The Icarus Factor

Klingon S&M ritual.	At least one of these was a holo-Klingon in Premiere.		Kyle Riker. Boring plot.
(more images below)

Overview: Riker's estranged father visits to brief him on the command he has been offered, while Worf's friends discover he is about to miss an important Klingon rite of passage.
Writer: Robert L. McCullough & David Assael
Director: Robert Iscove

Anon²: Isn't it episode 41?

Bowdy: You said episode 39 in the last one.

Anon: I'm pretty sure it's 40. Well, basically I'm going to edit it so it's right. (laughs) This is an episode about whether Riker's going to be a Captain or not, and about his relationship with his father. There's also a B-plot about the anniversary of Worf's Rite of Ascension. That's basically a Klingon S&M party.

Anon²: We've got some card-counts too.

Anon: Yeah, there was a Klingon Painstik. Also some holographic Klingon we can't remember the name of. K'Tesh perhaps.

Anon²: How about K'Pow?

Bowdy: K'Bab.

Anon²: Fuck, I'm hungry now you've said that. And I've just lost The Game.

Anon: Oh, harsh.

Anon²: Pie! When you read this, sorry!

Anon: Oh by the way, news has reached us that Punchline is reading the commentaries.

Anon²: Hey there Punch. How's it going? You just lost The Game too.

Bowdy: So, the episode. What do you reckon?

Anon: Pulaski's in this episode quite a bit, isn't she? Let's have a little chat about her. Troi said about Pulaski, "Dr. Pulaski's greatest Medical skill is her empathy."

Bowdy: (laughs)

Anon²: At this point, I asked for this to be paused and rewound as I was in simple disbelief.

Anon: I believe you then said, "Excuse me. I now have to leave the room to vomit."

Anon²: That would have been a waste of Pie's barbeque.

Anon: It would have been. That was a beautiful barbeque.

Anon²: I think Pulaski smiled at some point in this episode.

Bowdy: That was when her and Deanna were exchanging lovey-dovey stories about Riker.

Anon²: At the end of the day, Pulaski has a face like a fucking bashed-in crab. Fucking horrendous.

Bowdy: She's like the nasty schoolteacher everyone used to have.

Anon: She looks like the mutants inside the Daleks.

Anon²: I'm not entirely sure what her card stats were but I think it was Tampax x10 and Special Download Ibuprofen. Anyway, episode-wise, it was alright.

Bowdy: I think it was a bit crap really.

Anon²: Well, you could watch it.

Anon: It weren't that great.

Bowdy: There were so many rubbish things in this episode.

Anon²: The Worf bits were interesting. That carried it.

Bowdy: That was the best bit of the episode, you're right.

Anon: That bit was a better plot. They had a lot of O'Brien in this one too. O'Brien was talking to Riker in Ten Forward early on.

Anon²: They should've just concentrated on the Worf bit. That would have been far better.

Bowdy: The main storyline with Riker's dad was so weak. His dad has brown eyes whilst Riker has blue eyes!

Anon: So, blue eyes are dominant yeah?

Anon²: No, brown eyes are dominant. If someone with brown eyes has a kid with someone with blue eyes, you'll get a kid with brown eyes.

Anon: Right. So, could Pulaski actually be Riker's mum? Pulaski's got blue eyes, I think.

Bowdy: That doesn't make any sense, because his dad would have had blue eyes as well. There was also fucking gay uniforms.

Anon: Oh, the gay Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers/ Tron uniforms in the Ambo-Jyutsu match?

Anon²: I think it was less Tron because at least Tron had some kind of styling.

Bowdy: It was like mixing the Power Rangers with a fairy.

Anon²: They had this half-Gladiator stick from the 80's. Actually, I'm going to retract the statement I made that this episode was alright. I'm realising how shit this all was now. (laughs)

Bowdy: It was rubbish.

Anon²: I've just finished [censored] so everything's rosey right now.

Bowdy: To give you an idea of how shit this episode was, at the beginning they're saying, "The readings on the viewscreen are fucked so we'll have to reprogram them. Let's stop at the StarBase for a bit." So they stop for 12 hours and they're no further along at the end of all that. Great!

Anon: And the StarBase has a name too. StarBase Montgommery, rather than StarBase 54129 or whatever.

Bowdy: They didn't even bother to show the StarBase; only the planet.

Anon²: Yeah, that's true.

Anon: It looked a lot like Earth.

Anon²: At least the planet's better than the pixel issue they had before.

Bowdy: It doesn't look as good as the planets in Elite on the BBC Micro.

Anon: Elite ruled.

Anon²: I've got to say, maybe this episode can go down as an average one for so far. We're getting more wound up about Pulaski than we are about Wesley. What did Wesley do in this? He basically came up with the fact that no one knew about the Rite of Ascension until he looked it up and no one gave a fuck.

Anon: And he says that all of Worf's family have to be there, which is represented on the Enterprise by O'Brien, Wesley (laughs)...

Anon²: And Pulasi, the cow.

Anon: Yeah, Pulaski and Data. Picard doesn't come. Riker doesn't go. Guinan doesn't go to offer a prune juice.

Bowdy: What pricks!

Anon²: If Worf's family was supposed to be there, they'd just be humans anyway.

Bowdy: I don't have anything else to add about this episode. Let's move along.

Anon²: Quickly moving on to this one being the last of the night, I think.

Anon: This one?

Anon²: It certainly will be.

Anon: It's gone 2am now.

Anon²: Oh, by the way, just for the sake of the commentary, Pie: I made you lose the game a few minutes ago, but that was a great piece of pork tonight. Lovely! The prawns were good too. I forgot to have any of the crackling.

Anon: Don't worry - I scoffed most of the crackling. Next episode will be Pen Pals - Sarjenka scores you 5 points. And I'll be asleep in 5 minutes. Night night. Bye.

- Anon, Anon² & Bowdy, 1-Nov-2009