Samaritan Snare by: Robert McCullough and directed by: Les Landau

 

“Samaritan Snare” is written by: Robert McCullough and is directed by: Les Landau.  It was produced under production code 143, was the 17^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, the 43^rd episode overall, and was broadcast on May 15, 1989.

 

There have definitely been episodes where the B-plot is more interesting and well structured than the A-plot, but “Samaritan Snare” is one where the two plots are night and day.  The B-plot is another examining an aspect of Jean-Luc Picard as a character, this time examining a medical disability that he has had.  Much of the plot’s buildup is that Picard needs a surgical procedure and refuses to let Dr. Pulaski to perform it on the Enterprise, so he insists on having it done off-ship on a Starbase where Wesley is also being sent for Starfleet Academy entrance exams.  The big reveal is that he actually has an artificial heart that is faulty.  Patrick Stewart is fascinating because he plays this as incredibly nervous and showing it by largely lashing out because he doesn’t want to go into surgery (with surgical gowns in red for some weird reason of worldbuilding because this is a series written by writers and not doctors).  It’s this very humanizing aspect of the character and is surprisingly nice because Robert McCullough’s script is genuinely great in the way it portrays Picard’s disability.  It’s something he generally hides because this is a future where it doesn’t matter, but also because he is insecure at being seen as a poor leader because of it.  The episode ends with Pulaski having to intervene in the surgery, there are complications, and promising to keep Picard’s secret, it’s still a secret from the crew and a point of insecurity with Picard at the end.  The episode is also not painting Picard as noble for keeping the secret, it is framed as insecure, the crew would understand.  Pulaski will keep it secret and Wesley will keep it secret, much of the B-plot is just dialogue between Picard and Wesley in the shuttlecraft.  It’s fantastic dialogue, both Picard and Wesley understand each other and Stewart really gets to guide Wil Wheaton through the scene.  It means Wheaton gets to give one of his stronger performances because while director Les Landau is fairly good (in the A-plot he can actually block scenes and set up interesting camera angles), Stewart is acting more as the guiding element of the scene.  It’s very much building up the idea of a father/son relationship between Picard and Wesley, Star Trek: The Next Generation very much wanting to hint that Picard is actually Wesley’s father but as far as I am aware never actually confirming it.

 

But that’s just the B-plot.  The A-plot is why “Samaritan Snare” is given its title.  Riker is in command of the Enterprise when the ship receives a mayday call from the Pakleds, a seemingly incompetent species of aliens on a ship that is adrift and the technology has broken down.  Geordi La Forge is sent over to help them fix their ship but the big twist is the Enterprise’s act of being a good Samaritan is that Geordi is captured and held hostage because they want weapons.  Riker has to work out a ruse to show force without killing the Pakleds and communicate with Geordi in essentially code to disable their weapons systems and get him transported back to the Enterprise.  The plot is honestly awful, it’s a plot that only develops because everyone ignores any warning signs and just forgets to act with any sense of intelligence.  The Pakleds are presented as incompetent, being directed and portrayed as stereotypes of people with intellectual disabilities in heavy makeup.  They’ve stolen every bit of technology and retrofitted it while being this open book to snare their victims, but McCullough tries to make it feel non-malicious which causes problems.  The text is playing with the idea of the contradictory outsiders that are coming to invade that despite being stupid they are a duplicitous threat.  It’s perhaps as anti-immigration a plot that Star Trek has actually done and feels accidentally fascist in places, especially with the fascist idea of the enemy that is both strong and weak at the same time.  That’s what the Pakleds are, it’s what they represent.  There’s even a moment early on that McCullough includes from Worf that feels like lampshading the fact that these themes are in play, Riker telling Worf that they do need to help either way because it doesn’t matter if it’s a trick.  That isn’t to say there isn’t anything in this A-plot that’s interesting or redeemable.  Jonathan Frakes and LeVar Burton are both fantastic as Riker and La Forge respectively, the script exemplifies how Riker and Picard are different as leaders the former being almost more cautious in places and more willing to use trickery.  Burton also is the only one actually acting off the Pakleds and he is a constant professional with just the worst material.  That and the supporting cast he’s playing off as said are playing into harmful, almost dehumanizing, stereotype.

 

Overall, “Samaritan Snare” is the definition of polarizing.  The B-plot is fantastic, it’s got some of the best material for Patrick Stewart and Wil Wheaton, adding interesting character work for Picard and reflecting on the insecurities and current societal stigmas around disability.  The A-plot which gives the episode its title and what is meant to be the main attraction is just awful.  It plays into stigma and stereotype around disability essentially unweaving the good work that the B-plot is doing.  4/10.

The Crossroads of Time by: Simon Furman with art by: Geoff Senior and letters by: Zed

 

“The Crossroads of Time” is written by: Simon Furman with art by: Geoff Senior, and lettering by: Zed (a pseudonym for Richard Starkings).  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issue 135 (March 1988) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by Panini Books.

