Rock, Paper, Shotgun

John “Q” de “Q” Lancie Is In Quantum Conundrum

By John Walker on April 4th, 2012 at 6:30 pm.

Actual footage.

You know what was rubbish? Star Trek: The Next Generation. I think I’ve seen every single episode. And how do I empirically know it was rubbish? Because every time John de Lancie showed up in it, playing the god-like brat Q, his glow of awesomeness shone a light on the pastel gloom that surrounded him. In a ship powered by Geordi’s sighing, motivated by Troi’s whinging, and kept in order by Picard’s tugging, not even the almost-quite-good Brent Spiner could rescue it from its maudlin Roddenberry-driven goodie-goodie nonsense. But Q – the moment he appeared on deck the sound of popping pomposity filled your ears. Oh, yes, sorry – John de Lancie has been signed up to provide voices for Kim “Portal” Swift’s Quantum Conundrum.

de Lancie will be playing the part of the improbably named Professor Fitz Quadwrangle, creator of the lunatic house in which you must solve puzzles. de Lancie, when poked with a stick, said,

“The professor’s character is funny, a bit bizarre, and a great joy to perform. If players have half as much fun with the game as I did playing the character, then they’ll be having a great time.”

But not as much fun, John. That’s the only quote we’ve got, so I thought I’d make up a couple more that he didn’t say.

“It’s fascinating work, acting for video games. It was a real honour to be asked to take part!”

and

“Hey, maybe I’ll soon be referred to as the guy from Quantum Conundrum, rather than people only remembering me for an occasional cameo part I played in a shitty science fiction show that hasn’t been on TV for EIGHTEEN YEARS. Do you know how much work I’ve done since then? Do you know how many films and TV shows I’ve appeared in? I WAS THE VOICE OF DISCORD IN MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC! What is WRONG with you people. Just get out of my way.”

Airtight’s puzzler is due out in the Summer.

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157 Comments »

  1. 04/04/2012 at 18:37 sinister agent says:

    I’d never seen Star Trek until a couple of months ago. I was surprised by how ropey and ridiculous it was. Watchable enough, but wow, them trekkies were easily amused, huh?

    • 04/04/2012 at 18:42 Hoaxfish says:

      I think my rule is you can watch each episode once.. but never twice. There are maybe a handful of episodes which I can stand repeating when it turns up on tv.

    • 04/04/2012 at 18:51 Tei says:

      I watched it expecting space opera, and was surprised to see actual science-fiction content in it. Mixed with magic and voodo like teleportation, but is still science-fiction. I really enjoyed the serie.

    • 04/04/2012 at 18:57 Sarlix says:

      You obviously never saw the episode ‘Darmok’ then?

      Shaka, when the walls fell…

      • 04/04/2012 at 19:16 Tei says:

        @Sarlix The episode Darmok contains one science fiction idea: meeting with a alien race that is truly alien, so we have no way to talk to then. Communication is not possible. Here on earth, there are human languages that nobody know, so people can’t understand then. And are not alien languages. This idea is probably what we can expect from real aliens on the real world, if we ever meet aliens. Most space operas have all aliens and humans talking in “common english”.

        • 04/04/2012 at 19:27 field_studies says:

          I would love it if a linguist could comment on this. Because in Darmok the central conceit was that the universal translator could translate the vocabulary just fine, but the problem was that this alien species only spoke in allegory and metaphor. Is there another word for that? I don’t think syntactical quite covers it.

          But this is what is at the heart of what I love about TNG. I’m not much of a sci-fi fan in general; but here, the alien conundrum was just an excuse to talk about the way humans communicate and the importance of storytelling to our cultures.

          • 04/04/2012 at 19:32 LionsPhil says:

            IIRC, the problem with the resolution of that episode was that Picard and the alien captain somehow could magically communicate after figuring that out despite having no shared culture to make allegorical reference to.

            But, really, I’m not sure there’s a single episode of Star Trek that stands up to even the lightest of scrutiny without crumpling like a house of cards made out of physics objects in Gamebryo. Sci-fi it was not; it just had a setting with spaceships and lasers.

