Tasha asks for a "team" and receives… a single security crew member. A team of one?
Also, I guess this was just before the "invention" of the site-to-site transport. Except, wait, Riker used a site-to-site in the pilot episode, and we saw at least one site-to-site transport in TOS ("A Piece of the Action"). So why did no one just beam into that little Engineering control room and give Wesley a hypospray of sedative to the neck thirty seconds after he took over?
The timing of this episode was no accident. It's the second ever outing of a rebooted Star Trek series that very clearly wants to draw fans of the original. Rewatching the series now, having known these characters for well over a decade, I can get the intended effect—which is letting the normally pretty formal crew be goofy. But unfortunately, I think this episode sacrificed most of its impact back in 1987 by coming so early on, before the audience even knows the names of all the main crew members (including Chief Engineer MacDougal, who is later replaced by Geordi, but not before a series of other chief engineers parades by during the remainder of season one).
One of the other benefits (or perhaps not) of watching this thirty years on is the different perspective of widespread changes in social attitudes over the last three decades. Now, perhaps, Tasha's seduction (call it what it is) of Data comes off completely different. Today, I might even call it "rape-y", as the question of whether Data can actually give consent for sexual activity remains open in my mind. (I do lean toward, "No, he can't." If you want more in-depth discussion of this issue, there was a great /r/DaystromInstitute thread about it on Reddit some months back: https://redd.it/76alvm/)
It was a fun story, albeit with "stakes" on par with the the absolute laziest Trek has ever seen. (Really, we know the resolution after fifteen minutes; it just takes another half hour of screen time to get there.) Ultimately, I found its placement in the season most disappointing indeed. This story would have been much better if placed at or after the midpoint of season one, simply because the audience would have a proper sense of "normal" for the main cast. Going with a "goof-off" episode right out of the gate was not a good choice.
Review by dgwVIP 9BlockedParent2018-06-17T05:48:47Z
Tasha asks for a "team" and receives… a single security crew member. A team of one?
Also, I guess this was just before the "invention" of the site-to-site transport. Except, wait, Riker used a site-to-site in the pilot episode, and we saw at least one site-to-site transport in TOS ("A Piece of the Action"). So why did no one just beam into that little Engineering control room and give Wesley a hypospray of sedative to the neck thirty seconds after he took over?
The timing of this episode was no accident. It's the second ever outing of a rebooted Star Trek series that very clearly wants to draw fans of the original. Rewatching the series now, having known these characters for well over a decade, I can get the intended effect—which is letting the normally pretty formal crew be goofy. But unfortunately, I think this episode sacrificed most of its impact back in 1987 by coming so early on, before the audience even knows the names of all the main crew members (including Chief Engineer MacDougal, who is later replaced by Geordi, but not before a series of other chief engineers parades by during the remainder of season one).
One of the other benefits (or perhaps not) of watching this thirty years on is the different perspective of widespread changes in social attitudes over the last three decades. Now, perhaps, Tasha's seduction (call it what it is) of Data comes off completely different. Today, I might even call it "rape-y", as the question of whether Data can actually give consent for sexual activity remains open in my mind. (I do lean toward, "No, he can't." If you want more in-depth discussion of this issue, there was a great /r/DaystromInstitute thread about it on Reddit some months back:
https://redd.it/76alvm/)It was a fun story, albeit with "stakes" on par with the the absolute laziest Trek has ever seen. (Really, we know the resolution after fifteen minutes; it just takes another half hour of screen time to get there.) Ultimately, I found its placement in the season most disappointing indeed. This story would have been much better if placed at or after the midpoint of season one, simply because the audience would have a proper sense of "normal" for the main cast. Going with a "goof-off" episode right out of the gate was not a good choice.