By Chris Franz on Wednesday, October 28, 1998 - 10:49 am:

First, I will admit that when I was younger I enjoyed clip shows, and when this episode aired, I did like it. However as I have gotten older I realize that the only reason for clip shows is to save money, I don't care for them much. Some clip shows are good (the final episode of Coach comes to mind), but most don't integrate a decent storyline to make the clips necessary or part of the plot (the clip shows for Matlock).

That being said, this episode DOES have a little charm. Riker has a very admiral attitude to getting infected on the planet. His line "When you drop a hammer on your foot, does it do any good to blame the hammer?" (or something like that, I haven't watched the episode in quite a while.) Also when he says, "Of course I know who I am. I am Captain Jean Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise," Picard's facial expression is great. It's as if to say, "I am not amused!"
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By Keith Alan Morgan on Saturday, April 24, 1999 - 09:01 am:

I believe it can only be called a Shade when you add Black, if you add White it is a Tint. I suppose the author could have chosen that title because it was Riker's Darker memories which killed the microbes, but I doubt it. (Well, at least he didn't call it, A Whiter Shade of Pale.)

On page 195 of the NextGen Guide II, Phil wondered why the vine doesn't attack Pulaski or La Forge, when they walk by. Maybe it was full? Or maybe it was trying to get the bad taste of Riker out of it's 'mouth?'

Also on page 195 of the NextGen Guide II, Phil thought it was odd that Riker has no memory of anything before his time on the Enterprise, but on pages 194 & 195 Phil thanked Paul Ammann for identifying the unknown clips of Solar activity as coming from Star Trek II, which happened considerably before Riker first stepped on board the Enterprise.

Riker's first memory is from The Last Outpost, showing a view of the planet's surface, then of Riker materializing.

Data states that true fossilization takes several millennia. Weeeell, that's the accepted theory. The problems are that fossilization usually takes place underground so it can't be studied. Finding someone thousands of years old to verify that the object was organic then is also difficult. As a Rockhound and amateur paleontologist, I have heard several stories (currently unconfirmed) of fossilization happening within a twenty to thirty year span of time.

I really don't understand why people don't like this ep.
Granted, it's far from TNG at it's finest but people who diss this have obviously never seen "Manhunt" or "Suddenly Human". Those were truly awful.
My only real complaint is that it is a poor finale to the season and to Doctor Pulaski.

Mostly it's the idea of a Trek clip show that gets to me. It just seems like they got lazy and couldn't think of enough plot to fill an episode. TNG's worst wasn't this one by any means, but it was still pretty bad. And I liked "Suddenly Human!"

I actually liked this one, Rodney. Sure, it was a clip show, but I thought it was kind of fun. I really don't understand labeling "Shades of Grey" as TNG's worst. It doesn't do anything overtly bad or offensive. It just sort of sits there.

I think Matthew is right. Clip shows are pretty lame- that's why I liked the South Park clip show (complete with red shirt ensign who dies) where all the clips changed the ending. At least the TNG plot was reasonably decent and provided a good excuse for the clips instead of "hey Will do you remember when......" "Oh yeah, it was cheap looking set and the Ferengi's were bobbing up and down like apples..."(cue wavy picture image and clip).

I think, the makers had to produce an episode with a budget of 1$ and 13 cents. It is the worst episode of all stardates! It was ***boring*** to see all these clips and only a few % of real action!

Wasn't it because of the writer's strike at the time?

To get the full impact of this episode, simply arm yourself with a remote control and start it up. Fast forward through all the clips, watching only the bits in between.
That's right. This show has all the impact of a wet lettuce (and that would be more exciting -)).

Next Gen's worst? Definitely "Pen Pals."

I think the writer's strike was at the BEGINNING of the second season; I'll have to check the NextGen companion.

To quote CBG from the Simpsons: "Worst episode ever!"

I really thought that this would be the ONE thing us nitpickers would agree on. I don't even see why they allow this one to be run in syndication any more. I recently had an opportunity to see TNG on a late night one Sunday, and it was Shades of Grey??!! What a gyp. Definitely not what I waited all day for. At that moment I realised that I would have gladly sat through ANY ep in its place. Instead I got the sleep I probably needed anyway.

"Miami Vice" did a clip show, with an injured Crockett. Could this have been ripped off by Next Gen? The writer's strike was at the beginning of the season, and delayed the second season premiere for two months. Next Gen also lost four episodes with the strike-from a normal 26 hrs. down to 22. This must have been a way to get the 22nd episode in on time and keep the budget down. Notice that it was never done again, not by Next Gen, DS9 or Voyager.

