Jammer's Review

Okay ive just finished half of season one...and here is the lowdown...

Encounter at Farpoint: Horribly dated and full of embarrassing moments (when compared with later seasons) this is TNG without bothering to struggle out of classic Trek's footsteps. They go for spectacle over logic, and stereotypes rather than character. If it wasn't for a very charming moment with Dr McCoy this would be a write off: 5/10

The Naked Now: The only reason Encounter of Farpoint didn't score lower is because the worst is yet to come and I cannot score in the minuses. A hideous episode that lacks even basic competance. The music is intrusive, the comedy is overplayed, the script defies logic and the crew behaving out of character in the second episode is just plain wrong. Would anybody in the twisted imagination of reality ever make a voice box so they could have orders given to them by the Captain? How does an android contract a virus designed for humans? And would Beverly Crusher really find Jean Luc attractive even under the influence? But don't forget: "It was an adult who did it!: 2/10

Code of Honour: Testing my paitence now. Who would have thought they could dumb down even more than The Naked Now? Tasha Yar is the most useless character so I really didn't mind them leaving her behind but no, instead we get nasty scenes like Troi revealing Tasha's lust for Lutan. Picard talking to Lutan about sex is downright odd and the fight at the end is stagey as hell. Plus could they make a planet look less fake?: 2/10

The Last Outpost: Again, very poor. The Ferengi were touted as the latest big bad but they come across here as a bad joke. Armin Shimmerman gives a really weak performance here compared to his nuanced creation of Quark in DS9 it is impossible to compare the two. Again we have an unconvincing planet, long talky scenes that go nowhere and an ending which goes beyond being an anticlimax. Surely this must get better soon: 2/10

Where No Man Has Gone Before: Finally! A sense of wonder permeates this episode, something that has been missing since the first spisode. If you notice, Rob Bowman's season one episodes tend to be the best, certainly the best made (Datalore, Heart of Glory) and this is an expensive looking trip into fantasy. The dreams that crew conjure up are visually interesting and the quiet moment between Picard and his mother give him the touch of sympathy he has needed. The idea of the Traveller is an intriuging one and im glad they followed it up in subsequent episodes. Even Wesley didn't make me grind my teeth: 8/10

Lonely Among Us: One I remember enjoying when I was seven but it hasn't aged particularly well. The performances from the regulars are still wooden and unconvincing which makes another episode where they act out of character even more disturbing. I quite liked the Selay and Anticans (especially one great scene where they discuss their meal with Tasha) but their plot is not given any room to breathe when there is an exciting blue electricity lifeform that can zap from one person to another. Yawn: 3/10

Justice: Can you believe this is directed by the same man who gave us Duet and Way of the Warrior? Astonishing. More classic Trek with the planet of sex condemning Wesley Crusher to death for crushing a few plants. Im not sure what insults more - Gates McFadden's hilarious over-delivery ("The Edo want to execute my son!"), the mad groping that takes place in every other scene or Picard's awful speech at the climax. Who Watches the Watchers did it much better: 3/10

The Battle: Tense and effective, if a little slight. It is lovely to have some backstory for Picard and seeing him face his demons givens Patrick Stewart a chance to flex his considerable acting muscles. Its a shame that the Ferengi are involved and bizarre that it took seven years to follow the story up but I am not going to criticise what is for the most part an intelligent, involving episode: 7/10

Hide and Q: And we're back in clunker territory. This might be the most butt clenchingly embarrassing episode of the first season if only for Riker's 'How did you know Sir?' at the end. Q is back (which is worth a point) but he's brought with him another studio bound planetscape with some horribly unconvincing pig soldiers (who skewer Wesley Crusher - that's point number two). This is supposed to be a parable about desire and the need to help but it features Riker at his all time low, giving in to temptation and growing a massive ego. I couldn't leave without mentioning the truly bizarre scene on the bridge between Tasha and Picard ("What am I doing, crying?" "It is okay to cry in the penalty box."): 2/10

Haven: Everything about this is bad, bad, bad...except Mrs Troi who is just the sort of rude, arrogant embarrasment this ship desperately needs. Wyatt is introduced to Deanna and tells her he is disapointed she is not someone else? Way to romance a girl! As soon we hear this it is just a matter of some waiting about until this dream woman turns up in some terrible plot contrivance, which she does. An extra point for the vine Mrs Troi brings to dinner: 4/10

The Big Goodbye: After lots of multicoloured planet sets it is a refeshing change to step into the 1940's and have some laughs. This episode brings up lots of questions about the holodeck that Trek will spend the next fifteen years exploring - but it is quite a welcome change of pace here. I even liked Beverly in this one - the bit where she jumps up and down clapping when Whalen gets shot is one of the highlights of the season!: 7/10

Datalore: Another Rob Bowman gem, with a dark script and a briliant central performance by Brent Spiner as Lore. Data's backstory proves fascinating and Lore's introduction to the series only serves to show how good Spiner is at wiping emotion from Data. Any episode where Worf gets beaten up, Picard says "Shut up Wesley!", Data gets kicked in the head and Dr Bev gets shot is okay in my book. The fact that this is an intense psychological thriller is just a bonus: 8/10

