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.