The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-04-01 at 2:41am:
  This episode is one of the few times I disagree with Mr. Kethinov. To me, this episode is what Star Trek is all about.
  
  Negative : What's up with all the 70 year old Grandma Admirals in Starfleet? I do agree that some of the characters were out of character. And the episode lacks, shall we say, action. As silly as it may seem, a 10-rated episode for me has to have SOME action. So -1 for those things.
  
  Positive : This episode builds a very intriguing and nicely done story right from the beginning with the Klingon spy. I liked how the grandma admiral gradually transformed from a typical bureaucrat into a ruthless monster. I would not say that the paranoia seen in the episode is at all ridiculous. It is quite real, as was seen partly in the McCarthy trials, but most prominently in the Salem witch trials. The mob rule sentiment makes your blood boil, yet it is extememly applicable to the world today.
  
  "Witch hunting" in the sense exhibited in this episode is something that has occurred throughout human history. It is important to have episodes like this that remind us of problems within our culture. This episode is a manifestation of Gene Roddenberry's intentions at their finest, and as I said earlier they are what Star trek is all about. Makes you want to read the Crucible by Arthur Miller. Great Episode, I'd give it a 9, perhaps even a 10.
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2006-05-07 at 6:26pm:
  "Trial" episodes of Trek have never been disappointing, but most fall along a predictable plot line. The trial always gets out of hand with the protagonist about to win, but the defendant pulls off a remarkable comeback in the end.
  
  It is always great to see Picard's moral conscience react to the things going on around him. This episode brings that out a lot. Worf, on the other hand, seems to be easily influenced by what is happening. This becomes out of line with his character as we know it. He may kill a person every now and then, but it is unlikely for him to conduct an unhonorable witch hunt.
  
  Although the Drumhead immediately relates to some of the issues of the modern world, such as the interrogation of suspected terrorists, I just find this episode forgettable just hours after I watched it.
  
• From DSOmo on 2007-08-26 at 9:15am:
  A Klingon exobiologist? Not a "normal" occupation for a Klingon. Doesn't seem like a very "warrior-like" line of work to me.
• From Firewater on 2008-03-03 at 12:47pm:
  I have admired many of your TNG reviews although I will, respectfully, disagree with your comments on this one.
  
  I believe making the characters "out-of-character" until the end propelled this episode's story. At it's essence, it *was* about fear, uncertainty, doubt and paranoia. It was an example of how even the best of men/women can fall to the influence of such things, despite their intentions.
  
  All of the Romulan/Tarses shenanigans were red herrings. In the end, it was all a witch hunt with no verifiable ties to anything at all. To be honest, I see this as a very TOS episode, hinting at the way our society could easily shift back into McCarthyism even though (when this episode was aired) it was the 1990s.
  
  In fact, I would even go so far to say that this would be relevant today post-9/11. So I would just suggest looking at this episode from a slightly different viewpoint.. I think it's highly underrated and worth another shot.
• From JRPoole on 2008-06-26 at 3:53am:
  I'm in almost total agreement with the review here. I don't find this offensive really, but I do find it dreadfully dull, didactic, and obvious.
  
  On the subject of Tarses' Romulan heritage, I think the most reasonable explanation is that his grandfather was a defector who lived his life posing as a Vulcan to avoid trouble. Probably only his family knew the truth.
• From Flot on 2010-09-24 at 11:40pm:
  I agree with your view, and think this episode could have easily been fantastic if it didn't feel like it came out of nowhere, nor end with no real consequences.
  
  I found it frustrating to watch because you could see that they were trying to take advantage of a lot of good content and continuity, but to no avail.
• From MJ on 2011-01-07 at 10:27pm:
  I also agree with the vast majority of the webmaster’s ratings, but I would give this one a 7. The lack of explanation of Tarses fate doesn’t ruin it for me, nor does the lack of sufficient explanation for what exactly he did wrong (was it falsifying the application or the fact that his grandparent is Romulan?).
  
  The drama of the episode is irresistible, and the issues it grapples with are both complex and timely; it would’ve been interesting to see how differently this might have been written in a post-9/11 world. I also don’t think everyone is quite out of character. Worf’s paranoia at the prospect of having a Romulan spy on board seems very fitting, for example.
  
  The only other snag which knocks the episode down somewhat is that it seems strange that Admiral Satie would’ve been able to use tactics like this in all her investigations without throwing up any red flags. Sometimes it seems everyone at Starfleet are blind, despicable fools compared to Picard and crew.
  
  But overall, I really enjoyed it!
• From Robert Koenn on 2011-03-16 at 12:43pm:
  I personally found this to be a very good episode which I rated 8. I suppose a big part of that for me was the way it applies to our present Muslim fear mongering which is actually going on as I write with Rep. King's Muslim witch hunt in congress. It was so pertinent the way a powerful politician can gain fame by preying on the fears of the populace and undercutting our fundamental principles using this fear. It of course also reinforces that persons personae for personal gain. It was so great to see Picard handle this is such a moral and principled way that is portrays what one rationale individual can do to put these glory seekers in their place. I did not find the characterizations out of place and Worf has always been a character to jump off the deep end at a moments notice, not an inaccurate portrayal of his Klingon genetics at all. So for me using this alliterative to present day and historical events was quite good and I rated this episode quite high.
• From ChristopherA on 2012-06-19 at 1:13am:
  This is an excellent morality play, though a little clunky a times. While it is true that the characters seem to fall into the witch hunt mentality somewhat too easily, morality episodes like this usually have to play rather aggressively with characterization in order to get to the point and fit the episode within the time available. Also, it can be hard to set stories in a utopia. Measure of a Man has exactly the same issues as this – it makes the Federation justice system seem awfully unfair – but it works if you just accept the premises and go with the episode.
  - They never explain why Tarses lied on his application at all. So what if he is part-Romulan. Is the Federation racist? I thought it had been established that they had gotten over that. Perhaps the Federation is only racist when it comes to races that are currently enemies of the Federation.
  - DSOmo: Although the Klingons love thinking of themselves as warriors in spirit, that doesn't mean they have no other occupations. Somebody has to fill all those support roles.
• From Quando on 2013-07-31 at 5:13am:
  This episode raises a question I often ask about Star Trek TNG: why is there no lawyer assigned to the Enterprise? This is the flagship of the Federation, and it's not like this is the first time that having a lawyer around would have really come in handy (see, e.g., Data's trial in the Measure of a Man, or the episode where Picard is analyzing the really complicated treaty with the Sheliac Corporate looking for a loophole). I mean, the Enterprise seems to have everything else. They have a botanist, a bartender, several waiters in Ten Forward, a barber, and even an expert on 20th century earth history (Wyatt what's-his-name on The Long Goodbye episode). But the best they can do for poor old Simon Tarses, with his career and maybe even his freedom hanging in the balance, is appointing Will Riker as his "counsel" (practicing law without a license). Remember when they stopped at that planet where everyone was half-naked and peaceful for shore leave? They asked Lt. Yar (who, I assume, has no legal training at all) to review the planet's legal system, and she concludes that there is "nothing unusual". Except, as it turns out, that they have the death penalty for EVERYTHING - including stepping on the flowers. Nice job Yar (although, you almost got Wesley killed, and in the words of Galron, I consider that "no small favor"). Come on. The Enterprise needs a lawyer. I'd be glad to volunteer!
• From Troy on 2015-06-08 at 6:28pm:
  Yes a lawyer for the Enterprise...make him an ambulance chasing Ferengi!
• From Chantarelle on 2015-12-23 at 6:07am:
  Like other commenters, I mostly agree with the reviews on this website, however, I disagree with most of this one. I’ll agree that the premise of the episode, and the witch hunt involved was kind of clumsy and forceful, however, if that had been handled better, then I think the Enterprise’s reaction, and their being ‘out of character’, would have been completely believable. That’s the whole point of causing that kind of fear and paranoia. I especially liked Worf’s embarrassment at being swayed so easily.
  Interesting to see that comments going back to 2006 talk about how relevant this episode is in ‘today’s’ world. Sadly, it seems to be even more relevant today than it was 10 years ago. Can only hope that people won’t still be saying that in 2026.
  Eric, if you read this, I’d be curious to know whether you have reviewed your opinion on this one since posting the review, and whether your opinion may have changed at all either due to some of the comments here, or a rewatch? Not that I’m implying it *should* change. Just curious :-)
  
• From tigertooth on 2017-06-08 at 3:37am:
  I remember really liking this one, and I was excited to re-watch it. I still liked it, but I certainly see some of the criticisms here. It's a bit obvious -- perhaps the tropes are more fully entrenched now than they were in 1991.
  
  Also, as someone pointed out, there's really no action and I'd add there's no real sci-fi either. Sure, there's hypospray-this and dilithium-that, but there's nothing that you couldn't easily put in a modern setting -- or even a few centuries pre-modern. Not a huge criticism, but it's interesting.
  
  Maybe even a bigger flaw than a lack of resolution on Tarses is the lack of resolution on Satie. What happened to her after this? It seems like she just went on to her next case. Yikes, no repercussions? I'd almost be tempted to check her for one of the aliens from Conspiracy (1x25).
  
  But more than that, the question I would have liked to have seen explored is: Why did Satie get so hellbent on finding traitors where they didn't exist? Without an answer to that, her motivation is a complete mystery, thus hurting the drama.
  
  Another problem is J'Dan. So there was a Klingon spying for the Romulans who was aboard the Enterprise?!!? Whoa! That's huge! And they only caught him by sheer luck that the new dilithium chamber hatch happened to be faulty in such a way that it happened to fail at just the right time and in just the right way that it looked at first like sabotage. Man, they got super duper lucky! What information did J'Dan transmit? How did he get turned by the Romulans? There's a lot of big stuff there that never gets discussed, and I think that's way bigger than all the talk about Tarses' grandfather. I get why the dropped the J'Dan story when they did, but it's a huge thread to just let go of.
  
  So while I still give this a thumbs up for the main story arc -- the nice Picard-Satie enemy-to-friend-to-enemy cycle -- nearly all the surrounding stuff with Tarses, Worf, and J'Dan
  is neutral at best. Even Genestra seemed like he'd be more interesting than he turned out to be. A ton of potential for an amazing episode (even without much action or sci-fi), but it didn't really come together.
  
  
  
• From McCoy on 2017-12-10 at 9:29am:
  10/10.
  About lack of action - watch "Twelve angry men":)
  It's a great episode and even paradoxally good sf. Because it remind us that witch hunt is always possible, even in technologically advanced society. Human is always human and we need to watch our morality, no matter how "advanced" we think we are. People may think, that witch hunt were all about religion, but it's not true. Episodes like this makes me wonder - all that Federation stuff is to good to be true, and their confidence in "starfleet values" sometimes reminds me of totalitarism. Just a bit, of course, but still...
• From Admiral Oh bummer! on 2021-08-03 at 7:58pm:
  A 1?? This is the episode I think of when I contemplate how great the Picard character and Patrick Stewart is.
  
  And to the guy who wonders about Grandma admirals...admirals are old, I mean we mostly see Grandma/Grandpa Admirals in Star Trek and even the great Admiral Nacheyev will be a Grandma Admiral in 10 years.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-04-16 at 2:10am:
  Worf: "I hate questionnaires"
  
  I rather enjoyed Picard telling Rasmussen that he doesn't give a damn about his past.
  
  I also enjoyed the end. "Oh professor: welcome to the twenty FOURTH century." Oh yeah. That's what's up, professor. You just got served. Picard style. Fun episode that I liked quite a bit.
• From Jeff on 2006-06-03 at 3:17am:
  Problem:
  After arriving on the Enterprise, Rasmussen informs the crew that he is from the late 26th century and has traveled some "300 years" into the past to visit the Enterprise. Well, if he traveled from the late 26th century back to the late 24th century, that's a span of only 200 years.
• From Sherlock on 2006-10-12 at 2:11am:
  This is another of those episodes were the logic of the plot is bizarre, as Kethinov points out in the comments, but I have to say that I liked Matt Frewer's performance. He's so goofy that it makes the episode fun to watch. And I love in the beginning how he tells Picard to move over! Classic!
• From DSOmo on 2007-09-09 at 7:17pm:
  - Troi says that she only feels Rasmussen is hiding something. Why can't Troi sense Rasmussen's deception? In "The Battle," Troi sensed "considerable deception" from the Ferengi captain. Troi should be able to sense Rasmussen's deception, but if she did, there would be no show! Then again, why can't Geordi sense Rasmussen's deception? In "Up The Long Ladder," Geordi immediately spotted the deception from the prime minister of the colony of clones. In that episode, Geordi claimed that his visor allowed him to see the physiological changes that accompany lying. He said it didn't always work on other races, but when it came to humans, he had them "pegged." Rasmussen is human.
  - During a conversation with Picard, Rasmussen continues to act out the part of a historian by measuring the width of the captain's ready room. He backs up against the door and methodically paces off the distance to the window. So how did the door know not to open? Rasmussen backs right up to it and it remains closed.
  - During the drilling, Worf tells Picard, "Target fourteen complete, sir." This means there are at least fourteen drill sites. Later, on one of the workstations, Riker shows Picard a graphic of all the drill sites. There are only eight drill sites in the picture. What happened to the other ones?
  - Rasmussen tells Data he intends to take the items he stole from the Enterprise back to the twenty-second century and "invent" them one at a time. Rasmussen's plan simply will not work. Suppose an inventor from the nineteenth century appears in our time and steals a laptop computer. He returns to his century - certain that fame and fortune await him when he "invents" this incredible contraption and markets it to the public. Let's say the "inventor" quickly learns how to operate it. Next, he disassembles the computer and confronts a very big problem. To him, the inside of the computer would be "magic." For the sake of argument, let's say that he figures out how the insides of the computer work. Now the "inventor" confronts an even worse problem. He has no way to manufacture the computer. An invention won't make you any sunstantial money unless you can mass-produce it. The infrastructure of manufacturing technology that allowed the creation of the laptop computer doesn't exist in the nineteenth century. The inventor has nothing more than an interesting artifact.
  - One of the items Rasmussen stole was a Klingon dagger. Don't they have knives in the twenty-second century? ;)
  - At the end of the episode, when Rasmussen begs to return to his own time in the twenty-second century, Picard won't let him. In fact, Picard asks Rasmussen a very peculiar question as Rasmussen continues pleading. Picard says, "Now, what possible incentive could anyone offer me to allow that?" Maybe Rasmussen is the great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of Riker. Maybe he helped Cochrane with a few conceptual ideas in the early stages of development of warp drive. Maybe he inspired a whole generation of leaders with his "fictitious tales" of life in the future. No one can know the impact of a single life. Yet Picard, with all his supposed knowledge of temporal logic, rips Rasmussen from the past by refusing to allow him to return.
• From Remco on 2007-11-10 at 7:37pm:
  I'm not natively English speaking, so I could be wrong, but before the title sequence, Data says: "The odds are extremely unlikely." That's strange, because it's a contamination of "The odds are extremely against it" and "It's extremely unlikely". An android that doesn't produce contractions certainly shouldn't get creative with other parts of the English language.
• From JRPoole on 2008-07-31 at 8:14pm:
  This one is entertaining if you don't think too hard about the ridiculous plot. Are we to believe that a 22nd century con man plans to steal items from the future by happening by the flagship of federation? Surely there's a better way to smuggle contraband back in time than screwing around with a starship. The post above that mentions the impossibility of "inventing" these types of items out of context is also right on, but maybe he just wasn't a very smart con man.
  
  This one gets a couple of points for me because Troi is pretty badass for a change, and the humor actually works here. Matt Frewer plays Rasmussen well as well.
  
  The thing that makes this ridiculous to me, and the reason I don't generally like temporal plots is that it's impossible to figure out the right course of action to keep history intact. What if, in the "real" timeline, many of the innovations common to the 24th century came about as a result of Rasmussen bringing them back?
  
  Bottom line: utterly ridiculous, but thoroughly entertaining. This is a 3.
• From nirutha on 2010-09-29 at 4:11pm:
  I think your too hard on Picard in what I consider to be the only redeeming scene of this episode.
  The argument between Rasmussen and Picard spotlights the moral dilemma rather nicely and Patrick Steward delivers it very well.
  He has broken the Prime Directive when the ends justified it, and he's also willing to use information from the future to save lives and possibly change the course of history - but to him, it's the future, and it has yet to be written.
  I don't think it's hypocrisy at all, but it's up to the individual viewer to make a judgement. And I like that even more.
  
  Apart from that, I found Rasmussen utterly annoying. Would anyone really believe that's how a historian from the future would act?
  
  And then there's sloppy writing: All Troy can read is that Rasmussen is holding something back. And she really can't tell the difference between holding something back and outright deception - how convenient.
  Then they try to fix the planet's cimate with a procedure that could instantly kill the whole population in a terrible firestorm? And the colony leaders are o.k. with that? Of course, everything works just fine and the huge risk Picard is taking is not really felt.
  In the last scenes, Rasmussen is back in his ship, has taken Data prisoner and is about to return to his time - oh boy, how do we get out of this mess? Luckily, the Enterprise's computer could detect and disable all the equipment in Rasmussen's ship the second he opened the door, including the phaser he was pointing at Data.
  A very, very poor deus ex machina ending, even for ST:TNG.
• From Doddzy on 2012-07-10 at 10:39pm:
  wat about at the end, his time ships destination was 22nd centuary new jersy, woulnd'nt someone else find it and use it?
• From ChristopherA on 2019-04-30 at 3:22pm:
  The plot twist (guy from 26th century is actually from 22nd) is clever and I didn't see it coming, but otherwise I agree this episode is bad. Episode spent watching Rasmussen be annoying, then it turns out his plan was poorly executed (there were much easier ways to make a profit with the time machine!) and is solved with a deus ex machina.
  
  I can come up with some hand waving justifications after the fact. Maybe he chose the flagship of the federation (of all places) to try his con because he is a poor time pilot with a lot less control of the time capsule than he pretends to have. And the ending could have made more sense if they had set it up with Geordi rigging some sort of radiation pulse directed at the time capsule to fry the electronics as soon as the door was opened.
• From Chuck the Canuck on 2023-07-03 at 8:03pm:
  Rasmussen's behavior is just too intrusively obnoxious while trying to pass himself off as a future historian. He says he just wants to observe, and yet the crew is well aware and annoyed by his continuous comments and interruptions. I have a hard time believing they didn't challenge him sooner. Several of them suspected something was up with him, so it's frustrating to see them all play along.
  
  I did enjoy Picard's discussion with him when trying to get insight on his decision about the planet. He made some great points, and clearly Rasmussen was not prepared to have a philosophical challenge to his ruse.
  
  I give this a 3. Pretty silly but at the very least, entertaining.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-12-01 at 7:27am:
  - In one of her personal logs, Unari yearns for a glass of real muskin seed punch, the kind her mother used to make. She doesn't think the replicator does a very good job. Later, Geordi brings her a glass of muskin seed punch in Ten-Forward and Unari acts like it is wonderful. Is Unari just trying to make Geordi feel good or did Geordi get into Guinan's personal supply?
  - This coalescent being is either not very smart or it made a bad mistake. Crusher states that it probably has to change bodies every few days. The episode supports this by saying that the coalesced officer arrived at the relay station several days before the incident with Unari. Supposedly he attacked Unari because he needed the food. But the episode's dialogue indicates that the station assignment lasts for a year. What was the being going to do after it consumed Unari and her dog? The station is out in the middle of nowhere. If the being absorbed the officer before he arrived at the station, why would he go somewhere with such a limited supply of nutrition?
  - Someone made a mistake in the sound effects department. During the last scene between Geordi and Unari, they sit together in Ten-Forward. At one point, the "boop" sound effect for a companel page momentarily interrupts their conversation. Strangely, no one pages Geordi or Unari, and the scene continues as if nothing happened!
• From sarah on 2008-07-20 at 11:45pm:
  was the dog a berger picard (dog breed) ?
• From JRPoole on 2008-09-19 at 3:03pm:
  I agree. This one is "absolutely dull and sad." Geordi can't get a break with the ladies to save his life. What is it about Engineers and women? Scottie had this kind of luck as well.
  
  Apart from that, the saddest thing is that a pretty cool idea gets completely wasted here. I love the idea of the coalescent being, but the way it's executed here is just boring. The plot just sort of plods along and then explodes at the very end with the dog attaching LaForge.
  
  Think for a second how shitty an assignment Aquiel has in the first place. She's stuck on a remote outpost for at least a year with only one other person for company, but she's listening to everybody's communication. It would have driven her crazy even if her new partner hadn't been a homicidal blob of ectoplasm. Now that's something that could have been explored a little better. But, alas, this episode squanders it all. I bump it up a point for at least having an interesting premise, so it's a 2.
• From Jeremy Reffin on 2009-08-03 at 5:20am:
  I'm having problems recreating the murder scene here. Rocha/Blob attacks Uhnari in order to absorb her. Does it succeed a bit (Geordi suggests an initiation of coalescence may have been responsible for her loss of memory) ? Uhnari phasers the blob down to scrap DNA - interfering with the absorption process ?? Uhnari flees to shuttlecraft having interrupted absorption ??? Bits of blob (missed by the phaser meltdown of Rocha ????) then absorb the pooch ????? Or something. Sheesh what a mess.
  
  I know - who cares, get a life.
• From thaibites on 2012-07-05 at 1:53am:
  Hey, at least this chick was real and not some computer generated fantasy.
• From Arianwen on 2013-01-02 at 12:40pm:
  The episode isn't just dull, it's idiotic as well.
  - Uhnari confesses to Geordi that she deleted the logs because she "was afraid that if they found the letter they'd blame [her] for the murder". This directly contradicts her earlier statement: if she had no memory of a murder, then she had no reason to get rid of the evidence! Or memory of having removed the logs at all, for that matter. Did she delete the logs AFTER she came to the Enterprise? If so, what kind of incompetence would allow a bloody murder suspect to teleport off the damn ship?
  - Crusher, Picard, Riker and Worf are all aware of the shape-shifting organism. Not ONE of them thinks of the dog. Riker even has a conversation with Geordi while PETTING it - even the Red Dwarf crew would have noticed!
  Everyone's holding the Stupid ball today. One can only assume the senior staff are still concussed from their previous adventure.
• From Mike on 2017-04-23 at 10:30pm:
  By far the worst episode of Season 6. I agree that Aquiel's story never adds up even after her "memory drain" is explained and her fight with Lieutenant Blobcha. The entire Klingon thing turns out to be a red herring. La Forge spends a big chunk of the episode getting to know this woman only to have it go absolutely nowhere. And, after all of that, his skirmish with the coalescent being is painful to watch.
  
  At least they brought Leah Brahms-the real one-back for some continuity and development of Geordi's character. Aquiel gets an episode named after her, makes quite an impression on the Chief Engineer, and then disappears for good.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-04-15 at 4:36am:
  I'd give it a 2 instead of a 1 because it does have some fairly comical moments
• From JRPoole on 2008-11-17 at 3:40pm:
  My (admittedly now vague) memory of DS9 is that it was the high point of the Trek franchise, so it's been a bit surprising to me in my current run through the series to find that, after the promising pilot, the early part of the first season flounders with some truly unremarkable episodes.
  
  "Dax" is a bad episode and doesn't really even get to accomplish the character development it shoots for because the episode is handled so badly. "The Passenger" is lackluster because we pretty much know that Julian is the one carrying Vantika's consciousess from the very beginning.
  
  Then we get this mess: Annoying, ridiculously over-the-top alien-of-the-week. What amounts to a recylced holodeck-malfunction-puts-crew-in-danger plot, and then there turns out to be no real danger at all. On top of that, none of this really makes any sense. At least there are some comical moments.
  
  Also, what's with Primmin? I have no recollection of him, and I can only assume that he goes away quietly after a few episodes. Was he simply a replacement for O'brien during his short stay away from the station?
• From Bernard on 2009-12-02 at 7:03pm:
  Couldn't bring myself to watch this one again in my current 'revisiting' of the series. So it must be bad.
• From John on 2011-01-06 at 12:58am:
  It cannot be overstated how much I completely hate, Hate, HATE this episode.
  
  The worst show of the entire series. The only good thing you can say about it is that they got it out of the way early.
• From Tallifer on 2011-03-08 at 6:22am:
  This story is similar to "The Celestial Toymaker" from early black & white Doctor Who, and believe it or not, the hoary 60s show did it far better. In the Whovian story, there was a real threat that the characters would be trapped forever as toys of the game-playing Toymaker. The games were equally silly and easy to overcome, but the dialogue and the villain were more convincing.
• From Zaphod on 2011-04-16 at 10:18am:
  I really enjoyed watching the first season of DS9 so far, much better storytelling than any other Star Trek series and more interesting characters than the one dimensional ones TNG had ... except for Ro Laren, love her, a real shame that she didnt want to play the Kira character (but Nana Visitor is awesome too).
  
  And because DS9 was really great to this point I am very offended by this terrible episode.
  I think the biggest problem is that Odos reaction to the game didnt make any sense. If he really feared that these aliens would play with the lives of Sisko and the others why didnt he force them to end this immediately? But no, they played along and gambled for their lives! That's just bloody stupid and even vicious. I cant find words for how much I hate this lazy written bullshit episode!
• From Shani on 2014-01-12 at 12:50pm:
  I watched every episode of ds9 when I was a child. For some reason this is the only episode I can remember clearly. Now that I'm re-watching this episode it does seem a little ridiculous. But I still like it for some reason (probably nostalgia more than anything else).
• From BV on 2015-10-28 at 5:35pm:
  Glad to see I am not alone in being appalled by this episode

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Bernard on 2009-12-03 at 10:29am:
  Interesting premise done badly, and I agree that the Kai is just thrown in there as a convenient way of setting up the ongoing bajoran story arc. I'd hardly say misuse of a great character though, she was only in the pilot for about five minutes!
  
