Too Short a Season by: Michael Michaelian and D.C. Fontana, from a story by: Michael Michaelian, and directed by: Rob Bowman

 

“Too Short a Season” is written by: Michael Michaelian & D.C. Fontana, from a story by: Michael Michaelian, and is directed by: Rob Bowman.  It was produced under production code 112, was the 16^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was broadcast on February 8, 1988.

 

Star Trek struggles whenever it decides to discuss the subject of aging.  The original series firmly put aging in the category of something to be feared and reviled: getting old means getting infirm and possibly disabled, something that textually is presented as one of the worst things that will happen to people.  “The Deadly Years” is perhaps the prime example of this, an incredibly weak episode where the crew aging is the threat of the episode because they cannot operate the ship.  Star Trek: The Next Generation’s first season has generally been struggling with setting itself apart from the original series tonally and in terms of the types of stories being told.  There are multiple original series writers that get story and writing credits throughout the season and the third episode is a complete remake of an original series episode.  “Too Short a Season” is an episode that looks at “The Deadly Years” and writers Michael Michaelian and original series writer D.C. Fontana decide to do that story in reverse.  Instead of characters being aged up for horror, a single, supposedly brilliant negotiator, has taken a drug that is de-ageing him rapidly as he wants to be at his best to deal with a hostage negotiation.  That is the entire episode.  No, I’m not kidding.  This episode spends its time establishing Admiral Jameson and his wife, their relationship, the fact that he is a negotiator, the fact that he is being forcibly de-aged, and the twist that Karnas and his people aren’t being held hostage by terrorists but Karnas has been a terrorist this entire time and holding his own people hostage.  That last fact sounds like it would be a great twist if it actually worked, we don’t actually see any of the hostages, and it turns out that Jameson is actually a very bad negotiator but a very good capitulator.

 

“Too Short a Season” seems to want to be about how with age comes wisdom, and you shouldn’t want to fall back onto your youth because Jameson as a character gave Karnas weapons and the Federation never found out because the plot needs the Federation to have not found out how bad Jameson was at his job.  In writing, D.C. Fontana apparently greatly simplified Michael Michaelian’s original draft from actually having two sides of terrorists and decides to have Jameson die at the conclusion instead of being de-aged to 14 years old which is a money saving effort of having to cast another person (and a child to boot) while not remembering his wife.  That original ending would have actually made the age coming with wisdom actually working, there isn’t actually anything in the episode that young Jameson says that old Jameson couldn’t do.  The idea is that because he capitulated to Karnas as a young man he was actually unwise, but Jameson doesn’t actually do anything to convince Karnas to release the hostages.  Jameson just shows up as young, isn’t believed to be Jameson by Karnas, and then dies; the drug kills him and Karnas decides to let the hostages go.  It makes you ask, what was the point, and I’m not sure if either Michaelian or Fontana even know.  This would be the last script on Star Trek: The Next Generation that D.C. Fontana was credited with writing, and considering the behind the scenes troubles on the show in general she was likely quitting shortly after this episode was written.  It doesn’t help things that the actual main cast of the show aren’t actually given much to do, the closest are Picard and Crusher: the former has clashes with Jameson over his authority on the Enterprise because he’s a negotiator while the latter is essentially an exposition machine though both Patrick Stewart and Gates McFadden are trying.  The same cannot be said for Clayton Rohner as Jameson.  Yes, he is acting under several prosthetics throughout the episode as he de-ages, but Rohner’s performance is incredibly stilted.  It feels as if Rohner wants to doo the weak and wheezy stereotypical old man voice that everyone has, but doesn’t actually commit, nor does he seem to understand how to move under all the makeup.  Then you see him as the younger Jameson and he still moves weirdly and struggles with putting emphasis on the proper syllable, while doing an American accent that sounds fake but isn’t (Rohner is an American).

 

Overall, “Too Short a Season” is an episode that honestly doesn’t seem to care about really trying to say anything.  It may have its roots in being a course correction from 1960s episodes like “The Deadly Years”, if only metatextually, but the script doesn’t actually make any sort of sense in terms of telling a story.  The resolution just kind of happens, the central character could have maybe worked (or at least worked better) if the performance was at least decent.  A friend mused it’s “The Deadly Years” in reverse, and that’s honestly the best assessment I could give of it.  3/10.