Saturday, August 27, 2011

Lacy lacy profit

Deep Space Nine: Profit and Lace
I love that Quark dresses in drag... Armin must have had so much fun!
And I love that DS9 can do humor like no other Trek. There are certainly fun episodes, but none quite like what there was in DS9, with the Ferengi episodes. And the baseball episodes. And the one where the Ferengi played baseball.

I'm sorry, I love DS9. Sue me.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Glory

DS9: Blaze of Glory

Eddington dies.

Sisko can't even be happy about it and he wanted the guy dead.

What I'd love to talk about, though, is Nog, on security detail. Nog, who stands up to Martok, and lives to tell the tale. I mean, dude, Martok's scary even when he isn't in the makeup.

I enjoy it immensely.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Neutrality

TNG: The Neutral Zone

They found an ancient Earth capsule floating around. They're just waiting on Picard and Data wants to go check it out 'cause, why not.

So he and Worf do.
They beam in anddatas all minimal oxygen atmosphere and I'm like, you don't check before you beam Worf in? Anyway there's an old disk drive computer and a bunch of dead bodies... skeketal bodies... empty stasis chambers... and one woman.

Credits.

There are also two men. The containers are not for stasis. Data tells will the people are frozen and they will bring them back but Picard is back and Will's like, whatvever, just get back, I don't care, which I think he'll regret later and then they have biger fish to fry because Federation outposts are vanishing along the Romulan Neutral Zone. There's been no contact with the Romulans for 50 years. The Federation will send one ship - the Enterprise - to check it out.

Beverly calls Picard to tell him about the people in the capsule being thawed and saved. Picard does his WTF dance. Cryonics. They're alive now! Picard calls Data.

Data said he couldn't leave the people on the capsule, it seemed right to bring them back. So they bring in security in the form of Worf... and awaken the woman. Who sees worf and faints. Go women power!

Data found some info about them in the capsule's computer and they wake them all again. We've got the woman, the financier, and the musician. Picard has Will take over with them and tells him to "keep them out of my way".

Will tells them its 2364. He, Data, and Beverly explain what's going on. The woman didn't even know she was going to be frozen. Data bonds with the musician. The financier wants a copy of the wall street journal. The woman is just confused.

Deanna gives a briefing on the psychology of the Romulans, saying they won't initiate conflict, they'll wait on Picard.

Data shows Sonny, the musician, how to work the replicator. There is no TV. Sonny is sad. Will gets called by Picard so now they know how to use a communicator and they all want to meet Picard. "Keep them out of my way."

Commercial

Six hours out from the Neutral Zone, they theorize about what's going on with the Romulans. And then Offenhouse (the financier) calls Picard - he figured out how to use the commpanel. And then he compares the Enterprise to the QE2. So Picard walks down there and reams Offenhouse out. Offenhouse tries to convince Picard of his importance and says he has to call his lawyer, and Picard tells him there is no more. Accumulation of things and control of destiny is an illusion and so on. Picard tells Troi to come in. Offenhouse even apologzes. So Picard leaves and tells Deanna to get those people under control.

Deanna goes to see Clare (the woman). Clare wants to know what happened to her kids - so they go looking in the records.

Sonny wants drugs but Beverly won't give them to her so he asks for Data, the positronic pimp.

They find Claire's kids and she asks to be alone.

Data goes to see Sonny. Sonny wants a guitar. Data gets called to the bridge as they approach the Neutral Zone, forcing Sonny to ask what the Neutral Zone is... so data briefly explains. Idiot.

Commercial.

They find that "some great force just scooped it off the planet". Those outposts are not good places to be.

Offenhouse wants to get involved in the prblem with the Romulans. No one else does.

More missing outposts. They go to yellow alert.

It does not omprove Offenhouse's mood. He gets to the turbolift and gets the computer to tell him Picard is on the bridge and take him there...

The Romulans may be decloaking... Offenhouse arrives on the bridge. They order him off but the Romulans decloak in all their warbirdy glory.

Commercial.

