Unnecessarily Detailed Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode Guide: Season 1, Part 1 (Episodes 1x1-1x13)


*** 1x1-2 Encounter at Farpoint (1 & 2) The Enterprise crew defends humanity in a kangaroo court presided by Q, meets its new first officer and doctor, and discovers a jellyfish living in a space--all in a day's work.
** 1x3 The Naked Now Everyone gets drunk and makes out.
* 1x4 Code of Honor Tasha is the object of fascination of a squicky "honorable savage" type society.
** 1x5 The Last Outpost All hopes for the Ferengi being a cool enemy are dashed forever.
*** 1x6 Where No One Has Gone Before The Traveller <3s Wesley; fantasies come true.
*** 1x7 Lonely Among Us Picard gets a spring in his step when he's invaded by an alien energy beam thing.
** 1x8 Justice Wesley faces execution when an idyllic free love hippie society turns out to have super-strict rules. Man, isn't it always the way?
**** 1x9 The Battle Crippling guilt and pain make Picard dreamy.
*** 1x10 Hide and Q Q makes Riker a Q.
*** 1x11 Haven Troi's arranged marriage arrangements are arranged.
*** 1x12 The Big Goodbye Picard thinks the holodeck is so awesome.
** 1x13 Datalore Data has a brother who has mastered the human emotions of contractions, singing, and being a sociopath.
Roundup & rating rubric

 

1x1-2 Encounter at Farpoint (1 & 2)

"Space. The final frontier." We open with the credits--Patrick Stewart narration, stars, planets, orchestral music, and the name of every actor, which will quickly become boring as we watch the entire sixty-second sequence in every subsequent episode, but which is always exciting and inspiring at the dawn of the series. "These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before." Wow, no one! Not even a woman! I wonder if audiences just tuning in for this first episode were like, "Who's this awesome guy they got to the do the opening credits?"

We open on the silhouette of Captain Picard cloaked in shadow as he narrates his opening voiceover about how the Enterprise has to go to Farpoint Station to rendezvous with blah blee I'm already bored. Picard crosses Engineering, which is full of goofy blinking lights in a very TOS kind of way, and turbolifts to the bridge. Data, Worf, Deanna Troi, and an Erik Estrada-looking guy with no lines (danger sign) are gathered, diligently playing with their nonfunctioning consoles. I ask for the first and by no means the last time: what is Troi doing on the bridge? She's wearing a miniskirt and go-go boots, which I guess is what they call "continuity." Wait, should I be pretending I don't know who these characters are yet? Um, why is Uhura Greek?

Picard, Troi, and Data exposit the set-up in a clumsy "casual conversation". Starfleet wants to use the outpost at Farpoint, and Picard is supposed to figure out how and why the base was built (since it clearly wasn't built by the jagoffs currently squatting there). Also, Data doesn't know the word "snoop", but he does know the word "pussyfoot." I hate first season Data.

Troi senses her first disturbance in the Force.

YOLSAFFBRIDGE: Troi can sense Q?
ZELEMPA: This is a Q episode? Oh, man, you're right. Christ.

The Enterprise is caught in a giant animated space grid thing which appears to be a net made out of gel tabs. Red alert sirens. Amusingly, Picard orders them down to yellow alert because he hates the noise. A pirate appears on the bridge. Freaking Q is dressed as a Shakespearean pirate. He says things like, "Go back to whence thou cam'st!" Is this just to make fun of Patrick Stewart's RSC background?

Q doesn't want humans advancing any further into space, because humanity is a "savage and violent" race. 2.5 out of 5 of the assembled bridge company is not, in fact, human, but whatever. Erik Estrada threatens Q with a phaser, so Q freezes him solid with a wave of his hand. Q's all, point proven! Picard's like, um, hypocrite, also, stun setting. Q can't be hurt by a phaser anyway, so I don't know what he was worried about.

Security chief Natasha Yar arrives on the scene. Q initially holds her back with a force field, but she comes on the bridge during a discussion of the injured crewmember's condition. Worf asks for "permission to clean up the bridge," meaning her wants to punch Q in the mouth, which I think is a good experiment, but Picard vetos. Yar pipes up to agree with Worf. Some security chief; shouldn't she have been the first on the "let's try punching" bandwagon?

Q cycles through various military costumes and accents, ending on a ridiculous cloth chain mail type effect from the "mid 21st century wars." Thanks for the backstory lesson. Picard gives his first bit of badass speechifying, railing against "self-righteous life forms who are eager not to learn but ...to judge anything they don't understand," which gives a delighted Q the idea to frame the whole thing like a trial. He disappears off to make "preparations."

Worf (and then Tasha "I'm with Worf" Yar) suggest fighting Q. What exactly is Worf's function--just to be a better security officer than the security officer? Troi thinks they should "avoid further contact" with this "powerful mind." Picard thinks for a moment and then calls for yellow alert. Picard wants to marry yellow alert. He barks, "Now hear this!" which I guess is Queen's English for "Attention All Personnel," or perhaps "Computer!" He orders radio silence and says they'll trying pushing the engines to escape. Surrender is "our only other option." Uh, I don't believe we've actually tried the punch-in-the-mouth plan.

Space chase. They get out of the net, I guess, but the "hostile" is overtaking them. Picard orders a separation of the saucer section, that big round knobbly bit of the Enterprise where all the scientists and families and barbershops and so forth are. Wait, so what are the saucerites supposed to do, just float around? How do they know the hostile will keep going after the better-armed battle section? Mid-escape is the worst time to separate the ship! I think Picard just hasn't seen the ship separate yet and wants to.

We get a shot of the various civilians and non-important personnel running around in the saucer. There's a man in a miniskirt! See, it's not sexist that we exclusively see Troi in Cat Scratch Club dancer outfits. Men can wear them, too.

The bridge crew, sans Worf who is grudgingly staying with the saucer, reassembles in the battle bridge (do we ever see the battle bridge again?) with O'Brien at ops. As the ship separates, everyone looks on in awe, including Data, who has evidently mastered the human emotion of childlike wonder. The Enterprise without the saucer section looks dumb. I mean, even with it, it's not going to win any beauty contests, but without it, it looks like a weird space frog.

The battle ship successfully lures out the hostile away from the saucer and then stops. Yar still wants to fight. Picard clearly thinks this is a bad idea but says "I'd like to hear your advice," which I guess is reverse psychology because it makes Yar just sort of mutter and trail off. Picard orders Troi (who is I guess a comm officer, in a pinch? Why is Troi on the battle bridge and Worf isn't??) to broadcast on all frequencies, in all languages: "We surrender." Wow, this old guy is a pussy. By the way, Captain, we're getting back hundreds messages on hundreds of frequencies in hundreds of languages: "Um, okay? We accept?"

Q beams Picard, Troi, Data, and Yar into a courtroom full of jeering humans in rags. The crew is impressed with the historical accuracy of Q's representation of "mid-21st-century post-atomic horror." While the courtroom is bizarre in a particularly idiotic, midget-with-a-Fu-Manchu-ringing-a-gong kind of way, I do think it's cool that they're turning the traditional Star Trek we-go-back-in-time-to-mid-20th-century-conveniently-enough trope on its head by going back in time to a point that's still in our future.

However, this episode is still boring.

Tasha tries to fight the jailers. Even the way Tasha fights is boring. She's overpowered after downing an incompetent guard (seriously, he was just standing there). Q, entering on a litter, talks down the (undoubtedly Q-controlled) jailers from harming the prisoners before they're sentenced. This impresses Picard, who indicates that he willing to stand trial as long as the trial is fair. Really? I thought he thought the whole idea of these individual instances of humans (and non-humans, let's not forget) standing on trial for the crimes of Humanity Itself was unfair. Tasha abruptly flips out and tries to make an impassioned speech on behalf of Starfleet, since they saved her from the rape gangs on her home planet. Oh, right, the rape gangs. Drink. When it comes to speechifying, Tasha is no Picard, and she gets frozened for her efforts. Ha.

Picard points out that Q is violating his own promise of a fair, nonviolent court, and suggests that he may be afraid of losing if he plays fair, "even though you are judge and executioner..." "And jury!" Q adds. Picard nods, "ACCEPTED." What? (a) It is dumb to agree to a trial under those circumstances. (b) Nobody asked you anything! Satisfied, Q nods, "This is a merciful court," and unfrozens Yar.

Q produces a list of charges. Picard refuses to dignify them with a response. Q tells him to submit his plea, and then orders his soldiers to hold guns to Troi's and Yar's heads: "Shoot if he says anything except 'Guilty.'"

Okay, why is Q doing this? Wouldn't this whole exercise make his point so much better if the trial were scrupulously fair? Q has already basically gotten the captain to accept the premise that he, Jean-Luc Picard, can be tried for humankind, so now he really only has to prove humanity's savagery, which ought to be a piece of cake. I mean, how hard is it, really, to make Picard feel guilty? "Powerful mind" my ass. From a dramatic point of view, too, if the trial had been fair, Picard's little "All right!" speech (a mini-speech, really; a speechlet), where he accepts that humans have been bad in the past but we've come a long way, baby, might have been powerful. Instead, it's just so much chaos in the midst of chaos.

Anyway, Picard suggests that Q test these present humans on their worth. I love how complicit he is with Q. He's just giving him suggestions. Don't hide it, Picard, you love this kind of thing. That's why he didn't want to fight, isn't it? He was aching to defend humanity to an unfriendly court. Q agrees that the upcoming mission at Farpoint will "offer more challenge than [they] can possible imagine," and he'll judge them for their actions there. POP quiz, Q. POP.

Court is adjourned. Well, that was an ordeal. Here is a joke i made up: when is a court not a court? When it's a djourned.

The crew is returned to the battle bridge. O'Brien sees nothing amiss, and he's surprised when Picard asks for their current heading. They're off to Farpoint, as they've always been.

POV switch! "First officer's log." This is the point where in a video game you would get to name Riker and you would have no idea who he is so you would name him something random like CRUMBCAKE or ASSHOLE. And you would be correct.

(Okay, I kid Riker, whom I will come to like. But he doesn't have a beard yet, so he is basically just cleft-chinned and Kirky and loathsome.)

Whilst waiting for the Enterprise, Riker has been enjoying a luxurious stay at pleasant, Starfleet-spec-approved, problem-free Farpoint Station. Whilst waiting for the plot, we enjoy a scene where the ghost of Jacob Marley tries to seduce him with fruit.

Riker meets Dr. Crusher for the first time at the Farpoint marketplace. She's accompanied by her son Wesley, aka Tiny Freshfaced Wil Wheaton. Awzhevakitten. Riker thinks things are a little TOO PERFECT on Farpoint. Crusher accuses him of trying to make problems to solve and pre-prove himself as a hotshot for his new post. But when a plain bolt of cloth transforms into a patterned bolt moments after Crusher laments the lack of a pattern, she has to admit it's a bit odd. Meanwhile, everyone is creepily eyeing the oblivious Wes, from the bug-eyed merchant to Riker, who fixes him with the full William Tiberius Riker smile and a low, "See you on board," when he's called to the ship. "Standing by to beam up," Riker says, puffing out his chest.

YOLSAFFBRIDGE: It would be funny if nothing happened. "Continuing to stand by." (pause) "Standby in progress."

"Commander Riker, W.T.!" Riker introduces himself, standing, hip cocked at a ridiculous angle, in the doorway to the battle bridge. In this episode Riker stands exclusively in Valley Girl poses. All he needs is a mouthful of gum. Picard doesn't look up. "Welcome aboard." Data and O'Brien exchange a weird smile. Is that supposed to be an "awwkwaaarrrrd" or a romantic B plot? Either way, I think it attributes more emotional subtlety to Data than he is capable of. Perhaps it was an "Awkwarrrrd!" from O'Brien and a simple reflective reflex from Data.

To catch up on the events of part 1, Riker watches the highlights reel, complete with close-ups and POV shifts. Picard calls Riker into his ready room.

"Commander Riker, W.T.! And this is my chest!" ...he seems to say, as he strides into the ready room. Picard barely looks at Riker as he orders him to do it manually. I mean, he orders him to reconnect the battle ship and the saucer without automation. Riker begins to protest, but Picard snaps, "You are qualified, aren't you?" and Riker insists that he is. I keep expecting this to turn out to be a moral lesson where Picard is like, YOU IDIOT, YOU DON'T DO STUPID STUFF BECAUSE OF YOUR PRIDE, YOU QUESTION ORDERS THAT ARE DUMB. But it isn't. It is a time fill.

"Commander Riker, W.T.! And this is my chair!" ... he seems to say, as he leans jauntily against the back of a console chair on the battle bridge. There's a long drawn-out scene where Riker verbally conveys inconceivable orders, such as "Rotate negative three degrees" (the human mind can't perceive negative three degrees!), to Data, who types them in. Shouldn't Riker be typing them in himself? I feel like that would be quicker and more in the spirit of the exercise. But this way is probably safer. I bet Data is super-secretly correcting him, figuring he probably doesn't mean to crash the battle ship into Ten Forward. Tab A fits into Slot B. Everyone breathes a sigh of satisfaction, particularly Riker. "Commander Riker, W.T.! And I succeeded at the unnecessary busywork Picard distracted me with!" ...he seems to say.

The follow-up Picard and Riker scene starts out by the book--Picard questions Riker sternly on an incident in his past where he violated a captain's order; Riker refuses to back down from that decision since the Captain's life was at stake; Picard silently but clearly respects him more for that--and then veers into the very weird, when Picard changes the subject by asking Riker to protect him from children. "I don't like children," he explains. Now that he's captaining a ship with a large civilian population, he's expected to occasionally tolerate a child. This is unacceptable. Riker agrees to protect him. I'm not sure what this would entail, except possibly being more of an ass so that Picard looks good in comparison. I think Riker can handle it.

We're in a plot lull, so it's time for some more little vignettes ham-handedly introducing us to the most caricaturish aspects of each character.

Q appears in the viewscreen. "Do you expect me to wait patiently through all of this nonsense?" Well, we had to. He gives them 24 hours to be ready to present their case. Oh, God, ANOTHER 24 hours?

Back in Plot Land, Picard is perplexed when Farpoint mayor or whatever, Zorn (the ghost of Jacob Marley from before), seems weirdly excited about heading up construction for whatever Starfleet wants or needs at Farpoint, but refuses to bring his construction skills to any other location. Zorn's also touchy about any questions about the oddities on Farpoint. Picard tells him he can just go deal with the Ferengi if he doesn't want Starfleet's business: "They found their last business partners very tasty." What? The Ferengi don't eat people.

Snooping (or pussyfooting) around on Farpoint, Troi feels the pain of everyone, especially when the crew begins investigating some mysterious tunnels beneath the surface. Data notes that the construction of the tunnels is bizarre and the materials are unlike anything etc etc. Then he apologizes: "I seem to be commenting on everything." I'm sorry, I seem to be hanging lanterns on everything.

At some point, some torpedoes from the sky rain down on Farpoint, turning it into the burning of Atlanta. Riker and Data fall to the ground, faking us out with their apparent dead-ness (when clearly if anyone is going to die in this first episode, it's going to be Picard, so Riker can take over as Captain KirK). Then Data sits up with amusing androidy suddenness, and helps Riker to his feet. There's a lingering look between them which against all odds does not turn into a kiss. (Wait till Riker is Kirk.)

Picard, watching from the bridge, asks Q for help getting his people out of the disaster. "I'll do whatever you say." You'll do whatever he says? The away team suddenly appears on the bridge. "You'll do whatever I say?" Q immediately leers. Ha! Troi says not to believe him--Q didn't help them get out. It was "that," a new ship on the viewscreen. "It's alive somehow," says Troi. The ship turns into a jellyfish in space, thus setting the twist ending for EVERY EPISODE EVER.

It turns out that Farpoint Station is actually another jellyfish which the people captured and made form itself into whatever shape they wanted. It is only lying there because it lacks the energy to stand. The Enterprise beams it with an energy weapon, and it disengages from the planet and floats up into space to join its "mate," as Data calls the other jellyfish, which I assume he means in the English sense. The jellyfish appear to be bros. They high-tentacle.

The Enterprise crew has passed its test of compassion. Picard accuses Q of using other lifeforms for amusement, like humans do. Q says that, in that case, he was successful, since they were amusing. He until-next-times and disappears. What, no big ten minute monologue on the value of humanity from Picard? I was WAITING for a big ten minute monologue on the value of humanity from Picard! What is this episode good for?

As Riker settles into his first-officer throne next to Picard's, he asks if all of their adventures will be like this. "I'm sure most of them will be much more interesting," says Picard.

And they were.

Pairings Implied in The Episode: Riker/Troi past relationship

Pairings Implied in This Recap: Riker/Wes, Data/O'Brien, Riker/Data, Picard/Q

Shakespeare References: "Kill all the lawyers." --Picard, referencing Henry VI. (What, no "quality of mercy is not strained"? PLZTHX TO TIE PICARD TO A CHAIR, Q WILL HAVE HIS BOND.)

