Depending on who you ask, the United States public school system is a huge waste of time, a factory to teach kids how to live life as factory workers, free daycare, a temple to learning, or a place to socialize future citizens. But I know what it really is and it's less cynical than you might expect from me. Sure, I could have been super jaded about the public school system but I was lucky and went to a Satanic elementary school (if you're curious, just search the blog for "Haman" or "Satanic elementary school" or "AC/DC"), so I had a love of learning about the Devil from an early age. Anyway, I believe the public school system (and while I can only truly speak to the United States' version, I'm going to assume it's very much the same concept across other nations and cultures) was the easiest solution to keeping civilization advancing. That probably sounds obvious and you're already in the comment section typing up responses such as "Like, DOI!" and "What a stunning reveleation /sarcasm" and "ur trash 1v1 me". (Believe me, the only correct way to end that sentence was with the punctuation outside of the quotes.)
Listen, I get it! It's a simple concept! But in our modern times when it seems like half of the country thinks education corrupts the youth (which, if you went to Haman Elementary in Santa Clara, California, it certainly fucking did. Long live my Lord and Master!), sometimes simple truths need to be beat like a living horse (that's what the phrase "No use in beating a dead horse" means, right? It means there is use in beating a living horse and we should beat them more. Right?). Or did I mean beat like a drum? You know what? Sometimes I wish I learned more than ritual summonings and secret hand gestures.
What I'm trying to say and which I won't make any clearer with this next statement is that the public school system was the best version of throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. In this analogy, "shit" is "knowledge" and "wall" is "children." Because the only way to advance civilization and continue to make things better for everybody is to make sure young people are caught up on the story. Sure, a lot of them (and I should probably say "a lot of us" because look at me as an adult: writing a blog about comic books and Star Trek) won't take up the torch to help advance civilization. But that's the thing. You don't know which kid is going to make the connections to establish the next thing that helps civilization mature. At the very least, you know that if you don't throw shit at children, they're never going to have the opportunity to understand exactly where they are in civilization's timeline and how they can make it better going forward. Also, can we sometimes just throw real shit at children because now that idea is in my head and it's not going anywhere?
If we break this system, we are accepting eventual stagnation and a probable decline in the overall levels of satisfaction with life. And as we can see in our modern times, a growing percentage of unimaginative dullards don't fucking care about progress. Education teaches their kids that their parents were unimaginative dullards and so those unimaginative dullards would rather destroy the educational system than maybe look inward and try not to be an unimaginative dullard. And let's not forget about the people who want to destroy the system simply because it uplifts everybody and not just the people who look like they do.
Obviously the public school system doesn't present enough material to create an adult that will truly help drive humanity's balls through civilization's goalposts (help me. I think I have some kind of sickness that makes me speak in analogies, sort of like Lyme Disease but if I were bitten by a conservative talking head). The public school system is just to fire the curiosity of the children so they'll strive to become more educated on their own. And at one time, college was the perfect way to specialize and really get in-depth on the things which really held the child's interest. But, once again, a certain section of the population viewed higher education as a slippery slope to being a decent person and so they've demonized it. One way to make a higher education less possible was to make it less affordable. Although making college less accessible was probably a backlash to college students protesting the government's participation in certain wars which made the government say, "Where are we going to get all the young dead people we'll need for future wars? I mean, they'll only be dead after! We're not into necromancy. Not everybody went to Haman Elementary." Free or affordable college just gives less privileged young people more options than the ones people who don't want things to change want them to have. After all, job providers aren't really as good at providing jobs as they seem to want everybody to think they are. So they need a system which forces people into debt, or convinces them to saddle themselves with a huge mortgage, or hypnotizes them into thinking children are great things to have in their lives so that they'll always need the shitty job they have to pay for their tiny sentient wells where money is thrown.
I wish I was more coherent and less digressive than I am so I could get my point across. But this sometimes happens after I've read two or three comic books by Ann Nocenti. Let me just take a moment to cleanse my aura and I'll try to be more succinct. "Master Satan, please direct my aggression and blood lust into a fine focal point as sharp as the tip of the Lance of Longinus so that I may do your bidding to corrupt His lost lambs and bring them to the beastly reality of this cum-stained world. Thank you my Father. I count the days until I will be welcomed into your embrace of unholy fornication."
In summation, education can only be attained by stacking one block upon the other. You need a system which both teaches the basics of how we got to where we are and also weeds out those that don't fucking give a shit about climbing the pyramid of blocks that's already there to add more to the top. Some people are meant to simply take care of the foundational blocks. Some people will climb partway up and improve the blocks in the middle. But you need a system to find the people who will craft the blocks for the future top of the pyramid. And as an added benefit, the higher one climbs, the better a person they generally become. Sure, you still have many climbers who only see profit in the journey. But some of them do their part as well (granted, not a lot of them. Most of them just want to find a way to keep all the blocks for themselves and establish a toll gate halfway up the pyramid and then convince everybody that the toll gate has always been there and it was never a free climb at all). And you also have people who consider the education gained as a simple corruption of the soul. But fuck those people. They pretend the pyramid doesn't even exist and only want to tear it down anyway.
Now imagine how big this pyramid must be in the 24th Century! It's so big that it allows people to pursue whatever they want to pursue without being shackled to a daily grind just to pay bills. Fucking imagine that, right?! A civilization so prosperous and educated about the nature of reality that nobody in the system feels compelled to force other people to throw their lives away so those people can earn somebody else another buck. What a healthy civilization! Now imagine that civilization butting heads with our 21st Century reality. Imagine how much we'd despise those 24th Century bastards! Don't they care about making another buck?! What are they thinking?! I bet it would end up in a battle just like "The Battle" in this episode!
Yes, we are the Ferengi. And, yes, I'm probably not going to say much about this episode. Picard gets mind-controlled by capitalism and almost destroys socialism. But he doesn't and the Ferengi learn a lesson about greed sometimes being bad which is a really hard lesson for them to swallow due to their big ears (because when they swallow I imagine their ears pop a lot?).
The main thing I learned from this episode is that every great starship captain in the Federation has a tactical maneuver named after them. If you haven't come up with a new innovation for space battles, you're a piece of shit not worthy to captain a Starfleet vessel. And that's all I have to say about that.
Showing posts with label Star Trek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Trek. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Monday, May 4, 2020
Star Trek: The Next Generation, S1, E7: "Justice"
For some reason, this episode is the one I remembered most from my last viewing of the series. And I say "for some reason" because I don't want to admit it's due to the skimpy outfits worn by the men and women who run everywhere and constantly ask the crew of the Enterprise if they're ready to fuck. Every time I see this episode, I wonder how many local syndicates refused to air it. "This week on Star Trek: The Next Generation, the crew of the Enterprise take shore leave on an orgy planet where we learn that Klingons choke each other near to death when they fuck."
We don't actually learn what Klingons do when they fuck; we only learn that Worf proclaims that non-Klingons couldn't handle his passion and his huge spiny cock. Okay, we don't learn about Worf's cock either but you know it's terrifying.
If I was initially confused as to why Netflix chose to rate Star Trek: The Next Generation "sex, fear," then the episode "Justice" cleared up that confusion. The orgy planet Edo invites travelers from across the galaxy to come fuck the entirety of its populace because they have no laws and no standards. Well, actually, they have one law and it's a fucking doozy. It's such a doozy that they don't announce it to the people beaming down to their planet with raging boners.
No wait. I got it wrong. The planet Edo has one punishment: death. Apparently they have a whole bunch of fucking laws that nobody breaks because the punishment is death. It's like Singapore in space but with more sex and less Singapore Slings. You would think more people would have stumbled into this death penalty but I guess most visitors to the planet are too busy getting their asses licked to accidentally break any of the planet's laws. Plus the penalty for breaking a law is like the lottery: only random sections of the planet are being monitored at any one time and you're only convicted if you break a law in an area currently being monitored. That's the whole premise for the planet being so peaceful. Nobody does anything wrong because they might be killed. And yet, what's the difference if the entire planet were constantly monitored instead of certain sections? I guess the difference is the amount of person hours needed for surveillance. It's just more economical.
Being that everybody is almost constantly fucking and fucking isn't against the law, nobody breaks any laws. People also run from one place to the next for some reason that I either missed because I was gawping at the barely covered women's asses and the barely covered men's moose knuckles or which is never explained. I suppose I would run everywhere as well if I was going from one place where I just got fucked to another place where I was going to get fucked again.
This would have been the greatest episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation if only they'd left Wesley Crusher aboard the Enterprise. But instead they decide to bring a minor to a fuck planet because this is the 24th Century and they've jettisoned all of Earth's ancient prudish beliefs and behaviors. The people of Edo aren't sure how humans react to their youth being fucked by adults so they compensate by sending Wesley off with a coterie of Edo teenagers. But instead of going off and getting a handjob in a bush like any other teenager from any century across Earth's history, Wesley decides to teach the Edo kids how to play catch. It's a fucking travesty! For all the reasons modern viewers despise the character of Wesley Crusher, I never see any of them point to this episode where the idiot would rather play catch than get jerked off by five other young people. I was fine with Wesley as a character until this episode where he puts everybody's lives at risk and forces Picard to break the Prime Directive simply because he was too uncomfortable to get a handy.
I've already explained the best parts of this episode (the constant sex) so there really isn't much more to say. Wesley breaks a law by accidentally falling on some mini-greenhouses. He's sentenced to death and Picard has to beam down to the planet and demand they return Wesley unharmed. The people of Edo are all, "Dude. We can't do that. We have a god that's actually a satellite who will fucking destroy you if you break our one law and/or punishment. Whatever. We were just minding our own business licking buttholes and you've messed it all up!" But Picard, wanting to get fucked by Beverly and not by a bunch of random hot people on Edo, risks everybody's life by declaring he will break the Prime Directive to save the young man. The main problem is that the Francis E. Dec God Satellite is judging Picard by Picard's own beliefs. So if Picard breaks the Prime Directive, the God Satellite will have reason to destroy them for not playing fair. But Picard is willing to take that risk. Luckily, Riker pipes up with some sentimental human nonsense about true justice and the God Satellite decides that it was being unfair. It lets them all go and the only stain left over from the entire experience is how little Jean-Luc Picard respects the Federation's Prime Directive. It's almost as if Edo's one law came into conflict with Starfleet's one law and Picard decided neither were worth upholding.
