#consider that other than Data when I first restarted TNG

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Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 7 (1 of 6)

At last, we’ve come to the final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which inevitably kicks off with the resolution to the season 6 cliff-hanger…

Episode 1: Descent

Plot (as given by me):

Captain Picard, Counsellor Troi and Lt. Commander La Forge are taken prisoner by the individualised Borg led by Lore, who apparently found the Borg in disarray after the return of Hugh disrupted their hive mind. Believing lifeforms like himself are superior to organics, Lore is attempting to help the Borg become fully artificial, and has now enlisted Data to aid them. As the trio are taken prisoner, Data relieves La Forge of his VISOR; while Lore explains to Data that the connections La Forge uses for his VISOR will aid them in their experiments, La Forge has a separate explanation. His VISOR could detect a carrier wave from Data to Lore; this is being used to feed Data certain emotions from the emotion chip Lore stole a few years ago, and has also disabled Data’s ethics programming.

 On board the Enterprise, Dr Crusher remains in command as the Borg ship emerges from the far side of the planet. She manages to beam up much of the crew, but 47 people remain stranded on the planet, including Data, Picard’s team, Commander Riker and Lt. Worf. On Riker’s orders, Crusher takes the Enterprise back to the transwarp conduit, but rather than heading back to Federation space, Crusher orders a message buoy sent through the conduit in their stead. She then orders the ship back to the planet to try and beam up the remaining crew members. On the surface, Riker and Worf head off together while the other away teams are advised to scatter into cover and avoid all contact with the Borg.

 Riker and Worf are soon found by a group of Borg, but these Borg are dissidents against Lore’s rule led by Hugh, the Borg the Enterprise crew managed to return to individuality. Hugh explains how Lore exploited the weakened and confused Borg to his own ends, and that his deadly experiments in making the Borg purely cybernetic life forced himself and others underground. Hugh is resentful of Starfleet for this, and while he is willing to give Riker and Worf some information to help them save his friend La Forge, he is not willing to risk direct confrontation with Lore.

 In orbit, the Enterprise returns and manages to beam back most of the missing away teams, leaving only the senior staff unaccounted for. As the Borg ship pursues the Enterprise, Dr Crusher orders the ship into the corona of the planet’s sun, using the metaphasic shielding developed by Dr Reyga to protect the ship. Acting on the suggestion of junior science officer Ensign Taitt, they then use the tractor beam emitters to generate a particle beam that triggers a solar eruption, destroying the Borg ship and enabling the Enterprise to return to the planet unmolested. Meanwhile, Picard and Troi manage to implement an idea of La Forge’s to trigger an energy pulse that restarts Data’s ethical programming. This happens just in time to prevent Data doing irreversible damage to his friend in Lore’s experiments, prompting him to return La Forge to his cell with the others.

 Lore soon learns of Data’s wavering determination, and attempts to use his control over the emotions Data receives to assert dominance. However, not sure if this has worked, Lore then asks Data to kill Picard. When Data refuses, Lore plans to kill Data in front of their Borg followers, but Hugh suddenly rushes forward to stop him. At the same time, Riker and Worf appear, strafing the room with phase fire as the Lore loyalists and Hugh’s dissidents clash with each other. In the ensuing chaos, Lore attempts to flee, but he is pursued by Data, who fires on and then deactivates Lore. Hugh is then left to try and organise the remaining individualised Borg into a new society free of Lore’s influence, and the Enterprise returns to Federation space. Data, having retrieved the damaged emotion chip from Lore before he was dismantled, prepares to destroy it to prevent his actions causing harm in the future, but La Forge stops him. La Forge explains that he can’t let Data give up on his life-long dream of having emotions, and insists on holding onto the chip for Data in hopes that one day he’ll be ready to use the chip properly.

Review:

This is a pretty decent follow-up to the part 1 episode that ended the season before, though not as good as perhaps it could have been in some respects. We basically have three plot threads to shift between throughout this episode; the Data-Lore dynamic, what happened to the Borg as a result of the original incident with Hugh in ‘I, Borg” and Crusher having to command the Enterprise.  So, let’s look at each of these in that order.

