DISASTER "Disaster" was an entertaining episode, but essentially a lightweight adventure. I suspect that the people who require technical perfection in SF plots will dislike the episode, while most others will enjoy it. It's no surprise that this episode smacks strong of The Towering Inferno. Catastrophe films which take place in one structure follow very basic patterns: A feeling of clautrophobia because the characters are unable to move around much, a feeling of impending doom as they each learn that the disaster has altered some portion of the status quo to threaten their lives, and, often, some otherwise routine aspect of modern-day life becomes a major problem. Some form of injury is also usually introduced, and time pressure becomes the main form of suspense in the story. All of these elements are predent in "Disaster": - Parts of the ship are sealed off from one another. In particular, Picard and the children are trapped in the confining space of an elevator with limited tools at their disposal to get them out of their predicament. - While Dr. Crusher and LaForge are in danger from radiation poisoning and what is essentially a time bomb, Troi and company discover that the ship is in danger of exploding. - Keiko's pregnancy, which would probably be routine were the ship fully functional and the medical facilities available, becomes a problem when she goes into labor in Ten Forward without qualified medical staff around. - Picard's ankle is broken, which produces an interesting dilemma in that the only exit from the turbolift is above them. (This puzzle is bizarrely underemphasized as they don't seem to show how Picard gets out. I guess he hoisted himself up with the optical cable. Shrug.) - Time pressure is the main form of suspense as manifested in the exploding chemicals, the deteriorating warp containment fields, and the weakening elevator grips. The episode is executed competently (depending on how forgiving one is with the scientific gobbledygook; it didn't really bother me), but the whole concept is not really very interesting in the first place. There were a few elements introduced in the episode which make it stand out slightly, though some of them were not so well handled: - Troi's assumption of command is pretty much a big nothing. I think Star Trek has just about exhausted its "character x assumes command" plots. "The Arsenal Of Freedom" did the same thing as this, only better. - I still find Ro's character very cliche. Like most of the other characters in this episode, she was little more than a plot device. - I liked Riker's expression when Data suggested that he fry himself and have Riker carry his head onwards. I could almost see Riker thinking, "This can't be happening. This is too weird." :-) - When Riker was connecting a wire to Data's head and Spiner put on that amusing expression, I immediately thought, "I bet they got some good bloopers while shooting THAT scene!" - Okay, some of Keiko's expressions during labor got a chuckle out of me. :-) I did wonder that none of the other zillion people in Ten Forward didn't have even a smidgen more medical training than Worf. - Did everyone notice Crusher and LaForge breathing in and out very deeply before they opened the hatch? SF fans will recognize that technique as one used in a similar situation in an Arthur C. Clarke short story, the idea being that saturating one's body with oxygen BEFORE holding one's breath will help one survive in an oxygenless environment (and maybe even a vacuum) longer. I've always been a bit skeptical myself, but I guess the person to take it up with is Mr. Clarke... - Some nice opticals in this episode, notably the plasma effect in the cargo bay and the computer visuals when O'Brien had to prevent the containment field from collapsing prematurely. (The latter especially, was quite impressive.) On the whole, "Disaster" was an average, unoriginal idea competently executed. It was fun, in much the same way something like Terminator 2 is fun, but it's basically pretty lightweight. Grade: B SEASON FIVE AT A GLANCE: Redemption II: B- Darmok: A+ Ensign Ro: C Silicon Avatar: C- Disaster: B --- Total Points: 13 2/3 Season Average: 2.733 ( B ) (Rise of .067 from previous episode.) And now... a review of some Madison, Wisconsin r.a.s participants: To watch "Disaster", a number of Madison, Wisconsin r.a.s people gathered Saturday evening. Our host was John Graziano, who has seemingly been immortalized in Peter David's book _Q_In_Law_. (Has anyone produced a list of who in r.a.s and rec.arts.comics has popped up in a David story? Am I the only one to date who HASN'T? :-) Myself and Derek Zahn, who has contributed at least one decent (IMHO) TNG parody to r.a.s, showed up around 9:30, an hour before the episode was scheduled to air. Shortly thereafter, Mike Brown, better know to just a few of you as Vidiot, showed up, laserdisc player and discs in hand (and car). We were also joined by John's girlfriend, whose name I've already forgotten. (Sorry, John! :-) John's about 6 feet tall and is pretty stocky, with black hair and a moustache, as well as a wry sense of humor. (He got a few good one-liners in during the evening, one of which I've encouraged him to post. :-) Derek is of similar height (and so are Mike and I, come to think of it!) with a big mop of black curly hair. Mike's got longish black hair, a beard and glasses. As for me, I look like a chipmonk. :-) While John and Mike hooked up the disc player, Derek an I snarfed down brownies that John had cooked. Then, Mike popped a copy of first ST:TMP and then "Encounter at Farpoint" into the player. We also passed around some goodies Mike had brought with him, including the TNG program guide (which is darned big!). Naturally, I promptly found a typo or two. :-) We ordered pizza for the episode. Mike and I turned out to be equally finicky meat eaters (much to John's girlfriend's dismay, as we both failed to specify exactly which toppings we wanted and had to call the pizza place back to change the order :-) while everyone else was pretty laid-back about toppings. I definitely ate too much that night. :-P While we waited for Game 6 of the World Series to end (it delayed the show for about an hour), we watched taped installments of TV obituaries for Gene Roddenberry, which were interesting. We also checked out the ST6 preview from the 25th anniversary special again. Needless to say, by the time the program came on, we were all ready to get some good heckling in. :-) After the episode, we finished up watching "EaF" as Mike pointed out many of the technical gaffes in the episode to us, and John wondered why they'd even bothered to produce this episode as the pilot. (He thinks "The Arsenal Of Freedom" might have been a better pilot; could be...) So, a good (and fattening!) time was had by all. Hopefully, we can pull together assemblies like this semi-regularly. Now if only I had a larger apartment, I could host one of 'em myself.