Star Trek: The Next Generation
"The Arsenal of Freedom"
Air date: 4/11/1988
Teleplay by Richard Manning & Hans Beimler
Story by Maurice Hurley & Robert Lewin
Directed by Les Landau
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
Investigating the disappearance of the USS Drake, the Enterprise away team beams down to the remains of a destroyed civilization on the planet Minos to search for answers. Instead, they come under attack by an advanced weapons system that first employs deceptive intelligence-gathering tactics before turning to simple but unremitting brute force. When Riker is incapacitated by an energy field, Picard beams down, leaving Geordi in command of the Enterprise.
Here's an episode of TNG that drops all pretense of significance and simply exists as action and watching the characters work the crises. The results are pretty good; it's one of the season's better outings, and certainly one of the best-paced. The weapons that attack the away team are like levels in a video game, where after you destroy one, another comes 12 minutes later, except this time stronger and smarter. The episode benefits from its three-pronged plot approach. Riker, Data, and Yar must play infantry in fending off the weapons on the surface; Picard and Crusher fall into a deep hole and the captain must treat the injured doctor as a patient; and La Forge gets his first big test in command when the Enterprise is attacked by an invisible weapon orbiting the planet.
All the plot threads work, but the most interesting is Geordi's on board the Enterprise. He must assume big responsibilities and make tough calls in a dangerous situation. All the while he must put up with Lt. Logan (Vyto Rugins), the Enterprise's chief engineer (or should I say this week's chief engineer, since there's a different one nearly every week on season one), who outranks Geordi and tries to bully him into ceding command to him. If the episode has an evident flaw, it's that Logan is too much of an obvious progress impediment in needlessly challenging Geordi. Someone needs to tell him that instead of repeatedly coming to the bridge he needs to be doing his damn job. And I tend to grow impatient with any scene where Troi counsels the commanding officer with compliments and suggestions, coming off like a kindergarten teacher. Just imagine that in the current-day military.
The episode has some nifty set-pieces, including a prudent saucer separation and the ensuing tactical action. The solution to the problems on the surface are handily wrapped up with what on TOS would be Kirk Outsmarts the Computer™ — except in this case it's Picard and the computer is designed to be outsmarted in this way.
Previous episode: Heart of Glory
Next episode: Symbiosis
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70 comments on this post
Sun, May 6, 2012, 11:38am (UTC -5)
Hilarious.
Sun, Aug 5, 2012, 2:56pm (UTC -5)
Logan only came to the bridge twice, once on his own initiative at which time he was sent packing, and once invited by LaForge to take command of the saucer section.
"The solution to the problems on the surface are handily wrapped up with what on TOS would be Kirk Outsmarts the Computer [TM] — except in this case it's Picard and the computer is designed to be outsmarted in this way."
It was Beverly Crusher's key comment that saved the day when she told Picard to simply turn off the machine.
Sun, Aug 19, 2012, 2:31pm (UTC -5)
Anyway, other than that this is an enjoyable episode with some really fun moments and some good stuff with Geordi.
Tue, Sep 25, 2012, 6:44pm (UTC -5)
Mon, Nov 5, 2012, 3:14am (UTC -5)
A good episode, loved the scenes between Geordi and Logan. But the firing scenes were kinda slow paced.
And I have to say that the Enterprise without its saucer looks pretty ugly.
Tue, Nov 13, 2012, 8:49pm (UTC -5)
Loved how Crusher (not WESLEY WONDERBRAT) tells Picard just to shut it off.
And why the remaining weapon still fires on the Enteprise after that when a simple edit to deal with the Enterprise finishing off the weapon before Picard shutting it all off would have perfected that bit...
Loved the Geordi/Logan bits as well.
3 of 4 stars
Tue, Jan 22, 2013, 4:41pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Apr 5, 2013, 11:28pm (UTC -5)
Would you believe this was the *only* TOS-style "computer gone mad" story TNG ever did? (Not counting holodeck malfunctions, rogue androids, or artificial lifeforms.) Kirk would've been bored in this century.
Sat, Apr 6, 2013, 6:01pm (UTC -5)
I wasn't that enamoured with the Geordi material for whatever reason -- his inspirational speech at the end didn't feel all that inspirational to me, though perhaps realistic of what a guy without any such experience could give.
One of the funniest moments in s1 for me is when Crusher says she needs to stay warm and asks if there are any blankets, and Picard says there aren't any and then wanders off to check out the computer. Talk about not taking the bait -- Picard will NOT let any UST onto his ship!
