Category: Mainstream Entertainment

All posts relating to general happenings in mainstream entertainment, where it’d be movies, television, music, or other things that fall within that bubble.

Class Dismissed – Starfleet Academy Cancelled

Source: https://trekmovie.com/2026/03/23/breaking-starfleet-academy-to-end-with-season-2-but-paramount-confirms-commitment-to-star-trek/

Starfleet Academy – featuring WWE Superstar Becky Lynch – has been cancelled. People will blame various things; I blame Becky. She’s the Baby Flair of Star Trek – everything that goes wrong is her fault.

Back in my day, you cancelled a series after its first season failed and it didn’t get a second. Nowadays, you cancel a series after its first season failed, but still air the second season because it’s already in the can and you need to recoup some of those funds… cue the snide grin of Kevin Nash on WCW Thunder commentary duties clearly not giving a fuck, which is what I’d imagine Paramount management must feel like at the moment, for better or worse.

Look, I haven’t seen the show, so I’m largely ambivalent in regards to its cancellation. I do know that it hasn’t garnered the viewership numbers and sometimes, yeah, it takes a while for a series to find its footing with an audience. More often than not, a series gets a season at most before higher ups decide to close up shop. It’s the sad reality of things. And I know that fans will see this as a victory for the grifters who were ragging on this thing for a lot of what I perceive to be “bad faith” reasons and wanted this off the air. Well, yeah, that could be the case… but those folks are never going to get what they want, which is a show that appeals to them because whatever they think Star Trek actually is, it is certainly not what they want, which is… I don’t know what they want.

As for me… like I said, haven’t seen the show. Had no real interest in the show due to its YA setting. Clips certainly didn’t inspire much confidence and was not enough of a push to say “Yes, I will subscribe to Paramount Plus and watch this series that doesn’t interest me despite the Star Trek brand.” Because I am one of those folks who does not slavishly consume all Star Trek. You’ll have those folks around who will watch everything and like everything because of their blind devotion to a brand and will support whatever hapless endeavor no matter what, which is every bit as toxic as raging hate boners of sitting through something you clearly do not like and feel the need to let the world know you hate this thing on a regular basis.

Really, you should be more like me; in that on the 31st day of every month, you let the world know that you haven’t watch the hit Section 31 streaming movie starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh because it amuses you, puts a smile on your face, and lets the world know that you HAVEN’T wasted your time with something you know you’re going to hate. More people need to NOT watch stuff in order to send the right message. People hate-watching stuff in droves? Pfft, who gives a shit? They’re still watching, they’re still giving you viewership. What do it matter if they’re calling this show the drizzling shits? I’ve seen worse show get extended for multiple years and when I sit down to watch some of these things, I often wonder why because this is just awful.

So while I’m neither thrilled nor saddened by Academy’s cancellation, there is a part of me that can’t help but feel a pan of disappointment whenever a Star Trek thing gets binned regardless of whether I like it or not. I’m also a bit concerned as to where this franchise is headed once all the remaining SNW and SFA episodes have aired – Strange New Worlds has one full ten-episode season as well as an abbreviated fifth season. There are different pitches that have been proposed; a Year One follow-up on Kirk and company, a sequel series to Enterprise (which would actually kinda, sorta intrigue me), and of course, an adaptation of the hit Xbox 360 game, Star Trek Legacy… oh wait.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind it if Star Trek went on hibernation for a few years while the people in charge figure out where they want to go with it. Something about absence making the heart grow fonder or some sentimental crap like that. Truth be told, there’s a lot of legacy franchises that could be best served going into extended hibernation for the foreseeable future. Maybe fill the void with something else, some original IP that did what came before, but with a new spin that makes it unique.

We talk about these things taking big swings and yet none is able to take the biggest swing of all; creating something truly new and unique that speaks to the current generation and not just feeding off the rotting corpses of what came before. That’s the only real “big swing” I want to see Hollywood take. Otherwise, you may as well just give up and let AI do the scriptwriting for you. Considering the output that I’ve seen as of late, it might actually be a step up.

In any event, that’s the state of Star Trek as it is now. They’ve got stuff to put on the air, which fans should be grateful that they are when they could easily can everything and take a tax writeoff; similar to that Batgirl movie that was made and promptly shitcanned. Where it goes from here… who knows? I guess we’ll have to see what’s out there. Engage… or something.

Lap.

Whom You Hate And Refuse To Support… Or Something

Source: https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2026/03/saudi-investment-firm-acquires-a-significant-number-of-capcom-shares

So the Saudis now own a bit of Capcom… or rather their Public Investment Fund owns a bit of Capcom, which adds to their list of video game stakes including EA, Nintendo, Activision/Blizzard, Take-Two, and others… and also they own SNK wholesale. That’s the controversial one because that apparently means Fatal Fury gets real-life soccer players and anus-relaxing DJs with funny accents as “guest” fighters. So does that mean we can’t enjoy Capcom games anymore because they’re partly owned by folks from a country who has a spotty history with human decency? Do we boycott them the same way we boycott SNK… or is it just business as usual?

