ST:TNG Season Five, Episode Five "Disaster"

ST:TNG Season Five, Episode Five "Disaster"
Production Order: 5
Air Order: 5
Stardate: 45156.1
Original Air Date: October 21, 1991

Picard's Log 45156.1: "Taking a couple days off between missions and stuff."

The O'Briens are in Ten Forward with Riker, Worf, and Data, and boy, is Keiko pregnant. (Don't worry, I did the math. They got married in essentially May, and this is the following February. I don't give a shit when she got pregnant, but I did want to check that they've been together long enough for her to be that pregnant. This is not a soap opera, where a character gets pregnant during one episode, has the kid during the next, and a week later, the kid is legal age. Miles and Keiko have had plenty of time to make and bake a kid.)
Anyway, they're talking names, which is a thing you should never do until after the birth certificate is filled out, and nobody can give their opinions.
It's a friendly argument. Keiko wants Hiro after her father. Miles wants Michael after his. Riker jokingly offers his own name.
Miles makes his exit, saying he's got a thing on the bridge.

Crusher is down in one of the cargo bays, attempting to talk a reluctant La Forge into joining her musical. After some hassling, he agrees to try it, and gives her a few lines of "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General." He then breaks off, feeling ridiculous, and insists that he cannot sing in front of people. She waves him off and makes a note in her padd that she's just going to give him the role.

On the bridge, Troi introduces Picard to three kids: they're the winners of the primary school science fair, and apparently, the grand prize is a tour of some of the ship with the captain. Marissa keeps her head down. Jay Gordon just smiles. Paterson enthusiastically asks if they can see the battle bridge and torpedo bays.
"No, we're going to see the hydroponics lab and astrophysics," he replies.
Meh. Like, those can be cool, and they're science-y, but I get Paterson wanting to see those other things. Hydroponics is exciting to a select group of people.
Picard and the kids get into the lift just as O'Brien gets out.
Sassy O'Brien Moment to Troi: "Do I feel worse for the captain, or the kids?"

In the lift, Picard tries to make small talk with the kids, and finally lands on asking what they did to win the science fair. Paterson gleefully replies that he planted radishes in some kind of special dirt, "and they came up weird!"
Picard:

Jay Gordon did a thing with a specific kind of moth.

Death is this kid's favorite topic

Picard is pulling out his very best diplomacy replies, feigning interest. He's actually pretty skilled, so maybe he's really interested.
Marissa isn't able to answer, but not because she's shy.

DISASTER!

The lights flicker, and the lift drops abruptly. It's falling.

In Ten Forward, in the cargo bay, on the bridge, the whole ship rocks violently, and the lights go out. Klaxons blare.
The woman in charge on the bridge gets off the floor and sits at the conn, asking for a damage report. She guesses they hit a quantum filament.
O'Brien, at Worf's security console, calls out that life support is down, but switching to back-ups, and both warp and impulse engines are offline.
The guy at Data's station (finally looked it up, it's Ops Management) announces that they're coming up on another filament.
"All decks, brace for impact!" yells the CO.
The ship rocks again, and both she and the guy at Ops are thrown to the floor as the consoles explode.

Dramatic music! Opening credits break!

When we return, the ship is at red alert. O'Brien and Troi are okay, and Troi starts calling for medical teams. No answer. No answer from anyone she tries. Communication is down. Ensign Mandel - the guy at Ops Management - tries to open one of the lifts and determines that that is down as well. They are trapped on the bridge, unless they find the power to beam off. Lt Monroe, the CO, is dead.

Picard is in a living nightmare: trapped in a broken lift with three weeping children. He asks if they're okay, but they don't answer. He tries to rouse the bridge, but no answer again.
Jay Gordon goes to a dark place: "They don't answer because they're dead."
Damn, kid. Second time in the last two minutes that you've mentioned death. I know things have gone to hell in a handbasket quickly, but you're really gonna jump straight to everyone being dead?
Jay Gordon: "We're gonna die, too."
Guess he is.
Picard, annoyed because these kids are not his equipped-for-all-occasions-and-ready-to-take-orders crew, snaps that a rescue team will come get them, and everything will be fine, so they should stop crying.
The kids cry harder.

