emotion Archive

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

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

“Sarek”
Written by Peter S. Beagle
Story by Mark Cushman and Jake Jacobs
Directed by Les Landau

Season 3, Episode 23
Original air date: May 14, 1990
Star date: 43917.4

Mission summary

Picard and Riker are giddy to be hosting a very special guest: Ambassador Sarek from Vulcan, who will be presiding over the first meeting and negotiations between the Federation and a race called the Legarans. Word is, the 202-year-old Vulcan will be retiring soon after, leaving this as the crowning achievement to an illustrious career.

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Tags: bar brawl, data plays violin, diplomacy, emotion, getting old sucks, logic, loyalty, mind meld, patrick stewart is awesome, sarek, wesley has a crush

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

Torie Atkinson

– July 18, 2013 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

Tin Man “Tin Man”
Written by Dennis Putman Bailey & David Bischoff
Directed by Robert Sheerer

Season 3, Episode 20
Original air date: April 23, 1990
Star date: 43779.3

Mission summary

The Enterprise has an unexpected run-in with Captain DeSoto, who interrupts a really boring charting mission with top secret, ix-nay on the Omulan-Ray implications. He sends over a passenger, a Betazed named Tam Elbrun–“of the Ghorusda disaster,” whatever that means–who is to be the mission specialist of the week. He and Troi have already met, however, back at Betazed University, where she was studying basic visual cues and he was a patient. The mission? Approach a star about to go supernova, currently orbited by what appears to be a living ship that Elbrun has dubbed the “tin man.” Not only that, but they have to get there before the Romulans do, or else.

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Tags: being different, belonging, emotion, first contact, living ship, loneliness, mindreading is awful, one day data will be a real boy, pain, romulans, troi is useful

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 Bonding”

Eugene Myers

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

“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: “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: “We’ll Always Have Paris”

Torie Atkinson

– May 3, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“We’ll Always Have Paris”
Written by Deborah Dean Davis and Hannah Louise Shearer
Directed by Robert Becker

Season 1, Episode 24
Original air date: May 2, 1988
Star date: 41697.9

Mission summary

The Enterprise is headed to Sarona VIII for some shore leave, but Picard has gotten a headstart by fencing with a lieutenant. Though he loses the first point he wins the second–twice, as time seems to repeat itself in an eerie deja vu effect. The bridge confirms the temporal anomaly, and they pick up a distress signal from a Paul Manheim, reknowned wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey tinkerer who left Earth fifteen years ago to experiment with multiple dimensions and nonlinear time.

Picard reacts strongly to news of Manheim. Because he’s got a few hours to kill before the ship reaches Manheim, Picard goes to the holodeck to recreate Paris twenty-two years earlier. There he runs into a woman waiting for a man who never shows. She asks Picard why her beau did not come, and Picard tells her it was because ~~of Nazis~~ he was afraid. He then chastises himself for indulging in such fantasies and goes back to the bridge.

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Tags: benign doubles, casablanca, data the expendable, emotion, handwaving mumblemumble, loneliness, lost love, love stories, parallel universes, Picard acts weird, picard is french, science!, star-crossed lovers, time travel, wibbly wobbly timey-wimey

Star Trek: The Animated Series Re-Watch: “Yesteryear”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– May 26, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: Animated Series Re-Watch

“Yesteryear”
Written by D.C. Fontana
Directed by Hal Sutherland

Season 1, Episode 2
Production episode: 22003
Original air date: September 15, 1973
Star date: 5373.4

Mission summary

The Enterprise crew is assigned to help a bird creature and a woman historian with their survey of Federation history via Harlan Ellison’s^TM Guardian of Forever, but they somehow end up altering the timeline. Again. Whoops!

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Tags: andorians, emotion, emotional Spock, handwaving mumblemumble, parallel universes, silhouettes, time travel, vulcan

Star Trek Re-Watch: “Requiem for Methuselah”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– February 10, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“Requiem for Methuselah”
Written by Jerome Bixby
Directed by Murray Golden

Season 3, Episode 19
Production episode: 3×21
Original air date: February 14, 1969
Star date: 5843.7

Mission summary

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to planet Holberg 917G in search of pure ryetalyn, the only known cure for a deadly outbreak of Rigelian fever on Enterprise. If they can’t secure this maguffin and process it in four hours, McCoy says “the epidemic will be irreversible.” They certainly don’t have time to investigate the life form that Spock’s tricorder registers on the supposedly uninhabited planet, nor is it a convenient moment for a floating robot to wobble over and fire a blue laser beam in their general vicinity. But these things happen, so what are you going to do?

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Tags: amnesia, androids, Brahms, da Vinci, dancing, emotion, fully clothed man-wrestling, Galileo, godlike powers, handwaving mumblemumble, loneliness, loyalty, mind meld, really old people, robots, sexbots, waltz

Star Trek Re-Watch: “That Which Survives”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– January 27, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“That Which Survives”
Written by John Meredyth Lucas
Story by Michael Richards
Directed by Herb Wallerstein

Season 3, Episode 17
Production episode: 3×14
Original air date: January 24, 1969
Star date: Unknown

Mission summary

Enterprise is in orbit around what appears to be a “ghost planet,” a planetary body lousy with vegetation despite the fact that it’s only a few thousand years old. Its mass and atmosphere resemble Earth’s (of course), though it’s only the size of Earth’s moon. The crew can’t turn down an opportunity to dig deeper into this mystery and explore “a planet that even Spock can’t explain,” so Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, Sulu, and Senior Geologist D’Amato prepare to beam down.

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Tags: abandoned civilizations, computers, emotion, godlike powers, handwaving mumblemumble, hollow planet, loneliness, loyalty, matter-antimatter, purple, reverse polarity, rocks, sexy ladies, stranded, transporter malfunction, viruses

Star Trek Re-Watch: “By Any Other Name”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– June 11, 2010 1:54 amPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“By Any Other Name”
Story by Jerome Bixby
Teleplay by D.C. Fontana and Jerome Bixby
Directed by Marc Daniels

Season 2, Episode 21
Production episode: 2×21
Original air date: February 23, 1968
Star date: 4657.5

Mission summary

Enterprise follows a distress signal to a planet, but when Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, Lt. Shea, and Yeoman Thompson beam down to investigate the source, they can’t find any life signs or evidence of a ship, only readings on some “small metallic objects.” Soon they do pick up two life signs, and a man and a woman enter the clearing. The man demands control of Kirk’s ship and presses a button on a box affixed to his belt, freezing the members of the landing party where they stand. He introduces himself: