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Wacky Reviews: Star Trek

Yes -- she was Tasha's daughter. Tasha survived the time jump in the Ent-C from Yesterday's Enterprise but was taken prisoner.
 
She got her fathers ears, eyebrows, and haircut, the rest from her mum.

I guess the evil was from her dad's side too.
 
OK THAT WAS WEIRD BECAUSE I didn't see Wacky's reply in the thread when I opened it even though he made it an hour ago, but when I edited a typo in my post and came back IT WAS THERE.
 
We'll Always Have Paris - Picard is fencing when suddenly part of his conversation with his fencing partner repeats itself. It's some kind of time loop! (A white hole?) The Enterprise picks up a distress call from a scientist (Manheim) Picard knows of who went off to do time experiments. Troi tells Picard she sensed INTENSE EMOTION when Manheim was mentioned. He basically blows her off and recreates Paris in the Holodeck instead. Picard talks to a holowaiter about how he didn't show up to a date with a girl there years before. The holodeck creates an ironic scene right after that to fuck with him. Picard says "enough of this self indulgence!" and marches out. Well, that was a waste of time. They arrive at Manheim's planet and Picard won't give his name to the woman who answers his hail. Manheim and his wife are beamed onboard. He's having convulsions and she recognises Picard. She's the lady he stood up in Paris! She gives some technobabble about her husband finding a special star where he could do his time experiments and something's gone wrong. The time distortion is spreading out to other systems and there's a cool bit where there's another time loop and Picard, Riker and Data see themselves trying to get onto the turbolift they're already on. Maybe there'll finally be some drama 20 minutes into this episode! Well, we get some mild transporter drama but it's not very exciting.

Manheim wakes up and his mind is in two places at once so he's a bit weird. He explains his time stuff to Data. Only Data can seal the whole in the other dimension and save the galaxy itself. It's all very dull for a discussion about saving the galaxy. Manheim's wife asks Picard why he didn't show up in Paris and he tells her. She thinks it's because Picard thought that life with her would have made him ordinary. It's an okay scene but it hardly sparkles. Troi wants to talk to Crusher about Picard's feelings too. But out, Deanna? The problem is that the lady isn't very interesting and I don't want to watch characters talking about her so much? Data goes on the away team to the lab by himself and has to fight the laser-based security system. He encounters two other versions of himself when he tries to insert the antimatter into the time thingy. This is moderately intersting for the five seconds it takes up of the episode. Picard witnesses Manheim and Denise (that was her name) being happy together. Denise meets Picard in Paris on the Holodeck (she doesn't know what a Holodeck is?) and I guess that means things are okay between them now.

There's nother really "wrong" with this episode, it's just not very interesting? The story is fine, the acting is fine, it's Picard centric so we get a lot of Patrick Stewart which is always good. But it's all just kind of there? It's our first TIME DISTORTION episode but it's really tame compared to what will come later. I mean there's only three times we actually see the time distortion in action and it doesn't really do much other than mildly annoy our heroes. Considering the entire galaxy is supposed to be at risk they should have portrayed the time distortion in a more dramatic way. Also it's an episode about Picard and a lost love and their history together, but it never tries to draw any parrellels between that story and the time distortion stuff. Like I bet in a later season the time distortion would have actually physically sent Picard back in time and he'd have had a chance to do things differently with Denise or whatever. Here they just talk about it for a couple of minutes then they're both fine. There's not much emotion to it, even though Stewart does a good job looking nostaglic. Anyway, yeah, this is just an episode that exists, basically. It's fine but if you never watched it you'd be missing nothing.

SCORE: 5/10
 
Conspiracy - The Enterprise is going to an ocean planet, which sounds cool. Geordi tells Data a sex joke and Data does a creepy fake laugh. Riker to Geordi: "Increase to Warp 6!" Geordi: "Aye sir, Full Impulse!" What the fuck happened there? An old friend (Walker) contacts Picard and tells him something is wrong with Starfleet. He has good crazy eyes. It's like there's some kind of conspiracy going on! So the Enteprise goes to an obscure planet (no cool ocean planet this week) for a meeting with some other ship Captains. There's a Bolian (namd after director Cliff Bole), Walker and a hot young black woman. They say some of the top people in Starfleet are acting different. They don't really have any useful information. Picard has Data go over loads of Starfleet logs (Data SMILES when Picard gives him this mission as Data had emotions in season one.) They find Walker's ship destroyed not long after this. Picard tells Riker about the conspiracy. Meanwhile, Data manages to bore the computer by talking too much. This episode has a lot of "Data being weird" interludes. Data uncovers some subtle attempt to control parts of Federation space by an unknown force. Picard's had enough and decides to go back to Earth and see what's up. He talks to a Vulcan Admiral, Quinn from 'Coming of Age' and another old guy and they invite him to dinner. Picard thinks Quinn can be trusted but he has some weird alien scorpion insect thing! Uh oh! Quinn says he was only using a metaphor before and there's no reason for Picard to worry. Picard knows right away that something's up and warns Riker to watch Quinn and have Beverly examine him.