This is the first of three consecutive episodes which feature "Riker in stasis" -- in "Symbiosis" we get the infamous, hilarious shot of him being held by that energy thing, and in "Skin of Evil" we have Armus.
Anyway it's an episode with some good points and almost none of the ep outright bad -- which for s1 is a home run. Still, only 2.5 stars from me.
Mon, Jun 17, 2013, 9:44am (UTC -5)
However, while I fully enjoy sacrificing reason in the name of interesting narrative, this particular episode had me crying "why didn't the natives just turn it off" for most of the last half of the episode. It was *too* much sacrifice I think.
Wed, Jul 3, 2013, 11:34am (UTC -5)
While the show didn't say, it seems unlikely that a single system wiped out all intelligent life, there are probably many more spread throughout the planet and perhaps they have different problems. And since the episode doesn't say specifically, for all we know some virus wiped them out - they didn't actually show any Minosian bodies so that we can make conclusions on this topic.
I enjoy this episode and never skip it when re-watching TNG - 3.5 stars from me on the Jammer scale.
Sun, Sep 1, 2013, 8:38pm (UTC -5)
For one, nobody (except engineer-of-the-week Logan and, to a lesser extent, Picard) grabs the idiot ball in this episode. Everyone behaves believably as highly trained quasi-military space explorers here. Even the Capt. Rice(? I think that was his name...) illusion scene worked well. It's believable that Riker would immediately be happy to see him and quite trusting. However, it was clear that he was already getting suspicious before being contacted by the Enterprise, and his decision to run with it to try to gain more information was clever as well. LaForge proved to be quite adept at commanding the ship and dealing with the situations that were brought up while still acting reasonably like a junior officer. Even Troi's scene wasn't cringeworthy. And for once, Tasha was given something to do and handled it quite well.
Sadly, Picard once again was the only foolish one. He beamed down for little to no reason (it's a hostile situation, Data is perfectly capable of commanding the away team, and he had no actual skills of use down there). It then looked like it was his fault that they fell into the hole, and he had to be told by a non-command officer who is going into shock that he should try to turn it off. I still cannot get over the fact that the writers are handicapping the main character in this way. Just compare this Picard to a season 3 episode; it's night and day.
But really, that's my only complaint. I can live with the coincidence of falling down the hole that contained the main computer. I can live with the "used car salesman" character. The plot was tense, action packed, and contained quite a few good lines (the good ship Lollipop was a classic). Even Gates McFadden's acting is improving.
As a random aside, I find it interesting that the first season was propping LaForge up to being command material, more so than Worf (the other junior officer in the show). And yet, later on it's Worf that seems to be more command oriented than LaForge. Data made Worf first officer in Gambit, Worf is the first officer in one of the timelines in Parallels, and of course he seems to be command-oriented in DS9. Not sure why the change was made. It's pretty obvious in the first season that LaForge was also the "technical" one, and was an obvious fit to become the Chief Engineer in season 2. But there's no reason he couldn't also be command oriented as well. Scotty, Data, Dax (Science rather than Engineering, but still more technical oriented) all worked as half-technical, half-command type characters, so he could have continued down that path.
Wed, Jul 16, 2014, 4:38pm (UTC -5)
In the same way that it makes eventual sense that Sulu ended up with his own ship (Sulu always comes off as competent and well suited to command in TOS, and then gets Excelsior in Undiscovered Country), so it makes sense when we finally see Geordi as a captain during his Cameo in the Voyager episode "Timeless".
I wonder why the writers decided to have no consistent Chief Engineer in season 1 of TNG? Given how prominent a character Scotty was in TOS, you'd think they'd have prioritized the position in TNG. Seems odd that engineering has a random Lt. manning it all the time. They obviously fixed it in Season 2. Still odd that they didn't keep a prominent character there in Season 1.
Fri, Sep 12, 2014, 11:24pm (UTC -5)
Right now I'm part-way through season 5 of my DS9 re-watch, so I was a bit nervous when I got the urge to watch an ep from TNG's (notorious) first season.
But it holds up! It's fun! All three plots work! That shot of the stardrive section pulling a U-turn while the saucer zooms off is still awesome all these years later! 3 stars, hurray!
Fri, Mar 6, 2015, 5:02am (UTC -5)
I also thought it was awfully darn convenient that there just happened to be a particular type of roots growing in that cavern that could stop Beverly's bleeding and that she just happened to know about them.
