Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch (oh god no)

[Mr Trumpet]

Deep Space Naan.

That's the Babylon 5 crossover we never got to see

[Chollis]

Deep Space Naan.

narrated by Terry Tibbs

[MojoJojo]

The later Cardassian ships get upgraded by the Dominion, so they are indeed more formidable.

My general impression is that Starfleet either lacked the will to fight all-out or were inhibited by the Federation Council. Als, I have seen very little to indicate that 24th century Starfleet were good at fighting wars.

There is a good non-canon series on Youtube that gives an overview of the Cardassian War. Seems plausible to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5UKVY6SZSk&list=PLjNbxX7w4eoimvVR5l2FsQtl92v3ds4pR&index=4&t=6s

Looking at what's on https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Federation-Cardassian_War and what I've seen in the series so far, it seems like it was a fairly low key war - fighting for specific planets/outposts along the border rather than to destroy the other sides military. The only startship to starship battle mentioned is Picard in the Stargazer.

In the Wounded, the Cardassian ship at the beginning is described as a patrol ship, which makes me think it's a fairly small thing which it's not surprising the Enterprise can easily beat. But that doesn't explain why they attack all guns blazing, and what we see  shows something comparable size to the Enterprise.

[the hum]

Deep Space Naan.

Counselor Roti

[Lemming]

Sorry for the delay, managed to somehow contract coronavirus at this hilariously late stage in the pandemic. Was a bit fucked the last couple days but now I'm TNG-READY. Anyway, if this post is even more of an incoherent grammatical car crash than usual, that's why.

S04E13 - Devil's Due

A woman claiming to be an ancient alien, known as the Devil in many cultures, demands that the people of a planet fulfil a centuries-old contract with her.

- Oh no! More Data holodeck stuff! The one thing I enjoy in these scenes is the agonising cringe of Data having to walk through the halls of the ship in various stupid outfits.

- The Enterprise receives a distress call from the Planet of the Dipshits, as an angry mob is trying to break into some kind of Federation science building under the belief that the world is coming to an end. An old guy says that Planet of Dipshits used to be very scientifically advanced ages ago, but for some reason they reverted to agrarianism.

- The hysteria broke out due to the LEGEND OF ARDRA. Ardra is the devil, and apparently, a thousand-year-old contract enables her to show up right about now and collect tribute. As prophesised, the ground has started to shake (Fed scientist guy says this is just normal earthquakes) and people have seen visions of Ardra.

-

PICARD: No. I'm going down to the planet myself.
WORF: Sir, you run the risk of being taken as an additional hostage.
PICARD: Mister Worf, you and Mister Data will accompany me. Mister O'Brien can keep a lock on our communicators. He can pull us out if necessary.

Always wondered this - how does the transporter actually work in Star Trek? You can often lock onto communicators (for example, when Geordi attached his communicator to the bomb in that one terrorist episode to have it beamed into space), but it also seems pretty trivial to just lock onto individual people and beam them around anyway. Maybe communicator lock-ons give a stronger signal or something, since they establish earlier in this episode that there's some kind of problem in targeting individual people on the planet.

- The party meet with Dipshit Planet Leader Man, who tells them to get the fuck out before Ardra shows up. Too late! Here she is!

- Dipshit Leader begs for mercy. Ardra tells him to stop being such a loser. Picard asks her who the fuck she is, and she replies that she is, of course, Ardra, and claims to also be Fek'lhr (Klingon devil) and Satan. She has POWERS, including teleporting in out of nowhere, changing her appearance in an instant, and knowing a lot of info about Picard in advance. Picard asks to see a copy of the contract that Ardra has come to collect on.

- Ardra orders that the Federation hostages be released at once. She also tells Picard that he finds her IRRESISTABLE, and that she'll be back later ;) Data is assigned to have a PROPER LOOK at the contract to find ways to fuck it about.

