Fun diversion from the norm allows the Picard character to have some much deserved fun as he uses the Holodeck to recreate a 40s crime detective hero, Dixon Hill, while the Enterprise is on a course to rendezvous with a class of aliens with a unique language. This species expects the greeting from their visitor's top ranking officer to be pronounced perfectly without a single syllable out of place. Their scan of the Enterprise, a surprise Commander Riker and the crew weren't expecting, causes the Holodeck Picard, historian Whalen, Data, and Dr. Crusher are in to malfunction, leaving them trapped in the program. Even worse, Dixon's arch nemesis, criminal kingpin, Cyrus Redblock (the perfectly cast Lawrence Tierney) demands to know where his special object of substantial worth is located (a homage to the Maltese Falcon), showing up uninvited and at the most inopportune time for the Captain. Cyrus Redblock's trigger-happy gunsel, Felix Leech (Harvey Jason, with a voice mimicking Peter Lorre) shoots Whalen (David Selburg), and the bullet is real enough to cause massive internal bleeding. Redblock promises to shoot Beverly Crusher if Dixon doesn't give him what he's after. Picard, thinking on his feet, might have another proposition, by trying to convince Redblock that he's actually from another time and place! While Picard and company are stranded in the Holodeck program, Wesley and Geordi attempt to locate the malfunction within the computer and fix it so that it releases them. Cyrus and Felix desire to visit Picard's world, not knowing what's in store for them. "The Big Goodbye" is a Holodeck-themed episode that gives us a tour of all it can do; this episode establishes the breakthroughs in the Holodeck technology, with Picard jovial and enthusiastically informing his Bridge crew of its many wonders. This is also an episode that lets us return to a former world, certainly of fiction, yet including real things quite alien to the Enterprise crew members who trip to the Dixon Hill era of American life. Relics to them (cars, talks of baseball, newspapers, wardrobe of that particular period, the lingo, etc.), are brought to life, the 40s period beautifully presented for our amusement. The outside Enterprise drama, a rush against time before the Enterprise meets the rendezvous point, is less important even though the episode tries to build suspense in Picard's absence within the Holodeck. Seeing Picard (and, especially Data) interact with 40s caricatures is quite funny (such as Data's speaking of DiMaggio's streak ending to the Indians as newspaper salesman Dick Miller (!) scoffs at such crazy talk (Miller delivers those lines as only he can; a cameo quite inspired and memorable), and this episode is certain to be an audience-pleaser much in the same fashion as the Sherlock Holmes-themed episode "Elementary, My Dear Data."
Review of The Big Goodbye
