Granted this episode was a bit predictable(well, except for the Data's head part), but I liked the way this episode made old ground enjoyable again. I loved Troi in command bytheway. She showed herself to be a very capable
command officer, and she should-I believe she did go to command school.

Given the fact that Troi did not take the bridge officer's test yet ("Thine Own Self"), she should not have been in command. And she didn't show great leadership abilities. She risked everyone's life in the saucer section based on a hunch. She was lucky that she was right.

While she hadn't taken the bridge officer's test, wasn't she in command because she was the one with the highest rank on the bridge? Sort of like if Geordi had been there, but hadn't taken the test, surely he would have been in command?

The one nit that annoys me most about this episode is the bit in the turbolift scene where Picard has the kids sing "Frere Jacques." Why is this? Because at the end, Picard sings "Ding ding dong," not "Din din don" as any self-respecting Frenchman would do! :-)

BTW, is anyone else here familiar with Stephen Ratliff's infamous series of fanfics? They'll cast a whole new light on this episode...

Lea: As the boys in The Completely Useless Star Trek Encyclopedia call him (with regard to his use of the word merde), "...that consummate Frenchman, Jean-Luc Picard..."

Also, at the end of their list of ten British actors to have appeared in Trek: "Ooops. Looks like we forgot Patrick Stewart, that French accent being so convincing and all."

And fanfic! Noooooo! I wrote an article on fanfic (and the horrors thereof) a while back. It can be found here.

End of shameless self-promotion. ;)

Funny that the subject of fanfic should be brought up on a board about the aptly-named episode "Disaster" . . . are any of you familiar with the immortal works of Mr. Steven Ratliff, from my home state?

That's how the fanfic talk got started! YES, I'm familiar with the infamous Mr. Ratliff! His stuff must be read to be believed. You can see MSTings (fanfics given the MST3K treatment) of the entire Ratliff oeuvre at this site:

http://home.netcom.com/~mblackwl/

I wouldn't recommend reading any of it unMSTed. :-)

At the risk of offending you, yet again, rachgd. That was a cute article. Very amusing.


(BTW have you seen the Port Mike/Angel fanfic... Nah, I guess you wouldn't be interested.;-)

Lea: He he he. Very funny! That guy's insane! (And I can't believe I'd never come across any of his stuff before! I'm a bit of a fanfic junkie, sadly.)

KAM: No, I like cute. Cute is nice. ;) And Port Mike/Angel fanfic wouldn't involve Angel and either Dr. Jack B., Garth Stone, Matthew Patterson or Lance Pepperman, would it? 'Cause... ugh. Although, I could almost believe it of Lance. :D

For those of you not familiar with Ratliff's works, the premise is that the girl Marissa from this episode is adopted by Captain Picard as a foster daughter. She then forms a special branch of the Enterprise called the "kids crew" which is a command crew made up solely of kids up to the age of twelve which are able to take over the ship in an emergency (I swear I am not making this up). Ratliff was in college when he started writing these fanfics, the first time I read one I honestly thought it was the work of a third-grader. The most mind-boggling Ratliff story is a time travel epic called "Time Speeder," and you'll never be the same after reading through that one. You misting fans also might want to check out the Next Gen misting of a time-travel fanfic called "Civ Story" (written by someone named Errante) in which various members of the crew are taken back through time by Q to meet various historical personages. Picard meets Shakespeare, Worf meets Julius Caesar, Data meets Van Gogh and Riker meets . . . uh . . . Barry Manilow (Again, I swear I am not making this up). This story is almost on the same level as Ratliff's and the misting is just as hilarious.

Stephen Ratliff Marissa stories discussion board anyone . . . maybe as a sub-section of the Next Gen board?

You could start one in the Next Gen Sink... :-)

When LaForge and Dr. Crusher are about to vent the cargo bay, Crusher says to avoid the temptation to exhale. I would think that the explosive decompression would force you to exhale anyway. And I think I read somewhere that if you hold your breath while being explosively decompressed, the difference in pressure can actually puncture your lungs. I'm not absolutely sure about that, though.

If that's a cargo bay, wouldn't there be environmental suits in there? After all, Roga Danar found one in a cargo bay ("The Hunted") just fine. And just why was it necessary to use the panel right by the door to repressurise the bay when LaForge depressurised it from the panel next to him.

When Geordi tries to sing "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General," he gets the tune completely wrong. Though I think that might be intentional. :-)

They're showing this one right this minute, actually, and it's a bit frightening -- this is the first time I've seen it since discovering Ratliff...

I am the very model of a modern Major General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the Kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo in order categorical...

I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical;
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical;
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse!

(With many cheerful facts, etc.)

I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General!

(But still... etc.)

Amy touched on this, but Dr Crusher gives Geordi precisely the wrong advice about depressurisation.

Trying to hold your breath in a vacuum would probably lead to serious or fatal injuries.

The trick is to hyperventilate for a while to charge your system with oxygen, then hold your breath OUT.

I don't know if he got all the details right, but Arthur C Clarke covered this territory quite plausibly in his book 'Earthlight'.

I’m sorry, Doctor, those pressure suits are for engineers, command officers and psychopathic war veterans who try to take over the ship
In the episode The Hunted, Danar hid in a cargo bay, and took a pressure suit. Why aren’t there oxygen masks and suits stored in the bay where Geordi and Crusher are trapped? It has an exterior door that opens to space. Wouldn’t it be a good idea?
Hey, Data, where’d you get that spiked hairdo from?
In Act 3, when Data and Riker, crawling through the Jefferies Tube, come across an electrical arc containing half a million amps, Data says that if the arc were to be interrupted by a non-conductive material, the circuit would be broken. Data says that much of his body framework is made of non-conductive polymers, and suggest using it to break the circuit. Riker asks if his body could handle that much current. Data says that the power surge would cause a systems failure in his internal processors and melt his primary power couplings, but that there is a chance that the damage would not be irreparable. I don’t get it. If his body framework is made of non-conductive material, why would there be any damage at all? If his body were non-conductive, then the electricity wouldn’t come into contact with his inner circuitry to begin with, and he would be totally unaffected by the act.
Maybe Picard is standing on top of Paterson’s back?
The creators try a HUGE cheat during the turbolift escape scenes, and I’m surprised you didn’t get this one, Phil. First, we need to describe the inside of the turbolift in relation to each person’s height, and it would help if you watch the scene while reading this. The top of Marrissa’s head is level with the top of the control panel and Picard’s shoulder. Above the control panel are a set of two parallel strips running the circumference of the lift’s interior, one over the other. Picard’s head is right smack in the middle of the first one. Above the second is what looks like window panelling. It looks lighter than the other two, as if it’s translucent glass or transparent aluminum. Above this is where the walls taper off into the dome that is topped off with the escape hatch. When Picard tries his best, standing on his tiptoes to reach the hatch, his wrist is level with the top of the "glass" panel, and his hand with the tapering portion of the dome. This is all from the camera’s POV. Now obviously, he can’t reach the hatch, but magically, 5 scenes later, Picard has Jay Gordon on his shoulders, thinking he can reach the hatch, and he does, but in this scene, everyone’s taller! In fact, Picard doesn’t even need Jay Gordon on his shoulders! If he wanted to, Picard could now reach the hatch himself! Remember how Picard’s head was level with the first panelling strip above the control panel? Well, now it’s suddenly level with the glass! If he raised his arm now, he could reach the hatch. We can see that Marrissa’s head is level with Picard’s shoulder, just as it was in the first scene, but now, both are higher. What happened? The camera angle is not changed, only raised with the characters.
Maybe the cameraman doing the middle shot was farsighted
Someone keeps changing the camera shot in the turboshaft. After Picard and the kids climb out of the lift car and onto the shaft ladder, Paterson looks down at the lift car. The shot cuts to a downshot of the lift, about 20 or 25 feet down from the camera eye. Then, while Picard tries to open the door, we see a second shot of the lift, and it’s a lot farther down. It’s more like 50 or 60 feet now. Then, after Picard’s attempt to open the door fails, we are shown a third shot of the lift car, and now, all of a sudden, it’s back up, closer to the quartet, practically right underneath Jay Gordon, once again about 20 or 30 feet down.
It’s one of the rules of acting: Never work with children, animals, or falling turboshafts
While transcribing this nit from notebook to computer disk, I noticed this next nit: At one point during this scene, the camera pans from Picard, down to Jay Gordon, then down to Marrissa, and then to Paterson, who takes up the rear. But in the shot of the lift falling, Jay Gordon is in the foreground above the lift, but Marrissa and Paterson are not below him! Where are they? It now looks as if Jay’s the third one down, but he’s supposed to be the first one down after Picard! And after the lift falls and they continue their ascent, the kids are back in the right order again!
Simplicity, or lake of imagination
Interestingly, for the sake of simplicity, the creators decided to have the three young actors playing Marrissa, Jay Gordon and Paterson to use their own real-life last names on the commemorative plaque.
I’ll assume that Mike Okuda mispelled the name, and not Mr. Supra.
Even more interestingly, Paterson’s last name is spelled "Supra" on the plaque, but spelled "Supera" in the Trek Encyclopedia and NextGen Companion.
And just last week, Paterson won an art award for making a large cardboard sign on the importance of environmental conservation!
Given the construction of the plaque, it’s quaint to know that cardboard will still exist in the 24th century. I know this thing was made by three kids, but surely they know how to use a replicator, don’t they? Is cardboard the best the replicator can do? Don’t tell me they’re still cutting down trees in the 24th century!

