The Loss by: Hilary J. Bader, Allan J. Adler, and Vanessa Greene, from a story by: Hilary J. Bader, and directed by: Chip Chalmers

 

“The Loss” is written by: Hilary J. Bader, Alan J. Adler, and Vanessa Greene, from a story by: Hilary J. Bader, and is directed by: Chip Chalmers.  It was produced under production code 184, was the 10^th episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4, the 84^th episode overall, and was broadcast on December 31, 1990.

 

“The Loss” is a complicated and deeply problematic episode.  Structurally it fits right in with the character focused brief of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode.  The idea at the core of “The Loss” is examining the reality that anybody could become disabled, permanently or temporarily.  This is represented in the episode by Deanna Troi losing her empathic abilities due to the Enterprise encountering an energy phenomenon.  The crew understanding the phenomenon makes up the episode’s B-plot, discovering it to be two dimensional creatures heading towards a cosmic string which would tear the ship apart.  The B-plot is an example of a good B-plot, if one that is clearly underdeveloped due to the script having three distinct voices, and the resolution to that plot being what restores Troi’s empathic abilities as the status quo needs to be largely maintained in these episodes.  On the surface, the episode should be simple: focusing on the emotional fallout of a character becoming disabled is a bold and progressive choice for 1990.  Marina Sirtis plays Troi as incredibly distraught, fully committing to the loss of one of her senses and becoming an outsider among the crew due to the empathic abilities inhabiting a second nature of the character.  Where the script succeeds is at the raw emotion of the situation and the initial rejection of her friends’ sympathy.  That sympathy is portrayed as subconsciously ableist, and rightfully so, as a disabled person is not a broken person who needs fixing.  There is an almost immediate acknowledgement of certain myths about the disabled, such as the sharpening of other senses being unscientific for the reliance on other senses.  Sirtis’ performance is a powerhouse performance with this aspect of the material.  Troi throughout the first act is attempting to make adjustments but is not quite able to recover her ability pre-disability.

 

Absent are the question of accommodation for the lost sense, Troi as the ship’s counselor is expected to deal with part of her mind being forcibly removed on her own, which is the first sign of cracks within the episode as it moves past the first act.  This is made worse by how the other characters react to Troi’s condition.  There is an implication that these empathic abilities subconsciously put Troi above the other members of the crew, Riker even calling her aristocratic which reads as a substitution for having a superiority complex, which is not explored nearly enough.  This is the strongest aspect of “The Loss” after the first act even if it is incredibly shallow, only used as some flirting played wonderfully by Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes and ultimately dismissed.  There is a moment where Picard tells Troi that the loss of her empathic abilities just makes her the same as other counselors, something the episode frames as a disabled person being an inspiration for the able bodied.  This is particularly odd as earlier in the episode the script is clearly aware of this exact trope and why it is problematic, only to play the trope straight, a further indication of three writers contributing to the script.  This lack of accommodation could also have been integrated into the plot actively as a limitation of Starfleet’s structure, Troi as the only counselor is a problem as the episode clearly wants to position her as needing counseling as accommodation.  The loss of empathic abilities is used as an allegory for physical ability, using a science fiction based mental ability in its placed, and as the episode moves further away from the initial incident writers Hilary J. Bader, Alan J. Adler, and Vanessa Greene forget that Deanna Troi is still an adult with a neurotypical brain functioning in the same capacity as an adult, neurotypical human being.  “The Loss” posits that Troi is not a qualified counselor without these fictional empathic abilities, going so far as to make her incompetent and unable to perform her duties as counselor.  According to the script, she lacks basic human empathy.  A generous reading of the episode would have this be another aspect of the grief of losing the empathic abilities and the road to acceptance of that loss, overestimating how much her empathic abilities were relied upon.

 

Troi is paralleled with a recently widowed crewmember to explore how the road to cope with a loss, though a different type of loss, is one of ups and downs.  However, this is an episode that instead of showing Troi going on that journey, this is told to her by her coworkers.  Once again, Star Trek: The Next Generation infantilizes one of its few female characters, ignoring their own agency and failing to characterize them as a full adult capable of making her own decisions.  Were this just an extension of her grief, while it would likely not read as perfect it would be a softened blow.  Paralleling Troi with a widow clearly wants to show Troi not being able to see where she is making the same mistakes and focusing on the wrong details, but having her coworkers spell it out like this makes it worse.  It takes away Troi’s agency once again, continuing the clear pattern of the character.  Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan is included as pseudo-counselor since she is a bartender and yet from a performance standpoint Goldberg is almost uncomfortable with the role she is given here.  This is not because she cannot play the character, she has done in practically every previous appearance, but because on some level Goldberg understands what’s wrong with the script.  The episode then resolves itself; the breakthrough is incredibly short, lacking impact.  Troi gets some snippy lines towards Dr. Crusher to indicate a new confidence and the episode ends.

 

Overall, “The Loss” is an episode that uses more emotional manipulation.  Watching it the performances are obviously quite strong, strong enough that until writing this review I was even leaning towards positivity despite some rough edges.  Then you take the time to think about exactly what was being said after the first act and how Troi as a character is continually infantilized, losing any agency and being painted as an incompetent counselor as base state.  There is an implication of bigotry towards humanity that goes unexamined in favor of flirtation and a joke, while the script itself clearly has conflicting voices about how disabled people are meant to be viewed.  If it wasn’t for the first act’s genuinely progressive look at becoming disabled (at least for a 1990 episode of television), this would be among the absolute worst of the show, possibly even the franchise.  3/10.