Your favorite TNG plot holes

[Herbert]

The whole episode, The Next Phase, is a complete clusterpoopy for the reasons noted in this thread. Just silly.

Data catches the disease in "The Naked Now".

Yeah, that one always puzzled me. I liken it (kinda, sorta) to Spock's smiling in The Cage. Although far less plausible because an android should not be able to catch a disease.

All the times Troi's empathy could have been super useful. Like Matter of Time, she only gets some vague feeling that maybe somebody is not being completely honest, when in fact he is a normal human just maliciously lying outright.

Or when her being on the bridge would bring the entire episode to a screeching halt but she is conveniently not there at that moment.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

I find it funny that Future Data (when scanning the anomaly from the U.S.S. Pasteur) says "It's like all three beams are coming from the Enterprise..." <--- Funny, the U.S.S. Pasteur was never renamed to my knowledge; and didn't look like a Galaxy Class ship. (And it's Data who will usually obsess about and will correct such minute details.)

That is an excellent one! Sorry I forgot to include it.

 

[JesterFace]

I find it funny that Future Data (when scanning the anomaly from the U.S.S. Pasteur) says "It's like all three beams are coming from the Enterprise..." <--- Funny, the U.S.S. Pasteur was never renamed to my knowledge; and didn't look like a Galaxy Class ship. (And it's Data who will usually obsess about and will correct such minute details.)

Memory Alpha says this:

It is said that the anomaly was formed by the convergence of the tachyon pulses from the three Enterprises. However, in the future, it is the Pasteur, not the Enterprise, that fires the tachyon pulse. Ronald D. Moore later admitted, "This is an error that no one caught until the episode was on the air. And who caught it first? Rick Berman's ten-year-old son. Kind of humbling."

 

[Lance]

Data catches the disease in "The Naked Now".

Yeah, that one always puzzled me. I liken it (kinda, sorta) to Spock's smiling in The Cage. Although far less plausible because an android should not be able to catch a disease.

Yeah, I agree it's a bizarre case of 'early instalment weirdness' (until "Datalore" the whole series was working on an assumption from the series bible that Data was built by mysterious as unyet seen aliens, and his character a kind of precursor to Odo on DS9), but to be completely fair to the episode, it is internally consistent in suggesting that Picard is skeptical about Data catching the disease, and Data refutes it by saying his internal body structure was intended to replicate organic life, complete with blood of sorts, hence he's capable of catching diseases. Later episodes would seem to contradict this, rather than the other way around.

 

[Noname Given]

Yeah, I agree it's a bizarre case of 'early instalment weirdness' (until "Datalore" the whole series was working on an assumption from the series bible that Data was built by mysterious as unyet seen aliens, and his character a kind of precursor to Odo on DS9), but to be completely fair to the episode, it is internally consistent in suggesting that Picard is skeptical about Data catching the disease, and Data refutes it by saying his internal body structure was intended to replicate organic life, complete with blood of sorts, hence he's capable of catching diseases. Later episodes would seem to contradict this, rather than the other way around.

Well - remember in the first few episodes of TNG S1 Data used contractions just fine. Then, suddenly as of TNG S1 - "Datalore", it was said Data COULDN'T use contractions.

[Guess Data's operating system was based on MS Windows; and he must have gotten an update depricating his contraction speaking abilities...]

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

In "The Next Phase," it's also curious that suddenly, cloaking doesn't rely on having a cloaking device continually keeping you cloaked. In the Pegasus episode, which uses comparable technology, it materialized in the rock when the cloak failed. But Geordi and Ro frolic about without any device sustaining their cloak/phase.

 

[Noname Given]

In "The Next Phase," it's also curious that suddenly, cloaking doesn't rely on having a cloaking device continually keeping you cloaked. In the Pegasus episode, which uses comparable technology, it materialized in the rock when the cloak failed. But Geordi and Ro frolic about without any device sustaining their cloak/phase.

WRT TNG's - "The Next Phase"; I want to know how they kept from phasing through the 'floor' (IE should they have just fallen through every deck until they were in open space?)

Also, when a scene showed them entering Picard's ready room via a wall - the other side of said wall WAS to open space.

 

[Markonian]

WRT TNG's - "The Next Phase"; I want to know how they kept from phasing through the 'floor' (IE should they have just fallen through every deck until they were in open space?)

Also, when a scene showed them entering Picard's ready room via a wall - the other side of said wall WAS to open space.

In the Trek(ST: Titan) novella “Absent Enemies”, writer John Jackson Miller comes up with an explanation why phases people don’t fall through the floor. I...cannot recall it at this time.

In a German Sci-Fi novel the afflicted character does sink through the floor but can halt it by concentrating.

 

[JesterFace]

In the Trek(ST: Titan) novella “Absent Enemies”, writer John Jackson Miller comes up with an explanation why phases people don’t fall through the floor. I...cannot recall it at this time.

Maybe it had something to do with gravity plating on the floor?
That's a theory I read somewhere, perhaps here.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

In a German Sci-Fi novel the afflicted character does sink through the floor but can halt it by concentrating.

