Author: tederick
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Blogging the Next Generation: “The Masterpiece Society”
“What about the rights of the ones who will stay behind?” In which we once again spin the age-old science fiction trope of the eugenics society. The Enterprise comes upon a colony under threat by a passing stellar fragment – the crises-of-the-week in Season Five seem to lean on planetary annihilation more often than not…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Violations”
“It’s Obachan! My grandmother! We arrive at the notorious “mind rape” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Credit where it’s due, at least Next Gen was willing to do an episode about rape, which (in 1991) was still relatively rare – although, in a post-The Accused Hollywood, various television dramas were becoming more willing…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Hero Worship”
“I would gladly risk feeling bad at times if it also meant I could taste my desert.” And speaking of episodes built around kids (“Disaster” and “New Ground” down, “Imaginary Friend” to come), the unofficial running theme of Season Five continues with “Hero Worship,” where Data gets his own pubescent sidekick. This time, it’s a…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “New Ground”
“You don’t care about me! All you care about is your honour!” In 1980s and 1990s television, there was perhaps no greater death knell for a show’s creativity than the introduction in the later seasons of a new child or dog. Yes, Worf’s son Alexander (who qualifies as a child, not a dog, but it’s…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “A Matter of Time”
“LaForge remained below…!” I’m writing this on November 25th, two days after the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, so it’s perhaps inevitable that the Doctor Who parallels that passed by completely unnoticed when I saw “A Matter of Perspective” back in ’91 now ring clear as a cloister bell. Not that “Perspective” is much of…
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Review: STAR TREK FIRST CONTACT (Blogging The Next Generation Christmas Special)
“Well I sure as hell am not going up there sober.” The popular “best” of the four Star Trek: The Next Generation feature films, Star Trek: First Contact is actually my least favourite. It’s hard for me to imagine a more stupidly, or crassly, conceived franchise property than this. The film drips concept rather than storytelling,…
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Blogging The Next Generation: “Unification II”
“It was I who committed Captain Kirk to that peace mission, and I who had to bear the responsibility for the consequences to him and to his crew.”
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Unification I”
“Indeed, you have found him, Captain Picard!” Ah, this whole thing. Yes, it was a really big deal that someone as central to the original Star Trek franchise as Leonard Nimoy / Spock was finally going to bridge the gap from TOS to TNG; and yes, as an (ultimately, entirely trivial) teaser for Star Trek…
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Review: THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG
The Stubbornness of Dwarves Watching The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, I had a full moment of clarity about why the people who don’t get these movies just don’t get these movies. An elf was talking to a dwarf in a dungeon under a palace carved out of a tree. It all seemed perfectly sensible…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Disaster”
“I’m alive… what the hell happened?!” A disaster movie set aboard the Enterprise, wheee! Of all the latter-day attempts to revive the ‘70s disaster story structure (groups of unrelated individuals coping in parallel circumstances to an unexpected crisis), “Disaster” knocks the pants off Independence Day, Volcano, or Poseidon. (And Sharknado, obvies.) And “Disaster” has so.…