The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Hugo on 2016-04-08 at 7:26pm:
  Not too shabby - I enjoyed it quite a bit. The whole setup with the disaster and the connection to the federation was bad, but I enjoyed the rest - felt like classic trek, for a change.
• From Rick on 2017-06-05 at 2:40am:
  Really? They bring back Carey just to be randomly killed? Somewhat similar episode to Enterprise: Terra Nova, and that episode was far better for me because the hostage takers behaved far more rationally.
  
  When you only have 3 hostages and you are demanding for thousands of people to be evacuated over multiple years, killing one during the first hour of negotiation is not exactly a smart ploy. Obviously there is no way Janeway would then give you control of her ship.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From adam on 2011-01-03 at 1:49pm:
  Oh man. I saw the Tuvok dancing callback coming from a mile away, and I was totally hoping Tuvok would do some serious soft-shoeing hoopajoo action and completely break character. I had very high hopes. Instead, what I got was a little rhinestone curtsy. What a letdown. Oh well.
• From Targ on 2014-06-20 at 10:27am:
  This episode never really made sense. Sure the Talaxians could flee their homeworld, but what are the chances of them travelling at the exact same trajectory as Voyager for a distance of 45,000 light years? And how did they get through major obstacles like 10 years of Borg space? Totally implausible. I'm surprised this isn't listed under 'problems'.
• From The Emergency Obumpresidential Hologram on 2022-03-12 at 9:33am:
  What is with all the prime directive talk in this episode? These are two warp capable species. How is this different than messing with Bajorans or Cardassians? It does not apply at all.

No fan commentary yet.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-07-09 at 3:17am:
  - If Iralius IX was originally a planet, wouldn't the assimilators have had to be placed in the debris after the battle that decimated the planet? And if the battle that destroyed the planet was the battle where the enemies fought to their mutual extinction, who placed the assimilators? Obviously the assimilators must have been placed before the final conflict, which means that the debris field could not be Iralius IX. But that would contradict Picard, because he identifies the Promellian cruiser as being among the ruins of Iralius IX.
  - Why hasn't someone already found the Promellian cruiser? It's been there for a thousand years. Evidently somebody investigated the area prior to the arrival of the Enterprise, since the crew knows that this was the location of the final battle.
  - These Promellians must make an incredible battery. Remember that the assimilators have drained all power from the vessel. Yet, it still manages to send out a distress call for a thousand years!
  - Why is the Promellian cruiser sending out a distress call? The captain of that ship knew the assimilators were destroying his ship. Why lure another craft into the trap?
  - At the end of the episode, Picard blows up the Promellian cruiser. This is a mint-condition, thousand-year-old artifact. Even Picard says it "belongs in a museum." There is nothing wrong with the ship. It is just surrounded by the assimilators. Doesn't the Federation have the technology to clear the booby trap and tow the ship out?
  - Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge is on the Enterprise, populated by the finest of Starfleet's engineering staff, and he has to get a holographic representation to help him solve a problem?
  - At the end of the episode, Geordi says they are going to shut everything off and use only two thrusters. When Picard flies the Enterprise out of danger, he actually uses three thrusters: starboard, port, and starboard aft.
• From djb on 2007-12-25 at 6:50am:
  - A thousand year old derelict's gravity generator still intact?
  
  - There is nothing in space to stop a moving object's inertia. How did all that debris come to a complete standstill? Why didn't it strike anyone as being strange?
  
  "I'm not used to having people question my judgment." "And I'm not used to dying." Great comeback! Even if she's just a hologram.
• From JRPoole on 2008-03-24 at 4:14pm:
  The above mentioned problems bothered me as well, but they didn't take away from the episode because I can rationalize some of them away. The only exception is Picard's order to blow up the booby trapped wreckage. Why not just put some warning bouys around the debris field until somebody can figure out how to clear the assimilators?
  
  This was a rare episode where the sub plot was more engaging than the main plot. The character development for Geordi was much-needed and well done, especially considering that there's some good continuity with the Lea Brahms character later in the series. Poor Geordi; even Data gets more action than he does.
• From CAlexander on 2011-04-07 at 6:52am:
  My favorite part of the episode was the part with Geordi. I always liked the idea of Geordi falling in love with the hologram, he needed some character development. But the part at the end where Picard maneuvers the ship out always seemed rather forced – "lets make up some silly reason for Picard to maneuver the ship using thrusters, it's dramatic!"
  
  - DSOmo has a lot of valid comments.
  - It is funny how Geordi, chief engineer on the flagship of the Federation, seems to have no idea what the holodeck can do until the computer tells him. He acts like a kid trying to figure out a new toy for the first time. But this is consistent with many episodes, that holodeck is just full of surprises.
  
• From John on 2011-09-01 at 12:01am:
  The reason Geordi doesn't know what the Holodeck can do is because the audience doesn't know, and it has to be explained to them (us). It's called exposition. They might have been able to do it a little better if they had more time, but not within a 40-minute episode that also included Picard's own "archaeology" story.
  
  I love the way Picard relieves Wesley at the helm. Just like his counterpart on the alien ship, the Captain is taking full responsibility for the success or failure of the endeavor.
• From Ggen on 2012-03-10 at 9:03pm:
  I don't have too much in response to this episode, although it was quite good, quite entertaining. The main plot was rather static and not that intricate, but Geordi's romantic subplot adds enough color and flavor to compensate...
  
  I rather liked both of the two solutions presented at the end: let the computer make 1,000s of helm adjustments every second to "exploit the time differential" in the snare's response, or have someone, as it turns out Picard, fly the ship "on one propeller," with the lights and engines down, on thrusters only.
  
  Of course, I'm sure we've seen this "thrusters only" thing as a solution before (as we've seen the "slingshot off the object's gravitational pull" maneuver enough times to no longer be surprised - unlike Data, strangely enough)... but hey they had to write a lot of episodes... I don't blame them too much for recycling elements here and there.
  
  So, not a particularly remarkable or emotionally or intellectually gripping episode, but enjoyable nevertheless.
• From Daniel on 2014-07-05 at 4:47pm:
  This episode is in my top ten of favorites of all STTNG episodes. I love it for its simplicity; the plot is basic and uncomplicated. I also love it for its uniqueness; the music used in this episode is very different than the music in any other episode... It has a very different flair. I find it interesting that when they first sight the derelict vessel, Worf is the first to recognize it as a Promellian Battle Cruiser. And when Picard starts talking about it, even Data has an expression of awe. I also love this episode for the way they explore Geordi's inadequacies with talking to women - that he is better with talking to the computer or a holographic woman... (And have you ever noticed that his only real friend is an android? - poor Geordi, not good with people, though he tries so hard.) I also love that they include Guinan in this episode - I love her character. The general fascination with the ancient ship and the way Picard is so taken with it is wonderful, despite that the wonder is soon lost when they realize the danger of the booby trap. One flaw I see in this episode is the condition of the captain and crew of the derelict ship. If they had been floating there in space for over a thousand years, it seems unlikely the ship would still have breathable oxygen. Even so, if the bodies of the captain and crew were positioned in their chairs for over a thousand years in an oxygenated environment, the skeletal remains of their corpses would not have skin or hair, and their clothes would have deteriorated to dust. But, regardless of how scientifically plausible or implausible that is, this is a great episode.
• From Rob UK on 2015-02-17 at 4:04pm:
  Poor Geordi couldn't get laid in a morgue, even in episodes where he would have been able to with ease like 'The Naked Now S01E03' when everyone is intoxicated and knocking boots on all floors where is Geordi? That's right he's not getting any action because he is strapped to a bed in sick bay. The poor fellow hasn't even got the cohonies to get some holo booty action with the construct of Leah Brahms, he even becomes her friend. I wonder if the title to this episode BoobyTrap is more a reference to the Nice Guy Trap that Geordi falls into in the pre title sequence rather than the space based dilema of the Enterprise
• From Azalea Jane on 2021-08-01 at 6:43am:
  "Oh great, another woman who won't get personal with me on the holodeck." Fuck you, Geordi. Seriously. Since when are you entitled to a stranger's personal logs? Eat a dick. Don't get me wrong, I like Geordi. I like that he has room for growth here. And I think a lot of us have had times in our lives when we can relate to his romantic frustrations. But damn. That line really struck me this time. That attitude won't get you anywhere.
  
  Also, why isn't Geordi working with, like, every other engineer on the ship? This is kind of an emergency. What is everyone else doing? It's strange to see people just casually walking around like it's another Tuesday, when they're just hours away from lethal radiation poisoning.
  
  That objection aside, this is a nice, solid TNG episode. It has a relatively plausible premise (for Star Trek anyway), and I liked the drama of Picard piloting his own ship to safety.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From djb on 2009-06-23 at 4:42am:
  What the hell is wrong with Janeway? She acts absolutely devastated that (Oh my god!) some of her crew members would actually *gasp* violate the laws of a society to get a paltry 40 THOUSAND light years closer to home! As if she'd rather be marooned in the Detla Quadrant than break someone's rule.
  
  Uh, what? When you're stuck 70 years' worth distance from home, the rules change a little. The Prime Directive isn't quite so prime. I understand non-interference, of course; but harmlessly breaking one of this planet's laws, not hurting anyone and not causing any long-term damage, is worth even getting a thousand light years closer, what to speak of forty thousand. She seems to be worse than Picard in this way!
  
  Oh well.
• From Jem Hadar on 2009-06-30 at 2:02am:
  I gotta go with djb on this one. This is a fairly good episode, but Janeway should have just gone with the literature in the first place.
• From Keith WP on 2012-05-08 at 2:55pm:
  This episode is when I first noticed how inconsistent Janeway is with the Prime Directive...one episode she is harping on it like a banshee, and the next she is completely wiping her ass with it.
• From Peremensoe on 2012-07-19 at 1:37pm:
  There is no Prime Directive issue in this episode. It's just a matter of whether to violate the Sikarians' own law.
• From Psycroptic on 2012-07-29 at 8:14pm:
  Not really impressed with the aliens in Voyager so far, they all seem to be exactly like humans or not very creative. The plots have been pretty repetitive as well but the first few seasons of most trek is pretty lackluster so I guess I'll wait and see.
• From rpeh on 2015-01-18 at 6:50pm:
  "It looks like most of these asteroids support class M atmospheres".
  
  No they don't. For comparison, the planet Mars doesn't support a breathable atmosphere. There is absolutely no way an asteroid has such an atmosphere.
• From Kethinov on 2015-01-18 at 8:17pm:
  It's not completely impossible. If the asteroids have a super dense core, they could possibly exert enough gravity to retain a significant atmosphere. Pretty far fetched, but definitely not in "absolutely no way" territory.
• From Jens-Ivar seland on 2015-06-13 at 4:55pm:
  The platform uses the principle of folding space. Janeway says this has been theorized, but noone has been able to develop the technology. She must have forgotten that they use warp speed :)

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-11-06 at 6:02am:
  I'd just like to point out that for all of Voyager's flaws, it sure succeeds at one thing: humor. This episode showcases some of the best humor I've seen so far on the show, making full use of Tuvok, Torres, Seven, and the Doctor. More humorous scenes than I can count!
  
  I actually rather liked this episode; despite the awful-sounding premise, they managed to execute it well. It's too bad they didn't do more with that virus-creating species. They seemed pretty cool.
  
  And I've got one question (I guess I missed something; maybe it has some super force field or something): Why in the HELL didn't they just phaser the crap out of that vinculum in space?
• From Dstyle on 2015-06-22 at 1:32pm:
  Seven is strapped to the biobed and is starting to hear the voices again. The doctor says something to the effect of, "Just try to focus on my voice!" and then stops talking. Not very helpful, doc!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-05-30 at 8:41am:
  - Near the end of the episode, Lore goes to a cargo bay and contacts the crystal entity. Lore tells the entity to attack the ship the instant the shields drop (for the beaming out of a tree). Then the fight between Lore and Data occurs. The fight ends when Data tosses Lore onto the transporter pad and Wesley beams him into space. Does the entity care what object beams out? Either way, the shields must drop. Since Lore told the entity to get ready for the beam-out, why doesn't it attack?
  - There have been a few episodes where Data has used a contraction. Like you said above, "it's not a big YATI." However, they spend this entire episode telling us that one of the differences between Lore and Data was that Lore used contractions and Data didn't. At the end of the episode, Picard asks Data if he is all right. Data responds, "Yes, sir. I'M fine."
• From Bernard on 2008-09-02 at 11:50pm:
  One of my favourite first season episodes, I too love Brent Spiner here and in many episodes. Good insight into his past and into his character.
  
  You have mentioned above already, but I have to repeat one of the funniest things I have ever heard Geordi say,'Captain I'm picking up a bogey coming in on a five o'clock tangent'... really?? Care to supply co-ordinates? Gets me every time, I love it.
  The scene in the turbolift with Lore and Worf is quite disturbing also.
• From Jumbo on 2009-08-07 at 5:52am:
  The "Shut up Wesley!" was horribly out of character, but also hilarious. I was laughing so hard I had to pause my DVD when Picard and Beverly yelled at the poor kid. That scene is one of the main reasons I love this episode so much :)
• From Rubin on 2010-06-28 at 12:12am:
  First thing I noticed was that "Dr. Noonian Soong" sounds an awful lot like "Khan Noonien Singh"...
• From CAlexander on 2011-02-28 at 2:47am:
  I particularly like the first half of this story, when everything is mysterious and they are learning about Lore. I also like how uncomfortable they are about offending Data, that seemed like a nice human touch.
  
  You are right about the twitching being annoying and irrelevant. All it does is waste screen time; the story would have unfolded in exactly the same way without it.
  
• From Percivale on 2011-11-30 at 5:26pm:
  Many people point out that Picard and Riker's treatment of Wesley was unreasonable. Over the top? Yes. Unreasonable? no.
  
  Wesley did have a reasonable suspicion. But, if you pay attention, he never actually states this in uncertain terms to his superiors. Instead, he passive-aggressively expresses frustration that everyone else is trusting Data. This is socially unproductive, inefficient behavior in general, but it is universally not accepted in authority-based organizations like Star Fleet.
  
