TNG- 11001001

[CharlesPhipps]

That can't be true. Nothing involving Mariner can be great, she is far too toxic a character for that. She makes everything she is involved in suck that little bit more.

Now that you mention it, I think the other three characters would be a lot more watchable without her around.

And a lot less funny.

[stryke]

Dang, didn't expect to kick all that off. My opinion even lies in the middle that I don't think she's the best character while still thinking this bit with the Bynars shoutout is great:

[Archanubis]

I'm kind of of hoping for a story where Mariner's habitual demotions actually have someone from Starfleet threaten to either send her to a dead end posting, like the quartermaster's office or something, or thrown out of Starfleet entirely.

[TGLS]

I'm kind of of hoping for a story where Mariner's habitual demotions actually have someone from Starfleet threaten to either send her to a dead end posting, like the quartermaster's office or something, or thrown out of Starfleet entirely.

As I understand it, the paradox of this is that the Cerritos is supposed to be a dead-end posting. Then again, thrown out would work.

[Thebestoftherest]

ALthough her being told if she doesn't shape up she be remover from the service could work, her mom could end up on another ship or star fleet have a change in policy.

[CharlesPhipps]

I'm kind of of hoping for a story where Mariner's habitual demotions actually have someone from Starfleet threaten to either send her to a dead end posting, like the quartermaster's office or something, or thrown out of Starfleet entirely.

The Cerritos IS a dead end posting.

[J!!]

which she's mostly holding onto via nepotism.

[cdrood]

Yeah, this episode is one of the few good episodes from S1.
I do find it odd that the Bynars needed Enterprise for this task, surely a warp capable civilization had to have ships of their own with high capacity storage memory, right? Unless of course the Bynars don't believe in data backup.

They may not. Remember the episode when the Enterprise computer gets flaky and it takes Data nearly being killed for Geordi to come up with the groundbreaking idea of "restore from backup and reboot"?

Also, given the amount of extraneous information the Enterprise computer holds that really wouldn't be relevant to its mission (e.g. the Dixon Hill stuff), it's likely that its storage capacity really is beyond any other ship's.

[cdrood]

My first question is, why does the Enterprise need an upgrade after only being in service such a short time. Does Starfleet contract out the OS to Microsoft? Also, given its duties, it's one hell of a risk that the Enterprise would be available within the window the Bynars needed. Its upgrade could have been delayed/cancelled for any number of diplomatic, military, scientific, or natural emergencies.

[cdrood]

Being more or less a bottle episode helps here. We were spared the S1 smugness we often got when interacting with other races.