Archive for March, 2012

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Coming of Age”

– March 29, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Coming of Age”
Written by Sandy Fries (uncredited rewrite by Hannah Louise Shearer)
Directed by Mike Vejar

Season 1, Episode 19
Original air date: March 14, 1988
Star date: 41461.2

Mission summary

Enterprise delivers acting ensign Wesley Crusher to Relva VII to participate in the planet’s annual Hunger Games Starfleet Academy entrance examination. He meets the other candidates: a girl named Oliana, a Vulcan girl named T’Shanik, and a Benzite named Mordock. They are all incredibly bright, but apparently only one of them will be offered a coveted spot at the Academy.

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Tags: after school special, annoying bureaucrats, conspiracies, lack of holodeck privacy, no-win scenario, psych test, starfleet academy, Wesley is a smartypants, wesley is oblivious to girls, wesley makes a friend

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Home Soil”

Torie Atkinson

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

“Home Soil”
Teleplay by Robert Sabaroff
Story by Karl Guers, Ralph Sanchez, and Robert Sabaroff
Directed by Corey Allen

Season 1, Episode 18
Original air date: February 22, 1988
Star date: 41463.9

Mission summary

The Enterprise pays a visit to Velara III, a Tattooine-like planet chosen by the Federation for terraforming. The leader of the terraforming team, Mandl, looks nervous and tries to discourage the Enterprise from stopping by. Picard knows something’s up (who wouldn’t want a hello from the inspectors?) and sends Riker, Yar, Data, and La Forge down to check things out. The rest of the terraforming team–Malencon, the hydraulics specialist; Luisa Kim, the biosphere designer; and chief engineer Bjorn Bensen–don’t seem to have any secrets. But when Mandl tells Malencon to get back to work, the specialist disappears into a room only to start screaming moments later. The crew finds him too late, badly burned by a ceiling-mounted laser drill. Though they beam him to sickbay, he’s dead, Jean-Luc.

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Tags: chemistry is too complicated for television writers, inorganic life, new life form, riker sexes ladies, terraforming, this misunderstanding will make a funny story later oh wait no it won't, ugly bags of mostly water

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: “Too Short a Season”

Torie Atkinson

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

“Too Short a Season”
Story by Michael Michaelian
Teleplay by Michael Michaelian and D.C. Fontana
Directed by Rob Bowman

Season 1, Episode 16
Original air date: February 8, 1988
Star date: 41309.5

Mission summary

On Mordan IV terrorists have taken several hostages, including a Federation ambassador, and demand to negotiate with an elderly Admiral Mark Jameson. Despite (or perhaps because of) his advanced years, Jameson’s qualifications are self-evident: he negotiated a seemingly impossible hostage situation on that very planet forty-five years earlier that made him something of a diplomatic hero. Though Mordan IV eventually plunged into a bloody, forty-year civil war, the past five years have been peaceful. Picard wonders why the current governor, Karnas, can’t seem to handle the situation himself. (Obviously healing a rift as deep as a civil war has a difficulty rating of three, max.)

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Tags: bad makeup, diplomacy fail, emotional women, fake moral dilemmas, letting the terrorists win, picard moralizing, really old people, things that are absolutely not funny, transparent allegories, troi is useless

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “11001001”

Eugene Myers

– March 1, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“11001001”
Written by Maurice Hurley and Robert Lewin
Directed by Paul Lynch

Season 1, Episode 15
Original air date: February 1, 1988
Star date: 41365.9

Mission summary

Enterprise reports to Starbase 74 for its 30,000 light year service inspection and upgrades, to be performed by Bynars, aliens who work in linked pairs and are connected to a central computer on their homeworld. Commander Riker doesn’t completely trust them, but he’s content to leave Wesley to keep an eye on them after the alien computer whizzes modify the holodeck and program up his dream girl: a woman named Minuet who tells him exactly what he wants to hear.

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