Star Trek: The Next Generation

I don’t know how you screw up a concept like “Klingon Ice Monastery”, but they do.

You know, I think I’m just done listening to stories about Worf and Klingon heritage. Especially as told by Ron Moore.

Here’s another episode I vaguely remember liking that completely turned me off on the rewatch. It’s not one I have really fond memories of from back in the day-This was an episode I only caught once TNN started rerunning Star Trek: The Next Generation in the early 2000s. Consequently I’m not super broken up about having “Rightful Heir” fall flat for me as I don’t have any particularly potent nostalgia affixed to it and this season has been strong enough it can afford to give us a few duds at this point in the year….Even if we do seem to have, since “Suspicions” (and looking ahead to next week), crossed over into the Enterprise variant of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s month and a half long water-treading session.

None of you need to hear my reasons for being alienated by this episode. I most certainly do not need to go into my litany of disagreements with Ron Moore’s philosophy, writing style and approach to characterization again. My issues with “Rightful Heir” are the same ones I had with “Redemption”, only magnified to an even greater extent because I no longer have the time or patience to humour them. Worf is by now cripplingly overexposed as a character and has had way, way too many showcase episodes, even just this season alone. And the only reason he is so overexposed is because he’s the only character (on either show, frankly) that Moore actually enjoys writing for because he’s also the only character Moore knows how to write for. That’s a big problem for a showrunner, and an ever-present one.

(Moore isn’t the sole showrunner of The Next Generation by a longshot, but given Rick Berman and Michael Piller’s promotion to franchise overseers, the complex web of the producer/writer relationship and Jeri Taylor’s position, he definitely is one of them. He’s certainly the most senior staff writer by this point. This does not, however, make him the best.)

I mean should I even make an attempt to derive some erudition about the Klingons from their depiction in this episode? What more is there to say? It’s Moore-type Klingons. Ridiculous cartoon Viking/Dwarf stereotypes who like to eat, drink and stab in no particular order. Even the monks. Especially the monks. There’s a ghost of an interesting idea where the Kahless clone calls out the Klingons at the monastery for forgetting the reason why they fight and it almost seems like the story is going down a kind of jihad route by framing this in terms of a righteous struggle. And then it doesn’t, because of fucking course it doesn’t. I should have given up my hopes to see non-warrior caste and non-cartoon Klingons after the first season ended.…

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And this would be a good example of *why* Star Trek: The Next Generation is straining against its material constraints.

I was originally planning to criticize “Suspicions” for being grimdark-Just another boring and juvenile “lengths they will go”, “doing that which must be done” exercise in false depth. But in reality if it’s grimdark, it’s only halfheartedly so, because “Suspicions” is halfhearted everything. The grimdark stuff feels like going through the motions, as if there’s just this assumption that any story about a murder investigation simply has to be grimdark for the portagonists to have any stake in solving it (tracing grimdark’s lineage back to Frank Miller is almost a cliché these days, but the comparison does need to be drawn in this circumstance as those are his signature beats to the letter, albeit really watered down and done in a middling fashion). And, for that matter, that we need token “character development” every week to hold the show together. Which, if we’re being perfectly honest, is precisely the kind of assumption it’s reasonable to guess was floating around this production team’s offices, even if it’s not as dogmatic as it might be amongst their colleagues across the street.

But more to the point, “Suspicions” is just a boring and inept production. The flashback and voiceover stuff is resoundingly pilloried in fandom (which is something of a surprise for me to learn, as I’d always figured this episode was rather well liked for the aforementioned grimdark), and there is something to be said about the hackneyed use of such noir staples to the point it’s become an almost instantaneous signifier of the parodical. However, given that this precise format is going to be used to astronomical success and wild acclaim in little under a year just with Odo instead of Beverly, I’d be careful about writing that off as a fault of “Suspicions”. Maybe then Star Trek: The Next Generation is just bad at this kind of story: While writer Naren Shankar doesn’t say that, he does say that he didn’t think he was very good at writing murder mysteries.

