Q; Why didn't our boys and girls relieve the Admiral of his command as soon as it became apparent that he was a sandwich short of a picnic?
A; My theory is that the problem with relieving the Admiral after his questionable judgement came to light was that as far as Picard and crew knew, he was indispensable if they were to secure the release of the hostages. No-one but he could do it was the basic premise of the episode.
Q; Why doesn't Jameson's scar disappear as he gets younger?
A; My guess would be that Jameson's scar doesn't disappear because the drug deals differently with scar tissue than it does with normal flesh. The idea is that it makes you young again, not that it erases physical defects. Instead of looking like an eighty-five year old guy with a scar, he looks like a twenty year old guy with a scar. Simple!
Q; How does Jameson get his wheelchair down from the transporter pad?
A; My theory is that his wheelchair was lifted off the transporter pad by a couple of hefty young Ensigns. Easy, innit? Mind you, it does make me wonder why he wasn't beamed onto a level surface in the first place.
I see that Helm is referred to as Conn again in this episode.
Mrs Jameson tells Mr. Jameson at one point that he looks as he did twenty years before. Since we have heard Picard inform Riker that Jameson is eighty-five years old, we may infer she is saying that he now looks as he did when he was sixty-five. Well Lordy me, he looked a bit of a mess in his sixties, didn't he?
Data grimaces and winces during the phaser fight. Why? He supposedly has no emotions.
Q; Since there were, according to Troi, thousands of people on Aldea, why did they only abduct seven of the children from the Enterprise?
A; It would seem to be because these seven, according to the chief Aldean, are "special". Quite what they mean by this exactly we are never clearly told, but we must remember that they scanned the Enterprise in its entirety before choosing this particular seven to abduct. I think myself we can fairly assume them all to be reservoirs of talent, some obvious, like Wesley, and some less obvious, like Harry with his hitherto unsuspected talent for sculpture. It is probably significant that Katie, the musical lass, was partnered to the planet's boss muso: I mean, we're not talking third fiddle, second row of some obscure philharmonic here, we are talking grand fromage of toute le monde, and this is presumably not to be taken lightly.
Q; How come everybody but the Federation has a cloaking device?
A; I dunno. How come nobody but the Federation has got an android? Actually, I was being flippant when I wrote this, but go to Season Seven and check out the episode called 'The Pegasus' for further info. on why the Feds have no cloaking device.
Q; Why has the planet Aldea's position never been calculated by measuring the effect of its gravitational pull on other nearby planets?
A; Guess there ain't no nearby planets!
Why, I wonder, when the future of their species was at stake, were the Aldeans so damn polite about it all? Why didn't they just take the kids and then recloak? What could anybody have done?