Author: tederick
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Blogging the Next Generation: “The Game”
“Is it true what they say about your birthmark?” Wesley Crusher returns to the Enterprise in a goofy little episode that, as far as “Wesley Crusher saves the ship” shenanigans go, is quite probably the very best one. While Wesley’s busy making nookie with Ashley Judd, the entire adult crew gets hooked on a cortex-stimulating…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Silicon Avatar”
“As you know, I provide the most memorable deserts.” Believe it or not, there was a time in my life when “avatar” was a fairly obscure concept. So it was when “Silicon Avatar” aired, one of those rare episodes to come to the production via the slush pile of Michael Piller’s open-door script policy at…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Ensign Ro”
Like “The Wounded” before it, “Ensign Ro” is one of the key building blocks of what became Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, with the introduction of the Cardassians’ other halves, the Bajorans. Those two intertwined races and their decades-long conflict forms the spine of DS9, and if the Bajorans are slightly off-model in “Ensign Ro”…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Darmok”
“Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.” Rebounding significantly from the weak-ass season opener, the second episode of Season Five is one of my favourites of the year. “Darmok” is built around a concept so brilliant it almost renders itself unworkable: a race of people who speak only in metaphor. It’s a lovely idea, but once thought…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Redemption II”
“It is a time to celebrate! For tomorrow, we all may die.” As of the start of its fifth season, Star Trek: The Next Generation was officially past its heyday. The fifth and sixth seasons still contained some of the series’ best overall episodes, but the intermediate adventures in between those high points began to…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “Redemption”
“He is human. And humans have a way of showing up where you least expect them.” The fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation concludes on a note nearly as rousing as its high-water mark in the season prior, “The Best of Both Worlds.” Though not as dynamic a cliffhanger as Captain Picard’s transformation…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “In Theory”
“And a very good job I did of it too.” In which, to the chagrin of fangirls everywhere, Data turns out to be the worst boyfriend ever. While the Enterprise is flying through a dark matter nebula, Data decides to try his hand at dating, and the results are predictably disastrous – even leaving aside…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “The Mind’s Eye”
“Will there be any physical evidence of what you are going to do to him?” The big takeaway from “The Mind’s Eye” wasn’t anything to do with the plot proper of the episode itself, which sees Geordi brainwashed, Manchurian Candidate-style, to kill a Klingon politician. No, the big “squee!” moment back in ’91 came because…
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Blogging the Next Generation: “The Host”
“If you can find those things in the man we know as Will Riker, accept them. Accept the love.” Not only is “The Host” a fairly kickass Dr. Crusher episode and one of my favourite love stories on the show as a whole, and a really intriguing science fiction premise to boot (which would go…