The Tuesday Taste: The Great Canadian Veggie Burger Showdown

 

Another week, another taste! This week marks the end of Vegetarian Month, and so it's time to do something a little special. Instead of reviewing one particular thing, this time I'm looking at not two... but three! It's a veggie burger chowdown showdown!

Doing a bit of research, not many burger chains offer a veggie burger option. McDonalds doesn't at all, while Burger King does at the very back of their menu (and frankly, you'd have to pay me to try that one). Burger's Priest offers a fried portobello burger stuffed with cheese, which while intriguing, I decided to stick with a basic ol' veggie patty here. Which leaves these three! Who will come out on stop? We'll see. For now, we begin with...

 

A&W 

 

Did you know that A&W is actually an independent Canadian chain? Originally they were affiliated with the American company of the same name, but the Canadian operation was bought out by its own management in the 90s and is so now a separate entity. Neat stuff! Now somebody open up that In-N-Out chain up here and we'll be rolling. 

The A&W Beyond Meat burger is tasty, though is also the sauciest of the three. I find A&W burgers usually are this way (and their regular beef patties can be overly salty) and this one was loaded up with mayo. Not saying I mind that at all (I've been told my homemade sandwiches are often drenched in condiments) just saying its a consistent presence with this burger.

As a burger, the texture is extremely soft, the consistency like a disk of fried beans. There's a bit of mushroom taste to it, and a bit of grill flavour which is definitely most welcome, as is the nicely toasted sesame seed bun. I'd say of the three, this was the one most resembling a fast food beef burger... tasty stuff but the lack of firmness gives away the illusion.

 

Harvey's

 

 

Now we're getting spicy. Say what you will about their regular burgers (and I will eventually), Harvey's does the customization thing rather well. It's the accessibility of the condiments that does it for me: being able to see the lettuce, onions, relish, various sauces etc while they dress your burger in front of you, it's a nice touch and as a visual guide really helps you decide what you want.

I tend to go fairly bare bones with burgers when given the choice: gimme lettuce, pickle (or even better cucumber) one sauce and cheese if possible. Not to say I dislike extravagance either (whenever I get around to reviewing a place like Burger's Priest for instance, it'd be silly to play it safe instead of dipping into on of their crazy options). With the Harvey's veggie burger, I kept it along that simple framework: lettuce, relish, cucumber, the veggie patty (obviously) and something I found too compelling to resist: a creamy ghost pepper sauce. 

I even asked for more of it, and glad I did. It gives this burger a nice slow building heat... at first it seems like just any sweetish chipotle mayo, but by the end my mouth was exhaling some decent fire. The rest of the burger was fairly agreeable in certain degrees: the Harvey's buns can be kind of stiff, but this veggie patty was rather nice in taste and texture. Firm on the outside yet thankfully not dry, and with more of a plant taste than the grilled bean flavour of A&W.

Really quite impressed, especially with that sauce. Also a shoutout to the young fella who prepared my burger, as there were two containers of shredded lettuce (one significantly more wilted and brownish) and he elected for the much fresher one. It's the little things that can win you over.

 

Hero Burger

 

 

Our final entry into this grand contest, Hero Burger indeed features a veggie burger described as a "veggie soul patty", which... well it's got soul but is it a soldier? (2005 called, it wants its joke back). Well, if you were hoping I'd rip into at least one of these for being bad, sorry to disappoint you because this one was pretty decent also! I didn't exactly follow their exact menu (the Hero menu option has mushrooms, sauteed onions, which I omitted) but kept the jalapenos, lettuce, switched the multigrain bun for a poppy seed one and added some Hero sauce.

This "veggie soul" patty might be the weakest of the three. Not that it's bad, but with its external crunchiness and slight spongey internal texture it made me think this was like a falafel burger of some kind. It may have been semi-overcooked but hey, no redos here on the TT (especially since I've had enough veggie burgers to last a year this past month).

The biggest strengths are the supporting elements: this is easily the best bun (soft and compact, Ace Bakery I believe), the Hero Sauce is like a peppery citrus mayo (lemon sweet perhaps) and the jalapenos flavourful, juicy and large (not generic canned type stuff). At first I was unimpressed, since my first bite was entirely just bun and the crunchy veggie patty, but it grew on me enough that by the end I was rather satisfied. Perhaps not immediately craving another, though in a way (knowing certain chemicals you find in fast food) that could speak to a higher standard of ingredients. 

The Verdict!

They each have their strengths: A&W the best imitation of meat, Harvey's the best flavour and Hero the best overall quality. With all that in mind... I'd have to award Harvey's the winner. My vegetarian month ends very soon and their veggie option is the only one I could see myself actually returning to once eating meat again. Ironically, I think Hero and A&W both make better beef burgers, at least for now... Future reviews!

 

Burnt Ends - It's been a baseball week! Aside from being your friendly neighbourhood food reviewer, I occasionally write about Blue Jays baseball, or baseball in general, on Battersbox.ca. This past week I've been busy reviewing every MLB team, division by division, and just today my preview of the American League West is up. Wednesday will be the AL Central, and just in time for opening day will be my look at the AL East. The National League is already posted, so check out the NL West, NL Central and NL East if you're hungry for some wild baseball speculation.  

Tuesday Tune - As much as I enjoy all this free time to be able to write all these reviews, previews and hateviews of Season 1 Star Trek TNG, it'd be nice to get back to my regular (paying) job sometime soon. Definitely feeling the "waiting this out" blues, so here's a tune that sort of fits that (plus the drums are great on this track):

That's all for this week! With Vegetarian Month over, my options are wide open again. Will next week be something completely crazy to make up for all this meatless time? Find out next time. Until then, go Blue Jays, be kind to each other, take care and don't spill the mustard.

 

            

  

The Tuesday Taste: Fat Bastard's Spicy Tofu Burrito

 

 

I don't know, why you bother

Nothing's ever good enough for you

I was there

it wasn't like that

You've come here just to start a fight

 

Another Tuesday, another taste! It's still Vegetarian Month, and it hasn't exactly been a thrill thus far (grilled cheese is nutritious, right? Right?). However, this week I gave a food I've never liked another attempt to shine... tofu.

