So, here's a pitch: some people go into a virtual world based on the Old West to experience a narrative-driven experience that gives them a good time roleplaying a harmless power fantasy to escape from their stress-filled lives, but whoops the computer goes crazy and the robots in the simulation start trying to kill them for real. We'll call it..."A Fistful of Datas," and we'll make it an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Why, what did you think I was talking about? (Hardy har, I made a funny. We're also talking about "Rascals" and "The Quality of Life," plus another second season episode of The Wire.)

It happens! Once! Even the great Teddy Hoffman can get knocked off his game. We're continuing to talk Murder One this week, with three more chapters that show just how boring most of trial work. And yet, the show remains entertaining? We don't know, it's kind of a miracle. Then, The Wire continues making things miserable for just about everybody in Baltimore, as bad choices lead to more bad choices and everyone's getting pulled down by the "Undertow."

Samuel Clemens, that is, not us. We're kicking off The Next Generation's sixth and penultimate season this week, with "Time's Arrow, Pt II," "Realm of Fear," and "Man of the People," and whoops, they're all kind of crap. At least the Barclay episode shows that the crew is getting better at creating a healthy work environment for non-neurotypical coworkers. Way to be allies, Next Gen crew. Oh, and then we talk about The Wire, as Nicky is living a Bruce Springsteen song but wouldn't know it because he listens to crap nu-metal bands in "Hard Cases."

Murder One continues (and continues to be awesome) this week. There's a magnificent Raymond Chandler mystery happening here; pity it keeps stopping to act out rejected LA Law spec scripts. Also, The Wire's second season starts to heat up with "Hot Shots."

We wrap up the fifth season of The Next Generation with "The Inner Light" and "Time's Arrow," and it's one of those times where J. has difficulty explaining why something is so great because it affects him on a deep and personal level quite profoundly so instead he has to kind of crap on it as a defense mechanism, and also "Time's Arrow" is here. It's good in ways that don't matter and crappy in the ways that do! (Did I just write a new tagline for our podcast?) This episode synopsis is a damn mess, but we also talk about The Wire season two, and McNulty's "Collateral Damage."

See, Murder One doesn't have "episodes," it has "chapters." This is back when showrunners could talk like this and sound novel, not pretentious. We're talking the mid-90s ABC experiment Murder One, and boy was it ahead of its time (and, unsurprisingly, regressive in a few ways). Then we kick off season two of The Wire, with "Ebb Tide." McNulty's on a boat!

We're back on The Next Generation this week, with "Imaginary Friend," "I, Borg," and "The Next Phase." Then, we wrap up the first season of The Wire with "Sentencing." 

We're talking about the final three episodes of Cupid they got to make before the show was sent to farm upstate where it can run and play. No, you can't visit, but it'll be happy, just trust us, sweetie. And speaking of buying the farm, we're talking about The Wire, too, and its penultimate season one episode, "Cleaning Up," which has just one question: Where's Wallace?