7-25, 7-26. All Good Things...

Picard is jumping back and forth through time...

THE PLOT

Jean-Luc Picard has become unstuck in time.

He is jumping between three time periods: The present; the past, at the very point when he first took command of theEnterprise; and more than 25 years in the future, when he is an old man who has been diagnosed with Irumodic Syndrome, a degenerative neurological disorder. The time jumps happen at seemingly random intervals; and after a moment of disorientation, Picard feels completely of that time period, with all the memories and characteristics that suit him in that time and place.

In both past and present, a large spatial anomaly has appeared, with the Enterprise sent to investigate. Convinced that the same anomaly must exist in the future, Picard convinces his old shipmates to join him in traveling to the Devron System - a region of space that, in this future, is controlled by a now-hostile Klingon Empire.

That's when Q appears, returning Picard to the Trial of Humanity that was their first meeting, and informing the captain that humanity has been found guilty. [I]"You are to be denied existence. Humanity's fate has been sealed. You will be destroyed." He adds that it is not the Q who will cause humanity's destruction.

The human race will end because of one man: Jean-Luc Picard!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: This story's Picard isn't "present" Picard transported to other time periods; as is spelled out early on, we are jumping between three Picards: the Picard of the present; the younger, less experienced pre-series Picard; and an elderly and infirm Picard. Stewart's performance differentiates these three incarnations. Past Picard was already a seasoned officer, so differences between him and "our" Picard are small and subtle, but there isn't quite the same sense of confidence to him. Future Picard is noticeably different, and it's here that Patrick Stewart gets his most memorable moments. He has the knowledge from the other two time periods, but his mind struggles through the fog of age and illness to make the connections. He sometimes stammers while trying to force out some kind of clear explanation, and he can't quite keep his temper when he sees the others doubting him. It is a great performance, equal to Family and The Inner Light as Stewart's very best.

Riker: The Riker of the future has risen to the rank of Commodore. He first seen dismissing the elderly Picard's pleas to investigate the Devron System. By initial appearances, he's become the "pompous bureaucrat" figure. When he re-enters the story in the second half, however, we get a fuller picture. He has made the Enterprise his flagship, saving the old ship from being decommissioned because of his great fondness for it. He may have appeared to have dismissed Picard, but he did investigate - He just didn't want to make public knowledge of a crossing into Klingon territory. He carries bitterness over a feud with Worf, an argument based around the bizarre triangle their present-day counterparts have formed with Troi, but it's clear that he is very ready to make peace with his old friend. Jonathan Frakes is very good in these "future" scenes, reminding us for the first time since The Pegasus how good he can be when given strong material.

Geordi: The "future plot" is kicked off when Geordi visits the elderly Picard. Their banter reveals that Geordi ended up marrying Leah Brahms, and we can see that his visor has been replaced by implants in his eyes, presumably allowing him more normal vision. Even after connecting with Data and Dr. Crusher, Geordi continues to feature prominently throughout the "future" scenes, which goes a long way toward making up for the sparse material he's been afforded the past two seasons (this season especially).

Dr./Capt. Crusher: The future timeline that we see is one in which Picard and Crusher married... and then divorced. Beverly continues to have fondness for her ex-husband, though, keeping the Picard name and agreeing to transport him to the restricted sector. When Geordi admits to her that he's not certain this isn't just a delusion, a result of Picard's neurological disease, she replies that it doesn't really matter. "He's Jean-Luc Picard. And if he wants to go on one more mission, that's what we're going to do."

Tasha: The "past" Enterprise timeline is immediately pre-series, which means Tasha is the Security Chief. With no Riker or Geordi, and with Data still in his early, overly literal stage, this leaves her effectively acting as Picard's First Officer. Denise Crosby gives a much better performance here than was her average, showing her concern over Picard's increasingly strange orders without overplaying it. The moment in which she finally questions Picard, insisting that while they have followed his every order no matter how strange, they need something more from him before putting the ship at risk, is one of the best moments given to a character who got far too few such moments back when she was a regular.

Q: First appears much as he had in Encounter at Farpoint, sitting in scarlet robes on a throne that hovers in the air, mocking Picard while pronouncing judgment against humanity. Unlike in the series' premiere, this is an act he's putting on, keeping up appearances for the Q Continuum. Q is strictly an ally in this episode. He only appears a handful of times; but every time he shows up, he gives Picard some vital clue to push him toward the solution. It's his intervention that allows Picard awareness of the time jumps, giving him a fighting chance to put all the pieces of this temporally fragmented puzzle together. Q reappears at the end, giving Picard congratulations as well as a mix of warning and promise: That the challenge to prove that humanity deserves its place is a "trial (that) never ends." Which is as much a statement of the franchise's own philosophy as a question of this one episode's plot.


THOUGHTS

Coming up with a suitable finale to Star Trek: The Next Generation had to have been a daunting task. By the end of its run, TNG had already become an iconic series - at the time, even overshadowing the original Star Trek (an imbalance that would slowly correct itself in the following decades). It was a rare genre show whose appeal had extended into the mainstream. Even if its final season had fallen short of the quality that viewers had come to expect, its final bow was not just a television show; it was an Event.

Writers Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga turned to literature for inspiration: To Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut's best-known science fiction novel. In that novel, Billy Pilgrim is a World War II soldier who becomes "unstuck in time" after being taken prisoner by the Germans and transported to a labor camp in Dresden. Throughout the novel, Billy jumps forward and backward between various points in his life, including his own death. There is even a central cataclysmic event: The infamous bombing of Dresden.

The form may be borrowed from Vonnegut, but the spirit is uniquely TNG. Whereas Billy Pilgrim is a very passive protagonist, doing little to affect his situation, Picard insists on acting on his bizarre predicament - with the actions he takes actually creating the very problem he's trying to solve! A common interpretation of Billy's time-jumps is that he's suffering from PTSD and not time-jumping at all.  Picard's time jumps are definitely real, with Dr. Crusher medically verifying his story early in the episode, and we learn exactly what (or who) is causing them.  It's all part of a puzzle to be solved, with everything made clear once the pieces are put together. 

The time jumps allow the finale to look backward at the series' origins while simultaneously giving viewers a look at one possible future for the characters. The series opened with Picard having only recently taken command of the Enterprise before being captured and put on trial by Q. This episode's "past" plot flashes back to immediately before that, with Tasha giving the new captain his first look at the vessel he will come to call home. The present plot shows a crew that trusts Picard without question. The future plot shows a crew that desperately wants to trust him, and at the very least indulges him because of the man he used to be. Meanwhile, the crew of the past isn't quite sure what to make of him, his bizarre orders leaving them quietly wondering if they are now in the care of a madman.

The ending sees Picard finally joining the crew's regular poker game. His presence makes things awkward for a moment. But everyone quickly relaxes as he takes his seat and begins dealing, observing that he should have joined them in this a long time ago even as Troi replies, "You were always welcome." The camera rotates as it pulls back from the poker game, showing the captain and his crew gathered at a round table, like a futuristic court of Camelot. The rotation of the camera move transitions perfectly into the pull-back from the Enterprise itself, making the final fade to black almost cinematic.

A perfectly-judged ending to an ideal series finale.


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Previous Episode: Preemptive Strike

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4-06. Legacy

Tasha's sister, Ishara Yar (Beth Toussaint)

THE PLOT

The Enterprise receives a distress signal from a freighter in an emergency orbit around Turkana IV, the trouble home world of the ship's original security chief, the late Tasha Yar. They arrive to find the ship exploding, and an escape pod making its way down to the planet.

