“Bad Future”: The Best of Both Worlds, Part II, Family

Previously on Star Trek: The Next Generation...

“This is the real reason the Borg are here and, more to the point, why the Borg win. What they impose on the show, what all of 'The Best of Both Worlds' does, is narrative collapse. Defined as a combined diegetic and extradiegetic threat to the continuation of a specific structure such that the risk no further stories within it can ever be told becomes frighteningly real, narrative collapse manifests itself when the narrative internalizes its own unsustainability, and can only be averted through a blood sacrifice. And this is precisely what's happened to Star Trek: The Next Generation, because, even by its admittedly rocky pre-existing standards, this season has simply gone too far. The show's infuriatingly constant failure to follow its own example and live up to its potential has become pathological, and it's now even found itself staffed by people who not only don't understand it, but openly hate it and actively work towards the detriment and dissolution of its ideals. The Borg see this, take advantage of it, and they make their move early.

The very thing Star Trek: The Next Generation was supposed to be self-evidently superior to such that open warfare with it would be unthinkable in this form catches it completely off guard and horrifically curb-stomps it into submission, dealing a crippling blow that even tears apart the Enterprise family...” 

“Because also like Michael Piller, I'm approaching this as a two-parter, but have only put actual thought into the first part. When Piller wrote 'The Best of Both Worlds', he was not anticipating returning to Star Trek: The Next Generation for its fourth season (which it was most assuredly getting, just in case you may have had any doubts) and had no clue how to bring everything home again. He set up the most terrifyingly comprehensive and meticulous deconstruction of the show he could think of, and wasn't planning on being in a position to undo it. Will Captain Picard survive? If he does, how will we get him back? Will Patrick Stewart come back? Will Michael Piller? Can we stop the Borg from realising the Federation's destiny before its time? Can we prevent the narrative collapse and save Star Trek: The Next Generation, and, if we do, what will we be forced to give up? How am I going to continue this essay even though I've made all of the points I wanted to make already? 

Right now, I honestly don't know.”

And now, the conclusion...

There was no question about it. Star Trek: The Next Generation was *the* show to talk about during the summer of 1990. Throwing out a milestone in television history and the most infamous cliffhanger ending since “Who Shot J.R.?” will do that to you. There was nonstop speculation in every entertainment rag in the industry about what was going on behind the scenes and what the show might be planning for its fourth season premier. Patrick Stewart likes to tell about a story how he was driving in downtown Los Angeles at some point during that summer and stopped a red light when a family in a convertible pulled up next to him. The mother leaned out the window and screamed “YOU HAVE RUINED OUR SUMMER!”.

But that alone speaks to the stature the show truly had among the pop culture of the Long 1980s. Mainline history will tell you that “The Best of Both Worlds” and “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” were what finally established Star Trek: The Next Generation as a show that could stand on its own without constantly living in the shadow of the Original Series; that this was the moment where people finally warmed up to the “new” crew and tuned into their adventures for their own sake, not because of the name they inherited. This is reverse logic: The very fact “The Best of Both Worlds” and “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” had the impact they did proves how well-known and well-loved Star Trek: The Next Generation *already was*: Shows don't go from obscure footnote to worldwide sensation *literally overnight*, as The Official Star Trek Master Narrative would seem to want you to think they do. History is littered with examples of shows that do provocative and game-changing stories that completely fail to capture the imagination of the public-at-large at all.

I won't list any. I'm sure you can all think of a few.

What did happen after these episodes aired, however, was a minor, but significant shift in the tone and general consensus of Star Trek fan discourse. So naturally, that's what the historians disproportionately focus on. And there is genuinely a turning point that happens here that's important to talk about: Prior to “The Best of Both Worlds”, the prevailing attitude in Trekker circles about the two series was that only one was really Star Trek. There was, in the words of more than a few would-be historians, “Star Trek”, and then there was “That New Show”. Trek purists had a *lot* of grief to lay at the feet of Star Trek: The Next Generation-Nobody liked it because, they would say, Captain Picard was too cold and distant, the show's plots were unoriginal and lazy, they couldn't warm up to any of the actors, or that the show was too boring, clinical and preachy. What it all came down to, of course, is that Trek purists didn't like Star Trek: The Next Generation because it wasn't the Original Series.

After “The Best of Both Worlds”, however, that changed. Suddenly, everyone was talking about Star Trek: The Next Generation and how shockingly brazen and brave it had been. Now, it would seem, the word at the Star Trek convention was that there was “Star Trek”, and then there was “That Old Show”. A cynical person might say this shift in fan discourse only happened because Trekkers finally realised just how many Not-Them people were watching, enjoying and deeply loving Star Trek: The Next Generation and that it maaaaybe might not be such a bad idea to not completely and totally alienate them. And considering it had just casually tossed out what was immediately clear had become an instant television landmark, they were finally forced to admit that yeah, OK, maybe Star Trek: The Next Generation is actually pretty good after all.

So Star Trek: The Next Generation gets to come back more popular than ever before, and so does Patrick Stewart, whose agent apparently managed to straighten out that contractual dispute in time. And so, in fact, does Michael Piller, who was convinced to stay on as executive producer and head writer at the personal request of Gene Roddenberry. Roddenberry, no doubt aware his remaining time was limited, took Piller aside during the production of “The Best of Both Worlds” and told him he thought the show needed one more year to catch on and that it would mean a lot to him if Piller stayed on. All but explicitly telling him the unspoken secondary clause of that: “You're the only person who can make this show work”. And Roddenberry would have been right, of course.

