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Star Trek TNG: 212-214 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-10-01 12:00:15
Edited:
2026-01-08 02:36:12
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

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episodes: The Royale, Time Squared, The Icarus Factor

Files

Comments

dudewheresmycar

I don't know if you have already watched it yet, but might I suggest you not look up the show titles for next week if that's at all possible? Knowing the title to 216 might spoil the cold open surprise.

TalynOne

"The Royale equation" refers to the Fermat's Last Theorem, which was famously discussed in Star Trek: The Next Generation in the episode "The Royale". The theorem states that there are no three positive integers (a, b, c) that can satisfy the equation an + bn = cn when n is any integer greater than 2. This problem was conjectured by Pierre de Fermat and remained unproven for centuries until Andrew Wiles provided a proof in 1994. Unproven for 800 years it was solved a mere 5 years after this episode aired.

Robert Cooper

Fermat's Last Theorem was actually solved about 8 years after this episode aired. Also, there is a Picard Maneuver (not the canonical one), but we have to get to the two piece uniforms first. 😝

Shaka, When the Walls Fell

"The Royale" is one of my favorite episodes, along with "Booby Trap", "Identity Crisis", and "Cause and Effect." Can't wait till you reach season 5 and watch a certain episode that is my all time favorite.

WayneC

Interesting that the planet in the first episode had a surface tempertaure 18C below absolute zero.

GAB

Negative temperature is a thing, but it does not mean that a system is colder than absolute zero (0 Kelvin or -273.15°C). Instead, it describes a population inversion where the number of high-energy states exceeds the number of low-energy states. It has been observed in lasers, nuclear spins in crystals and Bose-Einstein condensates. As Purcell and Pound noted in 1951: "A system in a negative temperature state is not cold, but very hot, giving up energy to any system at positive temperature put into contact with it. It decays to a normal state through infinite temperature." However, in the case of the episode, I assume the science advisor either took a day off or was ignored.

Dioskur

TNG suffers from liking bottle shows too much. You encountered some this time. Time² seems like someone said "Hey we got this idea, can we have one episode of your show to try it out?" It doesnt need to be Startrek at all. It didnt use any of the shows options. All of that could have been done in any show with whatver scifi theme. Its not a bad episode idea but it doesnt add anything it seems.

Spacedone

This was definitely a mid-season slump before some much better episodes towards the end of S2. One of the worst eps IMO is still to come.

Spacedone

One of these eps is not like the others :D

ChiefKC

Some of us like to hear the bullshit. It only makes you more relatable I feel.

David Crabtree

They're watching them as we watched them for the first time. I don't see an issue with them knowing the titles.

Robinson vs. Parkinson's

No need for a poll! I didn't think WEAPONS could live up to the hype, but it truly did.

Phosphorus

The writer, though American, knew that the Celsius is a more fitting unit of temperature for science and advanced human of the future. (I know. There is a case to argue for the use of Kelvin as an alternate choice, pun intended.) Alas, the writer WAS American, so he tried.

Jaaahn

doenst you telling them to expect a surprise ruins the surprise?

WayneC

Commander Riker's job on the Enterprise is Executive Officer, the second in command.

Nick

More specifically, his primary job is effectively to be the administrative manager for the crew. All department heads report to him, he approves staffing request from department heads, he’s generally the final decision maker on crew management. This allows the captain to focus on the missions. IE, Riker’s focus is on the ship’s internal operations/functioning/keeping the staff working (like keeping a tool maintained so that when the captain needs to use it for a mission, it works). This why the first officer is called the executive officer (or XO). Riker’s secondary jobs are to lead away teams and to be a backup for the captain’s command of the ship in the event the captain is not available.

Nick

I don’t know about you, but I usually wouldn’t look up a Star Trek title in advance, and would only see it after the cold open and opening credits, when it’s displayed on screen. Usually (not always) if a title (or guest star) spoils the plot, they reveal the thing to be spoiled in the cold open so that the title or opening credits don’t spoil the surprise.

Nick

This is why Q’s appearances are virtually always revealed in the cold open, before the opening title (with a Q themed title) or opening credits spoil it.

Phosphorus

Riker is the First Officer of the ship (i.e. second-in-command) with a rank of Commander, while Data is the Second Officer of the ship (i.e. third-in-command) with a rank of Lieutenant Commander. I think this is what you were asking for, George? While Picard is the Captain of the ship (in the sense of commanding officer) and Captain in rank.

