TNG S07E22, S07E23

In this installment:
(viewed Monday, May 19th)

Star Trek:  The Next Generation, S07E22 - "Bloodlines"
Star Trek:  The Next Generation, S07E23 - "Emergence"

---

"Bloodlines"

• Apparently one does not simply hail Captain Jean-Luc Picard by name.  That's completely off-sides.
• Damon Bok is played by a different actor in this episode (Lee Arenberg) than the first time we see him, in S1's "The Battle" (then played by Frank Corsentino).
  
  Both men are veteran Star Trek actors, and Lee Arenberg appears as recently as the earlier S7 episode "Forces Of Nature".
• Bok's accusation that Picard killed his son stems from an incident when Picard commanded USS Stargazer and destroyed an attacking Ferengi ship.
• Jason Vigo?  Hopefully he's not from Carpathia.
  
  
  
  
• Apparently 24th Century military personnel aren't a lot better about using birth control when on shore leave than 20th & 21st Century military personnel :P
• Given the kinds of detail that sensors in a tricorder can generally gather about biological material, I'm a little bit surprised that Dr. Crusher has to actually extract a DNA sample to do the paternity test.
• Your kid thinks your hobby is boring.  Bummer.
• It's good to know that you can buy your way out of a Ferengi prison...
• "But where are you from?"
  
  "I was born on Betazed."
  
  "Do all the women there have eyes like yours?"
  
  You mean black and soulless?  Yes, yes they do.  But so do the men.
• Careful hitting on Counselor Troi, buddy.  Most men in the 24th Century might be pretty enlightened and not getting into the whole hyper-macho, overprotective thing...but her ex is the quasi-Neaderthal first officer of the Federation flagship and the guy she's currently (maybe?) dating is its grumpy Klingon security officer.  I don't think you could count on either of those dudes to be very understanding.
• Speaking of which, I bet "SECURITY TO CAPTAIN'S QUARTERS IMMEDIATELY" is one sure-fire way to get the chief of security out of bed.
• Oh, your kid thinks you're boring, tried to hit on your pet empath and has a criminal record.  Bummer.
• The whole concept of B'Zal seems a little too complicated for the Ferengi :P
• Forrester-Trent Syndrome.  It's like the Trek writers are just trying to give me awesome names for prog rock bands.
• "In order to transport matter through subspace, you have to put it into quantum flux. It's very unstable."
  
  Well, don't tell that to Other Scotty.
• Miranda Vigo, Captain Picard's one-time love interest and mother of Jason, went to Camor V to help the orphans there from the long and destructive Federation-Cardassian War.
  
  This little bread crumb of a story and all of the other ones sprinkled throughout TNG/DS9, which of course leads up to a second and even more destructive war with the Cardassians and their Dominion overlords (and briefly the Breen), always makes me curious.
  
  I'm sure there are some Trek novels out there that cover this period in Federation history, but I'd definitely watch a well-made fan film about it.
• "One thing's for sure:  You'll never look at your hairline the same way again."
• The profit motive at the core of most Ferengi personalities really makes it difficult to keep a revenge-focused rogue crew together, I guess.

---

"Emergence"

• Well, at least this episode isn't about someone's mother/father/brother/son.  I really had no awareness of how many family-oriented episodes they chucked into the last season of TNG before I watched them all in a row like this.
• More Picard and Data on the holodeck, rehearsing Shakespeare?  Why not?
• "So how did your Captain and Second Officer die, again?"
  
  "They were...run over by a train."
• An emergency core shutdown leaves the ship without warp drive for a week?  It's surely not as severe as an actual warp core ejection (which never seems to work anyway), so I wonder what it involves.  I suppose if they inject some kind of inert material into the core to stop the matter/anti-matter reaction, it might gum things up for a while.
• Theta flux distortion:  Again, the writers are spot-on with the prog rock band names.
• "So, do you guys think we should do one more holodeck-run-amok episode before we wrap up the series?"
  
  "Yeah, let's get one more in before we call it quits."
•  The actor who plays the Conductor on the Orient Express holodeck program is David Huddleston. 
  
  Mr. Huddleston has had a long and prolific acting career, but most people my age will recognize him primarily as the "other" Jeffrey Lebowski in The Big Lebowski.
• "Unlikely as it may sound, I believe the Enterprise may be forming an intelligence."
  
  What do you mean "unlikely"?  We've seen everything conceivable become sentient on this show.  The ship's computer makes perfect sense :P
• You guys didn't think to gin up some tickets?
  
  
  
  
• Well, who among us hasn't wanted to throw a pile of bricks at Counselor Troi from time to time?
• Oh, now you bring tickets!
• "Well, I could use a pair of strong arms in the engine room.  Might help us get back on schedule."
  
  "Why don't you go with him, Worf.  We'll see what we can do here."
  
  The look on Worf's face at this point practically screams "YOU KNOW, THE ANDROID ACTUALLY HAS STRONGER ARMS THAN I DO."
• Every time someone says "Vertiform City", I subconsciously repeat it in the incredulous tone used by the cowboys in the old Pace salsa ads when they said "New York City!"
  
  
  
  
• Vertion particles:  It wouldn't be a late-season TNG episode if we didn't have a "particle of the week" :)
• A brand new type of intelligence that springs forth from the ship's computer and then goes off into space to do whatever?  Yeah, no need to follow up on that at all.