Not that I'm against Picard's decision! I fucking can't stand the way people decide to base everything they believe on some kind of unchanging foundational belief structure. You can't have true justice without treating every individual situation as exactly that: an individual situation with its own set of variables which make it different from every other situation that is somewhat similar to it. Precedents in court decisions simply exist to make future court decisions easier. But they rarely overlap completely and in such a manner as to completely wipe out possible exemptions and extenuating circumstances. Picard was right to challenge both Edo's law and the Prime Directive in this instance. Wesley could not have known about the planet's law because nobody told it to him. Also, Wesley didn't break any law with any intent or malice. It was an absolute accident and for the entire populace of Edo to just shrug that off because that's the way things are and because they're super horny to get back to fucking was unjust. Just as it would have been unjust for Picard to shrug off saving Wesley due to the Prime Directive demanding he obey every stupid law of every stupid planet on which they're guests. And maybe that's why the name of this episode was "Justice." Because Picard and Riker's speech prove that the only true justice is examining the situation at hand and coming to a conclusion based on the variables presented in that situation alone.
The episode should end with Picard taking a huge shit on a Starfleet manual but it doesn't for some reason. Super disappointing.
We don't actually learn what Klingons do when they fuck; we only learn that Worf proclaims that non-Klingons couldn't handle his passion and his huge spiny cock. Okay, we don't learn about Worf's cock either but you know it's terrifying.
If I was initially confused as to why Netflix chose to rate Star Trek: The Next Generation "sex, fear," then the episode "Justice" cleared up that confusion. The orgy planet Edo invites travelers from across the galaxy to come fuck the entirety of its populace because they have no laws and no standards. Well, actually, they have one law and it's a fucking doozy. It's such a doozy that they don't announce it to the people beaming down to their planet with raging boners.
No wait. I got it wrong. The planet Edo has one punishment: death. Apparently they have a whole bunch of fucking laws that nobody breaks because the punishment is death. It's like Singapore in space but with more sex and less Singapore Slings. You would think more people would have stumbled into this death penalty but I guess most visitors to the planet are too busy getting their asses licked to accidentally break any of the planet's laws. Plus the penalty for breaking a law is like the lottery: only random sections of the planet are being monitored at any one time and you're only convicted if you break a law in an area currently being monitored. That's the whole premise for the planet being so peaceful. Nobody does anything wrong because they might be killed. And yet, what's the difference if the entire planet were constantly monitored instead of certain sections? I guess the difference is the amount of person hours needed for surveillance. It's just more economical.
Being that everybody is almost constantly fucking and fucking isn't against the law, nobody breaks any laws. People also run from one place to the next for some reason that I either missed because I was gawping at the barely covered women's asses and the barely covered men's moose knuckles or which is never explained. I suppose I would run everywhere as well if I was going from one place where I just got fucked to another place where I was going to get fucked again.
This would have been the greatest episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation if only they'd left Wesley Crusher aboard the Enterprise. But instead they decide to bring a minor to a fuck planet because this is the 24th Century and they've jettisoned all of Earth's ancient prudish beliefs and behaviors. The people of Edo aren't sure how humans react to their youth being fucked by adults so they compensate by sending Wesley off with a coterie of Edo teenagers. But instead of going off and getting a handjob in a bush like any other teenager from any century across Earth's history, Wesley decides to teach the Edo kids how to play catch. It's a fucking travesty! For all the reasons modern viewers despise the character of Wesley Crusher, I never see any of them point to this episode where the idiot would rather play catch than get jerked off by five other young people. I was fine with Wesley as a character until this episode where he puts everybody's lives at risk and forces Picard to break the Prime Directive simply because he was too uncomfortable to get a handy.
I've already explained the best parts of this episode (the constant sex) so there really isn't much more to say. Wesley breaks a law by accidentally falling on some mini-greenhouses. He's sentenced to death and Picard has to beam down to the planet and demand they return Wesley unharmed. The people of Edo are all, "Dude. We can't do that. We have a god that's actually a satellite who will fucking destroy you if you break our one law and/or punishment. Whatever. We were just minding our own business licking buttholes and you've messed it all up!" But Picard, wanting to get fucked by Beverly and not by a bunch of random hot people on Edo, risks everybody's life by declaring he will break the Prime Directive to save the young man. The main problem is that the Francis E. Dec God Satellite is judging Picard by Picard's own beliefs. So if Picard breaks the Prime Directive, the God Satellite will have reason to destroy them for not playing fair. But Picard is willing to take that risk. Luckily, Riker pipes up with some sentimental human nonsense about true justice and the God Satellite decides that it was being unfair. It lets them all go and the only stain left over from the entire experience is how little Jean-Luc Picard respects the Federation's Prime Directive. It's almost as if Edo's one law came into conflict with Starfleet's one law and Picard decided neither were worth upholding.
Not that I'm against Picard's decision! I fucking can't stand the way people decide to base everything they believe on some kind of unchanging foundational belief structure. You can't have true justice without treating every individual situation as exactly that: an individual situation with its own set of variables which make it different from every other situation that is somewhat similar to it. Precedents in court decisions simply exist to make future court decisions easier. But they rarely overlap completely and in such a manner as to completely wipe out possible exemptions and extenuating circumstances. Picard was right to challenge both Edo's law and the Prime Directive in this instance. Wesley could not have known about the planet's law because nobody told it to him. Also, Wesley didn't break any law with any intent or malice. It was an absolute accident and for the entire populace of Edo to just shrug that off because that's the way things are and because they're super horny to get back to fucking was unjust. Just as it would have been unjust for Picard to shrug off saving Wesley due to the Prime Directive demanding he obey every stupid law of every stupid planet on which they're guests. And maybe that's why the name of this episode was "Justice." Because Picard and Riker's speech prove that the only true justice is examining the situation at hand and coming to a conclusion based on the variables presented in that situation alone.
The episode should end with Picard taking a huge shit on a Starfleet manual but it doesn't for some reason. Super disappointing.
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Star Trek: The Next Generation, S1, E6: "Lonely Among Us"
This episode contains an episode that we never get to see and I'm a little bit upset about it. The Enterprise picks up dignitaries from two races who hate the fuck out of each other. One of them eventually winds up dead and the mystery is left to be solved by Riker at the end of the episode. Maybe it was a crossover episode with The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Or maybe the mystery wasn't much of a mystery. The victim was killed by one of the other race's dignitaries and now it was basically just a whole lot of paper work to settle the matter (which is probably why it was funny that Riker was being forced to handle it?). Although it would have been nice to see Riker and Data discuss old episodes of Scooby Doo only to have Data rip the head off of an alien at the end thinking he was unmasking it.
The "two alien species aren't getting along and are giving Picard a headache" plot is a good example of an ST:TNG parallel plot that doesn't really matter which I mentioned in the previous review. Instead of looking at a ST:TNG episode as having a Plot A and a Plot B, we should think of ST:TNG as having Plot What The Crew Was Doing and Plot What Fucking Happens To Them As They Tried To Do The Other Plot. I had never really noticed this aspect of the show until this rewatching of the series and it's a good example of deconstructing a show correctly. What I wanted to initially do was hate the show for not doing the thing I expected the show to do. "Resolve both fucking plots," I scream into my Hamms Beer, clutching my testicles so hard I almost vomit. Then I'd go onto the ST:TNG Reddit and begin pointing out how stupid the writers of the fucking show are because they're too dumb to figure out an ending that satisfies the two parallel plots! But instead, I allowed myself time to think, "Okay. This is a thing which I don't like. Why don't I like it? How does it figure into the show on its own merits and not according to my brain which is thinking up ways to insult the writers' mothers' choice of procreative partner?" Whenever something happens in a book or film that you think is stupid and incorrect, you owe it to the creators of that thing to look at it anew, giving it the benefit of the doubt. The problem with most criticism of art is that the critic thinks they're the smartest motherfucker in the room and anything they initially think is beyond reproach.
In this episode, we learn that there's a planet called Parliament. It's a neutral planet where alien races hold conferences and diplomatic meetings. Hopefully we'll get an episode later that really goes in-depth into how the planet is run. I hope the episode is called "November Fifth" and it ends with the entire planet being blown to bits.
Even though it's probably more interesting, let's forget about Plot What They Were Doing. It's never resolved and just adds a little background entertainment as two different groups of aliens constantly try to murder each other on board (and one of them eventually succeeds and it's treated like a fucking joke! I guess it is kind of funny to have a bunch of cat assholes trying to murder a bunch of snake pricks who also want to see the cat assholes die in a fire). The Plot What Fucking Happens To Them As They Tried To Do The Other Plot happens when they fly too close to a space electrical storm. I don't know if electrical storms can actually take place in space but I also don't know if a fancy man with a penchant for playing dress up can create matter at will, teleport people around the universe, and fall in love with a Starfleet officer so I'm willing to accept it as science fiction fact. What I'm also willing to accept because it's a made up story about humans in space in the future is that the electrical pulses are sentient beings. It makes sense, right? It's like the Enterprise flew too close to a giant space brain and one of the brain's thoughts (maybe a stray thought about how it wouldn't mind fucking that sexy moon which looked like Felicity Kendal's ass) accidentally boarded the Enterprise. That's actually not a great simile unless we also believe that each of our thoughts are individual beings and every thought we ever have exist as members of a giant family that constitute our brains. Because it's more like some mischievous static electricity based teenager hops on board the Enterprise to check it out and then gets stuck as the Enterprise flies off toward Parliament.
This entity fucks up the systems when it begins to panic, realizing the Enterprise has pulled it far from home. It begins trying to learn how to fly the ship itself so it can turn it around and, in doing so, kills Engineer Singh (which means I still don't know who's in charge of the engines and giving all the power they've got). Once everybody realizes what's happening (because the entity takes over Picard and, when the crew can't quite tell what's going on, it tells them directly through Picard), they decide to forgive it and fly it home. Oh, it definitely happens with a lot more drama than that but I think I covered the important bits.
Once they return to the space brain, the crew realize Picard is going to transport himself into space to live with the brain pulse people. Counselor Hotpants is all "What the fuck?" and Doctor MILF is all "What is he doing?" and Future Sunglasses is all "Whoa whoa whoa!" and Angry Face is all "RAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!" and Horny Police Chief is all "I can't let you do this, Captain." But the Captain does it because I don't think he really has a choice. The alien acts like it's Picard's idea to join him but I think Picard is probably screaming obscenities at it in the back of his head. Nobody keeps a close eye on Picard or sedates him so he manages to sneak off and zap himself into space as transporter data.
Almost immediately, Picard regrets it. The teenage electrical pulse abandons him to go fuck off with its mates and Picard's mind is left to bounce around unincorporated for the rest of eternity. Luckily he can still feel feelings as transporter data. Deanna Troi feels his loneliness mere seconds after Riker is all, "I guess the ship is mine! Let's go to Parliament!" (which happens mere seconds after Picard zaps himself into space). And this is when we learn too much about the ship's transporter system.