  The three regulars are all well within character though and I liked Kira's reaction to Opaka's death, unfortunately because the viewer has not grown to know the Opaka character well enough any emotional impact is lost for me so you cannot share in her grief. It smacked much more of a TNG plot however with the convenient escape at the end. I gave it a 4, mainly for all the interesting moments and good characterisation throughout.
• From John on 2012-03-24 at 8:06pm:
  This episode is pretty bad. Not nearly as bad as 'Move Along Home', but still pretty bad. It has the additional distinction of being the episode which open the doors for Winn's rise to power. This is also a bummer.
  
  However, it does have one redeeming moment: when Kira reads her Cardassian intelligence file and discovers they didn't consider her much of a threat, she flips out, and I laugh every time. Yet another example of Kira taking things way too seriously.
• From Nathan on 2013-10-12 at 9:42am:
  This was a filler episode, and it was pretty awful. I think it might be my least favorite in this season (possibly even worse than move along home).
  
  About the only redeeming quality this episode had was setting up the Kai election at the end with Opaka's demise. Additionally, her end was thankfully brief- I hated every scene with her in it. She was a one dimensional character that spouted meaningless mumbo jumbo. People say she was a character that didn't get the chance to be developed. I say I am glad she didn't get more time and that they got rid of her when they did.
• From tigertooth on 2016-08-08 at 3:03am:
  Mike Ehrmantraut!
  
  I also thought I saw Hack Scudder (John Savage) in there as leader of the Nol-Ennis, but maybe it wasn't him.
  
  Anyway, did they ever follow up on the microbes that keep people from dying? You'd think that would be a major discovery.
• From Abigail on 2019-08-29 at 9:52pm:
  I just rewatched this episode. I didn't hate it as much as anyone else. Sure, it was a rather unfitting end for the Kai, but it's not like she was a hugely developed character prior to the episode. The main thing that bugged me is the way they didn't explore this new nanite technology at all. You'd think they'd be staying there to study it, doing anything they could to recreate it so the people could leave that world. It was weird how they discovered how the people returned to life, realized they'd die if they left the surface, and then were just like, "Oh, well. We'll leave the Kai here and never think about it again!"

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2008-11-18 at 9:30pm:
  Do we have to see Odo herding animals three times? The first time it was funny, but not the second or third.
  
  The conversations with the ball player were so boring!
• From Jake on 2012-05-22 at 2:46pm:
  although I agree that this was a lame episode I always thought that the alien species were the prophets trying for the first time to figure out the the way corporeal existence. Sisko even gets the baseball at the end that play a role in several important future episodes.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Wolfgang on 2008-05-20 at 10:58pm:
  Why did they make this episode? It's not even science-fiction, and certainly not Star Trek. Just a waste of time. If they wanted to put some spotlight on Crusher, why not give her a good episode...
• From Paul on 2010-08-18 at 12:43pm:
  I am Scottish so yet again I am forced to listen to the worst american versions of Scottish accents I've ever heard
  
  Also if they were trying to recreate the Scottish highlands why did they use stones from Glasgow and Edinburgh?
• From Tallifer on 2011-03-13 at 9:36am:
  I like stories where the ghosts are shown to be tricks, hallucinations, dreams, mere legends or hoaxes. That is the triumph of rationality which is fitting in a science fiction universe.
  
  I hate stories where ghosts are explained by nonsensical pseudo-science. Which is more rational? The spirits of dead people haunting the world and possessing the living, or "anaphasic" aliens using "plasma" candles as foci and inhabiting people with green energy? Neither is rational of course, and the latter is just as stupid as television psychics and alien abductions.
• From thaibites on 2013-01-05 at 2:50am:
  Another one for the ladies. I think Dr. Beverly actually had a couple orgasms during this episode, which is pretty daring for TNG.
  At least this one was better than the episode where where Dr. Beverly fell in love with a big intestinal sea cucumber.
• From L on 2013-05-02 at 2:26am:
  Beverly's performance was quite, um, erotic. It was clear what form the energy alien's 'gift' to her took. Her aura of post-coital bliss/addict with a fix was quite convincing.
  
  There was nothing particularly wrong with the relationship as it seemed quite symbiotic, it could have worked quite fine in other circumstances. It did however make Beverly act like an irrational addict and cut ties to her friends.
  But really this was just an excuse for a gothic genre episode. Worth it for Beverly's performance.
  
• From Sloganlogo on 2014-04-30 at 8:22pm:
  small trivia…In the first Scene after the titles between Troi and Beverly you can clearly see a grave stone with the name McFly…The scene ends with Beverly asking Troi to walk with her to visit a house and off the go.
  
  In the next scene Picard is chatting to a Colony local and in the background you can clearly see Troi in the background walking right to left. She ends up in the same position she was in the the last scene. I suspect they swapped the two scenes about.
  
• From rendraG on 2015-01-08 at 7:32pm:
  Great ghosty fun with lots of olde world sets. Nice to see Picards almost death for love to overcome passion and the spell Ronin had casted over Beverly and her unfortunate but clearly sexually exhausted ancestors.
  
  Ronins emotional and sexual domination of Beverly combined with the sensual acting of Gates McFadden make this the naughtiest episode in all of Star Trek. Woof.
  
  
  
• From Keefaz on 2017-02-18 at 11:45pm:
  Amazingly rotten episode. Absolute guff from start to finish. The bizarre Scottish colony which has 25th century power and weather stabilisation facilities but also candles, open fires, dusty books and so on. Weird accents. Ghost sex. The creepy revelation the ghost has been preying on every female ancestor of Beverley.
  
  A terrible episode, then, but one that is so odd and singular that it doesn't diminish the series as you couldn't even consider it a Star Trek episode.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2006-06-25 at 6:24pm:
  This is what happens when the writing staff takes LSD before creating the script. This is an absolute off the wall episode that differs from anything that has ever been produced in the Trek universe. Usually, having an off the wall episode brings vitality to a show, but Masks fails on many levels.
  
  It is hard to believe that while the ship is being converted to an alien landscape, that no vital systems would disappear, causing destruction. By the way, where was the rest of the crew in this episode. Did they send everyone to their quarters?
  
  On top of all that, this episode is just boring. The plot develops at a snail's pace as the crew tries to discover what the solution is. It feels like a bad three-hour movie. The dialog between Picard, Worf, Riker, and Troi is drab. There are attempts at humor ("the observation lounge is a swamp"), but nobody is laughing as they watch this episode.
  
  The shameful thing is, the idea behind this episode is fantastic. It probably would have worked if the alien device did not possess Data. I would have rather seen the actual aliens appearing on the ship. The episode does not fail in the art department, however. It seems like they spent a lot of time and money to produce the set pieces.
  
  I would give this episode a 0, but I'll give it a 1 because of its artistic quality.
• From David Murray on 2011-04-01 at 7:48pm:
  I recently aquired the entire series of TNG and decided to watch them all from beginning to end. I was very pleased to discover that there were about 4 episodes that somehow I had never seen on TV before and so it was cool to get to watch "new" episodes of TNG. However, the last of these "new" episodes for me was Masks. I must admit I could barely make it through this episodes. I was cringing constantly at how horrible it was. Not only was it down right dumb, but it was also boring. Take the TOS episode "Spock's Brain" which people say is really bad. Well, it is bad. But despite out dumb it is, it is actually fun to watch. Masks is not entertaining in the least. In fact I'd probably have fallen asleep except for the cringing of bad scenes keeping me awake. I would probably rate this as the worst episode of all time.
• From MJ on 2011-04-26 at 6:10pm:
  I guess I'm one of the few who didn't find this one so bad. Average, yes, but not horrible.
  
  The main problem I have is how long it takes the crew to recognize that Korgano is the moon. Picard should have figured that out almost immediately. Instead, they stretch the problem out beyond believability. This is what makes a potentially solid episode average, in my view.
  
  As for vital ship systems not falling victim to transformation, I suppose it could be explained that this archive is so advanced and sophisticated that it could recognize which aspects of the ship are safe to transform...after all, this thing apparently interfaced with Data and uploaded thousands of personalities into his system. Clearly the technology is beyond that of the Federation in some regards.
  
  It does seem strange that such an advanced culture would be so superstitious as to believe in sun-goddesses and moon-gods. However, it could be that the creators of this archive were actually showcasing their own ancient history, rather than the way their culture was at the time the archive was built.
  
  So I think some loose ends can be tied up here but I agree it's very dull at some points. With Spiner's acting, the set design, and at least a somewhat plausible story, I give it a 5.
• From Bronn on 2011-10-05 at 9:02pm:
  I have to agree with the above commenter. It's by no means a classic episode, and the premise is silly, with a lot of nonsense science. But Spiner and Stewart are excellent actors who really want to make this high-concept (shudder whenever Brennan Braga ever uses that phrase) story work. What I love about Brent Spiner is that he really commits-they ask him to play a series of different mythological personalities that are taking over Data's programming, and he absolutely runs with it. Watching him provides the only moments when this episode is not completely absurd. I'd give it a 4, just based on how much I like Brent Spiner.
• From Arbit on 2012-05-01 at 9:03pm:
  Just awful. Some "highlights":
  
  - Picard getting impatient and deciding to just melt the comet (!??!?)
  - Ancient civilization capable of creating a gigantic space temple many times the size of the enterprise living in fear of a sun god
  - The crew struggling to identify the crescent-shaped companion symbol of the sun symbol (perhaps... they are antlers?)
  - Alien communication device accidentally transmutes spaceship parts into crappy looking concrete blocks and random jungle foliage (I can see it causing power surges and other weird phenomenon, but what sort of communications tech screws up so bad it starts transmuting matter? Maybe I'll try to plug a USB flashdrive into an old PS2 port and see if my computer will transmute my couch into gold bricks)
  - Picard literally talking the sun god to sleep
  - Etc etc
  
  Maybe the worst part about this episode is it was a waste of a totally awesome premise. An ancient 87+ million year old comet/temple, traveling in deep space to nowhere, starts to interfere with the ship's systems, projecting strange runes on readouts and materializing strange totems everywhere! What sort of Cthulian interdimensional horror have the crew uncovered? The crew, belonging to an intergalactic hippie empire, immediately assume it's an ancient repository of information. "Yeah right" you think. "And the creators chucked into deep space where no one had any reasonable chance of finding it? Set course for INSANITY, warp ten billion!!!"
  
  No, it's really just an archive and it accidentally started projecting its boring sun/moon god mythology onto the ship.
• From L on 2013-05-04 at 9:36am:
  A proto-Egyptian/Sumerian civilisation's equivalent of the afterlife; they've somehow recorded the personalities and experiences of key citizens, stuck that record in a starship, inside a comet, and they replay themselves through any available medium once activated, ie, Data and the Enterprise's computer system.
  Interesting and silly at the same time. What was so important about this scenario that a civilisation developed technology that only rational minds could produce, to replay something that only irrational superstition could produce?
  An ironic public service announcement?
  I like the idea of exploring the intersection between myth and high-tech ability, but was not convinced.
  
• From Daniel on 2014-01-25 at 8:01am:
  My biggest complaint about this episode is that Picard - despite his extensive studies of mythology and ancient cultures - could not figure out that the crescent moon symbol he kept seeing was the moon. As many cultures use similar symbols, and he already knew the other symbol was the sun, it was an obvious correlation.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-06-10 at 1:50am:
  Yeah I still don't understand what they did with the universe. Did they beam it back into space in the gamma quadrant? If so, wouldn't it just destroy the area? And they tried so hard to make the episode really epic, with sisko's comments about the Borg "stepping on" other races.
  
  Just a very crappy episode
• From Remco on 2008-10-06 at 9:27pm:
  According to Jadzia, Runabouts are 14 meters wide, not 17. The tight passage was 17 meters wide.
  
  Arjin: I don't see it! I don't see it!
  Arjin: I see it! It's less than 17 meters across.
  Jadzia: This ship is only 14 meters wide. That gives you over 2 meters to work with.
• From rpeh on 2010-07-27 at 9:51pm:
  Another problem. When flying into the wormhole towards the end, the shuttle accelerates to "50 kilometers per hour" and then we're told that it'll take 17 seconds to enter the wormhole. Is the station really just 236 meters from the wormhole?
  
  The universe size "problem" isn't a problem. Read some Iain M. Banks for ways around it. Otherwise, this is a decent episode that adds a lot of back-story.
• From Bernard on 2011-03-27 at 8:52am:
  With this episode marks a big change for the series dynamic. The reason for that is the complete turn around in the writing of Jadzia Dax. Gone is the aloof, ageless, purely scientific young woman. In comes the raunchy, loud, aggressive Curzon... Sorry, I meant new Jadzia. This is the first big shift towards a more action orientated series (the later changes are the dominion, the defiant, bad-ass Sisko and finally the introduction of Worf).
  
  I don't complain about the change in the Jadzia character, but you have to ask why not change the host? You have the only species in the Star Trek universe that allows you to completely change actors legitimately and instead they decide that Jadzia will be written completely differently to before.
  
  This episode is okay but it does contain loads of interesting tidbits of Trill info that will be built upon later in episodes like 'Equilibrium' and 'Facets'.
  
  I don't care about bad science in the slightest... when the story is good enough to make you suspend disbelief. Here it isn't, and I found myself scratching my head just as some of you have commented.
  
  So, poor outing, but the first steps toward making DS9 into the best of the Star Trek series' have been taken.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Fenix on 2011-03-25 at 7:04pm:
  I'm going to go ahead and suggest that your "factoid" solves your "problems." Perhaps the presence of one of these newly discovered elements explains the extra gravity on the asteroid.
• From Annoyed on 2011-08-10 at 9:37pm:
  Problems:
  
  1) As mentioned, "the asteroids support a class M atmosphere" ?!
  
  2)Ok, pretty soon we learn that Ptera was "dying of a lesion to her mid-brain...but she didn't die until the [pod] was activated." Then how come she was diagnosed as having died from a tumor by the Voyager medical crew? No sense.
  
  And while we're on the subject of Ptera dying, how is it that they were able to revive her "minutes after she died" the first time, but not mere seconds after she died the second time, due to not fully unexplained circumstances (it's assumed to be some kind of transporter problem?).
  
  3) Why does it take more than half the episode to fully discuss the theoretical difference between corporeal death/transition and other possible interpretations? This is just frustrating. It's resolved eventually, but it should've really been addressed right away.
  
  4)How does Starfleet academy graduate Ensign Kim, who had his type 2 phaser with him (you can clearly see it holstered while on the asteroid), become completely helpless and at the mercy of the alien doctors? WTF? If he was disarmed, it would've made some sense to show this, but I suspect they didn't show it because it doesn't make sense. Here's the first person ever to come back from "the afterlife," a creature of a race you've never seen, wearing clothing and carrying technology you know nothing about, essentially some kind of angel, or prophet, or profoundly paranormal being, in any case, and the first thing you do is somehow disarm him (this without even knowing what's a weapon and what isn't) ? No sense.
  
  This is the first voyager episode, chronologically speaking, that pretty much just stinks.
  
• From Mitchell O on 2023-01-01 at 11:47pm:
  The other problem on glaring display in this episode is Voyager’s amazing ability to jump huge distances in the blink of an eye.
  
  In this case, they travel 0.6 light years in mere moments. Janeway doesn’t even have time to stand up!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From wes on 2012-01-14 at 5:04pm:
  Tuvok's rank insignia begins the episode as Lieutenant, which is wrong since he was never courtmartialed. Later, his rank is back to Lt. Commander. Then later still, it is back to Lieutenant. What's with this?
• From Jadzia Guinan Smith on 2015-05-23 at 6:44am:
  "energy life form of the week" -- enough said! I was re-watching season one; I wished I skipped this one. Wasted hour of my life.
  

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-08-17 at 1:17am:
  This is another annoying "Voyager might go home in season 3" episode. However, the connection with the TNG episode was absolutely brilliant and extremely fun to watch. AWESOME way to bring closure to that TNG episode. And of all the ways to be foiled out of returning to the alpha quadrant, it's at the hands of those damn Ferengi! :)
• From Tallifer on 2011-04-09 at 2:47am:
  Janeway constantly reminds me of those British officials of the Raj in India who refused to go native in any way, giving rise to the expression, "Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun." She often makes stupid decisions only for the sake of upholding an inflexible and narrow idea of Federation values. Kirk was a Federation captain too: could she not model herself after a hero of the Federation rather than some ineffective armchair admiral?
• From Inga on 2013-08-26 at 10:56am:
  The thing is, there really was a risk of damaging the culture by abducting their "gods", so I at least understand why she made that decision. Of course, the part with the Ferengi owerpowering the ship's security is beyond ridiculous, but this is the writers', not the Captain's fault.
  
  @Tallifer In 'Flashback' Janeway mentioned that Kirk lived in a "different time", where the Captains could get away with things they wouldn't be able to in the 24th century, so that might be one of the reasons she wouldn't model herself after Kirk.
• From thaibites on 2014-01-31 at 7:50am:
  I'm not sure, but I think they said the wormhole ends would pop up sporadically in different places on BOTH ends after the Ferengi destabilized it. I think this adds a nice touch to the story because the Ferengi might end up millions of light years away from their home. Maybe they wouldn't even go to the alpha quadrant? If I'm right, it's an appropriate punishment for them.
  Also, I loved the boob shots in the beginning - camera low, with the bottom of the boobs uncovered, standing directly behind the Ferengi sitting on his throne. It's the most "remarkable scene" in the episode.
• From Sylvain on 2015-04-13 at 8:28am:
  Janeway is clearly suffering from plot induced stupidity here though. It was obvious Voyager wouldn't be getting back to the Alpha Quadruant yet, and ofcourse the Ferengi couldn't just be left alone exploiting people like that either.
• From tigertooth on 2016-09-17 at 4:17am:
  I'm pretty okay with suspending disbelief, and it wasn't a huge problem here, but let's be honest: there's no way a universal translator could fool a primitive society. It would look like an overdubbed movie. There's no way the speaker's lips would look like the words they were hearing.
  
  Granted, that speaks to all ST episodes, but I'm willing to overlook the fact that Cardassians and Romulans should look like a kung-fu film. It's just better visually for them to speak English.
  
  And that's why I'm fine with human-looking aliens. The fact is that they needed a lot of extras and making them all up (including the Starfleeters who beam down) would have eaten into the budget. So they just make them look like humans. If that means they can put more money into sets or effects or whatever, I'm good with it.
• From Chuck the Canuck on 2023-07-04 at 1:02pm:
  How do these dimwitted Ferengi always manage to outsmart or outmaneuver Federation security? It happened in TNG episodes "Rascals" and "The Perfect Mate" and now here. These two couldn't hit someone right in front of them with a giant sword, and we're supposed to believe they overpowered a security guard and somehow managed to shoot open a shuttle bay?
  
  And worst of all, as pointed out in the original review, they manage to persuade Janeway that removing them would somehow damage the fragile culture of the planet. Unreal...as if the inhabitants wouldn't come up with a supernatural explanation for the sudden disappearance of their "Sages".
  
  So, actually, this is a pretty bad episode for Tuvok. Two Ferengi manage to overpower his security officers and outdo him at the logic game.
  
  The only good thing about this episode is continuity with "The Price" which was a cool idea and made sense. But it's typical Voyager: take a great premise for an episode and execute it poorly.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Shooter on 2010-09-01 at 6:27am:
  I actually liked this episode quite a bit. Who doesn't have one of those old friends from high school, or from their past, whom you owe dearly, but might put you in this kind of impossible position because you're not the person today that you were back then?
• From SWs on 2015-08-21 at 12:02am:
  You're underrating the episode by a fair margin. The most impressive thing about this episode is the atmosphere it creates with it's detailed scenery (the interior of the station, bar)and the varied and colorful aliens that stand out from the usual slightly modified humans of other episodes. Even background aliens have extensive make up like the couple in the bar for example.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Rick on 2013-07-16 at 10:36pm:
  So Seven is Tawana Brawley and Doc is Al Sharpton except he eventually shows contrition and never does it again. I think that about sums up this episode.
• From Inga on 2013-10-09 at 8:06am:
  I think the idea of this episode is an interesting concept to explore in a TV show. Sure the ending is unsettling, but it shows the subject of pre-judgement vs objectivity, which, in my opinion, fits in Star Trek quite well.
• From thaibites on 2014-08-23 at 10:56am:
  "...this episode is truly not in the spirit of Star Trek and I'm completely unfond of it."
  That's exactly why I liked it! This episode explores the darker side of our subconscious. It teaches the doctor a lesson in humbleness. And most importantly, it reinforces the previous episode where Seven is Janeway's counter balance - yin and yang. I don't know if this dynamic continues, but I hope it does. Seven is a kick-ass bitch, and Janeway needs her ass kicked sometimes. Chakotay is too nice and lame to really do it, even though he tries sometimes.
  
  Seriously, who are you to judge what the "spirit of Star Trek" really is? TOS had a lot of dark episodes, like the one where Kirk is split into his good half and bad half. Try to think of Janeway/Seven in the same way.
• From Dstyle on 2015-06-14 at 6:46pm:
  I wonder if Janeway was able to keep the cannon?
  
  Seriously, though, I thought this episode was awful. Sure the whole thing about repressed memories not being reliable was kind of interesting, but it was overshadowed by a far more troubling problem: namely, Seven effectively made a false rape accusation. The takeaway of this episode was that women should not be believed when they claim they were assaulted, because even if they themselves truly believe it happened that's still not necessarily reliable. It's a very frustrating and troubling message, for sure.
• From QuasiGiani on 2017-08-11 at 3:22am:
  Disturbing?
  
  What is disturbing here is that what they discovered about the Borg nanoprobes regenerating disproved 7 Of 9's accusations. Yet, Janeway, the doctor ...and everyone else (even among the {re}viewers here) seems to believe it did. Terrible, disturbing lack of logic. Truly not in the spirit of Star Trek and I'm completely unfond of it.
  
• From QuasiGiani on 2017-08-12 at 5:17pm:
  The comment I made was supposed to say:
  
  "What is disturbing here is that what they discovered about the Borg nanoprobes regenerating IN NO WAY DISPROVED 7 Of 9's accusations. Yet, Janeway, the doctor ...and everyone else (even among the {re}viewers here) seems to believe it did. Terrible, disturbing lack of logic. Truly not in the spirit of Star Trek and I'm completely unfond of it."
• From Pim on 2018-04-30 at 9:40pm:
  Thank you QuasiGiani for pointing out that HUGE flaw in logic. The findings of that experiment may have been consistent with Koven’s story, but in no way proved or disproved either Koven’s or Seven’s claim. All evidence up to that point was still ‘inconclusive’. This is what’s really not in the spirit of Star Trek, it’s just bad science. Other than that I’d say this episode okayish.
• From Turbo on 2020-06-22 at 7:11am:
  Unlike seemingly a lot of other viewers I actually thought the episode was done rather well. It shows that decisions have actual gravitas, that emotional preoccupation may lead to misjudgment, and that misjudgment may lead to undeserved harm to others. There are far too many instances in Voyager otherwise where high risk decisions are kept unreflected because they lead to success by sheer luck, or where harm resulting from high risk decisions is seen as collateral or glanced off entirely. It's a nice change to actually see someone doing something wrong and having to live with the guilt.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Krs321 on 2011-09-12 at 12:18am:
  Problem: The Bajorans have an orb that allows you to travel through time now? WTF?
• From Cory on 2011-11-10 at 5:08am:
  Yes, The Orb of Time was introduced in Trials And Tribble-ations. However the fact both the Bajorans and Sisko will risk altering the timeline just so Kira can figure out for sure if Dukat and her mother were lovers is the biggest problem which knocks the episode down to a 1 in my eyes
• From Armsauce on 2017-06-16 at 12:57am:
  It didn't take much for Kira to convince Sisko. There's no way he'd agree to her plan like that, at least no so easily.
• From Jan on 2019-03-18 at 7:59pm:
  I didn't think the episode was that bad, but this 'Orb of Time' is way too powerful in the wrong hands.
  
  A bit of nit-picking: As we all well know, Nerys has dark brown eyes, but 3-year-old Nerys had very lightblue/grey eyes.
  It's possible that this is one of these 'differences' between Bajorans and humans, but I don't believe that.
  I AM aware that eyecolour can change even after a child hits one-year-and-a-half, but they won't turn from light blue to dark brown.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Jim on 2010-12-16 at 4:03am:
  Could I care any less about Chakotay at this point in the show? 7 o' 9 has made half of the cast irrelevant and Beltram seems more wooden than ever. "Forgettable" is more apt.
• From Tallifer on 2011-04-17 at 1:21am:
  Truly horrible. Plodding and lifeless.
  
  I kept watching, thinking that the alien would surprisingly turn out to be a fugitive criminal or something interesting, but the ending was exactly what we were told in the first ten minutes.
  
  Plus Virgina Madsen looks nowhere as cute here as she did in the movie "Dune."
• From Rob UK on 2014-07-18 at 1:23pm:
  I only have one thing to say
  
  This gets my vote for worst Star Trek episode ever
• From tigertooth on 2016-11-05 at 5:00am:
  I loved the line as the alien tracker guy was leaving the ship with the woman: "Oh, by the way - I infected your computers with a virus that's going to wipe out a bunch of data. Trust me, it's cool."
  
  hahahahaha!!!!
  
  This was garbage.
• From RodimusBen on 2020-11-16 at 4:31am:
  The concept behind this episode isn't bad in theory, and variations have been done before, such as TNG's Clues where the crew starts to realize that their memories of a certain time were erased, or Voyager's own Latent Image. The execution is just weak. Janeway and Chakotay put up surprisingly little resistance to the practices of this culture, which seems fine just stealing away people's memories as a form of oppression. Sure, there's the obligatory scene where the the characters all wax philosophical on the merits and vices of the system, but by the end of the episode they're just shrugging their shoulders when the alien tells them he's placed a virus in their computers!?
  
