Warmonger by: Terrance Dicks

 

If there’s one thing I can say in terms of positivity about Warmonger is that Terrance Dicks is an author who is always easy to read.  No matter what he is writing, his prose just has this rhythm and flow that makes it easy to get through what’s a truly bad reading experience.  There is this weird conception in the larger Doctor Who fandom that it was the Virgin line of books that were harsher and edgier, though the in house line of BBC Books always seem to go down the darker and more importantly less tasteful route.  Warmonger is no exception, once again we have another book where Peri is both reduced to a sexual object and her plot is being the hard, sexy leader of a group of guerrilla rebels made up of Sontarans, Draconians, Ice Warriors, Ogrons, and Cybermen because we need to have as many references as we can, and particularly violent aliens too because this is a book about war and the military.  It’s genuinely surprising the Daleks don’t get even a cameo, but that could very easily be the Terry Nation estate stopping them.  The reduction of Peri’s character oscillates from snarking tough guy style one liners and having to fend off potential predators, something that the Past Doctor Adventures novels just have the tendency to do with female companions.  It also feels especially weird coming from Terrance Dicks, considering how many novelizations he had previously written.  Dicks also has characterized Peri before in Players, a novel where she was a proactive character, while here she is just catapulted from situation to situation without really caring about what is happening to her.

 

Warmonger is Terrance Dicks’ attempt at doing a military space opera that is also simultaneously a prequel and a sequel to The Brain of Morbius and incredibly interested in Gallifreyean politics because why would Dicks try to just do one thing?   Military space opera as a genre is already one I am not particularly partial to, but as with going into any book there’s always the chance I will enjoy something that isn’t meant for me.  Warmonger just doesn’t really care about appealing to really anyone, the worldbuilding is technically there.  Much of the novel is set on Karn, though the Karn isn’t presented as the gothic horror of The Brain of Morbius, again Dicks is attempting military science fiction which does not really mesh with the Sisterhood of Karn in terms of aesthetic or their role in the plot.  There is an extended sequence that is just taking plot points of The Brain of Morbius and doing them again but with the Fifth Doctor and Peri.  Losing the performances of Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen particularly makes you realize both where Dicks is lacking as a writer and just the punch up to the script of Robert Holmes.  There are some that say that what would make Warmonger better is if instead of the Fifth Doctor, the incarnation of the Doctor used was the Sixth Doctor.  Dicks originally intended it to be the Sixth Doctor and Peri.  It’s certainly an easier novel to digest if the Doctor is the Sixth Doctor, the character is brash and loud and clearly meant to be.  The disagreement comes with the idea that Warmonger isn’t actually better if it’s the Sixth Doctor, because Warmonger is still a novel that posits the Doctor actually loves being a genocidal military leader.  There is an entire diatribe on how the Doctor loves power and is enjoying being the Supremo, there is a moment where characters refuse to kill Morbius so they can physically execute him and make an example of him to the rest of the universe.  This is somehow worse than the Doctor in The Twin Dilemma, were this Doctor to strangle his companion it would seem like a mercy.

 

Overall, Warmonger is essentially everything bad Terrance Dicks has ever done as a writer wrapped into a single book, with a clear lack of editorial not editing the shift in Doctor from the Sixth to the Fifth at all, maybe because Dicks is Doctor Who royalty.  It doesn’t fit in the genre it’s trying to be a tribute to and somehow is darker and succeeds less than Rags.  1/10.

11001001 by: Maurice Hurley & Robert Lewin and directed by: Paul Lynch

 

“11001001” is written by: Maurice Hurley and Robert Lewin and is directed by: Paul Lynch.  It was produced under production code 116, was the 15^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was broadcast on February 1, 1988.

