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Destroying thought in order to save it
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| I thought I could bang out a post on shows I've seen the most episodes of ever quickly, like, in twenty minutes over lunch. Way, way wrong. This is actually rather difficult and quite time consuming. And, there is a big question about the value of such an exercise. Unforeseen problems:
*TV shows have a truly ridiculous number of episodes, particularly popular sitcoms that go on for years and years. Half-hour shows that go on for a bunch of seasons have easily 150-200 episodes. So the amount you may have actually watched quickly gets astoundingly large. Larger than I really thought. Here I'm thinking my 178 TNG episodes are ridiculous, well, wait until you're talking about weekly sitcoms that require only the vaguest expenditure of time. A show like Frasier, that I liked but mostly just watched because it was on when other stuff was on, but maybe for like five years, well, suddenly I've seen over 100 episodes. Of Frasier?! You don't understand! I chose to watch every single TNG. Had them sent to my house. Gave each on my attention. For Frasier, I was tricked. Something I liked was on before and after! Oh, NBC, you devious bastards.
*It's a lot harder to remember how many episodes I might have seen than I thought. I did mostly watch all those Frasiers. But was it really for five whole years? It really could have been a lot more. Did I drift in and out? Did I miss it some seasons altogether? When exactly did I stop watching? I'm not quibbling over whether I watched 100 or 105. I mean, who would care? I'm quibbling over whether I watched one HUNDRED or two HUNDRED. This would be a difference of three whole years of loyal viewing, or not, and I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER.
*Take that degree of difficulty, and ramp it way, way up, and then try to guess how many episodes of a show you watched as a kid. The Cosby Show? My sister and I were loyal, weekly viewers. But also, we were, like, eight. Can I vouch for my regular viewing habits at eight? AND STILL EVEN WORSE are related shows of the time. I remember deliberately watching The Cosby Show a lot, but did I also watch A Different World? Yeah, I guess so. But that had 144 episodes! I could have watched 30 or 130. I haven't a clue. And seriously, A Different World had 144 episodes?
*Related, the factor of shame. I've discovered that it is entirely possible the the show of which I've watched the most episodes is not Star Trek: The Next Generation, but either Friends or Diff'rent Strokes. I don't know that I want to know the answers. Although I might be oddly proud if the all-time winner was Diff'rent Strokes.
*It may not be worth painstakingly inventorying every show, or even the top ten (probably a threshold of maybe, a minimum of 100 episodes watched). There are a lot of shows over the course of several decades of nerdy life. And anyway, what's the value? Sure I've watched an awful lot of A Different World, but so what? All the episodes are the same and I don't remember any of them. Plus it has no relevance to a comparison to how many episodes I've watched of a totally different show at a totally different time.
My conscious TV viewing can be lumped into four distinct eras:
1. Grade school. Exclusive loyalty to after-school and primetime sitcoms (exceptions made for shocking news magazines Rescue 911 and Unsolved Mysteries). Devoted viewership, but single-digit-aged flakiness presumed, so I undoubtedly missed plenty, even though my memory says I was completely dependable about watching. Watched everything on first-run or syndication. Likes: anything on at 3:30pm or 7:00pm, Bill Cosby, Robert Stack.
2. High school. Little interest in any television except Seinfeld, MTV, and Comedy Central. Likes: playing on the computer instead.
3. College, early adulthood. TV watching peak years. Doggedly faithful to NBC Thursday night lineup of Friends, (whatever was on at 7:30 each year), Seinfeld, Frasier, ER. When too busy to watch, these programs are taped for later viewing. Various other network shows watched, and even some on cable. Later in this period, Adult Swim allegiance develops. Likes: clinging to TV as a substitute for a broken social life.
4. Recent years. No regular viewing. All TV watching done on DVD years after initial run. Viewing choices made deliberately and thoughtfully, and watched thoroughly, by episode. No surfing or serendipitous new show discovery. Likes: going to bed on time, not having to watch commercials.
Like in sports, you can't compare eras. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| 725/726: All Good Things... I guess any series that has a shot at a memorable ending is probably a good series. A lot of shows get cancelled or become so bad or different over time that the ending is just a formality. So I guess the goal is just to not have that happen. Then you get to pick your own ending. I think the secret is just to hit the right level of ambition, which should be set slightly above a normal episode. If you underplay it, the ending can be forgettable or disappointing. If you overplay it, you can get outside the scope of the show and it can seem ridiculous. The consensus is that "All Good Things" is a terrific finale and I'll agree because it hits just the right level of ambition. The story actually becomes three stories, told in parallel, of three different time periods in which the Enterprise encounters a strange anomaly in space...
(Here's where we break to discuss the principle flaw of the episode, that the most stereotypical TNG plot is: the Enterprise encounters a strange anomaly in space. And in the end, they try some radical new physics thing, reversing some device to create a beam of never-before-heard-of particles to destabilize it.)
...And in the end, they try some radical new physics thing, reversing some device to create a beam of never-before-heard-of particles to destabilize it.
So while it's disappointing to see the final TNG episode have such a traditional story, the three parallel encounters angle keeps it fresh. Present-day Enterprise, slightly-younger Picard first assuming command of the Enterprise, and old possibly senile Picard all face the problem from different perspectives. Further, we learn that Q is manipulating things in the background. Gradually the three Picards piece together the situation and figure out the anomaly is working backwards in time, and will eventually destroy the roots of humanity, and they do some other fancy physics thing and avert it. Q is happy, there is a tidy character moment at the end, and we presume that the Enterprise will continue indefinitely. All in all, this is what we expect from Star Trek. The episode expands the scope of their normal mission without getting too heavy handed, it's a good story and a great sci-fi idea (if kind of a magical ending). But the episode gets its greatest mileage by rewarding us for our long history with these characters. If you've actually watched all 178 episodes to get here, it's worth it. 5 out of 5.
