Shat's Back

Star Trek fans wanting to see William Shatner return to the role of James T. Kirk finally got their wish a few days ago with the release of "Unification", a ten minute film officially produced to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Star Trek: Generations. You can view the whole thing on YouTube:

Obviously the cgi isn't perfect. When you can't even make Shatner's hair look more realistic than his toupee, you know your special effects method is flawed. It was still cool seeing Shatner take on the role again. His face, his particular patterns of expression, are familiar to me from very early childhood and on down the years, which I know is the case for a lot of people. The YouTube comments I've looked at come from people in their 70s and 80s who remember watching the original series when it aired in the late 1960s.

I'm not sure I'd really enjoy the film if it weren't for Shatner. There's not much to it. It leans on a lot of cliche shots, including the one of some guy running his hand through tall grass. Who was the first one to do that, Ridley Scott? I kind of can't believe people are still copying it.

I suspect Paramount is testing the waters for a proper return of Shatner's Kirk, which would seem like an obviously good idea after the success of Picard season three and the fact that Shatner, at the age of 93, is in astonishingly good health. His voice hasn't even changed. I'd certainly watch it though I hope it would be less derivative than Picard was and have the guts to try some new things. Maybe the inclusion of Shatner would even be enough to lure Tarantino back to the table.

Jeri Taylor

Jeri Taylor passed away a couple days ago at the age of 86. She wrote the above episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Drumhead", of which she was particularly proud. Not seen in the clip is legendary screen actress Jean Simmons who played a key role in an episode about a witch hunt and subtle racial discrimination.

Taylor wrote for three Star Trek series: Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, the last of which she co-created. Her work was often very thoughtful, political, but not ever, as I recall, truly polemical. I don't remember Voyager very well, I tend not to re-watch it. But her two parter for Deep Space Nine, "The Maquis", introduced the rebel group that remained a part of Star Trek for years afterward. It facilitated many of the show's signature, thought provoking analyses of war and attendant issues of loyalty and retribution. Taylor was certainly integral to what was best about that silver age of the franchise.

X Sonnet #1893

Permission froze the words to mean enough.
The heart cannot escape the metal arm.
The coat was cold from sleeve to ruffled cuff.
Embedded code creates computer smarm.
The hand contains intentions weird and dull.
A ceiling swarm attracts the blinding drunk.
A group of eyes were clustered 'round the hull.
Assorted lives fulfilled the secret trunk.
A secret word was passed amongst the mob.
To threaten ants was normal work for men.
A candy corn erodes the wholesome cob.
The holiday was rife with feinted sin.
The pastry shop displayed imprisoned rolls.
Pervasive fear creates reflexive trolls.

With a Pinch of Salt

Protect your precious salt, boys. That seems to be the message of "The Man Trap", the first episode of the first season of Star Trek from 1966. It's an odd way to start a show about space exploration, I think. Though it wasn't the first episode shot of the series.

"The Man Trap" sees the crew encountering a creature who poses as the man or woman of their desires--despite the title, it tries to trap Uhura, too--so that it can suck all the salt from their bodies, instantly killing them. I couldn't help thinking of Sterling Hayden in Doctor Strangelove and his anxieties about his bodily fluids being stolen.

The first part of the episode suggests a slightly different story, one closer to the episode's original concept. Kirk, Bones, and a random crewman land on a planet where an old professor lives alone with his wife. The wife, Nancy, happens to be an old flame of Doctor McCoy's. Different point of view shots show the woman has a different appearance to each man. McCoy sees her as young as he remembers her, Kirk sees an old woman, and the random crewman sees a girl he partied with on a pleasure planet.

Why would she do this if she were really trying to seduce them for their salt? It seems more designed to sew discord.

As the episode continues, and she gets aboard the Enterprise, her power just becomes a simple, straightforward transformation. I like how Kirk is the only one who wants to kill her while everyone else is concerned about the fact that she's the last of her species. But Kirk has a point, she is a serial killer. It's a little absurd how hard it is to get her some salt tablets, though.

Star Trek is available on Netflix and Paramount+.

