A Fistful of Datas

A holodeck episode means two things: something's going to go wrong, and the cast gets out of the office to stretch their legs for an episode. 'A Fistful of Datas' has a few things working in its favor. For one, it's the crew having fun with an old west tale (and making use of the backlot and SoCal sunshine); two, Patrick Stewart in the director's chair, which helps keep spirits high; three, the pitch-perfect casting of John Pyper-Ferguson, and this was probably the audition tape for his stint on "Brisco County Jr." But having Data go haywire allows Brent Spiner to mug for the camera and do funny voices. Add all this up and you've got a somewhat lighter story with a cast that's willing to go for it. It all comes together quite nicely.

7/10

The Golden Age of Star Trek: we had the 6th Season of The Next Generation and the 1st Season of Deep Space Nice on our televisions, Generations on view in our cinemas and First Contact due out soon. This season of TNG contains some excellent stand-alone episodes and several spectacular two-parters, with only the occasional make-weight. Despite the length of time it had already been on the air, it still represents some of the highest standard of television Science Fiction ever broadcast.

Oh dear! The holodeck has broken down again. Let's all have fun with another ridiculous premise because fresh ideas are in short supply. Well, now I've got that out of my system I'm going to admit that I am as fond of this episode now as I was when I watched it with my young children giggling all the way through, first time around.

If you can get over the "pastiche of a pastiche" Sci-Fi/Old West genre mix and Marina Sirtis's dreadful Western accent, and if you can suspend your disbelief for long enough, you can enjoy some great jokes and entertaining performances. For anyone who can't, it isn't worth getting hot under the collar about. The Kirk-era Original Series was not above raiding other series' sets and costumes, after all.

Brent Spiner gets some of the best lines & costume changes but it is Michael Dorn, as the gruff Klingon gradually being sucked into this fantasy at the behest of his son, who's delivery is close to perfect.

Senior Trekker scores every episode with a 5.

One of the poorest episodes made. The poor writing was only exceeded by the poor acting and special effects.

This episode (like many other of the worst Star Trek episodes) is bad not because of its poor acting or nonsensical storyline, but because the plot is completely devoid of substance. The key moments of this episode (of which there are few) lack any weight or important, and are resolved immediately and seemingly without any result or consequence.

The Enterprise is awaiting a rendezvous so Geordi and Data decide to experiment with the ship's engines interphasing them with Data's neural net. Big ,mistake, as the old adage says, if ain't broke don't fix it.

Worf and his son and Counselor Troi are in a hollowdeck program from the old American west where Worf is a sheriff and Alexander his deputy. The safeguards go off and the other characters start looking like Data.

This was a little more light than most TNG shows. Michael Dorn slowly gees int the spirit of the west and Bent Spiner does an Alec Guinness like gallery of characters.

One not to miss.