Stuff that make you wonder but not own thread worthy

[Leviathan]

"Disaster"

Laforge and Crusher in the cargo bay is a prime example of the writers forgetting the Visor can see temperature differences.

...and back when this first aired there was an epic "online" argument about the effects of rapid decompression in a CitaNet star trek forum.

 

[The QyptiQonundrum]

"Evolution"

Season 2 may have set the stage and breaking through its shell, but with the season 3 premiere it's surprising in terms of how the format was finally polished up, and right out of the gate.

And with new uniforms. After rewatching the bulk of seasons 1 and 2 and getting used to them again, season 3's revamp feels almost out of place. The angled piping around the upper shoulders is the most missed, but the collars were a nice touch. New material has a far richer look. The rest of the outfit and Theiss' design remains unchanged, which is great as the basic uniform is too iconic.

The science with the neutron star is pretty much right in line. Keeping 1,000,000KM away is a solid distance, at least for a handful of days (or far less if the star was still comparatively active) as the shields had better keep running because of the X-ray and other ionizing radiation types being emitted as shields were said to be down a couple of times and then forgotten about for the rest of the episode despite no acknowledgment of them coming back up like honeymooners for seconds (Picard wants an estimate for their availability and that's that... whoops!!!). At 100,000KM away and without shields say "fried egg whites" because that's what you'd become due to the radiation fairly quickly. A few dozen thousand more KM in and one would evaporate really quickly and anything that can suffer from an EMP would be fried too.

And that incidental music -- whew and wow, seasons 1 and 2 had some incredibly solid scores but 3's premiere just belts it out of the park and with much confidence. And this is just the season opener.

Even Wesley, Wunderkind finally said on screen, is also shown to be more faceted and human -- which season 2 also started to explore, but this premiere really gets the new and refined nature of "the boy" down smoothly.

Well, mostly polished.

Beverly isn't as much a doctor in her grand return but that of a mommy hen clucking about in wanting to know if her kid is banging the neighborhood like what every other teen was doing because apparently, in the 24th century, all the kids were doing it as much as they were when they were 20 years earlier*. What with her profession and all, one might hypothesize that was she itching to give out free samples of medicines and salves to him after he came home with a rash or something?!!

* So much for evolution, ha!​

Geordi has a 20th centuryism with "hotwire" that feels more in tune with season 1. Riker as well with daydreaming computers-- which reminds, why blast Sousa out of the ship's massive mainframe where they needed something so esoteric and antiquated-to-them when Stewart's "Daydream Believer" as song by The Kingston Trio or The Monkees would have been the sort of bombastic joke that'd likely be ahead of its time if modern day sci-fi actually did that sort of thing. Plus, for a real yuk-yuk moment, Deanna could have been The Kingston Troi and belching out the song in a scene. But she didn't even in season 1's worst hours so I'm glad they didn't alter her character for this.

And the baseball references were right out of left field and as if propelled by a pitching machine in overdrive. Some of them were good, but they sure were leaning into it after a while. But for every decent quip or nitpick, the "called on the count of rain" is magnificent due to the matter and gases being stripped from the nearby star were effectively raining into it due to the gravitational pull. This is genuinely brill.

But the sum really is more than its parts, of that it can be said with ease, and remains eminently rewatchable.

Plus, nobody knew it at the time, but all the references being told were foreshadowing the season three finale, which is icing on the cake.

8.5/10

 

[Tomalak]

I especially agree on the music, and the SFX are beautiful too. It's a really solid episode and opens the season with confidence and finesse.

 

[The QyptiQonundrum]

"The Survivors"

I remembered the story's denouement but not the nuances in the build-up, and while I always liked the story I found so much more to appreciate this time with Kevin and Rishad.

Easily a 5-star episode, I still had some amusement over a couple things:

1. The observation briefing lounge's starfield didn't move during one scene
2. When Troi leaves, she walks to the left. Which is otherwise okay except, if I was paying attention, that's in the direction of the windows in the observation lounge
Picard's 24th century description of "an earworm" is fantastic, and Data wasn't in the room to belch out antediluvian colloquialisms.

