The Battle (TNG)

Picard encounters ghosts from his past. Literally.

            

We aren’t to “good” yet.

 
             I don’t know what the first “good” episode of TNG is. I have a feeling the first excellent episode is “The Measure of a Man”, but maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised before then. “The Battle” is not cringe-inducing. Like so much first season TNG, it reeks of unused potential. I will say, however, that “The Battle” is an episode that experiments with a lot of elements that are necessary for TNG to become the good show we know it will eventually become.

            We open with a captain’s log, and the promise of a new encounter with the Ferengi. At this point, they’re still supposed to be Picard’s main adversary, and I guess “The Last Outpost” wasn’t bad enough to discourage the writers from this plan, so I guess it’s as good a time as any to bring them back for another go. Given that the Klingons served as a sort of an allegory for Cold War Russia in TOS, I have to actually admire Roddenberry for trying to make the flagship villains of the new series a caricature of American-style capitalism. Combine this with their extreme misogyny, and we can’t shake the idea that the conflict of the Federation vs. the Ferengi is a conflict between humanity’s better nature and society as it is now.

There was no money in the budget for a background for him.

            That conflict isn’t at the center of this episode, though, because Daimon Bok doesn’t have any problem with the Federation. His beef is with Picard himself, and his motivations have nothing to do with Ferengi worldview or philosophy. Picard killed his son – and he wants revenge.

            This is the first potentially awesome thing this episode does – it delves into Picard’s past, giving us a glimpse of how he got to be the man he is today. Many of the best episodes of TNG and Star Trek in general rely on developing a character’s backstory, and this is TNG’s first foray into that. The story is that he lost his first command, the Stargazer, in battle with an unidentified ship. Though his ship was lost, he managed to destroy the alien vessel before abandoning ship. Unfortunately, the vessel was Ferengi, and its Captain Daimon Bok’s son.

            But Bok does not swear revenge on Picard right away. Instead, he offers the “Hero of Maxia” a gift – much to the chagrin of his own first officer, who wonders why they are not trying to make a profit off the exchange. The gift is Stargazer herself, recovered after the battle by Ferengi patrols.

            After that the plot sort of stumbles around for a while. Data discovers sensor logs suggesting that rather than acting in self-defense, Picard fired on the Ferengi ship unprovoked. Riker debates the merits of turning his Captain in, but before he really has to wrestle with that decision Data and Geordi discover that the logs are a forgery. It feels like filler, but it’s not bad filler, and Riker does get a cute scene with the Ferengi first officer where they try to piece together what’s going on.

            The most glaring plot hole in this episode is how trusting the crew is of the Ferengi’s good intentions. Everything we know about these people says that wooden horse is probably full of soldiers, but they happily drag it through the gates anyway. In fact, even though Picard is acting increasingly weird, it’s not until boy genius Wesley Crusher notices some odd sensor readings that they start to suspect something is wrong.

This goofy-looking thing.

            By then Picard has already been driven thoroughly batty by Daimon Bok’s “thought-maker”, and he beams himself aboard the old ship, believing he is back at the Battle of Maxia and the alien ship is the Enterprise. Riker and Data have to devise a way to defeat their old Captain without killing him, which is just an excuse to give us a space battle, because we haven’t had nearly enough of those in the first eight episodes.

            I think the inconsistencies in the character’s behavior combined with the terrible pacing of the second act keep this from being a solid script, but the attempt to glimpse into our main character’s past is appreciated, and trying to give him a connection to the show’s new villains is a good idea. Unfortunately it doesn’t work. Bok isn’t charismatic enough to make a compelling recurring villain, and the Ferengi are too goofy to be particularly intimidating. But the seeds of greatness continue to be planted, and I’m excited for where I know we’ll get eventually.

Random Observations:

Apparently by the 24^th century the common cold and headaches are a think of the past. I’m pretty sure later in the series people complain of headaches and it’s not nearly as big a deal.

This episode blatantly contradicts the rest of the series in that Troi can read Daimon Bok’s mind. The rest of the time, Ferengi are immune to telepathy.

Kazago says that he’s “all ears”. Suppose it was only a matter of time.

Patrick Stewart’s acting goes a long way towards selling the weaker aspects of the script. I’m amazed he didn’t get fed up and quit halfway through season one.

Picard has a much larger fish tank in his quarters. It occurs to me that taking care of tropical fish is a lot of work and we never see or hear about him attending to them. I wonder if they’re holographic?

The scenes with the ghost officers are really cheesy, but I kind of like them.

This is the third time Picard has been possessed or otherwise mentally compromised. Beverly needs to learn to trust her judgement about her old friend/ Captain a little better. She could save the ship a lot of trouble.

I really wish those weird sensor readings had been detected by Geordi or Data or Worf or anyone but Wesley. He keeps saving the ship, and its not so much that, but he’s just getting so damn smug about it.