119. The Big GoodbyeFORMULA: A Piece of the Action + The Practical Joker + The Tholian Web
WHY WE LIKE IT: A well done period episode peppered with cute moments. And the Jarada rock! (Kinda.)
WHY WE DON'T: Those cute moments borrow on the characters' credibility.
REVIEW: This is the first episode to spend a considerable amount of time on the holodeck, and the first to feature speaking parts for the holograms, so we should be generous when watching The Big Goodbye. It does contradict a lot of what we learn about holodeck technology later, but in relatively minor ways which could be attributed to the Bynars upgrade seen later. Speaking of Bynars, this episode should really have been run after 11001001. It would have made Picard's glee and surprise at how real it all was work much better. I know they mention an upgrade here, but everyone seems a little too enthusiastic. (Regardless, the absence of a work crew outside the door at the end is messy directing.)
There's no real plot to the Dixon Hill scenario, but it's well produced. Great period musical cues, fairly good noir costumes and lighting, Crusher looks great, and Data's a lot of fun. I don't care much for Felix Leech, who's a terrible one-note character, but Lawrence Tierney does a great Cyrus Redblock. Totally hard as nails, but refined at the same time. Other characters are clichés in the Leech mold, though McNary is quite sympathetic at the end, with his questions about whether his wife and kids will still exist when Picard leaves the holodeck. That ending alone makes the episode worth watching. As for the B-plot, I wish they'd had the technology and budget to eventually show us the Jarada (I did enjoy the novel that showcased them, "Imbalance"). That language was loads of fun to deliver, I bet. :-)
But though I don't judge the holodeck physics too harshly, characters' behavior while in the holodeck are fair game. TNG had this annoying habit of telling us this was the future by making the characters 1) bash the 20th century, and 2) have them not recognize 20th century concepts and colloquialisms. Data, Yar and Worf are usually the ones to do the "dumb look and repeat the unknown word" routine, but here, even Picard doesn't know what Halloween is (among other things). Even if I believe that pulp fiction of Dixon Hill's quality (poor, from what we saw) survived 400 years to become a classic, and even if I believe that a man like Picard would have loved this stuff and read the entire canon, could I really believe he would be so clueless about the language of the era? Same goes for Data, who's read the whole thing and more, and can do a fair Bogey and explain the automobile, but doesn't figure out a lamp needs to be plugged in. Cute moment, just like Crusher with the piece of gum, or the South American android jokes, but as hard to swallow as that gum. I also have objections about the heavy flirtation between Crusher and Picard in this one, since it doesn't really jibe with their usual attitude.
LESSON: When I get a position on a starship, I want to be a literature historian. Seems pretty cushy (give or take a holographic bullet).
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Certainly enough to recommend, but the out-of-character exhuberance of the regulars in the first half can be annoying.
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