You can have a parody still with a decent plot - note all the little intricacies of Gilligan's Island (which admittedly I didn't recall much of when I wrote so didn't use as much), Lost in Space, and Star Trek Voyager that are joked about here. Also note the Teletubbies - if you work at it you can usually cross things over well, but don't try to wedge somethignw here it can't go. A No-Legged Race - A Parody Very Bad Things had once again happened to Voyager. They set down on a planet to not only recover, but also to gather some excess food and other essentials, such as Magic Reset Buttons. Captain Kathryn Janeway glanced around her as she and Lt. Tuvok scanned the surface. "It's so quiet it's almost eerie, it's like we don't have a plot device now. We usually find at least some life on these kinds of worlds, even if it's only quasi-ionized subcutaneous particulates..." Tuvok, his pointed Vulcan ears wiggling like Howdy Doody's, asked "what did you say?" "I said...Tuvok, did you just wiggle your ears?" "Yes, it is an attempt to show I thought something humorous, since having no emotion, I cannot laugh." "But what I said was scientific," noted the captain. Tuvok raised his eyebrows. "In what universe?" Janeway caught the hint, and dropped the subject. The Vulcan said "I am reading life forms over this way." They walk forward, only to see Q standing a couple feet off the ground! Sensing the frustration on Janeway's face, Tuvok muttered "I am sorry I said anything." "Q!" Janeway spoke as if to a naughty child. "What are you doing here?!" Q (how else to describe him?) Quickly lowered himself to the surface of the planet. "Why, my dear captain, so good of you to join me in my little experiment." "Whatever you're doing, you leave my ship and crew out of it, do you here me," she shouted. "Why you sound as if you're going to order me to stand in the corner next. Okay, here." A couple eight-foot tall boards appeared in front of him at a 90 degree angle. He kept speaking. "Anyway, as I was saying, there is another group as inept as you at finding your way home. I thought a little race would be fun." Suddenly, a robot motored up to him. It extended its apendanges and shouted "Warning! Warning! Danger, Will Robinson! Very peculiar life form ahead!" "So what else is new," commented the boy, about 10 or 11. Q stepped out from behind his little corner and spoke. "My friends, you will note on your sensors I have placed a wormhole directly above this planet." The Major and Mr. Robinson appeared on the scene and agreed. "Directly above this planet? What's that?!" "A planet is a large celestial body that orbits a star. But that's not important," noted Q. "What is is that this wormhole leads directly to Earth." "Oh, boy, we get to go home," shouted Will. Don nodded. "I hadn't noticed - we were just so shocked that we finally touched down on a planet with an atmosphere; our last few didn't have one." "Are you telling us," inquired Janeway, "that you walked around on a planet with no atmosphere, without spacesuits?" They nodded. Ther Vulcan folded his hands behind his back. "Gee, I wonder what Voyager would be like if we had thatkind of science." Janeway put a hand to her head as if she had a major headache. "Warning, warning," shouted the robot as Dr. Zachary Smith entered the picture, "another group of life forms is landing on a ship." Smith glowered. "Oh, shut up, you bucket of bolts!" Fretting, he said "what can be more annoying than listening to you." The robot suddenly impersonated Counselor Deanna Troi as a large ship landed directly in front of them. "Captain...I sense...a presence." Smith clapped his hands over his ears. "Aauuggghhh! Go back to your normal voice, please!" In his normal voice, the robot replied "I thought you would say that, Dr. Smith." A man in a large hat and red shirt stumbled off of the "ship," with a rotund man with white hair and a blue shirt following. "Gilligaaaaan," the second man shouted, "get back in here, I don't have any idea what's happened, the water all just disappeared." Q walked over to the newcomers as others joined them. "I can explain; I brought you here." "Is this another of your crazy dreams, Gilligan," hollered the Skipper. "Wait, why would I be here and wide awake in it, then?" "Not that I know of," spoke the younger man. "Who are you," he asked Q. "That is such a large question to answer. I am a product of their universe" he pointed at Voyager" known as Q. I brought you here." He turned to all of them. "There is a wormhole occupied by an alien form known as the Teletubbies From Space. Once you get past them you're home free; Earth is right in front of you when you get out of it, and you'll have made it home." "We're sick of playing your games, Q," hollered the captain. Tuvok turned to her. "Captain, if I may, it might be wise to go toward the wormhole anyway, simply to learn about and analyze the new life forms which are present." Janeway nodded. "Normally I would agree, but something about Q..." She turned to him and said "what's the catch." "Well, we catch quite a few crabs," Gilligan blurted. "Sometimes the bass are good..." Skipper glared at him. "She means how is that...being trying to manipulate us." Q grinned mischievously. "Why, a little favor to my friends for letting you play through." "Play through," inquired Janeway. "I