11001001

Bynars - sans mulletts.	Tasty girl.	What exactly is Parrises Squares?	Commander Orfil Quinteros. Good name.
(more images below)

Overview: Curious little aliens, the Bynars, retrofit the Enterprise computer in a space dock.
Writers: Maurice Hurley & Robert Lewin
Director: Paul Lynch

Anon²: I wrote it down 3 times and got it wrong each time. In fact, I scribbled a lot of 1's down and messed it up. It's not hexadecimal, that's why. Not enough 16's, just bits and bytes. The usual computer nonsense.

Anon: Computers are indeed nonsense. That's why I get paid to work with them.

Anon²: (laughs)

Anon: Overall, I quite like this episode.

Anon²: Yeah.

Anon: It's good fun, isn't it? It's one of the better ones of the season.

Anon²: Yeah. At some point I thought that this was Will Riker's first official episode. He was more involved in this episode than any others. Even the Q episode where he was allegedly going to be made into a Q, he wasn't as much of an instrument in that as he was in this. The Bynars were a pretty good kind of alien, I guess.

Anon: They're different, aren't they?

Anon²: Yeah. It's an interesting concept really, they speak in binary. Really good. Except... Wes, come on - let's do the Wesley-watch. He's in that gay jumper again. He hasn't changed it in like 4 episodes now, or something.

Anon: And he gets put in charge of the ship.

Anon²: Yeah. Er, I'm sorry?! He's a fuckin' Ensign for Christ's sake. And he's gay. What the fuck, y'know? What a prick. Geordi-watch: what did Geordi do?

Anon: He diagnosed the problem with Data and then legged it.

Anon²: Oh, he ran away? Okay.

Anon: He could be French.

Anon²: Oh God. There was this one bit... it was a bit of a holodeck episode and basically Will goes into the holodeck that the Bynars have set up and meets this hologram they've designed called Minuet that he wants to fuck. In fact, we asked whether anyone had sex in a holodeck, probably a couple of episodes ago and Will is basically onto this... he wants to give her one big time and at the end of the episode he's really pissed off because it didn't happen with her and he's upset because she's no longer the same. I mean, c'mon - it's still a fuck, isn't it? Who cares? Oh, and there was another bit where Picard came into the same holodeck simulation and started speaking French and the hologram started speaking French back. Frankly, I just said, "Agincourt! Agincourt!"

Anon: The Minuet bird's not bad. She's quite tasty, I thought.

Anon²: Erm yeah. Basically, she kept asking Will and Picard to stay back in the holodeck. She was probably after a spitroasting.

Anon: What did you make of the Parrises Squares uniforms that Worf and Tasha Yar had on at the beginning of the episode?

Anon²: The what? Oh, the blue things! Well, a little bit homo, weren't it?

Anon: It wasn't as bad as Wesley's ski outfit when he was going skiing with the Chinese geezer.

Anon²: No, that's true. Oh, card-count: we got 2 each.

Anon: We did indeed.

Anon²: We can't remember what they were though.

Anon: Oh, you got Spacedoor.

Anon²: Yeah.

Anon: And I got Access Denied.

Anon²: We got the Bynars as well.

Anon: One more thing with that Parrises Squares thing. How even a game would it really have been when you've got the Chief of Security plus a Klingon versus 2 maintenance dudes?

Anon²: Well, I don't know what the game is. It could be like chess. (pauses) Although they did have to dress up for it. No one ever explains any of the rules to that game, and I don't think it actually comes up in any other episodes. Therefore, it could be some gay pat-a-cake game. Or skipping.

(A quick check for geek value shows me that it was indeed mentioned again: in Future Imperfect, Silicon Avatar, The First Duty and Timescape. Plus a couple of episodes of Voyager too, but we won't mention that.)

Anon: Is it different to that tennis game they play in DS9?

Anon²: I don't know. Could be the same.

Anon: Dunno.

Anon²: We might have to wait until we get to the Deep Space 9 episodes.

Anon: That could be a long time off yet!

Anon²: Anyway, Ctrl-Alt-Delete, that'd fuck the Bynars over, wouldn't it? Alt-Tab, F4.

