Episode of the Week: The Arsenal of Freedom

[Timo]

But yeah, it would have been nice if the episode acknowledged that.

It would have been sort of cute for Geordi and the youngsters to defeat the invincible fighting machine, only to be told that there never was any need to - they could just have waited it out, as Picard had already sorted out everything. Would Picard perhaps have kept this information to himself to boost the self-confidence of his officers, in a scene the audience would "get" but the heroes would find a bit confusing?

And speaking of TOS to TNG, what happened to the science officer role?

Seems to have been a clear casualty. Data was apparently being considered for just the role, but then the creators got cold feet with too obvious TOS parallels and whatnot, and the unsatisfactory "Operations Officer" thing was invented instead.

One TNG-specific invention made it: we got the Counselor. Another did not: Worf didn't become the Marine. Overall, though, the writers appeared to have been given instructions not to "typecast" the characters, and in the first season, none of them had a clear-cut role. Even within a single episode, the duty of steering the ship, answering the hails or firing the phasers would hop from one character to another at random. Perhaps "Arsenal of Freedom" has some of that, too, with the Chief Engineer's ambitions for commanding the ship through a battle.

Timo Saloniemi

[Forbin]

Magus on a Star Trek wrote:

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How is it that humanoids that evolve on totally alien planets look just like humans with latex bumps on their hand and can successfully mate with humans? In the Star Trek universe, alien ecosystems are not very alien all.

Oh, that always bugged the hell outta me too!

[BillJ]

Timo wrote:

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Seems to have been a clear casualty. Data was apparently being considered for just the role, but then the creators got cold feet with too obvious TOS parallels and whatnot, and the unsatisfactory "Operations Officer" thing was invented instead.

We know from Conspiracy that they had a science officer, it just wasn't a major role on the series.

[Jeyl]

Forbin wrote:

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Oh, that always bugged the hell outta me too!

We Tholians don't know the meaning of latex bumps!

[MikeS]

jimbotron wrote:

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It always bugged me they used the shot of Riker with fake-Rice in All Good Things.

Why?

[Jeyl]

Maybe they'll fix that on the BluRay set. Just a simple background change.

[MikeS]

As I recall there's nothing in the shot to suggest he isn't at Farpoint - there were tree's at that station.

[jimbotron]

MikeS wrote:

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As I recall there's nothing in the shot to suggest he isn't at Farpoint - there were tree's at that station.

That, and it jumps out as stock footage. Plus it doesn't quite fit because Riker looks too serious. It was a neat idea to find footage of "babyface" Riker, and I guess that was the best shot they could find. I would have been OK with just a voiceover.

[inflatabledalek]

I do like this one, as with last week it's fairly dumb in places but still huge fun. As is pretty much anything with "Get off my train!" guy in it.

The main weakness is the engineer, who exists for no other reason that to disagree with Geordi no matter what. Which becomes unintentionally hilarious when Geordi changes his mind about leaving the planet resulting in the engineer having to change his mind about it as well just so he can keep being contrary.

[Jeyl]

inflatabledalek wrote:

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The main weakness is the engineer, who exists for no other reason that to disagree with Geordi no matter what. Which becomes unintentionally hilarious when Geordi changes his mind about leaving the planet resulting in the engineer having to change his mind about it as well just so he can keep being contrary.

It's funny how a someone who is so predictable both in character and in purpose can be so forgettable. I honestly forgot all about him.

[The Castellan]

It's all well and good to know herbal medicine and roots and poultices and such - but how the hell does such knowledge apply to a totally alien planet with totally unknown ecosystem, chemistry, biology... ?

Bev was not sure, hence why she asked Picard to taste and rub one of them, and had a similar effect to what she was hoping for. Plus when you're bleeding to death, you are going to try anything. Plus who's to say that such and such variety of planet life is only exclusive to one world? I can picture oak trees growing on a world 1,000 light years away.

[The Castellan]

Jeyl wrote:

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I just wrote that off as either the drone malfunctioning or not receiving the termination signal due to atmospheric interference. That kind of stuff happens all the time in Star Trek. But yeah, it would have been nice if the episode acknowledged that.

That one might have been an independent, or like a security system for the planet's local space or another computer was still working.

[Forbin]

The Castellan wrote:

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Bev was not sure, hence why she asked Picard to taste and rub one of them, and had a similar effect to what she was hoping for. Plus when you're bleeding to death, you are going to try anything. Plus who's to say that such and such variety of planet life is only exclusive to one world? I can picture oak trees growing on a world 1,000 light years away.

Well sure - thanks to Stargate, we know every alien world looks like British Columbia.

[The Castellan]

Forbin wrote:

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Well sure - thanks to Stargate, we know every alien world looks like British Columbia.

Well, in Trek, 95% of aliens look like humans with speed bumps on their faces as well.

[R. Star]

For some reason the guy putting the used car salesman approach selling weapons was my favorite part of this episode. Other than that, it's a typical season 1 TNG episode. Cheesy effects, cheesy acting and an average plot.