I can't believe I've finally finished it. Three and a half years! Not constantly, nor is it anything to get worked up about anyway because all I actually did was just watch 178 hours of TV. I did intend to watch the whole series when I started, and definitely planned to do so casually, taking breaks when it didn't seem interesting and watching a lot when it did. But this is how long it takes to watch a seven-season show if you average about a show a week. Know this.
Overall, it was worth it. I enjoyed the show consistently. But it's not an all-time favorite, even though I've watched more episodes of TNG than I've watched of any other show, ever, by far [interesting subject, I'll estimate in a later post]. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. It has few classic episodes. Mostly it's like tea (as so prominently featured in the series). It's always good and it's the kind of thing that you like best as a stalwart consumer. You rarely have a cup of tea that is so wonderful it knocks you over, but if you drink it a lot you depend on it and gain a long-term appreciation of what it's all about. Contrast it with what I think of as the best show ever, The Wire. The Wire is the best wine I've ever had. Life-changingly good, but not something you can have at any time. And as wonderful as it is, having a lot at once is damaging. There's a place in your life for something constant, that always works, and doesn't overwhelm you.
TNG manages to maintain this warm consistency even with little in the way of overarching narrative. There are pervasive themes and ongoing conflicts but a random viewer can pretty much watch nearly any episode and get 90% of what there is to be gotten about it. Essentially it's just good sci-fi stories and characters that I got to know over time.
Deep Space Nine? Voyager? Enterprise? I was thinking there was no way I would probably ever watch any of these, but to be honest, I'm kind of wondering about Deep Space Nine. (Voyager and Enterprise aren't even in the discussion at this point.) Knowing the characters, I might get a lot more out of DS9 than I ever got from occasional viewings years ago. Eventually I'll give DS9 a try and see what happens. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| Bloglines seems to be picking up LJ feeds again! I found a bunch of LJ detritus in my reader this morning, as though the clogged intertubes finally burst forth with back-blogged goodness.
Perhaps it was the approximately 900,000 e-mails I sent Bloglines over the past year asking them to fix this that did the trick. They never once replied or acknowledged the problem in any way at all, but I know they were thinking of me.
Oddly, this very morning I woke up thinking I might finally abandon Bloglines in favor of Google Reader. I have had this thought about once a week for over a year but haven't pulled the trigger. Too much transfer to get everything from Bloglines to G-Reader to want to go through with it, plus I just like the old Bloglines interface better, even though I shouldn't, same as I like LJ better than most other blogging platforms, even though I shouldn't. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Check it out, got me some new toys:
( Feyd-Rautha, Harkonnen ANIMAL )
I only recently found out that there were even such things as Dune action figures. It never occurred to me that they would bother making toys for a weird artsy David Lynch sci-fi movie, but sure enough, they did. I found a mess of them on ebay, they usually seem to go for $20-$40 each. I fell asleep at the wheel on a lot of five of them a few weekends ago but pulled through to get this Feyd Rautha. I am so happy about having this. I love that he comes with antidote cat.
The chances of me taking him out of the package are pretty good. The plastic is yellow and cracking and I don't care about the collectible value, which couldn't possibly ever be all that much. The cardboard is kind of fun and I'll keep it, but I think I will free Feyd so he can live on my desk.
Also recently obtained for a scant $8:
( Lt. Commander Worf, put-upon Klingon officer on the Enterprise )
Probably my favorite Next Generation character. He might stay in the packaging. Also no cares about collectible value, but I just love the packaging too much. Every single phrase is trademarked. They call special attention to his individual number for his collectible value, but the number is well into the 100,000s.
Just for the record, I dig action figures but am no collector. These are favorite characters from favorite shows. I'd love to have all the Dune figures, but because they are awesome, not because I have some optimism that they'll Be Worth Something Some Day. The rest of my collection consists of, I think, maybe six more toys. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| This is the first non-wikipedia page that comes up in Google for slide rules:
http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/sruniverse.html
Oh how I love this. Absolutely gloriously perfect. Exactly what I would expect from the leading internet page about slide rules.
And while we're on the subject (because how often are we, really?), a throwback link to maybe my favorite blog post ever: Slide Rules! | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Around campus today, a group is handing out copies of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. I think this is pretty awesome.
The problem is that I'm so conditioned to think that if someone's handing me a free book it's either a Bible or some nutty religious literature *about* the Bible. Therefore, when someone tries to hand me one of the most important books ever written, before I can fully consider this fact, I've already rudely spurned them.
This will lead to an unfortunate end result. The Darwin hander-outers are going to get jaded by day's end. They'll still believe in the cause, only they'll realize that people don't like having random books shoved in their faces. As rational folks, which it stands to reason most Darwin readers are, they'll think, "Well, I just felt pushy and crazy doing that. I probably won't take that approach again." Ironically, it feels wrong because it's just like something that a bunch of crazy people do, so the decidedly not-crazy Darwin pushers won't like the association. It seems the crazies have already ruined people on the "let's just hand our literature out to people on the streets" approach.