Anon: Jonathan Frakes is quite fond of this episode and I can understand why too.

Anon²: Yeah, I think so far, throughout the series, even though it's quite early on, the good episodes with the good acting has generally been Picard, Data and Q. That's probably it - there's nothing else really to shout about. This is the first time Will's had any reign. I imagine he's quite proud of the fact he's got a foot in the door.

Anon: Seems fair, doesn't it?

Anon²: Well, yeah. The only thing I did have a little bit of a problem with was setting the auto-destruct. They had 5 minutes, but they were in no rush. "Oh well, we'll have a little chat then we'll have a think about getting to the transporter, then we'll think about getting on the bridge." Then they fuck about for a bit more and the auto-destruct is blinking away in the background. Now, to be perfectly honest with you, why did they need to auto-destruct? They could've done that from the bridge, I expect.

Anon: I presume so.

Anon²: Yeah, it's fair to presume. Unless they thought they were heading into a trap.

Anon: Maybe they can only set it from Engineering?

Anon²: Well, they turned it off on the bridge. So... basically, you have to start it off in Engineering and turn it off on the bridge. That's a bit of a poor idea really. I'm sure they could do it from either end, or maybe anywhere on the ship. You just need the Captain and the First Officer, or 2 senior officers.

Anon: Yeah. In fact, didn't they set it on the bridge during Generations?

Anon²: Hmmm... yeah, I think they did. And then they had a really bad crash.

Anon: And Data said "Oh shit."

Anon²: Did he? Did he have his emotion chip in?

Anon: I believe he did.

Anon²: Okay, fair enough then. Yeah, not a bad episode. I don't think it's the best so far. That's probably the Dixon Hill episode, The Big Goodbye. I think that was a slightly better episode than this one. I really enjoyed that one. But this was not too bad. In fact, it was good. We're not moaning quite so much, except about Wesley. Plus Geordi not doing a great deal right now. And I think there was a mention of Worf in there somewhere. They seemed to be saying that his sense of humour was getting better at one point - the point when they were going to play the game in the gay costume. And I think this is probably a turning point as well because Worf hasn't had his own episode yet. I don't know if he has many in the first season.

Anon: There's Heart of Glory coming up soon.

Anon²: Yeah. I know it was kind of a throwaway line but what's Worf done so far? He's just got a fucking ugly spot on his head.

Anon: Worf wasn't really intended to be a long-term character though.

Anon²: Wasn't he?

Anon: The main reason for him being created was to use his race to show how much of a time gap there had been between this and the original series. And they capitalised on this by putting him in as part of the bridge crew. The plan, as I understand it, was for him to have been killed off during the first season.

Anon²: Really? Well, the thing is, their Spock character is kinda like Data, who is equally foreign and logical in many ways. Y'know, it kinda hits me of that. But I think as far as having an alien on board, and having someone who's obviously not from Earth. I think Worf filled that role. Worf was the Spock.

Anon: Worf really grows through the seasons, doesn't he?

Anon²: Again, it's like we were saying. Worf's the only alien on the bridge, but he's not Spock. Data is Spock. Will Riker is Kirk. Picard is the Captain. So, there's a big switch-around of all the main characters and Worf's really his own character. He's quite unique as a character compared to the original series. You've got Riker taking on Kirk's role in terms of being the "action guy" and I think there's a swap-around but they've also introduced a lot of other stuff in there.

Anon: Even Wesley.

Anon²: Yeah, even Wesley. Poor. Anyway, it's early days. They've not really broken anything, just moved it around. And they've done a pretty good job. Obviously, at the moment it's early days but from knowing all of the episodes that I've seen across all 7 seasons, the development of these things is quite crucial and they've obviously managed to realise this early on. They know where they're going with it.

Anon: Okay, so the next episode is Too Short A Season. You remember that one at all?

Anon²: I remember it, but...

Anon: It's the one with the Admiral who ages in reverse.

Anon²: Really?

Anon: Yeah, it's the Star Trek version of The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.

Anon²: Benjamin Butthole.

Anon: Great, we'll be seeing you all soon for an update on The Butthole.

- Anon & Anon², 17-Jul-2009