Star Trek TNG - The Royale

 I have to admit: I enjoy "The Royale" almost purely as a guilty pleasure. I could see why folks would just roll their eyes and pick it apart. This created place from a specific book you could buy in a second hand shop right out front of a store by aliens regretting the death of an astronaut's crew on some planet that is uninhabitable by humans (or most life forms) being a casino with a mob murder plot as Riker, Data, and Worf find themselves trapped inside the place, unable to leave or beam out, realize they must "become part of the plot" in order to escape is absurd. Finding a dead astronaut who could never leave the place in a room "upstairs" has always left an impact on me, though. An explorer, too, stuck in a recreated casino by aliens believing that the book was where he'd be familiar and wish to stay...kind of a tragedy. To be found by members of the Enterprise D so long after, nothing but a deteriorated corpse, the suit hanging in the closet, with this ongoing plot from a book just ongoing...yep, quite a tragic discovery. When I look through the episode list, I often find that I gravitate towards the likes of "The Royale", for whatever reason. While I consider the second season (and the first, for that matter) towards the bottom of the series in quality, I find that I still watch episodes from it every three or so years. I really hadn't committed to a deep binge of Star Trek - The Next Generation until this year. I would have the show on thanks to BBC marathons, but it served more as background noise. I really enjoy the transfer for the episodes on Netflix specifically, though. "The Royale", to me, is one of those departures from The Generation plots that actually have nuance and meat on the bones. This episode is more of the cut-the-brain off variety. While I was surprised to see it treated with some solid reviews on IMDb (where I have removed my user comments for this post), I have a hard time believing you would see this episode anywhere high on Next Gen fans' top lists. 

A review from 2012:

I think I can coin the phrase "all fun and games" to describe this rather insignificant but enjoyable episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation which allows Data to gamble, see Worf call an elevator a turbolift, and find the skeletal remains of a NASA astronaut from around 2033 named Col. S Richey whose cheap dimestore novel, Hotel Royale, was the inspiration for a recreated place by an alien race who accidentally killed his shuttle crew, out of perhaps guilt hoping the sole survivor might have the comforts of what they believed home was to him. A French mathematician's theorem is mentioned by Picard as he studies it, like so many, trying to find the answer and it has a reason for being a topic of conversation as it pertains to the mystery behind how Richey's shuttle, whose trajectory was disrupted when in space exploring the end of the Earth's solar system, could have made it out so far. The main "suspense" angle of the premise is that away team Riker, Data, and Worf beam onto a planet with a nasty atmosphere incapable of human life, but a single structure exists that has breathable air. This is the Royale, and the trio get trapped in the alien-created hotel, needing to uncover a way to get out so they can beam back to the Enterprise. The answer could be in the recreated details of the novel and their role as it pertains to the results of the conclusion of Hotel Royale. This is one of those undemanding episodes that tickles the funnybone...but "The Royale" isn't a barnburner or of certain importance in regards to the Trek Universe or the characters that inhabit it. That said, Noble Willingham (Walker, Texas Ranger) as a Texas gambler with a cowboy hat, with lingo and drawl to match, and bubble-headed Jill Jacobson as a gullible lady he easily manipulates are fun characters within the Royale literary creation on the planet; Data's interaction with them adds charm to the episode. If anything, this allows the characters on the Enterprise to have fun absent the usual crises and complexities often encountered when exploring universes and alien races.