NEW NONFICTION: MIRROR TV GUIDE LISTINGS, TNG, SEASON 6 (O6/07) AKA Through a Sunbeam Darkly Author: The Enigmatic Big Miss Sunbeam Code: TNG Rating: R for Language and Suggestive Situations.

126. Times Arrow II: Okay, all the Bug-Zapper people lose; well, good, and then Jean-Luc helps Guinan out. He and Whoopi really stir up some smoldering heat, very alluring and attractive as they talk and she rests against him. Jean-Luc has a nice voice, have you ever noticed that? [sweatsweatpantpanteyesoutonstemseyesoutonstems]

127. Realm of Fear. "Good evening, I'm Boris Karloff as played by Jean-Luc Picard, and I'd like to welcome you to tonight's episode. It's called *Realm of Fear*, and it's a real THRILLLLLLUH". More Barclay. Barclay's such a nell he doesn't like to ride transporters, but Starfleet makes him anyway. Okay, tonight while he's being transported, he find himself in the transporter with a . . . tobacco worm! Then there's plot. But not the plot there oughta be! Yeah, in the plot there oughta be, Barclay calmly disembarks from the transporter. The next day two waiters in Ten Forward discuss the puzzling disappearance of all the lettuce from the salad bar. Barclay becomes wigglier over the next few days, and his skin grows strangely shiny, too. Then one night Deanna hears a slither at her door. When it whooshes opens, she hears something shout "Counselor Troi, you are MIIIINNNNNE" and sees coming towards her a giant . . . Meanwhile, one of the kids from the schoolroom finds a little tiny creature with a familiar face who keeps saying, "HELP MEEE HELP MEEEE". Alas, in the *real* plot, notice how at the very end, Colm Meaney actually has none-to-little screen time with his alleged "pet" tarantula.

128. Man of the People. Great sex scene: Riker goes over to Deanna's room and she answers the door and she's dressed the sluttiest ever! Even down to the visible-under-her-low-cut-top diamond-hard nipples (the only other Star Trek erect nipples I ever saw were in *Insurrection* after Jean-Luc falls in the water, but you probably knew that). Well, Riker's just tickled pink. Until he spies the hot-looking young ensign sitting on her bed. Who apologizes profusely and scuttles out of there. And then Deanna tells Will to cram it, bozo. Nipples! Boring plot otherwise. Some guy does things. Still: Nipples!

129. Relics. Hey, who peed in Geordi's Wheaties?! What a grouch! And towards Scotty! I really do not believe that. I mean I do not believe that Geordi would start bitching over the presence of a engineering genius who'd been stuck in a transporter for seventy-years and wanted a little company. Not Our Geordi. No way. Well, anyway, Scotty does get a hair style for longer than a week! But it's only because he gets stuck in the transporter for seventy-five years! Incidentally, his iron hairdo in this ep reminds me of the three great divisions of Trek. A) Free of Hair Issues: Spock, Jean-Luc, Data, Geordi. B) Out of the Closet with their Hair Issues: Scotty, Deanna, Worf, Chekov. C) Deeply Closeted (and Hence Deeply Troubled by) Hair Issues: Kirk, McCoy, Beverly, Riker. Hey, notice the look JLP gives Scotty when Scotty gets all old and profound and says, "It's like the first time you fall in love. You don't ever love a woman quite like that again." Wonder what Cap's thinking of? [smilegrinhehhehheh] Or WHO he's thinking of?

130. Schisms. Ewoks from the Fifth Dimension capture Riker and Worf and some others and tape measure them. I like to think that they did some erotic probing as well, but the blushing camera turned away. A great scene: Worf gets his hair cut by Mr. Mott, Bolian Barber! It turns out Mr. Mott TOOK TOO MUCH OFF THE TOP last time. Needless to say, one shouldn't do that with a Klingon. You really need to see that scene.

