He treats each of his colleagues with at least some passing curiosity and casual humor, he's charming and seems to like them all. Yet the way he doesn't interact with the rest of the crew is almost more telling than his interactions with Minuet. So when he gets the idea to check the holodeck out, he immediately creates a woman to interact with. He doesn't make plans with any of them, he doesn't really show a real interest in joining any of them. He wanders from colleague to colleague, checking on what they are going to do with their 48 hours of free time. Take the first third of the episode as an example of how restless Riker is. I think it's more important to ask, what does she mean to Riker? He has been shown to be repressing his feelings for Deanna, flirting with alien women, and generally living the bachelor's life with a very unfocused attitude towards his free time. Was her uniqueness real? Or was she just an incredible simulation? That's an interesting question, but I wonder if that's the right question. At the same time, her total disappearance at the end of the episode means that at least she was unique. The whole time Riker was making his moves, though, I kept thinking that she's a program designed to accept his advances. Minuet is totally a cipher, but for plot reasons she works. Perhaps that is part of the reason they aren't together, and perhaps that's why the writers came up with Minuet. Which fits with the other important woman in Riker's life, although come to think about it Deanna isn't really sultry. Riker likes jazz, and plays the trombone, and likes sultry brunettes. It's almost as if the writers took all the traits they tried to use for his character in the first half of the season and then turned them down a few notches. Riker's search for a personality has finally come to a middle. ![]() ![]() "What's a knock-out like you doing in a computer-generated gin joint like this?"
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