So, about those reviews I've been browsing through.

Do by and large not like, and thus do not link: Zach at the AV Club, who seems to regard the very existence of Deanna Troi (and Guinan, and to a lesser degree Beverly Crusher) as a personal offense to his Star Trek enjoyment. And I don't mean criticism like "Troi and Crusher being given caretaker jobs - Counselor and Doctor respectively - reflects conventional gender thinking", I mean endless diatribes about how he hates her voice, how useless she is, how bland Beverly is, how Guinan is nothing but mystical jumbo etc. etc. etc. Ugh. The only female characters he seems to like are the warrior women types like Tasha Yar and Ro Laren.

Aside: just like "Wesley saves the ship all the time" is one of those "everyone knows..." things not actually validated by canon, "Troi does nothing but say obvious things like 'I sense he's upset" and show cleavage" is rubbish as well. Again, not that you can't complain about, say, it taking six seasons until Deanna gets a standard uniform, or the sheer number of times she's goes through metaphorical rape by possession. (Cally on Blake 7 can relate, I'm sure. It's not that possession plots aren't done to male telepaths at all - a very recent Marvel example on tv comes to mind - , but if you're a female telepath or in Troi's case empath on a genre show or movie you can bet it will happen to you, and more than once.) But TNG might surprise you in terms of Bechdel Test passing when it comes to Deanna Troi. When in the episode The Emissary K'eyhlar comes on board, she and Deanna immediately hit it off. You know what they don't talk about? K'eyhlar's blatantly obvious UST with Worf, or Worf at all. You know what they do talk about? Being half human, half Klingon (K'eyhlar) and Betazoid (Troi) respectively, and how being from two different cultures affects them. When Deanna temporarily loses her empathic abilities in The Loss, you know whom she talks about re: her feelings? Riker. With whom does she talk about re: her job? Guinan. And speaking of her job: one thing that I've always thought was good world building was that we do get to see Troi active in it in episodes which are about other characters altogether, in snippets, not just in episodes where it's a main plot point. (For example, her conversation with Picard early in Family, or at the very end of Chains of Command II.)

Do like, with caveats: Keith de Candido, who did complete rewatchs for TNG,DS9 and TOS. (No Voyager or Enterprise.) Has a "fond, but not uncritically so" attitude towards most Trek that makes the reviews usually interesting and worth reading. And of course he has his favourites (Worf and Kira in their respective shows), but then, we all do.

Do like, also with caveats: Darren at TheMOvieBlog, who writes incredibly detailed reviews with a lot of background info drawn from interviews and books. He did all of DS9 (his clear favourite), TNG until the start of s4, Voyager completely until and including s4 and then intermittendly, and TOS completely. What I find most appealing is that his negative reviews manage to critisize without devolving into bashing (i.e. attacks on how that actor/character sucks and should have been killed etc.), and, as mentioned, that the reviews offer a lot of backstory. Take this post on the Voyager episode SURVIVAL INSTINCTS, which also mentions to be an essay on Ron Moore's entire history on the Stark Trek franchise. Incidentally, the quotes re: his short and disastrous time on Voyager and break-up with long time writing partner Brannon Braga briefly made me wonder about Moore & Braga as the Lennon & McCartney of Star Trek, co-starring Rick Berman as Allen Klein, because, quoth Braga:

Ron came aboard as a writer and – God, I have a lot of regrets – he came aboard wanting the show to do all sorts of things. He wanted the show to have continuity. When the ship got fucked up, he wanted it to stay fucked up. For characters to have lasting consequences. He was really into that. He wanted to eradicate the so-called reset button, and that’s not something the studio was interested in, because this thing was a big seller in syndication. It wasn’t until season three of Enterprise that we were allowed to do serialisation, and that was only because the show needed some kind of boost to it, because it was flat. I made a big mistake by not supporting Ron in that decision or supporting Ron in general when he came aboard the show. That was a dark chapter for me and Ron and Rick. It was a bad scene.

Quoth Moore: I kept pushing, and out of that dynamic Brannon stopped wanting to have me in meetings and stopped wanting me to be around, and then the whole thing blew up once I found out that that they literally were having meetings where I wasn’t around and they were developing stories that I wasn’t part of, and the staff had been told not to tell me these things. I walked into Rick’s office and said, “I want out.” He was shocked and Brannon was shocked, and Brannon and I had it out. It was a hard, very emotional and painful scene. Brannon said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t know why it’s been like that, but I’d really like you to stay.” But I was just done.

Quoth Bryan Fuller, bringing in a new angle: Rick would taunt Brannon, saying things like, “I should have hired Ron to run Voyager instead of you.” So of course Brannon is going to be insecure and vulnerable. Brannon is a very complicated guy, but an amazing storyteller and a good guy ultimately. Both Ron and Brannon are good guys. But when you’re in a situation where you are feeling vulnerable and insecure and you’re having somebody essentially say I wish you were more like that guy, you’re going to resent that guy. And when that guy is told, “I wish Brannon was more like you,” then you’re going to feel like you should come in and you should be in a position where you’re exerting a certain sense of control over the story.

I had heard about the Braga/Moore breakup before, but not Berman trying to play the two out against each other. Speaking of Bryan Fuller, though, the article also includes his farewell present to Ron Moore, which turns out to have been something perfect for the Godfather of Klingon tales:

My last day was Thursday, July 1 and I spent most of it walking around the lot, saying good-bye to various members of the cast and crew, some of whom I’d worked with for a decade. It was a melancholy sort of task and I was eager to be done with it and get outta there. So when Bryan pulled me aside and said that my birthday gift had come in, my first reaction was to put him off for another day, but then I relented and he walked into my office with it hidden behind his back.