Picard beams down for his special meal and Remmick from 'Coming of Age' is there too. Quinn shows his scorpion to Riker then KICKS RIKER IN THE FACE. His stunt double beats up Riker's stunt double and Quinn laughs evily. He seems to have gone off mission now and thought "sod implanting my scorpion in him, I'll just beat Riker up and laugh evily." Riker calls for a security team and Worf and Geordi come running from the Bridge. Err, what? There was no closer security team who could have come? Why is Geordi working security? I guess it's so Quinn can THROW GEORDI THROUGH HIS DOOR. His really fake, easily breakable door. He beats up Worf too but is stopped by Crusher with a phaser (girl power!) Crusher tells Picard that he has to set his phaser on KILL to deal with this parasite. Then Riker surprises Crusher and it looks like he's under control too! Remmick serves up dinner to Picard...it's maggots! Because they're creepy aliens now they have to eat maggots! Riker comes down but he's evil now too and says Picad will be one of them soon! He has the thing in his neck and everything. Sexy black Captain from earlier is also possessed now (or maybe she was earlier and that's why Walker's ship got blown up.) They aliens explain that they've been slowly planning to take over for months. But Riker was faking! He's really good! (So why did Crusher gasp earlier?) The Vulcan tries to nerve pinch him but Picard saves. Picard and Riker see a TERRIBLE stop motion scorpion crawl up Remmick's leg and he swallows it. His neck starts bulging. This is some fucked up shit. He says he seeks peaceful co-existence. Picard and Riker shoot him with their phases...until his head explodes. Why does his head explode? I don't know, it just does! The head alien BURSTS OUT OF HIS CHEST (where do they come up with these crazy ideas!) and they shoot it dead too. And because that was the alien queen (I guess) that means everyone else is fine now, including Quinn. But the aliens have sent a HOMING BEACON which means they'll definitely be back in a future episode...

What the fuck is this episode. Like, really. It's not an episode of TNG. Even for season one it feels tonally different from everything else. It's like a Treehouse of Horror version of TNG. The idea of a conspiracy within Starfleet is a good one, but the aliens aren't even characters here. They're just fake looking scorpion things that make everyone act evil and eat maggots. There's no attempt to find out what they want or who they are, Picard and Riker just literally shoot their leader until it explodes. I'm not saying they shouldn't have killed it if there was no other option, but it would have been more interesting if they'd found out something about them. Anything. Also, why do the aliens invite Picard to a maggot dinner? Why does Quinn give the game away and start beating peopleup? It makes no sense! These aliens were intended to be recurring foes but were eventually replaced by the Borg and I think we can all agree that this was the right move. AND YET this episode is still very entertaining, in a dumb way. I mean an old man beat up Riker and Worf and throwing Geordi through a door is always going to be fun. And Picard and Riker literally shoot a guy until his head explodes. There's not any other TNG episodes where you can see something like that!

SCORE: 6.5/10
 
The original showing on BBC2 was heavily edited, they just start firing the phasers, then it cuts straight to Piccard and Riker looking disgusted.

Ironically the scene was left in for the flashbacks in shade of gray shown at the same 6PM timeslot, I guess the BBC sensors were asleep for that one.
 
I remember seeing the edited version on Sky too (I watched TNG first on Sky) but I also remember the head exploding version so maybe they did a late night showing one time (or didn't edit Shades Of Grey.)
 
It the most graphic violence they ever did on Trek, I reckon. Although in Conundrum another alien imposter gets phasered in the head as well. I guess it was the style back then.

I liked the idea of a conspiracy and considering how inconsistent everything in season one is it was sort of impressive that they followed up on Coming with Age. Maybe the intentions of the aliens would've been fleshed out had they appeared in future episodes, so the overall story would've been greater than the sum of it's parts.
 
