The Arsenal of Freedom (S1 ep 21)

It's funny, when I think of Season 1 of Star Trek: TNG, I can't help but think of sitting in my living room, in our house, across from the haunted cemetery, with a ouija board that brought demons into my home at night.

And my step-father, always him.

But it's really only a handful of episodes that I distinctly remember from that time. I can't tell you why I remember some episodes so clearly and others not at all, and others are associated with times years later.

But from that time at home: Encounter at Farpoint, Code of Honor, Justice, Arsenal of Freedom, Skin of Evil, Conspiracy, the Neutral Zone...

So, yeah, this is one of those episodes I remember from that time. I mean, specifically. Now that doesn't mean I have some sort of extra affection for the shows I recall seeing - just that I remember watching them.

And I do remember enjoying these episodes back then. Not in any sort of meaningful way. This episode, I've got a fondness for that belies any sort of rational explanation. But all counts, this isn't very good. And again, not much of anything from season one is good.

I think it's a pretty easy story to tell. Three stories this week all rolled into a single larger plot. That in and of itself is a big deal, as there are episodes in the first season where the storylines aren't connected in any meaningful way.

The three stories can be summed up like this: A) Picard and Dr Crusher bond while she's injured and they're lost. B) Riker, Yar, and Data spend time dodging laser shooting floating thingies on the planet's surface and C) Geordi learns to be a captain while everyone else with any authority has left the ship.

A couple of thing happened in this episode that I thought were… well… interesting. First, the Enterprise shows up after hunting for a missing Federation vessel at a world filled with the remains of a long destroyed advanced civilization.

I think this is something that Star Trek did a lot over the course of its run that I really enjoyed, and that’s the idea that all these space-faring civilizations that pepper the cosmos aren’t a new thing. Instead, the galaxy is teeming with the rubble of fallen empires that spanned the stars long ago. Even this early in the Next Generation’s run, we’ve had the, uh, whoever it was in that episode that introduced us to the Ferengi, and these guys, and of course we’ll be introduced to the Iconians later, the alien trap the almost destroyed the Enterprise in the ‘Booby Trap’ episode, as well as the progenitors that seeded the galaxy with humanoid life, and the builders’ of the Dyson Sphere… I’m sure there are others too that I’m forgetting.

Look, my point with all that is that I don’t really remember that much. I think I’ve decided to start a spreadsheet that logs every time Worf gets his ass kicked, every time an alien is just a guy or girl (no makeup at all), every time an alien has a bumpy head, or funny nose, or if the alien is really weird (like, not humanoid at all), or, in this case, the menace is from an artifact of a long dead civilization.

Seems like it would be fun, after the fact, and be able to say, ‘Oh yeah, Picard tugged on the bottom of his tunic 134 times over the course of the series, but only did it twice in episodes where Romulans were the antagonist.’

Whatever. It seems fun to me. Don’t judge me. I don’t judge you. Sheesh.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so there is this planet, full of abandoned tech and weapons, all in ruins, and a missing starship. Once there, Riker and Yar and Data beam down, and Riker gets zapped by an alien thingy and is frozen in some sort of energy cocoon.

Of course, Picard has to come down to save Riker. So he and Dr Crusher visit. Data figures out how to release Riker but then that alien thingy shows up and starts up with its zapper. The away teams get separated and Picard and Crusher fall down a well.

Meanwhile, on the Enterprise, something actually kinda interesting happens. Geordi is left in charge and is immediately told to surrender his command to the Chief Engineer… LOGAN!

So, McDougal, Argyle, Singh… now Logan is the main man in Engineering. But he wants it all, so demands Geordi let him play as boss. In what is typical in first season writing, Logan dismisses Geordi’s rationale for staying in orbit as stupid, so a bit later when Geordi is forced to leave orbit, Logan dismisses Geordi’s rationale for leaving orbit as stupid.

Also typical of writing in this first season, Geordi is the perfect leader, he encourages the crew under him and is great at being inspirational. Then Troi pulls him aside into Picard’s ready-room and admonishes him – telling him that he needs to be encouraging and inspirational.

Uh, okay, that made no sense at all, but Geordi, being the good sport he is, acts like he’s received the best instructions ever on how to be a good leader, so he goes back out and acts exactly the same as he was already and leads the team to victory against the thing in orbit that is trying to destroy the Enterprise.

And on the planet, Picard and Dr Crusher flirt at the bottom of the well, while Data and Riker and Yar wander around shooting the thingies that keep attacking them. Eventually Picard turns on a TV and it’s a salesman that says they have the best weapons ever.

Picard realizes that it’s an automated sales pitch that will only end once the prospective buyers are destroyed, or they agree to purchase the weapons. So Picard agrees to purchase. Everything shuts down.

And justice prevails.

So, super very much of the nature of being quick... some thoughts:

• Behind the scenes, I read that they actually had to shut production down on the series because the script was unfilmable. Everyone took a few days whilst the production staff tried to fix the story. Odd, because this is probably one of the better episodes in this season. Don't get carried away with that statement... this ain't great.
• Chief Engineer Logan is comically Machiavellian in his attempt to usurp authority in this episode. And also, who the hell is he?
• Counselor Troi was not watching the same episode I was when she decided she had to talk Geordi through how to be a leader. He was doing great on his own.
• The floating thingy that shot Riker and chased everyone all over the surface of the planet... I was going to say that the CG was pretty not great on it, then I saw that it was a practical effect, done on set with a guy working that prop like it was a puppet. I was suddenly impressed that they could make a practical effect look like cartoony CG. God, my brain is so confused right now.

So, as much as I have an affinity for this episode, it's no one's finest hour. Parts of it make no sense, and there isn't much here to praise. So I feel really odd saying that it kind of worked for me. not a lot, but kinda sorta. If I gave half stars, it'd get two and a half.

But I don't. So I won't.

My rating?

2 out of 5

Heart of Glory (S1 ep 20)

I remember, way back in the early 90’s, probably during seasons five or six, again, when I was really into TNG, that I really didn’t like the first couple of seasons of the show. I also remember thinking that this episode, the one I’m supposedly reviewing now, was perhaps the best episode of the first season.

I’ll drag out the drama of whether or not I still feel that way until later, but I’m glad that I at least understood that the early episodes were pretty awful. I tended to be pretty uncritical of whatever it was I consumed, media-wise. I liked it or I didn’t. I thought that perhaps the only reason I didn’t like the first season was simply because the combination of spandex jumpsuits and a Riker without a beard.

Well, that and some pretty awful production values, something I hope to talk about a bit at a later date.

But it’s also weird for me now because, much to my surprise, the missus has been joining me for watching these episodes. It’s made it hard to do this reviews the way I’d intended because she wants to consume these way faster than I can write a review, so I’m well into season 3 as of this writing, and going back to a season one episode feels like I’m going back to something I watched a very long time ago. And even though I still am going back to watch these episodes a second time when I review them, that first impression is already gone, I’ve lost that sense of continuity from what happened the previous episodes. I’m not sure what to do about that, but I’ll figure out something.

Anyhoo - So, this is the ep where Worf gets to finally be the focus. I saw in an interview with Michael Dorn that the character was supposed to have only been a reoccurring role in the beginning, but an 11th hour decision was made to make him a regular. I really liked his stoicism over the course of the first season, and Worf has been one of the few characters I’ve not wanted to punch in the face in frustration this season. He’s not been written stupid, unlike Yar, Wesley, and to a lesser extent Troi, and at times, Geordi.

So, what happened in this episode? Well, I’m glad you asked. The Enterprise is called to the Neutral Zone where there has been a battle, the stumble upon a freighter that has taken on a lot of damage. After guessing about who it could have been that fought with the freighter for a bit, Data says it was probably Romulans. Then they beam over.

They away team finds a ship falling apart. They find three survivors, who happen to be Klingons. After some tense moments, they’re all beamed back to the Enterprise as the damaged ship explodes.

