Title: Peak Performance
Airdate: 7/10/1989
Plot Summary
Starfleet has ordered the Enterprise to engage in some wargames. While Picard is skeptical of its worth, he and Riker decide to give it their best. Riker will take a small group of hand picked crewmembers and attempt to defeat the Enterprise with a worn down, barely functional wreck of a ship. The Zakdorn strategist is less than impressed with Riker but will oversee the exercise. Pulaski goads Data into playing the Zakdorn and try to take the arrogant man down a peg, but ends up losing. This causes him a severe crisis of confidence.
When the games begin, a Ferengi ship mistakes it for the real thing and intervenes, trying to capture Riker’s ship, the Hathaway, believing it must have great value for the Enterprise to be firing on it.
Make It So
Picard sticks up for Riker quite respectably to Kolrami. He does become a little too much of a cheerleader of Riker but it’s mostly deserved.
Number 1
Riker is awesome in this one and really makes up for his disastrous performance back in Samaritan Snare. He gives good advice to his people and is able to work with them to come up with the idea on how to fool the Ferengi.
Fully Functional
Data has a crisis in confidence and after Pulaski and Troi fail to shake him out of it, it’s up to Picard to basically tell him to shut up, snap out of it, and get his ass back on the bridge.
Today Is A Good Day To Die
Worf has a lot of good moments in this one. He becomes Riker’s first officer on the Hathaway. He at first finds all of this a waste of time, but he comes up with some clever tricks to allow Riker to get the first score. He also has some good quotes and hilariously just pulls out some cable from the ceiling when asked where to find it. The best moment however is his attempting to put together a model and snaps a strut when the doorbell rings. He just sweeps all of it into a drawer in frustration.
Phase Inducers
Although Geordi outranks Worf, he’s just fine to be the engineer on the Hathaway. He is able to make lemonade out of a pretty depleted engine. Thank goodness too, it ends up saving their lives.
Counselor Cleavage
Deanna does her best to get Data out of his funk but fails.
Doctor Not Bones
Pulaski maneuvers Data into playing Strategema against Kolrami and regrets it. She is probably Data’s biggest cheerleader in the rematch. Good for her.
Shut Up, Wesley
Wesley is at his most likable since the series began, doing a little chicanery to get a science project that has a little anti-matter in it to the Hathaway.
Canon Maker
At one point Riker says to Picard that “Captain” Riker has never lost. Well he was captain of the Klingon ship way back and the Enterprise did surrender to him.
The Zakdorn are introduced here. We’ll see a few here and there in the background typically throughout the shows, and another one will guest in season 5.
I’m fairly certain this is the first time we see the Kahless statue in Worf’s quarters.
Canon Breaker
While I have no issues with the idea of doing a wargames simulation, I do question why they are doing it so close to where a passing adversary could cause them problems. Why not make it deep inside Federation territory? It’s not like there still isn’t plenty of space to do that.
I know it’s the future and all but Wesley, basically a high-school student, having a science project that contains anti-matter is like giving Ferris Bueller plutonium. Surely they keep a better lid on that stuff. As I recall, a tiny bit pretty much blew a hole in a planet.
I know how Worf was able to fool the Enterprise sensors, he had the codes. How did he fool the Ferengi’s?
A Little Bloody Nose
No deaths but it was close.
Technobabble
Even with some tiny fragments of dilithium, you can make warp, even briefly, with a little antimatter.
Also while it’s not the prefix code, Worf’s knowledge of Enterprise computer systems does allow him to take control and give them a ghost to chase. Pretty sneaky, Worf.
One of the best moments of technobabble I’ve heard on this show when Geordi explains what might happen if things go wrong with the engines, asking Riker if he’s ever popped the clutch on a waterhopper. Simple and easy for the viewer to get immediately.
Please Repeat Your Communication
Picard: Commander, I require your presence on the bridge.
Data: Captain, with all due respect, perhaps it would be better if you choose another to serve as your First Officer.
Picard: Data, you are my First Officer!
Data: I have not been able to isolate the problem, sir. I might make a mistake.
Picard: Yes, you might. But that does not alter your duty to me and to this ship. Now, do you know how to formulate a premise?
Data: Yes, sir.
Picard: Then formulate this one: how do I deal with Commander Riker and the Hathaway? I will await your answer on the bridge.
[goes to leave, but turns back in the doorway]
Picard: And Commander… it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.
— Picard giving some genuinely good advice, and not just to Data but to this young viewer as well back in 1989.
Library Computer
The Stargazer model, a constellation class, makes another appearance. At least this time it looks smaller than the Enterprise.
.
I Know That Guy:
Roy Brocksmith plays the delightfully insufferable Sirna Kolrami. He’s been in plenty but everyone knows him as the guy from Total Recall trying to talk Quaid into believing he was still in the memory implants. We’ll see him again in DS9. Sadly he passed away in 2001 at age 56. (I’m turning 56 in Sept. Yikes.)
Armin Shimerman returns as another Ferengi, Bractor! Not Quark yet, but getting there.
David L. Lander as a Ferengi Tactical Officer. Yes. Squiggy was in Star Trek. Lenny will in Voyager.
And in ANOTHER before they were famous, Glenn Morshower plays the impatient Burke. He of course will gain fame in 24 as the secret service agent Aaron Pierce. He’ll also be back in TNG, Voyager, and even Star Trek: Generations!
What It Means To Be Human – Review
What a fun episode. Everyone seems to have something to do and none of it feels overstuffed. The idea is neat, Picard’s misgiving notwithstanding, wargames are a tried and true method of training. And I like that it references the Borg as Starfleet is waking up to the idea that they may need to be more ready than they are and are taking steps in that regard.
Data’s story is excellent and ties into the same guest star for the A plot so it ties them together nicely. The entire theme is confidence and lack thereof. Riker is just oozing with confidence and his confidence brings out the best in his crew. Kolrami is over confident and gets taken down a peg since he can’t keep his mouth shut because of that over-confidence. Meanwhile Data is lacking confidence and needs to be brought back to himself.
Picard’s defense of Riker to Kolrami is great and his finally snapping Data out of his funk is such a great moment. While Troi and Pulaski gave him typical platitudes, well meaning as they were, it was Picard who had to tell him the cold hard truth on how life is.
Worf had even more moments that were great. When Riker plays Kolrami and Worf tells him he bet on Riker to make it to a certain amount of moves, Riker asks what happens if he doesn’t. Worf simply replies “I will be… irritated.” When he’s on the Hathaway he does the honorable thing by deferring to Geordi, though both LaForge and Riker wouldn’t hear of it. He just has a good answer whenever he comes on the screen.
Even Wesley is fun sneaking aboard the Enterprise to get his project. Riker is at first a little concerned about cheating but comes around pretty quickly.
I just really enjoyed the snot out of this episode, even Data’s admittedly lame line at the end “I busted him up.” Yeah, I was smiling too.
It’s only the Ferengi attack that really takes the wind out the episode’s sails. Data comes up with the idea, even though Riker gave Worf the idea to distract the Ferengi. It all feels sort of anti-climatic, ironically since it really tries to raise the stakes.
But this is a nitpick, it’s a genuinely a good episode.
