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

Started by Lemming, May 11, 2021, 02:05:41 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

The Culture Bunker

Perhaps telling that while I remembered clearly the whole "psychic link" stuff, the entire reason why it happened and the conclusion has totally escaped my memory.

daf

159 | "Attached"



Shown Thoughts From a Broad

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights
• Prisoners Cell Bald H
• Concealed 'Corder Cloche Conspiracy
• The Flaming Fart-Gas Caves
• Crusher's Concrete Cliff-Climb Collywobble
• Non-Nearness Neck-Knob Nausea
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Prytt Dicks
• 2050 World Government Prediction
• Campfire Crush Confession
• Breakfast Order Squabble Sketch
• Picard's Off-duty Flouncy Blouse
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

Lemming

Quote from: daf on May 16, 2022, 01:42:48 PM• Non-Nearness Neck-Knob Nausea
Choked on spittle from laughing at this, 10/10.

Quote from: Mobbd on May 16, 2022, 12:34:19 PMI want them to get married and have a wickle baby. Preferably called Wesley 2.
Imagine when Good Wes finds a photo (or holophoto or whatever) of his mysterious older brother. "Hey, strangely old mum, strangely old dad, who's this?"
"Oh, that's your older brother, Wesley 1. We all hated him. We let him go off with some possible-nonce who called himself 'The Traveller'. You'll probably never meet him. Be thankful for that."

Blumf

We've got guests coming round. Quick, put out the good Wesley.

Lemming

S07E09 - Force of Nature

Two scientists bring the Enterprise to a halt, and present Picard with their theory that warp flight destroys subspace.

- Geordi, having experienced calamitous failure in all his relationships with other people, has resorted to borrowing Spot the cat. The result is a cat-astrophe!!!!

- There's a missing ship, the Fleming. We're initiating a LEVEL ONE SEARCH. While this is happening, Geordi - having already lost his mind over a cat - is trying to make the Enterprise's engine stats insanely next-level, to beat some rival engineer called Kaplan who is on a ship called the Intrepid. He can't replicate Kaplan's success - presumably Kaplan is also a pro with cats, highly popular and romantically adored, and has a ten-foot cock.

- Geordi and Data meander around the Jeffries tubes chatting about Spot. We've reached peak Season 7 here. Absolutely no energy and nothing happening. Geordi mentions he has a sister who was an ace at cat training. I like how everyone he knows outclasses him at everything.

- This whole scene is actually pretty surreal, it feels like the day-to-day busywork that must be going on off-screen whenever the adventure of the week isn't happening. It's not even relevant to anything as far as I can tell. Was the episode running ten minutes under?

- Riker calls them and starts the plot - we've found a Ferengi ship, and it's dead in space. While the bridge crew try to figure out how to help them, they suddenly start firing. The Enterprise retaliates with a disabling shot to their weapons systems. Geordi manages to open communications, and the crew see a Ferengi on the viewscreen. He claims that he fired in self-defence and that the Enterprise is responsible for fucking his ship up. Picard persuades him to come aboard to talk it out, and he says he found a Federation buoy that, when approached, messed his ship up.

- The Ferengi ship has log information about the Fleming, so Picard sends Enterprise engineers over to help the Ferengis repair their ship so that the logs can be accessed. Now we're back to Data trying to tell Spot to sit on the ground.

- Spot's failing to respond to commands after ten minutes, so Geordi reckons she's completely untrainable and that it's a lost cause. Starting to get a sense of why he failed so badly at caring for her. After that, he's off to Engineering to desperately try and beat Kaplan again, fuelled by a DISPARAGING EMAIL from his rival.

- They find what looks like the remains of the Fleming. They go in for a closer look and are hit by a VERTERON FIELD which wrecks the Enterprise and disables it, just like the Ferengi ship. With the Enterprise dead in the water, it can't prevent two people from beaming aboard from a nearby ship. They arrive in Engineering and demand a meeting.

- In the briefing room, they say that their planet is being destroyed by warp flight. Geordi, AKA Mr. OFFICIAL-STORY-BELIEVER, says this is based on an old "discredited" theory. One of the aliens says that she'll help restore the Enterprise's engines if they agree to review her research. Picard agrees.

- In Engineering, Geordi moans about the damage to his engines, and points out that if they'd stalled the Fleming, they may have cost lives. The alien scientist tells him to fuck off, and that the danger posed by warp is more important than any inconvenience Geordi may suffer. After she leaves, her brother encourages Geordi to look into her research, because it's legit.

- The aliens (named Serova and Rabal, apparently) come to watch Data give his verdict on their research. He recommends that the Federation send a research ship to look into it further, and Serova is pissed off again at the DITHER AND DELAY. Picard keeps everyone busy by telling them to put together a research proposal for the Federation Science Council, which doesn't impress Serova.

- On the bridge, they see Serova's ship taking off. She creates a warp core breach, killing herself, and in the process demonstrates the threat posed by warp - a PURPLE SPACE ANUS opens where her ship was destroyed. The Fleming is nearby, but is trapped in the PURPLE SPACE ANUS. The Enterprise can't enter at warp to rescue them, because warp will just make it even worse.

- Everyone spends ages being clueless of what to do. While investigating, they see that subspace instability extends beyond the PURPLE SPACE ANUS, which shouldn't be possible, apparently. Geordi is spooked by this. Data thinks it would be well fucking sick to "coast" into the anus by going at mega-warp, then shutting warp off and floating in, grabbing the Fleming and/or its crew, and then floating back out.

- As he and Data work on the rescue, Geordi regrets that he was a big believer in the scientific establishment's "warp is great!" shit. Data argues that Serova's actions were too extreme even though she was right, and Geordi responds that she was justified because the Federation wouldn't have listened any other way. Data responds that you catch more flies with honey than with shit, or whatever the phrase is. Geordi reflects that he didn't want to believe in the WARP CLIMATE CATASTROPHE because he took it personally, as his entire identity is based around being the warp engines man.

- Rabal is sitting in Ten Forward, looking sadly out the window at the space anus that his sister sacrificed herself to create. Geordi comes to offer condolences and admit that they were right about everything. Rabal says it's time for change, and that we can't keep relying on warp.

- Data's megawarp plan is initiated. The Enterprise zooms into the anus and is rocked around. They detect that the Fleming is about to engage its warp drive, which will fuck us all. They can't warn them in time, so the Fleming goes to warp and is wrecked, and it also expands the anus to the point where the Enterprise cannot escape anymore.

