Month: March 2012

Data loses his memory in an alien version of the 16th century. A lot of this episode can be covered under the ‘amnesia defence for breaking the prime directive’ banner. Starfleet had better look out, there could be a lot more amnesia cases coming. Data’s amnesia was quite odd, as it affected parts of scientific…

Sisko and O’Brien are trapped on a planet where gadgets just don’t work. My idea of hell, by the way. It’s a very predictable plot – of course the charismatic, cult-like leader is the one behind the original crash, etc etc. It’s pretty well done, and the show does a reasonably good job with the…

A view of the lives of the junior officers on board. This is an incredibly well known episode, as it set a premise that has been used again and again by science fiction TV shows since. I can remember thinking it was fantastic when I watched it the first time around. But this time it…

O’Brien returns from a mission, but everything seems wrong. This episode makes a leap from ‘good’ to ‘great’ with the last second *Sixth Sense* style twist. The film noir style paranoia was nicely done, and creates a great sense of menace. But it feels a bit empty until the final reveal, at which point everything…

Beverly falls in love with a ghost. So, what was the worst part of this episode? Oh, so much to choose from: * The head of the colony discussing the coming caber toss. * Beverly and Deanna discussing Beverley’s erotic dreams. * Scottish stereotype #7 as the house keeper. * “What’s happening to me? Right…

O’Brien and Bashir get caught behind enemy lines together. For the most part this is a fairly nice little character piece, following the old trick of forcing two antagonists together and seeing how well they worked. The let down was in the framing plot and the Sisko story, which just never really resonated for me.…

Oh, hey, the Prime Directive. Quite frankly, I couldn’t see the episode for the trees here, as I spent the entire hour thinking about the morality and ethics of the prime directive. At one point Crusher is overwhelmed by the thought of making a decision that will ‘affect the future of a species’. But not…

The wheel of ‘when does my character get a story’ comes up Riker, and he’s drawn back into a shadowy incident from his past. It’s odd to remember that back in Season 1 the idea of Star Fleet admirals being bad was one that could only be explained by alien possession. Now we can have…

A clue to Odo’s background is found in the Gamma Quadrant. Good idea, poor execution. The idea of a disease affecting a shapeshifter was an interesting one, and the exploration of Odo’s past could be interesting. But we spent so very much time on Dr Mora’s utter inability to see the obvious, and Odo’s inability…

Quark battles a rival bar, while O’Brien has a racketball rivalry with Bashir (Gee, I wonder what the episode title could possibly mean…) Fluff, but entertaining and reasonably well done fluff. It would have been nice to do a bit more with the idea of a probability altering machine, but that would have been hard…