- BRIEFING ROOM TIME: Riker wonders if Ardra could be a member of the Q continuum. Picard reckons that she is a FLIMFLAM ARTIST, and points out that all the powers she has demonstrated so far are things that the Enterprise crew themselves are easily capable of recreating. Everyone reckons that her powers are tech-based, and must therefore be powered from somewhere, so a HIGH RESOLUTION SCAN begins.

- Ardra is on the bridge, defiling the sanctity of the captain's chair. Enterprise security is once again made a fool of as Ardra fucks everyone about for a bit and zips around the room. To add salt to the wound, Data waltzes in and says that the contract is 100% valid. It also means that the Enterprise itself belongs to Ardra now, as it gives her claim over anything in orbit around the planet.

- Picard, who has the audacity to just be hanging out aboard Ardra's Enterprise, has been enjoying an extremely boring afternoon reading about con artistry. That night, Ardra appears in his bedroom in a Sexy Gown to match Picard's trademark Barely-There Silk Pyjamas. She makes several more extraordinarily ineffective attempts to seduce him. He refuses and, as punishment, is transported down to the planet's surface in his embarrassing pyjamas.

- GOOD NEWS: Data's found a legal precedent which allows them to call for arbitration. BAD NEWS: The Enterprise has vanished.

- Ardra tells Picard to fuck off when he invites her to arbitration. He offers her a boring all-expenses paid archaeological adventure, upon which she tells him to fuck off again. Instead, she decides that, if she wins, Picard himself will become her property. Picard agrees, then immediately shits himself when Ardra picks Data as the arbitrator.

- Picard swaggers into court ready to kick ass. The smile fades 30 seconds later when Data overrules his first objection.

-

DATA: It is highly irregular to question the opposing advocate, but I see no reason to deny it. Proceed.
ARDRA: Please don't take any offence at these questions, you know how fond I am of you.
PICARD: Objection.
DATA: Sustained. The advocate will refrain from expressing personal affections for her opponent.

- "The advocate will refrain from making her opponent disappear."

- It's a omni-disaster! Picard's fucked it sideways! Luckily, Geordi's just found Ardra's hidden ship with her power generator on board. Game fucking over.

- Ardra operated her "powers" through a retinal display, which Picard has now had installed, letting him go mad with making earthquakes and teleporting people away and shit. Ardra's access has been blocked, making her look like a real dumbass. Dipshit Leader calls for her arrest.

This is great because it's a comedy episode that mostly works as such, but the concept itself is pretty cool too - there's so much weird borderline-supernatural shit in the Star Trek universe (and so many low-tech planets for tricksters to prey on) that there must be a lot of scammers around trying to capitalise on it.

Ardra herself is hilarious, both in her ability to successfully fuck with the crew but also in the fact that, in the end, she's kind of shit at being a con artist. Her ship is making do with a crap knockoff of a Romulan cloaking device, her retinal implant is "centuries-old technology", and her attempts to seduce Picard fail because Picard very clearly has absolutely no attraction to her whatsoever. She's played brilliantly and exactly as she should be - an overconfident idiot who has just enough skill to maybe make the con work as long as nobody squints too hard.

I also like the crew's default stance of "nah mate this is bullshit mate". Even in a world full of the likes of Q, Trelane, Apollo, etc, it makes sense to approach any "godlike" individuals with extreme skepticism. Something I always found interesting in Star Trek is how people from the Federation always react with suspicion and hostility to any "god", even if their powers are real - Kirk acknowledges that Apollo essentially is a god but finds the idea of worshipping him to be insane anyway, Q is consistently viewed as an annoyance or a threat, the Prophet aliens in DS9 are usually referred to as "the wormhole aliens" by Starfleet people, etc.

The arbitration scenes are the strongest point of the episode, genuinely funny. 7/10

[Mobbd]

Not exactly related to the rewatch or this particular point in it, but I thought I'd tell everyone that I once saw the entire TNG cast in person.

