I either never saw this one before, or it was so hideously heinous that I still am recovering from the level of trauma it inflicted onto the audience.
First, I'll get the good stuff out of the way:
1. Jonathan Frakes directed this masterpiece o' fail that makes any season 1 episode comparatively palatable... even the sex planet one with all the oily and pliant Edo people
2. Duncan Regehr is truly inspired casting* as he pretty much saves the episode from the start and in no way shape or form reminded me of his portrayal of Charles from 1985's disastrous weekly installments of "V" (he wasn't in the 1983 miniseries and his acting talents didn't make the episodes he was shoehorned into any worse, quite the contrary as he does make for a great villain actor)...
3. As does Gates McFadden, particularly in the second half of the story. Her scene chewing toward the end never hurt either.
4. it's nice to see her figure out the situation to what Ronin is doing (poisoning people with anaphasic radiation energy technobabble stuff) and dispatch him, and her acting sold it extremely well. (Compared to the first half of the story where she's just blandly spitting out whatever was on the script noncommittally...)
5. Nobody on the planet was clad in tartan-patterned kilts, wearing Tam O'Shanters, and telling everyone how fashionable and cool it was to wear them to the beat of their bagpipes. Not even Ronin.
6. Be on the lookout for some first rate double entendres in this week's action-packed thrill ride of an episode! The episode may get you wanting to take a long clean bath afterward but with sparkling lines like "I took care of your grandmother's house and her affairs.", "You must come. I am your love." and "This is a rash decision, ill considered. It's not like Beverly at all." (turns to the medicine cabinet to fetch the needed dose of Zyclara), what's not to like?
7. Attention to detail with the Nana/Bev photo with the latter in a season 1 uniform was admittedly a nice touch (wait, let me check... odd, somehow Ronin never got to say that... oh, wait, Beverly said that but that's more a single entendre than a double, but this episode would make most viewers go to the bar and ask for a double and for something stronger and other than Scotch...)
8. I'll never need to sit through this episode ever, ever again
* despite looking mid-40s since the script reflects he hasn't aged and should look 30, and has been going after the Crusher clan since the early 1600s...
...Wow, that list was much longer than expected...
Okay, it's time for the cathartic release as I'll be havin' nightmares for years:
First off, given the fact that Ronin has a thing for "mane of red hair" females for over 800 fast-paced years, might I suggest either or both of the following:
When Picard and Crusher talk about the 100 year old nana going after some 30 year old stallion, Picard's response is a bit disturbing. He's either thinking a lady who's 16 to be in inverse proportional age relative to him, or he's jonesin' for Admiral McCoy's widow... either way, this is a tad creepy.
Not as creepy as Nana having a field day with her "Journal of TMI Delights" that Beverly is going inappropriately all batbleep crazy over... raise your hand if you stumbled on your grandparents' diaries and they were (anything but prudes) and you read those instead of thinking of the Big Bang Theory episode where Raj and Howard mock Sheldon's disgust in having to think about his grandparents doing the nasty...
Also, Ronin has a thing for Crusher's lineage. That's fine and dandy but when she expires, where's he gonna go? I don't think he'd be able to win over Wesley quite as easily.
And the episode seems unsure on how it wants to approach her lineage since it's using her family's surname, "Howard", as a crutch. If nothing else, it's another ahead-of-it's-time easter egg to that infamous BBT episode where Howard and Raj heckle Sheldon to get him feeling queasy over how his grandparents were doing the nasty...
This script might have been better if they gave him a first name then called him "Jack the Stripper". And why is Ronin so clingy to only the Crusher clan and no others?
Weather control... how delightfully 1968 of them to mention. In a colony where they nicked load-bearing stones from all the original buildings without any care or concern, and recreated the town's look using those in part and all in the name of authenticity... ostensibly. They apparently recreated almost everything... except for the beloved regional weather... Who can blame them, I bet their national anthem of 400 years was "California Dreamin'" by The Mamas and the Papas. Okay, that rocks...
Forgive me, but Beverly really being fond of this place despite no signs of heat generation or water... no plumbing? Were they really trying to live like ancient Scots? Average lifespan wouldn't be so great...
So the candle everyone is hemming and hawing over... if it's plasma based, since Ronin the Magic Ragamuffin there needs the plasma as a link into our universe or who cares, they light it with any bog standard match? Really?? Never mind the (surely OTT?) accent in enunciating "Dunnah light tha cahhhndle!"
TNG and Married with Children have one thing in common: Both have episodes exploiting the Big-O as it was trendy in the early-1990s to do so... cheesy too!
As the Enterprise fires its plasma beam down to the planet, note it is not in geostationary orbit. (This is the HD remastered edition I sat through, the SD original may not have had the issue.)
