horrible horrible children Archive

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Suddenly Human”

– May 22, 2014 8:00 amPosted in: Featured, TNG Re-Watch

“Suddenly Human”
Teleplay by John Whelpley & Jeri Taylor
Story by Ralph Phillips
Directed by Gabrielle Beaumont

Season 3, Episode 4
Original air date: October 15, 1990
Star date: 44143.7

Mission summary

The Enterprise investigates a Talarian distress call and finds an adrift training ship full of injured teens and children (but no Scoutmaster). Radiation is leaking from the propulsion system and Dr. Crusher beams the five survivors to the Enterprise just in time. Among the survivors, however, is a human boy…

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Tags: bad parenting, daddy issues, forehead ridges, horrible horrible children, picard hates children, troi is useless

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

Eugene Myers

– January 30, 2014 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Brothers”
Written by Rick Berman
Directed by Robert Bowman

Season 4, Episode 3
Original air date: October 8, 1990
Star date: 44085.7

Mission summary

Young Jake Potts’ practical joke on his younger brother, Willie, ends in tears when Willie ends up infected with dangerous parasites. That’s it, vacation’s over! We’re turning this ship around. Enterprise has to head to a nearby starbase for emergency medical treatment, or Willie Potts might die; meanwhile, he remains in quarantine in Sickbay, utterly inconsolable. In the midst of comforting Jake, Data abruptly loses interest in the B-plot of the episode and tunes out, running through the next few scenes literally on autopilot.

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Tags: androids, asimov, belonging, brothers, daddy issues, emotions, evil doubles, family, horrible horrible children, long-lost relatives, often wrong soong, parents, robotics, someone takes over the ship, this will be important later

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: “Unnatural Selection”

Eugene Myers

– July 19, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Unnatural Selection”
Written by John Mason and Mike Gray
Directed by Paul Lynch

Season 2, Episode 7
Original air date: January 30, 1989
Star date: 42494.8

Mission summary

With Enterprise en route to Star Station India to meet a Starfleet medical courier, Captain Picard is mulling over Dr. Pulaski, who has been on his ship for about seven episodes. He asks Counselor Troi if he should be worried that the irascible doctor is so good at her job that she might be bad at her job, but Troi assuages his concerns about her new BFF. He grudgingly agrees with her, and a timely distress call may provide the means to discover if he was right after all.

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Tags: dangerous children, handwaving mumblemumble, horrible horrible children, mysteries, O'Brien wins, old age, quarantine, science!, transporter magic, transporters solve everything

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: “Datalore”

Eugene Myers

– February 16, 2012 8:00 amPosted in: TNG Re-Watch

“Datalore”
Written by Robert Lewin and Gene Roddenberry, Story by Robert Lewin and Maurice Hurley
Directed by Rob Bowman

Season 1, Episode 13
Original air date: January 18, 1988
Star date: 41242.4

Mission summary

Enterprise is passing near the planet where the android Lt. Commander Data was found, so Picard decides to make a short detour in the hopes of unearthing fresh clues to the fate of the colonists who disappeared twenty-six years before.

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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 Animated Series Re-Watch: “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth”

Torie Atkinson & Eugene Myers

– August 4, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: Animated Series Re-Watch

“How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth”
Written by Russell Bates and David Wise
Directed by Bill Reed

Season 2, Episode 5
Production episode: 22022
Original air date: October 5, 1974
Star date: 6063.4

Mission summary

In an ominous beginning, a mysterious space probe takes a scan of Earth’s system and then self-destructs. The Enterprise’s mission is to trace the imploded propulsion system’s destructive matter trail to its origin and find out where it came from and who sent it.

They don’t make it very far before they find a huge “crystalline ceramic” ship twice the size of the Enterprise. It’s pretty far away but they can’t get any closer for inspection–some kind of “globular force field,” firm yet flexible, has entrapped them. As the offending ship becomes more visible they realize it looks like a giant winged snake. Needless to say, it’s not anyone the Federation has had contact with before.

Luckily, this week’s minority helmsmen is Walking Bear, not Sulu, and he recognizes the ship’s design immediately: it looks kind of like the winged serpent Kukulkan.

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Tags: aliens probably built the pyramids too, godlike beings, horrible horrible children, immortality sucks, loneliness, native americans, omnipotent beings, shakespeare, space douches, the gods must be crazy, What does a starship need with God?, zoos

Star Trek Re-Watch: “And The Children Shall Lead”

Torie Atkinson & Eugene Myers

– October 28, 2010 8:00 amPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“And The Children Shall Lead”
Written by Edward J. Lakso
Directed by Marvin Chomsky

Season 3, Episode 4
Production episode: 3×05
Original air date: October 11, 1968
Star date: 4842.6

Mission summary

Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy beam down to Triacus, an isolated Federation outpost. They find sprawled out on the ground each of the adult members of the exploration party. Most appear dead, but one of them moves: it’s Starnes, who looks like he had a very bad night. Shaking and sweating furiously, he fails to recognize Kirk, says something about “the enemy within,” and then promptly collapses on the ground dead. Hmm. Upon closer inspection one woman has a vial in her mouth–some kind of poison. All seem to have died by their own hands.

All except five young children, who rush out and demand that our heroes play games with them. Tommy, Mary, Steve, Ray, and Don rush to Kirk, link hands together, and dance around him while singing “Ring Around the Rosie.” Twice.

Captain Kirk thinks he may now understand why the adults shuffled off this mortal coil.

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Tags: babysitting, bad parenting, evil children, fully clothed man-wrestling, ghost of television costumes past, horrible horrible children, marauders, mind-control, space douches

Star Trek Re-Watch: “Miri”

Torie Atkinson & Eugene Myers

– April 30, 2009 3:37 pmPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“Miri”
Written by Adrian Spies
Directed by Vincent McEveety

Season 1, Episode 8
Production episode: 1×11
Original air date: October 27, 1966
Star date: 2713.5

Mission summary
The Enterprise picks up an S.O.S. and follows it to a planet eerily similar to Earth, as it was in the mid-twentieth century. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Janice, and two red shirts beam down to the surface. They find the planet is a desolate wasteland (that looks remarkably like a late ’60s Hollywood lot…), uninhabited for at least 300 years. Doctor McCoy bends down to examine a tricycle sitting atop a huge heap of garbage, and a disfigured humanoid creature leaps out at him. The creature claims the tricycle is his, and in the broken thoughts of a child whose toy has been seized, he attacks the landing party. A brief skirmish breaks out until the boy-creature succumbs to seizures and dies. McCoy, somewhat stunned, takes a few readings and realizes: “Its metabolic rate. It’s impossibly high, as if it’s burning itself up, almost as if it aged a century in just the past few minutes.”

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Tags: aging, children, creepy come-ons, horrible horrible children, immortality, miri, puberty, sexual awakenings, wild monkey-children