The Enterprise docks at Starbase 74 for general maintenance and upgrades - a scheduled stop at this point in its first year of service. Picard has nothing but good things to say about the ship's performance, but is eager to have the systems upgraded, including the sometimes-problematic holodeck. During the upgrades, the crew will enjoy a much-deserved rest, as the ship's systems are gone over by the Bynars, sentient beings who are linked in pairs, and who communicate in something very much akin to machine language.
As the overhaul goes along, a restless Riker decides to investigate the holodeck upgrade. His program of choice takes him into a Bourbon Street jazz club, where he strikes up a relationship with the beautiful Minuet (Carolyn McCormick) - a relationship that quickly feels more real than it reasonably should.
Meanwhile, the upgrades start to have drastic effects on the ship - threatening the Enterprise with destruction!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: His intellectual side continues to dominate, even when he wanders into Riker's Bourbon Street club. He is intrigued by Minuet when she picks up on his name and responds in French. But his appreciation of her is primarily intellectual, analyzing the way in which she responds intuitively to him and Riker, and noting that computers learn from input and that humans always give off signals whether they wish to or not. Once he discovers the ship is in crisis, he responds decisively and takes the lead, confident in Riker's support of him.
Riker: Reveals to Minuet how lucky he feels to be first officer on the Enterprise. He is basically in his dream job, and defines himself completely by what he does. Perhaps he defines himself too much by that, given how little ability he shows to relax. While the security team has its diversions, and the captain has his free time planned, and even Data and Geordi find something to amuse themselves, he cannot quite seem to relax. He is enchanted by Minuet, and even at the end seems disappointed that it will be impossible for him to pursue a real relationship with her. Jonathan Frakes is very much on-form here, and gives what is probably his strongest performance in the series to date.
Data: In the absence of Picard and Riker, he quite effectively takes command when the crisis in Engineering hits. His response to that crisis turns out to be exactly what the Bynars wanted - but given the available information, his decision was the correct one.
Hot Computer-Generated Babe of the Week: Carolyn McCormick is Minuet, the holodeck creation that captures Riker's affections and even Picard's fascination. McCormick is very attractive, with startling eyes. I'm not sure whether it's her acting range that's severely limited, or whether she simply made acting choices that jarred for me. But when she was making her final plea to "Will" in her last scene, or trying to block Picard from leaving the holodeck before that, her deliveries seemed very flat to me. I know that Minuet is a computer-generated program, and thus "flatness" may have been an acting or directorial choice. But it didn't quite work for me.
SHUT UP, WESLEY!
Wesley responds with punchable smugness when Riker tells him to keep an eye on the Bynars, and when Picard tells him to keep him informed of any discoveries he makes.
Despite the annoying "smug acting" in his early scenes, Wil Wheaton actually has some decent moments in this episode. When the crisis in Engineering comes, and Data orders the ship's evacuation, I liked Wesley's hesitance and indecisiveness. A Wesley who responds with the uncertainty that a genuinely inexperienced young person would show in a crisis situation... That's so much more tolerable than Wesley the Male Mary Sue, and results in this being a rare episode to feature Wesley where he ends up not annoying me too much. This good scene also confirms what I said in an earlier review. Actor Wil Wheaton is not the problem with Wesley; bad character writing is.
THOUGHTS
After the execrable Angel One, the series gets back on track with a particularly good episode. It's not quite as strong as Datalore, with a rather slow first half and holodeck scenes that go on just a touch too long. But this episode is well-plotted, and makes good use of the series' leads. It's refreshing to see an episode in which Picard and Riker work in tandem, as joint leads, in contrast to too many episodes in which one or the other of them has been mobile furniture. The writing manages to capture Jonathan Frakes' acting strengths, as well, yielding a much better Riker characterization than we've had prior to this point.
I'm giving it an above-average "7" rather than a higher mark mainly because there are some pacing problems with the episode's first half, and there's a bit of cheese in the second half with the 5-minute self-destruct. Still, it's a high "7," very much on the border of an "8," with the score ultimately amounting to a judgment call.
Rating: 7/10.
Prevous Episode: Angel One
Next Episode: Too Short a Season
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