Michael Piller would recount in later years how much this new reality confounded him. Brannon Braga says he walked in on his first day as a staff intern during the summer hiaturs and all he remembers was Piller constantly chanting “How do we beat the Borg? How do we beat the Borg? How do we beat the Borg?” over and over again to himself. Yet the solution, as Piller also points out, was so elegant he almost missed it when it presented itself to him. Stop trying to consciously will a narrative into existence. Listen to the characters, to what they're saying to each other and to you and to how they would personally respond to the situation as it unfolds. Let them solve the problem themselves like the free agents they are. Piller, it turns out, was trying too hard and overthinking his prompt. The characters know what to do because they exist apart from you and have their own agency-All you're doing is channeling their thoughts, their voice and their actions onto paper.

Michael Piller called this “Zen Writing”. I call this meditating on your divines and letting your spirit guides show you the way.

If only that were the end of the story. But “The Best of Both Worlds” and “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” also comprise a narrative collapse, and a narrative collapse can only be averted through blood sacrifice. So what's the tragic consequence of Star Trek: The Next Generation coming back from the brink of complete Borgification at the last second? Quite simply put, Star Trek: The Next Generation has to end. That is, the Star Trek: The Next Generation we've been following since 1987 has to end, and something else bearing its name has to take its place. Star Trek: The Next Generation must be *made* to change, and, unlike ascending to a grander form, this change must be brought upon by external factors rather than its own spiritual apotheosis. The show does not change its own mark, but is depowered and has its mark changed by other people.

While “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” is the finale of the old show, we're still a good month or so away from the debut of the new one. What we have in the interim is a somber and morose epliogue for the story that just died, and nowhere is that clearer than in “Family”, which, while produced well after, was moved to the top of the queue as it's the natural conclusion to the Wolf 359 tragedy. As the Enterprise limps back to drydock for extensive repairs, the crew reconnect with their respective families to come to terms with the trauma they've all just experienced. “Family” is a strong attempt at an ensemble show, with some character development regarding Wesley and his father (though the fact both he and Beverly are defined almost exclusively by the absence of Jack and the tension surrounding Captain Picard remains deeply uncomfortable) and some more of Worf's backstory fleshed out with the introduction of the Rozhenkos, his adoptive family, that will further lay groundwork for the big Worf story at the back end of the season.

But of course, the big draw for everyone is Captain Picard coming to terms with the deep wounds inflicted by the Borg and the introduction of his own “canonical” family on Earth. Those wounds are still very raw here and he's still in shock, as is the show itself. That's perhaps to be expected. But the ramifications of this story last far beyond the chaotic interregnum of the early fourth season and cast a shadow over everything Star Trek will ever do from now on. I've said I'm not a fan of Captain Picard's established backstory here when compared to the one John de Lancie gave him in “The Gift”. I stand by that, even though “Family” must be praised for the quiet dignity it affords the Picards both in terms of writing and acting. But my larger issue with this story is that while it was arguably right to take the time to examine the effect “The Best of Both Worlds” had on Star Trek: The Next Generation's collective psyche, it never actually heals these wounds. Captain Picard will continue to be traumatized by what happens here for the rest of his existence in this form, to the point he'll be pushed into antihero territory.

And the thing about Star Trek is that it's supposed to be about healing.

Drama, however, is not about healing. It is about the glorification of conflict, misery and suffering to the level of the epic, because that's what people seem to like to watch. This is something I'll freely confess I'll never be able to understand: I am privileged in many areas of my life and am keenly aware of the specific advantages I have at my disposal. But even so my life has its fair share of hardships and, as of this writing, the last nine months in particular have not been especially easy for me. I have to set aside time for art and entertainment, and when I do I don't want to wallow in the difficulties I have to endure everywhere else in my life. That's not to say I want to forget about what the world is like or be lulled into complacency about the hegemonic status quo, but I do want to have my imagination broadened, a smile brought to my face and to be inspired that a better world than the one we've got is attainable. You can call that “escapism”, but I guess that depends on what your definition of “escape” is. And if you have anything you think you need to escape from.

I would imagine people less fortunate than I would feel even more strongly about this, but I can't speak for anyone but myself.

The Master Narrative of Received Star Trek History will say that “Family” is important because it introduces inner conflict, and thus humanity, to Captain Picard. But did it really? Wasn't the whole point of “The Best of Both Worlds” to demonstrate the captain's humanity by stripping him of it? Aren't there other ways to showcase a person's humanity and the trials and tribulations we all go through besides shining a spotlight on them and forcing them to emotionally break down for our amusement? And what does it say about us as a culture that this is what we like to watch for entertainment? Television, as a medium, relies on spectacle to sustain itself. You can't, in fact, have visual media of any kind without spectacle. There are even literary genres that don't work without it. Our moral compass lies, I think, in where we place that spectacle.

Angst-ridden internal conflict is a form of spectacle, and I would argue voyeurism, that has attained a veneer of legitimacy from would-be intellectuals because it feels more real and authentic than, say, casual and upfront depictions of sexuality, pretty art design or action scenes. I think it's very much worth asking yourself if that's really true. Just because something “feels” real doesn't mean it is: That's the devil's clause of cinematic representationalism. Guy Debord tells us that a society is in trouble when the hollow simulacrum of a thing replaces the thing itself. I think a society that willfully partakes in communal voyeurism of ironic cynicism is actually a complacent one, having resigned itself to the hegemonic status quo and an acceptance that nothing can ever change. This is the Long 1990s. And this is what Star Trek: The Next Generation, in whatever form it's going to take from here, must now be prepared to stand against.

