I'm sure you're right, Alurin. Childhood affection doesn't mean the stuff I read was any good. And even then I remember thinking some were lousy.

@Buckaroo — yeah, that's a key point. Growing up in the eighties, when all we got was a movie every few years, it was actually EXCITING to go the library and get new books about those characters. At that age, you didn't care so much about quality, you just wanted stuff to happen.

Alurin, this seems about right, except that I don't have QUITE the reverence for TOS that a lot of people do. Affection, yeah, but the flaws are pronounced enough that I can't quite rate it that highly. But of course that show is the REASON for all of this, which is why it's hard to do a ranking of this sort. It…

Yeah, Scruggs, I thought it but didn't say it.

For as many as I read in my young days, I remember very few very well. I guess they were mostly fun, but forgettable. I've said it before, but I fondly remember Vonda McIntyre's "The Entropy Effect." Good tricky time-travel story with a lot of Spock badassery. And Diane Duane's Romulan books — "My Enemy, My Ally,"…

Of course, people would argue that this would make her an even more retrograde anti-feminist character. But I think there's something to this; it is dramatically powerful. And true, also. There are people who engage with the world like this. I've been smitten with them, to my regret.

We've beaten this to death already, so to speak, but the forthcoming TNG porn will settle this question once and for all, re: sloppiness. Provided we can get it declared canon. We have that power, right?

…because it's very important. You have provided a valuable service.

"The Wire" is badass. That is all.

The Measure of a Man?
The Best of Both Worlds?

OMG, Horse. This thread is about to become epic. *starts furiously looking up episode titles*

Yeah, it annoyed me some, but mostly made sense, at least. Picard lecturing about parenting was pretty awful, but at least it's Picard, and it works. For this show, I'd call it a solid C.

Alurin started it on the first page! But he gave you credit, no worries.

"So you're the boy genius, huh? We had a guy like you in Korea. Tailgunner. They blew his brains out all over the Pacific. He wasn't so smart then."

Spicoli, I really liked that moment, too. Can you imagine being a kid in that situation? As a kid on that ship, you'd have lived in constant terror of Worf, just from knowing he existed and worked with your parents. You'd have nightmares about him. And then to run into him when you're doing something bad? And to be…

And Gurney Halleck got a lot classier. And even more badass.

Yeah, we all know way too much about the TNG porn. I've watched the previews, too. And sorry if it disappoints anyone, but apparently Porn Picard doesn't do any Space Boning. He's there to look the part, and he does. (Though, as I've bitched elsewhere, he doesn't bother to do the accent.)

It would have been even better if Cyrus Redblock had become sentient. Lawrence Tierney as a recurring character would have been a majestic trainwreck. Imagine the hijinks he and Frakes could have gotten up to. Several extras a week would end up dead.

Like rebellious teens redecorating their rooms. I think we can assume the inside of that ship is full of empty tall-boy cans and black light Bob Marley posters.

Sigh. Horse, you're, like, the biggest DS9 booster on here, and I always want to agree with you. I like most everything about it. But I just can't really do Ferengi episodes. Or holodeck episodes. For a Nog show, "Paper Moon" is quite good. But it's still Nog.