Does anyone else genuinely adore this episode?
For season 1, it's as largely bulletproof as it is compelling.
The incidental music really adds to the proceedings.
The camerawork and direction are fantastic as well.
Vincent Schiavelli is magnificent as the AI salesman. Watch his body language and vocal mannerisms during his lines, especially when Picard steps away.
The story combines suspense, tension, and humor perfectly.
Troi gets stuff to do with Geordi - good stuff! The whole sense of stress and how the bridge crew react is absolutely perfectly done.
The captain's leaving to go down feels forced, until Geordi and Chief Engineer Logan spar on the Bridge.
And that's another thing, for as many chief engineers that TNG had in season 1, Logan's desirous for personal visits as opposed to comm systems during an emergency seems a bit off.
Great way to get the saucer to separate. Shame they didn't do it more often in the show.
There's no politics. Just a stout sci-fi idea - the people who made the weapons systems blew themselves up by accident (despite a great bridge scene discussing possibilities at the start.)
Crusher seems to know the plantlife of an alien world she's been on for 2 minutes extremely well, in terms of finding just the right salve. Then again, her chat with Picard about her family tree makes me wonder if Alveta III and Minos might somehow be related - terraforming or bringing over plantlife.
Speaking of her injuries, Gates McFadden manages Crusher's line of "No, there's another wound" regarding her continuing loss of blood rise above its melodramatic nature. The line itself is bad, but watch and listen to her deliver it. She rescues the scene singlehandedly and look who she's acting with - the greatness of Patrick Stewart!
Yar gets a few great scenes as well...
Did I mention how freakin' awesome the incidental music is?
On the flip side, the people who put the scenes together for the remaster had an opportunity to tighten and swap a couple scenes to fix a glaring problem - in that Picard says they made a sale and the machine shuts off, the unit in orbit firing on the Enterprise doesn't shut down. Of course, in moving scenes around, the music score and other issues could lose their balance. But, for season 1, this is an extremely minor issue despite being a comparatively major one.
And 11.75 meters (about 38 feet) isn't sufficient for a conclusively fatal drop, especially as the material they'd land on doesn't appear to be concrete.
Okay, who else winced when Yar yells out "Data, I need you!"? Thanks to "The Naked Now", it's virtually impossible to watch that scene in "Arsenal" and not think "major double entendre".
And the Lollipop scenes, while largely good, had a brief moment of camp but the scene recovers and everyone involved knew not to take it too far. Frakes' delivery of "it's a good ship" is justly fantastic.
And the story has a proper cinematic feel to it.
IMHO I'd easily rate it a 9 out of 10. How would you rate it?
For season 1, it's as largely bulletproof as it is compelling.
The incidental music really adds to the proceedings.
The camerawork and direction are fantastic as well.
Vincent Schiavelli is magnificent as the AI salesman. Watch his body language and vocal mannerisms during his lines, especially when Picard steps away.
The story combines suspense, tension, and humor perfectly.
Troi gets stuff to do with Geordi - good stuff! The whole sense of stress and how the bridge crew react is absolutely perfectly done.
The captain's leaving to go down feels forced, until Geordi and Chief Engineer Logan spar on the Bridge.
And that's another thing, for as many chief engineers that TNG had in season 1, Logan's desirous for personal visits as opposed to comm systems during an emergency seems a bit off.
Great way to get the saucer to separate. Shame they didn't do it more often in the show.
There's no politics. Just a stout sci-fi idea - the people who made the weapons systems blew themselves up by accident (despite a great bridge scene discussing possibilities at the start.)
Crusher seems to know the plantlife of an alien world she's been on for 2 minutes extremely well, in terms of finding just the right salve. Then again, her chat with Picard about her family tree makes me wonder if Alveta III and Minos might somehow be related - terraforming or bringing over plantlife.
Speaking of her injuries, Gates McFadden manages Crusher's line of "No, there's another wound" regarding her continuing loss of blood rise above its melodramatic nature. The line itself is bad, but watch and listen to her deliver it. She rescues the scene singlehandedly and look who she's acting with - the greatness of Patrick Stewart!
Yar gets a few great scenes as well...
Did I mention how freakin' awesome the incidental music is?
On the flip side, the people who put the scenes together for the remaster had an opportunity to tighten and swap a couple scenes to fix a glaring problem - in that Picard says they made a sale and the machine shuts off, the unit in orbit firing on the Enterprise doesn't shut down. Of course, in moving scenes around, the music score and other issues could lose their balance. But, for season 1, this is an extremely minor issue despite being a comparatively major one.
And 11.75 meters (about 38 feet) isn't sufficient for a conclusively fatal drop, especially as the material they'd land on doesn't appear to be concrete.
Okay, who else winced when Yar yells out "Data, I need you!"? Thanks to "The Naked Now", it's virtually impossible to watch that scene in "Arsenal" and not think "major double entendre".
And the Lollipop scenes, while largely good, had a brief moment of camp but the scene recovers and everyone involved knew not to take it too far. Frakes' delivery of "it's a good ship" is justly fantastic.
And the story has a proper cinematic feel to it.
IMHO I'd easily rate it a 9 out of 10. How would you rate it?
