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

[Blumf]

My dad is absolutely convinced that [Mr Homn is] played by a strategically shaved Mick Fleetwood, despite concrete evidence to the contrary.

[petril]

"Manhunt". He's unrecognisable.

it was a step down from playing himself in Total Recall

[Deanjam]

It feels like they just didn't know what to do with the character half the time. They way they used her empathic gift was inconsistent. It's ironic that - given how she also had a not-insignificant guest role on VOY, and came back for PIC too (the less said about the ENT finale the better) - they did think about replacing her with Jeri Ryan for at least one TNG movie.

I believe that was another one of Rick Berman's indelicate contract negotiations with a female cast member. Has to be said that Ryan has denied being offered a role replacing Troi, and has said they offered her a different part. Though I'm not sure what role in Nemesis that could be besides the Janeway cameo.

[greenman]

I'm with you in liking Lwaxana more than seems to be common although that would go for a lot of comedy on Trek which parts of the fan base seem to have an aversion to. Really though I think that episode is one of the first hints at TNG starting to become a bit more humanised with room for wit.

Majel Barrett was actually another Trek/Babylon 5 crossover basically playing a more serious psychic, I do wonder whether you might not prefer that to TNG Lemming as it is much higher on the mysticism and has rather more consistent wit.

[earl_sleek]

I'm near the end of a B5 rewatch and it's retained it's status as my favourite SF TV show.

There are a great many actors who were in both Trek and B5 - most notably, Walter Koenig is particularly great in B5.

[Deanjam]

I do wonder whether you might not prefer that to TNG Lemming as it is much higher on the mysticism and has rather more consistent wit.

I always assumed B5 was a dry po-faced sci-fi. You're making me want to give it a go myself.

[Endicott]

I could never get past the first 4 or 5 episodes of B5 because the acting and dialogue was so awful. Set of season 1 still sitting there on the shelf unwatched.

[Lemming]

Watched B5 a few years ago. I liked the first two seasons quite a lot, and definitely did appreciate the mystic and supernatural elements.

It lost me during the third season, if I remember correctly, the one where a couple of massive wars are taking place. Lost me for similar reasons that the last couple seasons of DS9 did. I think I stopped watching right at the start of the fourth season. Might give it another shot from the beginning at some point.

I could never get past the first 4 or 5 episodes of B5 because the acting and dialogue was so awful. Set of season 1 still sitting there on the shelf unwatched.

That's part of the fun! The guy who plays Garibaldi in particular is awful in the best possible way, just stood around gormlessly smirking no matter what's happening. One of those shows where you can feel that everyone is having fun making it, especially when Sheridan shows up in the second season, and Claudia Christian is as fun as she is in everything. The very bad CGI gets some big laughs too, there's one part where Sheridan inspects an alien ship and says "it's beautiful!" as the ugliest, blurriest piece of shit you've ever seen fills the screen.

I watched through it with my brother and a few particularly exquisitely overacted lines stuck with us. I can't even remember the context for either of them, but I can remember the exact hilarious delivery of "IT'S A MIND-QUAKE!" and "WE'VE BECOME UNSTUCK IN TIIIME, COMMANDER!" to this day.

[Lemming]

S01E11 - The Big Goodbye

It's a holodeck malfunction episode! Troi encourages Picard to go play videogames to calm down, and he gets stuck in one, obviously.

- Miniskirt uniform spotted! Still going!

- The fairly brief scene during the intro where Troi tries to teach Picard the alien language is one of my favourite little scenes in all of TNG.

- Holodeck episodes always make me laugh because I imagine what it was like to be one of the actors cast as a holodeck character. Imagine, your agent tells you you're going to be in Star Trek. Awesome! What will you be? A Starfleet officer? Perhaps even a captain? Or maybe a cool alien? No, you're an imaginary 1940s news vendor in a mid-season filler episode, fuck you.

