History SFDebris / TropesAtoF

* AsHimself: In his review of the finale of ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'', Chuck states a belief that the nameless, powerless Spider-Man, an actor "the real world" who plays Spider-Man and still had Spider-Man's voice, was actually supposed to be Spider-Man's voice actor himself, Creator/ChristopherDanielBarnes.

* AsHimself: In his review of the finale of ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'', Chuck states a belief that the nameless, powerless Spider-Man, an actor "the real world" who plays Spider-Man and still had Spider-Man's voice, was actually supposed to be Spider-Man's voice actor himself, Creator/ChristopherDanielBarnes.

*** He then did more or less ecactly the same thing to the Voyager episode [[https://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/v850.php Future's End]]. He ragged on the villain for being basically cartoonishly evil and incompatent, criticised the constant regional stereotyping, bemoaned how the story had to be cut short (as it was supposed to be a 3-parter) in such a clumsy way and pointed out all the plot holes that the reckless use of time travel by the writers introduced, and then scored it 8/10.

* AnachronismStew: Sometimes some of the "Conversations" between characters can come off as this, thanks to the screenshots being taken at different times. For example, in his review of "[[{{Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E08TheSiegeOfAR558}} The Siege of AR-558]]," there is a fake conversation between Ben Sisko and a TNG-era redshirt. Why is this strange? Well, the redshirt has the uniform used in most of ''The Next Generation'' (primarily one color with black shoulders), while Sisko is wearing the grey uniforms used in later parts of [=DS9=] and the TNG movies. While we could get this in Star Trek itself (Voyager being a prime example- due to being in the Delta Quadrent, they continued to use the black-uniforms-with-colored-shoulders that had been long abandoned by the rest of Starfleet in favor of the aforementioned grey ones), it didn't happen often.

* AwfulTruth: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] in his description of [[spoiler:Kyubey's]] [[TheReveal reveal]] in ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica''. In-universe, it's an [[BreakThemByTalking intentionally brutal]] exposition by the [[BigBad antagonist]], so of course he describes it as a "truth enima". [[spoiler:The result is, in his words, "[[BreakTheCutie not very pretty]]" ]].

*** The Bak'u from Star Trek Insurrection are an example at the opposite end of the scale. They appear to live in bucolic splendour, but as Chuck points out, it's simply ridiculous that they can live like that, given that their crops would need constant attention and irrigation, the metal objects they have had to have come from somewhere, etc. As he points out, when humans actually did live like that, their lives were an endless chore from sunrise to sunset, children were put to work as soon as they were old enough to hold a tool, people died young from disease and overwork and so on. The Bak'u society is literally impossible. Throw in an arbitary definition of what constitutes "technology" (What do you think the iron smelting forge and the irrigation system are?") and you've just got a really irritating preachy example of a strawman.
** Treating the audience like idiots, contrived coincidences, and [[InformedAttribute people being "experts" but not acting like it]] also seem to fall under this, ''especially'' if they're all in play at the same time as his absolutely vitrolic review of Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark shows.

** In keeping with the theme in "Darmok" of overcoming language barriers, the opening credits appropriately is the original german version of "99 Luftballons".

** The aliens encountered in ''Unexpected'' are even odder. They reproduce by having the male and female put their hands in pebbles which lets them read each others thoughts, the males grow nipples to feed the child (despite the females having breasts), and the child only has DNA from the mother. It's like Berman and Braga ''deliberately'' set out to make the most implausible and unrealistic species possibles.

*** ''11:59'' was not scored for the same reason as ''Family'' from TNG wasn't scored. He says it's a pretty decent episode, and praised Mulgrew's performance as Shannon O'Donnell because it gave her the chance to play a character that wasn't encumbered by the writer's tendency to not allow Janeway to show any kind of weakness or vulnerability. He also praised how the writing didn't automatically side with Jason Janeway for his obsession with the GoodOldWays, or demonise the people who wanted to build the Millenium Gate as CorruptCorporateExecutive types, but in the end he decided it wasn't "Star-Treky" enough to warrant a fair score.
** The episode ''Believers'' from Bablyon 5 also wasn't given a rating[[note]]Instead of a 1-10 scale Chuck rates B5 episodes on their watchability ("recommended", "fine", "avoid", etc) and their importance to the overall story arc (ranging from "unimportant" to "must-see")[[/note]] because it hit too close to home. He both lauded and condemned it for being challenging and a difficult watch.

