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!
![Nerd & Tie[dot]Social Forums](https://www.nerdandtie.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/natsocial-nicepreview-square-300x300.png)
I like that mode that Max is in.
I wouldn’t call it a mode, so much as Max’s own conflicting morals coming out in an untimely semi-witty comment.
I’d have probably called his ass out long ago – right after the whole fiasco with his last Ex. You don’t bring that shit to con meetings. I get super fucking picky about that shit. Leave your personal life butthurt at home.
Either way, Max is being indirect as shit, but hell that’s Max. While he’s going about this as a total shit, he’s not terribly in the wrong either. Veronica is being quite immature herself by enticing Max’s libido and at the same time ignoring anything about his feelings. And yet she actually DOES have feelings for him. What the honest to god hell. Then it takes jealousy of the fact that Max might -actually- be attractive to younger girls despite his age for Veronica to barely admit to herself that she probably doesn’t want to let this go this time around.
I just…buh. I have a headache.
Pretty much this.
They need to be stripped naked, locked into a velvet padded room with lots of pillows, chocolate fresh oysters and wine coolers, and just let the two go at it.
When they come out, have lots of fluids available, some EMTs and a justice of the peace. Because they will have lost massive amounts of bodily fluids, (one way or another) likely to need first aid for various abrasions and rug burns, (or to declare which killed which first) and a justice of the peace to either officially marry them or bury them.
I figure as much as those two fight and make up, they’re going to be married, if not by the next convention, then most likely during it, batleths at the ready in shredded Klingon leather armor. Both of them half naked.
Said it before… kinda wish I had his problems.