Star Trek 218: Hero Worship

218. Hero Worship

FORMULA: The Bonding + The Offspring + Booby Trap

WHY WE LIKE IT: It's a Data episode, so sweet by nature.

WHY WE DON'T: It's a kiddie episode, so sickly sweet by nature.

REVIEW: Another kid who's lost his parents left alone in his room? Another lame teacher on the Enterprise? Another technobabble problem with a technobabble solution? Well, at least they didn't force the kid to be friends with Alexander. Essentially, after kiddie Worf, we get kiddie Data.

Timothy's played well enough, and does a fairly good impression of Data. And Data's always effective in such situations, if of course, a bit "sweet". I say that like it's a bad thing, but if overdone, it can be. The show does like to cater to my mom sometimes, doesn't it? And this has it all: A sympathetic little boy, a vulnerable sweet Data, and Troi on family therapy. It's all very... okay. There's some terrible staging in the sculpture scene, and the weird phenomenon of the week is the usual nonsense, but its heart is in the right place.

Oh, and first mention of the Breen! Man, that'll take a while to pay off! (Continue to read these reviews as BreenWatch continues!)

LESSON: Row Row Row Your Boat remains a classic up through the 24 century.

REWATCHABILITY - Medium: It's not bad, and it's not great. It's at least not offensive, and is true to the characters. Timothy is thankfully not cringe-worthy.

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