“The Arsenal of Freedom”
Written by Maurice Hurley and Robert Lewin and Richard Manning & Hans Beimler
Directed by Les Landau
Season 1, Episode 20
Production episode 40271-121
Original air date: April 11, 1988
Stardate: 41798.2
Captain’s Log: The Enterprise travels to Minos to follow up on a mission undertaken by the U.S.S. Drake, which has since disappeared. The Drake was trying to find out why the planet Minos—a world that specialized in arms dealing—had gone quiet.
Upon arrival, the Enterprise finds no intelligent life, no sign of the Drake, and an endless advertisement for Minos’s services as arms dealers. On the logic that, if there’s an automated ad working, there might be someone or something else down there, Riker, Data, and Yar beam down to check it out.
The Drake‘s captain, Paul Rice, went to the Academy with Riker. While investigating on the surface, Riker sees Rice—but he’s acting strangely. Soon, it becomes evident that it’s an image of Rice designed to glean information. Once Riker exposes the image as a fake, it turns into a floating metal thingie that encases Riker in a force field. Yar blows the thingie up, but Riker remains encased, in some kind of stasis.
Because the plot calls for this episode to be La Forge’s baptism by fire, Picard decides to beam down, along with Crusher. He leaves La Forge in charge, because the plot calls for this to be La Forge’s baptism by fire, despite “Lonely Among Us” establishing Worf as fourth in command.
While the away team is tending to Riker, another floating metal thingie shows up and attacks them. Picard and Crusher are separated from Yar and Data, and fall down a hole. Crusher is badly injured, and Picard tends to her. Communications are out, so they can’t contact the Enterprise.
After the crisis grows worse, La Forge appears to give in by giving Logan command—then he finishes the sentence with the words, “of the saucer section.” La Forge separates the ship and takes the stardrive section back to Minos to deal with the cloaked assailant from the battle bridge.
On the planet, another metal thingie attacks Riker, Yar, and Data, but it takes all three phasers to destroy it this time. Crusher’s arm and leg are both broken, and the latter is bleeding badly. Crusher has to walk Picard through assisting her, all while going into shock. He has to use some roots to clot the wound, and Picard keeps her awake by getting her to talk about how she knew about them—then discovers machinery that is still operative. The salesman comes back and explains that this is a demonstration of the Echo Papa 607, the “ultimate killing machine.” It’s so good, apparently, that it wiped out the entire population of Minos.
Riker, Data, and Yar find the hole Picard and Crusher fell down, and Data jumps down and joins them for no compellingly good reason, leaving Riker and Yar to fend for themselves. It’s Crusher who finally figures out the solution, while falling into shock, no less: turn it off.
For reasons that the script never explains, this shuts off the surface attack, but the Enterprise is still being fired upon. La Forge brings the ship into the atmosphere, and their attacker follows them down, revealing itself by its turbulence. Once that happens, Worf can get a phaser lock and blow it up, at which point the away team is beamed back.
However, Picard refuses to accept command back until La Forge returns the entire ship, so La Forge gets to be the one to sit in the center seat and say, “Engage” at the end of the episode.
Thank You, Counselor Obvious: Troi is blown off by Picard when she tries to object to his joining the away team, even though she’s absolutely right to do so, then she gives La Forge some good advice on helping the relief conn and ops officers, Solis and T’su, get through the crisis.
No Sex, Please, We’re Starfleet: Picard and Crusher bond over talk of going into shock and Crusher’s experiences with her grandmother on the failed Arvada III colony. The scenes between them are as touching and adorable and wonderful as every scene between Sir Patrick Stewart and Gates McFadden. The episode, as plotted by Robert Lewin, was intended to focus more on Picard and Crusher, but apparently Gene Roddenberry nixed the notion.
There is No Honor in Being Pummeled: Worf provides a nice prelude to his forthcoming lengthy stint at tactical by running the weapons console while Yar’s on the planet. When asked by La Forge how fast he can get a weapons lock, he confidently responds, “Fast!”
Welcome aboard: Julia Nickson and GeorgeDe La Peña convey both nervousness and competence as T’su and Solis. Vyto Ruginis sneers a lot as Logan, who is a straw bad guy for La Forge to knock down, and Marco Rodriguez makes no impression whatsoever as what was, to be fair, a fake version of Paul Rice.
But the episode is made by the late Vincent Schiavelli as the sleazy salesman for the Echo Papa 607. Schiavelli, as usual, totally owns every scene he’s in.
I Believe I Said That: “Tell me about your ship, Riker. It’s the Enterprise, isn’t it?”
“No, the name of my ship is the Lollipop.”
“I have no knowledge of that ship.”
“It’s just been commissioned—it’s a good ship.”
The image of Paul Rice grilling Riker, and Riker quoting a very old song
Trivial Matters: It is revealed that Riker was offered the command of the Drake, but turned it down. This is the first of three commands that Riker is offered over the course of TNG that he turns down. He doesn’t accept a captaincy until Star Trek Nemesis.
Riker’s time with Paul Rice at the Academy was detailed in the novel The Lost Era: Deny Thy Father by Jeff Mariotte. Lian T’su returns in the Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers story Wildfire by David Mack.
Logan is the third member of the First Season Chief Engineer Derby, following MacDougal in “The Naked Now” and Argyle in “Where No One Has Gone Before” and “Datalore.”
The script is written by Richard Manning and Hans Beimler, who would go on to write plenty more for TNG and, for the latter, DS9.
Make It So: “Peace through superior firepower.” A strong action episode, a good spotlight for La Forge, some fun Picard-Crusher moments, Vincent Schiavelli being skeevy, one of Yar’s better turns as chief of security, some good Riker bits, and Crusher cutting through the crap with the best technobabble solution of all, to wit, “turn it off.”
The episode isn’t without its problems. It makes no sense, none, that the Enterprise continues to come under attack after Picard shuts the machine off. It’s especially irritating because the fix is simple: rearrange a few scenes.
La Forge’s baptism by fire is horribly contrived. Picard doesn’t even give a good excuse for going down to the planet beyond the script calling for it. Plus, one of Riker’s oldest friends has been killed, and it might’ve been nice if he’d, y’know, mourned him at some point.
But despite that, it’s a fun, enjoyable, diverting episode.
Warp factor rating: 6.
Keith R.A. DeCandido also portrayed Lian T’su in the Star Trek: Starfleet Corps of Engineers novella Many Splendors, which is but one of his many many many many many pieces of Star Trek fiction. And he’s written lots of other fiction, too. Check Keith’s web site, read his blog, or follow him on either Facebook or Twitter.
I agree completely on Vincent Schiavelli. He’s a much-missed performer, one who made this episode a darkly comedic delight for the young me.
I should watch it on NetFlix.
It’s been so long since I watched it, but is Crusher’s grandmother the same one who it turned out was in an obsessive sexual affair with a parasitic alien energy entity? Or was it her other, non-alien-vampire-loving nana?
Baptism BY fire ….
John: Nope, same one.
Buddhacat: GAH! This is what happens when you write the rewatch after spending a weekend at a convention in Toronto. (Was a guest at Polaris 25 this past weekend. Did a full day of programming, flew home, walked the dog, did the rewatch. Wheeeee!) Will fix that…
One of the things I liked about this episode was that the moral was presented rather subtly for Trek. “You poor fools,” Picard says, “your own creation destroyed you.” Or something like that. And then he DOESN’T go on to say something like, “the way nuclear weapons almost destroyed the United States and the Soviet Union in the late twentieth century.”
Compare that to the Vietnam war being made overly explicit in “A Private Little War,” or racism in “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” and you’ll see what I mean.
Nice little SF crossover trivia: Julia Nickson went on to play the recurring role of Catherine Sakai on the first season of BABYLON 5.
When I was a wee young six-year-old lad, this was my favorite episode of TNG. I watched my videotape of it until it wore out, I loved it so much. Everybody gets something good to do! Picard and Beverly get alone time in the cave, Riker gets his fantastic “Good Ship Lollipop” banter, Data gets to leap into a 20-foot pit, Geordi gets to be in command, Worf gets to be in an actual battle, Tasha gets to fight a war computer, Deanna gets to actually counsel somebody, and Wes (presumably) gets to catch up on his homework while the grown-ups do their OWN jobs for once!
Plus, THE ENTERPRISE SEPARATES! Don’t underestimate how important that is to a six-year-old in at the critical stage of falling in love with Star Trek for life. Awesome doesn’t get any awesomer than one ship turning into two ships (even if one of them is kinda lame)! Who knows, if this episode hadn’t blown my mind by letting me see the ship separate and go into an actual battle rather than just surrendering immediately like the last time, I might have realized that TNG season 1 is rather boring a lot of the time and watched some other show. It’s difficult to say, but if they hadn’t separated the ship and then blown up Remmick a few weeks later, I might be commented on some article about Star Wars right now instead.
Add me as a fan of the “good ship Lollipop” moment — maybe the most natural, unforced bit of humor in the entire first season. Frakes pulls it off perfectly.
And I’m with Keith on praising the Cruhser-Picard scene. Even if it was less than what the episode originally called for, it made me think that their awkward relationship might really be one of the foci of the series. (So imagine my surprise when she wans’t even around for season 2!)
Definitely one of the strongest from the first season. LeVar Burton handles his moments nicely, giving us every reason to expect Geordi will move on to bigger and better things than helmsman (con? ops? I never can remember which of the “new” bridge stations is which). (And @Pendard – Thanks for giving us your then-six-year-old’s self view of the saucer separation!)
Pendard: Your #6 is my favorite comment that I’ve gotten on a rewatch yet. That’s awesome.
MikePoteet: La Forge moved on to become chief engineer in the second season when they realized that having a rotating cast of chief engineers was silly. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Thanks, KRAD! That means a lot to me and my six-year-old self.
Oh, I almost forgot! The other really cool thing about “Arsenal of Freedom” is that it happens in real time. There’s no attempt to play up this fact in the episode — no ticking clock, a la 24 — but the nine minute interval between the time one drone is destroyed and the time the computer can deploy the next one means the time from the time the first drone encapsulates Riker to the time Picard shuts off the system right after the fourth drone appears is barely more than 27 minutes. You have to add the time that the drones are actually active, plus a little time at the beginning and end of the episode, so the whole story apparently to take place in about 45 minutes, the actual running time of the episode.
Six-year-old me never noticed that, but twenty-nine-year-old me thinks it’s pretty cool.
Pendard: Erm, there’s only one problem — it’s 12 minutes between attacks, not 9…..
I too remember enjoying this episode when I was a 5-year old (which is when it aired originally). I didn’t really become a fan until a few years later, because my father soon gave up on TNG, before coming back to it around the Borg 2-parter, but I always remembered watching this one.
What I liked about the Crusher-Picard scenes was the doctor-as-a-patient aspect of it. I’m sure a lot of her patients are nervous when they see her over the littlest things, and while her situation was far from trivial, she still got to walk in her patients’ shoes for a little bit. We also get to see her as a compotent doctor, when she is able to treat herself with the berries.
Yes, this episode has problems. One is that, it never defines Logan’s logic. First, he questions Geordi’s command competence, because he is seemingly putting the ship at risk. OK. Then later, why is he second-guessing Geordi for warping out? This is EXACTLY what Logan wanted to do in the first. Even if Logan was just testing Geordi (which I think he was), it would have been nice to have had his thinking explained.
That being said, Keith, I think your rating of 6/10 is just a little bit low, IMO. I basically agree with you on it, but I consider some of your critisims to be more of a minor variety then you do, and to me, the show is more of a 7, or even an 8 (In fact, I rank it fourth in terms of the whole first season). That being said, I think that your ratings so far have been spot on, for the most part.
@krad (#11): Is it really? Great! You have to add far fewer extra minutes to 36 minutes to end up with 45 than you do when you start with 27, so a 12-minute interval works much better. I doubt you would find that it worked out exactly right if you timed it with a stopwatch, but it is nonetheless extremely close to being in real time.
(I tried to look up the real number but couldn’t find it, so I went with imperfect memory.)
It’s so silly that an entire planet was wiped out by a machine that could be turned off in 30 seconds. 4/10
@14
But they were arms dealers. Probably had business codes of practice that made the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition read like a comic book. The solution would be just beyond their grasp.
This episode makes me think of the pay-off line in War Games. “Strange Game. The only winning move is not to play.”
Despite the obvious plot holes, I still consider this episode one of my absolute favorites on acount of it being so much fun to watch.
Pendard@6, thanks for articulating the good points of this episode. I think I was about 12 when I first saw it, and at the time I, too, didn’t care about any of the flaws.
I think the most obvious plot hole is the decision to beam down to a planet that advertises itself as full of weapons without thinking that it might be booby trapped.
But the thing that attacks Enterprise does not have to be connected to the device on the planet, does it? I can be just another product available for demonstrations…
Clearly one of the best episodes though – especially like LaForge’s handling of the situation and the idea that someone challanges his authority at a very bad moment.
OK, this was still the ’80s. Plot holes and contrivances were a TV way of life back then. But despite the fact that this episode replete with them, it was one of my favorites for a long time. As Pendard said, it pretty much has it all.
We also get to see why LaForge was pretty much fast-tracked from Jr. Lt. to Lt. Commander within 2 seasons (and made Captain in at least 2 different alternate realities). The episode also demonstrates why Worf was the duh choice for Tactical Officer/Security Chief after Tasha’s demise.
And we got to see the Battle Bridge! We never got nearly enough of that with good old Enterprise-D. Oddly enough, the only time we’ve ever seen Picard command the Battle Bridge was in the pilot episode. LaForge commands it in this episode, and Riker commands it in The Best of Both Worlds.
In Generations the Battle Bridge was commanded by a warp core breach.
Also, wow, what are the odds that the alien makers of the Echo Papa 607 would have the same phonetic alphabet as NATO?
I’m sure that could be waved off as a Universal Translator artifact. A Klingon (with Klingon as the first language) would likely whatever passed for their letters for those sounds or meanings.
I always thought that this could have been one of the answers to the borg problem, just take delivery of the weapons system!
I recently rewatched this ep. This one of the few (only?) episodes in the First Season that actually does incorporate the principals (save Wesley, SHUT UP WESLEY!) meaningfully.
Geordi and Worf have to fight the orbital weapon. Troi chimes in just enough to encourage Geordi-without seeming like an asshole. Geordi also shines as Acting Captain, particularly in making the decision to run and come back with the Stardrive Section (which they should have done more of), and standing up to Logan’s villainy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZotMRpnk0VY
That’s a great action sequence where Geordi outfoxes the orbital weapon.
Picard and Crusher are again brought together. Granted, it’s underdeveloped, but, we do learn about Crusher and how she cares on more levels than one. There should have been some tenderness, but, it’s pretty intimate in as much as Crusher is in a role-reversal scenario with Picard.
Riker, Data and Yar are also great in solving and then running from the planetside Echo Papa 607. They all work well together in initially being able to defeat the planetside weapons, and, then face the real risk of destruction with the last one. Granted, Picard’s solution is a little deus ex machina, but, it makes sense.
This episode doesn’t rise though to being “The Battle” principally because there is not the same emotional intermingling and not as insightful into individual characters. But, it’s a good adventure.
Loved your analysis’ conclusion at the end:
“La Forge’s baptism by fire is horribly contrived. Picard doesn’t even
give a good excuse for going down to the planet beyond the script
calling for it. Plus, one of Riker’s oldest friends has been killed, and
it might’ve been nice if he’d, y’know, mourned him at some point.
”
And how they all decide to beam down to investigate so absent-mindedly to begin with… no real reason given, or any… not even a token “what if the Ferengi find and exploit this” comment… which is for the best as the Ferengi never felt sincere or threatening as being “the new Klingons”…
But, for season 1, it is quite the engaging tale…
They came for the USS Drake. After 10min it’s out of the plot…
They came for Paul, after 10min we understand that an image of him appeared and then what ? well he may be dead , no need to seek further, or be sad.
They’re making a theory after 20min that everybody died because of their own weapon… ok well, “puzzle solved ! we can go home and laugh about it now”.
I really don’t like this episode because it focuses to much on the main cast (geordi in command etc), I like when they’re doing that but not when you’ve got an entire planet destroyed on the other side of the plot. (+ the USS drake , must be destroyed, no wreck or else… that’s fine !).
They chose a very strong and serious topic and then completely let it go to put the emphasize on 2-3 main characters…
This is a lot like something out of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
You’re right, it’s kinda like that.
I never really got into the La Forge character. I’m not certain why. I think it’s because his visor always looked identical to the banana combs we used in our hair in the 80s so he was hard to take seriously (there was a Mad Magazine bit on that). But I did always like the friendship he and Data had. That aside, he was badass in this episode and you do totally see why he went on to chief engineer. Burton really pulled off being nervous, yet believing in himself as someone at the rank would and holding it together while he took just a little longer to make decisions than someone more experienced might. I loved how they challenged him too. Most tv shows I remember from then were slam dunk person in charge has a great line, is almost always right, and then cut, you don’t see the aftermath. This got all real life-y. Except Logan annoyed me to the point of not listening. “Get the ship out of orbit! It’s more important than the Away Team!” “You’re leaving the Away Team and taking the ship out of orbit! What’s wrong with you!” “Why are you going back for the Away Team! What’s wrong with you?” It was like a lousy chorus to what might go on inside someone’s head while they were making a really tough decision but it made no sense from a high ranking officer.
Oh and Data’s 11.something meter jump. I’ve never really been into guys showing off their strength or fast cars, but for a split second I totally wanted to ask that android out for a drink. Maybe a lingering sexy samarian sunset. Ah primal brain how you love to sneak out and take walks. The other time that happened was when he was running around in black with Worf doing a covert rescue in Frame of Mind. Krad unknowingly indulged me with a screenshot in his review.
Oh and while I loved de Lancie as Q, I always thought Vincent Schiavelli would have made a great Q as well!
Cutenewt: credit where it’s due, the folks at Tor.com pick the pictures, not me.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Logan was probably more contrived than the rest of the episode, but we got to see LaForge in charge, and Burton handles the role with his usual charm and authority. Logan is just confusingly insubordinate most of the time. I get that Starfleet isn’t strictly military, but jeeze, protocol and maybe a little respect for your acting CO? Especially as the Captain chose him & he’s the one giving the orders.
I remember seeing this episode and thinking “That guy looks familiar” when Schiavelli showed up. I think he was the dead guy that Patrick Swayze meets in the subway in “Ghost?” “Peace through superior firepower” is probably my favorite line of the episode.
There’s really no explanation (I think) for why simply agreeing to make a sale would shut the system down. It would still be there, presumably ready to reactivate if another ship came to the planet. Wouldn’t it have learned from the encounter with the Enterprise?
Crusher talking about her time on a failed colony was good & gives some insight to her character and her past.
@32/mspence:
Yes, that is indeed Schiavelli from “Ghost”. He had such a distinctive face and voice.
I agree this was a good character piece for Beverly’s background and started a running joke where she starts to tell Jean-Luc something very important that she needs to reveal but is interrupted.
It should have been stated in dialogue but I would presume the Enterprise would have placed a warning beacon in proximity to the planet to warn others to stay away because of the danger there.
I disagree with the reviewer that Marco Rodriguez “makes no impression whatsoever”. His delivery and expressions are appropriately creepy and unnatural.
Good action scenes both on the planet and in space.
One of the better first season episodes.
I have spent literally decades idly wondering where I recognized the salesman (i.e. Vincent Schiaparelli) from; and with a boost from IMDB, just realized that he was the clergyman who married Any Kaufman’s Latka and Simka in “Taxi”. Beautiful!
S
Silvertip: It’s Schiavelli, not Schiaparelli.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@@@@@27/JanaJansen: Yes, I was expecting someone to have said something, though hoping I would get to be the first (lo these 9 years hence) – but it’s like Magrathea.
“It is most gratifying that your enthusiasm for our planet continues unabated. And so we would like to assure you that the guided missiles currently converging with your ship are part of a special service we extend to all of our most enthusiastic clients… And the fully armed nuclear warheads are, of course, merely a courtesy detail. We look forward to your custom in future lives. Thank you.”
Fun fact y’all probably either don’t care about or already know: the hologram in the Disney version is played by Simon Jones, the original Arthur Dent :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBa03xBZf34
The ship isn’t a lollipop in Hitchhiker’s Guide, but the missiles turn into a pot of petunias and an ill-fated, good-natured whale, which Kirk and Spock arrive too late to rescue.
This episode confused me because there’s apparently a second sickbay in the stardrive section. Who staffs it? Have we ever seen it? Is it usually empty except when separation happens? Is it always well-stocked? When extreme medical events happen, do we quarantine people there? … Do they have Netflix?
thank you for your patronage, come again: rewtch freedom
I’ve noticed that a lot of the posts in this series have a paragraph subsumed into a photo caption. Just mentioning in case a moderator reads and cares / is able to go fix things. On this post all the text under the image of Yar and Data from “Yar and Data” until what I believe to be the intended actual caption, “do not mess with the android and the security chief,” should be set in normal body type.
Logan insisting that Geordi do one thing and then the exact opposite when he shows up again really only makes sense if, as someone mentioned earlier, he’s testing Geordi, which is an awfully big leap to be left as an exercise for the viewer. I’d question Geordi’s wisdom in placing the ship’s Chief Engineer in charge of the saucer section when the stardrive section needs to be operating at peak efficiency during the mission at hand, although in this case…
The “Good Ship Lollipop” gag is one of my absolute favorite Riker moments — which is admittedly not saying much, but I do enjoy it.
Since this popped up again (nice to meet you, Arben): Yes, I think the review missed points – I just watched the end to check.
@32: They don’t JUST shut off the drone system. It’s a hostile computer-controlled weapon, and both the weapon and the controller logically are shielded to goodheavens, or what good is it? But what’s unusual is that the hostile system has classified the away team as customers, so they are allowed to see schematics as well as to watch the demonstration… which they CANNOT make stop, however, until Captain Picard agrees to buy the product being demonstrated. THAT is the clever bit. And probably an effective sales tactic in the past…
Now maybe if the Captain had looked rich enough to buy the cloaked warship as well, then they could have stopped the action there, too.
@33: I assume that the Enterprise did take care of things at the planet, later, although they left in a hurry. If the weapons are actually novel and effective and ethical, then Starfleet could do to have them, but they may be overpriced or need recharging way too often or… And, yes, they seem to have killed everybody on their own planet. So, buggy. Also, can they manufacture or do they only have the demonstration units? Maybe sales shuts down if they don’t have capacity to deliver what’s been ordered?
Or Starfleet comes back to dismantle it, yes. Perhaps very prejudicially. Better that, than putting up warning buoys, which the marketing department would either shoot down or compete with.
Either way, if there really are no survivors on the planet, then the Prime Directive doesn’t apply? How about intellectual property law?
I somehow seem to have missed this one until now, 11 years after it was posted. Wow.
This was a mixed bag for me, if I recall. I wasn’t crazy about the campy idea of the used-car-salesman holographic weapons dealer, though I don’t hold that against Schiavelli. The fakey soundstage jungle set didn’t help much either. But it was a nice story for Geordi in command, and he handled it well. I liked the solution of finding a cloaked object by the air turbulence it creates, since you can’t hide that. Although I guess it’s similar to Kirk’s comet-tail stratagem in “Balance of Terror.”
This episode is notable as the one and only time that we saw saucer separation used the way it was meant to be used — a way to leave the civilians behind somewhere safe before the battle section goes into danger. Maybe we would’ve seen that more often if the producers hadn’t abandoned saucer separation due to the difficulty of working with the 6-foot ILM-built miniature. Note that all the saucer-sep footage here is stock from “Encounter at Farpoint.”
It’s interesting — and perhaps not coincidental? — that William T. Riker’s old friend is named Paul Rice. Gene Roddenberry’s first TV series, The Lieutenant, starred Gary Lockwood as US Marine Corps Lt. William T. Rice. Roddenberry was never above recycling a character name. (The T stood for Tiberius!)
I find it implausible that a 24th-century Starfleet commander is familiar with a 20th-century Shirley Temple song. But it’s a cute gag.
“He leaves La Forge in charge, because the plot calls for this to be La Forge’s baptism by fire, despite ‘Lonely Among Us’ establishing Worf as fourth in command.”
I don’t think that’s correct. Worf’s role in season 1 was the bridge watch officer — he sat in for anyone on the bridge who was away from their post at the time, whether it was the command chair, the conn, ops, tactical, or whatever. It’s not really being in command, it’s just monitoring the bridge while the captain is in the ready room. I believe the captain is still on shift and in command when he’s in the ready room, which is the whole point of the ready room, to be an office where the captain can get work done in private yet still be directly on hand to command the bridge. It’s not the same as a situation where the captain and senior officers have beamed down to a planet.
But Geordi was very much intended to be a command-track officer, hence the red uniform. This episode was meant to be a part of that character arc, but it was the only one he got before the decision in season 2 to make him chief engineer instead.
@36/jofesh: “This episode confused me because there’s apparently a second sickbay in the stardrive section.“
Of course there is, since that’s the part that goes into combat. Naturally you’d need a sickbay there most of all.
And just in general, it makes sense for any vital system to have redundant backups, especially in a ship that can separate into two ships that may have to operate independently of each other for some time. Even when the ship is joined, it makes sense to have more than one sickbay for a crew of over a thousand people.
@38. rja-carnegie: “nice to meet you, Arben”
You too… Like I said a few times while going through Keith’s TOS rewatch, I’m very appreciative of the conversation and community here on the whole; glad posts are still open for comment as well.
@40. ChristopherLBennett: “Worf’s role in season 1 was the bridge watch officer”
Thanks! I’d been wondering about his specific position as this has been my first viewing of the season in decades. Do you by any chance know how his name came about when I’ve never heard an f in the Klingon language? :^)
@41/Arben: I’ve always found “Worf” a very strange, rather goofy-sounding name for a Klingon and have never figured out why they chose it. It’s occurred to me to wonder if it was inspired by the word “warfare,” except that he was meant to be one of the new, friendly Klingons back when it was assumed that they’d given up their warrior ways (see “Heart of Glory,” where Korris’s people are treated as criminals for wanting to return to the ways of war and conquest).