Concentrating sounds more like a fantasy answer than a sci-fi answer to the problem of sinking through floors, but I haven't read it.

 

[Stroudarian]

And that's just one of the problems with that episode.

Agreed, wholeheartedly. I always wondered that myself, even when I was just a boy, watching the episode for the very first time.

 

[Stroudarian]

A few more:
- "Powerplay" (when Troi, O'Brien and Data are taken over): it gets established that pain is the key to expelling the entities, but every time they get shot with phasers, they take it better than anybody. Pain's no issue when you're getting shot.
- "The Next Phase" (when Geordi and Ro are cloaked): obviously there's an issue when you can pass through walls, but the floor is as solid as ever. Geordi (and the rest of the gang) fail to reminisce about his debacle when they face the same tech again in "The Pegasus." They treat it a brand new idea.
- "Darmok": Data and Troi have a library of info on a species they supposedly know nothing about.

All fun episodes, though. I'd watch 'em again.

Your reference to "The Next Phase" - Even when I was a young kid, watching this episode as it aired, I asked the exact same question, why didn't they fall through the floors?

 

[Timo]

Why would they? Only gravity would make them "fall". And if artificial gravity does affect them, then its effect on them will be to keep their feet to the floor, not to pull them through - the gravity is demonstrably a deck-by-deck thing, with each deck canceling out the pulls of the ones above and below.

Well - remember in the first few episodes of TNG S1 Data used contractions just fine. Then, suddenly as of TNG S1 - "Datalore", it was said Data COULDN'T use contractions.

This one would be much more fun if it actually happened.

But no, nowhere in "Datalore" was it said that Data couldn't use contractions. Indeed, he uses quite a few in that very episode, including his concluding remark "I'm fine"! Which I'm sure was very deliberate, and the moment where the audience is supposed to first think "Uh-oh, is this Data or Lore after all?" and then to challenge one's false notions about what makes Data Data.

All we learn there is that Lore accuses Data of using a formal turn of phase, to which Data retorts that yes, he indeed does. That's who Data is. Which is different from who Data could be, as demonstrated many times when Data pretends to be somebody else, with great success.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[gratone]

So where's the problem? Getting shot with a phaser might indeed be completely painless.

Response to/perception of pain is highly variable between individuals, of course, but there are enough examples to suggest that geting shot with a phaser is not painless. Riker and Ro both make exclamations of pain when O'Brien shoots them *in this episode*. In "The Hunted" super soldier Roga Danar also reacts in pain when shot, as does O'Brien.

 

[Tenacity]

Getting shot with a phaser might indeed be completely painless.

Kirk: "This won't kill you, but the stun effect is not very pleasant. "

 

[tomswift2002]

One plot point is Deanna Troi’s Eastern European accent. In “Haven” Lwaxana says that she got her accent from her dad, and Mr.Xylo tried to get her to forget it. But then in “Dark Page” Ian Troi is Heard with an American accent. So where did Deanna get her accent? Did she get it from Mr. Xylo?

 

[Unicron]

Why would they? Only gravity would make them "fall". And if artificial gravity does affect them, then its effect on them will be to keep their feet to the floor, not to pull them through - the gravity is demonstrably a deck-by-deck thing, with each deck canceling out the pulls of the ones above and below.

I honestly don't see this complaint in the same light as many others. It's a valid one, but I just assume the phasing effect wasn't quite that strong - same reason they could apparently breathe the ship's air with no trouble even though Geordi said they couldn't eat for a few days.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

One plot point is Deanna Troi’s Eastern European accent. In “Haven” Lwaxana says that she got her accent from her dad, and Mr.Xylo tried to get her to forget it. But then in “Dark Page” Ian Troi is Heard with an American accent. So where did Deanna get her accent? Did she get it from Mr. Xylo?

I've noticed that accents in general are a little wonky in Hollywood. Halle Berry's attempt at an accent went away as the X-Men movies progressed. Elizabeth Olsen's accent is quickly fading in the Avengers films. Melissa Rauch's voice for her character has gone through a couple different stages in the BBT. It's a fickle thing.

 

[tomswift2002]

I've noticed that accents in general are a little wonky in Hollywood. Halle Berry's attempt at an accent went away as the X-Men movies progressed. Elizabeth Olsen's accent is quickly fading in the Avengers films. Melissa Rauch's voice for her character has gone through a couple different stages in the BBT. It's a fickle thing.

Yeah, except that in the case of Deanna, her accent was all throughout the series and movies, and it was written that she got the accent from her father (which makes sense as Lwaxana was probably talking to her via telepathy a lot, whereas Ian Troi was only human). So the actor for Ian Troi should’ve been someone with a European accent, not some guy who sounds like he just came from Kentucky!

 

[tomalak301]

The All Good Things Plot Hole. I still think the Pasture and the Enterprise have same beams so it didn't make much of a difference who caused the anomaly but it still doesn't detract from this Classic TNG finale.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

Another one: in "Thine Own Self," Data loses his memory, and is still able to eloquently explain his radiation experiment like a college professor - but somehow can't remember what the word "radioactive" means.