Hang in there, it'll get better soon. This is another weak episode. Over all, I found it a little on the boring side. There seems to be a couple different things going on in it and, of course, some TOS recycling as well.
The idea itself isn't new. A standoff with the Romulans over technology. This had been going on since the first series. I still sit in amazement of how TNG ever made it past these first two seasons when it seemed like they had absolutely nothing new to offer in the way of ideas, characters, and stories. The most disappointing things are the vagaries. There's technology at stake here, but it doesn't really say what. Only that it's advanced and by the end of the show nobody can get it anyway.
I mean, it was a watchable episode, don't get me wrong. But it was a little disjointed and frustrating. I just didn't like being teased with this artifact that Captain Varley talks about only to find out that it has nothing to do with what goes on in the story other than that it's a map to get him to the Nuetral Zone where this fabled planet Iconia existed once. I was just tired of the premise of these once powerful but now lost worlds at this point. And the fact that Varley is blaming the design of the starships for his system failures is kind of silly. It's like he's not smart enough to figure out that whatever probed them from the planet is the most likely cause of their troubles. Then the Romulans show up as one would expect and we have to waste a lot more time than necessary to realize that, no, they didn't blow up the Yamato. And they fall back on the simplest form of story telling. Both ships will contract the "contagion" now and they only have a short period of time to figure it all out before everyone dies. Nothing new.
However, the cool part is that it's a computer virus instead of just another disease. A lot of strange things start happening on the ship because it was transferred with Varley's personal log. Poor Geordi.. lol! This was a pretty novel concept at the time. It's not even 1990 yet. Most people didn't have a PC or two around their houses and Picard's little laptop type view-screen in his ready room was just sci-fi magic to the average person at the time. It made it an interesting plot twist.
I don't really know how the Romulan ship got infected. It's been a long time since I've seen this episode, but I don't think they explain it very well if at all. I'm sure they were just counting on the fact that a person was more likely to remember Picard's first order of tea, earl grey, hot coming out as a potted plant than details like that. And although it's memorable and funny, it's just one of the many time wasting portions of the episode before they start to try and solve the problem.
Picard decides to go down to the surface to stop the probes which, of course, is the only logical thing to do even though it won't stop the computer problems cascading on the ships. I have to admit I liked the gateway idea even though it was a total rip off of All Our Yesterdays. It really is such a nice idea, I was glad to see it attempted again with better graphics. The difference between the two is that in Yesterdays the gateways go into different time periods of the planet's past. In this episode the Gateway is used to simply travel distances great and small in the universe. Once they're on the surface they don't dare take the shields down to beam them back since the Romulan captain is still on the attack, but they then see the Enterprise and the Romulan ship cycling through the gateway on the planet, so there will be a way out.
The captain has Worf take Data back after he gets zapped by the control panel in attempt to figure out how it works. The captain stays behind to destroy the probing system and Data would seem to die from his injury back on the Enterprise. This part is funny now looking back on it - he needed a hard reboot to purge the virus. Ever since we moved into the cyber age we make jokes about turning it off and then turning it on again. They conclude that the ships' computers need the same sort of thing to make it all better. All this episode for that simple solution. But, I must remember again that it wasn't a common occurrence in 1989.
So, the artifact isn't connected to the action and the probes and gateway aren't really connected to the solution. It made it kind of consistently anticlimactic throughout the whole show. Data's behavior when he comes back to life is a little overdone on the comical front. Picard doesn't have time wait for the Enterprise to come around in the gateway after he starts the destruction sequence and has to settle for the Romulan ship instead. That part is fun. The presence of Picard always manages to save parts of the show somehow. They beam him over and give the Romulans instructions on how to purge their ship even though they're self destruct has (I assume) started itself randomly. I don't know how they're suppose to shut down their systems to "reboot" if they can't stop their auto-destruct, but it all happens very quickly and then the ships go their separate ways like nothing happened after all that posturing and chest beating and destroying of supposedly valuable technology. Like I said, hang in there.
It isn't the worst episode, but it isn't an overly memorable episode either. It was a touch on the ADHD side with too many small holes that were just irritating. Two and a half stars.
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