Fridge / SF Debris

Note: These examples are Chuck's own Fridge Examples.

Fridge Brilliance

• Looking at "Our Man Bashir" with the knowledge of what is going to happen, he concludes that Bashir isn't being his fantasy self, but his real self. (Super-smart, super-reflexes, able to exceed beyond everyone else... etc)
• He has a truly fascinating theory that introducing Starfleet to the Borg was a move on Q's part simply as his ultimate argument against Picard's insistence that Rousseau Was Right, given that it ultimately results in Picard's purely hate and revenge-driven actions in First Contact.
  Picard: And I will make them pay for what they've done!
  Chuck: And somewhere... Q is laughing, and quoting those lines from Hamlet with all the irony that they were intended.
  • That Picard's enraged reaction to being told to destroy the Enterprise-E in First Contact is because when he loses a ship, such as the Stargazer and Enterprise-D, he takes it as a personal failure. The Borg, who have taken so much from him, who for the six years he has had to live with that personal failure, that they beat him, that he wasn't good or strong enough, will not be the ones responsible for him having to sacrifice the Enterprise-E.
    • Also note that the ship in his display case that Picard broke in his moment of rage is the Enterprise-D, fitting Chuck's theory that Picard hasn't gotten over that loss when he reacts with shock to it.
• The reason the people in "Regeneration" turn into Borg so much slower than before is due to so many of them being assimilated by only two drones, thinning out the drones' nanoprobe supply. Though this ends up not working out when one of those same drones assimilates an entire computer mainframe in seconds.
  • He has some pretty compelling musings that the two species from the infamous "Dear Doctor" evolved into the Breen and the Pakleds.
  • In the "Dark Frontier" review, he explains that Starfleet's rudimentary knowledge of the Borg came from the El-Aurian refugees, and the incomplete notes of Dr. Phlox from before he was gunned down by Breen assassins, more than likely out of revenge.
• He makes a good (if half-joking) argument that, despite The Worf Effect, Worf still represents an improvement in heading up security on the Enterprise-D, considering that in some first-season episodes security never seems to turn up at all!
  • He's also mentioned that Worf's gruff summaries of situations are frequently the correct ones and cut to the heart of a problem the other characters are dithering with.
  • There's also the theory that the Effect occurs because the command staff are so busy screwing around that when it comes time to fight, the enemies have had a chance to prepare for Worf.
• That The First Doctor from Doctor Who had his first moment of Character Development when Ian Chesterton stopped him while he was considering bashing an injured man's skull in so he could escape from danger. He realized how desperate and cowardly he had been in that moment of weakness, and that a lowly Human had acted far more noble than he had been. The reason The Doctor's companions are mostly human from then on is because he realized Humans Are Special because they stop him going too far. This also nicely explains why he loses his cool so much when humans don't measure up to the standards he knows they're capable of.
• The different actresses playing the Borg Queen are explained by the first model being replaced after her failure in First Contact, then given another chance after her successor developed a destructive obsession with Voyager.
  • Particularly weird is that Chuck makes no reference to this being his own theory, and just throws it out like it's canon.
    • Chuck goes out of his way on numerous occasions to point out that it's the opinionated guide. It's entirely possible that this time, he figured it should just be taken as a given.
• "Before and After" features him stacking up the evidence that the Ocampa were actually genetically engineered as a race of sex slaves. Except for the body temperature, but the rest is damn uncanny.
• His more accurate alternative to the Star Trek Movie Curse: each and every bad Trek film is heralded as bad when the main characters sing (the infamous "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" singalong in V, Data's "Life Forms" song in Generations, Data and Picard doing HMS Pinafore in Insurrection and Data singing "Blue Skies" in Nemesis).
  • The sole exception being The Motion Picture. Because it would "detract from the boredom".
• In "Ship in a Bottle," Moriarty erroneously refers to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as an Englishman because he was unhappy with Doyle for writing him as a villain.
  • Comparing Moriarty with Khan from Star Trek II, a brilliant Anti-Villain seemingly cast aside and forgotten.
• In his TNG Look-back at Reg Barclay, he points out that he and Seven are very similiar personality wise, both like self-aware holograms, are introverts, brilliant problem solvers and both experienced (while extremely different) a form of higher conciousness integrated with technology. Leading Chuck to Crowning Moment of Heartwarming Fridge Brilliance.
  Chuck: "You know with all the Chakotay romancing in [Human Error], it's intersting to think who might actually the most compatible with Seven. And I think it's Reg Barclay."
• That the Voyager episode "The Void", made close to the end of the series, represents a look at the show as it should have been from the start, dealing with supply shortages, moral dilemmas, alliances with shady characters and Neelix actually being useful(as well as bringing up his original occupation of scavenger, even if it wasn't put to use).
• Kyoko of Madoka Magica made a wish to help her father prosper, which in turn allowed her poor family to have money for food. The reason she is always eating is that she has a disorder that helps her cope with despair, because having a full belly reminds her of happier times with her family before everything fell apart in her life.