  I would say that this is a refreshing instance where the writers understood how healthy, authority-based organizations work. Sadly, the officers' reactions really are over the top, once again demonstrating the writers' notion that setting boundaries is "mean."
• From g@g on 2012-02-06 at 10:49pm:
  I actually *liked* how Picard yelled at Wesley to shut up. It was uncharacteristic and kind of shocking. What I didn't so much like was how he was still arrogant and unapologetic even after he was proven wrong, at the end.
  
  But the initial outburst - that whole scene was quite nice. Not only did Picard yell at Wesley, (even though Wes had a valid concern and was being quite polite about it) but he also practically shooed a protesting Beverly off the bridge. It was a subtle demonstration that the master of composure and diplomacy is very very human, and prone to losing it a bit on his own bridge, under special circumstances.*
  
  * Fair to say that a giant life-consuming crystal thing edging its way into your shields while your second officer is dealing with doppelganger issues certainly qualifies as special...although, relatively speaking, he'll face worse in the future.
• From Alexander Uziel on 2013-12-15 at 11:15pm:
  Wesley: Have you got a cold?
  Data: A cold what?
  Wesley: It's a disease my mom says people used to get.
  
  These little bits are scattered throughout the first couple of seasons and they are noteworthy, not simply for the fact that they are flatly contradicted by repeated trek episodes after the second season, but because they highlight the utopian influence of Gene Roddenberry in the writing room. Gene was constantly rewriting scripts in the first season, usually to conform to his more idealistic, utopian philosophy. The writers fought against this and it wasn't until the piller/taylor/moore staff came aboard that this sort of stuff was minimized.
  
  Also, these exchanges are kind of annoying since they are just so blatant and out of place that it sounds like Roddenberry was preaching to the audience.
• From tigertooth on 2016-08-08 at 2:24am:
  If Noonien Soong is well known, how was Data in Starfleet for decades without anybody noticing the resemblance? Especially given that Soong was known for working on a positronic brain?

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From coldfire on 2011-08-21 at 5:23am:
  I thought this was a fairly good episode, although it's not without its drawbacks.
  
  The arc about Kes discovering her advanced mental abilities was developed quite well. Kes is in an interesting position on Voyager - she is physically tiny, literally 2 years old, had to be rescued by Neelix like a damsel in distress, and now fulfills fairly minor crew functions. It's quite compelling to watch her discover unknown abilities and strengths, and disarm a serious threat in the end.
  
  Both Tuvak's and Tanis' tutelage was interesting to watch, and quite believable. "Focus on the goal, not the task," - I could how that might be useful advice in these kinds of endeavors. Much better than the trite, cheesy advice Wesley got from "The Traveler" in "TNG: Remember Me." The scenes with the wildlife blooming, and then burning up were quite fitting and powerful.
  
  Finally, Kes almost killing Tuvak was an absolute shock. I had a feeling something was going to go wrong, but I didn't expect that. I kept thinking she was going to wake up from a nightmare, but instead Tuvak woke up in sickbay.
  
  Here's where we come to a wrinkle in the episode: how the heck did everyone just walk away from that near death experience? The only reaction that was believable was the Vulcan's. I don't understand how neither Kes nor Janeway nor anyone else was very concerned.
  
  What I suspect was the problem here was simply a lack of time to really explore these kind of things. I think this episode should've been a two-parter.
  
  That would also solve the main drawback, which is the rushed, less than satisfying ending.
  
  So, in short, a good episode with some interesting, compelling development of Kes' character, and the Ocampa race more generally, all with a bit of an abbreviated conclusion.
• From peterwolf on 2015-06-17 at 10:21pm:
  Janeways capability in combat seems rather bad. Reacting with "Hail them" and stay on your course when fire has been opened against Voyager is just stupid or extremely arrogant. Either you make the evasive maneuver or/and fire back immediately. Both actions are significantly belated. I think the script is just ridiculous in this particular moment at the beginning. There could have been a better approach for the little Kazon ship sneaking under the shield, like in a more surprising ambush.

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 Ed Flinn on 2009-04-19 at 12:44am:
  I'd count addressing Leonoardo as Mr. Da Vinci as a problem: da Vinci was a desriptor, not the man's name.
• From pbench on 2015-09-04 at 8:34pm:
  a fun enough romp for being such a messy episode. the big problem i see is setting this precedent of all hologram characters being potentially fully- or mostly-sentient--if this is the case, you would think this would cause the crew consternation and potentially make every reset of a holodeck scenario or deletion of characters a murder/genocide. there's obviously ways around this, but it would've been nice to explore some of that--the differing levels of consciousness that a hologram could experience. i believe tuvok referred to this when he said da vinci was 'limited', but in all behavior and action his only real limitation is his understanding of place/context; in all other ways he seems to be an autonomous being. just food for thought.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From rhea on 2008-04-27 at 7:04pm:
  Does anybody else think that Spock's command performance was made a little bit too weak? Sure, he has problems with the human factor, and he does have a different approach than Kirk, but I still thought (and have thought so on several occasions when Spock was in command), that from the way I understood the character (his personality, his training …) he should have been able to enforce his command position more ..well..forcefully, demanding respect, not accepting open hostility etc. The writers' fault, maybe?
• From TashaFan on 2008-09-10 at 1:51am:
  Good point, Rhea; I noticed in the episode where Kirk is caught on the Defiant that McCoy challenges Spock's command until they view Kirk's final orders, and in "The Gamesters of Triskelion" McCoy is downright insubordinate and doesn't back down until Spock outright asks him if he's planning a mutiny. The same in the epsiode when Kirk loses his memory and becomes "Kirok" on the "Native American" planet. It seems the idea that humans won't follow the unemotional alien was a bit of a theme. This continues in TNG when the somewhat Spock-like android Data takes command of a ship in Picard's makeshift fleet during the Klingon civil war, and the first officer is constantly insubordinate.
• From NickyP on 2009-10-02 at 4:44am:
  Nice comments you guys about Spock being challenged by McCoy and simply not doing anything about it or demanding respect for his new position. I do think this may be a theme of humans not wanting to follow the unemotional alien. But I also think that when Spock didn't really challenge McCoy until he finally had to ask him if he was planning mutiny, that it just goes to show how cool Spock is. I think that McCoy constantly challenging Spock just rolled right off of Spock's shoulders.
• From technobabble on 2010-11-26 at 7:52am:
  Time & again Spock was given a pathos test by his human subordinates and accepted it a necessary venting of his overly passionate shipmates but never put the verbal smack down on them as Kirk did.
  
  I believe Spock viewed such heavy-handed command style as an affront to emotional ego on the part of the commander and would not do follow that model. Throughout the series, many viewers & his fellow starfleet servicemen they viewed it as heartless &/or weak. But it was respect in his Vulcan way for letting them express their emotional platitudes...sigh. Spock I get you bro.
• From Devlonas on 2011-02-19 at 12:50am:
  Kethinov, your's is hands down the best ST review site. To add to all the Spock editorials, I just wanted to say that I love this episode if only for the scene of McCoy (my man) checking on the status of the crew after the crash landing. I enjoy seeing him in the role of competent emergency medic. Also this is the episode where I first noticed that every alien planet has the same "weird chimes" sound effect outside...
• From wes on 2011-03-30 at 8:30pm:
  The crew laughing at the end of the episode and blatantly dragging it out is pretty laughable in and of itself.
• From ProfZoe on 2011-10-03 at 3:44am:
  When I first saw this episode, back in 1967 when I was in high school, I remember my friends and I discussing it as an example of the difficulties a woman or a minority would have with command, not just in 1960s USA but other times and place. The 19th century Dreyfus Affair comes to mind: discriminating againsy a Jewish French officer to the point of manufacturing "evidence" and bearing false witness.
  Also recall that this time was the height of US involvement in the Vietnam War.The incidents of "fragging" officers (murdering in out of sight locations), because they were either incompetent or "different" had been a growing problem.
  The best science fiction addresses current problems in such a way that people are willing to reconsider their previous assumptions, biases, beliefs, or practices.
  THAT was the joy of TOS with all its faults.The sum TOS is truly greater than its parts.
• From Old Fat Trekkie on 2011-12-06 at 10:41pm:
  "Spock's first command?" He is in charge of 7 people. Who was in charge of the Enterprise when: Kirk was down on the planet in "Mudd's Women", Kirk was strapped to a table being Android-ize by Dr Corby in "Little Girls", Kirk was having his mind scrambled by Dr Adams in "Dagger"?
• From Kethinov on 2011-12-07 at 6:52pm:
  In those previous episodes Spock was not in command long enough, especially in screen time, for the plot to deal substantially with the impact his leadership style would have on those under his command during a crisis situation affecting the ship.
• From Josh on 2012-06-06 at 1:51am:
  I'd have to agree with the previous commenters: The issue of 'us' vs 'them', the people serving under a foreign officer in a tense situation is the heart of this episode and provides the important drama.
  
  One issue I noticed just having rewatched this episode: in an episode only a few chapters prior, Kodos the Executioner was condemned for making the exact decision that Spock makes at the start of this episode. In both episodes, some people would be sacrificed for the greater good of the rest. Spock makes this determination unfeelingly, of course, but still accepts it as in inevitable fact. As Kodos said earlier, 'if that supply ship hadn't arrived early I might have been seen as a hero.' Had Spock decided to stay and build a new society on this habitable planet rather than leaving men behind, perhaps he would have been seen as a hero by his descendants :)
• From Mike Meares on 2012-07-15 at 12:47am:
  I really enjoyed this episode! To me the way Spock handles command is one of the great strengths of the Galileo Seven.
  
  I kind of disagree with some of the criticism posted here. If I understand it correctly. I think Spock was very forceful while he was in command. He never gave in to the emotions of everyone else and made discisions that was in the best interest of the crew as a whole.
  
  However, the other part of the criticism was right on. There have been numberous examples of human resistance to alien commanding. Balance of Terror comes to mind. I wish it had come up more often in Star Trek myself. I think it was a very strong statement about human racism and how we deal with it.
  
  And while I agree with Josh that there are some things similar to the Kodos affair there is one major difference. Twice Spock put himself in harms way for the good of the crew in this episode. He went back for the missing crew man which could resulted in Spock being killed. And then again when he was pinned by the rock and told the crew to "take off" without him. These were command decisions that Kodos never made. It showed how Vulcans make their command descisions based on what is the best for the whole and not on their own emotions.
  
  And finally, I loved this episode because it has Yeoman "Mears" in it! Despite The spelling, to hear my family name on my favorite TV show was mind blowing. lol.
  
  
• From Alan Feldman on 2013-02-10 at 1:03am:
  THE GALILEO SEVEN
  
  My biggest question for this episode: Why couldn't they deliver the emergency medical supplies first, and _then_ check out the "quasar-like" phenomenon?
  
  I understand your gripe about Ferris, but I don't think occasional prods from Star Fleet command would work. I also don't it's realistic that they would be calling often enough to have the same effect. And it's interesting to have the PITA high official actually be right for a change. Sending a shuttlecraft into the Murasaki system before delivering the emergency medical supplies was plain dumb. I mean, really: There's an out-of-control plague on New Paris. Science can wait a few days.
  
  It's also interesting to see our hero, Kirk, being wrong and having to sweat it under Ferris while at the same time trying to save face with his lame scientific-duty routine. You also need Ferris to force Kirk abandon the search at the last possible minute. That wouldn't work with Star Fleet command on the radio. You need a Ferris on the bridge to force a turnaround; otherwise, Kirk would stay.
  
  
  Two quick asides:
  
  How do these people memorize regulations down to the paragraph number?
  
  It must be no fun to work for Star Fleet, as can be seen in episodes in which they do give direct orders to Kirk.
  
  
  My second biggest question is about Spock's supposed lack of emotions. He clearly gets angry at the Galileo crew, and is sympathetic to the plight of the aliens. Are these not emotions? And just prior to leaving the planet he exhibits a whole slew of emotions. More on this below.
  
  The problem with being logical is that it is not enough. You need a goal. And goals come from emotions; they do not pour forth from logic. Subgoals, yes -- but not ultimate goals. You could say that Spock has his emotions more or less under control (less in this episode!), but not that he doesn't have them or has completely suppressed them.
  
  
  There is nothing at all quasar-like about the Murasaki system that I can see. I could go with the "Murasaki effect", but not it being quasar-like.
  
  How could the ship have landed safely so close to all the large rocks? On top of that it's incredible that they had as soft a landing as they did! Look at how hard it is to safely land something far smaller on Mars. And again, as in other episodes: why are there no seat belts?
  
  Yes, landing on a habitable planet is pretty long odds, but that's pretty normal for Star Trek. I'm not sure of what kind of similar story you could have landing on a "deserted wasteland not unlike Venus or Mars", but I think even that would be incredibly unlikely. And Venus is far worse than a wasteland. You couldn't survive there at all. Furthermore, landing on anything at all, much less a solid planet, much less a habitable one, would still be highly improbable.
  
  Just after the soft landing, Boma's explanation is pure babble.
  
  Scotty is really focused on fixing the ship, unlike in "The Naked Time" where he pauses cutting through the bulkhead to talk to Mr. Spock when minutes, if not seconds, are crucial. This was quite welcome.
  
  Spock says he will decide which three people to leave behind on the planet based on logic. Well, I guess this means leaving behind the three heaviest people. Simple! Okay, we need someone who can pilot the ship and do quick repairs, so Scotty is a safe bet. And Spock is the commander, in effect, Captain of the ship. And Spock, as Captain, has to get a seat on the ship, as the Captain always goes down with his or her ship. Yeah, he can pilot the ship and help Mr. Scott fix things, too. And perhaps you can make a case for saving the doctor. But for the rest you go by weight.
  
  I like when Bones and Scotty come to Spock's defense when Boma gets out of line about having a burial for Gaetano.
  
  Phasers do pack a lot of energy in a small device, but enough to launch a space ship? I'm skeptical. And how does "phaser energy" turn into fuel that burns?
  
  
  Spock ordered Latimer and Gaetano to remain within visual range of the ship. Looks like they disobeyed this order.
  
