Watching S1E6 "Lonely Among Us" and just had an idea for a better ending.

[starfleettanner]

Why didn't the crew offer a shuttlecraft to the entity inhabiting Picard, offer it to transfer itself into the shuttlecraft and go into the cloud without any troubles? It would've fitted perfectly, especially with the whole "seek out new life" part of the mission where they could clear this misunderstanding and not make it more complicated to agitate the entity to the point of beaming Picard out into space. Guess might me my criticism of early TNG writing, but still, the episode could've been resolved completely differently with a beneficial outcome for both sides in that issue. Wish Michael Piller was in charge back then, because I guarantee he would've made it similar to my ending idea rather than what they did with it.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Anything was better than "The ambassadors murdered and ate each other cause we're bad at security, so adorable."

Is that why O'Brien was transferred to engineering?

Yeah, I like the diplomacy and learning to communicate ending better.

 

[at Quark's]

But ... wouldn't that have wasted a precious shuttle?

It's not as if the Ent-D had Voyager's advanced InfiniteShuttles (TM) technology. They only had Starfleet to rely on for a replacement.

 

[Timo]

Shuttles have never been precious to Picard. A good case in point would be "The Host": Riker's ride is slightly dented, and Riker wants to abandon it immediately, but Odan is afraid of having its cover blown if the two (three!) get evacuated by transporter and insists on Riker flying the shuttle back. Which he then does, easily enough.

On a more benevolent note, Picard apparently just plain gives away the things, too. Such as to Scotty in "Relics".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[gakelly]

This may very well be the most boring episode of Star Trek TNG ever made. I know other S1 episodes get ripped on, but at least those have something going on in them. This is just filler.
How to fix it? That's a tall order. Some things just aren't worth the trouble to fix.
I guess you could have had the entity be malevolent and takes over one of the aliens on board...who knows. maybe just not make the episode?

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Have this be the episode in which Tasha dies along with the entity, because (per TNGTM) their combined matter stream wouldn’t have been preserved long enough for materialization, and the computer simply doesn’t store anything like it or it would be able to replicate people.

If that wouldn’t have fit the timeline, have someone else die that way, perhaps one of the alien visitors in order to tie the A and B stories together. What does that mean for the conference? If it’s the chief engineer of the week, could this become the episode where Geordi assumes that position permanently?

(Definitely tell Data that he can be Sherlock Holmes on his own time.)

 

[gakelly]

they could have just been more preachy about enslaving animals for food.

 

[Qonundrum]

Shuttles have never been precious to Picard. A good case in point would be "The Host": Riker's ride is slightly dented, and Riker wants to abandon it immediately, but Odan is afraid of having its cover blown if the two (three!) get evacuated by transporter and insists on Riker flying the shuttle back. Which he then does, easily enough.

On a more benevolent note, Picard apparently just plain gives away the things, too. Such as to Scotty in "Relics".

Timo Saloniemi

Easily worse than most of what season 1 conjured up in terms of atrocious plot developments and dialogue:

...
(scene on shuttle)
RIKER: Increasing power to the shields.
(the ship starts taking pot-shots at them. at least one hits them)
RIKER: Coming about!
(Odan is thrown out of his seat and the shuttle is damaged. switch to bridge)

(scene switch to bridge)
PICARD: Engage tractor beam. Report, Number One.
RIKER [OC]: We've lost port thrusters
(scene switch back to shuttle)
RIKER: And both backup stabilizers. I'm losing control.
PICARD [OC]: We're bringing you in.
(the tractor beam grabs them and the other ship veers off)

RIKER: Captain, the shuttle hull has been weakened. We're breaking up. You can't tow us. You'd better beam us directly on board.
ODAN: No, don't do it.
RIKER: I can't stabilise the shuttle.
ODAN: If you transport me, it will kill me. Please.
PICARD [OC]: Number One we're ready to beam you aboard.
RIKER: Belay that order, Captain. I'll bring her in manually.

:facepalm:

Incredibly cheesy melodrama at its most contrived. Literally seconds after "I'M LOSING CONTROL, OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOES!" he does the same thing as the script -- a lolloping walloping huge 180 in bright neon bold typeface -- and they're back on the outer space equivalent of 4222 Clinton Way (a.k.a. the Brady Bunch house) as if there was never a problem to begin with - no imminent shuttle breakup, no space turbulence, no space baddies going pew pew, no anything else.

