troi is useless Archive

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “A Matter of Perspective”

– April 4, 2013 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“A Matter of Perspective”
Written by Ed Zuckerman
Directed by Cliff Bole

Season 3, Episode 14
Original air date: February 12, 1990
Star date: 43610.4

Mission summary

Data interrupts Picard’s art class to tell him that they’ve arrived at Tenuga IV and also that Picard couldn’t paint his way out of a Rothko. It seems Riker and La Forge conducted a survey of Dr. Apgar’s work on Krieger waves, which they hope will become a new energy source. La Forge says in so many words that Riker surveyed someone just a little too intimately and is in a rush to return. But as he beams back, Dr. Apgar’s science station explodes, and Riker barely makes it home intact.

But his luck isn’t meant to last, because an Inspector Krag beams aboard and arrests Riker… for murder.

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Tags: emotional women, fully clothed man-wrestling, handwaving mumblemumble, holodeck, holodreck, mysteries, not everyone loves riker, science!, troi is useless

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

Torie Atkinson

– March 7, 2013 9:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“The Defector”
Written by Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Robert Sheerer

Season 3, Episode 10
Original air date: January 1, 1990
Star date: 43462.5

Mission summary

Picard is giving Data lessons in humanity by way of Henry V on the holodeck, but their epiphanies are interrupted by a Romulan scout ship asking for help. Suddenly a warbird decloaks, fires some shots at the scout ship, and turns away as the Enterprise extends its deflector shields around the scout ship to protect it. As life support there fails, Picard has the ship’s only occupant beamed over: Romulan Sublieutenant Setal, bearing warnings that the Romulans are planning to start a war, beginning at Nelvana III.

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Tags: diplomacy, emotion, loyalty, mysteries, romulans, troi is useless, war

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: “The Bonding”

Eugene Myers

– January 31, 2013 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

thebonding243 “The Bonding”
Written by Ronald D. Moore
Directed by Winrich Kolbe

Season 3, Episode 5
Original air date: October 23, 1989
Star date: 43198.7

Mission summary

An Enterprise away team is rummaging through the remnants of yet another alien civilization that destroyed itself, the Koinonians, when it stumbles across a booby trap that explodes and instantly kills Lt. Marla Aster, the ship’s archaeologist. The sudden, violent death is all the more tragic because she leaves behind a 12-year-old son, Jeremy.

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Tags: aliens, batteries not included, civil war, dead civilizations, emotion, energy entities, evil doubles, horrible horrible children, illusions, klingons, loneliness, orphans, troi is useless

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Who Watches the Watchers”

Torie Atkinson

– January 24, 2013 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Who Watches the Watchers”
Written by Richard Manner & Hans Beimler
Directed by Robert Wierner

Season 3, Episode 4
Original air date: October 16, 1989
Star date: 43173.5

Mission summary

The Enterprise hurries to Mintaka III, where some Federation anthropologists secretly observing a proto-Vulcan race are in jeopardy. Their sooper sekrit compound blows up when the generator fails, exposing their little observation tower to the natives below–a girl named Oji and her father, Liko. The scientists and Liko are injured in the explosion, and Crusher decides to beam them onboard for medical treatment. Oji watches all this from a hiding place, wondering what the hell is going on…

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Tags: moral superiority, native americans, not everyone loves riker, picard moralizing, prime directive, religion, the picard, the prime directive: more like guidelines than actual rules, troi is useless

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: “Evolution”

Eugene Myers

– December 27, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Evolution”
Written by Michael Piller, Story by Michael Piller and Michael Wagner
Directed by Winrich Kolbe

Season 3, Episode 1
Original air date: September 25, 1989
Star date: 43125.8

Mission summary

Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher wakes up from a terrible dream about spending two years aboard an alternate version of the Enterprise, in which the crew often behaved as if their dialogue and actions were guided by poorly-written television scripts and their missions didn’t make any sense. Phew. Thank goodness that’s over. Unfortunately, Commander Riker’s wake-up call informs Wesley he’s late for Bridge duty; he’d fallen asleep at his workstation and forgotten to set an alarm. He hastily packs up his scattered equipment and rushes off to take his position at Navigation.

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Tags: astrophyics, breeding, computers, handwaving mumblemumble, obsessed scientist, science!, sentient machines, troi is useless, wesley endangers the ship, wesley needs to get out more

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Shades of Gray”

Torie Atkinson

– November 22, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Shades of Gray”
Teleplay by Maurice Hurley and Richard Manning & Hans Beimler
Story by Maurice Hurley
Directed by Rob Bowman

Season 2, Episode 22
Original air date: July 17, 1989
Star date: 42976.1

Mission summary

Riker and La Forge are exploring Dagobah when Riker gets a scratch on his leg. *tension music* He think it’s just a flesh wound, but La Forge asks for an emergency beam-out anyway. Unsurprisingly, the transporter’s biofilters detect something low-budget within Riker and just to be on the safe side, O’Brien decides not to beam him up until Pulaski can unnecessarily risk exposure by beaming down herself. She looks at him, sees it’s a flesh wound, and they beam up. Efficiency! But by now Riker’s leg is numb…

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Tags: handwaving mumblemumble, not everyone loves riker, science!, troi is useless, were they drunk when they threw this one together?, why did this have to happen to our beloved legacy

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “The Schizoid Man”

Torie Atkinson

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

“The Schizoid Man”
Teleplay by Tracy Tormé
Story by Richard Manning and Hans Beimler
Directed by Les Landau

Season 2, Episode 6
Original air date: January 23, 1989
Star date: 42437.5

Mission summary

The Enterprise has been sent on a priority 1 mission to assist Dr. Ira Graves, a cybernetic genius who has fallen ill and whose assistant has sent out a distress signal. But who has time for that when we can have a comic interlude! Troi and La Forge head to Data’s quarters because the android has something to show them.

LAFORGE: Did you damage your face, Data?
DATA: It is a beard, Geordi. A fine, full, dignified beard. One which commands respect and projects thoughtfulness and dignity. Well? Opinions?
TROI: It’s er, very different.
DATA: When I stroke the beard thusly, do I not appear more intellectual?
TROI: I’m sorry, I have to go now. Goodbye.

HEY COME BACK HERE. You have to sit through this, too!

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Tags: android rights, androids, brent spiner gets to act, computers, crazy scientists, Data is annoying, data is fully functional, emotion, emotional women, fear of death, handwaving mumblemumble, immortality sucks, science!, troi is useless

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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