 Data’s story is, for me, not as good as it could have been.  For a start, rather than following up on my suppositions about Data from part 1, namely that Data’s reaction to having emotion was akin to an addiction reaction, the show gives him a cop-out and says ‘oh, he has a program that governs his ethics and that’s shut down’.  To my mind, that makes Data’s situation far less relatable than if the emotions were just overwhelming him, either from his sudden exposure to them or Lore not giving him the full program.  Real people don’t have programs that make us act good, so why do artificial lifeforms, and why are those programs so black-and-white?  It’s like the moment any sci-fi writers gives ethics to machines, they make it binary and don’t allow for any of the grey areas of morality humans enjoy.  Surely if Dr Soong made Data to be so human that he had the appearance of breathing, a pulse and hair growth, you’d think he would build into Data the ability to have a fully human morality and not the strict binary one of a machine.

 The one real upside to Data’s story in this episode is that it ultimately sets up his character arc in the first of the TNG films, where he is finally able to use his emotion chip where the TV show purposely forced him not to use it.  In that respect, the episode helps somewhat with the oft-absent element of continuity and consistency within TNG, which is something that comes to light when we look at the question of Hugh and the other Borg in this episode.  The TNG film First Contact and episodes of Star Trek: Voyager would establish the idea of the Borg Queen, who would effectively control and regulate the Borg collective consciousness.  Moreover, First Contact suggests the Borg Queen was in place during Picard’s time as Locutus of Borg during the ‘Best of Both Worlds’ two-part episode spanning seasons 3 and 4.

 Now, given all of that, I find it hard to believe the entire vessel Hugh was taken aboard after the events of the ‘I, Borg’ episode could be individualised as they were.  Part of the Borg Queen’s duties would be to purge any thoughts deemed as irrelevant or harmful to the hive mind, and considering that individuality and freedom would be considered as both in a hive-mind society, there should have been no way that this could have happened if things were working as they’re supposed to.  Frankly, I think this should have been followed up later in this series or on Voyager to explain the why of it.  Was the Borg ship that retrieved Hugh somehow cut off from the hive-mind?  Did the hive-mind not work as I’ve noted until after the events of this episode?  This is the sort of problem that being an episodic TV show by conception brings up; a total lack of proper consistent continuity with proper in-series, on-screen exposition for every detail, no matter how apparently minute or irrelevant.

 The only real compensating factor is it gives Lore a chance to play the Hitler/Trump of the individualised Borg; take one group that is weakened, confused and ready to accept salvation in any form, add someone morally bankrupt enough to exploit that opportunity, and the result is inevitable, and ultimately polarises the exploited group until the group with a conscience rises up over the side without one.  In essence, Lore’s part in this story is a cautionary tale about being wary of accepting salvation from anyone who offers it to the desperate; sometimes that salvation is genuine, but more often than not it’s someone in power looking to exploit those without power.

 Finally, we have the whole ‘Crusher in command’ situation, which isn’t really that well developed to my mind.  It adds some extra continuity by having the metaphasic shielding from the episode ‘Suspicions’ make a come-back, which I suspect is part of why Crusher is in command of the ship for part 2, and the same actor who played the man trying to steal the shielding prototype in ‘Suspicions’ actually plays one of the substitute bridge officers in this episode.  I think in the end it’s really only worked to for that and three other reasons, not all of which were probably intended.  First, it gave Dr Crusher’s character something to do in while everyone else was somewhere on the planet.  Second, it helps to set up the future timeline in the show’s finale, and the third reason is to help with the Voyager set-up.

 The 1993-1994 season for the Trek shows was apparently the busiest year ever noted for Trek; not only were TNG and DS9 in active production on their seventh and second seasons respectively, but TNG was going to go straight from doing their series to making a feature film with only a week’s break in between, and a new show was being developed to take over TNG’s position as a ship-based Trek show.  That series, of course, was Voyager, and it was ultimately going to be the first show where the commanding officer would be a captain.  As such, I suspect that engineering situations in TNG where Crusher and Troi could take command or a female officer of high rank could come up were probably as much to lay the groundwork for Voyager as other concepts like the Maquis or Native American tribes having dedicated colonies along the border with the Cardassians.

 The bottom line is the episode is pretty good, but falls short of what part 1 gave us.  Overall, I’d give this one 8 out of 10.

