You would think that an episode that is half ‘Picard and Wesley in a shuttle chatting’ and half ‘the chief engineer is kidnapped’ wouldn’t end up with you wishing that you got more time in the shuttle.
So, the A plot starts with aliens who seem to be stupid. But then they turn out to be smarter than they appear. But no, they really are stupid, and the Enterprise has just been outmanoeuvred by them. And then a pretty silly trick is used to resolve everything.
The much better B plot doesn’t have very much time on screen, but the conversation between Picard and Wesley advances both of their characters well.
Overall pretty bad.
149 down, 588 to go.