5.5 — “Disaster”
Plot: Disaster!
Collision with a pair of quantum filaments leaves the ship disabled and the crew separated without communication, or knowledge who else on the ship may be alive. Various technobabbly things threaten certain death by technobabble. Keiko O’Brien, trapped with Worf in Ten Forward, goes into labor.
Thoughts: Who knew the Enterprise was such a rattletrap? think Jeri Taylor put it well in this quote from Memory Alpha: “[This episode] was pitched by a couple of outside writers and it’s something we had never done before. I believe in variety. I think that it freshens a series. If you see the same story week after week it becomes deadly dull…I’m very much for breaking formula, changing something and doing a different kind of story. It was let’s do something different – stop them dead in space and give them lots of problems. I thought some fans thumbed their nose at it, but in a mix of varied stories it was a good infusion of life.”
Michael Piller said, “I think “Disaster” was a fun show, it achieved everything that we set out to do. Ron wrote a nice script, I loved the stuff with Data’s head disembodied. It had a real pace and rhythm. It didn’t reach the upper echelon of episodes for me because it didn’t really have a mystery or science fiction base to it.”
They’re both basically right, but I would also ding it for the awful pink jumpsuit they dressed the girl in, and Deanna’s doe-eyed and dumbfounded look at being confronted with command, having to make decisions, and science. I also don’t know why Keiko and O’Brien have to be portrayed as the most heteronormative couple in the galaxy, but that may just be a pet peeve.
Certain aspects of the birth scene seem unrealistic.
My favorite part was “That is not the correct port, sir.”
I wanted a casualty count at the end.
In the turbolift, they should have sung “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Canon already establishes that this song survives into the future. For some reason, I am emotionally affected by scenes of people saying thank you (like, more than “I love you,” or “Goodbye”). I teared up a little at the plaque scene.
3 of 5 emergency decompression drills.
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