X Sonnet #1787

In wire snares the hapless pheasants stopped.
A poacher's eye was veiled by brittle leaves.
Refreshment stales as bowls of milk are dropped.
Before the stifling breads the baby grieves.
'Tis teeth what make the smile keen and bright.
And never's time to grin but solemn wakes.
Afar on lonesome hill's a gloomy sight.
Yon band's a parcel 'prised of brazen rakes.
For after plunder, nights in lights can please.
No harbour safe would grant a captive grace.
A doctor's tools could break a crook's valise.
A dawn beyond the days could save a face.
Canals deprived of fish could lose their salt.
But something seeps beneath the jagged fault.

The Old Ship's Old Ship

Star Trek: Picard gave us starship Enterprise lovers a good nostalgia trip this year but last night I felt like admiring Star Trek on its true merits. So I watched the third season Next Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise". Boy, it sure holds up.

It's such a lean, smooth hour of television. Every scene flows smoothly into the next. From the moment the Enterprise-C comes through the time rift, an effective cloud of doom hangs over everything.

Most Next Generation episodes introduced a problem the crew slowly solves over the course of the episode. Yesterday's Enterprise does that, too, but right from the beginning the audience knows a lot more than the crew. Guinan is almost on the same page as the audience but even she only has a feeling that something is wrong, that they're now in an alternate timeline.

Patrick Stewart is so good in the episode, so subtle. I love how his voice changes when he tells Captain Garrett the war with the Klingons in this alternate timeline is going very badly for the Federation. The menace is so well established, implicitly and explicitly, it sets up the worth of Picard, Yar, and Castillo's sacrifices. It's just a brilliant piece of storytelling.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is available on Netflix and Paramount+.

Twitter Sonnet #1701

A silent void awaits a sign of life.
Appearing fast, the ship pursues a course.
Intruding minds refer a glowing knife.
The pretty frame advanced a stellar horse.
As matter flows it meets at crystal points.
Combined with anti-matter warp's achieved.
For five initial years the fleet appoints.
On distant worlds, the Enterprise received.
Advancing past the dock, she journeys forth.
Beyond excelling foes, the ship embarks.
Deflector shields sustain a blow of worth.
Enough was told to buttress engine works.
To boldly go, the vessel plots a path.
To final distant space, to love and wrath.

Bad, Bad Borg

Last night's finale of Picard was an effective action spectacle, touched here and there with effective sentiment, an unabashed exhibition of fan-service, and an all-in ploy for a conservative audience. I did enjoy it. Though, after the Mandalorian finale also focused on the importance of family and working together, I think it's high time we get some more stories about how it can be rewarding to work alone.

Behind the spectacle and the nostalgia, the real theme at work here is bad-collective-thinking versus good-collective-thinking. Last week's abruptly established plot point was about all the ships being linked together in a somehow, vaguely sinister way turned out to be the work of the Borg. When Riker wondered how the Federation could court such a dangerous technology, I could only say, "What technology?" Surely the computers could always talk to each other?

Picard and Crusher's son Jack turns out to be an integral part of the Borg plan somehow but in the big climactic moment, Picard establishes that his family connexion with Jack is stronger than the Borg's infiltration of his DNA, a point that might have been stronger if Picard had known Jack for longer than just this season. It also, unfortunately, reminded me of a disappointing episode of Doctor Who ("Closing Time") in which human family love somehow outperforms Cyberman zombification. Since the Borg were originally copied from the Cybermen, I suppose this is at least fitting.

In terms of the show's courting of a conservative audience, I was reminded of reading what Quentin Tarantino wrote about Dirty Harry in his new book, a film that also boldly courted conservatives at a time when movies were relentlessly dominated by progressive messaging. Top Gun Maverick seems to have taught Paramount there's a big audience for this and it was a little distracting how calculated it seemed at times. Even little moments like when Data said he was going to trust his "gut" reminded me of how George W. Bush was once widely derided by the left for saying the same thing.

But I did appreciate the nostalgia, the action scenes were well put together, and the show actually had a breakout star in Todd Stashwick as Liam Shaw. His last moment in the final episode with Seven of Nine was more emotionally effective than even the best deployed nostalgia bait.

