The TREKKER Reviews


SERIES
The Next Generation
EPISODE
70
TITLE
The Most Toys
STARDATE
43872.2


A water supply has been contaminated on a Federation colony. Do they send a maintenance team? Do they send plumbers? Nope. They send the Federation flagship to go clean where no-one has cleaned before. The cure is to use hytritium which is so unstable that the transporters can't handle it. It should feel right at home on the bridge then. But what the transporters can't cope with, our plastic pal who's fun to be with, can!

One thing he can't cope with though is being zapped by a thumb printer. This is followed by analysis, and the destruction of his shuttle. Data is to be the crown jewel is the unique collection of Kivas Fajo. Fajo, like all creative types is of course a flake.

Having lost the only Sung-type android, in existence what does the Enterprise do? Rifle his stuff! Geordi and Wes can't even wait for his seat to cool before they are going through his gear and giving it away. With friends like that... Geordi of course can't accept the loss of Data, and doesn't believe it is pilot error. Geordi of course can't accept the loss of his vision either, so we'll probably see him die his skin green next.

Up on the bridge they're playing another game of "Pass the Worf". He is now expected to replace Data at ops. Previously he replaced Tasha Yar at tactical. I wonder who's next - maybe he'll get to replace laughing boy and the Enterprise will have an assertive first officer for a change.

Data, although he has a positronic brain, is not bound by the laws of robots, as he only has a "strong inhibition" to violence, and can use deadly force in defence. Wait a minute. Where have a heard that line before? Ah now I remember, I think it was a campaign speech for a U.S. politician... Data finds that while he cannot escape, he can make it hard for his captor, and does a passible imitation of a store dummy.

Back on the Enterprise, they have reached the colony and are preparing to drop of Class 2 probe loaded with the Hytritium into the water supply. OH MY GOD! A Class 2 probe! This first one ever used, and they're going to dunk it in a reservoir. The future really is a strange place.

Data has a silly expression. Ok, so this is nothing new, but this expression is remarkably silly. He is trying to duplicate the smile from the Da Vinci's enigmatic Mona Lisa. Fajo returns, and after pressing the SuperSecret™ button combination he pulls out a gun. A restricted gun. A Varon-T disrupter that's been banned in the Federation (and the audience goes oooohhh)! Data still won't comply with Fajo and sit in his chair, so Fajo threatens to kill Varria, one of his crew, with the disruptor. Data does it - the weenie.

The Enterprise has finally realised that the contamination was deliberate and that Data probably isn't gone. Go Team! We don't get there fast, but we get there in the end (sounds like a British Rail commercial).

Varria helps Data escape, and takes the disruptor. Fajo isn't happy and disrupts her - nasty. I think that it is vitally important that Riker doesn't get one of these weapons or none of his potential love interests are going to be more than a cloud of ionised gas. Data gets a disruptor, points it at Fajo and says: "I cannot permit this to continue", squeezes the trigger... and is transported out. O'Brien neutralises the weapon in transport, and when Data is asked if the weapon was discharged his gives one of the best non-denial denials that I have heard.

Roll Credits...

So it was character development for Data. It was also largely rubbish. The only good bit at all was where Data was going to waste the guy. Boring.


This review is Copyright © 1993, Phil Kernick.
Permission is granted for anyone to electronically distribute it - details available on request.