Summer Hiatus

Looking back on this blog, it looks like Nathan and I only managed one post between us for the entire month of June.  It seems like a good idea to retroactively call this a summer hiatus. We've had a lot of IRL stuff going on and have gotten a little burned out on the Trek blogging.

Our goal of five years was never feasible, so it's no big deal to delay meeting it. We may sneak a post on here here and there over the summer, but we'll be back full strength with weekly updates in September.

Balance of Terror (TOS)

Rather than get on a vicious cycle of trying to catch up and failing, I'm just jumping in with this TOS review. DS9 next week, and then hopefully so on to get back on track.

I’m not an expert, but I’m given to understand the concept of a writer’s room wasn’t around in 1967, at least not in its current form. Original Series episodes were often pitched by outside writers and then “Star Trek”-ized by Gene Roddenberry after the fact. One result of this is that the tone of the episodes varies wildly.

I’ve started to expect by bi-weekly TOS outings to be fun goofy numbers, and all of a sudden, the show delivers Balance of Terror, a dramatic Cold War piece that holds up surprisingly well.

This marks the first appearance of the Romulans (actually prior to the more iconic Klingons, interestingly) and the key pieces are all there: evolutionary offshoot of the Vulcans, ancient Rome-inspired social structure and temperament, and, of course, spying and subterfuge, as encapsulated by their cloaking device.

In the later shows, the cloaking device is an unfair and inconvenient (why is the Federation the only major power without access to it?), yet surprisingly accepted device. By TNG there are so many technical workarounds you start to wonder why anyone bothers turning the damn things on.

But in it’s first appearance, the cloaking device is downright terrifying. The Bird of Prey, unseen annihilator of Federation outposts, could be anywhere at any time. As a game of cat and mouse on the Neutral Zone plays out between the two ships, a much more insidious game plays out on the Enterprise, as a navigator with a chip on his shoulder becomes convinced Spock is a Romulan spy, and Kirk and McCoy but heads about the wisdom of risking war to go after the ship.

I don’t know how to articulate what I loved about this episode, but it was compelling. I was on the edge of my seat even before the introduction in the third act of Mark Leonard’s Romulan captain, a man of honor on a dishonorable mission. The script plays out on the two ships separately, with no communication between them until the last moments of the episode.

One of Star Trek’s problems can be how the universe seems to revolve around the central ship of a given franchise, so it’s impressive here how the Romulan ship becomes a setting of its own, equal to the Enterprise in narrative weight as well as tactical prowess.

Balance of Terror was evidently a rip-off of a submarine movie, but I don’t care. It’s a beautiful piece of television that hits all the right beats and emotional touchstones.

Random Observations:

-- Also there was a wedding. It’s a really interesting way to start and end the episode, though it strays a little too close to phony heartstring tugging. The couple doesn’t really interact with the rest of the plot organically enough for my tastes.

-- Mark Leonard is great here as the Romulan captain, and its easy to see why they brought him back for his more famous role as Spock's father.

Learning Curve (VOY)

This is the way the season ends - not with a bang, but a... bottle show? It is true that "Learning Curve" is the final installment of Voyager's first season. And while not terrible, it doesn't exactly leave me clamoring for more. First off, it's a Tuvok episode. On a show with a lot of relatively bland characters, Tuvok takes the blandness to an entirely new level. This would be very well and good if the episode focused on some flaw in Tuvok that he had to work to overcome and, well, it sort of does, but the change feels incredibly forced and artificial. Tuvok doesn't really grow as a character, nor does he ever feel particularly vulnerable or easy to relate to. It doesn't help that the bland guest stars aren't so bland that they don't upstage Tuvok, either.

Let's back up a little. Remember the Maquis? We haven't really mentioned them since "State of Flux", but it turns out Seska isn't the only one who was having some trouble fitting in. Dolby, a bland white guy with a troubled past, Gerron, a surly Bajoran, Henley, a woman (seriously, that's all the characterization she gets) and Chell, a fat Bolian (is there any other kind?) are all having problems adjusting, so Janeway assigns Tuvok to give them a crash course in Starfleet discipline. It's frustrating to me that the white guy is the only one who gets any character development at all, as if the other three don't need personalities because they have the fact that they're aliens or women to make them identifiable.

The offending cheese.

The "cadets" are rude, insubordinate, obstinate, and proud. Tuvok is rigid, compassionless, and kind of a jerk until Neelix advises him to lighten up. Meanwhile, something has infected Voyager's bioneural circuitry, causing systems failures all over the ship. B'Elanna enlists the help of the Doctor, who can't find the source of the problem until Tuvok realizes its... cheese? I guess Neelix wanted to make cheese and the alien bacterial spores infected the gel packs? It seems odd to me that the writers, faced with an A-plot that feels like more of a B-plot, would write an B-plot that literally involved Voyager being endangered by cheese.