DasBigUn

1 more week and we see my boy agian......i wont say whom....but he has been gone a while

EC

If you could have 1 book on you that a world was built around. What would it be?

Matt O'Keefe

Riker is also the executive officer That also means second in command.

Paul McBryde

but what's the simone manoeuvre

Stu84

My fav TNG episode next week!

N.A. Vreugdenhil

You guys should finish the Mission Impossible series! You've watched all of them except the last one: Final Reckoning. It's got some awesome set pieces and action sequences!

Duane Klaus

What Star Trek The Motion Picture was released, they were planning Star Trek II TV Show with the original Crew. But the critical reviews weren't good. So when TNG came about, some scripts were recycled and adapted in the first two seasons. S2 E1 was definitely one. S2 E12 was probably one was well.

Glenner7

"Space"... fuck!

Joe Concepts

I never skip The Royale. I love that one. Always room for some goofy fun in the middle of the more serious episodes. That's what you can do with the 20+ episode season model. And the actors playing 'Texas' and the hotel clerk... I think between the two of them they were on every single TV show from 1980 to 2000.

Joe Concepts

"Time Squared" always just made me bored. And as for "The Icarus Factor," I just can't get over the stupid martial art and its cobbled together sports armor. And Riker's father and Pulaski is too much of a coincidence. "The Royale" is always a fun one to me!

Brandon

Time Squared isn't a favorite of mine, but it has one of my favorite Picard moments. How many of us really wouldn't hesitate to shoot a future version of ourselves? The other Picard had already been through that scenario and was unable to do so.

DasBigUn

im not going to say :)

Zinphad

Considering the cheesy dialog and mention of Micky D in The Royale, all I can here is Samuel L Jackson saying "Royale with Cheese"

Gootz

The closed captioning typist was having an aneurysm during Worf’s Age of Ascension ceremony.

JoeMama47

Simone's Patrick Stewart impression sounds like Katherine Hepburn.

p0sthum4n

Nothing wrong with a dick joke.

Thall

It's quite difficult to go from every show trying to have overarching plots and every episode serves to further a narrative to go back to TNG. I grew up with the show, so no issue here, but I understand if people have trouble with it. The term "filler" comes to mind, which just means "it doesnt advance the overall plot". I wonder when we forgot how to enjoy an episode of a show just because it is characters we like, in a universe we like, doing stuff that is interesting or at least goofy.

G P

Is that a portrait of Margot Tenenbaum behind Simone?

Brandon

IMO the word 'filler' gets thrown around too liberally for older, more episodic television. Before the late 90's-early 2000's most TV shows didn't work like that, where every episode was a direct continuation of the last. Most of the best X-Files episodes were filler that had very little to do with the overall conspiracy laden plot (which IMO was often boring).

David N

I loved the klingon stuff from 214 but could very much do without the rest of that episode.

p0sthum4n

Memory Alpha, the fan-run Star Trek wiki, has extensive trivia and production notes about every single episode. It might be fun if after each episode George pulls up the page for that episode and reads through some of them. For example: -Writer Tracy Tormé first pitched the story (then called "The Blue Moon Hotel") to Robert Lewin during the first season, and it was one of two scripts that won Tormé a staff job on TNG. According to Tormé: "There had been a lot of talk about doing it in the first year, but finally [in the second] year they gave me the green light and told me to go ahead and do it. It became 'The Royale,' and I wrote a draft which was, again, a bit of a departure for Star Trek. It was kind of a surrealistic piece, with a lot of comedy and lot of subtle satire in it." -Tormé requested the pseudonym Keith Mills to protest rewrites by Maurice Hurley. Hurley rejected the surrealism and claimed that Tormé's premise was too derivative of the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "A Piece of the Action". "There were gangsters in this one, gangsters in that one, and both based on a book." -Tormé commented, "I've completely disowned the piece. I suppose skeletally it's my story, but when I started to reread the rewrite, I got ten pages through it and I got sort of a cold chill and had to put it down. An interesting thing is that the cast, the crew and even secretaries went out of their way to tell me how much they liked my draft, and they asked me in a totally puzzled manner, what on Earth had happened and why we had changed it. All I could do was shrug. Of course this is all my opinion, and you'd probably hear something different from the other side…I felt like a lot of the comedy was taken out. A lot of the surrealism was taken out. I feel that it's very heavy-handed now, and it's gone from being a strange episode to being a stupid episode." https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Royale_(episode)

Polecat21

It's probably a little odd how excited I get when I realize it's Wednesday.