It was a bat’leth. A genuine, metal, leather-handled, sharp as all hell, bat’leth. Made by our prop department, which is as close as you can get to getting one from Kronos itself. I was touched and I laughed, but it wasn’t until I was on my way home that I realized what Bryan had really given me: an ending to my own Star Trek story. You see, ten years ago I walked onto the Paramount lot for the first time with a script under my arm and last week I walked off with a bat’leth. I left carrying my sword. There’s a certain poetry to that and it went a long way toward making me feel as if I’d left with my head high and my “honor” intact. Thank you, Bryan.

In conclusion: Star Trek writers = geeks to the end. These days, when Moore is mainly associated with BSG (both in the positive and negative sense) and Fuller with Hannibal, it's a neat reminder to where they came from. Qua'pla, fellows! Anyway, background stuff like this is why I do enjoy reading Darren's reviews the most, even if I don't get how you can write about Second Skin without doing an extensive compare and contrast to Face of the Enemy, but hey, nobody is perfect...

Being in a Star Trek mood these last weeks also ends you checking up on people's rewatches, reviews and the like. And good lord, but much as I find I still adore the characters, I'm now also recalling what that a vocal part of ST fandom was and is easily as toxic as current day fandoms. The Wesley hate. Ugh. You'd think the kid personally assassinated a great many pet dogs. BTW, I maintain that "Wesley is such a Gary Stu and saves the Enterprise all the time, no wonder people hated him" is one of these "everyone knows..." things where people feed more on fannish osmosis and bashings than actual canon. Going by summaries from episodes since I can't rewatch them all, Wesley saved the day a total of six times, in seven seasons. Even if you only count season 1 - 4 since he then stopped being a regular character, and was only a recurring guest star thereafter, that's still nowhere near "always" dimensions. What's more, he's by no means universally adored by all the characters, or, well, any of them. He's liked, not least because the TNG bunch are an ensemble there the characters do like each other, but no one's best friend or idol or special protegé. (Well, the Traveler's, but the Traveler shows up a total of two times, once in the first and once in the last season.) Nor does he render beloved characters superflous by his existence, which is another Sue/Stu criteria. Nor is Wil Wheaton bad in the role. Now don't get me wrong, I think both Jake and Nog are better examples of how to write teenagers in a ST show, and I've been known to dislike some teenage sidekicks in my time. (See also: Richie in Highlander.) Sometimes, it just happens. But I'm still baffled as to the sheer dimensions of the unrelenting Wes hate. (And a mulish part of me wishes that Wil Wheaton gets an appearance in the new Picard series just because of that. Also because I happen to like Wesley.)

On to more joyful aspects of fandom, to wit, fanfic recs:

TNG/Voyager crossovers:

Of Borg: in which Seven of Nine meets Jean-Luc Picard. Short and to the point. There are surprisingly few stories using this premise, at least at the AO3, given the obvious shared element here.

There lies the port: and here's Kathryn Janeway meeting Picard on her lonesome. Due to the Janeway cameo in Insurrection (I think? Or maybe the awful Nemesis, I never watched that more than once), it's canon that the two know each other and are on a first name basis, so Janeway, post-Voyager's return, trying to figure herself out might very well do so with the help of an old friend.

Many of the vividcon vids have been posted, which is great for this Overseas fan who could never attend one. I've only begun to check them out, but here are three:

X-Men:

Bodies: covering all the eras of the X-Men movies, this is a wonderful love declaration to mutants.

Doctor Who:

Cups(When I’m Gone): speaking of love declarations, this is one to the one and only River Song.

Star Trek: The Next Generation:

Pompeji: Jean-Luc Picard, navigating alternate realities and saving galaxy, with the occasional going through hell. My Captain!

Given the news about a new Star Trek series featuring my favourite Captain, it occured to me it might be helpful to offer a select list of episodes to newbies who don‘t have the time to marathon all seven seasons of TNG yet are neutral, curious or even ready to be convinced that more Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard is a good thing.

Now, what follows is by no means a Best of Star Trek: The Next Generation list, or even a list of personal favourites; TNG was Trek‘s first ensemble show (TOS being centred on the Big Three), and I have favourite episodes in which Picard plays a small or no role. But it is a list of episodes featuring Picard prominently that I love rewatching, some serious drama, some entertaining fluff; Patrick Stewart is awesome in all of them. A lot of them also have other compelling reasons for the potential genre interested newbie to watch them, which I shall add.

So, in chronological broadcast order, my personal „Jiving with Jean-Luc“ marathon friendly hit list:

Season 2, episode 9: The Measure of a Man. This one makes the ST anals for being an unsolicited script written by a fan anyway - by writer Melinda Snodgrass, who went on to flourish in the business. It‘s also a classic Trek morality tale: is Data the android, who‘s been a member of the crew from the pilot onwards, a sentient being or simply sophisticated tech on legs and thus Starfleet property? Basically, ST does a court room drama, with Picard as Data‘s advocate. Now, a lesser script would have let either the judge (Philippa Louvois, who has backstory with Picard), or the Starfleet guy who caused the entire trail, Bruce Maddox, be villains and at some point revealed to act from lower motives, but no such thing happens, and what‘s more, Maddox doesn‘t represent the prosecution, another sympathetic regular, First Officer Riker does. To me, the key scene isn‘t so much Picard‘s concluding argument, though that‘s excellent, but the earlier conversation he has with Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), in which he realises that the actual issue here is: slavery, plain and simple.