          • 04/04/2012 at 20:02 Tei says:

            Of course is relative. But the mere fact theres a episode about it already challenge ideas, and make people think.

          • 04/04/2012 at 20:02 geerad says:

            There wasn’t anything magical about it. Picard figured out roughly what a few allegories meant. “Shaka, when the walls fell” is failure, “Temba, his arms wide” is giving, “The river Tarmac, in winter” means silence, etc.

          • 04/04/2012 at 21:59 Armante says:

            I watched the series when it came out way back when. Looking back, it may not be amazing, but it was also the only SciFi series I could watch on primetime TV.
            As for the Darmok episode, it’s probably one of the stand-outs for me. I remembered it years later and got a hold of just that one to watch again. Yeah it was a bit ropey in places, but the idea, and the way it made the viewer think was great.

          • 05/04/2012 at 11:46 Nick says:

            “Shaka, when the walls fell” is to understand, surely?

      • 04/04/2012 at 19:20 field_studies says:

        Precisely! As campy as a lot of TNG was, you just don’t see things like Darmok on the rest of TV. I’d never heard of the Epic of Gilgamesh until seeing that episode, and Darmok was very present in my mind when I finally sat down to read the book.

        I think that particularly if you didn’t grow up with it, watching that series takes a little practice… a willingness to suspend disbelief (not just at the science but the acting, special effects, sometimes dialogue)… but boy does it reward you in the long run.

      • 04/04/2012 at 19:29 Sarlix says:

        Well said, both.

    • 04/04/2012 at 19:03 Cinnamon says:

      trekkies were easily amused, huh?

      Famously, Star Trek fans love almost everything to do with Star Trek while Star Wars fans hate almost everything about Star Wars. So you pick your favourite based on whether you enjoy hating things more than loving them.

      • 04/04/2012 at 19:06 LionsPhil says:

        …probably a distinction that’s fallen off since Voyager, Enterprise, the bits of DS9 that weren’t the war or Quark or Garak, Insurrection, Nemesis, and the reboot.

        On the other space-hand, it’s not like Star Wars has been treated any better over those years.

      • 04/04/2012 at 19:16 sinister agent says:

        Heh, that’s true. I enjoyed Star Trek far more than just about anything Star Wars, for what it’s worth, though that’s a bit apples and oranges. Funny that trekkies haven’t really been a thing for years now, though. In fact fanboy/girlism seems to be enormous in general compared to a few decades ago. It’s pretty much normal for people to be bordering on obsessed with a series, when they’d surely have been laughed out of town like Trekkies often were back in the day.

        Crazy world, etc.

      • 04/04/2012 at 19:38 geerad says:

        I don’t think it’s ever been true that Trekkies love everything Star Trek. I think most of them are honest about it being a mixed bag. TOS was, to quote Philip J. Fry, “79 episodes…about 30 good ones.” There also used to be a saying that even-numbered Trek films were good and odd-numbered ones were bad, especially if that odd number was 5. The first two seasons of TNG had some horrible writing, as did the first season or so of DS9. Then there’s Voyager, which was bad. And then Enterprise, which was worse. And the Insurrection and Nemesis were horrible.

        • 04/04/2012 at 19:53 Cinnamon says:

          That’s not really hate in the same league as Star Wars fans. Most Star Trek fans didn’t even have the heart to call out the last reboot film for being the piece of crap it was despite there being what appeared to be big viral marketing campaign being launched around how much the stupid nerds would hate the new and cool Trek.

          • 04/04/2012 at 20:08 LionsPhil says:

            I’m not sure how much of that was “viral marketing campaign”, and how much was just well-placed “cynicism” about any reboot, ever. Plus, annoyingly young new cast, lens flare, and J.J. Abrams. Some people do have functioning pattern-recognition.

          • 04/04/2012 at 22:42 Phantoon says:

            I liked it.

          • 04/04/2012 at 23:39 Cinnamon says:

            Someone must have got to you and spiked your tea with red matter.

