Entertainment
The Next Generation Episode That Invented Star Trek's Worst Trope
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
As a franchise, Star Trek has always faced an interesting creative paradox: it must balance the human storytelling of the present day with the science of the far future. Some writers prefer stories that are driven by hard science, and some prefer those driven by emotion. In The Original Series, these extremes were represented by Spock (who had to explain the cold logic of what was going on) and Dr. McCoy (who constantly espoused the values of passion and emotion).
In the Golden Age of Star Trek, the technical side of storytelling was represented by “technobabble,” the catch-all term for the confusing blather of scientific and technological terms often blurted out by characters like Data. Many fans (even those who prefer stories more in the vein of traditional science fiction) came to hate technobabble because it felt forced and out of place, often disrupting otherwise excellent stories. One of the best examples of this is the Next Generation episode “Pen Pals,” which one iconic Trek director thought was ruined by technobabble.
Reach Out And Touch Someone
In case you’ve forgotten, “Pen Pals” is the episode where Data makes contact with an alien child on an underdeveloped world. He discovers that her world is in danger and implores Captain Picard to violate the Prime Directive in order to save her people. Picard reluctantly does so, and Dr. Pulaski mind-wipes the alien kiddo to prevent her from remembering that time her entire planet was saved by aliens with what she would consider godlike abilities.
The episode was directed by Winrich Kolbe, a Star Trek icon (he dated Kate Mulgrew, for God’s sake!) who directed some of the best episodes of the franchise. For TNG, this includes such bangers as “Darmok” and “All Good Things…”, the series finale. On DS9, he directed some personal favorites, including “Through the Looking Glass” and “The Siege of AR-558.” For Voyager, he directed the premiere episode “Caretaker” and the ambitious two-parter, “Basics.”
They Blinded Us With Science
As his resume indicates, few people understand Trek like Kolbe, someone who quickly developed an instinct for what can make or break a potentially excellent episode. In an interview with The Official Star Trek Magazine, he described “Pen Pals” as “one of those cases where I felt the original script… the first draft, was very, very nice. It was a very personal story.”
He said it was a personal story, so what changed? Winrich Kolbe claims that someone very high up (he couldn’t remember if it was Rick Berman or Gene Roddenberry) “felt we needed more of a technical surrounding story.” The storytelling change was swift: “Suddenly, out went more and more of the character issue, and in came more and more tech talk.”
Putting Star Trek Under The Microscope
Kolbe wasn’t a fan of adding so much technobabble to a very personal story, and he didn’t mince words when discussing what went wrong with “Pen Pals.” He called the infusion of the distracting space lingo “a problem” and said that he disagreed with the prevailing staff assessment “that more technical jargon enhances the stories.” The director believes “these stories should be left alone” and summarized his thoughts on this particular episode quite bluntly: “I think ‘Pen Pals’ could have been a better show than it was.”
Most fans would agree with this assessment; after all, “Pen Pals” is a good episode that falls far short of its potential. Even controversial showrunner Maurice Hurley agrees. According to Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, he said the script “kind of got muddled around, mucked up and lost its purity.” He ultimately decided that the finished episode “worked okay,” but he generally echoes Kolbe’s argument that the jargon-ridden additions to this script made the episode far worse than it should have been.
Technobabble Never Left The Franchise
Sadly, the rest of the writing staff didn’t see it that way: “technobabble” became an ever-present feature in the franchise, one that was often used as a writing crutch to explain how our heroes suddenly turn the tables on their enemy. It could often be grating for fans whenever an episode of The Next Generation or Voyager ground to a halt so someone could explain the plot in the most confusing way.
Still, the scientifically accurate (more or less) technobabble of Old Trek will always be preferable to the breezy stupidity of NuTrek, where a single supernova can threaten the entire galaxy!
Entertainment
Hurdle hints and answers for April 29, 2026
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it’ll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Nominate your favorite creators today
If you find yourself stuck at any step of today’s Hurdle, don’t worry! We have you covered.
Hurdle Word 1 hint
To admire.
Hurdle Word 1 answer
ADORE
Mashable Top Stories
Hurdle Word 2 hint
Heavy.