In order to solve the cheese-induced gel pack problem, Voyager has to turn the engines up super hot to kill the bacteria. Unfortunately, life-support goes out and this threatens to kill everyone on the ship. Even more unfortunately, everyone forgot to tell Tuvok and his cadets this, so they get trapped in an irradiated cargo bay and almost killed. But they work together to escape, and suddenly some how this makes everyone's problems go away. Or maybe not. It's hard to say because we never see Dolby, Henley, or Gerron again. (Chell apparently appears in one other episode.)

Okay, I lied at the beginning of my post. This actually was a terrible episode. The only redeeming factor of the entire forty-five minutes is that it contained the line "get the cheese to sickbay." That's it.

Random Observations:

Chakotay would probably be less bland if he punched people more often.

Gel Pack count: 45 (doubt we'll use that one again.)

Shouldn't the Starfleet dress code have an exception for the Bajoran earrings? They're a religious thing. But I guess we've never seen a Starfleet officer sporting a head scarf or a yarmulke either.

The Doctor talking to the Gel Pack was pretty funny. So was overheated Kes's death glare.

Chell is also featured in the Elite Force video game.

Kes gives the Doctor her "Are you fucking kidding me?" stare.

"11001001" TNG

While not the most creatively titled TNG offering, "11001001" proved a much more enjoyable episode than I remembered or expected. The first half gives us an excellent glimpse of the Enterprise crew getting some R & R, and the second half is a decently exciting little Picard and Riker adventure. I love the level of tension and excitement the episode generates without ever resorting to violence.

The Enterprise has put in for repairs, including an upgrade of the computer systems, so the crew takes some time to relax. Worf and Tasha challenge the outpost security staff to a friendly ball game. Beverly confers with a colleague stationed here. Geordi tries to teach Data to paint. And Riker can't find anyone to hang out with, so he goes to the holodeck for some trombone practice.

Wesley, for his part, is content to watch the computer upgrades, which are being performed by the enigmatic Binars, a race who have so thoroughly integrated with their home planet's master computer that they communicate almost telepathically. They're cute, weird, and sci-fi-y, and of course they betray the good guys, trapping Riker and Jean-Luc in the Holodeck and tricking everyone else into evacuating so they can steal the ship.

They need the Enterprise's main computer, it turns out, to save their world, which has completely shut down because of a solar flare. When Picard and Riker figure this out and save the Binar homeworld, there seem to be surprisingly few repercussions for the brazen theft of a Federation flagship, but that's just a typical TNG plot hole, and you really can't let those bother you too much.

Minuet, the holographic woman the Binars programmed to mesmerize Riker, is an interesting bit of foreshadowing in terms of what the holodeck will become on TNG and Voyager (as well as DS9 with Vic Fontaine, but that comes much later.) Her incredible realism is impressive to Riker and Picard, but much more in line with characters like Moriarty and the EMH than the Dixon Hill characters in "The Big Goodbye".

I don't consider this a "Holodeck episode". It involves a holodeck, but the writers resisted the temptation to use it as an excuse to play dress-up and avoid coming up with an original plot.

Random Observations:

Classic Worf - "If winning is not important, than why keep score?"

For once Wesley doesn't save the ship - in fact, he inadvertently helps the Binars steal it.

Data's remorse about letting himself get caught up in leisure activities is a nice exploration of the essential Data conflict - his goal of becoming human does not completely jive with the goal of being the most efficient officer.

I think Doctor Crusher's babling about medical nanites may be foreshadowing an upcoming episode.

Riker is not actually that good at playing the Trombone.

Jetrel (VOY)

Double TNG Next Week!

This week, Voyager takes a dark turn. Neelix has always had echoes of the sad clown, but now we discover the tragedy at the heart of his character - his entire family was killed in what was basically Hiroshima, and he was among the first to witness the devastation first-hand. "Jetrel" brings Neelix face to face with the scientist who invented the weapon.

It feels more like a Deep Space Nine story, with Jetrel telling lies upon lies to mask his true intentions, and perhaps the Deep Space Nine writing staff could have handled it better. As it is, the writing lacks the depth it needs to fully explore its premise. It asks some interesting questions that have been percolating in science fiction since the deployment of the A-Bombs - what is the moral responsibility of scientists? Is a blast that kills millions justifiable if it ends a war that would have killed billions? But it doesn't take full advantage of science fiction's ability to explore these questions divorced from their real world contexts.

While it largely fails as an exploration of morality, technology, and war, the piece succeeds as a
character piece for Neelix, revealing his tragic past and really bringing the character's essential conflicts into focus. While Kes has thrown herself wholeheartedly into life on Voyager, Neelix has always held the crew at arms length, ready to strike out on his own at the first sign of trouble. But his reluctance to form a family bond makes total sense from someone who lost his entire family, and his joviality is more believable as a facade he forces on himself to protect his psyche from the terrible darkness of the things he's seen than it is as just sheer optimism.

