PATRON TAKES - TNG S7E9

Sadly, the most unrealistic part of this episode is that the leaders of the federation took the science seriously and acted.

Oy... the "speed limit" episode. If I remember correctly, executive producer Jeri Taylor went to an environmental conference and came back "galvanized" and the result is this episode.

Ahhhh, yes, the Global Warming/Global Cooling/Climate Change preachy episode. My eyes just can't roll hard enough. It's a moderately-entertaining one if you set aside the preachyness. It's a sad thing that the preachyness is so extremely misguided. So it's still terrible.

There is fact, and then there is belief, and the middle ground between belief and fact does not exist The idea of belief is simply an excuse for not dealing with your mental illness, whether it’s climate change or anything else Which, in this case would include the fact that sub spaces being damaged and deteriorated by excessive warp usage, even in a fictional context believers just can’t accept fact this is, of course, assuming that anyone in question does not believe in facts

Never liked the episode although the topic itself is serious and important.

The stuff with Spot is amusing. The rest of the episode is quite possibly the most forgettable one made

Oh, we’re going to institute a warp speed limit 🥱 C-

Although it's well intentioned as being in the spirit of TOS' "veiled social commentary" with warp tech wrecking space-time being equivalent to global warming, this is a hot mess. We don't know who these people are, we don't even see their home world, and we don't even see the endangered ship from which Picard rescues the crew in the aftermath of the explosion. Its all "off screen" and glazed in techno babble. The writing uses "both-side-ism" by making the protestors seem like psychos to appease climate deniers AND ALSO have Data see that they have a point to appease people concerned about climate change with no middle ground where people realize there is a problem and try to fix it in the least impactful way. It makes no sense as a creative choice since if it remains canon EVERY writer of EVERY future episode OR MOVIE, will have to either A) IGNORE this making the episode non-canon, B) justify whether or not there is an actual crisis with the line "well we have an emergency so we need to go Warp 8...." or C) need a story arc where someone "fixes Warp drive". A) is bad writing. B) makes every episode explicitly about whether there is sufficient "Aristotelean dramatic tension". If in the first 3 minutes we don't see a need to go Warp 8 then why is the story important enough to spend 48 minutes watching? C) telegraphs a potential plot line of a work around story arc which is ALSO bad writing. A big E from me.

TNG is showing its fatigue with episodes like these. It's Fine.

I always liked this episode, but it has its problems. The characters are extremely unscientific, and nearly fanatical in their arguments. Despite that, I always found the idea of space itself being able to be torn by warp travel interesting.

This episode is environmentally friendly. It recycles the Talarian ship model from "Suddenly Human" and it recycles the Ferengi actor from THE NAGUS!!!! (Gral, who offered Quark "protection" as his "new best friend")

When the padding to get the episode to length (the Geordi and Data scenes) is the best executed part, you know you’ve messed up.

The fundamental thing to realize about this episode is that the scientist wants to do away with warp drive because she fears that it might cause this "environmental" disaster, and so in order to prove her case she... causes a worse version of the disaster she was supposedly trying to avoid. It's just a very shoddy execution of what could have actually been a good idea. In practice it's awful.

A really Preachy Episode, with two guest no one likes, with a pretty meh message. Star Trek is usually more subtle than this (excluding your dislike of ST6) is messages, but this one fails on all levels, and on some levels the human consciousness is unable to perceive. Definitely an E.

One of the all time most boring Trek episodes

"We're going to dramatically impact the storytelling of the Star Trek franchise with this episode that shows we must limit warp drive." Literally every writer after: "I ignored that shit." Yeah, this episode is just weak. E for "Everybody ignored it."

I literally do not remember what actually happens in this episode.

Ugh. The global warming sermon from the two least likeable guest stars of the season. Wherever you fall on the climate change debate, having these two holier-than-thou aliens preach about how right they are is just, to use the modern slang, cringe.

Behold. The episode that everyone--and I do mean EVERYONE--chooses to forget. And it's not because it's bad. It's... just inconvenient world-building. Lulz.

Okay, this one was stupid. At least for writers trying to come up with future trek stories that are exciting.

Overall I like this episode, but it feels like two separate episodes crammed into one. The Data, Geordi & Spot parts at the beginning are great and I like the idea about warp drive causing environmental problems, unfortunately I don’t think the last act was executed well though, it felt very rushed. I think this had a lot of potential but just want quite realised properly. Hard to grade but probably a B overall for me.

What if, down the road, it is discovered that broadcasting reactions to watching Star Trek have far reaching apocalyptic implications!?

I don't generally rewatch the episodes before commenting here, I usually figure out which episode it is from the other comments. Took me almost to the bottom to figure it out. This is yet another weak, forgettable story from the doldrums of season 7.

Some of the Data/Geordi stuff is fun, but the actual plot is one of the very worst in all of Trek. Creates a hamfisted political allegory with boring guest characters that also threatens to hamstring all Trek plots going forward - a bad idea badly executed.

Some good human Geordi moments of competitiveness but self-reflection and remorse. Where has this character writing been all these seasons?

"You've got a nice character episode going here. It'd be a shame if 'The Plot' happened to it."