Gryff

Ya know, that V'giner probe we sent out...

PIG

12) great one 13) love this one 14) a very good one A good day today.

John

George, the warp speed scale was reconfigured between the TOS/movie era and TNG. From TNG onward, warp 10 represents infinite speed, where an object traveling at warp 10 would theoretically occupy all points in the universe simultaneously. So the Enterprise's max speed in TNG is expressed as warp 9.6 (or thereabouts), and max speed of a Borg cube is something like warp 9.775.

Nabikon

XO is also in charge of damage control readiness

Foamy

Two C eps and a D, but that's season 1 and 2 for you.

Drew Acheson

I hard disagree about ep 212 The Royale. I think that's such a fun episode.

Dan

The "captain goes down with the ship" thing is a bit of a myth. It's more like "the captain stays and commands while rescue/evacuation operations are still ongoing". Once everyone who can reasonably be saved has been saved, they can leave.

Chris Kelley

I watched this too soon after Rocky Horror. During the time squared episode I kept waiting for them to break into the time warp song. 🎶” let’s do the time warp again”🎶

Gryff

2:11:16 Doing things cause they care while complaining the whole time? Sounds like family to me.

Cory Garron

I have a special place for this episode too, as it's one of the earliest episodes I remember watching, around the age of 11.

fwfwfwfwf wfwfw

Someone should do a montage of all the attemps of simone trying to say "space" on time :-).

Angzarr

With a gold record on it... does that count as V'gazzled?

Angzarr

I'm pretty sure the clerk was a regular on Perfect Strangers.

Angzarr

"A crummy world of plot holes and spelling errors.... The Data am winning again! He is the greetest! Now he leaving The Royale for no raisin!" It's such a fun episode. I never skip this one! I totally disagree about not being one I'd sit down to watch.

Matthew Maxon

no real life straight male cowboy would put his hat on another man.

DanManMtn

The problem with Memory Alpha is that it sometimes spoils episodes later on. I know of one huge ds9 spoiler it gives away in the entry for a few episodes before.

dasgrove (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-14 06:00 The Icarus Factor - Here is were we see a big difference in how tv used to be made and how it is now. Eps like this are really about character building and interaction. The writing is sloppy and the father-son dynamics feel like they were written by a distant father living out a fantasy. But we got a peek into Klingon culture and a deeper understanding of what drives Riley as a character. Love the weird interplay in the b-plot. Geordie was judgmental as hell, but he was in the process of being judged and questioned over the computer readings. It feels like the intent was that he was projecting that onto Worf. But again, sloppy writing. The best part is this show keeps getting better.
2025-10-02 02:07

MacGuffinStuff

Yeah about Troi, agree with George, and so does Marina Sirtis apparently. I recently saw a short video of her answering if she would ever want to come back to reprise the role and when she started she seemed to me to be very much indicating a "no", UNLESS she would actually be contributing to the story and would have more dialogue than "I sense they're hiding something Captain" lol. But by the end it sounded more like she would love to, IF she would actually get to do some acting.

Andrew

Cat fight on Simone's lap!

PG Modehouse

I've seen TNG so many times, I often put it on as background noise. I love the ridiculous episodes just as much as the good ones. Sheeeeeiiit, I love me some good ol' Star Trek Nonsense™.

MacGuffinStuff

Speaking of Trek stars in videos, today I saw a promo for the Galaxy Quest documentary coming out next month, and Brent Spiner and I think one or two other Trek stars, talking about Galaxy Quest. And he said he loved it and Patrick watched and was blown away and, and he did an impression of Sir Patrick saying, "I LOVE this movie." And about how it's such a great Trek movie if you think about it, it's about the show AND the fandom who are kind of inseparable. And it also just barely dawned on me, feel stupid, that Sigourney Weaver's character is a parody of Troi. I didn't catch that before lol, I thought she was, because I assumed it was mostly about TOS, a vague(?) reference to Uhura, because she was the only woman in the main cast and very attractive and then there's the infamous kiss. But no, she has to be Troi, a tight fitting body suit showing the upper chest. Not necessarily cleavage but the best clavicles in the galaxy lol. And the real joke is that Sigourney's charcter just repeats what the ship computer says, she's supposed to be Troi 🤣

Ron

"I played doctor with your dad.": For context, remember that she looked very different back in 1968 when she was 30. Riker is about 30 (in S2), and he mentioned the start of his problems with his Dad when he was 8 (about 22 years prior). In S2, Diana Muldaur was about 50. So, about 20 years prior, she'd be about 30 years old. In TOS, the actress Diana Muldaur was about 30 in her appearances in TOS and was quite the looker IMO. So, I could definitely see Kyle's attraction to Pulaski back in the day. --- * Riker: "I fight for the Users!"

