Star Trek: The Next Generation - S01E21 - The Arsenal of Freedom 
Today at the Star Trek Fuck Report we will be examining the 21st episode of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Premiering on April 11, 1988, The Arsenal of Freedom, apparently sees Geordi LaForge leading the Enterprise into battle while Picard and an away team are trapped on an alien planet by a hostile weapons system. Sounds like yet another completely fuckless episode. Let's get this shit over with.
Preexisting PrejudicesIn spite being a Geordi guy as a child, I have little memory of this episode. Despite what the episode synopsis would lead me to believe I think the Geordi plot is probably the b-plot of this particular episode and whatever bullshit is happening with a hostile weapons system is the main shit. I don't care either way since I'm not watching this show to relive my youth, but rather in order to conduct scientific research about who fucked on Star Trek. I feel that this episode is probably going to be a complete and utter waste of time on that front.
Plot SynopsisThe Enterprise arrives at some planet called Minos that Picard and Picard alone pronounces as MEEEEEnose (rather than Mynos). They've been tasked with investigating the disappearance of the Starfleet ship the USS Drake.
Data explains to everyone that during the "Ersalrop Wars" Minos gained fame as arms dealers, manufacturing and selling advanced weaponry. Geordi asks him which side Minos sold to and Data tells him nonchalantly, "Both."
As they approach the planet, Riker explains that Captain Rice would have reported back in unless whatever happened to the Drake happened super quickly. Picard asks Riker if he knew Rice and Riker informs him that they were in the Academy together. If the Academy is anything like my high school they had to sit next to each other on account of having surnames that would have come after one another alphabetically.
Riker presents Rice as an arrogant, risk taker who might act aggressively when confronted with a difficult situation before Worf's like, "Weren't you offered command of the Drake?" Riker says that he was, but turned it down because he thought serving on the Enterprise would be more advantageous. This seems to contradict some of the lore about him that got established in that episode where Troi was supposed to marry a dude named Wyatt but it doesn't matter. Clearly none of these episodes are supposed to be watched in any sort of order.
Data tells Picard that there are no signs of intelligent life on the planet which confuses everyone. They speculate what could have happened to all the people.
"War?" offers Worf.
"Disease?" proffers Data.
"A dissatisfied customer?" suggests Geordi.
Yar then explains that, "In any war, natural disaster, even the most virulent plague, there are always survivors," apparently oblivious to all those times in even these past 20 episodes where a plague or crystalline entity or some other shit wiped out an entire planet's worth of people.
Data then informs Picard that something is apparently scanning the ship's translator programs and that it is now hailing the Enterprise. Picard is incredulous, asking, "How can that be, from a planet with no people?" He then tells Data to put it up on the big TV which the robot does.
A dude pops up and begins going on and on about how great Minos' weapons are and how they're all at low, low prices. Picard tries talking to the dude (played by one of those dudes who was in ever movie and TV show made between 1970 and 1999, Vincent Schiavelli [no, I did not know this dude's name off the top of my head]) for a bit before it becomes clear that the message is an automated response that was likely recorded during the Wars.
Picard speculates that if there were robocalling software that was still operationally down on the planet, there could be other systems that were still in full effect; namely weapons systems. He tells Riker to get an away team together. He picks Data and Yar who recommends taking a real small away team until she's certain that whatever killed everyone on the planet isn't still down there.
After that good, good opening theme song, we check in with the away team down on the surface of Minos. It's a smoke machine riddled sound stage of a jungle planet that Riker dubs "spooky." As they begin their search Data informs them that their communications with the Enterprise are being monitored. Back on the Enterprise, Picard says that they'll try to figure out who is monitoring them from the ship.
Back down on Minos, the away team searches the jungle, finding a melted chunk of "tritanium." Yar opines that nothing Starfleet has could melt a chunk of tritanium like that. Nearby they find some kind of weapon thing covered in vines. It is apparently still operational. They decide to spread out to cover more ground.
Back on the Enterprise an Ensign Su (played by the Asian lady who was in First Blood II: Rambo and Walker, Texas Ranger) calls Riker and tells him that she's detecting and energy buildup a few meters to the east of where he is.
Captain Paul Rice suddenly emerges from the mists and begins chatting Riker up. He's acting weird as fuck and Riker becomes suspicious. Ensign Su calls back and tells Riker that there are still no readings of intelligent life outside of the away team, but there's an energy build-up close by.
Rice continues to talk to Riker, but refuses medical treatment when Riker offers it. Instead Rice demands to know, "Who sent you here to look for me?"
