TVSquad

Over the past few days it has once again become quite apparent that they have yet to invent an Olympic sport that I won't watch. Really. Fencing, Women's Air Rifle, Badminton... I'll watch it all. I spent my weekend traveling between the various channels, internet streams, and the occasional visit to my Slingbox in Boston. As far as the games go, they're as good as they've ever been. The coverage from NBC though, unfortunately, is still not nearly what it should be.

I'll admit, they got me. When I read about the plans for more live coverage, and how they were going to make use of all the other NBC/Universal properties, I thought this would be the year, the Olympic nirvana that always could have been. It's really not panning out that way. More than anything else, the word that keeps coming to mind for the NBC coverage is annoying. After the jump, some notes for NBC.

Title: Code of Honor
Original Air Date: October 12, 1987
Written by: Katharyn Powers and Michael Baron
Directed by: Russ Mayberry
Episode: S01E04
Stardate: 41235.25

Synopsis: The inhabitants of the Federation planet Styris IV had the fish for dinner, leading to an outbreak of deadly Anchilles fever. With Styris IV's fate in the hands of Acting President Ted Striker and his intern Elaine, the Enterprise pays a visit to the only planet in the entire galaxy that can provide a vaccine, Ligon II.

Picard meets with the Ligonian leader Lutan and his little buddy Hagon when they beam up into the ship's cargo bay. On the way to meet them, Troi and Riker tell Picard that the Ligonians are a proud people with a very structured society. Picard thanks them for waiting until they're in the turbolift, going to the meeting to tell him this important information, instead of bogging down the pre-meeting briefing with it. When they get to the cargo bay, we discover that the Ligonians are also descended directly from a 1940s pulp novel set in deepest, darkest Africa, and that they are amused to discover that the Enterprise's security chief is a woman.

Oh good! We're going to be racist and sexist in this one!

Title: Angel One
Original Air Date: January 25, 1988
Written by: Patrick Barry
Directed by: Michael Rhodes
Episode: S01E14
Stardate: 41636.9

Synopsis: The Enterprise comes across the long-lost freighter Odin, which has been missing since Captain Hazelwood crashed the ship into an asteroid seven years ago. Three escape pods are missing and assumed to be on their way to Tatooine, but since the planet Angel One is closer, Picard decides to look there, first. Besides, it's supposedly run by hot babes who like to snu-snu, so Picard can finally dump that load of hats he's been hauling around since "Justice." And -- Science Fiction Cliche alert! -- it's "similar to mid-twentieth century Earth."

After a chilly initial audio-only contact with Angel One's leader, Mistress Beata, during which no one at all asks why the leader has a dom-sub porn name, Picard sends Riker, Troi, Tasha and Data down to the planet to get permission to look for any survivors. On their way to the transporter room, they run into Wesley and Nameless Extra Kid, who are wrapped up in Jiffy Pop suits and on their way to skiing lessons. On the holodeck's version of the Denubian alps. Now, for all the failings in this episode, here are two things it does right: the holodeck doesn't malfunction, and we don't have to watch Wesley and his friend doing their best Suzie Chapstick impression on the icy slopes of Mount Needaplotpoint (part of the majestic Isthisthebestyoucoulddo range).

Picard tells the away team that Angel One could one day be of strategic importance to the Federation, so they'd better be on their best behavior. Riker says, "Dude, is there any planet in the galaxy that isn't going to be of strategic importance to the Federation one day?" Picard responds, "If you keep asking questions like that, Number One, it's going to be fifteen years before you get your own command. Beam them away, Nameless Transporter Chief."

Title: Datalore
Original Air Date: January 18, 1988
Teleplay by: Robert Lewin and Gene Roddenberry
Story by: Robert Lewin and Maurice Hurley
Directed by: Rob Bowman
Episode: S01E013
Stardate: 41242.4

Synopsis: After dropping off a bunch of Human Horn for Lurr in the Omicron Persei system, the Enterprise cruises into the nearby Omicron Theta system, to pay a visit to Data's home planet.

Omicon Theta was once a farming colony, but all the colonists -- and everything they once grew -- were all gone when Data was found. Oh! A mystery! Riker leads an away team to the planet's surface in an effort to solve it. (In a scene that was cut from the final episode, the USS Mystery Machine showed up, and captain Fred said, "Dang." before it flew away to the Scary Old Amusement Park galaxy.)

They make their way to the exact spot where Data was discovered: it's sort of a hollowed out area beneath a bunch of rocks, where Data tells them he was found wearing nothing more than a layer of dust. Before anyone can make a saucy reference about 'The Naked Now' to Tasha, Geordi's Visor reveals that the rocks aren't naturally hollow, and the "wall" opens up, revealing a twisty maze of passages, all alike.

