“Virtual XI”: Interface

Is it bad I can't remember what this episode is called? I've literally had to go look up how the title is spelled three times since sitting down to write this.

Over the course of this project I've noticed Star Trek: The Next Generation takes a roughly annual delight in a sub-genre of story I've decided to call “Let's Torture Geordi”. Ever since the third season (hmmmm) the show, for want of anything better to do with Geordi La Forge, decides to put him through an increasingly mean-spirited and downright ludicrous series of wringers more or less because they can. This team has, in turn, given him a neurotic complex he never had before, turned him into the creepiest human being imaginable by having him get it on with pretend women, forced him to mutate into a neon sea slug and had him brainwashed into a killing machine by his batshit insane murderous alien ex-girlfriend. Even Michael Jan Friedman is not immune to the fun, writing the two-part story “Seraphin's Survivors”/“Shadows in the Garden” about Geordi acting uncharacteristically defensive and oversensitive when his childhood friend/lover comes aboard, thus blinding him to the fact she's a space vampire who eats people. A few issues later, he had Geordi entranced by space mermaids in “I Have Heard the Mermaids Singing” and almost blow up the ship in his reverie.

All in all, sounds like an eminently respectful and legitimate, serious grown-up series of dramatic performances to give to LeVar Burton, national treasure and cultural icon who reads to children on Reading Rainbow and played Kunta Kinte on Roots.

“Interface” or “Interphase” or “Whatever The Fuck It's Called I Don't Give A Shit Anymore” is the episode I would call the requisite “Let's Torture Geordi” outing for this season, although we got a nice preview in “Descent, Part II' when Doctor Frankendata sticks strobes in Geordi's forehead and tries to infect his brain with the Replicators from Stagate SG-1. It's two half-assed stories stitched together into an even more half-assed whole: The first a bog-standard mid-90s virtual reality piece and the second a look into Geordi's family history. Which, this team being this team, we have to explore by brutally killing everyone off and watching drooling, leering and slack-jawed as Geordi bears his grief for us, publicly retreating into his own mind and memories in the vain, desperate hope to be able to feel something again.

Jesus.

This was not an episode I watched at the time, and thus isn't one that contributed anything to the mental landscape Star Trek: The Next Generation inhabits for me. The only thing I remember is the ridiculous-looking interface device itself from a shot in a magazine somewhere, and that I kept confusing it with the equally bullshit mind-control contrivance from that stupid fucking Manchurian Candidate story with Commander Sela from the fourth season. You'd think, with this episode being about inner worlds and psychology and everything, themes I've often gone on record as praising in this season, this would be right up my alley. But it's not. This is just shit. Actually offensive shit that makes me legitimately pissed off and angry in a way this show has actually avoided doing for quite awhile. Ron Moore says the problem with this episode is that it's a story about Geordi's family and is thus boring, and that because of this it marks the point where everyone realsied the show was out of ideas.

As usual, Ron Moore is wrong. “Interface” isn't bad because it's a story about Geordi's backstory, it's bad because it's a story about Geordi's backstory that's cruel and heartless and boring and sucks. And furthermore, what, may I ask, was wrong about telling a story that fleshes out Geordi's family life? I thought this show loved itself some character drama and character development. This show has done it for every other character on this show, frequently at the expense of literally anything fucking else. It spent three interminable years stretching out goddamn Worf's story so much that it now less resembles a Greek tragedy so much as it resembles a first-draft parody of a Greek tragedy written by a screeching idiot. So it's OK to make a cartoon mockery of Worf and Captain Picard's family history, but when they do it for Geordi it's a boring and unnecessary bridge too far?

Fuck off.

I could make some argument about how the continual shafting of Geordi is indicative of how there is something cripplingly, seriously wrong with this creative team and their conception (or to be more accurate, complete and total fucking lack) of what Star Trek: The Next Generation is. But honestly, I can't be bothered anymore. I'd just be repeating arguments I've made a million billion times before. I've moved beyond disappointment and apathy with this franchise's source material to being actively angered and repulsed by the consistent stream of cack-handed incompetence, laziness, childishness and outright disingenuity that goes on behind the scenes of science fiction. There's probably one, two, maybe three actually legitimate writing talents between everyone here, and the fundamental problem is that they never coalesce into a unit frequently enough. And that's before you get to the fact it's demonstrably clear that neither the studio nor the fans have the slightest idea what they're doing with a property like this. 

Star Trek: The Next Generation provides a world of ideals for us to observe, but those ideals actually have to be lived up to. We actually have to take it upon ourselves to work towards living up to the standard the series is trying to set, otherwise there isn't one single, solitary point to this. To any of this. It's long past the time for Star Trek to put up or shut up. There's only so long it can sit sanctimoniously upon its high horse and preach at us when it's abundantly clear it has no intention of practicing any of that itself. I'm writing this in the 50th anniversary year of the entire franchise, and not once throughout that half-century has Star Trek ever reliably, consistently and provably lived by its own example.

And I'm finally starting to realise the problem is us.

“Leadership”: The Circle

There are two Circles that give their name to the title of this episode. One is, naturally, the xenophobic nativist fascist terrorists we were introduced to last week and who execute their master plan in this episode. But the other is the circle of friends on board Deep Space 9: A major theme in this story arc is demonstrating how close knit and fiercely loyal to one another this team has grown in just the short period of time they've been together: Last time there was Commander Sisko's breezy interactions with Jake, Kira and Dax, O'Brien's dedication to Kira's cause, and Dax's gentle but firm support and guidance.

We also saw another example of the more congenial side of Odo and Quark's relationship in a way we haven't really seen since “Babel”: Yes, they're still trying to outplay one another, but there's a familiarity and respect there. And this carries through to this episode as well-Although the “deputy” subplot is largely played for laughs, Quark still comes to Odo willingly because he's concerned about the Deep Space 9 community being put into danger by The Circle's actions. Furthermore, he goes straight to Commander Sisko in the climax with the crucial information about where Kira is being held and it was, of course, him who gave Kira Li Nalas' earring in the first place, letting her know that he was still alive and where to go to find him.

