NEW NONFICTION: MIRROR TV GUIDE LISTINGS, TNG, SEASON 2 (O2/07) AKA Through a Sunbeam Darkly Author: The Enigmatic Big Miss Sunbeam Code: TNG Rating: R for Language and Suggestive Situations

26. The Child. The second season of TNG was tough going for us fans, primarily because of . . . PULASKI!!!!! ARRRRGGGGGHHH! Did Helen Keller do that casting??? Honestly. Well, back to the plot: aliens impregnate Deanna, she has a child and names it Ian, and Ian just grows and grows and grows until he explodes. Okay, that's kinda different. (Strangely enough, no one ever alludes to Ian ever again. Ever. What's up with that? In real life, people would at least THINK about Deanna's strange child. Does Deanna not want them to? "Cap-TAN, I sense the crew is thinking of IAN AGAN." So Jean-Luc strips down to nothing but a pair of lion-tamer tights, picks up the whip, and says in the sexiest voice in history: "Belay that thinking about Ian, you lot, or taste the whip." Ooooooooohh.)

27. Where Silence Has Lease. Nagillum takes over the ship. Help! I'm scared of Nagillum! His head is as big as a horizon! It's creepy! Jean-Luc decides, rather than cede control of the ship to creepy Nagillum, to blow it up along with all the people on it. Oh, I see, KING Jean-Luc. L'Enterprise: C'est HIM! No chance of playing along with Nagillum and then fooling him later? No, just le boomboom maintenant, eh, mon frere!

28. Elementary, Dear Data. Buncha Sherlock Holmes stuff with Data and Geordi. Geordi screws around with the holodeck, and Professor Moriarty becomes real and takes over the ship. Moriarty also kidnaps Pulaski "because he wants to." Oh, sure. The uncanny lack of chemistry between Pulaski and everyone else in existence is quite striking; do you think she has like a . . . forcefield going on? Still: Jean-Luc gets to wear gorgeous nineteenth-century togs! Two sex points: Sex point A) When Jean- Luc goes to Geordi's quarter, Geordi apologizes for screwing up. The camera shuts down. Jean-Luc says, "now that the camera's off, you must do what you always do when you fail me, Geordi. On your knees and make it last longer this time." Then he fumbles at his fly. A dot of saliva appears in the corner of Geordi's mouth. Sex point B) The amusingly snippy and affected actor who plays Moriarty is originally from . . . Arkansas!!!! That's right: tell your ma, tell your pa! Moriarty's from Arkansas! Wonder if Bill Clinton tried to have sex with him? Wonder if Bill got state troopers to bring Moriarty to the Razorback Hilton? Wonder if Bill said, "Al, turn yore head! Moriarty, yew are MAHHHHHNNN!" *sigh* I miss our Zeus-like Bill Clinton. Shakespeare might have been speaking of the US government in 2001 when he has Hamlet Jr. compare Hamlet Sr. to Claudius by observing "Like Hyperion to a toad."

29. The Outrageous Okona. TNG still loitering at the edges of what it could be. Guinan and Data tonelessly discuss "being funny". Then Joe Piscopo does an ineffably tragic turn as a holoststandup comedian showing Data how to be funny. Oh, for God's sake, Gericault's "Raft of the Medusa" provokes more laughs than these deadly scenes! Some guy who's supposed to be cute (he DOES have a ponytail) does some things. His name's Okona and the best thing about him is that we lovely ladies can slash him with JLP/Will/Worf til the cows come home, so he's not totally useless.

30. Loud as a Whisper: Deaf Guy and his three backup singers, AKA the Pips, board the ship. The Pips get murdered and Data has to learn sign language so he can be a Junior Pip. Yay! This works out tremendously well for everyone. Except for the first Pips.

31. The Schizoid Man. Disturbing ep. We get to see a corpse. EWWWWW!!!! The corpse's soul possesses Data's body for classic corpse motives: so he can get laid by his surviving pretty assistant! He's like a mad scientist, so, see, there IS a plot. Now, back to your desks.

32. Unnatural Selection Pulaski turns into a horrible old bag. Ah. (Insert your own joke here.)

33. A Matter of Honor: Great Riker ep and slashy as hell! Apparently, Jean-Luc and the captain of a Klingon vessel grant each other most-favored-boytoy status; the Klingons get Riker. Lotsa of steamy moments ensue. Riker takes a real shine to lanky farouche Klag who returns the favor. Klag's dad doesn't understand him. "Neither does mine," Riker says and bites his lower lip, "but I always wanted someone, a daddy, who would unnerstand me." "I know what you mean," Klag breathes. "Jean-Luc, he's nice ‘n' everything, but he doesn't give me what I really want." Klag swallows, "What do you really want?" "Sometimes," Riker fixes his most limpid gaze on Klag, "sometimes I think I need a spanking. With my pants down." "Ahh," says Klag, nearly swooning, "you mean, with your kneesapart. So I can see everything?"

"Yes," Riker whispers demurely. Wow. You all get the picture. Happy ending! Klag and Riker get married, plus there's bacteria and a comic Benzite!

34. The Measure of a Man is just so eighties! I refer of course to the lawwhore who wants to declare Data insentient. She's Phillipa Louvois, overly aerobicized careerbag, and she's apparently being offered up as a role model for real women. She snaps out with her steel jaws, "Jean-Luc, you're the sexiest man I ever knew," which is a genuinely scary moment, but Pee Ess, great actor that he is, doesn't flinch. Then Riker dismembers Data and we are reminded of the sad little incident where Data slept with Tasha.

35. The Dauphin. Wesley gets a girlfriend, but, oh, no! she's a shape shifter! Thus revealing TPTB's prejudice in favor of ineluctable-modality-of-the-visible! Their bias towards stasis! "Everybody's great," they say, "and we got, heheheheh, the Prime Directive goin' on, unless a guy changes one little shape and then forget it! Drown'em in their own lake!" But I paraphrase Melville: who ain't a shapeshifter? I mean eventually?

36. Contagion. This ep appears to be all about the set! And there's a terrible virulent computer virus and even Data gets it. So Geordi has to reboot him. That's right! Geordi has to reboot his lover! Is that not so Geordi! The Geordiest! None more Geordi!

37.The Royale. Another show about the set! See, there's this planet and they're all living out a vivid fantasy life of gambling and women and meanwhile there's, like, a dried-up corpse upstairs, just lying there! And Jean-Luc and them come in and tell the others to knock it off. What party poopers! Hey, what's wrong with living in a fantasy world! Not that we know anyone who would do such a thing!

38. Time Squared. Uhoh! Shuttlecraft accident! Et voila! Deux Jean-Luc's! Not as much fun than it sounds, because the Nouveau Jean-Luc just stares into space! Well! Then they kill the Nouveau Jean-Luc because they don't know what else to do. (If Bev had been there, she'd a known what to do. She'd say, "I believe I'll take Nouveau Jean-Luc to, uh, sickbay for, uhh, experiments." But really she would lead the bovine newcomer to her pad, plug in some Percy Faith, and GET IT ON.)

39. The Icarus Factor. Here Mitch Ryan turns up as Riker's mean daddy. Yeah, the very same daddy who turned out young Will to the mining camps of the Yukon back when Will was the most lissome fifteen-year-old under the Northern Lights. When I went to my first con this year (KiSCon, March 2001) I thought I was in Heaven! Because SURELY there's a round-the-clock video room in Heaven which shows nothing but old William Shatner television shows! What. A. Trip. KiSCon screened one early-60's episode of *The Defenders* where Shatner played a man-in-the-grey- flannel-suit type who accidentally kills a guy. Well, Shatner has to go on trial, but the defense claims that nobody really liked the dead guy so Shatner might as well be declared innocent (and we all better watch our asses!) Interestingly enough, Joanna Linville, who played the Romulan Commander, is Mrs. Killer- Executive Shatner here, and then Mitch Ryan shows up! He's the dead guy's brother and he wants Shatner to fry! (Ryan must specialize in wicked relatives.) Anyhow, Shatner makes a big courtroom speech ("get a life!" he tells the jury) and then the credits roll. I agree with the jury completely; Shatner is just precious here. Oh, yeah, back to *TNG*, Riker and Mitch end up pounding on each other with big Oedipal anbo-jyutsu sticks, and nothing gets resolved.

