Star Trek TNG is often cited as re-igniting the franchise, taking it onto new plains without losing the core values that Roddenberry worked to create in The Original Series. While in later seasons the writing would improve and finally match the strong abilities of the main cast, the first season is routinely derided for being weak; a mere rehash of old ideas and extraneous plots introduced to waste time. This episode is somewhere between those points, with the added embarrassment of a needless death.
The premise of the show is standard Trek fare; a shuttlecraft carrying Ensign Ricky Redshirt and a main cast member - in this case the voluptuous Deanna Troi - crash lands on a planet and requires rescue. The attempt is then impeded by an indigenous lifeform. Rather than an interesting villain of some description, the main cast spend most of their time on a poorly designed 'Planet Hell' set talking to a poorly-animated tar pit with an ugly duckling complex.
Even this terrible concept could have been enlivened by some cracking dialogue, but no, the writers were more than happy to stick to hapless cliché and stilted exposition here. Plot holes are obvious - how did Troi survive for the amount of time depicted in the episode stranded on a shuttle with no replicator, for example? The few redeeming moments of the whole sorry proceeding are within the Yar's eulogy scene, where Denise Crosby speaks for Yar and describes her love and respect for the remaining cast and Brent Spiner has the opportunity to develop Data's character. It is partly this closeness between the cast that led to the 'classic' episodes later on in the show's run.
The premise of the show is standard Trek fare; a shuttlecraft carrying Ensign Ricky Redshirt and a main cast member - in this case the voluptuous Deanna Troi - crash lands on a planet and requires rescue. The attempt is then impeded by an indigenous lifeform. Rather than an interesting villain of some description, the main cast spend most of their time on a poorly designed 'Planet Hell' set talking to a poorly-animated tar pit with an ugly duckling complex.
Even this terrible concept could have been enlivened by some cracking dialogue, but no, the writers were more than happy to stick to hapless cliché and stilted exposition here. Plot holes are obvious - how did Troi survive for the amount of time depicted in the episode stranded on a shuttle with no replicator, for example? The few redeeming moments of the whole sorry proceeding are within the Yar's eulogy scene, where Denise Crosby speaks for Yar and describes her love and respect for the remaining cast and Brent Spiner has the opportunity to develop Data's character. It is partly this closeness between the cast that led to the 'classic' episodes later on in the show's run.