When they beam down to recover the survivors, they are met by The Coalition, one of two factions controlling Turkana IV. They are told that the two crewmen from the escape pod have been taken captive by The Alliance, the rival faction. The Alliance will hold them for ransom before killing them. On the theory that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," Hayne (Don Mirault), the Coalition leader offers the Enterprise his aid, along with assistance he believes they will surely trust: Ishara Yar (Beth Toussaint), Tasha's sister!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: He doesn't trust Hayne or his offer, going along with the plan simply because there are no other viable alternatives. Once Dr. Crusher confirms that Ishara truly is Tasha's sister, and once Riker and Data invest more and more trust in her, Picard warms to her. But he never offers the same level of trust that his younger officers do, and at the end readily acknowledges that they were all too eager to see Tasha in this woman, to the point of reading qualities into her that she didn't necessarily have.

Riker: Picard talks with him after Riker takes unnecessary risks during an Away Mission with Ishara. Riker tells the captain that after losing Tasha on an Away Mission, he simply could not allow the same to happen to her sister. It's evident that Riker feels lingering guilt over that death, even though he must rationally know that there was nothing he could do about it.

Data: Of the Enterprise crew, he bonds the most closely with Ishara. Though this episode is marred by frequently heavy-handed dialogue, it does have a wonderful scene in which Data explains how he is capable of forming genuine friendships even without emotion. He becomes "accustomed to" certain sensory input patterns, to the point of anticipating them and eventually missing them when they are no longer there. He quickly becomes "used to" Ishara, and she responds to him as more than just a friend. But her upbringing has programmed her as surely as Data's computer chips have programmed him, and despite some inner conflict, she proceeds with her real mission. And Data, whose loyalty to Enterprise and Starfleet and their ideals has been proven time and again, barely hesitates in stopping her.

Troi: Retains her uncanny ability to detect the pitifully obvious. She is able to divine that Hayne is attempting to deceive and manipulate the Enterprise for his own ends - something both Riker and Worf had already picked up on. Despite being in the room with Ishara at multiple points in the epiosde, however, she never senses a hint of deception from her, merely a mild sense of inner conflict. In other words... Still useless.

Hot Guerrilla Babe of the Week: Ishara (Beth Toussaint) is Tasha's younger sister. She is resentful of Tasha's decision to leave, but she clearly enjoys the sense of cameraderie on Enterprise.  She is torn between the possibilities the ship and Starfleet promise and what she sees as her duty to her people. Ishara could be a compelling character... in a different script, one that didn't feel the need to spell out every character beat or treat Ishara's ultimate betrayal of the Enterprise as a surprise. Unfortunately, this overly-expository teleplay just isn't up to bringing a complex character truly to life, and Beth Toussaint is too limited an actress to play Ishara in more than two dimensions. I never really believed her bitterness toward her sister or her inner conflict. All I saw was an actress reading lines, which together with some poor dialogue and weak direction crippled what might have been a good episode.


THOUGHTS

As can probably be seen, I wasn't impressed with Legacy. It's not without merit. It offers Brent Spiner some more strong character beats for Data, which he makes the most of. It also continues what has developed into a running theme for Season Four: Family, both the bonds that tie families together and the way in which those bonds can be torn apart. This time, the family relationship is between the friends of someone who was lost, and their attempts to re-establish the same relationship with that person's sister. It revisits the death of Tasha, keeping her alive in the minds of the audience. The last time the series did this, the result was Yesterday's Enterprise. This time, the results are substantially less satisfying.

It opens well enough. There's a genuinely amusing poker table scene, in which Data picks apart Riker's card trick to declare victory. This is followed by a well-executed race against the clock, as the Enterprise attempts to reach the freighter in time to rescue the crew members, only just missing its chance.

Unfortunately, things go rapidly downhill once Ishara is introduced. Though I've critized Toussaint's performance, it's hardly all her fault. The pace grinds to a halt for the sake of scenes in which she bonds with Data. This could be interesting, but Toussaint lacks screen chemistry with Brent Spiner (a rare feat, actually), while the performances of both actors are hobbled by dialogue that makes text out of what should be subtext. A lack of subtlety plagues the entire episode.

There's even a tag in which Riker picks up the Picard Sledge-Hammer and whaps Data and the audience about the head with it, as he observes that "in all trust there is the possibility of betrayal," but that trust is still worth it for the sake of friendship and "the emotional bonds that make us who we are." The scene is entirely unnecessary, with Data's "energize" and the cut to the ship's exterior a scene earlier seeming a much stronger note to end the episode on. But it seems to be a truism that weak episodes never trust the audience members to understand the point themselves, even when that point was far from subtle already, hence a tag that makes sure to spell it all out for the sake of Cletus & company.

Cheap-looking, with weak and generic action, overly on-the-nose dialogue, and a bland guest performance by the primary guest star, this is probably the weakest Season Four episode thus far. If nothing else, though, it does keep Tasha alive in the viewer's mind, which will pay off with some stronger developments (that thankfully will have nothing to do with Ishara) down the road...


Overall Rating: 3/10

Previous Episode: Remember Me
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3-15. Yesterday's Enterprise

THE PLOT

When the Enterprise encounters a temporal phenomenon, Guinan is immediately disturbed. With good reason. As the bridge crew observe this space/time rift, Worf reads a ship coming through. The ship appears... and everything changes.

The Enterprise is much darker, with a command chair that stands alone rather than being surrounded by other chairs. Uniforms change, to reflect a more military style. And the crew changes. Gone are Worf and Troi. Wesley is a full officer. And the security chief is Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby).

None of the crew notice the change in their world. To them, this is their reality, fighting a decades-long war against the Klingons. But Guinan can sense that this reality is "wrong." When the ship that came through is revealed to be the Enterprise C, the predecessor to the current Enterprise, which disappeared when responding to an attack on a Klingon outpost just before the start of the war, Guinan reveals her intuition to Picard. The ship has to go back, Guinan tells him, in order to restore a timeline in which there is no war. There is some anecdotal evidence to support her claim, that if a Federation ship had fought to the death to protect a Klingon outpost, it might have been enough to help pave the way for peace. But if Picard does order the ship back, it will mean the certain deaths of every man and woman on board!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: One thing I appreciate about this episode is that, in either timeline, the characters are recognizably the same people. Picard is still a thoughtful individual, one who weighs the consequences of his decisions carefully before acting. Military Picard is a bit crisper in his deliveries than "our" Picard, and seems less inclined to digest everybody's input before making his decisions. Still, he deals just as fairly with his Enterprise C counterpart as one would expect "our" Picard to do, and is quite compassionate in his big scene with Tasha. Patrick Stewart seems to sense that the material here is just a bit richer than average, as he ups the ante on his already very good regular performance.

Riker: In either reality, Riker is always ready to play devil's advocate to Picard, arguing the other side of the captain's decisions. In the military reality, Riker seems to be the voice of compassion. When the Enterprise C comes through and the damage is detected, Riker insists that they render aid, though he agrees to withhold details about their time until Picard assesses the situation. As Picard wrestles with the decision to send the Enterprise C back to its battle with the Romulans, Riker argues against it, insisting that to do so would be to send more than 100 people to a certain death.

