CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 2-10 - 2-11

2-10) The Dauphin
or
Oooh, Wesley in Love

The Mission: Transport a princess from her inhospitable safe world to her equally inhospitable homeworld.

Planets visited: Klavdia 3 and Daled 4: Two planets with almost identical atmospheres. They don't look very pleasant from orbit, and we don't see the surfaces. Daled 4 has at least one inhabited moon (where Anya is from), and the planet is the homeworld of the allasomorphs. The planet completes one revolution per orbit, so it is permanently locked with one side in day and the other in night. The two sides have been at war for their entire recorded history. Salia's parents come from different sides of Daled 4, and so she is destined to reunite the two factions.

This isn't a planet. It's a picture of a planet.

Alien life forms:

Allasomorphs: Shapeshifting beings whose natural form is a sort of glowing white ribbon of energy. Both Anya and Salia are allasomorphs, capable of shifting their molecular structure into that of other life forms. They've both taken human form for the voyage, Salia as a beautiful young woman, her protector Anya as a nasty old bag. Behind closed doors Anya turns into a serious fitty when she's trying to reassure Salia, then a sort of teddy bear thing that's probably supposed to be cute but is frankly terrifying. In sickbay, Anya decides she has to kill a contagious crewman and turns into a huge hairy beast, more than capable of overpowering Worf. She's a cocky bitch and thinks she's far more powerful than anyone on board (they could just beam her into space). When she threatens Wesley, Salia turns into an even bigger monster.

Shut Up, Wesley: It's a Wes episode. He falls head over heels in love with Salia the moment he sees her (I guess that's why they call him Crusher). In fairness, she's a beautiful girl who's into magnets, so she's a science nerd's wet dream. Wes gets so distracted he forgets to go to work, and spends his time asking various staff members for love advice. He then loiters outside her quarters until she comes out.

Amazingly, he manages to get somewhere with her. He woos her with chocolate, because while she's an alien, she's still a girl and girl's love chocolate, right? It helps that he's a total choco hipster snob. He takes her to see planets and asteroid belts on the holodeck, and continues to see her even after Anya and Picard both warn him off, but he treats her like shit when he realises that the pretty girl he's been snogging isn't her real form. He comes round in the end though.

The Picard Manoeuvre: 

Number One: Riker gives Wesley a crash course in romance, which consists of a series of nauseating lines that make him seem like a complete creep. He tries them out on Guinan, though, and she's totally into it. No wonder she got married twenty-three times.

Son of Mogh: His advice to Wesley is terrifying, but there's a hint that he's taking the piss. He begins by screaming at him, before suggesting that women throw stuff and claw at you, while men recite poetry and duck.

He's emasculated by Anya's ass-wipping of him, but develops huge respect for her and hopes to meet her again, to fight on the same side. (He should have looked her up during the Dominion War, she would've been handy then.) He says "the body is just a shell," and that you shouldn't be fooled by someone's appearance.

In Therapy: Troi can sense that the aliens are hiding something, and that their emotions don't match their outward appearances, but that's about as useful as she gets in this episode.

Stellar Cartography: By this time, only 19% of the galaxy has been charted. On the planet Thalos 7, they age cocoa beans for four hundred years.

Sexy Trek: Wil Wheaton got his first screen kiss here from Jaime Hubbard, who's ten years older than him. Good for him.

Space Bilge:  Riker says of Klavdia 3: "How could anyone exist in an environment so totally hostile to human life?" apparently forgetting that they're ferrying aliens. The crew also express surprise at how similar the atmospheres are between the two planets, which is surely the point. It wouldn't be much use sending Salia to a safehouse on a planet where she can't breathe.

Why does Picard continually open channels to Salia's quarters and then ask if he can turn the viewer on? Is he trying to catch her in the nip?

Everyone is stunned to meet a shapeshifter, who have apparently only been rumoured before, but even restricting to episodes broadcast before this Starfleet has documented shapeshifters including Vendorians, Excalbians and Antosians, and the Enterprise crew have met Q, for crying out loud.

The Verdict: Given that it's a Wesley episode, and Wesley romance at that, this episode isn't bad. In fact it's rather sweet. Still, anyone who thinks Wesley's life is wild and fascinating really has had a sheltered upbringing, and it can't be that hard to impress someone who's never tasted chocolate before.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 2-9

2-9) The Measure of a Man
or
Everybody Needs Good Androids

The Mission: Prove Data's right to choose in a Starfleet court of law.

Planets visited: Not one.

Starships and Stations: Starbase 173 has been established near the Romulan Neutral Zone in response to the recent Romulan contact and the devastation along the front, soon to be discovered to be the work of the Borg (see TNG 1-25). There seem to be Anticans on the station. There's an office of the Daystrom Institute and the sector's JAG office on the station, the latter run by Philippa Louvois. She's the only legal staff member at the moment since they're still staffing the station.

Elementary, Dear Data: Starfleet has evaluated Data and concluded he is not a sentient being (which isn't really in line with hints in earlier episodes). Bruce Maddox of the Daystrom Institute has ordered him reassigned to Starbase 173 in order to be disassembled. He looks genuinely alarmed by this idea, and doesn't trust Maddox not to cock it up.

Since he can't simply refuse a reassignment (and an appeal would take too long to be useful, no doubt) Data decides to resign his commission, which Maddox intends to block on the basis that the android is the property of Starfleet. The senior crew hold a goodbye party for Data. He keeps quite a lot of old tat in his room, including a book that was a gift from Picard and a hologram of Tasha. He seems quite embarrassed when asked why he keeps this, and clearly still has feelings for her, even if he can't quite articulate them. He believes that he must protect Soong's dream by staying alive and intact (this will change as the years go by).

Maddox calls Data "it" and doesn't treat him with respect. Louvois calls him a toaster, but comes round eventually. Data is magnanimous enough to agree to work with Maddox in the future, which is pretty damned big of him.

He's never played poker before, and he's not very good at it yet. He's very easy to bluff. He holds the Legion and Medal of Honour and the Star Cross. His brain can hold 800 million bits of data (this isn't actually terribly impressive compared to the human brain, the capacity of which is unknown but estimated to be at least a thousand times more than this). He has an off switch in his arm, which is easily detachable.

The Picard Maneouvre: Picard shuts down Louvois's flirtation straight away and really hasn't much time for her. To begin with he tries to see both sides of the argument for Maddox's work, but soon realises how dangerous this is. He realises how Maddox is refusing to respect Data's rights as a person, and the risk of mass-produced androids becoming a slave caste. He speaks of a whole group of androids being a race - both of these things eventually come to pass in Star Trek: Picard. He successfully forces Maddox to confirm Data's sentience accrding to his own definition. He still values Guinan's counsel and takes it on himself to defend Data, eventually winning the argument and securing his right to choose.

The edited version of the episode available today states that Picard's first posting was on the starship Reliant.

Number One: Louvois assigns Riker as the nextmost senior officer to act as counsel for the prosecution. he immediately refuses, but since this would forfeit the trial and make Data a loser by default, he agrees. He puts in serious work as prosecutor, doing his best to portray Data as an object, but is clearly torn by his loyalty.

