The comic below, created by John Campbell, is a snarky but amusing deconstruction of Star Trek: The Next Generation:

I always found it funny that the “empathic” character Deanna Troi had the power to sense plainly obvious emotions and painful that they had to explain bits of human behaviour that one should’ve picked up by the end of adolescence. That being said, much of the show’s audience was teenage boys, and teens often figure out the world through stories, so why not explain that stuff? And as someone much wiser than me once said, science fiction is a sandwich: once you’ve gotten past the bread of aliens and future tech and the thin slices of plot meat, it’s all about the thick moral mayo.

The last panels in this comic had me laughing out loud, especially since I imagined the line as delivered by actor (and dater-of-inapproriately-young-women, the lucky bastard) Patrick Stewart himself, using that William. Shatner. Mode. Of. Delivery.

In case it’s not apparent who the comic figures are, here’s a quick guide…

Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Commander William Riker

Lt. Commander Data

Lt. Commander Deanna Troi

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

For those of you who are fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation, there are some lovely “behind the scenes” shots of the cast and crew on the TrekCore site. I’ve posted a couple of my favourites here.

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

The T-shirt of the day at Tee Fury is sure to be a big hit fans of Star Trek and classic games. It’s the “Spock, Paper, Scissors” shirt:

Here’s a closer look at the design:

The shirt sells for US$9 plus shipping. It comes in two versions:

• Men’s: Slate blue, in sizes S, M, L, XL and XXL
• Women’s: Powder blue, in sizes S, M, L, XL

If you want it, you’ve got until the end of the day today (Monday, January 4th) to place an order. Once the day ends, Tee Fury will retire the design from production.

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

If you watch the Star Trek original series, you’ve probably already internalized what’s in this flowchart created by Stephanie Fox for the sci-fi blog io9.com:

Click the chart to see it at full size.

Here it is, the second trailer of J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Trek movie, all hellzapoppin’ and complete with an homage to the "chicken run" scene from Rebel Without a Cause.

I’m keeping in mind that it’s the job of the people who produce trailers to make a movie seem more interesting and exciting than it actually might be, but I’m still holding out hope that Abrams has been taking the story-crafting skill he hasn’t been using on the TV series Fringe and pouring it into Trek. I guess we’ll find out in a few months…

It’s painfully geeky, yet mesmerizing: some guy has taken the names of every Star Trek: The Next Generation episode in order and turned them into a little vaudeville piano rag, resulting in this video.