“Till the sun grows cold”: Descent

The Borg are back.

“Descent” marks an important turning point in a number of respects. Up front, it's the first time Star Trek: The Next Generation has done a cliffhanger season finale more or less only because this is the sort of thing it does to close off filming block seasons; in other words, the first time the cliffhanger finale structure is implemented as a matter of course and functional habit instead of being the result of unexpected necessity. “The Best of Both Worlds” was born out of a narrative-melting crisis springing from the chaos of the third season's production as well as contract disputes with Patrick Stewart's agent. “Redemption” was a double length story done to lead into the 25th Anniversary year and to accommodate the bombshell return of Denise Crosby, as well as closing off Worf's epic story arc about his isolation from his Klingon heritage (oh how naive we all once were). And “Time's Arrow” wasn't even going to be a a two-parter until the building hype for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine started to concern viewers that Star Trek: The Next Generation was going off the air.

Interestingly enough, much of this remains palpable swirling about the thematic and aesthetic core of “Descent”. Most notably, of course, the Borg. What's important to remember about the Borg's status in Star Trek is their joint role as extradiegetic challenge and interloping threat: The Borg are not exactly a dark mirror of the Federation, and while it's tempting to call them purveyors of narrative collapse, they're actually not. “The Best of Both Worlds” threatened to be a narrative collapse, but if it had been that would have been the show doing that to itself-The Borg winning was a symptomatic result of the show's panic-stricken crisis, not the cause of it. The closest Star Trek: The Next Generation has actually come to narrative collapse is the forced artifice of “Chain of Command”, which examined the potential threat of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine dispersing its older sister by purging Bajor and the Cardassian occupation from it. Crucially, this story came not long after two other double-length episodes meant to reassure us this wasn't going to happen (one of which even featured a cameo by the Borg). Since then, we've seen Gul Ocett on this side of the lot and there's even a Bajoran extra in “Descent” itself.

In practice, the Borg are actually more of a counterfactual narrative invader. They come from Star Trek's future, and as iconic as they may be to Star Trek: The Next Generation in pop culture they fundamentally do not belong here. The Borg represent all the darkness and ugliness the Star Trek universe inherits as part of its pedigree, the terrifying end result of science fiction's teleology and technological determinism gone horribly right. And, keenly aware of the show's perpetually unfulfilled potential, the Borg lie in wait for a moment of weakness to strike and appropriate. Not out of malice, but out of sheer opportunism and a compulsion to consolidate power and efficiency. As such, the Borg work best when they're used as a source of grotesque parallel and contrast to remind us of what it would look like if we were to allow the impulses of capitalism and modernity to continue to evolve and adapt unchecked. The reason the Federation fear the Borg so much, the reason Admiral Nechayev calls them “our mortal enemy”, is merely because of their inner consciousness playing on their unspoken, yet fundamental, self-doubt and self-loathing that, perhaps, they're actually not so different after all.

“Descent” is sometimes seen as the moment the Borg jumped the shark as it were, because in this story they're not a monolithic hive mind blindly absorbing everything but a handful of trained, individual strike force commandos. But this is actually the biggest reason why the Borg in this episode provide the biggest threat they have possibly ever posed, because as big of a deal the crew makes about how they're acting atypically, they're actually not. The “I, Borg” callback isn't just to throw out a red herring in the plot to play for time (seriously, with Data's prominent role here involving his oddly timed emotional resurgence, was there ever any doubt that Lore was going to turn out to be behind it all? But that's for next season), it's a firm critique of the previous episode's ethical underpinnings and moral dilemma that also reveals how terrifyingly powerful and dangerous the Borg really are.

This is not the same as critiquing, say Captain Picard's specific actions in that episode: In fact, the whole reason Alynna Nechayev is here is to further reinforce that he acted wisely and correctly-Let's not forget that Nechayev is the first Starfleet Admiral *overtly* coded as actively evil. Her very condemnation of Picard's choice lets us know that he made the right one. Rather, what “Descent” is attacking is the notion that moral choice was ever necessary: There is no moral dilemma in regards to the sanctity of life; it should be preserved and respected above all else no matter what, end of, and “I, Borg” was stupid to insinuate that wasn't the case and to put Captain Picard and Guinan in the position of neglecting that. So we have the Captain taking the fall for the show *yet again* by being put in between Admiral Nechayev and Commander Riker...and note that after Will reassures him all of that bothersome luggage is cast aside.

But what's really scary about “Descent” is how, from this, the Borg still manage to get the upper hand, even in spite of the crew's good intentions and noble actions. Remember, the Borg gestalt is capitalism given form, and what capitalism is best at is devouring and appropriating all other ways of thinking, even that which is used against it. And what's one of the very first things we learned about the Borg way back in “Q Who”? That any weapon you use against them will only work once, because they will then immediately learn, adapt and turn it against you a hundredfold. Jeri Taylor was right: “I, Borg” *did* change the Borg forever, but not quite in the way she thought. Because what the Borg have done here in “Descent” is, terrifyingly, assimilate the very concepts of individual positionality and human empathy themselves. They've taken two of the most sacred tenets by which Star Trek operates, ground them into the engines of capitalism and turned them back against us in an attempt to quell any resistance we could offer before we reached a point where we were prepared to effect change.

The Borg's endgame is, and always has been, to kill off Star Trek as Star Trek: The Next Generation before it transitions to the form that will do battle with them on their own terms. And even if they were to fail here, they'd still be ready for us in the future. Either way, they win.

It's in this way that the Borg have given us their timeliest and most critical challenge to date. Through assimilating and weaponizing empathy in the name of capital, they've transformed themselves into the living embodiment of the one and only thing that could truly be called Star Trek: The Next Generation's greatest threat: Grimdark. It's been creeping into the series ever since Michael Piller became head writer and executive producer, and its only been magnified by the presence of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the intense scrutiny both series have been subjected to that goes above and beyond anything we've seen before. It is the fatal flaw of two major showrunners, one of whom wrote this episode. And now grimdark has come to life more frightening and monstrous than we ever could have imagined, the symbolism sealed by the Borg's apparent claiming of Data-Who better than he to represent those selfsame virtues the Borg have stolen from us? A transhuman character who acknowledges there's still more for him to learn and grow from.

And who better to mastermind it all than a psychopathic fascist android?

To Be Continued

“...rose from a solid sea”: Timescape

A river, flowing to eternity. Frozen.

But even when frozen, water does not stand still. There is movement and kinetic energy at the molecular level, imperceptible though it might be to normal human senses. Water's mercurial nature is in its ability to remain fluid throughout many different forms.

In the depths of space, due to the extreme temperatures, water does not solidify into the crystalline lattice commonly associated with ice, but ice still exists. It is still freezing. In space, ice forms as an amorphous solid, transitioning in an instant to a kind of cosmic glass. Amorphous ice is likely the most common form of water in the universe.

On Earth, a lake frozen over in winter appears still and silent as the world around it appears locked in suspended animation. But beneath the surface, life goes on: Some fish, such as trout, are actually *more* active during the winter, while many species of insect spend their larval stages underwater during the winter in temperatures that can average a balmy 1-4 degrees Celsius in places. Winter is not a finite cessation of life, but a part of the continuing cycle of life.

There are events still in motion even as the world seems to sleep, setting the stage for the inevitable spring. And so the cycle begins again.

There are few stories that have become so much a part of my being and existence as “Timescape”. Rewatching it the other night reminded me why. There are some episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation that instantly come to mind when I think of the series-I've already mentioned “The Chase” is one this season. “Timescape” is not one of those episodes. It's in a category beyond that, existing only as a vivid sensory memory. When I think of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I don't think of this *story*, I think of its *images*: The Enterprise locked in combat with a Romulan Warbird. The eerily silent dreamlike atmosphere of the ship itself as she and her crew remain suspended in the unfolding moment. Deanna Troi making her way through a frozen sickbay, visibly astonished at the sight of Doctor Crusher in the midst of being crippled by a disruptor blast. Those images have lingered in the back of my psyche as clear as they were on first transmission for over twenty years.

Not so much Captain Picard playing with the warp core breach in engineering, though it's every bit as evocative and fitting. It certainly plays well for Tumblr, though.

I sometimes forget who else is stuck with Deanna outside in normal space-time. Not because Captain Picard, Data or (Prophets forbid) Geordi are low-key or forgettable presences, but because Deanna is the person I seem to have fixated on the most in these sets of images. Perhaps I've subconsciously connected “Timescape” with forthcoming episodes like “Dark Page” and “Eye of the Beholder” that share the same space in my memory, are equally dreamlike and in which Deanna also plays an important role. These are all experiences that, for me, transcend television and narrative itself to attain a nirvana of pure aesthetics. Star Trek: The Next Generation in its highest, most profound and purest form. The state in which I know it the most intimately and constantly strive to maintain; its realest. That is, ultimately, why Vaka Rangi exists.

And maybe here, and in Deanna, I also see a kind of ghost-echo of the Alice in Wonderland oeuvre, which is and always has been my favourite story. A young woman patiently and methodically explores a hauntingly surreal dream world with just a twinge of darkness and malaise about it. And I would assume that if anyone on Star Trek: The Next Generation were to step into that role, it would almost have to be Deanna: “Timescape” shows her at her most investigative and competent to date, the science officer she always should have been. Normally we'd expect this role to go to Beverly, but Beverly isn't with us this week and Deanna *is* in the sciences division: These are skills we always should have expected she had. There's a boldness and inquisitiveness to her here that also reminds me of Alice, and as an empath with extensive expertise in psychology, perhaps it only makes sense for Deanna to be the one to plumb the recess of the mind.

There's the Runabout. The starship's only appearance in Star Trek: The Next Generation, and also the only appearance of the living quarters section of the ship. The set was actually built by the Next Generation team on their budget for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which was going to need it but couldn't afford it this season. The irony being that this was the only time the set was ever actually used. But it's natural to see a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine invocation in this of all episodes, and appropriate in a bittersweet way that it's a glimpse into a future for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that was fated to never come to pass in this reality. It, like the temporal anomalies, is a window into an alternate temporal dimension outside our current space-time continuum. But we can see it. And we're reaching for it. Like Alice, all we need to do is cross the gateway into the world that exists within and beyond the barrows.

I once had a model kit of a Runabout. Specifically, the USS Rio Grande, the celebrated hero of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Runabout fleet. I always felt it was so decorated because that was the ship that Ben Sisko and Jadzia Dax travelled in to rediscover the Celestial Temple, but that's another story. My father built it for me because I had no patience for model kits (I still don't). I think it was one of the very first pieces of merchandise produced for Deep Space Nine, so I must have gotten it 'round about this time. I remember looking through the vertical windows at the stern and imagining what the interior looked like in that part of the ship. I'm astonished that somehow the art department built it to look precisely as I imagined for “Timescape”. Or maybe I'd already seen “Timescape” and had a lingering memory.

There's a specific shot I remember from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I think it must have been from this period. The crew remotely explode a shuttlecraft off what I'm thinking had to be the starboard nacelle. I'm upset, because to my knowledge the only shuttlecraft is the Goddard, which my toy represents (because no other support craft was featured in promotional materials at the time) and I don't want my ship to be destroyed. My dad had to explain to me that the Enterprise has more than one shuttlecraft, and they can easily build another. Now I'm wondering if the scene I'm actually remembering is Captain Picard remotely steering the Runabout into the energy transfer beam in this episode, and I've misremembered a Runabout as a shuttlecraft all these years. I may yet never know.

Once more, aliens from outside are trying to reshape the time-space continuum for their own ends. A form of self-preservation, as they've accidentally nested inside the Romulans' engine core. The Romulans use an artificial singularity to warp time and space to move forward. Some physicists speculate that black holes could empty out into other universes, but a black hole isn't the only thing that can have a singularity. So, of course, can a wormhole. Two realities are jeopardizing their mutual existence by being in contact with one another: The world of Star Trek: The Next Generation/Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Another. Something that's come here from somewhere else. With our mutual continued becomings in the balance, the only options are to reformat the universe or split it in two.

There are many details about “Timescape” I do not remember. I do not remember that The Freezing was brought upon by aliens from beyond time. I do not remember why the Enterprise and the Romulan Warbird are locked in combat, but I have a faint recollection it's not because of a trap or an unprovoked Romulan attack. Something unseen, intangible and unknowable has manipulated events to be this way, as if posing the two ships mid-battle in a kind of cosmic diorama. I also do not remember what a good Romulan episode this is, the next step in their redemption following “Face of the Enemy” and “The Chase”. Indeed, its Deanna's experiences in “Face of the Enemy” that help the crew piece together the clues to the mystery. The Romulans are exquisite red herrings that play extradiegetically on their fall and rise over the course of the series: The crew, and us because we share their perspective, immediately (and wrongly) assume the catastrophe is somehow a result of a Romulan attack. But it's then revealed that the Enterprise and the Warbird both knew about the aliens and the two teams were willingly and happily helping each other when disaster struck. We get a happy ending, and utopia prevails.

The thaw is inevitably coming, and the brighter days that accompany it, because here at the point of singularity we can see all points in time are present. The cycle constantly repeats and reinvents itself always in every waking moment.

“There are usually two sides to a story”: Second Chances

Wait...Didn't I already cover this one last season? Oh well, it was a great issue worth hyping up again, even if talking about it here almost a year later loses a lot of the context of reading it as part of its story arc. Anyway, so this is issue four of the story arc I dubbed Separation Anxiety after the title of issue three. The story on the whole deals with the saucer and stardrive sections of the Enterprise being flung to opposite ends of the galaxy after an encounter with a mysterious alien relay station. All the while, the crews of both ships are engaged in combat with a territorial race called the Sztazzan, who new transfer officer Terry Oliver has had tragic prior dealings with.

A major theme of this story are bridges, both actual starship bridges and structures that can either bring people together or keep them apart. Terry Oliver hates the Sztazzan for a previous skirmish she was involved in that resulted in the destruction of her former ship and the deaths of its crewmembers, and she's paralleled with both Chief O'Brien (this was originally released before Star Trek: Deep Space Nine premiered, you understand) and Ro Laren, both of whom have had similar traumatic experiences with enemy combatants, but whom have been able to deal with their grief and trauma in more positive and constructive ways. But this issue was a turning point for Terry, because on an away team mission led by Doctor Beverly Crusher, and following a conversation about moving beyond hate with Chief O'Brien, she finds a wounded Sztazzan officer and...

Fuck, that's not the right “Second Chances” is it? Dammit.

Unlike the comic book that shares its name, this “Second Chances” is about a transporter accident that split Will Riker into two halves during a mission on one of his old ships. And also unlike the comic book “Second Chances”, this episode is a piece of shit.

It's never sat quite well with me, even back in the day (“back in the day” here referring to the early 2000s, as this is another episode I didn't watch on original transmission) how the show felt the need to jump through a bunch of rhetorical and technobabble excuses to come up with a second Riker who could be more rakish and insubordinate for a *lot* of reasons. Firstly, it once again smacks of conflict-for-conflict's-sake childishness, but it also idolizes the wrong parts of Will's personality (or what people seem to think Will's personality is). And don't you for one minute think this writing team didn't 100% prefer writing for Thomas over writing for Will: There was even an idea floating around early in this episode's pre-production that Will would be killed off and Tom would take his place (or rather Data's, who would have been promoted to first officer), because nobody was going to expect it and it would have shaken up the crew dynamic. Thankfully that got canned pretty quickly, but it still gives me the chills just thinking about it.

There are just so, so many ways how that would have been catastrophic for the show, and the team's preference for Tom says a lot about how they see these characters. The very fact they felt the need to come up with a “hipper, edgier” Riker says to me they think Will is boring, and that's a line of argument I actually remember. I distinctly recall hearing fans back in the day (this time I do mean 1993) joke/complain that Will's only purpose on the ship was to lean over things, bark orders and say “Shields up, Red Alert” every episode. Funnily enough, Will's reputation among fans today, that of the galaxy's greatest Casanova space stud and interstellar sex tourist (that is, Kirk 2.0) is way more applicable in the actual show as produced to Tom. That's not to agree with the older fandom that Will is boring, far from it: Rather, what I'm trying to argue is that if this was part of Will's character at one point he's long since grown beyond that and channeled his libidinous energies into more mature and constructive outlets. Which is actually what “Second Chances” is about on one level, even if the episode bizarrely seems to mean for this to be a criticism of Will. You know, because nobody writing this show knows what utopianism and being a grown-up means.

Nowhere is this more painfully evident than in Tom's relationship with Deanna, which is far and away the most crippling part of this episode. As awkward as Tom individually might be, at least he doesn't show up again in the series, but the effect he has on Will and Deanna, or at least the perception of what their characters are like, leaves a lasting impression. The reason the writers wanted to hook Tom and Deanna up was because it was their way of exploring a relationship they felt hadn't been looked at deeply enough: The one between Deanna and Will. The impetus seemed to be that there was some kind of outlying romantic loose ends dangling over them that needed to be addressed somehow because, after all, that's just the kind of thing that traditionally makes good drama. But the problem is, as it always has been, that Star Trek: The Next Generation is neither traditional nor good drama-It's something different, and it requires a different skillset and playbook. There are no romantic loose ends between Will Riker and Deanna Troi because they're *former* lovers in a utopian setting, end of story. The entire point of their characters has always been that they broke up and are totally cool with it and remain intimate friends, and that dates all the damn way back to Star Trek Phase II when they were Will Decker and Ilia.

This is an instance where the most interesting story isn't the story that was produced, but the one that went on behind the scenes. First and foremost this was LeVar Burton's directorial debut, and a big turning point in his career. He'd been wanting to try his hand at directing for awhile but was afraid to ask, and when he finally did Rick Berman flatly told him that he'd been waiting for him. Burton has gone on to become an incredibly accomplished director, and he certainly does do a good job with “Second Chances”: The technical complexity of those doubling effects shots are not to be discounted, even though I don't have a ton to say about them because we've seen this done with Brent Spiner a million times before.

