Star Trek: The Next Generation — 6x18 — Starship Mine

Aired 1993-03-29

SpaceOpera.com rating:8

Average reader rating:7.4

Synopsis

Picard is trapped on the ship with interstellar thieves.

Remarkable scenes

I like the teaser of this episode, where Picard is micromanaging so many different things.
Data attempting smalltalk.
Picard granting Worf to be excused from the reception, but not Geordi. Picard: "Worf beat you to it."
Data mimicking Hutchinson.
Picard walking into a wall while he's attempting to leave Hutchinson's reception.
Picard Vulcan neck pinching Devor.
Riker unleashing Data on Hutchinson.
Riker: "I have to admit, it has a certain strange fascination. How long can two people talk about nothing?"
Picard pretending to be the barber who never shuts up.
Picard killing the invaders of his ship en masse.

Review

I like this episode quite a bit. The humor regarding Hutchinson and Data is slapstick but still tactful. The terrorist threat aboard the ship during the Baryon sweep is original, interesting, and thrilling. Most interesting though was Picard the killer! Picard murdered at least half a dozen people in this episode in defense of his ship; setting them all up to die one by one! This of course is the best part of the episode. Picard's tactics and trickery were superb and fun to watch. The episode maintained a consistent level of excitement all throughout and a fun level of humor at the beginning. The technobabble was borderline annoying, but served mostly as a successfully exploited plot device, so I don't dislike it too much. A great episode.

10 reader comments

I've seen this episode many times, but I just got what might be a little joke at the end. This bit of dialogue between Picard and Worf:
"I only wish I'd had the opportunity to use it on a horse."
"Of course."
Reminds me of Mr. Ed….
by DJB | 07/20/2008 at 8:36 am

Not so much a problem as a WTF moment: Data mentions that ther are several Terralians living on the Enterprise, and that Terralia is one of only a few inhabited planets without any atmosphere whatsoever. How in the world can someone from a planet with no atmosphere exist in the first place--perhaps an underwater civilization? In any case, it's hard to believe they could function on a ship.
This episode is pretty incosequential in the long run, but it's a perfect 10 from an entertainment stand point. As mentioned in the review, Picard the killer is cool in James Bond mode here, and there is some serious McGuyver action with Geordi's visor being turned into a weapon. Come to think of it, Spock was doing that sort of thing long before McGuyver anyway.
by JRPoole | 09/22/2008 at 10:17 pm

An afterthought:
With the obvious exeption of the Borg conflict episode and the occasional random death-of-an-entire-civilization plot, this episode has to have one of the highest body counts ever recorded in a Trek episode. Picard kills pretty much all of the thieves and even indirectly blows up their shuttle. Plus, "Hutch" is gunned down and presumably dies as well.
The slapstick stuff with Data and Commander Hutchinson is funny and well done. I also love the way Troi rolls her eyes when Picard excuses himself from the reception.
by JRPoole | 09/23/2008 at 1:56 pm

Some on the production team was obviously a fan of the Bruce Willis move, Die Hard, and decided to make Die Hard in Space! There's a whole raft of similarities, the staff/crew are both held hostage at a social function while our lone hero runs around the building/ship causing mischief. In both, what we assume to be terrorists actually turn out to be mercenaries doing it purely for profit.
Even the scene where Picard pretends to be Mott the barber is a reversal of the movie scene where Alan Rickman, the leader of the bad guys, fools Bruce Willis by pretending to be a clueless hostage escaped from his captors.
I enjoy Trek for the range and depth of social and moral questions it explores, but sometimes an all-out entertainment episode like this is a breath of fresh air.
Data and Hutchinson's slapstick is the icing on the cake, the comic timing and quick repartee between the two is fantastically done. 9/10
by Mark McC | 02/08/2009 at 1:58 pm

Didn't they forget to save Picard's fishes from the sweep?
by Markus | 11/09/2009 at 8:33 am

Is it me, or did Picard use a Vulcan nerve pinch on Devor?
by Inga | 03/20/2012 at 5:01 pm

Picard executing the Vulcan nerve pinch is actually a subtle, but nice, continuity nod. Remember that he's been in a mind meld with both Sarek and Spock, by this point. He should possess quite a bit of Vulcan knowledge.
by Bronn | 12/25/2012 at 8:22 am

A barber without hair? lol
by dronkit | 03/09/2014 at 3:19 am

Also ironic about the Vulcan nerve pinch Picard performs is that it was on a future Vulcan!
by Troy Coutu | 08/31/2014 at 11:28 pm

To dronkit's point: the real Mott is bald, too!
The Baryon sweep was such a great gimmick to bring tension and to force everybody to be in the same spot on the ship.
I loved how after the sonic pulse that knocks out everybody but Data, the first thing Data does is calmly collect the bad guys' weapons. A detail like that could easily have been missed, but it was done perfectly.
I also liked how you think the B plot is just going to be comic relief, but then they end up being part of the A plot. It was timed well, too, as you couldn't have gotten much more out of the "small talk" gag.
by tigertooth | 02/27/2018 at 3:17 am