I just read an article on the Washington Post, by Daniel Henninger, talking about the failure of modern Progressives to Govern, in which he makes reference to a phenomenon known as Social Deadlock.
Social Deadlock is the official name for that problem where a bunch of people get together to talk about subject X but spend the entire time talking about how to talk about subject X instead. In this case it references how the Climate Change activists spend all their time parsing proper names and inclusion and so forth.
While I normally never turn down an opportunity to bash Progressives and Climate Activists, in this case I don't really think its limited to the modern Left. For those of you reading overseas, this isn't limited to America either, as Henninger talks about Hollande and the UN meetings over Climate Change. It is certainly global as far as the 'West' is concerned.
I will say I believe it is more pronounced on the Left, however. I think it is recognized as a 'Left' oriented phenomenon, a Progressive Problem, which is why they use the term 'Social Deadlock'. Giving it a nice scientific name makes it a mere organizational problem, rather than a fundamental one. It takes the sting out of insulting them for this monumental failure.
The problem is simple, everyone wants to seem to be doing something, no one wants to actually do it. We've raised people who are more interested in Style than Substance. They are fundamentally unserious people. You know who else suffers 'Social Deadlock'? Children and people arguing over inanities. So, either the Global Warming crowd haven't made it past the Prom Design Committee stage of organization, or they are well aware that they are not talking about anything serious.
Sadly, I think that, for the main, its the former.
Something happened a little over ten years ago in the West, not a political sea change, though one seemed to accompany it. I'm not entirely sure what it was, but I suspect a small number of the right people, people from previous eras, either died off or retired from public life. The people who stepped up to bat seemed to believe that that the Status Quo would continue indefinitely, carried by inertia.
I don't mean the Status Quo in reference to Republicans vs Democrats, Right vs Left... I mean that Gas will continue to be sold at the pumps, Food will continue to be sold in stores and electricity coming through the wires. You know: The building blocks of modern civilization. Perhaps they believe that a house, once built, remains forever without any work.
Its endemic to the so called ruling class, the moneyed intellectuals (but never, ever call them Rich!), who go to Ivy League Schools, set up shop in New York or Washington DC. They have no idea how things really work, and they look down on people who do as inferior. But its not limited to them: all around the country I've met so many people who are nearly thirty who can't maintain their own cars, who adopt the attitudes of teenagers about 'stuff'. A handful have hobby interests, like customizing Computers and so forth, but they are the exception. I won't diminish their rational for learning 'how shit works'... hobbies are as good a reason as anything.
The thing of it is this: The Status Quo will not remain. You can't punish the people who keep the system running indefinitely, you can't print money until the ink wells run dry. You can't 'govern' by golfing and jetting to meetings in exotic lands, by conference and fiat. Someone with their hand on the wheel needs to know 'how shit works'. It doesn't have to be the king, and history often shows us that it wasn't, but they have to know.
Our current generation not only doesn't know, they don't want to know... they actively despise knowing. They want to talk and think, to be 'Idea Men', to be overseers holding the whips that drive the peons to accomplish great deeds. Their highest ambitions are to recreate the building of the great pyramids... but even back then someone had to know 'how shit works'. Simply whipping your slaves to work harder won't make a great monument if no one knows how to build it.
Here is how a 'Climate Change Conference' should look, in a world run by adults, by people who understand 'how shit works': instead of arguing over terms and, I assume, avoiding trigger language, someone sets forth a significant major goal... say, sustaining average global temperatures, or reducing the number of Hurricanes per year. A committee is assembled to determine, for the whole conference, how best to measure these changes, another sets smaller goals that work towards that goal. Things like reducing carbon emissions by X percent world wide.
Now you have two things: A metric of progress towards a goal, and a means to get there.
Something drastically lacking in the modern climate movement, by the way. They have emergent crisis that demand 'things be done, right now! Do MORE!', with no real goals other than 'Do MORE NOW!'.
You know what you don't have in that senario?
Social Deadlock.
Which exposes a fundamental flaw in this way of thinking. Nothing can ever be done about 'climate change' because no one involved actually understands how to accomplish anything, much less organize people. They know how to agitate, how to think and have grand ideas, and how to get appointed to various non-profits.
And they shun anyone who could organize such conference as being beneath them. Now, at least a number of influential people in the climate movement probably don't want such a person for the simple reason that: They know its a sham, and actually making forward progress would undermine their money-train, but what about the rest of them? The True Believers, what is their excuse?
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Monday, March 24, 2014
The Last Post, TNG, mini-Review
This episode is somewhat less irritating than the previous episodes, if only because there is so much less cultural bravado it in. The Enterprise is chasing a Ferengi vessel that stole some sort of power converter (if it was bought at Tashi Station is never stated) from a Federation outpost. There is some general nonsense, in the dialog, but nothing unexpected.
The Ferengi ship hits orbit over an unexplored planet, slows to sub-light, so the Enterprise slows to Impulse. I'll overlook imprecision in the dialog here... blah, blah, blast of light and the Enterprise is stuck in some sort of energy drain.
The takeaway point is that, despite dialog on Farpoint, in the Pilot, the Federation literally only knows about the Ferengi from rumors at this point, so they think the Ferengi vessel has trapped them.
Only, it turns out: not. The planet, according to the ship's library, is an old outpost of the Tkon empire, which existed six hundred thousand years earlier. Picard's never heard of them, but his fascination with archeology hasn't been established fully yet, so we'll forgive that.
There is some 'one world' nonsense being promulgated, general mockery of the concept of nations and patriotism in general, and we learn that the Federation doesn't really teach any real history except the bad parts to prove how superior they are. Yar has no idea what flags are, for example, which is a bit like me not knowing what a 'coat of arms' is.
Anyway: While they think the Ferengi vessel has trapped them they prepare to surrender despite not receiving a single call back from the Ferengi.
This is....
Annoying. Extremely annoying. While they make one attempt to escape the energy trap that fails, Picard unilaterally rejects all other attempts to break free, preferring to open a dialog openly offering to surrender, without it even being asked of him.
If you know nothing of the military, recognize that this is a court-martial offense as bad as anything, probably worse than anything, Picard has ever done, Prime Directive or not. Luckily it turns out the Ferengi are prepared to surrender themselves, and they mistake his offer for a demand. Of course, this pretty much means that the Ferengi understand human/English Idiomatic military speak, as I don't recall Picard actually saying "Surrender" at any point, but talking around the word about 'terms' and so forth.
Anyway, this leads to everyone figuring out that its the planet, and a somewhat famous scene of Data getting caught in a chinese finger puzzle. Given the nature of their previous escape attempt, I can only assume this will lead to figuring out how to escape the trap somehow, as metaphoric concepts translate to technobabble on a one for one basis.
