Lois And Clark

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The Dumbest Holodeck Episodes Of All Time
Hot Flashes: 10 Uses For Lightning That Ben Franklin Never Guessed
How To Steal An Election, Science Fiction Style
Clark May Be Talking To Himself A Lot On Smallville
Doctor Who Keeps Going Backwards In Time

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bluehinter
06/03/09

In reply to The Dumbest Holodeck Episodes Of All Time
Sorry, but the award for all time worst holodeck episode of anything has to go to the craptacular 3rd Season episode of Forever Knight "The Games Vampires Play," where Nick Knight has to fight his own vampiness by entering into a VR vampire game to track down a murderess game designer, who has left various glowie clues that correspond to clues in real-life locations that appear in the game.... and... oh... it's not even worth trying to explain it.

Trust me, it's just bad.

Mind you, the show didn't have far to fall, especially not during it's final season, but throw together a retarded plot, badly oversaturated Quantel special effect, and utter nonsense technobabble, and you've got a perfect storm of cyber-suck:

[www.macfran.com]
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Annalee Newitz
06/03/09

In reply to The Dumbest Holodeck Episodes Of All Time
Has everyone forgotten on the TV series Harsh Realm? It was set entirely in a virtual world, and it was so terrible that it was canceled after just a few episodes. I believe it was a Chris Carter production -he did it after Millennium flopped.
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Alexis
06/03/09

@Annalee Newitz: A nightmare, Harsh Realm was. Remember when we all though Chris Carter was gonna father a new generation of awesome sci-fi entertainment?

Yeah, me neither.
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dirtybacon
06/03/09

In reply to The Dumbest Holodeck Episodes Of All Time
I am being 100% serious with this message:

I wish there had been a longer run of Cleopatra 2525.

There, I said it, my shame it laid bare for you all.
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Alexis
06/03/09

@dirtybacon: /finger wag
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Slovenly Muse
06/02/09

In reply to The Dumbest Holodeck Episodes Of All Time
ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK?! I loved that show! It occasionally scared the crap out of me as a kid, but I just kept on coming back! I watched VR Troopers for a while, too, but my heart belonged to the Power Rangers. (Speaking of, there MUST be a godawful holodeck episode of PR. If there's a cheesy, cliched, kid-friendly storyline to be told, PR has used it at least three times.)
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Zidel333
06/02/09

In reply to The Dumbest Holodeck Episodes Of All Time
I for one enjoy the Fistful of Datas episode. Patrick Stewart directed it. And the original script was even cooler.
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Byronotron
06/02/09

@Zidel333: where might someone acquire said script if someone had the desire to acquire it?
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Zidel333
06/02/09

@Byronotron: Looks like you can find more info from the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion book, linked below. An actual script however...? Begging the big wigs from Memory Alpha, or the Star Trek Auction: It's a Wrap! I have no idea.

[memory-alpha.org]

refs: [memory-alpha.org])#Production
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GitEmSteveDave_RockinLabCoat
06/03/09

@Zidel333: I have a copy of the second edition of the Companion that I bought for my Star Trek TNG class in College. It helped a lot and has a lot of info. I personally like any episode that let Brent Spiner do a character. I did feel the characters bore resemblance to his character on Night Court:
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GitEmSteveDave_RockinLabCoat
06/03/09

@RideMyDiscoStick?_GitEmSteveDave: Also:

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Erinaceus
06/02/09

In reply to The Dumbest Holodeck Episodes Of All Time
Oh, and "Are You Afraid of the Dark" was the greatest thing ever. Sure, it was cheesy and unquestionably for kids, but it did start the career of Jewel Staite, as well as the trope of putting her in borderline-fetishistic situations (I remember in one episode she was a struggling artist trapped in a painting).
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Purple Dave
06/03/09

@Erinaceus:
Does her appearance on Dead Like Me count as borderline-fetishistic, or is that actually well past said border?
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Erinaceus
06/03/09

@Purple Dave: Y'know, I had not actually seen her appearance on "Dead Like Me", for I never managed to actually have the chance to catch a single episode of it. Your response prompted me to Google it, and after seeing her appearance for myself, my answer is...

... wonderfully past said border!
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Purple Dave
06/03/09

@Erinaceus:
Now, did you just see still photos, or did you catch video of what actually happened in the closet?
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Erinaceus
06/03/09

@Purple Dave: I saw the video.

