Booby Trap (episode)

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"Booby Trap"
TNG, Episode 3x06 Production number: 40273-154 First aired: 30 October 1989
←	53rd of 176 produced in TNG	→
←	53rd of 176 released in TNG	→
	{{{nNthReleasedInSeries_Remastered}}}th of 176 released in TNG Remastered
←	160th of 727 released in all	→

Teleplay By Ron Roman and Michael Piller & Richard Danus Story By Michael Wagner & Ron Roman Directed By Gabrielle Beaumont
43205.6 (2366)
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While investigating a 1,000-year-old derelict ship, the Enterprise gets caught in the same booby trap that doomed the vessel a millennium ago.

[edit] Summary

While the USS Enterprise-D is investigating the remains at Orelious IX, they discover a Promellian battle cruiser. When the away team returns, a Menthar booby trap begins to drain the power reserves of the Enterprise, which is unable to move, to create deadly radiation. Lt. Cmdr. La Forge tries to come up with a solution using the help of a holodeck recreation of Leah Brahms, the engineer who built the warp engines of the Enterprise. La Forge has the computer recreate the personality of Dr. Brahms (whom he falls in love with) to facilitate the interaction. The key to get moving lies in the time-differential between action and reaction, but to be quick enough, total control over the ship has to be turned over to the computer which, according to simulations, is unable to successfully escape the field.

In the meantime, the others try to use information gathered from memory coils on the ancient Promellian ship to come up with a way to combat the problem. They discover that the asteroids have been booby-trapped with aceton assimilators. It is impossible to destroy the asteroids while they absorb the energy of the fired phasers.

It turns out the Human brain will bring the final solution. Instead of trying to overpower the engines, a minimal energy boost and minimal thrusters were used to drift the ship clear from the booby-trapped field, while shutting down all non-essential systems. Captain Picard takes the conn and is successful in using the asteroid's gravitational field and the Enterprise's thrusters to catapult the Enterprise clear. Picard then orders the destruction of the ancient ship to prevent it from luring any more victims.

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[edit] Log Entries

[edit] Memorable Quotes

"Uh oh..."
"I beg your pardon Wesley"
"Geordi had that big date with Christy tonight. He spent days putting together the perfect program. Looked like it ended kind of early"
(brief glance at La Forge's depressed mood)
"Uh oh..."

- Wesley and Data assessing La Forge's date that evening

"It is exactly as they left it Number One, in the bottle."
(dumbfounded looks from Data and Worf)
"The ship in the bot– Oh, good Lord. Didn't anybody here build ships in bottles when they were boys?!"
"I did not play with toys."
"I was never a boy."
(Picard sighs)
"I did, sir."
"(brief pause) Thank you, Mister O'Brien. Proceed."
(Riker gives O'Brien "the look" after the transport.)
"I did. I really did. Ships in bottles, great fun."

- Picard, Worf, Data and O'Brien

"Always room at the bar for another broken heart.'"

- Guinan

"I'm attracted to bald men."

- Guinan

"Is it possible... that we've fallen into the same snare that killed them? A 1,000 year old booby-trap?"

- Picard

"I'm not used to people questioning my judgment."
"And I'm not used to dying!"

- Leah Brahms and La Forge

"If we resist, we die. If we don't resist, we die."

- Riker

"You have used the asteroid's gravitational pull as a slingshot. Excellent!"

- Data to Picard

"I'm with you every day, Geordi. Every time you look at this engine you're looking at me. Every time you touch it, it's me."

- Leah Brahms (Holographic)

[edit] Background Information

[edit] Story and production

Initially Picard was to have been involved with the simulated Leah Brahms. Michael Piller recalled, "It just said to me, 'Picard should be on the bridge, not chatting with some woman.' I said to myself, 'It should be Geordi, because Geordi is in love with the ship and this is a story about a guy in love with his '57 Chevy.' That played into Geordi's character, who's always been a fumbling guy around women, but if he could just marry his car, he'd live happily ever after. He gets to create the personification of the woman who created the engine he loves. It's sort of a relationship between he and his Pontiac." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages)
In an early draft of the episode, Brahms was named Navid Daystrom and was intended to be a descendant of Doctor Richard Daystrom from TOS: "The Ultimate Computer". Unfortunately, the casting department did not realize that this would require a black actress to play the part until after Susan Gibney had been hired. At the suggestion of script coordinator Eric Stillwell, the character was renamed, but the Daystrom tie-in was kept by adding a line that she had graduated from the Daystrom Institute. (Star Trek Encyclopedia)
Originally the holodeck set was to have been a mockup of a warp engine, but time constraints forced the more limited set shown. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion)
The piece of music performed in La Forge's holodeck program is one of Johannes Brahms' Hungarian Dances.

[edit] Continuity

This is the first episode directed by Gabrielle Beaumont and the first episode directed by a woman.
In this episode, Guinan tells Geordi La Forge that she's always been attracted to bald men, because a bald man was once very kind to her. In "Time's Arrow, Part II", Captain Picard (on an away mission to the past), meets Guinan and takes care of her when she gets hurt.
Some of the graphics seen in Drafting Room 5 include a topographic map of Mintaka III from "Who Watches The Watchers" and a graphic from Doctor Paul Manheim's lab on Vandor IV in "We'll Always Have Paris".
The Galaxy-class model seen in the drafting room is shown with all three shuttlebay doors open (or missing).
In the episode "All Good Things...", Picard makes reference to O'Brien's hobby of building model ships. Without revealing he was from the future, Picard says he read the notation in his Starfleet file.

[edit] Reception

Peter Allan Fields commented, "To do a character story and blend it with science-fiction is that pinnacle we reach for and the one that comes to mind which I thought was marvelous was 'Booby Trap.' You couldn't have seen it on thirtysomething. As science-fiction it worked and it was full of character, full of humanity and full of life." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages)

[edit] Video and DVD releases

Original UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 27, 21 October 1991.
UK re-release (three-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment): Volume 3.2, 3 April 2000.
As part of the TNG Season 3 DVD collection.

[edit] Links and References

Previous episode:
"The Bonding"

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 3

Next episode:
"The Enemy"