Episode 2: Liaisons

Plot (adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise welcomes two Iyaaran ambassadors, Loquel and Byleth, who are visiting the ship as part of a "cultural exchange" that will also send Captain Picard to their planet. Before Picard departs, he assigns Counsellor Troi to act as Loquel's liaison and asks Commander Riker to do the same for Byleth. But Byleth has other ideas, and instead demands that Lt. Worf serve as his shipboard guide. Soon afterward, Picard departs for the Iyaaran homeworld with Voval, the Iyaaran shuttle pilot, who is gruff and uncommunicative. Their awkward silence is disrupted by a malfunction aboard their ship. Crashing on an unknown planet, Voval receives a concussion, but Picard is seemingly unhurt. He decides to seek help outside, but falls to the ground trying to traverse the planet's stormy surface. While he lies unconscious, someone silently drags him away.

 Picard awakens on the distant planet in a small, dimly-lit cargo cabin. He is approached by a solemn, attractive human woman who informs him that Voval did not survive the crash. Picard learns that the woman's name is Anna and that she is the sole survivor of a Terellian cargo freighter crash that occurred seven years before. After Anna tells him that he has three broken ribs, he sends her to retrieve the shuttlecraft's com panel to send a distress signal.

 Back on the Enterprise, Troi has introduced Loquel to dessert, and Loquel is so intrigued that even the next morning he is drinking sweet juice. Worf has had about all he can take of his abrasive, demanding guest. Riker decides that the tension might be eased by a "friendly" game of poker. The game is anything but "friendly," and Worf realizes that Byleth is stealing chips. Before long, Worf loses control and, despite Riker's insistence that he calm down, attacks his guest. But instead of getting angry, Byleth is pleased. He expresses admiration for Worf's display of anger and politely excuses himself to document the experience, leaving everyone confused (with the exception of Loquel, who is still revelling in his dessert).

 Meanwhile, Anna brings the transmitter module back to her cargo ship, and admits to Picard she accidentally destroyed it, using a phaser blast to remove it from the shuttle. Picard is then shocked when Anna suddenly kisses him and tells him she loves him. Picard becomes enraged at Anna when he realizes that his ribs are not really broken, and the woman, who continues to beg for his love, is actually holding him captive. He angrily alerts Anna to his discovery, at which point she becomes distraught over failing to gain his affection and rushes out the door, breaking off her necklace and locking Picard inside. Voval comes and opens the door, and talks to Picard.

 Voval explains that he only appeared to be dead because, when Iyaarans are injured, their metabolic rate slows in order to promote healing. He and Picard set off in search of Anna, eventually separating. Picard finds her at the edge of a cliff, threatening to commit suicide if he does not tell her that he loves her. When he notices that Anna is again wearing her necklace and that Voval has again disappeared, Picard senses that something strange is going on and tells Anna to go ahead and jump. At that moment, she transforms herself back into Voval, who explains that he is not really a pilot, but an Iyaaran ambassador. He staged the crash in order to study the emotion of love, non-existent on the Iyaaran homeworld, by using Picard as a subject; the scenario was based on a journal left behind by a survivor on the cargo ship, a human woman. Similarly, Loquel and Byleth were sent to experience pleasure and antagonism, respectively. Picard is taken aback at first, but upon returning to the Enterprise, acknowledges the experiments of the three ambassadors as being productive.

 Upon their departure, Worf and Byleth inform Riker of their marathon eleven-hour session in the holodeck doing battle exercises, which has enabled Byleth to explore the concept of "antagonism" in a less destructive manner. Loquel offers a sampling of Iyaaran nourishment to Troi as a token of his appreciation, but apologizes that it is not as delicious as the dessert he has enjoyed while in Troi's company. Troi accepts the food, stating that the volume of dessert they have consumed has surpassed even her threshold, and she will be quite content to eat something bland.

Review:

This episode is basically Trek doing an homage to/ riff on the Stephen King story Misery, so for any Stephen King fans who are also Trekkies, this is probably an episode they’ll enjoy, or at least the Picard-centric plot that carries those elements.  The other side of the episode is a B-plot aboard the Enterprise that ultimately links back up with Picard’s plot when it’s explained to be three ambassadors trying to experience certain aspects of humanity, based on a journal recovered from a cargo ship long before anyone from Starfleet encountered this alien race.

