I've always "fan-wanked" it that the Enterprise had such new systems it served as a "training ground" for several engineers for future/in production Galaxy-Class ships or other ships with the newest technology (perhaps in the Nebula-Class ships as well.)
Picard relates a story to us in "The Next Phase" that suggests he brought Geordi on-board because he was impressed with Geordi's technical prowess. So he may have recruited Geordi to serve as helmsman for a year until the "training period" was over for the other engineers and to give time for Geordi to make it to his next promotion from Lieutenant J.G. to a full Lieutenant.
The episode has some charm to it and enjoyable but also part of the fun of seeing characters acting out of character is knowing what they're like IN character. So this episode was too early to have grasp of everyone to know how "out of character" they were being under the polywater intoxication/Psi 2000 "virus."
And, yeah, this is the first episode to make people really hate Wesley. I think he got better in the second season and beyond but in the first season he was just annoyingly insufferable. The CE in the episode, while unaffected by the polywater intoxication, says it would take "weeks of laying out new circuits" to turn in the tractor beam into a repulsor beam and waves the notion away when Wesley suggests just "doing it in your head." He continues to do so while drunk and changes the dynamics of the tractor beam in seconds. (And, with all respect to Wil Wheaton at his age and at this point in the series, the places he punches on the console makes no sense.) Not to mention the fact that making a repulsor beam is hardly a new idea (done in TOS) and you'd think would simply be a normal part of the tractor beam's function. Hell, isn't pushing shit out of the way with low-level tractor beams essentially what part of the deflector system does?!
But, the episode does have some charms to it particularly the interaction between Tasha and Data and the interaction between Picard and Crusher. But it still has a bit of the "finding its footing" feel to it also bogged down by the use of a Phase II script.
And, I still don't get what that "horking up a tonsil stone" noise is all about with Picard. I mean what the fuck?! Was Crusher checking him for a hernia or something?
Yeah, he did that for EaF so that the set could be built as part of start-up costs of the series. Had it not been then they would have had to wait for the second season's start-up costs, so Gene wrote in the scene in Engineering for an excuse to build the set. They didn't want a CE to prevent too much similarity to TOS and along with the idea the ship was advanced enough to not need too much of an engineering staff. Obviously this changed by the second season where it was maybe realized Geordi could be given more to do, Wesley was more suited at the helm in (a junior officer position) and that the Engineering department certainly had its place in the story lines.
Of course, had engineering not been built (which really wasn't much, just a extension off the corridor sets) for the pilot it would have been built for the second season which means it may have been a much more dynamic set. Of course they would mean no 10-Forward set or that would have been pushed to Season 3.
Picard relates a story to us in "The Next Phase" that suggests he brought Geordi on-board because he was impressed with Geordi's technical prowess. So he may have recruited Geordi to serve as helmsman for a year until the "training period" was over for the other engineers and to give time for Geordi to make it to his next promotion from Lieutenant J.G. to a full Lieutenant.
The episode has some charm to it and enjoyable but also part of the fun of seeing characters acting out of character is knowing what they're like IN character. So this episode was too early to have grasp of everyone to know how "out of character" they were being under the polywater intoxication/Psi 2000 "virus."
And, yeah, this is the first episode to make people really hate Wesley. I think he got better in the second season and beyond but in the first season he was just annoyingly insufferable. The CE in the episode, while unaffected by the polywater intoxication, says it would take "weeks of laying out new circuits" to turn in the tractor beam into a repulsor beam and waves the notion away when Wesley suggests just "doing it in your head." He continues to do so while drunk and changes the dynamics of the tractor beam in seconds. (And, with all respect to Wil Wheaton at his age and at this point in the series, the places he punches on the console makes no sense.) Not to mention the fact that making a repulsor beam is hardly a new idea (done in TOS) and you'd think would simply be a normal part of the tractor beam's function. Hell, isn't pushing shit out of the way with low-level tractor beams essentially what part of the deflector system does?!
But, the episode does have some charms to it particularly the interaction between Tasha and Data and the interaction between Picard and Crusher. But it still has a bit of the "finding its footing" feel to it also bogged down by the use of a Phase II script.
And, I still don't get what that "horking up a tonsil stone" noise is all about with Picard. I mean what the fuck?! Was Crusher checking him for a hernia or something?
Yeah, he did that for EaF so that the set could be built as part of start-up costs of the series. Had it not been then they would have had to wait for the second season's start-up costs, so Gene wrote in the scene in Engineering for an excuse to build the set. They didn't want a CE to prevent too much similarity to TOS and along with the idea the ship was advanced enough to not need too much of an engineering staff. Obviously this changed by the second season where it was maybe realized Geordi could be given more to do, Wesley was more suited at the helm in (a junior officer position) and that the Engineering department certainly had its place in the story lines.
Of course, had engineering not been built (which really wasn't much, just a extension off the corridor sets) for the pilot it would have been built for the second season which means it may have been a much more dynamic set. Of course they would mean no 10-Forward set or that would have been pushed to Season 3.