Anyway, this eventually leads me to why I chose to continue reviewing for another episode. They make a deal with the Ferengi to send joint away teams to the planet, where everyone is scattered by the trap. Worf, Laforge, Riker and Data are stunned by the Ferengi, and then wake up and begin fighting.
Remember when I was talking about how a chick-asskicker in a politically agenda'd show can never be legitimately captured? Yar saves everyone by walking out of the mists with her phaser drawn.
Woo.Fucking.Hoo.
Let me point this out: The Three Midget Ferengi are successfully kicking Worf and Data down, along with Riker and LaForge, and are fully armed with their own whip-blaster things, which obviously have a substantial Area of Effect for the blast (stunning even Data at a range of two or three meters from point of impact), but Yar shows up and it's 'fight over'?
Because, again: A chick asskicker can not be defeated without giving lie to physical inequities. Even by Armin Shimmerman in full makeup as an alien.
Well, we can vaguely excuse this because the Ferengi aren't so much intimidated by Yar as they are shocked that Human's actually force their women to wear clothes... so yes, grossly sexists evil aliens. Eh. I still preferred them to the tamer Ferengi of later seasons (and DS9 for that matter). Sort of. I mean: The Ferengi are aggressively alien to us, which is something Star Trek has ever struggled with, but their portrayal here is less 'alien' and more 'feral', which directly contradicts their technological capabilities.
Then too, remember in Naked Now, when I pointed out how difficult it is to get a room cold enough, in space, to create hoarfrost?
Yeah: The Last Post more or less makes the same elemental mistake about space, physics and heat loss. Space is an excellent insulator. Ironically, they have an out here... unlike in Naked Now, they aren't generating power so much, the drain could be used to explain the rapid heat loss too, but they don't do that. I don't give passes that aren't earned, so fuck Star Trek and their lack of space physics.
Yes: the enterprise would get to around two hundred degrees below zero in Earth Orbit without power. Eventually. It should be measured in Kelvins, but this one they get a pass on because... viewers. But how long exactly would it take to simply radiate out that much heat?
Not mere minutes, I'll tell you that. You think it would be that fast? Tell ya what: go put a pie in the oven. I'll wait. Now, as soon as its done cooking, turn the oven off and take that pie right out of the oven with your bare hands. Too hot? Okay, wait a few minutes. Now try.
That pie probably masses less than a kilogram, and it holds heat pretty damn good. Now, the heat of that pie is being sucked out of it by convection... that is the pie is transferring heat to the air around it, the hot air moves away from the pie and cold air takes its place, which is one reason taking the pie out of the closed oven lets it cool faster.
In space there is no air to be heated, no moving of hot and cold air. There is no convection. For all Space is Damn Cold, that pie would actually stay hot longer in space than it will on your countertop.
Now: the Enterprise is a damn sight larger than a Pie. So while it may not be as hot as a fresh baked pie, it holds a helluva lot more energy than a pie does, so it takes a helluva lot more time to cool off. Never mind that if you piled all the several thousand people aboard into a few close room and closed the doors, mere body heat and insulation would keep those rooms unpleasantly toasty for a long, long time even if the ship was igloo cold.
Now: air quality? that could be a reasonable problem to face. But they'd all choke to death on their own carbon dioxide before they froze. Too bad the writers didn't think of that, eh?
Anyway: Picard is walking around in the dark and 'cold' ship talking to Crusher and they have a bit of an exchange about Wesley. Crusher wanted to sedate her son so he wouldn't have to be awake to freeze to death and Picard says something reasonably sensible about having the right to face death awake. Its not a grand sentiment, perhaps... questionable maybe... but its a reasonable thing to say.
Crusher asks him if that is a male perspective, rather condemnatory. Picard turns away and croaks something that sounds like 'rubbish'.
Its a curious scene, and rather condemnatory no matter how Picard responded simply because its included. It sort of just hangs there, accusing Picard of some sort of primitive masculinism that goes unchallenged.
Look: I think everyone can make up their own damn minds if they'd prefer to meet death awake and aware or stoned out of their gourds. The idea that its more manly to confront freezing to death is a bit silly, and I'm generally inclined to pro-masculine honor and all that jazz. But Crusher's sneering remark is the voice of the show, more or less. Picard doesn't confront her at all, doesn't make an honest, expected statement about how its a human right, or whatever.
Back on the planet Yar is finding the Ferengi don't respect her Authoratah, so she phases them, only to have her blast absorbed by the 'inert' crystals that Data was investigating earlier. The Ferengi, who has just used their blasters earlier, find their weapons do the same thing.
Note: Data called the giant crystal formations inert and uninteresting, which is sort of like his problem with the word Impossible in Naked Now. Clearly he is fascinated by them, as he ignores Riker calling for him until Riker is more or less in his face, inspecting the crystals, and since the damn things glow from within they are clearly not 'Inert' from a scientific point of view.
Anyway: LaForge's 'eyes' aren't just showing him Yar's pointy nipples, they also let him see 'lines of force' and so forth. In other words, he's been watching the Electric Koolaide show the entire time they've been on planet, but he just now mentions it when they realize the crystals are sucking in power. Still doesn't address why the Ferengi blaster worked earlier (lampshaded by Riker, who asks the same question...hee!).
Then a glowing face appears demanding the barbarians speak. He says some junk about being Portal 63, who faces the challenge (the Ferengi point to Riker, but this is unused), and who enters the Tkon empire...
So, the Tkon Empire has a pretty brutal Custom's regime, what with draining life support power and so on...
Anyway, Portal materializes as an old bent man with a big spear, going on about how excellent it is to be a biped, and he and Data argue for a while about the proper dating of the Tkon Empire, which is actually somewhat interesting to me, but is sadly cut short.
Again: How the hell does the Federation have such exhaustive notes about an empire that came and went before any of the established Major Races of the Federation had learned to rub sticks together to make fire?
Since I don't think the Tkon Empire ever makes another appearance anywhere in Star Trek, it is safe to say we will never know. *
Anyway: the Ferengi rather cunningly accuse the Federation of being barbaric, using their own high ground against them. This is the first, and probably last time in Star Trek that approaches an actual debate on the merits of rules like the Prime Directive. And, keeping with the finest traditions of Picard, Riker proceeded to agree that humans are savage, barbaric animals worthy of destruction, or something. This leads to a curious bit of Chekov's Gunning... as apparently Star Fleet teaches Sun Tsu, specifically 'Know when to fight and when not to fight', which is exactly the same words Portal uses at the start of his Challenge to Riker.
Anyway, since ST could never actually hold an honest, intellectual debate on any moral point... at least not one central to the utopian ideals of the Federation, Portal quickly dismisses the Ferengi as closed minded savages, and begins a little intellectual discussion with Riker. Sigh.
Portal releases the Enterprise, and as the lights come on people start waking up. Kinda like they were suffocating on their own bad air, rather than freezing to death. Sigh.
