6x18 Starship Mine

This is a cool, but ultimately stupid episode.
1. What exactly was the plan down on the planet with the hostages? Just seemed like an excuse to give the other actors something to do. Why would the people stealing trilithium from the Enterprise care about what was going on down below with the senior staff? Plus there are 1000 other people normally onboard the Enterprise (including Worf who skipped the reception) so what good is holding a few of them hostage? And wouldn't they know
2. Why would a team of technicians be allowed onto the Enterprise while the baryon sweep was ongoing if it's deadly? What is their supposed role?
3. How did this team manage to infiltrate this Starfleet base in the first place?
4. Picard takes a pretty big risk going back onto the ship when it's about to be shut down and swept with deadly radiation. Shouldn't he at least arrange for someone to check to make sure he made it off ok?
5. Data seems to have no trouble imitating human mannerisms with the small talk bit, so why doesn't he do it more often?
6. Wouldn't the team stealing trilithium know who Picard was? Not only is he one of the most famous captains of the day, but they are stealing from his ship… shouldn't they do some basic research first?
7. Why didn't Troi sense something was wrong before the shooting started? She clearly can sense the aliens who held them hostage, since she says as much later on. Sure she didn't have any reason to be concerned, but it's a passive sense for her, she would have felt something.
8. Picard's phaser won't work but theirs do?
9. Why didn't Picard communicate down to his colleagues on the planet immediately instead of waiting until the last minute in Ten Forward?
10. Riker gets really up close to the hostage taker and knock him out… But then he lets himself get knocked out by the other guy. Even if the others had still stood there and done nothing for some reason, Riker could have easily taken out the other guy who was right there.
11. Data is stronger and faster than biological beings. It seems plausible that he should be able to predict where someone is planning to shoot and move out of the way long before that individual actually fires, so he could dodge and take out the attacker (he wasn't even that far from him).
12. Poor Hutch is murdered but fortunately Geordi, shot point blank in the chest is ok.
13. Picard doesn't want to kill the terrorists but then just kills them anyway.

Reading too much into it? Yes. So what?

[7.6/10] It’s Die Hard on the Enterprise! Fans who’ve watched the Next Generation films know that turning Captain Picard into an action hero is a dicey proposition. But this works for much the same reason Bruce Willis’ cinematic coming out party did -- the simplicity of it.

Picard is on the Enterprise. So are a bunch of ruthless thieves. He’s got to bluff and plot and fight his way into preventing them from stealing rare volatile materials from the ship’s warp core. There’s not much more to it than that. The episode has little in the way of themes, beyond one broad one -- Picard loves his crew, but he also loves his ship, and he’ll go to great lengths to protect the one even without the other.

Those lengths are all clever and/or entertaining. As much as TNG is aping the aforementioned John McTiernan’s classic, “Starship Mine” also has something of a Home Alone vibe to it. This is Picard’s home, and he’s going to defend it from the burglars snooping about with ill-intent through any number of improvised traps and occasionally wacky methods of deterrence.

I gotta admit, there’s something pretty amusing about Picard realizing something’s amiss on the ship, getting confronted by one of the thieves, only to turn around and whack him with an elegant saddle. Picard using repair tools to blast the robbers with some warp core gas and destabilize their containment device shows sharp thinking. And watching him construct poison arrows and set exploding strips of masking tape from odds and ends seems beyond the level of improvisation even the most decorated Starfleet captain (give or take a fight with a Gorn), but still has enough setup and payoff to make his triumphs fun and satisfying.

(Mild Spoilers for Voyager: [spoiler]As an aside, it’s a treat for Trekkies to see Patrick Stewart and Tim Russ go toe-to-toe here. It doesn’t really work with the canon of this episode (lack of pointy ears, death) or of Voyager (timeline’s off), but in my headcanon, the random scrub Picard subdues is actually Tuvok, who’s gone undercover to infiltrate the Maquis.)

At the same time, “Starship Mine” is a well-built episode. The show establishes that the Enterprise is basically going in for a cleaning and tune-up. That gives us the novelty of an empty ship, the practicality for why Picard would have to fight this battle alone, and a combination threat and ticking clock as a “baryon sweep” passes through the ship, sterilizing (read: destroying) any living tissue in its path. As outlandish as some of Picard’s offense is, the episode plays fair with how this situation might occur.

More or less, that is. You basically have to assume that our Hans Gruber equivalent, Kelsey, and her team managed to infiltrate the local space station and pose as Starfleet or local techs or somebody with enough respectability to be trusted aboard a Federation space station, not to mention its flagship. That strains credulity more than a little. But given what a chucklehead Commander “Hutch” Hutchinson seems to be, perhaps it’s not so implausible that they were able to pull the wool over his eyes.

Good ol’ Hutch is a big factor in the other unexpected part of this action-heavy episode -- it’s pretty darn funny! There’s a well-observed, small scale humor to the entire senior staff being loath to go to this boring officer’s reception for fear that he’ll talk their ears off about nothing. Data trying to imitate his mannerisms in the hope of becoming better at small talk is a solid laugh by imitation. And the two pipping one another back and forth with dull minutia and cheesy jokes is hilarious. The comedy of “Starship Mine” is pretty tame, but also amusing.

Of course, it can’t be all low-stakes comic nonsense. It turns out the thief crew has infiltrated this social engagement as well, and holds all of the senior staff hostage (except Picard, naturally, and Worf, who smartly got a dispensation from the party). There’s not much to it, but it gives the rest of the main characters a chance to play the same improvisational beat down game their captain is. Riker’s efforts to “talk” to their captors as a distraction, Dr. Crusher making a sound wave incapacitator, and Data saving the day as the only humanoid unaffected are all good beats for the rest of our heroes.

Picard saves the day too on his end, playing cat and mouse games with his captors until he’s able to beat them. His ploys, like posing as the ship’s barber or tricking his pursuer into getting caught by the baryon sweep, show the sharpness in a tight spot that defines the Captain. But he’s also strangely willing to kill here. It’s not like the circumstances don’t call for it, but he normally goes to such great lengths to avoid using lethal force (including when he encounters the first henchman), to where it seems odd to have him so willing to see people atomized by a laser beam or otherwise blown to smithereens.

Still, the show wrings tension from each encounter, and earns his last second triumph and escape after wrestling Kelsey for the bomb material. Again, there’s not a whole lot to this -- just a well-constructed set of escalating action-y set pieces, that make the most of the “Picard has to defend the ship by himself” premise.

And yet, I think my favorite part of this one is the teaser. “Starship Mine” presages The West Wing’s famous walk-and-talks, with Jean-Luc just trying to get off the ship and off to his painful social obligation, only to be stopped by every member of his staff with requests and concerns and suggestions along the way. It’s a well-blocked and acted scene, with the viewer feeling both visually, and via Stewart’s performance, the annoyance of trying to do something and having every interruption imaginable stacked on top of this. As much as Picard likes this job, at times it can be a pain in the ass.

But then, he’s the last one off the ship, and he looks at an empty bridge. There is a long-awaited moment of peace and quiet. He takes in his vessel, apart from distraction, and smiles. Here is his private moment to stop and admire his traveling home, for once free from the hustle and bustle that otherwise possesses an active Starfleet ship. It’s a small human moment amid so much action and excitement. “Starship Mine” is a tribute to Picard loving being alone with his ship, and loving it, and then being alone in his ship in a much more perilous way. The contrast gives this one the faintest hint of depth, which is more than enough for the rare, Next Generation action romp.