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It’s, to coin a phrase, “Déjà Q” all over again! But where that TNG episode was absolutely hilarious and still managed to do some character development with Q (as well as Data), “Q2” is just a tired slog. There’s precious few of the laughs one expects from a Q episode, and what yuks we do have are puerile at best. The sex-farce humor is particularly sad, from q drooling over a naked Seven to Q materializing (fully clothed!) in Janeway’s bath.
An excerpt:
The first half of the episode is dedicated to showing how bad almost everyone is at the other side’s jobs. Freeman, Ransom, Shaxs, and T’Ana are assigned to a ship under attack by a Klingon boarding party. Their job: Stack the crates in the cargo bay that have fallen over during the attack. The crates are hexagonal, too, so they’re very hard to stack and they very easily fall down. At no point are they ever told the specifics of what’s going on—including one point where they find out, in passing, that Q is on board. (Their CO is now dressed like Robin Hood, a reference to TNG‘s “Qpid.”)
For some reason, this song off Robbie Robertson’s eponymous 1987 album has been in my head a lot lately. Like most of Robertson’s songs, it’s a wonderful, evocative story, and like all the songs on that Daniel Lanois-produced album, it’s lush and magnificent. Check it out…
For 2021, KRAD COVID readings is covering the only short fiction I didn’t read in 2020: my novellas for the Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers series, a monthly series of eBooks that ran from 2000-2007. I’ll have a new reading every #TrekTuesday.
This week, we conclude Security, which juggles several different plotlines. In this final bit, Corsi tells the whole story of Dar and of how she first met Christine Vale, while the S.C.E. crew works to find Drs. Lense and Bashir.
Check it out! And please subscribe to the channel!
An excerpt:
In the abstract, it’s a good idea to have Seven experimenting with social interactions and dating and attending parties and playing the piano. But then the ending screws it all up by having Seven’s cortical node knock her out. Yes, on this show where the reset button is routinely pushed to get everything back to the status quo no matter how unconvincing it is, they this time put an actual reset button in Seven’s head. And then they don’t let Seven accept the EMH’s offer to fix it.
Chakotay, Neelix, Kim, and the EMH (or, rather, the ECH) have to rescue the rest of the crew, who’ve been brainwashed by Ralph Malph into worker drones, and they get help from Dr. Sid Hammerback. The Star Trek: Voyager Rewatch does “Workforce” — Part I and Part II.
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What I particularly like about this two-parter is especially true of this second half: it’s a good procedural storyline. I like how the solving of what’s going on unfolds. I particularly like that no one person is responsible for saving everyone—it’s a team effort. Tuvok’s resistance to the reconditioning and his mind-meld of Seven starts one ball rolling, and Chakotay stirring shit starts another ball rolling. Plus, his and Neelix’s “kidnapping” of Torres gets Yerid involved.
Yerid is an excellent character, and a character type I’m particularly fond of: the dogged workaday investigator who just wants to learn the truth. His insistence on finding out the truth even after he’s been relieved of duty is a very large part of why Voyager’s crew gets out of this, particularly since he is able to put Seven and Janeway together.
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“Where Pleasant Fountains Lie” is a veritable treasure trove of Trek clichés and it’s delightful.
We’ve got the aforementioned world-running computer (“Return of the Archons,” “The Apple”), named Agimus and voiced by Combs, who keeps trying to inveigle the organics into plugging him into some system or other. Combs, a veteran voiceover actor, is absolutely brilliant here.
We’ve got the shuttle crash on a deserted planet with our heroes trying to find a way to technobabble themselves off. (“The Galileo Seven,” “Power Play,” “Final Mission,” “Paradise,” “Gravity,” “Innocence,” and about fifty other Voyager episodes…)
We’ve got the visit to a character’s homeworld and get introduced to its weird customs (“Amok Time,” “Sins of the Father,” “Family Business”), complete with an overbearing mother who visits the ship regularly (all of TNG’s Lwaxana Troi episodes). In this case, it’s Billups, the chief engineer, who comes from the human colony of Hysperia, a world filled with dragons, and which is populated by Renaissance Faire types. This, by the way, is my favorite part of the episode—I adore the Ren Faire planet where all the citizens dress up in “period” clothes and refer to all science in magic-y terms and shout “Huzzah!” a lot.
I will be one of the guests at the inaugural Suncoast FanFest in Palmetto, Florida this weekend. I’ll be appearing alongside actors Manu Intiraymi (Icheb on Star Trek: Voyager), Corin Nemec (Jonas Quinn on Stargate SG-1), Casper van Dien (Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers), Eddie McClintock (Pete Latimer on Warehouse 13), and Supernatural actors Alaina Huffman (Abaddon), Travis Wester (Harry Spangler), and AJ Buckley (Ed Zeddmore), and voiceover actors Mark Whitten, Megan Hollingshead, and Sarah Wiedenheft.
I’ll have a table in the dealer room where I’ll be selling and signing books. I’m also doing three solo Q&As, one Saturday at noon, one Saturday at 4pm, and Sunday at 1pm.
Yesterday, for the first time in eighteen months, there was a fighting class in our dojo.
The recent apocalypse has played merry hell with karate, but we’ve managed to keep things going. We did virtual classes last spring, then switched to hybrid classes over the summer. The dojo policy has been that masks are worn during kids classes, while adult classes masks are only required for the unvaccinated — though the new NYC regulations mean that unvaccinated adults can’t train in the dojo anymore.
In any case, since most of our kids are 12 and under, and therefore are unvaccinated, we’re still not doing a kids fighting class (which was my responsibility back in the before-times). But last night, we brought back the adult fighting class, vaccinated folks only.
We took it easy on our first night back to it. Of the nine people sparring, four had never taken a fighting class before (they all joined last spring or later), and me and the other black belts present spent a lot of time working with them and showing them the ropes. We were also easing back into it ourselves, doing 1.5-minute rounds instead of our usual two-minute ones, avoiding any below-the-belt or above-the-neck contact, and generally keeping it lighter than normal.
I’m pleased to say it went great. I didn’t die, the new students all did well, and a fun time was had by all.
I used to hate fighting class, and it’s still not my favorite part of karate. But last night, before class I was feeling the same nameless dread I used to feel before fighting class when I was a color belt and would keep making feeble excuses not to come to class. That feeling passed by the time class started, though. Thank goodness.
It’s good to be back….
For 2021, KRAD COVID readings is covering the only short fiction I didn’t read in 2020: my novellas for the Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers series, a monthly series of eBooks that ran from 2000-2007. I’ll have a new reading every #TrekTuesday.
This week, we continue Security, which juggles several different plotlines. In Part 2, Gomez confronts Tev while Stevens confronts Corsi.
Check it out! And please subscribe to the channel!
KRAD's Inaccurate Guide to Life 