PSA: There’s a special screening of Star Trek IV in San Francisco on June 13 to honor the 40th anniversary. Nick Meyer (writer/producer on IV) will be there. I’m sure he will be pleased to explain how a wizard did it.

https://www.voguemovies.com/nicholas-meyer

I contend that it is not actually missing, it’s just not visible from that perspective. When I recreate the shot in Google Earth only the extreme north tip of New Zealand is actually visible:

Joe Satriani’s Crowd Chant was originally going to be called Party on the Enterprise and would have included Trek sound effect samples, but he couldn’t get the licensing to work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCRX-EXR3_U

The urgency in The Measure of a Man makes no sense. The judge should simply pause the transfer order while the question of Data’s personhood is resolved, if necessary by a higher court months or years later.

Scotty: This is the commander of the U.S.S. Enterprise. All cities and installations on Eminiar VII have been located, identified, and fed into our fire control system. In one hour and forty-five minutes, the entire inhabited surface of your planet will be destroyed. You have that long to surrender your hostages. [dramatic music]

Bonus moment, DS9:

unnamed extra: The Federation fleet has surrounded the planet.

Random one-episode extra got the best line in the whole fricken franchise.

Robot Chicken did it first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iauuuhpSfRQ

The correct technical term is magic smoke.

Not the wrong way either.

They also put children on the ship, so maybe the admiralty isn’t so smart.

On the other hand, the few things they do know about him includes that he disobeyed orders cancelling the Farpoint mission, declared red alert in drydock, and that he has conversations with letters of the alphabet.

The thing that gets me about this episode is how it compares to All Good Things.

In AGT there’s a scene where Picard is in the past on the bridge and he’s ordering them into the anomaly, an act which seriously threatens to destroy the ship, and for which he gives no good reason. The crew reasonably objects, and Picard launches into an unpersuasive and platitudinal speech about how awesome the crew is. And the crew goes along with it.

Contrast this with the scene in Allegiance where “Picard” orders them into the anomaly, an act which seriously threatens to destroy the ship and for which he gives no good reason. “Picard” assures them with an unpersuasive and platitudinal speech. And the crew mutinies.

While it’s true that in Allegiance the crew were already suspicious, it’s also true that in the AGT scene the crew didn’t know Picard well enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.

As an audience member, no. We saw the final confrontation between them.

Picard and friends, on the other hand, have legitimate reason to be suspicious.

Wifi access point.

They made a movie that dramatized the accidents really well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh89h8FxNhQ

…are non-US peanut butters less viscous?

I’m out of the loop. What did Paramount do now?

Dragons, giants, monsters, that sort of thing. They weren’t entirely wrong.

Information superhighway

Adding sex appeal to a brand new show:

You can use whatever bathroom you want. I’m just here to inspect genitals.