| The Next Generation | |
| 15 | |
| 11001001 | |
| 41365.9 | |
The Enterprise is going to see a mechanic for its 500 StarDate service. The mechanics are the Bynars - a race so attached to their computers that they are even more geeky than first-year computer scientists.
Since they have only 48 hours to complete the repairs they bring in a second pair of geeks to help with the work. Haven't they heard of Brooks' Law? Adding more programmers to a late job, just makes it later! Wesley is fascinated, as he has finally found someone more geeky that he is. The Bynars start shutting down unoccupied sections of the ship in preparation for the upgrade.
Data is trying to find out whether he can be creative, so Geordi is helping him to paint. Riker wanders in and giggles, as he thinks that it is hugely funny that a blind man is teaching an android to paint. I wonder how much he would be laughing with a visor stuffed where the sun doesn't shine?
Now that Riker has derided his bridge crew, he feels it is time to hone his skills on someone new - someone really new - a holodeck creation. The Bynars are playing with the holodeck and tell Riker that they have enhanced its capabilities. He asks for an intimate audience and gets a sultry red-head in a 1958 New Orleans sleaze-pit, just his style. He wipes the floor with his tongue on the way over to see Minuet - his new plaything.
Riker proves that while he is almost worthless as an officer, he is just about as good a trombone player - even his holodeck creations don't like it! Riker asks Minuet how far their relationship can go, but before he can fully explore that avenue, Picard barges in. Minuet croons to the captain in French, much to the disappointment of Riker, as it now looks like it will be a threesome.
Things are not going as well on the rest of the ship, as the anti-matter containment field is failing and the Enterprise looks like it will end its days as a torch. As a precaution, Data orders the immediate evacuation of the ship and programs a course away from all known inhabitated planets. He and Geordi are the last to leave, or so they think...
On the Starbase no-one has seen Riker or Picard and the Bynars are also conspicuous by their absence. As the Enterprise leaves the StarBase, the antimatter containment field stabilises and the Enterprise warps away. During all of this Riker, Picard and Minuet have been chatting in the holodeck.
After further idle banter, it becomes clear to Riker and Picard that they won't be getting any action out of Minuet, and so they attempt to leave to search for other conquests. She tries to stall them, and they finally realise that they have been hijacked. Their destination is Bynarus, much to no-one's surprise.
Finding that they have been denied access to the bridge, Riker and Picard head to the Enterprise's Weapons Room. Pardon? Weapons Room? That's what it said on the door anyway. They then head to engineering with their electric shavers and set the self-destruct. Isn't vandalism a crime in the 24th century?
They beam into the bridge, but there is no action there either, since the Bynars are lying unconscious on the floor. As there is no foe left to attack, they cancel the auto-destruct. I think they should have torched the geeks on the floor where they lay - teach them not to mess with Starfleet - but no, this is a caring and sharing Starfleet! Uggh.
The Bynarus main computer has been switched off, and with it all the little geeks. I wish it were that simple in RealLife™. Before they collapsed though, they managed to core-dump their world into the Enterprise. Not a bad trick, that one. So all they need is for someone to reload the data and reboot the machine. Reboot it with a few photon torpedoes to the planet's core would be the best way!
Our intrepid captain manages to do it with less hassles that rebooting a DecStation and flies the Enterprise back to the StarBase, where he graciously hands the Bynars over for a slap on their binary digits.
