By Liam Moore

March 16, 2021

As we still remain trapped indoors by the coronavirus, we wonder whether or not things will ever get better. Alongside decreasing infection numbers, there are many new things to get excited about in the future. Most recently, it would be the return of many childhood favorites that will get people excited about the future. 

   First, Pokémon announced on February 27, for their 25th anniversary, that they would be remaking two of their games and are in the works for a brand new game. The remakes are of the fourth generation games Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl and will be titled Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl. The original games, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, came out in 2006, so this year would be the 15th anniversary for the games, no doubt one of the reasons for choosing these specific games. Also, these remakes will be the first to be compatible with the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo’s latest console, which offers lots of room for visual and technological improvements compared to the original games. As the first remakes in seven years, almost all fans are extremely excited to be able to play the game later this year. 

  Alongside the remakes, Pokémon also announced the release of a new game titled Pokémon: Legends Arceus. This announcement was groundbreaking for the Pokémon community because it showed gameplay for an open world game, the type of Pokémon game fans have been waiting for for years. For non-gamers, open world essentially means that your character is free to roam the in-game world and is typically not bound by the amount of progress in the storyline. Not much about the game is known except that it takes place in the Sinnoh region, is open world, and the three starters are Cyndaquil, Rowlet, and Oshawott. 

  Second, after more than a decade since the ending of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Nickelodeon has announced the revival of the Avatar universe through Avatar Studios. Although The Legend of Korra finished airing in 2014, many fans were not satisfied with the sequel because it did not live up to the original series, which has been debated as the greatest cartoon and show of all time. Hopefully, many fans can find satisfaction with the upcoming shows and movies that the studio has announced they will be making.

  One of the main reasons to announce the creation of more Avatar content was because of its rising popularity. Last year, Avatar and The Legend of Korra released on Netflix in May and December respectively. Also, in January the creators of Avatar announced that there will be a live action movie adaptation coming to Netflix in the future. As many Avatar are aware, there was an attempt at a live action adaptation that is notoriously bad to the point where most people ignore its existence. This was the cause of the skyrocketing popularity of Avatar in the past year. 

  Although the past year has been hard to look at optimistically, these two franchises could be enough to to turn this year for the better. Both Pokémon and Avatar are franchises that many people hold near and dear to their hearts, so the fact that there are new releases in the future is something to be optimistic about. 

By Justin Higginbotham

March 16, 2021

Star Trek began as a nearly rejected pilot in 1966 and has prospered into one of the world’s most renowned franchises with 7 shows, 2 animated series, and 13 films. With 5 separate completed shows, there are bound to be some that work better than others, and there absolutely are. Starting with those that don’t are: 

5. Star Trek: Enterprise

  Airing in 2001, Enterprise is the most recent of the completed series, and in my opinion, is the worst. Enterprise follows the crew of the First exploration vessel to leave earth, the U.S.S Enterprise. The crew of the ship all lack personality and any traits worth of interest, the crew is mostly made up of humans who completely disregard the multicultural open-mindedness of the series’ predecessors. There is no single episode worth watching, the show is a boring drag across space already explored in other series with a bland crew whose only character traits seem to be reactionary.

4. Star Trek: The Original Series

  Airing in 1966, Star Trek serves now as a hallmark of the era. Booming in popularity, the multicultural crew of the Starship Enterprise heavily influenced the viewers’ perceptions of the world around them with the crew’s open-minded and progressive views and interactions with new alien species. With the set and special effects of a 1966 TV show, much of the poor quality effects add to the charm and style of the show. Despite its incredible legacy, Star Trek fails when it comes to the writing on many episodes, boring and confusing plotlines litter the show with few gems hidden within. 

3.Star Trek: The Next Generation

  Often hailed as the greatest series in the franchise, the next generation follows the adventures of the Next Generation of the Enterprise crew. The Next Generation is renowned for oftentimes tackling strong philosophical issues and problems. The crew, though more developed than the crew of the Original Series, is often criticized as being static and unchanging throughout the series. Many of the characters do seem to get stale throughout the show, yet this is balanced by the never-ending interesting and thought-provoking stories throughout the show that oftentimes can be missed in the action and techno-babble of a sci-fi show.