** The same rating system used for Babylon 5 is also used for Stargete franchise shows, so they're also rated on importance and quality. The episode ''38 Minutes'' from Series/StargateAtlantis gets an importance rating of "slghtly important", and a quality rating of... "Death Star Reactor Port". This was Chuck's way of saying one horrible flaw ruined what would have otherwise been a fairly decent episode.

--->'''Chuck:''' The whole point of "Death Wish" was that the Q had become stagnant, that Q was being mischevious out of boredom, and ironically became an agent to enforce the Q's status quo, even though he inspired the rebellious antics of Quinn that lead to him being sentenced to eternal imprisonment in unpleasant conditions. Then we had that idiotic Civil War where Q's side of '''freedom''' and '''individuality''' wins! And the result of this uprising? Is that Q is ''once again'' an Agent enforcing the status quo on his rebellious son and prepared to sentence to him to eternal imprisonment in unpleasant conditions!

** It happens again in his review of "The Royale," which was ''supposed'' to be a ClicheStorm: SufficientlyAdvancedAliens have recreated a hack novel about gansters in a casino. However the episode itself features so many Star Trek clichés that, as Chuck puts it, it's a perfect case of irony. [[invoked]]

* ContinuityLockout: In "The End of Time" review, he notes that one of the problems with the episode is the sheer volume of references to past episodes being thrown in, meaning that casual viewers would be completely lost to understand whats going on.

** Praises ''The Boiling Rock'' when reviewing Avatar: The Last Airbender for averting this trope, he's really impressed that somebody on the production realised that a hot air balloon would cease functioning if the air outside was equally hot. He did have to retroactivly dock ''The Day Of Black Sun'' points though, for playing the trope straight when Aang used his glider to get over molten lava.

** Suggests one in "A Look at Reg Barclay" which came out the same day as his review of "Human Error", noting several plausible reasons why, out of everyone in Star Trek, ''Reg Barclay'' is the person Seven would probably be the most compatable with.

* DeathIsCheap: In ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen'', regarding Optimus Prime's many deaths and ressurections: "[[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason Voorhees]] is shaking his head at this guy!"
* DebateAndSwitch: Chuck can see this coming a mile away, and he repeatedly states this is a regular feature of ''Voyager.'' Taking the easy way out of a moral dillema either due to chance or technobabble is something he finds irksome, so he tends to praise its absence, such as in ''The Thaw,'' where the crew has to decide whether or not it's okay to prioritize the lives of some victims over the sentient simulation watching over them that will be destroyed when they're freed. They of course decide to save the hostages, but weaker Voyager episodes would probably have Janeway try to save the evil clown too.

** A cyclops in a pintriped suit with waggling face-dicks, "like it was ripped from the nightmares of Betty Friedan." ("Daleks of Manhattan")

** Suggests that given the treatment the Maquis crewmen recieve in "Learning Curve" for not following Starfleet rules, considering they never wanted to be part of Starfleet in the first place, would drive anyone to pull a phaser and shoot the Warp Core in frustration. Particularly given how Dolby noticed a problem with the gel-packs, went to fix it and was disciplined for not getting proper authorisation first. Then when the rest of the crew realise the problem has spread to more gel-packs (possibly because Dolby was stopped from trying to find the problem), Dolby is then immediately ordered to go fix them.

* ExpectingSomeoneTaller: "The Thaw": Janeway comes into confrontation with the embodiement of fear, and it is '''fear''' who is terrified.

