godlike powers Archive

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

– August 22, 2013 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Transfigurations”
Written by René Echevarria
Directed by Tom Benko

Season 3, Episode 25
Original air date: June 4, 1990
Star date: 43957.2

Mission summary

Worf encourages La Forge to hit on a woman in Ten Forward, in the only way a Klingon can, but the awkward engineer crashes and burns. And he’s not the only one: In the course of a routine charting assignment, Enterprise has detected a crashed vessel on a planet. They investigate and discover a lone survivor in the wreckage of an escape pod. He’s in pretty bad shape, too unstable to transport, so Dr. Crusher whips out a thingey that links La Forge’s nervous system to help regulate the patient’s heart. The interface delivers a weird little shock to La Forge, but he seems fine, and it works. They bring the injured man aboard.

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Tags: amnesia, dating advice, diplomacy, dr. crusher has a crush, energy beings, evolution, geordi's a dork, godlike powers, handwaving mumblemumble, mysteries, science!, technobabble, the prime directive is really more of a guideline

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

Eugene Myers

– January 10, 2013 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“The Survivors”
Written by Michael Wagner
Directed by Les Landau

Season 3, Episode 3
Original air date: October 8, 1989
Star date: 43152.4

Mission summary

Enterprise responds to a distress call at planet Rana IV, which was reportedly under attack by an unknown ship. But by the time they get there, the enemy is gone—along with all life and buildings on the surface. Eleven thousand colonists have been wiped out. No wait, make that 10,998. Scans show that there are two survivors located in an improbably intact square of land that contains a house and plant life.

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Tags: doomed colonies, evil music boxes, godlike powers, illusions, immortality sucks, loneliness, love kills, mysteries, playing detective, space douches, troi is useless, twilight zone, worf is wrong, worf lacks social skills

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Q Who”

Torie Atkinson

– October 4, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Q Who”
Written by Maurice Hurley
Directed by Rob Bowman

Season 2, Episode 16
Original air date: May 8, 1989
Star date: 42761.3

Mission summary

The Enterprise has a new arrival: manic pixie dream girl Ensign Sonya Gomez, who tries to charm us by being polite to replicators, babbling on incoherently, and spilling hot chocolate (so much cuter than coffee) on an unsuspecting Captain Picard. The captain heads to Officers’ Quarters (really? They have their own district away from the riff-raff?) but the turbolift dumps him instead onto a familiar-looking shuttlecraft out in the deepness of space… with Q.

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Tags: awful attempts at humor, borg, emotional women, finally something good has happened to our beloved legacy, geordi's a dork, godlike powers, men being arrogant douchebags, mysteries, q, space douches, stupid women

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Where Silence Has Lease”

Torie Atkinson

– June 14, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Where Silence Has Lease”
Written by Jack B. Sowards
Directed by Winrich Kolbe

Season 2, Episode 2
Original air date: November 28, 1988
Star date: 42193.6

Mission summary

Worf invites Riker to the Klingon’s ultraviolent “calisthenics program,” a lengthy and pointless opening sequence that winds up being the most exciting part of these 44 minutes. The actual plot¹ begins² when the crew stumbles upon a “black void,” or what Data calls “nothing”: no sensor readings, no life signs, just a “hole in space.” This threatens to be interesting but it’s actually just Act I of an absurdist tragicomedy featuring a bridge with no exit.

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Tags: boring, fully clothed man-wrestling, godlike powers, man-off, phenomenal cosmic power, Pulaski hates Data, space douches, space vaginas, troi is useless, were they drunk when they threw this one together?, why did this have to happen to our beloved legacy, worf has baggage

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Skin of Evil”

Eugene Myers

– April 26, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Skin of Evil”
Written by Joseph Stefano and Hannah Louise Shearer
Directed by Joseph L. Scanlan

Season 1, Episode 23
Original air date: April 25, 1988
Star date: 41601.3

Mission summary

Since not much is going on, Chief-Engineer-of-the-Week Leland T. Lynch decides to polish the Enterprise’s dilithium crystals; fortunately, chugging along at impulse just means it will take that much longer to pick up shuttlecraft 13, in which Counselor Troi is returning from a conference on “How to Succeed in Starfleet Without Really Trying.” Then sensors read an emergency on the shuttle, interrupting Worf and Tasha’s long-overdue bonding moment—she’s really looking forward to a martial arts competition in a few days, and Worf’s betting on her, even though they don’t have any money in the future. (Or maybe because they don’t have any money in the future.)