They stop dragging Offenhouse away because its sooo cool I guess. Worf doesn't even want to talk to then but Picard does... the Romulans also have missing outposts on their side. Offenhouse says the Romulans don't know ether and Picard says he's right. They agree to share info on this and only this. Romulans are back.

They leave.

Deanna finds a current photo of one of Clare's descendants. They will send the people to earth to learn this century.

That is all.

Crossing the Barrier

Deep Space Nine: Crossover

There is a line.

We do not cross it.

You do not use TOS material.

Certainly, there are exceptions. "Sarek," although I think that may be about the availability of the actor. "Trials and Tribble-ations," obviously. But rarely did any later Trek take something beloved of TOS and make it their own.

Until "Crossover." Any future attempts failed ("I'm a Doctor, not a doorstop? Criminy!)

Legalese stuff out of the way first.

Crossover, DS9, Season 2.23, #443. Written by Michael Piller and Peter Allan Fields. Directed by David Livingston. This was before the Ron Moore years, when he still worked on TNG. Somebody had to, I guess. Preproduction on Voyager would have been underway by then.

Julian still talks too much. He manages to piss Kira off - not the first time. With breathing techniques and meditation. Good times. Julian is glad they're finally talking to each other and not fighting, burying the hatchet. He calls her Nerys and makes her call him Julian. She's going to kill him, I think, if they don't make it home soon. They're heading to the wormhole, lucky for Julian. He asks her out to dinner, she says no. They leave warp and the field won't collapse all the way so they go into the wormhole weirdly with technobabble and there's a flash but they make it through... and the station's gone. Noooo station. And when they find it, it's by Bajor. And there's a Klingon ship that suddenly appears and when the captain sees Kira he starts wigging out and says he'll escort her back to the station like he's afraid of her.

When they get there, Garak is in a uniform and he doesn't know Julian... and there's another Kira!

Something very strange is happening.

Credits.

So we're in the mirror universe. I mean, duh, right? How else would Kira be wearing leather? It's not like she would normally be caught dead in leather. Especially the headband. I doubt this one meditates. Anyway, Garak says they're on Terok Nor, the center of authority for the Bajoran Alliance. They don't know the wormhole, BTW. LeatherKira won't let them leave, and Garak refers to Julian as "Terran!". LeatherKira orders Julian "taken below" to work.

They get to the Promenade which is just a big slave pit. There is a slave there who decided to try to stow away and Nerys sends him to the mines. Garak wants to interrogate him, so Nerys says okay but don't kill him.

Miles is there too. He's in charge of fixing things. Odo is in charge of keeping order. Rule 14 is no jokes. Julian is a Terran without a designation - and Odo slaps him around for it a little bit. This is ScaryOdo. ScaryOdo puts Julian to work.

LeatherKira takes Kira to OopsOps. Coming up with these names is fun. LeatherKira asks Kira her name, she says "Kira Nerys." "That makes two of us!"

They figure out pretty quickly that this is a different universe. Kira doesn't know Kirk - on LeatherKira's side Kirk is one of the most famous names in their history. She knows all about "Mirror, Mirror." Spock rose to commander in chief of the Empire and the Alliance rose up against him and took over, enslaving the Terrans. The Alliance is a "coming-together" of the Klingons and the Cardassians. Bajor was under Terran rule until the Empire collapsed and Bajor petitioned to enter the Alliance. LeatherKira has no intention of sending Kira and Julian back. The rule is that if anyone came over, they would be killed. LeatherKira says she has no taste for violence and doesn't want to do that.

Kira asks to learn from LeatherKira. LeatherKira wants to kill Julian, but Kira manages to talk her out of doing that through manipulating... herself. LeatherKira gets Kira some quarters... actually, she says "find this attractive young woman some quarters..." hmmm....

Commercial.

Kira comes to visit ScaryOdo and Julian. She asks Julian about Kirk and he knows exactly what's up. Julian wants to ask the other Miles for help. I don't know what name I'll be using for him.

Kira goes to Quark's. I don't have a name for him either. Kira goes to Quark and asks for a favor of a Transporter for a few hours. Quark is willing to help... for the ability to send people across to her side. Garak shows up and screams for Quark, to take him to be executed for helping Terrans escape from the station... I don't think I'll be needing a name for Quark as they drag him away.