While I can’t speak for Shankar, I do think it would be silly to argue this crew can’t do murder mysteries. It’s true that given its setting Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a little better poised to handle a brief like this, but it’s not impossible to do it over here. “Aquiel” from earlier in the year was a damn good one as far as I was concerned, and it was successful because it remembered the major strength of Star Trek, and especially this version of it, is competency porn and that this crew shines the brightest when you let them do the things they’re good at in service of working together to solve the mystery. And that the best way you do that is essentially write a kind of procedural, but the most naturalistic and engaging procedural you’ve ever seen.…

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It was only a matter of time before we returned to the dark recesses.

In many ways “Frame of Mind” is Brannnon Braga’s archetypal Star Trek: The Next Generation story. It certainly bears all of his trademarks: A bold and unafraid examination of genuinely dark psychological horror themes done with a deft and ambitious surrealist flair. Braga is also flatly unafraid to throw us some undiluted theory, with copious quotations, citations and visual nods to the work of Carl Jung. It’s a candid and refreshing bolt of unashamed intellectualism that goes a long way towards letting us know what Braga thinks his show’s audience is like: Star Trek isn’t exactly patronizing, or at least not as much as a lot of other television is, but even so it’s still rare for it to be this frankly and openly (and literally) philosophical, and every time it happens it feels like this really should be the way the show always operates. Pretty much nowhere else are you going to get a 200-level course on Jungian psychology and dream theory told through a mini piece of abstract sci-fi cinema on primetime television.

Braga’s debt to his idol David Lynch is certainly on display tonight. We wouldn’t expect to see blatant body horror on Star Trek: The Next Generation (…yet), but the suitably dreamlike (or should I say nightmarish) flow to the story brought exquisitely to life through James L. Conway’s direction remains undeniably Lynchian, and also very, very Brannon Braga. And yet in spite of the entirely deserved wild acclaim this episode gets from fandom (it’s yet another stellar highlight of an absolutely astronomical creative period), when you sit down to watch “Frame of Mind” it actually comes across as one of Braga’s more restrained and subdued offerings: As haunting as the concept of perceptive reality being in constant flux and turmoil is and as absolutely gripping as Jonathan Frakes is as the beleaguered Will Riker (unquestionably one of his absolutely finest hours on the series, end of: Frakes should have at least been nominated for something), the central premise remains surprisingly pedestrian, at least by Braga standards.

As the series is obviously not going to undo six years of character development and world building in 45 minutes, we know from the start the “real” world is the Enterprise, or some manifestation of it. The game then becomes trying to guess how many iterations we have to pass through and the meaning of a handful of specific psychological signifiers. Unlike Dirty Pair: Affair of Nolandia, which I once compared to “Frame of Mind” long ago and far away, there’s never any genuine doubt cast here onto the true nature of observable reality, it’s always just a matter of getting to the bottom of the mystery that’s caused things to go all meta-Lynchian and freaky this week. Even when compared to the utterly sublime dreamworld symbolic logic of Braga’s own “Birthright, Part I” a few weeks back, “Frame of Mind”’s hook of “Riker wakes up in an insane asylum and doesn’t know how he got there” feels fairly straightforward and almost simplistic.…

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“The Chase” is definitive Star Trek: The Next Generation for me. It’s one of those episodes I find truly iconic, everything I want this show to be and one of the first stories that comes to mind whenever I think of it in passing. There’s quite a lot of those this year.

And yet I’m finding it hard to come up with things to say about it that aren’t obvious. I guess I’ll address the only real potential criticism I can think of straight away: The von Dänikenism stuff at the end is a little bit iffy and arguably anthropocentric, even if it does fit into the continuity of the established Star Trek universe without incident. But that’s sort of the problem with this kind of writing, isn’t it? Science fiction writers can focus on details like world-building minutiae and miss the larger social implications of their work. It must be said, however, that Ron Moore and Joe Menosky cite Carl Sagan’s Contact rather than Chariots of the Gods? and “The Chase” does provide the interesting wrinkle that the protohumanoids were responsible not for the cultures and religions of the species they gave birth to, but to existence itself, theirs being the only intelligent life in that part of the galaxy (and I like the stipulation “this part of the galaxy” because it hedges against the common sci-fi tendency to downplay the immense size of the observable universe: Maybe intelligent life evolved in other forms elsewhere in the universe. Maybe even in our galaxy, like, say, on the other side of that wormhole near Bajor).

