Heroes and Demons (VOY)

            It’s actually incredibly cool that immediately on the heels of TNG’s first foray into the “Holodeck episode” we get to see what Voyager has learned from seven years of trial and error. “Heroes and Demons” isn’t a great episode, but it’s more than watchable – great humor and character acting from Robert Picardo help sell one of our cheesiest plots to date. It helps that the Doctor actually learns something about himself from his time on the holodeck.

            The plot, in brief – B’Elanna and Janeway take a sample of some weird “photonic matter” from a nebula, because apparently it will “boost power converter efficiency.” Captain Janeway wants Harry to help B’Elanna harvest the stuff, but he’s in the holodeck, and won’t answer his calls. Then it turns out he’s not on the ship. And the Holodeck won’t turn off. So Chakotay and Tuvok go to investigate, and soon find themselves also vanished. Not wanting to risk any more crew members, Janeway sends the Doctor, who should be immune to being converted into energy since he’s already mostly energy, on his first away mission.

            Our destination this week is a holonovel based on the epic poem “Beowulf.” Unlike Dixon Hill, this is a real (if conveniently public domain) story, and the writers have some fun with that in the script. Unferth, for example, who in the original story challenges Beowulf to a duel to prove he is man enough to face Grendel, does the same to our heroes. The script also plays with the idea of the Holonovel as an interactive story that would actually be programmed, able to improvise but with obvious limitations. The characters greet each new “player” in much the same way, as if anyone entering the holodeck is essentially Beowulf. It feels much more like an interactive character screen in a video game, where it says “What is your name?” and the default is Beowulf, but you can enter something else if you want to.

            The cheesy fantasy-movie costumes and speech patterns, as well as the shoe-horned-in romance, all add to the feeling that we’re getting the 24^th-century Hollywood version of Beowulf. If all this episode was was Tuvok and Chakotay or Janeway wandering through this low budget sword-and-sorcery flick trying to find Harry, it would be a funny, if unmemorable episode. But adding in the photonic alien as the source of the malfunction (as opposed to “The Big Goodbye” and its totally unexplained malfunction) helps a lot. And what helps even more is that this plotline is used to force the doctor to recognize how far he has evolved beyond a simple program.

            The thing is, it’s not just his indestructibility that makes the Doctor ideally suited for this mission. While Chakotay and Tuvok talk past the Holodeck characters and treat them like they’re not real, the Doctor, himself a hologram, interacts with them as people and treats them with respect. This draws into focus how many of the crew still treat the Doctor, as a tool rather than a comrade. And ultimately, the Doctor rescues Kim, Chakotay, and Tuvok not by slaying “Grendel” but by communicating with him, which helps tie everything together thematically.

            “The crew accidentally captures a lifeform” isn’t an original plot, but it works well enough as a macguffin to drive the rest of the episode. I really admire the writing staff’s ability so far to know when something needs to be an ensemble piece and when it can put all the heavy-lifting on one actor, and while this is really The Doctor’s show, almost everyone is used effectively. Janeway, B’Elanna and Tom work well as his mission control team, and Kes, as always, is his moral support. Chakotay and Tuvok, in the one scene before they get captured, continue to have a really nice, developing relationship. Neelix doesn’t show up, which is fine as he’s really not needed.

Random Observations:

Vulcans apparently have no monsters or demons in their mythology. I find this hard to believe.

Janeway’s version of how holodecks work conflicts with Wesley’s brief explanation in “Encounter at Farpoint”, but I think its more consistent with Deep Space Nine and later TNG, especially “Ship in a Bottle.”

Again we see the effect of Janeway having moved into command from Engineering. She knows her ship better than Jean-Luc knows his, at least from a tech standpoint.

I’ll say it once more, Holodeck safeties should really be hardwired.

The effects in the Grendel scenes look really spectacular, and not cheesy at all. Well, aside from the Doc’s arm getting vaporized.

The Doctor chooses a name (Albert Schweitzer), but then decides it’s not for him.

