Countdown to Tulsa

At the end of the month, I am meeting my brother and my nephews so that we can all go to a Star Trek convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I have been informed that it's a good idea to bring something for the stars to sign, so I have been working on a comic-book style representation of one of my favorite episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager."

This is only one of several items I wanted to do in time for the convention. Sadly, not only is this the only one I have started, but I'm not even close to finishing it. I just have these two panels done. Red alert!

Tom, get us out of here

Several years ago, a friend gave me a blank book that I never got around to using, probably because it's too small for writing comfortably in for long periods of time. But fortunately it was within grabbing distance a few months ago while I was watching an episode of "Star Trek: Voyager" that featured a line of dialogue so astonishingly cheesy, I had to record it right away. And so a tradition was born.

This book is now filled with only the most superlative dialogue from "Voyager" — the most melodramatic, the most pseudo-scientific, and, yes, the most actually eloquent.

I just finished watching the last season of "Voyager" and, in preparation for writing a review of the whole series to follow up on an earlier review I did, I am now going to list my favorite of these quotations.

My exercise started with "Demon" — a show from the fourth season, just a bit past the halfway mark of the series — so it won't include any gems you might have noticed from earlier episodes.

As a sidenote, you can tell from my list which characters ultimately became the focus of the series. Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) notwithstanding, the pseudo-humans were really highlighted, mainly Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), the part-cybernetic woman rescued from the Borg, and the Doctor (Robert Picardo), the hologram created in the image of a human. Vulcan Tuvok (Tim Russ), my favorite character, also had some good dialogue.

Here are the quotations:

"I'm having trouble with the nature of individuality." — Seven, to Janeway (from "Latent Image").

"Proposing the same flawed strategy over and over again will not make it more effective, Ensign." — Tuvok, to Harry Kim (from "Extreme Risk").

"With all of these new personalities floating around, it's a shame we can't find one for you." — The Doctor, to Tuvok (from "Infinite Regress").

"Remember the temporal prime directive. ... Try to avoid time travel." — Lieutenant Ducane, to Janeway (from "Relativity").

"Oh, the almighty temporal prime directive. Take my advice, it's less of a headache if you just ignore it." — Admiral Janeway, to her younger self (from "Endgame").

"I ended up stranded in the late 20th century. Have you ever been to that time frame? ... I don't recommend it." — Colonel Braxton, to Seven (from "Relativity").

"Dating is a poor means of interaction." — Seven, to the Doctor (from "Someone to Watch Over Me").

"Fortunately, I was able to create a chroniton-infused serum that brought you back into temporal alignment." — The Doctor, to Chakotay (from "Shattered").

"Like most time paradoxes, it's implausible, but not necessarily illogical." — Tuvok (from "Relativity").

"A soldier and a philosopher. Your intelligence file doesn't do you justice." — Janeway, to Chakotay (from "Shattered").

"I told Lieutenant Torres that your saxophone playing reminded me of a wounded targ. I should have put it more delicately!" — The Doctor to Harry Kim (from "Renaissance Man").

"I am familiar with human banter. Yours is crude and predictable." — Seven to Maxwell Burke (from "Equinox").

"Do you have any idea how inappropriate it is to follow your therapist on vacation?" — Deanna Troi, to Reg Barclay (from "Inside Man").

"It looks like a simple case of space sickness. ... It happens to everyone." — The Doctor, to Janeway (from "Relativity").

"Perhaps there is something to be said for assimilation after all." — Seven, on the merits of small talk and other human courtship rituals (from "Someone to Watch Over Me").

"You are an imposter. Admiral Janeway visits on Sunday. Today is Thursday. Logic dictates that you are not who you claim to be." — Tuvok, to Admiral Janeway (from "Endgame").

"As the Ferengi say, a good lie is easier to believe than the truth." — Janeway (from "Shattered").