 

To say Star Trek: The Next Generation has had a rocky first season is an understatement to say the least.  Just as it looks like they’re getting into the groove of things, an episode will come along like “Justice” or “Angel One” to really sap away the goodwill the series had been building up, but with those episodes it almost makes whatever comes immediately next look better by comparison.  “11001001” is one of those episodes that comes after and is a little odd in terms of how it is constructed.  Instead of an A-plot and a B-plot, it’s really an episode that is all one plot with exactly one thread running through it and a few scenes that could be described as B-plot by way of red herring.  It’s an atypical way of constructing an episode of television, but for what “11001001” is attempting to do it works.  This sadly is an episode that only really comes together after a first act that lasts nearly half the episode for setting up what is a particularly simple situation which would be easily resolved had any communication between the Enterprise and the alien Bynars took place, they are introduced as doing routine maintenance while the ship is at a Starbase before the halfway point instigating an evacuation and leaving Picard and Riker in the holodeck.  The holodeck sequence is the red herring B-plot, and perhaps the oddest thing about the episode.  Maurice Hurley and Robert Lewin just continually cut back to Riker flirting with the holodeck program in a jazz bar, Riker playing the trombone (though it’s clearly just a jazz track over miming Riker and the trio backing him up when really they could have at least hired a jazz trio to play or director Paul Lynch could have avoided us seeing any of the instruments being played).  The sequence is really just padding so the crew can evacuate the Enterprise leaving Riker and Picard behind, and it just keeps going.  Once they leave the holodeck it doesn’t actually take long to wrap up the conflict and get the big reveals of the episode out into the open.

 

The Bynars’ sun was going supernova, releasing an electromagnetic pulse that would completely shut down their world, they are a society run entirely by and integrated biologically with computers.  It’s a perfectly good idea and sadly there isn’t too much actually given to the Bynars outside of a particularly good design: they are generally short and purple with these little computers at their waists and implanted into their heads.  They come in pairs and seem to be single life forms in pairs reflecting the on/off states of binary code, something that I don’t entirely think Lewin and Hurley were really thinking about when writing the episode.  There are technically four of them, but they aren’t given much in terms of characterization individually, or as pairs.  Only one pair is actually given names in the dialogue, the other two being given names in credits, indicating that the way that the Bynars are named could potentially mean there are only a few of them living on the planet.  The resolution actively questioning why they wouldn’t just ask the Federation for help is a particularly good resolution, and a way to do an episode without really a central interpersonal conflict, something that Gene Roddenberry was very much against as he believed the future would have all but wiped that out in a utopia situation.  What is particularly interesting is also the fact that while Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes as Picard and Riker are fine, it’s actually Brent Spiner and LeVar Burton as Data and Geordi LaForge who are continually stealing the show.  Spiner in particular as an actor is quite underrated as there is time given to Data’s insecurities on whether he is making the right call in evacuating the Enterprise.  Again this is something that doesn’t go quite as far as it could, but it’s moments like these that actually make it feel as if the characters on Star Trek: The Next Generation are actual characters and have development.  The relationship between Data and Geordi is also this really interesting mutual friendship throughout the episode, Geordi kind of being one of the few crew members to really respect Data’s autonomy and personhood fully.  This is also an episode with some particularly nice model shots, even though they don’t actually do much to advance the plot.

 

Overall, “11001001” despite having a title that is a pain to type out because it is binary code, is actually a fairly decent episode.  It’s not one that would ever be a standout with the best of what has come before, or even the best that this season has actually been able to do, but there are certainly good character moments that elevate a script that at best is just perfectly fine if once again underbaked in terms of its ideas.  The final scenes are really what makes the entire thing become tied up to actually work as an episode, but the first half does drag far too much for what it's trying to do.  More time to make the B-plot a B-plot and not just a red herring would have probably helped this work better.  6/10.

The Book of the Still by: Paul Ebbs

 

Perhaps it’s because it has been such a long time since I’d dipped back into the adventures of the Doctor, Fitz, and Anji, but I found their involvement to be the best part of Paul Ebbs’ Doctor Who debut The Book of the Still.  Okay, this isn’t really doing much to move forward the larger arc, but Paul Ebbs as a writer is clearly overflowing with ideas on what he wants to do with this book that The Book of the Still is at its core a fascinating read.  Structurally, it begins at the end with an epilogue opener and prologue closer, both written with this very light tone of an author beaming with the fact that he is getting the chance to play in this little sandbox.  The Eighth Doctor Adventures as a series of novels often likes to play around with the idea of the Doctor being unable to stop things, often making the Eighth Doctor far more deadly and dangerous than the Seventh Doctor before him, paradoxically with an almost lighter attitude towards the universe being on the surface.  The Book of the Still is Ebbs’ one chance to really explore that, wrapping the titular book as in a roundabout way a take on the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy but for stranded time travelers, plus the actual plot involving the creation of a species that should not exist means there’s a lot of influence on the novel from other eras of Doctor Who.  The plot itself actually wraps itself up nicely by the end, sadly being perhaps the weakest element outside of Ebbs brimming with ideas.  When you get to the end of it, despite Ebbs using his structure to be intentionally backwards, it’s a simple creation of a paradox that the Doctor, Fitz, and Anji are technically only tangential to actually happening.

