Star Trek Next Gen

After watching Star Trek Next Generation in class, I was pretty impressed having never seen a Star Trek episode before I thought it was pretty good. The episode was trying to determine if the android, Data, had rights. In the beginning it was obvious Data was very intelligent but lacked basic human intuition, as shown in the poker game where he was bluffed into losing. However, when Data is threatened to be taken apart, Captain Kirk challenges that Data has the right to choose whether or not he wants to participate in the experiment. The judge eventually rules that Data has the right to choose for himself, and we learn that Data continually learns how to act more human when he respectfully declines to participate in the experiment.

The storyline in this episode was very interesting and brought up legitimate questions about whether or not a machine that acted human could have the same rights as a human. I agreed with the ruling because it was obvious that Data could interact seamlessly with humans and should therefore be treated as one.

WB 4

The Star Trek Original Series I chose to watch was “Assignment: Earth”. In this episode, The Enterprise goes back in time and accidently intercepts a traveler to the 20^th century who seems to be an alien. The traveler argues that he is human, but has lived on another planet for an extended period of time and now is traveling to earth to prevent earth from destroying itself. Captain Kirk is unsure whether or not to trust the traveler fearing that he may be an alien from the future plotting to destroy earth. The traveler escapes The Enterprise and travels to earth to disrupt the launch of a space nuclear missile launch pad. After the launch, the traveler takes control of the rocket in attempt to knock it off course and destroy it. Captain Kirk and Spock begin to try and stop the traveler before realizing that both they and the traveler both want the nuke destroyed and Captain Kirk decides to trust the traveler, and the traveler destroys the missile.

The science fiction of Star Trek seems to be very different from the science fiction shows of today. Today science fiction seems to try and relate to everyone using symbolism in shows that everyone can relate to. In Star Trek, the focus seems to be more for every ones entertainment. I prefer the science fiction of today because although it is not directly relatable the situations that arise in it are similar to what you may come across in your life.

BSG

After a long war between humans and human created robots, the Cylons, an armistice is declared. The Cylons are banished to a distant planet and a remote space station is set up to keep up diplomatic relations between the Cylons and humans. This is where the BSG miniseries begins. It had been forty years since the Cylons and humans had any contact; however, on this day the Cylons do make an appearance on the remote space station. The lone human on the space station is very surprised by the Cylon appearance on the space station and even more surprised when he sees that they now look like humans. The Cylons, however, do not stay long. They soon destroy the ship beginning another war against the humans. The war begins by the Cylons dropping dozens of nuclear bombs on all of the major human cities. Caught completely off guard by the attack, the humans try and fight back, but the Cylons seem to have the ability to turn off human computers at will. However, the ship Battlestar Galactica is not affected by the Cylons computer virus and does rather well against the Cylons in a space fire fight.

I have never seen any of the BSG series, but from the miniseries it seems like a pretty good show. The plot behind it is really intriguing, and makes me wonder how the rest of the series goes. BSG has what seems like to me to be a kind of recurring theme among many science fiction movies and series today that humans create something to make their lives easier and it turns against them and almost destroys them. This theme is also shown in the Terminator movies where human created robots attempt to take over earth. I find this theme to be interesting for some reason. The prospect of something like this actually happening in future seems very plausible to me considering how our technology is exponentially progressing, and maybe humans should take note as to what is shown in these movies to prevent something like this from happening.

A Dream

A Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

In visions of the dark night

I have dreamed of joy departed;

But a waking dream of life and light

Hath left me broken- hearted.

Ah! What is not a dream by day

To him whose eyes are cast

On things around him, with a ray

Turning back upon the past?

That holy dream, that holy dream,

While all the world were chiding,

Hath cheered me as a lovely beam

A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro’ storm and night,

So trembled from afar-

What could there be more purely bright

In Truth’s day- star?

Poe wrote this piece in his youth, and he experienced a lot of turmoil in his young life, due to the death of his mother from tuberculosis. In this poem Poe starts by describing a dream that appears to be a nightmare, which breaks his heart. In the second stanza; however he begins to show that his nightmare follows him through the day as well as through the night. In the third stanza Poe explains that a lonely spirit makes him happier and helps him though his nightmare, because his life became a bad dream after the death of his mother, the lonely spirit could be the mother he lost. The final stanza describes Poe waking up from his bad dream, and an underlying meaning to this stanza could be that the thought of his mother could be his sun, or his truth’s day star that brings him away from the pain of his hard life.

Normal Again

In the Buffy episode “Normal Again” Buffy gets stung by what she thinks is a demon causing her to think she is in a mental hospital. For me, having only seen two episodes of Buffy this was a very interesting twist, and one that makes the series more understandable. When Buffy is in the mental hospital she learns that her parents are there and the doctor is attempting to heal her of a severe case of skitsofrenia. After Buffy returns to her “normal” slayer life she starts to doubt her surroundings thinking that they are all just things her mind has made up. These doubts start to increase and Buffy decides she wants to try and return to her real life in the mental hospital and get better. To do this she starts to try and get rid of her friends, but in the end decides to return to her life as a slayer.

For me this episode was very intriguing because of the fact that Buffy most likely is a skitsofrenic girl in a mental hospital that has created this intricate world where she is in control. This logic really makes sense because everyone knows there is really no such thing as vampires, monsters, and demons. Also, I can now see why this episode of Buffy is one of the more talked about of the series because it answers a lot of questions but at the same time creates more questions.

House

House is pretty much the only tv series I consistently watch. It was first broadcast in November 2004 and is now in its 6^th season. House stars Hugh Laurie as Dr. Greg House and Lisa Edelstein as Dr. Lisa Cuddy. House takes place at Princeton‑Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey where Dr. House takes patients who seem to have incurable diseases or ones that he finds interesting. Finding out what is wrong with each patient turns into sort of a puzzle as new symptoms arise as the episode goes on. The episodes become increasingly complex as each of the doctors is usually undergoing personal issues throughout the treatment of the patient that usually carry on into the next episodes.

I personally only recently started watching House and now I rarely miss an episode. I know that a lot of people don’t really like it because of how it can be kind of repetitive in that a person gets sick, almost dies, and House cures him at the last minute. However, I don’t find them to be very repetitive and they are always entertaining for me.

Common Place

I think my commonplace paper is going to be about how human nature is shown through in Firefly episodes by decisions characters make, and how in general the characters interact. There are a lot of good messages in the episodes that people today could learn from. So I plan to break some of those down and relate them to current events.