A charming rogue and his ship become the centre of a feud.
The Enterprise picks up Captain Thadiun Okona, a charming and unreliable freighter pilot, whose ship is damaged and who is soon caught in a quarrel between two worlds, Altec and Straleb. Both want him for what they claim he has done to their families. Meanwhile, Data tries to learn the art of telling jokes with help from a holographic comedian.
The episode is a light, comic hour in the middle of a serious season, though it is not generally rated among the best. Its most remembered contribution is Data's efforts to understand humor, a theme that appears throughout the series. Okona himself is a roguish, flirtatious character in the tradition of the freelance space traders of science fiction.