By 
Title: The Arsenal Of Freedom
Airdate: 4/11/1988
Plot Summary
The USS Drake reported missing near the planet Minos. The Enterprise goes to investigate and finds an automated system is trying to sell them weapons by demonstrating its capabilities. This puts not only the away team in danger, but the Enterprise itself. With most of the bridge crew on the planet, Geordi must fight the battle above. He cannot lower the shields until he neutralizes the threat and the longer it takes, the more danger the away team is in.
Make It So
Picard falls in a hole with Beverly and in a nice role reversal, he has to try to be the doctor for her, with her giving instructions.
Number 1
Riker gets frozen for a good part of the episode. Mostly he just shoots at the robot guns. We also find out that Riker turned down the Drake, the first of three commands he’ll turn down to stay in the opening credits. I mean to stay on the Enterprise.
Fully Functional
Data gives a lot of good information and can jump down quite a distance without any issues. We’ll see him do that later. He also has a moment when one of the devices fires on him, he takes Yar and slings her like a javelin. Yar seemed none the worse for wear but watching it, it looked really far.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
When asked how fast Worf can lock onto a target, Worf just replies, “Fast.” Good enough for Geordi.
Phase Inducers
Geordi takes command of the ship when Riker, Picard, and Data are on the planet. I don’t know if that technically makes him third in command or just what was necessary in the moment. He does a pretty good job for his first command and doesn’t even get sick! He handles leadership very well.
Counselor Cleavage
Troi does a weird job, albeit a positive one, in counseling Geordi. She comes in like she’s going discuss how badly he’s doing, to the point that Geordi cuts her off and admits all of it. But she says he’s doing fine, he just needs to give his strength to his officers.
Dancing Doctor
Crusher falls down a hole and get pretty injured. We find out about her grandmother and how she taught Beverly herbal medicine. We going to meet the grandmother in possibly one of the worst episodes of TV every created. Not just Trek, I mean all of entertainment.
Security Chief Dead Meat
Yar is pretty on the ball in this one. She decides to keep the initial party small, probably a good idea given what they found. She also develops quick strategy to keep destroying the probes.
Shut Up, Wesley
No Wesley again.
Canon Maker
The chief engineer in TOS, Scotty in that case, was always third in command. In the TNG era, even though the engineer outranks Geordi, he does not take command, much to his chagrin. But that’s just his ego talking. In truth it makes a helluva lot more sense that a bridge officer, someone who is always up there and has a pretty good idea just from osmosis what to do, should take command. The chief engineer should stay in the engine room and keep those engines working. This would become the de facto standard when we got to season 2. I don’t think I ever saw Geordi take the conn again.
Canon Breaker
It appears that the thing that went after the away team is the same type thing that went after the ship. If that’s the case, I can’t believe the things on the planet wouldn’t have smoked the away team immediately, if they were designed to go after starships. It’s possible that they have different designs for planet battles than space battles.
There is no reason for Picard to go down to the planet. Possibly Dr. Crusher but not Picard. It was just contrived to let Geordi command. Troi even calls him on it and he just says “noted.” He has no explanation why.
The shields came up automatically without any commands. That has never happened before and will never happen again. While it does make sense if you think about it, it’s just not how it works.
Why did the one in space keep going after the Enterprise after Picard successfully ended the demonstration?
A Little Bloody Nose
Surprisingly, no one died. Well the entire planet of Minos destroyed themselves, but that wasn’t the Enterprise’s fault.
Technobabble
Dragging a ship into the atmosphere is a great way to nullify a cloak.
We get what I think is a great use of starship separation. Here they take off away from the planet to get close to a starbase, separate, send the saucer to continue on to the starbase with the civilians and children, and then take the stardrive section back to battle. This makes a ton of sense and not sure why they didn’t do it more.
Please Repeat You Communication
“Your ship is the Enterprise, isn’t it?”
“No, my ship is the Lollipop.”
“I have no knowledge of that ship.”
“It was just commissioned, it’s a good ship.”
— “Paul Rice” asking Riker about his ship and Riker doing a deep cut to a very old song.
Library Computer
The shot when Riker turns his back to Rice and replies to Picard’s communication, “Understood,” will be reused in the series finale.
I Know That Guy:
Vincent Schiavelli plays The Peddler. From One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest to Fast Times At Ridgemont High to Ghost, tons of TV appearances, and even a lot of voice acting, this man is a legend and was taken from us way too soon at the far too young age of 57.
Marco Rodríguez plays the image of Captain Paul Rice. He’s had a fairly solid career of guest stars. He’ll return in TNG as a cardassian.
Vyto Ruginis plays the snotty Chief Engineer Logan. He’s the fourth Chief Engineer we’ve seen. He played in the first episode of the show Angel and is another steadily working, but mostly just another anonymous actor.
Julia Nickson is the green Ensign Lian T’Su. She was the Vietnamese girl in the second Rambo movie.
Finally George De La Peña as Lt. Solis. He’s done a smattering of acting parts but he’s mostly a dancer and choreographer.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
This is a pretty good episode by season one standards but still not great. Part of the problem is the contrivances of getting Picard down to the surface, by which I mean there isn’t any. He just goes just so we can have Geordi do the whole “first command, no one believes in him” trope.
Then there’s the hole Picard and Beverly fall down. She’s terribly injured and they conveniently can’t find her medkit which I don’t buy for a second. Again, contrived so they can have the whole Beverly backstory thing.
Then the comms go out for no particular reason so we can manufacture some more tension.
Still, if you can past all that, the rest of the execution isn’t the worst. Yar comports herself well. Data jumping 10 meters into the hole was cool.
Geordi’s command was fairly good. He has an issue, then makes good decisions, especially to separate the saucer and protect the non-Starfleet personnel.
Finally, Vincent Schiavelli’s performance is worth the whole episode. He’s just perfect as a weapons salesman, even if he isn’t a real person.
I did like Picard’s solution. He just decides to “buy” it and demonstration ceases. Genius in its simplicity. Overall it’s an ok episode with some good parts that are really good but brought down by contrivances that are really bad.
The post Trek On: THE ARSENAL OF FREEDOM appeared first on Last Movie Outpost.
