The 24th Century Begins. Again.

If there was one story that perfectly encapsulated the virtues and strengths of Star Trek: The Next Generation and demonstrates the things it and only it can do, this would be it. “The Wounded” is an absolute masterpiece; as bold and defiant a statement of purpose for this show as exists, absolutely the story we needed after half a season of directionless navel-gazing and without question the definitive template for how it can stay fresh and relevant even four years into its run. This is it: This is where the new Star Trek: The Next Generation begins and the very first high water mark it must be constantly measured against. This is how good this show can be when people actually understand and care about it.

The reasons why “The Wounded” is a classic seem almost self-evident and obvious, and yet they seem remarkable precisely because of how much Star Trek: The Next Generation has been phoning it in and lowballing itself lately. It may be Star Trek’s definitive statement on conflict and racial tension, perhaps only to be undone in two years by an even more remarkable story, albeit one that would not exist without this one. This is noteworthy in its own right, because it means “The Wounded” is very possibly the first time in the history of the franchise these themes have been explicitly tackled: The Original Series got a reputation among its fans for being a post-racial utopia solely due to its (likely network encouraged) diverse casting and a few offhand remarks here and there, and Star Trek: The Next Generation began by declaring itself to be one, but we haven’t actually seen the material consequences of this before now.

And for the very first time we not only get to see how this plays out in practice, but the creative team itself finally seems to understand what all this utopian rhetoric really ought to mean. Every single character in this story is grappling with incredibly complex and difficult emotions, and the show never once uses them as a mouthpiece to preach at the guest cast from a self-appointed position of authority, nor gleefully and spitefully drags the mains through the mud in an attempt to show how they are “deceiving” themselves and others about their supposed entitlement. Instead, each and every character is allowed to behave in a way that is simultaneously human and idealistic. The creative team has at long last seemed to figure out what Star Trek: The Next Generation is really about-Utopian conflict resolution. Children’s television for adults, where very adult issues, concepts and dilemmas are explored with the clarity and patience of children’s television. Not a world where there are no problems and everything is perfect and idyllic, but one where we’re all mature enough to deal with conflict in a positive, constructive, and helpful manner.…

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Someone once said “the night is darkest just before the dawn”. And the dawn has broken.

“Data’s Day” is not the episode I would consider the true beginning of what we might call Star Trek: The Next Generation Mark II (Mark I having destroyed itself in the chaos of “The Best of Both Worlds” and the past ten weeks or so having been a largely directionless interregnum trying to come to terms with its loss). But it could be called the new show’s pilot, and it’s a thing of absolute beauty. This is without question one of my absolute favourite episodes in the entire series, if not the franchise, one I always made a point to watch whenever it would come on and a story that has defined a huge portion of how I imagine the universe of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It’s not absolutely perfect and there are some nitpicks I’ve always had with it, but even so it’s nothing short of a masterpiece and a godsend after half a year of aimlessly puttering about throwing things at the wall and only occasionally tossing out an execrable disaster of a script.

It’s an understated stroke of genius to do a “day in the life” story chronicling an ordinary 24 hours aboard the starship Enterprise. Life, after all, is not lived in those grand and momentous events that become transcribed onto your memory forever, but in hours, months and years we spend in the humdrum, day-to-day routine in between. Which is why, of course, it’s so very important that we all make sure to live our lives as truthfully, sincerely and fully as we can each and every day. And Data serves as an excellent role model in this respect because, as he shows us over the course of this episode, Data chooses to spend his day trying to learn from others and improve himself. Over the course of what’s apparently an ordinary, uneventful and unremarkable day, Data learns to dance, strives to improve his social skills, looks after each and every one of his friends, ruminates on the meaning of love and commitment and, incidentally, uncovers a covert Romulan espionage ring. We’ll, uh, talk more about that a little later on.

As I’ve chosen to read “Data’s Day” as a pilot of sorts, it’s also lovely to see how Data uses his perspective to articulate his relationship with the rest of the Enterprise crew and how he sees them. In a sense, this serves as our reintroduction to them, and across the board the crew is as compelling and likable as they’ve ever been. There’s Commander Riker, who seems to know and get along with everybody, as charming and easygoing with Data as he is chatting up tactical officer Ensign Kellogg. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who stands firm for his people and his values even in the face of Starfleet Command’s accepted decorum. Geordi La Forge, Data’s best friend and closest confidant brought memorably to life by LeVar Burton.…

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Ugh, but first we have to sit through “The Loss”.

Last time we talked a bit about how speculative fiction can sometimes get so caught up in its own ideas it neglects certain other aspects of good storytelling convention. And we also mentioned how Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s various creative teams have pretty much always had a problem with their characters, for some reason never quite managing to find a way to make them understandably human while also maintaining the idealism they’re supposed to represent (a problem that is, I should point out, exclusively limited to the TV series side of things at this point in time. Michael Jan Friedman has never once been tripped up by this). “The Loss” is the most cringe-worthy and egregious example of this worrisome trend we’ve seen to date, because nobody on the Enterprise seems to furrow quite as many brows in the writer’s room as Deanna Troi.

Wesley may have been sent of in an excessively tropish way, but at least it seems like “Final Mission” was something the creative team was onboard with and knew how to approach, even if the way they approached it was glaringly lacking in ambition. Yes there’s still a glut of Picard, Riker and Data stories such that even if you don’t like specific individual episodes about them, there’s almost certainly another one you will, and no, don’t get me going on Tasha Yar again, but the fact remains that we’re at a point in the show’s history where even Worf and Doctor Crusher have had extensive (and more or less effective) stories dedicated to them. And even so poor Deanna Troi gets shunned like she somehow offended every single crewmember on the series. The only other character who elicits anywhere near the same amount of confused emotions from Star Trek creator types seems to be Geordi La Forge, and we’ll deal with the issues he gets saddled with at the end of the season.

With “The Loss” though, the show tries to do for Deanna much the same thing it had done to Captain Picard last season in “The Best of Both Worlds”: Strip away something vital and fundamental to her character and see what’s left behind. But it plays out very differently for Deanna than it did for Captain Picard-“Family” notwithstanding, the whole ordeal with the Borg and Locutus was supposed to be about demonstrating how human Picard really was by showing what he looked like as the hollow shell of a human: Something is defined by its absence wherein we notice what we’ve taken for granted when we notice it’s no longer there. “The Loss” is sort of the inverse of that-The episode plays out almost as a critique of Troi, trying to show that how, absent the one thing that defines her as a character, she’s rendered a seething, barely-constructed bundle of negative emotion.…

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