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

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

Haven (S1 ep 11)

I never noticed this until I was way into this rewatch, but Troi looks pretty much exactly like my first wife did. No wonder I'm not thrilled with her character. The disastrously awful portrayal of Tasha Yar and Wesley Crusher to date has probably taken a lot of the venom away from Troi in my mind, but when the whole episode is about her, well, it's hard to hide her character in the background.

And listen, I liked Troi just fine when I was watching the show when I was younger. But I never paid that much attention to how much nonsense her character is capable of spewing forth. I'm thinking this got toned down in a major way over the 7 years of this show's run.

I don't have very many strong memories about the first time I saw this episode, but I do remember thinking it was funny that Picard couldn't carry the suitcase at the beginning of the episode, then being really tickled when Lurch... um, actually, the Valet, picked it up as an afterthought after Picard nearly threw out his back trying to drag that thing around.

So it very quickly became clear that Picard and Data where far and away the most charismatic characters on the show early on. Worf became a fan favorite later, and Geordi and Riker and the rest certainly had their moments. But there is no denying that Picard and Data were going to be the core of the show, even in these very early episodes. This one, obviously, hammers that point home, because while it's an episode all about Troi, it's jammed packed full of Picard and Data stuff too.

And this episode appears to have been an attempt at outright comedy. God, I hope this wasn't an attempt at a dramatic one. The B story in Lonely Among Us was amazing, but the A story was such a mess that it ruined the whole episode. In this case, the A and B stories were tied together a bit more tightly. But the whole thing seemed to be played for comedy.

My synopsis, I guess, is that Riker was watching, what I believe to be, the early portion of a holgraphic porn video. It was two inordinately pretty ladies in fine evening wear playing the harp. There is no way that his ear to ear grin was because he was stoked about the harp concert. I'm thinking in a few minutes he would have been watching something much different.

But alas, he was called away. A wedding party was beaming up. Turns out it was for Troi's wedding!!!

That's right. Troi was going to get married and retire from Starfleet. She's kinda forgotten about her arranged marriage and now it was time to go ahead and take care of it. So her mom shows up, reads everyone's mind, brags about how awesome she is, and insults the Groom's parents, a lot.

In the meantime, a mysterious alien vessel shows up with the dying crew of a doomed civilization. They carry a disease that has killed everyone, on every planet, that the disease has ever made it's way to.

So Picard throws a party for Troi and the rest of the Wedding crowd. Troi freaks out, knocks things over, and goes to pout on the holodeck, just where Riker was pouting. He loves Troi but not as much as the thought of being a captain, which is much easier when you aren't married. I guess that means you can't date people either, I'm not real sure. Either way, he's pouting, she's pouting. Then her fiancé shows up, oblivious. Riker leaves and the fiance makes out with Troi - despite confessing that he's really not that into her because he wanted her to be someone else. Or something.

After a whole episode of not communicating with the Enterprise, the aliens, who are totally human, show up on the FaceTime app on the view screen and Wyatt (Troi's finance) immediately is in love with the hot girl in the bikini top hanging out in the back. He grabs his stuff and beams over to their ship, leaving Troi at the alter and condemning himself to long and painful death thanks to the disease he just exposed himself to.

Everyone is pretty happy about that decision. The end.


Some thoughts:

• Future TV sucks. Riker's holoset is showing a harp concert? Ick. Well, unless it was porn, then it makes more sense. 
• Someone stuffed Quark in a suitcase! Actually, that was the actor that later played Quark. It was just a very strange visual. It was a suitcase with a face sticking out of the side. It talked. 
• Lurch is Lwaxana's personal servant! And I mean Lurch from The Adams Family. That was him, right?
• I like seeing Picard so uncomfortable. Lwaxana is a mess of a person and thrusts her will upon anyone nearby. Picard did not enjoy that. But his 24th century notions of being super evolved won't allow him to complain. It's great.
• Picard says personal disputes are prohibited on the recreation decks so, uh, he just went ahead and declared them all resolved. Thanks, I guess. I mean, was that a joke?
• Troi's freakout at dinner was awesome. She slapped that little gong like it was a misbehaving toddler.
• Imzadi! I read the book! Great to see that so many throwaway lines from early episodes were seized upon and used in novels. I think the Imzadi stuff spun-off into more than one novel.

  

  Sigh. Yes, I read it.

