When the Bough Breaks

While the setup is silly and their leader comes around too quickly at the end, this is a wonderful episode. This is Star Trek through and through. An antagonist that isn't two-dimensional but likeable and understandable. Both the technical and emotional side get plenty of attention. Wesley is finally used appropriately and has a great moment with his mother. Picard is shown as both determined and awkward. They took a risk by having many interactions with young children and it paid off.

The Enterprise makes contact with Aldea, a near-mythical world that has cloaked itself from the rest of the quadrant and developed extraordinary technological advancement. However, when the Aldeans abduct several children including Wesley from the Enterprise, Picard is forced to outwit a foe with far greater capabilities than he possesses.

A good story here and finally a show that gives Wheaton something better to do than handily solve every situation for once. But the story meanders quite a bit and I had plenty of questions at the end of the episode, which doesn't help. An alright episode but not an essential one.

Definitively worst than the others, even if its rating is 6.4/10 it is to me a 5.5/10 , worst episode in a fantastic TV show ( one of the all time best show) Only light in the episode was one sentence by data, the enterprise beeing push back from the planet and a little Comedy in the end, enough to save it from beeing a 5/10. But yeah Season 1 is really the weakest even with some great episode like" we'll Always have Paris"

Enterprise visits Aldea, where the inhabitants take an extreme action for the survival of their race.

This is a moderately entertaining episode that gets off to a good start but the resolution is fairly uninspired.

It starts off with a compelling premise, particularly for viewers who are parents. However, as things unfold it's clear to see the writers had some specific character development in mind for this episode and the plot feels something of an afterthought. The way everything is so neatly and quickly resolved is quite comical. The themes very much resemble those from the episode "11001001". I also liked the idea of a society losing its scientific and technological knowledge due to an overemphasis on the arts.

This is a decent episode for Captain Picard who has some strong moments of verbal confrontation and leadership, whilst also developing his character in relation to the Enterprise children.

Wesley Crusher has some strong moments, but you can see a lot of the writing is geared around his development as a young leader. I enjoyed all of his scenes up until the smug smile appears at the end which always seems to be the character's downfall.

The visuals are fairly bland with little inspiration found in the costumes and art design on Aldea.

The performance of Patrick Stewart is strong as ever. Will Wheaton is most okay and Gates McFadden likewise. The guest actors are fairly weak, with children regularly outshining their adult counterparts on Aldea. Jerry Hardin is solid but the the role isn't particularly challenging.

It's not stellar but it's ok. It doesn't have the warts that so many first season episodes have. This one could have been slotted almost seamlessly into the second or third seasons.

Though it does have hilarious plot holes. First, are there not orphans that might want to move here? Second, how exactly can this planet disappear again? Once the Enterprise detected it, they should easily be able to quickly determine its orbital parameters. Why didn't Picard point out that he'd already transmitted all this information to Starfleet and if anything happened to the Enterprise, a whole fleet would come looking?