The Best of Both Worlds Part I by: Michael Piller and directed by: Cliff Bole

 

“The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is written by: Michael Piller and is directed by: Cliff Bole.  It was produced under production code 174, was the 26^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 74^th episode overall, and was broadcast on June 18, 1990.

 

The pre-credits sequence for “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is fascinating.  Rhetorically it is there to put the viewer in a state of anxiety.  While it introduces the first intrigue of the episode: what happened to the colony of New Providence to turn it into a crater, the speed at which this happens is incredibly quick.  It only lasts one minute and 20 seconds.  The impact barely has enough time to process a colony being wiped out as the camera pans over the crater before an immediate cut to the opening credits.  That’s the point, of course.  The sense of dread as the first episode builds to the suspicion of and then confirmation that it is in fact the Borg responsible for the destruction of New Providence.  Much like the pre-credits sequence, this is done relatively quickly, the confirmation coming at about the one-third mark of the episode so the second and third acts can be the Enterprise actively chasing the Borg in a reversal of “Q Who”, a decision that by the end of the episode has grave consequences.  Michael Piller’s script is clear that the Enterprise (and by extension the Federation) choosing to go after the Borg is simultaneously an ignorant decision, but the correct decision.  Nobody else is going to save them and people are already dying.  The Enterprise is going into danger and it is reiterated that there is not enough time before they will find the Borg to upgrade even their defenses properly, much less the weapons.  People are dying.  Any possible advantage against the Borg is necessary.

 

Seeking any possible advantage is Lt. Cmdr. Shelby, played by Elizabeth Dennehy.  Shelby is introduced with Admiral Hanson, played by George Murdock, as one of two experts on the Borg, investigating since the reports back to Starfleet in “Q Who”.  She is introduced as cool, confident, and competent.  A candidate to take the position of first officer as Riker for the third time has been offered a commission as captain of a different ship.  He refuses to take it, his entire arc in this episode is grappling with that decision, but Shelby fully believes the position on the Enteprise is hers.  Despite her qualifications, she is the woman to run into danger, investigating the ruins with Data before the rest of the away team and against Riker’s orders.  This is the wrong decision, she is lucky to not have negative consequences outside of further tension with Riker (she outright tells him she is taking his position).  She still gets invited to the poker game, a game of bluff thematically furthering the idea that Riker is a man who knows exactly how to bluff.  Hanson, on the other hand, is the latest in a long line of Starfleet officials.  He is a representative of the authority behind the Enterprise’s actions.  Physically, he is only present on the Enterprise in the opening act, but his real impact is these periodic updates on where the rest of Starfleet is.  These are further used to build the tension and Murdock plays the roles with this little hint of humanity that the audience believes him to be a real person that cares about the people being sent into battle.  “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is still an episode of a television show and does not have the budget to actually show many of the updates, so Hanson as a character is integral for creating those stakes.  Murdock keeps the tone intense, the episode slowly spiraling out of the Enterprise’s control.

 

The tone is not only these details, but also the actual production.  Cliff Bole is not a director unfamiliar to Star Trek: The Next Generation.  His work is some that I have praised and with “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” there is an intense tightness to the shots and the blocking.  Some of this is the smallness of the sets, when the action shifts to the Borg Cube it is clear there is a limited number of sets, but simple redresses disguise this and enhance the conformity aspect of the Borg.  Much of the action is on the Enterprise, but the real money shots from Bole is that opening crater and the model work of the Enterprise and Borg Cube is excellent.  There’s also clearly been so much work that has gone into remastering the series for high definition.  But Bole is also continuing the trend of moving the camera with the action, even if it’s a simple dialogue scene.  There’s also little character touches like Geordi La Forge evacuating engineering and staying behind ever so slightly, having to roll under the door to get out.  It’s small touches like these and Wesley learning how to play poker (and losing) that help bring a lot of this episode together.

 

Michael Piller’s script is also notable for being quite progressive.  “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” may be an episode at its core that centers two male characters in Riker and Picard, but it is not one to forget other characters exist.  Through the first two seasons the female characters especially on Star Trek: The Next Generation had the tendency to be written with the same brush, often a sexual one even in scenarios where sexualization is not necessary.  What Piller has done here with Troi, Crusher, and Guinan is give each of them an individual scene, not so much to stand on their own, but at the very least make them people who are written as colleagues, and importantly, friends.  They are not carrying the invisible baggage of telling the two men what is wrong, they are there for advice and Troi and Guinan especially.  Whoopi Goldberg is clearly playing Guinan in conversation with her role in “Q Who”, though here there isn’t the antagonistic force of Q so she is opposite Picard.  Troi is opposite Riker, explicitly being a counselor so he can get to the bottom of his own needs and desires.

