The Big Goodbye

The guy on the right's from South America.	Bev is fairly hot... for a beekeeper.	The late, great Lawrence Tierney - also in Seinfeld.	Comical foreign henchman.
(more images below)

Overview: A computer malfunction traps Picard, Data, and Beverly in a 1940s gangster holodeck program.
Writers: Tracy Torme
Director: Joseph L Scanlan

Pie: Hello.

Anon: Pie is the author of the original Ruling Britannia series of articles.

Anon²: (claps)

Anon: Famed poker author as well. Available in all good bookshops. It's a great read, isn't it?

Anon²: Certainly is.

Pie: Yeah, and some rubbish bookshops too.

Anon: So, let's get started then.

Anon²: Card-count: 1 for you. None for each of us.

Anon: Yeah, there's presumably a lot of cards in episodes from the Holodeck Adventures expansion. But since we'd basically given up the ghost by then, we couldn't spot many of them. Oh, I got called like a billion times during this episode, but so be it.

Anon² & Pie: (joint laugh)

Anon: We were saying when we were watching the previous episode, Haven, that this was another episode that won an award. In this case it was called the Peabody Award. It's the most wank name for an award ever. Anyone ever heard of that?

Anon² & Pie: No.

Anon²: What's it for?

Anon: Well, no one knows what it's for. Y'know, it's a mystery. Maybe we'll have to Wikipedia it. We'll see. I'll put a link in.

Pie: This was one of the most cliched episodes of sci-fi.

Anon: Yeah, even the title is a cliche. It seems like a merger of the old film noir movies The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye, which were both private eye films. Picard's essentially Humphrey Bogart throughout this episode.

Pie: Does Dixon Hill not exist in real life then?

Anon: Not that I know of.

Anon²: But it's copyrighted!

Anon: Yeah, it's copyrighted 1936 or something.

Anon²: Yeah. Data was downloading all of the Dixon Hill stories. He was downloading and asked for it to be speeded up. I don't know why he didn't just put his dick in the USB socket of the computer board and download it that way.

Anon: Sadly, it was another episode where Wesley saved the day. Deus ex machina yet again.

Anon²: Smug cunt.

Pie: Wesley actually appears to be promoted to commander-in-chief of the entire ship in this episode. At one point, Geordi is asked to provide an explanation and he says, "I can't. I'll let Wesley provide it." Or words to that effect.

Anon: So, Wesley effectively outranks Geordi as Chief Engineer.

Anon²: And he was at a Senior Staff Meeting that was probably the quickest Senior Staff Meeting ever. It was like 5 seconds. Why was he there? He's a fucking idiot.

Pie: I get the feeling that meeting was at about quarter to five on a Friday afternoon and they all just wanted to get out and have a bevvy.

Anon: It didn't even really start off as a Senior Staff Meeting. It just started off with Picard going on about Dixon Hill. I didn't even know they were going to go into the bit about the alien. I thought Picard had just arranged an entire meeting to make chit-chat about some bird he'd met in a fictional holodeck story.

Anon²: Yeah, and Wesley still had that gay fucking jumper. Get it in the wash, you smelly fucking teenager!

Anon: Stripey fucker.

Pie: There's something I didn't get about that whole episode. Picard was really excited about the holodeck, but for the rest of the 7 seasons, he doesn't give much of a shit about it.

Anon: Maybe it's the experience in this episode. Stressed him out.

Pie: Yeah, could be. Could be. Normally he just leaves Riker to go in there and pull imaginary women.

Anon²: Oh, that brings me to another question that we brought up. Has anyone actually had a fuck in a holodeck, or fucked a hologram? I think they did. Wesley must have a billion fucking things that he's designed in there.

Pie: I can't believe the holodeck lasted 5 minutes before someone invented holodeck porn.

Anon²: It must have been like the internet. What are we going to do with this? Porn, then Star Trek.

Pie: Yeah.

Anon: In fact, in the previous episode where Riker's watching the holographic woman playing a harp at the beginning of it... how depressing is that? You get all the way to the future and there's no holoporn on regular delivery to your living quarters.

Pie: Yeah, I agree. I think like, every quarters should have a mini-holodeck and you can just go in there and get laid.

Anon: Yeah, slap your dick in.

Pie: But regarding the holodeck generally, it's the first episode you really see it, obviously. They don't realise at this stage how dangerous it is. Like, as soon as the ship suffers some mild knocking, the security protocols disengage, everyone gets locked in and people start dying. But I can't believe that several seasons later this is still happening and no one's thought, "Hang on here - this is a slightly dangerous form of recreation."

