Top 10 Things I Hate About Star Trek: The Next Generation

Before going on, please note, I don't hate Star Trek: The Next Generation. After reading a twitter exchange between me and another blogger that was critical of The Next Generation, a friend listed 21 episodes of TNG that he found impressive and still enjoyed watching. I decided to take his list as something of a challenge and committed to watching all the episodes he mentioned and blog about them.

You can read what I had to say about those episodes over at Superheroes, etc. But here at List SMASH! I wanted to talk a little bit about all the things that bothered me about TNG and what's kept me away until now.


10. This guy.



9. That Guy.



8. The Holodeck.



Yes, I think the idea of the holodeck is very cool. Yes, I want one for myself. Yes, if I had one I would use it for things that would require age verification and a credit card.

But the thing never works like it's supposed to. Ever. Ever. It always tries to kill everyone. It always almost destroys the ship. I love my XBox but if it threatened to blow up my apartment twice a month I think I'd find a way to let go.

7. The races.



First, they're boring. You pick a single defining quality and presto, you've got a Star Trek race. Warlike? Klingons. Greedy? Ferengi. Logical? Vulcans. Annoying? Long Islanders.

Second, all non-human characters are defined by the fact that they aren't human. You never see Picard or Riker pounding their chests and proclaiming, "We! Are! HUMAN!" But if a new Klingon character shows up and doesn't roar "We! Are! KLINGON!" within the first five minutes, the FCC fines Gene Roddenberry's estate.

Third, all of this is particularly annoying because of the recurrent themes in Star Trek: The Next Generation. I mean, it's one thing to watch or read Lord of the Rings and realize that an elf is an elf and that's really all you need to know about him. But it seems to me a series as preachy about tolerance and diversity as Star Trek: The Next Generation should be a bit more imaginative when it comes to conceiving alien races.

6. Time travel.



There seem to be a lot of Trek fans who don't have a high opinion of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Say what you want about Leonard Nimoy's not-remotely-subtle animal conservation message, Star Trek IV treated time travel with respect. It was treated as something unique, something tough to achieve, something incredibly risky, and something not to be undertaken lightly.

I wondered, back when the Trek spin-offs were doing well, why they didn't produce a time-travel-specific Trek series. Star Trek: Journey Through Time or Star Trek: Future Imperfect or Star Trek: Oh Crap, My Watch is Wrong. I quickly answered myself: because, starting with TNG, time travel became so commonplace in the franchise that a time-travel-specific show would be redundant.

More importantly, it seemed eventually time travel became the only way for the writers to actually do something interesting with an episode. When I think of the TNG episodes that genuinely impressed me, they're usually time travel episodes like "Yesterday's Enterprise" and the series finale "All Good Things..."

5. Lights.



What's futuristic or advanced or even particularly functional about having little itty bitty lights that fit in your palm? Sure, the Star Trek creators can't foresee some things. Maybe it isn't their fault that it took them 4 series, 8 movies, and 5 different incarnations of the Enterprise to bring motion sensor activated bathroom sinks into the distant future when rest stops and shopping malls had them for years. But little flashlights? They didn't even try with that one.

4. Morality plays.



Maybe this is a criticism you could easily level at the original Trek series. I couldn't say, I haven't watched it in years. Maybe you could even level it at most television series.

Regardless, I'm not a big fan of TNG's preachiness, in spite of the fact that the beliefs promoted are usually in line with my own. Maybe it's because I want TNG to feel less like other TV. Maybe it's because I just want more spaceships going boom and fewer speeches about intervening in other cultures or why sentient piles of slime shouldn't have to use separate water fountains.

3. TNG's less adventurous spirit compared to the original series.



Kirk fought lizard men hand-to-hand.

Picard mediated trade disputes.

The Borg would never have worked in the original series. Well, okay maybe that's not true. The Borg may have worked in the original Star Trek, but they wouldn't have been as memorable. The Borg would've been a dime-a-dozen in Kirk's rogue's gallery.

But in TNG? With its diplomatic intrigue and Holodeck explorations and its ruminations on the nature of reality? As a race that could not be negotiated with, that would not end the episode by turning the other cheek and admitting that maybe they had something to learn from the Federation too, that would simply kill or consume any jerk in bright tights it came across; the Borg were something truly unique in TNG.