Tasha: More than a season and a half after Tasha was offhandedly slimed in one of the first season's crappiest episodes (itself an achievement), she finally gets a great character episode, complete with a proper sendoff. Despite a hairstyle that could diplomatically be dubbed "bizarre," Denise Crosby rises to the good script with her best performance in the series. It would have been a cute touch to have put her name on the main titles for this one episode, though I suppose carping about something that would have been contractually expensive (if not impossible) would be foolish.

Guinan: After her generic start in early Season Two, Q Who managed to make Guinan an intriguing character. That continued in Deja Q, and is raised to a new level here, with Guinan being the only person aboard Enterprise who is able to sense that something has changed. When she encounters Tasha, she can sense that Tasha "doesn't belong" on the ship, and her nonverbal reactions lead Tasha to seek her out and push her to a full explanation.


THOUGHTS

Yesterday's Enterprise wastes absolutely no time getting into the story. We are firmly in the alternate timeline by the end of the teaser, thrown into this new reality and left to catch up with an entirely new backstory very, very quickly. It works a treat, in part because the script is extremely economical.

The rules of the new reality are established quickly in a way that doesn't seem at all forced. When the Enterprise C is detected, Picard asks if it's an "enemy" ship - telling us that Starfleet is at war in this timeline. Mentions of the Klingons are sprinkled through the next Act, with everyone going on alert when a Klingon ship is detected moving in their general area - which tells us, through entirely natural dialogue and character reactions, that the Klingons are the enemy. All neatly established, with no ham-fisted expository speeches. Very good scriptwriting.

This is a terrific-looking episode. David Carson, who vies with Rob Bowman for the title of TNG's best director, effectively dims the lighting for the military reality, casting the bridge and other areas of the ship in shadows. This greatly elevates the drama as the two Enterprise captains must reach a decision. Frankly, "our" Enterprise could benefit from being lit this way more often.

Amusing in retrospect are references to "Archer IV," in which Starfleet delivered "a pasting" to the Klingons in the alternate timeline. I guess we know where the producers drew inspiration for naming the lead character on Enterprise.

Overall, an outstanding episode, one of the series' very best. Densely packed, more is conveyed in this single parter than most 2-parters manage. Performances are extremely good, the script largely holds together through the tangle of temporal complexities, and the climactic battle against the Klingons is among TNG's best action sequences. Terrific television, full-stop.


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Previous Episode: A Matter of Perspective

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2-22. Shades of Gray

THE PLOT

Riker and Geordi are on an Away mission to an unexplored planet, when Riker is jabbed in the leg by something unknown. Dr. Pulaski determines that whatever stung Riker, "it left something behind." A microorganism, rapidly reproducing along Riker's nervous system, moving toward his brain.

Pulaski works tirelessly, but cannot find a way to neutralize the organism before it reaches Riker's brain. The only way she can keep him alive is to stimulate his brain directly with electrical impulses. This results in the unconscious Riker reliving images from his past - images which ultimately may prove to be the key to saving him!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: Present.

Riker: His first reaction to being jabbed by an unknown entity on a swamplike alien world is to... shrug it off and insist he's fine? Apparently, he is unfamiliar with the word "infection," and needs a remedial course in basic health and safety protocols. He tries to set an example for the crew, even as he is dying, by making nonstop jokes. When Troi appears and starts babbling about his feelings and how he's her "Imzadi," he wisely collapses into unconsciousness.

Troi: Marina Sirtis deals with the horrible material she's given by overacting every line to its fullest camp potential. She stands by Riker's bedside, wailing like a banshee to take us in and out of every set of clips. Sirtis hasn't been this bad since early Season One, so I find myself blaming the material more than her for this lapse.

Dr. Pulaski: Any doubts that Diana Muldaur is a far better actress than Gates McFadden should be erased by an episode that puts clips of both of them side-by-side. Dr. Crusher is staggeringly bland and flat in her line readings, while the early scenes of this episode proper and the clips of some of Pulaski's appearances show Muldaur putting a lot more nonverbal beats and character tics into even very similarly-scripted scenes. Not that Muldaur comes out of this episode unscathed. Once the "clip show" phase of the episode begins, she allows Sirtis to carry her along into the overacting, resulting in some unintentional comedy... though not enough of it to redeem this mess.


THOUGHTS

An overspend on Q Who? combined with the writer's strike to leave the show with little money and minimal production time at the end of the season. The solution? A time-honored method of dealing with low funds: a clip show! To the best of my knowledge, the only traditional clip show ever seen in Star Trek.  I'd say The Menagerie doesn't count, as The Cage had not previously been broadcast and was therefore all new to viewers of the time.

In the late 1980's season finales were still basically "just another episode." There was the odd exception ("Who shot J. R.?"), but the tradition of the season finale being something BIG didn't really take hold until the 1990's. One of the key season enders in creating the tradition of the "big" season finale was actually this series' third season ender. "Locutus of Borg" is one of a handful of Star Trek: The Next Generation moments that the casual man on the street (at least, over the age of 30) is almost guaranteed to remember, because it did generate mainstream conversation.

But this is one year before that, when the last episode of the season was produced on the pocket change that Gene Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Maurice Hurley could find underneath their respective sofa cushions. The first season finale was weak.  This one is absolutely wretched.

I'd question some of the clip choices. All right, even though it was a badly-shot scene in a terrible episode, obviously Tasha's death is going to go in there. But the Playboy Planet in Justice? The first-ever holodeck scene? Anything with Wesley, or anything at all from Angel One or The Last Outpost? These aren't exactly the series' highlights. They're recycling many of the blandest scenes from the weakest episodes! What are the producers trying to do, make the original material in Shades of Gray look good by comparison?

Oh, and apparently negative emotions, such as fear and anything that kicks in the survival instinct, will drive back the infection. So upon learning that he's dying, Riker throws off the infection instantly, right? I mean, surely his survival instinct would kick in and drive back the infection? No - apparently not. I guess when Troi comes in and starts lecturing him about what he's feeling, it saps his will to live. Actually, I can sort of see that.

An episode which starts off badly, and then gets worse as it goes. A clip show that insists on showing mostly bad clips from bad episodes. Bits from Angel One, The Last Outpost, and Up the Long Ladder? Check. Bits from Q Who? or The Measure of a Man? Strangely absent. That's not even mentioning that these clips are supposedly Riker's memories, which makes it odd that an extended clip from Heart of Glory is shown in which there are many cutaways to scenes Riker was not present for!

Meanwhile, in the main plot, stopping the infection's growth magically eradicates it instantly, with no lingering side effects. Yay!

To summarize: It's bad. A particularly bad capper to a mostly pretty bad final six episodes. I'm half-surprised the viewers returned for Season Three.


Rating: 2/10.

Previous Episode: Peak Performance

Next Episode: Evolution

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1-23. Skin of Evil

Tasha has a bad reaction to some oil on the planet Viagra.


THE PLOT

The Enterprise is awaiting the return of Counsellor Troi when it receives an emergency message from her shuttlecraft. The shuttle is being pulled down to the lifeless world of Vagra 2 (which will henceforth be known as Viagra, because I have to keep myself amused somehow). After Picard tries to create some fake urgency by forcing the Chief Engineer to go to warp when he's not ready, Riker, Data, Dr. Crusher, and Tasha beam down to help Troi and... ah, Ben. Don't worry about Ben - judging from the reactions of the regulars, none of them gives a crap about him anyway.

