Star Wars: The High Republic: The Eye of Darkness by: George Mann

 

Phase III of The High Republic begins with The Eye of Darkness and as a novel it has a lot to do.  Phase II being a flashback means that while the reader will be more knowledgeable and understanding of the Nihil and how they operate, they may not largely remember all of the plot points of the first phase.  George Mann doesn’t really do that, instead making the crux of the novel the one year later fallout of the destruction of Starlight Beacon.  This doesn’t mean things are streamlined, Mann is juggling several perspectives through the novel, several of which will not be covered nearly as in depth in the review though to be fair, he is incredibly successful at doing this.  What makes The Eye of Darkness work is just how well Mann is at making the temporal setting feel incredibly oppressive.  A year has passed, but a year shouldn’t feel like such a long time for the High Republic as a society.  The upended nature of society permeates every page of the book, the Nihil have set up their own dominion in an Occlusion Zone, there are Jedi and innocents trapped within the zone that are being persecuted and hunted in various ways, and the bureaucracy of the High Republic doesn’t actually know what to do with the threat.  Everything is scattered and practically every protagonist we follow from previous installments in The High Republic is emotionally devastated in some way, everyone has suffered some loss and are navigating how to pick up the pieces.

 

At the center of the novel is Marchion Ro, leader of the Nihil, the Eye of the Nihil if we are using their titles.  He is the one emblazoned on the cover with yellow lightsaber and title dedicated to him and that piece of artwork is a perfect encapsulation of who the character is.  There is this utter ruthlessness to who he is now that he and the Nihil have actually won and that Mann is giving time to getting inside his head.  In a lot of ways it feels as if Mann saw the criticisms given towards the villains of the sequel trilogy, and was insistent that we need to understand why Ro is so evil in the way that he is and where he has come from.  It’s also the logical acceleration of a lot of the ideas behind the founding of the Nihil during Phase II, something that helps justify the publishing decision to make that second phase a prequel while Phase III is the more traditional sequel.  That also might be what is adding to the feeling that more time has passed than a year, however, I feel that might actually be marginal because that passage of time is integral to the way that Mann constructs his prose.

 

The prose is most apparent with the multiple Jedi plotlines.  Both Avar Kriss and Elzar Mann plotlines in the novel.  They are separate, but they feed into each other quite well, but they are both incredibly damaged people in the aftermath of the destruction of Starlight Beacon.  Avar in particular through a lot of the first two thirds of the novel is skulking around, trying her best to be a hero within the Occlusion Zone in her own way.  It’s actually one of the few plot threads in the novel that feel close to levity, that is the more swashbuckling science fiction serial tone that Star Wars was largely founded upon (it’s also where Mann’s penchant for writing comic relief characters comes through in the best way to assist with the levity).  But don’t get me wrong, the oppressiveness of the novel’s tone is still there.  Both Kriss and Mann are dealing with essentially depression that only resolves itself at the end of a single chapter near the end of the novel in one line, and yet that one line is incredibly satisfying, reading like a thesis for the novel only further supported by the final chapter going into how there is still a lot of work to be done even if the “victory” of the novel is clearly a stopgap in a much larger story.  Mann is setting the tone and bringing hope back to the galaxy and the Republic, but this isn’t a permanent victory.  It’s just a point where some people got to a point where they can take an active role in resistance.  Mann is taking inspiration from the sequel trilogy, but he luckily isn’t taking directly from that trilogy or the structure of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

 

Overall, while it’s only the opening gambit of Phase III of The High Republic, in terms of novels The Eye of Darkness is actually the strongest.  Much of that is down to George Mann’s ability to bring together so many disparate threads that mean the novel feels like part of a bigger world and yet still having a satisfying arc for almost all of its characters (I didn’t even mention the rather minor arc for Bell Zettifar).  There’s a lot packed into its near 400 page count, but it’s utterly compelling and lays the groundwork for what hopefully will be a grand finale.  9/10.

The Survivors by: Michael Wagner and directed by: Les Landau

 

“The Survivors” is written by: Michael Wagner and is directed by: Les Landau.  It was produced under production code 151, was the 3^rd episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 51^st episode overall, and was broadcast on October 9, 1989.

