Justice (S1 ep 8)

Back in the late fall of 1987, when this episode came out, I was a strapping lad of about 100 pounds and well into my 10th year of school. At that time I wasn't very sure of myself, but if you were to ask me at that time what are some unassailable facts about fashion I would have said something like this:

• Horn-rimmed glasses were stupid, and would never be popular again.
• Bell-bottomed pants were stupid, and would never be popular again.
• Low-cut pants (or shorts, or bikini's, whatever) were stupid and would never be popular again.
• The mullet was the greatest men's hairstyle ever invented, and would be eternally popular.
• Long shorts (that went past the mid-thigh) were stupid and were a fad that would quickly fade into obscurity.
• Regular shirts with tux tails were the pinnacle of human fashion. Nothing would ever improve on it. 

I'm sure there were others, but those are the things I felt most strongly about at the time. So my point with all that is that Star Trek: TNG seemed to go out of their way to portray men is some nontraditionally male regalia. There were the man-dresses that were introduced in Encounter at Farpoint, but the men of this planet Rubicon III dressed worse than Sean Connery did in Zardoz. What's the man version of camel toe? Whatever it is, the Rubiconians had lots of it.

Sexy?

Sexier?

My point is that this episode looks awful. Reminds me of those late-night skinemax movies I used to sneak and watch late at night when I would visit people who had the pay channels on cable.

The gist of the episode is this: Picard and the gang stumbled onto a planet of beautiful sexy people and decide it's time for some sexy-time. So they immediately beam down Wesley (the one under-age person on the show) and a few others to make sure the partying goes well before sending down the whole ship's crew.

Pretty quickly, after Wesley impresses the locals by running, sorta, and doing cartwheels, and teaching the young teens how to play 'ball.' He gets carried away in his exploits he ends up trashing some plants and is sentenced to death. Because, of course.

At the same time, Picard and Data have made contact with some aliens in orbit that sees the Rubiconians as their children. Those aliens don't talk much, but seem willing to sorta let the Enterprise hang out without killing them all.

But once those aliens learn about the Prime Directive, which roughly is the Federation's rules regarding non-interference in the internal affairs of a primitive world, they seem to think that means that Wesley should not be exempted from the laws of the Rubiconians.

In the end, Picard decides the Prime Directive is stupid and plans on kidnapping Wesley. But the aliens are mighty and won't allow the Enterprise to beam anyone up. So Picard says about two sentences into the sky, dramatically, about how unfair their laws are, and then the aliens release their transporter blockage and let the kidnapping go on unhindered.


Some thoughts:

• Tasha filed a report on their laws and customs. Seems like she did a shitty job considering.
• It looks like the entire advance party had an orgy of some sort when they visited the planet. It struck me as odd that Dr. Crusher next commented that it would be a great place for kids.
• The aliens here are EXACTLY like sexy humans. I just noticed that of the aliens we've met so far, a significant percentage of them are 100% human in appearance. 
• If I were Wesley, I would have said please treat me just like an adult. I mean, he was a teenager. They have hormones in the future, right?
• The running thing. That's pretty weird. Wesley seems really excited to show them he can run (at a very leisurely pace)
• Wesley says 'watch this!' and does a cartwheel. Is he supposed to be 8?
• And the teenage girl says, 'will you teach me to play ball?' I know she must have been sexy flirting, but that is embarrassingly bad. 
• Wesley might not have deserved death, but he was very unaware of his surroundings when he trashed the plants. He should have been spanked or something. 
• Wesley is with Starfleet and doesn't lie. Just FYI.
• Tasha had to examine the syringe before deciding it was a syringe. If she made that sort of careful study of their laws maybe they wouldn't have been in this mess. 
• The Prime Directive. Ugh. Is it ever accomplish anything good? 
• Picard moralizes about how evolved humans are again. He's really into how awesome humans have become.
• On a side-note to these random thoughts, godlike aliens are judging humans, AGAIN. This is at least the Third time this has happened. Sheesh.
• Dr Crusher finds out Wesley (her son) is about to be killed and when she confronts Picard about it he shooshes her and walks away. That's badass.
• Rewetching this episode, I just realized that these Rubiconians might be future Nazis. You know, after all those blonde-haired blue-eyed eugenics programs have run their course. Hitler would be proud.