Geordi Shore: Geordi doesn't get a lot of screen time but is clearly cut up by Data's resignation. He should have had a chance to defend him in court though.

Lady Bones: She's present at Data's goodbye party and has clearly changed her mind about him. Data has some respect for the doctor.

Hat-tastic: It's Guinan who gets Picard to consider the horrifying ultimate result of Maddox's mission.

Sexy Trek: Philippa Louvois is an old shag of the Captain's from years ago, who still has a thing for him, although he remains pissed off with her for when she prosecuted him with zeal for the loss of the Stargazer. She says he's "still a pompous ass and a damn sexy man."

Cliche count: This is the first appearance of the now traditional Enterprise-D poker game. The players in this episode are Data, Riker, Pulaski, La Forge and O'Brien.

Future History: This is the first mention of the Daystrom Institute, named for Richard Daystrom (see TOS 2-20). It'll be mentioned many times throughout TNG, DS9 and VOY, and finally appear in Picard.

Future Treknology: Maddox has built a positronic net but it's not up to scratch. He plans to continue Soong's work and use Data's brain as a model to create an improved net and thereby build more androids. He says there are negligible risks to Data but no one believes him.

Future Echoes: This episode will have huge repercussions in Star Trek: Picard, with events on Mars happening almost twenty years after this.

Best lines: "Starfleet was founded to seek out new life. Well there it sits - waiting!"

"I'm sick to death of hearing about rights!"

"Pinocchio is broken; its strings have been cut."

The verdict: An exceptional episode, one with real impact and relevance today. While we're nowhere near the point where we'll have to have these discussion about artificial intelligence, the treatment of one group of people as lesser, disposable or a commodity is never far behind. It's vital that this story is told again and again, through whatever metaphor.

Making Riker the prosecutor is contrived, although it leads to some effective scenes. Wouldn't it have made more sense to make Dr. Pulaski the prosecutor if they were set on having a regular character do it? In either case, there's an obvious conflict of interest.

Nonetheless, this episode is a brilliantly written piece of science fiction drama held up by an excellent performance by Patrick Stewart and fine support from Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes. One of the all time greats of TNG, it's hardly surprising that it became the basis of Picard. The extended modern edition is particularly worth watching for some nice extra scenes.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 2.16 - Enter the Borg

2.16) Q Who
or
Awww Shit, the Borg


The Mission: Escape the Borg and return home. It's Voyager, five years early.


Planets visited: None as such. Q throws the Enterprise over seven thousand light years across space, to star system J-25. (Given what we learn later of the location of Borg space and the layout of the galaxy, this is probably deep into the Beta Quadrant, still well outside the Borg's main territory.)


Alien lifeforms:

Q: Following his previous dicking about with the Enterprise crew in season one, Q has been kicked out of the Continuum and is now homeless. Well, assuming he's not lying and it's just another one of his tests. He wants to join the Enterprise crew, petitioning Picard in the only way he knows how – by annoying him into submission. It doesn't work, and when Picard refutes Q's claim that they need him, he throws them across space into the path of...


The Borg: At last. After the rubbish attempt at a new baddie they gave us with the Ferengi, the TNG team create a proper alien menace. Q describes the Borg best: “The Borg is the ultimate user. They're unlike any threat your Federation has ever faced. They're not interested in political conquest, wealth, or power as you know it. They're simply interested in your ship, its technology. They've identified it as something they can consume.”


The Borg are humanoids with cybernetic enhancements grafted into their bodies. The away team finds babies on their ship, in coffin-like cots, already in the process of being augmented. They operate with a collective consciousness, unified by a single will, with no sense of individuality. Their only interest is in technology, and they will take anything they see worthy of use. The death of one Borg is meaningless to them; another will be along to replace it. They can adapt to the weapons of the Enterprise; a phaser blast fells the first intruder, but is repelled by the second. They just keep coming; they are relentless.


The Picard Manoeuvre: Picard is at his most arrogant and disagreeable here. Q does not bring out the best in him. Knowing that he will not simply agree to allowing Q to join the crew, the superbeing whisks him away in shuttle to the middle of deep space and threatens to keep him there until he listens. Q is willing to stay there for decades, and you can fully believe that Picard is so stubborn he'll keep him waiting that long. Picard is totally out of his depth in the fight against the Borg, but has the balls to admit it, and asks Q for help. This impresses Q enough to send the ship back where it came from, out of harm's way.


Number One: Remains pissed off at Q for his interference in his life in previous episodes. He's got the guts to go poking around the Borg ship when it's briefly disabled.


Elementary, Dear Data: Seems worryingly impressed by the Borg and their technological society. He'll get closer to the Borg in future, than anyone save Picard.

Hat-tastic: Well, then. Finally, we get to learn something about Guinan, and she's been hiding some secrets. For a start, she's been in this part of space before, something Picard is aware of (possibly, she's from there originally). She knows the Borg of old; they destroyed her home planet, although she wasn't there at the time. More intriguingly, she knows Q, and they do not have a good relationship. He describes her as “an imp,” knows her by a different name, and warns Picard to get rid of her. She even seems to be able to defend herself against Q, if her stance in his presence is anything to go by. Altogether, this paints her as far more dangerous and powerful than any other time we've seen, but the questions remain unanswered in the series.


Crew Roster: It's the first appearance of Sonya Gomez, clearly designed as a recurring character and a love interest for Geordi. She's played by Lycia Naff, and is pretty gorgeous and adorable. The Enterprise crew is already so capable that having a green recruit onboard to sympathise with is a good idea, and Sonya is perfect for this. She's polite to the drinks dispensers (she'd do well on Red Dwarf), immediately throws hot chocolate all over Picard and is understandably utterly terrified in the engagement with the Borg. She's a great character, but is only in the show for two episodes.


Starships: The Borg Cube, an iconic Trek design. It's an eminently sensible design for the Borg to use; completely decentralised, a platonic shape with no need for aerodynamics or aesthetics beyond the mathematical. It comes across as just as much alive as the Borg themselves, healing from its wounds. In fact, it's less a ship, more like a body, with the Borg as cells performing functions within. The Cube is capable of holding the Enterprise in place with a tractor beam, and carving chunks out of it like a turkey.





Best line: Too many to choose from, but here's some of Q's finest:


“You judge yourselves against the pitiful adversaries you've encountered so far. The Romulans, the Klingons – they're nothing compared to what's coming.”


“If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you should go back home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here. It's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires, both subtle and gross. But it's not for the timid.”


and, to Worf:


“Microbrain! Growl for me, let me know you still care!”




Links: The devastation of the planet at J-25 match that of the outposts along the Neutral Zone seen at the end of the previous season. Q's actions in “Hide and Q” supposedly have led to his being evicted from the Q Continuum.


