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Star Trek: The Next Generation Rewatch (oh god no)

Started by Lemming, May 11, 2021, 02:05:41 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

The Culture Bunker

The stuff with Dr Bev being part of an ever-dwindling crew and trying to work out what the fuck is happening was a good plot - a bit Twilight Zone, perhaps? Can't say I really enjoyed the parallel story of her bairn and mates trying to rescue her from the space-bubble thingy, esp with the return of the Traveller, who I think crops up once more. Meh.

Das Reboot

Easily the best Bev episode, unless you're into that business with the
Spoiler alert
ghost fucking on planet Scotland
[close]
in season 'anything goes' 7.

Cloud

Quote from: Lemming on September 11, 2021, 11:43:52 PMThe Traveller is touching Wesley in Engineering. Wes must "open himself". It gets worse: "now, close your eyes".

Oh my GOD. 😅

Is it just in a post-Savile world that this stuff stands out?  It seems odd that this "older guy getting quite intimate with Wes" business never got flagged up by anyone in the process as being just a tiny bit easily-misinterpreted?

Ambient Sheep

It really was just different times.  Paedogeddon didn't really happen until the mid-late 90s, kids were still doing unaccompanied trick or treating until about '97 or '98.

Cloud

A bit LATE for a trailer I know, but the Youtube algorithm / Google spy network threw one of those "Honest Trailers" at me and it amused.  (some minor spoilers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6Zc8Co2H3w

Lemming

S04E06 - Legacy

The crew meet Tasha Yar's sister while conducting a rescue mission on her violence-stricken homeworld.

- Riker's cool card trick gets brutally dismantled by Data, costing him the night's Fake Money Poker Winnings.

- A crap ship explodes, and the crew leave in an escape pod which falls towards Turkana IV, Tasha's homeworld. Apparently, all visitors are killed on sight, so an away team is sent to save the people in the escape pod.

- Worf says that Bev shouldn't come down because she'll be snatched away by the RAPE GANGS, but nobody gives a shit so everyone heads down to some weird neon-lit sewer together. They're apprehended within about thirty seconds by a street gang. They tell Riker that THE ALLIANCE has taken the shipwrecked crew hostage. The gang is THE COALITION, and the city is divided into two halves. Jacket Man, leader of the Coalition, says he'll help in exchange for more phasers.

- Picard is briefed.
QuoteRIKER: Their defences apparently prevent deep strikes into each other's territory. Minor skirmishes are all that's left.
PICARD: "Coalition", "Alliance". It all sounds so reasonable, but what you've described is the behaviour of urban street thugs.
Exactly. You can tell the Federation is different, because they've got nicer uniforms, and when we do skirmishes with the Romulans, it's NATIONAL DEFENCE, not URBAN STREET THUGGERY.

- Jacket Man, after learning about Tasha, has located her sister Ishara. He reckons she'd be a good liaison with the Enterprise, and says that he no longer needs phasers in exchange, because it's in his interest to help the Enterprise to prevent them from being pressured into working with THE ALLIANCE. Troi says he's full of shit, but it's decided that they might as well play along for now.

- Ishara has the AUTOMAP POWER UP which tells you how to get through the crazy cyberpunk sewers. Data is eager to befriend her given his Special Fondness for Tasha. Ishara bashes Tasha, calling her a coward for leaving the colony.

-


Everyone's looking in the same direction except Riker, who seems to have been distracted by that attractive houseplant to Ishara's left.

- A ransom video is delivered saying the hostages will be killed in 20 hours unless Picard does something or other. Ishara develops a rescue plan to go into the massive underground tunnel network to reach the area where they're being held. She shuts down Riker's plan to beam directly into an ambush and instead suggests she be inserted as a distraction. Later, DNA testing proves that she really is Tasha's sister.

- The away team's idea of stealth is to stand directly under bright artificial lights, but do it half-crouched, rendering them invisible to onlookers. The plan is a huge success, except for the part where Ishara gets her ass completely kicked and has to be bailed out by Riker of all people.

- Picard tells Ishara about Tasha's incredible bravery, and all her greatest heroics (standing on the bridge, standing in the transporter room, that time a lizardman delegate was murdered on her watch, getting slapped to death by an oil monster).

