Symbiosis

Enterprise receives a distress call whilst observing a sun.

This is a solid episode focussed on the prime directive and has some effective guest characters.

The story is a simple but effective way to show how the prime directive is observed by Federation starships. It puts Captain Picard in a difficult position and under pressure from characters whose interests conflict.

Underlying the above are some fairly clear themes on capitalist systems and drug addiction. This gives the story a bit more relevance to real life issues, particularly during the 1980s when it was written. It can be a bit heavy handed at times, especially during one scene of dialogue between Tasha Yar and Wesley Crusher that feels terribly forced.

For me it is concluded in a refreshing way by a decision where we see the reaction of the individuals it impacts and then left to ponder what might become of the situation. It's not particularly cinematic, but the acting is strong enough to make it work well.

There are some decent visuals, particularly at the start where we see the solar flares. The costumes are a bit naff, but do tell you everything you need to know about the differences between the Ornara and Brekka. The effects that depict electrical powers also hold up well.

All performances are solid with Patrick Stewart standing out as always. Gates McFadden has a decent episode and all the guest actors play their parts well.

This episode of TNG brings the Enterprise to a pair of planets humanoid inhabited who have a strange relationship. One of the planets is where the population is quite healthy, but the other has been suffering a plague for generations and is completely dependent on the other to give it medicine, for an exhorbitant price. It's economic bondage.

It's worse than that. The medicine is a narcotic and you have planetary wide addiction.

Dr. Crusher weighs in as this is a medical issue. She wants an intervention, but Captain Picard is sticking by the prime directive. Personally I'm with Gates McFadden here. I think the usually wise Patrick Stewart is dead wrong.

You'll have to tune in to see how this is resolved.

I kept waiting for someone to say, "just say no." First of all it's obvious from the start that the Brekkians are drug addicts but the supposedly intelligent Enterprise crew with every medical technology at their disposal can't figure this out until 40 minutes into the episode? They act like a bunch of clueless idiots for the sake of the plot device. Then we have the obligatory "don't do drugs" talk with Wesley. I love Star Trek TNG but this episode just annoyed me and smacked of poor and obvious writing.

A good story about exploitation and utter dependency. I thought the whole "why do drugs" bit by the annoying Wesley Crusher was silly, but all in all a good episode from season one. What I don't get is this: The transporter works by turning every molecule of a thing into energy then back again...right? So it stands to reason that once something has been transported, there is now a record of what it's made of. So once the "medicine" was beamed on board (then again to the cargo hold) making more would be a simple matter. I don't care how "rare" the main ingredient is, when you have transporters and replicators...just make as much as you want and get on with it! That's my point.

This was a great early episode of TNG with Picard facing a difficult choice. Better acting than most of the S1 episodes. Unfortunately it features what is possibly the worst scene in Star Trek history when Tasha gives Wesley the "drug talk". Nancy Reagan should have got a writing credit.