Lots of programs have done clip shows - Moonlighting, Diff'rent Strokes, Family Ties, The Simpsons etc etc etc - so it's hardly a new idea.

I thought that the reason this was a clip show was because they had used up the budget on the other shows and had (on let's say) $5 to make this one with.

Yes. And this is the worst $5 show ever. I nominate this episode for the golden raspberry.

What makes this so much worse as a clip show is that A. The use of clips themselves WAS THE PLOT, rather than used for sentimental reminicsing, and B. because they only had two seasons to work with, they had a limited number of moments they could use as "bad" and "good" memories, and from the two seasons generally considered the weakest in TNG.

Yes, that's what I always thought. I mean, here we are trying to show memorable, stressful moments in Riker's life and we can't show him saying "Mr. Worf. . .fire" from "The Best of Both Worlds". In fact, I think most of Riker's development occured after the second season. This was a show that maybe could have been made interesting as a fifth-sixth-seventh season show, but didn't have enough material for its time.

I can see a clip show working for TNG. But not with this plot, at this time.

And not with 99.7% clips and 0.3% "real" action.

And only then if you want to call the "action" in this episode "real".

"Oh, I've been bitten by a tree branch!"

Guess, why the word "Real" is under "goosefeet"!

This episode is better then "The masterpiece society" and "Sub Rosa" I'd watch it over those two any day.

If You like pure clip shows,...
I don't like them.

The last 10 minutes of DS9's final episode was all clips. It completely ruined that episode for me. But I like this show. The montage of pain overdubbed with "Data something's got me!!!" is hecka tiiiigght.

Bull. The last ten minutes consisted of Bashir and Odo's partings, Odo's farewell to Kira on the Changeling homeworld, the revelation of Kira and Nog's promotions, Bashir and Ezri's walk on the Promenade as they talk about using the holosuites, Kira's declaration of the new no-betting pool rule to Quark, and the pullback on Kira and Jake looking out the Promenade window. The flashback montage came right before this, and lasted LESS THAN THREE MINUTES minutes.

I personally found it very poignant and beautiful, It was also very beautiful (except for the snubbing of Jadzia). It was at least relevant to the fact that people were parting the station, whereas in Shades of Gray, it was a cheap substitute for writing a plot.

Before I get into the few nits I saw, this episode was dreadfully boring. I believe I recall the original airing of it, way the heck back in 1990 or something like that. It was decent then cause you really didn't know if they'd kill off Riker or not (being only the 2nd season, and Tasha going in the 1st ...). So during the clips the suspense was building. However, with 5 additional seasons and 3 movies with our favorite 1st officer, needless to say that suspense wasn't there watching the re-run, and the clips became boring as I waited for Pulaski to work the miracle cure that obviously was coming.

And as for nits:

"Dang, I can't let anyone know about this. They'll tell that crazy doctor and she'll want to amputate my leg or something."

After getting jabbed by the plant/vine thingy, Riker apparently just sits down on a rock and does nothing. LaForge has to stumble upon Riker sulking on his rock before any action is taken. This isn't right. If Riker feels that it's nothing, wouldn't he go on with the geological survey? And if he was feeling woozy, considering this is an uncharted planet, should he notify someone about this? Sitting and sulking on a rock waiting for someone to discover the scratch is silly and rather out-of-character for Riker.

"And now, the winner of 'Goody-Goody of the Year' ... Will Riker!"

Pulaksi realizes that negative emotions inhibit the microbes' growth, so she gets storng negative emotions running through Riker. First Tasha's death, then the death of Troi's "child", and then the beating up of a Klingon! Yes, from a Matter of Honor. Under "A Matter of Honor", the Nitpicker guide describes the scene by saying "Riker performs well after first gaining the respect of the Klingon crew by beating up his second-in-command" (95). Does this seem like the type of event that would produce negative emotions in you? Riker may not like beating people up, but really, he must be a real goody-goody if this produces similiar negative emotions to two deaths.

"Haha! Grow forward fellow microbes, we've almost taken this body over! Oh no, we've stopped growing? Hmmm ... @#@#$#$, rule book says we gotta die, *RIGHT* now."

Pulaski reports that the alien microbes' growth level is at 0%. Then, suddenly Riker's life signs pop up back to heathly ranges, and Pulaski's scans detect no more alien microbes! She rejoices by calling the captain and proclaiming "The alien microbes have been irradicated!". Dang, these microbes must have pathetically short life spans. Shouldn't an infestation as advanced as the one in Riker live for a little longer than 10 seconds after their growth level hits 0%??