While trying to reach the shuttle, the Away Team are intercepted by an oil slick. The slick reveals itself to be an entity, calling itself Armus. It refuses to allow them to the shuttle. When Tasha tries to force her way, it kills her as an afterthought.  This is appropriate, since her characterization has often come across as an afterthought anyway. Faced with a being of incredible power, which is resistant to their weapons and is not open to any reasonable negotiation, the Enterprise crew now must find a way to get past Armus to retrieve their shuttle crew. Hopefully, without any further deaths!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: He refuses to allow his officers to linger on Tasha's death, reminding them that they are in the middle of an emergency and must focus on the task at hand. Once he realizes Armus' weakness, he beams down to the surface to deal with the entity one-on-one, and does so without even once compromising his strength.  Not bad, for the guy who offered an unconditional surrender twice in the series' pilot.

Riker: Has often behaved as if he thinks he's Han Solo.  Thus, it's somewhat appropriate that at the 25-minute mark, he gets encased in carbonite. All right, oil, but the visual is obviously a direct nod to The Empire Strikes Back. Aside from getting yanked into the oil, it's business as usual for Riker as he leads two Away Teams to the surface to deal with Armus and to try to retrieve the wounded shuttle crew. I suppose one thing which does stand out is Riker's restraint. When Armus is toying with Geordi, and later when Armus pulls Riker in, he orders Data and the rest not to intervene, to do nothing to provoke the being.

Data: His friendship with Geordi shows itself when he obeys Riker's command not to give Geordi back the visor Armus has knocked away, but still assists Geordi by trying to talk him to where his visor lies. Probably deals more effectively with Armus than any other member of the Away Team.  When Armus uses his powers to move the visor, Data stops trying to help Geordi. When Armus taunts him about that, Data flatly observes that Armus would just move it again, and that Data "will not help you hurt him." It's a rare standout moment in a disappointingly weak episode, given a lift by Brent Spiner's ability to convey a certain strength of character and feelings of friendship toward Geordi without actually infusing emotion in his line deliveries.

Troi: Troi gets some good scenes in the crashed shuttle, as she deals with Armus. Her probing gets Armus to reveal his background, and her experience as a counselor allows her to figure out a lot of the things Armus refuses to share. That information, in turn, is vital to Picard at the end.


ZAP THE REDSHIRT!

Redshirt count: Tasha. This is not only Tasha's final episode as a regular, it is also the first "permanent" regular character death in televised Star Trek.  As such, you would think Skin of Evil would either be centered around Tasha, or at least offer her a major role. You would be wrong. Tasha is a glorified redshirt, zapped early in the episode without making any contribution to the story at all. Her death scene is then gloriously overacted - not by Denise Crosby (who plays dead just fine), but by Gates McFadden, who milks Dr. Crusher's attempts to revive Tasha as if she thinks she's in a daytime soap. Patrick Stewart gets in on the act by gasping, "Gone?" in reaction to Crusher finally calling it... even though his facial expressions prior to the call make it clear that he's realized that already.

In any case, the tragedy of Tasha is not that she was killed off. That could have made for great drama. The tragedy is that her death has so little impact. After offering up an intriguing character background, most of the season has seen fit to reduce her to being a glorified extra. As a result, we are asked to mourn for a character we never got a chance to know. No matter how long the ending scene tries to milk out her funeral, there just aren't any tears to wring.


THE PICARD SLEDGE-HAMMER

The climax of the episode sees Picard talking Armus into submission. No, I'm not making that up. Picard delivers the Sledge-Hammer of the week, telling Armus that the entity is not true evil, because "true evil is when we give in to (evil)." After nattering on a bit about humanity's "indomitable spirit," Armus finally shrieks and lets Picard, Troi, and random shuttle pilot beam up, silence apparently being preferable to hearing more of Picard's platitudes.


THOUGHTS

Yes, it's the episode where Tasha gets (semi-) permanently inked out of the series, and Worf gets promoted to actually having a role in the show. For those reasons, Skin of Evil is an important episode in Next Generation's development.

Unfortunately, that doesn't make it a good episode. In its way, Skin of Evil is every bit as bad as Symbiosis was.

This is an episode with a reasonably intriguing core idea.  Its villain is the consolidated evil of an entire species, isolated from them and discarded so that they could move on to become beings of great beauty. This leaves the Enterprise crew to deal with a creature who is simply evil, with no redeeming features at all.

I also think it was somewhat clever, to have Picard and Riker approach Armus in very different ways. Riker approaches the creature from a position of weakness, trying to placate the creature to get what he needs (into the shuttle). Picard shows no weakness, demanding access to the shuttle before he will consider giving the creature what it needs. It's well-done, and shows why Picard is the captain and Riker still has a lot to learn.  It certainly stands in stark contrast to the early episodes, in which Riker was practically the lead.

A couple of clever elements don't make up for a lot of tedium, though. The script has an interesting core premise, and deals well with Picard and Riker. But it has no idea what to do with the in-between.  We're left with a lot of wheel-spinning. How many times can Armus taunt Riker and company before it becomes boring? How many times can he and Deanna have the exact same conversation before it loses all interest? The answer: not many.

A lifeless production does not help. Dark and moody lighting might have created some atmosphere, and helped disguise the "man in a black tarp" effect of Armus' humanoid form.  Instead, we get the series' usual flat lighting, giving us too good a look at the humanoid Armus and at the styrofoam rocks dressing the back of the soundstage. It's difficult to create tension when no one even casts a shadow.


Rating: 3/10.

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1-22. Symbiosis

THE PLOT

The Enterprise is on-hand to witness and collect data as a sun undergoes magnetic changes, emitting flares. As they begin collecting their data, they receive a distress signal from inside the planetary system.

A freighter is losing its orbit. The Enterprise tractor beam is unable to lock on, because of interference from the flares. With few options left, Picard orders the ship's crew beamed onto Enterprise. But the crew beams over its cargo before beaming over themselves. The reason becomes clear: The cargo is medicine, desperately needed by the Omarans to treat a space plague that has been devastating them for the past 200 years. The Brekkians insist that the medicine does not belong to the Omarans. After all, the goods they were using to buy the medicine burned up with the shuttle.

The Prime Directive means that Picard cannot interfere. Then Dr. Crusher makes a horrifying discovery about the nature of both the plague and the medicine...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: Picard is left to walk a tightrope between the morals of the situation and the demands of the Prime Directive. He is sympathetic to the Omarans early on, negotiating with the Brekkians for at least a single dose of the medicine for the two Omarans' immediate needs. Once he discovers the true nature of the medicine, he stops being sympathetic to either side. He insists on following the Prime Directive absolutely. Apparently, one race acting as a parasite on another race requires absolute adherence to the Prime Directive in the way that, say, the son of the pretty redheaded doctor being put on trial for walking on grass does not. In any event, Patrick Stewart delivers an excellent performance, acting on a level far above that of the material he is working with.

Riker: "I've never seen anything like this before. The violence of those eruptions is awesome." Said in the same tone of voice, with the same inflections, one might use to observe that, "Fred is walking to the store today." Riker has little to do in this episode, and Jonathan Frakes doesn't even bother to go onstage to deliver his lines. Unfortunately, Frakes' nonacting in this episode is more or less echoed by every member of the cast, leaving Patrick Stewart to carry this show alone.

Dr. Crusher: On the opposite extreme of nonacting is overacting, which is the extreme Gates McFadden opts for. Dr. Crusher is Morally Outraged with a capital "More."  Every line is shrill and trembling with indignation at the evil of the Brekkians. Needless to say, it gets very old, very fast.


SHUT UP, WESLEY!