- As they float by the Fleming, they begin to beam its crew aboard.
QuoteRIKER: Data, what if we forced an EPS discharge through the impulse reactor - would that be enough to get us out of here?
DATA: I do not believe so, sir, and the resulting explosion would likely destroy the saucer section in the process.
I fucking love Riker.

- Geordi thinks we can surf out, which will look fucking wicked as well as saving everyone's lives. With the Fleming crew rescued, Geordi initiates SURF PROTOCOLS and, after a bit of "ooh fuck the ship might blow up", the Enterprise rides out of the anus and back into normal space.

- With warp now proved to be an absolute hazard, Picard sends the info to the Federation. Rabal gives a powerpoint presentation where he says they've got 40 years left before warp destroys the sector. Picard gets an email from the Federation which says that areas of space susceptible to this stuff will be restricted to essential travel only, and all Federation vessels everywhere are now legally required to go no higher than Warp 5, barring emergencies. Wow!

- They send the data to all species who have warp, and desperately hope they'll do something. Picard looks grimly out the window and regrets the immense damage he's done to space with his jet-setting warp-filled career. Geordi assures him that climate armageddon can be averted if someone does something about it.

Very obvious allegory for The Climate, and probably more relevant today than it's ever been, especially with the discussion about Serova's "extreme" methods being the only way to get anyone to take notice.

The message is good and when the plot actually gets going it's effective, but the episode has a strange first half full of very sedate, very meaningless stuff. Geordi and Data talking about cats?!

My favourite thing about this episode is something totally unintended - all Starfleet vessels are legally restricted to Warp 5. Kathryn Janeway is currently in the Alpha Quadrant, and will very obviously be aware of this law. As soon as Voyager ends up in the Delta Quadrant, though, she's just gunning it at Warp 6 and beyond, 24/7. I know the effect of one ship is negligible and any reasonable person would agree that Voyager's unique situation counts as an emergency, but I still love the idea that Janeway just discarded the law the instant she was out of Federation space, and proceeded to rip the absolute shit out of the Delta Quadrant's climate.

5/10


daf

160 | "Force of Nature"



Global Warping

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights
• Data's Cat Spot #6 : The Untrainable Under-Bed Sketch
• Geordi's Petty Interpid Engineer Rivalry
• Data's Cat Spot #7 : The Savage Spot Stun-Shot Sketch
• Furious Ferengi Fix-up Fiddle
• Data's Cat Spot #8 : The Tuna-Blouse Training Sketch
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Seething Science-Sibling Space-Saboteurs
• Extruded Subspace Carpet Rift Risk
• Data's Cat Spot #9 : The Ball of Wool Data-Conditioning Sketch
• Kamikazee Ka-BOOM!
• Wishy-Washy Warp 5 Slow Speed Solution
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

MojoJojo

What I hadn't remembered about this is that for the first half the warp drive problem is specifically about this weird bit of space the federation have set up a navigational passage through. Then after the woman blows herself up everyone talks about it as a universal problem.
If you take it as cannon as warp drives fuck stuff up, it becomes deeply problematic. Apart from the obvious never go faster than warp 5 rule, the fact it's demonstrated you can make a wobbly space anus by simply blowing up a warp core makes it a super weapon. Why bother mining the wormhole when you park a space anus on it? Romulans being dicks? Space anus on Romulus. Ferengi refuse to obey warp speed restrictions, risking creating more anuses? Space anus.

Given the weird shift from local to global problem, the amount of filler, and some weird choices (we don't see a single member of the crew of the Fleming, just a brief message that all 500 of them have been teleported across in a few minutes, despite them being the entire reason they were here), I did think that maybe originally it was going to be more about the planet, and them having to cut themselves off from the rest of the galaxy. Looking at memory alpha, it was a troubled episode but the stuff that was cut was Geordi's sister coming to talk about their dead mum. Which... yeah, probably  wouldn't have helped.

The cat stuff goes on too long and is annoying - Geordi says at the start something like "People say you can't train a cat, but I think those people are wrong" then 10 minutes later says "I think you just can't train a cat". Apparently the link between the A/B plots is cats are a force of nature and you can't control them. Ugggh. Then random Geordi competitive moment because someone realised that maybe having the entire B plot based on spot was too much.

I find it hard to rate, there's about 20 minutes of good stuff in it, and about 5 minutes of good filler stretched out to 15 minutes. Plus a discovery about warp drives that wrecks the universe.

Probably worth noting that environmental issue being alluded to, given the specifics of the holes and the time period it was made, isn't climate change but the depletion of the ozone layer.

crankshaft

Quote from: Lemming on May 19, 2022, 04:06:06 AMMy favourite thing about this episode is something totally unintended - all Starfleet vessels are legally restricted to Warp 5. Kathryn Janeway is currently in the Alpha Quadrant, and will very obviously be aware of this law. As soon as Voyager ends up in the Delta Quadrant, though, she's just gunning it at Warp 6 and beyond, 24/7. I know the effect of one ship is negligible and any reasonable person would agree that Voyager's unique situation counts as an emergency, but I still love the idea that Janeway just discarded the law the instant she was out of Federation space, and proceeded to rip the absolute shit out of the Delta Quadrant's climate.


I don't know if it's mentioned on screen in Voyager, but I think that was the idea behind the moving warp naecelles on the ship - the "variable geometry" meant they could create a warp field that didn't damage anything.

God, I've wasted my life.

Blumf

Quote from: crankshaft on May 19, 2022, 11:36:31 AMI don't know if it's mentioned on screen in Voyager, but I think that was the idea behind the moving warp naecelles on the ship - the "variable geometry" meant they could create a warp field that didn't damage anything.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Variable_geometry_pylon
QuoteAccording to the unpublished VOY Season 1 edition of the Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda, (p. 12) it was suggested that because of this new folding wing-and-nacelle configuration, warp fields might no longer have a negative impact on habitable worlds as established in TNG: "Force of Nature". According to Star Trek Encyclopedia (3rd ed., p. 555) these nacelles did in fact prevent damage to subspace. According to comments by Michael and Denise Okuda, when mentioning of the speed limit was abandoned a few years after "Force of Nature", it was assumed that newer ships, such as the USS Voyager and USS Defiant, had improved environmentally friendly warp drive systems, that did not cause damage to the spatial continuum.

Quote from: crankshaft on May 19, 2022, 11:36:31 AMGod, I've wasted my life.

Ah, you wouldn't have done anything good with it anyway.

MojoJojo

I think this sort of highlights the difficulty in including an environmental theme in an episodic show like TNG. You can't fix an environmental problem in the episode - that's not the nature of environmental problems. So you have to commit to everyone doing stuff differently afterwards.