The Borg weren't defeated. They just transfigured themselves.

Myriad Universes: Whoever Fights Monsters Part 4

We open with the passage that gives this issue (and thus the series in general considering I've jacked the phrase for rhetorical purposes) its title as Admiral Rosenstrum confides in Captain Picard in the ready room.

“I owe you an apology, Jean-Luc. As it turns out, you knew exactly what you were doing. If you'd listened to me, the Beta Tarsus colony would have been obliterated – Just like the Nairobi and the Merrimac before it.”

“I appreciate the praise admiral, but you didn't call me in here just to congratulate me, correct?”

“Not entirely, no. As your superior officer, Jean-Luc, it's my duty to quote Starfleet policy at this juncture.”

“Policy, admiral?”

“That's right. And policy dictates that as long as we have any options at all, we avoid destroying that other ship.”

“I trust you're familiar with Nietzsche?”

“The philosopher? Yes, I am.”

“It was he who said 'Whoever fights monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster.'”

“'And when you look long into any abyss, the abyss also looks into you.' I know the quote. What's your point?”

“I don't need any policy to keep me from destroying that other vessel. Not that its crew deserves any mercy – Not by any stretch of the imagination. But if it is in my power to extend it, they will certainly receive it. What nettles me is that you would think me capable of doing otherwise."

Admiral Jan Rosenstrum of Starfleet Command believes authoritarian power structures are necessary to keep people from acting on their instinctual evil natures. Captain Picard doesn't need rules to tell him to be good and virtuous because he is inherently a good and virtuous person. What elevates this above generic Hobbesian social contract thought is what it reveals about the lingering self-doubt lying at the heart of Starfleet and its officers: After all, why would they feel the need to self-consciously quote rules, regulations and procedure at one another if they didn't, at least at some level, distrust themselves? In spite of its utopian rhetoric, when you get right down to it Starfleet simply does not have enough faith and confidence in its own people and its own ideals to trust them to do the right thing. So, when confronted with people like Captain Picard and the Enterprise crew, people who truly are trying to better themselves and live up to their own standards, they react with a mix of trepidation and fear. Projecting their own insecurities onto those they've written the very mark of their ideals onto (by virtue of serving on the flagship), they're quick to judge, dismiss and condemn an effigy of themselves rather than own up and come to terms with the unsustainable corruption and xenophobic power fantasies that makes up the foundation of their philosophy.

Echoes of this reverberate throughout the rest of the story. Back on the bridge, the Bogus Enterprise is starting to catch onto Commander Riker's tactical style, just as it was able to predict Captain Picard's before. Data takes over at the conn, but its only a matter of time before he's sorted too. But Worf, meanwhile, has picked up some odd sensor readings during the battle: It seems that under its facade, the Bogus Enterprise isn't a ship at all, but rather a single biological entity comprised of energy. Deanna confirms this, saying that she senses an underlying intelligence, however alien, governing the ship's actions. Furthermore, she says she senses great happiness from the creature, as if it sees everything that's happened throughout the series as a fun and exciting game. Will points out that the creature's ignorance isn't entirely incomparable with that of humans over the course of its history, imploring that it be given the same chance to learn from its mistakes that other people have given humans, to which the rest of the crew emphatically agrees.

Reasoning that the creature likely does cannot comprehend the gravity of its actions and might not even understand the existence of matter-based life, Data and Wesley suggest the crew pilot shuttlecraft in an attempt to communicate face-to-face and show how the crew are actually life-forms separate from the ship. Will, Data and Deanna take three shuttlepods out to the creature, to which the creature responds in turn with three duplicate shuttles complete with their own duplicate Will, Data and Deanna. This sparks a fascinating philosophical debate about the nature of life and its interconnection to the universe: The creature declares, in the form of Bogus Riker “I am exactly like you – A mechanism extruded from the fabric of the greater whole”. Deanna rejects this, claiming she is a “complete and separate lifeform – Capable of independent thought, independent reason.” And yet it should be recalled that she and her shipmates are in separate shuttlecraft...But the six voices speak as if they are part of the same one-on-one dialog, reflected in the framing of Pablo Marcos' artwork.

The Bogus Enterprise is, in a manner of speaking, Starfleet distilled and hyper-condensed. Viewing expansionism, war and institutionalized murder as nothing more than a charming diversion, it is completely oblivious to the very real human cost of its actions. In fact, it can't even view humans as living things.

The debate ultimately goes nowhere, and, once again, it's Deanna who comes up with the solution. By establishing an empathic link with the creature, she hopes to share her pain with it and help it understand the hurt it caused to so many others, in spite of the considerable danger this would pose to the integrity of her own mind. But she does, and Micheal Jan Friedman conveys this with one of the most effective descriptions of the ineffable I've read, and in gloriously bombastic comic book prose to boot:

“There are no words that can express it, no language that can adequately convey it. There is only the tidal wave of heartsickness and pain, a reflection of her own feelings magnified a thousand-fold...A burden of guilt that threatens to crush her under its impossible weight...A conflagration of shame, burning through her with unspeakable agony...”

The first step towards healing and growth begins with empathy. And note how it's left unclear whether the description refers to the creature...or to Deanna.

There's a larger truth worth observing here. Although this story is attempting to convey feelings of loss and tragedy, there are transcendentally powerful emotions of all types just like these dwelling within all of us that words (which are, of course, ultimately nothing more than tools, albeit very early and specialized ones) are not designed to fully speak for. There are experiences and visions outside the systems of symbolic logic we have organised our lives around, and this is what the Long 1980s teach us by providing a model, however crude and prototypical, for exploring and engaging these thought-forms and mindscapes at a higher and more nuanced level. It is through ruminating on these, not through rote chasing of technoscience, that we are brought closer to reclaiming our birthright among the stars.