On the bridge, O'Brien puts out a distress call, but admits to Troi that he can't even tell if they're broadcasting. He'll leave it on auto-repeat just in case, though.
The lift opens. Not the one with Picard and the kids. They're in the one closest to the ready room, at the front of the bridge. This is the lift at the back of the bridge, next to the Engineering station. Ro climbs unsteadily out, and the lift is halfway up the deck, so there's clearly no using it.
She confirms that she's fine and asks what happened. O'Brien fills her in.
"We can't take the lift out," she says. "An emergency bulkhead closed beneath it."
Most def trapped.
They decide to do Isolation Protocol, and Troi, who is standing in for the audience, asks what that is.
"If the ship thinks the filament breached the hull, it will close off bulkheads to contain it," explains O'Brien as he and Ro punch commands into Worf's station. "We need to find out if that's the case, and then open the bulkheads if there's no breach. We can't get out of here unless we open those bulkheads."

"I got sensors," announces Mandel. "Scattered readings of life signs in the saucer section."
"Ten Forward?" asks O'Brien. "My wife's there."
"Dunno," says Mandel. "The scans aren't that specific."
"Drive section?" asks Ro.
"It isn't scanning there," Mandel shrugs.
They look at Troi. But her sensors are about as accurate as the ones on E just now - she's getting vague feelings of people who are alive or hurt, but nothing she can pinpoint.
"Emergency procedures," Ro decides. "Who's the CO?"
They point to Monroe. Oops.
"Counselor Troi is next in line," says O'Brien.
This is news to everyone on the bridge right now, including Troi.
"Ex-squeeze me?" asks Ro.
"She has the rank of lieutenant-commander."
And it's clear that Troi never expected that to mean anything. She probably forgot.

Ro doesn't look pleased, but there it is: besides Troi, they are two ensigns and a non-com.
"Fuck me," breathes Troi. "Okay, um, I need suggestions."
"Emergency procedure alpha two," says O'Brien. "Everything to manual override."
She agrees, and he starts the procedure.
Ro takes this moment in stride. "Stabilize life support, and get intership communication back up?"
Troi agrees to this also, and asks Mandel to help Ro.
So far okay, but she seems weirded out that they keep calling her "sir."

The Enterprise looks hella weird powered fully down.

This is its emo phase

Ten Forward is a mess, because none of those tables and chairs are attached to the deck like in other places. Keiko is lying on the floor, and tells Riker that she's feeling "foggy," but okay. He tells her that they'll get her to sick bay for a check when they can.
Data comes in through the broken Ten Forward door and meets with Riker and Worf to give them the scoop: bulkheads have cut off the bridge, turbolifts are not working, and heavy damage has blocked them off from sick bay. He's telling everyone that wounded should be brought to Ten Forward.
"Well, crap," says Riker. "I think we gotta go with the assumption that everyone on the bridge is dead, and no one is flying the ship."
Okay, that last part is correct: girlfriend is dead in the water.
Riker asks Data if they can get to Engineering to get control of the ship, and Data replies that the only way is through Jeffries tubes. Riker leaves Worf in charge of Ten Forward, and he and Data set off to journey through the bowels of the ship to Engineering.

Down in the cargo bay, Crusher and La Forge have discovered that they are trapped. The door won't open. La Forge says he can get it open manually, and takes a wall panel off. Crusher leans against the wall.
"This wall is really hot!" she yelps.
"Where?" asks La Forge in alarm.
Too late. The panel opening explodes. La Forge is thrown across the room.
Crusher runs to check him, and he says he's fine, but they're pretty much fucked, because something in the wall near the hand actuator for the door was damaged, and now there's a plasma fire. Crusher scans it with her tricorder and remarks that there's a shit ton of radiation coming off of it, and they're gonna get hella poisoned if they don't put it out.
"Not enough drama," says La Forge. "Which is why those barrels are in here. They're full of stuff that's typically stable, but bad times will be had by all when that radiation reaches them."