"I'm a Reapeerrrrrrrrrr!"
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Purple Dave
06/04/09

@Erinaceus:
Yeah, that was one of the funniest moments in the series, even though it does seem to break with established canon.
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Dominus Astra
06/02/09

In reply to The Dumbest Holodeck Episodes Of All Time
Every scene from CSI: NY which features their "virtual autopsy room." Yuck. The episodes themselves weren't that bad, but I hate them for jumping on dumb, quasi-futuristic technobabble theft bandwagon.
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Purple Dave
06/03/09

@Dominus Astra:
Oh, if you're going to throw that in, you can't forget the episodes where they dabbled in Second Life (guh.), the thing with Bones having an instant-programmable 3D holoprojector, or all the various cop shows where they can control giganormous screens by waving their hands at them all "Minority Report" style and crap.
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GitEmSteveDave_RockinLabCoat
06/03/09

@Purple Dave: I was forced to watch that 2nd life episode twice with my Mother b/c she forgot she saw it already. The biggest annoyance was using "Cisco Telepresence" to coordinate a "sting" between 3 departments of THE SAME CITIES POLICE FORCE. They spoke for a grand total of two minutes and said nothing which couldn't be said over the phone, or when they all arrived at the same place to set up.
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Zack Stentz
06/02/09

In reply to The Dumbest Holodeck Episodes Of All Time
Sorry, but I can't hate on an episode that represented the first writing credit of DS9 all-star Robert Wolfe, and had the villain named after my UC Santa Cruz film professor, Eli Hollander.
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
06/02/09

@Zack Stentz: Did it get rewritten, then? B/c we'd expect better from him, but I know how rewrites dumb stuff down (esp. from new writers).
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Brain.wav
06/02/09

In reply to The Dumbest Holodeck Episodes Of All Time
Wait, wait, Fistful of Datas was a bad episode? Since when? Easily the best Holodeck episode in the franchise, and, IMO, even up there with some of hte best episodes in TNG.
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MinervaAlpaca
06/02/09

@Brain.wav:

"A Fistful of Datas" was a fun lark, no more, no less. Although I prefered DS9's spy spoof, "Our Man Bashir."
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debo matar la zombi goldberry83
06/02/09

@MinervaAlpaca: Oh my god, "Our Man Bashir" is one of the best holodeck episodes *ever*.
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Zombie-Robot
06/02/09

In reply to The Dumbest Holodeck Episodes Of All Time
What? No mention of the X-Files episode "First-Person Shooter"? Mulder and Scully trapped inside a video game? True, it did have Krista Allen and William Gibson, but other than that, eesh, pure silliness.
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Charlie Jane Anders
06/02/09

@Zombie-Robot: Ha... I totally forgot that. But I included it here, so it's been covered: [io9.com] Actually a few of the items on that list could have appeared on this list!
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vulcanized
06/02/09

@Charlie Jane Anders: Mulder also gets trapped in a world of sexy murder nurses and fun times amputations in "Kill Switch".
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Byronotron
06/02/09

@Zombie-Robot: i think that episode is specifically making fun of all of these other episodes. doesn't scully have a few lines about how all of this is really cliched?
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Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.
06/02/09

@Byronotron: Exactly. It's a meta parody of all these kinds of things. If you didn't get that from the show (esp. Scully's continuing snark), they whack you over the head with it at the end with Mulder's voiceover about sugar substitutes and everyone walking in slow-mo.

It couldn't have been a more obvious snark about the holodeck type stuff unless it had maybe put "HEY THIS IS A PARODY" up in big blinking letters.

Can't believe anyone thought they were serious about that one. whoosh
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Elizabeth Weinbloom
06/02/09

@Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H.: Of course it was a parody. But it still sucked. Hard.
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ciscokidinsf
06/02/09

In reply to The Dumbest Holodeck Episodes Of All Time
Heh. I thought this was an all-Trek list. Bringing the question, which holodeck-based episodes AREN'T dumb. I count two: DS9's Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang and TNG's Homeward. Everything else is dumb. Specially the Voyager ones.

