QuantumMechanic

I see the Lockes are still as stupid as ever. Let’s leave the key in the globe and leave the globe in the house while we fiddle around outside. Let’s stand there and watch these strangers getting closer and closer. Let’s pause and wait a bit before removing the mirror key after throwing the demons into the mirror. I only hope they’re intelligent enough to tape a “don’t use - demons trapped inside” note over the mirror’s keyhole.

I just ran across this Atlantic piece from a week ago. Touched on some of the very stuff I've seen in the comments on the episode threads here, too: https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2022/08/netflix-the-sandman-tv-show-neil-gaiman/671062/

Well, the show is in a tough spot on this, because (a) that is basically how those characters look in the comics (Despair actually looks worse and Desire is intentionally modeled on Nagel's art) , and (b) the comics have an intense fan base. So on the one side there's what you're talking about and on the other side this is an adaption of an existing work and its characters have very iconic looks and styling.

Well, we might done with Ivy’s (and the writers’) doubts about it, but unless they significantly change the characterizations of one or both of them the stuff that actually happens on-screen will still demonstrate they’re not good for each other. And they are both characters with a history (in this show) of making themselves believe in someone who’s wrong for them. That said, the writers say they are now a couple for ever and ever and ever. Let’s see if the writers actually show it or if it’s just more of the same and we have to convince *ourselves* they make sense together regardless of what we see.

Well, it's in the same place in the TV show as it was in the comic. I'm not sure where else they could have put it because of the need for Dream to have gotten back to his original power level/gotten all his stuff back from mortals before moving on to other things. And while they have made some concessions to TV needs (for example, having the big name co-star fight Dream in the transformation battle in Hell they have stayed remarkably close structurally to the comics. The early issues really were fairly disjoint episodes just like the show has been so far.

In the comics/GNs:

I'll agree that she should never get back with the Joker. But I remain highly unconvinced that "Harlivy" is good for them, especially for Ivy.

I wonder why the writers killed Gregory. In the comics I guess they did it to be able to show Dream trying to make up for killing Gregory by leaving Goldie's egg for the brothers to soften the character?

I wasn’t expecting an import of a bit of an actual Hellblazer story! I wonder if that’s just used as a character piece or if they’ll come back to it. While I didn’t like Coleman in Doctor Who I’m liking her here. Doing a nice job, IMHO, of the John Constantine attitude and vibe. Also, I’m kind of enjoying the pre-90s pace of the show. I hope that doesn’t sink it with the modern fast cuts/short attention span audience though. (Also a bit jarring to see Prof. Lupin as a bad guy 😀)

Agreed on all counts. Plus, Harley doesn’t seem remotely good or right for Ivy.

https://www.imaginaryworldspodcast.org/episodes/charting-strange-new-worlds (Interview with Myers and Wolkoff by a film school classmate.)

I'm curious why, though. As we know from "The Menagerie", the Pike-in-a-box accident happens after Pike has been promoted off Enterprise and Kirk has taken the Enterprise chair. So Kirk should have had the ship already before the timelines diverge. Though I suppose one could argue that in addition to sending the letter to the cadets Pike also decided to not accept the promotion to make really super sure he wouldn't be on that ship with the bad baffle plate.

Since she has telekinesis she's always had that power. Use TK to compress/release the heart (i.e. CPR) until it starts beating again.

Bah -- Netflix is retroactively removing the scene of Jonathan taking peeping tom pictures of Nancy in season one. https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/stranger-things-netflix-retroactively-editing

For me it was total "exhausted sigh and eyeroll" mode once Angel went all Snidely Whiplash moustache-twirling villain. So boring.

I'd like to see that plus permanently losing her powers as part of taking Vecna down.

Mike has gotten terrible.

Not just an assumption. It is taken as known fact in the story. For example, the disabled Pike is one of the command officers at Spock's court-martial on board Enterprise. There's this: PIPER: We're forced to consider every possibility, sir. We can be certain Captain Pike cannot have sent a message. In his condition he's under observation every minute of every day. MENDEZ: And totally unable to move, Jim. His wheel chair is constructed to respond to his brain waves. Oh, he can turn it, move it forwards, or backwards slightly. PIPER: With the flashing light, he can say yes or no. MENDEZ: But that's it, Jim. That's as much as that poor devil can do. His mind is as active as yours and mine, but it's trapped inside a useless vegetating body. He's kept alive mechanically, a battery-driven heart. And this: KIRK: (watching Pike on monitor) He keeps blinking no. No to what? MCCOY: They've tried questioning him. He's almost agitated himself into a coma. KIRK: How long will he live? MCCOY: As long as any of us. Blast medicine anyway. We've learned to tie into every human organ in the body except one. The brain. The brain is what life is all about. Now, that man can think any thought that we can, and love, hope, dream as much as we can, but he can't reach out, and no one can reach in. KIRK: He keeps blinking no. MCCOY: No to what? They could question him for days, weeks, before they stumble on the right thing.

Which makes their characters' utter lack of any chemistry something else. I guess (?) they're being told to play it that way?

Also, I can see it analogously to why sports ban performance-enhancing drugs. If you ban the procedure but allow into Starfleet people who have had it done you are (in addition to letting in lawbreakers) putting people at a competitive disadvantage for promotions, etc. and forcing on them the choice of also breaking the law to keep up or accepting being at an unfair disadvantage.

When your history has people who have been augmented taking over the Earth and causing a massive deadly war it’s not completely crazy to view augmented people as dangerous in addition to banning the tech. Since the writers claim SNW is in the Prime universe we know from the TOS story “Menagerie” that Pike literally ends up paralyzed in a motorized box with only his head sticking out and he cannot blink or talk or do anything other than literally blink a light once for “yes” and twice for “no”. (I may have that backwards).

It's already been said that season 4 will be the final season.

True, but we were trying to figure out why Pike was the captain of Enterprise in the revised timeline when even in the original timeline he had already left the ship and Kirk given command before the Pike-in-a-Box accident. So merely not being present when the plate ruptured shouldn't have resulted in Kirk not having Enterprise.

Oh, good point. So how about this... Pike had accepted his fate because he couldn't bring himself to let those cadets die. Then he hit on the idea of sending them all letters telling them not to be there. Since the cadets wouldn't be there, there's no longer any need for *him* to be there. Best way to make sure he's not there is to not accept the promotion off Enterprise. (Of course, that still has problems. The plate was going to rupture anyways, so some (different) cadets would have been killed, so Pike should feel guilty about that, too.)

The cadets not being there on the day of the accident means that Pike didn't need to save them which means Pike was never exposed to the delta radiation and turned into Pike-in-a-Box which means Pike kept Enterprise which means Kirk was boxed out and ended up commanding Farragut which means decades-long war and fried Spock because Pike didn't have Kirk's killer instinct to destroy the Romulan ship before it could escape or call anyone.