By Chris Snellgrove
| Revealed 20 seconds in the past
Whereas it’s a terrific episode in most respects, many Star Trek: The Subsequent Era followers have discovered to hate the episode “Booby Entice.” That’s due to a creepy subplot during which Geordi LaForge begins falling in love with a hologram of fellow engineer Leah Brahms, and he makes issues insanely bizarre (we’re speaking incel: the ultimate frontier) when he runs into the true girl in a later episode. Nonetheless, these followers ought to know that it might all the time be worse: initially, this hated plot was going to have Picard interacting with Brahms and in the end saving the day.
Why Star Trek Virtually Made Booby Entice Worse
Having the lead actor take part on this cringeworthy Star Trek storyline might very properly have made “Booby Entice” even worse. Luckily, we had been spared having to see this due to showrunner Michael Piller, who felt that “It ought to be Geordi, as a result of Geordi is in love with the ship and it is a story a couple of man in love together with his ’57 Chevy.” Regardless of what some followers now suppose, Piller didn’t see this as any form of character assassination…as an alternative, he thought it “performed into Geordi’s character, who’s all the time been a fumbling man round ladies, but when he might simply marry his automobile, he’d stay fortunately ever after.”
As enormous Star Trek nerds ourselves, it’s admittedly a bit troublesome to think about Captain Picard spending all that point within the holodeck alongside Leah Brahms, particularly as a result of the disaster the ship is dealing with (its energy is being drained by an alien booby lure) clearly requires the expertise of an engineer. However perhaps it’s not that loopy: within the earlier episode “11001001,” he competed with Riker for a hologram’s affection. Subsequently, a subplot the place he had his personal flirty fascination with the holographic Leah Brahms won’t have been all that misplaced.
Moreover, the completed model of this Star Trek episode had Picard insisting on personally flying the ship out of the titular booby lure. This provides us a enjoyable glimpse of Picard’s interior management freak…his must kick out an skilled helmsman so he can show that his piloting abilities haven’t waned. Due to this, the sooner story concept during which Picard would have consulted with Leah Brahms as an alternative of leaving it to an skilled engineer doesn’t actually appear all that implausible.
Whereas it’s enjoyable to think about the Picard-centric story we might have had, some Star Trek followers could also be extra to study that “Booby Entice” options Geordi particularly as a result of he’s extra snug round machines than ladies. Geordi is creepy to the Brahms hologram on this episode and downright hostile to the true girl in “Galaxy’s Baby,” and these episodes disturbed sure followers as a result of the tales didn’t line up with the pleasant engineering chief’s normal persona. Nonetheless, a minimum of Michael Piller (arguably the most effective author TNG ever had) noticed this as a pure a part of Geordi’s unlucky-in-love arc fairly than some dramatic outlier.
Star Trek: The Subsequent Era followers usually like “Booby Entice” aside from among the Geordi scenes that boldly go the place no cringe has gone earlier than. It’s not clear if Picard would have made these scenes much less creepy; in all probability, the character’s presence would simply make the captain much less likable. Due to a script change, Picard’s popularity was spared, however Geordi’s suffered a warp core breach from which it by no means really recovered.