Focus on... Q and the Borg: There's a debate among fans as to whether Q did the Federation a favour in introducing them to the Borg, or whether he endangered them by alerting the Borg to their existence. I'm firmly of the opinion that he helped them. There's no doubt that the Borg were already aware of the Federation and their region of the galaxy, as the attacks along the Neutral Zone show. Later episodes, in Enterprise and Voyager, indicate that the Borg knew of the Federation decades, if not centuries before these events.


Guinan points out to Picard that, now the Borg are aware of their existence, they will be coming. Yet, they were already coming. Feasibly, the sudden appearance and disappearance of a Federation starship in their hunting grounds might have encouraged the Borg to begin the invasion, but this was merely pushing them ahead of schedule. The Borg were slowly advancing across the galaxy, sending out ships to take samples of alien civilisations for future harvesting. Starfleet would have been taken completely unawares, had Q not allowed Picard this sneak peak of his future. (Q explicitly calls this a glimpse of what's to come.) An early invasion fought off with vital foreknowledge is far better than a later one that comes completely out of the blue.


The Verdict: One of the best single episodes of The Next Generation's run, easily the best of the season, a complete turnaround of fortune for Picard and crew. Genuinely thrilling, the desperate race to escape the Borg is one of the series' finest hours, with the almighty Starfleet for once completely out of their depth, lost and alone in a deadly part of space. As brilliant as it is in itself, “Q Who” will be remembered for its legacy. Star Trek was the never the same again.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 2.7-2.8

2.7) Unnatural Selection
or
An Old-Age Tale


The Mission: Investigate the deaths of the crew of the USS Langtree, who all died of old age.


Planets visited: Gagarin 4, location of the Darwin Genetic Research Centre. Nice job – memorialising both Yuri Gagarin and Charles Darwin in one fell swoop.


The Picard Manoeuvre: He doesn't like being interrupted, although he admits he's being a bit of a hypocrite. He butts heads with Pulaski a good deal, thinking she's too obsessed with her work (and she thinks exactly the same of him). He makes getting Data and Pulaski back the ship's top priority. When it's revealed that the transport rescue of the doctor is kill-or-cure, Picard volunteers to operate the transporter himself.


Lady Bones: She's incredibly confident in her diagnosis. She believes that beaming a potentially infected child onto the Enterprise, albeit with major safeguards, is worth it if it can solve the mystery of the illness that killed the Langtree crew. (This, on a ship of over a thousand people, bear in mind.) She's willing to risk her own health by treating the children. She's famous among medical circles for her early viral papers. She's introducing herself as Kate now, rather than Katherine.


Elementary, Dear Data: He's the perfect choice to pilot a shuttlecraft with the doctor and her patient aboard, since he is naturally unaffected by diseases, although he does say that this is “by now means certain. (He did catch the virus in “The Naked Now,” so he's right to be concerned.)


GM People: The children engineered by the Darwin Station scientists are highly advanced, designed to be the future of humanity. They mature rapidly, have powerful minds are telepathic and telekinetic. They are designed to be disease resistant, but their aggressive immune system was stimulated by a Langtree officer's flu virus. It created an infectious airborne antibody that attacks the genetic material and causes accelerated ageing.


Future History: Later episodes, particularly in Deep Space Nine, would suggest that this kind of genetic research is illegal in the Federation.


Future Treknology: The Enterprise can patch into the Langtree's security systems, displaying the bridge on the display screen and zooming in on details, which is pretty swish. Styrolite is a plasticky substance that keeps a human being in stasis.


With a sample of unadulterated DNA, the transporters (with some special modifications by O'Brien) can remove an genetic infection and restore a patient to health. It even sorts her hair out.


The Verdict: Pulaski is brilliant throughout this episode, as is Picard. The moment when Picard learns that she has been following his career is cute – but not as cute as when they hug. She's saved by a hair follicle and a spot of genius from O'Brien (it's good to see the chief getting a bigger piece of the action for once, and finally getting named). You have to wonder why, now that they've discovered this method, they don't use it to cure pretty much everything. It's pretty harsh that the kids have to live forever in isolation. The final log entry by Dr. Pulaski sounds like the sign-off to an episode of The Outer Limits.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 2.4-2.6

2.4) The Outrageous Okona
or
Marky Sue


The Mission: Intervene in an interplanetary treaty that is rapidly deterioriating.


Planets visited: The two planets of Atlec and Straleb were colonised some centuries ago by a humanoid species, and now exist in a precarious peace as the Coalition of Madena.


Stellar Cartography: Atlec and Straleb exist in the Omega Sagitta system. There is a constellation called Sagitta – representing the arrow – but the stars do not go as far as Omega. Presumably, the constellation gets expanded in between now and the 24^th century (although it should really be Omega Sagittae).


Trek Stars: William O. Campbell, aka Billy Campbell, plays Thadiun Okona. He also auditioned to play Riker, coming second to Jonathan Frakes. Okona is a painfully Mary-Sue character, marching onto the ship and charming everyone in sight. He dresses like Han Solo, chats up every woman he meets, Riker admires him, Wesley fancies him and is the focus of the whole episode. Just in case we didn't realise that he is a “rogue,” Troi explains it to us laboriously.


The Picard Manoeuvre: Clearly finds Okona as irritating as I do. He seems incredibly frustrated by the political situation that Okona has created between the leaders of the two planets (one lot thinks he's nicked a precious jewel, the other thinks he's knocked up his daughter). He has no authority to arbitrate, the leaders won't listen, and they're so hopelessly outgunned that getting into a firefight would be horribly unethical.


Number One: Clearly impressed with Okona's lifestyle and sexy skills.


Elementary, Dear Data: He's an android, not a robot. There's a protracted and painful B-plot in which Okona inspires Data to try to develop a sense of humour. This involves Data trying to learn jokes and watching a shite stand-up routine in the holodeck. “What is funny?” he asks. Not this.


Sexy Trek: Okona bangs three female crewmembers, including the first woman he sees, a transporter operator played by a pre-fame Teri Hatcher, who doesn't even get credited. The leader of Atlec thinks he's got his daughter pregnant and demands that he marries her, but it's really down to the son of the governor of Straleb.


Double Entendres: “May I at least watch?”


Future Treknology: The alien ships are armed with lasers. They can't even touch the Enterprise.


The Verdict: Awful. Aside from a couple of amusing moments (Picard muting the aliens is quite good), this is bog standard Trek barely enlivened by a naff central character. The actors playing the heirs to Atlec and Straleb are awful. The whole thing is painfully sexist and not nearly as funny as it's desperately trying to be.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 2-3

2.3) Elementary, Dear Data
or
Watson the Holodeck Today?


The Mission: Rendezvous with the USS Victory.


Planets visited: None.


The Great Detective: Turns out that Data is a huge fan of the works of Arthur Conan Doyle and the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. He's got the entire canon in his database (but does he have the apocryphal stuff? Has he read The Seven Per Cent Solution? Would he recognise Benedict Cumberbatch, Robert Downey Jr. and that bloke off Torchwood?) Dr. Pulaski challenges him that all he can do is parrot the solutions from the original texts, or rearrange the elements in the Doyle style. Data and Geordi set out to prove that he can solve an original crime.