Samuel Beckett’s one-act tragicomedy Endgame is about the four residents of a dingy house at the end of the world.  It’s a piece of absurdism, squarely in postmodern theater and portrays this pair of people as in a contemptuous relationship that breaks down after seemingly years of strain.  It’s also a piece of theater that in many ways is completely incoherent, as with many a piece of art it asks the viewer to bring themselves to it and see it through their own lens.  There is a sense of monotony and repetition in the work, ending with one character determined to leave the relationship and face the outside world but silently staying while the other is determined to remain.  “The Survivors” is the third episode of the fourth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and is about a beautifully maintained house at the end of a world inhabited by an impossibly kind elderly couple living their lives in the absurdity as warships could be back any day to finish the job.  In the meantime, they just live their lives as they had before the war began and as they had during the war, expecting to be killed no matter if they joined the resistance or kept their choice to stay neutral.

 

Samuel Beckett wrote mainly tragicomedies, joined the French Resistance as a courier during the Second World War, gave much of his life to his own community including as essentially a bus driver for schoolchildren including a young Andre the Giant, and died in late 1989 from emphysema.  Michael Wagner wrote “The Survivors”, the penultimate episode he oversaw as showrunner on Star Trek: The Next Generation, had already penned several episodes for television including one based on ideas by Isaac Asimov, and died approximately three years after this episode aired from brain cancer.  Michael Wagner was not a contributor to absurdism or postmodern literature, he wrote television drama.  Michael Wagner did not meet Samuel Beckett.  Michael Wagner’s life is documented briefly, often disregarded as a footnote in the history of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  And yet, here is “The Survivors”.  An episode reckoning, quietly with the ideas of what comes after war.  What happens to the survivors?  Or in the episode’s case, the survivor?  What happens when the survivor is the one forced not to be a footnote in the annals of history when that is all that he desires?  The episode posits that being left alone is perhaps for the best.

 

That is slightly horrific.  The footnote so to speak is also responsible for a genocide, casually placed as a third act twist to explain why the single house is left standing and why the distraction from the grief.  That is largely ignored in the end, it is a third act twist after all that makes sense.  The footnote also lashes out, implants music in others’ minds to avoid detection.  It’s a source of pain and mystery, the victim yet again being the poor ship’s counselor whom the writers do love to torture.  Here it is at least played properly.  The distraction is kind, nothing but kind.  She is a fighter, a revolutionary.  She is the one to take a stand when peace was destroyed.  In the end, the distraction can leave, it is offered, even if she isn’t real.  She’s not the one lashing out at the crew’s kindness after all.  She invites them in for tea.  She partakes in a waltz.  She lives.  He is tortured, in the end he remains tortured.  He does not live.  The captain consistently offered that chance.  He survives.

 

9/10.

The Ensigns of Command by: Melinda M. Snodgrass and directed by: Cliff Bole

 

“The Ensigns of Command” is written by: Melinda M. Snodgrass and is directed by: Cliff Bole.  It was produced under production code 149, was the 2^nd episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 50^th episode overall, and was broadcast on October 2, 1989.

 

Sometimes you’re watching an episode of a television show and can’t help but think “My God that man cannot act.”  That is the experience watching “The Ensigns of Command”, the second episode of the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation because the main antagonistic force in the A-plot gave a performance that the producers were not looking for and was dubbed by an unknown actor.  That means that the performance of Gosheven is stilted, the voice clearly not matching the physical acting choices in the scene, most likely due to a short turnaround time in television and a production team clearly with very little experience in dubbing.  It would be a performance that is easy to overlook if it weren’t for the rest of the cast in the A-plot being nearly as stilted without being dubbed over, so there’s a real question of why the decision to dub over Grainger Hines was made.  It also leaves the A-plot riding entirely on the back of Brent Spiner’s performance as Data, which isn’t really a problem because Spiner is clearly up to the challenge of carrying the episode.  The entire premise is that a planet is owned by the Sheliak who have a treaty with the Federation, but there is a colony of humans on the planet that need to be evacuated in three days or be exterminated.  The colonists have been on the planet for about a century and don’t want to go, plus the planet has some form of radiation that makes transporters useless and that the rest of the crew of the Enterprise stuck on the ship in the B-plot (attempting negotiations with the Sheliak).  There is a sense the script was rewritten because the setup of the episode is convoluted, likely due to being adjusted in rewrites to accommodate whatever the show could afford to show as this was an episode that director Cliff Bole noted as having a budget cut during production.

