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Episode
212
Cost of Living
Alexander, Lwaxana and the whimsiest whimsies that ever whimsied give us life lessons. Also, there is a B-plot. See it all in its glittery glory when we put Cost of Living in the Mission Log.
NSFS
(Not Safe for Starships)
Jinkies, Scoob!
Am I the only one who remembers him from Battle of the Planets?
Wait, I’m the only one who remembers Battle of the Planets, aren’t I? 😛
“They’re not any more dangerous than they were a moment ago.” – The one guy who saw through what nonsense the Fiery Phoenix was.
I watched that, Starblazers, Captain Harlock, hell even Thundersub!
No, you’re not the only one. 🙂
I remember his voice from Battle of the Planets!…Jason or Mark or I forgot…lol- hmmm why is he being mentioned here. Was he on episode? lol, I browsed through podcast…better re check.
For the record…
As I recall, his tirade was aimed at his production crew regarding the juxtaposition of different types of stories and not the listeners or their letters to the show.
So I’ve always given him a pass on this one.
Absolutely – his point was perfectly valid.
OK, so the Sensor Crew needs to check with the TV audience to see whether we have seen anything they missed… in this case, some sparkly thingies. Also, emotion-churning soap bubbles (Day of the Dove), little points of light (The Child), etc. Also… while everyone was almost dying, why didn’t we get a scene with Campio? He’s a big old complainer, but never even mentions that they all nearly died. Hmmm. Yeah, this is the point in the series when I started to get worried. Not only does this ep feel like a retread of earlier eps, but it’s got about 5 minutes worth of plot and a LOT of moments that just don’t work. Ah well, it’s grist for podcasts. Thanks!
Wait, is she free-thinking or free-wheeling?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/99b5d7f8a82feb511b4e7f8291173caa6e94f83e443669bc9c86d8100baf7337.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aa932ecf0d2ca2005b763b015c0f6cfbfbdc7bbe85942824b21b5b20b8975ef3.jpg
Lwaxana is definitely free lovin’.
As a fan of glam/disco-era British sci-fi, I’m obliged to point out that TNG really seems to have “borrowed” the metal-eating-virus-goop from the finale of the third season (1980) of the BBC’s “Blake’s 7”. First you drive the ship through a cloud of space glitter…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d4306489d515e878fc7da3a392f4607aa275feaff95058841e3b6360562a87a5.jpg
And then goop starts being ladeled into the sets wholesale, causing things to malfunction…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e1ca4997b290a3f2065240429c811f7b8921a75ccc29e603e718997dfd771569.jpg
And then we really start piling on the goop under red lighting because the ship is *completely breaking down* because glitter and goop get everywhere.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f34aaaca94ac469ff7e9ee378f047629419a433093a20f5ab256b2ee6de73598.jpg
Which one is better? The Blake’s 7 episode has very little in the way of whimsy, no semi-naked dancers, and as you can see, it has a higher quotient of righteous sideburns. It’s a hard call to make – I leave it to you.
This has been your deep, deep dive into obscurity for this week, brought to you by Glitter & Goop.
I think we can safely say the Blake’s 7 episode was far superior.
Had to wait two weeks for this. . . dud. I get what they were going for, but this episode is just blah.
Look on the bright side: more tomatillos than any episode of Trek before…or since.
So true
“How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?!?”
The higher; the fewer could be a commentary on authority where the higher up the chain of command, more authority rests on the shoulders of fewer people. Doesn’t really enter into the subject matter of the episode, tho.
The requisite SF story was a combination of Galaxy’s Child, as you mentioned, combined with A Matter of Honor where a space parasite is eating the ship (something we’ll go back to again and again). Kinda like Data mixing Sherlock Holmes mysteries together to create a not entirely original adventure.
I wonder if Timicin was kind of a turning point for Lwaxana (much like I consider Yuta to be for Riker). Up to now she’s been very superficial in her romantic pursuits, at least on the Enterprise. But after falling for him in a more genuine way, she never goes full Lwaxana anymore. She really is selling herself short in this episode, and I do wonder if part of it is that she’s burned too many romantic bridges with the full Lwaxana, or if, since losing Troi’s dad, she’s having trouble relating to men romantically (outside of Timicin). Now that being with Timicin revealed her desire for something genuine, she regarded Campio as a kind of pattern breaker — An effort to try a new tack with relationships.
