Liaisons

The Enterprise crew is taking part in a cultural exchange. Two Iyaarans will visit the ship, while Picard visits their homeworld. The Iyaarans on the ship are tough to deal with, but Picard’s Iyaaran is worse – mostly because he dies on their trip. Thank goodness for Anna. She loves Picard! After knowing him for 15 minutes. Any chance Picard could hang out with the dead guy? Yes! Find out how when we put Liaisons in the Mission Log. I usually can come up with something positive from even the worst of Star Trek, but this episode, nope. Nothing I think for this season, I will just repeatedly type…”and the “Descent” continues…..” ugh…just thinking about the upcoming lemons really annoys me! Even though DS9 is my fave, I know the first 2 seasons are a bit rough too, but still most are wayyyyyy better than this dud. haahaha…oh well the discussions and critiques are still fun! This is the period of TNG when I felt as though the producers were starting every meeting by asking, “What haven’t we done to the crew yet?” Things happen TO the crew, but the effect on the crew, the opportunity for growth, is minimal. It’s all plot points at this point. You have it right when you say, “A b-plot meets a b-plot.” The show is definitely showing the strain of its 7 year run. There’s only a few high standard episodes left really. I envision the producers saying, “This is a Troi thing. We’ve established that Troi loves chocolate.” Wouldn’t it have been more fun if Data had been assigned to the fat guy?! Data: “I can simulate food consumtion.” Later, (looking down at his android bulging belly) “I will need time to purge this excess glucose-based nourishment from my heuristic subsystems.” pretty much the “Why the hell not??” phase of TNG…yes DS9 is starting S2 at this time…..talent migrating from TNG to DS9….very clear now why the crappy episodes dominated S7. I think there are only 5/26 decent episodes…bummer The public announcement that season 7 would be the last came in the summer before the season started. Internally at Paramount, it had been known for about a year earlier than that; the decision revolved around the number of episodes that could sell into strip syndication and a cost estimation of the “break even” point – the point at which, due to actors’ contractual wage increases and other rising production costs, the show would cease to turn a profit. Basically everything points to the Klingons being uplifted…in fact most of the races of Star Trek seem to have been uplifted to some degree given their general idiocy with their inability to develop at a rapid pace… but nothing says absolutely they were uplifted. Yeah, if Picard had gone for it…yeeeesssh…what a different episode this could have been!! If the Aggression Ambassador picked Worf so he could get a real experience with aggression, why didn’t the Love Ambassador reject Picard and choose Riker? Anna would have gotten boinked in five minutes. Mission Accomplished. Then Riker would kill him in a shuttle accident. I’ve seen every episode 3-4 times and still couldn’t remember which episode this was based on the description. Pretty forgettable other than some funny Worf moments. and the “Descent” continues…descent in quality, ideas, concepts, memorable events…yeah, this “college class” on Trek TNG is revealing to me that I truly disliked the last season…the VHS copies I recorded from tv of this time period sat on my shelf muuuuccch more than previous cassettes!! This is pretty much late-stage TNG. Like Ken said, this would have been a decent S1 episode, but S7 is kinda embarassing. Here’s a question that I have about this episode, that I just thought of: If a species has developed without experiencing pleasure, wouldn’t that mean that they are incapable of feeling it? How would they be able to stimulate, or even develop, that part of the brain that deals with experiencing pleasure? The whole thing is confusing. Are they emotionless, or just lack those emotions?? And then Picar