Spoilers---Let's go Mind the Store

So....

This takes place during the Enterprise D's missions...

Brent must have recorded "Data's" lines either while doing his own guest stint or as a later unanounced bit.

If the entire episode had been about the NX 01's crew I would have liked it better... I'll take what I can get. Shran and his beautiful little daughter. Tucker and Malcom speculating about possible future Enterprises. Archer being self deprecating and gentle, both about Tucker's death and his own speechmaking ability. T'Pol was written grossly emotional (for a Vulcan) and I agree Jolene Blalok and John Billingsley who went on record as being dissatisfied with the way their characters, indeed the whole NX crew took a backseat to the framing Riker/Troi story.


I was all ready to hate the framing story with the hottest hate I could muster, but Riker's just so damn congenial it's hard to dislike him. After all it's not Frakes and Sirtis' fault they've been asked to upstage Phlox's compassion, T'Pols prickly behavior, or the worst upstage of all, Tucker's death being marginalized by making the whole thing just a holographic simulation...

The only thing that made the framing worth it was the end sequence and even that was two shots shy of perfect...The ships (but where was Voyager?), the spacescape (but where was DS9?) and the complementary voice overs.

Ah, well, engage...