TNG Spoiler: Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Starship Mine"
Tim Lynch
Review by Tim Lynch <tly...@juliet.caltech.edu>
===============================================
WARNING: In a few lines, this article will begin relentlessly sweeping for
spoilers about the TNG episode "Starship Mine". Anyone in the way of this
sweep will be in danger of spoilage.
Lots of nice moments -- and enough character bits to mostly justify some
large plot holes.
The idea was nice, to be sure; how well it came out in the wash is another
matter. But first, of course, it's time for another synopsis:
The Enterprise is at the Roemler Array for a radiation sweep intended to
remove excess baryons. In preparation, the ship is completely evacuated, as
the sweep is fatal to living tissue. However, when Picard flees a boring
party to get his saddle from his quarters, he finds that the crew making
last-minute preparations for the sweep are not what they appear to be, and in
fact appear to be terrorists.
Subduing one of the terrorists, Picard attempts to leave the ship for the
station on the nearby planet, but fails; ship's power is cut off just at the
wrong time. He returns to his "victim" and attempts to find out what's going
on, but to no avail. He does, however, overhear others trying to get in
touch with the other man (apparently named DeVoor), and finds that they're
meeting in Engineering. He heads for there himself, only to be caught.
Meanwhile, at the party for the senior staff that Picard fled, their benign
hosts suddenly turn violent, shooting both Geordi and Commander Hutchinson
with a laser weapon and holding the others hostage.
In Engineering, a woman named Kelsey (apparently the hijackers' leader) is
checking on everyone's progress when Picard is brought in. Picard identifies
himself as Mot, the barber, and pleads ignorance when asked what he's still
doing on board. Kelsey, annoyed, puts Sadler (one of her technical
assistants) on guard duty while she works with Neal (another tech) on
extracting the trilithium resin they're after from the engines. Planetside,
Riker and company begin planning to use Geordi's VISOR as a weapon, rigging
it to deliver a hypersonic pulse that will knock everyone but Data
unconscious.
Back on the Enterprise, the hijackers manage to grab the resin. Picard,
however, uses a hidden laser-bore to create a diversion. He then destroys
the field diverter intended to protect the hijackers from the looming baryon
sweep, and flees into a Jeffries tube, with Sadler in hot pursuit. Picard
evades him for a while, then finds himself staring right at the advancing
sweep...
Sadler arrives only moments later, but finds only "Mot's" jacket. He removes
it to find the hole Picard cut into the next floor, but is caught by the
sweep before he can react. As the four remaining hijackers figure out
(thanks to Picard's insignia) that Picard is a Starfleet officer and plan
their escape, Picard picks up a crossbow in Worf's quarters. He communicates
with Kelsey, urging her not to move the highly toxic resin and insisting that
he'd rather destroy the ship than let "terrorists" like her have the resin.
She, nonchalant, gets a very jumpy Neal to finish extracting the resin and
store it as safely as possible, and then both head out.
Picard coats his crossbow bolts with some kind of toxin, then begins cooking
up something explosive while talking to Kelsey, who is now quite annoyed at
having found one route to Ten-Forward cut off. Both talk of the ship coming
to take Kelsey and her team off the Enterprise, with Picard expecting to be
on it. Riker, meanwhile, creates a brief distraction to assist Bev's
preparations by punching out one of his captors. While he is subdued, Bev
finishes the final modifications.
Picard takes out one of the hijackers with his crossbow and reaches for the
hijacker's weapon, only to be caught by Kiros, the same one who caught him
before. She informs Kelsey of her catch and arranges to meet her. Kelsey,
after getting some information about the resin storage from Neal, kills him
and goes to meet Kiros and Picard. As the hostages planetside trigger the
pulse and let Data take charge of the situation, Picard tells Kelsey his true
identity and offers himself as a hostage instead of the resin. Kelsey,
however, is not interested in political gain, merely commercial gain -- and
rejects Picard's offer out of hand.
In Ten-Forward, however, Kiros triggers Picard's final booby-trap, and an
explosion separates all three from each other, from their weapons, and from
the resin. Kelsey and Picard battle for both as the sweep enters
Ten-Forward. She wins, beaming to her ship alone, but with the resin.
Picard manages to contact Data at the last moment and stop the sweep, and
observes that with the "control rod" he's holding separate from the resin,
Kelsey's ship won't get far. The ship then explodes, and a heartsick Picard
begins to take charge of the Enterprise again.
There, that takes care of that. (Sorry if it seems a little disjointed this
time; it was a slightly disjointed episode.) Anyway, onwards to some
comments.
"Starship Mine" is the third episode written in whole or in part by Morgan
Gendel. The first was "The Inner Light", which so far as I'm concerned
speaks for itself so far as quality goes. The second, however, was DS9's
"The Passenger", and it's there that I think one can see a trend about
Gendel's writing forming.