I had to admit I found it kind of funny, though, that in the midst of all this messaging about family, the show seemed to have totally forgotten Picard's Romulan lover back at his vineyard.

Star Trek: Picard is available on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Remembering

Last night, Star Trek: Picard boldly went where we'd had already gone before. And I do mean boldly. It's bold for Star Trek to be so blatantly, panderingly conservative. Though I think it should be remembered that it comes from Paramount, the same studio that produced the smash hit Top Gun Maverick, the movie which miraculously poked some Hollywood heads out of the cloud of self-congratulation to see the massive percentage of audience alienated by the deluge of progressive message cgi spectacles. So as Star Wars celebration concludes with announcements of series and films that I think everyone knows with continue the franchise's downward trajectory, Star Trek took aim at that not so silent majority.

I liked some of it. I liked the idea of the Borg rewriting Picard's DNA and infiltrating the Federation through the transporter buffers. I liked Picard and Crusher's son, Jack, struggling to understand how much of his personality was him, how much was the Borg, and if they can even be separated. But it was certainly odd when he wondered aloud if his lifelong fight against bigotry was a symptom of Borg influence. Maybe it would have been more interesting if that had actually been an established part of his character, but I think it still would have seemed cynically aimed at a certain part of the audience.

As does the fact that the Borg virus only affects young people. It's pretty transparent.

The episode culminates with something we all saw coming but I was still eager to see anyway--the return of the Enterprise-D.

They even resurrected Majel Barrett's voice for the computer. The wife of Gene Roddenberry passed away in 2008 but there's more than enough of her voice on file to deploy now, even more appropriately than James Earl Jones' voice was uploaded for Obi-Wan Kenobi. I can't object to a computer playing a computer.

They even turned on the lights. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy seeing the set again, despite Picard still not sounding much like Picard when he says the thing he missed most was the carpet. In addition to being out of character at any time, it's certainly odd in this moment when this is supposed to be a big desperate endeavour to save the entire fleet from the Borg. Oh, well. I guess I should just shut up and enjoy these morsels graciously delivered to me.

Star Trek: Picard is available on Paramount+.

Twitter Sonnet #1687

'Neath stacks of cans the metal eyes arrange.
A cheap and shiny copse condensed a meal.
It's served on pickled plates, it's passing strange.
It's crooked, lean, and sure a losing deal.
Beyond the swamp a choice hotel resides.
Selective veins enlarge the varied limbs.
Confused the ghosts in actors now confides.
The longer dressed all were heavy hems.
Perspective brought a cheese to normal brunch.
With mammal art we duped the birds to sell.
Again the script returned a healthy lunch.
The waitress rang the discontented bell.
The apron's traded last for sweets and fun.
And Easter night against the morning won.

A Generation

The newest episode of Picard was a little better than episodes five, six, and seven, though still not quite hitting the heights of the first four. It certainly came off as a tribute to Next Generation fans and it was nice seeing the bridge crew back together.

Though many of them seemed more like the actors getting back together instead of the characters, particularly Picard. Patrick Stewart has changed his performance of the character so much I just don't recognise him as the same man. There's this constant plaintive tone to his voice now that's really tiresome.

Troi seems mostly the same, though, even if her bangs are distracting. She was my favourite character when I was a kid, mostly because I thought Marina Sirtis was hot. And maybe I also really dug the concept of an empath. They seem to have expanded her powers a lot in this episode, which I suppose they may as well. So much of new Trek involves people having visions and telepathic experiences, it's nice for them to have a character previously established with telepathic abilities.

What a shame cgi isn't cheaper and easier. Brent Spiner's new merged Data and Lore character is hard to see as anything but Brent Spiner in makeup. I also wish they'd dumped the idea of a Data with emotions. The whole "does he/doesn't he have emotions" in TNG has been parodied and had holes poked in it so much, yes. It's not hard to find moments in which Data clearly did have emotions. But because of this, the series concept of Data with emotions feels like Data with extra emotions. And in the new episode of Picard, too. He's unpleasantly zany.

I did like the resolution of his fight with Lore, though, even though I kind of saw it coming.

They have got to do something about the lighting on these shows, particularly since they have so many elderly cast members. No-one wants Patrick Stewart to break a hip on one of the tables.

