Plot Synopsis: On an evacuated Enterprise, Picard plays a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with thieves who want to steal explosive toxic waste from the warp core as a lethal beam sweeps the ship. Okay it’s basically Die Hard. Or Under Siege. Or Passenger 57. Take your pick.
Plot A and B Analysis: The extended teaser is enjoyable. Picard is walking the corridors putting out fires preparatory to a baryon sweep, which removes radiation that builds up on starships traveling at warp–like barnacles I suppose. Since baryons are lethal, the ship is being evacuated. Data is practicing ‘small talk’ and we learn of a reception being thrown that nobody wants to attend. Worf gets out of it but LaForge is too slow. Plot A is about Picard being trapped on the ship, plot B is about everyone else at the reception. The reception is predictably boring, everyone being verbally assaulted by Hutch, when Picard makes an escape by going back to the ship to get his saddle for riding on the planet. While there he notices something is up, knocks out a guy who shouldn’t be there, and can’t make it off the ship before main power goes offline. Plot B gets going in the 19th minute when Geordi notices something suspicious and the aliens start shooting everyone, killing Hutch! We find out the bad guys are stealing trilithium resin, a volatile residue from the engines that can be used as an explosive. Picard takes it upon himself to foil their plans while the rest of the crew are hostages. This is a well-paced episode that has more action than we’ve seen in quite a while, with some humor mixed in.
Favorite Scenes: There is a nice moment where Picard tours his empty bridge, reminiscing about all of the memories he has from it. Later the scene where Picard uses the Vulcan nerve pinch on Tim Russ, who will later lay a Vulcan on Voyager, always gives me a chuckle. The scene where Data meets with Hutch in the 14th minute is great. Several scenes on the ship are nice, with Picard acting a little like Bruce Willis. Maybe my favorite line is uttered by Riker, watching Data and Hutch doing small talk:
Riker: I have to admit that it has a sort of strange fascination – how long can two people talk about nothing?
Use of Cast/Characters: Picard is again front and center, being the only line of defense against the thieves. He does a pretty good job at being an action hero, and we revisit that he enjoys riding. Riker, Data, Geordi, Beverly and Troi are all on the planet and work together to foil the ones holding them hostage, and they get roughly the same amount of screen time. Worf gets very little, maybe they didn’t know what to do with him. Data gets some slight development as he tries to learn small talk. The guest stars are okay but none of them shine, with the possible exception of David Spielberg as Hutch.
Blu Ray Version: With greater clarity comes greater responsibility. If you pause at 26:24, you can see the blue foam blocks that Satler falls on. Even if you don’t pause and look at the lower right of the screen you can see what’s happening. At 35:11 we can clearly see the stunt double for Frakes as he is right in front of the camera.
Nitpicks: The first fight, with Devor in the 12th minute, still feels a little too staged to me. I’ve never thought Patrick played the part of a nervous barber well when he meets Kelsey. I suppose we could say Patrick was doing Picard not doing a good job of being nervous, but it still doesn’t come off well to me.
Overall Impression: This is an episode that needs to be watched with the lights off, there are so many dark scenes. This is an enjoyable episode, with an unusually high body count–every single member of the cadre of thieves gets killed in one way or another. While over on DS9 they had just resolved an episode by playing Hopscotch, TNG was still cranking out good stuff! Having said that, while this is a good episode it’s not quite as good as I remember. There is some occasional bad dialogue, and some of Patrick’s action wasn’t as polished as I’d like. Overall I rate this episode 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Behind the Scenes/Trivia: The Sheliak Data mentions in the 9th minute is a reference to the aggressive species way back in The Ensigns of Command. Devor is played by Tim Russ, who is well known for playing the Vulcan Tuvok on Voyager. You may not know he also played the Klingon T’Kar in the DS9 episode Invasive Procedures the same year. In spite of her makeup Patricia Tallman should be recognizable to any fan of Babylon 5, she is the underwhelming actress that played Lyta Alexander. She was previously seen on Power Play and we’ll see her again in Timescape. For someone who bad-mouths DS9 as just a copy of Babylon 5, she has sure been in a lot of Star Trek episodes, also appearing on DS9 and Voyager. In the 5th minute when Kelsy comes on to the bridge, this is the only time in the series the emergency turbolift to the battle bridge is used other than the pilot.
This episode did have a couple of production issues, which probably affected the quality of the episode. Right before shooting, both Berman and Piller didn’t like the way it was going so they ordered a complete rewrite at the last minute. As a result the length of shooting was reduced to seven days and other planned elements had to be left out. The action scenes cost a lot so they couldn’t hire extras for the reception, which is why the only people there are cast members and the guest stars with lines. As for the title, I’ve always believed it was a reference to the 80’s sci-fi cult classic Enemy Mine.
Missable/Unmissable? It’s still pretty unmissable in my opinion. The next one isn’t, it will make you want to vomit up your lunch.