Sum Up: While this episode is a decent introduction to the characters and the kind of adventure we'll be getting in TNG, it's way too long for the amount of content that it contains. Q is well played, as of course is Picard, and Crusher also weirdly shines in this episode. As for Riker, I'm going to give him the same compliment my yoga instructor gave me last night: "Your hips are very flexible." Not to beat a dead horse, but given that Patrick Stewart is capable of making the most mediocre hack writing sound profound, a big Picard speech--which seemed inevitable given the plot--might have really saved the episode. But I guess we can't fault the writers for not knowing what they had to work with in episode 1.

 

1x3 The Naked Now

The Enterprise is on its way to check up on the Tsailkovsky, a science vessel which was observing a red giant collapse into a white dwarf, but "something has gone wrong!" Maybe they found out it takes hundreds of thousands of years for a red giant to collapse into a white dwarf. The Enterprise hails the Tsailkovsky and a woman's cackling voice tells them to come on over: "I hope you have a lot of pretty boys on board!" Camera on Picard. Yum.

The away team cheerfully beams over to the site of some unknown disaster without spacesuits or gas masks. Riker discovers an open hatch into space through which some of the crew has been sucked. "Blown," Data corrects. Too--many--jokes! Yar finds that "someone has been playing with the environmental controls." Too bad nobody brought a sweater. Geordi finds an orgiastic tableaux of carefully positioned naked frozen corpses. One of them, propped up in a doorway, falls into his arms. The team concludes after a careful scavenger hunt that everyone on board is dead. Why didn't they just do a life signs scan?

Picard asks Troi what happened over there: "Madness? Mass hysteria? Delusion?" "Any or all, Captain," says Troi. What use are you, Troi? I really want to know.

Crusher examines the away team. The scans come up normal, but Geordi, sweating profusely, snaps at Crusher. "That doesn't sound like you, Geordi," says Riker. So I guess Geordi's thing is that he is nice? Crusher confines him to sick bay to run some tests, while Riker asks Data to help him research something he thinks may be related to the case. He dimly recalls someone showering with their clothes on, but it's all hazy. Maybe an episode of Star Trek he saw once.

Geordi escapes from sick bay and goes to visit Wesley Crusher, who shows off his latest projects: a miniature tractor beam and a Picard-specific voice simulator, using recordings of Picard's shipwide comms. What exactly is the use of that, except in Wesley's special alone time? "Wes, you're really something," says Geordi appreciatively. He continues to sweat and comments that it's getting hot in here. NO, GEORDI! DON'T TAKE OFF ALL YOUR CLOTHES!

Yar finds Geordi in the observation lounge. He wants to see with human eyes. More Pinocchio crap? At least Geordi only does this when he is under the influence. He touches Tasha's face. "Help me not to give into the wild things that are coming into my mind!" Hey, that's Edward Cullen's pick-up line.

Data and Riker figure out the connection to the original Trek episode "Naked Time": huge shifts in gravity leading to alcoholic water molecules, or some such. Wow, that was a quick discovery of this week's implausible technobabble. How are they going to fill the rest of this episode?

With ANTICS! Troi goes to her quarters and finds Yar preening in front of her mirror, sashaying around with Troi's exotic silks. Honey, those are the drapes. "You always wear such beautiful clothes off-duty," says Tasha. Is Deanna ever on duty? "And your hair always looks so nice. I want to change my image." Deanna tells her the clothes are "not for [her]." Butches should stay butch, damn it! Deanna grabs Tasha's hands. "I sense you're very uncertain. You're fighting something. What is it?" Deanna, do you... I mean, do you really not know?

Dr. Crusher asks Wesley to stay in their quarters until she figures out what's going on with the crew. Wesley snots that she's "stunting his emotional growth," and then wonders, "Why is it so hot in here?" HA! I like how we saw the path of the disease by touch through every link except Geordi->Wesley. That was private.

Wide shot of crewmembers weaving giddily through the halls. Tasha makes out with a random dude. No, Tasha! What about Troi?

We're with Picard on the bridge when his own voice comes over the comm: "Effective immediately, I have handed over control of this vessel to Acting Captain Wesley Crusher." Picard looks horrified. "Thank you, Captain Picard," says Wesley over the comm. "With that order dawns a brave new day for the Enterprise." Okay, this episode may be awesome.

Wesley has force-fielded himself in Engineering and is announcing new orders concerning dessert, etc. Cue wacky antics music.

Picard comms Yar, but she giggles that she's "busy" in her quarters. Picard sends Data to summon her. She appears in her bedroom door in a ridiculous belly-bearing drapery outfit and a gelled Superman curl. Cue wacky seduction music.

Tasha walks up close to Data and asks, saucily, "Do you know how old i was when i was abandoned?" Hey, that's Superman's pick-up line. NO TASHA DON'T TALK ABOUT THE--YOU DID! YOU MENTIONED THE RAPE GANGS. And the award for least appealing pillow talk goes to... "You are fully functional, aren't you?" Tasha asks. Data confirms that he is programmed in a "multiple techniques; a broad variety of pleasuring." Excuse me while I hurl. He displays an un-android-like adolescent half-smile as Tasha yanks him into the bedroom. The scene ends here, but I assume the next second would involve whoever Tasha was "busy" with earlier looking up from the bedside crossword all, "What took so long? Oh, hey, Commander Data."

Riker is trying to help deactivate Wesley's controls override when Deanna appears in the hallway. "Bill," she thinks at him. No, Deanna, this ex-boyfriend is named WILL. Deanna hangs off Riker's chest and moans about so many minds, all free, etc. Riker picks her up and carries her off toward sick bay. "Wouldn't you rather be alone? Alone with me in your mind?" Deanna Phantom of the Operas. No, Deanna. No, he would not.

In sick bay, Geordi is a sad drunk. "I've never seen a rainbow!" Neither has half the crew, probably. Riker brings in Deanna. Crusher complains that she can't get the old Enterprise's antidote to work; the infection has mutated. What. Crusher notes that Riker touched Deanna and Crusher touched him, so now they're both probably infected. Riker books. Ha ha. He doesn't want to make out with Crusher.

On the viewscreen with Wesley, Picard fights his natural impulse to rail and tries to reason with the boy. He explains the infection. "Is that why I feel so hot and so strange?" asks Wesley. No, kid, that's called growing up. Wesley asks what Picard would do if he had control of the ship back, and Picard says he would tractor beam the science ship away from the collapsing star. Wesley is happy to do just that. He signs off with a cheerful "Wesley out!" And I've found a new end for all my voicemail messages.

Data arrives on the bridge. Picard asks if he's functioning, a setup for Data to chirp, "Fully!" He executes some foolish slapstick. Crusher comms Picard to discuss a "private matter." "Damn it," says Picard. Picard--like the actor who plays him--is really too good for this nonsense.

And it only gets worse. In the ready room, Crusher tries to report on the infection's effects: lack of good judgment, etc. "For example, right now, I find you extremely... extremely." Picard sidesteps her kiss, and Crusher gets more painfully explicit, talking about how she hasn't had the "comfort of a husband". Get yourself a holodeck porno, woman!

Worf watches with hilariously undisguised judgment as Picard steps back onto the bridge and he and Crusher give each other little waves. Worf quietly reports to Riker over the comm that Picard and Crusher are infected.

Down in Engineering, Riker doesn't know what to do with this information. The infection just seems to make him dumb. On the other side of the force field, an engineer playfully pulls cards out of slots and throws them around. Why is the ship run by punchcards? On the bridge, Worf notes that part of the collapsing star is heading this way. For some reason, they can't get engines online. It's almost as if somebody removed some chips from somewhere. Riker is just like, Oh noooaww.

There's a semi-okay bit of comedy where Picard comes into Crusher's office and says "Beverly!" like Will Ferrell in that doctor sketch, and Crusher calls him "Jean-Luc" and then they both tell each other to be more formal.

Wesley comes up with the idea of having Data sort the chips back into their correct spots--much faster than a human could--but they still need more time. Wesley says things like, If only we could repel it in some way, Look I made my model tractor beam into a repeller beam. Riker just sits there, rubbing his head, all, If only I had just one more hint!

Crusher has an antidote! She gives Geordi and Picard Star Trek-style through-the-uniform totally pretend injections. Still goofy, Picard and Crusher whirl away from each other on their heels with silly grins. Okay, that was cute.

Down in Engineering, Wesley, not for the last time, saves the Enterprise from the danger in which he put it. Riker and Picard, heads clear but faces still drenched with sweat, give each other little looks. Hey guys, there's totally still time to make out and blame it on the infection. Riker smirks that they'll have to mention Wesley in the log entry. Picard frowns. Mood-killer.

Wrap-up on the bridge. Everyone's all better. Troi and Yar walk in (together, of course), and Yar heads straight for Data to tell him quietly: "It never happened." Picard looks around at his ducklings with satisfaction. "I think we shall end up with a fine crew," he announces. "If we avoid temptation. So, Number One, let's go to our next job." I spit out my milk. THOSE THOUGHTS ARE ANTITHETICAL.

Pairings Implied in the Episode: La Forge/Yar bizarre moment, Yar/Data sex, Troi/Riker unresolved weirdness (possibly unrequited), Crusher/Picard (possibly unrequited)

Pairings Implied in This Recap: Riker/Data, Geordi/Wes, Wes/Picard (unrequited), Yar/Troi a thousand times over, Riker/Picard (that was supposed to be a crude blow job joke, FYI)

Shakespeare References: "If you prick me, do I not leak?" --Data, referencing Merchant of Venice. (Thirty-three left to go.)

Sum Up: This episode's over-the-top silliness was cringe-inducing, for the most part; I think it was a bad move to have the wacky, comedic, people-acting-out-of-character episode so soon, when we barely know anyone yet. Still, it's not a wholly unenjoyable ep, and has some good facial expressions and moments of physical comedy for everyone. I think the extent to which Picard was affected--not immune, but also fairly low-key--was decently handled. Meanwhile, Wesley's key role in the big danger here is, I'm convinced, why so many people started out hating him. (That and the unnecessarily stilted quality of all of his lines, even compared to everyone else's.) Data is not even a little bit an android. Riker is completely useless.

 

1x4 Code of Honor


YOLSAFFBRDIGE: Oh, great. "Code of Honor." It's going to be a Klingon episode. I don't want to watch a Klingon episode.
ZELEMPA: It's a Yar episode.
YOLSABRIDGE: The only thing worse!

The Enterprise is sent to make nice with some backwater locals in order to get a rare vaccine that's needed by another world. The Ligonians have a rigid code of honor and politeness that Enterprise crew finds just darling. Ligonian leader Lutan and his attendants beam to the Enterprise with a lot of pomp and circumstance. Picard (not even in dress uniform) introduces Riker, Troi, and Yar. Lutan is incredulous when he hears Yar's Chief of Security title: "A wo-man?" Oh, god, one of THOSE episodes.

Picard hosts a nice little sit-down dinner for the Ligonian visitors. He presents them with a Chinese (not Trojan) horse statue, informing the Ligonians that the Federation enjoys his culture's "similarity to an ancient Earth society we all admire." And the award for most backhanded compliment of the century goes to... Have I mentioned that the Ligonians are all black men with eyeliner and vaguely Arabian Nights turbans? It's extraordinarily mishmash-of-Western-concept-of-"other" and skin-crawly. Lutan leeringly asks for a fighting demo from Yar. Picard tries to talk them out of it, but Yar says she'd like to do it.

In the holodeck, Yar puts on her Karate Kid jacket and demonstrates a fight with a holographic competitor. Yar is the slowest-moving fighting expert I've ever seen. "Your skill impresses me," says Lutan. "I like you." Like or like like?

Lutan and Picard bid each other formal farewells, and then, while Lutan is shaking Yar's hand, he abruptly signals for the beam-out, kidnaping Yar along with his party. Picard calls for red alert. Picard! Clearly this calls for yellow alert at most. Or are you wearing your earplugs today?

On the bridge, Picard tries to hail the Ligonian control tower, saying, "You have committed an unfriendly act!" You big meanies! They can't trace the transporter beam because the Ligonians' technology is so primitive and unfamiliar. Data waxes technobabbly, but trails off, "...which is actually not important at this time." Cute, but troubling: Data certainly gets less colloquial and more oblivious to the general feeling of the room over time. Picard asks Troi (who is taking up space on the bridge as usual) if she thinks the Ligonians will harm Yar. Troi says she doesn't think so. All of the Ligonian men were attracted to Yar--"Lt. Yar is physically very attractive," Troi explains to her gay, gay, gay bridgemates--but Lutan in particular felt "avarice or ambition." Hey, that wasn't entirely useless. Troi, you have justified your presence in this scene.

Crusher enters to beg the captain to do what he can to secure the vaccine, because so many people are dying without it. She suddenly sucks at acting, in other news. Wesley is waiting in the turbolift because Picard has banned him from the bridge. Hee! After last week's antics, I'm not surprised, although he didn't need to be on the bridge to cause havoc. Picard lets him sit at Ops again. Why? Why?

Data explains that the kidnaping is a part of Ligonian culture, similar to the concept of counting coup. He offhandedly calls French an "obscure Earth language," raising Picard's French pride hackles. The charade that Picard is French continues to be ridiculous. Riker advises Data to "drop it." Data explains that Picard just has to go to the Ligonians and ask politely for Yar's return, and honor will have been satisfied. Riker puts up a cursory fight about protecting the Captain but they decide that it's more important to do things properly. "But I warn you, if you die, I'll put you on report," Riker warns. Oh Riker. Just kiss him.

Picard and Troi beam down to Lutan's "centerplace" (palace) where Lutan introduced them to his "first one" (wife), interestingly named Yarina. (Tiny Yar? Female Yar?) Picard violates politeness just a smidge by demanding to see Yar immediately. She's unharmed and I think they were going for feisty, but it is hard to be woodenly feisty.

Lutan hosts a nice sit-down dinner for Picard this time. Picard very prettily asks for Yar back, and Lutan acknowledges that his request is by-the-book but refuses, causing general gasps. Picard calls it an "act of war". Lutan says it is an "act of love": "I want Lt. Yar to be my first one." Yarina immediately gets up and challenges Yar to a fight to the death. I begin to whimper. Picard refuses the challenge on Yar's behalf. Lutan stands up and bellows, "Then you shall have no treaty, no vaccine, and NO LT. YAR!"

Picard, Troi, and Yar consult privately. Yar's confident she can take Yarina. She won't kill her; she can do subdual. Troi says it must be flattering to have Lutan say he wants her: "He's such a basic male image..." Yar says sure, it felt good, but then cuts herself off, "You're my friend and you tricked me!" What? That wasn't a trick. It was a statement. If it was a trick it was a ridiculously transparent one. Picard is surprised when Troi advises letting Yar fight, but she points out that Yar will probably win, which would give Picard "bargaining points" for the vaccine.

YOLSAFFBRIDGE: A vaccine doesn't help once people already have the plague. IT DOESN'T HELP!

There's a really stupid scene here where Picard drinks with Lutan and attempts to leer about Yar. "She is a rather lovely female!" Nice try, Lord Gaysbottom III. Lutan laughs. "What do you know of needs and feelings?" "Nothing," Picard readily admits. This is weird. Anyway, Picard pretty much immediately gets Lutan to boast that he doesn't really believe in the code of honor; he's just using it to get what he wants, which is for Yar to kill Yarina so he inherits her land, as far as I can gather. Laaaaame. The only possible interesting moral for this episode is about subjective morality, but this guy manages to be a villain by both Starfleet's standards and his own culture's. Boring.

A dumb Data interlude follows. Data walks in on Geordi shaving with an electric razor. He says there are more efficient methods, but Geordi's not interested: "Shaving is a human artform." Too narrow and too broad definitions of human are a plague of this series. Data tries to tell a joke and Geordi laughs too hard when he messes up, or as audiences will come to know this type of scene, "the #4."

Anyhoo, Geordi and Data beam down to the palace, where Picard asks them to help Tasha choose a weapon for the fight. Data suspects at first that this is another human joke. Picard says it does sound like a joke: "With the power of the Enterprise, we could easily overwhelm this place and take what we want." And what's stopping them, kiddies? No, not a basic sense of morality. It's the PRIME DIRECTIVE. Picard starts to complain about and/or praise the PD, but quickly cuts himself off: "I'm sorry. This is rapidly becoming a speech." Troi says, "You're the captain. You're entitled." Yesss. Let the captain talk. "I'm not entitled to ramble on about something everyone knows," says Picard. Urk. I guess they're going for "hip, self-aware," but I like hearing Picard's thoughts on things, and I'm not sure it would have occurred to me that his rant was an "As you know..." infodump if they hadn't drawn attention to it. I mean, lots of my rants probably contain exposition that i'm not even aware of. I know hanging a lantern on it is a favored way for writers to deal with dialogue that doesn't work, but the thing is, if you hang a lantern on the stilted expository nature of a scene, it's still stilted and expository, but if you don't, it doesn't take as long.