Wow, now TWO people are following my "funny heading" trend! First RevdKathy, and now Ryan!

Ryan, I noticed that first scene with Riker and Geordi was odd for another reason. After looking at the cut on Riker’s calf in the beginning of the teaser, Geordi calls O’Brien for beamout. Riker protests, dismissing the injury as just a scratch, and Geordi apologizes to him, saying that they can’t take any chances, they’re the first survery team on the planet, and they don’t know what the risks are. Somehow this didn’t feel right. It looked like Geordi was taking a leadership role, when it’s the type of thing someone like Riker should’ve said to a member of an away team.

It's a nice idea, and my cynical little self ends up making "witty" comments during the episodes anyway, so I might as well share and get an introduction going. Seems a bit better than just dropping a nit in, and I would hope it makes reading my posts a bit easier

More on that funny little scene, it's really interesting that Pulaski beams down to inspect Riker. LaForge and Data beam up with the little whatever-it-is without a second thought, "Unnatural Selection" brought a quarentined child on-board where some examination was possible. Surely Riker can be beamed up to be examined in some force field, instead of forcing Pulaski onto the surface of a dangerous planet.

As for Gerodi, he drops back into the ranks of "silly, immature lieutenant" by the middle of the episode. He justifies returning to the planet with Data by saying "I know exactly where Commander Riker was when he was pricked". Ummm ... yeah, well, considering Riker was beamed up about 2 steps away from where he was pricked, I would kinda hope the transporter chief could beam Data into that area. Of course, then there's none of that "quality" suspense with the attempted capture of the ... whatever :P

I like the 'funny heading' trend a whole lot - clever, funny, and yes, it does make the nits much easier to read. Keep it up!

This is the last episode to feature Dr. Pulaski.

NANJAO: Pulaski wasn't really such a bad character, she just was written bad. They made her too much like Dr. McCoy. The thing I found annoying is that her name was never put into the opening credits during all the flyby sequences. She was ALWAYS listed as a "Special guest appearance" character. How long does a person have to be on a show before they stop listing them as a "special guest appearance"?

Diana Muldaur's "special guest appearance" was, in my opinion, a way of the creators to say "We just can't bring ourselves to replace Gates McFadden permanently, but we do have a way of bringing in a temporary replacement!" And, sadly, a temporary replacement she was.

Then again, perhaps Pulaski was the sort of acerbic wit that TNG needed, as an aside to the sometimes droll observations of Picard, etc. But then again again, O'Brien could match Pulaski for dry comments, sort-of, as this episode briefly showed.

I say bring her back - she needs another chance.

Review of episode: DOUBLE YAWN!
This episode was the lamest excuse to save money on STTNG. Or perhaps it was a way to wrap up the 2nd season quickly just so everyone can go home.
Either way, if I wanted to re-watch Riker in action in certain situations, I'll pop in the appropiate DVD & play it...not sit thru this drivel!

As I understand it Diana Muldaur requested to be listed as a guest star on the show.

This was perhaps up there with the worst episodes of Star Trek. To think, this was a season FINALE....up there with shows like Best of Both Worlds and others, it was terrible.

The REAL reason the organism died:

They committed suicide (they couldn't stand the flashbacks anymore)

No.

It's because they found out this was Pulaski's last episode, and so gave up in protest.

Riker sure has some interesting memories.

In one instance, he flashes back to the time he served on the Klingon vessel in "A Matter of Honor". During the confrontation scene between Kargan & Klag about Riker's oath, Riker hears the Klag speaking in Klingonese....AND not only that...Riker SEES THE TRANSLATION TOO!

(A Universal translator in a memory flashback? Interesting indeed!)

An oddity: Colm Meaney's name in the guest credits was not in ALL CAPS like the rest of the opening credits' names (producers, writers, director). Everywhere else in the series, guest stars are credited in all caps.

(First off, this is my first time so please... be gentle =D)

Flashback episodes. The bane of good television.

I have several problems with flashback episodes, and they are, in no actual order:

A) They're lazy. There's nothing lazier than letting the film archive guy write an episode.
B) They always leave the audience wanting more.
C) They ALWAYS pale when syndicated. What, I'm watching a rerun of a rerun?
D) They make the flashback originator omnipotent. Riker not only sees things from a third person perspective, he also sees things happening on the Enterprise while he's on a planet, or even inside Armus, the Jello Pudding monster!

They're sloppy. They're cheap. And they rob the viewers of a decent episode. And to make it a season finale is just horrendous. "Hey, here, to tide you over for the summer.... a bunch of clips from previous episodes! Mhuhahaha!"

