Star Trek 245: Ship in a Bottle

245. Ship in a Bottle

FORMULA: Remember Me + Elementary, Dear Data + Hollow Pursuits

WHY WE LIKE IT: Moriarty's back! Barclay too! The Philip K. Dick ending!

WHY WE DON'T: Stephanie Beacham mugging for the camera.

REVIEW: Hey! A bottle show that actually calls itself that! It's also the Barclay episode we tend to forget is a Barclay episode. Maybe because it doesn't concentrate on his insecurities (though they're there). No, we remember this one because of the one mechanical life form let down by Picard - Professor Moriarty. Now he's back and playing for keeps. A great, sympathetic villain, Moriarty is crisply written and someone you really want to see succeed, so long as no one dies.

His plan is ingenious to say the least, leading to an even more clever ploy by Picard and crew. It really comes together like a Philip K. Dick story, with reality being most earnestly in question (Picard's speech about being in a box in someone's living room borders on the hokey, however). When you already know the twist, the story is no less interesting and the clues are much more subtle than they usually are. Did I catch Crusher using her tricorder wrong? Did you think Troi was wearing a proper uniform because Jellico got through to her? (Actually, here's hoping she wears it more often in real life.)

Usually the flaw in something like this would be in a techie B-plot, but the stellar collision is just a backdrop here, and very pretty. TNG is really giving us some nice stellar visuals. No, the flaw has to be the Countess, who may or may not be as well written as Moriarty, but whose performance is just too mannered to be believed. I guess she really is just a holodeck character, and a shallow one at that.

LESSON: Left-handers are evil. I mean, the other hand is RIGHT, isn't it? So "left" is just another word for WRONG!

REWATCHABILITY - High: Very clever, and rewatchable thanks to some strong performances and the never dull Barclay.