Star Trek: The Next Generation — 1x04 — Code of Honor
Synopsis
Tasha is kidnapped.
Filler rating: bad filler
There is some stuff here which foreshadows Wesley's more prominent role as a member of the crew later, but none of it is essential viewing.
Remarkable scenes
- Data correcting Picard regarding what century the gift originates from.
- Picard's irritation with Beverly wanting to discuss Wesley.
- Picard giving Wesley a chance. "Sir?" then, "Sir?" then Picard says, "Is the whole ship deaf?"
- Data offending Picard when discussing the French language.
- Riker being carefully talked into agreeing that Picard should lead the away team.
- Picard rambling on "about something everybody already knows."
Review
There is a decent idea for a story about diplomacy here, but it's buried beneath a lot of bad stylistic choices. It's pretty hard not to see the Ligonians as racist stereotyping and the conflict surrounding Yar as sexist stereotyping, particularly the scene where Data described the weapons as so light that even women could use them. Some smaller stylistic choices were awkward too, such as Data of all people tripping over his words with the "includling" line; a vocal mistake that is hard to suspend disbelief on, Beverly's unprofessional panicking about the vaccine, and a series of scenes with stilted dialog that the actors were clearly stumbling over. While the episode does have a few nice details and a few amusing scenes, what we have here is unfortunately mostly cringeworthy.