 

Doctor Who Magazine was originally published by Marvel UK, the UK division of Marvel Comics.  That technically means there are parts of Doctor Who canon to the Marvel universe, there could have been a crossover between Doctor Who and Spider-Man in theory.  In practice that didn’t actually happen, but Simon Furman and Geoff Senior had created a character called Death’s Head for a Transformers comic in 1987.  The character has a backstory that “The Crossroads of Time” decides isn’t important to relay really to the reader, nor does the reprint actually say where to go to get the original appearance of the character because Simon Furman and Geoff Senior actually use this story as the beginning of a series of crossovers.  I will not be reviewing the crossovers, mainly because I have little interest in the character outside of his appearance in the Doctor Who Magazine comics and partially because I have not read any of the other series that the character crosses over with.  Those interested in Death’s Head’s story should seek out a reprint of The Incomplete Death’s Head (or the original 12 issue miniseries).

 

“The Crossroads of Time” is basically a prelude: the Doctor crashes the TARDIS into Death’s Head and then tricks him into being catapulted into the 81^st century, promising him the TARDIS.  The best thing I can say about this story is that Furman seems to be aware that the Seventh Doctor’s characterization is becoming more trickster like, but this also is overtly the characterization seen in Season 24.  He also complains to a time warden which feels like a character meant to be another character in the Marvel universe that couldn’t be used, but I couldn’t really place my finger on who it could possibly be.  Maybe the Watcher, maybe not, it really isn’t clear.  The biggest problem here is that even for a single issue story, this takes almost too long to get going so there isn’t time for any sense of story structure.  It is possible to tell a good story in a single eight page issue of Doctor Who Magazine, “The Collector”, “War of the Worlds”, “Spider-God”, and “The Neutron Knights” are peak examples of how to tell small stories and make them work.  Furman and Senior clearly want to write something bigger but clearly only have a few pages to do it so the story needs to be introduced and pushed forward for the crossover to work.

 

Overall, “The Crossroads of Time” is a quite silly little story that doesn’t actually work when it comes down to it.  It’s an example of a crossover issue taken out of the context of the crossover and the writer not really doing the legwork to make it work on its own.  The burden is from only having eight pages and not actually using it to tell a story, but to introduce where a character is before they are sent to their next story.  The Doctor Who of it all is incidental.  4/10.

Q Who by: Maurice Hurley and directed by: Rob Bowman

 

“Q Who” is written by: Maurice Hurley and is directed by: Rob Bowman.  It was produced under production code 142, was the 16^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, the 42^nd episode overall, and was broadcast on May 8, 1989.

 

It gets quite annoying when there comes an episode where you have to give credit where credit is due.  Maurice Hurley as producer was notorious for several bad decisions and tensions with the cast and crew, eventually leaving the showrunner position at the end of the second season.  As writer, he honestly wasn’t much better: he wrote some of the stronger first season episodes, but also wrote “Hide and Q” and “The Child”, both weak episodes.  “Q Who” is somehow one of the strongest episodes of the season and series so far, Hurley essentially writing Star Trek: The Next Generation as cosmic horror, yet a cosmic horror where we see the unknowable entity beyond comprehension that will bring madness to those who look upon it.  The Borg are perhaps as iconic to Star Trek as the Enterprise and the Klingons, I was certainly aware of what they are before starting this series of reviews years ago.  As presented in “Q Who” they are an unstoppable force that in a brilliant choice actually ignores the Enterprise crew, just continues to collect data in an attempt to expand whatever they are.  Sure they are biomechanical, one particular sequence of horror is actually Riker discovering a nursery of humanoid babies that are going to become Borg, never showing the babies but hearing the human cries.  Their spaceship, a large cube that they directly interface brings up a particular comedic description from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy of hanging in the air much in the same way that bricks don’t, but applied to horror.  Instead of a Douglas Adams style satire, Hurley’s script is playing it completely straight.  It’s such an imposing image and the idea is that it has only been getting closer and closer to Federation space.  Q knows this, the first act of the episode is him trying to become part of the Enterprise crew and in retaliation flinging the ship directly in their path as a petulant child, bidding them to escape.

