#ScribesAndMakers day 1: Does the change to a new calendar year affect your creativity in any way?

#ScribesAndMakers day 24: What's a work of science fiction that you love? What do you love about it?

I'm going to say, completely unironically: ST:TOS. Maybe it's partly because I grew up on it — and look, I'm not saying *every* episode; some of them were real stinkers¹ — but by and large, the message that humanity can come together, overcome our differences, triumph over the three evils of racism, militarism, and greed, and even ally with alien species in the pursuit of... 1/2

...knowledge and peace, is one that I wish more works would promote, and more people would follow, today. 2/2

1. I know, you're thinking of "Spock's Brain". But "The Empath" is even worse. Hoo boy, does that one suck!

#ScribesAndMakers

@kagan
funny story, it took me years to get my spouse to watch ST:TOS with me because every time he came across it in reruns as a kid/young adult, the episode airing was "Miri."
(An episode he loathes to this day)
...
Hm. I wonder how much of my love for Awful Cinema comes from enjoying even the stinker episodes of TOS.

@kmherkes When I first saw "Miri", I didn't see the problem with it.

In my defense, I was maybe 8 years old?

I forget when it was that I saw a little of it as a post-pubescent, rather than pre-pubescent, person and went "yikes".

But anyway, yeah. Not enough yikes in the world for that one.

@kagan lol yes, "not enough yikes in the world" is a great description.

I was probably the same age as you on first viewing and also loved it (an episode all about kids? AWEsome!)

As an adult, even as a teen, yeaaaaah, no.

@kmherkes Exactly! As a kid, I thought it was hilarious that these kids were beating up the Enterprise crew with rocks, and the word "grups" became part of my vocabulary for a little while. (Honestly, that term is a part of the episode that still works just fine. Nice, realistic-feeling piece of worldbuilding there.)

@kmherkes @kagan After Star Trek went to syndication, my Dad never encountered any episode but A Piece of the Action, through several cycles of the complete series...

@ElyseMGrasso @kagan

Oh, no, poor Dad!
I mean, could've been worse, but still.

How strange that multiple people seem to have always ended up seeing only ONE trek episode.

@kagan I’m an unreconstructed original series fan. I think it has more good episodes than The Next Generation, and by a pretty wide margin. And its peak episodes blow NextGen’s out of the water.

TOS did finally get lapped in quality by Babylon 5, but B5 was arguably playing a somewhat different game, so the comparison may be unfair.

The only season of Trek I’ve seen which I think surpassed the first two of TOS is the first season of Picard.

@ElyseMGrasso Wild.

I mean, if I were to be told, "You can only ever see 1 TOS episode ever again in your life. It will always be this one. Make a list of the top 10 episodes you'd choose," that one would probably be on the list (albeit near the bottom). So yeah, like @kmherkes said, could've been much worse.

That ep is a bit difficult to take seriously, but that's okay; it doesn't really *want* to be taken seriously. It's just 48 minutes of fun, start to finish! 1/2

@ElyseMGrasso @kmherkes Heck, I'll even give Spock a pass for misusing "youse" (in the immortal line "I would advise youse to keep dialin'," directed at the singular Okmyx), because seriously, why should Spock know that youse is a plural pronoun? C'mon, this episode has fizzbin (and Spock's deadpan reply to Kirk asking the odds of a royal fizzbin: "I have never computed them" — I love the *technical* truthfulness there!), and Kirk walking on a pool table, and also sharp suits. Gotta love it! 2/2

@mrawdon "More good TOS eps than TNG" is a bold claim... and now I'm looking over episode titles, trying to see if I agree or not. It's a hell of a thought exercise, and I think I might have to rewatch all of both shows to come to a final conclusion.

I *do not* have the time for that in my life right now. But props for the boldness!

I agree B5 was: 1) awesome; 2) playing a different game.

Haven't seen any of _Picard_ yet.

@kagan My top ten original series episodes, in the order they come to mind:

The Doomsday Machine
The Ultimate Computer
The Menagerie
Court Martial
The Enterprise Incident (yay season 3 had one great episode!)
Amok Time
Arena
Balance of Terror
Errand of Mercy
The Trouble with Tribbles

Outside looking in:
City on the Edge of Forever (good ep; I am not as ga-ga over it as many are, and I have no opinion as to whether Ellison’s original script - which I have read - would have been better)
Mirror Mirror
Space Seed
Day of the Dove (hey, another S3 episode!)
(The Tholian Web is also good!)

I guess my favorite NextGen episode at this point would be “Q Who”. I wasn’t a fan of the show the first time around and it’s aged poorly.

#ScribesAndMakers day 25: You're going on a creative retreat. What's the most important thing you need to bring with you?

My laptop, obvi! I can't write without it.

Okay, assuming "whatever tools you need to do the creating" are considered to be already included, then... what the hell, I'm going with the alexandrite earrings and pendant my sweetie gave me as things to spur creativity.

@mrawdon For me, I can't honestly do a fair "off the top of my head" comparison between TOS and TNG. I saw nearly all TOS episodes multiple times in my childhood, and reinforced that with readings of the James Blish novelizations. I *know* those things, really well. Give me any title and I'll give you the plot summary; give me any plot summary, and I'll spit out the title. 1/4

@mrawdon For TNG, there are some episodes I know by title ("The Best of Both Worlds" comes immediately to mind…), but then there are others that I have to just call things like "the one after 'The Best of Both Worlds', where Picard deals with his brother and his trauma, and Worf deals with his Russian adoptive parents… it's not called 'Family', is it? That'd be too on-the-nose?" or "the one where the collector guy kidnaps Data and nearly gets shot with a Varan-T disruptor for his troubles". 2/4

@mrawdon And I think there are at least a few TNG eps I haven't even seen once yet.

So, if I had to try to answer your original statement ("more good episodes than..."), my methodology would be:

Watch each series. For each episode, just assign it "good/medium/bad". Yeah, broad bands, but that's okay, and that seems to be what was set up by the statement. And there's no restriction on how many assignments of any given type can be made; if one thinks a show is full of good episodes and... 3/4

@mrawdon ...has hardly any bad ones, well, that's okay! That's what we all *want*, right? So no bell curve or stack ranking here. But do the votes honestly.

Then check the numbers. (Both absolute and by percentage, since 79 episodes vs. 178 is not really fair.)

It sounds like a fun project, but a time-consuming one. Maybe when I'm retired or something. 4/4

#ScribesAndMakers day 27: Are you good at threading needles?

No, but I have hardly any practice at it. I'm sure I'd improve quickly if I started sewing on a regular basis.

#ScribesAndMakers day 30: Hogwash?

Folderol! Stuff and nonsense! Indeed, as the kids say these days: that's AI!