 Leaving aside how cringe-worthy a lot of moments in the B-plot were, my main problem with this episode is when Picard suggests the aliens have been taking a direct approach.  I’m sorry, but having one ambassador pose as a human woman, another stuff themselves silly with all things sweet and the third go around spoiling for a fight with no initial explanation is not being direct.  Being direct would be all three coming the Enterprise and saying ‘right, we’ve found this journal, we don’t understand these concepts, can you demonstrate them to us?’  The crew could then have set up holodeck programs, given them access to human literature on the subjects, perhaps even organised some discreet social observation in Ten-Forward.  That is being direct, and these aliens were nothing of the kind, and I can tell because as an autistic person I always want to take the most direct route in almost every situation I’m in, and anything even slightly indirect isn’t direct at all.

 This being said, I do agree with Picard’s comment about how it can sometimes be a refreshing change of pace to explore something to a limit rather just having a ‘little go’.  There are things I’ve come across in life that I’ve sometimes wished to take further than most people would necessarily take them, and it’s very annoying that all too often finding kindred spirits in such areas can be almost impossible.  For example, for most people casual adult relationships are part of being young and then abandoned as part of complying with the societal expectation to ‘settle down and commit’.  Me, I spent all of my teens and early 20’s focused on the committed relationship idea, but have since abandoned that as not for me, only to find that there is no easy or obvious way into exploring casual adult relationships in a way that works for me and my particular circumstances.

 So, in summation, the episode has at least one good point to make and doesn’t do too bad a job with the Picard story, but the B-plot and the mischaracterisation of the approach taken by the ambassadors just rubs me the wrong way.  I therefore give this episode only 6 out of 10.

Episode 3: Interface

Plot (as given by me):

Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge tests out a probe with an interface suit control system; the suit allows Geordi to perceive whatever the probe senses and direct its actions as if he were there in person (represented on-screen by Geordi appearing in place of the probe and seeing through human eyes). The probe works, though the level of sensory input from the probe has to be carefully controlled to avoid feedback to Geordi. The idea is that the probe will be able to enter environments where it is unsafe for the members of the Enterprise crew to go.

 As preparations to use the probe to any survivors and data from the USS Raman proceed, the ship having become trapped in the atmosphere of a gas giant, Captain Picard receives news from Deep Space 3 that the USS Hera has disappeared and is presumed lost with all hands. The vessel was under the command of Geordi’s mother, Captain Silva La Forge, and Picard is forced to relay the news to him. Despite the news, Geordi insists on proceeding with the probe mission; he confirms no one is left alive aboard the Raman, but during the probe’s investigation, a fire breaks out and the neural feedback results in Geordi’s hands being burned.

 Picard wants to still retrieve data from the Raman, but not at the expense of Geordi’s safety, and Geordi assures him he can modify the interface to prevent any further danger to himself. While the modifications are made and the probe moved to another part of the Raman, Geordi learns from his father that a memorial will take place for the Hera on Vulcan, as the ship’s crew were mostly Vulcans. Edward La Forge also wants their family to hold a separate ceremony for Silva, but Geordi believes this to be premature and is determined not to give up on the possibility that his mother is alive. This possibility is then further reinforced for Geordi when, during his next use of the probe, he sees his mother aboard the Raman. She claims that she and her crew are trapped deeper in the atmosphere, but the neural input levels become too high and Geordi is forced to disconnect as he goes into neural shock.

 Geordi is convinced he saw his mother, but the rest of the crew is sceptical, and Picard orders him not only to avoid using the interface suit, but also to see Counsellor Troi. Troi suggests that Geordi may be creating a fantasy that his mother is still alive to avoid guilt over not taking an opportunity to see her a few weeks ago, which Geordi dismisses. Later, a plan is agreed to retrieve the Raman using a relay system of tractor beams; Geordi also tries to convince the captain that his mother’s ship could be trapped deeper into the atmosphere despite having last been heard of some distance away, but Lt. Commander Data is forced to note his friend’s theory is almost impossible. Commander Riker then tries to empathise with Geordi, having lost his own mother when he was a baby, but Geordi retorts that Riker’s mother was definitely dead, and there was conclusive evidence of this fact; the Hera is just missing, could be trapped in the gas giant’s atmosphere, and Geordi refuses to give up on her.