 

Now, this is still an episode of the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, so getting the padding out of the way: the episode opens with the introduction of ensign Sonya Gomez, played by Lycia Naff, a Starfleet graduate who is just so gosh darn enthusiastic she flirts with Geordi and spills hot cocoa on Picard.  It’s a perfectly fine character introduction, but it doesn’t actually add much to the episode at hand, just continuing this rather odd trend of opening these episodes with seemingly random character moments that may or may not come back in other episodes.  My personal hypothesis as to why these scenes exist is to get the runtime to the standard 45-minute length when scripts underrun, this is a season that began production in a strike after all and didn’t have nearly as much pre-production time, even this far down the line.  It’s not a terrible sequence, Naff gives a perfectly fine performance, LeVar Burton is great of course, but it is very much just outside and laying groundwork in an episode that’s almost entirely laying groundwork for future stories that is just more interesting.  The Borg after all, in a more insectoid form, were originally intended to be the villains in “The Neutral Zone”, though held over again because of budget and the 1988 Writer’s Guild of America Strike that has affected this and the end of the first season.  “Q Who” feels like it was written as a mid-season finale, meant to potentially be aired before a holiday break with the Borg set to be the big bad in the finale.  Once again, this would be pushed to further seasons, I am aware that the Borg return at the end of the third season, though know nothing about that finale, and the second season finale “Shades of Grey” is a budget savor to fill the episode count and just finish the season.  This is the only time Maurice Hurley actually writes his creations and he is laying a great foundation.

 

Yet, the best elements of “Q Who” isn’t actually down to Maurice Hurley.  It’s down to Patrick Stewart, John de Lancie, and Whoopi Goldberg’s performances and Rob Bowman’s direction.  Bowman’s direction in places almost becomes cinematic, constantly setting up interesting camera angles that enhance the character dynamics.  It is revealed in this episode that Guinan, played by Goldberg, isn’t just a human bartender, but is a refugee from a long lived species that has history with Q.  Q describes Guinan as an “imp”, the history being not a good one and the way Goldberg and de Lancie actually play off each other, if only in one central scene for the episode.  It implies Guinan is devilish and the way Goldberg plays her scenes after this moment is particularly grave, she can only watch as the Borg arrive and give the information that they destroyed and scattered her people.  She only survived because she was on the outskirts of her people and didn’t have to see the Borg destruction first hand, but she can only tell Picard to run.  John de Lancie for his part is clearly aware he has been given better material than “Encounter at Farpoint” and “Hide and Q”.  Despite giving the descriptor to Guinan, Q could also be easily described as an imp: he is devilish and temperamental, embodying traits of classic demons and classic depictions of the fae.  He has a sob story that he thinks Picard is going to take in, and Picard doesn’t.  There is an intervention from Q at the climax so the Enterprise can continue on, though with the problem that the Borg is now actively aware of them, and it very much reads as a fae having the time to calm down and realize its own mistake.  De Lancie is also basically flirting with everyone else on screen, watching as Patrick Stewart as Picard refuse to give the creature an inch, yet falling to Picard’s own faults of wishing to continually represent the Federation and explore and poke the giant cube in space.

 

Overall, “Q Who” is fantastic.  It’s the third episode this season and of the show overall that I can downright say is fantastic.  The imagery of the episode has entered just the general pop culture sphere, the performances are perfect, and a lot of the issues in Maurice Hurley’s script outside of the opening act, are largely pasted over with some fantastic performances.  It’s an episode that knows that it has some stellar performers in Stewart, de Lancie, and of course Whoopi Goldberg, that need to be centered.  “Q Who” is a mission statement for the show that there’s this feeling that every other writer will pick up and run with except the show runner so the third season can really shine and grow.  9/10.

Isles of the Emberdark by: Brandon Sanderson

 

It’s a tale as old as time really.  The world is plunged into a global pandemic, the United States Government drops the ball on enforcing lockdowns, internationally renowned fantasy author gets bored, internationally renowned fantasy author writes five full length novels unprompted and keeps them secret from the world until four can be published through Kickstarter and certain blows at Amazon/Audible can be made, story over.  Except no, it isn’t.  There was a fifth secret project.  One not published through the Kickstarter campaign.  And yet.  This is not that story either.  Because Brandon Sanderson just doesn’t seem to know how to stop writing, even when he's already writing and publishing at least one novel a year because to coincide with the Kickstarter campaign for the leatherbound edition of Words of Radiance, it was announced another secret project had been written and would be published to backers first before a general release in early next year.

 

Isles of the Emberdark is the result, rewriting the earlier novella Sixth of the Dusk in its first part before spiraling out into what I can only describe as a prequel for the next era of Mistborn and the Cosmere at large.  This is a novel that I would be fascinated to see a non-Cosmere fan read because once again there is just a lot of integrated worldbuilding as there had been in The Sunlit Man, though less required knowledge of specific stories and instead just some specific characters.  Half of the narrative isn’t actually spent in the perspective of Sixth of the Dusk, though he is the other major player and the point of view essentially for the first part of the narrative.  Instead, Sanderson finally gets to write a novel with a dragon protagonist in Starling, an adolescent by dragon standards, longer lived by humans, exiled from her home planet and part of a spaceship crew searching for perpendicularity.  Sanderson’s use of imagery for the chapters introducing Starling immediately shift a lot of the tone of the novel from a rather serious narrative about Dusk attempting to save his people from the Ones Above.  Starling’s story isn’t a comedic one, however, her own sense of identity and place in the cosmere is quite compelling.  There’s a lot in here about how dragons work in the cosmere, more than anything else Sanderson has published.  The idea of Hoid having a dragon as an apprentice is also just something that is hilarious, though Hoid’s extended cameo actually feels a little excessive.  Yes, I usually adore Hoid’s points, but here his role is a role he has played before and better in other books, especially The Stormlight Archive.

