Star Trek: The Next Generation — 7x02 — Liaisons

Aired 1993-09-27

SpaceOpera.com rating:5

Average reader rating:4.28

Synopsis

The crew hosts a cultural exchange.

Remarkable scenes

Worf "having problems."
Beverly trying to explain the concept of a buffet to the ambassador.
Worf attempting to tolerate his diplomatic assignment.
Data insulting Worf accidentally(?).
Worf: "I am going to kill him with my bear hands. I will take him by the throat and rip out his esophagus!"
Worf: "You are an insulting pompous fool and if you were not an ambassador I would disembowel you right here!"

Review

This episode is entertaining though not very credible. The aliens motives just don't seem realistic at all. It's nice that they're not a bunch of psychotic obsessors but are in fact just conducting some harmless research, but their methods leave much to be desired. The pleasant redeems this episode for an extra point. It's always nice to see an understanding and compassionate cast.

6 reader comments

I found this episode to be stupid, simply put. The whole idea was just dumb. However, the immense amount of Worf humor was priceless. That cancels out the badness, giving it a 5. Good rating.
by Pete Miller | 05/24/2006 at 1:01 am

Voval says they are studying human culture. Why then, is Byleth learning about Klingon antagonism? Why was Loquel interacting with a half Betazoid? At the very end, you hear one of the Iyaarans say to the other, "fascinating species!" Which one?
by DJB | 01/05/2009 at 6:14 am

It was fun to see Warf freaking out and offering to disembowel the other ambassador on the spot.
But in all this episode was disappointing, primarily because of what happened in the last few minutes. When Picard discovers the truth, he almost thanks the aliens, which is totally out of character.
Normally, we would see Picard give a fiery lecture about privacy and personal rights when an alien 'uses' people so blatantly. Particularly in his case when he was put through a lot of physical pain and emotional turmoil.
Those aliens would have faced a blistering verbal assault from Picard, not the friendly forgiveness that we saw. I don't know why the writers chose to do this, it's totally out of character.
by Dave Edsons | 10/18/2009 at 6:18 am

I gave the episode a 5 but as others have said, overall it was rather absurd but the humor, particularly related to Worf's problems, made it better than it might have been. My wife and I both broke out in laughter when the following scene occurred between Word and Data:
DATA: I have found that in moments of diplomatic tension, it is often helpful to find elements of commonality.
Worf considers this for a moment.
WORF: Ambassador Byleth is… demanding… temperamental… rude…
DATA: (innocently) You share all of those qualities in abundance. Perhaps you should build on your similarities.
There we or course many other humorous parts but that particular sequence was hilarious. There were the obvious inconsistencies such as why did they not simply orbit the alien world rather than use the alien ship and it almost appeared as though they were in an entirely different solar system when they had to crash land on the planet. Most episodes have such errors which are simply written in as the plot line dictates. It would be nice if technically things were more accurate.
by Robert Koenn | 06/19/2011 at 6:42 pm

I tolerate the episode and agree about the 'study' of humans when neither are being guided by humans…!
My biggest problem with the episode (and I know that I've read this complaint in other reviews on this site) is the complete lack of safety gear and seatbelts!
I know there have inertial dampers to take care of the ride MOST OF THE TIME, but they do, as in this case, sometimes fail. No one would have survived that crash after seeing the ditch the craft dug into the ground!
I guess though that perhaps in this case with the crash done on purpose, safety gear may not have been necessary…
by Chris Long | 02/11/2018 at 5:53 am

I enjoyed the little adventure of Picard on the planet, and have a modestly positive reaction to the episode, although I don't much care for the plot on board the Enterprise, it felt like a sitcom to me.
by Christopher Alexander | 04/17/2019 at 7:49 pm