Star Trek TNG Rascals

I liked Rascals. I always qualify this by admitting that transporter science fiction is shaky, but when the story is good, it covers up the imperfections. This was a good story.

Ensign Ro, Captain Picard, Keiko O'Brien, and Guinan are returning from shore leave. How these four ended up in the same shore leave party is a mystery, but I assume they were just taking it as they could get it. Picard is talking animatedly about the archeological digs he visited and shows them some old pieces of pottery. It's odd for everyone to see the captain so relaxed and excited like a schoolboy. Guinan can't help but disapprove a little, noting that he spent all the time on a beautiful planet crawling through dig sites. Ro shows an unexpected spark of humanity as well when she looks over and recognizes the plants that Keiko is holding. Keiko wants to engage her in conversation, but she backs off a little since she's still a battle hardened woman who doesn't make friends easily. As they approach the Enterprise they slip into a strange energy anomaly that rocks the shuttle craft. It doesn't prevent them from contacting the Enterprise though and they have to arrange an emergency transport since the craft is getting ready to collapse. O'Brien gets a fix and is perplexed at the forty percent drop in mass, thinking he may have lost one of them. But when he beams them aboard we discover they have all reverted into tweenagers. Picard begins speaking briskly with his usual manner, thanking O'Brien for getting them out just in time until he hears the sound of his own voice and they all look around horrified at the situation. They're all examined in sick bay to find that even though their bodies have changed, their minds are still functioning as they were as adults. The writer of this episode didn't like it because of the ridiculous nature of this effect, but he ended up doing an excellent job with it. Crusher wants to keep them all to run tests, but Picard will have none of it. He asks the others to stay for Crusher's tests while he leaves with Riker.

He goes back to the bridge and starts giving orders for probing the planet they're currently orbiting and changing the course settings. He calmly tries to explain that he's still himself in spite of the changes made by the transporter. Everyone is hesitant until Riker gives little nods of his head. Beverly follows him up to the bridge and takes him to his ready room alone to try and persuade him into relieving himself of duty. After all, at this point they don't know if their minds will also start aging backwards or not. I know it's natural for adults to be condescending like this around a child and it makes it frustrating for the audience as well to see Picard so diminished in his peers eyes as they are assuming authority over him and looking at him in a motherly fashion. He knows that if he doesn't step down then she must relieve him and that it's for the best. Then we see how the others are dealing with the situation. They cleverly paired Guinan and Ro together for this story. Two unattached women reacting differently to having been thrust back into childhood. Guinan, who was very old, is elated and anxious to have fun again with no responsibilities. Ro is frustrated, preferring to be busy and doesn't really know what to do with a second childhood since her first one was not peaceful or pleasant under Cardassian occupation. She's determined to go back to her room to sulk, but Guinan being who she is follows her instead of continuing in her plan to "go play."  The pilot for DS9 had been filmed at this point, so this would be the final appearance of the O'Brien family on TNG. Depicting them as having to readjust their lives to Keiko's age reversal could've gone very badly. It was a fine line. But they were able to balance humor with the fact that this could seriously screw up a person's life. It's funny to see the young Keiko pulling Miles' ear to declare that she's still his wife, but it stops being funny when their daughter calls for a story and doesn't recognize her as her mother. Miles and Keiko are able to share a sad hug without it seeming awkward at all. Very finesse-ful writing.

A little more time is spent with Picard. The boy that plays young Picard also played his nephew Robert (roh-BEAR) in the episode, Family, which adds a nice touch with a sense of "family resemblance" that makes him more believable in this part as well as the fact that he's good at mimicking Patrick Stewart's calm demeanoer. Troi comes to advise him as he stands in front of a mirror wondering if anyone will ever be able to take him seriously as the captain if this condition can't be reversed. I liked Troi's interaction with him the best since she doesn't appear to be talking down to him as everyone else was at first.  It helps to reinforce her point that those who are closest to him could eventually adapt to his appearance, but that the rest of the ship may never accept so young a captain. We see that he's not interested in reliving his childhood either, though he's not as hostile about it as Ro is. He would simply rather move forward than step back. Troi discusses his options and although going back to the academy to be Wesley Crusher's roommate is a definite turn off for him, he seems to react favorably to the idea of spending a few years pursuing archaeology until he's old enough to rejoin Starfleet for a command position and become the youngest admiral in history. We then see Crusher talking with Riker about their predicaments. She ages one of Keiko's plants, also affected by the age reversal, forward to confirm that if they do nothing at all they'll at least grow up normally. She then wonders if she can used the transporter to resequence their DNA back to normal but she needn't have wondered so hard. The precedent for this had already been set in Unnatural Selection when Dr. Pulaski's premature aging problem was fixed in the transporter. I see this episode as a fix for that bit of magic since they were more detailed in their description of how it would work. However, the episode would've been over too soon if this had been brought up. Instead we see get a few more minutes of Guinan trying to cheer up the sour Ro. She's so absurd and silly that Ro can't resist and they enjoy the simple childhood pleasure of jumping on a bed.

