Truth Or Myth? Error, Error, Mistakes - TNG S3 Pt1

Truth Or Myth? Error, Error, Mistakes – TNG S3 Pt1

Hello and welcome to another episode of Error Error mistakes, Truth or Myth?   In today’s episode, we’re taking a fun and fast look at the mistakes made in episodes 1-6 of Season 3 of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

As always, Just a little reminder, if you want to explain away any of the mistakes in this video, then it has to be with in-universe canon explanations only. So Novels, Video games, Tech Manuals and that and that guy with knives for fingers, that sometimes shows up in your nightmares, are not valid sources to explain away any of the mistakes…

And so, with all that out of the way, let us begin!

Evolution
(CBS) Dr. Stubbs & Wesley Crusher – “Evolution”
Evolution

For this the premiere episode of season 3 of TNG Titled Evolution, there are of course a few General Changes to show, such as the Change in uniforms, a step up from the 1 piece pyjama looks and the things such as the shuttle bays now suddenly having enclosed control rooms, rather than the standing consoles on the shuttlebays landing decks.

For the purposes of this mistakes videos however, these changes will not be further discussed, nor considered mistakes, as they could have easily been changed in the period of time between Season 2’s episodes Shades of Grey and this one.

When the episode opens, we see the U.S.S. Enterprise in Geo-synchronous orbit of the stars, then we switch to a scene where shuttlebay 2 is preparing to launch Dr Stubbs‘ Egg, The problem here is that the way the Enterprise is facing, there’s no way the Shuttlebay would have a view of the 2 stars, yet there they are, and not only that, all the exterior shots of the ship, show the shuttlebay 2 doors is closed…

When Picard and Riker are in the Readyroom discussing the evolving situation, see what I did there, the rush out on to the bridge after they smell something odd.  it turns out, the bridge is being flooded with poisonous gas, and the entire bridge crew are coughing like crazy. Riker then heads up to the Environment console and flips the manual air controllers on and the smoke clear.  The question, is Riker the only one who knows how to do this?  Why didn’t ANYONE else on the bridge try this as soon as they detected the gas?

Picard’s decision to allow the Nanites to take over data deserves a little scrutiny as well.  Data is an android, and contains a great deal of knowledge on both the federation and the Enterprise itself.  Add to that his enhanced features, such as strength, and you can begin to see it’s kind of an odd choice.

Sure, you could say well “the ship was at risk,” or, “he had no choice,” but the truth is he DID have a choice.  If things had gotten so bad, he could have simply killed the little buggers as Stubb’s did.  To allow these Nanites, whose intentions are unclear, access to data, was quite a dubious decision regardless of the circumstances, especially when you consider Data’s ability to easily take over the ship, and potentially infect the entire Federation, see TNG’s episode “Brothers”.

The Ensigns of Command
(CBS) Gosheven, Ard’rian McKenzie & Data – “The Ensigns of Command”
The Ensigns of Command

There’s a strange occurrence in this episode that has always bothered in regards to subspace communications.  At times, the enterprise is so distant that subspace messages can take days to reach their destination and for them to get a reply back, and this makes sense given the vast distances of space.  Yet sometimes, from one episode to the next, they can suddenly communicate instantaneously.

Normally, I can overlook this problem as from episode to episode, the Enterprise could technically be warping all around, not necessarily heading in a straight line outwards, but this is an episode where I can’t ignore this occurrence because both situations happen within the episode. At one point, Picard orders Worf to contact the Sheliak Home World.  Worf says, it will take some time, as their homeward is really far away.  And again that makes sense, as the only reason for Worf to say that, would be if it affected Communications IE a delay.  Otherwise, he could just open hailing frequencies directed at the homeworld and Bamb, you’ve got the Sheliak on your party line.

Yet when they do make contact with the homeworld, communication is in fact instantaneous, so why exactly would contacting them take some time?  Either way, you look at it, it just doesn’t make sense. Someones been playing with the shuttlecraft names in this episode.  Shuttlecraft 05, the one Data Pilots to the planet is named the Onizuka, yet in the Season 2 episode Time Squared, shuttlecraft 5 is named El-Baz.