On the Enterprise, the Klingons are polite to Picard and tell a story about how they were passengers on that ship when it was attacked. Apparently, whatever it was they said had enough holes in it that Picard and Riker both believe them to be liars.

Then the Klingons and Worf go off to hang out. They all eat and make fun of Worf.

In sickbay, a third Klingon that I hadn’t previously mentioned died from injuries received while battling the attacking vessel. The Klingons (and Worf) come back to sickbay because they know how badly hurt he is. They scream as he dies and say the body is disposable, then stalk off like cool guys walking away from an explosion in an action movie.

Like fish begging for food pellets

Worf bonds with the Klingons to the point that when they confess to him that they’ve been lying to the captain about what they were doing on that damaged vessel he barely even shrugs at it. They also sorta pity him for not really being raised a Klingon. He seems to be susceptible to peer pressure.

So, after confessing to Worf that they’re full of lies and they’d taken the previous vessel by force, and then destroyed the Klingon vessel that came to take them back, Worf happily agrees to take them on a tour of the Enterprise.

Meanwhile, a Klingon vessel approaches the Enterprise. The commander of that vessel fills Picard and the bridge crew in on what Worf has also discovered and says he wants them as prisoners. Picard sends Yar and a security team to arrest the Klingons that Worf is showing around the vessel. A little girl wonders up to he Klingons just as Yar tries to arrest them. She calls the bridge and says the Klingons have taken hostages. Then the girl wonders away and Yar calls the bridge as says, ‘never mind.’

Ugh.

The Klingons are arrested and Worf goes back to the bridge, he begs the captain of the Klingon vessel to find a way for the guys they’ve arrested to die with some honor.

In the brig, the Klingons assemble a disrupter out of all the lumpy stuff that was sticking out of their clothing and escape, they also kill a security officer that clearly has never even considered the tactics of facing armed combatants.

So, the main dude escapes, the other dude dies (No one yells for him) and Picard tells the Klingon vessel that whatshisname is loose on the Enterprise, killing people willy-nilly. The Klingon says he’ll send over a team to capture him, no big deal, but Picard says he’s got it.

So whatshisname goes to Engineering and points his hodgepodge disruptor at the Dilthium crystals, which I assume is bad, and so Worf and Picard go to see what’s up.

Worf goes and meets the terrorist Klingon guy and he seems unable to understand why Worf doesn’t also want to take over the Enterprise and the two of them go off and terrorize the galaxy. Worf tries to speak some wisdom before he shoots the dude in the chest.

Worf yells for this guy.

Then everyone praises Worf, show over.

Oh boy, there is a lot to unpack here. Ah, so, real quickly, some of my thoughts during the episode.

• Riker is anxious to separate the saucer section after just hearing about something in the Neutral Zone. Sheesh. 
• Haven’t heard the name ‘Romulans’ in ‘some time.’ Weird, as they were talking about them a few episodes earlier (in Angel One, maybe - see what I mean about forgetting continuity?)
• Klingons used Romulan technology, right? Disrupters and cloaking tech both? I forget. 
• Geordi has a ‘visual acuity transmitter’ thingy, which apparently means he can transmit whatever it is that he sees to the Enterprise. 
• Geordi’s visor lets him see things like the color controls are screwed up on a television. It seems weird that they say the visual data is so complex that they can’t easily transmit it. It’s the EM spectrum they’re looking at, not sure what the problem is in filtering it down to something close to what a normal human would use to see, if that’s what they wanted. Or if it’s something Geordi would prefer for himself. 
• Speaking of which, it’s like no one in the future has ever considered using cameras for anything more that talking on the phone. I would think live-streaming every away mission would be standard. Even if I go back 27 years, or whenever, to when this was written - the recording of away missions wasn’t a new idea then, either. Didn’t anyone on the writing staff see any of the Alien movies?
• Don’t know why, but Picard interrupting the away team to ask them what they’re doing seems really distracting. There should be some sort of protocol about constantly doing that sort of thing. 
• Merculite rockets! Don’t know what those are, but I dig the name.
• To date, Worf has been the least insane character on the show. I liked the tidbits of his backstory they’d included here. How he was orphaned and raised on a farming colony by a foster parent human and Starfleet officer. Good stuff. 
• I question Worf’s handling of the Klingons. I feel like he should have reported something up the chain of command.
• The howling that the Klingons did when one of their own died was a warning to the afterworld that a Warrior is coming. That’s cool. 
• The Klingon vessel that comes after the guys Worf is happily showing the Enterprise to has a big Federation stamp right next to their Klingon coat of arms, or whatever that thing is called. That’s interesting. Q said a few episodes ago, rather offhandedly, that the Federation had defeated the Klingons. My Federation history is fuzzy, was that ret-conned away, or did the Federation kick their ass and force them to be vassals?
• Just been noticing the pips on everyone’s collar. Looks like Lieutenant Worf is really only a Lieutenant Junior Grade. No biggie, just something I noticed.
• People are dodging phaser fire. How fast do those things travel? The beam looks like it’s about as fast as a moderately thrown baseball. 
• Worf decides to talk to the Klingon threatening to blow up the Enterprise and for some reason Yar thinks that ‘talking’ is a stupid idea. What they need to do is wait until… um, he gets tired? I’m not sure she thought that out. 
• When Worf shoots the bad Klingon in engineering the Klingon falls over and crashes

  

  Who designed these floors?

  THROUGH the floor. So that means that the floor has barely enough strength to hold someone up that is standing there. That is the dumbest design I’ve ever heard of for anything. Glass flew everywhere and everything. Seriously, whomever designed the Enterprise made a death trap. What if someone tripped or something? They’d fall through several floors, shattering glass all the way, before landing a few stories below on the ground. 
• Something I noticed is that when someone is speaking Klingon… it doesn’t sound exactly Klingon-y. At least not in the way I remember it. I took a few minutes and looked into it, turns out that the whole Klingon language had been worked out, but the staff of TNG, for whatever reason, ignored it and just threw a bunch of sounds out there. That seems pretty dumb. 

So, here’s the thing, this story, like virtually every other in this first season, has ‘dumb’ written all over it. Worf is committing what has to be court martial level of offenses in his dealings with the Klingons. And to say that Tasha Yar runs an incompetent security team is an understatement. It makes me strongly suspect that life in the Federation is really so cushy that while Starfleet might appear to be an organization ran with military efficiency, in reality, it’s a bunch of people figuring out stuff as they go along.

That’s why every race that has a run in with a Federation ship is stunned when they win a battle, or survive an encounter, with anyone. They clearly don’t know what they’re doing. Ever.

But given all that, this episode stands out like a single rose in a sea of sand. Yes, it may be struggling to survive, and it may be a bit malnourished, but you can still see some beauty there.

In all, this is up there with The Big Goodbye as one of my favorites of this first season.

It’s just that it’s really not saying a lot. This is an episode that still has a lot of problems.




My rating?






3 out of 5

Coming of Age (S1 ep 19)

You know, sometimes I lose myself in the minutia of Star Trek and sort of forget where I’m at in the bigger scheme of things. I’m sitting here, watching all these shows and by now I’m so ramped up and ready to hate what I’m watching that I sorta forget to try to enjoy the show.

So, this time, I tried.

How did it go? Well, by any reasonable standard, it sucked. However, and I don’t know if it was because I was actually trying to enjoy it, or if it had something to do with the actual product itself. But whatever the reason, I found this one… well, tolerable.

Not great, not as good as The Big Goodbye, which is far and away the highlight of the season to date, but certainly watchable if one is willing to slum it for a bit.

What happened? Well, Wesley scored high enough on some sort of exam to allow him to officially test for Starfleet Academy, he was overjoyed, and had to work hard to be sympathetic to his friend (I guess) that fell short and wouldn’t even get a chance to try for real along side of Wesley.

