Conspiracy

[RobertScorpio]

Not trying to argue, as I know everyone has different tastes, but I think there are several episodes in Season 1 better than Conspiracy. I personally like:

Encounter at Farpoint
Justice
Datalore
Heart of Glory
The Nuetral Zone

I could make an argument for most of those too...but Justice??? I hope it was for the EYE CANDY that you gave it such a high rating over Conspiracy...



Rob

I mostly just like the premise. The idea that a civilization could achieve a peaceful society by maintaining a swift and merciless justice system is fascinating to me. Makes me wonder what our own society would be like if our justice system was a little less... lenient.

But the eye candy was nice too though.

Yeah...I could see that...much like Cardassian justice in a way..

Rob

 

[The Grim Ghost]

I loved Conspiracy. I was still on the fence about whether TNG was going to be good or not when it 1st aired. Conspiracy convinced me that it COULD be good.

Star Trek has toyed with horror occasionally in all of it's incarnations, I thought it worked best here.

Also hey, I'm a horror movie fan! I'm not ashamed to say that I videotaped the episode and watched the head explosion over and over!! The queen in Remmick's chest or whatever you want to call it was cool as hell. Of course it didn't make much sense for him to just sit there and wait to be shot, but oh well!

 

[mythme]

If there was any single TNG episode I would remaster, it would be this one. Why of WHY are the buggies PINK??? They should CGI in some really creepy looking bugs and go crazy with the mother creature emerging out of Remick's corpse - lots of slime and icky stuff!

 

[The Grim Ghost]

The claymation bugs didn't look great, but the close up puppel/model bugs or whatever they were looked nice.

 

[RobertScorpio]

If there was any single TNG episode I would remaster, it would be this one. Why of WHY are the buggies PINK??? They should CGI in some really creepy looking bugs and go crazy with the mother creature emerging out of Remick's corpse - lots of slime and icky stuff!

I like this idea Mythme...i hope they do it someday..

And how about showing what got 'beamed' back from the enterprise in TMP when those two people via the transporter..

rob

 

[Maurice]

But really, what other choices did the Admiral have but to fight Riker and then Worf? It's not as though he went out of his way to do it. He was surprised by Riker, who pretended to have been possessed by one of the parasites. When he determined Riker was faking, the admiral naturally was going to attack Riker and then Worf happened along to get his butt kicked as well.

Except that's not what happened.

Riker comes in and finds Admiral Quinn looking into a briefcase with a bug. Quinn tells him it's a newly discovered "superior" life form that he brought to show Dr. Crusher. He offers to show it to Riker...

RIKER
I think I'll summon our science
officer --

QUINN
It won't like your science
officer. It likes you.
​

Then he beats the crap out of Riker, who calls for help before being knocked out. They cut to Picard for a short scene and then back to Quinn and Riker, leaving the possibility that Quinn did something to Riker with the bug. Quinn throws Geordi through the doors and then beats up Worf before Crusher phasers him down.

 

[GalaxyX]

^^^^ I would have liked to see Data take a couple of potshots at that Admiral, we'd have seen who is the superior lifeform then lol

 

[Hoshi_Mayweather]

This was the first ST episode I thought went 'all out' with the gore since TWOK.

Still, I had some observations:

*TNG was supposed to be the utopia, where we had Picard who was 'by the book;' the guy who asked questions first then shot later. Here, he shoots first...(in a 'Kirk' or 'Janeway' manner; although Picard came long before Janeway so I probably can't add her in that comparison).

I would think that some sort of talk would have occured (since, we see the Admiral--and even those officers taken over--were able to have the parasite removed).

The only one who seemed to be in trouble was poor Remmick, who probably didn't have a choice in being taken over (by the alien Queen no less!) I don't know how Starfleet Medical would have handled that...!

I would have liked to hear from Picard after the Remmick/Queen said, "We seek peaceful co-existence" was a question on the takeover....

Of course, I need to read the 'sequel' to this episode....

It's DS9's 'Unity' correct? I actually have that novel.

 

[chris32482]

I would have liked to hear from Picard after the Remmick/Queen said, "We seek peaceful co-existence" was a question on the takeover....

Of course, I need to read the 'sequel' to this episode....

It's DS9's 'Unity' correct? I actually have that novel.

Yes and No. It actually spans about 3 Books:

Mission Gamma, Book 4: Lesser Evil
Unity
Worlds of Deep Space Nine, Vol 2: Trill (this is kind of the aftermath of Unity and we find out where the Parasites actually came from.)

 

[Hoshi_Mayweather]

I would have liked to hear from Picard after the Remmick/Queen said, "We seek peaceful co-existence" was a question on the takeover....

Of course, I need to read the 'sequel' to this episode....

It's DS9's 'Unity' correct? I actually have that novel.

Yes and No. It actually spans about 3 Books:

Mission Gamma, Book 4: Lesser Evil
Unity
Worlds of Deep Space Nine, Vol 2: Trill (this is kind of the aftermath of Unity and we find out where the Parasites actually came from.)

