The Big Goodbye

DVD, TNG S1 (The Big Goodbye)

I always think Whalen is going to die! This was the first in a long line of Holodeck stories, which single-handedly created a sub-genre in Trek. The ever-reliable Holodeck Malfunction! Some people felt they were over-used and they were an undeniable cliche, but they were also almost without exception, great fun, with danger, laughs and classic fish-out-of-water experiences. I would also go so far as to call this episode the first of this season where everything is working to its maximum, with good little scenes for most of the characters and some brilliant moments in the Holodeck.

As well as being a good story it also throws up some questions about the technology, and inconsistencies with later encounters with it. Most can be put down to an early version of this tech, as it has clearly not been experienced by Picard before, at least not in a recreational sense. The idea was originally planned for as early as the original series, and used in the animated version (and in timeline terms was first seen in 'Enterprise' created by an alien race), but it only really came into its own on TNG.

There was no talk of safeties and other tech speak that became familiar, but it still fits together. The Holodeck characters quickly jump to awareness of the 'other world' they see from inside the Holodeck, whereas later versions tended to have such things invisible to them, as part of their programming. They would also see characters as different than they might look, whereas in this one Data's unique appearance is noticed (and explained away in a most amusing manner).

The biggest and hardest problem to fathom, is with items going out of the Holodeck. Lipstick is still on Picard's face, and most obvious of all Sirus Redblock and his goon leave the Holodeck which should be impossible. They then vanish before their own eyes. Perhaps that can be explained by saying that things in the program can be real, and although people aren't, perhaps the technology has a bleed-off area to account for people or things needing to have that extra boundary. After they enter the bleed-off area their patterns begin to degrade. At least that's how I'd get around the massive inconsistencies, in what is otherwise a hilarious episode, and one that contains some great lines and danger.

When Whalen is shot it brings home the life-threatening situation they're now in, where before they were all grinning as they put their arms up! Dick Miller makes his first appearance in the Trek universe as a newsvendor - he'd later play another character from history (in Trek time) in the early 21st Century on DS9's 'Past Tense'.

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