FIRST OFFICER'S LOG

        No doubt many of you have read this week's TV
guide. I have taken it upon myself to translate what
was found therein into plain english. Being fluent in
bullshit has its advantages.

        <The Borg is back! In an abrupt, eleventh hour
decision, the producers of Star Trek: Voyager have
shelved thier intended season finale and will instead
stage a return appearence by the cybernetic supercreeps
who made "Star Trek: First Contact" such a vivid
big-screen event>

        They ran out of ideas faster than expected.

        <"This is very tight, very last minute, and
it's created a real rush," says Jeri Taylor, executive
producer of the UPN series, "but we feel we owe it to
the fans.">

        We are screwed the pooch. We need to get people
to watch by tieing the show to a mediocre movie and
alluding to TNG. Hopefully people will forget this all
the shit we have churned out in the past if we become
exactly like TNG... except we won't have decent
writers, directors or producers.

        <Admits Taylor: "We were concernered that maybe
that wasn't a big enough dose for the veiwers-so we
dropped the two parter we had planned and decided to
write an allout, slam-bang, Borg-as-villians
adventrue">

        Admits Taylor: "We know it was bad. Hell our
usual editor slit his throat after reading the script
but we figured, 'Who will notice they're only
Trekkies". Appearently they are not quite as stupid as
we thought. Hopefully by giving them a good reason to
shut off their brains we can boost our ratings.

        <Says Bragga: "We wanted to deliver like we did
in 'First Contact'- only bigger. Whereas there was only
one Borg cube in the movie, one of the action sequences
in 'Scorpion' has 15 of them. We've got four episodes
worth of special effects rolled into here.">

        Says Bragga: "We want to eliminate all traces
of intelligence from Star Trek and we are so very, very
close.We even brought in a group of preschoolers who
really liked the explosions and stuff."

        <The plot for the original finale, which will
probably be used somewhere in the middle of next
season, was nowhere near as audacious or expensively
budgeted as "Scorpion.">

        The original was read  by said group of
preschoolers and found to not to be as good as Dick and
Jane with far more plot holes than the Cat in the Hat
and fewer character moments than Muppet Babies.

        <[Ds9] is not becoming Melrose Place," says
exec producer Ira Steven Behr, "but after hitting so
long on war and death, love and sex just had to enter
the equation.">

        Ds9 is becoming Melrose Place because after
hitting on and striking out with war and death we need
to catch up to Xena and Herc, like, fast so we figure a
bit of T&A ought to do it.

        <"For the first time since they clashed in
Voyager's premeire episode," promises Mulgrew, "you are
going to see a genuine professional tension between
[Chakotay and Janeway].">

        "Chakotay gets his panties in a bunch and I
have to straighten them out. Same old, same old."

        <"To date, Janeway has been more more physical
than Picard was in the the entire seven years of The
Next Generation," notes Taylor. "Picard is a much more
intellectual problem solver. So is Sisko. I tell you, I
throw up my hands at the revisionist veiw of the other
captains. Picard *talked* his was out of things. Why
nobody remembers that is beyond me.">

        "We have tried to make Janeway bitchin but keep
screwing up. Even Picard seems more action oriented
even if he wasn't. Over Voyager way we don't have much
use for all that fancy intellectualizing. We prefer to
keep things as simple as possible for fear of forcing
an original thought on our veiwers," notes Taylor.

        <"Why [the internet rumor mill] want - or need
- to believe that there are these huge changes in the
works?" asks Taylor with a weary sigh.>

        "We have really started listening to the
internet as that is the only place left to find truly
sycophantic fans. We keep asking why they have turned
on us," Taylor adds with a weary sigh.

        <Adds Braga: "There's also a crazy rumor that
Janeway is going to becomes the new Borg Queen- and its
just not true." He does concede, however, that "there
will be a very strong Borg presence next season. You'll
see more Borg than ever We don't to overdo them, but
it's my belief that they are Voyager's very own
Klingons.">

        Adds Braga: "We were going to make Janeway the
queen of the Borg but some reported it online and the
reaction was poor so we didn't.... that and we couldn't
get her into that kinky leather suit." He does concede,
however, that "the Borg are going to be run into the
ground. We, like the writers on Ds9, have almost no
inherent creativity so we will steal more concepts from
TNG, use them badly, apologize in TV Guide and attempt
to put a good spin on it.

Captain Cronan Thompson
maliki@worldnet.att.net
Due to my philopolemical nature I do hereby proclaim my right
to sciolism in all future writings. This sematic gesture
should prevent all misological persons from responding.