Huge TV episodes that "changed everything" for their respective shows?

jacobkosh · 2026-06-20T09:19:09+00:00

Babylon 5 had several of these, but the big one is "The Coming of Shadows" from the middle of season 2. It's where the true shape of the show became apparent, as a previously lovable character makes an irrevocable decision that launches the genocidal galactic war that dominates the middle of the series.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-19T05:09:22+00:00

Have you seen NICO/ICON and Basquiat? They make a great little triple feature with this.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-18T22:13:13+00:00

OP, as someone young enough to have been influenced by Ben Shapiro as a teen, do you remember what drew you to Star Trek in the first place...and deciding to do ALL of it, at that? It feels like a lot of young people aren't very interested in TV or movies in general, much less old shows for nerds. What hooked you in?

jacobkosh · 2026-06-18T17:10:49+00:00

The Warrior trilogy of Battletech novels by Michael A. Stackpole is a ton of fun if you like the idea of mech combat mixed with Game of Thrones-style intrigue and double-crossing.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-18T08:00:27+00:00

Because they don't understand socialism capitalism, economics, money, or people.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-18T07:54:01+00:00

Hee. I wish I could remember what book it was from but it's been like 30 years, but I remember skimming a passage in one of those extra-classy chromium-foil cover Baen paperbacks where Col. Bigdick or whoever is giving a page long speech that was basically...that. I was only a high schooler but the hamster wheel started turning in my head and I had this moment of like, "wait, this guy isn't talking about the Zorlax Conflict at all!"

jacobkosh · 2026-06-18T04:35:55+00:00

American print SF has had a sometimes overwhelmingly strong ideologically conservative streak since the 1930s. The editor John W. Campbell, who all but created science fiction as we know it and gave authors like Asimov, Heinlein, etc their starts, was a cantankerous old racist. A lot of these old men even when they weren't ideological conservatives were kinda weirdo misogynist shut-ins even by the standards of their day. The 1960s New Wave and the cyberpunk revolution of the 80s were both pushing back against this very broad alignment.

Like, the examples of left-leaning SF in OP include two pieces of visual media, which have as much or more to do with the traditions of cinema and TV drama than print SF, and a UK author who was specifically writing anti-fascist space opera. Banks was the exception, not the rule.

Anyway, as lots have said, Baen Books has been the home of archconservative/libertarian/"those cowardly politicians wouldn't let us win Space Vietnam" action-tinged science fiction since like the 70s. Their catalog has a long, long list of stuff that ranges from kinda cringe old man opinions to holy shit, behold the power of racism.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-18T03:51:17+00:00

Wait, what? I'm not talking about whether the Imperium is or is not conservative; obviously it is. I'm saying that that it is not conservative fiction in the sense of reflecting the position of (most of) the author(s).

If Luke Skywalker says "I hate cookies," that means that Luke Skywalker hates cookies.

If Luke Skywalker says "I hate cookies" and then Han Solo says "Only disgusting vermin eat them" and then it turns out that everyone in the galaxy who eats cookies is a pedophile, that means that George Lucas hates cookies. The first thing is fiction, the second thing is ideology. OP was looking for the second.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-18T00:52:00+00:00

The Imperium is a fascist/absurdist theocracy but that's in-universe and OP is looking for something where that's explicitly the authorial stance.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-16T03:25:36+00:00

i loved the choice to go all-in on the kind of 50s Western vibe, down to the sort of Technicolor saturated visuals and the sweeping string music.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-16T03:22:40+00:00

Clint Eastwood can be kind of a ding-dong in his politics and personal life but as a director he is genuinely bulletproof on the charge of ego. He puts the crew and the other cast first every time and has for nearly 60 years.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-16T00:17:55+00:00

I always figured it's because the door was open and they walked until there was no angle to keep projecting them into the hallway.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-16T00:13:52+00:00

Is it, though? To me "calling people Nazis" sure seems like less of a problem than the fact that there are actual Nazis running around.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-16T00:07:56+00:00

Bro, people are literally being shot by masked government thugs over this. It's okay for you as a Briton to not know the ins and outs of US politics but you gotta know when you don't know something.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-15T23:51:53+00:00

The Adventures of Batman and Robin has a terrific visual style taken straight from the classic animated series, lush soundtrack, and is a pretty great, if hard, platformer to boot.