The same thought filter does not occur to the crazies. They will also still believe in the cause, but the difference is they either won't realize or won't care that people don't like having random books shoved in their faces. Crazy campus preacher guy doesn't believe it's crazy to shout Bible verses at everyone, so there's nothing to stop him from continuing to do it.
So, two groups of people start handing out literature, an annoying and nutty thing to do. One group thinks it's too weird to continue, so they stop. One group is too annoying and nutty to realize that what they're doing is annoying and nutty, so they continue. In a sense, this IS in fact how natural selection works. A crazy environment self-selects those who are crazy, and selects against those who are not.
I hope everyone will grasp the meta-lesson here. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| This represents the last full disc of TNG episodes. All that's left is the two-part finale.
721: Firstborn. I am a total sucker for Worf and Alexander stories. The ongoing story arc of Worf's assimilation into human culture, and by extension, his son's assimilation, is the most well-done theme in the series. It's probably a result of Klingon culture being so richly thought out in the Trek canon. We really gain an appreciation for where he comes from and how weird it is to be among soft, weak humans. Add the complexity of his son's upbringing, totally detached from Klingons. Worf constantly has to work to reach the conflicted goal of trying to get Alexander to follow his footsteps. But Alexander's just a kid. He feels maybe like a Klingon, but only his human behavior is accepted, so that's what makes him comfortable. I remember the first few appearances of Alexander were more about him not fitting in with humans. But now he's so indoctrinated that he's beginning to reject the idea of following any Klingon paths. He's getting to an age where Worf wants him to undertake his path to being a Klingon warrior, but has to face the fact that Alexander doesn't really want to go. Nor does Alexander have much grounding in Klingon culture aside from what Worf relates to him in the abstract. If they lived among Klingons, this would be shameful and embarrassing. Among liberal, tolerant humans, it's fine. While Worf is trying to figure out how to handle it, a protector from his family shows up and wants to help convince Alexander to take the warrior's path. It nearly works, but Alexander just doesn't seem to have the required killer instinct. I actually feel like I shouldn't spoil the ending on this one, but I will say that it's a resolution that could only happen in a science fiction show. Which is to say, it's a little out there. Who cares. I bought it. It hammered home the "maybe fitting in isn't actually for the best, but who can really say" theme. Overall, a great story that added much to the characters and the series. 5 out of 5.
722: Bloodlines. I guess most good science fiction has two things. First, a radical new idea or technology that changes the basic structure of how things work, large (e.g., virtual realities, time travel, contact with alien civilizations) or small (e.g., jetpacks, x-ray specs). And second, and most important to making GOOD science fiction, as opposed to just potboiler skiffy stuff, is understanding how characters react to these circumstances, which can be brand new to them (as they are to the reader) or accustomed to them. "Bloodlines" has both going for it, although it seems that the technology change is so radical that it has incredibly far-reaching problems. In this case, it's an ability for a Ferengi--Bok, who holds an old grudge against Picard--to beam himself on and off the Enterprise at will in order to harass Picard and cause hijinks. Eventually they figure out what he's doing and replicate the technology, but it basically gives everyone the power to go wherever they want at will. (Not unlike Q, but we understand he's an advanced being with such a power who occasionally chooses to torment humans for kicks.) I guess we presume that after the events of this episode, Geordi comes up with a way to counteract this subspace beaming, or they discover it causes DNA mutations, or shingles, or whatever. Otherwise it fundamentally changes the complexion of the show. Back to this in a minute. The rationale behind the story is that Bok is after Picard's son, Jason. Picard didn't even know about Jason, and had never heard from his mother. But DNA tests prove they're related, so much of the episode is devoted to Picard trying to get to know Jason. It's awkward and not really comfortable, but we can look forward to future storylines about their difficulties, or Jason getting threatened or killed by Picard's enemies, and Picard has to rescue him despite their troubles. However, it's a short-lived revelation. I'll spoil the climax: using the same fantastic technology that Bok is using, Picard beams to his ship to rescue Jason and reveal that he's discovered he's not Jason's father after all, negating the point of the whole scheme. Somehow Bok had manipulated Jason's DNA to make it temporarily appear that way, only Jason was starting to show side affects so Crusher caught on. It's understandable, I guess--it can't be easy to manipulate someone's DNA, right? So maybe Bok's newfangled technologies aren't all they're cracked up to be, and we can put both the DNA manipulation and flawless subspace beaming possibilities to bed. Thinking about it now, I have no idea how Bok managed to do this to Jason, or even if somehow he did, he'd have to have a sample of Picard's DNA to match it, and where would he get that? It's not like he can retrieve a hair sample (ho-HO!). The point I want to make here is that of the two premises needed for good SF that I have proposed, it has both, but the techy one is a little outside plausibility. But, I submit that having a strong character aspect renders that less meaningful. And this episode had it. The dynamics between Picard and Jason were interesting, Bok's motivations were interesting. Overall, it works, even if it's a little overly convenient. 4 out of 5.