- Picard enthuses about videogames in the conference room. The entire senior staff, plus Wesley for some reason, have to sit and listen to this.

- The diplomatic meeting is 11 hours away, but Picard is balls-deep in videogame addiction at this point. He invites Bev and some guy called Whelan to join him, and Data muscles in.

- Bev almost breaking her neck in her high heels is a good detail - implying she's never worn them before. I hope to god they're not a thing anymore in the 24th century.

- "I'm at the holodeck. Something's gone wrong." Get outta town.

- Wesley to the rescue. ZzZZzzZzz. Naturally, he can fix the holodeck, which Geordi cannot.

- Geordi's on the case. Riker strides over. "HAVE YOU TRIED THE INTERCOM?" he demands. "Yes," Geordi replies, sounding slightly baffled at such an obvious question. Undeterred, Riker smashes his finger into the intercom and barks "RIKER TO HOLODECK? RIKER TO HOLODECK?", seemingly genuinely shocked at the lack of response. Fucking dolt.

- Whelan gets shot. The bullet is real!!!! If you die in the game you die in real life!!!! Oh my god!!!!

- Some more well-deployed humour as Data tries to explain to the holodeck characters that Picard is a "cheap imitation" of Dixon Hill.

- Everyone yucking it up and having a great time at the ending. Whelan is lying in sickbay with a gunshot wound. The episode makes it pretty explicit that he'll recover, but still, it's an amusingly jarring shift in tone.

The episode has a few good comedy moments, and the final act has some decent tension as Picard and pals have to act fast to save Whelan, but I just don't get on with holodeck episodes. Just cannot bring myself to give a shit about glorified videogames, and the increasingly stupid ways in which the crew get stuck inside them. On top of that, the pace only really picks up towards the end. The first half is pretty labourious, and if you don't give a shit about watching Picard marvel at his new videogame, there's nothing else going on.

The episode works partially because you can tell how giddy the production crew were at being able to visually create the holodeck - the effect of the Enterprise door leading into the 1940s city street is made full use of, and the scene where Wesley fucks with the controls and briefly transports everyone into a snowstorm is a great visual effect too. 4/10.

[the hum]

Ooh tad a harsh. It's a 6 Geordis for me; one of the least cringeworthy of the 1st season, and maybe one of the first where the actors are properly finding their characters. Wonder if the baddies attempting to leave the holodeck at the end provided the inspiration for the Moriarty episodes... Mind you I'm generally a fan of the holodeck manipulation/malfunction stories. Might have something to do with my fascination with simulated reality theory.

"I saw automobiles!"

[mothman]

- Bev almost breaking her neck in her high heels is a good detail - implying she's never worn them before. I hope to god they're not a thing anymore in the 24th century.

And yet there's the fourth season episode in which she teaches Data to dance, wearing these:

[daf]

011 | "The Big Goodbye"



Humphrey Bogus in 'The Maltese Malfunction'

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights :
• Sassy 'wise-guy' Data
• Crusher Gum Swallow
• Picard Ciggy Wheeze
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Leech = Peter Lorre
• South American Data
• "Aaaaard klaxon leeeeesss blaj blan ar'nik ka'nik"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

[Lemming]

S01E12 - Datalore

The Enterprise visits the world on which Data was found 26 years ago, and finds another apparently identical android.

- Data has the memories of all the colonists on the planet. This isn't as cool as it sounds, because he doesn't know shit until Geordi "awakens a memory remnant" by pointing out a secret door in a styrofoam cave. Later, he gets "vague impressions" about what a lab is for.

- I love this corridor in the background that's clearly just a painting of a corridor. Wile E Coyote stuff. Wouldn't have been as noticeable on TVs at the time, I guess.



- ARGYLE!

- Discussing the duplicate Data:

RIKER: "Does it appear to have, uh, all your... parts?"

DATA: "Completely, sir."

GEORDI: "Will... will we know how to... turn it on?"