131. True Q. Boring Q ep. Unheard of! But it's boring mainly because it dooesn't focus on Q or Jean-Luc, but on a teen Q who has a crush on Riker. So sad. Well, what do girl Qs do? They generate puppies and gazebos and Rikers in illfitting top hats (Riker is devastated by that top hat.) But our Q, the really truly true Q, has a nice moment or two, once when he hugs Jean- Luc (Jean-Luc feigns indifference ‘cuz Riker's watching). Also, Jean-Luc makes a big Jean-Luc speeches about . . . life or something, and Q is SO exasperated. No one can act irritatedly exasperated the way John deLancie can. Astonishing.

132. Rascals. Now this is a hell of a show. *Something* happens and Jean-Luc, Ro, Guinan, and Keiko are made into children. Amazing performance by the brilliant Colm Meaney when he realizes that he's married to a twelve-year-old girl. He's. Just. So. Irish. Cringing! Making the sign of the cross! He KNOWS he's going to hell for this one! Rockin! I rather like the young Jean-Luc as well. Telling the Ferengis that Riker's his Number One Dad! What a rascal! You really need to see this one too.

133. Fistful of Datas. Mixed reviews from everybody on this ep, from everybody but ME, who thinks it is good to the last drop! Holodeck is running a cowboy program for Worf and Alexander and it screws up and everybody turns into Data, who gets to be about seven different cowpokes and one busty lusty saloon-gal who tries to lure Worf into a shoot-out at her okay corral. Data the hot drag queen! Does that rule! Then to pile Pelion on Ossa, Deanna turns up smoking cigarillos and wearing the universe's tightest shirt. Wonderful in every way.

134. The Quality of Life. Pouty scientist Ms. Farralon makes these little George Foreman grills that can think. Data weighs the grills' importance in the great scheme of things and inexplicably finds them equal to Jean-Luc. So, when our gang gets get into one of those foolish ST positions where Data alone must choose who lives and who dies, Jean-Luc's goose appears cooked. Mizz Farralon care she nought, and the rest of the crew is . . . thoughtful. Honestly. I hope Jean-Luc turns Data over his knee after the cameraman goes home.

135. Chain of Command, pt. I. This is what Judith Gran calls a "booster plot", i.e. not a real plot, but a formative pretext for the next part when JLP lets the ACTING DAWGS OUT! In this part, Bev, Worf, and JLP wear beatnik clothes and visit the Cardassian Rock City. Then JLP gets captured by David Warner and it turns v. serious.

136. Chain of Command, pt. II. In the continuation, Jean-Luc plays Leonardo diCaprio to David Warner's (reg. TM) David-Warner-Character, i.e. David Warner ties Jean-Luc's hands above his head and then threatens him. Still, I like David Warner, and there's a happy ending. Worm-eating alert! Man, Jean-Luc is STARVED! (Actually, this is a very disturbing episode all about man's indomitable spirit, but mostly our attention is drawn to JLP's naked body, so, under the circumstances, man's indomitable spirit pretty much flies out the window.) (Oh, by the way, something about acting with his fellow British hams brings out the fighting best in King P of Stewartville. Maybe it's that competitive thing he sure has got going on. What it must have been like to be all that talented in the nineteen-sixties, yeah, in the middle of the British Invasion!!!, and to lack that one ineffable alluring Brit thing: hair. He kicks out the jams here with David Warner -- also from the north of England -- just as he did back with Jeremy Kemp in "Family," but nothing compares to his work with fellow Yorkshireman Malcolm McDowell in the movie "Generations". When Jean-Luc refuses to give Dr. Soran a rocketship, and Soran starts burbling on about *time is the fire in which we burn*, look at The Man's face and think about what he's thinking about. Rene. Robert. His face grows paler and more frightened, and he can barely breathe from the grief; then, when Soran finishes nattering, JLP says, "I'll see what I can do," in a strangled emotional voice and basically TAKES NO PRISONERS, ACTING-WISE. Does anyone besides me remember when David Warner and Malcolm McDowell were important British actors? "I'll moptop ye, Ringo-fookin-Starr!")

