Never Trust a Transporter

Leon Thomas of Renegade Cut today posted a very interesting video about identity and the Star Trek Universe.  It discusses the philosophy of transporters as well as touching on Spock and if he was the same person after Star Trek III that he was before Star Trek II.  Not different as in ‘his character grew and changed because of his experiences,’ different as in ‘is he just a copy of the Spock we knew?’

He didn’t mention it, but a lot has been a lot of speculation as to wether or not the Enterprise is the same starship after its refit for The Motion Picture.  Ex Astris Scientia, Bernd Schneider‘s Trek website, has an essay detailing the structural changes Enterprise underwent, and I’m forced to wonder why Starfleet would bother with such a massive overhaul rather than scrapping the Constitution-class and designing a new starship from scratch.  

Anyway, check out both sites, and see some the outstanding work each has done.  

Heart of Glory

Looking at the Klingon Civil War Part I

Origional Airdate: Week of March 21, 1988
Directed by: Rob Bowman.
Teleplay by: Maurice Hurley
Story by: Herbert Wright and D.C. Fontana

The Talarian Freighter Batris. . .

The teaser opens with Starfleet ordering Enterprise to investigate a battle in the Romulan Neutral Zone.  The Romulans haven’t been seen for decades at this point, and there shouldn’t be anyone traveling through the Neutral Zone at all; a situation that Picard and Riker agree feels like a trap.  With all the times that that Trek characters blunder into traps, they should know the warning signs.   

The ship isn’t a trap, though.  It’s a damaged freighter on the verge of blowing itself apart, and killing the three life forms Enterprise detects aboard.  Riker, Data and LaForge beam over to the to the damaged ship to investigate.  I really love the set design for the damaged freighter.  Its smokey, unevenly lit with emergency floodlights, and really gets across the idea that this ship is going to fly apart at any moment.  This ship feels dangerous.

What I don’t like, though, is the ‘visual acuity transmitter’ attached to LaForge’s visor.  The idea behind the device is solid, it makes sense that away teams would stream video to their ship during missions; but Geordi’s 24^th century marvel streams video far worse than the average iPhone does from inside a tunnel.  In the middle of the desert.  On the moon.  On AT&T.  

This is a great idea that’s executed poorly.  I’ve always wondered why there aren’t technicians on the bridge pouring over an away team’s tricorder data during critical missions.  Streaming live video directly to the bridge would allow missions to draw on the collective experience of the entire senior staff.  Think about how much time has been wasted

. . .is a deathtrap.  

describing to Picard what something looks like, and just imagine how much more information the team could collect if Picard could just see it for himself.  

Geordi’s transmitter cuts out, and the team finds the survivors: Three Klingon warriors.  In hindsight, its telling that during the entire away mission, the team never sees the bodies of the ship’s crew.  This really should have probably been the first sign that something was very wrong aboard that freighter--maybe a technician studying tricorder data on the bridge would have come to that conclusion.

Lt. Yar transports the away team and the Klingon survivors back to the Enterprise, which is...odd.  Why is the security chief handling a difficult transport instead of a specialist?  What’s Chief O’Brien doing, and why is it more important than this mission?  Maybe it would have been a better idea to have the tactical officer on the bridge while they’re still in the Romulan Neutral Zone?  Or how about having her look into the obviously false cover story the Klingons tell once they’re taken to sickbay?

Instead, Worf is given the job of escorting the Klingons--except for the youngest, who is critically injured--to their quarters; beginning the segment of the Episode I like to call:

Lt. Worf Has Terrible Judgement!

In their quarters, Commander Korris and Lieutenant Konmel, the two uninjured survivors, dick around with Worf for a while--which seems only way that Klingons are able to interact with Worf--and decide that he’s is one of them. Before the three can bond over horrifying food, the third survivor, Kunivas, takes a turn for the worse, and Dr. Crusher calls them back to sickbay.  Moments after Worf and his new KBFs (Klingon Buddies Forever) arrive in sickbay, Kunivas seizes and dies.  

This is the first time we see the Klingon death ritual, which is touching in a weird way.  Korris forces the dead man’s eyes open, glares into them, and begins to growl.  This growling is apparently a sign for all other Klingons present to throw their heads skyward and bellow at the top of their lungs.  This yelling is a warning to the dead: Beware, a Klingon warrior is coming.  