The next line makes it clear that the reason for Riker and Geordi's awkwardness is that they're concerned about offending Data by reminding him that he's a machine. I honestly thought it was meant to be a joke where Riker reminds us that Data has a working cock (as mentioned in The Naked Now), and Geordi can't find a way to ask about "turning it on" without stumbling into the double entendre minefield.

- Picard thinks that Data has been made in a human form to prove that "human shaped robots need not be clumsy or limited". TOS already had robots like that, 100 in-universe years earlier! Data's downright janky in comparison.

- As if Spiner's performance wasn't ridiculous and overboard enough, a really loud scary synth soundtrack lets you know that you should be scared of Lore.

- Riker's incredulous at the idea of an entity that can strip planets of all life. Once again, TOS! The planet killer!

- It turns out Lore is evil! No way! He called the Crystalline Entity to the colony! And now he's going to turn the Enterprise over to it! Couldn't have seen this one coming!

- The Crystalline Entity comes rushing up to the ship. It looks exactly like the image that everyone on the bridge was looking at together a very short time earlier. "I RECOGNISE IT, SIR," Riker offers. Amazing.

- During the ad break, Picard sends Geordi off to look at the Crystalline Entity outside the window with his VISOR, which can give more detailed information. Pretty cool, and I think the second time it's happened (the first might have been the "god" ship in Justice, IIRC).

- Wesley tries to warn everyone that Lore is very very very obviously impersonating Data. Riker steps in and barks at Wesley for not showing proper respect when addressing a senior officer. Arrrrrrsehole.

- Worst stunt double in history. The "stunt" in question is having another actor move their foot near your head.



- Wesley tries again to point out that Lore is very, very, very obviously badly impersonating Data. Picard threatens to kick him out of Starfleet.

- The famous "shut up, Wesley" line. Hard to enjoy it, sadly, because Picard's so obviously and overwhelmingly in the wrong here that it's impossible not to take Wes' side and want to smack Picard around the head. Even more irritating is that it comes in the context of a conversation in which Picard is pissing and moaning about Wesley not showing people the proper respect. Really just comes across as a useless knobhead. You know things are getting bad when a character who is telling Wesley to shut up comes across as the more annoying party in the exchange.

- Worf gets the shit kicked out of him. Someone start keeping a count.

- The visual of Beverly's arm on fire made me scream laughing for some reason. Kept laughing through the subsequent awful stunt double fight.

- Hate Picard's non-apology to Wesley, and Wesley's immediate return to sickening obsequiousness. The moment on the bridge where he told Picard to go fuck himself was the one moment in the show so far where Wesley was actually likeable, and he loses it by the end of the episode. Be good if, when Picard asked him to return to duty, he just said "no thanks mate, you nearly blew up your own fucking ship there mate, shit captain mate, bye mate".

More an unintentional comedy episode than anything else. Spiner's performance of Lore is utterly awful - not his fault so much as the fault of the script giving him nothing else to work with, because there's nothing to Lore beyond being chaotic evil. Everyone except Wesley is written as genuinely stupid and unreasonable. 4/10.

[daf]

012 | "Datalore"



Twin Freaks

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights :
• Argyle!!
• Nude robot bum
• "Shut Up Wesley!"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Sneeze Masterclass
• Secret off-switch
• Nobody Says Pot-ah-to!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

[mothman]

• Nude robot bum

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—

I BET YOU DO POE YOU DIRTY OLD BOLLOCKS. I BET YOU FUCKING DO.

[Lemming]

S01E13 - Angel One

The Enterprise must contact Angel One, a matriarchal society (apparently), to rescue a bunch of complete twerps who crashed a shuttle there.

- Angel One is a matriarchy run by a council. "Sounds like my own planet," Troi says. Bit of ambiguous Betazed lore for you there.