Then there's Mae Jemison, who it's impossible not to call the highlight of the episode. I of course knew her as Mae Jemison for a long time before, and when I saw from a picture of her in a Starfleet uniform that she'd done an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation I thought “good for her”, although even she couldn't sell me on a premise that seemed from Starlog's writeup to be questionable at best. Jemison was a big fan of the Original Series growing up, and seeing Nichelle Nichols play Uhura inspired her that she herself could be an astronaut someday. She got in touch with LeVar Burton to express her desire to come to the show, who knew this was an opportunity he couldn't pass up. And furthermore, he got in touch with Nichelle Nichols herself and asked if she might like to come down and meet the first African-American woman to go into real-life outer space. There's no doubt Mae Jemison's days on call were anything less than magic.

It's a textbook example of how it's the idea of Star Trek and what it means to each of us individually that makes all the difference in the world, not so much the TV show.

“Jesus! Jesus is here!”: Rightful Heir

I don't know how you screw up a concept like "Klingon Ice Monastery", but they do.

You know, I think I'm just done listening to stories about Worf and Klingon heritage. Especially as told by Ron Moore.

Here's another episode I vaguely remember liking that completely turned me off on the rewatch. It's not one I have really fond memories of from back in the day-This was an episode I only caught once TNN started rerunning Star Trek: The Next Generation in the early 2000s. Consequently I'm not super broken up about having “Rightful Heir” fall flat for me as I don't have any particularly potent nostalgia affixed to it and this season has been strong enough it can afford to give us a few duds at this point in the year....Even if we do seem to have, since “Suspicions” (and looking ahead to next week), crossed over into the Enterprise variant of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's month and a half long water-treading session.

None of you need to hear my reasons for being alienated by this episode. I most certainly do not need to go into my litany of disagreements with Ron Moore's philosophy, writing style and approach to characterization again. My issues with “Rightful Heir” are the same ones I had with “Redemption”, only magnified to an even greater extent because I no longer have the time or patience to humour them. Worf is by now cripplingly overexposed as a character and has had way, way too many showcase episodes, even just this season alone. And the only reason he is so overexposed is because he's the only character (on either show, frankly) that Moore actually enjoys writing for because he's also the only character Moore knows how to write for. That's a big problem for a showrunner, and an ever-present one.

(Moore isn't the sole showrunner of The Next Generation by a longshot, but given Rick Berman and Michael Piller's promotion to franchise overseers, the complex web of the producer/writer relationship and Jeri Taylor's position, he definitely is one of them. He's certainly the most senior staff writer by this point. This does not, however, make him the best.)

I mean should I even make an attempt to derive some erudition about the Klingons from their depiction in this episode? What more is there to say? It's Moore-type Klingons. Ridiculous cartoon Viking/Dwarf stereotypes who like to eat, drink and stab in no particular order. Even the monks. Especially the monks. There's a ghost of an interesting idea where the Kahless clone calls out the Klingons at the monastery for forgetting the reason why they fight and it almost seems like the story is going down a kind of jihad route by framing this in terms of a righteous struggle. And then it doesn't, because of fucking course it doesn't. I should have given up my hopes to see non-warrior caste and non-cartoon Klingons after the first season ended. Then there's that business of Worf's eagerness to believe the clone is the real Kahless contrasted with Gowron's more grounded political and tactical savvy. Worf, as an outsider fundamentalist convert, would naturally be far more willing to accept such things than a “normal” Klingon. It's still not my preferred reading of Worf, but what in the hell is apart from “Heart of Glory”?

And “Rightful Heir has problems apart from being yet another story about Klingon realpolitiking and yet another episode of The Chronicles of Worf's Manpain too. “Rightful Heir” is supposedly a story about mysticism, spirituality and faith, but it's a fundamentally banal story about mysticism, spirituality and faith because Ron Moore, at least at this stage of his career, is a fundamentally banal writer. It is proudly, self-indulgently, almost triumphantly Pop Christian, and like all such gloriously blinkered Pop Christian works it blithely assumes everyone's experiences with spirituality map neatly onto the template gleaned from a particularly poor reading of Dante Aligheiri and Thomas Aquinas. Moore and the other staff writers admit they had trouble breaking this because they, as secular humanists, had the impression Star Trek as envisioned by Gene Roddenberry was fundamentally a secular humanist work and stories about spirituality were tough for them to crack. But then one wonders why they even bothered.

(Interestingly enough the writer we'd most expect to be staunchly in the secular humanism camp, self-proclaimed New Atheist arch rationalist Brannon Braga, has been responsible for the hands-down *most* mystical and baroque stories in the entire series.)

All it takes is a glance back at the immediately preceding episode to see how spectacularly out of touch the TNG writers are. While “Battle Lines” wasn't anything uniquely special mysticism-wise when it comes to primetime US dramatic television, there was still a very explicit undercurrent there that touched on something a tad bit more universal than the “scrap Pop Christian cultural norms and assumptions incidentally picked up just by virtue of living in a Christian country” we got here. Kai Opaka's (and Commander Sisko's!) message of love, forgiveness and acceptance, and of tuning into your larger role in the universe, is a line of spiritual thought that can be applied to a myriad of different belief systems around the world. And that was completely intentional on Michael Piller's part, who had admitted at the time he expressly wanted to see more mysticism in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, although he took it carefully and one step at a time. And Michael Piller actually does know what he's talking about-He'd never admit it, and though it didn't map onto any system of thought we'd recognise as such, but he was a deeply spiritual person in his own way. Remember, this was the guy who wrote “Emissary”.

Meanwhile, Deep Space Nine's sister show is proudly giving us Space Opera Viking Jesus.

Then there's the teaser and opening act, which is just bald-facedly conflict-for-conflict's sake bullshit thrown into barky and hackneyed military drama because ROTC man Ron Moore, following Gene Roddenberry, thinks any of that is actually interesting. Of course without that painful setup, the episode would likely have been about a half-hour shorter and even more boring. Literally anything else could have gone there instead of Worf morosely neglecting his duties. He could have talked to Deanna, you know, the person whose fucking job this is to sort out and the person Worf has a pre-existing relationship with. I mean I don't actually think she even appears in the episode as is! Or why not use Guinan here instead of in “Suspicions”? Hell, Worf could have even gone straight to Riker or Picard with his problem. But of course, then Moore wouldn't get to have his main man be a martyr for the Almighty Conflict at the hands of these horrid human squares in the Enterprise crew.

I don't think I need to waste any more of my time with this. I'm done with “Rightful Heir”, I'm done with Ron Moore, I'm done with Klingons, and I'm done with Worf.

“No, I won't sit idly by as you hurl clichés at me”: Suspicions

And this would be a good example of *why* Star Trek: The Next Generation is straining against its material constraints.

I was originally planning to criticize “Suspicions” for being grimdark-Just another boring and juvenile “lengths they will go”, “doing that which must be done” exercise in false depth. But in reality if it's grimdark, it's only halfheartedly so, because “Suspicions” is halfhearted everything. The grimdark stuff feels like going through the motions, as if there's just this assumption that any story about a murder investigation simply has to be grimdark for the portagonists to have any stake in solving it (tracing grimdark's lineage back to Frank Miller is almost a cliché these days, but the comparison does need to be drawn in this circumstance as those are his signature beats to the letter, albeit really watered down and done in a middling fashion). And, for that matter, that we need token “character development” every week to hold the show together. Which, if we're being perfectly honest, is precisely the kind of assumption it's reasonable to guess was floating around this production team's offices, even if it's not as dogmatic as it might be amongst their colleagues across the street.

But more to the point, “Suspicions” is just a boring and inept production. The flashback and voiceover stuff is resoundingly pilloried in fandom (which is something of a surprise for me to learn, as I'd always figured this episode was rather well liked for the aforementioned grimdark), and there is something to be said about the hackneyed use of such noir staples to the point it's become an almost instantaneous signifier of the parodical. However, given that this precise format is going to be used to astronomical success and wild acclaim in little under a year just with Odo instead of Beverly, I'd be careful about writing that off as a fault of “Suspicions”. Maybe then Star Trek: The Next Generation is just bad at this kind of story: While writer Naren Shankar doesn't say that, he does say that he didn't think he was very good at writing murder mysteries.

While I can't speak for Shankar, I do think it would be silly to argue this crew can't do murder mysteries. It's true that given its setting Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a little better poised to handle a brief like this, but it's not impossible to do it over here. “Aquiel” from earlier in the year was a damn good one as far as I was concerned, and it was successful because it remembered the major strength of Star Trek, and especially this version of it, is competency porn and that this crew shines the brightest when you let them do the things they're good at in service of working together to solve the mystery. And that the best way you do that is essentially write a kind of procedural, but the most naturalistic and engaging procedural you've ever seen. The problem with “Suspicions” is that it's effectively the opposite of that, showing Beverly screwing up and wallowing in it. Granted she's not screwing up in her investigative techniques, but she's violating all kinds of regulations and ethical standards to get at the truth, and the story is more interested in how she feels about that then watching her be clever and figuring things out.