137. Ship in a Bottle. More Moriarty! Yes, the Arkansas Love-Bug Returns! Kind of a Jorge-Luis-Borges moment at the end when Jean-Luc says, "well, what if, say, WE on board the Enterprise here were just a little program in a little box on a little coffee table for the entertainment of unknown giants." And then the camera shuts down, but Jean-Luc goes on saying, "and suppose the script were kinda sorry and focuses on the guest stars instead of the real stars, like me, LordSirBrave Pat Stewartness," and Data peeks around the camera, "or me, Brent Spiner," and here comes Riker, "Or me!" Yeah, and what if the script is lame and everybody's conscious that it's lame: so, if you're conscious that it's lame, well, how about that? Is it still lame? All too labyrinthine for Saturday night in my opinion. SEX! JUST GIVE US SEX!!!

138. Aquiel. The dog did it! The dog did it! And furthermore there's DNA everywhere! You don't really want to know much about this episode, nor is there much to know. I think Geordi gets some, but it's hard to care.

139. Face of the Enemy. TNG bows to the demands of Marina's agent and gives her an ep. See, she gets surgically altered into a Romulan and she gets to Romul all over the place. But do you know why this episode is important? [blushblush] Because this is the first time Worf wears his . . . ponytail! I had to be sedated when I saw it. Sexy doesn't even begin to describe the effect Worf's long hair had on me.

140. Tapestry. Jean-Luc In Bed With Q!!!!! Hot Voolyvoo-Q-shay-Avec-Moi Action! Oh, when I saw the slomo reveal of Jean-Luc lying in bed with Q, I said, naw, they won't go there. BUT THEY DID. Boring subplot of Jean-Luc's life story (shacks up with a teenaged girl and makes her miserable; is also revealed to be a coward). Happy ending, I guess, in that Jean-Luc ends up in the conference room swapping deadly pussy yarns with Riker. I think the real plot is the Pillsbury Act-Off between deLancie and HisHolyActornessPS. Gotta say: Big John wins this one hands-down.

141. Birthright I. Data has the cutest dream about Noonian Soong! Who turns out to have been a real dreamboat in his youth. There's also a convoluted subplot abut Worf's father, the beautifully monickered Mogh!, and whether or not Mogh Lives! James "I'm a Pig for Your Love" Cromwell turns up in a thin candy shell of latex makeup to taunt Worf that his father is alive (big Klingon insult: snarl! Your father's not dead! Ahahahahaha.*sigh* Those Klingons!) Worf has to go investigate!

142. Birthright II. Seems like Mogh is dead! Seems like Mogh was dead all along! Abientot, Mogh! But it's okay: Worf gets laid by a gal who's half-Klingon and half-Romulan. She sure looks like she has her some bad headaches (IMHO, Worf's way too good for her.) At the end, some pretty Klingon boys come back with Worf to the Enterprise while Riker and Jean-Luc lift their eyebrows. Fresh meat, they seem to say.

143. Starship Mine. Jean-Luc wear a hot little outfit. Low cut. With jodhpurs. And he roams around the ship all on his own except for some pointless bad guys (these are apparently the same ones from "Gambit" episodes 155/156: you know the type, shoelaces in their noses and clothespins for ears and hair made from chains and upholstery for clothes and crap like that). Jean-Luc defeats them all without even breathing heavy. Don't worry, Johnny, we'll do the heavy breathing for you.

144. Lessons. Jean-Luc gets some from a woman. This is actually rather less engaging that it seems (although it's a well meaning ep). Best scene: him and her rehearse some music together in a Jeffries tube and Geordi and Data crawl around trying to find out the source of the music and then the music stops and Geordi and Data shrug. Reason the music stopped: you have to ask! C'mon! Grow up!