Riker tells him, "Your mother. She's worried about you," but Rice doesn't seem to even register this, instead asking about Riker's ship. "It's the Enterprise, isn't it?"
"No," Riker replies, "the name of my ship is the Lollipop."
Rice tells him that he has no knowledge of that particular ship to which Riker replies, "It's just been commissioned. It's a good ship."
Though this has nothing to do with this particular episode or fucking in the greater Star Trek universe, I need to rant about this bit here. I fucking HATE it when Star Trek: The Next Generation does this sort of shit. "On the Good Ship Lollipop," was a song that first was released in 1934. The Enterprise of TNG was launched October 4, 2362 so using that as a rough basis for when this particular episode is taking place we can assume that the song is approximately 427 or 428 years old at this point. This would be like someone today making a joke about a song from 1592. I am doubtful that anyone outside of music historians could name a single song from 1592 let alone make a jape about it to a weird hologram.
And they do this shit so often! Some winking nod to the 20th century which just feels woefully out of place. When they come up with a workaround, like that 20th century historian guy from the 1940s private dick episode, I don't mind it, because in the 24th century those are the only people who would know shit about a random-ass Shirley Temple song: nerdy historians who spent years of their lives writing peer reviewed papers about how Jackie Chan's Rumble in the Bronx and Deathwish reflected urban decay in the later half of the 20th century, but I really, really digress...
Rice continues to ask Riker about the Lollipop, wanting to know about its weapons capabilities, but Riker is just fucking with him at this point and saying random numbers. After Rice tells Riker that his replies are nonsense, Riker reveals to Rice that he knows he's an impostor on account of Rice not calling him by his name one single time. "Rice" then transforms into some weird floating weapon thing and the crew flips out and calls to be beamed back aboard the Enterprise, but before that happens, the weapon shoots Riker, trapping him in some kind of force field.
Yar puts the weapon on blast, blowing it the fuck up, but the bubble around Riker still remains. She and Data examine the energy field and then call Picard to inform him that Riker's trapped in a bubble and they don't know if he's still alive.
Back from commercial break we check in with the Enterprise. Picard wants to know if the teleportation room can teleport the away team back, but some faceless teleportation jabroni says that they can't get a reading on Commander Riker. Data theorizes that the bubble Riker is currently in could be used for storage which means that someone will be coming to collect him at some point. This seems like a pretty dumb theory, but it's enough for Picard who announces that he and Dr. Beverly Crusher are going down to the planet.
Troi objects to this but Picard gives zero shits and then puts Geordi in charge of the ship and tells him that regardless of what happens down on the planet his number one priority is the safety of the ship.
After a quick ad break to pay the bills, we see Picard arrive on Minos and rendezvous with the rest of his crew and talk about what the shit happened. Data explains that the thing that attacked them was an intelligence gathering device from the Wars mentioned earlier in the episode. It would take the form of someone the target trusted in an effort to gain information and if a conflict broke out it would trap the target in a bubble so that they could be collected for "enhanced interrogation" tactics.
Picard asks if Data can free him and the robot says that he can, but it will take a lot of time as he has to find the correct frequency to cancel out the bubble. Picard tells him to go for it, but as Data starts blasting Riker with his laser, the Enterprise contacts the away team and tells them that another energy reading is approaching their area. A second drone thing then appears and puts the away team on blast. It chases Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher through the jungle and the two of them fall into a random-ass pit.
Yar attempts to single-handedly battle the drone, but it seems to have adapted to her earlier tactic of just blowing it the fuck up and this second drone is now able to dodge her laser blasts. She gets Data to help her and together they blow it up.
After blowing up the second drone, Yar and Data finally notice that Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher are missing. They try to call them but their cellphones aren't working. Data speculates that the drone's laser blasting must have fucked their phones up and so Yar goes off to look for them while Data continues attempting free Riker with a laser gun.
Back in the pit, Dr. Beverly Crusher is in a bad way. She's somehow buried in some sand as if she fell asleep on the beach. Moreover her arm is broken and she's bleeding all over the place. Picard asks her, "How bad is it?" and she tells him, "BAD!" so we know it's serious as fuck.
Picard tries to call the Enterprise to beam them up for medical treatment, but neither his, nor Dr. Beverly Crusher's cellphones work. Picard then sets to work administering first-aid by fashioning a split out of a twig and tearing Dr. Beverly Crusher's blue lab coat apart for bandages maybe. I don't really know.
Another thing I don't is is why in the fuck is my man Picard doing makeshift first-aid shit on her? She had a suitcase of medical supplies with her when they fell into the pit. Certainly there is some kind of weird asthma inhaler injector thing that mends broken bone and causes wounds to heal in there. Why you gotta use a stick splint my man?
