A common theme in much science fiction, we’ve dealt with the subject of both transhumanism and posthumanism rather extensively already. In Star Trek, this has traditionally manifested in the multitude of non-corporial entities, godlike beings and androids that tend to show up. The Original Series was notoriously ambivalent on the subject, for as much as 1960s Gene Roddenberry hated the idea of machines replacing people, he also seemed somewhat fascinated by the notion that humans might become hyper evolved beings of pure thought, in essence, ideal rational actors. 1980s Gene Roddenberry, along with his contemporaries, have a very different viewpoint: First of all, there’s Data, who, while he doesn’t yet carry all of the symbolism he’s eventually going to, is already an indication Star Trek: The Next Generation might be toying with a novel conception of humanity.

But also ’round about the 1980s, transhumanism came to be associated in the pop discourse first and foremost with a very specific set of beliefs, typically involving augmenting or replacing bits of materialistic human life with mechanical, robotic and digital components. The rise of the personal computer allowed for a general ossification of the definition of cyborg, and the belief humanity’s future lay in becoming more and more intertwined with computer technology. The Borg are commonly read as a critique of this notion, a very simplistic and reductive pop Frankensteinianism that wrings its hands over unchecked material technoscience. But, as we will eventually discuss, this is not what the Borg actually are and, for various reasons, Star Trek: The Next Generation has a far more complex and nuanced relationship with the transhuman than this interpretation would lead you to believe.

This is, however, what “11001001” looks at with the characters of the Bynars, an entire species that has evolved in such close proximity to computers that their thoughts have become indistinguishable to binary code. Well, partially, because the episode is obviously not a critique of them: The crew is incredibly sympathetic to the Bynars all throughout, and Jonathan Frakes was so enamoured of them he wishes they’d stayed on as regular characters. And the way they’re realised is rather charming, with each half of a “base pair” acting as a kind of gate and decisions being made through relaying thought-bits between them. Even the joke explanation they give for why they stole the Enterprise at the end of the episode, “you might have said no”, ties into this: As entities of pure logic on a life-or-death mission, they could not accept any potential failure state, so they engineered a situation where that would be impossible. It’s a perfectly delightful conception of digital transhumanist philosophy as it popularly exists as of the Long 1980s.

This specific kind of transhumanism is, predictably, very grounded in technofetishim and materialism. The most recognisable manifestation of this in the contemporary political climate is likely the Church of the Singularity, a Silicon Valley-based faith that professes the rapid increased in digital computer technology over the past thirty or forty years is evidence of a looming “machine singularity”, where either our computers will become self-aware or will end up absorbing humanity somehow (a common version is the belief that humans will soon be able to upload our consciousnesses onto the Internet).…

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Traditions are only worth holding onto if they make sense.

Today marks a turning point for Vaka Rangi, at least in terms of its structure. With Star Trek: The Next Generation, we’ve entered the longest and most monolithic stretch of the entire Star Trek franchise. There is no point between 1987 and 2005 where Star Trek is not airing new episodes in some form or another, and this makes analysing and historicizing it the way I’ve been approaching it up ’till now unfeasibly difficult in any reasonable amount of time. Especially considering the fact that, to be brutally honest, not every episode of Star Trek from here on out is a historical milestone, and not every one really needs to be treated as such. Actually, I don’t even consider that to be true of the Original Series, but you could at least craft a somewhat compelling argument that this might have been true in this instance. For these shows, however, three of which were comprised of seven seasons of thirty episodes each and one of which was comprised of four, it’s really not plausible for me to tackle them episode by episode and expect to be done with all of this before Vaka Rangi itself becomes a historical relic.

So from now on, I’m going to start looking at whole sections of a season together in one essay instead of one at a time. I’ll group the episodes together around a central theme that I think characterizes each of them and, instead of going into elabourate detail for all of them, I’ll pull examples that support my thesis from each of them. Not every post will be like this; there are still a fair few episodes that I think warrant posts all to themselves, but this is going to become a regular feature from here on out. In particular, I simply can’t conceive of any other way to sanely cover the byzantine complexity of the Dominion War’s stubborn fixation on serialization *while also* writing about Star Trek Voyager at the same time. Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1 is the first moment I think the time is right to approach the critique this way because there’s a noticeable chunk of the year that’s quite frankly completely superfluous, mediocre and eminently passable. And, er, I’m afraid it’s this one. It wouldn’t feel right for me to skip over these episodes entirely, but there’s simply no way I can squeeze 1.5-2,000 words out of any of them, and I don’t want to waste your time with an entire day’s post that’s just like 500 words or so.

