Nits for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode
Chrysalis

1. Serena's problem

In "Statistical Probabilities" Serena's problem was not being able to communicate with the outside world. In "Chrysalis" this is explained by telling us her thoughts and her perception of the outside world are running at two different speeds and thus she is unable to perceive her surroundings clearly or respond to them.

Unfortunately if this were true she wouldn't have understood what Julian said to her in "Statistical Probabilities" and wouldn't have been able to help him escape to prevent the other three mutants from leaking secret information to the Dominion.

Nit Value: 0.50


2. Serena's Mood Make-up

To distinguish sick-Serena from healthy-Serena different make-up was used. The lips gained colour and the eyes and cheeks looked less hollow when she was healthy as opposed to sick. Nothing wrong with that except for a couple of problems.

The first problem occurs when they use it to fool the audience. Julian returns to meet Serena in the cargo bay where Serena has withdrawn to make the other mutants more comfortable. Her lips and skin are paler. And it is used again to fool us when Julian looks for Serena and finds her in her quarters. On both occasions Serena is healthy yet looks as she did when she was sick.

The second problem was no one commenting on this effect. It's as if this were visible only to the audience and not to the other members of the cast.

I think the use of make-up to signify changes that aren't really occurring is an unnecessary effort to mislead the audience and a bit too obvious.

Nit Value: 0.25


3. Re-calibrating the Neural Doohickey

Julian isn't a dummy. He knows the limitations of his equipment and he knows (or could know with a few simple questions answered by the computer) it can't be re-calibrated the way he hopes. Yet he asks Miles anyway.

While Miles is a whiz with the station's equipment I had a little bit of trouble swallowing that he could also fine tune a piece of equipment that would essentially perform sub-atomic brain surgery. This doesn't seem to be a problem that's going to be fixed any time soon. So why is he asking Ben to let him perform the operation? From this point of view this looks like a complete waste of time.

However, asking the three mutants to improve the device is a very interesting approach to the problem. I am, of course, assuming that this device is thoroughly checked out after Jack, Patrick and Lauren have fiddled with it ;-)

Nit Value: 0.00


Summary:
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Nit Value for "Chrysalis": 0.75

Wulf's Nitpicker Rating: 9.25
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10 - Nit Value = Wulf's Nitpicker Rating



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