UNCUT - Liaisons (TNG S7E2) | Star Trek Journey 280
Comments (81)
Ensign is the lowest ranking officer. We don’t normally see non-officer ranks a lot — except Chief O’Brien. He is lower than an ensign.
59:22 They still knew enough about human anatomy to make the Ambassador look like a woman. So they must have gotten some information about human bodies from her logs. I like this episode because it has enough humor in it for me, and the crazy psycho woman is the entertaining part (we've all known someone like that). It's a high "C" episode.
53:45 Diplomatic Immunity is a special thing.
48:10 This episode is rather different, though. Those other plots you mention were circumstantial, coincidental. All of these ambassadors were very intentionally studying something and that's what they came to do.
6:15 Actually, that is called Small Caps. It is a font style.
WHY WON'T YOU LOVE ME?????
i saw this when it aired and never again. i would rate it D
I've got absolutely no memory of this episode, I must have missed it on original transmission. I wish to have it deleted back out of my mind please, it was rubbish.
If no one has mentioned it, no pips is a non-com, someone who isn't an officer and didn't go to the academy. The senior most non-coms like O'Brien will have some kind of do-dad on their collar indicating they are a senior chief. They are subordinate to all officers including Ensigns.
I do think you can repeat a theme, like aliens learning about humanity, and it'd be a good episode. Even if it's done a lot. But the execution and effort on this one definitely felt subpar and flat.
Was this star trek’s first same sex kiss?
It was at least nice they did not go down the road of sexy romance for the pleasure plot with Troi and tried to do that with Picard and the twist reveal. We did not need yet another visitor of the week hitting on or assaulting or actually in love with Troi
There are enlisted crewman, who are not officers in Starfleet. Crewman Simon Tarsis was one. Chief, O’Brien is another. An ensign technically outranks chief, O’Brien.
The one ambassador trying to experience pleasure through food kind of makes sense considering that their point of reference is from a ship wreck victim who ate nothing but crappy root vegetables for 7 years, the log was probably full of her daydreaming about good foods.
100% that lady forgot to put on her pips as she was part way through the school run and had just spent 10 minutes trying to get Eric to put his fucking shoes on
Wow, I totally did not remember that Picard got sexually assaulted in this episode. Fucking weird, man
Definitely a “mid” episode, C-, there are much worse episodes this season in my opinion, but there are seven episodes I can think of that are personal favorites of mine.
This episode would’ve made a great season one episode.
The fall of 1993… I was engaged, in my last semester of college (for a while anyway), and working a full-time job. While the 7th season of TNG has its high points for me, this episode wasn’t one of them. I honestly don’t remember anything about it and I’ve never rewatched it until now.
Fun fact: This episode was written the morning after everyone got wasted at Ronald Moore's wedding. I'm lying.
I totally forgot this episode and will forget this one right afterwards
It's bad.
The mom was a crewman like Crewman Tarses.
Forgettable episode, but the Worf stuff was at some points pretty good. The rest pretty bland.
RIP OUT HIS ESOPHAGUS
This was not my favorite episode of Season 7
In this era, Star Trek was the only franchise that accepted scripts from anybody (no agent required). The writers got story credit even if their script was totally rewritten by staff writers. Or if it was bought just to use one story idea from it. This is often what causes the "wall of writers". Ron Moore's "The Bonding" was submitted under this policy. Of course he got a career out of it.
To be fair to Worf in "Frame of Mind," he was demonstrating the alien of the weeks sale ritual when he was waving that knife around.
He also wasn’t real
So...ummm...did the ambassador change back into the women for the shuttle ride back?
Oh shit, you might be right - on the planet Picard was like “this would be considered a crime” but back on the Enterprise he was going on about how refreshing it was to meet a species that is ‘willing to take an experience to its fullest extreme’
Not one of my favourites of the Season. I love the Worf and Troi moments, but for me the Picard story dragged. C
One of the better Season 7 episodes. Mid is a good way to rates it. It was definitely a well worn Trek Trope. As I said I feel season 7 always likke a tired series, I'm glad they decided to end it with season 7 as they were debating one more season
Everything about S7 feels and even looks 'soft'. In a way it resembles a show that is brought back several years after its original run ended.
