| The Next Generation | |
| 133 | |
| Rascals | |
| 46235.7 | |
Picard, Guinan, Keiko and Ro are returning from shore leave in a shuttle. It must have been too much effort to drag the Enterprise out of her parking orbit around nowhere in particular. When they are only minutes away from docking, the shuttle is enveloped in a strange energy field. She's breaking up... Chief O'Brien to the rescue - almost. He manages to beam them back, but they are now children! Amazingly their clothes have shrunk to fit. The greatest miracle though has to be Picard's artificial heart - I wonder where it went?
Picard, the now pint-sized dictator, discovers that running his fingers through his hair is far more interesting that running the ship, so he gives it to Riker. Chief O'Brien has become a paedophile with a 12 year old bride - or maybe he's David Koresh in disguise? To top off the silliness young Guinan and Ro romp on Ro's bed - they're jumping up and down on it of course! The Talking Heads song "Road to Nowhere", plays ominously in the background...
Bev's worked it out. The strange energy field was a MolecularReversionField™. Pardon? Was that yet another unknown particle or field raising its ugly head? Yep. This one managed to shield some vital RVN sequences from the crew and undid their adolescence. Amazingly it didn't do a thing to their brains, which makes you wonder what they were thinking with in their teenage years...
Meanwhile, the Enterprise is answering a distress call from a Federation research base. They get there to find... COMBAT! Two Klingon Birds of Prey uncloak and attack. The Enterprise returns fire, but once again proves that it isn't a battleship by being defeated. They are boarded by Ferengi! This is just getting silly.
The crew are being rounded up and transported to the planet to work as slaves in the mines, and so it is left for the kids to save the day. Picard has a tanty and wants to see his daddy. Laughing Boy is utterly shocked when it turns out to be him. An error with a time machine and a contraceptive I suppose. Picard gets the message across, and Riker releases the "games" computer to keep the children happy. "He's my number one Dad" croons Picard while they hug. Barf.
The children take command and manage to transport all the Ferengi into containment fields. All 7 of them. That's it. Seven Ferengi and two clapped out second hand Klingon ships defeated the Enterprise. Who dropped their clue? What was the writer smoking at the time?
In a leap of TrekTech™ unseen since it was outlawed in series two, the transporters manage to work a little genetic manipulation and restore the crew, clothes and all. Bollocks.
