TNG: “Disaster” and “The Game”

Date: April 25, 2020

Season 5 , Episodes 5 and 6

Musical Accompaniment: 6 Suites for Cello Solo played by Istvan Vardai, by J.S. Bach.

Interstellar News: Another hour of yard work and began Scrubs today. We finally finished Babylon 5, four of the five movies, and Crusade… so it was my turn to pick a TV series he’s never seen, for us to watch together.

Favorite Quotes from “Disaster”:

Worf: There will be a sharp pain as I set the bone. Prepare yourself. Good. Good, you bore that well.

…

Keiko: I’m going into labor.

Worf: You cannot. This this is not a good time, Keiko.

Keiko: It’s not open for debate. Like it or not, this baby is coming.

…

Worf: Congratulations. You are fully dilated to ten centimeters. You may now give birth.

Keiko: That’s what I’ve been doing.

Worf has very good bedside manner, but does not understand life doesn’t always go according to the simulation.

Picard’s Poetry: “All right. I’ll try. But I want you to know this is mutiny. “

“Disaster” begins like any other day on the Enterprise. Picard is going to give a tour to the three science fair winners, O’Brien is going to run a simulation, Dr. Crusher is trying to get La Forge to sing, and the rest of the bridge crew is on Ten-Forward… except for Troi. Everything’s normal until they hit a quantum filament, the ship begins to shake like they’re in a space-quake, and the power goes out in various areas of the ship. There are now five separate stories to follow:

Picard is with the three children in a turbolift: Marissa, the oldest, is promoted to First Officer, Jay Gordon is now the science officer, and Patterson, the youngest, is in charge of radishes. Picard’s ankle is broken so he wants to send the kids up the ladder because the turbolift emergency system is broken, but the crew decides to stay together. They all keep climbing to find an open door, a little while later the lift falls so they sing a climbing song. Picard finally finds an opening and he and the children make it up, broken ankle and all.

Troi is the highest ranking officer on the bridge and has O’Brien, Ro, and Mandel to help her. They try to follow procedure, well at least O’Brien does, and they have no idea where any other survivors are – they are cut off from the rest of the ship. Ro believes they need to separate the saucer, but Troi wants O’Brien to divert power so that someone in engineering, if they’re alive, can get things up and running.

La Forge and Crusher are in the cargo bay when a plasma fire starts. They have to move heavy barrels across to one end and also put out the fire… when La Forge has a crazy idea. He opens the cargo bay, sends the barrels they just spent time moving (twice apparently) out into space (guess they weren’t important?), and sucks enough oxygen out so the fires stops. He then has to re-pressurize the bay and they only have a few seconds before they pass out, but Dr. Crusher saves the day.

Riker, Worf, Data, and Keiko are in Ten-Forward. Riker and Data leave to get to engineering and Worf is left in control of the areas as it will be the makeshift sickbay. Keiko has her baby, a girl they name Molly, and Worf uses his emergency medical class knowledge. Data and Riker crawl through the tubes when stuff starts exploding. Data uses his body to set off the electric field and tells Riker to bring his head so it can be connected in engineering. Data, the floating head, and Riker get to engineering and fix the containment field… which is exactly what Troi was hoping for. All is now well in the world.

I will start with my favorite part in Ten-Forward. Worf took charge of the area, has wonderful bedside manner, and was cool under pressure. All the while he was able to make me laugh, because Michael Dorn is amazing and knows how to deliver a damn line. Next was the turbolift where I was horrified when I realized Picard was going to get stuck in the turbolift with CHILDREN, but he of course did a fantastic job once he realized he could treat them like mini-adults. Troi did an excellent job in a leadership role, trying to understand the things she doesn’t normally have to pay much attention to and O’Brien was very calm and patient with her. Ro made a good foil and I’m glad she was there to play the devil’s advocate. Riker and Data were ultimately the ones who restored power to the ship and fixed the containment field, but aside from Data’s head detachment, it was not as engaging as the other stories. La Forge and Crusher has my least favorite journey, it was stupid and ridiculous.

This may have been a stereotypical disaster episode, where everyone had to rise to the occasion because they were elsewhere than where they are best suited, but it was enjoyable as heck. I can seriously listen to Worf deliver one-liners forever and be quite happy. I really enjoyed this episode, which is why I may have given a more detailed summary than usual, so it’s a score of 8 on the Apgar.

Favorite Quote from “The Game”:

Wesley: I wonder how it works?

Robin: Why don’t you try it and find out?

Wesley: I’d like to know a little bit more about it before I try it.

Robin: I bet if we worked together we could figure it out.

The responsible thing to do before trying something out. Teenagers, just what will the do next

“The Game” begins with Riker down on Risa with a woman who throws away his communicator and then puts something on his head and calls it a game and it’s utterly horrifying what happens when he wins. Back aboard the Enterprise, Riker encounters Troi in Ten-Forward with a chocolate sundae and the scene is super suggestive, WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THIS EPISODE… isn’t this a PG show? Wesley Crusher arrives and they have a little surprise party for him, and he gets to meet Robin from engineering.

Riker starts to tell everyone about “the game” and it slowly spreads around to everyone on the ship. Riker, Troi, and Dr. Crusher deactivate Data. Robin is the OG Gibbs with 102 laws and she starts sharing them with Wesley. They investigate “the game” and find out the game is like a drug but when Wesley tells the Captain, it’s too late the captain’s already played it. They try to fake everyone out and say they’ve played it just as the woman from Risa arrives and orders them to expand to several star bases and such. Unfortunately Robin is turned and Wesley is the only one on board now not addicted, until he is forced into it. Right then Data arrives and pulls a strobe light out to save the day, as Wesley was causing a diversion after reactivating Data.

I have but one question: how did ANYONE convince Worf and Picard to play the game? Do either of them look like they play games? Okay, maybe more than one question. How did it work on La Forge? Why didn’t Robin and Wesley just wear the sets and pretend? If it’s so addicting, why isn’t everyone just playing it 24/7? WHAT ABOUT THE YOUNGLINGS (didn’t think I’d be able to make a Star Wars reference, eh?)??? I don’t even want to imagine a 5 year old getting addicted to that game, ick. It doesn’t make sense that they can act so normally at all other times or even stop playing at all.

This was a terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad episode with very little to redeem it. I was impressed that someone came up with such good mind control technology, and knew that Riker would be the best security risk because he can’t keep it in his pants. This is now the second A Clockwork Orange type episode, the first in “The Mind’s Eye” just at the end of last season, though this time someone was smart enough to program in deactivating Data first. I will say I was so happy to see Data and he got to save the day in a very action hero kind of way… even though it was with a strobe light. That one bit and the cute relationship of Wesley and Robin allows for a rating of 2 raw onions.

TA Out!