| The Next Generation | |
| 83 | |
| Final Mission | |
| 44307.3 | |
The Enterprise is once again acting as a mediator. This time on Pentarus 5. Give me a break - couldn't the writers come up with a slightly more original name for a planet? Oh well, it is a dispute with the miners. It must be stressing out Picard as he gets huffy with Wesley, but we do hear that great news that Wes is off the to acadamy. Yay!
As they are about to depart for the planet, a distress transmission comes in from a strange alien. She looks a bit like Garfield with snot dribbling out of her nose and down her chin - gross! Her planet is suffering from overdoses of radiation from a large orbiting ship, and she thinks that they must be under attack. If her face is a result of the radiation, the Enterprise should be there at warp 9 to make sure it doesn't get any worse.
While Riker takes the Enterprise to Garfield, Picard and Wes and a miner head down to the planet in his mining shuttle. Of couse the shuttle loses control and crashes them on a desert moon with no food or water. This sounds suspiciously like the plot of a TOS episode - Enterprise leaves, Kirk deals with the problem, Enterprise returns. Recycling has gone further in the future than we'd previously imagined.
The ship orbiting Garfield's world is a old generation ship loaded with radioactive waste. Riker decides that throwing it into the sun is their best bet. Unfortunately this involves getting really close to it, and like getting near Wesley, it's something that most sensible people don't want to do. Laughing Boy leaps at the chance. The Enterprise locks the tractor-beam on, and it takes all the skill of Ray Charles to hold it together at full impulse power.
On the moon, Wes sucks up to Picard unmercifully. Eventually, after trudging across the desert they reach a cave in a mountain side. It may be naturally formed by water says the mining captain. I don't think he can see straight because naturally water formed caves don't tend to have steps. Sheesh. Deep in the cave is a fountain, but not just any fountain, this one is protected by a force field and "Raider's of the Lost Ark" special effects.
While attacking the mining captian the sentinels dislodge some rocks destined for Wesley. Picard, in one of his less lucid moments pushes Wes out of the way and gets crushed. I'm sure that the last thoughts going through his mind before he passed into unconsciousness were: "Wait a minute, what am I doing?". The mining captain keeps attacking the fountain. First his phasor and then his body are completely wrapped in selenium strands. This is not only bad for the complexion, it is bad for the vitals, and the captain dies. This leaves us with Wes and the injured Picard.
In true James Bond style, the Enterprise clears the asteroid belt with only seconds left before they suffered a lethal radiation dose. Wait a minute - that means they have all suffered a near-fatal radiation dose, and with no side effects? Dying is optional in the future - you go from alive to dead immedately without the annoying bits in between.
Wes is losing it big time. "How many people get to serve with Jean-Luc Picard" he ponders. More than 1000 at the moment and the crew get rotated regularly. This is unlike the officers who just get shafted regularly. Wes has always wanted Picard to be proud of him, and everthing he has done has been to this end. What a waste.
After joyriding with radioactive waste, Riker brings the ship back and starts looking for Picard himself. I wonder if he thinks Starfleet will make him a captain again if Picard dies? Picard must be close as he says: "I envy you Wesley Crusher". Well that makes exactly one person in the know universe. Wes finally beats the sentry and gets the necessary water just as the crew get make it down to rescue them. On his stretcher Picard says: "Wesley, you will be missed". "Not by us" we all chime back.
