"Starship Mine" is the 144th episode of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The 18th episode of the sixth season.
[edit] Overview
While the Enterprise-D is evacuated for maintenance, Captain Picard must, alone, contend with mercenaries posing as a work crew aboard ship.
The Enterprise is docked at the Remmler Array to be decontaminated through use of a baryon sweep, harmless to the inorganic materials of the ship but deadly to living beings. The ship is evacuated and its systems shut down in preparation for the sweep. Captain Picard and the rest of the senior staff is invited by Commander Hutchinson to a cocktail party, but Picard foresees that he will be cornered by Hutchinson's "small talk" during the event. He returns to the Enterprise to retrieve his riding saddle to go horseback riding instead, but on leaving finds an array technician working with the ship's panels. Picard tries to find out what the technician is doing, but he is attacked instead; Picard gains the upper hand and knocks the technician out.
Meanwhile, at the cocktail party, Lt. La Forge detects strange readings coming from one of the centerpieces with his visor. Before he can investigate, the other array staff members take the partygoers as hostages, injuring La Forge and killing Hutchinson, and prevent them from communicating with the rest of the crew or Starfleet while the sweep is initiated. The crew silently work to devise a plan to break free of their captors.
Aboard the Enterprise, Picard discovers that a small force of technicians, led by a woman named Kelsey, are aboard attempting to steal trilithium resin from the warp engines to sell to another group as part of a powerful explosive. With the baryon sweep progressing through the ship, Picard plays a game of cat-and-mouse with the technicians while staying ahead of the baryon field. Eventually having neutralized all but Kelsey, Picard retreats to Ten-Forward, the last area that will be hit by the sweep. Kelsey escapes, but realizes too late that Picard has taken the control rod from the unstable trilithium storage container, and her shuttle explodes a few moments later. The Enterprise officers manage to overcome their captors, and they are able to stop the sweep just in time to save Picard's life.
- The episode has an average rating of 4.2 (of 5 possible) on the official Star Trek website[1].
- This marked Tim Russ's first appearance on a Star Trek series before Russ won his starring role as Tuvok on Star Trek:Voyager. Ironically, Russ' character was made unconscious by Picard in this episode through the use of a Vulcan Neck Pinch. Russ had been among the contingent of actors to audition for the role of Geordi LaForge.
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