Another really good episode. I've always loved this one, even though it's still tainted with the old style of Ferengi.
The concept is fun and practical. A war-games simulation because of the Borg threat. It's really nice that they're not crying about violence for a change and actually preparing for a possible conflict with an enemy. It's kind of dumb that they were pitting outdated technology against the Enterprise since the Borg are a substantially advanced technology, but this is typical of how war games proceed, so away we go.
In the scenario they are to run for the war games, they tow a derelict ship out to a safe area, it is given to Riker to repair as best he can and attack the Enterprise to see how fast the Enterprise can defeat it. Great fun. Riker picks Worf, Geordi, and Wesley to assist him on his side. We see more Klingon guile and more of Geordi's genius which didn't surface much in this season even though he was chief engineer now.
They even cheat a little to win using Wesley as part of their deception. This is a good part for Wesley in this episode. They should've done this more often. There wasn't a lot of preaching and life lessons nonsense and all that after school special stuff going on, but he was being utilized for his talents even though they were still painfully common and underdeveloped by my reckoning. The Hathaway is a crippled ship with no warp capability and very little to offer in a battle with a galaxy class star ship. It's fun to watch Riker's crew turn their disadvantage into an advantage... thinking things out... being resourceful and imaginative. This is another episode where the main conflict of the episode is saved for the last quarter as well, but in this case the drama that fills the space before hand is actually more interesting. It goes a long way towards the character development of most of the cast.
The character of Kolrami is wonderfully written and performed. Normally, when they use the cast to take the representation of certain types of people down a notch, one can usually sympathize on a certain level with the intended victim. In this case, they take care to make Kolrami the type of person that very few people could admire on a personal level, so it makes it alright and funny to see them try to break his spirit a little. He
really is a master strategist and he has an ego to match. It's his
braggadocios nature that makes him irritating to the crew, not only in
his field, but in his recreation as a high ranking player of a strategy
game. Dr. Pulaski wants to see his ego deflated a little by putting him
against Data in the game. Now, around this time we were hearing a lot
in the news about Kasparov and the computer Deep Blue and the chess
matches. It's been shown that human instinct can and will probably
always defeat artificial intelligence and this was one of the first
times we see this interesting debate being obviously represented in a
Data story line. It's also more of an attempt to mirror the Bones/Spock
dynamic in Pulaski and Data, but she's not being a bully this time.
She's just genuinely shocked that a "computer" would be beaten so
easily. In real life this isn't a big deal, just more fun for
programmers to try harder. However, since Data is self aware, he
assumes something is wrong with him and removes himself from duty until
he finds the problem.
This leads to one of the best Picard moments in the series. He gives Data some great advice that has no political slant for a change. One of the best lines in the episode. One of the best lines in the series.
And then the Ferengi show up as they're getting into their war game simulation. Ugh... it's just so awkward. The way they're dealt with in this episode does indicate that they will be moving them into a more comical role, but the premise for their appearance in this episode is still a little beyond believable. If they are really this stupid and easily deceived, how did they ever become our technological equals to begin with? No, the Ferengi still needed a lot of work and bringing them in for an episode was damaging to the credibility of the episode, even in hindsight after seeing the Ferengi develop into something complex and genuinely entertaining in DS9.
Kolrami is a little too dogmatic about numbers and odds of survival and tries to get Picard to abandon Riker, but they out think the brilliant strategist as a team with a unique strategy of their own, which is satisfying and just a lot of fun to watch. I always like it when the their teamwork is so cohesive and seamless.
And if that little trick wasn't enough to deflate the strategist's ego a little, Data decides to try a different strategy in the game as well, playing for a stalemate rather than a win and frustrating Kolrami into quitting like an angry child. This is actually a really good episode for teaching people to think outside the box and not to accept premises and conventional wisdom as it is handed down. It promotes the idea of critical thinking and it's one of my favorite episodes to be honest.
Save for the Ferengi. Like I said, even now after they've created much to love and appreciate about this race in the following series, their presence in this episode is enough to annoy me into knocking off the extra half star and giving it only 4 stars. They would've done better just to have some random criminals in that were never heard from again.
No comments:
Post a Comment