I'm very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of beings animalculous;
But still, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a modern Major-General!

That should be "In short", not "But still", which comes later.

I know it and to the plot, but why exactly do communications fail when the computers go down?

OK, I know comms are routed by the computer, BUT, does this mean that if the Enterprise is out of range of an away team then the away team can't talk to each other? Seems like a backward step compared to TOS communicators.

I'd expect that either the comm badges would work on their own when the computers weren't available, or that there would be some kind of portable communications hub that they could use on away missions, or in emergencies like this one.

They should have at least put telephone like devices in every hall. Even when the power is off, they still work.

When discussing names for their baby the O'Briens have a disagreement over what to call it if it is a boy, with Miles preferring Michael and Keiko preferring Hiro. So why didn't they choose either of these names when they finally had a boy on Deep Space Nine?

Miles leaves Ten-Forward to run a transporter simulation on the Bridge. Why would they have a transporter simulation on the Bridge instead of in one of the Transporter Rooms?

So why didn't the sensors detect the first Quantum Filament before they hit it? After they were hit they were able to check and see what hit them and they did detect the second Quantum Filament. Didn't the sensor designer/programmers think that it might be a good idea to detect Quantum Filaments several minutes before the ship might hit one? True some might say that the odds of hitting a Quantum Filament are pretty scarce, but then what are the odds of hitting two Quantum Filaments?

Despite being hit by two Quantum Filaments the outside of the Enterprise looked to be in pretty good shape.

Personally, I think LaForge should have seen the hot spot on the wall long before Crusher got close to it. (Remember in Hide And Q it was revealed that he can see even further than Data.) Perhaps LaForge did see it, but thought that Crusher deserved to burn her hands on the wall for trying to make him sing in public?

Corradum explodes when exposed to radiation, but it is used in emergency thruster packs, which I believe are usually used in outer space, which is filled with Stellar Radiation.

Why did Picard risk having the turbolift fall down by asking Jay Gordon to come back down into the turbolift?

In Cause And Effect, depressurizing the shuttle bay moved the ship. Wouldn't you think that depressurizing the Cargo Bay would do the same thing?

Why wasn't anyone in engineering? Aren't there supposed to be people there in case of an emergency? Even assuming that everyone in Engineering died because of the accident, where are the bodies?

If I recall correctly, the Shuttles all have their own power source, their own computer and their own emergency transporters. So if someone had been in or near one of the Shuttle Bays, they could have activated one of the shuttles and used the shuttle computer to activate the communicators and the transporter to beam people to and from the damaged areas of the ship. So, what happened to all the people who are supposed to be stationed in the Shuttle Bays? (Or were they off vacationing with all the people who were supposed to be stationed in Engineering?)