 

The integration of Sixth of the Dust into the first part of the book is actually excellent: it is split between chapters in Dusk’s present set approximately six years after the events of the novella.  Now it had been a while since I read Sixth of the Dust so I am unsure if Sanderson actually did any rewriting.  It is likely he did, his prose in these secret projects has developed since when the novella was originally written and as presented here there wasn’t anything stylistically different between the present plotline.  Dusk’s general perspective is also one of someone on the edge of colonization, the Scadrian Empire who represent the Ones Above.  Sanderson uses this as an incredibly effective threat because the native population of the First of the Sun have always been under the thumb of an empire.  They are only going to make their lives worse, the empire is only getting bigger and conquering more planets.  That’s what I mean when I say this feels like a prelude to the next era of Mistborn, it’s Sanderson’s first earnest attempt at a space age, science fantasy story.  For Isles of the Emberdark it works because it grounds itself with its two protagonists and giving longtime fans resistant to change some other touchpoints to come to, but I do hope that going forward this is just testing the waters for bigger things.  Perhaps going to more high concept ideas.  The general Cosmere magic systems are present here, the Emberdark of the title is essentially part of the Cognitive Realm, though with its own quirks and a very deep understanding of how the people of the First of the Sun are part of both in a way.

 

Overall, Isles of the Emberdark is honestly a book where Brandon Sanderson does things a bit differently than what has come before.  Like Tess of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, it works so well because it is quite different from what has come before and indicates Sanderson wanting to push forward with what he has been doing these past 20 years with the Cosmere.  It’s not perfect though, the middle does drag a little and some of the returning characters feel just a bit excessive to me, but it’s a thrilling ride that if you haven’t had a chance to snag, when it publishes in February go seek it out.  8/10.

Pen Pals by: Melinda M. Snodgrass from a story by: Hanna Louise Shearer and directed by: Winrich Kolbe

 

“Pen Pals” is written by: Melinda M. Snodgrass, from a story by: Hannah Louise Shearer, and is directed by: Winrich Kolbe.  It was produced under production code 141, was the 15^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, the 41^st episode overall, and was broadcast on May 1, 1989.

 

The Prime Directive is one of those Star Trek ideas that the original series often used to create moral dilemmas about the interference with civilizations that lack the technology for space travel.  It’s Gene Roddenberry’s answer to colonialism and imperialism, something he clearly thought had no place in what humanity should be.  This is a point where Roddenberry is completely correct, colonialism is one of the great evils of humanity and telling stories threading the needle between interference and the human desire to help each other.  “Pen Pals” is one of the more interesting scripts to play around with the Prime Directive.  Star Trek: The Next Generation had attempted Prime Directive plots before, most notably “Justice” which is one of the worst episodes of the show, positing that the Prime Directive means no interference on other planets ever even when directly in contact with them.  “Pen Pals”, on the other hand, initially keeps the Enterprise out of contact with the civilizations in this unexplored galaxy.  The premise is that the Enterprise arrives after an unmanned probe found lush ecosystems, to planets that have been destroyed.  This destruction is natural, geological activity is what is destroying them, the people living on these planets having no part in the activity.  The moral dilemma for the episode is if the Enterprise can reverse these natural processes with their advanced technology, a scene in the second act laying out the question of how far can we justify saving a people.  Sure a natural disaster seems clear cut, but what if it were something like man made climate change, or a dictatorship, or war?

 

This moral dilemma is perhaps where the episode slightly falls flat.  The script is written by Melinda M. Snodgrass who had written “The Measure of a Man”, another episode with a moral dilemma at its center, and she clearly understands how to write characters engaging in a dilemma.  The dilemma is a bit too silly, however, because it does posit that these different scenarios are the same, actually, something that is generally a problem.  This episode writes out a clear cut case of a situation where lives can be saved, and the Enterprise doesn’t actually have to reveal itself to do it.  The only reason it is even considered is that Data has been receiving radio signals from a child, Sarjenka, and forming this friendship.  Brent Spiner plays it incredibly well, the episode also being one where Data is portrayed as more human than the rest of the series, when the episode concludes with Sarjenka’s memory wiped to stay in line with the Prime Directive Data leaves a token for her to remember him by (something she won’t be able to do, so it's clearly sentiment on his part).  Having a child represent the people on these planets is a particularly good conceit to get the crew of the Enterprise and the audience on the side of breaking the Prime Directive, children represent innocence and it’s very difficult to leave a child to die on late 1980s television.  This is also notable for the first time in Star Trek’s history where a child character actually works completely, something this franchise has struggled with to say the least.

