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

[Chairman Yang]

I love how there's absolutely no justification for beaming anyone down to the planet. You're already sending down shuttle pods, Picard, and you're expecting me to believe that scattering the entire crew in a 1200 square kilometer area is going to help at all?

You know what has the same visual range as 1000 people stood about 1.5m off the ground? A single shuttle craft flying ANY amount higher than that.

[Zero Gravitas]

You've transmitted a modulated carrier wave to enable negative emotions in the positronic matrix of his stunt double!

[daf]

151 | "Descent - Part I"



Everyone wants to be Borg-y Borg-y

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights
• Red Hot Holo-Poker : Data's Dead Boffin Society
• Data's Rage : Mardy Wall-Banger
• Fully-Functional Robo-Wanking Confession Session
• Data-Baiting Borg-Banter
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Some Sort of Energy Matrix
• Borg-Blasted Bridge Deadshirt
• Captain Bev's Big Break
• Deadshirt 2 : Dead New-Gent and the Ambush Dudes
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I fucking hate Descent and regret not skipping it during our recent rewatch. Horribly boring and eventually both cruel and cringeworthy in the second part. Part II implies that Data is an Asimov robot operating to strict moral laws embedded in his programming. That's so boring.

Lore is a really bad idea in general. When I was a kid Ie thought there being more than one Soong android ruined Data. Him being the product of a mad old cyberneticist who didn't really know what he was doing, a scientific miracle no one can repeat not even Data himself = cool. Soong being able to repeat the miracle whenever and give robots different personalities and emotions = boring. It also kind of makes Data a better counterpart for Spock, since there is a whole civilisation of Spocks yet only a single Data.

But even if you're going to have a second Data then just "evil" is the boringest conceivable way to do it. Spiner could be effectively scary in episodes where Data goes crazy or doesn't tell the truth, he's great in Clues. But if you take away the android mannerisms, and make him evil then he's just green hair away from being the Joker. There are so many ways they could have made two Datas good, and they picked something conceptually boring that Spiner was terrible at.

[MojoJojo]

Lore is a really bad idea in general. When I was a kid Ie thought there being more than one Soong android ruined Data. Him being the product of a mad old cyberneticist who didn't really know what he was doing, a scientific miracle no one can repeat not even Data himself = cool. Soong being able to repeat the miracle whenever and give robots different personalities and emotions = boring.

I sort of saw it as it was a lifetime of work, but then Lore went wrong and he started again with Data but didn't have enough time to to complete his education. Lore's the evil older brother, angry that dad liked the younger naive Data more.

I'm not sure if I'll watch this one. I'm getting a bit trekked out, but it does feel like it's an important one for both the borg and Lore. Although do they ever come up again?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I suppose what spoiled it for me as a kid was that Lore was more human and 'sentient' seeming than Data. Makes a bit of a nonsense of Data's long, impossible quest to learn to have emotions if the beta build had them. Just the 'wrong' ones so his dad had to spin the wheel again and hope not to make Mitt Romney this time around.

It would work better or be more interesting, if Lore wasn't sentient and just focused on survival. If he didn't care about humanity or being like humans. Then you have Data thinking of a remorseless and souless machine as his 'brother' and wanting it to be protected even if its capable of doing all kinds of dangerous things. Anything would be better than just 'evil'. 

[Camp Tramp]

The treatment of the redshirts in this episode is ludicrous.

Like the two Borg who board the bridge , Duck Franklin's shot then shot him, then obligingly stand still and let Worf phaser them.

The unnamed guy at the end was rather dumb.

[Lemming]

THE SEASON SIX MEGA-ROUNDUP

Time's Arrow Part 2 - me 3/10, daf 7/10
Realm of Fear - me 5/10, daf 4/10
Man of the People - me 2/10, daf 4/10
Relics - me 6/10, daf 8/10
Schisms - me 8/10, daf 6/10
True Q - me 5/10, daf 6/10
Rascals - me 8/10, daf 7/10
A Fistful of Datas - me 5/10, daf 8/10
The Quality of Life - me 3/10, daf 3/10
Chain of Command Part 1 - me 7/10, daf 5/10
Chain of Command Part 2 - me 5/10, daf 7/10
Ship in a Bottle - me 7/10, daf 10/10
Aquiel - me 6/10, daf 3/10
Face of the Enemy - me 8/10, daf 4/10
Tapestry - me 6/10, daf 7/10
Birthright Part 1 - me 5/10, daf 6/10
Birthright Part 2  - me 3/10, daf 5/10
Starship Mine - me 5/10, daf 5/10
Lessons -  me 5/10, daf 5/10
The Chase - me 7/10, daf 8/10
Frame of Mind - me 8/10, daf 7/10
Suspicions - me 6/10, daf 5/10
Rightful Heir - me 4/10, daf 6/10
Second Chances - me 10/10, daf 8/10
Timescape - me 6/10, daf 7/10
Descent Part 1 - me 3/10, daf 5/10

My average was 5.6, while daf's was 6.0. Two more revered WORF RATINGS handed out as well - daf gave Ship in a Bottle 10/10, and I gave Second Chances 10/10.

According to scores, my top episodes were Second Chances, Schisms, Rascals, Face of the Enemy, and Frame of Mind. Sounds about right. My lowest were The Quality of Life, the awful Man of the People, and the second parts of those overlong two-parters, Time's Arrow and Birthright.

For reference, previous averages:
Season 1 average = me 3.5, daf 3.3
Season 2 average = me 4.9, daf 4.7
Season 3 average = me 5.3, daf 5.1
Season 4 average = me 5.7, daf 4.8
Season 5 average = me 6.0, daf 6.11

So season 6 has halted and reversed the steady incline in my average score that's been going since season one. That probably does reflect the way I felt while watching it. As people have said now and again in the thread, TNG does seem to lose energy as it goes on. Regardless, though, plenty of good plots in this season, albeit scattered among quite a lot of middling stuff. Those two parters can be tough going too, even the better ones like Chain of Command. Star Trek writers just don't seem to deal with them too well. I think the only two-parter in all of Star Trek that I really really like is Voyager's Year of Hell.

