11 – Haven

Grade: D-

Summary

The Enterprise travels to a planet called Haven, to take some shore leave and allow the crew to relax. Someone on the planet’s surface transports an odd object that announces the upcoming wedding of Deanna Troi. Then, about 18 minutes into the episode, a Terellian ship shows up. The Terellians are all infected with a deadly disease.

Commentary

At first glance, this episode seems like a re-hash of Amok Time, the Original Series episode in which Spock takes the Enterprise back to Vulcan because of his upcoming wedding. But this really has nothing in common with the Original Series episode. In fact, Haven is terrible. But if we’ve learned anything about this first season it’s that most episodes are awful.

In the middle of the episode, for example, the parents of the bride and groom argue about everything. Then, Picard steps in and demands peace and quiet. But of course, the bickering continues and after Deanna finally has had enough and storms out, Data asks for more. Pretty stupid.

But the stupidity doesn’t end there. The acting is horrible, the directing is uninspired, and there is some extremely annoying melodramatic music in every supposedly serious scene. The problem is that the script and acting are so cheesy that it makes this episode one of the worst of the season.

I don’t want to give away the ending, but as soon as I found out that Wyatt Miller is a doctor, and that the Terellian ship is full of chronically ill passengers, I knew exactly what would happen. If you’re new to Star Trek, you might be surprised by the ending, but you most likely won’t be interested in this episode at all anyway.

Of Note

This is the second time in this season when Troi calls Commander Riker “Bill.” In fact, she calls him Bill twice – once when they’re alone and once when they’re with Wyatt Miller.