Nov 17 | Originally hired as co-executive producer to help with the second half of the show's first season, Kevin Murphy has now taken the reins of Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica prequel on Syfy, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He now serves as an executive producer along with Ronald D. Moore, David Eick and Jane Espenson and oversees the day-to-day functions of the show.
Nov 12 | Star Trek star Zachary Quinto is loosely attached to star in the romantic dramedy Whirligig, reports Risky Business.Quinto would play the lead role in the independent Canadian film, which is aiming to shoot early next year. The movie centers on a man who, in a misguided attempt to woo an older woman, befriends the woman's adopted son.Chaz Thorne is directing the pic, based on a screenplay by Michael Amo, creator of the Canadian supernatural series "The Listener."
Nov 11 | The CNS Foundation, is hosting an on-line charity auction at www.charitybuzz.com. One of the items they are auctioning is a signed movie poster of the new Star Trek movie which has all the cast members and writers. The president of our organization is Carol Abrams, JJ's mother, and she arranged for the donation from Bad Robot Production Company. J.J. Abrams is also a major donor to their organization. The funds raised will go to help find a cure to neurological disorders in children. The auction link is here.
Nov 10 | Candice Bergen, Charles Lisanby, Don Pardo, Gene Roddenberry, Tom and Dick Smothers and Bob Stewart have been selected as the next inductees into the Television Academy's Hall of Fame. They will be honored at a Jan. 20 ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "This year's inductees have challenged and shaped popular culture, changed television for the better and entertained us royally while doing so," TV Academy Chairman-CEO John Shaffner said. More info at the Hollywood Reporter
Nov 08 | Unreality-SF.net has interviewed Star Trerk author James Swallow about some of his upcoming projects. He talks about Titan: Synthesis and Seven Deadly Sins: The Slow Knife, as well as some forthcoming Doctor Who and Stargate stories.
Synopsis: When an accident puts Trip into a coma, a mimetic symbiote is grown with a lifespan of only 15 days to serve as a donor of neural tissue.
Review: "Similitude" is an interesting episode with an interesting concept. LeVar
Burton's direction is smooth but unremarkable, giving the characters room to
breathe while Manny Coto's script works through the material without any of
the clumsiness that might be expected from a new writer. Bringing back
Archer's boyhood remote control spaceship from "Broken Bow" was a nice touch
of continuity as was revisiting Dr. Phlox's issues with his son. Coto has
clearly done his homework.
Like VOYAGER's controversial "Tuvix", this episode involves the creation of a
'new' crew member out of an old one and sacrificing his life to save
the life of the original. It does dodge some of the controversy by
soft pedaling the elements that made "Tuvix" so controversial, however. "Similitude"
doesn't really feature the destruction of a unique being, since there really
isn't much of a difference between Trip 1.0 and Trip 2.0 or Sim. Where Tuvix
was a unique combination producing a personality very different from either
Tuvok or Neelix, Trip 2.0 quickly becomes all but indistinguishable from
Trip 1.0 making the entire debate somewhat moot.
The only difference between them is that Trip 2.0 has a few days extra
memories spent around the ship. The situation might have been better if it had been the teenaged Trip who had to make
the decision and fight for his life since there would at least have been a
clear difference between the two of them.
"Similitude" also dodges the bullet
of having the captain force the new crew member to die in two ways. First by giving him a limited lifespan so that his
death becomes inevitable anyway. Second, despite an intense scene between
Archer and Trip in Trip's quarters, Trip ultimately makes the decision to
undergo the operation himself.
These, however, aren't weaknesses because "Similitude"'s focus really isn't so
much on the controversy of the situation, despite the apparent analogies
to stem cell research and cloning, as on the character interplay of the cast
and Trip 2.0's evolution within the ongoing Xindi arc. That's why when Trip
decides to undergo the procedure the reason he gives ties in with the
beginning of the entire Xindi storyline in the Xindi probe's attack on
earth.
In a way "Similitude" is actually closer to lifespan episodes like
TNG's "The Inner Light" that give us the sense of experiencing somebody's life
being lived from beginning to end within the constraints of a single
episode. Of course the problem is that Trip's life isn't very interesting
and neither is Trip. We relearn such revelations about Trip that he loves
engineering, key lime pie and T'Pol. Oh and he apparently has had the same
hair cut for 30 years, unless the hair style was also encoded in his DNA,
which considering this episode's scientific credibility is entirely
possible. It's Trip 2.0's plight that is interesting, not his personality.
Usually when STAR TREK does episodes of this kind, medical techniques of questionable morality figure prominently. Such as the research on
Bajoran slave laborers by the Cardassian holographic physician Creel Mosset
or Dr. Crusher's colleague who used patients as test subjects. Despite their
moral qualms, the characters end up succumbing to the necessity of using
these means to serve the end of saving the lives of their crewmembers even
while shaking their heads over the moral leap. "Similitude" is no different
in that regard, with Archer being prepared to go much further than ever
before to save Trip's life and oscillating between appeals to Trip's
humanity while treating him as less than human. Like "Tuvix" there isn't much
of a debate in "Similitude" and the appeal of the other side is mostly the
unspoken presentation of Trip 2.0's life weighed against the necessity that
drives Archer's actions.