2. Star Trek: Voyager

  Taking place on a starship stranded on the other side of the galaxy, the crew of the Voyager is made of two opposing forces who must work together out of necessity. The Maqui, an anti-colonizer rebel terrorist organization who the Voyager was sent to apprehend must learn to get along with the ship’s crew and assimilate themselves into a Starfleet setting. Though at first the crew seems bland and uninteresting with little development, this is proved wrong as you slowly learn more and more traits of the crew that give them more intrigue and depth, eventually featuring what proves to be one of the most well-represented autistic coded characters in modern television. Voyager is often regarded as one of the worst series in the franchise, oftentimes those critics seem to care more about the show featuring the franchise’s first female captain than they do about the quality of the writing or production.

1. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

  The most unique of the franchise, Deep Space Nine takes place on a space station near a planet that has recently gained its independence from their colonizers in a bloody rebellion who now live under an unstable provisional government. The crew consists of a large amount of black and LGBTQ+ representation for its time with the inclusion of multiple gay or gay coded main characters and the first Black captain and his family. Many issues and struggles black people face are clearly discussed in this show, instead of taking the form of analogies on alien worlds. Every single character is given heavy consideration and care in their writing, the show’s creator states “There is more development in the least developed character on DS9 than there is on the most developed character on The Next Generation” anyone who has seen the shows can easily see the truth in this statement as a villain’s background henchman one season can develop into an interesting and well-written character with astounding depth and quality in the next. Deep Space Nine is easily the best show in the franchise, and most likely always will be. 

  With a multitude of new Star Trek series in development, the franchise is soon to expand once more. Regardless of their quality, all of the series have helped to explore and develop the universe of the show, and have even helped to explore many issues not often discussed in television, with this, the generations of Star Trek show creators use their writing to “Go where no man has gone before.”

By Maya Mellberg

March 16, 2021

Over the past few years, the true crime genre has amassed a significant following. This has fueled the creation of many TV shows and documentaries covering some of the most haunting cases and terrifying killers. Here are some popular true crime documentaries and docu-series available on Netflix, from murderers, to disappearances these shows will leave you at the edge of your seat.

Night Stalker

The “Night Stalker” was the nickname given to Richard Ramirez, a serial killer that left LA in a state of terror during the mid-1980s. Throughout this time he committed 13 counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder, and a multitude of other crimes. This documentary goes through the timeline of events and the experience of Gil Carrillo and Frank Salerno, detectives running the case during this time. Directed by Tiller Russel, the Night Stalker, uses real TV interviews and media coverage to bring readers back in time. There are no actors portraying certain characters which brings a realistic and emotional aspect to the show.  Compared to some crime shows, Russel did not glamorize the actions of Richard Ramierez. This series is unlike any other, and is a must watch for crime junkies.

Disappearance of Madeleine McCann

Directed by Chris Smith, and starring Anthony Summers, Gonçalo Amaral and Robbyn Swan. This documentary explores the unsolved case of Madeleine McCan, a three-year-old girl, who went on vacation to Portugal in May of 2007. One night she vanishes from her bed, her parents only 100 yards away enjoying dinner. Although a massive manhunt took place, no trace of Madeleine was ever found. This docu-series explores the disappearance, police hunt, media coverage, and attempt to bring home Madeleine McCann. 

Vanishing at Cecil Hotel

Elisa Lam was a Canadian student staying at the Cecil Hotel. When a video of her exiting and entering the elevator while making strange gestures went viral; it is believed she was interacting with someone outside the elevator. She was later found dead in a water tank and her death was ruled accidental, although many disagree as the circumstances of her death were unsettling especially considering the Cecil Hotel is notorious for certain deaths and murders. This TV series examines the eerie death of Elisa Lam. Contrary to many crime shows, this series is mostly focused on interviews with “web-slueths” and their conspiracies as to what really happened to Lam. Elisa’s family is not featured in this series as it is believed they wanted to move on, and not relive the horrors of her death.

American Murder: Family Next Door

This docu-series covers the disappearance of blogger mom Shannan Watts, and her two daughters. As a police investigation goes underway, the ugly reality behind the internet facade comes to light. Countless videos and text messages reveal what really happened to Shannan, Bella, and Celeste Watts; a haunting story of a marriage gone wrong and the horrific truth that shocked America. Because the lives of the Watts family were heavily documented the series uses real video footage, texts, and phone calls to show the reality of this seemingly perfect family. Jenny Popplewell, director, geniusly executes the creation of this series and brings light to the truth about the Watts family.

