Bent Corner

The smell of wine and cheap perfume.

Star Trek

New ‘Doctor Who’ Time Lord is a woman

Doctor Who‘s 13th Time Lord will be played by Jodie Whittaker, a woman. Until now, every other actor playing the Doctor in Doctor Who has been played by a man.

I don’t really have a strong feeling about making the Doctor a woman. Not really. I’m been on a break from Doctor Who ever since Matt Smith left the series. Peter Capaldi, the actor who replaced Matt Smith as the Doctor, never much appealed to me. I took it as a sign that I was probably a good time to take a break from the Whovian Universe.

Now that it’s established Time Lords can regenerate as male or female, why have all the other Doctors been male? Maybe they’re address this on the show.

Doctor Who is science fiction. One of the benefits of science fiction as a story telling device is it allows perceived notions and boundaries to be pushed and warped. It allows concepts to be turned on their metaphorical collective heads. At the very least, it means the Doctor can be played by a woman. I remember in the make believe world of Star Trek when Vulcans and Romulans could be black. Life went on.

New 'Doctor Who' Time Lord is a woman - Bent Corner
I will see your female Time Lord and raise you a Black Vulcan.

If it turns out Joe Whittaker doesn’t cut it as the Doctor, they can always replace her. They could even replace her with another woman. Maybe this will start a streak where the Doctor is always played by a woman. Two hundred years from now, people won’t even remember a time when the Doctor in Doctor Who was played by a man.

Writer Peter David asks fans to pay his taxes

Comic book and Star Trek novel writer Peter David is in trouble. He has a massive tax bill due and he doesn’t have the money to pay for it. As of now, he owes $88,000 in back taxes, interest, and penalties.

All this is from money he earned making a Canadian kid’s TV show called Space Cases. It appeared on TV for two years, beginning in 1996. According to Peter David, his now ex-wife pilfered half the money he set aside in a bank account for taxes. She used the money to hire a divorce lawyer. He then used the rest of the money to hire his own divorce lawyer, leaving no money for his taxes.
Peter David says he tried to make payments to the IRS. He would make payments, but then when April 15 rolled around, he wouldn’t have any money to pay that year’s taxes. He had already spent his money on paying his past tax bill.

Then, according to Peter David, the IRS forgot about it.

The IRS forgets nothing

As fate would have the IRS recently remembered Peter David’s owed a lot of money. They now want him to pay what he owes. Imagine that.

Peter David is now asking each of his Facebook and Twitter followers to send him $10. According to him, he has 5,000 followers on Facebook and 13,000 followers on Twitter. That means if each of these fans sends him $10 as he’s asked them to do, that will give him $180,000. That amount is much more than what he says he owes the IRS.

Fans can send him money through his PayPal account or special Go Fund Me page. As of this morning, his Go Fund Me page is showing people have given him over forty grand.

It’s things like this that make me glad I deleted my Facebook account. I’d hate to have some minor celebrity I follow on Facebook hit me up for money so he doesn’t have to go to prison. I do have a Twitter account, but I’ve never followed Peter David on Twitter. For all I know, he’s got me blocked.

Cheating on your taxes is bad, but so is asking fans to pay your taxes

I don’t know what’s worse: cheating on your taxes or begging fans to pay what you owe the government. Both scenarios involve you not paying what you owe. For me, asking people I don’t know for money because I decided not to pay the IRS like a regular person is much worse. It’s embarrassing. A worthy cause this is not. I will not be sending Peter David any money. He needs to pull up his big boy pants and pay his own taxes and not beg his fans to do it.

I pay my taxes every year. He should do the same. Endless wars in the Middle East don’t pay for themselves.

When Peter David is convicted for tax evasion and goes to prison, I might donate money to his prison commissary account. He could use it to buy beef jerky and Gatorade, items I’m told are quite popular in federal prison. If he gets sent to Cumberland, I could even visit him in person. It’s not that far from here.

Leonard Nimoy 1931 – 2015

Leonard Nimoy, the actor and director famous by his portrayal of Mister Spock on the original Star Trek television show, died yesterday. He was 83.

Star Trek was such a big part of my childhood. It was on TV then everyday in syndication and I watched each episode numerous times. I was Trekkie before I even knew what the term meant. I read all the books, first the James Blish adaptions based on the TV episodes and then the original novels. I built all of the AMT plastic models of the starships and had then hanging from the ceiling with fishing line in my bedroom.

Spock was just such a great character. He was the definition of what was cool long before Arthur Fonzarelli began showing up on TV in his leather jacket. Where Fonzi would constantly tell you how cool he was, and rightfully so, Spock was just Spock.

My love of Star Trek continued throughout my twenties. I owned many of the episodes on video tape. I continued reading all of the original Star Trek novels. I also attended a number of Star Trek conventions.

My interest in Star Trek began to wane in my thirties. Although I was a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation and watched it faithfully, I was not a big fan of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Star Trek: Voyager. I hated the last TV series, Enterprise. I forced myself to watch it because it was Star Trek.

I was aware that Leonard Nimoy was sick, so the news of his passing wasn’t a total shock. Plus, he was 83. It still makes me feel a little sad.

Ugly looking Star Trek Phaser rifle sold for $231,000

A Phaser rifle only used in the second pilot episode of the original Star Trek television series fetched a whopping $231,000 at auction yesterday. Julien’s Auctions, the auction house that sold the Phaser rifle, thought the piece of Star Trek history would go for around $70,000. It turns out they underestimated just how rich at least some Star Trek fans are.

I wouldn’t pay that much for a Phaser rifle unless it could really kill Klingons or Romulans, and I don’t mean by bashing them over the head with it.

PHASR-phaser-rifleI’d love to know a thing or two about the person who purchased this prop. They know it’s only a prop, right? I wonder how they arrived at a place in life where they can spend $231,000 on a piece of obscure Star Trek history. After the second pilot episode, the prop was never used on the show again. It was only used in publicity photos of William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk.

I’m guessing whoever purchased this thing doesn’t drink the supermarket brand of cola, nor do they buy their clothes at Marshalls or T.J. Max. It’s just a hunch.

Show me someone who spends over two hundred grand on a non-working Phaser rifle and I’ll show you someone who probably buys a lot of over-priced, stupid things.