 

Despite the simplicity of the plot, being split into Anji doing the actual work, Fitz having a fabulous romance and heist for the actual book, and the Doctor just trying to keep everyone alive while being a prisoner himself, it’s actually a lot of the set pieces that Ebbs includes that really make The Book of the Still stand out.  There is a museum of locks, a masquerade ball, and several high-tension chases that are at the very least competently written.  The idea of the villains literally being the Unnoticed is another great conceit for storytelling, the way they eventually come about is perhaps a bit obvious in hindsight, Ebbs is tributing a bunch of Doctor Who with this.  The supporting cast is also quite small, only really having five characters because this is attempting to replicate what possibly could have been done on television in I suppose 2002 when this was published (or possibly recalling the cast sizes of Big Finish Audio Dramas as Ebbs had written The Greatest Shop in the Galaxy around the same time).  Yet, for whatever reason this is a novel that just doesn’t ever quite add up.  It’s certainly a well-written book, the plot is interesting and fun, the characters are brimming across the page (there’s this one moment where Fitz nearly realizes that he actually loves the Doctor yet for whatever reason the BBC Books range never makes that connection proper), but somehow it is held back because there are almost too many ideas.  Despite hitting both the page count of approximately 280 pages, plus enough of a word count to use a smaller font size while keeping the hard page limit of these books, it doesn’t seem to have enough time to explore everything that it wants to.

 

Overall, despite having several problems with how everything adds up, The Book of the Still is actually a very solid little adventure that puts a lot of classic Doctor Who ideas together.  Really what’s impressive is actually Ebbs’ strengths as a novelist establishing a surreal mood that while clearly being inspired by Douglas Adams isn’t trying to be or even emulate Douglas Adams.  There are problems but it made me realize how much I still love this particular team.  6/10.

Angel One by: Patrick Barry and directed by: Michael Rhodes

 

“Angel One” is written by Patrick Barry and is directed by: Michael Rhodes.  It was produced under production code 115, was the 14^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was broadcast on January 25, 1988.

 

After three weeks of Star Trek: The Next Generation generally looking up in terms of direction and tone, “Angel One” is another episode to plummet everything back down.  The B-plot is probably the best place to start, mainly because it is a B-plot that could have been anything to pad out the episode and keep the away team on the planet Angel 1.  A better writer would have found a way to tie events on the Enterprise into the rest of the episode, something that could have been done by making the pathogen as it is a virus which strikes the crew down, could have come from the planet.  No, instead there is just a random virus that is slowly making its way through the crew, travelling through smell and presenting as a respiratory virus, and that’s literally all the B-plot is.  Okay, so Geordi La Forge has to take command and Dr. Crusher spends much of the episode looking for a cure, but scriptwriter Patrick Barry clearly doesn’t understand the point of a B-plot in an episode because there really isn’t any plot to be had.  Barry seems to have heard B-plot and thinks it just means something that the episode can cut back to that is completely different, oddly enough taking up approximately half of the episode itself.  There is barely 10 minutes of material for the B-plot, going so far as to even have a moment where it looks like Crusher has found a cure.  She feeds an ill Picard some liquid which will apparently help his symptoms and both Barry’s script and the way director Michael Rhodes shoots the scene makes it look like this is meant to be the cure.  It also feels as if the writers want to commit to a Crusher/Picard romance, except without actually ever having the pair address the romantic tension.  Picard is stuck being hoarse throughout the B-plot, barely being in the episode which would be fine if there was actually any focus on the other characters on the Enterprise.  Geordi being put into command should allow him to develop, Crusher looking for a cure should do the same, but they are both just relegated to having a function to perform.  That’s about it.  In Crusher’s case it’s probably worse because it was also her function in the equally weak “The Naked Now”, some of the dialogue being quite similar.