In all three, it seems to me that characterization is often good (and
sometimes quite insightful to boot), while strict *plotting* and
*plausibility* issues are medium-range or worse. In the case of "The Inner
Light", the only real plot concern was in the framing sequence; TIL was a
character piece through and through. As such, plot weaknesses were not, at
least to me, an issue.
In "The Passenger", however, they were; and here, they also are. Both times,
I feel, we're being asked to swallow just a *wee* bit too much before we can
sit back and enjoy the show; and both times, there are too many unanswered
questions in the end. For instance:
-- So what connection *did* Frick and Frack down on the planet have to the
hijackers up on the Enterprise? It's clear they're in on it somehow, but not
how. What were they getting out of it? Why should we care?
-- More importantly, it's not at all clear to me why the crew down on the
planet had to be taken hostage AT ALL. It seemed from my perspective that
the hijackers were planning to stay on board during the baryon sweep, grab
the trilithium resin, and then leave without anyone knowing. If that's true,
I imagine the bozos down on the surface were part of a contingency plan; but
for what circumstances? Why? This may not be essential to understanding
what happened, but it makes the "hostage" side of the plot seem awfully
forced.
-- (Thanks to Lisa for catching this one; I hadn't noticed it.) If Picard
could use the hijackers' communicator to communicate with Data down on the
station, why didn't he before? Why not get Data to beam him off and then
handle everything in relative safety, or at least get Data to deactivate the
sweep and come back on board with an armed group? There were easier ways to
handle this...
Those are definitely the main ones, and really the only ones worth worrying
about. I certainly have other questions (such as how exactly they obtained
the resin, and the mechanics of their suborning the real sweep personnel),
but those are ones that merely add to the chaotic nature of the threat, not
ones that cause problems with disbelief. In any event, I think there's an
argument to be made here that the plot, pure and simple, needed some help.
On the other hand, the execution of most of the show was very nice, both
in a character sense and in the sense of just having a good time watching.
:-) In some cases, we had an *effective* "Picard out of his element" story
(unlike the aptly-named "Disaster"), and in others we just had some fun.
On the fun side, there was Data attempting small talk and being used as a
verbal weapon against Commander Hutchinson. Don't ask me why, but I loved
this. And although it's never made clear, I strongly suspect that Riker's
the one who put Data onto the idea of learning small talk a week or so before
this episode takes place. (Think about it; he was *far* too unsurprised when
Data started in on him, for one thing; and he's the one who sicced Data on
Hutch, for another.) Both Spiner and Frakes got to have fun mugging, we got
to watch in grinning disbelief, and all in all it seems a net win. :-)
On the shipboard side, both Picard and the hijackers behaved very sensibly
and smartly, with only one exception. I'll get the exception out of the way
first: Why didn't anyone *search* Picard after they caught him? Now that
that's over, I enjoyed seeing Picard and Kelsey scheming and counterscheming,
and was interested to see this much more ruthless Picard. (In this case,
however, unlike "I, Borg", Picard was ruthless out of necessity, not because
of excess emotion.) Again, except for the one slight bit of idiocy in
Engineering, Picard had as much success he did out of his own cleverness, not
out of the hijackers' mistakes -- and that's sharp writing.
In particular, a lot of the things Picard did were set up rather subtly,
which is a nice change of pace. Things like the crossbow and his diversion
were obvious enough, but his boobytrapping of Ten-Forward was done very
quietly -- all we'd seen him do beforehand was make up the explosive
elements. And even *more* subtly, I had to go back over the final fight
scene 'twixt him and Kelsey three times before I figured out exactly where he
managed to grab the "control rod" to the resin storage. (It's the one time
he's anywhere near it, while he and Kelsey are grappling for it, if you're
planning to go look. You don't see him actually get it, but you see him
grabbing the middle of the tank, and it looks like he pries _something_
loose.) The last example was some sharp directing from Cliff Bole, but a lot
of this again was nice writing.
Finally, although a lot of the plot had problems, none of the *characters*
really did. Worf's request to get out of Hutch's reception was quite in
character, and even his quick smirk after managing it felt right. All the
dialogue during the "happy" part of the reception seemed fine, although the
running "you have a saddle?" gag fell flat after a while. And what little
character bits we were given down on the planet after the hostage "plot" got
underway were sound. (Not thrilling, but sound.)
So on the whole, the shipboard plot was very nice, well-planned, and
well-executed, except for a few relatively minor things that hurt. The
planetside plot is better left alone -- and fortunately, it mostly was.
