The Perma One space station is celebrating Holiday Number 11. Gift giving is customary at this festive time. Palindrome (Conrad Janis) tells Quark (Richard Benjamin) that The Head (Alan Caillou) has a special assignment for him. Dr. Cheryl Evans (Marianne Bunch) is a computer scientist and the head of all computer development for the United Galaxies. She has created the most advanced computer system ever. She calls the computer Vanessa 38-24-36. She believes that Vanessa will make humans obsolete. Quark’s garbage ship is going to be the first vessel to test Vanessa’s programming.
Quark is not happy about the assignment. Vanessa believes that humans make errors and are therefore not needed. As the test progresses, Vanessa performs perfectly. Then suddenly there is an alien ship rapidly advancing on them. Ficus believes that it is a Gorgon war ship. Quark maintains his course directly toward the enemy ship. At the moment they are to crash, the Gorgon ship disappears. Quark correctly surmised that the attack was actually a test that Vanessa devised to try to prove that humans were inferior to computers. The experiment didn’t end the way the computer expected.
Soon Vanessa begins to make tiny mistakes. Gene/Jean (Tim Thomerson) notices them but no one else does. At least not until Vanessa deliberately tries to kill Quark.
This was the eighth and last episode of the series. The episode parodies the original Star Trek episode “The Ultimate Computer” as well as the basic premise of “2001: A Space Odyssey” 1968. Marianne Bunch also does the voice of the computer “Vanessa”. The series was released on DVD in 2008.
Altogether it was a mostly fun little series. Although most of the plots were based on the original Star Trek series, science fiction fans will enjoy finding the little tributes to other films and television series. As a comedy, the series is more enjoyable if you have seen “Star Trek” and are able to get the jokes that parody it.