"When you take me from the Borg, you're going to tell me that part of being human is learning to trust. Trust me, now." — Seven, to Janeway (from "Relativity").

"Did he ever stop being a doctor? ... I can't stop being a weapon." — The intelligent bomb, speaking through the Doctor's holomatrix, to Harry Kim (from "Warhead").

"My courage is insufficient." — Seven (from "Infinite Regress").

"Do what all good pragmatists do ... compromise." — The Borg Queen, to Admiral Janeway (from "Endgame").

"If you don't like the way I do things, I can leave you on the nearest habitable planet." — Janeway, to a Hirogen aboard Voyager (from "Flesh and Blood").

"Tom, get us out of here." — Janeway, to helmsman Tom Paris, in too many episodes to list!

"Computer, delete audience." — Tom Paris, referring to the other people in a holographic movie theater (from "Repression").

"Fun will now commence." — Seven, to a group of children she is teaching (from "Ashes to Ashes").

The fine art of managing one's Netflix queue

Someone really should come up with a word for that awful thing that happens when you fail to properly manage your Netflix queue and end up with a disc that's completely wrong for your current mindset.

Last night, I vigorously ripped open one of those cunning red Netflix envelopes, happy in the certainty that it contained the conclusion of a "Star Trek" two-parter I had started the night before. Imagine my shock at finding a disc I'd saved to my queue 18 months ago: the ultra-paranoid documentary "Loose Change 9/11," a provocative — some might say offensive — treatise on how the U.S. government was allegedly complicit in the worst terrorist attack in American history.

At least, that's what I think it's about. I haven't yet watched it, not having been able, last night, to make the mental shift from my planned agenda to one focused on mass murder and allegedly evil right-wing politicos. It sounded just a bit too far from all that Starfleet optimism.

Bottom line, manage that queue....

I dreamed I destroyed the sun

Occasionally, on "Star Trek," the captain is faced with the prospect of having to sacrifice himself, the ship, and its crew in order to avoid some greater disaster. A dream I had last night borrowed this theme, though I wasn't on a starship or anything like that. I was right here in my living room.

In my dream, there was some sort of cataclysmic event that was about to occur, the sort of thing that could destroy the entire galaxy. I had colleagues who were working to avert it. But if their efforts failed, we would have to contain the damage by destroying our own solar system. That would be pretty bad, obviously, but not as bad as the alternative — letting the cataclysm snuff out both our solar system and the rest of the galaxy.

The way we would destroy the solar system, in this worst-case scenario, would be by launching a missile at the sun. I was the one in charge of this.

Things had to be timed exactly right. My colleagues needed to be given as much time as possible before we gave up and launched the missile. But if they were unsuccessful and the missile were launched too late, everything would be lost.


I was sitting here on my sofa, staring at information on their progress that I was streaming onto this laptop. I realized that they probably were going to fail. Still, I waited. Finally I realized that I was waiting too long. I entered the instructions for the launch — using some sort of Google mapping app, of course; what else? The countdown began, displayed in dark blue numbers in a yellow box.

I was so stressed over whether I had waited too long that I almost forgot to be sad and scared about what was happening. As I watched the animation of the missile's progress, I wondered how it would feel and look when the sun exploded, how quickly people would die, and whether it would hurt. It felt strange to think about these things while also hoping desperately that I hadn't failed in my mission.

While watching the image of the moving missile on my laptop, for a horrible moment I thought the missile would miss its target. Then it righted itself. I saw it enter the sun, and my computer told me that it had detonated.

I looked up toward my bay windows and saw the sky go dark. On the interior of the windows, I saw words illuminated: "Goodbye to everyone I ever knew." It got very hot. I wondered if the world would explode, and I waited, and waited.

Then I woke up. My space heater was set too high. I turned it off and made breakfast. Later I worked on a drawing, baked cranberry muffins, and watched an episode of "Star Trek." No one died.