I also adore the protohumanoid’s speech: It’s such a beautiful and fitting Star Trek message delivered with warmth and conviction by Salome Jens. And from a Vaka Rangi perspective, it’s even more appropriate: Cherish and respect life, because we are all living beings bound together by consciousness. And it’s entirely fitting that this is a message we hear at the conclusion of a vast, galaxy-hopping adventure (and it’s a testament to how much progress we’ve made this year that I don’t even feel the need to point out how well served the cast is, with everyone getting to show off their skills in an effective and memorable way to help solve the puzzle): It’s a perfectly effective Star Trek metaphor for the very things we voyage to understand.

Jens’ one-scene wonder also showcases what an absolutely killer week this is for guest stars: Apart from her, Norman Lloyd is absolutely wonderful as Captain Picard’s old archeology professor and mentor, and he brings a lovely and moving bittersweetness to every scene he’s in. Just in passing, Professor Galen’s subplot with Captain Picard is a naturalistically flawless demonstration of what’s become such a hallmark of this series: An examination of your life guided by awareness, and acceptance, of the weight of your past on your present self. Jean-Luc’s words to Beverly about the weight of the past resonated particularly with me: I think it’s the best depiction of this theme in the season, and one of the best in the whole series.…

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I’m afraid this is going to be another one of those essays where I don’t have a whole lot to say or anything refreshingly new and interesting to add to the discourse. “Lessons” is bad, it’s bad for boring reasons and it’s bad in ways I’ve actually already discussed at great length in other posts. Normally this would be the kind of episode I’d throw into a multi-episode post, and while both this week’s Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are both equally terrible, they have the obnoxious gall of not being terrible in complimentary ways, which precludes me from doing that.

I would say that the one unique thing I could say about “Lessons” is my statement of dislike itself…I was under the impression that while not considered a great classic or anything, this episode was reasonably warmly received by mainline fandom-A necessary next step in progressing Captain Picard’s story arc after “The Inner Light”. But even mainline fandom seems to be agreeing with me in this case, at least judging by the reaction this episode gets both on Memory Alpha and in Star Trek: The Next Generation 365: Its wiki page as of this writing looks neglected and incomplete and doesn’t even feature the usual quotes and statements from the production team in the notes that most Star Trek stories get, while Paula Block and Terry J. Erdmann couldn’t even be bothered to do anything more than halfheartedly re-state the story’s diegetic plot and themes in their own words.

I mean, let’s address the obvious points you know I’m going to bring up right off that bat. Doing a sequel to “The Inner Light” is stupid. Trying to set up a me-or-them contrast between voyaging, especially aboard the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D, with a long-term relationship is a false dichotomy. Doing a naval (and navel-gazing) “involved with your subordinates” drama is hackneyed and trite. Captain Picard’s entire attitude feels off, the romance plot is 90s sitcom quality and Commander Riker acting like a jealous schoolboy envious of the teacher’s pet is an asinine and spectacularly out-of-character way to force banal conflict. That much should be obvious. But from my perspective, the problem here is that I’ve essentially already written the essay I wanted to write for this episode, except I did it for “The Outer Light”.

