UNCUT - Starship Mine (TNG S6E18) | Star Trek Journey 260
Patreon video having issues again. YouTube video only for this one.
Comments (59)
Ok... so I should mention... Worf was absent because he was filming Birthright part 2... like how Bashir "died" in ELLERMARAIN!!! ... sorry, sorry, I mean DS9 Move Along Home. He was axed in thst epidode to film the rest of the days on Birthright Part 1. ... count to four...
And so, we have reached DIE HARD PICARD. 🖖
Data in this season is working more than any other trying to be more human. Writing and experimenting with sub routines. I didn't consider it season 1/2 Data.
Tap. Tap. TAPestry!!!! jk🤣
As for the need to fill silence with small talk thing, i think that's a social conditioning thing. We're taught subtly that letting someone sit in silence is "rude" or "ignoring" them, so we feel this pressure to try and break the silence to make them feel comfortable. It's weird because my husband and i both do this to each other even though we both knoe that's not what either of us want. Every time i go to watch my husband play a video game for instance, perfectly content to just WATCH, my husband feels like he needs to entertain me by talking even though it drains him extremely. Likewise, every time we are in the car together, and my husband just wants to ride in silence and rest, i feel like I have to "entertain" him with conversation. We constantly have to remind each other that we both want silence, even though we both know that already, and we're both the most introverted people on the planet. Maybe human beings have this ingrained need/instinct to socialize?
I love this episode, one of my top 5 TNG! The scene with Data talking to Crusher and Riker is cut shorter in the episode, there’s an outtake where Spiner carries on with the conversation and has everyone in hysterics
Poor Hutch... we hardly knew ye.
The Captain has all the answers? That's why he's the Captain. hahaha!
As far as the Federation and oversight- I don't think this was a starfleet base. There didn't seem to be any other Starfleet personnel then Hutch. It seems like it was an alien planet that Starfleet had contracted with to do these sweeps and the Enterprise happened to be in "deep space" far from the Federation core. Obviously the aliens running the base were in on it- so maybe they tried the Enterprise first being the best crew and these aliens were lured by an advanced payment. Maybe there were complex diplomatic reasons behind this as wanting to have these aliens being a friendy race with the Federation, and if this was a relatively new deal, it doesn't seem that weird that they could pass initial security checks, especially if the aliens weren't originally intending on doing anything nefarious and were either tempted by a payment or threatened into complying. As you guys pointed out, we don't really know the deal with these pirates, but it doesn't seem that strange to me.
Afterall, if you think about it, the original plan was just for the crew to steal the trilithium. When the enterprise crew noticed, the aliens on the planet could have claimed they didn't know anything about it. The only reason the situation went south was because Picard came back onboard at the last minute and noticed something suspicious, and Geordi investigated a readout he shouldnt have. There were never plans to take anyone hostage, it was get the Trilithitium, get out, and the aliens would probably claim the people gave them valid looking federation IDs with codes they had acquired and fake names, leaving the Enterprise unable to track them down.
The "shafts" are called Jeffries Tubes
Saving himself wasn't the biggest priority, This showed how much of a badass Picard is.
He realized they would need to wait in Ten Forward, but I don't think his plan was to get caught. It was a contingency. Once he was disarmed, taking her out as in knocking her out didnt make sense- if they beamed her over with no trilithium they would have just beamed him over. The only way he could assure they didnt get the trilithium was what he did.
Geordi vs Hutch- Their weapons didn't seem to be on stun. Probably less sophisticated then starfleet phasers. Generally, "stun" just knockes someone out without serious consequences. Since its a heat based weapon, that's intereting. But Geordi was seriously injured, Beverly mentioned he needed serious medical treatment or he was in trouble. Hutch was older and maybe in not as good shape, or after they shot Geordi and he didn't die, they turned their weapons up a smidge. With real guns, it's not unrealistic that one person will get shot and be unconscious/seriously injured, and another will die instantly. Granted we didn't see Geordi getting treated, but I guess we can assume Data revived her and she wa able to get Geordi to sickbay and get the power turned on in time to save him.
Holy crap was that entire bit with Data learning small talk was hysterical. I always eat a meal while watching your reactions, a mistake on this one, almost died choking back laughter. But yeah, this is basically what if Picard was in Die Hard. I'm all for it.
Ten Forward is on Deck Ten at the forward most part of the ship. The view in Ten Forward is an unobstructed view straight ahead of the ship.
Its a pity we never see the other big lounges- theres one on deck 2 beneath the bridge that has huge windows (2 Forward?) and one on deck 9 with the windows sloping down.
Yeah, poor Hutch, man! The only real misfire of the episode was killing him. So bleak for a funny character. That the actor's last name is Spielberg was eye-catching. I guess he's no relation to that other fella though.
It shut him up though.