Season 2, episode 16: Q Who.: watchable and important for so many reasons, among which the fact that it‘s the first decent Q (near omnipotent being with fondness for one liners and tests, showed up twice before in sadly none too good eps) episode is but one. (Though that definitely is one reason for me: John de Lancie and Patrick Stewart have scorching chemistry here. No wonder this became one of my earliest slash ´ships before I even knew the term existed.) It introduces the Borg (and you can see it once why they impressed the hell out of fans and became villains for the next few decades, long after the creepiness factor displayed here vanished by overuse), and it puts Picard in a position TOS never put Kirk in: where he can‘t win the day by outthinking or outfighting his opponents, and has to save his crew by swallowing his pride and asking an antagonist for help. Which is precisely why I warmed up to Picard over Kirk around that time. Also noteworthy: bits of backstory for Guinan, including a long term feud with Q.

Season 3, episode 19: Captain's Holiday: now this is an entertaining fluff episode, in which, as the title indicates, Picard is made to take a break by his crew. Which he does on the holiday planet Risa, essentially a big galactic Club Med, where he runs into female con artist and rogue archaelogist Vash and has a fun adventure. Now, I‘m the first to admit this isn‘t one of ST‘s great episodes. Why I love it anyway and put it on the list: Patrick Stewart is arguably the only male ST actor to look actually good in 24th century civilian gear, especially one that‘s as revealing as this holiday get up, and he had a great body to be displayed. (More of this in a far more serious episode.) PIcard trying to read a book and being bothered by a stream of other vacationers who assume no one can seriously want to read on holidays, and getting increasingly disgruntled by this, is one of those „Jean-Luc, I hear you, I so had the same experience!“ moments for me. And his holiday romance with bad girl Vash is an entertaining „usually rules-bound guy/ female criminal“ combination which don‘t end angstily on the guy‘s part or with the woman converted to a rules-bound life. Oh, and lastly: the episode was written by Ira Behr, who‘d later become one of the key writers on ST: DS9.

Season 3, episode 24: Sarek. Written by none other than Peter S. Beagle, the very one we owe The Last Unicorn to, this episode featured, as the title indicates, Spock‘s father Sarek, played by the original actor Mark Lenard, who gives his last but one performance in the role, and as with Shakspeare and The Tempest, it should have been his farewell performance because it‘s that kind of story and episode. No offense to either Ben Cross, who plays Sarek in the ST Reboot movies, or James Frain, who plays him on Star Trek: Discovery, but this kind of thing is why Original Sarek is The Best Sarek for me. Speaking of Discovery, this episode could be a good introduction for you if you want to know more about the man who raised Michael and about Vulcan psychology and emotions. Why this episode is on a Picard list: it‘s the very one where Patrick Stewart‘s performance made me sit up and realise how truly great an actor he is. He was good before, but it‘s an acting tour de force as Picard, who for plot reasons has to mind meld with Sarek, channels all of Sarek‘s repressed emotions, regrets and memories in addition to his own repressed emotions. (Picard being the stoic type most of the time, which is what Sarek finds appealing about him.) Now Michael Burnham wasn‘t invented yet when this episode was broadcast, obviously, but given her own backstory with Sarek, this means Jean-Luc has a bit of Michael in his head from this point onwards.

Season 3, episode 26: Best of Both Worlds I: the third season finale and famously the cliffhanger episode seen as TNG‘s graduation in fandom; from this point onwards, the „TNG is Trek‘s embarrassing younger brother mentality was not the dominant one any longer, and it became the standard bearer, despite TOS movies being still a thing at this point. It‘s actually more Riker than Picard centric, but essential to understanding the next two eps, which is why it‘s here. Also, it‘s a great episode by itself, with the guest star, Commander Shelby, always making me wish she‘d come back later (yes, I know she‘s in the New Frontier novels, but that‘s not the same).  It‘s basically impossible not to be spoiled for the big cliffhanger scene these days, or to feel the same visceral impact it had during the original broadcast. (Think of watching the „Luke, I am your father“ scene in Star Wars for the first time.) But it‘s still a doozie. (And Patrick Stewart sells it with a few lines.)

Season 4.1. Best of Both Worlds II and 4.2.  Family: 4.1. is the solution to the previous cliffhanger, provides another Star Trek Captain from the next show, DS9, with a key trauma (Benjamin Sisko loses his wife in one of the battles here, which isn‘t a spoiler because it happens right at the start of the DS9 pilot), and Picard with an even bigger one. It‘s Family which makes that clear, though. Until this time, tragedies happening to Star Trek leads in one episode left no mark in the next; when Kirk loses Edith Keeler, he‘s fine and dandy in the subsequent episodes, etc. And the rest of genre tv (what there was at that point) usually followed suit. And then Family changed this, by showing us Picard in the aftermath of the two parter, trying to recover (though at first he denies he needs to) by visiting his brother‘s family back in France. It‘s a quiet character episode which thus was revolutionary in its day; now, this is of course not the case anymore, but it‘s still a a fine episode, and another great performance by Patrick Stewart as the cracks in Picard‘s demeanour become ever more visible until the catharthic scene with brother Robert where the horror of what has happened finally is faced. (Incidentally, the episode was written by Ron Moore, and if there‘s one thing I regret about it it‘s that he tried to copy the effect by letting Eddie Olmos do the crying and raging while getting drunk thing far too often in BSG‘s season 4. Not the same thing, Ron.)

Lastly: in a subplot, we meet Worf‘s human adoptive parents, Sergej and Helena Roshenko, who are the most endearing Russians in Trek since Pavel Chekov. Love them.

