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Gizmodo: 30 Years on, TNG's Ghost Sex Episode Remains as Unhinged and Awful as Ever

I agree. Masks is one of my favorite episodes. It's a great showcase for Spiner to stretch out a little and the whole idea of an alien library transforming the Enterprise into a replica of its culture is badass. It's a story idea that I can seeing fitting in easily with TOS.

Brent Spiner is actually the reason I don’t particularly like the episode. He had a tendency to be extremely hammy in roles other than Data and this one he just let rip and had so many unbearably overacted monologues. I just wanted him to shut the hell up.

There were some neat ideas and I like the spooky, unsettling atmosphere. Overall it’s a mess, though, and rather nonsensical. That said, at least it’s not deathly dull like a number of other episodes (“Bloodlines”, “Force of Nature”, “Interface” all put me to sleep).
 
I just rewatched "Move Along Home", and thought it was pretty harmless. Not brilliant, but not on a level of stinkers like "Threshold" or "Profit and Lace".
 
Wouldn't it be a PADD?

My assumption is that many measurements used are translated by the universal translator for our benefit, when Spock said "Under at least one hundred miles of solid rock" to Kirk in The Savage Curtain, he likely said something like "Under at least 200km of solid rock", but to viewers in the 1960s the UT translated to miles.

As such, Janeway's "at least 3cm thick" could have been "at least 200 flurbles long", where a flurble is a measure of futuristic length of a manual of about an A4 page in a digital world.
 
Brent Spiner is actually the reason I don’t particularly like the episode. He had a tendency to be extremely hammy in roles other than Data and this one he just let rip and had so many unbearably overacted monologues. I just wanted him to shut the hell up.

There were some neat ideas and I like the spooky, unsettling atmosphere. Overall it’s a mess, though, and rather nonsensical. That said, at least it’s not deathly dull like a number of other episodes (“Bloodlines”, “Force of Nature”, “Interface” all put me to sleep).

Commenting on the bolded part.
In that, we are in full agreement. So many bland and dull stories as the series went on.
As far as Force of Nature is concerned, it wouldn't be half bad except for the overt and blatant climate change message.
 
As far as Force of Nature is concerned, it wouldn't be half bad except for the overt and blatant climate change message.
The most damning thing about Force of Nature is that after the episode they could have disregarded it or explored it. (It would have been like The Burn 20+ years early.) "This is for the greatest good and what does this mean for our Post Scarcity society? Esp. when other governments won't give it the time of day?" (I wonder if the Romulans were sitting back with pointy-eared grins thinking "Hey, our FTL doesn't work like that. So best of luck, Feds.")

But they did acknowledge it in further episodes. By almost immediately saying "Hey, we know this is bad, but we have WAY more important things to worry about." (So much for the evolved sensibilities or Roddenberry Humans.) And then off screen (in various behind the scenes publications) they said "You know what? We came up with a tech solution. Almost immediately. Super easy, barely an inconvenience. We can still go as fast as we want and keep all of our super cool toys that make our way of life possible." Which is a kind of variation on various arguments AGAINST radical action on climate change.

And that's a weird look for Star Trek.
 
Brent Spiner is actually the reason I don’t particularly like the episode. He had a tendency to be extremely hammy in roles other than Data and this one he just let rip and had so many unbearably overacted monologues. I just wanted him to shut the hell up.

I think it's an unpopular opinion, but I completely agree with you. He's a fantastic Data, but anytime they had him play a human or Data possessed by threat of the week, he really over acts. Possibly the only exception is his appearance in Enterprise, which I quite liked.
 
Oh Really?
Someone would have to back me up on this (if true) but I believe both Voyager and the Enterprise E were said to have warp drives that did not degrade space (or whatever the problem was in Force of Nature).

Going from a decades old memory here (I think the last time I watched the episode was 15 or 20 years ago) the thing I thought was really cool in FoN was how when all the warp dive shenanigans happened that ships that were (in Star Trek terms) right next to each other were suddenly hours or days or weeks apart. I just love that kind of demonstration of how miraculous warp drive would be and how huge even "local" space is.
 
Masks is panned by many (not by me though. I love it) but to consider it worse than Sub Rosa is batshit crazy.
Wish I could like this twice.
I agree. Masks is one of my favorite episodes. It's a great showcase for Spiner to stretch out a little and the whole idea of an alien library transforming the Enterprise into a replica of its culture is badass. It's a story idea that I can see fitting in easily with TOS.

I can't abide Move Along Home though.
Yeah, I am in the same boat. I can get behind Masks in an almost high concept scifi type of a way where the crew has to look in to a culture for the answer. It's quite a fun concept and has a really strong atmosphere.

Move Along Home is too casual in its cruelty for me to enjoy it.
 
Hmm. I did a Google search. Not just any "ghost fucker" candle; a "ghost fucker" candle from Latvia.

Gates had a funny remark about that episode when it came up in a convention Q&A, decades ago.

And actually, I always rather liked "Masks." And "Move Along Home" (better than one Dominion War episode after another!)*

And of course, without "Move Along Home," one of the gags in Boimler's tirade near the end of "Reflections" couldn't have happened.

_____
* Not that I would ever damn "Move Along Home" with faint praise, I'd also say that simultaneous root canal work and hemorrhoid surgery would be better than endless Dominion War episodes. Or endless pah wraith episodes. Or endless Section 31 episodes (especially if they invoke the Eye-Scream trope).
 