  Why does Spock instruct Gaetano to be a guard -- a lone guard, no less -- so far from the ship? Seems quite illogical to me. Actually, I believe "foolish" is a more accurate description. Just as you said.
  
  
  There's an interesting twist here: In the scene starting at 20:37, some of the crew go out of the ship to see what the noise is. Apparently the natives are making their sound and preparing to attack. (The sound is a great sound effect, but is that really what wood on leather sounds like?) Then the crew discusses tactics. Now look at who's getting logical and who's getting emotional!
  
  SPOCK: I am frequently appalled by the low regard you Earthmen have for life. [He says this with anger, and is it not also an expression of sympathy? E-mo-tions.]
  
  GAETANO: Well, we're practical about it. I say we hit them before they hit us.
  
  SPOCK: Mister Boma?
  
  BOMA: Absolutely.
  
  SPOCK: Dr. McCoy?
  
  MCCOY: Seems logical to me.
  
  SPOCK: Yes indeed. It seemed logical to me, also. But to take life indiscriminately. [Sympathy!]
  
  GAETANO: The majority.
  
  SPOCK (_in anger_!): I'm not interested in the opinion of the majority, Mr. Gaetano.
  
  Not only does Spock get angry (emotion!), he just asked their opinions, and after he gets them he says he's not interested. (Illogical!) And just prior to the above conversation he eagerly asked Mr. Boma about how they can use his observation about the aliens being tribal against them. Spock is right that it is he who is in command, not the majority -- but he should have stated it that way. Asking for advice and following it are two different things, as Kirk pointed out in "Dagger of the Mind".
  
  So Spock has no problem leaving three crew members behind to die, but killing the alien "humanoids" to save their own skins is somehow appalling. And he seemed to have no emotional reaction at all when encountering a dead Latimer. [This reminds me of Spock not saving Tomlinson in "Balance of Terror". Was Tomlinson already dead when Spock showed up, or did Spock really, coldly, leave him there to die? It's not clear, but as I said in my review on that episode, I certainly hope it was the former. But if it was the latter, then again he has no problem leaving humans to die (and neither did anyone else in that episode).]
  
  
  I don't have the remastered version, but by looking at the photos on your site I see that yet again they make things worse. The Murasaki system in the original is just a more or less homogeneous thing of illuminated dust, gas, and solar systems (sorry, we disagree on the definition of "solar system"). In the remastered version there is, at the center, some kind of star with high-energy jets, perhaps even a black hole. Now, if the Galileo were to be drawn to the center of the remastered nebula -- well -- I don't think it wouldn't survive. The Murasaki system also looks too much like a work of art. Its structure looks quite unnatural to me. It was done right the first time, except that it "swirled" a little too quickly.
  
  And the jettisoned fuel doesn't look right. Yes, the quality of the imagery is superior, but I don't think it makes things more realistic. If anything, just the opposite. In TOS, it looks like a plume within a plume. Much more likely and realistic. Scotty clearly said that Spock "ignited" the fuel. The fuel in the remastered version doesn't look like it was ignited, while it _does_ in the original version.
  
  The worst thing about the remastered version is the fact that the rear view is partially obstructed by the engines! That's patently ridiculous, ugly, claustrophobic, and pretty piss-poor for a 23rd-century viewing system. Simply awful. Judging by the photograph on this website, the camera is on the outer rim of the upper part of the ship. One could at least put cameras below the shuttlecraft bay doors.
  
  Near the end of the episode the Galileo is having trouble maintaining orbit. But we see it in what looks like deep space with stars zooming by. This is patently ridiculous, as is the concept of a rapidly decaying orbit outside a body's atmosphere. But such things are, unfortunately, more or less a normal part of Star Trek TOS. Wait, there's more! The stars are moving even when we see Taurus 2 stationary from the Enterprise! I'm sorry, but this is totally nuts.
  
  
  Notice how Spock exhibits the following starting with being pinned by the large rock: altruism, anger, fear, panic, and a hint of desperation. Are these not emotions? We don't need to wait for his jettisoning the fuel for him to exhibit emotions.
  
  Spock's jettisoning the fuel is the climax of Spock's adventure as commander, of course. I think it was both logical and emotional. You have to weigh being bright for a brief period of time versus dark for a longer period of time. I think all indications are that the former was more likely to be successful. Having won doesn't prove that argument is right, of course, as sometimes the less likely thing will happen. But the best you can do in life is play the odds. Scotty: "A distress signal? It's like sending up a flare. Mr. Spock, that was a good gamble. Perhaps it was worth it." Absolutely. This was a great line, and well-delivered, to boot.
  
  Quick aside: That "FUEL JETTISON" switch is just a little too easy to hit by accident, no?
  
  
  When the Galileo crew is rescued, no one on the bridge notices that two are missing. They seem to act as if they know what we know, that only five are on board and that no major characters were killed. And since they couldn't know that, we see that they also don't seem to care in the slightest about who died or that anyone died at all! In fact everyone on the bridge is so unaffected by this that only a short time later they can freely laugh at Spock's admitting being stubborn instead of mourning the three dead.
  
  Why does Kirk order the Enterprise to go at only warp factor 1 if they were so pressed for time? Oh, and why only "full normal speed" to go back to Taurus 2 for the rescue? And just what is "full normal speed", anyway? It doesn't sound fast, like "emergency warp". It seems the Enterprise is never moving fast in this episode.
  
  
  Lots of fun, but lots of problems.
  
  AEF, a.k.a. betaneptune
• From Rick on 2014-08-26 at 6:35pm:
  Alan Feldman
  
  "My second biggest question is about Spock's supposed lack of emotions. He clearly gets angry at the Galileo crew, and is sympathetic to the plight of the aliens. Are these not emotions? And just prior to leaving the planet he exhibits a whole slew of emotions. More on this below. "
  
  Becoming forceful in order to enforce a position of power is not the same as anger. Spock is not sympathetic to the plight of the aliens but is rather respectful of other lifeforms. Of course there are lots of problems in this episode: just like every episode of every show on tv, and every review that is overly critical and overzealous in trying to find errors that do not necessarily exist...
  
• From Alan Feldman on 2014-11-24 at 2:41am:
  At Rick
  
  C'mon, Spock was clearly angry. There is no question about it. In fact, I just watched it again. That's anger.
  
  Additionally, the scene clearly shows the struggle within him between Vulcan logic and human emotions. In fact, this is in large part what makes Spock such a fascinating character, of course. I recall that as a child I was in awe of his ability to control his emotions, to be lord over them, to master them. What is also fascinating is that in this scene it is the humans who are being logical!
  
  If you respect, in the relevant sense of the word, other life forms, then you care about them. That includes sympathy, or, if you prefer, concern. I mean, if you don't want to kill them, you care about their well being, or at least their being alive, no?
  
  I am not overly critical. And I am not overzealous about finding errors. They stick out like a sore thumb. I call 'em as I see 'em. I make both positive and negative comments, even in my original review on this very episode! Hell, even in this very post!
  
  I love Star Trek TOS. And part of the fun is discussing both its strong points and weak points in a forum like this. And for that I say, thank you, Kethinov!
• From Chris on 2018-02-22 at 6:56pm:
  Aside from all the other problems folks have described regarding Spock's 'leadership' or his emotional outbursts, it seems to me that Kirk is the bad guy in this episode.
  
  He's willing to endanger the population of an entire planet for seven shipmates, no matter how close they were to each other! Ferris' needling to me is spot on perfect and Kirk is the douche.
  
  Why couldn't he deliver the meds to New Paris and come back to investigate the quasar phenomenon at his leisure? It wasn't going anywhere and He still needs to investigate it even when the episode is over!
  
  Gaetano strikes me as a moron who deserved to die. Trying to climb the cliff instead of trying to get back to the ship is the height of idiocy. Further, he should have been firing his weapon blind into the fog before his phaser gets knocked out of his hand!
  
  Those aliens sure got inaccurate while throwing spears at Spock who is also carrying a body!!! What luck!
  
  As usual, the banter at the end while two crewmates and one from a search party, are dead along with a few badly injured, just really grinds my gears!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Shashank Mayya on 2007-08-30 at 7:14am:
  The Bell Boy and Data's errand lad goes on to become the famous writer Jack London who wrote the "Call of the Wild".
• From DSOmo on 2007-10-08 at 7:53am:
  - The away team establishes a base of operations in a boardinghouse. One of the lighthearted bits of the episode has Picard trying to squirm his way out of paying the rent. However, the second time the landlady comes to collect the rent, Data is with the group. Doesn't Data have money from his winnings in poker?
  - Troi takes Clemens to visit Geordi as Geordi works on reconnecting Data's head. After entering the room, Clemens sees his watch on a table and grabs the watch. Doesn't it seem likely that a watch from the nineteenth century would be on its way to a museum instead of lying on a table in Geordi's lab?
  - While trying to reattach Data's head to his body, Geordi finds a metal file at the base of the opening in the back of the head. Why didn't Data discover the metal file when he examined the head earlier?
  - Before departing for the nineteenth century, Clemens states that he wants to go back because he has more books to write. Later, while preparing to fire the torpedoes to destroy the aliens' origination point, Riker expresses concern that Picard should have gotten back already if Clemens had returned to the nineteenth century. Worf then says, "We have no way of knowing if Mr. Clemens was successful." Can't they check their historical data base to see if Mark Twain wrote any books after August 1893 (the time frame for this adventure)?
  - At the very end of the show, Clemens instructs the medics who carry Guinan off on a stretcher. Do the doctors of nineteenth-century Earth really have the medical knowledge to help a woman whose physiology is so different that she lives at least five hundred years?
  - Phasers reacquire the ability to be tuned to different frequencies in this episode. Originally, phasers had this capability, as demonstrated in "Arsenal Of Freedom." Then phasers lost the capability in "The Best Of Both Worlds."
  - Picard sends a message to Data by tapping on the back of his head with a metal file. After Data comes to life, he tells Geordi that he is processing a binary message from Picard. A binary message? Do you know how many 1's and 0's Picard would need to send to create a message that Data could understand?
• From thaibites on 2012-04-06 at 1:20am:
  This episode really pissed me off! I waited a couple decades to see what finally happened to Data's head, and all I get is the WORST character in the history of Trek - Mark Twain. This guy was more obnoxious and unlikable than Dr. Pulaski! Plus, he never shut up. I wish Data would've popped his head like a big zit.
  I think the creative team really dropped the ball on this one because they wasted all that time on Twain and never really delved into these mysterious aliens that occupy the same space as us, but are out of sync with our time. It's a fascinating concept that could've led to many wonderful revelations about reality and quantum physics, but all we get is some miserable, old moron prattling on and on and on...
  This episode suffers from too much padding, too much comedy relief, and much too much Twain.
• From Dys on 2012-08-10 at 6:11pm:
  This episode looks like some 2005 Doctor Who's episodes (and surely old doctor who too?), with disguised aliens commiting some machination at differents periods, in costume s'il-vous-plait, guests historicals characters, and of course time travel.
  For me it doesn't fit correctly in the star trek mythology and let me a disappointing feeling.
• From Quando on 2014-07-29 at 1:07am:
  I just re-watched this episode last night, and I had a couple of thoughts.
  
  First, when Guinan is brought back to the hotel and is with the rest of the crew (Riker, Crusher, La Forge) for the first time, nobody even says anything about it. Like how about, "what's Guinan doing here?" They all just act like she came with them in the first place.
  
  Second, I thought the whole "zany" side story about pretending to be putting on a play to get out of paying the landlady was incredibly lame. Based on what they found in the cave at the beginning of the episode, they knew in advance that they were going back in time to late 1800s' San Francisco. Picards' group may have even brought appropriate costumes with them (they don't otherwise explain where they got those perfectly appropriate clothes, including a police uniform and a nurse's uniform). So before they left, why didn't they just replicate a bunch of currency from that time period?
  
  Third, I was rather skeptical that they could take Data's 500 year old head and just hook it up to his body and have it work fine like nothing ever happened. I guess that also means Data will have to live the rest of his life with a head that is 500 years older than the rest of his body -- kinda creepy.
  
  Finally, the climactic scene in which they beam Picard out just in the nick of time was not believable. Remember: Worf fired the photon torpedoes, shortly thereafter there is a report that sensors have started to pick up Picard's life signs in the cave, Riker calls the transporter room, and then the transporter guys lock on and beam up Picard, all in the time it took for the photons torpedoes to travel from a ship that is in orbit of the planet down to the cave. Those are some seriously slow torpedoes. I know they wanted to manufacture some tension, but they could have come up with something better than that.
• From Axel on 2015-03-01 at 9:43pm:
  This is the only TNG two-parter I didn't like. It was stretched out longer than it needed to be. There is too much filler, mainly involving the Twain and London characters. It feels like there was such a need to force them into the plot and make the audience aware of their presence, that the main storyline involving the Devidian aliens never gets developed as much as it should. The Guinan subplot was a nice touch, but it too gets convoluted by the overall mishandling of the episode.
  
  It was a nice episode for the Data character. Along with "Measure of a Man" and several other episodes, it's clear the Enterprise crew has become very protective of Data and see him as much more than an android.
  
  Still, I'd give this a 4 ranking. Not much of a cliffhanger, on top of everything else.
• From Keefaz on 2017-01-29 at 9:34am:
  Mark Twain almost single-handedly ruins this episode. Like a squawking bird right up in your ear for 90 minutes.
• From Cal on 2017-02-24 at 3:31pm:
  I love this finale. I love the setting, I love Clemens and his reaction to Worf and the Bolian. I love the continuity, I love the way Data turns up in a getaway coach. There's lots to love. Allthough I still don't know what Data says when he's speaking French.
  I recognised the young reporter's voice talking to Clemens, turns out it's Ensign Taurik from Lower Decks and later Ensign Vorik from Voyager. Loving these blurays.
• From Rick on 2017-03-28 at 1:24am:
  To the poster above, Data says something along the lines of "we are almost brothers, nice to make your acquaintance"
• From Chris on 2018-02-12 at 9:14pm:
  I like this episode but too, have some problems.
  