I get that, I had a friend that was obsessed with intelligence. I mean, really obsessed. He spent all this time and energy reading about IQ and differences in intelligence between people and correlations between income and wealth… I think he thought that if he was smart that he’d just get money handed to him or something, I’m not sure. But whatever it was, he was always taking these online IQ tests.

‘I scored a 136 on this one, but a 155 over here. And on this one I hit a 160! I’m a genius!’

We argued about it. A lot. Not angry arguing, but the way friends do. You know, when you know the other person is being a little weird but you also want to take their points seriously because they’re a friend and you want them to not feel bad about being weird (because I feel like it’s important that a friend should be able to tell me things that are weird without them having to worry that I’ll call them a moron about it, even if I think they’re being a bit nuts on whatever the topic is).

So, anyway, I was on the side of stating that taking online IQ tests until you find one that tells you you’re a genius (and subsequently wants to sell you a membership to their high IQ society) might not be a great idea… but then I remembered that Mensa was a real thing. And they had a pre-test you could take online to see if you could possibly join their high IQ society (I can see how there could be some irony here, but I’d point out that Mensa has known standards for admission, and it’s pre-test doesn’t pretend that it’s an IQ exam).

So, Mensa requires that your IQ put you in the top 1% of society before you can join. If you use an IQ test, it must be administered by a professional (like a psychologist) and be normalized. In other words, they don’t dick you around.

This pre-test though, it was just meant to say whether or not you should even bother making the attempt to join. He talked me into taking it. So, we talked over the phone, went to the website and took the pre-test at the same time so we could compare results when finished.

We did. And ‘lo and behold, they told me I was a pretty good candidate for their club. I was pretty surprised, that didn’t mean I could get in, just that they felt like I was swift enough of mind that it’s not ridiculous for me to attempt to join.

Cool. I could take the real test. My friend, he was very nicely told that while he’s more than welcome to try to take the real test, they advise against it. He just didn’t quite make the scores on the pre-test that indicates that he’d do well enough to become a member.

That told me a couple of things, 1) they weren’t so full of shit that they’d take anyone willing to take the test, and 2) I was invited and he wasn’t.

That second part made me feel weird. I was unexpectedly excited (what if I really am a super-genius?) and it also made me feel bad for my friend, who had wanted it much more badly than I did (my worry didn’t last long though, he was fine).

So, yeah, I got where Wesley was coming from here. And believe it or not, that whole long story of mine flashed through my head when Wesley and his buddy were having their conversation. I get Wesley’s issue.

So – like I was saying, I was excited that I was invited to move on up to the next level of Mensa membership, but I did feel bad for my friend, just like Wesley was excited to moving on up to Starfleet training but knowing that his friend won’t be joining him.

So, yay, I’m on board with this. And to be honest, they’ve really toned down Wesley’s awfulness in the back half of the first season. So much so that I think almost all of the Wesley hate was centered around that first half-season of the show. He got way less annoying.

That isn’t to say he’s in any danger of becoming my favorite character on the show, but he and Tasha both seemed to have quit with the crazy behavior that made me hate them both so much early in the show’s run.

Huh, I just remembered I was supposed to be doing a recap here. I know it’s tough to read this stuff, my eyes glaze over when I see a recap coming, even though that seems to be the new sexy thing to do on the internet these day. Goofy kids and their episode recaps.

So, uh, Wesley goes planetside and begins his Starfleet exams, meanwhile, Captain Picard gets a visit from an Admiral that orders Picard’s full cooperation in an investigation that his assistant, Commander Remmick, is to conduct about the short history of the Enterprise-D.

So, Remmick begins being a dick, Riker gets pissed, gets very petulant, complains to Picard, is told to quit being a baby, and then we get back to Wesley.

Wesley is competing with three other applicants for a single position in Starfleet Academy. It makes me think right away that they are being way too selective. Granted, Wesley is 15 years old, so I wouldn’t be jumping up and down to let him into Starfleet either, but they’ll only be admitting one (that’s 1!) person from that sector (or quadrant, whatever) to go to the Academy that year.

That’s pretty selective, right? How big is Starfleet? I remember that the Federation has something like 150 worlds, give or take, so that’s a lot of people. Seems like from a pool of, I guess, in the ballpark of at least a trillion people (150 worlds x 10 billion per planet = 1.5 Trillion. I rounded down in case 10 billion per planet is too high, but even if I’m off by an order of magnitude, and it’s 100 billion, that’s still a lot of people) they can come up with more than just a handful of applicants.

Which means that there is a lot of folks out there that might be exceptional people that don’t make the grade.

Actually, let me think this through a bit more carefully, we’ll keep the 1 trillion number for the sake of easy arithmetic, if the average lifespan of an individual in the Federation is 100 years, and we assume a more or less even distribution of age in societies, then we’d probably have 10 billion souls, on average, at any given age you might pick. So if the prime age for applying to Starfleet is 17 – 20 then that means you’d have 40 billion people of the right age.

Let’s take the Mensa percentage of that, 1%, and say that’s our best and brightest, the ones that actually have the mental fortitude to learn Warp Theory and Klingon Poetry and all that, that still means you’ve got 400 million folks to deal with.

I mean, we can really do whatever we want to cut the numbers more. It’s ridiculous to think the top 1% will all apply (although it’s made clear that this is the single best thing to do in the 24th century and just about everyone wants to be in Starfleet, so I’d guess the application rate is pretty high). So let’s say of that top 1% that’s eligible, only 1% actually apply.

One percent of one percent means 4 million applicants per year to Starfleet Academy.

Remember, Wesley is in a group of only four people at this facility that will represent their quadrant (whatever) that year, and only one of them will actually make it. Unless there are a million quadrants (if there are, then future people don’t know what that word means, or I should pay attention to what word they actually used in the episode) or there has been a pretty intensive weeding out process.

But why?

I don’t know how big Starfleet is, but I get the impression that they’ve got ships scattered all across the explored portions of the galaxy, and terraforming projects, and starbases, and colonies, and science stations, etc. You need a large number of recruits to maintain that presence. I think we’ve decided that they can be as selective as they want to be and still have more people than they know what to do with at the end of the day. So what’s the deal with only one person making it? Do they plan on having a graduating class of 30 or something? They probably need to graduate 100,000 people per year to maintain all the infrastructure already in place (I pulled that number out of my ass, but now that it’s out there I might as well stick to it).

So, the whole thing here is pretty stupid.

Unless – all the people here are applying as an exception. Wesley is too young, the Benzite is too… um, blue, the Vulcan is too old, I don’t know. Maybe this is some sort of special case application to Starfleet. In which case it sorta might make some sense.

I don’t think so, but if I’m going to watch this episode, I have to come up with some rationale that doesn’t end with me throwing my own feces at the Television like an enraged monkey.

Where was I? Oh, Remmick continues to be a dick, Riker realizes that it’s Picard that’s under investigation, and then he and the crew all say how awesome Picard is, despite the fact that almost every week since they’ve taken the ship out of space dock they’ve all just about died. Often due to decisions that Picard is making.

Wesley bonds with another applicant, not he girl that won’t shut up about how unfair it is that Wesley is on a ship already, or that he’s smart already (she’s out, no complainers in Starfleet) and Wesley and his friend are clearly are the only two candidates for the only spot.

The psych test is the final part. It’s meant to show you your greatest fear. Wesley is scared it will reveal he’s a coward. No one will talk about it, but everyone says it’s pretty brutal. Turns out Wesley’s is just a big thing about having to choose who to save in a triage sort of situation (If it were me, it would be getting eaten by a shark, whilst drowning, in an underwater cave, in the dark… shudder).

Wesley kicks the test’s ass.

So that kid that Wesley beat out to get to take the actual Mensa test? Sorry, Starfleet exam? He steals a shuttle with plans of joining a space circus or something. Then immediately remembers that he can't actually fly a shuttlecraft. As he's plummeting to his death above the planet, Picard calmly saves the day by talking the shuttle out of crashing, not really, he talks the kid into a daring maneuver that keeps him from dying and Remmick, who saw the whole thing, is stunned by how great Picard is.

