Darrin is kinda condescending, isn't she? Automatically taking a superior posture with the *Captain*.

Why was Darrin sitting in on the senior staff meeting? I don't remember any head of Stellar Cartography sitting in on any meetings previously. I don't know what a firestorm is but it doesn't appear to have anything to do with stars. How many episodes featured senior staff meetings about catastrophies that involved suns and moons where nobody from Stellar Cartography was present? It would have made a lot more sense for somebody from Stellar Cartography to have helped out in these situations rather than Geordi always being the expert. Can Darrin now go to senior staff meetings because she is the Captain's girlfriend?

Dr. Crusher seems to be missing her communicator during her dinner with the Captain in the scene prior to the concert. (That is unless her hair is hidding it, but didn't seem to be the case unless her communicator was very, very high up her uniform near her throat.

Darrin says that it wouldn't take much to throw off the gravimetric readings, but wouldn't the ship traveling through space do that? If the sensors can be calibrated to compensate for the ship's engines and all the fluctuating interstellar radiation (communication waves, pulsar, nova and supernova activity, etc., etc.) then why not for the other ship's systems?

I realize that this is supposed to be the night shift, but does that mean that the people working this shift are supposed to forget about common day shift things like using the replicators to get something to eat and/or drink? Of course, people work 8 hours and sleep 8 hours, doesn't that leave 8 hours for recreation? (Or does Starfleet use a 16 hour day instead of 24?) What are all the off-duty non-sleeping personnel supposed to do now that Stellar Cartography won't let them eat, drink, use the Holodecks, download reading material from the computer or communicate with people on other planets or ships? (Okay, some of those people could have sex, but all of them for 8 hours?) I should imagine that Stellar Cartography would be very unpopular for the next few days, or weeks.

The Enterprise is on a mission of scientific exploration, with a lot of science departments on board doing research. So why do they all have to fight to use the main sensor dish? Shouldn't there be sensor dishes all over the ship, just as good as the main sensor?

If the intersection of the Jefferies tubes acts as a resonance chamber, then wouldn't Picard sitting in the entrance of one of the tubes interfere with the sound?

So can just anyone go crawling through those Jefferies tubes?

Geordi hears the music and walks into the little room to hear it better, Data walks by then comes in to ask Geordi what he is doing. Geordi mentions the now stopped music, Data listens, but doesn't hear the music. However, in The Schizoid Man, Ira Graves in Data's body says that Data's ears are better than the average dog, so Data should have heard the music before he even passed by the little room.

Why not use thermal concrete (The Devil In The Dark) to reinforce the station walls, or even create thermal concrete deflection barriers to try and direct the firestorm away from the station? It might not be perfect, but it could give them some protection.

Why not beam the infirmary patients directly to Sick Bay instead of forcing them to walk there?

So how many crew members were on this planet anyway? There were 13 people manning the deflectors, however Riker says that all but two teams were beamed up, which leaves 5 people on the planet. Riker also says something implying that he was with the last group from the station to beam up and they barely made it. As Phil pointed out in the NextGen Guide 8 people beam up from the surface after Riker's statement. Also Darrin says that one of the members of her team died. Later Picard says that 8 crew members died. Where were these people?

If this was simply an evacuation why would Riker or any other crew members be at the station itself? Sending down crew members to assist the evacuees only increases the number of uses of the transporter. Each transporter only has six pads, so it would be more efficient to just beam people up from the planet. Also why not use the emergency transporters in the shuttle crafts to beam up more people?

If I recall correctly the deflectors were not expected to completely keep the firestorm away. Riker's comment about barely making it indicates that the deflectors either didn't keep the fire all away or some of them failed. However, Darrin says that she and the two members of her team used phasers to create pockets in the field to try and save themselves, but if the deflector at full strength was not enough to protect them, then wouldn't creating a pocket in the field weaken it? (As proven by the guy who fried.)

Why not beam the infirmary patients directly to Sick Bay instead of forcing them to walk there?

Doesn't a site-to-site transport take twice as long?

According to the technical manual a site to site is more energy intensive, halfs the available payload and requires twice as long for the biofilters/matter stream to cycle through the system. Effectively halving the available transporters that can be used.

