6-14. Face of the Enemy.

Troi wakes into a nightmare: Life as a Romulan!

THE PLOT

Counselor Troi wakes up in an unfamiliar room on an unfamiliar ship. She stumbles to the mirror, attempting to activate the lights all the way. The sight that greets her at the mirror is a shock. The face staring out at her is herself... as a Romulan!

Troi has been abducted from a conference by Subcommander N'Vek (Scott MacDonald), a member of Ambassador Spock's Romulan dissident movement. N'Vek has had her surgically altered to appear Romulan, and has furnished her with an identity as a member of the Tal Shiar. A Romulan intelligence organization dedicated to ensuring the loyalty of all Romulans, the Tal Shiar has wide discretion in its operations and is almost universally feared... giving Troi exactly the leverage she needs to force the shrewd Commander Toreth (Carolyn Seymour) to go along with a mission.

If successful, this mission could pave the way for mass Romulan defections, lending power and momentum to the dissidents. But if Troi's masquerade is discovered, then she is certain to be executed immediately!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: Spends much of the episode dealing with Stefan DeSeve (Barry Lynch), a former Starfleet ensign who defected to Romulus in his youth. Now DeSeve has returned with a message from Ambassador Spock. Picard isn't sure whether to trust him, until the man tells him both why he went to Romulus and why he left. In his youth, the moral certainty of the Romulans appealed to him, but as he has gotten older, he has come to question the value of such absolute certainty. Picard recognizes the appeal of the first statement and the wisdom of the second - so from that point on, he largely accepts DeSeve at his word and stops treating him as a traitor and prisoner.

Troi: A Troi-centric episode that works, both as an episode and as a vehicle for Counselor Troi. A big reason why this is such a good episode for her is that she is thrust into a situation where she absolutely cannot be her usual, touchy-feely self. As a member of the Tal Shiar, she must behave as someone who assumes total control as her due. She cannot show empathy or doubt, and can only express remorse at loss of life behind closed doors. Marina Sirtis gives possibly her series-best performance here, managing to inhabit this ruthless facade without losing the sense for the audience that we are watching "our" Troi at all times.

Romulans: "Clarity of purpose is a more ambiguous matter than I had thought in my youth." One element of this episode that is mined to superb effect is the contrast between the two significant Romulan guest characters, Commander Toreth and Subcommander N'Vek. Toreth abhors the police state tactics of the Tal Shiar, which claimed the life of her grandfather. She is dedicated to her crew's welfare, and is appalled by the murders of the freighter crew. N'Vek is cold, calculating, and absolutely ruthless - The freighter crew is killed by his choice, because he cannot allow loose ends to endanger his mission. In the normal course of events, you would expect N'Vek to be the villain and Toreth the ally... Yet this episode traps Troi in a situation in which the ruthless N'Vek is the only person she can trust, and the more thoughtful Toreth is a deadly enemy. This adds texture to the interactions among these three characters, and gives added dramatic heft to an already strong episode.


THOUGHTS

Face of the Enemy is a very good episode, one that nicely washes away the bitter taste of Aquiel. It is effectively a Cold War thriller, a genre with which Star Trek has often had success. Naren Shankar's script is tightly structured, with no dead space in the episode at all. It gets a further boost by the direction of Gabrielle Beaumont, who makes good use of the lower light levels of the Romulan spaceship sets as well as the tighter quarters to create an effective, claustrophobic atmosphere.

The episode does an immediately good job of making the viewer feel trapped with Troi in this situation. We open as Troi wakes and discovers what has happened to her. We then spend the entire first Act of the show with her, receiving only as much information as she does. It's a superb first Act, giving neither Troi nor the viewer much chance to gain a solid footing. N'Vek gives some quick exposition before bundling Troi onto the bridge for her first confrontation with Commander Toreth, pushing Troi to face down this imposing woman with no real information at all.

Only after this first encounter, as Troi fully assumes her role, do we finally cut to the Enterprise. This is a good fifteen minutes in, a full third of the way through the episode, before we get any point of view other than Troi's. Nor is this wasted material, either, as Picard gets hints of the bigger picture that are denied to Troi (such as the involvement of Spock's dissidents).  From there, the two strands dovetail nicely.  The finale is also well-handled, with both Picard and Troi improvising to think their way out of a seemingly impossible situation.

All in all, a splendid episode. If Aquiel felt like a series going through the motions to fill airtime, then this feels like a show at the height of its power to hold the audience in its grip.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

4-15. First Contact

Making first contact.

THE PLOT

Picard chases the Borg back through time... No wait, wrong First Contact.

The Enterprise is on a First Contact mission to Malcor III, a planet on the cusp of developing warp technology. Before making contact, it is standard procedure to gather as much information about the civilization as possible. To that end, Enterprise studies broadcasts from the planet. There are also Starfleet personnel who have been cosmetically altered to resemble the Malcorians. Riker is superficially altered to resemble them in order to coordinate efforts with them, as Picard prepares to personally contact the Malcorian Chancellor (George Coe).

When Riker gets caught in a riot, he is injured and loses contact with his ship. He is taken to a local hospital, where the doctors quickly realize that he is not a Malcorian. Now he must find a way to escape before the state security forces are contacted - something which could complicate Picard's First Contact, and make it impossible for Riker to ever escape alive!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: This episode sees him in full diplomat mode. He deals with Mirasta (Carolyn Seymour) and the Chancellor pleasantly and with as much openness as is pragmatic. When Mirasta warns him against telling the Chancellor of Riker's situation, Picard heeds her warning - something he later admits was a mistake. He is frank in taking responsibility for the error, and he and Chancellor Durken seem like ready-made friends. He is also understanding of the Chancellor's decision at the end. Patrick Stewart is at his best in episodes like this, showing Picard's intelligence and diplomatic skill, and it's refreshing to see the meat of the episode devoted to Picard interacting in this way with equally intelligent guest characters.

Riker: Gets the Kirk treatment, as he catches the eye of a nurse (Bebe Neuwirth) who is effectively a UFO nut, and who demands that Riker make love to her in order for her to help him escape. Riker - if you're actually attempting to dissuade her, talking about how "there are differences... in the way we make love," probably was not a good choice. Outside of adding another notch to his belt (no wonder he gained weight - He needed a bigger belt for storage), Riker has a pretty good episode. He remains calm, attempting at first to brazen out his situation by pretending that all of his biological differences from the Malcorians are simple birth defects before finally attempting escape.


THOUGHTS

First Contact is a surprisingly good episode. Parts of it almost seem to be the flip-side of Season Three's Who Watches the Watchers, particularly when Picard takes Mirasta aboard Enterprise to introduce himself and his technology to her. The scenes in which Picard interacts with her and with Chancellor Durken showcase some thoughtful, intelligent writing and also some very good acting by Patrick Stewart, Carolyn Seymour, and George Coe.

These scenes are so good, I almost regret the need for the "Riker-in-jeopardy" subplot. Not that the Riker scenes are at all bad. Frakes is on good form, and Riker's attempts to stick to his (weak) cover story while trying to escape are believable in context. But the intelligent drama centering around Picard and the Chancellor is simply much more interesting. I can't help but wonder how this episode might have played with the entire show from the point of view of the Chancellor and his inner circle, with no Riker subplot, just the drama of the first contact situation itself to fuel the episode. But that would probably have been too much of a departure for TNG to attempt, even in a period in which the show has become much more experimental than in its early days.

An enjoyable departure from the norm, in any case, with at least as much time devoted to the well-developed and well-acted guest characters as to the main cast. A good episode that falls just short of being a great one.


Overall Rating: 8/10

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