Being aboard a space ship means that ‘skyward’ really has no meaning--the Klingons really have no way of knowing how Enterprise’s axes correspond to those of Qo’nos, and by extension, its afterlife  Bearing that in mind, I like to imagine that they’re unwittingly screaming at Mecca.  I don’t know why, it just makes me smile.  Korris tells Picard to dispose of the body however he sees fit, because now it is just an empty shell; but not before obviously and suspiciously removing a piece of his dead comrade's boot and slips it into his pocket.  

As Worf escorts Korris an Konmel back to their quarters, the two dig into Worf’s past.  One of the finest character arcs that The Next Generation ever attempted was that of Worf.  Worf’s backstory as an orphan and refugee made him among the richest, most complex characters in the entire franchise.  Everything Worf is, and everything he will become is a logical progression from the moment Romulans attacked Camp Khitomer.  We’ll explore how this all relates to the Klingon Civil War over the next several episodes, but suffice to say, the Klingon Empire’s salvation from itself rests almost entirely on the death of Worf’s family and his upbringing by Humans.  

In their stateroom, the Klingons, including Worf, discuss honor and glory.  They lament the softening of the Empire, which is, to them, the consequence of its alliance with the Federation.  In embracing piece, they argue, the Empire has lost its way.  Worf, they claim, has the mark of a warrior because his Klingon nature is constantly at war with his sense of duty to the Federation, and it’s not hard to agree.

I'm sure this won't bite us in the ass later

Korris and Konmel finally admit to Worf--either because they now feel that he is a kindred spirit, or to manipulate him, or possibly both--that they had hijacked the Talarian freighter, hoping to find a place that they could live as Klingons; and used it to destroy a Klingon warship.  Admittedly, that they were able to blow up a ship in a freighter is pretty damn impressive.  Hell, that’s a feat even Dukat couldn’t manage.

Worf, having terrible judgement, agrees to take them on a tour of the most sensitive areas of the ship; including main engineering and the emergency turbolift to the battle bridge.  Worf agrees to do this literally thirty-one seconds after the two admit to murdering a ship full of Klingons.  I’d give him more shit about this, but the security department is going to  screw up even worse in just a few minutes.  

Sensors pick up a Klingon battlecruiser on an intercept course with Enterprise, to everyone’s shock, which is kind of weird.  At this point, the Klingon Empire has been an economic and trade ally for nearly twenty years at this point.  Riker, particularly, shits a brick at the sight of the Klingon ship, but what, exactly is he worried about?  Jesus, Commander, act like you’ve got a pair.  

Speaking to the ship’s commander, a man named K’nera, Picard learns what he should have figured out hours ago: the Klingons he rescued are criminals and renegades.  Picard orders the two confined to the brig, and, to be fair to the security team, this is the one time in the series that security arrives in force, deploying no less than five armed guards so that they can easily overwhelm the criminals should they choose to resist.  

A little girl wonders out of a turbolift with her mother, and for a moment it looks like the Klingons are going to take the child hostage.  As the two are being lead away to a holding cell, however, Worf insists that there was never any danger, because Klingons don’t take hostages. 

That’s true, never in the history of Star Trek to this point have Klingons ever taken a hostage:

Technically a Kidnapping

High-Risk Negotiations with Unwilling Parties

A Forced Religious Retreat 

A Rescue Mission that Got Out of Hand

Enterprise’s Security Officers Have Terrible Judgement!

After impressing us a genuine show of force, security now feels obliged to remind us how utterly, laughably, disastrously incompetent they really are.  The two Klingon prisoners are taken to a holding cell--this is the first incarnation of the brig, by season three there will be an actual cellblock style that will at least present the illusion of being a real jail, but for now:

So, what we got here, see, is the jail of the future.  So secure, the door is left open.  So escape-proof that the guards can stand in the corridor facing away from their prisoners.  The design is so foolproof, that you don’t even have to search the prisoners!  Let them sit there in their own clothes--or armor, in the case of Klingons--and count the money you’ll be saving!