 Geordi opts to take one last stab at using the interface suit against orders, and manages to cajole Data into assisting, and even into raising the neural input levels to a dangerously high levels, as he tries to take the Raman lower into the atmosphere. However, it soon becomes apparent that the Hera is not there, and it is not his mother that Geordi has been seeing. As Picard and Dr Crusher arrive, having learned of Geordi’s efforts, Geordi learns that the Raman accidentally picked up some kind of subspace life-forms that lived in the gas giant’s atmosphere. They tried to communicate mentally with the ship’s crew, but accidentally killed them in doing so, whereas the use of the probe and the interface suit shielded Geordi and allowed him to perceive the alien message as his mother. Geordi takes the Raman low enough into the atmosphere for the aliens to escape, and narrowly avoids dying from neural overload in the process.

 Afterwards, Picard reprimands Geordi for disobeying orders, but expresses regret that he wasn’t able to find his mother. Geordi notes that while the entity he encountered wasn’t his mother, the experience did enable him to say goodbye to his mother in his own way.

Review:

According to the Mission Overview: Year Seven featurette on the TNG Blu-ray boxed set, this seventh season became known as the ‘Family season’ because all/most of the main cast of characters had a family member or two show up at some point in the season.  We certainly began the series in that vein with having to resolve the Data-Lore sibling story in the Descent two-part episode, and this episode continues that by bringing in Geordi’s parents and mentioning that he has a sister.  It’s a great change for Geordi-centric episodes, because he’s usually spending the episodes centred on himself either floundering romantically, dealing with the latest engineering crisis of the week, or both.

 That said, I have to agree with Geordi’s original attitude of ‘no body, no death’.  Part of that is down to the later Trek series Voyager dealing with a ship that ‘disappears’, and is officially declared lost but which is actually in one piece and trying to get home as soon as it can.  If that could happen to Voyager, and could also happen to at least one other Federation ship that appears in that series, then surely it could also have happened to the Hera.  Another part is that as a superhero comics fan, the absence of a body following a death often means any character who has ‘died’ in such a manner will ultimately return, and even some who have left a body behind don’t actually die.

 However, the biggest part is that we’re dealing with humans in a very science-governed, secularist world for humanity.  Because of that, I find it strange to buy into the idea of a failed search meaning a ship gets written off as dead.  No evidence of the ship means you have no proof it’s actually destroyed, and I have a hard time believing a crew that routinely doesn’t believe anything it can’t scan, analyse and quantify would just buy into the idea that lost ship equals dead ship.  The problem with this story is it started life around the probe concept and just swapped out Riker (who was the protagonist of the original draft) for Geordi.  To my mind, they should have either taken that out or focused it more on La Forge convincing the ship to find the Hera, and then maybe used the probe in its rescue. That, to my mind, would have been a better episode and more consistent with a science-minded crew.  Got a missing ship?  Go look for it and confirm definitively that it is still ok or not; don’t just be lazy and assume after a few days of just searching one tiny bit of space that it’s gone.  Some areas of Trek may have room for faith, but the human side is always the scientific side, and that side goes on proof, not belief based on an absence of data.

 I also disagree with something I’ve read on Memory Alpha for this episode; apparently, some of the show’s writers felt this episode marked the moment when they felt TNG really had to end, because they were having to bring out the family members of the main characters to get plots.  To my mind, that’s not a mark of creative burn-out; if you’ve got some issue to explore or character to develop and bringing on a family member helps that, great. That’s Trek being Trek, as opposed to just dealing with a random sci-fi concept of the week with no issue exploration or character development involved.  In true Trek, the sci-fi is window-dressing for something topical, something character-centric or both, and if the writers on TNG felt that anything true Trek was a mark of creative burnout, my thinking is they needed to be writing for anything other than Trek.  Anyway, final score for this episode, 7 out of 10.

Episode 4: Gambit (Part 1)

Review (as given by me):

The senior staff of the Enterprise investigate the disappearance of Captain Picard via undercover means, and discover he was apparently killed in a bar fight on Dessica II. With Commander Riker now acting captain, he convinces Starfleet command to allow the Enterprise to investigate so that Picard’s killers can be brought to justice. Riker interrogates the witness they have brought on board, and he explains the group responsible are a mercenary band who would kill him for divulging too much information. However, when Riker threatens to turn the man over to the Klingon authorities regarding several outstanding warrants, he reveals that the group mentioned the Barradas system as their next destination.

