The Ensigns of Command

Somehow, we debated whether this girl was hot. For the record, the answer is no.	Classic dilemma combo, part 1.	O'Brien makes it into a Senior Staff Meeting.	Eastern European cleaning services required.
(more images below)

Overview: Data must persuade a stubborn colony to evacuate their homeland under threat of a powerful and mysterious race.
Writer: Melinda M. Snodgrass
Director: Cliff Bole

Anon²: Possibly 49.

Anon: Yeah, possibly 49. The Ensigns of Command.

Anon²: Nyur-nyur-nee-noo. Nyur-nyur-nee-noo. (pause) That was the intro music for...

Anon: The Twilight Zone?

Anon²: Yeah.

Anon: Okay. Essentially, what we watched before, The Ensigns of Command, was probably more appropriate to be the season opener. That episode exaplained that Beverly was back.

Anon²: Maybe they just fucked up with the menu.

Anon: Maybe. I don't know.

Anon²: We'll see when we put the next disc in.

Anon: We'll soon find out. So, this was... an episode. I don't think it was as good as the previous one. I don't think the previous one was great. It's just good that we're in season 3. We're happy about that.

Anon²: It's really strange, isn't it?

Anon: Yeah - the production values are better. But ultimately... in the previous episode, Dr. Alan Stubbs had a fair bit of charisma. There was none of that here. All of the guest characters in this were a bit... meh.

Anon²: Would you say that the actual writing for each character... they don't have to work on explaining the characters? Like Picard or Data - the way that they act? Everyone's expected to know now. So the stories are not so much for the regular cast but for everyone else. I don't know - there's a certain subtelty to what's going off actually. It's more of a soap opera in that you know what's going on. I think they're assured in what they're doing. Oh, Data got told to shut the fuck up once. And I've got it down here that you got a card. But actually, I think I got it - The Sheliak!

Anon: Yeah, we'll give you The Sheliak. I didn't say much else really.

Anon²: I don't think there was anything else. I guess like, season 3... it's an average episode compared to everything else we've had. Possibly just a little bit better than what's gone before in the last 2 seasons.

Anon: Ultimately, it's still pretty forgettable.

Anon²: Yeah. I knew I'd seen this before, but I couldn't remember much about it.

Anon: Essentially, it starts off with some concert with O'Brien and Data in it.

Anon²: Oh yeah. O'Brien manages to get into a Senior Staff Meeting. He's becoming more of a central character, isn't he?

Anon: He's getting there, yeah. He still doesn't seem to have a first name yet though.

Anon²: No.

Anon: Then Data goes down to the planet...

Anon²: Taters?

Anon: No, Data.

Anon²: No, Taters. Taters O'Brien.

Anon: Ah. Well, Data goes down to the planet because he's considered expendable, plus he won't suffer from radiation sickness.

Anon²: Yeah, something like that.

Anon: And he meets some bird.

Anon²: I couldn't decide if she was fuckable or not.

Anon: Erm, she was fairly forgettable.

Anon²: Well, would you want to fuck her? Would you care?

Anon: Not necessarily.

Anon²: See - that's my point.

Anon: In the grand scheme of things...

Anon²: You wouldn't turn it down. You wouldn't kick it out of bed. But at some points, she looked like a bit of a low-resolution fox to me. I don't think I need to explain that euphanism.

Anon: We had The Sheliak in this episode. Part of the Sheliak - Yuta - Barclay's dilemma combo. That was a mainstay of dilemma combo's back in around '96-'97.

Anon²: Yeah, but the card was better than the actual part that it has in the episode.

Anon: Yeah, but it's still a pretty cool alien, I think. It's a bit like The Horta in The Devil in the Dark in the Original Series.

Anon²: It's kinda like... I don't know if it's great or not. We've had armadillos, haven't we?

Anon: Yeah, it wasn't as cool as the armadillo monsters that we had twice in season 2 and never again.

Anon²: I think they show up again in... ah, forget it, they probably don't. They're done with.

Anon: Erm, Troi's butt.

Anon²: Nice!

Anon: Let's talk about Troi's butt.

Anon²: Now, you have to question whether it's possible you'd want to fuck a Tottenham fan. Actually, we've probably mused about this for a few minutes. The answer is, "Yes - you can" because she's female and not a proper football fan. Now, I'm probably going to get slater for that and that's why I remain anonymous.