 

Riker is the centerpiece of the episode.  His plot, which has been alluded to already, is one of a man coming to terms with who he wants and needs to be.  There is such love and passion for the Enterprise that despite the blood, sweat, and tears shed to become first officer, specifically on this ship.  His ambitions are to become captain, but they have stalled.  This is not in a bad way, to reiterate William Riker is a man who loves the Enterprise and her crew.  He butts heads with Shelby because of that love and is willing to sacrifice himself to the Borg if necessary.  The tragedy of “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” is that the situation has held him back.  That’s the big twist.  The Borg themselves, a collective that erases individuality to just become another cog in a machine that is ever expanding, but this time they need an individual.  They specifically want Captain Jean-Luc Picard, and after being unable to outrun or trick the Borg into a defeat, Picard is abducted.  Now, I do think discussing the Borg in depth should wait for next week and “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” because the commentary of a collective needing an individual feels like post-Cold War commentary on the Soviet Union needing to accept capitalism in the context of a 1990 episode of television (though ironically could also very easily be a metaphor for the unsustainable nature of capitalism that was becoming rapidly apparent after Reagan and Thatcher).  This is because the Borg while ever present a threat and terrifying, they actually aren’t on-screen all that much.  When they are it becomes clear more budget has gone into the designs of the individual bodies of the borg, taking specific inspiration in places from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, but this is a story about people.  Picard is given nearly as much time as Riker, representing a diplomat going into war and that slowly tearing him apart as it really is against his values.  Both Jonathan Frakes and Patrick Stewart play their characters as parallels to one another.

 

The episode builds their individual arcs to a climax, culminating in that ending.  The dread, tension, and suspense all boil until we get to the big twist: after being captured Captain Jean-Luc Picard has been assimilated into the Borg as Locutus.  This is a twist that somehow I was unaware of.  I knew about the Borg, I even knew that they were the villains of The Best of Both Worlds, but I did not know about the twist.  It is a twist a genre savvy viewer can see coming, the Borg are clearly inspired by Doctor Who’s Cybermen, a relationship that has become symbiotic.  It’s also a slight lie to say that this boils over, it’s just at a rolling boil after the away team where basically every main character who hasn’t had a moment to shine yet does so, including Crusher with a phaser, discovers this.  They are only saved by a perfectly timed transporter.  You would think that’s the end.  But no, that’s a twist.  The cliffhanger has to be the inflection point, the point where everything the episode builds to has to change.  There has been one plot thread I have left out.  The Borg continually advance their technology whenever attacked, so the Enterprise has been developing a Hail Mary weapon, something they hope not to use.  The inflection point is acting Captain William Riker deciding, after being begged not to because there’s still a slim chance for Crusher to save Picard if retrieved, to fire.  The music quotes Holst’s “Mars, Bringer of War”, and the episode cuts to a To Be Continued caption.  It physically dropped my jaw.  It is a brilliant climax that is the culmination of Riker needing to listen to himself and choose.  Did he choose correctly? That’s discussion for when I actually see “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II”.

 

Overall, “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I” at its core is a gamble.  It’s a season finale that ends on a cliffhanger and while CBS and Paramount Pictures had already started work on the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, there still was that chance that it would not work.  It’s also currently riding this tightrope, as setup it’s brilliant.  Every aspect of the production slots into place to tell a story driven by where the characters have been going over the course of this entire season, and for Riker and Picard even earlier.  The script and direction both are building tension and every performance is on the top of their game, but it could all come crashing down with the potential for a poor second half.  Yet, it’s also the statement of a show that has fully found its identity and voice after the first two very rocky seasons and a third season that is very strong, but arguably lacking a mission statement as to its identity.  This is that mission statement and it is a perfect one.  10/10.

