Posterized: Star Trek Franchise

The Star Trek mission statement is a little silly in retrospect, isn't it:

To boldly go where no man has gone before.

The franchise, now celebrating its 50th anniversary, has produced six television series and thirteen feature films so what man hasn't gone there? It's probably bolder to have never taken a ride on the starship Enterprise. But let's do a Posterized. We'll include the series (which each get one poster) in this roundup. So how many of the 19 Star Trek adventures have you seen? 

All the posters are after the jump...

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TV MVP: Riz Ahmed in "The Night Of"

Chris Feil on HBO's latest buzzy drama...

HBO has gotten back into the crime genre with the launch of new limited series The Night Of. Adapted from the BBC's Criminal Justice, the series has more than a few shades of Serial thrown in as it examines the gruesome murder at its center. While the new series has already established a patient fascination with glacial detail, what has kept it from becoming a flat procedural is the fascinating performance by Riz Ahmed as murder suspect Naz.

Just as he served up a humane human foil to Jake Gyllenhaal's psychopath in Nightcrawler, Ahmed brings a necessary soulfulness to this otherwise cold world in The Night Of. In the lead up to and fallout from the crime, Naz makes an endless string of bad decisions that the actor effortlessly makes believable. He is a wounded deer in the headlights, alternating masked sexual nerves, outsiderness, and blind panic. If the script makes Naz out to be a naive dope, then it's to Ahmed's credit that he finds the honesty about why he would willfully put himself in an obviously toxic situation.

With an insurmountable amount of evidence against him and a convenient blackout during the murder, it's the raw believability of the actor that drives our doubt about Naz's guilt...

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (S1.E5-6)

We haven't forgotten about Crazy Ex Girlfriend. We'll just mix in it as we get through its hilarious episodes in preparation for Season 2. 

S1:E5 "Josh and I Are Good People!"

Rebecca, still guilty from her terrible behavior with Greg, attempts to prove to herself that she's a good person by getting mixed up in people's lives including Daryl's custody battle for his daughter. Josh also goes a little mental worrying that he's too much of a sinner. Let's rank the crazy...

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Emmy Nom Aftermath Finale: Happy Thoughts

We'll return to the Emmys at a later date (the gap between their nominations and their ceremony is enormous) but for now, one last Emmy post. To end on a happy note I asked Team Experience two final questions:

1. What's your single favorite acting nomination?
2. What's your favorite non-acting nomination?

Our answers follow and yours should, too.

FAVORITE ACTING NOMINATION

Margaret de Larios: I honest-to-god pinched myself when I saw that Constance Zimmer was nominated for UnREAL. The Emmys have been so predictably blind to the sensational programming coming out of the CW these days, it was easy to believe that they would similarly ignore product from the notorious schlock-factory that is Lifetime...

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Difficult People Is Back!

There may be plenty of gripes about snubs from this year's Emmy nominations, but one of the bigger letdowns in my estimation is Hulu's Difficult People. Emmy is rarely kind to cult shows and the comedy's caustic humor is admittedly not everyone's cup of tea. However with its enviable explosion of big names guest stars, you would imagine that the voters could have recognized it with a nomination in the guest acting categories.

And with the start of the second season, they are only upping the ante for their day planners. By now I'm sure you have been teased on upcoming stints from the likes Lin-Manuel Miranda and Julianne Moore after the premiere episodes already gave us Tina Fey and Nathan Lane. In fact, as it returned this week all of the discussion around the show seemed targeted on who would be popping up rather than what hilarity we could expect from the season itself. When the fun of the show is its rat-a-tat, layered punchlines and the bad behavior of its two leads, that tactic seems in disservice to a show that's only getting better and funnier.

So here are five reasons we should be excited about the return of Difficult People that have nothing to do with its celebrity guests...

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