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.

Angel One (TNG)

I will say I was pleasantly surprised by "Angel One", but this is mostly because the expectations I went into it with were exceptionally low. I had very little memory of the first time I saw this, but a glance at the plot synopsis was all I needed to think "First season TNG trying to meaningfully engage with issues of gender. This should be terrible."

And it's not actually that terrible. In fact, I would say my major complaint is that they didn't engage with their premise enough, and that they let a cliched subplot about a mysterious space virus take up way too much space in the episode. The actually main plot of "Angel One" mostly suffered because the writer's were unwilling to pursue its most interesting aspects.

The womanizer has become the womanizee.

What the episode dances with, but never quite succeeds at, is flipping traditional gender roles in order to emphasize just how ridiculous and awful the ways that women are still treated in our society are. Several good decisions were made in this regard - having the women dressed in sensible outfits and the men in lacy, revealing ones is a good choice, if a little heavy-handed, it at least gets the point across. And Beatta's crass objectification of Commander Riker is extremely well done, especially the way Riker starts out into it and then quickly gets extremely uncomfortable.

Some missed opportunities: I would really have liked it if one of the women had expressed a similar interest in Data. Data could have responded with his usual child-like confusion and it would have given a great opportunity for the away team to talk about objectification, consent, etc. Additionally, the fact the Beatta doesn't really take men seriously could have been a great chance to showcase Tasha and Troi, and aside from Picard's decision to have Troi address the planet, that was basically overlooked.

The crashed freighter survivor's spearheading Angel One's Men's movement is a decent plot hook, but the episode takes way to long to set it up. The first two acts create a lot of false tension, between the virus on the ship, the vague threat of the Romulans, and Beatta being unwilling to hand over the survivors, and then the last two acts suddenly feel like they're trying to cram a whole bunch of stuff in.  Basically the pacing is awful, and the faux dramatic subplot is unnecessary. And then the resolution, Riker gives a speech and saves the revolutionaries from being executed  but their sentence is commuted to exile, doesn't really feel like it resolves anything.

"Ooh - real leather. Aw yeah."

That being said, the subplot does have its moments. Especially Geordi being in command gives him more to do than he's had all season, and he handles the responsibility relatively well. Plus him sitting down in the Captain's chair and saying "Make it so" to Worf is kind of amazing.

Random Observations:

All the stuff about the Romulan ships gathering at the Neutral Zone does serve to help set up some plots in the rest of the season.

The guest casting in this episode is fantastic. Beatta does a beautiful job of casual, entitled misandry, and her Manservant Trent is hilariously feminized. Also, all the men are so short!

The writers clearly have not yet worked out that Worf grew up on Earth.

Wesley's skiing outfit is ridiculous.

All in all, Riker gives a pretty good Picard Speech.

Eye of the Needle (VOY)

            Like “The Cloud”, “Eye of the Needle” seems interested in telling both an internal and an external story, and it doesn’t do the work to knit them together very well. This doesn’t exactly bother me yet, but I think these A-plot/ B-plot structures work better when there’s some thematic connection between them, and in this episode I found that lacking. Still, the A-plot of “Eye of the Needle” has a lot more substance than the storyline of “The Cloud”, and both plots lay a lot of groundwork for future episodes.

           

            The A-plot is admirably full of twists and turns, but it never really puts Voyager in any danger. There’s still plenty of tension, but it’s driven by hope, rather than fear. For the first time since “Caretaker”, our heroes see a possible way to get home. They will have their hopes raised many more times before this is over, but the first time offers unique opportunities to explore some of the relationships in the ensemble – not everyone wants this to the same extent, and some are more willing to make sacrifices than others.

           

Teeny Tiny Wormhole.

            The whole episode is a big game of good news/ bad news – “Good News - We found a wormhole to the Alpha Quadrant!” “Bad news – it’s too small to fit Voyager through.” “Good News – There’s someone on the other side we can talk to.” “Bad News – he’s a paranoid Romulan.” “Good News – we can beam through the wormhole and go home.” “Bad news – we’d end up 20 years in the past.”

           

            Ultimately, of course, the potential damage to the timeline is non-negotiable, despite Harry Kim’s protests. They do leave messages with the Romulan, but have no way of knowing if they were ever sent. For now Voyager is still alone, the isolation felt all the more acutely for being so close to home.

            The B-plot continues what I think is the most promising sub-plot, the Doctor’s self-actualization. Fittingly, it is Kes who confronts the Captain about how the crew treats him, and Janeway reacts as if someone had just told her that the toaster was feeling left out since you started making waffles all the time. This response is fascinating to me. It may be because I just watched “The Measure of a Man,” where Picard talks about humanity being judged on how it treats its technological creations, and now I feel as I’m watching his prophecy unfold. The Doctor is just as human as Data, more human in many ways, but while Data was always embraced as a member of the Enterprise crew, everyone on Voyager still views the Doc as a glorified tricorder.

This includes the Doctor himself, who has no thoughts about agitating for his rights – when Janeway asks him if there’s anything she can do for him, all he asks is for the ability to turn himself off or back on. He doesn’t see any reason to think of himself as anything other than a machine designed to perform a specific task, yet he clearly has emotional needs that could be met.

Here’s where it gets creepy. We know, from Deep Space Nine, that plenty of people use holograms for sexual fantasies, and from every show that people use holodecks to play out violent fantasies. The Doctor is not the first Hologram to achieve sentience, and he won’t be the last. Now while most likely Tom Paris’s holo-bimbos from the French pool-hall simulation don’t have complex enough programs to be considered people, where the heck do you draw that line? It’ incredibly difficult to pick a point where you can say “These holoprograms are sentient and should have rights” and “These holoprogams can be used as our playthings.”

We’re going to get into these ethical issues eventually. I hope sooner rather than later, because the way the crew treats the Doctor makes me not like the crew much at all.

Random Observations:

No Neelix this episode (or very little at least.)

Kes has an eidetic memory, which makes sense given the Ocampa lifespan. This is how they can master enough skills in such a short time and have a functioning society.

We learn that B’Elanna is estranged from her parents and hasn’t seen her human dad since she was five. I guess if you walk out on a Klingon coming back would be pretty scary.

This episode definitely puts Harry at the forefront, but we don’t really learn much about him except that he really wants to get home.

B’Elanna still calls Harry Starfleet, and the writers still haven’t caught on to their relative lack of chemistry.

Janeway answers Telek Remor's (audio only) communique in her pink slip with her hair down.  It's not super sexualized, but its a little off-putting.

Telek Remor might actually be a cargo ship captain, but given what we know about the Romulans circa 2151, it’s equally likely he’s a Tal Shiar operative. Either way, the Romulans were a good choice for this episode – their distrustfulness helps racket up the tension even more.

The scene where the Doctor worries about being left on after everyone has abandoned ship is actually a little heart-breaking.