Normally I applaud any kind of rule-breaking in Star Trek, but this isn't rule breaking in service of any kind of grater good. I mean it kind of is, at least in terms of the diegetic plot, but the story isn't about vindicating Beverly's actions, its about forcing her anguish at having done what she did. Now that I think about it, this is precisely the kind of voyeuristic conflict spectacle that the various undercurrents of “Frame of Mind” were looking at and rebelling against: Just like Will in that episode, Beverly is subjected to a kind of psychological torture for our amusement, but “Suspicions” lacks the necessary extra level of higher metatext that made “Frame of Mind” work because “Frame of Mind” was a masterpiece and “Suspicions” is boring crap.

I suppose it's interesting to note how the plot of this episode deals, at least in passing, with Ferengi culture and tradition shortly after another episode that deals with them in quite intricate detail. One wonders how much the two teams were communicating with each other in that respect, however, as the depiction of Ferengi funerary rites seems to pretty explicitly contradict what was established in “The Nagus”. People have tried to handwave it this away, but (and you know I'm straining for material here if I start poking at continuity) really it just seems to be a contradiction born out of carelessness. If you're going to build an established universe that spans two concurrently running television series shot across the street from one another that are freely viewable to any and all parties involved at any given time, it seems to me you'd be a bit more behooved to make things like this click together a little tighter than at times they seem to.

I mean there are a few good moments here and there, mostly due to, as always, how astonishingly good the cast is. Beverly is as entertainingly witty and sardonic as ever, both in Gates McFadden's delivery and in the script itself. That's worth taking note of because it's indicative of how the actors' unique takes and personalities have become so well known and so accepted as part of who the characters are by this point that scripts are even written specifically with them in mind. And it's especially telling that we're talking about Gates McFadden here, and actor well-known for not getting on astonishingly well with various production teams over the years, so there's positives to be found in that if nothing else. And there really is nothing else.

Well...There is one thing. Because “Suspicions” is notable as the final appearance of Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan. This is assuredly due to coincidence and scheduling conflicts (she was even tapped to appear in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Rivals” but Goldberg wasn't available during filming), but still, this is sort of an ignominious note for the character to go out on. Star Trek loses something from her absence here, even if a lot of her narrative role is now filled by Jadzia Dax. Guinan had a unique kind of folk magic all her own: Jadzia may be every bit as mystical, but her power takes a different form. As much as Jadzia is an Emissary to the Prophets, we can't quite imagine her staring down Q with the same kind of imperious power Guinan exudes. Star Trek: The Next Generation without her feels like Star Trek: The Next Generation without Captain Picard, Commander Riker, Tasha Yar and Ro Laren.

That is, inconceivable.

“If he rose/If he chose”: Frame of Mind

It was only a matter of time before we returned to the dark recesses.

In many ways “Frame of Mind” is Brannnon Braga's archetypal Star Trek: The Next Generation story. It certainly bears all of his trademarks: A bold and unafraid examination of genuinely dark psychological horror themes done with a deft and ambitious surrealist flair. Braga is also flatly unafraid to throw us some undiluted theory, with copious quotations, citations and visual nods to the work of Carl Jung. It's a candid and refreshing bolt of unashamed intellectualism that goes a long way towards letting us know what Braga thinks his show's audience is like: Star Trek isn't exactly patronizing, or at least not as much as a lot of other television is, but even so it's still rare for it to be this frankly and openly (and literally) philosophical, and every time it happens it feels like this really should be the way the show always operates. Pretty much nowhere else are you going to get a 200-level course on Jungian psychology and dream theory told through a mini piece of abstract sci-fi cinema on primetime television.

Braga's debt to his idol David Lynch is certainly on display tonight. We wouldn't expect to see blatant body horror on Star Trek: The Next Generation (...yet), but the suitably dreamlike (or should I say nightmarish) flow to the story brought exquisitely to life through James L. Conway's direction remains undeniably Lynchian, and also very, very Brannon Braga. And yet in spite of the entirely deserved wild acclaim this episode gets from fandom (it's yet another stellar highlight of an absolutely astronomical creative period), when you sit down to watch “Frame of Mind” it actually comes across as one of Braga's more restrained and subdued offerings: As haunting as the concept of perceptive reality being in constant flux and turmoil is and as absolutely gripping as Jonathan Frakes is as the beleaguered Will Riker (unquestionably one of his absolutely finest hours on the series, end of: Frakes should have at least been nominated for something), the central premise remains surprisingly pedestrian, at least by Braga standards.

As the series is obviously not going to undo six years of character development and world building in 45 minutes, we know from the start the “real” world is the Enterprise, or some manifestation of it. The game then becomes trying to guess how many iterations we have to pass through and the meaning of a handful of specific psychological signifiers. Unlike Dirty Pair: Affair of Nolandia, which I once compared to “Frame of Mind” long ago and far away, there's never any genuine doubt cast here onto the true nature of observable reality, it's always just a matter of getting to the bottom of the mystery that's caused things to go all meta-Lynchian and freaky this week. Even when compared to the utterly sublime dreamworld symbolic logic of Braga's own “Birthright, Part I” a few weeks back, “Frame of Mind”'s hook of “Riker wakes up in an insane asylum and doesn't know how he got there” feels fairly straightforward and almost simplistic. Which kind of makes sense once you learn that this was the exact one-sentence pitch that popped into Braga's head randomly and that he wrote in about a day for Michael Piller when the script they were supposed to be shooting that week fell through.

This is not to say, I must emphatically stress, that “Frame of Mind” is at all overrated or ineffective. There are some utterly brilliant bits of abstraction and dream logic here, Frakes is so outstanding and the story and its accompanying mood are conveyed so expertly it's an absolute pleasure to watch on its own merits. I love how the structure of the teaser frame's Riker's psychic torture in terms of the play (which even shares the name of the episode itself) and sets up the narrative misdirection: We first think Riker may actually be in an insane asylum, and that the doctor sounds suspiciously like Brent Spiner is just all the more tantalizing. Then it's revealed to be all just a performative artifice (but then again, isn't everything?), until we see Suna and cut to credits. Paralleling Riker's fractured psyche with his role as an actor (diegetically and extradiegetically) is a clever touch and, naturally, reinforces the latent performativity of the show and the series. My favourite bit comes in the climax where the play and asylum realities converge and Riker finally confronts Suna...With ad libbed lines from the play. As he starts to finally figure things out, the applause of the audience, his friends and colleagues, increase their applause to a standing ovation.

Although Star Trek: The Next Generation has dabbled in it before, “Frame of Mind” marks something of a thematic shift towards more overt psychological darkness that will become more of a theme in the remaining season and a half. At first glance, this sounds like nothing so much as a straight road direct to Grimdark City: Deanna even tells us outright that “sometimes it's good to get in touch with your darker side”. But Brannon Braga is a cleverer writer than that, and falling prey to that temptation is something that Star Trek: The Next Generation is now more or less beyond the reach of It's not *quite* immune to it, grimdark is still Ron Moore's favourite old standby let's not forget, and Naren Shankar can go either way, as next week frustratingly shows. But on the whole, this side of the team has essentially put grimdark behind them. And “Frame of Mind” is doing something way cooler: Instead of wallowing in negativity, one way to read this story is actually a more graphic and explicit version of what we've just seen recently in stories like “The Chase” and “Emissary”: It's about acknowledging and making peace with the self-doubts, regrets and anxieties of our past so that we might heal from them and go on to something new.

...I know when phrased a certain way that still sounds a hell of a lot like grimdark, but I maintain there's a very thin line between them: One is about acknowledging the existence of negativity as part of a healing process to move beyond it, while the other is a voyeuristic, fetishy fixation on it at the expense of everything else with only the hollow pretense and facsimile of character development. One is drama, while the other is the simulacrum of drama. The real thing and its spectacle.

This of course begs the question: What “inner darkness” does Will Riker have to confront? What we know of his past seems fairly tame-He doesn't have a great relationship with his father, but that was cleared up four years ago. His stalled realtionship with Lyrinda Halk seems like it'd be a pretty major regret for him that would have caused him a lot of pain, but they too have seem to have patched things up (and I don't care what anybody says, I still ship them and consider them an item offscreen). And the stuff we get in this episode seems pretty localized and can be chalked up to external factors. Or...can it? Because it seems pretty clear to me that this episode is telling us that Will's personal hell is being trapped in a play, being forced to recite the same programmatic mental anguish over and over again. That's not a comment on Beverly's skills as a playwright, but it may very well be a statement about the material reality of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Will is tortured by the performance of psychological drama. He's stuck in longform scripted drama, subject to the whims of an audience who wants to voyeuristically leer at someone else's misery and writers who gleefully provide that to them for entertainment. Will's torture is grimdark itself, and as the empathic voice of the crew his torment is that of the entire Enterprise. Look at how during the climax, Will's reality literally “shatters”, as if a mirror or camera lens has been tossed to the ground and cast aside. “Frame of Mind” is the next step in Star Trek: The Next Generation pushing against the boundaries of its own existence, aching to transcend to something greater than what it's been allowed to become. One can hardly blame it given the maddening amount of half-starts, unfulfilled potential and neglect it's been subject to over its life to date.