Corradum explodes when exposed to radiation, but it is used in emergency thruster packs, which I believe are usually used in outer space, which is filled with Stellar Radiation.

Maybe those packs are shielded against radiation?

But more important: Those containers are HEAVY and because of the radiation the antigrav units don't work. How then did Dr.C and Geordi manage to pile them up nicely?

GREAT MOMENT: Troi in command! (YESSSSS!) {Clenching fist)

GREAT LINE: "I am pushing!!!!!" Keiko (in labor) to Worf

The Molly Phenomenon...Molly goes from a messy newborn child to a squeeky clean child in a matter of seconds!

Well, the ship is self-cleaning. Maybe it has an adapter for newborns? ;-)

Keith Alan Morgan: In Cause And Effect, depressurizing the shuttle bay moved the ship. Wouldn't you think that depressurizing the Cargo Bay would do the same thing?
It may have actually moved the ship, but they didn't show it because it wasn't crucial to the plot. In Cause and Effect the difference between Data's plan of using the tractor beam to deflect the Boseman and Riker's plan of depressurizing the cargo bay resulted in only a small difference in the relative locations of the two ships. But those few meters made all the difference between a close miss and a catastrophic collision. In Disaster, a slight change in Enterprise's forward momentum didn't change anything.
On the other hand, given how inertia no longer exists in the Star Trek universe, it's very possible that Newton's Third Law of Motion (for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction) no longer universally applies.

Of course a bigger question might be: Why doesn't the Enterprise have fire extinguishers & sprinkler systems?

It was established in "Up the Long Ladder" that the Enterprise uses force fields to supress fires, Considering the fact that the cargo bay containment field was still operating, You'd think that the fire supression system would be too. Of course you'd also think that there would be some good old fashioned fire extinguishers lying about (they still exist in the 24th century, a Romulan is seen using on at the beginning of "The Next Phase"), especially in an area where hazardous combustable materials are handled routinely.

When Picard & the kids are climbing the ladder, the eldest boy accidently steps on the little girl's hand (only for a second) he quickly realized his mistake & put his foot on the rung of the ladder.

Wouldn't it make sense for the gravity in the turbolift shaft to be switched off if there was a problem with one of the cars?

In "Encounter At Farpoint", Picard tells Riker that he's not very good with children.
In this episode, he does just fine.

My favorite part was Picard "commissioning" the kids into "officers" so they'd stop crying and act brave.

Mind you, Picard wasn't that bad with the children in "When The Bough Breaks" either. The whole Picard-never-admits-to-liking-children running joke also featured at the beginning of "The Pegasus". I think this is a secret side of Picard's character he doesn't like to reveal to new officers - it seems one of his great desires as revealed in "Generations" was to father children. It only reflects on Picard as being one of Trek's many celebrated three-dimensional characters (Kirk being another one for rather different reasons... sorry, sorry).

Then again, "becoming" a child in "Rascals" might have added another spin to things.

It's obvious that he simply doesn't know how good he is with them. He simply parents by example, and comes up with solutions to address the problem at hand, just as he would in his capacity as a starship captain, like suggesting that Jono play raquetball in Suddenly Human to alleviate his stress, or opening up to Wes in Samaritan Snare, etc.

I'm just wondering about Keith Alan Morgan's post above in regards to the Quantum Filaments and the damage they do when hitting the Enterprise. Wasn't all the damage caused by the momentary electrical charge produced by the filament, and not by the physical impact of the filament (i.e. the outer hull wouldn't show much, if any, damage because the computer failure (and subsequent system failures, including stabilizers) was caused by the electrical charge of the filament)?

Just a thought... :-)

Interesting.

Been too long since I've seen the ep so I don't remember what was said about the exact cause.

Anyone want to post a transcript? ;-)

About the quantum filaments: I remember the dialogue that Ro Laren tells Troi that sensors discovered the quantum filaments, then troi asks what they are, and Ro tells her that they are hundred of meters wide, but have hardly any substance and that is why its so difficult for the sensors to detect them.(there is a nice bit of continuity here, when Troi, trying to understand technobabble, asks if its comparable to a small band, refering to the ep. "Loss", but Ro explains that quantum filaments are sth. completly different.)

