Star Trek TNG Pen Pals

Very good episode.  One of the best ones in this season.

There are problems with it.  They're exploring a system of unstable planets, but nobody thinks to investigate whether or not they're inhabited first?  It's a little sloppy, but it's okay because it plays out in a very appealing way.  Data receives a transmission from a planet.  It's not transmitted on purpose.  Just a girl talking to anyone who will listen.  And Data, motivated by curiosity answers the message.  This is meant to be sweet and it is.  Data is an "innocent" type of character, and the little girl is innocent as well.  Not thinking that she's talking to aliens, she just talks trustingly to this voice that answered he call.  And Data, not doing any real harm, listens and keeps her company.

They put that joking sequence from the end of the first episode of the season about Riker being in charge of Wesley's education to use in this one.  They decide to have Wesley head up the mineral survey of the area to find out why all the planets are geologically unstable.  There's good and bad in this.  There's more good than bad as far as lessons go about being in command, but I just bang my head against the wall when I see that this is the best that they could do with Wesley.  Mineral surveys?  Really?  He was supposed to be a prodigy to the Traveler and presumably do the things he can do (and at the very end he does.) But the writers just made him an overachieving boy who gets to do adult projects because he's extra smart with the purpose of giving advice to young people in the "family show" type of format.  I just wanted something different from Wesley.  So, they tell him to get a team together.  Nautrally, since they're all qualified in their fields, they're older than he is, making his leadership awkward.  A lot of people can identify with this, not just kids.  Anyone who's ever had to be in charge of a group of people that just have more experience in general knows the intimidation and doubt that Wesley is put through in this show.  The advice he gets is solid and the courage to make decisions in spite of doubt is believable.  So, altogether, it's a pretty good angle to fill in the gaps and doesn't weaken the episode in the least.

Picard galloping around a country side in the holodeck seems much more appropriate than him trying to be a prohibition era detective.  This is where Picard is when Data reveals that he's broken the prime directive since the people on the planet the girl is from aren't aware of interstellar travel.  She's begun to ask for help because of the volcanic activity on her planet.  It touches off a relevant discussion of the prime directive.

Pardon the poor sound quality.  Not only a discussion of the prime directive but of whether or not there is a grand purpose in the universe and if they were meant to interfere as such.  Liberals would rather play God than believe in God.  However, the points made in this debate are relevant.  Ultimately when they hear the child's voice they cave in to their natural desires to help out.  This is the heart of the episode and and added amazing complexity to the second season.  Surely the feedback on episodes like this are what drove the direction the show would move in in the future.

They made the effort of a convincing planet scape for this one.  For once, the holodeck doesn't look better than the planet.  And Wesley's team comes up with a solution for the problem of the planet the little girl is on, since they're studying it anyway.  Too convenient?  Maybe, but it's too good of an episode to complain.

Data keeps getting more and more leeway to communicate their plan to Sarjenka and he ends up bringing her aboard the Enterprise for safety sake.  It's very cute and for once Picard's crabbiness about children on the bridge doesn't seem forced or out of place.  Children are trusting and the fact that Sarjenka would trust Data even though he is alien to her and looks very different without being afraid is not out of the realm of possibility especially since they'd built a relationship with their radio communications.  It's just more of that innocence that is very appealing about this episode.They show her her planet as it is healed and then wipe her memory so that she won't remember anything that happened, thereby fixing their prime directive problem.  Again... convenient?  Yeah.  Why were they even worked up about the prime directive if they could've just done this the whole time?  But, it's a lovable episode and the drama within really did serve a purpose this time as far as sparking discussion and thought.  This is a pretty great episode for season two.

I think it deserves four and a half stars.  That extra half star may just be out of my personal bias, but it was a good Data episode.  Sometimes all it takes is for the episode to be a good showing of a great character, even if it's flawed.