Ben comes in then and starts pouring drinks on the house. Well, now I need a name for him.

Julian approaches OtherMiles. Really need a better name for him. He tells Miles he's Chief of Operations of the station and pours on some flattery. Miles refuses to help him. And then ScaryOdo tells WimpMiles (ah, found it!) that CrazyBen wants him in the bar.

CrazyBen is all over Kira. Creepy. LeatherKira has him under her thumb - he's her pirate. CrazyBen calls WimpMiles "Smiley" and WimpMiles really doesn't like him that much. CrazyBen tells WimpMiles to go fix his engine and WimpMiles just takes it. LeatherKira summons CrazyBen. Laughter ensues.

So CrazyBen and LeatherKira are having creepy fun time in LeatherKira's quarters when LeatherKira summons Kira. CrazyBen stomps out to check his ship when Kira gets there and when LeatherKira says, "Benjamin! Did I hurt your feelings?" he actually replies, "I never had any to hurt, Intendant."

Wowza. Whipped him good. I mean like, full-on whipped by Indiana Jones whipped.

Moving on.

The Intendant AKA LeatherKira is in her bath. LeatherKira says they can't use a transporter to get home. She wants to know why it is that Kira asked Quark for a transporter and not her wonderful self. "Don't you trust me?" and all that.

Kira, smartly, responds with "I'm a little afraid of you."

"I don't want your fear... all I want is your love.... if you can't love me... don't be in a hurry to go. I'm glad you're here..." Almost kisses her too.

Garak brings Quark in from interrogation. Kira asks him who would do labor for the Alliance without the Terrans and orders Quark executed. She's planned a party! What shall they wear!

Garak is in Kira's quarters when she gets back, carrying a dress. "I do admire a well-tailored gown," he tells her. Heeee! He tells Kira that LeatherKira is in love with her. Creeeeeepy. Ewwwwwwww. She'll never let Kira leave. Garak wants Kira to betray LeatherKira so he can be promoted. He wants Kira to take LeatherKira's place as Intendant. He is going to kill LeatherKira the next day, then in a few weeks Nerys can step down and go explore her pagh and he will take over. And if she declines, Julian dies.

Uh oh.

Commercial.

So Nerys goes to Julian and tells him to be careful. They have to leave now, and she's trying to get help.

ScaryOdo was watching.

Kira goes to CrazySisko and asks for help. CrazySisko refuses to give her the runabout because LeatherKira will "have my head... or something else." Garak has been trying to kill LeatherKira the whole time and CrazyBen thinks Garak's plot is hilarious. CrazyBen is indifferent and Kira tries to get him to help her but they just end up with some fun fun mutual hatred.

Kira goes to the party. Garak is charmed by her pretty pretty "well-tailored' dress. There are Klingons there and one of them gets in a fight with one of CrazyBen's crew. CrazyBen goes to stab him and then the Klingon backs off, leaving CrazyBen to fight off the Klingon. LeatherKira arrives and tells the music to start.

ScaryOdo finds Julian taking a break when a leak starts in the mine. Julian grabs a gun and shoots ScaryOdo, who explodes. Don't need his name anymore either then

Commercial.

Julian crawls into a Jeffries Tube when he runs across WimpyMiles. He asks WimpyMiles for help and convinces him that if he helps, he'll be alive again... and WimpyMiles says he'll help if he can come with... so Julian agrees. They get to the docking ring when they're captured by the Klingons.

The Klingons bring Julian and WimpyMiles to LeatherKira. LeatherKira says he has a lot to learn... she is furious that he killed ScaryOdo. Actually she is very admiring of ScaryOdo. Hmmmm. She goes on a self-centered rant and says it's her reward for treating Terrans with any respect - no one can stop her, she's determined to kill Julian slowly in public view. So then she asks WimpyMiles what he was thinking, and he says that Julian is a doctor, and there's a Miles there who is Chief of Operations, and it gave him hope and he wanted that life. He wanted to go with Julian because "whatever it's like there has to be better than this. There has to be something better than this." Garak is about to lead them out when CrazyBen actually does help them and they manage to run away. CrazyBen and WimpMiles go to start a rebellion and Nerys and Julian just get to go home.

