Stuff and Things

[white_hart]

I was very disappointed to find out on Tuesday night that Paramount were pulling Star Trek Discovery from Netflix with immediate effect, only about 48 hours before the fourth season premiere. I love Discovery's commitment to diversity and the hopepunk vibe of the last season was so much more what I needed than Picard's dark-side-of-Starfleet shtick, so I had really been looking forward to having the new season to help me make it through the last few weeks until the Christmas/New Year break. Especially as the current Doctor Who isn't quite hitting the spot for me.

I also Very Much Not Here for the people I've seen popping up on other people's posts about it saying "well, I never liked it anyway" or other things of that ilk.

Work is still ghastly. I was particularly unimpressed to be stuck in yet another Teams meeting about the Ongoing Crisis just after 4pm this afternoon, when there was an absolutely incredible sunset going on behind my computer screen. Also, in a particularly clueless email even for her, our VC sent an all-staff email this afternoon which began by saying what a relief it was to be nearing the end of week 6 of term and able to start to look forward to the Christmas break, which I imagine went down like a lead balloon with all the academics about to enter the hell that is undergraduate admissions.

On the upside, C mentioned the other day that she had been known to typo the signoff to emails as "Best weasels" and I immediately demanded that she sign off all future emails to me that way, then forgot about it until this morning when I received an email signed "Best weasels". Which I think is a wonderful thing to be wished.

Comments

[sir_guinglain]

I like Discovery too, was horrified by ViacomCBS's decision to buy out Netflix's distribution contract and keep Discovery back. It's a really unpleasant move which makes people feel less well towards the company and to Star Trek.

[white_hart]

Especially at such short notice! If they'd done it months ago I'd probably have been annoyed but it wouldn't have felt nearly so much of a kick in the teeth to fans outside of North American than this does.

[cosmolinguist]

Especially when we can't even watch it on their new streaming thing until some time next year. It's not even like we can properly watch it now even if we wanted to pay for their own service. We're just meant to do without and ignore the spoilers from our North American friends.

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes, it's infuriating. And stupid. Don't they realise this will just make people either torrent it, or lose interest?

[cosmolinguist]

Best weasels!

[white_hart]

Isn't it wonderful!

[nineveh_uk]

Best weasels is brilliant.

The whole thing with Discovery seems utterly crass, and commercially imbecilic, and I'm really sorry for you and others who were looking forward to the new series.

[white_hart]

It really is an appalling decision.

[wellinghall]

I may have to pinch "Best weasels".

[white_hart]

:-)

[chiasmata]

Ah yes, I got an alumnae one this afternoon in which she said something about having broken the back of Michaelmas, which sounded… unlikely, frankly.

Best weasels is delightful.

[white_hart]

That sounds like much the same thing. I think it's more a case of Michaelmas Term having broken most of us, rather than vice versa.

[chiasmata]

QUITE. It doesn’t do to underestimate it.

[gwendraith]

It's a real disappointment about Discovery. I was so looking forward to the new series. It's a bad decision as I foresee many people in the States streaming illegally as the last thing they want is to pay for yet another streaming service to watch popular shows.

[white_hart]

And even those of us who would pay for another streaming service (and can afford to) have no idea when that's going to be possible.

[joyeuce]

The current Doctor Who has my 9-year-old, who had only watched the last Christmas special before, completely hooked, so I am probably giving it more of a pass than I would otherwise.

[white_hart]

I'm glad it's appealling to the 9-year-old (who is the target audience, really). I don't think it's terrible, just not my thing - I prefer the quieter, more character-based episodes to the big action-packed season finales, and this feels like a whole series of big action-packed season finales.

[antisoppist]

Does the VC not actually know what any of her staff do? You want some sort of undercover boss programme for academia where they do the equivalent of the CEO of Pickfords having to shift furniture all day and realising the error of his out of touchness (I liked that one).

I am very confused by this series of Dr Who. We watched the first episode twice. To be fair we were both knitting through it the first time.

[jinty]

The impression I get is that the VC is def clueless / out of touch with normal folk in a few ways. But that is an impression-at-a-distance to be fair.

[white_hart]

Apparently she doesn't.

I did spend the first episode knitting the row of my cardigan where I had to bind off bits for the armholes and count to make sure I had the right number of stitches in the right places, and then unknit most of the row because I'd knitted too many stitches before the first armhole. Which probably didn't help.

[mrs_redboots]

"Best weasels" is brilliant!

[(Anonymous)]

All weasels are the best weasels (apart from headweasels).

Yeah, losing Star Trek annoyed me. Not as much as The Expanse going to Amazon, but still a good deal. I wish it was possible to buy single series of things to stream rather than having to sign up for subscriptions. (Bring back video stores!)

[crinolinerobot]

Oops, that was me!

[white_hart]

Though they have sort of gone back on their decision and the new season is going to be streamed live on something called Pluto TV from this week, and also available to buy on "participating digital platforms" (Apple and Amazon, I think). https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/star-trek-discovery-season-4-uk-newsupdate/