I think this is part of why I've recently found I enjoy Star Trek: Voyager more than I ever liked TNG. Because of Voyager's premise, I feel like there's a constant sense of peril that was also present in the original series but lacking in TNG.

2. The notion that I should care whether or not automated people are real people.



And I don't just mean that in reference to Data. Over and over again, there's this question of whether or not characters in the freaking holodeck are real people with individual rights. I just am not sure how the question of whether or not a hologram facsimile of Sherlock Holmes's fictional nemesis is a real person with the right to exist holds any weight in my life. You know, I think BioShock is a really nifty video game, but I'm not going to march for the characters' rights to vote.

1. Tasha Yar.



The Tupac Shakur of Star Trek. Sneaky minx figured out a way to show up more after she was dead than while she was alive.

Top 10 Reactions To Being Laid Off

10. A lot of people talk about how social networking sites make things more treacherous for employees or potential employees; how people are less productive or how they tend to unwisely post things their employers shouldn't see and almost inevitably will see. I found that yesterday, after being laid off, as I walked from my recently-former job to a bus stop downtown, social networking helped more than it could ever hurt. I was upset and I wanted comfort. I posted what happened on twitter and facebook, but since I didn't want to come off as whiny I forced myself to be funny. The result was that as the well-wishes and support arrived, forcing myself to be funny also forced me to look at things objectively. I was upset and wanted to vent, and who couldn't understand that? But I knew I had two choices: I could hide under the covers for a month and bemoan my lot in life or I could hit the ground running. I don't know if that positive attitude would have settled on me so quickly without the communication with my friends on social networking sites. So no, I don't think calling your boss things that rhyme with "Rock Trucker" on your facebook is wise, but social networking has its uses no matter how easy it is to make fun of.

9. As far as my former employer is concerned, I am content to take the advice of Vince Neil who sang:

Girl, don't go away mad.
Girl, just go away.

In this case, I want to be the girl.

And that's the last time I ever write "I want to be the girl."

8. Being laid off reminds me of how well things work out when I act on my feelings. What I mean is that when I decided to lose weight, I didn't do it because it would help me live longer or because it would help stave off debilitating medical conditions. I didn't do it because it would make me more physically attractive. I did it because, physically, I felt like shit and I didn't want to feel like shit anymore. Same situation when I quit smoking. No one would criticize me for quitting smoking because of all the horrible conditions it can cause, because of the smell, because of the expense, or because of the ever-growing social stigma. I did it because smoking made me feel, physically, like shit and I didn't want to feel like shit anymore. Now, I was obviously very upset after the lay-off, I'm quite active on social networking sites and blogs, and it would have been very easy for me get trigger-happy with my former employer and vent all over the place. There are a lot of good reasons for me to not do that. It would burn bridges. It would certainly not look good to potential employers. It would probably make any former co-workers on Facebook and twitter take me right the hell off their lists because what good would it do them for me to poison their wells? But when it comes right down to it, the reason I didn't do it is that I knew vomiting ill will all over the Internet would just prolong the anger and humiliation. It would just make me feel like shit that much longer. I wish I could say I'm a pragmatist, but when it comes down to it I don't have a Machiavelli bone in my body. I would make the worst Sun-Tzu in the world. I have no mind for strategy. I just don't want to feel like shit.

7. Less than an hour after the lay-off, my phone rang. It was a call for a job interview.

6. Here's how that phone call really made me question my atheism: the job interview is scheduled for Thursday morning. If I had not been laid off, my job duties would have required I drive to Glens Falls - a 45 minute to an hour drive from Albany - Thursday morning. Getting out of the trip to make the interview would have been difficult if not impossible, particularly since I was already supposed to leave early Thursday afternoon for a doctor appointment.

5. For about 2 years I've taken every civil service test I could. I've been to so many tests, I'm surprised the test proctors don't know me by name and give me high-fives on the way in. The tests are held in local high schools on the weekend. I can't believe there are high schools left I haven't taken tests in yet. Albany High, Troy High, Schenectady High, Rensselaer High, OH! By the way. Local High Schools? Make your damn desks bigger already. Don't you know there's an obesity epidemic in this country?