 When the Enterprise reaches that system, Riker leads an away team to the surface of Barradas III over the objection of his acting first officer Lt. Commander Data. They encounter the mercenaries amid some ruins on the surface, and a firefight ensues, during which Riker is knocked out and abducted by transporter. A ship subsequently flees the planet, and the Enterprise tries to pursue, only to swiftly lose the ship from their long-range sensors despite being fast than the mercenary ship. They soon learn from Starfleet intelligence that the ship has raided numerous archaeological sites in their sector, and is made of a material that is energy-absorbent, making it undetectable to long-range sensors. With Data now acting captain, away teams are sent back down to the planet to try and find clues to help them locate the mercenaries.

 Meanwhile, Riker finds that the mercenary ship is led by a man named Arctus Baran, who uses devices known as neuro servos to control the crew. The servos are wired into each crew member’s nervous system at the neck and can cause them any level of pain Baran chooses if he wishes to punish them. Riker has been fitted with one himself, and he is stunned when he sees that one of Baran’s crew is actually Captain Picard, alive and claiming to be a smuggler called Galen. Picard manages to help Riker by dropping hints that he should play a version of himself on the verge of leaving Starfleet due to his chequered past, and then sets up an engine failure that Riker is uniquely experienced to easily solve.

 While the crew of the Enterprise deduce the mercenaries are heading for Calder II and begin moving to intercept them, Picard meets with Riker in private about Baran’s ship. Apparently, when Picard found an archaeological site on Dessica II had been ransacked, he went looking for those responsible. Due to the mercenaries having weapons that could double as teleportation devices, his abduction was mistaken by witnesses for him being vapourised. Picard then pretended to be a smuggler called Galen to get inside Baran’s operation. The mercenaries are striking specific sites looking for a specific artefact, and Galen is responsible for helping Baran to identify their prize; however, Baran has not revealed much about what they are seeking, only a particular particle signature that their prize will be a match for.

 Picard instructs Riker to act as a rival to his character of Galen, who is already at odds with Baran, so that Riker can gain Baran’s confidence. Riker agrees. Later, as the mercenaries plan their assault on Calder II, Picard suggests they use Riker to talk their way past the staff manning a Federation science station on the planet, thereby enabling them to seize the next set of artefacts without engaging in battle. Tallera, Baran’s top lieutenant and supposedly a Romulan, supports the plan, and Baran agrees, but he insists the crew be ready to fight just in case the plan fails.

 At Calder II, the plan goes awry as the Enterprise has sent word to the science station to try and delay the mercenary ship. Baran is prepared to go straight to attacking, but Picard intervenes, using a phase-resonant pulse to disable the facility’s shields. They manage to beam up half the artefacts before the base shields are restored, and any attempt to attack is then forestalled by the arrival of the Enterprise. Baran holds Riker at gunpoint and demands he make the Enterprise withdraw. When Data initially refuses to obey the order, Riker sends his command codes. The codes are invalid as they were changed following Riker’s capture; knowing that the commander would be aware of this, Data realises it is part of a ruse and orders the shields to be lowered.  Baran then orders his ship to fire on the Enterprise, and multiple disruptor blasts begin to strike the ship’s starboard warp nacelle.

Review:

This episode is the last in a trio of mid-season two-part episodes that have been major events in the last two seasons of the show.  However, in a manner similar to the first of the sixth season two-parters, ‘Chain of Command’, ‘Gambit’ shakes up the status quo of the Enterprise for its duration. First, we have Picard supposedly being killed off, and then Riker gets kidnapped, so all of a sudden neither of our normal commanders are in the driving seat.  It’s quite interesting in this regard because it gives Data a chance to rise to the fore and show a bit more of what he can do as a commander. We’ve only seen this a couple of times before; once way back in ‘The Ensigns of Command’, and then again in the second part of the season-bridging two-part episode ‘Redemption’.  We don’t get much of what Data can do in this line in part 1, but the premise still holds a lot of promise at this point.

 Second, we get Riker playing just a slightly disgraced version of himself on the fly while Picard is very much undercover, calling back to episodes like ‘Captain’s Holiday’ and ‘Starship Mine’ in terms of making Picard a bit more rounded and action-capable rather than always being the ‘talky and cerebral’ character he initially appeared to be on this show. It’s fun to see, especially Patrick Stewart playing Picard who, in turn, is pretending to be Galen.