- Ishara ditches her cool jacket and changes into an utterly stupid set of blue pyjama things. She befriends Data, and tells him more about Tasha, and admits she's impressed by the Federation's commitment to peace and cooperation.

- Data endorses Ishara for Starfleet. Troi asks what makes him trust her so much. "She is our best hope of freeing the crewmen. In addition, I have become... used to her." Ehhhh. Another example of Data being written as a Vulcan rather than an android, I reckon.

- Really cool special effect as the Enterprise shoots a hole through the wasteland on the surface to allow for transportation down into the tunnels.

- Ishara helps the away team save the hostages, but then goes all Rambo and starts attacking the Alliance base. She sets the reactor thingy to meltdown which will blow up the entire base. Data and Riker stun her and un-fuck the generator. Interestingly, Data's reason for interjecting is that "the Federation will be responsible for the resulting deaths, and I can not allow that". That's kind of true - they beamed Ishara into the base, but they did it as part of a hostage rescue. Ishara went rogue and initiated the meltdown on her own. Obviously they're right to prevent it, but - to have a bit of fun by reading too much into one line - I wonder what exactly Federation law says about this kind of thing. The Prime Directive (I know, ex-Federation colony, it doesn't fully apply here), as normally interpreted in TNG, would seem to suggest that preventing the meltdown would be forbidden, as Ishara (a native to the world) intiiated it as part of a conflict between two native factions, and the Federation is imposing itself on the course of the society by intervening to prevent it.

- Everyone's really mad at Ishara and Riker yells at Jacket Man over it. It's decided to just return her to the surface. Picard opines that it's tragic that "we all wanted to see something of Tasha in this woman... perhaps we saw more than was there". I mean, fair enough, but she did do exactly what she promised. The hostages were rescued pretty much thanks to her.

- Data's experiencing a feedback loop!!! In other words he's thinking of Ishara. He goes to Riker for advice (lol), who tells him that it's all good - trusting people always opens up the possibility of experiencing betrayal, but life is meaningless if you don't trust people. Fair enough!

Not bad. The colony is pleasingly 80s, feels like a throwback to the first two seasons (appropriate, given the Tasha connection). It's one of those episodes that focuses around a one-shot character, in this case Ishara, and she's interesting enough to carry the episode. Don't really have much else to say about it. The only real issue with it is that it's sort of pointless and relies on several planning scenes and action scenes. Like, there's two big planning scenes that result in two big sewer-shootouts, which starts to feel very padded. There's some character work in everyone gushing over Tasha and Data's brief friendship with Ishara, but again, I think there's an argument to be made that Data's being written as a Vulcan again here - possessing emotions but denying their existence, or suppressing them strongly. Which I know is how a lot of people most enjoy the character, but whatever. 6/10


Mr Trumpet

Ah yes, the struggling colony where everything except hairspray is in short supply.

I was convinced as a kid that it was Linda Hamilton playing Ishara.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

The Enterprise crew directly enabled Ishara to carry out the generator blowing-up because they removed her implant that sets off proximity detectors whenever she enters enemy territory. The one all members of the Alliance and Coalition have so that they can't directly fuck up each other's shit. They would indeed be responsible for the resulting carnage.

Blumf

Why the hell hasn't the Fed stepped in to unfuck that colony as a matter of urgency? Not a good ad for the utopian club, "whoopse, that place has gone to shit, never mind, sure it'll story itself out"

Hey, nuTrek cunts! Do a whole series on that, plenty of grim-dark crap to play with there.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

Quote from: Blumf on September 14, 2021, 01:14:09 AM
Why the hell hasn't the Fed stepped in to unfuck that colony as a matter of urgency? Not a good ad for the utopian club, "whoopse, that place has gone to shit, never mind, sure it'll story itself out"

From Memory Alpha:
QuoteThe planet's government began breaking down in the 2330s. Dozens of factions developed, and civil war broke out. The Turkana government gave police powers to the two largest factions, the Coalition and the Alliance, but it was quickly overthrown by those cadres, and the planet severed relations with the Federation by 2352, the two factions declaring the planet's independence.