4. When I chose to "hit the ground running," what was most miraculous about the choice was that it was, in fact, a choice. I pictured myself venting and sulking. I pictured myself spending days and and weeks and months fantasizing the epic speeches I would give my former employers; how I would tell them off and make them feel bad. I pictured how miserable every drop of it would make me, and it somehow occurred to me that I could choose to not do that.

3. My job was my job. It helped me pay for food and rent and doctors. Eventually, I came to believe it didn't have much of a future. I felt like I had nowhere else to go; that I was at a dead end. I would lie if I said that right now all I feel is freedom. What happened hurt and it will hurt for a bit, I think. And who wouldn't, in the same situation, want to leave on their own terms? But that job is not my job anymore, I think this is mostly a good thing, and I predict that in time all of me will come to agree with that.

2. Man, there is so much to do.

1. I know all of my friends and loved ones mean well. You've stepped up to comfort and support me in what certainly counts as an hour of crisis and I appreciate that more than you know. But please, you know that I'm just not going to agree to become a male stripper. Yes, I know I got it, but flaunting it feels so...well, frankly it's a little breezy.

Top 10 Thoughts On Highlander

10. For the first time, I browsed the films available for streaming on Hulu. Somehow, I managed to resist the pull of classics like The Adventures of Galgameth and Bloodsport IV: The Dark Kumite to find Highlander, one of maybe 6 movies whose titles I goddamn recognized. My preliminary review is that it's possible Hulu Plus is not worth the extra money.

9. Apparently, the screenwriter of the Twilight adaptations is working on the Highlander remake scheduled for 2014. I look forward to the "I'm On Team Connor!" and "I'm On Team Raped-By-The-Kurgan-In-The-Rubble-Of-A-Tower!" buttons.

8. Speaking of Connor's wife getting raped by The Kurgan, am I the only one who had the thought that - right before The Kurgan attacked - Sean Connery was trying to get it on with Highlander's wife? I'm pretty sure he was trying to get it on with Highlander's wife.

7. While it's customary to bitch about how "They just have to remake everything," I think Highlander is one of the few films that would be served well with a remake.

6. Once Connor kills The Kurgan, that's it. Highlander II, Highlander: Endgame, and every other movie or TV show bearing the name Highlander are considered rogue states in the Republic of Mick. My ambassadors will not acknowledge their legitimacy. Connor killed The Kurgan, Freddie Mercury sang some shit, and the world was a better place. Fade to black.

5. Is it me, or did Connor's first wife seem downright happy when he inexplicably came back to life and was accused of witchcraft? She didn't seem upset at all. She wasn't crying in anguish "NO! My poor husband is possessed by witchcraft! Woe is me!" She's all "Witchcraft! I knew it! I KNEW it! See! SEE?!?!" Don't ever use an ipad around that bitch, or she'll burn you alive.

4. When different Immortals first came in contact with one another, they experienced intense physical pain. Does this mean that me and most of Bravo's programming are Immortal warriors?

3. If I were one of these Immortals, I think I would have developed a much simpler and more effective plan. Part 1 of the plan would involve making money by selling antiques, like Connor. Part 2 of the plan would involve purchasing bazookas.

2. I knew a guy in college - a compulsive liar who often related the real-life kung fu epics that took place in his grade school playground - who watched Highlander every single day. While attending college he was paying alimony and child support to the Russian wife he had ordered through a catalog. I knew him through the campus radio station, and if memory serves he was kicked off the station staff after threatening another DJ with a samurai sword. You know, no matter how far you fall, there's always room for more.

1. If a vampire tried to turn Highlander into a vampire, would the world explode?

Top 10 Reasons Why List SMASH! is back.

10. Money, money, money.

9. In terms of my blogging history, I feel like Superheroes, etc. is my Porno For Pyros, and List SMASH! is my Jane's Addiction. Sure, I might want to move on artistically and try new things, but in the end I always get pulled back to the well. When I write an insightful, but not overly verbose, review of Astro City or the latest Harry Potter movie on Superheroes, etc., the reaction of my readers is not unlike those now-middle-aged fans in Perry Farrell's crowd, yelling "Yeah, yeah, we'd make great pets, that's so clever SING 'JANE SAYS' YOU JUNKIE FUCK!"

8. Writing a top 10 list is remarkably easy. I don't need to worry about whether it's too short or too long. If I remember to count to 10, I win. I don't need to worry about transitions. It doesn't matter if #6 did not thematically link to #5. I am ruled by math.