Apparently the data of anybody beaming out of the transporter gets stored in the computer. That means you can replicate the person at the point they last used the transporter. I don't think you can create a new version of the person willy-nilly! You still need what naive people call "the soul" or something. So they lock onto Picard's loneliness and replicate Picard from his last known data. Which means he doesn't remember the experience of being a space current. Which also means this isn't the real Picard! Maybe I shouldn't say "real". I mean "original." My theory is that the moment Picard transported off of the ship, he was as good as dead. Sure, maybe the Betazoid (Betazed?) could still feel the remnants of his existential loneliness that brought him to the point of committing suicide. But it's essentially not Picard, just brainwave detritus and emotional flotsam. But through replicater and transporter technology along with a final blueprint of Picard's body, the crew of the Enterprise basically clone Picard. Sure, it's Picard with all of his memories and thoughts and feelings. But it's not the original Picard. That one's fucking gone, man.
This theory makes me fucking hate the transporter because now I just see it as a suicide machine that disintegrates the original person and merely clones them on the other end. How would anybody know if the person stepping into the transporter was killed and then cloned on the planet below? Sure, it has all the thoughts and memories and personality of the person who stepped into the transporter so it wouldn't matter to anybody else. But the thoughts and memories of the person who stepped into the transporter end when the system is engaged. It's lights out for the Away Team! Now meet your new Away Team: clones of the original Away Team! And then when they transport back, it's now clones of the clones! Holy fuck, I'm getting sick just thinking about all the fucking death of ego on this ship!
It's too depressing thinking of the transporter as a suicide machine so I'm just going to pretend it works like the show tells me it does. That being said, it doesn't mean original Picard survived this. He definitely died. So from now on, I guess I have to refer to Picard as Picard II.
The "two alien species aren't getting along and are giving Picard a headache" plot is a good example of an ST:TNG parallel plot that doesn't really matter which I mentioned in the previous review. Instead of looking at a ST:TNG episode as having a Plot A and a Plot B, we should think of ST:TNG as having Plot What The Crew Was Doing and Plot What Fucking Happens To Them As They Tried To Do The Other Plot. I had never really noticed this aspect of the show until this rewatching of the series and it's a good example of deconstructing a show correctly. What I wanted to initially do was hate the show for not doing the thing I expected the show to do. "Resolve both fucking plots," I scream into my Hamms Beer, clutching my testicles so hard I almost vomit. Then I'd go onto the ST:TNG Reddit and begin pointing out how stupid the writers of the fucking show are because they're too dumb to figure out an ending that satisfies the two parallel plots! But instead, I allowed myself time to think, "Okay. This is a thing which I don't like. Why don't I like it? How does it figure into the show on its own merits and not according to my brain which is thinking up ways to insult the writers' mothers' choice of procreative partner?" Whenever something happens in a book or film that you think is stupid and incorrect, you owe it to the creators of that thing to look at it anew, giving it the benefit of the doubt. The problem with most criticism of art is that the critic thinks they're the smartest motherfucker in the room and anything they initially think is beyond reproach.
In this episode, we learn that there's a planet called Parliament. It's a neutral planet where alien races hold conferences and diplomatic meetings. Hopefully we'll get an episode later that really goes in-depth into how the planet is run. I hope the episode is called "November Fifth" and it ends with the entire planet being blown to bits.
Even though it's probably more interesting, let's forget about Plot What They Were Doing. It's never resolved and just adds a little background entertainment as two different groups of aliens constantly try to murder each other on board (and one of them eventually succeeds and it's treated like a fucking joke! I guess it is kind of funny to have a bunch of cat assholes trying to murder a bunch of snake pricks who also want to see the cat assholes die in a fire). The Plot What Fucking Happens To Them As They Tried To Do The Other Plot happens when they fly too close to a space electrical storm. I don't know if electrical storms can actually take place in space but I also don't know if a fancy man with a penchant for playing dress up can create matter at will, teleport people around the universe, and fall in love with a Starfleet officer so I'm willing to accept it as science fiction fact. What I'm also willing to accept because it's a made up story about humans in space in the future is that the electrical pulses are sentient beings. It makes sense, right? It's like the Enterprise flew too close to a giant space brain and one of the brain's thoughts (maybe a stray thought about how it wouldn't mind fucking that sexy moon which looked like Felicity Kendal's ass) accidentally boarded the Enterprise. That's actually not a great simile unless we also believe that each of our thoughts are individual beings and every thought we ever have exist as members of a giant family that constitute our brains. Because it's more like some mischievous static electricity based teenager hops on board the Enterprise to check it out and then gets stuck as the Enterprise flies off toward Parliament.
This entity fucks up the systems when it begins to panic, realizing the Enterprise has pulled it far from home. It begins trying to learn how to fly the ship itself so it can turn it around and, in doing so, kills Engineer Singh (which means I still don't know who's in charge of the engines and giving all the power they've got). Once everybody realizes what's happening (because the entity takes over Picard and, when the crew can't quite tell what's going on, it tells them directly through Picard), they decide to forgive it and fly it home. Oh, it definitely happens with a lot more drama than that but I think I covered the important bits.
Once they return to the space brain, the crew realize Picard is going to transport himself into space to live with the brain pulse people. Counselor Hotpants is all "What the fuck?" and Doctor MILF is all "What is he doing?" and Future Sunglasses is all "Whoa whoa whoa!" and Angry Face is all "RAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHH!" and Horny Police Chief is all "I can't let you do this, Captain." But the Captain does it because I don't think he really has a choice. The alien acts like it's Picard's idea to join him but I think Picard is probably screaming obscenities at it in the back of his head. Nobody keeps a close eye on Picard or sedates him so he manages to sneak off and zap himself into space as transporter data.
Almost immediately, Picard regrets it. The teenage electrical pulse abandons him to go fuck off with its mates and Picard's mind is left to bounce around unincorporated for the rest of eternity. Luckily he can still feel feelings as transporter data. Deanna Troi feels his loneliness mere seconds after Riker is all, "I guess the ship is mine! Let's go to Parliament!" (which happens mere seconds after Picard zaps himself into space). And this is when we learn too much about the ship's transporter system.
Apparently the data of anybody beaming out of the transporter gets stored in the computer. That means you can replicate the person at the point they last used the transporter. I don't think you can create a new version of the person willy-nilly! You still need what naive people call "the soul" or something. So they lock onto Picard's loneliness and replicate Picard from his last known data. Which means he doesn't remember the experience of being a space current. Which also means this isn't the real Picard! Maybe I shouldn't say "real". I mean "original." My theory is that the moment Picard transported off of the ship, he was as good as dead. Sure, maybe the Betazoid (Betazed?) could still feel the remnants of his existential loneliness that brought him to the point of committing suicide. But it's essentially not Picard, just brainwave detritus and emotional flotsam. But through replicater and transporter technology along with a final blueprint of Picard's body, the crew of the Enterprise basically clone Picard. Sure, it's Picard with all of his memories and thoughts and feelings. But it's not the original Picard. That one's fucking gone, man.
This theory makes me fucking hate the transporter because now I just see it as a suicide machine that disintegrates the original person and merely clones them on the other end. How would anybody know if the person stepping into the transporter was killed and then cloned on the planet below? Sure, it has all the thoughts and memories and personality of the person who stepped into the transporter so it wouldn't matter to anybody else. But the thoughts and memories of the person who stepped into the transporter end when the system is engaged. It's lights out for the Away Team! Now meet your new Away Team: clones of the original Away Team! And then when they transport back, it's now clones of the clones! Holy fuck, I'm getting sick just thinking about all the fucking death of ego on this ship!
It's too depressing thinking of the transporter as a suicide machine so I'm just going to pretend it works like the show tells me it does. That being said, it doesn't mean original Picard survived this. He definitely died. So from now on, I guess I have to refer to Picard as Picard II.
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Star Trek: The Next Generation, S1, E5: "Where No One Has Gone Before"
I'm a cynical reviewer first and a fan second and the first part of me believes this episode was written simply to tell the audience that Wesley Crusher was important. This was the episode that said, "Look. We know you Star Trek fans have a lot of theories about everything and take everything way too seriously. You all know Picard hates children and, even if he wants to appear likable to them, you can't understand why he keeps letting Wesley on the bridge. Well this story should shut you up!" I don't know if it shut anybody up because the "I hate Wesley Crusher" Trekkies are pretty vocal about hating Wesley Crusher. Sometimes they're so vocal about hating Wesley that they convince themselves that they hate Wil Wheaton too. Which is weird because haven't they heard of acting and writing and television shows before? Who watches an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and thinks, "I don't like that Wesley Crusher. Why would Wil Wheaton invent the character and write all of this dialogue I hate and wear such ugly sweaters?"
Obviously Wesley Crusher was meant to have an important role in the show. While Star Trek has always been touted as being a show which embraced diversity (even if, at times, it stumbles in the execution), it completely left out the youth. And while many kids watched and were inspired by the show without needing a gateway character that represented them, you can't argue with the Robin Effect (no matter how often and vehemently you'd like to). Introducing a younger character that kids can identify with works. I don't know why it works since even as a small child, I identified with old men. George Burns and Art Carney's Going in Style was one of my favorite movies. I used to ask my mom if I could go play with John, the oldest person on the block on which I lived. My favorite teacher in elementary school was an old man who taught the Speech Therapy class (which I was in but I have no memory of why. Did I lisp? Was I just so non-verbal that somebody thought a little individual instruction would help? Or did I notice this old guy teaching a special speech class during regular class and just decided to be nearly incomprehensible so I could get into his class? We'll never know because my memory for detail is terrible! But that's just my own individual anecdotal evidence that the Robin Effect is shit. The real evidence is that fans of Batman comic books loved Robin when he was introduced and didn't instantly think, "Well this is weird and awkward and highly inappropriate. What is this rich old guy doing dressing up a kid in a suggestive outfit and taking him out into the dangerous streets of Gotham late at night?" No, most kids just thought, "Cool! I could hang out with Batman too!"
But even if Wesley was a way for growing kids to see themselves as part of the crew of the Enterprise, a shitload of viewers were still going to need to be convinced that he had a place on the bridge. And that's what this episode does. And even if Wesley dresses himself like a 13th century bard who happened to have purchased his wardrobe from a time traveler from the 80s, you can't deny he's a fucking genius. I mean, you might have been able to deny that before this episode. But this episode is all, "Look at this alien! He has powers and abilities far beyond that of human beings. And he understands the relationship between time and space and thought. And guess which character totally gets what this super genius alien is saying? It's Wesley! Wesley noticed the alien was behind the impossible travel. Wesley understood what the alien was doing with the warp drive. And Wesley was all, 'I get it! Thought and space and time are, like, the same thing!'"