Season 4, episode 20 QPid:  another Ira Behr comedy tale of the entertaining fluff category. You can keep all Robin Hood movies in the last three decades, this is my favourite outing. Q‘s idea of doing something nice for Picard involves sticking him and Vash (the rogue archaelogist Picard had had his holiday fling with) in a Robin Hood scenario. Vash‘s idea of being Maid Marian, however, isn‘t being rescued by Robin but marry Sir Guy of Gisborne instead, Worf, as he protests, is not a Merry Man, and Jean-Luc Picard is not from Nottingham. But a great fencer anyway (cue Patrick Stewart‘s stage training being put to good use). It‘s great swashbuckling fun, the cast has a blast in traditional Robin Hood costumes, and if you ship Picard/Q, you get treated to such statements as „If I‘d known sooner, Jean-Luc, I‘d have shown up as a woman“ by Q (re: Vash and how she affects Picard), and PIcard essentially admitting Q and Vash are cut from the same cloth. Beverly Crusher having breakfast with Vash and showing her the ship instead of displaying jealousy isn‘t half bad, either, going against sexist expectations very much the norm in tv back then.

Season 4, episode 21: The Drumhead. Originally intended as a budget saving bottle show (it takes entirely place on the Enterprise), this turned out to become another morality tale/ court trial episode in the spirit of Measure of a Man. Also, possibly and sadly, with contemporary relevance it didn‘t have at first broadcast, when most people watching were reminded of MacCarthyism, not their present. An investigation into an actual terrorist attack act of sabotage on board the Enterprise increasingly turns into a climate of persecution. When a crew member who has Romulan ancestry he didn‘t disclose before is outed and suspected of being a spy, it‘s Picard for the defense again, and a speech I had occasion to rewatch from the Bush years onwards. Several elements which elevate the episode from good to great (imo, as always): there was an act of sabotage at the start, it wasn‘t invented, which gives Picard stating there are some lines in terms of civil rights you don‘t cross more weight than if there wasn‘t actual reason for concern; the „safety first, to hell with civil rights!“ party isn‘t just represented by guest star Jean Simmons, but for a time counts series regular Worf among them, and this is important, because again, it means Picard‘s later observation that no one is immune from temptation to give into this mentality is far more founded than if it had been only the usual „outsider Starfleet official makes trouble for our good crew“ cliché; and Picard (and the audience) doesn‘t really know whether Simon, the crew member with a Roman granddad, is guilty or innocent in general, which would be the case of the crew member had been a TNG regular. He makes his stand on rights regardless of this calming knowledge.

(Trivia: the episode was written by Jeri Taylor, who would go on to become a headwriter in ST: Voyager, and directed by Jonathan Frakes, aka Riker, who started a second career as director on TNG and remains busy in this capacity to this day; he directed several Discovery episodes last season.)

Season 5, episode 02: Darmok: Possibly the most TNG episode of TNG. Our heroes have to struggle through first contact with a species whose language defies the universal translator. Picard ends up on the planet with the other Captain and at first thinks this is a ritual challenge sort of situation, but it‘s no such thing. This episode is a hymn to stories, myths, metaphors and avoiding fights via communication, no matter how difficult. (Picard being a well read geek comes in very handy for him here.) Also, Patrick Stewart gets to narrate the Sumerian myth of Gilgamesh. And fandom gains a few neat phrases. Shaka, when the walls fell. Temba, his arms wide open. Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra!

Season 6, episodes 10 and 11: Chain of Command I and II: A two parter with a premise that doesn‘t bear much thinking about (there‘s no way Picard and Crusher, of all the people, are the people most qualified for a Star Trek spy mission), but the results are worth it. The non-Picard related reason why this two parter is memorable is that while the Captain who temporarily steps in for Picard, commanding the Enterprise, Jellico, is a jerk, he‘s not an incompetent jerk, and the way his storyline goes is a direct contrast to all the TOS and onwards episodes which go like this: Starfleet, for whatever reason, sends higher ranking officer to relieve Kirk of command. (Or they don‘t send him for that purpose, but he takes it anyway.) Inevitably, alternate commander screws up and fails at commanding the Enterprise, and Kirk steps in to save the day. It got to the point where you had to wonder whether the sole competent Starfleet officers were the ones serving under Kirk‘s command. But this story goes differently. Jellico pretty much alienates the entire crew with his manners, but since they as well as he are competent professionals, they do their job anyway, and the day is saved by mutual effort. However, this isn‘t the reason why this two parter is on my rec list.

No, it‘s all about the torture and the mindgames, all those scenes between Picard and his Cardassian interrogator, played by David Warner. Patrick Stewart being a member of Amnesty International, he took advice on the torture scenes, while the script very blatantly took their inspiration from George Orwell‘s 1984, down to „how many fingers, Winston lights, Picard?“ The result could not be further from the cliché of yore (and sadly also of many a movie and show in the present day) where good guys manfully resist torture while villains fold as soon as you let them dangle over a building, or break their fingers, depending on the brutality level. It‘s intensely played and does not need gore to be brutal. Now, at one point shortly before the end I thought they were chickening out of the ultimate consequence of torture and going back to the „unbroken hero“ cliché after all, but then came Picard‘s post rescue scene with Deanna Troi, which completet the 1984 homage after all, and brings the story to its right end.

(Lighthearted trivia: at a convention I attended, Jonathan Frakes told the story of how when they filmed this the producers originally wanted to use a body double for the scenes where PIcard hangs naked from a ceiling, whereupon Patrick Stewart indignantly asked: „And what is wrong with my body?“, which settled that.)

Season 7, episodes 25 and 26: All Good Things...: still for my money the best Trek finale and one of the best show finales all around. It manages to use the entire ensemble well, not least due to the three time periods it‘s set in (one around the pilot of the series, one in the series present day, one in the future), highlights both the changes among the crew and what remained the same, and wraps things up while not cutting off the possiblity for future adventures. Holding all this together is Patrick Stewart‘s performance as PIcard, the only character who experiences all three time periods simultanously. Well, him and Q, who is the plot macguffin justifying all the time travelling, and we get treated to more chemistry and one liners while the plot mixes the funny with the poignant. In conclusion: the perfect way to wrap up your Picard marathon!