Kira herself sums it up to Li pretty well by stating that while she may not have wanted this job at first, Deep Space 9 has become a home to her, and her fellow residents have become her friends. We could say much the same for the show itself. And the scene in Kira's quarters near the beginning really drives it all home: It's a routine straight out of a Marx Brothers film (literally, in fact, to the point director Corey Allen had it done all in one take, just like in A Night at the Opera) and captures the unique and distinct personalities of everyone involved perfectly. Kira's arc in this trilogy effectively mirrors that of a presumed audience: She begins in self-imposed isolation away from daily life on Deep Space 9, her loyalties still primarily with Bajor. It's only when confronted with the possibility of being removed from the station, and after suffering through the persistence of the crew, that she begins to realise how much affection she really has for the place and the people. And at the end of the episode, after witnessing the crew risk their lives to save her even though she's no longer one of them, that she fully accepts and understands where she belongs.

Although it at first must seem like a traumatic crisis of faith for Kira, it does help her to find Bajor has betrayed her trust in them. Much of Bajor supports The Circle, who are far more dangerous and powerful than anyone anticipated and, backing by the Cardassians aside, are working in direct opposition to everything Deep Space 9 stands for and that Kira has come to as well. Vedek Winn and Minister Jaro's masterminding alone speaks volumes. This is the final turning point for Kira where she finally picks a side, and explicitly chooses the side of cosmopolitanism. Because there were only ever two ways to go, cosmopolitanism and reactionaryism, and she and Minister Jaro embody both sides of the dichotomy. As Jaro points out, he and Kira effectively stand for the same things, all that's different is the actions they took. As Deanna said: “feelings aren't positive and negative. They simply exist. It's what we do with those feelings that becomes good or bad.”

This also leads into my one grumble with this episode, which is that when Jaro correctly points out that he and Kira hold the same positions and desire change, Kira states “if you want change, vote for it”, which is the absolute pinnacle of elite moderate centrist liberal patronizing platitudes. I mean what he's doing isn't wonderful either, it's Machiavellian power consolidation at its purest, but Jaro is absolutely right to say that change doesn't come through working within the system. It's a frankly cringe-inducing moment that makes Kira look really bad and really weak: I know the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine characters are meant to be fallible in a way the Star Trek: The Next Generation ones aren't in an effort to play up a sense of moral ambiguity but A. I don't like that and B. that's all ultimately irrelevant because the fact remains that the crew are the protagonists and a narrative like this is supposed to implicitly agree with its protagonists. Even the grimmest of grimdark wants us to admire its antiheroes in an adolescently anticonformist way.

But Jaro and Winn's machinations bring another facet of the story to the surface here. Throughout the recent weeks and months Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine have been trying to justify their existence and respective legacies by telling stories pitting themselves against extradiegetic and metafictional threats. And Jaro and Winn are every bit as dangerous, and fitting, antagonists as Lore and the Borg, because they stand for a corruption of utopian thought. This is different from straight-up dystopianism, which is a kissing-cousin to grimdark. There's a relevant critique of that too, of course, and we've seen our fair share of that. But Winn and Jaro are something else: Similar to Lore, they embody a form of fascism. They're charismatic, inspirational ideals and role models, but entirely negative ones, and that's a very Star Trek: Deep Space Nine twist befitting the fact that this show has always had to deal with the temptation of the antihero in a way Star Trek: The Next Generation never really has.

No wonder Minister Jaro doesn't want Li Nalas anywhere near him, because he'd be nothing but competition for him. Competition for Hearts and Minds, which together serve as the arbiter of legacy.

“Misery Loves Company”: Liaisons

There's a scene near the beginning of “Liaisons” that kills the entire episode for me. It's where Worf and Commander Riker are putting on their dress uniforms and Worf grumbles about the outfit being “too feminine”. This earns him a deserved reprimand by Riker, which I still hate for two reasons. One, I hate any scene like this where one character upsets another, especially a friend. Two, it's impossible for me not to read the narrative as siding with Worf: Worf is manly and grumpy and the writers love him because of that, and they hate this lame stuff about “utopianism” and “equality” that constrains their beloved “conflict”.

You know what? Fuck off. This one scene is emblematic of absolutely everything that has ever been wrong with Star Trek: The Next Generation since these guys took over in 1989.

I'm really not motivated to look further into the episode after that, frankly. It's not like “Liaisons” is a particularly beloved episode and it's not like I'm missing a whole lot: The entire premise of “alien dignitaries trying to experience strange and unfamiliar human emotion by deliberately pissing people off” sounds like a brief for a particularly weak Original Series episode (or at least memorably weak, as they were, to be blunt, *all* weak). Bad Original Series knock-offs were passé in the first season. To have one show up in the seventh is frankly astonishing, and that's another indication of something that's always been wrong with this show: Nobody seems willing to take it on its own terms. Nothing can ever escape the shadow of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, even (especially) when it's already been explicitly killed off.

The original pitch for this episode was apparently for a “Let's Do” take on Misery, the Stephen King story about a famous author who is kidnapped by an obsessive, murderous fan after getting badly injured in a car accident. I am dumbfounded the team even bought the pitch, because for the life of me I cannot figure out how in the universe that *wasn't* going to turn into a horrific disaster. Misery is frequently read as being about the perils of fan culture, and in the context of Star Trek: The Next Generation in its final year that could only be projected onto Star Trek fans. And applying that to Trekkers, even indirectly, seems like a crateringly awful decision that could go wrong in a myriad of different, equally appalling ways.

