The good news is this post is only a little bit behind schedule! This post is to inform I’ve completed two more episode reviews. This time, it’s Rascals and A Fistful of Datas. These episodes are polar opposites in terms of quality.
Rascals is a candidate for the worst episode of the sixth season. Two of the worst tropes are seen this episode, together for the first time: adults are turned into kids, and incompetent Ferengi. That’s right, due to a transporter problem Picard, Guinan, Ro and Keiko (of all people) are turned into 12-yr olds. And wouldn’t you know it, the Ferengi show up in a Klingon battle cruiser and easily overwhelm the Enterprise crew right after! Who are the only ones who can save the ship? The tweens.
Just about everything in this episode is wrong. I happily tear it a new one in my full review. As for trivia, we do get an indirect reference to how old Guinan might be. This is also the last time we see Keiko, and we won’t see O’Brien again until the series finale. The whole family relocates to DS9 the following month, Trek-time. Check all this stuff out in my special evisceration review!
A Fistful of Datas is just about as good as Rascals is bad. It does use another TNG trope, that of a Holodeck malfunction, but there’s a whole lot of fun this time around. Alexander drags Worf into the Holodeck to play out his program of being a sheriff and deputy in “the ancient West”, when an experiment Geordi and Data are conducting goes a bit awry. Before you know it, most of the bad guys are looking like Data, with all his abilities, and a lot them want to kill Worf! It’s just fun to watch from beginning to end.
There are a lot of in-universe references that I detail in my full review. Also, for reasons unknown, Geordi’s beard makes a comeback! Patrick Stewart directed this one, and he must have had a memorable time because the crew were only given one day to shoot all of the exteriors for the episode. I talk about that, as well as how this episode changed how Holodeck episodes were done from here on out in my review. I even include an anecdote Michael Dorn gives about Patrick and “more smoke!” that’s worth checking out.
That’s it for now. If I can keep to my schedule, in another month I’ll have reviews completed for Quality of Life and Chain of Command, Part I.