The Royale

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Royale.
Star Trek: TNG episode
"The Royale"

Data wins big at the craps table in "The Royale".
Episode no. 38
Prod. code 138
Airdate March 27, 1989
Writer(s) Keith Mills
Director Cliff Bole
Year 2365
Stardate 42625.4
Episode chronology
Previous "Contagion"
Next "Time Squared"

"The Royale" is a second season episode of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Commander Riker, Lt. Worf and Lt. Commander Data beam down to a strange building located on an alien planet. Upon entering the building they find themselves trapped in an old earth-style Hotel/Casino called the Royale.

While exploring the building they find the remains of a NASA astronaut Colonel S. Ritchie who had lived to a very old age and a book titled Hotel Royale. Upon reading his diary it is revealed his starship was in confrontation with aliens and he was the only survivor. Taking pity on him they created The Royale for him thinking the novel was an instruction of humans preferred way of living. Little did they know Col. Ritchie's time in The Royale was a living hell. Data, Riker, and Worf eventually discover that they are inside a living version of the book the same as Col. Ritchie was.

However, their newfound knowledge doesn't get the away team any closer to finding a way out of the building, until a quick read-through of the novel reveals that it had been recreated in detail by the aliens, and its contents played out in its entirety; none of the characters (or the away team) can leave until they are scripted to. As such, Riker realizes they have to assume the role of the characters in the novel to escape and, using the building's craps table, raise enough money to become the nondescript "foreign investors" destined to buy out the Royale, and successfully leave after fulfilling their part of the story.

[edit] Production

"The Royale" was written by Tracy Tormé under the pseudonym Keith Mills due to extensive rewrites. One major loss was the character of the Astronaut himself, living as a recreation amid the recreation of his novel.

It is possible that this episode was based on the final scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, as both contain the idea of a benevolent alien race creating a replica of an earth hotel to house an early 21st-century American astronaut light years from earth.

The book Hotel Royale may have been inspired by Casino Royale, the first James Bond novel.

The episode also mentions Fermat's last theorem, and that it still had not been solved after 800 years. A proof was however found by Andrew Wiles and published in 1995, six years after the episode aired.

[edit] References

 This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling.
You can assist by editing it now. A how-to guide is available. (May 2008)

[edit] External links