By Isabella Howe

March 8, 2021

During the 1960s, British European archeologist James Mellaart received permission to excavate the ancient city of Çatalhöyük. Çatalhöyük is located in what is now modern-day Anatolia, Turkey. When Mellaart first arrived at the site he and his team had already discovered a  selection of examples of “Neolithic craftsmanship” found upon the fields of farms surrounding the location. When the team began their excavation they chose the site that was determined to be the dwellings of Dido, The Queen of Carthage. It was here where the team uncovered the statue that would be responsible for convincing Mellaart of his inaccurate deduction of how the worship system of the civilization was structured.

  The statue uncovered was a depiction of a female figure sitting upon a chair accompanied by two leopards sitting at her feet to whose heads she had gently placed her hands upon. The statue also was described to have a small bulge on the ground of the pottery design which was concluded to be an infant of some sort. The figurine was found in a well-decorated room that was assumed to be a temple by the team. This selection of discoveries was enough evidence to drive Mellaart to arrive at the conclusion that Çatalhöyük was a matriarchy culture that revered a “goddess of fertility”. It is believed that there was a likely probability that Mellaart was strongly influenced by James George Frazer, a Victorian anthropologist who wrote about a theory entailing the concept of the possibility of multiple pre-Christian civilizations having a worship system centered upon a “mother goddess”. This was then built upon in the 1940s by Robert Graves a classical scholar and poet who wrote in his book The White Goddess that mythologies of the Middle East and Europe derived from a religious order that admired a goddess of “birth, love, and death”. These works heavily shaped the ideas of Mellaart’s generation of archeologists who went in search of ancient civilizations that could have been defined by such qualities. 

  Though Mellaart began to reach verdicts that had little to no correlation or relation to the ideas of either Frazer or Graves. Mellaart claimed the Çatalhöyük was a society in which women ruled over men. His evidence for such a claim was his belief in the connotation of the way women were being presented physically in the sculptures. He described the women as “thick and strong” and often “flanked by fierce animals”. Due to these factors, he concluded that this was not a patriarchal society because it was, in his opinion, unlikely for males to depict the female body in such a way. He made the comparison to the opposing representation of women in magazines designed for the male audience such as that of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine. He claimed that in this format women were illustrated in a way that communicated innocence, fragility, and gentleness. Mellaart’s conclusions for a time were not questioned significantly and were easily adopted by the public. Çatalhöyük became known as an ancient matriarchal society for a period of time. Curricula even began to incorporate the concept of Turkish matriarchal civilizations due to Mellaart and his ideas.

   Since the 1980s more and more evidence has been uncovered that shows a contradiction to Mellaart’s notions, causing a large opposition of beliefs coming from the archaeologist community. Lynn Meskell, an archeologist from Stanford University, also visited the Çatalhöyük excavation site. After the collection of data gathered in the 25 years since Mellaart, Meskell has taken the stance arguing that these female figurines served a different purpose than just simple worship. It was determined that in just Dido’s house there were a total of 141 figurines of which the majority were animals and the minority were human anatomy. This quantity relation was shown to be the case in the many other households of the area, suggesting that animals were much more popular than the female figurines. It was also shown that such statues were not made with time and care or for the purpose of preservation. From observation and examination, it was shown that such artifacts were made with speed and a lack of desire for quality. The state in which they were found also suggests that they were often handled and carried around rather than looked at on display. They were also discovered upon odd locations such as jammed between two walls or in trash piles. Meskell argued that these factors indicate that these objects were not those of worship as they treated them trivially. Furthermore, she claimed that this suggests that the objects were more for short-term everyday use and the act of creating them was more significant than the final product itself. The figurines were also shown to be representing the bodies of aged women which refutes the concept of a fertility god. 

 Rosemary Joyce, an archaeologist from UC Berkeley, expressed the viewpoint of the importance of avoiding projecting modern gender role understandings onto ancient cultures as Mellaart did. It must be considered that such organization of communities was based on other categorical systems such as age and or occupation. The domination of one gender over another is not the sole and only form of hierarchical organization that can and could have occurred.

 It must be considered that generally human beings are equipped with a selection of preconceived notions and interpretations that govern one’s thoughts and actions. Ultimately it provides historical blindness that disables the most accurate interpretation of unknown societies as the one observing such evidence is projecting their personal version and understanding of history. Due to historical contingency, scientists must be fully aware of the possibility of easily falling into a trend of forcing new discoveries of lifestyles to fit into the templet of the lifestyles already known. Evidently, assumptions are the danger and threat to the accuracy of discerning what is unknown. 

Research based off of Annalee Newitz’s article “What Archaeologists Got Wrong about Female Statues, Goddesses, and Fertility” from Popular Science.