Phil wondered in the TNG II Guide how Picard got out of the turbolift with only the kids to help him (I didn't notice the height difference Luigi mentions between shots.) From the climbing scene, we see that there are maybe 5 meters of optical cable, so I guess that Picard lifted one of the boys up again through the hatch and made him loop the cable through one of the rungs of the ladder, back down. Then Picard could have used his own strength to pull him out, after helping the other children out.

All lawyers must have been shot in the future, because there are no safety regulations anywhere (or is this a liberatarian influence? I just don't understand why starfleet risks unneccessarily the lifes of crew by not following safety procedures:

-The clamps designed to hold the turbolift in case of emergency aren't strong enough, so one of them is broken, and the other one breaks, too, so the turbolift falls down. Shouldn't these clamps be designed with a huge safety margin?

-When climbing the ladder - apart from the general problem that the ladders on all Star trek ships look cool instead of making climbing easy - has no safety rail. Although picard has used the cable to bind the kids together, a safety rail would be a better feature. (Today, its required in all fixed ladders which exceed a certain length, because normal people can easily slipp on one of the rungs. Obviously heroes of starfleet don't have these common problems. )

The order in which the kids climb is not picards best idea: He should have put paterson, as the smallest and easiest afraid, in the middle, and marissa, as the oldest and heaviest, at the end, to better catch if one would slip.

The length of the cable is astonishing: are the 5 meters or so of it just lying around uselessly behind the paneling in the turbolift? If it is fixed in certain places, because it has a function, how can marissa rip out such an astonishing length?

About picard and handling children: I think its because he knows he isn't immediately at ease around children and doesn't know what to do or say to them. Compare his whole attitude to that of troi (and no, I don't think its because troi is a woman). She is at ease, he doesn't know what to say at all, so he starts talking about their science subjects (like those adults who always ask about school - didn't you hate that when you were a child?) He manages with children, but he knows he isn't at ease with them, and they don't immediately like him, either.

Worfs tricorder can measure how many cm the "mouth" has opened, but he can't determine which way the baby is oriented? And why didn't they tell him how important the orientation is during the first aid class he is referring to?

I think Keiko is only being nice to worf when, after all his unhelpful comments, she says after the birth that he has been a great help.

Final thought: After reading ratliff, I was very surprised at how different the "real" marissa was. Here, the kids act like kids - they are scared, and when ordered to leave the lift, paterson says he wants no longer to play the game and be an officer. A typical reaction. Obviously ratliff was gone off the deep end the moment he saw marissa and didn't notice what was shown on screen. For somebody who misunderstands the idea of the kobayashi maru-simulation, not to mention his terrible grasp on current politics, he was either dropped on his head, has fallen in love with marissa, so his brain is without blood or oxygen, or he smokes/drinks some very heavy stuff.

With Ratliff, I suspect all of the above. ;-)

constanze: there is a nice bit of continuity here, when Troi, trying to understand technobabble, asks if its comparable to a small band, refering to the ep. "Loss", but Ro explains that quantum filaments are sth. completly different.)
Luigi Novi: The phenomenon in The Loss was a cosmic string fragment, and it was O’Brien who told her that that was a completely different phenomenon.

constanze: All lawyers must have been shot in the future, because there are no safety regulations anywhere (or is this a liberatarian influence? I just don't understand why starfleet risks unneccessarily the lifes of crew by not following safety procedures:
Luigi Novi: Well, in the U.S., you can’t sue the military, so if Starfleet has similar legal shields, that would explain it.

What exactly is a safety rail?

Luigi, What exactly is a safety rail?
a third handhold-type rail, in the middle of the ladder. People wear a climbing harness and attach a carabiner to the safety rail, so when they do slip, they'll only fall a few steps until the harness/ carabiner stops them, as opposed to falling to the bottom of the ladder. Here in Germany, its required in public buildings (my fiance, who works in one, told me).

