain. That quality is so important that Bond came up with a crazy idea back when Rappaport had the part: to shrink all the Kivas Fajo sets down so they had four-foot ceilings, essentially forcing everyone who visited the short actor’s character to bow down before him!
Firing Rappaport meant that the producers didn’t have to do anything so drastic, and Bond remains eternally grateful that they hadn’t already made any changes to the sets. Rubinek went on to do an amazing job as Kivas Fajo, one that effectively straddled the line between menacing and charming. However, what most fans don’t know is that we would not have gotten Rubinket (the greatest guest star in Star Trek: The Next Generation history) if not for the tragic mental illness and eventual death of David Rappaport, a gifted performer who was ultimately unable to overcome his personal demons.
Entertainment
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If you’re looking to kit your wrist out with a new smartwatch, now’s a great time to do so. Samsung is on the verge of debuting several new models, and that means the old ones are going down in price. Case in point: the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic, which you can get for an excellent discount right now if you don’t want to wait for the new crop of devices.
As of July 21, get the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic for $269.99 at Woot, down from its usual price of $549.99. That’s $280 off and a discount of 51%.
This classy smartwatch opts to keep things traditional while offering a variety of modern features that you’ll appreciate. That includes a bright, easy-to-read display, a rotating bezel you use to select apps and navigate menus, and several health-tracking abilities so you can stay on top of what’s happening with your body and fitness at all times.
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Mashable Deals
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If you’re ready to debut a new smartwatch without breaking the bank, now’s a good time to buy in.
Entertainment
The Latest Poster For Avengers: Doomsday Secretly Spoils The Plot
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
With less than five months left until the film’s release, Marvel has taken their marketing for Avengers: Doomsday to the next level. Right now, fans are mostly focused on the trailer that dropped today, which is no surprise; after all, it’s not every day that you see the reunion of Thor and Steve Rogers or, for that matter, a battle between Shang-Chi and Gambit. Amid all the breathless hype over the trailer, however, a more powerful advertisement is lurking in plain sight. At the same time Marvel launched the trailer, they also released a new Avengers: Doomsday poster.
Compared to that crowded character poster, the new poster is downright subdued. It features Doctor Doom staring at a huge tapestry with a broken world and two characters: a woman and a boy. Some comics fans think this image is Doom and his mother, a character who is eventually damned to Hell. However, other fans are convinced that this is actually an image of Doom’s wife and child; if true, this would effectively ruin the biggest plot twist. How does it do that? If you don’t mind some potential spoilers for this year’s biggest film, just keep reading!
You Can’t Spell “Painting” Without “Pain”
So, let’s start this story in reverse (just don’t let the TVA get me!): why do some fans think the woman in this poster is Doctor Doom’s mother? In the comics, she’s a big deal. To defeat an evil dictator who was ruling her country with an iron fist (an actual fist, not the kung-fu guy), she made a deal with the devil. As usual, the deal went wrong, and she lost control of the powers that she gained from Mephisto. She renounced those powers, got killed, and was then dragged into Hell. To see her again, Doom later mastered magic, visited Mephisto, and conducted an experiment that ruined his own face.
However, all of the lore behind this origin story is too dense to fit into Avengers: Doomsday, a movie which is already crowded with endless character cameos. It seems the movie is taking a different direction, as multiple reports have claimed that the two figures are actually Doom’s wife and child. An unconfirmed leak of the movie’s plot (don’t say I didn’t warn you about spoilers, kids!) claims that Doom actually lost his family to one of the incursions, which is when one reality collides with another. This motivates Doom to learn more about the incursions and to plot his revenge.
A Hero Will Be Broken
Revenge against whom, you ask? According to the leaked plot, Steve Rogers! Reportedly, Loki visits the former Captain America in the past and warns him that the TVA will prune his entire timeline because he’s not supposed to be there. In an act of seeming kindness, Loki brings Cap, Peggy, and their young son to the Fantastic Four’s universe. However, the leak claims that Steve’s presence in this universe somehow triggers an incursion and that Doom disfigured himself and killed his own wife and son trying to stop it. In a shocking twist, Doom reportedly kills Steve’s son in front of the hero in an act of vengeance.
