ChronoTrek

280. [TNG] Sins of the Father

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:01:00 -0700

SCORE: (5/5 stars)

As a courtesy for Riker’s tour of duty in the Officer Exchange Program aboard the IKS Pagh, the Enterprise accepts a new temporary first officer, a Klingon named Kurn. Kurn is strict, unforgiving, and enjoys telling people how under a Klingon ship they’d have been executed by now. He’s a hardass to everyone on the ship… everyone, that is, except Worf. Worf he treats with kid gloves. Checks to make sure Worf is comfortable. Has his cozy slippers on and his hot chocolate and a bubble bath and a teddy bear and the third season DVD of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Worf confronts him on the dishonor he’s receiving in private, and when his temper runs out, Kurn is satisfied. He had to make sure that his elder brother was still Klingon at heart.

Worf didn’t even know he had a brother. Kurn was staying with a family friend while Mogh moved to Khitomer. And it is Mogh and the events of Khitomer that have brought Kurn here. You see, recent information has come to light that implicates Mogh as a Romulan conspirator, who aided them in the destruction of the Khitomer colony. This has brought dishonor upon the House of Mogh, and Kurn wanted to see if Worf would have the Klingon blood to defend the honor of his house. He certainly does, and asks Picard for leave to go to Qo’noS. Picard will do him one better: he’ll take the Enteprise there.

When Worf comes to defend his family’s honor at the High Council, Chancellor K’mpec takes him aside and tells him that what he’s doing is senseless and needless. If he fails, he will be guilty of his father’s crime and sentenced to die. K’mpec, in a very un-Klingon-like manner, tells Worf his life is more important than his family’s honor, and to give up this fight. Duras, another member of the High Council (and descendant of the Duras that was a thorn in Jonathan Archer’s side), seems to have a vested interest in maintaining Mogh’s guilt and dishonor. He even sends assassins to kill Kurn when Kurn refuses to stand down from his support of Worf, though he survives the assault.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise crew investigates the records of the event and finds that it was not Mogh who summoned the Romulans and dropped the shields… it was Ja’rod, father of Duras. In a private meeting between Worf, Picard, Duras and K’mpec, it is revealed that they knew Ja’rod was guilty, but the dishonor it would bring to the House of Duras would destabilize the Empire and lead to civil war, as his is a very powerful and influential house. So they chose to lay the blame on Mogh as the only known member of his house was off being a Starfleet officer. K’mpec will not allow this evidence to be brought to court, because he fears the stability of the Empire. In order to preserve Kurn’s honor and his life, Worf chooses to retract his challenge, and accept the dishonor laid upon his house. In a ceremony, the head of every councilor turns their back on him, finally ending with Kurn doing so at Worf’s behest.

This isn’t the last we’ve seen of this plotline, not by a long shot. The House of Duras will plague Worf and the Enterprise for years to come, and Worf wouldn’t be much of a Klingon if he were content to sit and allow the house of his father to remain disgraced and exiled. If memory serves, we’ll see this plotline come back in a big way as the season four cliffhanger.

NITPICKS

Picard called the Klingon Empire the “Klingon Imperial Empire.” Imperial Empire? Is that like The La Brea Tar Pits? (La Brea means “The Tar.”)

FAVORITE QUOTES

Worf: I am a Klingon! if you doubt it, a demonstration can be arranged.
Kurn: That is the response of a Klingon. The response I would expect from my older brother.
Duras: This is not your world, human. You do not command here.
Picard: I’m not here to command.
Duras: Then you must be ready to fight. Something that Starfleet doesn’t teach you.
Picard: You may test that assumption at your convenience.

279. [TNG] The Offspring

Sun, 19 May 2013 00:01:35 -0700

SCORE: (5/5 stars)

[Fair warning up front: if you have ever lost a child, this episode is ~~probably~~ going to hit you hard.]

It’s the first episode directed by Jonathan Frakes! He’ll go on to direct many episodes of TNG as well as the films First Contact and Insurrection. Because of this, a line of dialogue mentions that Riker’s out on personal leave for the majority of the episode. Data’s just returned from a cybernetics conference and has kept himself locked away in a lab during every off-duty hour. Finally, he is ready to showcase his new project to Geordi, Deanna and Wesley. They shuffle into the lab and find a brand-new android. Data introduces them to Lal… his child.

Picard is initially apprehensive about Data having constructed a new android, but every point he brings up, Data merely rebuts by comparing it to human procreation and parenting. It takes a while for our captain to warm up to the idea when Data’s procreation doesn’t involve passing on of genetic material (though Lal’s brain is copied from Data’s structure nearly identically) or emerging through a birth canal, but he eventually is able to come around to the idea. After all, Data is a life form. And life procreates.

Data intentionally creates Lal featureless and androgynous because he wishes it to choose its own appearance, and it eventually settles on the form of a human female. Data’s able to improve upon Soong’s external design and gives Lal more accurate color in the eyes and skin. Very quickly he begins to engage in parenting and teaching her about relationships, objects, senses, and what it means to be human… well, as much of it as he’s able to understand, anyway. Upon Wesley’s recommendation, he decides to send Lal to school so she can learn to socialize with other children, but it doesn’t go so well. They’re scared of her and laugh at her.

Data decides that Ten Forward may be a better place for her to acclimate socially. It is a place where everyone on the ship congregates during off-hours, and since they’re not children, they’ll be far more likely and open to socialize with her. Guinan agrees to put her to work serving drinks, and answers any nagging questions she might have about the romantic behaviors she observes in the lounge (which puts Riker in an uncomfortable position when Lal decides she wants to try this kissing thing). Another interesting thing observed here: while Data has never gotten the hang of contractions, Lal has no problems.

There’s problems on more than one front. Admiral Haftel, attached to Starfleet Research at Galor IV, is rather dismayed that cybernetic research is being carried out on a starship instead of at a base, in opposition to Starfleet regulations on the matter. Picard bats for Data in the argument, but Haftel keeps pressing to have Lal transferred to his station, and eventually orders the Enterprise to weigh anchor and wait for his arrival.

While there, Haftel scoffs at the concept that such an advanced AI is being put to work serving drinks, and is concerned about the level of expertise Data has in training this android, though Data rightly points out that no parent is an experienced parent before they have a child. While interviewing Lal one-on-one, she expresses confusion and apprehension at Haftel’s plans, believing he has no respect for Data’s work and fearing that she’ll be taken away from her father. Upon leaving the observation lounge, she finds her way to Troi’s quarters where she has a full-blown panic attack.

In a meeting with Picard and Data, Haftel makes the order to transfer Lal to his command after much debate, but Picard countermands the order at risk to his rank and command. The standoff is broken when Troi alerts Data over the intercom that something is wrong with Lal. She returned to the lab when her panic attack began, as he programmed her to return here when something went wrong, and he determines that emotions have arisen as an emergent property of her neural pathways. But her brain can’t handle it, and she’s rapidly degrading. Data and Haftel are able to put aside their arguments for the moment and work for hours to try and save Lal’s life, but it’s too late. The damage is irreversible.

Data attempts to console the dying Lal as much as he can in her final moments. He believes he is incapable of love, but she can feel it for both of them. (And I’m sorry, but love is in actions, and Data proved through his that he most certainly loved his daughter.) Though she is dead, he downloaded her entire program and stored it in his brain. She is not lost nor forgotten, she will be with him for the rest of his life.

NITPICKS

Why is it so hard for Data’s language program to comprehend contractions? There are only a handful of them in the English language and they’re incredibly simple. In addition, since Data programmed Lal himself, why can’t he pick up the contractions himself now?

FAVORITE QUOTES

Wesley: Data, it called you father.
Data: Yes, Wesley. Lal is my child.
Picard: Data, I would like to have been consulted.
Data: I have not observed anyone else on board consulting you about their procreation, Captain.
Picard: I fail to understand how a five foot android with heuristic learning systems and the strength of ten men can be called a child.
Troi: You’ve never been a parent.
Picard: Data! I’m not talking about parenting. I am talking about the extraordinary consequences of creating new life!
Data: Does that not describe becoming a parent, sir?
Data: I have observed that in most species, there is a primal instinct to perpetuate themselves. Until now, I have been the last of my kind. If I were to be damaged or destroyed, I would be lost forever. But if I am successful with the creation of Lal, my continuance is assured.
Wesley: Data, she could learn a lot by being with kids her own age.
Data: She is only two weeks old.
Lal: Where did I come from?
Data: These questions suggest that we have made a successful transfer of the heuristic associative pathways. You will now begin to process information on logic, aesthetics, metaphysics, and epistemology. You are truly becoming sentient, Lal.
Lal: How?
Data: By developing the awareness to examine and question your perceptions.
Lal: Why do we have two hands? Why not three or four? Why is the sky black?
Lal: Father, what is the significance of laughter?
Data: It is a human physiological response to humor.
Lal: Then judging from their laughter, the children at school found my remarks humorous. So without understanding humor, I have somehow mastered it.
Picard: The Admiral is taking the position that Lal’s development should be overseen by the most experienced personnel.
Data: Then he is questioning my ability as a parent.
Picard: In a manner of speaking.
Data: Does the Admiral have children?
Picard: Yes, I believe he does, Data. Why?
Data: I am forced to wonder how much experience he had as a parent when his first child was born.
Lal: Guinan, is the joining of hands a symbolic act for humans?
Guinan: It shows affection. Humans like to touch each other. They start with the hands, and go from there.
Lal: He’s biting that female!
Guinan: No, he’s not biting. They’re pressing lips. It’s called kissing.
Lal: Why are they leaving?
Guinan: Lal, there are some things your father’s just going to have to explain to you when he thinks you’re ready.
Data: Commander, what are your intentions toward my daughter?
Haftel: Captain, are we talking about breaking up a family? Isn’t that rather a sentimental attitude about androids?
Picard: They’re living, sentient beings. Their rights and privileges in our society have been defined. I helped define them.
Picard: There are times, sir, when men of good conscience cannot blindly follow orders. You acknowledge their sentience, but you ignore their personal liberties and freedom. Order a man to hand his child over to the state? Not while I am his captain.
Lal: I love you, father.
Data: I wish I could feel it with you.
Lal: I will feel it for both of us.

