Friday 12 September 2008

Star Trek: TNG 1.12 - The Big Goodbye

Review 96 - Episode 92 (Jan 11 1988)

The One with the Holodeck malfunction (no.1)

This is the problem of watching 4 episodes on the bounce. They all meld into each other and I struggle to separate the threads. Anyway, this is the first Holodeck episode and it's easy to forget what a cool idea it is. We see it so many times, that the novelty wears off, but here, it's fresh and new and Picards reaction to it and his performance in the ready room are excellent at conveying it.

Hi scenes with Beverley in the holodeck are also some of her best and it amazes me they poured ice on there relationship years later. Rather than give Picard a random love interest every film, they should have built on this.

There's a malfunction (of course, but who would know it would become a Trek cliche after this) and unfortunately Wes is sent to try and fix it while Geordi watches on impotently. Data is a bit too much for me in this episode with his comedy accents. The B plot, involving Picard trying to say a greeting to an alien insect race is interesting enough, but doesn't give the rest of the bridge crew much to do.

The actual Dixon Hill scenes are all well produced and the actors look like they're having fun. The only problem is that I know there are better holo episodes than this to come and I wouldn't really watch this again, but quite good.

3/5
Overall Star Trek Franchise Rating so far: 274/485

Troi Cleveage watch:

Not too distracting this week:


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