"Why do people become dependent on drugs?" Wesley asks, prompting Tasha to deliver a Drugs For Dummies 101 lecture to him. "I guess I just don't understand," he says, with a smug, "punch-me-in-the-face-please" grin. The scene passes the Picard Sledgehammer to Tasha for her final full episode.  It's genuinely painful stuff, that is only missing the actors turning to the camera while a graphic whizzes by to spell, "The More You Know" on screen in order to become an official PSA.


THE PICARD SLEDGE-HAMMER

Picard is not content to let Tasha have all the fun, though.  While in the turbo-lift with Dr. Crusher, he halts the lift. Not for the usual reason (though all things considered, when others see him and her coming out of the delayed lift, every member of the crew will draw the obvious conclusion), but to give a speech about how interference with other cultures, even well-intentioned, inevitably results in disaster. Bludgeoned into submission by the power of the sledge-hammer, Dr. Crusher ceases all her whining. Doubtless, she is afraid that even one more word will result in another speech, sapping her will to live.


THOUGHTS

"Drugs are baaad, mm'kay?"

A truly dreadful episode, full of the kind of obvious, tedious preachiness and utter lack of subtelety which Star Trek's detractors seem to believe marks every episode. From about 15 minutes in, it is painfully obvious exactly where this story is heading. And sure enough, that is the exact path it follows, with no surprises or twists or variations at all.

No real conviction, either. The two races are monolithic in the extreme. All Brekkians are drug pushers. There isn't a single person on the planet who has devoted his or her life to anything other than drug refinement and drug sales, and there isn't a single person on the planet who has any kind of a problem with what they are doing. All Omarans are drug addicts, eternally coked out of their minds. Not a single Omaran has done anything over the past 200 years other than toke up, bliss out, and then whine when the withdrawal pains hit. Certainly, no one on Onarra has built up a resistance to the drug, or missed a couple of doses and survived detox.

In short, these are two civilizations that could not possibly exist unless the entire population of each world was smaller than that of a very tiny village.

Some minor interest is created near the end in watching Picard come up with a cold-blooded, but well thought-out solution (which, again, rests on not a single Brekkian having access to a shuttlecraft). These scenes are well-played by Patrick Stewart, the only member of the regular cast who seems to actually be trying. But even the effectiveness of Picard's final judgment is undercut by a simple, yet very logical, question:

Exactly how are our villains going to get back home?

Finally, look fast for Denise Crosby's "goodbye wave" in the background of her last scene of what was her last filmed episode. It may be the cutest breaking of the Fourth Wall you'll ever see, and it's almost worth giving this episode an extra point for that alone.


Rating: 2/10

Previous Episode: The Arsenal of Freedom
Next Episode: Skin of Evil


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1-21. The Arsenal of Freedom

THE PLOT

The Enterprise travels to the planet Menos to investigate the disappearance of the Drake, a ship that was sent to Menos to investigate the disappearances of the entire population (whew!). After Picard gets a funny answering machine message from the planet (which he figures out is a recorded message at some point after the average 5-year-old viewer will have pegged it as such), he sends an Away Team down to investigate: Riker, Tasha, and Data.

It isn't long before the Away Team inadverdantly triggers automated attacks from the dead planet. Riker is encased in a stasis field. Data manages to free him - just in time for all of them to come under fire from mechanical drones. Picard beams down to take a look at the situation himself, leaving Geordi in charge. No sooner is he gone than Geordi finds himself commanding a starship under attack by an unseen aggressor, whose bombardments threaten to destroy the ship!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: Beams down to the planet for no readily apparent reason other than to give Geordi a chance to command the ship in a crisis. He does get some decent scenes opposite Dr. Crusher, then opposite Vincent Schiavelli as a murderously aggressive holographic salesman. As usual, though, there is only a minimal sense of there being a character where Picard is standing. Patrick Stewart is as good, but Picard as a character still isn't up to much. Here's hoping for some improvement in Picard's characterization, sooner rather than later.

Riker: Gave up a chance at his own command to serve as first officer on Enterprise. That's the only new thing we learn about Riker in this episode, though we do get to see a lot of him in "action man" mode, crawling around an unconvincing jungle set dodging what look like old props from the 1950's War of the Worlds movie.

Data: When Riker is encased in a force field, Data is able to analyze the force field and free him relatively quickly. As they are attacked by the mechanical flying killing devices, Data computes the interval between the devices' attacks. Finally, he is very useful to Picard in dealing with the machine at the climax - though not nearly as useful as Dr. Crusher's simple and practical solution ends up being.

Geordi: He is put in command of the Enterprise during the crisis, thanks to Picard's impulsive decision to beam down to the planet. He deals very well with command, struggling at first to counter the attacks from the planet, then getting the bulk of the crew out of harm's way before going back to fulfill his obligations to his captain. Along the way, he must deal with a laughably arrogant Chief of Engineering (a 24th century descendant of Frank Burns, it appears), and a cloying filler scene opposite Counsellor Troi. He gets the last word, too - but more importantly, he gets by far the best material of the episode.

Tasha: She gets a lot of face time, though her scenes mainly amount to dodging plastic models and then ordering Data and Riker to focus phaser fire on them. She shows good tactical awareness in a dangerous situation.  First she limits the size of the Away Team in order to reduce the number of crew members at risk, then she organizes their responses to the planet's defenses. Unfortunately, Denise Crosby has clearly given up by this point.  Almost every line reading she gives is flat and lifeless, making it hard to be sorry that she's not much longer for this show.

Hot Space Babe of the Week: Julia Nickson is Ensign T'su, who takes over Data's station during the crisis. Nickson is a very beautiful woman, as viewers of shows as distinct as Babylon 5 and (on the other qualitative extreme) Rambo 2 can attest. Unfortunately, here she is saddled with an unflattering green uniform and a horrible '80's hairstyle, both of which make her far less attractive than she's been in other roles. There is no characterization afforded her, and she makes absolutely no impression whatsoever. Still, if any B5 viewers want to know what Sinclair's fiancee got up to about 6 or 7 years prior, here you go...


THOUGHTS

The frustrating thing about The Arsenal of Freedom isn't that it's a weak episode. It is weak. But in terms of relative quality, it stands up pretty well against the likes of When the Bough Breaks, Justice, The Last Outpost, Too Short a Season... Well, against close to half the season, really. This episode is quite watchable, and after a poor start, gets better as it goes. It's an episode I have no memory of at all, and watching it now I'm not surprised I have no memory of it.  But it wasn't a chore to watch.

No, the frustrating thing is that there are some genuinely good ideas in this episode. The Away Team being threatened by a dead world's automated defenses, whose attacks adapt and improve with each new assault? A great idea for an action episode. A wounded Dr. Crusher, caved in with Picard, with no ability to call for help, having to talk Picard through treating her while they have a chance to interact without the chain of command to get in the way? That could be an excellent character-based episode, or even a pretty good "B" plot for an episode. Geordi, having to take command of a green crew of second-stringers during a crisis that threatens the ship? Also a pretty good idea for a show.

Blend all three ideas together, though, and the result is just too busy. The Picard/Crusher material could have been a breakthrough in the development of both characters. But after a couple decent scenes, the projection of the salesman has to be uncovered in order to tie the plot together. As a result, we get a couple decent scenes for two pretty good actors, but no substantial character development. The Away Team plot, which has a lot of potential for good "action Trek" fails to generate either tension or excitement.  This is thanks in part to uninspired "point-and-shoot" direction, and in part to a jungle set that makes 1960's Doctor Who look almost like Avatar by comparison.  Wooden performances by Jonathan Frakes and Denise Crosby don't help matters.

