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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Totally not what I thought it would be. I should have posted my predictions (frivolous lawsuit, venue extra-EXTRA unavailable…uh…I know I had at least one other…) with the last comic.
This should be interesting.
…oh S**T
Now that’s a nightmare. Embezzlement?
Set the Wayback Machine to 1980. Galacticon in Los Angeles is supposed to be at the Bonaventure Hotel downtown. All the fen show up and… no con. It was eventually learned that the chair had “invested” the entire con treasury in a white, powdery substance and got busted. There’s a whole class of us called Galacticon Refugees who discovered Loscon 7 at the Anaheim Sheraton and have been going to Loscon ever since.
Well that explains a few things – that was when a “friend” told me how Galacticon, the con he was working on had just lost it’s person in charge of the art show and would I pullleeeezzzee take over running said art show. Next month. Already all organized and stuff. Being way too naive for my own good I said ok, and about the time I noticed the “organization” was nil and I had stuck something together with spit and wire, I was informed that the con was suddenly cancelled due to losing its hotel (this about a week before it was scheduled). I was so relieved I really didn’t pay any more attention to the thing. Figures they didn’t warn anybody. Chairman get caught pushing or just send the whole budget up his nose? Idiot.
Caught pushing.
I can rarely say something “started on a cliffhanger”. Consider me in suspense!
What about many episodes of 21st century “Doctor Who?”
…not what I had guessed… really hoping is something along the lines of ‘oh, didn’t we tell you? The money all gets transfer to this other account during the off-season. For reasons.’
Hmmm. Now willt his be a Los Pegasus situation…
OK, what ancient Chinese guy did they manage to tick off? “May you live in interesting times” indeed…
Did they invite a musical act who, not realizing that a fan-run convention is not a typical venue, took advantage of Room Service?