Oh Captain, My Captain! (And two other links)
Jun. 17th, 2010 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakIt's been brought to my attention that today is Captain Picard Day. Naturally, I can't let the day pass without a love declaration for my favourite Starfleet Captain. Why do I love Jean-Luc more than anyone else on the helm in the various Trek shows? Here are only a few of a lot of reasons, courtesy of YouTube. Incidentally, I utterly understand if you prefer other captains - such things are subjective, we all have our favourites, etc. - but anyone who denies that Patrick Stewart is the best actor to play one is simply wrong, so there. *hopeless fan is hopeless*
From the episode Drumhead: an actual sabotage triggers an investigation which after the discovery of the spy in question causes more and more paranoia, the arrest of another suspect and the threatened loss of civil rights. (This made TNG look suddenly quite prescient when the Bush years came.) Here are the two crucial scenes:
From Chain of Command II, aka the one where Picard gets tortured:
But were the good Captain always given the morally right position, TNG would be as black and white as its critics accuse it of being. He's not. Picard gets captured and assimilated by the Borg in the s3 cliffhanger Best of Both Worlds, as Locutus of Borg was responsible for the death of the thousands of people (including Benjamin Sisko's wife, but that's another spin-off), and while he got liberated at the start of s4, this was the first instance of Star Trek not going for the reset button in the next episode. He dealt with the immediate aftermath in said next episode, Family, and with the long term scars for the rest of the show, as well as in the best of the TNG movies, First Contact. In the following sequence, the Enterprise has been entered and partly assimilated by the Borg. Picard makes his way through the ship to the bridge in the company of a civilian from the 21st century, Lily (played by the sublime Alfe Woodward). What follows is not only Picard displaying more and more of the dark side confronting the Borg again brings out in him (and, err, the scriptwriters indulging the general ST fondness for Hermann Melville) but also Patrick Stewart giving one of his most powerful performances:
And lastly, clearly Jean-Luc Picard is responsible for single-handedly ensuring that Earl Grey tea never goes out of fashion in the 24th century.
***
Another YouTube link, this time for Germans and speakers of our language: someone filked Lena's Eurovision song for Joachim Gauck! (Non-Germans: one of the two candidates for the presidential office right now.)
***
Lastly, a Merlin fanfiction rec: The Failing Quest covers the relationship between Uther and Morgana in its emotionally intense, twisted glory.
From the episode Drumhead: an actual sabotage triggers an investigation which after the discovery of the spy in question causes more and more paranoia, the arrest of another suspect and the threatened loss of civil rights. (This made TNG look suddenly quite prescient when the Bush years came.) Here are the two crucial scenes:
From Chain of Command II, aka the one where Picard gets tortured:
But were the good Captain always given the morally right position, TNG would be as black and white as its critics accuse it of being. He's not. Picard gets captured and assimilated by the Borg in the s3 cliffhanger Best of Both Worlds, as Locutus of Borg was responsible for the death of the thousands of people (including Benjamin Sisko's wife, but that's another spin-off), and while he got liberated at the start of s4, this was the first instance of Star Trek not going for the reset button in the next episode. He dealt with the immediate aftermath in said next episode, Family, and with the long term scars for the rest of the show, as well as in the best of the TNG movies, First Contact. In the following sequence, the Enterprise has been entered and partly assimilated by the Borg. Picard makes his way through the ship to the bridge in the company of a civilian from the 21st century, Lily (played by the sublime Alfe Woodward). What follows is not only Picard displaying more and more of the dark side confronting the Borg again brings out in him (and, err, the scriptwriters indulging the general ST fondness for Hermann Melville) but also Patrick Stewart giving one of his most powerful performances:
And lastly, clearly Jean-Luc Picard is responsible for single-handedly ensuring that Earl Grey tea never goes out of fashion in the 24th century.
***
Another YouTube link, this time for Germans and speakers of our language: someone filked Lena's Eurovision song for Joachim Gauck! (Non-Germans: one of the two candidates for the presidential office right now.)
***
Lastly, a Merlin fanfiction rec: The Failing Quest covers the relationship between Uther and Morgana in its emotionally intense, twisted glory.