In all, aside from the pretty ladies, there is little to like here, in my opinion. Wesley is written like he's a 8 year-old and the crew shows an incredible lack of due diligence in investigating the planet before letting children run around on it.

The Prime Directive is horrible as a plot device in this episode, because it's pretty stupid sounding as it's half-heartedly explained. And the inexplicable aliens that serve as the 'god' to the people of Rubicon III are really not that committed to making sure Starfleet follows their own Prime Directive after Picard give such a short rebuttal those unseen aliens seemed to have shrugged to themselves and been like, 'who cares?'

Seriously, this was pretty bad.

My rating?

1 out of 5

Lonely Among Us (S1 ep7)

You know,  I watched this ep a week ago. When I sat down to watch it again this evening (with my notepad out and ready to take notes) I couldn't remember a thing about it.

Literally, nothing. That's not a good sign. Now that it's been over for a few minutes, and even with my page and a half of notes. I'm not sure I'll be able to give a recap of the show.

But I don't want to get ahead of myself. When I left off last time I'd had the epiphany that a lot of things I thought happened my Sophomore year of high school actually happened during my senior year. I just lost two whole years of my life. This might be stupid, but it bothers me.

I really liked the layout of the house we were living in. After spending my formative years sleeping in a small trailer (not one of those fancy double-wides or anything) having a room in a real house, while pretty small, was still new, and great. In the short time I was there (aside from it being haunted and stuff... probably) I really liked it there.

During my senior year, my step-father, who had always lived on the edge of what most people would call 'normal' had a bit of a breakdown. Like what most people would be want to do when having a crisis like that, he started stockpiling weapons. I know this so well because I would be awoken sometimes very late at night and told to come into the living room and take some pictures. When I say 'sometimes' I'll go ahead and say this happened maybe three times. Whatever. And I'd be handed a polaroid camera and told to take pics.

So I would. Usually him posing with a small arsenal of weapons with a confederate flag draped over the couch or something. It was a weird thing to be doing at 4 a.m. on a school night, but such was my life at the time.

He was there at all because by this time he'd quit his job. He'd sit there most of the day and drink (Jim Beam & Coke, or maybe Diet Coke. Dammit, can't remember) and sorta fume, I think. But by the time I got home in the evenings he was usually gone, doing this or that. I don't know, there was a lot going on then, some of the timing is a little off for me (but a man who loves guns and alcohol will have some violence appear in his narrative at some point, just not now). I can't remember when he started his construction company, or his classic car business, or when he gave that up and started only sitting there and drinking... I just can't remember.

But regardless, I was still alone most of the time in the evenings. I'd had a job at Taco Bell the summer previous, but quit there and worked as a construction worker for some time on weekends before eventually settling into a job as a house painter. That ended up being the cause of some incredible drama a bit later, but I won't get into that today.

Now, all that it is just to give you some context to my life at the time. I had friends, a social life, I was gone a lot. Home sorta sucked. But I could count of Star Trek: TNG every weeknight at 11.

This episode. I have no memories of it at all. Considering I couldn't remember it from last week, and I'm struggling to remember it half an hour after I watched it says something. It's not that it's bad (it is, though. Really bad), it's that it's so forgettable.

In television, especially in hour long shows, there is often an 'A' story and a 'B' story. Sometimes a 'C' story, but seldom do you get more than that. Unless you're Game of Thrones and you can do half a dozen each week, but that's different because they tend to be weighted more evenly. These older Dramas would devote 2/3rds of their running time to the main storyline and the remainder to whatever else was going in.

In this ep, if I'm already in the midst of my recap, has a 'B' story that it pretty damn awesome. It's the 'A' story that I can't take too much of. Check out the trailer below.


In case you missed it, here's the deal, one solar system has two sets of aliens that have discovered space flight and they both want to join the Federation. Of course, they hate each other immensely. The snake aliens asked to be kept upwind of the rat aliens and much further away than the mere 100 meters Riker planned on keeping their quarters.

Picard and Riker talk about how barbaric humans used to be and marvel, again, at how evolved humans are. I'll say again, seeing what a dick Kosinski was in the previous episode, I'd say that humans aren't that hot in the future, they're just way more smug.

Picard and the gang notice a large cloud hurtling through space at warp speed. They figure it as a naturally occurring phenomena... sure, why not.... and seek to get some sensor data. They get close and then Worf, down in a sensor station or something, is struck by lightning  and collapses.