This episode is mostly crud with a few memorable lines and a good Lwaxana subplot.
I have loved this episode since it aired because of A-plot. To me, it was almost as if a much, much, MUCH older Alexander was remembering that time on the Enterprise when Mrs. Troi came for a visit. Think about it this way, Counselor Troi and Mister Woof are very staid, boring, no fun. But then there’s Deanna’s mom who is loud and brash and doesn’t follow the rules; she flaunts chaos and as a boy who hates rules (at least doesn’t understand them) wants to be free and Mrs. Troi represents that. Alexander can sit in mud, eating his cup, and being entertained by some impossibly not naked lady because what boy wouldn’t want to see that? And “The Higher, the Fewer” remark makes perfect sense while it makes no sense at all. But if it’s looked at through a little boy’s perception, the whole thing makes sense.
And the color-by-numbers B-plot is so science fictiony it’s hard to watch but it wouldn’t really need to because it’s just one more time the ship was in danger but Dad and the others fixed it. Looking at it from Alexander’s perspective, it really is a lot of fun.
As was said by the guys, this episode tried so hard, but just fell flat.
If they had toned down the odd Holodeck program world and just gotten rid of danger to the ship, this could have been a strong episode.
The ep you describe might have been MUCH better than what we got. A big child-tinted flashback would have allowed Michael Dorn to really have fun overdoing Worf… and maybe Jonathan Frakes coulda played a scary grown-up… ANYTHING but this ep. Ah well…
“The higher, the fewer” is a true statement for many things. The higher you go the fewer others there will be. That’s where lowest common denominator comes from…
“loved” is a very strong word….lol. Well, I guess I am glad someone enjoyed it. Unfortunately it is probably my least liked TNG. Lwaxana just bugs me. sigh….and not a fan of Alexander’s portrayal, so….
So you’re staring at a naked 10 yo with a naked, what 50 yo, with a dancer meant to seduce vistors and you’re asking “Is filming a sexy person being sexy sexist?” and not “isn’t this a bit creepy and a bit pedophilic”? Switch the genders and you’d call it out imediately. The dancing woman wouldn’t inspire you to ask if this is sexy, but rather make you ask why this nearly completely strange older man thought it was ok to take a little girl to a place where they’d be getting naked without anyone knowing where there will be other strange naked naked men dancing and trying to seduce her… That you’re treating these situations differently, that’s sexism, not the having a sexy character v.v and it’s this type of thing that shows feminism is brain rot.
Oh and also it doesn’t start on the dancer’s but, it starts on her calfs and pans up as many such whimsy, dancing, and preseting scenes do. If they were trying to catch her butt and breasts as a matter of camera to give the evil intentionality of trying to look at those parts they’d have to move around her with the camera rather than her moving in those dance steps that just happen to line up with the shot. It in fact looks like the cameraman was trying to pan around a bit to get her breasts out of the shot as fast as possible as a butt is considered less sexual to people for some reason.
————
Interesting fact about some of the extras in the mud bath scene though is that the two aliens holograms that join them that show up in green costumes. Those are Green Ranger costumes from Power Rangers. I guess someone thought they really did look alien.
There was one moment I liked, at the end, when Luwaxana is walking down the aisle, as the camera moves in close to Alexander in the exact setup you would get for a “cover your eyes” gag in almost any other show – and then Worf doesn’t do anything. No shame.
More about Casey Casem (give it a few minutes…)
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/tmhl1r/comedy-central-presents-scooby-doo
Hilarious – that guy’s Kasem impression is right on!
I adore this episode. It was the first episode that made me like/understand Lwaxana Troi; she’d previously bugged the hell out of me but after this one it clicked and now she’s one of my favorite parts of the franchise and I see her as a complete and complex person. It’s such a beautiful look at the compromises we make in life and how growing older can be difficult, whether it’s growing up as a child or growing old as a woman in society (also touching on in the difficulties and benefits of being alone, which is a huge separate discussion).
This episode takes a beautiful look at both aging and taking care of yourself mentally/spiritually. What do you need in life and how might that differ from what people expect of you? That will ALWAYS be part of the human experience, and is why this episode does stand up.
Yeah, the b-plot is silly. Welcome to TNG. Let it go 🙂
Just not watchable.