[5.8/10] “The Game” gets one thing right. If you were plotting to take over the Enterprise, the best way to do it would be to run a honeypot scheme on William T. Riker. Most of Starfleet’s crises stem from bizarre spatial phenomena, or an enemy force poised to strike, or a god-like being holding our heroes’ fate in its hands. This week’s stems from the ship's First Officer getting too snuggly with a pretty face who;s concealing a bad motive. And somehow it feels more believable as a means of nearly taking down the ship for it.
That is, strangely, the best part of this one, and it’s over in the first five minutes. “The Game” matches a standard Invasion of the Body-Snatchers-style mystery plot with the return and romances of one Wesley Crusher. I know, I was shocked it wasn’t a banger too.
But we make due. On the romance side, Wesley is on vacation from Starfleet Academy and runs into another engineering wunderkind, Robin Leffler, and strikes up a quick friendship. Unfortunately, the two are supposed to be the romantic backbone of the episode, and instead come off like inane, barely-sketched clichés. I don’t know why The Next Generation is so hit or miss when it comes to romantic chemistry, but in this one, the powers that be hope that throwing a pair of winsome young adults together and smile a lot suffices for character development.
Of note, Leffler is played by a very young, pre-fame Ashely Judd, who does OK in the role. There’s not a lot of depth in the script or the performance, but she’s at least semi-plausible as someone who would make goo-goo eyes at Wesley, which is good, because it’s most of what she does for the hour. The only other wrinkle to Leffler is that she keeps a list of her own “Leffler’s Laws,” which turn out to be a collection of hollow aphorisms to help her get through everyday life. If I didn’t know better, I’d say their overall triteness was supposed to be a gag, but I don’t know if I’d give good ol’ Brannon Braga, who penned the teleplay for this one, that much credit.
When the episode isn’t giving us a pair of teenagers flirting in about as uninvolving a way as you could imagine, it’s giving us a Pod People plot. You see, while vacationing on Risa, Riker started playing footsie with an alien temptress, who introduced him to the titular game. But it’s not just a diverting fad. It’s a plot by the seductress to take over the Enterprise, since the game is not only addictive, but brainwashes its players into doing her bidding and spreading the game to others.
It’s not the worst premise in the world, but there’s not much to it either. Is it a commentary on addictive drugs? Is it a grim take on how quickly fads spread? Is it just an excuse to pay homage to some old fashioned mind control horror? Whatever the case, the setup is paper thin. The various members of the senior staff just invite their friends to try the game and...they do. There’s no wrinkles to it beyond the need to incapacitate Data (since he’s not susceptible to the game device’s tricks), and there’s little intrigue beyond the affected crewmembers taking on a disturbing look of pleasure as their free will is overridden by a toy.
Even though he’s been gone for almost a full season now, this is still a Wesley Crusher episode, which means the special-est boy in the world still has to figure out what not even trained seasoned professionals can. Sure enough, with the help of his new girlfriend, Wes realizes there’s something pathological about this game, and tries to stop it before everyone on the ship is under its spell.
“The Game” generates a mild bit of tension when Wesley is racing against time to prevent a brain-washed Captain Picard, Worf, and Riker from catching him and subjecting him to the game’s effects. But you never believe for a second the chase is going anywhere, and watching Wesley outsmart trained professionals over and over again lost its luster a long time ago. The best the episode can do is try to make the cat and mouse game more exciting than normal given that Wes knows the senior staff’s usual tricks, but in the end, it doesn’t amount to much.
The episode ends with a minor twist, that the kids managed to restore Data despite sabotage from a mind-controlled Dr. Crusher, and Wesley was just stalling for time. But the solution to this whole conflagration of grand theft mental turns out to be...an epileptic series of flashing lights. It’s a nigh-literal deus ex machina, as Data just shows up with the solution in the nick of time, and that’s that. No unique motive for our villainess. Nothing particularly clever or setup for Data’s methods. Just “they fixed it -- the end.”
It’s cold comfort for an episode where the only other main focus is the “sparkling repartee” between Wesley and Leffler. We’ve seen this kind of thing before in the execrable “The Dauphin”, and Wes’s puppy love is no more compelling or entertaining here. I don’t think it’s any great spoiler to tell you that, despite the professions of long distance affection here, we never see Robin Leffler again, and nothing of value was lost.
The real shame of “The Game” is that a good writer could find meaningful story beats in Wesley Crusher’s return to the Enterprise after leaving for Starfleet Academy. In a few short scenes we get the joys of reunion, a funny conversation where Wes regales his mentor with how his first year’s been going, a mom who wants to spend time with her son while still giving him space. In a better episode, that would all be fodder to explore what it means to come back to a familiar place after leaving, without the need for an extraneous romance.
The best you can say is that maybe that’s what this episode is going for with the mind-altering game. Returning to a familiar setting can be a little jarring, as things change, even people change, without you, to the point that what was once familiar and soon feel alien. There’s the wisp of that in “The Game”, but it’s so thin as to probably be accidental.
Instead, the high point comes in the opening minutes, where you realize that all this trouble started because, of course, Riker couldn’t keep his phaser in his pants. It’s good to know that even as ensigns come and go, some things always stay the same on the Enterprise.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-05-18T05:04:26Z
[5.8/10] “The Game” gets one thing right. If you were plotting to take over the Enterprise, the best way to do it would be to run a honeypot scheme on William T. Riker. Most of Starfleet’s crises stem from bizarre spatial phenomena, or an enemy force poised to strike, or a god-like being holding our heroes’ fate in its hands. This week’s stems from the ship's First Officer getting too snuggly with a pretty face who;s concealing a bad motive. And somehow it feels more believable as a means of nearly taking down the ship for it.
That is, strangely, the best part of this one, and it’s over in the first five minutes. “The Game” matches a standard Invasion of the Body-Snatchers-style mystery plot with the return and romances of one Wesley Crusher. I know, I was shocked it wasn’t a banger too.
But we make due. On the romance side, Wesley is on vacation from Starfleet Academy and runs into another engineering wunderkind, Robin Leffler, and strikes up a quick friendship. Unfortunately, the two are supposed to be the romantic backbone of the episode, and instead come off like inane, barely-sketched clichés. I don’t know why The Next Generation is so hit or miss when it comes to romantic chemistry, but in this one, the powers that be hope that throwing a pair of winsome young adults together and smile a lot suffices for character development.
Of note, Leffler is played by a very young, pre-fame Ashely Judd, who does OK in the role. There’s not a lot of depth in the script or the performance, but she’s at least semi-plausible as someone who would make goo-goo eyes at Wesley, which is good, because it’s most of what she does for the hour. The only other wrinkle to Leffler is that she keeps a list of her own “Leffler’s Laws,” which turn out to be a collection of hollow aphorisms to help her get through everyday life. If I didn’t know better, I’d say their overall triteness was supposed to be a gag, but I don’t know if I’d give good ol’ Brannon Braga, who penned the teleplay for this one, that much credit.
When the episode isn’t giving us a pair of teenagers flirting in about as uninvolving a way as you could imagine, it’s giving us a Pod People plot. You see, while vacationing on Risa, Riker started playing footsie with an alien temptress, who introduced him to the titular game. But it’s not just a diverting fad. It’s a plot by the seductress to take over the Enterprise, since the game is not only addictive, but brainwashes its players into doing her bidding and spreading the game to others.
It’s not the worst premise in the world, but there’s not much to it either. Is it a commentary on addictive drugs? Is it a grim take on how quickly fads spread? Is it just an excuse to pay homage to some old fashioned mind control horror? Whatever the case, the setup is paper thin. The various members of the senior staff just invite their friends to try the game and...they do. There’s no wrinkles to it beyond the need to incapacitate Data (since he’s not susceptible to the game device’s tricks), and there’s little intrigue beyond the affected crewmembers taking on a disturbing look of pleasure as their free will is overridden by a toy.
Even though he’s been gone for almost a full season now, this is still a Wesley Crusher episode, which means the special-est boy in the world still has to figure out what not even trained seasoned professionals can. Sure enough, with the help of his new girlfriend, Wes realizes there’s something pathological about this game, and tries to stop it before everyone on the ship is under its spell.
“The Game” generates a mild bit of tension when Wesley is racing against time to prevent a brain-washed Captain Picard, Worf, and Riker from catching him and subjecting him to the game’s effects. But you never believe for a second the chase is going anywhere, and watching Wesley outsmart trained professionals over and over again lost its luster a long time ago. The best the episode can do is try to make the cat and mouse game more exciting than normal given that Wes knows the senior staff’s usual tricks, but in the end, it doesn’t amount to much.
The episode ends with a minor twist, that the kids managed to restore Data despite sabotage from a mind-controlled Dr. Crusher, and Wesley was just stalling for time. But the solution to this whole conflagration of grand theft mental turns out to be...an epileptic series of flashing lights. It’s a nigh-literal deus ex machina, as Data just shows up with the solution in the nick of time, and that’s that. No unique motive for our villainess. Nothing particularly clever or setup for Data’s methods. Just “they fixed it -- the end.”
It’s cold comfort for an episode where the only other main focus is the “sparkling repartee” between Wesley and Leffler. We’ve seen this kind of thing before in the execrable “The Dauphin”, and Wes’s puppy love is no more compelling or entertaining here. I don’t think it’s any great spoiler to tell you that, despite the professions of long distance affection here, we never see Robin Leffler again, and nothing of value was lost.
The real shame of “The Game” is that a good writer could find meaningful story beats in Wesley Crusher’s return to the Enterprise after leaving for Starfleet Academy. In a few short scenes we get the joys of reunion, a funny conversation where Wes regales his mentor with how his first year’s been going, a mom who wants to spend time with her son while still giving him space. In a better episode, that would all be fodder to explore what it means to come back to a familiar place after leaving, without the need for an extraneous romance.
The best you can say is that maybe that’s what this episode is going for with the mind-altering game. Returning to a familiar setting can be a little jarring, as things change, even people change, without you, to the point that what was once familiar and soon feel alien. There’s the wisp of that in “The Game”, but it’s so thin as to probably be accidental.
Instead, the high point comes in the opening minutes, where you realize that all this trouble started because, of course, Riker couldn’t keep his phaser in his pants. It’s good to know that even as ensigns come and go, some things always stay the same on the Enterprise.