The streak of callbacks to TOS episodes continues. Naked Time and Naked Now is obvious, but there’s also Journey to Babel and Lonely Among Us and The Apple and Justice. Even next week’s episode is somewhat reminiscent of Amok Time.  

But what about the Picard/Riker bromance? Most of Picard’s crew are hand-picked folks who are new to their position. Did he pick folks because they didn’t have that experience? It’s presumed he spent his time since the destruction of the Stargazer doing admin on Earth; was he grooming these kids?  

All weird, Professor-X stuff aside, does the Picard/Riker implicit trust and respect thing work? Has it been sufficiently established?