Yet Another Thing Star Trek (Unfortunately) Predicted

It's amazing how much of the technology of the various Star Trek series has already come to pass in our time. Cell phones, computer tablets, hyposprays, transparent aluminum, VISORS... the list goes on and on. Heck, scientists even recently announced they may have figured out a way to build a warp drive!

But not all of the advancements the show predicted were good things. Some of them were detrimental and downright annoying. Here's a case in point.

Romulan Commander Sela captures Spock, Captain Picard and Data. She then invites them to her office so she can boast about her master plan before she kills them.

  

 

See? Even in the 24th Century people will still act like clueless assholes who diddle around with their smart phones and think their time is more valuable than yours! Star Trek predicted it way back in 1991!

* Editor's note: Bob may have done a little bit of creative editing here for comedic effect, but the scene really did play out like this. 

Out Of Context Star Trek Moment

I've been an avid Star Trek fan for many decades, but even I have to admit that certain episodes could get a little silly now and then, especially when viewed out of context.

So sit back and enjoy this totally Out Of Context Star Trek Moment.

Even positronic androids need tucked into bed now and then!

"Captain, will you read Goodnight Moon to me?"

"Not AGAIN, Mr. Data?"

And They Were Never Seen Or Heard From Again...

Welcome to And They Were Never Seen Or Heard From Again, where we'll examine the phenomenon in which a TV series introduces a new character who's befriended by the main cast, becomes very important to them and then vanishes forever without a trace the moment the episode ends. It happens more often than you think.

Today we'll take a look at the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode The Bonding.

The episode opens as Lt. Worf, the show's token Klingon, is leading an Away Team on a seemingly deserted planet. We don't actually get to see any of this; instead we get to watch Captain Picard, safe and sound aboard the Enterprise, listening tensely to Worf's running monologue of the mission.

Suddenly Picard and Co. hear a loud explosion over the loudspeaker. Realizing that's probably not a good thing, he orders the Away Team to be beamed directly to sickbay.

So if the transporter room can beam anyone to any part of the ship, why don't they do that all the time? Why do they always beam the Captain up to the transporter room so he then has to walk a mile to the bridge? But I digress...

Worf and company, looking mighty disheveled, materialize in the middle of sickbay.

Dr. Crusher, modeling her smart teal lab coat, springs into action!

It seems the Away Team accidentally set off an ancient mine which killed Lt. Marla Aster, a character who naturally we've never seen or heard of before. 

Despite the fact that Dr. Crusher has cured dead people many times before, she takes one look at Marla, shrugs and says, "THIS is an ex-lieutenant."

This is a Next Generation episode so that means there's kids on board the ship. Yep, you guessed it, Marla was a single mom with a twelve year old son named Jeremy.

Before Jeremy can speak in class today, Picard and Counselor Troi sit him down and tell him his mom's dead and he's all alone in the world. Jeremy does his best to not stare at Troi's, ehh... communicator.

After telling him he's an orphan, they leave him completely alone in his cabin. Chew on that, kid!

A little later, Jeremy gets a visit from a guilt-stricken Worf. Jeremy visibly shrinks away from the Klingon, unsure whether he's there to console him or kick his ass.

Wait a minute... I thought this was the touchy-feely, walk-hand-in-hand-singing-Kum-Ba-Yah 24th Century? I thought everyone had moved past prejudice and racial profiling. So why's Jeremy acting all "You're in the wrong neighborhood" toward Worf?

Anyhow, Worf barges on in and says, "Hey kid, sorry your mom's dead and you're all alone, but I just wanted you to know she died... with honor!" Needless to say this concept is somewhat lost on a twelve year old. An honorable death is all well and good, Worf, but who's gonna pour Jeremy's cereal at breakfast now? You?

Worf finally leaves and Jeremy sits and watches home movies on his iPad (which seemed futuristic back in 1989, but is perilously close to becoming dated today).

But what's this? Jeremy hears a familiar voice. He turns to look and sees... Marla, his dead mom, now looking 100% less dead!

Jeremy promptly soils his 24th Century jumpsuit. Is he hallucinating? Is he dreaming? Is it a g-g-g-ghost?

Nope, none of those. It's Jeremy's mom Marla, somehow brought back to life. Everything's fine again! She's come back to take care of him so they can be together forever, and ever, and ever, and...

Well, not really. It seems the planet below was originally home to two different races. One was a mean old physical race like us who wiped themselves out with the wars and the killing and the hurting. 

The other was a race of energy beings who are peaceful, benevolent and very full of themselves. One of these energy beings has flown through the side of the ship and decided to take the form of Jeremy's mother and take care of him so he won't have icky bad feelings.