Quite certain the reason for my dislike is that when I was younger I didn't like the texture of it, finding it weird and bland. This time, older me went to the Fat Bastard Burrito location here in the Beaches (a dude tried to recruit me onto their softball team once) and ordered their Sweet and Spicy Tofu burrito, filled with most of the usual burrito fixins (refried beans, lettuce, rice, green peppers, guacamole, green onion and sauces).

Lemme say that it was rather good. It's challenging to make actual bad burrito sure, but this one was indeed tasty and filling... the guac liberally applied and adding a nice subtle sweetness. The real question though is: did I like the tofu? Well... well...

I did! ...to a point. I liked the quiet sweet heat of it (and appreciate the truth in the title) and when still warm and fresh it reminded me of a mix between chicken breast and cheese curds. There's the consistency of freshly cooked chicken and a similar initial flavour on first bite, but with that squeakiness of a real cheese curd.

For 80 percent of this I was impressed, even considering buying tofu myself one day to try cooking it in something. Alas. Once it goes cold, as most burritos rightfully worth their girth should before eaten completely... tofu becomes very chewy and kinda tedious to eat. Kind of like when you're eating a dry pork chop when the flavour has left your mouth after the first chew. Once again, it's a texture thing for me and I'm sorry/not sorry to say... still don't really like tofu. Wouldn't say I dislike it, just meh.

Consolation though, if I ever do this vegetarian month thing again... it was a mighty tasty burrito and a good option for when that craving hits. It's not option #1 (or 5) for me, but that's me and objectively I do recommend it.   

 

Burnt Ends - Finally got my reviews of the worst Star Trek Next Generation out the door! Check them out here and here, if you want to read me curse and lambaste some truly awful sci-fi television. I do love TNG (I swear) though, and once I'm done this final article of their worst episodes I'll think of something more positive to write about it. Also, a friend of mine and I have decided to collaborate potentially on writing a Radiohead album retrospective. It's in the drawing board stages for now but I'll keep the updates coming.

Patio Party - They've reopened patios at limited capacity here in Toronto this past weekend, and I have very conflicting feelings about it. I'm a longtime restaurant/bar industry worker myself as are many of my friends, and while I want to see them finally back to work I also want them to be able to do so in a safe environment... which I'm not entirely convinced is currently the case. I get it: we've all been cooped up for months in an especially lonely winter (tell me about it) and are eager to finally be outside, socialize with friends and forget these troubles. These troubles just are not quite over yet, though. All I'll say is, if you do go out on a patio with some friends... treat your server extra well because it's not just their livelihood right now it's also their life.

Tuesday Tune - I mentioned the big Radiohead project earlier, and so as the opening of this article suggested... here's a great tune from their somewhat overlooked 2003 album.

 

 

     

That's it for now, lets get outta here! At least, that's what I'm saying to myself this month. Stay safe out there, treat each other with decency and respect... don't drop the mustard.

 

 

The Worst Star Trek Next Generation Episodes - Part Two

 

 

We're back talking about Star Trek: Next Gen! Truly a classic show, one I grew up with and love dearly, thanks to their iconic characters, strong moral arguments, quotable dialogue and memorable storytelling.

But... they didn't always get the barrel square on the ball, particularly in that painful first season. So now we continue with the worst episodes from Season 2 onward... sorry.

  

The Child (s2 e1)

 

  

What a brilliant way to premiere a new season.... 

A lot of terrible Trek episodes are interesting concepts just badly bungled for whatever reason. The Child is not one of those. It takes a fairly generic "transporting dangerous bio-hazards" plot and mixes it with... well... any story-line that turns a main character into an unwilling incubator and doesn't explore or even acknowledge those particular implications... well "offensive" doesn't begin to cover it. I need help expressing my sentiments on this story. 

Not helping this extremely uncomfortable affair is the introduction of Doctor Pulaski, who replaced Dr. Crusher for Season 2. Diana Muldar had prior experience with Trek, appearing as a guest star twice the original series as two different characters (one awesome episode, the other pretty meh). Unfortunately, Pulaski does not make a good first impression on the audience, by her constant belittling of Data's technological nature and even mispronouncing his name at one point (then being condescendingly aghast when he corrects her. It's stupid and terrible). 

Of course the biggest stupid and terrible problem, is what they've done to Troi here. An alien entity invades her body while she sleeps, impregnates her and within like three minutes of episode time bam! Child. That's a violation, full shitload-of-fuck stop. Oh sure, the episode tries to soften that implication by giving her a pain free delivery, or hand waving away any lasting physical damage by saying there's no trace Troi ever had even given birth afterwards... but come on. The episode doesn't even hint in the direction of exploring the physical or mental effects, ethics and/or politics regarding rape and rape-related abortions. I definitely get those can be prickly and complex topics to explore on your science fiction show, particularly in 1988 or whenever this aired... but are you really saying things are so laissez faire in the 24th century that nobody even acknowledges this kind of thing? Seriously? Are Starfleet officers walking around like: "Some alien laser pointer knocked up Troi in her sleep? Why same thing happened to Ensign Johnson just a week ago, except it entered through a different hole! Ah must be a .6 Stardate." 

I don't even how how to define this... ignorance? Narrative blind spot? Misogynistic fantasy? Indifference? It's astounding whatever it is. Astoundingly horrible.

You just can't write a plot point like that and never make it relevant again later in the same damn episode. Either change it (oh please please) or that's your episode because as I argued earlier, there complex issues unignoreable with an unwanted pregnancy to one of your main characters. Issues that if explored fairly and competently, could really create some character developments, hard decisions, moral arguments and or maybe some lasting emotional farewell. You know, drama! TNG didn't always bat 1.000 on those types of things, but hey maybe don't just shrug the whole thing off?

Nah... instead the CGI effect knocks up Troi... she has the kid... the kid gives off some kind of plot radiation that threatens the ship... the kid willfully dies to save them all... Troi says she'll never forget him and who the goddamn hell cares because none of this is ever mentioned again. Never. What a waste of time. You know it's a total trash episode when the Wesley subplot has a more satisfying (and lesser-retch inducing) conclusion than your A-plot. This episode is offensive to everything it touches. What the fuck were they thinking indeed.

 

The Outrageous Okona (s2 e3)

 

  

This one surprised me by its awfulness. I hadn't seen this one in a while and always remembered it as a fairly "meh" outing, notable for Data's bad jokes with Joe Piscopo over anything else. 

