Month: April 2010

It would seem that Captain Picard and company have never heard of James Randi, Richard Dawkins, or even good old PZ, or really any kind of skepticism. There is just not enough disbelief in a guy who turns up and says “I’m from the future”. Picard says ‘his credentials check out’, but honestly, really? As…

That’s more like it. There’s still a bit of padding with the bar scenes (although who would want to miss out on Klingon Opera?). But again, the scenes on Romulus are good. It’s a complicated political story, without a lot of action, but tension develops well. The main weak point is Sela: she’s still a…

This episode starts off with a huge bang (Spock! Defecting to the Romulans!) And then there’s a whole bunch of padding – Sarek, getting a Klingon ship, the supply depot, Picard trying to sleep. It’s well written padding, but it just feels like an attempt to stretch out the plot to make this a two-part…

Wesley’s back, just in time to save the day. Overall this was a pretty bad episode. Wesley’s budding romance is fine, but coupling it with another obnoxious ‘only Wesley can save us’ plot is not good. I find it hard to believe that no one else in the crew could avoid it, that Troi couldn’t…

Let’s count the disaster movie cliches! There’s the Captain trapped in a lift with children, the pregnant woman who goes into labour, a broken ankle, the inexperienced commander. But then there’s some unique Star Trek moments: even with only three people left on the bridge, the rest of the ship cut off, and an imminent…

The Silicon Entity returns, this time without Lore[^1]. I was a bit interested with the theme the episode appeared to be establishing early on, that of whether to fight or communicate. But rather than develop the conflict further, instead we get a lot of time spent with someone trying to recover their lost son through…

A second go around at dealing with terrorism. It goes a lot better than *The High Ground*, mainly because we have a much clearer idea of the stakes that the terrorists are fighting for. It’s not the quickest moving episode ever, and spends a lot of time establishing the new recurring character of Ensign Ro.…

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…