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Two episodes this evening: "Suddenly Human", from Season 4. This episode reminded me a bit of The Searchers, in that it utilizes a clash of cultures to examine the prejudices and assumptions of our heroes. That it was done nearly entirely as a bottle episode makes it more impressive. A decade...

Somebody posted the original electronic press kit from 1987 on YouTube: I have no idea why I wrote "stunt double" in that post; I of course meant Linda Hamilton herself. Chalk it up to a late night insomnia brain fart on my part.

Tonight's episode: "Liaisons", from Season 7. This episode at first seems to be telling two wildly discordant stories, with the comedy of Worf and Troi having to deal with their ambassadors aboard the Enterprise jarring mightily with the psychological thriller of Picard living through Misery on...

Tonight's episode: "The Chase", from Season 6. The production realities of making a science fiction TV series on a television budget and schedule in the sixties meant that most humanoid species necessarily looked like humans except for point ears, bumpy foreheads, weird noses, or odd haircuts...

Tonight's episode: "The Game", from Season 5. This one was a mixed bag for me. The clear highlight was Ashley Judd's second and final appearance as Ensign Robin Lefler. Judd made a character that could have been obnoxious come across instead as charming. I remember reading somewhere that the...

Tonight's episode: "Legacy", from Season 4. Even though it aired in 1990, my enduring memory of this episode was how rooted the aesthetic was in the eighties -- especially Tasha Yar's sister, Ishara, who looks like Linda Hamilton's stunt double circa the original Terminator. But it's a good...

Tonight's episode: "A Matter of Perspective", from Season 3. I have mixed feelings about this episode. It utilized some of the show's core technologies in interesting and unusual ways, and gave the holodeck real utility. But I don't think the Rashomon conceit works here because the three...

I've long felt that, unless you know your partner is expecting you to propose, and you're absolutely certain that the answer is going to be yes, an extremely public proposal like that is selfish, manipulative, even cruel.

Tonight's episode: "Loud As A Whisper", from Season 2. Considering how long ago this episode was made, it got a lot about the Deaf experience right, starting with casting a Deaf actor as Riva and involving him in the development and execution of the story. At least as important, the plot...

I definitely agree that Satie was a zealot and a fanatic in her cause. But I don't know that she had standards or a code. She had no problem lying in the courtroom, and was only too happy to lean on gossipy insinuation or casting aspersions when building her case if factual evidence didn't...

Tonight's episode: "The Drumhead", from Season 4. I'm not generally a fan of TNG's "message" episodes, and this one is as heavy-handed as they come. Nor is it exactly innovative in telling a Red Scare/witch hunt story. But it's the high caliber of execution here, and a chillingly effective...

Tonight's episode: "Tin Man", from Season 3. I really enjoyed this episode, which feels ahead of its time in its depiction of a neurodivergent character. Tam Elbrun feels like the Betazoid equivalent of a person on the autism spectrum. His brain doesn't work like other people's, making social...

DS9 left him in a Cardassian labor camp on Lazon II after the events of "Defiant". But the collapse of Cardassian Union at the end of the Dominion War would have provided an opportunity for the Federation to negotiate for the release of its citizens in exchange for humanitarian assistance and...

Tonight's episode: "Second Chances", from Season 6. It's one of those episodes that reminds the audience that transporter technology is an absolute horror show. We're told that transporters work by breaking people down to pure energy, transporting that energy at the speed of light, and then...

After the series finale of "Picard", I need to take a few days and sit with my thoughts about the end of an era. Given that episode featured the final confrontation between Jean-Luc Picard and the Borg, it seemed fitting to pick back up with the first confrontation between Jean-Luc Picard and...

Tonight's episode: "Masks", from Season 7. This episode is a failure, albeit an interesting and ambitious failure. It also answers the question: "Is there no limit to the number of characters that Brent Spiner can play in a single episode?" There's something innately ludicrous about leaping...

Tonight's episode: "The Arsenal of Freedom", from Season 1. Another one that I don't think I'd ever seen before. It only popped onto my radar when I was researching saucer separations after watching "Encounter at Farpoint." As far as season one episodes go, it's above average. The satire of a...

Tonight's episode: "Identity Crisis", from Season 4. I don't think I'd ever seen this one before. Usually I have at least a vague recollection of the episodes as I'm revisiting them, but this one felt completely new. I was hooked right from the cold open, where we're watching a recording of a...

Tonight's episode: "11001001", from Season 1. I remembered this one as a real stinker, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would despite its issues. The opening sequence where the Enterprise docks inside Starbase 74 is just breathtakingly gorgeous miniature work. Compare it to the CG stuff...

Tonight's episode: "The High Ground", from Season 3. I really liked how this one explored the factors that contribute to civil unrest, and the corrosive effect a protracted conflict has on both the oppressor and the oppressed. Given when the episode was made, it was probably conceived as an...

Tonight's episode: "Timescape", from Season 6. This is another timey-wimey one from Brannon Braga, who would become infamous for his over-reliance on time travel stories in "Voyager" and "Enterprise". But in this episode, time is a strange and unruly beast. Unlike "Cause and Effect", where the...

Tonight's episodes: "Encounter at Farpoint", the two-part series premiere from Season 1. It's a mixed bag, really rough in a number of key ways but undeniably ambitious with production values miles above both the original series and most of the other television being made at the time. Watching...

Tonight's episode: "We'll Always Have Paris", from Season 1. This is a weirdly inert and incompetently assembled episode. There are two main storylines, and neither ever really picks up steam. The title is an explicit reference to Casablanca, and the episode is clearly going for a Rick and...

Yeah, even Season 3 of "Picard" feels like a completely apples to oranges comparison with any season of TNG. Different storytelling models, different eras of television production, different storytelling focus. If I had to compare it to any other Trek, I would say it feels like a DS9 miniseries...

So classic that it got memed!

Tonight's episode: "Phantasms", from Season 7. This is a weird mishmash of an episode. The A-story is a horror story, complete with nightmarish visions, slasher sequences, and invisible vampires. The B-story, with Picard trying to get out of a tedious social function, is an uncooked comedy...

Tonight's episode: "Sarek", from Season 3. Usually when legacy characters make an appearance, it feels like being wrapped in a warm blanket that is well-loved and associated with fond memories. It would have been easy to bring Mark Lenard back to play the great man we know Sarek to be, and have...

Continuing along the Worf vs. Duras story arc... Tonight's episode: "Firstborn", from Season 7. This is a much smaller story than "Sins of the Father" and the "Redemption" two-parter, but there was a lot I really liked about it. It represented a real moment of growth for Worf as a man caught...

Continuing along the Worf vs. Duras story arc... Tonight's episodes: "Redemption", the two-parter that closed out Season 4 and kicked off Season 5. Even though there have been nearly twenty intervening episodes, this two-parter picks up more or less where "Renunion" left off: With Worf having...

Continuing along the Worf vs. Duras story arc... Today's episode: "Reunion", from Season 4. "Sins of the Father" ended with the various Klingon characters making an uncharacteristically pragmatic choice to preserve the stability of the empire at a cost to their honor. In this episode, those...