Original air date: January 12, 1988
As the Enterprise approaches a rendezvous with a touchy alien race who demand that Captain Picard render a perfect greeting in their own language, a computer malfunction traps Picard, Data, and Beverly in a Dixon Hill holodeck program set in early 20th-century Earth.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Affably Evil: Redblock is unfailingly polite, even when he is threatening to kill someone.
- As You Know: Picard describes the holodeck and its function in his personal log, clearly for the benefit of his 20th century audience rather than his 24th.
- Bait-and-Switch: If the opening act had you hoping for some interesting interactions with the Jaradar, you're going to walk away rather angry.
- Cliché Storm: Invoked with the Dixon Hill stories, which are designed to consist almost solely of detective story clichés — the hardboiled private eye, the dark, rainy city, the mysterious dame at the beginning, the shady plot beneath a seemingly simple case...
- Conveniently Unverifiable Cover Story: To explain Data's odd appearance, Picard / Hill tells a newstand proprietor that he's from South America. This works on every holodeck character he encounters except for Redblock, who has traveled around the world and has obviously never seen anyone like Data before.
- Dream Apocalypse: After the reality of the situation is revealed to the holodeck characters, and the crew prepares to leave, one of the generated characters asks him if his world will continue to exist after Picard will leave it behind.McNary: So this is the big goodbye. Tell me something, Dixon. When you've gone, will this world still exist? Will my wife and kids still be waiting for me at home?
Picard: I honestly don't know. Good-bye, my friend. - Early-Installment Weirdness:
- As the first Next Gen holodeck story, the script establishes rules that are contradicted in later episodes, most noticeably the Moriarty episodes. One major thing that never comes up again is the revelation that, if not shut down properly, the holodeck will kill anyone inside at the time, although it's kind of understandable why Starfleet may have issued a software patch for that little problem.
- Characters that step off the holodeck exist for about ten seconds before they slowly dematerialize. Later episodes would show that anything from the holodeck instantly vanishes once it leaves the grid. This discrepancy is never explained.
- Picard gets made fun of by the holodeck characters for wearing his Starfleet uniform, which from their perception is some sort of Halloween costume, and he has to tell them that he "lost a bet." He talks about making sure to get changed before coming into the simulation again. In future installments, the holodeck dresses the characters in period-appropriate costume either automatically or on demand, depending on the situation. For example, in Star Trek: First Contact, Picard suggests "Perhaps something in satin?" before entering the holodeck with Lily, and she is dressed in a satin shimmering evening gown for the program. Also, in later installments when the cast does enter the holodeck in Starfleet uniforms, the characters are programmed to not notice or care.
- Expy: The gangsters in the holodeck program are thinly veiled copies of the villains from The Maltese Falcon (1941).
- Fading Away: Two holodeck characters, not believing that they aren't real, step out of the holodeck and onto an Enterprise corridor. They congratulate themselves, and then fade away from the feet up.
- Forgot About His Powers: Data, being much stronger and faster than human beings, could have attacked the lone gangster with the gun with minimal risk, even given that Data's physical abilities hadn't been fully established by this point in the series. He only uses his superior physicality at the very end, once Picard himself has dealt with the gunman.
- Friend on the Force: Within the simulation, Lieutenant McNary serves a police officer friend for the private investigator Dixon Hill.
- Holodeck Malfunction: The main plot consists of Picard, Crusher, Whalen and Data becoming trapped in the holodeck after an alien scanning signal damages its computer system. This is the very first such plot in Star Trek, unless you count an episode of the animated series. Or one of the original series.
- Hypocritical Humor: At the end of the episode, Picard shushes Data after he starts to narrate noir-style to Geordi that "It was raining in the city by the bay," but then tells Geordi to "Step on it" instead of his usual "Engage."
- It Will Never Catch On: The newspaper vendor laughs when Data says that Joe DiMaggio's historical streak will be snapped by the Cleveland Indians.
- Lampshade Hanging: A newspaper seller character picks up that Data's "not from around here" and Picard (as Dixon Hill) passes him off as "from South America." Being a holodeck character, the newsman obliviously (or sarcastically) responds "nice tan!" (Data's skin is white.)
- Literal-Minded: Picard is asked by a cop where he was last night, to which he says "that'll be hard to explain" because he's thinking of his time off the holodeck rather than in the story.
- Literary Allusion Title: The title combines two of Raymond Chandler's detective novels, The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye.
- MacGuffin: The "item" that Redblock is searching for, presumably based on the classic MacGuffin from The Maltese Falcon. In this version, however, Picard doesn't even know what it is, so he couldn't give it up if he tried.
- Moment Killer: Picard and Crusher have a brief romantic moment when she turns up after his interrogation, and she asks to see "his" (Dixon Hill's) office... but Whalen and Data ask to tag along too. The Doctor is visibly not pleased.
- Noir Episode: The holodeck simulation's based on a 1940s detective novel, so naturally it has a noir feel.
- Noodle Incident: It's heavily hinted that, the last time Starfleet encountered the Jarada, the results were gruesome to say the least. The Enterprise has a log of the incident, but no one except Data wants to see it or listen to it, leaving everything that happened entirely up to the viewer's imagination.
- Of Course I Smoke: Picard has obviously never smoked a day in his life when he puffs on a cigarette while in character as Dixon Hill and goes down in a coughing fit. This is notable for being the first time that any crew member in Star Trek ever smokes, as Roddenberry wanted to show that the habit had died out in Earth's future.
- Oh, Crap!: When Data grabs the gun out of the last one of Redblock's mooks, pinches the barrel closed, and grabs him by the shirt the mook's expression shows that he knows that he's about to experience a serious amount of pain.
- Protocol Peril: Picard has to get the alien language precisely correct, or the Jarada will take grave offense and refuse to open diplomatic relations.
- Red Shirt: A new character named Whalen tags along with our main cast members. Sure enough, he's the one who gets shot.
- Rule of Funny: Anything from the holodeck fades away if it's taken out— except the lipstick mark that the Femme Fatale leaves on Picard's cheek, because it's more fun to see the crew react as he obliviously wanders around with it.
- Ship Tease: Picard invites Crusher to join him next time he enters the holodeck, and she is quite pleased to agree... until he announces that he'll be inviting Whalen, and it won't be just the two of them. The Moment Killer mentioned above plays out similarly, featuring Jean-Luc complimenting Beverly's period dress and a long look into each other's eyes.
- Shout-Out: Redblock's name is probably a shout-out to Sydney Greenstreet, a veteran noir actor who made his name as a villain in The Maltese Falcon.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Redblock keeps shouting his name as he and Felix dematerialize after stepping off the holodeck, as if that means anything for a holodeck character.
- Title Drop: "The big goodbye" is the one between friends who will never see each other again. Picard shares a poignant farewell with McNary, Dixon's Friend on the Force.
- The Voice: The Jarada; they're never actually seen, in spite of the episode's buildupnote .
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Whalen ends up getting out of the holodeck in time to receive medical treatment, but then the episode forgets to confirm that he survived.
- Zeerust: Data mentions the "tape of the last starship to come into contact with [the Jarada]", which either may be an idea from the olden days of TOS, or it may be that Star Trek TNG hadn't yet caught on that our current technology of the time (whether video, audio, or data tape) would be obsolete.