- This is a matriarchal society, which Picard likens to an inversion of the patriarchies on Earth "hundreds of years ago". Of course, that means that women have long, elaborate hairstyles, and wear makeup, skirts and high-heeled boots. Men have short, sensible hair, no makeup, and wear trousers. It's like the production team were either too scared of depicting what an inverted patriarchy would look like, or just couldn't imagine it. Either way, doubt it'd look much like this!

- Is there a name for this kind of story? Where you just (awkwardly and simplistically, in this case) flip a real-life system of oppression around for the sake of an allegory? Whatever this type of story is called, it's usually a complete waste of time IMO, and this is no exception. There's no way to use this concept to explore the mechanisms and consequences of real-life patriarchy. Riker gets yelled at for being a man, but there's no way the show can ever convey (to a male viewer who's identifying with Riker) what it's actually like to be subjugated under a patriarchy, because this entire idea is so unreal and alien, and Riker's just a visitor to the planet on a day trip. Any oppression Riker faces is just odd and vaguely amusing, both to him and the viewers, which is the exact opposite effect it ought to create if it's trying to get across to us what being victimised by sexism is like.

- All the examples of oppression Riker experiences are basically just mild inconveniences. The planetary leaders (with their makeup and feathered hair) make ineffectual whiny comments about how "a man couldn't understand [blank]". He's made to wear a dumb outfit while meeting with the leaders.

- The planetary leader immediately starts flirting with Riker - presumably, this is meant to indicate that men in this society are sexualised and expected to perform sexual favours to succeed, but both the script and the direction play this as being funny and erotic, which is, of course, the polar opposite of what being sexually harassed/coerced is like. She invites Riker on a date where she does, of course, wear a dress.

- By the way, there's a sideplot where Romulans are coming and Picard has a cold.

- The Prime Directive: Riker says they can't interfere with domestic affairs. The leader responds "but you can interact?". "Of course," Riker responds. "How else could we learn?" Remember this for when TNG hideously warps the Prime Directive to the point of outright murderousness in some later episodes... Also, Data clarifies something that's been a question ever since TOS - non-Starfleet ships are, in fact, not bound by the Prime Directive. So if you have your own civilian ship, you can visit anyone you want. Surprised there weren't more episodes using this idea.

- "Don't you find me attractive?" the leader asks, throwing herself at Riker. zZzZZZzZZz

- In bed, Riker lies on top of the planet's leader (I still don't know her name), who is giggling and stroking his hair now. "Men are not objects to be possessed," Riker says, gurning, before going in for another kiss. Episode is a total write-off.

- Males of the Angel One species are small and fragile, while women are tall and strong. You'd think, then, that women would place value on males being "petite" and weak. Instead, the leader is immediately drawn to Riker The 6-Foot-Tall Himbo, while one of the only other prominent women we see on Angel One is attracted to this dorky-looking Han Solo knockoff from the shuttle crash. Hm.

- Riker saves the shuttle crew from execution by giving a speech to the planetary leader where he says that Meninism cannot be stopped. It works. The planetary leader basically thanks Riker for coming and setting the Planet of Women straight.

Just awful. What's the point? If you give the episode the benefit of assuming its heart is in the right place, the intent is that we can point and go "look, these aliens are ridiculous for subjugating half the population based on sex, maybe... OUR SOCIETY TODAY is ridiculous too???" but it's completely hollow, and it shits all over itself by falling head-first into a series of idiotic tropes, many of which can be read as sexist themselves.

I feel like if they really wanted to do an episode about sexism, it'd be much more interesting to visit a patriarchy and have Troi, Tasha, Bev et al react in a similar way Riker does here - confusion, amusement and generally just being like "haha what the fuck" in response to everything, because the very concept of sexism is a ridiculous, alien idea that doesn't make any sense to them. That'd probably still be a minefield of fuckups, but better than whatever this is. All objectionable elements aside, it's also just not an interesting episode - the only thing of value in it is the new information we get about how the Prime Directive works at this stage in the show's run. 1/10. It's called Angel One because that's the score it's getting.