Well my "meh-ness" was too kind. This one was a slog to endure and that blame is squarely upon the title character. The story really, really wants Okona to be a Han Solo knockoff: rougeish smuggler with a secret heart of gold, plus a real ladies man! He must be the latter, since he ends up in the quarters of multiple female crewmembers (hey, he definitely got further with Teri Hatcher than Seinfeld did...)

Any "charm" Okona supposedly has is completely swallowed and then regurgitated by the character being so damn bloody obnoxious, that constant smirk of his making you wishfully imagine the crew coming to their senses and shoving him out an airlock already. Instead, they all gush over the guy: commenting constantly in admiration about his "alpha dogness", the "pattern of his life" and how he "lives out on the edge" and yeah it's all gratingly unpleasant. He's not space James Bond, he's a total dope who breaks his own ship through negligence, only exuding cool because the script demands everyone say so. This episode has some of the worst dialogue in any Trek episode because nobody talks like a goddamn human being! Here's something the writer forgot: "show, don't tell". 

There's a plot point that almost approaches interesting, with two families wanting Okona because he stole a jewel from one and supposedly impregnanted the daughter of the other. Annoyingly it's predictable within three seconds once you meet the son of one family squirming on the view screen... gee wonder why... ugh. 

The best part of this story, as previously noted, is Data trying to understand humour and failing... presumably because the jokes in this episode meet the chemical criteria for depressants. The only "outrageous" thing about this is how somebody got paid to write something this lame.  

 

The Dauphin (s2 e10)

 

  

Look... it's a Star Trek romance plot... revolving around Wesley Crusher. As far as big hills to climb go that one gives Everest a run.

And yeah... as far as plots in general go this one couldn't even scale a wheelchair ramp. I despise this episode: it's painfully dull, the romance is tedious and the logistics/nature of the mission make zero sense. 

Now sure, there are amusing moments scattered throughout: Worf's description of Klingon courting is a classic quotable scene ("Men do not roar, women roar! And hurl heavy objects...") and the bit with Riker and Guinan trading corny pickup lines in front of a confused Wesley is pure gold... really a nice peek into the strong character interaction that would later define the show. 

So this episode does have some enjoyable bits, when it focuses on characters that aren't Wesley or the female love interest. Problem is, those two and their knockoff Twilight-quality romance dominate about 90 percent of this. I seriously had to keep pausing while re-watching for this review, it was that exasperating to have to suffer through this lame forbidden love-story retread. Teenage romance and first kisses can be mighty gooey sure, I'll confess that reality, but itt doesn't mean I want to watch one... especially one about Acting Ensign Dork. The blandness of the young guest actress doesn't add much to the role either, unfortunate considering she's supposedly becoming a teenage queen of a warring planet or something (this episode focuses as much on that as it does chocolate desserts).

Speaking of that, how does the Enterprise end up escorting these aliens anyhow? It's mentioned (at the end) the Federation have no formal contact with their society... so how the hell they'd end up with this mission in the first place? Is the Enterprise-D moonlighting with Space Uber or something to pay the Dilithium bills? Geez. I'm not even going to get into how the alien's audio communications are from a planetary source generating more power than the Enterprise itself.... their super duper spaceships must be in the shop (ain't that always the case).  

This could've been an okay story... maybe... if the dreadful romance was at least balanced (ideally canned) with some threat to the ship because of the mission (warring factions right?). Instead, the "danger" is from the young lady's shapeshifting protector and I agree her scowl could destroy planets. Then you've got an actual full scene of Wesley being mopey about his squeeze not revealing she's a shapeshifter and ugh please lets just get the fuck out of here. I'm man overboard nauseous enough already.

The Icarus Factor (s2 e14)

 

  

It's a Riker episode. Here's the thing: there are a lot of really good TNG episodes that have Riker as a primary player. Future Imperfect, A Matter of Honor and Frame of Mind jump out as good examples...  while he obviously plays a focal role in Best of Both Worlds. Others though, like The Outcast, Hide and Q (which of course I previously reviewed), The Vengeance Factor and this one stand out as bad examples where his relationships with guest characters just seem flat and uninteresting.

What sinks this episode isn't that it's just merely terrible, but how once again "who gives a flying shit about any of this?" Concept is meaningless when the presentation breaks an ankle landing. This attempt involves Riker being offered the captaincy of a ship (another series trope) and his father, a semi-retired Starfleet diplomat/ambassador (*insert-intergalactic-role-here)... comes aboard to brief him on this potential new assignment. 

You've got the tools in the box here: Riker's ambition for the big chair conflicting with his comfort of serving on the Enterprise, plus lots of unresolved tension with his father considering their frosty relationship. There are multiple tricky feelings here and that's a good thing! ...when you make it compelling. 

Nope. This story goes for broad over subtle and overdoes that to the point of excessive melodrama. The issues of Riker and his father are the same scene over and over again: Commander Riker resents his father's distance when he was young (essentially orphaning him) and Riker Sr. wants to build this bridge back to his son but doesn't know how, while not respecting those feelings of animosity. It's a good starting point, but I just described everything that ever develops between these two in the entire episode (*cough* entire series *cough*), aside from a climatic 1on1 duel in the holodeck. Dun dun DUN!

This could've worked but it really just doesn't. The episode leans so much on the father-son stuff instead of the Riker leaving the Enterprise to become a captain stuff, that at the end when he decides to stay (shocker!) it feels predictably cheap and little more than a throwaway line. Smash that reset button! Those father-son issues are only built up as some long overdue combative 'settling of the score' between the two... hyped up (cornily) as though their fight is potentially dangerous (should medical teams stand by??? OHHHNOOOOOBBbbb). Instead they're both in full body armor playing some 24th century Soul Caliber stickfighting or something, with giant Q-tips as weapons because Monty Python called and they want their silly back. 

Please. Even the damn title attempts a flimsy connection to another story as if to justify its relevance through the only father-son ancient myth the writer could come up with. There is nothing in here like the tale of Icarus at all (unless he and Daedalus grumbled boringly at each other a lot). Nah, they liked the name. Good job, I'd sure like to fly this episode too close to the sun.

 

Up the Long Ladder (s2 e18)

 

  

This one starts with legit intrigue: an ancient SOS signal, then Worf falls unconscious while on bridge duty! Spoilers, the intrigue fades fast. 