  I don't know what Twain's (Clemens') voice was like but this guy is extremely annoying and I'd have punched him a lot!
  There's a recording of Rod Rawlings' imitating Twain, and it is much more tolerable. Rawlings was an early neighbor and acquaintance of Twain and apparently was good at imitating famous people.
  
  Anyway, no one on the away team brought suitcases and unless they had things like Tim 'The Toolman' Taylor's 'Suit in a Bag', there is a major screw up with the costuming!
  Very irritating that something so glaring would get past the editors!
  
  I also have a problem with the notion that a person of color would be so highly regarded in 19th Century San Francisco, regardless of its progressive reputation, or her status!
  
  Think about how the real George Washington Carver was treated during the same period! Rather shabbily IMO, and he was far more influential than any literary figure, black or white!
  
  I realize that there is no story without accepting this as a possibility, but it kind of bugs me. Perhaps they could have illustrated the prejudices that existed at the time, especially to the Asians in SF! I guess others would complain about the soap-box, but it would have made the story much more believable and Twain would have been far more impressed once aboard the Enterprise in the 24th Century!
  
  Then there's LaForge and his visor, on and off, but on, quite often in front of folks, it shouldn't have been on!
  
  Of course, Jack London never met Twain as far as I'm aware, so I will suspend my incredulity for all these things.
  
  I loved when Riker said, "I have the utmost respect for the law!" Wham!!!
  
  Otherwise, I enjoyed the episode very much!
  
  P.S. Does anyone else feel that entire Tricorders and other sensors could be embedded in Data's head or whatever so that they are never needed by him? Similarly perhaps with Geordi's visor?
  
  Sorry that my comment ran on so long!!!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From James on 2007-06-07 at 7:10pm:
  I have to say I really dislike this episode. It seems to me like the series switches between a serial series (Jericho, Dominion War DS9 kind of) and a syndicated show (every crappy 80's show on SciFi).
  
  My finance and I have watched everything from season 3 onward and it seems like the show went more serialized in th 6th season and then this piece of crap episode pops up.
  
  1. Starfleet just lets the flag ship stay under Riker and then Data's command.
  
  2. Riker and Data: I thought for sure they were going to make out at least twice in this episode
  Data: I am sorry if this ends our relationship
  Worf: no it is I....
  LAME!
  
  3. Why in the hell does it take the entire cast (minus Data for once) to go down to the bar and find Picard?
  
  4. My finance and I both think the acting in this episode seemed forces. Data was more robotic than he's ever been - despite all of the advances he's made in 6 years.
• From curt on 2010-04-20 at 5:31pm:
  I think this is the only 2 episodes that Picard doesn't wear a starfleet uniform through the whole episode. Every other episode he has a uniform on, at one time or another.
• From Tallifer on 2011-03-12 at 8:18am:
  I enjoyed these two episodes for the most part.
  
  However one thing which I hated was how incompetent Worf was with a phaser during the firefight! He is supposed to be the chief of security!
• From Robert Koenn on 2011-06-22 at 11:44am:
  Personally I gave this episode an 8 rating. I suppose that was mainly due to it being an exciting episode and a bit off the normal TNG story lines. I also enjoyed the aliens and the Star Wars like bar scene although it did get a bit out of hand when half the bridge crew showed up at the bar. There are always inconsistencies and rather absurd plot line devices so I've grown use to that. Picard playing a thief with his attire and Bronxy accent sounded a bit like in a Piece of the Action from TOS. And as someone else mentioned, these Star Fleet people are some of the worse shots in the galaxy.
• From dronkit on 2014-03-12 at 7:58pm:
  Did I hear "I'm receiving a transmission fro admiral Chakotay?" at 8:08 lol

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From djb on 2009-01-22 at 8:49am:
  Watching this episode, something occurred to me: I can wrap my head around the idea of a shapeshifter, but how can Odo change into objects as small, or more importantly, light as he regularly does? I mean, he could change his density, but he can't change his mass, can he? Like when he's trapped in that box in "Invasive Procedures." He not only becomes smaller, but obviously much lighter, light enough to carry. Either that, or he has hardly any mass, and when he's in a humanoid shape his density goes way down. That doesn't really fly either. What gives?
• From Miles on 2009-04-06 at 9:11pm:
  Starts out good, but it ultimately fails with odo's monster transformation, which is never brought up ever again. That cool/scary obelisk also serves no further purpose. :(
• From Bernard on 2011-02-15 at 1:51pm:
  7 or 8 for the Odo's 'dad' story, 2 or 3 for the monster story.
  
  James Sloyan is a veteran of Star Trek by now and produces a good performance as Dr. Mora. Rene Auberjonois also turns in a good performance and these largely buoy the episode up a bit.
  
  We're well and truly into the 'messy, middle bit' of DS9 season 2. Muddles plots, half thought ideas coming to the surface in the last 4 episodes. Let's hope they get back on track soon!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Mike on 2016-11-19 at 3:53am:
  It was interesting to see Quark launch on another passionate defense of his people's ways to those who seem to look down their noses at the Ferengi. In DS9: The Jem'Hadar, he does this with Sisko/humans, pointing out that the Ferengi never engaged in genocide, slavery, or nuclear war. Here, he tries to convince the skeptical, slightly annoyed "Prophets" that there are good reasons for Ferengi avarice.
  
  Overall the episode was okay. I enjoyed seeing Quark figure out what happened to Zek. And it's always a bit boring to me when Sisko or others interact with the Prophets. Seeing Quark interact with them was a nice change of pace, both funny and intriguing.
  
  The Bashir award subplot had some funny scenes, especially when Odo takes interest.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From adam on 2010-09-27 at 8:16am:
  I suddenly realized that they are writing Tuvok as Warf. That's kind of annoying, but promises to be comical.
• From thaibites on 2014-03-21 at 8:31am:
  Did we really need to go all the way to the Delta quadrant to have another holodeck episode?
  WTF!?!
• From Jadzia Guinan Smith on 2015-06-02 at 4:58pm:
  At first I thought this was a rehash of both Minuet and Moriarty. It got saved - sort of - by the twist in the end. But, frankly "an alien in the nebula" is not fresh enough to be a really GOOD twist. Also, why didn't the aliens have a small team aboard their vessel instead of one lonely individual slowly going mad? If they can afford this level of technology just to preserve a thing of "beauty" then it seems they should be able to provide life support for more than one person.
  
  But the exploration of Tuvok's emotions was great. I like that he is shown to be truly an emotionally disciplined being who sometimes has to work to find balance, rather than an emotionally cripple being struggling to repress herself, like T'Pol. When it comes to this whole emotion vs. logic dilemma, I think Tuvok is the best-written Vulcan of all time. If it wasn't for Spock's inexplicable charisma, Tuvok would be my personal favorite Vulcan.... Yeah, I know it's "illogical" to prefer someone just because of "charisma" :-)
  
• From The Emergency Obampresidential Hologram on 2022-02-14 at 9:41am:
  They could have made a better reveal of the twist:
  
  Kim should not have gotten jealous over a character in a computer game. He should have just played with another copy.
  And then they might have noticed that there is more to this character!
  
  I mean I didn't get jealous when my brother also romanced the govenour in Monkey Island, I had my own savegame!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Tallifer on 2011-05-12 at 11:42pm:
  Archer's gazelle speech actually supported the Vulcans' argument: humans are still infants and need to crawl before they can walk or run on their own.
• From Zorak on 2016-09-26 at 6:00pm:
  Yes! Thank you. You said it so I don't have to. The ending was ridiculous, especially the gazelle speech. I can't stand that kind of thing.
  
  One other thing I had a huge problem with is why they didn't arrest Silik. It's completely irrational to just send him on his way. Mind boggling even.
  
  Aside from the ending though, a decent episode as usual.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2007-01-22 at 9:23pm:
  I think you're right about the costumes because that was the first impression I got as well. They have this subtle cheapness to them that definitely reminds me of star trek fans' costumes.
• From parkbench on 2016-03-01 at 8:32am:
  i'm surprised this didn't get a higher rating; in a sense it is more of voyager's non-sequiturs, but it feels like this season there's actually a bit of craft to the storylines, and as long as you don't expect too much, it's almost like Voyager's "trying" for once.
  
  we're starting to see--6 seasons too late, in my opinion--something resembling a fulfillment of the original concept idea, interesting and non-connected adventures every week that have a unique flair and a sort of blunt, but a little bit subtle moral edge to them. this one actually felt really lovingly made to me, and is sort of a logical consequence of Voyager traipsing around the quadrant being do-gooders for so long. i liked that somebody eventually would take advantage of it, and i liked the ending deception. i only think we were 'let in' on it too early and it felt like the dilemma wasn't drawn out enough (though i really did feel bad for that telsian...).
  
  so, not the best episode but certainly not a purely 'silly' one like the doctor's singing forays; it seemed to really be an appropriate 'monster of the week' style story--and let's be honest, this is all Voyager's going to ever be good for.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Corporal Crust on 2007-04-01 at 8:54am:
  I felt this episode was quite terrible. It tried to be too much, and in the process was ultimately nothing. Had the writers not banked so much in the knee-slapping hilarity of masterwork, "Photons be Free", we could have had a decent story. I guess we had to get to holo-rights soon or later. Since we're six episodes away from no more voyager, this would be far to much later. Better time would have been spent on the doctor logging time in the holodeck for his first sexual experience, or medical breakthough. Two hyposprays down....way down.
• From Alec on 2010-01-16 at 8:28am:
  I think this episode portrays Tuvok's legal skills (and anyone else who assisted) very poorly if they could not even mention Data's case in TNG: The Measure of a Man. It seems as though referencing that case would be an extremely obvious and effective tactic.
• From zook on 2011-08-22 at 2:14am:
  No matter what you think of this episode, you have to love Tulok's evil Vulcan goatee. Nice nod to TOS.
• From Rick on 2014-02-21 at 11:44pm:
  Same flaw as in Measure of a Man: even if the Doctor was ruled not to have rights, then Starfleet would own the rights because they own the Doctor. There is no way for the publisher to win.
• From MrSoftware on 2023-01-09 at 8:17am:
  Very interesting watching this episode in January 2023, six+ months into the popular rise of AI generated art (Midjourney and Dall-E etc) and a few weeks/ months into the popularity of AI ChatGPT for writing. The issues feel more relevant now than perhaps possible to reviewers in the past - and it was impressive to me how well the episode navigated them and balanced with both humor and an array of turns that all felt true to the characters.
  
  Also found it funny that the “live view” of Earth was ultra famous 1970s photo The Blue Marble.

No fan commentary yet.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Jadzia Guinan Smith on 2010-09-10 at 12:40am:
  Good catch on Bashir's surprise. I also wonder how it came to be that the ridgeless mutants seemed to peak in numbers a 100 years from the divergence, (so much so that they dominated politics and military operations, apparently having shed any shame associated with the deformity) only to pretty much die out about a 120 years later :-)
• From Andrew James on 2010-12-10 at 5:56pm:
  I always felt or more elegant solution to the continuity problem would have been in Tribbles and Tribulation to have Worf appear in TOS style Klingon makeup and simply ignore the problem.
• From peterwolf on 2012-10-03 at 8:00pm:
  Interestingly that nobody wondered about similar solutions of the "Klingon forehead problem" when watching the Undiscovered Country. General Chang has very faint ridges, is bald - very untypical for Klingons - and loves Shakespeare! There must have beeen some human influence and, seemingly, more underlying continuity before this Star Trek Enterprise episode Divergence.
• From TheAnt on 2013-11-06 at 11:34am:
  I am with Andrew James on this matter, TOS were one old show, and things, graphics capabilities, how we perceive what the future might look like, and political correctness have changes everything since then.
  
  And this episode provides one example of the fanboy style written episodes that the entire Enterprise series suffers from.
  Ideas and aliens presented in the 1960 early 1970 style, (the following episode with slave girls provides a striking example).
  Taken together Enterprise is a series obviously written for the hardcore ST fans, that they hoped would attract a larger audience, it is not strange at all that a show like this cannot be a huge resounding success!
  
  Now with that said, I have to agree that this is one of the better episodes, and one that do not have me cringe. I really liked Phlox for example.
  
  But the major problem lies with the Klingons, we have learned to like their cranky ways, but here we get to learn that they at first have done virus testing on POV's.
  It immediately had me started to think and question just about everything really.
  
  Talk about having a skeleton in the closet, with a war atrocity of that magnitude I cannot get that to fit with the idea that the Klingons later would be allowed into the Federation - I would not!
  A final blow perhaps after having similar references in "Storm Front" and "Borderland", ST should also deliver a bit of simple fun to provide good entertainment - also in that respect do these episodes fail.
  So I will not enter any comment for those other, but only pass over them in this mini review.
• From Dstyle on 2015-11-02 at 3:13pm:
  To make a fairly nerdy correction to TheAnt's comments: The Klingon Empire does not join the Federation. They merely make peace and are allies, albeit loose ones at times.

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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.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From CAlexander on 2011-04-05 at 6:19pm:
  Not bad for an old cartoon. Has a fun sense of exploration as they say "Gee whiz!" at everything on the alien ship. But once the alien took over the Enterprise, I was more or less confused the whole time.
  
  - I like how the life support belts give the animated show more freedom to actually let the crew explore places which do not have a breathable atmosphere.
  
• From James T Quark on 2014-08-25 at 1:35am:
  Poor Chekhov. I can just imagine the phone call.
  "So I hear that we are doing another Star Trek, this time animated! GREAT! I'm so excited! When do we start?"
  "Sorry, Mr. Koenig, they are proceeding without Pavel Chekov."
  "What? Why? I don't understand!?"
  "You've been replaced, Mr. Koenig. By an orange alien."
  
  Hehe I'm not sure what the details are as to why he didn't do the series but perhaps, in animation, they didn't need a Davey Jones type for the teenage girls. ????
• From Alex on 2019-12-23 at 7:58am:
  The biggest, grossest error for me is when they realise the age of the derelict ship, and Kirk wonders about "a civilization that advanced 300 million years ago... before life even emerged on Earth".
  
  This is SO wrong. 300 mil years ago plant life already firmly established itself on land, and amphibians and arthropods already thrived (including ancient cockroaches).
  