Somehow, the Klingons escape Starfleet Supermax and kill two security guards in their escape.  Konmel is killed in the firefight, but Korris is able to make his effortless way to main engineering; a location, you’ll remember, that was on Worf’s trademark Super-Duper Security Risk Starship Tour.  

This doesn't count.  Technically, the starship is the hostage

The Klingon makes his way to engineering’s upper deck, points his disruptor at the warp core and demands to be given Enterprise’s battle section so he and Worf can fly around the universe, presumable to kill Romulans and teaching blue women how to love (fanfic writers, I expect twelve chapters by Friday).  

Worf and Korris have a heart-to-heart with the warp core at gunpoint, we learn what it truly means to be a warrior (skipping over warriors NEVER taking hostages, because that’s just so obvious it doesn’t bear repeating), and then Worf kills Korris with a phaser.  

Heart of glory isn’t a good episode.  The best that can be said about it is that it’s the first to explore the Federation-Klingon Alliance, and just how much Klingons have been forced to change because of it.  The visual effects are great; I especially loved the interior of the Batris and the odd camera angles around the warp core...although Korris falling through the transparent floor seems odd--why would you use actual fucking glass in engineering, rather than transparent aluminum?  

Nerds (by which I mean, me) might have been annoyed that Lt. Yar saying that Korris was aiming directly at the dilithium chamber, when in fact he wasn’t:

Data, sitting atop the real dilithium chamber,
Presumably voiding its warranty after a night of drinking

This was a change in the script that moved the action to engineering’s upper deck from the main lobby, and I’m willing to give her a pass on that.  I liked seeing the seldom-used upper deck, and it’s a pretty minor error--I’m sure shooting the warp core anywhere will result in a bad day. 

The Good:

• The Klingon angst. It set up backstory that would trouble the empire throughout the rest of the franchise.  Fo r all my teasing, I think that there's a very good reason for Worf's naïvety, which I'll talk about in the next episode.  

The Bad:

• Heart of Glory makes Starfleet look like a collection of incompetent jackasses...uh, more than usual.  

The Verdict:

• Go watch The Undiscovered Country instead.  

©2013 AHoden or The Special Needs Group. Screen captures and TNG publicity photos property of their owners.

I Refuse to Use Qapla' as the Title

K'mpec Practices His Fiddle

I’ve had a little trouble deciding which episode I want to cover next.  I even tried a random number generator to pick an episode at random.  When that proved to be too nerdy even for someone who talks about Star Trek on the internet, I thought I should focus on a whole story arc.

That’s why over the next few weeks, we’ll be covering the Klingon Civil War, its buildup, its fallout, and the effect it had on the Klingon Empire throughout the franchise.  This will give me a chance to talk about several related shows in TNG, while also getting to cover episodes of Deep Space Nine and Enterprise.  

So, join me later this week when we kick off Klingon Civil War Month!

Encounter at Farpoint Part II

Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'Til Morning

Doctor McCoy gave the new series its sendoff in at the end of part I.  Gene Roddenberry didn’t expect DeForest Kelley to agree to appear when he asked the TOS veteran to appear, but in doing so, Kelley passed the torch to TNG and implicitly gave it his blessing.  

Part II opens with the Enterprise orbiting the Bandi world in tandem with USS Hood, the Excelsior-class starship that presumably carried Bones to his inspection, and is now carrying him away.  Excelsior-class vessels were the behemoths of the original cast’s day.  Excelsior, herself was annoyingly modern in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock--an irritating new golden boy that had the gall to presume it could replace the tried-and-true Enterprise.  Now, in orbit alongside the Enterprise-D nearly 80 later, it is clear that the Excelsiors are the aging workhorse of the Starfleet, and the Galaxy-class are the ships that will carry Trek into the future.  

The Hood breaks orbit, setting sail for parts unknown; leaving Enterprise to handle the Farpoint conundrum on its own.  It’s a touching visual, really; the Hood, a stand-in for the USS Excelsior, herself, seems to be giving its blessing to the new series just as Bones had.  

Picard ruins it with his message, “Bon voyage, mon ami.”  I might have opened fire.  

Was Patrick Stewart cast to play a Frenchman specifically to piss off actual French people. . .and certain Canadians?  We meet members of his family, and with the exception of his mother--who was a memory brought to live via negative space wedgie--every one of them speaks in an English accent.  Picard’s mother, incidentally, is also the only one who doesn’t appear to have been a member of the Khmer Rouge.  