Star Trek: Picard is available on Paramount+.

That Space Again

Well, the first four episodes of the new season of Star Trek: Picard were good, anyway. Episodes five and six have sadly started to indulge in some of the things that brought down Discovery.

In episode five, Jack Crusher starts to have visions of a "Red Lady" and getting psychotic breaks, an unwelcome echo of the Red Angel plot from Discovery season two. Maybe the writer of episode 6, Christopher Monfette, realised this because he nipped it right in the bud at the beginning of the episode by having Jack Crusher take the extraordinary step of telling the other characters that he's having hallucinations.

Unfortunately, the rest of the episode wallows in maudlin fan service. Now on the run, our heroes hide out at a starship museum where we get glimpses of the Defiant and the Voyager before Geordi La Forge shows up, now a commodore. He has a pretty predictable little arc about how he's unwilling to let his daughters risk their lives for their ideals and of course he comes around by the end of the episode. One of the daughters mentions a hanger in the museum off hand that I bet good money will end up housing the Enterprise-D, refitted by Geordi in his spare time. Except the budget for sets seems to be pretty slim this season and they apparently still can't afford to turn on all the lights.

Michelle Forbes returned for one episode, in episode five, to finally resolve the issues left dangling when she left to join the Maquis in TNG. It was nice the writers thought to do that but it was completely the wrong context. It was like Ro was plugged into the space of a totally different character, in this case somehow a high ranking intelligence officer. Picard somehow was totally unaware of Ro returning to Starfleet and getting a whole new career. So they have a confrontation and the two actors are good but I was annoyed by so much of the dialogue, particularly revolving around the awkwardly named "Bajoran earring." I wonder if Christian crucifixes are called "human crosses" in the future. In any case, Ro needed to come back for more than one episode if they were really going address the issues leftover for her character from TNG and give her a new role in the galaxy.

The show could still pull out of this. Amanda Plummer is still entertaining as the villain. But I fear the first four episodes derived their vitality entirely by imitating Star Trek II.

Star Trek: Picard is available on Paramount+.

Twitter Sonnet #1681

To change, proceed to find an open box.
The watchful babies guard the tower wall.
With special steel, you forge your armour socks.
With special shoes, we'll think you're very tall.
You doddle home but questions hound your toes.
Like where's the dough and where's the oven gone?
A cake you'd bake yourself with frosted bows.
And someone's apron floats ashore at dawn.
The iron evened out the row of feet.
A glassy sea was safe for dancing disks.
Above the cannon ball the angels beat.
A pulpy drink is not without its risks.
Returning ships'll carry packing nuts.
Addiction turns the head to lazy ruts.

Where Many Have Gone Before

I couldn't get past the second episode of Star Trek: Picard season one. But I heard the new season, season three, was actually pretty good so far so I skipped right to it. And it is pretty good. What a nice surprise.

It's not perfect. It has a few dumb things and just poorly considered lines of dialogue. Like when one character meets Worf and says, "Picard talks about you all the time!" No, no, Picard wouldn't talk about Worf all the time. Can you imagine? "Lieutenant, come to my ready room. You know, Worf used to visit my ready room. Would like some prune juice? You know who likes prune juice?"

"I'm guessing Worf?"

There are lots of those little auto-pilot lines that sound like the writer just wasn't considering--wait. Was this show written by an AI? . . . Well, it has the same credited writers as season two, which I hear was even worse than season one. The key difference is that Akiva Goldsman and Michael Chabon are absent from season three. I guess sometimes a show just needs fewer writers, not different writers.

Maybe they ought to have credited Nicholas Meyer and Jack B. Sowards, director and screenwriter, respectively, of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which the first four episodes of Picard season three gratuitously and unabashedly ape. The fourth episode is even called "No Win Scenario".

It's not the first time, or even the second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixteenth time a Star Trek series or movie has tried to do Star Trek II again. Even the last Next Generation movie, Star Trek: Nemesis, borrowed heavily from Star Trek II, featuring Tom Hardy as Picard's clone/son figure. Picard season three more closely follows the the Star Trek II model.