  Another dud for Chakotay, who is not necessarily a bad character, just badly written more often than not. And a waste of the lovely and talented Virginia Madsen, who under different circumstances, could have been one of Voyager's more memorable guest actors.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-11-06 at 2:17am:
  How is a class Y planet the "most inhospitable planet for humanoids"? At least it has a SURFACE! I mean there are plenty of planets that are solely gas giants and don't even have a solid surface. I would think that is more inhospitable than this class Y planet that simply has a bad atmosphere.
  
  The Enterprise has saucer separation; Voyager has landing sequences. Janeway lands the ship WAY too damn much. She is extremely reckless.
  
  The 'backup systems' in the environmental suits was a really cheap deus ex machina
  
  I think it would have been pretty cool if the 'silver blood' was a colony of shapeshifters that had been dispersed here by the founders (as alluded to in ds9) and had made their home in the delta quadrant. Can you imagine the possibilities if Voyager had allied with some of the shapeshifters here and brought them back with them, only to find that the Federation had been at war with the Gamma Quadrant shapeshifters when they got back? Oh well. Just the dreams of a ds9 fan...
• From TheAnt on 2013-10-12 at 6:19pm:
  Harry gets a mudbath
  
  Kethinov and Miller got it right, deuterium is not that horribly uncommon. And the planet itself only appear to be no worse than Venus.
  
  Another detail I find unbelievable is that life support appear to take such an extreme amount of energy, we've heard it in other episodes also. As much as lasers, the warp drive and what's not.
  In fact life support could only be a negligible amount compared to those systems - or to put it differently, several magnitudes less.
  And so shutting down life support as here, and in a few other episodes should not make any significant contribution.
  
  In short, you might skip this episode with extreme prejudice. Unless you're doing a study where ST loose track and derail completely.
• From L on 2013-12-29 at 6:23am:
  The basic concept would have been interesting in TOS, less so here.
• From Alex on 2014-05-19 at 12:14am:
  So Pete you wish that Voyager had brought back evidence of shapeshifters back from the delta quadrant.Personally the less Voyager had to do with a certain pile of overrated dog mess like DS9 the better,You can keep that rubbish.
• From Dstyle on 2015-06-16 at 1:58pm:
  Woah ho! Some fighting words from Alex!
  
  I don't see why we need to see the build up to the power problems: that seems too nitpicky of a complaint and would have made for boring television. Things happen off-screen and between episodes all the time. I'd much rather be dropped into the story right at the point of dramatic tension than watch all the buildup. And honestly, Voyager needs more episodes like this: it's too much like TNG v2.0, with the whole "limited resources" thing taking a backseat to holodecks and frivolous side-trips and whatnot. Voyager's hulls needs scars and dents. It was refreshing to see them running in "gray mode" for once.
  
  No, the real problem with the episode is it is poorly written. Janeway doesn't want to risk losing Chakotay by sending him down to the surface in a shuttle... so she decided to land the ship? (Seriously, writers, if you want to land the ship so badly just make it so their orbit was deteriorating and they didn't have power to correct it so they had no option. No captain in their right mind would put their entire crew at risk like that, and no officer on the bridge would ever let them) Then when the ship starts sinking into a mystery fluid on the surface, Janeway... goes to sickbay to check on Harry and Tom? C'mon Captain, your ship and everyone on it is in mortal peril: maybe you should be on the bridge trying to save them, i.e. DOING YOUR JOB.
  
  In the hands of a better writer this premise could have made for a better than average episode, but, like Voyager in a pool of silver blood, this episode sank quickly. I'd rate it a 3.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Paul on 2007-05-16 at 8:28pm:
  Remarkable scenes:
  
  Maihar'Du and Uri'Lash facing off.
  
  As for the rest of the episode...the less said about it the better.
• From EKH on 2007-07-13 at 8:15pm:
  A wonderful set-up. What a shame that it wasn't followed up on. Ferenginar conquered by the Dominion? That would have made for an interesting story, and hopefully would have finally gotten Ishka, Zek and Brunt killed off so that we didn't have to ever see them again, except in reruns. What we get, instead, is not only the worst episode of DS9, not only the worst of Star Trek, not only the worst science fiction episode ever, but the single worst hour of television ever written. An hour that really, truly hurts, in the most physical, literal and direct sense of the term. An hour that, luckily, I shall never, ever have to ever watch ever again, ever. Now, to suppress all memory of this travesty...
• From rpeh on 2010-08-03 at 8:25pm:
  I think most of what needs to be said has already been said. This is a very, very bad episode.
  
  There's one bit that made me laugh. Shimmerman's timing to deliver the final joke is absolutely spot on. Otherwise... what were they thinking???
• From Tallifer on 2011-04-21 at 10:29pm:
  Don’t listen to the critics! This episode was hilarious!
  1. Each rival Nagus has his own tall silent servant.
  2. Rom reveals his feminine side to his disconcerted friends. The look on his wife’s face was priceless.
  3. Sluggo Cola: the slimiest drink in the galaxy.
  4. How the initally annoying feminism of the episode is subverted: Quark persuades the Ferengi to clothe the females because they will become irrationally voracious consumers.
  5. Countless other offensive jokes about gender relations.
• From OmicronThetaDeltaPhi on 2014-06-30 at 12:49am:
  I guess I'm in the minority, but I thought this episode was quite entertaining. Now, I do wholeheartedly agree with the critics, that the cross-dressing thing wasn't funny at all. But most of the jokes WERE funny. And as usual, Armin Shimmerman gets 110% out of the script.
  
  Not a masterpiece by any means, but a decent (pardon the pun) episode nevertheless. I would give it a 5.
• From tigertooth on 2018-02-27 at 4:11am:
  I think this was a decent idea for an episode, but the execution was awful. Every now and then the humor worked -- the main example being Rom teaching Quark how to be female -- but most of it missed the mark big time. The Nog gag where he was running around the hallways made no sense. Why was he having such a hard time following a guy who was walking? And why would a Starfleet cadet be so out of shape? And even if you ignore that stuff, it just wasn't funny.
  
  They hardly even worked the obvious "Quark learns how hard it is to be a persecuted Ferengi female" angle. They sort of hit on that at the end, but again, it was done really poorly.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Sir Brando on 2006-05-10 at 4:59pm:
  The idea behind this episode may be flawed, but it is still very unique. It gives you a very creepy feeling. I like it.. it's not the best but I don't think it deserves a 0. just my opinion!
• From Pete Miller on 2006-11-26 at 4:37am:
  HAHAHAHA!!! I was watching this episode, and thinking that I was about to give it a zero because I didn't even consider it canon, and then I see you've already made the same conclusion. You wonder what the hell the writers were thinking. Or should I say what kind of alcoholic depression binge they were on. Besides the complete absurdity of the episode and the fact that it has absolutely no effect on anything, it also happens to be DEPRESSING as FUCK!!!! Wow. Thanks for tying up that loose end, writers. This episode really contributes a lot.
  
  Zero. Second episode of Voyager to get one.
• From Tony on 2008-09-26 at 7:13pm:
  My opinion is slightly diferent; I think that the idea of bringing back the duplicated crew from "Demon" was a good one (despite the obvious flaw of the entire ship having been duplicated), but the writer(s) did not create a story that create a story that lived up to the potential of that idea, or even come close. All we get to see is the entire duplicated crew die with hardly a storyline at all. A better idea would have been to have Voyager and duplicated Voyager discover each other and try to find out why there are two of them, then have the duplicates begin to degrade, they discover that the real Voyager is causing duplicated Voyager to degrade and they also find out what duplicated Voyager is. Now that the degradation has been started, it cannot be stopped. As a side story, hostile aliens couls have attacked the real Voyager at the beginning, and were driven off. They attack again, but because the aliens are only aware of one Voyager, duplicated Voyager sacrifices themselves to make the aliens think Voyager is destroied and the rear Voyager can continue on it's way. But no, we have to watch a dumb story of people dieing that deserves a zero.
• From Tallifer on 2011-04-25 at 11:12pm:
  10/10
  
  This story is an extremely moving tragedy. Up until the end we are given some sliver of hope that something good can still happen for this doomed crew. We come to identify fully with the plight of these "people" who are fighting for their "humanity" and "Federation values."
  
  It is a fascinating coda to an equally interesting story. Star Trek was ever brilliant for this kind of story: a once-told short story. Episodic television can be terrific: forty minutes of speculation, drama and escape. Not everything needs to be a twenty-six part epic arc like the dreary Battlestar Galactica.
• From spline on 2014-01-26 at 11:18am:
  "I think it's an episode people either love or hate," observed Nick Sagan. "The 'hate' category seems to say, 'Why do we follow a crew that isn't even our regular crew?' and they feel cheated. But it really is the story about the poignancy of Voyager's journey. There's something about trying really hard and not being quite able to achieve it, which is a reality to a lot of people [....] [The episode's] about a need to be remembered, a need to be recorded, and that's the special tragedy about making a log, a kind of capsule – we know that the 'Demon' crew dies. It's about loss and remembering, death and grief."
  
  I'm with Tallifer. I think those who give this silly ratings like 0 or 1 are being unjust and hypocritical. How many pointless episodes about Harry Kim's love life, alien of the week, shuttlecrash of the week, and reset buttons get a pass? Ninety percent of this series' episodes do not advance the overall plot *at all*. And criticizing it because it's not the "real" crew utterly misses the entire point of the story.
  
  This is a 9/10 episode easily, one of the best of the series.
• From spline on 2014-01-26 at 11:50am:
  Also, one last thing to think about:
  
  The writers also wanted to leave certain issues unresolved. "We didn't want to answer a lot of questions," Ken Biller stated, "like, how long has that ship been out there? Some of the episodes that we saw earlier in the season, was it that crew? Or was it the real crew? It's kind of intriguing to think about."
  
  (quotes from Memory Alpha)
• From janus on 2014-10-16 at 10:05am:
  An episode which tests issues of personal identity, loyalty and motivation to destruction (literally!)
  
  When Janeway says that she's determined to get them home, only to be reminded that *their* home is a demon-class planet in the Delta Quadrant, and when Harry Kim is told that, even if they did get "home" to Earth, his family would not want a duplicate of their real son, but only the original, we see a fundamental conflict which cannot be hand-waved away - and that is *true* drama.
  
  That it starts with Tom and B'Elanna's wedding, and ends with Voyager's destruction, makes clear that the writers meant to create a truly tragic episode. That the probe with the record of all of their mission-data is lost, and that the other Voyager encounters only their wreckage, adds to the tragedy, and maybe even makes us contemplate our own mortality.
  
  On a side-note, how is it "unlikely" that a fictional substance could perfectly replicate a human being (complete with past memories!) but couldn't replicate inanimate ship components, too? It seems no more unlikely than time travel, which violates our understanding of physics but happens in science fiction all the time.
  Also, it seems irrelevant to object that this isn't the real crew, since they have the same personalities and memories; what about the *backup* Doctor in Living Witness? He's also "just" a copy.
  
  Let's be honest: plot devices like these are a dramatic conceit. The real point is that, given the setup, the characters act in a consistent and believable way, so that we can relate to their feelings and choices, and be invested in the consequences.
  
  Of all the stories which show Voyager's crew trying to get home, this is the only one which explores what it would mean, to them and us, if they failed. (Voyager's destruction in Year of Hell was done knowing that it should restore the former timeline.)
  
  Just for that, this episode is exceptional.
  
  10/10
  
  PS: This one reminds me a lot of DS9 "Whispers", which I also liked. Our reviewer gave that a low score too, so at least I'm (or we're) consistent. ;)
• From thaibites on 2015-01-21 at 1:04am:
  When the story opened with Paris and Ms. Miserable getting married, I thought "Oh no, not another stupid soap opera episode!" Luckily, I hung in there and found a quirky little episode that managed to take Voyager out of its predictable rut.
  
  1) Why is it so unbelievable that the ship was copied? If you think that the holodeck is believable, then you're just being a hypocrite. How many times have we seen the holodeck defy physics and make a room into a huge outdoor scene where people walk for miles. Now that's unbelievable!
  
  2) The copy crew needed to have an enhanced warp drive so they could be ahead of the real Voyager and almost meet them on the way back. (I wonder if this causes problems in the future for the real Voyager. Maybe they'll run into aliens that the copy crew had a problem with?)
  
  3) I liked the fact that the copy crew was allowed to die at the end. They violated the crew of Voyager and were an abomination in the eyes of the Lord! Star Trek endings are too nice and orderly, and it was nice to see something different for a change. With X-Files being so popular during this time period, you would think Berman et al would emulate them more often.
  
  It's obvious this is an episode that people either love or hate. The little gayrods that act like Comicbook Guy on the Simpsons hate it because it doesn't fit into their nice, orderly Start Trek canon world. These people obviously have never had sex with another human, and their real lives are more meaningless than the copy crew's. The people who love this episode are free-thinkers and lovers of science-fiction (NOT soap operas in space). These people long for Berman and friends to push the boundaries of ST in the great tradition of Gene Roddenberry. I think this episode does that quite nicely!
• From Dstyle on 2015-07-09 at 3:06am:
  Before watching the episode I came to this site to check it's rating and almost gave it a pass as a result, but I decided to watch it because the fan rating was just a little below average. Boy, I sure am glad I watched this one: one of my favorites of the season so far.
  
  I guess it definitely is a love it or hate it kind of episode, and I can respect the opinions of those who thought it was a weak episode. Personally, I enjoy science fiction that utilizes the possibilities of a technologically advanced future to explore abstract philosophical problems in a tangible way. Remember Tuvix, and that whole episode that used transporter technology to explore the nature of identity and individuality? To me this felt like an episode in the same vein. What if you discovered that you were not really you, and that the real "you" was out there in the world somewhere living a separate existence? Is your existence any less authentic? What would it take for you to accept that you are the copy and not the other way around? (In this case, it was extreme physical degradation: evidence that you are, in fact, a lesser copy.) Do your experiences and feelings still have value? Should you be afforded the same respect that the "real" you had earned? It was fascinating, and I found the end to be rather beautiful and poignant.
  
  I'm going to resist the urge to pick apart kethinov's review line by line, with the exception of the final line. Watch this episode. Yeah, you might hate it, but it's a "you love it or you hate it" kind of episode. Don't deny yourself the opportunity of finding out which you are.
• From dominic on 2016-06-10 at 4:00am:
  It doesn't matter that they're not the "real" crew. They think they are, they react the same way the real crew would, and they are just as heartbroken when they realize they will never see Earth.
• From tigertooth on 2017-06-20 at 4:06am:
  I was okay with the premise. Some of the flaws that have been mentioned hurt it a bit, but I could deal with it.
  
  To me, the main problem was that outside of the premise, the episode was just kinda boring. It's like 45 minutes of "we're melting" and then they die. There's no dramatic arc. From the moment they learn the truth until the end, nothing really happens except slow decay and death.
  
  I wonder if they should have held off the reveal that they were all duplicates for a while longer. Like they realize it's related to the Demon planet, then they start to think that they're being infected by their duplicates. They could even given a technobabble explanation of how a duplicate Voyager could have been created. They run into the other Voyager, thinking it's the duplicate. Then they come to realize they're the duplicates. Then you go to the valiant sacrifice idea somebody mentioned earlier. At least it would have given them something to do....
• From QuasiGiani on 2017-08-25 at 8:49am:
  Excellent episode. It _is_ canon. Those that don't realize this don't understand the term (though they are so obviously just itchin' to use it; like a Vocabulary Of The Week word)... so object if you must but you really shouldn't must.
  
  Excellent episode. It is _also_ part of a (apparently preciousssss) story arc... so again, embrace this episode.
  
  Excellent episode. It is _also_ _also_ (as a few have pointed out) an episode that harkens-back to TOS as a sci-fi short-story format that needn't answer to every goddamed negative, niggling, nebbishmal, nay-saying, neurotican, nerdling, nabobbing natter... so, to those who enjoyed it: Nanu... Nanu!
• From McCoy on 2017-09-22 at 3:19pm:
  I don't understand all that low ratings. Looks like you people prefer utopian, happy space adventures. This was a great tragedy with good use of s-f elements. Certailny better than most high ranked action episodes (like i.e. Dark Frontier).
  I expected that they will somehow contact the original Voyager and send them a beacon. But the writers made bold choice and served us hard, depressing, moving end. Bravo! 9/10 from me.
• From minnie on 2017-12-01 at 2:15pm:
  I'm with Spline on this one. I found it haunting and it stayed with me afterwards. It's one of the most memorable episodes - many of them aren't. I don't think it matters whether the story arc is advanced. It is still about the crew, eg. Janeway sticking to the mission despite all evidence saying she should turn around and so forth. Very interesting, a proper sci fi story, and a sad one. A tragedy. So I gave it 9.
• From jbense on 2018-03-04 at 8:12pm:
  Gotta say: I completely disagree with those who consider this a poor episode.
  
  To me, it is one of Voyager's best.
  
  User janus above pointed out similarites with DS9's "Whispers." It also brings to mind the DS9 episode "The Visitor," another tangential side-plot episode written in the poignant style of a classic sci-fi short story.
  
  I advise strongly against skipping this episode.
• From notaduck on 2020-04-03 at 3:14pm:
  I'm on the "love it" side of the fence! Watching the whole series for the first time. This one stuck with me for all the reasons I enjoy science fiction: spectacular possibilities (cloning), centered on real human emotions (loss, home, protection), not afraid to face hard philosophical questions (identity, being remembered, the meaning of principles), wrapped in a short story. There are some slow parts, but I feel like the uncertainty of their fate and the struggles of the duplicate captain more than made up for it.
  
  A point I think can be missed is the tragedy at the end isn't just about loss of life, but loss of accomplishments, recognition, and respect for these lives. Imagine if the real Voyager had picked up the secret of the advanced warp drive! Imagine Tom and Elana reading their twins' marriage vows! It's a thoughtful, subtle statement I think can be lost in the prosthetics.
  
  Man, I'm glad I made it through the early seasons to get treats like this...
• From Ralph on 2021-10-25 at 5:26pm:
  I think this episode is the one where I am furthest away from Kethinov's opinion - with whom I'm generally quite in agreement with. I think this was a wonderful episode. A real tragedy that was well written. Up until the very end I had my hopes up for something to come out of the duplicate crew. Even at the very last scene after it was clear that the time capsule was lost, there was hope of the real Voyager finding a remnant of their counterparts.
  
  Star Trek almost never writes an episode like this. At least not this era of Star Trek. I find this easily one of the better Voyager episodes.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-12-04 at 7:43pm:
  I didn't think this episode was that bad. It was kind of stupid in a lot of parts, but the humor was great and the story was pretty cool. It added something about the self-sustaining ecosystems later used on Mars, so it's not like it doesn't contribute ANYTHING. Contributes more than "Take Me Out to the Holosuite" that's for sure.
  
  Voyager meets Fargo, minus murder
• From Mike on 2008-08-10 at 12:46pm:
  Yeah I think you missed the boat on this review.
  
  1) The theme of 'the negative impact of progress' is rarely shown on the generally optimistic ST. Here we see at least a bit of a human cost to building something like the "millennium gate".
  
  2) The 'its a self-sustaining city' vs. 'its just a mall' theme brings up another ST issue. This isn't the optimistic 60s anymore, and we're not going to get a massive government-funded space program. Progress is going to be done by corporations, or its not going to be done at all. So that means profit and exploitation, symbolized here by the destruction of the small town way of life.
  
  3) The theme of "revisionist history" is a rare one in popular culture. It also ties this episode to 'Living Witness'.
  
  The episode was FAR from perfect, and the ending was incredibly rushed (all of those ends tied up). But it's a very thoughtful and intelligent episode.
• From Baronvonellis on 2011-09-29 at 3:36am:
  I liked this alot. It was very well done and thoughtful. It was also a nice change of pace from all the explosions and "shields down to 20%" junk that is in every other episode.
  
  I feel like people are too critical of Voyager compared to TNG. This was very trek and explored alot of scientific and culturally issues in an entertaining story. What more do you want from it.
• From Rick on 2013-01-10 at 8:48pm:
  Boy, this have to be a tough episode for a liberal to watch. Do you root for the large corporation or the conservative that its trying to bulldoze? Tough choice.
  
  I thought it was a very good episode for the reason that an above poster made. The liberalism going on now is mostly through large corporate entities looking to monetize any trend they can.
• From Hugo Ahlenius on 2015-01-30 at 9:27pm:
  So he has a giant bookstore with no customers, in a small town - doesn't a buyout deal with a good price sound pretty decent? I didn't find their chemistry and connection worked out very well. The history/reveal stuff was a tad interesting though. Felt mostly like a soap/tv-movie otherwise...
• From parkbench on 2016-02-20 at 7:57pm:
  I have to say I am really shocked at how negatively the site's author reacted to this episode. I'm glad some commentors came with a counterbalance, because this was one of the best episodes I have seen in awhile. Let me explain...
  
  I have gotten to a point w/ Voyager where I usually keep it on in the background, even when I'm watching a brand new episode--why? Because the writing is so consistently mediocre, there are so many missed opportunities, so many actors straightjacketed by milquetoast dialogue that they come off as outrageously corny or artificially human, that it's hard to watch sometimes. But I love Star Trek, so I power through--and perhaps this is what the site's author really had a problem with.
  
  Because having a "non-sequitur" episode isn't, in and of itself, a bad thing--what's bad is that Voyager is so aimless and so grasping for straws that when an episode like this comes along, all the storytelling could appear, to the untrained eye, to just be more meandering away from the plot.
  
  But if you pay attention, this was a very lovingly crafted episode with tons of real social & political themes which, though flawed, drives to the very heart of the scifi and Star Trek formula: reflecting on the fragile potential of mankind.
  
  If anyone--site author included--is surprised about the plotline, then they could do with some reading. Almost every major sporting event, from the NFL to the Olympics, major development project in the U.S. or elsewhere, major cultural site or monument, runs into this issue: and it's not pretty.
  
  In fact, though the episode sort of gives out its legs towards the end--pitching the story as one merely about "progress" vs. "tradition", "the future vs. the past"--this is often what the (real-life) script looks like. Major projects want the prime real estate, not just random land in the middle of nowhere, and they will often do anything they can to get it. I have been to a major park in Kentucky that is totally rustic except for 2 or 3 random houses smack dab in the middle that STILL have functioning mailboxes and families living in them because they refused to cede their land, so the park built around them.
  
  Hell, look at the railroads, the colonisation and destruction of indigenous lands that made most of this country possible, or even just any major fracking or resource-extraction project. Look at Appalachia, the health problems the majority of its residents face, the polluted water (a la Flint), the unemployment, joblessness, and total abandonment by the very powers that claimed they had come to save the area.
  
  And when it comes to Olympic stadiums, it has been shown time and again that the promise of "business", jobs, and cultural notoriety is short-lived, while the costs are consistently stacked against the poor: people are evicted and streets are cleansed of any hint of poverty or decay, rent is driven up, and a temporary luxury economic bubble is created mostly for people from out of town to come and be a part of a brief media spectacle. And then what? It all leaves and usually what's left is like a monorail in a dying, de-industrialised town: a big eyesore that has done nothing but contribute to the already-existing massive inequalities and disparities between people living very different realities in these urban landscapes.
  
  Or just look up the city of Shenzhen in China, which in the 1970s was a small fishing town. Through the incredible macro-social acrobatics of giant multinational firms and international finance capital, they systematically turned this tiny town into a (now eerily-familiar) post-apocalyptic landscape of a metropolis, hyper-polluted and hyper-segregated between the lower classes of workers and dagongmei and the business elites whose sole purpose in living there is to extract every bit of value they can from it before they leave. And I encourage you to do your own research if you don't believe me--have a look at any number of the problems facing the average citizen in Shenzhen, and tell me if the "progress" the town was granted was not a Pyrrhic victory.
  
  This is the actual world we live in. It's not sci-fi, it's horrific shit. So if sci-fi manages to even reflect a PIECE of that, I'm all ears, because it's rare and it's brave to have that kind of honesty.
  
  So my point is--the show, to a point, actually accurately depicts a lot of this dynamic, showing what community complacence OR resistance can look like (many people take the pay-out, while others launch grassroots media campaigns). It also hints at some kind of corporate exploitation, as some in the comments have noted; but as I said before, I wish this didn't end in a simple "past vs. future" morality tale. They bring up the idea of the "big shopping mall" and just leave it there; I wish more of the supposed benefits vs. deficits had really been teased out, so that if they really ultimately wanted Janeway to close his shop, it would be less an easy victory (we, the viewers, unconsciously want O'Donnell and Janeway to be together and a happy conclusion) and more of a melancholy turning-point, as the town's independence becomes subordinate to this massive social-engineering project--the times indeed they are a-changin'.
  
  And that's another thing--it was a really neat narrative trick to tell us the conclusion of the plot and then to reconstruct it. Not the first time we've ever seen this, but seeing how well Shannon O'Donnell and Janeway get along, but knowing what must happen according to "history", creates a lot of mystery and curiosity in how it's all going to go down.
  
  And speaking of narrative tricks, how about an "earth episode" that didn't boil down to some crazy holodeck caper but actually filled in, however messily (as ST is wont to do), the universe's actual timeline? That was very welcome for me.
  
  Again, hearing Harry talk about his family, or Janeway talking about the fragilities of reconstructing history was a huge breath of fresh air for me. This was a script with real pacing, with dialogue that actually expanded on the plot and enriched the story's world, and reflected real themes while deepening them through an imaginative thought-scenario. Its flaw is less in the episode itself than in the whole trajectory of Voyager that allows a gem like this to be buried so mercilessly under layers upon layers of colorless dust.
  