Speaking of things which take longer than they have any right to, the fight is up next. It is the worst fight EVER. It's slow, it's stiff, it's incompetent. Yar eventually scratches Yarina with the poison point of her brass knuckles, and the Enterprise beams up Yarina at point of death so Crusher can revive her. Technically, Yarina does die, which dissolves her marriage to Lutan, but she is still alive, so she can have her land, I guess. She makes a different guy her first one. She offers Lutan to Yar, but Yar says there would be "complications." Complications named Troi. Yarina makes Lutan her "number two." Exit uncomfortable grab bag of stereotypes.

Bridge. Picard calls Riker "number one," which has a delightful new meaning from now on. The only magical moment of this whole sorry mess is when Picard says, "Engage." And credits.

Pairings Implied in the Episode: Yar/Lutan

Pairings Implied in This Recap: Yar/Troi, Riker/Picard

Sum Up: This episode is I think supposed to be some kind of commentary on race, gender, and societal norms, but it ends up being just as icky as the texts I suspect it is trying to subvert (largely TOS episodes, I think). It's just forty-four straight minutes of me cringing.

 

1x5 The Last Outpost

The Enterprise has been sent to recover a "T9 energy converter" which the Ferengi have stolen. No one in the Federation has ever seen the Ferengi (I guess they are stealth thieves). It's pretty fun to watch the bridge crew on their toes and doing their best work as the Enterprise chases the mysterious ship. Picard is looking particularly dashing, perhaps because he's happy and doing what he's good at. The Ferengi zap the Enterprise with an energy weapon and Tasha (also looking particularly dashing with artfully windswept hair) suggests returning fire, but Picard calmly demurs; "They're just reacting to our close pursuit. Fall back but stay with them." It's nice to see the shields actually shielding for once. Geordi wisecracks casually (e.,g., when Data notes an engine fluctuation which may indicate a malfunction on the Ferengi ship, Geordi purrs, "Breaks my heart"), adding to the tense-but-in-control experts-doing-their-jobs feeling. (Geordi--the Hawkeye of TNG?) Everyone seems to be equal parts apprehensive and excited about meeting this mysterious new foe.

This will turn out to be unjustified.

Things get weird when the Ferengi ship slows down and doesn't fire. Then everything on the Enterprise seems to fail: main power, shields, phasers, helm control, shipwide communication. "Immobilized by the damn Ferengi," Worf mutters as they try to get their systems back online. How come he is the only one who realizes how lame they are going to be? Maybe Klingons just naturally think every foe will be lame in comparison to their awesomeness. Troi is "sensing nothing from them." THANKS TROI. With the comm system out, Picard sends Geordi to Engineering to see how they're faring with propulsion.

Picard asks Data for information about the Ferengi (this didn't come up earlier?) and the conversation which ensues confirms not only the lameness of this villain but of the Enterprise crew itself. Data likens the Ferengi to "the ocean-going Yankee traders of eighteenth and nineteenth century America." You only get so many free passes on referencing American history, Star Trek, so don't waste them on things that we have never even heard of. Data adds one of my least favorite lines in show history, "But I doubt they wear red white and blue, or look anything like Uncle Sam." This would be bad enough if the conversation didn't draw out for nine million years, with Worf saying "Uncle who?" and Picard musing on the inferiority of the American to the French flag, and Data cataloguing the flag colors of various Earth nations, which apparently haven't changed in the last few hundred years (the flag colors, or the nations). Remember how much I was enjoying the first few minutes of this show? Yeah, that's dead now.

Picard sends Riker to Engineering to check on Geordi. Dude, it's been like ten seconds. I'm sure he's fine. Actually, he's better than fine, as he seems to light up in Engineering, cheerily translating technobabble into plain speech. Apparently the Enterprise pushes, and the Ferengi push back with equal force, keeping them in place. Riker suggests a sudden acceleration into warp, which makes Geordi cheer, "Whoo-ee!" and rush about making preparations, massaging random techs on the shoulders, etc. I'm not sure what Geordi's job is right now--he's in command red and always on the bridge--but he was obviously born for Engineering.

On the bridge, Worf wants to fight to the death, Tasha agrees, and Picard wants to run like a little girl. So, all is in order, then. Geordi comes back and reports the comm is back up and Engineering is ready to rock.

"Hailing frequencies open, sir," says Tasha, who is reduced to being Uhura while Troi sits there looking pretty and doing nothing. Picard decides to open with a facade of strength and delivers a stern demand for the T9 graphing calculators, after which he glances back adorably at Riker for approval. Picard gets back on his favorite topic: running like a little girl. Picard and Riker bond over Sun Tzu. There's no response from the Ferengi, so Picard orders Engineering to hit the gas.

Important query: is Riker wearing eyeliner?

There's a big build-up and some camera rocking, but nothing happens; the force keeping them in place increases to counterbalance the attempt at acceleration. It's nice to see something not work every once in awhile. Nobody can believe the Ferengi are so powerful. Data notices someone is hacking the computer's information log. Troi pipes up, "With our attention on the Ferengi vessel, we have ignored the planet." Okay, Troi's only line in this scene was super useful. Presence justified.

The captain calls for a conference, which basically means that everyone who was just on the bridge moves to the conference room. Worf wants to attack, Tasha agrees, and Troi wants to negotiate. Still no surprises. "Thank you for your advice," says Picard. I'm never sure whether or not he's being snarky when he says that, but I like it. He calls Riker back before he leaves the room and waxes melancholy about "total annihilation." For some reason.

Back on the bridge, Picard reopens hailing frequencies and submits a humble request for "terms," which I guess is code for surrender, because he seems all depressed about it. Surely there is some middle ground between "I DEMAND THE RETURN OF THE QUEEN'S TARTS IMMEDIATELY" and "PLEASE ALLOW ME TO LICK YOUR JACKBOOTS, DARLING." Tasha suggests an immediate attack as the shields have only sixty more seconds of power. The Ferengi are not responding, and Worf believes they may be aware of the Enterprise's rock and hard place and are waiting out the sixty seconds before Enterprise shield failure to make their own attack. "Patience," says Picard lazily. Picard is so cool.

At the last moment, a growly voice comes over the hailing frequency, and... asks the Enterprise to submit terms for Ferengi surrender. So that's weird. Or it would be, if Troi hadn't totally solved the mystery two scenes ago. I guess nobody is used to listening to her because she's usually like, "I can't read them, Captain." "You guess is as good as mine, Captain." "I got nothing, Captain."

We finally get a visual on the Ferengi and AUUUUUGH HUGE FERENGI HEAD. He's standing way too close to the viewscreen. Ferengi are, of course, among the more heavily made up Star Trek aliens, with lumpy heads, huge ears, and crooked, pointed teeth. (As we get plenty of opportunity to see on the huge viewscreen, Makeup only bothered to fit them with pointed top teeth. The bottom teeth are perfectly straight and suspiciously humany.) The Ferengi leader offers to return the T9 and sacrifice the lives of his second officers, as demanded by Ferengi code (really? where is that in the Rules of Acquisition?) AUUUUGH HUGE DATA HEAD. He's really close to the camera, for some reason, allowing us to see the powdery cakiness of his make-up, as he murmurs to Geordi, "Fortunately Starfleet has no such rules involving our second officers." Because they would have to...dismantle Data? (He's second officer, right?)

Another conference, this time with just the boys. Riker hastily chases some children out of the conference room before Picard and the others enter. Bizarre. I can't focus on what Data is saying about the planet because he is playing with a Chinese finger trap the whole time. I keep thinking he is going to use it to demonstrate a metaphor or something, but no, it's just there to spark a "comic" moment where he can't get free, and Picard looks daggers at him like he's seriously reconsidering that whole not-killing-the-second-officer stance. I guess it's also supposed to be "thematic." Hey, let's throw in a symbol apropos of nothing except to make the audience think about how symbolic it is!

ZELEMPA: I hate this scene.
YOLSAFFBRIDGE: Me as well.
ZELEMPA: It's all the writing, too. The acting is fine. Look at Picard. Look how un-amused he is.
YOLSAFFBRIDGE: That may not be acting.
ZELEMPA: I like Geordi here, too. "My hero." That was a pretty good line. He's always laughing, making jokes... he feels very real to me.
YOLSAFFBRIDGE: Really? He feels fakest of all to me. I don't think he's acting either. I think he's actually just like that.
ZELEMPA: Possible. Well, anyway, he's clearly on a different plane of reality from the rest of the crew.
YOLSAFFBRIDGE: It's distracting.
ZELEMPA: The god damn finger puzzle is distracting. Hey, what was this scene about?

The world may never know.

Picard hails the Ferengi leader again. Ferengi guy withdraws his surrender, saying their probe picked up the force field from the planet, so they know the Enterprise isn't the formidable foe they thought. Picard readily admits it and suggests that, since both ships are caught in the same pickle, they team up to investigate the planet. Picard has some good frustration in the conversation with the defensive Ferengi. (I suspect Patrick Stewart himself may be out of sorts in this scene. He, as an actor, has the remarkable power to make phrases like "energy draining force field" seem totally normal or absolutely ridiculous. In this scene? The latter.)

The Ferengi cautiously agree to meet the Enterprise's away team on the planet. Riker, Data, Tasha, Geordi, and Worf beam down. Riker rematerializes alone on Standard Star Trek Fake World #3: gray mist; bizarre crystalline forms; random cliff faces; frequent lightning.

YOLSAFFBRIDGE: Why is there always so much mist on every fake world?
ZELEMPA: It's a cheap effect easily achievable with dry ice. Also, it hides the floor of the high school gymnasium where this is probably filmed.

"Data? Geordi? Worf?" Riker calls. He doesn't give a damn about Tasha. Tasha can go hang. Riker finds Data standing on one of the dark crystals. Data quickly makes up a story for why he's hugging a crystal: inaccurately transmitted coordinates blah blah force field blah. "Are we alone, sir?" he asks. I think we're alone, sir. Why, why, why do you want to know?

I don't know if I just never noticed it before, or if it's new, but Data does seem to be doing some android mannerisms here--sort of tilting his head in odd ways and walking with slightly too good posture (even for an Officer of Starfleet). Anyway, he and Riker find Geordi hanging upside-down from a cliff. Wanh-waaaaanh! They're trying to get him down when they're ambushed by a group of Ferengi who attack them with laser whips. Manful grimace of pain from Riker.

On the Enterprise, life support is failing. Most of the lights are down, and Crusher is handing out Federation issue blankets (gray tissue paper). Still no sweaters in sight.

On the planet, the Ferengi have officially become cartoon monkeys. They're short, 1/2 to 3/4 human height, and they dance and squirm around and wave their arms manically like children pretending to be ghosts. Worf aptly calls them "cretins." Still, they've disarmed the away team boys, and between the lack of weapons and desire to maintain some semblance of dignity the guys are not fighting back. Tasha appears to save them, phaser drawn, and the Ferengi are all, "A hu-man fe-male?" Why is every episode one of those episodes?!

Back on the other show going on on the Enterprise--you know, the one that's not a farce--Crusher continues comforting the shivering crew (how come none of them are exercising or hugging naked under blankets?), and considers administering a sedative to Wesley. "He has the right to meet death awake," says Picard. Whoever on the writing staff hates Wesley--the one who wrote the line, "I feel strange, but also good!"--must have relished writing this scene.

There's some monkey business on the surface with Tasha kicking at the Ferengi until Riker tells her to ease off, and then suddenly a face forms in the mist above an old bridge: "Barbarians, speak!" Oh, great. The planet has a malevolent intelligence. Yawn.

The face materializes into a hunched old man who describes himself as "Portal 6-3," a "guardian of the old empire." Riker and Data try to explain that the empire he is guarding no longer exists, while the Ferengi try to convince him that the Starfleet crew is lying, and offer to kill them in exchange for money. They call the Starfleet crew "uncivilized" for using gold as a decoration (in their comm badges) instead of spending it. But wait, gold is worthless, right? I mean you can replicate as much of it as you want.

Portal, unconvinced by either side, announces that he will give them a challenge. "For battle, come to me!" Worf thunders. Very nice, Worf. Thanks for playing. "I offer a thought," says Portal. "He will triumph who knows when to fight and when not to fight." Great, a test of wit. Luckily they have Data along to--"You are being tested, Riker!" Oh, no! "What is the answer?" Portal demands. Wait, what was the question? Portal swings his axe at Riker, and is impressed when Riker doesn't flinch. "The only true enemy is fear," says Riker. Apparently that's the right answer. Portal cozies up to Riker. "Unlike those little ones, your mind is filled with interesting thoughts!"

(a) Bwah. I doubt it.
(b) So wait, what was the nature of Portal's challenge? Did he scan Riker's mind for a question and then ask it? Because that seems like a bad password protection system.

Worf is having a terrible hair day.

Riker and Portal chat while the Ferengi fall all over each other in the background, fooling around and mugging for the camera in a manner embarrassing for all involved. I've never been so glad stately Captain Picard is not in a scene. Portal rightly thinks they are lame, but Riker's like, oh, they're all right, likening them to humans hundreds of years ago (hey!). He convinces Portal to release the force field. On the Enterprise, power starts coming back online. Picard and Crusher, slumped in chairs on the bridge, begin to wake up. "Jean?" says Crusher groggily. I guess Picard officially shortened his name to save oxygen.

The final wrap-up on the bridge is dumb. Riker officially requests to send "a box of Data's Chinese finger puzzles to the Ferengi, as a thank you." There's a long pause and I think Picard isn't going to dignify that with an answer, but then he says, "Make it so." Our last shot is of Data wordlessly hitting a button on Geordi's panel because Geordi's fingers are caught in a puzzle, which is sort of cute in a give-and-take-of-friendship kind of way, but OH MY GOD GEORDI KNOWS HOW TO SOLVE THE PUZZLE HE WAS THERE.

Pairings Implied in the Episode: None

Pairings Implied in This Recap: Picard/Riker sort of; Data/Riker sort of; Portal/Riker definitely

Sum Up: With all the buildup--little references in the first few episodes, the fear and uncertainty of the crew in the first act--it's unclear to me why they chose to make the Ferengi absurd little gnomes, mincing and prancing around waggling their fingers. It's... unexpected, is I guess what they were going for? But you can't unring that bell. You can't go back and make the Ferengi cool, and you can't fool us into being intimidated by an unknown alien adversary again. There were some cool aspects of this script--the dual surrender was decent, and would have been more so if Troi hadn't clued us in to the solution early; the idea of the lingering security system of a dead empire was okay, too--but the execution was clumsy and bogged down by silly "comic relief."

 

1x6 Where No One Has Gone Before

An engineering expert from Starfleet is due to test some warp core improvements on the Enterprise's engines. Riker, unable to imagine anything more wonderful than the Enterprise as she is right now, suspects snake oil salesmanship. Kozinski, the engineer--does he have a rank? the officers keep calling him "mister"--beams in and is immediately belligerent and Rodneyesque, refusing to talk to Riker because he doesn't want to waste his time schooling every idiot individually. A tall alien in striped pajamas beams in with him and introduces himself only as "Mr. Kozinski's assistant--my actual name is unpronounceable by humans." But he's friendly about it. He's all smiles and gentleness, opposite in demeanor to Kozinski.

Kozinksi is impatient and slightly effete as he lectures the Engineering staff on how his improvements will totally speed up the Enterprise, despite the failed simulations and apparently gibberish write-up. "Why is there a child in here?" he snaps. Look, Wesley just finds it hard to make friends his own age. Lay off. Anyway, he isn't hurting anything--he's just standing over the assistant's shoulder, watching him run calculations on a computer off in the corner. The assistant gives him a smile, and asks him if he thinks the improvements will work. Wesley contemplates the on-screem image of some ribbons carefully. "Shouldn't those be connected? Here, and here." He makes slight alterations. The assistant is obviously impressed and fixes Wesley with the first of many adoring looks. "Don't play with that," Kozinski yells at Wesley, meaning either the simulation or the assistant. Hey, everyone! It's just a bunch of ribbons!

Experiment time! Picard Engages. The Enterprise enters hyperspace, apparently. Planets and other colorful shapes rush by. Wow, this is a very occupied path through space. Geordi announces, "We're passing warp 10, captain!" Well, that's just silly.

In Engineering, all eyes are on Kozinski as he rushes about pressing buttons on the main console. All eyes except Wesley's, who are dreamily gazing at the assistant. He's alarmed when the assistant disappears and reappears, flickering in and out. The Enterprise comes to a stop. Kozinski doesn't understand what just happened. Data can't believe where they are, but after double-checking against his own internal, I guess, GPS, he announces they're over two million lightyears from where they started. It will take 300 years to get back. Oh, great, it's Voyager. Can't we just stay here? This galaxy is prettier.

Kozinski makes fawning excuses to the captain. He's sure he can get us back if he just accounts for the blee bloo blahdy-bumpkins. It's about the same level of nonsense that we usually get, but this time Riker says, "It sounds like nonsense." Ha.

