Remedial Nerding

In a bit of a change in tone from last time out we’re shifting from hardboiled murder mystery to a heart wrenching tale of family fortitude in the face of adversity, Disney style. Although without any musical numbers. But there is a space station! “Ohana means family; family means no one gets left behind.”

Making the first episode of your 5 season arc not S1E1 is really confusing, at least by 2020 standards. in this definitely not rip-off of DS9 we join a bunch of misfits on the only space station not to have sunk into the swamp. Suspend your disbelief, especially when it comes down to conflicts of interest & the inner workings or the environmental control systems, and join us on Babylon 5 for an interstellar whodunit. just don’t compare it to DS9; It’s legally not a copy!

As you’ll probably pick up quite quickly: Paul got the name of this episode completely wrong last time. Now that we’re allowed back across the border why don’t you come with us on a journey to the Brecon Beacons and joins us in exploring old coal mining cottages, the BBC quarry and dodgy body kits on Range Rovers!

Remedial Nerding is back for a new season, now with 25% extra Nerd! This time out we’ve got a right variety bucket in store for you, as the Nerds have each picked a few shows and movies to throw into the mix. You’ll find all these lumped into one easy to digest list, from which we’ll use a d20 (the nerds’ favourite random number generator since 1974) as the arbiter of fate each week! In this 0th episode we lay out the encounter table and welcome our 4th party member, because as everyone knows: you must gather your party before venturing forth!

Thanos has the dumbest possible solution to the Malthusian catastrophe

Loki is a straight-up bad guy because Manichaean world views make stories less interesting.

“literally the god of thunder, but he’s blonde now. Wait, is this a Stargate crossover?” Norse mythology be damned, it’s time to set off on an adventure with the Lady Sif and the Warriors Three, starting in Asgard and ending up in… New Mexico? In the words of Monty Python: “And now for something completely different.”

You might have had to wait two weeks for this one, but back in the pre-Disney days we had to wait two whole years for Iron Man 2. Was it worth the wait, or was this just prep for what was to come later? “Iron Man must defeat his shadow self, played by Don Cheadle.” There’s no elephant in this room. Rhodie has been Don Cheadle all along! Yeah

Long before Disney, Thanos and billion dollar movies there was just RDJ, a suit of armour and the quote, “I am Iron Man.” “Like Batman, but with better mental health and more green smoothies.” That’s what Nathan thinks he knows about this one, so come and join the Nerds for another bank holiday outing in the MCU as we find out how close he actually was!.

Thats right, this is the first in what’s going to be an extra long season of Remedial Nerding. Why is it extra long I hear you say? Well, we’ve decided that to celebrate Avengers: Endgame launching on Thursday it’s time Nathan caught up on what all the fuss is about! Here we’re discussing what he thinks he already knows about the 21 films from the franchise that we’re going to be watching to get him up to speed (because everyone knows standalone Hulk sucks ass).

TNG wraps up with an episode that deliberately echoes Encounter at Farpoint, so it’ll probably be just as good as Encounter at Farpoint, right? In this week’s episode All Good Things, like Star Trek and possibly life on earth, must come to an end.

If you can remember all the way back to episode 1 of this season of Remedial Nerding (2? 3? years ago?) you might be remembering that we talked about a different episode. Or maybe just the title, it was so long ago I can’t remember! Anyway, this time out what we ARE doing is following Worf on a journey through the many worlds version of quantum mechanics, all because of some pesky subspace. I sometimes wonder if that stuff is overrated, but it is a rather handy device for stories like this week’s: Parallels.

This week it’s a tale of two episodes, two captains, two Shakespearean actors and one extended and infamous torture scene. Definitely uncomfortable viewing, particularly at age 8 on a Wednesday evening, just after tea, and not one to start someone off on, but it’s a true classic and a masterclass in what acting can really be. No jokes here this week, I’m too traumatised by The Chain Of Command.

This week we’re back off to the holodeck for an adventure in a very cheesy and probably not very child friendly version of the Wild West , but what else would you expect from a program written by Reginald Barclay? This show is also a good example of why you shouldn’t let Nerds run riot unsupervised, but then if we weren’t allowed to then there would be no Remedial Nerding! Now go and grab your stetson, your cowboy boots and your southern drawl and come meet us in the Ancient West where we’ll try not to get everyone killed by A Fist Full Of Datas!