How other famous fictional detectives would have solved the murder of Laura Palmer All versions are witty, but the Philip Marlowe and the Phryne Fisher one cracked me up especially. Though I note with disapproval that wihile Poirot is represented, Miss Marple is not. Clearly, the Log Lady would have told her everything she needed to know on the first day. :)

Speaking of Twin Peaks, at first I had no intention of watching The Return, because I didn't feel a sequel was necessary, but then abigail_n's favorable review made me curious, so I marathoned it. And... I can see all her points, but my own impression was far more negative. Not least because there were elements in it which to me felt gratitiously spiteful, such as the fate of Audrey Horne, or disturbing in an unintended way (there's also plenty of deliberately disturbing, but that's a given with Twin Peaks), to wit, things like Janey-E blissfully declaring ( something spoilery ). But also because while the original Twin Peaks was not short of female suffering (I mean, the premise alone...), it had a lot of female pov characters as well (Donna, Audrey, Josie, Norma, Shelley). Twin Peaks: The Return, otoh, feels relentlessly male pov to me, and that in combination with the sheer number of abused female characters was very off-putting.

All this being said: Lynch's visual imagination is as good as ever, and I don't regret having watched it, not least for the incredible tenderness of the conversations between Hawke and Margaret, aka the Log Lady, which were filmed while the actress was dying. Oh, and given it's David Lynch, I should have known he'd cast Laura Dern as Diane. It's now impossible to imagine anyone else in that role, and as the recipient of all those tapes.

I've also continued my Star Trek: Enterprise watching to the point where the infamous post-9/11 narrative shift happens, and great maker, as Londo Mollari would say, is it ever immediately noticable. So that feels as good a point as any to look back at the first two seasons with a couple of observations.

1.) At its best, the show uses its early space flight/no Federation yet setting quite well, and certainly does a better job than Voyager did recalling its ship and crew don't have the Starfleet resources for repairs and restocking at their disposal whenever they need them. The episode when Enterprise has to undergo repairs at a fully automated alien station also struck a good balance between satire (for those of us in need of repairs and unable to talk to a human being, going from automated message to automated message instead) and suspense (the reveal about the extra price may have been a tad predictable, but it worked). Also, I appreciate that through the first two seasons there are repeated scenes where our heroes marvel at some space phenomenon in joy and awe - as explorers who'd never been in deep space before and had not seen pictures would.

2.) Otoh, when the show does the genre- and franchise immanent tropes, it rarely if ever rises above formula. This is where the comparison to Star Trek: Discovery is most striking to me. Discovery also does tropes, but delivers them with original twists. When Enterprise does Episode With Alien Princess And Male Starfleet Officer, it follows the same beats we've seen on TOS, on TNG. When it does "Enemy Mine" (another Trip episode), it does so by the letter. It's not that the result is objectionable (I like "Enemy Mine" stories! I do! And the alien pilot here can act better through his latex than Padma Lakshmi without any in the Princess episode), it's that there is no particular twist unique to this particular show in it. (Meanwhile, TNG gave us Darmok, which for my money is still the best ST twist on this particular tale, and not just because Patrick Stewart gets to tell the tale of Gilgamesh.) Whereas, when Discovery does a time loop episode, it does so in a way that's different from the TNG version, or for that matter the Xena and Buffy versions, furthers the relationships between regulars (Michael Burnham & Paul Stamets, Michael Burnham & Ash Tyler) and expands everyone's characterisations (plus the way our heroine forces the antagonist of the episode to reset the loop one more time is both inventive and outstandingly brave).

3.) Back when I had watched the fourth season without having watched more than the first three episodes of the first or any other season, I said that I found Malcolm Reed and Travis Mayweather bland as characters, without defining characterisation. Which I take back now; in the first two seasons, they get ample characterisation unique to them. Hoshi so far had to do more in s1 than in s2, and I do wish they'd have given her more scenes with T'Pol, because the few they get are always very interesting.

4.) At least two of the episodes are outstanding examples of HOW NOT TO WRITE MORAL DILEMMA EPISODES. Good lord, Berman & Braga. I haven't seen such tone deaf examples of "episode thinks it tells one story while actually coming across as telling something completely different" since TNG's The Outcast (aka the one where the writers' idea had been to do a sympathetic allegory about homosexuality while the result, not least due to the casting of the supposedly androgynous species by solely female actors, came across as Riker versus the planet of the intolerant lesbians). What I'm referring to: "Dear Doctor" in season 1, and "The Congenitor" in season 2. "The Congenitor" irritated me more because for the most part, I thought it worked quite well until we came to the denouement. It was a painful joy to see Andreas "G'Kar" Katsulas again, and his parts of the episode were one of those "space exploration is amazing!" scenes Enterprise, when it wants, does in a heartfelt way. I also before the denouement thought that the presentation of the aliens as both technologically advanced, friendly and, as was revealed through the episode, ( doing something spoilery that goes to the core of the ep ) But this is not what this episode does. It claims this is about cultural differences, and Trip having made the mistake of trying to impose his values on a culture he knows next to nothing about. And nobody, at any point, ( calls it the spoilerly thing it really is about. )

4a)Otoh, Stigma, aka the AIDS episode, to me was a good "sci fi take on a contemporary problem" episode, without any moral smugness and instead an earnest and intense "look in the mirror" subtext. The episode choosing to focus on medical research being slow as long as the illness is regarded as a problem for a minority the majority feels itself entitled to disdain morally, and the hypocrisy of differentiating between "good victims" and "bad victims" (depending on how they got infected) was particular on point for those of us who remember the 80s.