Wesley hovers over the assistant, who is hunched over in a sickly way. Wesley offers to call his mom, but the assistant doesn't think any human doctoring can help him. "I need to rest." Wesley doesn't take the hint and continues pestering him with questions. "Is Kozinski what he sounds like--a joke?" The assistant smiles. "That's too cruel. He has sensed some part of it." Wesley asks, "That space and time and thought aren't the separate things they appear to be?" The assistant admonishes him: "Don't ever say that again. Not at your age, in a world that's not ready for such dangerous nonsense." Um? I guess I agree with half of that assessment.

"Captain," says Worf, "can you allow a man who has made one mistake back into a position where he may make another?" "Captain," says Geordi, "what are our options really? I mean, if this guy can't get us back, who will?" "Captain," says Data, "we're here. Why not avail ourselves of this opportunity for study?" Clean the dishes, Cinderelly. Examine this nebula, Cinderelly. Actually, Picard likes Data's suggestion best, and he's tempted, but decides that the best thing for science would be to try to make it back home and then send a fully equipped science ship back for studying purposes. Oh, man, Picard, there might not be another chance! Didn't you read The Lost World? I bet there are TOTALLY dinosaurs on at least one of these planets.

As the Engineering staff prepares to try the experiment backwards, Wesley tries to talk to Riker, and Riker's basically just like, Yeah yeah, I'm sure your friend the assistant is very nice and tooootally cute, but the grown-ups are busy now. Well, he has a point. I'm sure whatever Wesley has to say is an unimportant waste of time which definitely won't just go to show what little people can do. Wesley sulks off but does speak up again when Kozinski calls for his assistant. "He's too tired," Wesley advocates for his boyfriend. "Why don't you do it yourself?" Kozinski thinks that'll be no problem, but the assistant insists on helping.

We get the same wacky effects, and this time, the Enterprise ends up in a weird field of blue crystally shapes and sparkles. It's a lovely screensaver. "What is this place?" Picard wonders. "Where None Have Gone Before," Data informs him, clearly awed. Poor Picard can't even get a straight answer out of the robot.

Picard retires to his bunk, and a weird warthog animal with spikes appears on the bridge. Worf is weird pleased and totally unfazed to see it: "A Klingon Targ! My pet from home, when I was a child." You mean from Russia? The targ turns into a domestic cat. Tasha pets it. Why does nobody think this is weird? Suddenly Tasha gets a flashback to when she wore bondage gear and hung out in sewer pipes. She hears some men tramping and laughing in the distance. "Run, it's not safe here," she tells the cat. Not even adorable kitties are safe from the rape gangs. Man, those guys are evil. And not very discriminating.

A Starfleet uniform--someone we've never seen before--plays viola with a quarter of men in powdered wigs. Dude, who is this guy? I want to see his adventures on the Enterprise. You know, going about his day, probably reading a lot. Another no-name staff member ballet dances over the cargo deck. Wow, everyone on the Enterprise is a failed artist. Picard walks down the hall, annoyed when two crew members run by. "Don't you see what's following us?" He doesn't. Then, rounding a corner, Picard comes across an old woman with a silver tea set. "Maman?" he gasps.

YES.

Maman speaks with a French accent, but she abides by teatime, so it's all a wash, evidence-of-Picard's-nationality wise. Picard kneels and looks up at his mother. "This can't be. You've been..." "Dead," Maman confirms. She says some platitudes about how she's always been with Jean-Luc in his heart etc. Picard asks her what's happening. She's about to tell him when STUPID RIKER INTERRUPTS! Picard looks over at Riker and then back, and his mother is gone. Picard swallows sadly. Aw, this scene is absurd but Picard sells it, man, as always. Riker's just like, wtf.

Picard gives a general announcement to the crew that thoughts are coming true, so everybody should control their thoughts. Think only when necessary. DEFINITELY DON'T THINK ABOUT THE CERTAIN DOOM OF THE ENTERPRISE AND EVERYONE ON IT. OR PINK ELEPHANTS. ALSO, FORGET THE NUMBER 213.

Rrg. I'm so mad about the inconsistency in the extent to which things become real. Riker couldn't see Maman, and Picard couldn't see whatever was following that couple. Tasha could see the Targ, though, and Picard seems convinced now that if someone misthinks, it could have real consequences. The ostensible reason for thoughts coming true--the weirdness that is the edge of the universe--gives them an excuse for thoughts actually TO come true, so it's frustrating and dumb that they pulled their punches and made it more like complex hallucinations, at least some of the time.

Anyway. Crusher is trying to tend to the unconscious assistant, but his physiology is unknown to her. "Why is the boy here?" Picard snaps. "He's my FRIEND," says Wesley. You just don't understand! Riker puts in that the assistant "seems to have developed a special attachment to the boy." Picard looks suitably creeped out. Against Wesley's protestations, Picard orders Crusher to revive the assistant. "I'm the captain, and I need answers!"

The assistant explains that he is a Traveller, a being from a much advanced race that likes to, I guess, travel around. He explains with a friendly yet you-pathetic-humans attitude that thought is the basis of space and time and "I have the power to act like a lens that focuses thought." Well, I'm sure that's never embarrassing. He agrees to try once more to bring the Enterprise home, even though it will probably kill him.

The Traveller asks for a moment with the captain, "ALONE." Wesley leaves in a trail of lingering, baleful looks. "Strange how he seems to care for you," says the Captain. Not really. Wesley clearly has a thing for older men with a lot of power to move around space at will. "He and a few like him are why I travel," says the Traveller. You mean you're travelling to them, or away from their blunderbus-toting father figures? From his deathbed, the Traveller weakly urges the Captain to "encourage" Wesley, but subtly: "It must proceed naturally." Look after Ashley, but never let him know. Picard's like, sure, fine, can we go now?

One more experiment. The Traveller is sort of propped up. Picard gets on the general comm and tells everyone to direct lovely thoughts toward the Traveller. "Think of him as someone you care deeply for." Clap if you believe in fairies. This is an order! The Traveller asks Kozinski, who is sulking in the corner, for his help. "You need me?" asks Kozinski in a small voice. "Yeah," says the Traveller. Well, that's sweet. Troi is blissed out on the good vibes floating through the ship. "It feels like--quite wonderful," she finishes, suddenly aware that she's on a family show. Okay, Enterprise, maybe you don't have to care for him that deeply.

Wesley watches, worried, as the Traveller sits in front of the console, closing his eyes. Nothing's happening yet. Come on, Enterprise, think lovelier thoughts! This Summer, The Fate Of An Incredible Journey Rests On The Orgasm of One Man. (record scratch) I feel good! I knew that I would now!

Uh, sorry. Anyway, Wesley takes the Traveller's hand, and that puts him over the edge. (...And I have officially just grossed myself out. Thanks, gutter mind.) The Enterprise zips home, and the Traveller disappears for good.

Wrap-up. "Have the boy sent to the bridge," says Picard. Riker comms, "Wesley Crusher to the bridge." Well, Picard could have done that. That's like when your mom says "Call your brother to dinner," and you just scream, "KYLE! DINNER!" Hinjinks music plays as Picard and Riker pretend to argue about whether or not Wesley can sit on the bridge: "He's not allowed. Your orders." "Oh, that's right. Only commissioned officers. Well, I'll just have to make Wesley an acting ensign." What? No you don't. Also, nice subtlety, jerk. Picard cautions that Wesley can be an "acting ensign" only if he applies to the Academy to learn to be an officer. Why that wasn't already Wesley's plan, I'm not sure. Wesley beams so hard his face is going to break in two and sits down on a sort of stool or chair arm or something at the edge of the bridge.

What number were you supposed to forget?

Pairings Implied in the Episode: None

Pairings Implied in This Recap: Traveller/Wesley, Traveller/Wesley, Traveller/Wesley

Sum Up: The likeability of the Traveller and the cozy warmth of his immediate friendship with Wesley (all pedophile jokes aside) do a lot for this episode, but I just can't get on board with the "think lovely thoughts" school of astrophysics. And there really needed to be a decision on whether the crew's fantasies came true or didn't. Finally, while I don't actually mind Wesley being made an acting ensign, the way it was handled was so sudden and transparently Mary Sue-ish (even giving Picard and Riker leeway for joking around) that I'm having a hard time believing it actually happened. Maybe it didn't. After all, this is the edge of the universe, where fantasies come true.

 

1x7 Lonely Among Us

We get our first look at the dress uniforms--which, amusingly, are actual dresses--when Picard, Riker, and Yar stand by in the transporter room to receive some delegates from an actually alien-looking race, for once. (Well, their heads are alien. Their bodies are still humanoid.) They look like mantises. Another race, who we'll find out look kind of like rats, are already on board, and the two races hate each other, but they're both being transported to a peace conference. The mantises ask to be roomed in quarters "upwind" of the rats. THERE IS NO WIND ON THE ENTERPRISE.

"I didn't understand that kind of hostility even when I studied Earth history," Riker hippies. Picard comments that the two races are opposed in every way, from god concepts to economic systems. I feel like it would be more believable if they were exactly alike in almost every way, except one tiny nitpick. It's easier to be understanding of something that's completely alien to you. But I digress, and so does the show, since these guys will be totally useless to main plot. The bitter hatred of two warring races will be providing the wacky comic relief for this episode.

In some computer cluster somewhere, Geordi asks Worf why he's helping with routine sensor maintenance. Worf says Picard wants his junior officers to "learn, learn, learn." Really, Geordi; the ship's counselor is a bridge officer and sometimes an away team member, and this is what you're questioning? Meanwhile, the Enterprise passed through a blue energy cloud which will surely be completely harmless. Worf is working on a panel when blue light electrocutes him and he does a hilarious extended "Graaaaahhh!" and falls to the ground. Geordi calls Crusher, and the medics have to fight Worf, when he wakes up, to subdue him and bring him to sickbay.

The rat people want real meat. "Humans no longer enslave animals for food," says Riker. Then he offers them a hit off his peace pipe and they all join hands and dance to Age of Aquarius.

Crusher is examining Worf when the blue light thing jumps to her. Troi comes in and comments that Worf's readings are normal now. "Yes, both of us. Quite normal," says Crusher in a dreamlike voice. Troi doesn't sense anything amiss, because, frankly, she's not very good with people.

Wesley gets a little suspicious, though, when Crusher shows uncharacteristic interest in what he has to say. He's trying to explain engineering technobabble to her in their quarters, and she interrupts to ask a question about navigation. "That's helm control, Mom. This is engineering." "Oh yes," says Crusher. "The helm is located on the bridge." She gets up abruptly and leaves. So that's not weird.

Crusher enters the bridge and heads for a control station. Picard stops her and tries to ask her about Worf's condition, getting annoyed when she is overly vague. She says she needs to run some cross-checks and heads for the computer. Data glances over her shoulder while she works and asks with charming guilelessness, "What does navigation control have to do with medical cross-checks?" Crusher sends him a death glance, but then the blue light zaps out of her and into the monitor, and she gets confused. "Why am I here?" She wanders off the bridge. Data can't get her machine to work. Suddenly calls come in from all over the ship reporting malfunctions. "We're less than a year out of spacedock," Picard complains, as if that's a reason they'd be less likely to have malfunctions, and not more.

Picard calls a conference to discuss the sudden glut of problems. It's statistically improbable that all these systems would fail at once. Listen all y'all, it's sabotage. Picard begins lustily composing a list of suspects. Riker thinks he sounds like a private eye. "Inquiry. Private...eye?" says Data. Oh, come on. He knows Yankee trader, but not private eye? Picard mentions Sherlock Holmes, History's Greatest Consulting Detective, in as offhand a way as ever happens on this show, and Data twitches meaningfully. Oh, great. Because what this episode needed was more antics.

Wesley is helping fix the engine when the Chief Engineer of the Episode sends him to class. "I don't learn nearly as much in class," Wesley grumps. He may have an inflated view of how much anyone else cares what he learns where. (Although he would probably argue that everyone else seems to take too much interest in what he learns where.) He's complaining about it to Dr. Crusher later. It comes out that Crusher has no memory of their previous conversation.

Back down in engineering, the blue light zaps the Chief Engineer of the Episode. Worf finds him dead. "Security alert!" Worf comms. I like how he thinks it's a security alert when someone dies, not a medical alert. (I mean, he's probably correct--there's nothing Crusher can do for him now--but still.)

Tasha questions one of the visiting aliens in his quarters. His alibi is that he was eating dinner all evening. "We're talking about hours here," Tasha objects. The alien sneers, "It was a very long meal." Tasha makes a face but accepts this. WORST SECURITY OFFICER EVER.

Conference room. The visitors all lied to her, so Tasha is stumped. "They omitted certain truths, which in itself tells us something," says Data, puffing on a pipe. "You can learn something from non-disclosure?" says Tasha. Worst. Security officer. EVER. "Indubitably, my good woman," says Data. Way to make a mockery of a man's death with your ridiculous role-playing, Lt. Commander. Data concludes that, since both sets of aliens are covering up, and since both sets stole medical supplies for minor wounds, they can probably assume that they were all off getting into scuffles and couldn't care less about assassinating an engineer. "It's elementary, my dear Riker. Sir," Data adds suddenly, in the second most genuinely funny moment of the episode.

Here is a joke I made up: When is a game not a game? When it's a foot.

Troi tells Crusher and Worf, "Hypnosis might help you recover your memory." Probably not. Troi talks Crusher into a hypnotic state in the usual piece-of-cake manner these things occur on TV, and as Crusher remembers examining Worf in sickbay, she recalls feeling an alien presence. "Get out. Get out of my mind!" Yeah, Troi. Troi remarks that Worf said almost exactly the same thing when she hypnotized him: "You felt there was something else inside you." I don't know if I want to hear about that.

In a staff conference, Troi explains that she didn't notice the alien entity in Worf or Crusher because she always feels a duality of thought in other people. "When you approach a decision and ask yourself which way to go, who are you talking to?" she asks Picard. I believe in that cause it might be Maman. Data suggests that if they eliminate the Enterprise crew and both sets of aliens as murder suspects, the alien entity is left, by the classic Sherlock Holmes "if you eliminate etc." principle. Picard tells Data, annoyed, "Let's proceed without the pipe." Captain Picard is a great man.

On the bridge, helm control goes wonky, and while Picard is examining a console, the energy leaps into him. He immediate gets a spring in his step which is frankly adorable. Why does Troi not seem to notice, even now that she's clued in? Picard claps his hands and briskly announces, "Make our heading: nine two five mark three!" He shrugs. "Seven." Bwah! That's the first most genuinely funny moment, by the way. "You want to double back on our course?" says Riker. "I believe a very important scientific discovery awaits us on this heading," Picard smiles unnervingly. Troi asks him to explain why, and he says he doesn't have to, as he is the captain. So nyah.

The visiting delegates are none too pleased that the ship has changed course away from the negotiation site. O'Brien tries to keep them in their quarters. What is O'Brien's position?

The senior staff holds a top secret no-captains-allowed sleepover party in Riker's quarters. They agree that the captain is acting weird, but he hasn't really done anything dangerous, or which looks that bad on paper--just changing course. Troi laments that he's "closed part of his mind to me." Woobiewoo! Troi isn't the captain first-best friend anymore! Crusher says she would need clear medical evidence of incapacity to invoke her right to relieve power. Riker doesn't need that.

Riker and Crusher stand stiffly in the captain's ready room, while Picard leans back with his feet in a chair, looking happier than he has... ever. "It is my duty to inform the captain that we believe he is under some sort of alien influence that may pose a danger to this ship." Riker has this speech prepared; he says it whenever he doesn't like a captain's girlfriend. "I consider it equally possible that the two of you are overworked, and possibly seeing hallucinations," the captain retorts. He orders them both to have full medical workups. Alien!Influence!Picard is so awesome. "I'm sorry, I really am too busy for this kind of nonsense," he says, and goes back to looking dreamily out of a window.

Some business with the aliens accidentally attacking Riker with a glow necklace.

Crusher brings Picard the results of her medical tests. He ignores them. "Please," she says quietly. "Are you Jean-Luc?" The captain smiles at her. "He is here. And more." "The more frightens me," says Crusher. She could have just tape-recorded that conversation. Picard seems genuinely excited for "the glorious adventure ahead." This episode took a definite turn for the better when it started requiring acting from Patrick Stewart. But it is still dumb.

The Enterprise approaches the blue cloud. Picard makes an announcement. He argues for compassion for the alien entity, which was inadvertently drawn aboard the Enterprise and carried away from its home. "Very soon after we combined we had learned much about each other," Picard explains. "A passion for exploration, for the unknown. We found we had similar dreams." Oh man, I was joking before, but it iis a new girlfriend!

Picard says the entity gives him a chance to realize his dreams. So this all turns out to be about Picard's special love of adventure. "He's planning on beaming himself into that energy cloud," Troi senses, far more specifically than usual. Various crew members try to stop Picard, but he causes a big lightning bolt to zap everyone, so they can't move except to cringe in pain. Except Crusher, who just sort of looks around obliviously. The director forgot to give Gates the memo, I guess.