Remmick decides that Picard and his crew are the most awesome people in Starfleet and wants to be transferred under Picard asap. Picard and Riker roll their eyes and then the Admiral confides in Picard that he had to be sure – that something evil has invaded Starfleet at the highest levels of command and he doesn’t know what, nor can he provide any proof, but Picard better keep his ear to the grindstone… wait, maybe it’s his nose to the ground. Dammit. I can’t remember.

Wesley ends up not getting into Starfleet. It appears it’s because that it’s because the Benzite guy won the math completion, which he wouldn’t have except when the Benzite guy had a meltdown in the middle of the test, Wesley just gave him the gentle coddling he needed so he could finish.

Except that wasn’t it at all. Wesley just flat out wasn’t good enough. Despite the Traveler saying he’s a genius among morons. Everyone gets back aboard the Enterprise, confused, and they all leave.

I didn't really take notes during this episode, I was gonna, but I didn't. So I don't have much more to point out specifically, but for what it's worth, my thoughts:

• Why the Admiral continued to be so coy after the Enterprise checked out as a-ok is beyond me. Of course, knowing what's coming later I understand, but still, it bugs me.
• That Remmick berated the crew for some of the adventures they had over the course of season one seemed weird. Especially about the Traveller incident. Starfleet DEMANDED he be allowed to conduct his experiments, it was over the protestations of the crew that he was allowed to run his tests. 
• Wesley drug a man through liquid hydrogen? Holy Geebus, he's going to have some skin damage.
• Speaking of that test. Wesley was in room 101. I'm pretty sure that's a 1984 reference
• Still speaking of that test. What the hell? That's a very elaborate scheme for seeing how Wesley would react. 

I'm on the fence about this episode, it's not good, but it's not awful either. And for season 1, not being awful is actually a pretty big step in the right direction. I may put together a season 1 summary post ofter I'm done with it, and if I do, this one might be in a top 5 list of the season's best episodes. Maybe. I'm at least thinking that it could be, I don't know. Stop with all the pressure.

My rating?

2 out of 5

Home Soil (S1 ep 18)

Back in the day, you know, when things were cool - and not lame like they are now – I was pretty big into TNG. I’ll go out on a limb and say my peak obsession with the franchise was probably around 1993. It was a pretty great time for me, I think. But here’s the thing. There were aspects of this otherwise perfect show that bothered me.

I think I’ve credited Star Trek novels for getting me into proper science-fiction literature and it was around this time that I first started picking up the books to read. And the books lead me into other areas because they explored the more science-fictional aspects of the show.

But what was on television, well, it always seemed like there was part of Star Trek that was more interested in reframing current events-related social issues and commenting on them (‘Hey, let’s not be so racist!’ Or, ‘hey, let’s not shoot each other over a disagreement, let’s talk about it instead’). 

But the thing is, I wanted to know why they could travel a thousand light-years, discover a previously unknown race of aliens, and no one think to question that it was weird that those aliens were clearly just a bunch of white dudes that dress slightly differently than the crew of the Enterprise did. I mean, that’s the sort of thing I’d be freaking out about. That isn’t to mention the weirdness in that almost any humanoid species could have children with any other, or that they can make each other sick (Thelosian-Flu? I’m not saying that’s unlikely, I’ll just point out that you and I aren’t at a great risk for catching Dutch Elm Disease – and that particular bug evolved right here on earth with us humans around the whole time. It seems unlikely a bug evolved completely independently many light-years away would give someone the flu, or whatever).

It eventually dawned on me that most episodes were metaphors for people who deal with other people. They weren’t about ‘exploring strange new worlds,’ they were about confronting slightly different versions of ourselves… they are about looking inward and trying to be better people. Um, more like a socially sensitive James Cook than a Neil Armstrong.

And as great as all that is, I fell in love with the science-fictional aspects of the show. I had to tolerate all the melodrama in order to get to that.

If there happens to anyone who doesn’t understand what the hell I’m talking about, the melodrama is the Riker-loves-Troi-and-she-loves-him-but-he’s-a-Starfleet-man-first-and-can’t-have-a-family-so-they-can-never-be-together sort of story, or even a story about Klingons are warriors… that’s all melodrama. Not what I’m in to.

But this week’s episode actually had a legitimate science-fiction premise. Up until now I don’t think that’s happened. This is exactly the kind of thing that gave me the willies, in a good way, when I was watching the show all those years ago.

Too bad they went and f#¢k*d it all up.

This episode was an unmitigated disaster in storytelling that had me so bent out of shape I went looking around the interwebs for some explanation for how it could have gone so horribly wrong. I didn’t look long, or hard, for answers, but I did find out that there were unnamed script problems that led to delays in production. Based on other things I’ve heard about this first season on TNG I really want to say that Gene Roddenbery was busily rewriting the script and it became such a mess they had to give up on having it make sense and instead just film what they had. 

And what did they have, well, I’m glad you asked. Here we go:

A terraforming project team on a lonely, uninhabited planet, has stopped communicating with Starfleet and so the Enterprise goes to investigate. They show up and the Director of the project there says everything is fine and for the Enterprise to move along. Troi immediately freaks out and says he’s hiding something… the Director is panicking even. 

Picard forces the guy to let them come down and it turns out the staff is pretty nice. They get a weirdly long and detailed overview of terraforming (I enjoyed it, it was just really long). Then the Director shows up and is pretty charming, then he orders one of the staff to leave and go stand in front of a laser, the dude acts like it’s an odd request, but goes anyway. Dude immediately gets shot by that laser and dies. The director looks like he’s just as flabbergasted as anyone.

Data goes into the room where dude was killed after everyone leaves and has them turn the laser back on. It immediately starts shooting at Data, but Data dodges the laser blasts and destroys it. Then everyone comes in and the terraformer guy runs into the room and gets mad at Data for wrecking his awesome laser.   

Aboard the Enterprise, Picard and Data and Geordi realize that dude was murdered and start to investigate. About 10 seconds later they discover something small and glowy on the planet. They go back to debate for a long time with the computer before deciding that the glowy thing they found is alive. 

Picard sorta accuses the Director of murdering one of his underlings – Troi just psychically reads him and says he didn’t do it (the murder) but he knew the glowy things were alive.

Later, in the medical lab, everyone gathers around and watches the glowy thing have a glowy baby. Then they decide that it might just be alive… again. Also, it’s intelligent. Picard confronts the terraforming team and they admit that something on the planet was making attempts to contact them… patterns in the sand. You know, geometric shapes appearing and disappearing in the sand. No one thought it was the product of a lifeform.

Later, on the bridge, the debate, now led by Worf, continues on whether or not the glowy things are alive. Sigh.

In the medical lab, the glowy things are addressing the crew as ‘ugly bags of mostly water’ and declare war on humanity. They start making the ship shake violently. Somehow. Picard, remembering how awesome of a thing it was when Q referred to Worf as a ‘microbrain’ decides to name the new living thing they found as a ‘microbrain.’

The ‘microbrain’ succeeds in taking over the ship. The terraformers are grilled about what they did on the planet to piss the aliens off so much. They have no idea. Someone figures out that light is their food. So despite having almost no control over the ship at all, they do have the ability to turn off the lights because the switch for the lights in the medical lab, where the micro brain is being kept, apparently, is located outside of the medical bay.

Riker cuts the lights, the glowy things immediately start begging for help. Then accuse the crew of the Enterprise of proving they are murders if they don’t turn the lights back on. Oh god. Picard forces them to surrender and turns the lights back up a tad, with the dimmer switch I guess. Then the glowy things call Picard too primitive or something and to come back in a few centuries.

Whew, that was hard to write. So, here are some notes I took while watching, you know, my thoughts:

• When the Enterprise crew beams to the planet there are a lot of introductions 
• And mullets, there is a noticeable mullet to be seen here.