My answer is… meh.

Continue reading “Whom You Hate And Refuse To Support… Or Something”

Bleeding Cool Should Stop Using That Paul McGann Clip

Why is it that every time Bleeding Cool does an article (or clickbait, whichever you prefer) on Doctor Who, they make a point to include a clip of former Doctor person Paul McGann on a podcast confirming that a series of AI-doctored (no pun intended) pictures featuring him in costume were not real? I get that you want people to know that there are fake photos floating around that aren’t real, but if someone has never seen these fake photos – such as yours truly – this comes across as “We’ve got nothing else to post to make this article look like anything of substance, so we’re just going to repost the same Paul McGann clip that we’ve posted several times over the PAST MONTH ALONE!

Seriously, folks. Stop using that clip every time you talk about Doctor Who. If your regular readership saw it once, they’ve seen it a thousand times. And while I’m not a regular reader, I have seen enough Doctor Who posts on this site that I can safely say that clip is on EVERY DOCTOR WHO POST ON THEIR GODDAMNED SITE THAT I’VE READ.

Enough. Find something else to fill the void. Promote the next Big Finish audio or upcoming comic. Just about anything that Doctor Who isn’t a complete and utter Doctor Boo in at the moment. That’d be nice.

Here. I’ll give you an example.

Doctor Who’s one TV Movie starring Sylvester McCoy and a couple others is being redone in 4K, so it won’t look or sound like shit anymore. How cool is that?

The Late Shift Is A Bad Movie Based On A Good Book

30 years ago on this day, HBO released a little film called The Late Shift, a television film adaptation of the Bill Carter-penned book of the same name chronicling the David Letterman/Jay Leno battle over the Tonight Show after the departure of longtime host Johnny Carson. I recently got the chance to read the book for the first time in years and for what it’s worth, it’s a superb chronicle of all the details surrounding this rather convoluted mess of a situation as a result of pure, unadulterated arrogance and incompetence on the part of NBC… something that would be just as readily apparently over a decade later with the Conan O’Brien situation.

As for the film in question… well, you can watch the movie on Youtube; there’s at least a couple uploads of it that you can check out for free… although I would implore you not to do it and just go for the book. Naturally, there’s only so much you can do to adapt a book into a 95 minute film, but more to the point, the movie is just plain bad.

Why am I celebrating the film’s thirty anniversary if I’m calling it a bad film? Well, I can think of no other time in which it would be appropriate to talk about this film that it doesn’t feel… what? Timely? Something to that extent… but really, with all the noise of late night of the past year – the Colbert cancellation and Kimmel suspension – I can’t help but think of the days when late night’s worst controversy was Jay Leno holding onto the Tonight Show by staying in the lobby while Conan O’Brien fumbled. And while I had missed out on the initial Tonight Show noise in the early 1990s, at no point did I figure that I would get to live this nonsense live and in living color.

And at some point, should HBO or whoever decides to give this late night scene another movie of sorts, I pray that it is yards better than the utter tripe of a film that is The Late Shift.

Basically, it boils down to the portrayal of its two biggest stars; David Letterman and Jay Leno, which comes across as comically bad to the point of farce or parody. I know that Jay had a huge chin, but maybe the make-up crew probably overdid it a bit with Daniel Roebuck, who looks more like a poor man’s Jay Leno cosplayer than he does a poor man’s Jay Leno… and his performance here is obnoxiously overexaggerated Italian stereotype and less funny man trying to be a good guy by waiting in the lobby. As for John Higgins’s take on Letterman, other than the obnoxious red hairpiece, he almost kinda, sorta looks the part, but again, the performance is what turns me off on the whole deal. I can see why Letterman himself didn’t care for the film.

Ironically, the noteworthy performances of this film are the secondary characters. Kathy Bates puts on a good showing as bullish producer Helen Kushnik – even if the portrayal is tame compared to the real deal – the late, great Treat Williams is slick and suave as Michael Ovitz, and hell, I even felt some sympathy for some of the network people, even if they were – technically – the antagonists and instigators of this whole deal… well, except for Howard Stringer; he’s wonderful… and also wonderfully played by Babylon 5 regular Peter Jurasik.

The Late Shift is the sort of thing that deserved to get run over with a steamroller… or dropped from a high-rise building and exploding into a blissful red mist upon impact… or simply smashed with a hammer… it’s essentially one big 90-minute Stupid Human Trick in slow motion… even Big Jaw deserves better than what he got here.

This whole deal is obnoxiously bad. Stick with the book.

