The Game

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Riker's insipidly giggling alien holiday consort Etana throws his communicator out the window of their Risian bungalow. Then they get down to some REAL fun and games...

Video Games.

Surveying the Phoenix Cluster with the help of vacationing Cadet Wesley Crusher, Mission Specialist Ensign Robin Lefler decides to survey the Cadet instead.

Everyone's having a good time today. "I never met a chocolate I didn't like." Troi is NOT kidding. Based on this monologue, Deanna is probably DATING this ice cream.

Worf baked Wes a cake. Lefler baked him a hearty handshake. She makes up her own laws of the universe. She knows about Wesley's prank war with Cadet Martoni. She also knows about his birthmark. It's a Hyper-Nerd Meet Cute!

While everybody is full of sugar and orgasms, poor Data sits the whole thing out, shut down by the Devious Doctor Crusher. And she's a little TOO eager to make her son play a video game. Does that seem right?

ONLY Wes and Robin (whose first friends were a warp coil and a tricorder, respectively) would STUDY a game instead of PLAYING it. They determine that it stimulates the septal area (the pleasure centre), is psychotropically addictive, and screws with reasoning. Yet only slightly less than 'Angry Birds'.

Wes narcs to the Captain, but once the doors close, Jean-Luc is popping frisbees into funnels with the best of them!

Only the nerds are left: and the brawny nerd is in a coma.

Robin and Wes jump on the bed and 'fake it' so Worf and his mom will stop bugging them. Do not read anything into this.

"I'm at level 47," moans Nurse Ogawa. SHE'S not faking it. And I'll have what she's having...

Etanna of the Ktarians wants to make the Enterprise crew her game distribution mules. In Soviet Ktaria, GAME plays YOU!

Wes runs the crew a merry chase that would do Roga Danar proud. But in the end, his loving friends and family hold him down and make him play with himself. Do not read anything into this.

Data dims the lights and flashes everyone.

With a flashlight, you pervos. It's the cure. Everyone knows bright light is the only thing that can stop basement trolls.

Etanna is arrested. They confiscate all her tokens and quarters. Wes and Robin engage in something cuddlesome.

"The Game" is a fun story, a great return for Wil Wheaton, and is not harmed at all by the appealing Ashley Judd. After today, there's even photographic evidence that a girl would touch Wesley's underpants. There's hope for us all!