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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

Mr Trumpet

Lwaxana is a more enjoyable recurring character than Q.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

WE-elll you could say it's a bit sexist to have a middle-aged woman where the punchline is (as it is in her first? second? appearance) that she's SUPER HORNY and man-crazy,[nb]Plus the thing about Betazoid women's sex drive quadrupling when they hit middle age is 100% Gene "I want Troi to have extra tits, also let's make someone fuck an android" Roddenberry[/nb] is overbearing, embarrassing and puts pressure on her daughter to snag herself a man and have babies. But as the show continues and we see more of her, we get more reasons why she's like this. The woman is lonely, and time is ticking on and her only child shows no sign of settling down and giving her grandchildren. And yeah yeah she's not owed grandchildren, don't @ me, but it's on her mind. What's to become of her? What's her place in the family now?

Plus, her husband Ian Troi died when Deanna was very young, I think about 7/8, and Deanna never mentions a stepfather, as in someone Lwaxana married when she was still a child and who helped raise her. It seems like Lwaxana threw herself into being a mother first and foremost and put her own needs on hold till her child was grown up and gone.[nb]All the while blocking out that she'd ever had an older child who died, let me remind you.[/nb]

Then there's her son. Correct me if I'm misremembering, but Lwaxana was in love enough (or just wanted to be part of a family enough) with this guy to have a child with him, even though she knew there was a 50 50 chance it'd be raised by the other parent and she'd never see him again. She was certainly prepared to have a kid at her age seeing as she didn't terminate the pregnancy. This speaks to how family oriented she is. And you can say it's sexist to write a female character being all about finding a husband and having a family, but when she appears in a show that has working mothers and single women and her own daughter is extremely opposed to quitting her job and "settling down", then actually she's just a different type of female character. One that reflects reality for a lot of women and a lot of older women at the time Next Gen originally aired.

petril

I do love the fact that her dead husband's name really was Ian. Star Trek could do with more Ians really

MojoJojo

Quote from: Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse on September 01, 2021, 09:42:26 AM
WE-elll you could say it's a bit sexist to have a middle-aged woman where the punchline is (as it is in her first? second? appearance) that she's SUPER HORNY and man-crazy,[nb]Plus the thing about Betazoid women's sex drive quadrupling when they hit middle age is 100% Gene "I want Troi to have extra tits, also let's make someone fuck an android" Roddenberry[/nb] is overbearing, embarrassing and puts pressure on her daughter to snag herself a man and have babies. But as the show continues and we see more of her, we get more reasons why she's like this. The woman is lonely, and time is ticking on and her only child shows no sign of settling down and giving her grandchildren. And yeah yeah she's not owed grandchildren, don't @ me, but it's on her mind. What's to become of her? What's her place in the family now?

A lot of what your talking about comes later, though, and isn't in TNG.

I think part of the issue is that the horny older woman was a bit of a comedy staple - annoyingly the only other example I can think of now is Dorien from Birds of a Feather, and Lwaxana was playing into that stereotype that has largely faded from public consciousness. And that stereotype was sexist, basically taking the mick out of menopausal women and older women being sexual, even if Lwaxana isn't particularly playing into that, and instead most of the humour comes from how uncomfortable she makes everyone else.

I do remember disliking her when I first saw TNG 20+ years ago, although I enjoy her now. How much that's due to changing stereotypes, my general increase in appreciation for Trek comedy, or my changing perspective of middle aged women I don't know.

daf

#994
071 | "Ménage à Troi"



No, Not The Mind Probe!!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights :
• Mike Algolianfield's Tubular Bonks
• Lwaxana's tri-ogle-nal boob-window
• Mr Homn's Uttaberry Feast
• The Nude Transporter Sketch
• The Shakespeare Sonnet Sketch
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• 3D Chess #3 - Riker vs. Ferengi : Aldabren Exchange
• Troi Costume Watch : Plum Puffball Packing Paper
• Ferengi Aural Sex
• 3D Chess #4 - Ferengi vs. Riker : Fist/Jaw Exchange
• Wesley's Redshirt promotion
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

Blumf

We were never expected to laugh at Lwaxana, just at the mayhem she causes around her. As I mentioned, the character is just Majel Barrett, slightly exaggerated:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Lwaxana_Troi#Background_information
Quote"Gene came home one day and said to me, 'Majel, I have a great part for you, and guess what – you don't have to act!"