The ending, unfortunately, left a lot to be desired. Some downtime for the
resolution is all well and good, but it would be nice if it had some
relevance to something in the rest of the hour. And as I've said, I don't
quite understand the "saddle" run-on bit; it felt dull to me. I'd have
preferred to see some explanation of the planetside angle.
Anyway, some short takes:
-- Given the eternal arguments brewing about sexism in Trek, it's interesting
to note that the last two hijackers to survive Picard's traps were the two
women, and that it was a woman that caught Picard ... twice. (Add to that
the fact that the Picard/Kelsey fight scene was *extremely* hard-hitting on
both sides if you wish.)
-- Science Oops of the week: Excess *baryons*? All right, I can accept that
if there were particles that needed removing, they were probably baryonic.
But given that the most common baryons by far are relatively common things
like protons and neutrons, a "baryon sweep" seems likely to remove most of
the Enterprise. C'mon, folks...
-- Another sharp moment: it was nice not to actually *see* Kelsey killing
Neal. We know what she was going to do, so why bother showing it? (In that
same scene, it's interesting to notice that no one other than us ever knows
just what happened to Neal.)
-- Riker told Data to stop the incoming ship once the pulse knocked everyone
else out. Why didn't he?
-- One other goof in characterization on Kelsey's part. Given how ruthless
she is, why did she bother keeping Picard alive after he was caught the
second time? If it had been me, I'd have said "Good. Kill him and meet me
in intersection whatever," and been done with it.
-- So, I guess Commander Hutchinson just sort of...evaporated after he was
shot and wounded. Lord knows *we* never saw him again; not even a body.
-- Nobody thought to *listen* to Riker and company wandering around planning
an ambush? These guys really *were* a last-resort backup...
-- Next time Picard should claim to be the dentist. Then they'd back off,
because everyone *knows* how good dentists are at inflicting pain. :-)
(Sorry, just came back from a visit to the dentist...)
Hmm. Looking at this and remembering some of it, I'm starting to think that
maybe this *wasn't* quite so strong as I originally thought. I think my
original summation is pretty close: Nice moments, some good character bits,
and lots of shoddy plotting. If you can overlook the holes, it's a hell of a
ride.
So, the numbers:
Plot: 5. Great premise, nice execution for most of the *shipboard* side.
The planet brings it down.
Plot Handling: 8. If the planet bits were done as well as the ship bits,
this'd be higher.
Characterization: 8. Again, mostly very sharp.
OVERALL: 7. Nice piece of work, but not exactly top-drawer.
NEXT WEEK:
Picard falls in love?
Tim Lynch (Harvard-Westlake School, Science Dept.)
BITNET: tlynch@citjulie
INTERNET: tly...@juliet.caltech.edu
UUCP: ...!ucbvax!tlynch%juliet.ca...@hamlet.caltech.edu
"It has a certain strange fascination; how long can two people talk about
nothing?"
-- Riker
--
Copyright 1993, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
--
Mark Runyan
>WARNING: In a few lines, this article will begin relentlessly sweeping for
>spoilers about the TNG episode "Starship Mine". Anyone in the way of this
>sweep will be in danger of spoilage.
>-- So what connection *did* Frick and Frack down on the planet have to the
>hijackers up on the Enterprise?
It seems pretty clear that they were suppose to keep the Enterprise crew
from learning of any problems and that they were hired help.
Considering that the terrorist wasn't interested in much but profit, she
probably planned to leave them behind anyway.
>What were they getting out of it?
Probably only promises. Similar to many other stories of this type in
movies and other series.
>-- More importantly, it's not at all clear to me why the crew down on the
>planet had to be taken hostage AT ALL. ...
>I imagine the bozos down on the surface were part of a contingency plan; but
>for what circumstances? Why? ...
It seems pretty clear that the control computer for the array was there in
the room with the Enterprise crew. If the weapons hadn't been detected,
it seems pretty obvious that the perimeter alert of the craft approaching
the Enterprise would have been detected by that computer in that room and
that the stooges were suppose to keep the command officers (who were suppose
to all be present at this little party) from protecting the Enterprise.
>-- ...If Picard
>could use the hijackers' communicator to communicate with Data down on the
>station, why didn't he before?
You mean while Frick and Frack were holding them hostage? Granted Picard
wouldn't have known that, but in Picard's position, determining that if the
station's support crew were infilterated that calling for outside help
might not be such a good idea isn't such a bad command decision.
>Why not get Data to beam him off and then
>handle everything in relative safety, or at least get Data to deactivate the
>sweep and come back on board with an armed group? ...