Marina Sirtis excels in this episode. In a cast that's all top-notch.

The ending packs a punch.

This one is definitely a visceral and in-the-moment episode, but one that's held up as a great character piece with a limited plot told well, and engagingly. It's an unsung gem.

 

[The QyptiQonundrum]

"Disaster"

Laforge and Crusher in the cargo bay is a prime example of the writers forgetting the Visor can see temperature differences.

...and back when this first aired there was an epic "online" argument about the effects of rapid decompression in a CitaNet star trek forum.

The story has a great idea at its core, and not since 1965's WNMHGB has being stranded been used as a big plot point, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired and the incidental muzak, which is dreadful, is the least of its problems. Which is impressive...

Geordi should have seen the bulkhead getting hot as he was in its eyeline at least twice. Given the number of times his character trait of the VISOR was used, never mind how soon in a later episode it's used again, did everyone really forget he had the ability or was the plotting deliberately doing things for cheap convenience?

They forgot about Beverly being like a doctor or something since, in a depressurization situation, you don't hold in your breath as that will cause pain and possibly lung damage. EXHALE is what they needed to do. Usenet was ablaze back then and not wrongly so. She's a quack in a duck pond, BRING BACK PULASKI!! (and not in that popsicle stick episode "Ethics", which was even more contrived than this episode's escapades...)

Data with the half million amps is no less irritating, from a show that used to have scientific advisors. That sustained discharge would have fried just about anything and at tens of thousands of degrees in centigrade.

Ro had a point, they needed to separate to minimize a worst case scenario of everyone being killed in a warp core explosion. That's one reason the saucer pops to begin with, to prevent personnel and families from being barbecued when the ship blows up. Funnily enough or not, nobody discusses dangers or even if the ship's power sources COULD allow separation, so it all comes in as an afterthought but at least their mentioning the S-word* as if they can still really do that rescues some of the episode.

* Saucer, Separation, by the Seashore, etc, there's a lot of S-words here...​

O'Brien's thermal inversion is arguably an early case of Treknobabble, but Ro explains it a moment later. It all means heat is flowing backwards, or in this case the power coupling is heating up. Like when plugging a space heater into a wall outlet that is a point of contention where heat builds up due to resistance. Or for a more dramatic example, it's like using 14-gauge wire to your house, finding you don't have enough, so then splicing some nice 18-gauge wire between two 14AWG... except that's dumb because the moment you plug something other than a nightlight in, the 18-gauge will overheat, melt, maybe cause a fire so unless you're a marshmallow and stick factory then you're toast... But how could Ro just stand there saying "Quick, cross-connect to the transfer coil" when (a) who's she giving orders to, (b) is everything interconnected with redundancies (which then begs how it can overheat), there's only one transfer coil in the ship, etc... but these questions are far more fun than Geordi/Beverly's subplot ever was.

Also, how does Picard make it up through the top hatch when he's got a bum ankle and there's no ladder? The three little kiddies don't have enough combined muscle mass to lift him up. I vaguely recall their taking out some opticable, but wasn't that after everyone was out of the lift? Maybe I'm misremembering... The Picard/kid scenes were the best crafted in the story, IMHO. Great, now I have a reason to rewatch this, drat...

 

[Jamee999]

Has much been written from an out-of-universe POV about the bizarre incongruity between Tasha's backstory and the dogmatically utopian premise that permeates so much of TNG S1/2?

Roddenberry insisted on a future where material needs have been met, the main characters don't argue, there's no money, no religion. Picard and Riker routinely give speeches about how enlightened they are and how backward the past was.

... but Tasha is a human from a planet that was overrun by rape gangs, and she has clearly been deeply traumatized by it.

How was the utopianism so dialed up on 95% of the project (sometimes to the detriment of actually making an interesting television show), but completely discarded when it comes to the background of one of the main characters?

