- 30-second episode preview (AVI, 2Mb)
- Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians and Humans witness a 4-billion-year-old message.

Synopsis:

Picard finds himself in a race with Cardassians, Klingons and Romulans to solve a four-billion-year old genetic puzzle.

Picard is surprised when Professor Richard Galen, his old archaeology professor whom he hasn't seen in 30 years, pays a visit to the U.S.S. Enterprise and asks Picard to accompany him on a mission. The renowned archaeologist has made a discovery so profound, the ultimate findings could reverberate throughout the galaxy, but will only reveal them to Picard if he agrees to join him on a lengthy, possibly year-long expedition. The offer is tempting to Picard, who once intended to make archaeology his life's work, but he chooses duty instead, prompting the professor to angrily leave the starship. Soon afterward, the Enterprise receives a distress call - Galen's ship is under attack by Yridians. After inadvertently destroying the attacking vessel with a phaser hit the crew is able to transport Galen aboard, but not before he takes a disruptor blast in the chest at point-blank range. Picard is at the professor's side when he dies in Sickbay, taking his secret with him to the grave.

Attempting to learn why Galen was attacked, the crew finds 19 strange blocks of numbers stored in his computer's memory. Picard decides the answer might be on Ruah IV, part of an unexplored star system Galen visited just before first contacting the Enterprise - and sets course despite the fact that he is due at a diplomatic conference elsewhere. When the search yields nothing, he opts to continue the investigation on Indri VIII, Galen's next intended destination.

Upon their arrival at Indri VIII, the crew finds every microbe of life on the planet is being destroyed before their eyes, leading Picard to believe that Professor Galen's number blocks may have something to do with organic matter. Picard and Dr. Crusher study the blocks, and learn that they are mathematical representations of DNA fragments, each from a different life form from 19 different worlds scattered across the quadrant. Picard decides to set a course for Loren III, the only planet capable of sustaining life in the area to which the professor was referring. There, they encounter two Cardassian war vessels and a Klingon attack cruiser, each on the trail of the same discovery.

After a tense initial confrontation, Picard is able to get the Cardassian Captain, Gul Ocett, and the Klingon captain, Nu'Daq, to share their respective organic matter samples and agree to solve the puzzle together. They soon learn that they are still missing one DNA fragment, but Picard initiates an elaborate computer search, which soon reveals the location where the missing DNA may be found. However, when the findings are announced, the Cardassian captain dematerializes and her ship fires on both the Enterprise and the Klingon vessel.

Picard sets course for the Vilmoran system, accompanied by the Klingon captain, whose ship was crippled in the attack. Soon after they arrive, the Cardassian captain appears on the planet, as do a group of Romulans, who have been following all along in a cloaked vessel. Gul Ocett threatens to destroy the few samples that still remain on the barren world rather than work with the Romulans, and as the Klingon leader joins the face-off, Picard and Beverly quietly retrieve a partially fossilized sample. Unnoticed, they feed the sample into their tricorder. The mysterious program is activated, and a humanoid hologram recorded billions of years ago appears before them. The hologram tells the surprised group that her race found itself alone in their travels of the galaxy. The genetic puzzle was created in hopes that those races would come together in cooperation and fellowship in order to activate the message. The humanoid tells the group that they all come from this common seed, and implores them to remember this bond. The message fades, leaving Nu'Daq and Gul Ocett unbelieving, and repulsed at the mere thought of having anything in common. The groups return to their vessels.

Timothy Lynch's Star Trek: The Next Generation Episode Reviews 

WARNING: The following posts contain a large number of words, which when 
assembled in the proper order give away a great many spoilers for TNG's "The 
Chase." Further, said words already are in the right order -- so be careful.

As drama? Very nice. The philosophy of the ending? Everything I went into 
teaching to fight.

Well, after last week, when I found it difficult to get any emotions stirred 
up at all about DS9's "Vortex", I'll say this for "The Chase": I definitely 
had a lot of reactions to it. More (far more), after the usual synopsis...