  • He also posits that this eating disorder has been the one thing keeping Kyoko from crossing the Despair Event Horizon and turning into a Witch.
• In regards to Homura of Madoka Magica's ability to stick an infinite number of objects up her sleeve: "A magical girl with the abilities of a magician. Obvious, in retrospect!"
• In Booby Trap of TNG, Guinan says she's attracted to bald men from a time when one helped her when she was hurting. Cue Chuck throwing in a clip from "Time's Arrow" where Picard helps an ailing Past!Guinan.
• In "The Killing Game", speculates that the reason for the World War II scenario is because the head Hirogen recognises the parallels between the Hirogen and Nazi Germany. Both groups have technological superiority over their adversaries and a love of conquest, but this will ultimately prove their undoing, as they simply do not know how to hold the ground they've taken.
  • Similarly, the reason the Hirogen are not aware of the Borg despite being spread out throughout the galaxy, is because their ships rarely hunt with any backup, ironically making them easy pickings for the Borg to assimilate.
• In "The Bonding", Chuck speculates whether its original premise, of a young boy creating a holographic recreation of his late mother, helped inspire "Hollow Pursuits" later that season, in which we are introduced to Reg Barclay, who constantly retreats into holographic fantasies.
• Chuck's explanation of "The Day of the Doctor"'s parallels with "The Beast Below" make so much sense... maybe it's not what Moffat intended, but it really does work.
• Describing "Yesterday's Enterprise" as a Bookend to "Skin of Evil". In "Skin of Evil", Tasha earned the respect of one Klingon (Worf), and in "Yesterday's Enterprise", she earned the respect of all Klingons by being part of the Enterprise-C's Heroic Sacrifice. Also a Heartwarming Moment.
• Chuck notes that "Sins of the Father" takes place not long after "The Defector" - in which a Romulan plot is thwarted by unexpected assistance from the Klingons who Worf had contacted - and "The Enemy", where a Romulan died because Worf refused to help him. The evidence that kicks off the proceedings against the House of Mogh is found in a Romulan shuttle. Chuck raises the possibility that the shuttle was a deliberate ploy by the Romulans in response to "The Defector". The final conflict of the episode shows the Xanatos Gambit that benefits the Romulans: If the truth is revealed, Duras is powerful enough to force a civil war, weakening the Klingons. If the truth remains concealed, either Picard refuses to hand Worf over and breaks the alliance, or Worf is executed as revenge for his role in "The Enemy". Worf's third option of discommendation avoids the immediate crisis however.
• For System Shock 2, Chuck points out that Shodan's been lying to you all the time about your real objectives. Since what she really wants is control of the FTL drives, that mission early on in Engineering when you had to power up the ship's engines just to get the damn elevator working (when everything else was working perfectly fine) might be an indication that "Polito" was blowing smoke up your ass by telling you you needed to fix the engines to get the elevator working, and when you did, she just switched on the elevators.
  • He adds to this later, noting the similarities between the player character and Bayliss, who is presumed dead in the Rickenbacker Chapel. Both Bayliss and the Player character: 1) are well-versed in a variety of combat situations (note that Bayliss is your mentor no matter what tutorial path you pick) and 2) are immune to the Many's telepathic influence. In addition, Bayliss is the one who wipes the player's memory files, under orders from "Polito," and what is presumed to be his body in the chapel can never be identified as such, because there are only so many models to go around. Chuck posits that, given the oddities of the room you wake up in at the beginning (multiple pods and only two ways in or out, both controlled by SHODAN), the fact that SHODAN sent a robotic servant to knock you out before upgrading you, and the fact that your memories are not restored from your mind, but rather from the computer database, that you (your body, rather) are Bayliss with the memories of "Goggles," who in actuality was dumped somewhere when he became inconvenient.
• For The Old Republic, his explanation for how Rex (a member of a force-sensitive species) is able to avoid getting conscripted into the Sith despite most characters making him for an alien: because the Sith are so focused on detecting Jedi and other Sith, someone like Rex-who falls more on the gray end of the Force spectrum-is able to fly right under their radar.
• The episode on Darmok, an episode centered around language and communication, has the original German version of 99 Red Balloons in the intro.
• In The Terminator, he notes that, aside from the very brief intro sequence, everything we see of the future is a dream, not a literal flashback (or flash-forward). Thus, the things we see didn't necessarily happen precisely as depicted. For instance, Chuck believes Kyle's battle against the HK Tank where he got his burn scars wasn't a perfect recreation of any specific battle, but rather an amalgam showing how the war in general went for humanity (minimal gains achieved at great cost). Terminator: Resistance defies this, with your Player Character witnessing this exact sequence of events as a real thing that actually happens.
• How does Buckaroo Banzai fund all his research endeavors? Merchandising! A Buckaroo Banzai arcade cabinet and comic book are both seen in the film, comics are mentioned a few times, the Hong Kong Cavaliers play gigs (even if small scale like the one we see in the film), Jeff Goldblum's New Jersey mentions they put out records. . . Buckaroo is famous enough in this world that merchandising him and his cohorts likely funds most of what the Banzai Institute does. Though Chuck also believes the Department of Defense invested some in the rocket car, given the Secretary of Defense was in attendance for the test, but not all of what Banzai does would be of interest to the government.

