Conundrum

The crew of the Enterprise is struck with amnesia. Worf commands! Picard leads! Data makes drinks! And MacDuff sounds the charge to carry out their mission, and destroy the Lysian Central Command. But who are these Lysians? And – come to think of it – who is MacDuff? All of that plus movie time with Riker and Ro when we put Conundrum… somewhere. Where to begin… Love this episode, but it makes NO sense. The Lysians can go through individual memories and computer functions like they’re sorting laundry, but their plan is to use every crew member to attack their enemy? Not… dunno… steal the Enterprise’s tech and make their own fleet? Also… it takes “more digging” to learn that the ship’s called “Enterprise” and is a member of The Federation? THERE’S A BIG BRONZE PLAQUE RIGHT ON THE BRIDGE that has that info!! Obviously, the whole pay-off is Riker-Ro-Troi, which is wonderful. Anyway, another great podcast! Lol- big bronze plaque! -Yup, Why not just kill Picard, alter the records to have MacDuff in charge as CAPTAIN, and go get the enemies. Oh well, yeah, I know they need the episode go a certain way…lol, fun episode though!! This is another episode, where you gotta ask…WHERE WAS GUINAN!?!!? (haven’t heard podcast yet) Unfamiliar Officer: The computer says I’m Commodore Falstaff, special liaison from Starfleet Command. blah blah blah… Looks like I’m in command. Now, start blowin’ up Lysian stuff! Riker: OH! Later, guys. Don’t forget to blow up the recycled space station. And yes, that look that Riker gets when he sees Troi and Ro sitting together is priceless. At the end, Troi and Ro could have greeted Riker like “We’re into it.” Anyone else keeping count? Riker has hooked up w Troi, Crusher (“The Host”) and now… Ensign Ro… The only way he could be handing out more of the Full Riker to his crewmates would be if there was a second Riker somewhere…oh..heh, never mind, that’ll never happen. There was an older episode, which one exactly I forget, where the study was brought up in which photos of a peaceful protest were altered and shown to people who were actually there, and suddenly they remembered it as being a violent protest (even though it wasn’t)…for some reason, that malleability of memory came to mind here with the slightly Orwellian “we have our orders, and we have always been at war with Eastasia!” thing going on. I’m so glad that Dawn (of Buffy fame) was brought up; the basic plot outline of Conundrum has become its own trope of sorts. I recall that Torchwood did almost this exact same story in an episode called “Adam”, which was about – you guessed it – Adam is our buddy, and he’s always been here, and he’s the first one to get our memories back, lucky him, so he’s going to help us remember what questionable thing we must do, but hey, are we really the kind of people who would do something that questionable? It was one of those close-enough-to-1:1 plot lifts that just stunned me – doesn’t the BBC have to cut Paramount a check for that? Or at least buy Paramount a cheeseburger or something? I remember thinking, at the time this aired, that – speaking of Conspiracy – this totally could’ve been a follow-up to Conspiracy. MacDuff could’ve had one of those things sticking out of his neck, but because everyone would’ve forgotten Conspiracy, no one would have thought to look for that. And in the meantime, since those critters have invented MacDuff’s Memory Cuisinart (TM, pat. pend.), there’s no need to hand out worms and grubs to the entire crew and say “Try a bowl full of them! They stay crunchy even in milk!” And then when Worf and Riker lay [the phaser smackdown] on MacDuff, they could’ve blown his head up, just like Remmick. I’ll bet TNG’s splodey-head FX would’ve been on a whole different level by this point in the show’s history. Luckily, MacDuff’s Memory Cuisinart is derived from Nomad, so it handily leaves you with a firm command of your native language. “Lay on MacDuff, and damned be he who cries, ‘Wait — Who