^As had I, and I still do.
Spider said:
If this had happened to any other female crew member that could actually act, this could have been a B or better episode.
He's not Herbert--We reach!
It's noteworthy that this script had originally been written for ST Phase II with Ilia as the impregnated woman...and Troi was a reconception of Ilia...so they stuck with that.
I think it's an OK episode, but just OK. The whole uber-growing child thing was possibly enough of a hook to just focus on that without the B-plot jeopardy cutting his existence short. He'd have grown up soon enough, and it strains my credulity that the Enterprise couldn't do a better job of containing bugs. Put them on a shuttle or something.
My favorite part of this episode is the opening sequence. I didn't see this one when it originally aired, but I got the intent when I did see it. After a very long hiatus imposed by the writer's strike, and against expectations from when the show started, they were back for a second season and indulged in celebrating the moment.
I had some pretty harsh words for Pulaski in the reaction thread for MEG's recent review of this episode, but having recently finished all of Season Two, I have to soften my criticism a bit. She started out as a very ill-conceived attempt at cloning McCoy, but by the middle of the season, they had all but dropped those elements of the character, especially her pronounced bigotry against Data from the early episodes. It's interestingly-tight continuity for this sort of show that when they reveal that she avoids the transporter several episodes later, it's true that she hasn't used it since coming aboard. In this episode she takes a shuttle, and in "The Schzoid Man" she comes up with a justifiable excuse to send Dr. Selar on an away team in her place. (They created a guest character just to set up her transporter-phobia!)
As I covered recently in the MEG review thread, I've always liked this one's creepy atmosphere, but the writing and/or directing always seemed "off" somehow. Worf's written as Wolverine, the camera lingers on reaction shots of Data seemingly emoting for nobody else's benefit, and Pulaski's bigotry against Data is far more blatant than in other episodes. In fact, I only describe it as bigotry because of her behavior in this episode--take away the scenes in which she refers to him as "it" like he's not there, and all of her other scenes with Data might come off as relatively good-natured honest skepticism.
The stand-out moment in this episode of a good sort is Picard's vocalization of his beliefs in his quarters. IMO, it's actually ruined when we learn that Data and Troi aren't really there. However, the set-up for this scene is one of those moments that made Picard seem weak in the first couple of seasons. Here he's ordered 1000 people under his command to die, and how does the captain choose to spend his last 20 minutes? He goes back to his quarters to kick back to some classical music and a good book. Riker, by contrast, apparently stays on the bridge, setting an example. One has to wonder how Picard ever recovered in Worf's eyes, considering the value that Klingons put on dying at their posts.
And why does everyone react like it's a revelation when Pulaski compares what they're going through to a lab experiment...when Geordi had pretty much made the point earlier when he made his joke about the mouse wanting out of the trap?
A fine, entertaining episode. Was Moriarty really sentient, or just the computer doing a damn good imitation by allowing the character to know what he needed to know and react in-character? Having seen this one when it originally aired, this one probably struck me in much the same way as "The Big Goodbye" had already struck others.
The guy who used to write episode reviews for Cinefantastique described this one as a leftover story from
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and that always stuck with me. It's charming but pretty damn hokey. The guest actors playing the warring families were pretty bad, especially the girl, who came off like she was performing in the high school play. I give Campbell more credit, because I know what he's capable of from his starring role on three seasons of
Once & Again opposite the Emmy-winning Sela Ward. So he was the runner-up for Riker who was alluded to in the recent Entertainment Weekly TNG insert as having frozen up at his auditions? Interesting.... (Or was it Jeffrey Combs, who was also reportedly a runner-up for the part?)
Guinan's inability to set an example for Data by telling a funny joke herself has been thoroughly covered in this forum recently. And why is it that a poorly-worded command can cause the Holodeck to create an arguably-sentient being in one episode, but it can't create an audience that knows what to laugh at the next?
I agree with a lot of MEG's points in her recent review of this one. It was a decent concept, but very clumsy in its execution. And there's a big discrepency between Riva's much-hyped legendary status and the fact that nobody had any idea that he was deaf-mute and used a chorus. In any other episode, at least Data would have had such facts on hand. How could somebody who was played up as being so well-known and influential keep such a distinguishing characteristic a highly-classified secret?
When you are watching a TV show all by your lonesome and feel the need to cover your cat’s eyes from the horrible spectacle on the TV, you know you are watching something that should never seen by the eyes of man.
Wow, you really didn't like this episode, did you?
I think that this is the "clunky part" of Season Two...after this, it actually gets pretty good for the most part...a marked improvement over Season One, showing that the show was coming together.
(You referred to me as a "he" in your post)