While the Enterprise is on a routine study mission, Picard receives a 
surprise visit from his old mentor and virtual second father, Professor 
Galen. Galen brings him a gift -- a 12,000-year-old artifact from the Kerl 
system -- and then says that he's on an expedition, and intends to take 
Picard with him.

In Ten-Forward later that day, they talk, trying to make up for a thirty-year 
interruption in their relationship. Galen acknowledges that the past decade 
of his life has seemed very mysterious, with almost no publications or public 
appearances. When asked what he's been doing all this time, he cryptically 
asks Picard about "mycopaleontology", a study of fossil relics on the 
microscopic level. He claims to have made a discovery so monumental that 
when he announces his findings, "they'll hear it halfway across the galaxy." 
However, he refuses to tell Picard what those findings actually are, saying 
that the "price" of that information is agreeing to come with him. The 
expedition, given limited resources, would last from three months up to a 
year. Galen says that he needs Picard because he doesn't want his own age 
and "inadequacies" to prevent the completion of the work. When Picard 
hedges, citing responsibilities, Galen insists that his responsibilities to 
_history_ are far more important. Picard promises to sleep on it.

The next morning, he tells Beverly at breakfast of the previous night's 
conversation, telling her that although he couldn't leave the Enterprise to 
join Galen, he very much regrets having to hurt Galen a second time by saying 
no; it reminds him too much of the first time he did so, when he joined 
Starfleet instead of becoming an archaeologist. "In a way, I wish he'd never 
come on board the ship..."

He finds Galen in his lab a short time later, and finds that Galen is 
planning the future of the expedition and assuming Picard will come. When he 
declines as gently as he can, Galen becomes bitter, comparing Picard to "a 
Roman centurion exploring the provinces." After this and other equally 
strong statements, a crushed Galen asks Picard once more to come with him. 
When Picard says that he cannot, Galen decides to leave the ship immediately 
in his shuttle, not waiting for his transport. 

A short time later, a preoccupied Picard prepares to take the Enterprise to a 
diplomatic conference on Italia Seven, when suddenly Galen's shuttle sends a 
distress call that is quickly cut off. They find a Yridian destroyer 
attacking the shuttle and fire on it, accidentally causing it to explode. 
While Riker and Worf ponder that, Picard goes to sickbay and orders Galen 
beamed directly there. Unfortunately, Galen's wounds are too severe, and he 
dies after telling Picard he was too harsh in his judgements.

What records could be salvaged from Galen's shuttle are examined, and a 
number of protected files are found. Unfortunately, they contain only blocks 
of numbers, the meaning of which is unclear. Further, the Yridians (and 
thus, presumably, their employers) were after those files, which means those 
employers may have a far better idea of the numbers' meaning. Picard, 
finding that Galen had last been at Ruah Four, orders the Enterprise there.

Ruah Four seems to be a dead end, with no sign of any great past 
civilization. Galen's next stop was Indri Eight, which from all records also 
hosts no past or present civilization, but Picard orders the ship there 
anyway. When Troi attempts to suggest that Picard is delaying the diplomatic 
conference for no good reason, he angrily disagrees: "Counselor, this is not 
simply a case of me taking the Enterprise and its crew on some wild goose 
chase to purge myself of guilt and remorse! I will not let Galen's death be 
in vain. Now, if that means inconveniencing a few squabbling delegates for a 
few days, then _so be it_; I will take the full responsibility."

Alas, Indri Eight proves no more helpful, as the Enterprise arrives just in 
time to see a strange plasma reaction completely destroy the planet's 
biosphere. The motive for such an action is a complete mystery, but Picard 
theorizes that Galen's files might have been linked to organic matter 
somehow. He sets the computer searching for a pattern in those files, 
limited to organic matter data only.

A pattern turns up. The blocks refer to a series of nearly two dozen 
fragments of DNA, each from a different lifeform across the quadrant -- and 
what's more, the fragments seem chemically _compatible_. When the 
representations are linked according to where the compatibilities match up, 
the pattern is undecipherable, but according to Geordi is clearly *not* 
natural.