145. The Chase. Dr. "Chickenhawk" Galen, Jean-Luc's first lover back at the Academy, comes back to Jean-Luc and expects him to put out. No dice, says Jean-Luc, he has cuter fish to fry (casts a meaningful look at Riker). Chickenhawk goes off in a snit (or is it a shuttlecraft) and conveniently dies. (Elderly guest stars always die.) But meanwhile he leaves Jean-Luc the secret of the universe! Guess what it is! Seems like, EveryONE is BeeYOUtifullll in THEIR Own WAY!!!! How cool is that! Poor old Jean-Luc has to explain that to a fun group consisting of Cardassians, Romulans, and Klingons. :) I like the Cardassian babe's pigtails; with her scales, she looks the way Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" would look if the flying monkeys had gotten ahold of her.

146. Frame of Mind. New Adventures In Riker's Hair! Tonight introduces the Fork-in-a-Toaster/Troll-Doll/Gary-Condit tonsorial cascade. There's also a confused plot: Riker is immured in an insane asylum by a McDonald's Arches-faced race of people who don't believe him when he says, "I Don't Belong Here!" It's that old What-Is-Reality thing again. "Here," TPTB say, "you people at home are watching, YOU decide what's going on!" Why do we even PAY these people?

147. Suspicions. Uhoh, big PLOT ep. Bev quits Starfleet. "I hate them! I hate them!" she says throwing herself on her bed; Whoopi's there and they harmonize on "A Thousand Stars in the Sky" (as made famous by Kathy Young and the Innocents), and then they go to the mall to get their ears pierced and, wait, no, I'm confused by Bev's total teen petulance! That's not what happens at all! Actually, see, there's a Ferengi and he dies and he's murdered and Bev has her "Suspicions" (heheheh) about it, andshe's either right or wrong, I forget which. Attractive alien with gila-monster skin is lurking about so that has a certain charm.

148. Rightful Heir. Well, Kahless comes back from the dead and all the Klingons are pretty impressed. Not that it's hard to impress Klingons; they are hardly a reticent race. Wonder what the average Klingon blood pressure is? Eight billion over seven hundred thousand? Hey, what is it Maggie says about the little no-neck monsters who throw buttered biscuits at her in "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof"? "My goodness, these kiddies are SO full of vitality." Same goes for Klingons.

149. Second Chances. Okay, bitch, get on your knees and admit you love Riker. And now there's two of them! Seems Riker got doubled in a transporter accident in a cave, and they've just found out. New Riker is cuter than Old Riker (and hotter: he molests the squealing Deanna on the holodeck!) New Riker is also rather more . . . gutsy than Old Riker: he goes off and joins the Maquis (leading to one of the more mystifying DS9's where Old Riker visits DS9 and insults Miles who cowers from him - why? - and then kidnaps Kira and it turns out it's not Old Riker, but New Riker, and then he French-kisses Kira and gets sent to a Cardassian prison camp for life. And that's it. Most of us reading this are okay with the prison camp thing -- no smut like prison camp smut -- but it is odd to just . . .leave Riker's story like that. I suspect the evil hand of Ira Steven Squeaktoy in all of this; the relentless message one gets while doing one's homework is how much Ira Steven Badguy HATES TNG. Hey, remember Bashir's buddy, the surgically-enhanced fat old bald mutant insecure named . . . Patrick: yeah, wonder what THAT was all about. What an asshole. Ira Steven Frostyheart has no fan in me.)

150. Timescape. Deanna loses a moment whle Data is discussing a conference he went to. What's her beef? This happens to me at administration meetings all the time! Then Jean-Luc sticks his fingertips into a time-warp fiendish-thingy and his nails grow superfast and he does a double take from the classic 1921 horror movie *Nosferatru*. That's a kinda cool second. Later, Jean-Luc goes nuts and draws a smiley face in the warp core. Also: great Slimer-colored frozen phasar blasts to Bev's chest. And there's Romulans! (Grrr!) Still: nothing seems to happen?

151. Descent I. One of them end-of-the-season cliffhangers that TPTB are so fond of. The first half is breathtaking: Alexander Singer (director) is a genius! The scene where Crosis the Borg seduces Data into deciding to kill Geordi is flat-out brilliant beyond words. Brent Spiner rules! Even the camera is in on the act!

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