History Recap / StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E5Disaster

* GenreSavvy: Upon arriving in engineering, Riker sees the power is a mess, but that the viewscreens are all on. He realizes that someone on the bridge is trying to alert them to what problem needs fixing.

* TookALevelInBadass: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]]. Marissa [[GrewASpine grows enough of a spine]] to refuse to abandon Picard.

* FourLinesAllWaiting: There are five situations going on simultaneously in the aftermath of the collision with the filament: Troi, Ro, O'Brien and a few extras on the bridge, Picard and the kids in the turbolift, LaForge and Crusher with the fire in the cargo bay, Riker and Data getting to engineering, and Worf and his adventures in midwifing Keiko's labor.

* FourLinesAllWaiting: There are four situations going on simultaneously.

* InLaymansTerms: O'Brien translates some of Ro's {{technobabble}} for Troi.

* DramaPreservingHandicap: Troi's empathic abilities abruptly become functionally useless, preventing her from determining how many people are alive or dead, or where they are on the ship. She knows that there ''are'' people elsewhere who are alive, but not where they are on the ship.
The main purpose of this power outage is to preserve the tension over the question of whether or not to separate the saucer section, since if Troi were aware that Picard, Riker and [=LaForge=] were all still alive and working on various parts of the problem she would have just been able to tell Ro to shut up and let the rest of the command staff save the day. (It should be noted that Troi has been able to sense emotions of people on the planet while the ship is ''in orbit'', in another example of her plot-dependent powers.)

* DramaPreservingHandicap: Troi's empathic abilities abruptly become functionally useless, preventing her from determining how many people are alive or dead, or where they are on the ship. The best excuse is that everyone is freaked out. But this neglects the fact that the ''Enterprise'' has been in deadly danger before and Troi's powers were never white-noised (except when dramatically necessary). The main purpose of this power outage is to preserve the tension over the question of whether or not to separate the saucer section, since if Troi were aware that Picard, Riker and [=LaForge=] were all still alive and working on various parts of the problem she would have just been able to tell Ro to shut up and let the rest of the command staff save the day.
** Troi's empathic abilities tell her that there are people elsewhere who are alive and hurt, but she cannot tell for certain whether any of the living people she senses are in the stardrive section or not. Her empathic abilities are there, but are not fine-tuned enough to resolve the dilemma on their own.

* FourLinesAllWaiting

* IWillOnlySlowYouDown: Picard to the children.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The events here play a large role in Troi taking the promotion exam in[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E15ThineOwnSelf "Thine Own Self"]]).

* CrazyEnoughToWork: Geordi's idea to decompress the cargo bay, both putting out the plasma fire and dumping the explosive stuff. Not only does it work, it also averts ExplosiveDecompression. ([[SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay Crusher does, however, screw up by telling Geordi not to exhale;]] [[RealityIsUnrealistic in reality, holding your breath in a vacuum could rupture your lungs.]]
* DeliveryGuy: Worf plays this part to a tee.)

* CrazyEnoughToWork: Geordi's idea to decompress the cargo bay, both putting out the plasma fire and dumping the explosive stuff. Not only does it work, it also averts ExplosiveDecompression.
** [[SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay Crusher does, however, screw up by telling Geordi not to exhale;]] [[RealityIsUnrealistic in reality, holding your breath in a vacuum could rupture your lungs.]]
* DeliveryGuy: Worf plays this part to a tee.

* MoreExpendableThanYou: Data offers to use himself to absorb an electric current, allowing Riker to pass, which will cripple him, but should leave him repairable later on. Riker points out to regardless if whether or not he'd be willing to sacrifice Data, and he isn't, it would be pointless. Riker wouldn't be able to fix the Warp Core without him as he's not an engineer. Instead they disconnect Data's head and toss his headless body into the current, diverting it, but allowing Riker to take Data's head along so he can talk him through what repairs need to be done.

* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: The children to Picard.

* YouAreInCommandNow: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] with Troi, who is forced into command on the bridge after Lt. Monroe is killed. Despite her rank as Lieutenant Commander, she has no idea what she's doing. Neither does she seem to understand the basics of how the ship works. It really doesn't make sense that, as part of the Medical structure and not Command, she would take command of the bridge just by being ranked higher, but it makes for some good CharacterDevelopment (for example, the events of this episode is the main reason she takes the bridge officer's exam in [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E15ThineOwnSelf "Thine Own Self"]]).

* MoreExpendableThanYou: Data offers to use himself to absorb an electric current, allowing Riker to pass, which will cripple him, but should leave him repairable later on. Riker points out to regardless if whether or not he'd be willing to sacrifice Data, and he isn't, it would be pointless. Riker wouldn't be able to fix the Warp Core without him as he's not an engineer. Instead they disconnect Data's head and toss his headless body into the current, diverting it, but allowing Riker to take Data' head along so he can talk him through what repairs need to be done.

* TheDanza: None of the kids' last names are spoken onscreen. The plaque they make for Picard gives them the last names of their actors.

* YouAreInCommandNow: [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] with Troi, who is forced into command on the brdige after Lt. Monroe is killed. Despite her rank as Lieutenant Commander, she has no idea what she's doing. Neither does she seem to understand the basics of how the ship works. It really doesn't make sense that, as part of the Medical structure and not Command, she would take command of the bridge just by being ranked higher, but it makes for some good CharacterDevelopment (for example, the events of this episode is the main reason she takes the bridge officer's exam in [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E15ThineOwnSelf "Thine Own Self"]]).

* YouAreInCommandNow: Troi, being the highest-ranking officer on the bridge, is forced into command after Lt. Monroe is killed.
** [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]]: Despite her rank, she has no idea what she's doing. Neither does she seem to understand the basics of how the ship works. It really doesn't make sense that, as part of the Medical structure and not Command, she would take command of the bridge just by being ranked higher (just like Picard doesn't take command of counseling or sickbay despite outranking Troi and Crusher), but it makes for some good CharacterDevelopment (for example, the events of this episode is one of the main reasons she takes the bridge officer's exam in [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E15ThineOwnSelf "Thine Own Self"]]).

* NegativeSpaceWedgie: A "quantum filament," whatever the hell that is,[[note]] It's ''definitely'' [[CallBack nothing like]] a [[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E10TheLoss cosmic string]]]][[/note]] upending and disabling the ''Enterprise'' like a rogue tidal wave.

* NoAntagonist: The conflicts of the episode are caused by a technical catastrophe, not by any antagonistic character.

* YouAreInCommandNow: Troi, being the highest-ranking officer on the bridge.

* NegativeSpaceWedgie: A "quantum filament," whatever the hell that is, upending and disabling the ''Enterprise'' like a rogue tidal wave.

* ThreeMonthOldNewborn