The Measure of an Episode: Star Trek Edition

This TOS episode creeps into overtime as Spock channels Janeway and the writers give us 2 + 2 AND the = 4. There also might be some unintentional racism in this one.

Welcome to Patreon Preview where we give you a little sneak peak at the perks of being a patron of our show. Here's a behind-the-scenes clip of our conversation before we started episode 11.  We talk about Paul's eco-consciousness, recycling, and, most importantly, we flaunt our knowledge of the intricacies of baseball cards. If you’d like to hear more, please head over to https://www.patreon.com/...

Welcome to Patreon Preview where we give you a little sneak peak at the perks of being a patron of our show. This episode features a discussion cut from a regular episode where we chat at length about the 1983 movie Superman III: The Third Superman. You’ll see episodes of Patreon Preview pop up every once in a while, showing how much better your life can be as a patron of the show. If you’d like t...

Hunker down… we’ve got a Picard character episode where he gets laid in some air ducting. Much discussion about how the writers subverted arguably the most poignant character moment in the series.

Plot holes and laughing fits abound in yet another western episode of TOS. Join us as we tear this one apart while simultaneously enjoying the hell out of it. Do you agree? Disagree? Send us an email at TheMeasureOfAnEpisode@gmail.com

We discuss how the writers of Voyager squandered an incredible opportunity on how to close out the series. Do you agree? Disagree? Send us an email at TheMeasureOfAnEpisode@gmail.com

Star Trek can be psychological horror, too! Our favorite ENT character Dr. Phlox goes a little nuts in this Voyager rip off. So naturally, we spend most of the episode talking about Vulcans.

We discover that the Enterprise has been commandeered by a shape-shifting race of lackadaisical sociopaths who don’t think time travelers from the past are interesting, and are frankly bothered by them. Do you agree? Disagree? Send us an email at TheMeasureOfAnEpisode@gmail.com

We go a little deeper into the implications of this strange, barely-an-episode episode than is probably warranted by what actually transpires in the show. The Ferengi have a special dance, for one. Do you agree? Disagree? Don’t send us an email at TheMeasureOfAnEpisode@gmail.com

Not the Star Trek movie First Contact, or the movie First Contact, the episode First Contact talks a lot about the concept “first contact.” We also get into the Prime Directive and try to flesh out what the implications would be of an alien race initiating First Contact with humans.

The real-life Vic Fontaine, who is a real person, is featured in the episode. More proof the blurb guy at Netflix only watches the cold open and lots of Holodeck talk.

It turns out Paul’s good friend Adam Harrington had a small role in ENT223 Enterprise, so we thought it’d be cool to hear his thoughts on auditioning and eventually acting in the episode, as well as some insight on what it’s like being an actor in general. There’s a fair amount of nostalgic banter too, so prepare yourselves.

Borg! We get into the logistics of the “crossover” from Star Trek: First Contact and the intricacies of the Borg’s technology. Also we discover the eventual fate of the Denobulans. (It’s not good.)

Quark goes into business with Evilyne and General Zod’s grampa. But we spend most of the episode getting into the nitty-gritty of O’Brien’s infinitely more interesting ordeal.

Geordi falls head over heels with a computer recording again. We also dive heavily into all unexplored plot possibilities with having a permanent dog character instated in high command position on the Enterprise.

Kirk is chasing a cloud. Again. And the ending isn’t great. Again.

After compiling several incomplete bootlegs, we were able to restore this lost episode of TMOAE! We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming whenever we feel like it, or next week; whichever comes first. Enjoy! After a discombobulated intro, we finally get into what should be one of the most contentious TOS episodes ever made. Instead, somehow it isn’t, and it has just coasted by unnotice...

Firstly, many apologies for the sh**t-show that is Paul’s audio. He’s recording remotely and was forced to deal with less than ideal recording environments. We’ll make it up to you. Promise. We were both pleasantly surprised by this episode. So surprised, in fact, that we were disappointed in its potential, a quality which we haven’t quite decided is a good thing or a bad thing.

This is our first patron-suggested episode! Thanks, Mike! It’s another space espionage episode, but with a lot more torture and about the same amount of Cardassian. And we found the actual scene that spawned the inception of DS9! Sort of.

In this 2-parter about space espionage, Sisko spends most of his time in a 10x10 room pointing at screens while the rest of the cast ramps up the intrigue to about a 2. Maybe a 3.

This fun time travel plot reveals some interesting details, like nobody likes Captain Proton and Janeway’s safe word.

We get into the nitty-gritty in this classic TNG episode featuring a special appearance by a Dyson Sphere. Also, we don't do a Scottish accent once in this episode. Not once.

We discuss what is accidentally one of the tightest Star Trek episodes in existence.

Get ready for a psychological horror without any of the horror. And then we’ll start talking about the episode. There’s a surprising amount of conjecture involved with what actually happens and what is contrived by Troi’s hallucinations. Also lots of talk about the experience of having sex with Worf.

We discuss DS9’s entry into the monster genre and also the drop-as-many-plotlines-when-it’s-convenient genre. We might also do a little begging here and there.