In fact, the pattern appears to be part of a molecularly coded computer 
program. Further, Beverly notes that since the fragment from human DNA has 
been in earth DNA since the earliest life-forms, the program must have been 
created approximately four billion years ago. Since no other DNA in 
Federation records contains the common element, Picard sensibly reasons that 
the remaining pieces must be outside Federation space. They begin checking 
the non-Federation people on board the Enterprise, and also realize that 
Indri Eight's destruction means that other groups are aware of the program 
and its possibly dangerous implications.

The search of the crew turns up negative, and no one can think of any way to 
proceed, until Picard has a flash of insight. Remembering that Galen 
mentioned being "in the neighborhood" the previous year when he picked up the 
Kerlan artifact, he suggests checking out that area. The only workable 
planet in that area is Loren Three, and they head there as fast as they can.

When they get there, they find some heavily armed company. Two Cardassian 
warships are there, led by Gul Ocett. Ocett tells them to withdraw until 
the Cardassian work is finished, but both are interrupted by the sudden 
arrival of a Klingon ship as well. Picard invites Ocett and Nu'Daq, the 
Klingon captain, to the Enterprise to discuss the situation.

On board, he gets them all to acknowledge their knowledge of Galen's work and 
of the program. While the Enterprise has a good number of pieces, the 
Cardassians have one from the planet below and will fire on anyone attempting 
to get one themselves -- and the Klingons have the fragments from Indri 
Eight. After some debate over what the eventual purpose is of the program 
(Nu'Daq believes it to be a weapon, Ocett believes it's a power source), 
Picard convinces them to share their fragments and let them all be combined 
on board the Enterprise, with the results to be seen publicly and 
simultaneously by all three parties. Grudgingly, they agree.

After the merging, however, the program is _still_ incomplete, prompting 
great frustration from Nu'Daq. However, Picard remains optimistic, 
suggesting now that the pattern might be one the original designers wanted to 
be easy to discover. He tells Bev to analyze the pieces by location, 
extrapolating back to account for four billion years of stellar motion -- 
with luck, the final piece will fall into place. She begins, but the program 
will take several hours to run.

During that time, Nu'Daq attempts both to wrestle and to bribe Data, with 
each having equally dismal results for him. Geordi, meanwhile, discovers 
something very strange in the defensive systems and calls Picard to check...

Later, the analysis is complete, and all gather in the lab. The pattern is 
very simple, and Bev says the missing piece is in the Ramazad system. Ocett 
*immediately* beams out of the lab, and the Cardassian ships begin firing on 
the Enterprise and on the Klingon ships, targeting the propulsion systems.

However, both are prepared, thanks to Geordi's discovery of Ocett's sabotage. 
Riker orders the inertial dampers turned off to make the attack "look good", 
but then everything returns to normal as soon as the Cardassians leave. 
Nu'Daq's ship, unfortunately, did sustain very slight damage, and rather than 
take the delay he accompanies the Enterprise to the _real_ site of the 
missing piece, Vilmora Two.

The planet no longer supports much life, but once did, showing evidence of an 
ancient ocean. A small pocket of vegetation is located, and Picard, Bev, 
Worf and Nu'Daq beam down near it. They approach it, but are intercepted 
close to it by the newly arrived Cardassians, and then all *three* groups are 
stopped by a party of Romulans, who have been covertly dogging the 
Enterprise's footsteps ever since Galen's death. 

