We take you to breaking news, live footage of the inside of my head…
While none of these are specifically labeled as GNDN pipes, these are absolutely GNDN pipes.
GNDN was a Star Trek: The Next Generation acronym/in-joke, GNDN meaning “Goes Nowhere Does Nothing.” And it’s entirely appropriate for today, as it was on this day in 1987 that Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered.
Ah, the dramatic tones that could only come from ABC television announcer Ernie Anderson! The strange emphasis he puts on words (like “android”) as if he’s only just discovered the word and must invent a pronunciation that will last for eternity.
The version of “Encounter at Farpoint,” the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Anderson describes sounds impressively epic, far more so than the actual episode, which was a bit dull and chaotic. (Paramount didn’t know how long they wanted it to be. Dorothy Fontana wrote one script, Gene Roddenberry added all of the Q stuff, and it’s a bit sloppy, perhaps more so than the usual pilot.) Still, I liked it enough to keep watching, as did millions of others.
We were all so young then. Even Patrick Stewart, who was born old!