...I see an episode and my brain raises a hugely obvious question, and yet the episode doesn't raise it. So I go to read Jammer's review...and HE doesn't ask the question. So I think maybe he just missed it, so I'll read the comments. Nope. So I'll ask here: Why the **** didn't anyone think to ask this guy living alone, in exile, who goes a century without anyone to talk to....IF HE WANTS TO GO WITH THEM???? Sure, *I* can fanwank a dozen reasons he can't go, but it's not my job to answer obvious questions* *Unless I just happened to miss a line explaining why he can't go.
They could at least have given Hoshi a super hot alien stud to try and woo her (you know if it's been a Malcolm story she'd have been human-looking and wandered around in the flimsiest of clothing). Though I believe you are right, I don't recall any of them even consider offering him a way off the planet--think how handy a powerful telepath would have been on their mission.
I think that's it. Plus, he was creepy -- the way he wouldn't take no for an answer, and obviously had no problem violating Hoshi's space. Not a guy I'd want to invite on my save-Earth-or-else mission.
Just watched this episode and was thinking the same thing. They could have at least dropped him off somewhere.
I just recently watched this episode. As I watched, I thought maybe the alien caused the shuttlepod thrusters to ignite randomly (using his obviously powerful telepathy). I also briefly considered perhaps he was the cause of the anomalies. Of course, I was proven wrong.
There were a lot of little things I liked about it. The continuing idea that the smallest thing going wrong (small in the sense that TNG could handwave it away in six different ways) can really leave them effed, such as the shuttle pod bit. And that rather than demonstrate a TNG level of outrage, they chose to have Hoshi exhibit mild discomfort at her invasion of privacy. And eventually just letting the guy ramble when politely pointing out said discomfort didn't work. edit: I'm annoyed with myself that back in the day I hated Enterprise without giving it enough of a chance.
The episode that does that for me is TNG's "When the Bough Breaks." It treats the Aldeans' inability to have children as some insoluble problem where the only choices are to kidnap children or die as a race... and it never once occurs to anyone that there must be plenty of orphans and other children put up for adoption all over the Federation, children who would've gladly volunteered to be adopted by the Aldeans rather than needing to be taken against their will. That was a simple, obvious solution to the whole problem, an easy way to convince the Aldeans that they didn't have to keep the children they'd taken, but nobody ever thought of it. Not to mention that it would've been a good, socially positive message for the episode to call attention to the benefits of adoption.
Man that is so simple and yet I never though of that. I'm going off memory here so correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't they cherish their privacy to the point where they only interacted with the Enterprise because they stumbled upon their planet. Granted, thats assuming that the survival of their race might at some point include breaking cover and sending people to the adoption agency.
^Right -- at that point they'd already made contact anyway, so what did they have to lose? And even if the Aldeans had had some reason to refuse the offer, it's implausible that nobody on the Enterprise even thought to suggest it.
Richard Whettestone's got you covered. Yeah, I skipped this ep in my trip through the expanse, and don't regret it. "A Hoshi ep" was the first bad sign. "A Beauty and the Beast riff" was the second. "It adds basically nothing to the story" was strike three, and, just like that, "Exile" was out.