Really? and how was Riker going to reboot the Binars homeworld's computer systems on his own? Since it requires two people to work together?

Right, that was my point. Also from what Minuet says, they apparently didn't plan in advance, to have Riker staying either. They didn't think of that until they saw how intrigued he became.

I suppose the "retcon" might be that they originally expected the Enterprise to be available earlier, and if that had played out the Binars on the Enterprise might have been able to handle it themselves.

The "real world" explanation might be that the writers simply didn't realize - again - that they had written themselves into a corner.

Maybe they lacked the time to check these things probably some very late revision of the script or time constrains because of some other major changes?

Perhaps. But I think it's more likely they just didn't realize the implications of some of their material. It's not exactly a new or rare problem in the Trek series-es.

They had repeats too, for example any time they were worried about being able to escape from a star going nova at warp speed, or whatever. Warp 1 would be more than sufficient to escape any natural phenomenon, which cannot go faster than light.

Arthur C. Clarke had better story-telling in that regard even in 1946, with "Rescue Party."

https://www.baen.com/Chapters/0743498747/0743498747___1.htm

"Don't let that worry you; we're perfectly safe. When the sun detonates, the explosion wave will take several minutes to rise to its maximum. But apart from that, we're on the night side of the planet, behind an eight-thousand-mile screen of rock. When the first warning of the explosion comes, we will accelerate out of the Solar System, keeping in the shadow of the planet. Under our maximum drive, we will reach the velocity of light before leaving the cone of shadow, and the sun cannot harm us then."

T'sinadree was still afraid to hope. Another objection came at once into his mind.

"Yes, but how will you get any warning, here on the night side of the planet?"

"Very easily," replied Alveron. "This world has a moon which is now visible from this hemisphere. We have telescopes trained on it. If it shows any sudden increase in brilliance, our main drive goes on automatically and we'll be thrown out of the system."

I never really caught on that the Binars only planned on keeping Riker on board because we see near the end of the episode Riker and Picard figure out it requires both of them working at computer terminals to reboot their home world computer. This kind of makes it look like they planned to have two people on board the Enterprise from the beginning.

They needed to, yes. But Minuet - speaking for the Binars, basically - says otherwise. Which means, bad writing.

Maybe Minuet herself was going to be the second person if there was no one else on board the Enterprise? She was supposed to be pretty advanced for a holodeck character, maybe that was for the purpose of being the second required person and not just for Riker's pleasure.

At that time, holodeck characters had to stay on the holodeck. She could not have gone to the bridge. Plus remember, Minuet says they hadn't originally planned in advance for keeping Riker either. They didn't think of that until they saw how interested he was in Minuet.

The only "retcon" excuse I can think of for that, is that they had expected Enterprise to be available earlier, and might have figured with that timing, the Binars themselves would have been able to do it, and not wound up incapacitated as actually happened.

The only "retcon" excuse I can think of for that, is that they had expected Enterprise to be available earlier, and might have figured with that timing, the Binars themselves would have been able to do it, and not wound up incapacitated as actually happened.

Now that you mention that I do remember Quinteros mentioning he had expected the Enterprise a week earlier so that could have explained a lot also Wesley notices the Binars frantically arguing on the bridge so it seems like they were under time pressure and not everything went along as anticipated by the Binars .

@Knixon said:

At that time, holodeck characters had to stay on the holodeck. She could not have gone to the bridge. Plus remember, Minuet says they hadn't originally planned in advance for keeping Riker either. They didn't think of that until they saw how interested he was in Minuet.

The only "retcon" excuse I can think of for that, is that they had expected Enterprise to be available earlier, and might have figured with that timing, the Binars themselves would have been able to do it, and not wound up incapacitated as actually happened.

I was thinking they could have created a functioning interface on the holodeck for Minuet to use. But I like Nexus71's reasoning.

Except for Minuet, ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

bump