  By 1973 it was definitely already known that life is older than some 300 mil years. Currently it is theorised that life may have existed as early as 4.3-4.5 billions of years ago.
  ___
  Otherwise it was very pleasing to see those detailed drawn sets that would unfortunately be very very hard to do in live action production. And the episode overall was decent.

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• 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.

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• From Wes on 2010-06-01 at 7:39pm:
  Where's Tuvok for most of this episode? There were a lot of instances where he would have something logical to say, but he wasn't there to say it.
• From Rick on 2013-04-07 at 4:27am:
  Wait, so now WMDs have a right to survive? So apparently the way to defeat the federation is to make all of your weapons smart enough so that they wont destroy them. Voyager continues to get more and more annoying as the show goes on. Yes, we get it, Torres has anger problems. Yes, we get it harry sucks with the ladies and sucks up to the higher ranks. Yes, we get it, the doctor thinks everything with a frickin circuit board has rights. And of course, Seven is emotionally damaged. Oh yeah, and chakotay is native american, lets reinforce that in every episode he does. Basically, most every episode that Voyager does where they focus on one character are useless. cast works well as an ensemble though, as long as the writers use them that way.
• From Hugo on 2015-02-07 at 9:26pm:
  Is it just me that found the bomb's change of mind at the end went too quick and easy?

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• From Rick on 2013-04-21 at 4:12pm:
  So the doctor blatantly commits treason and Janeway just says no problem, dont worry about it. She says, "maybe youve become just as responsible as those of us that are flesh and blood... how can I punish you for being who you are."
  
  This has to be one of the worst lines in all of Star Trek. He betrays the crew and commits treason and has to bear no responsibility for his actions. When humans do this you are locked up for life or killed. So the supposedly oppressed doctor can leave the ship to become an opera star or outright betray the crew whenever he wants. Great message
• From Dstyle on 2015-08-04 at 8:24pm:
  Thank God for formulaic story structure! For a second there I was worried the Bajoran hologram wouldn't betray the doctor's trust in an obvious and dramatic fashion, or that Torres wouldn't be able to convince the Cardassian hologram to switch sides through a little casual real talk, or that the diminutive Hirogen engineer wouldn't strike off to help build the new holographic future at the end. Lucky for us the writers followed the formula to a T, saving us the trouble of being pleasantly surprised by a creative or innovative story structure! Thanks, Voyager!

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• From Andrew James on 2009-11-19 at 12:33am:
  I can't get past the physics of this episode. With the speed at which these aliens are moving the force of their movements (force = mass*acceleration) would tear the ship apart, not to mention that the atmosphere would burn them if they were moving at such speed.
  
  That aside, I loved the shot of Kirk putting on his boots, a real acknoledgement of what he and the lady of the week did.
• From Aniket on 2011-10-27 at 6:13pm:
  I had problem with the alien faster than phaser ..
  phaser wud have to be fired at speed of light ..
  how come they were able to dodge it .. does that mean they are faster than light ..
  That aside the lady of the episode was very cute ..
  
• From Alan Feldman on 2012-02-21 at 3:29am:
  Deela's dress is something else! Asymmetric and revealing.
  
  The men's costumes look pretty ridiculous, but note the colors.
  
  What would happen if an accelerated person were to bump into a normal-speed person? I suppose they'd be knocked about really fast, as the buttons the fast people press must also move really fast. Doesn't make much sense. What would that feel like? Think of the G-forces involved!
  
  What prevented Kirk from grabbing Deela's weapon while he and she were "doing it"? And why was Rael so bad at defending himself when Kirk used her weapon on him?
  
  Why did Kirk et al. condemn the Scalosions to extinction when they found the antidote? Am I missing something here?
  
  It sure would take a very long time from the Scalosions' point of view for the next space ship to wander by! What do they do with all that free time? In a similar vein, a tremendous amount of time must have gone by for the accelerated ones in order for the regular-speed people to get anything done.
  
  Aniket asks how the aliens move faster than the speed of the phaser ray, which he or she says moves at the speed of light. Think of it as the accelerated people moving at "warp speed". Problem solved.
  
  A more or less fun episode that, like many others, starts out good and just gets worse as it goes along.
• From Andrew Wiltz on 2012-04-08 at 9:56am:
  The technology presented in this episode could be used to (literally) take over the galaxy.
  
  They could transport to an enemy ship, drink the serum developed by McCoy, kill everyone in the ship, drink the serum to reverse the effects of the prior serum, and voila.
  
  This could be used to make almost instantaneous repairs to the ship in case of an emergency.
  
  This technology could have changed Starfleet for the rest of their history.
• From Alan Feldman on 2012-10-07 at 6:57pm:
  More on "Wink of an Eye"
  
  Another remarkable scene: Deela's second interaction with Kirk being to grab him tightly and give him a sudden intense kiss, the first being simply, "Captain" only seconds before.
  
  I agree with Kethinov that the premise is silly -- hyper acceleration from volcanic eruptions polluting water and releasing radiation. Say what?
  
  Another problem with the "acceleration" is using the doors. The doors would open almost imperceptibly slowly. Would the doors even detect them so as to know to open? Well, perhaps there's a button they can press. But the doors are always fully open once Kirk has been accelerated, even on the bridge. Whatever. Must be one of those modifications the Scalosians made to the ship. But hyper-accelerating the door motors? The motors can't drink the Scalosian water. And then later the transporter? There must be lots of problems like this in this episode.
  
  Deela says "it always happens this way . . ." and "The way our parents and their parents before them." So after all that they now have a population of only 5?
  
  As pointed out on another website, the Scalosians' beaming aboard is problematic. Don't they have to stand still during the process, and hence be visible, even if smeared a bit, to Kirk and company? I think it would have been better if the Scalosians had their own transporter and beamed themselves aboard. That would also make plausible their getting the freezer device on the ship. Rael claims they are superior, so why not?
  
  Why does Kirk say, when saying goodbye to Deela, "I can think of nothing I'd rather do than stay with you. Except staying alive."? Sorry if I'm missing something obvious, but wouldn't he live just as long on his own time scale? Didn't Deela point that out only seconds before? For the crew left on the ship it would be different, but he wouldn't care if he decided to join Deela et al.
  
  Lots of problems, but the episode does have its fun moments.
  
  AEF
• From Alan Feldman on 2012-11-14 at 5:41am:
  Yet more on "Wink of an Eye"
  
  When Kirk fires his phaser at Deela, he aims it right at her face! Pretty rude, no?
  
  
  
  
• From Rick on 2013-10-05 at 2:21am:
  ""Granted, we don't really know why the phaser wasn't accelerated too, but whatever. It was a cool scene.""
  
  For someone who is hypercritical of TOS you missed the boat here. Kirk drank something to become accelerated. Why would that affect his phaser?
• From Alan Feldman on 2013-10-05 at 3:46am:
  Still more on "Wink of an Eye"
  
  Since my last post here, I have realized that my idea of the Scalosions having their own transporter ruins another aspect of the story, which is that Kirk could not sabotage it. OTOH, a race that advanced really ought have one.
  
  Maybe Kirk couldn't get the weapon from Deela while they were "doing it" because she could still scratch him, causing the deadly "cell damage." (What a phrase: "cell damage"!) Whatever.
  
  A lot of time must have passed for the accelerated ones. I mean A LOT. This would give Kirk plenty of time to (pretend to) "adjust."
  
  The scene where the phasers are whisked out of Kirk and Spock's hands is extremely well done. It looks great even when you know it's coming. And the music goes really well with it, too! Bravo!
  
  The question and answer session with the computer was particularly bad here. "Have we been invaded?" Say what? A huge contraption has been attached to the environmental equipment, and they wonder if they've been invaded?
  
  May I say that I don't find the computer Q&A sessions to be a bad idea in general. AI could have come quite a ways in 300 years, so the computer may be able to do some careful reasoning with all its data using a vast library of knowledge (knowledge base!) to assist it. OTOH, the computer certainly wouldn't (or wouldn't have to, at least) sound so monotone.
  
  AEF, aka betaneptune
• From Kethinov on 2013-10-05 at 6:28am:
  "Kirk drank something to become accelerated. Why would that affect his phaser?"
  
  Maybe drinking the potion made him emit some sort of time distortion field that would affect objects he came in contact with?
  
  There's plenty of ways to rationalize it. The episode should have done it explicitly, I agree, but the scene is fun enough that I'm willing to forgive them for not explaining it explicitly.
• From Rick on 2017-02-17 at 4:35am:
  Kethinov: Of course there are plenty of ways to rationalize what you were trying to say. Balance of probabilities, however, suggests that my explanation is more likely as well as being more simplistic. I am not of the opinion that an episode needs to add dialogue explaining every instance. If the phaser is slow, then it is slow. As long as some reasonable (and in this case it is more than reasonable) explanation supports the occurrence, then they need not explain it. In science fiction that would bog down too much time on explanation.
• From Chris Long on 2017-11-14 at 5:38pm:
  My only real problem with this episode is EVERYTHING!
  Like others here, the physics is the biggest problem, but so are the timelines of the accelerated folks and the slow pokes. They simply don't mesh at all.
  
  The physics problems.
  - Heat friction.
  - Shock waves all over the place.
  - Broken bones and shredded flesh once touching anything.
  or
  - If slowing down enough to touch something, not becoming visible for an instant.
  - Assuming one was able to survive with bones and flesh intact, any object touched would be destroyed immediately.
  
  I did enjoy seeing that Kirk really got to slap leather with that chick. Talk about a quickie!!
  

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Crystal on 2012-06-19 at 1:55pm:
  I am not sure why Spock felt the need to make him forget this girl of the week, and not Edith or Elaan.
  I agree that there should have been more focus on the plague, since it threatened the entire crew of the Enterprise.
• From jd_juggler on 2015-03-28 at 4:41pm:
  Arguably the worst episode of the entire series. Shatner's acting, and the inane dialogue is almost painful to watch, especially when he is "falling in love" with an android. And we know what most of those historic characters Flint claims to have been looked like. And they didn't all look alike. And if we are to suppose that none of those famous people actually died, they all must have simply "disappeared" - again, not credible. Nor would any of them (except his first incarnation) have had a childhood.
• From Harrison on 2015-11-22 at 6:22pm:
  While there is a fair bit of appalling acting, this episode has some redeeming and memorable virtues. For one thing, Nemoy delivers a very strong performance Spock's revelation of Flint's genius and past identities unfolds exactly as it should, thanks o some pretty elegant dialogue. James Daly is quite convincing as the inscrutable Flint. Louise Sorel is not only drop-dead gorgeous, but delivers some undeniably entrancing lines ("It is a flower dying in the desert"). Even Kirk's philandering campiness doesn't entirely lack amusement value. There's some classic Star trek to be had here, adn ti certainly isn't the worst episode of the original series.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-07-09 at 3:55am:
  Weyoun is a very entertaining character. I enjoyed his scenes immensely. However, Kira's emotional problems really brought this episode down. Reminded me of those Troi suffering episodes on TNG. After awhile it's like "We get that you are fucked up about your daddy's death. Get OVER it and stop being a bitch." The Legate was only a foot soldier on that battle and she acts like he was the mastermind behind it. I absolutely can't stand her when her Bajoran bitchiness kicks in and she starts whining.
• From rpeh on 2010-08-02 at 12:01am:
  I cannot believe this terrible, boring, overblown and over-sentimental pile of rubbish gained a 7 here.
  
  It's not interesting in any way. The plot is obvious within a few minutes and the acting is absolutely bloody awful. This episode is the only one where I used the DVD controls to skip ahead to see if there was something more interesting about to happen. I didn't even do that with TOS The Empath!
• From John on 2011-09-23 at 3:38am:
  I have to agree with the other commenters, this episode deserves well below a 7. For me it's 2, 2.5 tops, and both of those points are for Weyoun.
• From Selador on 2013-06-18 at 12:32am:
  I agree with the other comments. Kira is awful, Weyoun is brilliant. It's also completely unrealistic that Gul Dukat and Weyoun would be allowed to freely roam DS9 - the Federation and the Dominion are in a state of war for god's sake. Very dull episode on the whole. It was worth watching solely for the scene in Quark's bar where Weyoun drinks the poison. Classic.
• From Tarondor on 2018-09-06 at 11:21pm:
  I found it to be very moving and understood Kira’s ambivalence well. It was more to do with how she failed her father than anything Ghemore had done. And her anguish at how Ghemore struggled in death rang very true to me. Icon ur with the 7 rating.
• From Gaius Gracchus on 2021-11-20 at 1:54pm:
  I think the complaints about Kira "overreacting" to Ghemor's participation in that attack are unfounded, and I'm frankly not sure if we watched the same episode.
  
  Just as Kira looked for an excuse to leave her own father's deathbed, she wanted to get away from Ghemor's. Dukat gave her a reason, and she hates that it was *him* that did what she wanted. It's her guilt that is eating her, guilt over her lack of presence at her father's death and the guilt she knows she will feel if she avoids Ghemor's. In the end, she makes the right decision and is able to take some peace from it, burying Ghemor next to her own father on a hill that was once barren but is now verdant.
  
  This episode speaks to any child who has lost a parent or a parental figure. Those questions of "did I do enough?" never go away. Fantastic entry.

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• From Tallifer on 2011-05-01 at 12:20pm:
  How do some people rate this zero or one? Do they simply hate Star Trek and stumbled onto the wrong website in their search for Jersey Shore?
  
  This final story was amazing. Space battles. Intrigue and rebellion. The final battle between the pah-wraiths and the prophets.
  
  And I must confess that the extended epilogue detailing everyone's final fate brought tears to my eyes.
• From Inga on 2013-07-06 at 3:37pm:
  The last two episodes were indeed marvelous, but the pah wraith battle was pretty silly and banal (a tired concept of good vs evil).

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• From Edward on 2009-06-18 at 5:29pm:
  I think it actually would be possible to see the storm from a distance. You are forgetting that although the storm is traveling at warp, it still takes 8 days for it to pass while traveling at warp... it is huge. They wouldn't be able to look at the current location of the storm front, but they could possibly be looking at its past location.
  