Tune in next week where Riker heads to the Planet of Homos, where straight people are ostracised and subjugated! Will he be able to sort them out by the end of the episode? Oh wait, that's virtually the plot of an episode coming up in Season 5. Jesus.

[Blumf]

S01E13 - Angel One
...
- Males of the Angel One species are small and fragile, while women are tall and strong. You'd think, then, that women would place value on males being "petite" and weak. Instead, the leader is immediately drawn to Riker The 6-Foot-Tall Himbo, while one of the only other prominent women we see on Angel One is attracted to this dorky-looking Han Solo knockoff from the shuttle crash. Hm.

Er... don't know if you're familiar with the huu-man males of the patriarchal planet Sol 3, but you'll find quite a range in the preferred body types of their feee-males, including tall 'Amazonian' women (and more recently)

Otherwise, I think you've got the episode bang to rights, just an ineffectual mess. Should probably get more stick than that Code of Honor episode.

As for Prime Directive shenanigans: I assume there are levels of interaction, from pristine pre-warp hands-off, through to, ah, they've already been contacted so might as well interact with them but try to avoid messing up their natural development too much. Considering the complexity there can't be a one-size-fits-all approach to the Prime Directive.

When you think about it, there must be load of places that were contacted before the Federation, as well as outside the Fed. I'm pretty sure the Klingons aren't so delicate, not to mention the Cardassians and Romulans.

[Lemming]

Er... don't know if you're familiar with the huu-man males of the patriarchal planet Sol 3, but you'll find quite a range in the preferred body types of their feee-males, including tall 'Amazonian' women (and more recently)

Just struck me as odd that the entire planet is essentially represented by two women and one man, and the two women both fall for human males who presumably are very atypical of the beauty standards on the planet. Other reviews I've seen online accuse the episode of saying "look, the REAL MEN have arrived and the alien women can't help themselves". To be fair to the writer I don't think that was the intent at all, but it does come across as strange, especially since neither of the women show any interest at all in the one male of their own species that we see, who's basically just in the episode to stand around being shorter and weaker than Riker.

As for Prime Directive shenanigans: I assume there are levels of interaction, from pristine pre-warp hands-off, through to, ah, they've already been contacted so might as well interact with them but try to avoid messing up their natural development too much. Considering the complexity there can't be a one-size-fits-all approach to the Prime Directive.

When you think about it, there must be load of places that were contacted before the Federation, as well as outside the Fed. I'm pretty sure the Klingons aren't so delicate, not to mention the Cardassians and Romulans.

The levels approach would make sense, definitely. It feels like that's sort of where it's at during the first season of TNG - more protections in place than TOS's Prime Directive of "don't collapse the entire society in 45 minutes unless you really want to", but not as severe as the Prime Directive seen in episodes like Pen Pals and Homeward.

Even where the script quality is low, I'm enjoying the dynamic of some of these early episodes where the crew visit pre-space-age societies and inevitably end up in sticky situations where they have to restrain themselves in order to respect local laws and uphold the integrity of the Prime Directive. Really loved Picard's remark in Code of Honor about how easy it would be to rescue Tasha by force, and yet how unconscionable it would be to actually do that.

[Chairman Yang]

I love this Season 1 arc of Geordi effortlessly rising to any challenge presented to him while Riker barely manages to do his job. It's kind of a shame he was side-promoted to engineering (for the character, I mean). The academy boy bridge officer gimmick suits him.

God, fuck all happens in this episode. Let's nitpick something irrelevant...

So right, obviously you can't throw a snowball out of the holodeck. Makes no sense whatsoever. This means that Wesley went to the trouble of replicating a real snowball as a prank, watched his friend run through the doors into the corridor and chose to throw a cricket ball made of solid ice at the Captain. Psychopathic behaviour.