Thankfully, Q appears to put an end to Picard’s douchebaggery. Setting a 24 hour time limit to solve the mystery of Farpoint Station or be summarily judged guilty.  

The episode gives us a lot of great glimpses at the kind of leader that Picard will become.  For all of the first, and much of the second seasons, Captain Picard is not quite the tolerant father figure to the crew that he’ll become.  First season Picard was irritable, curmudgeonly, and often downright unlikeable.  After Riker successfully reconnected with the saucer section manually-a maneuver that the mere idea of caused the bridge crew to shit a collective brick--Picard somehow made his ‘well done’ sound like ‘eat shit and die.’ 

He does, however, manage to foreshadow the master diplomat reputation that he will eventually earn.  When Q chides him for being dilatory, Picard tries to subtly set the terms of the test Q gave him:  “If the purpose of this is to test humans, your honor, we must proceed in our own way.”  It’s a subtle enough attempt that might have worked, had he not been trying to negotiate with a nigh-omniscient being.  He also shows his confidence in Mr. Worf’s potential, even after he nearly tried to shoot an image on the viewscreen, which. . .what the fuck, Worf?

"If we're going be damned, let's be damned for what we really are." 

--Jean-Luc Picard

It is at this point that Riker and Troi’s are reintroduced to each other after Riker left her on Betazed.  The resemblance of Will Riker and Deanna Troi’s relationship to that of Will Decker and Ilia from Star Trek The Motion Picture is obvious.  Riker and Decker were ambitious, young Starfleet officers, both fell in love with a local during a shore assignment. Both women had mental powers of some kind, and both Riker and Decker left without saying goodbye (I like to imagine that there was a pregnancy and livid parents involved in each case) only to be reunited years later aboard Enterprise.  I have no idea why TNG felt the need to recreate the Decker/Ilia dynamic, but I really don’t care enough about ether romance to research the matter.

Riker collects Data on the holodeck in a scene that really only really serves to give us some backstory for Data and establish the holodeck’s theme of trying to kill people.  With the away team assembled, the exploration of Farpoint can begin.  Councilor Troy is actually relevant to the plot for once, when she senses the first clue of what Farpoint Station is.  While exploring the tunnels below the structure, she feels the pain and despair of something.  She’s still vague enough to be annoying, but, credit where it’s due.  

A huge ship appears and begins to fire on the Bandi city near the station, but carefully avoids shelling Farpoint itself.  Picard breaks the first rule of kidnapping, never tell a room full of people you’re about to kidnap someone, destroying any hope he had of plausible deniability by specifically calling the act illegal.  He’s saved the felony charge by the other ship, however, when it abducts Groppler Zorn before he does.

Enterprise’s away team beams over to the alien vessel--a move that seems risky as sensor signals only bounce off of the ship’s hull--to find that Zorn is being tortured in some kind of energy field.  I personally couldn’t give a shit, but Riker decides to shut the field down by firing phasers at it. . .which, again, seems kind of risky.  

Picard realizes that the ship is actually a space-born life form and that its pissed at the Bandi for abducting its mate and only feeding it enough energy to survive and fabricate goods for the Bandi, but not to escape.  Riker is shocked that the life form, bubbled a space jelly in the extended universe, is naturally able to convert energy into specific patterns of matter like their transporters do, but admits "It has to be conceivable that somewhere in this galaxy there could exist creatures able to convert energy into matter."   Wow, that would be amazing; nobody’s ever seen anything like that before...

...Uhh, those guys don’t count.

Enterprise uses its phasers to feed the entity, which frees itself and joins its mate in orbit for some sweet jellyfish lovin’.  Good for them. 

Q leaves, but warns that he may be back some day, and the Enterprise leaves to carry on the mission of her predecessors. 

Star Trek: The Next Generation starts out its journey with an episode that was, frankly, pretty mediocre.  The episode has shadows of what the series will become, but Encounter at Farpoint’s better aspects simply don’t make up for its weird pacing, poor performances, and lackluster plot.  After the dregs of the first season, and a second season that had some great episodes surrounded by, well, more dregs, it will go on to become one of the great science fiction TV series of all time.  The actors become comfortable with their characters, scripts become better-and-better, and Wesley is put on a buss; allowing the show to blossom into something nearly as relevant and beloved the first series.  