So Picard does beam himself into the energy cloud. Everyone's sort of depressed, but Riker says they have to get to their rendezvous. "Warp eight." Just then, Troi is like, Lando, stop, I know where Luke is. "It's the captain, and only the captain." Riker asks, "The entity? Has it abandoned him?" "No, but the combination was unstable out there." Insert more relationship jokes here. The navigation console goes wacky, and produces a large ASCII "P." He's in the ship's circuitry! He is a mouse.

Data figures out a way to sort of beam him back, but without his memory of being out there, which sounds suspiciously like they are just abandoning the captain here and replicating a new one from the stored transporter memory. But whatever. Picard beams in, unfortunately not naked and fetal. "What the devil am I doing here?" Riker smiles. "Sounds like our captain." Yes, because he is ENGLISH.

The end. Wow, that stuff with the stupid delegates really didn't go anywhere.

Pairings Implied in the Episode: None

Pairings Implied in This Recap: Picard/Alien Entity

Sum Up: While this episode takes a definite upswing when the entity invades Picard, allowing him to loosen up and act "off" in fun, energetic way, it mostly doesn't hold together as a plot, or as a collection of semi-unconnected plots. You would think with delegates from deeply divided rival cultures on board, they could come up with a more relevant moral lesson than "Don't try to beam into an energy cloud."

 

1x8 Justice

Oh, this episode. Do I say that before every episode? I'll stop. But, seriously: this episode.

Everyone's tired after helping establishment a settlement colony on this beautiful earthlike planet, and the crew is urging the captain approve shore leave visitng the planet's natives, the humanlike (human) Edo, whom Riker characterizes as "neat as pins, ultra lawful, and make love at the drop of a hat." "Any hat," Tasha pipes up. Thank you, Tasha. Are they fully functional? Picard assigns Wesley to go with the away team to make the arrangements, and scout the planet as "a place for young people to relax." If Wesley can remember what it was like to be young.

Outdoor filming, for once! The Edo have, of course, enormous 80s hair, and wear teensy tiny pure-white loin cloth outfits, and run everywhere, which has got to be hell for these fairly well-endowed girls who can't be wearing bras. "They certainly are fit," Riker comments of them. "They certainly are," says Troi, who seems surprisingly sullen on a planet full of happy, friendly people.

The Edo ritual of creepy close hugging and neck-nuzzling as a greeting gets creepier as they go down the line. Riker and Yar, who have already been here, are totally on board with briefly snuggling the female and male Edo (respectively, unfortunately). Troi is more awkward, but she doesn't sense any seemy underbelly or anything. "I sense mostly friendship and, um, happiness." She sends Yar a pointed look. Oh, I see. It's because Yar is getting laid. With MEN. That LUG. "And I welcome the huge one," says the tiny Edo woman of Worf. Of course she does. "Nice planet," Worf growls after feeling her up a bit. I hate my life. Finally she gets to Wesley. Ha ha ha. "But you are a young one! I do not know your custom regarding love," she says, implying she would totally do him if the humans said OK. "I guess, whatever you usually do," Wesley stammers. She gives him a tiny pity hug.

Riker tries to get to business, asking how many of their crew the Edo are willing to invite, and the Edo say they can discuss all that at the Council Chamber, but wouldn't they prefer to "play" first? "At love," the woman explains. "Unless you don't enjoy that." The Enterprise crew is just kind of, uh, well, (shuffles feet). "I'll just go on ahead," says Wesley. Ha ha ha. They all decide to go. "You will find young people your age there," the woman tells Wesley. Wesley still seems freaked out. The man jumps in to reassure him, "Our rules our simple. Nobody does anything that is uncomfortable to them." Can I stop watching this episode, then?

The Council Chamber is a big open room full of beautfiul, oiled-up people playing lutes and waltzing and doing tai chi with slow, blissed-out movements. It's like the Doll House. The young people are dressed more conservatively than the adults. Wesley scampers off to meet the Young People. The others are introduced around, presumably for orgy purposes.

On the Enterprise, Data can't figure out this weird object off the bow of the Enterprise; it's picked up by some instruments and not others, like it's sort of half-there. Data hails, and it appears fully, looking like the restaurant at the end of the universe. "Shields up!" says Picard as the red alert alarm flashes for no real reason. Is there a glitch in the red alert trigger, or is it automatically tied in to Picard's state of mind? A sparkly bubble appears on the bridge. Oh, great. Is Picard going to join with another energy creature? "State the purpose of your visit!" it booms. It knocks over Data and appears to feed on his forehead. Oh, it's going to join with Data. Well, that's all right, then.

Wesley and the boys are trying to impress each other with acrobatics. A girl tells Wesley, "There's something I want to do. With you. Will you teach me?" Wesley blushes, "Um, well, um, there are some games I don't quite know yet." ...with girls. "It's playing ball," the girl explains. Wah-wahhh! Wait, she doesn't know how to play ball?

Riker ignores various Edo who are trying to draw him into threesomes and/or bridge games and goes over to talk to Worf. Sure. Worf's just standing there stiffly: "I am a warrior. I am not concerned with pleasure." "What about plain old basic sex?" says Riker. Is that... is that an offer? Worf isn't interested in sex with "the females available to [him]", that is, humans: "I must restrain myself too much." "if anyone else had said that, I'd suspect he was braggining," says Riker. "Bragging?" says Worf. "I'll pass on that," says Riker. Pass on what, sex with Worf?

Riker can't get communication with the ship, so he's a little concerned, and goes off in search of Wesley in case they need to beam out soon. Meanwhile, Tasha is fascinated with a conversation about the Edo criminal justice system. An Edo explains that there is simply no crime. Anyone who's caught committing a crime, any crime, in a "punishment zone," is put to death. Punishment zones change at random, and nobody knows when and where they will be, so nobody risks death. Tasha and Worf exchange looks. "We better find Wesley." Jeez, is Wesley like, a known vandal? Maybe he steals.

Wesley and the kids are running and tossing the ball around. Wesley is running backward to catch it when the others stop short and yell at him: "No! It is forbidden to disturb the new plants!" Wesley trips backward and crashes into a small greenhouse, falling assfirst into a flower bed in a spray of glass shards. The other kids are upset, and yell at him not to ever go past the markers. "It's okay, I'm fine," Wesley keeps saying, mystified that anyone would care for anything but his own well-being. The Enterprise crew arrive just around the same time as the enforcers arrive with the deadly syringe.

To be fair to the Edo, he disturbed the hell out of those new plants.

Riker and Tasha draw their phasers on the Edo police. Tasha knocks the syringe out of the officer's hand and picks it up. "It's a kind of syringe," she reports. Thank you, Lt. Yar. This seems to annoy the Edo more than anything else. They don't understand why this is such a big deal. They only want to kill Wesley! Doesn't everyone? (You I know I love you, Wes.) "If this punishment zone were still in effect, you would all deserve death!" At an impasse, Riker calls in the big guns.

In the council chambers, Picard tries to reason with the head Edos, but it's stopped being about Wesley and the new plants for them; they're upset that the crew is trying to interfere with their system of justice, which works for them. Picard assures them that his people believe in the rule of law, as well, but they don't execute criminals anymore. "We have learned to detect the seeds of criminal behavior." Really? Wow. That sounds sinister. The male Edo snots that, since they are evidently so backwards, maybe the Enterprise crew should just use their superior numbers and power to take "the Wesley boy" back by force. Nice that Wesley has been upgraded from "the boy" to "the Wesley boy." Picard tells them that in fact their own law prevents that: the Prime Directive.

Okay so according to Wikipedia, which I trust entirely in this matter, the Prime Directive states that "no Starfleet personnel may interfere with the normal and healthy development of alien life and culture," and that "such interference includes introducing superior knowledge, strength, or technology to a world whose society is incapable of handling such advantages wisely." In other episodes of this and other Star Trek series, this definitely includes showing evidence of their own superior technology to pre-space-flight cultures. A TOS episode explicitly states "No references to space or the fact that there are other worlds or civilizations." Yet the team feels free to beam up and down, discuss their culture, their ship, space, etc. It becomes pretty clear in a moment that the Edo have never gone to space, so how is any of this remotely okay? How is it okay for them to leave a settlement there to begin with?

The Edo agree to put off Wesley's execution until sundown, at least. As Picard prepares to beam up, he asks, as an afterthought, what's up with the weird sort-of-there sort-of-not entity orbiting the planet. "You mean God?" says the Edo woman. Ha. Crusher comms that Data has regained consciousness and wishes to speak to the captain. Picard asks the Edo girl to come with him. She agrees to be a hostage for Wesley, but Picard says no, no, he just wants her to identify something.

Crusher has a bone to pick with Picard as soon as she sees him on board the Enterprise. She knows about Wesley. Picard, busy at the moment smashing the Prime Directive to little bits, blows her off: "In a moment, doctor." "In a moment?" Dude, Crusher, he's with a girl right now. The Edo woman is all wowed by the Enterprise in the classic way that Starfleet hates. Picard brings her to the observation lounge to see the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and she immediately bows and cowers. The Restaurant goes all rumbly and says "RETURN MY CHILD!" Crusher could say the same to you, buddy. The Restaurant begins displaying its weapons. Picard hastily has the Edo woman beamed back down to her world.

Crusher freaks out at Picard, who tries to calm her down, but doesn't make any promises. Crusher can't believe how callous he's being. "If he were your son, you'd be as frightened--" "But I am," Picard interrupts quietly. Okay, that was a nice moment.

Data reports on his mind-meld with the sparkly bubble. Picard gets annoyed when he goes off on a tangent and tells him not to babble. Data seems hurt. "Babble, sir? I'm not aware that I ever babble, sir. It may be that from time to time I have considerable information to communicate, and you may question the way I organize it..." Then he answers the Captain's questions all short and snubby. Data has mastered the human emotion of passive-agressive. Anyway, eventually we do get the information that the Edo's "god" is a vessel with superior technology. The Edo are sort of their pet project life form, and they don't like them to be messed with. They might be willing to accept the Federation colony, but they're closely observing the Enterprise crew now to see if they are a lawful people. They are judging them by their own standards, so this comes down to whether or not they are capable of living by their own Prime Directive.

It's annoying that the "highest moral duty of Starfleet officers," as the Prime Directive states itself to be, is insufficient in of itself to be taken seriously by the crew of the Starfleet flagship. It has to be independently enforced by aliens. Wow, they actually followed the Prime Directive? Yeah, but aliens made them do it. (Also, they totally don't and won't follow it at all.)

"It's one thing to communicate with something mysterious," Picard logs. "It's another to by silently observed by it." That's how people feel about me. Picard and Data speak privately in a sort of nice scene where Picard apologizes for telling Data he babbled. "You see things in ways that we do not. I need your help, my friend." He can't tell how the Edo's gods will interpret the Prime Directive, and he doesn't know how he can justify saving "the Crusher boy" (another promotion!), especially if the god people might just turn around and destroy the colony or the Enterprise. "Would you choose one life over a thousand, sir?" Data asks. "I refuse to let arithmetic answer questions like that," says Picard.

Hmm. We're finally getting to the philosophical meat of the episode five minutes before the end of the hour. I have a feeling there will be no satisfying resolution.

Picard and the away team go back to the Edo Council Chamber at sundown. Picard tells them he has to protect his people from harm. The Edo are very upset that their laws are being ignored. Picard takes Wesley's arm and orders a beam-up, but nothing happens. They've lost communication with the Enterprise. Picard directs his gaze heavenward and says, "The question of justice has concerned me greatly of late..." SPEECH! SPEECH! EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY IF YOU MAKE A SPEECH! Picard says about two sentences about how there can be no justice if law is absolute, and every rule needs exceptions. That's... that's it? I guess that was all it took, because they are allowed to beam up, Wes included.

Up in the observation lounge, Picard and Riker watch the Restaurant at the End of the Universe disappear. "Is that a signal?" Riker wonders. "I suppose it must be," says Picard. "I was hoping for more." So was I, Picard. So. Was. I.

Pairings Implied in the Episode: Tasha/every Edo, Riker/everyEdo, every Edo/every other Edo, Riker/Troi lingering tension, Worf/Edo woman flirtation, Wesley/Edo girl fake-out

Pairings Implied in This Recap: Troi/Yar established relationship, Riker/Worf preslash

Sum Up: While the Edo "love customs" are embarrassing and ridiculous, I sort of like how this episode 180s from a horrifying Naked Now-style sex romp to weighty moral quandary. The problem is, the writers wrote themselves into a corner they couldn't get out of, and then they... didn't... get out of it. Selective interpretation of the Prime Directive is another central problem.

 

1x9 The Battle

Picard VOs that a Ferengi vessel requested a meeting, only to respond with the message, "Stand by Enterprise." It's been three days. "Stand by for what?" Picard wonders aloud to Crusher as they chat in his quarters. Ha! Wouldn't you love to do that to the Enterprise? Picard has a headache. Crusher can't believe it! Apparently in the future we have found the cure for the common headache. Not Picard's headaches, though. They're special.

As long as we're in Picard's quarters, I have to ask: Is Picard the one who's obsessed with fish? There are tiny aquariums in his office, his quarters, the conference room... As with the uncomfortable-looking minimalist Ikea bed-things and the thin silver blankets we'll get to see later in the episode, I guess it's all part of the late 80s idea of really cool futuristic design.

The Ferengi finally hail the Enterprise. Picard webcam-chats with Ferengi captain Daimon Bok on the bridge. The Ferengi appear to have learned to stand back from the camera, which is nice for all involved. Bok wants to meet in person, and gives Picard the choice of your place or mine. Picard warily invites him to the Enterprise, wishing to keep an eye on him. Bok agrees to beam over "in one Earth hour." Really, that's the standard unit of time for the Ferengi?

ZELEMPA: "...In one Ferenginar hour."
YOLSAFFBRIDGE: "Quick, Data, how long is that? HOW LONG?"

Crusher continues to be baffled by Picard's persistent headaches. "It's true that headaches were once quite common," she schools us, "but that was long ago, before we understood the nature of pain." You mean before you started talking?

Bridge. Wesley rushes on. Ah, the first appearance of Wesley's rainbow pride sweater. Is this his new uniform? It's... an interesting... choice. "Sir, you'll soon be getting an intruder alert." He discovered an old Federation ship in an experimental sensor boost. Riker scolds him for bringing the information in person instead of using the quicker comm, correctly identifying Wesley's ulterior motive of being in the bridge if anything interesting happens, but he doesn't kick him off. So far, the new ship isn't signalling.

Three Ferengi beam directly onto the bridge. The Ferengi beam is cute, all spirals and sparkles. We get the requisite surprise over "clothed females" on the bridge. "Most interesting," says Bok. "They are that," smarms Riker. Will, come closer so I can punch you in your baby face.

Bok says the old Federation ship is under their control, a reminder of the Battle of Maxia. The Captain doesn't know what Bok is talking about until Data suggests that Bok means an incident nine years ago in the Maxia star system, when Picard destroyed an unknown vessel. Turns out it was a Ferengi ship. Captain's like, oops, sorry, dude. The ship the Ferengi are now towing is the Stargazer, the ship on which the Captain served, and from which he destroyed the Ferengi vessel. Bok says they found it in a derelict yard, and that it is a gift from him to Picard, in honor of their new friendship. Well this doesn't seem at all suspect or historically precedented. The other Ferengi are alarmed that Bok is giving something away with no expectation of repayment. Picard gets a visible stab of pain, which Bok amusingly refers to as "his conscience."

Crusher gives Picard another look-over in sick bay. He says at the moment he felt pain, he was remembering the Stargazer so clearly, he could smell the burning. Seems like a brain tumor.

Staff briefing. Picard relates the story of Maxia in a genuinely entertaining monologue, with a classic, old-fashioned, naval-battle-storytelling feel to it. He was at the helm when the unidentified ship started firing on him. The ship was badly damaged and it looked like they were toast. So Picard invented a maneuver. He zipped up at warp so quick it looked like he was in two places at once, and while the ship was firing on where the Stargazer was, Picard blasted them at point-blank. Picard gets "quite caught up" in the storytelling, and calls one of the team "Viggo," the name of a Stargazer crewmember. Ah yes, it's so easy to slip back into those hazy summer days, me and Viggo and John running across the veldt--oh wait, that wasn't Captain Picard, that was Legolas. Always get those two mixed up. Picard wants to visit his new old starship. Riker says he can as soon as Security makes sure it's nice and safe and the Captain finishes his vegetables. Crusher adds, "And after I have another look at you." Naked.

Tasha and Geordi examine the bridge of the Stargazer and declare it fit for the captain's presence. He beams over and looks around. "Hello, old friend," he says softly. Okay, this is nice. Picard orders his crew to busy themselves running some tests and he'll be in his bunk. Getting rapidly less nice.

Picard sits in his old cabin, going through a trunk. Yep, his porn is still there. The trunk includes several books and a shiny orb which if I know Trek is one of the world's many, many pleasure-giving devices. Suddenly he topples out of his chair, clutching his head in pain. Crusher rushes in and tells him to beam back to the Enterprise. She promises to have Voluptuous Vulcan Vixens IV sent to his quarters.

