Shades of Gray

Is this a card?	Riker contemplates where the writers went.	Goodbye and good riddance.
(more images below)

Overview: Riker is poisoned by an aggressive alien plant, putting him into a coma and causing him to remember his most vivid experiences aboard the Enterprise.
Writer: Maurice Hurley, Richard Manning & Hans Beimler
Director: Rob Bowman

Anon²: Yeah. For once, I wrote nothing down. Not even a card-count.

Anon: I don't think there was a card-count. We could have had stuff like Ferengi Whip again, but that's all stuff from previous episodes. I don't think there's anything new in here.

Anon²: Well, what I will allow you to do is tell me about this episode.

Anon: Okay. I'll expect some level of contribution later on though. I don't want you pussying out of your job like when we did When the Bough Breaks.

Anon²: Maybe.

Anon: Maybe? Okay. Essentially, this episode was brought along by the Writer's Guild of...

Anon²: (snores)

Anon: (laughs) What a cunt! (laughs) This...

Anon²: (snores)

Anon: (laughs) Let's just talk about this episode.

Anon²: What? Oh, sorry I had a dream.

Anon: You've seen this episode before, haven't you? I haven't.

Anon²: Yeah, I remember this episode in black and white. Obviously it wasn't in black and white, that must have been some other tragic episode. (laughs)

Anon: You were watching a dodgy NTSC version maybe. This was... I dunno... it was an episode. I'm not convinced that it's the worst episode of all time.

Anon²: No, that's When the Bough Breaks or Angel One. Or possibly that other Taters Taters episode.

Anon: Up the Long Ladder?

Anon²: Yeah, that one. They're at the bottom. They're the scum.

Anon: They are all really bad. Essentially this was a clip show and they went through a bunch of episodes. Here's some of the ones I wrote down: The Last Outpost, Encounter at Farpoint, The Dauphin, The Icarus Factor, Justice, 11001001, Angel One, Up the Long Ladder, Skin of Evil, The Child, A Matter of Honor, Conspiracy, Symbiosis, The Last Outpost again, Skin of Evil again, 11001001 again, Heart of Glory, Conspiracy again, Symbiosis again, Skin of Evil for a third time, Conspiracy for a third time, Loud as a Whisper and... not a single clip had Wesley in it.

Anon²: I'm not even going to say "Hooray!" to that because frankly he'd probably have improved the episode.

Anon: Wesley and Worf weren't even in this episode as far as I recall.

Anon²: They didn't have to do anything in this episode. It was shit.

Anon: It was shit, but it was the final appearance of Dr. Pulaski.

Anon²: Yay! (singing) We hate Pulaski! Pulaski is a cow! She's fucking horrid... come back Beverly!

Anon: (laughs) This was also the end of the second season, so we've got an opportunity here to look back on the first 2 seasons.

Anon²: What? In the same way that this episode just did in a shit way?

Anon: Yeah, but we're going to do it better.

Anon²: Excellent! (laughs) Actually, y'know what? That's a fucking great idea. We never actually did a review of season 1.

Anon: No, we talked about doing a review of it.

Anon²: We did.

Anon: But, like many things, such as rewriting that scene in The Arsenal of Freedom, it isn't something we've got round to doing yet.

Anon²: Yeah. We were going to do a "How did we get into Trek" hisotry thing with the 2 of us, so we will do that. But when we tried last time, I just went on a rant and we decided it was not publishable because I'd have no friends left.

Anon: (laughs) Your words, dude!

Anon²: My words, yeah.

Anon: So, 2 seasons in. 48 whole episodes! We've been doing these commentaries for 4 months or so.

Anon²: Something like that, yeah. Whenever we can.

Anon: This all stemmed out of a commentary we had during a barbecue once. It was an idea.

Anon²: Yeah. It turned out to be a good idea. We've had some special guests.

Anon: Yeah. Thanks to everyone that's come along. We appreciate it. Olav travelled the furthest distance to get here. I don't know exactly how far.

(I do know the distance now. 4,221 miles. Eek!)

Anon: So, thanks for coming along guys. We've certainly been enjoying it and I don't think we're going to stop here.

Anon²: No! We've got 5 more seasons to go. I think this is probably a good time because obviously this show is going to run. They know it's a go-er.

Anon: Yeah, somehow after a dismal season - in fact, a dismal two seasons - they know.