Bottom 5 Episodes of Season 3:

5. Booby Trap

4. A Matter of Perspective

3. Transfigurations

2. The High Ground

1. The Price

Bottom 10 Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation So Far:

10. The Price

9. The Schizoid Man

8. Too Short a Season

7. Shades of Gray

6. Home Soil

5. Justice

4. Up the Long Ladder

3. Angel One

2. The Child

1. Code of Honor

Top 5 Episodes of Season 3:

5. Deja Q

4. The Offspring

3. Yesterday's Enterprise

2. The Best of Both Worlds, Part I

1. Sarek

Top 10 Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation So Far...

10. The Survivors

9. The Enemy

8. Deja Q

7. Q Who

6. Elementary Dear Data

5.The Offspring

4. Yesterday's Enterprise

3. The Best of Both Worlds, Part I

2. Sarek

1. The Measure of a Man

Echoes of the Mogor! by: Dan Abnett with art by: John Ridgway and letters by: Annie Halfacree

 

“Echoes of the Mogor!” is written by: Dan Abnett with art by: John Ridgway, and lettering by: Annie Halfacree.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 143-144 (November-December 1988) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by Panini Books.

 

It’s incredibly refreshing to see John Ridgway return to the art for Doctor Who Magazine, entering the rotation of artists until 1992 which is quite surprising.  His use of shadows on “Echoes of the Mogor!” are of particular note, giving the strip back a lot of atmosphere and a tone that it had moved away from since he left the strip.  He is also doing his own inks for this story which is a particular interest because they are quite heavy.  This is a story taking place on a base that has been under siege for some time and from the first panel there really is a sense of isolation.  The shadows are closing on a lone survivor on the planet Mekrom.  Those first few pages are brilliant, the best material for the Seventh Doctor comic strip even sustaining it when the Doctor enters the narrative.  Dan Abnett’s script characterizes the Doctor as inherently curious about what he’s doing.  There’s a dead body and no signs of life, the reader also lacking information because we don’t quite see what kills this man, mostly.  Some of it is a bit too obvious of an almost reptilian monster, but it is a fantastic opening.  It builds until the emergency relief team arrives and the story immediately has this sense of being compressed.  Dan Abnett has two issues to tell his story, but is clearly framing it to be a typical four part Doctor Who story with the tone shifting at the halfway point from horror science fiction to military science fiction.

 

The genre shift of “Echoes of the Mogor!” becomes apparent that Abnett is using his influences, mainly Alien and Aliens on his sleeve, naming so many of his characters after actors, characters, and crew of those films that it almost becomes distracting.  While the relief team is in ¾ of the story, the biggest problem is the fact they are all references, not characters.  They are short hand for archetype and given no real understanding because we are moving at a breakneck pace to get to the big twist of the story.  The twist is in the title, the monsters are phantom echoes given form  because they are the dead native inhabitants, the sheer numbers and time since their deaths has amplified what they are.  It’s psychic warfare, which Abnett almost feels as if there’s going to be something more but he’s run out of time so the emergency team leaves since there wasn’t a murder and nobody to help.  The Doctor follows suit.  That’s where the story becomes a letdown because with even a third issue there could be a little more depth to the characters and a little more plot to explore to get something great.  Abnett does show promise, it is his early work and he does return to both the strip and to books and audio drama so it isn’t the last we’ll see of him.

 

Overall, “Echoes of the Mogor!” isn’t bad, it’s just a story that doesn’t quite reach its potential.  John Ridgway’s art does a lot of the heavy lifting to paste over how quickly the story actually goes which is the biggest problem.  The characters are weak while Dan Abnett is playing with some fantastic ideas, there just isn’t enough time to stop holding the story back from being great.  6/10.

Transfigurations by: René Echevarria and directed by: Tom Benko

 

“Transfigurations” is written by: René Echevarria and is directed by: Tom Benko.  It was produced under production code 173, was the 25^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 73^rd episode overall, and was broadcast on June 4, 1990.