 

The B-plot of the episode is also structured interestingly.  The episode itself takes place over the course of six weeks of investigation, done in a single cut, and only made apparent because Wesley Crusher is conducting the geological survey of these planets to discover why they are breaking up.  Wil Wheaton is clearly relishing the material, it’s one all about teaching the kids in the audience responsibility and leadership.  Wesley has to pick a team, decide what tests to run, and present the results to the crew.  It is the reason that the Enterprise can save the day, but where it really shines is allowing Wesley to have a relationship to grow with Riker, Jonathan Frakes providing this fatherly influence.  Particularly odd, however, is that when deciding to give this task to Wesley there is clearly a dissent from Dr. Pulaski which is meant to be from Beverly Crusher, but Gates McFadden was unjustly fired for speaking her mind, so the reassignment of the idea doesn’t quite work as well as it could be.  It feels even slightly out of character for Pulaski to have this moment, perhaps being more suitable for Picard who actually spends a lot of the episode as the general opposite force to Data (and revealing that he likes horseback riding in an early sequence on the holodeck).

 

Overall, “Pen Pals” is a really solid examination of the Prime Directive and its function within Star Trek.  The moral dilemma at its center suffers slightly from being a bit too clear cut, though this is an episode that spends more time getting into the question of why these planets are being destroyed and establishing the relationship between Data and Sarjenka before proposing the dilemma.  The B-plot is equally solid even if it does have similar weaknesses of not having as many characters close to Wesley Crusher as a character.  It’s currently the fourth in a streak of good episodes, the strongest run of Star Trek: The Next Generation thus far, further indicating that the series has found a footing despite everything working against it.  7/10.

The Icarus Factor by: David Assael and Robert McCullough from a story by: David Assael and directed by: Robert Iscove

 

“The Icarus Factor” is written by: David Assael and Robert McCullough, from a story by: David Assael, and is directed by: Robert Iscove.  It was produced under production code 140, was the 14^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, the 40^th episode overall, and was broadcast on April 24, 1989.

 

“The Icarus Factor” is an episode that titles itself after a Greek myth, that of Daedalus and Icarus, without ever actually integrating the ideas behind the myth into its storytelling.  David Assael and Robert McCullough in their script invoke the myth because the episode is about Riker’s relationship with his father, played by guest star Mitchell Ryan, but it’s not an episode where anyone flies too close to the sun and is struck down because of that.  The closest thing we get is the idea that Riker may be promoted to Captain of a different starship, but Riker doesn’t actually fly too close to the sun, the culmination of the episode gives the decision so stay on the Enterprise is entirely up to him and both options are given equal weight.  Then again, there isn’t actually another title I would give the episode, maybe the generic “Fathers and Sons” considering the B-plot of the episode is focusing on Worf participating in the anniversary of an ascension ritual important for Klingon culture and feeling isolated for not having a family.  The B-plot is actually really effective, Michael Dorn as Worf doesn’t actually get as much focus as he possibly could have because it’s Geordi, Data, and Wesley (mostly Wesley) realizing that something is wrong with Worf and getting to open up.  Don’t misunderstand me, Dorn isn’t lacking in material, he’s one of the best actors on the entire show, doing so much just with posture and a look under the Klingon makeup.  It doesn’t entirely work, the three definitely overstep their bounds of friendship by snooping into Klingon culture that doesn’t actually get brought up because they clearly want to help and Worf accepts the help.  As a B-plot, it’s actually quite light tonally, Wesley taking up the bulk means Wil Wheaton actually has some almost human and caring material to play around with.  LeVar Burton and Brent Spiner as Geordi and Data both get these great moments where they almost rib Wesley for being such a nosy teenager.  But what really takes the cake is how Burton in particular takes it in stride that of course they will do anything for Worf, he’s family.  Star Trek: The Next Generation has struggled quite a bit with the character relationships, and this is an episode that just gets it.

 

Speaking of character relationships, Colm Meany as O’Brien has yet another episode where he gets dialogue and slowly is starting to form his own dynamic with the rest of the cast.  When he recurred as a background character throughout the first season, I wasn’t expecting him to actually be a character.  He isn’t exactly fully formed, the Wikipedia pages for the individual episodes refer to him as Miles O’Brien but I’m not entirely sure if this name has actually been said on screen.  It has possibly been in the credits, but I don’t quite remember seeing it.  It’s a phenomenon, however, that is lost in today’s television landscape of a background or minor supporting character being allowed to grow and become a full character in their own right because seasons are over 20 episodes and releasing yearly.  It’s also fascinating that we have two sequences of the episode that focus on basically coming of age rights in constructed “future” cultures.  The Klingon right of ascension, and the martial art of Anbo-jyutsu which the Rikers partake to solve their tension (more on that later).  The ascension sequence is a perfect example of how to sell something incredibly silly, as is a lot of Klingon culture, as completely serious.  The entire cast is playing it straight, Michael Dorn is right at the center of it all and selling it wholesale.  Dorn is the reason it works, he’s also the reason “Heart of Glory” and “A Matter of Honor” work, because he isn’t ever winking for the camera or even breaking slightly as an actor.  It also helps that the ascension right, performed on the holodeck, is lit quite dark which while already fitting for what Star Trek as a franchise has established, but also from a production standpoint can hide the sins of science fiction sets.  Director Robert Iscove clearly understands this for this particular point of the episode, which is odd because the set for the Anbo-jyutsu is shot in a set that’s almost overlit which means the armor costumes show all the seams.  They’re incredibly silly costumes that are trying, but also feel like cultural appropriation yet not of a specific culture, just a general Asian martial arts culture.