What was Picard's plan? My best take is that he set up a series of contingencies and just improved around all the different tools he put in his tool belt over the course of the episode. If he didn't get caught he probably would have picked them off en route with the X-bow then the pistol he stole, perhaps using the pyrotechnics in 10-Forward as a distraction to ambush, delay, or alert him as the last group arrived.
I’ve agreed with Josh’s assessment of this the most of all TNG episodes so far. There are only three things that annoy me about this episode and Josh won’t care. First, why would he get on a transporter pad 5 seconds before the power is cut when it’s not even manned if it fucks up? Imagine if it had started! Second, he said he wasn’t going to kill the terrorist in sickbay but then left him unconscious with a fatal radiation sweep coming his way. Third, the external shots of the ship show the sweep moving quite rapidly and it would clearly have passed 10 forward within seconds even though when you see the green field in the ship it is so slow it’s almost stationary. I like the camera work, score, the sentiment you see Picard feel towards the ship (Roddenberry used to say the ship was one of the main cast), the plot twists with Picard’s chemical booby traps / rigging the container. I love the scream as the guy is killed by the sweep. Cool that Dr Crusher had a phaser stashed in a drawer in her medical trolley. Thumbs down for putting Troi back in her leotard though.
Expert fanwanker here, I'll clear things up for you. 1. The transporters have safety features that would allow for beam out even after main power was cut if it happened during transport. 2. He didn't have to kill the first person; by the time he allowed the second to die, he had realized what they were up to, and preventing the trilithium from falling into the hands of terrorists took priority over trying at great risk to save the life of one of the hijackers if it meant they might escape with the trilithium- plus in the sickbay he had a way to render the hijacker unconcious without killing him, minimizing the threat. Picard isn't Batman, he's willing to let enemies die if it's necessary for the greater good. 3. The beam varies in speed due to the relative thickness of the material it's passing through, plus a view from a perspective in outer space is going to look different then an internal view in the enterprise; see the people who are confused and claim the moon landing was faked based on not understanding the moon has different physics and perspective. 4. Honestly, it would be weirder if after Chain of Command Troi just started a wearing a standard uniform all the time based on liking it one time when she was forced to change. A gradual transition where she varied it up would be more realistic. Her choice of non-standard uniform originally was likely due to the influence of Betazoid culture and feeling the uniform might make her patient feel uncomfortable as it reminded them she was her senior officer. A gradual change where she varies it up is more realistic character behavior. I've never understood the fun fans have with nitpicking trek when it's just as easy and in my opinion, more fun to come up with logical in universe explanations. The worse example of this is the fans (not you) who "nitpick" by acting if expository dialogue to explain details to satisfy all potential nitpicks would improve the show when to satisfy such people the shows would have to be 75 percent awkward expository dialogue. If it doesn't get in the way of the plot, it's easy enough to come up with logical reasons for things. There are of course some exceptions where it can't be justified and breaks suspension of disbelief- there is an episode coming up where that happens (this happens mostly with Data, where his abilities as demonstrated should be mean he is able to solve most problems, when he doesn't and its noticeable its hard to suspent disbelief because he literally remembers everything and would notice the slightest detail wrong) A particularly notable example of the other thing, where a nitpick is ridiculous, is one that happens in a DS9 season 3 episode. Without going into specifics, it was one of those "wait, wouldn't x have happened?" With the answer being, of course x probably happened, but if they made a point of pointing it out when they never do otherwise it would tip the viewer to a plot twist- this sort of "nitpick" is the type I find ridiculous, where some fans seem to want every possible nitpick to be covered which wouldn't actually improve the show and make it worse and awkward. I feel like most time, if the question is along the lines of "But wouldn't X have happened?" the answer is yes, it probably did, but they didn't bother to show it because why would they. It seems to me that if you want to treat the universe as "real" there's a lot of details we aren't shown because they wouldn't be interesting. Fo example, when someone says, "it will take a certain amount of time to do x", they never show us all the steps of repairing the doo daa or reconfiguring the whozit, because fictiona; technical/science work would only appeal to a very small segment of people. Thus anything that takes time isn't shown on screen; we only ever the end or part of such procedures then cut away to something else. It's like how we never actually see Batman doing all the prep work before he goes out on a mission. We know he does it, and we can be impressed by the results, but showing him loading all of is gadgets wouldn't be interesting.
Boy was this one boring as fuck. Just a paint by numbers thriller we have seen in a million other contexts with zero to add to the concept. Not even so bad that it’s fun to watch or so bad it makes me crazy.
I don't think it's that bad. Picard gets to play Hero Kirk.
This is a great example of where we know Picard isn't going to die but for Picard the stakes are real, and we can be bought into that. As opposed to 3 DS9 characters scaling a ledge for 15 minutes.
Great, fun episode. I’ve always enjoyed this one.
