"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.

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.

Datalore (TNG)

            I said before (I think) that one of TNG’s failings was its inability to give Picard a strong arch-nemesis, a recurring antagonist we could really hate – Sisko had Dukat, Janeway had Seska, even Captain Kirk had Khan and to a lesser extent Harry Mudd. Picard has Q, but he quickly becomes more absurd than sinister, and then there’s a whole host of ineffective attempts at menacing –Sela, Tomilek, and Daimon Bok all come to mind, but we’ll get to all of them in good time. The point I want to make now is that TNG does have good recurring villains – just not for Picard himself. Lore is a great foil for Data, and when he shows up it means a well-paced action plot with enough depth to make us remember we’ve watching Science Fiction.

            Lore is Data’s evil twin – a prototype built by his creator, Dr. Soong. We still don’t know the whole truth of why Soong decided to start over with a “less perfect” creation. If we believe Lore’s story, then his emotions were too real, and he made the colonists uncomfortable. But its also possible that his murderous, psychopathic tendencies had already begun to display themselves and Soong shut him down out of fear. If we believe this version of events, then its likely he left out the emotions when he built Data because it was the only way he could be sure of leaving out the Machiaviellian level of ambition or the sense of superiority.

            It’s interesting that while he has emotion, what Lore lacks is empathy. He sees himself as an

Alas, Poor Data.

“upgrade” of humanity, and he doesn’t see any reason to keep the earlier version around. Lore is all of our fears about artificial intelligence personified. Brent Spiner isn’t afraid to ham in up in his dual role, but in spite of all the scenery chewing he still brings a believability to Lore that makes him all the creepier. Or perhaps the creepiness comes from seeing what Data, who we’ve already come to see as the most incorruptible member of the crew, could be capable of with just a slightly different outlook. Data and Lore are both detached, but in completely different ways.

            The structure of the episode is excellent. The teaser reminds us of Data, who he is and what he might want badly enough to betray his comrades. The scene on the planet sets up a mystery and a creepy tone. We meet Lore, gradually realize he’s untrustworthy, and once he replaced Data the plot steamrollers on to a climax. The philosophical discussions between the two are just enough substance, but they don’t bog down the episode enough to break the tension. It all flows so organically that even the over hashed “no one trusts Wesley but he’s actually right” plotline doesn’t feel as contrived as it usually does.

Ah, Motherhood.

            Wesley is fine in this episode. He’s annoying, but just in a kind of generalized way, and the fact that he saves the ship by realizing something that’s obvious to the audience rather than coming up with some techno-miracle makes his self-righteousness a little more palatable. Dr. Crusher doesn’t do a whole lot in this episode, but her interactions with Data are cute and she’s trying to be good mom and a good officer and that’s awkward given what’s going on. On the whole, I like how the ensemble is used effectively here without taking the focus off of Data and his struggle.

            I don’t know if the writers beamed Lore into space because they wanted to use him again, but it’s a great way to kill off a villain without actually killing him off. And the great thing about Lore is they didn’t have to wonder if they’d be able to get the actor back or not.

Random Observations:

There is a lot of unintentional innuendo here, but my favorite is Riker’s “Does he have all your parts?”

Troi does not appear, again. This time no excuse is given.

It’s interesting to think that Data’s “flaws” might actually be measures intentionally implemented to keep him from being evil.

 

And now I want to play Starfox.

The Crystaline entity looks great, given the constraints of 1988 CGI. It does kind of make me think I’m playing an old video game or watching Babylon 5, though.

Minor Character Watch: Chief Engineer Argyle is back. I totally didn’t remember that he was in more than one episode.

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.

Haven (TNG)

            The Enterprise is looking forward to some peaceful shore leave on an idyllic planet, but this is interrupted by two things – a plague ship from an alien world threatens to infect the planet, and an arranged marriage made when Counselor Troi was a little girl catches up with her. Both of these plots have the potential for being interesting, but the resulting episode is uneven, at best.

            Ten episodes in, Deanna Troi is probably the least developed character we have on the show (Geordi is a close second.) This is her first spotlight episode, and we do learn a little about her, but her show-stealing mother and plot that’s more about the guest stars than the cast keep us from actually learning anything significant about who Deanna Troi is.

            The most important of the guest stars being of course Lwaxana Troi, one of those most divisive recurring characters in the franchise. Personally, I find her extremely entertaining, if just a tad overused. In her debut she’s a little more obnoxious than she is in subsequent appearances – just a little too full-of-herself, a little to presumptuous, a little too rude. All of these qualities I think get toned down in subsequent appearances, but that could just be my memory. Either way, her condescending flirtations with Captain Picard are a lot of fun, and Patrick Stewart plays the comedy of this normally quite dignified man trying to hold onto that dignity in the face of Lwaxana being Lwaxana.

            But entertaining as she is, Lwaxana is also not the main character of the episode. Unfortunately, Wyatt Miller is, and while he’s charismatic in kind of a bland way, we don’t care about him anywhere near as much as we care about the crew, and that’s unfortunate, because he’s actually the character who drives the action of the show, and he’s the only one for whom the stake really feel particularly high.

            Let me put it another way. Wyatt has to face a decision about whether to uphold a tradition and a vow he has made or to follow his heart. If Deanna had to make that decision, then this might have been an episode that showed us who Deanna is. But before she has a chance to decide, Wyatt goes over to the plague ship, absolving her of responsibility. It feels like this guest star cheated a main character out of an interesting story.