While he's recovering in sick bay, the lightning goes from him to Dr Crusher. And from her to... uh... the ship? Then it kills the Engineer that for whatever reason seems to be in charge (Not MacDougal, not Argyle, but Singh - although they mention Argyle at least).

The rat and snake aliens have been having a private war amongst themselves while on board the ship. Weapons are confiscated and they make threats to the other parties in vague terms. Riker and Tasha are frustrated, but patient.

Data takes on a Sherlock Holmes persona and discovers that Singh was killed by an unknown alien entity. Troi pipes up and said she senses an alien presence and has the whole time, but she didn't want to say anything because humans are primitive, or something, I don't know, it seemed kinda dumb to me, like the kid who always shouts out, 'I knew that' right after you say something they obviously didn't know.

Anyway, Picard gets possessed and decides to beam himself into space to be part of the cloud. Then, Data remembers that Transporters are magic and so beams Picard back, because once he was in space, he possessed the ship and put the letter P all over the place, I suspect Picard was trying to call the crew pricks.

Once he's back, Tasha reports that the rat aliens probably just ate one of the snake aliens. Riker scolds Tasha for not having her priorities straight and Picard decides to take a nap.

Some random thoughts:

• This episode had some genuinely funny moments. The alien delegate storyline was hilarious.
• Troi shouting that she as being blinded was also hilarious (it's in the trailer - but it's a bit out of context). I don't know why. I might just be a bad person.
• The logic used to first find, then later, reassemble Picard was hilarious. But only hilarious in the way that stupid things are.
• The rat alien delegate looks at Tasha and does a sexy growl early in the episode. That's gold.
• Worf is pretty cool. I didn't used to like him in the older TNG episodes, but the idiocy of Wesley and Tasha's characters overshadow everything else. Even Troi, who I should be pretty frustrated with by now.
• That said, Tasha was fine. I don't even recall seeing Wesley.
• The Rat alien looks goofy when it tries to talk. Real goofy.
• Data doesn't understand a lot of words. He's been doing it throughout the series. Not knowing what a word is. That seems weird to me.
• Data actually smokes a real pipe. Enterprise is NOT a smoke-free spaceship.
• Possessed Picard acts weird and Troi wants him to explain his strange orders. He asks Troi if a captain should explain every order. She should have said that he probably should explain stupid ones. But she acts like he just caught her.
• Crusher and Riker confronting the possessed captain is super awkward. She orders him to sick bay and he flips it around and orders HER to sickbay. Check and mate.
• Rat aliens lasso Riker as he walks down the hall. They catch him and then look all disappointed. One of them says, 'wrong species.' Seriously, no one seems to care that they are clearly trying to kill each other.
• Also, no one cared at all that Singh was killed. Data can be forgiven for being silly, he has no social awareness to speak of. But the rest of the crew don't care at all. They are some cold hearted sons of bitches.

In summary. This episode is funny at times, sometimes unintentionally, but it can't be called good. Because it's not. It's not Code of Honor bad, but nothing is.

2 out of 5

Where No One Has Gone Before (S1 ep 6)

As I was saying last time, I just had an epiphany. I don't think I saw all the first season episodes as they aired. It was my Senior year of high school when I really fell in love with Star Trek. It all makes so much sense to me now.

That isn't to say that I didn't watch to the premier when I did - but my strongest memories are of watching the show each night in the former TOS time-slot at 11 p.m. I remember it so well because I was dating this girl at the time who was very sweet, very pretty, and very not the girl I wanted to be with. I was way too much of a coward to break up with her, so I did what any guy would do, I treated her like shit and hoped she would dump me.

Sheesh. I feel like such a heel thinking about it. All that stuff about the house was all true, but it wasn't until my Senior year that I really hit my Trek stride. So, my girlfriend would call me each night around 9 o'clock or so, and I think I mentioned we'd finally broken down and gotten a cordless phone (by we, I mean my mother). So we would talk on the phone and I'd wander around the house, play guitar (I had rock star dreams at the time), grunt when appropriate, and if the weather permitted, go sit outside on the tree swing in the front yard and look at the stars (not straight overhead though, there was a tree there).

