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11001001 (episode)edit

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Real World article
(written from a Production point of view)
"11001001"
TNG, Episode 1x15
Production number: 40271-116
First aired: 1 February 1988
← 15th of 176 produced in TNG →
← 14th of 176 released in TNG →
  {{{nNthReleasedInSeries_Remastered}}}th of 176 released in TNG Remastered  
← 119th of 727 released in all →
Written By
Maurice Hurley and Robert Lewin

Directed By
Paul Lynch
41365.9 (2364)
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Aliens who are on-board to overhaul the computer systems of Enterprise instead hijack the vessel.

Contents

[edit] Summary

The USS Enterprise-D is calling at Starbase 74, in orbit around Tarsas III, for a maintenance check and upgrades. The ship docks, and Captain Picard and Riker go to meet the maintenance crews. The crews' leader, Commander Quinteros, greets them and tells them he was in charge of building the Enterprise. Also with him are the Bynars, two aliens named One Zero and Zero One who work as a unified pair. They have recently completed a successful upgrade to the computer aboard the USS Wellington, and will be upgrading the computers on the Enterprise, as well as making repairs to the holodeck.

Riker and Picard discuss the Bynars on the way to the bridge. Apparently, over time they have become so interconnected with the master computer on their home planet that their thought patterns are as close to binary code as is possible. On the bridge, Wesley is watching the Bynars work. They have been joined by two more of their species. Picard goes to his ready room, and Riker tells Wesley to keep an eye on the Bynars, as he doesn’t altogether trust them. He then leaves to take a walk around the ship.

He meets Worf, Natasha Yar and two other crewmembers on their way to play a game of Parrises squares with some of the starbase crew. He drops in on Data, who, with the help of Geordi La Forge, is exploring his creativity by trying to paint a creative picture. He then visits sickbay, where Dr. Crusher is getting ready to meet Professor Terence Epstein, the leading mind in cybernetics and who had lectured at her medical school. She is highly excited with the chance to meet such an expert mentioning the disaster at Micromius as when she started working on an approach that combines cybernetics and regeneration. Riker then passes the holodeck, where two of the Bynars are working. They tell him they have enhanced it, so he creates a jazz club in New Orleans, 1958, and a one-woman audience. He is overcome at how realistic the setting and the woman are. He starts to chat with her. Her name is Minuet.

On the bridge, Wes asks the Bynars how they can process information so fast. They tell him they store information in buffers and save it until they need it. Picard leaves to go to the holodeck, where Riker is playing the trombone with a backing group. He tells Minuet he has to leave, but she asks him to dance with her. He still can’t get over how realistic she is. She asks him why his work "consumes and enthralls" him. He tells her that his posting is a dream come true, and starts to kiss her when Picard walks in.

On hearing his name, Minuet speaks to him in French. They ask him to join them, and Minuet praises him, telling him Riker is a credit to his captain. Picard is also highly impressed with the program, commenting how it adapted to speak French to him. On the bridge, Wes calls Data and tells him that there is a problem in engineering. The magnetic containment field that holds the antimatter is failing. Data and La Forge rush down to engineering, but can’t halt the field's collapse; they have only four minutes until the antimatter is released. Data calls a red alert, and orders an emergency evacuation of the ship." As all crewmembers and passengers are beamed off or leave via walkway, he sets the autopilot to put the maximum distance possible between the Enterprise and any inhabited area.

Data and La Forge ask the computer for the location of the captain, but are told that no one else is aboard. They beam onto the starbase, and are told by Yar, Worf and Dr. Crusher, who had been on the starbase since before the emergency, that Picard and Riker aren’t there either. Data wants to return for him, but there’s no time. As the Enterprise starts to move out of the starbase, the magnetic field comes back online. The ship clears the starbase and jumps to warp.

Picard and Riker are still in the holodeck, discussing how intuitive the program is. When Picard tries to leave, however, Minuet goes to great lengths to make him stay, and he gets suspicious. He and Riker open the doors and discover the red alert. He consults the computer and learns the details of the situation. The Enterprise is on course to Bynaus. They question Minuet, who tells them she was programmed by the Bynars to keep Riker busy. Picard’s presence was just a lucky coincidence. She is not able to tell them what the Bynars want with the ship. On Starbase 74, Data asks what the nearest Starfleet ship is. When he learns it’s the Trieste, he dismisses it as too small and too slow, to which Cmdr. Quinteros replies, that even if it is the ship closest to the starbase, it is still too far away. Then Data notices that the Bynars are missing and guesses they are taking the Enterprise to Bynaus.

Picard and Riker head for engineering to set the auto-destruct, to prevent the ship falling into hostile hands. The countdown only gives them five minutes. Picard notices that huge amounts of information are being stored in the ship’s computer. They head for the bridge, but the turbolift is blocked, so they decide to both beam onto the bridge at the same time, in different locations in order to give themselves a chance of retaking the ship.

La Forge tells the others that there is no response from the Enterprise, and Worf states that someone else must be in control of the ship. Data blames himself for what happened, but the others console him. The ship nearest to readiness in the starbase is the USS Melbourne, but it’s still 18 hours from being ready.

When Picard and Riker beam onto the bridge, they find the four Bynars, collapsed. Two of them ask for help before they pass out. They deactivate the auto-destruct sequence, and find that they’re in orbit around Bynaus. All the equipment on Bynaus is inert -- the enormous amount of information in the computer is a core dump from the computer on Bynaus, but it can’t be accessed.

They go back to Minuet, who tells them that a star in the Bynaus system went supernova. The electromagnetic pulse was going to knock out the main computer, so the only option was to download its contents into the only mobile computer large enough: the computer aboard the Enterprise. However, the star went supernova sooner than expected. When the Enterprise arrives, the Bynars are dying. Riker and Data must restore the computer before it is too late.