 

[Tomalak]

Yes, it is rather incongruous, but Roddenberry's thing was more that it was the Federation that was utopian, not humans per se. Her speech in Farpoint is all about how she was lucky to get away and find solace in the arms of Picard and the enlightened Federation.

Of course, they do virtually nothing with her back-story in season one, and then she's gone.

 

[The QyptiQonundrum]

Has much been written from an out-of-universe POV about the bizarre incongruity between Tasha's backstory and the dogmatically utopian premise that permeates so much of TNG S1/2?

Roddenberry insisted on a future where material needs have been met, the main characters don't argue, there's no money, no religion. Picard and Riker routinely give speeches about how enlightened they are and how backward the past was.

... but Tasha is a human from a planet that was overrun by rape gangs, and she has clearly been deeply traumatized by it.

How was the utopianism so dialed up on 95% of the project (sometimes to the detriment of actually making an interesting television show), but completely discarded when it comes to the background of one of the main characters?

All true and great points. Especially the after school stuff (for which season 3 continues this but it's season 3 so it's okay...) I'll include @Tomalak 's reply below as this will fold in, but there could still be failed human colonies outside of the Federation, perhaps forgotten -- even "Angel One" had an Earth ship merrily forgotten about for over seven years* -- where things fell apart, and when Tasha discussed the circumstances the Federation opted not to go in (they're not a federated colony or whatever the reason is, they've said no to other species so why not human colonies...).

* Picard states "our examination of the seven year overdue Federation freighter, Odin, disabled by an asteroid collision, revealed no survivors. However, three escape pods weremissing, suggesting the possibility of survivors." Beata had a point in bringing out why nobody cared until recently, with "After seven years, the great ship Enterprise comes to repatriate a small group of insignificant people." The circumstances of how "seven year overdue" is way too vague to buy into. They must have stumbled on something or, for nigh on a decade, no SOS or ship transponder no longer sending signals via subspace (7 weeks I could believe, but then the issue of getting the marooned people married off for the sake of plot becomes that moment of "Really?")​

Yes, it is rather incongruous, but Roddenberry's thing was more that it was the Federation that was utopian, not humans per se.

I can roll with that. The Federation is a step above, but despite it all, it's still not 100% - but very close. The show definitely kept it vague, apart from basics that are too easy to give blanket coverage to, perhaps shrewdly so... It's a narrative blessing but is also a curse the moment something stands out as "How does this fit?", "How does that fit?", "How can any of this fit?" start to get asked. Or that's how I see it at the moment...

Her speech in Farpoint is all about how she was lucky to get away and find solace in the arms of Picard and the enlightened Federation.

Of course, they do virtually nothing with her back-story in season one, and then she's gone.

Also explained, perhaps, by how all humans aren't all shiny happy people either. At least the lead characters on the ship, and yet, even in WNOHGB, Kosinski is clearly coming across in ways going against the grain of "there will be no conflict amongst the humans" because TNG's Bible also demanded how humans will have evolved past jealousy, smugness, and all the other nasty icky cootie-ridden human emotions*, but here is Kosinski** nonetheless. On the plus side, the workaround was to make the guest human of the week be gruff and antagonistic, no matter where in The Federation they may be, but that also defeats the point of the demand of "no arguing" to begin with.

* aka "the human condition" that Trek is otherwise renowned for, but nobody's perfect​

​

** FYI, "Kosinski" has the spellchecker wanting to change it to "onionskin", which is quite a connection as Kosinski is a more layered character than meets the eye​

 

[Tomalak]

There are plenty of imperfect human characters and colonies throughout the show. Even episodes Gene wrote or rewrote.

I've mentioned this previously, but a lot of the whole idea that 24th century humanity has evolved and solved most problems is what comes out of Picard's mouth. It's his opinion as someone who has actually led a pretty privileged life.

He's basically the Roddenberry self-insert character, and TNG can be read as Picard being tested in those lofty assumptions. I would posit that this is what Q's "trial" was really about.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

How was the utopianism so dialed up on 95% of the project (sometimes to the detriment of actually making an interesting television show), but completely discarded when it comes to the background of one of the main characters?

