My #Blender3D set design for a Zoom-based production of Rossum’s Universal Robots, which I’ll be recording next week.

I’ve loved this 1920s play for almost 30 years, and never imagined I’d be in a production. Similar:Doctor Bashir, I Presume #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 16) Smarmy hologram des…Had a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block partyShakespeare did not leave his wife Anne in Stratford, letter fragment suggestsNotes on…

Yes, I spent the last hour designing this brutalist pen holder for a virtual production of Rossum’s Universal Robots. #priorities #Blender3D

Similar:Doctor Bashir, I Presume #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 16) Smarmy hologram des…Pater Noster Passenger ElevatorsBy Inferno's Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 15) Dominion / Cardassian edg…In Purgatory's Shadow #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 14) Garak answers a coded …This morning I awoke to YouTube’s live footage of crowds circling a…

The Offspring (StarTrek:TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 16) Data Experiences Fatherhood

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. Data builds an android derived from his own positronic neural pathways, and intends to raise it as his child — a prospect that invokes Picard’s iconic facepalm. Picard (to admiral conjured up by writers who needed an antagonist): “There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly…

Yesterday’s Enterprise (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 15) Alternate history featuring the Enterprise-C

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. A space anomaly activates an alternate timeline in which the Enterprise-D is a bustling battleship, Picard is a hard-edged militant facing defeat after decades of war against the Klingon Empire, and somehow only Guinan realizes something’s wrong. This version of Picard struggles with ethical complexities that “our” Picard could…

A Matter of Perspective (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 13) Multiple-POV Courtroom Drama

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. An agitated Riker, beamed off of a research station just before it explodes, finds himself charged with murder. Testimony from Riker, the victim’s widow, and (indirectly) the victim tell conflicting stories. A solid storytelling concept, which somewhat freshens a mishmash of already-familiar TNG tropes: a brilliant male scientist, his…

Déjà Q (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 13) Amusing, insightful study of human nature

(Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break) The meddlesome entity Q, stripped of his powers, throws himself at the mercy of Captain Picard: “in all the universe you’re the closest thing I have to a friend, Jean-Luc.” Lots of well-done banter and self-absorbed patter from actor John De Lancie. While Worf and Crusher have memorable reactions to…

Slow flyby of a scout shop. Starfield backdrop; particle-based engine exhaust; hull uses a Boolean modifier to cut out portholes; cockpit frame and text labels use shrinkwrap. #Blender3D

More progress as I continue to level up my #blender3d skills. Similar:Doctor Bashir, I Presume #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 16) Smarmy hologram des…Pater Noster Passenger ElevatorsAP wins reinstatement to White House events after judge rules government can’t bar its jou…By Inferno's Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 15) Dominion / Cardassian edg…In…

The High Ground (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 12) Sensitive, Artistic Terrorist Is Also a Terrorist

(Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break) Crusher finds herself sympathizing with the charming terrorist who kidnapped her. After last week’s “The Hunted” and the week before’s “The Defector,” it seems the writers are very interested in humanizing perceived enemies. An unusually exposition-heavy captain’s log establishes the Enterprise is visiting a non-aligned world shaken by terrorists.…

Every few years, I Google the name of the kid who saw “The Empire Strikes Back” the night it opened, and blurted out the big spoiler during gym class.

Similar:Doctor Bashir, I Presume #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 16) Smarmy hologram des…Shakespeare did not leave his wife Anne in Stratford, letter fragment suggestsPater Noster Passenger ElevatorsAP wins reinstatement to White House events after judge rules government can’t bar its jou…By Inferno's Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 15) Dominion / Cardassian edg…In…

The Hunted (ST: TNG Rewatch; Season Three, Episode 11) Honorable soldier exiled by the peaceful society he defended

(Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break.) A great Trek morality drama, most obviously inspired by the challenges faced by US troops returning from Vietnam, but light on preachiness and heavy on action. Impressed by the cultured and intellectual Angosians, Picard offers to help them recapture a violent prisoner who escaped a penal colony. The prisoner’s…

Here I am sketching spaceships like I’m 12 again. I feel like re-reading the novelization of “The Black Hole” and watching Johnny Quest. #lockdown #blender3D

Similar:Doctor Bashir, I Presume #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 16) Smarmy hologram des…Pater Noster Passenger ElevatorsBy Inferno's Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 15) Dominion / Cardassian edg…In Purgatory's Shadow #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 14) Garak answers a coded …This morning I awoke to YouTube’s live footage of crowds circling a…

The Defector (ST:TNG Rewatch; Season Three, Episode 10) Cold War Brinksmanship, via Shakespeare

(Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break.) A Romulan defector exposes a planned incursion against the Federation, in a slow but gripping character study that comments on the Cold War. As I kid, I remember being transfixed by the 1983 TV movie The Day After, which depicts a nuclear attack on America. I doodled mushroom clouds…

Wide-angle view of a villain’s secret lair. #blender3d

Similar:Doctor Bashir, I Presume #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 16) Smarmy hologram des…Pater Noster Passenger ElevatorsBy Inferno's Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 15) Dominion / Cardassian edg…In Purgatory's Shadow #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 14) Garak answers a coded …This morning I awoke to YouTube’s live footage of crowds circling a…

The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our Imaginations

Possibly, in a few months, we’ll return to some version of the old normal. But this spring won’t be forgotten. When later shocks strike global civilization, we’ll remember how we behaved this time, and how it worked. It’s not that the coronavirus is a dress rehearsal—it’s too deadly for that. But it is the first of many calamities that will likely unfold throughout this century. Now, when they come, we’ll be familiar with how they feel.

The Enemy (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 7) — LaForge and a Romulan Cooperate to Survive

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. LaForge is stranded on a hostile planet with a nervous, injured Romulan. The “mutual enemies must learn to cooperate” storyline is by-the-numbers, but I still enjoyed it. I don’t remember ever seeing this episode before, but seeing the frequently reused “planet hell” set (featuring a distinctively stair-stepped sloping wall)…

Booby Trap (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three Episode 6) When LaForge gets absurd with a hologram nerd, he’s a-creeper

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. To escape a thousand-year-old booby trap, LaForge interacts with a holodeck simulation of the designer of the Enterprise’s engines… and gets waaay too attached. The teaser shows LaForge on a date — a failure that he later talks over with Guinan. Meanwhile, Picard, thrilled to explore an old warship, is…