TNG S3E6 "Booby Trap" Review By AnswerMan

Horrible:Meh:Adequate:Good:Fantastic

The Enterprise is pulled into a booby trap and escapes. There you go, we're mostly done here. But unfortunately, it gets even worse because this actually a Geordi story. Oh boy.

Let's do the problem of the week storyline first, I guess. The booby trap has been set at least a millennia ago by species that managed to wipe themselves out at the same time as their enemy in what must have been an epic battle. Caught in the booby trap alongside the Enterprise is a thousand year old ship, with its crew still at the helm (though a titch mummified). Picard, ever the dorky archaeologist, insists on beaming over himself to check it out. Of course, even though the ship got stuck in the trap by losing all power, life support and gravity systems work just fine after all these centuries! Anyway, they learn basically nothing about their predicament by visiting the ship, and have to start from scratch to figure a way out after all.

Which brings us to Geordi, who is fresh off the rejection from his date after over doing things a bit and giving her the creeps. You know, the usual. He decides to tackle this problem the ship is in all by himself for some reason. You would think this would be a situation where everyone would put their heads together, but in order to drive the plot back to Geordi, no. Everyone including Data, other engineers, and even Wesley are just waiting for LaForge, and LaForge alone, to announce that he has the answer. But that gives him plenty of space to get creepy with another dame. This time it's a computer-generated approximation of Leah Brahms, the engineer that designed the Enterprise's systems. To be fair, he didn't even create her on purpose. And for some reason the computer gave her an overly flirtatious personality. As they techno-babble their way through the problem, they fall for each other. I actually think that Geordi handles the situation quite well. When it's over, they kiss goodbye and he turns off the program. We are given no indication that Geordi is having trouble separating simulation from reality, nor that he will be returning to visit Leah. It just happened, it was weird, and he moves on.

Which brings us back to the solution. Geordi figures there's about even odds that by turning the ship's guidance completely over to the computer, with its capability of making thousands of adjustments a second, it could fly them out. But, he figures, there's just as good odds that if they turn everything off after gunning it once, they might just be able drift out manually. Ok, so I have a cool story about this that makes me think that this method is actually plausible. I have an SUV with very sophisticated off-road capabilities. It has electronic differential lockers, various modes for different terrains, and even a crawl mode where the thing just drives itself over obstacles. I recently took it on a trip to some sand dunes to play, excited to try out all these features. But up the side of the dune we would go, and then right back down we would come after failing to make the climb. A buddy and me were literally pouring through the owner's manual to figure out the right combination of controls to get it to climb the giant dune. No luck. Everyone around us with much less sophisticated setups were making it, but we kept embarrassingly having to back back down. In a last ditch effort, we tried the ascent with no controls at all. I switched off all electronics, which made the dash light up with several warnings, and put the transmission in manual mode so that the thing wouldn't so much as even shift itself, and we went right up. In that situation, my own instincts and experience were far superior to computer programming that likely couldn't even fathom what on earth I was trying to accomplish. Same with our Enterprise. Picard himself takes the conn and drifts the ship right out, borrowing some gravity from an asteroid to help. It's actually a good scene. Picard didn't want to put the burden of possibly missing this long shot on anyone else.

"Booby Trap" is an Adequate episode of Trek. The Enterprise's predicament produces the right amount of suspense, the solution is novel and isn't technobabble, and Geordi deals with some personal issues. But I'm not sure he learns anything about connecting with a potential partner. The Leah avatar is specifically made for him, so of course they connect. He doesn't have to do anything to win her over. She is attracted to him because she was programmed that way and because he is the only person with her. I don't see how this experience will help him be any smoother with the ladies in the future.

Also, Guinnan has the hots for the captain? Interesting.

Published March 22, 2020