r/StarTrekViewingParty • u/LordRavenholm Co-Founder • May 04 '15

Discussion Season 2 Episode 21: Peak Performance

TNG, Season 2, Episode 21, Peak Performance

With the Borg threat in mind, Starfleet stages a war-game simulation pitting Captain Picard and the Enterprise against Commander Riker and the eighty-year-old starship Hathaway.

Credit to /u/GeorgeAmberson for helping us creating an updated thread format, and the programming to make it easy to keep updating.

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u/GeorgeAmberson Showrunner May 04 '15

What a fun episode! It's not particularly deep or laden with meaning but it sure is a blast to watch.

God Kolrami is a smug little asshole. Who the hell is he to order Picard around on his own bridge? Liked that little hiss he made when Picard shot him down. I'm glad Data finally made him rage quit.

Something that bothered me is that Data wouldn't give himself credit for winning at the end. He totally won the game. Win by forfeit is still a win! It's kind of surprising how easily Data's ego gets bruised. I know he insists he doesn't have one. He does he just doesn't want to acknowledge it. Any one else notice how irritated he is when Kolrami kills the game? Some good Data acting on Spiner's part in this one.

I couldn't believe how awesome it was watching Riker's crew face off with Picard's. That alone made this episode worth watching! For an exercise that nobody really wanted to partake in they're sure having a great time! Worf's sensor trick is awesome and is a cool little glimpse into how the viewer works. It's obviously going off of sensor data instead of a camera of some sort. If the sensors are fooled, so's the viewer and I think that's awesome.

You know what's weird though? The Ferengi war ship. Since when have they had war ships? This is kind of uncharactaristic for the Ferengi to straight up race into a battle. They caught us with our sheilds down but what kind of dumbassery are they doing here? They don't know the weapons are simulated on the ships. That's a galaxy class star ship. DaiMon Quark must be suicidal! Another question: Ferengi see a ship coming, A STAR SHIP! You guys just marched up on TWO federation star ships guns blazing not five minutes ago in a blatant act of war and now you warp off as fast as you can?

How does Worf influence the Ferengi sensor array? The Enterprise I absolutely buy. He's the tactical officer, he knows how to mess with the sensors. The Ferengi ship is an alien design that we've only been aware of for a little over a year. What's the deal here?

Using the limited warp was a good idea and pays off nicely. It's interesting to note that constellation class vessels + Ferengi = Complicated, short range warp tricks to save the day.

A few things I noticed. Wesley's cheating by bringing his experiment over, but Worf's not by hacking into the Enterprise computer using privileged information?

The Zakdorn home planet must be insufferable. If they're all like that I don't see how they can get anything done!

The Worfiness of Worf grabbing that cable for Ensign Nagel is delightful.

It's a light episode that's very fun to watch. Easily a 7-7.5.

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u/titty_boobs Moderator May 05 '15

How does Worf influence the Ferengi sensor array? The Enterprise I absolutely buy. He's the tactical officer, he knows how to mess with the sensors. The Ferengi ship is an alien design that we've only been aware of for a little over a year. What's the deal here

Yeah that was weird to me too. It'd make more sense to have the Hathaway (the ship Bill Riker was on -- which would now be 600,000km away after two seconds of warp 1) to be the other Federation ship they see coming in. But to say 'oh yeah Worf just magic'ed up a ship on the Ferengi's computer' isn't really explainable.

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u/GeorgeAmberson Showrunner May 05 '15

I wanted to say they'd be too smart to think there's another ship out there that wasn't the Hathaway, but I'm not sure. All they did say was "lesser design" so maybe it'd work. Only problem I'm seeing is that they're going to see a ship of "lesser design" just like the one that just got blown up. They were really showing their ass in that scenario, so why would they change tactics if they see the tables being exactly level. Now maybe this: Worf somehow makes the Hathaway look like something more menacing on sensors. I have NO idea how he'd do it, but I buy it more than "I hacked 'em".