{"id":3119,"date":"2022-08-12T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3119"},"modified":"2023-03-06T11:10:48","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T11:10:48","slug":"trekaday-040","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2022\/08\/12\/trekaday-040\/","title":{"rendered":"Trekaday 040: New Ground, Hero Worship, Violations, The Masterpiece Society, Conundrum, Power Play, Ethics, The Outcast, Cause and Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"

TNG S05E10 New Ground <\/strong>(\"4). Geordi can\u2019t wait to see the newfangled Spore Drive<\/span> Soliton Drive in action. But meanwhile, plot threads from earlier episodes are being gathered up. Worf\u2019s mum is paying him a visit and has brought Alexander with her, now played \u2013 as he will be for his remaining appearances \u2013 by Brian Bonsall. And we smash into the titles on the revelation that he\u2019s here to stay. The sight of the burly Klingon negotiating his way through domestic and educational matters is well-handled, amusing and affecting without being cloying \u2013 you know my feelings about moppets. Troi virtually bounds up to Worf, delighted that she might be useful to someone for once, but all she does is point him towards a field trip, where Alexander lies about stealing a toy. The apparent low stakes of these scenes is at odds with the dramatic music, but actually, this is an engrossing exploration of Klingon honour codes \u2013 and you know my feelings about those too \u2013 shown through the eyes of a child. Michael Dorn plays all aspects of this with deceptive delicacy and it\u2019s kind of amazing that a syndicated science-fiction adventure show is willing to attempt this kind of character drama at all, let alone pull it off with as much clarity and depth as this. Last appearance of Georgia Brown as Helena Rozhenko, she died within six months of this episode\u2019s broadcast.<\/p>\n

TNG S05E11 Hero Worship <\/strong>(\"4). Continuing the theme of families, both biological and found, Data becomes the focus of attention for a troubled moppet who can\u2019t process the grief he\u2019s experiencing and so begins to emulate the android\u2019s emotionless demeanour. 14-year-old Joshua Harris does a splendid job copying Brent Spiner\u2019s tics and quirks and even manages his eventual catharsis with Troi without too much cringe. Even more so than last week\u2019s story with Worf and Alexander, this is a story which only this show could tell, blending science fiction concepts about artificial intelligence and where emotions come from with deep (for a syndicated television show) insights into loss, childhood and parenting. As good as this is though, along with the previous episode, it still feels like it\u2019s playing in the shallow end of the pool. We aren\u2019t really putting our characters through the ringer, we aren\u2019t putting the Federation or even the Enterprise<\/em> up against any implacable foes. So, this gets a four because it\u2019s extremely well-handled, but I don\u2019t regard it as an all-time classic. And I nearly knocked off half-a-star because it\u2019s the second A-plot moppet, B-plot wavefront-in-space episode in a row.<\/p>\n

TNG S05E12 Violations <\/strong>(\"1.5). In a particularly grim example of this-is-the-story-we-tell-with-this-character, a trio of telepaths roll onto the ship and before you know it, Troi is having nightmares of being raped and minutes later is lying in a coma. Riker is the next to succumb, having nightmares of an accident in engineering. It\u2019s nice to see Crusher getting something to do, but she\u2019s all business here. And even in an episode which (briefly) centres her, Troi still remains the thinnest of characters. Her conversation in the turbolift about her mother sounds quite similar to something one real person would say to another, but not enough to be mistaken for it. Watching Levar Burton and Majel Barrett\u2019s computer voice exchange the names of made-up compounds isn\u2019t thrilling drama either, but it least it isn\u2019t nauseating I suppose. Crusher is next, facing the horrifying sight of Patrick Stewart in a hairpiece. There\u2019s little drama here, what there is is unpleasant and there\u2019s basically no mystery as the bad guy\u2019s identity is essentially given away at the end of the teaser. So, this is a poor episode in many ways, but I\u2019m knocking it all the way down to 1.5 stars because it\u2019s so ick, and that\u2019s before we get into the real-world cases of practitioners who implant false memories, either through clumsy questioning, or as deliberate manipulation.<\/p>\n

TNG S05E13 The Masterpiece Society <\/strong>(\"2). In what feels like a familiar trope, a tiny human colony, its existence hitherto not even suspected, refuses to be evacuated when a passing technobabble threatens to destroy them. To add to the fun, they\u2019re eugenicists. Whereas TOS<\/strong> kept revisiting the gilded cage, TNG <\/strong>tends to play with the variation: the paradise that isn\u2019t, and so it is here. Picard, quite rightly, strongly opposes their plan for genetic superiority, but Troi seems to think there\u2019s something in it, which undermines her character to no particular purpose, especially when the anti-eugenics argument tips over into an anti-abortion rant. That\u2019s the second time in two episodes the show has taken on a subject matter it\u2019s completely incapable of engaging with. Let\u2019s please go back to space adventures and character stories, even if that does mean more moppets.<\/p>\n

TNG S05E14 Conundrum <\/strong>(\"4.5). \u201cChess isn\u2019t just a game of ploys and gambits. It\u2019s a game of intuition,\u201d observes Counsellor Troi, wholly inaccurately. It\u2019s been a bit of a rough ride lately, and this silly opening doesn\u2019t fill me with confidence. But the rest of the teaser is one of those great covers-of-a-comic-book scenarios where the entire bridge crew is suddenly struck with total amnesia, unable to recognise their colleagues or recall their own identities. It\u2019s a truly fascinating exploration of what makes these people who they are and what makes this crew function. Riker identifies Picard as the leader, but Worf wonders if his sash makes him top dog. Without access to his full faculties, the captain seems faltering, uncertain. Once again, Patrick Stewart shows his class. It\u2019s a wonderfully detailed rendering, full of subtleties and grace notes. Worf meanwhile cheerfully occupies the captain\u2019s chair, but who is this executive officer who has slipped into the next seat? And what is this war they seem to be embroiled in? Troi and Riker\u2019s scenes together are highlights of a very strong episode. It\u2019s possibly the first time I\u2019ve really believed in their relationship and it\u2019s a series-best performance from Marina Sirtis who finds a depth to Troi which has often eluded her in the past. Deliciously, Ro Laren is there to screw everything up. The final scene of the three of them is quite delightful. \u201cScanning intensity has increased by 1500%\u201d says La Forge, who means \u201cincreased 16-fold\u201d.<\/p>\n

TNG S05E15 Power Play <\/strong>(\"3.5). Troi detects life-signs on a barren moon, so she joins the away team as they shuttle down to the surface of Strobe-lighting IV and they get stuck there. O\u2019Brien insists on trying to beam down through the storm with a \u201cpattern enhancer\u201d to get them back. All of this is pretty woolly plotting, where stuff happens on the thinnest of pretexts just to make the story work. That story is that the away team (Troi, O\u2019Brien and Data) have been whammied and are now trying to take over the Enterprise<\/em>. I always enjoy seeing this (or any) regular cast taking on different roles or playing against type and that\u2019s the chief pleasure here, as well as the details of the takeover campaign. There are two or three successive explanations for what\u2019s really going on, each sillier than the last. And Picard bunging the antagonists back on the moon at the end is uncharacteristically heartless, but overall this is a fun, if rather nonsensical, adventure. Phaser beams almost never leave the barrel in a straight line, which is odd given that the camera angles mean we generally don\u2019t see the weapon and its target in the same shot. Data reverses the polarity of the force fields, which is lovely.<\/p>\n

