TNG Season 4

Previously on The Brent Spiner Show…

Well, that’s the obvious reading, is it not? “Brothers” is the limit case for Brent Spiner’s incredible versatility as an actor, playing three completely different characters all of whom interact with each other during the same scenes. And there’s no two ways around it, Spiner is simply masterful, effortlessly shifting between Data, Lore and the surprisingly alive (temporarily) Doctor Noonian Soong. It’s the latter of those roles that’s worth speaking the most of here, as it provides the first genuine challenge Star Trek: The Next Generation has thrown at Spiner since he joined the show. It’s not that Spiner’s talents were ever not self-evident: He’s great as Data, obviously, and the way he works his penchant for impersonations into the android’s inherent mutability and impressionable nature is a stroke of genius. And his love of playing unreconstructed psychopaths is on record, as is his profoundly chilling skill at it: That’s pretty much who Lore is here again, and there’s another episode coming up next year that gives Spiner even more room to play in this regard.

But it’s the brilliant, eccentric and aged Doctor Soong that’s of the most interest, because it’s a role manifestly different from the sort of thing Spiner’s played on Star Trek: The Next Generation to date. In fact, Spiner even says he was uncertain how to play the part until he saw himself in the old age makeup, and then it immediately came to him. So, he credits the character of Doctor Soong as much to Michael Westmore as to himself, if not more so, a touching reminder of how much of television is really a group effort. And let’s not forget, of course, the herculean efforts the camera crew and director Rob Bowman had to go through to get Brent Spiner to appear on camera in three different places at once. And Spiner’s performance itself is predictably wonderful: We definitely get the sense that this is a person who’s possessed of great confidence and ambition who, while old age has caught up with him and slowed him down, is as sharp and wry as ever. It’s instantly memorable and one of Spiner’s most iconic performances, really removing whatever upper limit might have been arbitrarily placed on his acting range.

I’ll talk a little bit about Lore as well, because it’s really this episode that sets in motion all the cool stuff the show does with his character from here on out that I particularly like. It’s also the episode that sort of codifies the version of Lore’s personality that sticks and that I associate most with him (not to mention a good deal of Data’s subsequent character arc, particularly in terms of his relationship to Soong). Lore’s not merely a generic evil twin or a violent, thuggish backstabber as Gene Roddenberry wrote him in “Datalore” this time. Here, he’s a clearly twisted and genuinely wicked character who manages to be truly chilling, singing random stanzas from old folk songs, perhaps befitting his name (the song is the frequently-quoted, and just as frequently misquoted, “Abdul Abuldul Amir”.…

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The fourth season sees the comparatively swift assembly of the team that will be the primary creative figures in Star Trek for the next four years, and in a few cases, even longer. Michael Piller, Ronald D. Moore and René Echevarria are the only survivors from the chaos of the third season, with Rick Berman maintaining the day-to-day duties he’s had since the show began, as essentially an intermediary between the writing staff and Paramount Corporate. Brannon Braga is the first new addition, coming on as a staff intern over the summer. Later in the year they’ll be joined by Naren Shankar, whose work we’ll be seeing more of when we get to season five and beyond.

The biggest and most important new face of the year, however, we get to meet now. Jeri Taylor, who will go on to be co-executive producer of Star Trek: The Next Generation and co-creator of Star Trek Voyager, joins the team with this episode at the recommendation of outgoing producer Lee Sheldon (the Michael Wagner of the fourth season). Taylor herself freely admits she knew absolutely nothing about Star Trek before she was asked to come in and clean up “Suddenly Human”, though she was a veteran of television drama and, between this episode and her first proper submission she went back and watched basically every bit of filmed Star Trek ever produced to prepare herself for the gig. Perhaps as a result, “Suddenly Human” feels conceptually a bit like a a brand-new show trying to find its footing and to parse out what works and what doesn’t. It’s elevated, of course, by the by-now seasoned cast and crew who throw together a thoroughly solid and competent outing, albeit one that’s also somewhat middling and unremarkable.

The uncertain nature of “Suddenly Human” manifests most clearly when you try and piece out what sort of story it actually is. How do you choose to read it? Is this a Captain Picard story about forcing him to come to terms with his dislike of children so that he can adopt the role of a father figure? This is the reading that seems to stem most directly from the show’s new post-“Best of Both Worlds”, post-“Family” mandate for “inner conflict”. And this is also, it should be stated, a manifestly different sort of conflict then the show has been playing with in the recent past, although it’s still one that’s very much complimentary. When, for example, Ron Moore and Ira Steven Behr like to lather on the conflict, they tend to prefer making people argue and fight one another, or putting them in situations that call their judgment into question, thus making characters we thought we knew seem dangerous and unpredictable. It’s a very proto-90s grimdark approach to conflict, which makes sense given Ira Behr will go on to become one of the pre-eminent architects of 90s grimdark on television.

What we seem to be more interested in now, however, at least for the moment, is forcing characters to confront their inner demons, preferably over and over again for our amusement because actually having them heal and move beyond them isn’t good drama apparently.…

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Previously on Star Trek: The Next Generation…

“This is the real reason the Borg are here and, more to the point, why the Borg win. What they impose on the show, what all of ‘The Best of Both Worlds’ does, is narrative collapse. Defined as a combined diegetic and extradiegetic threat to the continuation of a specific structure such that the risk no further stories within it can ever be told becomes frighteningly real, narrative collapse manifests itself when the narrative internalizes its own unsustainability, and can only be averted through a blood sacrifice. And this is precisely what’s happened to Star Trek: The Next Generation, because, even by its admittedly rocky pre-existing standards, this season has simply gone too far. The show’s infuriatingly constant failure to follow its own example and live up to its potential has become pathological, and it’s now even found itself staffed by people who not only don’t understand it, but openly hate it and actively work towards the detriment and dissolution of its ideals. The Borg see this, take advantage of it, and they make their move early.

The very thing Star Trek: The Next Generation was supposed to be self-evidently superior to such that open warfare with it would be unthinkable in this form catches it completely off guard and horrifically curb-stomps it into submission, dealing a crippling blow that even tears apart the Enterprise family…” 

“Because also like Michael Piller, I’m approaching this as a two-parter, but have only put actual thought into the first part. When Piller wrote ‘The Best of Both Worlds’, he was not anticipating returning to Star Trek: The Next Generation for its fourth season (which it was most assuredly getting, just in case you may have had any doubts) and had no clue how to bring everything home again. He set up the most terrifyingly comprehensive and meticulous deconstruction of the show he could think of, and wasn’t planning on being in a position to undo it. Will Captain Picard survive? If he does, how will we get him back? Will Patrick Stewart come back? Will Michael Piller? Can we stop the Borg from realising the Federation’s destiny before its time? Can we prevent the narrative collapse and save Star Trek: The Next Generation, and, if we do, what will we be forced to give up? How am I going to continue this essay even though I’ve made all of the points I wanted to make already? 

Right now, I honestly don’t know.”

And now, the conclusion…

There was no question about it. Star Trek: The Next Generation was *the* show to talk about during the summer of 1990. Throwing out a milestone in television history and the most infamous cliffhanger ending since “Who Shot J.R.?” will do that to you. There was nonstop speculation in every entertainment rag in the industry about what was going on behind the scenes and what the show might be planning for its fourth season premier.…

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