“Suddenly Human” is written by: John Whelpley and Jeri
Taylor, from a story by: Ralph Phillips, and is directed by: Gabrielle Beaumont. It was produced under production code 176,
was the 4th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4,
the 78th episode overall, and was broadcast on October 15, 1990.
Star Trek: The Next Generation’s
fourth season has thus far built itself around ideas of family and identity. From “The Best of Both Worlds, Part II” and “Family”
examining Picard’s assimilation into the Borg as something that rocks who he is
fundamentally, to “Family” and “Brothers” exploring the strained family
dynamics including atypical family relationships. “Suddenly Human” is an episode that should
fit right in with where the show is currently going. The premise is the Enterprise finds a
ship of four Talarian teenagers and one human.
The human is an orphan who was adopted by the Talarians and has grown up
with their culture and customs, he no longer sees himself as a human being, has
no connection to his remaining human family as his grandmother is an Admiral in
Starfleet. The conflict of the episode
is whether or not Jono should stay with his Talarian father or be returned to his
human family. Now, where I will definitively
give the episode credit is that it ends with Jono making the decision for
himself and the implication is that the Enterprise crew are in the wrong
for wishing to impose human culture and force that culture onto the child. But to get to that point, this is one of
those incredibly awkward scripts where it’s clear that the attempts are being
made to handle difficult themes, taking inspiration from stories like Edgar
Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan of the Apes.
Stories about people being raised outside of their own species has a
long history, however, the different species is often coded to be from a
different race or culture. Burroughs was
writing during periods of colonialism and that is a general angle that is left
over in a piece like “Suddenly Human”.
The issues with this type of story is the coding of a
white man’s burden to civilize a savage, lost white child. Jono in many ways falls in this stereotype,
much of “Suddenly Human” pairs Jono with Picard who is meant to act as a role
model to the kid because the Talarians are a patriarchal and misogynistic
society. Jono won’t give women any sort
of respect, only being loyal to a vessel’s captain so in this case it is
Picard. There is also the very odd
decision to make the fact that Jono was adopted by the Talarian captain Endar,
played by Sherman Howard, as a mid-episode twist. The Enterprise crew is forcing the child
into the box of a human being, arguably not seeing Jono’s personhood until the
point at which he starts to assimilate into human society on the surface about
halfway through the episode (that and he has traumatic flashbacks to the death
of his parents). The crew doesn’t see
Talarians as people in a way that could be a commentary on how the liberally
minded can still have biases towards outsiders who have cultures that have distasteful
aspects, for instance the tendency to not see people of the Middle East as
people due to similar misogyny and homophobia, however this isn’t evident by
the text. The text of the episode says
that the crew is wrong in the end, Jono does get to chose to leave, but there
isn’t any examination of Talarian culture, in many ways it’s similar to Klingon
culture but is designated as having tensions with the Federation. The ending gets to the right place in the
end, but without actually examining much of the why these are the correct
decisions, leaving the tropes just tropes without examination.
For his part, Chad Allen as Jono is a really
compelling performance. He takes on the
alien customs and plays them without hesitation. Jono feels like a teenager, which is
interesting since adults often struggle with this kind of character. Jono’s breakdown is particularly
effective. Plus the ending of the
episode does work, even if it doesn’t quite make up for a lot of what the
episode is doing. The biggest problem
with the episode, however, is actually an issue of intertextuality. This is an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation
where our main characters are often written as out of character. Picard is the one who comes out the best, but
even he has the issue of being saddled with a child to show he might be a good
parent, something he isn’t interested in, and playing it as someone who hasn’t
dealt with children reads as if the writers have forgotten Wesley exists. The biggest offender of the episode is
actually Worf as it’s forgotten that his own upbringing is quite similar to Jono,
and he is written with a lack of empathy for the kid in the very few scenes
they share. These issues are clearly
down to the fact that this is an episode written by three people who seem to be
unfamiliar with Star Trek: The Next Generation, Jeri Taylor likely being
the one to come out of it the best as she became a producer immediately after
production for the two episodes before this (they were produced out of
order). Ralph Phillips is likely the
root of the issues, he is given the story credit and a cursory glance indicates
this is his only credit for both Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star
Trek as a franchise, John Whelpley at least having some connection with Star
Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Overall, “Suddenly Human” is not an episode without
potential, but on screen there is clearly a sense of too many cooks in a single
kitchen next door to the production of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The ideas are interesting and it is at the
very least an episode with its heart in the right place in terms of examining
aspects of a teenager’s identity, but the applicability is messy as the text
brings up several ideas from adoption to cultural identity to even child abuse (the
aspect most glossed over in the episode), while the main characters who are
framed as wrong are sadly out of character.
Being out of character doesn’t actively ruin the episode, but it does
mean that obvious parallels to characters are not made use of and the tropes at
the heart of the episode are left unexamined.
It’s an episode that ultimately says very little, leaving ideas on the
surface which weakens it greatly. 4/10.
