Tag: Redlettermedia

She’s dead, Jim

First off, fuck all yall for not reading Mer Rouge. And secondly, I want to thank everyone for really putting in the views this month. The blog has been on the upswing viewership-wise lately, so everyone should pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

But enough of that shit. Let’s talk about the important things: Starfleet Academy and the death of Star Trek.

Have I watched SFA? Fuck no. Do I have anything against its existence? No, not really. The concept doesn’t particularly appeal to me, but then again the Alex Kurtzman era of Trek has been fumbled so many times that I kinda quit giving a shit. A few have complained that no one wants “One Tree Hill” ripoff in the Star Trek universe, but I think that’s beside the point. They forget that Deep Space Nine was a huge swing which paid off because fans gave the Rick Berman and the show-runners the benefit of the doubt. The Next Generation was a huge hit critically and financially. Fans were open to the idea of a Star Trek that was a little bit different. The same could have been said for SFA had Alex Kurtzman not shit the bed with Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Section 31, etc. Like DS9, SFA could be the next great Star Trek show but it’s too late. The damage has been done and fans are actively rooting against Alex Kurtzman and SFA.

This was apparent on YouTube when Redlettermedia released their review of DS9 the same day Paramount released the first two episodes of SFA on the platform. Unfortunately for Kurtzman and Paramount, Redlettermedia got more views. But why this was an undisputed W for the Kurtzman haters is because Mike Stoklasa and Rich Evans are effectively the thought leaders in the anti-NuTrek movement. For a studio that presumably spent hundreds of millions on this production, it should be embarrassing to lose to two drunks in a Milwaukee basement. So in essence, this was a true David and Goliath situation.

Honestly, good for Mike and Rich (and that sex pervert Jay Bauman as well). But I’ve reached the zen phase of my grief. I’ve accepted, if not happy over, the death of Star Trek. If there was some good to come out of the Kurtzman era, it was season three of Picard. I’m not talking about the quality of that particular series, because if we’re being honest with ourselves, Picard S3 was just as bad as everything else under NuTrek banner. But it did provide a sense of closure. There was a happy ending for the entire TNG crew, which in my mind at least, provided a happy ending for the entire Berman-era of Star Trek and thus Star Trek as a whole. That’s better than what most cherished IPs will get.

But I have a bad feeling that Mike and Rich (especially Mike) are holding out hope that things will improve. In their DS9 review, they mentioned that younger audiences are rediscovering old Star Trek through reaction videos. While I too think that’s a good thing, I don’t want my hope mistaken for a desire that Trek should continue.

It’s over for me. We should cherish the old and embrace the new. What happened to Star Trek is a sign of the times and it’s not alone in its downfall. Every franchise will eventually face the same fate. While it sucks to see a beloved family member succumb to a slow agonizing death, it’s also a part of the life cycle that we have to accept. And we have to accept that Star Trek is in a deep demented state. It doesn’t have much longer. You can fight it or come to peace with it.

I choose peace.

But I’ll be GODDAMNED if I let Amazon fuck up James Bond…

A weird week to die

Through the fire and flames and the rotten stench of a decaying world, I felt myself unnerved by the string of celebrity deaths this past week. Gene Hackman and Michelle Trachtenberg’s passing dominated the headlines, but there were two others that I feel went under the radar: Roberto Orci and Jocelyn Ridgley.

Jocelyn Ridgley might not be well known outside of Red Letter Media fandom but she made quite an impact for her role as Nadine in a Mr. Plinkett review and for Zorba in Space Cop. Reports indicate that she was killed in a murder-suicide in Arizona. To my knowledge, her death hasn’t been addressed by the Red Letter Media crew but it appears that she is the same Jocelyn Ridgley named in the Arizona media.

Roberto ‘Bob’ Orci might be better known as he rose to fame along side Alex Kurtzman when they became showrunners of Hercules. They’d later team up for Xena, Alias, and Fringe and wrote screenplays for Mission Impossible III and Transformers. However their internet notoriety came when they produced and wrote Star Trek (2009) with JJ Abrams, followed by Star Trek Into Darkness four years later. This was a turning point in Hollywood history; an omen for what was to come for all established IPs (but that’s a story for another day). What’s forgotten in the Orci story is that when Abrams stepped away from Star Trek to helm Star Wars, Orci was initially named as director for what eventually became Star Trek Beyond. By that time, Kurtzman had already established himself as a director so it only seemed natural that his partner would follow suit. But that deal fell through and Orci seemingly disappeared from not only Star Trek, but the spotlight altogether. To make this saga even more strange, it was later announced that Kurtzman, not Orci (who was a genuine fan of Star Trek), would essentially be the gatekeeper of Star Trek for both film and television, a role that Rick Berman similarly held in the 1990s, and the rest is history. Orci died of kidney failure on February 25, 2025.

Orci came to my attention in the run up to the release of Star Trek 09 as he regularly interacted with fans on Trekmovie.com. These interactions weren’t always cordial, particularly in 2013 when Into Darkness polarized critics and fans alike. To be honest, Bob Orci always struck me as a weird guy. It’s Hollywood so that shouldn’t come as a surprise but he never struck me as a weird eccentric guy, which is far more socially acceptable. Instead he came across as a weird tech-billionaire type, minus the billions of dollars. I never followed his social media but allegedly after his exit from Star Trek he became a 9/11 truther and entertained a number of other conspiracy theories. Later it was revealed he was in an abusive relationship with his wife, both alleging the other of abuse, and that he was in and out of rehab for alcoholism. I assume this partially explains his exit from Star Trek. It’s a sad ending for a guy who became a showrunner at age 24.

Michelle Trachtenberg presumably died of liver failure on February 26th, but because her family has refused an autopsy, her death remains undetermined. I grew up watching her on the Adventures of Pete & Pete and EuroTrip was an often quoted film in high school. Her passing is a reminder that the cold touch of death could reach us at any moment and that fame and age cannot protect us.

Thankfully Gene Hackman lived a long and fruitful life when he died sometime in February of this year. His body, along with the body of his wife, was found on February 26th. Initial thoughts were that the couple died from carbon monoxide poisoning but that is now seemingly not the case. What should be a celebration of his life and achievements is instead a tragic event shrouded in mystery.

Not since the great die-off of 2016 have I been so rattled by celebrity deaths. These folks passed away either too young or under mysterious circumstances. As cursed as this world can be, we should wake up each morning and look in the mirror and be amazed that the universe has made itself aware through your eyes. Because one day it will all be over.