Starship Mine (27 Mar. 1993)

When the Enterprise puts in to space dock for a energy sweep of the ship which is lethal to humans, Picard gets trapped on board with technicians who are not what they appear to be.

Director:

Cliff Bole

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (creator), Morgan Gendel

Stars:

Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
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
David Spielberg	...	Cmdr. Hutchinson
Marie Marshall	...	Kelsey
Tim Russ	...	Devor
Glenn Morshower	...	Orton
Tom Nibley	...	Neil
Tim De Zarn	...	Satler (as Tim deZarn)
Patricia Tallman	...	Kiros
Arlee Reed	...	Waiter

Storyline

When the Enterprise puts in to space dock for a energy sweep of the ship which is lethal to humans, Picard gets trapped on board with technicians who are not what they appear to be.

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Plot Keywords:

die hard scenario | 24th century

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

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Details

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 March 1993 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Television

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Tim Russ (Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager) appears in this episode as Devor (the mercenary who Picard hits with his saddle and later sedates in Sickbay). It is ironic that Picard incapacitates this character with a Vulcan neck pinch (which he must have learned from Sarek in Star Trek: The Next Generation: Sarek or Spock in Star Trek: The Next Generation: Unification II).

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Goofs

In this episode, Trilithium is described as a resin that's highly toxic waste bi-product of a starship's engines, however in Star Trek: Generations, the compound "Trilithium" is described as a nuclear inhibitor capable of stopping all nuclear reactions within a star.

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Quotes

Lieutenant Worf: Captain! Request permission to be excused from Commander Hutchinson's reception.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Permission granted... I wish I could excuse myself as well.
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Er, Captain, permission to be...
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: Mr. La Forge, I cannot excuse my entire senior staff! Mr. Worf beat you to it.

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Connections

References Die Hard (1988)

User Reviews

Die Hard with the Next Generation

This episode goes down exactly like Die Hard 1, except instead of Bruce Willis it's Patrick Stewart, and instead of his wife being held hostage it's the senior staff. All in all, this is a pretty good little episode, but it has some major plot holes which is discouraging because they were on a good plot-hole-free streak and now it's ruined. Here's what went wrong: First, if all they wanted was trilithium there were probably easier ways to get it than messing with the best ship/crew in Starfleet. Besides, couldn't they have left Data on board? The sweep didn't affect any other devices on the ship.

Then, Picard tricks Sattler by leaving his uniform by a door with the sweep just on the other side, which is just stupid. If I saw his clothes I would have gotten the heck out of there, I definitely could outrun that slow sweep. Yet he is not the only one to die this way. Later his partner says that he found Sattler dead and retrieved a communicator from Picard's uniform. How is this possible. Once the sweep had been thru that area there would be no way thru to the other side, and without power, there could be no transporting. Which brings me to two more points. How did Picard get on board in the first place, and if he had a communicator why didn't he just transport the enemy into space and himself back to the surface, or at least to a part of the ship that had already been swept? Then after their original unknown plan fails in Engineering they decide to go to Ten Forward, then IMMEDIATELY after that the sweep is shown PAST engineering. Not cool. Meanwhile on the planet we have a couple of REALLY bad hostage takers. They let the senior officers come up with a complete plan and execute it all in front of their very eyes, and Riker just waltzes up and casually converses with them, lax with their phasers, and just beats them up, but "lets" himself get beat-down to create the distraction. Why didn't the crew just rush them at this point? Forget plan A when plan B arises and it's better! All this to execute a foggy plan "Data once we're all unconscious get to that computer over there and make it all better!" I've heard of better plans to stake your life on I'll tell you that much.

During the episode there is a lot of fighting and it is all very very bad. Like the episode in the original series where Kirk fight the saurian. Just bad, unbelievably bad action. Picard gets his rear handed to him by a girl for god's sake. I've seen him with his shirt off, he's not that feeble looking, he could knock a girl out. Especially with his experience and training.

Why were the lights on if there was no power either? Then to further prove the plot hole earlier of "how did Picard get on the ship when it had to no power to the transporters?" he screams to some miscellaneous array controller guy STOP THE SWEEP!. Why didn't he just call his ride and get a transport? Back to the bad writing again, and it's a shame.

For the record Picard personally killed or acted in a way that led to the deaths of at least 5 mercenaries in this episode and he didn't bat an eyelash doing it, or lose a wink of sleep. (Tuvok, Sattler, the merc he shot with the crossbow and knockout arrows, and the two women in the shuttle at the end - the other mercs just "disappeared" in the sweep - but he could have done some of them in too for all we know.) YET with his wonderful conversation with the Merc known as Tuvok he tries to "interrogate" him and when he fails Tuvok says "You won't kill me, you are starfleet." Yet he claims 5 confirmed kills in this episode. Tuvok included. You can't run from a sweep if you are unconscious - he killed them because he made them unconscious.

Trivia: Tim Russ (Tuvok) was seen acting as the mercenary Devor in this episode. I love how they re-use major actors in the series like Tim Russ (Tuvok), Michelle Forbes (Ro Laren),and Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat) over and over like no one will ever notice. I have heard the last name Janeway a couple times too in no reference to Catherine here and there throughout the series, so they re-use things a little too much - to the chagrin of posterity.