Curiously, of course, the finger puzzles have nothing to do with overcoming the trap. Instead they make a joke appearance at the end as Riker offers to send a box to the Ferengi as some sort of revenge, and LaForge is stuck in one as well.
Seriously: Chinese Finger Puzzles aren't THAT hard to solve. I can ignore, if not forgive, Data for being troubled by one (seriously though: Its the instinctive pulling away that makes the puzzle work. Data shouldn't have that instinct, and his mind works on mathematics and logic... simply analyzing the design of the tube should reveal how the damn thing works to him, in seconds. Once Picard 'freed' him in front of everyone, none of the bridge officers should be bothered by finger puzzles. Fuck a Duck, this 'gag a week' writing stinks of old limburg cheese.
*The exception being non-canon books, which I don't read. Memory Alpha is useful for this sort of thing.
The Ferengi ship hits orbit over an unexplored planet, slows to sub-light, so the Enterprise slows to Impulse. I'll overlook imprecision in the dialog here... blah, blah, blast of light and the Enterprise is stuck in some sort of energy drain.
The takeaway point is that, despite dialog on Farpoint, in the Pilot, the Federation literally only knows about the Ferengi from rumors at this point, so they think the Ferengi vessel has trapped them.
Only, it turns out: not. The planet, according to the ship's library, is an old outpost of the Tkon empire, which existed six hundred thousand years earlier. Picard's never heard of them, but his fascination with archeology hasn't been established fully yet, so we'll forgive that.
There is some 'one world' nonsense being promulgated, general mockery of the concept of nations and patriotism in general, and we learn that the Federation doesn't really teach any real history except the bad parts to prove how superior they are. Yar has no idea what flags are, for example, which is a bit like me not knowing what a 'coat of arms' is.
Anyway: While they think the Ferengi vessel has trapped them they prepare to surrender despite not receiving a single call back from the Ferengi.
This is....
Annoying. Extremely annoying. While they make one attempt to escape the energy trap that fails, Picard unilaterally rejects all other attempts to break free, preferring to open a dialog openly offering to surrender, without it even being asked of him.
If you know nothing of the military, recognize that this is a court-martial offense as bad as anything, probably worse than anything, Picard has ever done, Prime Directive or not. Luckily it turns out the Ferengi are prepared to surrender themselves, and they mistake his offer for a demand. Of course, this pretty much means that the Ferengi understand human/English Idiomatic military speak, as I don't recall Picard actually saying "Surrender" at any point, but talking around the word about 'terms' and so forth.
Anyway, this leads to everyone figuring out that its the planet, and a somewhat famous scene of Data getting caught in a chinese finger puzzle. Given the nature of their previous escape attempt, I can only assume this will lead to figuring out how to escape the trap somehow, as metaphoric concepts translate to technobabble on a one for one basis.
Anyway, this eventually leads me to why I chose to continue reviewing for another episode. They make a deal with the Ferengi to send joint away teams to the planet, where everyone is scattered by the trap. Worf, Laforge, Riker and Data are stunned by the Ferengi, and then wake up and begin fighting.
Remember when I was talking about how a chick-asskicker in a politically agenda'd show can never be legitimately captured? Yar saves everyone by walking out of the mists with her phaser drawn.
Woo.Fucking.Hoo.
Let me point this out: The Three Midget Ferengi are successfully kicking Worf and Data down, along with Riker and LaForge, and are fully armed with their own whip-blaster things, which obviously have a substantial Area of Effect for the blast (stunning even Data at a range of two or three meters from point of impact), but Yar shows up and it's 'fight over'?
Because, again: A chick asskicker can not be defeated without giving lie to physical inequities. Even by Armin Shimmerman in full makeup as an alien.
Well, we can vaguely excuse this because the Ferengi aren't so much intimidated by Yar as they are shocked that Human's actually force their women to wear clothes... so yes, grossly sexists evil aliens. Eh. I still preferred them to the tamer Ferengi of later seasons (and DS9 for that matter). Sort of. I mean: The Ferengi are aggressively alien to us, which is something Star Trek has ever struggled with, but their portrayal here is less 'alien' and more 'feral', which directly contradicts their technological capabilities.
Then too, remember in Naked Now, when I pointed out how difficult it is to get a room cold enough, in space, to create hoarfrost?
Yeah: The Last Post more or less makes the same elemental mistake about space, physics and heat loss. Space is an excellent insulator. Ironically, they have an out here... unlike in Naked Now, they aren't generating power so much, the drain could be used to explain the rapid heat loss too, but they don't do that. I don't give passes that aren't earned, so fuck Star Trek and their lack of space physics.
Yes: the enterprise would get to around two hundred degrees below zero in Earth Orbit without power. Eventually. It should be measured in Kelvins, but this one they get a pass on because... viewers. But how long exactly would it take to simply radiate out that much heat?
Not mere minutes, I'll tell you that. You think it would be that fast? Tell ya what: go put a pie in the oven. I'll wait. Now, as soon as its done cooking, turn the oven off and take that pie right out of the oven with your bare hands. Too hot? Okay, wait a few minutes. Now try.
That pie probably masses less than a kilogram, and it holds heat pretty damn good. Now, the heat of that pie is being sucked out of it by convection... that is the pie is transferring heat to the air around it, the hot air moves away from the pie and cold air takes its place, which is one reason taking the pie out of the closed oven lets it cool faster.
In space there is no air to be heated, no moving of hot and cold air. There is no convection. For all Space is Damn Cold, that pie would actually stay hot longer in space than it will on your countertop.
Now: the Enterprise is a damn sight larger than a Pie. So while it may not be as hot as a fresh baked pie, it holds a helluva lot more energy than a pie does, so it takes a helluva lot more time to cool off. Never mind that if you piled all the several thousand people aboard into a few close room and closed the doors, mere body heat and insulation would keep those rooms unpleasantly toasty for a long, long time even if the ship was igloo cold.
Now: air quality? that could be a reasonable problem to face. But they'd all choke to death on their own carbon dioxide before they froze. Too bad the writers didn't think of that, eh?
Anyway: Picard is walking around in the dark and 'cold' ship talking to Crusher and they have a bit of an exchange about Wesley. Crusher wanted to sedate her son so he wouldn't have to be awake to freeze to death and Picard says something reasonably sensible about having the right to face death awake. Its not a grand sentiment, perhaps... questionable maybe... but its a reasonable thing to say.
Crusher asks him if that is a male perspective, rather condemnatory. Picard turns away and croaks something that sounds like 'rubbish'.
Its a curious scene, and rather condemnatory no matter how Picard responded simply because its included. It sort of just hangs there, accusing Picard of some sort of primitive masculinism that goes unchallenged.
Look: I think everyone can make up their own damn minds if they'd prefer to meet death awake and aware or stoned out of their gourds. The idea that its more manly to confront freezing to death is a bit silly, and I'm generally inclined to pro-masculine honor and all that jazz. But Crusher's sneering remark is the voice of the show, more or less. Picard doesn't confront her at all, doesn't make an honest, expected statement about how its a human right, or whatever.