Ocett threatens to destroy the vegetation rather than let anyone else get the 
information, and she and the Romulan captain begin negotiating. As they and 
Nu'Daq argue, Picard and Bev surreptitiously scrape off a piece of fossilized 
vegetation from the rock face they're standing near, hoping it's still 
viable. It is, and the program begins to run, altering the tricorder to 
project an image. All arguments stop, as the tricorder projects the image of 
a humanoid figure. This figure looks out into empty space, then delivers a 
statement:

"You're wondering who we are ... why we have done this ... how it has come 
that I stand before you, the image of a being from so long ago. Life evolved 
on my planet before all others in this part of the galaxy. We left our 
world, explored the stars, and found none like ourselves. Our civilization 
thrived for ages -- but what is the life of one race, compared to the vast 
stretches of cosmic time? We knew that one day we would be gone, and nothing 
of us would survive -- so we left _you_. Our scientists seeded the 
primordial oceans of many worlds, where life was in its infancy. The seed 
codes directed your evolution toward a physical form resembling ours: this 
body you see before you, which is of course shaped as yours is shaped, for 
you _are_ the end result. The seed codes also contain this message, which is 
scattered in fragments on many different worlds. It was our hope that you 
would have to come together in fellowship and companionship to hear this 
message -- and if you can see and hear me, our hope has been fulfilled. You 
are a monument, not to our greatness, but to our existence. That was our 
wish: that you too would know life, and would keep alive our memory. There 
is something of us in each of you, and so, something of you in each other. 
Remember us."

The image fades, and Nu'Daq and Ocett are outraged, both at the lack of 
"substance" in the program and at the very implication that their species 
could have anything in common. The parties return to their respective ships.

A short time later, as the Enterprise conducts minor repairs to make up for 
the extensive high-warp traveling they'd been doing, Picard and Beverly 
discuss the recent events, noting that Picard has left Galen a wonderful 
legacy. Picard only regrets that it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Bev 
leaves to start her day, and Riker signals Picard that the Romulan captain is 
hailing him. Picard receives him.

"Captain, my ships are leaving orbit for Romulan space. Until our next 
encounter..."
"Until then."
"It would seem that we are not completely dissimilar after all -- in our 
hopes, or in our fears."
"Yes..."
"Well, then -- perhaps, one day..."
"One day."

The Romulans leave, and Picard cradles a figurine from Galen's gift to his 
breast, lost in thought.

Whew. Well, I'm glad that's over. :-) Now, time for some probably 
equally-long commentary.

I'm going to split this up into two parts, because the two reactions I had 
were completely opposite in direction and comparable in intensity. So...

I. "The Chase" as TNG Drama

Here, I've only a few minor negative points -- on the whole, "The Chase" was 
a nice thing to watch. A race to untangle a mystery, with some spot-on 
performances by most or all of the regulars, enough action to keep the 
shoot-em-up watchers happy, and nice performances by important figures from 
all three major non-Federation races -- who could ask for more?

Pacing-wise, "The Chase" fairly crackled. Jonathan Frakes, once again, is to 
be commended for rarely letting a camera stay still. :-) It never seems too 
surprising that no one stops to think seriously about what the program might 
be, because everything's moving along so fast that _we_ certainly haven't. 
We occasionally got a slight breather here and there, such as the Data/Nu'Daq 
scene in Ten-Forward (which was absolutely hilarious), but that's all they 
were: breathers. Even the "revelation" speech, which is a rather large 
single speech (about four minutes of just _one person_ talking), didn't seem 
dull; there were enough viewpoints of the humanoid and enough stunned 
reaction shots to make it all very watchable indeed. 

One of the best series of scenes had to be those centering on the Cardassian 
attack. We all knew the computer results would be a big deal, and we 
expected something big would come of it. And guess what? Something did, but 
Picard had already anticipated it and beaten Ocett to the punch. This is the 
sort of high-stakes strategizing Picard has been shown to be *very* good at 
in the past, and everything fell just as neatly into place here. 

The pacing was a bit slower in the early bits leading up to Galen's death, 
but that was probably by design, given that until then there was no time 
pressure inherent in the show except the constraints of doing a show that 
runs 45 minutes. :-) Here, too, everything ran about as long as it had to 
without overstaying its welcome. Well done.

In terms of writing, "The Chase" had several stories in one. The first was 
Picard managing to disprove Galen's final accusation, that "as a scholar, [he 
was] nothing but a dilettante." The second was "the chase" -- regardless of 
goal, the idea that _somehow_, here was a contest the Federation couldn't 
afford to lose. The final one was the mystery causing the chase, and in the 
end answering the long-standing Trek question of "why is everybody humanoid?"