Some viewers probably rolled their eyes and, entrenched in the adult cynicism that, years ago, had murdered their childlike sense of wonder, thought, "That Traveler fellow wants to fuck Wesley so hard." And those viewers might have missed the point that Wesley was intuitive and smart and special. So before the Traveler disappears into the realm of thoughtspacetime, he pulls Picard aside and says, "That Wesley is a special boy. You know, like Mozart but maybe even more special. You have to encourage him because remember how I just said he's going to be super duper important and special? But you can't tell him or anybody else! This message is just for you and the old fart viewers who can't stop wondering why you'd constantly let this kid on the bridge or come with you on away expeditions or let him tinker with engineering and the holodeck. Every future episode of the show should just continue as normal, as if I'd never revealed this secret that totally needed to be revealed because the writers and producers of this show know how fucking vocal their Goddamn overzealous fan base can be. Without this aside to you, Picard, they'd be writing letters about Starfleet protocol and how that dumbass weird sweater wearing kid shouldn't be anywhere near a photon torpedo launch button. But now they have to swallow it because it's canon that Wesley is special and being groomed for my bid dick. That's a metaphor for his future place in the world of thoughtspacetime! Everybody will be so surprised by the arc we have for this genius kid! Hoo boy! That is, if he survives the free sex planet episode. Which he somehow will due to a super anti-climactic ending which we'll get to."
As for the actual plot of this episode, it's barely worth mentioning. The crew of the Enterprise wind up in the far flung reaches of the universe where their every thought can suddenly transform reality. Picard understands the import of this and, to get home, encourages the crew to think about nothing but getting home safely. Which is really odd because as soon as it seems like maybe they won't be able to get home, Picard says, "We're not going to make it!" What the fuck, Picard?! Thoughts become reality in this place and you're on the bridge spouting out negative shit like that! Holy fuck, I'd relieve you from duty immediately if I were Doctor Milf Crusher!
I was mostly disappointed by this episode because everybody was making their thoughts real and yet we didn't find out who the horniest crew member of the Enterprise was. Sure, Worf made an old pet real and then Tasha made an old pet real (before she then made the Rape Gangs real! Sheesh, Tasha! Think of something other than Rape Gangs for once! Although, I suppose if I were constantly chased by Rape Gangs my entire childhood, I'd definitely never shut up about it ever. "Oh, you're sorry my soup is cold? Well I fucking had to evade Rape Gangs my entire childhood so I'd hope being sorry for cold soup is the least you could fucking do!"). But how come nobody made a bunch of naked people sucking and licking them all over real? I suppose it wasn't needed since we already know Tasha Yar is the horniest member of the crew.
One crew member made the hallway erupt into fire and the Non-Certified Spouse was all, "Why was he thinking about fire?" Good question! We now know which crew member to investigate when the Ten-Forward lounge burns down.
Obviously Wesley Crusher was meant to have an important role in the show. While Star Trek has always been touted as being a show which embraced diversity (even if, at times, it stumbles in the execution), it completely left out the youth. And while many kids watched and were inspired by the show without needing a gateway character that represented them, you can't argue with the Robin Effect (no matter how often and vehemently you'd like to). Introducing a younger character that kids can identify with works. I don't know why it works since even as a small child, I identified with old men. George Burns and Art Carney's Going in Style was one of my favorite movies. I used to ask my mom if I could go play with John, the oldest person on the block on which I lived. My favorite teacher in elementary school was an old man who taught the Speech Therapy class (which I was in but I have no memory of why. Did I lisp? Was I just so non-verbal that somebody thought a little individual instruction would help? Or did I notice this old guy teaching a special speech class during regular class and just decided to be nearly incomprehensible so I could get into his class? We'll never know because my memory for detail is terrible! But that's just my own individual anecdotal evidence that the Robin Effect is shit. The real evidence is that fans of Batman comic books loved Robin when he was introduced and didn't instantly think, "Well this is weird and awkward and highly inappropriate. What is this rich old guy doing dressing up a kid in a suggestive outfit and taking him out into the dangerous streets of Gotham late at night?" No, most kids just thought, "Cool! I could hang out with Batman too!"
But even if Wesley was a way for growing kids to see themselves as part of the crew of the Enterprise, a shitload of viewers were still going to need to be convinced that he had a place on the bridge. And that's what this episode does. And even if Wesley dresses himself like a 13th century bard who happened to have purchased his wardrobe from a time traveler from the 80s, you can't deny he's a fucking genius. I mean, you might have been able to deny that before this episode. But this episode is all, "Look at this alien! He has powers and abilities far beyond that of human beings. And he understands the relationship between time and space and thought. And guess which character totally gets what this super genius alien is saying? It's Wesley! Wesley noticed the alien was behind the impossible travel. Wesley understood what the alien was doing with the warp drive. And Wesley was all, 'I get it! Thought and space and time are, like, the same thing!'"
Some viewers probably rolled their eyes and, entrenched in the adult cynicism that, years ago, had murdered their childlike sense of wonder, thought, "That Traveler fellow wants to fuck Wesley so hard." And those viewers might have missed the point that Wesley was intuitive and smart and special. So before the Traveler disappears into the realm of thoughtspacetime, he pulls Picard aside and says, "That Wesley is a special boy. You know, like Mozart but maybe even more special. You have to encourage him because remember how I just said he's going to be super duper important and special? But you can't tell him or anybody else! This message is just for you and the old fart viewers who can't stop wondering why you'd constantly let this kid on the bridge or come with you on away expeditions or let him tinker with engineering and the holodeck. Every future episode of the show should just continue as normal, as if I'd never revealed this secret that totally needed to be revealed because the writers and producers of this show know how fucking vocal their Goddamn overzealous fan base can be. Without this aside to you, Picard, they'd be writing letters about Starfleet protocol and how that dumbass weird sweater wearing kid shouldn't be anywhere near a photon torpedo launch button. But now they have to swallow it because it's canon that Wesley is special and being groomed for my bid dick. That's a metaphor for his future place in the world of thoughtspacetime! Everybody will be so surprised by the arc we have for this genius kid! Hoo boy! That is, if he survives the free sex planet episode. Which he somehow will due to a super anti-climactic ending which we'll get to."
As for the actual plot of this episode, it's barely worth mentioning. The crew of the Enterprise wind up in the far flung reaches of the universe where their every thought can suddenly transform reality. Picard understands the import of this and, to get home, encourages the crew to think about nothing but getting home safely. Which is really odd because as soon as it seems like maybe they won't be able to get home, Picard says, "We're not going to make it!" What the fuck, Picard?! Thoughts become reality in this place and you're on the bridge spouting out negative shit like that! Holy fuck, I'd relieve you from duty immediately if I were Doctor Milf Crusher!
I was mostly disappointed by this episode because everybody was making their thoughts real and yet we didn't find out who the horniest crew member of the Enterprise was. Sure, Worf made an old pet real and then Tasha made an old pet real (before she then made the Rape Gangs real! Sheesh, Tasha! Think of something other than Rape Gangs for once! Although, I suppose if I were constantly chased by Rape Gangs my entire childhood, I'd definitely never shut up about it ever. "Oh, you're sorry my soup is cold? Well I fucking had to evade Rape Gangs my entire childhood so I'd hope being sorry for cold soup is the least you could fucking do!"). But how come nobody made a bunch of naked people sucking and licking them all over real? I suppose it wasn't needed since we already know Tasha Yar is the horniest member of the crew.
One crew member made the hallway erupt into fire and the Non-Certified Spouse was all, "Why was he thinking about fire?" Good question! We now know which crew member to investigate when the Ten-Forward lounge burns down.
Sunday, April 19, 2020
Star Trek: The Next Generation, S1, E4: "The Last Outpost"
"She begrudged her lover nothing and now, finally, it was time to offer him The Last Outpost."
For some reason that would be inexplicable if you were living in the actual world of Star Trek: The Next Generation but is entirely understandable when you view it through the lens of a story written by humans about humans, every single Godlike creature in the universe seems to put humans to the test to find out if they're heedless barbarians who care for nothing but their own enrichment. It's one of the reasons I'd rather view Q as tormenting the Enterprise not because he's testing humans but because he loves Jean-Luc (there's additional proof of this in the episode "Hide and Q" when we see Q seems to be acting against the general Q Continuum consensus). I'd rather he be a romantic interest and not just another smart ass alien testing the humans to make sure they're allowed in space. But maybe humans bring it on themselves. It is possible that humans are the most arrogant race (species?) in the entire universe. One species (race?) has to be; why not humans? And every other alien race that has come into contact with other races always discuss how terribly arrogant and ambitious those humans are, with their weird emotions and concept of "love". And since humans write these stories, seemingly with the assumption that humans are somehow unique and special, the "humans must prove themselves" becomes an easy trope to slip into any plot.
But before the test begins, this episode starts by introducing audiences to the Ferengi, the boot sale merchants of the universe. They're played as if the sellers at your local dirt mall inexplicably developed the technologies for space travel and teleportation and instantly launched into space to find deals and cheat people. Data explains that their entire cultural belief system is built on the motto, "Caveat Emptor." As a space faring race which interacts with other races, I can see the appeal of introducing this kind of alien characterization. Little House on the Prarie and Grizzly Adams and even Anne with an E relied on the plot of the traveling salesman character. But imagine the Ferengi homeworld before they ever left the atmosphere! Nobody trusting anybody else while everybody trying to profit over everybody else! What a terrible bunch of Boomer pricks! I wonder if there's a whole offshoot of Ferengi flower children and democratic socialists who fucking despise the way the rest of the universe views them? I suppose if there is, I'll see evidence of it in Deep Space Nine when I get around to it. I bet Quark has some family members who are all, "Ugh! Dad is such a capitalist asshat!"
Seeing the Ferengi in this episode made me want to dress up as a Ferengi every Halloween for the rest of my life. Not because I love the way they look but I fucking fell in love with how they hopped around like children who just sucked down two pounds of pure cane sugar. I suppose they were supposed to look like monkeys in the zoo, incapable of standing still. But I fucking loved their fidgeting and bouncing around. Why did they drop that aspect of the character?! It's fucking endearing!
I wonder what would happen to the Ferengi race if somebody sold them a cargo hold full of fidget spinners?
This is yet another episode that culminates in a terrible anti-climax. The Enterprise and the Ferengi ship are locked in a force field around a planet of a long dead space empire. The crew of the Enterprise agree to work with the Ferengi to search the planet while the Ferengi cross their fingers behind their backs and plan on acting as despicable as possible. On the planet (after some minor skirmishes between the two crews), a man named Portal puts them to the test to find out if they're worthy of existing in the universe. Why does he get to decide? I don't know! I guess because he's so fucking powerful. The anti-climax comes because Portal doesn't put them through any trials or rigorous intellectual tests. He just accidentally quotes Sun Tzu and Riker is all, "I know the response to that quote! Boom! I'm interesting, right?!" And Portal is all, "You amuse me. You shall live."
