I'm with you.

I'm watching Insurrection right now. While at the time it continued the trend of odd movies < even movies, it wasn't that bad in a vacuum, and certainly better than Nemesis, the movie that killed both that trend and the universe stardate-wise.

Check out what I just got.

ST TNG S5E05 Disaster

A Star Trek take on a disaster movie (a mix of Airport, Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno), that's got a lot of ambition, but has a bit too many balls in the air to maintain much tension in any of them. Still decent though. I think the area with Troi and O'Brien had the most potential as O'Brien's wife was giving birth in another part of the ship, but it was very lowkey.

My favourite, however, was Worf trolling the woman giving birth whilst he assists, because she isn't delivering a baby to standards he's used to.

6/10

I hated that Troi was in command. It made no sense, she shouldn't be in the chain of command at all. For example, Crusher is the second or third highest ranking officer on the ship (depending on her and Rikers promotion date) but if she and Data are trapped on the bridge in that situation, Data's in command. Right? If it's Troi, Worf, and O'Brien on the bridge is Worf not in command? COME ON

Picard trapped in an elevator with crying children is a great setup, as is Worf awkwardly trying to help deliver Keiko's child. Troi is once again given a completely lame part to play and gets upstaged by Ro Laren. Episode suffers from too altogether much technobabble; only bit that really worked was Geordi and Crusher ejecting radioactive **** out the airlock. C+ imo.


It is weird that elevators on the Enterprise has worse safety features than elevators made in 1950.

Also, XO: Radishes is my new favorite super-deep-cut ST reference:

Pretty sure XO: Radishes outranks Acting Ensign. Suck it, Wesley!

Ah yeah, the weird kid talking about radishes was kid of baller.

ST TNG S5E06 The Game



Ohh wow, this is horrible but essential. The whole crew except a visiting Wesley and his new girlfriend get addicted to a game app that creates a strangely sexual effect on any player. The game appears to be sending disks into tuba flowers in what must have been terrible graphics back in the early 90s.

So we get to see Wesley disturb his own mother mid orgasm as he interrupts her game. We also see what is basically a sex scene between Troi and a chocolate fudge sundae before she even starts playing the game (interrupted this time by Ryker), and Wes have a terrible moment when he has to share a lift with a woman who is at level 40, and obviously coming her brains out while Wes looks around uncomfortably.

In addition, we get Picard show off a giant tea set whilst talking with Wes, Worf's self-made Pound Cake, we see Wes have is own Clockwork Orange moment, and him put the moves on Ashley Judd (way to go Wesley!).

I do think the romance between Judd and Wheaton is rather good though, sweet and charming and nerdy, and Wes is slightly better written in this one than before.

Terrible episode trying to be Invasion of the Body Snatchers but being more like something out of power rangers, but VERY entertaining.

5/10

Lefler's Law 104: Stop making Wesley episodes

This was a sort of "Don't do drugs, kids!" PSA episode that was a staple of TV in the 80's-90's, with the forward-thinking sci-fi twist that here the drug is a mobile game.

Interestingly, The Game was Brannon Braga's first writing assignment for the show. He was given a cast-off premise and tasked with polishing it up. To his credit, Brannon did introduce a fun Bodysnatchers vibe to the show as well as the Wesley/Ashley Judd dating angle, but the premise that these two were the only ones on the ship not tempted by the game fundamentally makes no sense.

Trek does that at times. This was the "don't do drugs" episode. In S7 there is an episode that's "reduce carbon emissions to save the environment". And of course ST4 was "save the whales".

I would argue that given the rise of mobile phones and apps like Candy Crush, this is the absolute best STNG episode in terms of forward thinkingness. The idea of a very simple to play game that people get obsessed with due to the constant feeling of mini-accomplishment is a central tenet of app design now.

One additional note, from Wil Wheaton's FAQ:

"Is it true that you were really Ashley Judd's first onscreen kiss, and you ruined her for the rest of her life?"

"Yep. It is 100% true. Ashley Judd played Robin Lefler, in the episode "The Game", and Uncle Willie went to bootytown"

Yeah, that was impressive. My all time favorite "ST predicts the future" moment was the one where a girl goes through Geordi's search history and finds that he was cyberstalking her.

hahaha Geordi was incredibly pathetic.

although nothing tops that episode where that little kid with Q type powers reads Riker's mind to construct a fantasy world for him and Riker where Riker is captain of the Enterprise. And then Riker is all "GOTCHA, my wife here is actually a holodeck sex slave I created a while back. You read my mind about my ideal woman, and that's what you saw. JOKES ON YOU!"

I still like that Rashomon one where they use the holodeck to work out what's happened, and this woman says Riker got all rapey, he denies it and says she was coming on to him. Then Troi reads the woman's mind and says, 'No she really thought you were rapey.'

Lol Riker Weinsteinin it up.

yet, oddly, in the Trek Universe, he ends up marrying her.

Well, love IS mutual stalking...

You should have stopped at Ohh wow, this is horrible.

I liked Disaster as an off-the-bend ST episode. There was a lot of pay-off with the Picard doesn't like children theme, especially when he makes the officer of radishes, and sings the song Frere Jacques. It's a comforting episode.

7.5/10

Would be higher if Diana Troy wasn't a commander.

Here is the thing with Disaster. Troi is senior to LaForge. Laforge was a lieutenant at the beginning of the show, while Troi was a lt. commander. So they're both lt. commanders, but Troi has the earlier promotion date, so she's senior.

So if LaForge and Troi had been on the bridge, would Troi have been in command? No! It's nonsense. In any navy in the world, a doctor or psychologist or whatever assigned to a ship would never have been in the chain of command.

You're right, I would think even Worf (a Lt.) would be in charge over Troi. But the other people on the bridge were a non-com (O'Brien) and 2 ensigns (Ro and random guy). Maybe Starfleet puts ensigns below higher ranking science officers in CoC *shrug* (edit: actually this is supported by the fact that O'Brien said she's in charge only because the other random Lt. that was on bridge was dead)