The Good:

• The music is outstanding in both episodes.  Its really amazing how much tension can be generated with excellent scoring.  
• John di Lancie as Q.  Q’s motives are ambiguous, and don’t really make sense at face value.  I think that there's a very good reason for this, which I'll talk about in future.

The Bad:

• Same as Part I, with the exception of Lt. Yar, who manages to make herself useful this time around.

The Verdict:

• Must See

< Encounter at Farpoint Part I

©2013 AHoden or The Special Needs Group. Screen captures and TNG publicity photos property of their owners.

Looking at the Ships of Star Trek

And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.
—Herman Melville John Masefield  

Gene Roddenberry pitched Star Trek to NBC as ‘Wagon Train to the stars.’  After Star Trek the Motion Picture, Paramount took direct control of the franchise’s film outings away from Roddenberry and gave creative control to Harve Bennett and Nicholas Meyer--and given the success of Wrath of Khan as both in the box office and as a triumph of storytelling, it was a change that very likely saved Trek.

Meyer, who had never really watched Star Trek, familiarized himself with The Original Series, enjoying the show’s use of what he described as gunboat diplomacy.  Inspired by this, he shifted away from the tone of the first movie; re-imagining Trek not as Wagon Train in space, but as space-borne Horatio Hornblower.  .

Enterprise didn’t physically change in any apparent way between Star Trek The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan, but with Bennett and Meyer now imposing naval customs and parlance, along with Starfleet uniforms that had a distinctly military look to them, the USS Enterprise felt more like a warship than it ever had before.  Wether or not this was a good thing is a matter of debate; Gene Roddenberry hated the new tone, but many fans, myself included, feel that the changes brought a much-needed implication of purpose and cohesion to the ship and crew that that Motion Picture was lacking.  I bring this up to demonstrate that the USS Enterprise has gone through something that sometimes eludes actual, living people in Trek: character development.

The USS Enterprise is as much a character in Star Trek as any living crew member of in the franchise, and just like every other character, their personality was subject to change.  Perhaps this is part of fans become as attached the the ship as any of the characters who call their ship home, and we love them just as much as the crew does.  If you disagree, ask yourself what affected you more in The Search for Spock: David Marcus’ murder, or Enterprise self-destructing and burning up as it crashed through the Genesis Planet’s atmosphere.  

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, being a show that was meant to show the hard work that goes into rebuilding the Planet of the Week after starships like Enterprise leave.  It was a bold experiment in storytelling for Trek.  Making the primary setting for a show a Cardassin-built space station, rankled many fans.  The premise seemed to fly in the face of Star Trek’s spirit of adventure through peaceful exploration.  In the early seasons of Deep Space Nine, the only ‘Trekking‘ that was done was aboard the tiny, fungible, often anonymous ‘runabouts.’  

The disposable nature of runabouts could never hope to earn the love of fans like a starship could, so the writers did everything they could to give Deep Space Nine more personality than the starships that came before it.  The starships Enterprise were homes to the crews worked aboard them.  They were places of comfort and warmth for the show’s heros.  Deep Space Nine, however, was dirty, dangerous, dilapidated, and often seemed to be consciously working against its staff.  But by the third season, Sisko admits that he has begun “Thinking of [the] Cardassian monstrosity as home.”   Even after the Defiant was introduced, the once imposing station had earned its place in the hearts of the its staff, its civilian inhabitants, and the fans.  DS9’s character arc was cemented in A Time to Stand, when the Federation personnel were forced to bug out.  Sisko is so moved, he gives his best MacArthur impersonation and vows that he will return.  

Its not unusual for vehicles to hold special significance.  They tend to be the tools that make a sci-fi story’s premise possible.  Often, they not only the characters’ means of conveyance, but also their homes.  Sometimes, they are sentient, living entities like the TARDIS, or they might be machines so machines so advanced that they may as well be alive. The Doctor loves the TARDIS--sometimes to an uncomfortable degree--but he can function without it, and he has done in several multi-story arcs.  