The Survivors
(CBS) Picard, Rishon & Kevin Uxbridge – “The Survivors”
The Survivors

Ok, Kevin Uxbridge‘s powers make no sense what so ever in this episode. When the Enterprise arrives at the planet, Kevin sends music to scramble Troi’s Brain, and later on, the starship he creates is able to exactly match the Enterprises acceleration.  in order to do these things, Kevin would have to be able to sense both the Enterprise and it’s individual crew members. If he couldn’t, not only could he not do the things I’ve already mentioned, but he wouldn’t be able to have the ship he created to interact with the Enterprise, IE firing at it, since he wouldn’t know where the Enterprise was in Space or in orbit.

So then why, whenever the Enterprise crew members beam down to the surface, is Kevin surprised?  If his great powers allow him to kill entire races through out the galaxy, meaning he has to sense them as well, should he be able to tell when someone beams down 10 meters from him? evidently, the writers of this episode also noticed this problem, as they even had Picard address it head-on, but not coming up with an answer to it, they merely left it floating there for the audience.

Watch Laforge after Picard reveals Kevin’s true nature.  Kevin transforms and dematerializes, yet before he does that, Laforge is already looking at the Turbolift and then says, Kevin is in it.  So how exactly did LaForge know that was the particular turbolift Kevin would use?

Who Watches The Watchers
(CBS) Picard, Oji & Lika – “Who Watches The Watchers”
Who Watches The Watchers?

This episode is a great outing into the Star Trek universe, even if it does tend to slap the audience with its messages in quite an obvious fashion.  And though I tried very hard to find mistakes in this episode, I really couldn’t find any, though there is one single oddity that ill point out here, as some of you would thoroughly chastise me if I didn’t.

At the end of the episode, Picard says Dr Crusher has cured the injury he had sustained by the Mitankan who had shot an arrow at him.   Yet, when we see him on the planet, he’s wearing a sling.  Why is he wearing a sling exactly?

I mean we’ve seen advanced Starfleet medicine in the past, where people who are injured far more extensively than Picard was in this episode, get up from a biobed after a few waves of a doctors magic wand.  So really the sling itself, doesn’t make any sense.

The Bonding
(CBS) Jeremy Aster – “The Bonding”
The Bonding

So this is a really weird episode.  it is uneven, sometimes ridiculous, plot elements are due to Gene Roddenberry’s interference in the episode, as Gene believed by the 24th century, no one would grieve at death.  And this even included children.  And so Jeremy, when seen through out the episode seems to have a stiff upper lip and be more excepting of his mother’s death than you or I would be. 

Michael Pillar, who did extensive rewrites of this episode along with Melinda Snodgrass, would do their best to get around genes objections, by making his non-grieving a plot element of sorts, but in the end, it just doesn’t really work very well at all. In the episode, Picard is attempting to convince the planets aliens that Jeremy will be well looked after by humanity and the crew of the Enterprise.  Yet the aliens seem to be unconvinced more often than not.

Well, no wonder they aren’t convinced.  here we have this boy, who lost his father, and just now lost his mother, and what do they do?  they leave him alone in his quarters to sort the whole mess out.  Does this seem like a “well cared for” scenario? The scene where Worf is confronted by Jeremy about his mother’s death is a complete mess.  Watch Jeremy through out the scene as we get different shots of him throughout and you’ll see his arm jerks about like nobodies business from shot to shot. Also, you’ll notice he goes from kneeling to sitting to kneeling to sitting again also through the shots.  like I said, a mess…

At the end of the episode, there’s a strange little oddity.  During the ceremony with Worf, Worf lists off a Klingon Phrase and then Jeremy asks what it means, Worf explains it, and then Jeremy, a 12-year-old boy, rattles the phrase off back to Worf.  The oddity here is that Jeremy is able, after only hearing it once, and then having a conversation in between, to perfectly pronounce the phrase back to Worf.  this just seems a little bit unbelievable.

