Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: Booby Trap

TNG "Booby Trap"

The Randomizer has been on a Next Generation kick recently. This is the sixth TNG episode so far, and the third from Season 3! Hopefully some variety turns around this disproportionate trend.

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When the Enterprise gets caught in a millennia-old booby trap (which is explained and circumvented in technobabble I can't begin to decipher), two characters' stories are serviced. Geordi, established as permanently unlucky in love, brainstorms a way to save the ship while flirting with a hologram of propulsion designer Dr. Leah Brahms. And Picard, whose boyhood sense of adventure is excited by a derelict ship, must manually pilot the Enterprise to safety in a daring gambit.

Geordi's story kicks off with an awkward date on the holodeck that fizzles to nothing. He speaks with Guinan about it and she once again proves an effective counselor. Throughout the episode, Geordi develops an attraction toward a hologram who duets with him in technical jargon. After the Leah Brahms hologram says of the Enterprise, "Every time you look at this engine, it's me. Every time you touch it, it's me", she and Geordi kiss. So Geordi, Chief Engineer of the Enterprise, makes out with what is coded as an embodiment of the Enterprise itself.

Also on the Geordi dating tip, it's established that he spent a long time finessing the holodeck date program, trying to get every detail exactly right. It seems to me that part of any date, or indeed any social engagement, is not knowing exactly what's going to happen. Going with the flow, and relaxing into it however possible, is probably the way to go, over trying to fine-tune a beat-by-beat "romantic scenario".

The dead ship that the Enterprise investigates is realized with gorgeous model work that's all the more striking on blu-ray. And Ron Jones' score has an appropriate motif for the vessel: a lonely, echoing sentinel horn. Fitting for a ghost ship in the vastness of space. At one point, when danger for the Enterprise is dire, that theme haunts the Enterprise; it represents the fate the crew must avoid.

The technical side of the episode is kind of a wash as far as I'm concerned. The Picard material is overall better than Geordi's. (There's a sweet moment where Deanna and Riker are happy to see the side of Picard who gets excited by things.) A functional, average episode. 5/10.