To Baldly Go

Star Trek TNG S2E01-03 – The Child, Where Silence Has Lease, Elementary, Dear Data “Not Very Effective” | First-Time Reaction – To Baldly Go Podcast (Ep. 041)

Season 2 begins… and Riker grows the beard.

This week, I continue my first-ever watch of Star Trek in release order, joined by my long-time Trekkie friends. We’re covering:

• The Child – Space curiosity, questionable execution, and character shifts

• Where Silence Has Lea...

Star Trek TNG S1E24–26 – “The Biggest Trekkie” | First-Time Reaction | To Baldly Go Podcast (Ep. 040)

We’ve reached the end of Season 1 of Star Trek: The Next Generation — and apparently… I’m now the biggest Trekkie on the podcast.

In Episode 040 of The To Baldly Go Podcast, we break down:

• “We’ll Always Have Paris”

• “Conspiracy”

• “The Neutral Zone”

This week’s highlights include:

• Exceptional mediocrity

• Practi...

This week on the To Baldly Go Podcast:

• Smart devices try to kill us.
• Star Trek does an after-school special about drugs.
• And a main character dies… suddenly.

We’re discussing:

• TNG S1E21 – Arsenal of Freedom
• TNG S1E22 – Symbiosis
• TNG S1E23 – Skin of Evil

Topics include:

• Thanking Alexa
• Nate hating Geordi
• The Prime Directive vs. addiction
• Evil space pharmaceutical reps
• Stoicism and sudden loss
• Armus vs. Jigs...

This week:

• Home Soil, Coming of Age, Heart of Glory
• Devil in the Dark, redux?
• Ugly bags of mostly water
• What is life?
• Is Data alive? Is Data human?
• Is Data just ChatGPT in a synthetic skin suit?
• I step away while Abbie and Nate continue the conversation, looking ahead to things I haven’t seen
• The love of being wrong
• Observations of ADR and television production
• Picard’s maturity
• Distinct storylines that don’t come together
• Ser...

This week:

• 11001001, Too Short a Season, When the Bough Breaks
• Nate concedes a point
• Season 1 has been underwhelming, but we have the best episode yet
• More commentary on the medium of network or syndicated TV
• The holodeck
• Abbie’s anesthesia dream
• Deliberate scientific inaccuracies in Star Trek
• An unrelated story in the Star Trek universe
• 21st century ozone hole
• An appropriate use for Wesley
• What is a society?
• Stories that woul...

This week:

• Ferengi less cartoonish
• Still difficult to take them seriously as adversaries
• Lore and worldbuilding
• Nate sees Picard giving up early
• A/B storylines and storytelling in Star Trek
• Improvements in the medium over the 1960s
• Suspension of disbelief and faster than light travel
• Solar system versus other star systems
• Nostalgia
• Music in Next Gen
• Returning characters
• Q is kind of weird
• Using Q to explore human nature
• Assumi...

This week:

• A tribute to Scott Adams
• Where No One Has Gone Before, Lonely Among Us, Justice
• Abbie realizes how annoying Wesley is
• Similar to The Original Series, but different enough
• Thoughts and prayers to get home
• What is the time range of this iteration of the Enterprise?
• Curiosity
• Stoic philosophy
• Self-proclaimed experts and hubris
• Confidence without arrogance
• A body-swap episode?  No way!
• Sherlock Data
• Sometimes efforts an...

In this episode:

• The Naked Now, Code of Honor, The Last Outpost
• I feel like we’ve seen this before
• An homage?
• Gregg’s 9s and 10s and his one problem with the series
• Gregg doesn’t like Wesley
• Stories are more refined
• Too early to have a “different characters” episode?
• Visionary vs executor
• Aaron’s Data moment
• Feeling like Original Series episodes
• Issues with Tasha Yar
• Even bad Star Trek is still great Star Trek
• Prime Directive ...

In this episode:

• The premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation – Encounter at Farpoint
• Joined by my old friend, Gregg
• Gregg’s background with Star Trek
• Felt like a pilot episode, but overall good
• Original Series comparisons
• Star Trek feel with a much bigger scope
• A hopeful future with a bleak near-term view
• Gregg rates a 9 and says it can only go up from here
• Nate’s old technical manuals
• Next Generation trailer
• Target demogra...

