Star Trek TNG: Unnatural Selection (S2E07)

I LOVED this episode when it originally aired, primarily because the previews looked like Pulaski would die. No such luck here. The old makeup looked terrible, worse than McCoy did in Encounter at Farpoint.

Greg

"Engineering, transfer to bridge."

No idea why, but I have always hated that.

Man, the old age makeup was horrible in this episode, particularly since they put it up against genuinely older actors and actresses, which made the faux old even faux-er.

Heh - I loved how they made "David" telepathic, so they could avoid giving him any lines... and therefore any credit or residuals for the episode. Worse yet, even though he got no credit for the episode, you know that the actor put in considerable time on this episode. That "Styrolite" thing would've almost certainly required a full-body lifecast, so they could create a master to vacuum form the clear plastic over.

Yet again, they make Pulaski a female McCoy, even going so far to copy his paranoia about transporters. Plus, this episode used the idea of premature aging that was previously done in TOS' "The Deadly Years."

Yeah, this episode is pretty much a stinker that's essentially The Deadly Years, the Next Generation but while we're at it, we'll steal the transporter pattern idea from The Lorelei Signal.

The only good thing from this episode is that O'Brien gets his name and more screen time.

I'll be honest--I don't have time to do 3 episodes a week, so I've been picking the best two and trying to watch those. This was certainly the loser in that contest.

During the first run, it wasn't until the Deflector Dish Remodulation of the Week that started during Best of Both Worlds that I started to tire of technobabble. At this stage of the game, I ate up every bit of crazy "what can the Enterprise and the tech do" exposition. But even I groaned when they youth up Pulaski with the transporter. So incredibly lame.

doom1701 said:

I'll be honest--I don't have time to do 3 episodes a week, so I've been picking the best two and trying to watch those.

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I don't have a problem if you want to slow the rewatch down a bit, if that helps.

During the first run, it wasn't until the Deflector Dish Remodulation of the Week that started during Best of Both Worlds that I started to tire of technobabble. At this stage of the game, I ate up every bit of crazy "what can the Enterprise and the tech do" exposition. But even I groaned when they youth up Pulaski with the transporter. So incredibly lame.

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The worst part about this is once they unlock the ability for the transporters to whole-scale modify a person's DNA, that opens up a whole host of other abilities. Heck, if they really wanted, they could put a person in one side, enter someone else's trace and DNA, and *poof* the transporter instantly changes them into a copy of the other person. It makes the transporter, which is already somewhat magical, truly magic.

LoadStar said:

I don't have a problem if you want to slow the rewatch down a bit, if that helps.

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I'm planning to bring that up in the core thread.

The worst part about this is once they unlock the ability for the transporters to whole-scale modify a person's DNA, that opens up a whole host of other abilities. Heck, if they really wanted, they could put a person in one side, enter someone else's trace and DNA, and *poof* the transporter instantly changes them into a copy of the other person. It makes the transporter, which is already somewhat magical, truly magic.

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Even if you are OK with the magic transporter fix, if I remember correctly, they seem to imply that Pulaski's DNA is different when she is "younger" (and I can't stress those quotes enough) than when she is artificially older. I'm not a biologist, but isn't your DNA the same no matter what your age?

Tim, it looks like there are only a few of us actively participating in this rewatch. This was your idea so I say let's drop to two.

doom1701 said:

I'm not a biologist, but isn't your DNA the same no matter what your age?

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Nope. They get shorter the older you get.

http://longevity.about.com/od/researchandmedicine/p/telomeres.htm

--Carlos V.

Sounds good. Of course, that means I don't have an excuse for skipping the worst episode of the three...

LoadStar said:

I don't have a problem if you want to slow the rewatch down a bit, if that helps.

The worst part about this is once they unlock the ability for the transporters to whole-scale modify a person's DNA, that opens up a whole host of other abilities. Heck, if they really wanted, they could put a person in one side, enter someone else's trace and DNA, and *poof* the transporter instantly changes them into a copy of the other person. It makes the transporter, which is already somewhat magical, truly magic.

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Hey, combine it with the magic computer that can create sentient beings out of thin air and you have assembly line people.

I'm ok with it, I'll alternate my daily lunchtime viewings with Stargate SG-1.

Greg