  

  "See, in the front it's like I'm all business. But in the back... "

• I really like the exposition on how terraforming works… and it’s a great prop they use
• It seems like we hear the sound effect for an opening door about two seconds before the doors open… just seemed odd.
• Data just glances at the laser and deduces that it was shooting on purpose.  I’m impressed, but also confused.
• Tasha and Wesley both were fine
• Data can dodge lasers. He can’t move fast enough to take action when Lore was trying to kill Dr Crusher a few episodes before, but he can dodge lasers, over and over and over.
• It took them a year to build a laser. I dunno, seems strangely long, just strap a phaser to a stick and it can work just as well as that laser did.
• Given that in this short season that the Enterprise have already encountered some pretty unusual life, like the Crystalline Entity, that Geordi doesn’t believe the glowy thing they found could possibly be alive because it’s ‘inorganic’ seems weird.
• Seriously, that ‘is it alive?’ thing is really overplayed. It’s stupid
• Later, after they’ve all decided that the glowy thing is alive, Riker tells whatshername that it’s still up for debate. It’s like he’s a global warming denier or something.
• Wesley really needs to stop with the Rainbow sweater. I mean, it is better than that stuff he was wearing early in the season, but he needs to change clothes sometimes.
• The glowy things have taken over the medical lab. 
• The terraforming crew says they knew something really weird was happening, but seem to really not believe it was life… so what where they hiding from the Enterprise?
• They call it a microbrain. Goddammit. They stole that from Q

In all, this episode is a mess, and not a hot one. I can almost see where this was going to be a murder mystery and then half way through someone stepped in and said, 'Waitaminute, people don't murder each other in the future, aliens did it.' Then they just ripped up the last 20 pages, ignored the obvious clues they laid into the episode to indicate it was supposed to be a murder, and made up this mircrobrain stuff and shoehorned it in. 

I hated it. It was so poorly executed, poorly paced (very long, yet still inconsequential scenes early in the episode and the near endless debate over whether or not the aliens were alive or not that kept getting resolved, I thought, then reopened again a few minutes later) and poorly written. Data dodging lasers was comical. The behaviors of the terraformers made zero sense as they came clean and admitted they were covering up... something, but they didn't know what. And given that they knew nothing about the aliens, the Director ordering whatshisname to go get murdered by the laser thing makes even less sense. So unforgivably dumb.

My rating?

1 out of 5

It could have been entertaining, it could have been watchable. But instead we get this POS instead of the beloved Science-Fiction show I should have gotten to see. 

When the Bough Breaks (S1 ep 17)

So, remember when I used to talk about my childhood and stuff? Weird, I’ve got a lot more to say about all that, but at this point I’m honestly just trying to get through this first season… sigh, and the second, which might be better, but ain’t great. This shit is really wearing me down. I want to bang on my TV and shout at it to be better.

But it’s too late to save these old episodes, they were all made over 25 years ago - it’s probably too late to do re-shoots.

So what happened in this week’s mess? Well, Picard and the gang wonder into a system and happily discuss the legend of a whole world that was believed to be super awesome and all that, that is hidden in this system. Almost upon uttering those words, a planet appears and the crew are told they’ve reached the mythical world of Aldea.

Tori warns the crew that they’re (the Aldeans) up to no good because of her psychic mojo, and then before they know what’s happening the kids are all kidnapped, well, not ALL the kids, just the talented ones.

Because the population of Aldea is made up of morons, they decide that since they cannot have kids of their own any longer, for reasons they can’t figure out, they will just steal the children of the Enterprise to repopulate their planet - weird that they only took a few children for this, they must have a repopulation program that involves each child having about a million children of their own when they reach maturity.

But whatever, Picard tries to negotiate for the release of the children, but the Enterprise crew is helpless to take action, those Aldeans’ technology is way to advanced for anything the Enterprise can do.

Despite that, they figure out how to circumnavigate the shields around the planet and sabotage that computer, which is all fine and well I guess, and it’s probably the first time I think I’ve ever seen TNG do anything remotely like that. I mean, every other time they’ve had a problem they talked their way through it… well, except for when Wesley was kidnapped before and they were going to just kidnap him back… but that didn’t work out because they didn’t have the power to do it, so they ended up talking their way out of that problem anyway.

Whatever. So Dr Crusher takes about five-minutes and cures the Aldeans and now they can have kids, they’ve disabled their computer thanks to Riker and Data, and Wesley, who had talked all the kids into a hunger strike previously, get’s to go back home to the Enterprise.

Good god.

Below are some thoughts I had during the episode:

• Kids in the future do calculus when they're  pretty young. So, mathematical skills go way up - social skills go way down. Everyone in the future has Aspergers? I know, it’s not a real thing now, whatever.  
• A cloaked planet - can they cloak gravity? That seems like it would be really hard to do. I mean, Throw a rock out the window and see where it goes. I just figured out how to defeat planetary cloaking tech in about 2 seconds. I should be on the Enterprise. 
• I did like the music in the teaser. 
• Humans as aliens - again 
• Troi and her cryptic prophecies - actually, probably her most helpful piece of advice in the show to date. 
• Riker is eating with a two-tonged fork. I don’t know, seems dangerous. 
• I have a solution to the Aldean dilemma. Just call earth and have them ship over all the orphans. 
• Seriously, the Aldeans solution to their problem is so stupid. 
• Kid actors - not always great. 
• Some trivia I picked up somewhere - McKenzie Westmore was one of the little girls in this episode. She’s grown up to be the host of the awesome SyFy show, Face Off. 
• Their computer is ‘hundreds of centuries’ old. My iPhone 4 died after about a year. 
• That tool for producing sculptures seems an awful lot like cheating. You just point it at an object and it becomes art. 
• The lady explaining to Wesley how the world works has no idea what is behind the door next to their main computer. That’s a bit odd. 
• “Why do you want them [your children] back so badly? You can always have more.” When you put it that way… 
• After dismissing, out of hand, every request to see the children, Picard asks again and the guy is like, ‘okay.’ If you’re going to have convictions you need to stick by them. 
• The covert medical exam of the Aldean lady is an awkward scene 
• Don’t get the whole, ‘you have to accept our offer’ business. They’ve already taken the kids, they might as well just dump the promised trade (info or tech, I forget) and lock up their planet again. 
• The musical instrument is just as much cheating as the sculpting tool. You just think of music and their machine produces it. Um, okay. That’s not what I think of as artistry. 
• Wesley even sleeps in his Rainbow colored sweater 
• The Aldeans have had undiagnosed radiation poisoning for a long time. Maybe they aren’t so advanced after all. 
• The Plan for Riker and Data to sneak down and sabotage the planet’s shield is the first overtly aggressive action I think I’ve seen them take on the show. And this is the second time so far this season that having kids on the enterprise has led to trouble surrounding aliens (remember when Wesley was sentenced to death for stepping on some flowers?). 
• The model for the planet’s shield generator is amazing! Wow, the whole set looked super shitty and then this amazing looking model shows up at the end. So all over the place with the production in this show. 
• And Dr Crusher managed to cure everyone on the planet of radiation poisoning. Of course. 
• The little girl runs onto the bridge and give Picard flowers, and apparently sticks a Tribble on his back because she wanted to play a prank, I guess. Or maybe Wesley put her up to it. I don’t know. The whole thing reeks of weirdness. 

So, in the end, this episode is pretty awful. I hated it because it was based on a pretty stupid premise and then they tried to treat said premise seriously. Also, kids tend not to be great actors and the production wasn’t great (aside from the great shield generator which looked great). Great. 

In all, this shows continues to amaze with this long run of horrid episodes right out of the gate here. Aside from The Big Goodbye nothing has been even remotely well done. At this point I don’t see a lot of hope for this show ever being good.

My rating?