It was a badly organised event on the side of a comic-con, presented by some local radio div in a TOS t-shirt who clearly didn't know anything about Star Trek but acted enthusiastic nonetheless. The questions from the floor were also embarrassing. "Not so much a question but a comment," type stuff.

But I saw them. The whole gang. With my actual eyes.

[daf]

086 | "Devil's Due"



Beat her, The Devil, You Know

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights :
• Scrooge McData
• Method Acting Masters : Stanislavsky, Wisdom, Askwith
• Worf : "You Are Not Fek'lhr!!"
• The Lust Temptation of Picard
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Flim-flam Artist
• Drippy Brown Earwax Candles
• Immortal Soul Jeopardy
• Jacket Blue Leopardy
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The second episode that I have no recollection of seeing before! It feels almost like a re-make of an episode from the original series (or the 70's animated series) - I can see Kirk tempted by some dolly-birds, Spock taking the Judge role, and Scotty rushing in with the last minute discovery!

[greenman]

Really it hangs on the guest character doesnt it and I think Marta DuBois makes for a fun villian for Picard to spar with.

[Ambient Sheep]

Heh, sadly at this point I must bow out of the thread, not that I've contributed much.  You've finally caught up with our weekly watchalong; we did The Wounded last week and won't be doing Devil's Due for a few days.

Just to say that I've really been enjoying this, even if some of you two's ratings have struck me as quite bizarre in places.  It's been a hugely enjoyable thread, the occasional petty bickering ;-) aside.

Obviously I'll be dropping in to catch up on a weekly basis, since I contributed so little anyway I doubt anyone will notice, but thought I should perhaps say something.  Keep up the great work!

[Lemming]

The second episode that I have no recollection of seeing before! It feels almost like a re-make of an episode from the original series (or the 70's animated series) - I can see Kirk tempted by some dolly-birds, Spock taking the Judge role, and Scotty rushing in with the last minute discovery!

Looked it up, and it is in fact a recycled TOS script!

A very early version of this story was part of Gene Roddenberry's first draft proposal for Star Trek: The Original Series in the early 1960s. (Star Trek Encyclopedia (2nd ed., p. 115)) The story was later developed into a script for the unproduced series Star Trek: Phase II. Along with "The Child", it was earmarked for possible recycling for Star Trek: The Next Generation, in anticipation of what became a lengthy Screen Writers' Guild strike which delayed production on Season Two. In the Phase II script, set on the planet Neuterra, Kirk defended the interests of the planet's inhabitants. The Ardra entity was a male being called "Komether" and the Enterprise computer served as the judge

That's probably part of why I got on well with it - it does have that TOS-tinged early TNG feel.

Heh, sadly at this point I must bow out of the thread, not that I've contributed much.  You've finally caught up with our weekly watchalong; we did The Wounded last week and won't be doing Devil's Due for a few days.

Just to say that I've really been enjoying this, even if some of you two's ratings have struck me as quite bizarre in places.  It's been a hugely enjoyable thread, the occasional petty bickering ;-) aside.

Obviously I'll be dropping in to catch up on a weekly basis, since I contributed so little anyway I doubt anyone will notice, but thought I should perhaps say something.  Keep up the great work!

Thanks! I had the feeling some of my ratings would be considered bizarre, but it's been good to see some of the more controversial ones be discussed in the thread. I'm still shocked my Measure of a Man bashing didn't get me obliterated from existence.

[Ambient Sheep]

Yeah, there's a few I wanted to talk about (including but not limited to The Royale, Best of Both Worlds, and indeed The Wounded, which we unanimously thought was fab) but always seemed to be either too busy or too tired to type up my thoughts, and then bang!, the next ep review would already be up.  I don't know how you do it!

By the way, meant to say in my previous post, get well soon and don't overdo it!

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

Devil's Due is an episode I'd always remembered as very gimmicky and silly, so I was pleasantly surprised on the rewatch. Picard and co. approaching the whole thing from the POV of "yeah no she's a con artist" saves it.

Tangentially, speaking of TOS, way more Biblical references in it than you'd expect from a secular/atheist future.