Meanwhile back up in the jungle, Yar returns to Data and is like, "Well, I looked for 3 minutes and couldn't find anyone."
Data doesn't seem to care and instead tells her to move because he's figured out the right frequency to free Riker from his bubble. Data shoots his laser gun and the bubble bursts. Riker's a bit woozy but otherwise uninjured by his time in the bubble.
Meanwhile back on the Enterprise, Ensign Su informs Geordi that she's reading all five members of the away team again. Geordi is pleased that they can beam everyone back and contacts the teleportation chamber to do so, but before they can be beamed back up the Enterprise's shields automatically come up. The Enterprise is suddenly rocked by laser fire from the nothingness of space.
Worf locks on to fire at the nothingness, but suddenly whatever he was targeting disappears. It reappears a second time and again blasts the shit out of the Enterprise. The ships shields are fading and the Enterprise is not able to beam the away team back up and it is precisely at this moment that some fuckface named Logan from down in engineering gets on the horn and yells, "Are we breaking orbit? I need to know now!"
We return from commercial break and get a Geordi La Forge narrated Captain's Log where he bemoans the fact that that Logan dude from Engineering is heading to the bridge and it's not "a courtesy call."
We then see the not a courtesy call play out on the bridge as Logan is a dick to Geordi. He believes that since he outranks Geordi he should be given command of the ship since Geordi clearly has no idea what the fuck he's doing and is going to get everyone killed.
Geordi, however, gives zero shits and is more concerned with blowing up whatever invisible foe keeps lasering the Enterprise. He tells Worf to try to calculate the pattern of attack so they can preemptively fire on their foe. Logan continues to be a dick and tells Geordi that he only wants what's best for the ship and begins to tell him that the best thing is for Geordi to put him in command but Geordi interjects and tells him that the best thing for Logan to do is to return to engineering and pump every spare bit of auxiliary power into the ships shields. Logan fucks off and Troi gives the camera a weird look of concern. I think she's going to do some Mom style haranguing at Geordi before this episode is done.
Meanwhile down on Minos Yar, Data and Riker are tromping through the jungle looking for Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher. Yar asks Riker if he wants chill on some tree stump but he tells her that he's just a little groggy but will be fine.
OH FUCK ANOTHER DRONE!
Data randomly hurls Yar into some bushes for seemingly no goddamn reason at all and then he and Riker take up defensive positions.
"TAKE COVER!!!!"This drone's got a force field around it so the double laser trick doesn't work. Luckily Riker's there now and while two lasers weren't enough to blow the drone up, three lasers do the trick! Data susses out that the drones are continually upgrading themselves and a new version is spawning every 12 minutes which means they've got 12 minutes to find Captain Picard and/or Dr. Beverly Crusher before a drone that needs four laser guns firing at it to explode pops up.
Back down in the pit, Picard is talking to Dr. Beverly Crusher so that she doesn't pass out, going so far as to order her not to fall asleep. She tells him that she's lost a lot of blood, but Picard's like, "Nah I bandaged you up."
She tells him that she's got another wound on her leg, which is still randomly buried in sand for some reason. Picard digs her out and asks what he needs to do next. She tells him that she needs a clotting agent. Picard tells her that he couldn't find her medical kit, so at least that plot hole is patched up, though it wouldn't have been that hard to have that particular line of dialogue when he started making twig splints earlier.
Picard looks around for something to use when suddenly Dr. Beverly Crusher notices some roots nearby. She tells Picard to taste it but not swallow it. He says it's bitter so she tells him to rub it on his hand and see if it changes color. His hand turns yellow. Dr. Beverly Crusher tells him that that root will do the trick so he begins to prepare a poultice.
Dr. Beverly Crusher is real messed up though and is on the verge of unconsciousness so Picard continually yells at her to stay awake. He applies the poultice to stop the bleeding, but Dr. Beverly Crusher is still in a rough way and says that she's cold and asks if he has a blanket. Picard is like, "Nope. I'm going to go look for a way out of here," and then wanders off instead of trying to keep her awake.
Back on the Enterprise, Geordi and the crew prepare to fire at the unknown assailant. Geordi has the practice team move into position and then fires the phasers and photon torpedoes simultaneously. Worf growls that it was a miss and then the unseen enemy fires on the Enterprise again.