 Apparently, the show concept went against one of Roddenberry’s rules, which was that Trek wouldn’t have any ‘space pirates’, and producer Rick Berman was among those initially opposed to developing this episode, thinking it was going to be a ‘campy’ episode, which he felt the show didn’t do well at all.  However, speaking as someone whose idea of camp is usually Kenneth Williams in Carry On films or Round The Horne, or the horrid 1960’s Batman played by Adam West, this episode was nothing of the kind.  This was a good, serious episode that was giving a lot of the characters a bit of something different to do, which for some would effectively develop them to small degrees.  Also, why not have mercenaries in the Trek universe; humanity is meant to have gotten its act together, and that’s fair enough, but not every other race has. Moreover, just because the bulk of a society ends up working ok, that doesn’t mean you get rid of everything naff in it.  Yet again, we get an episode that’s refreshing just for tempering the raw Roddenberry idealism this show started out with.

 Overall, I give part 1 about 8 out of 10; good as it is, there’s a lot of set up, not much development and certainly no issue exploration as yet, so it’s not quite up to maximum warp yet.

Episode 5: Gambit (Part 2)

Plot (as given by me):

The damage to the Enterprise is negligible, and Data orders that the Enterprise play along, simulating certain battle damage and returning fire with minimal power. Aboard the mercenary ship, Picard likewise claims more damage is being inflicted on them than is actually being done. Nonetheless convinced by the subterfuge, Baran orders their ship to withdraw, and much to Lt. Worf’s consternation, Data does not order pursuit, believing Commander Riker would not want them to do so as part of his ruse. Instead, he orders Lt. Commander La Forge and Counsellor Troi to review the transmission sent by Riker for any additional information.

 On board the mercenary ship, Riker and Picard continue to pretend to be rivals. Picard soon identifies the artefact Baran has been seeking amid those they stole from Calder II, which interrupts Tallera from interrogating Picard about his antagonism towards Riker. Baran is speaking with Riker when the news comes in, and he informs Riker that Galen will soon out-live his usefulness; once Galen has verified a second artefact they are en route to collect, Baran will no longer need him. Riker is acting as if he now needs a new career, given his own actions at Calder II, and Baran notes he could use a man like Riker, but to earn the position, Riker will have to kill Galen when the time comes.

 The analysis of Riker’s message indicates the mercenaries are heading for the Hyralan sector; Worf estimates it will take them 15 hours to reach it while La Forge notes the Enterprise could reach it in 5 hours. When Data orders the Enterprise to head to the location, Worf voices a notable irritation at his commander’s apparent slowness to order any kind of pursuit or interception. Data takes Worf into the Ready Room and explains this kind of behaviour is unacceptable if he is to serve as acting first officer, as no first officer should ever show impatience or irritation about an order in front of the crew. Offered the choice of returning to tactical and letting La Forge be first officer, Worf declines and agrees to keep performing his duty, and the two officers also resolve not to let the incident tarnish their friendship.

 Riker and Picard confer, and Riker explains Baran has ordered him to get close to Picard’s alter ego of Galen to root out any crew members who might object in the event of Galen being killed. Picard, in turn, reveals that the artefacts they are gathering are not Romulan as they originally suspected, but are in fact Vulcan. The second component is being delivered by a Klingon courier to the Hyralan sector, which the mercenaries are en route to. Picard begins trying to sound out the crew regarding who might support him in staging a mutiny, and he is soon confronted by Tallera, who demands to know who Picard really is. Tallera reveals she is not actually a Romulan, but a Vulcan security operative named T’Paal, which prompts Picard to reveal his own true identity.

 T'Paal explains that the artefact the mercenaries are seeking is the Stone of Gol, a weapon of ancient Vulcan known as a psionic resonator, which was dismantled when the Vulcan people embraced logic and turned their backs on violence. The weapon is apparently being sought by Vulcan isolationists who believe that to keep Vulcan culture ‘pure’, their world must withdraw from contact with all alien species. T’Paal claims her mission is to prevent the weapon being reassembled at any cost.  Meanwhile, the Enterprise has intercepted the Klingon shuttle in the Hyralan system and brought it aboard, feigning a health and safety inspection in an effort to search the vessel without violating the Klingon-Federation treaty.

 When the mercenary ship arrives, Baran orders a raiding party board the ship to find the Klingon pilot and obtain the second artefact; Riker is assigned to the party to assuage Galen’s doubts about his loyalty, but in reality Baran wants Riker to kill Galen when the mission is completed. The party initially beams into the shuttle bay, where they learn the pilot must still be carrying the artefact and is currently in the observation lounge. Riker stuns Worf and Dr Crusher, then uses a shuttle’s transporter to beam the raiding part to the observation lounge. There, the second artefact is retrieved and Picard pretends to shoot Riker dead, beaming away with the mercenaries.