The famous Captain Picard/Kirk, now an admiral, feeling his age a little, goes on an inspection tour of a Starfleet vessel. It turns out his old flame, though, Beverly Crusher/Carol Marcus, who's involved with a scientific project outside Federation jurisdiction, is in trouble. Working alongside her is her son, Jack Crusher/David Marcus, whose true identity as Picard's/Kirk's son she's kept hidden since his conception. But there's a villain afoot unconnected with all this family drama and pursues our heroes into a nebula where the two ships play a blind game of cat and mouse. And the whole thing ends with the witnessing of a remarkable birth that symbolises a new youth for Picard/Kirk.

Despite all this obvious copying and pasting, the four episodes are genuinely good. The writers have finally taken the hint that fans want their old familiar characters back along with logical problem-solving plots. Riker, Crusher, and Worf are all back in the mix. I wonder, too, if the writers are trying to woo back more conservative viewers by relegating most of the female characters to support roles, which would be cynical and, I think, a misreading of what said fans actually want.

But anyway. Three new cast members really shine; Todd Stashwick as Captain Shaw, commanding the ship Riker and Picard end up commandeering, Ed Speelers as Jack Crusher, and Amanda Plummer as Vadic, a character not unlike the one Plummer's father played in Star Trek VI.

Once again, Patrick Stewart is back as Picard, but I find myself saddened by how feeble he is now. I miss his strong, stern delivery. There are a couple scenes where you can see a fire kindled inside him, particularly the scene where he confronts Beverly about keeping their son a secret from him. Suddenly, he's alive and animated again. In other scenes, though, Stewart really seems checked out. He even slurs his words together a lot. I wonder how much of it is his age and how much of it is just him being so damned tired of Star Trek at this point. It's too bad the showrunners have burned their bridges with William Shatner. Nine years older than Patrick Stewart, he nonetheless seems a lot livelier.

The mechanics of the space battles and the character relationships work well enough that I was truly invested in the finale of episode four. So I guess I'll stick with this thing for now.

Star Trek: Picard is available on Paramount+.

Twitter Sonnet #1677

A stranger's face replaced an empty mug.
The oil fathoms wait for falling souls.
A devil scoops them down an iron jug.
As screaming fish abide in prison bowls.
Between the bubbles, eyes were hidden well.
A time of stars has warped the golden fleece.
Beneath the sea, an oyster hides a bell.
A signal lost in time denies us peace.
A captive lung rebounds against the cage.
Ascending steam refined a laser cloud.
Amounting sky condensed the stars to rage.
Descending suns announced the doom aloud.
Remembered ships were fat before the town.
A vicious crew emerged to tear it down.

Opaka Lives

A few days ago I watched "Battle Lines", a first season episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It's not a great episode and it gets sillier the more I think about it.

The spiritual leader of the Bajorans, basically the pope, Kai Opaka (Camille Saviola), has a vision. She has to go through the wormhole to the gamma quadrant. So Sisko (Avery Brooks) takes her in a runabout along with Kira (Nana Visitor) and Bashir (Alexander Siddig).

I used to really love the runabouts when I was a kid. I'm not sure why. They're basically really big shuttlecrafts. "Battle Lines" particularly stands out in my memory as one of the few times (if not the only time?) we see a significant portion of a runabout exterior built to scale for a set. And watching again a few days ago, I realised they got the warp nacelle wrong.

The tip should have the glowing red bussard ramscoop. They clearly reused a nacelle from a TNG shuttle.

Yeah, I was a Trekker.

So as you can see, they crash land on a moon. They discover two warring humanoid factions, one of them led by none other than Mike Ehrmantraut himself, Jonathan Banks, in a rock star wig.

He really doesn't distinguish himself in this episode, sadly. It turns out (spoilers) the warring factions can never die because of some nanotechnology in the air. They can't die but can't leave the planet, either, or the nanobots cease functioning. It might've been more interesting if their characters had been more developed.

The Kai gets killed so she gets stuck on the planet. But that's okay with her because apparently mediating between these two groups is her destiny. What's weird is that, after this, the show basically treats the character as dead. A particularly odd point considering there's a lot of drama over the replacement Kai later on.

Everyone knows the first season of DS9 is pretty rough. I'm fighting the urge to skip ahead, though.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is available on Netflix in Japan.