          • 05/04/2012 at 00:56 Phantoon says:

            Well to explain it further, I liked the original Star Wars trilogy.

            This movie was basically a Star Wars movie (done correctly).

        • 04/04/2012 at 21:17 Daichin says:

          Enterprise bad, but I found Voyager to be quite enjoyable, actually. Only thing that let it down was dreadful acting, especially Janeway and her infamous Janeway Face.

          • 04/04/2012 at 22:44 Phantoon says:

            Because the writers were forced to write poorly and to dumb it down. Deep Space 9 was supposed to compete with Babylon 5, but the writers were told to dumb it down. Voyager was supposed to have limited resources, so when the ship lost something, it was gone unless they could find a replacement. They were told to scrap that, too.

            There’s about four good Voyager episodes (which I had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to be forced to watch). The series finale was quite good, especially where you can see the actors actually do something with their roles.

          • 04/04/2012 at 23:53 DrGonzo says:

            It’s worth watching the Doctor episodes of Voyager.

          • 05/04/2012 at 00:38 Havok9120 says:

            The Doctor is one of the best characters ever. And I’m not a Trekkie, despite my knowledge of its universe.

    • 04/04/2012 at 19:03 D3xter says:

      Which “Star Trek” was that? There’s rather different experiences out there, I can see how TOS can seem “ridiculous” to some people, or even Voyager/Enterprise, the really good one is TNG :P

    • 04/04/2012 at 19:04 LionsPhil says:

      The Trouble with Tribbles is classic.

      And Parallels is entertaining in TNG if only for the almost Terry Gilliam-esque scene of an area of space that is slowly filling up entirely with copies of the USS Enterprise. Vworp. Vworp. Vworp.

      • 04/04/2012 at 19:09 John Walker says:

        I’m fairly sure the Tribble episode was Deep Space 9.

        • 04/04/2012 at 19:11 LionsPhil says:

          Sensors detect high concentrations of trolling in this sector, Captain.

          • 04/04/2012 at 19:20 John Walker says:

            I wasn’t trolling! It looked like you were referring to a Tribbles episode in TNG.

            But of course Trials And Tribble-ations was the one that was on DS9. See.

          • 04/04/2012 at 19:29 LionsPhil says:

            The DS9 version just awkwardly rides its coat-tails while whimpering “love me?”, though.

            Kind of like how Voyager’s EMH takes every opportunity to use McCoy’s memorable “I’m a doctor, not an X” line, even though Bones only ever actually said it a handful of times.

          • 04/04/2012 at 19:51 Werthead says:

            The DS9 tribble episode is excellent just for the scene where Worf is asked why Klingons in the original series looked human but in later series have bumpy foreheads (just after his ludicrous monologue about the Klingon Empire’s genocidal war against the tribbles, which is also solid gold).

            “We don’t like to talk about it.”

            This is, of course, the correct approach to take. Mention it if you must but also move on, because trying to rationalise something in fiction that was really down to cost and prosethetics technology changing over the course of thirty years would of course be pedantic and dull.

            Of course, ENTERPRISE then had to have a lengthy multi-part episode which explained why this change took place. It was even more pedantic and dull than you might think was possible.

        • 04/04/2012 at 19:14 Unaco says:

          I’m fairly sure it was the Original series.

          Edit: Yes. I am correct. Trouble with Tribbles was in the 2nd season of the Original Series. I think John is confused and is thinking of Trials and Tribble-ations.

      • 04/04/2012 at 21:43 lurkalisk says:

        “More Tribbles, More Troubles” of Animated Series fame, was better. Featured a magic Klingon.

    • 04/04/2012 at 19:07 Alexander Norris says:

      Because the budgets and technical standards to which television series were made in the 80s are obviously identical to the ones to which they’re being made thirty years later.

      Hey, have you guys heard? Planescape: Torment’s graphics are totally shit compared to Modern Warfare 3′s, so MW3 is obviously the better game! I mean, Planescape doesn’t even have real 3D or gun!

    • 04/04/2012 at 21:47 Ruffian says:

      Indeed, it also depends on which iteration you’re watching. I’ve never enjoyed the latter series nearly as much as the original.

