Some time in 2374, Ben Sisko, tired of helming Deep Space Nine in wartime, considers handing the job over to someone else. At the same time but in 1953, Benny Russell dreams of a version of himself living beyond the daily indignities of existing as a Black man in America. And meanwhile in 1998, people tuning in for this week’s episode of White People Living on the Moon find themselves watching something far better than they had a right to expect.
This week, untrustworthy foreigners attack and terrorise Enterprise for literally no reason other than the arbitrary tenets of their weird and incorrect religion. There’s a lesson to be learned here, but only if you don’t think too hard about it.
Long before the invention of Ronald D Moore, the Klingons were simple souls who enjoyed brownface, poisoning grain, making lists of rules, and planting a bomb on the bridge of the Enterprise. But by 2364, the next generation of Klingons had embraced the wave of liberalism sweeping across the galaxy, all except for a few holdouts who refused to read the series bible and decided they would pass their time yelling and pointing guns at the warp core instead.
In this week’s outstanding instalment of Competent People Solving Space Problems, the Enterprise is hit by an unexpected and dangerous premise which separates the crew into five distinct subplots and forces each of them to confront their greatest fears. Deanna contends with yet another fibriform space anomaly, Geordi faces the horrors of a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song, Worf takes on the unlikely and challenging role of midwife, Data finds himself having to leave his genitals in another room, and Picard is trapped in a confined space and compelled to be nice to people for a while.
A quick trip to the afterlife this week, as B’Elanna discovers the importance of faith and family, and as Voyager itself discovers (too late, perhaps) the importance of the same things. We also learn that hell is the Voyager sets only lit slightly differently, which is something that we had hitherto only suspected.
On the ravaged surface of the Federation colony planet Rana IV, the crew of the USS Enterprise are surprised to discover an excitingly modernist Malibu home set in a lush, quadrilateral garden; after landing on the planet with an away team, Will Riker is surprised to find himself dangling upside down by his ankles; soon after that Deanna Troi is surprised to find herself suffering from an unpleasant and potentially fatal earworm. Meanwhile, back in 1990, Nathan Bottomley and a very young Joe Ford are increasingly surprised to discover a new season of Star Trek: The Next Generation which surpasses both its predecessors in both competence and interest.
Of course the people you care about are going to cause you pain. It will hurt, but the love it yields will far outweigh the sorrow. Now, hand me the electron coupler.
In this week’s Strange New Worlds, we watch standard space genre things happen to relaxed and likeable characters. Which, turns out, works incredibly well.
For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. (Ecclesiastes 9:5)
This week, like every week, we continue to experience our gradual, humiliating dissolution, to dread our own inevitable deaths, and to consider with dismay the deaths of everyone we have ever known or loved. And so, to cheer ourselves up, we decide to watch an episode of Star Trek: Voyager.
This week Enterprise fans get the chance to watch their favourite show with Jonathan and Marina sitting next to them on the couch, which only raises enraging and bewildering questions like Is any of this even real? and Does any of this actually matter? (to which the answers are of course not and if you like, respectively). Meanwhile, Trip is forced to sacrifice himself to ensure that Archer gets the chance to participate in the foundation of the Federation, without which, to be honest, none of us would even be here. Probably.
Basically nothing happens on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine this week, as Nathan undergoes a religious experience which inspires him to be terribly nice to people for a change, while Joe anticipates failing to win a major podcasting award. Still, sometimes it’s just nice to hang out with the people you love, isn’t it?