Can the presentation of the Scots be anymore superficial? Trek has always been superficial in this regard, though given its bigger trademark is everyone being unified it's amazing they pay homage to it at all. But by using a veneer of culture as stereotype drivel, we're supposed to revere it just because? (I'm Scottish and Irish but one needn't be to make the same valid criticism because it's obvious and silly.)
Aw man, caber tossing contests! What, there's nothing more critical going on to drive any form of urgency? Not even the caper whippin' contest going on some 2000 miles and two time zones' west of theirs at the local haute cuisine restaurant?
Even Beverly states to Troi (now back out of proper uniform and back into the season 3 garb) "I re-read the entries in my grandmother's journals. Whatever else he might have done, he made her very happy." Wow, Bev really loved reading that journal... oh wait, I meant to mention that she's awfully forgiving given how she was screaming in hatred toward him about his meddling all these centuries to her lineage. Was he really that good in (bed?) that she has no angst over 8 centuries of abuse? Most humans don't like it after a few months or years of a to-be-ex's abuse, never mind a whole family spanning several centuries. Even for the 24th century state of evolution, the episode doesn't want to go into any depth. Which might be for the best considering where it went into any depth into...
I don't care how cool the weather control system is, if you have some ghost that Scooby Doo cannot see, at least through in a better history lesson than "We moved the castle over here piece by piece" (well, sorta, it was only the cornerstone from every building they desecrated before moving since the people they were leaving behind certainly wouldn't mind one bit), as that was just a lame plot device to get around the budget cuts that impacted this episode and without having to resort to a bottle episode stuck inside the ship. There's tons of Scottish heritage, even slavery, that Ronin could have told us about that would be a lot more engaging than watching him do a cheap porno with Beverly.
But, yeah, was this script a rejected season one entry? Or was it originally written with Peg Bundy in mind since she went to England in 1992 so it all fits?! It would work better as a sardonic comedy than, as some say, "po-faced sci-fi"! But if it was a season one reject and season one isn't known for having the most polished, renowned scripts of envy...
First, I'll get the good stuff out of the way:
1. Jonathan Frakes directed this masterpiece o' fail that makes any season 1 episode comparatively palatable... even the sex planet one with all the oily and pliant Edo people
2. Duncan Regehr is truly inspired casting* as he pretty much saves the episode from the start and in no way shape or form reminded me of his portrayal of Charles from 1985's disastrous weekly installments of "V" (he wasn't in the 1983 miniseries and his acting talents didn't make the episodes he was shoehorned into any worse, quite the contrary as he does make for a great villain actor)...
3. As does Gates McFadden, particularly in the second half of the story. Her scene chewing toward the end never hurt either.
4. it's nice to see her figure out the situation to what Ronin is doing (poisoning people with anaphasic radiation energy technobabble stuff) and dispatch him, and her acting sold it extremely well. (Compared to the first half of the story where she's just blandly spitting out whatever was on the script noncommittally...)
5. Nobody on the planet was clad in tartan-patterned kilts, wearing Tam O'Shanters, and telling everyone how fashionable and cool it was to wear them to the beat of their bagpipes. Not even Ronin.
6. Be on the lookout for some first rate double entendres in this week's action-packed thrill ride of an episode! The episode may get you wanting to take a long clean bath afterward but with sparkling lines like "I took care of your grandmother's house and her affairs.", "You must come. I am your love." and "This is a rash decision, ill considered. It's not like Beverly at all." (turns to the medicine cabinet to fetch the needed dose of Zyclara), what's not to like?
7. Attention to detail with the Nana/Bev photo with the latter in a season 1 uniform was admittedly a nice touch (wait, let me check... odd, somehow Ronin never got to say that... oh, wait, Beverly said that but that's more a single entendre than a double, but this episode would make most viewers go to the bar and ask for a double and for something stronger and other than Scotch...)
8. I'll never need to sit through this episode ever, ever again
* despite looking mid-40s since the script reflects he hasn't aged and should look 30, and has been going after the Crusher clan since the early 1600s...
...Wow, that list was much longer than expected...
Okay, it's time for the cathartic release as I'll be havin' nightmares for years:
First off, given the fact that Ronin has a thing for "mane of red hair" females for over 800 fast-paced years, might I suggest either or both of the following:
1. Go to the local horse shop the day after Thanksgiving and pick up a fillie or thirty before the stampede flattens ya (sheesh, Ronin's sense of poetry is a bit misplaced... especially as eyes of diamonds sounds like a silly drug-iunduced song lyric)
2. Get someone to go back in time and get Dr Crusher's patented "season one red" hair dye and have her looking like that instead of the sandy blonde blah we got from season three onward since it helps sell her centuries' long lineagemore effectively despite being, what, 1 to 2% of the human population (at least in the early-21st century) being genuine redheads...
