What’s Wrong With Dick?

There are plans afoot for a new television series based on the early life of a young trapeze artist named Richard Grayson. The idea here is to offer an adventure show about a circus family getting into all kinds of adventures, etc. It’ll be called The Graysons.

We all know how it eventually ends — the Grayson parents are killed, the kid is found by Batman and becomes Robin. But this show won’t be about that, the same way Smallville doesn’t give you Superman.

It’s in the early stages right now, and if it ever gets made, I’ll probably watch it. I like that sort of thing. But I do have one concern.

Variety is reporting that the main character will be renamed “D.J. Grayson.” See, for more than 60 years, he’s been “Dick Grayson.” This was a perfectly suitable name for a kid in the 1930s, but became less so as the decades wore on. So now, rather than go the “Rick” route, the producers want to go with his initials.

How stupid is this?

This is an iconic character we’re talking about here, probably one of the most recognizable costumed heroes in the world. Granted, Dick Grayson hasn’t been Robin in the comics since the ’80s (he’s a hero named Nightwing now, and a couple of other punks have been Robin, one of whom died, came back to life but I don’t really get how … oh, never mind …)

There’s really no need to rename the character. Let him be Dick. Let him be a proud Dick, taking the name back from all those who would use it as an insult. Hell, even call him Dickie if you want. But “D.J.” just sounds stupid.

In fact, everyone named Richard should just go with the name Dick from here on in. Reclaim it, as it were — and make the world a Dick-friendly place once again.

In related news, a guy made a really cool trailer for a faux Robin movie called Grayson. Check it out.

Today’s Moron: Porn Star Britney

Today’s Moron is easy. Too easy, as it turns out. I wasn’t going to touch this one, but you know, sometimes you pass a car crash and you just can’t stop yourself from looking. The same rule also applies to naked slutty bald-headed pop stars, I guess.

Britney Spears is in a sex tape (allegedly). The gossiplex is buzzing with the story, which goes like this: ex-boyfriend Adnan Ghalib, the paparazzo Spears was tooling around with last year, filmed her engaging in various activities with him. She reportedly wears a pink wig throughout, but I cannot confirm this and hopefully will never be able to.

Ghalib, prince of a man that he is, has the tape up for sale for $9 million. Now Britney is allegedly attempting to buy the tape to keep it from going public.

Why do people do this? Why do celebrities even consider turning on the camcorder? Especially someone like Britney Spears, who would have made this tape at a time when her life was unravelling, her sons had been taken from her, her career was a shambles and her alleged addictions were in full roar. Was there no little voice saying ‘Hmm, bad idea, Brit …’ ?

I suppose some morons might look at the success Paris Hilton had with her career after that stupid video came out. Maybe there’s something to that. Or all the cash Pam & Tommy made from their tape. But for every one of those, there’s a Jenna what’s-her-face from Survivor, who loudly protested a “stolen” sex tape before admitting she’d had it made and distributed in order to get famous. Oh, you hadn’t heard that story? Well, there you go.™

I predict Britney will pay huge dollars for this video, but it will be released anyway, and will be yet another badly shot, badly lit, badly acted 15 minutes of skanky badness. Many people will watch it on the Internet, then forget about it and move on. And two little boys will wonder why people make fun of Mommy.

What a waste of time. Pitiful.

Star Trek Canon Explained

Canon. That’s a big word among fandom. Whether it’s Star Wars, Buffy, Harry Potter or the X-Men, fans argue whether something is “canon” or not — whether it really happened within the fictional framework of the comic or movie or TV show or whatever.

There’s a general rule of thumb Star Trek fans use when it comes to canon: If it was on screen, it happened. So the books don’t count, nor the comics, or the fan-made videos, or any of that. The various series and the movies. That’s it. Some say the animated series doesn’t count; others argue that. I accept it as an extension of the original series and have no problem with it being part of canon.

Now comes the problem.

Star Trek is littered with inconsistencies. A smiling Vulcanian who worked for UESPA slowly became an emotionless Vulcan Starfleet officer. (There are some YouTube videos that sum this up far better than I ever could.)

So what gives? If canon is so sacred, how does one explain all these mistakes? Well, I can tell you, if you’re ready to be devastated by my epic geekiness. They aren’t mistakes. Everything happened, even the contradictions.

Riker did it.

Remember the opening of the Enterprise two-parter In A Mirror, Darkly? It offered up an alternate take on the ending of the film First Contact, with Zephrem Cochrane opening fire on the arriving Vulcans and the people of Bozeman, Montana, looting the ship. This was supposed to be how the mirror universe split from the “real” continuity.

Well, if you recall, just before that happened, Cochrane broke the warp barrier for the first time. But he had passengers — William T. Riker and Geordie LaForge, visitors from the future who weren’t there the first time he did it, but arrived in an effort to repair the timeline altered by the Borg.

First Contact showed us the original timeline, then the modified 24th century Borg Earth, and then returned us to a new 24th century, one in which Cochrane made that flight, then went on, fully aware of the impact of his actions, fully aware that he could not have made it into space without help from futuroids who came back to … it’s too mindbending even for me, and I think about this stuff all the time.

Star Trek has gone to the past before, but great pains were generally taken to protect the people of history from knowing the truth about their visitors. Except for Kirk, who took the mom from Seventh Heaven back to the future with him. And also that Voyager two-parter where Ed Begley Jr. found the timeship, but that was Voyager.

It boils down to this: When Riker decided to tell Cochrane the truth, he changed the timeline. So all those little flutters throughout the various Star Trek series and movies, those little inconsistencies one might explain as “sloppy writing” or “poor research” were in fact nothing so far-fetched. It was just fallout from good old-fashioned time travel, and a space stud Alpha Male who couldn’t keep his trap shut.