278. [TNG] Yesterday's Enterprise

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:01:33 -0700

SCORE: (5/5 stars)

Due to the nature of this episode, we get an early (and memorable) scene with Guinan introducing prune juice to Worf. “A warrior’s drink,” he proclaims, and forever more will he be drinking this drink and taking regular shits. But he’s called to the bridge because of a space thing that pops up nearby. They’re not able to accurately determine what the anomaly is until a starship passes through it… and everything changes.

The lighting is darker. The captain’s chair is alone and higher up. The uniforms are more military, with belts and shoulder straps and weapons galore. Riker and Picard have a much more adversarial relationship. And Worf is no longer at tactical… or on the starship. In his place is Lieutenant Natasha Yar. And the starship that just came out of the anomaly? Why, she’s just some old ship with the registry NCC-1701-C. That’s right, the Enterprise-C. She’s banged up like she just escaped from a fight, and the crew aboard have suffered heavy injuries and deaths.

Picard debates whether or not he should reveal to them what happened, but decides to tell Captain Rachel Garrett the truth. She’s traveled 22 years into the future, and what a future it is. The Federation has been mired in a two-decade-long war against the Klingon Empire, with billions dead and a Federation defeat looming on the horizon. You see, the Enterprise-C was protecting a Klingon outpost from a Romulan attack. But falling into the rift created by the Romulan weapons, they escaped into the future and the impact of the ship bravely dying in defense of a Klingon colony is no more. It seems like the fate of the Alpha Quadrant hinges on one little ship named Enterprise.

Guinan is the only one on both ships who senses the change in the timeline. She alerts Picard of this, telling him that everything about this starship is “wrong,” and the only way to restore the timeline is to send the Enterprise-C back through the rift. Picard scoffs at the concept of children aboard a starship and is initially unwilling to make orders based solely on Guinan’s intuition, but they have known each other a very long time even in this universe and he has never had reason to doubt her intuition before. When he talks to Captain Garrett, she agrees with him that they ought to return, even knowing that four Romulan ships await her at the other end, leading to certain death.

Repairs on the Enterprise-C have almost finished when a sneak attack by a Klingon Bird-of-prey kills Captain Garrett, leaving the helmsman Lieutenant Castillo as the highest ranking officer aboard. He and Yar have been working closely together and maybe even developing a bit of a budding romance despite knowing what’s coming. But when Yar confronts Guinan on the odd looks she’s been getting, Guinan explains that they were never supposed to have met, and Yar was supposed to have suffered a “meaningless death.” Since the staff on the Enterprise-C is so limited, and since if their plan works Yar will end up dead anyway, she convinces Picard to allow her to transfer over to serve at tactical. Who knows, she reasons, maybe she buys them the few minutes they need to make the historical impact.

A fleet of Klingon ships arrives and the Enterprise-D is forced to use itself as a shield while the C prepares to go through the rift. Riker is killed when an explosion on the bridge sends shrapnel ripping through his neck. That’s how you know shit’s serious (and also temporary). I must note that they had a missed opportunity here: Worf should have been the captain of one of the Klingon vessels. Anyway, they’re able to hold off the Klingon attack long enough for the C to go back through the rift, and the timeline is restored. From the main perspective, the anomaly appeared, a ship briefly blipped inside it, and then it closed up. All is well. And Guinan? She seems to sense it. Sitting down with Geordi in Ten-Forward, she asks him to tell her about Tasha Yar.

NITPICKS

What’s a civilian like Guinan doing on a warship like the Enterprise? There’s no families aboard and most of the crew seem to be subsisting on TKLs, so what’s she doing?

FAVORITE QUOTES

Guinan: You see? It’s an Earth drink. Prune juice.
Worf: A warrior’s drink.
Yar: It’s clearing now, Captain. Definitely Federation starship. Accessing registry.
Riker: Looks like they had a rough ride.
Yar: NCC 1701.. C. USS Enterprise.
Picard: Open a hailing frequency. This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation… of a Federation starship.
Guinan: There should be children on this ship.
Picard: What? Children on the Enterprise? Guinan, we’re at war.
Guinan: No, we’re not. At least, we’re not supposed to be. This is not a ship of war. This a ship of peace.
Picard: History has no record of your battle with the Romulans.
Garrett: We were responding to a distress call from the Klingon outpost on Narendra Three. The Romulans were attacking it. We engaged them, but there were four warbirds.
Picard: The Narendra Three outpost was destroyed. It is regrettable that you did not succeed. A Federation starship rescuing a Klingon outpost might have averted twenty years of war.
Picard: Who is to say that this history is any less proper than the other?
Guinan: I suppose I am.
Picard: Not good enough, damn it! Not good enough! I will not ask them to die.
Guinan: Forty billion people have already died. This war’s not supposed to be happening.
Castillo: Hey, I’ve known you a whole day now, Lieutenant. I won’t salute if you won’t. What did she call you? Tasha?
Yar: Yeah.
Castillo: Most everybody just calls me Castillo. My mother calls me Richard.
Yar: Okay, Castillo.
Castillo: No, I think maybe I’d like it better if you called me Richard.
Picard: The war is going very badly for the Federation, far worse than is generally known. Starfleet Command believes defeat is inevitable. Within six months we may have no choice but to surrender.
Garrett: And you’re saying all this may be a result of our arrival here?
Picard: One more ship will make no difference in the here and now. But twenty two years ago, one ship could have stopped this war before it started.
Picard: Let’s make sure history never forgets the name… Enterprise.
Guinan: Geordi, tell me about Tasha Yar.

Are you going to review Into Darkness?

Wed, 15 May 2013 23:22:04 -0700

Yes, I am, but not anytime soon. First, I have to watch it, which I will be doing in about 24 hours. Then I have to reach it in the chronology. Since it takes place in the alternate reality, I consider that a branch-off from 2387, when Nero and Spock go back in time to create the reboot universe. So Into Darkness will actually be the last bit of Star Trek I review barring another film or TV series coming out between now and 2016, when I project to have finished my reviews at my current rate.

277. [TNG] A Matter of Perspective

Tue, 14 May 2013 00:01:45 -0700

SCORE: (3/5 stars)

It’s a genuine murder mystery as Riker is beamed aboard the Enterprise the split-second that the space station he was on explodes, killing the sole scientist aboard, Dr. Apgar. That’s only the start of Riker’s troubles. You see, the explosion is under investigation as a potential murder… and Riker is the primary suspect. Worse still, this society operates on the legal basis of “guilty until proven innocent.” While the investigator demands that Riker be extradited to the surface for trial and conviction, Picard reserves the right as a Starfleet captain to provide judgment over whether extradition is to be done. He won’t rule it out completely, but he won’t just throw Riker to the wolves either.

Using the holodeck to recreate the space station, and testimony of the three witnesses (Riker, Mrs. Apgar, and an assistant researcher) to recreate the scenes that took place aboard it, we get three very different tellings of what went down on the station, but the similarities are thus: Riker had arrived to check up on Apgar’s research. Apgar is apprehensive about the visit and worried that Starfleet will pull funding without a result, despite Riker’s insistance that they really just want to know how it’s going along. Mrs. Apgar takes Riker to guest quarters aboard the station as the Enterprise had left to take care of other business, and either she or Riker makes a pass at the other person. Dr. Apgar walks in on the thing, gets angry, and a physical altercation happens. (Though who wins that fight varies wildly on the telling.) Apgar threatens to report Riker for this incident, and has both his wife and assistant beam down to the planet while he makes preparations for… something. Riker beams away, and according to at least one model, opens fire on Dr. Apgar mid-transport, accidentally hitting the station core and destroying it.

The truth, however, is not to be found in any of the eyewitness testimony. (A true testament to the unreliability of personal recollection; even when Mrs. Apgar’s story is almost completely the opposite of Riker’s, Troi insists she was not sensing dishonestiy.) A form of unknown radiation has been hitting the Enterprise at regular intervals, with enough power to melt holes in solid duranium. More interesting still, the station explosion happened 4 intervals before the radiation spikes. They determine that Apgar was not concerned over the lack of progress with his device, but that he’d actually finished it and weaponized it and was concerned that Starfleet would learn of this before he could sell to a higher bidder. The station’s engine converted harmless radiation surges from the planet’s surface to Krieger waves, and the recreation of the engine on the holodeck was having the same effect. (Wat.) They determine that the station exploded because Apgar attempted to use Krieger waves on the dematerializing Riker, and it caused a feedback loop that destroyed the station. Mystery solved: murder by suicide.

NITPICKS

The holodeck is photons and force fields. While it can sometimes generate basic structures like water, rocks, etc, and most likely is tied into the replicator system so food generated is real, the recreation of the generator on the holodeck makes absolutely zero sense as an amplifier for the Krieger waves, especially because the field works by interacting with the “elements.” There’s no elements to be found in the generator. Just photons and force fields.

FAVORITE QUOTES

Data: Interesting.
Picard: Oh, thank you. In what way?
Data: While suggesting the free treatment of form usually attributed to Fauvism, this quite inappropriately attempts to juxtapose the disparate cubistic styles of Picasso and Leger. In addition, the use of color suggests a haphazard melange of clashing styles. Furthermore, the unsettling overtones of proto-Vulcan influences…
Picard: Thank you, Mister Data.
Data: You are welcome, sir. If I can be of further assistance…
Picard: No! Thank you.