And every night at about 10 minutes before Star Trek came on, I'd get real antsy. I'd start doing my best to wrap up the conversation so I could go watch that night's episode. I have strong memories of a few particular episodes during this time. But it was a real joy to watch them each night. Again, it staved off my blind fear of the Ouija board in the basement and the graveyard across the street. Let me remind you that I was alone in the new house at this time since the adults were working.

So, it was then that I saw this episode for the first time. My senior year of High School. It was in the third season of the show that I got addicted. I'm still a bit fuzzy on the details, as some memories of the show don't mesh well with the airdates, but it was a dark time for me (don't ask about the home life, it wasn't pleasant).

I do remember thinking this was crazy amazing when I saw it the first time.

But I had to go and be a dumbass and watch it again. It's funny, when I was watching the show obsessively a few years later, the first two seasons either weren't being shown as often in reruns, or I was choosing not to watch them when they aired.

But whatever the reason. I don't remember much about this episode.


What happened? Well, Starfleet insists that this guy, Kosinski should be able to help them improve the Enterprise's engine efficiency. He's a dick. Riker immediately pegs him as a fraud, as does Argyle - the guy who apparently replaced MacDougal as the new chief engineer - because A) he's a dick, and B) the technical specs he sent over are meaningless gibber.

Troi stops by to read his mind and quickly notes that she's getting a blank from this misunderstood genius's assistant. This, I might add, is the second week in a row that she's been useless in this capacity. But this is just part of my larger problem with things like telepathy in a show like this. It's as meaningless as Kosinski's technical specs (it might work sometimes, but no one can explain how).

Wesley shows up in engineering, I guess because like I mentioned in a previous entry, kids have complete run of the ship, apparently. Well, except for the bridge itself. But Wesley shows up, wearing another awful sweater and starts hanging out with the assistant. I, as an observant watcher, note that the assistant (later, we'll refer to him as the Traveler, so I'll start now) has hands as big as the Hulk, but with only two fingers on each hand. Yes, each finger is about the size of my closed fist.

I bring it up because his sole purpose, it appears, is to input data into the computer at a rate much faster than a mere human could. And again, his huge elephant fingers seem like they would make that absurdly difficult. Whatever, it's not a real reason to nitpick, but I'd have been much more impressed if he had 20 teeny little fingers or something. It would just make more sense.

It's the details, people.

So, after some fancy data entry by the Traveler, show almost vanishes into nothing, the ship warps a few million light-years into the Triangulum galaxy (M-33 to you Messier Catalog followers). Kosinski realizes he is even more of a genius than he previously thought, he even brags about his awesome Bessel Functions to an incredulous Riker and Argyle.

And Riker and Argyle are even more convinced now that Kosinski is a fraud. Which seems pretty weird to me, he did just shoot them off to another galaxy, but if there is anything that indicates a great storytelling trope, it's that the heroes can sniff out an evil or fraudulent person pretty much every time, even if all the evidence points to that not being true.

Wesley is ignored when he tries to tell Riker that something weird with the Traveler happened, and after a brief debate, Kosinski agrees to take them back to federation space.

Oops. Kosinski is a double amazing genius, because he took them about a billion light-years away this time. Except, this time he sorta realizes he may be in over his head. The Traveler fesses up that it was him all along and even though he's about to die he can probably get them back.

Which is great because, sigh, apparently, a billion light years away it's all thought - whatever that's supposed to mean - and they can possibly think themselves to death, or something. It made no sense to me, but the crew took it seriously. Picard ordered everyone on the ship to think good thoughts and then they went home.

What a shitty recap I gave. But you know what. This is for me, not you. So if you didn't like it you probably should find one of the many recaps that are, you know, good, and read one of them.

