Tng Episode 1.13: Datalore

In which the crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe.

Memory Alpha says: Enterprise explores Data's home planet, Omicron Theta. They find his brother, and the dark secret he carries. (Please click the Memory Alpha link for detailed information.)

My Review

Of course I'll have a lot to say about this one, because it's the first really Data-centric episode, and to me TNG is a show about Data. It also introduces one of my favourite characters, and one I feel is sadly underused, Data's villainous older brother Lore. In the early planning stages, the new android was going to be female (a gynoid, really) and a love interest for Data (so, um, presumably not his sister, although I suppose if you want to be really rational about it it's not exactly incest if there's no DNA or shared experience of a familial relationship involved) but Brent Spiner suggested the ol' evil twin routine. 

TNG Episode 1.12: The Big Goodbye

In which Captain Picard and Data look completely fly in chalkstripe suits and fedoras and what else do I care about?

Seriously. Unf. Jaunty. Jean-Luc Picard knows how to angle a hat.

Memory Alpha says: Captain Picard and some of the Enterprise crew get stuck on the holodeck on their way to an important diplomatic mission. (Please click the Memory Alpha link for detailed information.)

My Review

I think I'm going to write this one up as a proper summary with commentary, because I've been slothful lately. I know the bullet point commentary works okay for people who watch the episode themselves and then see what I had to say about it, but there's something to be said for reading an episode. Sometimes it's almost as satisfying as actually watching it, not that I can really explain why. 

Anyway! This is the first episode to feature holodeck LARPing and start exploring the storytelling possibilities of this nifty bit of technology - which, if you want to be realistic about it, is obviously incredibly dangerous to have on your starship, almost as dangerous as Data. Both are extremely powerful and unpredictably glitchy - but the holodeck is fun and Data is lovable, and quite frankly we know where our priorities lie.

TNG Episode 1.11: Haven

In which Deanna receives a Quark in a box.

 

Memory Alpha says: Tension mounts on the Enterprise as Counselor Troi's arranged marriage nears, and her mother takes a liking for Captain Picard. Meanwhile, a plague ship threatens the planet where they are meeting. (Please click the Memory Alpha link for detailed information.)

My Review

This is an episode I'm almost sure I didn't see on its first airing, and possibly have never seen at all. On the other hand, I could just be forgetting. I have the kind of memory that dredges up things like three Presidents of the United States with alliterative first and last names with relative ease (that won me a trivia quiz and totally impressed people, and I didn't even have to use Ronald Reagan) but won't do phone numbers that I didn't learn in childhood (my first ever phone number was 780527, back when New Zealand phone numbers only needed six digits) and is remarkably unhelpful on questions like 'So: have ya seen "Haven"?'

Anyway, this episode introduces Deanna's mum Lwaxana, which is either awesome or cringe-inducing depending on how you feel about her. Personally, I like her, and not because I don't think she's awful - she is awful, and she knows it, and she doesn't care because she likes herself so damn much. Plus, she's Majel Barrett Roddenberry, so resistance is futile. And I would just like to tell you that this episode was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Hairstyling for a Series. I guess it didn't win, but let's look really closely at the hairstyles, because I think I might know which one they're talking about (which makes me suspect I have seen at least part of this episode after all).

TNG Episode 1.10: Hide and Q

In which Q shows his enthusiasm for cosplay, and Riker kinda shows his enthusiasm for Wesley.

Memory Alpha says: Q returns with a new test for the Enterprise. Can Commander Riker resist the power of the Q Continuum? (Please click the Memory Alpha link for detailed information.)

My Review

This episode marks the second time we see Q, and that establishes a tendency that will grow more pronounced over the course of TNG until it eventually gets really awesome in DS9, towards greater continuity in Star Trek. That's not to say there is no continuity in TOS; you get recurring outside characters like, um, Harry Mudd is the only one who comes immediately to mind (I've also found that a lot of people have trouble remembering that Cyrano Jones, from 'The Trouble With Tribbles,' is not Harry Mudd, because selling tribbles just seems like such a Harry Mudd thing to do).

This is one of the episodes that I really can't remember watching, except a vague memory of Tasha saying she was in a penalty box. Is that this one? Well, I'll find out, won't I?

TNG Episode 1.9: The Battle

In which Wesley is unusually annoying.

Memory Alpha says: A gift to Captain Picard from a Ferengi military leader may have more sinister intentions. 

My Review

This should be my last one before Christmas, because I actually have a life for the next few days - and it will also be the last one until after New Year, because guess who's moving house on the 29th? Yes, I shall be a busy bunny indeed. 