The End.

Friday, August 19, 2011

To the Life

Deep Space 9: To the Death

We do learn something about the Jem'Hadar, and we meet Weyoun for the first time. We get to see the Jem'Hadar as soldiers, and since we will spend the next 3 years seeing them as cannon fodder, it is welcome. We learn to hate Weyoun, and we have some fun with TNG continuity.

But we never do see them rebuild the docking pylon.

Relatives

Voyager: Relativity

So, it's time for more temporal mechanics, Voyager style.

Actually, I think it's Back to the Future. Only with more stuff. I like stuff, don't get me wrong. But... time travel in Voyager is... actually not that much more than anyone else, but it seems like a lot. Maybe because there's more time travel two-parters, or maybe because the eps just tend to be kind of stupid but either way, it seems like I've had enough of it.

But it's not that bad. We should remember that.

Percentage-wise, TAS was the worst. an impressive 9% of the 22 eps were time travel. That's 2.
Just thought I'd mention that.

Who Mourns for Crabby Hologram Designers?

Voyager: Lifeline

Here's the thing. I like Barclay.

I like Troi.

But they're on TNG. And this is Voyager. And they don't belong here. And you know what else doesn't fit?

In Act Three, Janeway gets a transmission about the "status of the Maquis." You could do an entire episode about the "status of the Maquis" but here it's shuttered to the background of an episode, and look at that, there's Brannon Braga taking partial credit for the teleplay.
He's lost the mission, bro.

Suspicious activity

TNG: Suspicions
Beverly Crusher is not having a good day.

In fact, she's about to have her best episode ever. She just doesn't know it yet. Usually she has some pathtic romance (Doctor Beverly, anyone?) But this time, oh, this time, she decided to dabble in physics and there isn't a long-haired lover in sight.

Tangent over.

There is, however, a problem, which is that a lot of people don't like Crusher, and Star Trek was not up to story arcs at that point. This is, of course, the pre-Coto years. There were practically no story arcs, everything was self-contained. Which means, since no one said boo about Gates leaving the show, we were not going to see a trial and everyone knew it.

Anyway, she tells Guinan she's no longer the CMO on the ship, begging a huge WTF from everyone who likes Crusher. Guinan starts complaining of tennis elbow.

Credits.

Beverly says she was trying to get some scientists, any scientists, to give some credit to the theories of a Ferengi scientist named Rega.

The scientists, however, are argumentative. So it is decided that Rega will not test his invention, which will allow a ship to survive in the corona of a star. Instead, another scientist, a Tarkalean named Jo'Brill, will fly the shuttle to test the device. The test goes pretty well... until Jo'Brill collapses. They get him back to sickbay long enough for him to gasp out, "I saw... the sun..." before he dies.

Commercial.

He's dead for no reason. Beverly performs an autopsy and there's literally no reason why he's dead. The only weird thing of note is that his cellular decay is really slow but his innards are so messed up that Beverly doesn't even worry about it.

Neither Data, no Geordi, nor Rega can find anything wrong with the shuttle either. And Beverly has to end the test of the shield... which is not what Rega wants. But that, as she tells Guinan, is the last time she saw Rega alive.

Commercial.

They detect a plasma surge on the ship, in the science lab, and when they investigate they find Rega, dead, clutching a plasma tool of some kind. Worf is convinced it's suicide. Beverly is not so convinced... but Picard tells her there will be no autopsy, it is against Ferengi custom.

But she's sure the scientists did it - or at least one of them. So she interviews Drs. T'Pan and Christopher, and then Kurak. None of them is very flattered, although Christopher says Kurak and Rega were arguing in the lab earlier before he died, and when Beverly questions her about that she gets thrown across the room for her trouble.