The Napoleon of Crime: Unfortunately, when Geordi asks the computer to create a villain capable of outwitting Data – not Sherlock Holmes – it increases the intelligence and self-awareness of Professor Moriarty, inadvertently creating a sentient holographic character. Initially, Moriarty is purely villainous, but moves beyond that, into a being who, quite reasonably, simply wants to be able to continue his existence.


Lady Bones: Pulaski's really not coming off very well here. Her constant belittling of Data, treating him as just a machine, bating him for being less than human, it's just – ugh. I guess it's kind of like the Spock/Bones interplay, but that was kind of racist – speciesist? - itself, and this comes across much worse. Still, Moriarty has respect for her, which is a questionable compliment.


Geordi Shore: Spends his spare time building a model of the HMS Victory, the USS Victory's namesake. (The Victory was Nelson's flagship, sailing between 1765 and 1812, and is now preserved as a museum ship in Portsmouth. Yes, I've been on it, every schoolboy in southern England has.) This whole calamity is Geordi's fault for misspeaking, but in fairness, whomever programmed the computer should really take some of the blame here.


The Picard Manoeuvre: Initially perceives Moriarty as a threat, unsurprisingly, seeing as he's taken over his ship. However, once he meets the man, he deals with him on a level basis and agree that he has a right to life, and commits to finding a way to allow him to exist outside the holodeck.


Future Treknology: So, let's get this straight: the computer is capable of accidentally spontaneously creating a sentient programme when misinterpreting an order. That's something of a design flaw, isn't it? In fact, if creating a mind is so easy, why did Soong spend years working on Data and his brethren?

Moriarty's steampunk controls for the Enterprise, all big brass levers, are gorgeous. The whole ship should look like that.


Space Bilge: The episode starts with a log entry that states that there's nothing to do but sit around and wait for the Victory to arrive. Well, that's a promising lead-in to an exciting adventure, isn't it?

Props to Picard for swearing to look for a way to help Moriarty, but rather than saving him in a file, why not just leave that holodeck running the programme? Surely they can put up with a queue for holodeck two? Or is Picard to scared of the guy to leave him running?


Future Fashion: Everyone dresses up to the nines for their trip to 19^th century London. Data, Geordi and Pulaski look great, but Picard and Worf steal it. Seriously, Worf looks amazing in a suit. It's a shame Beverly isn't here – she'd knock 'em dead in a Victorian dress.


Trek Stars: Daniel Davis is the star of this episode, bringing charm and dignity to the role of Moriarty. He'll be back as the mastermind in the eason five episode, 'Ship in a Bottle.'



The Verdict: Not quite the classic it's made out to be, but great fun with a strong, central dilemma. Moriarty convinces as both a genuine threat to the Enterprise and an interesting character in his own right. The moment when he realises he has control over his environment, just by saying 'Arch,' is wonderful.


 

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 2.1-2.2

2.1) The Child
or

The Galaxy's Fastest Pregnancy


The Mission: Transfer samples of the deadly plasma plague to the Rachelis system.


Planets visited: We see the blue planet Aucdet IX from orbit only.


Famous firsts: First appearance of Diana Muldaur as Dr. Pulaski, Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan, the Ten-Forward lounge and – drumroll – Riker's beard!


In Therapy: This is a Troi-centric episode, and Marina Sirtis proves she can put in a strong performance given the right material. In her sleep, Troi is impregnated by a glowing ball of light; this does, at least, wake her up, ans she senses a 'presence.'. Understandably horrified by this violation, she decides to keep the baby once she begins sensing its thoughts. Considering that the pregnancy is hugely accelerated, she takes it all very well. She picks Data to accompany her during the birth – he's the first person she comes across in the corridor, but she still asks him to stay with her. She bonds with her new baby as if she had been expecting him for nine months, and names him Ian Andrew after her late father. She is understandably devastated when Ian dies/returns to his natural form, but is reassured by his telepathic words with her, in which she finally gets to communicate with the true being behind the pregnancy.


The Picard Manoeuvre: He's pissed off when his new medical officer doesn't report to him, but puts all this aside when he learns about Deanna's situation. He calls a meeting with the senior staff to discuss the potential threat, but abides by Deanna's wishes without argument when she chooses to let the baby come to term. He also listens to Wesley's concerns about his future. Their chat in the turbolift is illuminating; he clearly misses Dr Crusher, and it's quite a tender moment between the two, in spite of the Picard's usual tension. I just wanted Picard to slap Wes on the shoulder, maybe give him a manly hug. Considering how much he hates kids, Picard deals with the situation on the ship well.


Number One: There's a brilliant moment in which Riker loudly demands to know who the father of Troi's child is. Frankly, it would have been better if all the staff had turned to him when they were told she was pregnant. This is a particularly good episode for seeing Riker's unique method of climbing into his chair.


Elementary, Dear Data: Doesn't immediately get on with Dr. Pulaski, who insists on treating him like a machine. She pronounces his name 'Datta,' which he corrects with just the slightest hint of irritation. There's a lovely moment when, during a barrage of question about pregnancy to Deanna, he registers she's giving birth and visibly panics.


Lady Bones: Dr. Pulaski is simply the female version of Dr. McCoy. She's a member of the crew for just one year, taking over as chief medical officer only as long as Dr. Crusher is heading up Starfleet Medical (until Gates McFadden decides she'd like to be on the show after all). She's obstinate, old-fashioned and opinionated. She immediately heads to Ten-Forward; I thought, I'm going to like this woman! But it turns out she was only in the bar because she was meeting with Troi there. She was previously stationed on the USS Repulse.


Geordi Shore: Finally, la Forge is promoted to Chief Engineer, after the ongoing stream of chiefs we had in season one. He is in charge of the securing of the medical samples to Rachelis, along with a Starfleet medic who looks like an albino Robert Winston. He has designed a storage chamber for them, and sighs that he has to replicate 512 of them. You want to try working in the days when you actually had to build things, mate.


The Boy: The A-plot is Troi's pregnancy, the B-plot is the medical crisis, and Wesley gets relegated to the C-plot. He's not sure if he wants to go work at Starfleet Medical with his mum, or stay on the Enterprise. A chat with Guinan sets him right, and he decides to follow his gut and stay on the ship. He's wearing his new all-grey acting ensign uniform, and it's an improvement on the old one (nothing beats his season one peach jumper though).


Hat-tastic: Guinan is a mystery, being deliberately enigmatic while running Ten-Forward. She provides a nudge and helpful ear to Wesley. She wears a staggering outfit consisting of a mauve dress and matching giant hat. We'll be getting some truly superb hats from her over the years. No one knows where she's from, just that she's very old. Wesley has heard that she's from Novakron, which she doesn't deny. She claims she never met the captain before joining the Enterprise, which is an outright lie. As a kid, Guinan always unsettled me far more than any of the aliens on the show, because Whoopi Goldberg has no eyebrows.