Harry Kim Death Count: 2

The Nagus (DS9)

The Nagus is a good episode that portends great things to come. It's the first real Ferengi episode, episodes where the A-plot centers around Quark, Rom, sometimes Nog and a range of recurring Ferengi guest stars. None of them more high-profile than Wallace Shawn's Grand Nagus Zek, notable for just how much Wallace Shawn-ness shines through his layers of makeup.

The Nagus paints the Ferengi in their usual heartless, conniving light, although with a little less nuance than the show will land on. The Ferengi here are almost Klingon in their willingness to assassinate whomever's in charge, and that bloodthirstiness doesn't quite play well with the narrative mission the writers have set aside for them.

Ferengi episodes (this one included) are farces, broad comic pieces with cartoonish characters, physical comedy, and often outright zaniness. Sometimes this makes for a jarring disconnect with the rest of the station crew, who tend to infringe only tangentially on the plot. Other times the rest of the crew is relegated to an unrelated B-plot. (The exception being Odo, who has a way of finding his way into Ferengi stories via the tabs he perpetually keeps on Quark.)

I've come to think of these comic episodes (which tend to be more successful than attempts to go broadly comic with the whole crew, like "Fascination") play an important role, especially as the rest of the series finds its way to a darker tone. This isn't to denigrate the actors behind the Ferengi at all, by the way. They all have serious chops and the comedy often stems from how seriously they take inherently silly situations (one is reminded of Frasier, even.)

This time, Quark gets made ruler of the Ferengi people, with plenty of Godfather references to go around. On Ferenginar, corruption is built right into the system, so the Nagus is no public figure. He's the CEO of the Ferengi, or more accurately the Gilded Age boss of their town. He has his hands in every deal and rules with an iron fist -- but he's constantly watching his back for assassination attempts. It's a job not for the faint of heart. The initially disarmingly goofy Zek turns out to be every bit as shrewd as any other Ferengi.

The specific twists and turns of who's killing who and who's not really dead aren't really as important to note here as the general appeal of the episode. About halfway through it I had this realization "Wow, I feel like I'm watching Deep Space Nine." I think the worst of season one is behind us.

And that's even more apparent in the B-plot, which spins off of the main plot when the visiting Ferengi higher-ups pooh-pooh Nog's attendance at Keiko's school (which is being substitute-taught by O'Brien, I assume because the show hit its guest star budget with all those Ferengi). This is a minor qualm of mine, actually: Ferengi society should at least value literacy, a pretty important skill for a shrewd businessman.

Anyway, Sisko continues to be annoyed by Jake's friendship with Nog, and suspicious when Jake misses dinner repeatedly. After some advice from Dax in a very sweet scene, he goes to find him (thank you creepy Big Brother computer technology) and discovers his elicit extra-curricular has been tutoring Nog all along. It's a very simple, even predictable story, but it grows the characters well and presents a sweet counterpoint to the tale of backstabbing and betrayal (goofy though it may be) that constitutes the main plot.

Random Observations:

-- Suddenly Rom is a character. The sharp curve of his season one evolution is crazy.

-- The season continues to slyly lay the groundwork for the Dominion War and the direction the wormhole is going to take the rest of the show (more on that next week!) Here, we see a smart decision to set up the Ferengi as an interested party because of the propensity of business opportunities a new quadrant represents. This ties Quark into the larger scene of galactic politics in a way that will allow the writers to fit him into many stories to come where he otherwise wouldn't have had any reason to be around.

-- I know I promised a double post, but life is crazy right now! Hopefully the week after next I'll be able to get to it.

The Big Goodbye (TNG)

            This is a landmark episode for the Star Trek franchise. Though the holodeck was introduced in “Encounter at Farpoint”, so far we’ve only seen it used to create landscapes and sparring partners with intelligence roughly on par with current AIs. The magical, reality-warping, plot-hole ridden holodecks that will come to haunt future Treks begin with this episode. Because the holodeck is so new, the characters do spend a little more time than usual exploring its implications, but the episode is clearly scared of this philosophical territory. It will be explored in more detail in “Elementary, Dear Data” and “Ship in a Bottle” but that’s years down the road, and in the mean time the holodeck will become an excuses for gimmicky pseudo-time-travel episodes and period dress.

