Wednesday 22 October 2008

Star Trek: TNG 2.15 - Pen Pals

Review 124 - Episode 120 (May 1st 1989)

The One where Data makes a friend

Prime directive abuse alert!

Data befriends a small girl on a planet whose planet is tearing itself apart. However, they have never met aliens and the Federation cannot interfere.

Standard "we can help them, but we shouldn't help them" episode which completely undermines it's whole premise by helping them just because a little girl was on the radio. They'll probably turn into a new race meaner than the Borg, but hey ho, lets break the directive again. If it had been a mean barbarian with access to the radio, they would have turned it off and never thought about them again. You shouldn't do episodes like this if you're not prepared to see it through to the logical ending. It makes the characters, especially Picard, look foolish and weak.

The Wesley subplot is interesting as he faces command for the first time, but I've seen it with Geordi already and I struggle with these early Wesley episodes.

2/5
Overall Star Trek Franchise Rating so far: 362/625


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