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On to my (occasionally very) idiosyncratic choices for favourite episodes. The House of Quark: The most Quark episode ever, where he is 100% magnificent and 100% Ferengi. Best line: “No glory. No honour. And when you one day tell your children how you came to power, I hope you remember to tell...

So here we go - our personal rankings of the best DS9 episodes. I’ll start with what are probably relatively uncontroversial choices for best episode and move on to more personal choices. Duet: An amazing thespian bottle episode, but also arguably the first episode where DS9 really showed us...

The question came up of whether there’s a gay bar on DS9 and since it’s where Lieutenant Transgender, Dr Twink, Gay Tailor, Dr Twink’s other boyfriend, and Constable No Gender hang out, it’s probably Quark’s.

One thing that came up in the documentary and in other writings is that DS9 was a really intense acting setting - all the actors took it really seriously and were extremely professional, even grim, about their craft and method acting. Apparently Michael Dorn was quite surprised about this when...

Rewatched it recently. It remains fantastic but it’s also very obviously a very thespian bottle episode, which isn’t a bad thing at all. DS9 was lucky with its theatre-trained actors.

I guess there are two possible explanations, Watsonian and Doylist as usual: Watsonian: Clark doesn’t want to try and travel in time while there are active Kryptonians around who can interfere with it or stop him - he has to remove them from the situation first. Doylist: It would make for a...

Sorry, you’re right. I haven’t seen it - where does the missile come from, is it from the first film? Read the summary on Wikipedia - so he uses time travel again to reset the whole universe so presumably the prisoners remain in the Phantom Zone, which is interesting and also makes more sense...

Random recent addition courtesy of Dr Glaucomflecken (an eye surgeon who does YT videos about the US health system) - Clark’s glasses in the film are clearly quite strong bifocals (or progressives as we call them now). Assuming Clark doesn’t need them in any way, he either stole them from...

Yes, he does - in the film he seems to spend 12 years at the Fortress after high school and so presumably doesn’t have a college degree (unless he made it up). In Superman II, the atomic bomb is brought by terrorists to the Eiffel Tower and Superman deals with it by throwing it into space...

Yup, thank you, this is a good way of putting it and pretty much what I meant. Clark certainly doesn’t know he’s narratively infallible, and nor does Steve; they both try very hard every day to do the right thing, and they’re as honest as they can be with themselves and others about that...

I think I’m getting it from my own reading and something both Mark Waid and Kurt Busiek have said - Waid basically has defined Superman dystopia (Kingdom Come, Injustice etc) as “what if Superman makes a big mistake, which is something he’s not allowed to do in normal continuity?” Busiek defined...

That’s fair, and it’s certainly where he derived his ethics, but his infallibility isn’t from Kansas, it’s narrative at best and divine/alien at worst. His infallibility is one of Superman’s most important characteristics - because he can’t be trusted with his power without it - but it also is...

I used to like this idea but now I’m not sure about it. It reminds me of a scene in Astro City where Samaritan (Superman expy) is having dinner with Winged Victory (Wonder Woman expy) and she says in exasperation something like, “We’re opposites - you’re a god pretending to be a man, and I’m a...

I think Clark submits to human justice (even though handcuffs and prison are generally meaningless to him) and obeys human laws because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. Is his morality human? Difficult to say, but I’d say it’s infallible narratively in a way that human morality isn’t...

I think the response was and is still overwhelmingly positive, as it has been to Warren Buffett announcing his giving pledge. Sure, people were suspicious and critical, and for good reasons - Gates has done some awful things in his life, he hasn’t given most of his money away, he very much...

I sort of agree with this and sort of don’t. I do agree that Superman shouldn’t care much what other people think - not because they’re not people to him or somehow inferior or irrelevant, but because he disagrees and his opinions won’t be changed by what they say, because he knows what the...

Sorry, you’re right (though that’s not even slightly the definition of sociopathy). Caring what other people think about you is part of being human, but letting it stop him from doing what’s right is a narrative weakness for Superman, in that it’s something that stops him from acting for the...

He’s not just talking to his girlfriend in private. It looks like a practice interview, which is pretty sensible, especially with her. And yes, if you’re going to vent your feelings before a real interview, it’s a good setting to do it. I don’t fault Clark for having the feelings, but it’s an...

Fair enough, but honestly, social media isn’t the whole of public opinion or a public response to an action, and it would be a mistake to think so. It’s arguably the worst and most intense element of those things, and not at all representative of people or their opinions. What we’re seeing (as...

No, my point was that stopping a war is not “a simple act of goodness”, it’s a lot more complicated than that, both internally and externally. Your statement that “50% of the public reaction to even simple acts of goodness would be utterly hostile” seemed excessively cynical, hence my reply...