Although in practice the problem is mostly ignored and everyone tries not to think about it, which I guess is pretty realistic.

Blumf

Quote from: MojoJojo on May 19, 2022, 11:24:58 AMWhat I hadn't remembered about this is that for the first half the warp drive problem is specifically about this weird bit of space the federation have set up a navigational passage through.

It's because that patch of space is particularly busy (it's the only navigable passage in that sector) and the sub-space damage has built up there more than most other places, but anywhere that has warp ships passing through builds up damage. It's all there in the PowerPoint presentation, showing the primary routes around the quadrant building up damage.

Lemming

Oh wow, didn't know about Voyager's special climate-friendly design. Makes sense since it's got the whole bioneural gel packs shit going on too, an innovation that seems to provide no advantages at all but does allow the ship to become ill and start malfunctioning on the regular.

Quote from: MojoJojo on May 19, 2022, 01:56:36 PMI think this sort of highlights the difficulty in including an environmental theme in an episodic show like TNG. You can't fix an environmental problem in the episode - that's not the nature of environmental problems. So you have to commit to everyone doing stuff differently afterwards.

Although in practice the problem is mostly ignored and everyone tries not to think about it, which I guess is pretty realistic.
I quite liked the boldness of a relatively low key mid-season episode making the decision to include something like this that casts all existing Star Trek in a new light. In that sense I suppose it does resemble real climate issues - the entire setting is based on warp and there's no immediately clear alternative that can achieve the same thing on the same scale, and nobody's willing to stop using warp completely, so everyone's kind of stuck just trying to slow the damage while desperately hoping someone eventually figures out a better way.

Also liked the discussion at the end about how the Federation will make a half-arsed token effort to do something, but the Ferengi, Romulans, Cardassians etc might just ignore the whole thing and keep zooming around at Warp 9.

Wonderful Butternut

I love the start of this when Geordi has a cat in a confined space that's unfamiliar to her, and then wonders why she's bored and aggressive. I appreciate he can't expand his quarters, but he could've at least replicated a couple of toys and a scratching post. And he then complains he's being hissed at for cornering her too.

Picard lets this guy look after the warp core, you know.

It's a shame they effectively just ditch the Climate Change allegory from the lore entirely shortly after this. After Intrepid-class ships, variable geometry nacelles to fix it don't re-appear. I think there's more off screen handwaving about how they fixed warp drive without even needing to do that anymore.


MojoJojo

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on May 19, 2022, 05:45:24 PMIt's a shame they effectively just ditch the Climate Change allegory from the lore entirely shortly after this.

I suppose it makes sense that we now assume it's about climate change, since it seems hopeless, when it was actually about a problem that got fixed through diplomacy so we've forgotten about now.

Perhaps a reminder there sometimes things do get better.

Lemming

S07E10 - Inheritance

Data meets a woman who claims to be his mother.

- And we're off to Atrea, a planet that's about to get ripped to pieces by earthquakes. As seen in "Pen Pals", standard procedure for Picard would be to sit there wanking while watching it blow up and allowing billions to die, but these guys are warp-capable, so we'll help instead.

- Geordi and Data are going to shoot the planet's core with plasma which'll do something or other, to positive effect. At the end of the briefing, one of the Atrean scientists, a human called Juliana Tainor, asks Data if he recognises her. He doesn't, and she says she assisted in his creation, and was once the wife of Dr Soong. It's Data's mother!

- They go for pissy drinks in Ten Forward (appears to literally be piss in their mugs), and Data says he can't remember her. She says that's because his memory banks were cleared before the colonists' journals were downloaded to him. They didn't get a chance to turn him back on before the Crystalline Entity showed up to vaporise everyone. Data says there's only one Juliana in his memory, and she says that's her, but her name was different.

- Data recounts his mind-numbing meeting with Soong and informs Juliana that Soong is dead, then bails out when she starts getting all affectionate. It's time to CORROBORATE HER TALE.

- He tries to follow a paper trail to see if anything she said was true, but can't find anything concrete. Geordi says it's probably all above board, and that the reason Soong never mentioned Juliana is because she broke his heart. Based on Geordi's ace advice, Data returns to Ten Forward to accept Juliana as his mother.

- Juliana wanted to make Data appear female (excellent idea), while Soong insisted on making him male and identical to himself (ludicrous idea). She bids him goodnight after implying that he's going to fuck Troi. Comedy of errors!

- The next day, Data and Juliana work on the plasma-core plan. What was up with the microphone here? Juliana's voice is like, pure bass! I thought I'd hit something on my soundcard control panel at first. Anyway, she said Data walked around with his fully-functional knob out after he was first created, spooking the colonists.

- The Enterprise fires the plasma beam and saves the day. With the Enterprise's funky groovy flexi-work unstructured schedule, Data can just stop work for the day now. He gives Juliana a violin concert in his quarters. Giving him the creativity subroutines was her idea, so it's all her fault we've had to sit through like three hours of violin stuff over the course of TNG.

- Juliana finds a painting of Lal, and Data relates the story of The Offspring. They have a dual violin concert in Ten Forward (empty for some reason) but Juliana is distracted, and asks Data if he'll ever try to make another android. She warns him against it, because creating a positronic matrix that doesn't go to shit instantly is really tough. Before Data and Lore, there were three others, whose heads all burst from being shitly designed.

- As long as the emotional revelations are rolling, she admits that she intentionally abandoned Data on Omicron Theta, because she was freaked out that he might end up all evil like Lore.

- The next day, Data and Juliana go down into one of the planet's magma pockets to set up THE STABILISER or whatever it is. I honestly can't actually follow the science plot on this one. Anyway they have it out over Juliana's confession again.

- All is forgiven for the BIG VIOLIN CONCERT. Afterwards, Data goes to Bev and asks for Juliana's medical records, which Bev gives in a CRITICAL breach of Doc-Patient Confidentiality. He says that he doesn't believe she is who she says she is, and wants proof. They're interrupted when THE STABILISER goes fuckwards and forces Data and Juliana to beam down to repair it.

- The styrofoam cave they're in is collapsing! They work to fix THE STABILISER while Riker calls them to tell them they're gonna fucking die soon. Why's Riker in command, by the way? He has been for like, three days, but Picard is still aboard the ship, because he was at the violin thing.

- They have to go down a massive cliff to repair the pattern enhancers to escape. Juliana (correctly) points out that she won't survive a fall of that distance, but Data assures her she will and like bodyslams her off. Has to be seen to be believed.

