1307. Captain's PleasurePUBLICATION: Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Space Between #2, IDW Comics, February 2007
CREATORS: David Tischman (writer), Casey Maloney (artist)
STARDATE: 45315.1 (between Unification II and A Matter of Time)
PLOT: Picard has taken a week off the ship to participate in an archaeological dig. The dig team find an ancient, crashed shuttlepod from the Columbia NX-02, along with priceless harmonic crystals. Immediately, the team starts fighting over who gets the crystals and what they'll do with the money, except Picard who believes they should go back to their owners. Soon, team members start getting murdered, until only the murderer and Picard are left. Together, they make a great find hidden behind the shuttlepod, but when Picard calls out the murders' culprit, he is almost killed as well. The Enterprise's away team arrives just in time and Dr. Crusher confirms the crystals emit waves that encourage violence and greed. Indeed, the shuttlepod was stolen long ago and its crew killed each other over them.
CONTINUITY: The captain's log mentions leaving Spock on Romulus, which places it immediately after Unification. The Columbia NX-02 was first introduced in United. The story's title harks back to another archaeological story, Captain's Holiday. We discovered Beverly was a dancer in Data's Day.
DIVERGENCES: Riker would have the shuttlepod reported stolen in 2296, which is almost a century and half after the Columbia's launch.
PANEL OF THE DAY - I can only assume that Beverly likes them grabby sometimes.
REVIEW: Not as strong or unified an issue as the first, Captain's Pleasure features a pretty typical murder non-mystery and jeopardy for Picard that ends as soon as it begins. I'd have liked to see the Andorian cook in a longer tale, but the entire guest cast was meant to be disposable. I'm not sure why we needed an Enterprise-era shuttlepod in this, especially if it was "stolen" and thus relatively unrelated to the Columbia or even early Starfleet. Just a fannish reference that begs for more to be done with it. The subplot involving Deanna surprising Beverly on the holodeck dancing disco is amusing on the surface, but again, nothing comes of it. It creates a fun scene, but doesn't define why it should be included. So this one fails to realize its full potential, I'm afraid.
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