 

“Transfigurations” is an episode with little going for it.  I will be the first to sing the praises and need of a filler episode in a season of television, it’s part of what makes the medium great.  But “Transfigurations” is an episode that were it more memorably bad it would be a prime example of poor filler.  The premise of the episode is the Enterprise crew coming upon a crashed ship with one survivor, an amnesiac dubbed John Doe, played by Mark LaMura.  This survivor displays a healing factor and begins emitting energy, the mystery of the episode being exactly where John Doe comes from and if he is going to be a danger to himself and others.  There is a moment where John Doe undergoes a resurrection after some time in stasis, something that while not quite commented on but René Echevarria’s script through the first two acts reads as a take on the Christian Passion narrative.  This is strengthened by Doe’s backstory being as a unique member of his species, mutating beyond their physical forms into beings of energy and leaving behind the petty squabbles of their current life.  The episode ends with John undergoing an ascension into the stars.  It’s a Passion narrative mixed with ideas that I am most familiar with from the 1972 Doctor Who serial The Mutants, though that serial was far more interested in the effects of colonialism and empire on society while “Transfigurations” doesn’t really have a central thesis.  René Echevarria has written a script that has a concept to explore, but does not know exactly what further to say on the concept outside of a need for death and rebirth, in the spiritual and societal sense, to grow.  The growth is almost transhumanist, becoming beings of energy that can heal the sick and injured and the implication if interfacing with higher dimensions.  This is certainly something Star Trek has done before, it’s an idea that Gene Roddenberry loved in the 1960s and this episode does it again here with at least an attempt to structure the episode like a piece of television from 1990.

 

The issue with “Transfigurations” outside of not actually saying anything about the trajectory of humanity through John Doe as a character is structural.  Echevarria foregoes the A-plot/B-plot structure after the first act.  The pre-credits scene is actually a really nice character beat for Geordi La Forge being once again not great, but at least a development for his lack of confidence.  LeVar Burton and Michael Dorn as Worf have really fun chemistry together and the episode leads you to believe that connecting Geordi and John Doe’s minds to save Doe has done something to Geordi.  He becomes more confident in flirting and starting a relationship with a woman he’s got a crush on, but then it goes absolutely nowhere.  After the episode’s first act the plotline is dropped to shift the focus on John Doe.  Shifting to John Doe shouldn’t be a problem in terms of the plot, the mystery out of his existence does give some nice scenes with Dr. Crusher early on and Echevarria is clearly trying to do something with the episode, even if it doesn’t come across.  Part of the structural issue is introducing Doe’s people only in the third act.  “Transfigurations” lacks the time to explore the Zalkonian society with the twist that John Doe was on the run: he has a death sentence from his people and the charges aren’t explained to the Enterprise crew.  The crime is just natural evolution which feels like a statement on something, but there isn’t enough development given to that as an idea.  The Mutants has a similar problem of the native aliens who are mutating being shot on site because the culture sees it as a death sentence and the mutation is into something visibly monstrous, not just emitting energy and healing people. Echevarria wants to say something about humanity fearing the different and the other, but not actually saying anything.  It doesn’t help that Tom Benko in the director’s seat is just a generic television director. It’s shot perfectly fine, but it almost feels like a reversion to earlier days for the show with little flair.

 

Overall, “Transfigurations” commits the biggest crime of having nothing to actually say about what it is putting on-screen.  It’s not offensively bad, but it commits to being almost uninterested in the premise and story it sets out to tell.  It’s 45 minutes of filling time with something that reads as if Gene Roddenberry put his hand back into the scripting process but Echevarria came back halfway through and wrote out most of his worst written qualities.  This is an episode of Star Trek that has been done before, likely will be done again better, and just exists as a poorly thought out episode of television.  4/10.

Fear of the Dark by: Trevor Baxendale

 

It’s a standard setup at its core.  A moon tucked away in a corner of space, an expedition of archeologists with ulterior motives, and the Doctor, Tegan, and Nyssa finding themselves there.  The moon of Akoshemon is desolate and quiet.  A madman in suspended animation, rich deposits of lexium, and something waiting in the dark.  This type of prose is the effect Trevor Baxendale has in writing Fear of the Dark, a novel that is lauded among Doctor Who fans for good reason, Baxendale provides the setup for a gripping horror novel.  Fear of the Dark works because Baxendale presents a type of Doctor Who story that we have said before, it roots itself directly in the Fifth Doctor’s television era by having a supporting cast of almost entirely soldiers.  At its core it’s in the same line as Kinda and Snakedance, though not taking cues from Buddhism, instead going into a more American style of horror.  To bring up the works of H.P. Lovecraft in relation to Fear of the Dark feels almost too obvious, but Baxendale excels at making the reader’s skin crawl because the Dark is just that, it’s a concept and not exactly something with a consistent physical form.  There is this implication in the end that while it is defeated, and defeated through quite simple means, it is really only one aspect of something bigger that is still out there.