The whole reason I covered “The Outer Light” in the first place was to contrast it with “Lessons”. My idea was to set up my imagined plot for “The Outer Light” (which is not at all what the actual “Outer Light” was) as the proper way to do a sequel to “The Inner Light” while calling out “Lessons” for being rote, derivative and too hung up on an adolescent conception of materialism to add anything to the story worth hearing. My imaginary version of “The Outer Light” (which is not at all what the actual “Outer Light” was) had Captain Picard attending a summit of historians and scientific experts on Kataanian life and culture, all of whom had been contacted by the probe and experienced a slightly different version of the ancestor simulation programme.…

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Superficially, “Starship Mine” resembles a basic, unpretentious action plot done pretty much just because Patrick Stewart wanted to take his shirt off, quip and shoot things. Which it is. But just like “Power Play”, this is an example of Star Trek: The Next Generation doing something counterintuitive with an action brief that we might not necessarily expect from an action sci-fi show that proves how aware of itself and its responsibility it’s finally become.

This is also something *only* Star Trek: The Next Generation could do, at least in 1993. That’s not to say the cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine couldn’t have handled a brief like this or that the setting would have precluded it, but the writing staff on that show has something of a problem handling action without it coming across as unreconstructed, bloodthirsty and grimdark and that’s ultimately what’s going to end up killing the series. That didn’t have to happen, of course, but circumstances will eventually dictate that’s what the final obituary will read. But that’s thankfully not for a good while yet. By contrast, Star Trek: The Next Generation has long since become keenly aware of its status and place in history, and a lot of careful thought went into ensuring that, while undeniably fun, “Starship Mine” never crossed the line into becoming a mindless run-and-gun military fantasy. And in fact, this story ends up being one of the most intriguingly provocative out of a year that’s been so stellar already.

Much of this is due to writer Morgan Grendel and Michael Piller. Grendel hates the moniker “Die Hard on the Enterprise” fans tend to appellate “Starship Mine” with (even though come on, it self-evidently is. Grendel even pitched it to Piller as exactly that) and prefers to read it as a story about how Captain Picard loves the Enterprise more than anything else and is willing to go to any lengths to protect it, citing the old naval “the captain goes down with the ship” trope. This is a problematic (and ahistorical) narrative device, but that Grendel invokes it here reveals some interesting things. Even (well, especially) divorced from the naval symbolism I like this idea because it shows how Captain Picard is someone who lives and breathes the spirit of voyaging so much he can’t conceive of ever doing anything else.

I particularly like the scene at the end of the teaser where he’s alone on the bridge, the last person on the ship before the “cleaning crew” comes aboard. He dawdles and takes his time, and Patrick Stewart’s expressions and body language sell the emotions of the moment. He’s in no rush to beam down to the starbase and takes no particular joy in being away from the Enterprise-None of the crew do. The Enterprise is their home and where they belong and they’re never going to be truly happy if they’re apart from it: They’re always going to act a bit restless and awkward, always going to be a fish out of water without someplace to go and discoveries to be made, just as the crew are at Commander Hutchinson’s reception.…

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Last time on Star Trek: The Next Generation…

“The idea of doing a crossover between Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is such an intuitive one it writes itself. There are no two iterations of this franchise that mesh and blend together quite as well as these do: Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are a part of each other’s existence in a way that’s not true of any other Star Trek. Deep Space Nine opens up with the straightforward declaration that it’s a part of The Next Generation-Its opening moments literally take place in a Next Generation episode, its entire setting is inherited from one and The Next Generation plays an integral role in the plot of “Emissary”. This isn’t like Doctor McCoy showing up for one brief scene in “Encounter at Farpoint”, Captain Picard and the Enterprise are actual essential aspects to that plot.” 

“Of course the artefact that ends up triggering Data’s dream programme comes from the Gamma Quadrant. When we open our minds to the possibilities of different knowledge-spaces and expand our awareness to the harmonious interplay of people and events, we discover the things we are meant to find. Doctor Bashir cannot study the artefact with the resources he has on Deep Space 9; he needs Beverly Crusher’s lab aboard the Enterprise. Data could not unlock this heretofore unknown level of his potential had he not gone to investigate, or had the Enterprise not come to Deep Space 9 at this point in time. He could not have done so had he not met Doctor Bashir.” 

“But that ‘Birthright, Part I’ actually manages to live up to so much of what it hints at and points to is telling. It could only happen on Deep Space 9.