    • 05/04/2012 at 12:04 Lemming says:

      I hadn’t seen it in years, and had only seen the odd episode, however recently they were reshowing them from scratch and I caught one of the early ones where they go to the edge of the universe (like episode 2 or 3 or something, obviously) and ends up with Picard screaming at a guy on fire: “Put it out WITH YOUR MIND!”

      Right then, I saw the appeal. It’s fucking hilarious.

    • 08/04/2012 at 13:34 Sic says:

      TNG is has marvellous writing compared to pretty much anything (bar a few select series) today.

  2. 04/04/2012 at 18:40 flowsnake says:

    It got better after Roddenberry died.

  3. 04/04/2012 at 18:40 Yosharian says:

    “You know what was rubbish? Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

    Oh no he di’nt

    • 04/04/2012 at 19:05 D3xter says:

      He needs to be punished.

    • 04/04/2012 at 19:07 Grygus says:

      Yeah it wasn’t a bad show. There is legitimate criticism to be had, though; the first two seasons of TNG are somewhere between mediocre and horrible. Then it gets very good for a few years. The last season was a drop in quality in my opinion, but not ruinous and I’m not prepared to argue about it.

      Deep Space Nine is better in every way, though the initial season of that show has some bad moments as well (you should skip the episode called, “Move Along Home” entirely.)

      • 04/04/2012 at 19:15 LionsPhil says:

        The presence of Tasha Yar is a strong indicator of an episode being terrible.

        Also if Troi has more than two and half speaking parts, or if Wesley so much as appears in the credits.

        • 04/04/2012 at 19:28 Thirith says:

          Two words. “Yesterday’s Enterprise”.

          • 04/04/2012 at 20:08 SuperNashwanPower says:

            Frickin awesome episode. I think the actress really wanted to be in it, because it was an opportunity to address her admittedly sucky legacy. Didn’t data have like a creepy little holo-tasha he kept in his pocket too?

          • 04/04/2012 at 20:22 LionsPhil says:

            I’ll just quote TVTropes, because it’s easier than forming independent thought:

            Tasha Yar from Star Trek The Next Generation. After a pre-emptive McLeaning, her character was missed so much so that she was RetConned back to life a couple of seasons later, and given a daughter so the actress could keep showing up as needed.

            Correction: After leaving Trek thinking she could do better, Denise Crosby had so much trouble finding work that she came crawling back to write herself into two more episodes, neither of which made a damn bit of sense.

            Yesterday’s Enterprise is good despite her “oh no I died futilely I want to swap timelines and die for something meaningful” subplot. The good bit is the Federation on the back foot, and their ships blowing up.

      • 04/04/2012 at 19:23 mckertis says:

        “Deep Space Nine is better in every way”

        Please stop, everytime i hear that, i recall Sisko, The Amazing Pathos Man, and throw up a little.

      • 04/04/2012 at 19:37 Werthead says:

        Allamaraine!

        That’s actually a pretty poor episode, but the ending is reasonably amusing (one of the many times DS9 would think, “What would TNG do with this story?” and then do the exact opposite).

        The DS9 Q episode (there was only one) is also worth watching for the producers’ statement of intent that they were not TNG and kind of resented being told to include TNG characters in the first season.

        “You hit me! Picard would never hit me!”
        “I’m not Picard.”

    • 04/04/2012 at 20:04 SuperNashwanPower says:

      I have posted a poo in an envelope with a plastic Star Trek communicator, that my dog once ate and which successfully navigated its digestive tract, to John Walker. He will feel my nerd rage, in the form of poo, which has been festering and moulding ever since that incident in the PE Hall shower rooms (my nerd rage, not the poo)

      PICARD IS A ROLE MODEL. A ROLE MODEL I TELL YOU.

  4. 04/04/2012 at 18:41 AmateurScience says:

    I genuinely was under the impression that John de Lancie was dead. I am pleased to hear he is not.