Aside: the man who plays Portal also played Mimo on Villa Alegre.
While the Ferengi insist that the humans are liars and jerks while taking no responsibility for their own actions, Riker quotes some Sun Tzu because every nerd in the world knows that philosophical thought about strategy and diplomacy has never outdone The Art of War. Portal is suitably impressed like any space nerd would be. He not only decides to spare the humans but becomes best friends with Riker. Only a human mind could be so unique and interesting to a creature of such knowledge and power! We're so awesome! Everybody in space should embrace our quirky ways!
Even though the Ferengi behave abominably, Portal lets them live because Riker points out that they'll never learn any other way. Also, I think he just thinks of them as gnats. People might be annoyed by gnats but you don't turn the full force of your intellect and emotional fury on the entirety of their species just because they're bothering you. You swat at a few of them, curse a bit, and then fucking forget all about them.
I think every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation has a moral but sometimes I can't be bothered to understand it. Especially when I'm several episodes ahead of the one I'm currently writing about. They all kind of get jumbled together. This one probably has something to do with keeping an open mind and not judging too swiftly. I only say that because I think that was the moral of the Farpoint episode and maybe the moral of all the episodes I've written about so far. And what better way to get that moral across than by making the Ferengi as obviously underhanded and treacherous as possible? Maybe they shouldn't have made them so childlike and lovable as well though. Perhaps that's why they stopped making them all bouncy and fidgety. Because it was too adorable. I would have kept that aspect of them but also made them constantly hold open switchblades.
Aside: Armin Shimerman who also plays Buffy's high school principle portrays the Ferengi Letek. Oh, he's also Quark in Deep Space Nine. And he's the face of the wedding gift box in Haven. Also he's the voice of Andrew Ryan from the Bioshock games (get it? "Andrew Ryan"? Ayn Rand? It's such a good game about objectivism!).
It's possible part of my problem with this show (at least so far) is the pacing of the plot in regards to the theme. I suppose, taken as a whole and being charitable, what happens in many ST:TNG episodes is that the initial introductory story usually isn't the real story and often either gets ignored or is resolved in a boring or anti-climactic way (because it wasn't the meat of the theme and didn't really matter. Like the virus in "The Naked Now"). In this one, the introductory story is that the Ferengi have stolen something from the Federation. The Enterprise is tasked with getting it back. Which they do at some point but that story doesn't matter by the time they're trapped in the forcefield. It's like that thing that famous guy said which I think I mentioned in a previous review (unless it was in a comic book review) about how life happens when you're planning on some other kind of life. Star Trek: The Next Generation made a career out of it. Some people refer to these things as the "A" and "B" plot. But I don't think ST:TNG gives enough time to the initial plot to even consider it a parallel story line to the main plot. Maybe the writers get better at this as the show progresses. But even if they don't, it's not that big a deal. I get it! You need to have the crew doing something when the major shit hits the fan. And that shit doesn't have to come out of the first thing they were doing at all, although it would be nice if, just sometimes, it did. Like maybe Wesley Crusher is studying for exams and he has the replicator make him a copy of the Necronomicon after which he unleashes Hell aboard the Enterprise. Then at the end, he fails his test because, you know, it was about engineering and not raising the dead.
For some reason that would be inexplicable if you were living in the actual world of Star Trek: The Next Generation but is entirely understandable when you view it through the lens of a story written by humans about humans, every single Godlike creature in the universe seems to put humans to the test to find out if they're heedless barbarians who care for nothing but their own enrichment. It's one of the reasons I'd rather view Q as tormenting the Enterprise not because he's testing humans but because he loves Jean-Luc (there's additional proof of this in the episode "Hide and Q" when we see Q seems to be acting against the general Q Continuum consensus). I'd rather he be a romantic interest and not just another smart ass alien testing the humans to make sure they're allowed in space. But maybe humans bring it on themselves. It is possible that humans are the most arrogant race (species?) in the entire universe. One species (race?) has to be; why not humans? And every other alien race that has come into contact with other races always discuss how terribly arrogant and ambitious those humans are, with their weird emotions and concept of "love". And since humans write these stories, seemingly with the assumption that humans are somehow unique and special, the "humans must prove themselves" becomes an easy trope to slip into any plot.
But before the test begins, this episode starts by introducing audiences to the Ferengi, the boot sale merchants of the universe. They're played as if the sellers at your local dirt mall inexplicably developed the technologies for space travel and teleportation and instantly launched into space to find deals and cheat people. Data explains that their entire cultural belief system is built on the motto, "Caveat Emptor." As a space faring race which interacts with other races, I can see the appeal of introducing this kind of alien characterization. Little House on the Prarie and Grizzly Adams and even Anne with an E relied on the plot of the traveling salesman character. But imagine the Ferengi homeworld before they ever left the atmosphere! Nobody trusting anybody else while everybody trying to profit over everybody else! What a terrible bunch of Boomer pricks! I wonder if there's a whole offshoot of Ferengi flower children and democratic socialists who fucking despise the way the rest of the universe views them? I suppose if there is, I'll see evidence of it in Deep Space Nine when I get around to it. I bet Quark has some family members who are all, "Ugh! Dad is such a capitalist asshat!"
Seeing the Ferengi in this episode made me want to dress up as a Ferengi every Halloween for the rest of my life. Not because I love the way they look but I fucking fell in love with how they hopped around like children who just sucked down two pounds of pure cane sugar. I suppose they were supposed to look like monkeys in the zoo, incapable of standing still. But I fucking loved their fidgeting and bouncing around. Why did they drop that aspect of the character?! It's fucking endearing!
I wonder what would happen to the Ferengi race if somebody sold them a cargo hold full of fidget spinners?
This is yet another episode that culminates in a terrible anti-climax. The Enterprise and the Ferengi ship are locked in a force field around a planet of a long dead space empire. The crew of the Enterprise agree to work with the Ferengi to search the planet while the Ferengi cross their fingers behind their backs and plan on acting as despicable as possible. On the planet (after some minor skirmishes between the two crews), a man named Portal puts them to the test to find out if they're worthy of existing in the universe. Why does he get to decide? I don't know! I guess because he's so fucking powerful. The anti-climax comes because Portal doesn't put them through any trials or rigorous intellectual tests. He just accidentally quotes Sun Tzu and Riker is all, "I know the response to that quote! Boom! I'm interesting, right?!" And Portal is all, "You amuse me. You shall live."
Aside: the man who plays Portal also played Mimo on Villa Alegre.
While the Ferengi insist that the humans are liars and jerks while taking no responsibility for their own actions, Riker quotes some Sun Tzu because every nerd in the world knows that philosophical thought about strategy and diplomacy has never outdone The Art of War. Portal is suitably impressed like any space nerd would be. He not only decides to spare the humans but becomes best friends with Riker. Only a human mind could be so unique and interesting to a creature of such knowledge and power! We're so awesome! Everybody in space should embrace our quirky ways!
Even though the Ferengi behave abominably, Portal lets them live because Riker points out that they'll never learn any other way. Also, I think he just thinks of them as gnats. People might be annoyed by gnats but you don't turn the full force of your intellect and emotional fury on the entirety of their species just because they're bothering you. You swat at a few of them, curse a bit, and then fucking forget all about them.
I think every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation has a moral but sometimes I can't be bothered to understand it. Especially when I'm several episodes ahead of the one I'm currently writing about. They all kind of get jumbled together. This one probably has something to do with keeping an open mind and not judging too swiftly. I only say that because I think that was the moral of the Farpoint episode and maybe the moral of all the episodes I've written about so far. And what better way to get that moral across than by making the Ferengi as obviously underhanded and treacherous as possible? Maybe they shouldn't have made them so childlike and lovable as well though. Perhaps that's why they stopped making them all bouncy and fidgety. Because it was too adorable. I would have kept that aspect of them but also made them constantly hold open switchblades.
Aside: Armin Shimerman who also plays Buffy's high school principle portrays the Ferengi Letek. Oh, he's also Quark in Deep Space Nine. And he's the face of the wedding gift box in Haven. Also he's the voice of Andrew Ryan from the Bioshock games (get it? "Andrew Ryan"? Ayn Rand? It's such a good game about objectivism!).
It's possible part of my problem with this show (at least so far) is the pacing of the plot in regards to the theme. I suppose, taken as a whole and being charitable, what happens in many ST:TNG episodes is that the initial introductory story usually isn't the real story and often either gets ignored or is resolved in a boring or anti-climactic way (because it wasn't the meat of the theme and didn't really matter. Like the virus in "The Naked Now"). In this one, the introductory story is that the Ferengi have stolen something from the Federation. The Enterprise is tasked with getting it back. Which they do at some point but that story doesn't matter by the time they're trapped in the forcefield. It's like that thing that famous guy said which I think I mentioned in a previous review (unless it was in a comic book review) about how life happens when you're planning on some other kind of life. Star Trek: The Next Generation made a career out of it. Some people refer to these things as the "A" and "B" plot. But I don't think ST:TNG gives enough time to the initial plot to even consider it a parallel story line to the main plot. Maybe the writers get better at this as the show progresses. But even if they don't, it's not that big a deal. I get it! You need to have the crew doing something when the major shit hits the fan. And that shit doesn't have to come out of the first thing they were doing at all, although it would be nice if, just sometimes, it did. Like maybe Wesley Crusher is studying for exams and he has the replicator make him a copy of the Necronomicon after which he unleashes Hell aboard the Enterprise. Then at the end, he fails his test because, you know, it was about engineering and not raising the dead.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Star Trek: The Next Generation, S1, E3: "Code of Honor"
"She took her marriage vows seriously but the fire in her pants spoke of greater truths. Would she falter to temptation or maintain her Code of Honor?"
Sometimes I wonder if any conservative political thinkers are fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Every aspect of the 24th Century relies on a model that took liberal values of caring for everybody and extending them further and further left. It's as socialist a world as you can get. And with that liberal mindset, we still get episodes like this. I'm not saying that liberals can't make mistakes in their social perspective; I'm saying the exact opposite. Liberals are often blind to the ways in which they support a racist system because they so fervently believe they aren't racist. And while this episode's intent probably isn't the way I'm perceiving it, how can I not see it as a bunch of white people teaching black people how to be civilized?
Well, maybe I'll tell you how later! Maybe!