Alien Life Forms: The alien who becomes Ian Andrew initially appears as a glowing mote of energy, before entering Troi and beginning her pregnancy. He undergoes an accelerated rate of growth, coming to term in a few days and growing to a physical age of four in a day. In all respects, he's an ordinary child, but he is faintly aware that he will later explain why he's there. He's half-human, half-Betazoid, just like Troi, so is obviously extrapolated from her DNA. He emits a form of radiation that accelerates the growth of one of the sample of plasma plague, and allows himself to die in order to return to his initial form and leave, stopping the threat. He did the whole thing to learn what it was like to be human.


Funny Bits: The bridge crew rip the piss out of Wesley, with Riker asking who will tuck him in at night. Worf manfully accepts the responsibility.


Space Bilge: Why are they transporting deadly boxes of plague on a starship with a population in the hundreds, including numerous civilians, if a single, tiny leak will mean the death of everyone onboard? Surely a ship with a skeleton crew would be more sensible? Or even a robot ship? Data could head up the mission, seeing that he's the one person in Starfleet who will be immune.


There's a particularly stupid moment in which Pulaski and Picard freak out because little Ian sticks his finger in his soup and burns himself. They take this to mean he's a weird alien, deliberately hurting himself to test the experience. Because normal kids never stick their fingers in things or hurt themselves.


Trivia facts:

1. This episode is based on one of the same title originally intended for the 1970s series Star Trek: Phase II. When that series never came to pass, the scripts went into the archives, and 'The Child' got pulled out as a stop-gap measure when the Writer's Guild strike delayed scriptwork on TNG's second season. The fan series New Voyages (now retitled Phase II) also produced an episode entitled 'The Child,' based on the original script. It still didn't make it through without big changes: the character impregnated in the original was the Deltan officer Lt. Ilia, and to preserve continuity with The Motion Picture, the fanfilm version changed her to their own character, Ensign Isel.
   
2. Diana Muldaur is the only regular cast member in a TNG-era series who also appeared in the original series. She played Ann Mulhall and Thalassa in 'Return to Tomorrow,' and Miranda Jones in 'Is There, in Truth, No Beauty?'
   
3. They have puppies on the Enterprise! Are they replicated?
   

The Verdict: Not a bad start to the season. It's a decent enough bit of sci-fi, albeit rather cliched. The B-plot concerning the plague samples is a pretty blatant attempt to ring up some jeopardy in an otherwise talky, emotion-led episode. Still, the cast all do good work with the material, the kids playing Ian Andrew aren't nearly as annoying as they might be expected to be, and both Pulaski and Guinan get memorable introductions.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 1.25

And so, we finally reach the end of The Next Generation, season one.

1.25) The Neutral Zone

or

'Captain Birdseye's Deep Frozen Humans'

The Mission: Investigate the destruction of starbases along the Romulan Neutral Zone.

Planets visited: None.

Alien life forms: The Romulans. This is the first appearance of the classic villains in TNG, suitably updated for the era. Like the Klingons, they have had a make-up revamp, giving them an enhanced ridged brow . It's not Klingon standard, but it does make them distinct from their Vulcan cousins. They have a fascination with humans, which has apparently kept the peace (the fact that the humans beat them in the old war probably helped).

Starships: The mighty Romulan Warbird makes its first appearance. It's absolutely huge, dwarfing the Enterprise, although the shots here don't really make that clear. It's a clear development from the old Bird-of-Prey, sticking with the aquiline design but making it bolder and more threatening. It's equipped with a powerful cloaking device that the Enterprise sensors cannot penetrate.

The SS Birsdeye (name taken from the script, and nice one, btw), is a cryonics satellite that was launched into Earth orbit back in the late 20^th century. Somehow, it's made its way across dozens of light years to the edge of the Neutral Zone (this is never explained), and is now barely functioning.

Future History: The year is 2364. This is the first time a definitive date is set down for a Star Trek production, from which all other dates in the franchise are calculated.

The last contact with the Romulans was the so-called Tomed Incident, over fifty years before the episode. This means the Romulans have not made contact with the Federation since around twenty years after the end of the TOS movie era. The set-up here parallels that in the TOS episode 'Balance of Terror,' in which Kirk's Enterprise makes contact with the Romulans after a century of isolation, once they start testing Starfleet by destroying starbases. This time, though, it's not the Romulans behind it...

Cryonics was a fad at the end of the twentieth century, when people were terrified of death. Only three people are in any condition to be brought back to life, their illnesses cured by 24^th century techniques. They are housewife Clare Raymond, musician L.Q 'Sonny' Clemonds and tycoon Ralf Offenhouse. It's fair to say they have a little trouble adjusting to the 24^th century. These days, no one knows what a phone call is, there's no money, and television went out of fashion in the 2040s (surely not? At least Doctor Who should make it to its 75^th anniversary.)

The Picard Maneouvre: No one tells Picard that Data beamed the human survivors over. He takes offence when Offenhouse compares the Enterprise to the QE2. He totally rocks when he talks the git down, calmly explaining how his money is worthless and his way of life extinct. He comes back with a good point though – the rich guy survived to live again in the future.

Number One: Has a pretty low opinion of the three resurrectees. Frankly, he's a bit of cocky bitch this episode.

Elementary, My Dear Data: He really doesn't like being called a robot. It's Data's curiosity that creates the whole situation. He requests to beam over to the satellite, and beams the three salvageable patients back without authorisation.

In Therapy: Troi is actually pretty useful this episode, researching what little is known of the Roumulans and helping the time-lost humans adjust to their new lives. She sets up Clare with her great-great-great-great-great-grandson.

Son of Mogh: Despises the Romulans for destroying his home and killing his family on Khitomer. Not a good episode for him, bless.

Trek Stars: Marc Alaimo makes his first (recognisable, after the Antican) Trek appearance as a wonderfully arrogant Romulan commander. He'll be back several times, most notably as Gul Dukat in DS9.

Links: Clare's list of descendants includes not only the first six Doctors Who, but also Miss Piggy and Kermit T. Frog.

Future Echoes: The Terra 9 station and all its partners have been entirely destroyed, scopped from their planets and carried away. The Romulans have experienced similar losses. We don't find it out here, but it was the Borg what done it.

The Verdict: “We are back!” The Romulans return in a pretty quiet fashion that promises a lot more from the future. After a whole season spent skirting around the issue, TNG finally embraces its status as a continuation of the original series. The B-plot of the revived humans makes for a funny mix, but ti works pretty well. We could have done without the comedy music for the funny bits, but they are, at least, a bit funny. Clemonds is great, they should have kept him as their musical mascot.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 1.23-1.24

1.23) We'll Always Have Paris

or

'Picard: French for Sexy'

The Mission: They're supposed to be going for shore leave on Sarona 7, but the Enterprise gets diverted to answer a distress call from temporal scientist Paul Manheim.

Planets visited: Vandor 4, an asteroid in a binary star system, that hosts the laboratory for Manheim's experiments.

The Picard Maneouvre: Doesn't like Troi making pertinent observations of his emotions. He prefers to keep it all bottled up. Awesome at fencing.