Angel One: Jow was this made in the same season as Datalore? Let alone just after it? Another classic Trek episode with heavy handed morality, Riker behaving like a chump (get a beard mate, you seem much more with it!) and another hideous speech to wrap things up. I would rather drink a bottle of bleach than put myself through this again: 2/10

11001001: Great title, great aliens, great episode. This one just has it all: buckets of imagination, visual style, a great pace, interesting character development (even if Riker is snogging his face off - again!) and even a great scene for Wesley. The evacuation of the ship is dynamic and the conclusion is genuinely surprising and affecting. More like this please: 9/10

SO Riker making out with Minuet...are holograms so detailed that they would have, say, saliva?

Plus, at the end of 11001001, they say they took Riker along because they would need "someone" to reactivate the planet in case they died, but it took both Riker and Picard, so there really are lucky that Picard "happenstanced" by.

I can't give 4 stars to such a glaring plothole, but it is one of the better S1 episodes, but that bar is very low.

11001001 is easily one of my top 10 favorite TNG episodes. It's a personal favorite one to me, since it's the first episode of televised Star Trek, I've ever seen.

I thought the concept of the Bynars to be a fascinating one, beautifully framed by a nearly perfect holodeck setting, and a terrific character outing for both Riker and Picard.

Season 1 is a season that really fluctuates between really awful shows and really stellar material as well. Conspiracy is another highlight, as is The Battle. Season 2 was a little more balanced in that regard.

I have "11001001" marked as the first TNG episode with a second half that is actually better than the first half. And that's quite the achievement.

Most eps prior to this one had interesting premises, but terrible execution. This one starts with pathetic-looking aliens, a malfunction that seems like an excuse and just another holodeck story. So, I was ready for disappointment.

Yet it works! The plot actually makes sense, character interaction is fine and the new race turned out to be pretty interesting. Even more, the title is a spoiler that doesn't actually reveal a thing! How clever is that.

But I have a BIG complaint: Riker's romance rubbed me the wrong way. It felt like he was fascinated with a selected fetish, instead of an illusion that could be a real woman. Especially when he started to choose her traits.

Compare Riker's stares to Minuet with Picard's own fascination of the scenery in "The Big Goodbye". Picard was at least enjoying an adventure. Riker seems to be entertaining his lower half.

All in all, one of the best season 1 episodes but I'm with Jack when he said the bar is very low.

3 stars from me.

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@ Joe Ford: Agree with you for the most part, except on Datalore, that I'd rate lower.

@ Eduardo: You're right. Season 1 is very unbalanced. The bad eps were, obviously, annoying, but more annoying was the fact that the season never got a steady quality. It was more like bad ep, terrible ep, good ep, bad again, great ep, bad again, terrible again...

An amazing shot at the start, while docking Enterprise to the space station. Best shot so far in this season.

I didn't like much the diversion used (the holodeck), but it seems kinda logic since Bynars are expert at technology things. Picard and Riker came up with the solution way easily.

One question: the computer asked for both of Picard - Riker to confirm the auto destruction sequence, plus its cancellation. But what would have happened if Riker died while reaching the bridge? The ship would have just blown up?

Overall, a nice episode, a real sci-fi one! I think the best so far. Yep, 4 stars indeed.

Can't wait for the next episodes. Engage!!!

With the second half of season one bringing the whole series back down, a Holodeck themed episode with Wesley overseeing Aliens who look like castoffs from 'Alien Nation' had me fearing the worst - however, am delighted to say 11001001 proved me wrong.

The Enterprise undergoes a refit, involving Computer dependent Aliens, the Bynars who come on board to upgrade her systems. Little does the crew realise, the Bynars have an ulterior motive.

This is by some margin the best episode of TNG thus far. The Bynars are great, a genuinely intriguing concept, and it makes me wonder why they were never utilised again? Jonathan Frakes gives his best performance yet, and there is definite chemistry between him and Minuet (Carolyn McCormick) Patrick Stewart is again excellent, and I must mention Wil Wheaton who as über geek Wesley actually comes over quite well here, especially when Data gies the order to activate the Enterprise's self-destruct. The ending, whereby the Bynars motives are self- interested but genuinely explicable:

'You might have said no'

Strikes me as an excellent piece of characterisation. Director Paul Lynch is noticeably better than most other First season Directors, and this is certainly the first episode I'd rate as a 'must see' - Given the limitations of Jammer's scale, I'd have to put this at 3.5, as opposed to 4, but it's the first episode I can unambiguously say you have to watch if coming tote series fresh. A great effort -rather a shame the momentum stalled in the next two episodes....

Hmmm, Riker trying to get x-rated with a hologram is more than a tad "creepy" (even Geordi e-stalking Leah Brahms can't hold a candle to Riker's antics), never mind what happens when that "special happy moment" happens... I reeeeeeally don't want to think about that...

