Rewatching ST:TNG When the Enterprise-D locates the missing science vessel Yosemite, twitchy Lt. Barclay makes a technobabble suggestion that’s so good, LaForge adds him to the away team. But when it comes time to beam over, Mr. Smarty yeets himself to the counselor’s office instead. We learn that Barclay is afraid of the transporter, but…
Rewatching ST:TNG An archaeologist who’s not very good at prioritizing natters on to Picard about finding some old glasses, a revolver, and a pocket watch in an old mine. When Picard asks why the Enterprise-D was recalled to Earth to investigate, only then does the archeologist say oh yeah, here in this old mine that’s…
Rewatching ST:TNG Some time has passed since Part 1, as Picard and the away team members, presenting themselves as a theatre troupe, are behind in their rent at a boarding house in 19thC San Francisco. (We already know [s5e16 “Ethics“] that LaForge’s visor lets him see through at least some playing cards, and Troi’s access…
Rewatching ST:TNG When a space probe zaps Picard unconscious, he wakes up in a civilian house, where a woman calls him “Kamin,” and says he has been feverish for days. Out exploring, Picard happens upon a tree planting ceremony. The leader is Kamin’s friend Batai, who answers Picard’s questions with concern. When Picard returns to…
Rewatching ST:TNG A transporter accident causes LaForge and Ro to wander the Enterprise-D like ghosts. The teaser begins in medias res, with the Enterprise responding to a Romulan distress call. While prepping to beam over, Ro snarks at Riker under her breath, but backs down when challenged. The Romulans, who seem almost overwhelmed by the…
Rewatching ST:TNG When a landing party encounters a badly injured Borg drone, Picard is perfectly willing to let “it” die, but Crusher has other ideas. The Borg, a cyborg race that assimilates whole civilizations and builds a hive mind via cybernetic implants, are a terrifying sci-fi enemy; the music, the costumes and the iconic greeble-bedecked…
In October 2001, I was blogging about Nothing Matters. (A teaching metaphor that had a big impact on my pedagogy… I’m glad I had the occasion to revisit it. Even when I blogged it 20 years ago there were a lot of broken links on the site, but the main idea is still completely valid)…
Rewatching ST:TNG A fussy ambassador on his way to stop a centuries-old war asks Picard to take special care of his fragile, irreplaceable cargo, but by the end of Act 1, a Ferengi has strolled into the unguarded (and apparently unlocked) cargo bay and knocked over a glowing, floating pod, from which a beautiful woman…
Rewatching ST:TNG If there’s one thing fans of Star Trek apparently need, it’s more scripts featuring space moppets! The episode delivers just what the cigar-chomping producer demanded: a glowy Space Thing burrows itself into an adorable sprout’s french-braided head, reads her cute-as-a-button thoughts, and manifests as her imaginary playmate — a blond lass with a…
Rewatching ST:TNG Who’d love to see another whacky Lwaxana episode? Who can’t get enough of little Alexander? Who wants a Space Thing subplot that has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot? Because a cigar-chomping producer demanded an action sequence in the teaser, there’s tense music, a kinetic camera, and a photon torpedo kaboom…
Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise is en route to Earth so that Picard can give the commencement address at Starfleet Academy, when word arrives that Cadet Crusher has survived an accident that killed another student. When we last saw Wesley (s5e6 “The Game“), he was cheerful and well-adjusted; however, Picard and Dr. Crusher are surprised he…
After returning to Earth in Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin private spacecraft, Shatner is delivering an extemporaneous monologue about viewing Mother Earth and reflecting on death. “I hope I never recover from this,” he says, of the emotions he experienced. Much better than Kirk’s death scene in Star Trek: Generations. Someone (I was listening, not watching……
Rewatching ST:TNG A smart, character-driven story that follows the crew of the Enterprise-D through a short time loop (about a year before Bill Murray did something similar in “Groundhog Day”). After a chaotic teaser that ends with the Enterprise-D blowing to smithereens, we get a routine Captain’s Log, a relaxed poker game where Crusher impressively…
Rewatching ST:TNG Members of a genderless civilization (portrayed by female actors with bowl haircuts and dour expressions) seek help from the Federation after one of their shuttles disappears in a Space Thing. The fact that Picard’s opening log goes out of its way to identify the J’Naii as “an adrogynous race” is a pretty obvious…
Rewatching ST:TNG Worf is paralyzed in a freak cargo bay accident. When visiting neurospecialist Dr. Russell suggests an experimental “genetronic replication” therapy, Dr. Crusher fears the risk is too great. A very composed Worf deals with his injury by asking Riker to assist him in a suicide ritual. Worf’s young son Alexander doesn’t share his…
The Variety story breaking this news doesn’t cite a source, and gives no further news beyond what I’ve quoted here. The rest of the article is padded with details about the 1990s franchise. B5 was ground-breaking in many ways, including telling season-long arcs within a coherent, over-arching series-long story, at a time when most TV…
This compilation is a work of beauty. I’ve been aware of this prop since the early 80s, but I didn’t realize it was in the Incredible Hulk and Buck Roger TV shows from the late 70s. Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way up …Visiting the…
Although more modern-looking rifles appeared as props in ST:The Next Generation and later iterations, the iconic phaser rifle only appeared in the second pilot, the first to feature William Shatner and the character James Kirk. Reuben Klamer, the inventor of Milton Bradley’s The Game of Life board game and the designer of a Starfleet phaser…
Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise follows a weak distress signal to a planet where a Federation ship crashed 200 years ago. After a tiny shuttlecraft (with seatbelts!) crashes because of the planet’s glowy storms, some glowy bits enter the bodies of Troi, Data and O’Brien, and before you know it, we have a Die Hard hostage…
Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise-D crew finds itself the victim of an amnesia scenario devised by desperate, shadowy figures known as “TV script writers,” who actually give Riker a line complaining about the feeble infodump that shows up in the denouement. Plot necessity provides this week’s baddies with the power to erase all the personal memories…