All the '90s series do this really. DS9 has utopian humans, religious Bajorans, and capitalist Ferengi in the main cast. Voyager has the utopian humans, Maquis, Neelix and Seven. Though they didn't always use them to their full potential.

It seems to me that the point was that you had the utopian humans contrasted against other people, whether aliens of the week, or people on the ship. There was supposed to be conflict, just not because someone cheated on someone else's wife or was dealing drugs, or whatever humans get up to these days.

 

[The QyptiQonundrum]

Booby Trap

A solid episode, it still has a few nitpicks so here are the nits to pick:

1. The Promelian battle cruiser has been dead for centuries, yet there's atmosphere, artificial gravity, and nobody coughing while Picard makes grand speeches. (Or there's juuuust enough power from a power source with an inexhaustible power supply to power life support without the reactors slurping it all up. Which makes sense, the much larger 1701-D would be emitting more power and the reactors weren't triggered yet...
2. Picard continues season1isms by saying "this era to be clumsy and yet", but by whose standards? This is the final era for the Promelians so it's their most advanced vessel design as they all extincted themselves with their enemies (just not with the same panache as the Cheronians). As humans were still playing with spears and arrows (per in-story dialogue!), why would the Promelian design be clumsy at all, given all the needs a spaceship has to deal with?
3. Shields vs deflectors comes up again, vs the new term "deflector shield" as a cover-all term now regarding radiation and too much absorption of radiation can be lethal (online sources and AI both waver on this as well, so I'm just going to roll with it at this point and be grateful they don't say "magic umbrella" and treat the audience like a bunch of third graders)
4. Crusher advocates moving crew and families solely to the odd-numbered decks on the saucer... why not just just the top five or bottom five? Okay, saying "the odd-number decks" sounds cooler... which reminds, we rarely in TNG get to see corridor shots where the lights are turned out, but before I digress...
5. The blu-ray remastering didn't add a port thruster spray visual to complement the preceding scene's starboard spray
6. Geordi's date clearly spells out there's no chemistry, and clearly there is none if not less, but somehow that develops out of nowhere in "Transfigurations" (be glad there's no follow-up to this when after John Doe leaves and Christy now wants to tear Geordi apart (!) since it was John who was handing out free charisma farts that half the crew deeply inhaled, or something, that week...)
7. The musical score is refreshing and largely great.
8. And an anti-nitpick: Computer definitely sets up Leah's personality with that impressive margin of error and Geordi says no to it massaging his neck

The story's ideas are otherwise quite clever, and refreshing. It's also the same theme as Data's finger trap from "The Last Outpost", but was somehow turned from a 2-minute hokey joke scene into an actually compelling 45-minute story.

Oh, kudos to someone who scrubbed the scene and put in the original audio as a "what it may have been like":

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(It sorta works, and yet at the same time it does feel "loud for loud's sake" and not drawing me as much into the tension as it arguably could.)

And, as originally aired:

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(I prefer the more suspenseful angle of this in ways, and yet the original music fits the other music cues far more consistently)

 

[The QyptiQonundrum]

The Enemy

Picard's look of skepticism when Riker says "Tomalak said one so that must mean there are more" (without evidence, no wonder Scotty yells in TUC about looking like fools a couple years later in the theater, but I digress) says it all: Both "Where's the evidence" and "You're probably right, regardless" re conveyed simultaenously and it's fantastic. Indeed, Riker is channeling lots of Worfisms throughout and it's a joy to watch. Actually, the Worf/Riker scenes, the Riker/Picard scenes, and Picard/Tomalak scenes are all top tier (notice Picard throughout the entire story, it's no wonder the Borg wanted him) and even the Geordi/Bochra scenes are compelling (the first Federation/Romulan venture is robust indeed , even if Bochra is quick to figure out which tricorder bits can be rigged into the VISOR so neatly and under those conditions, but I won't simmer on this one either.)

Dennis McCarthy hits a home run with the musical score, TNG was in the all stars for this season regarding musical cues and scores for sure.

