Phantasms

[Abi Smith]

A few random sonic shower thoughts.

Data sleeps in his uniform (space pyjamas) but under a shiny sided future blanket.
Picard thinks admirals are dull rather than insane.
Uninteresting food will be served at the admiral's banquet despite replicator technology or interplanetary importing.
What was it about the cute ensign that turned Geordi off?
The episode suggests Freud's ideas are largely discredited yet Troi quotes him twice, is Troi a Freudian?
Data never gave his verbal consent to have his dreams examined by Picard and Geordi on the holodeck.
Data's dreams are mildly lucid.
What if any was the significance of mint frosting?
Cakes in the 24th century look terrible.
Finally at the end we are told that the interphasic organisms were awakened when they activated the warpcore but the episode began with Data's dream and him seeing the workmen, they activated the warpcore afterwards; plot hole?

 

[Timo]

A few random sonic shower thoughts.

Data sleeps in his uniform (space pyjamas) but under a shiny sided future blanket.

And yet reputedly organizes his clothes closet by color. What's left now, the color of his underwear? (Does he wear any? None was in evidence in "The Most Toys".)

Picard thinks admirals are dull rather than insane.

...Should we be extra worried?

Uninteresting food will be served at the admiral's banquet despite replicator technology or interplanetary importing.

Conflicting demands from a diverse set of customers, no doubt. Lowest common denominator = colored cubes and celery?

What was it about the cute ensign that turned Geordi off?

Well, Data speculates it's LaForge fearing he will be a disappointment. And the way LaForge "admits" to that more or less rules it out as being true...

Might simply be LaForge has a good thing going with holodecks now, and doesn't want to return to the disappointments of the real world.

The episode suggests Freud's ideas are largely discredited yet Troi quotes him twice, is Troi a Freudian?

Picard loves to contradict Shakespeare with quotes, too. Perhaps it's personal. Or then the classics are what these professionals think the layman customer will most relate to, even if the professional then needs to negate the claim being made. Good point in any case.

Data never gave his verbal consent to have his dreams examined by Picard and Geordi on the holodeck.

Well, Picard is the CO, LaForge is the CEO. They have been overriding privacy since day one, especially on matters relating to the holodeck. And Picard is always insisting that Data be torn apart to find out why he is acting like a threat this week. He just does that for a living - and to his flesh-and-blood underlings, too.

Data's dreams are mildly lucid.

Or then wildly, depending. A narrative that coherent probably doesn't exist in any real dreams except as an ex post facto construct, yet the audience is seeing the coherence in real time here. Data might well be in tight narrative control here, then.

What if any was the significance of mint frosting?

Only Freud could tell. Although of course it covers the cake, so peeling it away and licking one's fingers might indicate one's desire to help expose the truth beneath?

Cakes in the 24th century look terrible.

There's a real world story behind that. But perhaps Freud could again give us a proper in-universe reason?

Finally at the end we are told that the interphasic organisms were awakened when they activated the warpcore but the episode began with Data's dream and him seeing the workmen, they activated the warpcore afterwards; plot hole?

Hmm. The organisms may have hijacked one of Data's regular dreams, much like parasitic lifeforms in Trek generally assume the form of preexisting characters, real or imaginary.

Or then the fact that LaForge has "completed the installation" means he has already run a partial test, something he would certainly wish to do before first trying to apply the core to its task of providing warp power.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Abi Smith]

One thing is for sure, I won't be getting my warpcore from Thanatos VII.

 

[Armus]

I like how they brought back the Asian Admiral from Measure of A Man; he was one of my favorite Admirals.

 

[Abi Smith]

I like how they brought back the Asian Admiral from Measure of A Man; he was one of my favorite Admirals.

Yeah, I like the continuity; Worf and Data's friendship repaired during Gambit so Data trusts Worf with Spot's care despite his apparent allergy, Data still dreams after Birthright, and the fact the episode has a few character-plot strands going; the ensign with the crush on Geordi, Picard not wanting to attend the admiral's banquet but is obligated so he starts trying to micromanage the warpcore repairs and ends up moving just some containers.

 

[Armus]

^Although I don't like the technobabble and fake science with the interphasic organisms, Phantasms is one of my favorite 7th season episodes. The lighthearted subplots worked and contrasted nicely with the surrealism of Data's dark dreams.

 

[Mojochi]

What was it about the cute ensign that turned Geordi off?

If I had to guess, I'd say it's because he is uncomfortable being the object of someone's infatuation, especially a subordinate... Which is pretty ironic

Data never gave his verbal consent to have his dreams examined by Picard and Geordi on the holodeck.

Sure he did. Before they begin doing it, Picard asks Data if he is ready. Data answers yes. Plus, Data is the one to initiate it, personally. I'd consider that willful consent

What if any was the significance of mint frosting?

Troi wears a green uniform. What other cake frosting would be green, lime?

 

[Abi Smith]

i thought we were all agreed that medical/science uniforms were blue, so blueberry flavour then?
Although mint does have a decidedly medicinal quality...
You would have thought Troi-cake would be entirely made from chocolate, just like the real Troi

 

[Mojochi]

i thought we were all agreed that medical/science uniforms were blue, so blueberry flavour then?