Angela's invisible airfryer (corey)

FYI I don't think many TNG fans have much of an attachment to the plot of this episode, lol. I don't think you're gonna hurt many feelings talking about the Riker\Dad stuff here. We got the last real s-tier episode of season 2 coming next week so I'm stoked about that!

Michael

The 2 states are Canada and Greenland

Data Cable

Re: card counting in black jack, look up the MIT Blackjack Team.

Alan Kobb

I won't get down on you about Rikers father, but you have to understand that there are all kinds of fathers and sons, and as he said, there's no instruction manual. In addition a lot of how your father treats you comes from hom his father treated him. You seem to have a wonderful father, but some of them stumble. i think Rikers father had good intentions but went about it very wrongly.

Dan

The only flak I'll give George is that I hope he starts liking the show. He analyzes each episode in terms of script elements and whether they fit a formula or "lecture the audience", but as Simone said, each day on the Enterprise is just a day in the life of a galaxy starship that goes places. I served in the Navy on submarines, so living with my coworkers is a familiar thing to me, and having watched this show growing up, transitioning to submarine life was easy. Yes, some days are more special than others, but it's also okay to just have a week where the only goings on are experiencing the milieu of preps for another week of evolutions and maintenance, with people whose backgrounds you're still learning about and learning to appreciate. Breaking Bad was unique in its legendary ability to make every episode good, but even that show had "breather" episodes so that we could be prepared for the epic moments that scared or delighted us. I LOVE "The Measure of A Man", but I hope George comes around to just enjoying the crew when people's lives aren't on the line.

Cinebinge

Hi Dan, a common misunderstanding people seem to have with me is in thinking just because I have criticisms or preferences between episodes, it means I do not like a show. To me the two are not mutually exclusive. I have stated before and will state again that i DO like this show, but liking something does not mean (to me anyways) that it cannot be criticized or that i must like every episode or every plot type equally. Some episodes will reach me better than other episodes, and I, as a person with subjective experience, will prefer some story types over others. And since this show is entirely new to me, the only opinion i can give is my honest one as they come up, as the show is revealed to me one episode at a time. I do not have hindsight or knowledge of all the seasons combined and to see the show as a whole yet, because I havent seen the whole thing. So all I can give is what I think at the moment, as the episode progresses. None the less, if there is one thing about me you should understand is, if I truly dont enjoy something, I will just tell you. You will literally hear me say "that was not for me, i didnt like it", ie Superman 2. With a show, especially anthology shows where the episodes are self contained, I will treat each episodes story on its own merit in isolation from the rest. So me disliking a single episode or a single aspect of an episode is not me disliking the whole show.

dc

Are you two going to slot in Star Trek V (which aired between episodes 2x18 and 2x19 of TNG), or are you waiting until the end of Season 2? V isn't the best of the original series movies, but it might be good to hang out with the TOS crew again.

Dan

Fair enough! Yeah, I would never expect you to like every episode equally (especially given the quality variance), and the early episodes are notorious for being rough around the edges (and sometimes in the center)... It just sounds like most of the criticisms are from a perspective of hyper-metanalysis, which is perhaps a little unkind just in terms of it being a revolutionary show that had its own identity crisis while simultaneously getting its footing and saying new things that are old hat to us. I think you and Simone talked about this before (please forgive me if I'm repeating too much of what was previously covered), but if you're wondering what the writers were trying to do at this point, well, so were they. If/when you get into the behind the scenes of this show, they struggled to define what the show was going to be about (i.e. the hook), given that Gene Roddenberry imagined our social problems having been worked out already. And of course Roddenberry was behind TOS, but even his ideas were old by the time of TNG, and TNG improved when they moved beyond him (he was a stalwart who held the show back in the early seasons, until his health declined and he couldn't contribute). So the writers juxtapose a fair amount of the early episodes with 50's melodrama to both establish what they're trying to avoid and where they fit in their new landscape they're trying to create. Just (very) humbly recommending some grace in terms of "A plot"/"B plot" until the show hits its stride and gets more MoAM episodes :) Cheers!

dc

Also, though the “Icarus Factor” may not have been the best episode, at least we got a sneak peak at the *ultimate* evolution of the martial arts, and…let’s just say the future’s so bright you gotta wear blinders.