So Beverly does the only thing she has left to do. She autopsies Rega. She then goes to Picard and tells him so. Picard is, quite understandably, furious. He is very very sad, and he wants to protect Beverly as much as he can, but she tells him not to. So she goes back to her quarters and that's when the episode starts.

Guinan tells Beverly to go do something about it. In the immortal words of Jonathan Frakes, "What are they gonna do, fire me?"

Commercial.

During the flight, the shield may have been sabotaged. It's tough to tell. Beverly now knows to look for tetryon traces in Jo'Brill's body. On her way to Sickbay, Will stops by to tell her to stop looking, but she just can't and tells him to butt out. Instead of butting out she goes to her office and tries to access medical records. She can't do that, though, because she's not actually on the medical staff. So Alyssa comes in and helps her. Beverly tries to order her not to, but... "Too bad you're not my boss anymore."

Anyway, they recheck Jo'Brill, and there are tetryons, so maybe... but in the end, there's only one way to know. Someone is going to have to get in the shuttle, fly it to the star, and see if they die or not.

So Beverly does.

Commercial.

She flies into the sun and survives, but communications drop. Then Jo'Brill climbs out of a locker and attacks Beverly. She gets to be Action!Bev for a change and kill the dude by disintegration. As far as I recall, she used a phaser about 3 times. This was one.

Anyway, of course, that means only one thing.

She's cleared!

And then there's a problem.

Because Guinan doesn't play tennis.

So.

It's not Trek.

There's no police action, no guest character solving their own problem, no recreation of Earth's past, no alien aliens. I mean, sure, there's a dude you can shoot a hole through, and Beverly solves her own problem but I'm pretty sure I took that far enough with expanding #2 to recurring guest characters - Roddenberry specified that you never see the character again, and we see Bev all the damn time. I'm putting enough in just letting them use Barclay or Naomi Wildman or Zek or Brunt or Ishka or Morn.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Conspiracy of Silence

TNG "Conspiracy"
Ocean world of Pacifica? Really? How creative. Geordi is trying to tell Data a joke, which he overanalyzes and fails to laugh at. Also, the first and only use of the word hyperspace in Trek happens now. Data also is dumb with metaphors and we learn Worf doesn't bathe.

For some reason, Picard is asleep during all this. When I was little I thought they didn't get to sleep at all because they were always all on the bridge when stuff happened. A code 47 (nice continuity from TOS if you're looking) communication comes in and they have to wake the poor man up. Its his old friend Walker who wants him to come to Dytallix B, now, very secret.

Credits. Denise crosby is still there.

Picard orders them to Dytallix B and radio silence and no logs or anything recorded about it whatsoever. Warpies!

And I bet you wanna know what Dytallix B is! Data determines that Dytallix B is utterly useless, to quote, "a lifeless hunk of rock, a useless ball of mud, a useless chunk of..."

There are 3 ships in orbit - one is Walker's ship. Picard beams down and meets Walker and the Captains of the other two, Captains Rixx and Scott. Rixx and Scott promptly point phasers at him while Walker conducts a memory test. Where did we first meet? Who introduced Jack and Beverly Crusher, how many sisters does Walker have? Rixx says 'their' weakness is a lack of memory. As a side note, turns out Tryla Scott actually beat Kirks record for youngest captain.

Anyway, strange things are going on with starfleet, people are dying, interfleet communications are wonky, they think the Enterprise will be targeted, they don't know for what exactly, but old friends are forgetting things, some of Walkers officers are acting weird since they stopped at Earth, and so on. But its all vague, and they don't have any evidence. Picard takes their warning and leaves.

Commercial.

Picard tells Deanna, of course. He believes something is wrong, but there is no evidence. They go back on course for the poorly named Pacifica.

Data gets assigned to find out if anything hinky is actually going on by analyzing everything that anyone in Starfleet did for the last six months.

While they're flying along, they notice something odd nearby and stop to have a look. It is debris. No bodies, just debris. It matches the size of the Horatio, but no identifying marks.

Commercial.

Picard believes it all now. He tells Riker, and he remembers Quinn warning him too, in "Coming of Age".