Now, again, all of this comes from a leaked plot summary that hasn’t been confirmed, so all of this could be an Ego-sized bottle of hogwash. But it’s worth noting that the Avengers: Doomsday teasers last year prominently focused on both Captain America and Thor becoming fathers. This potentially adds credence to the idea that this is a film about family and how far someone will go to protect the ones they love. If the leaks are true, this innocuous poster featuring Doctor Doom is spoiling the motivation the villain will have to cross time and space and cross countless moral event horizons along the way.
A movie where costumed vigilantes (like Batman, Spider-Man, and so many more) are driven by the ghosts of family members they lost when they were children? Well, nobody ever accused Marvel of being all that original!
Entertainment
The Best Horror Series Ever Made Is Now Streaming For Free
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
My absolute favorite kind of movie is the anthology. When you have a collection of short films all rolled into one, it provides the ultimate ROI for the audience. Don’t like one of the stories? You can just thug it out with the short runtime or skip ahead to the next tale. Either way is infinitely preferable to slogging through a two-hour film that started boring you to tears in the first scene. The anthology is much rarer in television, however, because networks and streamers have learned just how attached fans get to the same characters and stories, causing them to run these shows into the ground.
Heroes, Stranger Things, Star Trek: Discovery…what do all of these shows have in common? They were designed to be anthologies that would change things up each season, but their early success meant we were stuck with the same cast for years as the show got worse. Fortunately, true anthology lovers are just a click away from getting their fix. Right now, Tales From the Crypt is streaming for free on Tubi, just waiting to delight all you ghouls and boys. It’s not just the perfect anthology show; it is, in fact, the greatest horror series ever made!
Meet The Cryptkeeper
Tales From the Crypt fully embraces its anthology format, with every single episode focusing on different characters and different terrifying tales. What ties all of them together is our host, the Cryptkeeper. He’s a snarky, hilariously mean corpse of a character brought to life by a small army of puppeteers. The show originated on HBO, and its creators embraced the fact that it didn’t have to abide by any of the restrictive standards of network television. As such, episodes were filled to the brim with vulgar language, nudity, sex, and more buckets of blood than you can shake a bodybag at.
Younger horror fans should know that it’s almost impossible to overstate the popularity of Tales From the Crypt and its ghoulish host. Despite all the blood, breasts, and beasts, the show was wildly popular with kids, including my own underage self. Accordingly, it got two spinoffs aimed directly at children: Tales From the Cryptkeeper (a Saturday Morning children’s cartoon) and Secrets of the Cryptkeeper’s Haunted House (a weird gameshow). If that seems odd, this was during the same time that Kenner marketed toys based on Terminator 2 and Aliens directly to kids. What can I say? The ‘90s were weird, man!
Friends In Low Places
One compelling reason to check out Tales From the Crypt is that it had plenty of awesome guest stars, all of whom were happy to do an episode without being tied down to a long contract. Guests included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Brad Pitt, Michael J. Fox, Tom Hanks, and so many more. In most cases, these actors are performing against type, making what happens to them onscreen that much more shocking. Trust me: if you only know actors like Robert Picardo and Wil Wheaton from Star Trek, you’ll never look at them the same way after watching Tales From the Crypt.
For me, though, the single best thing about Tales From the Crypt is the show’s wicked sense of humor. With his relentless puns, wild expressions, and unhinged laughter, the Cryptkeeper sets the tone for a show that has black comedy running through its veins at all times. This adds serious entertainment value and also helps position the show as a light (but filling) bite for horror fans. Not in the mood for elevated horror and don’t have the time for a two-hour psychological thriller? You can always count on Tales From the Crypt to deliver a perfect slice of scary entertainment in under 30 minutes.
There’s not much more to say, especially without spoiling these awesome episodes. Ready to see if this early HBO success story lives up to the hype? Maybe you want to laugh and scream in equal measure, or just write down some weird new puns with which to torment your children? Whatever your reason, the best horror series ever made is just a click away. Tales From the Crypt is currently streaming for free on Tubi, which is arguably the best platform for any boils and ghouls who love a good scare!
TALES FROM THE CRYPT REVIEW SCORE
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Time for a new smartwatch? Snag the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic for 51% off ahead of Samsung Unpacked.
