My biggest plot gripe is Geordi's visit to Dr. Pulaski. That whole thing about replacing his VISOR with artificial eyes kind of comes out of nowhere. Later Trek shows like DS9 or even VOY would have dropped hints in a few episodes leading up to a moment like that, but this episode did follow the writers' strike pretty closely… That, combined with the episodic attitude toward television writing prevalent at the time, is probably why it wasn't foreshadowed. I still think it was pretty ham-fisted. Of course, the idea was also dropped completely until La Forge's sight regenerated in "All Good Things…" (and he got ocular implants sometime before Star Trek: First Contact).
Smaller nitpicks include Riva's clothing blowing in the wind while he is still materializing on Solais V the second time, and Data's sign-language interpretation—in both directions—getting ahead of the person he's interpreting for.
Riker's early line—"Our job is not to police the galaxy"—reads as a commentary on American involvement in world events, especially now that Team America: World Police has been out for a while. The sentiment, too, has been around for some time, and while I'm not sure it fits into the script as a whole I did find that scene in the turbolift amusing.
Despite the Lost In Space feel it lends this script,¹ I do think the decision to use real American Sign Language on screen was appropriate for the message. People who don't know ASL won't know that the signs used in the show weren't made-up, and viewers who do know ASL (or at least enough to recognize it) can cheer for a pretty true-to-life representation of deafness on prime-time television.
Lost In Space (the original series, to be specific) is absolutely full of aliens who show up on a remote planet far from Earth but speak perfect English and dress exactly like a human might—despite never having heard of Earth, even, in some cases. (It's the kind of corny writing one expects from a 1960s series, to be fair.)
Review by dgwVIP 10BlockedParent2019-01-09T18:34:57Z
My biggest plot gripe is Geordi's visit to Dr. Pulaski. That whole thing about replacing his VISOR with artificial eyes kind of comes out of nowhere. Later Trek shows like DS9 or even VOY would have dropped hints in a few episodes leading up to a moment like that, but this episode did follow the writers' strike pretty closely… That, combined with the episodic attitude toward television writing prevalent at the time, is probably why it wasn't foreshadowed. I still think it was pretty ham-fisted. Of course, the idea was also dropped completely until La Forge's sight regenerated in "All Good Things…" (and he got ocular implants sometime before Star Trek: First Contact).
Smaller nitpicks include Riva's clothing blowing in the wind while he is still materializing on Solais V the second time, and Data's sign-language interpretation—in both directions—getting ahead of the person he's interpreting for.
Riker's early line—"Our job is not to police the galaxy"—reads as a commentary on American involvement in world events, especially now that Team America: World Police has been out for a while. The sentiment, too, has been around for some time, and while I'm not sure it fits into the script as a whole I did find that scene in the turbolift amusing.
Despite the Lost In Space feel it lends this script,¹ I do think the decision to use real American Sign Language on screen was appropriate for the message. People who don't know ASL won't know that the signs used in the show weren't made-up, and viewers who do know ASL (or at least enough to recognize it) can cheer for a pretty true-to-life representation of deafness on prime-time television.