Ethan Phillips, Jennifer Lien, and Star Trek Veteran James Sloyan all really pull their acting weight, which sort of rescues the episode from the mediocre writing that plagues its more dramatic sequences. I can definitely see that the writers struggled with how best to tell this story. I just don't think they ended up with something totally cohesive. The ending in particular seems like it was thrown in for the sake of having a twist, and puts forth a lot of questions it doesn't even try to answer (using Voyager's transporter's to resurrect an entire dead colony surely must violate the Prime Directive somehow.)

Ultimately, this episode is about survivor guilt - its about Neelix forgiving himself for not dying with his family. The final scene, where he forgives Jetrel, doesn't feel earned at all, because the dramatic scenes haven't done the work of bringing him to that point. It definitely puts me in mind of Deep Space Nine's "Duet", but it doesn't achieve anywhere near the nuance of that episode.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on a first season episode from what is generally considered a weaker series. But mediocre episodes always bother me most when I can see the potential in them, and this may have been the most potential-full Voyager plot to date. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't nearly as good as it might have been.

Random Observations:

The pool scene at the beginning was a nice way of keeping us in the world and quickly reestablishing Neelix - light-hearted, but shrewd.

Nice to keep reminding us of Kes's abbreviated lifespan - conveniently timed with how long a Star Trek show runs. I wonder what their plans were for the character?

Janeway's ready to take a big detour for Neelix's sake. We're never getting home at this rate.

James Sloyer is no stranger to doing heavy drama in heavier make-up. He previously played Odo's "father" Mora Pel on DS9 and K'mpec on TNG's "Firstborn".

Bonus post - seven-year-old Nathan's favorite characters

I didn't have time to write a post while I was home with my family this weekend - but did find these. Enjoy!

Breaking the Ice (ENT)

Breaking the Ice is a paradox of an episode of Star Trek. It answers questions like "How groundbreaking can an episode be without actually being interesting?" and "How can an episode where characters leave the ship on a dangerous and special-effects filled mission still feel like a bottle show?"

The episode is groundbreaking and envelope-pushing in that it really plays with Enterprise's conceit, bridging the gap between today's NASA and Kirk's Starfleet. The whole runner with the grade school class back on Earth is very NASA and something we would never see on other shows (although starting on Next Generation they have the kids right on board.) And theoretically its also a way to get the audience to learn a little more about day to day life on Enterprise.

But in practice, it doesn't work at all. The scene is way too long for starters. It straight-up feels like padding. It has actual poop jokes in it, and it turns out jokes about poop jokes are not as many sophistication levels above poop jokes as they think they are. It features the actors basically playing their characters being bad actors as they awkwardly interact with the camera, which is also not as fun as it sounds (they're maybe too good at it.) And as for the actual answers, they are the epitome of show, not tell. We don't want to watch the bridge crew yakking at us for that long when the ship's under attack, much less when the stakes are nonexistent.

And that's the problem with the whole boring episode. Besides the children (who, by the way, we never get to see, even though an adorable child could maybe have saved this episode), here are the other three subplots:

- Vulcans like to watch us and be condescending ... but everything is exactly as it seems.

- T'Pol is having second thoughts about her arranged marriage we never heard about before and accidentally confides in Trip.

- There is a comet.

I honestly have no idea what was going on with that comet. I guess, it was really big? And it maybe had some kind of rare mineral inside it. Not, like, one they needed to fix the ship, just one that was shiny. Reed and Mayweather land on the comet for some reason and then basically just goof off, build snowmen, and blow something up for some reason. And the Vulcan story kept seeming like it was going somewhere, but it really wasn't. There were just Vulcans, really just the one, looking over Archer's shoulder, being creepy. Don't they have better things to do, seriously?

Only the T'Pol plot really held any interest for me, and that only the faintest bit. Maybe it's not the best idea to put the emotional weight of the episode on the shoulders of a character that doesn't express emotion? It doesn't really make your boring episode less boring.

To go back to my initial observation, this show tries to bridge the gap between present and future, and in doing so reveals a fatal flaw in Enterprise. Space travel is fundamentally less interesting and less awesome now than it is in the 23rd Century. To go backwards was to impose all kinds of limits on one's storytelling at a time when the franchise needed to be exploring strange new worlds to survive.

Star Trek has progressed through wormholes, time warps, and nebulas that turn thought into reality. Why would viewers find a really big comet interesting? Why should this tension exist between Enterprise fulfilling it's potential as a show and being accurate to its conceit, and Enterprise actually being good?

This might be why the show starts to lean so heavily on time travel as a crutch -- it's a way to deliver something new to viewers, despite that the premise only allows for the old and the outdated.

Either way, Breaking the Ice is a swing and a miss. And a miss and a miss and a miss. It's rare and mesmerizing to see a show attempt four different subplots in an episode and succeed at none of them.

Random Observations:

- Nope, I'm done. Nothing more to say about this train wreck.