She's pretty happy about it--this morning she got really mad because her sister wasn't up yet, and she wanted to see her.
And it's fitting, as a parent, that I just got done watching...
"Q2"
There wasn't a whole lot of meat to this episode, but there was some nice acting and a few funny moments. In other words, it's a good bad episode.
We start out with blatant fanwank, in the best sense of the word--Icheb delivering a report on early Starfleet history that focuses on the exploits of Captain James T. Kirk. Then, Q Jr appears, followed by Q himself, who adds a little fanwank dessert with a reference to his buddy Jean Luc.
So basically Aunt Kathy has to babysit Q Jr for a week and teach him the real meaning of Christmas. Wow, that's getting to be a trend here. A few awesome moments--Q Jr dubbing Neelix "Kitchen Rat," then Neelix's revenge. I was freaked out by mouthless Neelix--shades of the Twilight Zone there. And I was pretty happy to see him get back at Q Jr.
At one point, I paused the DVD to say a brief testimonial for Ethan Phillips. Every day for seven years (well, every working day, but you know what I mean), he went in to work and sat in a makeup chair for hours, getting turned into a goofy-looking alien. Then he continually gave it his best effort. He's got a Levar Burton-like ability to seem really enthusiastic about whatever scene he's in, no matter how ridiculous it is. I respect that a lot. I can now say that while Neelix isn't my favorite character, I think Ethan Phillips is pretty cool for being such a good sport about playing a tough role, and never losing interest.
Back to the episode--I liked the scene where Q Jr turned Engineering into a nightclub. That's actually not a bad concept for a nightclub. If Garrett Wang gets his idea for a sci-fi themed convention center and hotel off the ground, they should go for it. In the spirit of single-word Vegas nightclubs like Tryst, Blush, Pure, etc, he can name it "Core."
And does Janeway almost drop an f-bomb there? It really sounds like she says, "Get your f... guests out of here!" That's totally awesome. You know that when she's not in front of the crew, Janeway curses like a sailor.
Two real kinky moments here: first, naked Seven (well, naked Seven's upper back, but still, I guess), and second, a moment that brought together Janeway fetishists and foot fetishists: Q kissing Janeway's foot. Statistically speaking, I guess there must be a population of fans who are both Janeway devotees and into foot fetish stuff, so this must have been for them what the opening of Trek 09 was for most of us.
And since when does Janeway have a jacuzzi in her quarters?
I liked "Itchy" and QBall working together. Icheb really got a chance to shine in this episode. I noticed that he does a pretty good dirty look, too--about 7 on the Sawyer scale.*
Ironically, in an episode about parenting, we don't see Samantha Wildman at all, and the one guy with the most experience as a parent, Tuvok, is limited to doing cardio with Q Jr. They did lampshade Janeway's lack of qualifications as a parent, so I'll give them credit for that. If money was no object, I would have liked to have seen Bill Cosby guest star in this and share a few witticisms about parenting.
So I liked this episode, even though it was pretty lightweight. It proved that self-referential isn't necessarily bad, particularly if it's not too serious.
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This is my own innovation--the guy who played Sawyer on Lost (whose name I've forgotten thanks to sleep deprivation) was really good at giving people dirty looks. I've thought that, if he doesn't have another acting gig lined up yet, he could make a pretty good living renting himself out. A lot of people would pay a lot of money to have him walk into their workplace, give all of their co-workers the Sawyer dirty look, say "Son of a bitch" to no one in particular, then walk out. The guy who plays Icheb isn't quite at that level yet, but he's pretty good.
) 
Thank you Q!
