30th Anniversary TNG Episode Discussion Marathon

[Flying Gremlin]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

You know, with all the times that ambassadors have hijacked the Enterprise in TOS for this sort of mission, I do wonder why Picard was needed for this mission. I get that the captain of the flagship has to be able to serve as an ambassador in a pinch, but this doesn't seem like "a pinch", this seems more like Riva or Sarek territory. Furthermore, even if Picard was needed here, was the Enterprise? Surely they could go charting a nearby sector and leave Picard with a security detachment and a shuttle (or even that mythical Captain's Yacht, the Calypso).

Considering how little ambassadors there has been in TNG, this actually doesn't surprise me as much.

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

What? You'll have to do better than that, Jean-Luc.

Flimsy excuses for a captain to not go on vacation is a Starfleet tradition.

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

This selective translation is starting to annoy me. Is the substitution of "Jamaharon" for "sex" supposed to make this more family friendly? Because if so, it's not working.

I always thought that this word was one that didn't have a direct translation. Kind of like how petaQ is never translated, but the translations of "useless" or "garbage" has been used by Klingons multiple times.

[Nate the Great]

April 23rd, 1990, "Tin Man"

Let's get this out of the way up front. I hate Tam Elbrun. He gives a bad name to the mentally abnormal everywhere. If this guy has proven over and over that dealing with humanoids stresses him out and yields unpredictable and undesirable results, don't make him deal with humanoids!

Transcript
Memory Alpha
Fiver (by Marc)

The Episode

Captain's log, Stardate 43779.3. The Enterprise is preparing detailed exospheric charts of the Hayashi system. Although tedious, this endeavour is the first step toward planet colonisation.

The exosphere is the boundary between atmosphere and interplanetary space. I'm not sure how you "chart" them, or what they have to do with colonization. Furthermore, this does not seem like work the Enterprise should be doing. A science vessel (or even a series of probes) can handle this sort of thing. You'd think a seismographic analysis would be more up the Enterprise's alley, and it would still be a precolonization step.

DESOTO [on viewscreen]: Sorry to sneak up on you like that, Jean Luc
PICARD: Robert, why didn't you inform us?
DESOTO [on viewscreen]: Out here, you never know who's listening. Keeps you on your toes, anyway. Hey, Will. Will, you getting soft on that luxury liner?
PICARD: So, old friend. How are you?
DESOTO [on viewscreen]: Well, you know, they send you Galaxy Class boys out here to the far reaches. Me, I'm just hauling my butt back and forth between starbases.
PICARD: But not today.
DESOTO [on viewscreen]: No, not today.

I like exchanges like this. It makes the show feel more real when it shows that the crew knows others in the fleet that aren't old love interests.

PICARD: If time is so important, why didn't they transmit the orders by subspace?
DESOTO [on viewscreen]: They're worried about Romulan eavesdropping on this one.

The idea that Romulans can detect intership communications several sectors away from the Neutral Zone is disturbing. Furthermore, how would you keep subspace signals confined to a volume smaller than a star system? Are shorter distances easier to encrypt?

DATA: I am Data. An android.
TAM: Incredible, an android. I can't read you at all. It's like you're not there.

It's stated outright that Tam is a stronger telepath than usual. When Data has emotions Troi can read him. There's a whole discussion to be had here about how the emotion chip alters the frequency or whatever of Data's natural thoughts. My point is that Tam should get SOMETHING from Data, even if it's static instead of the music of emotions.

TAM: To communicate with it by subspace. Of course. Linguacode, universal translation, all that. It won't work. Tin Man is too different.

I suddenly wonder if the whale probe could talk to Tin Man. Or the Galaxy's Child species (the Gekli, FYI). Or a Horta, for that matter. Or a Sheliak, or a Tholian, or a Medusan, or...

PICARD: They claim that sector of space where Beta Stromgren is located.
WORF: The Romulans claim all that is in their field of vision.

I'm not sure about how accurate this is. The Romulans want to conquer, sure, but Worf's remark seems like it would be more applicable to the Dominion or the other zealot races.

DATA: That is correct. Starbase one two three has detected two D'daridex class cruisers on an intercept course.

You know, I'd expect Chakoteya to know how to spell D'deridex. While it's nice to know the ship's classes of other races, this episode doesn't seem like the place to do it.

Meaningless aside, The Romulans aren't really a part of this episode in any meaningful context beyond "bad guys", we don't need to know more about their culture. It could've just as easily been the Ferengi or the Breen for their role in this episode.

