FULL DISCUSSION - Star Trek TNG S2E11 - Contagion
Comments (26)
I always thought this episode was very similar to the last outpost. Just Romulans instead of Ferengi , and the cause of the malfunctions is different.
I've thought so as well, especially with both eps dealing with a long dead alien race of great power.
Your comment re: character moments was true, and when people talk about “the third season is when the show really clicks” a lot of it is about the character moments and scenes are more prevalent. If I’m being honest I find more than a few third season stories to be kind of clunkers, but I still love the episode because of the way the characters are written and react to the situation..and the dialogue is so much more natural than some of the awkward first and second season exposition.
Steve Gerber was one of the best Marvel writers ever.
As a huge fan of his Man-Thing run, I would totally agree.
Just a note of appreciation for the background work that you've been adding in the last few episodes. Nice to see Iconia and that beautiful warbird out the window. A little detail that's absolutely not required, but definitely welcome.
I watched this episode a couple of weeks ago when I binge watched the whole second season. And you know, I’m damned if I remember a single thing about it.
I think my favorite character moment in this episode was when LaForge came flying onto the bridge and immediately yelled for them to destroy the probe. Two Seasons in and Picard immediately trusts Geordi without question on the spot. That is mutual respect.
Yes! Enough said. Take your chief engineer's word for it
The Neutral Zone was shown as a 2-dimensional line in TOS but obviously in space it would be 3 dimensional. It has perplexed what that would look like if it were real.
12:20 Computers were already definitely a thing. The first mainframe computer was created in the mid-40s. IBM ran away with the market share by generalizing their design in the 50s and 60s. In the 60s and 70s, IBM started riding high on that market share. IBM's personal computer appeared in the early 80s despite common belief that average people had no use for one. The clones quickly followed. For some perspective, Microsoft Windows 1.0 was released in 1986. But, Windows did not start to become particularly popular until the early 90s. The first computer virus was made in 1971, but the first PC virus took 10 more years.
Been there, done that! I think some of my phone bills were $400+. Oops. That 300 baud modem was torture, though!
22:00 You're right... the Romulans generally would not volunteer a solution like that.
16:10 That's an interesting point. It never struck me that Data was acting out of character, but he was. I guess I didn't find Data's behavior tooo odd because how often does one get to explore 200000 year old technology? I imagine a caveman might act a bit out of sorts when confronted with technology like a tricorder, too.
12:10 No, the all the logs were transmitted from the Yamato to the Enterprise while the Enterprise was en route. The dialogue during the fancy-cam-work-on-the-bridge at the start talks about that.
I can't remember when it is but at some point in another episode there's mention of subspace buoys where logs are transmitted to, so that they can be retrieved if a ship goes missing or is away for so long they need a means to transmit back to Starfleet. I don't think that is a spoiler as it's not a plot point, just something mentioned almost in passing.
11:32 There was a scene earlier where Picard stepped out of his Ready Room and the door hesitated. That was the first hint something is going awry.
They completely missed it, talking. It's the Stargate chicken man all over again
6:30 Yes, that's the same ship from back then. Good catch!
About the turn off and on again thing. My head canon take is that they tend not to do that anymore, either because it’s not generally needed or because the idea of turning it off completely makes it a dangerous prospect
That was exactly how I interpreted the episode as well. In the time of TNG computerization is so completely a part of everyday life that the thought of total shutdown and restart is something that pretty much no one would ever think of doing.
Your opening comments highlight an interesting contrast. When I watched this show for the first time, I didn't laden myself with expectations to fit my satisfaction nor reflect on what they should have done with the show versus what we got. I like some episodes more than others, but to me, it is what it is. It would never occur to me to say "they should have done this instead" because it's already on the film and the producers wouldn't listen to me anyways.
I concur. I've commented essentially the same before. Guys, enjoy the show for what it IS, not what it ISN'T. It's self sabotage to go into this looking for holes to poke. You'll end up like you did in the opening minutes of this discussion video, lamenting how un-life altering TNG has been so far
I like this one..any chance to see more of the Romulans. And of course the always incredible Carolyn Seymour 🤩
No spoilers in this comment. I watched the Red Letter Media video about mistakes in TNG. There is one so blatant that I'm ashamed to say I never spotted it. It's Season 1. Riker: "Ahead Warp 7, Mr. La Forge." Geordi: "Aye, Sir. Full impulse."
Cool I mentioned this mistake in the Conspiracy episode comments section at the time