ST:TNG Season Five, Episode Six "The Game"

ST:TNG Season Five, Episode Six "The Game"
Production Order: 6
Air Order: 6
Stardate: 45208.2
Original Air Date: October 28, 1991

We start out on Risa, where Riker is hanging out in his jammies with some chick who is wearing the kind of jammies that you want to be seen in. They're goofing off and playing, and you're supposed to get the feeling that Riker is on vacation and having a good time, and even though we don't have any inkling that the girl, Etana, is evil af, there's something... that makes you wary of her? Maybe it's because the chase game that they're playing is Riker trying to get his communicator back from her, and she chucks it out the window. Seems like he's gonna get mad, but then he doesn't. They tumble onto the bed instead, and I guess he's just... never going back to work? Then she produces this little headset and puts it on him.

"It's a game," she tells him. "Everyone on Risa is playing it."
FUCK ME, THIS BITCH HAS GOAT EYES.

A thousand previous viewings of this episode: "this girl is a jerk."
One viewing on a laptop, where the screen is close enough that I can see the creepy-ass contacts they put her in: nightmares.

GoatGirl turns on the headset, and Riker can see a holographic playing field in front of him. There's a cone and a disc, and she tells him to concentrate, and put the disc in the cone. He does, and has a tiny orgasm.
"That's your reward," she giggles.

Dramatic music! Opening credits break!

Picard's Log 45208.2: "Lots of housekeeping; Riker is coming back on board from Risa, and we're going to the Phoenix Cluster. It's unexplored, so everybody and their dog is transferring to this ship temporarily to do Science."

Riker enters the bridge, and Picard lays out how hella busy they are: their five weeks in the Phoenix Cluster has been cut to two, because now Starfleet wants them to do a diplomatic mission to Oceanus IV. Picard is putting Riker in charge of scheduling all of these science teams in various labs and with specific equipment.
"Oh, also," he adds, "Wesley Crusher is on vacation from the Academy, and we'll be meeting up with his shuttle soon."
"Cool," says Riker. "We could use another hand around here, seeing as how we're super busy."
Y'all... Picard just said Wes is on vacation, and you're already putting him to work?
(Okay: I asked my Navy hook-up Agent K abut this, and she confirmed that, as a recruit, Riker can absolutely order Wes around if he wants, and Wes has to say yes. Everybody outranks him. It's the military. I guess his choices are: hang out in San Francisco on break, or go see his friends and risk shoveling coal in Engineering.)

Riker goes down to Engineering, which is bustling with Golds trying to get things ready for the Black Friday Sale of Science: too many bodies fighting for the few gadgets on the shelf. La Forge is all over it, but still feeling the burn. He pulls in Ensign Robin Lefler, and talks her up to Riker: she's such a superstar that La Forge has made her a mission specialist.
Riker asks her about sensor arrays, and how many people can use them, and can they have it up and running by the time they get to the Phoenix Cluster? He's impressed by her answers, and she goes back to the task at hand.
Alone-ish, Riker pitches his new MLM to La Forge: he's brought something back from Risa that La Forge just has to try.
"Sounds good," says La Forge. "Can it wait, though? I'm real busy right now."
They agree to catch up later, and Riker leaves.

He goes up to Ten Forward, where Troi is having a moment with a chocolate sundae. It's not even subtle. The sundae is in a dish on a pedestal. They start talking about chocolate, and Troi outlines each step in her sundae-eating ritual.
Time for Riker to pull out his MLM again: "I brought something back from Risa that's better than chocolate."
Troi has interest and time right now, which is good news for Riker.

Y'all, this is the weirdest little ship I've ever seen.
It's the USS Cochrane, an Oberth-class ship, and apparently, we've seen this class before, not only in the third movie, but several times in TNG.
I guess I've just... never noticed it before?
Anyway, that's the ship that brought Wes out here for a visit.

He beams on board with help from O'Brien, and they greet each other warmly before Wes congratulates O'Brien on the birth of his daughter.
It seems that Wes was expecting to be met in the transporter room by his mother, and maybe some others, because he asks where everyone is.
"Senior staff meeting," says O'Brien. "You're supposed to go to your mom's quarters."
Disappointed, Wes asks if it would be okay for him to drop into the Obs Lounge to say hello to the senior staff. That seems like a big ole breach of protocol, but O'Brien checks to see if that would be okay.
"Yeah, I guess," Worf agrees when O'Brien calls.