That link also mentions the story Auntie Mame as inspiration.

The Culture Bunker

I always enjoyed Deanna's reactions to her mother's antics, speaking as someone with a father to whom I'm close but who was prone to being a bit embarrassing at times. Mr Homn is always good understated comedy value too.

Das Reboot

Quote from: Lemming on August 31, 2021, 11:43:14 PM
...the ceremonial music played at the reception at the start of the episode.

There's a song being hammered on the 6 Music playlist at the moment (Yoga Town by Superstate) which keeps reminding me of this episode.


Lemming

Quote from: MojoJojo on September 01, 2021, 10:34:20 AM
I do remember disliking her when I first saw TNG 20+ years ago, although I enjoy her now. How much that's due to changing stereotypes, my general increase in appreciation for Trek comedy, or my changing perspective of middle aged women I don't know.

This is interesting - sort of like how those anti-suffragette cartoons from back in the day are meant to show characters designed to make the viewer laugh at the supposed ridiculousness of women defying gender norms, but the modern viewer is likely to find the characters appealing and easy to identify with, and the joke ends up being on the artist for ever thinking that this could be seen as a bad thing:

This one, from 1908, is captioned "WHY NOT GO THE LIMIT? FOR THE BENEFIT OF THOSE LADIES WHO ASK THE RIGHT TO SMOKE IN PUBLIC". The artist attempted to create a dystopian hellscape, but accidentally just drew a cool bar.

I wonder how this kind of thing might happen with more recent media, especially comedy. I liked Lwaxana when I saw TNG as a kid, but I don't think I'd have had the cultural framework necessary to recognise if she was intended as a manifestation of a wider misogynistic stereotype. It'd be interesting to look back at a lot of "edgy" 2000s comedy and see if characters designed to be the butt of jokes end up coming across far more sympathetically nowadays.

Sticking with Star Trek, Keiko might be another example - older discussions in the fandom seemed to castigate her as an unreasonable basket case who existed purely to stress O'Brien out, whereas more recent discussions seem to recognise the reality that O'Brien might actually be the one with the problems while Keiko is relatively calm and stable (and, if I remember DS9 right, the only person with the courage to tell O'Brien to shut it when he starts up with his trademark anti-CARDIE racism).

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

Quote from: MojoJojo on September 01, 2021, 10:34:20 AM
A lot of what your talking about comes later, though, and isn't in TNG.
mmmmmmmmm no, I'm thinking about season 5 when she's going to marry some guy she met on a lonely hearts website and tries to explain to Alexander[nb]side note, I like to think Lwaxana and Alexander stayed in touch and wrote each other.[/nb] that she's going through with it because she's older and lonely and has to take what she can get. Or season 4, when she's beside herself because Timicin has to commit ritual suicide just because his society has decided that 60 is too fucking old, get in grave.

Lemming

S03E25 - Transfigurations

Bev befriends a mysterious patient, with a very unusual medical condition.

- Everyone's been telling Geordi he's weird and creepy lately. After Wes gave him an atomic roasting in "Sarek", he's taken the criticisms to heart and is now sitting at the bar telling Worf to look at a random woman, Christy, sat across from them. Worf tells him to go and speak to her instead of sitting here like a twat. Geordi is almost physically unable to speak to her when she approaches him. This man is in his 30s and runs the engineering department.

- Some dude has crashed a one-man ship and has half his face missing. Look at the makeup! You can see his teeth through the gaping wound, it's ludicrously graphic for Star Trek!

