“What Are We?”: Inheritance
Last week on Star Trek: The Next Generation we talked about the counterintuitive reality that Star Trek is at its creative peak, yet has also run out of ways to tell Star Trek stories. And last week on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine we talked about how I’ve reached a critical impasse with accepted discourse surrounding the show. What I want out of Star Trek and what other people seem to want out of Star Trek are two completely different things, and it’s this episode that finally clarified it all for me.
Basically, I seem to like Star Trek best when it’s being anything other than Star Trek. “Inheritance” is not a Star Trek story, not really, but it’s exactly the kind of story this show should be doing.
Near as I can tell, “Inheritance” has a reputation ’round about that of “Dark Page”. That is, everyone hates it except me, and I naturally love it. “Inheritance” seems to get a lot of the same criticisms levelled at “Dark Page” too, namely that the story is predicated on a heretofore unknown bit of backstory for one of the main characters that strains credulity beyond the breaking point. And my response to that line of argument this time is about the same as it was then: I don’t understand how you can claim any sort of backstory development for a character in an episodic television series in unbelievable (certain Cousin Oliver-type panderings possibly excepted), because in polyauthored episodic television backstory is by definition created cumulatively. It’s not that far-fetched to posit Doctor Soong had an assistant who he fell in love with and who, consequently, served as Data and Lore’s “mother”. At least, it’s not any more far-fetched than some of the other stuff this franchise expects us to swallow from time to time (like, say, I dunno, an arbitrary Warp 5 speed limit). And it should be noted “Inheritance” seems to be aware of the reception “Dark Page” got and hedges against it, with Data being highly suspicious of Doctor Tainer’s story until the climax: It’s almost as if Data himself is standing in for a fickle, easily bored implied science fiction audience.
(There’s some potentially worthwhile ground to be covered in exploring that metaphor further, especially in lieu of what this story reveals about Data’s character, but I don’t much care to pursue it.)
Aside from being a genuinely sweet, touching and astonishingly well-acted character piece (shout-out to the incredible Fionnula Flanagan, who plays Juliana Tainer, fresh off her equally outstanding stint on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Enina Tandro in last year’s “Dax”), I really love the idea “Inheritance” raises that all of Data’s positive qualities, his creativity, inquisitiveness and affably polite demeanor, come from a female role model: His “mother” instead of his “father”. Not that Star Trek: The Next Generation has necessarily valorized Doctor Soong-There’s always been some darkness lurking around his paratext. But equally, there have been moments where that story has taken on a whiff of The Great Man and His Works about it, and “Inheritance” is a much needed counterbalance to that.…
Consider this a belated postscript to 
As promised, hot on the heels of Shabcast 16, 
Guardians of the Galaxy #6
So I recently finished the last couple of Jonathan Blow video games, so curious was I about this developer’s work given the interest in it by people I respect. As Phil predicted, The Witness was a bit more up my alley than it was his. Phil is often right.
Which brings me to what really didn’t work for me, which is the story. Some of this displeasure is undoubtedly rooted in having just played Undertale. In Undertale, the avatar for the player is decidedly ambiguous – a figure who could be any sex, and who could come from all kinds of different cultural backgrounds. Which makes it very easy to project one’s self into the story. But Undertale goes further, in that there’s an element of co-creation to the story, for indeed the point of Undertale is explore what sort of role you want to play in a game in the first place. You don’t have to kill monsters, you can make friends. Or you can be a terribly fearsome fighter. The outcome of the story is a reflection of your choices.