 

The rest of “Angel One” isn’t so much stretched, as an example of Star Trek: The Next Generation not understanding its own politics and the messages it is pushing.  “Angel One” as an episode wants to be about the apartheid in South Africa, setting up a fictional society run by authoritarian oligarchy against a group of people, subjugating and segregating them while working tirelessly to put them down.  This is a perfectly laudable idea for Star Trek: The Next Generation to do, something the original series often did with both good and bad results, and something that seems obvious to comment on in 1988.  If we take this episode purely as a commentary on apartheid, ignoring almost any other aspect of the episode itself, its ending something framed as the best possible left forward puts the people who are meant to represent those fighting back against the oppression being put into exile.  Riker even ends the episode with a smile on how great a situation this is, because the anti-apartheid inserts could have been executed by the authoritarian regime and were only saved in the end not through direct action but because Riker is good in bed (more on that later) and because one of the oppressors is in love with one of the oppressed.  Now, the idea of romance between oppressor and oppressed is a framework for storytelling that is a tricky needle to thread at the easiest of times, West Side Story is a story that is perhaps the most interesting way of making it work because of the gang violence framework.  This episode does not thread that needle, something that shouldn’t really be expressed because it’s treated as a twist, again about halfway through, and the supporting characters are not really fleshed out characters despite there literally being only four of them.

 

I’ve been dancing around the other aspect of the episode that makes an episode that has already largely fallen apart to fall apart and be on about the same level as “Code of Honor” in terms of how it doesn’t work.  Apartheid was based on race.  “Angel One” decides to draw the lines of the authoritarian regimes on lines of sex.  Angel 1 is a matriarchy, the men are the ones who are oppressed, being forced to wear sexually revealing episodes (by 1980s television standards).  Patrick Barry is clearly a man who knows how to write men, but hampering the episode is actually the guest cast in general.  None of the four can actually act, and for once it doesn’t seem to be Michael Rhodes’ poor direction, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Marina Sirtis, and Denise Crosby are doing fine with the poor material even if they clearly are hating it.  The matriarchy of the episode is poorly defined, men are literal servants yet aren’t given any inner life or characterization.  The ‘sexism’ of the society is reduced to the simplest sexist talking points about how one sex basically needs to be providers and doing all the duties, the leader having to be taught that the right way is to share the duties.  It’s basic egalitarianism, I’d say feminism but the script feels more like what an online anti-SJW would argue for circa 2015/2016.  The episode is also really strict in exploring gender roles, to the point of coming across as subtly homophobic.  Riker puts on one of the men’s outfits for diplomacy’s sake and is ridiculed for it, the implication being that it makes him less of a man.  I say homophobic because the outfits are clearly meant to be coded as queer, and therefore lesser in what the episode is presenting.  At least Riker as a character is totally confident in wearing it, partially making it a shame that explicitly making the character bisexual would not happen (he could have been an icon).

 

Overall, I’m going to put as much effort into concluding this review as “Angel One” did in making it.  If it could go wrong, it did, and this is clearly the fault of a writer that like “Code of Honor” the cast tried stepping in to stop but failed utterly.  1/10.

Doctor Who: The Novel of the Film by: Gary Russell

 

The Novel of the Film was written by Gary Russell, based on Doctor Who: The TV Movie by: Matthew Jacobs.  It was the 164^th story to be novelized by BBC Books.

 

The TV Movie is one of a handful of Doctor Who serials to have multiple novelizations, though one of the very few to be novelized by the same author twice.  Gary Russell wrote the initial version in 1996 before the film even finished filming, based on Matthew Jacobs’ script, and then did extensive revisions for a 2021 reprint.  This review is of that 1996 edition, and not the 2021 reprint simply because it is the copy I happen to own.  The TV Movie as a story is one of those Doctor Who stories that is largely a mess of ideas wrapped up in an attempt at a pilot for something that would have been a very different version of the show than what it was and what it would eventually become.  The Novel of the Film as an adaptation has a similar number of issues, but by the very nature of being in prose it can actually communicate the ideas far better than what Jacobs and director Geoffrey Sax communicated on-screen.  The greatest benefits of this are Bruce before he is killed and his body is stolen by the Master generally feeling like an actual character and not just some guy played by Eric Roberts because the producers wanted something close to a big American star for the role.  The same can be said for so many of the minor characters, as a writer Gary Russell really does like to give each character just a little backstory and at the climax when the film cuts back to the party, the novel actually has made us care about the little people on the ground, however small making the stakes actually feel much larger than they are.