Trek, however, doesn’t do as well without its starships.  Star Trek I, II, III, VI, and Generations, all highlight how useless Captain Kirk feels when he isn’t on the bridge of the Enterprise; and episodes of each of the television series have dealt with regulars who feel the very same feelings of restless, aimless malaise whenever they’re separated from the ship they call home.  While this certainly isn’t unique to Star Trek, the franchise, for better or for worse, likes to crank that separation anxiety way higher than other works do.  Why that is, we’ll discuss in the conclusion of Farpoint, and again when we cover The Battle. 

In the meantime, if you haven’t seen already, check out Ships of the Line by Margret Clark and Doug Drexler is the source of the gorgeous image above.  It’s an amazing book full of breathtaking scenes of the ships of Star Trek from the creators of equally impressive Star Trek: Ships of the Line calendars.  Honestly, I couldn’t recommend it more. 

©2013 AHoden or The Special Needs Group. Screen captures and TNG publicity photos property of their owners.

Encounter at Farpoint Part I

Origional airdate: Week of September 28, 1987

Directed by: Corey Alen

Written by: D.C. Fonatna and Gene Roddenberry 

Welcome aboard the brand new Galaxy-class USS Enterprise-D. 

As much as the TARDIS of Doctor Who fame, ships in Trek are characters in their own right. Kirk’s Enterprise was a radical departure from the usual spaceship designs seen in 1960s science fiction, but compared to it’s Galaxy-class namesake, she looked like a splay-legged cart horse. That’s not an insult--OK, it’s a little insulting, I’m sure Scotty would beat my ass if he herd me saying that, but I have nothing but love for the classic Enterprise.  Kirk and company were on the frontier--cowboys forging into the unknown--and their ship’s simple, no nonsense, utilitarian design reflected that fact.  Enterprise-D, is an entirely different animal: Refined, elegant, and huge--42 decks tall and measuring around 643 meters long with eight times the volume of her Constitution-class predecessor, Enterprise-D is a skyscraper in space.   

The episode begins with a beautiful establishing shot of our newest Enterprise, where we’re first introduced to Jean-Luc Picard, who dictates his first captain’s log of the series as he tours his ship.   This is also when we’re introduced to Picard pensively staring out a window--get used to it, because that’ll be happening a lot over the series.  

For now, it’s an excellent and loving introduction to what will be the characters’ home for the next eight years (I plan to discuss the Enterprise and the importance of starships to Trek lore in a little more detail in a supplemental entry later next week).   The problem with Picard’s log entry is that it foreshadows a problem this episode: they don’t have nearly enough show to fill the episode’s running time. The episode tries to cover this up with what is frankly blatant padding, but it only contributes to the uneven pacing of the episode.  

We also meet Lt. Commander Data, who will develop into one of the most interesting characters in all of Trek, with a character arc that arguably rivals Mr. Spock for most beloved in franchise.  Now, however, the episode uses him as a target for a chunky stream of explosive exposition.  I do not posses the rhetorical skills necessary to illustrate the true awkwardness of this plot dump, so I’ll just let it speak for itself--and keep in mind that this is the first exchange of dialogue in the entire series:

Picard: You will agree, Data, that Starfleet’s orders are difficult.

Data:  Difficult?  Simply solve the mystery of Farpoint Station.

Picard: Hmm, as simple as that.  

Troy: Farpoint Station.  Even the name sounds mysterious.

Picard: It’s hardly simple, Data, to negotiate an agreement for Starfleet to use the base while at the same time snoop around.

Data: Inquiry: The word, ‘Snoop?’

Picard: Data, how can you be programed as a virtual encyclopedia of human information without knowing a simple word like snoop?

This is also where we’re introduced to Data’s theme for most of the first season: Data is an irritating, android attaboy.  Picard gives a brief explanation of the word ‘snoop,’ and Data, just to prove just how smart he is--presumably to the audience, but possibly also to Picard--ejaculates nine synonyms back at him.  Data’s stupid robot tricks will be toned down after the first season or two, but until that happens, you’ll be forgiven for hoping the show’s going to feature some sort of 24^th Century version of BattleBots...which actually, sounds like it would be awesome!