Edit: Actually, is this the first mention of outposts vanishing along the Neutral Zone? In which case you could argue Angel One is the first implication of the Borg...

[Blumf]

So right, obviously you can't throw a snowball out of the holodeck. Makes no sense whatsoever. This means that Wesley went to the trouble of replicating a real snowball as a prank, watched his friend run through the doors into the corridor and chose to throw a cricket ball made of solid ice at the Captain. Psychopathic behaviour.

The holodeck does have replicator tech in it. You can have a drink or a meal in there, and we've seen a few times (like here) where items of clothing or other objects are physical.

I think it even makes some sense, as there's examples of clothing being holographic, but the hat is real, which works because you wouldn't want a suit over your space-pjs but your head is free to have a real hat.

(now figure out how Voyager needs to ration replicator use, but leaves the holodeck running 24/7)

[Chairman Yang]

Hah that's great, the suit is projected over the clothes but you get to take home the hat as a souvenir.

It's like... if you just ask the holodeck to make you a swimming pool of gravy does it only beam in the amount that's actually touching you. So there's about a pint of gravy that's real and the rest is a simulation?

God it'd be so funny if in that Moriarty episode he tries to leave the holodeck and his corpse just collapses out of the door as the computer tries to 3D print a pile of man-shaped meat in real time.

[Carpool Dragon]

Almost finished this and Sub Rosa has to be the worst episode of anything I've seen in a long time. Dr Crusher fucks her dead grandmother's ghost boyfriend. That's it, that's the plot. They must have been desperate for story ideas at that point for that to make it on the air. I did enjoy the guy who was basically a live-action Groundskeeper Willie who dies for absolutely no reason.

DINNAE LIGHT THAT CANDLE BEVERLY!

[Lemming]

I CAN TRAVEL UP THE BEAAAAM, BEVERLY

[daf]

013 | "Angel One"



Planet of the 50 Fit Women

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights :
• Riker's Hairy Boob Blouse
• Peter Duncan's Todger Triangle
• Croaky Picard
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Riker's Prime Erective
• Night-Blooming Throgni
• Sniffles Lockdown
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

[Mr Trumpet]

Fun fact: the actor playing the Angel One man pictured in the comment above also appears later in the episode The Offspring, as

Spoiler alert

Data's daughter's default setting, prior to choosing species and gender

[close]

[Lemming]

S01E14 - 11001001

The Enterprise stops by a Starbase to get its shitty malfunctioning deathtrap of a holodeck fixed, amid other upgrades.

- The Starbase is visually incredible. The model shots in this show are really good and this is one of the best. Breathtaking scale.

- Two little purple-coloured aliens come aboard. "Are these gentlemen the Binars?" Riker asks. "They're not gentlemen, or ladies," he's immediately told. Come on Riker. Can't be the first sexless/multi-sexed species you've encountered. Andorians have like five sexes!

- Binars have become physically merged with the supercomputer that runs their planet, to the point where they're able to "pair" with other Binars and share each other's thoughts. Cool.

- "You've got the bridge," Riker says to Wesley. The First Officer of the Federation's flagship has just handed control of the ship to a 14 year old boy. Great stuff.

- Why does Riker always do this weird thing where he gives stupid, slightly panicked looks to everyone who walks past him in the corridor, like he's a puppy scared of movement or something? Here's a couple of examples of what I mean:



- Data tries to learn to be more human by generating artistic images, putting him on par with what real life AI has already been able to do for years. Riker makes a joke about Geordi's blindness and then leaves the room gurning while Geordi is silent and stonefaced.

- The entire first segment of this episode is actually fantastic. It's Riker walking around gormlessly, being constantly confused and uncomprehending of anything anyone tells him. When he runs out of people to harass, he decides to interrupt the Binars, who are hard at work on upgrading the Enterprise's computer.