 

Outside of this, however, the plot with William and Kyle Riker is genuinely fantastic.  It’s all about the problems with an absent father.  Mitchell Ryan as an actor is incredibly charismatic in the role, you easily believe that literally everybody on the Enterprise immediately takes a liking to him and he is able to charm his way to making Picard believe that he and his son have had a good relationship (Picard surprised Riker with his father’s presence).  But Ryan is an actor with a history of large parts on soap operas, he knows how to play that charm and also play an absolutely awful father.  Kyle Riker does care for his son, that care just manifests in a way that is incredibly damaging and neglectful for his son.  “The Icarus Factor” does end with the Rikers making up in a way that is very late 1980s, but the way that it has aged isn’t as bad as it could.  It feels like an understanding that familial relationships can be complicated and that people are messy, prone to making potentially damaging mistakes that if they’re healed it’s only through years of reconciliation.  Jonathan Frakes equally matches Ryan’s performance, Riker continually attempts to be the bigger person when speaking with anyone that isn’t his father.  He has this excellent scene opposite Diana Muldaur as Pulaski where he gives her permission to pursue a romantic relationship with his father (Pulaski having a romantic history with Riker and is characterized as independent and thrice married and divorced amicably in this 1980s view of a liberated future, that is heterosexually liberated).  Frakes playing opposite Ryan is melodramatic tension incarnate, so much is things unspoken it just doesn’t conclude nearly as well as the B-plot.  Plus Riker’s opportunity as captain is a C-plot meaning that “The Icarus Factor” is the first episode of Season 2 to feel overstuffed instead of being padded out.

 

Overall, “The Icarus Factor” is an episode that surprised me.  It’s melodrama meditating on the nature of familial relationships and it’s an episode that seems to be overlooked our outright derided for what it is actually doing.  The performances are what’s elevating it as the script has too many plots going on, though never too many to take away from the character drama even if some of the character arc is underdeveloped.  Star Trek: The Next Generation feels like it’s actually taking the time to delve into the characters and push the series into something that can succeed as a narrative, and even if “The Icarus Factor” doesn’t resonate with you, it still has a place in improving the series overall.  8/10.

Time Squared by: Maurice Hurley from a story by: Kurt Michael Bensmiller and directed by: Joseph L. Scanlan

 

“Time Squared” is written by: Maurice Hurley, from a story by: Kurt Michael Bensmiller, and is directed by: Joseph L. Scanlan.  It was produced under production code 139, was the 13^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, the 39^th episode overall, and was broadcast on April 3, 1989.

 

Maurice Hurley as showrunner of Season 2 of Star Trek: The Next Generation may have been partially responsible for the behind the scenes trouble in the show at the end of the first season and throughout the second.  He was responsible for the firing of Gates McFadden after she spoke up about issues with her character of Dr. Crusher.  He was often in conflict with the rest of the writing team in terms of script and overall arc direction and in conflict with the cast in terms of character development.  He had a handful of scripts in the first season: “Hide and Q” cowritten with Gene Roddenberry was a bad start but then again so is a lot with Roddenberry, a story credit for “Datalore” which was a standout of the first season (and “The Arsenal of Freedom” which was not, and “Heart of Glory” and “11001001” were great and good, respectively.  His record is decidedly mixed.  He opened the second season with “The Child”, one of the worst episodes of the show thus far and one that was incredibly sexist.  Hurley would have writing credit on three other episodes in the second season before leaving the show all together, being replaced as showrunner first by Michael Wagner for four episodes and then Michael Piller.  “Time Squared” gives story credit to Kurt Michael Bensmiller who had pitched multiple episodes to the team, but once again Hurley seems to have taken control of scripting and essentially making it an original script as he had done with “The Child” as the season opener.