  And I suppose, coming to expect less than mediocrity from Voyager, I am willing to be forgiving about an offering that doesn't exactly "advance" the plot--I mean, this was the original idea of Voyager, wasn't it? "Return" to the old TOS style, have a "general missrion" peppered with vignettes? I will always think this is inferior to the DS9 formula, but as a one-off, it's mighty fine.
  
  I was amazed, too, when at one point I became lost in Kate Mulgrew's acting, during one of the later scenes where Shannon and Janeway are arguing in the library. And I found myself thinking, really? Her? Well, for starters, it's because she's rarely given the breathing room to use all the skills of her trade. That is, they actually wrote her a dynamic character! And she clearly has fun with it. It was a pleasure to see her as a true actress and not as a two-bit daytime space opera mouthpiece for once.
  
  Give this to me over any stupid episode about men and women and dating and uninspired gender stereotypes that plagues this series, any half-brained Buck Rogers adventure that thinks it's a parody of the past but is really a parody of itself, or overwrought melodrama filled with fake gravitas. This was a sensitive, if flawed, offering, and gives me a little faith that the Voyager series is not completely screwed, as long as they keep these writers on board somewhere in there.
  
  Thanks again to kethinov for maintaining the site.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Kenobie on 2011-05-09 at 3:51pm:
  There was a plant\fruit that made a yellowish rock produce fire. Hmmm... How unlikely would something like that really be? Just imagine that there are fruit juice's that create fire when coming into contact with a certain type of rock. How many natural forest fires would that produce.
• From Jadzia Guinan Smith on 2015-07-18 at 8:36pm:
  A pretty boring episode. I gave it a 3. I can even see someone finding it dull enough to give it a rating of 1 – but I disagree with almost ALL of the specifics of your review.
  
  You are conflating the Ventus' right to have opportunities for contact with outsiders with the Ledosians' "right" to exploit the Ventus' world and impose their own brand of technological "advancement" on them by force. Those are two very different things.
  
  What exactly gives the Ledosians "every right to be angry"? NOTHING was taken from them! They didn't breach the shield, Voyager did! How did they suddenly develop "rights" over something that Voyager made possible? Oh, and by the way, they ATTACKED Voyager after agreeing to allow the shield repairs. It was Janeway who had a right be angry! She had no obligation to share any technology with the Ledosians and every right (and maybe even a duty) to repair the damage she caused to the shield in order to get her people and her deflector out.
  
  However, I do agree that there's a weird sort of reverse snobbery (or the "noble savage" conceit) in deciding there’s value in the Ventus' way of life. But it’s not particular to this episode – it’s pretty much the nature of the Prime Directive. Part of me has always been troubled the paternalism implied in it. Civilization has always benefited from trade and travel and contact with foreigners. The accidental and spontaneous inputs of the universe are ultimately responsible for all change, whether cosmic, or biological, or technological, or social. Still, it is also sort of understandable that they have concerns about overwhelming an unprepared society with technology beyond its comprehension. Either way, it’s probably a little late to start questioning the Prime Directive! But it’s hard to see the justification in your indictment of the “arrogance” in this episode without the indicting the directive itself.
  
  In any case, if you pay close attention, Janeway's decision is NOT based on a positive, substantive judgment that “their primitive culture should be preserved.” It’s based on a policy of non-interference, in this case involving a need to undo her own crew's prior interference. You ask "who is she to decide"-- and I think she would agree with you. She DIDN'T decide. She didn't impose any new order on this world. She just left things as much the way she found them as possible.
  
  The thing about difficult ethical questions is that they don't always have a neat little answer; sometimes Star Trek writers are too ready to produce such "answers" and be smug about it too. In this case, I thought they did a decent job of articulating the lingering dilemma through Seven's uncertainty. I found Janeway's attitude to be pragmatic rather than arrogant, even if a little unsatisfying.
  
  BTW: I was SO RELIEVED that they didn’t turn this episode into a Seven-Chakotay “getting to know you” thing! I was dreading that.... Voyager focuses way too much on crew-member romantic entanglement. I can’t believe you WANTED another soap opera episode! Ugh.
  
• From Hugo on 2016-04-14 at 7:32am:
  Great analysis and comment, Jadzia!
  
  This ep was too slow for my tastes. The b-plot wasn't that interesting, but slightly amusing and it tied up with the a-plot nicely in the end.
  
  I am interested in learning who erected the barrier, and why.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Bob on 2009-05-17 at 11:18pm:
  I thought the ethics displayed in this episode were sound. They also did a very good job explaining why they made the decision that they did. I agree with most of your star trek episode reviews, but this was an excellent episode, deserving of a much higher score than a 1. I think you might need to watch it again. You forgot to note in the your Factoids that majority of all technologically advanced planets have a single dominant species. This fact along with the facts that the Valakian "plague" is a genetic defect and the Menk are undergoing an intellectual awakening is proof enough that Archer made the right decision. Humans have no right to influence the evolution of life on that planet.
• From Daniel Baldwin on 2009-08-09 at 8:58pm:
  No no no! The episode was well written and acted, but morally it's terrible. They don't show us the consequences of this decision, do they? I wonder why? I suggest that people watch Babylon 5 "Confessions and Lamentations" instead.
• From ive on 2009-12-06 at 10:25pm:
  ethics are perfect in this episode.
  compassion clouded your judgement as well.
  my rating - 6.9
• From carsonist on 2010-05-03 at 1:48am:
  I like this episode. An episode can be good even if the last five minutes include a decision you don't like. I think it's a bit extreme to rate it so low just because of one thing.
  
  Also, Phlox isn't making any decision for the Menk, he just realized that they could end up the dominant species of the planet, and if he interferes, they'll never have that chance. This episode is a perfect example of the Prime Directive, except the part where they gave out the lesser medicine.
• From Tallifer on 2011-05-07 at 10:03am:
  I am amazed that some people think it is morally acceptable to withhold the knowledge of a cure from a dying race. (And if the Mink are evolving so wonderfully, surely in a few generations they will assert themselves.)
  
  I did give this episode one point however for the very entertaining observations of the doctor.
• From rick on 2012-10-19 at 10:20pm:
  This episode should be a 0. Well acted, good premise, worst ethical decision I could possibly imagine. Strip away all this science fiction garbage (and aura of a supposedly higher moral standard) and what are we left with? We are left with genocide and that what Phlox/Archer did, pure and simple.
  
  God forbid we would "interfere" (read: save) with a species before they developed warp technology. I love how everyone seems to just accept that premise without thinking about how arbitrary and ridiculous it is. This whole seeming right to develop naturally without interference from other species is quite suspect.
  
  According to the ethics of this episode, we should all just kill ourselves so that we do not affect the natural evolution of the universe. Which brings me to another point. Why are we not a part of the "natural" evolution of the universe. If a virus is killing off a species why is our interference to save the species different than the virus killing it?
• From Zorak on 2016-09-21 at 11:38am:
  I 100% agree with your review (if not your score). I really enjoyed the episode up until the absolutely ridiculous conclusion. The character development for Phlox was great, the scenes were well done, and everything was shaping up to be another good episode.
  
  Then they ruined it. Even if one were to agree with the ethics (which I certainly don't), it was a completely uncalled for direction for the episode to take. I thought maybe they were going to find out that the Menk (which frankly sounds lie an insulting name for a species) were indeed being mistreated in some way or that the Menk were causing the disease and sharing that knowledge would lead to genocide.
  
  What I was not expecting was for them to decide that this unique culture of two evolving coexisting species should not be saved in favor of a more "normal" evolution where one species outlives the other, all for the sake of fan service to the prime directive. It was a completely ridiculous and unwarranted conclusion based solely on speculation.

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• From Pete Miller on 2007-01-08 at 4:40am:
  Taken from your own FAQ's: "A rating of 0 means I think the episode is so bad that I have (usually, but not always) personally dropped it from Star Trek canon. Episodes rated zero often have incredible technical problems."
  
  While you certainly can and will rate these episodes according to your own opinions, I have to disagree with you on this one. Yes, the episode is in very poor taste. Yes, it is a huge waste of time. But I don't think it is a zero. A zero to me is an episode that is so awful that it shouldn't even be considered canon. Something like VOY: Threshold.
  
  This episode has some very good humor which should alone guarantee it a 1. There are no flagrant violations of canon, and while they have some sexual material, it isn't obscene in any way. Perhaps Enterprise is just trying to be more realistic as far as sexual tension goes. I rather like how open they are with it, as long as they don't have those awful decon scenes. TNG: The Naked Now was much more offensive and distasteful in my opinion, and it got a 4.
  
  Given, this episode has too many things like the Phlox toenail scene to be considered a good episode, but it is far from a zero IMHO.
• From Matthew on 2007-09-02 at 5:55pm:
  Here's a problem with this episode. There's no such thing as an "autoimmune system". Dogs -- and humans for that matter -- have immune systems and when the immune system attacks itself, an autoimmune reaction or disorder occurs. Having an autoimmune immune system implies that the body has evolved a system explicitly designed for destroying itself, which makes absolutely no sense. And even if for some strange reason the dog does have an autoimmune system, its "collapsing", as stated by Dr Phlox, would be a good thing. Besides which, I can't even begin to imagine how some foreign pathogen is supposed to cause the breakdown of this non-existent system. The writers would have been far better off to invent something completely within the realm of science fiction for the Dog to fall ill with, like Klingon rabies or something.
• From Abigail on 2009-02-22 at 7:40pm:
  I agree with you, Eric; the episode was HORRIBLE! I couldn't stand it! In need of an actual science fiction plot, anyone? And like you, I have never felt a need to see Phlox trim his toenails.
• From Kethinov on 2009-10-09 at 11:51pm:
  Pete, you're right. I've revised my rating accordingly. It's a shame it took me almost three years to finally see your point. But point conceded.
• From Pete on 2010-07-27 at 1:52am:
  I'm just now going through and doing a rewatch of all the series; it's interesting to see some of the comments that have come in since I last read these reviews.
  
  I would be interested to know if you have changed any other of your ratings since you first did them. I have come to find that some episodes have aged well with me over time, while others (like this one) have only gotten worse in my mind. Cool to see that you adjusted this one to a 1, although I do agree with you that it is a very low "1".
  
  So far in my rewatch, I have really become sensitive to the overt sexualization of T'Pol. Sometimes it is too much to bear. I am all for casting hot women on this show, but it cheapens the character quite a bit to objectify her the way they do.
• From Kethinov on 2010-07-27 at 3:34am:
  Yes, Pete. Since I adjusted the rating (and review) of this episode in response to your comments, I have taken the time to do an audit of other episodes rated 0 to make sure that they're not actually more deserving of a 1.
  
  For example, as much as it pained me to do so, I also had to elevate DS9: Profit and Lace to a 1 for the same reason that this episode was elevated to a 1. I don't recall all the edits, but there were more than a few.
  
  If you stick around over the next year or two, all the reviews on the site will be adjusted, starting with TOS. I'll be adding new, higher quality screenshots, bringing over the "filler quotient" system from my Farscape reviews, and doing more extensive analyses in the reviews.
  
  I'll be averaging about one a day, so it may take a couple years. :)
• From Jem Hadar on 2010-08-02 at 4:03am:
  Awesome!
• From JRPoole on 2011-08-01 at 8:52pm:
  While I agree with most of your critiques of this episode, I tend to view it with the same lens I watch the obvious humor episodes, so I don't mind some of the more juvenile stuff. That said, the scene where Hoshi catches the bat is awful and the decontamination chamber as an excuse to get T'Pol in her lingerie and forcing sexual tension by having characters rub gel on each other is already tired.
  
  The best thing about this episode is that Archer is wrong. It's inexcusably bad judgement to take Porthos on an away mission at all, especially this one, with the Kreetassians, who've proven to have a truly alien culture and are easily offended. He then proceeds to have a virtual nervous breakdown because Porthos gets sick. I'm a pet lover, but Porthos is a dog. Would Archer have lost this much sleep over a sick crewman? We've seen episodes in the past where a captain's personal feelings--revenge, rivalry, etc.--lead them to make bad decisions. But we've never really seen a captain throw a tantrum act like such a child before. This episode works for me because it exposes one of the series weaknesses, Captain Archer himself, and explores it.
  
  I like Archer's informal style of command, but he's a goober, an even worse ambassador for humanity than that galactic douchebag James T. Kirk. He is one of the big disappointments about Enterprise to me thus far, but I might have to give the writers a little more credit than I have so far, at least when it comes to this character. Maybe he's supposed to come off like a rube.
• From Hugo on 2017-08-28 at 9:04pm:
  I found Archer's attachment to the dog disturbing, but the episode was passable until about two thirds in...

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• From Pete Miller on 2007-01-27 at 9:09pm:
  I agree about the "it was all a dream" thing. Deus ex Machina and all its similar plot devices are for lazy writers who are trying to make it seem like a character is really in serious jeopardy. Probably so they could put some snippets up on the preview for "next week on UPN" and make people think Hoshi could get written off.
  
  Even though it was dreamed up, this made me remember the annoying problems of TNG: The Next Phase. Specifically that Hoshi/Ro/Geordi can pass through things but don't fall through the floor.
• From Mitchell on 2012-12-19 at 12:54pm:
  This episode feels a lot like a combo of TNG: The Next Phase and TNG: Remember Me. Weird transporter invisibility coupled with a fake dream world.
• From Zorak on 2016-10-01 at 3:04pm:
  Without doubt another very poor episode. I'll focus on the one little thing that I actually liked. It amused me how insistently the episode kept writing Cyrus Ramsey into Star Trek history and legend, only to have him also be a figment of Hoshi's imagination/dream.

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• From CeeBee on 2013-12-29 at 9:41pm:
  I liked the episode. The only problem is that Phlox has forgotten that he put T'Pol under sedation. You can hallucinate, but hallucination isn't amnesia. He seems to hallucinate that he didn't put her under. That's a weird problem, as he often seems to realize that he actually is hallucinating. So the plot is a bit forced.

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• From Steve Mohns on 2011-08-10 at 5:48pm:
  Awfully tough on this episode, Eric! I saw it again last night, a number of years after seeing it live, and liked it as much, if not more.
  
  I did think that it was a nice tie-in of Star Trek series for the fans, both with surprise roles for Riker and Deanna, whom we'd not have seen for about 9 years, and the fine connection of all three Enterprises and captains saying the opening monologue at the end. (And yes, no Sisko and Janeway because it's the Enterprise) That you didn't like the absence of Romulans or a romance between Tripp and T'Pol, or hearing Archer's speech are all legitimate personal reasons for you to not like the episode, but all three are reasonable choices to have been made and don't make it a bad episode. I'm glad actually, that we didn't see the speech. (They didn't do that great a job of writing the one he gave in the previous episode). This way we can imagine that it was epic. At least this way there was still an opening for an Enterprise movie with the Romulan war. And unrequited love is ultimately more satisfying artistically than a happy ending romance.
  The episode itself had plenty of emotion, as one would hope for in a finale, certainly from T'Pol and Tripp, and though we don't like to see Tripp die, he did so with glory, and it made for a memorable episode.
  Personally, having just watched the finale of Enterprise, TNG, and Voyageur, I rank them Enterprise, Voayeur, and TNG. The latter was way longer than needed for the material in the story (should have been tellable in one episode easily), had a lot of mumbo-jumbo contrivances to make the plot work, featured the Farpoint storyline, a very poor premier episode, and though I hate to say it as a fan of both Stewart and Picard, sub-standard acting by him.
  It is a shame that Enterprise couldn't be kept going more than the 4 seasons. I think it had easily the strongest start of any series since TOS, hitting the ground in full stride unlike all the other series, and had better acting, music, writing than them as well. The only place that it didn't get top marks for me is in the magic of several of the characters in TOS and TNG.
• From Jem5x5 on 2014-01-26 at 8:35am:
  Well, I finally got here, and whilst this episode wasn't as bad as I feared after everything i'd read about it, it was undoubtedly a shockingly poor way to send off Enterprise - what should have been a poignant final story about the ships retirement and mothballing became a cheap backstory for a couple of cameo appearances. Tuckers death seemed really cheap and pointless - in all the previous situations where him and the captain had faced peril, why had his first thought never been "i'll blow myself up!" before? And why did the main protagonists seem to be totally over it 5 minutes later when Archer was waiting to do his speech? I think i'm also going to regard Demons/Terra Prime as the real series finale - the crew and the ship were able to perform heroically one last time, and it paved the way for the foundation of The Federation, so it means an end at an important moment in Trek history. And now, as i'm watching Trek in a rather wonky order, on to DS9!

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• From Shani on 2017-10-09 at 11:12am:
  I don't like replicators were around during the TOS era. How are they replicating food and uniforms?
• From Shodanbot on 2017-10-09 at 11:03pm:
  Landry's death was very silly and forced. Especially given her interactions with Michael up to that point, as I got the impression she was to be this series "Worf". But it is how forced and unnecessary this death was that I found difficult to over-look. Couldn't they have used the transporter to "harvest" a claw from the beast? Cruel and very out of place at Starfleet, but I don't see any reason a transporter couldn't do it. Landry would've avoid getting within mauling distance with the beast with a quick transport.
  
  Oh well. Whatever. They needed the beast alive and in one piece to get the plot moving, and added a bit of silly blood letting to keep the peanut gallery from falling asleep. I wonder if the star trek universe's 23rd century has an equivalent of The Darwin Awards?
  
  Another bit of an annoyance for me, and to be fair a pedantic one at that, is "Xeno-Anthropologist". Just what is a Xeno-Anthropologist?
• From matzieq on 2017-10-10 at 8:46am:
  I just can't get used to the new look of the klingons, if only they had hair, or ANYTHING that made them look like klingons! Also, the need to constantly read subtitles while they bark at each other unintelligibly is so annoying... even though I'm used to reading subtitles since English is not my first language. And every time someone says "T'Kuvma" I want to reply "Gesundheit!"
• From Rob UK on 2017-10-15 at 11:08pm:
  Ahhhhhh man we've been all waiting so long.
  
  I do not know about you folks but I thought they were going to give us a TV series with the new adventures of new Spock n Kirk n crew down the new old timeline, so I already have sand in my vag before we start but here we go.
  
  I am trying my best to ignore all the things I am not liking about this new show and failing miserably, it is taking me multiple sittings just to get through a single episode, I put it on with the best intentions and then twenty minutes later find myself in the mancave pottering about as I am clearly bored out of my gourd.
  
  So I am trying my best to be ignoring all cannon foe-pars, ignoring all timeline blunders and everything like the redesign of things and species that really didn't have the gaps in their chronology to fit like the Klingons going from how they look in the OS to Next Gen (we had a explanation for that) to squeezing how they all look in this into that between the Eugenics experiments that make them all look as they do in Next gen.
  
  Deep breaths
  
  So even when I do all that and make myself sit down and leave the bong alone long enough to actually get through an episode in it's entirety in one attention span (I can sit through ten episode off the belt of any previous Star Trek in any order and hardly blink) I sadly come to the same conclusion of
  
  WORST STAR TREK EVER
  
  and I definitely include the animated series in that statement.
  
  I am still going to keep watching and hoping it improves as I am a bloody Star Trek fan, speaking of that
  
  Absolutely loving every second of The Orville, surely it can't just be me, are you Trek-heads on board?

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• From ismellofhockey on 2017-11-07 at 11:00pm:
  It's unfortunate that Trek shows have often done away with facts from previous episodes, sometimes even within the same series. It's annoying, I don't understand why they aren't more big picture focused, but that's how it's always been.
  
  What I dislike most about Discovery so far is the ultra fast paced plot, which you point out. Oh look! The tower sonar was fixed just in time for Discovery to beam them up! How convenient! How lazy! Had the show actually taken time to exploit its various devices, we would have had the chance to build an emotional bond with the admiral as she was tortured by the Klingons. We could have developed a stronger enmity towards Mudd during Lethe's incarceration. We could get a feel for what Stamets is actually going through. But nope! Who needs character development anyway? The answer to that being: not Saru... please stop trying.
  
  I'm also disappointed that the show doesn't deal with more philosophical concepts like what humanity's morals and values look like in the 23rd century. TOS showed us a female second in command, a black woman on the bridge, a Russian and a Japanese at the helm. There was a vision of the future that inspired, promising better things to come. TNG built on that with an unabashedly atheistic captain, the prime directive (introduced in TOS), Barclay's holosuite problems...etc. It would have been nice to delve deeper into this topic, or at least renew it. You can still have grey characters in a society whose values and morals have progressed far beyond where we are today. Stamets's augmenting and inability to ask for his doctor/lover's help could be a door towards this, but seeing how little anything gets developed in this show, I'm not holding my breath.
  
  Still, this episode was perhaps the most beautiful visually so far, and losing the Gagarin was a great opening.
• From tigertooth on 2017-11-20 at 2:04pm:
  Note: if you've watched 1x08 but not 1x09, this message contains a minor spoiler, but one you'd probably guess. If you've seen 1x09, you're good.
  
  I didn't understand the Klingon part at all. Who killed L'Rell's people? I assume it was Kol - who else would it be? But if he killed her people and left them there for her to find them, that's a pretty clear message, right? "I know your game. You're screwed."
  
  But then L'Rell goes to the bridge and tries to play it cool. What? She knows Kol killed her people, and he intentionally let her know that he did. How do you bluff your way past that?
  
  And why would Kol leave the Admiral there in the dead body room? A Starfleet Admiral is valuable property! You don't just leave her lying around, and if you just told a traitor that you figured them out and they're screwed, you don't let the traitor grab this Admiral and take her hostage (which would have been the only logical thing for L'Rell to do... but she didn't)
  
  On top of that, you've got Burnham and Tyler reacting to Saru nonsensically.
  
  I can take a lot of science fiction wackiness, but when your characters act in ways that make no sense, you lose me.

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• From zook on 2018-02-09 at 4:18am:
  I miss Star Trek, don't you? And I must disagree with Kethinov: the acting is not good. There is no emotional connection to the characters, who are mostly unlikeable, uncentered, and unidimensional. But you are right- the bad writing is the real culprit. The lofty ideals of the Federation are merely stated, not shown or demonstrated. The dialogue is full of cliches and flatly delivered. I cannot bring myself to care about the characters, or the plot, or the confused ideas the show is struggling to explore. I really do miss Star Trek. This show isn't it. It could have been called anything else, for all the connection it has with Star Trek. No need to drag the franchise in the mud with it.
• From Shodanbot on 2018-02-14 at 3:55am:
  Oh dear. By the delay between the finale air date and your review, I can imagine it will be a very fun read when finished. No pressure there.
  
  I groaned at the conclusion of "What's Past is Prologue." I assumed that it would involve time travel to get back the prior nine months and set everything in order, patching any holes in the cannon. It's a sloppy method to resolve this significant "lost territory" issue, and coming directly after the mirror universe episodes, wouldn't have been a welcome story to pursue. I might have given the writers too much credit.
  
  I hate time travel as a genre, I hate when it's used to patch a problem, but I hate being wrong even more. Especially if being right wouldn't have been to my benefit.
  
  But on to "The War Without, The War Within", or more appropriately: "Powder Kegs & Atom Bombs, Fools & Starfleet."
  
  The Tyler/Voq issue in this episode reminds me of BSG's Sharon. Adama was no fool. He knew Eight/Sharon was a potential powder keg, so letting her walk freely about the fleet would be a foolish move that could have disastrous consequences. But he also understood that she had her uses, so keeping her around couldn't hurt. And keeping her in a secure cell with an armed guard was the smart way to ensure it didn't hurt. But if this is how Starfleet is going to handle their "Sharon", then is it any wonder they lost so much territory to the Klingons? Stupid people, written by stupid writers.
  
  And the writers do this twice in a single episode. Does their stupidity have any limits? No matter how desperate you are, it's a monumentally stupid decision to put a figurative atom bomb like "Mirror Georgiou" in command of a literal atom bomb like the Discovery.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Abigail Chappell on 2018-02-20 at 10:47pm:
  I agree with everything you said, but I guess I'm not as profoundly disappointed as you -- primarily because I didn't have that high of expectations to begin with. And I still argue that it's a HUGE improvement over the last couple of movies, which were pure garbage. With my expectations set amazingly low by those films, this TV series has cleared the low bar. :)
  
  My thoughts on the final episode echo some of what you said. It's absurd that they let Georgiou out of confinement and in charge of a starship. That made no sense at all.
  
  I also thought the end of the war was incredibly abrupt. I mean, it didn't make much sense anyway, the way the Klingon faction were all fighting with each other, unorganized and divided, yet they could easily overpower the Federation anyway. But it was like all the episodes showed them losing the war, and things just getting worse and worse -- and then BAM! Nevermind, war over, we won! It just left me feeling like, "Huh? What just happened?"
  
  But, having said that, I'm glad that the war ended, because I'd like for Season 2 to focus on something new and different. I didn't want the war to continue another season. So although I would like for them to have ended it more soundly, I'll take it.
  
  The minutes at the end with a voiceover by Burnham were pretty cheesy. It was trying to be deep and meaningful, but it just came off as ... well, cheesy!
  
  I'm also kind of stuck on how this series is supposed to take place around the same time as the original series (right?), but they are SO MUCH more technologically advanced, based upon the aesthetics of the bridge and the way monitors work (things popping up in the air -- like a magical touch screen?). Obviously this has to do with the era in which the show was produced, but it's odd.
  
  Despite all my grumbling, I actually am looking forward to season 2 and shall continue to watch.
• From Claus on 2018-02-21 at 9:55pm:
  The second half of season 1 is very entertaining and far better than the first 9 episodes. It's kind of a copy of the "Agents of Hydra" part of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season 4, complete with evil counterpart of the main characters and uplinking people to "The Network". It's extremely fun to watch, and I like that this "Mirror arch" consists of several episodes and not just one or two.
  