The lesson of this story is that this truth is inseparable one some level from the critique of Starfleet philosophy and jurisdiction it deals with elsewhere. For whoever fights monsters should see to it that she does not become a monster. And who is the monster here? Is it really the Bogus Enterprise? Or is it the Federation starships it did battle with and ultimately took the form of? Perhaps the true message here is to be mindful of just how close we are to Starfleet Command and the weight it still exerts over us. The real Enterprise is in the clear as her and her crew prove time and time again capable of extirpating themselves from the worst of Starfleet's predilections. But remember as well that the Bogus Enterprise wasn't so different from us, and in fact that's what made its actions so heinous and frightening. Were we not strong or empathic enough to stare down the abyss...Perhaps in another reality we might have ended up in the same place. Let's just be glad we don't.

For the time being, however, Star Trek: The Next Generation comes out of the summer emboldened and energized. At long last, it seems to have finally captured the zeitgeist of the moment; the future back in its hands. So don't screw this up – We'll be watching.

Myriad Universes: Whoever Fights Monsters Part 3: The Impostor

Well, obviously it had to be, right?

The question was never really whether or not there was someone going around besmirching the good name of the Enterprise, but who exactly was doing the impersonating and why. We still don't know that yet, there's one more issue yet to go. But we do get to meet our adversary, and it's a bit unsettling how dead-on their recreation truly is. Before any of that though, the story opens on a genuinely disturbing scene of yet more brutal carnage. Our foe has beat us to Alpha Sarpeidon and murdered another starship, this time the USS Merrimac. And no punches are pulled this time, with the whole gruesome aftermath laid out for us in a lurid full-page spread right when you open the book, complete with lifeless bodies floating in space.

The crew, accompanied by Admiral Rosenstrum, retreat to the observation lounge to discuss their options and come up with a way to track down the killer before it strikes again. This is going to prove difficult, as there's been no obvious pattern in its behaviour to date and Geordi can't pick up a traceable ion trail. Data eventually posits a theory that, if true, will allow the Enterprise to hunt down its evil doppelganger. He suggests that the ship is following the Enterprise's exact flight path from a specific mission several years ago (which also explains why it was in Ferengi space: When the Enterprise initially visited that sector of space, it was under Federation jurisdiction, but the boundary between Federation- and Ferengi-occupied territory has shifted since then). Should this pattern hold, the Bogus Enterprise (and yes, this is actually what they call it for the remainder of the story. Prophets, I love the 1980s) should next be headed for a defenseless colony on Beta Tarsus IV. Captain Picard immediately orders Wesley to proceed there at maximum warp to intercept.

We might expect that once we reach part three of a story of this magnitude, the plot would start to tread water a bit. We had a first issue laying some subtle hints about what's to come, a second issue of rising tension and we know the big climax is coming next month. By all accounts, this should be a filler issue as we kill time before the big showdown, and perhaps a lesser creative team would have done that. But not Michael Jan Friedman and Pablo Marcos: The majority of the plot-related stuff is taken care of at the very beginning and very end of the story (and there's even a brief but requisite shootout with the Bogus Enterprise in the issue's final third to keep us hooked), leaving the bulk of the story to be taken up with character moments. One thing that Michael Jan Friedman is quickly proving himself to be a master hand at is vignettes where people just sit around and talk to each other. It becomes a real hallmark of his Star Trek: The Next Generation for me and while there were brief glimpses of it as far back as his first volume 2 story, it's here, where he's got an entire book to fill with them, that his talent really begins to shine through.

First, there's Captain Picard and Rosenstrum, who share a scene together after the rest of the crew depart the observation lounge. The admiral trusts Picard's judgment, but wonders if he's making the right call in putting stock in Data's theory, as Data is an android who lacks intuition. Picard disagrees, saying his intuition tells him that Data is right even if they don't know why yet, and puts it to Rosenstrum, who had previously complained about needing to act quickly, that this is precisely what he's doing. It's here that Rosenstrum really comes into his own and leave a lasting impression on us: Perhaps remarkably for a one-off character in a tie-in comic, he has a very distinctive and conversational voice about him, and it goes a long way towards humanizing him and making him sympathetic to us. This is imperative for the ultimate efficacy of this arc as, once again, he's sort of the lynchpin character as it is he who is going to be changed by his interactions with the Enterprise crew; forging a renewed respect for their unorthodox, yet unmistakably noble, endeavours and looking within himself to re-examine what Starfleet means to him.

But it's not like the Enterprise crew themselves are emotionless, idealized abstractions either: These are still people, no matter how charmed their life and no matter which truths they have transcended to. And people have thoughts and feelings. Wesley chats with a relief operations officer from the planet Axgard, whose people believe that every tragedy must be met with a good deed to balance out the loss and restore cosmic harmony. He's unsure if any amount of good deeds could make up for what the Bogus Enterprise has done, to which Wesley has no easy answers. It's fitting that Wesley would be the interlocutor and would have this reaction, and it reminds me of own shock at the destruction of the USS Yamato in “Contagion”. Meanwhile, Beverly, almost fully recovered from her life-threatening bout with Rihehnnia in “The Pay Off!”, confides in Guinan her feelings of helplessness. As a doctor, she feels like she let down all the people who the Bogus Enterprise killed and that she should have been able to do something for them. Guinan tells her there's no way she can change how she feels anymore than Beverly could have helped the crew of the Merrimac, but points out that's precisely what makes her such a good doctor.