And when was Data going to do this? Especially because he was being
held at gun point? Hence the Frick and Frack contingency plan. (One
little point: If the phaser doesn't work, then the transporter probably
won't according to a little piece of knowledge from "Ensigns of Command")
>On the shipboard side, both Picard and the hijackers behaved very sensibly
>and smartly, with only one exception. I'll get the exception out of the way
>first: Why didn't anyone *search* Picard after they caught him?
Television Law of Good vs Evil #23:
Criminals always make at least one serious, stupid mistake which
the hero will defeat them with.
Mark Runyan [r.a.s random rationalizer]
Brian Chung
>Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Starship Mine"
>Review by Tim Lynch <tly...@juliet.caltech.edu>
>===============================================
>
>WARNING: In a few lines, this article will begin relentlessly sweeping for
>spoilers about the TNG episode "Starship Mine". Anyone in the way of this
>sweep will be in danger of spoilage.
>
>-- So, I guess Commander Hutchinson just sort of...evaporated after he was
>shot and wounded. Lord knows *we* never saw him again; not even a body.
This only goes to show that even net.gods can miss something.
Hutchinson is dead. After he and Geordi are shot, the camera pans
along the floor for a second before it settles on Beverly treating
Geordi's wounds. On the floor is some kind of blanket covering
something that looks like a human body. I assumed that's Hutchinson.
--
T. H. Brian Chung | Happiness is... | This .sig was brought
j...@alchemy.tn.cornell.edu | "Tea, Earl Grey, hot." | to you by Frungy, the
j...@cornella.bitnet | 210 Lake St. Apt. 11-A | sport of kings.
CESR10::THC | Ithaca, NY 14850 |
she listens like her head's on fire..
>Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Starship Mine"
>Review by Tim Lynch <tly...@juliet.caltech.edu>
>===============================================
>
>WARNING: In a few lines, this article will begin relentlessly sweeping for
>spoilers about the TNG episode "Starship Mine". Anyone in the way of this
>sweep will be in danger of spoilage.
Summary of Starship Mine and other stuff deleted..
>-- So what connection *did* Frick and Frack down on the planet have to the
>hijackers up on the Enterprise? It's clear they're in on it somehow, but not
>how. What were they getting out of it? Why should we care?
Well, I would assume that the hijackers would have to have some sort of
contact at the base to give them the information that the ship was going
to be there and to help them get on board. They arrived all very official
and ready to take care of business on the ship, apparently cleared by
those on the base.
>
>-- More importantly, it's not at all clear to me why the crew down on the
>planet had to be taken hostage AT ALL. It seemed from my perspective that
>the hijackers were planning to stay on board during the baryon sweep, grab
>the trilithium resin, and then leave without anyone knowing. If that's true,
>I imagine the bozos down on the surface were part of a contingency plan; but
>for what circumstances? Why? This may not be essential to understanding
>what happened, but it makes the "hostage" side of the plot seem awfully
>forced.
>
The hostage situation appeared to be a last resort situation. The crew was
to be kept occuppied at the reception and if all things had gone as planned,
they would never have known what was happening on the ship. Unfortunately
for the hijackers (or whatever you want to call them) Geordi's visor was
able to pick up stuff from the weapons they had hidden under the table and
insisted on trying to investigate. Their protestations were a bit too
vehement for the situation and drew attention to their odd behavior. It
would be somewhat difficult to explain the presence of phasers in the
pate so they grabbed the weapons and told everyone to sit still.
>-- (Thanks to Lisa for catching this one; I hadn't noticed it.) If Picard
>could use the hijackers' communicator to communicate with Data down on the
>station, why didn't he before? Why not get Data to beam him off and then
>handle everything in relative safety, or at least get Data to deactivate the
>sweep and come back on board with an armed group? There were easier ways to
>handle this...
>
He wasn't communicating specifically with Data as he would if he still
had his comm badge. The communicator the hijackers could communicate with
the comm panel in the reception room that was being manned by their
cohorts. Until the crew pulled the stunt with the sonics, Data would have
been unable to communicate with anyone via that machine much less beam
Picard off the ship. After the woman transported over, Picard took the
chance that there would be someone there to help him and called in to
stop the baryon (or however you spell it) scan. Until then, his attitude
was that of "defend the ship and stop them, and die doing so if you have
to". If I remember correctly, he told the leader of the team that he
would rather blow himself up with the ship then let the toxic waste get
taken off to do damage to innocent people. Therefore I think his safety
only became a priority to him when he knew that the hijackers posed no
more threat. He had the safety clip in his hand and knew the consequences.
>Those are definitely the main ones, and really the only ones worth worrying
>about. I certainly have other questions (such as how exactly they obtained
>the resin, and the mechanics of their suborning the real sweep personnel),
As I remarked above, they may have been called in the belief that they
*were* real sweep personnel. An undertaking of this scale would have to
involve people on the base.