(S04E09) "If you're good enough to fake a comic, you're good enough to be drawing your own." - Seth Marlowe

Numb3rs finally returned to form tonight with an episode that didn't quite make sense to me. When I think of the FBI tracking down a counterfeiting ring, currency comes to mind before comic books. Regardless, this was a great episode layered with an enjoyable and overly nerdy case, some mathematical explanation from Charlie (for once!), and some great sub-plots. It got even better though. Not only did Christopher "flux capacitor" Lloyd guest star, but the episode also saw a great turn from TV Squad's very own Wil Wheaton.

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.

A while back, I showcased some blogs that celebrities were (at the time) keeping. David Duchovny had one for a while, but it was just to promote one of his movies and he stopped it. Zach Braff had one for Garden State, but doesn't update it as much as he used to at his new site (though it's still pretty entertaining). And of course we know that Rosie O'Donnell updates hers, a little too much probably.

But there are other TV celebs who blog too, so it's time for an update. After the jump, a list of some of the better blogs out there.

Title: Haven
Original Air Date: November 30, 1987
Teleplay By: Tracy Torme
Story By: Tracy Torme and Lan Okun
Directed by: Richard Compton
Episode: S01E011
Stardate: 41294.5

Synopsis: The Enterprise is in orbit around a planet known as Haven, a planet so beautiful, Picard tells us, legends say it has mystical healing powers. Data intelligently points out that the legend is entirely unsupported by fact, so Picard gives him a copy of Loose Change and The Secret to straighten him out on the whole "Facts vs. Bullshit" thing.

Yar calls Riker out of his quarters, where he's been watching two holographic young women play the harps together. (Uh, yeah. I have an easier time suspending my disbelief for faster-than-light travel and kids on the bridge than accepting that a dude, alone in his quarters, pulls up two pretty young holographic women to play harps together.) Riker arrives in the transporter room and wants to know what was so goddamn important that Yar had to call him away from his harp watching thing. It turns out that there's an object from Haven waiting to be beamed aboard the ship. Riker, vision of harp playing nymphs dancing in his head, tells her to beam the stupid object over, already.

Transporter Chief Buffalo Bill puts the lotion in the basket, and beams over . . . a mysterious box. What's in the box? Should they trade the red snapper for what could be inside? Red snapper is very tasty, but there could be anything inside! There could even be a boat in there!

Before we get to open the box and find out what it contains, a face on the front of the box (played by Armin Shimmerman, in a cool non-Ferengi role) announces that it has a message for Troi: Lwaxana Troi and the Miller family are pretty excited for a big event of some sort. Ah! It's a Betazoid Gift box, of course, and it's there to announce the joyous joining of Wyatt Miller and . . . someone. The box then takes a big jewel shit all over the transporter. While Tasha rubs the box's nose in it so it can think about what it's done, Troi tells Riker that the box didn't contain a boat after all. They should have kept the red snapper, because that someone getting married is her. Gulp.

Oh boy. Is it going to be one of those episodes?

After sucessfully strip-mining every unknown piece of information about the original Start Trek series, our friends at G4 have decided to do the same thing with The Next Generation.

Earlier this week, TrekToday.com reported that the network will show all seven seasons of ST:TNG in their patented "2.0" format, with the episode sharing the screen with trivia, behind-the-scenes information, a live chat, and a stock ticker (I can't explain that one; you'll have to see it). They'll also be keeping track of the "Picard Maneuver" -- how many times a crew member tugs down on his or her uniform when he or she stands up -- among other statistics. G4 will start airing ST:TNG 2.0 on January 15 at 9 PM.

I'm sure the folks at G4 will do a fine job with this. But they don't have Wil Wheaton working for them. I mean, as far as behind-the-scenes info and wise-ass reviews are concerned, how much better can you do than using someone who was actually on the show? Wil's been doing a helluva job with his Next Generation reviews, so I'd say check with us first before watching a 2.0 episode. You'll have double the fun.

[via tv filter]

Title: Justice
Original Air Date: November 09, 1987
Written By: Worley Thorne
Story By: Ralph Wills and Worley Thorne
Directed by: James L. Conway
Episode: S01E08
Stardate: 41255.6

Synopsis: After dropping some human colonists off in the Strnad solar system, the Enterprise notices a rather nice Class M planet in the nearby Rubicun system, called Rubicun III. Picard sends an away team down to the surface to find out if it's a good place for some shore leave, and they return with some very good news: it's clean, it's beautiful, it's populated with friendly humanoids . . . and they really like to do the nasty.

"At the drop of a hat," according to Geordi.

"Any hat," Tasha says, knowingly.

Picard sends a second, larger team down to the planet to see exactly how many hats they're going to need. Because every responsible Starfleet parent would want to send their children down to the galaxy's longest running planetary orgy, he orders Wesley Crusher to see if the planet is a good place for kids to hang out.

