Star Trek: The Next Generation

20 years ago it began…and the Trekkers were skeptical. I am, of course, talking about Star Trek: The Next Generation. When STNG (as it shall be abbreviated from here on in) debuted those of us who had been fans of the original Star Trek series (of which I was one from the very beginning) were dubious that another series…with another Enterprise and a bald Captain…would fly (see what I did there? :-)

We were wrong.

Granted STNG didn’t really hit its stride until the 3^rd season but right from the beginning you could see that there was real potential. And when the first episode featured an aged (VERY aged) Bones McCoy passing the proverbial torch to the…well…next generation, it seemed to promise that our hopes for something special could possibly be met.

And so they were.

We came to appreciate the wondrous cast of characters: the gently-imperial Captain Picard, the puckish Commander Riker, the noble Klingon Worf, the inquisitive android Data, the beautiful empathy Deanna Troi, the enterprising (pun intended) engineer Geordi LaForge, the learned Doctors Crusher and Pulaski, the precocious Wesley Crusher, the impish all-powerful scoundrel Q, the enigmatic Guinan, the feisty Tasha Yar.

STNG turned into a wonderful science fiction TV show. Was each episode a gem? Nah…but when they were on their game, the actors, writers, and directors made some sweet sci-fi magic.

Entertainment Weekly has a special 20^th anniversary insert (a cool little 26-page booklet) in their September 28^th issue which lists their picks for the 10 best STNG episodes of the 7 year run. Their picks:

1) “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (Season 3)

(Time is warped and the Enterprise comes into contact with the long-lost Enterprise C)

2) “The Best of Both Worlds (Parts 1 & 2)” (Seasons 3 & 4)

(The action-packed 2-parter in which Captain Picard is captured by the Borg and transformed into Locutus)

3) “The Inner Light” (Season 5)

(Picard lives an entire alternate life in less than an hour after being hit with a beam from an mysterious probe)

4) “Tapestry” (Season 6)

(Q takes Picard back to relive the events that lead to him needing a heart-replacement)

5) “All Good Things…” (Season 7 – the series finale)

(The past, the present, and a possible future come together thanks to Q and the end of the series.)

6) “The Measure of a Man” (Season 2)

(Picard has to defend Data from a Starfleet officer who wants to dismantle the android for study.)

7) “Sins of the Father” (Season 3)

(Worf must battle Klingon politics in order to try to clear his father’s name)

8) “First Contact” (Season 4)

(Riker goes undercover to find out if a developing world is ready for full-fledged Federation interaction)

9) “The First Duty” (Season 5)

(Wesley Crusher and the other members of his Starfleet cadet squadron face an inquiry into the accidental death of one of their teammates.)

10) “Chain of Command (Part 2)” (Season 6)

(Picard, captured while on an undercover mission, is tortured by a Cardassian interrogator)

Interesting choices…though I’m sure every STNG could list favorites of their own which aren’t on this list.

Pop Culture News and Notes

This year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model is, as you can see, Beyonce. She's wearing a bikini designed by the House of Dereon, the fashion label created by the Dreamgirl and her mom. SI says that Ms. Knowles is the first Swimsuit Issue covergirl who is neither a professional model nor an athlete.

The annual Swimsuit Issue also doubles as the Music Issue and it features models posing with Aerosmith, Kenny Chesney, Gnarls Barkley, Panic! at the Disco, and Kanye West.

* * * * *

Man, that Robyn Troup (above performing at the Grammy Awards with Justin Timberlake and T.I.) is...well...a trooper. The 19-year-old Texan got bounced from the American Idol competition (as seen during February 13th's Hollywood round broadcast) but she picked herself up and went out and won the "Grammy Moment" competition to perform before millions during the show.

(Not good enough for Randy, Paula [who has been quoted as saying she's "never been drunk"] , and Simon but good enough for Justin? I'm not sure what that means...but hey, it worked out for everybody so it's all good.)

More MKW blogstuff: Bread and Roses

The All-Time 100

Time Magazine has thrown out the discussion gauntlet with their All-Time (hah! I get it!) 100. The 100 is their list of the “greatest and most influential records ever”. There is, of course, no way that any pop music fan will look at their choices and not feel that classic albums have been left off the list (and, at the same time, also feel that unworthy picks made the cut.)

The list runs from the 50’s to the 00’s. The 1970’s were, going by this list anyway, the most influential period as 29 of the 100 records where released during that decade. There are 4 from the 50’s, 22 from the 60’s, 18 from the 80’s, 18 from the 90’s, and 9 from 2000-2005 (no 2006 releases made the final cut.)

The list is skewed by the inclusion of boxed sets and greatest hits collections (including the monumental Phil Spector box set Back to Mono 1958-1969, Bob Marley & the Wailers’ Legend, and Chuck Berry’s The Great Twenty-Eight.) 4 of the 9 choices from the 2000’s fall into one of those categories (and those albums…Elvis: 30 #1 Hits, Sam Cooke’s Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964, Muddy Waters’ The Anthology 1947-1972, and The Essential Hank Williams Collection: Turn Back the Years…all showcase music that is decades old.)