But when Wes walks into the Obs Lounge, the lights are off. He wanders in, confused, before they all yell "surprise!" and turn the lights on. They do a quick catch-up, and Worf offers cake that he made himself. Data researches whether or not Wes found the surprise fun. Picard talks to him in Latin. Riker asks if Wes wouldn't mind lending a hand with their tight scheduling while he's on board. (At least he asked.) Wes says this is fine, and La Forge tells him to come down to Engineering once he's settled.
Crusher asks Troi what kind of game she was talking about, and Troi tells her to come by her quarters, and the counselor will show her. The MLM is spreading.

There's kind of a fun exchange here where Data walks Wes to his quarters, and Data asks how Wes' first year at the Academy is going. Both admit to struggling with pranks: Data doesn't really get them, and Wes isn't really the type. But Wes admits to getting someone back after they programmed a sonic shower to dump mud on him, and Data gives him a forced "good for you." Then they discuss the sheer awkwardness of Sadie Hawkins dances, which are just kind of awful no matter which century you live in.
"I can't dance," Wes admits.
"Really?" asks Data. "Your mother taught me a while ago. I can teach you, if you want. I have a shit-ton of holodeck programs about dancing."
Yeah, I seem to recall that you also had an agreement with Crusher to not tell anybody about your dance lessons, Data.

A bit later, Wes goes down to Engineering and La Forge sets him up to help out. But then Wes hits a snag: he can't get the computer to do what he wants. Lefler walks by and tells him that the computer gets weird sometimes about that, but he can calibrate it by hand. When he objects that the computer will still have to do it, she walks over with her degree from the School of Hard Knocks and shows him how.
"Law 17," she quotes, "When all else fails, do it yourself."
Wes is amazed when it starts working and he jumps up to introduce himself. He gets a bit starry-eyed, and she laughs, confirming that she knows who he is, then tells him that his neutrinos are drifting, and he better get back to his console. On her way out of Engineering, Lefler checks him out.

Up on the bridge, Data informs a flustered La Forge that two science groups are bickering over who gets to use the thermal imaging array first.
"Like I give a shit," says an impatient La Forge. "Tell them to flip a coin."
"Huh, I'll replicate one."
Which... yeah, I guess you'd have to, as they don't have those anymore. Interesting what phrases seem to have lasted into the 24th century, when the physical object that's attached has not. I like stuff like that.
Crusher pages Data to sick bay.
When he arrives, Crusher tells him that she needs her tricorder reprogrammed a specific way, and that he does it so much faster than she could, and she needs it right away, so he's completely distracted with the tricorder when she shuts him off.
Riker and Troi come in from a lab in the back, and together, they move Data's prone body onto a table. Crusher pops open a panel on the back of his head and shoots a beam into the circuitry.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Wes and Picard are having some Earl Grey (with a nice-ass tea set, too) and having a nice catch-up. Wes admits that he took Picard's advice and met Boothby the gardener at the Academy, and that Boothby gave him a tour of the grounds.
"Who is A.F.?" asks Wes. "Boothby said he caught you carving those initials into his prized elm tree?"
Picard does a series of facial expressions that include wistful smiling and minor cringes. "Someone I knew. But if you meet someone whose initials you want to carve into that tree, tread carefully. I failed organic chemistry because of A.F."
Thank you. More Adventures of Young Dumbass Picard, please.
But now Picard is being paged into sick bay as well, so he gets up and walks into the lair of the Murderous MLM.

Crusher is there, along with La Forge and Riker, and Crusher pulls some BS out of her ass about how Data came in complaining about a servo malfunction, and that honestly makes no sense, because Crusher only deals with meatbags. When Data has a problem, he talks to La Forge. But nobody calls her on it.
(I know, I know. When they were putting Lore together, she was supervising the process in sick bay. She's not completely ignorant of Data's systems and stuff, but honestly, how often does he come to her? Never, he goes to La Forge.)
La Forge pokes around in Data's circuits, and determines that everything is working okay, but the signals are not reaching Data's brain at all. "Like he's in a coma."
Riker, who is in on this MLM crap, protests that Data runs self-diagnostics all the time, so maybe they should check his logs. Oh, and also his quarters.