 

What is perhaps most interesting is that despite being an author largely known for his continuity references, Russell is fairly restrained throughout.  The chapter titles are split into sayings that vaguely describe each of the previous Doctors, and of course there is the fact that the film centers the Seventh Doctor because they were insistent on a regeneration yet so much of this lacks them.  The oddest reference to me is perhaps a reference to Saul and Cheldon Bonniface, explicitly tying in the New Adventures to something that happened, odd because in between publication and the launch of the Eighth Doctor Adventures the mandate would come to largely ignore those adventures in favor of simply doing the in house adventures.  The Novel of the Film is a novel that is at least partially hampered by the fact that Russell is working on an earlier draft of the script, while Paul McGann was cast there isn’t nearly as much of what he brought to the role of the Doctor in this book.  The character is there but is more of a generic characterization of the Doctor, who also happens to flirt and kiss.  The same can be said of the Master, Russell when describing what he does clearly falls back on the Delgado and Ainley portrayals and not Eric Roberts’ over the top idea, ‘I always dress for the occasion’ is treated like any other line and not the camp statement that even the script hints at it being.  It also means the book ends on a simple note of the Doctor just going on to more adventures potentially and it opens with an actual prologue of the Master’s trial.  The Daleks are there and described as Daleks making me wonder if at one point until very late the plan was to also get the license for the film to use them from Terry Nation.

 

Overall, The Novel of the Film is actually a better experience than watching The TV Movie in a lot of ways.  While it still suffers from a lot of the messy aspects of the script, Gary Russell has actively worked to convert it to a novel and tries making the plot work by deviating from what would eventually be laid on-screen making it an incredibly enjoyable time, though probably not for people who aren’t already fans.  7/10.

Datalore by: Robert Lewin and Gene Roddenberry from a story by: Robert Lewin and Maurice Hurley and directed by: Rob Bowman

 

“Datalore” is written by: Robert Lewin and Gene Roddenberry, from a story by: Robert Lewin and Maurice Hurley and is directed by: Rob Bowman.  It was produced under production code 114, was the 13^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was broadcast on January 18, 1988.

 

It seems the world has slipped into a parallel universe where Gene Roddenberry is actually a good writer and not stuck in the 1960s frame of mind as “Datalore” is an episode that somehow almost entirely clicks together to be a genuinely great piece of television and Star Trek.  This is especially surprising since there are three writers credited, though the idea and script are both largely coming from Robert Lewin who is technically this season’s head writer despite only contributing three scripts to the season and the show as a whole, “Datalore” being his first contribution.  It is also Roddenberry’s last credited contribution as writer to Star Trek, though he would remain as producer for the rest of the first season before being pushed to the periphery until his death in 1991.  As a script, despite having a writing credit, “Datalore” lacks the hallmarks of a Roddenberry script: it’s largely a focused character piece on Data, exploring his past, the only larger science fiction idea that could be Roddenberry’s influence is the general script questioning Data’s personhood, however, in my mind it does feel as if Lewin as a writer is also developing that idea further.  If that idea was Roddenberry alone, it would likely have been a simple yes or no and the rest of the cast would immediately be acknowledging Data’s humanity and complete trust, but “Datalore” actually decides to leave things in the air quite a bit.  Picard as a character certainly treats Data with personhood, but the introduction of Lore brings that into question.  Lore is referred to specifically as an ‘it’ and not a ‘he’ by Picard.  The episode even has Data call this into question, bringing up the age old flaw in logic for many people’s tolerance of marginalized groups: they are not tolerant of that group if they are willing to still see individual members of that group as an other.  This is both explicit in the text and quite possibly something that wasn’t as thought through by Levin and Roddenberry had intended, this is still 1988 after all and is a bold idea to put forward with the restrictions of 1980s television.