Back on the planet Yar is finding the Ferengi don't respect her Authoratah, so she phases them, only to have her blast absorbed by the 'inert' crystals that Data was investigating earlier. The Ferengi, who has just used their blasters earlier, find their weapons do the same thing.
Note: Data called the giant crystal formations inert and uninteresting, which is sort of like his problem with the word Impossible in Naked Now. Clearly he is fascinated by them, as he ignores Riker calling for him until Riker is more or less in his face, inspecting the crystals, and since the damn things glow from within they are clearly not 'Inert' from a scientific point of view.
Anyway: LaForge's 'eyes' aren't just showing him Yar's pointy nipples, they also let him see 'lines of force' and so forth. In other words, he's been watching the Electric Koolaide show the entire time they've been on planet, but he just now mentions it when they realize the crystals are sucking in power. Still doesn't address why the Ferengi blaster worked earlier (lampshaded by Riker, who asks the same question...hee!).
Then a glowing face appears demanding the barbarians speak. He says some junk about being Portal 63, who faces the challenge (the Ferengi point to Riker, but this is unused), and who enters the Tkon empire...
So, the Tkon Empire has a pretty brutal Custom's regime, what with draining life support power and so on...
Anyway, Portal materializes as an old bent man with a big spear, going on about how excellent it is to be a biped, and he and Data argue for a while about the proper dating of the Tkon Empire, which is actually somewhat interesting to me, but is sadly cut short.
Again: How the hell does the Federation have such exhaustive notes about an empire that came and went before any of the established Major Races of the Federation had learned to rub sticks together to make fire?
Since I don't think the Tkon Empire ever makes another appearance anywhere in Star Trek, it is safe to say we will never know. *
Anyway: the Ferengi rather cunningly accuse the Federation of being barbaric, using their own high ground against them. This is the first, and probably last time in Star Trek that approaches an actual debate on the merits of rules like the Prime Directive. And, keeping with the finest traditions of Picard, Riker proceeded to agree that humans are savage, barbaric animals worthy of destruction, or something. This leads to a curious bit of Chekov's Gunning... as apparently Star Fleet teaches Sun Tsu, specifically 'Know when to fight and when not to fight', which is exactly the same words Portal uses at the start of his Challenge to Riker.
Anyway, since ST could never actually hold an honest, intellectual debate on any moral point... at least not one central to the utopian ideals of the Federation, Portal quickly dismisses the Ferengi as closed minded savages, and begins a little intellectual discussion with Riker. Sigh.
Portal releases the Enterprise, and as the lights come on people start waking up. Kinda like they were suffocating on their own bad air, rather than freezing to death. Sigh.
Curiously, of course, the finger puzzles have nothing to do with overcoming the trap. Instead they make a joke appearance at the end as Riker offers to send a box to the Ferengi as some sort of revenge, and LaForge is stuck in one as well.
Seriously: Chinese Finger Puzzles aren't THAT hard to solve. I can ignore, if not forgive, Data for being troubled by one (seriously though: Its the instinctive pulling away that makes the puzzle work. Data shouldn't have that instinct, and his mind works on mathematics and logic... simply analyzing the design of the tube should reveal how the damn thing works to him, in seconds. Once Picard 'freed' him in front of everyone, none of the bridge officers should be bothered by finger puzzles. Fuck a Duck, this 'gag a week' writing stinks of old limburg cheese.
*The exception being non-canon books, which I don't read. Memory Alpha is useful for this sort of thing.
Code of Honor Real Time Review
So we begin with Picard explaining that they have to get a 'rare Vaccine' from a world called Lutan, which requires some diplomacy.
Rare?
I don't know much about some things, but my understanding of vaccines is that they are not exactly mined. Why is it rare? Why can't it be replicated? I mean, we haven't seen a replicator yet in the series, but still. I have questions.
Anyway: Yar is standing by in a Cargo Bay to receive the Lutan delegation. Cargo bay? Really? The Enterprise doesn't have a better place to recieve dignitaries? Anyway, Picard takes Riker and Troi with him.
What is the point of having a second in command if you take him with you when you leave the bridge? Bah.
Anyway, the Lutan use their own transporters, and Picard shows he has a good briefing on Lutan diplomatic protocols. The Lutan are a bunch of black guys dressed like Arabian Nights. Are they human? Human looking aliens? What's up with these guys? Their leader is shocked that Yar is chief of security because, woman.
Well. Yeah. I mean, if this wasn't TV he might have a point. But since it's TV, Picard paternalistically explains that, yup, Yar is a woman, so what?
They move on, but you know this is going to be a major plot point. Sigh. I really hoped to avoid heavy handed moralizing this early on, stupid me. The Lutan leader sends his second in command forward with a sample of the vaccine and Plot Happens.
Oops. I mean, Yar leaps forward insisting her job as chief of security means stopping this diplomat from delivering his gift or something. The guy says "out of my way, wo-man.", and Yar does TV Judo on him, throwing him all over the cargo bay.
Its gonna be a long episode.
Lutan leader guy is more amused than upset, but at least Denise Crosby has the mind to look dumbfounded at how stupid her character just acted.
Never mind gender politics: If that had been a male chief of security on a diplomatic mission he'd have been up on charges from Picard, or should have been. In two episodes where she gets to be security chief instead of 'drunk temptress', Yar has shown herself to be singularly unfit for command level responsibilities, mostly because she jumps up and judo throws motherfuckers at the drop of a hat. This is security as envisioned by gangsta bodyguards, not military and diplomatic forces.
So Yar looks at the box and determines its not a bomb or something. Troi, out loud, tells Picard not to apologize, since it would weaken them. Dude, the Lutan are literally ten feet away and watching you. Now is not the time to be giving that advice. Picard offers to entertain the Lutan, who of course accept.
So the crew leaves the cargo bay, letting the Lutan drop plot anvils all over the place, in case you needed evidence that the Lutan were going to be the focus of the plot and not some goofy story about delivering life saving medicine across half the galaxy.
Opening Credits
Data delivers a ceramic horse which Picard explains is 14th century Tsung Chinese (saying something about how Lutan culture resembles a historical Earth culture they all admire. I'm not sure if the two ideas are linked, but if they are what exactly does this say about the Federation?). The Lutan protest that they don't like outsiders and are somehow technologically inferior to the Federation (what with their own transporter technology? Can't be too far behind!), but how they have this rare vaccine to "Anghelese Fever"... so we're setting up the clash of primitive vs future-modern civilizations here.
I'll note that this episode would have made a far greater test of Humanity than Farpoint Station was for Q, just based on the premise setup, more nuanced. Q's test was essentially a 'blind idiot' test, passable by almost any blind idiot.