Boy oh boy...the Engineering staff must have gotten bored over the years...the Stellar Cartography room looks jaded compared to the one seen in "Generations"

NANJAO: It's quite refreshing to hear all the Classical Music on STTNG. I'm a big fan of the Classics. Hopefully someday they'll do a movie with Pachabel's Canon in D. (One of most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard next to Smetana's "The Moldau")

And our newly-announced merger will ensure both companies reap the rewards of official licensing from that movie!

That is one of the most hideous puns it has ever been my misfortune to experience.

I approve.

By the way (and this was pointed out to me by a non-Trek fan and subsequently ruined the episode for me), has anyone else noticed the odd angle of Picard's hands when he plays his flute for Nella the first time?

Those are someone else's hands, aren't they? (I really think that's funny, I don't know why...)

Almost all films and television shows do pick-up shots long after an episode has been filmed. these are usually filmed by a second unit director and crew. Oftentimes when a character's face is not visible in the shot, they'll use their stand-in actor to take their place. This saves them time and money, as they can continue to shoot a different episode at another location at the same time.

I recall a few Voyager episodes where the person playing Seven of Nine in a from-the-back f/x shot in Astrometrics was clearly not Jeri Ryan.

John A Lang: Smetana's "The Moldau"

Ah, you refer to Smetana's "Symphonic Poem to the theme of 'I'm A Little Teapot'"!

(SRRY!)

No Darth, it wasn't a pick up shot because Patrick Stewart's sitting there in front of you. The hands playing the flute are twisted out at a funny angle, looking as though someone's reaching up to do the fingering.

It's the scene where he's playing the flute for her in his quarters.

I was referring to your comment that it was someone else's hands.

Did you mean to suggest that someone else's hands were digitally inserted onto Patrick Stewart's arms? If so, that seems unlikely. I don't think the technology that would allow that kind of splicing of images would have been available on a television budget. The Zemeckis movie, Death Becomes Her, which used exactly that (at the time, state-of-the-art) technology to put Streep's head on backwards only came out the year before this episode aired.

I think he's saying that the hands are comming from a hole in the wall behind him or something like that. I don't have the ep on tape so I can't really contribute much to the discusion on this matter

I don't have the episode handy, either... and now I'm really curious...

Alice, I looked at all the shots of Picard during this scene, including both the close-ups and full shots, and I didn't notice any odd angle of his hands.

Perhaps it's because I'm not a flute expert, but is it the close-up shots of him after Neela suggests "having some fun" by improvising the music? The position is different, but I don't know if it has to be someone else's hands. Why would they have used them in that shot, but not the previous ones?

What it is is that there is a head and shoulders shot of Picard, with A pair of hands playing the flute...you can't whether they are attached to his arms or not, as the screen cuts off above his elbows...and the pair of hands look as though they are twisted round.

Maybe it's just me and Patrick Stewart plays the flute a funny way...but it looks like someone has their head out of shot and is reaching up to do the fingering on the flute.

Ummm, Brian, I'm a She....

Sorry Alice, when I scrolled down I mis-remembered the messeges. I thought Darth was the one I was responding to.

Does anyone know if those "fold-away" keyboards really do exist?

fold-away, roll-up and even virtual keyboards do exist in present time.

I believe THIS episode marks the last time Picard plays his flute.

So much for taking Darrin's advice about having Picard not give up his music

Picard plays his flute in "The Inner Light", and in "A Fist Full of Datas".

I just saw this episode again.
Actually, Picards hands ARE twisted, but it's the moment they're playing together in his quarters.

His right hand is too close to the camera and his left one is really twisted. You can see it easily - that's the shot when his hands fill in half of the screen. Looks strange.

When Picard and Darrin are at the fourth intersection of Jeffries tube 25, she unrolled her keyboard and we clearly see it on the floor. When they are playing together, we can see that her keyboard is on a "small stand" and not on the floor... Where does it come from?

The "small stand" store?

"Mr. Sulu's strange thing of a jig" resale outlet?

The planetary scene from "The Most Toys" make another appearance here