Fridge Horror:

• Voyager apparently records the brainwaves of all its crew members all the time.
• In "Meld" we find out that apparently its just so easy to turn off parts of someone's brain...
  • And in "Shades of Grey", we learn that they have the ability to force a person to relive whatever memories they want, no matter how personal or horrifying.
• His review of "Emissary" points out the true horror of the battle of Wolf 359, only glimpsed briefly in "The Best of Both Worlds" left people such as Ben Sisko deeply affected having lost loved ones to the Borg.
• The Alternate Character Interpretation of Janeway as a psychotic Magnificent Bastard is so scarily accurate that it makes you reflect on everything you saw her do on Voyager... and realize that he's pretty much spot on about her.
  • Most especially the instances where Chuck's version of Janeway is less extreme or psychotic than the canon Janeway, such as in the the one-off My way or Janeway segment.
  • He also manages to make the plot of Nemesis make a surprising amount of sense by having it be all part of Janeway's plan to take over the Federation and the Romulan Empire.
• In "The 37's", Janeway momentarily considers having Voyager's crew settle down in the human settlements built by the titular character's descendants, reasoning that it's the closest they'll come to Earth for a long time. Rather unsettling how she ignores the numerous members of her crew that aren't human and thus don't hail from Earth at all, isn't it?
• In "Innocence," Chuck speculates that the more rational explanation for the children disappearing, hold on to your hats, is that they are simply being murdered and the crew of Voyager are gullible morons for just accepting the whole "our race ages backwards and turns into energy" explanation, without any proof.
• In Dark City, he notes that not only did Mr Sleep intentionally choose the corpse of a child to be his vessel, but when Murdoch was hanging from the ledge, he decided it would be more fun to bite his hand rather than simply stamp on it. While the rest of the Strangers come across as Affably Evil, Mr Sleep comes across as utterly insane.
• In "These Are The Voyages", hundreds of years after your death, if you are famous or important, people will create holographic versions of you to allow people to LARP with you or play futuristic Call of Duty matches by your side.
• In his analysis video of "The Body of The Many" level in System Shock 2, he notes we should be grateful for the graphical limitations of the time: a more modern game would have shown crew members lining the walls in various states of digestion/absorption.
• In his review of "Unity," he proposes that the small group calling Chakotay for help is not the few survivors of the Cooperative hiding from a sudden (and conveniently-timed) raider attack, but the few members of the Cooperative who are actually on-board with the idea of a new Collective, hiding from the rest of the same group who know what Riley is planning and are trying desperately to stop her while they still have independent thought.
• He gives a Happy Ending Override to Our Town. On the one hand, the immortal leaders of the cannibal cult have been slain, and the chicken factory that was used as a body disposal method is shut down. But on the other hand, the rest of the cult scattered, with no indication they were tracked down, and the closing of the chicken factory means there's even more reason to eat human meat. Also, since it was never explained if there was any ritual involved in the whole "gain eternal life" part of the cult, or if the act of cannibalism was enough in and of itself, they may end up killing for a looong time...
• From Coming of the Fuzors Pt. II: The fact that Quickstrike's mind came out the way it did without Predacon interference. Either the crash really messed him up, or the Maximals were transporting a very disturbed individual. Besides Protoform X I mean.
• When Chuck begins to joke and criticize Star Trek's social values and academic life-goals, it gets disturbingly dark on the nature of un-nurtured Humanity. Admirals ignoring safety requests from invaded planets, uncategorized negotiations with various races, indulgences of primal desires. These people aren't really people, rather children with a business suit and a handgun? To have this become a possible future for our descendants would be catastrophic.
• A doozy from his review of Shin Godzilla. The Japanese government has two weeks to evacuate Tokyo. Getting 13.5 million people out of a dense urban area in 14 days is already impossible, but Chuck points exactly how much worse it really is. The city has already been heavily damaged by Godzilla, who also killed most of the highest government officials. Even assuming you could move the people out efficiently. . . where do you put them? How do you provide food, water, shelter, and sanitation for 13.5 million people? How do you maintain order among this population when your emergency services are all tied down just moving them? How do you keep 13.5 million brand-new homeless alive long enough to get them back to being productive members of society, and how do you get them all back to being productive for that matter? Moving "a baseball stadium full of people every hour on the hour?" That's the easy part.