Television Review: Samaritan Snare (Star Trek: The Next Generation, S2X17, 1989)

Samaritan Snare (S02E17)

Airdate: May 15th 1989

Written by: Robert L. McCullough
Directed by: Les Landau

Running Time: 46 minutes

Following the seismic introduction of the Borg as the ultimate cosmic horror in the preceding episode, Q Who, the creative team behind Star Trek: The Next Generation faced a significant challenge. Having plunged the Federation into existential dread, they seemingly felt compelled to offer something radically different: a lighter, more character-driven, and arguably safer narrative. This pivot resulted in Samaritan Snare, an episode that, while hardly ranking among the absolute nadir of the series, occupies a distinctly unloved space in the affections of hardcore trekkies.

The narrative opens with Captain Jean-Luc Picard displaying a rare vulnerability, reluctantly heeding Dr. Pulaski’s insistence that his malfunctioning artificial heart requires replacement. Picard, ever the stoic commander, had been aware of the issue but deliberately postponed the procedure. His motivations were twofold: a keen anticipation of exploring the Epsilon pulsar cluster and, more significantly, a deep-seated reluctance for his crew to become privy to this perceived physical weakness. Boarding a shuttlecraft to accompany Wesley Crusher – en route to his Starfleet Academy entrance exams at Starbase 515, conveniently housing the necessary medical facilities – Picard gradually lowers his guard. In a moment of unexpected candour, he reveals the origin of his artificial heart to the young ensign. He recounts a youthful episode of profound arrogance: as a brash, newly commissioned Starfleet officer, he needlessly provoked a confrontation with three Nausicaans, resulting in his natural heart being pierced by a knife. His survival hinged solely on the immediate proximity of a medical facility, a stark lesson that forged the careful, measured leader he would become.

Simultaneously, aboard the Enterprise, Commander Riker assumes command. The ship receives a distress call from the Mondor, crewed by the Pakleds – a bizarre, humanoid species whose physical appearance evokes a cross between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and whose speech patterns suggest profound intellectual limitations. Their commander, Grebnedlog (portrayed by Clifton Collins Jr.), claims their engine is disabled and requires repair. Despite Lieutenant Worf’s immediate suspicion and Counselor Troi’s empathic warning that the Pakleds do not feel genuinely distressed, Riker dispatches Geordi La Forge to assist. This decision proves catastrophically naive. The Pakleds, revealed not as hapless victims but as scavengers reliant on stealing advanced technology, promptly capture La Forge. Their true demands emerge: they require La Forge’s expertise to build weapons and, audaciously, demand access to the Enterprise’s memory banks. Riker, however, demonstrates his tactical acumen by devising a clever ruse. He transmits a seemingly innocuous, coded message to La Forge, enabling the chief engineer to sabotage the Mondor’s shields and facilitate his own emergency beam-out, escaping the Pakleds’ grasp.

As this farcical yet perilous drama unfolds, Picard’s ostensibly routine heart replacement surgery takes a sudden, life-threatening turn. A critical complication arises, necessitating the immediate presence of a specific, highly specialised cardiac surgeon – a specialist coincidentally not stationed at Starbase 515. With the Enterprise only just extricating itself from the Pakled predicament, it races against time to deliver the expert. They arrive with mere moments to spare, and the saviour is revealed to be none other than Dr. Pulaski herself. Picard survives the operation, and Wesley successfully passes his exams, securing his continued place aboard the Enterprise.

Initially, the Pakleds present the most intriguing facet of the episode. Their harmless facade, coupled with apparent intellectual vacuity, creates a scenario ripe for comedic suspension of disbelief. Just like with the drug-addled Ornarans in Symbiosis, One might question how such seemingly inept beings manage interstellar travel, yet the episode could potentially have leveraged this absurdity effectively, employing it as a modern, comedic analogue to the classic The Corbomite Maneuver bluff. The potential for satire on underestimating opponents was certainly present.

Tragically, the Pakleds are not the sole purveyors of foolishness here. Commander Riker, a seasoned Starfleet officer renowned for his competence, commits a series of bafflingly poor decisions that strain credulity. Ignoring the explicit counsel of his security chief and ship’s counsellor – both seasoned professionals whose roles specifically involve threat assessment – to send his irreplaceable chief engineer alone to assist a suspiciously vague distress call, borders on the inexplicable. His only salvation lies in the Pakleds’ own lack of strategic depth; had they possessed even moderate cunning, the Enterprise would have been severely compromised. This constitutes a textbook "idiot plot," where the narrative conflict exists solely because characters act with uncharacteristic stupidity. Such contrivances proved so grating to some viewers that they reportedly spurred writers Dennis Putman Bailey and Dave Bischoff to pen a spec script – which later evolved into the superior Season 3 episode Tin Man – partly as a direct rebuttal to the perceived narrative laziness on display in "Samaritan Snare."

While the Pakled storyline might have benefited from greater depth or a more consistent comedic tone, the episode mercifully offers the Picard heart subplot as a counterbalance. This narrative thread provides genuinely valuable character development, illuminating a pivotal, humbling moment in Picard’s past that shaped his core philosophy of caution and responsibility. It transforms him from a near-mythical figure into a relatable man marked by youthful error.

Yet, even this promising element succumbs to the "idiot plot" syndrome. The surgery, which logically should have proceeded smoothly given Starfleet’s advanced medical capabilities, is unnecessarily complicated purely to manufacture artificial drama. This contrivance serves primarily to showcase formidable guest actors Daniel Benzali and Tzi Ma as the surgeons, a serviceable but ultimately shallow use of talent. Furthermore, the convenient absence of the required specialist at Starbase 515 feels entirely manufactured. The episode even teases the possibility that the absent expert might be the beloved Dr. Beverly Crusher, only to reveal Pulaski – her unpopular, temporary replacement – as the saviour. For many fans still mourning Crusher’s absence, this felt like a deliberate bait-and-switch, a cynical ploy that significantly contributed to the episode’s enduring unpopularity.

Nevertheless, even episodes of questionable quality can serve a purpose within a sprawling franchise. Samaritan Snare, for all its flaws, provided foundational building blocks. The Pakleds, initially a one-note joke, found unexpected redemption and nuanced exploration years later in Star Trek: Lower Decks. More significantly, the Nausicaans, introduced here merely as the thugs who stabbed young Picard, were revisited with profound depth in the Season 6 masterpiece Tapestry. That episode masterfully reconstructed the bar fight, exploring its psychological ramifications and cementing the Nausicaans as one of the franchise’s most distinct and culturally resonant alien races. The very incident recounted in Samaritan Snare became the cornerstone of one of Picard’s most defining character studies.

Samaritan Snare is a curiously divisive entry. It exemplifies the pitfalls of the "idiot plot," where character competence is sacrificed for artificial tension, alienating discerning viewers. While it succeeded in providing necessary breathing room after the Borg’s shadow and inadvertently seeded elements for richer future stories, its immediate execution feels clumsy and unsatisfying. It is not the worst TNG has to offer, but it is undeniably one of the least respected – a well-intentioned stumble where the promise of character depth was tripped up by contrivance, leaving trekkies rightly frustrated that such a pivotal moment for Picard was framed by such questionable storytelling.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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