ALL SCI-FI

[Bogmeister]

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LONELY AMONG US
episode #7 / Air Date: 11/2/87
written by D.C. Fontana, Michael Halperin; Directed by Cliff Bole.

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The Enterprise hosts 2 sets of some unappealing ambassadors (there's much talk about eating live animals). One group looks like evolved cobras, while the other are . . . biped mongoose? Whatever.

The ambassadors despise each other. Seems like diplomacy has gone backwards since TOS. They were fighting each other in the 23rd century. Here, they even stoop to eating each other — funny, what?

So now TNG is copying Journey to Babel from TOS? - so much for trying to be original during this first season.

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Data, meanwhile, starts to imitate Sherlock Holmes as a mystery about another invasive alien force is afoot. This subplot would lead to future episodes on the holodeck, pitting Data against the holo-Moriarty program.

In this one, several crew members are briefly taken over by this alien force, until the captain himself is taken over. He begins to behave as an even bigger douche bag than he normally is. Abruptly, he quits Starfleet and beams off the ship. The End.

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No? Well, it could have been. But, no . . . we were stuck with him for 7 more seasons and a few films. This is all awfully derivative of other stories concerning aliens merging with a human or possession by an alien entity (Metamorphosis, Return to Tomorrow).

It's also very dull, unable to decide if it's a comedy or a thriller and plain pointless.

BoG's Score: 3 out of 10

TNG Trivia: this episode had the first death of a crew member on board the Enterprise-D, a crew member named Singh; and the rest of the crew could care less.


BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

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Holy cow! Bogmeister's puzzling disdain for this episode was completely unjustified!

His negative reaction even caused him to stick in jpegs with cartoon "thought balloons" containing poor attempts at humor. (I don't even get the jokes.)

I watched the episode while converting the post on Andrew's unsuccessful message board, the Galactic Base of Science Fiction so that the jegs and text formats would work on All Sci-Fi. While doing so, I discovered that this is actually one of best season 1 episodes of the series!

Not a single one of Bogmeister's criticisms were justified. It's a fascinating episode with a fine story and just the right amount of humor and drama. I have no idea why the late Andrew Bogdan disliked this episode so much he gave it a rating of 3 out of 7.

The only explanation I can come up with is that Bogmeister was hoping to rile up a few of his eleven members enough for them to objectto his harsh remarks!

If that was his plan, it didn't work, because three weeks after creating his above review, he added a reply to his own post with a picture-filled post (and no text) which you can view at this link.

But why the heck would Bogmeister go back three weeks later to the thread he created for an episode he despised and add a reply that contained seven jpegs he carefully scanned from his own magazine collection, and then uploaded them to his Photobucket account?

Bear in mind that Bogmeister faithfully preserved his doomed message board for five years (2010 to 2015), adding 5,265 posts of his own . . . while acquiring eleven members who only made a total of seven posts!

And yet, during that entire period he was the dedicated and prolific co-site administrator of All Sci-Fi from 2008 until 2015 . . . which had 261 members and thousands of posts!

However, no one here at All Sci-Fi knew anything about poor Bogmeister's failed attempt to create a message aboard similar to All Sci-Fi.

Not even me.

Gentlemen, I will go to my grave pondering the strange enigma and the tragic life of my friend and colleague, Andrew Bogdan. He made invaluable contributions to this board for six years and contributed greatly to its success.

But then he mysteriously disappeared shortly after we recreated the board when the old one crashed!

Just a few years ago I discovered the fact that he passed away in 2015. He had stopped posting on ASF in December of 2014 right after he spent a week transferring 74 of his posts from the "old board" to this one — which wasn't even open yet to our members, because Randy Everett and I agreed to wait until the old board finally crashed.

That eventually happened in March 2015.

But from January until July of 2015, Andrew Bogdan continued to diligently add posts to the Galactic Base of Science Fiction, right up until two week before his death at the age of 54 from "an expected illness" (according to his obituary) . . . despite the fact that during the five years it existed, his own board acquired only eleven members and seven replies!

Guys, I'm sure I'm not the only member of this board who considers this to be a very challenging mystery, worthy of our careful consideration.

You now have all facts. I'd be interested to know what the rest of you folks think.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)