No ideas but in Swamp Thing

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L.I. Underhill is a media critic and historian specializing in pop culture, with a focus on science fiction (especially Star Trek) and video games. Their projects include a critical history of Star Trek told through the narrative of a war in time, a “heretical” history of The Legend of Zelda series and a literary postmodern reading of Jim Davis' Garfield.

7 Comments

  1. Froborr
    April 17, 2015 @ 1:46 am

    Hey, an episode we actually agree on for once! This has always been one of my favorites. I found the concept of it absolutely mesmerizing as a child, and as an adult who struggles every day with memory issues I find it quite compelling on that front, too. I find it is very easy to trap oneself in a collapsing bubble without noticing, losing people slipping quietly out of your life one by one until no one's left.

    Possibly my favorite Dr. Crusher episode–certainly the one I recall most vividly.

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  2. Froborr
    April 17, 2015 @ 1:46 am

    Yay, my comment actually posted for once!

    Reply

  3. Glenn
    April 17, 2015 @ 2:50 am

    I never agreed with the dislike for this episode either. I inherited a fondness for it from my mother, who tended to like the Beverly episodes (and love the Ro episodes).

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  4. K. Jones
    April 17, 2015 @ 7:03 am

    It's solid.

    If there's a reason I don't personally get too into Remember Me, it's probably only that the concept is somewhat of a take on a very stock nightmare trope, sort of a concept that's been done in pop fiction with aplomb for ages. Kirk was losing people, nearly alone on the "Enterprise" on Gideon. There was probably a Twilight Zone with a near-identical plot. And plus, billions of people have had that dream where everyone in their life goes missing.

    I actually thought this episode was a decent comedic venture, though, as befits Gates' strengths. Every time somebody disappears and Stewart, et al, have to go from conversing with someone to pretending they never existed is actually pretty funny. The way they all play it is both serious-in-the-text but also actors-having-a-bit-of-fun, too. There's a bit of joy in this episode's make-up.

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  5. Daru
    April 17, 2015 @ 9:35 pm

    "It's not always the material, measurable, quantifiable reality of the past that remains with us to guide us on our path, but the framework of emotion and thought it left us with. When we choose to remember that, particularly in a poetic age where such things actually become our language, those things we cherish and wish to preserve about the past such that they can lead us to the future we desire become much clearer."

    This episode is one of my favourites, and really glad that you like it too Josh. In many ways this is my favoured kind of Trek, the kind where resolution comes from within our own inner being. I love the last paragraph in your essay Josh, it's one that I want to read over and over as it encapsulates so much about how I feel we shape ourselves on the inner.

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  6. K. Jones
    April 20, 2015 @ 1:15 pm

    One thing I do particularly like about Remember Me is how blatant it is about being a Beverly Spotlight Episode. Typically we've remarked that the better episodes of Trek tend to be where the ensemble is used expertly and everyone gets a nice showing. (Well, everyone but Troi, usually).

    While I'll constantly refer to the sort of decline of edge and softening and predictability of TNG as it grows more comfortable in its fourth year (an inverse curve if we call what the show is doing "peaking"), if there's one thing the fourth season allowed it to do it was to get really focused on spreading the love around and using individual episodes to highlight singular characters more than they had been in the past.

    Compare this to The High Ground – which is ostensibly a Beverly episode but certainly shares plenty of the focus with Riker and Picard's B-Plots and has to deal with "how Wesley feels about it" on top of that. The cast in that episode is more tiered into subplots, whereas in this one, they feel more like their role is to support her storyline.

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  7. elvwood
    May 23, 2015 @ 6:30 am

    I am so behind on reading this, but just wanted to cheer for the general support given to this episode! It's one of my favourites too – it doesn't matter that it's not a completely new idea because of how well it's handled. I also often felt that McFadden was one of the "short straw" characters, given whatever role was needed for the plot-of-the-week; and this avoids that so completely. In the process it gives McFadden a chance to show off her own capabilities, much like Spiner last time. Great stuff! Thanks, Josh.

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