 

The actual plot of “Datalore” does have its roots in science fiction as a whole: the premise is that the Enterprise returns to the planet on which Data was found, investigating to discover an abandoned underground colony and the remains of another android of seemingly the same make and model of Data.  While it is just the setup for the episode, the scenes on the planet actually show off the best of Rob Bowman’s direction, despite clearly reusing many of the sets from “Haven” and “Hide and Q”, plus several props that have been in the show before and in the theatrical films, these sequences are directed quite well.  Bowman makes things seem vast and the cave wall swinging outward is constructed in just the right way to create that atmosphere of discovery.  The laboratory sets themselves are perhaps a bit scarce and clearly on a television budget, but they are in line with the aesthetics of the show in general, plus those scenes are brief.  The episode really picks up speed once the crew returns to the Enterprise, Lewin and Roddenberry give the episode just a little bit of time before the second android, Lore, is turned on and interacts, allowing Brent Spiner to really play up this anticipation of someone discovering they are not alone and unique in a universe.  The way Spiner plays and has played Data’s emotions in this and previous episodes become integral for how he then goes on to play Lore.  Yes, with the same make and model it becomes obvious that “Datalore” is doing the evil twin storyline, but Lore as a character is immediately set apart from just being a copy of Data by Spiner’s body language and delivery.  While the script points out Lore is more ‘human’ than Data because he can use contractions, it is really all in Spiner’s performance for how evil he is.  Spiner plays Lore as almost gleefully sadistic in places, annoyed that humans dared to think him too human so he communed with a crystalline entity to kill them all.  He also tries taking Data’s place on the ship, providing the conflict for the A-plot.

 

Where “Datalore” drops the ball, at least in my eyes, outside of not going as far with its premise as it perhaps could, is in having Lore take Data’s place for the episode and the way the crew eventually discover what has happened.  It’s Wesley who ends up deducing Lore’s involvement, the rest of the crew not believing him, including Picard shouting at him “Shut up, Wesley!” which you might think if I were following popular opinion I would agree with.  However, it is not the fact that Wesley as a character is annoying, he just doesn’t really fit so far with this plot.  As a character, he hasn’t really had many scenes with Data and this plot wants to posit that they are quite close as characters when it would be more apt for say Geordi LaForge to take this particular role, especially since if we’re being honest LeVar Burton hasn’t had nearly as much focus as the other characters while Wesley has already had two episodes with rather important subplots.  Wil Wheaton actually plays the material pretty well, especially at the climax where Dr. Crusher is hurt and Wheaton just gives this look of fear that everything is falling apart.  It’s a bit too close to the end, and Lore is quickly dispatched by Data in an action sequence but there’s at least an attempt to write Wesley as a complex character, even if Lewin and Roddenberry don’t really know how to write a child character which is a recurring problem for Star Trek: The Next Generation.

 

Overall, “Datalore” is honestly the best episode that Star Trek: The Next Generation has done thus far.  There are still problems and clearly places for the series to grow, but like “The Big Goodbye” the week before it’s one that works because it is a character focused story that is written from a writer who understands that it is no longer the 1960s and that television has changed.  Lore as a character is perhaps the best villain this show has introduced thus far and Brent Spiner is carrying it all on his back, but it’s actually a great episode of Star Trek.  8/10.

The Big Goodbye by: Tracy Torme and directed by: Joseph L. Scanlan

 

“The Big Goodbye” is written by: Tracy Torme and is directed by: Joseph L. Scanlan.  It was produced under production code 113, was the 12^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was broadcast on January 11, 1988.

 