7. My girlfriend has good memories of List SMASH! And if I'm going to keep stealing money from her purse for liquor I should do something to make it up to her.

6. Gotta do something while the handjob videos download. Some of those files are freaking BIG, man.

5. My deeply rooted insecurity leads me to subconsciously believe that the more people who respond to my writing online, the more people love me.

4. Next time I send a résumé to a potential employer and they don't respond, I won't have to wonder why they didn't respond. I'll assume they found this blog, and then I'll just know.

3. If Ozzy Osbourne can have a farewell tour every few years, I think I'm entitled to stage a return or two.

2. My obscenity-fueled wit offers relief to the pathetic masses yearning for any kind of fleeting distraction from the banal reality awaiting them.

1. If you can do something well, then you should just go ahead and do it. So for me it's either this, or punching monkeys. And punching monkeys is wrong.

Top 10 Things I'm Going To Do When I Lose My Weight

10. Beat up a guy. Not sure who.

9. I'm going to take a plane trip somewhere. I'm going to be comfortable. I'm not going to try to curl my body up into some tight, painful ball for the sake of some skinny bastard next to me.

But I'm going to buy an extra seat anyway. Just 'cause.

8. I'm still not going to dance at parties. Or sing at karaoke. But while I'm NOT doing it, I'll look good.

7. I'm going to be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer character for Halloween. I've always wanted to, but so far this guy has been my only option:



6. I will be more comfortable knowing that if I am ever put in a situation in which me and any companions are forced to cannibalize each other, I have at least as much chance as everyone else.

5. Go swimming.

4. Hang-gliding.

3. I'm going to call the Shogun's Tameshiyaku a fucking liar.



2. I'm going to buy a motorcycle and a muscle car and-NO! No, no, I'm just kidding. My penis is fine.

1. Shave off my beard. And maybe finally find that sandwich.

Top 10 Thoughts Upon Finishing the Harry Potter series

SPOILERS!!!! THIS GODDAMN POST CONTAINS GODDAMN HARRY POTTER SPOILERS!!! BIG TIME!!! YOU'VE BEEN GODDAMNED WARNED!!!!!!

10. Luna Lovegood is a more poignant character than most people realize - perhaps even more than J.K. Rowling realized. She's depicted as crazy for believing in ridiculous things...by people who believe in ridiculous things. "That Luna, she's so nutty! She thinks gnome saliva is good for you! What a weirdo! I'll talk to you more about Luna after my trip. I'm going to fly through the sky on a stick made for sweeping up garbage." It's kind of like people who make fun of Tom Cruise and all those crazy scientologists, and then spend their Sundays praying that the invisible man in the sky will make all their problems go away.

Also, her name makes her sound like an illiterate, eccentric hooker.

9. I would hate to be one of J.K. Rowling's kids. They probably have good, expensive, private educations, but they're probably all named "Flappityblattle" and "Blortimer".

8. Rowling didn't kill even one. FUCKING!!!! MALFOY? Not even ONE?!?! Come on! Didn't she see Lucius Malfoy in The Patriot? Son of a bitch.

7. I would make a good half-a-detective. I kept getting a good chunk of the mystery solved, but never the whole thing. In Prisoner of Azkaban for example, I figured out Sirius was transforming into an animal but - either completely ignoring his name, thinking it was meant to distract, or just (let's be honest) not even knowing what the hell it meant until after the fact - I figured he was Hermione's new (at the time) cat Crookshanks. I figured the big dog was Lupin because Rowling basically put a big fucking billboard on the character that screamed HE'S A WEREWOLF from the get-go, and I wasn't figuring there were two separate characters transforming into canine type deals. Likewise, I was pretty much 99% sure that Snape killed Dumbledore on Dumbledore's orders (Dumbledore's pleading of "Severus...please" wouldn't make sense otherwise because he was supposed to have thought Snape was coming to help him), and I was also fairly sure that Dumbledore was already dying from something else. However, I completely forgot about his fucked up hand and thought he was dying from the potion he drank to get the fake horcrux out of the sea cave.

So I wouldn't necessarily hire me as a private detective. But as a stripper? Hell, YES.

