Pen Pals

Sarjenka - score 5 points.	Data leaves the Elanin singer stone behind. Oops!	Ensign Davies. Terrible hair.	Ensign Hildebrant. Terrible hair. There's a theme here somewhere.
(more images below)

Overview: Data befriends a child from a doomed planet, breaking the Prime Directive and forcing the Enterprise to render assistance.
Writer: Hannah Louise Shearer & Melinda M. Snodgrass
Director: Winrich Kolbe

Anon²: Yeah, card-count - you got 2. One of them was Isolinear Chips which was absolutely spot-on.

Anon: I don't even know if that's a card to be honest. You're more convinced than I am.

Anon²: Well, it was fucking inspired so it counts.

Anon: Fair enough. Essentially, Mineral Survey was a card too.

Anon²: Alright, let's kick off with all the problems we have with this episode.

Anon: Well, we might be here for some time.

Anon²: Right, first of all, one of the first plot inaccuracies is where Picard's going down to the holodeck to ride a horse.

Anon: There's no innuendo in what you've just said, of course.

Anon²: No. Well, there was actually. (laughs) Quite a bit of horse sex. Potential paedo type things going on.

Anon: Paedo? Paedo with a horse?

Anon²: Yeah. Young horse.

Anon: Oh, it was a young horse? Okay. You can tell the age of a horse, can you?

Anon²: I've got paedo written down here in brackets. I've got to presume it's got something to do with that. Basically, Troi goes, "I didn't realise you were into animals."

Anon: (laughs)

Anon²: Right, slightly inaccurate - Picard goes, "Horses yeah; not small ones." But he's got at least two fishtanks in his fucking quarters. But he doesn't like animals. Fish don't count.

Anon: He doesn't like much.

Anon²: No, he's a miserable cunt. Probably because he's portraying a French person. By the way, Thierry Henry is officially a cheating cunt.

Anon: That was something else.

Anon²: That was fucking horrendous!

Anon: Happened yesterday, didn't it?

Anon²: Yeah, last night.

Anon: "The Hand of Plod."

Anon²: Anyway, that scene was one we were having a chortle about.

Anon: Not a yortle?

Anon²: No, a chortle. Like, "weren't that shit?" Then the next bit is Pulaski banging on about whether or not Wesley Crusher - I'm actually going to stick up for Wesley here and I don't know why - basically she's harping on about whether or not he should lead this mission, this crew of geologists. Fucking hell, doesn't she bang on? "Blaa blaa blaa blaa blaa."

Anon: She's a crusty, moaning cunt at the end of the day, isn't she?

Anon²: Well, only a few more episodes to go and she can fuck off!

Anon: Straight down an elevator shaft!

Anon²: Anyway, the next bit - and this is the Sarjenka part of the episode - is that there's some questionable Prime Directive/ First Contact issues going on. Basically, Data responds to Sarjenka's "Is there anybody out there?" message. And he goes, "Yes." Apparently, they've been there for 6 weeks and Data has been talking to her for ages and it's only after a certain period of time when it becomes a problem that he bothers to tell anyone about it! He goes to Picard in the holodeck (who's still riding the fucking horse, the lazy cunt) to tell him. And Picard says this weird fucking phrase - did you write it down?

Anon: Yeah. Picard says, "There is a loneliness inherent in that whisper from the darkness."

Anon²: Now, we had to rewind this. The whole 5-minute thing that went on after this, I've still no idea what they were trying to make out.

Anon: 5-minute? It was the rest of the episode, wasn't it?

Anon²: Oh yeah. (laughs) Fucking hell! He's just said this random fucking nonsense and it was... I don't know... it was just a bit shit really. Oh, and Riker was talking to Wesley at one point in Ten Forward...

Anon: Oh, this is after he encounters the gay bloke at the bar. There's a random bender at the bar.

Anon²: Total fag just sitting there on something that's vibrating. Dirty cunt! Anyway, after Wesley comes up to Riker and has this conversation about whether or not he should tell someone to do their job or not, Riker gets up and there's some random bird at another fucking table. So, Riker goes up to this bird and whispers something to her. I can only presume it was, "Hey, you can come and suck my cock later!" It was fucking brilliant! I enjoyed that - the suave fuck! Oh, and Sarjenka has fingers like your toes. They're odd-shaped.

Anon: Yeah, I do have weird-shaped toes apparently. I never realised this until you told me.

Anon²: Yeah. Your big toe isn't your biggest. It's fucked up!

Anon: I don't think this is too abnormal. Everyone that's reading this, please send in photos of your feet to randomfeetphotos@footfetish.com.

Anon²: (laughs)

Anon: There's a bit down on the planet as well. Data beams down to the planet - they let him beam down for fuck knows what reason; I'd given up at that stage - and Sarjenka says, "What are we going to do?" Then Data pauses and because I've seen so much porn, I was seriously expecting him to say, "Have you tried anal?"

Anon²: You've got to bare in mind that this is a child.

Anon: Well, I'm not talking about dirty kiddie porn - I don't watch that shit nor would I want to - I just know the line that usually follows on from "What are we going to do?" in a porno.

Anon²: She could be a midget!

Anon: Well, this was another Data episode, wasn't it?

Anon²: I don't even like Data episodes really.

Anon: It didn't really need to be a Data episode. That plotline with Data would have been completely transferable to Geordi or someone else.

Anon²: Oh, Geordi wasn't in it.

Anon: Geordi was in it.

Anon²: Was he? I didn't see him.

Anon: But he didn't do anything. So, what did Geordi do? Geordi-watch: nothing.

Anon²: Oh, I see. And Data, funnily enough considering how much he fucked up during this episode, didn't get told to shut the fuck up once! Quite strange, I've got nothing much to say about Wesley really. To be honest with you, he was probably less irritating in this episode than in any other he's been in.

Anon: I think I agree with that. Anyway, the episode wasn't exactly a masterpiece, was it? I doubt any of the cast go the script and thought, "Oh wow! This is going to be great!"

Anon²: Well, the thing is at the very end they wipe Sarjenka's memory so she doesn't remember being in contact with Data 'cos they don't meet anyone else on the planet. In fact, where they are is a total fucking mystery. So basically all this nonsense about the Prime Directive and not getting in contact, all this... what does Data do? She's unconscious and is going to wake up at some later stage, but whilst she was on the Enterprise she found this "singing stone" - this little fucking pebble that makes a sound when you hold it.

Anon: Or, it makes a sound when they add in the sound effects later on.

Anon²: Yeah yeah. I imagine that's how they did it.

Anon: Oh, you don't think they went to some strange planet and found an actual singing stone to use as an accurate prop?

Anon²: I think not. I've still not seen any of these things. I know lots of things that do make noise, like weasels. Oh, one more thing, you did this massive belch during the episode - I'm surprised it wasn't picked up on the Richter Scale!

Anon: Speaking of scales, at the end of this commentary, are you going to go for one of your gigashits?

Anon²: A gigashit, yeah. I've been brewing up all this poo for at least a day. It's going to be a gigantic dump. More than two flushes, I suspect.

Anon: I hope you enjoy it.

Anon²: Well, I'm going to read Viz whilst I do it. Anyway, the final plot flaw point I was going to make: Data leaves this singing stone with Sarjenka down on the planet. Now, when that kid wakes up she's going to have this fucking stone and no fucking clue where it fucking came from. She won't even know how she got from where she fucking was to where she got fucking left. Crazy! Right, I'm going for a gigashit!

Anon: Okay, the next episode is Q Who - I don't need to introduce that one. Everyone should know it.

- Anon & Anon², 19-Nov-2009