Anon: Yeah, to the power of 2.

Anon²: Yeah! But essentially, she's a woman so football is semi-irrelevant. So, it doesn't matter if she says she's a Tottenham fan. It's like... I don't even know what the analogy would be.

Anon: Would it be like a bloke pretending he has an opinion about cushions?

Anon²: Yeah.

Anon: Or wallpaper. Or curtains.

Anon²: Yeah. Or perms. Right, it's decided. You could quite happily fuck her despite what football team she claims to support. Because frankly, you're sat there watching a football match, or you're at a football game, then you're thinking about football. If a woman's at the football match, she'd be thinking about what she's gonna shop for next.

Anon: There's another bit where Picard walks past this bit on the Bridge, which has a placard on it saying "USS Enterprise."

Anon²: Yeah, he rubs his finger along it.

Anon: Yeah, like the White Glove Test.

Anon²: Right, to see if there's any dust on it.

Anon: Exactly. If he's got a problem, no one else can help, and he can find them, maybe he should hire the Bulgarian Cleaning Squad.

Anon²: (laughs)

Anon: Or the Polish Cleaning Squad. They're all over London.

Anon²: (laughs)

Anon: Anyway, he should beam them up, get them to clean the Bridge. It would be easy!

Anon²: They'd even iron your clothes!

Anon: And speaking of the Enterprise's Bridge, you know when they say things like, "You have the Bridge, Number One," isn't it strange how no one ever makes a joke about Biffin's Bridge? I think it's a missed opportunity.

Anon²: (farts)

Anon: Nice one.

Anon²: I think that may be the first fart we've done whilst recording. Is it?

Anon: Nah.

Anon²: Have we actually paraphrased a fart?

Anon: Yeah, several times actually.

Anon²: But this one stinks!

Anon: Oh yeah. It fucking does! (laughs)

Anon²: That's fucking horrid. That's the crispy duck that's been sat on the back of a fucking bike for 2 hours! (laughs)

Anon: Oh dear!

Anon²: It had gone fucking wrong before we'd eaten it! (laughs) I waited so long for my fucking food! Read the previous commentary if you don't know what I'm talking about! Fucking Chinese fucking food took fucking ages! I've now deleted that fucking phone number from my fucking phone. And they're not getting my fucking money from me ever again. Cunts! Fucking hell! Cunts!

Anon: And we asked for takeaway menus and didn't get any.

Anon²: We didn't get menus but we're never ordering from there again.

Anon: No, we're not. It'd only be useful as roach anyway.

Anon²: (laughs) Yeah, all we'd do is smoke their fucking menus. Fuck off, you fucking retarded useless fucking cunts!

Anon: Y'know - if you hadn't deleted the phone number, we could've included it in this commentary to warn off other people.

Anon²: We could've done, but we might've been prosecuted for slander. Or libel.

Anon: It's not slander or libel if it's true.

Anon²: Oh yeah.

Anon: Otherwise restaurant critics wouldn't be able to go around saying that a place serves shitty meals.

Anon²: Actually, we should find out who they fucking are, if they ever drop a fucking menu through the door, and just basically put it on the website somewhere and say, "These cunts are fucking useless!"

Anon: Well, that was The Ensigns of Command. Why was it called that?

Anon²: I don't know.

Anon: Were there any Ensigns in a Command position in it?

Anon²: Put the menu up. I'm sure they've got it fucking wrong. Get the main menu thing. This is fucking wrong, innit? What did we just watch?

Anon: Look, The Ensigns of Command has nothing to do with this episode.

Anon²: Are we misreading this? Is it En-signs or something?

Anon: I dunno. I don't get it.

Anon²: What's next then? The Survivors?

Anon: Yeah.

Anon²: That's the... whatshisname?

Anon: Kevin Uxbridge.

Anon²: Then Who Watches the Watchers. What's that then?

Anon: That's the one with Archer in it. Played by Ray Wise, who was Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks.

Anon²: Right. By the way, we can see potential cards coming before we watch the episodes with these animated menus. It's slightly bad I suppose. Card! Card! Card! Card!

Anon: (burps)

Anon²: Ah nice. Okay, I think we're done with this episode, aren't we? Did I mention that Data got told to shut the fuck up?

