In "Contagion" the Enterprise rushes to the aid of its sister ship in the Neutral Zone, the Yamamoto, only to watch helplessly as it malfunctions and explodes, killing everyone aboard. The Enterprise learns that the Yamamoto had crossed the border because it thought it had discovered the location of an ancient, high-tech race known as the Iconians whose ruins may help the Federation leap forward in their current technologies.
But the crew realizes too late that the Yamamoto was destroyed by an Iconian probe that started to rewrite the software aboard and made its systems go haywire. But downloading the destroyed ship's logs, the Enterprise has opened itself up to the same fate. To make matters worse, the ship is being stalked by a Romulan vessel who is also encountering technical problems.
An away team consisting of Picard, Data, and Worf beams down to the planet where they believe the Iconian ruins are and find some systems still up and running. Before Data can troubleshoot the answer, he's zapped by a probe and his programming starts to get recoded. Worf takes his back to the ship to see of he can get Geordi to fix him. Data seems dead but reboots after a few seconds, basically as a backup before all this code got injected into him. Geordi realizes they can do the same thing with the ship's system to fix everything. Picard destroys the remaining tech on the planet as it's too advanced for the Federation or the Romulans to safely use it. They beam Picard aboard and head back for Federation ship, telling the Romulans how to save themselves on their way out.
My biggest take away from this episode is how incompetent Geordi can be sometimes. He didn't think to reboot the system with a backup? That seems like one of the first things they should have tried when the ship got funky, if not the very first thing. Him or Data should have come up with that idea but it never crossed either of their minds.
So the ending is a bit of a disappointment. I would have liked to have seen a more complicated or clever solution. I would have liked Data to explain that the Iconian probe had infected all the backlogs as well, making a reboot impossible but apparently it was a valid option the whole time. It's a dumb finale.
I do like the Romulans inclusion, we haven't got any good time with them in a while. It was even cool to see Picard on their bridge, even if it didn't amount to much. Pulaski is really shoehorned into this ep for no apparent reason.
This was very close to a good episode but the last 10 minutes or so really drag it down for me. A more elegant solution really could have made this one of the highlights of Season 2.
But the crew realizes too late that the Yamamoto was destroyed by an Iconian probe that started to rewrite the software aboard and made its systems go haywire. But downloading the destroyed ship's logs, the Enterprise has opened itself up to the same fate. To make matters worse, the ship is being stalked by a Romulan vessel who is also encountering technical problems.
An away team consisting of Picard, Data, and Worf beams down to the planet where they believe the Iconian ruins are and find some systems still up and running. Before Data can troubleshoot the answer, he's zapped by a probe and his programming starts to get recoded. Worf takes his back to the ship to see of he can get Geordi to fix him. Data seems dead but reboots after a few seconds, basically as a backup before all this code got injected into him. Geordi realizes they can do the same thing with the ship's system to fix everything. Picard destroys the remaining tech on the planet as it's too advanced for the Federation or the Romulans to safely use it. They beam Picard aboard and head back for Federation ship, telling the Romulans how to save themselves on their way out.
My biggest take away from this episode is how incompetent Geordi can be sometimes. He didn't think to reboot the system with a backup? That seems like one of the first things they should have tried when the ship got funky, if not the very first thing. Him or Data should have come up with that idea but it never crossed either of their minds.
So the ending is a bit of a disappointment. I would have liked to have seen a more complicated or clever solution. I would have liked Data to explain that the Iconian probe had infected all the backlogs as well, making a reboot impossible but apparently it was a valid option the whole time. It's a dumb finale.
I do like the Romulans inclusion, we haven't got any good time with them in a while. It was even cool to see Picard on their bridge, even if it didn't amount to much. Pulaski is really shoehorned into this ep for no apparent reason.
This was very close to a good episode but the last 10 minutes or so really drag it down for me. A more elegant solution really could have made this one of the highlights of Season 2.