 

Baxendale connects the Dark as a creature of void to Nyssa over Tegan which is particularly important, connecting Tegan to it would be obvious.  The Dark would feel like just another aspect of the Mara and this novel a midquel between Kinda and Snakedance.  But making it Nyssa adds quite a lot to the narrative and her character, as the television show essentially forgot the tragedy of her character after Castrovalva.  She was a companion who wasn’t supposed to stick around, but the few moments Baxendale spends here connects the Dark to her father.  The Master is not in Fear of the Dark, but the Dark as seen from one angle represents the inhuman acts the Master has done to Nyssa and her father.  Tegan, for her part, is equally portrayed as human.  Baxendale follows the trick of Paul Cornell and Justin Richards in their Missing Adventures novels by having Tegan as point of view.  She is both a scared woman, terrified that her mind might be next but she also can’t just leave.  Baxendale sets Fear of the Dark quite close to Arc of Infinity, Tegan has just rejoined the TARDIS and desperately wants to prove that she has improved with her time away.  She’s also the one to see half the crew of miners masquerading as archeologists as people.  She is the audience surrogate character, a role Baxendale uses well without ever sacrificing her characterization.

 

Where Fear of the Dark excels as well is subverting science fiction tropes.  The supporting cast are space marines and one madman who has stared into the cosmic horror of the Dark and come out addicted.  The madman is one who slowly unravels after being awoken from suspended animation and his addictive personality is subverted as being a problem before he sees the Dark.  The miners are all given their own little backstories and needs for the money, they are acting out of greed but it is a greed from the standpoint of a society in the late stages of capitalism.  The biggest, toughest man on the team is just desperate to get home to the six year old daughter that saved his life in the end.  He is named Bunny because he really would just be a big softie at heart.  But everybody in Fear of the Dark falls victim to their own greed in the end as the horror unfolds.  The actual plot of the novel is a careful unraveling, opening in media res but not during the height of the horror.  It only starts where the tension is just starting to form, the prose is already priming the reader not to be relaxed.  There is a cave in that is one of the inciting incidents, mainly to keep the Doctor and company on the moon, and Baxendale integrating flashbacks to get to that point is a stroke of genius, even if they are flashbacks that don’t have too much to tell.  It’s also important where Baxendale decides to end the novel, he keeps it abrupt in the particular style so that the tension and the horror is released but not released enough to let it sink in.  Everybody aboard the TARDIS sleeps with the lights on because despite everything there is still something in the dark.

 

Overall, Fear of the Dark is the best thing Trevor Baxendale ever wrote.  It’s some of the best cosmic horror Doctor Who has done, bringing characters to the forefront.  It reads far closer to a Missing Adventure, putting our characters at as much of their limit with a supporting cast that are all subversions of well worn tropes at this point.  It’s one of the few Fifth Doctor Past Doctor Adventures to really succeed at capturing the era while maintaining a depth of storytelling.  10/10.

Planet of the Dead by: John Freeman with art by: Lee Sullivan and letters by: Zed

 

“Planet of the Dead” is written by: John Freeman with art by: Lee Sullivan, and lettering by: Zed (a pseudonym for Richard Starkings).  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 141-142 (September-October 1988) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by Panini Books.

 

There is an argument to be made that “Planet of the Dead” is Doctor Who Magazine’s attempt at a 25^th anniversary story.  It was released in two installments leading up to the anniversary, directly attempts a tie in to Remembrance of the Daleks by mentioning the Doctor having an appointment on Skaro, and saying something about where the Doctor is as a character.  There are certainly still lingering issues: the Doctor doesn’t actually do anything to enter into the plot, just stumbling into an underground tomb on a planet where he wants to fish but John Freeman at the very least captures this happy go lucky version of the Seventh Doctor that is recognizable as a version of the Seventh Doctor.  By attempting a tie in to Remembrance of the Daleks there’s clearly an awareness from Freeman of this being a Doctor Who story with some idea for where the strip should go.  For near the entirety of the Seventh Doctor’s run so far there has been a great problem of writers really not wanting to write Doctor Who, but to connect as many Marvel UK properties together.  The only big exceptions to this were “A Cold Day in Hell” and “Culture Shock”, though Freeman here does create an alien species that he could use in these crossovers, but not without connecting it to a story about the Doctor’s regrets.  The title “Planet of the Dead” is a reflection of the visions of dead companions that the Doctor is shown in an attempt to free the shapeshifting alien race off this planet.  That’s the plot and by the time we get to the conclusion of the story where the Doctor at the last minute realizes, the strength of Freeman’s script comes to the forefront.  The plot is a simple idea and sustains two issues by switching tactics halfway through, not only do other companions appear as celebrations for the anniversary but each of the previous Doctors appear.  Freeman is quite good at characterizing each of the six earlier Doctors, not enough in depth as some of them (mainly the Second, Third, and Fifth Doctors), but they’re still recognizably them from the dialogue.