All that aside for season 1 I thought it was a pretty good episode.
Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 5:19pm (UTC -5)
Sun, Aug 2, 2015, 2:33am (UTC -5)
Also, Troi accosts Geordi with her typically useless sh-t at the worst possible moment. Yes, it's a minor footnote in this particular episode - but it just reminds me that when the series was in its first run, Trekkers loved bitching about Wesley. But watching the re-runs, I'm far more irritated by Troi. Her character is just useless.
Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 3:42pm (UTC -5)
The main theme of Geordi facing up to command is well handled, although by bringing in a raft of new characters in Logan, Solis and T'Su you do lose something. And Troi's psych assessment does seem to be particularly poorly timed, as others have noted. And we're still teasing the Crusher/Picard relationship without taking it forward.
Just as an aside, you have to wonder if the money was starting to run low on this one as the VFX are uniformly terrible, and the planet surface represented by a few pot plants in the studio is resolutely underwhelming. Perhaps the saucer separation shots broke the budget... Big dumb fun, 2.5 stars.
Thu, Sep 24, 2015, 4:34pm (UTC -5)
Mon, Dec 14, 2015, 8:38pm (UTC -5)
Here here. Wesley gets alot of flack for being a blatant Mary Sue, but the way I see it Troi's character is just a variation on that theme. For whatever reason, Roddenberry seems to have had some bizarre reverence for psychotherapy, to the point where he seats the ship's counselor directly to the Captain's right, like she's equal to the first officer or something. To add insult to injury, in every episode she's throwing out her insipid, useless psychobabble right and left, and poor Picard has to pretend to listen to it. For all we know, if he doesn't humour her she can get him relieved of command or lobotomized or something. They couldn't show Roddenberry the exit fast enough with this series.
Sun, Jan 31, 2016, 11:18am (UTC -5)
i liked the lollipop comment by Riker and it was nice to see a bit of action but other than that i thought the episode was just alright.
Tue, Feb 2, 2016, 5:55pm (UTC -5)
Sat, Feb 13, 2016, 12:20am (UTC -5)
Picard gives Geordi command so he comes in dick swinging as a higher ranked Lieutenant; trying to blatantly over rule Picard's decision and put the ship in jeopardy by trying to blow up the chain of command?
Did he not think what would happen to him when Picard returned and he found out Logan pushed LaForge out of the Captain's Chair after ordered there by Picard?
I know this Logan fellow is a one-off , but they should have had LaForge relieve him of duty or something. I hated how they wrote this guy.
Tue, Apr 12, 2016, 12:05pm (UTC -5)
Tue, Oct 11, 2016, 4:51pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Dec 16, 2016, 4:24pm (UTC -5)
It has a very old school SF short story feel-falling down hole in ground and uncovering the lost civilisation's secrets eg and it is fun.
In a more militaristic setting ( David Feintuch's Seafort Universe eg) Logan would at least have been arrested but Geordi should probably have spaced him for insubordination.
Looks like Gene Rodenberry's conflict free future doesn't work for everyone
Fri, Jan 20, 2017, 3:23pm (UTC -5)
The face-off between Riker and the false Drake captain ("what's your ship's weaponry?" "Ten." "What?"
"six!") was a delight and has aged without a wrinkle.
The first season ranged from decent to embarrassing. This was a high point.
Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 10:43am (UTC -5)
Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 10:49am (UTC -5)
Which got me thinking, did they ever bill Picard for his purchase? Too bad he skipped out because a few of those drones might have come in handy against the borg.
Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 9:08pm (UTC -5)
I always thought the machine started at its lowest level when against a newer foe. It had to learn their strengths, weaknesses, and capabilities, then would level up in a appropriate manner. If the Ferengi had landed, it would have started off the same, then gone off in a different direction. Same with Klingons or Romulans. It would eventually decide how much power was needed to defeat/kill the newcomers, and used no more than that.
No matter how smart Geordi and the Enterprise got in defeating one of the weapons in orbit, the machine would just program another machine to defeat them the next time, or come close to it. Then a better weapon would appear based on the information from the previous one.
If our intrepid band of heroes hadn't told it they were intent on buying one, it would have continued to display its weaponry and destroyed them all. The hologram did say it was a learning machine.
