I have to thank another reviewer for bringing up an old original Star Trek episode titled 'Spectre of the Gun'. Not a favorite of a lot of viewers, I really enjoyed it since I'm a big Western TV and movie fan. The story concerned an alien race that had only a limited ability to adapt Captain Kirk's memories of 1880's Tombstone, casting a team from the Enterprise as members of the Clanton Gang going up against Wyatt Earp with his brothers and Doc Holliday in the Gunfight at the OK Corral. The story here takes advantage of a little down time on the Enterprise while waiting for a supply ship, as Lieutenant Worf (Michael Dorn) and son Alexander (Brian Bonsall) don Western gear and head for Deadwood of the 1880's. The holodeck program would have afforded Alex a fun time at one of his favorite pastimes, but a malfunction in the circuit pathways of the ship's computer system occurred when Commander LaForge (LeVar Burton) and Commander Data (Brent Spiner) experimented with hooking up some of Data's neural links to run systems aboard the ship. The resultant fiasco created multiple Datas in various outlaw guises, as his 'gang' kidnapped Alex and forced a showdown with Sheriff Worf. The holodeck's system protocols having been affected, there was no way to freeze the Deadwood program. Fortunately, Worf was able to outgun Data Frank Hollander just as things were set aright aboard the Enterprise.
As a couple points of interest, I thought having Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) accompany Worf to Deadwood as the mysterious stranger named Durango was a novel touch. Her ten-gallon hat managed to hide the annoying new curly hairdo she had in the prior two episodes. Captain Picard had a deprecatingly funny line early in the story when Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) tried to enlist him for a play aboard the Enterprise - "And uh, anyway, I'm not much of an actor". And finally, I thought it was pretty cool how the story defined 1880's Deadwood as part of the ancient West. Five hundred years gone by, the term 'Old West' was no longer deemed appropriate.
As a couple points of interest, I thought having Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) accompany Worf to Deadwood as the mysterious stranger named Durango was a novel touch. Her ten-gallon hat managed to hide the annoying new curly hairdo she had in the prior two episodes. Captain Picard had a deprecatingly funny line early in the story when Dr. Crusher (Gates McFadden) tried to enlist him for a play aboard the Enterprise - "And uh, anyway, I'm not much of an actor". And finally, I thought it was pretty cool how the story defined 1880's Deadwood as part of the ancient West. Five hundred years gone by, the term 'Old West' was no longer deemed appropriate.