Bridge. Picard seems pensive. Riker asks Troi what she thinks is wrong with him. "I wish I could say," she says. When she is useless, she is very, very useless.

That night Picard tosses and turns, dreaming about the battle.

Data meets privately with Riker and tells him that as he was going through the Stargazer logs, he discovered that the Captain attacked the Ferengi ship under a flag of truce. The Stargazer's records include a confession in Picard's own voice.

Riker brings the evidence to Picard, informing him unequivocally that he doesn't believe it and he's sure the Ferengi have faked it all somehow. The Captain says he never made the log, but Riker still has a duty to report it. "With the Ferengi making friendship overtures, I could become a severe embarrassment to Starfleet." He rubs his temples. Riker sympathizes and promises to solve the mystery by the time they get word back from Starfleet command.

Picard is all manly pathetic and in pain in his quarters. Crusher suggests it's emotional pressure related to Maxia, and Picard points out it started before he knew about the Stargazer. However, he has been feeling conflicted about the battle since he saw the old bridge and found that report. As far as he remembers, he didn't have a choice in destroying the ship, but he's not sure anymore. "How do I know I was in my right mind then? How do I know I'm in my right mind now?" Awww, poor messed-up vulnerable captain. Crusher puts him to bed and hyposprays him. "What was that?" "Something to let you sleep." Starfleet: Where Consent Is Not A Concern. As he's drifting off, she places some kind of monitoring device on his forehead. A sleep study! I didn't see him sign a waiver for that, either, Doc. Though I guess it's probably buried in a clause of the Starfleet employment contract somewhere.

Bok mwa-ha-has over a pink shiny orb, a larger version of the one in Picard's trunk. It isn't a pleasure-giving device at all! It's a PAIN giving device!

Picard wakes up. He can hear voices, see images of the Stargazer crew.

Data reports some discrepancies between the different sets of Stargazer records. Crusher reports some weird brain scan patterns. She calls Riker "Number One." I thought that was the captain's special name for him! Is it an official title? Picard comes in all refreshed-looking and orders Crusher to leave, which she does, "under protest." Picard orders Riker to release the tractor beam on the Stargazer. "Her inertia will carry the Stargazer along with us." Riker looks Suspicious. Well, I mean, it's true. On the other hand, it's probably good to be suspicious whenever the captain seems happy.

Crusher consults with Troi about the brain scan patterns. They can't figure out what's up. Wesley comes in and they shush him, which of course means he has something important to say. He volunteers that the brain scans look exactly like the patterns from a transmission emanating from the Ferengi ship. The women question him sharply, but he doesn't know what the transmission is for. Crusher and Troi rush off to tell Riker. Don't thank Wesley or anything. "You're welcome, ladies!" Wesley calls after them. Heh. Then he adds, "Adults." Adult... ladies.

Riker's alarmed by the news. The Captain is no longer aboard the enterprise.

Data and Worf locate the shiny ball in the captain's trunk.

On the Stargazer bridge, Bok gives his villain speech to Picard. His son was killed at Maxia. "Die well, captain." He beams off.

YOLSAFFBRIDGE: Why didn't he just hire someone to kill Picard?
ZELEMPA: He wanted him to die in a poetically just way.
YOLSAFFBRIDGE: Yeah, that sounds like the Ferengi.

Riker comms Bok's first officer and asks him about the shiny orb. Bok's first officer calls it a "forbidden device," a "thought maker." "If your captain is criminal enough to own one--" "You know who controls those spheres. I ask you again, first officer to first ovver--" The Ferengi first officer refuses to question his captain. Riker signs off when Picard comms. "Do not attack again! You force us to defend ourselves," Picard tells them, seeming to see right through Riker.

On the Stargazer bridge, Picard is giving orders to his ghost crew.

Riker asks Data for a defense against the Picard Maneuver. There is no known defense! Sweep the leg!

Bok's first officer comms back. "Daimon Bok no longer commands this vessel. His first officer has confined him for engaging in an unprofitable venture. Good luck, first officer Riker." Hee, that's sort of awesome. There's very little I love more in fiction than cold, formal speeches which convey a deep-down sense of trust and solidarity. I also love that the Ferengi are mostly upset that this affair was "unprofitable" -- in a time when the Ferengi are all over the map, still, it's surprisingly true to what will ultimately become their character.

Riker comms the Stargazer and desperately tries to talk the Captain into realizing he's under midn control. Picard finally acknowledges he's being commed, but he is confused. "Who is this?" "It's Riker, sir. Your Number One!" Look at Riker, Captain! Focus on him! Let his beautiful face save the world! Riker urges Picard to destroy the thought-making sphere. After some requisite tense will-he-won't-he, Picard does. There's a silly explosion from which he is of course thrown clear.

Oh no! Gasp! Is he dead? After all this, that would be funny. Of course he isn't. He stirs and comms the Enterprise weakly. "Where am I, Number One?" Riker grins, relieved. He reports that the Bok has been confined for "his act of personal vengeance. Seems there was no profit in it." "In revenge, there never is," Picard moralizes. "Let the dead rest. Beam me home, Riker." Beam me home to your heart.

Pairings Implied in the Episode: None. Crusher and Picard are close, but it's mainly a friendship vibe.

Pairings Implied by This Recap: Crusher/Picard, really? I never do that. Picard/Riker - okay, that sounds like me.

Sum Up: This is where TNG starts to get decent, and it's very disconcerting. There are still some first-season extravagances, especially where the Ferengi and Wesley are concerned, but antics are really kept to a minimum, and of course, Patrick Stewart is a fantastic backbone for any ep. I want to say I wish they'd put an episode like this sooner--character-driven, backstory-revealing, epic-feeling, emotional--but perhaps it's just as much the actors' obvious comfort with and enjoyment of each other as the story that makes this an almost legitimately good episode.

 

1x10 Hide and Q

The Enterprise crew (minus Troi, who's visiting home according to Picard's initial VO) are all bustling around preparing to rescue some colonist miners from some disaster when a familiar crappy CGI grid surrounds the ship. "Not now, Q, dammit!" says the captain.

"We the Q have studied our recent contact with you, and are impressed. We have much to discuss, including perhaps the realization of your most impossible dream." Hm. Righting the unrightable wrong? Fighting windmills? Going on a date with Q? Picard tells Q they're actually busy with a mission right now. "Once that is completed, perhaps--" Q cuts him off that this is more important. I like that Picard is willing to totally hang out with him later. Q notes that Riker seems to find all this "amusing." No, that's just how his face is. Smirky. "I would, if we weren't on our way to help some suffering and dying humans--" "Oh, your species is always suffering and dying," says Q dismissively. Hee. Worf growls pitifully. Riker's like, not now, big guy.

"Why do you distrust me so?" Q asks Picard. Picard gives a mini-recap of 1x1 Encounter at Farpoint, and Q mocks him for being so upset that Q "seized [his] vessel." Is that what the kids are calling it. "We don't have time for these games," says Riker. Q's like, games! Great idea!

Riker, Data, Tasha, and Worf find themselves transported to a planet with a lovely greenscreen-colored sky. Riker comforts his confused away team that at least "this won't be boring." I'll be the judge of that.

Back on the bridge, the Picard is alone. The computers won't respond, and even the doors snub him. Poor sad captain! Okay, not bored yet.

Q hangs out on the green planet in a Napoleon costume. He gives Riker a lemonade and tells him they are playing a game. Another test of humanity. (And Klingonity, apparently.) This will be an imaginative games, he says: "compeltely unfair!" At that, Tasha, who has been standing around totally uselessly, suddenly freaks, "You've gone too far!" Never get between Tasha and her sense of fair play? Q calls penalty and Tasha disappears. She is always the first to die. Q tells the others that she is in the "penality box," but that only one person can be in the penalty box at a time, so if anyone else incurs a penalty, Tasha will disappear into the ether forever. Foul out, Worf, quick!

Tasha appears on the bridge with the captain. Somehow, she seems to have overheard the tail end of that conversation even after she was disappeared, because she explains to Picard about the penalty box. "It is so frustrating to be controlled like this!" she wails, choking back melodramatic tears. Luckily, she doesn't make the overt connection to her rape victim past, FOR ONCE. She wipes angrily at her face. "What the hell am I doing? Crying?" Picard gently embraces her, reassuring her, "When one is the penalty box, tears are permitted." This will come in useful for Worf later. Things rapidly devolve from borderline unprofessional but sweet to TOTALLY NOT OKAY when Tasha murmurs, "Oh, if you weren't the captain..." Dudes! When one is in the penalty box, MACKING IS NOT PERMITTED.

(Permitted, apparently: OOC behavior as long as it is called out with the phrase, "What the hell am I doing?" For example, here Picard might say, "What the hell am I doing? Feeling up my subordinates?" Q might say, "What the hell am I doing? Ignoring Picard?" Riker, "What the hell am I doing? Starring?")

Q appears on the bridge to taunt Picard. He informs him that the Enterprise is helpless until the game determines whether or not Riker is worthy of Q's greatest gift. Oh my. Picard is quick to place a side wager on Riker's success, his starship command vs. Q butting out of human affairs forever, because if you can't beat 'em, banter with 'em.

Down on the planet, an army of warthog-faced bipeds in Napoleonic uniform advance on the remaining team. Their period muskets turn out to have deadly energy beams! Things look bad for our heroes until Q appears and advises Riker to get them out of there, already. Riker, he explains, now has the power of the Q. Riker makes a classic "limp-wrist Q" hand-wave, and Worf disappears. Ha! Hidden agression much?

Oh, Worf reappears on the bridge. So do Geordi and Data. I guess it's not the penalty box anymore. Tasha is the only one who seems concerned that Riker is still missing. Picard says they should proceed with their mission; since Q is "interested in" Riker, Riker will probably be safe, "at least in the physical sense." I guess Picard knows Q well enough to know that he won't force himself on Riker, but he just might break his heart.

Green planet. Riker sits on a rock and throws his head back and laughs. Errol Flynn he is not. Q doesn't see what's so funny; with his new powers, he points out, Riker could go anywhere he wants, even change his shape. (Maybe something a little balder?? "What do you need, Q?" Riker asks. "You want something from us, desperately." Too easy. Q scoffs that Riker is beginning to sound like "your captain," which Riker calls "a compliment." Q finally explains that humans are interesting to the Q because of their capacity to learn and explore and become more than they are, and that someday, they might advance to something great. "That's why we've selected you, Riker, to become part of the Q, so that you can bring to us this human need and hunger, that we may understand it." TOO EASY! "Become part of you?" says Riker. "I don't even like you!" (BRAIN EXPLODES)

Riker and Q entering one another and becoming one imagery aside, it sort of seems like the Q could just get a different guy. I'm sure there's someone out there who would appreciate Q's precious gift. I mean, this is getting kind of pathetic. Let Riker go, man. He's just not that into Q.

Ahem.

Q disappears, and the entire bridge crew, including Wesley, appears on the green planet. The monster army surrounds them. Worf takes a few out, but gets shot. Wesley is graphically impaled with a bayonet. Come on, Writer Who Hates Wesley! NOT COOL! "Damn it all to hell!" Riker Hestons. He captures some soldier guys in a CGI net. "You did that!" Picard says in wonderment. Riker, a glint in his eye, shouts flamboyantly, "AND THAT'S NOT ALL!" and disappears. Ummmm. He 180ed very quickly.

Everyone reappears on the bridge. The deaths have been reversed. Picard sends a defensive Riker a look of betrayal.

Ready room. Riker's 180 has 180ed again, and he promises never, ever to use his Q powers, no matter how tempting. Can't he just make himself human? I guess that would count as using his powers.

They arrive at MacGuffin X to help the miners. Of course, by this time, the collapse or whatever has already happened. Riker lifts the broken body of a dead child out of the wreckage. "Sir, if you indeed how the power of Q..." says Data. Data? Really? That seems out of character. Pained, Riker refuses. "I'm prevented by a promise."

Back on board, Riker has 180ed once again, and he's now super annoyed with Picard for making him promise. Riker is so malleable. He's totally convinced by everything. Picard tries to moralize, but Riker stomps out when he is midsentence. YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD!

Riker calls a meeting of the bridge crew. Actually, technically, as Picard is quick to point out, the captain permitted him to hold a gathering. "Of course, Jean-Luc," says Riker. Man, some measly god-powers and the guy forgets his rank. Riker announces to everyone that he is the same old Commander Riker, William T. they've always known, y'hear? Everything's great! He's annoyed when "everyone still looks uncomfortable!" Janie, I told you to practice. Go on, play! Riker, why must you torture the bridge crew? Picard points out that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that there's a difference between using Q powers to get out of a situation manufactured by Q and just in everyday life. Tasha thinks Q is just messing with Riker. "Actually, they think highly of us," Riker defends. Picard says Q has "muddled your mind." "Don't you understand his incredible gift to me?" Riker cries. NOBODY UNDERSTANDS HIS INCREDIBLE GIFT TO ME!

Q appears on the bridge, dressed for some reason as a monk. "How can you claim friendship for Riker while obstructing his way to the greatest adventure ever offered a human?" he asks Picard. Picard says, "Then it's not yet certain. He's not yet committed!" Elaine! Elaine! Elaine! Q suggests that Riker give his friends "gifts of [his] affection." "There'd be no harm in that, would there?" Riker asks Picard. "If it was something they really wanted?" Q mocks him for appealing to the captain. Picard tells him to go right ahead: "By all means, demonstrate your gifts of affection." Um... are you sure?

Crusher tries to send Wesley away, but Riker stops her. "Wesley I may know best of all. Our friendship, our long talks..." Urk! Really? "Here is your favorite wish, my young friend," and with that, Riker turns Wesley into a hot twenty-five-year-old. Um, Riker, that may be YOUR favorite wish. Adult!Wesley doesn't look unlike child!Wesley, but he also doesn't look like adult Wil Wheaton. He blinks slowly, a cute but dumb galoot. In a rainbow sweater. "Hey, Wes. Not bad," says Geordi appreciatively. Oh, sure, now that he's legal, everyone's gettin' in line. Riker has dibs, y'all.

Riker turns to Data. We all know what Data wants; to be a real boy. But Data declines. Dude, what happened to "but I would give it all up to be human"? Was he just wrong? Does he get cold feet at the actual prospect? That seems eerily illogical. Maybe he just doesn't trust Riker's unpracticed Q powers to get it right. Poor Spiner, doesn't even get one scene without the make-up.

Riker moves on to Geordi, giving him sight before he has a chance to object. (I like how everyone's fondest wish is to be in Riker's demographic: able-bodied, adult, human... Worf, come here, you probably want to be human too, am I right? Tasha's now a man. On Troi I bestow a cleft chin.) Geordi removes his visor and looks around in wonderment. He has LeVar Burton's regular brown eyes instead of his usual white contacts. He gazes out the viewscreen, and then turns and stares at Tasha. "You are just as beautiful as I imagined," he breathes. "And more." Too overt! Too overt! Abort! Geordi turns back to Riker and asks for his blindness back. Ha ha. Riker is less beautiful than Geordi imagined. "I don't like who I would have to thank," says Geordi.

Worf is taken aback when Riker snaps his fingers and a female Klingon appears on the bridge. She growls and kneels at Worf's feet. "No!" says Worf, distressed. "She is from a world now alien to me!" Tasha comes up with a phaser and the Klingon woman attacks her. Worf hits the Klingon woman, knocking her down. "Worf!" says Geordi, disgusted. "Is this sex for you?" Jeez, so closed-minded. Worf utters the following: "This is sex. But I have no place for it in my life now!"

Worf has no place for it in his life now.

Sex.

With his own kind.

Also ladies.

Wesley jumps on the "reverse my gift" bandwagon. He may have the body of a man, but that doesn't mean he's not deeply affected by peer pressure. Riker hangs his head. All of the gifts have gone terrifically badly. I'm sure they would have been fine with like chocolate. Picard tells Q to begone. When Q disappears (with only a little pissing and moaning), everything is reset--the Klingon woman disappears, Wesley is a kid again, and Geordi is moved like five feet across the room, for some reason. They've been restored to their immediate post-rescue-mission coordinates.

"Sir, how is it that the Q can handle space and time so well, and us so badly?" Riker wonders. It sort of seems like Q could read Riker like a cheap tabloid, but I guess he still feels roughly handled, poor baby. Q doesn't handle him like Picard handles him, I'll tell you that much. Picard muses, "Perhaps someday we will discover that space and time are simpler than the human equation." Seems unlikely.

Shakespeare References: While Picard and Tasha are chilling in the penalty box, Picard and Q have a lengthy quote-off.

Later, when Riker offers to turn Data human, Data quotes, "To thine own self be true." Guys, quit going back to the Hamlet well. There's still 30 plays to go.

