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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*Waits one year to see how big of a disaster the gophers are at Unagi Con next year.
Hmm. That seems a mistake on Jim’s part. Generally, you don’t want to leave the defeated an avenue to come right back to haunt you. If he could rustle up that kind of support, it’d seem he could just as easily oust her entirely.
He doesn’t want her in charge of anything anymore to punish her. But at the same time he also doesn’t want to lose the invaluable skills she gives to Unagi Con.
Look back at what he did with Garner when he was still the problem. (http://www.unconventional-comic.com/2017/06/basic-group-dynamics/)
“I may have to subtly break apart any clique he’s started to form, and distract him with some task to keep him in check.”
Jim may think he knows what he’s doing, because he’s been dealing with people like Garner for a decade. But I get the feeling that he doesn’t quite understand the depths of what he’s dealing with when trying to handle Lynn in the same way.
Lynn has already made a mistake. Jim is not mad about the Nazi-punching.
he’s mad about Lynn lying to his face.
I still find this the least mature route to go in this instance.
Its just as much work to come up with evidence and confront the individual about the fabrication. But because Jim is the way he is when it comes to confrontation, he has to handle it this way. Which I just don’t understand – its confrontation either way. Just confrontation he’s comfortable with.