Earl Grey is about as common as dirt. In my opinion, if you can get it from a Flavia machine, it's not good tea.
"Tea. Lipton. Hot." - that's what he might as well be saying. Doesn't sound so high-falutin' now, does it?
Lipton is a brand, Earl Grey is a type of tea. There are high-quality/expensive Earl Grey Teas and there are cheaper/low-quality Earl Grey Teas (just like the difference between gourmet coffees and Folgers).
Earl Grey is about as common as dirt. In my opinion, if you can get it from a Flavia machine, it's not good tea.
"Tea. Lipton. Hot." - that's what he might as well be saying. Doesn't sound so high-falutin' now, does it?
Lipton is a brand, Earl Grey is a type of tea. There are high-quality/expensive Earl Grey Teas and there are cheaper/low-quality Earl Grey Teas (just like the difference between gourmet coffees and Folgers).
Earl Grey is a very, very common type of tea. Everyone makes an Earl Grey tea. It's nothing to get snooty about. Picard's snootiness and snobbiness about his stupid tea is very off-putting to me and a significant hurdle to me in taking the character seriously in any way. In fact, in my opinion, none of the characters on TNG are worth my time.
I really want to be able to watch that show. I like the look of that ship and I really wonder what I'm missing by not having seen it. However, every time I try to watch it, one or another of the characters says or does something so insufferably stuck-up and haughty, that I just can't watch it for long. I despise that blind guy with his stupid sunglasses, I can't stand that stupid psychic gypsy-tramp, the stupid robot makes me want to replace him with a goddamn Cylon, and that snotty little kid they have should be beaten with a leather strap about the head and shoulders on a regular basis.
I like the characters on Enterprise a lot more than any of the TNG-types. At least they weren't whiny, snobby, PC-ridden, surrender monkeys.
I think the point is that in the Star Trek future nobody drinks any kind of tea any more. Picard's snootiness isn't to do with the kind of tea he is drinking, just that he likes tea. Also, you could say that BECAUSE he is being so snooty about such a common brand it brings the quirk to a more human level.
However, I have no information except this thread, as I've seen only two episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation ever, and I can't remember tea drinking in either of them.
I think the point is that in the Star Trek future nobody drinks any kind of tea any more.
That's another thing. Those TNG-types are supposed to come along about a hundred years after TOS, right? Well, the characters on TOS were eating meat, drinking whisky, and drinking coffee all the time while the TNG assholes talk about how no one does "that sort of thing" anymore. No culture is going to give up those things so completely in a hundred years time.
I think the point is that in the Star Trek future nobody drinks any kind of tea any more.
That's another thing. ThoseTNG-types are supposed to come along about a hundred years afterTOS, right? Well, the characters onTOSwere eating meat, drinking whisky, and drinking coffee all the time while the TNG assholes talk about how no one does "that sort of thin" anymore. No culture is going to give up those things so completely in a hundred years time.
Earl Grey is a very, very common type of tea. Everyone makes an Earl Grey tea. It's nothing to get snooty about.
Merlot is a very common type of wine. Every winery has a merlot. Yet it's perfectly acceptable for people to critique different merlots.
The same goes for...everything.
That's true, but no one gets all snooty about drinking a merlot. No one said anything about him critiquing anything. He can critique Earl Grey from Celestial Seasonings versus Earl Grey from Republic of Tea until the cows come home. It won't change the fact that when he does his little "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot" deal, he sounds like a total ass.
Furthermore, Earl Grey tastes pretty much the same mo matter who made it. Another thing I don't like about that smarmy little phrase is that no one would think to serve Earl Grey iced.
Mr. Burrage is the only one to even come close to an explanation that rehabilitates the character.
Earl Grey is a very, very common type of tea. Everyone makes an Earl Grey tea. It's nothing to get snooty about.
Merlot is a very common type of wine. Every winery has a merlot. Yet it's perfectly acceptable for people to critique different merlots.
The same goes for...everything.
No one said anything about him critiquing anything. He can critique Earl Grey from Celestial Seasonings versus Earl Grey from Republic of Tea until the cows come home. It won't change the fact that when he does his little "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot" deal, he sounds like a total ass.
To be fair, voice recognition does that to everybody. Ever played Tom Clancy's Endwar?
C'mon, HJ, you know that every time you see Jean Luc's shiny dome, clear blue eyes and fit body and here his beautiful voice and impeccable diction that you just get weak in the knees like the rest of us
C'mon, HJ, you know that every time you see Jean Luc's shiny dome, clear blue eyes and fit body and here his beautiful voice and impeccable diction that you just get weak in the knees like the rest of us
Y'know, another thing I just remembered is how Riker and Picard will both give orders, sometimes when both are on deck at the same time. That's not just bad writing. It's unbelievably, inconceivably stupid.
If you're worried about that, then you're missing the point. It's a television show, and per Roddenberry's vision each episode is a sermon on secular humanism.
If you're worried about that, then you're missing the point. It's a television show, and per Roddenberry's vision each episode is a sermon on secular humanism.
Suspension of disbelief has to be maintained for any communication of meaning on any other level to be effective. When they do something stupid like that, they ruin the suspension of disbelief, and thus ruin any sort of effective communication of other levels of meaning. Also, stupid things like that ruin the action and make people simply unwilling to absorb the story any further, thus ruining any communication of another level of meaning.
Say, for instance, I want to analyze Randian Objectivism. I decide to write a novel in which the action is all political intrigue, but the subtext is clearly my analysis of Objectivism. If I write in the novel that the President sits on the Supreme Court and have part of the action of the novel revolve around him writing a decision in a Supreme Court case, anyone who starts to read the novel will simply set it down, because it would be stupid. Now, I could say, "Hey, you're missing the point. The action's not important. What's important is my analysis, which is another level of meaning.", but the reader will say, "I never got to your different level of meaning because the action was too stupid."
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I really want to be able to watch that show. I like the look of that ship and I really wonder what I'm missing by not having seen it. However, every time I try to watch it, one or another of the characters says or does something so insufferably stuck-up and haughty, that I just can't watch it for long. I despise that blind guy with his stupid sunglasses, I can't stand that stupid psychic gypsy-tramp, the stupid robot makes me want to replace him with a goddamn Cylon, and that snotty little kid they have should be beaten with a leather strap about the head and shoulders on a regular basis.
I like the characters on Enterprise a lot more than any of the TNG-types. At least they weren't whiny, snobby, PC-ridden, surrender monkeys.
However, I have no information except this thread, as I've seen only two episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation ever, and I can't remember tea drinking in either of them.
The same goes for...everything.
Furthermore, Earl Grey tastes pretty much the same mo matter who made it. Another thing I don't like about that smarmy little phrase is that no one would think to serve Earl Grey iced.
Mr. Burrage is the only one to even come close to an explanation that rehabilitates the character.
Say, for instance, I want to analyze Randian Objectivism. I decide to write a novel in which the action is all political intrigue, but the subtext is clearly my analysis of Objectivism. If I write in the novel that the President sits on the Supreme Court and have part of the action of the novel revolve around him writing a decision in a Supreme Court case, anyone who starts to read the novel will simply set it down, because it would be stupid. Now, I could say, "Hey, you're missing the point. The action's not important. What's important is my analysis, which is another level of meaning.", but the reader will say, "I never got to your different level of meaning because the action was too stupid."
I'm so free I don't have to end sentences with periods