[For my daily workout, I'm pedaling on a recumbent exercise bike while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. I'm posting my reviews here.]
(200.0 pounds)
This episode does for kids what “Code of Honor” does for black people, “Angel One” does for women, and “Too Short a Season” does for the elderly: “What? You got your own episode. We’re (stereo)topical. What more do you want from us?”
I’m fascinated by stories in which a civilization goes to intellectual seed, accepting the care of a computer. Has no one been born in all these thousand years who is, I don’t know, a hacker? An anarchist? Someone with even the rudiments of curiosity? I mean, how can it be that nobody has tinkered with the Custodian, tried to add on to it or modify it? It’s a little scary to think of a society whose philosophy seems to be, “If it ain’t broke, don’t even think about it.”
This could have been interesting, but, like lots of first season episodes, it just falls down under the weight of its own writing. At least the smallest girl was cute, though God, do we have to end every episode with people chuckling on the bridge? That’s one of the worst legacies of the original series, a very 60s (and 70s and 80s) TV-land sort of thing to reassure people that everything is okay now.
My grade: D