But the fact it does seem so keen to break free is another sign it's not quite ready to yet. For true enlightenment only comes through the understanding of reality's true divine nature. Our lives are to be sublimated, not transcended: We've left behind the panicked adolescent urge to retreat and refuse in the face of reality's frequent uglinesses, and now we must learn to grow out of our mournful, nostalgic yearning to escape. As the Enterprise itself knows, the solution is to be the change ourselves.

“Inner Space”: The Chase

“The Chase” is definitive Star Trek: The Next Generation for me. It's one of those episodes I find truly iconic, everything I want this show to be and one of the first stories that comes to mind whenever I think of it in passing. There's quite a lot of those this year.

And yet I'm finding it hard to come up with things to say about it that aren't obvious. I guess I'll address the only real potential criticism I can think of straight away: The von Dänikenism stuff at the end is a little bit iffy and arguably anthropocentric, even if it does fit into the continuity of the established Star Trek universe without incident. But that's sort of the problem with this kind of writing, isn't it? Science fiction writers can focus on details like world-building minutiae and miss the larger social implications of their work. It must be said, however, that Ron Moore and Joe Menosky cite Carl Sagan's Contact rather than Chariots of the Gods? and “The Chase” does provide the interesting wrinkle that the protohumanoids were responsible not for the cultures and religions of the species they gave birth to, but to existence itself, theirs being the only intelligent life in that part of the galaxy (and I like the stipulation “this part of the galaxy” because it hedges against the common sci-fi tendency to downplay the immense size of the observable universe: Maybe intelligent life evolved in other forms elsewhere in the universe. Maybe even in our galaxy, like, say, on the other side of that wormhole near Bajor).

I also adore the protohumanoid's speech: It's such a beautiful and fitting Star Trek message delivered with warmth and conviction by Salome Jens. And from a Vaka Rangi perspective, it's even more appropriate: Cherish and respect life, because we are all living beings bound together by consciousness. And it's entirely fitting that this is a message we hear at the conclusion of a vast, galaxy-hopping adventure (and it's a testament to how much progress we've made this year that I don't even feel the need to point out how well served the cast is, with everyone getting to show off their skills in an effective and memorable way to help solve the puzzle): It's a perfectly effective Star Trek metaphor for the very things we voyage to understand.

Jens' one-scene wonder also showcases what an absolutely killer week this is for guest stars: Apart from her, Norman Lloyd is absolutely wonderful as Captain Picard's old archeology professor and mentor, and he brings a lovely and moving bittersweetness to every scene he's in. Just in passing, Professor Galen's subplot with Captain Picard is a naturalistically flawless demonstration of what's become such a hallmark of this series: An examination of your life guided by awareness, and acceptance, of the weight of your past on your present self. Jean-Luc's words to Beverly about the weight of the past resonated particularly with me: I think it's the best depiction of this theme in the season, and one of the best in the whole series. Galen even provides us with another barbed critique of Starfleet and what stands for: The Professor's stinging indictment of the Federation as a “dull and bloated empire” and Picard's role as “a centurion off patrolling the provinces” is absolutely devestating...But so is Jean-Luc's contention that he wouldn't trade being an explorer for anything.

Then there's Linda Thorson's Gul Ocett, the first adult female Cardassian we've seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation/Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the only female Gul we'll ever see. She's a delightfully commanding presence with an incredibly striking style, but the even in spite of all that the standout for me this week is and has always been John Cothran, Jr.'s positively amazing Captain Nu'Daq. I absolutely love this guy and always have: I'll always vividly remember his look, his bombastic inflections and the way he goes around calling everyone a dishounrable Topah, whatever that means. Frankly, he's probably my favourite Klingon character in all of Star Trek and just about the codifying example of the Klingon warrior character archetype-For my money simply one of the all-time greatest prosthetics guest stars in the show's history.

Captain Nu'Daq also leads me to an interesting point, however. One thing that caught my attention on this rewatch was how actually untrustworthy the Klingons are portrayed here. For one thing, they're paralleled with the notoriously devious Cardassians as another “rival faction” for the Enterprise to compete with for Professor Galen's puzzle, but Nu'Daq even tells us that he's initially unwilling to share what his team have found with his Federation allies, leading to that brilliant scene where Nu'Daq tries to bribe Data (and you couldn't have asked for a better showcase for Brent Spiner's comic relief approach to Data's character than that scene, especially getting to act opposite a performance like John Cothran, Jr.'s). Taken on its own this is an interesting way for Star Trek: The Next Generation to depict the Klingons, at least after “Redemption”: One thing that's easily forgotten in the general knowledge that the Klingons and the Federation are allies in the 24th century is that the alliance was depicted as far cooler and shakier prior to “Redemption” and there was a lot of uncertainty and distrust of the Klingons in those earlier episodes, especially in stories like “Heart of Glory” and “A Matter of Honor”.

But in the wake of “Aquiel” this is even more interesting, because there the Klingons were used explicitly as red herring antagonists. So this is two stories in the same season that seem to walk back the post-Gowron affable familiarity between our heroes and the Klingon Empire. It's also interesting to see them paralleled with the Cardassians here, because in a little under a year we're going to be seeing the galaxy positively lit up by bloodthirsty warmongering and unreconstructed imperialism from both of them, with our heroes caught in the middle. Future hindsight aside, it's also a provocative idea to link the Klingons and the Cardassians in this story following “Face of the Enemy” and the eleventh-hour reveal of the Romulan investment in the search. Because in the denouement, it's the Romulan commander who contacts Captain Picard with that lovely speech about how we're all “not so different as we might think”.

I think it's wonderful that the story gives that scene to the Romulans. It could just as easily have gone to Nu'Daq, our Klingon ally, or Ocett, as the Cardassians were originally conceived of as antagonists who could debate our heroes as equals, something it was thought the Romulans could no longer do. But as I said, we're in a post-“Face of the Enemy” world now, and the Romulans have reclaimed a lot of their earlier symbolism because of that. Furthermore, it calls back to Galen's indictment of the Federation at the other end of the episode and sets up an interesting schism that is potentially starting to develop: On one side are the Klingons and The Cardassians, perhaps foreshadowing their looming confrontation with one another, a conflict born of the fact they're both too proud, stubborn and quick-tempered to admit how similar they are to each other. In the original draft of the script the Ferengi were supposed to be involved as well, and you can hypothetically imagine them being on this side too. Meanwhile on the other side are the Federation and the Romulans, who have always been designed as compliments. No, that's not the way it plays out in the plot diegetically, but thematically this is the arrangement that seems to be speaking to me here.

After all, as the story takes care to point out, its the things we share with other life, our inner and fundamental humanity, that's the best hope for progress we have. That's just empathy, and it's not an anthropocentric platitude because our humanity is bound up with life and consciousness, and life and consciousness is everything. Nobody is better poised to understand that better than the Enterprise crew and Romulus. We really are more similar than not, especially our best sides.

“In space, no one can hear you play the flute”: Lessons

I'm afraid this is going to be another one of those essays where I don't have a whole lot to say or anything refreshingly new and interesting to add to the discourse. “Lessons” is bad, it's bad for boring reasons and it's bad in ways I've actually already discussed at great length in other posts. Normally this would be the kind of episode I'd throw into a multi-episode post, and while both this week's Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are both equally terrible, they have the obnoxious gall of not being terrible in complimentary ways, which precludes me from doing that.

I would say that the one unique thing I could say about “Lessons” is my statement of dislike itself...I was under the impression that while not considered a great classic or anything, this episode was reasonably warmly received by mainline fandom-A necessary next step in progressing Captain Picard's story arc after “The Inner Light”. But even mainline fandom seems to be agreeing with me in this case, at least judging by the reaction this episode gets both on Memory Alpha and in Star Trek: The Next Generation 365: Its wiki page as of this writing looks neglected and incomplete and doesn't even feature the usual quotes and statements from the production team in the notes that most Star Trek stories get, while Paula Block and Terry J. Erdmann couldn't even be bothered to do anything more than halfheartedly re-state the story's diegetic plot and themes in their own words.

I mean, let's address the obvious points you know I'm going to bring up right off that bat. Doing a sequel to “The Inner Light” is stupid. Trying to set up a me-or-them contrast between voyaging, especially aboard the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D, with a long-term relationship is a false dichotomy. Doing a naval (and navel-gazing) “involved with your subordinates” drama is hackneyed and trite. Captain Picard's entire attitude feels off, the romance plot is 90s sitcom quality and Commander Riker acting like a jealous schoolboy envious of the teacher's pet is an asinine and spectacularly out-of-character way to force banal conflict. That much should be obvious. But from my perspective, the problem here is that I've essentially already written the essay I wanted to write for this episode, except I did it for “The Outer Light”.