 

The script comes from Melinda M. Snodgrass and thematically is a follow-up to “The Measure of a Man”.  Despite a convoluted setup, it’s quite a strong script.  Data is kept as the focus for much of the episode, it opens with the android playing in a string quartet and musing about how he is technically proficient but there is a lack of “soul” in the performance.  While it uses the term soul, I’d argue Snodgrass means that Data doesn’t understand the nuances of human performance.  While “The Measure of a Man” is an episode that firmly establishes Data as a person with autonomy, the way he experiences emotions is different.  There’s a reason that robotic characters are coded as autistic, and Data is perhaps the prime example of this reading, something “The Ensigns of Command” really does establish.  The episode is very much Data having to convince colonists to be logical, leave their settlement for people who are arguably the original inhabitants.  Now that allegory shouldn’t be looked too deep, if it is Snodgrass is accidentally portraying the indigenous Sheliak as savages whose course of action is to exterminate a colony of people who had been living there for an extended period of time and in the B-plot obstinate about giving the Enterprise crew more time to get the colonists off of the planet because they don’t have the technology to do so with the radiation.  “The Ensigns of Command” is more interested in negotiating to a peaceful resolution to give land back to rightful owners more than anything.  That and exploring the idea that people cannot really be moved from their convictions with logic, Data has to eventually use trickery and make the threat of death seem actually real to get them on side, and to have a very odd little romantic subplot that just doesn’t work because of a weak performance.

 

The B-plot is much less consequential, it’s Picard and company going through every possibility to get either the Enterprise modified to accommodate the colonists or fix the transporters to get them off the planet quickly or appease the Sheliak.  In terms of a B-plot, it’s honestly fine if a bit generic.  It doesn’t feel like so many scenes in Season 2 where it is just there to pad out space because a script was running short and it does at the very least push the plot forward while keeping the audience reminded that time is ticking down, these colonists will die if a solution isn’t reached.  What makes it memorable is actually its conclusion: Picard finds a loophole and Patrick Stewart eats up manipulating these aliens into agreeing to giving them the three weeks they would need to get the colonists away with the arrival of a better Federation ship.  It’s not a scene I can so much describe, it’s more down to just seeing how Stewart eats up the performance and looks like he is about to burst out laughing with this particularly long pause.  It might just be one of Picard’s best moments because it is diplomacy through absolute manipulation and underhanded dealings giving the character just that little bit of edge that was missing in a lot of the first two seasons.

 

Overall, “The Ensigns of Command” should be one of the all time greats.  Melinda M. Snodgrass, despite having her script rewritten, actually has her ideas continue into the production.  Brent Spiner is on top form once again and as Data is actually the central performance because it’s about how he sees himself and not how the Federation sees him.  But there are bad performances that single handedly bring things down quite a bit and the rewrites convolute the setup just a bit too much.  7/10.

Evolution by: Michael Piller from a story by: Michael Piller and Michael Wagner and directed by: Winrich Kolbe

 

“Evolution” is written by: Michael Piller, from a story by: Michael Piller and Michael Wagner, and is directed by: Winrich Kolbe.  It was produced under production code 150, was the 1^st episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 49^th episode overall, and was broadcast on September 25, 1989.

 

The beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s third season saw several changes behind the scenes and in front of the camera.  Diana Muldaur as Dr. Pulaski was written out off-screen while Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher returned and would stay with the show until the end of its run.  Behind the scenes, Maurice Hurley, after a tumultuous year as showrunner, stepped down and in the interim Michael Wagner took over.  Wagner is yet another new writer to Star Trek as a franchise, something that has been a constant throughout Star Trek: The Next Generation.  At the very least Hurley had written for the series, but Wagner was an industry professional, already having a 14-year career as a television writer and work on a less successful science fiction series.  Wagner would only last four episodes in the role, however, passing the torch onto Michael Piller who would remain in that role through the fifth season (leaving to help establish Star Trek: Deep Space Nine).  Wagner and Piller both devised the story to “Evolution”, the second episode of the third season produced, but clearly written to be broadcast first.  Piller wrote the final script, the strength of which is what convinced Rick Berman and Gene Roddenberry to offer him the position, and while this isn’t an episode to be remembered as one of the absolute best but it is one that provides a baseline of quality for the series going forward.  This third season opener is one that didn’t have to start the show and wasn’t working against a strike or clock, it is just an opening episode.  It’s putting a foot forward to tell a story, one that adds quite a bit to remind the audience of the last season’s dangling threads (the Borg in particular are mentioned) and shift focus to an episode that is entirely character based.