276. [TNG] Deja Q

Sun, 12 May 2013 00:01:54 -0700

SCORE: (4/5 stars)

While attempting to divert a small moon that is rapidly deorbiting toward an inhabited world, the Enterprise is paid a visit by our favorite naked deity, Q. Naked?! Why is he naked? As he explains after getting some clothes on that he hates, he’s been kicked out of the Q Continuum and stripped of his powers. He’s now as human and mortal as the crew of the Enterprise… so he claims, anyway. Picard has no inclination to believe in, and indeed suspects Q of being responsible for this deorbiting moon. Q’s power really is gone though, but his vast intellect remains, and he offers that to assist in stopping the moon.

Of course, Q is still thinking like a Q, and his initial solution to divert the asteroid moon is to “change the gravitational constant of the universe.” This does, however, give Geordi an idea to extend a static warp field over the moon which would lower its rest mass, allowing a fleet of ships to tractor it out of the way. But as they attempt to do this, an energy alien species called the Calamarain show up. They’ve caught wind that Q is mortal now, and he wasn’t exactly… nice to them back when he was a god. They’ve taken advantage of his vulnerability and begin attacking the Enterprise. They’re able to repel them, but with this comes the realization that Q has made many enemies in his lifetime and should he continue to be on the Enterprise, it makes them a target. Many of the crew want Q gone, and Riker notes that this isn’t what he signed up for.

As the Enterprise makes another attempt to move the moon, the Calamarain return. Q realizes how much he’s put the Enterprise crew in jeopardy and, perhaps, is developing a twinge of a conscience, so he takes a shuttlecraft to lead the Calamarain away from the Enterrpise. Another Q, referred to as Q2 in the shooting script, shows up in the shuttle admiring Q’s change of heart and apparently selfless motives. He decides that Q’s learned his lesson and is welcome back into the Continuum. Q’s first act is to change out of the horrible clothes the Enterprise provided for him and into the classic captain’s uniform. His second act is to shrink the Calamarain down so they fit in the palm of his hand. And just as he’s about to threaten them again, Q2 shows up all “Dude wtf did I just tell you” and Q’s all “Naw man I’m just playin.” As thanks to the Enterprise for taking him in, he restores the moon to its original orbit and tries to engage everyone in festivities on the bridge, but none of them are having it. So he decides, since Data helped him understand what it meant to be human, that he’d give Data a gift: uncontrollable laughter.

NITPICKS

How did the Calamarain know to look for Q? I mean, he’s pissed off enough people that he’d eventually run into one of them if he stayed with the Enterprise, but to encounter one within hours of becoming mortal?

FAVORITE QUOTES

Picard: Return that moon to its orbit.
Q: I have no powers. Q the ordinary.
Picard: Q the liar. Q the misanthrope.
Q: Q the miserable. Q the desperate. What must I do to convince you people?
Worf: Die.
Q: Oh, very clever, Worf. Eat any good books lately?
Q: Truthfully, Jean-Luc. I have been entirely preoccupied by a most frightening experience of my own. A couple of hours ago, I realized that my body was no longer functioning properly. I felt weak. I could no longer stand. The life was oozing out of me. I lost consciousness.
Picard: You fell asleep.
Data: Can you recommend a way to counter the effect?
Q: Simple. Change the gravitational constant of the universe.
LaForge: What?
Q: Change the gravitational constant of the universe, thereby altering the mass of the asteroid.
LaForge: Redefine gravity? How am I supposed to do that?
Q: You just do it. Where’s that Doctor, anyway?
Data: Geordi is trying to say that changing the gravitational constant of the universe is beyond our capabilities.
Q: Oh. In that case, never mind.
Q: Yeah. What are you doing here?
Q2: I’ve been keeping track of you.
Q: I always felt you were in my corner.
Q2: Actually, I was the one who got you kicked out.
Riker: I don’t need your fantasy women.
Q: Oh, you’re so stolid. You weren’t like that before the beard.

275. [TNG] The High Ground

Thu, 09 May 2013 00:01:41 -0700

SCORE: (4/5 stars)

The Enterprise has arrived at Rutia IV to deliver medical supplies in the wake of terrorist attacks. Freedom fighters from the eastern continent have been demanding independence from the western continent and turned violent when their pleas weren’t heeded. When a bomb goes off near Dr. Crusher who’s having lunch, she quickly takes to caring for the injured in the blast, despite Worf and Picard’s insisting that it is not safe to remain on the surface and they must return to the Enterprise immediately. She refuses to cooperate and Picard is about ready to beam her up against her will when a terrorist pops in out of nowhere, grabs her, and they both vanish.

The Starfleet crew scramble to find her. Geordi, Data and Wesley get to work on figuring out the dimensional shifting technology the terrorists use to pop in and out of places, while Riker works with planetary security to see if they can track down the terrorists. While local authorities request Starfleet equipment to aid in their fight, since this is not a Federation world, they will not be doing that. Meanwhile, the terrorist leader Finn tries to get Crusher to eat, or tell him her name, or really anything. She practices passive resistance until he explains he kidnapped her because she’s a doctor and they need help. You see, the dimensional shifting technology they use is slowly killing them, and they’d like her to help treat the dying. When Riker releases a young member of the terrorist cell with a message for Finn that he wants to open talks to negotiate the release of Crusher, they respond by teleporting onto the Enterprise, killing several crewmembers, attaching a bomb to the warp core that Geordi only beams out in the nick of time, and kidnapping Picard.

Finn points out to Picard the hypocrisy of his situation. He claims to be uninvolved in this conflict yet has a trade agreement with one side. Finn actually welcomes Federation interference because he feels it will give his movement legitimacy, pulling up a moderator’s chair to negotiate the independence they desire. Unfortunately for Finn, the kidnapping of Picard gave the engineering team enough data on the shifting technology to track it to its source. Security forces storm the compound, arrest most people in there, and the head of security kills Finn by shooting him in the back, because she’d rather he be a martyr than a target for liberation. The Enterprise wisely backs out of the whole situation, a bad taste left in their mouth over the ordeal. Still, no clear answers are given about terrorism other than “Yeah, it sometimes works, and when it does, they quickly stop calling it terrorism.” Of course, that’s fine. If we had easy and clear answers about terrorism and the situations that necessitate them, we might live in a very different world right now.

NITPICKS

Why would Geordi tell them to lock onto “his” signal when slapping his combadge on the bomb? We know that internal as well as external sensors can detect someone without them needing a combadge attached. There was a nonzero chance that O’Brien would have misinterpreted the direction and beamed Geordi himself out into space. Geordi, next time, say “Lock onto my combadge.” Don’t give us a coronary.

FAVORITE QUOTES

Troi: He needs your strength right now.
Picard: History has shown us that strength may be useless when faced with terrorism.
Riker: Are you going to tell me that little boy’s a threat?
Alexana: It’s possible. That shuttlebus I told you about? The bomb was set by a teenager. In a world where children blow up children, everyone’s a threat.
Finn: Your origins on Earth are from the American continent, are they not?
Crusher: North America.
Finn: Yes, I’ve read your history books. This is a war for independence, and I am no different than your own George Washington.
Crusher: Washington was a military general, not a terrorist.
Finn: The difference between generals and terrorists, Doctor, is only the difference between winners and losers.
Finn: How much innocent blood has been spilled for the cause of freedom in the history of your Federation, Doctor? How many good and noble societies have bombed civilians in war, have wiped out whole cities. And now that you enjoy the comfort that has come from their battles, their killing, you frown on my immorality?
Data: Then would it be accurate to say that terrorism is acceptable when all options for peaceful settlement have been foreclosed?
Picard: Data, these are questions that mankind has been struggling with throughout history. Your confusion is only human.
Finn: Captain, the Federation has a lot to admire in it, but there’s a hint of moral cowardice in your dealings with non-aligned planets. You’re doing business with a government that is crushing us and you say you’re not involved. You’re very, very much involved. You just don’t want to get dirty.

274. [TNG] The Hunted

Tue, 07 May 2013 00:01:56 -0700

SCORE: (5/5 stars)

Angosia III is applying for Federation membership and Picard’s visiting its capital city to compile a report and recommendation. The leader of the planet is Zefram Cochrane! Well, not really, his name’s Nayrok, but he’s played by James Cromwell. You can actually get a pretty good feel for just how gigantic Cromwell is when he stands a good inch or two taller than Riker, who’s 6’5”. Everything seems to be going quite swimmingly. The people are very peaceful, abhor violence, and have just survived a lengthy war that they rebuilt very quickly from. But the demons of that war have not vanished, they’ve simply been… relocated.

When the Enterprise assists in the capture of an escaped prisoner named Roga Danar (not at all an easy feat, he uses military tactics to evade capture and restraint at every turn), Troi begins investigating him. She’s surprised at how violent he is, because she reads from him an entirely non-violent personality. While Nayrok says he’s just a criminal, they can find no criminal history of him, but instead learn that he was a soldier in the recent conflicts. He and the soldiers like him were genetically modified and psychologically programmed to be soldiers. When they came home, they couldn’t turn off their programming and would react violently to stressful situations. Instead of working to undo the programming, the Angosian society voted instead to exile them all to Luna 5. Originally it was just a colony for them, but soon it became a prison.

While Picard feels uncomfortable about the whole situation, he can’t interfere and so he must give Danar back to the Angosians. But the impossible happens—he is able to break free of a transporter beam, and leads Enterprise security on a chase all throughout the ship. Despite their best efforts, he’s able to steal away with a shuttle like he’s John Rambo. (This is some very good action for an early Star Trek episode.) He sets course for Luna 5 to liberate his compatriots. Picard and crew beam down to confront Nayrok about their poor treatment of their soldiers, blaming them for not doing enough to help. “But it was democratically decided to get rid of them!” they say as if that makes it okay. “Plus we can’t reverse their programming, we might need them for the next war!” At this point you almost WANT the soldiers to storm the capital and kill everyone. Well, they do the former. Nayrok begs Picard to help, but well, this is an internal matter and Picard can’t intervene. But what he can do is tell them they’ve got quite a mess to sort out before they can be considered for membership in the Federation. They beam away, leaving the leaders of the planet at the mercy of their soldiers. God help them.

