133 – Rascals

Grade: C+

Summary

Captain Picard, Keiko O’Brien, Ensign Ro, and Guinan are all returning to the Enterprise after having spent shore leave on a beautiful planet called Marlonia. When they get close to the Enterprise, they travel through some kind of storm which causes severe damage to the shuttle. Chief O’Brien is able to transport them back to the Enterprise, but the four of them return as 12 year old kids rather than as adults.

Commentary

Here’s yet another episode that is not my favorite. This seems to be pretty common so far this season. This episode really has some great acting and some very nice character moments which really is a breath of fresh air – especially considering there are four juvenile actors who have to carry most of the show. They did a fantastic job in their roles. It was very easy to see Picard, Ro, Guinan and Keiko in these actors. Very well done.

Unfortunately, though, this was about all there was to like in this episode. Oh, there were some funny moments here and there, like when young Picard throws a temper-tantrum, and when he complains about possibly being Wesley Crusher’s roommate at the Academy. It’s also kind of funny to see deal with being a 12 year-old. But the rest of the plot is so riddled with holes, that it made it very hard to enjoy it.

For example, why in the world would the four of them be going together on this trip? The four of them never spend any time together on the ship, except for Guinan and Picard, I guess. But Keiko and Ro Laren? No, it just seemed like they were all on the shuttle because it was required by the script.

Another example – so they go through this weird energy, and then they beam back as adolescents. Why did it take Dr Crusher and O’Brien (the transporter expert) so long to figure out that if they just reverse the process, they’ll return to their normal ages? And was there really any doubt that they’d be able to return as adults? Of course not. Everything on this show gets resolved in 35 minutes with very few negative consequences. It would just be nice if sometime, they allowed these things to creep into several episodes. Oh well.

Here’s something else that really bothered me about this. So I know that the Ferengi took the Enterprise by surprise, but they sure had no problem taking over the ship. Not even Worf can stop the stupid little Ferengi. This was just too much for me to accept. I needed something more convincing for me to buy the premise. Like they shot some sort of paralyzing beam into the ship to knock everyone unconscious or something. It’s just too contrived.

I’ve already mentioned the acting in this episode – it was fantastic. Usually, child actors don’t do that well in this series, but they were awesome here. If they had performed as kids normally do on this series, this would have been one of the worst episodes they ever produced. But even their performances can’t overcome the extremely weak plot. So I’m giving this one a C.

Of Note

Here’s an oddity – the same actress who plays a young Guinan in this episode also plays a younger version of Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act, which was in the same year. Even more interesting is that these are her only two screen credits in her acting career.