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ravenI want a strawberry daquiri. A big one. No, big, okay? Big enough to bathe in. With two umbrellas in it. Thank you. I got my exam results. No crying, but no frantic jubilation either. I am not in a good mood. Dear all the dear people who tried to wake me up this afternoon: love you. I'm sorry for shouting. I'm still not in a good place, as far as the next batch of exams go... I just am full of fear, and writing enormous lists of Things I Don't Know Oh God Oh God, and am now being sensible and not procrastinating and working all the time, so I can't beat myself up too much later. Am trying to be good, really.
...hi, people who have just friended me because I like Star Trek! In brief: hi, nice to meet you! I am British, twenty-two years old, geek of the first water, insomniac, and I'm a lawyer in the process of being made (that's what the exams are about). Oh, and if you bear with me I'm going to start talking about Star Trek again a little way down, yes.
My beloved ex-wifey![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jacinthsong is coming to visit tomorrow for a few days, and she has said she will make me tea and deep-fried tofu and put up with all my little excesses. I suspect I will cling to her desperately and occasionally demand to be shown pictures of kittens, but that's... not bad, per se. And then on Monday shimgray is coming up, to probably suffer much the same fate. It'll be lovely to see them both, but I am mildly apprehensive for reasons of, well, worlds colliding, I suppose. This is the first time any of my friends from university have ever come up here, I think, and... well, I suppose it's just a little contextually challenging. But at the same time it's weird that the most important people in my life have never really met. I've never really got over the idea that I'm a real person - that I sit at the centre of my own social network, and it's perfectly possible for there to be people in the world who have nothing in common but me, but do have me in common. That gives me an uncomfortable feeling of selfness, actually. I think I shall stop this line of thought now.
In lieu of going crazy this evening, then, I have been watching Star Trek in the background while I read about breach of duty of care. And I thought I would copycalapine and make a (short) list of Star Trek Episodes That Are Really Great. Yes.
In no particular order, starting with the one I was just watching, Ship In A Bottle (TNG). This is the second of the Professor Moriarty episodes, and the better of the two, I think; basically, Data has created a holodeck character version of Holmes' nemesis Moriarty, and then being a criminal mastermind, he becomes self-aware. I love this episode because it's gentle and whimsical, but also the episode itself is a real, elegant whodunit that doesn't rely on technical whizbangery but just humans being clever. It's fab.
-Measure of a Man (TNG). Everyone says this, but for good reason - it's wonderful. It lays out the moral problem without blinking - if Data is an android, does that mean he isn't a person with rights? - and argues it out, meticulously. Again, no shit blows up. It's neat and philosophical and really compelling.
-Unexpected (Enterprise). Shut up. You're not allowed to say rude things about Enterprise. Okay, yes, you actually all are allowed to say rude things about Enterprise, but I nevertheless love this episode. It's only the fourth episode that there is - I was watching from the beginning, you see, before I gave up - and it is the silliest thing ever. The gravity on the Enterprise fails when Archer's in the shower! Trip meets a new girl and she knocks him up! But it's funny, and sweet, and you can forgive the silliness because, well, it wants to please and isn't taking itself too seriously at this point.
Memorial (Voyager). This is an odd one, really. I saw it on television just randomly, and thought about it for years afterwards until I saw it again, at which point I concluded that yes, yes, it is very good. It's a little self-contained set piece of an episode, and quite haunting with it - Voyager's away team head down to a deserted planet, and come back convinced that they've been made to fight a war against their will.
-Death Wish (Voyager). Q arrives to bug Janeway with another Q in tow - he's been in restricted confinement for millennia because what he wants is to kill himself. The episode examines the morality of that, and does it in much the same way as "Measure of a Man", but I am a sucker for the trope and Star Trek does that so well, that pulling apart of philosophical strands. I love it.
-The Empath (TOS). Okay, it is not that I don't love TOS. I love it a whole crazy lot. But mostly my love is silly and fond and manifests best in drinking games - I don't take it seriously. This episode is about the only exception to the rule - it helps that it all takes place in black space, with no silly effects to laugh at (some very silly aliens, but you can't have everything). It's dark, and a little scary, and I really like it.