Twitter Sonnet #1664

With omnipresent hair the maiden stuns.
The horde suspends assaults against the town.
With movement slowed by massive golden buns.
The plaited beauties craft an army frown.
With vermilion dresses hunters take the hill.
The nervous woman clutched a frightened fox.
With kindness proffered, dinner crashed the bill.
The flooded streets conclude with rainy docks.
With gracious fighters, hills were taken down.
The sample phone was filled with pleading tongues.
With righteous will, the sky deserved a clown.
The ladder squeezed the life from all its rungs.
With rubber hats, the masks were shuttled home.
The time of space concludes with land to roam.

The Old Man was a Younger Old Man Once

Patrick Stewart could have been a good action star twenty-nine years ago. There are a few moments in "Starship Mine", a 1993 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation I watched last night, where he even gets to be quietly menacing. He casually delivers a "Then give them my regards" line almost like James Bond to the group of arms dealers he's trapped on the Enterprise with. But the episode's more usually seen as "Die Hard in space." It's clearly a lot cheaper than Die Hard, though, and was likely designed so to fill out the twenty-six episode season.

It makes almost exclusive use of pre-existing sets, the only exception being a reception at the space station where the Enterprise was dry docked for the procedure that necessitated her temporary evacuation.

And sure that's a cheap set. It almost makes Darth Vader's throne room on Obi-Wan Kenobi look good. They also couldn't afford extras so this reception involves only the command crew of the Enterprise and three guest stars--Commander Hutchenson, the Starfleet commander of the station, and the two alien guys who are about to betray them. Presumably the rest of Hutchenson's staff are off-screen somewhere but they're never mentioned, even when the aliens are keeping the Enterprise crew hostage. I suspect the production just forgot that it wouldn't be logical for a Starfleet commander to be all alone on this massive station.

Meanwhile, Picard has five arms dealers to handle on the Enterprise and for some reason he never attempts to contact anyone onboard the station, despite not knowing his crew had been taken hostage.

I guess, despite a few bright spots, TNG's heyday was over by this point. Still, it's a pleasure seeing Patrick Stewart in his prime, before he started to perform every role like he was constantly on the verge of tears. He's steely and badass, running around with Worf's crossbow (according to the Memory Alpha wiki, the prop was a real crossbow rented from a shop for 125 dollars). He also wins a fistfight with a woman.

I can't help feeling we were truly more progressive in the '90s.

This fight happened despite Stewart insisting in recent years that he'd always refused to do such a thing, no matter what the script said. As Ben Whishaw's Richard II said of Stewart's character in the Shakespeare play, "So much for that."

Star Trek: The Next Generation is still available on Netflix. Is Paramount+ ever going to lock down the good Star Trek shows before Disney buys Paramount?

Space Shatner

I am kind of pleased about William Shatner going to space. If you haven't heard, the 90 year old is going on an 11 minute, suborbital flight with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin company. I saw a bit of an interview he did on Good Morning America for it where Al Roker called Shatner the "youngest 90 year old" he knows. And it's true--it's amazing how physically healthy and verbally acute he seems to be. Compared with how frail Leonard Nimoy and Deforest Kelly looked years before they died, it's remarkable.

Shatner's flight is scheduled for the 12th, just two days from now. It was only to-day I thought of his toupee and wondered if it would be an issue. Maybe that's why he was visiting a hair transplant clinic, according to the Mirror. That's right, people are still interested in William Shatner's toupee. Since I last blogged about it nine years ago, articles and blogs from others have appeared regularly. Cracked published an article just this year about a Star Trek producer who claims Shatner stole toupees made especially for him from the Star Trek set. Though, if you ask me, I don't see why Shatner should've had to have stolen them. Who else could have or would have used them? If the producers weren't just going to give them to Shatner, that's some pretty epic stinginess. Maybe they were planning to use them for Michael Myers?

I guess if the producer really wanted them back he could've just plucked them off Shatner's head.

