The Perfect Mate

** (2 stars out of 5)

The Kriosian Ambassador Briam looks like he should be giving Buck Rogers a stern talking-to for his latest unauthorized antics against the Draconians!

Also, Vash's Ferengi rival Sovak either changed his name or he has the now-standard identical cousin.

Up to no good and rescued from a shuttle they sabotaged themselves, two scheming Ferengi scheme something scheme-y.

Geordi forces one of them to meet the dolphins (sadly, this is not a mob euphemism like 'sleep with the fishes, see').

The other Ferengi tries to steal the Kriosian's valuable secret cargo: a leopard-spotted woman inside a golden egg.

Picard sputters briefly about the constitutional rights of the individual. Kamala claims she's not a slave, but a mutant empathic metamorph destined to bond for peace with Alrik of planet Valt.

(She's a mutant, all right! It's Professor X and Jean Grey in: The Tedious Xylophone Affair!)

That is to say, Kamala becomes 'the perfect mate' for whatever man happens to be nearby. Riker avoids her charms, barely, by ducking into the holodeck instead of into a cold shower. He and every other male around starts uncontrollably drooling and banging into walls.

Security is doing brilliantly today: first leaving the egg unattended in an unlocked room, then not once suggesting a force of Amazons should be in charge of Kamala?

Buzzkill Bev Crusher isn't very keen on this sort of thing. She uses offensively accurate words like "prostitution". So Picard blurts "Prime Directive!" like that makes everything O.K. Then he orders Data to chaperone Kamala, dragging her off a cluster of uncouth miners and a snarling Worf.

"I'm really quite dull," Picard claims to the woman, (who has totally got the hots for him, you understand). And later, "I'm just trying to be as dull as possible." Well played, sir. You and everyone else today.

The Ferengi fail to bribe Ambassador Briam into accidentally giving THEM the Leopard Print Barbie, and in their foolish struggle they smash him through a table.

So Picard is forced to hang out with the Magical Pretty Girl ALL BY HIMSELF, playing xylophones and gossiping about the goblin in the orange fright wig she's due to marry.

What could possibly happen next? And why should anyone care in the slightest?

This story seems like kind of a throwback. I mean, this seems like the sort of thing that would happen to Captain Kirk. In fact, didn't this happen to Captain Kirk? In 'Elan of Troyius', I mean.

 "The Perfect Mate" is well-performed puffery with nothing much to say about anything. Girls are pretty and pliant, boys are dumb and disgusting, now let's pretend it never happened and eat some pie.