By 
Title: The Big Goodbye
Airdate: 1/11/1988
Plot Summary
Picard is stressing out having to make a greeting to an insect race, the Jarada, in their own language. If he doesn’t do it perfectly, he will offend the race and relations will not be possible. Deanna, who has been coaching him, finally tells him he needs to relax, there’s only so much you can study. He takes the opportunity to visit the holodeck with a new holonovel based on his boyhood hero, Dixon Hill.
Unfortunately a Jarada scanning beam causes the holodeck to malfunction trapping Picard, Data, Crusher, and the ship’s historian Whelan in the program. When Whelan gets shot thanks to the holodeck safeties being off, the rest of the crew works frantically to free the captain and crew before the rest get killed by gangsters looking for “the item.”
Make It So
Picard really enjoys the Dixon Hill mysteries. He is positively giddy about the whole thing and really loves getting into the whole thing. He’s completely oblivious to Crusher’s obvious interest in him at first and invites Whelan and Data along. But then when he sees her in the 40s get-up, he invites her to his office and really realizes his mistake when Data wants to tag along.
Number 1
Riker spends most of the episode looking worried and stalling for time with the Jarada.
Fully Functional
Data really embraces 1940s vernacular and the general overall vibe. In his research though, he forgot to look up how floor lamps work.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
I think Worf’s in this. Somewhere.
Phase Inducers
Geordi helps with the holodeck and guides Wesley on finding the issue.
Counselor Cleavage
Troi helps Picard with the greeting to the Jarada and encourages him to take a break, which is what kicks all this off. She also gently mentions to Riker about letting Wesley help with his mother being trapped.
Dancing Doctor
Crusher doesn’t know how gum works. Good thing it disappears when she leaves the holodeck. Right? RIGHT?!
When Picard asks her to join him on the holodeck, you can tell she’s pretty thrilled about it, thinking they are finally going out on a date. Then he invites Whelan and she’s… less… thrilled.
Security Chief Dead Meat
Yar is there to open up comms and stuff.
Shut Up, Wesley
Wesley is the one who looks over the holodeck because he read the manuals. Riker initially says no but relents when he realizes that Wesley’s mother is also trapped.
Canon Maker
We really get more of how the holodeck works. This definitively shows that holodeck matter cannot exist outside of the holodeck. We also see that safety protocols are a thing and that they can be shut off, or at least malfunction.
Canon Breaker
I’m not sure about this one. In The Big Goodbye, Picard comes into the holodeck wearing his starfleet uniform, which all the characters notice. In future episodes and series, it’s really unclear whether or not the holodeck characters see the crew as they are or as the characters they are playing, regardless of what they are wearing. While most of the crew will take the time to put on a costume or period clothes, I always got the feeling it was for the immersive experience rather than tipping off the holodeck characters.
Wesley mentions that the reset of the holodeck could cause everything in there to disappear. The way he says it, it sounds like he was including the people trapped in there as well. I think what the writers were actually trying to get across that let’s say they are elevated in a building, if everything disappears, they could fall to the floor and get really hurt or killed. Things like that, not that they would also disappear. Or maybe it was what they meant but retconned it later.
A Little Bloody Nose
No one dies, but Whelan gets shot.
Technobabble
The holodeck can not only recreate worlds, but can also really create the illusion of distance. Some of the characters were quite a bit further away from each other briefly than the actual size of the holodeck.
Holodeck characters can find out they are fictional and not real. Whether or not this is something that can happen or part of the malfunctions is unknown.
Library Computer
Apparently Lawrence Tierney was a complete prick to the cast, even calling Will Wheaton a gay slur for not playing sports. Based.
I Know That Guy:
The aforementioned Lawrence Tierney played Cyrus Redblock. He’s great in the part, playing a gangster who believes he’s a bit more cultured and smarter than he really is. He’s a thug but he likes to pretend he’s above it. He’s been in a lot of film noir back in the 40s and had a career resurgence in Reservoir Dogs. However he’s also an immense prick, my joke about him being based notwithstanding. During that movie, Tarantino had him fired because he pointed a gun at his nephew, among other antics.
Rhonda Aldrich plays Hill’s secretary, whose name she’ll get in later episodes as Madelyn. She appears a few more times in the series in the same role.
David Selburg plays Whelan. He had a solid career and would also return to Trek as an Ocampa in Voyager and a Vulcan captain in Enterprise.
Harvey Jones plays Leech doing his best Peter Lorre. He did a ton of guest shots on TV in various shows.
William Boyett played Dan Bell, the “bad cop” who interrogates Picard… sorry.. Dixon Hill. He pretty much had a solid career of playing that same basic character.
Gary Armagnac plays McNary, the good cop. This is probably his most known role.
Finally we get the great Dick Miller as the newspaper vendor. He’s been in a ton, mostly Joe Dante films. In Trek, he’ll be back in DS9 in the two parter Past Tense. Who doesn’t already love Dick Miller?
What It Means To Be Human – Review
We have our first proper holodeck episode and for the most part they get it right. There are few things that don’t make sense or don’t really jibe with what we’ll see later. For one, the idea that the crew would be so giddy and silly, with no idea on how things work in the past is not what happens later on. The fish out of water gags really grate, like Crush swallowing a stick of gum or everyone wanting to get interrogated. They focus on the silly and not the actual point of the story. This is not how people will act moving forward.
The other thing that will not be cleared up very well is how smart are holodeck characters? In 11001010 which is coming up, Riker is astounded at how Minuet is so lifelike in her reactions. But I don’t see anything here that lets me believe the characters here are just dumb npc’s. They even become aware that they are fictional characters.
In the future, things tossed out of the holodeck will immediately disappear as they move across the entrance threshold. But Cyrus and Leech are actually able to step out in the hallway before very slowly dissolving.
I suppose for this one, the incongruities can be explained by the malfunction but that’s probably a stretch. The way the characters interact in the holodeck can’t be explained so easily in any case.
Still, the foundation of how it works and the magic of the holodeck is pretty solid. We get the standard trope of the safety protocols being turned off, something I can’t call a canon breaker since it happens so much but I do question why that’s a thing that can even happen! What if they turned off the protocols and then replicated the engine room to simulate a warp core breach? Would the ship explode?
Whelan is there to be a redshirt and get shot. The rest of the guest stars really do well in their 40s characters. And hey kids, it’s Dick Miller! Tierney’s Redblock is so good, he could’ve been his own show. The ending goes from Picard telling the friendly cop he has no idea whether he would still be there, nor his wife and kids, when Picard leaves the holodeck. It’s a pretty heady moment. They immediately go to the next scene with Picard grunting and blathering the insect language and a lot of jokes. I would’ve liked that they just ended it with the holodeck going dark, or if there had to be a coda, maybe Picard in his ready room, Troi or whoever congratulating him on the greeting that we don’t see and then him more philosophical about what he experienced in the holodeck, with a little more melancholy. The comic coda really takes the air out of a great ending in the holodeck.
Overall, a pretty decent way to introduce the holodeck properly. While they still have a kink or two to work out, it’s still a reasonably entertaining episode and by season 1 standards, it’s a great episode.
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