  A bigger problem is that the alien captain read Archer's ship log. First I find it unlikely that Archer wouldn't encrypt the file, and second I find it unlikely that Captain Archer wouldn't mention somewhere that they are hiding on the ship. Just in case something goes wrong and everyone dies in the storm, he would want to leave behind a record of what happened for Star Fleet (It sounds as if the the Vulcan crew that died in that previous storm left behind a record of the events that occurred).
  
• From rpeh on 2010-07-20 at 3:21pm:
  Problem: Why is the doctor so worried about evacuating his creatures from Sickbay? They established at the start that people could survive there. Why doesn't he just wait out the storm there with his pets and not worry about the storage space?
• From John on 2013-03-27 at 4:31am:
  rpeh: The doctor needs to be where the crew is in order to treat injuries, particularly if they expect to be in there for weeks at a time. He also can't leave his animals there on their own, as it's been established that he needs to feed them regularly.
  
  I'm guessing there's no fully shielded pathway between the catwalks and sickbay, which explains why he is there.
• From Inga on 2015-03-31 at 7:28am:
  Archer's bluffing reminded me of Corbomite Maneuver. I wonder if it was intentional
• From Dstyle on 2015-09-16 at 5:33pm:
  Star Trek loves thinking in two dimensional space. That storm looks pretty flat. Couldn't Enterprise just fly straight up and fly over it?
• From Zorak on 2016-10-01 at 7:37pm:
  It's been a long time getting from there to here (har har), but enterprise is finally good again. Maybe I've been a bit desensitized by Enterprises long draught, but this seemed like an even better then average Star trek episode. I really enjoyed this one. Well written, well acted, mostly logical plot, exciting and just downright entertaining. It's about time.
  
  I hope they can keep up this pace from now on.
• From FH on 2023-08-17 at 7:35am:
  Concerning Edward's remark: "They wouldn't be able to look at the current location of the storm front, but they could possibly be looking at its past location." - nope, at least assuming the storm travels in a straight line toward Enterprise and does not vary its speed, then no matter how far back you go, the light of the storm would always arrive only after the storm. That's what it means for the storm to travel at warp speed, i.e. faster than light. It is faster than the light it emits. It will always outrun the light it has emitted on any point of its journey.

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• From Zorak on 2016-10-17 at 5:47pm:
  Agreed on all counts. Definitely a missed opportunity that they successfully shot down the bio weapon. I was really hoping they'd miss. Also, the return of Malik (who seems to have recovered from his burns) was totally uncalled for.
  
  I didn't know what to think about this whole eugenics arc at first. I was worried it was going to be another Xindi thing and encompass the whole season. I'm glad to see it was wrapped up. It got pretty interesting by the end, but I'm glad it's over. I'm not so sure Enterprise has handled serialization very well. I think they've done far better at stand alone episodes.
  
  That being said, I enjoyed this episode. I find it quite interesting how they cast augments here and in Wrath of Khan. All with that similar bone structure and facial type. It definitely gives them a unique look.. sort of like they all escaped from the set of Logan's Run. Also, Brent Spiner was a treat as always.
  
  There is one lingering thing that is bugging me a little in this arc.. It really seemed like the whole point (the entire inside joke, reference, AND retcon) of Data playing someone named Soong was a nod at the parallel between Khan Noonien Singh and Doctor Noonien Soong. But in the end, he actually had nothing at all to do with Khan and was just a descendant of Doctor Soong. I found this extremely bizarre. They seemed to have everything set up for some kind of reveal (like Khan was named after the first Dr Soong or something), but then it turns out the similarity is just a big coincidence after all? And his grandson then gets named after Khan for some reason? Really weird.

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• From Terry A. Hurlbut on 2016-07-15 at 10:19pm:
  Alan Dean Foster, who adapted all the animated episodes to prose, realized the one redeeming value of this particular episode. He expanded on the Bem narrative--greatly. In his version, the Enterprise travels to Pandro (Bem's home world), where Bem and Captain Kirk both have to stretch themselves to the limit to deal with a uniquely Pandronian crisis. (See "Star Trek Long Nine," New York: Del Rey Books, 1977.)

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Roger on 2015-06-14 at 10:59pm:
  I thought this episode was entertaining andpretty good overall, for seeing how the Prime Directive had evolved. It had some problems though. The firefight at the end was one of them, it was not believable. The military-trained aliens were such bad shots, while the marksmanship of the Enterprise party had improved greatly since "Marauders". And this was another episode plagued by what I will call "transporter phobia" - once they had located Archer and Reed in their cell why couldn't they just beam them up?
• From Zorak on 2016-09-29 at 3:48pm:
  I completely agree with your review on this one. I'm guessing this run of the last 4 episodes is where this show started to lose it's fan base. How could they think this was good Star Trek?
  
  The episode even started out alright (despite the premise relying entirely on Archers incompetence [i.e. high level technology goes in normal pockets] and his failure to ever learn his lesson), but then eventually devolves into another excruciatingly unrealistic shootout at the O.K. Corral.
  
  If I didn't know from having read articles in the past, as well as a comment you left for me in a season 1 episode that the writing gets a lot better later on, I'd be seriously considering giving up on this show.
  
  It's a shame. I really do like the characters in this show, with the exception of Archer (the worst captain ever!). I hope they turn this around soon.
• From Subcommander O'bummer on 2023-02-21 at 8:20am:
  Come on Zorak, Archer has to be a bad captain, there was no training or experience for what does, and before that he was just a test pilot! It is to be expected that he could not compare to Picard or Janeway and the others.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-05-30 at 6:41am:
  - The crew works the whole time trying to get the doors open to the holodeck. Does it have some kind of shield or force field? Why can't Picard and the others just be beamed out of the holodeck?
  - Matter created on the holodeck cannot exist outside the holodeck. However, during Picard's first visit, he is kissed by a woman. When he leaves the holodeck and goes to the bridge crew briefing, the lipstick remains. Shouldn't it have evaporated?
• From Bernard on 2008-09-01 at 8:37pm:
  The very first 'holodeck episode'! Certainly a landmark, but is this what we want to be watching? Star Trek OS used to just do parallel earth episodes to tell this kind of story.
  
  I would rather have seen one of the other characters being the subject of this episode as Patrick Stewart seems to have had the monopoly on most episodes upto this point.
  
  Where this one really falls down is the virtually non-existant B plot, so the A plot has to hold our attention...
• From Jeff Browning on 2011-09-19 at 5:33pm:
  Another problem. Picard is kissed by a woman in the holodeck and has lipstick on his face after leaving the holodeck. Not possible.
• From Kethinov on 2011-09-20 at 7:18am:
  Not necessarily, Jeff. It's possible the lipstick was real, replicated matter. There has always been speculation for some time that the holodeck combines both photons and forcefields with actual matter produced via replicator technology to enhance the realism. This hypothesis goes a long way toward explaining any number of similar continuity errors across a number of other episodes as well.
• From g@g on 2012-02-07 at 12:02pm:
  I have to comment on the humour in this episode, which was top notch. Data was maybe a little over the top (although his scene at the very end, esp. Picard's reactions was amusing), but Beverly was pretty much hysterical. As soon as she put on "period dress," everything she did and said had perfect comedic timing.
  
  A small criticism is that perhaps this entire episode, main plot included, was just a little too funny, a little too light-hearted. Comic relief is good, but it would've been nicely contrasted against something more serious. As it was, with the mysterious "insect species" that never made it on screen, talked with a strange pseudo-Japanese accent about pseudo-Japanese honor and greeting rituals in its funny native tongue... well, it was all a little too much like a parody of itself.
  
  But I enjoyed it nevertheless.
• From Bronn on 2012-12-20 at 12:16am:
  Anyone else thing it's weird that this won a Peabody Award for 1987 when it didn't air until 1988? I mean, that's not a typo, and I can understand why things like this sometimes happen, but it sure is awkward.
• From Dstyle on 2013-08-06 at 5:11pm:
  So if there's a small army of engineers sitting outside the holodeck, desperately trying to get it open and get Picard out, where are they when the doors open and the holograms walk out? And why doesn't Picard hurry out of there to get to the bridge once the doors open?
• From Azalea Jane on 2021-07-08 at 5:29am:
  The title of this episode always bothered me. "The big goodbye" would be more emotionally weighty if it weren't coming from a barely-developed hologram. Why Picard doesn't just leave and/or try to end the program so he can go attend to other pressing matters -- and instead pauses to have a sentimental moment with a holo-cop I don't find myself caring about ... just weird. An NPC's belabored existential crisis just doesn't seem episode-title-worthy to me. My alternate episode title: "Another World".
  
  I guess by this point they had not yet established that Data is bulletproof. We know he's super strong; he could have incapacitated and straight-up killed the mobster holograms with little trouble even if they'd gotten any shots off at him. We see a hint of this later when he grabs the last mobster's gun. But all three of them would have been short work for him. (We get to see a bit more of his fighting abilities later this season in "Home Soil".)
  
  I'm also annoyed that they didn't try a) manually wrenching open the doors, or b) cutting power to the holodeck. They could at least have added some treknobabble saying why they couldn't do those. Lazy writing!
  
  "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. A Newtonian truism which you have obviously neglected." Fantastic line. Lawrence Tierney was pretty cool as Redblock. He had a lot of great lines.
  
  Answering Dstyle above, I think the holodeck has multiple exits. You'll notice there was an exit both in Hill's private office and outside the entrance to his lobby. The crew was working outside the other one.
  
  Data getting into character was pretty funny. He may not experience emotions, but he sure does express them when he's in character!
• From the obummer on 2021-07-12 at 8:53am:
  I found it fairly annoying how cavalier they treated the history buffs life, the guy who got shot. I mean he is there on the floor taking his last breaths and they take their sweet time even after the doors are open.
  They make some jokes, have Data first beat up the mobster hologram all while the guy is bleeding out and only then slowly carry (!) him to sickbay. And the Doc doesn't even bother to go with him LOL

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-08-25 at 1:43am:
  - Both Picard and Dr. Crusher allow Geordi to return to work alone - even though they know that the change can strike suddenly. Picard should have assigned Data to watch over Geordi. Data, on his own, does make a halfhearted attempt at offering his help to Geordi. Geordi gives him a feeble excuse. Data accepts this and leaves.
  - If the computer was programmed to monitor Geordi's movements, wouldn't it sound an alarm as soon as Geordi disappeared? Of course, if an alarm sounded, or Picard had assigned Data to Geordi, it would have been a short episode.
  - Evidently, the show was running a little short on time anyway. Data takes "forever" converting a flashlight to emit ultraviolet light so they can locate Geordi on the planet's surface. Earlier in the episode, Data states that he is "strongly motivated" to help Geordi. Data is an android, in other episodes, has worked so fast that his hands become blurred. If Data is so strongly motivated to help and he can work that fast, why is he moving like his batteries are nearly drained?
  - When the away team beams down to rescue Geordi, Leitjen tells them to turn off their flashlights because the light will scare the aliens. Leitjen tells Riker that the ultraviolet light is "beyond their visual spectrum." Yet when Data illuminates them with his flashlight, Geordi and the other two aliens immediately turn and run away!
  - During the scene when Geordi is trying to determine the source of the shadow, the light strikes his visor at an angle, and we can see LeVar Burton's real eyes (black pupils, not the "white eyes" we normally see when Geordi removes his visor.)
• From JRPoole on 2008-06-15 at 6:23am:
  This is a better-than-average stand-alone episode. The alien of the week was actually interesting, Geordi got some character development, and it was all executed fairly well. The scene where Suzanna coaxes Geordi back to the ship was a little much, but this is pretty good all in all. I give it a six.
• From CAlexander on 2011-05-01 at 4:22pm:
  The good part of the episode is the way it presents and explores the mystery. It is well done. But the plotting is not consistently strong throughout, many scenes feel off.
  - As DSOmo's examples show, there is an awful lot of "crew idiocy".
  - Another example is how utterly ineffective they are when they come to capture Geordi in the holodeck. They were just told that he will be hard to see, but they don't account for that at all. And not only could they have turned off the holodeck, with some imagination they could have changed it to a setting that would make it easy to find Geordi (a pristine field of snow, for instance).
  
  
• From o@k.aok on 2011-08-27 at 1:20am:
  Agree with the reviewer on all counts. Good episode, even better than a 5. Some good performances in this one.
  
  Also, Geordi tracking down the mysterious shadow in the holodeck was downright creepy. Actually, there were a number of "horror movie" elements in this episode, all tactful.
  
  
• From Mike on 2017-03-26 at 5:13am:
  I agree with DSO. Geordi being allowed to work alone is the one gaping hole in the plot of this episode. There's simply no good explanation for that, given what they know about what's happened to the others.
  
  That aside, this episode is pretty good. Geordi's holodeck investigation was still a great scene, and the whole backstory made this a compelling watch right from the start.
• From One world, one obumpresidency on 2021-08-02 at 7:10am:
  Oh my gords, the "blue episode". When I think of all the atrocious episodes scifi shows had between the good stuff back then, this is the one that always comes to mind. Stargate had a similarly bad one where they turn into Cro-Magnons.
  It alone has prevented me from rewatching TNG at least 5 times, I think.
• From Azalea Jane on 2021-10-16 at 2:23am:
  I remember liking this episode as a kid. It seems kind of silly now. I'd love to see what those aliens would look like with modern special effects technology!
  
  There's the ever-present away team problem, where a ship with a crew of a thousand sends a handful of its senior bridge crew to a strange planet at night with no hazard suits, no backup, no surveillance drones, and no large floodlights. Eh. I know, that's how TNG rolls. But even Leitjen sort of pointed this out when she mentioned sending several teams down.
  
  The shadow thing doesn't make sense. If the creature blocked the light from hitting the wall, the light would either bounce off of it or be absorbed, allowing it to be visible. For it to be invisible, light would have to pass through it -- as we see in the transporter room -- and thus it would not cast a shadow.
  