NITPICKS

It’s a bit of a stretch to think that an Angosian with little to no experience against Starfleet would be able to so expertly navigate and outsmart trained Starfleet personnel. Overpower, sure, but to be able to use the ship to his advantage against people whose JOB it is to know how to operate the ship?

FAVORITE QUOTES

Danar: My improved reflexes have allowed me to kill eighty four times. And my improved memory lets me remember each of those eighty four faces. Can you understand how that feels?
Data: I am incapable of any feeling.
Danar: Why, then I envy you.
Worf: There is a full contingent of security at all shuttlebays.
LaForge: You want my advice? Double it!
Nayrok: Picard, you can’t leave us like this.
Picard: I have all the information I need for our report. Your prisoner has been returned to you and you have a decision to make. Whether to try to force them back or welcome them home. In your own words, this is not our affair. We cannot interfere in the natural course of your society’s development, and I’d say it’s likely to develop significantly in the next several minutes. It’s been an interesting visit. When you’re ready for membership, the Federation will be pleased to reconsider your application. Mister Riker, four to beam up.

273. [TNG] The Defector

Sun, 05 May 2013 00:01:00 -0700

SCORE: (5/5 stars)

Picard observes Data performing Shakespeare’s Henry V, act IV, scene 1 on the holodeck, which is a bonus since Patrick Stewart, renowned Shakespearean actor, is also playing one of the holographic players. As he gives Data critiques on his performance, he advises him not to copy too much from other performances, but to draw from within to find his own inspiration. This sends Data off on a B-plot where he tries to grapple with questions of human instinct and intuition, when he lacks those. Like most Data storylines, it’s left open-ended, which is one of my favorite aspects of his character. Rarely does he get a simple answer, or any answer, to the important questions of the human condition.

The Enterprise receives a distress call coming from the Neutral Zone. A small Romulan craft is requesting asylum from the Federation. He is pursued by a warbird which breaks off pursuit when it sees the Enterprise standing guard. Beaming aboard, the Romulan identifies himself as Setal, a low-level operative in the Romulan Empire who caught wind of a potential Cuban missile crisis. He is loyal to the Empire but fears the destruction a war between their peoples would cause and wants to stop it from happening. He alerts them to a base being constructed in the Neutral Zone… but the details he’s providing don’t seem to match up with their long-range scans of the system, and his low clearance shouldn’t be enough to provide them the level of detail he’s providing.

When Picard makes it clear that they won’t go into the Neutral Zone without better proof, “Setal” reveals he is actually Admiral Alidar Jarok, infamous for carrying out massacres on Norkan and most probably considered a war criminal by the Federation. Picard asks him what changed his mind after having served the Romulan Empire so brutally. The answer? He had a child, and he wanted to make the world better for her. He’d become an advocate for peace in the Emptire and had been relegated to a backwater outpost until he saw the orders for the construction of a base in the Neutral Zone to serve as a strike point against the Federation. The Enterprise visits the planet… but finds nothing there. The orders were false, deliberately given to Jarok to test his loyalty. And leading the Enterprise into the Neutral Zone, well… that’s just a bonus for the cloaked Romulan ships. Tomalak’s back to get his revenge. However, Picard anticipated this in a sneeze-and-you’ll-miss-it scene earlier in the episode, and his own escort of cloaked Klingon Birds-of-Prey uncloak to counter. Each side opts to go their seperate ways instead of all getting blown up. And Jarok? The poor sap. Tricked into turning coat, he takes a suicide pill, leaving behind a letter for his wife and daughter.

NITPICKS

Why wouldn’t the Universal Translator be able to convert from Romulan measurements when “Setal” specified the temperature of his water?
How was the Enterprise holodeck able to so accurately recreate a landmark on Romulus if the Federation has almost no information about it?

FAVORITE QUOTES

Setal: I set the auto-destruct sequencer before I left the ship.
Riker: Why?
Setal: Wouldn’t you? To prevent your ship from being captured?
Riker: Excuse me for being a little confused, Setal, but I thought you were defecting.
Setal: I am not a traitor. All you can see is the opportunity to exploit me. The Federation credo, exploitation. You couldn’t get aboard my ship fast enough. Strip it down. What secrets might it reveal that we can use? You’re a short sighted people. Can’t you understand? I came to stop a war.
Setal: How do you allow Klingon petaQ to walk around in your Starfleet uniform?
Worf: You are lucky this is not a Klingon ship. We know how to deal with spies.
Setal: Remove this tohzah from my sight.
Riker: Your knowledge of Klingon curses is impressive. But as a Romulan might say, only a veruul would use such language in public.
Setal: Lieutenant Worf. I like him. To be more accurate, I understand him. A warrior, proud, fearless, living only for combat. Exactly the type that will get us all killed, if we’re not careful.
LaForge: All these feelings that get in the way of human judgment, that confuse the hell out of us, that make us second guess ourselves, well we need them. We need them to help us fill in the missing pieces because we almost never have all the facts.
Data: So a person fills in missing pieces of the puzzle with his own personality, resulting in a conclusion based as much on instinct and intuition as on fact.
LaForge: Now you’re getting it.
Data: But what does one do if he has no instinct and intuition?
Setal: You’re the android. I know a host of Romulan cyberneticists that would love to be this close to you.
Data: I do not find that concept particularly appealing.
Setal: Nor should you.
Picard: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Peace in our galaxy. Except, Admiral, you are not a man of peace. Your military record, what we know of it, is clear.
Jarok: Which is precisely why I chose an alternate identity here.
Picard: The massacres in the Norkan outposts, for example.
Jarok: What you call massacres were called the Norkan Campaign on my world, Captain. One world’s butcher is another world’s hero. Perhaps I am neither one.
Jarok: There comes a time in a man’s life that you cannot know. When he looks down at the first smile of his baby girl and realizes he must change the world for her. For all children. It is for her that I am here. Not to destroy the Romulan Empire, but to save it. For months, I tried desperately to persuade the High Command that another war would destroy the Empire. They got tired of my arguments. Finally I was censured, sent off to command some distant sector. This was my only recourse. I will never see my child smile again. She will grow up believing that her father is a traitor. But she will grow up. If you act, Picard. If we stop the war before it begins.
Riker: A letter to his wife and daughter.
Data: Sir, he must have known it would be impossible for us to deliver this.
Picard: Today, perhaps. But if there are others with the courage of Admiral Jarok, we may hope to see a day of peace when we can take his letter home.

272. [TNG] The Vengeance Factor

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:01:47 -0700

SCORE: (2/5 stars)

The Enterprise is drawn into a tribal conflict within a people known as the Acamarians when an outcast caste (how many casts can an outcast caste cast?) raids a Federation science lab. Picard sets a course for the Acamar system to enlist the aid of Marouk, the Sovereign of the Acamarians. While Picard discusses ways to get the Gatherers brought back into the fold with the rest of Acamarian society, Riker starts getting friendly with Marouk’s servant, a girl named Yuta. And by friendly, we mean sex. (It’s Riker, do I have to spell it out every time?)

But Yuta isn’t all she appears to be. When they make contact with the Gatherers (which starts with a shootout and ends with Brull, the camp’s leader, being obnoxious on the Enterprise bridge), she touches one of the older members of the Gatherers when nobody is watching, and it kills him. Dr. Crusher begins investigating whatever agent killed him and discovered it was keyed almost exactly to his DNA. Studying Acamarian historical records, she finds other members of the victim’s family who succumbed to death in a similar manner, and discovers a fifty-year-old picture of Yuta, who hasn’t aged. They realize she is the assassin, and her final target is the leader of the Gatherers, a man named Chorgan who is having heated negotiations with Marouk for reintegration to Acamarian society. Riker is forced to vaporize her (as her genetic alterations make her resistant to the stun setting). Picard offers him some extended shoreleave at their next Starbase stop, and he probably needs it after what he had to do.

I really don’t have much to add about this episode. It wasn’t really about anything, the Enterprise was just there to observe a culture, but we didn’t really learn a lesson and the culture wasn’t even hyper-interesting. The most compelling part of the episode was Riker being compelled to kill Yuta, but since their making sex was really more of a casual fling, it didn’t have the emotional impact it should have. The episode should have focused far more on that, really developing their relationship so it took a severe toll on Riker, and the audience, at the end.

NITPICKS

Why is the Enterprise getting involved in this internal Acamarian dispute? There is no indication of them being a Federation species, which would mean their interference (especially Riker’s killing of Yuta) is in clear violation of the Prime Directive.
Why doesn’t Picard react at all when Yuta is vaporized? He’s hardly the jaded sort of fellow who looks at death unblinking and uncaring.

FAVORITE QUOTES

Data: Captain, I am detecting life readings from the planet surface, as well as several small areas of thermal radiation and carbon dioxide emissions, indicative of combustion.
Wesley: Campfires, Data.
Data: Is that not what I said?
Worf: Your ambushes would be more successful if you bathed more often.
Brull: You don’t like me.
Wesley: I didn’t say that.
Brull: No problem. I have many friends that don’t like me.
Yuta: You’re an excellent commander, but you’d make a poor sovereign.
Riker: Why’s that? Not that I disagree.
Yuta: You’re not comfortable with servants.
Riker: No, I prefer the company of equals.

271. [TNG] The Price

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:01:35 -0700

SCORE: (2/5 stars)

The Enterprise is serving as the venue for negotiations for the rights to the first discovered stable wormhole, connecting the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants. (Now, I know what you’re thinking, but no, this isn’t the Bajoran wormhole.) Representatives of multiple governments are there to be the highest bidder, and the Federation is no exception. One species, the Chrystalians, haven’t arrived in person but they have sent a human negotiator by the name of Devinoni Ral. He and Deanna take to each other almost immediately and start making of the sex. Most of this is blatantly pandering fanservice. I understand the writers’ desires to give Deanna stuff to do on the show, but having her parade around in lingerie, or doing stretching exercises with Beverly in tight sweats is not exactly playing up to the quality of audience they intend to reach.