Data starts talking to himself, then explains that to the computer, which tells him off for overexplaining. He gives it a supicious look. As would I.

The point is, data has found that someone is moving officers to control key areas of space, possibly to prepare for invasion. Riker says, "are you suggestng we warp over to starflet headquarters and demand to know what's going on?" No one said that!

But that's exactly what they decide to do. They warp back to Earth. They pull into a parking space and no one answes their hails for a bit, then admirals Savar, Aaron, and our old buddy Quinn answer. They want to know why the ship skipped stopping at the sillily named Pacifica, then Remmick comes in and the Admirals hit the mute buton. Picard and crew are suspicious, but then the Admirals come back on and invite Picard and Riker to dinner. Quinn says he can't come to dinner, but he wants to see the ship, can he come onboard? What? What? How does that make sense? How? And Picard, he buys it, because he just lost his buddy and he's obviously not thinking straight. But seriously, I don't have time for dinner but I have time to see your ship? Either he's coming up with dumb excuses because he's the dumbest admiral ever, or he's trying to lull Picard into a false sense of security to get onboard. Either way, I guarantee you don't want him there.

Quinn, in fact, has a pink... thing in a box. He seems to hide it from Remmick, who beams him to the ship as dramtic music plays.

Commercial.

Picard asks Quinn about what he said on Relva 7 about a threat, but Quinn says he didn't mean it. Picard leaves Riker onboard with Quinn and tells him he is sure it isn't Quinn. Picard tells Riker to get Quinn examined and beams down alone and unarmed to headquarters, where Savar, Aaron, and Remmick greet him and say they fixed a special dinner for him. Picard also notices headquarters is unusually quiet.

Quinn shows Riker a "superior" form of life in a box. Riker tries to call Data when Quinn yells " it won't like your science offcer. It does like you!" And proceeds to throw Riker acros the room. Riker calls security before Quinn wipes the floor with him, supporting both dumb and evil theories about Quinn.

The admirals toast to the Horatio, and tell picard the ship imploded "due to the extreme negligence of her Captain".

Worf, and for some reason Geordi, come to Riker's rescue. Quinn tries to leave and when Geordi objects, Quinn throws him through the door. Now its just him and Worf.

Commercial.

Quinn proceeds to beat Worf to a pulp. Beverly then comes in and shoots him, then treats Riker. I think she can scan Quinn now.

Which she does - retinas first. Its really him. And he has a little spike on the back of his neck...

Picard continues to be threatened by admirals who wish they were as cool as Dukat but alas, no. They go to dinner and Picard calls Riker and gets Crusher, who tells him about the spike and that it is a parasite, also that Riker got used as a rag. She says phasers on kill, he says he doesn't have one. Remmick comes out to yell "come and get it before I throw it in the floor!"

Riker wakes up.

Picard goes to sit down to a meal of icky icky worms. Everyone else is eating. Poor actors. I wonder how many takes they had to do. Picard is leaving when Riker arrives and says "He'll be one of us soon". He has the spike. And then captain Scott shows up. Riker shoves Picard in a chair and tells him he'll understand soon. They gloat for a while, then Riker goes to get some worms and starts stunning people. Aaron runs, but he and Picard stun everyone else. These little pink bugs like the one Quinn had come out of their mouths. They chase Aaron and stun him and follow his bug wen it crawls out...

To Remmick.

Who swallows it.

Whole.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

His neck starts bulging. "You don't understand. We mean you no harm. We seek peaceful coexistence." He sounds very sarcastic, and looks it too with the case of tonsilitis he has going on.

They shoot him.

A creature rises up from inside him and roars.

They shoot that too.

All the creatures die, then, and people get bodies back.

But Remmick sent out a homing beacon.

This one... ah, this one.

This actually became the Borg. Imagine if they continued with this instead, kind of like if X-files hadn't ditched the Black Oil thing.

Or, also, imagine if Voyager had run into this. Could have done. Didn't.

Now that thought's gonna piss me off all week.

Solid Type 1, Type 3, Type 4. Just missing follow-through, which was in dangerously short supply before Ron Moore anyway.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Because Kirk was Soooooooo worried about PR!

