With a space plague devastating a Federation planet (*drink*), Capt. Picard must negotiate with Lutan (Jessie Lawrence Ferguson), the leader of the technologically primitive Ligons. The Ligons are fierce, proud, and dress like tribal Africans. They also have basic transporter technology... which Lutan uses to kidnap Tasha. At first, study of the Ligon culture leads Picard to believe that this is just a show of force, a way for Lutan to demonstrate his courage. But then, instead of returning Tasha, Lutan announces that the Enterprise security chief will become his wife... provided, of course, she survives a fight to the death against Lutan's current wife!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: Continues to emphasize diplomacy over force, though as Lutan's behavior becomes less and less reasonable, he cannot help but muse about how easy the situation would be but for the Prime Directive. He does come up with a plan with Dr. Crusher's aid to circumvent Lutan's scheming. Patrick Stewart continues to impress more than the character does, and I find myself thinking that this show was desperately lucky to get Stewart. In the hands of a lesser actor, or even just an actor with less presence, Picard would feel like a dull nonentity.
Tasha: Gets the focus of this episode. She uses holodeck simulations to force herself to "keep improving" her hand-to-hand skills. She is very capable of winning a fight to the death against Lutan's wife, but has no desire to kill - and, indeed, in the final combat, she deliberately passes up multiple chances to kill her. Confesses some physical attraction to Lutan, which doesn't make her any happier about being made his hostage.
Villain of the Week: Lutan dresses like a tribal African, has a culture that seems to be a hybrid of Africa and the Middle East, and schemes to find ways to reconcile his people's strict code of honor with his own best interests. He is instantly intrigued by Tasha, but we soon learn that his interest in her is less sexual than focused on ways in which he can use her to better his own situation.
IT'S TIME FOR... BRATS IN SPAAACE!
A Wesley-light episode, thankfully. The annoying one is allowed to take over a bridge station for much of the episode, however, setting an unfortunate precedent for future episodes.
THOUGHTS
And I thought The Naked Now was bad.
This episode has apparently come under some fire for racism. I don't really believe the episode is guilty of racism, but I can see where it could be interpreted in such a way: the tribal, warrior-like black savages steal a white woman and make her fight to the death, and it's up to our noble, (mostly) white regulars to find a way to save her from either death or becoming a concubine. It does tap into certain unfortunate stereotypes, which is even more unfortunately reinforced by the Ligons' African-themed mode of dress.
That said, care is taken to make all three of the primary Ligon guest characters emerge as individuals. Lutan is not merely a villain, nor does he see himself as a villain. By the standards of his culture, he's quite honorable. He sticks strictly to his code of honor, though he's not above exploiting loopholes in that code to his own advantage. His second-in-command and his wife, both initially portrayed in one-dimensional terms, get a few extra character beats at the end, as well.
Unfortunately, though I don't buy into this being a "racist" episode, it is guilty of something almost as bad for a television series: bad storytelling. The situation feels contrived on the face of it. The hoary old Trek cliche of the space virus with only one vaccine is used to justify not simply beaming Tasha directly back up once she's located, because without that vaccine to dangle over Picard's head, he could have had this situation solved by the halfway mark (if not earlier). Lutan's society is shown to be horribly backward and primitive, thus allowing the episode to invoke the nebulous force of The Prime Directive to keep the Enterprise crew from solving the problem directly. However, this backward, primitive society has access to transporter technology - which seems far more advanced than anything else they have on hand. The explanation for this? Well, they couldn't possibly kidnap Tasha without a transporter, so therefore they have to have one for the story to work. Blah.
This show continues to fare poorly at sustaining any tension. Tasha is kidnapped, is about to be forced to fight to the death. Millions are dying, making it urgent that Picard & company solve this crisis as fast as humanly possible. So what do we do? We cut to a labored, unfunny, 2-minute scene in which Data tells jokes to Geordi. Yes, I know Brent Spiner and Levar Burton need to get paid this week. Still, that's a heck of a way to instantly deflate any and all tension that might accidentally have started building up.
Fight choreography at the climax is quite weak, unfortunately, making me nostalgic for William Shatner's bizarrely gymnastic fighting style of TOS. The setting of the fight - a sort of bizarre mix of a cube and a child's jungle gym - doesn't help. Hardly thrilling stuff, even with the porcupine gauntlets dripping with poison.
Rating: 3/10. Next to early TNG, thus far, early Enterprise is starting to look like a television masterpiece.
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