All that said, I did have a few thoughts:

• Wesley took a look at the Traveler's equations and said something like, 'Space and time and thought aren't the separate things they appear to be.' Okay, fine, that means less than Kosinski's rambling, but what really gets me was the Traveler's response which is something like, 'shut up, before they hear you!' It was really weird. 
• Part of my frustration with Star Trek is that it presents itself as Science Fiction show where everything in the universe is understandable. Then it descends into new agey blubberfest about pure thought means you can go really fast, or something. I don't know. This is why I actually prefer the technobabble the series got famous for later. Because that stuff may also be nonsense, but at least its it's not so easily recognizable as such because it gets covered up with better sounding words.
• Jesus, Tasha and those damned Rape Gangs again. This is three times in six episodes. 
• And those pure thought things, sometimes they're hallucinations and sometimes they're real. I mean, Picard is talking to his grandmother and Riker sees nothing, panicked people are running down the hall and Picard sees nothing. But then again, everyone sees the fire in the hallway. Who knows.
• So the Traveler is dying. Does this guy have absolutely no idea what he's doing? He'd been doing the same thing for some time on other ships, but loses his self-control on the Enterprise and is killing himself sending them all over the universe. Then Dr. Crusher says he's dying of fatigue. FATIGUE! What?
• The Traveler spews out his pure thought drivel and for the first time in the show, Kosinski notes that he's saying stupid things. Everyone metaphorically rolls their eyes at Kosinski. It's my firm belief, based on this episode, that in the Star Trek universe, being right about something is a matter of being nice, not, you know, about being right. Ugh. 
• We learn Wesley is like Mozart, except the universe is his music and that ship is his instrument. So Picard is sworn to secrecy by the Traveler but is also told to let the kid play his song, or something.
• Wesley is soon thereafter promoted to acting Ensign. 

In conclusion, this is one of those strange tales that make me angry, but I still kinda like. Only kinda, but I do. Tasha didn't have any ridiculous blow ups, Wesley wasn't too awful. The space shots were pretty (in a very dated kind of way). I'm not sure there are any episodes from this season I'd really be able to recommend, but this one at least hinted at what the show is sorta supposed to be about, exploring strange new worlds.

My rating?

2 out of 5

The Last Outpost (S1 ep 5)

So, some apologies for freaking out over the previous post about Code of Honor, which of course Jonathan Frakes himself called "... a racist piece of shit" episode. So, that's all I got to say about that.

But what I am here to discuss today is how, finally, after a couple of really, really bad installments, one finally showed up and had an actual story to tell.

Now, to back up a bit, I think I'd mentioned in one of my previous posts that I'd been living in a newly built home (one that I helped in the construction of) at the tender age of 15. Since my mother and step-father both worked graveyard shift I was usually at home alone, and totally freaking about about the haunted cemetery across the street. I don't really remember much about this particular episode save for the fact that it came on weekly, each Saturday, I think, around 7 p.m.

Except I don't recall ever watching this in that time slot, except for the premier. So this has me scratching my head a bit. Memory can be a fuzzy thing, and we are going back just a hair short of 30 years here trawling my memories.

I think that they were rerunning these episodes multiple times per week. Namely, on weeknights around 11. It's funny because we'd just gotten our first cordless phone and I was... sheesh, I'm getting really mixed up here. Because I just remembered that the story I am talking about took place during my SENIOR year of high school, nearly two years after this episode aired.

So scratch all that. I have no idea about what and where I was when this episode came out. Except to say that mullets weren't that big yet, but were the cutting edge of what's cool, and I also had a cool button up shirt that had tuxedo tails. It was the most badass thing I ever owned.

Whatever.

So, about this show. Look, I'm not saying it's good. It's not, not at all, but compared to the last two episodes this thing should be given an Emmy or something.

What happens? Well, we open with the Enterprise crew chasing down a Ferengi vessel that stole something. They're mysterious, roughly equal to the Federation in Tech, and apparently, eager to push the boundaries of what they can get away with.

So the Enterprise gets close and then their ship gets caught in a trap! The Ferengi have some super advanced tech that the Enterprise is helpless to fight. It has them trapped like a fly in amber. Stuck and without enough power to break away, or really fight back.

They figure out a delay in the Ferengi's ability to hold them in place, so they decide to go from reverse to warp 9 as fast as they can, because that should break them out of the hold. After a very embarrassing "Woo Wee!" from Geordi, the plan is executed and fails. Picard reluctantly calls the Ferengi to discuss terms of surrender.

BUT WAIT! The Ferengi agree to surrender to the Enterprise instead! They thought it was the Enterprise that trapped their ship and is threatening them! Wow! I'm using tons of exclamation points!!

Naturally, Picard pretends that was what he meant all along and blusters for a bit before the Ferengi realize he's full of shit. After an awkward moment or two they all agree to go to the planet and try to figure out who has them trapped.
Once there, they are met by an AI guardian that decides to judge the trespassers. Riker passes and the AI offers to kill the Ferengi for him. Riker says to leave them alone because they're pretty much just like humans a few centuries earlier. So they all go their separate ways.