The only good thing about this episode is that it was Kate "If it ain't like me I don't like it one bit" Pulaski's final episode.

They ALWAYS pale when syndicated. What, I'm watching a rerun of a rerun?

They're sloppy. They're cheap. And they rob the viewers of a decent episode. And to make it a season finale is just horrendous. "Hey, here, to tide you over for the summer.... a bunch of clips from previous episodes! Mhuhahaha!"

Traska, once I stop giggling uncontrollably let me be the first to welcome you to NitCentral. I am more than looking forward to your future posts.

"Of course I know who I am. I'm Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise."

"Glad to see you're feeling better, 'Captain.' The 'Admiral' and I were worried about you."

"Sir- I do not believe you have the authority to promote me to the rank of Admiral..."

One of Riker's flashbacks is the Genesis Project simulation. (From STII) That was 80 years prior to this date! How could Riker have memories of the Genesis Project?

Maybe he'd been watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan before he went on the away mission...

=-p)

Say what you will about this being a clip show, but I'd like to commend the set designers for the planet's jungle. Instead of a bunch of bushes and rocks, this place has several inches of water, and a misty, gray background that makes the away party look completely out of their element. Their clean Starfleet outfits, usually seen in clean hallways are a nice contrast to the nasty outdoors.
When I saw Pulaski hesitate and complain about the transporter, I thought, "C'mon, they're just copying McCoy's attitude', but then I thought that she would logically be the most ansty about beaming because of her medical knowledge of exactly what's happening to the human body and what should, by rights, actually turn up on the other side of the beam, ie. a real mess that doesn't resemble a human body.
If this hadn't been a clip show, we could have seen alot of insight into Riker's character and upbringing, showing scenes of him as a teenager, fights with his father, trouble in the Academy. Too bad they couldn't go that way.

Flashback episodes like this are evil and should be distroyed. In this day and age of complete season DVDs and Spike TV showing the episodes 3 times a day, these kind of episodes are a waste.

A question? Does Spike TV air this episode?

THE ONLY good thing about this episode is that it is Dr. Pulaski's last!!!! And the clips with Dr. Crusher kind of give you a reminder of how much better she was before her permanet return in the very next episode!

And I disagree that she doesn't like the Transporter because of what it does to the human body. She doesn't like it because she is a . . .

The problem with Pulaski is that she was an overly blatant attempt to clone the character of McCoy. Thus the dislike of the transporter.

Yes thats the "Real" reason, but here at Nitcentral, we don't deal in "Real" world.

Guess I'll do MikeC's job for him.

The only guest star in this episode is Colm Meaney as Chief O'Brian. You might remember him as an ill-fated pilot in "Die Hard 2", as well as other bit parts in Dick Tracy and the pilot episode of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. But I remember him mostly as Chief O'Brian in 7 seasons of Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

How long does a person have to be on a show before they stop listing them as a "special guest appearance"?

Sometimes, it's for their entire run on the series. Jonathan Harris was listed as a "Special Guest Star" in the opening credits of every episode of Lost In Space. (It was his request to be billed that way.) The same went for Heather Locklear in Melrose Place.

How long does a person have to be on a show before they stop listing them as a "special guest appearance"?

This may be apocryphal, but according to the Next Gen Companion, Muldaur was offered a spot on the opening credits when she joined the cast, but she declined.

Jonathan Frakes said at the convention that those probes that got stuck onto his head were painful.

Ah, this episode. Time for a bird imitation:

CHEAP! CHEAP! CHEAP!

Trek seemed to learn from this, they NEVER did another clip show again. Too bad other shows didn't. Family Ties trotted out at least one clip show per season, as did Friends. Nothing says cheap louder than a clip show. Tell those lazy writers to get off their butts and write a script!

Wasn't there the writers' strike that season/

No I think this Episode was 20 years too early for the Writer's strike.

Yes- that caused both this episode, and the next week's 'season 2 finale' episode; actually a first-airing of the original The Cage pilot. So, if you count this episode (episodelet?) we were essentially 2 episodes short int he second season. :-) The same strike was responsible for the re-uses of Star Trek: Phase II scripts- like the Child, for instance- with Riker and Troi replacing Decker and Illia's roles.

Don, that was a previous writers strike.

I agree that clip shows are awful but thankfully they are becoming less common, I think due to the ubiquitousness of both reruns and home video. Producers are realizing that people hate it when instead of new material you give them clips of episodes that they could have watched last week anyway.

>>No I think this Episode was 20 years too early for the Writer's strike.>>

No This episode was due to the 1988 or 89 strike.

No I think this Episode was 20 years too early for the Writer's strike.