Chaotic space

There is an episode of "Star Trek: Voyager" in which the crew enters a region known as "chaotic space" — where sensors don't work, space shimmers, and unknown forces communicate using words plucked from the mouths of random individuals.

When I was in New York last weekend, I stumbled across an art installation that reminds me a bit of that episode.

The discovery was accidental: With an hour to kill before catching a bus at Port Authority, I decided to walk over to The New York Times building, which is right across the street from the terminal. I had never seen The Times building (which I have since learned is new), and I wondered whether they ever offer tours. After a nice security guard informed me that they do not, I wandered around the lobby a bit and spied a long orange passageway lined with what I thought were little plaques.

I went over for a closer look and was surprised to see that, though there were dozens and dozens of them, they were blank.

Then, without warning, they snapped to life, spitting out all kinds of seemingly random words.


This installation is called "Moveable Type 2007." Created by UCLA statistics professor Mark Hansen and New York-based artist Ben Rubin, it is composed of "vaccuum fluorescent displays, copper and steel cable, custom software, [and] two grids," according to a sign at the site.

The grids are situated on two long walls that face each other, each holding, I would guess, about 250 panels. Every minute or so, the panels update with information culled from The Times.

Sometimes each panel displays a question.


Other times, each panel shows a statement.


I found it easy to get transfixed by these panels, wondering who uttered such statements as "I was a rodent at the time, dying to be human," and "We have a few white people, not so many, but they're very nice."

Also provocative are the questions. I would like to know the answers to, and context of, queries like "Isn't there something nice, a lot cheaper, on Lake Michigan?" not to mention "Had there been a purpose?" More obvious (but no less fun) was one that popped up a couple of times while I was there: "A little tacky and vulgar, but would you want your steamy tangos and cha-chas any other way?"

The panels tend to go dark all at once, then they start lighting up in different ways. Sometimes the ones at the bottom light up first, and the content migrates gradually to the upper panels, creating a cool rolling effect.

Other times, each panel ignites with a dot of light that begins drawing a map. It's fun to try to identify as many of them as you can before they dissipate.


There are moments where all panels feature a line from an obituary. Other times, all panels display a number, along with a partial explanation of it (like this: "4-pound sea bass" and "1 stand devoted completely to watercress").

There are also crossword puzzle effects.


After writing most of this post, I dug up The Times' own article about the installation. Apparently, it was commissioned concurrent with The Times' move to its current location from its former one on West 43rd Street. It wasn't clear to me whether most of the text on the panels comes from the current day's paper, or whether an equal part comes from The Times' database of older stories, but I guess it doesn't really matter. Interestingly, the installaton also draws on search terms that users enter at The Times' web site, NYTimes.com.

The Times piece reminded me that there is an auditory element to the exhibit as well. If you had asked me before, I would have guessed that the sound was some nonintrusive music that falls silent a lot but chimes in when the panels begin lighting up. Other than, I couldn't really remember. The Times article identifies the sound as that of typewriter keys, "the lost music of newsrooms." According to an interesting interview the artists did with NPR's "On the Media," the sounds of rotary phones and teletype machines may also lend themselves to the score on occasion.

All in all, if you're wandering around the area in need of diversion, this is a fun one. NY has no shortage of diversions, of course, but "Moveable Type" was one of the more pleasant surprises I had during my short stay.

Taste is irrelevant

OK, so here's the dilemma: You're captaining a Starfleet ship lost in space, and two of your most valued crew members are mangled in a transporter accident. They've been merged into one new person, who retains some qualities of the original two but is a distinct individual with his own consciousness.

You spend a couple of weeks getting to know this person, and he starts enjoying life. Then you discover technology that can transform him back into the two people he originally was — the two people whom you need and want back. But of course, he doesn't want to be transformed.

This is a storyline from "Star Trek: Voyager," which I recently started watching on DVD. I'm about halfway through the series, so I figured this would be a good time to write about why it rocks.