There are two major problems, the first (and biggest) of how unfocused this story is. It begins with that Worf medical crisis, brushes that aside before the next commercial break for the colony distress signal plot, which then lurches into comedy when they transport the colonists aboard, then into a romance with Riker and an Irish lass, then a scientific problem when they discover the other colony and they're dying out, then an ethical dilemma in regards to their civilization dependent on cloning, which the episode doesn't explore at all because the quick solution is to force the two colonies together and it's a comedy again! This is like one of those Radiohead songs where Thom Yorke would throw lyrical phrases into a hat and sing them at random, except bad.

The other major problem is the portrayal of the less-advanced colonists. Whether you find it amusing or insulting, narratively there's no denying they're a bunch of cartoonish Irish stereotypes. For crying out loud they try to distill alcohol in the goddamn cargo bay, while their leader is such a lush his red nose could guide Santa's sleigh. What is the point of any of this? 

Our Starfleet heroes meanwhile come across as self-righteous jerks once again. Rightfully offended sure when the colony of clones steal some of their DNA to clone them without consent, but then show little more than bemusement when the clone colony resists drastically altering their entire society by merging with the Irishy one and so re-introducing biological reproduction. There's this air of "oh once they realize the pleasures of it they'll understand" vibe from the Enterprise crew, but that's mighty damn presumptuous. If I was forced into a situation where it was upon me alone to repopulate the human race with the most unappealing woman on Earth... well sorry but we had a good run. It's poor logic (and lazy writing): you can't force mating upon these clearly strident asexual creatures. 

This whole story is a mess, bringing up multiple plot points that need further exploration but are then quickly forgotten for the next. It bounces about without substance, occupying (wasting) your time while leaving you emptier from where you started. When the Irish stereotypes aren't making you slam your whiskey glass in frustration, of course.

                 

Shades of Gray (s2 e22)

 

  

Picking on Shades of Gray seems almost unfair, almost. Like hitting a bullseye from an inch away. It's a clip show and nobody involved gave a shit about it during production, so it was always going to suck. It's the lowest rated episode on IMDb of any Trek series I believe, and really how can anyone defend it? Something with grand ambitions that fails as horribly like Star Trek V? Hey, at least they tried. Shades of Gray is the conceptual opposite of that, hell the conceptual opposite of creative effort itself. Even for a clip show it's horrendously lazy. You could fit the synopsis on a post-it note and still have enough room left to warn your roommate not to eat your hummus again, bastard.

I personally don't think it's the worst TNG episode, only because it contains clips of far superior creative efforts and isn't as racist or awful as Code of Honor, or as fucking tedious as Justice. At the same time this should barely be considered an episode at all. It's completely pointless filler that wastes time just to get to the clips. Seriously! They pad out the story to get to the clips. Yikes.

They attempt medical drama with Riker dying and blah blah blah it doesn't work because Frakes seems as checked out of this whole thing as the writers were. Marina Sirtis as Troi overacts and Muldar's Pulaski is the least compassionate Trek character this side of a Borg cube. 

This was the final episode of Season 2 and really the end of that early era of TNG, good riddance. The show began having a drastically looking feel from the beginning of Season 3 onwards, with new uniforms, more consistent emphasis on characters over reactionary plot-of-the-week stuff, Dr. Crusher returning (thank gawd) and really kicking off the golden era of the show. In my opinion, TNG from seasons 3-6 is easily the best Star Trek of the past 30 years (come at me, DS9 fans!*). Not to say there weren't some hiccups during that stretch though, which I'll get into next time.

...

...

Okay! It's next time!

 

*I kid, I've come around on DS9 over the years. It's a damn fine show in its own right  

 

The Loss (s4 e10)

 

  

Skipping into Season 4! The show at this point was excellent, but this is a wart. I will say, the A-plot is sorta interesting (though ridiculous): the Enterprise getting caught in a stream of two dimensional creatures. Unfortunately, this episode is completely ruined by Deanna Troi behaving so petulant.

It's not that the episode focuses too much on how she loses her telepathic powers (though it does), it's that she's written to be completely unbearable once this happens. Troi having to learn and utilize her other skills now that her greatest advantage has been taken away? That would've been interesting, a good chance for personal growth ("maybe I've been too dependent on these abilities I've been lucky to have in the first place.")

The story thinks it's doing this, but instead of Troi discovering a new aspect of herself she just throws a tantrum for a third of the episode, when she isn't horribly condescending to everyone trying to comfort her. It's so way, way overdone that when she eventually gets her powers back, you're not glad she's finally herself again... you're pissed off because she learned absolutely nothing from this and congrats you've just watched a total waste of time! It's a pat, uninspired ending that frantically wraps everything back into a bow complete with cliche "sorry I was a real jerk to everybody." "oh it's fine!" final scene. All that's missing is the canned "awwww" recording from a studio audience.

It's not as bad as others on this list, but even without Troi's unpleasant behavior (and Sirtis' less than stellar acting here... I hate picking on her but she really overdoes it in these bad ones) this episode is simply dull. The real loss? That this episode wasn't destroyed by a clumsy intern. 

 

The Host (s4 e23)

 

  

Next Generation drastically improved after Season 2, as I've mentioned. Instead of portraying hollow imitations of the 60s show with a "more evolved than thou" ethos, it began to feel like a ship of real people, with real relationships. Where the worst episodes of the early seasons are awful as a "I can't believe how brainless and ridiculous this is"; the worst episodes in later seasons are awful in a "drowning in biege melodrama" kind of way. Which describes this outing!

Dr. Crusher has fallen into a steamy romance with some Starfleet ambassador (all this happens before the episode begins, fyi) whom the Enterprise is escorting to a crucial peace negotiation. Trust me those peace negotiations are easily the most engaging part of this episode. I'm not totally opposed to romance stories in Star Trek, City on the Edge of Forever is a wonderful example of how to do it to near perfection... it's just that most of them are stories that don't really know what the hell they're doing. There's rarely a satisfying setup and or conclusion to them, which a good romance story depends upon.

Anyway Dr. Crusher's new love, Ambassador Somebody (Odan?) is mortally wounded in a shuttle attack and it turns out the real him is a parasite organism that needs humanoid hosts to survive. (it's consentual symbiosis not evil, to clarify). Riker volunteers and so ends up temporarily carrying (and so becoming) this parasite-person until his species can send a permanent host.