So the leader of the Lutan dismisses his guards and I see that they still have random extras in Skirts in the background, so Yay!. Then the Lutan guy asks to see a holodeck. Lots of reaction shots throughout the scene, mostly to Yar, a couple to Troi. Probably because it is boring and nearly pointless, delaying the start of the plot for another scene or two.
Ah. Moralizing.
Okay, so Picard makes the unintentional entendre regarding the use of Holodecks for things other than Training and offers Riker to show the Lutan guy the deck, he requests instead that Yar shows him, perhaps with some combat sparring. Riker chimes in about how the Lutan are way to fascinated with Yar's boobs'n'badge combo, and Lutan's assistant comments about how Lutan women merely own the land, and men protect it, then Troi snarks in about some (unspecific) human cultures do/did the same.
ugh.
We so get it: The Lutan are chauvinistic pigs, right? The Federation is much more advanced, not just technically, but morally for having a chick run security.
Oh, wait? What was that: the women of Lutan own all the property you say? I seem to recall how this will end, but, in due time.
Anyway: Yar totally cuts the morality play off to offer to kick this guy's ass... out of respect. Okay, sure. Anything to get the ball rolling.
So, Yar leads the two Lutan into the holodeck, puts on a long Gi jacket over her uniform. Why? Because Hollywood. Then a training mat and white ninja shows up for her to use as a test dummy.
So this guy, whose name apparently is Lutan, asks if she can create people... without a soul!
So she explains to this hopeless savage primitive (with Transporter technology!!!!) that its just a computer simulation. To demonstrate she walks up and asks the ninja questions. Silly woman: Ninja don't talk! Then she fights it in a pretty lame demonstration of, I suppose, Akido (based on her previous dialog), tossing the ninja around the mat a couple of times. Lutan's second doubts his lying eyes, so Lutan tells him to fight it. Naturally he gets tossed on his ass, because fuck him.
Yar dismissed the Ninja, but she takes off the jacket. You know, because its a holo image to begin with and would disappear if she willed it... but that would cost special effects money. She explains how the ninja learns and becomes unbeatable...
Which means its pretty useless as a training aid, really.
Anyway: Back at the cargo bay, Lutan totally transporter kidnaps Yar. Who didn't see that coming? Let me say that Troi, giving her best Bitch-Face the entire episode so far, was fucking useless. Lutan and company are apparently very good at playing poker with empaths.
So, on the bridge Picard makes radio demands and launches photon torpedoes at the surface with 'demonstration blasts' a thousand meters above the surface, while technobabble tells us they can't trace the transporter because, science. Data has a fun moment where he realizes no one cares about his technobabble and shuts up now. Troi has to admit Yar is hot (she definitely hit that during Naked Now...), and then that Lutan apparently had the emotional state of Ambition.
Then everyone except Picard knows that the Natives respect Patience, which is cheap exposition at its finest, and also a way for the writers to transition to the next scene, since they don't want the Ligonians(??) responding to Picard's hails.
Picard narrates a captain's log, establishing a day has passed, that they've scanned the surface and so forth. Crusher comes into the captain's ready room repeating The vaccine and reveals it become unstable when she tries to replicate it (or perhaps Replicate it... making this the first real reference to Replicators in the show?). She goes on about how Picard has never seen a patient die of 'this disease', and Picard replies that its true... but he has seen his share of death. Maybe its an artifact of my pausing when I did, but Crusher totally seems to give him an eye roll at that. Heh.
That means they are one upping each other on how much torture porn they've watched? Love it.
Picard flatters her, and she dismisses herself only to turn back and ask, in a sort of pseudo british/new England Upper Crust accent 'May I speak to you about my son, wesley?", which throws Picard for a loop, seeing as he seemed to think they were flirting, and single mom curveball and all that.
Apparently, despite the fact that Farpoint did in fact air, they are going to treat it as if it didn't, so there is a bit of a reprise of the whole 'Wesley's on the turbo lift, which totally isn't the bridge', so Picard can start warming up to the lad.
Without a single mention of the fact that he totally committed mutiny the previous episode and almost killed them all by letting Shimoda dismantle the computer to play Jenga with the parts.
So, Picard really wants into Crusher's Onsie, badly. He totally just puts Wesley into the ops station, so baldly violating his own orders that just about everyone asks him 'what the fuck, cap?'. He is all commanding and shit while he does it, but damn...
And everyone wears a shiteating grin while Wesley takes his temporary place, as if Yar wasn't kidnapped. Troi, who apparently has mixed feeling about Yar from Naked Now (what with the 'you can't be the cool sexy blonde and steal my wardrobe too, but we'll totally have drunk sex later combo) still, is still smiling when she reports that they have found something in the diplomatic brief.
So, Data starts to give the briefing after everyone gathers like he is a view screen. He references Counting Coup as a way to describe Lutan's actions. I don't recall Lutan hitting anyone with a stick? The fuck? To hide that Lutan's actions in No Way resembled 'counting Coup', Data sticks a reference to French as an obscure language, so we can have more character building from 'Jean-Luc'.
Note: While everyone praises Patrick Stewart's Acting, I just want to point out that if he was serious about his acting in this show he would have worked up a french accent rather than his british one.
Anyway, they go on for a bit about counting coup and Lutan's personality profile, which lets us transition to Lutan calling. Apparently the Enterprise put him on screen with out transmitting image, since Lutan demands to see them.
Everyone tells Picard that in Ligonian Culture the right thing to do now is Ask Politely for Yar back.
Inside a day the staff have managed to sort this out from their diplomatic briefings, but in the days or weeks it took to get to Ligon(?) they apparently missed all these minefields. Worst Naval Crew Ever?
So Picard bites his tongue, praises Lutan, and politely asks for Yar back. Lutan invites him to visit to get Yar back... and commercial.
Ugh.
This is all just a really ugly way to keep things moving forward. We're a third the way through the show and the only thing that's really happened is Yar getting kidnapped. This entire farce of a scene was JUST to get Picard to the surface, really.
So we cut to... the command trio in their chairs, with Data behind them on the mezzanine, or whatever they called it. Troi says, heavily "Commander". that's all she says. Riker, whose actually rank is, in fact, Commander, misses a beat before noting that is... very formal of her.
Its... ugly and unnatural. Troi is asking Riker to let Picard lead the away team, with Data concurring.
Um. This is a Diplomatic Mission. This shouldn't even be a question, even with the whole kidnapping bit. So we've gone from the Kirkian Insanity of the entire command staff going on every single away mission, to Picard being swaddled like a baby?
Picard does the whole scene without dialog, just body language and breathing. Its kinda interesting. Then Riker threatens to put him on report and everyone smiles. You know, because its all light hearted fun, right?
Fucking tonal shifts.
So, planet surface, Picard and Troi, and repeating what we already have been told exhaustively: That asking for Yar back politely is the route to take. Lutan wants the public validation of his boldness with a public ceremony, blah blah. The key takeaway in the scene, I believe is, in fact, the introduction of Lutan's 'first one'... which is supposed to be his first wife?
