The Enterprise comes to the peaceful world of Haven, hoping for some shore leave - much needed after all those trying missions in which they had to have long conversations with all manner of uninteresting aliens. But their stay is not destined to be a restful one. No sooner have they arrived than Counsellor Troi receives a message from her family. A promise made by her parents when she was a child has been called in and, by Betazoid tradition, she is to marry Wyatt (Robert Knepper), the son of one of her late father's closest friends.
As Troi deals with her unexpected new fiance, Picard finds himself with a dilemma affecting both the Enterprise and the planet below. A Tarallian vessel is moving toward Haven, and even sub-warp speeds, it is less than a day away. The Tarallians are a race that wiped themselves out through biological warfare. Attempts by some of that race to escape their world resulted only in them spreading their infection to other planets. Federation regulations require Picard both to protect Haven and to extend aid to the Tarallians. But how can he do both? And how can he extend any aid without risking infection to Enterprise?
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: Though he disagrees with the traditions that allow Troi to be forced into a marriage, he does not attempt to intervene. He shows admirable forebearance in dealing with Troi's exasperating mother, Lwaxana (Majel Barrett). We also see Picard's thoughtful side in his efforts to deal with the Tarallian situation.
Riker: For a change, Riker is not elevated to the show's "heroic lead," but left in the background. This not only provides Picard with a better episode than usual, but minimizes the irritation of Jonathan Frakes' performance, which I'm sorry to say is his worst yet. Watching him find every excuse possible to leave the room when the subject of the wedding comes up, it doesn't feel like he's losing the woman he loves. It feels like he's a teenager, sulking over a crush moving on to someone else. Frakes is a decent actor when delivering dialogue, but his nonverbal performance leaves a lot to be desired. In this episode, I'd actually rate him as the weak link in the cast (then again, this episode is Wesley-free).
Troi: My dislike of the generally-useless character of Counsellor Troi should not be in any way mistaken for a dislike for actress Marina Sirtis. In this episode, she finally gets a chance to do something other than "sense hostility" or "sense confusion." Allowed to play a character for a change rather than a walking mood ring (a good friend of mine has dubbed her "Counsellor Moodring"), she delivers a genuinely appealing performance. She shows warmth and humor in her scenes with Wyatt. She does bungle a short emotional outburst at the end of the dinner scene... Then again, the outburst is so poorly-written, I'm not sure any actress could have pulled it off.
Data: Data clearly loves watching the emotional goings-on connected to Troi's wedding, causing him to circle the wedding guests "like a buzzard," as Picard notes. Data also gets the funniest line of the episode, when he urges the elder Troi and the mother of the groom to "please continue the petty bickering. I find it fascinating." Brent Spiner remains masterful in both his line deliveries and his nonverbal performance, and it's easy to see why his role expanded in future seasons while certain other cast members' roles... did the opposite.
Tasha: Not much to do this week. But I did find her reactions to hearing that the wedding ceremony would be performed nude quite amusing. She certainly didn't seem to object to the idea.
THOUGHTS
An episode centering around Counsellor Troi, the most useless member of the cast with the possible exception of Wesley. A story involving her mother and an arranged marriage. My heart sank as the precredit sequence ended, as I felt certain that this was going to be one of the worst episodes yet.
So imagine my surprise when I ended up rather liking Haven! Aside from the poor characterization and performance of Frakes' Riker, the spotlighted characters all get a good moment or two. The "A" and "B" plots are woven together fairly well (something that would not always be the case on this show), and both stories actually move along at a pretty fair pace. The comedy bits are even, by and large, funny, particularly those involving Data or Carel Struycken, as Troi's mother's valet.
There are still problems. The plot with Troi's arranged marriage occasionally provokes some amusement, but there's never any tension or real possibility of it actually going anywhere. The story takes pains to show Wyatt's paintings of the girl in his vision quite early on, so we have a fair idea of how everything will be resolved. And it is all resolved far too neatly, far too easily, for this to rank as a particularly good episode.
Still, for the second episode running, I actually enjoyed a Next Generation episode. As with Hide and Q, there is still plenty of room for improvement. But Haven was fun to watch, and I now find myself guardedly optimistic that things may finally be looking up.
Rating: 6/10.
Previous Episode: Hide and Q
Next Episode: The Big Goodbye
Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: The Next Generation
Review Index
To receive new review updates, follow me:
On Twitter:
On Threads:
No comments:
Post a Comment