- Bev connects Geordi's brain to the guy's or something, in a life-saving measure. Geordi gets zapped by something or other.

- Injured guy (named John Doe by Bev) begins to miraculously recover against all odds, while Geordi suddenly feels fantastic. He gains ENGINEERING GENIUS and SOCIAL COMPETENCE.

- John wakes up, but he has amnesia and doesn't remember shit. Bev starts un-fucking his limbs and helping him regain motor ability, which he does crazy-fast thanks to his mad metabolism.

- Geordi and Christy are now in a relationship thanks to Geordi's charisma boost.

- O'Brien shoulder agony commences. Love how Wesley comes in and hits him in the injured area for literally no reason. John touches O'Brien's shoulder and it's instantly fixed.

- Wesley has Dinner with Mom. Saddest spectacle of all time. Desperately in need of friends his own age, he teases Bev for having a crush on John. Meanwhile, Geordi and Data discover navigational data from John's shitty craft, showing his point of origin. The Enterprise flies toward it.

- John still has no memories, but has a strong feeling he can't return home, and that he was attempting to flee.

- A ship is approaching the Enterprise. John's body starts going fuckwards as he's crippled by painful energy pulses. Bev determines that his cells are mutating somehow. In another runaway success story for Enterprise security, John runs straight to the shuttlebay and commandeers the control room without any resistance. We don't need locks in the future!!!

- Worf gets his arse in gear and tries to subdue John, but is thrown from a catwalk by an energy pulse and killed. John's powers have developed to the point where he's able to revive Worf, which is convenient.

- A space-nazi called Sunad arrives and demands that John be turned over, so that he may be executed. Picard calls an EMERGENCY BRIEFING, in which he tells John that he'll decide what to do with him shortly. After John leaves, Bev tells Picard that he can't seriously be considering sending John to his death. Picard replies by not-so-subtly accusing Bev of letting PERSONAL FEELINGS cloud her judgment, as if she's not making the most obviously moral argument. There's a bit of a debate about whether or not to respect the Zalkonian's laws.

- Picard decides the best course of action is to try and waste Sunad's time. After the usual "we are on a mission of peaceful exploration" stuff, he tells Sunad that John is transforming into a light-creature with special healing skills. Sunad activates THE CHOKE FIELD, causing everyone on the Enterprise to begin to suffocate. Wonder what's happening in the nursery during this!

- In another unbelievable bit of convenience and luck, John has gained enough power to reverse the CHOKE FIELD by touching the walls of the ship, saving everyone. In the background, Gates returns to her station in about two seconds, totally unaffected by the near-death experience.

- John, who has recovered his memories, teleports Sunad over to the Enterprise to prevent his ship from firing upon it. John explains that his species is on the precipice of the next stage of their evolution, but those who begin to transform are hunted and killed by the government. It's time to complete the transformation, after which he looks strangely like a man in a spandex suit with a bad glow effect applied over it.

There's some stuff to like here - the debate about whether or not to value the alien laws over John's life is even-handed and interesting, for example. But it's just kind of dull otherwise. The transformation sucks, I don't care if John becomes a damn light creature or not. Although I wonder if this is what happened to the Organians and the Metrons, in which case, it's only a matter of time before John's race become total lunatics.

By no means bad or offensive or anything, but slow-paced and with a premise that's just not that interesting to start with. On top of that, it's ostensibly a Bev episode, but a) Bev is remarkably boring and b) we learn virtually nothing about Bev, and she's almost tangential to the plot after a certain point.

The other odd thing in this episode is Geordi's confidence boost. There's no implication that this is temporary - John says that he merely helped Geordi unlock a part of himself that already existed. Does this carry through into any future episodes? The only other big Geordi social interaction moment I can immediately think of is when he yells at the real Leah Brahms, which doesn't exactly suggest increased social skills. I wonder why they included it in this episode. Maybe the writers realised Geordi was coming off weirdly over this last season and wanted to quickly remove that aspect of his character going forwards.