WESLEY: But Commander, if it is a Romulan ship, with their cloaking device we shouldn't pick them up at all.
LAFORGE: Unless they're pulling so much power for something else that they can't fully cloak.

I like this touch, too bad it wasn't used more often.

TAM: Lonely? I can hear everything that everyone on this ship thinks. No one besides you seems to be missing my charming
TROI: You want them to dislike you. Why?
TAM: Because I'm not a nice man. Okay, okay. Because they scare me. They're too many minds. I can't shut them out. I never could learn. All their loves, their hates, their fears, their needs. It's like a tide that never ebbs. I could drown.

A nice touch. But you can be lonely even when surrounded by people. I know that I've felt it from time to time.

[Nate the Great]

LAFORGE: I'm working on it. Computer, reconfigure structural integrity power to feed inner deflector grid.
COMPUTER: Unable to comply. Requested reroute would compromise operational safety limits.
LAFORGE: To hell with the limits. Override.

Well he's being an idiot. Structural integrity fields and inertial dampeners should be on top of the "never turn these off" list.

TAM: Nice. A little Spartan.
DATA: Spartan?
TAM: Lots of work space, not much room to live.

It's Season Three, this bit where Data doesn't have instant recall of the entire dictionary has overstayed its welcome. If it was ever welcome at all, that is.

DATA: It is indeed laid out as a vessel with what appear to be corridors and chambers. An internal environment suitable for carbon based life forms is being maintained, yet there is no evidence of a crew aboard. Tin Man is a living being which has been bred or has adapted itself to serve a purpose. I find that interesting.

I could rant for quite awhile about the implications of a lifeform modifying itself to serve humanoid needs. The sheer variety of neural systems that would have to operate independently and in parallel are just the tip of the iceberg. I kind of prefer the idea of one guy forming a symbiotic relationship with one ship.

TAM: No! No! We're not the target. It's Tin Man.
PICARD: What do you mean? Do they intend to destroy it?
TAM: Those are their orders if they can't secure the alien.

And how exactly would the Romulans "secure" Gomtuu in such a short amount of time? For the fun of it, I wanted to compare the size of Gomtuu to the space between the upper and lower hulls of a Romulan warbird, but we don't have a size for Gomtuu. Although that would be a cool sight, tractor beams acting as cage bars trapping Gomtuu between the hulls. The only problem would be getting into warp...

LAFORGE: I know. Okay, first thing we need to do is get the main computer working right.
RIKER: No, we fix the shields first.
LAFORGE: Commander, whatever Tin Man hit us with, it fried circuits I thought were unfryable.

Maybe you could get a basic shield bubble without the main computer, but I wouldn't want to take the ship into battle with Romulans with a basic shield bubble. Then again, the entire point of having three computer cores is to have a backup in case something happens. Are you telling me that Gomtuu's pulse knocked out the connections from all THREE cores? Then again, you'd think Data would have a hotkey to isolate one of the cores in case of an unknown energy pulse approaching the ship...

[Nate the Great]

LAFORGE: But shields won't help if that star explodes.

I wonder if metaphasic shielding could withstand the force. Probably not, but maybe if you modified them...

ROMULAN [on viewscreen]: We have monitored the destruction of our sister ship by the star creature. We claim right of vengeance. We will destroy the alien. If you interfere, we will destroy you as well.

This "right of vengeance" thing seems more like a Klingon thing, doesn't it?

The Fiver

Riker: Why "Tin Man"? Is it because the probe's data shows that this organic spacecraft doesn't have a heart?
Elbrun: No, it's because nobody liked the first code name that was proposed. They all said that "Species 8472" sounded really dumb.

It does. I get that the Borg uses numerical designations, but you'd think Kes or Seven could reveal what they call themselves. Or, y'know, Janeway could've asked them when they assumed human form...

Elbrun: Tin Man was hit by some high-energy cosmic rays.
Picard: They penetrated his body and irradiated the crew?
Elbrun: No, but they made him sneeze and... well, you can imagine the rest.

Well, that's morbid.

Elbrun: Tin Man existed symbioticaly with his crew. I'm going to take their place.
Data: You must return with me to the Enterprise.
Elbrun: No, this is where I belong. At long last, all the voices are silent; only Tin Man speaks to me now.
Data: Intriguing. It is the first time I have heard anyone claim that mono is superior to multi-channel surround sound.

