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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It’s not really defended Terrance as saying Sarah is just as much if not more of an ass at times.
Having known “Sarahs” working cons, I really do not blame Terrance for wanting to just ignore her.
Every time I think Sarah is being unfair to Terrence, he opens his mouth.
I’m beginning to suspect the trouble between these two is going to come to a head at the expense of the Borkcon staff… In my experience, these little squabbles can very easily become surprise landmines.
Terrence just can’t learn to shut up and be nice apparently. I know I used to say offensive things but I’d at least not say this kind of crap.
Err, neither can Sarah? See all the “Terrence/Sarah is just being a jerk.” stuff on this arc, when really all I can see is Terrence starting crap by being an idiot, and Sarah nurturing, watering, cuddling, and feeding the resulting grudge until it’s 50′ tall and taking over cities.
Sure, Terrence is a socially retarded jackass, but Sarah is pretty much all about never, ever, EVER letting one single thing go. She also seems to assume malice long before the thought of lack of competence enters her mind.
In short – they’re both being jackholes – just for different reasons. There’s no “this one’s wrong, that one’s right” here. They both own stock in gas stations and they’re chucking it all over the fire in alternately.
* Sure, Sarah said something nice. If I were Terrence, I’d be suspicious as hell too! Considering that makes her about 1/250… yeah that doesn’t make it all cool.
See, the problem there is that you’re putting “insults someone repeatedly and refer to them as ‘it’ within 5 minutes of meeting them” as on the same level as “don’t forgive someone for insulting you repeatedly”. Sarah opened by being friendly and had to be pushed into being rude, Terrance opened by being rude. Should Sarah have given him another chance earlier? Certainly. But she did give him another chance now, and Terrance still managed to be an ass in response.
And the thing is, I can understand that Sarah wouldn’t be inclined to be friendly after he insulted her when they first met. Even if she wants to insult him, I can understand that, especially if he was rude continuously in subsequent interactions.
But see, the issue HERE is, yes, Terrence was an ass in response to Sarah being nice now. BUT, recall that Sarah started out their interactions for the day with Sarah repeatedly telling him that she absolutely loathed him and hated the idea of working with him, and that pretty much after the day was over she was going to not make an effort to be civil with him. All while he repeatedly tried to deny any mutuality to the hatred and just wanted to get to work on the garage sale. So even if Sarah was trying to be nice NOW, in this particular case I think she sort of shot herself in the foot earlier with her grandiose declaration of hatred for him.
Plus, as Scrappy was so kind to point out earlier, every conversation they have had since the ill-fated first meeting where it all began seems to have begun with Sarah referring to Terrence as garbage in some form. So I can sort of see Terrence having already begun his journey to this point beforehand.
From Sarah’s point of view, she started the day trying to ask Terrence if they could be civil, and he told her she was unimportant,
When the whole reason she’s mad is because he wouldn’t treat her like a person.
Just something to consider.
If the question is, is Terrence or Sarah being a jerk, the answer is yes.
A very fair response to this whole situation, thank you.