Anyway, the news about Shatner's impending space flight made me want to watch Star Trek. Specifically, I wanted to watch him rolling around with a woman wearing a ridiculous criss-cross of minuscule cloth (you see, live action Cowboy Bebop, this is the fun you could've had). I did a search for "Skimpiest costumes on Star Trek" and came across this 2012 article by io9 co-founder Charlie Jane Anders. She would so be cancelled for it to-day, or at the very least given the stink-eye by all the shills currently sheltering at io9. It was via this article I was reminded of the third season episode "The Cloud Minders".

The basic concept is fairly similar to Laputa in Gulliver's Travels, being about a floating city of artists and intellectuals and a separate class of workers toiling on the planet below. "The Cloud Minders" follows a more obvious path of political allegory, though, making some of the city dwellers secretly corrupt tyrants (the others being ignorant) and the workers being kept mentally inferior by regular exposure to toxic gas. It ignores some of the complexities and morally grey areas that Jonathan Swift's version did a much better job with. Still, the episode has camp value and it's nice to remember a show that actually wanted to engage the audience with serious ideas instead of just mindlessly pushing a message.

Also when I searched for "Skimpiest costume on Star Trek", this article came up in which actress Sherry Johnson claims her improbable outfit in "What are Little Girls Made Of" was partially held together by Shatner's toupee ribbon. Could that possibly be true?

The Fires of La Forge Remain Unlit

Why was Geordi La Forge so unlucky in love? He came close again in "Aquiel", a 1993 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. This time it was with an actress with whom the production staff felt Levar Burton had no chemistry. They were quite right but at least she wasn't a Holodeck simulation.

The episode has a dog, a pet of the title character, Aquiel (Renee Jones). It made me wonder if there were Holodeck programmes just for dogs. Like maybe every morning a Starfleet officer drops their dog off to run around a meadow and chase--and possibly even kill--phantom cats and rabbits.

The episode has a decent enough murder mystery. Aquiel and her dog apparently survived a mysterious attack on a subspace relay station near the Klingon border. It's strange how Federation relations with the Klingons are dealt with in this episode. Picard (Patrick Stewart) has to deal with a belligerent local official and a Klingon attack on the station is considered a real possibility yet such was the state of peace between the two intergalactic powers that the relay station apparently only had light defences.

The point of the station is to boost communication signals. Sounds like kind of a boring job and one for which it seems like the computer could do most of the work. Maybe that's why there was so much drama between Aquiel and the only other humanoid occupant of the station. Did Aquiel kill him? Was it a Klingon who, it turns out, also appeared on the station?

Aquiel seems to be dead at the beginning of the episode so Geordi watches all her personal logs to look for clues. It was an idea apparently inspired by Laura, the classic film noir. It kind of sets up a pattern for Geordi, though. The most prominent romantic plot he has in the series is with Leah Brahms, the woman whose holographic representation he fell in love with before actually meeting her. As that hologram was based on personal files and even psychological profiles of the real person, it was pretty voyeuristic in an interesting way, and you can hardly blame the real Brahms for being upset. Aquiel is similarly upset when she discovers Geordi had gone through her personal logs though at least he had a good excuse this time.

Before long, they're touching the crystal, if you know what I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge. Aquiel's an alien whose species keep a special super-intimacy crystal that partners touch to be closer than you or I can imagine, though it all looks conveniently chaste. They don't even rumple their Starfleet uniforms. Interestingly, Demolition Man also came out in 1993. It was a time when people were dreaming of escaping from the messy necessity of physical love, I guess, though "Aquiel" only lightly touches on it, so to speak. There's some unintentional comedy when Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) bursts in and interrupts them.

Not a terrible episode, though it seems to be ranked low on many lists.

Star Trek: The Next Generation is available on Amazon Prime and Netflix.

The Captain and the Silicon Lifeform

It was William Shatner's 90th birthday a few days ago and I saw various people online wishing him well. I decided to watch Shatner's favourite episode of Star Trek (according to his memoirs), the 1967 first season episode called "The Devil in the Dark". It is a good episode and dated in ways that make it a breath of fresh air to 2021 eyes.

Along with Princess Mononoke, "Devil in the Dark" is one of the few stories of human industry versus the environment I've come across that doesn't portray human industry as the embodiment of pure evil. We're introduced to the group of miners menaced by an alien threat before the opening theme.