...In 2361, the USS Potemkin attempted to contact the colony. The vessel was warned away with the threat that anyone beaming down to the surface would be killed.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Turkana_IV

Blumf

Humm, not sure you could take a pair of warring factions, that have just performed a coup, as legitimate governments with the right to cut relations with the UFP. There's a whole bunch of Fed citizens being held hostage there, a mass evacuation for those who want out would be a priority, even if you don't want to retake the planet.

Looking at the Alpha article, the Fed had two decades to do something even before the 'official' break away. Instead they stood back as the place collapsed and UFP citizens suffered. Not a good look.

But, would make a good grim-dark series, something in the vein of the BSG reboot, primarily a political thriller with a bit of sci-fi dressing.

Mobbd

Quote from: Blumf on September 14, 2021, 09:50:56 AM
would make a good grim-dark series, something in the vein of the BSG reboot, primarily a political thriller with a bit of sci-fi dressing.

Grimdark appropriately deployed. I'm in.

daf

079 | "Legacy"



Yar-Bluff and Peoples

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights :
• Red Hot Poker #5 : Pick'Card
• Picard's Suspicious Synth-ale Sniff
• Miami-Space Rolled-up Jackets
• Wet T-shirt Bazooka - Whoah!!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Drainpipe Welder
• Trad. arr. Grid Steam
• Chunky Leather Kneepads
• 3D Chess #6 : Blurry Background Ponderer
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

Quote from: Blumf on September 14, 2021, 09:50:56 AM
Humm, not sure you could take a pair of warring factions, that have just performed a coup, as legitimate governments with the right to cut relations with the UFP. There's a whole bunch of Fed citizens being held hostage there, a mass evacuation for those who want out would be a priority, even if you don't want to retake the planet.

Looking at the Alpha article, the Fed had two decades to do something even before the 'official' break away. Instead they stood back as the place collapsed and UFP citizens suffered. Not a good look.

But, would make a good grim-dark series, something in the vein of the BSG reboot, primarily a political thriller with a bit of sci-fi dressing.
I mean maybe a show created and written during the last days of the Cold War had something to say about military interventionism as well as imperialism

maybe the Prime Directive as a show concept arose from real world events

or maybe because the Federation are the Good Guys they should play Galaxy Police and meddle constantly until everyone does as they say and lives how they live

Lemming

The Federation's technology totally changes the game when it comes to things like mass evacuations - the transporter means that evacuees could be whisked out of danger from thousands of miles away. Plus, if we assume that the Enterprise-D is capable of what the original ship was in "A Piece of the Action", they can harmlessly render hundreds of people unconscious at once, from orbit, without ever sending any armed soldiers down.

Speaking of armed soldiers and military interventions, I wonder if Starfleet as potrayed in TNG even has any soldiers - in TOS, they seem to suggest that starship crews are the closest thing the Federation has to any kind of infantry force. I never understood those Starfleet marine guys from DS9 - why are we running through minefields and dying in mud-filled trenches? Surely whichever side gets a starship in orbit first has won, since you can just mass-stun the enemy forces from thousands of miles away over and over again until their leadership agrees to enter diplomatic talks.

Catalogue Trousers

Exactly. It's the even more effective update of the Auric Goldfinger plan: rather than poison the water supply (in the book) or the air itself (in the film), you can do even better and poleaxe hundreds, if not thousands, from the upper atmosphere.

As with Goldfinger, I suppose, there could be the threat of an enemy within who somehow lessens the effect of your attack, but that's probably rather more difficult to do with a self-contained military vessel.

David Gerrold once commented flippantly (but with a serious point) that the Trek attitude to the Prime Directive is 'it's a noble idea, but lousy for story-telling. Just ignore it if you need to.' I suspect that Trek writers over the decades have taken the same approach to why the Federation needs ground troops. Good for the drama. Ignore their illogicality in universe-building terms.

Wonderful Butternut

Turkana's not really a Prime Directive or interventionism job, imo.

It was part of the Federation, so rather than being Space Afghanistan, it's more Space Cumbria if armed gangs took it over and declared it independent from the rest of the UK. I don't think it would've been at all out of order for the Federation to go in and oust them and put in a new government.

Best explanation is that it's very remote and/or the Federation didn't have resources to deal with it at the time it was all going to shit (tied up with Cardassian wars maybe?) and by the time they could get to it, a determination was made that the situation was gone to the point where trying to fix it would've created as many, if not more, problems than it would solve.

Quote from: Lemming on September 14, 2021, 05:33:59 PM
The Federation's technology totally changes the game when it comes to things like mass evacuations - the transporter means that evacuees could be whisked out of danger from thousands of miles away. Plus, if we assume that the Enterprise-D is capable of what the original ship was in "A Piece of the Action", they can harmlessly render hundreds of people unconscious at once, from orbit, without ever sending any armed soldiers down.

Speaking of armed soldiers and military interventions, I wonder if Starfleet as potrayed in TNG even has any soldiers - in TOS, they seem to suggest that starship crews are the closest thing the Federation has to any kind of infantry force. I never understood those Starfleet marine guys from DS9 - why are we running through minefields and dying in mud-filled trenches? Surely whichever side gets a starship in orbit first has won, since you can just mass-stun the enemy forces from thousands of miles away over and over again until their leadership agrees to enter diplomatic talks.

Mass stunning people from orbit would kind of undercut the drama in a significant number of Star Trek episodes though. It's one of those things that was convenient for one plot, but potentially constraining of future plots. So they either forgot about it or deliberately disregarded it for future episodes.

If you want an in-universe explanation, since it's presumably a very lower power setting to not kill people or blow things up, maybe it can be easily shielded against. A few meters underground, or a low level forcefield that anyone technically minded can chuck together from spare parts being enough. As far as I remember, we only see ground action in DS9 where no starship is present -  "Nor the Battle Too Strong" & "Rocks & Shoals" - or when they're on the asteroid trying to access the Dominion communications array that becomes useless to them if they destroy it accidentally - "Seige of AR-558 or whatever the fucking number was"

(May have missed something)

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

#1127
Nah Turkana IV is more like Space Britain leaving the Space EU.

ps regarding stunning people from orbit, maybe it's not super great to stun the civilian population of an entire world, you know, might count as a war crime maybe

mothman

There must be a line of sight thing as well, all the mobsters who were stunned from orbit were out in the open.[nb] Perhaps this is exactly why everyone on Turkana IV lives underground in tunnels![/nb] And there are questions about how wide-beam a starship emitter - whether the original point emitters or the emitter arrays seen later - could go to deliver an effective stun charge. If the stun field radius at ground level is only, say, 100m, then you're talking a lot of repeated bursts to cover any significant area. And given your own troops might be in the vicinity, you could be looking at a quite embarrassing friendly fire incident.

There was a VOY ep where Tuvok stuns a room of people on wide beam. It's feasible that might deplete the weapon's charge faster though; granted not sn issue if you get everyone first time...

Lemming

Quote from: Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse on September 14, 2021, 08:12:06 PM
ps regarding stunning people from orbit, maybe it's not super great to stun the civilian population of an entire world, you know, might count as a war crime maybe

You wouldn't have to, surely. Given that they appear to be able to make the beam very precise (in the last episode, they were able to shoot through a very specific area in the ground to access the tunnels, and TOS has plenty of similar stuff like blowing up Apollo's temple and the stun-shot at the gangsters in the street), there's a lot of relatively small-scale ways they could use it. With Turkana IV, they could presumably just arrange for all evacuees to report to a predetermined area for easy transportation, and respond to any armed force attempting to stop people from leaving with a deranged frenzy of stun-barrages, if evacuating Federation citizens was a big enough priority for them.

I always liked in TOS that the level of technology means that there doesn't seem to be much in the way of war or ground combat - in Errand of Mercy, war with the Klingons is presented as a borderline-doomsday scenario because there's no way to have a conventional war when everyone's got weapons that disintegrate each other from thousands of miles away and can destroy all life on a planet with a single ship.

Quote from: mothman on September 14, 2021, 08:48:02 PM
There was a VOY ep where Tuvok stuns a room of people on wide beam. It's feasible that might deplete the weapon's charge faster though; granted not sn issue if you get everyone first time...

The Voyager episode is Cathexis, I think - there's an alien intruder that can possess any member of the crew, so Tuvok just blasts the whole bridge. I think Uhura does the same thing to the government of a planet when she takes command of the ship in that one animated series episode, but that might have just been a shit-ton of regular stun shots fired quickly.

I suppose using it on a huge scale depends on the circumstances - whether or not people are out in the open, like you said, and also whether people are precariously stood on top of stairs or mountains which they could end up fatally falling down if stunned.

The friendly fire thing is pretty hilarious, but it could make for a good policy if Starfleet's goal is just to stop all conflict immediately without any other considerations. Stun absolutely everyone in the battlefield then beam them up and sort out who's who. If you're Starfleet, it could be preferable to be shot by your own ship's stun setting than shot to death by a Klingon disruptor. Although, given the way transporters tend to work, you could probably just beam all your own people out of there in a matter of seconds before firing the blast in the first place.

Zetetic

Just plow a Galaxy-class into the planet at full impulse and let extradimensional beings of immeasurable power sort it out.

mothman

Given in-universe demonstrated capabilities in quantum physics, exotic particles, red matter, Genesis waves, those sorts of things, I think they have far more "elegant" ways of mass destruction than relativistic projectiles.

Lemming

S04E07 - Reunion

Picard is asked to investigate the assassination of the leader of the Klingons, while Worf discovers he has a son.

- It's K'Ehleyr! Worf isn't eager to meet with her, as his Dishonour Levels are at absolute critical. She's brought aboard a little kid with her. K'Ehleyr still doesn't give a shit about wacky Klingon traditions, so Worf's CRIPPLING DISHONOUR is irrelevant. The little kid, Alexander, is, of course, Worf's son.

- K'Ehleyr's here because there's about to be a civil war in the Klingon Empire. Council leader K'Mpec is dying, and when he does, it's likely to set off a conflict over who'll assume his place. K'Mpec meets with Prickard, and asks him to become ARBITER OF SUCCESSION, which means he'll choose the next Klingon leader. Picard shits himself and tries to get out of it, but it's too late. Luckily, he doesn't have to do shit, because the strongest two challengers will fight to the death to determine who becomes leader, and those two have already been chosen. Picard's only role is to investigate which one of them poisoned K'Mpec.

- Alexander is causing problems in school (the ship has a fucking school, lmao) by doing Klingon snarls at other kids. Worf takes him out of class and encourages him to begin his WARRIOR TRAINING. Alexander says he doesn't want to be a warrior, and Worf's dishonour level reaches all-new heights. Worf decides to start screaming at K'Ehleyr for not teaching Alexander the KLINGON WAYS. Worf refuses to acknowledge Alexander as his son, for the reason that his DISHONOUR would pass onto Alexander. K'Ehleyr correctly suspects that there was some kind of conspiracy behind Worf's discommendation.

- The villainous DURAS, as one of the challengers, has arrived for the ceremony, as has GOWRON. I wonder how much (well-deserved) money Robert O'Reilly has made from this character, the guy was fucking everywhere, even in the classic FMV game STAR TREK: KLINGON. The K'Mpec death ceremony is ruined when a bomb goes off.

- To lighten the mood, Worf and K'Ehleyr confess that they love aech other. JIIIIIH DOK. Worf backs off again because he can't pass his all-encompassing DISHONOUR onto Alexander.

- K'Ehleyr advises Picard to use some stupid old Klingon tradition to span things out so that an investigation into the bombing can be completed before the challengers fight each other. Meanwhile, Worf lets Alexander play with a bat'leth.

- Gowron tries to bribe K'Ehleyr. She calls him a Ferengi, reducing his honour by 50%. Meanwhile, the crew determine that the bomb was of Romulan design. Picard decides to bring Worf along to the next meeting just to annoy people. K'Ehleyr decides to do a bit of Magnum PI and investigate Worf's discommendation by herself.

-
QuoteWORF: What did your investigations reveal about the explosion?
DURAS: It was a bomb.