I have always heard that the concept of the Conspiracy aliens evolved into the Borg, but I don't know how true that is. Still, the episode was worth watching just to see Worf get his ass kicked by an old geezer.
 
I like that the Quinn parasite basically ruined months (probably years) of careful planning just because he wanted to fight a Klingon.

I need to find my TNG Companion and start reading the behind the scenes shit.
 
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The Neutral Zone - The Enterprise finds a 20th century Earth satellite with FROZEN PEOPLE inside. It's a bit like 'Space Seed', except there's three normal humans inside instead of a load of Hitlers. Picard comes back from a secret meeting and orders the Enterprise to fly into the Neutral Zone. He tells the crew that two Federation Outposts along the Neutral Zone have been destroyd and they suspect the Romulans, who haven't been seen in fifty years (except in 'Angel One' where the Enterprise was rushing to deal with a Romulan attack?) So it's a bit like 'Balance of Terror' as well. Crusher thaws out the frozen people and easily cures their casues of death and brings them back to life. Picard is really pissed off that Data didn't leave them to die. Data reads out the woman's occupation as "homemaker" and says "must be some kind of construction work." That Data! There's also an eighties businessman (like in Futurama) and a cowboy singer who did loads of drugs (giving Picard and Crusher a chance to be snobs.) Riker is a lot nicer to the freezer geezers than Picard and he and Data and Crusher explain how they're alive and stuff. The singer and the business guy adjust really quickly but the woman is upset because women have emotions. Troi gives some basic exposition on the Romulans which Picard pretends is useful. Data tells the singer that tv didn't last beyond 2040, which is some bullshit. There's lots of fish out of water comedy then Riker smugly says there isn't much to redeem the three of them and he wonders how we survived the 20th century. WE GET IT, GENE, WE'RE TRASH.

Business guy calls Picard on the intercom and Picard tells him off for using it. Business guy rightly points out that if he wasn't supposed to use the com panel he should have been locked out, but Picard says people in the 24th century practice self discipline. What, even the children on the ship? Business guy says "it's about power" like in Buffy season 7. Homemaker starts crying to Picard calls Troi to "get these people under control." Troi helps her find out what happened to her children. Singer goes Crusher seeking drugs. The Enterprise arrives at the edge of the Neutral Zone and finds that the last outpost was scooped off the planet somehow. Things are getting tense on the Bridge and the music is getting good, so Business Guy sneaks into the Turbolift to go up there and see what's happening. Again it's ridiculous that the Enterprise allows just anyone to go anywhere on the ship. A Romulan Warbird decloaks. Something's bound to happen now! Picard lets Business Guy stay on the Bridge to watch. Gul Dukat is pretending to be a Romulan for some reason (by which I mean Marc Alaimo is playing a Romulan) and he tells Picard Romulan colonies have been destroyed too (and calls Worf a "dog.") The Romulans agree to team up with the Enterprise to solve this mystery. Dukat Romulan tells Picard that the Romulans have been away on "important matters" (we never find out what this is refering to ever) and says "WE ARE BACK." Dramatic music plays...and the Romulans leave. That's it. There's no actual team up with the Enterprise (depiste them just saying there would be) and they don't actually do anything except say they're back. Wallstreet Guy agrees to go to Earth and "better himself" (or something) and singer guy offers to make Data his sideman. Picard makes a bit of an "ever forward!" speech as dramatic music plays, end of the season.

This is a weird episode. It has two distinct storylines but neither of them feel complete. The stuff with the 20th century people is really light. There's some okay humour (mostly involving Data) and some snobbishness, but ultimately there isn't much to it. It looks like they're setting up Picard and Wallstreet guy to learn from each other, but in the end I don't know what either of them learned. Probably nothing! It's all a bit pointless. The Romulan story is even weirder! They actually do a pretty good job in the end of building up tension when the Romulan ship is cloaked, but then it uncloakds and...nothing realy happens. The Romulans just say that they're back. It feels like a meta set up for a season two where the Romulans would feature heavily, except that didn't happen (I don't think they even appear again until season three.) Maurice Hurley's plan was to eventually reveal that the missing colonies were taken by an insectoid race, but they got replaced by the Borg in the end and they got credit for it. I'm not saying they had to solve the mystery in this episode, but we could have at least had some investigation. Instead the Romulans just fly off and everyone forgets the missing colonies. It just doesn't feel like a full episode.

SCORE: 5.5/10
 
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