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

We switch over to the turbolift. The kids have stopped crying, and Picard is trying to get the emergency hatch on the ceiling open, but he isn't tall enough, and he's injured, so he just falls over.
Jay Gordon hasn't talked about death in a while, so he chimes in now to say that they're all going to die.
Picard needs a new plan. What to do when you don't have a reliable crew? Make a new one.
"I'm making you my first officer because you're the oldest," he tells Marissa. He pulls two pips from his jacket (we're doing the Captain's Jacket again this week) and puts them on her collar.
She's pretty psyched, and it gives her a confidence that she lacked earlier.
"You wanna be my science officer? Picard asks Jay Gordon.
He puts another pip on Jay Gordon, who finds this cooler than death, and Paterson gets the remaining pip, as Executive Officer In Charge of Radishes.

Data and Riker: they're now in the Jeffries tubes, crawling. And that deck is textured. I'm sure Data doesn't give two shits, but holy crap, that's gotta be hard on Riker's knees.
He guesses where they are on the ship, and Data confirms: 52 meters to go before they can get out into a corridor.
Psht, that's not gonna happen. The name of this episode is "Disaster," not "Data and Riker Crawl Safely and Breezily To Engineering."
There's an explosion behind them, and Riker calls out that it's a coolant leak.
Crawl faster, boys.
They make it to a panel where Data types in a code, and he closes off the bulkhead behind them.
Riker breathes easily, but Data points out that there's a crackling electricity blocking their way up ahead.
Is... is this Galaxy Quest?

In the cargo bay, Crusher has calculated that they have three or four hours before the radiation does permanent damage, but they'll still need several days of treatment when they get out of there. They also have some time before the crap in the buckets explodes. And La Forge has been trying, but he can't get the transporter to work. They elect to move the buckets to the side of the bay where the radiation is lowest, but they have to do it by hand, because they can't use the anti-grav units with the bay full of radiation.

On the bridge, O'Brien explains quantum filaments to Troi: "It can be hundreds of meters long, but has like, no mass. So it's hard to detect."

"Oh, like a cosmic string?"

"No. That's a completely different phenomenon."

ARE YOU SURE? CUZ IT SOUNDS LIKE THE SAME FUCKING THING TO ME, O'BRIEN.

Sometimes I think the writers are screwing with us. "Let's make the ship hit something that sounds like outer space thread. We can't use "cosmic string." Let's call it a quantum filament."

Next week, they'll run into some interstellar twine and be really fucked.
There's a "computer coming online" noise behind them, and Ro slides out from under the Engineering console.
"How'd you do that?" demands O'Brien.
"There was power in the phaser array," Ro explains. "I dumped it into the Engineering console."
O'Brien splutters. "You can't - you can't just - dump raw power from one - that's - that's not correct protocol!"
Ro is annoyed. "We're not going to get anywhere by playing it safe."
Okay, but like, she's right. Should you dump a bunch of raw power from the phaser array into the Engineering console on a regular day? No. But it's kind of like having emergency supplies, and then not using them for an emergency, because what if a bigger emergency occurs? An emergencier emergency? You have to take some weird risks when you're floating dead in space, wondering if everyone else is dead. Cuz you could die, too, while following the correct protocols, which were not necessarily written for this weird-ass circumstance.
O'Brien is pissed, and sets his jaw, but she did get shit up and running, so he's just going to stew and go with it.

"We have impulse power," says Ro, "but there's a weird spike in the containment for warp."
"Shiiiiit," says O'Brien. "Can we do anything from here?"
"Noop," Ro replies.
Troi looks lost, so O'Brien explains it to her and us: when they hit the filament, it was like coming into contact with a live electric wire. It changed the polarity of the anti-matter containment unit. The unit's at 40% containment and falling. When it hits 15% -
"Ship go boom," says Ro.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Data can't shut the electrical current off from the panel he has open. So he and Riker are stuck between a coolant leak and this electrical shit, which he puts at half a million amps.
"Can we interrupt it?" asks Riker. He looks around.
"My body is non-conductive," Data offers. "It would melt my primary couplings, but it shouldn't do anything irreparable."
"Yeah, android or not, I wouldn't ask anybody to do that," Riker says stubbornly.
Okay, remember that two seasons from now. There will be a test.
"Also, if we get to Engineering, I'm gonna need your help with getting things up and running again. I don't have that info."
Data thinks. "My head is protected from power surges. You could easily take it off and carry it with you."
There's a pause.
"Data, that's fucked up."
"I would be okay. All of my head stuff would stay in my head."
Riker thinks. This is the emergenciest emergency, so...