The problem is that this romance plot... well I'll give it credit for doing something only science fiction can do. Here's this new person in your life you have wild, passionate feelings for... suddenly transplanted into the body of someone else, who happens to be your colleague and friend at that. It is an interesting concept! But it fails because so much of the drama falls onto the shoulders of the bodyswapping romance itself and that's not strongly enough conveyed for the viewer to feel it. 

Instead, it gets so hamhanded at points that my buddy who was watching with me and isn't a Trek fan at all, laughed out loud multiple times at these "tense" emotional scenes. The weird Ten Forward scene where Crusher and Riker-Odan stare at each other with dramatic music... and then commercial! Gawd. Also, isn't it kind of creepy that this ambassador guy, now in Riker's body, is still pursuing Dr. Crusher romantically? Maybe keep it in your pants for a day or two? I suppose he is an alien and so would likely have different customs (explore those instead!) regarding this sort of thing, but it's not like Riker has a say in this either since this isn't portrayed as Riker-Odan merging into a hybrid personality or anything. Riker's voice never once emerges during this to even say "hello!" "I'm fine!" "This is weird but lets continue with the negotiations!" No, Odan is in complete control, while Riker is buried inside perhaps screaming "FFS stop using my body to hit on my friend you weird fucking asshole!"

There's also the ending scene, where the ambassador's new permanent host is revealed to be female. She still wants to continue the romance but Dr. Crusher is feeling none of that, which is an unfortunate missed opportunity. Not because it's a supposedly progressive future and Crusher should just be automatically open to that (there's a whole different kind of stupid)... it's just that... well now we're back into issues worthy of exploration and one weakass short scene at the end of this (very) padded episode just isn't enough time to explore them. 

You've got a lot of firewood here: same sex relationships and gender identity just off the top of my head, and remember this aired in the early 90s when these topics were not nearly as known or respected in public consciousness as now (and it ain't great now). This could've been a social landmark for the show, taking a strong stand for the rights of all people regardless of gender, sexuality and how we as people identify ourselves as such... but they capital chickened out. Sure, different era and sure, Dr. Crusher says that maybe her attitude towards such a thing could change, keeping this from being a total strikeout... but she acts so detached and cold that none of those wild passionate feelings seem to have ever existed. Like they happened in some paralell universe. For fucks sake more than half the episode is about how conflicted she is about Odan now being in Riker's body (her close friend!), and still they eventually embrace! And now she's so totally turned off she barely wants to acknowledge this person in a female body? Hell that damn last scene takes place in her office while she sits behind her desk, not even her personal quarters or Ten Forward or something. How open minded! What a romance for the fucking ages. 

The whole thing is bloody weak, especially the farewell kiss on the wrist (would a cheek have really been so taboo? Ugh). Not an episode that has aged well socially, but also it's so fucking boring that watching branches grow would be a steamier romance (maybe in three decades they'll entwine!). The more I think about this one the more I despise it.   

 

Running a bit long here (feel like at this point I'm writing a thesis on bad Star Trek, what a special circle of hell) so I'm gonna stop for now. But stay tuned for the exciting* conclusion! 

 

 

*I lied, it's not exciting.  

 

The Worst Star Trek Next Generation Episodes

 

                                                                                (image via Treknobabble.net)

Like the vast emptiness of space, our world is a damn lonely place these days. To cope, I'm unleashing my ire upon one of my favourite shows of all time because... shut up, that's why!

Star Trek: The Next Generation is, pardon the wordplay, a generational show. If you've been a lifelong fan there's a good chance you grew up while it initially aired as I did (the first episode aired the same month I was born), then watched it repeatedly through syndication as you got older (bless the old CityTV days. I can still hear the late Mark Dailey say "your Federation Station").

While I confidently conclude that overall Next Gen was an terrific show with countless memorable stories... when it missed it really missed. To invent a baseball analogy: an awful TNG episode is a failure akin to a batter wiffing on strike three, yet then spinning himself so hard into the ground he twists his legs broken, finishing the ugly moment as the bat bonks him on the back of the head while the coach announces he's cut from the team and oh by-the-way your wife cheated on you. 

Bad TNG is spectacular in its badness, and not for the timid either. For the record I am not recommending any of these in a "so bad it's good" way, rather warning of radioactive material to be steered far away from. Many of you may disagree with my choices, either that I missed a dreadful one or actually liking some of my selections. Hey... disagree away. This list may be imperfect but I'm also certain that none of these planets are worthy of admission into the Federation.

As a warning, I may be a bit more ruthless than usual in my criticisms here. For that I apologize if my language is more crass, but the sheer unpleasantness I experienced while watching some of these makes such harshness unavoidable. Okay. (deep breath)... here goes.

 

The Naked Now (s1 e2)

 

I just don't goddamn understand what they were thinking here. What was that writer's meeting like? "All right second episode... you know what's a great idea? Lets take this new crew the audience has just met and turn them all into drunken horny idiots! Perfect!" Does the 'Now' part of the title imply "now where's my suitcase of money for this horrible idiocy?" At least that would make sense.

The Naked Now is a ripoff... *cough* I mean spiritual sequel to the TOS episode The Naked Time, except the original is actually decent and the execution of what's happening has actual tension. The only tension in Naked Now is brought about by the Enterprise-D crew behaving like complete morons. For instance, not setting up a proper quarantine once they know Geordi likely has contracted what infected and incidentally killed the crew of the science ship. No... he's allowed to just stumble out of sickbay! Geez... advanced 24th century medicine my ass, we're better at recognizing and helping contagious people here in the 21st century (much love to current medical professionals everywhere). Then there's the assistant engineer who leaves Wesley in charge of Engineering before he gets infected with the drunk virus. Before! Goddamn Wesley! It's the second episode! Fuck you! Gahhhhhhhhh!

Eventually this collapsing star throws a huge stellar mass at the Enterprise and so Data (who is also infected with drunk.... somehow) has to re-plug in all these microchip things that same assistant engineer tossed about (beginning the "Picard fires his chief engineer every episode in Season 1" trope), so they can restart the engines and escape. Oooo... suspenseful...? Except no, because anything resembling that is overshadowed by the reality of how these nimrods stupidly got themselves into this mess.

