Sunday, November 19, 2006

The Inner Light

(pre-emptive note to all Star Trek: The Next Generation fans - Feel free to leave a comment on this entry as to what your favorite episodes are.)

Tonight my wife and I watched what I consider to be one of the best Star Trek episodes ever, called "The Inner Light." I'm not much for assigning rankings, but near the top of my "best ever" list would be this one, "Best of Both Worlds" (1 and 2), "All Good Things," and...I'm not sure. I think what I enjoy about the one we just saw is how well-done it all is. In under 40 minutes Picard lives an entirely different life, and it all connects together in the end with the flute that he learns to play in the alternate life once he's back to his normal life. I really get a kick out of stories like that, where a talisman or some such object is brought back long after it is introduced, and it turns out to hold a much greater significance than was immediately apparent at first. The myriad sub-plots (his wife, his friend, his quest to save the dying planet) are treated with a deft stroke that somehow manages to incorporate an entirely different side (not sub) plot regarding the Enterprise crew's efforts to save Picard.

All in all it's just a great example of great writing and character development.

I did not get a Nintendo Wii this weekend, which means I am now sitting squarely in the last generation of consoles, a position I have not been in since pre-N64 days (I got one of those from Toys-R-Us three days before the official US launch, and got a GameCube the day of the US launch). I'm not too interested in the 360, and have virtually no ambition to play the PS3 whatsoever, but the Wii really does intrigue me. I suppose I'll get one eventually, but for now I'm very much looking forward to playing with the one my brother picked up at 12:01 this morning. I spoke with him earlier today and he said our dad was having fun playing a golf game with it. My dad playing video games? Surely there has to be something incredible about this system. :)

And now back to my quest to finish the Library level of Halo on Heroic. FTW!!!111!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i loved that episode of star trek! you've never seen it before now? and you call yourself a trekkie? ;)
so i'm finally checking out your blog! haha only on the second one, but had to comment...
:D

Anonymous said...

Actually, I have seen that episode a few times (as far as I know, I've seen every episode of TNG, most at least twice. I've also seen every episode of Voyager.). And yes, I do call myself a trekkie. :)