This episode we discuss:

• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
• Didn’t go full Captain Planet
• Nate surprised by his rating
• Felt like a long episode
• Ralph Winter – producer
• Chekov in 1980s San Francisco
• The pitfalls of knowing there is more to come
• Plot holes
• No butterfly effect?
• Different timelines?
• A Commander Random sighting
• Plot devices vs. realistic story progress
• Star Trek: Movie Memories – by William Shatner
• Sulu’s lost movie mom...

In this episode we discuss:

• No more Animated Series
• Enjoying the dialogue more upon second viewing
• How Abbie remembers Star Trek
• Two years thinking Spock was dead
• Leonard Nimoy directs
• Curse of the odd-numbered Star Trek films
• Choppy scenes missing the emotional, dramatic effect
• Another Yeoman Rand-om sighting
• Sacrificing the Enterprise
• Krug – the Klingon John Wick?
• A compelling villain
• Extra-Kirk
• What happened to Spock’s body...

This week, Nate and I discuss:

• The Emmy-award winning Star Trek: The Animated Series
• Stopped rating the episodes
• Less than the sum of its parts?
• A bad series
• Animated Series as punishments
• Spaceships and aliens
• Target demographics
• Shortcomings of TAS
• No Chekov
• The great episode of TAS – a top episode for the franchise to this point
• Political implications of airing certain episodes
• Is TAS canon?
• Life support belts
• Kirk was the ...

In this episode Abbie, Nate, and I discuss:

• Final seven episodes of The Original Series
• Another episode it feels like we’ve seen before
• Fairy Tale by Stephen King
• Abbie wanted to DNF episodes
• Creepy, ick factor
• Valentine’s Day Star Trek episode
• Worst episode of The Original Series
• DC Fontana
• Qualified ratings – a “Season 3” Seven
• Mixed messaging
• Space Lincoln
• Anti-war, but winning a war at all costs
• A real, not real Abraham Li...

This week I am joined by my wife, Abbie, and our friend, Nate, as we discuss:

• Let that Be Your Last Battlefield, The Mark of Gideon, and That Which Survives
• The Trouble with Tribbles story
• Elaan of Troyius recap now that Abbie is back
• Overt messaging in shows
• Star Trek without Gene Roddenberry
• Is a good message enough to carry an episode?
• A Captain’s responsibility to keep the ship out of enemy hands
• Great Enterprise security
• ...

This week we discuss:

• The Empath, Elaan of Troyius, and Whom Gods Destroy
• Star Trek: Saw
• What do you do if you have limited resources and can’t save everyone?
• Low-percentage vs no-percentage
• Intellect alone is not sufficient
• Kirk acting in slow motion?
• Book recommendation – Shadow Divers – don’t get the bends!
• Star Trek’s Helen of Troy?
• Stories about things that the stories aren’t about
• Elaan hit first
• Tony Soprano is a bad pe...

This week we discuss:

• The Tholian Web, Plato’s Stepchildren, and Wink of an Eye
• We continue last week’s debate and how Nate is wrong
• A traditional Star Trek episode
• Ratings with qualifiers
• Episode and series hero journeys
• Scotty the full-blown alcoholic?
• A weak spot in the episode?
• Explaining to the audience instead of the characters
• Grown-up storytelling
• Shatner stepping back in an episode
• Could this have been a TNG episode?
• ...

In this episode, we discuss:

• Spectre of the Gun, The Day of the Dove, and For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky
• Budget issues during Season 3?
• Nate is over the non-spacey episodes
• Some bourbon discussion
• Klingons with swords
• Nate rejects the premise of the episode
• Nate nearly rage quits the podcast over the IMDB rating
• I claim victory in the discussion
• We’ve seen this episode before
• A Star Trek Sith Lord
• Who is pu...

In this episode, we discuss:

• Abbie and I had an opportunity to watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and a Q&A session with William Shatner
• For a 92-year-old man, Shatner was ranting and raving and moving around pretty well
• An education in COPD and lung disease
• The impact of the Actors’ Strike on the show
• Stories about bow hunting and pranks on DeForest Kelley
• Getting pulled over dressed as Captain Kirk
• No shit, Shatner!
• S...

In this episode, we discuss:

• The Paradise Syndrome, And the Children Shall Lead, and Is There in Truth no Beauty?
• Star Trek: Renegades
• Other TV discussion
• The worst episode yet?
• Was life in the past better than life today? Life without Advil…
• House spoilers
• Tahiti Syndrome
• Differences between cultural appropriation and cultural assimilation
• Greek mythology
• Kirk’s fear
• We decide on an episode title
• Without followers, evil canno...