- When she hits the ground, she's KO'd, but also her arm flies off! She's a robot! Putting aside this big twist, she hit the ground with enough force for this to happen. What the fuck was Data trying to do? If Juliana had actually been human, surely this would have been instantly fatal?

- Back on the ship, Geordi checks her positronic brain out. She's a Soong-type android but vastly better than Data in literally all ways - tear ducts, veins, sweat glands, and also can actually pass as human without doing stupid shit like jerking her head back and forth constantly and going "ah yes, this is the human experience known as 'humour'" and other shit Data does. Data says he already suspected this after noticing weird android-y shit about her.

- There's a data drive in her brain which Data plugs into the holodeck. It's holo-Soong! He says that the JULIANABOT was created in the image of a real Juliana, who did actually assist in Data's creation. The Crystalline Entity injured her (how?! the planet-annihilating death ray just glanced her?) and died a bit afterwards. Soong took her memories and put them into a positronic matrix, which JULIANABOT runs on.

- Soong continued to live with JULIANABOT and never told her that she was a robot. You'd think she'd notice at some point. Anyway, the rest of JULIANABOT's story is true - she did leave Soong because he's such a dickhead. JULIANABOT was designed to shut down in the event that she discovered she was an android.

- Data now must decide whether or not to tell Juliana the truth. Soong didn't want her to know the truth, and wished that she should grow old believing she's a human. Troi says to withhold the truth. Don't book Troi as a therapist!

- Picard manages to shrug off the whole thing by smoothly saying it's Data's choice to make. JULIANABOT awakens later when Data plugs her brain back in. Data elects not to tell her the truth, and Picard, having washed his hands of the whole deal, reports the big success of the plasma plan in his log while Data and an oblivious JULIANABOT say goodbye.

Another very low-energy episode that just sort of shambles to the finish line.

The big draw of the episode is Data's dilemma at the end, but I think I disagree with the writers. I don't really see how it's Data's decision. Isn't it Bev's, if JULIANABOT is considered a sentient lifeform in Federation law, making her Bev's patient? And everyone hiding the truth from her feels pretty dodgy to me. That said, I don't even understand how they actually have the option of telling her, given that three seconds earlier we're told she shuts down if she learns the truth. Did Geordi remove that feature or something?

Regardless though I just don't really buy the premise. It's insane that she doesn't realise she's an android. Does she have a fully-functioning bladder and bowels, then? She has realistic, bleeding flesh, until the point at which her arm suddenly turns into a tube of metal with flashing lights? Her eyes are totally identical to real eyes and hurt like hell if she accidentally pokes herself? She can feel pain? She gains and loses weight, her hair grows, her body ages, she gets ill? All of these must be true, otherwise she'd be shutting down and having the auto-memory-wipe kick in every 5 seconds. How was such a body created? Why is Data so crap in comparison, despite being made only shortly beforehand? (Let's forget, as usual, that androids of JULIANABOT quality existed a century earlier in TOS' "What Are Little Girls Made Of?")

And that's not to mention the myriad ways she could be detected by others - she "sends out a false biosignature" to trick medical scanners, but like... surely transporter chiefs would notice they're teleporting something that's synthetic? Surely anyone who picks her up or bumps into her at any point would notice her arm is made of rock-hard metal? Does she weigh the same as a human? And she's got a husband, by the way! Has he never noticed anything a bit off in all the time he's spent with her? And, by the way, he's totally absent from the dilemma at the end - even if we choose (wrongly, IMO) to withhold the truth from JULIANABOT, what about her gormless I-dont-know-my-wife's-a-robot husband? We're just not going to tell him, or bring him into this in any way?

I know Star Trek fans have an annoying tendency to subject scripts to unfair scrutiny, but I feel like this premise really is just too far out. It would be easy to forgive if it was all in the service of a good plot, but this episode doesn't really offer much other than a bit of backstory for Data.

It also makes TNG's AI sentience debate even shakier - now that something as convincing as JULIANABOT exists, what does that mean for Data? Data's sentience was essentially granted on him being the most convincing AI to date (even though he wasn't), but now the JULIANABOT is here, surely that throws everything into disarray? Data is outright janky by comparison. He is to JULIANABOT what today's real-world GPT-3 is to Data. If an outdated jank-o-matic android like Data is sentient based on existing law, will they go back and add other less "sophisticated" AI to the "legally sentient" category?

But yeah, even putting aside all that, the episode just feels quite dull and lethargic. 3/10


MojoJojo

I think it was good, if low energy. Sure, her being a robot raises a lot of questions, but that's just the ending. Data choses to maintain the status quo, and then the credits role and no one talks about it ever again.

It's mostly the revelations from Data's childhood that are interesting. With the revelation she deliberately abandoned him, I wonder if they were trying to recreate the idea of an adopted person meeting their birth mother. Unknown siblings (dead, in this case), embarrassing baby stories, guilt about leaving them. Topped off by the revelation they weren't really his mum.

If they were going for that they didn't quite get it.

Blumf

I suppose she counts as Data's Mother-Sister, so he would have family interest in what to reveal to her. But unseen hubby should have some input too, at least explain to him why she keeps on blurting out stuff about "PC Load Letter". Probably would have been better to scrub him from the story. Then you have bio-Juliana's wider family, would they be officially of no relevance because she died? Even if practically, she's still about.

But mostly it seems like it's either let her live in ignorance, or shut her down (i.e. kill her)


Quote from: Lemming on May 23, 2022, 03:45:43 AMt also makes TNG's AI sentience debate even shakier - now that something as convincing as JULIANABOT exists, what does that mean for Data? Data's sentience was essentially granted on him being the most convincing AI to date (even though he wasn't), but now the JULIANABOT is here, surely that throws everything into disarray? Data is outright janky by comparison. He is to JULIANABOT what today's real-world GPT-3 is to Data. If an outdated jank-o-matic android like Data is sentient based on existing law, will they go back and add other less "sophisticated" AI to the "legally sentient" category?

Problematic, mate! That'd be like saying someone with Tourettes or a learning disorder isn't a worthy human.

As much as Picard is a dick for letting entire pre-warp civilisations die, you're worse. Like, as bad as three Picards!

daf

161 | "Inheritance"



The Mummy Returns

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights
• The Anatomically correct Robo-Cock Modesty-Subroutine Sketch
• The Three Pre-Lore Bro-Bombshell!!
• The Ten-Forward Facsimile Fiddle-Fingers Tip-off
• Sherlock Droid Investigates : "The Medical Records Mysteries"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Reliquifying the Magma Maguffin
• Collapsing Cave Crisis
• Hello Holo-Noonian!
• Keeping Mum : The Robo-Revelation Responsiblity-Wrestle
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

Lemming

S07E11 - Parallels

Worf begins to hop between realities, and must find a way home.

