“The Survivors” is written by: Michael Wagner and is directed by: Les Landau. It was produced under production code 151, was the 3rd episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3, the 51st 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment