Make It So

I won't deny I'm a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

But I have a list of questions I'd dearly love the answers to. The only couple of times Brigitte got stuck watching it with me (It's really good! I'd say, No explosions and great plots!) I drove her nuts with my questions.

I will now share them with you!

How come there is not a sheet of paper anywhere in existence on the U.S.S. Enterprise? What do you do when you have to make a trip to the commissary to get stuff for dinner? Laser the list on the back of your hand? Oh, I forgot -- there IS no commissary because one cooks any more.

(When they're not fighting the Borg they're "replicating" dinner. Now would you eat a replicated Kraft Dinner? Oh, I'm having a senior moment -- when we buy them in those boxes, they've already been replicated once, d'oh.)

Why is everyone sitting around on the bridge doing nothing? The captain seemingly wanders to his ready room for the pettiest reason and when he comes back to sit down in the captain's chair, Riker, Troi and The Guest Star follow him in a delicately choreographed dance in which they all end up sitting down at the same time. As if, uh . . . they've rehearsed it.

Captain Picard and Commander Riker, on that spacious Bridge that looks like a Vegas ballroom, often hang out uncomfortably close to each other for the sake of the camera, sometimes shoulders almost touching, just to have a conversation.

Sometimes at the end of the show you get a shot of the whole cast just standing around on the bridge, but very carefully, so no one blocks anyone else from the camera.

The Holodeck, if it can do what they always show it's capable of doing, would be booked months in advance and every "holo-simulation" would be Four-Xd rated marathon orgies.

 I could go on (this is where Brigitte broke) . . . where are any waste baskets? How come we never see the cleaning lady? What if someone rang your doorbell and you didn't say "Come?" Could they just come in anyway?

Where are the MPs? Those drinks in Ten-Forward are not all Virgin Marys and lattechinos. How come no one seems to pay for their drinks? There must be restaurants on a ship that big. Where are they?

How come no one just beams himself into a crew-woman's cabin to watch her take a shower? The technology is there.

How come we never see children wandering down the aisles like all the other "filler" crew members? We know they're there.

Why does every single thing you do require a beep of some kind?

And last but not least, WHY DOES EVERYTHING ALWAYS COME OUT RIGHT IN THE END?????

Have your answers replicated on my desk tomorrow morning.