* ForWantOfANail: In his review of the ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' episode "A Bug's Life", Chuck notes that the future of the show and the ''Farsape'' universe in general was determined by Chiana getting curious about the cargo that the Peacekeeper commandoes had brought aboard: it resulted in Aeryn getting near-fatally stabbed, Crichton having to infiltrate the Gammak base for medical supplies, and getting caught by Scorpius. In Chuck's own summary of the video, "the future of the galaxy is decided by a girl looking for something she can sell at a pawn shop."
** In his video concerning Doctor Who's cancellation, Chuck goes into extreme detail on how the chain of events that got the show axed was caused by ''the Sixth Doctor's outfit''.
--->'''Chuck:''' The Doctor's 26-year run drew to an end with the [[{{Irony}} ironically titled]] ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoS26E4Survival Survival]]''; a program that rediscovered its magic and had a plan for the future... yet was unable to continue because of a series of disastrous decisions... all starting with the world's ugliest coat.

*** ''Mortal Coil'' didn't recieve a rating because Chuck's complete and utter lothing for Neelix had reached a point where he felt unable to be able to fairly score it, so he basically recused himself from assigning any score (the impression he gives is he probably would have given it a fairly decent score had it been focused on any other character)

* BrokeTheRatingScale: Type 1. He's handed no more than one zero score for ''Voyager'', ''Enterprise'', ''Deep Space Nine'', "Next Gen", and "The Original Series" respectively, on a scale of one to ten, reserving them only for the absolute worst episodes of each series: "Threshold" for ''Voyager'', "A Night in Sickbay" for ''Enterprise'', "Code of Honor" for ''TNG'', "And The Children Shall Lead" for "TOS", and "Profit and Lace" for [=DS9=]. 0s are supposedly reserved for episodes that make the entire franchise worse by association; indeed, he did not even assign a "0" score to any of the movies, instead giving two "1" scores (though he admitted he was strongly tempted to give a "0" to ''Film/StarTrekVTheFinalFrontier'', and would probably have done so if not for the flashback involving [=McCoy=]'s father). On the other hand we have the ''TNG'' episode "Family" which no score was given on account of being too different from the series as a whole (the episode wasn't bad, just not Star Trek-y).

--->("I have no idea if any of this actually happened, so let's call it a draw.")
** "[[color:blue:My Way]] or [[color:red:JANEWAY]]" - Chuck measures how his own Parody!Janeway would handle each scene, then sees how VOY's Janeway measures up. He gives up halfway after the real Captain's actions are more extreme ''than her parody's.'' ("Latent Image")

* CloningBlues: Points out the great tragedy in "Whispers" is that Clone!O'Brien is ultimately a victim. He was duplicated so perfectly that he really ''is'' Miles O'Brien, never even suspecting that he was a ManchurianAgent. But the people he calls his friends, treat him as [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman not even a person at all]], not being able to see past the weapon. Thus when he dies, no-one does anything to try to save him, and worse, no-one even seems to ''[[YouMonster care]]''.

%* AccidntalMisnaming: Co-Executive Producer Brandon Braga!
%-->"It's uh, ''Brannon.'' We've worked together for nine years I..thought you'd have remembered that."

