Up The Long Ladder

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Worf passes out at his station from the Klingon measles. To spare him humiliation, Pulaski tells Picard that Worf passed out from a ritual fast. Worf thanks Pulaski for her lies with a Klingon poison tea ceremony."Death is an experience best shared: like the tea."

Then he quotes poetry to her. One can only imagine:

'There once was a Klingon from Gault,

Who never admitted a fault.

For curing my measles

Here's a bag full of weasels

And also a chocolate malt.'

Admiral Moore called Picard in to discuss the sound effects from the video game 'Asteroids'. Which were for some reason used as distress beacon by the European Hegemony in the 22nd Century.

'You are too proud to call your greasy Yankee potatoes French fries? Then we are too proud to use the mouldy old S.O.S.! Hoh hoh honh!'

S.S. Mariposa launched in the 'chaos' of the 22nd Century. They carried an insane mix of cargo and followed the Neo-Trancendentalist philosophy of a return to nature. Including the 'gentle tutelage' of nature's deadly, deadly radiation. So today Enterprise evacuates 223 Bringloidi colonists with all their flocks, cocks, and stinky socks.

With a smile and a wink, here comes wee Danilo Odell from Stock Comedy Mick central casting! Oh, what a clever new idea- a drunk Irishman!

Odell's fiery daughter Brenna catches Riker's eye. And penis.

The severe wool shortage on Bringloid left Brenna with a tiny, tiny, sweater poor woman.

Enterprise douses the refugee cooking fires with forcefields, and automatically cleans up the hay and faeces, too. But apparently it doesn't wash Miss Odell, leaving that task... to Riker.

The First Officer grins. 'I feel it's my responsibility to show you all the amenities.' With my penis.

The Tech-heads settled one system over on planet Mariposa, but only 5 of them survived the landing. Ever since, they've been a population of clones. Prime Minister Granger needs help: 300 years of cloning causes replicative fading. 15 generations is about the most you can get out of it, apparently. This long-stifled society now finds sexual reproduction repugnant. So they bat their eyes and wet their lips: hey, Starfleet, got any spare DNA for me?

Picard and Riker believe no one in the crew does. Therefore, the buggers steal some.

Geordi can see a lie in humans. Useful at a poker game, useful with lying clones. The clones lied about Riker and Pulaski's whereabouts because they were helping themselves to some delicious stomach cells. Riker destroys the incubating clones. He can't hear Granger calling him a murderer because his phaser is too loud.

Picard conducts a shotgun wedding of cultures: the carnal Bringloidi and the flaccid- uh, placid Mariposans.

Pulaski virtually insists on non-monogamy... for a broader genetic base, natch! Apart from the wagging tongues and higher video sales, what is the point of polygamy here? They would be open to immigration, right? Big, empty developed world for that expanding Federation of yours? Let the poor virgins make that choice for themselves, Pulaski. Just because you had three husbands doesn't make it right for everybody.

"Up The Long Ladder" is just what Picard said: bowing to the absurd. It's silly, but who cares?