Luigi Novi: Well, in the U.S., you can’t sue the military, so if Starfleet has similar legal shields, that would explain it.

Well, that explains why they aren't afraid of getting sued, but why is starfleet so un-intelligent? Supposedly, humans have reached a point where bad emotions like greed and money aren't important anymore, so one human life should be very valuable. Also, humans do whats right and sensible and intelligent instead of just following their feelings. So why does starfleet disregard all common sense when outfitting their vessels, needlessly endangering the lifes of the crew, when every single person should be valuable, and the extra price of security shouldn't matter? (This is the general nit to questions as: why do they not use fuses and seatbelts, why are the freight containers never secured, and so on.)

Let me get this straight : The ship will explode if field containment goes to 15%, right? In engineering, Data says the field was down to 16%.
All this and Troi still didn't seperate the saucer section?! She is definitely not command material. She is very, VERY lucky the ship survived.

DUMB DESIGN AWARD:

One has to wonder WHY the "repressurize the cargo bay" button is not on the same panel as the "depressurize the cargo bay" button.

John, read the nitpicker books... the "Chief" mentions it.

Erika Flores, whose character was taken to shall we say, interesting, levels by Stephen Ratliff, is most famous for playing Colleen on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman."

Hello,
I just saw this episode and I believe I may have an explanation for some of Luigi's nitpicks from 2001 (LOL!)

LUIGI about Data: If his body were non-conductive, then the electricity wouldn’t come into contact with his inner circuitry
to begin with, and he would be totally unaffected by the act.

MARKA: What he says it's actually "much of my body framework..." that would mean that he's only partially non-conductive.

LUIGI about Picard's height: If he raised his arm now, he could reach the hatch.

MARKA: I watched the scene in the turbolift closely and I believe it's simply a matter of perspective. During his first attempt to open the hatch, Picard is standing right next to the wall. In the next shot, the one with Jay Gordon on his shoulders, he is standing in the middle of the cart and we still see the same wall in the background - that's why it may look like he is higher.

LUIGI about the children on the ladder: Jay Gordon is in the foreground above the lift, but Marrissa and Paterson are not below him! Where are they?

MARKA: I believe we see that scene from Picard's point of view. Jay is right below him and the children are still there, only he can't see them because Jay's head obscures the view...

LUIGI about the turboshaft: Someone keeps changing the camera shot in the turboshaft.

MARKA: I'm not sure about that one but I suppose it's possible that you confused the directions. In one of the shots, Picard is looking upwards, rather than down - that's where we can't see the cart at all.

I agree with the rest one hundred percent :-)

Oh, and Data's "talking head" is priceless.

Little does the crew of the Enterprise know that the quantum filament was actually a mechanism sent by Captain Braxton to stop this episode happening before Ratliff could see it...alas, it ended up causing the very action it sought to prevent.

Well, that was pretty convenient that the turbolift stopped about half way down the central saucer shaft, or the dorsal neck shaft, rather than just a couple levels from the lowest deck.
The kids and Picard shouldn't have had to climb so far up the ladder, since the turbolifts travel horizontally, too, which means they should have found a tunnel they could just walk through, and try those doors; it'd be alot more safer than clinging to the ladder and reaching for the opening mechnism and the open door.

Funny thought: What if Kirk had been in the same position as Picard in this episode (yeah, I know there weren't children on NCC-1701, but bear with me)

Kirk: How about we all sing a song?

Children (as one): NO!!!!

Probably Kirk would've shown Marissa some "adult" stuff... and Ratliff would've gone completly round the bend seeing that!

Funny as the Ratliff reference is, isn't that a rather harsh criticism of Kirk? I don't remember him ever doing anything like that...he may have tried to seduce every alien woman who came along, but nothing like that...

What about Miri?

What if it were Captain Archer?

He'd probbaly delight then with stories of Porthos' antics and lead them to a round of Faith of the Heart as they climbed ;)

Or jumped. ;-)

Heh, what if it were Janeway? Somehow the scene where the kids 'mutiny' seems a lot more interesting given the episode 'Night'.

