Okona is a mary sue, from the series that inspired the first mary sue. But through Derek’s eyes, even the most mundane second season episodes are exciting.  

At some point we’re going to get past the bizarre work schedules of Starfleet crew members and Troi’s usefulness, but today is not that day (and tomorrow isn’t looking too good either).

This week we talk about actors and accents, the lost plot of Data’s sapience, and how Jean-Luc Picard would totally kill a guy.  

Is Picard a good leader right now? We make fun of his standing orders and how well the crew is trained, but are we being too hard on him? Was it just that they couldn’t write these episodes to improve the crew’s abilities or do the folks on the Enterprise have to be poorly trained for these stories to work?

The actual narrative is so short here, I wish for a better B-plot. I feel we learn nothing, the crew learns nothing, and nothing actually happens. It’s just a bunch of filmmakers asking if they’ve blown our minds yet.  We’ve had worse stories, but nothing that’s really felt so amateurish.  

Speaking of amateurs, on September 10th Derek and I will be streaming as we watch six episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The Dauphin,” “Contagion,” “The Royale,” “Time Squared,” “The Icarus Factor,” and “Pen Pals.” I tried to get the biggest streak of bad episodes possible. 

Stream will start at 9:00 AM central time and will feature stills from the episode with audio from Derek and myself. We’ll be at: https://www.twitch.tv/vanvelding

I would love to visit spreadsheet planet. It would accomplish more than this episode.  

In this episode, I forgot what the name of my website was. Was it Kris.com? It’s not. I also mixed up “The Omen,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” and “Eraserhead.” But I did not mix up how much I love potatoes though.  

Also, shout-out to listener and commenter Skiltao who pitched the idea of a “Skin of Evil”/”Conspiracy”/”The Child” three-parter which would have given us the kind of through-line and body horror that would’ve done some of these episodes some justice.

Season 2 is going to be better. End of.

Unedited, slightly incoherent, and mostly redundant, The Beige and The Bold Solo Sessions are episodes where I run through a show without Derek.

Are archetypes bad? No. Are tropes bad? No. Is it bad to give them more depth? No. Especially when that depth excuses the use of tropes. 

Unedited, slightly incoherent, and mostly redundant, The Beige and The Bold Solo Sessions are episodes where I run through a show without Derek.

Looks like Yar and Worf are having a scene together...*singing* one last time *singing*.

Kickboxer (1989) had Jean-Claude Van Damme was followed by Kickboxer II  (1991) was with Sasha Mitchell. This episode was made in 1988, so it predates the Kickboxer series.

Unedited, slightly incoherent, and mostly redundant, The Beige and The Bold Solo Sessions are episodes where I run through a show without Derek.

THIS mother-president!

Lemme tell ya, it's February of 2017 and I am sick of this fella.

Unedited, slightly incoherent, and mostly redundant, The Beige and The Bold Solo Sessions are episodes where I run through a show without Derek.

Ok, Lore isn't that deep, but then Data isn't either. Y'know, all respect to Brent Spiner, who takes so much of Data and Lore and makes them work.

Unedited, slightly incoherent, and mostly redundant, The Beige and The Bold Solo Sessions are episodes where I run through a show without Derek.

We learn a little bit about Yar's character that won't ever come back to have any negative consequences.