Booby Trap
(CBS) Geordi La Forge – “Booby Trap”
Booby Trap

Ok, so this is one of those guilty pleasure episodes for me, as I actually really like the episode, but there are some huge problems with it.

First, we find out at the beginning of the episode, that the Enterprise is charting the battle at Orelious 9, where 2 Species fought to their mutual extinction. Now Orelious 9 is a planetary designation, so that means all the asteroid debris we see, was once a planet, and the destructive battle somehow destroyed the planet, which lends credence to the idea of Mutual destruction. But then this begs the question, if Orelious 9 was the final, mutually destructive battle, meaning both sides were pretty much wiped out except 1 Promellian Battlecruiser, then who the heck put the Aceton Assimilators in the planetary debris AFTER the battle?

Second, it’s very hard to believe that during the 1000 years after the battle, that no one else found the Promellian Battlecruiser, and we know for sure they didn’t, as there are no other starships drifting about the planetary debris.

Third, why is the Promellian Battlecruiser sending out a distress signal anyhow?  did they really want to lure another starship to its death?  if they did, there’s no indication of that, rather it’s the opposite.

Fourth, the assimilators whole premise is that they drain all power from a ship, yet miraculously, after 1000 years, the battlecruiser still has enough power to send out a distress single.  And not only that, but it still has enough power to maintain life support aboard the ship.  That’s one heck of a battery…

Fifth, close to the end of the episode, LaForge says they are going to shut everything down except for 2 thrusters, that’s 2 thrusters.  Yet Picard, while attempting to escape the trap ends up using 3 thrusters, Port, Starboard and Starboard aft.

Actually, the shots of the enterprise firing its thrusters are a mess as well.  When the Enterprise fires its Starboard Thruster, we see an exhaust stream.  Yet when it fires the Port Thruster, there’s no stream.

Finally, what happened to Picard’s belief that the Battlecruiser belonged in a Museum?  At the end of the episode, Picard orders the starship destroyed, to prevent anyone else from falling into the Booby Trap.  Does this make sense?

After all, we know Starfleet has beacons, so why not just set up a bunch of them to warn starships off, while Starfleet sends a science team to investigate the area, and figure out how to deactivate the Booby Trap and recover the ship. 

(CBS) Dr Leah Brahms – “Booby Trap”

Anyways, destroying the battlecruiser itself doesn’t assure that another starship won’t fall into the trap, as anyone could be out investigating the debris and simply get caught up in it.  At least with beacons, this would greatly reduce that chance. Actually, what’s even more bizarre about this scene is Riker orders Worf to fire torpedoes and specifically says for Worf to set the torpedoes to detonate on impact with the Battlecruiser.  but when we see the shot of the torpedoes firing, Worf destroys the Aceton Assimilators around the Battlecruiser, presumably to take them out of commission. This means AGAIN the Battlecruiser didn’t have to be destroyed, as the Enterprise could have just destroyed the assimilators and recovered the vessel.

Just one last little note about this episode.  When LaForge requests more information on Dr Leah Brahms, he gets a screen with her name, space and then all her biographical information.  What’s odd here is the lack of a picture of the good doctor.  You’d think there would certainly be one on file, given her importance as apparently, she wrote the book on the Enterprise’s engines, and besides, Starfleet seems to always be quite fictitious about its records.  Yet thanks to the story requiring LaForge to be swept off his feet by her beauty, suddenly, the main computer decides to omit the profile picture from her record.

Thank you for watching today’s episode of Truth OR Myth.  Have an explanation for any of the mistakes I’ve listed here?  Or did you see one I’ve missed?  Leave a comment in the section below.  But don’t be fooled into thinking that it will be an easy task to change my mind about any of these, I’ve thoroughly researched each one and considered all the options to explain them away from that I could come up with… 

But I look forward to hearing ALL your theories!… Also Don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to channel

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Thanks again for watching…  Live Long and Prosper…

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