There was an urban legend going around awhile back about an entire intro class failing due to rampant, universal plagiarism, the kicker being the reveal that it was an ethics class. I’ve also heard a variant where criminals were getting caught illegally profiting off of resold ethics textbooks. That’s sort of what I was thinking about as I was working through this episode.

“Ethics” is, to my knowledge, considered a highlight of the fifth season. In Starlog‘s episode guide from the mid-1990s (which for the longest time was my primary insight into what conventional wisdom on any of these stories was) there was a little Starfleet emblem next to the title of this episode, an indication that this was one of the editors’ personal recommendations. Longtime readers of my guides will have doubtlessly picked up on my thoughts about this already: Typically when I go into this sort of background before I actually start analysing things it’s a sign that I disagree with it just about entirely. Well, I’m certainly not about to go against type now. I’ve tried to like this episode, many times, in fact. But I just can’t get passed the fact that the fundamental, well, ethical stand the story seems to be taking just seems so fundamentally wrongheaded. Not to mention how there’s some cratering characterization problems on display.

So I mean first of all, Worf gets paralyzed in the most humiliating way imaginable. He’s “distracted” because he was too busy thinking about losing to Deanna in poker? Seriously? That’s not a tragedy, that’s a black comedy farce, which would be one thing if that set the tone for the rest of the episode, but it doesn’t. And Worf is embarrassed about losing to Deanna in a game of skill and bluffing where she clearly played more strongly? That doesn’t strike me as the way an honour-bound warrior would react to losing to a worthy or superior opponent and sounds uncomfortably like Worf is just sexist (and given how he’s the favourite of the writing staff, particularly Ron Moore, that’s an avenue I’d rather not go down).

This naturally leads into the episode’s big “ethical” dilemma, and its big “ethical” screw-up. At least the subplot between Worf, Deanna, Alexander and Will (we’ll…come back to Will) basically amounts to an examination of paraplegia and the right to die. And Star Trek: The Next Generation handles both with all the trademark nuance it displayed in such classics as “Blood and Fire”, “Angel One” and “Violations”. I can’t actually think of a way this could have landed more spectacularly wrong had it been deliberately trying to: First of all equating disability with something like, say, total brain death is basically appalling from any angle you care to mention and completely goes against the moral of “The Masterpiece Society” from just a few weeks back. Even if you grant the analogy and buy this is a right to die situation, which I very much do not advise you do, the central philosophical standpoint here still doesn’t work, what with every other character yelling and screaming about how cowardly and shameful assisted suicide is, especially when it’s apparently a sacred tenet of Klingon society.…

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OK, OK, we’ll cut to the chase. No-one is pretending “Power Play” is anything other than a rollicking action show. There’s really not a whole lot more under the surface here than that. But damn is it ever a good one. Michael Piller seemed to think this was a hollow, empty and effectively mediocre outing, but even if it’s not as openly provocative as Star Trek: The Next Generation can get on its best days, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a whole lot to love in “Power Play”.

The first obvious thing to say about it is that it’s plainly an actor showcase episode, and it’s very probably the best damn actor showcase episode this show ever does. It takes three of the best talents out of an already preternaturally talented cast, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner and Colm Meaney (and with the utmost respect to the other actors, all of whom I deeply adore, they are) and just lets them run completely wild for 45 minutes: Because of them (as well as the episode’s ample direction that works seamlessly with them), this never for one moment stops being positively gripping. Marina Sirtis is obviously the biggest draw here, and this is the moment she’s finally, at long, long last, allowed to come into her own and show us what she’s truly capable of. Now she finally has the chance to play the imperious hardass she’s always wanted to, and she absolutely owns and relishes every ounce and every second of it. As much as Marina Sirtis will say she appreciated and respected Deanna Troi’s empathy as a virtue and as an acting challenge, there’s just no way she’s not having a total blast here. We’re frankly sorry when it’s all over.

Colm Meaney gets to show off his range a little differently. His character starts off more of the muscle of the team and he’s perfectly capable of playing a hardened hired thug archetype, but the scripts give him these little moments where Miles’ personality starts to reassert itself a bit, possibly because it’s his technical know-how that’s crucial to the convicts’ plot. This I suppose makes him probably the most interesting of the three from a character development standpoint, and Meaney’s good at working his material so the little flashes of Miles come across as warped, twisted distortions rather than moments of actual sympathy: Even though he may superficially appear to have more dimensions than his co-conspirators, he’s still very much a hardened heel and we’re meant to never lose site of that. Brent Spiner, meanwhile, is just absolutely fucking terrifying: He’s back in his element playing a psychopath, but this is still a true challenge for him, as he has to make sure his character here isn’t too reminiscent of Lore (something Spiner often admits and comments on when talking about this episode). Of course, he succeeds well beyond the point of comfort.

