The most hated man on Star Trek

According to Tara, today is Star Trek villain day, or something like that. Anyway, it is on her blog, and on Dmarks' blog. So I have had to give this some serious thought.

Dmarks makes a lot of good points. But, he has already made them, so there's not much point in my repeating them.

Khan is a really good villain. But we've probably blogged enough about him for a while.

There are a lot of really good villains on Star Trek. But even the villains are like family now. Turns out most of the Klingon's were old drinking buddies of Dax anyway.

Who just really makes me sick in the Star Trek universe?

I think for today I'll pick, Kevin O'Riley.

Let me refresh you're memory a bit. About forty years ago, on an episode called "The Naked Time" the Enterprise found a bunch of frozen dead people. Seems like they just all went crazy and killed each other. Maybe someone even turned off life-support, or maybe it just went off by itself after the crew died. Anyway, it was not a pretty picture.

A bit after the Enterprise crew found the dead crazy people, a few people on the Enterprise started acting weird. Someone killed himself. Sulu started chasing people with a sword.

Most of the crew was exposed to an illness that makes people appear drunk. They don't think clearly. They get very emotional. They make totally irrational decisions.

Kevin O'Riley locked himself in the engine room and started playing with the equipment. He decided to turn off the engines.

So why did I decide to pick poor Kevin O'Riley?

I have liked Star Trek my whole life. So has my brother. My dad was one of the people who watched Star Trek when it first aired, and decided he really liked it, even if it wasn't quite "serious" science fiction.

My mother decided we were all from a different planet. We shouldn't waste are time watched TV. We needed to do important stuff in the here and now, like clean up our rooms. Watching reruns of Star Trek was just a total waste of time, and it was all about dumb stuff anyway.

So after me and my brother had cleaned our rooms, we would watch reruns of Star Trek anyway. And once in a great while, my mother would sit with us, and try to point out that it was all a waste of time, and comment on what was going on. But usually she wouldn't try very hard. She didn't have any good arguments. And how can you not think that Zefram Cochrane and the Companion on the episode Metamorphosis aren't just the most romantic couple ever in the history of romantic stories? And how can you not watch Spock and his father argue again every time Journey to Babel comes on? How can you just not get any of it?

So she mostly left us alone for a while.

Enter Mr. O'Riley.

Apparently drunk Mr. O'Riley, who has locked himself in the engine room, turned off the engines, and has decided to sing..."I'll take you home again Kathleen...."

My mother decided to sing with him.

My mother decided to sing some more, any time that we were watching Star Trek. It didn't even have to be the same episode. It just had to be Star Trek.

I hate Kevin O'Riley.