For one thing, it's staggeringly hypocritical for a show made exclusively by and for Star Trek fans to be criticizing other Star Trek fans. Oh, so it's bad now to be an overzealous Star Trek or science fiction enthusiast? I'm not disagreeing, but who in the hell are the biggest, most overzealous and overenthusiastic Star Trek fans in existence if not the people currently writing this show and using it as methadone for their sexually frustrated creative impulses sparked watching the Original Series as little boys (and yes, I'm using deliberately gendered language here)? It seems more than a little disingenuous to attack others for their passion when you yourself are running the asylum, as it were.

Then there's the fact that critique would have been utterly pointless and myopic to begin with because Star Trek: The Next Generation was a *massive populist hit*. Again, this was no niche, cult sci-fi show watched only by a minuscule population of Nerds: This was one of the biggest, most watched shows on TV *and always had been*. The only reason this project exists is because I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation and if *I* watched it, you can believe it was being watched by people outside the anorak demographic. I have to wonder if the only people who *didn't* know this back then were the people making the damn show. This is why you can't entrust science fiction to science fiction people. They'll just invariably screw the whole thing up.

But no. We all know damn well what a Star Trek: The Next Generation version of Misery would look like, and who precisely it would really be intended to skewer: Women. Namely, fanfiction writers. The villain of the original Misery was Annie Wilkes, a depraved an obsessed fan (read fangirl) of protagonist's Paul Sheldon, who is angry that Sheldon plans to kill off Misery Chastain, the heroine of his Victorian romance series in hopes of starting a new phase of his career. Wilkes keeps Sheldon prisoner and refuses to let him go, baiting him with medication, until he writes a follow-up novel that brings Misery back from the dead. The mildest scenario would have had the show critiquing those who were unwilling to let Star Trek: The Next Generation go and who would keep it around past its time (an impossibly hollow argument we'll be spending all goddamn year dismantling), but I have a terrible feeling that the far more likely scenario would have had this Nerd fraternity of a writing stable getting cheap laughs at the expense of what they perceive as a pathetic and annoying female fandom, even with a female showrunner overseeing them.

Dresses are too feminine for the manly space warriors.

And so, the show would have continued Star Trek's reprehensible and unforgivable history of devouring and erasing its own history, that of the women and female fans who built it into the phenomenon it became. Whether it's the female fanfiction writers of the 1970s or the 1990s, or the normal, everyday people who were casual TV fans who tuned into Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine every week not because they were obsessed but, shock of shocks, because the show was actually pretty good and had broad mainstream appeal. Star Trek: The Next Generation wouldn't have made it out of its first season if not for women, because the overwhelmingly male Star Trek fandom wouldn't touch it. Hell, had Star Trek *in general* been left in the hands of the technoscience Nerds it would have died out in 1967, because they weren't watching Star Trek then. Teenage girls were. The one group of people everyone seems to statistically hate the most. Maybe admitting that women enjoy it is an impossible truth for genre fiction to comprehend because doing so would require it to stop being an insular and doomed fraternal order.

One way or another, “Liaisons” is a story that quite frankly should have been thrown out at the pitch stage. With full admission that I sound a great deal like Annie Wilkes myself, I don't believe Star Trek: The Next Generation deserves to end here at all. If the show feels like it's running out of steam, it's only because the people in charge are and they never really wanted to be doing this project to begin with. The show hasn't run out of potential because it never took hold of the potential it had.

“Legend”: The Homecoming

“The Homecoming” opens on one of the more triumphant notes Star Trek: The Next Generation/Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has done in recent memory. There's a slow pan across the new set for the Promenade upper level into Quark's, where the man himself in engaged in one of his classic verbal sparring matches with Odo. The energy carries through to the scene where Quark visits a brooding Kira in her quarters to deliver Li Nalas' earring. Finally, we get a jovial and upbeat Ben Sisko having a charismatic father/son moment with Jake, followed by a friendly and breezy lunch date with Kira. Well, up until she springs the news she wants to take a Runabout to Cardassia 4 to spring a jailbreak.

The sense we get is of a show that's on top of the world, elated by its recent success. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is *back*, refreshed and energized to continue the creative high it came off the previous season on. And it has every reason to be comfortable and pleased with itself: Late 1993 into early 1994 was the critical, creative and commercial high point for Star Trek as a franchise, and it's on Deep Space 9 that this is manifesting the most visibly and effortlessly. This must have been around the time I started taking serious notice of the show too, because it's “The Homecoming”/“The Circle”/“The Siege” that's among the first crop of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine stories I can recall having an active understanding of the plot and character details from, as opposed to merely faint recollections of dissociated images and scenes. Most of this was due to my having recently getting into Starlog's official Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Magazine around this time (or really, the following Spring) to catch up with the series, but that warrants its own chapter later down the line.

The ironic thing is that by definition, a peak is a high as one can possibly go, and there's nowhere to go from there but down. And while this second/seventh season is in many ways just as good as the crop of episodes that came out the year before, there's an impossible-to-ignore shadow hanging over all the proceedings here, and as good as this opening volley was and is, it also marks the beginning of the end of Star Trek's imperious phase. This won't become clear for another few months though, nor will the plans being drafted behind the scenes that will conspire to make life a living hell for cast and crew alike over the next year, and ultimately bring about Star Trek's end.

For the moment though, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is riding high. The first half of “The Homecoming” is truly iconic to me-There's Kira and Chief O'Brien in undercover civilian attire in a fierce shootout to liberate Bajoran POWs on one of the very few alien planets where it makes absolutely perfect sense that it's plainly a quarry. Daytime scenes and wide open location shoots in beautiful sunny weather is something I associate a lot with this season: We saw it here and in parts of “Descent”, we'll see it again in the other two parts of this trilogy, as well as in episodes like “Shadowplay”. And it's wonderful to see a laid-back and settled-in Ben Sisko: A lot of audiences (not to mention creative figures) usually think of the station commander as a reserved, taciturn brooding and angsty figure, but here he's completely at ease and on friendly terms with everyone, from Jake and Jadzia to Kira and O'Brien. Although I suppose that's as good a sign as any that the show is on its last legs: That kind of easygoing familial environment isn't going to survive long as the 1990s start to ramp up.