An unexpected buyer crashes the party: the Ferengi are rather incensed they were not invited to the table, but they are of course welcome to bid. When Picard decides he wants to investigate the wormhole to ensure that they’re not being sold a lemon, he has Data and Geordi take a shuttlecraft through. The Ferengi object to this, thinking the Federation is up to some subterfuge to preempt their claim to the wormhole, but Picard tells them they are welcome to launch their own probe. So two shuttles go in, though the Ferengi ignore all warnings about anomalous readings and refuse to share their own data even if it would be in their best interest. Indeed, when they arrive on the other end, Data and Geordi discover that the wormhole is not as stable as previously thought; they’ve been dumped out in the Delta Quadrant, not the Gamma. They try to warn the Ferengi, but they don’t listen, so by the time the wormhole reopens and the Enterprise shuttle leaves, the Ferengi miss the boat and the wormhole moves to a new location. They’re trapped! (But we’ll come back to them in a few years. After all, they are trapped in the Delta Quadrant…)

Deanna learns that Ral is a quarter Betazoid, from his grandmother, and was one of only five children to develop empathic ability. He uses his ability to get an edge in negotiations. She seems to think his use of his ability is unethical, but he argues she uses hers too and isn’t always upfront with every alien species they meet. He even tries to twist it that he’s only using his for minor things but hers is used for life-and-death situations, as if using your powers to save lives is a morally murky area but using it for personal gain is ethically hunky-dory. She is able to pick up that he’s been conspiring with the Ferengi to make both the Federation and the Ferengi look like unsuitable stewards of the wormhole, and manages to win the bid for the wormhole. Of course, just then, Data and Geordi return with the information that the wormhole is worthless, so much for that. Ral asks Deanna to come with him as he goes on to his next job, saying he needs her to be his moral compass. She refuses. She’s already got a job as a counselor.

NITPICKS

Now, I know that the Gamma and Delta Quadrants share a border and everything, but to say something is 200 light years away and in a different quadrant, it doesn’t exactly seem like a significant enough difference to specify that they’re in a whole other quadrant. 200 light years in our galaxy is not far. And perhaps this is a nitpick best saved for the followup Voyager episode, but if they’re on the border between the Gamma and Delta Quadrants, then how could they possibly be anywhere near Voyager’s path, which started in the middle of the Delta Quadrant and its course leaned toward the Beta Quadrant?<

FAVORITE QUOTES

Goss: My name is DaiMon Goss. These are my consuls, Kol and Doctor Arridor. We’ll need chairs.
Picard: I’m Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise. I’m serving as host for these proceedings.
Goss: Good, then see to it that we get chairs.
Picard: Let me explain.
Goss: Fine, fine, just have your Klingon servant get us some chairs.
Worf: I am in charge of security.
Goss: Then who gets the chairs?
Riker: I think that Devinoni is the one that we need to watch out for.
Mendoza: An accurate observation. How did you recognise that?
Riker: He was the most comfortable one in the group.
Mendoza: You must play poker, Commander.
Riker: Poker? Is that a game of some sort?
Ral: Look, Deanna, the point of negotiating is to take advantage. I don’t know what the other side is offering, and they don’t know what I’m offering. So we dance around each other until somebody wins. I never cry foul when I lose.
Troi: But you’re reading their emotional states, their inner selves, and then using that to manipulate them.
Ral: Well, people have been doing that for thousands of years, just by listening carefully, by watching body language. I just happen to be better at it. You do it.
Troi: I do it to help my crew, not outmaneuver them. And I don’t hide that I’m an empath.
Ral: Oh, so you announce it to every alien culture you encounter? Or do you use it to give your side an advantage. Do you tell the Romulan that’s about to attack that you sense that he may be bluffing? Or do you just tell it to your Captain?

270. [TNG] The Enemy

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:01:00 -0700

SCORE: (4/5 stars)

Investigating a crashed ship on a Federation world near the Romulan Neutral Zone, they discover an injured Romulan. Because of the intense electromagnetic storms on the planet, they have limited windows to beam out, and Geordi gets separated from the group, falling into a pit. While Worf, Riker and the Romulan beam up, Geordi is left down on the planet to fend for himself, unable to even contact the Enterprise. But Geordi is a friggin boss. He fashions a makeshift mold out of rock and mud, uses his phaser to melt netallic rock into a couple of climbing picks, and scales a rock face with them. Truly an engineer.

They can’t use regular communications to contact Geordi, but Wesley comes up with the idea to launch a neutrino beacon, which will fire pulses that Geordi’s VISOR can pick up so he knows they’re still looking for him. But they have other problems to deal with. The Romulan beamed aboard is suffering neurological damage from the effects of the storms on the planet. He needs an infusion of ribosomes from a compatible donor on the ship. After getting a sample from everyone on the ship, Dr. Crusher determines that the only match for the ribosomes is Worf. But considering Worf’s family was slaughtered by Romulans he has no desire to be a donor for one.

On the political end, a Romulan ship is about to cross through the Neutral Zone to rescue the Romulan, despite him being within Federation space. Picard hails the ship and meets Commander Tomalak, a recurring Romulan in the series, played by the marvelous and late Andreas Katsulas. You may remember him as the Vissian captain from the Enterprise episode “Cogenitor,” or as Citizen G’Kar from Babylon 5. But here, he is the thorn in the side of the Enterprise. Picard demands that he remain out of Federation space while they tend tot he Romulan, and once he’s been treated they will meet Tomalak’s ship in the Neutral Zone to transfer him. But Tomalak grows impatient, and Dr. Crusher’s patient comes closer and closer to death as Worf refuses to do anything to help, despite the best pleas of both Crusher and Picard.

On the planet’s surface, Geordi has encountered a second Romulan, who initially holds him prisoner, but when they both find themselves injured by the unstable landscape and suffering from the storm’s degeenration, they’re forced to work together to get out. The Romulan, named Bochra, even performs a task for Geordi that he’s not capable of doing: attaching the VISOR to his tricorder to help them find a way out of the caverns and to a place where they can beam out. Geordi is pleased at this first cooperation between the Federation and the Romulans.

And it’s fortunate that they kept each other alive, because Worf’s inaction aboard the Enterprise leads to the death of the Romulan up there, and Tomalak moves to basically start up a new Earth-Romulan war. When Geordi and Bochra are beamed up, Bochra vouches for Geordi and the Enterprise. Tomalak is satisfied enough that he has someone to return to Romulus with, presumably mostly concerned with whatever intel was being gathered. Picard is able to breathe a sigh of relief. “Brinksmanship is a dangerous game,” he tells Riker.

NITPICKS

Dr. Crusher says that the Romulan has no “obvious cranial trauma,” despite having a bleeding head when we first see him.

FAVORITE QUOTES

Bochra: You are my prisoner.
LaForge: Right. Congratulations. Surely a strategic triumph for the Romulan Empire.
Tomalak: His life remains in jeopardy?
Picard: Yes.
Tomalak: And yet you will still not permit me to cross into your precious Federation space to retrieve him?
Picard: If the point hasn’t been made clearly, Commander, let me make it again. Romulan warships do not enter Federation space unless they are prepared to do battle.
LaForge: Let her rip.
Bochra: Bearing three five zero.
LaForge: We did it! The first Federation-Romulan co-venture.
Picard: Lieutenant, sometimes the moral obligations of command are less than clear. I have to weigh the good of the many against the needs of the individual, and try to balance them as realistically as possible. God knows, I don’t always succeed.
Worf: I have not had cause to complain, Captain.
Picard: Oh, Lieutenant, you wouldn’t complain even if you had cause.

269. [TNG] Booby Trap

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:01:00 -0700

SCORE: (3/5 stars)

The Enterprise trips a thousand-year-old booby trap, and Geordi figures out that he doesn’t need to take girls on dates in the holodeck when he can just have dates with girls on the holodeck. With that snark summary out of the way… Geordi’s struck out with a girl on the holodeck and is all mopey to Guinan about it. Meanwhile, the Enterprise has picked up a distress signal from a thousand year old ship while investigating the shattered remains of a planet torn apart by an ancient war. Picard’s archaeological leanings kick in and he insists on going on the away mission himself, despite Riker’s protestations. “It’s a thousand year old ship that never got a response to its distress call, I’m sure the air is breathable!”

Picard marvels at the ancient technology aboard. They find the remains of the crew dead at their posts (which Worf finds admirable), and play back the final captain’s log where he takes full responsibility for the predicament they find themselves in. Not much more information is gleaned from the trip, so they beam back and prepare to leave… but they find themselves suffering from a massive power drain. The more they use, the worse the drain gets. There’s a booby trap in this debris field. LaForge gets to work on finding a solution, and pulls up some files on Galaxy-class propulsion systems authored by a Dr. Leah Brahms, one of the designers of the Enterprise. He creates a simulation on the holodeck to work in her office and inadvertently gets the computer to create an avatar of Dr. Brahms herself. She’s initially little more than a robot with a face, but with some tweaks, she becomes very warm and personable…

I want to point out how freaking creepy this whole situation is. Geordi’s created a facsimile of a real person, and he begins basically flirting with her. (They kiss at the end, but you know Geordi’s saved the program for some “later activities.”) They come up with a solution where, since using more power drains the ship faster, they can maneuver out of the debris field on inertia and minimal thrusters. Leah wants the ship’s computer to be the pilot, but in simulations its success rate is not promising. When Geordi pitches the plan to Picard, he accepts it with one minor tweak: he will be flying the ship himself. (He’s feeling very hands-on today.) He successfully navigates out of there, using a sneaky trick of using a larger asteroid’s gravity well to slingshot out of the field. All is well! And Leah tells Geordi that every time he’s touching the ship’s engine, he’s touching her… make innuendo about that as you will.

