Season Two

The Samaritan Snare

TECH SPECS
Production #			143
RATINGS DATA
Iotia:DS93 Rating (/5):
Visitor rating (/10):		[an error occurred while processing this directive]
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AIRDATE DATA
Aired Week Of:		15 May, 1989
Order in Season 2:	17	Order in TNG:	43
Order for all Star Trek series:			148
STARDATE DATA
Original Stardate:		42779.1
Order in Season 2:	17	Order in TNG:	43
Order for all Star Trek series:			151

Synopsis - Picard accompanies Wesley to Starbase 515 for a heart transplant, where Wesley will once again take Starfleet entrance exams. Meanwhile, Geordi beams over to help a Pakled ship where he is taken hostage.

The Samaritan Snare proves to be a real rat trap for Geordi LaForge; as he, not to mention the rest of the Enterprise bridge crew, underestimated the Pakleds; a race that clearly lives beyond it's means, yet are very shrewd in acquiring what they desire. We would briefly hear the packleds mentioned again in the fourth season episode Brothers, as Lore mentions he'd been picked up by a packled ship after drifting through space for months.
This was Wesley's second crack at the Starfleet Entrance exam; his first was in the first season episode Coming Of Age.
We also learn here that Picard has an artificial heart, and that he got it in a bar fight with some Naussicans, when he was fresh out of the Academy. The story he relates here of how he got his heart, is played out in the sixth season episode Tapestry.