 

Unfortunately, “Time Squared” is a stronger script from Hurley, understanding how to plot and execute a science fiction concept with an internal character conflict at the center of its narrative.  The episode is a slow burn from a shuttlecraft appearing that came from the Enterprise drifting through space, to the reveal that inside the shuttlecraft is a grievously injured Captain Picard.  This is just the pre-credits sequence, but it’s quite the tense sequence that is effective at teasing what is coming in the episode.  The actual premise is that the shuttlecraft is from six hours in the future, it’s come back in time as part of a time loop and Picard is the only survivor of the Enterprise.  Future Picard doesn’t actually get to have much to do, he spends much of the episode in a coma with Dr. Pulaski’s attempts to revive him having limited success.  When he does revive, Patrick Stewart gives a powerhouse performance as a Picard who knows what exactly is going to happen and fully believes he cannot change things.  That is until the episode ends with Picard in the present, shooting his future self to break the time loop on principle, altering the course of future events enough to move the Enterprise forward.  The episode is let down slightly by this resolution, Hurley’s script doesn’t actually imply any lasting consequences from the act.  Stewart plays it incredibly well as does the onlooking Diana Muldaur and Colm Meaney as Pulaski and O’Brien (the transporter chief who seems to be slowly becoming his own character).

 

Joseph L. Scanlan directs “Time Squared” and what’s particularly effective are actually the effects sequences: there is a vortex that is responsible for the time loop that the Enterprise deliberately flies through to essentially write the double of Picard and the shuttlecraft out of existence.  Apparently, Hurley wished to link this episode with the next episode he wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Q Who”, and while I have not seen that episode, “Time Squared” does end far too abruptly.  Hurley’s script also lacks a B-plot, but watching the episode you don’t ever actually feel like the B-plot is absent.  Scanlan keeps shots tight and the actors right on their marks.  So much of the episode relies on Picard’s own insecurities: he fully believes he abandoned the Enterprise which is something that he would never do, so what exactly could have drawn him to this point?  What really happened to the Enterprise?  It’s an episode that is carried by Stewart’s talent, probably the first episode to properly allow Stewart to explore what makes the character tick since “The Battle”.

 

Overall, “Time Squared” would be the perfect episode if there was a stronger resolution, because despite setting up a great end to the conflict of Picard taking the future into his own hands by killing his future self, the fallout from that isn’t at all examined.  Still Patrick Stewart sells the episode and the rest of the script is tight enough to actually work.  8/10.

The Royale by: Keith Mills and directed by: Cliff Bole

 

“The Royale” is written by: Keith Mills (a pseudonym for Tracy Torme) and is directed by: Cliff Bole.  It was produced under production code 138, was the 12^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, the 38^th episode overall, and was broadcast on March 27, 1989.

 

Tracy Torme wrote one of the better episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation in “The Big Goodbye”, a great little noir tribute set largely on the holodeck and a fairly strong character piece for Captain Picard; “Haven”, an incredibly campy episode that introduced Lwaxana Troi; and “Conspiracy”, a great little thriller opening the door for looks into the darker side of Starfleet.  The production of Star Trek: The Next Generation, however, had been tumultuous.  The writing staff turnover was incredibly high, with scripts often being written and rewritten by script editors and by the second season showrunner Maurice Hurley.  “The Royale” is one of three scripts written by Torme for the second season, one of two he requested his name be pulled from because of the rewrites.  The first script of the season from Torme was “The Schizoid Man” is the only one he kept his name on, though that was adapting an idea from Richard Manning and Hans Beimler that didn’t work because it tried to tribute something without actually doing a tribute.  “The Royale” is a script that underwent several rewrites, and within those rewrites it underwent a complete tonal shift from a harrowing exploration of one’s insignificance in space and being trapped at the end of one’s life, to a comedic exploration of the weirdness out in the universe.

 

As it is presented, “The Royale” actually has a lot of the cosmic horror roots that were in Torme’s original pitch.  The setting is this reality, simulated by an unseen group of aliens on a planet that presents as a black void with the revolving doors of an Earth hotel.  Once you enter, you cannot leave.  That premise is genuinely horrific, even if director Cliff Bole never actually shoots any of the episode like horror outside of finding a skeleton in a bed that’s supposed to be a normal corpse.  Bole is shooting the episode like a standard episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which works when there are comedic scenes: Data playing blackjack with an old guy from Texas and his mark, Worf’s general demeanor interacting with the hotel setting, and the fact that the reality is generated from a pulp novel that somebody on a crashed ship happened to have with them.  Bole just cannot quite make the horror aspects work, the moment when Riker, Data, and Worf discover they are trap is shot head on with a revolving door with no trickery used to show them leaving and coming back at the same time.   They just go right around the door.  The episode ends on the idea that this is a mystery the Enterprise can’t actually solve, something that does leave the viewer with a sense of unease because there isn’t resolution, something that is intentional on the part of Torme.

