THE PLOT
The Enterprise is traveling through the debris field of Oelious IX, the result of the devastating final battle of an ancient war. They receive a signal, which they trace to a derelict from the time of the war - a Promellian Battle Cruiser, still fully intact. Picard overrules Riker's objections and personally leads an Away Team to the battle cruiser.
Almost immediately, the Enteprise begins to experience a small power drop. Nothing major, and easily compensated. But after Picard returns, the power drop suddenly becomes critical, and the ship will not respond to the crew's efforts to escape from this site. Picard finds himself wondering: Has he led his ship and crew into the same "thousand year old booby trap" that destroyed the Promellians?
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: Enthusiastic at the thought of investigating this thousand year old derelict, which he compares to a ship in a bottle. To him, beaming over to the battle cruiser is like going into the bottle, and he finds it "absolutely thrilling." When the crisis hits, and the only possibility of escape appears to rest in turning the ship over to complete computer control, he has a very good scene in which he muses to Riker about how man used to fly a plane with a single propeller, but now the ships are flying them. A speech like this might have seemed like technophobic idiocy in lesser hands, but Patrick Stewart manages to really sell it.
Geordi: After the first 15 minutes, this emerges as a Geordi-centric episode. He works with a computer simulation of Dr. Leah Brahms (Susan Gibney), who played a big part in designing the Enterprise's engines, in order to figure out a way for the ship to escape its snare. These scenes, with Geordi interacting with Leah and puzzling out the crisis while bonding a bit too closely with the simulation, are very strong, and they provide Levar Burton with some of his best material in a long time. Unfortunately, the set-up for them involves Geordi, a thirtiesh man who has never seemed particularly socially awkward in the more than 50 episodes preceding this one, to suddenly behave like a moony sixteen-year-old. These early scenes are painful, and probably pull the episode's score down by a full point.
Hot Simulated Alien Babe of the Week: Susan Gibney is Dr. Leah Brahms, who played a major part in the design of the ship's warp engines. Gibney does a decent job of portraying a woman who seems believably an expert in her field. She doesn't seem like just an actress rattling off Technobabble - there is genuine intelligence in her line deliveries. She also plays very well opposite Levar Burton. When she tells Geordi at the end that the two of them "made a good team," she's quite right from a viewing perspective, as well as just getting a good result, and I wouldn't mind seeing her again.
THOUGHTS
A good episode, this. The central dilemma manages to create a reasonable sense of tension. The script is well-structured, and the scenes involving Geordi and Leah do a good job of balancing character work with plot development. Geordi never seems in danger of neglecting his (very pressing) duties, but we can sense his growing attachment to the simulated Leah.
Effects work is above-average for the series, with the debris field effectively portrayed. There is a bit of a "videogame look" to some of the shots of the Enterprise navigating the field, but it's not at all bad for its time. The Promellian battle cruiser is also an effective design, though the interior is more effective when first seen in the dark than after the lights get turned on.
Overall Rating: 7/10.
The Enterprise is traveling through the debris field of Oelious IX, the result of the devastating final battle of an ancient war. They receive a signal, which they trace to a derelict from the time of the war - a Promellian Battle Cruiser, still fully intact. Picard overrules Riker's objections and personally leads an Away Team to the battle cruiser.
Almost immediately, the Enteprise begins to experience a small power drop. Nothing major, and easily compensated. But after Picard returns, the power drop suddenly becomes critical, and the ship will not respond to the crew's efforts to escape from this site. Picard finds himself wondering: Has he led his ship and crew into the same "thousand year old booby trap" that destroyed the Promellians?
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: Enthusiastic at the thought of investigating this thousand year old derelict, which he compares to a ship in a bottle. To him, beaming over to the battle cruiser is like going into the bottle, and he finds it "absolutely thrilling." When the crisis hits, and the only possibility of escape appears to rest in turning the ship over to complete computer control, he has a very good scene in which he muses to Riker about how man used to fly a plane with a single propeller, but now the ships are flying them. A speech like this might have seemed like technophobic idiocy in lesser hands, but Patrick Stewart manages to really sell it.
Geordi: After the first 15 minutes, this emerges as a Geordi-centric episode. He works with a computer simulation of Dr. Leah Brahms (Susan Gibney), who played a big part in designing the Enterprise's engines, in order to figure out a way for the ship to escape its snare. These scenes, with Geordi interacting with Leah and puzzling out the crisis while bonding a bit too closely with the simulation, are very strong, and they provide Levar Burton with some of his best material in a long time. Unfortunately, the set-up for them involves Geordi, a thirtiesh man who has never seemed particularly socially awkward in the more than 50 episodes preceding this one, to suddenly behave like a moony sixteen-year-old. These early scenes are painful, and probably pull the episode's score down by a full point.
Hot Simulated Alien Babe of the Week: Susan Gibney is Dr. Leah Brahms, who played a major part in the design of the ship's warp engines. Gibney does a decent job of portraying a woman who seems believably an expert in her field. She doesn't seem like just an actress rattling off Technobabble - there is genuine intelligence in her line deliveries. She also plays very well opposite Levar Burton. When she tells Geordi at the end that the two of them "made a good team," she's quite right from a viewing perspective, as well as just getting a good result, and I wouldn't mind seeing her again.
THOUGHTS
A good episode, this. The central dilemma manages to create a reasonable sense of tension. The script is well-structured, and the scenes involving Geordi and Leah do a good job of balancing character work with plot development. Geordi never seems in danger of neglecting his (very pressing) duties, but we can sense his growing attachment to the simulated Leah.
Effects work is above-average for the series, with the debris field effectively portrayed. There is a bit of a "videogame look" to some of the shots of the Enterprise navigating the field, but it's not at all bad for its time. The Promellian battle cruiser is also an effective design, though the interior is more effective when first seen in the dark than after the lights get turned on.
Overall Rating: 7/10.
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