"Star Trek: The Next Generation" Final Mission (1990)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Corey Allen

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (creator)
Kacey Arnold-Ince (teleplay) ...

TV Series:

"Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987)

Original Air Date:

17 November 1990 (Season 4, Episode 9)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Before leaving for Starfleet Academy, Wesley Crusher accompanies Captain Picard on a dangerous mission.

Plot Keywords:

Captain | Warp Speed | Commanding Officer | Doctor | Tea

Cast

Patrick Stewart	...	Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Jonathan Frakes	...	Commander William T. Riker
LeVar Burton	...	Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge
Michael Dorn	...	Lieutenant Worf
Gates McFadden	...	Doctor Beverly Crusher
Marina Sirtis	...	Counselor Deanna Troi
Brent Spiner	...	Lt. Commander Data
Wil Wheaton	...	Ensign Wesley Crusher
Nick Tate	...	Dirgo
Kim Hamilton	...	Songi
Mary Kohnert	...	Ensign Tess Allenby

Goofs:

Continuity: When Capt Picard, Wesley, and Durgo abandon the crashed shuttle, the long shot of them walking off clearly shows them going in a different direction than their arrow points, the arrow points left, they go right. Later, Dr. Crusher tells Wesley that the arrow led the Away Team to the Captain and Wesley.

Quotes:

Captain Jean-Luc Picard: How I envy you, Wesley Crusher. You're just at the beginning of the adventure.

Read the other comment about MTS3K

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I am a huge fan of the ST Universe. I love the show and the high standard they usually keep with not having too many plot holes.

And then I saw this episode and thought " what the heck happened here?!" I agree 100% about viewing this episode like a Mystery Science Theater 3000 show because it is very poorly written and directed. It is quite possibly the most plot-hole-filled episode in all of Star Trek History.

Everything the other guy said is 100% true but he missed some crucial plot holes. It's OK, there were so many to keep up with. Mine may bear a little explanation before we begin for clarity. So here we go.

Inertia. The Enterprise overcomes inertia with inertial dampeners. A derelict garbage scow would not have active dampeners so it would suffer from inertia, thus how it got to the planet in the first place. At some point somewhere something pushed this garbage scow up to speed, and we assume its trajectory was altered as it ricocheted through myriad gravity wells.

I present you my 5 additional plot holes: First, once you have something in tractor if you let go it will continue to go without you any more. Why not go full impulse, grab the thing real quick, fling it forward and release it at a much higher velocity? And there is the slingshot gravity technique. They give coordinates in 3 dimensions and they fly in 2 on Star Trek. Some of this is ILM's fault because it's hard to hang a model vertically right? Second, I have seen them tow starships in warp before in other shows and in other episodes.

Third, If it's that easy to send junk into the sun, why didn't the people who made the scow in the first place just fly backwards at the sun, and then stop real quick with the back open, thus letting the garbage free without losing your ship? Fourth, If the Enterprise can't get near the thing, who originally could to sit on the bridge and fly the thing? Fifth, To be a captain you must own a starship or vessel or some type. A captain is a leader of men, yet he had no one under his command. Driving a shuttle, he's more like a pilot, or at best an owner/operator. Calling a guy like that captain would be like a navy captain calling a truck driver captain. Apparently this guy's character was as flat as a board and he only existed as a protagonist, and someone to hate on. Obviously his title was either fashioned by himself (we assume) or the actors were too kind to say anything about this obvious oversight.

This episode was written by Kacey Arnold-Ince who consequently has never written anything before or since.

If I was an actor on the set I would have said "write me out of this garbage, I want a personal day". It feels like the writer wrote this script on a napkin just before filming because they lost the original OR Wil Wheaton said he wanted to leave the show so they wanted to change it real quick and threw away this theoretical original and better episode.

Apparently the editors and usual team of crackshots didn't get a chance to shred this script before it was sent to the director.