The Geordi scenes do work. Levar Burton clearly relishes his (overdue) moment in the spotlight, and makes the most of his subplot. The attacks are as blandly directed as the planetside action, but Burton brings energy and intensity to bear and actually makes us feel the desperation of the situation, even when the sneering Chief Engineer is brought onstage to play the part of a sitcom villain. If Geordi had been the focus of the episode, this may have ended up being a good show.

Unfortunately, there are just too many elements, further hobbled by uninspired direction and cheap sets. There's enough good here to keep this from being one of the many outright clunkers of TNG's first season. It's just a shame this couldn't have lived up to its potential.


Rating: 4/10.

Previous Episode: Heart of Glory
Next Episode: Symbiosis


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1-10. Hide and Q

THE PLOT

The Enterprise is rushing to the rescue of some miners on a distant colony world, all hands prepared for a medical emergency. Their rush is interrupted, however, by the arrival of Q, who was impressed by Riker on their previous meeting.  Now the superbeing has a new game in mind. He whisks Riker and the command crew to a generic planet, to do battle in Napoleonic style against some animalistic rivals, while offering Riker the chance to save his friends by granting him the power of the Q. Meanwhile, Q separately bargains with Picard over Riker's decision. If Riker accepts Q's offer, and joins the Q Continuum, then Picard will reliquish command of the Enterprise!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: Patrick Stewart gets some excellent scenes in this, particularly opposite John de Lancie. A highlight of the episode's first half is the "Shakespeare quoting" scene. Q begins with the upper hand, idly reciting Shakespeare passages at an irritated Picard. But when Q successfully ropes Picard into the game, Picard one-ups him by taking an ironic passage from Hamlet and treating it literally, shaking Q by perhaps probing a bit too close to the immature superbeing's motivations. One can see the Shakespearian-trained Stewart relishing this scene, and the larger context within the episode works too, making it a genuinely memorable moment.

For a rare change, the backgrounding of Picard actually works in this episode. The set-up has Picard and Q effectively representing two possible paths, one of which Riker must choose. Picard's bargain with Q vaguely parallels God's bargain with Lucifer in The Book of Job, betting on the choices that will be made by one man. Picard takes a largely hands-off approach to trying to influence Riker's decision, right down to letting Riker give his "gifts" to the crew at the end. By allowing the crew to react to Riker's gifts (and the source of their power), Picard allows the situation to resolve itself. This is something I'm not sure Kirk (or Archer) could have done convincingly, and represents a good use of the more intellectual Picard.

Riker: A showcase episode for Riker, this unfortunately helps to show some of Jonathan Frakes' limitations as an actor. On the planet, he poses very self-consciously in several shots, sticking one leg up on the (unconvincing) papier-mache rocks as if he thinks he's posing for a GQ shoot or somesuch. He never convinces when Riker supposedly goes "power-mad," and as such there's very little drama in his choice.

Tasha: Though given some of the strongest character potential in the early episodes, Tasha has since sunk gradually into the background, where she still resides here.  She doesn't even get a "gift" at the end.  However, she does get a couple of nice character beats. When she's put into Q's "penalty box," we see her frustration at being left helpless to act, at being controlled by a stronger external force - which probably reminds her of her hellish childhood. It's a good moment for a character who seems to increasingly have been forgotten by the production team.

Q: His second appearance is stronger than his first. The production team seems to have realized that de Lancie's performance is not well-suited to generating fear, and have opted to play a bit more with Q's mischievous streak. Though the content of the episode insists that Q's interest is in Riker, de Lancie's best moments are all when playing opposite Patrick Stewart - which is likely why future Q episodes steered the focus to the Q/Picard rivalry.


BRATS IN SPAAACE!

Wesley dies!

Well, OK, he gets better almost immediately. Still, we do get to see him brutally stabbed, if only for a second or two. In the midst of an unusually decent episode, I will consider that as a personal gift.


THOUGHTS

Though not up to the standards of Where No One Has Gone Before, this episode is a rare, pretty good first-season TNG episode. The regulars all get something to do. Tasha gets that moment with Picard; Worf gets to demonstrate his abilities as a warrior by scouting the enemy camp and returning; Geordi, Worf, and Wesley get to reject Riker's "gifts." Even Dr. Crusher gets to act the role of a protective parent. The only person with no role is Troi, who we're told was dropped off for "family time." Too bad - she'd have been of great aid to the crew, by intoning "I sense hostility" when the animal-like Q creatures attack, or "I sense sorrow" when the girl's body is pulled from beneath wreckage on the mining colony. All told, the script uses the large cast very well, better than most of the show's episodes have managed.

Unfortunately, not all the news is good.  The lack of jeopardy and urgency that has marked most of TNG's run continues here. The first half of the episode sets up a dilemma. Riker is given Q's powers, but makes a promise not to use them. This is tested by Riker refraining from using his powers to save a third party who is a complete stranger, which then cues a third act in which... Picard sits back while Riker, Q, and the bridge crew chat for a while. This last works better than it should, because the characterization is mostly good... With the exception of Worf, whose anemic character development is shown in that the most Riker/the writers can think to give him is a Klingon sex slave.

Still, think how much more dramatic the situation could have been, had the Enterprise been placed in imminent danger, with Riker having the power to literally blink the ship out of danger but having to refrain from using it. Q could be the devil on Riker's shoulder, tempting him to use his powers not to "bring (his) friends happiness," but to save his friends. Picard could be acting as the captain, and Riker could be looking on, tortured, as the (mostly) human crew work with what would seem like agonizing slowness to pull the Enterprise out of danger by inches. I think that would have worked just as well as a test of Riker's resolve.  It would have further demonstrated that the Enterprise crew doesn't need a first officer with god-like abilities, and would have greatly enhanced the suspense of the third act.

Even so, the episode works quite passably on its own merits. Q's second appearance works much better than his first did, and the Enterprise crew all get their moments for a change. It might be slightly generous of me, but I think I'll give this episode a solid:


Rating: 6/10.

Previous Episode: The Battle
Next Episode: Haven


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1-5. The Last Outpost

THE PLOT

The Enterprise is pursuing a Ferengi ship that has stolen a Federation owned MacGuffin device. The Ferengi ship abruptly fires on Enterprise, then turns to face them... and then, suddenly, the power begins to drain. The Enterprise crew worry at first that the Ferengi are more technologically-advanced than they had believed. With power steadily failing, Picard prepares a surrender... only to find, when he contacts the Ferengi, that they believe he is demanding their surrender.

Turning their attention to the planet below, the crew soon discover that it is this planet that is the source of the power drain. Now they will need to cooperate with the untrustworthy Ferengi in order to free both ships from technology left by an ancient empire that was destroyed more than 100,000 years ago...


CHARACTERS

Picard: Abhors the idea of senseless, destructive violence. Faced with the prospect of the Ferengi actually laying claim to technology that can sap away a ship's power, he is willing to surrender - too willing, given that this makes three times in four episodes that Picard has offered or prepared to offer a surrender. He is not above a bit of deception, however, and waits to let the Ferengi know that Enterprise is not actually draining their power.

Riker: Studied Sun-Tzu's The Art of War at the Academy, and applies its lessons to good effect, both with the Ferengi and with the guardian of the titular outpost. Comes up with almost all the ideas in this episode - using the brief gap between acting and being stopped to try to escape, the facedown with the guardian - and leads the Away Team. Given that this is not the first time in four episodes that Riker has saved the day while Picard has sat around on his captain's chair, viewers could be forgiven for considering Riker the lead, and Picard comedy relief. Now if only Riker actually had a bit more characterization...