- Worf managed to get some time off for a BIG BAT'LETH TOURNAMENT. He returns to the ship in mortal terror of the surprise birthday party that his best mate Riker will inevitably throw for him.

-
Ensign Gates is invited! She's made it into the bridge crew clique at last! Don't recognise those two guys on the right though.

- Worf gets mardy as fuck while everyone rejoices around him. Bev refers to him as "the birthday boy" and gives him a weedy little knife to cut the cake. From the mighty Bat'leth to this. The dishonour is crushing.

- Data's gifted him a painting.


- "Nice. The Battle of Haros, right?" genuinely nearly killed me, proper belly laugh.

- Picard sends his apologies for not being able to attend. Then is SUDDENLY IN THE ROOM. Red alert, shields up, emergency, contact sickbay, contact Starfleet, all stop, reverse course, order self-destruct.

- Nah, Worf doesn't think anything of it. Later, the Enterprise is checking out an array. Worf and Troi take the opportunity to bunk off work and talk about Alexander's hugely disappointing progress in Ten Forward. Worf admits that Troi has been like a mother to Alexander. He invites her to become Alexander's SOH-CHLM, aka adoptive mother. This gives her the highest level of HONOUR any Betazoid has ever attained, and adds her and Lwaxana to the HOUSE OF MOGH.

- The array seems to be spying on the Federation. The Cardies are the prime suspects, but before he can launch a FULL-SCALE SECURITY INVESTIGATION, Worf gets dizzy and nearly blacks out. When he recocvers, Geordi and Data have switched places. After seven years of this kind of shit, Worf finally has enough sense to tell someone, and goes to Bev. She says that it's a result of his concussion, which she examined earlier, and which he incurred as a result of losing the Bat'leth tournament. This is ALL WRONG, so he rushes to his quarters to show Bev his Biggest Boy trophy from the contest, but it's turned into a ninth place trophy. DISHONOUR

- His personal log has changed as well to reflect this. Bev still reckons it's all because of his head injury, and tells him to chill out. What a dork! On this ship it's much more likely that he's been hit by a weird space ray that's shooting him through realities.

- Worf seemingly ignores Bev's advice and goes straight to the bridge. A Cardassian ship shows up and the captain has it out with Picard, and warns the Federation not to use the array to spy on them. Worf suggests that the Cardies reprogrammed the array, but in this universe, the earlier discussion never happened, and Worf looks like a crazy bastard right there on the bridge. He (wisely) goes to Troi, who's wearing some kind of party gear even though the party was like a day ago. He goes dizzy again and when he recovers, Data's fantastic painting has moved to the other side of the room. Then it changes to a totally diff painting, and Troi's clothes change too!

- He passes out again and finds himself on the bridge, with Picard barking orders at him while a Cardie ship approaches. Having just quantum leapt into himself, he has no idea what to do, and the Enterprise gets blasted. Riker takes over at tactical (oh god) and fires three photon torpedos, which the Cardie ship takes on the chin. Have they nerfed the power of photon torpedoes? Those things just wrecked everything in TOS.

- Geordi's been plasma burn'd because of Worf's failure to act. He goes to his quarters to hide and avoid fucking anything else up, and finds flowers. Checking his log (phwoar), Worf finds that in this universe, he didn't get the time off to enter the tournament. Shit gets even weirder when Troi enters and makes herself right at home. She undoes his ponytail, releasing his EXQUISITE HAIR, and starts rubbing his shoulders. Shock! He warns her off for her INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR and she reveals that she's his wife in this universe!

-

- Worf tells her that he's tripping through space and time. She says she'll help him find out what's happening, and they go to Data, who does a NO HOLDS BARRED MEGA-SCAN for strange space shit. Data tells Worf about his history with Troi in this universe, and reveals that they fell in love after Worf's laugh-out-loud slapstick spinal injury in "Ethics". Data's eyes are also blue, by the way.

- They reason that it's all Geordi's fault, because he was near Worf whenever the reality breaks happened. They go to sickbay, where Bev (poor quality doctor) has been replaced by CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER OGAWA (excellent doctor). Sadly, Geordi has died of his injuries. Ogawa, being a real doctor and not just an old mate of Picard who wandered onto the ship, suggests that Geordi's VISOR could be the culprit. As soon as it's booted up, Worf finds himself in a new universe, where, sadly, Bev is back.

- Massive shoutout to the Paramount props department for securing this superb Knob-Cover for LeVar Burton.


- We're on the back foot again now because in this universe Bev just looks around gormlessly, unlike good old professional Ogawa. Even worse news, though - guess who's the captain.

- Captain Riker squints as he desperately tries to process more than three words at a time while Data explains that Worf's being fucked to pieces by QUANTUM SPACE. Riker achieved captaincy status when Picard died in Best of Both Worlds (which I still maintain would have been the more interesting route for TNG to take...).

- Wes alert! It's Wes! It's fucking Wes! Wes! Fucking hell, there's Wes! It's Wes! Wes! Look, it's Wes!

- Data bores everyone in the briefing room with his jabbering about quantum stuff. The gist is that Worf stupidly drove into a quantum fissure and now he's being thrown through realities, which is triggered by Geordi's VISOR. Good old Wes comes up with the solution in like three seconds and prepares to help Worf return to his original reality.

- In private, Troi tells Worf that she's devastated that her Worf may not return, and that there's a reality out there in which he never loved her. ;( He also finds out that he and Troi have bred like fucking rabbits and have had two kids in three years, although Alexander doesn't exist in this reality.

- The Enterprise fires the WES-BEAM into the quantum fissure which does something or other. However, a Bajoran ship is approaching. In this reality, they overpowered the Cardassian Empire (LOL) and are now crazy hostile bastards. The Enterprise, under Riker's command, is thoroughly bested by a fucking Bajoran ship. The WES-BEAM goes apeshit and many Enterprises spill out of the fissure. Riker looks baffled as tens of Enterprises pop into view.

- "Captain, we are receiving 285,000 hails."

- Data comes up with some bullshit plan that will send all the Enterprises back to where they belong. Troi gives him a Sad Goodbye and he kisses her before leaving.

- Behold, Captain Riker!