[MojoJojo]

I found Devil's Due basically OK - I don't think I found it as funny as you did.

What I found frustrating about it was the "the Geordi fixes it" ending. It needed something more than that - Picard correctly deduced it was a con job from the start, completely fails to do anything about it, and then Geordi swoops in at the last second to fix everything. I think Hand of Geordi endings are sometimes OK in TNG, but there really wasn't enough interesting in the plot to get away with it in this case.

How about, instead of capturing Ardra's ship, Picard uses the Enterprise to recreate all of Ardra's powers. The citizens are convinced enough to look for a ship and find Ardra's ship themselves (uhhh, OK not sure how you make that work with their agrarian economy). That would tie in better with Picard's stuff about they made their society themselves.

I dunno, just needed Picard to take some sort of initiative.

[Blumf]

My problem with this episode is that I get a little impatient with the flow of the story. We know it's a con, the crew know it's a con, get on with it!! Thankfully, that issue lessens on rewatches, so I can enjoys the character/comedy stuff more.

[Lemming]

S04E14 - Clues

After being knocked unconscious, the crew appear to have lost the past day.

- Picard has roped Guinan into playing videogames, which she's not checked out in her 300+ year existence. She correctly concludes that they suck.

- Everyone but Data is KO'd by a space anus. As they awaken, Data informs Picard that the crew have been unconscious for about 30 seconds.

- Bev's weird drugs have experienced a day's growth. Data comes up with a bunch of crap excuses to preserve the 30 seconds argument, which nobody buys. The crew conclude they've been unconscious for at least a day and Data's trying to cover it. By the way, this plot is very similar to Red Dwarf's "Thanks for the Memory"!

- Troi's got a weird PSYCHIC HEADACHE. She goes to bed and freaks out at her reflection, because the person looking back at her was NOT HER. Also, Worf has DISHONOURED the entire House of Mogh by breaking his wrist, presumably during the missing day.

- Picard takes Data for interrogation and demands to know what's going on. Data suggests that his refusal to help is to protect the entire crew's lives. Picard threatens to have him dismantled. Haha, whoa, what? Is that allowed?

- Riker, wisely (wow), suggests staying away from the planet since Data's so insistent that they don't go back there under any circumstances. Picard says that he has to go back because he wants to ascertain Data's participation in this. Hmmm.

- Immediately, the ship is grabbed and Troi gets possessed. She goes to Data and tells him the plan has failed. Data goes to the bridge and tells Picard to leave immediately, and Data reveals that the order to reveal nothing about this was given to him by Picard himself.

- The aliens are the PAXANS. They use the space anus to keep people away from their planet, but it went tits up this time because Data remained conscious and revived the rest of the crew. As a result, the crew reached an agreement with the Paxans - "please don't kill us!!! We'll wipe our memories, knock ourselves out again, and get Data to insist it was just for 30 seconds!"

- Picard begs the Paxans for a second chance, but promises to do less of an absolute fucking hack job of covering up all evidence of the passage of time this time around. The Paxans agree.

I have no idea why this review is so short. I basically covered every major plot point! I guess because the episode is pretty straightforward, just moving from clue to clue with Picard occasionally stopping to snap at Data. Anyway, fun mystery episode, very well-paced and doesn't waste any time. Not much else to say about it, it's just a lot of fun. The Paxans are suitably weird and seem to have a batshit crazy moral code. 8/10

[mothman]

I always confuse this one with "Conundrum."