So, Yar is brought out, still in uniform and unbound. Apparently she's been kicking ass all day.
The twenty four dollar question: Why doesn't Picard grab Yar at this moment and... kidnap her back? Oh, I mean there are still the vaccine negotiations and all that... but rather than babble on and on about honor and banquets, a bit of a comment about the validity of kidnapping her back would have been smart. Oh well...
Banquet: Ax juggler. 'nuff said.
Anyway: Yar walks out and sits on the dias by Lutan, Picard gets up and does the whole diplomatic spiel, Lutan is pleased and makes his speech... and... twist!
Lutan won't give Yar back. He LURVES her and wants to make her his 'First One'. The other woman, the First One we met in the previous scene stands up and challenges Yar to a fight to the death, which apparently hasn't been done in 200 years, according to exposition drops made during her challenge.
The writers get a bit confused I think. Picard leaps in to deny the challenge on Yar's behalf, which I suppose is fine, then Lutan stands up to shout how there will be no treaty, no vaccine and no Yar... and Scene!
See: the wife leveled the challenge, so I'm thinking Lutan can't just interject here. Maybe he can, maybe not but how would that work? In any given code of honor, how would he be able to deny all three on behalf of his wife's challenge?
Riker's log: They're maintaining combat readiness... because the Ligonians have such an awesome navy or something? Seriously, this is like me noticing that my dog is looking a bit shady and worrying about a knife in the dark.
No, he's a dog, and not even a big dog. The most I got to worry about is him chewing my ankle a little bit. Maintaining combat readiness against his future attacks is sort of... overkill.
Moving on.
Picard interrupts Yar's pre-fight stretching to interrogate her on Lutan's plans. Really? I guess I can't blame him, given how when he asks the experts on his team they generally tell him nothing, I guess I'd be a bit starved and desperate for answers too after a few weeks of that.
Troi pulls the bitch card and calls Yar out on being flattered that Lutan desires her, which is just cold. Even poor, naive Yar figures out what she just did. "Troi you're my friend and you just bitchslapped me!"
To which Troi doth protest too much, claiming it was for Yar's own good.
Lolwut?!
Picard is mostly oblivious to the girl-fight going on around him, so he interjects to offer fatherly wisdom to Yar and protest about all the manipulation going on, which Troi uses to camouflage her own unnecessary bitch move by making a non-sequitor about the Prime Directive.
The Prime Directive? The one that says Star Fleet will not interfere in any way with the development of pre-spaceflight races?
The Ligonian's have space defenses of some sort and Transporter technology, the Federation is dealing with them openly (interfering). If the Prime Directive applied at all, the Federation was long violating it before the Enterprise arrived.
And showing he is no real master of Federation Laws, Picard bluffs by admitting that the thought had crossed his mind.
Cut to the bridge. Crusher walks on from the Turbolift. I say that because her posture is... weird, unnatural. Anyway, as she gets over to Riker, he just 'Whats this message say?" to her out of left field and she looks and starts talking infection rates and plague. So this is a really ugly way of getting the crew to express how super cereal this whole Lutan business is, right. Laforge chimes in from offscreen, cut too as he talks about millions of deaths. Because Super Cereal.
Cut to Yar doing her pre-fight boasting to Troi, Picard walks in so we can continue hammering how deadly the plague is, then Troi basically tells Picard to let Yar fight so they can get the vaccine, and how betazoids are, like, really practical and some stuff.
Entirely missing from this is that Yar would be fighting to marry Lutan, right? Right?!
So, Picard goes to talk to Lutan and find out more. He stumbles across Lutan talking with his Second, and instead of letting them go on and plot exposit (the sensible but un-cinematic thing to do) he interrupts to admit that Yar is a 'desirable female', and then to admit he knows nothing of wants and needs or something... what? I mean, I guess he's playing Lutan here, drawing him out, but the fuck???
So... Picard is supposed to be the Robot?
For the slow kids, we learn for the second time that males on Ligonia don't actually own anything, and Lutan 'panic gestures' to cut off this super-important point, so we all know how important it is, this time. Because letting Picard know something that every Ligonian already knows is bad? Lutan more or less admits that he's totally using his Code of Honor to get ahead, and Picard totally smiles and offers to stab him in the back. This says something about where we are going as a people that I don't like, but I'm at a loss to put it to words... aside from the naked rejection of codes of honor as bad things that seems to be going on here.
Cut to LaForge shaving while blind. Why the visor is off for this I'm not sure, but then why he'd need it on for this is similarly unclear. I suppose its like asking why you've got your car keys in your pocket while walking the dog. Data walks in and mentions something about a perfectly adjusted razor, apparently a different model that the Space Razor LaForge is using, but this is all a setup for a conversation about humor and bad Data-jokes. The scene end with Riker calling them to Away Party Duty, then cut to Picard on the surface, still listening to Riker. This is really part of the same scene, I guess, since Data and Laforge transport in. Picard tells them to look over the weapons, evaluate them.
Right here I have a minor problem. I'm pretty sure some clever techno-trickery will subvert the weapons, but to avoid tipping their hands, the writers keep Picard from actually asking his crew to do anything... helpful. The correct answer to his orders would be to look at the wall of weapons and go "ayup. Those are dangerous all right. That one over there is pretty sharp, and that one too.".
Seriously. All he did was ask them to evaluate the local weapons and tell him which ones were sharp. I mean he did it in fancy speak, but barring an in depth fencing instruction manual, that's pretty much as much as his crew can tell him based on what he actually asked.
Data thinks its a joke, and Picard uses this to segue into a diatribe against codes of honor.
Sigh.
Yeah, I saw that coming. Never mind that the whole nonsense about the Prime Directive is just another type of Code of Honor, as is any legal code. Then too he talks about having evolved past such primitivism. This thing with Evolved and morality really gets under my skin, like a stone in my shoe. Enough.
Back to the bridge:
Riker still logging his exposition, fine. So, Data and LaForge have apparently reported that the Ligonian weapons are, in fact dangerous. No, seriously: Thats just about exactly what he says, and the plan is apparently to transport Yar to safety if she gets stabbed or something... if Ligonian custom allows it??? So, what part of the Prime Directive forces Star Fleet Personnel to have primitive rules forced on them against their wishes again? The hell, is Prime Directive now a catchall term for 'plot handcuffs'?
Cut to Yar, with Irina, the First One walking in because Yar wants to chat. Apparently, despite the fact that Irina is the one who leveled the challenge, Yar seems to think she can convince Irina to back down by humble-bragging about how awesome Star Fleet physical training is.
Irina, the woman from a culture that includes duels to the death is not impressed, and good for her. OF course, the fact that Yar towers over her should be a problem for her, but then again: Deadly weapons are deadly. Yar continues to demonstrate that she has no idea what women are like, as Irina can't believe Yar doesn't love Lutan, because he's a sexy beast(?), which only seems to motivate Irina to double down. So, clearly not part of Picard's plan.