Some thoughts:

"Tee hee!"

• According to the interwebs, the Ferengi were meant to the TNG's main antagonists throughout the series. Good god. That would have been horrible. These guys are a joke. They hop around like middle-aged men auditioning for a Michael Jackson video (hmmm... maybe I need to update my pop culture references) and hiss a lot and can barely speak with the huge teeth they are forced to wear. Thankfully, the reactions the whole world had after seeing them on screen squelched that idea almost immediately. No one could take them seriously, could they?
• All that said, I liked the ship design for the Ferengi. The mid section even extended out. Cool. 
• The camera work in this episode was interesting. The director, I suppose, was a fan of zooming in on characters. It was very noticeable. 
• Thank god Tasha nor Wesley did anything stupid in this episode. Actually, Wesley wasn't even in this one. But Tasha was. She was fine. Yippee!
• The children playing in the Captain's conference room was really weird. Can they just go wherever they want? Seriously, it's the flagship vessel of the Federation. That's just stupid. 
• The Chinese finger trap thing, Data is a robot without much in the way of sense. I assume he's not going to use his inhuman strength to get out, but surely he understands basic design well enough to understand how the things work. That said, I can forgive this because it was funny. It only doesn't make sense if you think about it for more than a second.
• Troi said, flat out, that she could sense nothing from the Ferengi, like they can mask her ability to read them. Then, a few scenes later, she can sense their duplicity. I can almost forgive this sort of thing if they were from different episodes, but these scenes took place only a few minutes apart. C'mon. At least pretend like your trying to be good. 
• So, Riker and Data give a list of the sins of the Federation. It's pretty awful. I'm thinking that the prime directive is an excuse to not have compassion for people in need. Riker seems especially proud of the sociopathic traits the Federation has exhibited to people that don't have warp tech. It's insane. 
• The guardian AI give a test, which is more or less, 'you need to know when to fight, and when not to fight.' So Riker stands there and doesn't flinch when the thing almost chops his head off. Then Riker responds with something like, 'Fear is the real enemy,' or something. Look, Sun Tzu was already mentioned earlier in the episode, and gets credit for this amazing wisdom here by the alien AI. All I know is that it didn't seem to make much sense to me. 
• Speaking of tests, this is the second time in four airings (I know, it's episode 5, don't make me explain this every week) that humanity is being put on trial by a super powerful alien. Except this time it's for humanity's current behaviors, not its history (and it's Riker, not Picard). How the hell do Romulans, Clingons, Ferengi, Cardassians, etc., survive when the universe it willing to kill anyone who isn't enlightened?
• And I haven't really brought it up before now, but humans as a group seem pretty smug about how evolved they are. If I were floating around out there in space I'd be tempted to tell them to shut up a bit about it. Very preachy of a show in these early episode.

In the end, this was fine. I actually sort of enjoyed it, in the so bad it's good sort of way (not like the last couple, which were in the 'so bad I threw up' category). I won't go so far as to recommend this to any future viewer, but this at least works as a story.

My rating?

2 out of 5

Code of Honor (S1 ep 4)

Oh god. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

I mistakenly believed that the previous episode was rock-bottom. But this, this was... I don't have words for what I've witnessed. Here is the trailer for the episode:

In case you didn't watch said trailer, it looks like a typical cheesy 80's tale. Fine. But what I watched was another level of awful, the likes of which I doubt you've seen before. It was so racist I had to check if the director was a member of the Clan (I don't know if he was, but he did quit in the middle of the episode, that's weird, right?).

In all, there is almost nothing redeeming about this episode in any way. But you know, it's Star Trek, so I have to tolerate it.

The synopsis, if I can unlock it form the vault I've locked it in inside my mind, is that this planet of black people have a vaccine that the Federation has no way of replicating, and so they allow these black people to kidnap Tasha Yar and refuse to take any action to save her and get the vaccine. Picard and the crew pander to them, cajole, sorta threaten... but they won't give up Tasha.

So, of course, Tasha admits that she's really turned on by this.