And so, Riker takes off his head.

Jay Gordon climbs on Picard's back, and together, they are able to hoist him onto the roof of the lift.
"Can you see down the sides of the lift, to where there are two clamp-things?"
"Yeah," says Jay Gordon. "But one clamp is broken."
Picard helps him back down, but Picard falls in the process. He addresses his Number One.
"The clamps are part of the emergency system, and they hold the lift in place in case anything happens. But because one is broken, the lift is going to fall. So you have to get your crew out to safety. There's a ladder that runs up the shaft, and you will need to climb it to the next open doorway."
The lift shakes, and the kids jump.
"What about you?" XO Marissa asks.
Picard explains that his ankle is broken, and he will slow their progress. He's giving her an order (though in a calm, collected way).
Damn. He's choosing death. That must suck.
Marissa haltingly tells the boys that they have to climb the shaft, but Paterson objects: he wants to stay with Picard, he doesn't want to take orders, and he doesn't want to play officer anymore.
Picard starts to lose patience - they don't have time to argue. The kids need to get the hell out of there, soon.
Marissa takes a deep breath, then turns and puts her foot down. "The crew is sticking together. Everybody goes, or everybody stays."
Sassy Picard moment: "This is mutiny."

He quickly walks them through taking a control panel off the wall and pulling out yards of optical cabling.

La Forge and Crusher are moving the last of the barrels across the cargo bay, which has to suck, as they're being poisoned at the same time.
"Levels are still going up," says Crusher. "We need to get that fire out."
"We can't," La Forge replies. "It's being fed fuel from the ship's internal systems, which we can't turn off. We have to cut off the oxygen supply." He looks around. "Actually, that's not a terrible idea. What if we open the doors? It'll suck the barrels out into space, and cut off the oxygen."
"Okay, what about us?" she asks. "We grab a hold of something near the door controls?"
They decide to grab onto a ladder that's bolted to the deck.

Keiko is up and helping Worf with injured people when she starts having contractions. Because of course she is.
"This is kind of a bad time," he tells her.
"No shit? I hadn't noticed," she snaps.

In the Obs Lounge, Ro and O'Brien argue about what to do next. The containment field on the anti-matter unit is still dropping, and even though they have about two hours until it's too weak to contain the anti-matter, Ro points out that the power coupling is also failing, so it could actually go at any moment. She thinks they should separate the saucer section and put some distance between themselves and the drive section.
O'Brien is horrified. "What if there are people alive in Drive?"
"There's no evidence that there are," Ro argues.
"What if you were alive in Drive? Would you want the people in Saucer to abandon you?"
"No, but we can't afford to not act, and risk whoever is alive in Saucer!"
Troi thinks. "There's no power in Engineering?"
"Nope," Ro confirms.
"What if we send them some power to turn on a console, so they could fix the problem? They may not even know that there is one."
"We also don't know if there's anyone alive in Engineering to receive the info we'd be sending," Ro argues. "We don't have time to keep talking about this."
Troi makes up her mind. "Chief, send the juice down to Engineering. I think there are people alive in Drive, and I want to give them the chance."
O'Brien leaves to do as Troi decided.
"You may have just brought about our deaths," Ro snaps at Troi.
What, has she been talking to Jay Gordon?
At least Troi seems confident in her decision.

