An Online Journal - by Clake and Klake

AN ONLINE JOURNAL_
by Clake and Klake

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Friday, August 03, 2007

Start Wreckin'
posted by clake at 12:26 PM

You may be happy to learn - as I was when Klake sent me a link to this post on the Scientific American blog - that remastered episodes of the original Star Trek series are being syndicated nationwide. Around here, they're being run on the local Fox affiliate at midnight on Sunday nights/Monday mornings, and they may be running at similar late-nite, weekend time slots in your neck of the woods.

"Remastered," you may ask, "what for you remaster my Star Trek show?" Well, I'm not sure exactly why, aside from because they can. I'm sure part of it is in order to make the series more saleable for nationalwide syndication, as modern viewers' patience for cheesy special effects has waned. I'm partial to the way things looked originally, and I don't like the idea of people messing around with the visual style of something once it has already been widely viewed and become well-loved by fans. (Think of the swarms of flying robots and other debris cluttering up the frame in the exterior Mos Eisley scenes in the "remastered" version of Star Wars. Yes, George Lucas, just because I loved your original Star Wars* films doesn't mean I was in any way attached to the look or feel or pacing of the thing.) But the SciAm blogger paints a pretty optimistic picture of the endeavor, and it sounds like the team working on this project is conscious of the importance of not getting carried away. My wife and I are really looking forward to watching these.

In a somewhat related bit of interesting whatever, while doing a completely unrelated web search on the University of Iowa's website, I came across this scan of the cover of a program for what is purported to be the first ever Star Trek convention. It turns out that the Special Collections Department of the University of Iowa Libraries houses the M. Horvat Collection of Science Fiction Fanzines. It is fascinating that this exists, preserving what nerds with mimeograph machines were up to from 1935 through 1990.

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In other news, Klake and I watched the "School Reunion" episode of the new Doctor Who series and enjoyed it greatly. It was so good, it's odd to think it occurs just a few episodes after the shitbomb that is "New Earth". Highlights:

K-9 returns for one episode!
Also, a reunion with Sarah Jane Smith, which I would be more enthused about if I was at all famillar with her period of Doctor Who companion-dom in the 70's.
That watcher guy from Buffy as the evil headmaster.
The Doctor says "Correct-a-mundo!" and then immediately regrets it.
Mickey figures out that his role in the current Doctor Who universe is analogous to that of K-9, "I'm the tin dog!" Mickey, however, doesn't have a frickin' laser beam attached to his head.
K-9 says "affirmative" with a bit too much inflection for a robot. Would a robot consciously play the word "affirmative" for laughs.

Also, a new website called Galaxy Zoo allows you to help British scientists classify galaxies. Much like Seti at Home, except Seti took advantage of your computer's downtime, whereas Galaxy Zoo exploits the unused processing power of your own, organic brain.

*The original version of this post mixed up Star Trek and Star Wars in this sentence. This was fixed by Clake on 7 August 2007. (Thanks for keeping me honest, Aeryk.)

Comments:

Dude, I thought you were cool, but you just committed the biggest geek faux pas, you interchanged "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" in your George Lucas comment. You cad!
# posted by Anonymous : 12:01 PM

Monsieur, we deeply apoligize for the mix-up. We appreciate your effort in calling this to our attention. As you can see, we have taken great care to correct this unsightly mistake, and hope this will not dissuade you from continuing to visit this premier web-site.

Indeed, monsieur is correct that Star Trek and Star Wars are completely different things. Whereas Star Trek has ewoks and the force, le Star Wars has monsieur Tom Baker fighting cylons with le sonique screw-driver.
# posted by clake : 9:11 AM