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Many characters, especially Janeway and Archer, have all their actions [[{{inuniverse}} viewed through the lens]] of the kind of characters they would be if the writers knew what they were doing. Generally, Chuck has two versions of a character. The first, and more prevalent, is the one that is played for comedy.
** He depicts Kathryn Janeway as an oversexed, tyrannical, TriggerHappy lunatic who abuses her crew as she carves a swath of destruction and ruination through the Delta Quadrant. (a joke, a sort of {{Flanderization}} to add to his menagerie of transvestite Harry, cannibalistic Neelix, polymath Tom, and office clerk Borgs, along with other caricatures from TNG and ENT). Chuck occasionally uses Mulgrew's take on Janeway as well, interpreting her condemnation of Captain Ransom in "[[{{Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E25S6E1Equinox}} Equinox]]" as a [[YouAreWhatYouHate projection of guilt]] for her own questionable actions. Even more interestingly, he speculated that Janeway's fake identity in "[[{{Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS7E15Workforce}} Workforce]]" — toiling away in obscurity at a dead-end job and entertaining the possibility of a second love — was fueled by a subconscious desire to escape the burden she's been shouldering for over six years.
--->"People have their limits, period. Picard had his in "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E2Family Family]]", or Sisko had his in "[[{{Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS01E01E02Emissary}} Emissary]]". Given the choice between watching your crew die one after the other -- year after year -- with home still decades away and a self-imposed isolation, or thinking that she could've resigned and taken a job on Earth with a husband and a pile of dogs, well... There's a lot of days where the former makes the latter ''look pretty damn good.''"
** In the review for [[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS7E19FriendshipOne "Friendship One"]], despite his penchant for portraying Janeway as a homicidal despot, Chuck had a genuine theory that she was promoted to admiral because she was too emotionally broken to take a command again, but too popular to retire. When they were flying over the planet, was she holding firm out of a belief that they could see this mission through, or was she secretly wishing that the aliens would launch their missiles and put her out of her misery?
** In "[[{{Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS6E11FairHaven}} Fair Haven]]", the Doctor (playing the role of a vicar) dismisses Seamus who seeks to repent for repeatedly breaking the fifth commandment, apparently unaware the ''Catholic'' fifth commandment is "thou shalt not kill." Seamus spends the remainder of the episode murdering people offscreen and dumping them in shallow graves. Cue screencap of the Pope facepalming.
** In "[[{{Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E4SuddenlyHuman}} Suddenly Human]]", he plays this straight ''and'' averts it, by first theorizing that the episode has more weight if you consider that Jono's insistence that he isn't human is a metaphor for a child trying to assert sexual identity, similar to many teens who do so... before admitting that he simply finds the whole episode boring and that trying to add ''anything'' to liven up the episode is a better use of his time than continuing to watch it.
** He reinterpreted "[[{{Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS4E22Demon}} Demon]]" and "[[{{Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E17CourseOblivion}} Course: Oblivion]]:" as an unintended commentary on the Prime Directive. Janeway carelessly breaches it in "Demon" by [[spoiler:letting the Silver Blood copy ''Voyager'''s crew and become sentient]], and as a result, in "Course: Oblivion" [[spoiler:an entire species is wiped out without a trace]].
** Points out in the [[{{Recap/TheXFilesS03E02PaperClip}} X-Files episode Paperclip]] how very unlikely it is that an "information wants to be free" type hacker would encode a tape with copy protection, and that the more believable answer is that Skinner accidentally destroyed all the data on the tape and is now trying to find an excuse for why they can't copy it.

* AcceptableTargets: [Invoked] In ''The Trouble with Edward'', after complaining about Captain Lucero treating Edward Larkin like the preppy, popular high school kid treats the weirdo, he laments about he's likely going to be labelled as a sexist for doing so, and thanks God for the straight, white, cis-gendered Captain Archer, as he can complain about his incompetence at length without being labelled a bigot.

** Looking up how self-replicating mines work from the Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, he says he offset the nerdiness by [[RatedMForManly challenging a bear]] [[TestosteronePoisoning to a knife fight.]]

* ADateWithRosiePalms[=/=]AccidentalInnuendo: In his "Lost in Time" review of "The Macra Terror".
-->'''Narrator:''' In the rest cubicle, Ben was fast asleep, while Jamie was tossing restlessly.\\
'''Chuck:''' Now we know why he wears that kilt.
** Only appears in "Pilot" of ''Series/TheXFiles''. The Scully we know is emerging, but she is ready to join the ranks of [[Film/LaraCroftTombRaider Lara Croft]] and [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Buffy]] in the list of 90's women to think about while masturbating.

* DistractedByTheSexy: Happens to Chuck while he reviews "A Night in Sickbay" as Archer is talking with T'Pol [[JiggleShow as she jogs on a treadmill in a skimpy tank-top]].

