Television Review: The Most Toys (Star Trek: The Next Generation, S3X22, 1990)

The Most Toys (S03E22)

Airdate: May 7th 1990

Written by:
Directed by: Timothy Bond

Running Time: 45 minutes

Throughout its long history, Star Trek has frequently found its creators cornered by force majeure events, compelling emergency creative decisions that left indelible marks on the final product. One of the most jarring and sombre of these events occurred at the franchise’s zenith: the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. This season, widely regarded as the point where the series truly found its confident, mature voice, was the backdrop for The Most Toys, an episode forever shadowed by a real-world tragedy that seeped into its very production. The dissonance between the on-screen narrative and the off-screen events renders The Most Toys a uniquely problematic instalment, one where the seams of crisis management are painfully visible, ultimately pulling it below the grand heights the season otherwise consistently achieved.

The plot begins conventionally enough with the USS Enterprise-D responding to an ecological crisis. The colony on Beta Agni II faces catastrophe as its water supply is contaminated by trycianate. The sole antidote is hytritium, an extremely rare and volatile substance possessed by the Zibalian trader, Kivas Fajo (Saul Rubinek). Due to the compound’s instability, a direct ship-to-ship transport is deemed too hazardous. Instead, the exchange is to be conducted via the shuttlecraft Pike, overseen by Lieutenant Commander Data. In a sudden, shocking turn, Data is electrocuted by Fajo’s associate, Varria (Jane Daly), during the final transfer. The Enterprise crew then witnesses the Pike catastrophically explode, leading them to believe their friend and colleague has been killed.

Data reactivates to find himself imprisoned within what appears to be an opulent gallery of priceless artefacts. Fajo, shielded by a personal force field, arrives to elaborate. He is a collector of singular rarities, and Data—the only known android of his kind in the galaxy—represents the ultimate prize. Data is commanded to sit silently as Fajo’s living trophy, a directive he flatly refuses. Fajo’s response establishes his chilling pragmatism: he threatens Varria’s life with a T-disruptor, a weapon banned for inflicting an excruciatingly painful death. To save her, Data capitulates, agreeing to obey. Later, when Varria engineers an escape attempt, Data joins her, but they are intercepted. In the ensuing struggle, Fajo callously murders Varria. Data, however, seizes the T-disruptor and aims it at his captor. Fajo remains smugly unphased, secure in his belief that Data’s ethical programming forbids killing. Data, in a moment charged with cold fury, counters that his programming might permit lethal action to prevent further death and suffering, leaving the immediate threat hanging in the air.

Concurrently, the Enterprise crew grieves. Geordi La Forge is particularly devastated, yet his engineer’s mind quickly latches onto inconsistencies in the shuttle’s destruction. He becomes the first to vocalise the possibility that Data was not destroyed but abducted. This thread is pulled further upon the away team’s arrival at Beta Agni II, where the contamination is revealed to be a deliberate act of sabotage. The pieces of the puzzle begin to align, painting Fajo as the architect of the entire crisis. His scheme was diabolically simple: create a disaster only he could solve, at great personal expense, all to engineer a moment of chaos perfect for stealing the ultimate collectible—Data. The Enterprise reports Fajo to Starfleet and races to intercept his ship, the Jovis.

At the critical moment, just as Data’s finger tightens on the T-disruptor’s trigger, he is beamed aboard the Enterprise. Fajo is apprehended and confined to the brig, where a final scene sees Data visit him. In a moment of poetic justice, Data informs Fajo that his entire collection has been confiscated and dismantled, each item returned to its legitimate owners.

The episode’s title, reportedly inspired by the apocryphal Malcolm Forbes quote “He who dies with the most toys wins,” is fitting. Fajo is, in many respects, a fictional, grotesque exaggeration of such a philosophy—a being whose pathological greed and ruthless objectification of life stand in stark, deliberate contrast to Gene Roddenberry’s utopian vision of the 24th century. His villainy is not born of ideology or passion, but of a cold, acquisitive hunger that feels profoundly alien to the Federation’s ethos.

The production’s original conception aimed to heighten this alien menace through casting against type. The role of Fajo was given to David Rappaport, an English dwarf actor renowned for his charismatic, often whimsical roles in films like Time Bandits. The intention was to use his distinctive physical presence and known persona to create a uniquely unsettling villain—someone whose menace derived from intellect and cruelty, not physical stature. Tragically, during production, Rappaport, who had long struggled with severe depression, attempted to take his own life. He was subsequently replaced. In a heart-breaking coda, Rappaport died by suicide days before the episode aired. This real-world horror casts an inescapable pall over the entire episode.

The necessity of recasting Fajo with Canadian actor Saul Rubinek late in the game created significant production challenges. Entirely new costumes, prosthetic applications, and blocking had to be devised at the eleventh hour. Despite the commendable efforts of director Timothy Bond and the cast, these disruptions are perceptible. The episode’s pacing feels slightly off, and certain scenes possess a rushed, compartmentalised quality that separates it from the more seamless narratives of Season 3. While Rubinek delivers a very capable performance—layering Fajo with a mix of oily charm, petulant entitlement, and chilling menace that would pave the way for his celebrated later career—the shadow of the recast and its tragic origins lingers.

Ultimately, The Most Toys remains a solid but fundamentally unremarkable episode. Its plot is a straightforward, by-the-numbers split narrative: Data’s captivity and escape attempt intercut with the Enterprise crew solving the mystery. Both threads proceed predictably, with few genuine surprises. The episode’s most compelling elements are its darker flourishes: the brutally matter-of-fact murder of Varria and, most notably, the final, ambiguous confrontation. The question of whether Data fired the T-disruptor is deliberately left unanswered, a moral cliffhanger meant to provoke debate about his evolving humanity. However, within the context of this particular episode, the ambiguity feels less like profound philosophy and more like a narrative gimmick, a last-minute shock tactic rather than a earned character moment. It is a rare instance in Season 3 where the writing reaches for depth it hasn’t fully laid the groundwork for.

The Most Toys is an episode forever caught between two realities. On screen, it presents a competently executed but standard tale of villainy and resilience. Off screen, it is a stark testament to a profound human tragedy that irrevocably altered its creation. The knowledge of David Rappaport’s suffering imbues Fajo’s collection of sentient beings with an uncomfortable, unintended poignancy, while the production compromises necessitated by the recast prevent the story from achieving the polished narrative thrust expected from TNG at its peak.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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