Anon²: Well, if you think back to when you first watched this, you couldn't not watch it. It was one of those things.

Anon: Well, I was a Trekkie. I loved the Original Series. That was great. It was fantastic.

Anon²: I don't think we'd have been critical 15 years ago to the extent we are now. Basically, it's been a long time since we did any Trek-type activity prior to watching this. I was, like 15, 16 or so, roundabout that age.

Anon: It started in the UK in '89/'90.

Anon²: Yeah. I thought it was fucking brilliant. It was on at 6pm. I'd be in from school, my mum would have dinner ready and I'd put the fucking TV on and I'd be watching Trek at 6 o'clock. My dad would get pissed off because he'd want to watch the news, but fuck him. So, basically it was absolute silence at the dinner table while Trek was on. Different to every other day of the week. When Trek was on, I was glued. My food went cold on occasion. It was brilliant. I really fucking enjoyed it.

Anon: Pork chops, was it?

Anon²: Oh yeah. The old pork chops.

Anon: With gravy?

Anon²: No man. Chips and peas!

Anon: Chips and peas, nice. (laughs) I guess I'll have to add a hyperlink to that as well.

Anon²: By the way, Sharon "Ten Bob" Turner was not present when I was having a meal.

Anon: But she got a gobful from you later on?

Anon²: Yeah, so season 1... it kind of defined where it was going in some ways. I think it was very much what Roddenberry really wanted. And the technology that was available at the time they were making this show compared to The Original Series really put it into a different dimension.

Anon: They used to spend between 1.1 and 1.4 million dollars per episode on Next Gen.

Anon²: That's a lot of cash. Yeah.

Anon: When they started making DS9, it didn't cost that much more than Next Gen. But with Voyager, I understand they spent twice the budget per episode and it became at least twice as bad as anything in Next Gen.

Anon²: Yeah, absolutely.

Anon: Fucking toilet!

Anon²: Well, the thing is, I did enjoy watching Seven of Nine's tits. And arse. And I'd basically spunk in her hair and everything. But other than that, Voyager was shit.

Anon: Wesley's got spunk in his hair too.

Anon²: Yeah, that's how he keeps it up in that quiff. Anyway, how do we want to sum up season 1?

Anon: Erm... season 1, I think as a whole I'd rather watch season 1 than season 2.

Anon²: I kind of agree with that.

Anon: Season 2 has a couple of great episodes and a few good ones - Q Who and The Measure of a Man were brilliant. A Matter of Honor and at least one other were pretty damn good. But season 1 as a whole I still prefer, I think.

Anon²: Well, the reason we're doing this - doing a mid-way review of what's been going on - is because from here on in, it becomes fucking good. Okay, there's still a few shit episodes. 24 episodes per season...

Anon: 26.

Anon²: Oh, 26, okay... you can't guarantee that every episode will be great but this period develops it into such a great show. Sure, there's hiccups along the way...

Anon: I don't think the hiccups to come are as bad as the ones we've already witnessed though.

Anon²: No.

Anon: We've already been through the worst of Trek now. The worst of Next Gen at any rate.

Anon²: Yeah. The characters are pretty well established. We know where we are with them. Unfortunately, there have been a few misconceptions about how good the characters have been up to this point. Basically, Worf, being a Klingon, is a total fucking pussy.

Anon: Yeah.

Anon²: We know Riker's a womaniser, but I didn't realise the extent of it until I watched these first 2 seasons. He's a fucker. I'm surprised he hasn't got the clap.

Anon: Well, maybe that's what he got in this episode. He got the clap in the leg and that's why he had to have needles shoved into his brain. Actually, that might have been a card, y'know? Guys, if you know anything about the CCG, do you remember a card where Riker has needles in his head?

Anon²: Yeah. Feel free not to email us about it, because you never fucking do!

Anon: Yeah, but just in case you do need to know, our email addresses are...

Anon²: I'm not saying mine.

Anon: I wasn't inviting you to give a genuine address.

Anon²: Ah, okay. cunt@cunt.com then.

Anon: Yep, the official email address is wearenotgoingtoreadyourshitsodonotbothersendinganythingin@fuckoffyoutwat.com.

Anon²: (laughs) That's more appropriate! Thank you for volunteering your email address.