The story centers around two separate cultures whose values and traditions come into conflict early. Maybe the story is supposed to be analogous to white imperialist explorers imposing their beliefs and traditions on indigenous peoples and we're supposed to judge the crew of the Enterprise by their actions. That is, after all, sort of the basis for the Prime Directive. Explore, study, learn but don't impose your will on others or interfere in any way with their progress. But it's hard to think it's a story about humankind's having learned from their past imperialist failings when the plot revolves around the people of Ligon II being "taught a lesson" by Jean-Luc and his cohorts. Perhaps I should just view the episode as a conflict between Jean-Luc and Lutan, the leader of Ligon II (planetary president, I guess?). It is, after all, Lutan's disregard for his people's own traditions that brings him into conflict with the Federation and not the Federation's disrespect for them.
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself! Let me just stick to the plot for a moment. The Federation needs a vaccine that only the people of Ligon II can make. Dr. Crusher can't even replicate it in her lab without it degrading. So they need to deal with the people of Ligon II on their terms to secure a trade. The only thing the people of Ligon II seem to want is for the Federation to respect them. Seems easy enough, right?! Well, it's easy to pay lip service to another culture's beliefs and social mores. But when one of them kidnaps your head Security Officer, things become a bit more complicated.
One of the traditions of Ligon II is to kidnap a high ranking member of another tribe to show your prowess in, um, I don't know, social situations? After which, the other person has to plead for the return of this kidnapped person. The person is returned and all is well because the traditions of their social conventions have been met by each party. Jean-Luc understands this because the Enterprise has a full deck of interns researching every race they interact with to figure out how to not offend them. They should probably be paying this staff though because the staff always seem to realize the important stuff too late (see the episode "Justice" for more examples (which I haven't written yet so hold your horses)). Here, they forget to tell Jean-Luc that Lutan is going to kidnap somebody as part of the diplomatic process.
The real trouble comes not because of the kidnapping but because Lutan suddenly refuses to return Tasha Yar, instead deciding to make her his wife. This decision shocks even his own people because he is breaking some serious social taboos. Tash Yar, used to dealing with Rape Gangs, just takes it all in stride. Sure, she wants to kill somebody but doesn't she always want to kill somebody? She's more bloodthirsty than Worf (which is probably a racist comment but then I'm not the one who spent several television seasons making sure the audience understands that Klingons are violent killing machines who almost certainly choke each other near to death when they fuck (again, see commentary on "Justice")). In the end, Lutan's wife, Yareena, challenges Tasha Yar to a fight to the death which is too often par for the course when a guy steps out on his lady. She should challenge Lutan to a fight to the death. What the fuck did Tasha Yar do?!
In this episode, we also learn that Data doesn't know how to tell a joke and his programming allows for slips of the tongue. Maybe his creator added that because when he made Lore, Lore was all, "I'm going to fucking kill all humans!" and his creator was all, "Oh shit. I've got to put some flaws in this machine so I can defend myself against it!"
The fight to the death uses gloves covered in a fast acting poison. To make sure the audience understands the danger to Tasha Yar, Tasha knocks off Yareena's glove. It flies into the crowd, pricking a spectator who dies immediately. But since he never gets a name, we don't have to care about his death. Nobody does. Whatever. Too bad. Presumably, he knew the danger that came with ring-side seats to the bout.
In the end, Tasha Yar pricks Yareena after which she dives on her and they're both transported aboard the Enterprise. I'm no transporter genius (or layman, even) but that seems like a good way to have a serious The Fly transporter accident. How do the two of them not fuse on recombining?! Yareena dies from the poison but Doctor Crusher brings her back from death. It's important that she dies because her death ends the "fight to the death" challenge honorably and with accordance to all laws and Prime Directives. But it also dissolves her marriage to Lutan! And since women on Ligon II hold all material wealth and land rights, Lutan gets nothing in the separation! He loses everything and his second-in-command, who rooted for Yareena during the fight, winds up being her husband and, I guess, planetary president?
Lutan gets his comeuppance just like somebody who overreaches should. Just ask MacBeth about overreaching. Hoo boy, does it never work out! And I guess the people of Ligon II don't really learn a lesson. The white people don't show them anything new or civilized. Maybe my initial reaction to the episode was due to systemic racism influencing my every thought and not that the episode was racist even if it exists in a culture of systemic racism. In a way, I'm glad the producers aired an episode this early in the series that a viewer couldn't help seeing as analogous to white imperialists invading Africa and all the other continents of Earth. The comparison shouldn't be that the Federation was just doing the same old thing. What should be learned was how different the Federation, working within the Prime Directive, acts when encountering other peoples and cultures. They don't merely assume human beliefs and traditions are correct. They treat them as just one option to living that is no better than any other that developed in different ways on far flung planets full of diverse sentient creatures. And I know Jean-Luc Picard seems smug and above everybody else at times but how can you not adore him? He fucking hates children!
The worst part of this episode is when Deanna Troi tricks Tasha Yar into professing that she's flattered by Lutan's attraction to her. Really? She grew up being chased by Rape Gangs and we're supposed to believe that this incident wasn't traumatic but flattering?! I know Tasha Yar wants as much space dick as she can get but not in this situation! She should be fucking angry and pissed and scared. That's all Troi should be feeling from her. But instead, Troi is all, "He's kind of hot, right? And you know what they say about the size of Ligon II dicks, yeah?!" And Tasha is all, "*blush blush crotch overflow error*". It just seems like some tone deaf writing. Although maybe the writer of this episode, Katharyn Powers, didn't realize everybody else was writing all of this Rape Gang shit into her history. She probably skimmed the character portfolio on Tasha Yar, read "She loves to fuck!", and was all, "Oh yeah! Tasha's my girl! Get some mystery space cock, bitch!"
Sometimes I wonder if any conservative political thinkers are fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Every aspect of the 24th Century relies on a model that took liberal values of caring for everybody and extending them further and further left. It's as socialist a world as you can get. And with that liberal mindset, we still get episodes like this. I'm not saying that liberals can't make mistakes in their social perspective; I'm saying the exact opposite. Liberals are often blind to the ways in which they support a racist system because they so fervently believe they aren't racist. And while this episode's intent probably isn't the way I'm perceiving it, how can I not see it as a bunch of white people teaching black people how to be civilized?
Well, maybe I'll tell you how later! Maybe!
The story centers around two separate cultures whose values and traditions come into conflict early. Maybe the story is supposed to be analogous to white imperialist explorers imposing their beliefs and traditions on indigenous peoples and we're supposed to judge the crew of the Enterprise by their actions. That is, after all, sort of the basis for the Prime Directive. Explore, study, learn but don't impose your will on others or interfere in any way with their progress. But it's hard to think it's a story about humankind's having learned from their past imperialist failings when the plot revolves around the people of Ligon II being "taught a lesson" by Jean-Luc and his cohorts. Perhaps I should just view the episode as a conflict between Jean-Luc and Lutan, the leader of Ligon II (planetary president, I guess?). It is, after all, Lutan's disregard for his people's own traditions that brings him into conflict with the Federation and not the Federation's disrespect for them.
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself! Let me just stick to the plot for a moment. The Federation needs a vaccine that only the people of Ligon II can make. Dr. Crusher can't even replicate it in her lab without it degrading. So they need to deal with the people of Ligon II on their terms to secure a trade. The only thing the people of Ligon II seem to want is for the Federation to respect them. Seems easy enough, right?! Well, it's easy to pay lip service to another culture's beliefs and social mores. But when one of them kidnaps your head Security Officer, things become a bit more complicated.
One of the traditions of Ligon II is to kidnap a high ranking member of another tribe to show your prowess in, um, I don't know, social situations? After which, the other person has to plead for the return of this kidnapped person. The person is returned and all is well because the traditions of their social conventions have been met by each party. Jean-Luc understands this because the Enterprise has a full deck of interns researching every race they interact with to figure out how to not offend them. They should probably be paying this staff though because the staff always seem to realize the important stuff too late (see the episode "Justice" for more examples (which I haven't written yet so hold your horses)). Here, they forget to tell Jean-Luc that Lutan is going to kidnap somebody as part of the diplomatic process.
The real trouble comes not because of the kidnapping but because Lutan suddenly refuses to return Tasha Yar, instead deciding to make her his wife. This decision shocks even his own people because he is breaking some serious social taboos. Tash Yar, used to dealing with Rape Gangs, just takes it all in stride. Sure, she wants to kill somebody but doesn't she always want to kill somebody? She's more bloodthirsty than Worf (which is probably a racist comment but then I'm not the one who spent several television seasons making sure the audience understands that Klingons are violent killing machines who almost certainly choke each other near to death when they fuck (again, see commentary on "Justice")). In the end, Lutan's wife, Yareena, challenges Tasha Yar to a fight to the death which is too often par for the course when a guy steps out on his lady. She should challenge Lutan to a fight to the death. What the fuck did Tasha Yar do?!
In this episode, we also learn that Data doesn't know how to tell a joke and his programming allows for slips of the tongue. Maybe his creator added that because when he made Lore, Lore was all, "I'm going to fucking kill all humans!" and his creator was all, "Oh shit. I've got to put some flaws in this machine so I can defend myself against it!"
The fight to the death uses gloves covered in a fast acting poison. To make sure the audience understands the danger to Tasha Yar, Tasha knocks off Yareena's glove. It flies into the crowd, pricking a spectator who dies immediately. But since he never gets a name, we don't have to care about his death. Nobody does. Whatever. Too bad. Presumably, he knew the danger that came with ring-side seats to the bout.
In the end, Tasha Yar pricks Yareena after which she dives on her and they're both transported aboard the Enterprise. I'm no transporter genius (or layman, even) but that seems like a good way to have a serious The Fly transporter accident. How do the two of them not fuse on recombining?! Yareena dies from the poison but Doctor Crusher brings her back from death. It's important that she dies because her death ends the "fight to the death" challenge honorably and with accordance to all laws and Prime Directives. But it also dissolves her marriage to Lutan! And since women on Ligon II hold all material wealth and land rights, Lutan gets nothing in the separation! He loses everything and his second-in-command, who rooted for Yareena during the fight, winds up being her husband and, I guess, planetary president?
Lutan gets his comeuppance just like somebody who overreaches should. Just ask MacBeth about overreaching. Hoo boy, does it never work out! And I guess the people of Ligon II don't really learn a lesson. The white people don't show them anything new or civilized. Maybe my initial reaction to the episode was due to systemic racism influencing my every thought and not that the episode was racist even if it exists in a culture of systemic racism. In a way, I'm glad the producers aired an episode this early in the series that a viewer couldn't help seeing as analogous to white imperialists invading Africa and all the other continents of Earth. The comparison shouldn't be that the Federation was just doing the same old thing. What should be learned was how different the Federation, working within the Prime Directive, acts when encountering other peoples and cultures. They don't merely assume human beliefs and traditions are correct. They treat them as just one option to living that is no better than any other that developed in different ways on far flung planets full of diverse sentient creatures. And I know Jean-Luc Picard seems smug and above everybody else at times but how can you not adore him? He fucking hates children!