    • 04/04/2012 at 20:04 DrScuttles says:

      Yes, for some reason I am reminded of a small orange box in an issue of PC Gamer many, many moons ago entitled “Q pushes up the daisies” that reported on his apparent demise.
      Maybe that was a dream I had. Though it strikes me as somewhat disturbing to dream of John de Lancie shuffling off his mortal coil.

  5. 04/04/2012 at 18:41 Daichin says:

    Oh no you didn’t, John. Oh no you didn’t.

  6. 04/04/2012 at 18:42 Joof says:

    Wow, you are just hating everything that’s good today, aren’t you?

  7. 04/04/2012 at 18:42 LionsPhil says:

    It’s worth finding the LongPlay on Archive.org, or the YouTube upload thereof, of Star Trek: Borg, a mostly-forgotten FMV game from the Win95-ish era, because it’s full of Q. It takes the really quite clever premise that he’s actually running your character through history, so if you screw up and die, the usual game rewind of continuity is just Q being sarcastic at you then snapping his fingers. If you can find the other other upload (the LongPlay one doesn’t show it so well), they play about with it at one point as a puzzle solution where (spoilers ho) you can get borgified, but survive long enough to get a passcode, which you can then use when he snaps you back in time to being human again. It’s the unfair trial-and-error puzzle made sane!

    But mostly it’s amusing for Q snarking at you all the time for clicking the wrong bit of the screen.

    (Also he was almost totally wasted as Discord, John. That entire second episode was garbage and the ending would have been bad writing even for Brannon “I wrote that Voyager episode where Janeway evolves into a lizard” Braga.)

    • 04/04/2012 at 18:46 DrCBVI says:

      I’ll step around the brutal assault on poor Star Trek (while clutching my Picard plushie) to say: yes, I’m glad someone else remembers Star Trek: Borg, it was a great game. At least, my memory tells me it was.

      • 04/04/2012 at 18:58 LionsPhil says:

        Well, I say that not from playing it at the time, because I was too busy overlooking it, but from seeing it be played on YouTube not so long ago. (And, for an FMV game, the only difference is that you click slightly less often, ho ho.)

        The TOS-based adventure games weren’t too shabby either, and were point-and-clickers.

      • 04/04/2012 at 22:00 Vandelay says:

        I thought I was the only one that liked Star Trek: Borg! There was also Star Trek: Klingon, although the lack of John De Lancie made that less good. Both were definitely guilty pleasures though.

        My excuse was that I was very young.

    • 04/04/2012 at 19:39 MrMud says:

      Whats wrong with you, Discord is awesome and flutterbitch is best pony!

      • 04/04/2012 at 20:13 LionsPhil says:

        Discord was awesome until the writer ran out of ideas and just had him give up. He lost because of apathy.

        Also pretty much the entire second episode made no goddamn sense whatsoever. Previouslier:

        Twilight does call it a “memory spell” during the baloon segment, so [reminding the ponies that they are friends with clip-show re-runs of series 1] is presumably the idea, but it still ends up coming across as “magic arbitrarily solves the problem”. (And there I was thinking they were lampooning that with her failsafe spell failing right at the start.)

        There’s a lot wrong with Dash in that segment, too. If she’s lost loyalty entirely, why does she desperately cling on to the cloud she thinks is Cloudsdale the whole time? If she hasn’t, why is Ponyville dismissed as a dump, when her “failing” was putting it in second place when forced to choose? Second, not last. “I need to be here protecting Cloudsdale more let me back to Cloudsdale aaa”, not “enh, it sucks and I hate you guys even though I haven’t encountered any of you during your bitchy decoloured phase and my own one didn’t involve being turned bitchy myself”.

        (RPS: RPGs, Ponies, and Shooters.)

        • 04/04/2012 at 21:21 Bhazor says:

          Return of harmony was excellent right up to blasting Applejack with the montage gun. I honestly think it was intended as a full length DVD film that they had to cut 40 minutes off to fit into a tv two parter. I’ll stop there because that’s when you start writing fan fics of how it should have happened.

          But anypony who doesn’t love the whole treehouse sequence (“Congatulations” “Look out! Here comes Tom!) is clinically dead.