Even Assistant Chief Engineer McRobb is back. He and Geordi reflect about how much power is within their grasp, and how frightening it is that the Bogus Enterprise must have the exact same amount. And how if someone could make one duplicate Enterprise to send on a mission of murder, they could make a lot more too. This segues back into the main plot, as the real Enterprise arrives at Beta Tarsus IV, apparently ahead of their quarry. Picard warns the colony's supervisor (a lovely bit of 1980s sci-fi pyschedelia by way of Pablo Marcos) she and her people may be in danger...just as the Bogus Enterprise shows up. As the real Enterprise tries to get between it and the colony, it's constantly outmatched as the impostor seems to be able to predict every tactic Captain Picard tries. Riker and Troi suggest the ship may have deduced some pattern in Picard's behaviour, a suggestion that seems sound when Picard turns the con over to Will, who seems to have better luck. Just when he seems to have turned the tide of battle, however, the impostor retreats.

As the real Enterprise gives chase, we have to think back on McRobb's words. Federation starships are certainly privileged to have such a position of power. The Enterprise in particular, being the flagship and one of the extremely rare and prestigious Galaxy-class starships: Supposedly the pinnacle of human engineering. What might happen if a hypothetical someone had possession of all that power, yet had none of the moral convictions of our crew or any of the values Starfleet claims to represent? Or indeed, simply gave into the darker impulses that form that institution's backbone, as we saw so clearly last time.

Maybe the real reason Starfleet Command was so quick to condemn Captain Picard was because, in the actions of the Bogus Enterprise, they saw a reflection of their own dark subconscious staring back at them.

Myriad Universes: Whoever Fights Monsters Part 2: The Noise of Justice

In the past, I've expressed my disdain for courtroom dramas (in fact, the last time Star Trek: The Next Generation did a major story of this type, no less). I think they're a cheap way to artificially introduce drama while at the same time potentially dangerously misleading people when it comes to actual legal jurisprudence. Media has power because so much of what we perceive about how the world works is gleaned from it, and it is thus media's responsibility to be accurate should to choose to be realistic (whether it should choose to or not in the first place is another discussion entirely). Deliberately faulty and inaccurate legal information for the sake of conflict is but one way media can do harm and add to the world's darkness-A comparatively small one in the grand scheme of things, but a no less noteworthy one.

So thankfully, even though “The Noise of Justice” is split almost entirely between a hearing room and a holding cell, this isn't actually the kind of story it is. Captain Picard and the rest of the Enterprise crew are obviously innocent, and, more to the point, we know they're going to be cleared pretty quickly: There's two more issues in this story arc and it would be absolutely tortuous for Michael Jan Friedman and Pablo Marcos to drag a courtroom plot out that long in a comic book. The central hook of this issue comes firstly from speculating about what might be going on and if someone is out to destroy the careers and reputations of the Enterprise crew for some reason as we move away from the diversionary plot last month to the main meat of the miniseries, although we figure that's all going to get cleared up in the coming issues as well. Secondly however, it comes from watching the crew do battle with Starfleet Command over the allegations levelled against them. And it's altogether fitting that the chief prosecutor is our old nemesis Phillipa Louvois as “The Noise of Justice” is a compelling rebuttal of “The Measure of a Man”.

As is standard for Friedman by now, each character (save the Cushers: While Wesley is thankfully absent, we can assume Beverly is still recuperating from her ordeal last time) is afforded a spotlight scene, and he's once more nailed their voices. In this story, these spotlights manifest by giving each character time on the witness stand to face down Louvois' relentless assault of legalese and leading questions. Were this a television episode, we'd call it a bottle show as it largely takes place on one set, which is a praiseworthy dedication to good storytelling sense as we might expect the comic book to be flashier, more colourful and feature far more explosions and fisticuffs. Instead, the bigger “effects budget” goes into things like the look of Starbase 104, which is pleasingly futuristic and abstract-looking, and flashback sequences for Captain Picard that reveal bits of his history as he examines his life choices as he faces the risk of losing everything he's lived for.

During these flashbacks, we get a look back at Captain Picard's first time taking the Starfleet Academy entrance exam, the bar fight where he was stabbed through the heart (Pablo Marcos does an interesting job imagining the Nausicaans three years before we see them on TV) and an away team mission where he once apparently served under Admiral Rosentrum back when he was a captain and even saved his life. The picture we get of Picard in this story is that of a person possessed with a boundless sense of loyalty, humility and selflessness and in possession of a quiet strength and dignity. He's everything Starfleet claims it wants but doesn't really: We all know by now, after all, that no matter what Donald Varley might say, the Picard best suited to Starfleet was Claude, not Jean-Luc. Which is why it's the ultimate insult and narrative collapse for Starfleet to finally turn on him, as it shows in stark contrast precisely how opposed their core values and worldviews really are.

It's funny, for all of its talk of fair and egalitarian representation beneath the law, Starfleet seems to be operating pretty clearly under the premise that Captain Picard and the Enterprise are “guilty until proven innocent”. Sounds a bit like the Cardassians.