Picard noted that Enterprise is understaffed in several key positions, which brings up  a question that’s been bugging me: Why the hell does Starfleet insist on launching ships before they’re ready?  Seriously, let’s go down the list:

• Star Trek the Motion Picture’s refit Enterprise was launched in such an unready state, it somehow gave space-time a colonoscopy.  It’s tempting to give this one a pass.  There was a crisis, and Enterprise was the best choice to stop that big. . .cloud. . .with a yeast infection. . .and there was a hot, bald robot that. . .what the hell was that movie about?  

• We had The Final Frontier, where the movie shows us other ships in space dock, but Starfleet sends an Enterprise to handle a dangerous hostage situation on the edge of both Klingon and Romulan space, despite the fact that the ship was so FUBAR, the decks aren’t even in the right order.  

• In Generations, the Enterprise-B was sent on a test run without a medical staff.  Or photon torpedos.  Or a tractor beam.  Also, the toilets weren’t actually hooked up to anything yet; when flushed, their contents just splattered on the next deck below.  

• The Defiant was assigned to Sisko, even though her engines had an unfortunate tendency to tear the ship in half...though this may have just been to torture Chief O'Brien, which is Starfleet's standard operating procedure. 

• NX-01 was launched weeks before it was ready so it’s captain could prove his dick was bigger than a Vulcan’s.  I’m willing to give this one a pass, as well; a good hunk of the first season was spent showing why launching early was a really, really bad idea that almost got everyone killed a couple of times.  Also, laughably, disastrously bad decisions was the unintentional motif of the first three seasons of Enterprise.  

Q Rocking USMC Service 'A's

Q shows up and completely steals the show with his cheesy but somehow terrifying hamminess.  Q was a last-minute change to the story, added as an extra storyline to satisfy Paramount’s request that Encounter at Farpoint be a double-length episode.  It is, at least to me, fairly obvious that Q was added as an afterthought.  The crew members who were waiting to be picked up at Farpoint Station had already suspected that there was something bizarre going on, and had taken it upon themselves to investigate.  In all likelihood, they would have been able solve the ‘mystery of Farpoint Station’ without Q’s interference, so there’s no real reason that he needs to be in this episode.

This doesn't matter, though, because in an episode brimming with terrible performances from the regulars, John di Lancie’s plays Q as an irreverent trickster who just happens to be crap-your-pants intimidating when he needs to be.  He shows up on the bridge dressed first as a 16^th century explorer speaking antiquated English, then as a US Marine spouting mockingly paranoid nonsense about beating the ‘commies’--incidentally, Picard shows that he has yet to develop a sense of irony when he calls to the US Marine service dress uniform a costume while wearing red spandex pajamas--and finally as a soldier from what Picard describes as Earth’s post atomic horror.  Even through the silliness of this sequence, you can sense a cold, deadly edge hidden just under the surface of Q’s personality.  His appearance added a sense of menace that would have mad the episode a fairly sub-par alien-of-the-week mystery without. 

Future Soldiers Get To Wear Sequins 

Let me also say that I like this future solder’s costume.  It seems believable that the march toward stronger, lighter military body armor would eventually lead to something that might resemble the sort of battle dress padding that Q’s wearing.  

Picard tries to outwit Q with a saucer separation, a procedure which was originally intended to be a regular feature on TNG, allowing the civilians and families to stay behind as when the rest of the ship went charging into danger.  His plan is to run from Q at maximum warp, and distract him with a spread of photon torpedos; giving the saucer and the nonessential personnel therein the opportunity to flee while Picard faces Q in the ship’s battle section.  Saucer separation has been hinted at in Star Trek since TOS.  In The Apple, Kirk gave Scotty a semi-cryptic order to dump the nacelles--probably meaning both the secondary hull and the actual warp nacelles--but non-canon sources once the ship was separated, it the two hulls couldn’t be rejoined.  

Worf takes the opportunity to tell the audience something we already figured out ten minutes ago: that he’s a Klingon.  This is handled through a clunky burst of exposition, that really should have been better spent pointing out the frankly amazing fact that a Starfleet captain is giving command of a Federation starship to a Klingon.  Remember, as far as the audience knew, the Empire and the Federation were still entangled in cold war.  Worf taking command should have been given more weight to illustrate just how different this show was going to be.  It was an opportunity to underline that the universe had changed drastically in between the TOS era and TNG.  Instead, the scene just serves to remind us what Klingons look like.  