>On the shipboard side, both Picard and the hijackers behaved very sensibly
>and smartly, with only one exception. I'll get the exception out of the way
>first: Why didn't anyone *search* Picard after they caught him? Now that
Good question but he didn't really look as if he could be hiding a weapon,
in those tight riding clothes and all..:-) With the baryon sweep coming,
the hijackers were probably too much in a hurry to worry about some
barber concealing weapons in his underwear. Also, standard phasers weren't
working, as displayed when Picard dispatched the first hijacker, and as far as
I know, starfleet officers don't carry any other kind of weapon.
>Anyway, some short takes:
>
>-- Given the eternal arguments brewing about sexism in Trek, it's interesting
>to note that the last two hijackers to survive Picard's traps were the two
>women, and that it was a woman that caught Picard ... twice. (Add to that
>the fact that the Picard/Kelsey fight scene was *extremely* hard-hitting on
>both sides if you wish.)
>
>-- Science Oops of the week: Excess *baryons*? All right, I can accept that
>if there were particles that needed removing, they were probably baryonic.
>But given that the most common baryons by far are relatively common things
>like protons and neutrons, a "baryon sweep" seems likely to remove most of
>the Enterprise. C'mon, folks...
I had a problem following this as well...the only thing I could gather
was that the ship was carrying alot of radiation and the baryon sweep
was supposed to clean some of this off. Like cleaning the barnacles
off the hull of a ship.:-)
>
>-- Another sharp moment: it was nice not to actually *see* Kelsey killing
>Neal. We know what she was going to do, so why bother showing it? (In that
>same scene, it's interesting to notice that no one other than us ever knows
>just what happened to Neal.)
>
>-- Riker told Data to stop the incoming ship once the pulse knocked everyone
>else out. Why didn't he?
I can't remember the timing of everything but it is possible that
Picard's call came in when Data started working on the comm panel and he
gave priority to stopping the Baryon scan.
>-- One other goof in characterization on Kelsey's part. Given how ruthless
>she is, why did she bother keeping Picard alive after he was caught the
>second time? If it had been me, I'd have said "Good. Kill him and meet me
>in intersection whatever," and been done with it.
Who knows. Maybe she liked the thought of the Captain dying on his ship
knowing that she had escaped. She was ruthless but I find it believable
that she wouldn't gun down everyone in her way. She actually only killed
one person, if I remember correctly.
>
>-- So, I guess Commander Hutchinson just sort of...evaporated after he was
>shot and wounded. Lord knows *we* never saw him again; not even a body.
This bugged me alot. There is actually a shot of him when the scene of
the reception room is shown....he's the body on the floor under the cloth.
I assume he died from the blast and I was surprised, considering the
attitude taken on many of the episodes on the sanctity of life, that more
time wasn't spent on his death. I mean, even some sort of mourning at the
end or reference to Hutch would have done it! As it was, he was ignored
once he was gunned down. I realize that he wasn't a particularly beloved
character but there was a lack.
>
>-- Nobody thought to *listen* to Riker and company wandering around planning
>an ambush? These guys really *were* a last-resort backup...
It wasn't an ambush..only a diversion to distract the attention of the
hijackers so that Beverly could do something weird to Geordi's visor.
They did sound a bit loud, however. I think that they could have found
a way to show the planning in a more subtle manner.
Ugh, I think that is enough babbling for me.:-) It was a decent show,
somewhat different than what is usually expected. We don't often get
straight adventure stories. the only thing that really bothered me was
the casual disregard the crew had of Hutch's death. That seemed to be
out of character and inconsistant.
Joshua A. Laff
:)WARNING: In a few lines, this article will begin relentlessly sweeping for
:)spoilers about the TNG episode "Starship Mine". Anyone in the way of this
:)sweep will be in danger of spoilage.
:)-- More importantly, it's not at all clear to me why the crew down on the
:)planet had to be taken hostage AT ALL. It seemed from my perspective that
:)the hijackers were planning to stay on board during the baryon sweep, grab
:)the trilithium resin, and then leave without anyone knowing. If that's true,
:)I imagine the bozos down on the surface were part of a contingency plan; but
:)for what circumstances? Why? This may not be essential to understanding
:)what happened, but it makes the "hostage" side of the plot seem awfully
:)forced.
Once the ship that Kelsey leaves on comes within senson range, the station
would know about it. Certainly the crew down on the surface is going to want
to know why a small vessel is heading towards the Enterprise...
:)-- (Thanks to Lisa for catching this one; I hadn't noticed it.) If Picard
:)could use the hijackers' communicator to communicate with Data down on the
:)station, why didn't he before? Why not get Data to beam him off and then
:)handle everything in relative safety, or at least get Data to deactivate the
:)sweep and come back on board with an armed group? There were easier ways to
:)handle this...
