Watching every episode of Star Trek The Next Generation for the first time Part Three by C T Thorbens

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Part Three of mocking a thirty-year-old scifi series for being hokey and rubbish. In this installment, we learn about Data’s backstory, Riker’s sexual fantasies (SPOILER ALERT: they involve trombones) and how to fix the ozone layer. 12. Datalore: Data, we learn, was found 26 years ago, the sole survivor of some catastrophic tragedy, like a waxen-skinned Harry Potter. The Enterprise returns to his planet and finds a SECOND Data – called Lore – who seems really nice and eager to be friends with everyone. OR IS HE? This episode is a tricky one — bits of it are good, and yet the whole is so irretrievably stupid. On the plus side, Data does a cracking performance as Evil Twin Lore, Read More

A Dry Spell by Thomas Willshire

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A Dry Spell By Thomas Willshire Characters Andy : Early thirties. Pam : Early thirties. Trudy : Late twenties. Kieran : Mid twenties. Action The play begins in Pam and Andy’s bedroom but doesn’t stay there long. Each setting is described or at least implied by the characters. ACT 1 (The play opens with Pam in bed and Andy standing away from her. It is clear the action begins some time after the conversation began. Pam holds a cup of tea.) Andy : I was just thinking about our problem. Well, my problem. I don’t know really. There isn’t a way in which I can express it without hurting your feelings. Pam : It’s a bit late for that. Andy Read More

Watching every episode of Star Trek The Next Generation for the first time Part Two by C T Thorbens

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Part Two of what happens if you wait twenty years to finally watch a beloved scifi series and find yourself baffled by it. 8. The Battle: The Ferengi are back to offer a ship ‘as a gift’ and since none of the crew have ever heard the phrase ‘Trojan horse’, they accept. It contains a Picard-specific magic box, the effects of which are too silly to go into here. Despite their obvious shiftiness (including significant pauses and actually rubbing their hands together) no one, including Troi, picks up on their hidden agenda. Her empathic abilities are limited to saying quickly ‘ooh, I felt something too,’ when Picard lurches out of his chair, clutching his forehead in agony. I’m going to Read More

How to Tell If You’re in a Wilbur Smith Novel

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You have made a fortune and lost a fortune, not necessarily in that order You aren’t racist. Definitely not. In fact, you have a close friend who is a noble son of a local tribe. He is tall and noble, with absolutely no sex drive. His profile is very noble, and despite knowing a lot more than you about the terrain, your mission and the local wildlife, he is always happy to do what you say. You have been given a name in the local language that means something like ‘lion who strikes with a closed fist’ or ‘falcon who is right about everything’. You frequently marry women who die shortly afterwards. You frequently sleep with women who are probably Read More

Watching Every Episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation for the First time, Part One by C T Thorbens

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With the launch of the latest Start Trek big-screen adventure, could there be a better time to finally get round to watching Star Trek: TNG? Well, pretty much any time in the past 20 years would have made more sense. During my preteens and adolescence, the show seemed to be on every week, requiring dogged persistence and ingenuity on my part to avoid watching even a single episode. And remember, this was 1990, a time when my house had access to only four TV channels and no internet. I didn’t avoid it out of a lack of interest in the genre (I was entering peak sci-fi interest years, and by the end of ST:TNG’s run on British TV, would have Read More

Your Week Ahead For Myers-Briggs Types

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ESFP – The Performer Stop worrying that everyone remembers that you joke you told at Sam’s birthday brunch, which was followed by ten seconds of awkward silence. All your friends are ever thinking about is the much, much worse thing you did ten years ago, a memory so psyche-shatteringly humiliating that you have successfully repressed it, and now have no idea it happened at all.  But they all know. Oh yes they do. ENFJ – The Teacher This week, you will receive a letter from the school nurse – turns out it was you who was responsible for the headlice outbreak in the Sixth form. You should stop trying to hang out with them, BTW, and not just because they’re Read More