2. Get someone to go back in time and get Dr Crusher's patented "season one red" hair dye and have her looking like that instead of the sandy blonde blah we got from season three onward since it helps sell her centuries' long lineage
When Picard and Crusher talk about the 100 year old nana going after some 30 year old stallion, Picard's response is a bit disturbing. He's either thinking a lady who's 16 to be in inverse proportional age relative to him, or he's jonesin' for Admiral McCoy's widow... either way, this is a tad creepy.
Not as creepy as Nana having a field day with her "Journal of TMI Delights" that Beverly is going inappropriately all batbleep crazy over... raise your hand if you stumbled on your grandparents' diaries and they were (anything but prudes) and you read those instead of thinking of the Big Bang Theory episode where Raj and Howard mock Sheldon's disgust in having to think about his grandparents doing the nasty...
Also, Ronin has a thing for Crusher's lineage. That's fine and dandy but when she expires, where's he gonna go? I don't think he'd be able to win over Wesley quite as easily.
And the episode seems unsure on how it wants to approach her lineage since it's using her family's surname, "Howard", as a crutch. If nothing else, it's another ahead-of-it's-time easter egg to that infamous BBT episode where Howard and Raj heckle Sheldon to get him feeling queasy over how his grandparents were doing the nasty...
This script might have been better if they gave him a first name then called him "Jack the Stripper". And why is Ronin so clingy to only the Crusher clan and no others?
Weather control... how delightfully 1968 of them to mention. In a colony where they nicked load-bearing stones from all the original buildings without any care or concern, and recreated the town's look using those in part and all in the name of authenticity... ostensibly. They apparently recreated almost everything... except for the beloved regional weather... Who can blame them, I bet their national anthem of 400 years was "California Dreamin'" by The Mamas and the Papas. Okay, that rocks...
Forgive me, but Beverly really being fond of this place despite no signs of heat generation or water... no plumbing? Were they really trying to live like ancient Scots? Average lifespan wouldn't be so great...
So the candle everyone is hemming and hawing over... if it's plasma based, since Ronin the Magic Ragamuffin there needs the plasma as a link into our universe or who cares, they light it with any bog standard match? Really?? Never mind the (surely OTT?) accent in enunciating "Dunnah light tha cahhhndle!"
TNG and Married with Children have one thing in common: Both have episodes exploiting the Big-O as it was trendy in the early-1990s to do so... cheesy too!
As the Enterprise fires its plasma beam down to the planet, note it is not in geostationary orbit. (This is the HD remastered edition I sat through, the SD original may not have had the issue.)
Can the presentation of the Scots be anymore superficial? Trek has always been superficial in this regard, though given its bigger trademark is everyone being unified it's amazing they pay homage to it at all. But by using a veneer of culture as stereotype drivel, we're supposed to revere it just because? (I'm Scottish and Irish but one needn't be to make the same valid criticism because it's obvious and silly.)
Aw man, caber tossing contests! What, there's nothing more critical going on to drive any form of urgency? Not even the caper whippin' contest going on some 2000 miles and two time zones' west of theirs at the local haute cuisine restaurant?
Even Beverly states to Troi (now back out of proper uniform and back into the season 3 garb) "I re-read the entries in my grandmother's journals. Whatever else he might have done, he made her very happy." Wow, Bev really loved reading that journal... oh wait, I meant to mention that she's awfully forgiving given how she was screaming in hatred toward him about his meddling all these centuries to her lineage. Was he really that good in (bed?) that she has no angst over 8 centuries of abuse? Most humans don't like it after a few months or years of a to-be-ex's abuse, never mind a whole family spanning several centuries. Even for the 24th century state of evolution, the episode doesn't want to go into any depth. Which might be for the best considering where it went into any depth into...
I don't care how cool the weather control system is, if you have some ghost that Scooby Doo cannot see, at least through in a better history lesson than "We moved the castle over here piece by piece" (well, sorta, it was only the cornerstone from every building they desecrated before moving since the people they were leaving behind certainly wouldn't mind one bit), as that was just a lame plot device to get around the budget cuts that impacted this episode and without having to resort to a bottle episode stuck inside the ship. There's tons of Scottish heritage, even slavery, that Ronin could have told us about that would be a lot more engaging than watching him do a cheap porno with Beverly.
But, yeah, was this script a rejected season one entry? Or was it originally written with Peg Bundy in mind since she went to England in 1992 so it all fits?! It would work better as a sardonic comedy than, as some say, "po-faced sci-fi"! But if it was a season one reject and season one isn't known for having the most polished, renowned scripts of envy...
(Good theme song, reminds me of a Bond film and I say that only in a good way.)
" noises while listening to her sharing her findings or wishing that he was in the 30 year old's place, oh my... 
