"Save This Program" - Elementary, Dear Data
My earliest TNG memories, and a poem inspired by 'Elementary, Dear Data'
Which episode of TNG was your first? Born a few months before the pilot episode aired, the weekly adventures of the Enterprise-D were already over by the time I was of TV-watching age. Luckily, The Next Generation’s episodic approach to storytelling allows random viewing to be a satisfying experience, and makes discovering a previously unseen, “new” episode a true joy.
Elementary, Dear Data is the first episode of TNG I ever remember watching, even though I know it can’t be the case. Growing up in Louisville, our local NBC affiliate played episodes of The Next Generation on Saturday afternoons, heavily favoring selections from seasons five through seven. My first experience with the early seasons of TNG were almost exclusively thanks to my collection of VHSs purchased for me by my grandmother from a place called a “video store.” Elementary, Dear Data was one of her earliest purchases, meaning I watched it approximately a bazillion times.
This episode also stands out so vividly in my memory, for including so many of my favorite Trekspects (aka “aspects of Trek”).
Futuristic technology (almost not worth mentioning in a holodeck episode)
Friends playing dress up
A sense of bookishness and intelligence (i.e. Sherlock Holmes)
Non-violent resolutions
Tea parties
British accents (although the dude playing Moriarty is actually from Arkansas)
Anyway, I love this episode so much I wrote a poem about it. That poem is called “Save This Program”. Here it is!
(Image via tng.trekcore.com)
Save This Program
O for a muse of antimatter to
accelerate beyond warp factor 10;
to teleport us through the atmosphere blue
and redefine what poets mean by “heaven.”
O to weigh work and life and find balance;
to wake to walkable community,
to replicator’s free food abundance;
to futuristic (Free!) infirmaries.
O for friends to play by gas power’d flame.
The game’s afoot to see who is wiser:
a Luddite doc, a positronic brain,
or the young engineer with the VISOR?
O for a Pulaski to call me fraud,
a foe whose defeat is energizing,
whose frank faithlessness is fatally flawed,
beat without my hobby monetizing.
O for a climax without violence
a conflict of wills with Brit NPCs
while Holmes plucks the strings of his violin
and we snack crumpets with Moriarty.
O for TV this good, free from the sky;
for non-copaganda entertainment
that does not your intelligence belie,
but sends you boldly through this firmament.
🖖🖖🖖