This Fake Marla even used magic to transform their cabin into their home back on Earth, complete with a copy of Jeremy's cat Patches.

Actually I'm not sure why Fake Marla went to all the trouble of transforming their cabin. The second she does so, she tells Jeremy she wants to take him down to the planet so he can live there with her and she'll cater to his every need. Apparently she was just showing off with the room makeover.

She tries to get Jeremy to go to the transporter room so he can beam down to the planet with her. You'd think that an energy being that can take the form of a dead human and magically transform a starship cabin into a luxury Earth condo could just, oh I don't know, zap the kid down to the planet, but what do I know. Of course if she did that the episode would have only been twenty minutes long (would that she'd have done so).

Lt. Worf pops up again and is still feeling guilty about Marla dying on his watch and wants to take responsibility for Jeremy. Worf wants to perform the Klingon R'uustai ritual, which will make Jeremy his brother. Troi tells Worf to tone down the Klingon schtick a notch or twelve. And to stop staring at her, ehh... communicator.

Captain Picard and Counselor Troi get wind of Fake Marla's plan and don't like it one bit. They've decided that Jeremy isn't feeling properly bad about his maw dying, because dealing with death is part of the "human condition" or some such pretentious hooey. 

Two factions are now battling over Lil' Jeremy's soul: Fake Marla who wants him to be happy, and Real Picard who wants to see a kid cry. Oddly enough, no one ever thinks to ask Jeremy what he wants to do.

The  late 1980s new-age psychobabble reaches a fever pitch, and Fake Marla finally realizes that the Enterprise crew has Jeremy's best interests at heart and gracefully bows out.

With Fake Marla gone, Jeremy's finally forced to be sad.

Cut to some weird bluescreen room, where we see Worf and Jeremy undergoing the R'uustai, which officially makes them brothers for all time.

It's a great honor and a part of Klingon culture that most humans will never see or experience. Jeremy will never be alone again, as he's now officially part of Worf's family.

AND HE WAS NEVER SEEN OR HEARD FROM AGAIN...

Seriously Worf? You're the one always going on about honor and family being the most important thing there is. So you feel guilty for letting a kid's mom die and adopt him and he promptly disappears from the universe.

If I was Commander Riker I'd be asking you some hard questions. "By the way Worf, how's your little brother? You know, the one you adopted into your family? Skinny human boy? Twelve years old? You let his mother die? Told him you'd take care of him from now on? Whatever happened to that kid? Ever hear from him? Do I need to contact the authorities? Or the coroner?"

Happy 25th Birthday, Star Trek: The Next Generation

Can you believe it was 25 years ago today that Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered? Yep, it first aired back on September 29, 1987. 25 years! What the hell's going on with the flow of time lately? 

ST:TNG was the highest rated syndicated show ever, averaging around 20 million viewers per episode. That was more than some prime time series generated at the time, and far more than any series could ever hope to achieve today (to be fair, some stations aired the show twice a week, which naturally doubled the ratings). It racked up a whopping 18 Emmy Awards and was the only syndicated program to ever be nominated for an Emmy for Best Dramatic Series. Not bad for a show about people exploring outer space in their pajamas.

I was a huge fan of the series back in the day (by that of course I mean I was an avid enthusiast of the show, not that I myself was huge). After all, this was the first brand new live action Star Trek content to be aired in almost two decades! I dutifully recorded it every week on my trusty VCR (ask your parents, kids) and spent many a paycheck on Trek related merchandise.

The series featured a great cast (especially Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner), top notch writing and for the most part, slick state of the art special effects.

ST:TNG gave us many new and memorable alien races: the greedy, capitalistic Ferengi, the Nazi-like Cardassians (not Kardashians!) and best of all, the relentless, unstoppable Borg.

It also took the Klingons, who were pretty much one-dimensional villains in the Original Series and greatly expanded their culture, making them one of the more interesting races on the show.

They even managed to feature a few guest appearances from Original Series characters, specifically McCoy, Spock, Sarek and Scotty.

Like the Original Series, ST:TNG used sci-fi to examine various controversial topics such as racism, terrorism, assisted suicide, child abuse, homosexuality and torture.

Despite all the accolades and my love for the show, even I have to admit that it wasn't perfect. Many of the First Season episodes are dreadful and a chore to sit through. The Second Season was better, but was marred and cut short by a lengthy writer's strike. In fact the final episode of Season Two strayed firmly into Family Ties territory as it gave us the first ever clip show in the history of Trek! The series finally hit its stride in Season 3 and from then on gave us a shuttlecraft full of memorable episodes. 

Part of me has to wonder: If it had been a network show, would they have given the series three full seasons to get its bearings? I'm thinking probably not.