The worst part of this episode is when Deanna Troi tricks Tasha Yar into professing that she's flattered by Lutan's attraction to her. Really? She grew up being chased by Rape Gangs and we're supposed to believe that this incident wasn't traumatic but flattering?! I know Tasha Yar wants as much space dick as she can get but not in this situation! She should be fucking angry and pissed and scared. That's all Troi should be feeling from her. But instead, Troi is all, "He's kind of hot, right? And you know what they say about the size of Ligon II dicks, yeah?!" And Tasha is all, "*blush blush crotch overflow error*". It just seems like some tone deaf writing. Although maybe the writer of this episode, Katharyn Powers, didn't realize everybody else was writing all of this Rape Gang shit into her history. She probably skimmed the character portfolio on Tasha Yar, read "She loves to fuck!", and was all, "Oh yeah! Tasha's my girl! Get some mystery space cock, bitch!"
Star Trek: The Next Generation, S1, E2: "The Naked Now"
I spoke (or wrote) too soon when I suggested the titles of ST:TNG episodes were the names of sex tapes. I think they're more like the names of pulp erotica books, the kind with covers depicting women in torn dresses or standing outside doorways with one hand suggestively headed toward their lady parts. Which isn't surprising because Star Trek: The Next Generation might owe more to pulp erotica than to the original Star Trek. At first I thought it was hilarious that Netflix's description of the mature content was "sex, fear." But now I think whoever does the ratings for Netflix might be a pop culture genius.
Note: "pop culture genius" is the dumbest of all the geniuses.
"The Naked Now" tells the story of a non-story where something happens to the crew and then they get out of it in a really unexciting and mundane way. Get used to this formula! Maybe the point of Star Trek: The Next Generation was to show how life isn't about exciting trials and travails where we come up with a spectacular plan to get us over every hurdle but more of a slog where we simply muddle through by optimism and persistence. See, what happens is the crew is infected with some kind of virus which isn't really a virus. It's really just a rearranging of water molecules in their heads due to their proximity to a high gravitational field. These molecules rearrange to form grain alcohol so everybody gets spectacularly drunk. Although the "rearranging of water molecules" (which I'll henceforth call a virus because it fucking acts like a virus) acts like a virus (as I noted in my poorly timed parenthetical reference), hopping from person to person due to close contact with infected crew members. Early on in the episode, we learn that this same thing happened to the original crew of The Enterprise, so they have a vaccine on hand. But guess what? The vaccine doesn't work! The virus has mutated which means somebody's going to have to come up with a new plan to battle the virus!
Don't worry. The new plan isn't innovative or mind blowing. Remember, I said the problem gets resolved in a mundane way: Dr. Crusher merely keeps working on updating the vaccine until she succeeds. That's it! The moral of the story is to keep working on the solution because eventually you'll probably figure out the answer, even if you're drunk and super horny for the captain of your ship.
The virus itself isn't deadly. What's deadly is the actions of the crew once they're fucked up on tons of delicious virus. The Starfleet ship which infected them ended up with everybody on board dead (and some of them off board because they launched themselves out of the airlock). They all froze to death while fucking each other. If you're into naked people covered in a thick layer of permafrost, this episode has tons of material for you to jerk off to. And while the crew of the Enterprise all feel way too warm due to the virus, nobody turns the thermostat down to "Freeze to Death" (which is a weird setting but I guess, in space, it's an option?). But they do all engage in stupid behavior that threatens to destroy the ship because it can't move out of the way of the exploding star nearby.
In this episode, we learn that Data has a dick and is a master of using it. Tasha Yar takes it for a ride because she's all, "I want to fuck everybody on board! And you'd better not judge me because remember all of my stories about evading Rape Gangs? I earned all of this consensual dick, asshole!" Tasha Yar has severe trust issues (because of the Rape Gangs!) and the inorganic Data dick is the least threatening dick on board the Enterprise (other than Picard's dick. I mean, no way is Jean-Luc Picard's dick threatening. I bet it might even be a bit boring. It probably spits out quotes ofOthello when he cums).
Being fucked by Data, that clammy looking pale pink eye infected motherfucker, is the definition of "sex, fear."
We're introduced to Sarah MacDougal, possibly the Chief Engineer? She's definitely somebody in charge of engineering and also Scottish, so it makes sense. Later she'll be replaced by some guy named Argyle which is just the writers having a fucking laugh, right? We also meet Jim Shimoda who is the weirdest drunk I've ever seen. Some people get angry when they drink and some people get affectionate but Shimoda begins acting like he's five years old. So the majority of the crew want to just fuck each other, Wesley decides to become captain of the ship, and Jim Shimoda shits his pants and plays building blocks with the ship's power circuits. It's fucking embarrassing! I'd rather get caught fucking the robot.
So the virus becomes incidental to the real story (the virus, after all, is easily cured; it just takes a bit of time to work on that cure): the ship will be destroyed if the drunk crew can't figure out how to re-enable thrusters thanks to Baby Shimoda. Somehow Wesley Crusher becomes the hero by suggesting reversing the tractor beam so that the Enterprise can push itself off of the ship they're towing, getting a crucial bit of time to avoid debris while Data fixes the thrusters. The Entrprise pushes off the Starfleet vessel they were towing, sending it crashing into a piece of debris and exploding. I hope Wesley has to inform the family members of everybody on board why none of them were able to bury their loved ones.
An aside: don't fucking get on my case because I don't care about accuracy in my reviews, you nerds! I understand that Starship vessels probably don't have a "Freeze to Death" option on the air conditioning and most of the people freezing on board was due to the hatch that was blown on the ship's bridge. But if we're going to discuss this sci-fi shit in "realistic" terms, what the fuck was that hatch doing on the bridge and why was it so easy to blow?!
In the end, everybody was saved from Wesley Crusher's folly by Wesley Crusher's solution which means Wesley Crusher was the hero? I don't like the precedent this could set! Imagine how many Starfleet officers will begin sabotaging their own ships to look like heroes! I bet they call it Richard Jewel Syndrome even if Richard Jewel didn't do that. Everybody probably still thinks he planted the bomb at the Olympics even though he didn't. It's like how I'm absolutely positive that Chris Huff didn't jerk off into a bread box in junior high but since everybody said he did at the time, I'll always have the thought in my head, "Chris Huff jerks off into bread boxes."
Note: "pop culture genius" is the dumbest of all the geniuses.
"The Naked Now" tells the story of a non-story where something happens to the crew and then they get out of it in a really unexciting and mundane way. Get used to this formula! Maybe the point of Star Trek: The Next Generation was to show how life isn't about exciting trials and travails where we come up with a spectacular plan to get us over every hurdle but more of a slog where we simply muddle through by optimism and persistence. See, what happens is the crew is infected with some kind of virus which isn't really a virus. It's really just a rearranging of water molecules in their heads due to their proximity to a high gravitational field. These molecules rearrange to form grain alcohol so everybody gets spectacularly drunk. Although the "rearranging of water molecules" (which I'll henceforth call a virus because it fucking acts like a virus) acts like a virus (as I noted in my poorly timed parenthetical reference), hopping from person to person due to close contact with infected crew members. Early on in the episode, we learn that this same thing happened to the original crew of The Enterprise, so they have a vaccine on hand. But guess what? The vaccine doesn't work! The virus has mutated which means somebody's going to have to come up with a new plan to battle the virus!
Don't worry. The new plan isn't innovative or mind blowing. Remember, I said the problem gets resolved in a mundane way: Dr. Crusher merely keeps working on updating the vaccine until she succeeds. That's it! The moral of the story is to keep working on the solution because eventually you'll probably figure out the answer, even if you're drunk and super horny for the captain of your ship.
The virus itself isn't deadly. What's deadly is the actions of the crew once they're fucked up on tons of delicious virus. The Starfleet ship which infected them ended up with everybody on board dead (and some of them off board because they launched themselves out of the airlock). They all froze to death while fucking each other. If you're into naked people covered in a thick layer of permafrost, this episode has tons of material for you to jerk off to. And while the crew of the Enterprise all feel way too warm due to the virus, nobody turns the thermostat down to "Freeze to Death" (which is a weird setting but I guess, in space, it's an option?). But they do all engage in stupid behavior that threatens to destroy the ship because it can't move out of the way of the exploding star nearby.
In this episode, we learn that Data has a dick and is a master of using it. Tasha Yar takes it for a ride because she's all, "I want to fuck everybody on board! And you'd better not judge me because remember all of my stories about evading Rape Gangs? I earned all of this consensual dick, asshole!" Tasha Yar has severe trust issues (because of the Rape Gangs!) and the inorganic Data dick is the least threatening dick on board the Enterprise (other than Picard's dick. I mean, no way is Jean-Luc Picard's dick threatening. I bet it might even be a bit boring. It probably spits out quotes ofOthello when he cums).
Being fucked by Data, that clammy looking pale pink eye infected motherfucker, is the definition of "sex, fear."
We're introduced to Sarah MacDougal, possibly the Chief Engineer? She's definitely somebody in charge of engineering and also Scottish, so it makes sense. Later she'll be replaced by some guy named Argyle which is just the writers having a fucking laugh, right? We also meet Jim Shimoda who is the weirdest drunk I've ever seen. Some people get angry when they drink and some people get affectionate but Shimoda begins acting like he's five years old. So the majority of the crew want to just fuck each other, Wesley decides to become captain of the ship, and Jim Shimoda shits his pants and plays building blocks with the ship's power circuits. It's fucking embarrassing! I'd rather get caught fucking the robot.
So the virus becomes incidental to the real story (the virus, after all, is easily cured; it just takes a bit of time to work on that cure): the ship will be destroyed if the drunk crew can't figure out how to re-enable thrusters thanks to Baby Shimoda. Somehow Wesley Crusher becomes the hero by suggesting reversing the tractor beam so that the Enterprise can push itself off of the ship they're towing, getting a crucial bit of time to avoid debris while Data fixes the thrusters. The Entrprise pushes off the Starfleet vessel they were towing, sending it crashing into a piece of debris and exploding. I hope Wesley has to inform the family members of everybody on board why none of them were able to bury their loved ones.
An aside: don't fucking get on my case because I don't care about accuracy in my reviews, you nerds! I understand that Starship vessels probably don't have a "Freeze to Death" option on the air conditioning and most of the people freezing on board was due to the hatch that was blown on the ship's bridge. But if we're going to discuss this sci-fi shit in "realistic" terms, what the fuck was that hatch doing on the bridge and why was it so easy to blow?!