Comfort food for me
Yes Josh, the bar Ten Forward is at the front of the saucer... at the forward section of deck 10. Enjoy the many comments telling you this. 😜
Love this episode. When is the poll for Expanse season 3?
Already happened and we’ve started watching it.
Mr Worf I'll be committing my own murders today
Sadly, Hutch, the master of small talk, apparently didn't survive being shot. What happened to him? It was like he vanished for the second half of the episode without so much as a mention, or even a glimpse of his body on the floor.
His body was covered by a sheet. It was panned over the first time we cut back to them after they are taken hostage.
Ride or Die hArd
I know parasocial relationships are not the healthiest but I'm saving this to watch after I get home from visiting my mom in the hospital. She was just diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer and you guys are just like a warm blanket on a cold day. I love watching Star Trek with you Get your colonoscopies, people! Please!
Very sorry to hear about your mom.
Picard almost reassuring the Enterprise like a weary horse after a long ride, in the intro
Here is an extra "In Take" of the small talk scene on the base -- a few seconds were cut at the end ---- no spoilers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kntMdtzG5a8
🤣🤣🤣
So, in retrospect, Picard was totally leaving that guy to die that he neck-pinched, right? Underratedly wild thing for him to do, IMO. *Edit* As I finished watching, damn, he does it again with the dude he shoots with the arrow, leaving him behind. And ultimately anyone he knocked out and got left behind presumably did die, so... wow. Part of me thinks Picard would have more of a moral issue with at least some of these actions than the episode lets on. Especially the first guy when he's just trying to beam off the ship before the scan starts.
Considering that the people on the ship are clearly up to no good, he is acting in the interests of the Federation in protecting Federation assets, even before he learns of the Trilithium. I would argue that as soon as he realizes the Trilithium threat, he is morally justified in killing any of them he needs to in order to keep it from falling into the hands of terrorists.
The plot is thin yes. But that doesn’t matter. Good character stuff, Data learning small talk and a fun action sub plot make this a good ep for me. S6 has such variety it’s why it’s a fave season
So, on the bottom of the saucer, right in the middle, is the captain's yacht. If I were Picard, I would have headed there as soon as I got out of engineering. It's a pretty big, 2 deck craft, gotta have a transporter if the shuttles do. Get to the yacht, launch, and start beaming the thieves off 1 by 1, disabling their weapons with the transporter like in The Most Toys, stun them and tie them up. Crisis averted. First problem is that gets in the way of the Die Hard in space concept, and they'd need to build a super expensive 2 storey set, and that wasn't going to happen. Still, it's a fun episode, and a nice change of pace for Picard. Data's whole small talk experiment is hilarious, and is it just me, or did he look uncharacteristically pissed when Hutch got shot? Must have been frustrating to lose the only person willing to talk about that much nothing with him. The rest of the planet side story was pretty weak though. I just can't get over how obvious the "whispering" was. Also you guys talked about how Worf would have manhandled those guys if he were there, but motherfuckin Data is right there. If he got his hands on a couple pieces of fruit he could probably chuck them at their heads hard enough to knock them out. Like you said in the discussion though, none of this really detracts from the episode much.
Is it ever stated on camera that the Enterprise D has a captain's yacht? I don't recall.
Fist time I watched thi1s episode I missed the body covered with a blanket too. Noticed it the second time I watched I know he was anyoing but I don't think he deserved to die. Bit of trivia I just remembered. Colem Meany was in Die Hard 2. He played an airline pilot who gets killed 2 minutes after you see him.
I like how y'all frequently re-watch episodes just for the Hell of it.
The red headed terrorist girl is an actor/stunt double named Patricia Tallman, who you saw previously in Power Play as one of Worf’s security officers. She’s in Trek several times as well as a much bigger ongoing role in Babylon 5.
Isn’t she Bev’s stunt double?
I really love the stuff at the beginning of this episode. Just watching our crew doing their jobs, getting little bits of character business, etc. Would watch a whole episode of that.
💯
I needed that today!!! How fun was that! Props to Spiner small talker!
They went to all that meticulous planning but no one checked what the Captain of the ship looked like? Fun, but the premise is wafer thin. B-
I wonder how much they discussed that in the writers room? Maybe like “Sure they could look that up but maybe they don’t care? Everyone is supposed to be gone.”
One of the more fun ones. I wish more were like this.
I was watching the gag reel for season 6 on the Blu-ray the other day and the scene where Data is talking to Beverly and riker after watching hutch, and riker cracks up when data taps his chest, is actually an outtake they kept in. Frakes is legit corpsing there. Which probably explains the quick cut away. In the gag reel it goes on a little longer
Ah, I paused to post that and see you guys correctly guessed that they were really laughing.
TNG does die hard. A guilty pleasure episode.
Not sure if Macgyver or Diehard
Picard starring as Macgyver in Die Hard