NITPICKS

Even in a sterile environment like a starship, a dead body is going to decay just from its own gut flora. After a thousand years, the only thing that should have survived of the bodies on that starship should have been bones, not these desiccated bodies we see.
Why wouldn’t the chief engineer of the Enterprise have full authority on use of ship’s energy and be able to override the shutdown? In this kind of situation, he’s the one who needs that authorization most.

FAVORITE QUOTES

Wesley: Uh, oh.
Data: I beg your pardon, Wesley?
Wesley: Geordi had a big date with Christy tonight. He spent days putting together the perfect program. Looks like it ended kind of early.
Data: Uh, oh.
Picard: Good Lord, didn’t anybody here build ships in bottles when they were boys?
Worf: I did not play with toys.
Data: I was never a boy.
O’Brien: I did, sir.
Picard: Thank you, Mister O’Brien.
LaForge: Tell me something, Guinan. You’re a woman, right?
Guinan: Yes, I can tell you I’m a woman.
LaForge: I just don’t get it, Guinan. I can field strip a fusion reactor. I can realign a power transfer tunnel. Why can’t I make anything work with a woman like Christi? It’s like I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to say.
Guinan: You’re doing fine with me.
LaForge: You’re different.
Guinan: No, you’re different.
LaForge: But I’m not trying now.
Guinan: That’s my point.
LaForge: I want to give us enough power to strengthen the shields and barrel out of here, not blow us up!
Brahms: This is my design we’re talking about. I did all the calculations myself.
LaForge: I don’t care if you built it with your bare hands out of an old Ferengi cargo ship, it’s going to go (whee boom) and we’re going with it.
Brahms: I am not used to having people question my judgment.
LaForge: And I’m not used to dying.

268. [TNG] The Bonding

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:01:33 -0700

SCORE: (4/5 stars)

When an away team led by Worf encounters a proximity mine on a dead world, Troi senses it from the ship and orders them beamed up immediately. Unfortunately, they were too late to save the ship’s archaeologist, Marla Aster. She is survived by her 12-year-old son, Jeremy. Poor kid. Worf feels a sense of responsibility for the orphaned child. He too is an orphan, and he wishes to perform the Bonding, a Klingon ceremony that would make them brothers. Troi warns Worf that attempting to enter into Jeremy’s life too soon will be problematic. She spends a lot of this episode warning people about how to handle Jeremy now that he’s orphaned… and not a lot of time actually being with Jeremy to help counsel him through this loss.

That is, until Marla Aster reappears in her quarters, telling Jeremy that it was all a misunderstanding and she’s alive… and it’s time for him to come with her down to the dead world where they’ll live for the rest of their lives. Of course, a dead woman walking isn’t going to go unnoticed on the ship and the crew make sure to stop this intruder in sheep’s clothing, but it’s proving very difficult. She appears to be an energy being, and she’s not going to give up after one rebuffed attempt. She converts her quarters to the Aster’s old house on Earth, and Jeremy is torn between wanting to live the fantasy and coming to terms with the truth (while Troi stays there to help him stay grounded).

“Marla” eventually explains that the planet below once had two species, a corporeal and an energy-based. The corporeal species killed itself off in senseless wars, and the energy beings have vowed to do whatever they can to prevent death and suffering. Marla isn’t sinister… she’s doing what she genuinely believes to be in Jeremy’s best interests. But she doesn’t understand human nature and she hasn’t thought it through. And finally, Jeremy, who’s kept a stiff upper lip this whole time, has his facade broken when Wesley Crusher expresses how he felt after Picard brought his father’s body home. He wants to know why his mother is dead, but Worf lives. Worf can’t give him that answer, but together, they can help make his mother’s death have meaning. “Marla” leaves, and the two orphans join together in the Klingon ritual of bonding. They are now family. Well, until Jeremy leaves for his real family on Earth and we never see him again.

The episode has far too many tight shots with no discernible purpose for them other than to try out multiple tight shots. It leaves you with a poor grasp of where the characters are at any given moment. Very few establishing shots are even offered. But that’s my main technical gripe, and the rest of the episode was executed well. Most notably, this is Ronald D. Moore’s first episode! He’ll spend the next decade or so writing for the 24^th century Star Trek shows, and he’s also best known for creating the reimagined Battlestar Galactica. But if you have a Klingon-centric episode in TNG or DS9 and it’s good? Odds are, Mr. RDM himself penned it.

NITPICKS

The surface of the planet appears to be identical to Valles Marineris, the largest valley on Mars. I know there’s a couple duplicate Earths floating around the cosmos, but somehow I doubt this exact same precise geological formation would occur in two places at once. Kirk’s Rock, sure, that thing is small enough that you could see similar formations elsewhere. But the entire topology of a 2500-mile-wide valley recreated perfectly? I don’t think so.

FAVORITE QUOTES

Picard: I’ve always believed that carrying children on a starship is a very questionable policy. Serving on a starship means accepting certain risks, certain dangers. Did Jeremy Aster make that choice?
Troi: Death and loss are an integral part of life everywhere. Leaving him on Earth would not have protected him.
Picard: No, but Earth isn’t likely to be ordered to the Neutral Zone, or to repel a Romulan attack, It was my command which sent his mother to her death. She understood her mission and my duty. Will he?
Troi: In time, and with help. Wesley Crusher does.
Riker: Do you remember how we all felt when Tasha died?
Data: I do not sense the same feelings of absence that I associate with Lieutenant Yar, although I cannot say precisely why.
Riker: Just human nature, Data.
Data: Human nature, sir?
Riker: We feel a loss more intensely when it’s a friend.
Data: But should not the feelings run as deep regardless of who has died?
Riker: Maybe they should, Data. Maybe if we felt the loss of any life as keenly as we felt the death of those close to us, human history would be a lot less bloody.
Worf: Then may I seek your counsel about my plan to make the R’uustai with the boy.
Troi: The Bonding.
Worf: It is my right.
Troi: It’s very generous, Worf, but he’s not a Klingon child. He has different sensibilities.
Worf: He is an orphan. I am an orphan. He will understand.
Worf: In my tradition, we do not grieve the loss of the body. We celebrate the releasing of the spirit.
Jeremy: I understand death. They teach us all about it.
Worf: Jeremy Aster, we may both understand it, but we must bring meaning to your mother’s death. Perhaps we can do it together.

267. [TNG] Who Watches the Watchers

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 00:01:00 -0700

SCORE: (5/5 stars)

A research team studying a primitive civilization suffers a rather large explosion at their base, hidden inside Kirk’s Rock and disguised by a holographic barrier. The Enterprise arrives to give aid to the scientists and to repair the systems of the observation post, but unfortunately for them, some local Mintakans coming to check their sundial notice the loss of the duckblind. A man named Liko climbs the rock and observes as rescue workers beam the scientists up. When Data notices him, he slips and falls many dozens of feet, suffering severe injuries as he lands on bare rock. Dr. Crusher lets her medical ethics override the Prime Directive and beams the Mintakan to sickbay. Picard’s none too happy about this violation and orders his memory wiped, like Pulaski did for the little girl who was Data’s penpal.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take. He was lucid aboard the ship long enough to see Picard and hear his name, and while the Mintakans are by all accounts a rational people who don’t hold to superstition or religion, he believes he has been brought back to life by the Overseer, a myth of their ancestors, and he has heard the Overseer’s name: The Picard. When Picard realizes he will tell others, he has Riker and Troi beam down disguised as Mintakans to attempt to diffuse the situation and discredit him. This works for all of two seconds, as the Mintakans find one of the missing research scientists unconscious, and he’s clearly not Mintakan. Riker and Troi work to rescue the scientist, but suspicions are raised to the point that Troi is held captive when Riker makes off with the scientist.

Dr. Barron, the head researcher, suggests that since the Prime Directive has already been violated and these people are now developing a religion based on The Picard (and since they’re down there debating whether they should sacrifice Troi to The Picard), that he should play the part of God and give them appropriate commandments. Picard won’t allow one breach of the Prime Directive to dictate another and cause these people who in another life would have been posters on /r/atheism to fall back into religion and superstition. Instead, he concocts a plan to beam up the leader of the village, a woman named Nuria, and explain to her that he is not a god.

She is of course in shock to be beamed up to a starship and immediately falls prostrate before her Overseer. Picard carefully explains to her, without revealing the inner workings of things, how what she sees as magic he sees as simple tools. He engages her in a Socratic dialogue where she imagines encountering an ancestor who still lived in a cave instead of a hut, and had no knowledge of the bow. To this ancestor, she who commanded the bow would seem to wield a great magic, but to Nuria, it is a mere tool. He begins to believe he has sufficiently explained to her, but when she begs him to bring back to life six people who died in the previous winter’s flood, it’s clear he needs a better demonstration. He takes her to sickbay, where one of the injured researchers succumbs to her wounds and dies despite Dr. Crusher’s best efforts.

It is now that Nuria understands. He may be advanced, but he is not superior. He is flesh and blood like her, and he has no mastery of life and death. They beam down to tell the others in the village, which is well-timed as Liko is about to shoot Troi with an arrow. Liko won’t listen to Nuria’s explanations, or even those of Picard, and even offers to demonstrate to everyone that Picard is an immortal by pointing the bow at him. Picard, in either a noble sacrifice or a Kirkian bluff-calling move, says that if his death is the only thing that will prove his lack of supernatural ability, then fire. Liko does, but only wings Picard in the shoulder. Still, when he sees that he made his god bleed, he is able to accept the truth.

While Star Trek has always held at its core the tenets of secular humanism, with Kirk finding god-like aliens every week, this is the first time that the series has ever really treated religion with outright revulsion. Picard almost uncharacteristically reacts with righteous anger at the idea of religion, equating it to the dark ages. In general and in the future, the show tends to treat religion with more tact, even though it considers it to be flawed. Deep Space Nine will take on religion with far more depth when it comes into play, a fantastic episode with parallels to the creationism vs evolution in schools debate called “In the Hands of the Prophets.”

