Star Trek: TNG 4x23 Full Reaction!
Added 2025-09-20 17:00:09 +0000 UTC
Comments
It's occurred to me a few times that I have no idea what kind of people Jess is into, and that's kind of nice, just seeing her get equally invested in all kinds of relationships and not get hung up on what she'd be feeling in the situation.
Ryan
2025-09-20 18:51:08 +0000 UTCI really need to refresh my memory with the older Star Trek shows outside the original series and Next Gen. One benefit of that is not being distracted by the discrepancies, and you just focus on the episode. The days of the youtubers technically did exist, they just resorted to writing letters back then. Yeah, the prominent male energy with the writing is frustrating here. Similar thoughts about Beverly being “mad horny” and all, yet even with the lampshade, (and apparently this comes with treating Jack like chopped liver, as you pointed out,) this whole thing is odd. And yes, heaven forbid we suggest that denying her feelings for a certain other person for so long is starting to seriously affect her view of this kind of thing. Speaking of, yes, Patrick’s acting as Picard in that scene is very amusing, and honestly, deeply relatable. It is a nice touch how the idea of the parasite thing is so perfectly natural to the Trill that it never occurs that it’s something that would probably be better to be brought up sooner than Odan fessed up about it. And refreshing writing how it is normal for the Trill. Weird for us, normal for them. One positive of the Riker bit is Jonathan showing off his acting chops. Being 1991, they do about as good a job as they could have with the avoiding the homophobic reading. Helping is Gates publicly saying that it’s not the change of gender that caused Beverly to end the romance. Instead, it’s the constant change that proves too much, and it is nice how Beverly states that she wishes that she didn’t have that response that she had. Well-spoken on how you view it. Probably for the best that Picard was not forced to perform any wedding as you know he would most certainly have gone with the short SHORT version of the ceremony.
Thomas Corp
2025-09-20 18:50:16 +0000 UTCStart by apologizing that I am in a completely shit mood and state of mind this weekend. Depression’s very potent and strong right now. My fault. Your request for less tears, hearing that, the thought was that the odds were about even on that one. A whirlwind is a fair description for this one. Calls to mind your legendary reaction to the blooby-blob episode from the original series, which is still one of your very best, Jess, or at least one of my favorites of your reactions. This one twas a lot. Nice to get the update on Wesley. You spoke of the idea of him struggling in school would be him getting an A rather than an A plus. Would think struggling for Wesley would be getting an A minus rather than an A plus, but I take your point. Starting with the romance right out the gate, (no pun intended,) as you say. The “WHAT?” that you had to the one opening shot with Beverly and Odan, that was about my response as well. Figured that you would be on the side of everyone needing to calm the FUCK down, which I don’t argue your stance on that one. Humorously, this comes after our visceral investment in last week’s Next Gen romance. There was a sort of lampshade that the romance did move lightning quick. With you that it felt more infatuation in this scenario. Please, God, tell me Odan didn’t win Beverly over by going on about how much he doesn’t like sand. As Ryan says, there is the strong, “Written by a man” energy, prominent in that spa scene. Quick serious question: When Beverly is at the spa, what in the hell is in the small bowl that she’s got her hand in? Oh, I felt Picard’s feelings when Odan spoke with him about Beverly. When he got asked about Beverly’s commitment to Starfleet, I queried, “Does he have to answer that question?” Like how you do acknowledge about people’s different sexualities and preferences when it comes to plotlines like this. You know, I don’t think I’m even entirely clear as to what my sexuality is. Best guess would be hetero, and even then, I’m not sure. Seeing this episode, we are more or less on the same page here, so there’s that. They have the good early foreshadowing about Odan with the one scene that makes you ask, “He doesn’t have Kuato in there, does he?” Stands out how he hates the idea of using the transporter. He and Dr. Pulaski would love each other. Good notes on factoring in knowledge of the universe and trying not to think about stuff you know from later in the franchise. It’s like that with Star Wars. For example: the novelization of Revenge of the Sith overlooks plenty of stuff that didn’t yet exist as Clone Wars had yet to premiere, so you acknowledge that, and give stuff a pass. Bringing us to the big thing of the episode, that yeah, I’m with you on wishing that we didn’t have the Riker bit. Quite like how you were wary of Odan being placed inside Riker; how romantically, you were in favor of not going down that path. Oh, the episode was going down that path, Jess. Good again to see Alyssa again, and to see how she and Beverly have such wonderful professional rapport. We do share the thing of facing the very difficult problem as yes, the heart does greatly go out to Beverly in this episode. But the “romantic” scenes when Odan is in Riker do squarely land on the side of strongly uncomfortable and DEEPLY creepy as SHIT, hence our conflict. Completely concur that if you signed up to have your body used as a meat puppet for diplomatic reasons, you talk about drawing a line in the sand when it comes to the romantical and sexual