Sexy Trek: Jenice Manheim, wife of Professor Manheim, had an affair with Picard in Paris over twenty years ago. She's thrilled to see him again, he's more ambivalent. Manehim is aware of Picard, so he tries to keep his name out of things until it's no longer possible and they have to meet. Dr. Crusher is properly jealous.

When he realises he'll be seeing Jenice again, Picard gets teh holodeck to reproduce Paris from their time there (complete with flying cars swooping round the Eiffel Tower.) The simulation includes two hot French girls in scanty dresses. One young lady, Gabrielle, has been stood up by her boyfriend, and asks Picard if she reminds him of someone. Presumably she's suppsoed to be reminiscent of Jenice. Possibly he's just staring at her because her slinky dress barely covers her cleavage.

Phenomena: The Manheim Effect (time hiccoughs): Sudden jumps and repeats in time caused by Manheim's experiments. They ripple out from Vandor for light years. Picard, Data and Riker are briefly duplicated when the effect worsens.

Manheim believes that time has infinite dimensions, and the location of Vandor 4 around its binary provides hte gravitational effects necessary to test that. Several scientists died in his last major experiment. Manheim himself is left split between two dimensions, physcially in our own but somehow aware of another. Once the time breach he created is closed, Manheim recovers. He can't describe the things he saw on the other side.

Future Fashion: Jenice's space pyjamas. Just what were they thinking?

Elementary, My Dear Data: Sees himself as dispensible (Picard puts him right). Having a constant sense of time, he is best equipped to beam down to Manheim's lab and deal with the temporal anomalies he's created. He becomes triplicated by the time effects, but his multiple work together and drop antimatter into the breach in time, closing it. Data can't confirm that it is closed, merely “well-patched.”

Trek Stars: Jenice Manheim is played by Michelle Phillips, a recognisable face on TV at the time but still best known as a member of The Mamas and the Papas.

The Verdict: The time hiccough stuff is pretty cool, but the Picard-Jenice romance plot is scuppered by the complete lack of chemistry between Patrick Stewart and Michelle Phillips. Far too much time is spent on them, when really we want to know what all this talk of other dimensions is all about. It does help move along the Picard/Crusher relationship a little.

1.24) Conspiracy

or

'Invasion of the Puppet Masters'

The Mission: Mission to Pacifica diverted by an urgent call for Picard by an old friend. Something is wrong in Starfleet.

Planets visited: Dytallix B, the fifth planet of the Mira system, a mined out, barely habitable rock with a deep red sky. It is one of seven planets mined by the Dytallix Mining Corps. Also, Earth, although, sadly, we don't get to see very much of it.

Alien life forms: Starfleet has been infiltrated by alien parasites, a “superior form of life” found on an uncharted planet. The aliens have infiltrated Starfleet, diverting ships and resources to facilitate some unknwon plan. The creatures – nicknamed 'Bluegills' by the fans – are wriggly wormy purple things with lots of legs, that enter the human body, attaching at the brain stem and breathe through a gill poking through the neck. Admiral Quinn has been taken over, giving the old guy super strength and controlling his mind. Even a phaser on stun doesn't stop him. Dexter Remmick is the host for the queen, a huge, pulsing maggoty thing that lives in his abdomenal cavity, surrounded by its own young. Picard and Riker have to blow his head off to even get to the creature.

The Picard Maneouvre: Walker Keel was best mates with Picard and Jack Crusher back in the day. Picard trusts him enough to disobey Starfleet. He bites the dust for his troubles; his ship, the Horatio, is completely destroyed. Picard also trusts Troi enough to bring her into his confidence about the conspiracy, eventually involving Riker after Keel is killed. He isn't taken in by the possessed Admiral Quinn.

Number One: Less easily convinced than Picard about the severity of the situation. Gets some serious ninja time time in against Evil Quinn once he's revealed, though. He fakes possession really well, convincing Picard and the aliens both.

Elementary, My Dear Data: The episode starts with a painful scene in which Geordi tries to tell Data a joke. Data then tries to laugh. Geordi looks hugely uncomfortable. Still, it sounded like a shit joke anyway. Even the computer tells Data to shut up when he's defining something.

Son of Mogh: Worf doesn't like swimming – it's too much like bathing. And they say Worf doesn't have a sense of humour. He's constantly ripping the piss. Totally up for a punch up with Evil Quinn, but doesn't come off well.

Ginger Doc: Crusher gets to do some phaser badassery against Evil Quinn.

Future History: Code 47 = Captain's eyes only. Tryla Scott made captain faster than anyone in Starfleet history (the record holder in the original series being James T. Kirk). Fans often like to suppose some link to Montgomery Scott, but there's no evidence for this.

Sexy Trek: Picard gets a robe scene! Nothing like Jean-Luc in nightwear.

Links: This episode picks up on hints that there's something amiss in Starfleet in 'Coming of Age.' The signal that Remmick sends was originally intended to lead to the introduction of a major new threat in season two. Initially conceived as an insectoid species, this threat eventually became the Borg, and the parasite link was dropped. The parasites are eventually revealed, in the DS9 novels Unity and Unjoined, to be mutant Trills.

Trek Stars: Weird old Michael Berryman plays Captain Rixx, the first Bolian to appear in the series. Apparently he liked the make-up so much he wore it home. Berryman is instantly recognisable under any make-up. As well as appearring in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Weird Science and The Hills Have Eyes, he played an alien console officer in Star Trek IV.

Star Sets: The galactic map behind Remmick in the climactic scene, showing the location of Earth relative to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants, is a fantastic piece of work, and will turn up again and again throughout Trek as set dressing. It even shows up on The Sarah Jane Adventures as part of the set dressing for Sarah's attic. 

Verdict: Excellent. High-stakes stuff in a season that sorely needs some genuine peril. This episode received a poor welcome from a lot of fans on first broadcast. The violence and graphic horror are unusual for TV Trek, and it received severe cuts on its BBC transmission, even getting left out of several repeat runs. Looked at now, it seems very tame, and it's hard to see what the problem is – TNG really needed a kick up the arse, and 'Conspiracy' is an indication of a direction it could have moved in. Making Quinn and Remmick the central villains, after they warned Picard of the plot in the first place, is a nice touch, particularly making Evil Remmick the big baddie. The original version of the story featured no alien involvement, simply a conspiracy by high-ranking officers. Roddenberry objected, maintaining that Starfleet wouldn't behave that way. We'll see similar plotlines play out in DS9 and Star Trek Into Darkness in the future.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 1.21-1.22

1.21) Symbiosis

or

'Planet of the Junkies'

The Mission: Investigate the Delos system during a period of stellar activity.

Planets visited: Ornara and Brekka, inhabited planets of the Delos system. Not actually visited, but you know, they're there.

Space Phenomena: The Delos star is undergoing major magnetic flux, leading to solar flares and other stellar phenomena. Look, I know this sounds boring, but if you're an astronomer, this is exciting stuff. The first five minutes were genuinely the most interesting part of the episode for me.

