OK, thanks to a neighbourhood power-outage, there was no way I could come in on tonight's thrill-packed episode of
Boobyprise. Only two hours earlier, SciFi reran the TOS classic "Is There In Truth No Beauty", while tonite's TNG rerun on TNN was "Family".
ITITNB featured the story of Dr. Miranda Jones and the demons howling within her otherwise calm, controlled mind as jealousy and self-hatred warred within her in a conflict which threatened to consume Spock. In the course of this hour, two persons aboard the
Enterprise were exposed to the unbearable ugliness of Medusan Ambassador Kollos that one went mad, drove the ship out of the galaxy, then died. The other (Spock) went mad and withdrew so deeply into himself that he nearly died, and was only rescued when Miranda finally found the strength to overcome her darker nature.
"Family" is the story of Jean-Luc Picard, recovering from Borg assimilation and making the horrible discovery that not only is he not the iron man he always thought himself to be, but that nobody in France actually speaks French. Not one syllable! Not even his anal older brother who's lived in France his whole life. Additionally, Worf receives a visit from his strange Russian adoptive parents, and Wesley receives a package now that he's come of age even though his mother was reluctant to give it to him; his father's lightsabre (OK, that last bit was made up —but wouldn't have it been a more interesting episode if it had been true?).
"A Night In Sickbay", for the very few minutes I saw of it, featured in the one and only scene I tuned in for Dr. Phlox and Malcolm Reed crawling around hunting down an Altarian Ultra-roach. I switched to catch the last half hour of "Family" after ten seconds. Such is the power of
Boobyprise to capture and hold a viewer's attention...
Yep, "A Night In Sickbay" showcases what Brannon Braga adjudges to be good SF TV.
I guess the next logical episode in the progression would have to be "A Night In The Drunk Tank" and ultimately "A Small Puddle Of Brown Liquid".
That, BTW, is what we around here call "sarcasm".