In the end, everybody was saved from Wesley Crusher's folly by Wesley Crusher's solution which means Wesley Crusher was the hero? I don't like the precedent this could set! Imagine how many Starfleet officers will begin sabotaging their own ships to look like heroes! I bet they call it Richard Jewel Syndrome even if Richard Jewel didn't do that. Everybody probably still thinks he planted the bomb at the Olympics even though he didn't. It's like how I'm absolutely positive that Chris Huff didn't jerk off into a bread box in junior high but since everybody said he did at the time, I'll always have the thought in my head, "Chris Huff jerks off into bread boxes."
Friday, April 17, 2020
Star Trek: The Next Generation, S1, E1: "Encounter at Farpoint"
I'm re-watching Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix. Before each episode, to prepare the viewer for what they're about to experience, Netflix gives the show's rating as "TV-MA: sex, fear" and I'm perplexed as to how they think that adequately describes the show. I suppose Tasha Yar fucking Data in the second episode ticks those boxes but otherwise, I don't find myself titillatedly screaming every few minutes. I wish I did but that just has yet to be the case!
The first episode is called "Encounter at Farpoint" (which I noted in the title of this post) and it made me wonder if the titles of the episodes of the first series have a theme the way the titles of the first series of the original Star Trek were themed around the names of gay bars. I think these episodes might be the names of sex tapes.
Look. I wanted to do an actual review of this pilot episode. I really and truly tried to watch it intellectually and without bias. But all I kept doing was trying to look up Deanna Troi's mini-skirt. It was just an hour and a half of me watching a scene with Q acting like an 18th century ship's captain and me thinking, "Oh! Deanna just shifted in her chair and moved a hand away from her lap! I think maybe I just saw some 24th century lady pants!" And then later when Q has them on trial for a reason that was unclear because I wasn't really listening to him earlier due to trying to see up Deanna Troi's skirt, Deanna squats next to a frozen Tasha Yar and I was all, "Oh my god! She's squatting in the mini-skirt! I'm bound to see a little butt cheek, right?!" Meanwhile, Tasha died or something and Jean-Luc was all, "I guess humans are guilty! Guilty of having great asses and erotic underwear!" Then Deanna stopped squatting and I wiped the sweat from my brow and fought the urge to rewind the episode.
Part way through the episode, I confided to the Non-Certified Spouse that I couldn't concentrate due to the Betazoid's movements in the short skirt. She'd earlier commented on how short the skirt was but that was as far as it went for her for some reason. I guess she's not into upskirt erotica. Although she appreciated when I pointed out that Starfleet uniforms were never going to conceal a boner (mostly because I kept thinking about Deanna's skirt situation and what it was doing to my pants region). After I pointed out how I couldn't stop concentrating on Deanna's skirt, the Non-Certified Spouse started to notice how Deanna had to sit with her hands in her lap and, whenever she stood, she'd have to sort of make sure her skirt didn't rise up too high. I was thoroughly disappointed that Martina Sirtis did such a great job of wrangling that skirt to keep her dignity.
At one point in the pilot, a male crew member walks by in a short skirt and I suggested the only way they could get Martina Sirtis to wear that short skirt was to put a guy in one and say, "See?! It's not a gender thing!" Of course by the next episode, Deanna Troi is in pants which shows somebody came to their senses. Not that I was happy about that person's frigid senses. And even though they got rid of the skirt, they lowered her neck line about ten inches. I guess her cleavage will distract me from the rest of the series.
My favorite part of the episode was where Worf considers shooting the video screen when he feels threatened. Klingons are like cats, aren't they? Do they often distract Worf on the bridge with a laser pointer? "Oh shit! The Klingon's getting aggressive! Data, engage laser pointer!" Although I imagine getting a Klingon to flip the fuck out on the bridge is against Starfleet regulations.
I tried to understand Q's motivations in this episode but they were beyond me. That makes sense because Deanna Troi stood up that one time and I'm certain I caught a glimpse of a fleshy lady part and also he's so far beyond human sentience and technology that he's practically Jean-Luc Picard's Great Gazoo. The way I remember it, Q exists outside of time. So while this encounter is Picard's first encounter with Q, Q has probably already experienced other interactions with Picard (possibly all of them at once? Is that how it would work?). Q understands this is Picard's first time meeting him so he keeps up the act. But it feel's like Q is teasing his big crush. Q totally wants to fuck Picard and part of me is glad my memory sucks so I can revel in the sexual tension of their Diane/Sam, Maddie/David will they/won't they relationship! Hell, since Q exists outside of linear time, maybe they've already fucked and Q is remembering/anticipating that first time Picard's blood-engorged penis shows through the Starfleet uniform!
This episode, we learn that Beverly Crusher is a MILF, Commander Riker has a weird, lizard-shaped head (probably due to the terrible haircut), Tasha Yar can't stop comparing everything to Rape Gangs, Worf might be mentally disabled, Data needs moisturizer, Geordi is in constant physical pain due to his shoddy third-party visor, Deanna Troi has no visible panty lines, Jean-Luc Picard hates children, and Wesley Crusher has the worst style of the 24th Century. Maybe we don't learn that about Wesley this soon but I can't stop picturing that awful fucking ruffly over-sized sweater he wears in upcoming episodes. I think we also learn that casting hadn't gotten around to finding an actor to play the Chief Engineer.
DeForest Kelley makes a guest appearance as a 127 year old who thinks he's Foghorn Leghorn. He must have owed Gene Roddenberry one more episode on his old Star Trek contract because I can't imagine any other reason for that scene being in the episode.
Eventually, Jean-Luc Picard proves that humans aren't as savage as they used to be and Q is all, "Oh, darn! I guess I'll just have to torment you again during Sweeps Week! Ta-ta!" I don't remember how Jean-Luc proves it because of Deanna Troi's uniform but I think it had something to do with two enormous space squids finally being able to fuck again. And they do it right on camera! It was both titillating and scary!
The first episode is called "Encounter at Farpoint" (which I noted in the title of this post) and it made me wonder if the titles of the episodes of the first series have a theme the way the titles of the first series of the original Star Trek were themed around the names of gay bars. I think these episodes might be the names of sex tapes.
Look. I wanted to do an actual review of this pilot episode. I really and truly tried to watch it intellectually and without bias. But all I kept doing was trying to look up Deanna Troi's mini-skirt. It was just an hour and a half of me watching a scene with Q acting like an 18th century ship's captain and me thinking, "Oh! Deanna just shifted in her chair and moved a hand away from her lap! I think maybe I just saw some 24th century lady pants!" And then later when Q has them on trial for a reason that was unclear because I wasn't really listening to him earlier due to trying to see up Deanna Troi's skirt, Deanna squats next to a frozen Tasha Yar and I was all, "Oh my god! She's squatting in the mini-skirt! I'm bound to see a little butt cheek, right?!" Meanwhile, Tasha died or something and Jean-Luc was all, "I guess humans are guilty! Guilty of having great asses and erotic underwear!" Then Deanna stopped squatting and I wiped the sweat from my brow and fought the urge to rewind the episode.
Part way through the episode, I confided to the Non-Certified Spouse that I couldn't concentrate due to the Betazoid's movements in the short skirt. She'd earlier commented on how short the skirt was but that was as far as it went for her for some reason. I guess she's not into upskirt erotica. Although she appreciated when I pointed out that Starfleet uniforms were never going to conceal a boner (mostly because I kept thinking about Deanna's skirt situation and what it was doing to my pants region). After I pointed out how I couldn't stop concentrating on Deanna's skirt, the Non-Certified Spouse started to notice how Deanna had to sit with her hands in her lap and, whenever she stood, she'd have to sort of make sure her skirt didn't rise up too high. I was thoroughly disappointed that Martina Sirtis did such a great job of wrangling that skirt to keep her dignity.
At one point in the pilot, a male crew member walks by in a short skirt and I suggested the only way they could get Martina Sirtis to wear that short skirt was to put a guy in one and say, "See?! It's not a gender thing!" Of course by the next episode, Deanna Troi is in pants which shows somebody came to their senses. Not that I was happy about that person's frigid senses. And even though they got rid of the skirt, they lowered her neck line about ten inches. I guess her cleavage will distract me from the rest of the series.
My favorite part of the episode was where Worf considers shooting the video screen when he feels threatened. Klingons are like cats, aren't they? Do they often distract Worf on the bridge with a laser pointer? "Oh shit! The Klingon's getting aggressive! Data, engage laser pointer!" Although I imagine getting a Klingon to flip the fuck out on the bridge is against Starfleet regulations.
I tried to understand Q's motivations in this episode but they were beyond me. That makes sense because Deanna Troi stood up that one time and I'm certain I caught a glimpse of a fleshy lady part and also he's so far beyond human sentience and technology that he's practically Jean-Luc Picard's Great Gazoo. The way I remember it, Q exists outside of time. So while this encounter is Picard's first encounter with Q, Q has probably already experienced other interactions with Picard (possibly all of them at once? Is that how it would work?). Q understands this is Picard's first time meeting him so he keeps up the act. But it feel's like Q is teasing his big crush. Q totally wants to fuck Picard and part of me is glad my memory sucks so I can revel in the sexual tension of their Diane/Sam, Maddie/David will they/won't they relationship! Hell, since Q exists outside of linear time, maybe they've already fucked and Q is remembering/anticipating that first time Picard's blood-engorged penis shows through the Starfleet uniform!
This episode, we learn that Beverly Crusher is a MILF, Commander Riker has a weird, lizard-shaped head (probably due to the terrible haircut), Tasha Yar can't stop comparing everything to Rape Gangs, Worf might be mentally disabled, Data needs moisturizer, Geordi is in constant physical pain due to his shoddy third-party visor, Deanna Troi has no visible panty lines, Jean-Luc Picard hates children, and Wesley Crusher has the worst style of the 24th Century. Maybe we don't learn that about Wesley this soon but I can't stop picturing that awful fucking ruffly over-sized sweater he wears in upcoming episodes. I think we also learn that casting hadn't gotten around to finding an actor to play the Chief Engineer.
DeForest Kelley makes a guest appearance as a 127 year old who thinks he's Foghorn Leghorn. He must have owed Gene Roddenberry one more episode on his old Star Trek contract because I can't imagine any other reason for that scene being in the episode.
Eventually, Jean-Luc Picard proves that humans aren't as savage as they used to be and Q is all, "Oh, darn! I guess I'll just have to torment you again during Sweeps Week! Ta-ta!" I don't remember how Jean-Luc proves it because of Deanna Troi's uniform but I think it had something to do with two enormous space squids finally being able to fuck again. And they do it right on camera! It was both titillating and scary!
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