- K'Ehleyr's onto Duras now, so he goes over to her quarters and kills her in another major victory for Enterprise security. Worf arrives in time to hear K'Ehleyr confirm that Duras was responsible, and to do the Klingon death scream. Alexander looks perturbed by his mother's corpse.

- It's time for the Worf Revenge Ride. He gets his bat'leth, walks to the transporter, and beams over to Duras' ship in the episode's second major win for Enterprise security. Riker pursues but fails to stop Worf from impaling Duras to death in Honourable Combat. I love how chilled out everyone is - Riker and Data just walk really really slowly towards the transporter room. Happens a lot in this show, I remember back in the Barclay episode there's a scene where Geordi and Barclay stroll calmly towards engineering as the ship's about to explode.

- Worf gets a totally impotent slap on the wrist. Quite literally no consequences, beyond "a reprimand" on his record. With the matter swiftly swept under the rug, Picard asks why Worf can't come out with the truth now that Duras is dead. Worf says that it'd implicate the rest of the High Council as liars, so the lie must remain for now.

- It's time to ship Alexander off to Worf's parents, to get him out of the way (and probably because Worf correctly believes that it's stupid to have kids on board a starship). Alexander figures out that Worf is his father, and looks very bored by that fact.

It's alright. I remember liking the Klingon politics episodes more when I was younger, not so much on this rewatch, not sure why. As a sequel to Sins of the Father, this is good stuff.

I like what Alexander brings to the table in some later episodes, but he's such a crap nonentity here. Just glares at things bored-ly. We also get Gowron, who'll obviously go on to be a major figure later on. 7/10



Also maybe I'm just dumb but how was there ever a risk of civil war? Gowron's investigation was shit, Duras' conspiracy would never have been revealed if it weren't for the Enterprise. Surely either Gowron would have killed Duras - in which case, everything's as it is now - or Duras would have killed Gowron, but why would that have led to civil war?

Additionally, how does Duras' death at Worf's hands resolve the succession? Is Gowron now the leader automatically, or does he have to fight whoever came just before Duras on the qualifying list?

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

I think the whole problem was that Kmpec knew Duras' father was  the real traitor and that High Council Leader Duras would make an alliance with the Romulans. But Duras and his family had a lot of support on the High Council (which is why Worf was thrown under the bus instead) so if Kmpec just said "I name Gowron as my successor" there'd be a fight about it. If it turns out Duras is a cowardly poisoner he'd be dishonoured and there'd be no problem. Or so you'd think, because it turns out that the Klingons do have a (brief) civil war later on this season when Duras' sisters manage to find his illegitimate son.

Gowron not having to fight whoever's third in line doesn't bother me. Presumably if third in line was worthy of being leader he'd have made it into the top two, so he can fuck right off now.

There isn't really anything Picard can do to Worf since doing a revenge murder is perfectly fine under Klingon law (and Gowron can now ascend to Leader unopposed so he's certainly not arsed making a big deal of it).

MojoJojo

Has trek ever had some one being stunned and then cracking their head on a table as they fall down?

Regarding ground battles in trek - there's some fairly convincing essays* written about combat between space ships basically being impossible. The basic problem being how fucking big space is, your opponent would be able to dodge any conceivable weapon. And almost any fiction that has faster than light travel ignores relativistic effects because makes things weird (The Forever War being a notable exception).

So I guess my point is that none of it makes any sense if you think too hard about it.


(*which I can't be arsed to link)

Wonderful Butternut

Whilst Worf can't be criminally prosecuted under Federation law, since he committed the murder within Klingon jurisdiction and the Klingons don't consider it a crime, I'm sure Starfleet would be well within their rights to dishonourably discharge Worf for something like conduct unbecoming. Maybe Picard didn't go for that because it suited him to get rid of Duras.

What I love most about this is how differently Duras and Gowron react to Worf. Duras throws childish tantrums about it whilst Gowron disinterestedly protests out of obligation only and stops giving a shit thereafter. Actually Duras generally is a fucking giant infant. Gonna bet that without his dad's scheming and setting up an alliance with the Romulans to put his son in the Chancellor's seat, Duras would've never got near the job. Poor Jarod. An eternity in Gre'thor to be tortured by Fek'lhr as a traitor and the stupid manchild son he was trying to set for life by betraying his own people couldn't close out the deal.

It's also interesting that it's never revealed who actually poisoned K'mpec. It's assumed to be Duras, but Gowron's thinly veiled threat to K'Ehleyr suggests it could've been him either.

daf

080 | "Reunion"



A Mate Worf, Then Death

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights :
• Klingon poisoned wine bibber
• Pie-crust Duras vs. Pop-eye Gowron
• Chekhov's Bat'leth
• Oh, my God! They Killed K'Ehleyr!!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Painstik death ceremony
• The Arm-Bomb Sketch
• Time-wasting Ja'chuq boasting ceremony
• Black-balls space-chair #4 : Alexander Dad-firmation
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

Das Reboot

It was a real bummer that they killed off K'Ehleyr. I would have loved it if they had her returning at similar frequency to Q and Lwaxana to shit talk Worf once a season. ...And if she ever got injured, say, in a Klingon breaking up and making up ritual, they could have had a wink to fans moment with Bev triaging and say she'll get Dr Selar to fix her up. Wasted.

Going by some of her costumes, can't help thinking that Berman was taking notes and stuffing them in a folder marked "Borg babe ideas".

Chairman Yang

Amazed Suzie Plakson never got a permanent role, giving that she's easily the best part of every episode she's in. Maybe she's a mad coke fiend or... not enough of a coke fiend?

Lemming

S04E08 - Future Imperfect

- It's Riker's birthday! Picard and Data leave the bridge to attend the party, while a bunch of people who apparently weren't invited come in to cover their shifts. During this, the Enterprise enters the vicinity of a RUMOURED SECRET ROMULAN BASE.

-
Quote(the away team beams down into an inhospitable wasteland)
GEORDI: I'm detecting high levels of volcanic gases. Sulphur dioxide, methane, hydrogen sulphide.
RIKER: Toxic?
GEORDI: We're okay for now.
??? The kind of thing you might want to discover before beaming down without any protection, surely??

- Geordi's "we're ok for now" is rendered hilarious when the away team begin to violently choke. The transporter chief can't get a proper lock, so everyone's atoms are fucked about for a bit. Riker awakens in sickbay to discover that 16 years have passed, and he's now the captain of the Enterprise. Happy birthday!

- First ever Nurse Ogawa appearance?

- Bev explains that Riker was infected with a virus after beaming down, which lay dormant in his brain for a bit. It's activated now, and erased Riker's memories between the moment he contracted the virus and the moment he woke up in sickbay just now, leaving him with a 16 year gap.

- Everything on the Enterprise is pretty similar except the doors have a stupid new decal on them, there's more Klingon crewmembers and some Ferengi ones, and Geordi doesn't need his VISOR anymore. Riker and Bev go walking around to see if Riker's memory will return.

- A Romulan ship shows up and Riker orders RED ALERT in a blinding panic. There was no need - the ship is captained by ADMIRAL PICARD and Troi who's probably like a Captain or something, I dunno, I can't read the insignia. Good to see Riker's effectiveness has not been lowered by the amnesia.

- Admiral Picard has made the disastrous decision to grow his hair out a bit, plus a shitty pubes beard. Riker is briefed: some years ago, a damaged Romulan battleship strayed into Federation space. Riker, as captain of the Enterprise, intercepted and performed a rescue mission, saving the lives of the crew and impressing the Romulan Star Empire. This proved as the catalyst for improved relations, with Riker being a key ambassador. Again, Riker's really good at Romulans, for some reason!

- Riker declares himself unfit for command, but Troi and Picard badger him into conducting negotiations with the Romulans anyway. Troi suggests going to his quarters for a while, at which point he finds he has a son. Bev failed to mention this because she thought the shock would bring his memories back.

- Riker asks Troi who the child's mother is, and is informed that she died two years ago.
QuoteTROI: Min was beautiful, of course. Strong, intelligent, patient.
RIKER: Well, if she was married to me, she had to be patient.
Riker winning some self-awareness points.

