By Chris Snellgrove
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Whereas it’s an excellent episode in most respects, many Star Trek: The Subsequent Era followers have discovered to hate the episode “Booby Lure.” That’s due to a creepy subplot by which Geordi LaForge begins falling in love with a hologram of fellow engineer Leah Brahms, and he makes issues insanely bizarre (we’re speaking incel: the ultimate frontier) when he runs into the true girl in a later episode. Nonetheless, these followers ought to know that it may all the time be worse: initially, this hated plot was going to have Picard interacting with Brahms and finally saving the day.
Why Star Trek Nearly Made Booby Lure Worse
Having the lead actor take part on this cringeworthy Star Trek storyline could very properly have made “Booby Lure” even worse. Happily, we have been spared having to see this due to showrunner Michael Piller, who felt that “It ought to be Geordi, as a result of Geordi is in love with the ship and it is a story a couple of man in love together with his ’57 Chevy.” Regardless of what some followers now assume, Piller didn’t see this as any form of character assassination…as a substitute, he thought it “performed into Geordi’s character, who’s all the time been a fumbling man round girls, but when he may simply marry his automotive, he’d stay fortunately ever after.”
As enormous Star Trek nerds ourselves, it’s admittedly a bit tough to think about Captain Picard spending all that point within the holodeck alongside Leah Brahms, particularly as a result of the disaster the ship is dealing with (its energy is being drained by an alien booby entice) clearly requires the expertise of an engineer. However possibly it’s not that loopy: within the earlier episode “11001001,” he competed with Riker for a hologram’s affection. Due to this fact, a subplot the place he had his personal flirty fascination with the holographic Leah Brahms won’t have been all that misplaced.
Moreover, the completed model of this Star Trek episode had Picard insisting on personally flying the ship out of the titular booby entice. This offers us a enjoyable glimpse of Picard’s internal management freak…his must kick out an skilled helmsman so he can show that his piloting expertise haven’t waned. Due to this, the sooner story thought by which Picard would have consulted with Leah Brahms as a substitute of leaving it to an skilled engineer doesn’t actually appear all that implausible.
Whereas it’s enjoyable to think about the Picard-centric story we may have had, some Star Trek followers could also be extra to be taught that “Booby Lure” options Geordi particularly as a result of he’s extra snug round machines than girls. Geordi is creepy to the Brahms hologram on this episode and downright hostile to the true girl in “Galaxy’s Youngster,” and these episodes disturbed sure followers as a result of the tales didn’t line up with the pleasant engineering chief’s standard character. Nonetheless, at least Michael Piller (arguably the perfect author TNG ever had) noticed this as a pure a part of Geordi’s unlucky-in-love arc reasonably than some dramatic outlier.
Star Trek: The Subsequent Era followers typically like “Booby Lure” aside from a few of the Geordi scenes that boldly go the place no cringe has gone earlier than. It’s not clear if Picard would have made these scenes much less creepy; in all probability, the character’s presence would simply make the captain much less likable. Due to a script change, Picard’s fame was spared, however Geordi’s suffered a warp core breach from which it by no means actually recovered.