The Enterprise Crew: Geordi reveals a sarcastic streak in this episode... repeatedly, to the point where it becomes a bit tiresome. Data's divide between machine and human is exploited for comedy value with the Chinese finger puzzles (which, given the screen-time devoted to them, I was frankly surprised played no role in the climax. I figured Data would end up confounding the Ferengi with them). Worf is a Klingon, and he wants to fight, because he's a Klingon. In fairness, that's more than Worf has gotten in any preceding episode. Wesley is... MIA, meaning no "Brats in Space" entry this time. Finally, Tasha gets a strong entrance when she faces down the Ferengi with a phaser, and a great facial reaction to the Ferengi's disgust that she wears clothing.

Villain of the Week: This episode introduces the Ferengi, and makes the massive miscalculation of trying to make them in some way sinister. With their diminutive size and Dumbo-like ears, you'd have thought they were comedy creations from the start... but nope, this episode actually wants us to take them seriously (well, at least until the last five minutes). Thankfully, they were retooled for later appearances. They are decidedly ineffective as villains.


THOUGHTS

Ugh.

Perhaps a little better than Code of Honor. But that's hardly an accolade. This episode is painfully slow, for starters, and the entire Enterprise crew appear to have been given complimentary lobotomies prior to the episode's start. Why else does it take more than a quarter of the episode for anyone to suggest the obvious: that it just might be a good idea to see if the power failure has something to do with the planet below?

Oh, and is Counsellor Troi the most useless Trek character ever? "I sense an alien mind," she says in Encounter at Farpoint. "I sense drunkenness," she says in The Naked Now. "Tasha is very attractive," she helpfully informs the blind in Code of Honor. And here? "I sense nothing," followed by whining about the cold later on. I'm sure she improves as a character when the show improves... in what? Two, three more seasons? Right now, I'd rank her down there with Enterprise's Mayweather as an utterly useless character.

It all culminates in a confrontation between the regulars and the Ferengi for the favors of the Bridge Keeper from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, on an alien world that's possibly less convincingly realized than many of the alien worlds from TOS. But not before Geordi makes a dozen snarky asides, with no superior officer ever even hinting at reprimanding him for them, not before Data wastes minutes of screen time playing with Chinese finger puzzles, and not before the Ferengi leer at Tasha, saying that clothing females "invites others to unclothe them." Well, all right, that last was amusing - particularly when Tasha rather violently invites them to try it.

It all ends with a philosophical discussion between The Bridge Keeper and Riker, while the Ferengi - for no readily apparent reason - hop around like monkeys, complete with ape noises, in the background.

You know, I take it back. This was just as bad as Code of Honor. Maybe worse. The seriously flawed, but generally entertaining Enterprise was the franchise killer, while this show came to be revered in many quarters as "superior to the original?" From what I've re-experienced thus far, if the network had pulled the plug on this after 13 episodes, I'd have fully understood.


Rating: 2/10.

Previous Episode: Code of Honor
Next Episode: Where No One Has Gone Before


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1-4. Code of Honor

THE PLOT

With a space plague devastating a Federation planet (*drink*), Capt. Picard must negotiate with Lutan (Jessie Lawrence Ferguson), the leader of the technologically primitive Ligons. The Ligons are fierce, proud, and dress like tribal Africans. They also have basic transporter technology... which Lutan uses to kidnap Tasha. At first, study of the Ligon culture leads Picard to believe that this is just a show of force, a way for Lutan to demonstrate his courage. But then, instead of returning Tasha, Lutan announces that the Enterprise security chief will become his wife... provided, of course, she survives a fight to the death against Lutan's current wife!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: Continues to emphasize diplomacy over force, though as Lutan's behavior becomes less and less reasonable, he cannot help but muse about how easy the situation would be but for the Prime Directive. He does come up with a plan with Dr. Crusher's aid to circumvent Lutan's scheming. Patrick Stewart continues to impress more than the character does, and I find myself thinking that this show was desperately lucky to get Stewart. In the hands of a lesser actor, or even just an actor with less presence, Picard would feel like a dull nonentity.

Tasha: Gets the focus of this episode. She uses holodeck simulations to force herself to "keep improving" her hand-to-hand skills. She is very capable of winning a fight to the death against Lutan's wife, but has no desire to kill - and, indeed, in the final combat, she deliberately passes up multiple chances to kill her. Confesses some physical attraction to Lutan, which doesn't make her any happier about being made his hostage.

Villain of the Week: Lutan dresses like a tribal African, has a culture that seems to be a hybrid of Africa and the Middle East, and schemes to find ways to reconcile his people's strict code of honor with his own best interests. He is instantly intrigued by Tasha, but we soon learn that his interest in her is less sexual than focused on ways in which he can use her to better his own situation.


IT'S TIME FOR... BRATS IN SPAAACE!

A Wesley-light episode, thankfully. The annoying one is allowed to take over a bridge station for much of the episode, however, setting an unfortunate precedent for future episodes.


THOUGHTS

And I thought The Naked Now was bad.

This episode has apparently come under some fire for racism. I don't really believe the episode is guilty of racism, but I can see where it could be interpreted in such a way: the tribal, warrior-like black savages steal a white woman and make her fight to the death, and it's up to our noble, (mostly) white regulars to find a way to save her from either death or becoming a concubine. It does tap into certain unfortunate stereotypes, which is even more unfortunately reinforced by the Ligons' African-themed mode of dress.

That said, care is taken to make all three of the primary Ligon guest characters emerge as individuals. Lutan is not merely a villain, nor does he see himself as a villain. By the standards of his culture, he's quite honorable. He sticks strictly to his code of honor, though he's not above exploiting loopholes in that code to his own advantage. His second-in-command and his wife, both initially portrayed in one-dimensional terms, get a few extra character beats at the end, as well.

Unfortunately, though I don't buy into this being a "racist" episode, it is guilty of something almost as bad for a television series: bad storytelling. The situation feels contrived on the face of it. The hoary old Trek cliche of the space virus with only one vaccine is used to justify not simply beaming Tasha directly back up once she's located, because without that vaccine to dangle over Picard's head, he could have had this situation solved by the halfway mark (if not earlier). Lutan's society is shown to be horribly backward and primitive, thus allowing the episode to invoke the nebulous force of The Prime Directive to keep the Enterprise crew from solving the problem directly. However, this backward, primitive society has access to transporter technology - which seems far more advanced than anything else they have on hand. The explanation for this? Well, they couldn't possibly kidnap Tasha without a transporter, so therefore they have to have one for the story to work. Blah.

This show continues to fare poorly at sustaining any tension. Tasha is kidnapped, is about to be forced to fight to the death. Millions are dying, making it urgent that Picard & company solve this crisis as fast as humanly possible. So what do we do? We cut to a labored, unfunny, 2-minute scene in which Data tells jokes to Geordi. Yes, I know Brent Spiner and Levar Burton need to get paid this week. Still, that's a heck of a way to instantly deflate any and all tension that might accidentally have started building up.

Fight choreography at the climax is quite weak, unfortunately, making me nostalgic for William Shatner's bizarrely gymnastic fighting style of TOS. The setting of the fight - a sort of bizarre mix of a cube and a child's jungle gym - doesn't help. Hardly thrilling stuff, even with the porcupine gauntlets dripping with poison.