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* Not that I would ever damn "Move Along Home" with faint praise, I'd also say that simultaneous root canal work and hemorrhoid surgery would be better than endless Dominion War episodes. Or endless pah wraith episodes. Or endless Section 31 episodes (especially if they invoke the Eye-Scream trope).
Hard pass on the root canal or Move Along Home.

At least the other ideas you list actually feel like they have a point. Move Along Home feels utterly pointless. Same with Sub-Rosa. Both get tossed in the, "If I never think of them again it will be too soon," bin.
 
Someone would have to back me up on this (if true) but I believe both Voyager and the Enterprise E were said to have warp drives that did not degrade space (or whatever the problem was in Force of Nature).
And what of the multitude of ships already in service? I can't speak for what the novels did, but it's pretty clear the canon stuff just decided to ignore it after that token "Authorized to exceed warp five for this mission..." stuff. (Personally, I was glad for it.)

Edit: I'm not even sure the decision makers behind the scenes even planned for it to have any long-lasting effect. The episode ends with "Until we can find a way to fix it, certain areas of space will have a speed limit". It's the kind of thing that can be wrapped up in a single episode, but they just never bothered. Possibly because the story was a dud, possibly because TNG was ending soon anyway, possibly because they never intended to come back to it anyway.
 
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Someone would have to back me up on this (if true) but I believe both Voyager and the Enterprise E were said to have warp drives that did not degrade space (or whatever the problem was in Force of Nature).

Voyager's nacelle pylons changed height and the problem was resolved. Less documented is the Enterprise-E, but as its nacelles are much longer and have a variable glow in the Bussard collectors, they just used different calculations, longer nacelles but less proverbial amperage going through them along with rendering variable the tasks that the Collectors can do in order to mitigate the destructive effects. Probably.

It also explains why Picard opted to fly the Big-E to the "First Contact" battle instead of simply transmitting the solution to the fleet via slower subspace audio -- all while said fleet were all being splattered'n'splodied by the ever-adapting Borg, who'd sent... just one... teensy cube... to the big battle. (Oh, meanwhile on Voyager, Borg episodes had the cybernetic nasties discussing sending a whopping two cubes to a society that was largely on par with the Federation's* as it'd be an easy win for them, while conjuring up some dumb reason why Federation people kept beating them despite by a hair and more by random chance more than anything else. Okey dokey then...)

TNG's remaining year of "Go past warp 5" was just lame, although "All Good Things" had a nifty idea and canonized the third nacelle as means to get around the effect on the fabric of space by making a warp bubble thingy in a way that wasn't aggressive and mitigated the damage. Like replacing CFCs in hairspray with another product so that everyone could keep those cool post-punk new wave hairstyles going right along with that silly ozone layer and all. (And yeah, symmetrical nacelles generally worked better, and a single nacelle has always been udder pants**, but the third nacelle approach really looked good... on the "D", anyway...)

* complete with random phaser frequencies when it's simpler for the Borg just to adjust their shields to absorb anything within the entire range of frequencies and adjust every time a new frequency is detected, with heuristic scanning - if they can scan phaser emitters, that's the preemptive battle right there. No fuss, no muss
** or if this were a cow, it'd be udder pants, but I digress​

Offscreen, they probably prioritized missions and put to the side and traveled less. Whatever the Romulans, Klingons, Borg, Pakleds, the Galaxy Child critters who presumably ate beans and farted their way around the cosmos, etc, etc, wasn't brought up.

Going from a decades old memory here (I think the last time I watched the episode was 15 or 20 years ago) the thing I thought was really cool in FoN was how when all the warp dive shenanigans happened that ships that were (in Star Trek terms) right next to each other were suddenly hours or days or weeks apart. I just love that kind of demonstration of how miraculous warp drive would be and how huge even "local" space is.

"Where No Man Has Gone Before" was one of the other and just as very rare occasions that really sold the bleakness of space, should the engines putter out. One can't reuse the same trope every week of course, but WNOMGB did a better job IMHO - only because it didn't have residual baggage that would be conveniently put aside. (Apart from throwaway fluff like a third nacelle, birdlike flapping nacelle pylons, plus the holiday blinky light show that adorned the Big-E...)
 
With today's love of consistency and lasting repercussions (and an aversion to "hand waves"), you'd think folks would gobble up that limitation as though it were caviar served on the finest silver; reducing the maximum travel speed across the board would reintroduce a bit of that "Wild West" element from TOS back into the Star Trek universe.
 
"Where No Man Has Gone Before" was one of the other and just as very rare occasions that really sold the bleakness of space, should the engines putter out.
Oh heavens yes. Alexander Courage helped too.

With today's love of consistency and lasting repercussions (and an aversion to "hand waves"), you'd think folks would gobble up that limitation as though it were caviar served on the finest silver; reducing the maximum travel speed across the board would reintroduce a bit of that "Wild West" element from TOS back into the Star Trek universe.
Indeed I would. But we live with Star Trek where even "three days to Vulcan" is unbearable. You should be able to get there in less time than it takes R2 and Chewie to play chess.
 
With today's love of consistency and lasting repercussions (and an aversion to "hand waves"), you'd think folks would gobble up that limitation as though it were caviar served on the finest silver; reducing the maximum travel speed across the board would reintroduce a bit of that "Wild West" element from TOS back into the Star Trek universe.
The reason I personally don't like it is because it's a completely pointless change. Everyone gets to where they're going at the speed of plot anyway, so the restriction would only eat up screentime by being mentioned over and over. It accomplishes nothing on its own other than potential tediousness.
 
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