 

The decision to open the season with a character focused episode on Wesley Crusher is honestly a risky one at least in terms of audience.  Now Wil Wheaton is an actor I like.  Likewise, Wesley is a character that I like despite the writing team generally not understanding how to write a child genius character.  “Evolution” is a script that actually addresses a lot of the issues with Wesley as a character.  McFadden’s first scene as Crusher before the plot actually begins is discussing her own fears as a mother with Picard: she’s been gone for a year and Wesley is far too clean cut as a teenager despite his own ambitions.  It’s reflected nicely in the conflict of the episode, Wesley has created nanites for a research project that have become sentient and escaped.  The rest of the episode is a race against the clock to not destroy them, but learn to communicate with them before they, in their ignorance, destroy the Enterprise.  Wheaton gets several scenes where he is alone and attempting to stop the nanites before he is caught because Wesley is still a child at heart.  There is this incredibly small scene opposite Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan which adds a lot to who Wesley is as a character, the caliber of actor that Goldberg is helps elevate Wheaton.  Wheaton and McFadden also get to properly play a mother and son for the first time in a very long time, there were probably less than a handful of episodes in the first season that really played off this as an idea.  McFadden’s return as Dr. Crusher is also in general slick, it’s clear that the new production team is allowing her the freedom to actually explore the role in depth.

 

The B-plot of the episode is also very much a reflection of who Wesley might become: Dr. Paul Stubbs, played by Ken Jenkins, has an appointment with a stellar explosion to complete research that he has dedicated his entire life to.  He is the lonely scientist that Wesley can become, a boy genius that has nothing besides that research to actually use.  The way Wheaton plays off Jenkins is particularly interesting, there is a palpable fear that Wesley might lose himself to a lot off his research.  Now, the episode does end with Stubbs completing his research at the last possible moment, but not after destroying some of the nanites creating further conflict before the resolution.  The resolution of the episode itself is also clearly more confident in using its characters.  Data as an android is able to actually do the communicating with the nanites and Picard is able to be an actual diplomat, both Brent Spiner and Patrick Stewart not taking too much away from Wil Wheaton as Wesley for the episode.  The clear step up is also that the other characters aren’t forced into the plot to pad things out, there is actually little here done by Riker, Troi, La Forge, or Worf, each maybe having a scene or two where they are important and clearly characterized as themselves, but not taking up the spotlight.  Add that to the direction of Winrich Kolbe, directing his fourth episode, and you have something quite confident.  Kolbe’s direction is dynamic, the camera is continually moving with the characters to punctuate the emotion and there are costume changes that read as the cast becoming more comfortable in performing these roles.  It’s genuinely great.

 

Overall, “Evolution” is good.  It is the definition of a solid episode that has character drama at the heart of it.  If anything it serves as a great baseline for the third season (and future seasons) of Star Trek: The Next Generation to meet and continue to build upon with a brand new team that will essentially be making the show for the next three seasons.  It struggles slightly with leaving things a little too unresolved for Wesley, but it also just excels at the character beats.  7/10.

The Long Walk by: Stephen King as Richard Bachman

 

When I read Rage I came away with the idea that Stephen King didn’t actually have much to say about the teenage experience, violence, or the reasons mass shootings happen.  The Long Walk is perhaps the complete opposite of that.  Like Rage, it was written when King was young, apparently while he was a freshman in college and is the first novel he actually completed (I guess Rage was one of the first he started writing).  You can tell it is an earlier work, not because it lacks substance, but because the clear eye of the anger from King is the United States government and its actions in the Vietnam War towards specifically the American public.  It was published in 1979, four years after the end of the Vietnam War, but King was writing the novel first in the mid-1960s.  The Vietnam War was just under a decade from ending and the opinion of the American public towards the war was beginning to shift in America because it was after the escalation of American troops but the campus protest movement wouldn’t peak until 1970.  He was writing as a young man, righteously angry at what is dominating politics in an America in the grips of conservatism.  It’s almost fitting to be published just one year before Ronald Reagan would be elected president and further push the country to the right, though it does mean The Long Walk is a novel that feels retrospective.

 

It's certainly a novel that leaves the reader quite raw.  It chronicles the deaths of 99 young men on the annual long walk, a state sponsored competition where boys must walk at four miles per hour along a path for the chance of a wish and untold wishes.  Going below that speed for 30 seconds leads to a warning, three warnings and the walker is shot dead.  The premise is clearly a metaphor for the draft, so much is built on the “honor” of the draft into the United States Army.  It is something to be dodged, something essentially unavoidable (there is a recounting of one boy signing up for the walk on a whim because the recruiters were there and it was something to do).  King is excellent on the stark horror of a child being gunned down by the United States military.  This is something repeated throughout the book, other deaths coming in other horrific ways as the walk goes on, each deviation being arguable a bigger point against the war and the United States government.  There are attempted uprising, suicide, and a boy who just sits down to die against the system.