That's a point I want to return to in a paragraph or two as I think it's actually relevant to the climax of “The Homecoming”. But the first thing that struck me on this rewatch is how iffy the political assumptions underlying the return of Li Nalas are, from all involved parties. Everyone, even Commander Sisko and Major Kira, emphasize that Bajor's current tribulations are due to a “lack of strong leadership”, and that if the Bajorans had someone they could all look up to as a planet, that would bring stability back to the sector. This is troubling from this book's perspective, because it's very much in line with the liberal fantasy that everything would be better if “just the right person” was in charge. It is, in fact, the exact mentality (or one of them) that we read “Descent” as being a criticism of: In times of crisis, some would prefer to put their stock in someone they see as singularly strong and charismatic. But that never yields us an Enlightened Ruler or Benevolent (Patriarchal) Dictator, in spite of what liberalism secretly constantly yearns for. Historically speaking, that doesn't get you the liberal fantasy ideal philosopher king, it produces Lore. Because the only people who truly desire power are the exact ones no sane person would ever wish to be in power.

This is why The Circle is the necessary antagonistic force here. The Circle is the logical end result of the re-awoken strands of fundamentalism Star Trek: Deep Space Nine closed out its last season combating (and of the story continuity it introduced as well, though we can't know that for a few more episodes). Bajor is putting its faith in the xenophobic and nativist Circle not because they're “more stable” than the government, but because they're a populist force that's saying what a significant portion of Bajorans want to here. The Circle are “stable” and “strong” because they're reactionary authoritarians (a redundancy if ever there was one), and authoritarians by definition consolidate power. They are one necessary product, alongside cosmopolitanism, of globalization (which is what Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is about even though it's set in outer space). There are only two extremes on the political spectrum, fascism and anarchy, and the antidote to fascism is not “benevolent fascism” because “benevolent fascism” does not exist: It's an impossible fantasy held only by elite liberals that does nothing but close down discourse for actual change. The only true cure for fascism is anarchy.

But this is something I do think the show understands, or at least is a memory lingering within its paratext. Because in the episode's climax, Commander Sisko points out to Li Nalas that what Bajor needs really isn't one person, but a legend. They don't actually need a leader figure, strong or otherwise. What they need is a story or an ideal to believe in and look up to: A role model. It's a lovely sentiment delivered wonderfully and a needed statement of purpose. Which is all the more fitting because, if the writing credit wasn't a dead giveaway, there's the fact that “The Homecoming” originated as a Star Trek: The Next Generation script before Michael Piller pinched it for this show, and it has a very Star Trek: The Next Generation message to deliver. A definitive one, almost. But “The Homecoming” is self-evidently a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine story in scope, setting and politics. This reveals, at a critical moment, how deeply rooted and intertwined these two fictional worlds really are, one more case for the Star Trek: The Next Generation legacy and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's best argument to date that it should be the one to inherit it.

That history will soon show this was a waste of time and energy and that Star Trek: Deep Space Nine would not only not inherit Star Trek: The Next Generation's mantle but was instead fated to perish alongside it, is almost irrelevant. So long as stories like this exist, their shared legacy is assured for generations to come.

“And the stars are old”: Descent, Part II

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

“'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.” 

“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.” 

“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.”

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

And now, the conclusion...

It's hard not to go into “Descent, Part II” without acknowledging that this is the beginning of the end for Star Trek: The Next Generation's televisual voyage. The news had broken over the summer, so there's no point in pretending the shadow of cancellation wasn't looming long over the seventh season. Let's clarify a few facts first and foremost then: Yes, Star Trek: The Next Generation was prematurely canceled. Yes, it was canceled because Paramount wanted to launch a film series with the Next Generation cast. Production costs had gone up and, with the show as popular as it had ever been, they thought it would be more profitable to start a new film series than to continue the TV one. They were wrong. Everyone in the cast and crew wanted to keep going, and the actors were in fact *contracted* for more seasons: All that talk of the show being “tired” and “out of ideas” only happened suspiciously after the fact, and suspiciously came mostly from Ron Moore. Yes, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was always intended to inherit the mantle. No, it wasn't ready to do that in September, 1993. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was also not performing up to the studio's expectations, which led to Paramount making another decision that was, in hindsight, perhaps ill-advised.

This confluence of events and the choices made during them sets in motion a domino effect that will lead directly and inevitably to the death of Star Trek. And this will happen not in 2005 or 2013, but in 1994. But that's a topic for another time someday in the future.

The topic tonight is, relatedly, legacies. That of Doctor Soong on Data and Lore, and of the Enterprise, in and out of universe, at large and on me personally. It's also the story the pseudo-sentient metafiction of Star Trek: The Next Generation is telling for itself and for us. “Descent”, like “Time's Arrow” and “Chain of Command” before it, is the show doing a metacommentary on itself and the discourse surrounding it. It's extremely telling that a reoccurring theme throughout Part 2 is trying to parse out precisely what good the Enterprise has accomplished over the course of its voyage. Hugh (who of course has to be here given all the parallels this story has with “I, Borg” even before you get to the continuity references) petulantly demands Worf and Commander Riker justify their existence and prove they aren't doing more harm than good, and Lore succeeds for awhile in convincing Data that his “time aboard the Enterprise has been a waste”.

Lore is something slightly different and I'll get to him in time, but it's the Borg here who provide the most immediately direct and obvious challenge. The end result of both their assimilation of empathy and the diegetic and extradiegetic callbacks to “I, Borg” is that the presence of the Borg of “Descent” is meant to invoke grimdark, just as it does in The Worst of Both Worlds. Grimdark is the antithesis of empathy because grimdark is intensely egoistic (and egotistic): It is the adolescent, self-absorbed focus on one's own experiences to the point of near-solipsism; the elevation of the ego to the status of antihero protagonist of a noir tragedy you've penned yourself and that only exists in your own head. And it only makes sense that the Borg would turn to grimdark after assimilating the concept of individuality and self-worth that the Enterprise crew tried to teach Hugh, because grimdark is also fundamentally capitalistic. Because media is a defining force in modern society, and because modern media privileges the targeting of western adolescents and adolescent emotions above all others, grimdark has become profitable and successful to the point of becoming hegemonic: A perfect case study for the Borg in practice.