• Good lord. The split sleeve fashion for boys and men in the 24th century is atrocious. Please make it stop.
• I've been noticing this for a while now, but it really has been notable how many aliens are just humans. I know it's a budget thing, but so far even the 'bumpy headed' variety of alien is a rare sight.
• So, Lwaxana explains how psychic stuff works. Finally, a definition: "All life... all consciousness, is indissolubly bound together. Indeed, it's all part of the same thing." Well, that cleared all that up.
• I bet Wyatt's shirt with the huge triangle in front must catch all sorts of food when he eats. It's just a huge pocket.
• Despite the whole psychic thing being explained to Wyatt as to why he knew the woman on the Terellian ship it still made no sense at all to me. Of course, I say something similar in almost every episode about some plot point or another, but that a human and something that is clearly human, except not, neither one has any psychic ability at all (it's strongly implied that the aliens (Terrellians) sorta thought Wyatt was a fantasy of whatshername, so they have no real expectation of psychic stuff to work for them either. So that means that sometimes it just happens. It's just so weird to me. I know that things like ESP and the like were seriously studied by governments and the like in the 70's, but by the time the late 80's rolled around it had sorta had it's day in the sun as part of serious SF, it had been largely debunked and so was relegated to fantasy. So having such psychic heavy episodes sort of date this as a show that has it's heart in the 60's or 70's moreso than in the late 80's when it was produced. I really wish they'd tone that sort of stuff down).
• For some reason, the Production number on this episode is 105, which means it was produced much earlier than the rest of the episodes here in the mid-season timeframe. I wonder what's up with that.

So, to sum up, this episode sucked. But at this point, they pretty much all have. I can't really give each one a 1 star review and be done with it, I'm looking for some nuance here. So because there were a few moments that made me actually laugh (again, Troi knocking shit over as she storms out of the room just struck me as fantastic) makes this worth a bonus star.

My advice, to anyone in the far future that may be tempted to use this as a recommendation engine for whether or not to watch a particular episode, I'm not sure there has been anything to date worth wasting your time on. Maybe the pilot, but even that is if you're already a fan and want to see how it all started. This series had a very rough go of it to date.

My rating?

2 out of 5

Justice (S1 ep 8)

Back in the late fall of 1987, when this episode came out, I was a strapping lad of about 100 pounds and well into my 10th year of school. At that time I wasn't very sure of myself, but if you were to ask me at that time what are some unassailable facts about fashion I would have said something like this:

• Horn-rimmed glasses were stupid, and would never be popular again.
• Bell-bottomed pants were stupid, and would never be popular again.
• Low-cut pants (or shorts, or bikini's, whatever) were stupid and would never be popular again.
• The mullet was the greatest men's hairstyle ever invented, and would be eternally popular.
• Long shorts (that went past the mid-thigh) were stupid and were a fad that would quickly fade into obscurity.
• Regular shirts with tux tails were the pinnacle of human fashion. Nothing would ever improve on it. 

I'm sure there were others, but those are the things I felt most strongly about at the time. So my point with all that is that Star Trek: TNG seemed to go out of their way to portray men is some nontraditionally male regalia. There were the man-dresses that were introduced in Encounter at Farpoint, but the men of this planet Rubicon III dressed worse than Sean Connery did in Zardoz. What's the man version of camel toe? Whatever it is, the Rubiconians had lots of it.

Sexy?

Sexier?

My point is that this episode looks awful. Reminds me of those late-night skinemax movies I used to sneak and watch late at night when I would visit people who had the pay channels on cable.

The gist of the episode is this: Picard and the gang stumbled onto a planet of beautiful sexy people and decide it's time for some sexy-time. So they immediately beam down Wesley (the one under-age person on the show) and a few others to make sure the partying goes well before sending down the whole ship's crew.

Pretty quickly, after Wesley impresses the locals by running, sorta, and doing cartwheels, and teaching the young teens how to play 'ball.' He gets carried away in his exploits he ends up trashing some plants and is sentenced to death. Because, of course.

At the same time, Picard and Data have made contact with some aliens in orbit that sees the Rubiconians as their children. Those aliens don't talk much, but seem willing to sorta let the Enterprise hang out without killing them all.

But once those aliens learn about the Prime Directive, which roughly is the Federation's rules regarding non-interference in the internal affairs of a primitive world, they seem to think that means that Wesley should not be exempted from the laws of the Rubiconians.

In the end, Picard decides the Prime Directive is stupid and plans on kidnapping Wesley. But the aliens are mighty and won't allow the Enterprise to beam anyone up. So Picard says about two sentences into the sky, dramatically, about how unfair their laws are, and then the aliens release their transporter blockage and let the kidnapping go on unhindered.


