Continuing my latest TNG watchthrough… Wow, season 4 is just full of quality stuff, including 3 of my personal favorites: Clues, The Nth Degree, and Remember Me. I still recall the first time I watched Remember Me… Crusher: “Here’s a question you shouldn’t be able to answer. Computer, what is the nature of the universe?” Computer: “The universe is a spheroid region 705 meters in diameter.” *Crusher realizes the creepy grey mist on the view screen is the literal EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE* Me: *CHILLS* Devil’s Due is kind of silly in a fun way. Night Terrors is really good at creating an unsettling atmosphere (the body bags!) and Michael Dorn really does a good acting job (“I feel FEAR!!”). However, 2 things that take me out of it are the cheesy effects when Troi is floating around in the dream world, and the somewhat roundabout way the crew figures out how to solve the problem (makes me think of the silly ways Batman solves Riddler’s riddles in the 1960’s Batman show). There’s always THAT ep that you feel like you saw 100x more than the others just because it seemed to pop up in reruns more often (even though it probably didn’t and it was just a coincidence). For me that ep is Identity Crisis. Not a bad ep, it just always seemed to show up on my TV and if I never see it again I won’t cry about it. Yeah, he’s a busy guy. Next weekend he’s scheduled to come to a con here in Indy. I decided not to go, partly because the main guests I was interested in canceled (including Gates McFadden), but also I just can’t afford the $100 Shatner’s asking for photos and autographs.
I'm also watching TNG. It never occurred to me that this show was so very optimistic and positive about the future of humanity, until many years after I had watched the series. (I just never really thought about it back when I was young and sheltered) In an interview, Patrick Stewart mentioned how he met a police officer, who told him that during his job, he'd experience horrible dark things that would make a person feel very pessimistic about humanity. But then he'd go home and put in Next Generation which helped him feel better. And then once the newer Picard show came out, everyone was complaining about how much darker the tone was. Now, going back and rewatching tng after many years, I have an added appreciation for the show. The last couple of years have been terrible for me. And it's been really nice to be able to be back on the Enterprise-D again.
I think it's the optimistic view of mankind's potential in a future dedicated to exploration, science and the arts that really appealed to me as a teenager. I just liked the idea of exploring for exploring's sake in a future without want or poverty. The Enterprise became a avatar of pure imagination to teenage me in that regard.
Wait a second. When you say "next weekend" you're meaning this weekend, right? Indianapolis Comic Con? October 15-17? Today and tomorrow and the next? He's not in Indy for another show the 22-24 is he?
This is the reason I haven’t bothered with ST: Picard. Everything I’ve seen about it seems to be a big middle finger to ST as a whole. The swearing, the excessive violence, the apparent state of Starfleet, the lack of compassion and morality… I mean, I know that Roddenberry was a pain to the writers of TNG because of his insistence on NO internal conflicts among the crew, but that’s part of how it radiated a sense of hope for the future. I mean at Indy Comic Con. No, Indianapolis will not be blessed with his presence for two straight weekends
And just like that, I'm going to Indianapolis tomorrow. I mean 48 hours ago the man was in space. The opportunity to hear him talk about that, and so soon after it happened... I just can't miss it.
I checked again just to be sure he didn’t cancel last minute, but he’s still scheduled to be there William Shatner Bio - Indiana Comic Convention
I love how the only reason he's not there Sunday is because he's booked at a different convention Sunday.
It was incredible. You would never know he's 90 years old. He was engaging, funny... he was Captain Kirk. His autograph has seen better days. I'll get a picture up later. Pics! Of the Tholian Web figure, I told him I wanted a figure of him in his space suit but that was the best I could do, and he actually chuckled some. I can now say I have made Captain Kirk laugh. (But yeah, that scrawl is barely anything, his autograph years ago was actually legible.)
I'll try to summarize. He talked briefly about the Gaia theory that Earth itself is "alive" to some degree, and compared global warming to the Earth being sick and running a fever to kill an infection in the same way we do (except in this case we're the infection). He talked about how removing wolves from Yellowstone had a disastrous effect due to the vital role they played in the delicate balance (without predators, the herbivores ate all the foliage around the river, causing erosion, insects died off), but restoring the wolves repaired the local ecology within a generation. He talked about being on Shark Week ("It's a show about sharks, or maybe about a week, I'm not sure") and the fear he felt being in the water with the sharks, how he asked the guy behind him what he was doing, and the guy explained that tiger sharks are ambush predators and will attack from behind, so he was there to push the sharks away ("I can't be afraid, I'm Captain Kirk!"). And he talked about how that fear was not as bad as the fear he felt going into space, and seeing the complete blackness ahead of him, and then turning around and seeing the Earth below, and comparing them to literal death and life. I couldn't help but think he sounded more like McCoy than Kirk. He talked about his new album (which is called "Bill," naturally) and a particular song called (I think) "So Far From the Moon," which he wrote about his recollection of being terribly depressed in 1969 after Star Trek's cancellation and watching Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon on a 4" black-and-white TV in a camper he was living in at the time. I haven't done it justice here. But admittedly I've always been more a fan of Shatner than a critic. He is an amazing public speaker and unless you just despise him, everybody should make an effort to go see him.
Watched the TNG episode Darmok for the first time in a while… Damn this ep is good. This idea for the language of the Children of Tama is intriguing and plausible. And it’s really clever how the ep changes the way you feel about the Tamaranian captain as it progresses; at first it seems he could be hostile, then his benevolent intentions are slowly revealed, until the end when you realize he believed so strongly in the importance of communication with the Federation he was willing to give his life to facilitate it. Paul Winfield does such a great job as Captain Dathon I didn’t even realize it was Captain Terrell until years after it first aired. It’s too bad we never see them again, I would have liked to see how dialogue with the Tamaranians progressed from there.
We do! Very recently in "Lower Decks" with crewman Kayshon. They also reveal that the Universal Translator has gotten a lot better in translating their language, though metaphors will still come in from time to time.
