First Contact

*** (3 stars out of 5)

His heart is where his guts should be, and under his shoes and mittens- he's got digits!

"Rivas Jakara" is the strangest patient Sikla Medical Facility has ever seen. He got hurt in a riot. His personal physician "Crusher" would be more familiar with his weird abnormalities- if there was any such doctor in the world.

Planet Malcor is readying its first interstellar flight. Conservative Minister Krola believes these advances are too fast for society to endure. Women should stick to making babies, not warp engines.

Mirasta Yale has a more open mind, and soon meets a pair of aliens: Picard and Troi. They explain that specialists have been studying the society covertly. One was Riker, and he's missing. Has anyone turned him in for the 10 cent first officer deposit?

Mirasta points out that Malcorians regard themselves as the centre of the universe. Many will be terrified of alien infiltration. They're also a little wigged out by Sasquatch.

Picard opens Robert's wine to share with Malcorian Chancellor Avil Durken. I'm pretty sure this guy isn't what Robert had in mind when he told his brother: 'Try not to drink it alone."

"This morning I was the leader of the universe as I know it. Tonight, I am only a voice in a chorus," says the Chancellor.

Riker is cornered by Nurse Lanel who has always wanted to make love with an alien. "I really have to get going, all the other... aliens are waiting for me." Yet he consents, and kisses the lips that Kelsey Grammar hath kissed.

The orderlies beat Riker soundly for being born weird and word of it reaches Krola. He attempts to frame Riker for murder. Plus he has some unpaid parking tickets he stuffs in Riker's pockets.

Durkin puts the warp program on hold to divert more resources to education. Maybe if they weren't such backward hicks they'd get more tourists...

Mirasta, however, successfully begs to go along on Enterprise. "I have been prepared for the realities of space travel since I was nine years old and sitting in a planetarium."

"First Contact" lays down the principles of current Federation practice. A far cry from Captain Kirk's day: beam down, overthrow local dictator, and bed a grateful nation.

As the old rhyme says: "In twenty-two hundred and seventy-two, Captain Kirk slept with Andorians blue. In twenty-two hundred and seventy-three, Captain Kirk said: It burns when I pee."