7.4 — “Gambit, Part I”
Plot: The Enterprise’s senior staff search for Captain Picard, only to find evidence that he was vaporized in a bar fight. This sparks William Riker’s search for further evidence, and revenge.
Thoughts: Worst. Episode. In. Ages.
I kept waiting to get some context for how the opening scene featuring the officers in the alien bar makes sense. Are the characters all LARPing in the Holodeck, with Data, offscreen, serving as a bad GM? The scene has the feel of the characters trying to play parts on somebody else’s show in somebody else’s universe, provided that the show in question is terrible. Every trite Dungeons & Dragons campaign starts with a scene where the player characters go try to listen for rumors in the tavern.
Of course, we’ve already seen Picard killed by an alien in a bar fight (“Tapestry”), so the premise they are investigating is not even original.
The bar scene reminds me not of the Cantina in Star Wars, which is what they were probably shooting for, but of the Obi-Wan investigation scenes in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), which nobody ever shoots for, ever. In teleplay author Naren Shankar’s defense, this episode aired on October 11, 1993, back when everyone still thought a Star Wars prequel trilogy would be a great idea.
The only character who should be at home in the bar is Worf, the only character trained in investigations and security, and the only one with any business being there whatsoever. It’s as if nobody besides these characters exist on the ship. The trivia answer to the number of crewmembers on the Enterprise D is 1,012, but no one ever told the writers. Worf, however, is given nothing to do except lurk, looking incompetent and uncomfortable in these low surroundings.
Troi is supposed to be leveraging her sexpot sexuality to find information, because I guess that’s the only way the writers think of her. No one told Marina Sirtis, however, who looks like she just wants to leave, or the wardrobe, lighting, or makeup departments, who also seem to be making no effort. The guest star who plays the bartender, Stephen Lee, bless his heart, does everything he can to make the scene work, but it’s stillborn.
Riker’s smirk from the first two seasons is back with a vengeance. Crusher manages to be worse in the opening scene than Troi, and is given some of the worst technobabble of the series. There are Starfleet fiber traces on the wall! Microcrystalline damage in the floor material!
What is wrong with this opening scene is a microcosm of the whole miserable 44 minutes.
I learned from reading The Star Trek Next Generation Companion that the premise is that Picard disappeared during shore leave while he was pursuing his own private researches into archaeology. This eluded me during the episode.
Over the course of the episode we establish that Worf can’t investigate, fight, or shoot straight.
Over and over stuff happens (the pirates capture Riker!) (Picard appears in a sudden reveal on the enemy bridge!) for the singular reason that if they didn’t happen, there would be no episode. Or two episodes, to be precise, since this is a two-parter.
Uggggggggh! 1 out of 5 ultra-lame objects!
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