Shades of “Duet” to come are keenly felt here, as the very best bottle episodes are the ones where peerless acting absolutely nails gripping writing to create an instant classic. And much like “Duet”, “The Noise of Justice” is a barely-restrained philosophical war between two perspectives. It's really fun for me to imagine the actors getting to deliver these lines, as I'm sure they would have had an absolute blast with them. Riker is one of the standouts in particular: Each of his lines seethes with barely contained rage and indignation at Louvois' calculated, methodical dedication to proving him and his crew guilty on principle: He's clearly still furious with her over what she put him through in “The Measure of a Man”. To Riker, Louvois is the embodiment of punch-clock evil, and he's horrified and enraged at how quick she and her superiors are to stab Captain Picard in the back despite everything he's done and tries to stand for. We're also reminded of the anti-time Riker from “The Gift”, who felt similarly betrayed by Starfleet's rapid embrace of Claude Picard and persecution of the Enterprise and her crew.

Geordi's testimony is instantly memorable because of how well Friedman writes him. It's hard to believe “Serafin's Survivors” and “Shadows in the Garden” was only a couple of months ago, because the Geordi here is unrecognizable from the character there. Friedman has finally got LeVar Burton's mannerisms, and his affability, down pat, and Geordi becomes one of the most likable characters on display owing to his loyalty and soft-spoken tolerance even under Louvois' relentless scrutiny. Of course we have to have a scene with Data, whom Louvois rhetorically punches in the gut by manipulating him into admitting that, as a machine, his memory can be reprogrammed and falsified. Worf, meanwhile, looks like he can barely keep himself from killing Louvois on the spot. Because Will is right: Even though she's ultimately sympathetic to the crew's plight and hopes they're cleared, in order to do her job Louvois has to vilify them. She's not living her life in accordance with the values she claims to hold because of her loyalty to an authoritarian power structure whose orders she follows without question. And as Captain Picard himself will soon say, “The claim, 'I was only following orders' has been used to justify too many tragedies in our history”.

But the real highlight is once again Deanna Troi. As skilled a philosopher as she is a psychologist and an anthropologist, Deanna proves to be the only person who truly has the rhetorical chops to go toe-to-toe with Louvois, and her testimony is an absolutely glorious thinly veiled assault on the captain's core premises, drifting ultimately into the nature of reality itself. But Deanna isn't playing to derail at all, rather, she's meticulously and comprehensively countering and outmanoeuvring Louvois at every turn, leaving the prosecutor flustered and frustrated by the end of it. Deanna's debate skills are positively balletic, and she decisively sinks the authoritarian intellectual framework Louvois is hiding her ethical bankruptcy behind.

Oh, she may find them charming in a “scrappy underdog” sort of way, but make no mistake: Louvois plainly sees the Enterprise as an uppity thorn in her side. They upset the comforting lie Starfleet his built itself around by revealing it to be the hollow shell it is, because they're simultaneously everything Starfleet claims to hold most dear while also constantly at odds with it. They're a rebellious, insubordinate underclass who makes the lives of people like Louvois difficult, and she thought she could teach them a lesson by, if not casting them as mass-murders, at least painting them as dangerously irresponsible. She may not have thought this consciously, of course, but it guides her actions regardless. Problem is, Louvois never expected to meet one of the scrappy insubordinates who could actually fight back by turning her own rhetoric against her.

But before Deanna Troi can manage to singlehandely take apart the entirety of Starfleet Command, we learn something else. Apparently, the Enterprise has been sighted in the Alpha Sarpeidon sector. Which is rather peculiar all things considered, as the Enterprise is also docked at Starbase 104 for the hearings.

Myriad Universes: Whoever Fights Monsters Part 1: The Pay Off!

One of the big appeals of the comic line back in the day was that because it was a monthly series that ran year 'round, this meant you could get a regular stream of new Star Trek stories even when the show was on summer hiatus. And I'd be willing to be that in Summer, 1990, in the gap between “The Best of Both Worlds” and “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”, the comic line filled a very desperate demand indeed.

Perhaps that's the reason why the Summer Event miniseries came about. It's odd to talk about such a thing at first, considering pretty much every story in this line belongs to some kind of multipart serial: That's the entire nature of the medium we're dealing with, after all. During the summer months, however, DC would go all-out with a particularly extensive serial that sometimes lasted well into the fall, oftentimes far more heavily hyped than any of their usual fare. These miniseries tended to have big, imposing-sounding titles and could even be collected in trade paperbacks after the fact, while few of the books that came out during the other seasons were. Even though Star Trek: The Next Generation was a licensed book, whenever summer rolled around it felt as if DC was treating it like a top tier title that not only deserved to stand alongside its TV namesake, but the rest of DC's stable as well. So while there's good stuff in the other months to be sure, including some excellent standalone tales, given the gravity they exert over the line we're going to be talking primarily about the Annuals and the Summer Event miniseries here.

Given that, the serial that ran during the crucial summer of 1990 is a peculiar one. It didn't have the hype of some of the later miniseries, and doesn't even have its own unique title (I've chosen to call it Whoever Fights Monsters after the final issue in the story because it quite frankly sounds cooler than the titles of any of the other issues). Even so, it's definitely a milestone for the book because even though it doesn't upsell itself to the extent some of its successors will, it marks the moment where Michael Jan Friedman and Pablo Marcos' take on Star Trek: The Next Generation finally and definitively arrives in full. They weren't around for the first volume, of course (well, at least Friedman wasn't) and while the second volume has had some nice bits here and there, it hasn't yet quite had its first real knockout story that can be called a bona fide classic from its actual creative team: The big highlight so far in my view, if you'll recall, is John de Lancie's “The Gift” that ran in the 1990 Annual.