Honestly, I almost don’t want to see part 2.”

And now, the conclusion…

There’s an interesting structure to “Birthright” we haven’t necessarily seen in previous two-parters. This is the first time the show has done a story like this purely for creative reasons instead of responding to external pressures: “Chain of Command” was partially split into two for narrative reasons, but a big contributing factor there was finances and, to be honest, the fact that it was a mid-season finale and a spinoff series was going to be premiering directly after it. But there’s no ratings reason to drop a two-parter here, roughly midway through the second half of the year: The only reason there’s a “Birthright, Part I” and a “Birthright, Part II” is because the team through the story was too big and too good to contain in just one hour of television.

This leads to the interesting structural consequence that superficially, “Part II” has next to nothing to do with “Part I”. While Worf’s plot was introduced last week, Data gets a whopping one line in this whole episode and the entire story of him developing the ability to dream and the visions of his father he’s experiencing isn’t addressed even in passing; not even in the teaser.…

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It could only happen on Deep Space 9.

It’s been called “the season of taking risks” by the production team. But Star Trek: The Next Generation was born capable of taking risks-Its mistake was in forgetting for so long that it was capable of doing so. It’s only now when the Enterprise has rediscovered what its place in the cosmos has always been, and it does so by voyaging here. Commander Sisko came to the Celestial Temple and Deep Space 9 to uncover the journey he was meant to take. The crew of the Enterprise come here to remember and be reborn again. But in turn, Deep Space 9 grows and is further sublimated through visiting with the Enterprise: Together, they are much more than they ever could be on their own. They belong together. They belong here and now.

The idea of doing a crossover between Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is such an intuitive one it writes itself. There are no two iterations of this franchise that mesh and blend together quite as well as these do: Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are a part of each other’s existence in a way that’s not true of any other Star Trek. Deep Space Nine opens up with the straightforward declaration that it’s a part of The Next Generation-Its opening moments literally take place in a Next Generation episode, its entire setting is inherited from one and The Next Generation plays an integral role in the plot of “Emissary”. This isn’t like Doctor McCoy showing up for one brief scene in “Encounter at Farpoint”, Captain Picard and the Enterprise are actual essential aspects to that plot.

This is not to say that Deep Space Nine is merely a subset or subsidiary of The Next Generation, but rather to argue it was inevitable that Deep Space Nine would return the favour, and sooner rather than later. It’s silly to think there would never be crossovers, or even to think that crossovers aren’t going to be the actual *norm* from here going forward, because these two entities share their reality together in a very deep and profound way. A voyaging canoe is a community just as a village is, and just as a world is; there is no conflict between these concepts. The canoe and the village both symbolize the universe they are each a microcosm of: Each spirit, bringing with them their own talents and experiences, finds a role to fill through which we all can survive and grow. The canoe is the island, and the island is the world that we all share together.

So in the same way Star Trek: Deep Space Nine mirrors and compliments Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Birthright, Part I” mirrors and parallels “Emissary”.…

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Also there’s this scene. That’s all I’ll say about that.

And here I was all ready to write a lengthy, poetic Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind-influenced essay too.

This may have been the biggest shocker for me in all the time I’ve been writing about Star Trek: The Next Generation for this project. Here’s “Tapestry”, an episode so obviously a classic and a masterpiece it’s taken for granted-It’s right up there with “The Inner Light” in terms of stories that are absolutely peerless and are held up as definitive moments for the show without a second thought. Even I just immediately accepted it: I mean of course. It’s “Tapestry”. How can you criticize something like that? Yeah, it uses the It’s a Wonderful Life plot, which I find so far beyond hackneyed it transcends overused cliché to attain a new state of absolute fucking unwatchability, but this was traditionally the one exception I would suffer.

And I actually didn’t like it very much.