The whole reason I covered “The Outer Light” in the first place was to contrast it with “Lessons”. My idea was to set up my imagined plot for “The Outer Light” (which is not at all what the actual “Outer Light” was) as the proper way to do a sequel to “The Inner Light” while calling out “Lessons” for being rote, derivative and too hung up on an adolescent conception of materialism to add anything to the story worth hearing. My imaginary version of “The Outer Light” (which is not at all what the actual “Outer Light” was) had Captain Picard attending a summit of historians and scientific experts on Kataanian life and culture, all of whom had been contacted by the probe and experienced a slightly different version of the ancestor simulation programme. This story would have examined the malleability of oral history, as each person would have presumably brought their own positionalities and backgrounds to the experience and had it custom-tailored to them. As such, no two people experienced the exact same programme, which is fitting as that's how video games work in real life. I would then, in this essay, rail against “Lessons” for basically not being that and asking why the creative team felt the need to invoke “The Inner Light” if they weren't going to be able to play on that level (a level they already, it must be said, went on record saying they felt the original “Inner Light” played at).

Unfortunately for me, this was not at all what the actual “Outer Light” was. In fact, with it's horrendously stock premise, crippling sequelitis and twice warmed over grimdark themes, a case could be made it's an even *worse* follow up to “The Inner Light” than “Lessons” is. By the time I had figured that out it was too late to change my schedule so I had to cover it anyway and use up all of the criticisms I had of trying to do a follow-up to “The Inner Light” that I was planning on using in this essay in that one. And now I don't have a heck of a lot left to say. I suppose I could approach the story from a different angle by examining how the episode has Captain Picard interact with the rest of the crew instead of with Nella. I guess I'd best do that then.

So, one theme I haven't looked at as much is the idea some writers seem to have that Captain Picard is always aloof and has a hard time socializing with the crew. He's never at the crew's poker games, we never see him in ten-forward or the holodeck with other people, and he seems to spend most of his free time alone reading. The implication seems to be that he's austere and distant and seems more interested in duty and the ship than making friends or forming relationships with others. We saw a bit of it last week where Morgan Grendel (ironically enough) was trying to get across that the Enterprise is the most important thing in the Captain's life. It's the hoary old “married to the ship” routine which, in spite of what Grendel seemed to think last time, is more of a Star Trek tradition (because of the Original Series' hideously repressed sexuality) than it is a naval one. And we see it again here where Jean-Luc is buffoonish, awkward and abrasive while trying to pick up Nella.

The thing is I've never actually read Captain Picard this way. This could very well just be the result of me projecting again and not paying complete attention to what the show itself was saying back in the day, but I'm not entirely convinced it's all in my head either. “Starship Mine” is actually a really good example, because in spite of what the script seemed to be trying to say, whenever Patrick Stewart was interacting with his castmates their chemistry simply radiates a warm and endearing familiarity that seems completely at odds with the way the writing seems to want to depict their characters' relationships. And in how many episodes have the crew come to Captain Picard for advice, and how many scenes like those and the chat about ships in bottles in “Booby Trap” have we been lucky enough to see on this show over the past six years?

(Oh and speaking of Nella, isn't their “flirtation” in this episode the most painfully stilted thing ever? They both act and sound like standoffish and insecure teenagers in spite of being grown, middle-aged adults. It's almost like this was written by people who had no concept of how actual, mature romantic relationships develop in the real world. I would say Captain Jean-Luc Picard isn't Doctor Julian Bashir, but frankly in the context of this episode that's being unfair to Julian.)

I'd like to say this is just another idiosyncrasy of another forgettable filler episode, but this is unfortunately a plot thread that reoccurs every now and then in the show, even in otherwise good episodes. I guess when you come to a contradiction in the way a character is portrayed you have to pick which horn of the ensuing dilemma you want to side with, and which side you pick probably reveals something about your positionality. That's an argument that you can apply more broadly to all aspects of big, sprawling polyauthored works like Star Trek in general, and possibly their greatest strength in the opinion of this particular book series. Embrace the contradiction because each decision creates a universe unto itself. And maybe that's a truth that we can actually see the clearest in passable fare like this.

“42 Decks Of Sheer Adventure!”: Starship Mine

Superficially, “Starship Mine” resembles a basic, unpretentious action plot done pretty much just because Patrick Stewart wanted to take his shirt off, quip and shoot things. Which it is. But just like “Power Play”, this is an example of Star Trek: The Next Generation doing something counterintuitive with an action brief that we might not necessarily expect from an action sci-fi show that proves how aware of itself and its responsibility it's finally become.

This is also something *only* Star Trek: The Next Generation could do, at least in 1993. That's not to say the cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine couldn't have handled a brief like this or that the setting would have precluded it, but the writing staff on that show has something of a problem handling action without it coming across as unreconstructed, bloodthirsty and grimdark and that's ultimately what's going to end up killing the series. That didn't have to happen, of course, but circumstances will eventually dictate that's what the final obituary will read. But that's thankfully not for a good while yet. By contrast, Star Trek: The Next Generation has long since become keenly aware of its status and place in history, and a lot of careful thought went into ensuring that, while undeniably fun, “Starship Mine” never crossed the line into becoming a mindless run-and-gun military fantasy. And in fact, this story ends up being one of the most intriguingly provocative out of a year that's been so stellar already.

Much of this is due to writer Morgan Grendel and Michael Piller. Grendel hates the moniker "Die Hard on the Enterprise" fans tend to appellate “Starship Mine” with (even though come on, it self-evidently is. Grendel even pitched it to Piller as exactly that) and prefers to read it as a story about how Captain Picard loves the Enterprise more than anything else and is willing to go to any lengths to protect it, citing the old naval “the captain goes down with the ship” trope. This is a problematic (and ahistorical) narrative device, but that Grendel invokes it here reveals some interesting things. Even (well, especially) divorced from the naval symbolism I like this idea because it shows how Captain Picard is someone who lives and breathes the spirit of voyaging so much he can't conceive of ever doing anything else.

I particularly like the scene at the end of the teaser where he's alone on the bridge, the last person on the ship before the “cleaning crew” comes aboard. He dawdles and takes his time, and Patrick Stewart's expressions and body language sell the emotions of the moment. He's in no rush to beam down to the starbase and takes no particular joy in being away from the Enterprise-None of the crew do. The Enterprise is their home and where they belong and they're never going to be truly happy if they're apart from it: They're always going to act a bit restless and awkward, always going to be a fish out of water without someplace to go and discoveries to be made, just as the crew are at Commander Hutchinson's reception. That to me is the more interesting takeaway from this theme: Travellers will always be more at ease forming communities and families with other travellers. They don't belong at a starbase any more than they belong in the bloviating world of Starfleet's good ol' boys club.

Unless of course that starbase is Deep Space 9. But that's another story.

But what's especially interesting is seeing this coming from Morgan Grendel, whose previous submission, “The Inner Light” comes the closest in all of Star Trek: The Next Generation to forcing Captain Picard to slow down and adopt a more conventional and heteronormative lifestyle. In other words, killing him. And it's even more curious right here, as the very next TNG story is explicitly a sequel to “The Inner Light” that tries to address this, and generally makes a big mess of itself and everything else. I'd say this implies the common reading of “The Inner Light” goes contrary to what Grendel's original intent was had he not gone and written “The Outer Light” two decades later. But I'll save the rest of my missive on that little issue for next week: The main point here is that “Starship Mine” is a vivid and clear portrait of what drives and inspires our heroes, and it's important we get a story like that every now and again, because it can be easy to forget.

Michael Piller's influence on “Starship Mine” isn't as obvious, but it's just as important. Piller was deeply concerned that an action show such as this would come across as too violent, so he was very conscious throughout the rewrite process of toning it down where possible, and where it wasn't, ensuring that the violence was never something the audience could take visceral and voyeuristic pleasure in. In the last volume I made the point that during the Long 1980s there are basically only two ways of doing action sci-fi (or action genre fiction more broadly) acceptably: You either, as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind does, depict the action as a grotesque and horrific spectacle or, as Dirty Pair does, play it up as medium-aware camp performative kayfabe. Star Trek: The Next Generation has savvily been able to more or less sidestep the matter entirely up to now, but here it has to address the issue head on. And curiously enough, in spite of its deep-rooted and multilayered performativity and the fannish obsession it has with Dirty Pair, when up against the wall it plays things much closer to the Nausicaä side of the spectrum.

(Although I guess a Captain Picard-centric story that follows the Nausicaä model for action sci-fi is probably quite fitting. It certainly makes up for “Tapestry”.)

The tone is set when Devor taunts Picard that he won't kill him because he's Starfleet, to which the captain responds “I guess you're right”. And throughout the rest of the episode while there are plenty of chases and fistfights, Captain Picard never escalates things, striving to outmanoeuvre and disarm Kelsey's lackeys and adamantly refusing to kill them. As they do end up getting picked off, Jean-Luc visibly views each death as a tragic loss, culminating in him looking genuinely saddened and grief-stricken when Kelsey's ship explodes at the end of the climax. And this is no mere “there should have been another way” platitudes either: Piller's point is manifestly that these people are not cut out to be killers and there's no place for death and killing aboard the starship Enterprise (and furthermore that this is a *good* thing), yet another thing that sets them apart from their alleged colleagues in the rest of Starfleet. It's one of the most openly utopian bits the show has done since the first season, but it's handled with the grace and elegance we could only expect from a veteran craftsman like Michael Piller.