If “Haven” was an episode I could praise because it was an episode that managed to be a competent episode of television, “The Big Goodbye” is an episode of television that actually knows what it’s doing and is part of a show with an actual vision and purpose.  What struck me about this episode is that the characters had both personality and motivation for what they are doing, something that writer Tracy Torme did well with oddly enough “Haven”.  The premise of the episode at its core is a pastiche of film noir, specifically The Maltese Falcon, complete with Harvey Jason doing a Peter Lorre impression, period sets and costumes, and a guest appearance by Lawrence Tierney.  While Star Trek would do these pastiches by having the Enterprise come upon a planet that just so happens to be a parallel version of Earth complete with cultural touchpoints, Star Trek: The Next Generation had already introduced the idea of the holodeck to provide basically any period piece.  It’s a clear piece of technology that can allow the production team to use existing period sets and come up with these types of stories, “The Big Goodbye” establishing it as something that can malfunction and trap people inside a simulation.  In this case it’s Picard, Crusher, Data, and historian Whalen who get stuck in a simulation of Dixon Hill novels, a fictional detective in the vein of a Dashiell Hammett novel.  The A-plot of the episode is the establishing of the holodeck and the setting for about half the episode before the malfunction actually happens, and then trying to resolve it after discovering that they can be hurt inside the simulation.  Whalen is shot and is slowly dying, motivating Picard, Crusher, and Data to actually get out of the simulation and attempt to survive.  This is because Torme does run out of time to actually develop the plot in the back half of the episode, meaning the conclusion relies on the B-plot of the rest of the Enterprise crew attempts to fix the malfunction.

 

This leads to the third act of the episode to be the weakest point, the plot itself just ends up resolving itself without much agency from the characters.  Wesley Crusher is the one to save the day and there is exactly one moment where Wil Wheaton gets the chance to give a good performance since his mother is in danger, but the weakness of the B-plot is part of the problem.  The reason Picard is using the holodeck is to have a breather for himself before having to make a greeting to the alien Jarada, a species who are easily slighted and that the Federation needs to begin negotiations.  Picard has to learn a complex greeting in the Jarada language, something that is particularly complicated so when he is stuck in the holodeck, the plot of the rest of the crew becomes feeble attempts to delay the greeting and fix the holodeck.  The issue is similar to Torme’s previous episode, “Haven”, in that there is almost not enough material or proper direction to move things along.  The ending in particular weakens the episode, even if the cast play it off better than much of the other material they have had to deal with on this show.  Though again like “Haven”, “The Big Goodbye” is an episode that is competent enough to structure its episode around an A-plot and a B-plot that are weaved together to form one conclusion at the end, Torme clearly understanding how to write a competent episode of television.

 

The question then becomes why if “The Big Goodbye” suffers from many of the same issues as “Haven” does it still manage to be the strongest episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation so far?  Well, the big reason for that is the fact that the characters are allowed to be characters, Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard in particular is actually allowed to crack jokes.  Picard is a fanboy for noir pulp fiction, and the premise of getting to live one of these stories is completely appealing.  He goes on a tangent in briefing his crew after his first peek into the holodeck because he is being a total fanboy.  This is more emotion that Stewart has been allowed to show in one scene than the previous eleven episodes of the show combined.  For the audience this means that there’s finally some relatability to Picard who to this point had been defined as ‘stiff diplomat’ and almost nothing else.  In the grand scheme of things these are largely smaller moments, but they are also finally something to latch onto Picard as a character.  That can also be extended to Dr. Crusher as Gates McFadden is getting material to sink her teeth into as Crusher plays the first half of the episode as basically an audience member having a good time and then having to switch when things get serious.  Brent Spiner as Data has had previous episodes to be comic relief to mixed effort: “The Naked Now” is perhaps the perfect example of how not to write Data as comic relief while this episode actually allows Spiner to flex his comedic chops.  It’s another bit of development in the fact that Data admires Sherlock Holmes and becomes interested in Dixon Hill as a setting because of how pulp fiction essentially grew out of the Holmes stories.  While the gag of him being South American doesn’t work and hasn’t aged well, Spiner just understands how to deliver the lines.  The episode is also helped by Joseph L. Scanlan’s direction, especially that first transition from ship to holodeck really emulating the magic of entering a fantasy world, even though it’s a fantasy world of 1920s Earth and ‘mundane’ to the modern audience.

 

Overall, “The Big Goodbye” is only the second episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation to really excel at the concept it is trying to execute.  The plot itself is perhaps the weakest aspect, falling apart right at the end, though still being interesting to watch as it brings up philosophical questions of whether holodeck simulations are alive (and leaves them hanging for other episodes to potentially explore).  The cast are clearly enjoying the script and the fact that writer Tracy Torme is actually invested in developing the characters of the show unlike other writers, meaning that their performances are just elevated that much further.  It’s got these few problems, but it’s a shining light in an otherwise incredibly subpar season.  8/10.