Category: Blogging The Next Generation
Want more posts like these, straight to your inbox?
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Blogging the Next Generation: “The Drumhead”
“I’ve brought down bigger men than you, Picard!” This grim and somewhat silly episode puts a plodding, McCarthy-ish witchhunt aboard the Enterprise, which slowly expands its circle of accusation from a visiting Klingon functionary to a mid-career Starfleet crewman to Captain Picard himself. The episode has a nice guest turn from the regal Jean Simmons,…
-
Blogging the Next Generation: “Qpid”
“They really knew how to party back in those days.” There are two types of people in the world: people who think “Qpid” is unbelievably stupid, and people who think it is the greatest thing that ever happened, ever. I am of the latter. Since this episode is going to be nothing but one long…
-
Blogging the Next Generation: “The Nth Degree”
“The moon, yes. That will be my home. My paradise.” It’s “Flowers for Barclaynon,” in a return engagement for Dwight Schultz as Barclay that’s very nearly as good as his inaugural appearance in “Hollow Pursuits” the previous year. The inept lieutenant gets zapped by an alien probe and becomes an intellectual superman – but what…