Hurdle Word 2 Answer
HEFTY
Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Nominate your favorite creators today
Hurdle Word 3 hint
Two-legged.
Hurdle Word 3 answer
BIPED
Hurdle Word 4 hint
Hefty.
Hurdle Word 4 answer
HEAVY
Final Hurdle hint
Pointy.
Hurdle Word 5 answer
SHARP
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Entertainment
Moon phase today: What the Moon will look like on April 29
It may appear full, but the Moon isn’t actually at 100% illumination yet. In fact, we’re still a couple of days away. But it’s still big and bright enough to do some moon gazing, so keep reading to find out what features you might be able to see tonight.
What is today’s Moon phase?
As of Wednesday, April 29, the Moon phase is Waxing Gibbous. Tonight, 94% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA’s Daily Moon Guide.
Without any visual aids, tonight you should be able to see the Mares Vaproum, Tranquillitatis, and Imbrium. With binoculars, you’ll see the Mare Frigoris, Clavius Crater, and the Alphonsus Crater. And, finally, with a telescope you’ll see all this plus the Apollo 17 landing spot, Rima Ariadaeus, and the Fra Mauro Highlands.
When is the next Full Moon?
The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.
What are Moon phases?
According to NASA, the Moon takes roughly 29.5 days to circle Earth once, going through eight distinct phases in the process. Even though we always see the same side of the Moon, the amount of sunlight hitting it changes as it moves in its orbit. The shifting light creates the changing shapes we know as full, half, and crescent Moons. Altogether, there are eight main lunar phases.
New Moon – The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).
Mashable Light Speed
Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).
First Quarter – Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.
Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.
Full Moon – The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.
Waning Gibbous – The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)
Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) – Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.
Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.
Entertainment
The ASUS TUF Gaming F16 gaming laptop is down to a record-low price at Amazon — now $400 off
TL;DR: Amazon has the ASUS TUF Gaming F16 gaming laptop on sale for $899.99, down from its $1,299.99 list price. That saves you $400 on a 2025 gaming laptop with an Intel Core i5-13450HX processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 graphics, 16GB of DDR5 memory, and a 165Hz FHD+ display.
$899.99
at Amazon
$1,299.99
Save $400
Finding a current-gen gaming laptop in today’s economy for under $1,000 is already amazing, but Amazon’s latest ASUS deal is offering you an all-time low bargain.
As of April 28, the ASUS TUF Gaming F16 gaming laptop is on sale for $899.99 at Amazon, marked down from $1,299.99. Price tracker camelcamelcamel has confirmed that this is the lowest-ever price for this gaming laptop.
For that price, you’re getting the RTX 5050 and Intel Core i5 version of the TUF Gaming F16, which is built around an Intel Core i5-13450HX processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Laptop GPU. It also comes with 16GB of DDR5 RAM and a 512GB PCIe Gen4 SSD, so it should be nicely suited for jumping between games, school work, everyday browsing, and plenty of tabs without causing your sessions to come to a sudden crash.
With those sorts of specs, this version of the ASUS TUF Gaming F16 lets you comfortably run games from the latest graphically demanding titles — including Crimson Desert, Cyberpunk 2077, Black Myth: Wukong, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, and Pragmata.
Mashable Deals
The 16-inch FHD+ display is a big part of the appeal, with ASUS’s fitted 165Hz 16:10 panel with 100% sRGB color giving you extra vertical space compared to a standard 16:9 screen while keeping motion smoother in fast-paced games like Fortnite and Counter-Strike 2. The handy Adaptive-Sync also helps cut down on stuttering and screen tearing when your frame rate starts shifting during intense firefights or brawls with lots of assets moving around at the same time.
Mashable Deals
The TUF Gaming F16 keeps the series’ usual more rugged angle, as well. ASUS has had the laptop tested to MIL-STD-810H standards, while its 2nd Gen Arc Flow Fans, full-width heatsink, and full-width vent are designed to help keep performance steady without making the machine unnecessarily loud.
If you’re after a laptop that’s more for work than gaming, Samsung’s ultra-sleek Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 just got a $450 price cut.
Mexico makes Liga MX call-ups ahead of pre-World Cup camp
Pistons aiming to avoid historic early exit vs. Magic