5.) Oh good lord, the bio gel really is as awkwardly fanservice-y as the introduction episodes made it look. I think the most awkward (and very, very American) thing about it is that T'Pol, who ends up in these scenes more often than the rest of the gang, always keeps her underwear on. Look, writers, if it's for de-contamination, you have to put the stuff on your entire skin, surely? *Note to self: don't go off on a tangent about how to do Sauna again*

First, I must specify that „Top Ten“ means „my favourite top ten“, not „the objectively top ten most important/best written/acted friendships“. For example, as I recall Ira Behr in one of the specials for the s7 of DS9 dvds declares the friendship between O’Brien and Bashir to be the best in Star Trek, and this, he adds defiantly, includes Kirk/Spock. Leaving writerly pride (since he took part in developing said relationship) aside, he’s got a point in as much as it’s one of the best and most consistently developed friendships, from the moment O’Brien is appalled by eager young puppy Bashir when they meet to the mutual love declaration near the end of s7. However, as this particular relationship never meant much to me, personally, you won’t find it on this list.

So: my entirely subjective top ten, in no particular order, excluding Star Trek: Discovery, since half a season of material isn’t enough to make such a judgment, and Star Trek: Enterprise because I only saw part of canon and don’t remember enough of what I saw.

TOS: Kirk-Spock-McCoy. Yes, I could list „Kirk and Spock“, „Kirk and McCoy“, and „McCoy and Spock“ all individually, but one of the things which made the original triad so compelling was that really each member cared about each of the others, had a strong relationship with each of the others, and no one was an also ran. And I resent fanfic which doesn’t consider that.

Reboot movies: Pike & Kirk. It pushed each of my fatherly mentor buttons, and I will forever regret Abrams & Co didn’t have the courage to end the first movie with Pike in command of the Enterprise and Kirk and Spock both serving as his officers, which would have made so much more sense. Anyway, Pike & Kirk: loved each of their scenes.

(I wanted to list Spock & Saavik here as well, but I’m a „only the movies and tv shows are canon“ person, and me falling for the Saavik and Spock relationship was mostly due to the combination of Vonda McIntyre’s ST II novelization and Carolyn Cowles‘ novel „The Pandora Principle“, which gave us the background of Saavik being half Romulan and raised by Spock. Now I adored their relationship in those novels, but on screen they only have a few lines of dialogue in STII and some scenes where Spock is literally out of his mind in ST III, which would not have done the trick on their own. Moreover, subsequent novels made the appalling decision of letting Saavik and Spock become a couple, which I hated.)

TNG: Guinan & Picard: It was mysterious and ambiguous and we only ever got hints how their deep mutual trust was established, but it made for powerful scenes. (I mean, Picard risked the lives of his entire crew simply on Guinan’s feeling they were in the wrong time line!)

Riker & Troi: the first exes in ST who successfully managed both a good professional relationship and a strong friendship post romance, being there for each other in a crisis (as when Troi temporarilly lost her powers in „Loss“), and not interfering with each other’s love lives. Yes, they got together again romantically post show, but that doesn’t exclude the relationship from the „friendship“ category for the entire TNG run. Look, I’m fond of my share of dysfunctional can’t live with, can’t live without relationships, I’ll not deny it, but every now and then I’m truly grateful fiction offers me adult exes as friends as well.

Data & Geordi: just had each other’s backs, and possibly the most uncomplicated relationship in their lives. (Except when Geordi had to look after Data’s cat.) Can’t imagine TNG without them.

(Couldn’t list: Sarek & Picard, because intense mind sharing in two episodes does not a friendship make, but despite the lack of screentime, their scenes are a big reason why I started to love TNG.)

DS9: Quark & Jadzia Dax, to no one’s surprise who has read my DS9 stuff. This started in s2 with Jadzia beginning to hang out with Quark and continued to Quark joining an insane quest for her sake after she’d died. Yes, it became love on his side, but it was friendship first, and arguably the strongest relationship he had with a non-Ferengi in his life. As for Dax, I believe her when she tells Pel she (Jadzia) loves Quark.

Dax (any of them) & Benjamin Sisko: through three incarnations (and a half, if you count the symbiont thief from early s2 who got distracted by the symbiont not coping with rejection by Sisko), this was a delightful friendship, with both oft hem at different times playing the role of advisor and advised. I have some other problems with the storyline in question, but Sisko getting into his existential crisis by mainly by losing one Dax and being pulled out of it mainly by another always struck me as entirely plausible.

Jake & Nog: Talk about friendship with Ferengi. The kids literally grew up on the show, and if their early scenes were both comic relief and a chance to confront Sisko with his own bias, they later had plausible teenage fallouts and reconciliations, partly due to choosing different paths (and I’ll always love that it’s Nog who starts a Starfleet career, while Jake remains a civilian and sticks to his writing, heartrendering AU episode aside), yet the affection remained. I think poor old Wesley got too harsh a deal in terms of fan hatred on TNG, but it’s undeniable that by the time DS9 came along, the writing for teenagers and the awareness of how to integrate them in the overall story had impoved.

Garak & Bashir: I feel a bit like cheating when listing them because they were my earliest slash ship and I ship them still. But then again, I listed Riker & Troi. So. From their first encounter in early s1 till the s4 episode „Our Man Bashir“ (after which the show infamously got gunshy and hardly gave them any scenes anymore for the remainder of the show, with a very few exceptions), this was and remains one of my favourite ST relationships, full stop. On one level, it was the cynicism/idealism combination, but it was also that they were learning from each other; I think Garak needed Julian Bashir not to give up on his ideals as much as Bashir needed to figure out where his own lines were.