Anon: That's okay. By the way, guys, if your email to that address bounces back, you've obviously typed it in wrong.

Anon²: (laughs) Yeah, deliberate mis-spelling. (laughs) Yeah, so seasons 1 and 2 review. It's kind of finding its legs in a way, but it's still crawling. It's waggling its way. (pause) What the fuck am I talking about?

Anon: Even Season 3 isn't always great. I mean, it's better than most of the stuff we have watched of course. The episode that I recall turning the season around was The Hunted, the Roga Danar episode.

Anon²: Yeah.

Anon: That's about 10 or so episodes into season 3. In early season 3, you've just got Kevin Uxbridge, the Exocomps and not a great deal else.

Anon²: Yeah, but the thing is... did any writing strikes affect anything that happened in seasons 1 and 2?

Anon: Yeah, with this very episode. It was caused by the WGA strike. It's your fault for fake snoring when I tried to explain it!

Anon²: Hmmm... okay. My memory doesn't serve me well sometimes.

Anon: Oh, we've got Tomalak's episodes to come as well.

Anon²: Oh, Tomalak? Cool. At the end of the day, what I'm going to say is sometimes people's memory is better than reality. What people remember as being brilliant... people remember more about what they were doing and what was happening in their life than what was happening in the episode.

Anon: Oh, we've got the updated league table.

Anon²: Oh, great. Newcastle won today! How's Ipswich doing?

Anon: Still in the relegation zone; 1 place behind Cunthorpe.

Anon²: Cunthorpe? There you go. They've got a game on you too.

Anon: Yeah. Sheffield Wednesday have dropped down.

Anon²: They have. They're only 2 places above you. Look at that! The mighty Toon... 19 played, 8 wins, 2 draws and 0 losses at home, 19 goals scored, 4 against. Away, we're 5-1-3, 12 for, 6 against. Goal difference is 21 and we've 42 points. Going into Christmas! Fucking Shearer, you didn't do a very good job, did you mate?

Anon: According to the Angel of the North in Balls of Steel, Shearer is gay.

Anon²: He denies it, but his boyfriend doesn't. (pause) You'd think I wasn't a Toon fan saying that, but actually that was quite funny.

(Check it here.)

Anon²: What else can we say?

Anon: There's not much more to say. Say what you will, I'm going to have a piss.

Anon²: Nah, I'm cool. Have your piss. I think it's been quite a good project this, so far, watching some Trek. 5 more seasons to go. I'm looking forward to them a lot. There's some fucking great stories in there. We've got some old-styley Trek cast coming too. Leonard Nimoy will appear. It's gonna be a gas, isn't it? (calling out) Dude! Time your piss! Have you timed your piss?

Anon: (calling out) Yeah, got the timer on it.

Anon²: He's still pissing. (pause) He's still pissing. I think this is going to be a record-breaker. I think he's just shaking it. That's got to be a minute or so. (farts) Oh, he's flushed. He's done. That could even be a World Record or a strong contender. At least a minute, I'd say.

Anon: (returning) Yeah, a minute's pissing is good. Thanks for whatever you just said. I'm sure it was random.

Anon²: Well, what we'll do now is watch some football. Shall we?

Anon: Yeah, let's go watch football. The next episode is...

Anon²: Man City against Chelsea.

Anon: Yeah, Man City vs. Chelsea. We love football so much that we'll watch anything.

Anon²: We don't actually support either team. Let's make that clear. I'm hungry.

Anon: Let's grab some grub in the pub then.

Anon²: (singing) Grub in the pub! Grub in the pub!

Anon: Or pub then another curry.

Anon²: I'm not sure if I can cope too long without food. Now I'm fucking starving. I could eat my own...

. Anon: Teeth?

Anon²: Eat my own teeth? I want something chewy. Or gristley like a big fat steak. (pause) Or a flange!

Anon: Cooked flange! Eek! Anyway, we're not going to do a commentary on Man City vs. Chelsea.

Anon²: No, we're not. Not unless it's really Trek-orientated.

Anon: Yeah, like if Chelsea's new kit was a full Romulan uniform complete with the Dallas-style shoulderboards.

Anon²: Yeah!

Anon: Okay, see you later. Bye.

(By the way, if you want to know what happened to Pulaski in the end, this funny video will explain it.)

- Anon & Anon², 5-Dec-2009