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| Data is taken over by an alien consciousness. |
The Enterprise encounters a rogue comet, which has been traveling through space for more than 87 million years. Picard orders a full sensor analysis, but something in the comet causes an echo. Shortly after, strange things begin happening on the ship. The replicators produce primitive, ritualistic objects, adorned with alien symbols. Those same symbols appear on computer displays. Something in the comet has affected the ship.
Picard orders a widespread phaser beam to evaporate the comet's outer layers, revealing a structure at the center. Data states it is an archive of an ancient civilization... and shortly after, transforms, a symbol appearing on his head as his mind is taken over by personalities from that civilization.
Data's transformation is only the beginning. The Enterprise is being changed, deck by deck, into alien buildings and temples. Ihat, one of the personalities in control of Data, provides a warning: "Masaka is waking! ...Do you understand pain? Death? That is all you need to know of Masaka. It is what she is. Go - Leave this place before she finds you!"
CHARACTERS
Capt. Picard: As if to make up for barely being in the last episode, Picard dominates this one. His anthropology background makes it believable that his attention would so captivated by the alien archive. When Picard decides to safeguard his ship by destroying the archive (an attempt that fails, of course), his intellectual disappointment at having to do so is consistent. Patrick Stewart's screen presence and Picard's steady leadership provide an anchor for the audience against the parade of bizarre events happening on screen.
Data: If Thine Own Self allowed Brent Spiner to remind us how good he is when he's simply playing Data, Masks allows him to indulge all of his hammy tendencies. Data's possessed by multiple personalities, meaning that Spiner gets to put on funny voices and overly emotive factial expressions. Of the personalities he assumes, he is most impressive as Masaka's elderly father, his voice and posture conveying the character's age long before dialogue spells it out. However, Spiner is downright annoying as Ihat, a boisterous and sardonic character who Spiner basically plays as Lore channeling Jim Carrey. I found his Ihat to be generally obnoxious - and we spend a lot more time with Ihat than with any of the other personalities.
Troi: Speaking of obnoxious, Troi's condescending attitude toward Data in the opening scenes is incredibly grating. In the midst of a very unconvincing art class, she shows a snide irritation at his overly-literal representations. It's the equivalent of watching a bad teacher pick on a boy for interpreting a (vague) assignment in "the wrong way." I'd add that Data's choice of an object to represent music, in response to a direct instruction from Troi, is actually quite a good choice, making her weary reaction all the more irritating. She spends the rest of the episode tagging along after Picard so that he can have someone to listen to his exposition, though I did find it amusing that one of Data's personalities mistook her for Death Incarnate.
THOUGHTS
Masks is almost certainly the most bizarre episode of TNG's run. That's actually its greatest strength - It's so utterly strange that you can't take your eyes off it, because you're wondering what weird thing is going to happen next.
The episode does deserve some credit for its ambition. It deals with myth and ritual, using the archive's transformation of the Enterprise to show the crew experiencing something symbolic in a way that's all too literal. My interpretation of the episode is that Masaka, her father, Korgano, and Ihat are all actually characters from this civilization's mythology, summoned up as a representation of their culture. As Picard notes early on, it makes no sense that a culture this technologically advanced would actually be as backward as what we glimpse - but it does make sense that these characters would be represented in rituals, or religion, or pageantry.
Unfortunately, ambition does not equal achievement. One failing of the episode is that the above is just my guess: It's really not clear in the episode what is going on, not even at the end. We are told that Data had an entire civilization in his head, for instance, which seems to imply real people... but the Masaka/Korgano relationship only makes any sense at all if it's myth. One or the other should be clear at the end, even if it's not clear before that.
Beyond that, the story is so focused on concept that it forgets character - very unusual, in a Joe Menosky script. Data is fully transformed by about the 15 minute mark, with no certainty given that he will be recoverable. Picard should care, and Geordi should be actively worried. Instead, Picard seems intrigued by this as a puzzle, and Geordi betrays no reaction at all. From this point on, no character other than Picard gets to really do anything, and even Picard is mostly just acting as a walking plot device, dropping exposition with every step and literally conjuring up a solution at the very end.
Combine the weak character material with the general weirdness, and it's inevitable that the episode ends up feeling cold and remote. Even so, I will rate Masks a little higher than its overall reputation. It's definitely a failure, but it's an interesting one. Comparing it against some of season Seven's other misfires (Liaisons, Dark Page, Force of Nature, Sub Rosa), this episode at least seems to have interesting ideas at its core.
It's just a shame those ideas come across so badly muddled on screen.
Overall Rating: 4/10.
Previous Episode: Thine Own Self
Next Episode: Eye of the Beholder
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