Category: Television

Have you been feeling unfulfilled? Like your life is missing something? Have you been feeling . . . not so fresh?

You could be a Trekkie, and not even know it. Savage Chickens has a simple test to help you determine if you are a Trekkie in just three simple steps, so you can embrace your inner geek, and start living again.

(Thanks Jess!)

Set the wayback machine for the early 80s, Sherman. Any Saturday morning will do . . .

I was such a nerd, I thought Timer was actually kind of cool. He taught us how to be healthy through song!

I was such a nerd, I thought the Dungeons  & Dragons cartoon was really cool.

Except for Uni. I hated that stupid little Scrappy Doo idiot.

Remember how excited you were to see your favorite video games become cartoons? The only thing that could have been better for a kid in 1983 would have been turning your favorite video games into a cereal!

Hmm . . . on second thought, maybe not.

Happy Saturday, everyone.

My review of Angel One, which is part of the Top Five Most Painful TNG Episodes Ever, is up at TV Squad.

If you missed this morning’s preview (and if you did, what the hell, man?) here’s another bit of Mojo for your Nixon:

When they get to the planet, we discover that the women are all
statuesque beauties with perfectly feathered hair, and the men are all
refugees from Planet Simper V. After a tense palaver with the planet’s
only two leaders with any opinions whatsoever, Mistresses Beata and
Ariel, the away team is sent to their room to think about what they did
while mommy and mommy talk. Like all kids who are sent to their rooms,
though, instead of contritely thinking about what they did, they plot
against the people who sent them there.

Troi says that pretty
much everyone in the room was freaked out about something. Maybe it has
something to do with the Odin crew. Tasha’s insightful analysis: "Why?
Good question." Data (and the audience) wonder what they’ll do if the
Mistresses deny the existence of any survivors. Hey, that’s a good
question, and probably something we’d all like to be prepared for,
right, Riker? Actually, no. Riker petulantly tells Data, "Let’s not
look for problems." Yeah, because looking for and solving problems just
isn’t the way we do things in Starfleet, dog.

Of all the reviews I’ve done so far, this was the hardest for me to write. I didn’t work on the episode for more than one day, so I don’t have that many behind the scenes memories. The final product is so unbelievably horrible, it was a challenge to do more than write, "This thing was stupid, this thing was also stupid, this thing should be retconned, this thing was lame," etc.

So I wrote the first draft, and I asked Andrew to give me some help with the rewrite. I figured that he would have his own take on it, and would be able to help me find jokes where I was missing them. He did, and so far, the jokes everyone is picking out as their favorites were all written by him. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, so direct your praise for Worf’s sinuses and Riker’s wait for command in Andrew’s direction. He also found a gag to go with the vase, which I wanted to put in, but just couldn’t find on my own. The snu-snu, though, was all me, baby. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised.

The column was getting long, so I didn’t have space to include something that I think it historically important about this show. If I only had a blog where I could share the additional information, I’d say . . .

Angel One is mostly crap, but the original story  sounds like it was pretty cool. Larry Nemecek’s Star Trek The Next Generation Companion (which is a surreal experience for me to read, because it speaks to the fanboy and cast member in me simultaneously) says that "Heavy rewrites changed Patrick Barry’s original story — a direct, action-filled, allegory to apartheid using the sexes instead of the races to make his point." Larry gives more plot details in the book, which I won’t reprint here because I think that probably exceeds fair use. Director Michael Rhodes says that a big reason this story falls flat was Gene’s determination to strip any conflict out of this script, and that Gene decreed that there was "no place for conflict in Star Trek." I hate to be critical of Gene, but I clearly remember Rhodes and several members of the cast sitting on Stage 6 one morning, absolutely incredulous that anyone could think that interesting drama was possible without conflict.

You know how you’re a kid, and your parents are arguing about something, and you know they’re arguing but they tell you everything’s fine, we’re just talking, so go back to bed? That’s how I felt during this entire episode (even though I wasn’t working on it, I was there every day to go to school.) The actors hated it. I mean, they really, really hated it — almost as much as I hate Dick Cheney. I haven’t been able to confirm this with people
who allegedly participated, but I’ve heard from other Star Trek alumni
that some of the actors hated this script so much — it was even more
sexist and stupid in one of the drafts that it is in the final cut, if
you can believe that — they refused to work for a day or so until
various things were rewritten. Some people would say that’s a case of
actors being difficult, but I’d say it’s an example of how much we all
cared about the show, and how we all wanted it to be awesome and
successful.

