Friday April 27 |
Title: 11001001
Season: 1
Episode: 15
Written by Jennifer Goodman
This weeks episode is all about binary representations and Riker’s fabricated love affair. The title has a significant meaning to the episode as the binary system represents numeric values using the numbers 0 and 1 (hence the last two digits in the title). What adds greater significance to the Binary numeral system and this Star Trek episode is the fact that the curious aliens called the “Bynars” which invade the Enterprise always come in pairs of two and hack into the Enterprise’s computer system. Similarly, the binary numeric system is typically used in computers and is based on 2 to the power of (x) in a decimal format.
The episode begins with the Enterprise arriving at the Starbase 74 to get a computer upgrade. As they arrive at the Star Base, Captain Picard and Commander Riker are greeted by an unusual species of aliens called the Bynars. The Bynar brain functions on the same level as binary code which makes them difficult to communicate with. The Bynars are responsible for the computer upgrade while Picard and Riker enjoy the leisure time. Little did they know, they would be manipulated and distracted into a scheme brought out by the Bynars.
While the human-like aliens start to perform the computer maintenance check, Riker gets distracted in the Holodeck where he gets transported into a New Orleans Jazz bar and meets a computer generated image of a seductive woman named Minuet. Riker gets lost in the scenery and becomes extremely infatuated with his simulated dream woman. Later, Picard joins Riker and Minuet in the Holodeck and he too, becomes distracted in the conversation. However, the distraction leaves the Bynars more time to mess with the computer system. Then Wesley, Geordi and Data discover there is a glitch in the main computers system that commands an immediate evacuation procedure to be carried out as the ship will explode within five minutes. As both Riker and Picard are fully oblivious to the situation taking place outside the Holodeck, the Enterprise team begin to evacuate the ship. Once they realized that all along they were being stalled by the Bynars to stay in the Holodeck through the creation of Minuet, Riker and Picard investigate the situation by trying to contact the bridge but nobody responds.
After much commotion, when they soon find out that the Enterprise is heading towards the Bynar’s planet, Riker and Picard realize that the reason why the Bynars were trying to mess with the computer was to save their own plant from disaster. Luckily, the Enterprise does not explode and the crew re-enter the ship. Picard and Riker are able to assist the Bynars and help them save their planet. To show appreciation, the aliens return to the starbase to plead guilty.
Even though everything works out in the end, Riker however is disappointed. When he decides to return to the Holodeck to see Minuet (the love of his life) one more time, he is not greeted by Minuet. Instead, there is another woman waiting who happens to greatly resembles Minuet. Sadly, Riker is left heart broken and confused, but at least we can say that the Enterprise didn’t become an explosion in space.
Source: wikipedia