It’s not that any of these episodes are reprehensibly terrible; there’s nothing in any of them quite as ghastly as “The Naked Now” or “Code of Honor” (although “Justice” and “Angel One” have moments that push it). What they all are, however, is rote and forgettable, and in a very particular way. I have a distinct suspicion that when people malign the first season, it’s probably this crop of episodes they’re thinking of, and I’ve personally skipped over these episodes so many times during my past revisits of this year I actually barley remember them.…

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Almost as iconic to my memories of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the timespace it inhabits as Data is his brother Lore. I always found him to be one of the great antagonists of the show, even trumping the Borg. It’s him who I think of along with the Klingons, Romulans and Ferengi as people the Enterprise would frequently and regularly come into contact with, and the two-part episode “Descent”, in particular the climactic scene where Data debates Lore in a darkened, bombed out corridor before shutting him down, is permanently burned onto my psyche as one of the show’s most legendary and unforgettable moments.

As a result, this episode, Lore’s first appearance, is always one I eagerly look forward to rewatching whenever I revisit Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s first season…And it’s one I’m always profoundly let down by. Most recently, this happened when I was trying to introduce my sister to the show as I excitedly talked up how cool Lore was, how brilliant Brent Spiner was in the role and how important a role he played in my personal history with the series. After I put the Blu-ray on and we’d seen it, my sister and politely, yet firmly pointed out that, no offense, but “Datalore” was crap, the evil twin story was precisely the sort of artificial conflict we both hate in scripted drama and Wesley Crusher rendered the whole thing essentially unwatchable. She’s right, of course: There are a few episodes of any show that really aren’t very good, but you have to begrudgingly recommend to a new viewer because they lay the groundwork for later, far superior story arcs. Unfortunately, the very best I can say for “Datalore” is that it’s in that category.

“Datalore” is actually Gene Roddenberry’s final contribution to Star Trek as a writer and, well, it shows. This is absolutely the worst Wesley has been yet, and it’s impossible *not* to lay that at Roddenberry’s feet. He’s obviously responsible. And, all the usual criticisms of Roddenberry’s style of writing apply here too. I’m not sure if it’s better or worse that Data’s origin is established to be on an old Earth colony as the creation of an eccentric human inventor instead of “unknown aliens”, but that’s definitely the case now. At the very least it gives Brent Spiner a lot more to do in the future, so that’s good (though interestingly, Noonien Soong was originally supposed to be played by Mike Okuda. Seriously. That would have been cool in its own right). However, the one part of the script we can’t blame on Roddenberry is its stock nature: The idea to make “Datalore” an evil twin story actually came from Brent Spiner. In the original script, Lore was apparently going to be Data’s twin sister, a good android who was even going to join the crew to do mechanical work in environments humans couldn’t go, like the exteriors of starships.…

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“The Big Goodbye” is not the first Holodeck story, although it has that reputation among fans. We’ve seen the Holodeck used in a few episodes already for both training and recreation, but of course what fans mean when they say this is that “The Big Goodbye” is the first Holodeck malfunction story, which, shall we say, goes on to be something of a cliche in 1980s and 1990s Star Trek. Though even that’s not technically accurate, considering “The Practical Joker” from the second season of Star Trek: The Animated Series was for all intents and purposes the debut of both the Holodeck and the Holodeck malfunction plot, even if it wasn’t called that at the time.

Considering that, as a narrative device, the Holodeck offers basically limitless potential for intriguing and captivating storytelling and the overwhelming majority of Star Trek’s writers default back to this one basic plot from a not-even-all-that-good episode from Star Trek: The Animated Series‘ decline period is concerning, but not the issue at hand today, because “The Big Goodbye” does work, and work very well. One obvious reason why is the actors, who are in top form: They’re always in top form so it’s quickly going to become irrelevant to keep mentioning that, but the specific way they’re in top form this time around is because the structure the Holodeck offers allows Star Trek: The Next Generation to crash into period piece drama and genre pastiche. The common explanation given for this, echoed famously by Wil Wheaton in his own review of this episode, is that actors love this sort of thing anyway so naturally it’s fun for them to throw themselves into a brief like this and just go nuts with it. And there certainly is some of that: I’m convinced the majority of the reason Data has a part here is so Brent Spiner can do his best hard-broiled gangster routine, which he’s of course amazing at.

But Spiner is actually a really good example of how the actors go above and beyond, not just in this episode, but every day on set. Data’s part isn’t just an excuse for Spiner to do funny voices, he’s a kind of Harpo Marx archetype who’s constantly comically bewildered by his situation. Spiner’s skill at impersonations actually gets written back into the character as Data’s awkward efforts to blend in and get into his role. He’s done this before, obviously, but this is the first time where the production starts to work with this and give him the room he needs. Gates McFadden does something very similar: A natural comedian, McFadden is clearly relishing the opportunity this episode gives her, and this is Bev’s best outing yet. Gates doesn’t play Crusher at all straight here, between her fumbling and tripping in the Holodeck to the exaggerated and pouty way she conveys the alleged “romantic tension” with Captain Picard, Gates turns Bev into basically a pantomime character here, it’s wonderful and it’s right up her alley.…

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