But even now, this arc is shaping up to be the one that does it for Friedman and Marcos. “The Pay Off!” pulls no punches out of the gate delivering blow after blow: Captain Picard receives an eyes-only from a furious Admiral Rosenstrum (who amusingly looks a bit like a raging Gene Roddenberry), demanding to know if he's planning on starting a war with the Ferengi. It turns out the Enterprise has been spotted patrolling Ferengi space, in clear violation of treaty. Obviously the Enterprise wasn't there, but Rosenstrum wants to see Picard at Starbase 104 to sort the matter out. While Picard tries to figure out what's going on, Doctor Crusher is suddenly struck down by a rare but life-threatening illness called called Rihehnnia. It turns out she's been a carrier for the disease, which she helped treat on the planet Onnohr on her first Starfleet mission. Unfortunately, being native to that planet, this means the vaccine is only available on Onnorh, so in order to save Beverly's life Picard openly violates Admiral Rosenstrum's summons to divert the Enterprise there, knowing his crew is more important than regulations. The situation is further complicated when the Onnohrans reveal they are now under Ferengi jurisdiction and will not part with the vaccine unless they receive compensation deemed fitting by their Ferengi occupiers. It just so happens, of course, what they want is the plans to the Enterprise's warp engines.

It's an engaging plot to be sure, but what really elevates this one to the major leagues is the characterization. Friedman finally has a good handle on his whole cast, and the increased freedom and space of the tie-in comic gives him room to breath and explore them in ways the show's been skittish about doing lately. Through his internal monologues, Picard is revealed as a very passionate, principled and caring man who would rather sacrifice himself then allow his crew to be cast in a poor light, a theme that will be further developed as the miniseries goes on. This isn't just generic burden-of-command stuff, though: We really get the sense that these are beliefs and concerns that come out of the captain's own personal convictions, and the warmth he exhibits towards his crew, especially the Crushers, goes a long way towards showing that humanity that Star Trek fans seemed to think he lacked.

And the rest of the crew is every bit as strong as he is: Even incapacitated, Beverly is as quick-witted and sardonic as ever, and her delivery as she recounts her history with Onnorh and Rihehnnia belies the touch of a master scientist. Wesley is unlikable, but believably so: He snaps at Captain Picard for not understanding what he's going through because he's not related to Beverly, even though he cares about her too, and he loses his composure on the bridge and lashes out at the Onnorhan representatives. But this is all the sort of feelings we would expect someone in his position to be going through (Captain Picard even says as much, both to him and to us) and it feels like a realistic extension of the character Wil Wheaton has been increasingly been playing, if not of the one that's being written for him.

Friedman doesn't ignore the other cast, either: There's a great series of exchanges between Picard, Riker and Deanna Troi in the observation lounge and the bridge where they discuss their predicament, and their voices sound both spot-on and far richer, fuller and more lyrical than they do on TV. I especially love how Deanna gets to throw cold water on the two men pompously discussing things like “acceptable losses” and “the needs of the many” by politely reminding them that they're using “the arithmetic of war” and that there has to be a way to save Doctor Crusher without compromising the security of the Enterprise. She's right, of course. Even though it's Wesley (natch) who comes up with the actual plan, it's Deanna who reminds everyone that there is, as always, another way. Once again, Friedman demonstrates himself as very probably the best writer of Deanna Troi we've seen to date.

So of course Beverly gets saved and the Ferengi's plot is foiled, but we still have the small matter of a very pissed off Admiral Rosenstrum wanting to know why the Enterprise wasn't where everyone said it was. He can't be too happy that Picard violated his direct orders to make a detour to Onnorh, either. And no sooner do we get out of that than the Enterprise is ambushed by two Federation starships under the command of one Captain Lavelle...Who's just accused her and her crew of destroying the USS Nairobi, murdering everyone aboard.

Sensor Scan: Quantum Leap

I remember quite well when the first trailers for Enterprise debuted. I'll save talking about exactly how much of an event it felt like for me (that's two books from now, after all), but one thing in particular caught my attention straight away: There were these two guys (in *baseball caps*) sitting in what I assumed to be some form of shuttlecraft talking about how the new Warp Drive engine would allow them to go to “Neptune and back in six minutes”. One of those guys looked awfully familiar-Was that...was that who I thought it was?

Omigish it is! It's Scott Bakula! The guy from Quantum Leap is on Star Trek! And he's the new captain! 

Quantum Leap is a show I have fond memories of. It was never something I followed religiously; I was only ever a casual viewer. But it was a show that seemed to always be around, it eventually developed a kind of comfort blanket appeal for me and, in retrospect, seems actually sort of lovely and wonderful. I remember Starlog Magazine covering it back in the day when it was on the air, talking to Bakula, Dean Stockwell and the show's creative team, so it was one of those shows that was one of my early introductions to science fiction. In much later years, I remember it primarily as the lead-in to the Sci-Fi Channel's reruns of the Original Star Trek in the late-1990s and early-2000s. Sometimes I would tune in early to watch a whole episode, while other times I'd just catch the tail end of one before TOS came on. Either way it was something I always enjoyed and appreciated whenever I managed to see it: It always seemed a rather pleasant and charming little series.

A great deal of Quantum Leap's appeal for me comes from Scott Bakula's character, Doctor Sam Backett. He's a quantum physicist heading up a research programme looking into the possibility of time travel, and when the government threatens to shut the project down Beckett protests by throwing himself into the quantum accelerator, “leaping” through the time-space continuum. Thus begins the series' central gimmick: Every episode Beckett “leaps” to a new point in time and *into* the body of a different person. Soon, Beckett and his friend Al Calavicci (Dean Stockwell's character) and their AI friend Ziggy (series executive producer and narrator Deborah Pratt) discover that Sam's leaps through time are caused by his behaviour in his present time: In particular, his efforts to right a wrong or correct an injustice that subtly alter the course of history. Upon this revelation, Sam is emboldened to keep leaping through the timeline to do what he can to change history for the better.