So, Picard and Troi are pacing when LaForge and Data walk in. Their report is, verbatim:
Laforge: The weapons in that room are flexible, durable and deadly
Data: And light, made for women to use.
So, what a waste of a man who can see everything and a robot. Picard is a dum-dum. Troi could have told him all that, for god's sake, and she's the least technical member of the crew!
The only pertinent point is that an alkaloid based poison is on some of the weapons. We know its pertinent, because Picard perks up and asks for more details.
Yar walks in and reveals her inability to talk Irina out of the fight because, lurve. Data has to ask if Yar loves Lutan, which... what??? Yar goes on to admit finding him hot, but not being in love with him.
Seriously: What the fuckitty fuck is going on with the love/sexy beast shit with Lutan? Who decided this stray subplot was remotely relevant or interesting? Did they think some viewers would start worrying that Yar would defect in episode 3 to some random backwater world, so 'tension'?
So, they talk for a bit and Riker calls, unnecessarily to reveal that three dudes are coming. Three dudes arrive with boxes containing 'weapons', apparently so Yar can pick her size. Why they brought them to Picard's room is a mystery, but TV.
The 'weapons'.. we'll just assume all the boxes are the same since we only see one, hold some sort of super spiky cestus thing, which LaForge cautions us is poisoned. Yar humble-brags about how she understands 'this', and they hear Irina grunting, so they look out the window to see a ridiculously complex arrangement of boxes and poles where Irina is training while a DJ sets up glowing lights, for true techno-barbarism. Its a long cut of the poor actress having to swing and grunt her way around the jungle gym to show us its super cereal bidness time.
So, Wesley sits at ops, Data transports onto the Enterprise, and Riker and Crusher meet him. Apparently Data's coming back and forth is secret squirrel stuff, and they start talking around Picard's plan. I like how Riker understands that Picard is sort of dim. He interrogates Data, making sure that Picard grasped that these weapons were, you know, sharp and stuff. No, seriously: he asks Data if Picard understood his report that the weapons were "Sharp, split second lethal". The joke is on the audience then, do they understand that Picard wasn't just playing senile when he was space-drunk in Naked Now, that's what he's really like when you strip away his ability to bluff...
I keed. Do I?
Data is there to explain the plan, which we, the audience, will not be privy to. Because, fuck you, that's why.
So, cut to the planet, Lutan waiting, Picard and company lead Yar out. Yar's got that damn heavy, spiky cestus thing on, holding her hand up in the air because, you know, poison. Seems like a good way to wear yourself out before the fight, wearing it around like that. Then Irina comes out in some pink foil disco jumpsuit... and puts her cestus on. Smart woman, my money is on her.
So the Second stands up to announce the fight. He speaks for Lutan (who is sitting right there, but whatever... there are stupider cultural traditions in the real world).
What I like is that he then says "The Rules are Known. The Fight will continue until there is a victor, it will not be interrupted'.
The first sentence is somewhat amusing. A boxing referee doesn't say shit like that, and everyone in boxing knows the rules. Would he say that if this was a match being put on for the sake of an alien from another planet? Probably not. But I'm guessing that 'until there is a victor' and 'No interruptions' are the rules here, so I guess its simple enough.
Anyway: the girls start...ah...'fighting', which involves poor Irina flailing around wildly from the middle of the monkey bars while Yar mostly stays at the edge and leans back a bunch, with cheap cut editing to make it look more vigorous than it is. Then the girls do an arm to arm press (crossed swords analog I guess), until Yar pushes Irina back. Her cestus hits one of the glowing bars, sparks shoot and the spiked glove shoots into the audience, where the worlds dimmest bulb sits.
Lutan interrupts the fight. Against the rules, dude!
He interrupts to demand the weapon be returned, so the dimmest bulb hands it over, all chill, until the blood on his chest is visible. Hollywood wound style, he then keels over dead from the poison.
The girls go back to 'fighting', and we get a moment of plot dropping when the Second shouts out 'careful Irina!', drawing a look from Lutan. Aha!!!!
No, wait... at this point of the episode its pretty pointless, though it will make cleaning up the mess afterwards much easier, I guess. Back to the 'fight'. So the girls grab each other's weapon arms around a glowing pole, so 'Drama!' as they pull towards the light. Anyway, they break free, swing some more until, finally, Yar manages to land a hit on Irina's back.
Writerly Note: If you want to create real tension and drama in a fight, poisoned weapons may seem to up the tension but they actually do the opposite. Since the fight can be one or lost with a single cut it makes it exceedingly difficult to actually create any 'struggle', any changes in fortune. Normal weapons are lethal enough that poison is sort of unnecessary anyway. For an example of what I mean you can either watch Liam Neeson's duel in Rob Roy (not recommended, though Tim Roth is outstanding as the villain), or you can watch Malcolm Reynolds get cut up in Firefly. Both fights hinge on the contestants still standing after getting cut up by a superior technical opponent. Both fights have actual tension during the fight.
So, Irina goes down, Yar sort of dives on top of her and they transport out while "Second" looks on in horror, and Lutan looks on in outraged shock.
So, to no ones shock, and no real clever trickery, Crusher begins treating Irina in the transporter room, while Yar looks all sweaty and heartbroken over her murderous murder-fighting.
Picard meanwhile talks to Lutan, explaining that by the rules of the fight, its over. Yar won, Irina was poisoned to death by poison, and Yar can marry or not marry Lutan if she wishes. Second reminds Lutan that he now has all of Irina's wealth, so Lutan is cool with it all of a sudden. Riker calls and gets permission to beam aboard the vaccine, then Picard more or less transporter kidnaps Lutan!!
Huzzah! The look on Lutan's face when Picard says "five to beam up" is priceless, though its a blink and you'll miss it moment. They swing through the bridge just so Riker can tell them to head to the lounge, where Crusher is with Irina. Lutan is all outrageously outraged that Irina is still alive, and we are pretty much told all about Ligonian Divorce customs in a very, mercifully, brief allusion. Since Irina was technically dead, she is now free to take Lutan's cool necklace and give it to Second, meaning all that bullshit she said to Yar about loving Lutan was, well, bullshit. Yar turns Lutan down, of course. Lutan winds up becoming Second to, um, Second (Hegira or something...), and Second tells Picard that its obvious that Ligonia is more civilized than the Federation.
Which of course has everyone smiling their best catbird smile. Its a pretty clever line, but its almost entirely unearned so its wildly out of place.
Picard walks on the bridge, totally missing Wesley on Ops for a good long moment, and remembering that he wants some of that sweet, sweet doctor pussy manages to not throw Wesley off his bridge. Then they warp out to the Plague planet at a leisurely warp three.
