Second Chances

More than any other episode, this one makes me think about the title of this series. Second Chances is bold in that they keep Riker around and don't write him off as some kind of alien of the week. It's pretty beige in that they thought about shaking up the status quo without really changing their cast but didn't for what are essentially commercial reasons.

So Will Riker goes on a shelf simply because people want him around, but don't particularly care if anything--y'know--GOOD is done with him. The man lives in a glass case watching any additional character development passing him by.

In the beginning of Season 4, I pitched the idea of "Captain Riker, Ambassador Picard," imagining how season four would look if after Picard's assimilation by the Borg, Riker became the captain and Picard became an ambassador at large on the Enterprise. 

In that same spirit, I'm going to pitch "Chief of Operations Thomas Riker" for some of the episode we have coming up. How will future episodes change if Thomas Riker takes over as Chief of Operations and Data becomes First Officer of the Enterprise? Will anything change? Will we have additional storylines to think of? We'll see.

The Beige and The Bold is hosted on Anchor and is available on most podcasting platforms. New episodes are usually posted on Sunday nights at 9:00 PM CST.

source https://anchor.fm/tbntb/episodes/Second-Chances-esj7qk

Captive Pursuit

It's our first O'Brien episode. No, he doesn't get tortured. Why would you even ask that?

"Captive Pursuit" captures a lot of early Deep Space Nine. There's a lot of TNG's mystery stories, but with more action. The characters are actual characters, but without their throughlines or an ungrayed moral lesson, it can feel pointless. In the series' urgent attempts to ingratiate itself with fans, like including the Duras sisters a few weeks ago and Q next week, it feels like it's ignoring the strengths of Star Trek and its own strengths.

I do wonder how TNG, TOS, Voyager, or even Discovery would have handled an episode like Captive Pursuit.

Nine Deeps of Space is a Trekalong podcast that lets you watch Deep Space Nine along with us on Netflix. It updates every other Sunday night at 10 PM CST. NDoS alternates with its partner series, The Beige and The Bold, which is about Star Trek: The Next Generation.

source https://anchor.fm/ndos/episodes/Captive-Pursuit-es8r4p

Suspicions

It's a pretty cool Doctor Crusher story that effectively packs a lot into it. Remember how rushed "The Chase" was? I feel like "Suspicions" moves at a similar pace but uses a framing device to make it actually work.

It's too bad we never see the scientists again, but who knows? Maybe this technology will be useful again some day.

I want to thank this week's and last week's guest Jack, who was a lot of fun to work with. The Beige and The Bold is hosted on Anchor and is available on most  podcasting platforms. New episodes are usually posted on Sunday nights  at 9:00 PM CST.

source https://anchor.fm/tbntb/episodes/Suspicions-erafja