Written by John Edward BetancourtIt's interesting when you look at Star Trek: The Next Generation as a whole when it comes to how many magnificent episodes permeated the show. But of course, there were other ones that left us wondering what the executive creative team was thinking and oddly enough, you'll find most of those strange episodes in the early years and final years of TNG. One such episode arrived in season two of the show and well, it was so off the wall and so not Star Trek that I find myself compelled to watch it every single time it is on, 'The Royale'. In this particular tale the crew of the Enterprise finds wreckage from a lost NASA/United States ship known as the Charybdis. Riker takes an away team consisting of Data and Worf down to the planet to see what happened to this age old vessel only to discover that a 20th Century casino known as the Hotel Royale, complete with life forms that resemble humans, is standing on this inhospitable planet and now the away team is trapped inside its walls. When I first saw this episode I thought we were looking at a re hash of 'A Piece of the Action' from The Original Series and in a way, it was. Aliens had found literature from earth in that TOS episode and modeled a society after it and well, the aliens in this story were up to something similar, but in this case this recreated era served as an apology from the native species on this planet to the last surviving crew member of the Charybdis for letting the rest of his fellow astronauts die. If it had been left to something of that effect, I would not have found this episode strange, as since TNG and TOS had crossed paths on many occasions. No what made this episode weird, was the sheer fact that it well...went where no one had gone before. There were stereotypes abound in this one, something that one would think is forbidden in this franchise and oh yeah, the solution to getting Riker and the away team home was for them to live out the events of the fictional novel Hotel Royale. The solution also included Data gambling away at the craps table, saying such 'iconic' lines as 'baby needs a new pair of shoes.' Go ahead and watch the episode if you haven't seen it and don't believe me. That actually happens. Thankfully this is another one off, but wow, did this one leave your head spinning because the only thing that resembled the Star Trek universe in this go round...were the title cards when the episode began.
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