Contagion

The Enterprise responds to a distress call from its sister ship, the USS Yamato, which is experiencing a significant number of technical problems - one of which proves catastrophic. As Picard wonders if the Enterprise really is plagued by similar technical flaws, a number of unexplained glitches begin appearing across the ship.

A good episode that deals with a race against time to prevent disaster, heightened by the presence of some suspicious Romulans nearby. Not sure about the ending, which felt a bit too convenient for my liking and left far too many unanswered questions for my taste. But otherwise, an enjoyable episode.

Enterprise responds to a distress call from the USS Yamoto inside the neural zone.

This is a solid episode with some strong character moments, but the much lauded suspense and excitement doesn't fully work for me.

The plot is quite detailed and interesting with great world-building and sci-fi concepts. However the suspense driven sequences are lost on me as I never felt for a minute that Enterprise would be in danger or likewise any of the main characters. The resolution is simple, but in today's IT dominated world it works in a humorous way. Who hasn't been given a solution like that by an IT helpline?

I enjoyed the character moments of the episode, as pretty much everyone makes a contribution. Picard leading the away mission is a refreshing change, Dr Pulaski talking about splints was fun, Geordie has some far stronger moments than usual and Data has one quite cinematic scene towards the end.

I was slightly disappointed with the Romulans who were portrayed as one-note baddies, but their impending threat is implied well.

The visuals are decent, with good effects and nice set design. I particularly enjoyed the scene where Geordie runs from engineering to the bridge to deliver an important message.

All acting is good, particularly the regular cast members. This is my favourite LeVar Burton performance so far.

For me it's a 7.5/10 but I round upwards.

Now the title is a bit deceptive because this episode primarily focuses on the Ancient Iconanians but The Romulans do there very excellent roles Federation "Bad Guys"

This was another episode where at the end I was clapping because it was Pure Joy to watch like any REALLY Good Star Trek Episode is!

The Enterprise is heading for the neutral zone where the NSC Yamato under Captain Thalmus Rasulala is in some deep trouble with system wide failure going on all over the ship. This is after they've made contact with what they believe was the planet where a long dead civilization the Iconians operated from and traveled the galaxy. Before their eyes the Enterprise crew witnesses the Yamato explode mid space.

We also learn that Jean-Luc Picard's hobby since Academy days is archeology. So the enthusiasm that Patrick Stewart had for this mission is now tempered somewhat.

The Romulans also arrive to see what they can learn from this dead world. All I can say it's not something either one should have to hold over the other.

A nice performance also from Carolyn Seymour as the Romulan captain.

In the Scientology film Battlefield Earth the humans discover Harrier jets that are fuelled and functional after many decades. This was widely mocked. In this episode, the systems of the Iconians are still perfectly clean and working after 200.000 years. We don't even have words to describe how utterly ludicrous that is. Even worse is how Data can translate their language based on related (?) languages. For some reason Star Trek is always at its dumbest when language is involved. Oh, and in all that time no one has apparently discovered the planet either.

During the episode the Enterprise has serious computer errors. And no one thinks to do a cold reboot. Literally anyone who has ever used a computer would consider that first. Also there are no safeguards to prevent this? They just download the information from a ship that's experiencing major malfunctions?

However, despite being utterly and completely divorced from reality Contagion isn't bad. Shame no one from this universe was involved in writing this.