E... A... 5... 7....G?

            “The Big Goodbye” doesn’t really understand its own conceit. In order to create added tension while the crew is trapped in the holodeck, the writers came up with a diplomatic emergency – an insectoid race who will probably declare war on the Federation if Picard doesn’t master a greeting in their incredibly difficult language. About the only good thing that can be said for this plotline is that it makes Troi slightly less useless than usual. It’s too silly a concept to be the concept that’s supposed to be balancing out the silliness of the holodeck plotline, which is itself not deep enough to be compelling. And the episode didn’t even have the budget to put the aliens on the viewscreen, so we’re teased with this cool hive-mind, insectoid race, which we never see or hear from again.

            The Harada, that’s the aliens, are of course a MacGuffin. The Holodeck is the focus of the episode, but unfortunately it feels like a lot of padding and not much plot. Geordi and Wesley kind of generically try to fix the Holodeck while Picard, Data, Dr. Crusher and a redshirt try to stay alive by fast-talking gangsters out of killing them. Humor comes from the fish-out-of-water situation both for Picard, who has read the novels that the Holoprogram is based on, but doesn’t know much about the time period, and Data, who has all the knowledge but just doesn’t fit in. Beverly is extremely underused, and doesn’t really do anything except get held hostage. The “don’t throw me in the briar patch” gambit that ultimately lets the crew escape is funny, if a bit predictable.

            All in all, the episode is thin, but watchable. One thing that might have helped is if the Dixon Hill story itself had had a more interesting plot – an actual story we, the audience could get involved with. As it all the trappings of the Film Noir/ Gangster novel were there, but there was no sense of how Picard was “supposed” to play out the story. That definitely contributed to the sense that there was a lot of filler dialogue and not a clear plot arc.

Melting, Melting - Oh what a world, oh what a world!

What really bothers me about the episode, though, is what it sets up and doesn’t ever follow through on. It goes out of its way to ask the philosophical questions about the Holodeck but not answer them. Just before Picard turns off the program, one of Dixon Hill’s allies asks “what happens when you go away? Do my wife and family still exist?” It adds massive creepiness to the whole proceeding. Future holodeck episodes steer away from the characters being self-aware I think for precisely this reason – the writer’s decided the conceit worked best for light, escapist episodes rather than contemplations about the nature of artificial intelligence and our responsibility to it. 

Fortunately, Voyager will pick up that mantle some day. Speaking of which, in a weird bit of synergy, next week is Voyager’s first holodeck malfunction episode. It will be interesting to see the contrast.

Random Observations:

Data can sometimes experience an enthusiasm for learning new things which borders on emotion.

The concept of turning the Holodeck safeties off is ridiculous. Why would you not hard-wire those things?

It still bothers me the extent to which Holodecks are new and exciting on TNG but completely commonplace by Voyager.

I do like the scene where Wesley pulls out the wrong wire and suddenly everyone is in an arctic storm for a few seconds. I wish more holodeck episodes had those kinds of moments.

The Naked Time (TOS)

I am definitely developing a new appreciation for the classics through this project. While Nathan basically panned TNG's sequel to this episode, "The Naked Now," I have a much more favorable view of the original, which basically blew me away. Not because it was about anything, just because it's wildly entertaining and pretty funny. Nathan's complaint was that he didn't feel like he knew the characters well enough for their playing against type to be entertaining, but somehow here it works. 

For one thing, the focus isn't on the decline of the regulars. For most of the episode, it's redshirts and Sulu who get affected. McCoy, Scotty, Rand, and, most notably, Uhura (who is such a badass this episode, more on that later) never succumb to symptoms at all. And Spock and Kirk are only hit at the last moment.

So because it's not regulars, it's not so much about playing against type as doing really ridiculously over the top things -- like the now-iconic shirtless, swashbuckling Sulu, and Lt. Riley locking himself in the engine room singing drinking songs. But the episode never becomes a comedy. All of the ridiculous symptoms are played against effectively built tension as the ship sinks ever closer to its doom. This seems to be a winning formula unique to classic Trek: over-the-top goofiness that inexplicably but impressively co-exists with legitimately compelling drama.

