Season 3 Episode 5
The Bonding
Stardate: 43198.7

[Plot]
the crew lose a crewman under the command of Worf. the crew start dealing with it in their way and Picard has to tell Jeremy Astor that his mom died. some stuff

then aliens

then Worf adds Jeremy into his house/family as a brother

[Rating]
this episode had parts that could have made it:
4 - Good episode: A few parts of the episode are above average - good plot points, clever use of effects and so on.
or
5 - Excelent episode: Episode excels in most or all ways - major character development, good story and so on

however due to choices made by writers or possibly Gene..
Finished episode is:
1 - Bad episode: Multiple weaknesses (bad acting, bad story, disasterous effects, poor connection to lore)

{Episode Commentary}
By Q, this is a horrible episode. it could have been a good or great episode but they had to put in aliens. after that, the episode became as bad as Neelix making cheese that almost destroyed the ship by making it sick or the episode "Code of Honor". just complete and utter garbage.

I liked and wanted to see everything about the crew dealing with losing somebody and how things would be handled. The different reactions, the explorations of Worf, and Picard, the others. The learning about how Wesley feels about Picard in relation to his own father. That part all worked out well. And Picard dealing with and trying to help Jeremy actually process and grow through his grief. That would have been rather nice.

But Aliens...

Seriously, this was about the worst of all possible decisions to have made. Whenever Fake Mom showed up and was around, it just completely killed any interest that i had in the episode after. She just completely ruins every single one of the dramatic plot beats and makes the whole thing entirely dumb. Why did we need to include them, those aliens? It completely throughs out the dramatic work that appears and tosses it out. Then the story tries to work. It simply doesn't.

We don't need to include anything that the Aliens provide. In fact, they should have been excised and something had Jeremy's mom die due to some leftover bomb or device, establish that it had been leftover from some previous conflict by aliens, and simply leave it at that. We don't need some aliens showing up over stuff about the bomb or whatever. We don't need them showing up about whatever. Just explain that the bomb was there because a conflict happened, and focus solely on the emotional element of grieving.

The episode would have been watchable at that point, because as soon as Fake Mom showed up, I just checked out. I didn't have a good impression that the writers were going to give the story that was starting up any dramatic props that it needed, when she made her appearance. I can't remember any of the plot anymore, aside that things were going on with fake mom and also that Worf lights the candles to add in Jeremy to something.

This episode suffers heavily by needing to fulfill the Science Fiction element of Star Trek TNG, when it should have focused on the dramatic, and avoid aliens like the plague. the aliens did major damage to the story and made it seem like the subject matter of death and grieving was something that the writers really needed to mock thoroughly. The aliens or whatever the fake mom deal was, seems to (or seemed to) me existed solely to mock the grieving process at best. to make as much fun of it as possible and make it (the process) be treated as weird and wrong and not worth doing or to be done. It just made it seem like the writers wanted you to come with the sense that shedding tears over someone dying makes you a retard or stupid or just some other insulting thing.

This is made worse with the Picard speech about people/humans needing to grieve or whatever, but the episode basically takes a crap over all of Picard's comments, and frankly I can't see Picard having given a speech, as much as the writers suddenly realizing the whole episode script that they wrote is garbage or just straight up weird, and they need Picard to read the writers' comments. Which make no sense given everything else that happens already.

We don't need the aliens, and we don't need them to carry the story, as it would have worked without any aliens. Even Fake Mom, or seeing what Jeremy's mom looked like was completely unnecessary. Just mention her and then go on. Don't cast anybody and don't use this kind of story about alien whatever. I couldn't keep myself wanting to watch the rest of the episode because of how insulted i felt for when Fake Mom showed up. Like the writers had just spit on me.

Why did we need this episode? Given how it got executed, it should have been cut before it aired. Even worse is that it was supposedly written for how having a red shirt die and having the crew/mainCast care about that, was supposed to happen. Nothing of that sort appeared or was conveyed at all.

Was Gene smoking something? this episode just feels like it was made to take Star Trek's message of exploration of both the external and internal and see how much side message could be pissed on or crapped on.

Maybe a better episode could have been made, but only after certain of the writers were shot? I don't know. The episode feels completely more like Gene doing some seriously dumb stuff in the episode and pissing on everything.

the Aliens added stuff is just so bad, so bad, and not in the so bad it's good fashion. Just straight up super bad.

So? Do fellow playgrounders agree? Disagree? Comments of your own? Get some discussing going on

Trackers)
Picard's Gifts: 1
Prime Directive Hell: 1
Q Messes with the Crew, For Laughs: 1
Doctor Who timey-wimey Destructo Enterprise Disco: 1
Klingon Rituals/Rites: 1
Poker Playing: 2
Gene Roddenberry ruins Star Trek: 4 (Grief is for suckers and aliens wah! too)
Redshirts Actually wearing a Redshirt Deaths: 1
Hidden Gems: 5
Funny Guest Star Appearances: 5 ()
Rank of Miles: Ensign, Two Gold Pips
Prime Directives: 3
Patrick Stewart Speech: 4 (Did I miss an earlier one? I don't think so)
Riker "Patrick Stewart Speech": 1
Riker Romances Something/Someone: 2
Pithy Aesops: 1
Klingon Proverbs/Beliefs/Sentiments: 1) Drink not with thine enemy; A) Several in the Episode, "Heart of Glory";
Worfed (Worf loses to establish danger): 2
Holodeck Mishaps/Breakings/Issues: 1
Actually Alien Aliens: 1
Lore's Appearances: 1
*Data's Emotions: 3
*Troi Troubles: 1
*Money Matters: 1
Polarize the Phase Inverters: 1