Actually, I'd have thought this would have had the weapons designers of Starfleet salivating for years. With just a few tweaks (don't kill the folks that designed you), something like this would be able to defend just about any Federation planet from invasion, forever. And for the larger/more important planets (Earth, Vulcan, etc.), they'd just give it more power to do whatever it wanted/needed to do. Of course, it might have destroyed the solar system to defeat the Borg, but what a show it'd have been...
Too bad when one of the shows went back to Earth, on a somewhat war-time footing, they didn't show a few of them floating around in the background, on partol at Starfleet...
Regards... RT
Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 11:35pm (UTC -5)
Frank Herbert wrote about something like this in the Dune series. Basically, by even creating a self-programmable AI killing machine one literally risks the annihilation of all life in the universe. If you've seen The Lexx there's a similar theme there. I don't know if there would have been an upper limit to what this thing would do. Maybe it would have realized at a certain point that it needed to assimilate new technology in order to improve itself and become a new Borg race.
My take on the uses of such technology is that it's better not to use them, for any reason.
Wed, Mar 29, 2017, 10:08pm (UTC -5)
@Peter G.
Well, perhaps I was being a bit flippant about seeing them floating around at Starfleet, because I totally agree with you. That doesn't mean the weapons folks wouldn't still be salivating over this technology, just that they shouldn't use it. :)
In a way though, and it's been discussed before for many different episodes, they seem to find some new breakthrough, or weapon system, that should/could make the Federation nearly invincible (at least to their peers in the galaxy), and we never hear about it again. While things might be going on in the background, I wish they'd brought some of that to the forefront a bit more, especially if/when they seemed to be on a war footing.
But agreed, some of the things should never be used. Doomsday Machine comes to mind. :)
Regards... RT
Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 8:36pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 10:03pm (UTC -5)
It was always antithetical to the way STNG was written that there be continuity between episodes and even seasons. That was really a shame, because as a viewer, I always felt immensely rewarded when TV shows would reference or even integrate things from previous episodes into later ones. Even something as trivial as the Enterprise using that deflector dish trick in Night Terrors, or Picard playing his flute from Inner Light, was awesome.
I am not sure why the show's writers were so resistant to that sort of thing.
Fri, Mar 31, 2017, 10:12pm (UTC -5)
Network pressure. They had to avoid too much obvious continuity like episode arcs and recurring references to other episodes. They did squeeze some of it in, such as the Klingon arc and occasional references to key episodes like Best of Both Worlds, but overall I suspect it was like getting past the censors.
Sat, Apr 1, 2017, 10:01am (UTC -5)
TNG was a huge success by the time DS9 came around, so DS9's producers could count on a regular audience they could craft story arcs for.
Tue, Apr 11, 2017, 2:48pm (UTC -5)
Seems many other commenters feel this is one of the better Season 1 episodes of TNG - which would make the season as a whole rather mediocre.
Best part was seeing LaForge taking command and fending off Logan who was the low-point of the episode.
I actually enjoyed "That Which Survives" and I did enjoy this episode slightly more though there are the customary gripes which other commenters have mentioned: how the drone kept missing, Picard's decision beam down the planet (dumb decision), just buying the defense system and turning off the demonstration. I rate this a strong 2.5/4 stars.
Mon, May 22, 2017, 8:50pm (UTC -5)
The Enterprise went to the planet to find out about the missing ship, the USS Drake, and Riker even seemed enthusiastic that the ship might still be around after encountering a fake version of his friend.
By the end of the episode, however, this plot point seems to have been completely forgotten. There is no mention of trying to find the USS Drake or ever returning to see what happened to them. In the end, it served as nothing more than a convenient carrot to lure the crew into the plot.
A good episode, but some closure to all the given plot pieces might have been nice.
Mon, May 22, 2017, 11:01pm (UTC -5)
@Ben S.
I'd thought about that a time or two. I always figured the machine destroyed the Drake. And since they found no wreckage, I can only surmise the machine also cleans up after itself, using whatever it finds in the wreckage to further the machine. Heh, I have to think that, since it was never mentioned.
A good point though, and it should have been addressed.
Regards... RT
Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 1:16am (UTC -5)
{ And I have to say that the Enterprise without its saucer looks pretty ugly. }
I think that may, as much as time/pacing, been one reason why they only ever separated the ship 2 more times after this one.
Sat, Nov 25, 2017, 1:40pm (UTC -5)
Tue, Dec 26, 2017, 3:24pm (UTC -5)
The weakness was Logan and the way he was hostile when Geordi stayed and then hostile when Geordi left orbit. They should have written better and consistent motivations for challenging Geordi.
