Star Trek 578: Warhead

578. Warhead

FORMULA: Dreadnaught + Warlord + Prototype + The Changeling + Conundrum

WHY WE LIKE IT: Letting us think Harry is anywhere near the fast track.

WHY WE DON'T: The premise.

REVIEW: Harry seems to have a lot of leeway with his night shift command, taking the ship off course and getting kudos from the junior staff, but one can hardly begrudge him that. Is he finally on course for a promotion? Nah. It's just another guilt trip episode. Worse still, it has a ludicrous premise.

This is the one with the sentient missile. Well, they keep saying it's sentient, but given its fanatical drive to complete its programming, that's rather debatable. After a number of tedious scenes where it talks like R2D2 to the Doctor's C3PO, it manages to possess the EMH matrix for more tediousness. There's not much to its personality, frankly. One has to wonder why, if it really wasn't "programmed with superfluous data", it could have a conversation about where its limbs were or understand the context of sickbay. It's nonsense. Even the idea that you'd NEED a sentient weapon is unjustifiable (and in fact, seems to have created problems for its builders). Like a bad pun gone wrong.

So was this episode conceived just so we could see what a weapon of mass destruction would have to say? Not much of interest, as it turns out. Basically just a one-track mind that blindly follows its programming, then blindly ignores its programming (the order to stand down) and then suddenly abandoning its fixation after a few words from Harry. Are we supposed to feel for the thing when it sacrifices its existence to destroy the fleet or rogue missiles?

At least Voyager's crew tried its best with a con game (that doesn't work), but I'm not sure the Doctor should ever have been defending the thing's right to exist in the first place and brought it on board.

LESSON: Sometimes, there ISN'T a lesson to be gained.

REWATCHABILITY - Low: Dumb, dumb, dumb. Skip it and thank me later.