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Star Trek: The Next Generation 2x14 "The Icarus Factor" - Full Watch-along (Patreon)

Published:
2026-04-17 18:00:05
Imported:
2026-10

Content

Follow along with me using your own copy of the episode!

Files

Star Trek: The Next Generation 2x14 "The Icarus Factor" - Full Watch-along

Comments

뱀파이안젤

or was it his stellar "docking" capabilities that got him promoted to captain 😏

Trish

I don't recall any starbase that was not a number

William Terry

Good analysis from bunny! The Icarus Factor shows in the same time the big difference between TNG and TOS, The Journey to Bable. There Sarek and Spock are fighting over the Vulcan way of pure science and logic until Sarek gets a new prescription. Here the son is mad at pa 'cuz he crashed the truck and ran away from Mom. There's another reference they included to Greek mythology, that Daedalus was also the one who designed and built the labyrinth to put the minotaur, a monster boss. I guess they were going for Klingon minotaur. Great performance by all. There's a web series episode that goes into Riker breaking form and staying in his assignment when others need the experience of being first officer to advance their career path to captain of a starship. In his defense the mission sounds like they should send AI rather than wasting a crew on an exploration of something too far away to matter.

reply

Wow the curly hair guy's got some zingers on 'm "I know her too... We don't do THAT!" Ahaha

Super Sunny Sunblade

Woriker/Wiker is the pairing we never knew we needed until now 😻

Preaching to the Horse's Mouth

A low-key favourite of mine. When I was younger I probably would have given this one a "meh" as a less action-y, character episode. Over the years I've come to enjoy it much more for exactly that same character stuff. Obviously the Riker/dad dynamic first and foremost. But can we talk about my girls, Deanna and Doc P. for a minute...😆 I'm mostly joking but we do get some really great scenes from the two of them as well. Not to mention the Riker/Picard scenes with the surrogate father/son, Picard proud of Riker vibes. I find it to be a very satisfying episode.

Summer

More than halfway through the season! The Riker story is odd but at least we got so much O’Brien. You don’t blabber Bunny, we are here to hear from you in your journey

Max

Why does it say "YURI" on their Aibo-Jutsu sparring platform? 👀 Well at least they care about Japan in the 24th century... 🗾💚💚 "Aroshu... OMOGASHIMASU!" 🏋🏋

Greg

I know from talking to Bunny afterwards she was disappointed this one is not a fan favorite, and I get why. However, I've also always liked this episode also. It's not great -- it's slow, badly paced, the writing is uneven, and not much action outside the fictional marital arts battle at the end. However, I always liked it for the same reasons Bunny did -- very good character development here, with the A story being Riker and his father, and the B story Worf and his friends. Mitchell Ryan played Kyle Riker and he was a great choice -- an experienced actor with numerous credits to his name, and he delivered the role in a wonderful way. Some trivia notes about this one: When first shown the script, Jonathan Frakes really liked it and enjoyed the fact he'd be the center of the story (of course). Patrick Stewart, however, did not like how the script was written and asked for a re-write, which was mostly done. Entertainment Tonight co-host John Tesh, in an uncredited appearance, plays a holographic Klingon in the ritual scene, having volunteered for any part on the show months previously. Anbo-jyutsu, the fictitious sport shown in this episode, involves fighting with staffs while blindfolded. In Japanese, "An" means dark (i.e. blindfolded), "Bo" means staff, and "Jyutsu" means technique or skill. While it is written in the script as "Anbo-jyutsu", Kyle and William Riker pronounce it as "Anbo-jitsu".

Desmond

Is this the first episode where O'Brien is treated like an actual character and not just the transporter chief? Seems that way.

Desmond

I like this episode, it's a good character focused one, without any forced jeopardy, which is pretty rare on Trek, to be perfectly honest. I think most fans find the Ambo Jitsu to be a bit cheesy, but I didn't really mind it, for a futuristic martial art designed from scratch in a TV show from the 1980s, it was OK. :)

Carlos Stevens

Daedalus! The father of Icarus (who flew too close to the sun). I only remember because The Daedalus was the name of one of the carrier ships that got attached to the SDF-1 (Robotech) after that mishap where they hyper-jumped to Pluto instead of the moon. The Prometheus was the other one.

Matthew Graves (Graviton)

I'm a fan of that series and Id never thought of that comparison before but when Bunny referenced I got a good chuckle. It's a good comparison. :)

Matthew Graves (Graviton)

