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Old 01-09-2020, 03:12 AM
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January 8th, 1990, "The Hunted"

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Transcript
Memory Alpha

The Episode

DATA: Specifications on the vessel, Mister Worf?
WORF: No warp drive. Minimal weaponry.

I find myself wondering what Worf would consider "minimal weaponry." I'm surprised he didn't specify "lasers only" like in Outrageous Okona.

LAFORGE: Vessel's speed increasing to point oh two impulse.

Full impulse is a quarter of the speed of light, so we're still talking over three million miles per hour.

LAFORGE: That's the ship's drive section
WESLEY: What happened to the rest of the ship?
DATA: Scan the drive section for life form readings.
WORF: None.
DATA: Bring us around to the back side of the asteroid, Mister Crusher.
LAFORGE: Sensors indicate wreckage on the asteroid's surface, Data.
WORF: No life signs.
DATA: Apparently, he did not survive.
WESLEY: Data, the drive section. Where'd it go? There's no sign of it on its previous heading. Someone must be at the helm.
RIKER [OC]: Status report, Mister Data?
DATA: I am afraid the prisoner has eluded us, sir.

If they're going to act like an asteroid can block ship's sensors, we've got a big problem. And even if they threw in a line about sensor-blocking minerals in the asteroid, the drive section wouldn't be able to get out of sensor range that fast. It would only take a few seconds to find it.

PICARD: A cloaking device?
WORF: Sir, the Angosians have no cloaking technology.
RIKER: Unless he's borrowing one. If he's hanging over the planet's pole, the magnetic field would confuse our sensors.

This isn't the only time they've acted like polar magnetic fields can hide a ship, which I consider patently ridiculous. Starships can scan all the planets in a system from outside it, why is a magnetic pole such a problem?

PICARD: Transporter room four, prepare to beam aboard from inside that shuttle anything large enough to be a humanoid adult.

I'm not sure the transporters work like that. I'll buy that someone can be altered such that their lifesign "transmissions" are outside the standard range. Fine. But they would still have to register as a lump of mass that can be locked on at this range. Just scan for something humanoid-sized that's not attached to the shuttle.

O'BRIEN: We're holding the contents in stasis pending arrival of security.

So is holding someone in transporter suspension dangerous or not? Do they not trust the forcefield that can surround the transporter pads? I do wonder why there can't be a high-security transporter room. No door to the outside and anesthezine gas on standby.

(The security guard fires, but it has almost no effect. They are jumped by the prisoner)

This is Starfleet Security, the guys Tasha Yar claims has the best training anywhere? I'd have upped the phaser setting a notch and fired again within a couple seconds, repeating until this guy went down! Come to think of it, that should be a setting by itself. Until you flip the switch off, each shot is slightly more powerful.

CRUSHER: At Troi's request I examined him. His cell structure has been significantly altered. They used a combination of cryptobiolin, triclenidil, macrospentol and a few things I can't even recognise.

These sounds like the names of drugs. I don't think drugs alone can explain what this guy can do. You'd need all-out genetic engineering, if not outright nanite assistance.

CRUSHER: One of the new substances in his cellular structure even shields electrical impulses.
DATA: Perhaps that would explain why our sensors did not detect him.

Lifesigns are more than just neural transmissions through the body. I could even buy temporary matching of body temperature with surroundings, but there have to be other things that can be detected.

NAYROK [on monitor]: It was for their own protection as well as that of others. Most of them were quite happy there. We went to great lengths to give them a fine quality of life.
PICARD: Prime Minister, even the most comfortable prison is a prison.

An unfortunate truth.

NAYROK [on monitor]: Captain, I assure you that every alternative has been explored.

Every alternative known to your science, you mean. Don't act like you've studied every alternative. Even Tuvok tried to rewire Suder with mindmelds. I'll buy that the onboard Vulcans aren't experts in this sort of thing, but the option of shipping him to Vulcan could at least be discussed.

WORF: Release of the force field and activation of the transporter will be virtually simultaneous. There will only be a point one second difference between them.
RIKER: Even Danar can't move that fast.

At least mention that you had to beef up the force field to stop Danar, because we've seen people beam in and out of cells all the time.

(Danar gets a hand out of the beam)

Transporters don't work like that!

(No, he's slumped against a bulkhead with his Visor lying on the floor, as Danar starts rearranging isolinear chips in a panel)

How does Danar know how to reconfigure the chips?

WORF: We believe he is attempting to reach shuttlebay two.
LAFORGE: That's twenty five decks up from here. Quite a climb, but I wouldn't put it past him.

Main Engineering is Deck 36, Shuttlebay 2 is Deck 13. Twenty-three, not twenty-five. Oops.

WORF [OC]: He used a phaser to power the cargo transporter.

Pretty sure that wouldn't work.

PICARD: I have all the information I need for our report. Your prisoner has been returned to you and you have a decision to make. Whether to try to force them back or welcome them home. In your own words, this is not our affair. We cannot interfere in the natural course of your society's development, and I'd say it's likely to develop significantly in the next several minutes. It's been an interesting visit. When you're ready for membership, the Federation will be pleased to reconsider your application.

Ugh. I don't like this kind of thing. I don't think these guys are prewarp, so don't quote the Prime Directive at us! Furthermore, this ending is too neat and tidy, I can't help but feel like too much time was spent on some scenes when other scenes needed more room to breathe.

Memory Alpha

* The whole idea that this episode is supposed to parallel Vietnam vets doesn't work at all.
* Only TNG appearance of a Jefferies Tube you can walk upright in.
* The ending was supposed to be bigger but couldn't because of the budget. Okay, so rewrite the ending to be better AND cheaper! I hate problems that can be fixed in the writing stage.

Nitpicker's Guide

* So it's chemicals in the body that makes these guys invisible to sensors. Why can't you remove this edge even if the mental reprogramming can't?
* Nobody is at Ops at the start of the episode. Don't we need someone there at all times?
* Phil also says that these guys should appear on sensors as SOMETHING even if it's not a life form.
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