Rondarano

In case you missed the news – either because you don’t follow combat sports news or you just had better things to do; both are valid – Netflix is going to air the return of two female legends in the MMA circle this coming may. Yes, Cold Ronda returns to something resembling an octagon but not really because it’s not a UFC thing to fight other legendary MMA person Gina Carano, who no doubt is looking forward to punching things after her truffles with the Disney Corporation.

It goes without saying that I care very little about the happenings of MMA. I care even less so about the happenings of Cold Ronda unless she’s eating some semblance of humble pie. But to say that something like this isn’t a big deal is ludicrous. Whatever your thoughts on the individuals involved, these are two pioneering women that brought the female portion of the combat sports equation up to a higher level and this is the first time both are stepping into the arena to face each other in what looks to be familiar MMA trappings.

Hey, good for Ronda giving Gina another payday since apparently, this whole deal was her idea. Is it something I’d be interested in watching? Not really, but for you MMA fans out there, I’m sure that’s something to look forward to down the road… and if not, there’s always that UFC show from the White House… which I also will not be watching.

What do you want? I was never an MMA fan. Not about to start now. But any excuse I can use to pull out Ronda’s KO’ed mug and plaster it on a post… I will take it… so you know who I’m rooting for, if nothing else.

Spider-Noir… Coming Soon.

I know nothing about the Spider-Man Noir that this is based on… but you know what, I’m intrigued by this. And I like the fact that you can either watch it in color or in black and white… the latter as your wormhole aliens intended, I’m sure.

Spider-Noir premieres on MGM+ May 25th, with Prime Video getting it a couple days later. Genuinely looking forward to this one.

PEE COCK IS ONE HUNDRED YEARS ANCIENT

100 Years Of NBC… and 26 years of pretending that Conan O’Brien never got the Tonight Show… I guess they couldn’t find two clips of Big Jaw to add to that montage.

Never letting that go, by the way…

Oh well… at least they remembered that Star Trek was a thing… that they cancelled… TWICE.

Happy birthday, NBC.

Now go fuck yourselves.

 

Doctor Who Doesn’t Need To Be Star Wars

Source: https://bleedingcool.com/tv/doctor-who-never-going-to-be-star-wars-is-a-good-thing-mark-gatiss/

Yes, we’re going to continue using the Doctor Boo banner for whenever we need to talk about the current direction of Doctor Boo. If we ever need to touch on vintage Doctor Who, we’ll use something else. But as far as this current flux of Doctor Boo, BOOM! There you go. I ain’t even bothering with Billie Piper. Ncuti deserves some love… and also deserved some better scripts, but that TARDIS has long since flown off… but I digress.

So some time ago, veteran writer of many Doctor Who scripts Mark Gatiss opined his two pence on the failure of the Disney experiment and suggested that maybe Doctor Who doesn’t need to be another Star Wars or Marvel type franchise with its own cinematic universe or other such rubbish. It should just focus on being a good show and embrace its somewhat kitschy nature.

I’ll leave that “kitschy nature” point open for debate, but yes, Doctor Who doesn’t need another Whoniverse or whatever marketing bollocks you want to use. There’s a whole bunch of Big Finish stuff that covers the nuances and how many people actually dig through all those subseries about the companions and side characters that aren’t the Doctor themselves? I don’t need (nor want) to watch eleventy billion side series to enjoy the main show. Just give me one good show with good stories and good characters. And then if that starts to get some wheels, you can think about maybe one (and just ONE) side story here and there.

Whatever happens with Doctor Who next, hopefully it’ll recover from the past few years of the Disney malaise that inflicted it. Go back to being cheap as shit if you have to. As long as the scripts are good.

And fuck off with all the “mavity” bullshit. That was fucking stupid.

Does Kathleen Kennedy’s Departure From Lucasfilm Actually Mean Anything?

Source: https://filmstories.co.uk/news/kathleen-kennedy-steps-down-as-lucasfilm-president-praises-ai/

So I guess there’s going to be a particular sect of fans and film viewers who will be throwing huge parties over the departure of (now former) Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy, who had been running the ship since 2012 when Disney bought the company and has had a rather debatable influence on the various Lucasfilm properties she had overseen… I think that’s a diplomatic way of saying it. You may be cheering for this or you may be possibly sad by this outcome. I honestly am ambivalent towards the whole deal, but regardless, I wish her the best in all her future endeavors.

I’m just wondering if this actually means anything in the long run because to me, Kennedy was just the head of a division who generally follows mandates from people above her pay grade. To me, the Disneyfication or Marvelizing of Star Wars into a cinematic universal property to be exploited and mined for content would have happened regardless of whoever was in charge. I’m sure she’s had some say on what happened with these properties, but at the same time, is a changing of the guard really going to mean anything going forward or is it just lip service to cause a bit of ruckus before we settle back to the usual routine?

Either way, it’ll be interesting to see who gets the position now and whether they’ll actually affect the way Lucasfilm and its properties are treated, but after that, it’ll be business as usual and nobody will wiser. I make mention of this, but I will forget this soon after.