 

It's particularly nice to examine the Seventh Doctor as coming from two incarnations of loss, including comics continuity of the death of Jamie McCrimmon on top of Adric and Peri.  Frobisher is also implied to have died by his presence here.  Peri is acknowledged to have lived, but her exit in The Trial of a Time Lord is very much one of a spiritual death.  The Doctor is portrayed as having a continual heaviness put upon him because of the deaths.  There’s almost a pseudo-revival characterization of traveling alone being a particularly bad thing which is interesting considering there won’t be a return to a regular companion for two years, after the show has been cancelled on television.  Now obviously some of the companion visions are a bit weak, Katarina and Sara Kingdom seem to be from a version of The Daleks’ Master Plan where they knew each other, but Adric is particularly served well by acknowledging his death as the death of a child.  This also is the first contribution from Lee Sullivan on art duties, his style blending realism and stylization that is going to develop over literal decades of contributions to the strip and other Doctor Who Magazine submissions.

 

Overall, “Planet of the Dead” while a little atypical for an anniversary story works as an examination of who the Doctor is and where he has been.  It is kind of a shame that this didn’t immediately usher in a closer continuity with the television show because it is perhaps the second story to have the Doctor characterized as the Seventh Doctor, but alas there’s still more to come.  7/10.

Menage a Troi by: Fred Bronson and Susan Sackett and directed by: Robert Legato

 

“Menage a Troi” is written by: Fred Bronson and Susan Sackett and is directed by: Robert Legato.  It was produced under production code 172, was the 24^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 72^nd episode overall, and was broadcast on May 28, 1990.

 

Menage a trois is a French term for a polyamorous relationship between three people.  “Menage a Troi” is the season 3 appearance of Lwaxana Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation and it is very likely that Fred Bronson and Susan Sackett started the script with that pun and decided to go from there.  The title is also a clear in joke to being connected to two of Gene Roddenberry’s long term partneres.  Lwaxana Troi may be a maligned character in fandom, but now at her third appearance Majel Barrett’s mastery of camp has just won me over completely that I look forward to her appearances.  Barrett brings this great energy to every scene that she is in and much of this episode is written just to show off her performance above practically everything else.  Every moment she is on screen Barrett makes big acting choices but now with her third appearance she is given a script that actually gives her just a little bit more depth.  Some of this is in part due to earlier episodes this season having Troi mention her in different contexts, but there are quite a few moments that really explore the Trois’ relationship with one another.  Lwaxana has had multiple husbands and is very confident in her sexuality while Deanna is less so.  Lwaxana sees that Deanna and Riker are clearly in love and should be together and she will tease her daughter.  Deanna has her own insecurities about her mother treating her like a child, while Lwaxana for her part is a deeply caring woman who wants the best for her daughter.  Lwaxana is also a very good diplomat.  Adding this little bit of depth goes a very long way for the episode struggling from a lackluster plot.

 

“Menage a Troi” has a plot that clearly wants to lean into farce, bringing back the Ferengi as part of negotiations in a trade conference for the Federation.  The conflict of the episode is that the Ferengi Daimon Tog, played by Frank Corsentino develops an intense attraction to Lwaxana and inserts himself between her, her daughter, and Riker, kidnapping them until Lwaxana agrees to marry him.  The farcical aspects of the episode feels like a throw back to a specific style of comedy popular in the 1960s, not screwball at all because the threat is taken far too seriously, but close enough to be Star Trek: The Next Generation doing a sex comedy.  Sex comedies aren’t my particular genre of film so it is very possible that my analysis of this episode is being influenced greatly by being a tribute to a type of story that I generally don’t like.  It also might just be my dislike of the Ferengi in general, and the performances of Corsentino and Ethan Phillips are slightly lackluster.  Phillips is fine, though his character is the subordinate and not so much on screen but Corsentino I found to be almost too reserved which doesn’t play as well against Majel Barrett’s very big performance.  The first act of the episode is great, Barrett playing Troi as completely standoffish towards the Ferengi and is disappointed when Picard refuses to give her an out from interacting with them.