Picard and his motley crew are up on the ladder in the lift shaft, tied together by the optical cabling. Picard tries and fails several times to jumpstart the door directly above the lift. No good.
"We need to climb up to the next deck and try that door," he tells them.
"What if that one doesn't open?" asks Paterson meekly.
"Then we'll be stuck here forever," Jay Gordon replies.
This kid reads Edward Gorey, doesn't he?
There's a creaking below, and they grip the ladder harder. Thundering, the lift falls. Paterson sobs.
"We, um... we need a climbing song," says Picard, trying to lift their spirits. "Is there a song you sing in school?"
Marissa thinks. "The Laughing Vulcan and his Dog?"
Picard admits that he does not know that song, and then, because he's French, the Frenchman suggests the Frenchiest song that ever Frenched: Frere Jacques.
It's 700 years old at this point, so everybody knows it, and that's what they sing, climbing a ladder while tied together, Picard hopping on his one good foot.

There's a really interesting camera angle here, where they positioned the camera
behind the ladder, and did one long shot of each of the characters climbing
 upward in a row, singing.

Worf reports to Keiko that she is doing well, and that things are progressing quickly. He's doing things very by-the-book.
"Has the baby turned?" Keiko asks breathlessly.
He's not sure what this means.
She tells him that the baby's head needs to be down to deliver, and that the baby hadn't turned yet, but Dr Crusher wasn't worried because Keiko still had a month to go. She asks Worf if he's delivered a baby before.
"Yes. No. I mean, a computer-simulated baby via a Starfleet emergency medical training?"
Yeah, holo-baby is not the same.

Down in the cargo bay, Crusher tells La Forge what they're in for vis-a-vis almost suffocating.
"Fifteen seconds of useful orientation, then ten seconds of WTF, then we pass out."
"Once we close the doors again, one of us has to make it to that panel to depressurize the bay." He points across the bay at a wall panel.
Sounds fun.
They grab the ladder, and La Forge hits the button to open the door. Several deep breaths, then he hits the button to drop the shields.
The barrels get sucked out. Crusher almost loses her grip on the ladder. The fire goes out. Carefully, La Forge reaches out to hit the button for the door, and they both stumble drunkenly toward the panel on the wall. La Forge hits the deck. Crusher slaps the panel before dropping to the floor. The bay repressurizes.
Success! I mean, they're still trapped, just... not dying as actively?

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Hey, where are the barrels? Did they not show the back half of the ship because they couldn't figure out how to film the barrels floating behind it? Did they not have a Tiny Barrel Model budget? Okay, I know they had a Tiny Barrel Model budget because they made Tiny Barrel Models for the barrels-getting-sucked-into-space sequence, but was it that they didn't have a Fishing Wire To Hold Up The Tiny Barrel Models in Space budget? Was it 5 pm on a Friday, and the Tiny Barrel Model special fx crew really just want to go home?

On the bridge, Ro is becoming impatient. The containment field has dropped to 20 percent.
Troi is pacing. She starts to ask Ro if she's done the prep to separate the saucer section, but they're interrupted when the power coupling goes. There's a bad moment, then O'Brien is able to patch it.
Ro yells "I told you so!" at Troi.
"Who's the Head Bitch in Charge?" Troi barks back. "You or me?"
Ro, chastised, agrees that Troi is HBIC. Troi sits regally in the Big Chair, not exactly confident, but at least projecting it.

Riker and the Disembodied Head of Data have reached Engineering. They hook up Data to the system in the Jeffries tube, and Data is able to bypass the door to get them in.

I'm really sad that humans in the 24th century don't seem to celebrate Halloween. So many lost opportunities for Data to win costume contests. On the other hand, the last Star Trek Halloween episode was kind of crap, so maybe no big loss?

Anyway, the door opens, and Riker is surprised to see that there's no power on this deck, but some of the monitors are lit up and working.
"Those monitors are being powered by the bridge," Data says. "Maybe there's something they need us to know?"
Riker pushes some buttons. "Holy shit, the containment field's at 18 percent! Do you know how to fix it?"
Data, whose head is still hooked up to the Jeffries tube, calls back that this is something he can't do. "I can do a thing if you connect me!"
He walks Riker through the connection, and there's a bit of physical comedy here where Riker hits the wrong thing.

Sassy Riker Moment: "I'm trying. You need a bigger head."
Data keeps up a running tab of the containment field's failure, but then he's in, made the connection, brought things to a halt. He stabilizes the containment field.