Anon: Yeah, you did.

Anon²: I've written something else here... ah, y'know those fucking knobhead stormtrooper-like ships from Star Wars: Episode 1? This bird on the planet had one of those, didn't she?

Anon: Yeah, the computer geek bird who has an American accent and snogs Data.

Anon²: Shit fucking robot that somehow makes it into Star Wars.

Anon: (burps)

Anon²: Oh - get it out, son! Do you need to puke? Do you need to change your nappy?

Anon: No thanks. For the sake of those readers on the other side of the pond, that would be a diaper.

Anon²: What?

Anon: It's a strange word, isn't it? Diaper.

Anon²: Diaper? Diaper?

Anon: D-I-A-P-E-R.

Anon²: What the fuck does that mean?

Anon: It's a nappy, innit?

Anon²: Yeah, but why? It's fucking ridiculous. Fucking hell. Why don't they learn how to spell? Why do they keep making words up that don't mean anything? And fuck off!

Anon: You know that thing on the top of your house?

Anon²: A roof?

Anon: A roof, yeah. You know what Americans call it?

Anon²: A fucking roof, I hope!

Anon: No. They pronounce it ruff.

(I discovered this by listening to this guy's podcast. Yes, he looks a bit like Tobes.)

Anon²: Pardon me? A ruff? How the fuck do they spell it?

Anon: They spell it the same.

Anon²: They're fucking muppets. Not only do they make fucking words up that shouldn't even fucking exist, but they make history up after they do things. How many fucking war movies have been made where they change it so they win the whole fucking war by themselves? As they keep fucking reminding us! Fucking "better late than never," 'eh? Fuck off! Right, shall we watch some more Trek?

Anon: Well, we've not watched 5 episodes of Trek in a day, which we haven't done before.

Anon²: That's a record.

Anon: It's certainly a record for us. It's probably a record for me, at least in the past 15 years.

Anon²: Although probably not for me for some strange reason. Virgin has a huge session of DS9 on Sundays. I'm sure I've watched 6 or 7 of them in a row.

Anon: Yeah? How many wanks can you squeeze into that?

Anon²: Well normally, I've got a few websites. www.castigados.com for example. I'm not entirely sure what it means, but basically it's lesbos and birds only. You don't see much cock.

Anon: Oh, it's like Where The Boys Aren't?

Anon²: Yeah. It's models basically - high-quality faff. Worth a fucking tug over anyway.

Anon: And you do that whilst you're watching Trek?

Anon²: I do it anytime, mate. It doesn't have to be Trek. It could be something on Dave, like Top Gear. Whatever's on.

Anon: So, you wank off with Jeremy Clarkson's voice in the background?

Anon²: I don't really care. I get bored of what I'm watching and have a wank. It could be EastEnders if I was ever inclined to watch it, which I'm not. I dunno - I'm sat there and I think, "I'll have a wank" so I have a wank and watch some porn on my PC. Whatever's on the TV is just on. Sometimes the TV can be off.

Anon: (fart) (fart) (fart) Ah nice. Good fart, that.

Anon²: Three farts, in fact! Anyway, whether the TV's on or not is irrelevant. I'm not looking at it. But it does ensure by having the TV on - as I don't have a door to my room - it ensures that there's background noise for my wank. What you don't want is a silent movie when you're doing this shit.

Anon: Well, the score to Metropolis is pretty good.

Anon²: Interesting.

Anon: Okay, we'll be seeing you soon. The next episode is... fuck, even with the menu in front of us, we can't tell these days. We think it's The Survivors with Kevin Uxbridge.

Anon²: But it could be Who Watches the Watchers with the Archer dilemma.

Anon: Yeah. Okay, we'll be seeing you soon. Bye.

(Received by Pie on email following my mistake about the Sheliak - Yuta - Barclay's dilemma combo.)

You can have Sheliak + Q (1997), Sheliak + Dead End (1998) or Shaka + Yuta + Barclays (1997)

I think my dilemmas at the worlds in 1997 were something like

6 x Shaka
4 x Yuta
4 x Barclays
1 x Sheliak
2 x Q
1 x Borg Ship

(Received by Bowdy on email.)

All you need is 12 Dal'roks...

- Anon & Anon², 12-Dec-2009