If The Worst of Both Worlds was a statement of purpose, than “Descent” is Star Trek: The Next Generation rising to the challenge once more. The Borg serve Data the classic grimdark false binary: The only way to truly become enlightened is to leave empathy, optimism and utopianism behind and focus solely on the negative. Positivity is the recluse of children, the non-rational and the non-enlightened. And, buying our product, at the low price of your loyalty and subservience to our authority, will set you free and allow you to flaunt your newfound wealth enlightenment in front of your peers. Even Lore's justification of his behaviour, which Data internalizes, comes out of the grimdark realpolitiking argument that everything has to be done in service to “the greater good”. Sacrifices have to be made. Wake up, sheeple. But that's what leads him to commit acts of unspeakable evil. Hugh's critique of the Enterprise crew is to-the-letter grimdark, and he's absolutely, positively, definitively proven wrong.

Frankly, I was stunned to see that from this creative team.

And it's among this backdrop that Lore's rise to power becomes not just logical but inevitable. “Descent” finally reveals to us all what Lore truly represents in the narrative of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He's a fascist, a racial purist and a eugenicist. Of course he is, because he's the product of those selfsame concepts who has internalized them into a worldview he projects outward through his actions. Lore isn't working towards anything with the Borg that Doctor Soong himself didn't work towards with Data and Lore: He wants to engineer a Master Race around his notions of biological perfection which, due to his extreme interiority, come out of his own sense of self-image. Which is why Lore's runaway id complex is a natural fit for the Borg, because both he and they come out of Star Trek's unspeakable past that it is constantly in danger of repeating.

Not only are fascism, eugenics and capitalism the skeletons in Star Trek's closet, they are also the dark ideals aspired to by all destructive impulses and energies in the real world: Terrorists who start mass shootings because the fancy themselves the antihero protagonist of a grimdark action movie. Fundamentalists who believe anyone who looks and thinks differently from them should be bred, indoctrinated or genocidally purged out of existence. Elite liberal technoscientists who talk of “wasted human potential”, preach the coming of a messianic artificial technological singularity and who live in constant irritation at those they perceive as less intelligent and enlightened then them pleading that if “just the right person” was an absolute dictator the world would be a much better place. Precisely the sort of person who would appoint Lore their fuhrer in their perceived time of need.

This is the world Star Trek: The Next Generation foresaw and feared, and this is the world it's meant to counteract. That's its legacy, and if it's going to be judged as a success or failure it ought to be judged on its own terms.

“Descent, Part II” is one of the most iconic episodes in the series for me. I've always vividly remembered Data's climactic showdown with Lore, and the final scene where he deactivates and disassembles him. It happens differently than I remember: Although I definitely remember the scene of Lore's head on the floor, I also remember (in practice incorrectly so) that their final confrontation took place in a darkened corridor and that Data took Lore apart on the spot, putting his parts away in a drawer. In hindsight, I think I've conflated parts of this episode with parts of “Datalore”, which I guess is appropriate. This time around I also noticed some structural problems: The entire episode is basically a series of captures and escapes, although I was pleased to see that Beverly's stint as acting captain and her gambit with the sun's corona and the solar prominence was every bit as badass as I remembered.

So many more of my most formative memories of Star Trek: The Next Generation lie ahead. This doesn't feel like a show on its way out. This feels like a show at its creative pinnacle.

Totemic Artefacts: Playmates Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Wave 1

I first learned Playmates were going to be doing a line based on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on the cardback for one of my Star Trek: The Next Generation figures. In fact, on the back of my new Sela figure you can still see in bold red lettering the excited announcement that “toys and accessories” from the new show are “coming soon!”. Some of the figures from Star Trek: The Next Generation Wave 2 and the Original Series line (here called “Classic Star Trek”, which is how I knew that show for ages) even came with a mini checklist of all the Playmates toys released so far, with headshots of the figures and close-ups of the vehicles, playsets and prop replicas.

On the back of that checklist was one of the first-ever promotional shots of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine cast-It's the one where everyone's standing around in costume in front of a brown shag curtain haphazardly draped over the walls and floor of a photo studio somewhere. This was the first static image I ever saw of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine cast together in one place, and it was the first chance I had to get a good look at them. What's also interesting about this promo is what it promised was coming in the Deep Space Nine line: All of the characters you'd expect, as well as vehicle toys of Deep Space 9, the Runabout and a Caradassian Galor Warship. That will be interesting to go back and examine in a few months, methinks.

Even though I followed this launch fairly closely (well, as closely as I could at the time at least), it took me a *very* long time to actually bring anyone from this line home. At first it was due to simple wariness: While the characters looked cool and all and I dug the general design aesthetics, in 1993 I still wasn't completely 100% sold on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as an overall thing yet. So while I definitely saw these on store shelves at the time, I took care to admire them from afar-I was afraid to outright ask for them, and given a choice between spending my action figure money on one of these as opposed to a Wave 2 Star Trek: The Next Generation figure, the choice seemed clear. This turned out to be a cripplingly poor decision on my part, however: Within just a few months I was utterly hooked on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and I would have killed for these figures and, of course, that was just when the Playmates Star Trek line in general was starting to retreat from department stores, and the first casualties were the lowest selling toys. Namely, the comparatively more niche Deep Space Nine figures, which seemed to disappear as quickly as they had appeared.

