How the World was Warped
Without a question Warped is the definitive guide to the lost eighth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I say that with 100% conviction.
Never in my life have I read such made up, crackers stories as I read in this book - and that's kind of the point.
Warped is
the brainchild of Mike McMahon, creator of the @TNG_s8 Twitter account
which has taken the ball and quite literally sped off into the distance
with it never to be seen again. Warped follows the hurriedly
made and never released final final season of Picard and crew. Made on a
fraction of a shoestring budget we get to explore every area of the
series in some of the most bizarre episodes never made.
McMahon
has created the ultimate spoof companion detailing not just 26 stories
as if they were real episodes but also covers bloopers and background
material to flesh out the "reality" of the situation.
I
did approach the book with some skepticism as to how this would manage
to translate from the Twitter limit of 140 characters into a full blown
250+ page book but the end product exceeded my expectations and then
some.
McMahon has truly dug into the foundations of The Next Generation
and observed the nuances which made the characters - or at least kept
cropping up in the show - and has used them just as the writers of The Next Generation did,
creating stories around them. This however is a bit different and
nowhere near as serious. Picard's terrible luck with turbolifts comes
back to haunt him, the buddying of Geordi and Data is in full swing and
Beverly just can't find enough desks to bang her fist on. Thing is once
you've read them here in their enhanced and more noticeable form you'll
see the seven seasons of the show in a slightly different way. Each
character has their unique characteristics which are played on with each
story but there's even more.
The
plots themselves are cleverly thought out, swaying into car-crash B
movie territory with over the top sci-fi premises with a severe helping
of humour thrown in it really is no holds barred as the series veers
into facepalm central - but hey, it was like this to ensure there would
be no ninth season(!!!). McMahon hasn't just successfully written an
"episode guide" but has taken advantage of a tested book formula to play
out other aspects of the season's supposed production.
While
stories of combining crew members, Barclay deaths and Q interruptions
are great it's actually made all the better for the additional material
outside of the A and B plots provided. Dropping in notes regarding
"real" Borg with their own herder required for one episode or an
overabundance of juvenile crew in another thanks to Bring Your Child to
Work Day made this a book I couldn't put down for days. Every episode
had something different that made me laugh and made the wife wonder how I
could find anything to do with Star Trek funny. Honestly there are some
really hilarious sections in here, my favourites being from the
highlight episode, Barclay's Day. I won't ruin it but all. I can say is Space Snakes.
Cleverly there are even errors and in-jokes dotted through the book which fans will love. There are a couple at the expense of Voyager which
are very on point as well as referencing back to previous episodes from
the show, even being able to make fun of some of the real sillier
moments such as the Exocomps from The Quality of Life or Geordi's
poor luck with the ladies. Deciding to write this from a production
perspective detailing the shoddy - purposefully shoddy - work on season
eight, the author has created an hilariously believable experience which
is fortunately maintained over all 26 synopses.
Some of the lists dropped into the episodes are laugh out loud funny; alternate Tasha's (they turn up all the time y'know), oddball space pirates and many more. I think it's one of those books I couold go back to just to highlight those more eccentric points of the series. McMahon has managed to get every situation just ridiculous enough that it suits the characters we know from The Next Generation perfectly yet doesn't destroy the "real" Star Trek universe if you get where I'm going.
Some of the lists dropped into the episodes are laugh out loud funny; alternate Tasha's (they turn up all the time y'know), oddball space pirates and many more. I think it's one of those books I couold go back to just to highlight those more eccentric points of the series. McMahon has managed to get every situation just ridiculous enough that it suits the characters we know from The Next Generation perfectly yet doesn't destroy the "real" Star Trek universe if you get where I'm going.
It's
a book that absolutely shows the author's love and understanding of the
series to a great extent indeed to a point where he has more than
competently poked fun at the show and succeeded in producing something
extremely readable, entertaining and more than worthy of sitting
alongside the other official series companions.
Every story has something different, a new character nuance that's exploited and while it's not a factual book about the series it's absolutely worth getting hold of because it will, I guarantee, entertain you at every page turn. Now just go and buy it.
Every story has something different, a new character nuance that's exploited and while it's not a factual book about the series it's absolutely worth getting hold of because it will, I guarantee, entertain you at every page turn. Now just go and buy it.
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