Dr Crusher says that Lieutenant Kelly had big ol' burns on only his epidermis. I'm told to have that amount of blood around, it'd have to have got his dermis also. (Epidermis, that's just the top layer.)
Come to that, how *can* he be that burnt on just his epidermis (or maybe dermis too). Surely, if something's that close and that hot, it's going to affect what's below anyway?
Because the creators know we love technobabble and "Epidermis" sounds the very thing...
It seems a bit odd to me that Worf, who had just come into the room one second ago would immediately grasp and understand the situation after Barclay yells at him that they must grab the other crew members. He seemed to have caught on to the situation, which was anything but clear at that point, instantly. Hm.
Although I thought this episode was interesting, it goes against everything we've understood about the transporter (ie, you're disassembled, converted into energy and reappear somewhere else, in which case you should have a period of non-existence). If that's so, how was Barclay able to move around and grab the worms? How could he see them if his eyes and brain have been turned into megawads of energy particles? Transporters don't envelope you in a bubble and plop you down somewhere else, so what gives?
I thought that maybe we were watching his soul in the transporter field, but grabbing the worm kills that theory.
I forgot my major nit;
The crew decides to see if that energy stream out there is dangerous, so they set up a test cubicle with a forcefield and beam in a sample, which promptly explodes. Okay. Nice test. Now would someone explain to me why the heck they're doing this less than 20 FEET from the warp core in engineering?! Is this is insane, or is it just me? (Don't answer that!) With a ship that size, with hundreds of rooms, and plenty of labs, they decide to beam in an unstable element that close to the core of the ship? Had the field not been strong enough the ship would have been destroyed or at least crippled! Why not beam the stuff in, oh, I don't know...howabout a TRANSPORTER ROOM with a forcefield around it, just to be safe??? The crew was too cocky, believing their forcefield could contain such an explosion-- I think Q has been rubbing off on them.
I realize that maybe the creators wanted to save the time and money of setting up a different room, but main engineering just makes LaForge and the others look crazy! They might as well let Worf's security teams target practice in engineering-- you'd get the same result: BOOM!!!
No wonder Barclay hates the transporter, in this episode alone it turned his pips around and later he ended up facing the wrong direction.
In the NextGen Guide Phil says the 'worm' bites Barclay, but I'm not certain that that is an entirely correct description. Yes, the worm has what appears to be a mouth where it grabs Barclay but it doesn't have any hands, and it needs to grab Barclay with something. As for the pain he felt that could have been when the quasi-matter/energy creatures 'infected' him.
GREAT SFX: I LOVE the "inside the transporter" camera angle. I now have a pretty good idea what it's like to be beamed!
What caused the people to mutate into worms anyway? Did they ever explain that?
Why pay for a shuttle freight pilot when this idiot will do it for us for free?
Barclay claims that he has "always found a way" to avoid the trasnporter. I'm not sure how long he's been around ... long enough to be transffered a few time ... but given how often trasnporters are used, wouldn't it be kinda hard to avoid the transporter without others knowing? Shouldn't they have tried to help Barclay out with this fear, or at least make a note of it on physcological profile? Doesn't seem like a very good showing from his previous shipmates if they didn't think anything of his shuttling all over the galaxy.
"Water" ... "What temperature?"
"Orange Juice" ... "What temperature?"
"Vodka" ... "What temperature?"
"Aww, go to hell." ... "What temperature?"
The food replicators in Barclay's quarters act incredibly poorly. He asks for water, and it barks back at him for the temperature. It would not be difficult at all to set a default temperature for certain drinks ... especially one as common as water. Heck, the computer could even allow the person to change the default temperature for drinks if it wanted to. It should definately respond better to "Water" than "What temperature" ... especially after 400+ years of technological advance!
Maybe a personal butler for all the rooms would be more practical ...
Along the same lines, Barclaay tells the computer to add more birds to his stress relief program. Not only does the computer not ask how many more, not only does it not use some smartly set default, it just goes ahead and about triples the bird content. Maybe the computer in Barclay's room just needs an overhaul ...
He'd just been a microbe in a plasma streamer for a good long time, he wasn't about to let some dumb forcefield "cramp his style".
When Barclay beams back (the infamous backwards beam in), as the two collapse, the leg of the crew member he was holding clearly goes through where the containment forcefield is supposed to be. The forcefield isn't ordered down until the next shot ... so unless O'Brien lowered the forcefield instantly (despite not being able to see Barclay instantly), that must have been one lame forcefield.
Ryan, perhaps each replicator in every set of quarters has to have its default settings by each occupant, and Barclay never made such settings. Perhaps he doesn't drink a lot of water.
NANJAO: Marina Sirtis (Troi) seemed to look like she had an illness of some kind....like the flu. She certainly doesn't look very well in this episode.
Will: Now would someone explain to me why the heck they're doing this [a dangerous test]less than 20 FEET from the warp core in engineering?! Is this is insane, or is it just me?
No, it is insane. But that's where they test the unknown alien instrument w/Bashir in "Bloodlines," that's where they test-fire the Romulan weapons in "The Mind's Eye", that's where Data works on that UV-looking device in "Identity Crisis"....I know that sets are expensive, but this is the sixth season and we've seen a lab set before. Why you would test unknown and potentially dangerous devices and materials less than fifty feet from the most volatile element on the whole ship is beyond me.
(What's more, now that I think of it, when they and Bashir test that device in "Bloodlines," not only doing they do it in Engineering, but La Forge powers the thing by jacking it directly into the warp core!)