  Data emotion-spotting: too easy this time, considering Crusher basically points out that Data is worried!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From warp factor 10.1 on 2012-08-09 at 4:21pm:
  The reason I was looking forward to a prequel series was that the wonder and excitement of first contact would be so great. It was a big disappointment therefore when species started coming thick and fast and aliens we had never seen before were almost commonplace. All we needed was a subset of the many species found in TOS. There was still plenty of opportunity to discover how we came across them etc. This was done with the Andorians but that was all.
  
  Although two of my favourite episodes of all are to do with time I usually don't like them and basing a story arc on some incomprehensible time story was again disappointing for me.
  
  There was some good stuff in this series but for me it was all to do with finding out more about known alien species.
• From TK8 on 2012-11-07 at 5:33pm:
  As a kid who was a bit of an amateur astronomer and TOS through to the present form of Star Trek fan, forgive a pet peeve here. Rigel was named by Arabic astronomers hundreds of years ago. Archer says, it's called Rigel as if was an alien moniker. How's that for a nerdy niggle? This is the first comment I've posted on the internet since 1996.
• From OmicronThetaDeltaPhi on 2015-02-25 at 12:47pm:
  @TK8 Actually, the "Rigel" thing wasn't an error, but a correction of a blunder made in TOS. The Original Series made several references to a star system named "Rigel" which is fairly close to earth.
  
  For years fans have assumed that this was supposed to be the real (human named) star Rigel, which is problematic because the real Rigel is over 800 light years away.
  
  So the 'Enterprise' writers cleverly solved this decades-old problem, by stating that Star Trek's 'Rigel' is an alien name for a nearby star. A star that has nothing to do with the human-named 'Rigel', except for the coincidence of the two names sounding alike.
  

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• 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.

No fan commentary yet.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Jennifer on 2006-04-02 at 7:13pm:
  In stark contrast to our fab web-master here, I did really like this episode. I liked the romance that Crusher had with the man at the beggining, and the part where she kisses Riker (but not really Riker) is both moving and funny. It's fascinating to see how well Jonathan Frankes carries off another role still technically being the same person. I loved the crushing, totally unexpexted twist at the end.
• From Andy978 on 2007-05-10 at 2:09pm:
  Who, exactly, says that we have to "dismiss" seven years of DS9? They changed their mind about how Trill are supposed to work after this episode, end of story. It doesn't "negate" anything, nor does it expect us to take one more seriously than the other.
  
  In short... I don't think your review or argument makes any sense here. Sorry. Your argument seems to be based on a straw-man controversy, and if revelations made in a later series actually ruin your enjoyment of this episode... man, you've got serious, serious problems. (by your logic, we can't enjoy Star Trek IV. After all, there's a woman in the Captain's chair, when we ALL know from "Turnabout Intruder" that women can't be Captains. No, no, it's not that the creators of the show changed their mind 20 years on due to changing social mores... it's *obviously* sloppy writing and we should consider this an "inconsistency.")
  
  This isn't a flame - this is a great website and, for the most part, I appreciate your opinion and analysis. Please consider it more of a "constructive criticism." Saying "I don't like it because of something that came later that was different," isn't a very good argument, and it's sort of disappointing because most of the time, your opinions at least hold water.
  
• From DSOmo on 2007-08-31 at 7:28am:
  - Troi walks into the beauty parlor and takes her seat beside Dr. Crusher. Troi then looks over. A surprised expression comes over Troi's face, and she greets Crusher. Should Troi be surprised to see Crusher? When Troi walks into the room Crusher is sitting low in a chair, with her back to Troi. Shouldn't Troi's empathic sense tell her that Crusher is in the chair? Wouldn't there be something like an emotional fingerprint?
  - There is a minor tension point in the plot near the end, when Dr. Crusher removes Odan from Riker. Odan can survive in stasis for only a few hours, and the host is still nine hours away. The Enterprise rushes to meet the Trill ship at warp 9. What's the rush? Why not just implant Odan into another person on the Enterprise?
• From JRPoole on 2008-06-26 at 8:42pm:
  I find the debate here amusing. While the inconsistencies mentioned above annoy me to no end, they shouldn't ruin the episode.
  
  But, why, oh why, does every Beverly-centered episode have to descend into melodrama? At least they didn't go for the shock value of a lesbian make-out scene at the end, though I'm sure it would have heightened this episode's fanboy appeal....
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2008-10-24 at 4:10pm:
  This is a very emotional episode, and very well acted. Beverly, Picard, Riker, Troi, and Odan pull off splendid performances. Riker REALLY looked sick and unhealthy, like he'd swallowed poison. I think he is underated as an actor.
  
  Though, I have trouble believing Riker had enough room in his chest for the symbiont. I think his intestines would probably have to be removed and set aside for a while.
  
  Also, am I to believe that he had sex with Crusher? He didn't look like he was in the condition to do so.
• From Pemmer Harge on 2010-04-07 at 6:57pm:
  You can't mark this episode down just because DS9 contradicted it, you just can't! That's DS9's fault!
• From ChristopherA on 2012-07-05 at 7:33pm:
  When watching this episode now, it is very hard to think of anything other than how different this older Trill concept is from the DS9 concept. Yet it just doesn't seem fair to judge this episode down just because they later made changes to the concept. In effect, this episode is about a different species of hosts and symbionts than the ones in DS9.
  
  In that light, I think the episode is rather thought-provoking. The idea of that the man Dr. Crusher is in love with inhabits the body of someone she knows only as a friend and comrade, and wants to continue their intimate relationship through that body, is creepy and interesting. Also interesting is the question of whether it makes a difference that he never revealed to her his fundamental nature, as well as the twist ending. None of the actual "suspense plot" was particularly meaningful or memorable. But at the same time, it didn't detract from the central point either. I figure that if I come away from an episode thinking and pondering, it must be a good thing.
  
• From lumzi23 on 2017-02-16 at 12:15am:
  Regarding what someone above said. I think it is unfair to say someone has "serious problems" due to having issues with changes and inconsistencies as a series progresses. I personally don't always have such issues but as someone who watched Star Trek out of order (for the most part) I can understand why such changes might be jarring especially when they are so obvious.
  
  Note: I didn't see the original comment and I'm only commenting on this part of what his responder said.
• From Kethinov on 2017-02-16 at 5:18am:
  The comments flaming me here were in reference to the original version of the review (from a loooong time ago) where I docked points on this episode due to its inconsistencies with DS9.
  
  In the end, I ultimately found Andy978's argument persuasive and altered both my review of this episode and my stance towards how to handle continuity errors across the board accordingly.
  
  That's why some of the comments here seem to be flaming me over a nonexistent issue. They convinced me they were right, so now what they were responding to is gone.
  
  I should probably remove all comments relating to the debate, as there is no debate now. But I'll leave the comments up for now, at least until the new version of the site that's being developed is launched Real Soon Now™.
• From jeffenator98 on 2019-08-20 at 5:15pm:
  This episode is cringe worthy no matter when you see it. 0/10

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Jadzia Guinan Smith on 2010-09-02 at 1:10am:
  I find it strange that a treaty between the Vuncans and the Andorians should be known by an Earth calendar year.
  
  Also, why would Andorians refer to humans as "pink skins" when we clearly come in many varieties? If any one color should strike them as the most common, it would be brown, wouldn't it? The vast majority of us are brown and even the races we call "white" or "black" tend to still be some pale or dark shade of brown. I would think this commonality is what an alien would pick up on, since he wouldn't share our historical baggage with regard to intra-species racial differences.
• From Tallifer on 2011-05-14 at 9:04am:
  "Pink skins" makes perfect sense. Shran's first humans were the very pink Archer, Tucker and Reed. Maybe if he had first encountered Sisko, Bashir and Geordi?
• From -_Name_- on 2013-07-04 at 4:58pm:
  This episode was pretty predictable and unimaginative. The only thing that saved it was Shran, who is indeed turning into a pretty great character... perhaps on the darker side of the moral spectrum, but by no means some cartoonish, one-dimensional villain...
• From Dstyle on 2015-09-18 at 5:52pm:
  I'm with Jadzia on this one: I cringed every time the Andorians referred to humans as "the pink skins." Okay, okay, Star Trek, I get it: "white" is the default color of humans and anything else is just a variation on whiteness. Very enlightened writing, Enterprise writers!
• From Urdomen on 2022-03-04 at 11:31pm:
  I must say I found it pretty jarring that the only Andorian woman we see in the entire episode is the one who ends up betraying Shran and, in extension, the peace talks. Even more so since she is dressed up with focus on sexual attractiveness (the cleavage I could have lived with, but high heeled shoes on a battle field?), and being leader's confidante.
  Seems to me the message is: Never trust an attractive woman in a position of power, for she will use her womanly wiles to manipulate and scheme.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Shawn on 2011-05-17 at 2:35am:
  Judgment does not fall short, in fact shows that there is a rw= of why there is not an apocliptic war with the the Klingons.
• From peterwolf on 2012-08-26 at 8:20pm:
  Yes ripoff and sort of rerun!
  But I rather think of a homage. In fact, I like very much the way Hertzler plays the Klingon characters. He is just an old grump with a good heart! Interesting how he stands for some "archaic" Klingon society, in which science and laws were valued much higher than in the later Klingon Empire. Seemingly, the formal code of honour that caused a thousand conflicts for Worf had overtaken the Empire already. So I think Hertzler can show us the essence of what a Klingon should be like.
• From Nightwish on 2015-07-12 at 1:12am:
  The prosecutor was played by the same actor that played Neroon in Babylon 5, who has a very interesting voice for these kinds of roles.
• From Zorak on 2016-10-02 at 6:48pm:
  Kolos was ok. Other than that, I thought this was a pretty poor episode. Not just poor, but pointless. This episode not only doesn't move any plot or character development forward, it contributes to the stagnation and impotence of the Klingons. The first era of contact between the Klingons and Humans was supposed to be explosive. Instead it is meandering and boring.

No fan commentary yet.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-05-22 at 9:17am:
  This is the only episode where Riker and Troi communicate telepathically.
  
  Problems:
  - The computer gives Riker directions to the holodeck: the entrance is the next hatchway on the RIGHT. Riker turns LEFT!
  - While talking to Data in the holodeck, Riker comments that he looked up Data's record. He then asks Data if his degree is honorary. If Riker had read Data's record, wouldn't he have known the degree was earned?
  - While in the holodeck, Wesley fall into a stream. When he leaves the holodeck, Wesley is still wet. If matter created on the holodeck can't exist outside the holodeck, shouldn't Wesley be dry?
  - The alien ship attacks the Bandi city with energy pulses. Why didn't the alien just beam the energy down to its mate?
• From CAlexander on 2011-03-28 at 11:06pm:
  The good part of this two-part episode is the interaction with Q. I like the scenes in the 21st century courtroom. The actual plot about the creature is rather pedestrian, not really of great interest.
  
  Historically, I have to give this episode big props for being the pilot for a great show. But if you look at it as just another episode, it has some definite weaknesses. First, as Michael B pointed out in the comments to part 1, the acting hasn't hit its stride yet. Second, there were a number of elements that they later realized were mistakes and removed.
  - The music is way too dramatic, going off like crazy at rather trivial revelations.
  - The Ship Separation scene. I guess it seemed like a good idea on paper, but wow, what a waste of time! And that "headless" ship is ugly!
  - Counselor Troi going totally over the top acting out her empathic connection with the creature.
  
• From Amiable-Akuma on 2017-06-01 at 12:35pm:
  I agree that the Bandi city stuff is more boring, cheaply-manipulative, and less-interesting than the Q stuff - but upon re-watches it has grown on me. The saccharine ending feels more genuine to me now and I enjoy how the guest-actor who plays Groppler hams it up.
  
  -Note how in the holodeck scene, a clear "stuntman given makeup/hair to be Data" is used for that entire significant sequence where Data springs into action and pulls Wesley from the water. I find it odd that Brent Spiner couldn't at least perform the part where he is jumping down the hill quickly to get there. Maybe Spiner tried it several times and didn't look as smooth as the stunt-performer?
  
  -There's at least two shots in the 2nd half of this two-parter where Counselor Troi is standing, and her "official" skirt is shown to be absurdly short. I kind of love it. Shows that the 80's and Starfleet had an "innocently" sexy vibe.
  
  -Note Troi's headband, hair, and uniform in general. Odd seeing her introduced as such, given that her classic "cleavage" unitard and style becomes so familiar to her
  
  -Finally, Marina Sirtis' acting as Troi bothered the hell out of me when I first saw this, especially the director's choice to linger so much on her "feeling the emotions" scenes. It felt cheap, corny, unnecessary. But I'm over it now. I realize it's part of the silly charm to her character and that's all a means to an end for many storylines, etc.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-04-16 at 4:30am:
  Overcoat appearance, I hate that damn thing. Also, it seems quite tactless of the producers to place two troubled-kid-that-doesn't-fit-in-at-school episodes back to back. It was a little irritating. Okay episode, though
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2006-05-16 at 9:34pm:
  Two back-to-back children episodes -- that's odd. Two back-to-back children episodes where the kid gets stuck under ruble -- that's even more odd.
  
  Besides the obvious similarities, Hero Worship holds up do to yet another kid who acts in a believable way. Having the kid believe he blew up the ship was a brilliant idea from the writers.
  
  The science portion of this episode falls into the typical category. Once again, they crew must do the opposite to get out of a deadly situation.
  Besides that, this episode is well executed. It gets a 5 due to the fact that it is not one you get out and watch over and over again. Watching a "kid" episode is not something the average viewer strives to do, especially back-to-back.
  