The first story was primarily setup -- once the chase itself begins, nothing 
about Picard's underlying motives is really mentioned until the very end. 
However, Picard is very clearly edgy throughout all of the show: if you 
watch, his eyes are darting around much more than usual, he's cutting people 
off much faster than usual (such as Troi in the ready room, but I'll get to 
that), and he's always moving. A great example of this is right after 
Galen's death: he has to *get up and pace* to think out the next move, which 
seems very rare for the captain we know. Intriguing.

The chase sequence itself succeeds more due to the directing and acting than 
to the writing, but that's the function of chase sequences: once you've set 
them up, they stand or fall on execution. These did: just when you thought 
the rules had been firmly established, they changed. They go to a planet 
that should work, *but* it gets destroyed before their very eyes. The 
Cardassians show up -- but wait, so do the Klingons just to mix things up 
even more. They finally reach the planet and are caught -- not only by the 
Cardassians, but then by the _Romulans_ as well. The chase, as it was meant 
to, piled the suspense ever higher until the viewers start getting fidgety 
(or their heads explode, but that's much rarer :-) ). Good job.

Then comes the mystery. This was a two-part question in itself. The first 
was "what was Galen doing?", and was answered once they'd figured out the 
number blocks. The second was "what does the program do?", and was the Big 
Mystery [TM] that had everybody wondering. The first mystery is the only 
case where it seemed the characters weren't quite thinking clearly -- after 
all, since Picard knew Galen's work centered on microscopic _fossils_, maybe 
doing pattern searches related to _life_ was a logical choice even before 
Indri Eight was destroyed. Apart from that, though, everyone said and did 
everything right, which is what we needed. 

The second mystery was handled far better. Although I'd have preferred a 
little more discussion about what everyone thought it might be, I've already 
noted that there wasn't really time to do so within the context of the show. 
Most of the second mystery was primarily backdrop for the chase, and as such 
proved a wonderful goad. 

The reactions to the revelation were done to perfection. The Cardassians and 
Klingons, usually depicted as the more "primitive" of the four empires, 
responded with the expected utter disgust, right down to Nu'Daq's "if she 
weren't dead, I would kill her!" Great. Picard's reaction was pure Picard, 
and the really intriguing one was the Romulan reaction. Looking back after 
the final scene, it's interesting to notice that he seems the _most_ 
intrigued by the alien's statements, and that he's the only leader who 
doesn't say _anything_ after it's over. The message there might well have 
been taken to heart, which makes one wonder about how this will affect future 
Romulan-centered stories. Interesting.

The performances, in almost all cases, were superb. After I got over my 
shock of seeing Norman Lloyd (Galen) playing someone sympathetic [my 
strongest memories of him are in "Dead Poets Society", where he is a 
decidedly *un*sympathetic character], I very much enjoyed seeing him and 
Stewart playing off each other. I found it very easy to think of them as 
teacher and student, or almost father and son. The leaders of the "other 
three" races were all classic: Nu'Daq was a very animalistic Klingon, with 
just enough sophistication not to make a mess on the furniture :-) ; Gul 
Ocett had the very common Cardassian trait of refined, almost _snobbish_ 
sliminess; and the Romulan leader got to be smug. None went too far beyond 
that, but none had to -- this wasn't their story.

It *was* Picard's story, and Stewart continued in a line of very strong 
performances that can carry a show on their own. I can't speak for anyone 
else, but I found the scene where he had to turn Galen down utterly 
wrenching, in part because I expected he'd decide to go and take the 
Enterprise with him to shorten the time. Having recently done my utmost to 
persuade someone to follow in my footsteps (i.e. leave school and go into 
teaching, or more to the point accept an offer to do so :-) ) and failed, I 
already had a slight understanding of Galen's point of view -- Picard's 
actions have now given me a little more. 