            And of course, Troi’s failure to act on the fact that she would clearly prefer to stay on the Enterprise makes her look like an incredibly weak character incapable of fighting for what she wants or even making her own decisions. I keep waiting for the Deanna Troi I remember liking to show up on this show, and I haven’t seen her yet. I fear I will have to wait quite a while.

Random Observations:

The story of the Tellarians and their plague is really interesting, and I wish more time had been spent exploring it.

The costuming in this episode is especially 80’s, and the scoring is extremely heavy-handed, neither of which do anything to sell the premise.

Classic Data: “Please continue the petty-bickering. I find it most intriguing.”

It’s odd that Deanna can hear telepathic communication even though she can’t actually read minds, but then I remembered that Troi can talk telepathically to Riker, so I guess sending and receiving messages is a different skill than actually perusing people’s thoughts.

I love the little bits of Betazoid culture we get, like the Thanksgiving gong and the nudity at weddings.

It’s good that Picard points out the ridiculousness of arranged marriage in the context of 24^th-century woman of mixed species heritage, but I wish it was taken farther. I would really have liked to see Troi stand up for her right to retain her career.

Hide and Q (TNG)

            “Hide and Q” is, for the most part, an exceptionally poorly written episode. It does a terrible job of maintaining any sort of dramatic tension and also frequently seems like it was written by someone who had watched a little TNG but wasn’t intimately familiar with the characters. This is odd because one of the writers credited with the teleplay is Gene Roddenberry.

            None of this is earth-shattering. First season TNG has lots of stinkers. But I think this particular one bears further examination, for several reasons. It has some stuff going for it. The premise is vaguely compelling, and Q’s character does start to develop in an interesting direction. But on the whole it fails spectacularly, for a few very easy-to-understand reasons.

           

Or just hold a child and look distraught.

            First, let’s talk about dramatic tension. Any good hour of television, or more generally speaking, any good story, needs to have stakes. Something needs to be on the line, something that will be lost if the characters fail and/or gained if they succeed. “Hide and Q” tries way too hard to raise those stakes, to the point that all it does is draw attention to their flimsiness. The Enterprise is trying to save a colony from a mysterious disaster! If the rest of the away team doesn’t follow Q’s arbitrary rules, Tasha will die! If Riker is tempted by omnipotence…

            What exactly? What exactly is the bad thing that happens if Riker accepts Q’s offer of immortality and omnipotence? The episode is trying to tell this story about power corrupting and absolute power corrupting absolutely, but it never actually shows us Will being corrupted. It fails to offer any arguments as to why Will allowing Q to make him a Q would be anything but awesome (unless you count “Picard would lose a bet” as an argument.)

            Power does change Will, but not in ways that make any sense. The scene where Riker offers to grant everybody wishes is inconsistent to the point of being disturbing. He makes Wesley a grown-up (or at least strands him in a grown-up body) offers Geordi his sight (seriously, when is Geordi going to get any characterization other than “the blind guy?) and… makes Worf a Klingon girlfriend in fishnets?

            Wait a minute, hold that thought. This is isn’t the Holodeck. When Q makes things, they’re real. So when Riker snaps his fingers and makes Worf a special friend, he’s making an actual flesh-and-blood person. And when he snaps his fingers and she goes away, she just ceases to exist. Now, when Q pulls these shenanigans, it’s skeezy, but Q is basically an amoral being. Riker is one of the good guys.

Oh right. It's still the eighties.

            I will admit that women who exist only to be sex objects or fantasies is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. But this is such an egregious example I can’t wrap my head around it. And of course, it comes in a Roddenberry-written episode. The man is the most misogynistic feminist I’ve ever encountered. I’m sure it’s just a joke, but it’s a cheap joke that in the current age reads incredibly creepy, especially the fact that no one objects to the fact that Riker just made and then unmade a person, or asks him where she came from or what happened to her.

            I mentioned good points earlier. I really like how Q’s character is shaping up. The idea of this race of omnipotent beings who are terrified of stagnation is fascinating, and that angle doesn’t really come back until Voyager. The scene where Picard and Q quote Shakespeare back and forth is awesome, but that’s mostly because 1. Patrick Stewart is quoting Shakespeare and 2. Stewart and DeLancie have some of the best chemistry on the entire show. It’s a blessing that the writers realize this, and from here on out stop trying to pair Q with anyone else.

Random Observations:

Q wears the admiral’s uniform in this episode, and eventually the French Field Marshall, so he can outrank Picard. In later appearances, he will always wear a Captain’s uniform identical to Picard’s. You could read a lot into this.

Picard and Tasha is a terrible ship. Let us never speak of it again.

Troi doesn’t appear in the episode, explained by a throwaway line in the captain’s log. The ship’s productivity suffers not at all.

Q taunts Picard by not letting him record a log. This cracks me up for some reason, possibly because being denied the ability to monologue is a horrible punishment if you’re Patrick Stewart.

Worf is actually competent in this episode. That’s nice. It’s nice to see the warrior being allowed to war.

Really, it’s killing Wesley that makes Riker snap?

Geordi/ Tasha is also a bad ship, and it comes out of nowhere here.

The actor playing grown-up Wesley has 14-year-old Will Wheaton’s speech patterns down cold.