Alien life forms: The Brekkians and Ornarans are identical looking humanoids, with little dippy bits over their noses. They can generate electrical energy throught their hands for use in attack. The Brekkians were less advanced than the Ornarans, but the situation switched when the Brekkians began selling a drug called felicium to the Ornarans to cure their plague. The plague was cured, but the Ornarans became addicted to it, and the Brekkians have been running a racket on felicium for centuries. Basically, the Ornarans are all ripped to the tits on felicium 24/7 (or however long their days and weeks are). It's never mentioned, but the two races must be of the same species, their ancestors presumably colonising the two planets in the past.

Space Bilge: Picard and co. are baffled how someone as incompetent as the the Ornaran captain T'John can have been running a ship for seven years. It's a good point; seeing as they can't even repair the ship and only care about their next hit, it's surprising they haven't blown themselves up yet.

The Picard Maneouvre: Is bound by the Prime Directive not to interfere with the situation in Delos, so he follows it to the letter, refusing to interfere by repairing the Brekkian ships and thereby cutting off the trade route. He's vehemently opposed to breaching the Directive, just as Dr. Crusher is opposed to letting the Brekkians continue to exploit the Ornarans.

Future Fashion: The Brekkian dealer Sobie has wicked silver shoulder pads and sleeves.

Familiar Faces: T'John is played by Merritt Butrick, who played Kirk's some David Marcus in Star Trek II. Sadly, he died from AIDS only a year later .

Also, the Ornaran ship is a reuse of the Batris, the Talarian freighter from two episodes ago. We'll be seeing a lot of that prop over the next few years.

The Verdict: “What is the matter with these people?” The premise of the episode is sound, but the writers don;t have the guts to let the allegory tell the story. Cue endless preachy discussions about the evils and temptations of drugs. This is sort of insufferable cod moralising that puts people off Trek. Picard goes on about how important the Prime Directive is and why they shouldn't get involved with the aliens, while the rest of us are just thinking “Fuck 'em.”

1.22) Skin of Evil

or

'Tasha Yar's Precious Little Life'

The Mission: Rescue Counsellor Troi from her crashed shuttelcraft on a deserted planet.

Planets visited: Vagra II, in the Z-Lapis Sector.

Alien life forms: Armus, the oil slick beast. At first it looks like a bad video effect, before turning into a puddle of tar, then a bloke in an oily binbag. It has no brain, skeleton, muslces or cellular structure. Armus is just a big blob of badness, with an annoying voice. It's impervious to phaser fire, feeding on it. It prevents the away team from rescuing Troi or the ship from beaming her up, and swallows Riker, keeping him alive within its mass while threatening to kill him.

Oh, and it kills Lt. Yar.

Future History: Aeons ago, the people who lived on Vagra II found a way to remove and condense all their dark impulses, and this residue became Armus. Then the Vagrans abandoned the planet, leaving mad old Armus on its own, stewing in its own nastiness.

Lower Decks: Another chief engineer!

The Picard Maneouvre: Picard subjects Armus to one of his stirring speeches, baiting it with knowledge of its impotence and loneliness until it's mad enough to be distracted and the Enterprise can beam Troi back. He's deeply affected by Yar's death.

Elementary, My Dear Data: Doesn't think he quite understands the nature of a funeral, 'feeling' more sorry for himself and his sense of loss than he does for Yar. Picard tells him that he's got it right.

Yar's Last Stand: After twenty-odd episodes of being woefully underused, Denise Crosby quits the show, and thus Yar gets a death scene. This is the first time a main character had been killed in Star Trek and not been revived or resurrected somehow. Finally, there's a sense that the major characters aren't safe, even if it will be a rare occasion that we see them genuinely imperilled again. A lot of fans, and much of the cast, disliked the way in which Yar was killed, in a pointless, off-the-cuff kind of way, but it's really perfect. Yar's holographic funeral speech is saccharine, but her own attitude to her death is perfect. She knew that she'd be bound to die in action one day, doing her job. Whatever her status as a main character and high-ranking officer, Yar knew she was a redshirt from day one. It's far more believable, and affecting, than some grand sacrifice.

Title-Tattle: Working titles for this episode included 'The Shroud.'

The Verdict: Justly remembered as a significant episode for the death of Tasha Yar, this is, sadly, absolutely terrible in almost every other respect. Armus is badly realised and badly performed, and while I can forgive a crap monster (I'm a Doctor Who fan, after all), the whole episode revolves around him. Troi gets some decent material in her moments with the insane creature, but it's all very throwaway, and the monster just works its way through the main cast trying to rile them. Yar's holo-funeral is so gooey it's barely watchable. The real sin is the production team letting a talented, beautiful actress like Denise Crosby slip through their fingers by not giving her material worth her while. Yar had the potential to become an excellent character, but they never capitalised on this.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 1.19-1.20

Blimey, I'm feeling a bit Doctor Who'd out. Time for some Trek.

1.19) Heart of Glory

or

'Klinging On to the Old Ways'

The Mission: Investigate a drifting ship in the Romulan Neutral Zone.

Planets visited: None.

Alien life forms:

“What is it like for the hunter to lie down with the prey?” Our first proper look at the TNG-era Klingons, and they are as disagreeable as ever. Commander Korris is obsessed with war and battle and baits Worf for serving under humans. He's also a lying scumbag. He considers all hismelf and Worf “brothers, lost among infidels.” Korris and his crewmen are part of a group who are determined to end the alliance with the Federation and go back to war. But he's nice to little kids, so that's alright.

The Klingons, including Worf, scream at the top of their lungs when their injured fellow dies, but don't give a damn for the body. The Imperial Klingon forces continue to use a version of the battlecruiser from the original series. Korris refers to them as the “traitors of Kling!” Obviously this was meant to be the name of the Klingon homeworld, but it's such a stupid name they never used it again.

Starfleet Warrior: We learn a lot about Worf in this episode: that he was orphaned in a Romuland attack, rescued by a human officer and raised on the farming colony of Gault. We learn of his foster brother who joined Starfleet but left. His loyalties are torn between Starfleet, the Klingon Empire and the renegades.

The Picard Maneouvre: “Lieutenant, I am not unmindful of the mixed feelings you must have on this.” Picard, master of understatement.

Number One: Super keen to sperate the saucer section, the nut. He's just dead keen on impressing Picard still, isn't he? Bless.

Geordi Shore: We get our first good look at how Geordi sees the world through his VISOR, as it is patched through to the bridge viewscreen. It's a baffling mix of colours representing different wavelengths that Geordi has learned to interpret. Interestingly, Data and Riker look completely different through Geordi's eyes, with Data surrounded by a sort of aura.

Future History: The crew first suspect the presence of Ferengi, then Romulans, before identifying the the ship drifting in the Neutral Zone as Talarian, before eventually revealing the passengers as Klingons. It's interesting to see the TNG writers slowly build up a political landscape for the 24^th century. The Klingon ship boasts the emblems of both the Empire and the Federation, which is unique to my knowledge (the exact relationship between the two states hadn't been set down yet).

Trivia: Korris is the first Trek role for Vaughn Armstrong, who went on to play more characters in Star Trek than anyone else. He ended up with a semi-regular role on Enterprise, as Admiral Forrest, over ten years later, and also auditioned to play Riker in TNG.

