In which Picard goes on a funky interstellar space ride, and Wesley Crusher: Boy Wonder almost gets a taste of those two most human things, sex and death.
First off, apologies for my lack of TNG coverage last week. I was on vacation and got a little swamped with everything. To make it up to you this piece will feature double the usual amount of words quality writing. And good news: another week of two episodes that were decent-to-good. Neither episode will stand as a bona fide classic, but both had enough good stuff in them to keep me happy. Combine this with the previous two solid episodes and we have almost a bit of a hot streak going on.
Episode 7: Lonely Among Us
Though it has its rough spots, I quite liked this episode. In brief, the Enterprise finds itself afflicted with a strange malfunction, which turns out to be an alien life form that “jumps” from crew member to crew member, taking over their personalities and making them hostile, but leaving them with no memory of the events once it moves on. After first taking over Worf and Dr. Crusher, the life form sets up semi-permanent residence in Picard, driving the captain to strange and even dangerous behavior. This finally culminates with Picard/thing transporting off the ship so the entity can rejoin the “space cloud” it belongs to. Thankfully Counselor Troi has all the feels, and she detects Picard’s presence, now 100% alien free, floating in the cloud. They beam the oblivious captain aboard and life goes on as if nothing had ever happened.
Oh yeah, there’s also a subplot featuring two alien races THAT REALLY HATE EACH OTHER being forced to “coexist” on board while being transported to peace talks. There’s some hoopla over slaughtering animals, hints of murder and cannibalism, etc. The less said about this subplot, the better – though I was dismayed to learn that StarFleet maintains a strict vegetarian diet.
The issue has some real pacing problems, and whoo boy, that subplot. Still, I found a lot to like. It’s always fun to see the many sides of Picard, and alien-controlled Picard affords Patrick Stewart some good opportunities to be extra gruff. The main plot, while perhaps a tad by the book, offers some fun moments. I like the plotting by the crew as they realize Picard is not himself – their desire to maintain stability while still “obeying” the renegade captain creates some good tension.
ALSO: there’s an entire series of scenes when Data, out to discover the mystery of what is on board, impersonates Sherlock Holmes, pipe and all. I repeat: Data. Sherlock Holmes. This is obviously a recipe for comic gold, and Brent Spiner sells the heck out of it. This impersonation alone is worth the price of admission for an episode which, while not great, is pretty solid.
Episode 8: Justice
Ah, “Justice”. Having been warned by fellow Philistine Grant about this episode, I went in fully expecting to hatewatch for 45 minutes. Imagine my surprise when I began to practically enjoy myself. The episode is campy and more than a little cringe worthy, but it still has its distinct pleasures.
After an arduous trip dropping off some colonists on an uninhabited planet, the crew of the Enterprise is itching for some shore leave. Luckily they find a sailor’s delight on the planet Rubicun III, where the simple humanoid inhabitants play and frolic and, well, to put it as grossly as possible, make the beast with two backs. A lot. The crew seems fairly eager to get to work “discovering new civilizations” as it were, especially Lt. Yar, who apparently will take whatever lovin’ she can get. Warf not so much – he claims he needs a Klingon woman for sexual satisfaction, as humanoids are too fragile to undergo the intensity of his techniques. If the whole set up sounds like the makings of a softcore porno you would find playing on Cinemax in the wee hours, well, it certainly looks and feels like one. The women of Rubicun are all dressed in skimpy outfits and bear the unsightly blonde curls that people inexplicably found sexy in the ’80s. The men are little Aryan beefcakes, too. The people run everywhere, laugh and play, and are as sexually inhibited as rabbits. Everything feels soft focused and pleasantly hazy. What a paradise of sexual freedom!
Even Wesley Crusher: Boy Wonder gets lucky. Sort of almost. He runs off to play with the Rubicun children, and the girl in the group decides she wants Wesley to play ball with her. WINK. Except she means it literally, and when poor Boy Wonder goes running after a long pass, he crashes into a bed of flowers. Which, you know, no big deal, even if it is forbidden by law to hurt the new flowers. Must cost like, a couple dollars to replace all that.
…EXCEPT that Rubicun law dictates that any crime committed, if it takes place in a randomly assigned “Punishment Zone” (WINK) gets punished the only way the Rubicubes know how: WITH DEATH. But hey, who can blame them? Keeps the crime rates down, and the property values up.
Meanwhile aboard the Enterprise, the remaining crew (Picard – too busy for sex; Dr. Crusher – still mourning her husband?; Data – an android [though we've seen how knowledgeable he is in te erotica, the art of love, thanks to Lt. Yar]; and Geordi – hey, why doesn’t the blind guy get to have any fun?) encounters a strange signal. They find that there is a life form nearby, sort of, because it’s half in their dimension and half in another, or something. It does what it wants, basically, because it’s super evolved. One of those things that it does because it can is pretend that it is the god of the Rubicubes, who worship it with fear and trembling.
This is where we get into the patented Star Trek ethics part of the episode, with Picard wringing his hands over the choice between obeying the Prime Directive and saving the son of the woman he’d clearly like to make like a Rubicube with. The Rubicubes themselves seem to regret the trouble they are causing, but want to stick with their traditions at any cost. Oh, yeah, there it is: inferior species believes in a god and has arbitrary and evil laws. Let’s all boohoo for a while. This is of course classic TNG liberal paternalism, but at least it’s handled with a lighter touch than, say, “Code of Honor”. The “god” wants the Enterprise to obey its own rules, but eventually allows them to rescue Wesley because Picard and Riker make a motivational speech about exceptions to rules and there being no set rulebook. Blah blah blah.
Ethics of national sovereignty aside, I thought this episode was a fairly fun trifle. It breezed by and had enough good moments in it to register as pleasant on my scale. It’s pretty campy, but fun campy. And, like most campgrounds, it features a lot of pitched tents.
Data’s Quest to Be Human Update: “Lonely” of course features Data’s aces Sherlock impersonation. In”Justice”, Picard tells Data that he babbles too much and Data realizes, why yes he does babble too much.
Wesley Crusher Hideous Sweater Fan Club Weekly Notes: That orange abomination from last time makes another appearance in “Lonely”, while Wes sports a fear inducing brown “sporty sweater” for running amongst the Rubicubean children.
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