As always, Wes belches out the solution, but it's season 3 and has had character refinement and this is still in-character for him. No wonder Barclay got upset at him (I can't wait to get back to "Hollow Pursuits".)

As with Picard, Geordi gets some excellent material. Even if he is sarcastic, reaching levels that Maxwell Smart would do except TNG remembers it is not a farcical comedy and keeps the proceedings from being total satire.

The planet's set is magnificent, and I love when TNG has the crew going to planets that are hostile to biological life, either nasty fauna and flora, or poison atmopsheres requiring precautions or limited times exploring.

The other Romulan was called "Patahk", no relation to "pet rock". For some reason, later stories use this word as profanity than a character name. Is this story really that forgettable like how pet rocks were? Now imagine how many people name their kids with swear words... but that's from our perspective, not Romulans', though it's all probably a coincidence that a name that sounded cool but not verbally uttered would be done so later as a swear and carried with such verve in "The Defector" (which I'm itching to get to as well). Or the names are phonetically very similar, I mean, look up the name of the 1980 video game "Puck-Man" and why they changed it to "Pac-Man" if you need as much solace as I did a moment ago until now.

Technically speaking, WW2 began in 1939. Not 1941. Picard's dialogue citing a "preamble" needed a minor tweak to make the historical event's namedropping as a tie-in to a preamble more believable as a war having gone on for 2 years had a preamble before the war started, not 2 years into it.

More about Geordi's Commodore quips, being 1989 and all, why no Atari ST quips? For more on this utterly dumb digression, go to a web search engine and type in "Commodore vs Atari ST wars"** and get a nice quart of coffee to sip on while reading and eating dozens of crumpets and Twinkies in the process.

While people make parallels to "Enemy Mine", that movie also relies on an established and old trope that it did the same thing on (The Defiant Ones, Hail to the Pacific, others...), repackaging an old idea with new ones and both movie and TNG episode hold their own and are deservedly spectacular, nitpicks or not.

Well, one bit of good news for the other subplot (which has a few great points but one contrivance) is that Dr Crusher is right in that blood's molecular structure is too complex for replicator (even plants and foodstuffs don't come close.) The bad news is, the story is contriving way too much to make Worf the only one who can save the Patahk's life whereas the biologically near-identical (by DNA standards) Vulcans all have too many imperfections all of a sudden, surprise surprise. Especially when Beverly goes all after school special in telling Worf (and the audience by extension) how all comparable blood is amongst most species. Not even a mention of 1667's first transfusion from a lamb to a human as a tie-in parallel to make the contrived situation feel authentic. (Then again, the reason for using a sheep is the greatest loose association of all time, but thankfully it had worked and without complications... and the practice was said to be discontinued after human blood type groups were discovered and confirmed in the early-20th century, and no microscope was required.) But contrivance aside, there are so many connected scenes that simply work wonders and more than make up for any nitpickery. Apart from one,
doesn't Bev have any dialogue better than spewing recycled Dr McCoy lines about practicing "old fashioned country medicine"?*

If absolutely nothing else, who changed the bulbs in Picard's ready room to flash red?

While "Contagion" was the first great Romulan story in TNG (which isn't saying much), "The Enemy" is the first superlatively excellent tale. Oh, I'll nitpick, every story's got nits to pick and picks of nit, but the real question is: Is the sum greater than its parts? Easily. Season 3 continues a high quality, solid run.

* Well, McCoy only said the old time country lemonade thing in "The Deadly Years", but Crusher and the EMH have both done more McCoyisms than Pulaski ever had yet only Pulaski is pointed to as being a McCoy Ripoff, of which that might be easier to believe if Pulaski spouted McCoy lines (she only had a character trait of disliking transporters, for biological reasons relevant to her field, and if people say Data isn't a ripoff of Spock then there is no way Pulaski is a ripoff of McCoy.) Now there's a digression!​

​

** here are a couple videos to start you off, happy nineties nerding!​

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(need an eagle eye on this one, but the ST is easily the winner)​

​

​

 

[Frightscape One]