That joke didn't really age well...

Picard: Data? How did you get back here? Where's Tam Elbrun? What happened to Tin Man?
Data: It is a long story, sir. To answer your last question first, Tin Man stated that he had finally achieved his ambition to "join with a carbon-based unit and find the Creator."
Riker: And what about Tam? Should we report him as a casualty?
Data: Listing him as "missing" might be more appropriate.

I find the V'Ger analogue a bit of a stretch, but okay...

[Nate the Great]

April 30th, 1990, "Hollow Pursuits"

Fiver (by Marc)
Transcript
Memory Alpha

Okay, let's get this out of the way up front. I like Barclay, but not in this first episode. This level of incompetence on the part of our crew is just unforgivable. As someone who's struggled with social anxiety myself, the way our crew handled Barclay's situation is absurd. You don't get to serve on the flagship with this many issues, you just don't. Barclay should've been assigned to a low-stress post with continual counseling and medication experimentation until he could get his act together.

Second issue, recreating real, currently living people on the holodeck without their consent should be a crime. Except for actual criminal investigations, of course.


Third, it should not be Geordi's job to hold Barclay's hand. There must be over a hundred officers in the Engineering section, Geordi doesn't have the time for that. Aren't there assistant chief engineers to handle this sort of thing? Whatever happened to Shimoda anyway?

Fourth, "Broccoli?" Even if we argue that everyone is speaking English so this joke would work (a very iffy proposition, but moving on), that's just abuse. How did this get past Gene? He's always harping about perfect human beings, and this is not perfect behavior. Uhura herself said that in the future we don't fear words.

Fifth, I'd think that the computer is keeping track of everyone's holodeck usage and if it gets too high Troi is notified. This episode makes it sound like Barclay spends all of his off hours in there, this isn't healthy and never should've gotten this far.

Besides, are there enough holodecks that everyone who wants holodeck time can just have it without waiting in line? That's absurd. Someone on Reddit did the math, and the amount of holodeck time per person with 16 holodecks is 10 hours per month. Of course some people don't like the holodeck and a lot of the 1012 people on board are children who wouldn't get solo time, but still. Even if we say that everyone who wants holodeck time can have 20 hours per month, Barclay is burning that off every week!

Sorry, but I had to get that out of my system. Moving on, get ready for some serious discussion of Treknology nits, they just show up so often in this episode.

The Episode

(Deanna slinks in wearing an off the shoulder number, as Howling Mad Murdoch pours himself a slug from a bottle on the bar)

I never watched the A-Team show, it was before my time. I did enjoy the movie in a "it's not supposed to be brilliant, it's supposed to be fun" sense.

LAFORGE: I just don't know what to do with him. The guy's always late, he never gives his best effort, just slides by. I'm telling you, I can't deal with it anymore. I mean, how does a guy like that make it through the Academy?

Forget the Academy, how'd he get assigned to the Enterprise in the first place? Wouldn't Geordi have some say in who gets posted to his department?

RIKER: Mister Barclay, I'm tired of seeing your name on report. I don't know what you got away with at your last posting, but this is the Enterprise. We set a different standard here. Understood?

Exactly.

[Nate the Great]

Captain's log, Stardate 43807.4. We are taking on a load of special tissue samples donated by the Mikulaks for shipment to Nahmi Four. The samples could prove vital to the containment of an outbreak of Correllium Fever on that world.

Put aside the technobabble here, why are there still so many deadly diseases on Federation worlds? I'll let it slide in TOS, the Federation was still "big" in terms of travel times and resources were stretched a bit thin. But this is supposed to be the prosperous, no-more-war era of the Federation. They should have the time to cure the major diseases on Federation worlds BEFORE they become outbreaks.

And the worst part is that more often than not these diseases are just backdrops, a reason for why the Enterprise is going from A to B. It smacks of writer laziness. The writers need to expand their vocabulary of generic Enterprise missions.

BARCLAY: I should have told him to mind his own damned business. I knew about the flux capacitor. I didn't need to hear about it from some seventeen year old kid.

Finally, something new! There should've been more resistance to Wesley having senior officer status among the junior officers. But no, in the perfect future Federation there's no resentment, or mourning, or prejudice, or anything like that. Until there is. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Roddenberry and Lucas may be geniuses when they're on tight leashes, but you let them off the leash at your peril.

LAFORGE: What do you do with a guy like that?
GUINAN: Well, I just serve him warm milk and let him be.