For practically an entire *decade*, I languished in regret knowing I had very likely missed my one chance to bring home my second space family, as well as the last remnants from the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew (namely Tasha Yar and Ro Laren). It wasn't until the Internet and eBay became available to me (which was later than pretty much everyone else on the planet because of circumstances surrounding where I live) that I was finally able to adopt my own plastic Deep Space 9 team. It happened in stages-I found a couple assorted open figures at flea markets, then I got one or two from eBay auctions. Eventually I hit the jackpot and found one guy who was selling almost the complete first wave in one go, and the day I won that auction was one of my most triumphant moments as a collector. It wasn't fully complete though, and it took me almost another decade to fill out the holes in my collection. But now, I can happily say I have the entire main cast of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in plastic form, plus a few interesting assorted comers-and-goers. Let's talk about a few of them.

At the time of writing, my Deep Space 9 population lives in a Matrushka doll of nested plastic bags that is beginning to look increasingly ratty. This is because, as I mentioned in the last chapter, Playmates never released any playsets for its Star Trek: Deep Space Nine line, likely due to the aforementioned sales issue (which is more of a topic for next season). The flipside to this is that, along with the fact these are all comparatively recent acquisitions, all of my DS9 friends are in complete and near-immaculate condition. I would still really love a proper place to display them one day, though.

Commander Sisko is one of my favourite Playmates figures. With Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Playmates started to trend a bit closer to the “adult collector” side of the “adult collector's piece”/“children's toy” binary, so the figures from this line boast more of an attention to detail and realism than even this year's contiguous Star Trek: The Next Generation wave (though this year's TNG toys are more realistically proportioned than last year's). It's with Benjamin Sisko that Playmates really nailed this-I mean, he looks *exactly* like Avery Brooks. A very tall, stocky and imposing figure in real life, no other Sisko figure captures Avery's impressive physique as well as this one does. Commander Sisko stands tall, walks tall, but has a serene expression that lets you know this is a kind and gentle soul as well.

Ben comes with a set of what will become standard Playmates Star Trek: Deep Space Nine accessories. A PADD, a phaser, a base and a laptop terminal. These terminals are cool, because instead of reusing the ones from the Star Trek: The Next Generation wave, Playmates took care to craft a visibly Cardassian-looking laptop with an all new display sticker showing a schematic of the station. This is one of my favourite Playmates accessories because it looks so distinctive, and because I love the look of DS9 so much. The Emissary also comes with an Orb, most assuredly his. It doesn't open, but in every other respect it's a dead ringer for the prop from the pilot, except for the fact that it's blue. It's also got a nice bulk and heft to it for its size, which means it's the Playmates accessory you're least likely to lose down a floorboard or under a cushion somewhere.

Major Kira was the figure I remember seeing in stores the most. Pretty much any time I went into a department store looking for Playmates Star Trek toys, if they had a display of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine line it was primarily or exclusively of her. I don't know whether this means Kira was the most popular figure in this wave, or the least. One thing's for certain though, she's absolutely one of the most important and groundbreaking action figures Playmates ever produced. Why? Because Major Kira is the first unambiguously action-oriented figure based on a female character in either of Playmates Star Trek lines. Remember, in 1993 Tasha Yar is still over a year or two away, as are Duty Uniform Deanna and Beverly. At this point we still only had one Doctor Crusher and two Deanna Trois, both of which were effectively identical and neither of which could do much of anything action-wise. And sadly, as we'll soon see, this wave's Jadzia Dax couldn't either. Sela could at least hold her weapons and look cool, but she's still more of a display piece owing to the strange way she's glued.

But Kira is built from the ground up to be a woman of action. Her sculpt is very tense, trim and rigid (again, just like Nana Visitor's posture in character on the show), and the way she's jointed you can put her in some really tight and kinetic-looking action poses. She has a special set of Bajoran accessories (including a unique Bajoran phaser) that, mercifully, she can actually hold. And indeed, she looks damn cool holding them too. I love to put her phaser in her hands and imagine she's running across no-man's land in “The Homecoming”, leading the charge to rescue Li Nalas. Also, in what might be a neat nod to her origin as a Ro Laren expy, Kira comes with a messenger bag or satchel you can sling over her shoulder. I can't remember Kira ever using a bag like that, but it certainly puts me in mind of what Laren brought with her when she joined the Enterprise crew in her titular episode.

Oh wait. I'll bet that's supposed to be Bag!Odo from “Emissary”, isn't it? From the scene where Kira gives him to the rowdy Cardassians in Quarks so he can sneak aboard their ship and sabotage their long range sensors? I'm a fucking dipshit.

Anyway, speaking of Quark, he's one of the most fun figures from this set. For one thing, he's sculpted to be a surprisingly action-ready character for a bartender, and he comes with a lot of neat accessories that are unique to him, and are of course painted gold. He's got a bottle of something or other, a Ferengi base, the ubiquitous gold pressed latinum, and the staff and that weird anteater-looking thing he has with him in “The Nagus”. But the most surprising thing he comes with is a Ferengi disruptor pistol-The exact same one the Ferengi pirate (who just so happens to look a bit like Letek from “The Last Outpost”...who was also played by Armin Shimerman) from the Star Trek: The Next Generation Wave 1 set had, even down to the awesome metallic blue paint scheme! You kind of feel obliged to come up with some backstory to put them together on a Ferengi Marauder somewhere.

Quark was also in charge of the marketing campaign for the first wave of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine toys, if you can believe it. I distinctly remember seeing a flyer in my comics and magazines from the day featuring Shimerman in character as Quark trying to sell you a complete set of Playmates Deep Space Nine figures from across his actual bar. It was great.

Earlier I said I got most of my figures form this wave as part of one big eBay haul that had most, but not all, of the crew. Miles O'Brien was one of the ones who wasn't included-I got him as part of a second shipment sometime later, and in fact this isn't even my first O'Brien action figure. It is, however, the first produced, and to my mind it's still the best. The sculpt is of course excellent, and really is a spot-on likened for Colm Meaney's build. One thing that's distinctive about Miles is that Playmates took care to depict him in his most iconic look, with the sleeves to his uniform all rolled up. Just like on TV, he's the only character to sport that look in the entire crew, which makes him really stand out (well...until Playmates started messing with DS9 variants that is. But we'll get to that next year). Miles doesn't have a ton of accessories, just a thermos and a toolbox, but they're unique to him and fit his character really well.