Booby Trap

A solid episode, it still has a few nitpicks so here are the nits to pick:

1. The Promelian battle cruiser has been dead for centuries, yet there's atmosphere, artificial gravity, and nobody coughing while Picard makes grand speeches. (Or there's juuuust enough power from a power source with an inexhaustible power supply to power life support without the reactors slurping it all up. Which makes sense, the much larger 1701-D would be emitting more power and the reactors weren't triggered yet...
2. Picard continues season1isms by saying "this era to be clumsy and yet", but by whose standards? This is the final era for the Promelians so it's their most advanced vessel design as they all extincted themselves with their enemies (just not with the same panache as the Cheronians). As humans were still playing with spears and arrows (per in-story dialogue!), why would the Promelian design be clumsy at all, given all the needs a spaceship has to deal with?
3. Shields vs deflectors comes up again, vs the new term "deflector shield" as a cover-all term now regarding radiation and too much absorption of radiation can be lethal (online sources and AI both waver on this as well, so I'm just going to roll with it at this point and be grateful they don't say "magic umbrella" and treat the audience like a bunch of third graders)
4. Crusher advocates moving crew and families solely to the odd-numbered decks on the saucer... why not just just the top five or bottom five? Okay, saying "the odd-number decks" sounds cooler... which reminds, we rarely in TNG get to see corridor shots where the lights are turned out, but before I digress...
5. The blu-ray remastering didn't add a port thruster spray visual to complement the preceding scene's starboard spray
6. Geordi's date clearly spells out there's no chemistry, and clearly there is none if not less, but somehow that develops out of nowhere in "Transfigurations" (be glad there's no follow-up to this when after John Doe leaves and Christy now wants to tear Geordi apart (!) since it was John who was handing out free charisma farts that half the crew deeply inhaled, or something, that week...)
7. The musical score is refreshing and largely great.
8. And an anti-nitpick: Computer definitely sets up Leah's personality with that impressive margin of error and Geordi says no to it massaging his neck

The story's ideas are otherwise quite clever, and refreshing. It's also the same theme as Data's finger trap from "The Last Outpost", but was somehow turned from a 2-minute hokey joke scene into an actually compelling 45-minute story.

Oh, kudos to someone who scrubbed the scene and put in the original audio as a "what it may have been like":

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(It sorta works, and yet at the same time it does feel "loud for loud's sake" and not drawing me as much into the tension as it arguably could.)

And, as originally aired:

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(I prefer the more suspenseful angle of this in ways, and yet the original music fits the other music cues far more consistently)

Regarding Christy's second appearance...

It's at the very end of season 3 (right behind the finale), which is the better part of a year gone by. A lot can happen in that time, including Christy's opinion/mind/feelings change regarding Geordi.

 

[The QyptiQonundrum]

Regarding Christy's second appearance...

It's at the very end of season 3 (right behind the finale), which is the better part of a year gone by. A lot can happen in that time, including Christy's opinion/mind/feelings change regarding Geordi.

Good point, it's not impossible... just not often? We don't see her ever again, though.

I also forgot to add, why would Picard take over helm to pilot them all out of danger, and not the most experienced pilot (Riker)? Which isn't to say Picard isn't without experience, or unique knowledge (e.g. that sweet boomerang effect moment ) as he also created "The Picard Maneuver"...

 

[Frightscape One]

Riker might be a better overall pilot than Picard, but I don't know if Riker is more experienced than Picard, who has piloted ships decades before Riker was born.

 

[The QyptiQonundrum]

"Silicon Avatar"

So, nobody in the crew picked up that Dr Kila (subtle!) Marr needed some mental help? Perhaps a job for the ships counselor? After Dr Marr went off the rails in the ready room with Picard nobody thought she *might* be a security risk?

A whole episode on the crystalline entity would have been cool. What are its motives, origin, oddities?

...instead we got this:

And to think, that thing could have made so many billion microchips!