6. Speaking of the Snape-kills-Dumbledore ruse, that brings up something else. Harry reveals that Snape was one of the good guys - something he only believes because Snape granted him his memories as he died. If, on the other hand, Snape had survived the whole mess and been granted the Elder Wand as Dumbledore supposedly planned, how the hell would he have convinced anyone that he wasn't really one of Voldemort's guys? How the hell would anyone even let him survive long enough to prove it (provided there even was a way for him to prove it)? My guess is, super-wand or no super-wand, he would be hunted for the rest of his days and there wouldn't be very many of them.

Conclusion? Dumbledore was kind of an asshole.

5. Snape's story was the reveal I was looking forward to the most, and it didn't disappoint. I find him more interesting than just about any other character in the series.

4. The final battle is really, really wonderful. But you know, I know what I'm about to say is easy, predictable, and completely beside the point. But I don't care.

With all the talk of Mudbloods and Muggle-this and Muggle-that and how silly and helpless the Muggles are, did anyone else think if just one of those little Weasley brats had an uzi, that battle would've been about 50 pages shorter?

3. Neville vs. Nagini = Total F#@$% YEAH moment.

2. Poor Hedwig.

1. I enjoyed the Harry Potter series a lot and am glad my lovely girlfriend finally convinced me to check it out. I can't say that, for my tastes, it surpasses Lord of the Rings, but I do have to say there's one place where Rowling got it right and Tolkien got it wrong.

Elves as ugly little Gollum-esque slaves? I can live with that.

I've always been a dwarf man myself. IRONFORGE RULES! SANTA'S HELPERS GO GET STUFFED!

Top 10 Stupid Things I Should Buy

I lost a lot of weight recently. As of last night's weigh-in, 57.4 pounds. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to introduce some material incentive - every 25 pounds I would give myself a Stupid Reward. Stupid Reward = something that has no practical value, outside its value as weight loss incentive, and something that probably costs more than I would normally spend for something impractical. While I hit the 50 pound mark a few weeks ago, today's paycheck marks the first day I can actually afford to reward myself for it. So...


10. Final Fantasy XIII


This was originally my top choice, but now I'm not so sure. I spent far too many hours on two of its predecessors - Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X. Since foolishly selling off my Playstation 2, I have suffered a painful lack of Final Fantasy (a lack which would probably be best dramatized with lots of clenched faces, wild emotions, and annoying Japanese music), but I hear a lot of the things I loved about those previous games - an open, free-roaming world and lots of little towns with interactive non-player characters - have been stripped from this latest game.

9. Whores


8. Star Trek DVDs - They would be VERY impractical. I wouldn't even watch them.

7. Bookends - While talking to my lovely girlfriend this morning about my disappointment in what I've heard about #10, she suggested I spend the money on bookshelves, which I've been complaining about wanting for a while. I explained to her that the whole point of this reward was that it had NO practical value, whereas bookshelves would clearly be useful. It had to be something stupid that wouldn't improve my life in any real, lasting way. Like beer. Or religion.

If, on the other hand, I bought bookends while having no bookshelves on which to place them, that would be pretty cool. Then I could just sit and look at my expensive, shiny new bookends sitting on my desk and keeping nothing from falling down. Maybe they could even cause things to fall down. You know. If I threw them at someone dizzy or something.

6. Incredible Hulk Omnibus Vol. 1

This collects a whole heaping buttload of early Hulk appearances. But. Well. Don't tell him I told you or anything but, uh. Yeah. A lot of the writing in these early comics? Pretty dumb.

5. Playstation 2 - Then I could play Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X all over again! Of course, I'd have to buy THEM too. Plus, I think there's some kind of law about how many video game consoles you're allowed to own before the state removes your testicles.

4. $75.00 worth of Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi - It might last me 4 whole days! No. More like 3. Yeah. 3.

Well, 2.

3. BioShock 2


You're a dude in a deep sea diving suit with chemically induced super-powers guiding mutated little girls through a city at the bottom of the ocean. This is so fucking ridiculous, I might have to buy two copies.

2. A whole shitload of albums by The Killers



The band I've recently decided to listen to over and over again until I'm sick of them. I love the lead singer's voice. I may have kind of a man-crush. Well, no. Not really. He just has a beautiful voice and face, but it's not a man-crush. Well, okay, I notice his lithe, sensual form but that's it. Okay. Maybe I'd kiss him a little.

1. Burger Phone