"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.

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.

The Last Outpost (TNG)

            I’m trying to watch this show as if I were just discovering this world and these characters, and have no idea how things will grow or develop. Sometimes this is harder than others. In the 20 seasons of Trek that follow this one, the Ferengi quickly became the punch lines of the Alpha Quadrant. But here, in their first ever appearance, we are asked to take them quite seriously. And I find that very difficult.

            As the episode opens, the Enterprise is chasing a Ferengi Marauder which stole an expensive piece of equipment from a Federation outpost. Data compares the alien culture to “Yankee Traders” in their insatiable lust for profit. That continues to be true throughout the various series’, but Deep Space Nine’s Ferengi would never resort to this kind of blatant looting. This is not to say the Ferengi are more principled later on. It’s just that later on, they’re portrayed as absolute cowards, who would never even conceivably risk a conflict with a Galaxy class starship. Here they seem to have at least a bit of a spine.

           

            But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Enterprise finds itself trapped in a forcefield which is slowly draining its power. Assuming the Ferengi are the source of this attack, the open hailing frequencies saying they are “prepared to discuss surrender”. The Ferengi, caught in the same trap and thinking the Enterprise to be the source of it, assume they are being asked to surrender, and promptly do so. This turns everyone’s attention to the planet.

            The planet, it turns out was once an outpost of a huge interstellar empire, called the TKon Empire, which died off when their sun went Nova, never mind that no one seems to understand that “interstellar” sort of intrinsically implies… well, never mind, it’s not important.

LASER WHIPS.

            Riker, Yar, Data, Worf, and Geordi all beam down to the planet, but the transporter scatters everyone so it takes them a while to reunite, then an away team of Ferengi ambushes them with LASER WHIPS. Fortunately, Yar is not with them, and is able to rescue them and bring the whole thing to a standoff. In the midst of this, a weird, robed alien materializes. It is the Portal to the TKon Empire, and asks the “barbarians” to petition for entry.

            Now the Ferengi become more like the Ferengi we will come to know, groveling, scheming, and trying to gain advantage with the powerful aliens. Unfortunately for them, the Portal can read minds, and seeing through their deception, asks one to come forward and be tested. Worf tries to volunteer, assuming the test will be martial, but Riker stops him, quoting Sun Tzu. “He will triumph who knows when to fight, and when not to.”

            Honestly, I didn’t really get the ending. It’s not an awful episode, but its one that seems to lack any sort of thematic center – while it has obvious parallels to the TOS classics “Day of the Dove” and “Errand of Mercy”, it doesn’t seem to bring up their antiwar message, and the the Ferengi are never threatening enough to effectively build much tension.

The gems of this episode are all in little character interaction and the way in which the cast seems to be building chemistry. But the art of telling a fully contained story with themes and ideas running through it is an area where TNG’s writers have yet to catch up even to TOS.

Random Observations:

The Data/ Geordi dynamic continues to grow, but as Jonah points out its reminiscent of Chekov and Sulu’s peanut gallery discussions of TOS days.

Speaking of Geordi, he’s acting like the chief engineer now, but he’s still wearing red. Also, despite LeVar Burton’s easy-going charisma, he’s still coming off extremely bland.

Wesley Crusher does not appear in this episode.

There’s a really out of place Crusher/ Picard shipping scene while the away team is down on the planet and they contemplate the possibility that they are about to die. One assumes these conversations happen less as the show goes on because the characters realize that they are kind of constantly about to die.

I think part of the reason Yar is on her way out is that she and Worf are too much like each other. And Worf is the more interesting character.

Betazoids can’t read Ferengi. This is consistently maintained throughout the show, and is super convenient as the Ferengi become the galaxy’s con men.

Armin Shimmerman plays the Ferengi first officer. He plays it very different than Quark, but with an unrestrained, nervous physicality. It’s silly, but he makes it work.

The misogyny of the Ferengi is presented through the lens of “cultural values”, which I find irksome. The Ferengi are disgusted that the Federation clothes their women and lets them serve on starships (despite the fact that most cultures they’ve encountered presumably have clothed women.)

I get that its a metaphor, but Data should be able to break out of a Chinese finger trap without "figuring it out." He's like ten times as strong as a human.

This is an ensemble piece, but I’m calling it a Riker episode because it feels like one? Riker is the one who is tested, and it’s Riker we learn something about.