 They don't get a chance to do any more work on the kids though because suddenly the Enterprise is attacked by two Klingon Birds of Prey. Picard stops his examining of the pottery he'd brought home from shore leave to be caught by a Ferengi and ushered to the school rooms. The writer of the episode was also frustrated with the fact that they were writing about rogue Ferengi's taking over the ship with a couple of stolen Klingon ships and I don't blame him. Thank goodness for DS9 because the Ferengi were caught in a perpetual stupidity loop on this show. They justify this takeover by explaining that this group of Ferengi is not associated with their government in anyway and, in fact, they are criminals exploiting a mine on the planet. They've taken the ship to send the adults down to use as slave labor. Riker manages to lock out the command controls before they finish their assault on the bridge though, so they don't have complete control of the ship. In a school room, the four adult children gather to try and make plans for retaking control of the ship. Guinan is exasperated to hear them talking like this when they are as helpless as children, unable to just march through the ship on a mission. And it's she who suggests embracing their transformation into children. It takes a moment for Picard to fully embrace this though as he tries to get a school computer to give the technical readouts of the Enterprise. A child's computer doesn't respond to his adult demands so Guinan has to step in and ask the computer in a childish way to see the inside of the Enterprise. From then on things go smoothly.

They work up a great plan that can be implemented simply by playing pranks as children would which keeps the Ferengi from suspecting that anything more sinister is afoot. Picard sends Guinan and Ro through the Jeffrey's tubes to a back door to main Engineering to wait for his signal. They're good friends now and enjoying sharing in the "adventure." He borrows Alexander's remote controlled vehicle to lure the Ferengi out of the transporter room while he and Keiko go in to set up a specific transporter function and steal some spare phasers. Alexander is sent to mess with the guard in sick bay in order to steal phasers as well.  The scenes are fun and make sense since the Ferengi, on this series, are so stupid and vain. They also are better, in my opinion, for drawing in a younger crowd than anything Wesley got into in the early seasons. I shamelessly enjoy watching it every time.

Picard needs some real computer access though and he can only get it from the bridge. And his only way to the bridge is on the pretense of seeing his "father." He demands to be taken to Riker and throws a temper tantrum until the guard outside of the school room gives in. It's so funny because they've done such a good job of making you believe they're the familiar adult characters. So, you can't help but picture Patrick Stewart behaving like this. He yells and stamps his foot and flies into Riker's arms calling him "Dad," much to his surprise. While the Ferengi watch he complains to Riker about having nothing to do and asking if he arrange for a specific computer in his particular classroom to have games made available to it. Riker understands and sends him on his way after a small hiccup in the performance in which Picard calls Riker "Number One." It's so hilarious. It's Picard's show even when Patrick Stewart isn't even there.  The Ferengi then unwittingly play right into Picard's plan by threatening to kill little Jean-Luc if Riker doesn't give them access to the computer. He puts up a brief show of defiance and then reluctantly gives in so that they won't hurt his son. They give him a lot of hard lines for the next scene where he sits with one of the henchmen and starts explaining the computer system to him as one would read it out of page one of an instruction manual. As he has the Ferengi looking where one of his hands is pointing, he uses the other hand to unlock the computer in the school room that Picard is in.

They proceed to use their computer access to execute the plan that he'd programmed into the transporter controls earlier. The Ferengi guards are given com badges so that they can be transported one by one to the transporter pad which now has a forcefield around it. They rely on child's play to get the drop on them.  Alexander's toy butts into the transporter guard again to get him in proximity. Guinan and Ro "tag" the engineering guards with com badges and they're whisked out before they can react to a couple of brat kids. Alexander hands the schoolroom guard one to show him that he'd "found it." And Picard triumphantly reclaims his ready room, presumably with help from Riker in subduing the other Ferengi on the bridge. They take the renegades in to custody and the Ferengi Alliance quickly throws them overboard, disavowing any knowledge of them. It's a vague ending to this story, but it wasn't a great one to begin with so it's probably for the best.

Then they decide to do the transporter trick with Crusher standing by in case it goes wrong. Picard goes first and when he's transported back as himself he's relieved and gives a wistful feel of his head for his now missing hair. But Ro isn't with the others. She stayed in her quarters finding healing in drawing pictures of her mother. This episode does a lot for Ro's character development and just adds to the complexities of her inner conflict in what would be her final episode the following season. It's probably nothing they planned on consciously, but since they were tying this series together with DS9 in order to give DS9 a proper start they were already setting standards for the Bajoran characters that would follow. Guinan finds her and decides to stay and draw with her for a while, letting her know it's okay to hold onto this newfound peaceful childhood for just a little longer.

Weird transporter technology and hostile Ferengis are never good for an episode, but I loved it all the same because they used it to further develop the characters that were affected by the accident instead of just playing around nonsensically as they did in episodes like The Naked Now or The Lonely Among Us. So I'll give it four stars. It'll be hard to get less out of me for the last two seasons since they were so polished at this point that they could almost do no wrong in my eyes.