Literally, nothing. That's not a good sign. Now that it's been over for a few minutes, and even with my page and a half of notes. I'm not sure I'll be able to give a recap of the show.
But I don't want to get ahead of myself. When I left off last time I'd had the epiphany that a lot of things I thought happened my Sophomore year of high school actually happened during my senior year. I just lost two whole years of my life. This might be stupid, but it bothers me.
I really liked the layout of the house we were living in. After spending my formative years sleeping in a small trailer (not one of those fancy double-wides or anything) having a room in a real house, while pretty small, was still new, and great. In the short time I was there (aside from it being haunted and stuff... probably) I really liked it there.
During my senior year, my step-father, who had always lived on the edge of what most people would call 'normal' had a bit of a breakdown. Like what most people would be want to do when having a crisis like that, he started stockpiling weapons. I know this so well because I would be awoken sometimes very late at night and told to come into the living room and take some pictures. When I say 'sometimes' I'll go ahead and say this happened maybe three times. Whatever. And I'd be handed a polaroid camera and told to take pics.
So I would. Usually him posing with a small arsenal of weapons with a confederate flag draped over the couch or something. It was a weird thing to be doing at 4 a.m. on a school night, but such was my life at the time.
He was there at all because by this time he'd quit his job. He'd sit there most of the day and drink (Jim Beam & Coke, or maybe Diet Coke. Dammit, can't remember) and sorta fume, I think. But by the time I got home in the evenings he was usually gone, doing this or that. I don't know, there was a lot going on then, some of the timing is a little off for me (but a man who loves guns and alcohol will have some violence appear in his narrative at some point, just not now). I can't remember when he started his construction company, or his classic car business, or when he gave that up and started only sitting there and drinking... I just can't remember.
But regardless, I was still alone most of the time in the evenings. I'd had a job at Taco Bell the summer previous, but quit there and worked as a construction worker for some time on weekends before eventually settling into a job as a house painter. That ended up being the cause of some incredible drama a bit later, but I won't get into that today.
Now, all that it is just to give you some context to my life at the time. I had friends, a social life, I was gone a lot. Home sorta sucked. But I could count of Star Trek: TNG every weeknight at 11.
This episode. I have no memories of it at all. Considering I couldn't remember it from last week, and I'm struggling to remember it half an hour after I watched it says something. It's not that it's bad (it is, though. Really bad), it's that it's so forgettable.
In television, especially in hour long shows, there is often an 'A' story and a 'B' story. Sometimes a 'C' story, but seldom do you get more than that. Unless you're Game of Thrones and you can do half a dozen each week, but that's different because they tend to be weighted more evenly. These older Dramas would devote 2/3rds of their running time to the main storyline and the remainder to whatever else was going in.
In this ep, if I'm already in the midst of my recap, has a 'B' story that it pretty damn awesome. It's the 'A' story that I can't take too much of. Check out the trailer below.
In case you missed it, here's the deal, one solar system has two sets of aliens that have discovered space flight and they both want to join the Federation. Of course, they hate each other immensely. The snake aliens asked to be kept upwind of the rat aliens and much further away than the mere 100 meters Riker planned on keeping their quarters.
Picard and Riker talk about how barbaric humans used to be and marvel, again, at how evolved humans are. I'll say again, seeing what a dick Kosinski was in the previous episode, I'd say that humans aren't that hot in the future, they're just way more smug.
Picard and the gang notice a large cloud hurtling through space at warp speed. They figure it as a naturally occurring phenomena... sure, why not.... and seek to get some sensor data. They get close and then Worf, down in a sensor station or something, is struck by lightning and collapses.
While he's recovering in sick bay, the lightning goes from him to Dr Crusher. And from her to... uh... the ship? Then it kills the Engineer that for whatever reason seems to be in charge (Not MacDougal, not Argyle, but Singh - although they mention Argyle at least).
The rat and snake aliens have been having a private war amongst themselves while on board the ship. Weapons are confiscated and they make threats to the other parties in vague terms. Riker and Tasha are frustrated, but patient.
Data takes on a Sherlock Holmes persona and discovers that Singh was killed by an unknown alien entity. Troi pipes up and said she senses an alien presence and has the whole time, but she didn't want to say anything because humans are primitive, or something, I don't know, it seemed kinda dumb to me, like the kid who always shouts out, 'I knew that' right after you say something they obviously didn't know.
Anyway, Picard gets possessed and decides to beam himself into space to be part of the cloud. Then, Data remembers that Transporters are magic and so beams Picard back, because once he was in space, he possessed the ship and put the letter P all over the place, I suspect Picard was trying to call the crew pricks.
Once he's back, Tasha reports that the rat aliens probably just ate one of the snake aliens. Riker scolds Tasha for not having her priorities straight and Picard decides to take a nap.
Some random thoughts:
- This episode had some genuinely funny moments. The alien delegate storyline was hilarious.
- Troi shouting that she as being blinded was also hilarious (it's in the trailer - but it's a bit out of context). I don't know why. I might just be a bad person.
- The logic used to first find, then later, reassemble Picard was hilarious. But only hilarious in the way that stupid things are.
- The rat alien delegate looks at Tasha and does a sexy growl early in the episode. That's gold.
- Worf is pretty cool. I didn't used to like him in the older TNG episodes, but the idiocy of Wesley and Tasha's characters overshadow everything else. Even Troi, who I should be pretty frustrated with by now.
- That said, Tasha was fine. I don't even recall seeing Wesley.
- The Rat alien looks goofy when it tries to talk. Real goofy.
- Data doesn't understand a lot of words. He's been doing it throughout the series. Not knowing what a word is. That seems weird to me.
- Data actually smokes a real pipe. Enterprise is NOT a smoke-free spaceship.
- Possessed Picard acts weird and Troi wants him to explain his strange orders. He asks Troi if a captain should explain every order. She should have said that he probably should explain stupid ones. But she acts like he just caught her.
- Crusher and Riker confronting the possessed captain is super awkward. She orders him to sick bay and he flips it around and orders HER to sickbay. Check and mate.
- Rat aliens lasso Riker as he walks down the hall. They catch him and then look all disappointed. One of them says, 'wrong species.' Seriously, no one seems to care that they are clearly trying to kill each other.
- Also, no one cared at all that Singh was killed. Data can be forgiven for being silly, he has no social awareness to speak of. But the rest of the crew don't care at all. They are some cold hearted sons of bitches.
In summary. This episode is funny at times, sometimes unintentionally, but it can't be called good. Because it's not. It's not Code of Honor bad, but nothing is.
2 out of 5
I seem to remember the two alien groups trying to eat each other. Or something. But, yeah, I don't remember any of the rest of that.
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