    • 04/04/2012 at 19:47 Bhazor says:

      I’d disagree about Discord.
      The ending was rushed yes but his double bill is still one of my favourite episodes. Do think it would have worked better as a film where they could have spent longer redeeming all the ponies instead of Twilight just shooting them with magic friendship bullets. A lot of wasted potential in that episode.

      Also Flutterbitch is best pony.

      • 04/04/2012 at 20:11 RedViv says:

        It’s “assertive Fluttershy”, thank you very much.

      • 04/04/2012 at 20:14 LionsPhil says:

        The irony is that at the time I did compare the “just use a memory spell” solution to Star Trek’s crap “something bad troubles them for an episode then Scotty/Geordi reverses the polarity of the tachyon flux and they all lived happily ever after” writing.

        I mean, they set up Discord getting just a little bored and saddened by Twilight ignoring him, and load that Chekov’s gun that he might re-colour them to make them fun again and thus cause his own undoing. But no. He’s just too apathetic and clueless to stop them, which pretty badly undermines his character.

        • 04/04/2012 at 20:30 RedViv says:

          And I say,
          Bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish
          Thats the way we do things, lad, we’re making shit up as we wish
          …

        • 04/04/2012 at 20:40 Bhazor says:

          Well I thought it was building up to a big redemption thing for each pony. Flutter[emancipated self reliant woman] realising how upset she makes people, Rainbow Dash being reminded of the people she’s let down when Scootaloo runs to he for help, Rarity breaking Tom up to make everyone jewlery realising that seeing people wear it makes her happier than simply hoarding it, Pinkie laughing at her self and a big “Smile smile smile” type song. Instead we basically just have Twilight mugging her friends.

          The end credits bit was fantastic though.

        • 05/04/2012 at 07:01 MrMud says:

          While everything you are saying is technically correct. The episode still has flutterbitch and Tom, thats enough for me.

  8. 04/04/2012 at 18:49 Brun says:

    And here I thought Q was the guy that put Surface to Air missiles into BMWs for James Bond.

  9. 04/04/2012 at 18:49 spamenigma says:

    “In a ship powered by Georgie’s sighing” Who the hell was Georgie? :)

  10. 04/04/2012 at 18:50 Drake Sigar says:

    Aw hell naw. I hope the hospital have a bed ready, because I’m about to give you several Klingon uppercuts.

  11. 04/04/2012 at 18:50 The Tupper says:

    Hey fair do’s to the guy: he was in Torchwood, a shitty science fiction show from only last year as well.

  12. 04/04/2012 at 18:52 The Tupper says:

    Hey, fair do’s to the guy: he was also in Torchwood, a shitty science fiction show from only last year.

  13. 04/04/2012 at 18:52 Red_Avatar says:

    I think it’s official. John has poor taste <.<

  14. 04/04/2012 at 18:52 frenz0rz says:

    And to think, all of that Star Trek hatred poured from the same John Walker that taught me the joys of The Longest Journey and Dreamfall. Why are you doing this to me, Walker?! Am I supposed to like you or hate you?!

    • 04/04/2012 at 19:46 John Walker says:

      You’re supposed to notice that TNG was rubbish.

      • 04/04/2012 at 20:32 RedViv says:

        All Star Trek is rubbish. It’s rubbish and people love it. Now, say, fans of The Doctor are at least a bit further in admitting that they love rubbish, rather than pretend it’s something completely unreachable and untouchable.

        • 04/04/2012 at 20:49 LionsPhil says:

          Doctor Who has never once had a good episode in fourty-nine years.

          Although it did have Jon Pertwee demanding shoes. That was a tiny fragment of good.

          • 05/04/2012 at 14:26 JackShandy says:

            I don’t know, wasn’t there an episode where alan moore wrote about buddhism?

            I mean, I never actually watched it or anything, but that sounds like my idea of a good time.