So in this episode we get some more repellent military Ferengi - I do want to continue with my assumption that Marauders are just the dregs of their society, sent out into space to stop them getting in everyone's way - and the origin of the Picard Manoeuvre, the actual spaceship one rather then the one you do with your pullover. I have spelled it Manoeuvre because it's far more French that way and I feel sure Jean-Luc would like that. 

Allons-y!

TNG Episode 1.7: Lonely Among Us

In which Data smokes a pipe and floats my boat.

Memory Alpha says: While transporting delegates, Picard and his crew are enveloped by a cloud that seizes control of their minds and alters their behavior.

My Review

And that's why I don't trust clouds. I have no real memory of this episode to go on, other than some blue lightning, and I think that at some point Riker comes off as a smug vegan. Since Riker looks like he lives on raw steak and ice-cream, I find this amusing. On with the show.

The Enterprise is doing a little diplomatic jaunt this week, carrying delegates from two alien races to negotiate with each other on a 'neutral conference planet' called Parliament. They come from two planets in the same solar system, and they simply hate each other's guts, a bit like us and the Martians I suppose. Since they've developed warp drive, they're eligible for Federation membership, but everybody's got to play nice in the Federation (well, despite the fact that the founding races, Vulcans, humans, Tellarites and Andorians have never really liked each other, except in a few cases where, say, individual Vulcans and humans have liked each other very, very much) so the point of the negotiations is to see if they can find some way to refrain from tearing each other's faces off long enough to be allowed in.

TNG Episode 1.6: Where No One Has Gone Before

In which Wesley is a very special boy.

Memory Alpha says: When a specialist in propulsion makes modifications to the Enterprise's warp drive that send it 2.7 million light years out of the galaxy, then an impossibly unreturnable 1 billion light years in the other direction, it is his assistant, a mysterious alien, and Wesley Crusher that must bring it back home. (Please click the Memory Alpha link for detailed information.)

My Review
I'm going to keep this uncharacteristically short, because you know what? Not a lot actually happens in this episode. Apart from a few character touches, the whole story exists pretty much to create an excuse for Wesley to work on the bridge, in the role of Acting Ensign. He doesn't actually earn this himself by proving that he's smart, responsible, mature and trustworthy; he gets given it because a mysterious alien privately tells Captain Picard that he's got the potential to be a super-genius and needs to be given extra opportunities - but mustn't be told yet that he's special, I suppose so he doesn't get a swelled head.

He compares Wesley to Mozart, which I know is supposed to make us think 'awesome precocious sparkling genius,' but makes me think 'dead at thirty-five, buried in a pauper's grave.' Also, did you know that Mozart and his mother exchanged love-letters about farts? Honestly. Read The QI Book of the Dead. It's an eye-opener. I'd pull the quote but my copy is with a friend. And no, I'm not just mixing him up with James Joyce; the whole farty love-letter thing seems to be a trope. I'll admit I often think farts are funny, but they've never really rung my bell in that way.

So I think I'll drop into point form for this commentary. Things will most likely be out of the order in which they appear in the episode, because I watched it last night and decided I was too sleepy to write it up then.

TNG Episode 1.5: The Last Outpost

In which we meet the Ferengi, and Data is wearing his sassy pants.

Memory Alpha says: In pursuit of Ferengi marauders, the Enterprise and its quarry become trapped by a mysterious planet that is draining both ships' energies. (For detailed information, please click the Memory Alpha link.)

My Review

'Code of Honor' was (generally unintentionally) racist about black people. Now we have 'The Last Outpost,' which manages the interesting feat of being racist about people who don't even exist, the Ferengi. It is understandable that the Ferengi are not everyone's cup of tea, but at least in DS9 they are developed into an internally consistent, relatively plausible culture and we get to know some likeable individuals. I find Rom more tiresome than anything else, but I love Quark and Nog, and Liquidator Brunt is one of my favourite antagonists. The Ferengi in DS9 are portrayed as cunning, devious, amoral, sly, shifty little bastards (stop, I'm making them blush) - but also as people who care about their families and friends, and at least don't have any genocide on their collective conscience.

But in their first appearance, 'Code of Honor,' they are prancing, jabbering idiots, to the extent that it's hard to understand how such a species of utter gobshites ever managed to get off their own planet. The Ferengi were supposed to be major antagonists in TNG, as you may have surmised from the sinister terms in which Picard mentions them in 'Farpoint,' but after this episode, the staff were forced to admit that this just wasn't going to work. They did appear again, but from then on were played for laughs rather than with any sincere attempt to suggest that they posed a challenge. Fortunately for all of us, they thought of the Borg who are WAY scarier, and maintained the Romulans and dickhead factions of Klingons, and invented the Cardassians, and it was all good.

