Granted, it’s been a while since I’ve seen this episode but I felt that it was time for a little TNG bashing (I love TNG, but it’s fun to do it every now and then). Since someone already took a stab at 'Code of Honor' (the only other truly bad episode in TNG’s run in my opinion), I thought I’d start a thread on this particularly poorly-written story…
1. How Data behaves – he doesn’t act like an android at all and he disobeys orders all over the place!
2. How Picard reacts to Data’s behavior – he shows annoyance and nothing more; essentially, he tolerates Data’s disobeying orders and the Prime Directive. Nothing about “I’ll be noting this in your permanent record” or anything to that effect (at least as far as I remember).
3. Picard having a conference about what to do – this was the point when I realized how badly this episode was written – having a discussion is the last thing you would do – the Prime Directive already makes it clear what you are supposed to do and it was written so every crew wouldn’t have to sit down and have this kind of debate when something like this came up! It makes absolutely no sense. By acting this way, Picard's giving the crew the impression that he's open to discussion on such matters.
4. Picard’s awareness of the continued errors he’s making – he keeps having that little in-joke with Riker about how bad the situation is getting but seems resigned to the idea that there's anything he can do. Hey Picard – here’s an idea – your rank is CAPTAIN! DO something! (like putting Data in the brig for a while!)
Sure, I’m exaggerating a little bit how I feel toward this story but it does make me wonder – did the writers have any idea of Trek and this crew at all? Looking at Memory Alpha, I was surprised to see that both the writers to this story had worked on previous and subsequent stories – I realize this was a season two episode and all, but why did they still get this episode so wrong?
1. How Data behaves – he doesn’t act like an android at all and he disobeys orders all over the place!
2. How Picard reacts to Data’s behavior – he shows annoyance and nothing more; essentially, he tolerates Data’s disobeying orders and the Prime Directive. Nothing about “I’ll be noting this in your permanent record” or anything to that effect (at least as far as I remember).
3. Picard having a conference about what to do – this was the point when I realized how badly this episode was written – having a discussion is the last thing you would do – the Prime Directive already makes it clear what you are supposed to do and it was written so every crew wouldn’t have to sit down and have this kind of debate when something like this came up! It makes absolutely no sense. By acting this way, Picard's giving the crew the impression that he's open to discussion on such matters.
4. Picard’s awareness of the continued errors he’s making – he keeps having that little in-joke with Riker about how bad the situation is getting but seems resigned to the idea that there's anything he can do. Hey Picard – here’s an idea – your rank is CAPTAIN! DO something! (like putting Data in the brig for a while!)
Sure, I’m exaggerating a little bit how I feel toward this story but it does make me wonder – did the writers have any idea of Trek and this crew at all? Looking at Memory Alpha, I was surprised to see that both the writers to this story had worked on previous and subsequent stories – I realize this was a season two episode and all, but why did they still get this episode so wrong?