Back to my interupted survey of Gold Key's original Star Trek comics from 1968, we have the absolute gem, "Day of the Inquisitors."

...

No, really.

So, teasers aside, we open with a captain's log. Before I can even find out what Kirk's on about now, there is something to be dealt with.

The Public Relations officer.

...

When, exactly, between killing his best friend, teaching psychotic children not to beat their wives, driving Greek gods to suicide, killing Jack the Ripper, and other assorted insanity did the man care about PR? Or the media, or the reaction of Earth, or the reaction of his boss? In fact, now that I think of it, Enterprise has way too much of that, particularly at the beginning. I've never really focused on that and now it'll drive me crazy for the next six months.

I haven't finished the first sentence yet. This does not bode well.

So they do manage to make things happen, like the word Federation and the concept of joining said Federaton, but there is no concept of the council, it's just, ooh, first contact, come join the party! At least it's effort. Most of those rules were implied in the 60s, anyway. Now, if it was Picard's Enterprise, we would have a huge problem.

But it's not.

The real trouble starts when they get to the city looking for supplies. Instead of anything sane, the conclusion is that the best thing to do is, in fact, knock out the guards to get in, as far as I can tell, because they're there and Kirk likes to hit things. Even Spock joins in the smackaroo for some reason I'm not too clear on.

Kill kill kill.

And that leads, for some reason I'm not super clear on, to this-

Kirk: Someday, Spock, you'll underestimate an enemy... and you won't live to regret it!

Spock: Impossible, Captain! Regret is an emotion, and I have no emotions.

Excuse me?

YES YOU DO, THEY SAID SO IN, JUST OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD:

"The Naked Time"
"Amok Time"
"This Side of Paradise" a.k.a "The Way of the Spores" which is a very Doctor Who like title.
"Star Trek: The Motion Picture" a.k.a "In Thy Image" in which Spock laughs, screams, and cries.
"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" in which he has a touching death scene.
Actually, the last two weren't written yet, scratch them. Oh! "The Immunity Syndrome"! See?

So they get into the city and promptly decide to beat up more people, because, as Fakeway said in "Living Witness", "it's the Starfleet way..."

SIGH.

But you know, that's not even my real problem. See, Spock didn't pick that fight. It was Kirk. Silly Kirk. Silly, silly Kirk who lets the monk looking dudes he was soooo eager to beat to a pulp run away while he rescues their prisoner. So let me get this straight. We crash, knock out the city guard instead of asking for supplies, sneak into said city, find some monk looking dudes with a prisoner, free the prisoner from the clutches of what is presumably the legal planetary government, and then let the monk dudes get away?

Yeah.

Yeah.

For super real.

How effing dumb can you get?

The tale that follows tells us, though, that the monks - inquisitors, really - are very very bad. Plus, they dress like the KKK.

So, anyway, back on the Enterprise, Uhura is wearing forest green and no one is worried that flames appear to be shooting out both the nacelles and shuttlebay. This may have to do with the "planetary disaster in sector sigma". That they have to go fix right now. Scotty refuses. We don't know what this disaster is. Two planets could be colliding.

Or, the King's cat could be up a tree.

We. Dont . Know. And he doesn't bother to check, just assumes that whatever it is, Kirk is more important.

To Be Continued because I think my brain is bleeding.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Poke a Sleeping Cardassian in the Eye

"Explorers" is one of those eps that make me wonder what on Earth is the problem with DS9. What on Earth? What's not to love, as a TV show? It's funny. It's got great characters and character-driven stories. It's got families and religion and twisty turny plots with friends who become enemies and enemies who become friends. It was drawn on heavily by John Logan in Nemesis as the source for most of the data about Romulan society since the TOS episode "Balance of Terror"... So what is everyone's problem?

How the Mighty have Fallen

I really do like "Fallen Hero," like, a lot. Really really. But.

At the beginning, T'Pol flat out says that Starfleet doesn't allow captains to sleep with their subordinates. I know Janeway felt bound by a similar rule.

But Kirk seems to drag women back to his den a lot.