ST:TNG also suffered from a large number of just plain dull characters. Dr. Crusher? Counselor Troi? I'm dozing just typing their names. For seven seasons all Counselor Troi ever did was sit in a chair with her arms crossed and say, "I sense great anger..." Her only memorable characteristic was that she liked chocolate. How fascinating. And other than her wildly inappropriate name I don't think we ever learned anything at all about Dr. Crusher. 

Even Geordi LaForge was pretty bland when you think about it. The only interesting thing about his character was that he was blind and wore a cool vision-enhancing VISOR.

The original Star Trek had some very vibrant and distinct characters, which made for some dynamic interactions. Funny that ST:TNG's three most interesting characters-- Picard, Data and Worf-- are pretty much analogues of Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

A good part of the blame for the dull characters has to lie with series creator Gene Roddenberry. Mr. Roddenberry had the lofty notion that by the 24th Century, humanity will have advanced to the point where everyone will get along. That's a very nice sentiment, but... it ain't ever gonna happen. If humans haven't learned to live together in the past 5,000 years, there's no reason to think it'll happen in the next 300.

Nevertheless, Roddenberry was adamant that there be no conflict between crew members on the Enterprise. Apparently he never took any creative writing courses through the mail like I did or he'd have known that conflict is the basis of all drama. Without it, all you've got is a bunch of people sitting around holding hands, smiling and singing Kumbaya. Pleasant enough I suppose, but it sure makes for pretty dull TV.

Roddenberry had some other peculiar ideas for the show. He didn't want any of the alien races from the Original Series to appear on ST:TNG. That meant no Vulcans, Klingons or Romulans; fan-favorites the audience would be expecting to see. Luckily he was overruled on that one, else Lt. Worf would never have been a part of the crew.

He also toyed with the idea of not having a ship in the new series at all. He thought that by the 24th Century technology would have advanced to the point in which the crew would use some sort of "super transporter" to just teleport anywhere in the galaxy. He was outvoted on that one as well (no doubt by studio lawyers who'd happened to see the movie Stargate).

Some of his ideas were just downright kinky. He supposedly wanted the males of the newly created Ferengi race to be incredibly well-endowed, sporting enormous schlongs up to two feet long (!). Fortunately one of the producers took him aside and pointed out that the series was airing on regular TV, not HBO or Cinemax.  

The series also relied much too heavily on the ship breaking down in order to provide tension. In practically every episode the B-plot involved some piece of ship's technology malfunctioning and putting the crew in danger. Sure, Kirk's Enterprise broke down now and then, but Picard's ship was worse than an old used car. It became a crutch for the writers whenever they couldn't think of any other way to fill the time slot.

ST:TNG provided me with many memorable and sometimes shocking moments over the years. Remember that the series aired before the internet cropped up, in an era in which you didn't have to work at avoiding spoilers. Back then the only way to find out what was going to happen was to just sit down and watch the show.

The third season finale, in which Captain Picard is captured and assimilated by the Borg and Commander Riker gives the order to fire on the Borg ship-- absolutely floored me. I was not expecting that and had no idea such a shocking denouement was coming. I spent a long and anxious summer waiting for the follow up to air in the fall. 

The problem with their cliffhanger episodes though was that the setups were always way better than their lackluster resolutions the next season. To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, "You know how to set up the cliffhanger, you just don't know how to resolve the cliffhanger."

As much as I loved the show, watching it (or rather trying to watch it) was a grueling chore, due to my local TV station. It was just plain hard work to even find the show where I lived. In my hometown ST:TNG was usually relegated to the wee hours of Sunday morning, in time slots normally occupied by Aerosol Toupee and Psychic Hotline infomercials.

One week it might be on at 11 pm, the next at 1:30 am. Sometimes it would even pop up in the afternoon. You just never knew. I used to record the show every week but there was no way I could just set the timer on the VCR and forget it, because there was no guarantee as to when it might air. Many's the night I would stay up until 1 or even 2 am waiting for it to start so I could hit the record button (and have to go to work at 6 am the next day!).

I never understood the local station's attitude toward the show. This wasn't some execrable drivel like Mama's Family, this was an award winning, critically acclaimed series that regularly got higher ratings than some network shows. Plus it had a built in audience of rabid fans. So why the shabby treatment?

Sometimes I wonder if the station's programming director secretly hated the show and deliberately aired it at such a dismal hour in hope that the ratings would sag and he could justify canceling it. Why else would you pay for an no-doubt expensive syndicated program and then air it when no one was awake?

Ah well, that's all in the past now. 25 years in the past, to be exact. Thanks to home video and the internet I can watch the show anytime I want.

So Happy Birthday, Star Trek: The Next Generation. I'll close with a joke: What did Captain Picard say when he took his sewing machine to the repair shop? Make it sew! Haw!