723: Emergence. It's the third-to-last episode of a long-running, popular series. You have an opportunity to set up future story arcs, add some character depth, develop relationships, or any number of interesting things. Instead, you make YET ANOTHER episode of a type roundly disliked and dismissed by core fans. Future writers and producers of America, I beg of you, do not do this. "Emergence" is YET ANOTHER holodeck episode. And YET ANOTHER example of the holodeck functioning autonomously, neglecting its programming to wreak havoc. I don't know, something about the Enterprise becoming sentient, something about weird holodeck things working as a metaphor for what's going on aboard the ship at large, etc. Listen, there is just no way, this far into the series, that the holodeck can continue to malfunction without the crew going ballistic like a mess of enraged Windows Vista victims. Never once does anyone say something like, "Gosh, this happens a lot. Maybe we need to have some kind of override or something. I mean, remember all the other times we were almost killed in there?" Although it must be stated that in Star Trek, "overrides" serve no function except for Data or Geordi to try them, and have them fail, in order to make it seem like whatever is going wrong is really REALLY going wrong. Anyway, I think there was a good idea in here somewhere about the Enterprise having enough collective knowledge to develop an artificial intelligence. The execution was terribly frustrating, though. It was what mediocre TNG episodes are all about: technobabble, made up particles with near-magical powers, mysterious computer problems that can't be resolved until in the end when they somehow work out, things that just barely almost kill everyone but luckily don't, and of course, holodeck malfunctions. 1 out of 5.
724: Preemptive Strike. The thoroughly unlikeable Ensign Ro returns as a newly-promoted Lieutenant. Perhaps my views on Ro are also contrary to general TNG opinion. Opposite of my views of Wesley Crusher, I think generally she is liked, but I can't stand her. That disclosed, she's put in a situation here in which I can find some sympathy for her. A group of independent fighters (the Maquis) are after the Cardassians and are disrupting the delicate, newly-established peace between the Cardassians and the Federation. Starfleet is in the awkward position of having to make their own allies stop in order to preserve a larger peace, and they recruit Ro as a spy to help make this happen. Ro is uniquely qualified since she's had the right training, happens to be Bajoran (and therefore hates Cardassians), and has a history of insubordination, so she can have a plausible cover story explaining why she might abandon the Federation in favor of the Maquis. But on a personal level, her position is even more awkward than that of Starfleet. She DOES hate the Cardassians, and sympathizes with the Maquis more strongly than an ordinary human might. Most of the episode is centered around her gaining the trust of the Maquis and ultimately having to decide if she truly belongs with them (in the larger order of things, she probably does), or if she should honor her federation loyalties and work to betray them. The balance in the story here is really strong. I did have two somewhat minor complaints. First, there was an extended scene of their infiltration of the Enterprise to steal medical supplies. I guess the ins and outs of how Ro could get something off the Enterprise and make it look like actual theft to the Maquis while making sure the Enterprise understands that it's really not should have been interesting, but...it wasn't. Or at least, it seemed to suck up too much of the episode's time. The ending, which was more about Ro's internal conflict, seemed more important but rushed by comparison. Just an issue with the trade-offs of what you should spend time on in a story. My other complaint was how unlikeable most of the Maquis were. They were all just angry characters. I suppose they should be, given that they are outlaws fighting an unjust race. But the way they expressed this was just outward anger rather than knowing anything about their motivations. It's just scene after scene of them bickering rather than, say, spending time illuminating why they're living the incredibly dangerous lives they do. So you kind of don't care about them. Except: there's on old guy who's downright jolly and VERY likeable. He even gets Ro to crack a smile. But guess who dies in the end? Arrgh. Anyway, the episode ended very strongly, with Ro ultimately deciding she felt more involved with the Maquis' cause than she did with the Federation, even though it means throwing away her work in Starfleet and betraying Picard's faith in her. Plus all the various motivations contributing to the dynamics of the story are complicated, plain and simple, and it's tough to wrangle them all in effectively in just 45 minutes. So a few cut corners can be forgiven. Also: the closing shot of a betrayed Picard sitting and staring at the wall in rapt fury was awesome. 5 out of 5. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| *I recently discovered that Dune action figures existed! Then, I forgot to keep tabs on this auction for FIVE of them and missed out entirely. I am an idiot when it comes to ebay. I've never used it, I barely know how it works. And I kind of hate it. Nevertheless, I have a bid in on a Feyd action figure and I can safely say my stupidity is going to work FOR me in the the future, because I am willing to pay way more than what these things are worth. What I love best about the Feyd action figure so far is that it comes with the antidote cat that Thufir has to pet to keep the Harkonnens' poison from activating.
*In other geek-acquisitions news, I am finally resolved to buying myself a copy of Agricola. It's a brilliant game, but on the expensive side, and also on the longish/complicated side, so not likely to see as much action as Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne do around my house. However, my normal gaming group is on hiatus while the guy who hosts and owns all the games is busy having kids and selling his house. So I'm getting a little restless for some gaming. You can play Agricola solo or two-player, so at least there's some possibility of it seeing use even if I can't get other nerds together.
*I'm down to the final three Next Generation episodes. I was looking through my Netflix history and I've been watching these damn shows since March of 2006. Not consecutively. Definite long gaps between discs sometimes. But that's how long I've been working through this show. I shouldn't think about that too much, because it's essentially pretty meaningless. If all five seasons of The Wire had been available in March 2006, I'd have been done by May 2006. I blew through those--I mean, who wouldn't? It's the best show ever made. Next Generation, well, it isn't. It's good. But doesn't command that kind of devout obsession, at least not to me. Anyway, I'll probably have write-ups for disc 6 before too long, and the final episode/closing thoughts not long after that.