Stewart also truly shone after Galen was killed (and during, for that matter 
-- those eyes almost looked panicked when he was being beamed aboard). I've 
already mentioned his surprising lack of patience, but his lack of 
introspection is equally interesting. Under normal circumstances, Picard 
really might have stopped and thought about Troi's implicit criticism -- this 
time he just bit her head off without so much as a by-your-leave. It was 
*very* atypical of our friend the captain, and extremely interesting to 
watch. Finally, his grief and near-loneliness after fulfilling Galen's 
dreams were very visible in that final scene, and in all the right ways.

About the only performance that had a few difficulties was that of Gates 
McFadden. In particular, the two scenes in Picard's quarters felt off-key, 
and I think it's because McFadden didn't hold up her end. I realize that 
both times, the character was basically a sounding board for Picard, but even 
so we needed a little more reaction than a flat "and then what?", which was 
the sort of thing we got.

Now, a few short comments on "The Chase" as a show before I get into part 2:

-- A computer program using organic life? Which one of Ron Moore and Joe 
Menosky is the Douglas Adams fan? I was half convinced the number 42 had to 
show up *somehow*. :-) (Actually, I'd bet my right arm that Okuda has it 
sitting in the number blocks somewhere...)

-- (Thanks to Lisa for this one.) An _extremely_ nice and subtle point that 
you can take from the show is in the figurines. Yes, an individual may have 
"many voices" inside, leading to many-in-one; but after the revelation, the 
whole skein of the TNG universe can also be looked at as one-in-many! 
Interesting? I think so...

-- A writing oops: they checked all the non-Federation people on the 
Enterprise and *didn't* have the Klingon cell in place? This is the second 
time this season people seemed to be forgetting that Worf *is* a Klingon...
try something beyond the ponytail, Dorn. :-) :-)

That sounds like enough. (More than enough -- this may be my longest review 
to date.) Now, on to my other response:
===========================================================================
II: "The Chase" as a depiction of science

My reaction here is about the revelation _itself_, and about some of the 
reasoning leading up to it.

By way of prologue, and by way of pre-answer to some of the responses I know 
I'm going to get: Yes, I'm well aware that TNG is fiction. A television 
show. That's not the point. Also, much of this reaction comes out of my own 
upbringing and my own background, and so is likely to vary very wildly for 
anyone else. If you like, think of this as saying more about me than about 
the show (though I believe otherwise, and hope that this section gets taken 
seriously). That said...

I find the reasoning in the conclusion extremely flawed, and flawed in such a 
way as to make my skin crawl. Having genetic material seeded throughout the 
galaxy is fine, and having it coincidentally make everyone human is reaching, 
but fine. 

Having anything seeded once to reach a particular "end product" is NOT fine. 
At all, and I'll explain why:

(No, this won't be a genetics rant -- I'm not a geneticist and never will be. 
This is a general evolution rant that turns into a philosophy-of-science 
rant. If you don't give a damn about it, too bad -- I do.)

Evolution is only "goal-oriented" up to a point. That point is *survival*. 
If a trait helps a species survive, it stays in; if it doesn't, it tends not 
to. One cannot start with one initial condition and expect to "engineer" 
anything without controlling the natural environment as well. For example, I 
could think of a few hundred species of dinosaur that would object to calling 
humanity evolution's end product had they not been wiped out by a chance 
meteor collision 65 million years ago. Unless you're claiming these aliens 
also did *that*, you can't argue that the "humanoid" traits stayed in by 
design, because were it not for that collision, we almost undoubtedly *would 
not be here*.

That's the technical side of it. That's a problem, but it's not what's got 
me ticked off. What has me ticked off is this:

Implying that anything is an intentional "end result" of evolution is a 
classic example of something called the "grand design" fallacy. Geordi even 
references it in the show, when he asserts quite confidently that the 
pattern they're seeing COULD NOT have occurred randomly.

To be blunt, that's utter bullshit.