I don't care what kind of expert she was. Dr Serova was a nut case. Trying to prove a point by killing herself? Seems way too fanatical for me.

Probably one of the worst narrative decisions in all of Star Trek was introduced in this episode.

The Romulans, Ferengi and Cardassians are like Captain Barbosa, “The code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.”

Best parts of this episode was Data dealing with Spot, and LaForge trying to tune the engines to out perform a former classmate.

I appreciate the environmental message, but this warp pollution doesn't make any sense in the Star Trek universe. We've seen several ancient warp capable empires that supposedly used warp travel for a very, very long time. They should have encountered this problem already, thousands of years ago. They did not, there's never been any sign of this phenomenon in previous episodes. The writers really should have used a different allegory.

Sure I slept through the episode, but on the upside there's now a speed limit that makes it take exponentially longer to explore space.

QUESTION: How did you interpret the ending? I understood the Warp 5 Speed Limit as being just for vessels going through that affected sector of space, BUT it seems others in the Takes see it as referring to a speed limit to all warp travel in general.

What you have to understand is that during the time this episode was released, climate change…

Geordi's sister was to come on board to help him adjust to the death of his mother in an earlier version of the script. Naren Shankar regretted that the emotional arc was dropped rather than reworked.

As a direct metaphor for the ozone layer, it's a little out of date. In a more general sense it still applies to climate change, and other issues we're experiencing on this planet, where large governments are slow or do nothing (or worse, actively participate) in the face of a people's home being destroyed. You'd be surprised at what someone in those situations who is being silenced can be willing to do to be heard.

Spot the padding.

One of the most boring and pointless episodes in all of Star Trek. The thing about a warp speed limit is beyond goofy. You know that the writers are just going to ignore this shit the moment it becomes inconvenient. They even acknowledged it in the episode itself by giving them a way out in "extreme emergencies". This is definitely a season seven episode.

The whole episode should've been about Spot.

I can just see the Federation politicians discussing this "So turns out warp drive is bad for the subspace" "Oh, well maybe we put a tax on warp travel to discourage it" "But we don't use money" "Oh, right. Then we'll just pass a law that says nobody is allowed to go above warp 5" "Including us?" "Fuck no!"

I get it. Star Trek has always been political. But I think politics in media should make you think. All the thinking is done for you when the allegory is so on-the-nose like this episode. I’m not bought into the universe at all because of how blatantly this is winking at real life issues. And to do this plot at the cost of limiting warp drive, the imaginary technology that allows Star Trek to explore strange new worlds, is ludicrous.

When scifi is used as metaphor to EXPLORE a topical issue, it is at it's best. When it is used to preach a particular conclusion, is when it is most dull.

This is easily the best episode soundtrack we've had since Ron Jones! ...or is it just me?

Spot is a girl now! Spot is trans CONFIRMED! One of us one of us ONE OF US

Interesting premise... BOLDLY GOING NOWHERE.

Spot has now gone from male to female.

Easily the episode i most want to put in E, under all other E episodes.

They tried something, I don't think it works.

Really, really weak episode to address the (new at the time) Kyoto Protocol and other generalized anthropogenic pollution issues. Really feels like someone on staff tried to have their say on the real world matter by suggesting that it's not a global issue (the subspace effects are only felt in the corridor) and then no one bothered to rewrite the episode to accommodate their views as a middle finger to them. Do you think they'll ever bring up this subspace/environmentalism issue up ever again?

It's not a great message episode, a little too on the nose, especially back when we did have a hole in our ozone, but what's really crazy is that this episode is 30 years old and we still are talking about the problem it's trying to address.

I used to call this the “ warp speed regulation “ episode, now I call it the “ data is a fool for thinking he can tell a cat what to do” episode

Mediocre. Just feels like it’s going through the motions. But nothing especially awful. Watching this merely passes 45 minutes without impact.

I don't mind episodes with a "message," but this episode is so preachy, it makes me want to buy a gas guzzler and roll coal. Like, we get it. And the scientist taking their own life to prove it feels like when some extreme activists put themselves in danger and inconvenience everyone just to prove a point and make every well-intentioned activist look bad.

C for Climate Change - in spaaaace... Not a bad concept, but the execution fell flat. Do you think the writers will keep the Warp 5 speed limit moving forward?

I understand what they were going for, but this is just a tedious episode about goddamn annoying space hippies.

I remember thinking it was a really interesting premise with potentially far-reaching consequences, but that is literally the only thing I remember about this episode.

😴 I get what they are trying to do but when the most interesting part of the episode is trying to train Spot then you’re in trouble. Takes far too long to get to the point. Just boring.

Thinly veiled analogy to technology and climate change. Interesting premise, but poor execution.

Honest question: how often do you think the revelations of this episode will come up in future Trek episodes?

I think there’s an interesting premise now that every time a certain warp speed is mentioned that breaks the ruling mentioned here the stakes are clearly higher, personally for me it did have a knock on affect watching future episodes of trek across tng/ds9 every time a high warp was ordered, LETS GO!

Another “good on paper, weak on screen”. I just don’t buy that the environmentalist is so concerned that she gives her life for the cause. So are there going to be Speed Warp 5 signs along the intergalactic highway now? Rating C for “Cruisin’ at Warp 5”