Darned Kids.... Get off of my lawn!!!

Dang young whipersnappers... think their writer's strike is the only writers strike *grumble*...

:-)

I remember the 1988 Writer's Strike too.

However, that happened at the start of the season, the delay, this was the end. I wonder why they resorted to such a cheap idea:

Writer One: Guys, we got a problem. Our money is a bit low.

Writer Two: Oh bugger! How are we gonna write a season finale?

Writer Three: I got it! We'll do a clip show. They are el-cheapo.

Writer One: You sure about that?

Writer Three: Well, Family Ties does one every season, no one complains.

Writer Two: Well, I'm on board.

Writer One: Sure, why not. Let's raid the vault to see what clips we can use and then write the framing story.

And the rest is history.

While sitcoms could get away with this (when was the last time you heard of a Family Ties convention), people hold Trek to a higher standard. As I said, they learned their lesson well with this disasty. None of the subsequent seasons of TNG or the following shows did this again.

The X-files did a few clip shows but nobody minded because they didn't make them regular series episodes. They were specials called "Secrets of the X-Files" where they showed lots of show clips along with some interviews with the actors and creators talking about the history of the show and some behind the scenes. Also they didn't show them in place of an actual show, they would show them before a new episode to help newbies get a hold of a show that had started as a cult hit.

Not only did they hold Trek to a higher standard... there were only two season's worth of shows to choose clips from! Usually you need a bit more than that to work with, methinks... :-)

The writer's strike caused them to drop 4 episodes from the season, and pushed back production -- "Shades of Gray" didn't air until mid-July. It may have been more time than money. A clip show would have provided a quick wrapup to production before it bumped into the start of production for S3.

On the other hand, they could have just dropped it and produced 21 episodes for that season.

Even Spock's Brain stands above this piece of garbage. Bad as it was, at least it was an original story.

This was just a case of lazy writing. If one were to go through and cut out all the clips, I wonder how long this episode would be.

Just to let you all know, I am AMR (Andre Reichenbacher), and I love Star Trek. But I also love to nitpick. And I have also always throroughly detested clip shows, as it makes obvious the laziness on the part of the creators to fail to create original material for the fans to enjoy.

I was banned from the Friends board last year for being inappropriate, but before that happened, I pointed out that it had broadcasted multiple clip shows, at least six that I counted, all after the third season. For every season after that, there was at least one episode where they flashed back to past events.

AND I REALLY REALLY HATE THEM!

But this post is not about Friends, obviously. I just wanted to add my two cents in, to agree with the previous posters on this board who, like me, also hate clip shows.

The one thing that I thought stopped this episode from being a complete failure was the fact that even though Pulaski had a really bad personality and virtually no bedside manner, she was at least a really good doctor, and it seemed that she had vast medical knowledge and could do things that Crusher couldn't. But I suppose that could be open for debate.

Like I said on another post, say what you will about how much you disliked Pulaski, she at least managed to save the lives of Picard and Riker, both in the same season.

And for that, she's at least a better and more useful-to-the-mission character than Wesley, Lwaxana, and Alexander (when he was young).

As for Diana Muldaur's "guest" credit, that's an artifact of the wacky world of Hollywood billing. If she goes in the main credits, where does she go? At the end? Well, she's more of a "name" than Wil Wheaton. But he's been on since day one; why does he lose his slot? And so on.

So there are various other ways to bump up a billing. One is to add extra verbiage, like "Diana Muldaur as Dr. Pulaski" when nobody else is credited as their character. Hill Street Blues did this with Charles Haid "as Renko" while everyone before his credit was actor's name only. Unfortunately, the TNG credits already did credit by character. There are other options too, like "And Featuring".

The option they used is the permanent guest star; she gets top billing in the episode credits instead of the main credits. As noted above, Jonathan Harris did this for Lost In Space too.

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quote:

"Hill Street Blues" did this with Charles Haid "as Renko" while everyone before his credit was actor's name only.

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Well, yes, as I said: "before his credit". She was always credited last. However, nobody else got their character name.

I'm afraid my views on this episode hasn't changed in the years since I last watched it.

A clip show is fine for a sitcom, like Friends. For a Trek show? Nope!

Concerning Diana Muldaur being listed as Special Guest Star. After she left this show she spent some time on another, L.A. Law. On that show she was always listed as a special guest star as well.

Although a regular, the late Jonathan Harris was listed a Special Guest Star for all three seasons of Lost In Space.

It was at his own request. He wished for a billing that made him stand out from the rest of the cast, they suggested "special guest star", he loved it and the rest is history.

Cool.