“The Trouble With Edward” is canon, but Gene Roddenberry himself could descend from the heavens on the back of Kukulkan with Jeffery Combs riding shotgun to tell me that the Tribbles cereal commercial is canon, and my response would be, “Okay, but is it though?”

I think Number One is supposed to be Pike’s friend and confidant, similar to Sisko and Dax’s relationship in DS9.

Who else is he going to confide in on this matter. Spock giving Pike relationship advice would be pretty wack.

Spock: Captain, I could not help but notice that the USS Cayuga warped away sooner than expected given your relationship with Captain Batel. The crew assumed you would want some “alone time” as ensign Uhura put it. I will not repeat what lieutenant Ortegas said.
Pike: Wait, you guys talk about my love life on the bridge?
Spock: Indeed. It is a matter of some interest.
Pike: Okay, I’m not exactly comfortable with that.
Spock: Captain, if you and Captain Batel are experiencing…difficulties, I would be happy to demonstrate some neuro-pressure massage techniques which can be quite stimulating. T’Pring has said I am particularly skilled, and as you are aware, Vulcans cannot lie.
Pike: Okay, now I’m really uncomfortable with this.

I suppose Doctor M’Benga could sub in as confidant instead.

Oh dang, it’s the macrovirus from that one VOY episode!

LDecks, you never fail to completely delight me.

Buddy, are you trying to make me pull an extra-ocular muscle from how hard my eyes just rolled?

If you like one aspect of the franchise you don’t need to whine about another not being to your taste to express that. I don’t shit on ENT every time I want to talk about DS9.

Thanks!

When I decided to sign up a new account on reddit to talk about Trek, I asked myself what thing I could think of that people would want to see, and the answer was a Starfleet operated Tex-Mex food truck. So far the username has served me well.

I’m not sure I follow the central thesis of what you’re trying to articulate here.

Are you saying that the way the ships function is similar to the government model you’ve assigned them? Or that most of the cultures the ships encounter follow those models?

Are you able to give some actual examples from the shows demonstrating that the comparison holds true over the multiple seasons each iteration of Trek had, or anything at all to support your claim?

I was actually saying this is the way the ships function on each series based on the analogies given previously.

Okay, well that’s patently ridiculous. How is Kirk’s Enterprise a monarchy in TOS, but an anarchy in TAS? How does the Discovery crew function as a dystopian society, especially in seasons two and three? Where is your evidence that the NX-01 is a military dictatorship? How is the crew of Deep Space 9 a communist society, but Voyager’s crew are capitalistic?

Where is your supporting evidence for any of this?

Obviously people can say whatever they want, but I personally don’t see any value in dragging something down when instead I could be lifting the thing I do like up. Like, imagine going in to the job at the end of the week and saying, “Hell yeah, I love Fridays!” and some sad sack co-worker is all, “Yeah, but don’t you just hate Mondays?” Buddy, why? What would be the point in being so negative, when instead you could be positive?

Or, let’s give another example: I personally think “Picard” was a bad television series, which started out kind of a mess, and got worse with every season. I know other people really enjoyed season three, but I think it is the single worse season of Trek, and it’s not even a contest. Now, imagine if every time someone made a post praising, some other series or new episode, I jumped in with, “Yeah, at least this one was better than season three of PIC.” What am I actually contributing to the conversation?

Furthermore, I don’t consider, “This doesn’t feel like [X],” to actually be criticism. Critique is detailed analysis. “I don’t like this because it’s not what I want it to be,” is just whining. Critique is an important aspect of art, but too many people confuse their hot takes as valid criticism. You brought up Shives, and while he and I disagree on a lot of things – and agree on others – regarding Trek, I would never say that he is not detailed in his videos. Biased, sure, but we all are. I can’t speak to the specific example you gave, but I know that at least in his scripted videos he generally isn’t dropping hot takes like that. Sometimes they make their way into his more off the cuff unscripted videos, but I would be staggered if he’s ever released something that was solely focused on saying one show is good because it isn’t as bad as another show he dislikes.

Do people not like “Ferengi Love Songs”?

Hearing Jack Quaid’s distinctive Boimler scream gives me life.

However, between work and my social life, there is not much time left to write these posts without losing sleep, so while getting an extra episode is cool, it also feels as much like a personal attack as the season one stardates.

I will attempt to have “Those Old Scientists” done by Saturday morning, and this week’s episode by Monday.