Sorry to slam you with more Star Trek news, but the above image of Diora Baird as an Orion Slave Girl in the new JJ Abrams Star Trek has leaked via MTV and some Star Trek trading cards.

Considering I did a whole post about the Orion Slave Girls and managed to photoshop a topless pic of Diora Baird into a glowing emerald approximation of what I WANTED her to look like, this frumpy-looking sickly green image above is really turning me off. Let’s hope she’s more of a side character.

Here’s a small excerpt of what I wrote about Friday Night Lights the day of its first season finale.

Trying to tell someone about a good TV show usually means you have anywhere for 30 - 90 seconds to hook them. Most people are not into television as much as the people I work and go to school with. [My friend] Nate tells me, via his David Foster Wallace essay, that TV is a huge clusterf*ck of mirrored psychological quirks for both the public in general and specifically fiction writers. I’ve read, in my oft-recommended Everything Bad is Good for You, that modern day television is making us smarter when it’s good. Nevertheless, whatever someone thinks about TV, they will give you at least 30 - 90 seconds to talk about it. The social rules of small talk dictate you get 30 - 90 seconds about most anything (except the weather, which gets a minimum of a minute).

In 30-2-90, here’s the way I’d describe Friday Night Lights:

It’s based on a book written by this journalist who lived in a small Texas town - you know, one of those towns that revolve around football. He lived in this town and wrote this book about this season where the star quarterback was severely injured and the team had to overcome adversity to do well in the playoffs for the town. The book did well and became a movie - unfortunately starring Billy Bob Thornton - around 2004. The TV show is about the fictional town of Dillon Texas and their football team that is supposed to go the state this year, but the star quarterback is paralyzed during the first game. But, it’s not just about that. The show isn’t really about football, it’s more about the relationships of the people in the town, and small town life in general. It kind of reminds me of high school and how people acted back then. It’s also serialized, so it’s kind of like a soap-opera.

In terms of the content, all the above information is correct, but reading it back to myself right now, it doesn’t sound like something I’d want to watch. Maybe I’m the only one who describes it this badly, but I find it difficult to explain the things I really like about FNL. There isn’t really a hook like other really popular shows:
-It’s a suspense show about terrorism that takes place in real time

BAM!
-These people are in a plane crash and are stranded on a desert island, but through the slow revelation of their pasts through flashbacks, we learn that things are much more sinister and complex than that.

POW!
-Two FBI agents explore strange happenings. One believes in the paranormal because his sister was abducted by aliens, and the other is attractive and skeptical…and a redhead

ZAP!
-Heroes…one’s actually named Hiro. And we’re going to sloganize our plotlines (”Save the Cheerleader, Save the World”)

Uh…sure, why not.

All I’m saying is that you really have to sit down and watch one, maybe two episodes to notice the nuances in character, the fantastic acting (mostly from the actors who play Coach Taylor and his wife Tami Taylor - the Taylors deserve some sort of award), and the accurate portrayal of small-town life and falling in love during that f*cked-up period of high school.

Then, Friday Night Lights kind of stumbled during its sophomore season, only to barely get picked up by DirecTV for a third, 13-episode season, which surprised the crap out of me by returning to being really good.

[The good news for those of you convinced by my old write up? You can see ALL of Season One on HULU Free!]

And I’m glad things worked out, because there are TWO more DirecTV-sponsored seasons on the way…

Ok, this is where I’m going to be a geeky screenwriter for a second, because the rise of Mr. Roberto Orci and Mr. Alex Kurtzman is basically the dream of a certain phylum of writer that dreams of working on big, important projects.

Kurtzman and Orci started working as a writing duo right out of high school and managed to both get on board Hercules and Xena: Warrior Princess, where they worked their chops until they got picked up on Alias, where they collided with JJ Abrams.

Flash forward to now, and these two get thier pick of fun properties: The Island, The Legend of Zorro, Mission: Impossible III, Transformers, Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Star Trek and now…

You checked out the trailer to this right? Because by most accounts I’ve been hearing, everyone is going to be kind of pissed at Spider-Man for keeping Sam Raimi around for a third part of musical-number filled Spider-Man adventure instead of letting him return to horror, which he does in Drag Me To Hell.

There are some hell-sih looking arms pulling Alison Lohma down to…um…hell in this poster, and we’re still err-ing on the side of “this movie’s gonna be cool.”

Click the poster to see the full version at ShockTillYouDrop.com.

MySpace is trying to claim this image as an exclusive and I’m not gonna let ‘em, because this stuff is NOT exclusive to Myspace. But that’s just me being huffy.

It’s the final Trek poster, locking in the “The Future Begins” tagline it stole from Terminator Salvation (see “When Does Our Future Begin, Exactly?“).

It’s cool and all, but in reality, I say that about a lot of posters that avoid floating heads.

As I wind down to the last few pages of Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong, I’m filled with glee that someone updated Holmes out of the Basil Rathbone version with the hat and pipe. Yes, Robert Downey Jr is still wearing a hat and a pipe, but look at how different those bastards are!

London in the late 1800s was not a place where light brown was a great color to wear. There was shit in the streets. Literal human shit. I’m supremely happy that someone is taking another look at Sherlock Holmes and not just resting on what was previously established.

CLICK over to LatinoReview to see the full poster.

Slusho, like the Dharma Initiative logo (Lost) and the Tagruato Corporation (Cloverfield) is one of JJ Abrams inside jokes that he fits into his projects when he can. Sort of Like Quintin Trantino’s Big Kahuna Burger or Red Apple cigarettes.

We know that Tagruato, which makes Slusho and might have awoken the Cloverfield monster will be hidden in the Star Trek movie, and now some happenstance Fringe photos by Smoke In The City show that Slusho will make it on TV, it’s first time since the Heroes characters showed up online pimping the slushy drink.

I wonder why the Fringe cast didn’t tell me when I was at that dance party with them last week (I’m wearing a black vest and a silver tie and can’t dance very well)?