*My Top 100 albums list is being re-jiggered a lot still, but I will report that Low has dipped several spots and is no longer the solid rule of thumb that it once was. Number 100 right now is Beck's Mellow Gold. (Low is down to 112.) I'm by no means done messing with it. Actually, I never will be. But after I've had enough time to really consider each placement, I'll call it "set" for Me At 32. It will of course change with time. Mostly I'm doing this for fun, but also for comparison to what I think I liked the most at 18, which I was thinking about the other day and the seed of this whole line of thought. I'm sure I will talk about it excessively later.
*Oh, also, due to a lack of support for my scheme to own a sports team, I am resolved to pursue the matter on my own. You'll all regret this when we win the super sportsball championship. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Finally! Bases-ball took up much of my TV watching time over the last few weeks, but it's over, and now disc 5 is done. Recall that two of the consensus worst episodes in the series were awaiting me. They did not disappoint. These reviews all got kinda long, so I'm taking the unprecedented step of FORMATTING them. You're welcome!
Only five more episodes to go after this, including the two-part finale.
717: Masks. I knew this episode was going to be corny, and sure, it was. But at first pass it didn't seem any sillier than a typical silly TNG episode (i.e., one where the science is pretty loose, there's a lot of technobabble, and in the end something that makes logical sense only within the context of TNG happens and they're all saved--note that this takes the place of an actual plot). The greater sin when I was watching "Masks" was just that the episode was really boring. It was only later, trying to explain the plot out loud to K, that I realized how truly weird this episode was. So: the Enterprise encounters a probe, and it hijacks the computer and starts mucking around with the ship's systems. Standard Star Trek stuff. Except this particular probe has some sort of ancient Mayan bent. I guess not Mayan specifically. Some sort of generic ancient civilization that uses a similar symbolic language and worships the sun and sacrifices people for the Gods. We'll call it pseudo-Mayan.
Moving on, this probe, which is so powerfully advanced that it can hack into the Enterprise systems, uses this tremendously advanced power to reconfigure matter in the ship into stone blocks and other primitive artifacts. Because that's the ultimate goal in computing research, right? To eventually harness the power to create stone blocks? Moving on, it also causes the pseudo-Mayan symbols to bounce around computer displays randomly, like some kind of futuristically primitive screensaver. Moreover, it takes over Data. He's stuck harboring, as he explains, all the thousands of members of the ancient population. But we only see maybe four of them. Picard spends the episode negotiating with Data's various personalities to get the probe to stop infecting the ship. The conversations usually go something like:
Picard asks who is responsible.
Data Personality A explains that their goddess is responsible.
Picard asks to talk to the goddess.
Personality A says only Personality B can talk to her.
Picard asks to talk to Personality B.
Personality A says he's not here right now. And anyway the goddess will punish everyone if he helps Picard out.
Repeat two or three times throughout the episode until Picard finally "finds" Personality B and the goddess, and somehow talks her out of whatever she's doing. It was the opposite of riveting and action-packed. It was loosening and talking-packed. The logic of Picard's negotiative pursuits only really made sense if maybe you were asleep. Which I was! Ultimately I'm not even sure quite how it was resolved because I fell asleep for I guess maybe four minutes. Apparently they were the critical four minutes because Picard and Data were talking about what a strange experience it had all been when I awoke. So, I guess that was that. 1 out of 5.
718: Eye of the Beholder. Ultimately this story was all right, but the weird part of this episode was how shockingly awkward the acting was. Normally the TNG acting is quite good. At worst, it's a little stiff. But for this episode I felt like I was maybe watching the dress rehearsal, and the guest stars weren't cast yet, so they just had stagehands reading the lines so the actors could practice. But even the regulars were stiff and uncomfortable. The guests were shockingly bad. Particularly the girlfriend of a guy who has just committed suicide that morning. She portrayed this situation with all the overwhelming sense of loss of someone who is disappointed the mail hasn't come yet. (With a brave smile, she comments: "Huh. It's usually here by now.") Said suicide guy laments that it's what he "has to do" as he hurls himself into a plasma coil. He demonstrates this overwhelming sorrow with all the tortured pain of a man who left his lunch at home. (Closing his briefcase quietly, he mutters, "Crap, I'll have to go out.") Guest star props to the eventually-discovered killer, who does give us an understated and unidentifiable creepiness in his two minutes of screen time. It's not much, but I'm looking for positives. Although I do have to mention that it's the same actor who portrayed Boggs in Shawshank Redemption so, the poor guy probably got typecast as a complete sociopath. Anyway, for all this criticism, the story gives us a good twisteroo at the end. Many of the scenes were effectively foreboding or disconcerting. Some unanswered questions in the end. 3 out of 5.
719: Genesis. Oh, wow. I'm here to tell you this one absolutely lives down to the hype of one of the worst episodes of the series. I knew going in this one was going to be weird. I'd read that the writer was embarrassed about it and defended it along the lines of, "Hey, the show was wrapping up, production schedules were tight, and we had to get it done. They can't all be winners." Plot holes, utterly ridiculous science, hammy performances, this one has it all. Directed by Gates McFadden, I think she decided to have some fun with it.
So: Barclay is in sick bay, and Crusher gives him some medicine to cure a genetic defect. Before long the whole crew is feeling out of sorts as a strange virus is running rampant. Some amusing scenes take place of Worf devouring an octopus and arguing with Troi, and Riker feeling dazed and ineffectual. The next day, Crusher is evaluating Worf and he spits venom in her face, as he's been developing poison glands. Just a taste of the oddities to come! The Chief Nurse later explains that Crusher will live, but needs reconstructive facial surgery. Riker and Barclay futilely discuss how to get out of the situation. Because...
