TNG S1E17 "Home Soil" Review By AnswerMan

Horrible:Meh:Adequate:Good:Fantastic

Attention ugly bags of mostly water! On their way to some sector, the Enterprise has been asked to stop at a planet with a numerical name and snoop on some terraformers. They are not happy that they are being checked up on, and send out all kinds of bad vibes that one doesn't have to be half Betazoid to pick up on. Picard insists on visiting the station, and this is the situation on the bridge the second the captain says "away team":

Would it not make sense for at least some people on the normal bridge crew to not also be default away team members?

Anyway, things seem rather hunky-dory on the planet. Old guy in charge is focusing on the task at hand, the only decent-looking one is flirting it up with Riker, and a guy apparently chooses to end his life in a suicide booth. You know, the usual. I don't usually do two gifs in a review, but you have to see Riker giving this girl the the pervy up and down:

While investigating the death, Data and Geordi find something shiny and probably dangerous, so they bring it back to the ship. They determine that even though it is not organic, it is life by definition. It then multiplies, and takes over the ship. It turns out that even though Star Fleet deemed the planet devoid of life, they missed something. This overlooked new life and civilization in a strange new world would have been wiped out had the terraforming crew completed their job. So the life forms went to war, killing one of them, and taking over the ship when the opportunity came about. But picard tortures them by taking away the light that powers them, and the two parties agree to a truce.

"Home Soil" is a Good enough episode of Trek. The debate among the crew of whether or not something inorganic could be considered alive was somewhat compelling, although it was certainly a missed opportunity to not have Data chime in on that one. I'm still not sure if the director knew about the life or not, even though Picard rips him a new one for not being forthcoming. There is no real B plot here to get in the way of the main story. There are also some comedic elements that work pretty well here. Worf shouting at the computer "I didn't ask you!" was great. The moniker "ugly bags of mostly water" did make me chuckle. And finally, we have the life forms declaring in Soup Nazi style that they can come back in three centuries. Altogether a pretty decent episode for season one.

Published April 13, 2020