Author: robert

The Redemption two-parter might be why I started watching Star Trek, but this episode is why I kept watching. On paper the premise for this episode sounds like a promise for some dreadful television: Picard tries to learn a new alien language. But the execution is simply flawless. It’s wonderful to have truly ‘alien’ aliens,…

Off we go, onto the 10th season of all Star Trek. Back when I first watched this episode I really enjoyed the Sela story and reveal. But I’d never watched any of the earlier episodes with Tasha Yar, or even seen Yesterday’s Enterprise. And it just doesn’t make enough sense in the light of those…

Because of how far behind I’d gotten I had to get through this season very quickly – all of it in less than a week. Overall this season suffers from wild swings from good to bad. There are a lot of great episodes: *Brothers*, *Reunion*, *The Drumhead*, *The Mind’s Eye*, *Redemption*. But then there’s also…

And here’s where I came in. Back in the early 1990s (1992 or 1993, I think) I was watching TV late one night and this came on. I wasn’t much of a Star Trek fan at all, but kept watching because something about the introduction drew me in. And then it was a two-part episode,…

For an episode that is basically ‘Data gets a girlfriend’, I think that my expectations were exceeded. That is, there were no ‘comic’ misunderstandings, and the scenes between Data and his girlfriend are only moderately excruciating. It gets up to ‘OK’, and I think that’s about as good as this premise could manage. I did…

It really does seem like the Enterprise could really use a better IT security department. The Manchurian Candidate is a great film, and it isn’t harmed by being fairly blatantly ripped off here. There’s a good sense of tension and suspense in the episode (as always, helped out by not putting main characters in danger…

This is not a great episode, but the ending redeems it slightly by avoiding the predictable ending (killing Crusher’s love interest), but rather doing something a bit more interesting (putting Crusher’s love interest into a female body). The bulk of the episode is either a bunch of politics without anything interesting to add, or a…

OK, seriously. Can the Enterprise crew really not stop a middle-aged woman roaming the ship and causing havoc? Surely just a few locked doors would do the trick? Or a phaser? My other problem with this episode: Lwaxana Troi is both a telepath *and* an ambassador. Surely there would be a teensy little bit of…

This week the Star Trek travelling players present *The Crucible*. No? Really? But it seemed just like it – people being accused with no evidence, thinly veiled references to the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, impassioned speeches about freedom and rights? So it’s not exactly new territory, but it is really well done. As I…

So, the good: the return of Vash, who I enjoyed in *Captain’s Holiday*, Q is back for his annual torment of Picard. Should be a great episode. Unfortunately, someone then got the great idea of ‘you know what would be fun? Picard and co as Robin and his merry men’. And no, it’s not good.…