"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.

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 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.