Or Captain Harriman? They wouldn't have gotton out of the turboshaft until next tuesday.

Here's a thought: when Crusher and Geordi are trapped in the cargo bay...why don't they just LEAVE????? Go out the door! Or is someone going to claim that on this fancy starship, you can't open a door without power?

Why they didn't do this at first, I'm not sure, I don't remember. But as time wore on they had a duty to stop the highly combustable chemical from coming into contact with the plasma fire. It wasn't just a matter of getting out of the room and getting as far away as possible. What about people above or below the cargo deck? Even if nobody would have died had it all blown up, they very well could have been, not to mention the manhours repairing spent repairing the damage. Had Crusher and Geordi just left they would have been guilty of criminal negligance.

The power was cut to the doors. Geordi remarks they can get them open with a hand actuator, which we see Picard using on the doors in Genesis. They open a panel to get one, and the plasma fire promptly erupts through the panel.

There was no danger to Crusher and Geordi or the chemicals before the fire, but after they had no way to get out.

In reference to Miles and Keiko not naming their boy one of the names Michael or Hiro when they did have one. People change their minds all the time possibly by this time they had agreed on a name. My mother was going to call me Simon if I was a boy (I'm a girl) when she had my brother she did not call him Simon as she was sick of it by then.

They go through this convoluted chore of pushing the Harrdem containers to the other side of the bay because the radiation was slightly lower,well why didn't they just push the containers out into space the instant they realized there was a risk of them exploding? the outer door apparently worked just fine so why was that not their first thought? they go through all the trouble of moving it just to make it 20% safer when they could have gotten rid of it in the first place (the outer door opened with the push of a button and the force field seemed to be in place).

About their big convoluted task of moving the massive containers: they make a point to say that the radiation MIGHT interfere with the anti grav units.....well why not at least try? I mean Common sense 101 is obviously an elective course that everyone skips in Starfleet but why not pull out one of these units and turn it on then watch to see if it works properly? and even if it fluctuated while moving a container and dropped it what is the big deal? those barrels looked very sturdy and it is not like they would be flying them all over the room, they would just be hovering an inch or two off the floor.

Even if Troi has a superior rank she'd never be able to assume command, Ro would be the one in charge as an Ensign she'd outrank O’Brian’s rank of chief petty officer despite his greater experience. They were the two who actually knew how to fly the ship so would be in command.

I read on the Descent part 2 or Descent part 1 board that the US navy at least and probably most others has two types of command chain, administrative and operational, operational people outrank all administrative personnel in these situations to prevent precisely this sort of thing happening.

If a navy ship was damaged and the captain and first officer were killed would you let a psychiatrist flounce up to the bridge and start telling it what to do, of course not.

As for their being gravity in the turbo lift shaft maybe it 'bleeds' in from the other decks.

Oh man...what a mess. Who wrote this episode? There are no credits for writer or director at the top of the page.

The reason I ask is because it's like what Phil once said - the Enterprise has too many ways to avoid problems. That's why the fact that some episodes have the crew convienently forget certain capabilities of the ship or members of the crew so that a crisis will continue, and that information about a character (or whatever) given in a certain episode is directly contradicted in other episodes. That sort of thing is rampant in storytelling, especially when you have so many writers and directors contributing to a TV series. Even Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, creators of the Britcom Red Dwarf, who together wrote the first twelve episodes, hey, even THEY got a lot of things wrong! Things that were contradicted by other things, and various errors and inconsistencies were quite commonplace. That's why they had the service mechanoid Kryten do two separate "10 Most Common Questions About Red Dwarf" on two separate compilation videotapes. I couldn't believe all the things they had gotten wrong, and the first two series had only TWO writers and ONE director! Who, I believe, has since had a falling out with them for some reason. Anyway, I just thought that if the all the episodes all had the same writers, certain kinds of mistakes would not made. But they still were. And I couldn't believe it!