No terrible Season 1 episode is complete without the wonderkid. Wesley helps save the ship by using his untapped supergeniuswhateverthefuck, giving them extra time and ugh it mercifully ends. Again, this was the second damn episode of the show and the only thing I'm convinced they were going for and succeeded at is character assassination. Maybe something like this could've worked much, much later in the series, with those more established (better written) characters and when the audience better understood the relationships between them. It could've shaken dynamics up! Instead the show went for a nostalgia grab immediately and miserably failed. Tasha Yar's final line "It never happened" is frankly damn good advice.

 

Code of Honor (s1 e3)

 

 

Man what a start this show had... like a marathon runner crapping himself and twisting an ankle when the starter's pistol goes off. 

One common element of bad early TNG is how damn uncomfortable it makes you feel while watching it. The first season of the show is a notorious abyss of dreadfulness and that reputation is well deserved. It has atmosphere of the worst dated and corny aspects of the 60s show, but lacking the compelling concepts, strong character interactions and bare humanity that made TOS work more often than it didn't. Instead here you get stiff dialogue, strawmen antagonists lacking defined motives and bland cliches disguised as evolved morality. Or you get Code of Honor, which combines all of those and still sinks to an even lower bar.

The biggest problem is pretty obvious: you have a planet based on a one-dimensional stereotype of tribal Africans. They speak accented English... have a "code" that is remarked as being confusing and less evolved... they bang sticks together and kidnap the white girl. Yeah, that's at least a 10 on the 1-to-Racism Scale. Compare that with the all-white planet depicted in Justice (oh don't worry, I'm coming for you too)... and the nakedness of this is pretty gruesome. Code of Honor seems like something filmed in the 30s as a propaganda film opposing interracial couples or something. 

Beyond the racism factor, the episode just totally, completely sucks. The Enterprise-D has to get an important vaccine from some planet but their leader dicks them around and kidnaps Tasha, which is considered acceptable because it's part of their customs. Gee, that's diplomatic. Just try that tactic in a negotiation: "yeah I'll disarm my nukes but I want a night with your hot wife in return, whether she's willing or not". What the fuck, Picard. I get trying to be patient and understanding with alien cultures, but kidnapping is a form of assault in basically any culture you dipshit. And even if she hasn't been "mistreated" (as the episode tries to slip in there to make you feel less like eels are crawling under your skin) Yar is still being held captive against her will. At least, except for the totally not misogynist part when the story brings up how attracted she is to her kidnapper for being so strong and powerful and geezus did I mention how fucking horrible this episode is?

This episode has no redeeming quality, not one. Even the lighthearted Data/Geordi shaving scene is painfully stale: I suspect LeVar Burton didn't even care as Geordi, who is blind don't forget and not wearing the VISOR in the scene, moves backwards without discomfort around furniture while Data closes in with his bad punchline. You know the episode is trash if I'm finding a weak reason to knock the awesome LeVar Burton... sadly that unintentional gaffe is the most amusement I got from this shit story.  

Eventually there's a scene that turns melodrama well past 11 (sorry Nigel) as oh noooo the Enterprise won't get Tasha back or the vaccine! It's maybe the most over-the-top sequence in the entire series, but not lacking good company in this episode. This total trash is ham handed in just the right places with Dr. Crusher popping in just to remind the audience how crucial the vaccine is. "Millions will die!" Gee, that sure makes this asshole kidnapper look not cartoonish since he's content to allow these people to perish just to satisfy his ego... I mean "code of honor". For fucks sake... this guy is just such a colossal prick it makes Picard look like a pathetic dweeb for not even considering just taking the vaccine by force. That isn't the right thing to do either, don't get me wrong, but considering what's at stake and having one of your officers get kidnapped... wouldn't it at least be a temptation? It could give this irredeemable story something resembling depth maybe? A moral issue to explore for more than just three seconds? Nah... lets instead get a catfight to the death and you know, on second thought this episode doesn't deserve to even be in the same vicinity as an interesting idea. Competence needs a restraining order against this, lest it assault and/or infect others. Even the music sucks, going as over the top as possible in vain attempts to drown out the awful acting. Oh and the cherry atop the fecal sundae: Wesley gets to man a bridge station during the crisis because this episode hates me (along with the human race) personally. 

I try not to swear and be somewhat objective when I write reviews like this, and I've obviously failed here... but who cares and fuck this episode. Fire it into a supernova.

 

Lonely Among Us (s1 e6)

 

 

'P' for Picard. Yeeeeahh. It's a happy miracle this show survived seven seasons and eventually became so good. 

So far we've had: turning the crew into drunken imbeciles, then blatant racism with a seasoning of misogyny. Hey, how about something brain-dead ridiculous instead! 

The Enterprise is escorting two sides of feuding delegates to a peace conference, who are constantly attempting to murder each other. Sure, that basic idea worked quite effectively in TOS' Journey to Babel, except that premise is taken absurdly far here. These aren't assassins they're diplomats... yet carrying around knives and all stalking the corridors for their enemies. Yet it's played for comedy of course because Season 1 TNG is about as funny as getting beamed into space. I bet this peace conference is gonna be a hoot...

Speaking of not that, the A-plot of the episode is about some energy spark entering the ship, possessing various characters until it gets Picard, who takes the ship back to some energy cloud. When they finally try and stop him (at the last possible moment despite knowing he's been compromised... Starfleet's finest, everyone) he zaps everyone with blue lightning! Now that's funny. Picard-Energy Being beams himself into the energy cloud and well... that's that.

Except no? Somehow, Picard (as an energy thingy) finds his way back into the ship, alerts the crew of this with the infamous "P for Picard" scene, and they're able to restore him... somehow. The absurdity of this nonsense continues in that very scene as Picard returns: Tasha runs in to report one of the delegates is missing while there's a pool of blood in the corridor, only for Riker to ask "can't this wait?" because hahahah! Possible murder is so hilarious.

If Naked Now is foolish, Code of Honor unbearable... Lonely Among Us is... just really damn stupid. Uh, spoilers? Whoops. Seriously though, even turning off your brain doesn't make this enjoyable. The one redeeming moment is a short scene with Colm Meaney making his Trek debut as a random security officer. Smart of O'Brien to get that cushier transporter chief job as quickly as possible and escape this episode.

      

Justice (s1 e7)

 

 

Oh no. Oh no! Ohhhhh noooooo!!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!

