Category Archives: article

25 Days of TNG, Day 14: The Best and Worst of Season 6

The sixth season of TNG was sort of weird. There were a lot of iffy episodes, and several that I just didn’t like (and couldn’t tell you why). But it did have my favorite Riker episode of all time. The … Continue reading

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25 Days of TNG, Day 13: 10 Things That Don’t Hold Up

Trek returned to TV twenty years after its original premiere, and though everything was highly upgraded, there were still technological advancements that were completely unexpected that have since made TNG into something of a dinosaur. Here are ten of them. … Continue reading

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25 Days of TNG, Day 12: The Best and Worst of Season 5

For my money, if you chop off the premiere and the finale, Season 5 was probably the best season of TNG. Though it had a few big-time stinkers, the great episodes were really great and even the middling ones weren’t … Continue reading

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25 Days of TNG, Day 11: Anachronisms and the Stifling of Creativity

Because of the changing nature of pop culture and fashion, it’s very difficult to include contemporary references in fiction. Some people do it very well — Seth McFarlane, the writers of Psych and Warehouse 13, Joss Whedon — and some … Continue reading

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25 Days of TNG, Day 10: The Best and Worst of Season 4

Season Four had some pretty high-concept, hard-hitting episodes. It also introduced a war that apparently everyone in the Trek universe either missed, ignored, or forgot about. And it sent Wesley off to Starfleet Academy, so if you weren’t a fan, … Continue reading

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25 Days of TNG, Day 9: In Their Own Words

25 Days of TNG continues with Day 9: In Their Own Words. 25 Days of TNG, Day 9: In Their Own Words

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25 Days of TNG, Day 8: The Best and Worst of Season 3

After the debacle that was Season Two (and the writer’s strike), it really amazed me just how strong TNG came back with the third season. Despite a somewhat-iffy premiere (the baseball references did nothing at all for me), the next … Continue reading

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25 Days of TNG, Day 7: The 10 Best Recurring Characters

The 25 Days of TNG continues on Escape Pod with Day 7: The 10 Best Recurring Characters. 25 Days of TNG, Day 7: The 10 Best Recurring Characters

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25 Days of TNG, Day 6: The Best and Worst of Season 2

Season Two is generally considered to be the worst of all the TNG seasons, and with good reason: there were some truly atrocious episodes. Of course, the Borg were introduced in Season Two, so it can’t be totally discounted. The … Continue reading

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Book Review: “Apollo’s Outcasts” by Allen Steele

On the whole, Apollo’s Outcasts is a good book, a fast read, and a story that is accessible not only to the YA audience but to an adult one as well. Allen Steele has been writing for a long time, … Continue reading

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25 Days of TNG, Day 5: Meet the New Ship, Not the Same as the Old Ship, Part 2

Yesterday, we looked at the exterior, engine room, and bridge of the new Enterprise. But the bridge wasn’t the only part of the ship where we spent a lot of time, even just on Deck One. Two other rooms were … Continue reading

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25 Days of TNG, Day 4: Meet the New Ship, Not the Same as the Old Ship, Part 1

The Enterprise-D, while retaining the general shape of the original ship, was very, very different. Even to this point in the films, we’d only seen ships that kept the hard-edged, militaristic look of the Enterprise: the Reliant was a kitbash … Continue reading

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25 Days of TNG, Day 3: The Best and Worst of Season 1

Given how underwhelming most of the first ten episodes of TNG were, it’s a wonder the show didn’t get cancelled. Had it aired last year (instead of 25 years ago), it wouldn’t even have gotten past three airings. We’re lucky … Continue reading

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25 Days of TNG, Day 2: Episode Review — “Encounter at Farpoint”

The 25 Days of TNG continues with a review of the pilot episode, “Encounter at Farpoint”, 25 years to the day after it first aired. 25 Days of TNG, Day 2: Episode Review — “Encounter at Farpoint”

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25 Days of TNG, Day 1: An Introduction : Escape Pod

Today on the 25 Days of TNG: an introduction to my introduction to Star Trek. 25 Days of TNG, Day 1: An Introduction : Escape Pod

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Book Review: “Wrayth” by Philippa Ballantine

I also think this book suffers in some ways from being the series’s Empire Strikes Back. Geist was more a stand-alone novel, and Spectyr set up what’s going on in Wrayth. But Wrayth is clearly a ramp-up to the showdown … Continue reading

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Book Review: “The Long Earth” by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

The main bulk of the story is Lobsang and Joshua traveling westward and discovering the various life-forms that have developed in the Long Earth. As they go, they discover that something is upsetting the higher-order creatures, forcing them eastward (toward … Continue reading

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Short Film Review: “Play Dead”

Play Dead is the story of the survivors of a zombie apocalypse in Miami, Florida. A short film made on-location, it follows this unlikely group of survivors as they escape the zombies, band together, and seek out a place where … Continue reading

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TV Review: “The Booth at the End”

I found Booth to be strangely compelling. I didn’t know how much I would like it when I first started watching, but it caught me right from the start. Though the writing is deliberately obfuscatory at first — sometimes annoyingly … Continue reading

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Book Review: “Ink” by Sabrina Vourvoulias

I do think that Ink and stories like it — such as the film A Day Without A Mexican — do need to be told. Without getting political, I feel confident in saying that the US is getting more and … Continue reading

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