Angzarr

I imagine an alternate timeline in which Dr. Pulaski tells Riker that she and Kyle are getting married and he'll be living on the ship. "I'll be your stepmother! We can have family dinner together every night!", she announces cheerfully. A torture worse than Worf and the pain sticks... Riker definitely takes the promotion in that timeline.

JoeMama47

Kyle Riker seems like the kind of guy who would claim that he has to register his fists as weapons, so I tend to think that "the ultimate evolution of martial arts" is just more of his self-aggrandizing bluster.

Drew Acheson

Simone said she usually skips it. But this is legit one of my favorite episodes, it's fun and interesting.

Scott CineRam

The actor playing the Texan in the hotel casino also played the chief villain in the Bruce Willis action movie "The Last Boy Scout". I hope you two get a chance to react to it some day. Shane Black wrote the script and Tony Scott directed. I haven't been keeping track, but that hotel episode might have the fewest number of sets used for a single episode. Bridge, Picard's office, transporter room, the hotel lobby/casino floor, the hotel room and the hallway outside it. Oh, and the formless space outside the revolving door. Riker's official rank is First Officer. This was made clearer to me by the more recent films, which spelled out how the First Officer becomes Captain if the Captain dies or is otherwise unable to command the ship.

Kelly Pickard

For future consideration… Movies: - Waking Ned Devine (1998) - The Devil Wears Prada (2006) - Hook (1991) - The Birdcage (1996) - Margin Call (2011) - Legend (1985) - The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert (1994) - The King's Speech (2010) - Flash Gordon (1980) - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) - City Slickers (1991) TV: - Batman: The Animated Series - Disney's Gargoyles - Barry (Max) - The Boys

Dan

Well looking at the likes, the people have spoken and I was out of line. My bad.

ColdPizzaChris

There are a lot of episodes that she just plainly is not in because the writers realized that having an empath in the episode breaks the story. It's like how many Seinfeld episodes would break if they had cell phones. Unfortunately, the idea of an empathic character was greater than their ability to write one.

ColdPizzaChris

I agree with you that Geordie was on edge and that carried over into the Worf stuff.

display

“Obscure corner of the galaxy”. And today was the day George learned about colloquialisms.

John Smith

Perhaps in the Star Trek canon, a flaw is eventually found in Wiles' proof. After all, when he originally published it, it had a small hole in in that took months to fix.

John Smith

Um, spoilers? That episode is part of next week's set.

John Smith

Well... by default it means "second-in-command", but in a more literal sense it means his job is to make sure the captain's orders are carried out. There have been quite a number of scenes already where Picard gives a generic order (go accomplish this goal) and then Riker fills in the details (Nav. do this, Ops do that, Tactical stand by, etc...). That would be his job.

Robert Gendron

In between "The Royale" and now, Fermat's last theorem was proved by mathematicians. So that scene is a weird anachronism at this point.

SpankTheMonk

Icarus: And you get flak and more flak. Take some more flak and then plus it with flak. 🖖

Ken

The Royale...... The only TNG episode I can't bring myself to rewatch, too painful.

Paul

Personally, I think George can be very analytical and critical even on a meta level, instead of simply being immersed in the story, but I'm glad he's honest even if I don't always agree with his thoughts. It's rare to find sincere reactors these days.

Sophie's Walking Stick

I know I am in the minority but I think overarching dramatic plots can ruin a show. I'd rather have a show with a mystery/opponent of the week than something overly dramatic with stakes that have to implausibly get higher and higher with each season. If you don't slow down and take the time to get to know your characters in a low stakes episode you can't care about them when they are fighting for their lives. You need to know what life they are fighting for. I think this is something that the LOTR movies did quite well with the early focus on the Shire.

Sophie's Walking Stick

Solidarity for George, I hated Riker's dad too. Nothing they had him say rang true to me. I don't believe him that he beat his 8 year old son at martial arts all the time because he loved him, or that he cheated his 12 year old son because he just wanted to keep him interested to keep him around. He wanted to continue to win. Against his own son. Just like he immediately flirted with Deanna. The only good thing about this part of the episode is that it explains some things about why Riker is sometimes an ass.