  Normally in Star Trek, phaser gun fights are a little boring, since you always know the outcome. Main characters are never killed, unless there are a reset button in the end. But hey, Star Trek Discovery is nothing like other ST series. They dare to do the unexpected. I love it then things are not predictable. Ok, you might argue that people behave irrationally, and that ST Discovery is far from the "real" Star Trek spirit. But I certainly prefer something fresh and unpredictable than just the usual stuff.
  
  Episode 13 is the best episode of the season, and I just love evil Georgiou.
• From tigertooth on 2018-03-27 at 8:59pm:
  Everything about Starfleet's interaction with evil Georgiou was terrible. Besides what has already been mentioned, the entire crew of Discovery knows she was killed. The entire crew knows that there are mirrors of everybody in the mirror universe. But nobody could put two and two together to figure out this was mirror Georgiou?

No fan commentary yet.

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• From Z on 2020-04-07 at 7:21am:
  Kethinov, I have loved (and mostly agreed with) your reviews for years. But this take is pretty ridiculous and completely unfair. You do have a few valid points about writing issues in this episode, but a number of your complaints were directly addressed. The crew made a pointed decision /not/ to run because they believed that Control would have the resources to track them down anywhere; and because charging the time crystal required power from the spore drive, they decided to move forward with the plan immediately (can't run and time travel at the same time, so they picked). There are obvious issues with this logic, but to imply that they never discussed jumping away is simply untruthful. And they went ahead with the plan after destroying Leland because it was heavily implied (like as explicitly as possible) that the sphere data was "in the wrong hands..." type of info and had to be kept out of anyone's contemporary grip (furthermore, I believe the phrase used after Leland's destruction was "Control is down"; there's no reason to think that disabling Leland and the local ships destroyed all of Control).
  
  You claim that making everything classified does not correct continuity errors, but (assuming people keep their mouths shut) I have no idea what you are talking about. Is calling all the info "top secret" lazy writing? Sure. The spore drive was lazy in the first place. But if the information was successfully suppressed in-universe, it does technically account for the lack of spore drives and angel suits in "future" ST stories.
  
  The "pods" they were referring to were, like, extremely obviously escape pods, established both verbally and visually. Again, there are inherent issues with the idea of retrofitting escape pods for combat, but to say that their existence is not explained is, again, untruthful.
  
  And even when your points are valid, the weight you give them is totally inconsistent with your criticism of past ST series. E.g. Captain Pike surviving the torpedo blast. Star Trek characters have *always* had "plot armor" when convenient. It has been an inherent issue with ST since TOS. Canon inconsistencies have existed since TOS (arguably more so in that series). These things are problems, but the fact that you take these errors and the errors you misidentified (mentioned above) and come to the conclusion that this show is a "disgrace" to Star Trek is inconsistent, unreasonable, and in my eyes totally undermines your credibility. As I have watched through DIS and read your reviews, it has become increasingly apparent that you weigh criticisms more heavily when drawing your conclusions, more so than any "classic" Trek show you have reviewed.
  
  Last two points I want to leave you with: 1) constant complaints about visual inconsistencies are tired and childish. Shows that look like TOS are not profitable, and frankly, they are not fun for most people anymore. I hope you get over it because every time you and people like you bring it up, it causes the rest of us to roll our eyes. 2) your characterization of Po in your review of Part 1 ("arrogant" and "snarky") comes across as *extremely* sexist, point blank. I've gotten the impression that you tend to lean left when it comes to social issues, so I won't accuse you of being a flat-out misogynist. But I would challenge you to question your socialized biases. All men, even self-proclaimed feminists, have stigmas that must be consciously suppressed.
  
  To sum all this up, I think it is ironic how lazy your DIS reviews have been given your accusations of lazy plot construction. It is obvious you made up your mind about this show well before it premiered. As someone who got into Trek fairly recently (i.e., I have seen every series now but only within the past ~6 years), and therefore has less nostalgia to challenge, I feel pretty confident saying these first two seasons were, overall, much stronger than the first two seasons of TNG, DS9, or VOY. And I love those shows immensely. I am sad to say I will not be visiting your website anymore, but after reading your DIS reviews I know I will find little of value in your reviews of Picard and any other Trek to come. LLAP.
• From Kethinov on 2020-04-08 at 12:10pm:
  The crew saying we're not gonna run and then citing an incoherent reason is not directly addressing it. It was clear that Control did not have the resources to teleport to their location. Track them, sure, but if you spore drive your way to the Gamma quadrant, you've bought a lot of time to prepare a defense because it will take them decades to travel to you.
  
  The sphere data being too dangerous for anyone to have is 1. hard to believe at all, but setting aside that 2. a reason to destroy it, not maroon a whole crew of people into the future. In previous reviews I discussed the incoherence of the sphere data defending itself from being destroyed, but even if we assume it's literally impossible to destroy Discovery with the sphere data on it, just send the damn ship to the future unmanned maybe?
  
  As for classifying the time travel suit and the spore drive, we need think this through a bit harder than "sure, I guess it was lazy writing, but meh." There are implications. Dozens (hundreds?) of people know about this tech. It actually is pretty hard to believe all of them keep their mouths shut, but even with this already overly generous concession, we have to grapple with the fact that the tech was rather easy to invent. It stretches suspension of disbelief to the breaking point to assume that nobody would ever reinvent it even if the tech was perfectly classified for the rest of Star Trek's history. When Star Trek is at its best, it gives us reasons to hang our hats on as to why some new superpower is unsustainable, e.g. the tech is too unstable to use, or it requires a super rare fuel, etc. Nothing like that was used to limit the powers of the spore drive or the time travel suit.
  
  Sure, they have some token limiting factors, but they're not nearly enough. The spore drive "damages the mycelial network" so using it hurts living creatures, so they want to use it sparingly, but they keep using it anyway. And what stops an unscrupulous power like the Romulans from inventing this and using it with no regard for the mycelial alien life? The writers didn't think that through. And the time travel suit just requires a time crystal—something that apparently naturally occurs in great abundance on planets like Boreth, and now you're suddenly godlike. They could've told us time crystals were impossibly rare, that there's only one in known existence, or maybe the time travel suit itself came from the future and can't be replicated. There's any number of ways they could've limited its superpowers and prevented it from being a "so why can't they just keep using it?" problem. But they didn't. The accumulation of an unsustainable number of superpowers is a serious problem in all Star Trek shows, but Discovery is perhaps the worst offender. And just so you know I'm not singling out Discovery here, Picard's season 1 finale is a pretty serious offender in this regard too, and my upcoming review will be as harsh to that finale as I was with this one, FWIW.
  
  Regarding the pods, I'm struck by you saying "to say that their existence is not explained is, again, untruthful" directly after saying "there are inherent issues with the idea of retrofitting escape pods for combat." Yes. Those inherent issues are exactly what I was complaining about. There is no coherent explanation for why weaponized pods (derived from escape pods or otherwise) are never seen again. It's puzzling why you accuse me of being untruthful for saying something you just said yourself. Perhaps our disagreement isn't about truth, but rather about how much someone should care about bad writing?
  
  As for "canon inconsistencies have [always] existed," this is a very common and very annoying argument trotted out by Discovery apologists all over the web. It is a textbook example of whataboutism, a common propaganda technique used to make bad arguments that sound plausible but are actually logically incoherent. In this case it's a bad argument for two main reasons: 1. It's not actually a defense of Discovery to say well everything else is awful too, and 2. Discovery isn't just as bad at this, it's substantively worse. Even setting aside visual canon, Discovery has created much harder to reconcile problems with canon than any previous Star Trek series. It's like the whole series is one long version of Voy: Threshold + TNG: Force of Nature + TOS: The Alternative Factor. Those episodes got zeros for a reason: if we took their canon implications seriously, it would contaminate Star Trek's canon too much, so we've all collectively agreed they aren't canon. To be fair to Discovery, it isn't quite that bad yet, but it's right on the edge. Bad enough that when you pair its story canon problems with its visual canon problems, we should seriously shuffle it off to its own universe to contain the massive canon implications of Discovery in order to protect the rest of the franchise from the damage.
  
  And regarding whether we should consider the visual canon issues valid too, of course we should. Like you, I don't want a show that looks like TOS either, but the obvious solution to wanting an updated look was to not make a prequel set during TOS. Enterprise did it right by being set a century earlier than TOS. The Picard show did it right by being set a century later than TOS and decades after TNG. Discovery picked the worst possible choice of setting and now their excursion into the far future is the writers basically admitting that mistake. As for your remarks visiting my biases regarding Po, that was uncalled for and unworthy of a response. But I will say this: her character would've been equally annoying had she been male. That should go without saying. It's sad I even had to say it.
  
  The saddest part of all this for me is contrary to what you seem to believe about me, writing negative reviews takes a lot more work than writing positive reviews. I put a lot more hours into my Discovery reviews than I have for Picard so far since Discovery required more criticism. (Though the Picard finale will require Discovery levels of work to adequately criticize, which is why the review is not up yet as of this writing.) I hold negative reviews to a very high standard. I vet each criticism rigorously before I release the review by first asking myself, "Wait, did I miss something? Did they actually account for this?" I do that because I understand the importance of checking your biases in order to gain as much objectivity as possible. I often like to wait several days after seeing a bad episode before I even write about it just to give myself more processing time to think through the criticisms more. Doing all that is why it takes me much longer to write negative reviews than positive ones. Calling all the work I put into these criticisms lazy when it's been some of the hardest work I've ever done writing Star Trek reviews is the real irony here.
  
  But I'm glad you wrote this, because I know your views are shared by others. I hope your comment and my response help people think more clearly about how the writing of Discovery is substantively worse. Or perhaps put a better way, substantively different. I think a simple fact nobody here could argue with is Discovery's writing has a much different tone than previous Star Treks. I don't think anyone would disagree that Discovery feels more like the MCU than like TNG or Voyager. What we debate is whether or not that is an improvement or a step in the wrong direction.
• From McCoy on 2020-07-14 at 3:43pm:
  I've just visited your site after a long time out of curiosity. And I'm pretty impressed, because you still write reviews. I gave up watching in the middle of second season. Then I've tried Picard, but gave up after infamous eyball scene. Star Trek franchise is dead for me. I never was a Trekkie, fanboy or something like that. But i hate bad writing, stupid decisions, unlikeable Mary Sues and - most of all - destroying good work of other people. This franchise was really great (I loved the visual style of TOS - completely archaic today, loved DS9 too - because it has best characters). Now we have high budget, terrible story and butchering canon (not only visual). I don't think it will be better, quite opposite sadly. Star Trek was always about humanity as its best, not some dark, dystopian horror. Looks like there is no hope for us, if we can create only depressing stories. They aren't "mature", they are depressing. Old Trek tried to show us we can be better. New Trek shows a world without morality, without hope. If this is our only possible future, then we are truly doomed. Best regards, Kethinov, thank you for all your hard work!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Axel on 2024-03-12 at 2:26pm:
  That’s it? I guess this whole season was ultimately the story of Picard’s coming to terms with the loss of Data; everything else was just filler. I agree, the finale had some touching moments but the assisted suicide of Data combined with Picard’s magical revival made for a rather poorly executed end to an otherwise exciting season. But I guess Star Trek has had multiple characters that died and then were brought back again, so nobody ever really dies off in this franchise, until they do.
  
  There was plenty of intrigue in the finale: constantly shifting alliances between characters, hidden agendas, conflicts, betrayals, etc. That part was nice. But I do agree that so many storylines were just dropped and unresolved. The intergalactic, trans-dimensional synthetic life forms that clearly have the power to wipe out all life in the galaxy, and oh by the way, can apparently move stars around? Any investigation into the Romulan/Federation conspiracy to instigate the Utopia Planetia destruction? The fate of the Romulan Free State that was using the Borg cube as the basis of its economy? Are Commodore Oh and the Zhat Vash totally cool with how things ended here, giving up on their centuries-long quest to eliminate all synth life? And how about the synths on Coppelius Station; will they just peacefully return to their life knowing that huge swaths of organic civilizations wanted them to be destroyed, and maybe still do? But oh well…we got to see Data turn into an old man, I guess. Overall, a disappointing end to a season that had plenty of excitement, drama, nostalgia, humor, and intrigue.
  
  That said, I do think ST: PIC did it right. The writers were clearly paying attention to canon, but they adapted Star Trek to a more modern TV format and visual. Some fans may pine for the older version, where a crew explores new worlds each week. But at this point, the Star Trek franchise is kind of running out of surprises in the Milky Way. We pretty much know what’s in all four quadrants of the galaxy now, and in the center. THere’s stuff in other galaxies too. If Star Trek is to continue being a kind of American saga, as Brent Spiner has described it, then it needs to reinvent itself with each generation. ST: ENT and ST: DIS fumbled things, in my opinion, by going backward on the timeline. PIC finally went forward, which was a much better approach. I look forward to seasons 2 and 3.

No fan commentary yet.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From rhea on 2008-04-27 at 5:52pm:
  English Imperial Units: Who is to say that Starfleet personnel are not allowed to use them? Ok, they use the metric system most of the time, but still I think it is an insignificant detail, since we still get the picture. I think miles and feet had to be expected in Star Trek anyway, given that the English system is still very much in effect in the US, where this series happens to have been created. It doesn’t bother me, to be honest, even though I wish that they would finally come around to the metric system.
• From djb on 2009-01-22 at 5:21pm:
  I'd have to agree, this episode is really dumb. A duplicate Earth, not explained at all. A strange disease that wiped out the entire adult population of the planet. Kids several hundred years old that have never even mentally matured ... what??
  
  Just if a child's physical maturing is halted, that doesn't stop them from maturing mentally and emotionally. This episode acts as if maturity is purely a physical thing, and not a simple matter of having been alive long enough. It's probably both, but that detail is lost. The kids are just irritating. I liked Miri, though.
  
  Moreover, there are loads of plot holes. Wouldn't they investigate the planet a bit before just beaming down? Attempt to talk to someone? Scan for life forms? Send a probe? As you said, what did the children eat? They're obviously incapable of even comprehending rational ideas, let alone farming or whatever.
  
  Plus, when the crew leaves, they just talk about leaving a medical crew behind to care for the children. A whole planet of children?! At least several hundred million children, all infected with a disease that will kill them when they (eventually) grow old? Asinine.
  
  It seems as though the producers and writers of this show were really still finding their feet; a lot of the episodes up until now have either been equally or nearly as pointless or have at least had completely random, weird stuff thrown in. Like the "barrier" at the edge of the galaxy in Where No Man Has Gone Before. Or the going back in time at the end of The Naked Time. Oh well. I grew up with TNG, so I can't help but judge this show by TNG's standards.
  
  In response to metric vs. imperial: Anyone who has studied astronomy, physics, and everything else one would study in Starfleet would be entirely accustomed to using metric units. When I took even a beginning astronomy class, I don't think the word "mile" was uttered once during the class. Starfleet is not specific to one country, so they wouldn't use a measuring system that is only used predominately in one country. Especially Spock, who's an alien. Why would he learn an antiquated (and illogical!) measuring system that's not used by the majority of Earth's population even now, let alone in 300 years?
  
  The only real reason I can see for the writers using imperial units here is that Americans were extremely resistant to the metric system, and still are to a degree. Fortunately, TPTB wised up by TNG's day, and only used metric from then on (though if you'll notice, they always say Celsius after a temperature, even though that should be obvious).
• From 411314 on 2009-06-15 at 2:28am:
  "We're not given any reason for why this planet is exactly like Earth."
  
  You DO know that Star Trek is fictional, right? I've heard that any real extraterrestrial looking as similar to humans as Spock does (pointy ears notwithstanding) is less likely then a pen thrown into the air doing a perfect curve in the air and then falling perfectly straight and landing on its point. If you're willing to suspend your disbelief in Vulcans looking pretty much like humans except for pointy ears, then why not do the same with alternate Earths?
• From Kethinov on 2009-06-15 at 4:38am:
  @411314, that argument is completely ridiculous. The odds of a planet forming that is exactly like Earth in every detail are far, far more unlikely than an alien race evolving a similar physiology to humans.
  
  In fact, one of the foundational science fiction concepts in Star Trek is that (aside from the obvious TV budgetary motive) evolution frequently leads to human-like aliens because it is the most practical morphology to have on an M class world. Planets of similar size and atmospheric composition would inevitably produce organisms best adapted to them.
  
  However, the key concept here is similar but not identical. This planet in this episode was *identical* in every way. I can live with similar planets; even extremely similar planets if the ridiculous odds are acknowledged on screen. But barring some sort of parallel universe explanation, identical in every way is too absurd.
• From 411314 on 2009-06-15 at 1:20pm:
  "The odds of a planet forming that is exactly like Earth in every detail are far, far more unlikely than an alien race evolving a similar physiology to humans."
  
  Still, an alien race with an appearance similar to humans is unlikely and nobody on this forum seems to have called than an "absurdity" or expected and explanation for it.
  
  "In fact, one of the foundational science fiction concepts in Star Trek is that (aside from the obvious TV budgetary motive) evolution frequently leads to human-like aliens because it is the most practical morphology to have on an M class world."
  
  What's an "M-class world"?
  
  "...barring some sort of parallel universe explanation, identical in every way is too absurd."
  
  If you can live with identical universes, why not identical Earths? The fact is, this entire show is not particularly scientific, and complaining about this or expecting it to be scientific is quite silly. It's rather like watching a looney toons cartoon and saying "we are given no explanation as to why Wil E. Cyote, when he runs off a cliff, stays in the middle of the air for a few seconds before he finally falls".
  
  
• From 411314 on 2009-06-16 at 2:20am:
  This is definitely one of the better episodes.
• From Kethinov on 2009-06-16 at 3:24am:
  @411314
  
  "Still, an alien race with an appearance similar to humans is unlikely"
  
  Far less so, and there explanations for it. In addition to the one I provided in my above post, see TNG: The Chase.
  
  "What's an M-class world?"
  
  Star Trek's shorthand for a planet suitable for human(oid) life.
  
  "If you can live with identical universes, why not identical Earths? The fact is, this entire show is not particularly scientific, and complaining about this or expecting it to be scientific is quite silly. It's rather like watching a looney toons cartoon and saying we are given no explanation as to why Wil E. Cyote, when he runs off a cliff, stays in the middle of the air for a few seconds before he finally falls."
  
  Star Trek is actually pretty good about sciencey things, except in horrible episodes like this one. Parallel universes are a real concept which is explored in quantum physics. If a parallel Earth from a parallel universe could somehow be transported from one universe to another, it could explain what occurred in this episode. That explanation is fairly ludicrous, but it's better than what we get in the episode and it might have saved its score from a zero in my book.
• From Remco on 2009-06-23 at 12:50am:
  But still, many of these parallel universes would decidedly *not* be the same. There are an infinite number of universes, and it would be an extreme coincidence if something that looks exactly like Earth would pop out from one of those universes into our own universe.
  
  I like what you say about evolution on M-class planets. But I don't completely buy it. There are many many species on our own planet, and any of them could evolve into having a cerebral cortex and using tools. And some already have, like many primates. They really don't have to look all that much like us. They just need a few limbs to manipulate the world around them. They don't have to stand upright, or even develop verbal communication.
  
  For budget-reasons obviously, on Star Trek even the weirdest aliens usually look like humans with deformed faces.
  
  Let me digress a little on our own planet's intelligent life:
  
  I always wonder what would happen if you would take a Neanderthal baby from the past (or a 50,000 year old homo sapiens for that matter), and raise it like a modern human. I bet he would be as smart as anyone. He would just look weird and have some trouble with the ladies. ;)
  
  Now I'm wondering what would happen if you'd surgically give a contemporary orangutan the ability to speak (they need an extra bone in their throat for complex sounds). It's entirely plausible that we would consider him an intelligent being, able to cope with math, languages, philosophy... the works.
  
  If such an experiment succeeds, we may need to reconsider our view of intelligent life.
• From rpeh on 2010-06-28 at 8:11pm:
  I really don't understand the criticisms of this episode. Sure, the premise of a duplicate Earth is silly, but that's tangential to the main plot, which is the virus and the fate of the children. Most of the children play their roles well, and the delicate subject of a pre-adolescent crush on Kirk is well-handled.
  
  The duplicate Earth was a red-herring, but there's no reason to give this a 0 because of that. It rates a solid 8 for me.
• From CAlexander on 2011-03-13 at 4:07pm:
  Yes, the identical Earth bit is just bizarre, and I would certainly complain about it vociferously if you hadn't already done so. Why do they make a big point about it, then drop it completely? But by the same point, I don't see this as contaminating the rest of the episode. You can just ignore it as a temporary script malfunction. The rest of the episode works fine if you just blot this from your mind and pretend that this is just a regular M-class planet. I also found it hard to believe that the children survived in an infantilized state for 300 years, I would find 30 years more plausible.
  
  (I'm guessing the writers thought they were making a parable about how our Earth could have ended up just like theirs, had we destroyed ourselves with biological weapons, and made the similarities as an incredibly ham-handed attempt to drive home the point)
  
  Although these are certainly negatives, I thought this episode was not bad, it had some definite positives. While not all of the acting is great, a lot of the scenes invoke legitimate parts of the human experience. The idea that the children were led by a demagogue who was threatened by Kirk's appearance. They way the children shout down Kirk and refuse to listen to him, banding together against the scary outside influence. The way the children, despite their immaturity, are a real menace to Kirk due to their knowledge of the terrain. The difficulty Kirk has trying to deal with children who are immature but know they have power. They way it is hard for them to trust Kirk because they know he will soon become an irrational monster and betray them like all the other adults did. They act unreasonably, but life is full of unreasonable adults, and these are only children. And I like Miri's crush on Kirk, and the way he handles it. The search for the cure was overdramatized in typical TOS style, yet entertained me more than many of the perfunctory TNG equivalents.
  
  Also, aside from the technical negatives, there is one technical positive. This was one episode where they were sensible about quarantine, refusing to contaminate the ship, yet having the ship beam them down necessary supplies.
  
• From nforrest on 2011-08-04 at 3:01pm:
  Just started watching Star Trek and Im hooked. Your site has been a great help.
  
  I will say after watching this episode, although kind of annoying with the children who didn't develop mentally because their physical predicament.
  
  This comment is to point out the bashing of a"earth" that developed just like our own in every way. Being a physics student this idea isn't so far fetched as one of the theories explains the idea of infinite possibilities, dimensions and so forth. If you are interested in reading more about how this is possible check out this link.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
• From Kethinov on 2011-08-04 at 7:44pm:
  That theory refers to the theoretical existence of alternate universes, not second Earths identical to ours in every way that just so happen to exist several hundred light years away. My criticism stands.
• From Mike Meares on 2012-02-23 at 3:28am:
  I have really enjoyed reading your reviews Kethinov! I don’t always agree 100 % with your conclusions but I have, up to this point, really been impressed and enlighten by your insights and your observations.
  
  However, I must say with all honesty I am a bit surprised at your review of “Miri” Kethinov and your rating of zero! Zero? Really? ZERO? Seriously?
  
  My God, you gave a rating of 4 to “Spock’s Brain” for crying out loud!
  
  The thrust of your criticism seems to be why a “identical” Earth exists since, in your words, this is impossible!
  
  I don’t get the criticism! I really don’t!
  
  Hardly anything in Star Trek is possible. It is pure fiction! Will there ever be transporters, phasers or time travel? Who knows! I just love wondering if they could happen. But that doesn’t mean they will happen or that I believe they will ever happen.
  
  So following your logic Kethinov: Removing a person’s brain and reattaching it is possible but an identical earth is impossible. OK my friend if you say so.
  
  To me the “identical” Earth was just a teaser to draw you into the story. And it worked for me. In fact, Star Trek became known for using the “teaser” to draw fans into a story.
  
  I like the fact that they didn’t explain how the identical “Earth” developed myself. And if you stop and think about it, anything they would have tried to explain about the other Earth’s existence and development would have been pure conjecture on their part.
  
  I love this episode! I think it was one of the top ten episodes of the first season. I still get goose bumps when I watch it.
  
  One of the biggest reasons why this story works for me is Kim Darby. I think she is a fantastic actress and she gave such realism to her role. Another was the acting of Michael J. Pollard, which was superb. I know one of the criticisms was the acting of the children but, quite honestly, I never expect great acting from children in shows. And I have to ask: when did great acting become a measuring stone for a great Star Trek story?
  
  I love William Shatner as Captain Kirk! But do I think he is a great actor in the role? No way! But he makes me believe he is James T. Kirk. And that is all that matters in film and TV.
  
  I give “Miri” an 8 rating. I think it is that good. I know it has some plot holes and I know it leaves some unanswered questions, but so do many other Star Trek stories. I just don’t think some of the comments on here are very objective and seem to be concentrating on some very petty issues.
  
  Several positives things about “Miri” that I really liked are:
  
  (1) We get to see more of Lt. Farrow ( played by Jim Goodwin ) To me Farrow was a very down to Earth ( opps sorry no pun intended ) character. He wasn’t handsome or big or strong. He just seemed like a real person to me. I wish more of the secondary characters could have been like him.
  
  (2) No “Red Shirts” were harmed during the filming of this episode! Probably the first and last time that ever happened! LOL. In fact, I don’t think Lt. Galloway ( David L. Ross ) nor the second security guard ( John Arndt ) even contracted the virus at all! Wow I guess it paid to be a “Red Shirt” this time around! LOL.
  
  And finally, (3) I loved how they began the development of the relationship between McCoy and Spock in this episode. When Dr. McCoy injects himself and almost sacrifices his life, I think Spock really starts to admire the doctor and the person that he is. I still get a little chocked up when I hear Spock say, “I will never understand the medical mind.” And of course Spock says it so low that I don’t think anyone else can hear it. A great moment in Star Trek history.
• From Kethinov on 2012-02-23 at 4:58am:
  Mike,
  
  Surgically removing a brain without killing it is considerably more plausible than the hypothetical existence of another Earth identical to ours in every way. The brain is just an organ like any other. As long as the proper fluids are not interrupted and no substantial injuries are inflicted during surgery, there is no reason why the brain couldn't survive independent of the body. In this respect, Spock's Brain is considerably more plausible than Miri, especially given that the episode goes to great lengths to establish that the surgical techniques used are highly advanced.
  