Farscape's 'John Quixote' deserves to be here as well. Hey io9? what's with the total disregard for Farscape lately in your articles, you frelling tralks? Buy the damn DVDs!
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Charlie Jane Anders
06/02/09

@ciscokidinsf: Oh noes! Forgot that Farscape episode. And my intern did too. It's too bad... we used to have a writer working at io9 who had actually worked on Farscape, and he was really good at making sure our Farscape coverage was top notch.
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somms
06/02/09

@ciscokidinsf:

The Moriarty holodeck episodes ('Elementary, Dear Data' and 'Ship in a Bottle') are good.

Even better is 'Hollow Pursuits,' where our dear Lt. Reginald Barclay battles holodeck addiction.

And last night I rewatched Voyager's 'Projections', where the Doctor receives a mindfuck and can't figure out if he's actually real and everything around him is a hologram, or vice versa.
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Byronotron
06/02/09

@somms: I think that's the only Voy holodeck episode that's any good. The rest just made me want to scream. Especially the one where the Hirogen are the Nazi's and the VOY crew are the french resistance fighters. That episode (it was a two parter, huh?! OY that's a whole lotta suck.) Was just terrrrrrrrible. I'm sure if ENT had had them, they would have sucked as well.
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Alexis
06/02/09

@ciscokidinsf: Mentioning a bad Voyager holodeck episode is like shooting really fat, slow fish in a barrel.

;)
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icy_one
06/03/09

@ciscokidinsf: I'd love to buy the DVDs, if I didn't have to pay $100 to get them used.
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icy_one
06/03/09

@icy_one: I should add, $100 per season.
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brentbent: C.O.C.K.R.O.A.C.H. )for all the queer super villians out there(
06/03/09

@Byronotron: Enterprise had the worst Trek holodeck ep ever--it's finale. I've watched most the Enterprise episodes 2-5 times each but that one was watched only once and never again.
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Alexis
06/03/09

@brentbent: I think I burned that from memory, but now that you've brought it up....yes, it was the worst.
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Nivair H. Gabriel
11/30/08

In reply to Hot Flashes: 10 Uses For Lightning That Ben Franklin Never Guessed
AWESOME, Lizzie. :D
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Elizabeth Weinbloom
12/01/08

@Nivair H. Gabriel: Thank you! :)
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braak
11/30/08

In reply to Hot Flashes: 10 Uses For Lightning That Ben Franklin Never Guessed
I thought it was 1.21 gigawatts.

Also: The Court Jester is a fantastic movie.
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jajbowler
11/30/08

@braak: it is definitely 1.21 gigawatts. the sound of doc brown yelling that used to play every time i received an aol instant message. it is forever burned into my brain. and i still laugh every time i hear it.
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Elizabeth Weinbloom
11/30/08

@braak: D'oh, of course, my mistake. Fixing it now.
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braak
11/30/08

@Elizabeth Weinbloom: You are forgiven...this time.
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Purple Dave
12/01/08

@Elizabeth Weinbloom:
Don't feel bad. Even Christopher Lloyd screwed it up, pronouncing "gigawatts" as if it was spelled "jigawatts".
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Purple Dave
11/30/08

In reply to Hot Flashes: 10 Uses For Lightning That Ben Franklin Never Guessed
The Lois and Clark sequence is so fake. If that had really happened, dude's fingers would have clenched up and he would have fired a bullet into the air, but I never heard a gunshot.

Anyways, I knew a guy in college who claimed to have been struck by lightning seven times before coming to college (and once more the summer after his freshman year). His nickname was Juice, and there wasn't a lot of question as to whether or not he was telling the truth. He made Doc Brown seem like a down-to-earth, stable sort of guy.
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Smeagol92055
11/30/08

@Purple Dave: Oh, hey, I think I saw that guy eating pigeons in the park the other day.

No, I didn't mean to say "feeding."
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Purple Dave
12/01/08

@Smeagol92055:
No, he was definitely more the mad scientist type, not a drooler.
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Gearhead_42 - Nibbles ate my garage!
11/04/08

In reply to How To Steal An Election, Science Fiction Style
Interface was good...

How about "Invent a terrorist attack and instigate nationalistic fervor while blaming the evils of the world on your political opponents and cracking down on dissent." ala V for Vendetta?

Wait, that sound awfully familiar somehow...
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RAHfanboy
11/04/08

@Gearhead_42: It's a familiar fantasy, yes.
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