30 – The Outrageous Okona

Grade: C-

Summary

The Enterprise is visiting two planets that form the Coalition of Medina, when they come across a freighter with a rogue pilot. He seems nice enough, even if a bit mischievous.

Commentary

This episode is obviously supposed to be humorous, and it succeeded, to at least some extent. If you’re a Jerry Lewis fan, the best part of this episode for you may be the impersonation on the holodeck. I’m not a Jerry Lewis fan, so I didn’t care for it, though I admit the impression is spot-on. Still, some of the humor wouldn’t fly in today’s world.

The first 35 minutes or so of this episode are the best part, but after that, it just starts going downhill, pretty fast. The ending is rather dull. In some ways, it reminds me of some of the worst episodes of the Original Series. It could have been a lot better, but the ending is just bad.

The special effects are OK, though it still looks a bit cheap in places. There’s a very long shot of Okona’s ship as it passes close to the Enterprise. It is at least 17 seconds long, though it seems much longer. I’m not sure why they couldn’t find a way to cut this down a bit, but whatever. It just looks weird.

There are some good parts to this episode, such as when Picard decides to drop shields, and when questioned by Riker, he responds, “just in case we decide to surrender.” Pretty funny, actually, considering the alien ships are no match for the Enterprise. Also, there are several instances of people asking “is that funny” or something along those lines during this episode, but it doesn’t get old. You may not even notice it.

Finally, this isn’t one of my favorites, and Okona isn’t that great of a protagonist in this episode. But there are some things to like about it. If this were the worst of the second season episodes, it would have been a pretty decent year. But the writers’ strike really took its toll on this show in Season 2.

Of Note

Teri Hatcher appears in this episode, and she actually has a noticeable role. She was only 24 when this episode aired.