The b-team yells about the shields being fucked over as the enemy ship continues to fire on the Enterprise. Geordi looks stressed as fuck when the dickface, Logan calls from Engineering and is like, "The fuck are you doing mang! We can't keep these power levels up much longer!" and as we head into commercial, Geordi summons Logan to the bridge.
OH SNAP IS HE GOING TO RELINQUISH COMMAND?!
No, he isn't. When we return from break, Logan shows up on the bridge and yells at Geordi some more, but Geordi tunes him out and has the rookie dude (Solis?) haul ass to Lollapalooza. Logan, who earlier in the episode had been bitching at Geordi for chilling out in orbit while getting blasted by an unseen foe is now all like, "WHAT ABOUT THE AWAY TEAM?!"
My man Geordi cannot catch a break with this guy...
Geordi tells him that he also had a responsibility to the thousands of random families on the ship and if they'd stayed in orbit he would have put all their lives in jeopardy. Logan continues to yell about the away team and then Geordi tells him, "Mister Logan, you are going to take command...of the Saucer Section. Backup crew, report to the main Bridge."
He tells Logan to take the saucer to some random-ass space base while he goes back with the Battle Bridge to pick up the away team. Logan continues to be a dick to Geordi telling him, "You can't fight what you can't see," but Geordi tells him that he has to try anyway.
As the crew begins preparations for the saucer separation, Geordi runs into Picard's office to collect his thoughts or something. Troi comes in a moment later and talks to Geordi. He's like, "I'm stressed as fuck right?" and she tells him that he's handling his nervousness well, but the two rookies aren't doing so good and they need him to show confidence in them so they can draw strength from him. Nothing that has happened up to this point aside from Su being like, "I should have seen that," once that a viewer could take as nervousness from the rookies and even then Geordi was immediately like, "It's okay you're doing fine," so I don't know why this is the angle they went with here but whatever.
After his meeting with Troi, Geordi goes back out and the ship begins the separation process. I think this is only the second time they've done this at this point. I vaguely recall reading or hearing somewhere that scenes where the ship separated were crazy expensive to film and thus the reason it happened so infrequently in the show, but I could be incorrectly remembering junk. I DON'T KNOW! Anyway once the Battle Bridge separates, Geordi and his crew of rookies head back to Minos to save the away team.
Back in the pit, Picard wanders around looking for an exit and randomly yelling back to Dr. Beverly Crusher who is still partially buried in sand for some reason. She keeps talking about wanting to sleep so Picard tries to get her to focus on something else and asks her how she knew the roots would help. Dr. Beverly Crusher explains that she learned about them from her grandmother. Picard asks if her grandmother was a doctor or a botanist. She was not. Apparently she was a colonist on some kind of failed colony and when the medicine ran out she had to use homeopathy to keep people alive. Another failed colony in the utopian 24th (23rd?) century...I wonder if that one also had "rape gangs," or if it was just starvation and drying of dysentery.
Eventually Picard finds a computer that seems to still be operational. He activates it and that weird looking salesman from the automated message earlier pops up in holographic form. Picard infers that it's a tracking device of some sort and it's tracking the rest of the away team. The hologram tells Picard that the tracking device is "the centerpiece of the whole unit."
Picard's like, "What unit are you talking about?" and the hologram replies, "Why the Echo Papa 607!"
THE ECHO PAPA 607?! THE FUCK KIND OF NAME IS THAT FOR A PIECE OF FUTURISTIC ALIEN TECHNOLOGY? DO BETTER STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION WRITERS!
The hologram tells Picard that the Echo Papa is the pinnacle of Minosian weapon technology and asks if he's enjoyed the demonstration. Picard is poleaxed, "DEMONSTRATION?! IT TRIED TO KILL US!"
Picard tells the hologram to stop the demonstration but the hologram doesn't seem to understand what Picard wants or why he'd want to turn the Echo Papa off. Picard then asks the hologram what happened to the people of Minos.
The hologram merely continues its sales pitch, "Once unleashed, the unit is... invincible – the perfect killing system."
Picard realizes something that everyone watching at home probably sussed out 30 minutes earlier and tells the hologram, "Too perfect... You poor fools – your own creation destroyed you!" There's then a noise and Picard asks the hologram what is going on. The hologram explains that the Echo Papa has analyzed data from its last battle and is re-configuring itself to an even stronger form.
Back up on the surface of the planet, Riker, Yar, and Data finally find the hole that Picard fell into with Dr. Beverly Crusher. I don't know why it took them so long to find since it was literally right next to where they started from.