I also wondered about this test: how do they know they are not exactly replicating the mistake that damaged the other ship? Geordi even says sth. to the effect of "they used a test container, to beam gas into, so we will do the same" ... up until the part where sth. unexplained, unexpected happened that killed the crew of the other ship?
So, because Barclay sees more than one worm, he intuits that the worms are the missing crew members and not the microbes geordi is trying to cleanse him from, even though the worm previously bit him?
Why do the missing crew members wear silvery uniforms?
Found an old list of nitpicks I had made, but hadn't posted.
The first nit is wondering if Troi's suggestion of plexing might not be addictive. Unfortunately it's been so long since I saw this episode I don't remember what plexing was. Possibly I figured that with Barclay's personality anything that he thought would help him would be overused.
The computer says there is no known cure for Transporter Psychosis, but earlier it had said it was an imbalance. So wouldn't a possible cure be to balance what is imbalanced?
Barclay asks for more birds & the computer doesn't ask him how many. Barclay asks for water & the computer asks what temperature. Barclay asks for some soothing music and the computer starts playing something without asking what music qualifies as soothing. So why does the computer ask for more information sometimes but not others?
Why does Barclay tell O'Brien to wake the senior staff instead of doing it himself?
At one point when Barclay is looking at the 'worm' it looked for a second like a face was shown between them. (Probably just my imagination, but hey, maybe someone with this on DVD can doublecheck?)
Plexing is tapping behind the ear, stimulating a nerve cluster.
KAM: The computer says there is no known cure for Transporter Psychosis, but earlier it had said it was an imbalance. So wouldn't a possible cure be to balance what is imbalanced?
Luigi Novi: And if not a cure, at least a treatment.
KAM: Barclay asks for more birds & the computer doesn't ask him how many. Barclay asks for water & the computer asks what temperature. Barclay asks for some soothing music and the computer starts playing something without asking what music qualifies as soothing. So why does the computer ask for more information sometimes but not others?
Luigi Novi: Personal settings? I've always assumed that this was the reason that holodecks and replicators sometimes asked questions like this, and sometimes did not.
KAM: Why does Barclay tell O'Brien to wake the senior staff instead of doing it himself?
Luigi Novi: Grunt work that you can get others to do when you outrank them?
Notice nothing was done with the USS Yosemite? The Away Team beams over, but never reactivates her engines to free her from the plasma stream. And what about the radiation she should be smothered in, being caught in a plasma stream like that for days on end? Her shields must be down, because the crew beams in, and yet they're not exposed to lethal doses of radiation.
Nobody checks the captain's log to ascertain what happened. I know the computer banks were a mess, but an effort should have been made immediately.
Troi tells Barclay that plexing (tapping the nerve cluster behind the ear near the carotid artery) will help relax him. She shows him by tapping behind her right ear, and he does likewise.
Later, in the transporter room he taps behind his left ear, not his right. According to McCoy in Space Seed the Carotid artery is just below the left ear, so did Troi mix up its location, and Barclay realized it later in the transporter room?
Said it before and I'll say it again, you CAN'T see anything in a transporter stream if your eyes and brain have been deconstructed and converted into energy, much less reach out and grab worms that are actually people...but what do you expect from a writer like Brannon Braga who doesn't play by the rules of the Trek universe?
Why does Barclay ask the computer to tie into the Medical database to ask about Transporter Psychosis? Shouldn't it do that automatically just by asking "tell me about the disorder Transporter Psychosis"?
Trans. Psychosis is what people who protested the Transporter on Enterprise were afraid of getting- guess they had reason to be afraid.
The computer says there is no known cure for Transporter Psychosis, but earlier it had said it was an imbalance. So wouldn't a possible cure be to balance what is imbalanced?
They did not say it was an imbalance, they said it was a breakdown of neurochemical molecules during transport. Perhaps there is no way to recreate these molecules or prevent their breakdown, and with the advent of better technology(as O'Brien said) seeking such a treatment became unneccesary.
By Will on Monday, March 21, 2005 - 10:21 am:
Later, in the transporter room he taps behind his left ear, not his right. According to McCoy in Space Seed the Carotid artery is just below the left ear, so did Troi mix up its location, and Barclay realized it later in the transporter room?
Maybe Troi's artery is on the right. Better Ask John A. Lang to examine her to make sure.
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The Admiral's uniform is missing the communicator while she's talking with Picard.
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I agree with Troi's personal doctor, Dr. Lang, Troi doesn't well... you can even see that she's sweating while trying to confront Reg in the hall.
You have a carotid artery on both sides of your neck. Like you have a femoral in each thigh.
I give Counsellor Troi a full examination every week.
Well, hopefully you give her an examination gown that closes all the way in the back...
Gown?
Even though Brcley remaining concious is a nit it is the only way you would persuade people to use the transporter. In an Enterprise episode the inventer of the transporter says he had to prove the person that came out the other end was the original and not a perfect copy.
Pretty much the only way to prove that would be for the person to remain concious throughout. Maybe we were seeing his soul in the transporter and his "grabbing the worm" was his soul grabbing another soul. A bit metaphysical I know but current laws of physics state that unless we do have a beamable soul the person coming out the other end of the tranporter would be a perfect copy not the original.
Maybe he wasn't actually taken apart but was just converted to energy and stayed in one peice or perhaps the transporter send you through another dimension, which is pretty much the only way a transpoter is possible.