
Season 1 of Star Trek: The Next Generation continues in this next round of reviews, and straight off the bat we have a follow-up encounter with clownish arch-villain Q. The teething issues continue with a real mixed bag of episodes, setting up possible ongoing plotlines through clumsy lines of throwaway dialogue and allowing the regulars to test the boundaries of their characters.

Everybody loves nostalgia and there’s a reason why every dickhead you know has had an 80’s party and those parties are slowly morphing into 90’s parties. Old mediocrity has become passable with a bit of time between then and now and that’s why we have grown man-children reminiscing about poorly animated cartoons of their youth.
The Dude Rocket has gotten on board with this concept with Dude Rocket Contributor ‘Matt’ delving into the bland ordinariness of ‘Boy Meets World’ with a series of reviews.


Today in the 19th edition of Captain's Log we'll finally be getting stuck into Star Trek: The Next Generation. There has long been a divide between the fans of the original series of Star Trek and those who came to the show during the days of The Next Generation (hereafter referred to as TNG). After much passing of time, there are many fans who can appreciate the franchise in all of it's glory, but some still pick sides in the battle between generations.

1. No Evidence
There is no evidence that heaven exists. In the Bible, heaven is a place that physically exists in the sky above Earth. It is in Genesis that we are told of the story when humans built a tower that was so tall God became concerned that they may soon reach heaven. However, humans have since put satellites in orbit around the Earth, sent a probe to the farthest reaches of our solar system and cast our eye into deep space, and there is still no evidence of heaven.
You might prefer to not read Genesis and the Bible literally. But if you take this option, you open up the Bible to an infinite number of interpretations and thereby render it useless for instruction in matters of fact and morality.


The episode starts with the Cory, Shawn and a random African-American kid sitting in the cafeteria, discussing which super hero would make the best dad. Shawn and the African-American kid think Batman, but Cory thinks Superman. After a bit Shawn points out that Minkus is nearby. He pulls out a Super Soaker and Cory is super impressed. When talking about it Shawn comments that they should keep the water gun hidden so Feeny doesn’t “shag it”. This was weird, cause Shawn was obviously talking about Feeny confiscating it, but I’ve never known the word “shag” to mean “taken from” or such. It just sounded weird. Shawn proceeds to squirt Minkus.

It is so ridiculous to think that once upon a time when you wanted to watch a TV show, you had to fall in line with a specific set out time table. Sometimes stuff would be repeated and occasionally shows would be collected on VHS, but largely, if you wanted to watch a TV show, you had to watch it at a specific time. If that show was on at a time when you weren’t going to be home or you were busy with other important shit you needed to actually plan ahead and set the VCR or ask your mum to record it for you. You couldn’t magically acquire copies of the show and watch through them to your leisure, at times convenient to you.


As the modern spokes-network of free information exchange and thought circulation, it should come as no surprise that the internet is full of deep, dark corners. Not literally – nothing can be full of corners, and certainly not if all of them are to be deep. It is more akin to a lovely city that invites you in with its lure of cosmopolitan street cars, gastronomy and architecture. It sounds great, but once you’re inside it can no longer conceal its ominous back alleys, swarms of desperate and evil citizens, suspiciously boarded up office windows and crooked taxi drivers. All of this exists somewhat naturally with the more viable ebbs and flows of city living, rendering San Francisco as possibly the greatest tourist trap ever concocted.

For the longest time I’ve been deeply ashamed and tormented by my involuntary celibacy (virginity) and it’s bugged the heck out of me like you wouldn’t believe. Co-workers would prank me all the time about it (my ‘pal’ Alex left a box on my desk with the words “one year’s supply” written on top of it and inside it was a single condom [I never got to use even that one]), my drinking buddies would laugh it up all the time and tell people at the pub, and then those drunken bar flies would turn their heads from the nags running loops at Toowoomba to give me a serve. I tried to take it in my stride, knowing that if I showed how much it was getting to me then they’d turn on me even more and grind my delicate self-confidence into a gooey mush.