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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Hey look free candy at Unagi Con’s table.It looks like they could gobstoppers or maybe sprees.
Jim did railroad Lynn out of her position in a shitty way. She literally went out of her way to do a specific job at Unagi con. Take that job away and in a shitty way to boot, what loyalty does she have left, to Jim or Unagi con? Zilch. Jim should have realized that before taking action.
Garner didn’t “want out”.unless he told Lynn something off-screen. When Lynn first made the offer to jump ship Garner replied “why would I do that?”
So they’re 1-1 in my book.
What Jim did is far worse than Lynn “poaching” Garner, especially since she used no form of coercion, trickery, or underhanded tactics to win him over. He asked her for a reason and she gave one he was in full support of because he agreed that leaving a Nazi to run about the con was ludicrous.
Meanwhile, Jim was in the wrong from the get-go. He left his staff to deal with a problem he should have stepped up and done himself and when defied, he used childish, underhanded tactics.
I’m not saying Lynn is a faultless angel, but I’d hardly call her and Jim even.