NITPICKS

How many planets in the galaxy have the same exact rock formation? Did an ancient rock formation find itself unique and alone in the universe, so it seeded the galaxy with copies of itself so that ships named Enterprise would collect enough data to construct a hidden rock message?

FAVORITE QUOTES

Crusher: Before you start quoting me the Prime Directive, he’d already seen us. The damage was done. It was either bring him aboard or let him die.
Picard: Then why didn’t you let him die?
Riker: We have a problem.
Picard: With the contamination?
Riker: It’s worse than we suspected. The Mintakans are beginning to believe in a god. And the one they’ve chosen is you.
Barron: Like it or not, we have rekindled the Mintakans’ belief in the Overseer.
Riker: And are you saying that this belief will eventually become a religion?
Barron: It’s inevitable. And without guidance, that religion could degenerate into inquisitions, holy wars, chaos.
Picard: Horrifying. Doctor Barron, your report describes how rational these people are. Millennia ago, they abandoned their belief in the supernatural. Now you are asking me to sabotage that achievement, to send them back into the dark ages of superstition and ignorance and fear? No! We will find some way to undo the damage we’ve caused.
Picard: You must not kneel to me.
Nuria: You do not wish it?
Picard: I do not deserve it.
Picard: Now, Nuria, suppose one of your cave dwelling ancestors could see you as you are today. What would she think?
Nuria: I don’t know.
Picard: Put yourself in her place. You see, she cannot kill a hornbuck at a great distance. You can. You have a power she lacks.
Nuria: Only because I have a bow.
Picard: She’s never seen a bow. It doesn’t exist in her world. To you, it’s a simple tool. To her, it’s magic.
Nuria: I suppose she might think so.
Picard: Now, how would she react to you?
Nuria: I think she would fear me.
Picard: Just as you fear me.
Nuria: I do not fear you any longer.

April 25th: The Best of Both Worlds in theaters

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 02:07:12 -0700

April 25th: The Best of Both Worlds in theaters:

http://www.fathomevents.com/#!star-trek-best-of-both-worlds

Just figured I’d let you all know, if you want to see the epic Borg 2-parter, it’ll be in theaters one night only next Thursday in select theaters. Buy tickets now!

266. [TNG] The Survivors

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:01:35 -0700

SCORE: (3/5 stars)

Responding to a distress call on a Federation colony, the Enterprise arrives to discover the entire planet’s surface has been obliterated… all except for one house with an elderly couple, the Uxbridges. Rishon is a kindly woman who makes tea and is very hospitable, but Kevin is a very private sort who wants to be left alone. They knew that much of the colony had been obliterated when an alien ship belonging to a species called the Husnock attacked, but not until now were they made aware they were the only survivors.

Despite being all alone on this world, Kevin refuses offers to help them relocate to another colony. He seems to think they can survive just fine on what they have, though the analysis of the away team is that they have enough fusion power to last another five years at best, and no access to clean water. Meanwhile, Troi seems to sense something different about the Uxbridges, but before she can get too close, she begins hearing music in her head, music that she can’t shake no matter how hard she tries, to the point that it drives her to physical pain because it won’t go away even in the deepest sleeps.

The Husnock appear to return, presumably to finish the job, but flee the system when the Enterprise fires a warning shot. The Enteprise pursues, but Picard senses something is seriously amiss when the ship matches their warp acceleration exactly, point for point, no matter how much they push the engines. He senses this was a diversion to keep them from Rana IV, so he orders a return course. He personally beams down to meet with the Uxbridges and to offer them a replicator, which Kevin refuses even though Rishon says they do need it. He also, again, refuses to go with Picard to the Enterprise. By this point, Picard’s already begun to suspect Kevin is not who he says he is. Kevin believes the only reason he and his wife were spared was because they chose not to fight the Husnock, but Picard thinks there’s something else to it.

The Husnock ship returns, this time attacking the Enterprise, doing some rather significant damage and absorbing a full barrage of phaser fire and photon torpedoes without receiving a scratch. The Enterprise moves out of orbit to escape the firing, and the ship breaks off. Picard, again, suspects the only purpose of this ship is to keep the Enterprise away from the planet, and beams down again to confront the Uxbridges, who are apparently in the middle of celebrating being alone again. Picard understands that they won’t come up to the ship, but insists that as long as they are alive, he will keep the Enterprise in orbit of the planet.

Letting this play out, he watches on the bridge as the Husnock ship arrives in orbit and fires on the Uxbridge house. Once they’ve been obliterated, a single photon destroys the previously invulnerable ship. Picard has the ship moved to a higher orbit, and plays a waiting game. Sure enough, the Uxbridge house is soon restored to its pristine condition. Picard’s hunch is vindicated. He has them beamed directly to the bridge, where he very kindly explains to Rishon that she is not real. She vanishes, and we learn the truth about Kevin.

He is an immortal alien called a Douwd, powers in line with the god-aliens of half of TOS. He had decided to settle for a human life decades ago when he met Rishon. He held to a doctrine of non-violence. He would never kill anything, even in self-defense. So when the Husnock arrived, even though he knew they may kill the colonists, he did nothing. It was only when Rishon herself left to aid the colonists in their fight and was killed that Kevin snapped. In his grief and anger, he destroyed the Husnock—entirely. With a thought, he wiped all 50 billion Husnock from the galaxy. He remained on the planet with a recreation of his wife to hide from what he had done. Picard says he will not hold Kevin prisoner, and that he is so far beyond the Federation that it is not within their ability to pass judgment. Kevin leaves, but not before removing the music he had placed in Troi’s mind to keep her from discerning his true nature.

The lenses used in this episode seem off somehow, like it’s only slightly too wide and gives the whole thing a very odd and disquieting feel. I’m not sure whether this was on purpose to give you the sense that reality is being altered by Uxbridge, or whether it was just some new lenses they were using, but it really feels off. Of special note is the actor who played Kevin Uxbridge. Just before filming, he had lost his wife, which made this episode very personal and very difficult for him. My props and condolences to the man.

NITPICKS

Picard says that the Federation has no law to fit Kevin Uxbridge’s crime. I find it highly unbelievable that the Federation does not have laws against genocide.<

FAVORITE QUOTES

Worf: Sir. May I say your attempt to hold the away team at bay with a non-functioning weapon was an act of unmitigated gall.
Kevin: Didn’t fool you, huh?
Worf: I admire gall.
Rishon: Well, what do you think, Mister Worf?
Worf: Good tea. Nice house.
Picard: Rishon, I can touch you. I can hear your voice, I can smell your perfume. In every respect you are a real person with your own mind and beliefs, but you do not exist. You died along with the others, defending the colony.
Kevin: My hatred exploded, and in an instant of grief I destroyed the Husnock.
Crusher: Why did you try to hide this from all of us? Was it out of guilt for not helping Rishon and the others when they were alive?
Kevin: No, no, no, no. You don’t understand the scope of my crime. I didn’t kill just one Husnock, or a hundred, or a thousand. I killed them all. All Husnock everywhere.

265. [TNG] The Ensigns of Command

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:01:58 -0700

SCORE: (4/5 stars)

Data’s about to perform in a string quartet in Ten Forward, the first of many concerts we see in that lounge. (Side note: O’Brien plays cello? How come that never comes up in DS9?) When he sees Picard and Dr. Crusher are in attendance, he recommends they come to the second performance when someone else is on first violin, as he believes his performance is too mechanical and lacking in feeling. They waste no time in informing him that a command officer shouldn’t undermine his abilities to the point that those serving with him begin to lose confidence in him, and they’re certain he’ll perform well. Of course, a captain is never really off-duty, and Picard is forced to leave just as the concert is underway.

An alien species, the Sheliak, has announced that they plan to colonize a system the Federation granted to them in a treaty. The planet has human inhabitants and they are to be relocated in three days. The colony itself is a bit of a mystery; there are no records of its existence, and the planet is full of lethal radiation. They can’t even give the planet a proper scan because of the radiation’s interference. The only solution they have is to send Data down in a shuttle to make contact and give the proper warnings.

Data finds a colony of 15,000 people. They landed here a century ago when their colony ship went way off course and they had to make do with the planet they had. They found a way to counteract the effects of the radiation and made quite the home for themselves. The leader Gosheven seems to think warnings of a Sheliak claim aren’t worth raising any alarm over. How can they lay claim to a planet they aren’t even on, when they’ve been here a century and worked hard for it? (While the threat is very real, I’m inclined to agree with him myself. Homesteading is what gives someone the right of land, not a piece of paper.)

Data is to convince the colonists to evacuate while the Enterprise attempts to solve their crisis from two different angles. The transporter will not function through the radiation, so Picard has Geordi and Wesley working on that, despite Geordi’s protestations that it’s impossible. Meanwhile, Picard himself tries to reason with the Sheliak, but they are incredibly legalistic, citing their rights according to the treaty signed with the Federation, and indicating that they see the human colony as little more than a roach infestation they’ll exterminate if they have to. Never mind that it will take three weeks to evacuate the colonists by shuttlecraft. They have three days and no more.

Data finds an ally on the colony, a woman named Ard’rian who seems oddly to be an expert in androids despite never having met one in her life and being so far removed from the Federation that she doesn’t even know what phasers are. I think she’s got a bit of android fever, but that’s neither here nor there. She helps Data organize voices of reason to convince Gosheven, but he’s not having any of it, even resorting to using a cattle prod on Data to shut up the stupid android. You see, they’ve built a life for themselves! They made an aquaduct! That means that they’re totally safe. Data’s forced to go beyond logic and find the right charisma, the right emotional arguments. He does so by opening fire on city guards and destroying a pumping station along the aqueduct, as a single android armed with one phaser. He uses this to demonstrate how much more deadly the Sheliak will be, and how they can argue property rights all they want and will still be dead. This ends the opposition.