 

The Long Walk, however, doesn’t change the system.  The novel ends with an ending that isn’t so much literal.  Sure, this instance of the walk is over, but King is intent on neglecting catharsis, the protagonist Ray Garraty just keeps walking towards a figure in the distance: “And when the hand touched his shoulder again, he somehow found the strength to run” (King, 322).  That is the line with which King closes the novel, Garraty doesn’t get his wish, he doesn’t get to see any justice done towards the system.  The Major, the representation of the state personified and the man responsible for disappearing Garraty’s father, is not a villain defeated by our heroes.  He is the monolith of a state that is still in power, a state that by the end of The Long Walk has killed 99 boys after putting them through their own version of hell, brought out their insecurities and lives (some of the walkers are awful people in it for the cruelty, others are implied to be gay and living in the closet in a state where they must deny themselves).  That’s why it’s such a strong read.  It’s a far louder scream of rage with that rage directed.  Sure it does not ever come to a conclusion as to what might beat the system, the ending is broken pessimism.  It is also clearly written by a college student at the beginning of his career, some of the walkers are reduced to shallow traits despite King clearly playing with the humanity of each of the 100, and it’s also clear that King is not someone who has walked at four miles per hour, that is more of a jog.  8/10.

 

King, Stephen.  “The Long Walk.” The Bachman Books.  New American Library, 1985, pp. 133-322.

Rage by: Stephen King as Richard Bachman

 

Rage is the one novel by Stephen King, writing for the first time under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, pulled from publication at King’s request.  This is because it was named by several school shootings directly named as an inspiration, Stephen King having more of a backbone with his power than most politicians and conservative commentators.  Now I read it in The Bachman Books, a copy of which published in the mid-1980s I found in my library.  This review isn’t going to be a question of whether or not Rage should have been pulled from publication, there isn’t really an argument to be made that it should be published anymore because it was pulled entirely by King’s volition.  There was no public pressure to pull it and King has repeatedly stated and implied that he is happy it is no longer in print.  As with any other creative work, if the creator wishes to pull that work there is nothing we can do.

 

Rage, however, is an interesting case of a novella.  It is one of the earliest works by Stephen King, published in 1977 but written several years earlier beginning when King was in high school under the title Getting It On.  After the publication of Carrie and ‘Salem’s Lot, while The Shining was being prepared for publication, King edited and submitted Rage for publication but the general practice was that authors would only publish one book a year so King invented Richard Bachman especially for this publication (and to see if he could sell a book without his name recognition since both Carrie and ‘Salem’s Lot were optioned for adaptations).  There’s almost a point where the controversy surrounding Rage is more interesting than the novella itself.  Like all the works of Stephen King, it’s quite easy to read stylistically.  The chapters are short and in a first person limited perspective from a high school student as he is expelled, snaps mentally, grabs the gun that he keeps in his locker, shoots a math teacher dead, and holds his class hostage.  The plot is fairly thin, even for the 150 pages, the class eventually succumbing to Stockholm syndrome, one student in particularly being sympathetic to main character Charlie Decker, both ending up in psychiatric care by the end of the novella.  The reason it reads quickly is because it is short and King’s style is simple, but in that simplicity there is a lack of depth here.

 

Perhaps there is some psychosexual read to Rage and Charlie Decker.  He doesn’t know why he does what he does, the flashbacks indicating it is largely from the physical abuse his father that has at the very least developed the violent tendencies.  There’s a lot of talk about sex and sexual frustration in Rage, the original title Getting It On being a particular sexual euphemism.  Charlie Decker asks adults about their sexual relationships with their wives, often uses sexual insults in his own rants, and is generally portrayed as sexually ignorant.  The line ‘getting it on’ repeats quite often and there’s a potential reading that the violence performed is just the sexual act of getting it on.  The trouble is of course, King is writing this as a teenager without the maturity to really unpack any of the ideas he thinks he is using.  It’s very possible that what is present thematically are things King added during the rewriting of the novella for initial publication, and even then they don’t ever coalesce into anything meaningful.