It's this simple, unpretentious conviction to do good, to be a good person and to do what you can, no matter how humble the act, to make the universe a better place in your own small way that makes Sam such an endearing character for me. He's honestly, genuinely, sincerely a nice guy, and it helps Scott Bakula is the perfect actor for the job: He consistently, doggedly conveys this and drives it home each and every time for 97 episodes and five seasons. Sam is so likable and sympathetic he naturally, and entirely appropriately, becomes the narrative singularity around which the whole of Quantum Leap's universe revolves-Not only do a lot of stories end up dealing with his own life, but he's understandably the primary reason we want to tune in and keep watching. This helps the show in other ways too, as Quantum Leap's sci-fi convictions are in truth little more than a framing device to tell a series of anthology tales, the creators fearing they wouldn't be able to sell such a series without such a conceit. It's Sam Beckett's good nature and Scott Bakula's affable and incredibly attractive charisma that link together all these wildly disparate personal vignettes about otherwise unrelated people.

In some ways, Quantum Leap serves as a much more elegant and streamlined version of Doctor Who, another series that, at its best, is basically just an anthology show with a science fiction framing device. Quantum Leap's advantage here is its staunch rejection of serialization, thus meaning there's no way it's going to inherit a huge surplus of continuity baggage to make it intimidating for new viewers: You could tune in entirely at random, as I did, and still get a great deal of enjoyment out of Quantum Leap's done-in-one morality plays and character dramas. It's an entirely functional and effective approach to sci-fi television that dates all the way back to The Twilight Zone. But I think what appeals to me the most about Quantum Leap at the stage of life I'm at right now is what I read its values and beliefs to be in the most general: This is a show about a person wandering through time and space, guided by the universe to do good deeds and leave the collective unconsciousness of humanity a little better off then when he got there. Sometimes Sam must do things that seem counterinutitive or live through events that are traumatic or hurtful in the short term, but history is always the better off for it in the end. It's a lesson Kei and Yuri would not at all find foreign, and the moment I realised this, Quantum Leap's stature in the pantheon of my half-remembered pop culture memories shot up quite a bit.

I don't have a ton of specific episodes of this show I remember especially vividly. Quantum Leap was always something I enjoyed in the aggregate and I don't have any real lasting or formative memories of it. I do recall not really liking whenever they did so-called “Kisses with History” episodes where Sam is injected into real, actual documented historical events-My distaste for this kind of story comes from the same place as my baseline rejection of historical fiction as a genre that I talked about *way* back in the first volume in the context of “Balance of Terror”. There was at least one episode where Sam lept into the body of a pregnant woman I remember finding...interesting. But the one episode I want to highlight in particular I just found out about now when I was doing research for this piece to refresh my memory: The fourth season finale is an episode called “A Leap For Lisa”, in which Sam leaps into the body of a young Al, at risk of being court martialed for a murder he didn't commit. Al can't prove his innocence without revealing he'd been having an affair with an army nurse named Lisa Sherman while they were both married (...to other people).

What makes this story noteworthy, apart from the strong character moments for Sam and Al, is the character of Lisa. In the original, “bad” course of events she dies in a car accident, but Sam's intervention keeps her alive. At first it seems like this has actually made things worse, as this new set of events leads to Al getting convicted and executed. But Sam manages to change history a second time by finding a key piece of evidence that creates a timeline where both Lisa *and* Al live.

By the way, Lisa is played by Terry Farrell.

Lisa is no Cat to be sure, but Farrell is every bit as coquettishly and provocatively sexual and every bit as magnetically energetic as she is in every other part she plays. And of course, I can't get over how giddy it makes me to find out that one of my favourite men and one of my favourite women were in an production together, and they even play lovers!

(There's an additional level of poignancy here for me in having a character played by Scott Bakula saving the life of a character played by Terry Farrell in order to bring about a better future. That hits at a number of levels and will prove somewhat heartrendingly prophetic.)

Utopianism need not be an ideal state. It need not even be a roadmap to such things. “Utopianism is a framework for utopias”, in the words of Robert Nozick, and maybe utopianism also means doing small things for each other to make everyone's lives a little happier, a little more hopeful and a little more wonderful. Maybe we can't leap through time like Sam Beckett or journey to the stars like Jonathan Archer, but we all travel through time and space together every day and the effect is the same. The future is always now, and it's always been on us to make it a good one.

The Ultimate Dirty Pair Episode Guide Master Post

Yesterday's post on Flight 005 Conspiracy is Vaka Rangi's final word on Dirty Pair. Some of you are no doubt rejoicing at this news. For the rest of you, since I've now finished the entirety of the Classic Anime Series I've whipped up something special: It's called The Ultimate Dirty Pair Episode Guide Master Post.

Perhaps my writing has inspired you to take a trip through Dirty Pair yourself, but are unsure where to start. If that's the case, then this is for you. If you're new to Dirty Pair and are looking for a reading guide to get you started, this list should have everything you need: It's a complete, enumerated, categorized breakdown of every single story of note from the original novels and Classic Anime series (that are also in English) I've curated to be as definitive an experience as I can provide. I've also provided links to where you can watch the show online, buy the books and DVDs as well as my own posts on each story I've highlighted. Think of it as a Greatest Hits compilation and an introductory course in one.

You can find the list here, and once this post goes live it will also be a permanent fixture of Vaka Rangi itself, accessible at anytime at the top of the sidebar under "Pages".