Some thoughts:

• Tasha filed a report on their laws and customs. Seems like she did a shitty job considering.
• It looks like the entire advance party had an orgy of some sort when they visited the planet. It struck me as odd that Dr. Crusher next commented that it would be a great place for kids.
• The aliens here are EXACTLY like sexy humans. I just noticed that of the aliens we've met so far, a significant percentage of them are 100% human in appearance. 
• If I were Wesley, I would have said please treat me just like an adult. I mean, he was a teenager. They have hormones in the future, right?
• The running thing. That's pretty weird. Wesley seems really excited to show them he can run (at a very leisurely pace)
• Wesley says 'watch this!' and does a cartwheel. Is he supposed to be 8?
• And the teenage girl says, 'will you teach me to play ball?' I know she must have been sexy flirting, but that is embarrassingly bad. 
• Wesley might not have deserved death, but he was very unaware of his surroundings when he trashed the plants. He should have been spanked or something. 
• Wesley is with Starfleet and doesn't lie. Just FYI.
• Tasha had to examine the syringe before deciding it was a syringe. If she made that sort of careful study of their laws maybe they wouldn't have been in this mess. 
• The Prime Directive. Ugh. Is it ever accomplish anything good? 
• Picard moralizes about how evolved humans are again. He's really into how awesome humans have become.
• On a side-note to these random thoughts, godlike aliens are judging humans, AGAIN. This is at least the Third time this has happened. Sheesh.
• Dr Crusher finds out Wesley (her son) is about to be killed and when she confronts Picard about it he shooshes her and walks away. That's badass.
• Rewetching this episode, I just realized that these Rubiconians might be future Nazis. You know, after all those blonde-haired blue-eyed eugenics programs have run their course. Hitler would be proud.

In all, aside from the pretty ladies, there is little to like here, in my opinion. Wesley is written like he's a 8 year-old and the crew shows an incredible lack of due diligence in investigating the planet before letting children run around on it.

The Prime Directive is horrible as a plot device in this episode, because it's pretty stupid sounding as it's half-heartedly explained. And the inexplicable aliens that serve as the 'god' to the people of Rubicon III are really not that committed to making sure Starfleet follows their own Prime Directive after Picard give such a short rebuttal those unseen aliens seemed to have shrugged to themselves and been like, 'who cares?'

Seriously, this was pretty bad.

My rating?

1 out of 5

Code of Honor (S1 ep 4)

Oh god. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

I mistakenly believed that the previous episode was rock-bottom. But this, this was... I don't have words for what I've witnessed. Here is the trailer for the episode:

In case you didn't watch said trailer, it looks like a typical cheesy 80's tale. Fine. But what I watched was another level of awful, the likes of which I doubt you've seen before. It was so racist I had to check if the director was a member of the Clan (I don't know if he was, but he did quit in the middle of the episode, that's weird, right?).

In all, there is almost nothing redeeming about this episode in any way. But you know, it's Star Trek, so I have to tolerate it.

The synopsis, if I can unlock it form the vault I've locked it in inside my mind, is that this planet of black people have a vaccine that the Federation has no way of replicating, and so they allow these black people to kidnap Tasha Yar and refuse to take any action to save her and get the vaccine. Picard and the crew pander to them, cajole, sorta threaten... but they won't give up Tasha.

So, of course, Tasha admits that she's really turned on by this.

*Sigh*

Where was I? Oh yes, so Tasha agrees to fight this other person to the death for the hunky man that kidnapped her, or something. Of course, just so I can see how dangerous this fight is, the spiked boxing glove the ladies are sparing with goes flying off someone's hand during the fight and immediately lands in the lap of a spectator, killing him instantly.

Whatever, Tasha wins by killing the lady, then they beam them both to the enterprise, where the formerly dead lady is resurrected and tells off her man that she fought for and through some quirk of the law there, being dead for a few seconds means you can get divorced, or something, so she give the Enterprise the vaccine, maybe, I forget now, but they leave and I assume everyone was fine.

Some thoughts:

• This sucked. Hard. I rage-hated this episode. It's not the 'so bad it's good' variety. This was awful.
• Tasha, as a character, is moronic. I read that Denise Crosby left the role because she wasn't really happy on the show. I get it, if I was an actor and was given crap like this to perform, ugh. I think this episode was blissfully free of 'rape gang' talk. 
• According to Wikipedia, the director didn't quit, but was fired, supposedly because he was racist, so, that makes sense now. Even if it isn't true, it fits. 
• I'm thinking of watching future episodes twice, you know, making notes and stuff, because I really can't recall any of the things in this one that I might otherwise comment on. Also, I did watch it several weeks ago. But there is no way in hell I'm sitting through this again. 
• Oh yeah, Picard did give the main dude a gift. It was a thousand-year-old piece of art from China. So, was that really his to give? I mean, is he just gonna give the Mona Lisa to the Cardassians next week?  Seems criminal.

I haven't been keeping this one very close to the vest. This sucked monkey balls wasn't very good. I do think there is a good drinking game hidden in this episode that is waiting to come out, but that's about it. Has to be included in any conversation about the worst show of Trek ever produced, regardless of series.

Rating?

0 out of 5