Tks, for the list...!

 

[CaptainHawk1]

But it has Remmick's (sp?) exploding head. Surely that must redeem it for you?

EXPLODING HEAD? No? Nothing?

It made the whole episode for me.

It would have been nice, though, if they had reintroduced us to this species in some kind of epic conflict in a later season.

Ah, but, alas, if they had done that, they would have had to got rid of one of the other spectacular episodes, like Shades of Gray or Menage a Troi.

-Shawn

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

"That" scene was banned on the BBC, gotta be worth catching!

 

[Lt.Cmdr.LaForge]

Fair enough the bugs looked terrible and unrealistic, but i personally loved this episode =]

 

[Jean-Luc Picard]

Fair enough the bugs looked terrible and unrealistic, but i personally loved this episode =]

Agreed! It's definitely the strongest episode from the first season.

 

[Timo]

But really, what other choices did the Admiral have but to fight Riker and then Worf? It's not as though he went out of his way to do it. He was surprised by Riker, who pretended to have been possessed by one of the parasites. When he determined Riker was faking, the admiral naturally was going to attack Riker and then Worf happened along to get his butt kicked as well.

Except that's not what happened.

Riker comes in and finds Admiral Quinn looking into a briefcase with a bug. Quinn tells him it's a newly discovered "superior" life form that he brought to show Dr. Crusher. He offers to show it to Riker...

RIKER
I think I'll summon our science
officer --

QUINN
It won't like your science
officer. It likes you.
​

Then he beats the crap out of Riker, who calls for help before being knocked out. They cut to Picard for a short scene and then back to Quinn and Riker, leaving the possibility that Quinn did something to Riker with the bug. Quinn throws Geordi through the doors and then beats up Worf before Crusher phasers him down.

It's a fairly logical course of action for Quinn, though. He has apparently brought the bug there to take control of the ship's CMO, but Riker's solo arrival presents him with a bigger prize: control of the ship's XO would be even more helpful to the cause.

So Quinn, not yet having prepared his tranquilizer hypospray, beats up Riker with the intention of inserting the bug once the XO is unconscious, and doesn't care much that Riker summons help because he expects Riker to be "one of them" by the time help arrives anyway. And since Riker will be beat up in the end, it's probably just for the better that there has been this mysterious call for help, something that the subjugated Riker can twist and turn to a perverse explanation for his injuries.

It's just that Riker puts up slightly too much resistance to allow things to go that smoothly... But that, too, is hardly a problem, as the injuries/deaths of Worf and LaForge would now become part of Riker's explanation, and would help subjugate the ship.

Alternate scenario: Quinn has skilfully cut intraship communications in preparation for the subjugation of Crusher, and Riker's call for help is never received by Security. Which is why we never see Security arrive; instead, Worf and LaForge rush to the scene, perhaps not because they heard any sort of summons, but because they had a chat with Crusher about the deeper nature of these strange "possessions", and suddenly realized that having Riker alone with Quinn was a very bad thing... Since comms would still be out, Crusher would not be summoned by LaForge, either, but would arrive on her own volition. And Security, if summoned at all (because perhaps our heroes wouldn't trust anybody but themselves any more in that situation), would be arriving even later.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Sneeze Police]

I remember watching this episode in TNG's first run. It made me distinctly uncomfortable in its ominous tone and implied ongoing threat to Star Fleet. Trek had always been such an optimistic, idealistic universe (in my mind), and this episode shook my belief. I was always on the look out for a follow up, and just a teensy bit sorry that nothing else developed.

 

[RAMA]

The only fault I have with Conspiracy is that they didn't follow up on it.

Obviously with CGI, some of the creature FX would be better today too.

RAMA

 

[RAMA]

I remember watching this episode in TNG's first run. It made me distinctly uncomfortable in its ominous tone and implied ongoing threat to Star Fleet. Trek had always been such an optimistic, idealistic universe (in my mind), and this episode shook my belief. I was always on the look out for a follow up, and just a teensy bit sorry that nothing else developed.

That's why it worked so well. Too many conspiracies and you can get desensitized to it. But having a few here and there works well, especially on STNG.

 

[Captrek]

I don’t like it.

The first half of the episode, heavy on atmosphere and light on plot, is very effective in setting up a vague and ominous sense of mystery and foreboding. 20 minutes in I’m thinking, “Wow, this is going to be a great episode!”

Then we get a brain-dead story where the greatest threat to the Federation is infiltration by impostors who can easily be identified by their complete lack of knowledge of the impostee’s past and a tail on the back of their neck.

Plus the very tired deus ex machina of wiping out the enemy race by stumbling on and killing the queen. And we don’t even get the de rigueur kick-ass climactic action scene where the hero and the queen battle it out for the fate of the galaxy. Instead the queen just sits there and talks like an idiot, while Picard and Riker hear him out for no particularly good reason, and then they shoot him and he dies.

 

[Anwar]

I did like how Anti-Trek the ending was: The Queen takes Fed values, the "Peaceful Co-Existence" bit, and Picard responds by blowing her up.