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 laugh but I recall things like this!
Never met that guy. Met people who thought the weather sucked and then moved on.
Have met people who were upset the entire Con didn’t cater to their particular nitch interest.
Also seen though who had something unfortunate happen to them, and now think the entire Staff should drop everything to solve it. ie, ‘I lost my bag, why aren’t you organizing a room by room search of the hotel?’
Sadly I have seen this one come up…
Ever since I have been making snow jokes close to con…
reminds me of the story of a guy who called the transit authority asking them to move the deer crossing sign from his street so the deers would stop crossing in front of his house all the time
We’ve had people complain that the stairs in the con hotel had too steep a rise.
Also the guy showing up at ConOps Thursday morning at 10am and complaining there was “Nothing to do at this con!” (Note: Opening Ceremonies was 11am Friday. Thursday was Reg and a dance.)
But there hasn’t been any bitching about the weather. Other than ‘It’s hot in [late June/early July].” Yes, yes it is.
There is a story that a “guest” at Walt Disney World walked up to a “cast member” during a storm and said; “Listen, I’ve planned this vacation for months. Turn the rain off.” The cast member actually called the weather service and found out that the rain would end in about twenty minutes, he told the guest who waited for the rain to end and then thanked the cast member for turning it off.