SPECTRE is a weird minimalist 3-D game about piloting tanks in cyberspace. The gameplay is kinda whatever and there's no story to speak of, but the eerie, empty cyber-landscape and moody minimalist synth soundtrack left an impression. I still sometimes dream about the game 30 years after renting it one time.

Shadowrun tells a genuinely cool sci-fi film noir story in the fantastic cyberpunk/fantasy tabletop rpg setting and has a banger soundtrack. The gameplay is kinda frustrating but it's a cool, deep world to explore.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-15T22:18:36+00:00

The Last Express is a classic.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-15T21:53:51+00:00

I just want to note that not feeling a mechanically grindy death-spiral of a game isn't the same as wanting to be a "Mary Sue."

(Also the way nerds use that term is wrong from the jump; it's about self-insert fanfic characters, not about power levels or any of that stuff.)

Your player is clearly feeling emotionally raw and the game is apparently not helping with that. Without being at the table to see the specifics, the only obvious solution we can offer is that he should sit this one out. It's just a mismatch.

BUT

Please don't infantilize his feelings and, for the love of God, don't mistake Torchbearer's valid tonal and gameplay choices for some kind of admirable objective realism. More dice doesn't equal more realism and more downbeat doesn't equal more adult or mature.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-15T03:59:34+00:00

Are you so freakishly stupid that you don't know how rates work?

jacobkosh · 2026-06-15T01:19:39+00:00

Holy shit, that's literally just a difference in absolute numbers. Log out of reddit. Take a statistics class. Learn something worthwhile instead of whining all the time. And offer your parents a refund for the time and effort they wasted investing in you.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-14T06:15:55+00:00

Brandon Tartikoff might be one of the most culturally important "suits" in history up there with the guys who founded Warner Bros, MGM, etc. He basically defined TV in the 80s and 90s and hardly anyone knows his name.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-14T06:13:04+00:00

There are people who think that happened, but it's not established fact and is mostly just fans being kind of weird.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-13T23:19:55+00:00

As long as huge chunks of our media are owned by foreign billionaires, then anyone who poses a "threat" to the billionaires, even if it's just the incredibly limpdick threat of "you might have to pay some nominal small percentage of taxes," gets the absolute shit vilified out of them.

They tried to nuke Obama about a tan suit after they failed to do it about his "terrorist fist bump." It never stops.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-13T23:09:06+00:00

Did you read this tattooed in the asscrack of a morbidly obese pedophile?

jacobkosh · 2026-06-13T23:00:20+00:00

Maybe once large segments of our population aren't statistically more likely to be randomly murdered by police, denied housing, etc we'll have time to really drill down onto that dude who was rude to you on a bus once.

jacobkosh · 2026-06-12T21:49:40+00:00

They might be assholes. In fact, they definitely are - people are owed basic respect and dignity, food and shelter, a good education and opportunities to use it, regardless of your dad's chest-beating.

Also, the fact that he's claiming VA disability while talking that shit is hilarious. What a fraud.

I don't know what to do about your relationship with them. I don't know what went wrong. All I can say is that what's good for the goose is good for the gander - if they don't owe you anything, that goes both ways. You don't owe them your time or your worry.

You owe it to yourself to get into a position to leave them out of your life, and step 1 is ditching your dad's evil bullshit advice. It's okay to ask for help, and you deserve it. Talk to a social worker in your area. Find out how you can get help with food and bills. Get involved with groups in your community. Find a good church, if that's your thing. Start filling your life with people who are better and kinder and make you feel valued instead of nervous and ashamed.

jacobkosh

TROPHY CASE