Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
So I'm just going to come out and say it: My favorite episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation is "Conundrum." It's episode fourteen of season five, and I just deeply love it.
I don't know if it's because I literally just assumed Erich Anderson's Commander McDuff was a random Enterprise officer of the week (which we saw quite often during the show) when I watched it as a kid during the original run, so the twist actually worked on eleven year old me. I don't know if it's because I just like a good "everyone has amnesia" story. I don't even know if it's just because it's a good Ro Laren episode. I don't know if it's just because we learn that Starfleet doesn't give a crap about lasers.
I just like it. It's neat.
And I rewatched it last night, and feel that it holds up -- which is why I found it deeply weird that the folks who wrote the episode actually think it's not that good. My favorite episode of the entire seven season run of the show was a failure according to the folks who wrote it.
And maybe, as a writer and creator, I should remember that.
Like the hardest part of releasing creative works to the public is that often, after a while, I'll start to judge those things far more harshly than when I first made them. Or I'll compare it to the potential I thought an idea had in my head. And if I don't reach that potential, I'll think of it as "bad" -- when it might just be slightly different than that idea. I have one hundred percent published stories that I thought were just sort of okay and later had someone tell me how much it meant to them to read it.
*cough*I Hate November*cough*
So I should make sure I remember Conundrum. That one of my favorite things to rewatch is considered one of those failures by its creators. That the things I make might have value, just not in the way I originally thought they should.
It's just sort of how things work out.
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I’m pretty much waiting for Lynn to whip out a Gondor-sized horn, blow it, and watch the forces of Grammar ride up over the hill behind her to charge Garner. The forces of evil must be be given a good talking to! Possibly with a flick behind the ear and a couple of head bonks.
Quite possibly the cartoonist as well for playing bait the forces of Grammar ;p
When I make a mistake, I have two choices.
1. Fix it.
2. Decide the character made the mistake, and see what happens.
This interaction popped into my head, so I went with the second option.
Yep, and the latter was a complete surprise – and it worked. So, bonk on the head comes with a, “Well played, sir.”
….I figured he meant what he said. They are coaching people. Acting as the leader of a team, a coach. The people are being coached. If you are deceptive in the coaching you are doing, you are coaching in deception.
….though now that a check, he said pretense, not deception, but still works out the same.