When was the last time you saw a group of guys like this in a movie or TV series? Nowadays, if a film or series absolutely must show a group of working class proles, they'll invariably be young and sleek. On Star Trek, podgy old guys were cast because that's what miners generally looked like in the '60s.

They're on a planet mining minerals desperately required for reactors by several nearby colonies. The mysterious monster also takes out the miners' reactor by making off with a crucial component--one too old for the Enterprise to be carrying a replacement for. Writers used to integrate a better sense of understanding of how things tend to work. Every piece of technology on this show is made up but there's a legitimacy to this chain of problems--a crucial mining operation that nonetheless relies on dated technology that the relief vessel can't provide maintenance for. Advancements that may be great in the long term, making things worse in the short term.

Spock (Leonard Nimoy) slowly starts to work out that there's more to the dangerous creature than it may seem. The peculiar silicon orbs it leaves around will obviously be eggs to most viewers but Spock is very cautious expressing this theory for 1960s audiences. Shatner, Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley are all good in their usual debate triumvirate. I particularly like the scene where Spock first mentions to Kirk that killing the last of a species may be a "crime against science." Kirk has a visible emotional reluctance to even contemplating the idea because he senses all the obstacles in the way of doing anything about it. Spock, meanwhile, doesn't actually need convincing the thing still needs to be killed and calmly only says that it's "a pity." After all this time, Spock is still one in a million.

Star Trek is available on Amazon Prime and Netflix (in the U.S. and Japan).

I'm reminded that I began this year by watching Star Trek II, a film that seems an even more appropriate viewing for Shatner's birthday. May you continue to feel young, Captain.

Twitter Sonnet #1435

A face consumes an extra hour's night.
The longer day would take the chin to heart.
The soggy message urged a laundry fight.
A perfect shadow taught the sculptor art.
Repeated beaches build a circle sea.
Recycled salt condensed to cool a whale.
Convening milks endorse the mild tea.
In lettuce juice we dipped the fluffy kale.
The soba noodle turns in boiling dreams.
The sober noggin churns in roiling seas.
The sloppy napkin folds on crumpled seams.
The stripey number yields a ribbon tease.
The squishy onion passed the mustard bomb.
The dishy woman cached the plaster ROM.

Ferengi Magnetism

The first official delegation arrives from the Gamma Quadrant in "Move Along Home", a first season episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It's just Sisko and the crew's luck they turn out to be weirdos obsessed with games who want to go straight to Quark's.

Actually, they're really not that weird. Star Trek was always criticised for having not-very-alien aliens. It's pretty sad the first delegation from the mysterious Gamma Quadrant is just people with paint on their foreheads. But the production had budget problems, according to Memory Alpha.

It's not a terrible episode but I never got caught up in the main drama--Sisko (Avery Brooks), Bashir (Alexander Siddig), Dax (Terry Farrell), and Kira (Nana Visitor) getting caught as pawns in a game Quark (Armin Shimmerman) is forced to play. I must be a big Armin Shimmerman fan, come to think of it, as I just realised I'm watching through two shows he features on now--DS9 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I prefer him as Quark. One of the things I like about this episode is it has a moment where Sisko actually starts chatting comfortably with Quark, showing he can get off the moral high horse. There are some nice scenes between Sisko and his son, too. It seems like Avery Brooks was still experimenting a lot with Sisko and he has all these entertaining little gestures and facial ticks.

Brooks is like a stealth bomber, he seems to hardly move but then he cracks a smile and his whole aura seems to change.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is available all over the place. I watched it on Netflix.

Twitter Sonnet #1448

The maps of damaged rooms remain at hand.
Behind the eye, familiar roads revive.
The brain produced an ever present brand.
It can't the urgent ghost or grave contrive.
The clouds were wadded floss beneath the floor.
As winter thoughts retain a broken leaf or two.
The pond was frozen peace and shimmered war.
Above the board there danced a waxy shoe.
A tiny petal shades the metal door.
The dreaming trees arrived a little late.
The city poster showed but baldly poor.
A million liqueurs clog the rusty grate.
The lively jog occurs beneath the dome.
The spinning wheel escorts the hamster home.