11001001

DVD, TNG S1 (11001001)

I love the uniqueness of the title, there's never been another one like it! The episode itself wasn't quite such a standout. Again, there were moments that worked so well, such as the Starbase, and the way strains from The Motion Picture play as the Enterprise returns. Just instills such a warm, fuzzy feeling, and places the series firmly with the original, despite so much they've tried to do to distance it. The Bynars were creatures that looked different and had that alienness to them, but the story was a bit limp.

I loved the time the crew were all on leave, and the empty corridors of the ship as Riker tries to find something to do - maybe there was a better story in having the episode all about Riker's quest to fill his spare time! Then again they don't tend to do such mould-breaking tales this early in a series, so a more standard story was sure to occur. Nice to have Riker and Picard working solely together, but the other characters were marginalised somewhat.

If the Bynars needed someone to activate their computer, which was the reason Riker was kept in the Holodeck, it was a huge stroke of fortune that Picard also stayed (they say he just happened to be get caught in the Holodeck as he wasn't in their plans), because Riker would have needed an extra pair of hands to sort out the computer. Those Bynars weren't as intelligent as we thought. Minuet was a bit of an indulgent addition, but it was very nice to have Jonathan Frakes use his musical skills to play the trombone. Also this would be the earliest mention of the game Parrises Squares (which I don't think we've ever actually seen played on screen).

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