The verdict: Blimey, how did they manage to make a bunch of Klingon terrorists so boring? Full of predictable guff about how Worf's blood must burn with Klingon fire and other such rubbish, this is dreary stuff. Add to that another load of problems with having kids aboard the ship and this new series looks seriously dull, esepcially compared to the usually fun Klingon episodes of the original Trek. Korris gets a sweet death scene though, crashing through the glass walkways around the warp core when Worf zaps him.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 1.16-1.18

1.16) When the Bough Breaks
or
'Sterile Trek'

The Mission: Investigate the lost civilisation of Aldea.

Planets visited: Aldea, the fabled lost planet, located in star system Epsilon Minos. The entire planet is both shielded and cloaked, invisible to the rest of the universe.

Alien life forms: The Aldeans: another alien race that look exactly like humans. They've had an advanced technological society for thousands of years, and isolated themselves from the rest of the galaxy for a life of introspection. They are, however, too dense to realise that the technology shielding their planet is destroying their ozone layer, allowing UV radiation to flood the planet. The radiation has been damaging their chromosomes, rendering the entire race sterile. There's no mention of tumours, hair loss, or diarroeah, though, so it's quite specific radiation poisoning, although it does give the big chief headaches. To prevent the extinction of their culture, they've left a trail of breadcrumbs to lead a Federation ship to Aldea so that they can trade for, or failing that, abduct some children to raise as their own.

The Picard Maneouvre: It's an episode about kids, so we get lots of Picard looking generally uncomfortable. He does give the cute little girl a hug though.

Number One: Seems very overexcited to be visiting Aldea. Outright refuses to negotiate with the Aldeans when it comes to the children.

Boy Wonder: Not a Wesley-centric episode as such, but he does become the de facto leader of the abducted kids by dint of being the oldest (and the fact that he's a genius can't hurt either). He convinces the kids to go on hunger strike. He's canny enough to learn the controls of the Custodian computer and to surruptitiously scan one of the Aldeans.

Sexy Trek: Rashella, the last person to be born on Aldea and thus the only remotely young person on the planet, is played by the beautiful Brenda Strong.

Space Bilge: Naturally, the Enterprise crew finds a way to save the Aldeans from sterility within a few days, and even sorts out the planet's atmosphere in a few moments of off-screen jiggery-pokery. The Aldeans' actions are idiotic, as are the crew's. Did the Aldeans really think kidnapping kids was going to go down well with a bunch of aliens they'd just invited to their planet? And from the humans' point of view, why is it so appalling that they want children? OK, so they obviosuly can't have the crew's kids, but surely there are at least a few orphans in the Federation, who could go to some Aldean foster families? They only seem to want about eight of them, after all, which is not a good-sized gene pool to restart a species with.

Future Treknology: As well as a planetary cloaking device, the Aldeans have advanced teleporters, the power to fling the Enterprise through space, and a supercomputer called the Custodian which controls their society - but is at least terribly polite about it. There's a shot of the Custodian's power core, towering over the humans, which is pretty cool.

Future History: The Earth suffered its own  bout of radiation flooding in the 21st century when its ozone layer was depleted.

Of course, in the original series... Kirk would have beamed down and impregnated Rashella, chromosomal damage be damned.

The Verdict: Another society run by a computer - very sixties Trek, which must have felt out of date by the late eighties, and cetainly feels archaic now. A boring, talky episode, enjoyment of which will depend on your tolerance for cute kids.

CAPTAIN'S BLOG: TNG 1.14-1.15

1.14) 11001001
or
'Holosex'

The Mission: Take back the Enterprise after it is stolen during computer maintenance at Starbase 74.

Planets visited: Starbase 74 orbits Tarsus III, in the Sol Sector (Earth's local sector).

Alien Life Forms: The Bynars, diminutive humanoids with big heads and purplish skin. Like the Talosians from 'The Cage,' they are played by women but with masculine voices (downshifted rather than dubbed) to make them seem androgynous. Their ears are asymmetrical, which is fun, and each Bynar's partner has the same ears, but reversed, so they're symmetrical only in pairs. It's the same with their cybernetic head implants, which channel information from a buffer on their waists.

The Bynars are all tied in to an enormous central computer on their home planet, Bynaus, in Beta Magellan. They live and work in pairs, linked together, finishing each other's sentences, and can communicate in a high-speed digital speech. Four Bynars called 1-0, 0-1, 1-1 and 0-0 are at Starbase 74 for repair and maintenance. However, they take over the Enterprise so that they can use its computer core. The computer on Bynaus is under threat from a supernova, which will knock it out with an electromagnetic pulse. Seeing everything as in yes/no terms, they didn't ask for help in case they were refused.

Sexy Trek: In order to keep Riker and Picard distracted, the Bynars reprogramme the holodeck to create Minuet, a sexy jazz siren. Riker tries out blonde and redhead variations before he settles on the sultry brunette, played by Carolyn McCormack. Minuet is at least partly self-aware, and knows that she is a computer programme intended to captivate Riker long enough for the Bynars to take over the ship. She is far more realistic than any hologram seen so far, and Riker falls for her. She even accesses the French database so she can chat up Picard.

The Picard Maneouvre: Surprisingly affected by Minuet as well - I mean, we expect these things from Riker, but not Jean-Luc. He convinces Riker to assist him in setting the ship's self-destruct systme, before they retake the bridge. He gets to pilot the ship - a rare treat for the captain.

Number One: He loves his jazz, but thinks that blondes and jazz don't go together. He has a go on the holo-band's trombone while he's wooing Minuet. He's pretty cut up to find, after the Bynars have returned control of the computer, that Minuet has reverted to a basic hologram. The Bynars keep him aboard so that they have a back-up if they can't restart the planetary computer.

Elementary, My Dear Data: He's learning how to paint. Riker finds the idea of Geordi, a blind man, teaching an android to paint funny, but thinks it'll be in the history books someday. Takes control of evacuating the Enterprise when the Bynars fake the warp core breach. He and Geordi get everyone off the ship before elaving themselves - unaware that Riker and Picard are still in the holodeck.

Future Fashion: We get the first mention of 24th century sport Parrise's Squares, and see Tasha, Worf and two random extras in some very unflattering navy blue lycra sportswear.

Funny Bits: The commander of Starbase 74, Orfil Quinteros (great name) looks like Picard's Mirror Universe twin.

Space Bilge: The Bynars are named for the fact that they live and communicate in binary. A bit of a linguistic coincidence, isn't it? Still, no more ridiculous than with the Borg or the Cybermen, I guess. If they've only got two-digit names, then there's going to be a lot of confusion on the home planet; the four names in use here are all the combinations possible.

If there's a supernova in their star system, they've got much bigger problems than an EM pulse knocking out their computers.

Verdict: "You might have said no." This is a pretty good little episode, with a nice central sci-fi conceit. We get to see two pairs of characters work together well, showing the effectiveness of the Picard-Riker and Data-Geordi teams. The Bynars are a great idea. However, the holodeck is already feeling overused.