- It's time for some agonising, amnesia-tainted bonding with Riker Junior. Riker gives up instantly and decides to look over his own service record instead. The computer is glitchy and shitty and failing to respond without significant delay.

- Tomalak beams aboard the Enterprise. He is now Picard's BEST MATE. Riker calls an emergency briefing to panic about the presence of Tomalak, and remind Picard of his 16-years-old racist remarks.

- Riker runs off to talk to Riker Junior some more. Motivated by a desire to avoid being like his own crap absent father, Riker plans BONDING TIME. He tries to look at old home videos of DEAD WIFE, but the computer glitches out again. Eventually, he manages to get a video of him and his wife. If you remember season one's 11001001 relatively well, there's a really fucking good moment here which is probably the best thing about the episode. Riker's wife is Minuet, the fictional holodeck character visually designed by Riker and programmed by the Bynars.

- Realising that something's off because his holo-girlfriend is apparently his wife, Riker goes up to Geordi and grills him on why the computer sucks so much shit today. He runs around the ship asking for detailed information from each crewmember, and discovers that they can't answer. I love this part, it's always fun when characters in simulations/hallucinations/whatever in sci-fi realise they're trapped and start probing at the limits of what the simulation is capable of - same reason The Royale was so good.

- SHUT UP. AS IN CLOSE YOUR MOUTH AND STOP TALKING

- Riker says that he realises he's in a simulation and he's not gonna play along with it anymore. Tomalak erases the Enterprise bridge to reveal that they're on a Romulan holodeck. Riker proudly and triumphantly tells Tomalak that he (Riker) is a sad lonely fool who makes fake girlfriends for himself on the holodeck, and that's why Tomalak's charade collapsed. Checkmate, Tomalak! This part is hilarious - Tomalak says that Minuet was chosen due to Riker's incredibly strong feelings towards her. He has stronger feelings towards his fictional holo-girlfriend than he does towards, like, Troi.

- Tomalak throws Riker in the brig, where a child with Riker Junior's appearance is being held. Tomalak says that this is because they used the child's appearance to create the child in the simulation. The child is called Ethan, and Riker offers to help him escape.

- After a running shootout through the Romulan ship, Riker ends up in some shitty alcove. Ethan says that to escape, they'll require codes from "Ambassador Tomalak". Riker reminds Ethan that Tomalak is a captain, not an ambassador. He concludes that the kid was the one running the simulation earlier, and that this is another such simulation. Riker demands that the simulations end, and the Romulan ship disppears to reveal a cave.

- The child, who's true form is a weird blue thing, says that all his people were killed and his mother left him in this cave for safety, but was then killed herself, leaving him alone. The simulations were created because the alien was Super Lonely and needed a parental figure, bizarrely choosing fucking Riker of all people. Riker offers to take Blue Alien Child with him on the Enterprise.

Again, the best part is the Minuet reveal, which is extremely effective if you remember the actor's face well enough to recognise her (and probably just very confusing if you don't). The subsequent scene where Riker tests the limits of the simulation is fun, and the resolution to the plot is nice enough in a typical "aaah the aliens torturing us actually had a sympathetic reason" way.

Otherwise though it's a middling Twilight Zone style story, the only real twist being that the Romulan ship is also a simulation. The episode seems to be aware of the nature of Star Trek, and compensates accordingly - Riker is very obviously not actually in the future, and even if he is, he'll be back to normal in 45 minutes either way, so let's have two simulations, the second being much more believable, to trick the audience. Which isn't a bad idea, and ensures that the episode is sufficiently fast-moving and doesn't waste too much time in future-Riker-world.

The only big criticism is that the whole thing is kind of devoid of any big themes - we don't learn much about Riker (beyond the line about how he'd like to avoid becoming like his own father, the legendary KYLE RIKER) and the weird sci-fi plot isn't a lens through which to view any particular issue or aspect of Riker's personality. It's just weird shit for the sake of weird shit. Which is fine, of course - Remember Me was the same way, and that was fantastic - but the episode is essentially just a fun way to spend 45 minutes. 6/10