I Think Gene Roddenberry Might Have
Had a Strange Fascination with Dwarves

The courtroom scene that follows is another delightful demonstration of Q being terrifying.   At one point, after promising that he would be a fair judge of humanity, he orders more future-solders to kill Picard, Data, and Yar should Picard not plead guilty to humanity’s crimes.  The scene is a masterwork of suspense, leading into an act break, which legitimately leaves you on edge through the commercials.  

Picard enters a provisional guilty plea, and we’ll see this dynamic between the two through many of their future meetings.  Picard will, again and again throughout the series be forced to humble himself before Q, and admit that without Q’s help, he won’t survive.  There might be an answer to the open question about Q’s motives in the two’s behavior, which I’ll touch on in a future discussion, but for now, it simply sets up the dilemma of Farpoint Station.  

That done, we close out the episode with a touching send-off by TOS’s DeForest Kelley as the 137 year old Admiral Bones McCoy, who’s conversation with Data as they slowly amble down a corridor is among to most heartwarming in Star Trek history:

Bones: Well, this is a new ship, but she’s got the right name.  Now, you remember that, you hear?  You treat her like a lady and she’ll always bring you home.

The Good:

• There are two black guys on the bridge, and neither of them were killed.
• Chief O’Brien.  Fuckin’ Chief Miles Edward O’Brien. 
• The introduction of Q. 
• This discussion:

McCoy: I don’t see any points on your ears, boy, but you sound like a Vulcan. 

Data: No, sir, I am an android.

McCoy: Huh.  Almost as bad.

• It’s great to known that even into the 24^th century, Dr. McCoy will still be a racist old drunk!  

The Bad: 

• The Bandi.  The entire species looks like depressed Raggedy Andy dolls sewn together by forced child labor in a country where the Communist government feels that  color is too decadent.  
• The acting.  The show had the basic characterization down, but that’s about it.  Even the better actors among the group didn’t have much to work with; everyone else...frankly it would take until midseason two before most everyone else became comfortable in their roles.  Eventually, TNG will have one of the better ensemble cast on television when they grow into their roles.  
• Natasha Yar.  She somehow managed to out-useless Councilor Troy for most the episode.  

The Verdict:

• Must see.  This episodes sets up the entire series, and despite its flaws, it is too important. 

 Encounter at Farpoint Part II >

©2013 AHoden or The Special Needs Group. Screen captures and TNG publicity photos property of their owners.

Make it So

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Star Trek.  I mean that, I was obsessed in a borderline unhealthy way.  I planned my Sundays around the episode of The Original Series rerun that my local Fox affiliate would air.  Every weeknight at ten, the same station (Fox really didn’t have a lot going on in the early nineties), would air a ten o’clock episode of The Next Generation.  It was these broadcasts--airing one hour after my bed time at that age--that are probably responsible for my complete inability to fall asleep at a reasonable hour to this very day.  

I honestly don’t know what it was about the show, or rather, the entire franchise, that I found so appealing.  All I remember for sure is that if you were unlucky enough to cross my path at age nine, there was a good chance that you would be waylaid by my complete obsession with the USS Enterprise and her crew.  

That’s not to say that I won’t still totally waste your time by talking endlessly about a franchise that hasn’t made any new material for television for--Good Lord, has it really been eight years?  

For now, I’d like to focus on The Next Generation, starting with Encounter at Farpoint and then skipping around throughout the series--possibly including episodes of other series if they should be tied into what we cover in any interesting ways.  Should anyone want me to look at a specific episode, movie, or specific theme, I’ll be more than happy to take requests.  

I don’t want to call these reviews, though.  I won’t necessarily be focusing on how individual shows or story lines stand on  as works of fiction, but more how they stand up as individual contributions of to the universe and its mythology.  I might not even focus on an individual episode.

So, let’s see if we can figure out how and why Star Trek touched us--well, mostly me, ‘cuz I’m the one writing this crap--and what that means about us.   

So, let’s begin with Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1, Episode 1&2 Encounter at Farpoint.