160 – Attached

Grade: C+

Summary

The Enterprise is visiting the Kesprytt system, to see if the Kes are ready for ‘associate’ status in the Federation. Captain Picard and Dr. Crusher beam down to the planet, but the Prytt intercept the transporter signal and they kidnap them. As Riker and the Kes come to the rescue, Picard and Crusher realize they can read each other’s minds.

Commentary

I don’t particularly like this episode, though I do recognize it as an interesting change of pace in some places. I suppose the main reason I don’t like this episode too much is that everything seems so contrived in it. For example, this is the first time I can remember when only the Captain and the Doctor beam down to the surface of a planet. Why didn’t Worf even ask if he should go with the captain? To me, it seems we didn’t see this because the script requires for only Picard and Crusher to beam down together. Can you imagine that Picard and Crusher would tell each other how much they supposedly love each other, if Worf were standing right there? I say supposedly because she was his best friend’s wife. I’m not sure I could fall in love with my best friend’s wife no matter what. I’m surprised that someone as principled as Picard supposedly is could have reached this point himself.

Something else that bothered me is how stupid the writers must think we are. At one point, Picard says that they are 2 km from the border, and they should get some rest because they will have a hard day of travel tomorrow. Uh, excuse me, but 2 km is less than a mile and a half. But even if it was 2 miles, most people could walk that far in much less than an hour. Doesn’t sound too hard to me.

Aside from that, the Picard/Crusher relationship was just too over the top for me. I liked it the way it was on the Enterprise – most of the time. But even if we didn’t see the obvious mutual attraction between them throughout this series, that’s no reason for us to hear a half dozen times how “intimate” it was to know each other’s thoughts. And the ending was terrible. It seemed to drag on and on forever, and ended up with Picard asking the question about where their relationship goes from here. I can’t see Picard doing this. I would have expected Crusher to ask this question, but not Picard.

Other than that, we had some rather silly moments seeing the extreme paranoia of the Kes and the total mistrust of the Prytt. But the silliness isn’t enough for me to overlook the completely contrived plot and the melodramatic moments between Picard and Crusher. This could have been so much better than it was.

Of Note

In this episode, Dr. Crusher mentions the World Government of 2151. She also asks what would have happened if Australia hadn’t agreed to it. Unfortunately, we only have enough time for Picard to say that this isn’t a valid analogy but we never hear why. It would have been nice to have heard his thoughts on this before he was interrupted.