 

[The QyptiQonundrum]

The Vengeance Factor

Someone must have been a fan of "That Which Survives" and took the basic premise (someone taps someone on the shoulder and they promptly die) and retooled it. The 1969 original had some good ideas, if not a tad myopic (partly due to budget). The 1988 spin on the idea? Magnificent, a blood feud and some fantasy mixed with scientific reality and just enough to make it feel plausible. Heck, even nowadays we have more articles coming out about DNA discoveries and slowing aging, albeit not in the way Yuta got.

Nancy Parsons - aka Ms Balbricker, yes you thought I'd have no clue as to where that character was, teehee - is absolutely lovely to watch in this, in quite a different character and just as convincingly good.

I had to laugh, when Riker wants to cook with Yuta, because the first thing that came to mind was the Spice Channel.

The Gatherers aren't given much to go on for background, but just enough - especially given the story is a little by-the-numbers at times, but the payoff at the end is worth it. While they look like a mix of my high school team mascots combined with heavy metal band rejects with massive curly chest hairs worth braiding, they were fun to watch -- there is some good acting in this. Bruul (?) has some great moments with Wesley as well.

It's sorta easy to guess that Yuta would be the baddie, but her first onscreen kill elevates so much, hinting at the backstory that's pretty impressive.

Even Beverly has some great moments. But this is season 3, where Ira Steven Behr knew where to take this show; shame he didn't stay on longer.

Picard gets another turn as mediator, I love how season 3 is crafted.

Data uses a contraction when reporting to Riker, but it's very subtle...

Riker grumbling over realizing his latest hottie hasn't aged a day as he puts the pieces together leads to a fantastic denouement when he shows up and is quick to phaser before being phasered, to deliver the KO the episode was building up to brilliantly (the use of incidental music and allowing the actors to sell it first and foremost pays off).

Okay, there's a booboo that was also there in the original, how Picard unnaturally sits there just waiting for Riker to fire. Or why Riker can't simply stun her a fourth time, or nineteenth, since his phaser has 20 LEDs and, yes, you're utterly right I'd counted and am proud in having done so. I'm proud to say I unapologetically love this episode, even with the booboo. Or what I'll call booboo, but anyhoo I'm also proud that I didn't reuse that dumb "if I misspelled it, it'd be udderly and someone would have a cow over that" joke... (...oops, too late...)

Come to think of it, there's a bit of Kodos Inversion going on, whereas Kodos was killing survivors to protect himself, Yuta is killing the murderers of her clan and then saying it doesn't matter. You know, get these folks into a room and have them watch "The Emissary" for crying out loud. Maybe "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield". But the best part is? These vignettes didn't scream out at me while watching, there's originality and freshness in the end result regardless of what may or may not have inspired it. Not to mention "Requiem For Methuseleh" since Kirk was getting really attached to the love interest of the week despite barely knowing her too. I know, I know, "Thank you Mr DataQ!"

This is definitely one of those unsung little gems that isn't in "the best episodes ever" list that's far more than the sum of its parts.

Here's a fun thought: The Enterprise knocks out the forward shields, but they now have to lower their own shields to beam on down. If Enterprise was fired upon, we'd end up with a vastly different and 2-part story. I was itching for the dialogue by characters to go there, but Riker gets some crafty dialogue that recognizes the dangers without reminding frequent viewers of the obvious, told with panache. The newbies will ask regardless.

Here's another: what if Enterprise's computer extrapolated incorrectly the missing face since a nose and jaw structure had extremely little to go on, just an eye and upper cranial detail and enough of the lower face's jaw line. But enough nonetheless.

 

[Kount Korbula]

And to think, that thing could have made so many billion microchips!

RAM crisis solved!

 

[CovePhanTom]

Dennis McCarthy hits a home run with the musical score, TNG was in the all stars for this season regarding musical cues and scores for sure.

Dennis McCarthy is an excellent composer. Perhaps not Jerry Goldsmith level brilliant, but definitely quite good. Unfortunately, he was all too often hamstrung by Rick Berman's dictates about music on the shows of that era. When he got the chance to cut loose and really show what he could do, though, the result was always excellent.