All jokes aside, I really like this plot point. If you don't remember, it's basically this: that Riker there is from a universe where the Borg have taken over, and that Riker desperately attacks the Enterprise in an attempt to avoid being sent back. That's a really horrific dilemma but it's just like, five seconds tacked on to the end of this episode. You could make a whole hour-long story about that. I guess it kind of echoes "Yesterday's Enterprise", but seems a bit more interesting to me.

- Worf returns to regular reality, but there's no surprise party this time. Troi enters and Worf confirms that no, they're not married in this universe. As she's about to leave, he asks her to hang out with him for his honourbound birthday dinner. Love is in the air!

Well here's an obvious question - is he actually back in his own reality? Why didn't the surprise party happen? I might be dense, did he experience dizziness at the very start prior to attending the party, meaning that the party itself took place in a non-prime universe? I dunno.

Anyway this is a lot of fun, very effective use of comedy in an otherwise fairly straight dramatic sci-fi plot. The big thing is the Worf/Troi relationship. In theory, I really like what this episode does, because I love sci-fi stories that feature ideas like two people who somehow always end up together, even across realities and timelines, as if united by fate. That's what they indicate with Worf and Troi here, except these two characters have had no romantic chemistry at all before now! It's like the Bev/Picard stuff in "Attached" but even more out of the blue. To the episode's credit, it makes a heroic attempt to indicate a running romantic arc by referring back to Worf's trust in Troi in "Ethics" and the various episodes like "New Ground" in which Troi played a crucial role in helping Worf with Alexander, but IMO there was never a romantic aspect there, just respect and friendship.

So not a fan of the Worf/Troi relationship overall, but for the purposes of this one episode, it works well enough. And I don't suppose there's really any other two characters who would have worked - Picard or Bev would have been fairly dull in the Worf role here. You know, actually, they could probably have got a great episode out of having Riker be the one to skip realities, because he's already been established to have some kind of possibly-supernatural link with Troi (remember when she telepathically projects the word "Imzadi" into his mind all the way back in Farpoint? and when she realised she and Thomas Riker might have been somehow connecting to each other through dreams and wishes in "Second Chances"?), and watching Riker panic like a frightened goose is always a good time.

But they chose Worf and inexplicably decided to start a Worf/Troi romance that ultimately never goes anywhere, IIRC. It's alright, the episode in isolation is still good stuff.

7/10

MojoJojo

Quote from: Lemming on May 27, 2022, 04:55:12 AMWell here's an obvious question - is he actually back in his own reality? Why didn't the surprise party happen? I might be dense, did he experience dizziness at the very start prior to attending the party, meaning that the party itself took place in a non-prime universe? I dunno.

Yeah, that confused me. Your explanation works well.

I rate this one much like you have for a change. Still has that weird calmness that pervades Season 7 and if it had been an earlier season we'd have a had scene with Worf going all crazy and insisting he isn't mad. No one seems to give much of shit about Geordi dying either.

The Troi stuff I think works well precisely because it's not hinted at in the main universe. They have a scene at the start where Worf is asking Troi something, and she's obviously worried he's going to ask her to be his mate, but then he asks her to be his adoptive sister instead. It's a wow isn't stuff crazy in this parallel universe thing, and it gets played for laughs. If there was some tension between them before it becomes a bittersweet thing instead.

Really liked all the Enterprises turning up, I know they've done similar stuff before but it caught me by surprise. Also found the line about the Bajorans withdrawing funny. I really thought when they were trying to find the original Enterprise, they were going to ask "Did any of your Worf's win a Bat'leth competition?", implying there was only of universe where that could happen.

daf

162 | "Parallels"



Alt. Worf States

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights
• Prickly Pudding Prize
• For He's a Jolly Worf Fellow
• Troible in the Massage Centre
• Sherlock Droid Investigates : "The First Coupling Mysteries"
• Lieutenant Wesley!!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• 9th Place Prize Puzzler
• Captain Riker's Background 'Bone
• The Data Eyeball Pigment Clue
• Exponential Enterprise Emergence Expansion
• Weirdo-Beardo Borg-Blasted Captain Riker
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

Blumf

Quote from: Lemming on May 27, 2022, 04:55:12 AM
All jokes aside, I really like this plot point. If you don't remember, it's basically this: that Riker there is from a universe where the Borg have taken over, and that Riker desperately attacks the Enterprise in an attempt to avoid being sent back.

"Riker, you don't understand, in this universe Wesley is still on board!"
"Fuck that!! Send me back to the Borg universe, now!"


I like this episode, Worf dealing with the party and unexpected Troi relations is great fun. And the full on thousands of Enterprises climax is brilliant. Think it rates as one of my favourite episodes of the whole show.

Mobbd

This is one of my favourite episodes. It's a 10/10 from me.

I remember Mike Stoklasa saying he didn't like this one; that the invention of a multiverse in Star Trek (thus finding that the Prime timeline isn't unique or special) was like finding out your main character was a robot all along. (This was pre-Picard!)

Strongly disagreed with Mike there. As well as just being excellent fun, the Trek multiverse makes the Prime timeline unique and special. Because it's the one we're supposed to be in.

Glebe

Just watched the 1992 episode 'The Perfect Mate' on Pick TV, it features Famke Janssen wooing Picard... her character actually describes herself as being a 'mutant', of course Janssen and Patrick Steward would reunite eight years later in the first X-Men movie.

Also thought Ian 'Emperor Palpatine' Mcdiarmid was in the episode but it's not him!

Lemming

S07E12 - The Pegasus

Riker's old captain returns and embroils him in a secret mission which tests his loyalties.

- It's CAPTAIN PICARD DAY, which Picard correctly identifies as an embarassing waste of time and energy. Picard has to pick the best of the bunch of a pile of awful artwork of himself submitted by the Enterprise's innumerable child population.

- An admiral calls and tells Picard he's allowed to destroy space with warp drive for the sake of a super-special assignment with Starfleet Intelligence. At the rendevouz point, Admiral Pressman beams aboard, Riker's old captain!

- The Romulans have found out about the ship that Pressman and Riker served on together, the Pegasus. This is not on, so the Enterprise has to haul ass to get there first. Riker makes it absolutely clear that there's a bit of deception underway by constantly looking at Pressman with the expression of a deer in the headlights.

- A Romulan ship arrives and its commander, Sivol, contacts Picard and starts the usual passive-aggressive dick measuring contest. Nobody knows where the Pegashit actually is, so both ships begin a mad dash to scan the area.

