There was a hard rain falling that night, hard enough to wash the scum of this city into the gutters and... yes, you've guessed it.
Episode title: “The Big Goodbye”
Season: 1
Importance: 4 (First holodeck episode)
Crisis point(s) if any: Picard must greet an alien race flawlessly, but is trapped in the holodeck
Original transmission date: January 11 1988
Writer(s): Tracy Torme
Director: Joseph L. Scanlan
Stardate:* 41997.7
Destination: Torona IV
Mission (if any): Greet the Jarada
Main character(s) in Plot: Picard
Main character(s) in Subplot (if any): Beverly, Data, Geordi, Worf, Yar, Wesley, Riker
Not appearing: O’Brien
Villain/Monster (if any): None
Deaths: 1 ++
Lives saved (episode): 1
Lives saved (cumulative): 8
Locations:
Shipboard:
Captain’s Quarters
Bridge
Observation Lounge
Dixon Hill’s office ++
San Francisco street ++
Police precinct ++
Space:
Other:
Ships/vessels: 0
Space battles: 0
Bodycount
Historical
1 ++ (Dixon Hill’s client)
Incidental
Direct
Total: 1
Running total: 86
Make it so: 0
Engage! 0
Combat factor: 0
Transports: 0
Planets visited: 0
Planets mentioned: 0
Aliens: The Harada
Mysteries: Why the holodeck is stuck and won’t let them leave
Patients in sickbay: 0 (though presumably the historian was sent there, we don’t see him there)
Data v humanity: Like the Holmes stories, the whole idea of the forties private eye captivates Data
Data 3 - Humanity 5
Character scores:
Picard 155
Riker 10
Troi 10
Data 40
Beverly 30
Worf 10
Geordi 10
Wesley 30
O’Brien 0
Earl Grey: 0
Shuttlecraft: 0
Admirals: 0
Starbases: 0
First contact: 0
Humour: 6
Episode rating: 2/10
Episode score: 220
God preserve me! The first of several Dixon Hill holodeck episodes! What idiot thought that Picard/Stewart could play a private detective? I mean, I know he’s a good actor but look at anything he’s been in: he’s Captain Picard, always and forever. He has the wrong accent, the wrong demeanour, the wrong attitude for a private eye. This was, however, the very first holodeck-centred episode, so that’s something I guess. The second Picard-led one too, with most of the action taking place in the fantasy world created by the ship’s computer, set in San Francisco 1941. It does afford us the rare opportunity to see Beverly dressed up, and she looks well. Quite funny when she sits down in the police station, sees another girl sitting there whose legs are more exposed than hers, slides up her skirt a little and then realises the girl is a hooker! Oh dear.
Picard hopes Beverly never discovers that he uses her makeup...
Data gets fully into the role, as you would probably expect, and from having arrived there in his Starfleet uniform and looking totally out of place, Picard is now immersed too in his character, dressed as a 1940s private dick. Also funny when Bev is given some gum and swallows it. Riker arriving at the holodeck to Geordi: “Have you tried the intercom?” Geordi facepalming: “The intercom! Now why didn’t I think of that?” The subplot is almost negligible, really only providing a reason why Picard needs to seek the sanctuary and release of the holodeck. In many ways, we’re talking “A Piece of the Action” here, though perhaps not handled quite as well. Even at the end, Picard makes a gangster-style comment, as did Kirk in the TOS episode.