Okay Episode for Season One.
side note but i like how jumping from a Part 1 over on DS9 to an ordinary TNG episode creates the feeling of a larger world, like maybe the stardates don't exactly line up but it makes this feel like a "meanwhile on the other side of the Federation" story happening at the same time
The biggest exception to the wall of writers rule is probably "Yesterday's Enterprise" (which had six credited writers!) and there will definitely be more exceptions going forward, but yeah, as with this episode it is more often than not a warning sign when you see more than 3 writers listed in the opening credits. The bad news for season 7 is that there are definitely worse episodes than this one coming up. The good news is that some of those bad episodes are absolutely among the most bonkers episodes in the entire franchise.
I will be very interested to see Josh & Alex's reaction to the end of DS9 S2 E2......and obviously no spoilers from me.
So Data says Worf is insulting. Is he though? What would that be based on?
Welcome to Season 7, where everyone is checked out and they ran out of ideas. It's a very mixed and interesting season, both for good and bad reasons. There's some very good episodes, there's some very bad episodes, and there's episodes like this.
This will become clear to you when you get to some behind-the-scenes docs/websites, but when there’s a wall of writers, nine times out of ten it’s because the episode needed it. They don’t say “Let’s have five people work on this one.” It’s just part of the desperation of smashing out 26 episodes during 80-hour weeks.
The Worf plot would be done in 5 seconds if the guy just said “I want you to hit me as hard as you can.”
But that isn't what the Ambassador wanted. He wanted heated conflict and anger.
This would work perfectly fine as a TOS episode. For a TNG episode late in the game it's kind of disappointing.
This episode feels like a casualty of Piller, Taylor & Berman being occupied with developing Voyager while some members of the regular writing staff were working on a movie.
That’s probably a problem for several season 7 episodes really
They should have picked Geordi for Love instead. He SO would have simped.
That episode was depressingly boring.
Don't loose the faith here. Season 7 is very much a mixed bag of quality. While there are more episodes like....this, there are also some bangers and in fact, my favorite episode of the series is in this season. There's quite a few of what I would classify as A and S episodes. As far as this one is concerned? D I get what they WANTED to originally do with a Misery homage, and it was changed but elements were still there, and we were left with this awful hybrid episode where even the showrunners admitted "yeah, we fucked up", which I do apricate that they acknowledged it...but if we go with what was on-screen for us viewers......yeah. Solid D Episode. (with the caveat that they quickly admitted they messed this episode up.)
There's also some infamously bad ones that aren't bad because they're boring. They're bad because they're hilariously bad. So that should be entertaining too.
No sex scoreboard changes for this episode THANK god, the gods, natural, nothing, or whatever you pray to. WHEW no one banged anyone here and that is a relief.
This is certainly an episode of TNG that exists… watchable for Worf. Not much else. Easy D
No pips with the Starfleet uniform means they are a crewman. Basically the enlisted members of Starfleet that do all the menial and unglamorous work that still needs to be done in the future. It's much easier to become a crewman than have to go to the Academy to become an officer. The Half-Romulan guy from Drumhead was a crewman and talked about this.
Unseen but consistently felt throughout the episode: the ambassador of mid.
Josh is correct about my comment… I have no problem with episodes with no stakes, but just don’t make us THINK there are stakes and then say “Gotcha!” Or at least do it in a more original way.
I'm more in the middle on this episode. I think it's solidly in the C tier, not as bad as a lot of people make out. That said it's definitely mid. Best part for me by far was the Worf stuff. I'm always down for Worf's patience being tested to the limit, and a bit beyond that here. Also I gotta say, in regards to the whole "you share all those qualities in abundance" scene, if it had happened in S2 or 3, I would have just said it was Data being awkward and not understanding social cues to realize what he said was rude. At this point, my headcanon is that he's secretly mastered the art of trolling. That little smirk as he pats Worf on the back won't let me think otherwise. Also Worf's expression when Riker slaps him on the back gets me every time. At least Troi found someone that appreciates chocolate as much as she does. But yes, it's a very bland episode. At least Descent 2 gave us blowing up a borg ship with a frickin star.
Data 100% knew what he was doing haha
Where Silence Has Lease is the episode you were trying to remember, Josh.
Praise Nagilum
Only officers have pips. The majority of the crew would not be officers. They've kinda danced around it - for eg I don't believe for a moment that Chief O'brienwas originally conceived as an enlisted crew member and they mucked around exactly what he should have on his collar, before DS9 bit the bullet and created enlisted ensignia which you'll notice on his collar now that he's in DS9.