[daf]

087 | "Clues"



The Suspicions of Mr Data

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights :
• The Dixon Hill Suspenders Sketch
• Picard's 100% accurate "Ayemerrycain" twang
• Worf's Wrenched Wanking Wrist
• Geordi's Exciting Beard Mystery!!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Wormhole Knockout Drop
• Shifty Data
• O'Brien's "Brown Thumb"
• Crusher's Inner Turgid Pressure
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

[Mobbd]

Clues is stone-cold classic as far as I'm concerned. Here's my favourite bit:

RIMMER: Aliens!
LISTER: What?
CAT: What are you talking about, grease stain?
RIMMER: It's a well documented phenomenon.  They kidnap you, give you a
  mind probe, erase your memory, and put you back.
LISTER: OK, aliens came aboard.
RIMMER: Without question.
LISTER: They broke my leg.
RIMMER: For some reason.
CAT: They broke MY leg.
RIMMER: Right.
HOLLY: And then they did a jigsaw.
RIMMER: Right.
HOLLY: Well, that's cleared that up then.

[Mobbd]

space anus.

I really think you'd enjoy the Greatest Generation podcast, Lemming. Here's the episode for Clues if you want to give it a shot. https://Spam/episodes/greatest-generation/greatest-generation-ep-87-buffalo-troi-voice-s4e14

EDIT: CaB's spam filter didn't like that link! Never seen that happen before. You need to replace the word 'spam' in that URL with maximumfun dot org or else google "buffalo troi voice" if you'd like to see what I'm trying to show you.

[MojoJojo]

I like Clues, but I find it a bit hard to judge the mystery ones when you know the solution.

It niggles at me a bit that they'll discover the missing time as soon as they talk to anyone else. And actually, it's pretty likely the time difference would mess with their navigation, as nothing would be where it was supposed to be.

[Mr Trumpet]

What with relativity and all that I bet starship clocks do occasionally wander a bit, and they need to synchronise whenever they call at a starbase.

[Wonderful Butternut]

What with relativity and all that I bet starship clocks do occasionally wander a bit, and they need to synchronise whenever they call at a starbase.

Pretty sure Data mentions synchronising the clock with the nearest starbase because the wormhole might have caused time distortion. Presumably said distortion could then be blamed for why the clock needs to be wound on a day.

[mothman]

Clues is stone-cold classic as far as I'm concerned. Here's my favourite bit:

RIMMER: Aliens!
LISTER: What?
CAT: What are you talking about, grease stain?
RIMMER: It's a well documented phenomenon.  They kidnap you, give you a
  mind probe, erase your memory, and put you back.
LISTER: OK, aliens came aboard.
RIMMER: Without question.
LISTER: They broke my leg.
RIMMER: For some reason.
CAT: They broke MY leg.
RIMMER: Right.
HOLLY: And then they did a jigsaw.
RIMMER: Right.
HOLLY: Well, that's cleared that up then.

I recall on a BBC Red Dwarf night many years ago Patrick Stewart claimed to have happened upon RD by accident and initially thought they were parodying his show. I wonder if it was this episode he saw..?

[Das Reboot]

I know there's a story about Stewart being tempted to call the lawyers when he watched Gunmen of the Apocalypse due to its similarity to A Fistful of Datas (an ep he directed).

[mothman]

Ah that could be it! I couldn't remember the full details obvs.

[Lemming]

Going to have to go on break for a while since I'm still recuperating from covid, sorry. Seems to be improving slowly now though.

At least the next episode is First Contact, which will give me the opportunity to show off my bizarre, inexplicable, this-should-not-exist action figure of Riker based on that specific episode!

[daf]

No problem - just take care of yourself.

(Counselor Troi informs me that she senses 'a great knackeredness", and Worf recommends some prune juice - a warrior's drink!)

Live long and prosper!

[Endicott]

Take care Lemming.

[Lemming]

Thanks for the well-wishes, I seem to be alive again now. The covid headache was something else, it really did feel like what I imagine one of Troi's classic psychic headaches feels like.

S04E15 - First Contact

Riker singlehandedly ruins the potential for first contact with a new planet.

- Riker, while infiltrating a society on the cusp of developing warp, is injured and examined by alien doctors, who discover that he is NOT OF THEIR WORLD.

- Picard and Troi just beam straight the fuck down to speak to Mirasta, one of the lead warp scientists on the planet. They tell her about the Federation and whatnot, and beam her up to the Enterprise to let her check it out.

