Month: March 2012

Worf’s son Alexander struggles with his future. In general, Klingon stories work best when it’s about politics or battle. Simple interpersonal stories just don’t fare as well. The story tries very hard, but falls down. A lot of that is due to the fact that the actor playing Alexander just isn’t that good. So we…

The recent Cardassian treaty isn’t going down well with some colonists. And hey, it’s that plot thread from the previous episode of TNG being picked up in another series, and one that is very important for the background of Voyager. Unfortunately it’s the only time this is done – there’s only a few episodes of…

Ensign Crusher is back, and everyone’s off to evict a Native American colony. The Wesley plot starts off being a bit annoying and predictable (Wesley is a teenager, Wesley is angsty, Wesley doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life), but turns around a bit in the second half simply because his change…

Three great Klingon warriors visit Deep Space 9: [Kor](http://www.exasperatedcalculator.com/archives/2010/01/trekathon-026-errand-of-mercy-tos/), [Koloth](http://www.exasperatedcalculator.com/archives/2010/01/trekathon-044-the-trouble-with-tribbles-tos/) and [Kang](http://www.exasperatedcalculator.com/archives/2010/02/trekathon-062-day-of-the-dove-tos/). I am an absolute sucker for for ‘mythology’ episodes. But I think you could easily get through the entire episode without noticing the Original Series callback. It would’ve been nice to have at least a passing reference to the change in appearance since…

The crew catch a virus that de-evolves them. Everyone turns into a monster? Really? That is not how evolution, or even viruses work. Not even close. I’m normally pretty liberal with my definition of science fiction, but this isn’t anywhere near what’s needed. So there’s bad acting as everyone starts to de-evolve, some really terrible…

Quark’s old flame turns up, with the Cardassians in pursuit. It’s another fairly flat episode, that while not compelling provides some good moments of character interest. It’s a very Quark heavy episode, and it provides a bit of insight into him, but they never quite bridge the gap back to the Quark that we’re used…

Someone commits suicide, Worf and Troi try to find out why. The first 15 minutes of this episode come across as very ‘after school special’, with a lot of hand wringing about suicide. It’s nice to see a show like Star Trek try to deal with this kind of issue, but then it kind of…

Dax evaluates a Trill student, and finds a new universe on her windscreen. Overall I found this a nice, but fairly flat episode. The bulk of the time is spent on the ‘be yourself’ advice to the young trill, giving short shrift to the pocket universe growing in the science lab. An odd choice of…

Odo and Dax investigate disappearances in an isolated colony, Jake wants to escape his father’s influence, and Kira rekindles a romance. The setup of this episode screamed ‘we’ve run out of ideas, lets just slam together three plots from the unused ideas on the wall and hope it works’. It’s incredibly uneven. The Odo/Dax story…