The Election – Status Quo
I’m at Daisho Con in the Wisconsin Dells! Probably right now! You should be there! It’s exciting!
   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.
Remember that on April 5th at 11AM Eastern/10AM Central you can join me for the Critical Thinking Witches' Collective's April Brew virtual event! Attendance is free, and you can register here!
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I’m impressed at Awesome Roy’s thoughts here. He’s right in that another option does make people choose.. and there’ll be some year in which he might actually be the most seasoned candidate.
I think the last year he *was* the most seasoned candidate… Just not the one others would want it the position 🙂
A friend of mine once attended the general meeting of an association; upon learning that the director election is just a formality, with the guy who has been in charge since inception being the only candidate, said friend got indignant that it wasn’t really an election, and decided to run himself just for principle’s sake… The other guy pondered for some 10 seconds or so, and then just said, “know what, you get the job” — and so he did! Not exactly the outcome he was aiming for 😉
(I don’t think he minded; but he didn’t make friends while being in charge, and got replaced the next year…)