Picard and Data have conveniently left the ship. They return, and everything's chaos. The ship is adrift. Weird animal sounds emanate from the hallways. They discover Troi has developed gills and is swimming in her bathtub. The Chief Nurse is passed out in Sick Bay. Also she is a monkey. Data's tricorder tells him the crew is de-evolving! Because I guess tricorders scan for things like that. Picard is also starting to feel anxious. Data explains that's because he's got the virus too, and is devolving into "a lemur or a pygmy marmoset." So then there's some running around to avoid Worf, who is violent and looking to mate. And Data appears to reinvent biological science to cure everyone (apparently it takes about the length of a commercial break to get someone back to human form). Crusher's disfiguring acid burns even get cured, apparently. She and Barclay have a good laugh about the whole thing once everyone is cured and they sheepishly try to take on the blame on themselves. Sigh, what a crazy day that was!
You can now rest easy, "Starship Mine". The Worst Episode in the Series Title is off your hands. 0 out of 5.
720: Journey's End.. I never hated Wesley Crusher as much as I think I was supposed to, according to the internet. Sure, his ability to solve problems on the fly that even the best Starfleet officers couldn't was improbable. But I didn't find him annoying. He seemed like a decent kid that was hypernerdy but happened to be in an environment where that was celebrated. Maybe he was just a sci-fi writer fantasy.
Anyway, whether he was unpopular or just phased out, we haven't seen much of him for the last few seasons. Here, he returns as a surly teenager on leave from the Academy. Meanwhile the Enterprise is trying to negotiate with a planet of Native Americans who have settled on a planet in newly-negotiated Cardassian space. The Federation needs them to move to a new planet to settle with the Cardassians, but of course, they don't want to go. And Picard doesn't want them to have to go. But the Federation Council insists that they have to in order to give the Cardassians the space. Meanwhile one of them helps Wesley figure out what's making him so cranky through a vision, after which he decides that he wants to quit Starfleet. He causes aimless teenage trouble for a while, upsetting the Natives and ruining Picard's negotiations. Eventually, things work out--Wesley finds somewhere to go and the Cardassians decide that it's cool if the Natives stay.
Overall I liked the episode. It's nice to be back to the standard level of quality after the previous couple of bombs. I thought the resolution with Wesley was interesting, and a good portrayal of a guy who just isn't deriving any happiness from the course he started out on. My big complaint is that the Cardassian negotiation wrap-up seemed awfully convenient. First, it relies a lot on the mercy of one particular Commander. Turns out he's a good guy and has some sympathetic characteristics, so it works out. (And it really made him interesting--the internet tells me he shows up a lot in DS9, so it's good that there will be some more use of him.) But aside from this guy, why would Cardassians ultimately respect a human culture? And anyway, couldn't the Federation have hammered out this one planet's fate in "two years of negotiations" as they mention several times? This is the more general thing that bugs me sometimes in the Star Trek universe. It's SPACE. There's a lot of room. In the scope of a whole galaxy or universe, everything's moving around anyway so any arbitrary planes demarcating territory aren't going to hold up. Travel is done at speeds much greater than light, so going "through" someone's territory doesn't have the same meaning. Anyway, some of these things are concessions to make the story work. And it mostly does. 4 out of 5. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I have a scheme! You can help.
It is my dream to own a professional sports team. Unfortunately I have only the tiniest fraction of the required several hundred million dollars necessary to obtain such a team.
Let's place the price of a franchise at $500 million. Baseball teams might go for this in mid-level markets. NFL teams are more expensive. The Rams are valued at $900 million despite being pretty crummy (I guess they have a nice stadium). So, I don't know that $500 million is enough, but let's go with it.
I will contribute the most to this endeavor, and by extension, will be the principal owner. Let's say I can come up with $10,000. I need 499,990,000 more dollars.
OR, a better way to say it, I need 499,990 people to give me $1000. Or 4,999,900 people to give me $100. Or somewhere in between. All of these people get votes and ownership stakes. Say, at the Gold level contribution of $1,000 you get a proportionally higher level of votes and profits, season tickets or DirectTV package, and a jersey. At the Beige level of $100 you get a pennant (in team colors!). Various levels in between.
This can work! You're telling me there aren't 500,000 disenfranchised sports fans with a little money to give in exchange for such glorious benefits? I submit that it would further be a great American story to have a widely-owned public franchise. You're going to root for a corporately-owned team against them? You're going to root for some rich dude's plaything team? That's rooting against America.
Let me know if you want in. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I'm engaged in a pointless project to clarify my 100 favorite albums of all time. Actually I was just listing them out in a rough order to see how things fell, and I've ended up listing about 170 total, but towards the bottom they get a little more vague: things I've only heard a few times, things I haven't heard in a long time, things where I definitely like a few songs but am indifferent to the rest. It just so happens that right around #100 things start to go downhill.
Anyway, I may get around to posting the list once I get more time to think about it and re-order as I see fit. But the initial value of the project is that I've defined my 100th favorite album (pending future list shuffling). It turns out to be David Bowie's Low.
Low is revered by the Pitchfork crowd, and based on its influence I thought I might dig it. I mostly do. I think the best way to describe my feelings towards it is to say that there are a few pop songs on it of a type that I wouldn't normally like, but I do. And there are a few ambient noise songs on there that I ought to like but don't, so much. Or at least, I am indifferent to them when normally I am a sucker for Brian Eno-inspired ambiance.