*Sigh*

Where was I? Oh yes, so Tasha agrees to fight this other person to the death for the hunky man that kidnapped her, or something. Of course, just so I can see how dangerous this fight is, the spiked boxing glove the ladies are sparing with goes flying off someone's hand during the fight and immediately lands in the lap of a spectator, killing him instantly.

Whatever, Tasha wins by killing the lady, then they beam them both to the enterprise, where the formerly dead lady is resurrected and tells off her man that she fought for and through some quirk of the law there, being dead for a few seconds means you can get divorced, or something, so she give the Enterprise the vaccine, maybe, I forget now, but they leave and I assume everyone was fine.

Some thoughts:

• This sucked. Hard. I rage-hated this episode. It's not the 'so bad it's good' variety. This was awful.
• Tasha, as a character, is moronic. I read that Denise Crosby left the role because she wasn't really happy on the show. I get it, if I was an actor and was given crap like this to perform, ugh. I think this episode was blissfully free of 'rape gang' talk. 
• According to Wikipedia, the director didn't quit, but was fired, supposedly because he was racist, so, that makes sense now. Even if it isn't true, it fits. 
• I'm thinking of watching future episodes twice, you know, making notes and stuff, because I really can't recall any of the things in this one that I might otherwise comment on. Also, I did watch it several weeks ago. But there is no way in hell I'm sitting through this again. 
• Oh yeah, Picard did give the main dude a gift. It was a thousand-year-old piece of art from China. So, was that really his to give? I mean, is he just gonna give the Mona Lisa to the Cardassians next week?  Seems criminal.

I haven't been keeping this one very close to the vest. This sucked monkey balls wasn't very good. I do think there is a good drinking game hidden in this episode that is waiting to come out, but that's about it. Has to be included in any conversation about the worst show of Trek ever produced, regardless of series.

Rating?

0 out of 5

The Naked Now (S1 ep 3)

Something about this episode struck me as familiar when I watched it the first time. We'd moved into a new house that we'd built earlier that summer. It was big deal for me. I was in high school, 10th grade, I think, and I'd spent the previous couple of years helping out building this place. It was a the first house we'd ever owned. My previous years were mostly hopping around from place to place - military housing, apartments, staying with extended family, a trailer for several years.... this was the only house I'd ever lived in that was mine.

Well, as a 10th grader, it wasn't really mine. But it sure felt that way. My mother and step-father both worked the graveyard shift and I would spend my nights at home alone. The place was out in the country and very close to an actual graveyard. Basically, I was a kid that wanted to pretend he was all big and brave and grown up, but I read comic books and watched my new favorite show Star Trek, and cowered in fear of all the awful things that could happen to me all alone in this new house.

I mentioned previously that I'd watched the entire run of The Original Series the summer prior to TNG's premier. So when this episode aired I was really pretty sure I'd seen this before. Turns out, I was right. The second episode (look, this could get confusing, but Encounter at Farpoint was a two-parter. So it's labeled as the first AND second episodes of the show, so week two is actually airing the third episode. Whatever. It's pretty standard of a practice. So even if this is technically considered the third episode, in my mind, it's number two) was a callback to the TOS episode, The Naked Now.

That's really all I remember about back then. Well, that and that Tasha bangs Data. Upon my epic quest to rewatch I was looking forward to the banging.

Turns out, there was 40 some-odd minutes of other stuff that happened too. My short recap goes something like this:

Space drunkenness strikes when an atom of carbon bonds to water (what?!) and it spreads by contact with already infected people (um, what?!). So when the deceased crew of a derelict  Federation vessel contaminates the Enterprise, it's time for a party.

Meanwhile, Wesley, who was fine in the previous episode, finally shows that he really is batshit insane when he sheepishly reveals that he role plays with a perfect facsimile of Picard's voice praising Wesley for being so great. Seriously, that is messed up.

Slowly the infection spreads throughout the ship and Wesley locks himself in engineering where Picard commands Chief Engineer MacDougal (who?) to fix that mess. All sorts of bad things happen.

In the end, Crusher comes up with a cure after Riker, Data, and Picard, discover the exact same thing happened on the Kirk era Enterprise (yes, yes it did) so they sorta copied Bones' cure and everything was fine. Also, a star exploded.

Oh, and Data and Tasha do smash (that's new slang for having sex, just learned it from my kid. Sigh), but it was very weird.

