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Opinionated Next Gen Episode Guide takes a brief step back to pave the way for the continuing Q chapter. Samaritan Snare -a season two episode- came right after Q Who introduced us to the Borg, and follows it up with the somewhat less successful Pakleds, who manage to kidnap Geordi and embarrass the crew despite being too stupid to operate a vending machine. Also, Picard is trapped with Wesley on a shuttle as he goes to get his artificial heart replaced.

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I always thought this episode would actually be interesting if the Pakleds supposed mental inability was actually a result of the Universial Translator, that the Pakled's themselves use for day to day a kind of extremely simplified speech which the translator assumed was asinine enough to actually translate it as them being retarded. That they SOUND like the short bus due to the UT and that's what causes the Enterprise crew to not take necessary precautions in dealing with them could have been really clever, since it makes a subtle point about preconceptions and not judging a book by its cover.

Ah, the Pakleds...truly the retards of the space races. And thank you noting the bad look of surgeon/doctor outfit.

Huh? Phasers have a kickback setting? How does that work?

The episode itself... how did these people outsmart the Klingons and Romulans? You'd think those groups would react more forceful to kidnapping or be less willing to help out space retards.

Jesus, the Pakleds were the worst villains ever. They have spaceships but going by the episode we're supposed to believe they all have an IQ of 50 or something, how the fuck does that even work? And yeah, I know it can be rationalized if you try hard enough, like pretty much anything, the whole concept is still just stupid.

Actually, it occurs to me that contempt for alien adversaries is a pretty common theme in Trek. Look at the way the Ferenghi are depicted. The Pakleds are just taking this to its ultimate ludicrous extreme.

Gil Hamilton's suggestion would have been about a thousand times saner.

At "Saying 'Make it so' is how you make it so!' I laughed harder than I've ever laughed.

I thought the shuttle Picard was on actually crashed on a desert planet? OR was that another episode where Picard and Wesley are on a shuttle together?

Crazedwraith wrote:I thought the shuttle Picard was on actually crashed on a desert planet? OR was that another episode where Picard and Wesley are on a shuttle together?

That's Final Mission, where Picard and Wesley hitch a ride with a dodgy mining shuttle pilot.

Im surprised you didn't make a comment about "Sammiches"!

"Ah, how ever zen."

Ah, the Pakled. Otherwise known as "Idiocracy in space".

You see/hear Pakled freighters mentioned in other episodes, but do they ever really get screentime after this episode?

I remember this one and how much I thought that the Enterprise crew deserved this mess.

Swindle1984 wrote:Ah, the Pakled. Otherwise known as "Idiocracy in space".

You see/hear Pakled freighters mentioned in other episodes, but do they ever really get screentime after this episode?

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Pakled

Not really.

A ship of Pakleds was also featured on the PC game Star Trek: Klingon, in which Gowron coaxed the Pakled captain to come over to his ship to explain why he could not come over to his ship.

... no comment.

Sorry, two cowbells. I just fucking hated the Pakleds. Just about the most idiotic concept for a villain species any writing corps could have the guts to float before a modern television audience and another sign of the suck that was the latter half of season two.

Oh God, the Pakleds, a race of dumpy gerbil men with pre-school minds who make the Talaxians senatorial, the Ferengi badass motherfuckers, and the Kazon formidable imperialists in comparison.

The Pakled thought process is just as idiotic as the Ocompa's lifespan and reproduction.

The suggestion of the UT being incompatible and misrepresenting aliens was explored in the vastly superior "Darmok". I didn't mind the surgery costumes, but they looked better in DS9's "Life Support" (a lot of costumes and props didn't look right in TNG's first two seasons, with the dingy lighting and film quality).

Great review. Everything about this episode pissed me off to no end when I saw only part of it. Also, I'm sort of surprised you didn't mention the fact that Picard abandoned his command to go somewhere which was less capable at treating him than his own damn doctor. That struck me as absolutely idiotic and smacked of writers trying to create tension by fiat.

I'm really looking forward to your Tapestry review, it's my favorite episode of The Next Generation, and maybe Star Trek as a whole. Probably because it does a great job at showing what sort of man Picard is, and why he is the way we know him. At the same time as being a magnificent character piece it has a lovely, and universal, moral: that our deepest regrets make us who we are. (Also, it has one of the funniest moments of the Next Generation as its opening scene.)

Does anyone besides me think that those medical getups the doctors were wearing looked like those things from Repo: The Genetic Oprah?

Zor

Sonnenburg wrote:Their entire development has been one of stealing technology from others, including the Romulans and Klingons, neither of which seems very likely

I really can't see how they would pull that off either.
Romulan Cpt: Alien vessel, you have entered Romulan territory, we will give you 50 seconds to surrender your ship.
Pakled: We are Pakleds, our ship is broken. We need to make it go.
Romulan: What? Is the translator broken? Nevermind, you have thirty seconds, lower your shields and prepare to be borded.
Pakled: Our ship is broken, it will not go, will you help it go?
Romulan: Are you actually listening to anything I've been saying? If this is some kind of trick then I warn you, my sister was disappeared by the Tal'Shiar last week and I'm not in the mood to be dicked around by a bunch of slack-jawed doughboys. Lower your shields, final warning.
Pakled: Will you help us go?
Romulan: I've been more than generous with you, full disruptors.
BANG.

Once upon a time we had a "What if website traffic determined the strength of a spacefaring civilization" RAR thread. Everyone was saying that 4chan would be equivalent to Reavers from Firefly, but after seeing this I think that Pakleds might be a more appropriate analog.

I'm not sure the Pakleds would be fierce or disturbing enough to accurately portray 4chan. The Reavers might be a better example; "fierce and disturbing" is what they do.

Simon_Jester wrote:I'm not sure the Pakleds would be fierce or disturbing enough to accurately portray 4chan. The Reavers might be a better example; "fierce and disturbing" is what they do.

Endlessly repeating phrases- Check
Convinced of their own superiority- Check
Almost no original content- Check
Perpetrating schemes that can be undone by persons with functioning brains- Check

4chan isn't particularly "fierce", though they are disturbing, unless you feel crashing a website is a "fearsome" tactic of a savage people.

To be honest, I never imagined Geordi actually getting the plan until the final few moments of the conversation. To me, this was one of several Geordi episodes that make him a character I love to ridicule. It takes him a long time to learn not to fuck with the people holding the phaser, and seems to take an excessive amount of time to get the message the crew was sending them.

I, too, hated the Pakleds, but I don't give much credit to Geordi either in this episode (or in any that involved him and women, or a catwalk).

I second the motion of thanks for mentioning the terrible color for the surgical garbs. I guess its there to hide the stains. Certainly those clowns are used to losing patients with their surgical techniques.

Kodiak wrote:4chan isn't particularly "fierce", though they are disturbing, unless you feel crashing a website is a "fearsome" tactic of a savage people.

Fierce and fearsome are not the same thing.

I was once attacked by a small child; I estimate he was four or five years old. I'm not entirely sure why, because I'd never seen him before in my life. He just charged up to me and started hitting me in the leg with his little fists and yelling at the top of his tiny lungs. It was ridiculous.

That child was not at all fearsome from my point of view. However, I have to say that he was probably the fiercest person I've ever met.

Zor wrote:Does anyone besides me think that those medical getups the doctors were wearing looked like those things from Repo: The Genetic Oprah?

Zor

I was reminded of Dr Steinman from Bioshock. A plastic surgeon who thinks Picasso is a nice style to try on living people.