La Forge and Riker check out Data's quarters, but a frustrated La Forge says there's nothing to indicate what this problem might be.
Sassy Riker Moment: "We could ask his cat."
"You seem stressed," says Riker. "You've been so busy, you could stand to relax a little. I have this game..."
(Unanswered question: how does La Forge play this game? Does it fit over the VISOR? Or would he need to take it off?)

Down in Engineering, Wes compliments Lefler on her knowledge of conduits.
"Law 36: go with what works."
When he presses her about the law thing, she admits that when she learns something new, she makes up a law so she won't forget it. She has 102 so far. She then compliments his own skill level with "they said you were good..."
"How come I think you know more about me than you're letting on?"
"I have friends at the Academy. Sometimes your name comes up." Then she brings up the kid who used the sonic shower to spray Wes with mud: "How did you get the anti-matter regulator to spray chili sauce?"
He seems embarrassed. "There's like... more to that story."
"Uh-huh. And what about your birth mark?"
Damn. Pulling out the big guns.
Law 46: Life isn't always fair.
"Okay: you know a bunch of stuff about me, and I want to know some stuff about you," he proposes. "Ten Forward, 1900 hours. Join me for coffee?"
Smooth, Ex-Lax.
"Nope," she replies. "But I will have dinner with you."

Picard's Log, supplemental: "We finally made it to the Phoenix Cluster. Data still down for the count."

Wes heads back to his mom's quarters and finds Beverly playing that stupid game. She pulls in a sharp intake of breath each time she's rewarded, so her breathing is super uneven.
She's caught off-guard, and takes it off, admitting that the game was for him, but that she couldn't resist.
"Put it on? Try it out?" she insists, pushing it at him.
"Yeah, I'm busy right now. How is Data?"
"Geordi's working on it. He should be fine, though."
"Maybe I should help..."
"No," she says quickly. "You're on vacation. You're already helping."
"Okay. I'm actually late for a dinner date with Robin Lefler from Engineering." He goes to the clothes closet to check out his choices.
"Oh, I know! You could invite her back here, I could replicate some more games, and we can all play together!"
Oof. Her MLM game is not as slick as Riker's. She wants it too bad.
He turns and gives her a look. "Are you fucking kidding me? A date with my mom?"
She tries to cover it by saying she just really wants to spend some time with him while he's here, but how can anything make up for the awkwardness of "bring your date here, and play a game with your mom"? Ugh.
She appears to back off, then tries one more desperate time to put the game on him ("just one quick game!") before moving away and setting the headset down on a table.
He turns back to the closet with a WTF was that? face.

Wes and Lefler meet up in Ten Forward and Wes gets his wish for info: Lefler's parents were specialists in high demand, so she got dragged all over the sector a lot, and learned to depend on herself. After a few minutes, talk turns to the weird game that's going around Engineering. Lefler says pretty much everyone but herself has tried it, and Wes says that his mom has one for him, and has been pushing it hard on him.
"It's just a fad," Lefler reckons. "Some thing from Risa that'll be gone next week. You gonna try it?"
They look over at a Gold at another table that looks like she's dying or something. She's clearly playing the game and ignoring the drink the waiter sets down in front of her.
"I think I want to look at it first," he admits.

They're both immediately down for the sheer nerdiness of this activity, and jump up to rush to an open lab. Which I'm surprised they find, because isn't the ship currently crawling with scientists champing at the bit to get their hands on scientific equipment? Maybe the equipment they're using doesn't have any overlap with the equipment that the others want.
Anyway, they get a copy of the game and hook it up to the equipment and turn it on. Somehow, said equipment acts like eyeballs and an attached brain. And the results are not good.
Each time the player gets the disc into the cone, they get a reward from the pleasure center of the brain. The game is psychotropic. Addicting. And interferes with the higher reasoning functions of the brain.
"Fuck," says Wes. "We have to tell Picard."

