Two people fight to the death and I’m still fighting a hardcore case of yawns here. This episode’s central theme is that the wealthy are corrupt, but it can’t even draw a clear bead on that point and fire. It’s allegory that fails to link its allegory–the long life of the Methuselahs–with what it represents–obscene wealth and the detachment it brings.  

Also, there aren’t enough frowny faces on the emoji menu of your keyboard to express my disappointment with the Kovachs-sleeps-with-Miriam plot. It just fizzles out and it’s not no one gives, a damn; it’s that Altered Carbon works so hard to inform us that someone would and then never pays that off.  

Can I make it through seven more of these?  The video version of this episode can be found on YouTube at https://youtu.be/2MVYkca1EQ0

Man, does this title even work? In that everyone in this setting is pretty damn fallen, it’s not really–oooh, it’s probably about the girl who fell into the lake from the cloud layer and died.  

I’m doing these solo now and I’m doing my best. I have a lot of questions and a lot of speculation. Is Abboud having sex with Ortega’s mom? 

…other questions.  

The mystery itself is going to plod along and I expect it will unfurl alongside the setting.  The video version of this episode can be found on YouTube: https://youtu.be/c5TmxJM1vas

During our break, The Beige and The Bold is going to watch Netflix’s Altered Carbon, a ten part series which explores a future world in which human consciousness can be reduced to an electronic signal and stored in devices called a stack. In an inversion of our usual roles, Derek has seen Altered Carbon and I have not.  

We cover a lot of stuff and I freely admit I’m one of those guys who’s a bit prickly when they’re not on familiar ground. My initial impression of Altered Carbon is that it has a lot of potential and is a fine show, but is so eager about telling its story that it sometimes forgets the basics.  

Time will tell if I’m wrong.  

A video version of this episode can be found on You Tube: https://youtu.be/_aE77g-Eapc

We get right into it in this season’s supplemental, rolling from the season three finale right into:  

-The Question  

-Season 3 versus Seasons 1 and 2.  

-What we’re doing during the interregnum.  

-YouTube, sound quality, iTunes, and listener feedback.  

-Characters and characterization.  

I’m serious about podcast recommendations. Maybe I’m a bad participant in the podcasting community because I listen to Writing Excuses and…nothing else. Given that my music playlist is getting a bit stale, I’m wide open for suggestions.  Anything else we’re missing though? We do this casually, but we would like to improve.  Also, there will be a brief–odd–mini-series of Altered Carbon for the next four weeks. Then we’ll start season four.

It’s weird for me to say right out of the box that something is overrated and then to laud it for forty minutes, but there we are. If nothing else, it’s a satisfying episode, like a Saturday afternoon earned after a particularly hard week. It’s a lot of reward, not for anything unpleasant, but it’s gratifying, like a pizza after a strict diet.  

I’m not trying to make the rest of The Next Generation sound like a chore; it’s just that it’s a responsible, restrained show that’s got all kinds of ideology and knowledge that are the bran and vegetables of television so the episodes where it can be equally smart and high-minded but also indulge in canon and action scenes feel very, very, very, earned.

It's done. 

It's hard to say anything about what might be–as a Deep Space  Nine fan–the greatest multi-part Star Trek story ever told. Star Trek:  The Next Generation is creating something here.

We're finally to the really forgettable episode where they find a guy whose whole species seems to be on the verge of becoming Q or whatever for no danged reason and we never see them again when...a glowing race of supermen seems significant.

Maybe they all died.

Planetary security, diplomatic incidents, and transporter protocols are just a few things that utterly baffle us about this episode. Like…are there not telepaths on Space E-Lance?  

I know it’s a ‘fun’ episode, but it’s nonsense.  

Is there a difference between the words “nice” and “good”? Is Daimon Tog a bad person who is nice? Can we separate a pleasant exterior from a malicious interior? Can I load these questions any heavier?

Derek’s 80/40/40 joke was really good and I missed it. I’m not sure what else there is to say here.  

Was there another way to slip some elements of TOS into the series? I feel like this series quickly forgets the lessons of this episode later, but it is a good one.

This is another one of Season 3’s signature solid episodes. I think it’s a bit underrated by the fan base, honestly. Maybe because the stylistic choices are so bold it gets cringey for some folks. Honestly, this thing gets high marks for me for conflict, villain, universe building, continuity, and characterization. It tells us so many things about all of the working parts in it that the worst criticism I can give it is that it’s not longer.  

The auction house I was thinking of was Christie’s. I don’t feel bad for blanking; I mean, who uses Christie’s when eBay exists?  

Before every episode, Derek and I warm up a bit and do some planning–that’s where I get the SoundCloud teasers from. Part of the discussion for this episode was about serialized series versus episodic series. This is a smart, self-contained episode that would lose a lot of momentum if these Data/Fajo scenes only happened once per episode over three or four episodes or if we filled those same episodes with failed escape attempts. On the other hand, the concept of Data’s death is big enough that we should see its effects on the Enterprise.  

I dunno, it seems like TNG and DS9 balanced the serialized/episodic divide much, much better than Voyager and (or so I’ve heard) Discovery.  This is a good episode to demonstrate that, right?  

“Sarek” trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h_-bG5Mvkc  

The SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/vanvelding