Things that are so improbable as to be "impossible to occur randomly" happen 
every time you shuffle a deck of cards, or if you look at who lives through a 
particular day and who doesn't. Having whatever combination of DNA each one 
of us has is a one-in-something-incredibly-large shot. 

This is a rotten, rotten abuse of statistics. Yes, there's a very low 
probability this thing might have happened. But there's a very high 
probability that *something* would happen, and if we just happened to get 
such-and-such, that's the way it works. 

This kind of fallacious reasoning is one I've seen used in arguments to 
justify creation "science", and things like Von Daniken's horrible "ancient 
astronauts" claptrap in the 1970s. It is a _fundamental misunderstanding of 
the principles of probability and of science_. Period. 

I know, I know. "Lynch, it's fiction -- who cares?" I care. It's _science_ 
fiction, or so everyone keeps saying -- and as a friend of mine put it, 
"There's a difference between cheesy science and bad science." Technobabble 
glitches that use technical-sounding words wrong is cheesy science that makes 
you react the way you would to a bad pun. This is BAD science, and is in 
fact exactly the type of rancid critical thinking that I went into teaching 
to fight. 

The grand design fallacy is a step below evolutionary "manifest destiny", 
saying "Oh, gee, this is all so unlikely that it was *meant to be* this way." 
The number of directions that argument could take is frightening -- who's to 
say that the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs wasn't "divine retribution 
that was meant to be"?

In fact, I consider the message coming out of the show to basically BE 
creationism, except that instead of "God" in the "theory" you get "extremely 
powerful aliens". 

As a scientist, a humanist, and an atheist, I find that claim utterly 
repugnant -- and I can't remember the last time I was this furious at Trek in 
any form. 

For pity's sake, this is a show that _boasts_ about trying to have good 
science, and has a very reputable, very intelligent science advisor on board 
in the person of Naren Shankar. Either he wasn't around when this story was 
broken, he spoke up but was overruled, or he _didn't notice_. I'm going to 
hope it was the first possibility -- if it was the second, then start 
*listening* to the science advisor on occasion, and if it was the third, I 
don't want to know unless there's something major I'm overlooking. (The fact 
that he's an engineer and not a biologist is one thing -- but neither am I, 
and I recognized the fallacy as poor thinking when I was an undergraduate.)

I think I've said all I feel I need to on the topic. I do apologize for 
those who don't want to read my philosophizing in the middle of a review, but 
I considered this entirely too important to ignore. It's been days since I 
saw "The Chase", and my teeth still grind when I think of this.

So, that said, on to the numbers. Against my better judgement, I'm going to 
stick with the tripartite system of Plot/Plot Handling/Characterization for 
now, but be extremely wary of them.

Plot: 9 [2]: The former number is as drama, the second is with the 
incredibly poor thinking included.
Plot Handling: 10. No complaints.
Characterization: 9. A little off for Gates being flat here and there; 
otherwise brilliant.

TOTAL: 9.5, OR 7. Use the latter number if you agree with me about the 
latter half in any way.

NEXT WEEK:

Riker's mind snaps -- or does it?

Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
BITNET: tlynch@citjulie
INTERNET: tlynch@juliet.caltech.edu
UUCP: ...!ucbvax!tlynch%juliet.caltech.edu@hamlet.caltech.edu
"How can I accept this?"
"Graciously, Mr. Picard. You _could_ accept it graciously."
-- Picard and Galen
--
Copyright 1993, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
This article is explicitly prohibited from being used in any off-net
compilation without due attribution and *express written consent of the
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Related Links:

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Cast:

Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard™
Jonathan Frakes as William Thomas Riker™
Brent Spiner as Data™
LeVar Burton as Geordi La Forge™
Michael Dorn as Worf™
Gates McFadden as Beverly Crusher™
Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi™

Guest Cast:

John Cothran, Jr. as Nu'Daq
Linda Thorson as Gul Ocett
Norman Lloyd as Professor Galen
Salome Jens as Humanoid
Maurice Roeves as Romulan Captain

Creative staff: