I've tried something a bit different here, and watched this episode during my TNG rewatch as a companion piece to the episode 'The Pegasus'. As an episode of Enterprise, this is an absolutely horrid way to end the series, but taken as an episode of TNG... well, it's still not all that great, but kind of works a bit better.
The issues are numerous. Riker is supposedly trying to make a decision about whether to disobey orders and tell Captain Picard the truth about what happened on the Pegasus, but there is the question of when exactly he finds the time to take a jaunt in the holodeck to work all his problems out. On top of that - perhaps most confusing of all - the story he watches doesn't seem to have any bearing on what he's going through at all.
It's nice to see the recreation of Enterprise-D sets, but they do look a bit cheap and cheerful. It's also impossible to hide the fact that Riker and Troi look 10 years older all of a sudden.
This is a throwaway in every sense and a real slap in the face to the cast of Enterprise. The plot is meaningless and just a mess (how rubbish are those alien "criminals"?) and the death of Trip was unnecessary and poorly done. I'm not sure what was trying to be achieved here.
Review by LeftHandedGuitaristBlockedParent2017-08-14T22:34:44Z— updated 2017-08-16T15:57:53Z
I've tried something a bit different here, and watched this episode during my TNG rewatch as a companion piece to the episode 'The Pegasus'. As an episode of Enterprise, this is an absolutely horrid way to end the series, but taken as an episode of TNG... well, it's still not all that great, but kind of works a bit better.
The issues are numerous. Riker is supposedly trying to make a decision about whether to disobey orders and tell Captain Picard the truth about what happened on the Pegasus, but there is the question of when exactly he finds the time to take a jaunt in the holodeck to work all his problems out. On top of that - perhaps most confusing of all - the story he watches doesn't seem to have any bearing on what he's going through at all.
It's nice to see the recreation of Enterprise-D sets, but they do look a bit cheap and cheerful. It's also impossible to hide the fact that Riker and Troi look 10 years older all of a sudden.
This is a throwaway in every sense and a real slap in the face to the cast of Enterprise. The plot is meaningless and just a mess (how rubbish are those alien "criminals"?) and the death of Trip was unnecessary and poorly done. I'm not sure what was trying to be achieved here.