- Riker tests out the new holodeck upgrades by making the most boring jazz bar imaginable, and also generating a fake girlfriend for himself. "Great job, boys" he says to the Binars. You know, the same aliens who he was told are not "boys" mere minutes earlier. He manages to say "gentlemen" again about two lines later. Thick as pig shit.

- Something that's always bothered me about TNG... Minuet[nb]she's apparently unusually good because she's programmed by the Binars, but still runs through the usual holodeck system[/nb], the holodeck character created by Riker, is an AI who's able to seamlessly replicate human speech and gestures, and capable of developing her own opinions and perspectives, and is aware of her status as a fictional character. She even experiences independent emotions, like when she panics when Riker and Picard get up to leave the holodeck. She's also even capable of deciding to give up the ruse and tell Riker and Picard what's really going on. In other words, she's far, far more impressive than Data. Why is Data considered unique (to the point of being granted legal personhood) when the Enterprise computer can not only generate far superior AIs, but generate many of them all at once, while also running countless other tasks to keep the ship going? This isn't helped by the fact that, right after Minuet's scene, we cut straight back to Data trying to learn how to paint.

- Guy in a miniskirt! Pretty sure it's the same guy from an earlier episode. Good to see he's still hanging around.

- The ship has to be evacuated. Wesley and a guy in a gold Starfleet uniform both beam off while many civilians are still stuck on board. Surely all civilians should evacuate before any officers... Anyway, Riker and Picard are stranded aboard the ship because they were distracted by holodeck videogames and missed the evacuation.

- The Enterprise has been hijacked! The Binars are taking it far away into deep space! Riker and Picard keep playing videogames for a while. Eventually, they realise what's happening, and Picard asks the Enterprise computer where they're being taken. It responds: "The planet Binas." Riker turns to Picard. "The BINARS," he triumphantly deduces. Fucking hell.

- The Binars' homeworld is dying because the supercomputer had to be shut down. The Binar engineers have moved all its data to the Enterprise computer, which has taken up "every byte of available space". Picard and Riker must find a way to send it back to restart the supercomputer and save the Binars. They can't do this right away because they "don't have the file name". Love it.

Fun episode, plenty of Riker being amusingly shit, and a new alien race based around a cool concept. Like most early episodes, it's got some problems with pacing, mostly in this case through wasting a lot of time in Riker's jazz bar, but the final act pulls it together. 6/10

[Blumf]

S01E14 - 11001001

...

- The Starbase is visually incredible. The model shots in this show are really good and this is one of the best. Breathtaking scale.

They took effects shots Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and overlaid Enterprise D over A. Fair play to them, they're good shots and, like you say are visually incredible. They also get reused in later episodes.



Presumably the TNG spacedock is scaled up several times from the film version, as there's no way a Galaxy class could fit through those doors.

[Zetetic]

Why does Riker always do this weird thing where he gives stupid, slightly panicked looks to everyone who walks past him in the corridor, like he's a puppy scared of movement or something?

A lot of calculations involving physical attractiveness, power disparity, and the likely outcomes of employment tribunal.

Why is Data considered unique (to the point of being granted legal personhood) when the Enterprise computer can not only generate far superior AIs, but generate many of them all at once, while also running countless other tasks to keep the ship going?

My head canon is that the Federation has established a philosophy regarding AI that treats effective mimicry using certain technologies (noting your point about computer-generated art, here-and-now) as distinct from the sort of thing that Data is and Moriarty might be.

None of this really holds up, but never mind.

[Mr Trumpet]

I like that the Bynars are non-Binary

[daf]

014 | "11001001"



It only takes a Minuet girl. To fall in love, to fall in love.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights :
• Riker's Jazz Boner
• Worf's Blue Sausage Suit
• The Joy Of Painting with Bob Droid
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Lugubrious Trombone Parp
• Non-Binary Baldy Bynars
• The password is obviously 'Minuet', you dummies, MINUET!!  . . . . oh!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :