Unseen Starfleet personnel have been taken hostage offscreen on the planet Mordant (one presumes a dwarf planet). Karnas (Michael Pataki) lets Picard know that only one man can negotiate with the unseen terrorists to retrieve the unseen hostages. That man is Kir... ah, Jameson (Clayton Rohner), a wheelchair-bound octagenarian who was once a Starship captain.
Jameson and his wife beam aboard, and Jameson immediately lays out that he is in command of all aspects of the mission, and that Picard should just sit on his throne and shut up. Then Jameson gets a bit twitchy, and the layers of latex on his face begin being removed between scenes. He surprises all by getting out of his wheelchair, then leading Away Teams on attack missions. He gets twitchy some more, and all the latex is removed between scenes, allowing him to soulfully reveal the plot of A Private Little War to Picard, with the situation tweaked slightly because William Shatner was too smart to do this episode.
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: Is non-judgmental when Jameson reveals his role in the planet's civil war. He believes Jameson made the wrong call, but he doesn't condemn him for it, and doesn't let Karnas off the hook for his own actions.
Dr. Crusher: Is about as useful as Counsellor Troi. She knows that Jameson is hiding something, but can't say what. When Jameson collapses in his quarters, she can tell that something is affecting him... but can't say what. She can determine that his transformation isn't stable, but can do nothing about it. As he dies, she can't even give him anything for the pain. Ah, well. At least she's pretty, and gives a nice nonverbal reaction to Picard dismissing her intuition in one scene.
Decrepit Space Bureaucrat of the Week: Clayton Rohner is Admiral Jameson, the 80+ year old diplomat given command of the negotiations. Rohner mostly plays the part as a pompous, self-absorbed jerk. Long before the episode's end, all I wanted was for Jameson to shut up and die already. By the 21st hour of this 45-minute episode, I finally got my wish.
Tasha: Is on-screen a couple times. May have even had A Line. If you look very closely at the edge of frame, I think you can see Denise Crosby calling her agent between takes.
THOUGHTS
With the setup so similar to the plot of A Private Little War, it's not surprising that I've read speculation in multiple places that Too Short a Season was originally scripted to center around an aging James T. Kirk. If the Kirk story is true, one wonders why the producers went ahead with it after Shatner said "No." With Jameson being a stranger to us, what we are left with is a tedious standalone centered entirely around a (badly-acted) guest character whom we have never seen before and have no reason to care about. It would still have been dreadful with Kirk, but at least there would have been some reason to watch.
Regardless of the Kirk rumor, the episode is flat-out bad. Forget Justice, The Last Outpost, and Angel One. Godawful though they were, there was a certain cockeyed fun to be had in watching them not so much fall as dive straight onto their faces. Too Short a Season has no charm at all. It is just 45 minutes of sheer boredom.
Badly-acted boredom, too. Clayton Rohner is mostly poor, only getting a few good moments near the end (once he no longer has to try acting through seven layers of latex). Michael Pataki is even worse as the villain of the piece, the endlessly ranting Karnas. Pataki seems to be going for a Brian Blessed styled performance, shouting his every line. But Brian Blessed has grandeur when he bellows his performances. Pataki is simply hammy. Heck, even the extras in the background of the negotiation scene are bad. Witness their reactions to Jameson's fit, and giggle at the rare feat of nonverbal performances that are simultaneously over- and under-acted.
THE PICARD SLEDGEHAMMER
A double whammy, as Picard lectures Karnas on the futility of revenge, and on accepting responsibility for his own actions. After Karnas folds under the heavily tedious blows, Picard decides we haven't had enough yet. Even though Jameson is safely dead (taking the coward's way out in anticipation of Picard's next lecture), Picard still helpfully tells us about the futility of worshipping youth and that age "has its graces." Meanwhile, sitting about three feet away, Geordi wonders why he had to be born blind, when he could have lucked out and been born deaf instead.
Rating: 1/10. Ghastly. Just... ghastly.
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