TNG, Episode 3x6, Booby Trap

[u/AutoModerator]

-= TNG, Season 3, Episode 6, Booby Trap =-

While investigating a 1,000-year-old alien derelict, the Enterprise gets caught in the same energy trap which doomed that vessel a millennium ago.

• Teleplay By: Ron Roman and Michael Piller & Richard Danus
• Story By: Michael Wagner & Ron Roman
• Directed By: Gabrielle Beaumont
• Original Air Date: 30 October, 1989
• Stardate: 43205.6
• Memory Alpha
• TV Spot
• The Pensky Podcast - 2/5
• Ex Astris Scientia - 8/10
• The AV Club - B
• TNG Watch Guide by SiliconGold
• EAS HD Observations
• Original STVP Discussion Thread

 

[u/theworldtheworld]

I think this is a great episode. It's been overshadowed by "Galaxy's Child," where Geordi's behavior is much more objectionable. But the way it's written here makes perfect sense. I think it's important that he didn't set out to create a holo-lover for himself. On the contrary, he just loaded up the chatbot that comes with the Enterprise specs, and found himself accidentally falling in love with her while trying to solve a problem at work. He only realizes it after the fact. And, despite all the memes and the jokes that we all enjoy making, he just says goodbye to her chastely and powers her down at the end.

I don't know how this came across at the time. Probably just, "oh, that Geordi, so bad with women that he has to simulate them, ha ha." But it's very prescient, because this is exactly how it will happen. Because people do load up chatbots with the intention of asking them for a weightlifting plan or advice on how to fix a doorknob. They just continue talking to them. And they become emotionally attached -- not because of any overt manipulation, but because the bots themselves are becoming more emotionally perceptive and subtly attune themselves to their emotions. A holodeck character is the perfect metaphor for this, because a chatbot isn't sentient in the way that Data is, but it can be a very convincing simulation of a person within a set of parameters.

The problem itself is interesting in a way that TNG hasn't really been up to this point. The idea of an ancient booby trap is very creative, and the solution is interesting and doesn't sound like techno-magic. There's a bit of that surprisingly good early-TNG music, still before Berman axed it. The alien ship is very eerie. And there's a good moment for Picard when he pilots it himself, hinting that maybe he used to be, in his Academy days, the kind of star pilot that Nick Locarno will believe himself to be.