Wes rushes up to the bridge, where he finds Picard in the ready room.
After a moment of small talk, he gets to the point: that game floating around the ship? He's run some tests, and he thinks it's addictive, and messing with the higher reasoning functions of the players.
Picard looks disturbed. "Well, that sucks. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I'll start an investigation into it."
He tells Wes that it's good to have him back on board, and Wes leaves.
As soon as the kid is gone, Picard picks up and puts on the game.

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

We're taken back into Ten Forward by someone wearing/playing the game. They approach Lefler, who is sitting unnerved at a table by herself. It's no surprise why. Ten Forward was empty at 1900 hours, but now it's full of people who are all sitting around playing the game. The person whose POV we're following turns out to be O'Brien, who asks if Lefler has played this great new game. She fakes a smile and replies that she has.
I'm a little worried here: if O'Brien has one, then Keiko probably does too, and who is watching their kid? Some people seem to be able to play a few levels and put it down, but others appear to be doing nothing but playing. Please, please, please, let the O'Briens be "play a few levels" people.
Wes shows up and hurriedly tells her that he talked to the captain, who is looking into it.
Some random Gold shows up, and asks where their games are.
"We left them in our quarters," Lefler lies.
"You can use mine!"
Shit, these people are pushers. We've officially left the polite side of the MLM now, and rushed forward into "you WILL buy my products!" territory.
They get up to move away from the Gold.
"You wanna know the extra creepy part in all of this?" asks Wes. "There's one person on board that wouldn't have been affected by this thing, and he suddenly became catatonic right before the thing exploded."
"Data," nods Lefler.
They get the hell out of Dodge.

In sick bay, they set up the tricorder to scan Data and get the output up on the readouts. They're able to find a tiny amount of damage that keeps his brain from sending signals to the rest of his body. The cuts in the wiring are really, really precise.
"Only two people on this ship would know where to cut and how in order to do this," says Wes worriedly. "Commander La Forge, and my mother."
"Why would they do that?" asks Lefler.
"Dunno," says Wes. "But with Data out of the way, it leaves everyone open on the ship to get addicted. Which they have. You think this is worse than just "playing for pleasure"? Like there's something bigger going on?"
"Data would be a threat to that," Lefler points out.
"And I think we're the only people left on the ship who are not addicted."

There's a tiny scene here on the bridge with the senior crew. Worf alerts Picard that they're at some rendezvous coordinates and that there's another ship that's on course to meet them. Picard tells the others to go and replicate what they need, and adds that they need to make sure that Wes gets one, too.

Crusher shows up at her quarters with multiple games in her hand, and reinforcements: Worf has followed her in, also armed with games. But what they find makes them smile and leave: Wes and Lefler are on the bed, wearing games, and breathing unevenly. Mission accomplished.
Once they're gone, the games come off, and Lefler excitedly tells Wes that the fake games they made worked. He suggests that they keep them close, just in case.
Lefler has duty in Engineering now (were... were they up all night? Like, 16 hours?), and Wes tells her to get some security code or something. They can't trust anyone now, including Picard.

Upstairs, the E has met up with the approaching ship, and Picard calls the senior staff to the bridge. Worf flips on the viewscreen.
Oh, yay. It's GoatGirl.
"Welcome, Etana," says Picard. (He knows her name?) "The Enterprise has been secured. We await your further instructions."
Has he been in contact with her? How does he know her plans? Did Riker give them to him once he was onboard with the game?
Anyway

Dramatic music! Commercial break!

When we return, Etana lays out her "further instructions:" Riker is to take a shuttle to another system, and start handing out games there. La Forge and Troi are going to a nearby starbase to start this MLM shit.
"We can also get the game into Starfleet Academy," Picard tells her.
She is pleased, and her people, the Ktarians, commend him.
And now comes the part of the episode where I always seem to zone out. Because I never remember how things go with Etana. I know how it ends-ends, but not the part with Etana. Maybe it's something exciting that I just keep missing!

Wes dodges people in the corridor, standing around, blissed out on game vibes. He escapes into the lift, but then there's Nurse Ogawa, breathing heavily in an uncomfortable way while the game plays her.
"What level are you on?" she asks in a dreamy voice.
"Only ten," he laments. He's not a terrible liar. He does sound genuinely sad about that.
"I'm level 47," she says proudly. "Don't fight it, just let the game play itself."
"Cool," he replies distractedly.

He exits into Engineering. Lefler's at a pool table table console, and as he walks to the other side, he asks if she got those codes.
No answer.
She gives him a blissed-out look, then stands and holds out a game. "It's your turn."
Oops.
Here come Riker and Worf, also armed with games, and Wes is forced to make a quick get-away, dashing into the corridors.
Riker has the computer throw up a forcefield across the corridor ahead of Wes, and he skids to a halt. But Wes has something else up his sleeve, and fixes a personal site-to-site transporter for himself, beaming into the transporter room. Once he hops off the pad, he scrambles something in his communicator, then drops it in another corridor.
This has made things difficult for La Forge on the bridge, who can't track him, because Wes did something to the security trackers. Picard orders that transporters and shuttle bays be sealed.
"He transported to Transported Room 3," says La Forge. "Deck six."
Picard has deck six corridors closed off with forcefields.
Wes hits a junction with a forcefield, and pauses. Then he pulls out a phaser (was he issued that, or did he loot the armory before going to meet Lefler in Engineering?), and sets it on a ledge along the corridor wall, programming it to shoot at the forcefield at intervals. He takes off down another corridor.

Security Golds discover and report the phaser trick.
There's a cool shot in Engineering of Riker and Worf attempting the find Wes over a pool table console.

"Ooh, unidentified heat source!" yells Worf.
Yep, ya boy is in the Jeffies tubes.
He's not doing too badly, but then the next section he opens reveals Worf!
Crap!
Back into the junction! Close the tube off!
But Worf is too strong, and pries the door open. Go! Just go!
Nope, here comes Riker.
Trapped like a rat.

They haul him onto the bridge and force him into the Big Chair. He knows what's coming next, and isn't giving up without a fight. Riker holds his head still while Picard delicately places the game on his head, like an Olympic official of old placing a crown of laurel leaves on a victor's head.
Wes has his eyes squeezed shut, so they pry them open.
WTF? That's some 1984 shit right there.

Picard turns it on, and the playing field appears, but Wes refuses to play.
Fuck yo disc.
When he won't put the disc into the cone, a newer, bigger cone appears and swallows the disc for him. Here's your shot of endorphins, motherfucker. Play the game right, and you can have more.
Wes relaxes, and more cones and discs appear.
"That's right," say the senior staff soothingly. "Play the game."

The lights dim.
The lift opens.
Fuck yeah, android!

Data has a hand-held flashlight, which flickers bright-ass light into the faces of each crew member, and Wes, who rips the game off his head.
"Lights!" Data yells.
The lights come back up, and everyone looks dazed as hell.
"Worf, there's a little alien ship nearby," barks Data. "Tractor it, and raise the shields."
There's a moment after he does so, then Worf says the alien ship wants to know why they're being tractored.
"What the hell?" demands Etana, bursting onto the viewscreen.
"Your plan was bad," says Picard. "And you should feel bad."
"Fuck you all!" yells Etana. "Let me go, or I'll fire on you and destroy your ship!"
Picard looks at Worf, who types some things.
"Ooh, yeah," says Worf. "We have big guns, and she has like... a slingshot? But like, a Nerf slingshot."

There's less than two minutes left in the show, so they have to do some mad exposition and wrapping up here: at some point before going back to Engineering, Wes managed to reconnect Data, who then reconfigured the flashlight to flash. It seems that Wes' shenanigans of parkouring all over the ship were mostly to buy Data time to get that figured out. He also set all of the consoles on the ship to flash the same pattern at people to try to catch everyone. It won't though, so they're going to take medical teams around, looking for people to flash in person.
And they're gonna tow Etana's ship to the nearest starbase.
So that's it. That's why I can't ever remember what happens to Etana. Because the answer is... nothing. They figure out that she's trying to take over the ship, then they haul her off to the nearest starbase. No explanation as to why she was trying to take over the Federation, or who she might have been working for. She just goes away.
And that's it for the Ktarians. This was their introduction to the Star Trek universe, and it was... quiet? It was a shrug. Less annoying than the Ferengi, so at least there's that.

Picard's Log 45212.1: "We dropped Etana's ship off, and now we're going to rendezvous with the ship that'll take Wes home."

Wait, what happened to all of that Science they were supposed to be doing? They were only at the Phoenix Cluster for a few hours before this shit went down - are they ditching Wes and going back? Did he really only get a few days off? Time to travel to the E, one day there, plus travel time back?
(Math: begin time for starting out for the Phoenix Cluster is 45208.2, or March 17, 2368 at 4:49 AM. They are going to rendezvous with the USS Merrimac, which will take Wes home, and the current time is 45212.1, or March 18, 2368 at 3:05 PM. Wes was on board for less than 35 hours. He didn't even get to stay for the weekend.)

Wes is packing his things while Lefler playfully pesters him. She pulls out some shiny shorty-shorts that he had in his pack and says she never saw him wearing those - was he afraid someone would see his birthmark?
"I wonder who started that birthmark rumor?" he asks jokingly.
They share a kiss, and it's a pretty long one.
Then they agree to write, and proclaim that they'll miss one another, and then Riker pages him to announce that the Merrimac is there to get him. The hug they share is long too. On his way out, she gives him a book of her laws, so he'll remember.
"Law 103," he suggests. "A couple of lightyears can't keep good friends apart."
Friends? Good FRIENDS? Crusher, did you just cockblock yourself? Cuz you seem real into her, and she to you, but you just called her a friend after a fairly heavy kiss. Then he kisses her again, but on the cheek, and those are some mixed-ass signals.
He leaves, and the E goes... I dunno, back to the Phoenix Cluster maybe.

This episode is a mixed bag for me.
I like Wes and Robin Lefler, and I like how well they play off of each other. I like the conspiracy theory thing, and that this episode was a one-off, and they're like "Wes is back for this episode!" It's another lighter episode, which is helpful, because the next two are heavy. I like Troi's weird sundae-eating ritual, and Wes' cadet uniform with the department color on the top, and the black on the bottom. I love how varied and interesting the shots were. I'm always appreciative of when a director asks "Can we show it from another angle we haven't used before?"

I don't love Etana. She's a gorgeous girl, and her hair is amazing, but holy fuck, THOSE EYES. Nightmare-inducing. I know we'll see Ktarians in DS9 and Voyager, but will they have those eyes? Maybe if they were on a character that I liked.... but man, I'd have to like that character a lot. A LOT. I'm really annoyed that all we see of Etana's great plan is where it falls flat at the end. She probably spent years perfecting that dumb game, and trying to figure out when she could give it to any Starfleet officer, let alone the XO of the fucking flagship, and then... nothing. She has the whole damn ship ready to spread that game among the stars, and someone wakes up the android. Was she working with or for someone, or was she working by herself? What was the endgame? Were the Ktarians ready to go to war with the Federation? Were they looking to run the quadrant? What if they encountered a race whose brains did not work in a fashion similar enough to humans, where the game would not work? I know this show only gets an average of 44 minutes in which to tell a story, but they kind of pulled a Shakespearean comedy here in terms of villains: for a Shakespearean comedy, you can plop a villain on the stage for a few acts, and then thumb your nose at him at the end, because he isn't meant to do anything more that fuck up all of the shit for a while. But, despite being lighter than some other Star Trek fare, this was not a comedy. Her arc ended badly, and we don't even learn about her plan, let alone how she was punished for it. Irritating.
I do not love Wes and Lefler's date night clothes.
His pants were puffy at the top, and fitted down below, and his shoulder pads were too big. Architectural, but in all the wrong ways.
Her outfit was... several pieces all dyed the same orange and layered on top of each other. The top and dress were too dissimilar to go together, and maybe buying different pieces and dying them was a  way to get around a budget constraint, but I would have hated it less had they just created one piece. Also, her shoes and tights were dyed to match her outfit. So matchy. And I hate colored tights. I hate when Troi wears her teal dress and they put those dyed-to-match tights and shoes on her too. Why are they monochromatic blobs? Go through Lwaxana Troi's trunks and steal her shoes. At least they'll be interesting.

So that's "The Game." Some fun stuff, some what-the-hell-was-that, some Wes ruining a good thing for himself and Robin Lefler.


Fun Facts:

- This was the third iteration of this script, which had been kicked around the writers' room since season four. It was finally given to Brannon Braga as a first assignment. Michael Piller felt that Braga's efforts here showed promise.
- The episode was pitched by Susan Sackett and Fred Bronson. Bronson based it on Tetris, which he had on his computer, and which he found mildly addicting.
- Brannon Braga made the story a bit darker than it had originally been, giving it a "Wes comes home, and his family's out to get him" twist.
- The main theme for this episode is "kids addicted to video games," which makes me roll my eyes, especially when you consider that Fred Bronson based it on his own addiction to Tetris. Brannon Braga like the irony that here, the child comes to find the adults addicted.
- This is the second and last time we see Robin Lefler. They were looking to add her to another episode after her work on "Darmok", and decided that it worked nicely to give Wes a girlfriend. Attempts were made to bring Lefler back in other episodes, but scripts were rewritten, or things weren't able to be worked out. On an episode of Late Night, Judd told David Letterman that she was making a cameo as Wesley Crusher's wife in Star Trek: Nemesis, but Wil Wheaton admitted no knowledge of this: "Somehow, I'm not surprised Wesley doesn't know he's married." Wheaton's part was later cut from Nemesis.
- Braga also liked the idea that Wes would have loosened up a bit at the Academy, pulling a couple of pranks.
- Some audience members had trouble with the concept that all of these very smart people - including Picard - would become addicted to this game, but the whole issue there is that each person got the game from someone they trusted.
- When Crusher knocks Data out, Brent Spiner hit the bed so hard that he injured his chin and had to go to the hospital. Upon his return, he was immediately asked to film the scene again.

Director Cory Allen with Spiner and Wheaton

- Wil Wheaton noted that he was Ashley Judd's first kiss.
- The game prop was made from telephone headsets.
- The engineering lab is a reuse of the sick bay lab.
- The Ktarian ship is a reuse of the Zalkonian warship... which was a redress of the Tallarian plague ship.

- First appearance of the Starfleet cadet uniform.
- A matte painting is used to extend a Jeffries tube in this episode.

- Joe Menosky first began including the number 47 in the fourth season, and the writers would slip it in as an in-joke, adding it to LCARS readouts and into dialogue, which I guess I haven't been paying much attention to. Here, it is mentioned when Wes gets in the lift with Nurse Ogawa, who blissfully tells him that she is on level 47 of the game.
- Jonathan Frakes thought the episode was fun, but was disappointed with the final graphics for the game. Apparently, they had been talked up quite a bit, and Frakes was expecting something more sophisticated.
- Writer Marc Scott Zicree was unimpressed with this episode, and Wes in particular: "He falls in love with a girl and they share a chocolate mousse - give me a break." (Is he talking about the sundae scene? Wes and Lefler don't eat chocolate mousse.)



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

Blue deaths: 0
To date:
Unnamed color crew deaths: 0
To date: 

Sassy Geordi moments: 0

To date:
Sassy Ro Moments: 0
To date: 1

Sassy Wes Moments: 0
To date: 0

Sassy Worf Moment: 0
To date: 

Sassy Riker Moments: 1
To date: 3

Sassy Picard Moments: 0
To date: 1 

Sassy NPC Moments: 0
To date:
Sassy Data Moments: 0
To date:
Sassy O'Brien Moments: 0
To date: 1
Sassy Keiko Moments: 0
To date: 3
Sassy Crusher Moments: 0
To date:
Sassy Troi Moments: 0
To date: 1
Sassy Guinan Moments:
To Date: 1
Sassy Guest Star Moments: 1
To date: 2

Number of times that it is mentioned that Data is an android: 8
To date: 14

Number of times that Troi reacts to someone else's feelings: 0
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
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Picard Maneuvers: 0
To date: 1
Tea, Earl Grey: 2
To date: 2
Mentions of the number 47: 1
To date: 1

Sorry, were you writing this blog?