Emergence

While this is certainly interesting, it's another episode where one needs to strain one's sense of order. What exactly is the enemy and what is it doing. Apparently, the ship's computer has become sentient and is trying to gain control of its being. This leads to a hodgepodge of stuff going on on the holodeck. There are a group of characters that seem to be part of a dream the ship is having. Whatever is going on appears to be a metaphor for correcting the problem. The ship isn't a true adversary; it is trying to find its way. Data and the gang must figure out what is going on. There is a kind of display that keeps repeating itself all around the ship that may be the clue to its intentions. As is often the case, things make sense to everyone but the audience. There are parallels her between Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and Prospero the wizard. I admit, though, that I never quite got it.

The holodeck goes a bit mad and the crew try to find out why.

This episode contains some good ideas, but they are not realised in a particularly interesting way.

The plot has a good concept at heart but the narrative for me was literally sleep inducing. I found myself waking up in the middle of the night, needing something to help me go back and it worked.

If we just had the imagery to figure out what was going on it might have worked, but going from one technobabble explanation to the next was hard work to stay 'engaged'. (Teehee!)

Everyone felt like they were going through the motions to me.

The final season of Star Trek, the Next Generation gave us some splendid episodes and also a fair share of stinkers. Everyone knew by this stage that they would not be renewed and attempts were made to wrap up various story lines before they said their final goodbyes. There is still a great deal to be enjoyed.

Well, this wasn't as bad on re-viewing as I had anticipated. I'm afraid what had lodged in my mind was the "Enterprise computer gains higher intelligence and gives birth to a collection of bendy-straws" storyline. Apparently, the well known SFX company Industrial Light and Magic are credited with this particular creation. Hardly their finest hour.

The rest of the episode looked good. This was assisted, no doubt, by the opportunity to use sets which had already been constructed by the studio for other productions: the luxurious train carriage and the New York street scenes added visual impact and would otherwise have been beyond the budget of a weekly television series. Mingling aspects from various holodeck programmes added a surrealistic component as well as some enjoyable costume cliches but having Counsellor Troi attempt to psychoanalyse the ship's computer in order to get it back under control was a step too far.

Well known film actor David Huddleston and Trek regular Thomas Kopache both managed to keep a straight face as they contributed their considerable skills to this melange of nonsense and Sir Patrick demonstrated great professionalism as he conducted an apparently serious discussion about the computer's benign intentions and understandable wish to reproduce.

This was another episode where the writers decided to bolt on a bit of Shakespeare by having Data perform a scene from the Tempest. Brent Spiner's exaggerated, self-reflecting parody as the sage Prospero was unworthy of some of the finest verse ever written. This particular play has a fantasy element all of its own and was the inspiration for the classic Science Fiction film Forbidden Planet. There are some excellent adaptations out there for anyone who might be interested in seeing it performed without the unnecessary mockery.

Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5.

I don't understand why so many don't highly score this episode. I mean David Huddleston being on it deserves a high score in itself, before taking in the story.

I love all holodeck episodes usually anyway, and this one with a mix of characters, all out of time, is especially fascinating, and on the Orient Express no less! Only thing missing is Hercule Poirot!

Then we talk about emerging intelligence- here in 2023 it couldn't be more significant. It would be nice to think that the world in 2370 still exists with majority humanoids and we haven't all evolved into AI, however we know that the Star Trek universe is still basically fantasy. And in this episode there is a happy ending! A great entertaining episode.

"Emergence" was one of the last episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and it is the sort of show that makes you think that perhaps the series had run its course and was ready to wrap.

The show is a holodeck episode and I should point out that that I almost always hate episodes that take place in the holodeck--which is exactly why I disliked it. It seems that something in the computer system is showing signs of sentience and it's centered on one of the holodecks. When the crew enters to see what's happening, they see various disparate characters from various programs on a train. Using metaphors as a guide, the crew decide to help the conductor get the train to where it's going--as otherwise the ship will continue behaving very unpredictably.

It's a holo episode. If you like 'em, you'll probably like this. If you think they show evidence of poor writing, then you won't. I didn't.