Pairings Implied by the Episode: Picard/Yar (for some reason???), Geordi/Yar, Worf/DEFINITELY NOT A KLINGON WOMAN

Pairings Implied by This Recap: Q/Picard, Q/Riker, Picard/Riker, Riker/Wesley, Geordi/Wesley (adult only - Geordi isn't into anything WEIRD)

Sum Up: There are entertaining things about this episode--and I kind of like that Q knew he couldn't corrupt Picard, and that he is just going down the ranks of the Enterprise until he finds someone willing to play ball with him--but shoddy characterization, notably Riker's yo-yoing emotions and Data's temptation of Riker, make this a seriously flawed episode.  

1x11 Haven

I'm still not toitally sure why this episode is named "Haven." That's where they're headed according to Picard's VO--a planet known as "Haven" for its healing and relaxation reputation, for brief shore leave--but they never seem to quite make it down to the surface. Maybe it was originally supposed to be a wacky everyone-on-shore-leave episode. That's what it seems like it's going to be, as we open with some shots of people going off duty, and then we see Riker sitting in his quarters, smiling at a holographic image of two girls playing harps. Is this sex for you, Riker?

Riker gets called down to the transporter bay to watch a mysterious object beam in from Haven. It's a silver box with a man's face on it. Suddenly it springs to life. "Lwaxana Troi and the honorable Miller family will soon arrive," it announces. "The momentous day is close at hand. Rejoice!" The box pops open, sprinkling Mardi Gras beads over the transporter pad. Troi shakes her head, traumatized. "No. No!" Yar is overly impressed by the cheap trinkets. Troi says they're "bonding gifts--what you would call 'wedding presents.'" Thanks for the translation, Roget. "Who's getting married?" says Riker. "I am," says Troi helplessly.

Troi conferences with Picard while Riker stands in the doorway, hip thrust out sullenly. (I'm becoming an expert in reading the complex emotional content of Riker's hips.) Troi explains that she was promised to the son of her father's best friend, Mr. Miller, a long time ago, in Betazoid tradition (although both her father and the Millers are human). Picard's like, whatever, will you be staying on the ship? Troi looks at her hands. "No, sir." Obviously, Picard, she is a GIRL. Girls don't work after they're married. Duh. Picard wishes her polite congratulations.

The Millers beam onboard. They're a pretty standard, semi-bickery, semi-curmdgeonly middle-aged human couple. Their son, Deanna's betrothed, is a vaguely Emilio-Estevez-looking guy with long hair, huge dark eyes, a giant forehead, a dreamy expression, body language designed to take up the least possible space, and a drawing portfolio under one arm. He gives Deanna a "chameleon rose," which changes color according to the mood of its owner. When he hands it to Deanna, it changes from blue to white. So she's feeling... what, virginal? Enraged?

Okay, so I have to tell you, I have a vague memory of writing a recap for this episode before. But I looked on all the sites I might possibly have posted it, and I've got nothing. When i search gmail for "wyatt," I only found this:

zelempa (6/27/06 1:15PM): my standards are getting lower. I was watching 1st season star trek and I was like "troi's arranged husband is hot!" but I'm prety sure he's not
yolsaffbridge: haha he's so not :)
      youngwesleycrusheriscutethough*cough*
zelempa: I told you I hit on a guy just because he looked like Wil Wheaton, right?
      he turned me down!
yolsaffbridge: heh i was on the bus yesterday, checking out a reasonably cute guy, and wondering why the fuck he was looking at me like i'm insane
      and i'm like "i'm not that ugly, wtf"
      but then i got home
      and there was a huge twig in my hair
zelempa: okay, you're right, Wyatt Miller is so not cute

But now I think he may be cute? It's hard to tell!

The Millers go off to their quarters. "Wyatt Miller seems a fine young man," says Picard. "Fine young man" is apt, I guess, but I'd have gone with "milquetoast." Deanna says, "I'm not what he expected."

Lwaxana Troi beams in with her manservant, a tall gray man named Mr. Homm. She mentally admonishes Deanna for saying "Hello Mother" instead of thinking it. She isn't impressed that the Captain himself has come to meet her; she thinks it's a matter of course. Picard agreeably offers to carry her bag, but it's super heavy, and he strains under the weight, comically grunt-squeaking, "This way!"

On the way to the room, Lwaxana goes on and on about how evolved she is, and how every man's thoughts about her are pornographic; Deanna and Lwaxana bicker out loud and in thoughts; and the captain does his best to stay out of it. When they arrive at Lwaxana's room, Picard offers the usual pleasantries--getting cut off at every sentence by Lwaxana--and backs out of the room with a pasted-on grin, bowing. Patrick Stewart's really getting to display his RSC slapstick chops in this episode.

Lwaxana and Deanna continue to bicker in the room, mostly in words (I guess they got sick of the voice-over device), but Lwaxana shows a moment of gentleness, saying she didn't mean for this to happen--the Millers tracked her down and reminded her of the vow. Deanna admits she's having trouble believing in it, but she'll honor it. "I'm a Betazoid." The weirdest part about this arranged marriage episode, in which everyone involved is sort of lukewarm about the whole idea, and 4.5/6 of the people involved aren't even from the arranged-marriage-having culture, is that it will in no way challenge the institution of arranged marriage, either in general or in this particular case.

A representative from Haven hails the Enterprise. An unknown vessel is approaching and refuses to identify itself. Haven has no defensive capabilities (NONE? of course someone is moving right in! free planet!) Picard promises to protect them.

Deanna goes to see Wyatt in his quarters. He's very shy and awkward-charming and Hugh Granty. I CANNOT TELL IF HE IS CUTE. IS HE CUTE? HELP. Deanna explains how her half-breediness allows her to read feelings but not thoughts, except when she's very close to someone. "I believe we could read each other, eventually. I only felt this with--well--with someone who's on this ship." "Do I have competition?" asks Wyatt. Deanna shakes her head. "What he wants most is to be a starship captain." You keep telling yourself that, Deanna, but it's only going to sting when Riker turns down command after command in later seasons. Are you sure you don't mean "what he wants most is a starship captain"?

Wyatt says he is a doctor. "What I want most is to cure people." Deanna suggests that they work together: "We are going to be together a long time." "That is the point of marriage, I suppose," says Wyatt. Hey, kids, try to be a little less excited about this! Deanna says she was sure he would say he was an artist. She examines his portfolio of charming mall sketch-o-matic / unisex salon decal drawings of a scary-looking drag queen with giant 80s hair. Deanna realizes that Wyatt thought she would be this woman. Wyatt explains that he has been dreaming about this woman since he was a child. He naturally assumed it was his mind-reading betrothed. Deanna awkwardly apologizes for not being her. Wyatt insists he's not disappointed. "You are so beautiful. I feel honored," he says without conviction.

The bridge crew identifies the vessel heading toward Haven--a little UFO with a rainbow viewscreen--as a Torellian ship. I can't hear the name of these aliens without thinking the phrase, "Torellian cry that will reach every ear!" which is how I for years misheard a line from Les Miserables (actually "a rallying cry"). I'm not sure why I never questioned it.

The senior staff gathers in the observation lounge and inform each other, even though they all know, that the Torellians all contracted a plague long ago, and they now wander the galaxy in search of a cure. They're obviously hoping for a cure at Haven. The Federation is sworn to protect the helpless Haven, but they also make it their mission to help people in need, which puts the Enterprise in an awkward spot. Picard saying "I shall want answers" is amusingly the crew's signal to all get up and leave hastily. As they're going, Picard tosses in an announcement about Troi's engagement party, which Riker doesn't stay to hear.

Engagement party. The civilians and Deanna are dressed up, the rest of the crew is still in uniform, and Tasha looks like she stuck a finger in a socket. This is basically a long painful scene with a lot of fighting between the prospective in-laws, Data wandering from drama to drama with a look of confused fascination, Picard looking like he wishes he were anywhere else, Riker leaving early to "consider the Torellian situation," Wyatt being a complete non-entity, and Deanna freaking out very suddenly and running off. There, I dispatched that with haste.

Apparently "considering the Torellian situation" means sitting on a rock with your knee drawn up to your chin, staring pensively into the holodeck sunset. Deanna interrupts Riker's sulking. Deanna is unfairly put out when Riker calls her "Deanna" instead of "imzadi," which means "my beloved." Like he ever called her that before. She says loftily that humans "have trouble separating platonic love and physical love." Riker admits he can't. Wait, like, ever? That explains a few things about all of his working relationships.

Wyatt enters. Jeez, is this Lonely Contemplative Sunset for One or Grand Central Station? "Ah, you're the one who wants to be a starship captain. Good luck with that ambition," says Wyatt dispassionately, insultingly displaying no particular sign of jealousy. Riker excuses himself. Kicked out of his own holodeck. Things are not going well for Commander Riker, William T. Wyatt and Deanna joke around a little, and then Wyatt gets serious, asking if she really wants to "go through with this." Well that's a romantic proposal if I ever heard one. "Yes, I want to," says Troi. "I'm a very lucky man," says Wyatt, not adding, "as I steel myself for this kiss that must happen." They give each other an awkward, chaste kiss, and then a more or less real kiss.

I know I make a lot of jokes about people being gay and all, but Wyatt's attitude toward Deanna--the "I am not attracted to you but I recognize that you are attractive, and only a bad person wouldn't want you" sense of self-flagellating resignation--is so very guy-finally-engaged-to-a-woman-and-leaving-those-sinful-college-boys-behind that I want to take Deanna by the shoulders and shout "No, Troi! Don't do it! Or at least ask if he would be into a threesome! Riker would do it, Troi. Riker. Would. Do it."

As the Torellian ship approaches transporter range of Haven, the Haven official begs the Enterprise to shoot them down. The Enterprise doesn't, but she reins them in with a tractor beam. Data is just speculating that it's an automated ship of corpses when a crackly signal from the ship appears on the viewscreen, displaying a strong-jawed, strong-abbed woman with bleach-blonde 80s hair. It's the woman from Wyatt's drawings.

YOLSAFFBRIDGE: She's very mannish. She's a good match for him.

Ariana, the girl from Wyatt's drawings, knew he would be here; she's been waiting for him, dreaming of him. Her father informs the captain that they are all plague carriers, but they were seeking healing at Haven. Picard says they can't beam down, so Ariana's father says they will die in orbit, then. Wyatt suggests sending over medical kits, and Crusher agrees.

Wyatt goes to Lwaxana to ask how the connection between him and Ariana is possible. She gives the cop-out answer that it's "so simple, it's too simple for most humans to understand." She hints that Wyatt and Ariana's shared belief that all consciousness is inextricably bound together allowed them to contact each other WHAT THIS IS SO UNRESOLVED I CANNOT EVEN BRING MYSELF TO PUT PUNCTUATION ON THIS SENTENCE

Wyatt, of course, bids Troi a cryptic farewell and secretly beams over to the plague ship with the medical kits. (Ariana also has a creepy gallery of mall sketch-o-matic portraits of him.) The Torellians, now with 100% more Wyatt, contact the Enterprise one last time, and Troi says--more warmly than wistfully--that she is happy for the couple.

Lwaxana gets one last dig at the captain before she beams off, accusing him of pornographic thoughts about her. "It was meant as a joke," Troi explains hastily. "I am not amused," says Picard. Meeee neither. In a final moment on the bridge, Picard tells Troi he's glad she's not going away, and lets Riker say "Engage," perhaps to cheer him out of his episodelong funk.

Pairings Implied in the Episode: Troi/Riker, Troi/Wyatt, Wyatt/Ariana, Lwaxana/every man's thoughts

Pairings Impled by This Recap: Riker/musical holograms, Riker/Troi/Wyatt

Sum Up: This is actually a pretty dumb episode, plot-wise; the central premises, including the wedding and the plague ship, are pretty weak, and the unexplained concept of Wyatt's psychic connection with this unknown girl is weaker. But I like the guest characters, and the episode offers one of the most sympathetic portraits of Troi ever, as she struggles to honor and balance the importance of tradition, family, various boys, and like her job and stuff. (It's possible I just like young adult novels.)

 

1x12 The Big Goodbye

Troi is coaching Picard to deliver a greeting to an alien race in their own language. The greeting must be delivered perfectly or the aliens will hate them forever. Picard complains about the confusing alphabet, leading Troi to remind him that he spells "knife" with a "k", because he is ENGLISH. In a world of universal translators, this whole thing is pretty idiotic, but I guess it's a ceremonial sign of respect thing. However, since when is Troi a linguist? you can't TELL me there isn't a bored linguist on the Enterprise just DYING for a chance to be useful for the captain. And why does delivering the greeting necessitating a reading knowledge of the language? You'd think they could just write it in Higgins' Universal Alphabet and be done with it.

Sorry, I know thinking about language and Star Trek is a surefire recipe for madness. Troi thinks Picard is overthinking it, and she reminds him he's been looking forward to the holodeck upgrade. You know you're uptight when your speech therapist prescribes porn.

Picard orders up the Dixon Hill program and steps into a San Francisco office building circa 1930. "You came to me from out of nowhere, you took my heart," croons the radio, which will set the tone for this episode, but only in the super gay reading. Picard is just a little too excited as he walks into the office marked "Dixon Hill, Private Investigator." His secretary looks askance at his Starfleet uniform, and tells him there's a lady waiting for him in his office.

A standard sultry dame hires Picard to find out who is trying to kill her. If I know Raymond Chandler, the culprit is the client. Suicide watch! She pays him, kisses him randomly, and leaves. Picard prances to the window. His glee at the view of the traffic outside is equal to or greater than his excitement at interacting with the beautiful woman.

"And when I looked out of my office window, I could actually see automobiles!" Picard gushes to the assembled senior staff. Did he call this meeting just to squee about the holodeck? What a glorious waste of everyone's time! The crew smiles indulgently. Crusher gets up to wipe lipstick off his face (lipstick can leave the holodeck, just like snowballs), and Picard, still riding high on excitement, invites her to come with him on his next romp. She hesitantly agrees, clearly to be the only one of the two of them painfully aware that they're sharing this awkward teenage crush moment in front of all of their colleagues. Picard goes on to invite Data and announces that he'd also like to take the ship's 20th century Earth expert, a civilian called Walen who we don't have to care about because he is SO DEAD. Crusher mentally recalibrates her getting-asked-on-a-date detecting apparatus.

Picard calls the meeting to order. Oh, that was just the pre-meeting socializing. (Why don't we see that more often?) Apparently the real point of this meeting is just to re-stress the importance of the greeting thing, just to put a little extra pressure on Picard. Data wants to re-review the "tape" of the last Starfleet officer's screw-up, and Troi says that won't be necessary. Picard adjourns the meeting. Huh. "Waste of everyone's time" assessment stands.

Data speed-reads every Dixon Hill story ever. Several times, it looks like.

Picard, Walen, and Data meet up in costume and enter the game. Picard looks quite dashing in his fedora. Walen is excited when the newspaper vendor calls Picard "Dix" (or he just thinks it's funny). When he sees an NPC buy a paper, Picard says stiffly, "Say Mac, I would like to buy a newspaper too, but I don't have any money." He doesn't have starting cash? What about that twenty Jessica gave him? The vendor gives him the paper. Data makes comments about the articles, saying what's going to happen in the future, until the vendor objects, saying, "Say, Dix, what's with this guy? He's not from around here, is he?" Thinking fast, Picard says Data is from South America. "Yeah, he's got a real nice tan," quips the vendor.

Okay, it really annoys me when the NPCs make comments about PCs' physical appearance. Commenting on their clothes is one thing, since you're supposed to come in costume, but you'd think a big draw for the holodeck would be playing characters you don't necessarily physically resemble. What if a Klingon or an Andorian wanted to play in this game? What if Picard wanted to play a great Klingon battle? What if Tasha wanted to play Sherlock Holmes? Or Geordi? Would people constantly be saying, "I say, Mr. Holmes, I'd no idea you were an African"? They'd have to program in extra offensiveness!

In the newspaper is an article about the murder of Picard's client. He's shaken; Walen reminds him she's just a character. Two cops come up bring Dixon in for questioning. One of them, McNary, is Dixon's friend, and he apologizes.

Pan up some great gams. It's Crusher, dressed in a little skirt suit and a hat with a veil. She looks really uncomfortable. She gets through the holodeck door with some technical problems which I'm sure are ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. She finds Data and Walen waiting for Picard at the police station. She's disappointed when she finds out he's being interrogated: "Why aren't we all being interrogated? Why should he have all the fun?" She's actually rather cute as she looks to a female NPC for a model on how to sit and what to do, until the NPC is hauled off in handcuffs.

Bug creatures want their special greeting! Geordi can't get a message through to the holodeck! SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG! Jeez, when does anything ever go RIGHT with the holodeck? It's such a liability. Riker won't let Wesley help try to fix the holodeck until Troi reminds him that his mother's missing. Oh, well, as long as you have a personal interest that prevents you from being objective.

Picard is not a very satisfying interrogatee; he stops answering to compliment the NPCs on how realistic the game is. Um, not helpful. The bad cop leaves in anger, and McNary agrees to help get Picard let go, as long as he promises not to leave town. "If I leave town, town leaves with me," says Picard cryptically. McNary ignores this and asks Picard, or rather Dixon, over for dinner sometime. Picard says he has an engagement. "Blonde or brunette?" quips McNary. "She's a lady, all right," says Picard. "And her name is Enterprise." "Sounds like a working girl to me," says McNary. The Enterprise is a whore!

