11001001

This marvelous episode had me hooked from the appearance of Starbase 74, the docking of the Enterprise and the appearance of the Bynars. The character of Minuet is played to perfection by the exquisitely beautiful & sultry Caroline McCormack. All in all this episode left me wanting to know more about the Bynars and their homework of Binus.

The Enterprise puts in for repair and a race of aliens called Binaries are enlisted to help in the repair. They are a highly unusual species who always travel in 2s like Mormon Elders and co-dependent totally on the other. Their written and spoken language is in binary code like a computer.

These binaries have an agenda all their own. They steal the Enterprise to take to their home planet for reasons you have to see the show to know. The whole crew is on shore leave and later additional personnel abandon ship when it looks like a warp core breach.

All that's left on the Enterprise are Picard and Riker. For Riker the binaries have rigged the holodeck with a most fetching and sultry personality. Carolyn McCormick later the proper and professional psychiatric consultant on Law And Order Dr. Elizabeth Olivet is the alluring Minuet in Riker's program. She really distracts Jonathan Frakes until it's too late almost.

A highly entertaining story that's grounded in a certain reality. The Binaries are a lot like the Logopolitans from the Tom Baker original Dr. Who.

The Enterprise is in dock to have its computers updated by a group of Bynars, a species that has evolved from computers. They work on things in pairs at a rapid fire pace. Both Wesley and Riker are a bit suspicious of what is going on. While Riker and Picard sit in the a jazz club in the holodeck with a beautiful young woman, bad things are happening. Somehow, the Enterprise is being compromised. Data orders the crew evacuated because the ship is potentially explosive. Once everyone is off (except, of course, Riker and Picard) the ship leaves and goes into warp. It is now up to the two ranking officers to figure out what is happening and to remedy it. I won't spoil anything, but for the first time there is a story of real complexity, aliens that are very interesting, and a problem that could happen in this realm. The solution is quite satisfying. The other thing that works here is that the characters of the Captain and his Number One relax and show their human sides. Jean Luc in particular is probably a pretty lonely man, married to his ship. Like a brother in a monastery, everyone else comes first. Riker is a romantic and shows himself quite the smooth talker and we find that he has a great love of jazz and a penchant for the trombone.

The Enterprise docks at Starbase 74 for routine maintenance on its computers, led by a strange alien race known as the Binars. While the rest of the crew indulge in some R&R, Riker finds himself on the holodeck and falling for yet another enigmatic woman.

A bit less successful than 'The Big Goodbye', this holodeck episode works well alongside a decent narrative involving the Enterprise being taken over. The Binars are an intriguing species that deserved to be revisited in future but the subplot involving Horny Riker never really works as well as it should. After all, it's fairly obvious to the viewer what's going on so why does it take the characters so long to figure it out?

All Star Trek (up through ENT) has great episodes and terrible ones. 11001001 is good example of an interesting concept (which is why we love Star Trek) which is poorly written (which is why some people dislike Star Trek). Overly simplified, ignorant of science, shallow in character, it's so caught up in the gosh-wow of its own concepts that it disregards much of the show's own premise. If this were the only/first Star Trek you ever saw, you would conclude that: 1. The Enterprise pretty much drives itself 2. Supernovas are akin to earthquakes, and happen only for short periods of time -- days, or even minutes -- and then life goes on as before 3. Combadges are powerful enough to talk from one star system to another instantly 4. A pretty face is all it takes to sidetrack a (male) officer from duty.

You might also reasonably wonder how crew members are tracked by their combadges in other episodes when they don't here, and what kind of vetting Star Fleet does for aliens working on their top-of-the-line starships.

Abounding also are the usual TNG weaknesses: the first guess anyone comes up with in a crisis proves to be exactly the right answer; the overweening social psychobabble (even when they're correct, it's superficially so); the characters explaining to each other what they should already know.

The good news is Carolyn McCormick's portrayal of Minuet is nuanced, if necessarily flawed by the script she was given. The Bynar actors are occasionally pretty good -- again, within the script they were given.

There was a lot of idea/concept shoveled in here, mostly haphazardly and incompletely -- and honestly, that is something to be excited about. The actual episode, though, suffers from ham-fisted assertions and flat-out ignorant science. Which is sometimes necessary for the structure of TV drama, but even that is mushy here.

So: is it good? No. Should you still watch it? Why yes, of course. Just know you're going to have a lot of "What the --?" moments.