Ha! Well, if this isn't one of the more blatant "just say 'no' to drugs" messages, I don't know what is. But it's actually a pretty good episode.
Of course, saying "no" to anonymous sex couldn't hurt either. It begins with Riker on vacation playing bedroom games with another brief fling. She talks him into trying a little game. Hell, I think this game is cool looking and it shows you how it looks from the player's POV right away. The object is to fly the little discs into the cones. Very simple and not unlike a lot of modern computer games... just endless levels of repetitive behavior. It's way ahead of its time when you think about it. We talk about our little Candy Crush, and Bubble Witch and games like that being addictive. But this game literally is addictive and they give you an indication that it is having a physical impact on Riker as every time he guides a disc to a cone he appears to get a rush of good feeling.
But things don't seem out of the ordinary at first. Riker comes back to find out that they only have a couple of weeks to explore some uncharted region and is displeased since he thought they'd have more time. He goes to engineering that talks a little shop with Geordi who is swamped trying to get everything ready to do the job in such a short amount of time. Ensign Robin Lefler is back. She'd made a brief appearance in Darmok but has a little bit bigger part in this episode. Riker then finds Troi making love to a chocolate sundae and then offers to show her something he picked up on Risa that's better than chocolate. You now see that the game is going to play a big part in this episode. It's reminiscent of the first couple seasons and I would even categorize this one as a "Roddenberry Classic"episode. (It was the first episode filmed after his death, incidentally.) But instead of being as juvenile in the typical fashion of the first season, this story is actually smart and the progression of how the game is passed from person to person is natural. There's no indication that it's something sinister at first, just possibly very distracting. They then meet with a vessel bringing Wesley back from the academy for a visit. And the writer's are still treating Wesley like a little boy. Honestly that's the most annoying part of Wesley... they never let him grow up... not even a little. He arrives with apparently no welcome and O'Brien telling him that everyone's busy at a staff meeting and he should just go to his mother's quarters. Then he reluctantly okay's his request to stop by the observation lounge to say hi. What's annoying is that this character is that he's written as still being nervous about interrupting the adults. He is an adult now, dammit! And he shouldn't be so naive as to not suspect that something is up with nobody being in the transporter room to greet him. But he slowly approaches the lounge all sad and scared like a small child... this is how they direct him to act and it drives me crazy! Anyway, it turns out they have a surprise party in there for him. No surprise to the audience, but Wesley is surprised and, of course, relieved that he wasn't really bothering the grown ups (eye roll.) As they mingle and catch up you see Troi anxious to show the game to Beverly. Friend to friend. All very innocent.
Wesley goes to Engineering to help with the job they're set out to do on a time crunch and meets Ensign Lefler. They begin working together and become very interested in each other personally. His flirtation with Robin is much better executed than his first "love" in The Dauphin. It seems very natural this time without a lot of childishness and although she has the advantage of him since she's been on board hearing about him, they quickly sync up and fit together very well. Data is then called to sickbay by Doctor Crusher and then we see the big reveal of the plot of the show. She shuts Data off and the other conspirators emerge to discuss how to keep him disabled. They are everyone you've seen that's had contact with the game up to this point. They get in some good private Picard-Wesley time over a cup of tea which
is always strengthening to the character of Wesley. It's during that time that Beverly calls Picard to sick bay to tell him that Data is malfunctioning to cover their tracks.
Then, when Geordi starts to tire, Riker swoops in to show him the game next. I always wondered why they didn't initiate him into the game before taking out Data because he's as important as the doctor to Data's maintenance, but it's only a small glitch and I may be overthinking it. Wesley and Robin continue to bond. This all comes off as sappy teen stuff. Robin's "rules" are kind of silly and a predictable kind of humor. But it actually serves a purpose. They're so focused on each other that they don't really notice anything else... like the game that's going around. At least not at first. Wesley goes back to his quarters to find his mom playing with the game and behaving as if she's getting a little high. He finds it strange but she says she originally got it for him and while he's trying to find clothes for his date with Robin she pressures him to try it until it seems almost creepy. And it's then, on their date that Robin and Wesley notice that the game seems to be everywhere. The way people appear to be zoned out when they're playing it is disconcerting to them.
So since she's just as much of a science nerd as he is, they take one of the games to sick bay to analyze it and find out that it does have psychotropic properties and that it's highly addictive like a drug. The audience has already figured it out at this point, and it seems to be going in the direction that it used to .. Wesley saves the day.. but not this time and there's still the matter of "why" to figure out. He goes to Picard to ask him to look into it and then we see that Picard is under the influence of the game too. It's pretty exciting. Wesley got better episodes after he left the full time cast.
The pace then picks up. Wesley and Robin find themselves pressured by everyone they meet to try the game. Then they work out that Data would be immune to it and the convenience of his malfunction and start to suspect something bigger is going on. They find Data and Wesley investigates to find out that Data didn't malfunction, but was deliberately and surgically compromised. They stand out as the only ones not playing the game so Picard sends Beverly and Worf to use force to get them to play the game, but they stay ahead of the game, so to speak, by creating fake games to wear around so they seem as zombified as everyone else. Then we see the "why" all of this is happening. It's not only an addictive drug, it's also mind control and the woman that introduced Riker to the game on Risa, Etana, is the mastermind behind it. Picard assures her that the Enterprise is secured and awaits further instruction. The Enterprise is going to be used to distribute the game as far as possible to give the Ktarians control over everyone. Okay, that part is a little simplistic and it's the first of a couple episodes in this season where an enemy race has amazing mind control technology but not any comparable military technology which... just doesn't seem likely. But we're not given too much time to think about it in this case.
What makes this Wesley episode better is that he doesn't get to save the day on his own and show everyone up as the boy genius. He's back down in engineering and discovers that Robin has finally succumbed to the game and he knows the jig is up for him. However, since he planned for the worst, he goes running through the ship activating a bunch of pre-programmed force fields and transports to help him escape. But he can't. He's eventually caught and with everyone ganged up on him, he's forced into a headset with his eyes held opened until the game plays and begins the drugging effects on him too. He does all he can, but ultimately he fails and it makes you feel genuinely sorry for him and it adds much needed depth to his character. It's such a shame they weren't doing stuff like this earlier with him.
However, the lights suddenly dim and Data appears with a strobe light, the pattern of which disrupts the mind control effects of the game. Wesley's run was a distraction to give Data the time to alter one of the palm beacons. See - Teamwork, not just super Wesley. Okay, so Wesley gets to be a genius after all since he fixed Data and only Geordi and Beverly are supposed to be able to do that, but we also know that he likely didn't do it alone since Lefler was with him. Still, this was much better thought out than a lot of Wesley plots up to this point with the exception of the Traveler. Picard takes the Ktarian ship in tow and informs Etana that she will be hauled off to jail essentially. And since they dont' have the weapons to fight back, this wraps up the show. Wesley says goodbye to his knowingly brief love interest and the "nasty woman" gets her first on-screen kiss.
I liked it. It was on the simple side but it was well done and believable, at least on the part of the crew's personal interactions with the game even if the "master plan" was a little thin. That's probably why they didn't spend too much time on it. Back in TOS or the early years of TNG they may have. But this has a nice balance. I'm going to give it four stars because it's exciting and fun.
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