Odo is another of my favourites from this wave. One thing that's great about the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine line is that even though Playmates started going in a more realistic direction for their sculpts, they never once sacrificed playability in the name of accuracy, and Odo is a terrific example of that. He looks exactly the way he does on TV, but he has a ton of joints and hinges that allow to to pose him in a lot of colourful ways that really accentuate his character. Odo probably has the most personality of these figures (which says a lot as they're all excellent), and no matter what he always seems to look at once suspicious, guarded and exasperated, which is a lot of fun. He shares Major Kira's Bajoran accessories, which makes sense as he's posing as a Bajoran, all save for one: Rightly, he doesn't have a phaser. Instead, he has his beloved bucket, which, while more of a prop than anything else, still gives you some room for creative play and experimentation.

The only sad thing is that you can't have Odo transform into anything. I know that would have been physically impossible, but it might have been fun to have some cups or a little bird or something that came as accessories to represent this, or even a pile of amorphous gel to go with the bucket! Well, I guess there *is* that messenger bag...

My most cherished figure from this line is naturally Jadzia Dax. She was also the first boxed Star Trek: Deep Space Nine figure I ever got, long before I got any of the others. So she's in slightly worse shape then her colleagues, if you couldn't tell. I have to say though, even from the beginning Jadzia was something of a disappointment. For one thing, unlike Kira, she is absolutely a casualty of Playmates' design philosophy for female characters at the time, so Jadzia is very slight and delicate and her hands can't hold very much. However, this time Playmates *did* alleviate at least a little bit of this by giving her equally small accessories, mostly sample collectors and diagnostic tools, so Jadzia can at least feel like she's being useful and actually contributing something to the team. She also comes with a Trill. Like, an actual symbiote. Which was...awkward, to say the least. One fun thing about this figure, and actually all of Playmates' Jadzias, is that her hands, while dainty, are sculpted and her arms are jointed such that the most natural way to pose her is to have her clasp her hands behind her back, which is a physical tic Terry Farrell actually has on the show if you look close enough for it.

Granted, we hadn't seen Jadzia in a lot of action on the TV show by this point (and no, fucking “Allamaraine” doesn't count), but it's still a *massive* bummer for me considering she's my favourite character. More egregiously, this doesn't even fit with Playmates' mandated true-to-life realism for this line: In reality, Terry Farrell is actually very, very tall (she's a former model after all) and can actually stand head-to-head with Avery Brooks. But this Jadzia Dax figure, because she's so slight, is actually the *shortest* figure in the line, at least by proportions if not height. *Yes*, shorter even than Quark and Kira (who is *tiny* as an action figure). Thankfully, this would all be remedied in 1994 with the release of “Emissary” Jadzia Dax.

Going by the name, you can guess this Jadzia is meant to represent her very first appearance, in which she wore a Next Generation-style science division uniform instead of one of the open-collared DS9 team uniforms. And naturally, this is a Wave 2 release instead of a Wave 1, but, just like I did with Season 6 Deanna, I'm talking about it here in the first wave anyway. Additionally, because, “Emissary” Jadzia *also* uses the same outstanding female body sculpt made for Season 6 Deanna! So Playmates finally did make a Jadzia you can play with, and it was worth the wait. Actually, in my opinion Jadzia rocks this body even better than Deanna does: The slightly more caricatured look of the Star Trek: The Next Generation line really suits her, and gives this Jadzia a willowy, yet toned and muscular look that really fits the character, and she inherits Deanna's rank of commander to boot!. Furthermore, she can now finally see eye to eye with Benjamin. It's also kind of sweet, considering my old Season 6 Deanna used to do double duty as Jadzia until I got a proper Dax figure, and Terry Farrell and Marina Sirtis were roommates in real life. Or maybe that's more creepy, now that I think of it.

Either way, even though she's not wearing her “standard” look for the show, “Emissary” Jadzia is without question my preferred plastic representation of my favourite Star Trek: Deep Space Nine character. She even comes with all of the accessories as the original Dax, except hers are a fun hot pink instead of the original's more subdued purple. That's what this figure is to me-Fun. Even the paint apps on her face give her a wry, mischievous and warm expression, and while the original head was perhaps more “realistic”, this is how I prefer to remember Jadzia Dax. Maybe the Star Trek: The Next Generation build carries more weight than I thought it did.

Doctor Bashir was one of the last figures I got from this set, and I only got him in the past couple of years. For some reason, it took me forever to find him-I'm not sure why, as he's not an especially rare figure or anything. Although I suppose my waxing and waning interest in Star Trek over the years combined with the equally changeable ebb and flow of money probably had something to do with that as well. Either way I'm happy to finally have him. As you'd expect, his is a great sculpt that really captures the character. His accessories are mostly boring things every Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine figure comes with, although he has a couple unique medical accessories that are pretty cool. I know it's nothing special, but I think it's particularly fitting that he comes with both a discharging phaser and a set of medical tools: Julian's always gotta be the hero.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gul Dukat is one of the two non-DS9 team DS9 figures to be released in this line. He's also pretty much what your options are limited to if you want a “generic” Cardassian, which makes sense as Marc Alaimo is the guy who Michael Westmore basically designed the entire Cardassian species around. As such, Dukat has a bunch of unique Cardassian accessories, mostly weapons that you can pose him with in a variety of various fierce-looking stances. They look sleek and cool and are done in a similar metallic electric blue to those of the Ferengi figures (I guess it's a villain thing, though I prefer the Ferengi by far), although Dukat's are I think a little bit darker. I confess that as dynamic as he looks, I don't dig Gul Dukat out very much because, to quote Eddie Izzard, he's a mass-murdering fuckhead. As far as Cardassians go I can't fault the inclusion of Dukat, but I'd really have liked Marc Alaimo's first Cardassian role as well: Gul Macet from “The Wounded”.

