YMMV / Star Trek: The Next Generation S2E21 "Peak Performance"

• Hilarious in Hindsight: All of the command staff's protests about combat preparedness not being important for Starfleet became this in a few seasons when it was established that Starfleet was actively fighting a war with the Cardassians at this time.
• No Budget: The U.S.S. Hathaway bridge is an obviously recycled TNG battle bridge with completely mismatched chairs, consoles, and displays, all taken from previous episodes and movies.
  • Even worse, the Hathaway's Main Engineering looks like a simple theater storage room, and her "warp core" looks less like a powerful antimatter engine, and more like a large fireplace. The whole set would barely meet the standards of TOS-era production.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Ensign Burke, who takes Worf's place at tactical and is assigned to watch Wesley "deactivate his experiment," is played by a young Glenn Morshower.
  • The Ferengi captain is played by Armin Shimerman.
• Special Effects Failure:
  • Kolrami's makeup only goes as far as his hairline. In HD versions of the episode, you can see his natural skin tone through his hair.
• Strawman Has a Point: Kolrami is portrayed as a self-important blowhard, but his obsession with pragmatic militarism is actually more reasonable than the show seems to believe.
  • Kolrami wants to assess the battle readiness of its captains, but Riker insists that "combat is a minor province in the field of a starship captain." This is a rather silly assertion considering the number of wars the Federation has and will fight, and if Starfleet isn't the Federation's military, what is?
  • Kolrami says that Enterprise must cut its losses and flee, abandoning the Hathaway because of The Needs of the Many. Riker actually agrees with him until he finds out new information that lets him come up with a new tactic.

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