SF Debris/Awesome

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • His secret to bad Trek films: it's a bad Trek film whenever one of the main characters sings, as seen in Final Frontier, Generations, Insurrection, and Nemesis. TMP is an exception, as singing would "only distract from the boredom".
  • The Crazy Janeway explanation in Star Trek: Nemesis.
  • The musical Montage in the Generations review.
  • His scathing 15 minute video on the flaws of the Prime Directive, ultimately calling it akin to refusing to save a baby from a burning car, and calling yourself a hero for it.
  • His theory during the "Dear Doctor" review of what happened to the two species that Archer and Phlox played God with: the race which was dying came in contact with the Romulans and became the Breen, the other was enslaved by the Ferengi and became the Pakleds.
    • Later on, he brings up their exact same arguments when discussing "A Night In Sickbay", pointing out their hypocrisy.
  • The extremely thorough look at the missing episode of Doctor Who and how some of them were recovered over the last five decades.
  • The Wrath of Khan review, featuring numerous quotations from the books on Khan's shelf to explain how having only those books for reading material shaped his worldview.
  • The Insurrection review including: detailing how the film is more interesting as a phenomenon (starting off well-received, but later being one of the worst films in the franchise); his discussion of just how beneficial the Ba'ku planet's rings are to the Federation and that this makes the Ba'ku greater villains than the Son'a by not offering it to help billions; and, perhaps most importantly, his plot idea of "The Family Argument", in which half the crew decides to help the Ba'ku, but the other half helps the Son'a.
  • The epic "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Dr. Pulaski.
    • And the one to Lutan from "Code of Honor."
      • One more, for Lwaxana Troi in "Haven."
  • His discussion of Nero in the 2009 movie: By detailing his sympathetic characterization, tragedy, and overwhelming rage detailed in the prequel comics and novelization, Chuck concludes that Nero should have been the strongest movie villain since Khan. Instead, we get the film version.
  • Using the original (German) version of "99 Luftballons" in the "Darmok" review, a beautiful nod to the episode's story.
    • His follow-up video in which he discusses the Tamarian language, using Real Life examples to demonstrate why it's not as far-fetched as it might seem.
  • Narrating a scene from The Sandman to start out his review of The Man From Earth.
  • The highly moving editing job on "The Parting of the Ways", comparing the Doctor's dilemma there with the one he'd faced in Genesis of the Daleks.
  • His "Unimatrix Zero" review is apparently the reason he started this review show. Why? Because this is where the physical evidence that Janeway is crazy is from.

Chuck: "She's getting ASSIMLIATED ON PURPOSE! Yes, the process that frequently leaves you missing an eye or limb, that's plan A! That's how bad Janeway wants to have her little army. She's potentially mutilating herself for life, for the chance! And you guys laugh when I say she's crazy!" (as Janeway) "Find the biggest nastiest enemy ship we can find, attack it, board and I'll get assimilated. It's all part of my plan, Operation: I-Don't-Need-A-Reason-Just-Obey-Me. Yes sir, this is definitely the best plan I've ever-[A drone installs something into her skull]-rrrrrryday it's a gettin' closer, goin' faster than a roller coaster~"

  • Going point for point between canon Janeway and his Complete Monster version in "Latent Image," and giving up when it turns out that canon Janeway actually had a more evil approach to the situation than the parody.
  • The "Tuvix Coda".
  • Calmly dissecting the controversies behind the production of "The City on the Edge of Forever". It's a loaded topic, but Chuck brings up the main talking points without any hysteria or anger, discussing among other things that Harlan Ellison has provided evidence for his position, while Gene Roddenberry spouted some pretty Blatant Lies about Ellison and the script when he was alive, and that the original script does have a couple of advantages over the final episode (though he still thinks they're both great).
  • Refusing to go any easier on Gargoyles just because it's a cartoon intended primarily for children, as that would be tantamount to admitting such a thing can't possibly have the same quality as adult-oriented entertainment. And because the show actually deserves that kind of attention.
  • In "Real Life," his understated, absolutely dead serious lambasting of the mockery the episode makes of a horribly tragic situation, which Chuck came close to experiencing himself.
    • To me, this can be considered one of the best moments in any of the Opinionated Guides PERIOD.
  • In his review for "The Bonding," he shows how Gene's vision for the future (and how he kept the writers in the "Roddenberry Box") is a complete fallacy as it tries to hide behind it. Specifically, how children are forced to repress their emotions from a loved one dying. In addition, he brings up a quote about how Gene essentially was crushing his writers with this rule and how all of them left at the end of the season just because they were tired of having their hands tied.

" Any emotion, petty or otherwise, is at the core of good drama and creates conflict between characters. But Gene didn't want conflict between characters. 'All the problems of mankind have been solved,' he said. 'Earth is a paradise. Now go write drama.'" -Michael Piller