- Pressman and Riker sit in Ten Forward, which is absolutely packed. With people sat about an inch away from him, Riker begins talking loudly about THE EXPERIMENT that destroyed the Pegasus. Pressman, also in earshot of like twenty people, assures Riker that they did the right thing in attempting and then covering up THE EXPERIMENT. His hope is that THE EXPERIMENT can be recovered from the Pegasus, and he's got Starfleet Security's backing, but the mission must be kept top secret from the rest of the Enterprise crew.

- After seven long seasons, Picard finally makes an attempt to justify what the fuck was running through his mind when he picked Riker as his first officer. Apparently, he was going through dossiers and saw that Riker disobeyed direct orders on a previous ship and stood his ground in the face of immense pressure. Picard admired this and thought that Riker would be the ideal first officer, someone who'd stand up to him and challenge him. Bet Picard was disappointed when Riker spent seven years sitting in a comfy chair and agreeing with him.

- Geordi finds the Pegasus, which is inside an asteroid. The Romulans start coming over to check it out, and Riker hastily argues that they should just blow the asteroid up and the Pegasus with it. Pressman tells him to fuck off, so Geordi comes up with some technobabble solution to mess with the Romulans' sensor readings. Everyone on the bridge shits themselves as they watch to see if the plan will work. It does, and the Romulans fly off. Picard plans to return tomorrow morning to go nosing around for the Pegasus again.

- Pressman takes Riker aside to yell at him over the "destroy the Pegasus" thing. Riker snaps back at him, and Pressman congratulates him on his change in character. He's gone from being a silly yes-man to a confident individual who stands up for his beliefs. I assume this change happened between the previous episode and this one, because it definitely hasn't happened at any point over Riker's career on the Enterprise.

- Picard's eating some weird shit in his room and calls Riker in. He's been a nosey fuck and looked into the story of the Pegasus, and discovered there was a mutiny right before the destruction of the ship. He demands that Riker explain why he never mentioned this, and what happened. Riker tells him that they were running tests on the engines which backfired and blew engineering up. After this, the bridge crew mutinied, and Riker rushed to Pressman's aid. They scurried off the ship, which then blew up. Turns out the judge advocate also thought Riker was engaged in a COVERUP. Picard starts getting stroppy with him and Riker says that he can't say anything else, under direct orders from Pressman.

- Because of science, you can't transport or take a shuttle into the asteroid. Pressman orders that the Enterprise be flown in. Picard impotently files an OFFICIAL OBJECTION, and then does as Pressman asks.

- ENSIGN GATES SPEAKS ON-SCREEN

- The Enterprise (containing nursery full of kids) enters the asteroid, where it may be ripped apart by scary ion shit at any moment. It starts getting shook around all over the place. Picard says that he'll turn the ship right back around any minute now! He'll stand up for the safety of the ship any second now! The Enterprise continues its journey and finds the Pegasus, partially stuck inside the actual asteroid itself. Data's stumped.

- Ahaha! Picard prepares his away team, but Pressman overrules him and says that only he and Riker will be going down to the Pegasus. Look at Picard raging!


- Riker and Pressman materialise on the Pegashit, which is spooky and dark. Because the room was exposed to a vacuum for ages, the crew's corpses are intact. Riker starts getting upset at the horror, while Pressman The Dick continues his single-minded quest to recover THE EXPERIMENT.

- Pressman gets a raging boner as he locates THE EXPERIMENT. But Riker says he won't allow THE EXPERIMENT to be started again. Pressman blames the tragedy on the mutineers failing to operate THE EXPERIMENT properly, but Riker reckons THE EXPERIMENT itself is responsible, and says that if he could relive the past, he'd join the mutineers. Turns out the mutiny actually happened because THE EXPERIMENT is a cloaking device, and its development was in violation of a treaty that Starfleet signed with the Rommies.

- Speaking of which, the Romulans start shooting at the asteroid. Pressman recovers THE EXPERIMENT and calls for extraction, and they return to the Enterprise. Romulan weapons fire has sealed the entrance to the asteroid and trapped the Enterprise (and nursery) inside!

- Sivol calls and offers to rescue the Enterprise from their predicament, by taking the crew aboard his own ship where they'll be processed on Romulus and then sent home. How the fuck? There's like, over a thousand people on this ship, because we stupidly bring children and loads of civilians with us. Would we even fit on the warbird?

- Sivol's offer is considered unviable anyway, because they'd have to ditch the Enterprise and the Pegasus, meaning the Romulans would get both and learn their secrets, giving them top secret Federation technology such as automatic doors and comfy chairs.

- Worf wants to blast his way out until Data points out that it'd fucking kill everyone. Riker tells Picard, and the whole bridge, about the Pegasus' cloaking device, and says they could use it to escape. Picard is horrified at the Federation's devious breach of the Treaty of Algernon, so named because of that one mouse. Pressman gets in a mood and says that the treaty sucks, then has a big meltdown and tries to take command. Nobody on the bridge crew bothers to listen to him, so he just stands there looking dumb.

- Riker explains that THE EXPERIMENT can change the physical properties of the Enterprise and allow it to pass through the asteroid and back into normal space. Data gets to work on adapting it for the Enterprise while the kids on the nursery scream and shit themselves.

- Hours later, THE EXPERIMENT is ready to go. The Enterprise goes into PRESSMAN MODE and phases through the asteroid successfully. Picard orders that they decloak in front of the Romulans, and reveal the truth to them. He also arrests Pressman for being a right bastard. Riker voluntarily places himself under arrest. Pressman talks about his MANY FRIENDS AT STARFLEET COMMAND as he's led off the bridge.

- Picard comes to visit Riker in the brig. He's talked to Admiral Shanthi (the same admiral from "Redemption"!) and she's advised him that Pressman and his conspirators are to be court-martialled. Riker will also be investigated, but because everyone in the future is nice, they'll recognise that he did the right thing in the end and let him off. He's allowed back on duty right away, even though he's under investigation!

It's a solid plot with some good ideas, and I like the explanation as to why the Federation doesn't have cloak technology (I think this is the first time it's addressed).

As I mentioned, it's an episode about Riker's development as a person, but it didn't feel to me like Riker was portrayed accurately. "Second Chances" was a superb episode about how Riker had had his humanity and passion ground down by years of careerism, and "BoBW" had a fairly convincing plot about how he'd become complacent and lazy and got a shock from meeting Shelby, someone who embodied all the traits he'd lost. But here, we're told that Riker is now assertive, confident and not scared to speak his mind, which is like, the opposite of what we're normally told and shown about him. This is the nature of episodic TV with tons of different writers, I suppose, but Riker doesn't even come across as assertive within the confines of this episode. He's as much of a bumbling basket case as usual until he finally stands up for his morals aboard the Pegasus.