        • 04/04/2012 at 21:13 Runty McTall says:

          The problem with the (not particularly recent anymore) reboot of Dr Who, IMHO, is that the writers seemed to get really carried away with their own good press and it almost immediately descended into some weird “I’m awesome; you’re awesome!!” thing where all the characters seemed to do was go on about how great they each were (and, by implied extenstion, how great the show was).

          Now I quite like Dr Who and it’s all fairly silly knockabout stuff but there has been some seriously excellent TV around over the last ten years and this just seemed to emphasise how small the thinking and aspirations of British writers were. Thereafter I really struggled to get past the self congratulation. Post Tennant and Donna it seemed to calm down a bit and was more bearable.

  15. 04/04/2012 at 18:53 fiddlesticks says:

    It’s a well-known fact that having John de Lancie appear in your work is guaranteed to raise its quality by at least 20%.

  16. 04/04/2012 at 18:54 Johnny Lizard says:

    He’s not a miracle worker. He had no effect whatsoever on the rubbishness of the last series of Torchwood.

  17. 04/04/2012 at 18:55 Anthile says:

    …and that is why Deep Space 9 is the best Star Trek series. Because Sisko punches Q in the face.

  18. 04/04/2012 at 18:59 Thirith says:

    His part in Breaking Bad S2 was heartbreaking. Just for the record.

  19. 04/04/2012 at 18:59 HermitUK says:

    Sadly they’re not using 90s FMV style cutscenes.

  20. 04/04/2012 at 19:07 benjamin says:

    To misquote Picard: Shut up Walker!

    The Picard would not be happy with you.

    Also, I watched an episode where they were in an alternative timeline and Troi was not there; worth the 40 billion dead people who had died in the war that wasn’t meant to happen.

  21. 04/04/2012 at 19:27 Jorvikan says:

    I believe Mr Q also voiced William Miles in AssCreedRev. Again proving, as funny as this man is, he can’t save everything.

  22. 04/04/2012 at 19:31 Beelzebud says:

    Watch the Series Finale to TNG, and honestly tell me you’ve seen a better piece of science fiction on TV, EVER.

    • 04/04/2012 at 19:46 Werthead says:

      The series finale to TNG is emotionally interesting (Picard finally joining the poker game) but otherwise one of the most utterly nonsensical episodes of television ever written. Q sets up a situation which appears to be Picard’s fault, but it isn’t, because Q put Picard in the position to cause the crisis. Yet Picard never points this out and spends the whole episode panicking that he’s wiped out the human race, although it was Q who caused it to happen.

      Better pieces of science fiction on TV? Most of DEEP SPACE NINE (including its own, much more interesting finale), most of BABYLON 5 (not the rubbish first or last seasons though, obviously), the first two seasons of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (before it lost the plot) and a few episodes of DOCTOR WHO.

      If you’d asked if there was a better piece of SF TV than ‘Best of Both Worlds’, that would be a more challenging question.

      • 04/04/2012 at 20:17 LionsPhil says:

        I want a world where Babylon 5 wasn’t dicked around with gonna-cancel-you-NO-WE’RE-NOT-CHANGED-OUR-MINDS and the last two series weren’t mucked about with as a result.

        (Maybe once we’ve solve that we can move onto a world without war and poverty or something.)

    • 04/04/2012 at 19:47 John Walker says:

      Okay! Battlestar Galactica (recent version). What do I win?! (Although if we’re comparing finales, I’ll give the win to TNG.)

      But really, the stink of the Wesley storyline was stuck in my craw.

      Oh, and Space 1999.

      • 04/04/2012 at 20:57 rocketman71 says:

        Sorry, but the new BSG is like ME3: undone by an incredibly stupid, amazingly shitty, most definitely lazy, all open plots go to hell ending.

        For me, the end of BSG is 4×10. And ANY ending put out there by ME fans is ten times better than the shitty drivel Bioware put at the end of ME3.

        • 04/04/2012 at 23:48 Werthead says:

          With BSG you just pretend that the 10th episode of Season 4 (or maybe the 11th) is the last episode they ever made. That makes it awesome once again. Although possibly also the bleakest TV show of all time.

