The Royale
| "The Royale" | |||
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| Star Trek: The Next Generation episode | |||
 Data plays at the craps table as Riker watches. |
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| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 12 |
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| Directed by | Cliff Bole | ||
| Written by | Keith Mills | ||
| Featured music | Ron Jones | ||
| Production code | 138 | ||
| Original air date | March 27, 1989 | ||
| Guest stars | |||
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| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes | |||
"The Royale" is the 38th episode of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. The 12th episode of the second season.
[edit] Overview
Riker, Data and Worf become trapped in a strange hotel on a planet otherwise incapable of supporting human life.
[edit] Plot
Following a tip from a Klingon ship, the Enterprise finds debris from an earth ship orbiting an uninhabitable alien planet. A sample of the debris beamed aboard shows NASA markings and a 52-star American flag. To investigate how such an old ship got so far from home, Commander Riker, Lt. Worf and Lt. Commander Data beam down to a mysterious small liveable pocket on the planet and find a revolving door. Upon entering they find themselves trapped in an old earth-style hotel/casino called the Royale where they are cut off from contact with their ship.
While exploring the building after unsuccessfully attempting to leave, they find the remains of Col. Steven Richey, a NASA astronaut who had lived to a very old age and a book titled Hotel Royale by Todd Matthews. Upon reading his diary it is revealed his starship was in confrontation with aliens and he was the only survivor. Taking pity on him they created The Royale for him thinking the novel was an instruction of humans' preferred way of living. Little did they know Col. Richey's time in The Royale was a living hell. Data, Riker, and Worf eventually discover that they are inside a living version of the book the same as Col. Richey was.
However, their newfound knowledge doesn't get the away team any closer to finding a way out of the building, until a quick read-through of the novel reveals that it had been recreated in detail by the aliens, and its contents played out in its entirety. None of the characters (or the away team) can leave until they are scripted to do so. As such, Riker realizes they have to assume the role of the characters in the novel to escape and, using the building's craps table, raise enough money to become the nondescript "foreign investors" destined to buy out the Royale. They successfully leave after fulfilling their part of the story.
[edit] Notes
- This episode mentions Fermat's Last Theorem, and that it still had not been solved after 800 years. A proof was, however, found by Andrew Wiles and published in 1995, six years after the episode aired. The resulting incongruity in "The Royale" was later addressed in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Facets".
- In the scene where Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge scans the planet, he describes the surface temperature as -291°C, being below absolute zero (−273.15°C), which is theoretically impossible.
- When observing Col. Steven Richey's uniform/suit the mission patch on the sleeve is an Apollo 17 mission patch.
- When they begin researching the book on which the planet's scene is based, Picard reads the book's opening sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night"—the famous opening of Edward George Bulwer-Lytton's novel Paul Clifford—and remarks, "Not a promising beginning."
- During the craps game in the final scene, Riker comments, upon Data's getting a point of 6 in the Craps game, that "the probability of making a six is no greater than that of rolling a seven". In fact, there is a 5 in 36 probability of rolling a 6 in craps (on every roll) compared to a 6 in 36 chance of rolling a 7."
[edit] References
- Star Trek The Next Generation DVD set, volume 2, disc 3, selection 4.
[edit] External links
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Royale |
- The Royale at the Internet Movie Database
- "The Royale" at TV.com
- The Royale at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
- The Royale at StarTrek.com
- The Royale rewatch by Keith R.A. DeCandido
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