* BuxomIsBetter[=/=]GagBoobs: His two-part review of "The Outrageous Okona" is interspersed with (mostly comedic) references to breasts, including [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment a point when he stops the review cold]] to conduct a "Battle of the Wikis" between Memory Alpha and Wookiepedia as regards the topic of breasts.
** He actually conducts this "battle" twice: once with the original Website/YouTube review in November 2009, and then he revisits it for the Blip reupload in May 2011. In both cases, Wookieepedia is the clear winner. In fact, he gives the ''Star Wars'' wiki higher marks the second time around, noting the addition of ''George Lucas-approved'' art in which a popular ExpandedUniverse character bares her breast.
-->'''Chuck:''' Ball's in your court, CBS!

** Also points out how this can actually ''hurt'' the works in question, pointing to the Occampa (where them having breasts makes no sense based on what we know of how humans evolved breasts), or how in "Unexpected," how there is absolutely no reason for Tucker to grow a nipple, when the female alien has a skintight outfit ''showing off her large breasts''. Again, making ''no sense''.

----> '''Chuck:''' This is familiar territory for both of them, though. [...] About 30% of the times that [Harry]'s been shot has been by members of ''Voyager's'' crew. In fact, statistically speaking, Harry's due to be shot by a member of the crew any day now!

* ButtMonkey: Harry Kim, of course. Chuck points out he's been killed, tortured, made the ChewToy of the series and is seemingly horrified of being in an actual relationship. (For comedic emphasis, he showed Harry Kim having a dream about being aggressively smooched by Seven and waking up screaming. Sure, he omitted the part where Kim turns his head and suddenly sees an alien watching them, but ''everyone else'' in that episode was having nightmares, so that implies he's still terribly uncomfortable around Seven.) In fact, he's such a ButtMonkey, that at one point during the review of the Farscape episode "Premiere," that when the main character (John Crichton) has had a (characteristic) run of bad luck, he has to catch himself so that he doesn't say "Poor Dumb Harry," and replaces it with "Crichton."

* DanBrowned: Discussed in "Prototype" (''[[Series/StarTrekVoyager VOY]]'') when Torres uses [[TechnoBabble made-up science terms]], each comprised of two ''real'' scientific terms that have no business being put together. First Chuck makes up several gratuitous examples of his own (like "orbital mitosis" and "simian beta-decay") to illustrate an extreme case. He then lets Torres speak:
-->'''Torres:''' It's some kind of chromo-dynamic module, powered by a tri-polymer plasma.\\
'''Chuck:''' If you're watching The Longest Yard, you would not expect to hear "He's such a great football player. Y'know, he was a goalie for the Brooklyn Red-Sox, where he played with Vince Lombardi and O.J. Simpson in the '62 Superbowl in Montreal." Even if you don't know much about football, you know they're talking out of their ass. But the more you know, the worse it sounds. Same thing here; it's obvious crap, but the more you know about it, the dumber it sounds.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Calls the Defiant "Benjamin Sisko's Motherfucking Pimp Hand".
** 'THRUST BARCODE AND HIS LEAGUE OF G-MEN!'
** Bruce Maddox. Chuck laments that such an awesome name is wasted on a douchebag like him who doesn't deserve it.
** 'EXTRA-MAN with his super-duper EXTRA powers!'
** From his ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'' review: "Khan Noonien Pecs"
** Not to mention Chuck's own name: Charles Sonnenburg.

** Chuck's improvied lines for Picard's brother Robert in "Family" ("Where you going? I was getting my best curse words ready, ya baldy skidmark!"), directly comparing him to both the Banjo kid from Deliverance and Jason Voorhees in terms of people skills ("I had an orgasm once. [[GrumpyBear I didn't care for it]]").

-->'''Executive Memo:''' We would like to better establish why the future of six hundred Ba'ku [[StrawmanHasAPoint is so important]]. Currently it is unclear why Picard is so passionate about the future of this particular race. The "blood feud" between a few hundred Son'a and six hundred Ba'ku seems like nothing more than a gang fight. Numerous civilisations have been eliminated by previous Star Trek megalomaniacs, [[MarySuetopia so what makes the Ba'ku so special?]] To be blunt, with only six hundred people in the gene pool, the Ba'ku would inbreed themselves into extinction within a few generations.