Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 3, Episode 2
Original Air Date: October 2, 1989
 |
| via Memory Alpha |
The episode is a mixed bag. The basic premise is good and certainly well-grounded in historical precedent. The Data development is meaningful. But the acting among the colonists is painfully wooden. The exception is Ard'rian (Eileen Seeley), a young woman who is fascinated by Data and takes his side.
On the other hand, it's a fantastic Picard-as-badass story. His showdown with the ruthless, patronizing and stiflingly bureaucratic Seliak is highly satisfying. After witnessing Picard's diplomatic genius at work:
Riker: You enjoyed that.Didn't we all, Captain?
Picard: You're damned right!
Acting Notes
 |
| via Batman Wiki |
Eileen Seeley was born December 23, 1959. She grew up in Suffern, New York. Other prominent television work includes guest appearances on Hunter, Quantum Leap and ER plus a stint as a regular on the short-lived Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Her biggest film role was Martha Wayne in Batman Forever.
Wait... Only Data could go to the planet because of poisonous radiation? But there were people on the planet living in the poisonous radiation?
ReplyDeleteJust making sure I'm getting this right.
You've got it. An important wrinkle that I didn't get into in my post: the colonists had found a way to adapt to the radiation. Now, how they had managed to do so before it killed them remains an interesting question.
DeleteWell, you know, sometimes you have to make shit up to make it work the way you want it to. :P
DeleteAnd of course, contrived science fiction is redundant.
DeleteI can't tel if you're being snarky there or not. :P
DeleteI don't mind "making shit up." That is, after all, what writing is about. However, I do feel like reasonable explanations should be offered and that you should follow your own rules, whatever those are.
I'm always a little snarky.
DeleteBut it's true, isn't it? With science fiction, you're already making shit up - by definition.
That said, I agree with your point. An invented world must be held to its own internal logic. This is the very reason I get so bent out of shape over time travel narratives. There have to be rules and you have to live by them. Otherwise, it's just lazy. High concept is hard work if you do it right.
Alternative realities: that's a whole other discussion. And it's coming up soon (he writes, smiling gleefully).
Time travel and magic, two areas where writers suddenly feel like they can do whatever they want without following any internal logic.
DeleteExactly.
DeleteLong before I saw it (and before I could understand the title, because my natural impulse was to interpret the ensigns as a rank), I assumed it had to be a very different episode than it actually was. Instead it’s a Data spotlight. The problem here, I think, is less the wooden inhabitants than Data himself, who has no real stake in the game except generally wanting to be taken seriously. I just don’t think the story was told effectively to accomplish that. It would’ve needed someone within Starfleet itself to be questioning him, one last statement on what we’d seen Pulaski do throughout the previous season. For my money (and I know you would disagree), it would’ve been nice for last appearance Pulaski herself to do the honors, a definitive story to encapsulate their whole relationship. In a different, later era, it’s easy to assume that this is exactly what would’ve happened.
ReplyDeleteActually, I think you make an interesting point. The story no doubt would have benefited from someone pushing Data harder, something beyond Riker's just get the job done, soldier approach. And the Pulaski character definitely had potential in that regard. Her early interactions with Data were so clumsy that it was difficult to forgive her but in the better-written episodes - "Elementary, Dear Data," for instance - her needling is gentler and actually more effective as a result. She kids him as one would a friend, prompting legitimate questions.
DeleteTNG, for all of its character development strengths, tends to shy away from contentious relationships among the principals. I realize that's an important aspect of the broader (production) mission but it means leaving certain narrative opportunities on the table. The tension between Spock and McCoy is absolutely essential to the original stories and nothing approaches that on TNG. I can't say I know DS9 at all, but I know enough to know that diametric opposition was a more significant driver.
Odo spends a lot of time justifying his position as “constable” (a term he initially hates) to Starfleet. O’Brien starts out hating Bashir. Bashir in general comes off as painfully naive to his colleagues. Dax thinks his flirtations are laughable. And of course, Kira is Kira, especially in the early running, and Quark usually has little time for what anyone thinks of him (a character type that would come off very differently if it didn’t come packaged as a Ferengi). I love the show, quite unabashedly. Such a rich understanding of a community, where everyone intersects at some point but seldom all the time. That’s what, more than the later serialized arcs, the war, and all the other insanely ambitious (all those recurring characters!) elements, I always loved. Even best friends Jake and Nog occasionally despise each other (and during the course of their evolution Nog actually develops into a tangibly more interesting character, even though he remains a recurring character and Jake nominally a main cast member). I can’t possibly recommend enough that you choose to watch it later.
DeleteI would say the odds of both watching and blogging are very strong. The watching may come sooner rather than later. Daughter is very keen on Trek right now and we're midway through Season 6 of TNG. We'll be needing DS9 right soon.
DeleteDear Squid, thanks for sending me back to this episode. It was then, around the end of the 1980s that I resolved not to answer administrative requests at 7 a.m., and would promise definite plans by 10 a.m. (which was when I usually woke up all the way). Never gave the real reason because "excess honesty can be devastating"--Picard.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly the Sheliak were non-humanoid. A nice change of pace given the overwhelming presence of the humanoid form in Star Trek and all of science fiction.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I know productions costs prohibit the use of totally alien designs but the hard sci-fi nerd in me would like to see more.
Agreed and animation presents wonderful opportunities in this regard. With the animated series, Roddenberry encouraged the writers to develop stories which would be more difficult to produce in live action, including ones involving non-humanoid aliens. With Lower Decks up and running and Prodigy set to premier next year, opportunities abound.
DeleteSure.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, this was just an ok episode but with some fine moments like the Picard one. I know it is their home but if I was told I will die if I stay here due to radiation and shown the proof, I would want to pack everything up and I would leave.
ReplyDeleteYeah... but people don't always. Think of all the flooding evacuation orders people have ignored. And let's not even get into wearing masks for COVID...
Delete