I liked the arms planet theme. I wish they had kept the two junior officers on the battle bridge around as extras for other shows or either had one of them not be human.
I loved Picard's gruff-on-the-outside-but-proud-on-the-inside order to Geordi to return command of the bridge AFTER he delivered the ship in one piece.
Tue, Jan 16, 2018, 10:23pm (UTC -5)
Vincent Schiavelli, the actor that played the salesman was a great character actor and it was great to see him cast here.
I kind of love that the answer to the riddle is ridiculously simple, but it seems more like extortion than a hard sell!
Sun, May 13, 2018, 11:29am (UTC -5)
Hurry up and kill Yarr already. Let her go cry in the penalty box in Hell.
Sat, May 19, 2018, 6:18pm (UTC -5)
Tue, Jul 3, 2018, 5:31pm (UTC -5)
Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 1:07am (UTC -5)
First half slow and boring. The second half the episode picked up and my was re-engaged with Geordi in command, the saucer separation and the discovery of the computer. I also liked the little humanizing tidbit about Crusher and herbs
I did think the drone weapons were pretty cool
Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 11:06am (UTC -5)
A good Geordie episode. Also I liked Troi`s role here. She does have inside information that today`s military leaders don't have: the emotions of their underlings. And I thought it put her role as counsellor to good use. No teary eyes or expressions of feeling great pain from some creature.
I liked the funny weapons shill. It added a bit of levity.
Fri, Mar 1, 2019, 12:23am (UTC -5)
Highlights for me are:
- An interesting premise (and may be a bit cliched now, but was novel-ish at the time)
- Seeing what they did with Geordi's character. It's interesting that the writers seemed to have command aspirations for him before settling him down in Engineering.
- Character development between Picard and Crusher
- Data jumping 11.75 meters down a hole
In regard to the comments about Troi: I always got the impression that in the first season, she's not meant to be a literal psychological therapist, but is instead supposed to be a diplomatic advisor. Similar to how kings kept "counsel" - that is what I believe her role was meant to be, until it got morphed into a literal armchair "counselor" in later seasons. Her role and position on the bridge make a lot more sense when seen from this perspective.
Fri, Mar 1, 2019, 12:34am (UTC -5)
Tue, Mar 5, 2019, 4:19am (UTC -5)
Fri, Mar 8, 2019, 4:37pm (UTC -5)
Picard's choice to beam down to the planet full of unhinged weapons, always seemed silly to me. What could he possibly hope to offer the away team?
Sat, Mar 30, 2019, 11:41pm (UTC -5)
@Markus
That is an interesting take, where they changed their definition of counselor. I hadn't thought of it that way. If that is the case, they might have done it to give her more to do than just be on the bridge telling the Captain what her impressions were. Also, Yar was supposed to be the, for want of a better term, babe of the show, and after she left, they wanted to spruce up Troi a bit and, once again, get her more screen time.
Thanks for the thoughts... RT
Thu, Aug 1, 2019, 10:49pm (UTC -5)
The whole arms merchant plot just bored me. Could not get into it, had trouble keeping my eyes open.
Fri, Jun 5, 2020, 9:57pm (UTC -5)
I was turned off when he took the ship into the atmosphere to make the invisible ship visible, while shields were at maximum to keep the ship from burning up. But as soon as they destroy the invisible ship, he tells the navigator to shut down the shields while they are still in the planets atmosphere. Gotta save those shield batteries.
Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 1:19am (UTC -5)
The engineer showing up on the bridge because he had a higher rank? That was INSANELY insubordinate.
INSANELY INSANELY. That guy should have been court martialed, full stop.
Tue, Feb 2, 2021, 1:51am (UTC -5)
"What happened to all the people?"
I swear Marina Sirtis has a poker face carved in stone, cuz it's like "oh you sweet innocent summer child. Well... Counselor, I'm sorry, but... they're dead." xD
Just ... the delivery is so childlike that it borders on ridiculous. I get the sense that Sirtis was heavily overdirected during the first/second season, because she improves drastically the moment they stop doing her hair up in ludicrous 80's "Future Fashion."
Other than that, yes this episode is quite good, and the one my dad (and Ad Copy Writer) referred to (and continues to refer to) as "The Killer Advertising Episode."
Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 5:16pm (UTC -5)
My main issue is the Chief Engineer. I've read that Roddenberry didn't want there to be friction between the crew of the Enterprise which is childish in my opinion.
