TVSquad

(S03E05) What a dick. It turns out that former Squadder Wil Wheaton, who guest-starred on tonight's episode as himself, is totally the Jonny Fairplay of fantasy role-playing card game tournaments, who broke Sheldon's poor little heart not once, but twice. I love the fact that Sheldon has this vendetta against Wheaton in the first place, because of course Sheldon Cooper would consider the guy who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: TNG to be his mortal enemy. The only thing that surprised me about that is that Sheldon's complaint was due to a slight that happened in the real world, and not some scientific inconsistency in the show, or Crusher's anachronistic hair.

When Sheldon and Wil are skirmishing to the death, there's a part of me that was thinking that the story of Wil's grandma was a lie, but he's Wil Wheaton! They wouldn't actually make him evil, would they? But they did, and poor Sheldon nearly had the big aneurysm that Wolowitz had been wishing on his mother.

As the fall release date for the J.J. Abrams Star Trek DVD closes in, Star Trek merchandising is making a comeback.

Everything Trek made a huge bull rush earlier this summer when the first major run of merchandising took hold. Everything from bottle openers to iPod got the final frontier treatment. Now the DVD is shaking the space trees again.

The long-rumored Star Trek colognes beamed their way into stores last week -- immediately becoming a product that folks might want to try as curiosity without ever admitting they bought it.

The merchandise opportunities for classic shows like Star Trek has been outlandish, to say the very least.

You can show your financial love for Star Trek by buying Star Trek toys, Star Trek apparel, Star Trek cell phones, Star Trek Pez dispensers, Star Trek burial coffins, Star Trek living room furniture
and even Star Trek erotic theme art. Don't click that last link if you're at work, school or don't really want to know what James Doohan would look like spread eagle on a Tribble skin rug.

Now the folks at Genki Wear, a geek themed jewelry manufacturer, have helped the Enterprise explore a strange new world of merchandising and seek out new lifeline accounts and financial liquidations with a line of Star Trek-inspired cologne and perfumes.

It's becoming clear that if you plan on buying every season of a TV show, at least the more popular ones, you might want to wait a couple of years (if you can wait, that is). They're coming out with more and more "complete sets" and if you buy the sets individually you're probably paying more (and missing out on some extras, though that's not always the case).

Here's another one. CBS/Paramount will release a complete set for Star Trek: The Next Generation on October 2, to celebrate the show's 20th anniversary.

Title: The Big Goodbye
Original Air Date: January 11, 1988
Written By: Tracy Torme
Directed by: Joseph L. Scanlan
Episode: S01E012
Stardate: 41997.7

The Enterprise is on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan, and the imperial senate will not stand for -- oh. Wait. Sorry. Wrong Star. Let's start over, shall we?

The Enterprise is on a diplomatic mission to meet the Jarada, an alien species with a peculiar affinity for protocol: if Picard doesn't speak a particular greeting in exactly the right way at exactly the right time, the Jaradan won't join the Federation, and they'll take all their mythical Jaradan weed with them.

Picard and Counselor Troi have been practicing his speech for hours, because it is just about the most important thing Picard has done since convincing Q that humanity isn't a bunch of asscocks. Because he is so aware of the significance of the meeting, he naturally closes up his books and heads down to the holodeck to goof off. (If my son Ryan, who is about to enter college, is reading this, please don't follow his example if you intend to graduate in four years. Keep studying. Your grades and my money thank you.)

Picard tells us in his personal log that he's looking forward to trying out something new called a holodeck program: rather than simply recreating a time or a place (or both) it recreates an entire fictional universe inside the Enterprise (infinite recursion alert! Infinite recursion alert!) with characters and a story, sort of like LARPing, if LARPing wasn't totally lame.

Title: The Battle
Original Air Date: November 16, 1987
Teleplay By: Herbert J. Wright
Story By: Larry Forrester
Directed by: Rob Bowman
Episode: S01E09
Stardate: 41723.9
Synopsis: On an order from Starfleet (official directive #9: Justify the Plot of the Show), the Enterprise has rendezvoused with a Ferengi ship in the Xendi Sabu system, famous across the entire galaxy for its delicious paper-thin slices of Targ, cooked at your table in boiling water and served with tasty noodles.

However, it's been three days since the Enterprise arrived, and the only message they've picked up from the Ferengi ship is, "Stand by, Enterprise." That's an awfully long time to be listening to music on hold, but Picard knows that his starship will be hailed in the order it arrived, and jumping to warp speed and coming back will only lead to further delays, so he waits.

This is where we come in, and we discover Picard in his quarters with Dr. Crusher. He is extra cranky and has a mysterious headache. It's so mysterious that even Dr. Crusher doesn't know why he has it, and she wants to give Picard a special examination. However, before the porn music can begin, Riker calls Picard to the Bridge; the Ferengi are ready to talk.

Picard arrives on the Bridge and talks with the Ferengi DaiMon Bok, who seems to know Picard. Picard doesn't remember him but wants to know why he requested a meeting and kept the Enterprise waiting for three days, and why in the world they chose Chicago X as their hold music, because "If you Leave Me Now" is cool once, but every 38 minutes for three days is a little much.