Now I am going to do something productive with my life, yes. But before I do that - one may complain that there is no Deep Space Nine here, but the answer to that is, well, I've never watched it. People who have: should I? Will I like it? And if I do, do I have to watch it in order? Are there any great stand-alones I should see? Thank you all kindly.
...hi, people who have just friended me because I like Star Trek! In brief: hi, nice to meet you! I am British, twenty-two years old, geek of the first water, insomniac, and I'm a lawyer in the process of being made (that's what the exams are about). Oh, and if you bear with me I'm going to start talking about Star Trek again a little way down, yes.
My beloved ex-wifey
jacinthsong is coming to visit tomorrow for a few days, and she has said she will make me tea and deep-fried tofu and put up with all my little excesses. I suspect I will cling to her desperately and occasionally demand to be shown pictures of kittens, but that's... not bad, per se. And then on Monday shimgray is coming up, to probably suffer much the same fate. It'll be lovely to see them both, but I am mildly apprehensive for reasons of, well, worlds colliding, I suppose. This is the first time any of my friends from university have ever come up here, I think, and... well, I suppose it's just a little contextually challenging. But at the same time it's weird that the most important people in my life have never really met. I've never really got over the idea that I'm a real person - that I sit at the centre of my own social network, and it's perfectly possible for there to be people in the world who have nothing in common but me, but do have me in common. That gives me an uncomfortable feeling of selfness, actually. I think I shall stop this line of thought now.In lieu of going crazy this evening, then, I have been watching Star Trek in the background while I read about breach of duty of care. And I thought I would copy
calapine and make a (short) list of Star Trek Episodes That Are Really Great. Yes.In no particular order, starting with the one I was just watching, Ship In A Bottle (TNG). This is the second of the Professor Moriarty episodes, and the better of the two, I think; basically, Data has created a holodeck character version of Holmes' nemesis Moriarty, and then being a criminal mastermind, he becomes self-aware. I love this episode because it's gentle and whimsical, but also the episode itself is a real, elegant whodunit that doesn't rely on technical whizbangery but just humans being clever. It's fab.
-Measure of a Man (TNG). Everyone says this, but for good reason - it's wonderful. It lays out the moral problem without blinking - if Data is an android, does that mean he isn't a person with rights? - and argues it out, meticulously. Again, no shit blows up. It's neat and philosophical and really compelling.
-Unexpected (Enterprise). Shut up. You're not allowed to say rude things about Enterprise. Okay, yes, you actually all are allowed to say rude things about Enterprise, but I nevertheless love this episode. It's only the fourth episode that there is - I was watching from the beginning, you see, before I gave up - and it is the silliest thing ever. The gravity on the Enterprise fails when Archer's in the shower! Trip meets a new girl and she knocks him up! But it's funny, and sweet, and you can forgive the silliness because, well, it wants to please and isn't taking itself too seriously at this point.
Memorial (Voyager). This is an odd one, really. I saw it on television just randomly, and thought about it for years afterwards until I saw it again, at which point I concluded that yes, yes, it is very good. It's a little self-contained set piece of an episode, and quite haunting with it - Voyager's away team head down to a deserted planet, and come back convinced that they've been made to fight a war against their will.
-Death Wish (Voyager). Q arrives to bug Janeway with another Q in tow - he's been in restricted confinement for millennia because what he wants is to kill himself. The episode examines the morality of that, and does it in much the same way as "Measure of a Man", but I am a sucker for the trope and Star Trek does that so well, that pulling apart of philosophical strands. I love it.
-The Empath (TOS). Okay, it is not that I don't love TOS. I love it a whole crazy lot. But mostly my love is silly and fond and manifests best in drinking games - I don't take it seriously. This episode is about the only exception to the rule - it helps that it all takes place in black space, with no silly effects to laugh at (some very silly aliens, but you can't have everything). It's dark, and a little scary, and I really like it.
Now I am going to do something productive with my life, yes. But before I do that - one may complain that there is no Deep Space Nine here, but the answer to that is, well, I've never watched it. People who have: should I? Will I like it? And if I do, do I have to watch it in order? Are there any great stand-alones I should see? Thank you all kindly.