Ok, so unlike some post "Measure of a Man" episodes up till now I have a lot to say about this one. I wouldn't say it's one of my all time favorites or anything but I've always liked this one more than the "consensus" generally does. There's generally two knocks on the episode. First, some consider it too "soap opera-y". Second is that many considier the Anbo-jyutsu scene to be silly looking. I have thoughts on both. First, while I'll admit that some of the dialogue is, shall we say "tonally heightened", perhaps even approaching melodrama during the Anbo match, I don't think it's nearly as bad it's sometimes accused of being. Granted, there's not a lot of subtlty here. There's an of "i'm feeling THIS!"... "Oh yeah, well i'm feeling THIS!" kind of stuff here. However, it works in a sort of cathartic way. That scene is all about catharsis and it makes sense for the characters to be kinda intelligent with their expression at the moment. How that resonates depends largely on whether what leads up to it earns the catharsis. I'd say it's a mixed bag, but overall it mostly worked for me, though I can see how it could be kinda "cringy" to some I thought Marina Sirtis did an especially good job in this one. In a mostly unsubtle episode Troi get some pretty deft moments. i like her confrontation with Kyle. She's ostensibly being the "counselor" but remember that she's had YEARS of being in an intimate relationship with Will and knows his emotional makeup as well as anyone could. It only makes sense that she's gonna viacariously share some of Will's resentment toward Kyle, and accordingly, she comes at him pretty hard. But not so much that you don't wee that she's still holding on to her professionalism as a counselor. Good stuff by Sirtis IMO. Similarly I thought she did a great job with the goodbye scene. Troi and Riker have a complicated relationship. They are former partners, broke up amicably, now professional collegues, but also heavily implied to have a kind of casual FWB kinda thing going on. That's gotta be a weird, hard goodbye to navigate and I thought both Sirtis and Frakes did a great job with it. As for Anbo-Jyutsu, I actually found it pretty interesting. As a young man I was very into combat sports. I mentioned in my thoughts on that "We'll Always Have Paris" that I did quite a bit of saber fencing but I also studied Kendo, and I can see what they were going for here. I kinda like the idea of a martial arts combat sport integrating 25th century tech. The glowing ends of the staff are supposed to be proximity sensors that give of a pitch that tells you how close the other one is. I rather like the idea of a sport where the forms are dictated by your sense of hearing. As you might expect, it's possible to go down a whole nerd rabbit hole regarding what fans and non canon sources have come up with regarding this. As an amusing aside, everyone involved has acknowledged that the actors' Japanese pronunciation here is, to be generous, loose.w Oh, and I don't know if it's an exclusively male thing, but there's definitely something to "working it all out" with a semi-friendly physical contest at times. It can help with that "catharsis" thing. As for the Worf B plot. I think it's gold. Fun, light stuff that helps build all the pcharacters involved in small but cool ways. Bunny, you had a great reaction here and I'll just say that the screenshot of Worf taking the painsticks inspired some funny/eyebrow raising memes! :)

Comrade Wireless Caller

Here's some fun trivia for you bunny. Because all the Klingon costumes were being used for the shooting of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier at almost the same time this episode was being made, most of the Klingons in this episode are actually wearing boots that were first used from the old Planet of the Apes (1974) TV series!

bunnytails

I am happy you like this one as well. I think the Anbo-Jutsu scene worked well for me. Maybe it's due to my familiarity with shonen-style anime, but working things with fists is a concept I am familiar with in media (not IRL lol). Emotions just seem to tend to flow more freely as an extension of the physical exertion so the dramatic dialogue makes sense to me.

bunnytails

I've never seen anything quite like it, so I thought it was a cool idea :)

Jim Jones

This episode was written during the 1998 writers strike so it's an example of some rushed and uneven writing despite it being a strong episode. While the Worf storyline is great, the Riker's storyline doesn't take the time for the emotional payoff. We're drip fed very little detail about their not getting along. Death of mom. Uncommunicative father. And that's it. Then we get a 4 minute fight with a hug and "ok bye". Riker was Icarus: possibly taking a risky command he really didn't want. But again, it wasn't fully explored here.

Mark Chrisco

Imagine Mitchell Ryan as Jean-luc Picard. It almost happened. Storywise, there should have been a final moment with Will and his father and their goodbyes, perhaps in the transporter room.

Maerandir Eldar

"Oh, it's like Hot Ones!" ...I laughed to hard there was Diet Coke spraying out of my nose.

TJ

Definitely a heavy character development story with many threads, and a good one at that. I agree, the writers achieve reconciliation at the end somewhat quickly, but that's okay, as it's the reality of episodic TV. The ambu-jitsu match seemed appropriate, and served as a great medium for both of them to get their feelings out in the open... I also liked the Worf b-plot.

Squeesher

Oh my lord, THANK YOU for saying the name of that anime Ergo Proxy in your intro. I watched it ages ago and loved it and could never remember the name. THANK YOU!!

Mark Gosine

1988 Writer's strike. 🙃

Jim Jones

Yup, ran from March 7th to August 7th.

Randy Baker

I love how your commentary has affection for the material but is also an honest critique. I like how you share your thinking in addition to your emotional takes. Also, your format is clear, i can see and hear the show even in the edited form and the editing is excellent. You have created my favorite reaction channel. Thank you.

bunnytails

It is my all time favorite anime. I've seen it like 6+ times. I think it's time for you to give it a rewatch!

Bruce Galles

Dark Shadows and Dharma and Greg are two shows that the actor that played Rikers Dad was in! Oh..and the movie Liar Liar! He was in dozen and dozens of TV shows and movies!