That's what really makes this work and "Naked Now" fail, that balance of goofiness and legitimate tension. TNG's offering, by contrast, trades way too much goofy for way too little tension. A better comparison here is DS9's "Babel" actually, which is another outbreak story with believable tension and some goofy disease moments. Still, I like this the best of the three. It could be that TOS's baseline cheesiness works in it's favor, also.

I love the abstract way the disease is portrayed/presented, with people looking at their hands and the audio cue of a rattle, that's ambiguously either in their heads or just in the score. There's so much art to the directing in this episode; a lot of the story is shown rather than told.

There's some acting by Nimoy and Shatner that straddles the line between good and hammy. I think it's acting that would be good if the emotional beats felt earned, feels hammy because they're not, but sort of bounces back to good because that's the whole point. The writers can't resist to explore Spock's hidden emotions, even when the paint's barely dry on the facade. But a good turn by Majel Barret (Roddenberry?) as Nurse Christine Chapel (her first appearance in that role) does wonders to make this first delve into Spock's emotions meaningful.

By biggest complaint is the weird, random time travel ending, which doesn't fit into the plot at all. Sources suggest this was meant to be part one of a two-parter, with "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (which falls much later in the season.) This makes some sense but, also has problems. One, it would have been less like a two-parter and more like the teasers at the ends of Sliders episodes: kind of pointless. Two, they clearly had time to edit the script to not be "To be continued...", so why didn't they have time to take out the pointless time travel all together?

Oh well, small potatoes. If TOS keeps turning out episodes like this, I predict this franchise will go places. I'm calling it now: 6 movies and a season*!

Random Observations:

- Big episode for firsts: First Vulcan neck pinch, first utterance of "I canna change the laws of physics, Capn," and, as mentioned, first appearance of Nurse Chapel. I am also told this is the only time all three female recurring crewmen (Uhura, Rand, and Chapel) all appear in the same episode.

- This is a big episode for Scotty, who's really doing the brunt of the ship-saving, though, as usual, Kirk gets the glory.

- Meanwhile, Uhura is holding things together on the bridge while pretty much everyone else either goes crazy or runs off to put out fires elsewhere. Real MVPs for the little guys, which is rare and nice to see on TOS, which was never quite as much an ensemble show as it's successors.

- We have now seen all of Mrs. Roddenberry's major roles on this blog: Lwaxana Troi, Nurse Chapel, The Cage"'s "Number One," and, of course, the voice of the Starfleet computers. I'm realizing she was really a very versatile actor. (The only non-Trek role I can recall seeing her in was in Earth: The Final Conflict, where she also played a doctor, but a very different role than any of the above.)

- I love the little references to the ship's gym and bowling alley. It's a home!

- Man, how much would it suck to be Riley after that episode. Like anyone's going to let you forget singing Irish drinking songs, giving unsolicited fashion tips, making vaguely racist comments and, oh yeah, almost destroying the ship.

- Some housekeeping notes: pictures to come tomorrow and next week, double Deep Space Nine to make up for my skipped week.

*3 seasons, but I needed to make my Community reference land.

State of Flux (VOY)

            Star Trek and The Next Generation were both extremely episodic, designed for the casual viewer who watched maybe one or two episodes, maybe not in order. Deep Space Nine, on the other hand, is highly serial – episodes build on the events of previous ones, and its best watched as a complete project. Voyager tries to strike a balance between the two, and “State of Flux” is an episode where this experiment is in full effect. As such, it kind of has to be two different episodes, and it makes some sacrifices to achieve that end. I’m not sure it’s a complete success, but it’s certainly not a complete failure – it’s watchable, and exciting, and it introduces us to one of Voyager’s most memorable recurring villains.

