Weekend Trek “Starship Mine”

Star Trek is a series that often takes a more philosophical approach to whatever sci-fi things are going on.

But sometimes they went for straight-up action, hence this, let’s call it homage to the Christmas classic Die Hard.  Jimmy and Tom have some thoughts below on “Starship Mine”.

“Starship Mine”

Picard faces off alone against a gang of thieves during a dangerous cleaning process on the Enterprise.

jimmy:  Who knew Changling Tuvok first appeared all those years ago?

tomk:  That explains how he was a Klingon on DS9 once too.

jimmy:  Talk about playing the long game.

tomk:  The real Tuvok must have been plenty mad when he found out.  Or he wasn’t because he is a Vulcan.

jimmy:  The latter.

tomk:  Fair enough.  How do you feel about this Christmas episode of TNG?

jimmy:  Not as much broken glass, but enjoyable.

tomk:  It’s the holiday season. You need to bring out every facet of the day, including bizarre bad movies like Silent Night, Deadly Night 2, the source for this:

jimmy:  You’ll always find a way.

tomk:  Life finds a way.

jimmy:  Unless you’re Hutch.  Then death finds a way…though Geordi was shot as well and it was just a flesh wound.

tomk:  ‘Twas naught but a scratch.

jimmy:  But at least it allowed them to somehow turn his visor into the worst dog whistle ever.

tomk:  They wouldn’t have had that problem if Worf was there.

jimmy:  He was faster than Geordi and got out of the reception…that had like 6 people in attendance.

tomk:  If he was there, he would have found those weapons much faster and dispensed with Klingon Justice.

jimmy:  Would make for a short show.  They’d have to pad it with another 20 minutes of Data talking about the weather.

tomk:  He is remarkably good at that.

jimmy:  Apparently.

tomk:  It beat letting anyone else talk to that guy.

jimmy:  I still find the whole set up odd. A reception with 3 people and 4 members of the Enterprise crew minus Picard who really likes horsies.

tomk:  He has a saddle.

jimmy:  That no one knew about.

tomk:  We saw him horseback riding in the holodeck once.

jimmy:  So, is the holodeck just bad at creating horses?  Couldn’t Picard ride a horse at any time?

tomk:  But then he can’t come up with an excuse to leave a bad party for a bit.

jimmy:  And be the only one on the Enterprise.

tomk:  Someone had to go there and stop those thieves that included Tuvok and a Babylon 5 castmember.

jimmy:  I’ll have to take your word on the latter.

tomk:  The red headed alien woman was on B5.

jimmy:  Hopefully she met a better fate than here.

tomk:  She bonded with the ambassador from an advanced alien race, became a very powerful telepath, and maybe a terrorist.

jimmy:  Maybe B5 was a prequel to TNG.

tomk:  It could have been.

You know what the real TNG prequel was?

jimmy:  Don’t tell Ryan.

tomk:  Ryan doesn’t care.

jimmy:  Also true.

tomk:  Plus, Picard killed, like six people in this one.

jimmy:  Some of them “killed themselves” by not being able to run away from a slow moving beam.

tomk:  Well, the ones Picard knocked out sure couldn’t.

jimmy:  No.  But like that guy in the jefferies tube…totally could have gotten away.

tomk:  He was clearly the stupid one.

jimmy:  I don’t think any of them were overly bright.

tomk:  George Takei was probably giving them pep talks.

jimmy:  Being made of stupid would not be great.

tomk:  But it would explain why they thought they could rob the Enterprise.

Also why none of them questioned why their leader only brought a one-person ship to escape in.

jimmy:  Maybe they didn’t know, but excellent point.

tomk:  And why the barber was a bald guy.  But the real Mr. Mott is also a bald guy, so there’s that.

jimmy:  The bald thing crossed my mind too, but you don’t need hair to be able to cut it.

tomk:  True.  My own barber is a bald guy.

jimmy:  There you go. Is he secretly the Captain of the ship?

tomk:  Um, no.

jimmy:  That you know of anyway.

tomk:  You didn’t specify which ship.

jimmy:  Any ship.

tomk:  Well, then maybe.

jimmy:  But certainly not as kick ass as Picard.  Who also at the beginning seemed to know everything about everything.

tomk:  You gotta know things if you are the captain, making all kinds of decisions when other people just can’t.

jimmy:  Sure. But you can’t know everything.

tomk:  That’s why you can ask the computer for help.

jimmy:  Or just Picard apparently.

tomk:  You’d think Data could fill in some gaps.

jimmy:  He was too busy talking about the weather.

tomk:  He really needs better programming. Maybe Riker could have asked Data to distract the guards next time.

jimmy:  Those guards seemed pretty dumb too.  If your hostages are talking and one of them is nonchalantly stroking his beard, they are obviously not planning anything.

tomk:  Hey,you can say a lot with a beard stroke.

jimmy:  Or some other hand signals, like this?

tomk:  Yeah, and Picard got to signal, um, nobody. Really, too bad Worf wasn’t there.

jimmy:  He got burned the last time the Enterprise made a stop, so he got the hell out of there and went to Risa.

tomk:  Yeah, but he would have had fun with Picard.

jimmy:  That’s true.

tomk:  Or at that reception once Hutch got zapped.

jimmy:  They never would have gotten that far if Worf was there.

tomk:  Those fools.

The moral of the story is “Always Take Worf”.

jimmy:  Unless he asks first not to go.

tomk:  Then go with him.

jimmy:  Someone had to listen to Hutch.

tomk:  Send Data.

jimmy:  They didn’t know that yet.

tomk:  He was practicing.

And Data is incapable of boredom.

jimmy:  You’ve got it all figured out.

tomk:  No, I just pay attention.

jimmy:  What’s that now?

tomk:  It’s why you need to do rewatches.

It’s why you need to do rewatches.

jimmy:  Is that a glitch or hilarious?

tomk:  Well, maybe it was there to make sure you pay attention.  Also, my wifi has been buggy the the past twenty minutes or so.

jimmy:  Hilarious it is!

tomk:  Yeah yeah yeah. Have a distraction pizza.

jimmy:  Just like Picard used on his way to Ten Forward.

tomk:  Sure.

But there are things Picard pays attention to.

jimmy:  Like frayed fiber optic cable.

tomk:  Or maybe single women working in stellar cartography.

jimmy:  Because it’s a male dominated field?

tomk:  Or it’s the next episode, when Picard gets his Kirk on.

jimmy:  Sleeping with a green chick?

tomk:  Well, romancing an officer under his command.

jimmy:  Oh La La.

tomk:  Is that a reference to Picard’s Frenchness?

jimmy:  Can I say yes and look clever?

tomk:  Yes.

jimmy:  Then, yes.

tomk:  How clever of you. Ready to move on?

jimmy:  Yippie ki-yay, Mr. Kelly.

tomk:  I’ll take that as a yes.

Next:  “Lessons”