[Nate the Great]

TROI: I was born on Betazed.
JASON: Do all the women there have eyes like yours?

Yes. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I never noticed that Sirtis or Barret wore special contact lenses for large Betazoid eyes. It doesn't seem worth it.

DATA: He has been charged three times with petty theft, twice for disorderly conduct, and several dozen times for trespassing.

This is a huge misstep in my opinion. Picard already has enough reasons to not associate with this guy, blatant criminal activity (beyond the trespassing, I suppose) should be the final straw. This should make up Picard's mind for him: get Bok off Jason's back then send him home. Nothing more.

JASON: Well, Sandra, do you think you could give me some room?
RHODES: We're supposed to be keeping an eye on you.
JASON: Can't you can keep an eye on me from over there?

This seems ridiculous. Surely they've invented a localized transporter inhibitor and shield by now. Bok would make sure to beam into a secure vantage point, he's not going to pop up in the middle of a corridor and let the guards shoot him.

DATA: Captain, I do not believe it was meant as an attack, but rather as a message.
PICARD: A message?
DATA: Yes, sir, in B'zal, a Ferengi code which uses an alternating pattern of light and darkness.

This is actually a clever idea.

BOK: You murdered my son.
PICARD: It was self-defence. He fired on my ship.
BOK: You were in Ferengi space!
PICARD: I didn't know that.

I'm still confused as to why the Ferengi didn't have established borders that its neighbors knew even before the Federation encountered them. Furthermore, if Ship A fires first on Ship B and starts a battle, Government A shouldn't be able to complain to Government B about it.

CRUSHER: You know, I don't think anyone is born knowing how to be a parent. You just sort of figure it out as you go. But the one quality that tends to be a requirement for parenthood is patience.

Actually, I've found that patience is required when dealing with any child, not just your own children.

PICARD: Well, I'm not sure that that is going to be enough. I've found out that Jason has a criminal record. It's nothing very serious, it's only petty theft and so forth, but I can't help feeling that if I had been part of his life then he wouldn't be so troubled now.

Of course he wouldn't be so troubled, he'd be in the Federation where there is plenty of food and lots of legal places to rock climb. But as the wizard Teraptus once said, "history is full of 'should-haves'."

PICARD: My understanding is that such devices were impractical.
DATA: The Federation abandoned its research in the field because the technology was found to be unreliable, as well as energy intensive.

I appreciate Data wants to clarify things, but in this case his reply added absolutely nothing useful to Picard's statement.

LAFORGE: In order to transport matter through subspace, you have to put it into a state of quantum flux. It's very unstable.
PICARD: What range would that kind of transporter have?
DATA: In theory it could operate over several light years.

Which raises the valid question of why other races, particularly the Klingons and Romulans, haven't pursued this technology. Furthermore the Borg should already have this abililty, right? And they could instantly repair any damage, so they'd have no reason not to use it.

PICARD: I'm concerned that he may try to take Jason. Is there any way we can protect him?
LAFORGE: You know, we might be able to keep a signal lock on him at all times.

Yeah, that doesn't seem plausible. Or practical for that matter. What does a subspace transporter care about a conventional transporter lock? It'd be like installing alternating Starfleet and Klingon shield emitters on a ship's hull and expected them to work flawlessly in concert to create a single shield bubble.

Surely you could give Jason a device to scatter any incoming signal, even subspace ones.

JASON: She heard about the all children on Camor who'd been orphaned from the Cardassian war.
PICARD: Oh. I see.

And the local government didn't ask the Federation for humanitarian aid?

JASON: You don't understand. I'm not anybody you'd want for a son. Trust me, if you knew anything about me, you wouldn't be trying so hard.

I get that they're trying to redeem his character, but it's rather too late for that. Furthermore it doesn't work because Data made it clear that he's not a former criminal, he's a current criminal.

And to talk about the ending for a bit, Jason chooses to return to Camor to sort out his life instead of letting Picard return him to the Federation. How exactly is he supposed to sort out his life without money? Selling one artifact is not going to fix his life. For that matter, who on Camor would have a use for the artifact anyway?

DATA: I am tracing the transporter beam Bok used to send the probe. The ship is holding position approximately three hundred billion kilometres from here.

Just say 32 light years, Data!

PICARD: Plot a course. Maximum warp.
RIKER: Even at warp nine we wouldn't get there for another twenty minutes.

There are plenty of online warp calculators. 20 minutes at Warp 9 is 0.06 light-years, not 32. 32 light years at Warp 9 is 7 days. It does make you wonder why they bothered creating an equation in the first place if they weren't going to use it.

PICARD: The modifications you made to the transporter. Is there any way we could use a subspace transport from here to get me onto Bok's ship?
DATA: It may be possible, sir, but it would not be advisable.

What, you created a subspace transporter? When was that established? I thought they were just trying to create a similar signal to interfere with Bok's.

Memory Alpha

* The NextGen Companion compares Picard and Jason's relationship to Kirk and David Marcus. I don't see it AT ALL.
* Only NextGen episode to mention the Rules of Acquisition.
* One of the creators complained that this was yet another seventh season meet-a-relative episode.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Phil seems to think that Miranda Vigo's DNA shouldn't be on file because she wasn't a Starfleet officer. I want to know where Phil got the idea that only Starfleet officers have their DNA on file instead of all Federation members.
* Phil did the math for himself and says that 300 billion kilometers at Warp 9 is 11 minutes. I don't care to redo my math.
* In addition to the unlikely sequence of events that made Jason a candidate that I mentioned earlier, Phil also points out that Bok would have to figure out how to make Jason's DNA resemble Picard's without altering his appearance.
* Phil complains that Data is able to find Jason underground and know his race, gender, and approximate age when the sensors couldn't find Picard and Crusher back in "Attached." My immediate counterargument is that the Kes and the Prytt would be adept at filling the atmosphere with jamming signals.
* In "Legacy" the transporter could only beam through 400 meters of granite, yet in this episode it could go 2 kilometers deep. My immediately rejoinder is that it's probably easier for a transporter signal to penetrate soil than granite.