What's nice about this is that I now have a handy "how much do I really like what I'm hearing?" rule of thumb. When I think about any other album, I can say that if I like it better than Low then it must be among my 100 favorite albums. And if I don't like it as well, then it doesn't get included in the coveted top 100 group. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Some days being a librarian is like being crazy street corner guy. I'm trying to tell the world all these useful things that will help them but no one will listen. So I just get increasingly exasperated and think: maybe I should give up yelling on this corner since no one's paying attention anyway.
Other days random people call me from three time zones away begging for help with some database, because they found my name attached to some web page on Google. Like, I am the only person in the English-speaking world who possesses the key piece of advice they need*.
This whole week has been paragraph one until today, which is definitively paragraph two.
*This is what would be cool:
[Phone rings]"Hello?"
"Hello, is this Josh the librarian? Hold for Barack Obama."
"I...what?"
"Go ahead, Mr. President."
"Uh...."
"Josh, Barack Obama. You're the only one that can help this country: I'll be damned if I can figure out how to export citations into RefWorks from Web of Science."
This is what actually happened:
[Phone rings]"Hello?"
"Hello, is this Josh the librarian? This is Deann. You can ignore my e-mail."
[No idea who this person is.] "I...what?"
"My husband is trying to use Zotero and needs help. Do you have a minute?"
"Actually, I'm just leaving my desk to teach a class. I'll be back around 3."
"Where are you?"
"Uh...in the library?"
"No I mean, what state?"
"What state?"
"Yeah. We're in Arizona."
"North Carolina. Uh, how did you get this number?"
"Listen, don't you just have a few minutes? He just has one question."
"No. I am literally leaving my desk..." (Not said: "...to escape from this random phone call.")
"Oh. Who can help us?"
"Did you try the Zotero website, or, you know, any other random human that might have this information?" [Something like that.]
"No, but we could try that. But you'll be back at your desk at 3? We may call you back."
Now the countdown is on to figure out how to not answer my phone after 3. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| *I am pretty much never awake at 11pm.
*I am pretty much always awake at 8am.
*Cocoa Puffs are an inadequate breakfast.
*PB&J is an inadequate lunch.
*Kraft Mac & Cheese is an inadequate dinner.
*Very little good music has been produced since I was in high school.
*Teenagers are too loud and crazy.
*I don't remember the last time I ate Chef Boyardee.
*I remember my parents being my current age.
*I remember my grandparents being my parents' current age.
*Every one of my elementary school teachers--all of which I remember being in their 30s or 40s--are now retired, or possibly not alive.
*Today I bought a cookie and couldn't finish eating it. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| Items!
*Artie is adjusting pretty well to his new home, but noise is an issue. He meows and meows, ostensibly because he wants to go outside. According to the shelter he used to be a stray, so we occasionally imagine that he wants to return to his life on the mean streets, but alas, he is not the dominant life form in the house and therefore does not always get what he wants. K pretty much had to make a solemn vow to the shelter that we would keep him as an indoor cat. Artie had no say in this, and is understandably angry about the lack of representation. He's also still pretty young, so while we like playing with him for perhaps an hour a day, he is interested in playing for more like 22 hours. Overall he's a good cat, we like him. We await his getting old and lazy, like us.
*Baseball playoffs are on and I'm watching a lot more TV than usual. This is OK, because the freaky lung infection/possible pneumonia thing I had weeks ago is still lingering, like the unnatural horror it is. The result is I pretty much just wanna lie down all the time, which is all baseball playoffs demand of me. Which is why I love them. Anyway, as we head to the LCSes I guess I'm rooting for the Phillies to repeat. They are my favorite NL team, after all. Although that's kind of like saying grilled corn on the cob is my favorite barbecued thing if you don't count meat. I like the Angels so if they win, that will also be acceptable. Any self-respecting human would root against the Yankees, unless they were from New York, and even then I would question their judgment. And I don't like the Dodgers for no particular reason.
*I've read a huge number of books so far this fiscal year (which begins, for me, on May 1). I'm on pace for over 60 when I have never even read 50 before. I've been reading more than in the past, and have also read a lot of short books and graphic novels to help pad the numbers. But I've also read some stupid long books like Infinite Jest and The Bonfire of the Vanities, and am about to start Anathem, so it'll even out. I'm taking this month, while preoccupied with TV, to make progress on the The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which I have found fascinating but haven't been in any hurry to get through it.
*Just to round out the media review, K and I are working through Home Movies and Firefly (both excellent). I'm also watching Curb Your Enthusiasm and Venture Brothers season 3, which I shamefully have never gotten around to. Of course, I am also closing in on the end of Next Generation. It's a good time for TV. If only I didn't have to go to work, I could get through all of this a lot more quickly.
*It's a sign of some meager justice in the world that Rush Limbaugh is being excluded from possible NFL team ownership for, I guess you could say, considering a substantial percentage of the league's players racially inferior. He will just have to be content doing something else with the NFL owner-sized pile of money he has earned from spewing venomous bile.
*I started posting in the Sci_Officer_Log again. If whatever's wrong with me abates and I do not die, I'll keep doing so. You can follow on not-Twitter through RSS or even the dying platform known as LJ. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Whoops, actually disc 4 of season 7 only had one of the notoriously bad episodes. Disc 5 has two of them, so I'll be on to that soon. Turns out disc 4 was generally pretty strong...with one notable exception.