Is Picard a starship captain who dreams he's an alien, or is he an alien who dreams he's a starship captain? Definitely one from the good bin and a strong contender for best episode from the seven season run, although life would indeed be boring if we all agreed about that! This week we got to watch a firm fan favourite: S05 E11 - The Inner Light. Show me Picard's flute!

Dathon and Picard, at El Adrel. One line summaries aside, this is a welcome return to form IF you can swallow the not inconsiderable conceit. Hopefully you can, because watching Jean Luc take on an electric Tiger Pokemon with nothing more than a knife as a way to pass the time with a man (alien) who speaks only in fortune cooke quotes is very entertaining. This week we watched Darmok and Jalad, at Tenagra! Wait, it's just called Darmok? Whatever, this week it's TNG S05 E02.

Q episodes are always difficult to stomach in some way, but even for a "silly" episode this one is just a bit daft! Rather than use a holodeck malfunction to put the crew both in peril and an out-of-genre setting it's a space magic adventure instead. Still, at least Robin Hood has an English accent. Even if he is supposed to be French. This week, my Merry Men and Women, we're off to Sherwood Forest when we watched S04 E20 of TNG: Qpid.

Is the show about to become the adventures of Captain Riker? The cliffhanger in this high stakes race against time is one of the more memorable from the show's run, especially in a show that wasn't afraid to kill off one of the main cast in season 1. This episode clearly left it's mark on the three of us back in the 90's, so come see if we thought The Best Of Both Worlds has stood up well to the test of time!

Just when you hit rock bottom (I'm looking at you, Shades Of Gray) all of a sudden along comes a cracker to pick you right back up again. It's still not quite #mycrew, but it's certainly one from the next universe over, albeit one where and old crew mate wasn't killed off and another one is conspicuously absent. Unless you missed that plot point completely! This outing we're off to try and restore the timeline after the previous Enterprise takes a detour to the 24th century through a wibbly-wobbly thing in space. Come join us as we watch the imaginatively titled Yesterday's Enterprise.

What do you do when you realise that it's 2230 on the night before the big project is due? Why, you look back through the work you've already published and copy/paste it all together and keep your fingers crossed  that no one notices! Unfortunately, the bits of this episode that were used to glue the recycled parts together were pretty awful, but what can you do when you've blown all the budget on the rest of the season? This episode is pretty much universally regarded as the worst episode of the entire show. This week we watched Shades Of Gray to see if we felt the same way!

Lt Cdr Data: Man or Toaster? It's a deep, philosophical question at the heart of this weeks episode now that we've jumped ahead to the middle of season 2! According to Wikipedia this is considered to be the first of the great episodes from the show, which is good timing after the last couple we've watched! The uniforms might not be right yet, and the Doctor is still Lady Bones, but everyone else seems to have slotted nicely into their familiar roles. Including Cdr Riker's beard!

Why you would choose to re-hash the plot of an old episode for the second outing of your new crew is beyond us, but thats what they did. Also why you would make the crew act so out of character before they've had time to establish what they actually are is also beyond us. This is one hell of a goof fest of an episode, but it does have some of the most memorable one liners of the entire series. "Humans have pores. I have pores... If you prick me, do I not... leak?" This week we watched The Naked Time. No, wait: This week we watched The Naked Now!

A sensible choice of where to start with TNG is right at the beginning. Which is exactly what we've chosen to do! As with all the rest of the two-part episodes we're watching this season we're watching both of them back to back as one feature length episode. In an episode of may firsts (encounter with Q, separation of the saucer section, assembly of the crew to name but a few) it does raise one important question: How the hell did this get a second episode, let alone another 176, four feature films and two spin off series? (Spoiler alert: it got a lot better!) Come join us as we set sail aboard the Enterprise-D with #notmycrew!

It's been a while, but the boys are back and it's time for a new Generation! This is a slight break with the original premise of Remedial Nerding, but taking The Empire Strikes Back as our precedent, we've decided to do a season on Star Trek The Next Generation. We've not found a list of episodes this time (well, we did, but it had 40 of them) and rather than spend the next few years doing nothing else we've picked our own 15 from all seven seasons. This week we'll be chatting about which ones we've picked and see who can remember what from episode names alone. Make it so!