15 December

ST:TNG Treadmill Review #13: The Emissary

The Emissary
Season 2 Episode 20
Original airdate: June 24, 1989

Netflix Synopsis
The Enterprise is ordered to proceed to an emergency rendezvous to collect a special envoy who is traveling from Starbase 153 to meet them.

My Brief Review
Some interesting Klingon moments in this episode, including the introduction of K’Ehleyr, a half-human, half-Klingon woman (and Worf’s old flame) — played by Suzie Plakson, who was also the Vulcan Dr. Selar in one of the earlier episodes I reviewed — Klingon mating rituals in the Holodeck, and Worf pretending to be captain of the Enterprise to keep a ship full of 23rd century Klingons, fresh out of cryogenic sleep and unaware the war is over, from attacking Federation outposts.

There’s also a way too drawn out poker game at the beginning, the weirdly unexplained (but presumably cost-saving) use of a probe to deliver K’Ehleyr to Enterprise — basically sending her hurtling through space for several hours at warp 9 inside a coffin — oh, and how exactly do probes achieve warp 9 without nacelles? Or if a probe can house nacelles capable of warp 9, why aren’t shuttlecraft, which appear to actually have nacelles, warp capable?

Uh sorry… I got a bit lost in the weeds there. Much like this and several of the recent episodes. (Oh, by the way, I skipped the episode before this one because it featured Deanna Troi’s mom, who I don’t need to see.)

Overall, this episode was kind of a mess. Not as much of a mess — and not as offensive — as Up the Long Ladder, but still, a mess.

Memorable Moment

I am a sucker for any moments of deception on the bridge, so Worf in full Klingon battle gear, with K’Ehleyr posing as his first officer, convincing the awakened crew of the T’ong that they were really running things, was a highlight for me in an episode without many.

Crew Rando

Ensign Clancy, whose presence is not very significant to the story, but who is at the helm throughout the entire episode since Wesley is back at a starbase for exams (assuming storyline continuity between episodes, but most likely Wil Wheaton just wasn’t available for a while). Fun fact! Ensign Clancy is played by Anne Ramsay, a regular cast member on Mad About You, and Suzie Plakson (K’Ehleyr) was also in 18 episodes of Mad About You. (Apparently she also played Ensign Clancy in one of the earlier episodes from this season that I skipped — one involving Data playing Sherlock Holmes on the Holodeck.)

I think the fact that I am more interested in probing IMDb for connections between guest stars than in this episode’s story itself says a lot about how this episode achieves the first ever…

Distance Rating: 3.5K

IMDb score: 7.6/10

Are you a web geek? Can a 404 error page excite you?

404 error signIf the former is true, it proves the latter. I’ll confess “yes” to both.

Today at work I was doing some miscellaneous web-related research (aimless surfing? no, no, never), and I came across a page of creative 404 error pages that inspired me to finally do something interesting with my own 404 error message.

Having lived in Atlanta (area code 404), I initially set out to do something that played off that. (I know, very original. I just wanted to make sure not to settle for “Tha 404.”) But it wasn’t long before my roadgeek tendencies kicked in and I thought of something even better.

Here’s my 404 page. (The image at right is a spoiler, of course.)

The sign image is (mostly) my own creation in Photoshop: I swiped the shield images for I-16 and Georgia 404 as SVGs from their respective Wikipedia pages, and the font is courtesy of another roadgeek. Whenever I start to question myself, I am reassured that there are others out there even sicker than I am.

Incidentally, there really is a Georgia 404, although the only place you’ll see a sign for it is on a small spur route near Savannah. Georgia’s Department of Transportation has a funny little quirk in that it has given all freeway-grade roads a state highway designation in the 400 range. (I suppose the “4” indicates 4 or more lanes.) As far as I know (and as this PDF from the GDOT website seems to confirm), there’s only one road in the system for which this is the main designation, however: Georgia 400, which is a main commuter artery running north (well, northish) from Buckhead out to the north-central suburbs and beyond into Deliverance country, since both I-75 and I-85 veer off diagonally out of the city (into the northwest and northeast suburbs and beyond into Deliverance country).

All of the other freeways in the state have a “4xx” designation too, but there are generally no signs indicating such, because they all also have a familiar designation, usually an Interstate number.

As it happens, Georgia 404 is better known as I-16 (hence the double shields on my sign image), which, interestingly enough, is not really “interstate” even though it’s an “Interstate”; it starts in Macon and ends in Savannah.