  Your whole point about how "hardly anything in Star Trek is possible" because it's all just fiction is not valid. Good science fiction builds bridges between real science and the speculative science featured in sci fi stories. Phasers are particle weapons predicated on speculative technological advances in the efficiency of energy storage and release. Transporters work on the same principle but for a (usually) non-weaponized purpose. These devices are plausible assuming that it could some day be possible to harness and control energy so efficiently.
  
  The planet in Miri on the other hand violates everything we know about nature in space or otherwise. Everything we know about planet formation tells us that every planet in the galaxy is a unique combination of circumstantial randomness when a star system is born. If a planet like the one in Miri did exist, the scientific implications would be daunting. That would imply a considerably more deterministic universe than things like quantum mechanics teach us is possible.
  
  To put this in perspective, consider the old adage "no two snowflakes are ever alike." Strictly speaking, this isn't true. There are people who have tested this and determined that two snowflakes can be alike, but the probability is insanely small. If the odds against any two snowflakes being alike are infinitesimal, then what do you suppose the odds of two planets being exactly alike are? Earth is huge, and its history is the culmination of billions of years of random events. There's simply no way we'll find another Earth out there. Similar planets, sure. But not the planet found in Miri. It simply cannot happen.
  
  As such, the premise of Miri is pure fantasy, rather than the kind of responsible science fiction things like phasers or the transporter are based on. As a critic, it's my job to make this distinction for my readers. I want my readers to know which episodes are good science fiction and which episodes are not. This one is not.
• From Mike Meares on 2012-02-24 at 2:24am:
  I just found some information about Miri in Memory Alpha that I think it may have made the story a lot better. Very interesting reading. I am reprinted the content here:
  
  In his first volume of Star Trek episode adaptations, James Blish supplies a backstory that is vastly different to that of the "identical Earth" premise depicted in the television episode( "Miri" ).
  
  Blish wrote that Miri's planet is the fourth planet orbiting the star 70 Ophiuchus, and is a beautiful Earth-like planet having one large and two smaller continents connected by islands. Ophiuchus IV (or Ophiuchus 4 – Blish never names the planet) is located between twelve and fifteen light years from Earth and had been the first planet outside Earth's solar system to be colonized, in this case by refugees from the so-called "Cold Peace" in the early 2100s, about 500 years before the events depicted in the television episode. These colonists were isolationists who violently repulsed the first attempt to contact them by a later expedition from Earth, and so no further contact was attempted.
  
  As it turned out, the Ophiuchus system was in a "backwater" part of the galaxy that subsequent years of Earth-based space exploration passed by, and so the belligerent colony was easily ignored and almost forgotten.
  
  Around 300 years before the events shown in "Miri", scientists on Ophiuchus IV developed the experimental life-prolongation project that resulted in the deaths of every adult on the planet.
  
  Yet despite their close proximity, the distress signal sent by the colony didn't reach Earth because Ophiuchus IV stood between Earth and the center of the Milky Way, whose radiation created interstellar static that drowned out the SOS signal the colony had directed towards Earth.
• From Alan Feldman on 2012-04-02 at 1:07am:
  Speaking of units, scientists frequently use non-metric units: light-year, parsec, astronomical unit (equal to the radius of the earth's orbit), (an) atmosphere (a unit of pressure, though more for convenience when precision is not paramount), G forces, electron volt, barn (a barn is 10^(-24) cm^2), fermi (which is 10^(-13) cm). These last two are based on a metric unit, but so is the inch (defined as 2.54 cm), so it's just as "bad", sort of). The electrical charge of particles, in many cases, is more conveniently measured in multiples of that of a proton, as in the charge on an electron (which would be -1), or quarks, which, depending on which quark you're dealing with, is +/- 1/3 or +/- 2/3 of that amount of charge. There's also a foot (of cable, or patch cord, if you will), which is how far light travels in one nanosecond. This is useful in high-energy physics experiments for estimating delays. I believe calories are still used by some, though I'm not really sure. Add to all this units of time: years, months, weeks, and days are not metric units, yet scientists use days and years, at least. The dinosaurs were wiped out 65,000,000 years ago. No one converts that to seconds. Angstroms are still used (based on a metric unit, though). There are probably more.
  
  Bottom line: Use the units that are appropriate for the job.
• From Mandeponium on 2012-08-30 at 5:59pm:
  Super late to the discussion, but you guys are arguing the wrong point. The issue is not whether an earth-duplicate is possible, as stranger things have happened in the Star Trek Universe. My biggest gripe is that they didn't even investigate it! Kirk says, "It seems impossible, but there it is," and no more is said on the subject. If Picard had stumbled on a planet with The North American Continent staring back at him, he would have gotten to the bottom of it.
  
  That's what defies my suspension of disbelief, that no one seemed to care about that which in any normal universe (even one with humanoid-looking aliens) could not happen.
  
  
  I can forgive it though. These first few episodes are rife with far-fetched concepts that are treated rather nonchalantly: The invention of time travel, shape-shifting aliens, perfect copy androids, and now Earth 2.
• From Zerothis on 2012-09-22 at 1:41am:
  The obvious retconning would be to attribute the duplicate Earth to the same Preservers that transplanted the Roman Empire people and Native American people to other planets. 1960 is near the beginning of the Post-atomic age, the Cold War era, and the hybrid age. Presumable the Preservers theorized a scientific subculture in existence around 1960 was about to become extinct (or about to devastate Earth, in which case there should be a whole lot of 1960ish cultures out there somewhere in the Trek universe). In fact this group did prove to be devastating to the planet they were transplanted to. Likewise, the transplanted Roman Empire was presumable defeated by one of the same factors that the Preservers had apparently hoped to rescue them from.
  
  
• From Glenn239 on 2012-10-01 at 5:02pm:
  I can’t believe the tricycle scene at the start isn’t listed as a remarkable scene. When I watched that as a kid, that had as much punch as anything else in the entire series. This episode is naturally around 6 to an 8. I give it a 9 for some counterbalance.
  
  The children represent the intellectually limited horizon of the human race, the disease they are attempting to cure is the result of our own hubris in the manipulation of nature, and the episode is saying to us that our futile attempts to command the complexities of nature are childlike and prone to disaster.
  
  I for one have no problem that the Earths are the same, and it was not explained why. All we need to suspect is that it is the Earth, but a less lucky version of it. Who put it there and why they did it, we won’t know. Nowadays every action hero seems to make amazing intellectual leaps of logic to arrive at the correct conclusion in mere seconds, and then blurts out their byzantine (but correct) reasoning at machine gun pace, with only the occasional disinterested flip of their hair to signify to us just how bored all of this actually makes them. Whatever. The fact the identical Earth is not explained was because they had no explanation to give. They were clear on that, and it seems pretty straightforward to me. Onto the story. I’ll take that over idiotic “Q” or TNG techno-babble any day.
  
  
• From Lighternote on 2012-10-06 at 12:55pm:
  I too, am very late to the great 'duplicate earth debate'. As far as I understand it physicists think that if our universe is infinite then not only would it be likely that there would be one duplicate of earth... But that it is almost a certainty that there would be an infinite number of duplicate earths along with an infinite amount of duplicate people. In fact, they have even calculated how far you would have to travel in order to reach another earth (it is, naturally a very, vey long way away). So, if the Star Trek universe is infinite, and warp drive let's you travel these extremely long distances then this episode is not as unbelievable as you would think!
  
  Great site by the way. Working through all Star Trek and love reading the reviews in conjunction!
• From Alan Feldman on 2013-03-19 at 12:57am:
  The timeline based on "Miri"
  
  I'm confused about this episode implying that Star Trek TOS takes place 300 years after its making. From the episode:
  
  KIRK: Identical. Earth, as it was in the early 1900s.
  
  SPOCK: More the, er, mid-1900s I would say, Captain, approximately 1960.
  
  OK. Spock is saying that the earth they're on is similar to what our earth was like in our 1960. Then we are told that the place has been like this for about 300 years. All this means is that our heroes find themselves in an earth-like place similar to what _our_ earth was like in _our_ 1960. Their 1960 could have been 100 years before ours. That would put our heroes about 200 years in the future, not 300. (OK, more like approx. 150, if you include the years that have passed since the show aired.)
  
  Am I missing something here?
  
  AEF, a.k.a. betaneptune
  
• From DK on 2013-04-23 at 9:20pm:
  I too loathe this episode.  For the longest time this was at the top of my list for the worst Star Trek episode.  Though it has since been eclipsed by a few episodes from later Star Trek incarnations 'Miri' has withstood the test of time to simultaneously annoy me and cause boredom as few episodes of any show have.  Miri has an intangible je ne sais quoi quality that sets it apart from all the rest.  I think the biggest problem was that during early syndication there were but a very few television channels and given the choice between any Star Trek and something else, I still chose to torture myself with 'Miri' which had the result of grinding in my dislike for this episode.  At least 'Spock's Brain' had the quality of being unintentionally funny.  'Miri' was just unintentionally bad.
  
  As for the duplicate earth debate, I understand your point.  There is no way a duplicate earth could evolve on its own and many of the explanations offered on this page do not hold much water.  And, I too have my pet peeves about certain aspects of Star Trek.  Chief among them are discontinuity issues that need not be there and are due to lazy writing.  That said,  I understand why the duplicate earth was in the script; to make the point that this could happen to us. Plus, similar objections to the absurd implausibility of a duplicate earth could be said of most any Star Trek episode; let's start with the problems associated with faster than light travel.  Absurd implausibility just isn't a road you want to go down when criticizing Star Trek but I guess it is still better than my 'je me sais quoi' objection.  I agree that the whole issue could have been handled better although a way that doesn't its self create problems of its own escapes me for the moment.
• From Schreck on 2013-05-23 at 8:04pm:
  Those kids are REALLY annoying, but regardless I didn’t hate the episode…I give it a 7 and my brother a 6.75
• From Alan Feldman on 2013-05-27 at 5:20am:
  Yet more on "Miri"
  
  OK, here's how you can have two identical earths: Macroscopic quantum entanglement! OK, just fibbing.
  
  I always thought Michael J. Pollard looked a little old for the part. Just checked: He's 8 years older than Kim Darby! Hah! Wait a minute . . . .
  
  From wikipedia: Kim Darby was born in 1947, making her 19 at the time! Michael J. Pollard was born in 1939, making him 27! Even worse than I thought.
  
  This type of thing happens from time to time in the entertainment industry.
  
  You have to admit that Kim Darby did a great acting job in this episode. Add to that the fact that she was a 19-year-old acting as a 13-year-old.
  
  KIRK: . . . We still don't know what we're fighting.
  MCCOY: No, but we know what it is and how fast it does it. It's progressing. We'll begin to feel it inside soon. Intense fever, great pain in the extremities, fuzziness of vision. Of course, those are the early symptoms. There'll be more.
  
  Hmmm. It didn't seem like they ever had any of these symptoms anytime in the show.
  
  Wait a minute. Kirk says they don't know what they're fighting, but McCoy says they know what it is. Isn't that a contradiction?
  
  Our heroes were there for what, a week? I hope Scotty beamed down some clean clothes!
  
  More on units: In astronomy we have the Hubble constant. In what units is it typically expressed? (km/s)/megaparsec. OK. First, a parsec is not an SI or metric unit. Second, the constant has dimensions of inverse time (the two distance units canceling out dimension-wise). So in the SI system the Hubble constant would be given in inverse seconds. But knowing the constant in inverse seconds makes it hard to interpret. When given in (km/s)/megaparsec it's quite clear. Assume the constant is 71 km/s/megaparsec. A galaxy's speed is then 71 km/second if it's 1 megaparsec away, 142 km/s if it's 2 megaparsecs away, etc. In SI units it would be some number of inverse seconds, and not very useful in that form. So this is yet another case where pure SI units (or metric, if you prefer) are not the best choice.
  
  Astronomy is guilty of still more non-metric units! Check the astronomical unit, the average distance from the Earth to the Sun. And then take stellar magnitudes. Not metric at all, and not even linear! A difference of five magnitudes means a factor of 100 in brightness, or energy output. In other words, a 1st magnitude star is 100 times brighter than a 6th magnitude star. Yes, a higher number means a dimmer object. Venus has a magnitude of about -4; the Moon, -13; and the Sun, -27, IIRC. How about _light-year_ as a unit? That's not metric! How old is the universe? About 13.7 billion _years_. A year is not a metric unit. In some cases it might be useful to convert it to seconds. That would be 4x10^17_s. (Underscore used to prevent possibly bad line break.) Sounds better in years, no?
  
  AEF, aka betaneptune
• From Deggsy on 2013-10-04 at 10:39pm:
  And on top of everything else wrong with it, the line from Spock: "It could be a beaker full of death." isn't even accurate. I thought it was a flask he held, not a beaker :-)
• From Ian Smith Adventures on 2013-10-17 at 9:26pm:
  i loved this episode. re-watching from the beginning, i would rank this and "what little girls are made of" as my two favorites so far. is there something wrong with me? :P though mudd's women was by far my least favorite so we're on the same page there. i found the situation to be intense and well-established, i liked the interaction between kirk and miri, and i liked the ending where kirk has to think like a child in order to get through to them, and mccoy takes a big risk to save the team. the fact that the duplicate earth thing isn't followed up on strikes me as a cool mystery to think about, tos is full of odd, cool things like this. i thought the main guest stars did a great job. thumbs up!
• From jeffenator98 on 2013-12-24 at 4:49pm:
  "All right everyone just leave your communicators lying around on a desk somewhere." Capt Kirk
• From Alan Feldman on 2014-04-16 at 10:46pm:
  Correction!
  
  In a previous post I wrote the following:
  
  "More on units: In astronomy we have the Hubble constant. In what units is it typically expressed? (km/s)/megaparsec. OK. First, a parsec is not an SI or metric unit. Second, the constant has dimensions of inverse time (the two distance units canceling out dimension-wise). So in the SI system the Hubble constant would be given in inverse seconds. But knowing the constant in inverse seconds makes it hard to interpret. When given in (km/s)/megaparsec it's quite clear. Assume the constant is 71 km/s/megaparsec. A galaxy's speed is then 71 km/second if it's 1 megaparsec away, 142 km/s if it's 2 megaparsecs away, etc. In SI units it would be some number of inverse seconds, and not very useful in that form. So this is yet another case where pure SI units (or metric, if you prefer) are not the best choice."
  
  OK, the Hubble constant is actually _also_ useful in SI units. Well, in inverse years instead of inverse seconds, anyway. When you work it out, H_0 = 71 (km/sec)/megaparsec = 7.26x10^-11 inverse years. Take the reciprocal of that and you get 13.8x10^9 years, the age of the universe!
  
  So it's useful both ways, contrary to my previous statement.
  
  AEF, a.k.a. betaneptune
• From Timmersan on 2016-01-10 at 8:51pm:
  Maybe Slartibartfast made all these identical Earths as a sort of practice,
• From Royy on 2016-11-16 at 8:45pm:
  I agree it is a difficult episode.
  
  The first one to have a visit to 'Earth' though?
  
  It is easy to judge these early episodes on the basis of much later material, but if we accept that the only explanation is either a parallel universe or even a time travelling Earth (why not?), then everything is more plausible.
  
  It isn't a patch on 'what little girls are made of' though.
• From Mike Chambers on 2020-09-12 at 6:23am:
  I really think you're a bit harsh on some of the TOS episodes. This isn't a good episode, but it's watchable. You can't expect TNG level stuff.
  
  If this were TNG, I'd give it a 0. But it's TOS, so I give it a 4. What TOS lacks in quality, acting chops and production value, it makes up for in campy, corny charm, and I watch it for what it is.
  
  Sometimes I'm just in the mood for TOS and enjoy seeing almost any episode.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Tim on 2006-05-07 at 7:50pm:
  I SO Agree with this review! Spot on. I HATE this Episode.
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2007-12-13 at 3:05pm:
  I just watched this episode with my wife and I have to say we were not entertained. I think the whole universe blinking out thing was too over the top. Neither of the two Lazaruses were interesting, especially compared to other guest stars you normally see on the show. Also, you can kind of tell when the actors think that the episode is bad; everyone seemed subdued here. I would have also liked a little more background about Lazarus and his people. There are so many unaswered questions. I gave this stinker a 1, not a zero, because it was original. That is the only good thing to say about it. Warning: do not watch this episode late at night, you'll fall asleep!
• From TashaFan on 2008-09-11 at 6:00am:
  I agree with every point made so far. Where is the parallel Enterprise? The other universe seems to be empty. How does "our" Enterprise limp away without retrieving the 2 dilithium crystals left in the parallel universe? Two particles, identical but one "anti" and one not, destroy EACH OTHER totally, not the ENTIRE UNIVERSE. And, the biggest problem, where the heck is the DOOR to Lazarus's ship? The front of it is just a big empty HOLE! He must get a lot of bugs in the face flying through the atmosphere.
• From b goldstein on 2012-01-08 at 3:56pm:
  It's nitpicky, I know, but Solar system is generic. It is a set of planets rotating around a star.
  
  Ours might be the "Sol system"
• From Kethinov on 2012-01-08 at 6:25pm:
  Sorry Goldstein, that isn't correct. Sol is the Latin term for our star. Thus the term "solar system" only refers to our system because the term "solar" is an adjective derived from Sol.
  
  A lot of people mistakenly believe "solar system" is a generic term precisely because Star Trek and other media like it made this error over and over again. But just because it's a common error doesn't make it any less an error.
  
  If you pay close attention, you'll notice that later Star Trek eventually corrected themselves and began using more correct terms over time, although the occasional error will still creep in.
• From Mark on 2012-05-02 at 3:23am:
  Wow! I'm watching all of the original series episodes on Netflix. I've loved them so far. Then I came to this one. I thought to myself that this one MUST be the worst episode ever. On a whim, I Googled "worst Star Trek episode," and this page came up. I LOVE that I'm not alone in disliking this episode. However, Uhura's legs are awesome.
• From Cameron on 2012-08-22 at 8:27pm:
  I agree in so many ways -- there's nothing resembling a story arc, just a bunch of disjointed incidents. As for the "science," I'm willing to suspend disbelief for something dramatically compelling.
  
  But my next point: I frankly envy you who are so dismissive that the harshly disturbing resolution didn't "implant" in your brain like with many of us. I was on a forum with a woman saying she saw this years ago and it still bothers her. Me, too - for all this episode's sins I give it a perverse credit. The idea of the ultimate sacrifice being not death, but having to eternally endure combat in that nauseatingly spinning chamber. It still bugs me when I'm reminded of it. Maybe a quality episode could be made with a similar ending - but I'm not sure I'd enjoy it.
• From warpfactor 10.1 on 2012-09-10 at 1:24pm:
  I want 50 minutes of my life back. This was so tedious. I wish I had read your review first and avoided it. I did fall asleep for part of the time and I can only be thankful for that. Don't watch it; you'll hate yourself.
• From Tom Gettins on 2012-09-16 at 8:48pm:
  I watched this episode as a kid - and I found the payoff (Lazarus fighting a loony for eternity to save the Universe) quite haunting.
  
  
  Bad science? What bad science? It happened people!
  There IS a small corridor between parallel universes to act as a safety cut out for bad AM confinement.
  
  We owe thanks to the original research carried out by Star Trek writers.
  
  Otherwise we wouldn't know that Anti Matter only affects people that it is related to.
• From Glenn239 on 2012-10-20 at 12:13pm:
  '1'. My favorite bit is where Star Fleet determines that a threat to the entire galaxy exists in Enterprise's sector, so it runs away and tells Kirk to handle it alone.
  
  I save '0' scores for episodes so bad that I would not watch them again, being wretched enough that I don't even consider them part of the series. This one is horrendous, up there with waterboarding if inflicted repeatedly upon prisoners against their will, but not quite so traumatic that I can't rule out another peek in 10 or 20 years.
  
• From Oz on 2012-12-16 at 4:42am:
  The use of uncapitalzed (or spoken) "solar system" to refer to another sun with its associated planets is fine. This is much the same as the Church largely refers to the Catholic church, where "church" is any church. I don't think we would call our solar cells something else just because we were on Vulcan. "Sol" refers to the Roman sun god. Great website by the way.
• From Kethinov on 2012-12-16 at 7:09am:
  Thanks Oz.
  
  The use of "solar system" is definitely not correct. It's not a generic term, it's a proper noun. People get this wrong a lot and most science fiction frequently misuses the term.
• From Sloop on 2013-08-30 at 2:05pm:
  This is the first TOS episode I had to watch a second time just to take it all in. With regards sloppy science, pacing, repetitive effects etc, almost all of the TOS episodes have plotholes so I think we should cut 'Alternative' some slack. Its ambition alone makes it a worthy episode. For me, Mudd's Women is the poorest season 1 episode.
• From Tooms on 2013-09-07 at 3:17am:
  I think it would be more correct to say there is no standard term for a star and planetary system outside of the solar system. If there is no official term, I don't think it's necessarily an error to use solar system. It's possible that will eventually be the standard term. It's just not something that we've needed a term for until recently. The study of geology on another planet would probably still be called geology even though geo means "earth".
  
  As for this episode, definitely a 0!
• From Kethinov on 2013-09-08 at 7:00am:
  There is a standard term. The term is "planetary system" which is well documented by the scientific community.
  
  Geology on other planets is still geology. The Latin root comparison is wrong because "geo" is the Latin word for earth, not Earth. The term "earth" can be generic to refer to the ground or soil, whereas "Earth" is a proper noun referring to our specific planet.
  
  Such is not the case with Sol. There is no accepted generic form like with earth and Earth.
• From John on 2013-09-09 at 11:22pm:
  I have just watched the episode and, of course, I immediately hit the internet with a search for a review...I found the episode irritating at best, and I needed to see I am not alone in being totally dumbfounded by the 'science', the plot and the uninspired acting.
  With regard to the science, I understand that writers were under no obligation to provide scientifically accurate details to their stories. Even if it was a not-so-secret agenda of the show to promote interest in science, kindling interest in something is not the same thing as explaining it or teaching it. You learn science from books on science, not from a tv fantasy show. However, kindling interest is one of the things what they dismally failed to do here. The confusion caused by Kirk touching antimatter to go into the parallel universe (as antimatter?) then coming back to send...whatever, its irritatingly confounded!!
  As for the ending, it is haunting, true. But it comes after such a bungle of ideas and underdeveloped themes that it loses much of its force. It is a pity as the theme of personal sacrifice (with its references to abortion, public health and social policies) is an important and recurring theme throughout the star trek shows. It would have made an excellent contribution to the franchise but not this terribly scripted stinker.
  Excellent site, by the way!!
• From Tooms on 2013-09-11 at 7:20am:
  The term planetary system does not include the star. Sol and it's planetary system make up the Solar System. Much as you compare earth to Earth, you could also compare the Solar System to a solar system. You could use extrasolar system to be more descriptive, but there is no standard term for a star and its planetary system other than our own.
• From Kethinov on 2013-09-11 at 4:03pm:
  Tooms, your post is full of misinformation.
  
  "The term planetary system does not include the star."
  
  Yes it does. A planetary system cannot exist without something for the planets to orbit. The term necessarily implies a central star.
  
  "Sol and it's planetary system make up the Solar System. Much as you compare earth to Earth, you could also compare the Solar System to a solar system."
  
  There is no "solar system" generic term. The term literally doesn't exist. Lots of people think it does, but it doesn't. It's not recognized by the scientific community. There is only "Solar System" the proper noun.
  
  "You could use extrasolar system to be more descriptive, but there is no standard term for a star and its planetary system other than our own."
  
  That's not true. There is a standard term. The term you're looking for (and what Star Trek is looking for) is "planetary system." That's the term the scientific community uses when referring to a system of planets orbiting an arbitrary star.
  
  There's tons of information out there confirming what I've been saying. Look it up!
• From jeffenator98 on 2013-09-26 at 6:08pm:
  My favorite part is when Lazarus opens the panel in the hallway and switches a couple of Radio Shack type fuzes to start a fire.Uhuras legs are awesome.
• From Deggsy on 2013-10-05 at 12:30am:
  Part (but not all) of the incoherence in the story is due to extensive rewrites caused because originally, there was a romantic subplot between Lazarus and Lt Masters, but the actress hired was black and the network didn't want to upset the Southern markets, so it was hastily rewritten to put in more planetside scenes of Lazarus falling and other crap.
• From Tony Cole on 2013-11-16 at 1:32am:
  I really think you people need to get over the solar vs. planetary argument.
  Who cares?
  The last comment I read was the most compelling. The one about the deleted romance. It explained a lot of the disjointed scenes, the repetitive, boring hikes on the planets surface, the lack of scenes with anti-matter Lazarus. Even as a young kid I remember the controversy over Kirk's kiss with Uhura. But I agree this one's a stinker!
• From SheriDH on 2014-02-03 at 12:50am:
  As I watched this episode, I kept wondering where Scotty (James Doohan) was? Lt. Masters had a blue uniform (usually implying science or medicine although that's not consistent in the series), what was she doing in engineering with no sign of Mr. Scott?
  
  Interesting comment about the scenes that implied a romance between Lazarus and Masters being deleted - what's the source for that?
• From Scott Hearon on 2014-03-31 at 9:33pm:
  Wow. Atrocious episode, on nearly every level.
  
  I would give a blow-by-blow of what bothered me, but Kethinov and all of the other commenters have done it for me.
  
  On top of the serious logical errors with the plot, the episode was just plain boring. Raving psychos are usually boring, and Lazarus was another example (and what are the chances that some dude from a far-off planetary system is named "Lazarus," anyway?). The acid-trip wrestling matches were equally tedious.
  
