Category: Trekathon

A science project turns into a war. This episode develops in a very careful sequence. For the first 10 minutes it looks like its going to be an annoying comedy episode, with Quark and Sisko trapped on a camping trip. Then it looks like it’s going to slightly advance the ‘Dominion’ plot with a simple…

Miles O’Brien goes on trial for war crimes. Once again there’s a Federation double standard on display here. There’s a lot of lip service in other episodes about respecting other cultures, but no one at any point here suggests the Cardassians have a right to their own judicial system. We spend way too much time…

Season 7 ended well. That’s about the nicest thing that I can say about it. Otherwise the season was mostly bad to mediocre, with only 6 episodes making it to ‘Very Good’ or better in my ratings (*Lower Decks*, *Preemptive Strike*, *The Pegasus*, *Parallels* and *All Good Things* 1 and 2). Against that were two…

And now, the end of the end. Endings are hard. But they pull it off about as well as could be imagined. It’s a good story, the stakes are high, and the performances are great. It’s masterfully done. The intercuts between the different time periods become more and more complex as the episode progresses, but…

It’s the beginning of the end for The Next Generation. Endings are hard. Just ask the the writers of *Lost* or *Mass Effect 3*. So there’s a lot of pressure coming in to this episode. There’s a lot happening in this first part. Too much really. Picard is jumping through time. Worf and Troi are…

It’s everyone’s favourite SF theme, elections for a religious post. Overall the structure of this episode is quite clever, and it manages to avoid a lot of the cliches the ‘investigation’ plot often has. It felt a bit light on, like there wasn’t quite enough story to fill the hour. The best bits are Vedek…

The Maquis and the Cardassian DMZ are back. That’s four episodes now, must be a thing. At last, a good episode of TNG. It’s been a while, as there’s been one of the worst runs the show has ever experienced lately. This is the last regular episode of the show, and yet we spend the…

293 episodes later, it’s time to back to the [Mirror universe](http://www.exasperatedcalculator.com/archives/2010/01/trekathon-033-mirror-mirror-tos/). Outside of Tribbles it’s hard to think of a more beloved story to return to than the mirror universe, although a couple more [goatees](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BeardOfEvil) would have been nice. Everyone gets to have a whole bunch of fun chewing the scenery as the evil (or,…

The Enterprise evolves into another life form. It’s another strange symbolic episode, only this time with an even less enjoyable ending as rather than resolve the problems on their own logic it’s external technobabble that saves the day. It was nice to see the Holodeck back as it’s been a while. But there was never…

‘Plain and simple’ Garak has a complicated medical problem. Fantastic stuff. Not much I can add really. It takes the pieces set up earlier in terms of Garak’s mysterious past, and while it looks like resolving everything ends up opening up as many questions as it answers, and then some. And has the courage to…