“The Arsenal of Freedom” is written by: Richard Manning and Hans Beimler, from a story by: Maurice Hurley and Robert Lewin, and is directed by: Les Landau. It was produced under production code 121, was the 21st episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and was broadcast on April 11, 1988.
“The Arsenal of Freedom” is an episode about how
covert weapons dealing are bad, how weapons seem to just stay there and always
present a danger, and how somebody saw the chemistry between Patrick Stewart
and Gates McFadden and decided to drop some hints that will only ever stay
hints. Also LeVar Burton as Geordi La
Forge gets to be in command of the Etnerprise, really giving Burton some
meat to dig into even if it doesn’t quite work in terms of examining his
character. Geordi as a character hadn’t
really been established as unsure in command, with the current chief Engineer
played by Vyto Ruginis being a foil to question his command. Ruginis’ performance is one of the big
aspects of the episode that doesn’t work, it’s doing the original series Star
Trek thing of introducing a character for a single episode to be a foil
except instead of it being someone from Starfleet, it is just a different crew
member who logically should trust Geordi’s general judgment. Also “The Arsenal of Freedom” contrives a way
to separate the saucer from the rest of the Enterprise which feels like
a money saving measure to reuse footage from “Encounter at Farpoint” and pad
the episode just a little bit. There’s
something to do there, especially since I know that Geordi eventually becomes
the chief engineer, but really the episode doesn’t do anything with it. It’s an episode with four people credited
between story and teleplay, and you can tell that there are is this push and
pull of ideas throughout.
The setup of the episode is a Douglas Adams scenario
from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy played entirely straight, the Enterprise
coming across a planet while searching for a missing ship that had an economy
based on selling weapons. There is a
recording automatically broadcast to give them a sales pitch and eventually
train the weapons on them, the away team eventually being confronted with a
hologram of a friend of Riker’s to try and find the weapons to
demonstrate. Picard and Dr. Crusher get
involved, Crusher is injured by a weapon so there can be simmering sexual
tension and some further backstory for Crusher.
McFadden actually gets a chance to shine even when restricted to being
heavily injured and having to guide Picard through healing her. The plot also decides that the hologram
program be destroyed by deciding to buy weapons because of reasons, in terms of
logic despite clearly wanting to comment on America’s sale of weapons to the
Middle East at the time but not actually making a coherent comment outside of
it being generally bad. The initial away
team section of the plot is also dragged out with it taking so long for Riker
to realize that the man they find is a generated construct of his friend,
though it does lead to a hilarious line about the starship lollipop (it’s a
good ship).
Les Landau’s direction is also clearly an issue
through the episode. While not an
incompetent director, Landau is clearly struggling with the general set layout of
Star Trek: The Next Generation.
The alien planet is represented by an attempt at a vast jungle set,
though one not really disguising the studio setting with the same blue backdrop
that many of the other alien planets have used.
The same can be said about Dennis McCarthy’s score, at points I’m sure
it’s just quoting Holst’s Mars, Bringer of War instead of doing anything
original near what the episode is attempting to make the climax of the episode.
Overall, “The Arsenal of Freedom” struggles because it clearly wants to say something but ends up becoming shallow because of a weaker script and an inability to really commit to any of its choices. There is the potential there, Burton, Stewart, and McFadden are great, Jonathan Frakes gets that really funny one-liner, and Michael Dorn and Denise Crosby are there. The guest cast is hit or miss a bit, but the episode just meanders from plot point to plot point before running out of time for a satisfying conclusion. It’s a subpar episode as Star Trek: The Next Generation’s first season limps towards its conclusion. 4/10
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