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| The Enterprise is pulled toward certain death! |
THE PLOT
The Enterprise finds its progress to its next destination halted by an unknown force, which Data identifies as a swarm of two-dimensional beings. These entities are now towing the Enterprise, having inadverdantly caught the ship in their field. With no way to interact or communicate with them - no signs even of intelligence - the Enterprise crew must find a way to break free before the beings reach a cosmic string, which has a gravitational force greater than a black hole's, which will surely destroy the Enterprise!
Meanwhile, Troi loses her empathic abilities, and responds by pushing away everyone around her and resigning her position. Of course she'll get them back, but not before learning A Very Important Lesson about trusting your own instincts.
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: Initially intrigued by the two-dimensional aliens - at least, until matters reach a point that endangers the ship. He prefers to try to capture their attention in ways that won't potentially harm them. But when the ship is being dragged toward destruction, he ends up taking Worf's suggestion and firing into the aliens. He shows compassion to Troi, and eventually keeps her from resigning even in her condition by making her feel valuable in the current situation.
Riker: Initially tries to present himself to Troi simply as a shoulder to cry on. When she reacts badly to that, and continues to respond badly to the concern of those around her, he eventually goes back with a far firmer temperament. He accuses her of enjoying her "advantage" over those around her, and of trying to avoid interaction now that she's on a "level playing field" for the first time ever.
Troi: So Troi has lost her empathic abilities. However will the ship cope without her sensing hostility when aliens are shooting at them? Of course, she gets them back by the end of the hour, but in the meantime we get treated to a series of over-the-top scenes in which Troi lashes out at Riker and Dr. Crusher, and even flounces out of a briefing like a 13-year-old girl preparing to throw a major hissy fit. Credit where it's due: Marina Sirtis does her best with some very bad material, and her performance is not at all bad. But the script's way of dealing with Troi frightened and in pain is to regress her to adolescent behavior, and it is neither enjoyable nor convincing to watch.
THOUGHTS
"We have to get two dimensional!" Hate to break this to you, Deanna, but you already are.
The Loss is a deeply tedious episode. The "A" plot, as noted above, sees Troi throwing a series of miniature tantrums at everyone in her path while feeling aggressively sorry for herself. After about two scenes of this, it's already become tiresome. But she only begins to snap out of it and behave like an adult in the final ten minutes of the episode, meaning that there is an awful lot of crap to sit through.
I won't give the script a lot of credit, so I'll start by noting one positive. When Picard starts to rattle off the old wives' tale about how people who lose one sense find their other senses sharpen, Troi shoots it down instantly as having "no scientific basis." Many Trek episodes - notably those invoking the "humans use only ten percent of their brains" myth - would have benefited from similar moments.
That and a couple decent scenes with Riker and Guinan pretty much sum up my positive thoughts for this episode, though. The character-based plot fails because the characterization feels two-dimensional, which is vaguely appropriate given that the "B" plot revolves around the Enterprise being towed by two-dimensional life forms. This plot doesn't work particularly better than the Troi one, with every scene inviting a new flow of Technobabble.
It all ends with them disrupting the graviton field of the two-dimensional entities by simulating the vibrations of the cosmic string the entities are approaching. Even typing that sentence starts to give me a headache, and it's the tip of the iceberg of the Techno-speak on display in this episode. Honestly, it feels less like a TNG episode and more like a Voyager episode. One of the bad ones.
Overall Rating: 3/10
Previous Episode: Final Mission
Next Episode: Data's Day
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