Future Imperfect

Discussion in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' started by Photon, Jan 15, 2012.

  1. The Castellan

    The Castellan Commodore Commodore

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    Would have been nice, since those fellows were a subject of interest I was always into.:cool:
     
  2. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    For the sake of completeness, Data mentions contractions in two scenes of The Offspring. From http://www.chakoteya.net/NextGen/164.htm:

    and
     
  3. davejames

    davejames Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Ha, just put this one in last night. Still a very strong episode, although I can't help but wonder why there would be such a severe time lag when it was really Barash's advanced alien tech that was reading Riker's mind and not the Romulans. Especially when you consider all the other tiny details the simulation got right.

    Even if Riker's memory WAS effected, you'd think the alien tech could at least improvise a few things and not be so transparently obvious.


    Other observations I had:
    --Wow, were those some ridiculous looking Romulan uniforms. They might have looked fairly intimidating on the viewscreen, but watching Tomalak walk around in that thing made it really hard to take him seriously.
    --That was some VERY unconvincing gray they put in all the actors' hair. It's amazing to me that they couldn't have done a better job than that, and I imagine it'll only be more distracting in HD.
    --Also a shame that such a great episode had to end with what looks like a kid wearing a bad Halloween costume. Would have been a much stronger ending if he remained looking like a regular kid, I think.
     
  4. Worf'sParmach

    Worf'sParmach Commander Red Shirt

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    One of my favorites as well. My only critism of it is that if Barash searched Riker's mind for a woman that was important enough to him that he would have married her, it seems like Troi woud have been the obvious choice. But, that would have ruined the twist so I'm okay with it ;)
     
  5. 22 Stars

    22 Stars Commodore Commodore

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    HAFTEL: Her neural nets are laid down identically to yours?
    DATA: There do seem to be some variations on the quantum level. She can use contractions. I cannot.
    HAFTEL: An aberration. What have you done about this?

    I think Timo or whatever its name is, just had a stroke :)
     
  6. GalaxyX

    GalaxyX Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    LOL :guffaw: leave the poor guy alone. I actually somewhat agree with him in that the series "says" he can't use contractions, yet they sneak in once in a while.

    I always felt the need to have Data with that speech limitation not realistic at all. It would have been enough to have him talk formally as he always does without going to extremes.

    I could have accepted at some point in the series that he decided to get a more realistic skin pigment to mimic his daughter's.

    As for the episode, I always felt TNG cheated us too many times with the Romulans. They get us hard for a nice confrontation and then they leave us hanging with blue balls by yanking away the chance of a nice skirmish :)
     
  7. Gil T.Azell

    Gil T.Azell Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Just re watched this and I was wondering if any books etc followed up and Identified Barash's species and whom the enemies were?
     
  8. bullethead

    bullethead Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    He was clearly a sectoid from the first XCOM game.
     
  9. Chensams

    Chensams Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Still a great episode though. Very entertaining.

    On Data's inability to use contractions: I thought it was a really stupid idea and the violated it many times (even in the Lore episode). However, it was tied to lazy writing or plain ole mistakes as it was clearly defined he couldn't use them.
     
  10. JeffJedi

    JeffJedi Ensign Newbie

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    One of the BEST episodes ever!

    I said, "Shut up!" as in close your mouth and stop talking!
     
  11. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    IIRC, even through Barash's subsequent appearances in the novels, no one has ever found out his origins. We don't know who his people are or who they were running from.
     
  12. blueshirt

    blueshirt Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I like to think he was hiding from the Romulans. They were presumably in the right part of space for it to be the Star Empire, and it becomes even more natural that his first program for Riker would involve the Romulans.
    It also explains what happened to the Grays. :)
     
  13. GalaxyX

    GalaxyX Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I would have preferred that he stay looking like the human kid, instead of turning into some cockroach looking thing.
     
  14. JirinPanthosa

    JirinPanthosa Admiral Admiral

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    Yeah, Datalore was a terribly written episode in general. I mean, Riker figures out Lore's playing stupid by getting him to reveal he knows how to calculate the length of a hypothenuse of a right triangle? Come on. And then how Wesley was the only one to consider maybe Lore was trying to pull a fast one on them, and how just stating that opinion implied that he was going to get his acting ensign commission revoked? I didn't buy any of that garbage.

    I liked the ending to Future Imperfect. That ending makes the rest of the episode make more sense to me than the Romulan ending. The Romulans have proven to have more efficient ways of extracting information than strange complicated scenarios.