Star Trek 213: The Game

213. The Game

FORMULA: Symbiosis + The Dauphin + Dagger of the Mind

WHY WE LIKE IT: Lefler's a charmer.

WHY WE DON'T: Gross orgasm scenes.

REVIEW: Wesley returns, and he saves the ship once more. That might've elicited a groan before, but given that he has the help of the charming Robin Lefler (Ashley Judd), we don't mind so much. You do have to buy the premise that Wesley wouldn't be interested in a game, but Picard would have tried it. And Worf. We don't know, they might've been tricked or forced. Wesley's motivation is actually believable because he's falling for a girl. Who cares about games just then?

The game is, as you know, addictive, and I'm sorry to say, makes everyone who plays it rather salacious and creepy. I really didn't need to see Riker's little sex games, so you can imagine how I feel about everyone faking orgasms. It's just icky. In a similar vein, I've always said I found Troi's sole hobby - chocolate - extremely boring. She gives a full explanation of the "chocolate experience" here and that should have a closed the books on it. Alas.

Aside from the "magical" nature of the game (it acts at different speeds, can work on any species, and none of the junkie-like behavior around you deters you from trying it - unless you're Wesley), the writing is also pretty lazy. Lefler's Laws, meant to be an interesting and endearing trait, are really just a collection of clichés, for example. Still, there are some good parts, including the effective and scary chase scene in the Jeffries tubes (Wesley must've crapped his pants when he saw Worf coming) and Wesley losing his virginity.

And then Robin Lefler was never heard from again... until Peter David's Excalibur books (but that's a story for another day).

LESSON: Games? Addictive? Has anyone ever died from playing World of Warcraft too long? Oh wait...

REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Robin Lefler is the heart and soul of this episode, but it's not written crisply enough to save it completely.