Crusher just got there, so she doesn't want to leave yet. She asks to see Dixon's office. Picard agrees and they all head over. While they're looking around, a Peter Lorre type guy arrives, an emissary from the crime boss Cyrus Redblock. Picard tries to send him away, saying they have to leave, but Not!Lorre pulls a gun on them. Walen is shot; Crusher reacts by clapping. Then she realizes it's a real injury. She starts to tend to Walen. Picard grabs the gun and chases off Not!Lorre, then calls for the exit, but it doesn't appear.

And that was when they should have disabled the holodeck for good.

Cyrus Redblock arrives and is all understated-polite at them. It's obvious he's doing an impression of someone, but i don't know enough about film noir to really get it. I'm not sure if I would like or hate this episode if I did. Exposition is surprisingly lacking, but it seems to be a Maltese Falcon type plot where Dixon supposedly has something which Cyrus wants, but I don't think it was really set up what that item is, or where it is. There's a return to the running gag when Cyrus asks what Data's deal is, and he begins "I was created on a planet--" but cuts himself off with "South America" when Picard sends him a Look. How delightfully sinister from the NPCs' point of view.

Wesley has an idea for how to fix the holodeck. It's dangerous but--"Do it," says Riker. Because Wesley is infallible.

The team resorts to the last option of anyone in a holodeck game, and tries to explain to the characters that they are fictional. Nobody buys it until the outside techs get the gate working again, and the exit appears. Redblock and Not!Lorre step out into the corridor with ambitions of taking over the Enterprise if what Picard claims is true, but once outside, they dematerialize (slowly, for some reason).

Picard hangs back after the other players leave. McNary stands silhouetted at the window against the low tones of saxophone. Picard joins him. "I wish I could take you with me," he says. "So this is the big goodbye," says McNary. This is the big goodbye--Picard/McNary? Okay, I wasn't expecting that, but bonus points for some last-minute gay. Picard tries to comfort McNary, who's trying to come to terms with the idea that his wife and kids don't actually exist--and that he won't, either, not when Picard leaves. Guys, do you have to make the holodeck characters self-aware every time? Picard doesn't know what to say, so he just says, "Goodbye, my friend," and leaves.

Picard strides onto the bridge still in his Dixon Hill hat and raincoat. (Data is also still in his holodeck outfit. Come on, guys. Uniforms on the bridge. This is Starfleet.) Without pausing or preparing, Picard hails the bug guys and delivers a flawless greeting. So all he needed was to learn a little confidence? I wish we'd known sooner that that was the point of episode.

Pairings Implied in the Episode: Picard/Crusher (subtle but textual)

Pairings Implied in This Recap: Picard/McNary (not subtle, but probably still meant to be subtextual if anything.)

Sum Up: While the sudden gayness at the end kicks the episode up a notch, I have to say I found it really boring. In the grand tradition of me watching noir films, I found the within-holodeck plot hard to follow, but not, I suspect, because it was too complicated. Perhaps the writer was too distracted with all the business about the holodeck workings and the alien greetings to connect the a mishmash of film noir elements into a logical plot; perhaps he hoped we would be too distracted to notice.

 

1x13 Datalore

Wesley finds Data alone in his quarters, practicing sneezing. "How can you be practicing something like sneezing when we're arriving at your home planet for the first time? Aren't you interested in that?" says Wesley. Data says he is, "But I also find sneezing interesting." I actually like moments like this--where Data's misplaced levels of apparent emotion or enthusiasm are profoundly disappointing to the crew--but more often than not, he just has a normal emotional reaction. I've told you my theory that he's just a regular guy, and everyone is just humoring him by pretending he is an android, right?

They beam down to Data's home planet, which is a barren, lifeless wasteland. Backstory time: Data remembers awakening on this planet when the Starfleet officers came to rescue him from the devastated site of the former Earthling colony there, twenty-six years ago. He doesn't remember anything before that. He has all of the memory--information, not personal narrative--of the colonists that once lived there, but he doesn't know what happened to them. Geordi finds the entrance to a subterranean lab which "awakens a memory remnant." Why does Data's memory work in the same haphazard way that humans' do?

They proceed into the lab. Data vaguely remembers being tested here. Riker is surprised to learn that Data's creator was Dr. Noonian Soong, a famous Earth robotics expert who had once failed to "achieve Asimov's dream of the positronic brain." Why does the information that Soong lived here surprise Riker? Data seems perfectly aware that that's who created him. Maybe it just never came up in casual conversation. In a special storage area, they find a complete set of Data parts. "How many more Datas are there?" Riker wonders. "Looks like just these two," says Geordi, without looking around. Well, yeah, just these two in your direct line of sight. Data picks up and contemplates the other head, which isn't so much an identical Data head as a cheap painted wig stand with Seinfeld hair. Hello Handsome, he doesn't say.

Okay, okay. Data and the new android are "brothers," according to Data, and I am not going to an android twincesty place. I refuse! I resolve to get through the rest of this recap without making any sex jokes. I will make OTHER KINDS of jokes.

Riker agrees to let Data bring the other android back to the ship, where the crew's best scientists puzzle over how to fit together the obviously interlocking pieces. In a meeting with Data about the new android, and Riker and Geordi are extremely uncomfortable. "Would it appear to have... all your... parts?" stammers Geordi. I--I'll pass on that one. "Will... will we know how to turn it on?" Riker wonders. I--*choke* Picard gets fed up and announces that nobody has to feel awkward. There's some speculation as to why Data has a humanoid body. Geordi thinks it's so humans can "relate to" him. Picard think it's because Soong wanted to prove that human-shaped robots can "operate" just as well as humans. "Better in some ways," Data points out.

OH FINE I GIVE UP! IN BED. IN BED. IN BED. IN BED.

Crusher, who is heading up the robotics department today, pulls Data to a super-private corner of the large room where every engineer is working on the new android and asks if they can examine Data to see how some inner workings need to be put together. Data agrees, and swearing her to secrecy, he shows her where his "off" switch is. (It's in the back!)

Sickbay, post-op. Now that the new android has been put together, he looks exactly like Data! Amazing how that works. He's dressed in a charming Luke Skywalker peasant civvie version of the gold Starfleet uniform. Riker is just saying "I wonder which one of them was made first?" when the new android opens his eyes and says "He was. But they found him imperfect and I was made to replace him." He twitches, a distinctive facial tic in the identical twin which will be surprisingly unimportant later. "You may call me Lore," he says.

Picard privately asks Data what Lore meant by "imperfect." Data thinks it's no big deal: "Human language gives me difficulty, too." Oh, sure, me too. Human language. All those verbs to conjugate (I guess?) Picard hems and haws and mentions that Data and Lore are closely related, and I don't know what he's getting at but Data says confidently, "My loyalty is to you and to Starfleet. Completely." It's sad when Data is more intuitive than I am.

On the bridge, Geordi explains how navigational headings work to Lore. Man, Lore already gets a tour of the bridge? Picard still won't let me up there. Lore does a delighted Geordi the favor of pretending he is learning something new. Riker picks up on this and poses the super-subtle test of suddenly saying "And the square of the hypotenuse of a right angle:" Sadly, Lore fails this test. It is the weakness of androids that they can't leave a mathematical postulate hanging. Data kicks Lore off the bridge, and Wesley commiserates: "You'll find there are many rules on a starship." Lore says, "You are very clever, Wesley." And that was how we knew he was insincere.

Data tells Lore to knock it off trying to pander to the humans; Lore is underestimating them. For example, Wesley really is a capable helm officer. Data explains, "He has a child's body, but we have found him to be much more." Ew ew ew ew.

Okay, big exposition scene between Data and Lore. Lore is dismissive of the lesser beings on the ship, and thinks Data is a fool for submitting to their lame educational and occupational hierarchies. Data asks about Dr. Noonian Soong, whom Lore condescendingly calls "Often-Wrong Soong," and correctly guesses that it was in fact Lore, and not Data, who was made first. Lore explains, "He made me so completely human that the colonists became envious of me." Yeah, I'm pretty envious of anyone that is more human than me. Soong was forced to deactivate Lore and create a nonthreatening, android-y android.

"Haven't you noticed how easily I handle human speech?" says Lore. "I use their contractions. For example, I say can't or isn't, and you say cannot or is not." He bursts into "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." Ugh. I hate when they draw attention to that--not that I don't think Data's use of extended forms of common contractions isn't a nice, subtle way to make him seem stiff and overly formal, but I hate when they make it this big canon THING that Data can't use contractions. Of all the difficult rules to program in artificial speech generation, contractions is just the least difficult; it's a simple algorithm! We know and can articulate the rule! That's untrue for MOST speech rules! And that's not getting started on things like emotion, humor, intuition, even attentional filtering, which humans do well and machines tend to do poorly. Obviously this is sci-fi and a capable machine is certainly imaginable. It's just that I don't think you COULD make a machine which was good at the things humans are good at, but couldn't handle English contractions. Bah.

Data sets Lore up at a computer, telling him to write a report on what happened to the colonists. Mistake, obviously, but it seems like Lore does give the report, because the next VO is Picard expositing that the whole population was wiped out by a "great crystalline entity that feeds on life." On the bridge, Worf reports that Lore has been taking some small repair items from sick bay, and Data goes to see what he's up to. Tasha asks Picard how much they can trust Data. "I trust him completely," says Picard, but looking out over the bridge, he adds, "But everyone should also realise that that was a necessary and legitimate security question." Not like most of what comes out of Tasha's mouth. Also, yeesh. I know Lore's creepy, but I wonder if they'd get this worked up if, like, Riker's brother came on board?

Data finds Lore pouring out champagne for a toast. Well, this certainly doesn't seem suspicious. Lore tells Data that he should observe human customs, and that champagne is "an ancient ritual still practiced when they observe events of importance." Pretty much just weddings, really. "I toast our discovery of each other," says Lore, raising his glass. "May it fill our lives with new meaning." Oh, shit, it is a wedding! Data falls unconscious. Um, a medieval wedding, maybe. Lore exposits for like ten minutes to Data's unconscious form, telling it that Lore was in cahoots with the Crystalline Entity the whole time and that, now, he plans to offer it all the life on board the Enterprise. Thanks Lore. BTdubs, Data actually has an off switch. You know, for next time.

Worf notices Data transmitting on a subspace channel. Riker asks Wesley to look in on him, "discreetly." "Yes, Sir!" chirps Wesley. Uh, can Wesley do anything discreetly? The only person worse to send on this stealth mission would probably be the extra who turns as Wesley leaves and gives the camera this huge grin.

Wesley walks in on Data and Lore. The android in Lore's clothes is lying motionless on the ground; the android in Data's uniform looks up. "Glad you are here, Wesley. Lore suddenly attacked me and I had to turn him off." He twitches. "I have been practicing his facial tic. Do I have it right?" Facepalm. Wesley tells "Data" to knock off imitating Lore; after all, if he had used a contraction, Wesley explains, "I might have suspected you were Lore!" Oh how droll. Wesley prances off, and Lore uses some kind of tricorder thing to heal his tic. I don't know why they bother endowing Lore with Subtle Yet Obvious Tells if they're not going to use them.

Crusher is suspicious when Wesley tells her that Lore told him that he just turned Data off. She doesn't understand why he swore her to secrecy about the off switch if he was just going to tell people. The Enterprise runs into the Crystalline Entity, which is just hanging out in space being all crystalline. Lore comes onto the bridge and breathes, "Beautiful, isn't it?" I don't know why they bother endowing Lore with Subtle Yet Obvious Tells if they're just going to have him espouse his affinity for the Big Bad. Oh, and there's a contraction there, too, I guess. I have to say I didn't catch it the first time, but only because HE IS TALKING ABOUT THE BEAUTY OF THE BADDIE HE IS KNOWN TO BE ALLIED WITH. Sigh. There's no communication with the CE, and Picard sends "Data" to question "Lore" about it. Wesley cottons on and starts recommending loudly that nobody let Lore have free rein of the ship, but Picard and Riker just yell at him to be better-behaved. He could just shout "He said 'isn't'!" but he doesn't, because I think there's some part of him that prefers to be the put-upon, told-ya-so martyr. The writers like that for him, anyway.

Wesley and Riker accompany Lore to the room where Data is held; Lore manipulates him to make it appear that he is becoming violent at the approach of the others. Riker reports to Picard that it's exactly as Lore ("Data") said, and he totally believes him. Wesley tries to protest. Picard is just about to strip him of his rank when the entity, enraged by this unnecessarily drawn out passive aggressive Mary Sue-ing, begins to zap the Enterprise. Lore, still posing as Data, claims to be able to talk to it and tells it to stop firing as the Enterprise has dangerous weapons. He then proposes to beam "a small tree" into space and blast it, thus showing off the power of the phasers. Picard's like, uh-duhhh, make it so! Wesley pipes up, "I know this may finish me as Acting Ensign, but--" "Shut up, Wesley!" the captain snaps in a shocking display of unprofessionalism. All over the globe, Wesley haters croak indecisively, wanting to cheer but realizing it will only play into the hands of the not-so-subtly pro-Wesley anti-everyone-else storyline. More than anything else, this rigmarole just shows the captain to be out-of-character immature and thoughtless; if he can't handle treating Wesley as a member of the crew, he shouldn't have made him one. One of these days I'd like to see him be wrong, just so the crew's reactions to him make some kind of sense. I guess it's to be understood that he spouts gibberish constantly between episodes. In which case his rank is undeserved.

Wesley starts to say something else and this time Crusher says, "Shut up, Wesley!" Now, that's just gratuitous.

Lore gets in a turbolift with Worf and immediately starts fighting him. I don't know why they bother endowing Lore with Subtle Yet Obvious Tells if he only had to fool them for all of five minutes.

Wesley harries Crusher into going to Data's room, as "I heard you know how to turn them on." That's not something a child should have to know about his mother. Crusher switches Data on. Wesley gives him a brief recap and asks if he's hurt. "I will function sufficiently to stop Lore."

Sitting at a transporter panel in the cargo bay, Lore explains to the CE that the deflector shields will go down when he transports, and the CE should move in then. Data, Wesley and Crusher enter. Hostage-taking and much talk about an exquisitely painful death for Wesley ensue. You can't write him into a position where he's unlikeable and then gain back our love by lovingly describing (and depicting) his death, writers. We still know it's your fault. Fighty fighty. Data throws Lore onto the transporter panel and says "Wesley, now!" and Wesley beams him out. And that should be when the CE rushes in and kills everyone, but for some reason, it doesn't. I guess it was discombobulated by seeing Lore! In! Space!

Picard and Riker enter for the wrap-up. Picard asks if Data is okay, and he says, and I quote, "I'm fine." I--was that--intentional? Picard sends Wesley back to duty. The two of them share a moment alone where they try to jam some philosophical musings into the episode. "Number one, have you ever considered where Data is more or less human than we are?" "I only wish we were all as well-balanced, sir," says Riker enigmatically. Picard grins and says emphatically, "Agreed!"

Pairings Implied in the Episode: None

Pairings Implied in This Recap: Data/Lore (gak gak gak), Data/Wesley (blorch blorch blorch)

Sum Up: Uch. I find Lore really annoying. The concept that Data's shortcomings as a "human" are intentional is sort of interesting and does explain why he can do some fantastically difficult things and seems to have trouble with some superficial things--he's basically a human-approximating program with an "less human" patch. I don't really buy Lore, though. He's not a more human version of Data, he's just mean and dumb. Totally unlike Data, and also totally unlike humans as we've seen them portrayed on this show.

 

Season 1, First Half Roundup:
Rating rubric:
* = actively offensive, not entertaining at all (1/13)
** = no redeeming qualities but not offensive (boring), or actively offensive AND somewhat entertaining (4/13)
*** = even balance of entertainment and annoyance (7/13)
**** = largely entertaining, with mild reservations; or largely mediocre with some great redeeming quality (1/11)
***** = would show to a non-Trekkie (0/11)
Top Canon Pairings of the Demiseason: 1. Picard/Crusher; 2. Riker/Troi; 3. La Forge/Yar
Top Noncanon Pairings of the Demiseason: 1. Picard/Riker; 2. Picard/Q; 3. Yar/Troi
Confirmed Canon Sexual Encounters: Yar 2 (Edo, Data); Riker 1 (Edo); Data 1 (Yar); Worf 0 (pointedly)
Confirmed Data Contractions: 1 (not counting recordings of other characters' speech or Dixon Hill game voice)
Ship-saving Picard Speeches: 2
Ship-saving Riker Charm: 2
Ship-saving Wesley Genius: 2
Uses of Phrase "Rape Gang": 3

Shakespeare Plays Referenced: 5 (As You Like It, Merchant of Venice, Henry VI, Hamlet, Macbeth)
Disbelieving Worf Reactions to Lame Earth Phrases, As If To Mock the Writing: 5 ("Uncle who?" "When in where, sir?" "Bragging?" "Flim-flam?" "Automobiles?")