I hasten to add I don’t think this episode is conceptually flawed at all; not in the slightest. I think the core idea here is good, brilliant actually: Fundamentally, “Tapestry” is about coming to terms with the person you were in your youth, embarrassing mistakes and all, because all of your past experiences helped shape you into the person you are today. It’s the ultimate payoff for Commander Riker’s comment way back in “The Last Outpost” about how “we can hardly hate the people we used to be”. It’s an extremely Star Trek sort of moral, an immeasurably important one, and something I personally strive to live my life in accordance with even today.

The problem with “Tapestry” for me, and I say this with the caveat that I mean no disrespect to the man or his work personally, is that Ron Moore wrote it. I’m reasonably confidant I’ve now reached the point where I’ve realised I simply do not agree with Moore’s favourite themes or his take on Star Trek and never well. His trademark signifiers are justifiably and rightfully all over “Tapestry”, and that keeps me from getting into the story. There’s the conception of Q, a deft blend of his trickster god and judiciary personae playing the spirit who teaches Captain Picard a valuable lesson about aging. But this time it feels like there’s a biting cynicism to it, Q just forcing Jean-Luc into a humilation conga for our amusement. After all, Picard and his crew are all complacent and snooty and stuck up and need to get knocked down a few pegs.

Something similar happens in John de Lancie’s own “The Gift”, but somehow I don’t like it or find it anywhere near as effective here. Yes, Q humiliates Picard in the beginning, but that might have been a hallucination or an alternate timeline and it’s played more as payback for Q being humiliated in human form earlier in the series (that happened in the first volume of the comic line, if you recall).…

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The prevailing fan consensus on “Face of the Enemy” was always that it’s “The Good Troi Episode”: The one episode in the entire seven year run of Star Trek: The Next Generation that actually managed to do something interesting and compelling with Deanna Troi as a character. And that’s blatantly bunkum: “Face of the Enemy” isn’t the “good” Troi episode, it’s the definitive Troi episode. It’s the episode you show a Troi hater as the final closing argument for the defense of her character and for how brilliant Marina Sirtis is.

As an actor showcase episode, you’ll find none better in the series. Marina Sirtis’ last best outing, “Power Play”, still hinged on showing off one particular aspect of her acting range, albeit one we don’t typically get to see on Star Trek: The Next Generation. And even Brent Spiner’s numerous showcases mostly show off his knack for impersonations and comic character bits. By contrast, “Face of the Enemy” puts Marina front and centre and the story gives her an opportunity in every scene to deliver an incredibly interpolated and complex performance: Instead of locking her into “soft Marina” or “tough Marina” modes, “Face of the Enemy” finally gives her the chance to move through every emotion and pull the entire spectrum together into a very human and compelling performance that’s still larger than life enough to stick with us long after the credits role. It’s the absolute perfect venue for Marina to show off everything in her repertoire, and it’s the story she’s been starving for since at least the second season.

And yet “Face of the Enemy” is also a story that could in a sense only have come now. I mean idealistically speaking, as we are wont to do on Vaka Rangi, any reasonably conscious and aware casting director could have seen how bloody excellent Marina Sirtis was just watching the filming of “Encounter at Farpoint” and given her a pair of showcase venues in place of, say, “The Naked Now” and “Code of Honor”. However acknowledging the realistic production history of this particular series (and also, to be fair, the fact saddling Marina with Deanna Troi was always going to be something of a crippling handicap), we needed to get through things like “Clues”, “Power Play” and even “Man of the People” before we could get “Face of the Enemy”: Both Marina Sirtis and the production team needed time to experiment with pushing the boundaries of what Deanna Troi could do as a character before totally breaking them down.

Which brings us to the nut of what’s really brilliant about this episode, which is that as much as it is a cathartic redemption of everything great we’ve always loved about Marina Sirtis and Deanna Troi, it’s also very much the logical follow-up to a specific antecedent. And, perhaps counterintuitively, that’s “A Fistful of Datas”. As we talked about in its respective essay, the big innovation of that story was that it was the first time the show had made an effort to channel Marina’s adaptability as an actor through the character of Deanna Troi herself.…

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