Going from the position that Picard doesn't know the planet surface is in
on this...
If Picard uses the communicator, Kelsey and co. know not only that he knows
the situation, but that the crew on the planet knows the situation. Suddnely,
that trilithium becomes a *big* threat... "Let us go, or I'll blow up your
ship, and that planet with it." Furthermore, he may have deduced that the
base was in on it, and he might be in a *worse* situation. Finally, as someone
else mentioned, by keeping the field active, it helps corner his enemy.
:)first: Why didn't anyone *search* Picard after they caught him? Now that
I saw that as a problem, too, but I can buy a simple "time constraint"
arguement. Besides... he's the barber... :)
:)-- Riker told Data to stop the incoming ship once the pulse knocked everyone
:)else out. Why didn't he?
Was there definitely a way to do so there?
:)-- One other goof in characterization on Kelsey's part. Given how ruthless
:)she is, why did she bother keeping Picard alive after he was caught the
:)second time? If it had been me, I'd have said "Good. Kill him and meet me
:)in intersection whatever," and been done with it.
The James Bond effect. Painful death by the Baryon sweep. :)
--
Joshua A. Laff, CRL operator, UofI (217) 384-6249
email to: la...@cs.uiuc.edu (NeXT Mail accepted)
_______________________________________________________________________________
Disclaimer: If I were speaking for the UofI, I wouldn't be paying tuition.
Glenn Elliott
: Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Starship Mine"
: WARNING: In a few lines, this article will begin relentlessly sweeping for
: spoilers about the TNG episode "Starship Mine". Anyone in the way of this
: sweep will be in danger of spoilage.
: -- So, I guess Commander Hutchinson just sort of...evaporated after he was
: shot and wounded. Lord knows *we* never saw him again; not even a body.
Actually, we did see the body. In the first planetside scene that follows the
shooting, we see (presumably) commander Hutchinson's body covered with a cloth
of some sort as the scene pans into view.
: -- Nobody thought to *listen* to Riker and company wandering around planning
: an ambush? These guys really *were* a last-resort backup...
This bothered me a little bit, but not too much. It is difficult to film that
much dialog in a stage whisper. It seemed obvious to me that the Enterprise
crew was attempting to speak when their captors either weren't paying attention
or weren't looking, and they _were_ speaking in lowered voices.
: -- Next time Picard should claim to be the dentist. Then they'd back off,
: because everyone *knows* how good dentists are at inflicting pain. :-)
: (Sorry, just came back from a visit to the dentist...)
Actually, I found the use of Mot as an alias amusing since Mot is almost as
bad as Commander Hutchinson when it comes to small talk. Picard's subconscious
at work?
Glenn
--
Glenn E. Elliott | Anyone who believes that what I say or do
Computing Systems Analyst | represents the policies or procedures of
Boeing Computer Services | The Boeing Company has more lawyers than
gee...@eeidf002.ca.boeing.com | they have common sense.
dc...@rob.raleigh.ibm.com
>WARNING: In a few lines, this article will begin relentlessly sweeping for
>spoilers about the TNG episode "Starship Mine". Anyone in the way of this
>sweep will be in danger of spoilage.
>All the
>dialogue during the "happy" part of the reception seemed fine, although the
>running "you have a saddle?" gag fell flat after a while.
>And as I've said, I don't
>quite understand the "saddle" run-on bit; it felt dull to me.
I thought this gag was quite obvious. Although it turned out that Picard
*did* have his own saddle, the others seemed to think it was simply a ruse
to allow Picard to leave the reception reasonably gracefully. Even
afterward when he was looking for the saddle and Worf and the others were
discussing it, I sensed that they all seemed to see right through Picard but
were playing along anyway.
Dave Barnhart email: 70672...@Compuserve.com
Please do not email to the address in the header; it's just a news server.
Teflon X
Nice to see you caught that hutchinson just disappeared, but did you
also notice that ...
Between "10 seconds to shutdown" and shutdown was only 5 seconds!
Deus ex machina at its best.
Toby Elliott
Teflon X
Robert J. Granvin
|> Wow, BIG plot holes. But I think you missed my favorite, Tim.
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|>
|> Nice to see you caught that hutchinson just disappeared, but did you
|> also notice that ...
I saw him. Well, sorta.
|> Between "10 seconds to shutdown" and shutdown was only 5 seconds!
Hmmmm.... Recognizing instantly that 10 seconds usually expands to about
40, when I heard the computer indicate 10 seconds to shutdown, I instantly
started counting the time (1-one-thousand, 2-one-thousand). The instant I
said "10-one-thousand", the power shut down.
