After last week’s episodes, one half decent, the other a bit of a debacle, it’s nice to get two strong episodes of The Next Generation, including what is easily the best of the series so far.
Episode 5: The Last Outpost
In which a living portal stops the Enterprise in its tracks, and we meet everyone’s favorite Bernieing “Yankee Traders”, those spazmodic Ferengi.
The Last Outpost is a bit of a mixed bag, in my view. There is some really good stuff going on, but also some distractingly terrible stuff.
Let’s start with the bad. Apparently when launching The Next Generation, the show runners wanted to introduce a new alien race to antagonize Starfleet on a regular basis (given that the Enterprise features a Klingon office, presumably those guys got over whatever was bugging them in the original series). Their first attempt to do so centers on the Ferengi, a savagely capitalistic race of what Data refers to as “Yankee Traders”. AKA SPACE PIRATES. The Ferengi are an odd mix of “savage” customs and expressions (they apparently think the practice of clothing women is shameful, since it leads to the ultimate perversion of unclothing them later) and capitalist greed, willing as they are to lie and steal for the sake of profit. From what I understand the Ferengi really were intended as the overarching antagonists of the series, but the idea was quickly scrapped after the producers realized a few salient facts. Foremost among these is that the Ferengi are literally the most unterrifying species in the galaxy. First off, their name. I guess they were going for a fierce, fang-like vibe, but “Ferengi” sounds like a bargain basement Ferby knockoff shaped like a toadstool. Second, the Ferengi are consummately unterrifying in appearance. Short (even Tasha Yar notices their diminutive size) and with bulbous heads, they look like the aliens that run the space AV Club and get dumped into trash cans, not remorseless killers. Sure, they have sharp pointy teeth, but even these make them look more like meth-vampires than anything truly blood curdling. And, when they spring into action, they just sort of shake their arms as they move, like an army of spastic 10 year olds let loose at a high school dance. Also, I’m more than ready to get away from the whole “primitive civilizations” trope that the show keeps revisiting. Not holding my breath that that’s going to happen, but hope springs eternal.
Ferengi and their devious ways aside, I kind of liked this episode. In pursuit of a Ferengi vessel that has stolen Starfleet equipment, the Enterprise finds itself mysteriously stopped, with all power being slowly drained from the ship. They soon figure out that this draining comes not from the Ferengi (who are all too willing to surrender to the Enterprise because they think Picard is the one doing this to them) but from a nearby planet, the “last outpost” of a long crumbled empire. Riker and a few others beam onto the planet, where they must face off with Ferengi scouts (who were supposed to be helping them – DAMMIT FERENGI!) before meeting The Portal, who’s sort of like that one guy guarding the holy grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The Portal takes a liking to Riker, who quotes Sun Tzu at him, and he releases the ships from his grip before going back into hyper slumber.
The episode has a fun feel to it, and good pacing. The first third of the episode stays entirely on the Enterprise with the crew interacting – it takes 15 minutes for the Ferengi to make an appearance at all. Also, Data discovers the pull of the Chinese Finger Trap (in his endless quest to become more human) and hilarity ensues, of course. Overall not a bad episode at all.
Episode 6: Where No One Has Gone Before
In which Wesley Crusher, boy wonder, becomes the Chosen One. Or something.
Now THIS is what I’m talking about. One of the appealing things to me as an outsider looking in on the Star Trek universe is that, even though there are conflicts, they don’t dominate the narrative, so the show has more room for exploration and true sci fi. Contrast this with Star Wars which, for all its merits, only qualifies as a work of science fiction because of its extraterrestrial setting (the plotting and other elements owe as much to Westerns and old serials as they do to Asimov or Bradbury). “Where No One Has Gone Before” lacks threats from the outside and instead focuses on a ship lost in space. The episode works so well that it makes me confident in the future of the whole show.
The episode focuses on a battery of tests to be performed on the Enterprise to improve its warp speed. A blustering Starfleet physicist and his alien assistant come aboard. Though Kosinksi the physicist talks big, it soon becomes apparent (at least to Wesley) that the real power lies with his assistant. In the jump to warp speed something happens, and the Enterprise soon finds itself millions of light years away from its home galaxy, a distance that would normally take hundreds of years even at top speeds. Worse, Wesley’s alien friend has been phasing in and out of existence and, well, he’s not doing so hot.
Fantasies of what might have happened aboard an Enterprise cut off from its own civilization will have to wait for my upcoming fan fic reboot, Star Trek: The Donner Party, so suffice it to say they make it back, but not without collateral. “The Traveler”, as the tall dark mysterious alien is known, finally shuffles off this mortal coil to go back where he came from, which is… the future? Somewhere far away? An alternate dimension? The show leaves it intentionally vague, but The Traveler appears to be another of those near-omnipotent beings that the Enterprise seems to attract, though a good bit nicer than Q. He even tells Picard to take special care of Wesley, who’s a super groovy space cadet in his book and like the Mozart of engines or something. Also the Mozart of wearing hideous sweaters. Seriously, I’m going to start a fan club devoted to these sweaters. This episode’s offender was an outrageous orange affair, about 15 times too big for the kid.
Despite my late (that’s a handy portmanteau I invented for the term love/hate) relationship with Wesley, who sits at the center of the episode, I really loved this 45 minutes. The one strength of Wesley as a character is that he brings out the best of Picard, who has no idea how to behave around children. He can keep his cool in the midst of a space attack thingy, but put him in a room with an adolescent boy (especially one who’s mother makes Picard go to warp speed in his pants, if you know what I mean) and he just freezes up.
Beyond flummoxed Picard, I also really enjoyed the central concept of the episode. Drawn suuuuuuuuper far away from home, the Enterprise sits in a place where thoughts quite easily become reality. Warf’s old pet “cat” (note: Klingon cats are apparently giant boars with steampunk hairstyles) comes to visit, as does Picard’s dearly departed mother. But these are mere spectral images driven by the subconscious. The show does a good job playing around with this concept, showing how dangerous thought can be. My favorite sci fi ultimately reveals itself to be about mankind itself, and this episode achieves that level of thoughtfulness. Not quite Bradbury, perhaps, but a big improvement over pop-n-locking space pirates.
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