Star Trek 424: One Little Ship

424. One Little Ship

FORMULA: (The Terratin Incident + Rascals + The Next Phase) x 0.005

WHY WE LIKE IT: A runabout in personal combat.

WHY WE DON'T: The Alphas suck!

REVIEW: After the pretty serious last episode, it's time for a little silliness. Don't ask too many physics questions - especially in regards to how the characters get back to normal based on onscreen dialogue - sit back and have fun. The show certainly does, with Kira getting the giggles from the premise in the teaser, and Odo making Bashir and O'Brien believe they've lost a couple inches in the epilogue. Worf's poem isn't half bad either.

Dumb fun, but still some real jeopardy and advancement of the Dominion War story. The Defiant is hijacked by Jem'Hadar, most of them a new Alpha Quadrant breed. It's an interesting notion, though they never prove just how they are better at fighting in the AQ. Not reciting the Oath of Loyalty is hardly a noteworthy innovation. Maybe I would've ended their reliance on the White? Whatever they are, they're filled with the arrogance of youth. Your loyalties consistently remain with the Gamma, and so do the creators', with the First getting an unceremonious death at Worf's hands.

The tiny runabout's role in freeing the ship is well-executed for the most part (seems like it should be seen by the Jem'Hadar in some spots), with the rest of the crew still doing most of the work, but with a helping hand from parts unknown. It's not a case of Picard singlehandedly freeing his ship as a child. There's a real team effort from the entire cast, while the tiny crew does its best to think itself out of problems. The optronic forest is a fun and even impressive set. The ramifications of being so small seem to make sense even if the initial anomaly doesn't. And hey, once they get into a firefight and throw micro-torpedoes at Jem'Hadar, it's not like can start complaining.

LESSON: Starfleet engineers should worry less about where a 1 cm man can get fried and more about how a 1.8 m man can get fried sitting at a computer keyboard.

REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Silly and fun, but with some good action and suspense nonetheless. It's a shame the Alphas couldn't rise to the occasion, deflating the premise behind their creation.