really old people Archive

47

Star Trek: The Next Generation Re-Watch: “Too Short a Season”

“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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55

Star Trek Re-Watch: “Requiem for Methuselah”

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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