It truly is heartwarming to see this from Piller. It's hard to believe this is the same person who was actively stirring up grimdark conflict back in the third season and signed off on Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Peter Alan Fields and Ira Steven Behr trying to turn Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a show he envisioned as being about healing and rebirth, into a show about unpleasant people screaming at each other. It really does say to me that Piller has genuinely learned and grown and become a better writer though his experiences with Star Trek, and I think that's wonderful. I mean I wish it'd happened about three and a half years sooner, but I'm not complaining. And not to get spiteful, but it's also worth noting Ron Moore has gone on the record saying this was a point of friction between him and Piller, because he saw himself as they guy always saying, in his own words, “Kill more, kill more!”. Piller shut him down this time.

Ethics of violent TV spectacle aside, what also interests me about “Starship Mine” is its unorthodox, and laudable, political themes. A brief like Let's Do Die Hard seems like it'd be one of the simplest and most rote of these types of briefs you could get, and you could imagine how it could run the risk of turning reactionary. Doing a straightforward anti-terrorism bit where the terrorist antagonists were generic cannon fodder bad guys is poor work in any era, would have looked really weird next to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and its former terrorist lead and would have looked especially horrible in the early 21st century. But crucially that's not what “Starship Mine” does. The big twist, of course, is when Kelsey boldly declares she and her crew aren't terrorists at all, but in fact covert weapons dealers who profit from war. She's a Merchant of Death, a more charismatic and less pervy Mazoho from “Red Eyes are the Sign of Hell”, happily letting armies slaughter each other in perpetuity and in fact encouraging it because it lines her pockets.

It's really the perfect eleventh hour reveal for this kind of story because it writes the episode's extradiegetic critique of violent spectacle back into the text: Capitalism and all its beneficiaries perpetuate death and destruction of human lives and well-being in the name of profit. There's honour among thieves. Even terrorists have a sense of camaraderie. But there's none in Kelsey's crew, and none among capitalists. No one is too close to be betrayed, nothing is too sacred such that it would be above appropriation and assimilation. Star Trek: The Next Generation hasn't been allowed to be quite this radical in awhile, and it bears its teeth here just to remind us that yes, it does indeed most certainly still have them. We get the sense the show is finally pushing back against the boundaries of its material existence, finally aware of the oppression its medium forces onto it. But in that most Star Trek: The Next Generation of themes, we still forgive. As much as we fight our oppressors, who hold out hope in their humanity. The hope that everyone has the potential to leave the system and embark on their own journey of self-discovery: Captain Picard respects Kelsey as an equal and a brilliant leader, and mourns her when she's gone. Her tragedy is hers and hers alone.

The rest of “Starship Mine” is every bit as demonstrative of Star Trek's creative peak as its story. The characterization is peerless, the acting and writing breathing in perfect sync. I could quibble about Geordi being unconscious for most of the action and Worf being a no-show, but we saw a lot of Worf in “Birthright” and pretty much everyone gets a moment to shine in the pleasantly lengthy teaser and opening act. Deanna Troi is the immediate highlight: Her running up to Captain Picard to fill him in about some mundane personnel matters on deck 7 is instantly memorable and endearing precisely because this is something we never see Deanna doing. This is the first time we've seen her doing a job on the Enterprise and taking an active role in the crew that's not just being their psychologist. The irony is, of course, that this is always what she was supposed to do in the first place.

Commander Riker and Doctor Crusher are pitch perfect, and so actually is Data. This is the first time Brent Spiner's knack for impressions is treated as something Data just casually does instead of something the script jumps through hoops to justify him indulging it, and it's a perfect fit for his character. Brent Spiner always saw Data as the comic relief character, and here's the final synthesis of that with the narrative role Data has always had. That's the tone of “Starship Mine” in a nutshell: The actors are so visibly comfortable in their parts and that just absolutely sings. I love the little exchange where Captain Picard tries to come up with an excuse to go back to the Enterprise with that convoluted bit about the saddle, and I *love* the way Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis and LeVar Burton play their characters' reactions: The four of them radiate such a comfortable familiarity with each other that the cast has always had, but the characters haven't always been allowed to express. Or at least, that was never written into the show before now. But what a delightful thing to see.

And what a perfect way to sum up the whole show. Love is always more fun to watch then pain. Always.

“Regress”: Birthright, Part II

Last time on Star Trek: The Next Generation...

“The idea of doing a crossover between Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is such an intuitive one it writes itself. There are no two iterations of this franchise that mesh and blend together quite as well as these do: Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are a part of each other's existence in a way that's not true of any other Star Trek. Deep Space Nine opens up with the straightforward declaration that it's a part of The Next Generation-Its opening moments literally take place in a Next Generation episode, its entire setting is inherited from one and The Next Generation plays an integral role in the plot of “Emissary”. This isn't like Doctor McCoy showing up for one brief scene in “Encounter at Farpoint”, Captain Picard and the Enterprise are actual essential aspects to that plot.” 

“Of course the artefact that ends up triggering Data's dream programme comes from the Gamma Quadrant. When we open our minds to the possibilities of different knowledge-spaces and expand our awareness to the harmonious interplay of people and events, we discover the things we are meant to find. Doctor Bashir cannot study the artefact with the resources he has on Deep Space 9; he needs Beverly Crusher's lab aboard the Enterprise. Data could not unlock this heretofore unknown level of his potential had he not gone to investigate, or had the Enterprise not come to Deep Space 9 at this point in time. He could not have done so had he not met Doctor Bashir.” 

“But that 'Birthright, Part I' actually manages to live up to so much of what it hints at and points to is telling. It could only happen on Deep Space 9.

Honestly, I almost don't want to see part 2.”

And now, the conclusion...

There's an interesting structure to “Birthright” we haven't necessarily seen in previous two-parters. This is the first time the show has done a story like this purely for creative reasons instead of responding to external pressures: “Chain of Command” was partially split into two for narrative reasons, but a big contributing factor there was finances and, to be honest, the fact that it was a mid-season finale and a spinoff series was going to be premiering directly after it. But there's no ratings reason to drop a two-parter here, roughly midway through the second half of the year: The only reason there's a “Birthright, Part I” and a “Birthright, Part II” is because the team through the story was too big and too good to contain in just one hour of television.

This leads to the interesting structural consequence that superficially, “Part II” has next to nothing to do with “Part I”. While Worf's plot was introduced last week, Data gets a whopping one line in this whole episode and the entire story of him developing the ability to dream and the visions of his father he's experiencing isn't addressed even in passing; not even in the teaser. At first this seems a bit strange, as if two disparate episodes had been smooshed together for some reason. But that's not what happened (although Data's story *was* written after Worf's when the decision was made to split this episode into two), and a closer reading reveals the two halves of “Birthright” are linked together in a really elegant and well-done way. Both episodes are united by common themes: Visions, memory and a person's relationship with their family. Data is literally using buried and forgotten memories to learn more about himself, while memories of Khitomer, both truthful and falsified, are the driving force for everything going on in Worf's plot. This is of course all brilliantly spelled out for us in the ten-forward scene between Data and Worf in “Part I”.

As for “Part II” itself, I have to say it is something of a disappointment coming after “Part I”, although I hasten to add it's an extremely minor one. For me, basically nothing could have effectively followed up on the symbolic power I saw in “Part I”: That episode more or less finalizes the blueprint for what I see as Star Trek's victory lap phase and sets up some unparalleled brilliance coming up in this last season and a half. There's no way the inevitable grubby culture clash story about Klingon heritage and contrasting concepts of honour in a Romulan prison camp, as brilliant and inarguably respectable as those are in their own way, was ever going to satisfy me in quite the same way. But you've got to have both the mythic and the mundane, and when taken together “Birthright” works really well as a diptych examining specific themes from all sorts of different angles and perspectives.

And there are a lot of great ideas here. On this rewatch I was actually quite stricken by the depiction of the Romulans: Following up on their final redemption in “Face of the Enemy”, the Romulans here are once again depicted as loyal and upstanding people with a sense of honour that, while it may not be the same as that of the Klingons, is unmistakably there and deserving of respect. Tokath in particular embodies this excellently, and reminds me of Mark Lenard's Romulan Commander's line in “Balance of Terror” that “We [Romulans] are creatures of duty”. His undying commitment and loyalty to his people and the family and community he's built at the prison colony, even if it's to a fault, is admirable and worthy of note.

This actually plays into the plot, as Worf's personal history with the Romulans makes it difficult for him to come up with the most effective solution to the situation. At first I had massive issues with the way Worf was characterized here and I still do to an extent, but I can see how his bigotry towards the Romulans (and I do like how his stereotyping of them so closely parallels with the way the Romulans were actually depicted between the Original Series and “Face of the Enemy” and is here retconned to be a diegetic stereotype) keeps him from thinking things through all the way such that he'd make the real right call. All through the episode as Ba-el (who is another issue unto herself, let's just put that out there) went on about how Romulans and Klingons don't need to hate each other and how she doesn't see a place for herself outside the camp I kept thinking “Yes, the Klingons and the Romulans wouldn't accept you *but the Enterprise would*! Why isn't Worf pointing that out?”.