I suppose one explanation for the vast difference in intellect between the 'Code of Honor' Ferengi and the DS9 ones could be that only fuckin' idiots sign on as marauders, while sensible and intelligent people go into business. Well, anyway, let's go, Marauder Mo.

TNG Episode 1.4: Code of Honor

In which the cause of race relations is set back... actually, nobody cares that much because it's an extremely silly episode, but it doesn't help any.

Memory Alpha says: A mission of mercy is jeopardized when a planetary ruler decides he wants an Enterprise officer as his wife. (Please click the Memory Alpha link for detailed information.)

My Review

I think it's probably true that any actor who has had an at all interesting career has been involved in some absolute stinkers - whether because they seemed good initially and only later turned to shit, because they did it as a favour to someone they liked or loved, or because they just needed to get paid. The proper spirit is demonstrated by Michael Caine, who, when asked whether he had seen the absolutely ridiculous Jaws: the Revenge said no, but he had seen the house in France it paid for, and that was lovely. (The best part of Jaws: the Revenge: Caine's character, a light plane pilot, has to ditch into the sea where the vengeful shark is swimming around and attacking a boat holding the other characters. At this point we're supposed to think the shark eats him when it has a go at the plane. Shortly afterwards, though, he swims up to the boat and they pull him on board and ask him how he escaped. Caine: 'It wasn't easy.' No more is said about it, and in the next shot in the same sequence his clothes are dry.)

'Code of Honor' is one of those stinkers. Because the fierce and obstinate alien characters were all cast as black actors, and they abduct a white, blonde, blue-eyed woman, it comes out incredibly racist and backward and weird. This casting, which was not specified by the script (it does mention two guards as black, I don't know why), was a whim of the episode's director, and got him fired when Gene Roddenberry got wind of what he was doing. However, that didn't happen until too late for a do-over, so the episode just had to be completed as it was. With that little bit of context/perspective out of the way, let's have a look at 'Code of Honor' and hope that it at least helped to pay for a bit of a house in France.

TNG Episode 1.3: The Naked Now

In which Wesley feels strange, but also good. I also feel strange, but not so good.
 
Memory Alpha says: The crew of the Enterprise is subjected to an exotic illness that drives them to unusual manic behavior. (Click the Memory Alpha link if you want detailed information. This post is a commentary-style review rather than a plot summary, and there will be stuff missing that I didn't have a response to.)

My Review

Oh God, I always forget 'The Naked Now' is the first real episode of TNG. I didn't expect to have to deal with it so soon. I want to get it out of the way now, though, and next time jump sideways and begin DS9.

I actually think 'The Naked Now' is a fairly groovy title, but it sounds like it's about being intensely present in the moment, with nothing between you and the experience, rather than about people actually taking their clothes off and acting like damn fools.

TNG Episode 1.1, 1.2: Encounter At Farpoint, Parts 1 & 2

In which we meet our noble crew, Riker enjoys an apple and Data is not really in character yet.

Memory Alpha says: Captain Jean-Luc Picard leads the crew of the USS Enterprise-D on its maiden voyage, to examine a new planetary station for trade with the Federation. On the way, they encounter Q, an omnipotent extra-dimensional being, who challenges humanity as a barbaric, inferior species. Picard and his new crew must hold off Q's challenge and solve the puzzle of Farpoint station on Deneb IV, a base that is far more than it seems to be. (Series Premiere) 

My Review

Here's how it's going to be: I am going to assume you have access to the episode in question. If you don't, you can follow the Memory Alpha link to read detailed information. I'm not going to provide a full summary of the plot because, well, Memory Alpha exists. This will just be me watching the episode and saying what I think about it, bit by bit, perhaps slightly pretending I am doing a DVD commentary.

'Encounter At Farpoint,' like most of the first two seasons of TNG, needs to be viewed with an indulgent eye, bearing in mind how good the show eventually became. (This also applies to the first couple of books in the Discworld series. I don't think anyone reading The Colour of Magic cold would understand why the series inspires the devotion that it does, or why Pratchett gets compared to Dickens.) It is hard to watch without experiencing a certain amount of contact embarrassment (oh hey, I think I got that phrase from Pratchett), but the same is true of pretty much any of us as a teenager, so I'm not on a high horse here. Let's boldly go.