            From an episodic standpoint, “State of Flux” falls a little bit flat. It’s trying to be a mystery story, but there’s no twist. Well, there is a twist, but it comes at the wrong point in the story to be effective. A good mystery story leaves you wondering who’s guilty until the end. I think even if I hadn’t been spoiled, I would never have suspected anyone but Seska. The scene where they interrogate Carey falls extremely flat, like the interrogators are talking to the audience and saying "look, it really could be this guy, see!"

Chakotay makes Carey squirm.

            There’s also some wonderful set up of Chakotay and Tuvok as partners – kind of the classic buddy-cop-movie pairing of the by-the-book cop and the loose cannon who doesn’t play by the rules. There’s even a little acknowledgement of the history between the two characters – Tuvok did gain Chakotay’s trust with the intention of betraying him, and that’s not something you forgive easily. These two needed an episode to get into this stuff, and I can’t help but feel they got shortchanged.

            So a little more time could have made this episode a much better mystery and a better Tuvok/ Chakotay story. Where did that time go instead? It went to developing Seska as a character and making us care about her betrayal. It went to establishing her relationship with other characters like B’Elanna and Chakotay. All of this is extremely important when we realize that Seska is going to be Voyager’s nemesis for the next two seasons. The fact that she lived and worked with these people, that she and Chakotay were lovers, makes her a much more interesting villain. But all of this could have been built up slowly over several episodes.

            Or State of Flux could have been Voyager’s first two-parter. It had enough going on to justify one, and the stakes were high enough. But I understand the writer’s not wanting to take the risk. Two-parters tend to be heavy on the action, which this episode was not. But I can’t help but feel there were a lot of missed opportunities.

But Seska makes Chakotay squirm even more.

            The serial aspect of the episode is more of a success. I especially like how much it draws on not only Voyager’s past, but Star Trek’s as well. On the one hand, we have the most recent past – in the previous episode, both Seska and Joe Carey showed they were willing to bend the Prime Directive to get Voyager home. Now that a more serious breach is committed, making them the primary suspects is excellent payoff for that episode. Going back to the pilot, we see the Kazon make good on their promise to “make Voyager rue the day”, and we see the horrible effect of ignoring the prime directive and giving them technology.

            But what really works for me is the reveal that Lt. Seska is a Cardassian sleeper agent. A Cardassian is the perfect villain not only from a plot standpoint (it makes perfect sense for them to have put a spy on a maquis ship) but also from a psychological standpoint. The Cardassians work as villains on Deep Space Nine because of the stark contrast that their militaristic, collectivist culture poses to the Federation. When you think about what we know about Cardassian psychology, Seska’s actions up until this point make sense. She wants to get home. She’s willing to break rules and make back-handed deals to do it. She also has the Cardassian penchant for speechifying, which helps immensely.

            Seska is not often mentioned when the great villains of Star Trek are recounted – if Janeway has an iconic nemesis, it’s probably Susanna Thompson’s borg queen. But at this point, she has all the hallmarks of being truly memorable, and she really never stops being a thorn in the Captain’s side, even seasons after her death. I’m looking forward to seeing her reign of terror continue to develop, and seeing how Chakotay takes this ever-increasing tide of betrayal.

Random observations:

Seska and Chakotay’s banter is nice. The whole “Mushroom soup” scene did an excellent job of showing how awkward Chakotay’s position is as first officer and Maquis liason.

I hope the gross leola root becomes a running gag. Incidentally, it looks like someone shellacked a piece of ginger.

B’Elanna doesn’t use Scotty’s patented Chief Engineer exaggeration technique. If she says it will be done tomorrow, it will be done tomorrow.

The scene with Tuvok and Chakotay playing gin during the stake-out was amazing. I want to see more little slice-of-life-on-Voyager moments.

Tom Paris hasn’t been involved in a plotline in a while.

Maj Cullah just makes hairdressers squirm.

Maj Cullah is probably even less memorable as a recurring villain than Seska, but I should probably note that we meet him for the first time in this episode.

Despite all the bluffing back and forth, no shots are actually fired in space (no torpedoes expended)

No fatalities, but we can definitely count Seska as a lost crew member.