Rating: 3/10. Next to early TNG, thus far, early Enterprise is starting to look like a television masterpiece.

Previous Episode: The Naked Now
Next Episode: The Last Outpost


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1-3. The Naked Now

For the Next Generation's second episode ever... a remake of a first-season TOS classic!

THE PLOT

The Enterprise is about to rendezvous with a science vessel that is monitoring the collapse of a star. When they make contact, however, a giggly voice from another ship tells them that they're about to have a "huge blowout" - which they do, opening an emergency hatch which results in the immediate deaths of everyone aboard that ship.

Riker, Geordi, Data, and Tasha beam over to the other ship, and find that - as scanners showed - everyone on the ship is dead. There are signs of heavy intoxication, including naked crewmembers frozen to death in their quarters. They beam back... but not before Geordi manages to make physical contact with one of the bodies, becoming infected himself.

Fortunately, Riker watched TOS when he was a kid, and dimly remembered an episode where a guy took a shower with his clothes on. So he's able to punch up the record, which includes a "formula" (er... wasn't the formula in question H2O?) for a cure. Unfortunately, the infection is spreading through the Enterprise crew in the meantime. Tasha finds herself overtaken by enormous sexual urges; Wesley uses his two new invetions to take over engineering, cutting off the ship from its engines; and just as Dr. Crusher discovers that the old cure no longer works, she becomes infected as well!

And with the star about to break up, the Enterprise may be facing imminent destruction...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Picard: Apparently, has the same level of security consciousness and basic common sense as Enterprise's Capt. Archer. Once the disease starts spreading, does he order people locked in their quarters so that they can't roam the halls and spread the infection? No! He orders Data - who is made up of partially biological parts, and therefore might potentially be susceptible (as indeed he turns out to be) - to physically escort an infected person through the ship to the sickbay, thus potentially infecting multiple people. Simply locking the door to Tasha's quarters from the outside would have been more effective, and more sensible. We also get introduced to one of Picard's most annoying tendencies - summing up the moral of the story for us at the end: "Avoid temptation." On the plus side, Patrick Stewart is still good enough to make Picard work far, far better than he should, and the mutual attraction between Picard and Dr. Crusher does have some potential.

Riker: Proves miraculously immune to this disease. Others show effects almost instantly. But even though Dr. Crusher and Picard were both exposed to it after (in Picard's case, significantly after) Riker was, both of them start substantially falling away from their duties while Riker is still keeping it totally together, with apparently no particular effort. I guess, like the warp engines, the disease moves at the speed of plot. Riker remains completely competent and gosh-darned efficient. He's a 1950's war movie action hero, and at this stage at least, only about half as interesting.

Dr. Crusher: She and Picard might make a good couple. They have a similar lack of common sense. After observing that Geordi is behaving strangely, and ordering him confined to sickbay, she does not place him in any kind of isolation lab. She doesn't even lock the door. Instead, she wanders off to make a report in an adjoining room, leaving Geordi plenty of time to remove his comm badge and just walk out to start infecting the crew.

*thunks head*

Ah, well. At least she's pretty.

Tasha: Denise Crosby appears to have some fun with her part in this episode. Once Tasha gets infected, she becomes a feminine sexual whirlwind, kissing random crew members, trying on seductive outfits, and seducing Data. We learn a bit more about her background - abandoned as a small child, and more or less doing whatever she had to do in order to simply survive. At this point, on the page, she has one of the more fully-developed and potentially interesting character backgrounds... which, of course, is why she rarely got anything to do thereafter. In any case, a fairly good show for Crosby.

Data: And another good show for Data. We see more of his abilities, zooming through huge amounts of text, rapidly replacing "control chips" to allow the Enterprise to escape. Some of his other programming would apparently make him an ideal gift for a lonely young woman, and would probably - once word got out - make him the most popular male crew member on the ship. Spiner continues to be a standout physical performer. Watch the eyebrow twitch when Tasha reveals herself in one scene, or the goofy look on his face when she drags him to her bedroom. "If you prick me, do I not... leak?" followed by a collapse when trying to lean on a surface that isn't actually present is beautifully done. It's easy to see why Data quickly became one of the show's most popular characters. What's on the page is still potentially iffy... but the actor runs with what he's given, and at this point is outacting Patrick Stewart.


IT'S TIME FOR... BRATS IN SPAAACE!

Wesley whines that he's not allowed on the bridge. Apparently, teenage boys should be allowed ready access to the most sensitive equipment on the ship. He invents a tractor beam/repulsor beam and a mockup of the captain's voice, and uses both to take over engineering. This is aided by him telling one engineer that he can look after the engines. Despite there being several crew members walking around in the background - all of whom would have the edge over Wesley of actually, y'know, existing within the chain of command - the assistant chief engineer happily cedes control to Wes, so that Wesley can endanger the ship. Because Wesley finally uses his powers for good at the end, he merits a positive mention in the log... despite the fact that, but for him, the total negative impact of the disease would have been some crewmembers getting it off with each other.

I'd have liked it better if Picard had rewarded Wesley for his actions by blowing him out an airlock. *grumble*


THOUGHTS

The Naked Time was one of the Original Series' best first season episodes. It explored the characters of Kirk and Spock like no previous episode had, and gave strong character beats to frequently-neglected supporting characters as well. At the same time, it used comedy and suspense in such a way that each fed the other. The funnier the episode got, the tenser it became. The more tense the episode became, the funnier it got.

The Naked Now is just a comedy episode. There is no consistency to the rules of the disease. Riker is barely affected, while Picard is amazingly susceptible. Data is affected not for any plot reason, but simply because it would be funny for him to misquote Shakespeare and fall on his face. All of the affected people are affected in such a way that none of them becomes violent or suicidal, and they are all sympathetic with each other - meaning that when Wesley realizes that the situation is bad, he's able to get the assistant chief engineer and Data to help out in salvaging it, since neither of them is affected in a way that would make them more liable to just ignore him.

We do get some light shed on some characters. Picard and Beverly are suppressing a massive mutual attraction. Beverly, in particular, feels sexually neglected; taking care of her son has probably been her focus since her husband's death, at the cost of the other things. Tasha is so busy buttoning herself into the role of tough security chief that she doesn't feel like a woman. Geordie regrets not being able to see like normal people. Wesley would like to be captain.

It's all fairly surface-level and a bit ham-handed. The insistence on this being only a comedy episode means that none of the characters can be taken to particularly dark places. Meanwhile, because it is only the second episode, the characters cannot be explored in any depth - simply because, at this stage, they only exist in nascent form! Had it been saved for later in the season, or even for the second season, more could have been done with it, simply because the writers would actually have known who the characters were. As it stands, "they all get drunk and proceed to do funny stuff" is the full extent of the ambition.

I'm not going to damn it quite as hard as George Takei did when he labeled it a carbon copy of a great episode, "like watching young children put on their parents clothes and try to act like grown-ups," but I'm not going to say his assessment was inaccurate, either.

Also? You're beaming a party over to a ship that you have reason to believe might have been exposed to a form of contamination. Do you: (a) suit them up in decontamination suits; (b) send mechanized probes over instead of a human crew; or (c) just send them over in their uniforms, with no added protection. If you answered "c," then you're probably the writer of this episode!


Rating: 4/10. Amusing in parts, but relies on Idiot Plotting for most of the major characters, and doesn't really do anything interesting with its (recycled) concept.

Previous Episode: Encounter at Farpoint
Next Episode: Code of Honor


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