4/10


MojoJojo

I really thought from the opening Geordi's sight would be magically restored. That's the setup. But I guess in an early draft they had trouble returning that to the status quo so they changed it to some nebulous confidence boost that could be both permanent and never mentioned again.

Blumf

It is a surprisingly dull episode. Lots of bits in it, but the overall effect is <shrug>, not even bad really (except for that crappy zentai suit effect, even by the period's standard, that's lame)

Bad Ambassador

The concept - person evolving into energy being as next stage in planetary evolution and hunted by Nazi rulers - is identical to Doctor Who serial The Mutants from 1972.

Das Reboot

It's an interesting departure in that it takes place over a series of weeks rather than the standard 'this is this week's problem and we need to fix it now', but yes, it does wither into ...meh.

La Forge's awkwardness with women is one of the show's major character misfires and completely at odds with his normal confident self. I once heard LeVar Burton in an interview complain about that lazy nerd stereotype and that "even the android got laid more often" than Geordi.

Uniform Watch: Interesting development in the extras' uniforms in this episode (it may have happened earlier but I didn't catch it). The old front zip spandex costumes seem to have had collars grafted on and the piping removed so that they blended in better with the main cast. Fine for any Lieutenant Science Station or Crewman Corridor in the background, but still quite noticeable in the foreground - particularly with Ensign Helm in the closing scenes of Transfigurations.

daf

072 | "Transfigurations"



Transformers : Glow-bursts in this guy

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Highlights :
• The Geordi-year Old Virgin
• Worf : "Less Talk, More Synthahol!" [Eh? Prune juice, surely!]
• O'Brien : Kayak Legend!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Other Bits :
• Smooth Snoggin' Geordi
• Blue-Bulb Brain-Boggler
• Worf Backflip neck-snap
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Score :

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This is the first episode I have absolutely no memory of seeing before. Somehow I managed to miss it on TV twice : once on BBC 2 in the 90's and then about 20 years later on whatever digital channel was showing it (Horror?)

The Culture Bunker

I do remember watching it back in the day, but it's a bit of a duff episode - besides Geordi's hopelessness with the ladies, we also have Doc Bev's habit of crushing on some one-off character that will fuck off at the end of the episode.

And it's another lifeform with apparent godlike powers that (as far as I know) we never hear about again, after we met wor Kev and his ghost wife a while back.

MojoJojo

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on September 03, 2021, 02:41:19 PMAnd it's another lifeform with apparent godlike powers that (as far as I know) we never hear about again, after we met wor Kev and his ghost wife a while back.

I like the one off characters and species in TNG it helps give a feeling they're out in the wilderness. Unlike is DS9 where there are only a handful of species, although it makes sense for DS9.

Of course, TNG messes it up now and then by having the Enterprise pop back to Vulcan in a week.

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: daf on September 03, 2021, 02:16:45 PMThis is the first episode I have absolutely no memory of seeing before. Somehow I managed to miss it on TV twice : once on BBC 2 in the 90's...

This is interesting.  Our rewatch did this one back in June, and I had exactly the same feeling, that I'd never seen it before.  Same also went for one of my friends.

Either the episode has magical mind-erasing properties, or something happened with the initial BBC2 broadcast.

According to Genome, it first went out on BBC2 on Wed 22nd Apr 1992, at the usual 18:00, but of course that wouldn't reflect any late schedule change.

However, it turns out that that was the Wednesday after Easter (Sun 2021/04/17), so maybe it's just as simple as we were all on holiday?

Would be interesting to check my VHS tape of the time, but sadly it's 135 miles away.

(For the record, other BBC2 showings were:
Wed 4th Mar 1998, 18:00
Tue 7th Jan 2003, 18:45
Sat 10th Nov 2007, 02:10)


Quote from: daf on September 03, 2021, 02:16:45 PM...and then about 20 years later on whatever digital channel was showing it (Horror?)