 

[The QyptiQonundrum]

The High Ground

What would Towelie say... well, not much but that anthropomorphic bath towel isn't important right now.

As with season 1, we get the usual "we humans are now more superior" routine but, as with season 3, everything's fully honed in the scripting department.

The Rutians already come across as charming something with "The Klingon was right" by one of the guards reflecting on Worf's generic "It is not safe!" after the boomboom went off. It's subtle, but despite both sides not looking very ideal, one eventually wonders if the Ansata may have had a point. We just aren't given much in details, the story is still happy to remain one-sided, in what's otherwise an engaging, fantastic Beverly-featured story.

Um, didn't Worf search for boombooms when they all beamed down, also noting Beverly is very mobile as her molecules are formed by the transporter process? (In real life, that'd be quite painful but this is one issue where TNG often flubbed up, having them all move their heads or wiggle... I blame TWOK for letting Saavik babble while teleporting as there was no precedent prior to that where they didn't stand still because the mechanism was disseminating them...) To be fair, an answer is alluded to a few minutes later as lead meanie brings up how the Ansata can use their dimensional thingies without being noticed and it could have been planted without anyone knowing. The level of subtlety in this story is rather great, despite being superficial.

Beverly also gets wonderfully preachy in saying "don't use the things" as a fix for repeated use that's causing their bodies to destabilize, because - just like the audience - she knows nothing of why the Ansata are trying to separate or other details.

For a non-aligned planet the Federation deals with, it's impressive how long the Ansata were only now an issue (the newfound dimensional shifters being the reason.)

Finn, leader of the Ansata who is also hot for Bev, is expositioning himself as a big big leader. Okay, that's nice and all, but we're not really aware of both sides' issues beyond anything superficial. Even season 1 gave us more depth in some stories. Finn still likes to twist and spin saying how Bev and even Picard are helping him despite the tiny part in saying he and his troops took them hostage, so we can still peg the Ansata as being lower on the heirarchy of "which side are we supposed to cheer on?" Which is sad considering how much nicer Ansata hair is. To coin a phrase, "do the collars match the cuffs", but I'm not James Bond. Thankfully.

Finn and his group are quick in judging the Federation as taking sides when they're clearly not, at least to the audience. It literally is the case that Picard and Riker only give a dang about getting their more evolved Bev back before blasting off.

Wesley's written well in this.

Given how many times Picard was a mediator in previous stories, where's he now? He'd have been a better fit than "Oh, if Finn died he'd be a martyr and now we've have lots of little Finns that will be worse, it never ends" (cue triumphant end credits music). Even stories in previous seasons had better summaries to leave both sides alone. This episode? Zilch.

Beverly tells Jean-Luc how she has some things she wants to tell him in case they're killed. No worries, the audience already gets it as we've seen it since early season 1 and it'll be a plot fixture in seasons' stories yet to come as well: She's got the hots for him and not Finn, despite Finn being the better draftsman with bigger pencil.

Riker's learned a lot since Yuta's yodeling since he's adamant on how Alexana didn't need to kill, but this isn't entirely apples to apples as far as comparisons go, unless the other apple had been DNA-altered to live and not get all spoiled and wormy for far longer* and with the extra benefit of killing with onesmall touch (which also reminds, that drawn-as-ugly Wicked Queen from Snow White had half it right with the poison apple because she wanted to be fairest of them all (interesting approach to take in that regard, but I digress and even without the coffee for once...)). Riker also gets to point out to Alexana how the boy chose not to kill. Adding one little line of getting a proper mediator involved would have done this story a LOT of good. Maybe it's left to the audience what with recent episodic precedents. Or it was forgotten due to running out of time to edit.

* Albeit with side effect of still looking young'n'yummy, makes for an easy giveaway if not hiding behind a bunch of people​

Speaking of music, this story has another very fine addition thematic to Ron Jones' signature tunes.

BTW, as with all things in Trek Land, theorized dates and events as allusions based on our real world never happened, reminding freshly yet again that Trekland is its own universe where they had eugenics wars in 1992, unification in 2024, and so on.

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