I enjoyed a lot of the attempts at spooky mystery episodes, the kind of which the earlier seasons often had. Aquiel might not have quite come together, but it showed a lot of interesting potential, same for Timescape. Schisms and Frame of Mind are great "ooh fuck everything's going to shit" episodes. I also feel like Rascals deserves another shoutout, it's so much better than it has any right to be.

Quite amused that my pick of the season ended up being the double Riker episode. That's everything I stand against! But yeah, Second Chances is the best of the season for me by some margin.

[daf]

My Series 6 | Top 3 :
1. ⬅ Ship in a Bottle *
2. ⬆ A Fistful of Datas *
3. ⬆ Relics

and just for fun . . .

My Series 6 | Bottom 3 :
24. ⬇ Man Of The People
25. ⬇ Aquiel
26. ⬅ The Quality Of Life

- - - - - - - - - - -
* (I know they're considered a bit of a cheat, and not "proper" Trek, but the holo-deck episodes are consistently a highlight for me - if we were doing Voyager, those Captain Proton episodes would get a solid 11/10 Mr Homns from me!)

[MojoJojo]

It does feel like the cast have settled into a comfortable pattern, which has removed the jarring out of character bits from earlier seasons, but makes it a bit boring. You know how every character is going to react to everything, even if you don't know the exact words they're going to use. I think that's why it often feels like a soap opera.

It's the most ambitious season production wise so far I think - whether this is due to a budget boost or the savings from the two parters. It's just a shame that with that character development has died.

I guess the real problem is any character is going to be exhausted after 100 odd hours of story telling. Really needs some fresh blood. But that would probably make it feel even more of a soap opera.

[MojoJojo]

Despite agreeing that the first part wasn't very good, I ended up intrigued that it hinted to a First Contact temptation of Data plot. It didn't.

Spoiler alert

And it does seem like they were trying out some new bridge crew! They were laughably bad though. It really highlights how the regular cast do a good job selling some pretty ropey dialogue

[close]

[Lemming]

S07E01 - Descent Part 2

While Lore furthers his devious plans, Bev tries to deal with the fallout of Picard's dogshit decision-making and Troi fights to have any role at all in the plot.

- Alright, where the fuck were we. I just had a sinus infection over the weekend, forgot everything. Oh yeah, Lore and the Borg. Terrible.

- Troi can sense feelings in Data! The rules of telepathy in this setting have never made less sense. Anyway, Picard accuses Lore of corrupting the Borg and Data. Lore explains that he's helped them by giving them emotions and PASSION. He did this via Hugh, who transferred his sense of individuality to the other Borg.

- Aaaand PAUSE. Can anyone explain the Hugh thing? It didn't make sense in "I, Borg", either. By assimilating someone with a sense of individuality, the Borg become individuals. Alright, so the billions of people they assimilated prior to now didn't have any sense of individuality? The countless people from across the Delta quadrant and, lately, the Alpha quadrant, plus Seven and her parents - no individuality? Or did Hugh have some unique take on blending drone-iness and individuality? This just seems like a big load of shit to me.

- Picard, Troi and Geordi listen disinterestedly while Lore proclaims that the age of biological life forms is over, and the AGE OF AI is commencing. On the Enterprise, Crusher whinges that the EM field on the planet is ruining everything.

- Because of Picard's wizzo plan to send absolutely fucking everyone down to the planet, Bev's tactical officer is an Ensign, called Taitt. She's freshly posted to the Enterprise, but is already leaps and bounds better at Tactical than Worf ever was, as she manages to detect an approaching vessel before it starts blowing the Enterprise to pieces. Bev makes the absolutely correct decision to reverse Picard's braindead plan by beginning the mass return of all Enterprise crew up to the ship. They were down there for about ten minutes. There was never any purpose in sending them down.

- The MYSTERY SHIP from earlier approaches. Bev plays chicken with it by leaving the shields down until the last possible second to get as many people beamed up as possible, and then raises shields right before they get blasted. 47 crew are still trapped on LOREWORLD.

- Riker, who has been left behind with Worf, orders the stragglers to unite and cower in terror from the patrolling Borg. I know it's beating a dead horse but why the fuck did Picard send everyone down in the first place? There was no justification and now it's created this fucking mess. It's one of the worst decisions ever made by any captain in any Star Trek series, like it makes Archer look like a seasoned pro. Apparently Picard removed so many people that a newly-assigned Ensign was the best possible person Bev had left to man the fucking Tactical station. Picard's absolutely brainrotted, his mind's starting to go. This is a tense and high-stakes situation as well - Bev's a Commander and a fine choice for acting Captain, but why not leave her some senior officers for her bridge crew? Nah, they've all gone down to the planet as part of Picard's inexplicable scheme.

- Inside Lore's evil sanctum, Picard implores Data to rejoin them, because they've had so many good times together! Troi figures out that Lore is feeding Data exclusively "negative" emotions, turning him into a right bastard. He steals Geordi's VISOR, and defiantly tells Jean-Luc "I've just sent my entire crew down to the planet for no reason" Prickard that he is NO LONGER HIS PUPPET.

- ENSIGN GATES returns to the bridge. Situation under control. Taitt starts trotting off but Bev, who really likes Taitt in a motherly kind of way, asks her to stay and be the bridge's science officer. Everything is actually running like a dream - Taitt is on the ball, and Bev keeps speaking to a dude called Salazar who's working the transporter, who gives her precise estimates of things. There's also a new dude on Tactical who brainstorms mad capers with Bev, with Taitt's input. The ship, in the seven years since Farpoint, has never run this well. I attribute this to the removal of the massive drag factor that is Riker, plus the replacement of the entire bridge crew with better people.

- Data delivers the VISOR to Lore, who hopes to use the VISOR to turn Geordi into a test subject. Data agrees, even though Geordi may suffer extensive brain damage, which will probably reduce his intelligence to that of Jean-Luc "Entire Staff Beamdown" Picard. There's some Borg drone called Goval who's iffy on Lore's plan, but Lore's smarmy evil charm pressures him into helping.

- Picard's party are locked in a room. Geordi reckons that Lore is using a carrier wave to transmit his emotion chip program into Data, having disabled his ethical program. If Geordi reverses the tachyons on a subspace beam using negative inverse Kedion pulsewaves, it might depolarise the etc etc etc and free Data. But Data comes in and snatches Geordi away!

- On the surface, Riker and Worf piss themselves while drones walk by. They see the structure of Lore's sanctum, and then... look at this. Riker attempts to "sneak" towards it by rampaging over like a charging elephant, and walks INTO THE DRONE PATROL. His idea of stealth is to stomp quickly over open ground TOWARDS HIS PURSUERS, as if the naff little half-squat he's adopted will render him invisible despite being in bright lighting and wearing a big bright red uniform. Love the panicked little look around like a frightened meerkat, including the bewildered glare at Worf.


- The A-Team there are taken into a cave. Hugh comes out and snaps at Riker for being a big twat. He complains that it's all the Enterprise crew's fault that the Borg are dominated by Lore now, for it was they who gave Hugh individuality. The individuality wave made all the Borg go apeshit and get confused and, for some reason, starve to death. This made them easy prey for Lore. He shows Worf and Riker some weird Borg who got experimented on by Lore. Hugh is still in a mood but softens when he realises that his best chum Geordi is in danger. He shows them some secret areas that will let them infiltrate Lore's inner sanctum and rescue Geordi.

- Geordi is in a PAIN CHAIR being tortured by Data!!! He's going to replace Geordi's brain with an artificial copy! Meanwhile, Troi and Picard try the incredibly tired "oh no one of us is dying, you'll have to open the door to help" plan, which works, then instantly fails when Data is stood directly outside the room and makes them go back in. He also returns Geordi. Picard managed to get a "traarrnceiver" from the Borg guard who entered the cell, which Geordi might be able to use his Tech skill on to make some bullshit device.

- Bev's team is insanely hot shit. People are yelling out accurate information, Bev's orders are sharp and on-point, and everything they do is a runaway success. The MYSTERY SHIP shows up and knocks their warp engines out, so Bev decides to fly into the sun using the METAPHASIC SHIELDING she learned about from that Ferengi guy in "Suspicions". The Enterprise flies safely into the sun while the MYSTERY SHIP is forced to lurk around until they come back out.

- Geordi's brought back to the AGONY CHAIR. He reminds Data of their incredible friendship, and pleads with him not to destroy his brain. This is enough to make him leave for a bit. Data goes to Lore and expresses his regret for betraying his BFFs. Lore puts a stop to this by hitting Data with EMOTIONAL FUCKWAVES.

- The metaphasic shielding is going fuckwards, but Taitt says they can just fire the sun itself at the MYSTERY SHIP. Bev approves this plan because it sounds like a proper laugh. Sure enough, the sun erupts into the ship and blows it up. Both Bev and Antagonistic Tactical Man are well impressed with Taitt, who has shown more competence in 30 minutes than Riker has shown in seven long, agonising years.

- Data comes back to the cell and takes Picard away. Picard manages to pass a speech check by quizzing Data about his ethical program. Lore comes in out of fucking nowhere for the final confrontation in the BIG HALL.

- Riker and Worf, amazingly, have not moved from the Hugh Cave. They decide that since about eight minutes are left (including credits), it's time to get a move on and crawl through some ducts.

- Lore tells Data to shoot Picard. He refuses, and Lore is about to shoot him when Hugh rushes to his defence, and then Riker and Worf appear out of thin air and start shooting everyone. Picard rotates in place gormlessly as carnage unfolds.

- Lore retreats to the Plotting Room to plot. He offers to give Data the special Soong Chip, but Data shoots him, and then deactivates his brain.

- Data's normal again and reports to Picard that Lore must be disassembled. They say bye to Hugh, who hopes the Borg will learn to live together as individuals.

- Disastrously, the Enterprise is now back under Picard's command, and people who actually get shit done (Bev, Taitt, Tactical Man) are all back in their respective cubby holes in distant corners of the ship. Geordi comes to visit Data to make sure there are no hard feelings about the torture nightmare.

Final season off to a flying start. Nothing that happens here makes sense and everything's so disconnected. Riker, Worf and Hugh just materialising in the Big Hall the exact second they're needed, alright. Hugh doesn't really serve a purpose here, his scenes are brief as hell and mostly involve close-ups of Riker scowling in confusion.

Lore is a dreadful villain who was really shit in his previous appearances and even shitter now. I don't even get what he was trying to do. Everything the episode introduces, it handles boringly - Lore is a dull pantomime villain, Hugh does nothing, and the Borg might as well be any other vaguely weird race. There's a lot you can do with a story about Borg who become detached from the Collective (like that Voyager episode where three people forcefully connected by Seven come to find her and demand to be separated), but they're nothing more than generic mook guards here who walk around, point guns at the heroes, and get shot.

Joked about this being Kurtzman-y in part one, but yeah, it's Kurtzman-y. Random shit from previous episodes hastily pulled together and shoved into one plot because you can't go wrong if you just shove shit that people remember together, right? Hugh! Lore! Borg! Metaphasic Shielding! Kurtzman would have no doubt taken it further by having Q be the real mastermind behind Lore's plan and having fucking Nick Locarno* or someone show up to save Bev from the sun, but this is still dangerously close to nuTrek bullshit territory. It is, however, over in two episodes, rather than a thirteen-episode nightmare marathon, and things happen on the screen, so we're still a few steps above the likes of ST: Picard.

*this would actually be superb

The Bev subplot is the best bit of the episode but it's a sideshow to the crap main plot. Flying into the sun is cool and a nice callback to "Suspicions", and Taitt using the sun itself as a cannon is groovy. 3/10, with those three points mostly coming from the fact this is one that's so batshit that it's faintly enjoyable. Sort of the same feeling that shit like "Pete: Part 2" invoked, for anyone who followed my Red Dwarf thread, although even this isn't quite as fucking abysmal as that.

[MojoJojo]

Looking at memory alpha, I noticed that there was just over a month from story pitch to shooting Descent Part 1. Naively, I thought this short time explained why the script in part 2 was so fragmented and full of cliches - but of course, they don't write the second part at the same time as the first, so they had the seson break to work on the script. Apparently the problem was they had too much setup in part 1 and couldn't give everything enough time in part 2.  It's true the Hugh stuff seems completely underbaked - is any reason given why Hugh and pals decide to help in the end?

Maybe it would have worked better if it had been some new race, as in the original pitch. I suspect the producers didn't want to make new costumes. But there are better bits to cut - the prison cell stuff left me wondering why they were being kept together, and having a magical doohicky make Data good again is a lot less satisfying than having Data overcome Lore's emotional control himself. And while the Crusher in command stuff was fun, it could have gone in any episode - maybe one with a sensible reason for beaming all the crew off.

I suppose if you cut those bits most of the main cast don't have anything to do.

Minor niggle: it really annoys me that the "mystery ship" is never really explained, and doesn't look Borg like at all.

Fun trivia: Lieutenant Barnaby - the new dude on tactical who has to quickly implement metaphasic shielding, is played by the actor who played the alien in Suspicions who was murdering people to steal the metaphasic shielding technology.

[Blumf]

- Aaaand PAUSE. Can anyone explain the Hugh thing? It didn't make sense in "I, Borg", either. By assimilating someone with a sense of individuality, the Borg become individuals. Alright, so the billions of people they assimilated prior to now didn't have any sense of individuality? The countless people from across the Delta quadrant and, lately, the Alpha quadrant, plus Seven and her parents - no individuality? Or did Hugh have some unique take on blending drone-iness and individuality? This just seems like a big load of shit to me.

My theory is, the initial assimilation process handles the individuality issue, wipes it before getting the Borg wifi password or something. But Hugh, having already been assimilated, doesn't go through that so his renewed individuality can slip into the wider Borg consciousness.

[Blumf]

Fixing Lore:

Have him not be evil, but too rigidly moral absolutist. He's trying to do good, but keeps on rushing off into crazy acts by taking stances too far. His super-speed android abilities letting him do inadvertently damaging stuff stuff before anyone can say "Haven't you read any of the Post-structuralists?"

Just as Data would struggle with basic turns of phrase^[1], the pot watching berk, Lore struggles with the subtleties of moral reasoning. Could see him taking issue with a Picard Speech, or worse, taking it to heart.

It's suitably Trek to have a 'bad' guy, who's trying to be good.

^[1]How do you turn a phrase? Write it down and rotate the piece of paper? I are a sophistimacated android, yes

[daf]

152 | "Descent - Part II"



Hugh's Company Seize a Crowd

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights
• Lore's Buff-Borg Six-Pack Suit
• Bev's Borg-Battling B-Team Bonding
• Oh no - Evil Data!
• Geordi's Brain-Worms
• Worf & Riker's Jolly Jungle-Jaunt
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Oh no - Evil Hugh!
• The Phased Kedion Pulse Sketch
• Junkie Data's Cold Turkey Angst-twitch
• Taitt's Tentative Sun-Splash Borg-Blast
• Hugh The Rescue!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

[Wonderful Butternut]

- Aaaand PAUSE. Can anyone explain the Hugh thing? It didn't make sense in "I, Borg", either. By assimilating someone with a sense of individuality, the Borg become individuals. Alright, so the billions of people they assimilated prior to now didn't have any sense of individuality? The countless people from across the Delta quadrant and, lately, the Alpha quadrant, plus Seven and her parents - no individuality? Or did Hugh have some unique take on blending drone-iness and individuality? This just seems like a big load of shit to me.

It would appear that individuality is suppressed by the initial assimilation, but if you somehow re-acquire it after assimilation, usually by separation from the collective, it's not re-suppressed. This happens a few times in Star Trek and the results appear to be reasonably consistent by Star Trek standards - Hugh, Seven, Borg Co-operative, Unimatrix Zero etc.

[The Guppy]

It would appear that individuality is suppressed by the initial assimilation, but if you somehow re-acquire it after assimilation, usually by separation from the collective, it's not re-suppressed.

Yep. They plug you into the Suppress-O-Tron and you have a bad time. The original "you" remains intact but it's walled-off and can't affect behaviour. Then the job is done, they install BorgOS, and you're plugged into the network. And while you're plugged into the others, aberrant behaviour (no matter how minor) will be noticed immediately, and they can deploy a patch to fix the bug in BorgOS, or stick you back in the Suppress-O-Tron, or explode your head.

Hugh's individuality arises while he's running BorgOS, so it's outside the walled-off part of the brain, and compatible with every other drone. And it has time to fully develop because he's not connected to the others and they can't explode his head. If they plugged him into the Suppress-O-Tron before reconnecting him, they could safely remove it. But they don't. It's too virulent to patch out once it starts spreading through the collective.

[Lemming]

S07E02 - Liasions

Three alien ambassadors arrive to visit the Enterprise. While Worf and Troi entertain two of them, Picard finds himself stranded on a planet with the third.

- Worf can't get his dress on! Which is a shocker considering it looks like you just slide it over your head. Worf complains at having to wear a dress, and Riker chastises him for having an OUTDATED AND SEXIST ATTITUDE. But why's it sexist, unless dresses are still considered "feminine" in the future, which they're presumably not meant to be, hence the existence of the unisex dresses that he's complaining about in the first place? Anyway, who gives a shit - three guys wearing even worse outfits have just shown up.

- Picard's brought his "most capable officers" - Worf (disastrous security record), Riker (absolutely comical record in all things), and Troi (reasonably competent). The three guys are weird alien bastards, and are assigned to these cream-of-the-crop officers for the duration of their visit. Picard, meanwhile, will be going off with the other one in a shuttle, for some cultural exchange! (not a euphemism)

- Troi's boring the living shit out of her guy within minutes. These aliens don't have desserts, so Troi quickly finds herself in her element going on about chocolate. Worf, meanwhile, is getting tons of crap from his alien guy, who seems set on aggravating him. He even makes Worf face the DISHONOUR of having to go up to the buffet and fill a sad little plate.

- The guy in the shuttle with Picard is being a dick as well, but it doesn't matter because, as happens with every shuttle ride, the thing breaks to pieces and starts hurtling uncontrollably towards the nearest planet. They land on a styrofoam set, I think the same one from all the way back in "The Last Outpost", on a planet beset by storms. Picard gets ragdolled across the floor of the shuttle, and awakens to discover his alien chum drifting in and out of consciousness.

- There are energy readings a bit away, so Picard goes to check it out while the alien (called Voval) is like "uuurgh". Walking through the styrofoam, Picard is suddenly struck by electricity which bounces off the rock, and KO'd. Made it about three steps from the shuttle. Anyway, someone comes and drags him away!

- Cut back to the Enterprise where Worf's guy is being mean again. Troi's guy has become a chocaholic, full-on Partridge style, forcing medium-sized Toblerones into his already-oversubscribed mouth. He sees a child and begins to follow, not realising how bad the optics of that are, for there are no children in his species (they "emerge from the natal pod fully grown"). This strange man asks the kid if he likes desert, and then turns to his mum and says "MAY I GIVE ERIC SOME DESERT?" She nods, because this is the idyllic future and not the terrifying present, where an adult man asking that question would be locked up (rightly).

- Jean-Luc "Beam 'Em All Down" Picard awakens in an Unreal Tournament map, rusty steel and weird structures everywhere. There's a MYSTERY WOMAN walking about, so Picard asks her to go help the alien pilot. She replies that he's dead. This sucks, but the sting is taken out by the fact that Picard has been laid down on some really cozy-looking fancy red cushions, kind of like those ones Gabrielle flops about on in the video for "Dreams". The MYSTERY WOMAN (who is devastatingly not Gabrielle) gives him some food and explains that they're in the remains of a ship of which she was a passenger, and that she is the sole survivor. Her name's Anna, pronounced weird, like Aahhhnah.

- Aaahhhhnnah has been trapped here for seven years. Picard assures her that they can escape as long as they salvage equipment from the crashed shuttle which will let them contact Shitfleet to arrange for a rescue. Picard's is shit and therefore broke every bone in his body when he tripped over from the lighting earlier, so Aaahnnah says she'll go get the stuff.

- Worf moans about how much he hates his alien guy, while Riker leans so far back in the briefing chair (CAPTAIN'S BRIEFING CHAIR!!!) that he almost snaps his spine. Riker reckons all the problems Worf's having can be smoothed over by inviting the alien guy to play poker.

- Prickard tries to leave but AAaaaahAHHhnnah comes back and makes him sit down again, saying he's too injured to go out. She's brought back a Starfleet Standard Issue Fuckatron, but it's broken, having been shot by a phaser. Aaaahnnah admits she phasered it to cut it free, but it's irreperable. DOOMED. STRANDED. FUCKED. Picard sits there wondering if this situation could be fixed somehow by beaming down 1000+ people to a planet.

- Aaahnnah tells Picard about her favourite suicide cliff, where she used to go stand to think about killing herself. Picard reassures her that there's no need for any of that because they'll get out of here - after all, Riker's in command of the Enterprise, he'll have us out of here in minutes! Aaahnnah kisses Picard and says she loves him, the tense musical sting letting you know that - for once - this is meant to be disturbing, and not just the usual "two people fall in love after 10 minutes" stuff you get in Star Trek.

- Picard works through the nonstop round-the-clock agony of his broken bones to try and rig up a Picard-o-tron which will let them call for help. Aahhnna keeps being way too affectionate with him, so he tries to softly explain that it's not really possible for her to be in love with him, and that he's just the first person she's seen in seven years. She apologises for being a weird bastard.

- As Picard desperately fights for his life, Riker and the gang play poker with the other aliens. The shot of Worf watching the alien guy bet using his chips is literally the most intense thing I've ever seen in Star Trek. They end up screaming at each other while everyone else stares. The dude shoves Worf a bit so Worf shoves him back, and then a fight breaks out. The alien guy gets a boner and says that this is fantastic, and thanks Worf for the experience.

- The Picard-o-tron is done, and it's ready to be moved to the shuttle. Aahhnnnah tries to stall him. Becoming suspicious, he removes the medical device she put on him, and discovers the pain vanishes, for his rib was never broken. It becomes clear that Aaahnnah has been keeping him captive. She says that she only did it because she loves him and didn't want him to leave, and then starts molesting him. Here he is being assaulted:


- Aahnnnah keeps insisting that he should love her now, and is bewildered that he doesn't. He demands that she unhand him, and she says that she's failed in her task. She locks him in, and he's about to do something really fucking cool (wrench the door open with a crowbar) but luckily doesn't have to because a rescuer arrives. The rescuer is Voval! He explains that he didn't die, he entered the PRETEND-DEAD STATE that his species likes to do.

- He asks Picard about Aahnnah, and says he saw her running towards Suicide Cliff. They arrive to find no sign of her, so they split up to search. After Voval leaves, Picard sees Aahnnah standing at the precipice. She says she'll jump unless he promises to love her. He notices that she's wearing the same necklace that broke earlier. He also notices that he's never seen Voval and Ahnnnah together. Again, she says she needs to hear about how much he loves her, or she'll jump. He tells her to go for it, and she touches her necklace and shapeshifts into Voval!

- Voval says he failed. His mission was to study the human concept of love, and he thought the whole Anna scenario would generate romantic feelings in Picard - they got the idea from discovering the logs of a real person called Anna who really did crash, and underwent a similar experience, including caring for a wounded person who arrived after seven years. She fell in love with him, and the aliens wanted to recreate it to experience love for themselves. The two aliens on the Enterprise are on similar quests, studying pleasure and anger. Picard looks mad, so Voval asks if they've done something unacceptable. Picard says that yeah, they have, but it's fine because it was a Cultural Misunderstanding. Then Picard smiles, safe in the knowledge that (assuming Voval is male and not a weird single-sex species), he's just had the first ever same-sex kiss in Star Trek. Pioneering!

- Worf and his alien guy had insanely intense sex and they're trying to cover it up by saying their soreness is the result of "11 hours of holodeck exercises". Picard, Troi and Worf all say fond goodbyes to their respective aliens, because they had a lot of fun and learned a lot and got beaten and molested.

One thing I really like about this concept is that it plays on your expectations of episodic genre TV. You can easily believe that there'd be a romance plot unfolding over the course of about ten minutes between Picard and Anna, because you've seen the same thing happen without any twist countless times before (especially in TOS). But then it turns out that this isn't the usual crappy "let's shove a romance-of-the-week in that doesn't fit" type writing that plagues genre television, but rather the product of aliens who have no experience of human emotions, so don't get how weird it would be for this sequence of events to actually happen. Like, Anna is a badly written character, but she's a badly written character in-universe, because she's a wonky persona adopted by an alien who doesn't know how to write dialogue for a human. Pretty cool!

That might have been an interesting angle to build the episode around, but the rest of it doesn't really amount to much. The Troi plot is light comic relief, the Worf plot is pretty standard, so really it's all about the Picard plot, which has the aforementioned interesting idea but doesn't quite come off in any really entertaining way. I feel like Voyager might have done well with this plot, since they liked to do vaguely metafiction-y stories like that. I remember there was actually a story in Voyager about a woman who's the lone survivor of a crash, in the episode "Gravity", but I forget what happens other than lots of Tim Russ staring at things intensely.

Also I like Picard's reaction at the end of it all. The aliens behave appallingly, but they don't get why, so no point getting mad over it really. Can't be the worst culture shock they've had after this many years in space.

By the way, regarding Worf's dress complaint at the start... to any men reading this, get a skirt or a dress. Seriously. You don't appreciate the enhanced bollock ventilation and range of movement until you've tried it. Worf was doing it wrong by wearing trousers under the dress, hence his bad experience.

5/10

[daf]

153 | "Liaisons"



Anna Horribilis

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights
• Klingons do NOT Procrastinate!!
• The Chocolate Puff Sketch
• Troi's "Yum" Juice
• The Child Prodding Sketch
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Red Hot Poker #11 : Choc Chip Cheat
• Picard's Spongy Stubble Smudge
• Worf's 11-Hour Holo-deck Shagging Session
• The Shape-shifting Alien Twisteroo
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

[elliszeroed]

Even before the introduction of the Queen I had trouble with the concept of the Borg. They're called a collective, but they seem to only ever act with one single unified voice, they suppress individuality, turning people into zombies, if that is the case, where is the "mind" of the borg? Is it the Queen, with everyone else as their puppets? I never understood it.

Assimilate enough Bajorans and wouldn't the Borg all worship the Prophets?

[Video Game Fan 2000]

They're a transparent cold war metaphor. If you try to make everyone equal you'll take away their individual identities!

I always assumed that Borg ships were meant to look like Commie Blocks, with the balconies and little nooks. Electrical stuff falling out everywhere.

[elliszeroed]

They're a transparent cold war metaphor. If you try to make everyone equal you'll take away their individual identities!

I always assumed that Borg ships were meant to look like Commie Blocks, with the balconies and little nooks. Electrical stuff falling out everywhere.

Does it make the borg more interesting? "We can only assimilate 30 million of these people, otherwise they will overwhelm the collective and turn us into pacifists obsessed with cuisine.." Or: "We can only assiilate this species 1 million at a time, their minds are too strong, too focused on porn."

[MojoJojo]

Liaisons - I think they missed a trick by not having Picard actually have any interest Anna. Him actually falling in love would be too unrealistic, but some attraction would have made it more compelling. Instead it's more calm, rational, boring crew acting, like Times ape.

Half way through next episode, it hangs on Picard doing some incredibly shit captaining.

[crankshaft]

Liaisons sets up season 7 for its first half quite nicely - that is to say, it's really fucking boring and unimaginative and screams "running on fumes". It's like a season 1 episode only without any of the awkward craziness that makes several of those early episodes strangely watchable.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Does it make the borg more interesting? "We can only assimilate 30 million of these people, otherwise they will overwhelm the collective and turn us into pacifists obsessed with cuisine.." Or: "We can only assiilate this species 1 million at a time, their minds are too strong, too focused on porn."

Originally they were supposed be bugs with a hive mind, I think? That's probably where the Queen comes from.

I thought the idea was that the Borg only care about technological distinctiveness and discard the rest. They don't care about culture. It would be fucking amazing if they assimilated a klingon outpost and drove themselves mad because all the drones started caning klingon opera until 3am.

[Lemming]

S07E03 - Interface

Geordi believes that a new technology could allow him to rescue his mother's lost ship.

- Geordi clambers about in a Jeffries tube to reach some CGI fire. But it's not really Geordi, it's the GEORDIPROBE. Everyone's playing around with this cool new VR thing that's hooked into Geordi's brain and lets him control a probe.

- This groovy device also comes with a bodysuit that lets Geordi experience anything the probe does, which seems insane given that the probe is designed specifically to be sent into fires and pools of acid and shit.

- A ship called the Raman is trapped in the atmosphere of a gas giant. Perfect excuse to use the new GEORDIPROBE machine! Picard gets a call from an admiral chum - first name basis - and they make fun racist jokes about Ferengi together. The admiral decides to give Picard mood whiplash by following up this lighthearted race hate session by revealing that a ship called the Hera has gone missing, along with its captain, Geordi's mother.

- Geordi gets the news and goes to sadly watch video messages from his mother, who speaks with a Jamaican twang (even though Geordi was apparently born in Mogadishu. Maybe his mother lived in Jamaica and then moved to Somalia before having him, I mean, 24th century, one world government, no borders, teleport anywhere you want within seconds). Riker comes in and volunteers to pilot the probe instead. Geordi's mind floods with visions of the inevitable megafuckups that would ensue (probe crashing through hull of ship, probe exploding, Riker getting confused and panicked and ending up stuck sideways in an airlock, etc) and immediately puts his emotional trauma aside to ensure the probe mission succeeds.

- The GEORDIPROBE descends into the trapped ship. He finds the ship in an absolute state, and sees one of the crew crushed beneath debris. The grimness of seeing dead people is completely sidelined by the cool abilities the GEORDIPROBE has, including being able to shoot phasers from his hands. In the next room, he sees the corpses of the rest of the crew, but then a fire appears out of nowhere and burns the probe, which also burns Geordi's hands for real. Big win for the sensory bodysuit.

- Picard wants to back out of the mission in case Geordi gets BBQd again, but Geordi insists on continuing. While the probe is readied, he goes to call his father so they can awkwardly frown their way through a conversation together. Geordi is pissed when he learns that funeral arrangements are already being made when there's no evidence of the Hera's destruction yet.

- Data's experiencing shit poetry, and invites Geordi to EXPERIENCE THE EMPTINESS with him. Showing a critical lack of respect for the ancient Doosadarians, Geordi starts talking RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SILENT PERIOD about his mother.

-

GEORDI: She's a starship captain. She's gotten herself into and out of impossible situations before. Why should this be any different?

Literally. The ship's been missing for four days. How many times has the Enterprise alone gone missing and, presumably, been unreachable by Starfleet? Off the top of my head - sucked into the centre of the universe by SuperBarclay, thrown outside of the known universe by the Traveller, taken to the Delta Quadrant by Q, trapped in time loops twice, and so on. And that's not to mention Voyager, that was gone for about five years before they managed to send the EMH through to tell Starfleet they were still alive. Declaring a starship lost after four days of radio silence absolutely is premature, in the Star Trek universe.

- The GEORDIPROBE returns to the trapped ship. In the control room, Geordi encounters his mother! "Mom?!" he shouts. "Geordi, who are you speaking to?" Bev says a second later. Amazing.

- GeordiMom tells him that she needs his help, and that she's dying. The solution is to go down to the surface. He tries to touch her but it overloads the shitty bodysuit again and KOs him.

- Naturally, everyone shits on the parade by checking the sensor logs and seeing no evidence that Geordi met a human during the interface. Verdict: he's a mental case who's seeing things. Bev suggests that Geordi did see his mother, but it was his mind trying to interpret something really weird and alien-y. Regardless, he's convinced the Hera is on the surface of the gas giant. He wants to go recover it but everyone tells him to fuck off and that he's banned from using the probe again in case it blows up his head. Picard fobs him off on Troi.

- Troi wants Geordi to talk about his mother. You'd think this is less a "let's talk about feelings" scenario and more a "let's do a mind meld so we can get someone to observe and verify what Geordi saw" scenario. Nevertheless, Troi listens to him for twenty seconds and hits him with some budget psychoanalysis, and says he's a basket case who's hallucinating, and that he's wasting everyone's time with this Hera-trapped-on-planet gibberish. He gives her short shrift and walks out convinced that his vision was real.

- In a briefing later, Geordi presses the issue with Picard, and manages to come up with some story about how the Hera might have warped itself into the planet by using crazy new tech. Data comes to back him up by saying it's theoretically possible.

- By the way, he says the Hera went past this planet just ten days ago. That means we're only five days behind the spot where it vanished - why aren't we chasing it, trying to recover it or find out what disappeared it? I guess they say other ships already looked for it?

- Picard shuts down the plan so Geordi angrily spins an office chair at him.

- I just don't get the treatment Geordi's receiving in this episode. Shit like this is commonplace. Picard himself saw a vision of his mother once, back in Where No One Has Gone Before! So why the hell is everyone so skeptical? And the explanation they come up with - Geordi's upset and hallucinating his dead mother alive and talking to him - is treated like it's no big deal! If he actually was hallucinating dead relatives talking to him, you'd think they'd be more concerned for his health!

- Riker comes to clear the air with Geordi. He says his own mother died when he was a baby, and how he used to pretend she was alive when he was a kid. Tragic! They sent him to a child psychiatrist in the end. Reminds me of Lister's story about when his dad died and he thought he'd gone round the U-bend. Geordi says its not the same and that he's not giving up, and prepares to PROBE.

- Geordi sneaks (ie walks through a series of unlocked, unguarded doors) to the interface to use it solo. He's caught by Data, who agrees to DEFY PICARD by helping him operate the probe. He'll do this because a) Geordi's his chum and b) Data, thank fuck, acknowledges that Geordi maybe actually did see something down there. After seven years of almost weekly weird shit, this is the reaction everyone should have had to start with, but I guess we needed Geordi to face a few obstacles for the plot rather than having Picard say "yeah, sounds weird, let's go down and check it out again".

- In the ship's control room, Geordi sees GeordiMom again. She says she's on the Hera and is just an avatar, and Geordi's thing about warp experiments was right. Data picks up more weird sensor shit like happened during the previous GeordiMom encounter (which nobody cared enough to properly look into). To free the Hera, the Raman will have to be brought down near it so some Science can happen. GeordiMom is weirdly monotone and distant, but Geordi's too psyched to notice how off she is.

- The Geordi Agony Level will have to be turned up to 100% for this to work! Excitement! Tension! One in a million chance!

- Geordi gets the chance to apologise to his mother for not speaking to her a few weeks ago when he last had the chance. She says it's fine, in her weird, monotone, clearly-not-actually-Geordi's-mother voice.

- On the Enterprise bridge:
WORF: Captain. The Raman is descending towards the planet.
(slow zoom on an uncomprehending Riker)
RIKER: (as the zoom finally reaches his face) ...Geordi!