Voyager: Janeway & Seven of Nine. I was starting to go off ST during the early Voy seasons (though now in retrospect I see the show and what it did especially with the female roles somewhat differently), but s4 made me for a while a dedicated viewer, and the Janeway-Seven relationship was a big reason why. It was hard to categorize, and I like that the show never tried to make it just one thing or the other, that it remained prickly and intense, supportive and argumentative, throughout the time I was watching.

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Day 28 - Your favourite friendship in Star Trek?

I have to separate this into incarnations again.

TOS: the trio, inevitably. And I do mean all three, not Kirk/Spock plus McCoy, but Kirk-McCoy-Spock, with Kirk's friendship with McCoy and McCoy's bickering friendship with Spock as important as the one between Kirk and Spock. Together with the good ship Kirk/Enterprise, this three way friendship is the emotional heart of the show, and the reason it survived that long.

TNG: I was certainly most intrigued by Picard & Guinan. We never got an episode that was all about them, but there were enough scenes to show the depth of the relationship - Picard's complete trust in Guinan's judgment in Yesterday's Enterprise, the way he confides in her in Measure of a Man, while there were also lighthearted scenes (Guinan's wry reaction to Picard's archaelogical geeking out at the start of Rascals). And of course there was the mysterious origin of that relationship. (Shame Time's Arrow, which showed how it started from Guinan's pov, wasn't a good two parter, but they never showed Picard's first encounter with Guinan from his timeline, so that's left free for the imagination.)

DS9: Quark & Dax, and I've written the fanfiction to prove it. Jadzia was the first among the regulars to hang out with Quark socially, not because she was a customer at his bar, and to unabashedly enjoy his company. (This, btw, was when her character clicked for me. The first season had played Dax serene and wise, while the second introduced the Dax who had a flippant sense of humor, loved playing Tongo with Ferengi and flirted with aliens that had open skulls. Not surprisingly, the later version was the one who stuck around.) But it wasn't all having good times together, there was a line to be crossed, which came when he did the weapons of mass destruction dealings with Cousin Gaila, and her reaction was key to giving Quark the courage to go up against Gaila and his psycho client.

Voyager: Janeway & Seven of Nine. This made me from a lukewarm Voyager watcher into, for a while, an avidly interested one. It was a prickly relationship with a great paradox at its start - Janeway forcing individualism on Seven who didn't want it (but whether or not Seven was in a state to make such a decision immediately after being cut off from the Collective was an unanswerable question) -, and their frequent clashes kept me as hooked as their moments of understanding.

Reboot: Kirk & Pike. Reboot!Pike pushed just about every fatherly mentor button I have, and whether he was supportive or chewing Kirk out, he just knew how to handle Jim K., and became apparantly the first person whose opinion really mattered to young Kirk; his inspiration, too. (I'll never fail to regret the reboot wasn't radical and had Christopher Pike remain Captain, with Kirk and Spock serving as his officers.


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Day 15 - How did you get into Star Trek?

As a child in the 70s, I watched tv. And liked the original series a lot. Then I became a sci fi obsessed teenager in the 80s and an equally sci fi and fantasy fond adult in the 90s, and around the time TNG was in its third season, I discovered fandom. As a child, I didn't have conversations about Star Trek, nor did I feel the urge to. And wile I was sad at the end of Wrath of Khan, I didn't try to to find out whether there would be another movie, or if Spock would be back. It simply didn't occur to me. Therefore, despite my affection for TOS, I see TNG as the series which got me into Star Trek in the sense of making me a fan who sought out other fans, tried to get their hands on English language original episodes which hadn't been broadcast in Germany yet, discovered there was such a thing as fanfiction and went to their very first convention. When I had my very first Kirk versus Picard debate, I knew I was done for. :)


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Day 13 - What's your favorite dramatic moment?

A bit easier to answer, but only a bit, and separately for each incarnation.

TOS + TOS movies: "I am, and always will be, your friend." There's just no beating that for emotional impact, even knowing it'll be undone by the next movie. It's the culmination of decades of friendship on a Watsonian level, and on a Doylist one for the audience (the first time one anyway) watching that friendship. (You have to earn something like Spock's goodbye to Kirk when he's dying, you really can't goo there early on in your story, she growls.) I can make fun of William Shatner's acting style with the rest of the world, but for that particular scene, it wasn't just Nimoy who was in the zone, acting-wise. It's intense and sublime and if you disagree, I just don't want to know.


TNG: upon first time watching, the end of Best of Both Worlds, part I. If you get there unspoiled and see Locutus for the first time, absorb what this means, and then Riker gives his order, you know what I mean. However, while it's still a tense moment during rewatch, and so my choice is another scene. It's the very end of Chain of Command, part II, when Picard admits to Deanna Troi he did see five lights. Before that, I thought the George Orwell rip-off in the torture scenes was well done but flinched from one of the biggest Orwell points - that anyone can be broken, that Winston Smith in 1984 really did see as many fingers as O'Brien wanted him to see at the end. I thought substituting Picard saying "there are four lights" to Gul Madred after his rescue arrives was basically bowlderizing and making something look heroic which shouldn't be glamourized by heroism because it's so real life awful. And then we got to this quiet aftermath scene, and my feelings completely changed. And remained changed during rewatch. For all that TNG gets accused of being sanitized sci fi, not "gritty" the way later shows were, there is this scene in its stark honesty, and it reaffirmed and even strengthened my Picard love. He's the hero of the show AND he's no more invulnerable, in body and spirit, than anyone subjected to such horrors. Also? That he trusts Troi with this information is a good way to show, not tell the importance of her job as counsellor on the Enterprise.