          • 05/04/2012 at 12:21 Oozo says:

            The award for bleakest finale ever certainly goes to Twin Peaks, doesn’t it? I was afraid to brush my teeth for days.

          • 05/04/2012 at 16:02 Werthead says:

            I think BLAKE’S 7 still has to take the award for bleakest ending ever.

      • 05/04/2012 at 11:24 AlexanderMangel says:

        I’d say Mass Effect 3 is worse than TNG. It’s just a collection of sci-fi and plot cliches. I don’t even know why I’m calling it science fiction, it’s xeno pulp and it has nothing to do with science or novel fiction. At least TNG made (whereever shabby it might be) an attempt to pose and tread around interesting intellectual problems.

        The Q episodes being a nice example of that by the way.

        They are absent from ME3, which is written like politicians speak, devoid of content but while attempting to appeal to your emotions.

    • 05/04/2012 at 12:09 Lemming says:

      SG-1 is far better than TNG.

      /Runs

      /through a stargate

  23. 04/04/2012 at 19:39 Bhazor says:

    Oh what fun is there in making sense?

  24. 04/04/2012 at 20:13 RedViv says:

    Ah, Trias. Well, we can’t make everything that you appeared in better than it is, so up to the point you were in Breaking Bad, TNG was the best thing you visually appeared in for a long, long time.

  25. 04/04/2012 at 20:14 pilouuuu says:

    I just watched some episodes from Series one as a teenager and started recently to watch it again. I’m on Series two by now and I was expecting the worst, but I must say that Star Trek TNG is much better than most things on TV right now., even if it’s cheesy and dated at times. I totally recommend it, especially in a time where we the best we get is stuff like Avatar and Terranova as sci-fi…

    And Star Trek the 25th Anniversary was a great adventure game! Let’s kickstart a follow-up!

    • 04/04/2012 at 20:18 LionsPhil says:

      Judgement Rites existed too, but the second of them, whichever it was, had a reduced budget and no voicework. :(

      The problem now is that Scotty is dead and Shatner’s HAM dial got fused at its BRIAN BLESSED setting.

      • 04/04/2012 at 23:07 pilouuuu says:

        Yes, I remember that one, even if I haven’t played. I was thinking about a similar game set in the Star Trek universe would be amazing. I think they’re making one based on the new movie by J.J. Abrahms

  26. 04/04/2012 at 20:50 rocketman71 says:

    Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?. TNG rubbish?. Sir, I’ll wait for you outside.

    Ok, maybe the first season was a bit rubbish. And a bit of the second. But the rest was glorious.

    Of course, DS9 was just SO MUCH better. Best Trek series ever.

  27. 04/04/2012 at 20:51 Fox89 says:

    Don’t worry fake Mr. De Lancie! I remember you for Discord!

    Also I don’t really remember TNG TV series too much. I just remember the films. Which were, mostly, pretty decent! Apart from Insurrection.

    Also may I be the first to say I’m intrigued by Quantum Conundrum! One of the minds behind Portal is cause enough to get me excited. Didn’t realise it was Squenix publishing it, glad to see they are maintaining their overseas support.

  28. 04/04/2012 at 22:24 Waltorious says:

    Do not forget that John “Q” de “Q” Lancie also played Antonio Malochio, the villain in Interstate ’76.

  29. 04/04/2012 at 22:40 edwardoka says:

    In retort to your claims of TNG being poor, I present to you the following scenario.
    Worf, when Q had set up an absurd Robin Hood fantasy:
    “Sir, I protest! I am NOT a merry man!”

  30. 05/04/2012 at 00:17 stkaye says:

    Was this written by a different John Walker? A John Walker from the alternate universe, or the Worst Timeline?

    The man who cried at Dreamfall should fucking delight in a series that produced episodes like ‘The Inner Light’ or ‘Chain of Command’…

  31. 05/04/2012 at 01:29 DiamondDog says:

    I give you the greatest scene in Trek history…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypInFIUNYD0

  32. 05/04/2012 at 06:19 Muzman says:

    Oh come on Walker! You’re so stolid. You weren’t like that before the beard!

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