713: Homeworld. Generally I think Michael Dorn is underrated in his role as Worf, but truthfully I think having to restrain his emotion might be a good thing for him. Here he meets up with his adoptive brother, who is trying to rescue a primitive civilization from a doomed planet. His brother pulls a fast one on the Enterprise crew, managing to recreate their shelter in a holodeck simulation and beaming them onto this ship completely unaware. It's a clear violation of the prime directive, so you can understand that no one is really happy that Worf's brother has jeopardized all their careers. While they're transferring the people to a safer planet Worf and his brother have to keep up the ruse of leading them to a safe haven. Of course those rascally villagers get into all kinds of hijinks! The relationship between Worf and his brother is interesting, if a little forced. And the story of the villager who wanders off the simulation onto the ship was well-done. Mostly a good episode. It bears a similarity to some classic sci-fi--notably Harry Harrison's Captive Universe. Also interesting to see Paul Sorvino as a loving husband just trying to care for his village. Instead of a mobster. 4 out of 5.
714: Sub Rosa. Satisfyingly lives up to the hype of being a terrible episode. Crusher attends her grandmother's funeral, on a planet that has been painstakingly recreated as Scotland, for some reason. Even though there's no reason she should know many of the people at the funeral, she notices one particular stranger, for some reason. But that's not even the weirdness. She wants to stay in her grandmother's house, but the caretaker says it's cursed (of course). Also the actor playing the caretaker is way over the top Scottish, while also just kind of staring off into space while he lectures her. Beverly reads her grandmother's journals, which talk about her young lover (ewww) and then has erotic dreams based on these grandma journals (EEEEWWWWWW). What? Turns out the stranger she just happened to notice at the funeral is actually sort of like a ghost creature that is preying on the women in her family. They get filled with a feeling of love, he gets to live within them as a parasite. And who doesn't want to share a lover with their parents? The whole thing alternated between silly and icky. 1 out of 5.
715: Lower Decks. The thing that's generally missing from the Star Trek universe in all instantiations is what goes on in the world below the command ranks. Hundreds of people make up a starship crew. Presumably many of them are maintenance, vacuuming the halls, wiping the cafeteria tables, harvesting and drying the yield of Picard's vast tea farms. The unseen mob is the middle class: the giant herd of ambitious ensigns, specialists, and middle managers who never get to go on away missions. Or do anything, really. Unless the script calls for it! Which it does, here, and it makes for an unusually good episode where several new characters are introduced and they are of genuine interest. There's a lot of good secret spy stuff going on and each of the new characters has some hand in it. Really a well-crafted episode. Each character knows things the others don't, but as the audience we get the fun of piecing it together. I have to wonder a bit: was this a shot at a possible spin-off? Four ensigns, different races, different ambitions, all good actors. Plus their warm but directionless bartender friend. One dies in the end, so maybe not. 5 out of 5.
716: Thine Own Self. Data is sent to recover some radioactive debris, and the next thing we know, he's wandered into a village and has no memory of himself or where he came from. He's got a nice lethal box of radioactive metal, though, but no one knows what "radioactive" means so it simply gets sold to make jewelry. Of course, everyone in the village starts developing radiation sickness. Luckily his analytical abilities haven't failed him, though, because he manages to develop an experiment demonstrating Rutherford Scattering and the potential harmfulness of radioactive decay. He also develops a medicine which counteracts it. All right then. Meanwhile, Troi has decided she wants officer training so she can have bridge duty and tediously monitor ship functions (at "night" when supposedly nothing happens) instead of sleep. Riker lets her train and is strictly by the book about it. She can't pass a particular engineering test until she realizes that the solution is to send Geordi to his death to fix it. Problem solved! So, there was some silliness: Data can't remember his name, but can design and build a microscope? Anyone can command the Enterprise through what appears to be a week long certification course? Nevertheless, I enjoyed the episode a lot. The stories were intriguing and there are some good character moments. But poor Geordi. Riker's training teaches new bridge officers that sometimes you have to sacrifice your chief engineer. People are coming out of their training with this option at their disposal. Episode is possibly also notable because Picard has only one line. 4 out of 5. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | I could name 122 out of 195 countries in the world. I missed a few obvious ones, and might have had another few more if I could have seen the map clearly or could spelled a few right. A more forgiving test, I get 135 I think. Got killed on Oceania (I got zero of them, but one I just couldn't spell), the Caribbean (only got the big ones), north Africa (hit and miss), and eastern Europe (there are a lot of countries there that I couldn't think of, wow). Feel like I should be better at this. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | I got sick a few weeks back with some kind of minor lung infection. The weirdest side effect of all the medication I was on was that I gained this super sharp ability to smell tomatoes. Actually more like tomato-based sauces. I made myself some lunch that included some of those passably-good Ore-Ida oven fries, and put some ketchup on the plate. But it smelled completely rancid to me. Then I thought I could smell it all over the house. I took the garbage out, cleaned up some stuff. I couldn't figure out if it was something dead behind the fridge, me, or somehow the cat. When K got home I asked her to confirm if the house reeked of stale tomatoes but she said it didn't. That's when I knew I had developed a special power. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| What's with all the LJ love today? It's like we're back in the sweet glory days of 2005-6. Is everyone finally realizing that facebook and twitter are the devil's tools? Or does everyone have Thursday Afternoon Malaise? Anyway, it's good to see. Let's keep it going.
Hey, want to see our new cat? That's what the internet is for, right? Pictures of cats? This is Artie:
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Destroying thought in order to save it
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