Friday, November 12, 2021

Star Trek: Hero Worship

Episode: "Hero Worship"
Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 5, Episode 11
Original Air Date: January 6, 1992

via Memory Alpha

The Enterprise has lost contact with the research vessel Vico.  When they find it, all aboard are dead apart from a boy named Timothy (Joshua Harris).  As the lad processes the trauma, he takes to Data, his savior, and even decides he is an android himself.  While our heroes try to help their new friend, they also must work to avoid Vico's fate themselves.

As Trek stories involving children go, this one isn't terrible - not exactly a high bar to clear.  Harris does well as Data's mimic.  A few moments are unnecessarily saccharine: Data carrying Timothy to bed, for instance.  On the other hand, it's a decent Data story.  In light of Timothy's interest in him, Data must confront what he values in himself as an android vs. what he envies in humans.


Acting Notes

via Memory Alpha

Harris was born November 27, 1978.  He was a busy child actor from 1984 to 1992, his most prominent role that of Christopher Ewing on Dallas.  He also guest starred on Falcon Crest, Twin Peaks and The Commish.  TV movies included A Death in California, Go Toward the Light and Locked Up: A Mother's Rage.  

Harris was a reasonably successful baseball player, manning second base at the University of San Diego and professionally, briefly, for the Lansing Lugnuts, a Chicago Cubs affiliate.  In 2006, he started his own production company, 4th Wall Entertainment.

4 comments:

  1. The kind of episode (also: the Worf one) I’ve never really gotten into.

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    Replies
    1. Understandable. These episodes are not why anybody loves Star Trek.

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  2. Dear Squid, According to Troi, Timothy suffered from stress-induced "entantiodramia", a conversion into the opposite. "His world is gone" we "have to help him into a new one". This prefigures current trend of once liberty-loving Americans descending into Qanon and cultural paranoia. Likewise, powering down from the "harmonic amplification effect(-Data)" and withdrawal (closing scenes) can neutralize toxic conflict. Excellent episode.

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