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Tags: emotional women, everyone loves riker, evil incarnate, godlike powers, immortality sucks, loneliness, overdue for an oil change, pedantic psychobabble, Picard beams into certain danger, sappy holographic recording, senseless death, weak villains

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “When the Bough Breaks”

Eugene Myers

– March 15, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“When the Bough Breaks”
Written by Hannah Louise Shearer
Directed by Kim Manners

Season 1, Episode 17
Original air date: February 15, 1988
Star date: 41509.1

Mission summary

Enterprise follows a trail of energy readings to the Epsilon Mynos system, the legendary location of the hidden world Aldea, which turns out to be more than a myth. The planet drops its sophisticated cloaking shield and they are welcomed by a young woman, Rashella, who soon transports to the ship’s bridge with a much older man, Radue, First Appointee to Aldea. They have an intriguing, but ambiguous deal to offer the Federation crew.

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Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Hide and Q”

Torie Atkinson

– January 26, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Hide and Q”
Story by C.J. Holland
Teleplay by C.J. Holland and Gene Roddenberry
Directed by Cliff Bole

Season 1, Episode 10
Original air date: November 23, 1987
Star date: 41590.5

Mission summary

The Enterprise is en route to Sigma III, where an explosion has threatened a mining colony. Hurtling through space at warp 9.1, the ship gets caught in a net–the same stock footage they saw back near Farpoint station. Sure enough and with his usual bad timing, Q blinks onto the bridge and informs Picard that the Q have become impressed by humans, and as such are offering Riker–and only Riker– “the realization of your most impossible dream.”

Alas, he doesn’t mean skipping to season 3.

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Tags: beardless wonder, costume closet raid, everyone loves riker, godlike powers, pinocchio syndrome, q, shakespeare, space douches

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

Torie Atkinson

– January 12, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Justice”
Teleplay by Worley Thorne
Story by Ralph Willis and Worley Thorne
Directed by James L. Conway

Season 1, Episode 8
Original air date: November 9, 1987
Star date: 41255.6

Mission summary

After settling some colonists in the Strnad solar system, the Enterprise comes across a Eden-like M-class planet called Edo in the adjoining star system. A small away team has been down to make contact, and the locals are party animals. LaForge describes the Edo as “wild in some ways, actually puritanical in others. Neat as pins, ultra-lawful, and make love at the drop of a hat.” While Riker’s already got his bag packed, Picard thinks there must be some negatives. He allows a small party–including Wesley Crusher, for some reason–to beam down to test the place’s suitability for shore leave, but warns that they should “just hope it’s not too good to be true.”

Right on cue, the sensors start to go crazy–it’s reading that something else is in orbit around Edo, but no one can see it. Oh well. Nothing worth getting in the way of hot sex, right?

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Tags: APPDEB, awful costumes, bad costumes, bad history, eden, Garden of Eden, godlike powers, horrible horrible children, justice, sexy ladies, silly costumes, skimpy costumes, space douches, the boy, the gods must be crazy, were they drunk when they threw this one together?, wesley endangers the ship, why did this have to happen to our beloved legacy

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Where No One Has Gone Before”

Torie Atkinson

– December 29, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: Featured, TNG Re-Watch

“Where No One Has Gone Before”
Written by Diane Duane and Michael Reaves
Directed by Rob Bowman

Season 1, Episode 6
Original air date: October 26, 1987
Star date: 41263.1

Mission summary

The Enterprise accepts the assistance of a Mr. Kosinski, a propulsion specialist who claims he (along with his nameless alien assistant) can improve the efficiency of the ship’s engines. Data and Riker are not convinced–they’ve run the models, and the models indicate no improvement in speed or performance. Moreover, Kosinski is an arrogant, self-satisfied schmuck (and yet strangely not a commodore!), and both Riker and one of the chief engineers, Argyle, hesitate to allow Kosinski access to their engines at all. They eventually decide that if his calculations are gibberish no harm can come to the ship anyway, and allow Kosinski to go through with his experiment.

Beginning at warp 1.5, the Enterprise steadily accelerates–but something goes wrong. Suddenly the ship is zipping past galaxies at incalculable speeds. Picard orders an emergency reverse of the engines, and when the ship comes to a full stop they realize they are (improbably) in the galaxy M33: 2.7 million light years from home. It will take over 300 years for them to return their own galaxy.

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Tags: curiosity, godlike powers, not a space douche, parallel universes, picard is french, sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic, the boy, the traveler, wesley saves the day

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “The Last Outpost”

Eugene Myers

– December 22, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“The Last Outpost”
Written by Herbert Wright
Story by Richard Krzemian
Directed by Richard Colla

Season 1, Episode 5
Original air date: October 19, 1987
Star date: 41386.4

Mission summary

Enterprise pursues a Ferengi starship to recover a stolen T9 energy converter, with the hope that they will also be able to establish first contact with the mysterious race of space traders. Things are off to a rocky start when they face off in the unexplored Delphi Ardu system and the Ferengi open fire on them.

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