While cruising through the Omega Sagitta Twelve System, in the Medina cluster, the Enterprise stumbles across a cargo ship with a lone occupant and a faulty guidance system. They hail the captain, one Okona, a charming rogue. When Okona accepts their offer of help, the Enterprise locks on a tractor beam to his ship and beams him aboard. Okona quickly charms Riker, Data and Wesley, and starts romancing the female transporter chief only seconds after coming on board. He befriends Data, discussing such things as humor and sex appeal, and after a short stop in Engineering, leaves Data and enters the transporter chief's room.

Data, convinced he doesn't understand humor, talks to Guinan, who directs him to a "higher power"-in his case, a smarter computer. Data programs a 20th century comic to tell him what is funny. After a little while, Data tries to tell jokes to Guinan, but only spoils them. Meanwhile, a small interplanetary vessel shows up and threatens the Enterprise (with lasers, no less-as Picard puts it, "lasers couldn't even get through our navigation shields").

The captain of this ship is Debin, a leader of the planet Atlec, one of the two planets in this cluster. He demands Okona be turned over to him as a known criminal. While Picard considers options, a second ship shows up, holding Kushell of the planet Streleb, who also demands Okona. Picard sends Worf to bring Okona (currently in another woman's room) up to the bridge. When he reaches the bridge, Okona tells Picard he is not a criminal, but refuses to say why Debin or Kushell might want him. When Picard asks, he finds that Debin is convinced Okona has fathered an as-yet unborn child on his daughter Yanar, and Kushell claims he stole a valuable jewel.

Okona still insists he is not a criminal, and suggests that the Enterprise manage to stay out of things by simply repairing his ship and letting him run off. After talking to Wesley, however, Okona decides to stay and make a stand. Both sets of parties beam aboard, and after some bickering, Okona "decides" to marry Yanar. However, Kushell's son Benzan objects, and the real truth of what happened comes out: Benzan and Yanar are in love. She's carrying his child, and Benzan gave the jewel of Thesia to Okona to give to Yanar. All involved parties except Okona leave, satisfied.

Data brings Guinan onto the holodeck, where he performs in front of an audience. It goes well, but then he realizes that the audience has been programmed to laugh at everything, and cancels, depressed. However, when Okona leaves, Data makes an inadvertent joke that leaves everyone smiling.

Highlight Listing:

"The Outrageous Okona" - While the Enterprise crew play host to a witty renegade captain, Data struggles to acquire a sense of humor.

Advertising Headline:

THE LAUGHS ARE ON DATA! A wisecracking fugitive leads Data to try his hand at comedy.

TV log listing:

Data tries his hand at comedy on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION.

Technical design, graphic design, interactive features, HTML & CGI programming by Andrew Tong. || All materials Copyright © 1987-1995 by their respective authors. || Document created: January 28, 1995 || Last Modified: November 09, 2010