Can't remember if Horror showed them (although they did show a semi-random selection of Classic Who), but I did catch a couple of TNGs and a DS9 on Syfy around 2015; indeed, they're still showing them to this day, as you'd expect.  Funnily enough, Transfigurations will be coming round three weeks from today: Fri 24th Sept at 19:00.

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on September 03, 2021, 02:41:19 PMI do remember watching it back in the day...

Out of interest, would that have been the 1992 BBC showing, or Sky or 1998 etc.?

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on September 03, 2021, 03:09:55 PM
Out of interest, would that have been the 1992 BBC showing, or Sky or 1998 etc.?
Sky One, during the mid 90s. Think it was shown at 5pm?

daf

#1011
Quote from: Ambient Sheep on September 03, 2021, 03:07:42 PM
According to Genome, it first went out on BBC2 on Wed 22nd Apr 1992, at the usual 18:00, but of course that wouldn't reflect any late schedule change.

Aha! I'd have been in college in Hull at that time, and unless it was half term or something, I most likely didn't see it - as I was either still in college, up in my room working, or the communal house TV was tuned to something else.

Given the circumstances, it's amazing that I only managed to miss one episode! (so far)

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: daf on September 03, 2021, 03:49:02 PMAha! I'd have been in college in Hull at that time, and unless it was half term or something...

Three days after Easter?!

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on September 03, 2021, 03:07:42 PMHowever, it turns out that that was the Wednesday after Easter (Sun 2021/04/17), so maybe it's just as simple as we were all on holiday?


(Didja live on Cranbrook Avenue?  My best friend did from 1987-1989 then again in 1990-1991 after a year out studying in Italy.)

Ambient Sheep

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on September 03, 2021, 03:41:14 PM
Sky One, during the mid 90s. Think it was shown at 5pm?

Explains why you saw it and we didn't. :-)

daf

Quote from: Ambient Sheep on September 03, 2021, 04:19:09 PM
(Didja live on Cranbrook Avenue?  My best friend did from 1987-1989 then again in 1990-1991 after a year out studying in Italy.)

Grafton Street - about a mile up from the middle of town. Rumours were that Paul Heaton used to drink at hard as nails locals-only pub (The Grafton) half way down the street (never went in there - too scary!)

The only pop star I saw in Hull was old "Ringworm" himself, Van Morrison - I was walking down though Victoria Gardens (towards the Town Hall), and he and a bodyguard were coming up towards me on the same path. Did not make eye contact.


mothman

An Earth-set drama about humanity Subliming - to use the Banksian term for evolving to a whole new plane of existence - but baseline humans trying to stop it out of sheer cuntery might be interesting. Similar things have been done of course, but usually they fall into the following categories:

a) It's not immediately clear what is happening, or it's being done forcibly because of aliens or something, or scientists meddling in Things They Don't Understand.
b) The state into which people are evolving is one of being utter cunts themselves and they want to either force others to do it before they're ready, or alternately just exterminate old humans.

greenman

Quote from: mothman on September 03, 2021, 06:16:49 PM
An Earth-set drama about humanity Subliming - to use the Banksian term for evolving to a whole new plane of existence - but baseline humans trying to stop it out of sheer cuntery might be interesting. Similar things have been done of course, but usually they fall into the following categories:

a) It's not immediately clear what is happening, or it's being done forcibly because of aliens or something, or scientists meddling in Things They Don't Understand.
b) The state into which people are evolving is one of being utter cunts themselves and they want to either force others to do it before they're ready, or alternately just exterminate old humans.

The Ironheart episode of Babylon 5 comes to mind and I spose plays doubly on the concept by having already evolved telepaths being the ones looking to hold back one of there own from further evolving.

mothman

Yeah, that's a bit of category (a) as I think Ironheart was the result of PsiCorps trying to develop a telepath stronger than P12. And given Teeps in B5 were ultimately created (by the Vorlons), they're already a category (a) - but also sort-of a category (b) in that the strongest human telepaths, the P12s, all become PsiCops and are also all cunts (except Byron, but we don't want to have to think about him - or his group or their song - ever).

