2 – Encounter at Farpoint, Part 2

Grade: F

Summary

In Part 2 of the pilot episode, Captain Picard visits Farpoint Station, to see if they are ready to join the Federation. While there, Commander Troi leads them to believe there is more to the story than meets the eye. Can the people of Farpoint be trusted?

Commentary

OK, nevermind the fact that by this time in Star Trek history, human beings have been flying around in space for well over 200 years. Q still has to continue his test of humans and their morality. But the episode is terrible. It’s even worse than Part 1. The acting is awful, the script is juvenile, and Counselor Troi is extremely annoying. I rate this episode lower than the first mostly because of Marina Sirtis’ overacting in this episode. It’s just terribly bad. Her scene at the end is laughably bad. The special effects are also awful. A grade of D- would actually be generous.

This and Episode #1 are only memorable because they are the first episodes of the new TV series. If they were in the middle of the run, nobody would even know they existed.

Of Note

At the first part of this episode, Troi uses her telepathic ability to communicate with Riker. But later in the series, it is explained that Troi can only do this with other Betazoids. We can excuse that because the characters haven’t been established yet, but it’s still kinda silly.

Also, toward the beginning of this episode, Riker is looking for Commander Data. A junior-level officer shows him how to use the computer in the hallway to find him. It’s interesting that Majel Barrett’s voice wasn’t used for the computer yet. When he asked where Data was, dots on the computer pointed the way. To my knowlege, this is the only time in the series when this happens, though it would have come in handy later in the series. I’m wondering what would happen if two people used this feature at the same time and the computer had to show arrows pointing in different directions. Maybe that’s why they never did this again.