TNG - Devil's Due

[Fianna]

It seemed weird to me how dismissive Picard was of the idea that Ardra could actually be Ardra: a millennia old being with vast powers who came to this planet in ancient days as a deity figure. They've encountered plenty of alien beings of vast age and incredible power, after all. Heck, Kirk and Co. discovered that the Greek god Apollo was actually a real dude cruising around the cosmos.

Though I suppose dipping into old continuity like that would provide a pretty solid reason to believe Ardra is a fraud: she claims to be the Devil of Earth's mythology as well, but Trek fans know the real devil looks like this:

[Nealithi]

I may be alone here. But I always thought a follow up where they met an ancient being that really was Ardra. And she basically did the devil act to get people to clean up their act and be better. Basically a real ascended being doing a con for the potential good.

[Rocketboy1313]

I heartily agree with the Assessment by Chuck that this has a dated feel.
I would have sworn this was an episode from the first season.
I must have dreamed Yar interacting with the Devil, but I remembered her doing so.

[kingofmadcows]

I liked this episode. It's fun and Ardra is an entertaining scoundrel type character like Harry Mudd or Quark. I actually would have liked to see her again in another crazy scheme.

[Rocketboy1313]

I liked this episode. It's fun and Ardra is an entertaining scoundrel type character like Harry Mudd or Quark. I actually would have liked to see her again in another crazy scheme.

Oh god forbid we see a character again. Might have to acknowledge continuity. Then you have a 5-10 minute scene just explain who the person was to get the audience up to speed. Such a hassle.

[Darth Wedgius]

I think DuBois did a really good job here, and her interaction with Picard was the high point of the episode for me. The downside for me wasn't the god gambit being played again, but the Enterprise D being disabled by a con artist's ship. Why haven't the Klingons conquered you people yet?

[clearspira]

The bit that I always wondered about was when Ardra uses her holotechnology to turn herself into a clone of Troi.

Like what Plinkett pointed out about Lily's dress in his ''First Contact'' review, how does overlaying an image over someone else's body work exactly? With Lily we were only talking about the suspension of disbelief involved in the computer projecting a new dress (and presumably cleavage and bare arms) over your old clothes (which in her case was included a heavy jacket) which should logically mean that your body would now be twice the size it was before. Much smaller than that and the holodress would have bits of leather jacket poking out.

With Ardra, it is even worse. Not only do you have the size doubling issue inherent with Lily's dress, but ACTUAL size problems given how Ardra is taller than Troi. Put it this way: where does that extra half a foot of Ardra (including massive haircut) go when she shrinks to become Troi? Is it cloaked or what? This holocloning ability should realistically only work if you are disguising yourself as people larger than yourself, not smaller.

And on a side note, wow, the reset button is in full force this week. The ability to project holograms onto a planet surface from orbit with the accuracy to disguise someone's identity is wildly above anything we see before or after.

[bronnt]

I also didn't think this episode was divisive, but I am of two minds about it. In some ways it's a clever idea, since it played on the trope of superpowerful beings that were long a Trek staple in order to set up the plot.

But in other ways it's also very stupid. I have a tough time thinking about events that happened 1000 years ago as lost in the mist of history. Perhaps that's because they're an agrarian society, but they don't seem to doing the full Khmer Rouge subsistence farming approach. 1,000 years for a stable society shouldn't result in the mythologizing of history. For example, it's been almost 1,000 years since the Norman Conquest (1066) by William of Normandy. We actually know a lot about the events of that year, and it's not like we only learned about it at the dawn of the internet.

There's also the stuff that Chuck mentioned, like a contract giving her ownership of the Enterprise. First of all, contracts can't enforce a third, non-signing party into an agreement. And secondly, how the hell did she imagine that playing out? There's no way the Enterprise is going to hand itself over, and her ship is not going to take over a galaxy class ship.

It's surprising to me that this went through so many rewrites, since it seemed to be a sound idea that needed some more polish to get some of the dumber elements out of it. But maybe it was a case of having too many hands on the wheel so they couldn't iron it down properly.

[CrypticMirror]

I liked this episode. It's fun and Ardra is an entertaining scoundrel type character like Harry Mudd or Quark. I actually would have liked to see her again in another crazy scheme.

Oh god forbid we see a character again. Might have to acknowledge continuity. Then you have a 5-10 minute scene just explain who the person was to get the audience up to speed. Such a hassle.

I think a lot of her character traits got sort of folded into Vash, whom we we saw three times in two different shows. Of course getting guest actors in on the timescales demanded of episodic television is always a bit complicated, because you never know if they are going to be available or if you'll have the budget.

[Meushell]

The bit that I always wondered about was when Ardra uses her holotechnology to turn herself into a clone of Troi.

Like what Plinkett pointed out about Lily's dress in his ''First Contact'' review, how does overlaying an image over someone else's body work exactly? With Lily we were only talking about the suspension of disbelief involved in the computer projecting a new dress (and presumably cleavage and bare arms) over your old clothes (which in her case was included a heavy jacket) which should logically mean that your body would now be twice the size it was before. Much smaller than that and the holodress would have bits of leather jacket poking out.

With Ardra, it is even worse. Not only do you have the size doubling issue inherent with Lily's dress, but ACTUAL size problems given how Ardra is taller than Troi. Put it this way: where does that extra half a foot of Ardra (including massive haircut) go when she shrinks to become Troi? Is it cloaked or what? This holocloning ability should realistically only work if you are disguising yourself as people larger than yourself, not smaller.

And on a side note, wow, the reset button is in full force this week. The ability to project holograms onto a planet surface from orbit with the accuracy to disguise someone's identity is wildly above anything we see before or after.

I haven’t seen the episode in years, but is it possible that it wasn’t her? Maybe she was standing in her holodeck, interacting with a holographic Picard while her projection was put on Enterprises. When she “changed form” to Deanna, her holo-Picard suddenly got taller.