Anyway, this particular TNG episode was not one of my favorites. It seemed as if the writer pulled the "Dilemma Of The Week" plot completely out of nowhere. The plot had the Enterprise become incapacitated by "quantum filaments" which stopped the ship dead in it's tracks and as a result, it shut down vital systems like turbolifts, it had certain people stranded together in certain areas of the ship, and it showed how incompetant Troi really was and how weak and almost totally useless her character was. It all just seemed too convienent and not entirely believable. And it also gave us...Marissa Flores and her Kid's Crew! (But only in truly horrible and pathetic fan-fiction, thank God for that!)

I swear, the plot seemed to simply FORCE Picard and the kids together, and made him just HAVE to deal with them and help them get to safety. Nyyeeaahh, I really wasn't too impressed with that. Crusher and La Forge in the cargo bay, that was OK, Ro and O'Brien explaining to Troi how these "engine things" work and why a warp core breach would be a bad thing, that was pretty funny. Worf helping Keiko give birth, I dont have a problem with that, either. The best part was Data absorbing half a million AMPS of whatever power arced through him and Riker having to carry his head around while Data is still talking, that was really cool, I thought.

They were really pushing Ro as a believeable character that we were supposed to take seriously, I found that interesting. She really put Troi in her place, and the next season when the Romulan Warbird has a frozen engine core from the singularity lifeforms that had made a nest in the the ship's artificial singularity that was the core, Troi seemed to have really gotten her act together as she was aware of all the technical aspects of the Romulan propulsion system. And we were expected to believe that was only from her being aboard a Warbird once before after being abducted and altered to appear Romulan. I'm just saying, that part of her character is not exactly believeable either.

But I digress. This episode was particular mediocre in my opinion. That's pretty much it from me for now!

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quote:

Oh man...what a mess. Who wrote this episode? There are no credits for writer or director at the top of the page.

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Well, as many here may already know, "Okona" is the one TNG episode that I thoroughly loathe. I also really despise the abomination that was "Gambit", but for a totally different reason.

As for "Spock's Brain", I think all that can be said about it has already been said, I dont even consider it worth reviewing. And yes, it was the one episode of Trek bad enough to be included in the "100 Dumbest Events In TV History" book I really like and have mentioned many times here before.

But if you like them, Adam, hey, I'm not gonna judge. There are things I like, such as "Waterworld" and "Van Helsing" that many people don't, but I get how even "Brain" and "Okona" could have fans. They just dont cut it in my opinion, though.

I recently learned about the person many people believe is responsible for the downturn in quality of TOS in it's third season. Fred Friberger, one of it's producers. He gets a lot of the blame for the lame episodes, production values, and for the show's sfx budget being severely reduced by the network.

Off-topic, I know. Anyway, "Disaster" was just that, I really believe that. As for the so-called "Kid's Crew", well, go to "The Lighter Side Of TNG" board to learn more. If you dare!

Noooo! Never learn about the Kids' Crew! You'll never survive the horror of the Marissa-verse!

Well hello again, Callie. Nice to see you here on TNG again. As for that business about the "Marissa-Verse", my tongue was planted firmly in cheek when referring to it. Because I know that minds have been shattered by the sheer ludicrousness and abominable existence of the Ratliffian creation that is the Kid's Crew. I should know - I actually ventured forth there for a time a few years ago! (To the website, I mean.)

So, therefore, I would not wish that unfortunate happenstance on anyone. Well, except maybe for those unsuspecting few who really happened to have annoyed me for a long period of time! (muah hah hah!)

See, here's where the death of anonymous posting is sad.

I could have posted something silly as "Stephen Ratliffe"... but NOOO!!!

Stupid spambots!

If anyone is curious, Ratliffe is still writing. He's posted Marissa stories on fanfiction.net

Andre, don't be too hard on that episode. It's the one that started Phil on his nitpicking journey. Without it, this site would not even exist.

"don't be too hard on that episode. It's the one that started Phil on his nitpicking journey."

Really? I thought it was the scene in "The Offspring" where Wesley says "Parents" that made Phil start nitpicking because he wondered how the communicator badges worked.

But hey, it could have been this one too, I can totally understand how it could inspire anyone to go "Huh?!" while watching it!

The one I did that for was "Genesis" (check out my review of that one.) But that's just me!