October 29th, 1990, "Legacy"
Fiver by Wade the Sane Commodore
This will come up again, so let me get this out of the way: I hate long-lost relative episodes. I really do. I'll skip the long speech, so let's jump to this particular instance. Tasha should've evacuated all of her old family members and friends by now. And oh yeah, we SAW HER FUNERAL! Ishara deserves at least a namedrop there!
The Episode
DATA: I will raise you three.
RIKER: No cards? The best poker face I've ever seen.
Would Data's poker face get worse after he gets emotions? That's a whole other rant I could make.
RIKER: Take five. Throw them away.
(He does, literally, over his shoulder)
Troi has the best facefault.
Just look at it.
Captain's log, stardate 44215.2. The Enterprise has bypassed its scheduled archaeological survey of Camus Two in response to a distress call from the Federation freighter Arcos, which has assumed an emergency orbit around Turkana Four, birthplace of our late comrade, Tasha Yar.
It gets painful sometimes how often the Enterprise is detoured away from actual exploratory missions to do something else. Incidentally, what's an "emergency orbit"?
DATA: The last Federation vessel to make contact was the Potemkin, six years ago. They were warned that anyone transporting down to the colony would be killed.
Yeah, that's cause for a coup if you ask me. The Klingons and Romulans would never agree to those terms, so why should the Federation?
RIKER: Are you offering to help us?
HAYNE: In return for some consideration. Phasers are in short supply down here. A starship isn't going to miss a few.
I'll buy that the necessary manufacturing infrastructure for proper phasers doesn't exist down here, but if these people have been fighting as long as claimed, you'd think they would've kluged together primitive equivalents by now.
RIKER: Riker to Enterprise. Energise.
(The team beam away)
HAYNE: I want everything there is to know about the starship Enterprise.
How would they have ANY information on the Enterprise or past crewman? The whole planet has been left to its own devices since Tasha escaped, or so we've been told. If anything their database should have info on the Enterprise-C.
TAN TSU [on monitor]: Enterprise, I'm being held by Turkana Four Alliance. I've been instructed to say that you have twenty hours to make reparations for Federation intrusion into this colony, or my pilot and I will be killed.
Federation intrusion? It's a damaged freighter!
I really don't like the entire premise of this colony. The government broke down until civil war broke out? The Federation wasn't maintaining contact? A starship wasn't visiting once a year to check up on things? This whole thing would fit so much better in an episode of TOS.
LAFORGE: Captain, if I could get to the myographic scanner.
ISHARA: What's that?
DATA: A sensing device from the escape pod. It monitors the bioelectric signatures of the crew, in the event they get separated from the pod.
Myography is the study of the mechanics of muscle contraction. It has nothing to do with bioelectric signatures. I'm not disputing the practicality of this kind of tracking device, but myography is not the right name for it.
ISHARA: You have Tasha's DNA on file?
CRUSHER: The ship's computer does. There's always some differentiation between sonomic chromosomes, but not enough to affect results. It should take me a few hours to run the sonomic comparison.
Gates McFadden mispronounces "somatic" here. A somatic chromosome is any chromosome that isn't X or Y. Technically correct, but I still would've used simpler Treknobabble.
ISHARA: That wasn't too bad. So, all that's left of my sister is a file in a computer.
Really? Putting aside Data's little holostatue, Tasha should've had other belongings that were put in storage for a time, just in case. Besides, there's other evidence of Tasha's presence, like all the lives she saved.
SHARA: Are you able to have friends?
DATA: Yes.
ISHARA: But you don't have feelings, do you?
DATA: Not as such. However, even among humans, friendship is sometimes less an emotional response and more a sense of familiarity.
TROI: Have you ever heard Data define friendship?
RIKER: No.
TROI: How did he put it? "As I experience certain sensory input patterns, my mental pathways become accustomed to them. The inputs eventually are anticipated and even missed when absent."
RIKER: In all trust, there is the possibility of betrayal. I'm not sure you were prepared for that.
DATA: Were you prepared, sir?
RIKER: I don't think anybody ever is.
DATA: Then it is better not to trust.
