failure to google

[healingmirth]

So every time there's an article like this about the dangers of screen addiction to Our Youth I try to go hunt down anything to corroborate a memory I have. I would have guessed it was Star Trek: TNG, but I finally went and scrolled through all the episode summaries and it doesn't seem to be there, argh. (It's not The Game.)

My memory is this - an away team, or equivalent representative in other canons, lands on a planet where people have ceased interacting with each other because of some virtual reality reason. I think the individuals were mostly okay? Except for a probable extinction due to lack of reproduction. IDK, also could have been teenagers unwittingly killing each other off. It seems like the sort of episode, in my memory, where Wesley Crusher Meets a Peer/Makes a Friend/Falls in Love would be a good chunk of the plot. If I didn't think it would have to be set in space, I might have guessed the same of Jonathan Brandis's character in SeaQuest.

I don't *think* I am confusing this with the Firefly crew landing on Miranda, because I really think 1) it's an older memory and 2) they woke up/unplugged/interacted with an actual person. But maybe not? Argh.

I've seen maybe three episodes of each of the later Star Treks with traveling ships; a lot more DS9, but this doesn't seem to fit anything they would have done. But it seems like the sort of cautionary tale story that Star Trek likes to do.

Ringing any bells? Argh.

ETA: Found, I think. From an episode of the inexplicably more future-y SeaQuest, itself set inexplicably even further in the future. "Playtime". YouTube provides. Also feat. Peter and Michael DeLuise playing genetically altered versions of everyone Peter and Michael DeLuise played in the 90s.

Comments

[muccamukk]

That's not ringing any Star Trek bells for me, but I'm fuzzy on season two. It sounds more like seaQuest, almost.

[healingmirth]

Oh my god, I think it is seaQuest! Which is a word my autocorrect knows. Odd.

Anyway! I was confused, because no water, but now I'm pretty sure I'm remembering "Playtime" based on this blog.

Thanks for the nudge! I'll have to go see if I can find some clips.

[muccamukk]

Right! I haven't seen season two in ages. I had been wondering if it was the season one episode with Evil!Tim Russ, which might have explained the Star Trek confusion, but that one didn't have everyone dying. Playtime sounds more on the money.

[healingmirth]

This has seriously been bugging me for 5-10 years, and the worst part is that now that I know, I realize that the RL friend I see most often was a huuuuge seaQuest fan, and could probably have answered this for me in a second, and then provided a copy of the episode on VHS.

Thanks for your help :)

[sineala]

TOS? A Taste of Armageddon? The one where two planets are engaged in war via computer and you have to show up and be executed if the computer says you died in an attack. It's the only sort-of-relevant Trek I can think of.

[healingmirth]

On further clicking through episode blurbs, I'm pretty sure its a seaQuest episode, "Playtime"... where they go through a wormhole to even further in the future, because they apparently ran out of children and new forms of life trapped in underwater colonies/vessels to save.

[silverr]

Although you've identified the episode, I seem to recall a DS9 ep with a little handheld machine that people become addicted to playing?

[healingmirth]

Yeah, there's definitely one of those too - I don't remember the details, but I ran across it in my initial searching.

Games are dangerous. DANGEROUS, I TELL YOU.

[silverr]

I was able to look it up (mostlybecause I recall Barbara Bosson being in the ep *g*)

It's "Rivals" (1994, S2e11)

From imdb: "Martus, an El-Aurian, tries to con a lady but gets arrested by Odo for conning a couple earlier. In his cell he meets Cos, a dying alien with a strange gambling device. Cos says he had a string of bad luck. After Cos dies, Martus takes the device. Shortly after he hears the couple decided not to press charges and is released. He tries to sell the thing to Quark, but he is not overly interested. Feeling very lucky decides to become Quark's rival and opens another casino on the Promenade. Meanwhile O'Brien has constructed a racquetball court to get some physical exercise. He finds out Dr. Bashir plays it too. He even was captain of the team of his medical school. O'Brien is no match for Bashir, much to his frustration. He keeps challenging Bashir. Bashir fears for O'Briens health and tries to stop playing. "