The Next Generation 4x8 "Future Imperfect"

rating: **

the story: Riker wakes up sixteen years in the future, but discovers all may not be as it seems.

similar to: "The Corbomite Maneuver" (Original Series), "All Good Things..." (Next Generation), "Child's Play" (Voyager)

my thoughts: This is a fun episode that plays with the viewer's knowledge of the series, bringing back characters like Minuet ("11001001") and the Romulan Tomalak while presenting a possible future.  It's most fun as a Riker episode, of course, and possibly the most fun Riker episode of the series (for such a fun character in general, it's odd to admit that so few of his episodes were fun).

By the time you realize what's really going on, it's the end of the episode, and it's a kid who's been abandoned by his parents and forced to make up his own reality.  There are countless episodes like that throughout franchise history.  It's one of the better examples, to be sure, because at least most of it is spent with everyone being able to enjoy the experience, because the alternative can be grim on all scores, or sometimes just for the characters (in a very roundabout way, Icheb's experiences in "Child's Play," where we discover how a different set of parents basically made their own child's life a living hell to escape a bad situation...). 

Alternate futures and/or timelines have an equal mixed bag in franchise history.  "Future Imperfect" has better footing for happiness than most of those, too, except maybe Worf's odd adventures in "Parallels," where he explores dozens of different versions of how things might have turned out differently for himself and the crew.

The somewhat more hackneyed part of it is the Romulan subplot.  The series pressed the Romulans so much and yet only occasionally got something good out of them.  Their presence here is more of a red herring than anything, which is a good thing. 

In the end, relish the good in this "Imperfect" episode, and never mind the rest.

criteria analysis: franchise - series - character - essential

notable guest-stars:
Andreas Katsulas (Tomalak)
Carolyn McCormick (Minuet)
Patti Yasutake (Nurse Ogawa)

The Next Generation 1x15 "11001001"

**

The episode with the binary title is a step in the right direction for the young Next Generation, and aside from anything immediately relevant to the story itself features strong character work for Riker.

Like Kirk before him, Picard's first officer was pegged as a ladies man, which grew complicated initially when it was deemed that he'd also serve as a surrogate for Gene Roddenberry's holdover character sketches from The Motion Picture and be paired romantically, at least as a matter of backstory, with Troi.

In "11001001" Riker gets around that by romancing a hologram, the first of many to be more than just a hologram in this series (setting the stage for an even more distinctive hologram in Voyager), thanks to the shenanigans of the aliens both servicing the Enterprise and trying to take advantage of the crew that has vacated it for the occasion (sadly, not the only time that would happen, so you can watch this for precedent if you'd like, even for the similar Enterprise episode "The Catwalk").

But this is another one I don't want to inflate too much.  As for the character work, there's also Data's budding career as an artist, which became a much bigger deal in later seasons, which kind of makes this an origin story.

Still, watch it for Riker first and best of all, and for the charming Minuet, one of very few memorable romantic interests from this series.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.