I don't recall ever seeing this episode before, which could mean I simply wiped it from my memory given the content. I get some vibes of All Our Yesterdays (Zarabeth) from the Picard part of this episode.
I'm not sure how the pips work with enlisted officers, but the ranks are 9assuming they follow thr naval standard): Crewman, (or Yeoman in TOS for women) 1st,2nd, and 3rd class, Petty Officer 3rd, 2nd, and First Class, Cheif Petty Officer, Senor Cheif Petty Officer, and Master Cheif Petty Officer
There are further sub-divisions amongst those bsaic ranks, much more complicated then officer rankings\
This was just so poorly and clumsily done. And we know Picard can be feeble at times, but he got his ass handed to him by this woman who didn't even throw a punch. Its gotta be one of the worst episodes i've seen , and just go rewatch "All Our Yesterdays"
I mean, "she" was really a he, so cut Picard a little slack. Bro got catfished
yeah, just because there have been others where aliens try to understand our crew, the others you mention had radically different premises an execution, so I don't relally see that as a mjor criticism. How many times in TOS did a computer that was supposed to imporve a society become a danger to it or enslave it?
I agree
Personally, I found this one enjoyable. When you are reviewing ep[isodes. you come at from a different perspective. For me, there are some e[ispdes where I'm ok with (well that was neat) whereas it seems like you two are comparing every episode to the best the show can possibly be. This isn't that kind of show.
We want the episode to be good, correct.
The pitch for this episode, based on Stephen King's Misery, was that it would be a riff on obsessive Star Trek fans in love with Picard, but clearly that got lost along the way. The first draft of the teleplay was written by two interns (who had also worked on "Duet"), but an uncredited rewrite was done by Brannon Braga, who added the subplot on the Enterprise. Braga and Cliff Bole have both said they were not very happy with how this one turned out.
yes, from Memroy Alpha it wss apparently one where what was on script didn't translate into thje episode. The darker PIcard story was baalanced with the lighter other stories, but Braga said there were a lot more jokes that were cut for time. Originally the woman was going to be a strarfleet officer, and Picard sort of falls for her before realizing she's an alien, but it was pointed out if the alien could mimic humans so well why would theh need to resort to this rouse. Honsetly, to me, that sounds like a more interesting story however- like instead of being weird from the get-go, a starfleet woman Picard actually falls for till he realizes some things dont add up would have made for a better story. I feel like they could have had a handwavy excplanation, like the species was partially telepathic or could mimic things but not understand the experiences and emotions till they felt them
like the military we have officers and enlisted. They have struggled with that in Star Trek. Chief is technically not an officer but he has a rank ... so that said I assume she is a low level enlisted person.
Chief is the highest of enlisted rank but onboard the Enterprise had the acting rank of Lieutenant as he was the transporter chief and it would have been inconvenient for people below him in his department to outrank him. That was only a temporary rank, so despite being the fucntional head of engineering in DS9, he's back to being a cheif because he's commanding mostly a Bajoran engineering crew. His knowledge of Cardassian technology was no doubt why he was chosen for that assignment. For non military folks, people who have specialties like science or engineering skills take two years at Starfleet Academy, as opposed to the four years required for officers. They have their own rank sturcture. There actually more enlisted men but we are mostly dealing with officers since the enlisted men are kind of doing the grunt work mostly, they wouldn't do things like go on away teams or be tasked with major assignments.
I promise all of season 7 is not like this
I have said I don't get the hate fo season 7. I feel like people are comparing it to season 6 and DS9 on the rise.
I hear you Josh. I'm only here for the discussion, skipped the watchalong
The character Voval (the "injured" diplomat) was played by Eric Pierpoint who has had a pretty wide and varied film and tv acting career, especially in scifi, and probably most notably was Detective George Francisco on the tv show Alien Nation. It's an early 90s show, and only had 1 season, but still holds up pretty well. The Picard portion of the plot was so cliche there is a trope called 'What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?'
he's got a good voice he almost sounds a bit like robert stack at least here in this episode
You called it mid I call it meh.
When I was watching this I genuinely wasn't sure if I had never seen the episode before, or if it was just THAT unmemorable. Uninspired, uninteresting, i doubt I'll ever watch it again.
OK, Fess up which one of you had the orgasm over peach cobbler?