2.17 — “Samaritan Snare”
Plot: Picard must leave the ship aboard a shuttlecraft to go to Starbase 515 for a personally sensitive medical procedure which he does not want to disclose to the crew. He is accompanied by Wesley, who is taking his Starfleet exams. Meanwhile, a ruse distress call is used to trap Geordi LaForge aboard a Pakled ship.
Thoughts: Although problems remain, I see signs that TNG is evolving slowly into a more professional, compelling show. The characters come into sharper focus all the time (except for the few characters they neglect, like Troi and O’Brien). They are getting better at the sheer mechanics of storytelling. Even the rudiments of withholding information and building up suspense seemed to be beyond the producers of Season One. The episodes are coming out as a more professional-looking package. The actual stories that support the episodes, however, can still use work.
This is an episode which interested me and kept my attention, yet from beginning to end, the plot depends on people not acting sensibly when they should know better. If Troi is on the bridge when the Enterprise first responds to the Pakled distress call, you don’t have an episode. If Geordi beams over with a team of engineers, or is accompanied by a security detail, you don’t have an episode. If Riker beams Geordi back (or sends security over) when he first receives the warning from Troi, you don’t have an episode.
I also don’t believe that Pulaski would have sent Picard to Starbase 515 for the heart replacement procedure knowing that they don’t have qualified medical personnel to respond to complications. While I’m on the subject, those operating costumes! The surgeons look like a cross between the women of Castle Anthrax and the members of the Spanish Inquisition.
It must be said that the Pakleds seem like an offensive stereotype of persons with developmental disabilities. A great deal more care could have been taken with this characterization.
I don’t see why the scavengers need be slow-witted in order to fill the role in this story (or why slow-witted has to mean morally bankrupt, obstinate, and irritating). It could just have easily been the Ferengi placing the snare, and it would have raised fewer questions. Presumably, this pack of jokers must have outsmarted and defeated the Klingons, Romulans, and other races they have already stolen technology from?
Couldn’t the Enterprise have just phasered their shields to ribbons, and then beamed Geordi back aboard? Superior technology isn’t all its cracked up to be. The Pakleds have to know that if they shoot their hostage, they have no protection whatsoever against the Enterpise’s superior force.
I was charmed, however, by the scenes between Wesley and Picard on the shuttlecraft. They parceled out the information well, and Patrick Stewart plays the scenes masterfully. I was persuaded by the “it was a barfight” explanation, and that Picard would feel that this is so outside the persona he has built for himself and strives to project that he would want to keep it under wraps.
They missed what I thought was an obvious twist at the end: when the crew applauds upon the return of Picard and Crusher to the bridge, and Picard thinks it’s about him, it’s actually about Wesley passing his exams. Wesley still doesn’t get much respect. Is it just me, or do they seem to have dropped the whole plotline of Wesley being a boy genius? Apparently he can’t be bothered to read books given to him by the Captain now.
Five episodes left in Season Two!
Warp 3 of 6.
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