Lemming

S03E26 - The Best of Both Worlds Part 1

Riker faces a choice about his future while the Borg invade Federation space, planning to assimilate Earth.

- A Federation colony is completely gone. An admiral who looks oddly like David Jason comes aboard along with a Borg specialist, Lt Commander Shelby, because the Borg are the chief suspects. Why do the Borg turn worlds into craters anyway?

- The Enterprise's previous encounter with the Borg is said to have been 7,000 light-years away. Closer to 70,000, surely?

- Riker, being a worm, immediately invites the admiral to the bridge crew clique's poker game. The admiral suggests that Shelby go instead. The shit-eating grin is immediately wiped off Riker's face, because he knows the deal - Shelby's here to potentially replace him, because Starfleet is sick of such a turd being the first officer of the flagship, and Riker resists their repeated attempts to lure him away to be the captain of garbage scows.

- It begins immediately - Shelby's set up an away team, and Riker's mad because he already set up a dream team. Shelby tells him outright that she'd like to replace him when he leaves, but Riker is absolutely determined to hang onto his cushy job sitting in a big chair and agreeing with the last thing Picard said.

- Wes has climbed the greasy pole (phwoar) high enough to be invited to poker club! Shelby calls Riker's bluff and wins the game, which is a symbol or metaphor for something.

- Data, who has access to all literature and dictionaries ever written, doesn't know what "early bird gets the worm" means.

-
QuotePICARD: What's your impression of Shelby?
RIKER: She knows her stuff.
PICARD: She has your full confidence?
RIKER: Well, I think she needs supervision. She takes the initiative a little too easily. Sometimes with risks.
PICARD: Sounds a little like a young lieutenant commander I once recruited as a first officer!
Presumably referring to his first officer on the Stargazer or something.

- Picard begs Riker to get the fuck off the Enterprise. "The Melbourne is a fine ship, Will!" he enthuses. "You're ready to take command, Will! To work without a net!" Haha utterly tragic to watch. Poor Picard. Made a bad recruitment choice in Encounter at Farpoint and is still suffering the consequences. Riker is totally un-shiftable.

- Riker rushes to Troi to beg for help. He admits that he's disturbed that Shelby reminds him of all the things he's lost - his risk-taking, his drive, his passion. None of which we saw any evidence of in the first season. "It's space debris, Worf, just let it drift into the sun."

- Shelby comes up with a good idea at a meeting. Riker panics and snaps at her and demands that the meeting end immediately.

- Borg cube arrives. Love how the scare music only played after Picard says magnify, even though it was clearly identifiable before then. The Borg hail Picard by name and tell him that he's to come aboard the cube personally. Picard proudly boasts about the NEW DEFENCE CAPABILITIES the Enterprise has developed, which withstand the Borg's tractor beam for all of five seconds.

- Look at the look Shelby gives Riker after he reminds her that the Borg have the ability to adapt. Yeah, really, I bet she didn't know that, being the Federation's foremost Borg specialist.


-
(that one bit of Nightwish - Ghost Love Score playing)

- Shelby tells Data a shit-hot new way to vary the phaser frequencies to stop the Borg adapting. This gives the Enterprise time to run into a nebula to hide and quake in absolute terror while the cube flies around looking for them. A meeting is called specifically to big up Shelby and her cool new phaser technique. Shelby advocates SAUCER SEP, Riker disagrees. Shelby decides to take it to Picard herself. Riker rushes in with his tail between his legs. "I-i'm sorry if she troubled you, sir!!!" Weasel. He decides it'd be best to follow her out of the office and into the turbolift, then lock the doors and threaten to destroy her career if she keeps disobeying him. She tells him to fuck off and makes fun of him for being a walking human joke.