They return to the bridge, where Picard contacts Data. Data tells him that the Bynars would want them to access the stored file, which would be called something simple, probably in binary code. Riker runs some possibilities and they find the file called 11001001. They both have to work together, as the Bynars do, to access the information. The Bynaus computer reboots and the Bynars awaken. They tell Picard they didn’t ask for help, as they were afraid that they might be refused. They trapped Riker because they thought they might need someone to restore the computer for them.

Picard takes the conn, and they return to Starbase 74. The crew comes on board and the Bynars are led off to face a hearing. Riker returns to the holodeck, but Minuet is gone, and he is unable to get her back. As they leave the starbase, Picard says he’s sorry, but that maybe some relationships can’t work.

[edit] Log Entries

[edit] Memorable Quotes

"A blind man teaching an android how to paint? That's got to be worth a couple of pages in somebody's book!"

- Riker, finding Data and La Forge's hobby amusing


"What's a knockout like you doing in a computer generated gin joint like this?"

- Riker, to Minuet in the Holodeck after the Bynars' enhancements


"You might have said 'No'."

- The Bynars, on why they "borrowed" the Enterprise instead of asking for help


"This is Lieutenant Commander Data speaking for the captain. Abandon ship; this is not a drill. All personnel, this is not a drill. I say again: Abandon ship, all personnel, this is not a drill. Abandon ship."

- Data, ordering an evacuation of the Enterprise

[edit] Background Information

[edit] Story

  • The original title for this episode was "10101001".
  • 11001001 is:
    • the number 201 in binary. [10101001 (the original title for the episode) is 169 in binary.]
    • 11.001001 is an approximation of Pi in binary (3.140625).
    • the binary representation of the RET (Unconditional Return) Opcode for a Intel 8080 CPU (copied in the Z80 CPU)
    • Hex C9, which in IBM's EBCDIC equals the letter I.
    • the character É in the ISO 8859-1 (Latin-1) and Windows-1252 character sets and also in Unicode
    • each nybble (1100 & 1001) corresponds to names of the two pairs of Bynars on the Enterprise: 11 & 00 and 10 & 01.
  • The episode was originally intended to be filmed and aired before "The Big Goodbye" with the latter's holodeck malfunction explained as having been caused by the Bynar's modification, but this conflicts with the Bynars' statement that "the deviation caused by your previous probe has been corrected", referencing the events of "The Big Goodbye".

[edit] Production

  • The voice tracks of the actors playing the Bynars were pitchshifted down. Initially, conversations between them in their own language were to have been subtitled.
  • The Bynar species seen in this episode are similar to the Talosian species from TOS: "The Cage", they were androgynous aliens with male-sounding voices, played by females. In both cases, the effect suggests an alien nature to the observer.
  • Some scenes of crewmembers reacting to the evacuation alert were lifted from "Where No One Has Gone Before".

[edit] Music

  • The trombone piece played by Riker is "The Nearness of You" by Hoagy Carmichael. He is seen playing the opening notes of the tune in the later episode "Conundrum" after having had his memory wiped.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Continuity

  • The alien Barash would program his holographic environment on Alpha Onias III to feature Minuet as Riker's wife in TNG: "Future Imperfect".
  • The Bynar species is mentioned again in ENT: "Regeneration".
  • Data claims he is familiar with the USS Trieste. In TNG: "Clues", it is followed up on as Data claims he served aboard the vessel.
  • When Data orders the crew to abandon ship, one of the crewmembers is looking at the "Holodeck 4-J" display from TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint".
  • Also during Data's command to abandon ship, a crewmember listens from a station in Engineering (the blue glow from the warp core is visibly reflected in the window), though Engineering was empty when the announcement was given, save for himself and Geordi.
  • Jean-Luc Picard describes the holodeck with references to previous episodes, telling Minuet that it "has given us woodlands "Encounter at Farpoint" and ski slopes "Angel One", figures that fight "Code of Honor", and fictional characters with whom we can interact "The Big Goodbye"."
  • Modified effect shots of the Spacedock from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock are used to represent Starbase 74. The most noticable difference is the USS Enterprise-D added in place of the original USS Enterprise, the planet retouched to look like a generic blue globe instead of Earth and the aspect ratio cropped from the theatrical 2.35:1 to television's 1.33:1. Stock footage from this episode was reused later in "Remember Me" and "Ensign Ro" to represent other starbases.

[edit] Reception

  • Actor Jonathan Frakes noted this episode was, to him, one of the highlights of TNG Season 1. "A fabulous show. Those were the kind of chances we took first season that when they worked, they worked great. It was a very chancy show and I loved it. Those characters, the Binars [sic], why haven't they returned? That was a very well conceived idea. They should have them as a regular on the ship to fix the engines or whatever the hell they do." (Trek: The Next Generation Crew Book)

[edit] Awards

  • This episode won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series.

[edit] Video and DVD releases

[edit] Links and References

[edit] Starring

[edit] Also starring

[edit] Guest stars

[edit] Uncredited co-stars

[edit] References

1958; armory; antimatter; Auto-destruct; autopilot; Beta Magellan system; binary language; Bourbon Street Bar; Bynar; Bynaus; Byte; buffer; computer; cybernetics; Epstein, Terence; French language; Galaxy-class; holodeck; "Hula Blues"; jazz; Kansas City; magnetic containment field; Melbourne, USS; Micromius; Mooring beam; New Orleans; Omicron Pascal; Paris; parrises squares; Pelleus V; Pelleus system; Quinteros, Orfil; shuttle drone, Starbase 74; Starfleet Operational Support Services; supernova; "Sweet and Low"; Tarsas III; Tarsas system; Trieste, USS; Wellington, USS; Zylo eggs


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