The episode's big downfall though is that Pressman is so fucking funny that it's impossible to take the entire plot seriously. No fault of the actor (he's that guy who you've seen in everything), who does a heroic job at trying to really breathe life into the character, but the writing is just not there. Pressman's a pantomime villain in the style of the worst TNG antagonists, and every time he's on screen you're struggling not to laugh. DAMNIT WILL, THESE MUTINOUS COWARDS COULDN'T SEE WHAT I WAS TRYING TO DO! I HAVE A LOT OF FRIENDS AT STARFLEET COMMAND!

This is a real critical weakness for the episode, because Pressman is so comical and his case is put across so badly that you can't really see his side of the argument at all, nor can you understand why Riker would ever have admired him or agreed to participate in a coverup for him, even within the context of Riker being a scared ensign at the time. All the episode needed to really work is for Pressman to be as cool-headed as Picard is, and to put across a convincing case for why the Federation should have cloaking technology, give examples of how not doing so puts them at a disadvantage, try to really convince both Riker and the viewers that violating the treaty is justifiable. Instead, you're not really given any reason to agree with Pressman, and the result is that Riker looks like an indecisive fool getting shoved around by a dimwitted playground bully until finally turning around and doing what is very obviously and unambiguously the right thing.

But as it stands I have a tough time figuring out what the episode's about - there's no moral dilemma regarding the ethics of THE EXPERIMENT because Pressman is an unreasonable loon who's got no convincing arguments for his position, and the Riker character stuff feels contradictory and thin, especially coming relatively soon after the great "Second Chances". It is, however, a cool mystery story that builds tension very nicely.

6/10


I feel like I'm rating it a bit low there, could go up to a 7/10. Again, I like the story a lot and a lot of the character moments are really good.

daf

163 | "The Pegasus"



Carry On Up The Asteroid

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights
• Captain Picard Day
• Riker's Puppet Picard Sketch
• Riker's Rib-bruising Bendy Bat'leth Battle
• Admiral Arsehole's Mystery Mutiny Meltdown
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Ensign Babyface
• Riker's Leg-over Chair-Vault #6 : Ten Forward (Obscured By Crowds)
• Riker : "Destroy the asteroid!!!"
• Treaty Trashing Phasing Cloak
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

MojoJojo

I remember enjoying this one more than I did this time. I do hope that papier mache Picard bust still exists.

I think the thing that bugs me is that original mutiny was because the crew thought the ship was being endangered, so Riker rebelling now because of the treaty doesn't resolve that. It's two separate decisions. Meh, I suspect if Pressman had been better written it would hold together.

Other niggles that would be overlooked in a better episode:

-they immediately fly towards the meteorite when they detect the Pegasus, stupidly tipping their hand to the Romulans
-in fact their very presence has probably screwed their informant. Possibly necessary, but feels like it should be acknowledged.
-just a huge lack of curiosity about the Pegasus reappearing. No puzzled "huh" or questioning of a blown up ship being found.
-the bodies on the Pegasus - these are people Riker and Pressman knew. It feels weird that Riker at least didn't name them.
-they plug the experimental phase shifter device into the enterprise right next a ship full of people it killed. And didn't seem to question whether this was a good idea (although I may have missed it, interest was low).

The exterior shots of the Pegasus embedded in rock deserve a mention for being cool.

Lemming

Quote from: MojoJojo on May 30, 2022, 04:28:35 PM-they plug the experimental phase shifter device into the enterprise right next a ship full of people it killed. And didn't seem to question whether this was a good idea (although I may have missed it, interest was low).

Yeah, this was confusing - on board the ruins of the Pegasus, Riker's main reason for rebelling against Pressman is that THE EXPERIMENT killed so many people last time:
QuoteRIKER: That's all you care about, starting these damn experiments again. Look around. This room is filled with dead bodies. These people died because of this thing.
PRESSMAN: Keep your self-righteous comments to yourself. I knew most of these people a lot longer than you did. Yes, it was tragic, but it was their fault.
RIKER: You don't know that. Neither of us knows what happened after we left.
PRESSMAN: Well, it's not hard to guess. They tried to shut down an experiment they didn't understand. Something went wrong and it killed them.
RIKER: No. We killed them.
Then, a few lines later:
QuoteRIKER: They were brave enough to risk their lives to stop you from violating a treaty the Federation signed in good faith.
PRESSMAN: That treaty has bound our hands and given the Romulans a tactical advantage for the last sixty years. I was simply trying to level the playing field.
RIKER: And now you want to try it again? How many people will die this time? Fifty? A hundred? A thousand?
It's kind of hard to actually tell what bothers him about THE EXPERIMENT, he sort of swings between "this is wrong because it violates a treaty" and "this is wrong because our crew died as a result of it malfunctioning". The latter criticism doesn't make a great deal of sense to me, since people die from experimental technology and encounters with weird shit all the time in Starfleet. The argument that it's immoral because it's in violation of the treaty is obviously the much stronger argument, but Riker sort of flirts with that point before ending up focusing on the deaths of the Pegasus crew.

But only Riker and Pressman have this conversation. When Riker returns to the bridge, he says "we can use the thing that killed the Pegasus on ourselves", and Picard's like "ooh yeah". I guess we're meant to be on board with the risk because the thought of the Romulans accessing THE ENTERPRISE'S SECRETS (such as Troi's personal logs and Riker's saxophone) is too horrific to consider, and the deaths of the entire crew + nursery kids is more palatable.

Geordi has one fairly relaxed line about how the cloak could blow out the plasma relays if it runs too hot. It's not clear what this'd actually do, but Riker says that he thinks the same thing happened on the Pegasus, which then drifted (still cloaked) into the asteroid, at which point the cloak somehow failed and the ship rematerialised like that. So I guess if the plasma relays are fucked, you just get stuck in cloak until the most comically inopportune and unlikely moment for it to fail, at which point it fails.

Wonderful Butternut

10/10 episode until you watch "These Are the Voyages" which corrupts it forever. Any time Riker is not onscreen he's watching holographic Trip Tucker die or telling Troi what really happened and she doesn't fucking do anything about it.

0/10.

Quote from: MojoJojo on May 30, 2022, 04:28:35 PMI remember enjoying this one more than I did this time. I do hope that papier mache Picard bust still exists.

Is it one of the "Easter Eggs" in his quantum storage locker in Picard?