This is the first time I have felt so strongly different about different parts of an episode. Had they quit after the first 2/3rds of this episode it would have been a memorably good episode with a cool Romulan plot. But the writers couldn't resist making this a holodeck inside the holodeck episode to make you always question if reality could be a holodeck simulation. And maybe I am just jaded living in a post Matrix world, but these days plots like this just don't work for me. Ignoring the ending for a moment, it is really cool getting to see a vision of what things will be like 16 years into the future of the Federation. Even the idea of making peace with the Romulans turns out through the course of this show to not be impossible.
The episode opens with Riker's birthday party. They are all having fun making jokes about his trombone playing and eating cake. On the bridge one of the unnamed yellow shirts notices an anomaly, the ship is being scanned. It is coming from an apparently unoccupied planet, but there are rumors of a hidden Romulan base in the area so they are immediately suspicious. Riker leads an away team of him, Geordi and Worf down into caves below the surface. They arrive and find it empty, but they are quickly overwhelmed by poison gasses that for some reason their sensors didn't detect. There is a transporter problem and then...
Riker wakes up in sickbay, but things don't quite look right. Dr. Crusher is older than she should be and Riker himself has gray in his beard. It turns out he contracted a virus on the mission he was just on and when it activated it erased he memories up to that point. So now it is 16 years later, he is captain of the Enterprise and can't remember any of it. He even has a son Jean Luc who after initially having a hard time dealing with he starts to accept. It is a critical time for the Enterprise, they are in the final stages of a peace treaty with the Romulans and are about to host their ambassador. Admiral Picard shows up and has faith Riker can do what needs to be done. Somehow it comes up that Riker needs to tell the Romulans the location of a base that 16 years earlier was a critical link in the defenses against the Romulans and Riker doesn't want to tell. He takes a break from work to go hang out with his son and realizes he doesn't remember his now diseased wife at all. He has his son bring up video of her, and it all falls apart. The video is of him, Jean Luc, and Minuet...
The holodeck simulation comes to an end. It was a Romulan trap to try and get the location of the secret base! Riker is thrown in a cell with a boy who looks just like Jean Luc. The boy tries to help him escape and they make it out of their cell and hide in a hidden part of the base only the boy knows about. But he slips up again and refers to the Romlan as ambassador when he is clearly a captain. Riker then realizes the second level is also a simulation and the boy ends it. It turns out he has been trapped here with only his holodeck and got lonely so he brought Riker in to act as his father. They both beam up to the Enterprise and it ends there.
Review: The last third of the episode is so much worse than the first 2/3rds that I am literally going to have to divide the score in half. Romulan intrigue is interesting and makes sense in the context of the show. Why the hell would the kid create a future that is a Romulan trap?
4 out of 10
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