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’m with max pick the second one
Ditto!
If he stays true to form, he’ll pick the second one.
Don’t kill him, Veronica! Lynn will be sad you left her out of it!
Was I wrong to hope that Lynn would of shown up?
She’s handling this far more calmly than I would expect.
Naw, Con-zen. She’s already had to deal with so much weird, stupid stuff that she’s gone into full “extremely reasonable murderbot” mode. It’s inevitable after enough time passes – you just aren’t willing to invest in drama anymore – you got too much to do and you’re sick of this crap.
Reading the moussover text, Terrence would be lucky to be Number 6…
I am not a number, color, and infraction. I am a free man! Or, at least, I will be in 30 seconds.
‘A handful of single digit badge numbers’…. not to quibble with the murderous lady, but wouldn’t it be two handfuls? I assume there is no Badge Number zero, so nine single digits?
Only if all of them showed up. It seems like the single digits are the people who started the con, so it’s likely Max was just the first person to sign up.
And Jenna’s dead.
Less than 24 hours until we learn his choice, and the wait is killing me!