30th Anniversary TNG Episode Discussion Marathon

[Nate the Great]

The Fiver

Picard: To what do we owe your gladsome presence?
Sirol: We're doing perfectly innocent research on gaseous anomalies.
Picard: Is that anything like hot air?
Sirol: Yes, and we're detecting lots of it.

Ha ha. "You're reaching a 9.9 on the Kirk scale!"

Pressman: Our orders are to secretly break the law for the good of the Federation
Riker: What? Are you working for some covert branch of Starfleet Intelligence?
Pressman: Shhh! No one's supposed to know that it exists yet!

Actually I think Section 31 would be a completely different organization that pretends to be a covert branch of Starfleet Intelligence. It's not like they're held accountable to any public organization.

Picard: Why did you defend Pressman when the Pegasus senior officers mutinied against him?
Riker: If you'd seen so many promotion vacancies open up, what would you have done?

I don't know if I find this one morbid or funny.

Riker: The secret cloaking device is intact, sir.
Pressman: Yippee! Now we can resume our illegal experiments and kill more people!
Riker: How many people does it take, Admiral, before it becomes wrong?
Pressman: Don't you start planning an insurrection against me, mister!

The Insurrection reference seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

Riker: This one-of-a-kind phasing cloak allows ships to travel through solid matter!
La Forge: It sounds just like the one we caught the Romulans testing two years ago.
Riker: No, theirs was called an "interphase generator."
La Forge: Oh. I forgot that.

And somehow the interphase generator could attach a phase cloak aura to an object without the need for further intervention. That still doesn't make sense...

Memory Alpha

* Ronald Moore compares this one to "The First Duty". I don't see it. That episode features people breaking the rules solely for glory, this episode (and "The Wounded", for that matter) features people breaking the rules in a misguided attempt to achieve superiority.
* Moore joked that the sheer number of crazy admirals might come from something they add to the water at Starfleet headquarters.
* In the first draft Riker was sentenced to thirty days in the brig and a reprimand that would stop any chance of command. I think this harsh, and feel that long-term sentencing to a brig should be avoided when possible. Riker should've been moved off the ship to a penal colony or something instead.
* The staff considered reusing Pressman on Deep Space Nine. I'm not sure how they could without either seriously reworking the character or rehashing this episode.

Nitpicker's Guide

* Phil is confused as to how the Romulans could have a piece of debris from the Pegasus if the ship didn't actually explode. Duh, there was an explosion of warp plasma that still happened, no doubt a few deckplates were blown off leaving the rest of the ship damaged but intact.
* Phil also noticed the problem with the "had a beard for four years" thing.
* References are made to both "Starfleet Security" and "Starfleet Intelligence" watching this mission. I don't have a problem with the latter being a subset of the former.
* Phil also noticed the size of the ship/size of the crevasse thing.
* Picard acts like the ship is trapped and couldn't be rescued, yet Starfleet knows where they went and would send a rescue ship. And presumably the Enterprise could send some sort of signal to the outside (given enough time I'm sure phasers at low intensity could drill through to send a probe, for example).
* One of Phil's readers brought up the diplomatic incident from decloaking in front of the Romulans. I don't have a problem with this one. For the sake of argument let's say that the Enterprise did stay cloaked for days. The Romulas would still slowly dig through the asteroid to claim their prize and raise a fuss when the Enterprise isn't there and a ship half-buried in the asteroid is. Picard is just starting the inevitable incident on his own terms.
* When Tom Riker is found, will he have to face charges for the Pegasus incident? Come to think of it, that would've been a better reason to join the Maquis...
* There's confusion in the Treaty of Algernon. Was it the treaty that ending the Earth-Romulan war in 2160, or is it the one that banned Federation cloaking devices sixty years ago? I wonder if Phil has heard of the concept of "amendments" and that treaties can evolve.
* Phil wonders if they should've separated the ship and just taken the stardrive section into the asteroid. My immediate response is that the saucer would be a sitting duck for the Romulans.
* The Romulans act like there'd be no problem beaming the crew through all that rock, when Riker thinks that it's risky. I don't have a problem with Romulan transporter sensors being more powerful. For that matter, what about the subspace transporter from "Bloodlines"? Cumulatively dangerous, but surely one exposure to save everyone would be allowed?