Assorted Year-End Reflections
Well, 2022 was definitely a life-changing year for me! Sure, my life was already moving in exciting new directions when the year began, but there's a big difference between "moving"…
Yellowstone 2021 (Part V: Coming Home…Eventually)
Most readers will probably already be aware that the "voyage home" portion of my trip ran into...difficulties. But it didn't start out that way! I woke up on Sunday morning…
Yellowstone 2021 (Part IV: Geysers!)
I've spent at least some time checking out the various "main attraction" thermal areas on each of my trips to Yellowstone, but there are some that I've visited many times,…
Yellowstone 2021 (Part III: The Big Hike)
If I had begun to suspect on Tuesday that I might perhaps (gasp) be getting old, Wednesday morning provided more evidence pointing toward this conclusion. I found (not for the…
Yellowstone 2021 (Part II: A Day in the Canyon Area)
I suppose there wasn't really anything overtly "charmed" or "cursed" about my first full day in the park, unless I wanted to argue that in some respects, each individual portion…
Yellowstone 2021 (Part I: Getting There)
Here begins the story of (yep) yet another trip to Yellowstone. I hadn't originally planned to go to Yellowstone this year. Even doing a big summer camping trip at all…
Another Origin Story
This post is basically the next chapter of the story that I told in what became my first post on this blog (whose title, appropriately, starts with the words "Of…
Milestone
This week in dubious milestones: Tomorrow, 1/13/21, marks five years to the day since Jen moved out. Back when the post-marriage chapter of my life was only just beginning, when…
Chasing a Chameleon: Post-Mortem of a Marriage (Part II)
(This post picks up where the previous one left off, still on the subject of my efforts, in the years following Jen's and my divorce, to grapple with her claim…
Chasing a Chameleon: Post-Mortem of a Marriage (Part I)
This post is something that I've needed to get off my chest for a while. Its subject is something that I spent roughly three years wrestling with before finally, earlier…
Forgiveness is Optional
It should surprise no one for me to say that, since my marriage fell apart, I've been angry at Jen for giving up on it, blowing up our lives, and…
Interesting Dream
Last night was a night of troubled dreams for me. Most of it is vague and indistinct, but one dream stands out clearly. It was, sort of, a dream about…
Encounter at Farpoint (⭑⭑)
TNG’s pilot episode is a strange mixture of elements with real merit that show the potential of the new series (albeit a potential that would largely go unrealized for the…
The Naked Now (⭑)
Everything about this episode is ill-conceived: ripping off the plot of an original series episode; doing so in the very first post-pilot episode of the new series; having all the…
Code of Honor (⭑)
"The Naked Now" is almost as bad as they come, but "Code of Honor" is even worse. This turd is on the short list for the distinction of "worst TNG…
The Last Outpost (⭑)
This is another candidate for "worst episode ever" that (like the previous episode) belongs squarely in the "what in the name of god could the writers have been thinking" category. …
Where No One Has Gone Before (⭑)
Though considerably better than the three previous episodes, this one is nevertheless still really bad. It lacks the sort of fantastically ill-conceived premise that ruined all three of the post-pilot…
Lonely Among Us (⭑)
Despite suffering from some of the same fundamental problems as many of the other episodes of the season, this baby immediately strikes one as a very different sort of terrible…
Justice (⭑)
No episode since the pilot has yet merited even two stars, but the last couple travesties prior to this one were nevertheless slightly better than the previous three. Here, however,…
The Battle (⭑⭑)
This episode is not very good, really. However, it is much better than any other episode since the pilot. Its plot contains no surprises, is executed clunkily, and isn't really…
Hide and Q (⭑)
This is hands-down the worst Q episode ever; much of Q's material here is so bad that not even John de Lanci can make watching it non-painful, and the premise…
Haven (⭑)
This episode sucks. The arranged-marriage story seems wildly out of place and at odds with the values and ethos of the Starfleet/Federation world; Troi seems like a volitionless pawn who…
The Big Goodbye (⭑⭑)
This episode is deeply flawed, and aspects of it are terrible—but it's still the best episode since the pilot. The framing story about the insect race that is anal about…
Datalore (⭑⭑)
Though much too flawed to merit a third star, this is the best episode of the series thus far. Halfway through the season, the writers finally got around here to…
Angel One (⭑)
Unfortunately, after two consecutive episodes that seemed to be indicative of a slight upward trend in quality, this heap of shit broke the streak. This one is another terrible, first-season…
11001001 (⭑⭑⭑)
This is unquestionably the best episode of the first season—so much so that it’s actually hard to wrap one’s brain around its presence in the same season of the same…
Too Short a Season (⭑)
What a comedown from the previous episode! Here, once again, we return to structureless, filler-packed plotting, clunky exposition, painfully telegraphed foreshadowing, one-dimensional characterization, and a lame storyline that has no…
When the Bough Breaks (⭑)
This is yet another worthless waste of an episode. As usual, one-dimensionality combined with (one assumes) budget limitations lead to a total lack of believability that permeates the episode: the…
Home Soil (⭑)
While still not very good at all, this is a rather different sort of bad episode from most of the other terrible episodes of this season. I mean, it’s not…
Coming of Age (⭑⭑)
I used to think of this episode as a semi-bright-spot in the mostly dismal first season, and not without reason. Still, it's fraught with problems. On a character level, the…