First: A great ensemble cast, with cool characters and, in general, better acting than you see on "Next Generation" (the incomparable Patrick Stewart notwithstanding).

Second: An awesome premise. They're lost in an unknown region of space, far, far away. Forget Earth, forget Vulcan. This is real uncharted territory, which sort of harks back to the exploratory tone of the original series.

Third: Finally, a little darkness. Compared with the other "Star Trek" series that I've watched regularly (TOS and TNG), "Voyager" is a regular "Battlestar Galactica." They're not exactly throwing people out of airlocks, but the show isn't afraid to explore disturbing territory.

A good example is the episode I referred to above, the one with the transporter accident. This installment, called "Tuvix," forces Captain Kathryn Janeway (the fantastic Kate Mulgrew) to choose whom should get to live. A less challenging show would have had the new guy do some soul-searching and bravely submit to the procedure, or perhaps a fortuitous spatial anomoly would have just set things right. But "Voyager" forced Janeway to make the hard decision. I didn't agree with what she did, but I was impressed that the show made her choose.

Other examples: In "Meld," the Vulcan security chief, Tuvok, mind-melds with a murderer and discovers certain dark impulses within himself, some of which he enacts rather chillingly on the holodeck. In the creepy and claustrophic "The Thaw," one of the crew is trapped in a virtual world where an AI program presents fearful images derived from his subconscious, threatening to literally scare him to death. And in another great one, "Deadlock," Janeway discovers that the crew has been duplicated, and that the duplicate people are existing — and evolving — in a separate strand of space-time. Because of various environmental factors, only one of the crews can remain; the other has to be destroyed. It's a weird episode, one that raises interesting questions about identity. I actually thought the story was too big for an hour-long episode; I would have preferred to see it expanded, perhaps to include a better examination of the differences between the original people and their duplicates. Still, a great show.

Of course, in classic "Star Trek" tradition, there is also a fair amount of cheese, and the show takes bad science to a whole new level. (Don't get me started on the writers' clear confusion over what is meant by the term "evolution.") There are holodeck programs gone wild, an appearance by Amelia Earhart, and plenty of body-swapping. In one episode, a character actually utters the line, "Let me go after the shuttle. It is the only way we can get everybody back into the right body!"


But this is all part of that good old "Star Trek" charm, and the engaging "Voyager" characters make you forgive the series' flaws. One of my favorites is Tuvok, who, because he's a full Vulcan, is in many ways more interesting than Spock. His demeanor reminds me a little of the enchanted Stephen Black from the great novel "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell." Another good one is B'Ellana: half-human, half-Klingon, she has the fire of a Klingon without being caught up in all the hokey rites, and she's one of many strong female characters on board. I also like the holographic doctor, particularly when he's exploring his identity with the telepath, Kes.

Speaking of Kes, I just got to the Kes/Seven changeover. If you don't know the series at all, Kes used to be the show's token "pretty girl." The character went away after the third season and was replaced by Seven of Nine, a Borg refugee played by the gorgeous Jeri Ryan. There's been a lot of speculation about why Kes was eliminated from the cast. Whatever the reasons, I thought she was a really good character, and the actress (Jennifer Lien) had a nice way about her. Her chemistry with the doctor and with several other characters was quite good. At the same time, with Seven of Nine, the show is able to explore some intriguing new avenues. Jeri Ryan is so beautiful that sometimes it's a little distracting, but overall she's not bad, and the writers give her some wonderful dialog. (The title of this post is a line she delivered, as an addendum to her admission that the cook had prepared a particularly foul meal.)

As I mourn the passing of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," I'm glad to have discovered this little gem of a series, the entirety of which is available from Netflix. If you're jonesing for some decent sci-fi in this current dearth, I suggest checking it out. Of course, it can't really replace the SCC, but it does feature Sarah Silverman, in a guest spot, calling a Vulcan a "freakasaurus." What other TV show can give you that?