Not that Trek hasn't done this sort of cop-out before, much less other shows as it's a time tested trope to hurry things along, but this scene is close enough to the middle of the episode that how they could cue ball themselves in the corner that soon just felt so out of whack... especially with the sense of danger and point they were trying to make that Trills can't be teleported or else their inner parasites die - somehow, even though they're attached. (DS9 had Dax beaming far more than Snotty from Spaceballs ever had, which didn't help... and not just from Cardassian transporters either that I recall, which rules out the Cardassians' technology being better-suited for the Trills -- never mind parasitic life forms have managed to beam on through in past episodes without issue...)

Now imagine that story being in season one!

 

[Qonundrum]

Have this be the episode in which Tasha dies along with the entity, because (per TNGTM) their combined matter stream wouldn’t have been preserved long enough for materialization, and the computer simply doesn’t store anything like it or it would be able to replicate people.

If that wouldn’t have fit the timeline, have someone else die that way, perhaps one of the alien visitors in order to tie the A and B stories together. What does that mean for the conference? If it’s the chief engineer of the week, could this become the episode where Geordi assumes that position permanently?

(Definitely tell Data that he can be Sherlock Holmes on his own time.)

A tie-in to that follows below:

they could have just been more preachy about enslaving animals for food.

Or have Tasha eaten by the Antican or Selar delegate, since that story ended on a comedic note with the feeding joke, a real chain of events...

 

[at Quark's]

Or they could at least have had Picard screaming "UNLIMITED POWER!" to spice it all up a bit.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wik...eta_Renner_cloud_electrocutes_bridge_crew.jpg

 

[Orac]

I like the ending. It's silly.

 

[RAMA]

Why didn't the crew offer a shuttlecraft to the entity inhabiting Picard, offer it to transfer itself into the shuttlecraft and go into the cloud without any troubles? It would've fitted perfectly, especially with the whole "seek out new life" part of the mission where they could clear this misunderstanding and not make it more complicated to agitate the entity to the point of beaming Picard out into space. Guess might me my criticism of early TNG writing, but still, the episode could've been resolved completely differently with a beneficial outcome for both sides in that issue. Wish Michael Piller was in charge back then, because I guarantee he would've made it similar to my ending idea rather than what they did with it.

Shuttlecraft are expensive and they'd have docked it from Riker's pay.

But seriously...something the entity was able to do tickled Picard's synapses to the point his explorer's inclination took over, the intertwined nature of the two would have been hard to separate.

RAMA

 

[Timo]

Not that Trek hasn't done this sort of cop-out before, much less other shows as it's a time tested trope to hurry things along, but this scene is close enough to the middle of the episode that how they could cue ball themselves in the corner that soon just felt so out of whack... especially with the sense of danger and point they were trying to make that Trills can't be teleported or else their inner parasites die - somehow, even though they're attached.

Well, the function of that scene is to force the big reveal of the big secret. So it's pretty natural to instead assume that it never was about any "danger", and always was about the secret instead.

Beaming Odan while it's within its host need not be harmful to either. But Odan is lying already, about his identity: the story about danger would be another lie to cover the identity. Odan doesn't want the transporter operator to consult her instruments and see the message "Parasitic lifeform detected, delete Y/N?". And Odan may also well recognize that the shuttle is in no real danger and that Starfleet is just being Starfleet and erring mightily on the side of caution.

Odan was at a position to do something about the choice between shuttles and transporters there. Who in "Lonely Among Us" would have been? Picard beamed out because he was in charge, or rather, the entity within him was. This entity had no truck with shuttles, which would be as alien to it as humanoid bodies were...

If there's room for improvement in the episode, it's here:

Picard: "In that case, make our heading 925 mark 37."
LaForge: "Sir?"
Picard: "You have a problem with that heading, Lieutenant?"

Well, he should, considering it involves spinning around clockwise twice before assuming the heading 205.37... But that in turn is a natural thing for Picard in that specific situation to command!

Timo Saloniemi