Now that's not scientific, but I'm not THAT bad at timing things. (Not
very often, at least... :-)
--
\\ Robert J. Granvin User Services Specialist
// School of Statistics - University of Minnesota r...@stat.umn.edu
Mark Runyan
: Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Starship Mine"
Oops, missed these the last time...
: -- Riker told Data to stop the incoming ship once the pulse knocked everyone
: else out. Why didn't he?
Well, the common response would have been "with what, you bare hands"?
Anyway, given that the station had defensive capability that could
reach into orbit to hit that ship, Data may have had to decide between
rescuing Picard (when Picard started calling for help) and taking out
the ship. Afterall, that little ship wasn't going to sit there and
be pounded, so it may have taken Data a little bit of time to activate
the weapons.
: -- One other goof in characterization on Kelsey's part. Given how ruthless
: she is, why did she bother keeping Picard alive after he was caught the
: second time? ...
Because she was mad enough she wanted to make sure Picard got his?
: -- So, I guess Commander Hutchinson just sort of...evaporated after he was
: shot and wounded. Lord knows *we* never saw him again; not even a body.
What do you think was under the table cloth that Riker and Data were
standing next to in the next scene? They went to the trouble of putting
in the shot and it got by so many people!
: -- Nobody thought to *listen* to Riker and company wandering around planning
: an ambush? These guys really *were* a last-resort backup...
A mistake of amateurs. They stayed across the room away from the
hostages, didn't bind, gag, and blindfold the hostages. They were
obviously throw away henchmen, which our profit-minded terrorist
bought quickly.
Robert J. Granvin
|> Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Starship Mine"
|> Review by Tim Lynch <tly...@juliet.caltech.edu>
|> ===============================================
|>
|> WARNING: In a few lines, this article will begin relentlessly sweeping for
|> spoilers about the TNG episode "Starship Mine". Anyone in the way of this
|> sweep will be in danger of spoilage.
Oh boy! I get to respond to Tim! :-)
|> sit back and enjoy the show; and both times, there are too many unanswered
|> questions in the end. For instance:
|>
|> -- So what connection *did* Frick and Frack down on the planet have to the
|> hijackers up on the Enterprise? It's clear they're in on it somehow, but not
|> how. What were they getting out of it? Why should we care?
It was never made clear how they were going to get out of it (it becomes
obvious that they weren't.) However, all that's important is that they
believe they are going to. The details are unimportant to the viewer.
Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dummer's purpose was clearly to deal with the
approaching escape ship, guarantee defense shields were down, etc. That
couldn't be done from the Enterprise and required ground support.
|> -- More importantly, it's not at all clear to me why the crew down on the
|> planet had to be taken hostage AT ALL. It seemed from my perspective that
|> the hijackers were planning to stay on board during the baryon sweep, grab
|> the trilithium resin, and then leave without anyone knowing. If that's true,
|> I imagine the bozos down on the surface were part of a contingency plan; but
|> for what circumstances? Why? This may not be essential to understanding
|> what happened, but it makes the "hostage" side of the plot seem awfully
|> forced.
Since they were needed to take care of the proximity alert and shields,
they were necessary. The hostage situation is probably something they were
planning to avoid, but covered in case there was a problem. Obviously, they
weren't planning to take hostages as early as they did. In the end, the
entire hostage situation should have only lasted a few seconds.
|> -- (Thanks to Lisa for catching this one; I hadn't noticed it.) If Picard
|> could use the hijackers' communicator to communicate with Data down on the
|> station, why didn't he before? Why not get Data to beam him off and then
|> handle everything in relative safety, or at least get Data to deactivate the
|> sweep and come back on board with an armed group? There were easier ways to
|> handle this...
Who would he be talking to? The combadge might be a locked frequency. If
so, he would only be talking to the "terrorists." Not much useful there.
It would also seem that Picard was talking to Data through the terrorists
frequency. Either that was available at the control panel in the room, or
Data picked up another combadge. It certainly took a while before anyone
heard him.
|> On the shipboard side, both Picard and the hijackers behaved very sensibly
|> and smartly, with only one exception. I'll get the exception out of the way
|> first: Why didn't anyone *search* Picard after they caught him? Now that
|> that's over, I enjoyed seeing Picard and Kelsey scheming and counterscheming,
They were idiots. :-)
|> So on the whole, the shipboard plot was very nice, well-planned, and
|> well-executed, except for a few relatively minor things that hurt. The
|> planetside plot is better left alone -- and fortunately, it mostly was.
Agreed!
|> The ending, unfortunately, left a lot to be desired. Some downtime for the
|> resolution is all well and good, but it would be nice if it had some
|> relevance to something in the rest of the hour. And as I've said, I don't
|> quite understand the "saddle" run-on bit; it felt dull to me. I'd have
|> preferred to see some explanation of the planetside angle.