 

Overall, Rage is certainly a fitting title.  It’s a novella that is really just one burst of rage and than an aftermath that doesn’t quite know what it wants to say about teenage angst.  King is clearly inspired by The Catcher in the Rye and even though I am not the world’s biggest Salinger fan, King seems to have taken away even less from Salinger than I have.  This is just a barely mediocre novella from a writer who had an inciting incident without knowing where to go with it.  4/10.

Shades of Gray by: Maurice Hurley, Richard Manning, and Hans Beimler, from a story by: Maurice Hurley, and directed by: Rob Bowman

 

“Shades of Gray” is written by: Maurice Hurley, Richard Manning, and Hans Beimler, from a story by: Maurice Hurley, and is directed by: Rob Bowman.  It was produced under production code 148, was the 22^nd episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, the 48^th episode overall, and was broadcast on July 17, 1989.

 

“Shades of Gray” is a clip show.  It was made because the executives at Paramount demanded a 22 episode count and allocated extra funds earlier in the season.  Season 2 of Star Trek: The Next Generation ends on a whimper because of this.  Clip shows do have a place in the history of television, they serve as recap or even just remembering all the good times when production gets stuck.  “Shades of Gray” struggles at least partially because the first two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation are very much up and down, but also the wraparound is Riker gets infected with a microorganism that starts to break down his mind, Pulaski simulates emotions and memories to fix it.  Troi is also there.  The lead ins are quite literally explaining what the emotion Riker is feeling is, such as happiness and sadness.  There are three writers credited on this including outgoing showrunner Maurice Hurley.  The premise could work if there was any reflection on Riker as a character or if it really had anything to say except here are some clips.  This is an episode with absolutely no effort put into it because it needed to get out, so this review will now shift to discuss at least some of the clips using excerpts from previous reviews on my thoughts as Riker as a character.

 

The only characters who get a proper introduction is Frakes as Riker, introduced over halfway through the episode on Farpoint station. (“Encounter at Farpoint”)

 

Jonathan Frakes is honestly the only actor who seems to be comfortable enough with sexuality on display and everyone else, even the actors playing the Edoans, feel uncomfortable in the situations. (“Justice”)

 

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). (“Angel One”)

 

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. (“11001001”)

 

Marina Sirtis as Troi who is stuck in the position of damsel gets the more interesting performance in the immediate aftermath of Yar’s death, she doesn’t see it happen but emotionally feels it, selling exactly who she is to the audience quite well. (“Skin of Evil”)

 

This is an episode where there are several action sequences where characters like Riker have to fight older characters and they are shot at wide angles with stunt doubles.  Bole really should have setup shots to perhaps get close to the impact on Riker and not actually seeing the older characters throwing punches. (“Conspiracy”)

 

Riker who is turned into a complete asshole because someone potentially stole his woman. (“The Child”)

 

One of the central scenes between Riker and the Klingon crew he works for is eating dinner, something that could easily have been played for laughs in a culturally insensitive “look at these gross foods” a la Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, however, Riker while occasionally being taken aback, isn’t ever framed as being tortured by the food.  Riker takes the food in his own stride, even if the Klingons are aware of the lack of appeal of their food to the human palate.  They make jokes about Riker needing something softer, suggesting breastfeeding which gives some insight into some of the toxicity of Klingon society (though the episode also presents female Klingons as equally strong warriors, mixed with tropes of the femme fatale).  Those insights are not elaborated on, but they are laying the groundwork for future Klingon episodes.  Much of the material is also elevated by Jonathan Frakes’ performance: from his scenes with Michael Dorn to the Klingons to his scenes opposite Picard, Riker feels like a fully developed character and impossibly amicable.  (“A Matter of Honor”)

 

Outside of this, however, the plot with William and Kyle Riker is genuinely fantastic...Jonathan Frakes equally matches Ryan’s performance, Riker continually attempts to be the bigger person when speaking with anyone that isn’t his father…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. (“The Icarus Factor”)

 

2/10.

 

Bottom 5 Episodes of Season 2:

5.  The Dauphin

4. The Schizoid Man

3. Shades of Gray

2. Up the Long Ladder

1. The Child

 

Bottom 5 Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation So Far:

5. Justice

4. Up the Long Ladder

3. Angel One

2. The Child

1. Code of Honor

 

Top 5 Episodes of Season 2:

5. The Emissary

4. The Icarus Factor

3. Q Who

2. Elementary Dear Data

1. The Measure of a Man

Top 5 Episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation So Far:

5. Datalore

4. The Icarus Factor

3. Q Who

2. Elementary Dear Data

1. The Measure of a Man