- Geordi Agony Level 100% isn't enough! He'll have to go into MAXIMUM AGONY MODE for this one! Data hesitates, but ultimately boosts the Geordi Agony Level into maximum overdrive! I'm wetting myself!

- Picard has come to limply stand in front of Geordi and ask him to please stop. He says no, because he's close to saving the Hera. But then he checks the sensors on the Raman and sees no evidence of the Hera. GeordiMom tells him that it's definitely there, keep looking. While he's distracted, she puts her hands next to his head and hits him with the Piss Ray from her fingers, that starts to wreck his brain.

- He reverses the tractor beam and repels her, and she turns into a wall of CGI fire! Shock twist, it's not GeordiMom, it's some alien. She tells him she's trapped aboard the Raman and needs to return to the planet. These aliens live in the lower atmosphere of the planet, and were stuck on the Raman when it entered the atmosphere. They also killed the crew of the Raman, but only accidentally, as when these freaks try to talk to you it fries your brain unless you've got the GEORDIPROBE TECHNOLOGY (lucky we just got it literally 10 mins before arriving here!).

- The ship descends into the atmosphere and starts exploding and shit. The alien tells Geordi that they've reached safety now, and disappears into the atmosphere. Wow, another bunch of absolute knobhead aliens - thanks for helping us Geordi! We'll be off now, have fun aboard the collapsing ship that's seconds from fatal decompression. Bev disconnects Geordi just before the bodysuit rips his cock off.

- Later, Geordi is called into the ready room and Picard frowns at him. Slap on the wrist - a note in his permanent record, lol.

I think there's an excellent episode buried in here, but it doesn't ever find its way to the surface. The script is potentially chillingly eerie, with a very season 1/2 feel: corpses strewn around lost ships with no clear cause of death, entire crews going missing without a trace, and a little bit of fantasy/horror stuff (Geordi meeting a slightly "wrong" version of his mother under initially inexplicable circumstances). In addition, it's not just some good eerie sci-fi, but also a personal character-driven story, full of emotion. On top of that, the probe interface is a conceptually cool idea which also lends a level of mystery to the story - everything Geordi sees through it is technically second-hand, so there's a lot you could do with that, the idea that you can't really trust what the probe interface shows you, even though from your perspective it's all happening for real right in front of you.

It should be incredibly effective, and while it's not dull by any means, it ends up feeling a lot more flat than it should. I don't really know why - something about TNG in general just feels quite wooden and dull in the later seasons, but maybe it's also the fact that, in all honesty, Geordi's not that interesting. I actually thought Riker's scene about how he used to tell his school friends
that his mother was alive but perpetually away on trips was the most emotionally effective bit of the episode. The end reveal is boring because we've seen this kind of thing before - it's an alien that appears in a form you're familiar with and has trouble crossing the communication barrier between itself and humans.

I think another problem with the episode is that it requires Picard and the rest to be a pack of dunces who are shockingly uninterested in Geordi's vision. Again, I get that the episode needed conflict, but their initial reaction of "well, you were just seeing things" is ridiculous. That middle part of the episode could have been filled in any number of better ways - someone else trying the probe and seeing nothing to ramp up the "ooh what the fuck's going on here" levels, Geordi himself being the one to start suspecting he's gone a bit funny in the head, etc. Troi's underused as well - her only role here is to act unreasonable towards Geordi, when surely she should be put on the case immediately to see if she can sense any presence aboard the Raman while Geordi goes into INTERFACE MODE. Essentially, during the middle segment of the episode when the mystery and the tension and the horror should be ratcheting up, we instead get Geordi having to deal with bad management.

One thing in the episode's favour is that Joe Menosky - who I've noticed is typically reliable for good character-based stuff, especially over on Voyager - keeps things focused firmly on Geordi's emotional responses to what's going on, rather than slipping into technobabble shit. It's a story about Geordi and his mother, rather than a story about the cool probe that lets you go whizzing around derelict ships, which is the correct decision.

But yeah - overall it's annoying, because I really like the basic plot and I think some of the scenes are great (Riker talking about his mother, Data's decision to go behind Picard's back to help Geordi, Geordi watching the video from his mother where she comes across as vividly and impressively as Geordi describes her as being, etc) but overall it somehow doesn't feel as good as it easily should be. Should have been a 9/10, but ends up as a 6/10. I don't honestly even know why. Anyone got any similar views on this one, or ideas as to why it doesn't reach the potential it so clearly demonstrates?

[daf]

154 | "Interface"



The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights
• Novelty No-Visor Nose-around
• Data's Poetry Corner : Return to the Black Lacunae
• Riker's Dead Mum Top Trumps
• Data's "Nearly Impossible" Sub-space Shifty Side-eye
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Teledildonic Sensor-Suit
• The Burnt Hands Sketch
• Counselor Cold-Water Bucket
• Fire Aliens Mom-shell
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

[MojoJojo]

Picard telling Geordi his mum was dead just before a life or death mission only he could do was really stupid.

I think it was OK they dismissed Geordi seeing his mum - I don't think they thought it was all in his head, just a weird effect of the weird probe tech. Which is reasonable.

I think the big problem is the stakes are too low. Geordi's the only one who really cares about his vision. And to be honest, he doesn't seem that bothered - it feels like an academic exercise as much as anything. The lack of emotion in the characters is really shows - Geordi's mum dies in this, and he doesn't shed a tear.

[Wonderful Butternut]

The strangeness or lack thereof of the Hera being declared lost after a few days depends on where it was and what it was doing.

If it's just shuttling cargo around between a starbase and a colony, where plenty of bases and other starships can see it on sensors and then it suddenly disappears, with other ships to converge on the area to look, who then can't find it, then you might think all is lost fairly quickly. Whereas if it's out the arsehole the nowhere, and Deep Space 347 can only barely pick it up, then it disappearing doesn't become 'they're dead, Jim,' for a while.

Although if it is doing something routine, you'd hardly expect it to disappear without a trace. Even if it malfunctioned and exploded suddenly, there'd still be pieces.