(catches breath)

As Chuck Sonnenburg of SfDebris said best in one of his typically excellent video reviews: "You probably shouldn't create a planet that Hitler himself would nod his head in approval at." 

Season 1 TNG! We put the "dive" in diversity. 

To understand my mindset while watching this "story", here are my scribbled notes from the first eight minutes of viewing it:

 

(Eventually I conceded these mad ramblings were not meant for mortal men... here I was up against a true titan of wretchedness)

Justice looked at the stupidity of Lonely Among Us and decided that was an amateur job. Apparently that absurd, barely watchable mess just didn't make the audience cringe enough. So! Meet the Edo: another planet of hats where everyone is blond, white, childlike in their innocence and oh they really really like sex too (never directly said but strongly, strongly implied). I can't believe I'm even writing this. Also... for the love of god WHY THE FUCK DO THEY RUN EVERYWHERE???

There's a lot of really uncomfortable stuff to unpack here. First, the Enterprise crew seeming all too happy to take shore-leave here and delightfully indulge in that particular... openness of the locals, despite that they are a pre-Warp civilization and unaware of the existence of other planets or alien beings. Okay... that's rather creepy and manipulative... at best. 

They transport down and are embraced warmly by the Edo... not quite in that way, but that is actually offered to the crew on camera. With grade nine Wesley standing right there. Yeeeeaah. Seriously, is this just a disturbing Trek porn parody and the scriptwriter submitted the wrong draft? No wait, most Trek porn parodies would have more convincing dialogue.

So Wesley, fortunately sent off to play ball with some other youngsters likewise below the age of consent (but unfortunately exposing the unconsenting audience to arguably the most pointless scenes ever filmed in Trek)... accidentally crashes into a garden, trampling some flowers which on this planet means... instant death! The episode then turns deeper into this ditch by making the Edo wanting to execute Wesley a Prime Directive issue. Sure, I bet allowing Wesley off free because he damaged your tulips is waaaaaay more damaging to your Caucasian wet dream than the Enterprise crew (people from various other worlds), having a bunch of sex with you then leaving and dear god this is so fucking terrible. 

Speaking of God: above the planet there's some kind of powerful space station which the Edo worship as a god, and Picard even shows them this fact by beaming a young lady aboard the Enterprise to see it. Disrupting the natural development of a civilization by revealing what their beacon of worship actually is? Yep, sure not breaking the Prime Directive there. Fuck... I can't even talk about this anymore. After watching this it's so damn unbelievable this show eventually became so good. If you watch this and then something like Darmok afterwards you're in serious danger of mental whiplash. 

Maybe it's entertaining for its extreme visual camp, but personally I'd never watch this again without other people around to laugh at its expense with. Truly a nadir not just of this series, but the Star Trek franchise itself. 

 

Hide and Q (s1 e9)

 

It's an impressive feat to be simultaneously camp and pretentious in equal measure throughout an hour long running time.

Hide and Q begins the Star Trek practice of inserting a Q related pun into any episode title that features him (only the first and last episodes of this series, Tapestry and Voyager's Deathwish do not). And this is truly one of the worst episodes in which he appears... yet among these awful Season 1 entries it's one of the best! Another impressive dual feat.

The only enjoyable aspect of this episode is that camp element though: the cheap planet set that looks recycled from TOS... de Lancie's chewing of the scenery as Q ("GAMES?????") and Wesley Crusher getting impaled by a bayonet (it was a Q illusion so he was fine, ok? Just let me enjoy this). Frankly the acting in this one is superbly bad, with everybody hamming it up to near Shatner levels (even Patrick Stewart seems off his game). It's funny in moments, but consistently directionless throughout.

To describe this, that's really the missing word here after camp and pretentious: directionless. When you get right down to it... this episode is just way too cheap and silly to be taken in the serious way it clearly wanted to be. Q shows up to essentially tempt Riker by offering and giving the god-like powers of the Q, to prove humans can't resist the downfalls of absolute power... I guess? Sorry I was too distracted by the wolf creatures dressed in French Revolution uniforms firing laser muskets. Cerebral!

Oh sure, the story tries to bring those points into play. There's another damn medical emergency (geez these Season 1 writers really couldn't think of any other plot points could they) and so Riker gets an attaboy from Picard for resisting the temptation to use those powers to bring a dead little girl back to life. Wait, what? What???? What... the... fuck? Seriously? An attaboy? "You were right not to try?" Wow captain... I bet even the Borg were disgusted by that one when they were poking through your brain with a screwdriver. 

The episode winds down with Riker acting like an entitled douchebag because of these omnipotent Q powers, though it's hard to tell the difference since Season 1 Riker usually acts like an entitled douchebag anyway. Q eventually fails in, uh... whatever he was trying to prove... and I guess if you really want to look hard you could argue these events eventually lead to Q's actions in the great Season 2 episode Q Who... if you really want to look hard. Really hard. Otherwise, come for the camp but the rest is tedious self-righteous crap. Crap camp! I'm trademarking that.

 

Haven (s1 e10)

 

 

Amidst the worst of Season 1 TNG (truly a hole at the bottom of a chasm), Haven isn't quite as bad as some others. It's still terrible though, and a lot of that falls onto the introduction of Lwaxana Troi.

I have nothing against the character, not really (though she does pop up mostly in below average episodes) but here she is just utterly intolerable. Condescending doesn't even scratch the surface: she struts about like the most self-important person in the universe and everyone else is lucky to even be breathing in the same air as her. There is nothing at all charming about this in any way, period. After two minutes of screen time you're wishing Picard would accelerate her departure via airlock already. Thankfully they toned the character down afterwards into just being eccentric and somewhat less self-absorbed, instead of the type of person that would inspire a revolution against the aristocracy. Also I must note that actress Majel Barrett does portray Lwaxana well, it's just that the character is written to be so insufferable here.    

The other major problem with Haven is the Riker-Deanna Troi relationship. As in, who gives a shit? Later, once the characters had more depth to them, their complex friendship actually led to some good moments... this here is about as lifeless as a soap opera romance if both partners were in comas.

Troi has some arranged marriage with some dude named Wyatt, whom she hasn't seen since they were children. Riker doesn't just act jealous, he acts like a spurned high school boyfriend moping about because now he doesn't have a date for the prom. And this just goes on, and on... and on! Give him some black eyeliner, some My Chemical Romance CDs and you've got full Emo Riker. Meanwhile Troi is stuck in this love triangle, yet we get little insight into her character at all beyond her relationship with her mother, Riker, or Wyatt (hilariously of those three she has the best chemistry in scenes with him). 