1 out of 5

Too Short a Season (S1 ep 16)

It’s funny – to date I’ve given two episodes of this first season a 0 star rating in what was supposed to be a scale of 1 – 5. But what’s ended up happening is that almost everything has been so awful that when I’ve already given half the episodes one star, and the other half two stars… well, you start to want to be able to play within that range. I may go back and change my scale to 1 – 10 so then we can really have the elbow room to play within the boundries and explore some nuance.

Except, of course, I’m not anxious to go back and muck around with all that stuff I’ve already done. So I don’t know, maybe, but probably not gonna do anything different.

The only reason I bring it up is because this episode stands out to me from all the rest. Not that it’s better- god no, it’s not better – but because it sits somwhere in that valley of so-bad-I-can’t-look-away and turn-it-off-my-eyes-are-bleeding. Yes, this is not only awful, but might be my least favorite episode of the season.

But here’s the thing. It’s nowhere near the top of the list in the episodes I most hate, it’s just that I like it the least. Wait, I’m not explaining anything, am I? I’m just repeating myself and hoping that you’ll just get what I’m trying to say. So let me try again. This episode sucks. Hard. But it also blows, hence the paradox.

You see, not only is it awful, but it’s painfully boring. There were other epsisodes where I couldn’t bare to look away from my screen because the next stupid thing to come up might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. But with this episode, it wasn’t like that. It was a different kind of awful, the kind of awful that fuels almost no contempt from me. Only overwhelming boredom.

The story can probably be summed up in a few short lines: Aged diplomat orders Picard to one final warzone where said diplomat can create peace. That diplomat is getting younger. He arrives as a cocky young man and promptly does stupid stuff in an attempt to repair stupid stuff he did when he was young the first time (during peace talks decades earlier, he secretly gave super-weapons to every party involved thinking that would assure peace, somehow) and Picard and the gang have to clean up his mess to avert a humanitarian crisis. Also, diplomat’s wife is pissed – not sure if it’s because she likes being old, or if it’s because he took all the fountain of youth stuff and didn’t share with her.

Eventually, he dies of an OD of being young. The end.

And it was boring as hell. I couldn’t remember the episode title, thought I’d skipped it by mistake in my rewatch, and overall think of it as one of the most forgettable moments of TNG to date.

How forgettable was it? My notes on the episode were just a single line:

• Is that one of the Russian dudes from Rocky IV?

That’s pretty much it. And look, that isn’t to say that this episode isn’t full of, well, I hesitate to call it ‘stupid’ but the whole idea that there exists a cure for being old and no one really cares about it...um, maybe this story is focusing on the wrong thing? I mean, sure, whatshisname died from it, but that was because he took a supply meant to last he and his wife several years in a single dose. Dude was a moron.

So old age is a choice in TNG. And it’s a choice that everyone, for the most part, embraces. I already have a pretty tough time connecting with these absurd characters, throwaway nonesense like this does frustrate me. But not enough to make up for all the boring.



My rating?

1 out of 5

11001001 (S1 ep 15)

It was nice to relive a few memories over the course of my last few posts. But I'm sure any future reader will be much more interested in some more Star Treky stuff. So, let's dig in.

My recap, if that's what anyone wants to call what I do here that, starts with the Holodeck about to receive an upgrade. No mention that the ship is brand new and only a two episodes ago Picard mentioned that the Holodeck had just been upgraded already and he was overwhelmingly impressed with it, he also learned what a city block was... sheesh, and so they were going to have some shore leave at a Starbase while the ship's computers were tended to there.

Some smallish aliens show up, folks called the Bynars, and Riker doesn't trust them. To date, if there is anything we've learned, it's that if Riker doesn't trust someone they are up to no good - he is the only person on the ship that has this ability, even Troi is useless... until everything is over and then she'll say she new something bad was up the whole time.

But Riker, nope, he flat out doesn't trust these guys and so puts his best man on the task of watching them - Wesley. Riker then leaves and wonders around until he gets to the Holodeck.

Once there, he meets a woman and falls madly in love with her, Picard walks in and is also smitten by her.

While there, Wesley discovers the ship is about to explode! Everyone evacuates. In the chaos no one remembered to let the Holodeck folks know (Or maybe they couldn't, I forget now) so the ship is warped out of space dock to explode. Except of course it doesn't. Instead it takes off.

Picard and Riker continue being very excited by the Holodeck woman. Eventually Picard realizes that he's been cramping Riker's style and decides to leave. After turning down a very desperate Holodeck woman's offers of, I don't know, menage a trios, Picard walks into a hallway into the midst of a red alert.


Riker joins him, they decide to blow up the ship in a ridiculously complicated self-destruct thing, and go to the bridge to find the Bynars are almost dead. They see the ship was taken over by the Bynars and they figure out how these little aliens did it, they undo the damage and immediately go back to the Holodeck.

Um, the Bynars home-world was almost destroyed because those dummies lived on a world with a star that was about to go super nova and they decided to wait until the last minute to do anything, then the star went super nova, they were all fine, but their computers crashed. So they needed the enterprise's computer. I don't know, it was kinda dumb, but whatever. Everyone ended up being okay in the end.

Except of the Bynars, who I assume went to prison.

Some thoughts:

Best FX shot of the season

• The Starbase was huge, and the shot of the Enterprise docking with it was the best looking fx shot of the whole first season. 
• Riker was really, really into the Holodeck lady. Like, I'm positive that if he'd had a few more minutes with her when Picard walked in he would have found Riker with his jumpsuit bundled up at his ankles while he was banging the Holodeck lady. I'm really thinking Riker has a sexual appetite that he has a hard time keeping under wraps.
• And Picard doesn't knock or anything. He just walks right in on Riker. He clearly has no sense of boundaries. 
• The Bynars are computer people, or something. I liked them. But the whole super nova thing sounded really dumb to me. They might be computer people, but they are very smart computer people.

Look, there was a lot about this episode that was dumb, but it was better than anything else I've seen so far this season outside of The Big Goodbye. That doesn't mean this is great, but it does mean that it's watchable. If you can get past the dumb. So while I'm not giving it a great rating, know that it's better than almost anything else in this abysmal first season.

My rating?

2 out of 5

Angel One (S1 ep 14)

So, I’d written this whole big thing, it was awesome. Maybe the best thing I’d ever done. And Blogger ate it. I’ve lost things on Blogger before, but nothing that stung so deep, or that has burned for so long.

In a way, I’ve lost everything. So this post, if it’s great, is a mere shadow of what it almost was. If it’s bad, well, Michelangelo couldn’t have painted the Sistine Chapel twice. Doing it once killed him.

But to pick up on the thread I started last week about my step-father and his love of shooting things… mostly people, I’ll pick up where I feel like I left off (without actually going back and checking).

A quick glance from behind the corner in the hallway laid out a grisly scene. I don’t remember seeing my step-father, I don’t know where he was standing, or sitting. I just remember seeing my mom, standing there, shaking her head at me – an indicator that now probably isn’t a good time to walk into the fray.

For me, just seeing her there was so much of a weight lifted from my chest that I could have broken down right then. To my left was his brother, lain prone on floor, blood splattered through the small trailer’s living room, and his brother’s girlfriend, screaming at the top of her lungs, shouting over and over again that he was dead.

I loosened my death-grip on the bat and tried to get a better view when my mother gave me her best ‘get the hell out of here’ look. I ducked back into the hallway and sat in the floor.

I heard my step-father’s voice again, this time on the telephone. He’d called the police. I swear this is his side of the conversation as best I can remember it:

“Hello, police? I have a man here at my house that refuses to leave. I’m gonna need you to come here and pick him up.”

Then there was the loud clang of a phone being slammed onto its receiver.

Funny how time changes things. This was before 911 was a thing, at least where we lived. If you wanted the police, you had to call the police station directly and report whatever emergency it was you were reporting. If it were a fire and you called the police department, well, they might have been able to punch you through to the appropriate folks, but I wouldn’t swear on it.

Caller ID wasn’t a thing then either, at least not that I was aware of, and it certainly wasn’t standard. I bring that up because after he hung up the phone I was acutely aware that he never gave a name, never gave an address, and the phone didn’t ring. Cops certainly didn’t show up at the house.