40. Pen Pals. Before Data saves tonight's kitten, Jean-Luc splays those fabulous thighs across a fine piece of horseflesh. Alas, the camera does not linger, but, who cares, Jean-Luc's ineffable foxiness . . . is just ineffable. See: stupid old TPTB wanted J-L to just be, like, what?, the Obi Wan Kenobi of TNG? Then, when everybody in Hollywood found out how much WE ladies LUUUUUUUUUUUURVVVVVVVVE His P.S.ness, they start doing all this shit, like f'rinstance giving Daniel Benzali a teevee show. "Yoohoo, girls, he's a Brit, and bald, and kinda of temperamental! Now watch Our Show!" The corporate mind clearly misunderstands the many-throated Cleopatra that is American womankind. Jean-Luc Picard and Only Jean-Luc Picard will do. Now peel us a grape.

41. Q Who. OOOOOoooohhhh. Another ep centering on Jean-Luc's thighs! See, there's a bar full of hot men and no women at all! And the most handsome and dominant man drapes his huge thighs across a barstool and says to the prettiest boy there: "You're fascinating to learn about but next of kin to chaos." And the prettiest boy's wide dreaming poppy-colored mouth opens and he's stunned. Everywhere in America, brains caught ON FIRE!!! (Even if the grammar was baffling.) John deLancie is at his maximum beautifulness here; it's just uncanny. This ep starts off with the famous (to us) kidnaped-in-a-shuttlecraft scene between Jean-Luc and Q, as meaningfully crafted as a Vermeer.

42. Samaritan Snare. Featuring the Pakleds. What's their thing: why, they're dumb as mud!!! It's Star Trek for Dummies! And they steal Geordi because "He is smart. He makes things go." Then our gang fools them and they end up returning Geordi. I still think Pakleds Rule!!! Oh, yeah, this is the one where Wes and Cap go off in a shuttlecraft and Cap tells Wes about his artificial heart. "Would you like to see my scar?" Cap says. Wes swallows. "And, by the way, Wesley, I have other scars as well. On other parts of my body. There's nothing wrong with two manly men showing each other their scars, you know. Can I examine you for scars, Wes? We'll just put this little craft on automatic and go in the back and look . . . for scars, right, Wes? It will be our little secret."

43. Up the Long Ladder. Huguenot clones on one side, Irish spacemen on the other. I kid you not. And then Riker gets laid by one of those terrifyingly over-simplified zestful-breastful full-of-life girls that are completely fictional.

44. Manhunt. Lwaxana. Hey, guess what I just found out? (Ole Sunbeam has done her homework.) While researching hillbilly drive-in movies (I have many interests), I found that Majel had a featured role in "Country Boy"! Yes, the classic 1966 hillbilly drive-in movie "Country Boy"! Starring Skeeter Davis! And Sheb Wooley! You surely remember "Country Boy"? Where the wicked agent discovers the title character pumping gas and singing and signs him to a career? Alas, according to the All-Movie Guide, the aforementioned country boy has stage fright, so his agent has to: "help him out by dressing him up as Abe Lincoln and getting him to sing rock & roll. The audience is totally offended and the US President personally requests a meeting with the boy's father to try and persuade the lad to give up his sacrilegious act." As they say in the print-humor biz, I am not making this up. Majel plays the part of "Miss Wynn", and, using my enormous Lwaxana-like psychic powers, I believe that means she's the agent's secretary. Thank God she married well. Oh, in "Manhunt" Lwxana grazes on the holodeck for a while. She doesn't seem to quite understand holodecks, BTW, so I must say she's awfully unworldly for a psychic ambassador from outer space.

45. The Emissary. Worf's old girlfriend shows up. They snarl at each other. This passes as a plot.

46. Peak Performance. Featuring the mandarin and effeminate Zakdorns, with the brilliant Roy Brocksmith as Public Zakdorn Number One! Brocksmith is a great alien; notice how his movement suggests that he might have three or more legs (and why not?) This ep has such a rockin plot: Zakdorns, games, Ferengi subterfuge, Riker fights Jean-Luc, Data learns some kind of lesson. It's got it all!

47. Shades of Gray A slide show! An audiovisual! I do this all the time. I say to myself: do I really want to go in and try to taunt that herd of teen satan-worshippers into giving it up for see-aye-tee-spells-cat! NAWWW, I'll just prop my feet up and show an AV instead! Hence this show: Riker going into a coma and strolling down memory lane. And Pulaski compounds the error.

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