Oh and there's a long lost plague ship that might land and infect this planet called Haven, which has this woman Wyatt has been dreaming abut and and ugh it's like a really cheap drugstore novel with less plot and way more predictable. It's pretty bad. Not uncomfortably bad, but stay far away regardless.

     

Angel One (s1 e13)

 

  

Dear universe... why am I subjecting myself to this.

Angel One is just loaded with plot problems, resulting in one of the most contrived stories in the entire run of the show. The point of this episode seems to be... maybe about societal gender inequality? Though I'm probably giving this dumpster fire too much credit by even theorizing what it's trying to be. 

The titular Angel One is a planet run by a matriarchy, where the men (who here are physically smaller than the females) are second class citizens. Subtlety! Look, if you're trying to make a point about the clear inequalities that women face in our world, so decide to write a story where you reverse things and have women acting like bigoted assholes... your point is going to be tough to pull off effectively. The plight of the very gender you're making a point about could be lost on the audience since the story has to evoke some form of sympathy for real life women, either by giving their leaders here strong characterization (it's TNG season 1 so hahahah yeah right) or creating a parallel by focusing how men are mistreated in this society (which again is very tricky since it on surface it seems like the opposite of what you're trying to do here). 

I mean geez it's a goddamn lazy story idea regardless, but at least do something... anything with it! Because again I'm just speculating because I don't know what this episode is trying to be. If it really is about gender inequality, it fails because of how underdeveloped and one dimensional the situation is. If it's trying to go for a "either way, men and women make the same mistakes when given power!" then it's just completely fucking brainless and a dart epically missing any board. It's portrayed as another planet of hats either way and even then that's not the worst of it.

One consistent theme of Season 1 TNG is how bad the guest acting often is, and the actress who plays The Elected One is Exhibit A. Her blank expression never changes the entire episode, whether she's about to execute the male survivors of a crashed ship or making romantic moves on Riker (a truly torturous subplot). There's one scene where the actress so obviously moves to her mark just to deliver a chilling cliffhanger line for a commercial break. She doesn't come across as a powerful leader with flawed yet complicated principles... instead she reminds you of that girl in high school Drama class who overacted and really was never any good but always got too many lines. Yikes.

This episode is really horrible not because it insults or demeans men (the only thing it insults and demeans is the craft of storytelling) but that it's so blatantly hamfisted in its execution. By magic coincidence, the Enterprise gets infected with a virus (again??? Think of something else fellas) from the holodeck(huh????)... making the crew sick while apparently the Romulans are stirring up trouble near the Neutral Zone. Don't concern yourself with that though, it takes them like 11 more episodes to eventually get around with that "urgent" matter. 

It's all poorly manufactured drama that exists solely to make you groan aloud, leave the room multiple times in frustration and then question your choices in life. If there is one nice bit here, it's when La Forge gets to take command for a while because everyone else is too sick with the plot virus. Enjoy it, because it occupies maybe two minutes of this 46 minute show. Actually don't enjoy it, because never watch those 44 minutes. 

 

The Neutral Zone (s1 e25)

 

  

When the original series introduced the Romulans in Balance of Terror, it was an tension filled suspenseful thriller, equally fleshing out Kirk's perspective as that of the Romulan commander (brilliantly portrayed by Mark Lenard, who soon later played Spock's father Sarek). 

When TNG re-introduced the Romulans (after jerking the audience around for the whole season by mentioning but never actually revealing them) they're on screen for barely a minute, while 80 percent of this episode focuses on three strawmen characters from the 80s found cryogenically frozen in a satellite. 

Sigh... if Season 1 TNG teaches you anything (and this is the final episode of that pitiful season) it's that genuine intrigue is less important than farting around with characters that we don't care about and who never get mentioned again. Or, that the best crew in Starfleet can be easily thwarted by drunk people. Or that the all-white planet is filled with peaceful horny innocence while the all-black planet is tribal and barbaric. Please don't learn anything from Season 1 TNG. Holy flying fucks in a bucket, this show sucked donkey's ass in those early days.

The Neutral Zone doesn't quite reach those low depths of suckage as other those truly awful entries do because of some background (and here underdeveloped) elements that are successful, such as the tension of the destroyed Federation outposts along the Neutral Zone... or whether the Romulans are testing some kind of super weapon again in preparation for an invasion (again a call back to Balance of Terror, truly a wonderful TOS episode). The plot point of these destroyed outposts do also lead us to the later revelation of the Borg, which is clearly a major win for the series. 

But that's it as far as quality goes. Too much of this story focuses on these three randoms from then-modern day America, a flat attempt by the writer to criticize those modern morals by contrasting them with the more 'enlightened' Federation. Look I was still in a diaper when this first aired, and Canadian, so I can't really comment firsthand on the state of America in 1988.  My bigger question is: why is that critique of whatever-the-hell in this story? Geez, you could graft this B plot onto almost any other episode in Season 1 and it wouldn't make any difference. Instead... lets throw it into the one where we bring back a classic enemy and so distract from that compelling threat. Brilliant now where's my money???

I don't want to get too much into why this doesn't work, mostly because this awful story is so thin you think you'll lose your balance while analyzing it. What sticks out most is how you groan multiple times at how condescending our heroes are to these frozen newcomers from the 80s: lines like "it's a wonder our species survived the 20th century" are just gruesome. I'm certainly no fan of unfettered capitalism, but hey episode! You're telling me that after spending five minutes with wannabe Gordon Gecko here I'd be more disgusted by humanity in this century than Stalin's Gulags, Hitler's Final Solution, lynchings in America or Mao's Great Leap Forward? Get.. The Fuck... Outta Here. 

 

It's a wonder we survived the 20th century? It's a wonder this show survived beyond Season 1 because frankly with all this sanctimonious crap, tone-deaf approach to racism and sexism, annoying characters and plain pathetic stories... it didn't deserve to. But it did! And that was very much a good thing, but still with some dreadful garbage ravines throughout the rest of their run...

Which I'll discuss next time in Part Two! Yeah, I've been through a lot of Trek pain. Until next time.