Lessons

Romance is in the air when Captain Picard finds himself falling for a certain strong willed, highly-professional redhead on the crew. Nope, not that one. This one is Lt. Cdr. Nella Daren, and Picard may have just sent the woman he loves to her death. The Captain and Lieutenant make beautiful music when we put Lessons in the Mission Log. I liked the idea of this ep, although it felt like something that should have come up earlier. Picard has “no beach to walk on” because stupid Starfleet keeps having all these suicide missions for his girlfriends. Sheesh. So, once again, we sacrifice some plausibility for the sake of an emotional beat. “Rock out with his Jacques out?” What did you guys have for breakfast? And I totally won’t point out that you put “DeNiro” into ST09 (4’48”); although I thought is was chilling the way DeNiro demanded, “I want Kirk dead! I want his family dead!” I had no recollection of this episode until this weeks podcast. Thanks for reminding me. Funny how there of episodes of TNG like this. How did you like it? Kinda cool to have little easter egg surprises of these episodes of a show you really like…time capsule type surprise! I liked it because it developed the human aspect of the show vs the facial rubber prosthetic, alien of the week, disaster of the week concepts we get too often…. I was sad to learn that Wendy Hughes had passed away. I like to figure out the ages of these actors when I first saw these episodes in 1989-1996 when I was 17-25 years old…it really puts my life in perspective to know that I am just about the age Patrick Stewart was in 1989 when he became Jean-Luc Picard at 49, I am now 44. Wendy Hughes was 41 when this was filmed… A bit silly for Starfleet to have no policy regarding fraternization. Human nature and all…for the serious life saving/endangering work they do. No sense in comparing it to current military rules, because it does not work perfectly anyway. So glad Picard referenced his experience on Kataan/Ressik. These small examples point to how poor TNG was at continuity and what a glaring oversight it was. A few plot threads here and there could have meshed the entire series run together so much more smoothly, showing some sort of vision, instead of the alien/face prosthetic, sci-fi challenge of the week storytelling we were saddled with….ugh….. Well, I have some free time so…in case anyone wonders, there are some fraternization guidelines in the US military, not an expert, but if enlisted and officer start dating, they need to get married and be done with it. Generally frowned upon if enlisted do it those 2-3 ranks above or below them, same for officers I think. In the same command considered ok/tolerated, but not same rating scheme/chain……I had asked my guys if they thought online video game playing w officer and enlisted during off time could be considered fraternization..since they are not actually face to face physically spending time…answer is YES. Because a relationship is being created that others do not have access to and preferential treatment can result. i.e. “I won’t give watch/duty to Scott on Wednesdays, because that is our videogame Clan war night!”- lol Yup. Always highly discouraged. Generally, the combat arms, line units don’t have this issue…but times are changing. I will find the really shameful Navy article..it was downright embarrassing….! The people of Kataan should have got poor ol’ Hutch from Starship Mine to live out a life and learn to play a tin whistle… cause boy did that guy love to talk! I felt like the discussion of Picard ordering people close to him on dangerous, potentially deadly missions missed one huge name, Jack Crusher. No, we did not see that happen. But it’s a huge plot point of the series, especially when we have talk of Picard and Beverly and Picard’s mentorship of Wesley. Jack was Picard’s best friend. In it’s way, it is as close a relationship one can have with someone who is not family or familiar like Commander Daren. To me