 Back on the mercenary ship, Picard leads his little mutiny against Baran as Galen. Baran tries to kill him using the remote for the neural servos, but only succeed in killing himself; somehow Picard managed to switch their transponder codes, ensuring Baran would only hurt himself if he used the device again. Picard destroys the remote, and then orders the ship to Vulcan. Riker, meanwhile, contacts Vulcan security to update them on the situation, only to learn they have no operative aboard the mercenary ship. Picard begins to deduce this for himself when he sees Tallera’s reaction to informing her that he asked Riker to notify the Vulcans.

 At Vulcan, Picard tries to make Tallera beam down with only one artefact, which results in both of their ruses being uncovered. As the mercenaries are only concerned with being paid, they decide to beam down to Vulcan with Tallera and Picard, where their payment is supposedly waiting. Once paid, they will leave, killing Picard in the event they don’t need him as a hostage against Starfleet. On the surface, Tallera adds a third piece to the other two and re-assembles the psionic resonator, which she then uses to kill the two mercenaries. However, when she tries to use it on Picard and an away team from the Enterprise that arrives not long after, it fails. This is because Picard deduces the resonator relies on violent thoughts to be effective; a mind at peace renders one impervious to the weapon.

 The resonator is later destroyed as Tallera and the remaining mercenaries are taken into custody. Back on the Enterprise, Picard tries to resume command, but Riker notes that since the captain has been declared dead, he cannot give orders. Data notes that by the same token, Riker has been declared a renegade and is also unable to take command. Picard therefore opts to retire for the night and jokingly suggests Data take Riker to the brig. Data, not apparently understanding that Picard was joking, then begins to escort Riker to the brig.

Review:

For me, part 2 was a pretty decent follow-up to part 1.  Picard and Riker are brilliant across both parts, and we get to see a lot more done in terms of having Data and Worf in command of the Enterprise.  This is especially interesting because Data is having to reprimand Worf for an emotional outburst in a way that seems slightly emotion driven, yet Data currently has no emotions following the events of the ‘Descent’ two-part episode.  It’s strange how at times the show has had Data approximate emotion without actually feeling it, because while it keeps the character interesting, it blurs the line about Data’s ability to feel a bit too much.  In many ways, this is why I ultimately came to prefer the Doctor on Voyager to Data in terms of AI characters; with him, at least emotion was bake-dried in from the start.

 It’s also interesting, and yet also puzzling, that Worf would be the first officer under Data’s command.  He’s only a lieutenant at this stage, whereas La Forge and Troi are both Lt. Commanders and Dr Crusher is a full-fledged commander who was captaining the ship right at the start of the season.  I think the episode should have set aside a moment or two to explain Data’s decision in this regard.  Why have the main cast character who is lowest in rank serve as acting first officer when you’ve got three officers of higher rank in that same main cast to pick from?  It just doesn’t strike me as logical.

 The second part also picks up some points for at least trying to be true Trek from the issue exploration side, as it tries to put forward a message of peace through the idea that the artefacts form a psychic weapon that can’t hurt anyone thinking peaceful thoughts. It’s certainly in the tradition of Roddenberry, but more the unrealistic side of his idealism that irritates me than the side of it that you believe might be doable. I mean think peaceful thoughts to overcome one psychic weapon, fine. However, if anyone thinks that just thinking peaceful thoughts will make peace a reality, they’re out of their minds.

 The desire for peace has to be expressed through actions that create peace, or otherwise nothing gets done and the violent and war-mongering will steam-roller over the peace-lovers every time.  This is a basic point frequently made in franchises like the Transformers or some superhero lore; you’ll get one character who hates having to fight all the time and wants to give up, but by not fighting things are just made worse.  This is because inaction against violent, power-hungry villains doesn’t stop them; they still want to get their way and are still willing to do whatever they feel like to get it, and standing on the side-lines singing ‘we are the world’ isn’t going to matter diddly squat.  Only suiting up and opposing them makes a difference.

 So, all in all, the second part of ‘Gambit’ is a good episode, but not quite up to the best that Trek can be.  End score is another 8 out of 10.