- Picard goes to see Guinan, and bores everyone to death by enthusing about military history and romanticising old Earth commanders (pretty funny given the Federation's borderline pacifism and season one Picard's visible disgust at historical military uniforms). Thankfully, the ship begins to violently rock as the Borg close in, putting a stop to the conversation.

- Borg drones come aboard, one at a time to give you plenty of chance to fight back. Worf shoots one but the next drone has already adapted. "It's no use! They've already adapted to the new frequencies!" Riker yells, and then charges the Borg, being instantly thrown across the bridge. Another Borg shows up and abducts Picard, then they all beam away.

-
QuoteWORF: Sir, the coordinates they have set, they're on a direct course to sector zero zero one. The Terran system.
RIKER: ...Earth!
Cheers Riker.

- The Borg give Picard their mission statement: they like improving themselves, and want to absorb humanity to continue this goal. Picard says he'll resist, giving them an absolute open goal to say their catchphrase. I still don't understand how the Borg even work - if everyone is assimilated against their will, surely the hivemind would collectively agree that the hivemind ought not to exist, and so either everyone would free themselves or just shut the whole thing down? The Borg Queen explanation we get later just makes it worse.

- Back on the ship, Riker is the captain. Shelby wants to lead the away team, Riker snaps at her, Troi tells him Shelby really should lead the away team, Riker backs down. On one hand, fair play to him for backing down in the face of reason and listening to his officers (already a better captain than Picard is in one or two episodes), but on the other hand, his first act as the new captain is to snap at someone and then immediately retract it and agree with her. Morale plummets.

- The revered WORF-BEV-DATA-SHELBY away team beams over to the Borg cube to look around. Bit of a repeat of Q Who where they walk slowly around the corridors while the drones ignore them. After a brief gunfight with the Borg, they're approached by DRONE PICARD. An inappropriately jaunty remix of the TNG theme plays. DRONE PICARD hails the Enterprise and introduces himself as LOCUTUS OF BORG. Resistance is futile!!!! Riker orders Worf to FIRE.

Riker having a rare moment of lucidity and realising how useless he is in the face of an up-and-coming rival is an unusual choice of plot to put against the backdrop of a Borg invasion of Federation space. Riker's character drama ends up tying into the action thriller "ooh no a cube's chasing us" stuff pretty well, although Shelby is kind of ridiculous - fair enough if she doesn't have any faith in Riker's command (who would?), but she exists purely to contradict absolutely everything he says or does to the point where it slips into farce, she's like a sitcom rival. "Don't beam down without my command, Shelby!" Beamed down an hour ago. "I'll bring this to the Captain myself, Shelby." Shelby rushes directly to Picard's office to bring it up herself. "There's no time to contact Starfleet, Shelby!" Shelby orders Worf to open a channel to Starfleet, and he starts doing so without Riker's authorisation.

I'm a bit less fond of this two-parter than most because the Borg just don't grab me (unlike they did to Picard). They're space zombies who can't be reasoned with, can't be talked down, can't be negotiated with, and their only goal is to kill/assimilate you. They're basically there to shoot at you and get shot at in return. Later TNG starts to give them a lot more complexity (I, Borg), and Voyager pulls off some great stuff with Seven-centric episodes, but here they're basically just the Evil Cube who attack you on sight. I don't really get it. They worked well in Q Who as a representation of the unimaginable horror lurking in the deeper parts of unexplored space and a reminder that humans/the Federation are only barely out of their infancy, but to have them recur in the role of a catalyst to encourage Riker to make better career choices? I dunno.

There's still some effective suspense in the scenes in which the Enterprise hides in the nebula and everyone shits themselves while the Borg cube circles around, and the Riker-Shelby plot mostly works. 6/10


kalowski

Evil Cube who attack you on sight is beautiful. These fuckers seemed unstoppable. That's why I love this episode. Resistance really is futile.