After all, Worf can hardly claim to represent all of Klingon culture, living and working as he does nowhere near their territory or culture. It seemed like the episode was missing a tack where Worf could have extolled a little utopianism of his own-To me the obvious argument should have been the gilded cage one that he only mentions very briefly once; that Tokath's real crime is that even though he's worked very hard to create a perfect society, in not letting anyone in or out he's denying his people liberties and freedoms that any utopian society should rightfully have. Sort of like “The Masterpiece Society” except not shit or completely morally and ethically bankrupt.

I also felt that it would make a lot of sense for Worf of all people to point out how while neither Klingon nor Romulan society will fully accept people with such liminal identities, those identities are still completely valid and worth cherishing and owning: It's the Enterprise spirit to make your own way and build your own world through discovery, and this time it's not me (or at least not entirely me), because that would have nicely mirrored Captain Picard's good-hearted and well-intentioned, if a bit clunkily delivered, “culture of one” speech to Data in “Part I”. After all, isn't that the whole reason Worf went to the prison colony anyway? Because he was willing to forgive Mogh, had he been there, regardless of what Klingon tradition dictated? I kept expecting “Part II” to end up at a moral like this but it never quite gets there and that bothered me a bit, especially given the stuff it invokes. Of course, I'm thinking along the lines of what a Worf circa “Heart of Glory” would have said, but we're obviously way beyond that point now. And I will grant that his behaviour in this story certainly is in keeping with the way Worf has been developed post-K'Heleyr.

(I almost wrote post- “The Emissary” but given we're now into Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that would have just been unnecessarily confusing and aggravating.)

And then Michael Piller has to go and ruin everything.

“I had just seen Malcolm X, and I said Worf is the guy who's saying 'You're black and you should be proud to be black.' That's where I started from with the character standpoint, but when you get into it and you realize there is something good in this society and that he'll lose this woman he's in love with when he can't shake his own prejudice, it's a price he has to pay for his character and his code...I think it's wonderful when people act in heroic ways that turn back on them.”

Wow.

First of all, let's set aside the fact Ba-el is nothing more than a plot device and supporting satellite for Worf's brooding, like, you know, every other fucking female character in the history of the goddamn series, (and speaking of, why is the teenage boy the only one who gets to go hunting with Worf?) and focus on the race stuff for now because Holy Goddamn Shit how fucking white and privileged can you get? Detachedly passing judgment on a black radical for being too militant and bigoted is right out of the elitist moderate liberal playbook. I'm stunned Piller didn't misquote Martin Luther King, Jr. and say Worf should have politely and demurely asked for compromises and concessions too. And all this, let's not forget, about a character played by a black actor. I mean there's privilege blindness and “race fails” but then there's enthusiastically devouring your own feet for Thanksgiving dinner.

Were Piller alive today, I'd shudder to think what he'd say about the police brutality and race riots in the United States or the movie Lincoln.

But willfully ignoring Piller's spectacularly insensitive comments (which really don't add anything to our reading of this episode anyway), we're left with a story that's a well-done, if not masterful, extension of some important motifs introduced last time. With or without my nitpicks, “Birthright” as a whole is a perfect example of pinnacle Star Trek.

“Ingress”: Birthright, Part I

It could only happen on Deep Space 9.

It's been called “the season of taking risks” by the production team. But Star Trek: The Next Generation was born capable of taking risks-Its mistake was in forgetting for so long that it was capable of doing so. It's only now when the Enterprise has rediscovered what its place in the cosmos has always been, and it does so by voyaging here. Commander Sisko came to the Celestial Temple and Deep Space 9 to uncover the journey he was meant to take. The crew of the Enterprise come here to remember and be reborn again. But in turn, Deep Space 9 grows and is further sublimated through visiting with the Enterprise: Together, they are much more than they ever could be on their own. They belong together. They belong here and now.

The idea of doing a crossover between Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is such an intuitive one it writes itself. There are no two iterations of this franchise that mesh and blend together quite as well as these do: Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are a part of each other's existence in a way that's not true of any other Star Trek. Deep Space Nine opens up with the straightforward declaration that it's a part of The Next Generation-Its opening moments literally take place in a Next Generation episode, its entire setting is inherited from one and The Next Generation plays an integral role in the plot of “Emissary”. This isn't like Doctor McCoy showing up for one brief scene in “Encounter at Farpoint”, Captain Picard and the Enterprise are actual essential aspects to that plot.

This is not to say that Deep Space Nine is merely a subset or subsidiary of The Next Generation, but rather to argue it was inevitable that Deep Space Nine would return the favour, and sooner rather than later. It's silly to think there would never be crossovers, or even to think that crossovers aren't going to be the actual *norm* from here going forward, because these two entities share their reality together in a very deep and profound way. A voyaging canoe is a community just as a village is, and just as a world is; there is no conflict between these concepts. The canoe and the village both symbolize the universe they are each a microcosm of: Each spirit, bringing with them their own talents and experiences, finds a role to fill through which we all can survive and grow. The canoe is the island, and the island is the world that we all share together.

So in the same way Star Trek: Deep Space Nine mirrors and compliments Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Birthright, Part I” mirrors and parallels “Emissary”. One of our main characters experiences a vivid spiritual vision at the Celestial Temple that causes them to bring a newfound clarity to their life, and their guided on their path by a surprising mentor and the cosmic wonder that lies beyond the Edge of the Final Frontier.

Of course the artefact that ends up triggering Data's dream programme comes from the Gamma Quadrant. When we open our minds to the possibilities of different knowledge-spaces and expand our awareness to the harmonious interplay of people and events, we discover the things we are meant to find. Doctor Bashir cannot study the artefact with the resources he has on Deep Space 9; he needs Beverly Crusher's lab aboard the Enterprise. Data could not unlock this heretofore unknown level of his potential had he not gone to investigate, or had the Enterprise not come to Deep Space 9 at this point in time. He could not have done so had he not met Doctor Bashir.

The dream sequences themselves are a triumph and a new high-water mark for Star Trek: The Next Generation. It's masterpiece work for both writer Brannon Braga and director Winrich Kolbe: The sequences, and the episode more broadly, cement Braga's place as the master craftsman of baroque abstract surrealism, and Kolbe's direction gives the show an appropriately dreamlike and associative feel. Star Trek: The Next Generation has done more unorthodox and psychological work before and Braga long ago demonstrated that he'll be the one to do the most interesting and compelling work with these themes, but it's not until “Birthright, Part I” that it all comes together in such a defining and revelatory package. Not until Deep Space 9. Look for answers from within, commander. The direction forward is now clear.

Data searches for answers through art. He paints pictures in an attempt to create a physical representation of his experience that might at once help him better understand what he saw and share with others. Through his brushstrokes, his hands are guided by forces that are not entirely within his control. Captain Picard reminds him that meaning is created dynamically and generatively within the moment within the eye of the reader, the creator and the shaman. Not so much an expression of will, more a tapping into something. Something eternal.

And yet in spite of all its symbolic power, the actual narrative of “Birthright, Part I” remains remarkably straightforward: The A-plot and B-plot mirror and flow into one another in a masterpiece of elegance. Which makes it all the harder for me to make my one criticism of the episode. I wish I didn't have to, because otherwise this is as close to a Star Trek episode made expressly for me, my tastes and my perspective as we're ever going to get. But the fact remains, there is no way Julian's role in this story wouldn't have been handled better by Jadzia Dax, who is the person it was originally written for. Sidding el Fadil is wonderful and brings an earnest, heartfet and inspiring humanism that contrasts and compliments Brent Spiner's Data beautifully in a way we really haven't seen before, or at least not in awhile. But I can't help thinking he still shouldn't be here.

Jadzia is the scientist. She's the one who would be poking around a suspicious and very likely dangerous object from the other side that just so happens to be the exact thing one of the other characters needs to learn something new about themselves. She's the one who would waltz onto the Enterprise unannounced and help herself to the research lab. And can you imagine her getting to interact with Captain Picard? I'll bet Jean-Luc had worked with Curzon Dax at some diplomatic function at some point in the past. But more to the point, Jadzia is the one who knows about dreams and visions. Jadzia is the teacher who can help Data better understand his experience from a spiritual perspective. That's what her character is all about-It's every bit her part as it is Guinan's, and frankly, probably more so. Even what little we've seen of Jadzia in action to date has all been scenes that reinforce this. She is straightforwardly and unmistakably the correct person for this job, and that she's not in this episode hurts both her and the story.

That alone isn't enough to kill an episode that is so exquisite and so defining for me, but it does remind me of and drag me back to a material reality I'm keen to move beyond. It's that inescapable spectre of unfulfilled potential coming back to haunt Star Trek once again. But that “Birthright, Part I” actually manages to live up to so much of what it hints at and points to is telling. It could only happen on Deep Space 9.

Honestly, I almost don't want to see part 2.

To Be Continued