Anon: Maybe that's why they got the Bynars in to upgrade it.

Pie: Ah, maybe so. But I guess they've got lots of risk assessments to fill out. They can't just slot it in.

Anon: Plus they're busy enhancing their mulletts to begin with.

Anon²: By the way, Data getting told to shut the fuck up: 4 times! By 2 different people actually. That's a record so far. We'll be keeping an eye on that one. And Geordi did fuck all again. Shit, I still don't understand what he does. I mean, what does he do?

Pie: I dunno. He started this episode flying the ship and then got relegated to messenger boy when Riker said, "Go to the holodeck and find the captain." And then he got relegated to Wesley's assistant.

Anon²: Which frankly is fucking poor. I mean, why didn't Wesley get killed off?

Anon: It's not a place you want to be in life, is it - Wesley's assistant? Quite tragic.

Anon²: Oh, and the ending. Does anyone want to comment on that ending?

Pie: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Anon: Y'know guys, I really didn't mind it too much.

Anon² & Pie: (both laugh)

Anon²: Okay, fill us in.

Anon: No, no. I thought, to me it wasn't really a gay thing. It was just Picard quite liked the character that he'd met. (pause) Maybe sexually. Hey, in the 24th century, c'est la vie, perhaps.

Anon²: Oh, what about the crux of the episode where they were going to meet those insect people that we never actually saw?

Anon: That was probably to save on the make-up budget. They'd already spent it all on hairstyling in the previous episode.

Anon²: (laughs) God knows what they won the award for in this episode. Basically, Picard has to recite this thing absolutely correctly and he goes "Klaxon," "Klaxon?!"

Anon: What he said sounded like me gargling for 5 minutes.

(Anon² laughs and leaves the room)

Anon: He's off for a beer or a piss or something. Maybe he's gonna shit himself. What... what the fuck have I written here?

Pie: I've got that Troi's hair looks a little like a butt-plug.

Anon: Hmmm...

Pie: It's like a small black butt-plug and I don't know why she wears it like that. I don't even know what the point of Troi was in this episode. She just seemed to show up on-screen so she could collect her pay-check. Whilst wearing a butt-plug on her head.

Anon: She trained Picard on how to speak in gargling tones.

Pie: Oh yeah, that is true. Yeah.

Anon: I know because I saw the first half of the episode twice.

(Anon² returns)

Pie: One last thing I've got on the holodeck... why is it that whenever they have a holodeck episode and go back in time, it's always to the 20th century? Did bugger all happen for the next 400 years?

Anon: I think Paramount just have this massive costume collection from previous series that they've made. I thought about this in the original series. They go and have the Nazi episode, the American Indian episode and a gangster episode, Piece of the Action. So, maybe instead of thinking "How can we make a really good science-fiction plot?" they just think "Let's just make an alternate Earth parody where the citizens of the planet or holodeck can wear something in our back-catalogue of costumes."

Pie: Yeah, I guess the show may not have had too much of a budget at this time and I guess they may have been looking for ways to just bung people in an office somewhere for the whole episode.

Anon²: Actually, Hitchcock did an entire film just in one room. He did a couple like that.

Anon: Yeah, trying to think of one. I was gonna say The Trouble With Harry, but it's not that.

Anon²: Well, he did Rear Window... hang on, not Rear Window.

Anon: Rear Window - he did most of it in one set. Maybe I'll check what the other one is for the write-up. (I did. It's Rope.) Saw Big Joe Cabot from Reservoir Dogs in this too, Lawrence Tierney.

Anon²: Yeah, pretty much the same chracter as he does in Reservoir Dogs.

Anon: He's great, isn't he? Well, he's not anymore. He's dead.

Anon²: Shame.

Anon: Yeah. He was actually a criminal in real life. He did a bit of time inside.

Anon²: More respect. Crook, brilliant.

Anon: Anyone else want to fire anything?

Anon²: Wesley.

Anon & Pie: (both laugh)

Anon²: What's the next episode?

Anon: The next episode is Datalore.

Anon²: Hooray!

Pie: Ah, let's do it.

Anon: I think it was the last episode Gene Roddenberry wrote.

Pie: I assume this is the one where they find Lore.

Anon: Erm, it's the one where they find Data actually.

Pie: (pause)

Anon: It's not really. I'm just trying to confuse you.

Pie: Ah, great. You succeeded.

Anon: Hooray for me! I'm onto a winning run - maybe I'll get a card in the next episode. See ya later guys.

- Anon, Anon² & Pie, 15-Jul-2009