 

Bronson and Sackett also do keep up the A-plot/B-plot structure and this B-plot is actually quite strong for Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher who is preparing to leave the Enterprise for Starfleet Academy.  He doesn’t in the end, but as consolation Picard promotes him to full ensign, a position that by this point is fully earned as Wesley has grown from much of his early appearances.  He brings plenty of value to the crew and has evolved into a fully formed character that by this point is just a lot less annoying.  Bronson and Sackett do tie it into the rest of the episode, Wesley is responsible for finding where the Trois and Riker have been taken, and actually seeing Wesley in a proper uniform at the end of the episode is just a really nice image.  There is also this subplot involving Riker playing chess against the Ferengi, able to use a mix of brains and brawn to stay help.  The farce of trying to escape the Ferengi is particularly fun even if some of the ideas are just a bit tired at times.  The real crowning moment of the episode is Picard’s impassioned pleas to get Lwaxana back, pretending to be her lover and quoting Shakespearean sonnets among other things at the Ferengi before escalating to violence.  The trick here is that it means Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart gets the treat of performing Shakespeare badly.  It is intentionally an over the top scene and is just a ridiculous enough conclusion to work.

 

Overall, I feel as if the scores that Lwaxana Troi’s appearances do the character justice.  Majel Barrett is just one of the best additions to Star Trek: The Next Generation even if she is in episodes that are generally held back by being quite light, though each with a different host of problems.  “Haven” had the problem of still not knowing how to write the main cast and deciding everyone needs to be stiff, “Manhunt” being padded like much of Season 2 was, and now “Menage a Troi” just needed a couple stronger guest cast performances and some better timing with the jokes.  They are slowly improving and I have the feeling that her next appearance may push the trajectory of the character out of this range.  6.5/10.

Keepsake by: Simon Furman with art by: John Higgins and letters by: Zed

 

“Keepsake” is written by: Simon Furman with art by: John Higgins, and lettering by: Zed (a pseudonym for Richard Starkings).  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issue 140 (August 1988) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by Panini Books.

 

“Keepsake” is a story that exists.  It’s yet another installment of the Doctor Who Magazine comics that limits itself to telling an eight page story and this time there isn’t actually enough story for about anything.  Outside of Doctor Who Magazine, Marvel UK was in the middle of a multi book crossover involving the character Death’s Head, something that Doctor Who did participate in with “The Crossroads of Time”.  “Keepsake” is on the margins, introducing the title character and reading more like a backdoor pilot for the larger series more than anything of Doctor Who.  The issues of many Seventh Doctor comics are present here, the Doctor doesn’t read as the Doctor.  He reads just as generic male character that could easily be drawn over as a different person outside of the TARDIS appearing in one panel on the final page.  The Doctor drops bombs on a population to scare them which is a particularly out of character moment, even for the Seventh Doctor.  The argument could be made that since this is a story not from the Doctor’s perspective there is a sense of unreliability, but I think that might be giving Simon Furman too much credit for what he is doing.

 

Keepsake the character is also not strongly drawn in the eight pages.  He is a merchant with a pet vulture which is clearly meant to be a more striking image.  He is introduced with hints at depression, something that is cured by meeting an unnamed medic which becomes the object of his sexual desire.  He is rewarded by the end of the story with a relationship, Furman making the only female character of this story an unnamed love interest.  But then again, this isn’t so much a story with characters but ciphers for the incredibly light plot to happen within.  That plot is particularly pro-colonialist, the natives on the planet Ryos are portrayed as savages and needing to be scared into submission as they kill survivors of a crash.  This murder isn’t actually depicted, just hinted at through dialogue, and there are no native characters in “Keepsake”.  At the very least John Higgins’ art is nice, he is one of the stronger artists and the style is reminiscent of Dave Gibbons’ early work on the strip.

 

Overall, “Keepsake” is just another weak Doctor Who Magazine strip to add to the pile.  There’s potential in the plot but Furman doesn’t write a Doctor Who story, instead it reads like a particularly generic piece of military science fiction across eight pages of ultimately nothing.  3/10.