TNG S05E16 Ethics<\/strong> (\"3). When Worf is injured in the most banal way possible (moving some boxes \u2013 seriously, couldn\u2019t they have had him saving some kids or something?) he ends up paralysed and wants to kill himself. Crusher brings a crackpot specialist onboard who has Pulaski\u2019s bedside manner and Hilary Clinton\u2019s haircut (and has never heard of a double-blind randomised clinical trial). It beggars belief slightly that 24th century can\u2019t rustle up some adequate bionic legs, but while it\u2019s a shame that more care wasn\u2019t given to patch these holes, the fact that they would be easy fixes also means they\u2019re fairly easy to ignore. The question is: how will this series tackle the right to die? Given its recent lack of success with adoption, sexual assault and eugenics I\u2019m not hopeful, and of course there\u2019s a pretty nauseating ableist reading of this plotline too. In practice, of course, we all know that by the end of the episode, Crusher is going to give Worf two reset pills and have him call her in the morning, so the stakes never feel all that high. I admire the refusal to introduce too many silly sci-fi elements, and there is interesting drama to be mined out of the euthanasia debate, even within the confines of episodic television, but this never quite finds the, er, spine of the story. On the upside, as usual, Patrick Stewart makes even the thinnest material seem like spun gold and it\u2019s series-best stuff from Michael Dorn as well. What\u2019s most disappointing about this is that Crusher gets so little character development, when this seems tailor-made to dig into her personality a bit more. Those Dead Ringers<\/em> red surgical cowls are back.<\/p>\n

TNG S05E17 The Outcast<\/strong> (\"2.5). As previously noted, Roddenberry was keen for there to be gay characters on the Enterprise<\/em> but Berman felt he couldn\u2019t take the risk. We\u2019ve been treated so far to Beverly Crusher recoiling in horror when the love of her life turned female. Now Riker stumbles his way through a conversation about being non-binary which today sounds like Look Who\u2019s Coming to Dinner<\/em> with gender instead of race, only with less good acting. Soren, his androgynous sweetheart, is of course played by a conventionally attractive cis-woman who\u2019d just come from playing a recurring pretty-girl character on The A Team<\/em>, which kind of undermines the whole thing. Strictly as a piece of sci-fi \u201cwhat-if\u201ding it\u2019s not bad, but it\u2019s impossible to overlook the well-meaning but clodhopping social commentary. Depressingly, for a show about how the battle of the sexes should be a thing of the past, it reiterates over and over again that the Federation is a strictly binary society with no crossing-dressing, gender fluidity or anything like that \u2013 even the skant is nowhere to be seen these days. At the time, it probably would have been read as an allegory for homophobia but actually having gay characters would have been far, far preferable. In what might just be Steven Moffat-esque joke about passing, Geordi has a beard.<\/p>\n

TNG S05E18 Cause and Effect <\/strong>(\"5). One thing which I really noticed watching TOS<\/strong> is how strong and punchy the teasers were. Week after week, usually in less than two minutes we had the eye-catching premise of the episode, or a really exciting bit of jeopardy and sometimes both and then \u2013 smash into those iconic titles. There are some great TNG <\/strong>teasers as well, but sometimes it\u2019s just checking in with a couple of different departments, meeting a guest star and then, ho hum, time for the credits I guess. Not here. The ship is tearing itself apart. Crusher seems to be at tactical and then the motherfucking Enterprise<\/em> explodes. C\u2019mon now, people. You have my attention. You have 100% of my attention. When we come back after the teaser and everything\u2019s okay it seems like a cheat, but we inexorably make our way back to that devastating teaser and then the other shoe drops. It\u2019s Groundhog Day<\/em> but nobody is Phil Connors. Everyone is stuck repeating the same doomed actions. It looks insoluable and miraculously it isn\u2019t. The resolution is clever, unexpected and it makes sense. And then Frasier turns up. This might not be the greatest, most profound episode ever, it might not shed any new light on any of our regulars, but it\u2019s as exciting as hell and it doesn\u2019t put a foot wrong. That\u2019s got to be worth five stars. Credit where it\u2019s due: Brannon Braga wrote the script and Jonathan Frakes directed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TNG S05E10 New Ground (). Geordi can\u2019t wait to see the newfangled Spore Drive Soliton Drive in action. But meanwhile, plot threads from earlier episodes are being gathered up. Worf\u2019s mum is paying him a visit and has brought Alexander with her, now played \u2013 as he will be for his remaining appearances \u2013 by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[19,79,535,528],"class_list":["post-3119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-reviews","tag-star-trek","tag-tng","tag-trekaday"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-Oj","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3119"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3133,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3119\/revisions\/3133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}