 

The plot resolution is also slightly week, Data has to gamble to buy the casino as the reality has slotted him, Riker, and Worf into the story as three foreign investors.  Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, and Michael Dorn are honestly giving some incredibly fun performances, they’re carrying a script that has clearly been torn to shreds on their backs.  The trouble is that the plot itself is quite literally spelled out to the audience at the halfway point, so the back half really struggles as the audience and the characters knows what needs to happen and exactly how they are going to accomplish that.  It means this is an episode where the third act has no tension, even when it continually cuts back to the Enterprise where the rest of the crew are essentially just waiting for the plot to be over.  It’s likely where the rewrites by Maurice Hurley really took the most effect, the first two acts do actually have some of the atmosphere of cosmic horror in incredibly tiny doses.  The setting is inherently surreal, and something that Star Trek: The Next Generation really could explore, especially with how television production had evolved between the 1960s and the 1980s.

 

Overall, “The Royale” just barely makes it out of having a creative overhaul to have glimmers of brilliance.  The premise is great and the central performances are actually carrying it on its back.  The first two thirds actually manage to be an interesting scenario for an episode of Star Trek, blending comedy and a surreal setting.  The last act takes so much of that out of the window because the audience is told exactly what is going to happen breaking a cardinal rule of screenwriting and removing really any tension.  6/10.

Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by: Claudia Gray

 

Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace is a film that does not work.  Between a script of unnatural dialogue, an incredibly uneven pace, and George Lucas’ wishing to pioneer computer generated imagery without really understanding how to implement it, it’s one of those films with many problems as do all three of the Star Wars prequels.  It was received incredibly poorly upon release and no amount of revisionism is going to actually save it as a film despite some good ideas and Lucas’ insanely stupid penchant for worldbuilding.  Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn is a one of character that left an impression in the film for a reason, Neeson’s performance being one aspect of the film generally praised.  Master & Apprentice is an examination of Qui-Gon Jinn as a character and teacher before the prequel trilogy began, effectively being a prequel to a prequel.  Claudia Gray even includes an epilogue taking place right at the end of The Phantom Menace, though it is the more superfluous portion of the book.  It’s a flash forward that feels more a tie in to the already existing work than adding anything to the novel itself outside of Obi-Wan promising to train Anakin, something that is used as an attempt to push the prophecy through further defining Anakin’s character arc.  The trouble with that is that honestly, this really isn’t a book about Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Yes, he is one of the apprentices that the title refers to and he has a rather large role to play in the plot, but Gray isn’t interested in exploring him.  This is Qui-Gon’s book, through and through, and it’s all the better for it.

 

Qui-Gon Jinn as a character is decidedly portrayed as human: a Jedi trained under a master who fell to the Dark Side, even if it was something he never actually saw; a Jedi perhaps equally as tempted by the Dark Side in several ways; is offered a seat of power and internally struggles to accept or reject it.  He eventually does reject it, the position of power being a part of the Jedi Council, but not entirely for altruistic reasons.  Yes, continuing Obi-Wan’s training is part of it, but Master & Apprentice is very much concerned with laying out, so the reader cannot possibly miss, that the traditions of the Jedi Order are generally outdated and going to eventually cause it to fall.  This is something that is present in the prequel trilogy, not even as hidden subtext but fairly obvious text.  Gray doesn’t posit that the Order should fall, but that it is inevitable that it will fall.  Now some of this is because this is a prequel to an already established story, but Gray also expands on the idea of the corruption.  Qui-Gon Jinn often flaunts the rules of the Jedi, taking advantage of what people assume versus what they actually know to achieve his aims, and it’s something he intentionally is passing down to Obi-Wan.

 

The model of master and apprentice is important, but it is also perhaps too singular.  Master & Apprentice is a book with several flashbacks to Qui-Gon’s own training to explore how he became the way that he is.  He was trained under Count Dooku, just before Dooku left the Jedi Order for his own reasons (revealed in the films to be training as a Sith), but not before training Qui-Gon Jinn to always question.  As a master, he’s stern, imposing, and Gray makes a great deal of playing on both a childlike fear and the reader’s own knowledge of Dooku as Sith.  Yet, he is the one to push Qui-Gon into exploring prophecy and history, the one to get him to cut loose just a little bit.  Gray using Dooku mostly in flashbacks has this interesting knock-on effect, the plot of Master & Apprentice cannot really include him logically, so instead she invents another student of his, now an adult requesting help from the Jedi.  The plot of the novel is probably the weakest aspect of the novel: it isn’t bad but Gray uses it as a facilitation for the flashbacks, and thus the larger characterization of Qui-Gon Jinn to happen.  It doesn’t serve Obi-Wan Kenobi as well as it could, because it isn’t a book about him, it’s about Qui-Gon.

 

Overall, Star Wars: Master & Apprentice is a fine example of how to expand the ideas of the Star Wars prequels, but has a tendency to be too reliant on what the reader already knows.  Claudia Gray has written a solid character driven novel, but there is one major player who is slighted by the narrative through reduction.  The best material is in flashbacks which have a great purpose for the overall narrative, but are still only a side element that holds a good novel from being a great one.  7/10.