As much as this is unquestionably Sirtis, Spiner and Meaney’s hour, the rest of the cast do get some important bits.…

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Well it’s an interesting one indeed.

“Conundrum” is first off incredibly deceptive. On paper it sounds for all the world like one of the most stock things Star Trek: The Next Generation has ever done and a prime example of a show running on empty: I mean come on, really? An amnesia story? For real? But in truth this is yet another fifth season highlight and a prime example of how the show has never been stronger than it is now. The first clue is that this isn’t actually your typical amnesia story,which would have involved either a mysterious hero wandering into an unfamiliar setting where we have to learn about their past alongside them or a tragic accident where the supporting cast has to try and jog the memory of the amnesiac protagonist in a forced, strangled attempt to wring hollow drama out of the show’s premise.

Star Trek: The Next Generation can’t do either of those plots, not just for the eminently sensible reason that they’re both dumb and hackneyed ideas, but also because its narrative structure would preclude that. The amnesia is just a plot device to get at the heart of what “Conundrum” is actually trying to look at, which turns out to be several different interesting things. The original idea for the submission, according to Michael Piller, was the concept of mentally reprogramming people to be soldiers by manipulating their memories and sense of identity, and thus that it was a critique of militarism and the military-industrial complex. Piller feels “Conundrum” doesn’t do justice to the original pitch and he’s right to make that criticism as that’s not quite what this story is (though there’s a bit of that at the end), but that doesn’t mean the episode as aired is any weaker as a result. If anything, this just allows it to get even more clever and fascinating.

And anyway, the first key concept “Conundrum” is exploring does actually tie somewhat into the original pitch: What would happen, the story is asking, if you had all the conscious mental signposts of how you defined your identity stripped away from you? What parts of you would remain, and would those parts still be you? The easy answer is yes, as even though Kieron MacDuff puts on a convincing ruse, the Enterprise crew simply cannot accept his evidence that they’re cold-blooded killers. But there’s a further thread to examine here, several, in fact. Through this, “Conundrum” is also making a statement about what our identities actually are and where precisely they lay-As important as the context of our life experiences are (they’ve doubtlessly shaped the Enterprise crew even when they can’t consciously remember them, after all), our innate personhood goes beyond that.

I’m not trying to tread into Cartesianism here, but you can imagine a situation where you might hold similar beliefs and make similar decisions even if your life turned out differently. You would be a different person of course, but not necessarily an unrecognisable one.…

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This is probably the episode I’ve changed my opinion on more times than any other. The first time I saw “The Masterpiece Society” I thought it was middling, though acceptable in a vague sort of way: It didn’t really hold my interest long enough to leave much of an impression, though I liked that Geordi had a meaty plot with a lady guest star. Later, I came to understand that this episode has, or at least had, a very significant and vocal hatedom, with many fans describing it as the flat-out worst episode in all of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Which struck me as odd, considering “Code of Honor” and “Reunion” both exist. Then I remembered I had read somewhere that some fan forum or critical aggregate site (I can’t remember which one) bestowed upon “The Masterpiece Society” the unusual title of “most average Star Trek: The Next Generation episode”. As in, if you were looking for one episode that best encapsulated what the show looked like and how it operated on an average week, this would be it.

So going into it this time I really had no idea what to expect. These are the kinds of episodes I actually secretly like revisiting the most: I always know the classics and my old favourites are going to be just as good as I remember, but it’s the episodes I haven’t seen in many years or don’t remember as well (or in extremely rare instances have *never* seen) that often prove the most rewarding from an analytical perspective as it gives me a chance to approach a show I typically have a very hard time maintaining any sort of real emotional distance from with the full arsenal of critical tools and ideological maturity I’ve accumulated over the years. So my takeaway from “The Masterpiece Society” in a nutshell is that it is actually kind of bad, but not at all for the reasons people tend to say it’s bad and is actually way less egregious in some respects than other times the show has slipped up. And even then the only truly irredeemable bollocks is in the last act, and there’s quite a strong kernel of a good idea here that’s obfuscated by the unpleasantness at the end.

The first thing about this episode is that, like a lot of middling Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, it’s basically an Original Series episode. The Enterprise discovers a “Planet of Hats” where everyone behaves in a programmatically idiosyncratic manner where said idiosyncrasies put them at philosophical odds with our heroes and the crisis of the week. There is a conflict of interests and culture clash between the two parties as they work to resolve the crisis, exacerbated at least in part by one of our heroes falling in love or becoming otherwise involved with a prominent figure among the natives.…

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