62 – A Matter of Perspective

Grade: C+

Summary

Commander Riker is late reporting back to the Enterprise after a routine mission. He was supposed to be meeting with Dr. Nel Apgar, who is supposedly searching for a new method of power generation, using Krieger wave technology. Suddenly, the space station explodes, and Commander Riker is accused of murdering Dr. Apgar.

Commentary

I don’t believe I’ve ever liked this episode too much. I honestly think it’s ridiculous. The acting is a bit over the top, but then again, that’s probably because we’re seeing the same story from three exaggerated points of view.

In all honesty, the story just isn’t all that interesting. It will be hard to explain without giving away too much of the storyline, but I never for even one second thought that Riker would be found guilty of murder. The only question I had was what the radiation bursts that hit random parts of the ship every 5 hours have to do with the destruction of the space station. But about 35 minutes of the episode are dedicated to showing all of the eyewitness accounts of the events on the space station. The rest of the episode (about 10 minutes) deals with solving the mystery of the radiation bursts.

I actually found this second part to be much more compelling, despite the fact that it was hardly even discussed. I think it would have been nice to have seen how Data, LaForge and Wesley Crusher find out what really happened. But it probably wouldn’t have improved the episode much to have focused on this part of the storyline anyway. The bottom line is that this is an unremarkable episode.

On the other hand, the only reason this episode works at all is because we’ve seen how quickly and easily Riker becomes romantically involved with guest aliens. It wouldn’t have worked at all if it had been someone else who was accused.

Of Note

Much of this episode takes place on the Holodeck, as events are re-enacted according to the accounts of the witnesses. Several times while the characters watch the re-enactments, the playback is paused, but there are still blinking lights and other random movements when nothing should have been happening.