Oh, and if you Digg it and Propel it, a talking goat will bring you a box of wine, for free! If that doesn’t wax your skis, I can assure you that Digging and Propelling will get you laid. And who doesn’t like that?

(Heh. "get you laid" sounds like 9th grade tough-guy talk during lunch. It also makes me think of Beavis and Butthead, for some reason.)

Sometime soon, my review of Angel One will go live on TV Squad. Until it does, here’s a little preview:

While Data and Trent are off seeing the wizard, Riker gets ready to
play dress up for a meeting he has with Beata. She’s sent him one of
the hideous twink suits, apparently unaware that body wax and muscle
definition have gone out of favor in the Federation. Tasha and Troi and
throw up in their mouths a little when they see it, one of the first
times in TNG when we can clearly see the characters sympathizing with
the audience, instead of the other way around. Riker gets really
defensive about the whole thing, and essentially accuses them of being
jealous, because he’s putting on a Siegfried and Roy costume to go meet
up with Beata, who is "a woman, and an attractive one."

Oh, brother. Can we get a tiger sent down to Angel One?

. . . what? Too soon?

Back on the Enterprise, Picard is crankier than usual, and Dr. Crusher says he’s just too sick to stay in command of the Enterprise. As she escorts him to his quarters, he gives command to Geordi, who is all too happy to get away from Worf, who is about to shower Geordi and everyone in the first ten rows of the arena with a Klingon Sneeze. Turns out that those forehead ridges are just extra sinuses. Ouch.

Geordi approaches the captain’s chair, and a ray of awesome breaks through the clouds of crap that have obscured most of this episode: As he sits into command, we can feel how much Geordi respects the responsibility he’s been given, and just how cool it is to sit in the big chair. Worf starts his scan and quickly locates the Odin survivors.

(Personal aside:  LeVar and I were the only two original cast members on TNG who were self-proclaimed Star Trek fans. I never asked him, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this moment meant a lot to LeVar, personally. I know that when I got to sit in the captain’s chair in Farpoint, even though it was kind of silly and lame, it still meant a lot to me. Fun fact: when we weren’t rolling, nobody ever sat in the captain’s chair except Patrick. Sure, we’d get visitors who would want to have their picture taken in the chair, and it was a popular stop for studio executives who wanted to impress people, but for all of us in the cast and crew, there was a very real reverence for the captain’s chair.)

Okay, that wasn’t as little as I thought it’d be.

That’s what she said!

Oh boy. It’s going to be one of those days . . .

Did you know that Walter Koenig (who, by the way, told me Happiest Days was "delightful," Squee!) created the character of Enik on Land of the Lost? Did you know that Harlan Ellison wrote a story for the show that was never produced? Oh! Oh! Oh! Did you know that David Gerrold came up with a whole backstory for the eponymous land that makes sense?!

I didn’t know any of this until I read the Land of the Lost Triviagasm at io9 last night.

When they announced it, I though io9 was going to be snotty, too cool for the room, and hideous (like most Gawker blogs, which seem to have have an attitude I outgrew in my twenties.)

They’re proving me wrong (like my opinion counts, right?) with content that’s consistently interesting and cool, and commentary that doesn’t seem to fit into the smug, condescending, dismissive tone that seems to be the Gawker model. It’s almost like they realized who their target audience is, and — gasp — actually respect and speak to that audience.

Speaking of Land of the Lost: did it scare the living daylights out of anyone else? I remember being scared by most of the Krofft shows, because they all seemed to feature kids who get separated from their parents and sent into a weird world from which they can never return, but Land of the Lost terrified me, even though the kids had their dad with them. Maybe it was because I was a young geek with an overactive imagination, but when I was nine or ten, it seemed to be the most plausible of all the Krofft shows.

Oh, and if you’re a fan of the Krofft shows, you should track down a copy of Pufnstuf & Other Stuff. It’s awesome.