After beaming down to the planet, the away team quickly learn three important facts:

1. The planet's inhabitants, called the Edo, like to jog everywhere.
2. They are all beautiful blond models, possibly descended from some sort of Maxim/FHM breeding program in the late 22nd century.
3. The entire planet is clothed in about 6 yards of fabric.

The Edo's leaders jog up and meet the away team, greeting them in the traditional Edo manner: lingering glances and inappropriately long hugs. Troi says, "I'm sensing a lot of boners, Commander."

Title: Lonely Among Us
Original Air Date: November 02,, 1987
Written By: D.C. Fontana
Story By: Michael Halperin
Directed by: Cliff Bole
Episode: S01E07
Stardate: 41249.3

Synopsis: Two alien races, the Antican and the Selay, wish to be admitted to the Federation, so they can get the discount card and the cool bumper sticker that comes with the welcome packet. But before they can join the club, they have to learn to play nice with each other, because in the enlightened future of Star Trek, only people who get along with each other can be in the United Federation of Planets. In order to work out their differences, delegates from each planet hitch a ride on the Enterprise to the Parliament planet, which is in the nearby Funkadelic system.

On the way, Data's sensors pick up a giant energy cloud, which really shouldn't be there, because the Enterprise is traveling at warp speed. Picard decides to slow down and take a quick look.

Meanwhile, Geordi and Worf are doing some maintenance on the ship's sensor systems. I'm sure nothing unusual will happen when the ship's sensors scan the energy cloud, right? Oh! Wrong. The ship scans the cloud, and big blue bolts of energy zap right out of the the wall and into Worf, knocking him to the ground almost as easily as every other adversary Worf will encounter for the rest of the series.

After fellow Squadder Wil Wheaton put up his latest Star Trek: The Next Generation review, about the episode "Where No One Has Gone Before," he got the requisite huzzahs from our Trek-loving commenters. But he also received a bit of a surprise in the comments: a response from one of the co-writers of the episode, Diane Duane.

People who are animation buffs know Diane pretty well already; she has written for cartoons as diverse as Scooby and Scrappy-Doo (let's just hope she wasn't the one who came up with Scrappy) and the Batman animated series. But her first foray into live-action series writing was with this episode of ST:TNG, and she recounts the story behind it on her blog. It's an interesting illustration of how the script the episode's writers originally conceive doesn't usually come close to what ultimately reaches the screen.

Title: Where No One Has Gone Before
Original Air Date: October 26, 1987
Written By: Diane Duane and Michael Reaves
Directed by: Rob Bowman
Episode: S01E06

Stardate: 41263.1

Synopsis: The Enterprise meets up with the USS Fearless, an Excelsior class starship that has just had its warp engines totaly spiffed out by an engineer named Kosiniski, who also drew some totally cool flames down the side of the warp nacelles when he was done putting baseball cards in the engine's spokes.

Starfleet wants Kosinski to hop onto the Enterprise, and see if he can trick out the engines of the Federation's flagship, so the Federation can win the big drag race against the Romulans down in the Dry Riverbed Galaxy after school gets out. Picard is totally cool with this, but Riker isn't as convinced that they need to stick a foxtail on the antenna. He tells Picard that Kosinski sent some specs over, but they're totally bullshit. Data backs him up with a surprisingly brief and to the point explanation. Picard gets really pissed that Riker is questioning his authoritah, but lets Riker take Counsellor Troi with him to the transporter room to check out Kosinski when he arrives.

When they get there, Troi, and Riker join Chief Engineer Argyle in an 18mm "it's the end of they day and we have to get this before the producers pull the plug" three shot as Kosinski arrives, steps off the transporter pad, and reveals to everyone that he is an epic douche. We also meet Kosinski's assistant, who tells us that his name is unpronounceable by humans, an awesome Star Trek device that makes its first of many appearances on Next Generation.

Kosinski whizzes on Riker's leg a little bit to mark his territory, sniffs at Argyles butt, and goes to engineering to work his totally awesome brand of warp drive magic. When he leaves, Troi tells us that he's loud and arrogant. (Riker must be so happy he brought her along for that deep and difficult to observe insight.) But she then adds that she doesn't feel anything from the mysterious assistant, like he isn't even there. (This theme is widely repeated in Troi and Riker fan fiction on Usenet.) Eerie music swells up, so the slower kids in the audience know to be worried, and for the really slow kids in the audience, Riker says that the safety of the Enterprise is in their hands.

The folks here at TV Squad have been having quite an interesting conversation behind the scenes regarding last night's season premiere of Lost. I don't watch the show (I know J.J. Abrams has no idea what he's doing and is making it up as he goes along. That's what he did with Alias and it's likely what he's doing on Lost) but thought that the way those who had tuned in was worthy of publishing for the masses to see. So after the jump you can read the uncensored thoughts of the TV Squad staff.