There were a couple of small jokes buried within (just like Picard calling
himself a barber -- the jokes were just as subtle, if not moreso, than some
of the writing and directing...)
Though I know some equestrian enthusiasts. Their saddle is a very personal
item, so I accepted his concern over it and the recurring theme of it.
But it also helped to bring about the "Cowboy Jean-Luc McClaine" (thanks,
Dave :-) image.
|> Anyway, some short takes:
|>
|> -- Science Oops of the week: Excess *baryons*? All right, I can accept that
|> if there were particles that needed removing, they were probably baryonic.
|> But given that the most common baryons by far are relatively common things
|> like protons and neutrons, a "baryon sweep" seems likely to remove most of
|> the Enterprise. C'mon, folks...
I kept thinking "The Enterprise needs a Baryon Enema..." :-) Oof. :-)
|> -- Riker told Data to stop the incoming ship once the pulse knocked everyone
|> else out. Why didn't he?
We're never led to believe that Data can actually DO anything about it...
|> -- One other goof in characterization on Kelsey's part. Given how ruthless
|> she is, why did she bother keeping Picard alive after he was caught the
|> second time? If it had been me, I'd have said "Good. Kill him and meet me
|> in intersection whatever," and been done with it.
A live hostage is always a better source of information than a dead one.
She was ruthless, but never once rash.
|> -- So, I guess Commander Hutchinson just sort of...evaporated after he was
|> shot and wounded. Lord knows *we* never saw him again; not even a body.
Actually, we did. Another subtle editing job. You see a body covered in
something that looks like my mother's old window curtains... :-) After
that, it's left out of the frame.
|> -- Nobody thought to *listen* to Riker and company wandering around planning
|> an ambush? These guys really *were* a last-resort backup...
Economists. :-)
|> Hmm. Looking at this and remembering some of it, I'm starting to think that
|> maybe this *wasn't* quite so strong as I originally thought. I think my
|> original summation is pretty close: Nice moments, some good character bits,
|> and lots of shoddy plotting. If you can overlook the holes, it's a hell of a
|> ride.
I think it was, because I think you could reconsider some of your questions
and find out the strength is really there. Your mileage may vary, though.
|> NEXT WEEK:
|> Picard falls in love?
Yawn.
Arshavir Blackwell
>In article <1ppm1l...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu>, tly...@Juliet.Caltech.Edu (Tim Lynch) writes:
>|> Lynch's Spoiler Review: "Starship Mine"
>|> Review by Tim Lynch <tly...@juliet.caltech.edu>
>|> ===============================================
>|>
>|> WARNING: In a few lines, this article will begin relentlessly sweeping for
>|> spoilers about the TNG episode "Starship Mine". Anyone in the way of this
>|> sweep will be in danger of spoilage.
>
>
>|> could use the hijackers' communicator to communicate with Data down on the
>|> station, why didn't he before? Why not get Data to beam him off and then
>|> handle everything in relative safety, or at least get Data to deactivate the
>|> sweep and come back on board with an armed group? There were easier ways to
>|> handle this...
>
>Who would he be talking to? The combadge might be a locked frequency. If
>so, he would only be talking to the "terrorists." Not much useful there.
>It would also seem that Picard was talking to Data through the terrorists
>frequency. Either that was available at the control panel in the room, or
>Data picked up another combadge. It certainly took a while before anyone
>heard him.
Worf's room getting the cross-bow and warning them not to carry the
trilithium resin thru the ship. So what harm could it have done for him
to have tried to use it to contact the surface, as well? I mean,
wouldn't he have at least TRIED (if he failed, so what... they already
had heard him on the comm badge; he didn't even have to reveal his
identity to them: "Hi, this is Mr. Mott up on the Big E. HELP!!!!").
Obviously, it occurred to him to use the commbadge to call for help
at the end.... I can't believe J.L. Piccard isn't bright enough to
have thought of that very first thing, rather than just at the last
minute.
Star Trek's a great show, but it's little inconsistencies like
these (often resolved with a few careful pieces of replotting on the
part of the writers: I mean, in this case we could just have a few
scenes where he tries to contact the surface and doesn't get thru
because THEY are in control of the panel, and tries one last desperate
time at the end and DOES get thru because Data's now in charge) that
can spoil an otherise engaging episode. (Slightly off-point, but a similar
small plot flaw spoiled the otherwise very good "Face of the Enemy":
we're lead to believe that *Troi* would have the codes to the
tachyon sensor grid? Why would there even *be* codes to the
sensor grid...like Starships are coming back all the time from their
weekends in the Neutral Zone?).
----------
A.W.Blackwell