activities, and across this line, you DO NOT. We also strangely gloss over the fact that Deanna’s surprisingly ok with it. Or maybe the writers thought nobody would care and/or notice? That scene where Deanna talks about her father is very touching, as you said. Marina got the tears going before I knew it. Hear fans highlight the line “What I wouldn’t give to hear those songs again.” being a rather good line. I hear it this time, nod, “Indeed.” Odan seemed fairly undeterred. Dude was very pushy about things, which never really gets called out on as much as it should have. You ask what if she got pregnant, well, she already was as evidenced by the camera going out of its way to, oh, you meant Beverly, not Gates, yeah, that would have been a situation. And we both had the severe discomfort when the episode strongly hints that Odan fucked Beverly using Riker’s body. Curious how aware Riker was of any of it, and as you’re saying, I agree, they just don’t focus on that. Astonishingly enough, this is not the strangest romance that Beverly’s involved in. Big emotional part of the episode is the scene Picard has with Beverly. Patrick so perfectly delivering Picard’s lines that he has been, and always shall be, Beverly’s friend, and whatever happens, he’s there for her. Oh, we are talking about chemistry between Patrick and Gates; the two of them never fail to deliver. Adored your reaction to that part, Jess. I sobbed at that scene myself, as that scene was beautiful. The Odan romance comes to a halt when the new host comes aboard. I completely hear you on wishing for the greater nuance, even if that was beyond a pipe dream for 1991. That continuous thing: You can acknowledge where we were with stuff like this when this was made, whilst still expressing the wish of greater nuance. They DO have the line from Beverly that says gender of the host body really would not have made a difference, a fact that Gates doubles down on. The consistent changing of hosts, however, is more the thing that Beverly could not handle. Do love the sentiment of expressing hope for a better future. What you had to say about all of that, can’t really improve or add much else, beyond I don’t mind when you have these sorts of post-episodes thoughts. I very much value what you have to say about these topics. I wanted there to be one last scene with Picard and Beverly to have a good talk, and we don’t get that. Goddamn it. One other small thing is I got distracted by the mentions of EEG, and marveling how the technology advanced enough to not need to glue the electrodes to one’s head for an EEG. Quite uncomfortable having to sleep at night when you have an EEG done. Terrific reaction, Jess, thank you.
Thomas Corp
2025-09-20 18:36:14 +0000 UTCNo surprise it took you a while to recognize the Trill, since the species was infamously revamped from the ground up when the Deep Space Nine crew decided to make one a main cast member. A totally different visual design that would be much simpler to apply on a regular basis, a merging of the host personalities rather than the parasite totally taking over, and their being this unknown to the Federation would come as news to Curzon Dax who at this same time had been drinking and sexing his way around the whole galaxy for decades. This is just the kind of thing TV shows could get away with back then before they'd have a bunch of Youtubers jumping on them for the slightest continuity issue. The episode gets off to a pretty rough start, with the extremely male writer Michel Horvat indulging in his slightly twisted views of how to write a romance from the woman's perspective. In particular, the line about Beverly's "glow" was added because Gates was pregnant during filming. And while I'm perfectly willing to buy that at this moment she's just a bit, as the Americans say, mad horny, all the stuff about loving Odan more than she's ever felt for anyone else (fuck Jack Crusher, I guess) even while acknowledging she just met him days ago is really bizarre. Far be it from me to suggest that denying her feelings for a certain other person for so long is starting to seriously affect her view of this kind of thing. Though it is all kind of worth it just for Patrick's face of "How can I make this conversation not be happening?" when Odan broaches the subject. Luckily, once the real plot starts, things get a lot more interesting. I especially love the idea that existence as a parasite is such a regular thing for the Trill that it simply never crosses their mind to bring it up; so much of sci-fi unavoidably has a viewpoint of humans as the "normal" ones that it's kind of startling to see something take this approach. And Jonathan does quite a convincing job of playing a totally different character, followed by their personalities gradually merging. The ending has naturally come in for a ton of evaluation under an LGBT lens, and it's pretty impressive for the time that it totally avoids any kind of homophobic reading on Beverly's part, with her sticking entirely to how it's entirely the idea of being with someone who regularly changes bodies that she can't wrap her head around, no matter what those bodies are. I kind of view it the same way as the notorious twist ending of Sleepaway Camp: the simple fact is it was made at a time when most people outside the community just never thought about this stuff, so why should we waste time now applying more thought to it than the creators ever did? It's all probably for the best since it probably would have fallen on Picard to actually marry them. "I'm trying to perform a wedding here, which has nothing to do with love. Please be quiet!"
Ryan
2025-09-20 17:46:04 +0000 UTC