Bad Guinan! You're supposed to listen, and sometimes that means making your customer talk. It's your job to make sure everyone is having a good time in Ten Forward.

LAFORGE: Maybe I'm not make myself clear, Guinan. Barclay, well, he's always late. The man's nervous. Nobody wants to be around this guy.
GUINAN: If I felt that nobody wanted to be around me, I'd probably be late and nervous too.
LAFORGE: Guinan, that's not the point.
GUINAN: Are you sure?

Very good exchange. Mental health triggers can come from anyone, it's not always the afflicted's fault.

(He comes upon a Gainsborough tableau - Beverly on a floral swing and Wesley in blue, eating cake. There's a white parakeet in a cane cage too)

Chakotea does his research, you have to give him that. Thomas Gainsborough was an 18th century English painter, noted for doing portraits of fancily-dressed people.

LAFORGE: Hey, Barclay, I've spent a few hours on the holodeck too, you know. Now, as far as I'm concerned what you do in the holodeck is your own business, as long as it doesn't interfere with your work.

Unless you illegally replicate real people of course. Mr. Worf, take Broccoli here to the brig!

BARCLAY: Being afraid all the time, of forgetting somebody's name, not knowing what to do with your hands. I mean, I'm the guy who writes down things to remember to say when there's a party. And then when he finally get there, he winds up alone in the corner trying to look comfortable examining a potted plant.
LAFORGE: You're just shy, Barclay.
BARCLAY: Just shy. Sounds like nothing serious, doesn't it? You can't know.

Ouch. You gotta feel for Reg here.

TROI: Have you ever been with a counsellor before?
BARCLAY: Yes. No.

Really, Troi? You couldn't sense this guy's stress and arranged a visit before now? Even if you argue that Reg only transferred here recently, you'd think it'd be one of Troi's jobs to evaluate all newcomers to make sure that any required treatment was started.

RIKER: This is a violation of protocol. Crewmembers should not be simulated in the holodeck.

Exactly.

[Nate the Great]

TROI: You know, there's nothing wrong with a healthy fantasy life, as long as you don't let it take over.
RIKER: You call this healthy?
TROI: You're taking it so seriously. It's not without its element of humour.
HOLO-TROI: I am the goddess of Empathy. Cast off your inhibitions and embrace love, truth, joy.
LAFORGE: Oh, my God.
HOLO-TROI: Discard your facades and reveal your true being to me.
TROI: Computer, discontinue.
RIKER: Computer, belay that order! We want to get more insight into what's been troubling the poor man, remember? Quite a healthy fantasy life, wouldn't you say?
(Geordi agrees)

Always a funny scene.

WORF: Sir, our velocity increased to warp seven point two five.
DATA: Compensating, sir.
WORF: Confirmed. Velocity now warp seven.
PICARD: Maintain that. What the hell happened?
DATA: The matter-antimatter injectors locked for a split second. I am not certain why, sir. They appear to be working properly now.

What do the matter-antimatter injectors have to do with the warp fields? Just say that the warp coils locked for a split second! Why do I get the feeling that I could do a better job than the Okudas?

BARCLAY: It's not a computer problem. The mechanism is physically jammed. I can't clear it.

Jammed? So what? Just cut the matter and antimatter feeds to the injectors themselves! And don't tell me that there aren't manual cutoffs to the injectors!

LAFORGE: We can't shut it down, Captain. Antimatter flow is increasing. She's accelerating out of control.

1. How can the flow be increasing if the injectors are jammed?
2. Is the warp core automatically increasing the matter flow to react with the antimatter flow?
3. They can't vent the extra warp plasma before it gets to the nacelles?
4. They can't turn off the warp coils?

LAFORGE: Okay, this ship is going to start tearing itself apart in fifteen minutes. I want every idea on the table. I don't care how outrageous.
DUFFY: What about attempting a magnetic quench on the fusion pre-burners?
LAFORGE: No, I already tried that. The magnetic fields won't reset.

Okay, you can't turn off the antimatter flow. Of course I question how you could reset the magnetic fields without the antimatter reacting with the sides of the warp core.

WESLEY: Could the fuel inlet servos be caught in cycle?
LAFORGE: If they were, the swirl dampers would be frozen too and they aren't.

I think the swirl dampeners are supposed to focus the matter/animatter streams after they leave the inlets. Why freezing one system here is supposed to automatically freeze another system is beyond me.