Peak Performance (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Two, Episode 21) Riker and his misfit pals challenge Picard to the whackiest wargames ever!

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break.

As part of Starfleet’s response to the Borg threat, Riker refits an 8o-year-old derelict to face the Enterprise in a wargame. Overseeing the simulation is Kolrami, a waddling oddity who takes a disliking to Riker and crushes him in a social game.

Pulaski goads Data into challenging Kolrami to a rematch, Wesley heists some antimatter from a school project, and consequences play out as one would expect from the “arrogant preppies vs streetwise misfits at summer camp” subgenre.

Some scenes touch on Riker’s development as a leader, the human desire to compete, and Picard’s diplomatic brinksmanship, but this episode knows we’re here to see whose pants end up on the flagpole.

Enjoyable, but nothing special.