The friction here is incredibly clumsy with confrontation between the new Chief Engineer and Geordi. Reasonable, well-intentioned people can disagree without one of them having to be a bad person. Here's the first significant disagreement I can recall in TNG and one of them is LaForge, portrayed by one of the nicest people on earth, and the other is a huge douchebag who is overly aggressive and as close to being a 'bad person' as you can get without being a villain of the episode.
Disagreements between well-intentioned people on the same side is good TV and excellent fodder for character development but not when done like this.
As far as season 1 goes it's a pretty good little episode with minimal other issues.
Mon, Feb 22, 2021, 6:47pm (UTC -5)
1) Vincent Schiavelli: When Trek has a good guest star you really need to take advantage of it. Particularly in season one where the regular cast is still so raw. I wish he had had a bigger part to play. I hate that "gets worms" line, too.
2) Picard & Crusher: The hurt/comfort trope is one of the oldest in existence, mainly because it's a very easy way to get audience sympathy and create character chemistry. It completely falls flat here. They go through the "caring for an injured person" part but seemingly forget that they're supposed to work on the chemistry part of the trope. A vet working on a kitten would have been more involving than what we got here.
3) Riker & Tasha: The action plot. Should be good, but it's poorly directed. The Good Ship Lollipop bit goes on forever; he's not the real Captain Rice - we get it. Riker gets it. Everybody gets it. But they just keep stretching it out. The actual action scenes are a little better, but the effects make the bots seem so slow that it robs them of a lot of their menace.
4) Geordi: This is my favorite part of the episode. I think Burton is an underrated actor; he always seemed more "natural" than many of his co-stars. He gets a shot at the spotlight here, but as you said, the conflict between him and lead engineer seems incredibly forced and over the top. How many times was this plot reused on TNG?
Not a terrible episode, but I think it had the chance to be a really good one. If it had succeeded we would have had the first TNG episode with real conflict among the crew, a deeper understanding of the Picard/Crusher relationship, some exciting action scenes, and a chance to see one of the most memorable character actors of the 1980s leave his mark on Trek history.
Instead we get an episode that is just "fine."
Thu, Mar 4, 2021, 8:52pm (UTC -5)
"...of the saucer section." - D'oh!
Tue, Mar 30, 2021, 1:50pm (UTC -5)
I don't think there's any mention on screen, but perhaps this experience was why he transferred from command to operations, then ultimately Chief Engineer. He tried command but didn't really like it.
Sat, May 29, 2021, 11:04am (UTC -5)
On such a vessel with civilians, families, and children, the counselor would be more important role than the mechanical workings of the ship.
Thus, the symbolic shift from Scotty as third in command of the TOS ‘Prise to the ship’s psychologist getting equal standing with the CO and XO on the bridge.
Fri, Jun 18, 2021, 2:05am (UTC -5)
An almost typical TOS setup, especially the planet set, rather cheaply done on a budget. The programmed salesman was a clever and entertaining device, especially the way he went from recorded message to the ability to answer questions.
B Story:
Nice interlude with Picard and Crusher, perhaps the first time we’ve seen her in a role that’s not either bland doctor or over-protective mother. Some back story about her upbringing and family.
C Story:
The strongest element I believe, was how they developed Geordi’s character into effective command role, with Troi also given a strong part for a change. The only thing I found absurd was yet another Chief Engineer (Logan) whose presence was presumably only to test Geordi’s ability to make strong decisions. Will we ever see Logan again? I can’t remember so even if he does, it couldn’t have been earth-shattering.
Footnote: good to see Sulu’s granddaughter Su in his seat! (Joke...)
I’d give a strong 2.5 stars, but it would have been 3 if the A Story was handled better.
Thu, Mar 17, 2022, 2:28am (UTC -5)
Fri, Apr 8, 2022, 2:14pm (UTC -5)
Sigh...
Seems legit!
Sun, May 15, 2022, 6:10pm (UTC -5)
Wed, Jun 1, 2022, 4:47pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 1:10pm (UTC -5)
Fri, Jun 10, 2022, 1:56pm (UTC -5)
Even if we're to understand that the population of the planet was decimated, it still stands to reason that the weapons testing area would be in a remote unpopulated zone anyhow, rather than near a city center. Since their apparent method of selling merchandise is to let the buyers roam free hunting the drones, I imagine they would require a very large and remote piece of land.
Fri, Apr 28, 2023, 8:43am (UTC -5)
Yes. An extremely little joke.
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