TNG Flashback: Samaritan Snare

"Samaritan Snare" is a big misfire that does still have a least one big, bright spot. While it doesn't make this a good installment, it does at least save it from the cellar of the worst second season episodes.

Picard needs surgery to replace a failing artificial heart, and refuses to have Pulaski perform the procedure. He instead chooses to hitch a ride on a shuttlecraft to a nearby starbase where Wesley Crusher is taking Starfleet exams, giving the two a few quiet hours for conversation. Meanwhile, the Enterprise responds to a distress call from a dimwitted alien race known as the Pakleds. When Geordi beams aboard to help them "make their ship go," the malfunctions are revealed to be a ruse to imprison a brilliant engineer who can upgrade their systems. Commander Riker plans a ruse to deceive the Pakleds, but his rescue may be cut short when an urgent call from the starbase comes in: there have been complications in Picard's surgery, and Pulaski is urgently needed to save him.

In principle, the idea of a stone dumb alien race is a good one rife with comedic potential -- and the episode does manage to mine some of that humor in an entertaining way. But the episode also has Geordi fall victim to these aliens, and that element of the episode is a total disaster. The problem with stupid adversaries is that the heroes have to be even more stupid to actually fall into jeopardy against them.

Right before Geordi beams over to assist the Pakleds, Worf expressly argues against the need to send the ship's chief engineer over to an unknown alien vessel. As is customary on The Next Generation, whenever Worf makes a suggestion, he gets shot down, but this time Worf is absolutely right! Yet Riker's casual dismissal of Worf is nothing compared to the treatment he gives to Troi. The counselor is inexplicably (but of dramatic necessity) not on duty when the Enterprise first encounters the Pakleds, but when she does later arrive on the bridge, she forcefully warns Riker that she senses Geordi is in extreme danger aboard the Pakled ship. Riker doesn't do a damn thing about it. Meanwhile, Geordi's not looking after his own phaser and Data is suddenly reduced to stating the obvious all episode long. In short, everybody behaves like a negligent moron in order to manufacture the jeopardy this episode requires.

Their plan to get out of that jeopardy doesn't make them look much brighter. They decide that a harmless light show will intimidate the Pakleds into dropping their shields. But for some incomprehensible reason, performing this ruse requires Geordi to actually equip the alien ship with working photon torpedoes before quickly disabling them (by the end a totally arbitrary 24-second countdown). The writers try to convince us that Geordi has to do it this way because the Pakleds will know if they're being tricked. Except in the end, they don't know that they've been tricked.

The complications of Picard's heart surgery are just as much of a bust. Daniel Benzali, a fine working actor who shined in the first season of the TV series Murder One, plays a no-name surgeon stuffed to bursting with meaningless technobabble served up in tiny 15-second scenes. This is all intercut at an obnoxious pace with the equally fragmented A story. But ultimately, the surgeon can't farfenegrate the indobalinochrine attenuator or something, and has to call in Pulaski. This just gives Pulaski, who is usually a jerk for no reason, a reason to be a jerk, making her appearance in this episode downright insufferable.

But what does work fairly well in this episode is the shuttle flight with Wesley and Picard. The writing isn't perfect; Wesley is uncharacteristically forward with the captain, posing questions about parenthood and regret. But the spirit of the dramatic construct is a good one. It's like a little two-man play, and since one of the men is a celebrated Shakespearean actor, it comes off well. Patrick Stewart is riveting as he tells the story of Picard's brush with death. He paints his cocky battle against the Nausicaans so vividly that the writers were later compelled to build an entire episode out of this backstory, the brilliant sixth season entry "Tapestry."

Other observations:

• Ensign Sonya Gomez is back, following her introduction in "Q Who." She's barely in this episode, however, and is never seen again after this.

• Christopher Collins plays the lead Pakled (named in the script, but not on screen, as "Grebnedlog" -- or "Goldenberg" spelled backwards). He gives an unrecognizably different performance from the one he gave earlier in the season, as the Klingon captain in "A Matter of Honor." Great range from a good bit player.

• Though the threat is stupid, the episode does still generate a few good laughs. My personal favorite is the deadpan response to "you are armed to the teeth": "teeth are for chewing."

• It's interesting that after being so secretive about his artificial heart, Picard opens up and tells Wesley all about it. You could possibly interpret this a few ways, but I think Picard is trying to impart some wisdom to a young man. He doesn't want Wesley to make the same mistakes he did. Of course, regret over being reckless in his youth also plays into that later episode, "Tapestry."

I think this episode is perched right on the line between a C- and a D+. Ultimately, I'm going to nudge it to the higher grade in acknowledgement of Patrick Stewart's great work here, and the fact that without this episode, we never would have had the later, greater one. But to be clear, this one's no prize.