They yell down to the Captain and try to figure out a course of action. The pit is apparently 11.75 meters deep, but Data insists that he can jump down without damaging himself. Riker tells him to go ahead then and so Data jumps down into the pit, landing like a cat next to Dr. Beverly Crusher. Back up on the surface, Yar and Riker take up defensive positions in preparation for the next Echo Papa they'll have to battle.
We return from break with Geordi recording another Captain's Log (actually a Ship's Log) about how he's taking the Battle Bridge back to Minos to save the away team. He's apparently only got "one option left, and it's a long shot." He then gives his crew of rookies a pep talk before they head into battle with their unknown enemy.
Back down in the pit the next Echo Papa launches and begins circling Riker and Yar. Data tries to reprogram it to target something else, but there are no viable targets. Dr. Beverly Crusher is then like, "Oh for fuck's sake, just turn it off!" Everyone is like, "Oh shit we could have just turned it off couldn't we?"
Picard tells the hologram to shut the Echo Papa off, but the hologram again seems perplexed by what Picard wants. Picard tells him that they've seen enough and the hologram then asks Picard if they want to buy the Echo Papa. Picard is exasperated and agrees to buy the Echo Papa at which point the Echo Papa and the holographic salesman both disappear as the screen of the computer goes blank. The crew's cellphones all begin to work again and they call Geordi to tell him that everything is now under control.
Geordi replies, "It's great to hear your voice, Captain. We're a little busy right now. I'll get right back to you."
Sure enough, back on the Enterprise, things are still popping off as the invisible enemy is still running buck wild chasing after the Enterprise. Geordi tells the rookies to bring the Battle Bridge into the atmosphere of Minos so that when the unseen foe follows after them there will be air distortions or contrails or some shit and then the Enterprise will be able to blast 'em.
Things get a little hairy for a moment as the Enterprise starts to burn up and the shields begin to fail, but then the invisible foeman appears and the crew of the Battle Bridge is able to lock on. BAM! RIGHT IN THE ASS! The invisible spaceship explodes and the crew of rookies celebrate their victory for a moment before it's back to business. Ensign Su locks onto the away team and beams them back aboard.
A moment later Picard and Riker arrive on the Battle Bridge and Geordi gets up out of the captain's chair to relinquish command but Picard tell him, "As you were, Lieutenant."
Geordi doesn't understand but Picard tells him, "Mr. La Forge, when I left this ship, it was in one piece. I would appreciate your returning it to me in the same condition. Do you concur, Number One?"
Number One concurs. Geordi smiles, pleased that he gets to play captain a bit longer and tells Solis to set a course for Random Ass Space Base to rendezvous with the saucer section. Ensign Su reports that Dr. Beverly Crusher has been treated at the sickbay and will be fine as Geordi tells them to blast off to adventure to end the episode.
How Rikered Was Riker?Maybe a little. His entire dicking around with "Rice" in the early going was exactly the sort of thing a person who was hammered but able to act sober would do, though as I mentioned above, him referencing a nearly 430 year old song was kind of out of character and not the sort of thing a shitfaced individual would be able to do.
Final ThoughtsI don't know how I really feel about this episode. The Geordi plot with a random Enterprise B-Team players could have been cool if they were characters that popped back up over the course of the series but I don't think they did so they were just more random jerkoffs who got a bunch of screen time over the actual crew. Logan could be a decent workplace antagonist for Geordi if he ever shows back up. Just a guy who dislikes his coworker for no real reason, though again, I don't recall him ever showing back up in later episodes so like Su and Solis, he was just a random jackoff who got a b-plot dedicated to him only to never show back up.
As for the main plot? I think it kind of sucked. The invincible killing machines were easily able to be stopped by simply asking the computer to turn them off. Wouldn't the people of Minos have done that once they realized shit had gone horribly wrong? Even the shittiest companies in these our modern times will stop producing things that are proven to have a disastrous impact on the general public (though generally only after the general public complains loudly and/or litigously enough) out of self-preservation. You would think that when an unstoppable killing machine starts running buckwild someone would have had enough common sense to pull the plug. Two thumbs down.
That being said, none of this actually matter since this is The Star Trek Fuck Report, not a Random Guy on the Internet Picks Nits About 30 Year Old Episodes of Star Trek Plots Report. And this episode was once again a complete and utter dud on that front.
Fuck CountOnce again, zero fucking fucks. Was I wrong about Star Trek? Was it not as horny as I thought it to be or is this merely a case of the horniness picking up in subsequent seasons? Though I am becoming somewhat disheartened at the lack of fucking I must press on to determine which crew member fucks the most.
Total Fucks for Episode: 0
Total Fucks for Season: 6
Total Fucks for Series: 6