  
• From DSOmo on 2007-09-11 at 7:04am:
  - When Timothy asks Data about his lack of emotions, Data replies, "My positronic brain is not capable of generating those conditions." Dr. Noonian Soong must have thought it was, because he created a set of emotional subroutines for Data in "Brothers." And Lore proved a positronic brain is capable of generating those conditions in "Datalore."
  - The Vico must have a humongous computer core. While discussing the destruction of the Vico with Geordi, Picard punches up a side view of the Vico on a monitor. He indicates the midpoint of the saucer section with his finger and comments, "The boy was here." Geordi agrees, adding that Timothy was in the hallway outside the computer core. Geordi them points to the lower portion of the drive section to show Picard where the second away team found the body of Timothy's mother. He tells Picard she was in the computer core. Does the computer core on a research vessel stretch from the saucer section all the way through the yoke and all the way down to the bottom of the drive section?
  - To test the effectiveness of the phasers inside the black cluster, Picard orders Worf to fire them at maximum yield. Picard gives a firing direction of 0-0-1 mark 0-4-5. So the heading Picard gives should be directly in front of the ship and raised at an angle of 45 degrees. The next scene of the ship shows the phasers firing twice. The first time the phasers fire they shoot directly ahead, a heading that would be described as something like 0-0-1 mark 0-0-1. The second time, the phasers finally approximate the right heading. Does Worf need a practice shot to figure out how to fire the phasers in the right direction?
  - Under Troi's encouragement, Data visits Timothy. Of course, Timothy is alone in the room, but that's normal Starfleet procedure for a boy who's just lost his parents. (See comments for "The Bonding")
• From KingElessar8 on 2009-03-20 at 4:43pm:
  "My positronic brain is not capable of generating those conditions."
  
  I don't see a real problem here - he meant his particular positronic brain isn't naturally capable of generating emotions, not positronic brains in general (although the later could still well be the case). Dr. Soong had to write a specific program for him to be able to experience emotions, and I assume Lore had something similar, or (more likely) Data's brain was designed differently to avoid the problems Dr. Soong encountered by the more "human" Lore.
  
  Overall, this is an ok episode. The scene that reveals that Data cannot taste food was taking Data as Inhuman Machine (which overall reached its bleakest point with "In Theory") a little too far. I thought the original idea was that Data would become more human as the series progressed, but that certainly isn't how it ended up working in practice.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Bernard on 2010-01-20 at 10:47pm:
  I like the way they decided to continue on from the end of season one with more Bajoran stuff. One would have thought that after a fairly lacklustre first season that they would begin season two with something quite generic and 'easy' for non-trek fans to get into, I'm glad they did not.
  
  This is by no means a standout offering, but it is steady enough and keeps the interest flowing into the next installment.
• From Amaterasu on 2010-12-08 at 2:44am:
  You don't consider The Best of Both Worlds and Family a three parter?
• From Gul Duviewer on 2011-08-17 at 10:37am:
  I thought this was an excellent episode. I think Chief O'Brian being sent on a successful special ops combat mission, and personally dispensing several guards, deserves a mention in "Remarkable Scenes." Quite a change of pace for him from repairing food replicators and the like.
  
  His deceptive pimping of Kira was also amusing. (How the hell does he do such a convincing job of being so unsavory? Are there other sides to old Miles that we haven't seen yet?)
  
  Everything just seemed nicely lined up and well executed. I really liked how there were a few things on the side that fit in the with the major plot lines, like Quark's mentioning Rule of Acquisition #76 in the very beginning, "declaring peace for the sake of confusion," which ties into Gul Dukat's conciliatory reaction at the end. Also, Jake's date's father not letting them see each other because Jake isn't a Bajoran (ties into xenophobic extremism spreading on Bajor).
  
  There were also some great tidbits of continuity, for instance Miles being eager about, and then actually participating in the Cardassia IV mission. This ties in with his having fought Cardassians before on Setlik III under Captain Maxwell, and personally witnessing atrocities there (TNG: The Wounded).
  
  And another tiny bit of continuity when Quark walks in on Major Kira in the middle of a Bajoran ritual... In the previous episode she talked about wishing her faith was stronger.
  
  To cap this all off, I thought the acting was all around very good - even though there weren't any intensely dramatic scenes. I thought it was all very smooth and even, perhaps just half a notch better than most episodes. In almost every other episode (thus far) I find Avery Brooks' performance of Sisko to be kind of mechanical and... jumpy or something... not quite convincing, at least in certain moments. But here Sisko is very consistent and believable. I hope it holds from here on out.
  
  Anyway, good episode. 8 or 9.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Lt. Fitz on 2012-06-29 at 11:48am:
  Victor Maitland from Beverly Hills Cop! He plays such a good slimeball! :)
• From Selador on 2013-06-19 at 11:05pm:
  A decent idea, poorly executed. I must disagree with the view Hagath was a brilliant character played by a brilliant actor. He was a one-dimentional stereotypical villain, overplayed by a below average actor with no imagination.
  
  Quark's turnaround came too late - he had already played apart in selling weapons to very dubious character. He should have been sent to prison for it for a very long time.
• From Bronn on 2013-07-17 at 12:12am:
  Trek writers tend to want it so clear that they're not supporting something even slightly controversial by getting a bit heavy-handed with the plot. That's what happened here. I thought this could have been a bit more intriguing without this guy showing up halfway through the episode and announcing that he's the villain of the week by saying, "I would like to indiscriminately kill 28 million people, please." Real people don't talk like that, not even bloodthirsty despots. I would have preferred if they'd moved a bit slower with this plot, having Quark getting drawn in more and more over his head until he realized what he was doing. It seems like they TRIED to do that, but they couldn't help but pass on the message that "People who sell weapons have no souls," so they cut it short pretty quickly.
  
  This could have been more intelligently done. There was apparently some awareness among the writing staff, since they pointed out that people like Hagath had supplied weapons to the Bajoran resistance. The weapons carried by even Federation security personnel were obviously researched and developed by SOMEBODY-and sure, while they have stun settings, they also have kill settings, and we'll see our heroes using lethal settings on their weapons rather arbitrarily over the remainder of this show's run. Then there's people out there who are supposedly supplying weapons to the Maquis, whom we're supposed to view at least with some degree of sympathy since they were among the heroes on Voyager. We hear about plenty of members of Starfleet who help supply weapons TO the Maquis, so obviously not everyone in the whole Federation hates weapons suppliers.
  
  Instead of a designated villain who just wants to kill everyone, you could write someone like an ACTUAL bloodthirsty despot. Bring in someone who's running an authoritarian regime that says he wants to snuff out the rebels-it should serve as an echo for the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. The arms merchants could offer him precision weapons that will allow him to eliminate the leaders and blow up rebel hide-outs, but instead, he wants large scale weapons to use to take out entire villages that harbor resistance members. At least make it seem realistic. It also helps leave just a bit of a gray area in which actual weapons developers can exist, even if the ones represented in the episode are unscrupulous.
• From Axel on 2015-06-09 at 3:29am:
  I disagree a bit with the reviewer Bronn. I do think this episode did a decent job with the moral gray area that is weapons dealing. Even in the real world, weapons dealing is one of those things that we know goes on and that we overall consider to be evil, but which we tolerate because we also know it makes possible certain things we believe to be worthwhile. It allows causes we believe in to take hold.
  
  The best scene in this episode is the one where Gaila confronts Quark about his hesitations. This scene reminded me of the movie “Lord of War” which focuses on this same issue. Gaila points out the same thing that Nicholas Cage’s character does in that movie: the universe is made up of people who are committed to the destruction of other people. You’ll never be able to stop it, and refusing to sell weapons doesn’t mean the genocide won’t occur, it just means someone else will profit from it instead. Quark, I think when talking to Jadzia, also offers up the age-old excuse of the weapons dealer: I’m giving people a means to defend themselves.
  
  I do agree the Federation characters come across as a little too holier-than-thou in this one. Of course, this is before they found out that Section 31 was using biological warfare against the Founders with the hope of wiping them out.
  
  The eccentric Hagath was definitely an enjoyable character.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From JRPoole on 2011-07-10 at 2:58pm:
  I'm trying convince myself to be a Star Trek completionist and watch all of Enterprise, but, with the exception of the two-part pilot, the episodes here haven't really made the case. None of them are horrible, but the characters--most notably Archer and Tripp are pretty flat, and the forced contention between Archer and T'Pol is annoying.
  
  But what really bugs me are little flaws, like Hoshi's slug, which they leave on a totally different planet. The biggest one, though, is in this episode. "This is the closest we can come to water," the Xyrillian says, handing Tripp a cube of not-ice. So we're supposed to believe that the species are closely related enough to mate together and have similar technology, but they can't make H2O? That's ridiculous.
• From Vincent on 2011-10-25 at 3:25am:
  You have mentioned the "problem" of adding new species to Star Trek in a prequel, but I don't necessarily believe it is a bad thing. A number of things could have happened to a species between Enterprise and TOS. They could have been wiped out in a war (aren't there supposed to be wars between the Federation and the Klingons and Romulans at some point), or they could have decided to remain neutral and stay out of the Federation, which would limit their appearances in Federation starships of chronologically later series.
  
  I do agree that it is kind of annoying that history as told by previous series does not always match up with the events of Enterprise.
• From happydude on 2013-04-16 at 2:02am:
  Ah, the good ol' comedic rape episode. Not only one of the worst episodes of this series, it manages to do this seemingly progressive franchise a disservice through its mere existence in trivializing one of the most heinous crimes one can commit.
• From DK on 2013-04-24 at 2:55am:
  I have to sort of agree with happydude.  Imagine if the gender roles were reversed; the femmes would be out for blood.   Example: Phlox lecturing a female crew member:  "Seems you did a little more than repair work",  and pointing out where nipples are growing.  Can you imagine a male lecturing a woman about not being able to restrain herself and sticking her fingers where they didn't belong after being unintentionally raped the way T'pol lectured Trip?  And all this happened in just one scene and not to mention how much differently the impregnator would be viewed (would "oops, I didn't mean to" really fly for an excuse?).
  The reversal of traditional gender roles just does not work for me much of the time and newer incarnations of Star Trek are notable offenders; some of the things Keiko does to Miles would be grounds for boycott had the gender roles been reversed (if I remember right she was a botanist with nothing to do on DS9.  Shouldn't she have been cooking his dinner once in a while rather than criticizing, complaining and giving him dirty looks all the time?).  Much of the time it seems that 'a strong female character' translates to 'symbolically emasculate all males around' in the more recent Star Treks.  And in Enterprises' 'Unexpected' they come near to literally doing it.
• From tt5 on 2014-09-21 at 5:42pm:
  Am I the only one who thinks that turning on the gravity without warning is like... dangerous.
• From Zach on 2015-07-03 at 7:27pm:
  @DK: Trivializing Kako like that means we see less of her, which is a good thing. We also get to see more Miles, whick is also goo.
• From President Obummer on 2020-01-17 at 6:10pm:
  Also, Keiko does prepare food for him on several occasions. DK seems to have some deeper problems with females ^^
  Gender roles could have easily been reversed in this episode, it just would have been even more boring.
• From Azalea Jane on 2021-07-28 at 6:55am:
  I was also bothered by the casual and humorous way in which Trip's violation was treated. Even granting that it was accidental, that Ah'len genuinely had no way of knowing her "game" with Trip would have any lasting consequences with a different species, it still flirts with the "male rape played for laughs" trope a little too hard.
  
  I did like a lot of other aspects of this episode. T'Pol coming to Archer's defense was cool. I'm sincerely hope the writers end up doing more with her character than "sexy resident buzzkill", because she's got plenty of potential for development. I'm always curious to see development with the Klingons, knowing we'd be at war with them at some point.
  
  In general with this show so far I'm really appreciating that they're not glossing over so many details that other Treks have glossed over. Whether it's better budget, better VFX, or the technological limitations in the show, it feels so much more real. The three-hour compression/decompression is a good example, or the crew wearing actual environment suits in "Fight or Flight", or the limits of translator technology, trying to avoid transporters, having paltry weapons... it's refreshing after seeing so much Trek ignore many of the practicalities of space exploration.
• From President Obummer on 2023-02-15 at 9:27am:
  Rape? How is it rape if nothing involuntary is done and no naughty parts are even touched? It is more like the story from various religions of involuntary conception by gods.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-12-10 at 6:38am:
  As with many Enterprise episodes, you kind of have to ignore the continuity errors. After all, it is Brannon Braga's show. I find that when you dismiss the Ferengi first contact stuff, this episode becomes quite enjoyable. The humor is priceless, and I like how the Ferengi here are much more like the Ferengi we see in TNG rather than DS9.
  
  Also, I really like Jeffrey Combs and Ethan Phillips in this one.
• From JRPoole on 2011-07-21 at 11:35pm:
  I agree with the sentiment here. Not a bad episode if you take it with a grain of salt. One thing that DS9 (still probably my favorite Trek overall though it got kind of religiousy after Roddenberry died) got so right was what it did with the Ferengi. They were so well used as fodder for satire in so many solid humor episodes even if you have to overlook a few really bad outings.
  
  The problem with TNG-style Ferengi is that, much like the ones here, they seem so much of a self-parody that it's hard to believe they're really capable of space flight and pose any threat at all. At least these are a little sharper than the hissing, growling, whip cracking Ferengi we see early on on in TNG.
• From Josh on 2011-10-08 at 1:08am:
  This has pretty much everything you need in a light-hearted episode: lots of humour, my two favourite ST supporting actors, and a solid 20 minutes of Trip running around in his underwear.
  
  Usually Ferengi in large numbers annoy me, but its hard not to like Jeffrey Combs and Ethan Phelps. Besides Clint Howard, who was the other Ferengi played by?
  
  One thing I wasn't sure about; I thought gold didn't hold much value to Ferengi? I could swear I remember Quark saying something to that effect...
• From Dstyle on 2015-09-03 at 1:09pm:
  Hey, did any of y'all notice that T'Pol is a very attractive woman? Don't worry if you didn't: the writers will make sure to repeatedly draw your attention to it episode after episode.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Tony on 2008-09-05 at 2:39am:
  Janeway: "I never realized you thought of me as reckless, Tuvok."
  Tuvok: "A poor choice of words. It was clearly an understatement."
  Tuvok is right, reckless is one thing, but flying into a binary pulsar is just stupid. It's better to have a few more deaths than risk killing everyone (and I don't think it was very likely that they would make it through, although they managed to do so). One could say that her headace and sleeplesness may have made her more reckless than her usual recklessness.
• From Dan on 2009-08-05 at 12:43pm:
  I disagree with the above comment.
  
  The needs of the few, outweigh the needs of the many...
• From lumzi on 2017-07-07 at 6:26pm:
  *spoiler*
  
  
  
  
  When the camera pans over to the Doctor's drawing in DaVinci's room I broke out in laughter.