Unlike "Tuvix" though the crew isn't presented as being quite the amoral
Stepford zombies that VOYAGER's crew was. Here the crew members find different means of relating to Trip 2.0. But then unlike "Tuvix," "Similitude"
never pushes the moral dilemma to the breaking point, leaving no middle
ground besides rescuing a crewmember through cold-blooded murder. That is
probably a good thing since either letting Trip 1.0 die in the name of
morality or killing Trip 2.0 to save a friend would be a decision that would
make it impossible for a large portion of the viewers to view Archer as a
credible Starship Captain. So despite Archer's murder threat the choice is
ultimately left up to Trip 2.0 to make. Still, you have to wonder if Archer
isn't exploiting the Xindi state of emergency to take an action that has
more to do with his personal friendship for Trip than with the mission
itself. But at least the Enterprise crew is portrayed as more professionally
oriented and lacking the cliquish feel of a false family that made "Tuvix" so
unnerving. They remain friendly with Trip 2.0 even as they categorize him as
'disposable', which is still disturbing but in a whole different way.
Trip 2.0's own challenge to Archer over what makes him different from Trip
1.0 goes to a long time question on STAR TREK which has offered plenty
of duplicates, clones, time traveling selves and other challenges to
personal identity. First we might simply argue that a difference that makes
no difference is no difference at all and so if we can't define clearly how Trip
2.0 is a different person, then we've failed to prove that he is. An alternative track might be to argue Continuity of Consciousness,
that what matters is not simply a perfect duplicate but the continuity of
the consciousness of the original person. You can create an exact duplicate
of someone with the same body and memories but without a continuity of
consciousness we would end up with a different person. The problem with that is the transporter, which regularly breaks apart crewmembers into
energy and then reassembles them from the pattern stored in the buffer. So
arguably continuity of consciousness falls apart with each transport, as Dr.
McCoy feared, and every time you're transported you die and a stranger with
your memories shows up on the pad on the other side. That would mean that
Archer himself is probably Archer 4.0 or 5.0 by now.
But putting aside the philosophical questions, it's important for the
characters to pretend that there is a difference so they can do what they
need to do. And if they can't pretend that he really isn't human, they can
at least pretend that he isn't one of their friends because that way it
would be even harder to recognize what they've done. Of course we create
moral boundaries by drawing lines to demarcate moral and immoral acts. Both
the animal rights and abortion debates center around such lines, where
different belief systems draw them, how you define who has rights, and how you balance necessity with morality.
After "Similitude" it's no real
surprise that the mimetic symbiotes have not exactly become standard
equipment in the sickbay across Starfleet. We could all too easily imagine the
horror of a Blade Runnerish society, with two classes of citizens: those who are the long-lived and those who are short-lived and which 15-day doubles are
raised and disposed like everything else in a consumerist society.
The final funeral service in which Trip 2.0 is treated like an officer who
died in the line of duty instead of an organ donor with a built in
self-destruct sequence does show exactly how "Similitude" differs from "Tuvix."
The crew recognizes the moral cost of their actions and
attempts to recognize Trip 2.0's humanity in the best way they know how.
Ironically enough it is Trip 1.0 who is confused at the service since it
centers around a man he's never met, himself.
Next Week: The day before Thanksgiving hasn't been kind to ENT.
But is it murder? That's Sim's word. And although Archer throws it back at him, it becomes another subtle revelation that while Sim shares Trip's DNA and memories, he doesn't share his values; or, to fall back on poli sci terminology, his bureaucratic subculture. This lies at the heart of insider/outsider identification. Sim, before his change of heart, shows that he neiher understands nor embraces Starfleet's community of culture. And is saying, "you will lie down on that bed and allow us to extract x cubic centimeters of your brain so that more of us will live and successfuly complete our mission," really any different from saying, "you will walk into an ambush and draw the enemy's fire so that the main body can mount another attack on another front. And more will live and we will successfully complete our mission." If anything, the first option is more intellectually honest because it doesn't count on some anonymous agent to do the dirty work. It recognizes and accepts the personal responsibility commanding officers bear when they order their subordinates to die.
Isn't this dilemma exactly what concerns us in the current furor over civil versus military law for "enemy combatants?"
This is specifically what gives the episode its strength. Archer says he is willing to commit murder to save Earth from the Xindi threat. That is a stunning revelation. If the Enterprise weren't in the Expanse, this wouldn't be an issue. Archer would be obligated to let Sim try the enzyme solution. The fact that he has to make this command decision makes it the first time that the repercussions and implications of this whole Expanse/Xindi storyline have been utilized fully. Just as DS9 used the Dominion War to study the types of decisions and actions that had to be made, ENT has finally used the Xindi arc to do the same.
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It's a rip-off. / We're stepped on, and cheated! / We're flat, stone-cold lied to / But we're not defeated / No!
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