More surprisingly, the other alien figure (well I mean as Quark says in that ad they're *all* aliens, but non-aligned Non-DS9 team DS9 figure takes too long to type, even though I just typed it) is Morn. Yes, *that* Morn. He's one of the best figures in the line, as a matter of fact: His sculpt is incredible. I mean, you won't be doing much playing with him (he can't even hold his glass because it's a square, which seems like an odd oversight to make) but come on, what the hell are you going to do with Morn? Apart from his glass, he comes with some triad dice, gold-pressed latinum and a special phaser that seems specially moulded for him, all in bright neon Data orange. He also, bewilderingly, has an utterly unique custom base designed especially for Morn, which are words I never thought I would see myself typing. If nothing else, he looks pretty rad posed next to Quark.

Or he would, if they'd ever made a Quark's Bar playset.

Totemic Artefacts: Playmates Star Trek: The Next Generation Wave 2 Errata

You can't have action figures without some place to put them. Even if you're too embarrassed to move them around in a playset, you've got to admit having a lavish plastic display to pose them all in looks awesome on your shelf. It was Wave 2 that started giving us those playsets for our Star Trek: The Next Generation friends-I've already talked about the bridge playset in this book. Although it technically came out as part of this wave, I felt compelled to talk about it back in the first wave because I really just wanted to go all-out gonzo with the first Playmates essay. This leaves me with one extra essay to write about and not a whole lot to fill it with here, however. So, let's see how long I can talk about what's left of Playmates Star Trek: The Next Generation Wave 2.

The other playset released this year was a transporter room. Now this was really cool because it actually worked by way of an old theatrical trick called Pepper's Ghost. In a Pepper's Ghost illusion, a one-way reflective surface is placed between the audience and a hidden room on the other side. There's also an overhead light source that, when raised or lowered, makes any objects in the room appear to appear and disappear out of thin air. This is how the Haunted Mansion in the Walt Disney resorts create the illusion of the dancing ghosts in the ballroom at the beginning of the ride, and it's also how Tupac Shakur appeared onstage at Coachella in 2012 and Michael Jackson did the same at the 2014 Billboard Music Awards (not, as is often reported, through the use of holography. We don't have holodecks yet).

A lot of times in a Pepper's Ghost trick the hidden room is painted black so that the “ghost” seems to materialize right in front of the audience, when really they're in another closed off area. The Playmates transporter conveys the illusion a little differently, with the mirror dividing the transporter pad in two. You put your prospective away team member in the area behind the mirror, close the door and manually raise the sliders (which wonderfully take the form of the LCARS finger panels from the TV show and make a satisfyingly accurate shimmering sound when activated either way) as the overhead light gradually shifts. Obviously to give the illusion your character is standing on the pad both sections have to look identical, and this also necessitates the transporter becoming more of a chamber than a pad. As a matter of fact, during the seven years I didn't watch Star Trek: The Next Generation, but did have these toys, I completely forgot the transporter room was even a pad on the show at all-I completely mentally retconned it as being a chamber and always remembered it as such until I saw “Encounter at Farpoint” again for the first time. I was utterly shocked-That's how deeply rooted these little pieces of plastic had become in my mind.

The box for the transporter shows a realistic Captain Picard, in full captain's jacket regalia, beaming down in the chamber, delightfully with a full-size child's fingers engaging the transport. I like how the implication is that Star Trek: The Next Generation exists in this miniature Gnome-world of playsets that interacts with playing children. That's exactly what it felt like. What's also cool is how there's an accompanying screenshot from the TV show of the transporter in action, and in spite of this being 1993 they went with one from “Encounter at Farpoint”! This means we get to see Tasha Yar, Skant Deanna and Babyface Will in all their glory in one of those glorious glitter water composition shots. I seem to recall this shot, or other ones from “Encounter at Farpoint” being used a lot to promote the Playmates line, actually: That's probably why my sensory memory of Star Trek: The Next Generation is a mash-up of imagery from the first, sixth and seventh seasons alongside the box art from the Playmates toys, as I held onto all of them.

It's also fitting because Tasha was far and away the character I stuffed in the transporter chamber the most. You were supposed to only beam down one person at a time because the chamber could only really accommodate one at a time (there was only one foot peg, for example). So I figured the best person to send down would be the action/scout/recon character, and that's who I imagined Tasha to be. But I sometimes tried to fit a whole away team in there, because even then I knew that, outside the Game Boy game, the Enterprise always sent people down in teams. And let me tell you, things got pretty crowded in there.

It wasn't a playset, but the “Star Trek: The Next Generation Collector's Case” was an important addition nevertheless. It was a little vinyl carrying case with some great sci-fi art of the Enterprise and the show logo on the front and back. Inside were plastic trays where you could store your collection of figures and accessories. The box says you could keep six-eight figures in the case, but I've seen some people stuff a whole lot more in there. And frankly, that was probably a better solution, because I always found that the trays tended to slide around a lot, leading to your precious accessories getting mixed up and sliding out through the cracks. You could, of course, avoid this travesty by bagging everyone up in snack bags beforehand, but I didn't figure this method out until much later in life. And anyway, at the time, for me this was an imperfect solution until I got ahold of the bridge playset. After all, where would you rather store your Star Trek: The Next Generation toys? Posed heroically on the bridge or stuffed away in a box somewhere? Admittedly, it is a very nice box: The skeleton in mine broke a long time ago, the vinyl is all ripped and the cards that form the picture got dislodged, so I've been on the hunt for a new one. It would actually be a really nice way to store my Star Trek: Deep Space Nine figures, who sadly never got a playset of their own.

But that's for next time.