It is tempting to describe this episode as a one-hour long excuse for why the aliens in Star Trek are just ‘humans with bumpy noses and foreheads’. Very tempting…
It’s a fun chase sequence, in the tradition of a long range of movies. But once again the emotional content goes missing – Picard’s father figure dies – is murdered, in fact, but he reacts more to a piece of pottery than his death. The writing of TNG lately has been shying away from the deeper emotional resonance possible in some of the stories.
But it’s nice to finally have a ‘in universe’ explanation as to why all the alien races are so similar. We all know the real reason is because of the lack of alien actors in Hollywood, but it’s still nice to get a reason anyway.
However, it does seem a bit unrealistic that Picard can just run off with a whole starship and crew without even a ‘by your leave’ to Starfleet HQ.
267 down, 470 to go.