RIKER: Without trust, there's no friendship, no closeness. None of the emotional bonds that make us what we are.
DATA: And yet you put yourself at risk.
RIKER: Every single time.
DATA: Perhaps I am fortunate, sir, to be spared the emotional consequences.
RIKER: Perhaps.
A good message, but a bit hamfisted.
The Fiver
Data: The last starship here was warned not to beam anyone down. The colonists executed their first officer as a demonstration of their power, and threatened to do it to any other ship that came to the planet.
Picard: I see. Commander Riker, assemble your away team.
Riker: Aye sir. Oh, by the way, I made sugar cookies. You should grab a few before Troi scarfs them all down.
Picard: Ah, sugar cookies, my favorite! I think I'll have an Angel One.
I get the joke, but I'm not sure how much Angel One parallels this episode.
Hayne: The Alliance is holding your men. Our Coalition could get them back if we had some of your fancy heaters.
Riker: Oh no, only Federation types get to play with these guns.
Hayne: Come on, we only want a piece of the action.
See the previous comment, only substitute A Piece of the Action.
Crusher: I could take a blood sample! Let me go find an empty barrel!
Ishara: (gulp) How much does she need?
Riker: Just enough to prove you're not a changeling. But I'm asking the questions here. For instance, have any of your siblings served on previous Enterprises?
Ishara: No.
Riker: Correct. Now, do you have any nieces living on Romulus?
Ishara: No.
How would Ishara even know about Sela? I'll buy that most of Tasha's service record is probably public, but Sela's parentage claims are probably classified.
Data: Ah, Ishara, I'm gratified to see you've been issued a standard Starfleet catsuit.
La Forge: I'll say, kinda makes me want to go run some stimulations on the holodeck.
Barclay: (over the comm) You mean simulations, right Commander?
La Forge: Uh... yeah. I guess you've had enough experience to tell the difference.
Barclay: Holo-Janeway never hurts my feelings....
Just for funzies, I looked up what Janeway would be doing right now. It's 2367. No clue, this is after her command of the Bonestell (she left before it was destroyed in the Battle of Wolf 359) and before the launch of Voyager. Somewhere in here she meets Tuvok for the first time.
Ishara: Anything else you can tell me?
Data: I can't. I gave her my word.
For a fiver this is oddly open-ended.
Worf: You want me to sponsor your application to Starfleet Academy?
Ishara: Frankly, I think I can be quite an asset to Starfleet. With my extensive experience I could skip the lower ranks entirely and begin my career as a Commander. Maybe you should suggest that in your letter. Tell them you'd be honored to serve under me.
Worf: You have no desire to join Starfleet, do you?
Ishara: No, I'm afraid I don't.
Worf: Then why all this deception?
Ishara: Because lying is a skill like any other and if you want to maintain a level of excellence you have to practice constantly.
Worf: (to Riker) At the first sign of betrayal I will kill her, but I promise to return the body intact.
I get the reference to "In Purgatory's Shadow", but as Obscurus Lupa says, a reference is not a joke. There's no variation here, no subversion, no commentary, just pasting "Ishara" over "Garak."
Ishara: Commander, we have got to get out of this tunnel!
Worf: We need breathing room!
Data: Earth, Hitler, 1938.
Again, a reference is not a joke. And this one is even more of a stretch than the last one.
Ishara: Whatever it looks like, I am not overloading the Alliance's reactor.
Data: I cannot permit this to continue. (raises phaser)
Ishara: But... I thought we were friends.
Data: Ishara, I'm only going to tell you this just once. It never happened.
At least this time the references had twists. Although I must say that the idea of Data sleeping with Ishara is a little icky.
Memory Alpha
* 80th episode of TNG, thus breaking the TOS number. Although I'd argue that "Shades of Grey" doesn't really count as an episode.
Nitpickers Guide
* Data collects the chips as though Riker lost the bet. But Riker won, he found the card with Data's help! Did Data think that Riker wouldn't use tricks?
* Why didn't Crusher put Ishara's proximity detector back?
* Phil agrees with me, the colony's database is 15 years out of date. How did they know about Tasha's service on the Enterprise?