Up on the bridge, O'Brien announces that the containment field is stabilized, and that the containment rate is rising.
Looks like it's time to eat some cROw.
"Sorry," Ro tells Troi quietly. "You were right."
"Yeah, but it could have easily gone the other way," Troi replies graciously.

Picard finally finds a door that will open, and he hauls himself up out of the lift shaft, pulling the kids out with him.

One more check-in.
Worf congratulates Keiko on being dilated to ten centimetres.
"You may now give birth."
Sassy Keiko Moment: "That's what I've been doing!"
This scene has some great Keiko and Worf comedy moments:
Worf: "Well, bearing down is the next stage. It should start at full dilation." Pause. "It has not begun. Why has it not begun?"
Keiko: "I don't know! I don't think it's up to me. It happens what it happens!"
Worf: "My computer simulation was not like this. That delivery was very orderly."
Keiko: "Well, I'm sorry!"
She screams.
Worf: "Did you feel an uncontrollable urge to push?"
Keiko: *enraged nodding*

He's been checking in on what he should via a padd, and now announces that he must encourage her to push, gently but firmly. So he does.
Worf: "Push, Keiko. Push."
Sassy Keiko Moment; "I AM PUSHING!"
Somehow, through this comedy of errors, they manage to deliver a baby (but no afterbirth, because somehow that always gets skipped), not a Hiro or a Michael, but a two-month-old named Molly.

Picard's Log, supplemental: "Heading to the nearest starbase for repairs. Slowly getting back to normal."

The lift near the front of the bridge opens, and Troi exits with the kids.
"You can't stay away from the Big Chair, can you?" Riker teases her.
Sassy Troi Moment: "I don't think I'm cut out to be Captain. First Officer, maybe. I understand there aren't that many qualifications."
Worf and Riker exchange looks. We don't see the face of Ro, who is sitting at the conn, but I imagine she snort-laughed.

Sassy Riker Moment: "Captain Picard to the bridge. PLEASE."
Picard comes out of the ready room, and is genuinely pleased to see the kids.
Marissa tells him that they made him a commemorative plaque, for helping them out of the lift shaft, and for helping them to not be scared.
Paterson announces proudly that he made the back piece, and upon inspection, Picard sees that there are like six holes, made with some kind of wobbly drill.
He thanks them and invites them back later so they can have their tour, which will now include the battle bridge. He starts to take his new, huge plaque into his ready room, and calls over his shoulder "you have the bridge, Number One."
Riker and Marissa: "Aye, sir."
They exchange a smile, and I just noticed that all of the kids are still wearing their pips.
GOOD GOD THAT'S ADORABLE.

*******

I really like this episode. It's not one that's super memorable, but it's enjoyable nonetheless. I do like that it's a one-off, and that it breaks from the typical fare they usually give us. And I'm into this "characters in situations where you wouldn't expect them"; Worf in a comedic situation, Picard having a good interaction with kids, Crusher problem-solving outside of sick bay, Riker crawling through Jeffries tubes, Data just being a head. 

Mostly what I like here is Troi. She's put in charge and given two bickering subordinates that she must reign in. She wisely asks for suggestions, then makes a decision from them. While O'Brien replies "aye, sir," and does what he's told, Ro fights her at every step. In the end, she wins Ro over by being humble about being correct. What's more, this idea of Troi-in-charge will be visited later, in another episode that I like.

Two continuity issues that I have:

Firstly, La Forge's VISOR seems to provide him with infrared sensors, so why did he not see that the wall was hot when he opened the panel to find the hand actuator for the door? He also didn't say that there was a bunch of radiation coming off of the plasma fire, though I suppose he might have seen it, but Crusher happened to say it first. Am I giving the VISOR too much credit? I feel like we've seen it detect things like heat sources and radiation before this. Did the writers forget, or did they just need to give Crusher more lines? 

Secondly, Troi and the kids exit from the lift at the front of the bridge... the same lift they climbed earlier. If the carriage crashed and was destroyed at the bottom of the shaft, shouldn't that lift be out of commission until they reach a starbase where it could be repaired? Did they have another carriage in storage somewhere on the ship? Did engineers build another? We have no idea how much time has elapsed, but it seems like they'd get the engines working and limp to the nearest starbase as quickly as possible, not leaving enough time to clear the shaft of the destroyed carriage, repair the broken clips, and build a new carriage. (Also related: how do none of these kids have turbolift PTSD?)

Fun Facts:

- This is a bottle show.
- First appearance of Molly O'Brien. I'm kind of amused that Memory Alpha noted that.
- The premise for this episode was pitched by several outside writers, and Jeri Taylor decided to jump on it because it sounded like fun to do a "disaster movie" theme, and because she liked the idea of changing up what kinds of stories they were telling.
- During writing sessions, they were pitching ideas of what could happen to the characters, and Michael Piller left the room. Someone suggested that Riker take off Data's head. Ronald D Moore thought it was hilarious. When Piller returned, Moore suggested it. Piller also thought the idea was hilarious, but figured it would never fly. Moore: "I wrote it and Rick [Berman] never said a word. It's amazing that we got away with it."
- Worf's story came from the need to pit Worf against other kinds of challenges. Michael Dorn was on board because he felt he didn't get to do enough comedy. Moore: "I think he got tired of us beating him up all the time."
- A huge building at NASA developing its own rain and weather patterns inside inspired the writers to add rain to the turboshaft scenes, but it was later nixed because of the difficulties in getting the rain to work in the indoor sets.
- By naval standards, Deanna Troi should not have been the CO. Moore elected to bend the rules for the sake of the story.

- Moore jokingly suggested that they get Shelley Winters to guest star on this episode, which he called "an homage to disaster movies."
- Moore said that he liked the song title "The Laughing Vulcan and His Dog" for the imagery evoked, and denied that it was inspired by Sybok.
- In an early script, the ship is disabled when it collides with an asteroid. But they figured that the more scientific viewers would complain that the damage done to the ship would not match up with "hit by asteroid," so they invented quantum filaments. From the Star Trek Encyclopedia: "We're not entirely sure what a quantum filament is, but we do know it's not a cosmic string."
- The plasma fire effect was achieved by filming hot water and dry ice in a glass tray, then lighting it green.
- The kids don't receive last names in the script, but their full names were on the plaque they give Picard at the end of the episode. The last names given are basically the actors' last names.
- If Erika Flores (Marissa) looks familiar, you may recognize her as being the first Colleen Cooper on "Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman."

- This is the last episode where the saucer separation is mentioned.

- First appearance of the Jeffries tube junction set.

- Though he thought the episode was fun, Michael Piller didn't feel like this one made it into his list of top episodes because there were not enough mystery or sci-fi elements. He was also disappointed with Ro's role here, and wished that she had had some more "wins" on the ship before being put back into a position of having to go on the defensive.

- This dude Samuel Stokes wrote "The Laughing Vulcan and His Dog." It's charming af.

Red deaths: 1
To date: 1
Gold deaths: 0
To date:

Blue deaths: 0
To date:
Unnamed color crew deaths: 0
To date:
Jay Gordon talks about death: 7

Sassy Geordi moments: 0

To date: 

Sassy Ro Moments: 0
To date: 1

Sassy Worf Moment: 0
To date: 

Sassy Riker Moments: 2
To date: 2

Sassy Picard Moments: 1
To date: 1 

Sassy NPC Moments: 0
To date:
Sassy Data Moments: 0
To date:
Sassy O'Brien Moments: 1
To date: 1
Sassy Keiko Moments: 3
To date: 3
Sassy Crusher Moments: 0
To date:
Sassy Troi Moments: 1
To date: 1
Sassy Guinan Moments:
To Date: 1
Sassy Guest Star Moments: 0
To date: 1

Number of times that it is mentioned that Data is an android: 2
To date: 6

Number of times that Troi reacts to someone else's feelings: 1
To date: 7

Number of times that Geordi "looks at something" with his VISOR: 0
To date:
Number of times when Data gives too much info and has to be told to shut up: 0
To date:
Picard Maneuvers: 1
To date: 1
Tea, Earl Grey: 0
To date:

Boo and Pookie