The Beatles are, not surprisingly I suppose, most heavily represented on the list with 5 albums (Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, “The White Album”, and Abbey Road.) John Lennon is the only Beatle to place a solo album on the list (Plastic Ono Band…no love for Paul’s Band on the Run or George’s All Things Must Pass….)

Others with multiple entries include: Frank Sinatra (In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, Songs for Swingin’ Lovers), James Brown (Live at the Apollo, the Star Time box set), Miles Davis (Kind of Blue, Bitches’ Brew), Bob Dylan (Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, Time Out of Mind…but not Blood on the Tracks!?), Aretha Franklin (I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Lady Soul), Van Morrison (Astral Weeks, Moondance), the Rolling Stones (Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street), David Bowie (Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust), Stevie Wonder (Talking Book, Songs in the Key of Life), Paul Simon (Bridge Over Troubled Water with Art Garfunkel and Graceland), Prince (Purple Rain, Sign o’ the Times), U2 (The Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby), REM (Document, Out of Time), Elvis Presley (Sunrise, 30 #1 Hits...both of which were released a couple of decades after he died), and Radiohead (OK Computer, Kid A).

A lot of the other “usual suspects” are rounded up for the list: The Velvet Underground and Nico, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, Joni Mitchell’s Blue, The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, The Clash’s London Calling,

Led Zeppelin IV, Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Nirvana’s Nevermind, etc.

Hip Hop is well represented…Public Enemy, Eric B. & Rakim, the Beastie Boys, Dr. Dre, Eminem, Run-DMC, NWA, OutKast (though with Stankonia rather than Speakerboxxx/The Love Below), A Tribe Called Quest, the Notorious B.I.G., Kanye West)…as is rock…Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Black Sabbath, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Patti Smith, AC/DC, Metallica, Pavement, PJ Harvey, Hole.

There are nods to country (Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks), jazz (John Coltrane's wondrous A Love Supreme), and the blues (Robert Johnson).

This wouldn’t be my list (though I do own a fairly large percentage of Time’s choices)…nor yours I expect…but it is an interesting conversation starter. The entire list, broken down by decades, is here.

A Random Pop Culture List

FHM’s Top 10 Sexiest Women in the World 2006

1. Scarlett Johansson



2. Angelina Jolie



3. Jessica Alba



4. Jessica Simpson



5. Keira Knightley



6. Halle Berry



7. Jenny McCarthy



8. Maria Sharapova



9. Carmen Electra



10. Teri Hatcher

As voted by the readers of FHM (For Him Magazine.)

I'm not sure if I've ever read an issue of FHM so I'm not sure what the readership is exactly but judging by their picks it's a pretty sure thing that they're predominantly young (though Ms. Hatcher did make the list as someone who is not twenty-something) and they spend a fair amount of time watching movies and TV.

Scarlett Johansson was apparently ranked #9 in last year's poll but I'm not sure what she did that had her vault to the top this year (Ms. Jolie...who has been relatively camera-shy since she's been carrying the golden Pitt-Jolie child...was last year's #1.)

A Random Pop Culture List

Entertainment Weekly’s Top 10 TV Dramas

1. 24


2. The Sopranos


3. CSI


4. Battlestar Galactica


5. Lost


6. Everwood


7. Gilmore Girls


8. Law & Order franchise


9. Veronica Mars


10. The Shield

I am a faithful viewer of #’s 3 and 5 and a faithful wait-for-the-DVD-set buyer for #’s 1, 2, and 10. I catch up on sporadic episodes of #8 in reruns and syndication. I’ve never seen episodes of #’s 4, 6, 7, or 9 so I guess I’ve got some catching up to do :-)

Entertainment Icons of the Century

Variety, the venerable magazine of the entertainment industry, is celebrating its 100th anniversary issue by naming the entertainment "Icons of the Century". There are 100 "icons" named but only the top 10 are ranked in order.

At the top of their list are The Beatles.

The rest of the top 10 are (in order): Louis Armstrong, Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Charlie Chaplin, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Mickey Mouse, and Elvis Presley. (A worthy cross section of cultural and entertainment icons to be sure.)

The other 90 (unranked) "icons" include names such as Madonna, Frank Sinatra, Oprah Winfrey, the Marx Brothers, Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan, Cary Grant, Tupac Shakur, Lassie (the only animal in the group...I guess Flipper can't get no love from Variety :-), and Pac Man (who made the list even while my main rabbit Bugs Bunny did not.)

As always, these types of lists are highly subjective (of course) but still kind of fun in a discussion-starting sort of way (I might have put Bob Dylan and Superman in the top 10 instead of James Dean and Mickey Mouse, for example, but I realize that others will have other worthy candidates as well.)

Variety has presented their top 10 entertainment icons of the past 100 years...who would you have put in yours?