René Auberjonois, whose numerous roles include Odo in Deep Space Nine, has died at the age of 79 from lung cancer.
He will be missed.
Category Archives: Obituary
Star Trek Pioneer D.C. Fontana Has Passed Away
Dorothy Catherine “D.C.” Fontana has passed away at the age of 80 after a brief illness. She wrote for a variety of TV shows, including four Star Trek series, Babylon 5, and much more. She wrote the Star Trek novel, Vulcan’s Glory, which tells of Spock’s first mission aboard the Enterprise and explored Captain Pike’s “Number One” character (played by Majel Barret in the unaired pilot, “The Cage”).
In a male-dominated industry, she hid her gender using her initials (a common practice in those days for women writers).
Fontana wrote one of (if not the best) episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, “Yesteryear” as well as the DS9 episode “Dax” which explored the past hosts of Jadzia’s symbiote. She also wrote “Journey to Babel” for TOS, which introduced Spock’s parents, Sarek and Amanda.
Raise a glass of Romulan Ale, “To absent friends.”
RIP, Aron Eisenberg
Aron Eisenberg, best known for playing Nog on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has passed away at the age of 50 from unknown causes. He brought us a fantastic character and, I would argue, one of the best character arcs of any character in any Star Trek. Eisenberg brought a mischievous charm to the character, taking him from juvenile thief to Starfleet Lieutenant. He was also an ardent fan of Star Trek as a whole and ran a podcast, The 7th Rule along side friend and costar Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko). Continue reading →
Rutger Hauer dead at 75
The Dutch actor’s list of genre credits is long, but Hauer is probably best remembered as Roy Batty from Blade Runner.
Arson at Anime Studio Kyoto Animation kills 34, hospitalizes another 34.
This past week, a 41-year-old man doused the primary office building of the anime studio Kyoto Animation with gasoline, along with people as they left the building, and set it on fire. The blaze (reportedly due to the positioning of ignition sites) raced through the building, killing 34 people (20 women, 13 men, one unknown), and badly injured another 34. The building itself has been badly damaged, with computer servers and art on the site being a total loss. The arsonist was taken into custody at the scene and confessed to the crime to law enforcement.
Kyoto Animation’s work has included several anime series that have been reviewed on the site, including Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu and Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Other genre series they have produced include Violet Evergarden (which is currently available on Netflix), and Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid (available on Netflix). They also received tremendous critical acclaim for the films A Silent Voice and Liz and the Blue Bird.
The staff of Bureau42 offers our condolences to the victims and families of the victims of this attack.
The names of the victims have not been officially released at this time. We ask that you refrain from speculating on the identity of the victims, and refrain from stating the name of the arsonist.
Mad Magazine, R.I.P.
After nearly seventy insane years, satiric Mad Magazine will cease publishing new material after August of this summer.
Issues of reprints will contain new cover art, and Mad may survive in some form.
I can’t say that I’ve paid much attention to it in decades, but I speak for many here when I say it played a huge part in my childhood.
But magazines have become difficult to maintain– and real life has grown nearly impossible to satirize!
UPDATE: Tom Richmond chronicles the fall of the House of Mad here.
Peter Mayhew, Requiescat in pace
Peter Mayhew, best-known for playing the 200-year-old Wookie in the Star Wars saga, is dead at the age of 74. The very tall (7’3″) actor leaves behind a wife and three children.
Gene Wolfe, RIP
Gene Wolfe, one of the greatest writers of SF and Fantasy, died April 14 at the age of 87. His first SF novel (category in fact a bit problematic), The Fifth Head of Cerberus, appeared in 1972. He may be best remembered for the series, The Book of the New Sun
Lawrence “Larry” Roberts, R.I.P.
As the year closes, we lose Larry Roberts, 81, to a heart attack.
As a manager of the US Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA, Roberts oversaw the development of Arpanet, the major forerunner to the World Wide Web. On October 29, 1969, the first message (“Login,” but only “lo” got through) went from UCLA to Stanford. Roberts later went on to work in the burgeoning computer industry.
Memorial Review: Don’t Look Now (1973)
Nicholas Roeg has passed away at the age of 90.
The influential British filmmaker first made his name as a cinematographer, working on such classics as Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, and Fahrenheit 451. He got his directorial career off to a rocking start with the controversial Performance (1970) starring Mick Jagger. Roeg was no stranger to genre; his films include The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) and The Witches (1990).1 Many people remember him for the movie we’re reviewing as a memorial, Don’t Look Now (1973). The cryptic cult classic combines Hitchcockian style and psychological horror with twists supernatural (or science-fictional, I suppose, depending on your interpretation of the film).
Rest in Peace.
It’s questionable whether the characters in this film can.