believe that is an old Earth term," spoke Tuvok, "referring to golf. When someone wished to move ahead of slower players, they were allowed to play through.'" He turned to the others. "What I cannot understand is, why has he brought you all here?" "We're Lost in Space," explained Don as the other members of the Jupiter II crew came out to see what was happening. "And we've been stranded on a desert island for years...wait a minute," hollered the skipper, "the professor was experimenting with rockets!" "Rockets?" inquired Tuvok. "Yeah, you should see what he can make with coconuts," explained the Skipper. "Anyway, you didn't by any chance veer one of his rockets off course, did you, Gilligan?" "No, Chief, I swear..." Janeway shook her head. "No you won't; or this won't be rated G' anymore." "You see, you are all the most inept people at making it through just a simple race. This should be quite fun," remarked Q as he explained. "Gilligan and company, your ship that I invented is spaceworthy, and has fuel. You must, of course, figure out how to work it. Good luck - and may the least bad team win! For the others - well, it's seven years of indentured servitude with the Teletubbies if you make them mad; they don't like slavery, and it's not PC, anyway, except when it's ignored like in the Sudan." And then, he was gone. And the Jupiter and Gilligan's island were too far away from Voyager to continue communicating with them. "What do you suppose that was all about," inquired Janeway. "I don't know, but perhaps we should see if the sensors have been repaired, just in case." Janeway and Tuvok walked back onto Voyager, where it was reported all had been fixed. "How did you do that so...wait a minute, did Q..." "Was Q out there," interrupted Chakotay. "Yes, he was," reported Janeway. "Oooooh, he makes me so mad I could scream. And there's only one thing worse than a starfleet captain screaming." "What might that be," inquired 7 of 9. "Captain Jim Kirk's singing," explained the captain. Harry Kim responded to the earlier question by pointing to a sensor array. "By filling the couplinks with quasielastic hyperkinetic NMR, we seamlessly restored it. It's as good as new." Janeway came out from her command chair and "Great, let's take off and see if there really is a wormhole." Tom Paris turned around from his navigator's chair. "Don't you want to know what he said, Captain?" "Im not interested, let's just..." The ship rocked as they lifted off and went into orbit. "What was that?" Tuvok scanned his computer console for several seconds. "I believe we have an intruder on deck 5." Proving Vulcans were calm and cool, sometimes to the point of being near death, he then inquired "shall I go after him?" "Depends, is it human or alien?" Tuvok looked again. "Definitely human." "All hands red alert," shouted Janeway, "everyone to battle stations, brace yourselves for evasive maneuvers. All hands, this is the captain; I know with aliens we let them into our ship with almost no question asked, but this is a human, and we can't take any chances! Code red, all off duty personnel report, look both ways before crossing the street! Stop, drop, and roll!" B'Elanna was working down in Engineering when she noticed a fellow carrying a load of phasers. "Halt," she hollered, "or I'll use my super-duper Klingon fighting skills to annihilate you!" Dr. Smith noted that ""if they're anything like Worf's, you'll lose handily." The half-Klingon engineer fretted for a moment, then said "all right, I'll just whip out my phaser, then!" "Very well." Dr. Smith put down the weapons and explained. "I am Dr. Zachary Smith, my ship, the Jupiter II, was near yours, and I just came to help myself to some weapons before we took off again. Our suplpy is most piti...your what fighting skills?" "Klingon!" Smith cowered. "Oh, please don't hurt me, Mister Alien." B'Elanna twisted his arm behind his back. "Ahhhh...I mean Miss Alien!" B'Elanna released him. "That's better. Now, what do you really want?" "What do you mean," asked Smith. "I just explained it to you." "No stranger comes on board this ship without ulterior motives," she explained harshly. "A good point. You see, I am deathly afraid of being enslaved - exuse me, indentured servanted, and I noticed that your ship is much better at finding Earth quickest, what with your superior speed, weapons, and the like." "Well, forget it, the captain says we're not falling for Q's little games," explained B'Elanna. Smith nodded. "I see. In that case, perhaps you could just let me have these weapons so we can be on our merry way through that wormhole." "I'm afraid that won't be possible. See these readings?" She pointed to a computer. Smith shood his head. "Of course not, this technology is centuries ahead of what I know." "What do you mean," shouted the engineer, once again getting hyper, "everyone who comes on board this ship can read any computer console, don't you know that?!" Fuming, she noticed 7 of 9 entering. "Seven take this intruder off my hands!" Noticing the cache of weapons, 7 asked "to the brig?" "Of course not, are you crazy," shouted B'Elanna, "we never take intruders to the bring! Take him where we always take people." Seven thought for a moment, then said "very well" and took Smith's arm. Leading him into the turbolift, she spoke to the computer. "Bridge, please."