DS9: one of the best is certainly also a quiet scene - Sisko's final statement in In the Pale Moonlight - "I can live with it" (if you've watched the episode, you know why this epitomizes the moral grey of DS9) -, but it's not my favourite. My favourite, depending on my mood, is either Bashir taking Garak's hand in The Wire - "I forgive you, whatever it is you've done" (which, yes, presumptous, but very Julian and very what Garak needed to hear at this moment), or Kira at the end of Duet, learning that the guy who killed Marritza didn't even know who Marritza was (either the pretend identity or the real one), it was enough that M. was a Cardassian. The expression of Kira's face will always stay with me.


Voy: Janeway and Seven in the holding cell in The Gift, when an only recently cut from the Collective Seven faces the new and (to her at this point) terrible reality of being an individual again and tells Janeway she's forcing this on her, countering Janeways pro free will speech with the question that if she, as a free individual, would want to return to the Collective, would Janeway let her? This was when I thought "this idea of having an ex drone on board is actually turning into something interesting that hadn't been done on TNG before, and was riveted.


Reboot: for all my growling about a certain imitiation earlier, the reboot did offer more than one dramatic scene I loved. For my favourite, again depending on my mood, I choose either Spock's showdown with the Vulcan Academy (this had been one of the most speculated about scenes of Trek fan lore, and I do love this version, including Quinto managing to make "live long and prosper" sound like "up yours"), or Pike's scene with beaten up young Kirk in the bar, which managed to make reboot Pike into one of my favourite Starship Captains and was just the right mixture of fatherly and no-nonsense to drag reboot Kirk into a future.


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Day 9 - What's your favorite episode?

Another fiendishly difficult question, since it's not about compiling a "best of" list. I will try to answer for each show.

TOS: It depends on my mood. If seriously inclined, either City on the Edge of Forever (first time travel episode, arguably still one of the best, and Edith Keeler is a three dimensional female guest character) or Journey to Babel (because of Sarek and Amanda). If in the mood to smile, Trouble of Tribbles, of course. The Tribble landing on Kirk's head will never not be funny. Especially now that we know Dax threw it.

TNG: Arrgggh. I love so many for different reasons! Darmok because it's TNG-Style Trek at its best, Measure of a Man (first fan written script becoming canon!) for doing the trial concept with genuine suspense (Riker's counter demonstration, despite the fact he hated every minute of it, was grimly efficient), including one of the best Picard and Guinan scene (with a discussion about what slavery is, no less) and turning what was originally played as a gag moment (the Tasha/Data encounter in The Naked Now) into something with meaning when we saw Data still had Tasha's goodbye message, Family for being a groundbreaking ST episode (first time one episode's trauma wasn't over in the next episode) with great scenes for Picard and a lovely subplot about Worf's parents, Face of the Enemy for being the best Troi episode and offering a Le Carré like ambiguity (the Romulan commander is an honorable woman, Deanna Troi's ally, otoh, is decidely shady) in spying... but really, I have to go with the very last episode(s), All Good Things.... Which has it all: great ensemble use and emphasis on character growth, good use of the three different time zones concept, bringing various themes full circle, Picard/Q sparring (and Data observing Q has a thing for Picard), and an ending that was full of hope for the future. Very fitting for this show, and still the best ST finale.

DS9: see, if I were asked about "best" I'd go for In the Pale Moonlight, no question about it, but I have to be in the right mood for that one. Most loved, well, different episodes for different characters. The Wire for Garak/Bashir, obviously, House of Quark for the Klingon/Ferengi culture clash, and Quark resolving a moral dilemma in a very Quark way, Necessary Evil for Terok Nor and Odo as noir detective, The Visitor for Jake Sisko breaking my heart, Blood Oath for Jadzia Dax and her three Klingon Musketeers, Duet for being the first and still one of the best episode to discover the magic that comes from Kira + a Cardassian combinations complete with for the first time Star Trek tackling a Third Reich theme without Operetta Nazis and therefore much more harrowingly, Indiscretion because Kira and Dukat were terrific on screen together and the first Ziyal was still the best.... and Our Man Bashir for being the funniest Holosuite episode ever with great ooc roles for almost the entire ensemble (other than Bashir and Garak), also providing a far more entertaining take on James Bond than the Bond movies did at the time (this was the Pierce Brosnan era), and still managing to include one great character scene (Bashir shooting Garak to stop him from ending the program). I can't choose between them, don't make me!

Voyager: Someone to Watch Over Me, without question. Also my favourites among all ST show's attempts to do romantic comedy.The Doctor tutoring Seven in social skills had been an ongoing storyline (and continues to be beyond this episode), but here the writers borrow a page from Shaw's Pygmalion, only with a reverse emotional outcome. The Doctor making a bet with Tom Paris that he can teach Seven how to date, and well enough so she can show up at the social function of the week with said date without alienating everyone is following precedent, but in Pygmalion (and its musical adaption My Fair Lady), it's the student, Eliza, who falls in love with Higgins through this (how much Higgins is affected depends on whether you believe Shaw or Lerner), while in the Voyager episode it's the teacher, the Doctor. In both cases, the turning point is when the student after succesfully accomplishing the original task discovers the bet the teacher made and leaves in indignation. Someone to Watch Over Me has a bittersweet graceful ending note when Seven and the Doctor reconcile, but he decides not to tell her how he feels. In between, we get some pricelessly funny scenes (one of my favourite details is Seven's appalled look when during her trial run date with another crewman, the crewman orders lobster, and she looks from the lobster to her own exsoskeleton) and a great duet exploiting the fact both Robert Picardo and Jeri Ryan can sing. The subplot with Neelix having to chaperone an ambassador cracks me up as well, as do the asides about Paris/Torres ("How do you know when we're having intimate relations?" "There is no one on deck 12, subsection 5 who doesn't know when you're having intimate relations").


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