  I had read that this episode was bad, but I'm forcing myself to watch the entire first season (I've never seen any of them before), the good, the bad, and the ugly. The one was one of the absolute worst, along with "Miri."
• From Mike Chambers on 2016-10-02 at 6:35am:
  Horrible science aside, this episode actually would have been decent if you were to cut out about 30 minutes of completely useless scenes.
• From Chris on 2018-01-21 at 3:16am:
  I'm late to the Solar system debate and I understand Kethinov's complaint, however, I hear astronomers refer to OUR solar system all the time which would imply that there are others. While it may be technically incorrect, everyone understands what is meant. Just sayin'...
  
  How come no one mentions the goofy Jetsons spaceship?!? What a ridiculous craft!!!
  

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Matt on 2010-02-08 at 11:25pm:
  The race is not alien. It's implied that this civilization is an old human colony whose origin has become a mystery to its own people. Therefore the morphological and cultural similarities you bemoan are actually quite...logical.
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2010-07-10 at 3:12am:
  It's amazing that it takes Kirk and Mccoy so long to discover that the crystals inside the crewmembers' outfits are human remains. Were they thinking, "gee, all the crewmembers must have taken their clothes off and sprinkled salt on everything"?
  
  Also, since in the previous episode, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy all saw the entire crew turned into crystals, it's insulting to the viewer that Kirk and company can't figure it out.
  
  That's as specific as I'm going to get about this episode. It's doesn't deserve analyzing because it's just a mountain of stupid jibberish. And to think, this story was one of the original pilot episode ideas.
  
  Just a note about the issue of the inhabitants looking human: A deleted scene had McCoy, Kirk, and Spock saying the races on the planet were the descendents of early human space travelers. It's not cannon, but it's a little interesting, and probably would have helped the episode.
  
  
• From Scott on 2011-06-01 at 2:24pm:
  I'm watching season two episode by episode, and this is easily the worst so far. Actually, the first half is not too bad. But then it degenerates into execrable Yankee-doodle-dandy cold-war jingoism that is utterly out of place for a series in which humans have supposedly moved on from nationalism. The reverence with which Kirk fawns over the US flag and constitution almost made me puke. I suspect that many Americans would feel the same.
  
  Urgh.
• From warp factor 10.1 on 2012-08-10 at 11:05pm:
  I'm confused. Didn't the original inhabitants of the United States look like the Kohms? Didn't the people who almost wiped them all out look more like Kirk? Aren't they the ones that wrote the constitution of the U.S.A. and had the 'stars and stripes' as their flag?
  
  OK, so maybe history was getting distorted but if so why did Kirk come over so moist eyed?
  
  More questions than answers here but given what I had always thought was an ahead of its time 'equality premise' to Star Trek this was disturbingly racist.
  
  Why didn't George Takei walk off the set? Sorry, another question.
  
  Is it possible to give it a negative score? (another question)
  
  
  
• From Glenn239 on 2012-09-29 at 3:46pm:
  Um, sorry to interrupt the end-of-episode feel good romp guys, but there is an unmanned but fully operational Constitution Class starship still in orbit. Shouldn't you be towing it back to starbase or something? I’m pretty sure it’s still valuable.”
  
  Ok. I grant you parts of this one are cringeworthy, but I got over the ham sandwich of the American flag popping out from nowhere pretty quickly. This episode makes a prescient prediction; American core values tested under the most extreme societal conditions will emerge intact and victorious over rival totalitarian ideology. ‘Omega Glory’ means that at the end of the struggle American principles will stand long after communism is buried. So this episode called the outcome of the Cold War and even has something to say about the ideological struggle underway in the Middle East right now. Normally when Star Trek hit the bulls eye it got a pat on the back. ‘7’.
  
• From Tooms on 2013-11-09 at 10:05pm:
  How dare Kirk admire the flag of his homeland and one of the greatest documents ever written. Huh? Yes this episode took a very cheesy turn, but all the preaching in the comments is far more annoying than the plot.
• From Vandervecken on 2014-01-10 at 5:17pm:
  People are way too harsh on this episode. It's awesome for Morgan Woodward's Captain Tracey alone.
• From jd_juggler on 2015-03-24 at 10:35pm:
  The episode ended without telling us what happened to Captain Tracy. He murdered thousands; shouldn't he pay for his crimes?
  
  I hope someone reminded Sulu and the rest of the landing party to wait a couple hours before beaming up, to have a chance to build up an immunity.
• From Martin on 2015-03-30 at 5:59am:
  As someone who is not American and has studied history, political science as well as having seen many documentaries on political philosophy and American history on you tube and PBS, I feel a lot of people misinterpret this episode.
  
  In the final scenes this episode shows the American flag and people think that it is an example of American jingoism.
  
  I hear Kirk's recitation of the preamble of the Constitution and believe that the episode is an excellent defense of the values of the enlightenment and Rule of Law.
  
  The enlightenment produced a number of political philosophers that have established the democratic societies that we value today. They were not just American philosophers like Jefferson, Adams, and Madison but also European philosophers like Adam Smith, Locke and Rousseau.
  
  What's wrong with the preamble?
  
  "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
  
  These are the words that can establish peace between the Yangs and the Kohms and reestablish individual rights and rule of law.
  
  Move over this episode remains relevant today given how laws are changing throughout the western world as we try to find a balance of individual freedom and the need for order as the West tries to find a way contain Islamic terrorism.
  
  There are many things that American have a right to be proud of.
  
  I don't harp on the so-called "racism" as you do. We are living in an age where these centers in the world could possibly destroy each other.
  
  The world has a lot of challenges to overcome in the next 100 years.
• From Chris on 2018-08-21 at 6:45pm:
  Wow, Matt cleared it all up!
  What nonsense!
  The show sucked and was a huge pant load.
  
  One factoid left out is that Spock has tried in the past to teach Kirk the Vulcan neck pinch.
• From Chris on 2019-01-01 at 8:23pm:
  An addendum to my previous comment which no one has read, nor will read...
  I don't mind Kirk's ramble about the Constitution and I actually liked this part of the episode more than the rest of it! IT IS meant for everyone!
  
  I get sick of the 'good' natives in ST as being blonde haired, studly folk and am constantly amazed that Nichols and Takai never bailed on the show!
  
  They needed to explain the reason for Early age American explorers being there in the first place, and if it is true that this was a line deleted from the aired show, they also needed to explain why the Chinese segment of that expedition decided to go all Kohm on the whitish folk!
  Then too, why wasn't Khan aware of this expedition?
  Why were these folks so stupid? They clearly would have had leftover techno-nonsense that would have carried them initially and they'd have built upon those things! Ideas do not die that easily.
  This show needs to 'splain a lot to get over its discrepancies, of which it will never be able to.
• From Chris on 2019-01-01 at 8:58pm:
  Wait... whaaa?
  How did I miss this part in your review?!?
  
  Please describe the scene to which you are referring! Even the Mem Alpha site never mentions this!
  
  Kirk NEVER learned the neck pinch and he certainly NEVER did on in Return of the Archons!!! He does, however, give a couple Karate chops to the neck of a Landrite(?) and then after Spock clocks the other one with his fist instead of the pinch, asks, "Isn't that a bit old fashioned?!?"
  
  I don't believe I misread your words...

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From rhea on 2008-04-27 at 8:24pm:
  The episode also explores the relationship of the trio and Spock’s true feelings for Kirk more than most other episodes did (The Tholian Web is one other in which this is done expertly). Spock coming as close to admitting that he cared for Kirk (by denying McCoy’s accusations of not having feelings in a way) – it is wonderfully done, very much in character for Spock. The same happens in The Tholian Web, when Spock answer’s McCoy’s “It does hurt, doesn’t it” with “What would you have me say.” Such good writing!
  I therefore love the McCoy/Spock arguments in the jail cell. This and Spock “kicking some Gladiator ass” made me give this episode quite a good rating.
  
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2010-08-21 at 12:06am:
  This is a dull episode. For a modern day Rome, the city seemed pretty dead (except for the shaky of urban 1960's file footage). Everything just seemed like an excuse for a fighting sequence. One scene that WAS exceptional was the emotional conversation Spock and Mccoy had in the jail cell. It was remarkable.
• From Wiley Hyena on 2012-05-14 at 7:02pm:
  The reviewer missed the mark here. Just because there is a Christianity theme here doesn't mean it is evangalism, nor does it interfere with the progressive nature of the show. Historically, the Roman empire succumbed to Christianity and adopted it. So I think the reviewer places too much criticism on this point, when the purpose of the episode was to explore a world where the Romans actually maintained their empire into modern times. This episode is very entertaining and one most remember as a kid. Give it a 6.
• From Strider on 2012-06-21 at 3:26am:
  I've read some pretty disparaging reviews of this episode, and while some of the science is a little screwy, I think there's some truly wonderful character work in it. This is Kirk at his most Kirk-like...confident, in charge, watching out for his crew but trusting them as well. I was getting tired of too many angsty, doubt-ridden, weak Kirk moments. Kirk is a strong, totally in control leader all the way through, and it's awesome.
  
  Spock lets some emotion out--irritation, humor, anxiety--and gets called on it by McCoy, leading to a deeply emotional moment between the two as they share their concern for Kirk. McCoy is at his most bitchy and in Spock's face all the time, but still prods Spock to new levels of self disclosure.
  
  I'm not thrilled with the treatment of the Prime Directive--up till now, didn't we understand that the PD was absolute unless they had to defend themselves? How can there possibly NOT be an exemption for that?
  
  And I do sort of wish that Kirk hadn't sexed the slave...can he NEVER resist a woman EVER? I mean, she was a SLAVE, she can't give free consent! A new low for studly Kirk.
  
  The Sun/Son thing, indicating that Christianity arose within the Roman Empire in this reality as well, makes sense, and I understand why they couldn't really follow up on it. It was a neat little twist that could have been more, but it's okay that it wasn't. It didn't bother me.
  
  On a personal note, speaking as a woman, these men in these costumes are so hot I watched the episode 3 times in one day. Spock fighting in the arena in those tight pants? Whew... And I didn't realize McCoy was so tall, but he's almost as tall as Spock. Add the emotional intensity, and it was a pretty satisfying episode, despite the occasional plot ridiculousness.
  
  Anyway, good character work...
• From Dos Flores on 2012-12-28 at 6:47pm:
  "It's kind of a shame too, because unlike Miri and The Omega Glory, this was a pretty entertaining episode. Sure it was a story about yet another Federation citizen tainting a society with yet another alien race that looks exactly like humans and yet another set of plot contrivances which exist solely to get the cast captured and forced to fight for the amusement of others, but when you set aside the cliches, this episode actually has a lot to offer. The idea of a Roman Empire which never fell and became much like the 20th century United States is intriguing. In this fictional society, slavery evolved into some form of wage slavery and the gladiator games were broadcast live on television with a characteristically familiar obsession with television ratings. Sure these details are gimmicky, but they're also pretty damn funny."
  This is all quite true, which makes your overall episode rating of 0 a bit baffling. Zero? Not one point? Huh...
  Lots of problems, to be sure, but even you seem to see at least some entertainment value. And you've rated other episodes more highly while apparently finding much loss to say in their favor. I guess I'm just wondering what's up with that.
• From Kethinov on 2012-12-28 at 8:27pm:
  It doesn't matter how charming the villain was or how amusing certain plot details were. The premise was fundamentally unworkable. I don't award points to episodes with fundamentally unworkable premises.
• From Alan Feldman on 2013-03-25 at 2:43am:
  BREAD AND CIRCUSES
  
  Factoid: Ian Wolfe, who played Septimus here, also played Mr. Atoz in "All Our Yesterdays".
  
  OK, here's my chief question about this episode:
  
  Just how did Kirk et al. expect to get to Captain Merik and haul him away? The closer they get, the more likely they are to be caught -- especially with Flavius Maximus, perhaps the most recognizable slave on the planet, leading the way! (Flavius should at least wear a disguise.) And they're somehow going to keep an entire machine gun-toting police force at bay while they question Merik? Even if they used their phasers, chances are _someone's_ bullets would get them.
  
  And why did our heroes beam down in Federation garb?
  
  What was Claudius Marcus doing by an iridium quarry?
  
  Great discussion with Bones and Spock in the cell. And other fun moments here and there, as already mentioned by others.
  
  I think this is the strictest application of the Prime Directive in the entire series. No chance at all for Spock to ask Kirk at the end of the episode if they violated it. Even in "The Omega Glory", where Kirk enters into his log, "A star captain's most solemn oath is that he will give his life, even his entire crew, rather than violate the Prime Directive", Spock gets to question Kirk about their actions at the end.
  
  Let's see, in real Rome there's the huge Colosseum. Here we have a tiny TV studio.
  
  Notice that when Kirk fires at the cell door lock, nothing hits it!
  
  CLAUDIUS: Question, Captain?
  KIRK: The rules. If Spock should finish his man off first, would he be able to help
  CLAUDIUS: We believe men should fight their own battles. Only the weak will die. My word as a Roman. Ready to order your men down, Captain?
  
  Why this is a surprise to anyone is beyond me. On the other hand, why have two fights at the same time? What is Spock supposed to do when he finishes his opponent off first? Just stand there and watch? Walk off stage? Wave to the crowd?
  
  MERIK: Maybe now you understand why I gave in. The Romans have always been the strongest, and they've had practice for over two thousand years in enslaving men, using them, killing them.
  
  Hmmm. I wouldn't want to serve under this dude! And I don't follow his reasoning.
  
  CLAUDIUS: Quite true, Captain Kirk. The games have always strengthened us. Death becomes a familiar pattern. We don't fear it as you do.
  
  "We don't fear [death] as you do?" I don't see Claudius volunteering to fight. Ridiculous. Not fearing death gets weeded out by natural selection.
  
  Amazing how well Scotty's power disruption was timed! Virtually down to the second!
  
  Here's one thing that violates Hodgkin's law: Kirk's night with Drusilla. Bizarre.
  
  The wikipedia article on Roddenberry says that "he . . . considered himself a humanist and agnostic. He saw religion as the cause of many wars and human suffering." Yet he co-wrote this episode, which favors Christianity! Go figure.
  
  A zero? You'd rather watch "The Empath"? Other than that, I mostly agree with your review.
  
  AEF, aka betaneptune
• From Trekkie on 2014-04-03 at 8:16pm:
  Your review is too biased. You only give this a 0 because you're biased against Christianity. This much is clear. If you truly understood the spirit of star trek you would have caught the meaning.
  
  At the end, McCoy said the 'sun' philosophy was "A philosophy of total love and total brotherhood." Then they all smiled, knowingly. Clearly, the united federation of planets is based on such a philosophy.
  
  Part of that philosophy is also to respect others. By not keeping your bias out, this is why your review fundamentally fails in our terms, and as well on the spirit of Star Trek.
• From Kethinov on 2014-04-04 at 12:44am:
  What are you on about? The ending of this episode was just oozing with Christian evangelism. It's hard to miss. As for my "bias" against evangelizing Christianity, I can well assure you that had any other religion been as shamelessly evangelized in this fashion, I'd be equally annoyed.
• From Trekkie on 2014-04-04 at 11:32pm:
  You missed the point of what i was trying to explain. The point I was trying to make was that this episode gave us insights into some of the very root philosophies in the united federation of planets. All of the people on the bridge, in the scene at the end of 'Bread and Circuses', understood what was happening on the planet after Uhura explained it wasn't the 'sun' but the 'son'. They all had understanding expressions of what that implied.
  
  
  Kirk said "Caesar and Christ. They had them both. And the word is spreading only now." Then McCoy said in understanding "A philosophy of total love and total brotherhood." To which Spock also understood by saying "It will replace their imperial Rome, but it will happen in their twentieth century." Then kirk longlingly says "Wouldn't it be something to watch, to be a part of? To see it happen all over again?". His line shed light on an understanding that he had which we don't have. Perhaps that philosophy was the key one that helped bind people after the 3rd world war, and/or was a basis of the united federation of planets.
  
  In TOS season 3, the episode 'Whom Gods Destroy', when Garth was mocking the peace mission to Axanar, Kirk said "They were humanitarians and statesmen, and they had a dream. A dream that became a reality and spread throughout the stars, a dream that made Mister Spock and me brothers." Garth asked Spock if he agreed and Spock said "Captain Kirk speaks somewhat figuratively and with undue emotion. However, what he says is logical and I do, in fact, agree with it."
  
  'Bread and Circuses' is a very powerful episode that sheds light on some deep roots about the philosophy of the united federation of planets, a philosophy of total love and total brotherhood. It showed that both humans and vulcans understand this philosophy is a stable ground to build on. It just so happens to be one of the deepest philosophies of this planet as well, now, and today, in real life.
  
  So this is why i strongly disagree with your 0 for this episode, because it showed us a bit about how their world got to where it was, and it ranks least a 7 imho.
• From Kethinov on 2014-04-05 at 1:27am:
  That has got to be the most generous interpretation I've ever seen for any episode of Star Trek. Personally, I think you're reading way too much into it (as would most other people I suspect).
  
  But that's not really what's important here. Regardless of whether or not there is supposed to be some deep spiritual insight in this story about the Federation's origins if you read between the lines hard enough, it doesn't really matter.
  
  What matters is the entire story was implausible from the very first moment. "Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development" is scientific rubbish, unworthy of a science fiction.
  
  The story was entertaining, but we should not award points to blatant pseudoscience.
• From Harrison on 2014-07-20 at 1:39am:
  It's cornball, the core premise is painfully implausible, and there's a shamelessly manipulative appeal to shallow, majoritarian morality -- perhaps to mitigate earlier episodes that offended by purveying what was perceived by some as communitarian, even anti-capitalist ethics.
  
  With two liberal Jewish actors in the lead roles, there may have been some overcompensation going on, perhaps to blunt criticism that Star Trek was internationalist, Social-Democratic propaganda. There were a few episodes in season 2 and 3 - "Omega Glory" being the most obvious - that struck me this way.
  
  But the episode doesn't warrant a zero by any standard. There's solid acting, and some unusually strong character development for the series. The notion of 20th century Rome is a clever one, and the writers did pretty well fleshing it out in a 50-minute window.
• From Kethinov on 2014-07-20 at 6:38am:
  If the core premise was painfully implausible, that's it. It doesn't matter how good the actors were or how entertaining the villain was. It can't be worth any points if the core premise was painfully implausible.
  
  I find Voy: Threshold to be highly entertaining. One of my favorite zeroes to rewatch. Absolutely chock full of comedy, both intentional and unintentional. But I don't give it any points either because it's equally implausible.
• From Alan Feldman on 2014-11-10 at 3:01am:
  "BREAD AND CIRCUSES" post #2:
  
  Notice that in the news broadcast at the beginning of the episode, one of the fighters is Claudius Marcus! Is that our "delightfully amusing villain," or someone else with the same name?
  
  In my first post I said this was probably the strictest application of the Prime Directive in the series. Actually, this is _not_ true at the beginning of the episode. Quite the opposite, in fact!
  
  Our heroes beam down in Federation garb and bring their phaser guns. Spock brings his tricorder and bones brings his own device. Kirk tries to grab his phaser when our heroes are first caught by the escaped slaves, he uses his communicator to ask Scotty to count people from afar, and Bones examines the natives with his little cylinder thing. And all this starts less than a minute after Kirk and Bones recite the PD!
  
  Add to that the following:
  
  KIRK: Perhaps you've heard, let's say, an impossible story or a rumor of men who came from the sky or from other worlds.
  SEPTIMUS: There are no other worlds.
  KIRK: The stars.
  SEPTIMUS: Lights shining through from heaven. It is where the sun is. Blessed be the sun.
  
  When Kirk and Bones recite the P.D., they're doing it for our benefit, not Spock's, of course. But surprisingly it doesn't come out all that awkward.
  
  This is one of the few episodes where the unexpected speaking of English is mentioned and remarked upon. The other episodes include "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and "Metamorphosis." Any others? I wish I had a text file of each transcript! It would make questions like this quite easy to answer (well, assuming no typos, of course).
  
  As for sun worship in the Roman Empire: Why can't there be something that's not exactly "paralleled"? That would be more likely than everything being paralleled, no? Not "illogical" in my opinion.
  
  Re "pseudoscience": In TOS, phasers and photon torpedoes somehow make sounds in the vacuum of space, which is not possible. (They sound pretty cool, though!) Faster-than-light travel is almost certainly a no-go. (If you learn the theory of special relativity and how well confirmed it is, you will see why.) And see my list of absurdities in my review of "Sky is Hollow." But I watch Star Trek for fun, the characters, the great chemistry between the characters, how they deal with situations, action sequences, interesting ideas and such. Keep in mind that there's only so much you can do with the limited time and money they had to work with (hence, Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Development). Sometimes it's either Hodgkin's Law or nothing. ... In spite of all this, I still love the show.
  
  I agree that Bones saying, "We represent many beliefs," is hardly characteristic of an enlightened future. But it does represent enlightened _tolerance_.
  
  SPOCK: Sun worship is usually a primitive superstition religion.
  
  Current religions are, in part, modern-day superstition. He said nothing about any religion's validity -- just that sun worship is characteristic of primitive societies. And some religions are sillier than others. Why would they be all the same?
  
  Yeah, the evangelism bit at the end is pretty obnoxious and cringe-worthy. And ironic in that Shatner and Nimoy are both Jewish.
  
  >----o----<
  
  To Strider - Kirk weak? He's only human and it's nice to see he has _some_ weaknesses. And I always rooted for Spock when he played Kirk in chess, and was always a little annoyed when Kirk won. But he's still our hero.
  
  On Kirk resisting women: he resisted Eve in "Mudd's Women," Helen Noel in "Dagger of the Mind," and Dr. Wallace in "The Deadly Years." (I assume you meant women who were after him. OK, it's not clear what happened with Eve. I suspect some random rewriting occurred.) Oh, and there's Yeoman Rand! He resisted the Dohlman in the end, and without McCoy's cure. He resisted almost all the women that weren't after him.
  
  AEF
• From derek on 2016-04-07 at 9:38am:
  Actually there is nothing in real-life science proclaiming that humanoids and even a duplicate of the Roman Empire could not evolve on another planet.
• From Kethinov on 2016-04-08 at 6:17pm:
  *rolls eyes*
• From Chris on 2018-03-21 at 8:27pm:
  An absolutely stupid episode which should have been burned on a pyre!
  
  I'm really confused as to how it was even cleared for production by Roddenberry knowing his feelings on religion!
  
  I view the man much like myself or most of our Founding Fathers... a Deist.
  
  The show was a complete amalgam of nonsense and stupidity!!!
  
  ... and my eyes rolled at Derek's comment along with yours!
  
• From John on 2019-08-09 at 2:03pm:
  I don't agree with your implication that Christianity is superstition, but to each his own.
• From Azalea Jane on 2023-08-29 at 6:01am:
  UGH. The implication that these egalitarian pacifists were actually Christians, and that this is a good thing, utterly turns my stomach. Keep that obscene Christian filth out of my good, wholesome Star Trek! (Didn't Big J say something about not bringing peace, but a sword, and setting brother against brother? Didn't he also conspicuously fail to condemn slavery? But I digress.) Plus, all of this misunderstanding is hinging on a PUN? Son/sun? I wonder how they translate that whole thing into any other language.
  
  I could barely believe it. I thought it was a misdirect at first. But no, here's my beloved Star Trek, otherwise famously secular and humanistic, suddenly condoning one of the most backwards, brutal, destructive, illogical, asinine, insane belief systems ever devised by our species. Sure, you can give the writers the benefit of the doubt and interpret this to mean that these people were about to go through their "Christian phase," so to speak, presumably ultimately on the way to the secular, fully-automated luxury socialist space utopia we see in Star Trek, but I do NOT buy the assumption that Christianity was at all inevitable or necessary to progress.
  
  This would have been kind of an OK episode without that end twist (delivered by my girl Uhura, to make it even worse). Ridiculous premise, even for Star Trek, but it wasn't without merit. The scene between Spock and McCoy in the jail cell was quite good. It's painfully obvious throughout TOS (so far) that Spock is severely overcompensating. Of *course* he feels all the things McCoy points out. Even if he were full Vulcan, the emotions are still there; Vulcans just suppress their outward expression. But he's part Human, and he's in heavy denial/repression of his Human half. (This is explored, quite well IMO, in Strange New Worlds, where we see a somewhat younger Spock serving under Pike. Spock wasn't always so stridently anti-emotion and didn't always so thoroughly reject his Humanity.)
  
  This episode leaves me feeling so icky, I feel like I need to go rewatch "Who Watches the Watchers?". Or take a shower. Or both.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From pjotrwolf on 2017-04-02 at 9:32pm:
  There is not so much difference between the magic of the megas and the "omnipotence" of Q or other beings of the Q continuum. The Squire of Gothos does similar sorcery. I wonder why their powers and conjuring tricks are not questioned for rational explanations.
• From Hugo on 2020-09-02 at 4:53pm:
  Isn't it a bit similar to the TNG pilot? A omnipotent being holding humanity at trial... ?

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Frankie on 2015-02-06 at 9:08pm:
  As ridiculous as this episode is, I still find it hard to dislike. It was an interesting change to see Spock, Sulu, and Uhura on a mission. But for me, the Kzinti were the absolute best part of the episode, especially with their revulsion to vegetarianism, which produced several cheesy yet memorable lines: "The human… he's too alien. He makes me taste yellow root crushed between flat teeth."

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From MarkMcC on 2008-12-01 at 3:24am:
  Regarding giving birth to a 100+lb person, I guess people in that universe start off dead, spring to life as an old person and gradually get younger. Then when they're close to death (as an infant) they pop back up into their mother's womb and die when the egg defertilizes?
  