-

MIRASTA: You've had people on our planet?
TROI: For several years.
PICARD: These are specialists, highly trained observation teams, superficially identical to yourselves and therefore able to blend naturally into your society.

Years of work. Years of work, undone in twenty seconds by Riker. Why was he even down there? They make it sound like he was just going down as a final formality and somehow managed to torpedo the entire fucking mission.

- Mirasta agrees to try and help locate Riker. She also tells Picard not to reveal the full truth to several key figures in the government, because she reckons they'll freak out and use The Riker Situation for their own political ends.

- Riker's fast-talk is utter shit and the doctor confronts him and asks if he's an alien. With the situation deteriorating, Riker tries to escape. Bebe Neuwirth comes in and coerces him into sex in exchange for helping him escape, which is pretty grim. On top of  that, her "help" completely sucks, she just makes one guard leave and then vaguely gestures towards the exit, after which Riker immediately gets his ass kicked and is taken back to his room. Waste of time!

- Mirasta brings the Chancellor up to the ship and Picard treats him to the PICARD FAMILY VINEYARD WINE. The government assemble to panic about the existence of aliens. Man Who Doesn't Like Technology But Does Like Tradition yells at Scientist Who Likes Progress And Aliens for a bit. Man Who Doesn't Like Technology But Does Like Tradition also reveals the existence of Riker, which pisses off the chancellor, who wasn't told about covert infiltrators before now.

- Picard begs the Chancellor to release Riker, but is told to fuck off. He also says disastrous first contact with the Klingons led to like three billion years of war. I wonder when that was - Enterprise seems to contradict it.

- Man Who Doesn't Like Technology But Does Like Tradition goes to the hospital to interrogate Riker, who lies there looking petrified. He tells Riker that he (Riker) represents PROGRESS, which is bad, and that we must preserve TRADITION (good). He uses Riker's phaser to shoot himself, hoping that his apparent murder at the hands of Riker will do something or other. Luckily, it's set on stun.

- Since the mission is a complete disaster, Bev and Worf just beam straight into the hospital in front of various staff and rescue Riker.

- The Chancellor has decided, by himself, that his people aren't ready to know about aliens and shit. Harkens back to discussions about the Prime Directive we had ages ago in the thread, but how the hell does this one guy have the ability to withhold knowledge of aliens from an entire planet (especially given how many people saw the Enterprise crew due to the ultrabotched nature of this mission)? I guess the Federation has to respect local authorities, but at the same time, why should they when it's just one autocrat deciding what's best for presumably billions of people? I mean, I definitely wouldn't trust the UK government - nor any other authority on Earth - to make this decision on my behalf.

- Mirasta asks to join the Enterprise crew rather than go back to ShitWorld. Picard agrees.

There's kind of an interesting episode lurking here but it's buried under a load of really boring scenes in which the cardboard cutout characters from the government stand around talking about their culture as if they're reciting from a Wikipedia page. "Our culture values tradition. There are some here who value progress though. We have an ideology that puts our planet at the centre of the universe." zZzzZzzZz

I like that the Enterprise crew fuck everything up, but the way they do it makes them come across as too incompetent. Putting aside Riker scuttling years of hard work on his just-a-formality 15 minute visit and literally singlehandedly ruining the entire mission, how the hell do the crew have so much difficulty finding him? Can't they just scan for human life signs and beam him out of there (it's not like beaming him out would be notably worse than what they end up doing, which is beaming a fucking Klingon down in the middle of the hospital)? Data mentions they're scanning the capital city "without success", so whatever.

5/10



Here's my RIKER FIRST CONTACT ACTION FIGURE, which I do not remember obtaining.

With this, you can recreate all your favourite scenes from TNG S04E15 - First Contact! Here's my recreation of him lying on the ground in agony when he got the shit kicked out of him by all those guys in the corridor:

[mothman]

Crikey, that's a niche [sic] action figure!