It was a small town. Think of Hazard County or something, where people named Cooter, or Skeeter, were pretty common. I’m not saying anything about what happened behind the scenes here was how things were across the country at the time, or were typical in any way to how something like this might have gone down otherwise… I’m just sharing my experience.

My mother, for all that was going on, acted in a way I’d never seen her before, or since. She finally got the girlfriend to stop screaming, something I’d not really noticed until she stopped. And she examined the brother.

The gun, it was a .22 revolver. Not exactly known for having the most stopping power in the history of weaponry. As was described to me later, both shots were fired from his hip, not aimed in what anyone would think of as in a meticulous manner. One of the shots hit the wall clean, without ever touching the brother. It punched a hole about five feet from the floor in the living room wall, punched out into the bathroom and exited through the ceiling.

The other bullet, well, it hit the brother square in the forehead.

But being a small caliber, and not especially at the best angle (from the hip, remember?) it broke the skin, rolled between the skin and skull for just a bit, and exited in a very bloody mess from the top of his head.

For all practical purposes, it was the messiest minor injury I’ve ever heard about.

At the time, of course, no one knew that. My mother rushed to inspect the injury, she put the brother’s girlfriend to work getting items necessary to clean up the mess on his head so they could get a better view and all round did a great job of making sure things didn’t get even worse. She treated him as well as she could for a few minutes until I heard him begin to talk.

In the end, a very drunk man walked out of our trailer, shot right in the forehead from a distance of no more than 6 feet, and never bothered to seek medical treatment.

He was fine.

And this was, not by a million miles, even close to the worst thing my step-father did. He stood right there and tried to kill a man, his own brother, and his best friend. And nothing more than luck kept him from murdering that man in cold blood.

So flash forward a few years to when I’m a senior in high school, the incident above was by no means forgotten, but a brief stint as an upright citizen afterward convinced my mother that the events of that night were an all-time low point for us all. My step-father had begun drinking rather heavily again soon after, but the will she had to leave him and raise a kid alone, again, probably made her decision for her.

So, as a senior, with my step-father out, and me, all alone in our haunted house (well, in a house next to the haunted cemetery) was watching Star Trek late at night when Angel One came on.

I remember this show so well for a couple of reasons. First, I had quite the crush on the actress that starred as the head of the planet the Enterprise visited that week. And second, my teenage memory of this episode was that it was a planet where women ruled and men were subservient. That is, until Riker showed up and made sweet love to the government official so well that they were ready to abandon their beliefs and accept men as their equals.

Turns out, upon my most recent rewatch, that my plot synopsis was off, albeit not by that much.

To run through this quickly (Because blogger ate my rant I’d already prepared), the Enterprise is hot on the trail of a vessel that crashed into an asteroid 7 years prior and may have had some survivors make it to the planet of Amazonian women and mousy men. Riker beams down with the away team and is incensed that he’s not respected just because he’s a man.

So he decides to dress like a man-whore and seduce this world’s leader while the Enterprise gets a disease of the week (a virus that come from nowhere but smells a lot like Klingons?) and helps find the surviving members of wrecked space vessel.

Turns out those survivors don’t want to leave, they’ve found that being a manly man on a world of mousy men makes them pretty hot. They’ve got women galore and don’t plan on going anywhere. Through some ridiculous interpretation of the Prime Directive, Riker might be court-martialed if he doesn’t let the men (who are officially being hunted by the government as criminals for demanding men’s rights) stay on the planet.

Sigh. I mean, they’re not allowed to interfere in the politics of primitive worlds, but if a Federation citizen goes to a primitive world and wreaks havoc with the internal politics there the Prime Directive says that the Federation can’t remove their own citizens from that world if they don’t want to go.

Add to that that if caught they all face the death penalty, and you’ve got a recipe for an extremely sexist, stupid, and illogical story.

Some thoughts:

• My original lost was pretty long, but since blogger ate it, and I’m reconstructing this from memory, and not my notes, I’ve got a real opportunity to get things wrong. And also to be very short.
• Riker really dresses like a man-whore, not a real gigolo or anything, but like… well, just look at the pictures.
• I had a hard time figuring out initially why I thought this episode was so sexist, so I tried to

  

  No way a woman can resist? Am I right?

  replay the plot with the genders reversed and it felt equally sexist. I still have a hard time articulating exactly why it’s so bad, but it is. Riker’s whoring alone is bad enough, but throw in the ‘we don’t meddle but we won’t help either’ thing they try to pass off as being some sort of enlightened worldview is beyond stupid… dammit, I need another word… Imbecilic?
• I’m not sure about this, but it’s either the holodeck that makes everyone sick, or it’s that throwaway line about kids of a fieldtrip that started it all. Either way, it doesn’t seem that serious of an illness. Basically, that disease was stupid, and since I’ve been watching so many episodes (I’m well into season 2 at this point) I’ve noticed that mystery illnesses pop up a lot. It’s stupid. I wish they’d quit doing these. Or at least hire someone that has a high school level of understanding about how infectious diseases work. Because this is pretty awful. 
• That said, I don’t know how diseases work very well either. But I bet my bullshit can at least sound slightly better coming out of someone’s mouth.
• How stupid was the disease thing? EVERY member of the crew came down with it... EXCEPT for Dr Crusher. Clearly, the person most exposed to the virus can't get ill because if she got sick then no one could cure the disease as soon as the away team needed to get their storyline wrapped up.
• I'm really bummed about losing my previous version of this post, as it had tons of notes I'd made. Stupid Blogger.

So, I was watching this documentary on the season 2 blu-ray release of TNG and, while it was a bit vague, it was strongly implied that Gates McFadden was asked to leave the show at the end of season one. She'd apparently complained about how sexist some of the scripts were and was shown the door. In an interview with her she pointed out this particular episode and mentioned that she'd complained about it to the point that Patrick Stewart called the producers and convinced them to change some of the dialog. 

My takeaway... that means that I saw the de-sexistized version of this episode. Holy Jeebus! It must have been about women in bondage or something before. Because I was offended.

My rating?

0 out of 5

Datalore (S1 ep 13)

The baseball bat rested on my shoulder. My fingers were striped red and white, reminding me of a barber’s pole – it happens when you grasp something as tightly as I was. My finger-tips were beet red, the knuckles white. I couldn’t stop thinking about it- why they looked that way. It was probably the first time I understood what people meant when they said that they had clenched their fists so tight that their knuckles went white. I was doing it right then. It was a real thing.

It's funny, the cliches that come to mind when you're stressed. I tried to shrink down so he couldn't see me, my step-father. I was in the hallway that opened up into the living room just a few feet ahead of me. From the angle I was at I could see only the back of his chair and the far corner of the living room. But the thought that he's decided that he'd already gone too far to turn back now and decided he'd have to kill everyone in the trailer felt very real to me.

That bat was the only thing I had that I might use as a weapon. So I tried to tighten my grip even more. I'd considered climbing out my bedroom window and running. But there was no way I was going to leave my mom there. It it wasn't her he'd shot then she might be next. Either way, I had to stop him.

I stuck my head out from around the corner of the hallway and into the living room, there was blood splattered all over the wall, the floor, the couch, and a body splayed out on the floor, silent. Not moving.

There were screams. Hysterical screams. I was aware of them the whole time, but I'd been so lost in my own head that I'd only barely registered them. It was the girlfriend of my step-father's brother. I wasn't sure what she was trying to say, I was distracted.

It was the blood. I couldn’t focus on anything except the blood. Oh man, there was so much of it. I wondered if I even had that much to lose when he finally decided to turn that gun to me.

Oh, you've jumped into the middle of things. If you haven' read my previous post, where I start spilling my guts about my childhood trauma then you may need to read that for context. Or not, I don't care. I'll sorta recapped things here. Maybe. Sorta.