Picard’s having very little luck with the Sheliak, constantly being hung up on, but decides to consult the gigantic treaty to find anything that could be of use to him. He eventually finds it: a clause that allows him to select a neutral third-party arbitrator. The Sheliak concede he has that right, and he selects a species that is currently in their hibernation phase and won’t be awake for another 6 months. The Sheliak can wait the 6 months… or they can give the Federation 3 weeks to get another ship in orbit and get the colony evacuated. This works, and a good thing too. Geordi comes to the bridge and tells Picard they can fix the transporter to beam through the radiation with 15 years and a huge research team, but that won’t be needed now.

The acting of the human colonists is really bottom of the barrel, B-movie delivery, stiff-as-a-board stances. Data’s cattle prodding is treated with almost no reaction from the rest of the colonists. And Gosheven, the colony leader, is the worst. The actor’s voice was replaced by another’s in ADR. The new voice doesn’t match him at all. I’ve seen good voice replacement, multiple characters had it done in the original Star Wars trilogy. This wasn’t it. The audio stood out strongly from the rest of the mix and carried a far-too-theatrical feel.

NITPICKS

According to the second season episode “Up the Long Ladder,” the Enterprise is self-cleaning. Yet Picard wipes dust from the top of the dedication plaque on the bridge. WELL WRITERS? WHICH IS IT? GOD YOU GUYS ARE WORTHLESS.

FAVORITE QUOTES

Ard’rian: Cybernetic intelligence fascinates me. Are your neural pathways duotronic?
Data: No, positronic.
Ard’rian: I didn’t know that was possible! What’s your memory capacity? How many operations per second? I have a million questions.
Data: I am afraid I have no time to answer a million questions.
Data: Among humans, a kiss usually serves to seal a friendship, or indicate support, attraction, affection. In this context, I must assume that your intention was to express support.
Ard’rian: You don’t really understand human behavior, do you?
Data: That is something of an understatement.
Wesley: He wants the impossible.
LaForge: That’s the short definition of Captain.
Data: I wish to speak.
Gosheven: No. Leave now.
Data: Do you consider your position so weak that it cannot withstand debate?
Data: That was the stun setting. This is not. I can reduce this pumping station to a pile of debris, but I trust my point is clear. I am one android with a single weapon. There are hundreds of Sheliak on the way and their weapons are far more powerful. They may not offer you a target. They can obliterate you from orbit. You will die never having seen the faces of your killers. The choice is yours.

264. [TNG] Evolution

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 00:01:40 -0700

SCORE: (4/5 stars)

Season three! Collared uniforms! The return of Doctor Crusher! And guest-starring Dr. Kelso! Yes, I know his character’s name is Dr. Stubbs, but that’s a stupid name and he’s Dr. Kelso on Scrubs so he’s also Dr. Kelso here. And any one of you who dares to challenge me on that, we will throw down in the Klingon calisthenics program with safeties off. I will die pathetically and out of breath, but I will not back down from this challenge.

The Enterprise is on site to observe a rare neutron star’s activity. It siphons material from its sister star and builds up to a shell ejection every two centuries. Dr. Kelso has made it his life’s work after the abysmal 9^th season of Scrubs to observe and catalog data from this rare stellar event. But a problem arises when Wesley Crusher falls asleep monitoring a science project to make nanites better, and inadvertently causes them to become self-replicating and develop a eusocial intelligence. Since they require raw material to construct more of themselves, they begin accidentally damaging ship systems, cannibalizing them to construct themselves. This plays havoc, as one can imagine, and the ship nearly crashes into the matter stream between the two stars.

It takes a while for Wesley to work up the courage to tell the crew what he did (even though at this point he only suspects the nanites, he doesn’t have proof). After a good chat with Guinan (seriously, Deanna seems to just annoy people when she has advice), he talks to his mother about it, who takes it to the senior staff. Dr. Kelso thinks it’s ridiculous that a group of nanites could have evolved into an organism and wants to destroy them, even firing phasers at them as they damage the computer core. They seek revenge on him by wiring ship systems to electrocute him in his quarters.

Data proposes that he communicate with the nanites and offer his body to serve as a medium for communication, so that they can find a peaceful solution to their problem. Kelso admits he was wrong and was simply worried because they were jeopardizing the ship’s safety, and should Picard leave the system without observing the neutron flare, his life’s work would be for nothing. The nanites agree to the truce and that there was misunderstanding on all sides. They negotiate to be deposited on a planet that will be designated for them, and help repairs to the ship so that the observation goes off without a hitch.

In the B-plot, Beverly Crusher attempts to reconnect with her teenage son. She’s missed a lot in her year away at Starfleet Medical, and he’s an aloof teenager who doesn’t want to be mothered after a year apart. She’s concerned that he’s spending too much time on his work and not enough on his social life and enjoiyng his last years of teenagehood. She’s relieved to see him on an apparent date with a civilian girl in Ten Forward, until she panics and realizes he’s on an apparent date with a civilian girl in Ten Forward. “What do you know about this girl?” she asks Guinan.

I really enjoy Ken Jenkins’ performance in this episode. He doesn’t behave as though he’s in a science fiction show, he acts like he’s a genuine person. (He would explain that’s because he had no idea what was going on in the show, an excuse he later gives for half the jokes he says on Scrubs).

NITPICKS

When Dr. Kelso rolls into a wall on the bridge, you can see the set wall bend at his touch.

FAVORITE QUOTES

Stubbs: Quite a dynamic family team, you Crushers.
Crusher: Well, it’s nice to be together again. I was at Starfleet Medical for a year. I missed about two inches of him.
Stubbs: I’m not sure I’d want my mother to be flying through space with me. No, I take that back. I am sure. I wouldn’t want her.
Guinan: Wes, do you think you’re going to get a good grade?
Wesley: I always get an A.
Guinan: So did Doctor Frankenstein.
Stubbs: Do you know baseball?
Wesley: Yes, my father taught it to me when I was young.
Stubbs: Once, centuries ago, it was the beloved national pastime of the Americas, Wesley. Abandoned by a society that prized fast food and faster games. Lost to impatience. But I have seen the great players make the great plays.
Wesley: Do you recreate them on a holodeck?
Stubbs: No. In here. With the knowledge of statistics, runs, hits and errors, times at bat, box scores. Men like us do not need holodecks, Wesley. I have played seasons in my mind. It was my reward to myself for patience. Knowing my turn would come. Call your shot. Point to a star. One great blast and the crowd rises. A brand new era in astrophysics. Postponed one hundred and ninety six years on account of rain.
Crusher: Do you have any children, Guinan?
Guinan: A lot.
Crusher: Ever have any trouble relating to them?
Guinan: Just one.
Crusher: One?
Guinan: Wouldn’t listen to anybody.
Crusher: Well, they all go through that.
Guinan: Not in a species of listeners.

263. [TNG] Season 2 Review

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:01:54 -0700

SCORE: (3.55/5 stars)

The growing pains of TNG have begun to subside and we start getting into the real meat of the series. Major ethical questions are raised. Is Data a person? He’s not flesh and blood like the rest of us and certainly he’d be unique if we consider him a lifeform. Do we ascribe him personhood just because he’s made to resemble a man, or is there more to him than that? Should the Prime Directive be followed as an absolute? We’ve seen that they can neatly handle violations in an untraceable fashion so the culture is not affected. Picard holds back in situations where Kirk would boldly go.

New characters are introduced. We have Dr. Pulaski, the short-lived replacement for Crusher and an attempt to bring back the superego/id dynamic of Spock and Bones. I’ll admit that while I wasn’t happy to see Dr. Crusher leave and was initially hostile toward Pulaski, she grew on me as the season progressed. Whoopi Goldberg gets a role in the franchise that inspired her to become an actor, and it’s a pretty damned good role in Guinan. She does such a good job of giving advice to people that I’m left wondering why Deanna still has a job on the ship. And possibly the most important character to be introduced this season? The Borg. Oh yes, if there’s ever a Star Trek villain, it’s the Borg.

That’s not to say the show is done growing. There’s more than a few misses this season. You can’t just dress up a character as Han Solo and expect that the rest will take care of itself. I don’t know what the writer for “The Outrageous Okona” was thinking, but they wrote a character who the main cast fawned over for no good reason, and I don’t know how it’s possible, but we had an entire B story starring comedians Joe Piscopo, Whoopi Goldberg, and Brent Spiner, and not a laugh was had. And the season finale was suffering both from the show needing to cut costs, and the writer’s strike shortening the season and rushing the script. Hardly the most fitting end for Pulaski, probing Riker’s brain to make a clip show.

Wesley is slowly getting less annoying. He’s also in less episodes and given less to do in episodes he appears, and I don’t think these things are unrelated. I will always maintain that the best Wesley episodes occur after he leaves the show as a regular, much like how Denise Crosby makes most of her memorable appearances long after Tasha Yar is dead. But his bonding experience with Picard in the shuttlecraft in “Samaritan Snare” was very well done, starting to form a surrogate father/son bond between the two. They should have shared a shuttlecraft more often; the next time they do, it crashes on a planet, giving them both a lot more time to develop their relationship.

From a technical standpoint, the camerawork and lighting is rather bland. It’s my understanding that there were many changing of hands from season 2 to season 3, and a more skilled lighting engineer is brought on. Going forward, pretty much everything about the show should start to look and feel a lot better. For one thing, the current jumpsuit uniforms are going to be mostly discarded, kept only for background extras, as new two-piece raised collar uniforms are brought in. (Partly at the behest of Patrick Stewart’s chiropractor, who said the one-size-too-small jumpsuits were destroying his spine.)

In addition going forward: Maurice Hurley is on the outs, and Michael Piller will be taking over as head writer. Piller has a much stronger eye for continuity and uniformity. We’ll begin to see a better standardization of terms and technical jargon. Overall, season 3 will be a tighter, better-written piece, and I look forward to getting into it. We’ll see Picard fighting against being made a god, the return of an old (and dead) crewmember, Frakes will begin his highly successful directing career as Data builds a daughter, a Vulcan from TOS will be making an appearance, and if the Borg scared you in “Q Who,” wait until you see what’s in store for the season finale..