So, here are some thoughts:

• Seriously, Wesley went from being fine to being an awful character in one episode. Not a big fan of the shirt either.
• Troi was better - way less crying.
• Tasha Yar, um, so far, she's been mishandled as a character. And again with the rape gangs. Look, I'm not sure how it is in the 24th century, but in the 21st, smashing (ugh, I hate that term, I'll never use it again) a clearly drunk girl is at least worthy of mentioning as being unethical, and in some circles, considered rape. Data, who did get space-drunk after his play time with Tasha, was in his right mind when he decided to pleasure her. I don't know, the whole thing made me feel funny, and not in a sexy way.

  

  See? Superman hair

• Also, not a friend of sexy Tasha's hair. It would have looked fine on Superman though.
• Speaking of Data, his 'positronic' brain can get space-drunk too. Huh.
• So a drunken Wesley is capable of taking over the ship? Imagine what a sober bad guy can do.
• That exploding star. What the crap? I have no idea about that giant blob of star matter hurtling at the enterprise. Somebody explain that to me, because it sounds stupid.

In all, I hated this episode. It was bad bad bad. I would not recommend it to a friend, and cannot believe that I ever got past it to watch another one. Or anyone did. I have high hopes that Code of Honor will turn things around.

Rating?

1 out of 5

Encounter at Farpoint (S1 eps 1&2)

I was in high school when this show came out. I remember, oddly enough, reading about it in the paper. They were about to air a new Star Trek show. I’d spent the summer watching all the TOS episodes (they aired each weeknight at 11 p.m.) and had really dug it. It was my first time through all the old Kirk episodes and I was anxious for a bit more.

I can’t swear I watched the premier as it aired live. But I think I did. I remember sitting in my living room and watching Data throw a rock at the Holodeck wall. My mind was already blown. It wasn’t real? What?? The whole babbling brook was a computer simulation that people could just walk in to?

Yeah, great memories.

A few weeks ago I sat down to watch it again. Not one of those fancy ‘remastered’ blu ray editions. No, none of that. I watched it the way nature intended me to. In my underwear.

Wait. That’s not what I meant to say. I watched it in the crappy Netflix version that makes everything look wonderfully scratchy and poorly lit.

My take, quickly, is that this was clearly a two hour movie that was intended to be re-aired later in one hour chunks. The first half of the episode and the second half are pretty disparate. One half is about a portion of the crew wondering around the Farpoint station and marveling at how advanced the place is – with no explanation about why an open air market and an office is so amazing – and the other is about Q, the godlike entity that is about to judge humanity of its crimes (to itself) in the past.

Picard manages to turn the show-trial into an opportunity to show how amazingly evolved humanity has become (and Tasha Yar screams to Q about the Federation saving her from Rape Gangs). All they have to do is solve the mystery of Farpoint.

Easily said, I guess, but not so easily done. They totally had to wonder around some more, and wait until an angry alien started blowing stuff up. At which point they figure out that that Farpoint isn’t a station… it’s an alien!

They free the alien, Q begrudgingly accepts that humans are awesome, and the show is over.

A couple of things of note:

• Rape Gangs? That sounds pretty awful. But it also makes me wonder about where Tasha comes from. I thought she was human. Does that mean her home was a Federation colony gone bad? I’m sure it’s explained somewhere in the lore, but it really bugged me. I mean, how far does society have to fall before you have gangs of people running around looking to, primarily, rape people. Ugh.
• Troi is a weepy mess in the episode. At some point all the tears do is make me roll my eyes.
• Wesley was fine. I only remembered being somewhat annoyed with his character. No reason to hate on him here.
• The water in the holodeck was real. Again, I’m sure this is all worked out in some technical manuals. But I wanted to note that the water, it was water. Not the mere illusion of water.
• On a practical level, the production isn't that impressive. Right there in the opening sequence it appears the cameraman bumps into something on set and the camera jitters. It seemed very not-on-purpose. 
• Not thrilled with the jumpsuits.
• And man-dresses aren't great. 

  

  Man-Dresses!

In all, the show is oddly paced - way too much time dealing with the battle bridge and all that, then also too much time wondering around Farpoint Station and all that - but I was able to muddle through it just fine. I don't think a new viewer could sit through this and think it anything except torture. Still, it's where the legend began.


Rating?

2 out of 5