Meh... close enough. Blueberry frosting looks purple

That's gotta be mint lol

You would have thought Troi-cake would be entirely made from chocolate, just like the real Troi

Well, she doesn't quite have a chocolate complexion

 

[Farscape One]

Interesting note... Worf is the one always talking about and eating her mint frosting.

Worf and Troi enter a relationship this season. Could this have been foreshadowing by Data, analyzing behavior patterns and seeing this as a possible outcome?

(Perhaps foreshadowing by Braga himself, since he wrote this episode, "Parallels", did the story for "Eye of the Beholder", and co-wrote the finale... all had the Worf/Troi relationship as an element or was a primary part of those respective episodes, real or imagined.)

 

[Abi Smith]

Worf finds out what Troi actually tastes like in Genesis.
Probably tuna.

 

[Farscape One]

Good point about "Genesis", because that was also written by Brannon Braga.

 

[at Quark's]

A few random sonic shower thoughts.
Data sleeps in his uniform (space pyjamas) but under a shiny sided future blanket.

I suspect Data does not sweat like the rest of us do.... so no need for him to change his uniform every once in a while for that reason. Come to think of it, does he have other 'unneccessary' human functions emulated? Does he defecate, for example? Or is he the only one who truly needn't worry about the total absence of toilets on the Enterprise?

Picard thinks admirals are dull rather than insane.

You imply disparity where none exists.... why couldn't they be insane and dull? After all, we have a lot of institutionalised, dull insanity today

Uninteresting food will be served at the admiral's banquet despite replicator technology or interplanetary importing.

Probably the apex of political correctness has been reached in the 24th c. ..... you serve no food on official occasions that could potentially be construed by some life philosopy as offensive -> dull food.

What was it about the cute ensign that turned Geordi off?

Eagerness.

Cakes in the 24th century look terrible.

That, or it was data's lack of imagination (remember Quark's "tacky" Divine Treasury that turned out to be only a dream? )

 

[Abi Smith]

Data stretches and yawns before going to sleep, why not go the whole hog and wear pjs.
Data does eat and drink, maybe his body just dehydrates and compacts it into a small cube which he puts back into the replicator.
Perhaps uninteresting food is served to prevent any of the admirals going further off the end. "WHAT?! ANDORIAN GAZPACHO?! I'M NOT EATING THIS! AARRGH!"
Troi's cake at the end looked terrible too.

 

[at Quark's]

One thing is for sure, I won't be getting my warpcore from Thanatos VII.

Lol, they should have known with such a planet name

 

[Abi Smith]

Lol, they should have known with such a planet name

Doom Prime didn't have any in stock.

 

[Twilight Phoenix]

Come to think of it, does he have other 'unneccessary' human functions emulated? Does he defecate, for example? Or is he the only one who truly needn't worry about the total absence of toilets on the Enterprise

I have no idea about that...err... 'wastes' stuff but since he doesn't need to eat and drink...there'd be no point. He can eat and drink anyway, though. So the question would be : what happens to those things he ingests ? Are they degraded in some way to avoid rotting ? Or maybe combusted in some micro-combustion chamber ?
Or do they end up in the same place as this lubricating gel he needs to ingest every so often ? ?

That being said, yes Data does emulate other 'useless' human features. He blinks his eyes, he is 'fully functional', he can grow skin appendages (like when he grew a beard), he can sweat from what we saw in Thine Own Self (but I think it could be useful for managing extreme temperature), he talks by orally articulating sounds instead of using speakers, thus he has a mouth insert complete with teeth and tongue, he seems programmed to process emotional information even if it's mostly unconscious...

But despite the fact those traits sound as unnecessary for an android, I wouldn't call them 'useless', because they serve the purpose to help him get socially accepted by humans.
If you read research articles in robotics and sociology, you will see that humans tend to act very uneasy towards something that looks human but not perfectly enough to be considered human : it's the "uncanny valley" effect. So making sure an android acts and looks indistinguishable from humans is the perfect strategy to counter the "uncanny valley" effect.

 

[Mojochi]

Data does eat and drink, maybe his body just dehydrates and compacts it into a small cube which he puts back into the replicator.

Or maybe he just has a molecular decompiler in him, just like they must have aboard ship, to dispel with waste, & once he ingests something unusable, he can just disintegrate it in whatever recess it resides... or he can pass it along to his circulation systems, like he does with the liquid silicon-based semi-organic nutrient suspension he uses for lubrication... but I doubt he'd do that with anything that wouldn't serve that function. So yeah... he must either expel it in some manner, or destroy it in some way. It's probably some kind of mechanism that is located down where he keeps his old-timey telephone stored

Interesting diagram btw

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Maybe Data has a replicator inside that converts food matter into usable replacement parts/fluid?

 

[Abi Smith]

Saw an episode of Law and Order when a point is made about whether a shrink has a medical degree which made me think about Deanna's qualifications, had a look at Memory Alpha, apparently she studied psychology on Betazed and at the academy, it must be her love of westerns that makes her think Freud is at the cutting edge of psychiatric medicine.