True story, what’s above. A memory from my childhood. There’s more to it, but you know, ‘en media res’ and all that. It’s the hook that’s supposed to make you read on while I drone on for a very long time about boring stuff before I start tying it altogether later on. One could argue that it’s a lack of confidence in the narrative I’m telling, that I feel I need to jazz it up with something big at the beginning, but I don’t know, I’ve seen a lot of those murder-mystery shows, they pretty much all start with a murder and cut away before you get that one little clue that would have allowed you to put it all together without sitting through the show.

Besides, the art of writing is all about withholding information.

So, I found out recently that my step-father died. I hadn’t spoken to him since somewhere around Star Trek: TNG season 4(ish). He was a guy with a lot of personal demons, and his own life story was one personal tragedy after another, so I’m not entirely unsympathetic to him. But at the same time, he was also a guy who thought violence was the answer to all his problems. I hated him even as I felt sort of sorry for him.

I never really wrote about him before because I always had it in the back of my head that one day I’d get a knock on the door and it would be him, leveling a gun at me. Deciding that he was going to finish what he should have done that night 30 years earlier.

But he’s gone now. Has been for a couple of years now. I just found out a few months ago. It’s a weight that I didn’t know I’d been carrying around with me. So, yeah, there’s that.

He’s a guy, I think, that had a lot in common with Lore. Data’s younger brother. Because, believe it or not, I’m here to review Star Trek. Specifically, this episode, Datalore. And since I'm apparently airing all my dirty laundry on the internet, I might as well try to tie some of this together. See, my step-father was a guy, I truly believe, that was just made wrong. Something in the internal wiring was mixed up and he just couldn't help being awful. Even if being awful is going go to cause himself more pain and suffering as a result. He just couldn't help it. You know, like the whole scorpion stinging the turtle thing.

It's just in his nature.

Since the very beginning it’s been mostly one shitty episode after another I was stunned at how much I enjoyed The Big Goodbye. It could be because my expectations were so lowered by the time I got to it, that even something barely tolerable looks like an award winning feat by comparison. All I know is that that episode really struck a chord with me. I liked it. A lot.

So this one, maybe one of the more famous Season 1 episodes (Is it? I don’t know) is a quick turnaround right back into shitland again.

Dammit, I keep forgetting that I don’t want to reveal my personal opinions right off the bat. I’m supposed to play that close to the vest before dropping my opinion later.

Well, with all that air conveniently out of the bag, I’ll give my shortest synopsis ever, because I want to focus a bit on something that Lore did in the episode and talk about that for a few minutes.

So, here’s what happened. The Enterprise returns to the planet Data was discovered on. A colony had been there, but now it’s nothing but dead ground, regolith. They discover a hidden lab and inside is enough spare parts to assemble another android.

They immediately get everything back to the ship and start rebuilding the android. It wakes up and the first words out of its mouth are a lie. We learn that the colony they found him on was dead because the android (Lore) lured an alien life form there that devoured all life, down to the microbe, on the planet.

He turns off Data (by, I might add, spiking his Champagne… what?), poses as him, and lures the alien to the Enterprise to destroy everyone on the ship too. But Wesley figures the whole thing out, fixes Data, and together they thwart his plans, beaming Lore out into space, never to be seen or heard from again. Probably.

Now, there isn’t much about this episode that isn’t stupid. I want to rant about when the children who were fleeing the terror in the sky that was killing the whole world still took time to draw pictures of themselves fleeing from the Crystalline Entity, and whose parents were proud enough of said pictures to hang them up neatly on the walls of the laboratory – AS THEY WERE BEING DESTROYED! – but I won’t.

Instead I want to draw your attention to the part where Lore (posing as Data) tells Captain Picard that he wants to attempt to communicate with the entity - Which, apparently, means turning on the radio and just speaking English.

Upon threating the thing, he then advises that the Enterprise crew beam a large tree out into space, then shoot it. Thusly intimidating the Crystalline Entity and restoring peace to the land, or space, whatever.

I want to reiterate that, Lore proposes that they shoot a tree to prove how badass they are. This is supposed to intimidate a creature that is easily over a mile from tip to tip, and has demonstrated its ability to destroy all life on an entire planet.

But yes, shooting a tree should really teach it a lesson. The stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.

Of course Picard hears the moronic idea and agrees. Let’s start blowing shit up.

Oh Data, why did you have to have a brother?

Some thoughts:

• Wesley hasn't taken that Rainbow shirt off in some time.
• Data is practicing sneezing.
• Humans 'used to' get colds. Guess that's all cured in the 24th century too.
• Data's first memory is opening his eyes. My first memory, and I'm not kidding here, is pooping my pants while watching a rerun of Star Trek. I was 16. Wait, probably younger than that. I can't swear it was Star Trek I was watching, but I remember the Blue, Red, and Gold shirts.
• I like the tunnels that lead to Noonian Soogn's workshop/lab. Just god set design.
• Whatever kid drew the picture of panicked people fleeing from the Crystalline Entity in the top righthand corner of the pictures the kids drew was very talented.
• Soogn was mocked and driven out of the scientific community in shame because he didn't succeed in making an anti-matter brain on his first try.
• Also, it's weird that those pictures were posted. It looks an awful lot like that entity showed up and killed everyone. Was there just enough time for kids to draw the images and for proud parents to hang them up before they finally all died?
• They only had a few hours to explore Data's home planet? Why? They already said they were in a very remote region of space, it isn't like they have lots of other stuff to do, is there?
• Argyle! He's back!
• Why is Argyle and Dr Crusher so awkward about asking Data for a looksie inside?
• Why is the senior staff so uncomfortable about talking to Data about being a robot?
• Why did Riker sorta clap when Picard said humans are machines too?
• Sigh. Data has an off button. He shows Dr. Crusher so they can look at him. I am curious as to why they had to turn him off in order to see how his insides work.
• How did Data know what Picard was going to ask? He's flummoxed by almost every aspect of human nature.
• Data apparently can't use contractions. Weird, as he's been using them pretty regularly up until this Point.
• Lore sighs pretty loudly. It was explained later in the show that Data (and presumably, Lore) fakes breathing to seem more human. Just thought of that.
• Tasha asks how much they can trust Data now that Lore is around. Everyone on the bridge turns to stare at her. Picard answers and adds that the question is totally legit. God, that was so weird.
• Lore spiked Data's champagne. That is so strange. Data passed out. He's a robot, people.
• Lore figured out how to communicate with the Crystal Entity. Apparently he does so by just talking to it.
• Um, Data has a face twitch causing and repairing laser thing in his room. Just pointing that out.
• I broke down and bought the Blu ray disks. The Crystalline Entity looks amazing!
• Wesley gets all mean towards Lore (acting as Data) in front of everyone and doesn't bother explaining himself, so everyone just assumes he's an ass.
• Later, Wesley advises the crew of his Lore suspicion. They ignore him.
• Lore (as Data) just talks to the Entity again, everyone is impressed.
• Lore says they should transport a tree into space and blow it up to prove how badass they are.
• Stupid as that is. Picard seems impressed. Says to go ahead and do that.
• Wesley tries to interject Lore is evil and Picard tells him to 'Shut up!' Classic.
• Wesley refuses and keeps talking. His mom tells him to 'Shut up!' Double classic.
• Lore kicked the shit out of Worf.
• Data has awful reflexes, Lore grabbed him, shoved him and stole Dr Crusher's phaser before anyone can react. I can understand Dr Crusher being slow, but Data?

In summary, this episode is awful. It is one plot hole after another, all spackled up with more plot holes. Despite my hatred for this, Brent Spiner is really good. I like Data heavy episodes because he does a great job with the character. They just need to give him something to work with that isn't so dumb. Also, Wesley gets told to shut up, which is great, and again, which is even greater. Because, yet again, he figured everything out and no one would believe him. He's just so damn smug. Of course, everyone else got real dumb in this episode anyway, it was just so awful. Don't watch it.

My rating?

1 out of 5