That aspect aside, and the fact it's just luck that Picard stays on board when the Bynar process always requires two to do things, the plot is coherent and engaging, and makes for a top-notch episode worthy of 4 stars.

The Blu-Ray's release makes the visual f/x even more sweet.

But the hokum at the start where everyone looks around and nods seems like they're all sharing some deep dark secret rather than having a feel-good camaraderie moment... Geordi and Data made a great double-act, but *shhh* is there more going on? Noting Geordi never seems to get into any relationships in the show's run and Data is apparently fully-functional, thanks to one of TNG's worst attempts to take a good story and then ruin it every so quickly by becoming juvenile about it...

Here we essentially have benevolent Borg before we meet the real thing...it's strange that the Borg wouldn't have assimilated this race by this point...they're already about 3/4 there as they are.

I waited the whole first half hour for the pianist to say "About that, don't quit your day job..."

Favorite line of that episode.


And Joe Ford--thank you! :) That was fun to read.

Wow, I had forgotten how good this episode is. I don't know if I'd go to four stars (though where exactly the 3.5 - 4 boundary is for me, I'm not sure), but it's the only episode in the season that gets above 3 from me -- I'd say 4 wouldn't be unreasonable. (I like Conspiracy, the other episode Jammer singled out as a standout, but a lot of it reads to me as fairly stupid.) I am rewatching in order (mostly) so I might change my mind on Heart of Glory I guess. Anyway while there are other good episodes in TNG season one, I think this is the only one which can legitimately be called great.

Watching this episode tonight, I caught for the very first time the logic behind the file name -- the four Bynars are, I believe, in two pairs, and the names of the Bynars in each pair are 11 & 00, 10 & 01. The file name is a concatenation of the four Bynars' names.

In addition to all the other great things about this episode Jammer and others have talked about, we also get a big dose of no-nonsense Data in command -- without any of the "aw, shucks" sense given to Data's explanation of how he broke the intent of Riker's orders while following their literal meaning in "Angel One."

I think the one significant problem I have with the episode is that Riker's end-of-episode decision to return to Minuet doesn't quite work for me. Riker wanting to chill out with a holographic woman makes sense; and him falling for her against his better judgment, and not quite knowing what that means, works even better. But for him to go back to the holodeck eager to embark on something like an actual relationship is something that requires greater consideration. Maybe more importantly, part of the emotional heft of the episode is that Minuet was a decoy created to manipulate Riker. I feel like it would have worked better if Riker were more cautious upon returning to the holodeck -- cautious both from not knowing how to deal with developing feelings for a hologram and from having just been burned by her. His unmitigated glee upon returning doesn't feel real to me. Even if it did, I feel like Picard would have, by this point, warned caution himself. But it's is not wholly ridiculous to think Riker (in particular) could let himself fall that hard for a pretty face (and that Picard would have other things on his mind).

So yeah, probably 3.5 stars from me.



Re: Jack's point, 'Plus, at the end of 11001001, they say they took Riker along because they would need "someone" to reactivate the planet in case they died, but it took both Riker and Picard, so there really are lucky that Picard "happenstanced" by.'

This is glaring and the episode-as-presented doesn't address this point or seek to resolve it. However, while some plot holes are episode-breaking, others are very easy to wallpaper over. Take your pick:

1) they had actually planned to trap another officer in another holodeck, but once Picard entered the Minuet program they realized they didn't need to trap a second person;

2) they had originally planned to modify the computer program to be optionally accessible by a single person so that Riker could run it alone, but decided not to bother installing that failsafe once (again) Picard entered the Minuet program.

Either way, the Bynars didn't screw up on that front, because they presumably knew by the time they created the containment chamber that they had two officers on the ship.

I was going to say that a second plot hole is that the Bynars make it really difficult for Riker & Picard to get to the bridge in order to help. I mean, they barricaded the turbolifts! But I suppose this is also resolvable -- it seems as if the Bynars gave Minuet extra information between Picard & Riker's departure from the holodeck and their arrival on the bridge, so that perhaps Minuet would have informed them that they could beam onto the bridge and what the current situation was.

Or the Bynars could have not been thinking clearly because their planet is dying and they were operating on a much shorter timeline than they expected to be.

"The file name is a concatenation of the four Bynars' names."

Took me a couple viewings to get the hint, but now that I know more about binary, it doesn't make much sense. As Jammer probably knows well enough, the Bynars' names are simply Three, Zero, Two, and One. (I shudder to imagine what a Bynar phone directory must look like.) So is the password 3-0-2-1? Or is it 201, which is all 11001001 means in binary?

Not that such confusion would've postponed a solution very long, nor does it spoil the episode.

Just re-rewatched this episode -- hadn't noticed before the number of scenes with Riker and Picard walking, moving in sync, shoulder to shoulder, mimicking the Bynars. Well done. Even sitting at the computer station, they turn toward the Bynars at the same time. Nice direction, and it adds to the theme. Humans, too, work better in teams.