  This is followed by the person's parents having backwards sex - it's probably best not to think too hard about how that works in practice!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From JRPoole on 2008-04-21 at 5:55pm:
  I just watched this again for some reason, and I'm in almost total agreement with the review here. This is embarrassingly bad. Although I like the general premise of a messianic Vulcan cult leader, I think it's riduculous to make him Spock's brother, and his character is, as the review mentions, very broadly drawn at best.
  
  To me, this seems like a Trek movie made by folks who didn't really know or understand Trek. The Klingons are broad parodies of Klingons. The "Planet of Peace" idea is too stupid for words, and the people inhabiting the bar there look like they belong in Space Balls, especially the incredibly stupid cat woman stripper who attacks Kirk. Another really terrible scene is Uhura's song-and-dance routine used to distract the cult leaders at the outpost. The sound mixing is horrible here, but the bigger problem is that their reaction to her little song and dance is ridiculous, a failed attempt at comic relief at best.
  
  And then we have "god" himself. I love the idea that the movie kills "god," as it's in fitting with the Star Trek philosophy, but this character was rendered in an exceptionally stupid way. And why make Spock the gunner on the Klingon ship?
  
  One side note: there's more than a little hint about a budding relationship between Scotty and Uhura here. Is my memory failing me, or is this an isolated thing?
• From Glenn239 on 2012-10-25 at 12:56pm:
  ‘4’. I liked the general idea of this movie and hated Shatner’s execution. It’s not too bad before they pass through the galactic barrier, but it’s literally unwatchable from that point on. Where to begin. Row, row, row your boat, Shatner’s insane free-face rock climbing bit, Sulu and Chekov getting lost and then going to ridiculous lengths to cover up, Scotty and Uhura – WTF was that?, Uhura’s embarrassing song scene, the ship’s silly malfunctions, the overall ‘cheap meets cheese’ feel to the costumes, sets, and special effects. The sloppy script problems. Worst of all, the epically bad ending.
  
  It could have worked. The idea of a messianic figure leading an unauthorized mission was solid. A little like Asimov’s Mule from Foundation and Empire. Sybok was a good character idea. He’s just as conflicted between selfishness and honor as was Khan, but oohh, he’s ten times more mysterious.
  
  Keep Sybok as is, but Darth Vader did not build C3PO and Sybok is not Spock’s half brother. Lose the planet of peace. Sure, have a solar system with 3-way jurisdiction, but make it a credible arrangement. Presumably Enterprise can rendezvous with a Romulan and Klingon ship, to go as an international force to restore order, because of the divided political status of the star system. So now the Klingons are in the movie with a credible motive. You know, something other than being tired of shooting at space junk. At the planet, the three commanders naturally fall out about how to handle the situation. And Sybok, when he does take over the remaining ships, he’s is not looking for God. Maybe he’s on a dangerous political quest. Say to Organia or something.
  
• From Jeffenator98 on 2013-08-01 at 7:15pm:
  When Kirk says "I lost a brother once" McCoy should have said "Oh that's right George."
• From BrentNorth on 2013-12-15 at 3:09am:
  The one brief moment in Star Trek V that I truly love is the beautiful shot of the Enterprise in front of the moon, along with the quote, "All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by."
  
  Otherwise, The Final Frontier strikes me as a wasted opportunity. It gets points for at least trying to tackle interesting subject matter (God), but of course fails miserably for the most part.
• From kevin on 2014-02-12 at 12:11am:
  Starts off interesting, Sybok seems to be a good character, then it turns into a mess. Does not know when to be serious or silly. Way too many silly jokes and silly stuff going on, but they are not even all that funny. Great music, good visuals tough. The Rocket shoes SUCK during both scenes they are used in. Really silly. The singing at the campfire....blah. They could have done SO much more.
• From Daniel on 2014-08-03 at 12:06am:
  This is definitely a bad Star Trek movie, although it is fun to watch. It's full of slapstick, sight-gags, and one-liners. If you want a silly Star Trek movie, this is the one. One detail I noticed that has always bugged me; in the scene where Kirk and the others go down to the planet 'Shakari', they cut to the bridge, where everyone is gazing in wonder at the view screen. Then, they focus in on a computer display warning of the approaching Klingon ship. Naturally, everyone is too busy watching the planet to notice. Shouldn't there be a distinct audio warning when the computer detects an approaching enemy vessel???
• From thaibites on 2015-07-19 at 10:20pm:
  I agree with everything negative being said here about this movie. I would like to add that the music bothered me greatly. I kept expecting to see #1 coming out of the bathroom after doing a #2. Make it so! Anyway, it just seems like a cheap, subliminal way to get old trek fans interested in the new series. If I see Kirk, Spock, and Bones, I want to hear that hair raising theme music I grew up with!
  And what's up Shatner's hair?!? Was that real?
• From Luke Somers on 2016-07-05 at 5:38pm:
  I've read that if you take everything between the two camping trips to be a dream of Kirk's occurring during the trip, then works a lot better; it seems to me like this is true (though I haven't rewatched it since, I can recall it fairly clearly). The story is then true to his character and the conflicts he experiences in respect to other characters. And of course it explains the consistency errors and general silliness.
  
  Of course, it wouldn't deserve to have a movie made of it, just as Kirk's dream.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-05-28 at 3:36am:
  I felt really stupid when I JUST noticed in THIS episode that you can pull chairs out of the science and engineering stations on the bridge. I had seen people sitting there before, but never really thought about where the chairs came from. You learn something new every day....
  
  I give this episode a zero not because of its non-canonness, but rather because of its purely political agenda. The fact that it is not taken into consideration in future episodes only proves the point that it is a standalone episode meant to promote a liberal environmental agenda. The warp drive is a metaphor for cars putting out exhaust, and the "rift" is a metaphor for the hole in the ozone layer. Putting restrictions on warp speed is like putting emission restrictions on cars. I would think star trek would be above trying to give Al Gore a pat on the back in the early nineties, but I guess I overestimated them.
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2006-06-16 at 4:57am:
  In response to the other comment. I hope that environmental concerns someday become less political. The automatic knee jerk reaction of placing all environmental movements on the "left" is rooted in bogus thinking. There are religious organizations that are organizing themselves into environmental groups. They believe that we are all caretakers. I advise that people take this under consideration before they post political rants on Star Trek websites.
• From Wing Fat on 2007-10-02 at 4:24am:
  I agree that this episode is terrible and completely motivated by political agenda. The whole basis of Star Trek is the exploration of space. Why would you want to suddenly say that the technology that allows that to happen is bad and has to stop? You wouldn't, that's ridiculous. I kept expecting them to discover something they overlooked and find the whole theory was wrong after all, but they didn't, and when it gets to the end and Picard gives his "I was destroying the very thing that I loved" speech I felt, as a Star Trek fan, that I had been slapped in the face.
  
  Star Trek has always tackled social issues, but if you want to point out the evils of polution do it in a more direct manner by having a mission to a planet that's poluted. You don't say "space flight is bad and needs to be stopped" when your show has always been about what a wonderous adventure space flight is.
• From JRPoole on 2008-10-29 at 2:50pm:
  I don't want to defend this horrible episode, but I do want to cast my lot with the person above who lamented that environmental issues are always political. The fate of the planet is (or at least should be) bigger than any political agenda. If you're interested in this kind of debate, I suggest E.O. Wilson's execeptional book "Creation." It's basically an open letter to a hypothetical Southern Baptist minister. Wilson, who, as an evolutionary biologist, is an agnostic, argues that conservation and taking care of the planet are issues that should be shared by both Christians and atheists alike. I like it because it'a an attempt to bridge the gap and stake common ground, something that people on either side of the political divide have seemingly lost the ability to do.
  
  As for this episode, I agree that it deserves a zero. There is a lame attempt in a handful of later episodes to make in canonical, but it just doesn't stick. The agenda is heavy-handed, especially Picard's moralizing at the end, the whole thing is just plain dull. Trek has always been on the forefront of social commentary, and, as a general rule, it does a good job. Episodes like this one, though, are so thinly-veiled that they become annoying, much like the TOS episode featuring the half black/half white mime makeup aliens. I know that's a fan favorite, but I've always thought it was a really lame, overly obvious comment on race relations, much like this dreadful episode is a really lame, overly obvious comment on fossil fuels.
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2010-01-14 at 2:20pm:
  Regardless of my response from years ago, I think that both sides can agree on one thing: this episode sucked. I think the wrting staff wanted to do an environmental episode, but didn't have a lot of good ideas. In the series, space travel was always made out to be a wonderous thing that helped humanity grow. Now it's a bad thing?
  
  There was another episode where there was a planet with huge amount of air pollution. The race living on this planet created technology to take the pollution out of the air, but it could hardly keep up. It didn't go into any more detail than that. I can't think of what episode that is, but I think it could have been an "environmental episode" if the had fleshed it out more.
• From Paul on 2010-08-19 at 11:54am:
  It would have been better if it was only in this small region of space there was a problem (as opposed to the whole universe). Initially I did think this was the case, that the rifts were limited to the vicinity of the alien planet, but then at the end of the episode they start talking about universal warp drive limitations. Shame
• From Florian on 2011-01-09 at 11:40am:
  I don't see why there is so much hatred against this episode. Basically, I think the central idea is quite witty; it is another real-world problem transferred to a futuristic setting as seen in many successful episodes before. It is not uncommon in our world that many decades after the initial enthusiasm, a new technology turns out to be not that beneficial to our health or environment at all. Reacting to the newly discovered problem takes its time, particularly when the technology is meanwhile perceived as indispensable. Obviously, this always leads to a certain amount of denial before habits are changing. After the initial skepticism, this episode complies with the spirit of TNG's more enlightened mankind that the crew quite quickly accepts that habits must indeed be changed, a process that would probably not happen within the same generation in our current world. As an example, some 50 years ago highways were being extended and increasing car numbers seen as a sign of progress, while environmental concerns were considered the opinion of radical minorities. As opposed to that, only nowadays hardly anyone in their sane mind would actually doubt that car emissions do some harm and must be reduced or avoided in the future; emission restrictions for motorized vehicles, speed restrictions along environmental protection compounds and reducing/rerouting highways so as to preserve or regrow forests are commonplace and it has become totally natural to leave your car in the garage if you can reach your destination by bus or train, unless there are any heavy goods to transport.
  Along the same lines, it is interesting how exactly the fundamental concept that makes the whole Star Trek universe possible as it is is questioned. After all, nature is not an intelligent being (unless we want to consider some esoteric claims) and cannot be reasoned with. No matter what other benefits space travel might bring, this will not reduce the problems caused by warp engines. Thus, reducing the deteriorating effects by imposing a warp speed limit is a straightforward step, even if not all warp-capable species will obey to those rules right away (after all, some third-world countries still polluting the air is not an argument against reducing pollution in the own country - somewhere, a start has to be made). Unfortunately, this is where the episode starts to turn irrelevant, as the speed limit is mentioned a few times later, and that's it. As stated in the episode, the speed limit may be ignored in the precise event that there's an emergency, which is exactly the one situation that we usually see when Enterprise is running out of time. So, the speed limit mostly affects all the off-screen vessels. Another, similar problem is that warp speeds and travel times have always been the archetype of a plot device on Star Trek, so realistically, the speed limit cannot have any deeper impact than being mentioned every now and then. For that reason, it might have been better to make another technology rather used as a tool than as the base of the adventures the culprit, such as phasers, tricorders or the transporter (which could all be replaced with more environmental-friendly, but more cumbersome alternatives).
  Plot-wise, the episode somewhat trickles down and fails to really build up much suspense. Particularly for a problem of this scale, it might have been beneficial to build up the story over several episodes (which was of course not yet usual in the days of TNG). As it is, all we have seen about the problem is a new colorful anomaly. The alien scientists refer to geological problems on their homeworld, but as we don't even get to see the homeworld, we have to take their word for it. Therefore, I'd give this episode a score of 3/10 points.
• From Robert Koenn on 2011-06-27 at 1:39pm:
  Well I rated it a 2 mainly because of technical inconsistencies. It was obviously a blatant plot line written to express an analogy with pollution in our world. But the worst part for me was that the plot line was basically ridiculous and only used for this episode while not be followed up with on future episodes or series in the Trek universe. I thought initially it only applied to this region of space as well and that might have made it more palatable but in the end it seemed that it was for the universe. There have been other episodes that stressed morale significance and I found some interesting as applied to our countries reaction to 9/11 with a much more enlightened view but this was a very poor plot line to express environmental concerns. I wonder if it was simply a vain search for a plot line or the writers coming up with an absurd plot line to stress a point.
• From Dstyle on 2013-09-09 at 8:45pm:
  The Enterprise spent quite a bit of this episode being bumped and jarred through subspace rifts and whatnot, which reminded me of an obvious yet easy to forget fact: the set is not moving, the camera is. So when the Enterprise gets hit by enemy fire or a subspace distortion wave or is just having a bumpy ride, all of the actors are sitting there bouncing in their seats, which is a pretty funny mental image to have. You're welcome. :)
• From Bronn on 2015-08-02 at 4:53am:
  I have a tough time with this one. I'm sympathetic to environmental issues, and I get Trek wanting to create an environment aesop. I like that there isn't a cheap solution because that would diminish the struggle of environmental concerns in the real world: we can't just invent a magical device that solves all our energy problems without any side effects.
  
  What harms this episode is that it's picking on one of the necessary plot devices that underly the series. We like Star Trek, so we obviously just want to enjoy our entertainment without thinking that we're contributing to the destruction of reality just wanting to see our heroes go on adventures. We're not going to receptive to saying, "Well...guess they should all stop exploring and go home, then." It'd be like an episode of the Dukes of Hazard where someone tells the Dukes that they should trade the General Lee in for something more fuel-efficient. Viewers of the show aren't receptive to that message.
  
  Moreover, the Enterprise itself is a pillar of eco-friendly ideas. Recycling on a starship is taking to its greatest extreme. I mean, Geordi is talking about energy efficiency of 97.2% on the ship: If we had a process that could do that, we'd solve so many real-world problems!
  
  A better message would have been to say it's a problem with the anti-matter, which is the real source of energy on the Enterprise, and go with Geordi's plot of efficient energy use which is part of the subplot. If you say that Anti-matter reactions are producing small amounts of radiation, you can call the Enterprise crew out on the little ways they can save energy so they're using less, which is a MUCH better real-world environmental message. Have someone wonder if their ship really needs to be so big that they have these lush individual quarters as nice as small apartments. Turn the lights off when they leave a room. Save cups and plates instead of producing new flatware everytime you replicate a meal. It would have been EASY to make little continuity nods to that sort of thing in DS9 and Voyager. And then, it wouldn't be the magic tech creating a magic problem that's contrived to be very important here but will never matter again.
• From Mike on 2017-04-23 at 3:01pm:
  I think where this episode went wrong was in attempting to suddenly make this a problem for the entire galaxy. Initially, it sounded like something that was affecting subspace in the corridor and therefore any warp restrictions would just be in that one sector. Had they stuck with that, they could've gotten the environmental message across and been able to avoid any problems with canon. As the episode itself points out, there's no indication other warp-capable species will all abide by this or even agree with the findings. And, like I say, why this affects Federation warp travel everywhere and not just in the Hekarans' own sector is never made clear.
  
  I get the sense it was Picard's reaction at the end that really soured a lot of people on this one. He basically makes it sound like the entire Star Trek endeavor is destroying the universe, which is a true overreaction. La Forge's reaction fitted the episode a bit better. He's confronted with warp engines-a think he's been working on his whole life-being responsible for destabilizing a particular area of space purely by doing what they do.
• From Captain Obumico on 2021-08-22 at 4:05pm:
  Agreed, I like episodes that annoy conservatives (who strangely never want to conserve the environment) as much as the next guy, but they should have done it without the lame warpspeed limit.
  I see the whole thing not as a climate change analogy, but about the CFC ozone layer thing in the 90s.
  That also got resolved despite conservative resistance and without speed limits :D

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From RichD on 2006-05-03 at 9:23pm:
  What an atrocious, abysmal episode. Lazy writing, uninspired acting, and erratic pacing. The Enterprise gives birth? What is going on? At this point in time in the series, in the 7th season, we should have never, ever been subjected to such a complete waste of time. My goodness. I can only think of one other episode that was worse, Shades of Gray.
• From -ezm- on 2010-06-02 at 7:25pm:
  Absolutely terrible episode. Bottom 5 for sure. To think that All Good Things would only be 3 episodes later.
• From Paul on 2010-08-19 at 2:40pm:
  I felt violently sick while watching this episode. Not sure if that was related to its intense badness.
  
  Also interesting to note is the guy that plays the train conductor is also Jeffery Lebowski in 'The Big Lebowski'. I recognised his voice and couldn't work it out for ages ^^
• From ElGuapo on 2011-12-14 at 7:14pm:
  Another computer turned intelligent episode... At least this one wasn't as bad as the one with the little repair robots that turned self-aware. Still, an awful episode. The only saving grace is the.. wait... I can't think of anything.
  
  Oh wait.. I know.. maybe the new lifeform will look cool when TNG hi-def comes out in 2012! Right now it looks like the pipe screensaver from Windows 95.
  
  
• From L on 2013-05-09 at 6:27am:
  Very irritating.
  
  Using a mixed historical holodeck scenario to explore the ship's 'mind' seemed like cheating and cheap production values. I guess they made it justifiable, but it was pretty cheesy as a metaphor.
  
  Picard saying they have a responsibility to respect the ship as any other living being is just stupid.
  It's a highly crucial tool and a mobile environment that supports the crew's life; its developing intelligence is a serious problem as its desire for individual freedom is in immediate conflict with a desire to keep your environment supporting you and your crew's life. It demonstrated it was willing to kill them all when it started to use life support energy to reach the second star.
  This is no time to be a hippie, an immediate lobotomy is called for!
  
  I did like how in the end he said that the Enterprise's consciousness was the sum of their experiences and adventures over the years, so in a sense the crew was also the parent of the new life-form. A nice way to think about it.
  But it was still a pretty unrealistic reaction to a ridiculous situation.
  
  Good parts -
  The analysis of Prospero and Shakespeare in the first scene.
  Data out of the holodeck still with crazy hair and moustache.
  Introducing the concept of consciousness as an emergent function of complexity. If only they had explored it in a better plot.
  
  I'm sure there's been some ridiculous lines in seven years of The Next Generation, but Troi's
  "I think we should follow that man, that brick might be an important clue.",
  has to be one of the greatest.
• From Emily on 2014-02-10 at 11:50pm:
  I think for you to truly understand this episode it would be beneficial to have a deeper understanding of The Tempest.
  
  In some ways I think that the ship’s intelligence, trying to break away from the confines of the ship in to a higher state of being is in many ways comparable to Ariel in The Tempest, a spirit who we are told is imprisoned within a tree (a thing of the earth in which a spirit of the air does not belong).
  
  Ariel is freed from this chamber by Prospero and in return he obeys him as a servant. Prospero uses Ariel to control the forces of nature (it is worth noting here that the term ‘magick’ in Shakespeare’s time could be used to mean wisdom about natural forces/elements) in order to complete his mission of diplomacy. This is undeniably similar to the relationship between Captain Picard and The Enterprise.
  
  As the play progresses, Ariel itches more and more for complete freedom from his earthly tasks. Prospero is a man of his word, and eventually releases Ariel once he has done everything Prospero has asked of him.
  
  Another interesting thing to note about this episode, is that it is very close to the end of TNG. The Tempest was Shakespeare’s last (and arguably best) solo work and a lot of the play parallels Prospero’s magic art to Shakespeare’s art as a play write. At the end of the play (this is the scene shown at the beginning of the episode) Prospero says goodbye to his magic, and indeed the epilogue to the play can be interpreted as Shakespeare’s heart-warming goodbye to the theatre. Perhaps the use of this play is a nod to the fact that the writers would shortly be saying goodbye to TNG.
  
  I could probably continue to research and write for days about the symbolism in this episode, the use of opposites, the exploration of the psyche, the ‘Brave new world’ and how this all relates to The Tempest and further to humanity.
  
  However as this is and old article on an old webpage I’m guessing my efforts would amount to very little. I think what I’m saying is that this episode has a lot more to it than what you have taken prima facie and if anyone reading this has decided to just take a look at this episode and The Tempest in maybe a little more depth they will be greatly rewarded by what they find, and furthermore what I have written would have been worthwhile.
• From Daniel Antil on 2014-08-31 at 9:18am:
  I agree this is one of the worst episodes. It's almost a guarantee that any episode which relies on the holo deck for its storyline is generally insubstantial. There are so many things wrong with this episode:
  1. The holo deck becomes the vehicle for the ship's computer to take over the ship??? It just can't happen!
  2. Data, despite his strength, cannot stop a car from moving forward if he is merely squatting on the ground - it is simple physics - he would need proper leverage and weight balance.
  3. The man who takes the gold brick and puts it into an empty slot in a wall... What does it mean??? There is obviously something symbolic about it, but they don't explain it at all!
  4. The ship creates a life form in the cargo bay??? So many things wrong with that!
  5. When the life form is complete, it simply passes through the ship's hull and flies off into space... Why? Where did it go? And why the heck doesn't the Enterprise follow it??? That should be the primary mission - investigate and keep tabs on a life form the ship created!
  6. After the holo deck turns off, Data, Troy and Worf are still holding drinks in their hands... Drinks they got from the holo deck train.
  
  That's just a basic list... There are dozens of other flaws in this episode. It's a stinker!
• From Carolyn on 2015-08-28 at 5:45pm:
  This is one of my favorite episodes. Very creative, funny and thoughtful. I can't believe the reviews I am reading here!
• From GVT on 2016-08-02 at 7:28am:
  I found Emily's comment very helpful in understanding this episode...thank you Emily. This episode does require a more metaphorical interpretation since, as L mentioned, having starships running around becoming self-aware and doing whatever they choose would spell disaster for the crews of those vessels. I find entertainment in the absurd so I rate this episode a 6...but with insight gained from Emily's post a 7.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-08-04 at 11:18pm:
  YES! Everything I was going to come in here and rant about was covered in your problems section. This is a zero epsiode if I've ever seen one. You hit the asymptote thing right on the head. That's EXACTLY what warp 10 is. You can never reach it. The evolution thing is also EXACTLY right. They obviously don't know what the fuck evolution is. AND humans will probably evolve in thousands of different ways in the Star Trek future, assuming they will spread to different parts of the galaxy and encounter different environments. So to say that there is one 'universal' evolution for humans is extremely absurd. Oh and is the universal evolution some kind of being with advanced brain capacity and lots of adaptations? No. It's some sort of a lizard that probably could have been found on Earth 2 billion years ago. What an absurd episode.
  
  It doesn't only suffer from technical problems though. It also has lots of cheap cliches. The Deux Ex Machina antiproton beam at the end was a cheap way to end the manufactured danger of Tom and Janeaway's 'evolution'. Now we know that the Voyager writers aren't credible when they want us to think someone is in mortal danger. Also, this episode was another "Voyager might get back home in season 2". Gay.
  
  I was hoping for this episode to be a really interesting way of explaining the impossibility of reaching warp 10 after the opening scene. Boy was I wrong. Apparently you can reach warp 10 by making a duranium shuttle and putting some really badass dilithium in the warp engines. HA! Sometimes I wonder why they don't just go to a convention and find someone to be their Star Trek continuity expert, and have that person watch their asses to make sure thy don't make a ridiculous episode like this.
• From Remco on 2009-01-26 at 3:52pm:
  I like the id number of this page. "404 - this horrendous episode cannot be found."
• From Colleen on 2009-05-23 at 11:36pm:
  I just want to mention something else that I've noticed about this whole warp 10 nonsense. In an episode of the original series, something about a babel conference or something, an enemy ship was flying at then and eventually self-destructed. They said it was flying at warp 10. And while it was very fast it was not infinity speed. So, this episode not only illogical it didn't adhere to former canon.
• From Kethinov on 2009-05-24 at 7:36am:
  Colleen, that is not a continuity error. Post TOS Star Trek uses an entirely different warp scale. In TOS, warp factors are multiples of the speed of light. In post TOS, warp factors are points on an asymptotical graph where warp 10 as is described in this episode is in fact infinite speed. The problem with that as stated in my review is infinite speed is impossible as it's merely an asymptote on the warp scale, not an actual achievable speed.
• From Psycroptic on 2012-08-10 at 1:21am:
  When I saw that this one got a zero I didn't think it could be that bad, boy was I wrong.
• From Soli on 2013-05-24 at 10:50am:
  I don't think anyone is truly a Trekkie unless they can launch into a long rant about how awful this episode is on a moment's notice.
• From thaibites on 2013-10-31 at 1:06am:
  You guys are missing the whole point of this episode - Paris "did" Janeway. He rubbed his little lizard wee-wee all over her hot little Irish lizard ass. Go Paris, go!
  He got some...huh-huh mmmm huh-huh mmmm huh-huh. Paris rules!
• From edward on 2014-04-04 at 5:12pm:
  Before this terrible episode, I think nobody had put a limit to warp speed.
  I find it annoying that the 25th century captains will have to say "warp factor 9.9999999" because of it. Can't we just forget it ever existed?
• From C.Ros on 2015-11-05 at 11:51am:
  Hmm...so in the final episode of TNG, when they pick up ambassador worf, and the Pasteur then goes at warp 13....how does that exactly fit with the posts here?
• From Rick on 2017-04-25 at 12:04pm:
  Edward and C. Ros,
  
  The solution is simple and answers your questions... all they need to do is rescale like has been done before. So warp 13 is probably equivalent to warp 9.999 something.
• From Jm on 2020-04-03 at 12:20am:
  Yeah, but that scene where the doctor wakes up Paris is pure gold.
• From Mathalamus on 2022-02-12 at 1:54pm:
  Ironically, this was the first ever episode of any star trek i watched. and i liked it. it got me into star trek, and because of that, ill always rank it highly.