Archive for February, 2013

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “The Vengeance Factor”

– February 28, 2013 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

thevengeancefactor191 “The Vengeance Factor”
Written by Sam Rolfe
Directed by Timothy Bond

Season 3, Episode 9
Original air date: November 20, 1989
Star date: 43421.9

Mission summary

After discovering a ransacked Starfleet research facility–evidence of encroaching raids from a group of Acamarians called the Gatherers–Picard decides to do something about this problem once and for all. Enterprise sets out for Acamar III, where he meets with the leader of the ruling group of Acamarians, Sovereign Marouk.

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Tags: diplomacy, emotional women, everyone loves riker, handwaving mumblemumble, immortality, loyalty, mysteries, planetary conflict, set phasers to kill, sexy ladies, slavery, were they drunk when they threw this one together?

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “The Price”

Torie Atkinson

– February 21, 2013 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“The Price”
Written by Hannah Louise Shearer
Directed by Robert Sheerer

Season 3, Episode 8
Original air date: November 13, 1989
Star date: 43385.6

Mission summary

Troi has a fight with the replicator over chocolate, because she’s had an exhausting day or has her space period or whatever. But she can’t even enjoy it because Picard summons her to a diplomatic reception for a first look at a wormhole owned by the Barzans. The Barzan Premier, Bhavani, plans to auction off rights to the wormhole and so the Enterprise hosts delegates from several interested parties: the Federation, represented by Mendoza; the Caldonians, represented by Leyor; and the Chrysalians, represented by a humanoid named Devinoni Ral, with a sexy lady hanging off his arm. He and Troi lock eyes with the kind of vapid, sultry looks Calvin Klein models wear, making it really uncomfortable when Bhavani says “There it is, ladies and gentlemen, the first and only stable wormhole known to exist. It’s yours, for the right price. ”

I hope she means the space anomaly.

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Tags: emotional women, everyone loves riker, ferengis, hegemonic masculinity, negotiations, pick-up artists, sexism, total creepers, troi earns her paycheck, troi gets laid, women are emotional wrecks, wormholes

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “The Enemy”

Eugene Myers

– February 14, 2013 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

theenemy185 “The Enemy”
Written by David Kemper and Michael Piller
Directed by David Carson

Season 3, Episode 7
Original air date: November 6, 1989
Star date: 43349.2

Mission summary

A distress signal leads Enterprise to a crappier-than-usual planet, Galorndon Core, where a small away team discovers the remnants of a Romulan shuttle–which was apparently destroyed after it crash-landed. Worf stumbles across an injured Romulan and promptly injures him some more to make him easier to rescue. Meanwhile, the hapless La Forge becomes the proverbial “boy in the well” when the ground crumbles beneath him and he plummets into a crevasse. Because of magnetic interference in the atmosphere that disrupts transporter beams, communications, and tricorders, Riker and Worf have to leave their friend behind, but no one really considers a surly Romulan on the verge of death a fair trade for their engineer.

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Tags: angry klingons, blindness, diplomacy, dr. crusher is pushy, hell planet, klingons, magic VISOR, neutrinos, orphans, penis-waving around the Neutral Zone, riker drinks alone, rocks, romulans, troi is useless, Wesley is a smartypants

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Booby Trap”

Torie Atkinson

– February 7, 2013 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Booby Trap”
Teleplay by Ron Roman and Michael Piller & Richard Danus
Story by Michael Wagner & Ron Roman
Directed by Gabrielle Beaumont

Season 3, Episode 6
Original air date: October 30, 1989
Star date: 43205.6

Mission summary

La Forge is weirding out his first (and last) date by laying it on way too thick in a Margaritaville holoprogram (probably came with the machine, surely the designers didn’t expect anyone to use it), and soon his date can’t take another second and begs off. Just another day on the love boat…

At least Picard is having some fun, exploring a Promellian ship from a forgotten battle waged over 1000 years ago that’s still broadcasting its distress signal. After he beams down, there’s a slight energy blip on the Enterprise–clue #1. The dead ship is full of corpses who have died at their posts–clue #2. But what could possibly go wrong out here in space, isolated, and as lonely as Geordi on a Saturday night? And the law of television says you need three clues, so they’re probably fine, right?

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