You know? Millions of people dying, your normal cruising speed is warp seven, your hustle speed is warp nine? Why not simply go Warp Three... no rush, now that Yar doesn't have to murderize anyone, right?
Sigh.
Final thoughts: They try to earn some easy goodwill early in the episode for their heavy handed moralizing with all that anti-feminist talk, but its clearly unearned by the culture they actually wind up presenting. The bullshit speechifying about primitive codes of honor is, well, bullshit. Thats not to say that there aren't codes of honor that aren't bullshit (Pashtunwalli comes to mind, for example), but you can't take any single element in isolation and declare the whole idea suspect. If they really had the courage of their convictions regarding their more evolved stance towards codes of honor, they'd have violated the 'Prime Directive' in a heartbeat... since, you know, Codes of Honor are primative, savage, bullshit.
So, while Lutan is something of an asshole the Ligonians actually are right at the end when they talk about superior civilizations. For all his scheming asshole ways, Lutan silently takes his place as subordinate to the man he'd been bossing around for years, because that's what his Code demands of him. He doesn't protest or complain about how its unfair he can't just violate it, the way Picard did constantly.
You could say he just mans up and takes his lumps.
Then there is a massive editorial error: In order to make the entire 'Prime Directive' relevant, the Ligonians have to be primitive, and they are constantly presented as primitive... except for that nagging issue of having their own Transporter technology...
... you know, that old stone age technology you use everyday to go shopping or get to work or what have you?
You mean you DON'T use it? Well, why the hell not?
Oh... thats right. Its so primitive we haven't actually invented it yet... meaning the Ligonians are at least a century or two beyond us, technologically, and therefore... not primitive.
Of course, I'm sure someone realized that, but they couldn't figure out how to kidnap Tasha Yar without the Ligonians having transporters... And why couldn't the Enterprise lock onto Yar's badge?
This leads me to a curious thought...
If you have a character who is explicitly your asskicker you can only really kidnap them if they are dudes.
No, think about it: If someone wrote an episode of TNG where Worf had to be kidnapped, they would just, you know, do it. Its acceptable for a guy to be beaten by a superior opponent, caught off guard, surprised... ambushed, whatever.
If your Asskicker is a chick you have to go through all sorts of odd contortions to explain how they were not-beaten on the way to being somehow kidnapped or what have you. If Yar is overpowered by human scale enemies at any given point it points out the lie that, as a chick, she is not really an asskicker.
If Yar really was an asskicker, it would be acceptable for Lutan to simply overpower her and drag her to a shuttlecraft or something, to draw a phaser on her... something.
I mean: this isn't written into stone or anything. A legitimate chick asskicker, a Rhonda Rousey or Gina Carano, written without a political agenda behind her presence (mind you: Denise Crosby was all of a hundred and ten pounds or so, willowy if you will... waif-fu territory, though she is taller than many of the other women on the show), might be disadvantaged by a writer fairly and honestly...
But when you are selling the notion that women are only inferior fighters to men because primitive attitudes, you can't have your willowy, sexy hot chick be defeated by anything remotely human. I suppose I should be grateful the writers chose to demonstrate her asskickery with Akido moves rather than face punching. At least with that we can buy some level of equality is possible.
And for all I love Summer Glau, every time she knocked a dude out in Serenity with her face punching I had to cry a little inside. I'd say just about the only legitimate knockout, Ironically, was Jane, because he wasn't trying to hurt her and she beat him by crushing his balls instead of face punching. Okay, the knife stabbing is fine too. Knives don't give a fuck.
Rare?
I don't know much about some things, but my understanding of vaccines is that they are not exactly mined. Why is it rare? Why can't it be replicated? I mean, we haven't seen a replicator yet in the series, but still. I have questions.
Anyway: Yar is standing by in a Cargo Bay to receive the Lutan delegation. Cargo bay? Really? The Enterprise doesn't have a better place to recieve dignitaries? Anyway, Picard takes Riker and Troi with him.
What is the point of having a second in command if you take him with you when you leave the bridge? Bah.
Anyway, the Lutan use their own transporters, and Picard shows he has a good briefing on Lutan diplomatic protocols. The Lutan are a bunch of black guys dressed like Arabian Nights. Are they human? Human looking aliens? What's up with these guys? Their leader is shocked that Yar is chief of security because, woman.
Well. Yeah. I mean, if this wasn't TV he might have a point. But since it's TV, Picard paternalistically explains that, yup, Yar is a woman, so what?
They move on, but you know this is going to be a major plot point. Sigh. I really hoped to avoid heavy handed moralizing this early on, stupid me. The Lutan leader sends his second in command forward with a sample of the vaccine and Plot Happens.
Oops. I mean, Yar leaps forward insisting her job as chief of security means stopping this diplomat from delivering his gift or something. The guy says "out of my way, wo-man.", and Yar does TV Judo on him, throwing him all over the cargo bay.
Its gonna be a long episode.
Lutan leader guy is more amused than upset, but at least Denise Crosby has the mind to look dumbfounded at how stupid her character just acted.
Never mind gender politics: If that had been a male chief of security on a diplomatic mission he'd have been up on charges from Picard, or should have been. In two episodes where she gets to be security chief instead of 'drunk temptress', Yar has shown herself to be singularly unfit for command level responsibilities, mostly because she jumps up and judo throws motherfuckers at the drop of a hat. This is security as envisioned by gangsta bodyguards, not military and diplomatic forces.
So Yar looks at the box and determines its not a bomb or something. Troi, out loud, tells Picard not to apologize, since it would weaken them. Dude, the Lutan are literally ten feet away and watching you. Now is not the time to be giving that advice. Picard offers to entertain the Lutan, who of course accept.
So the crew leaves the cargo bay, letting the Lutan drop plot anvils all over the place, in case you needed evidence that the Lutan were going to be the focus of the plot and not some goofy story about delivering life saving medicine across half the galaxy.
Opening Credits
Data delivers a ceramic horse which Picard explains is 14th century Tsung Chinese (saying something about how Lutan culture resembles a historical Earth culture they all admire. I'm not sure if the two ideas are linked, but if they are what exactly does this say about the Federation?). The Lutan protest that they don't like outsiders and are somehow technologically inferior to the Federation (what with their own transporter technology? Can't be too far behind!), but how they have this rare vaccine to "Anghelese Fever"... so we're setting up the clash of primitive vs future-modern civilizations here.
I'll note that this episode would have made a far greater test of Humanity than Farpoint Station was for Q, just based on the premise setup, more nuanced. Q's test was essentially a 'blind idiot' test, passable by almost any blind idiot.
So the leader of the Lutan dismisses his guards and I see that they still have random extras in Skirts in the background, so Yay!. Then the Lutan guy asks to see a holodeck. Lots of reaction shots throughout the scene, mostly to Yar, a couple to Troi. Probably because it is boring and nearly pointless, delaying the start of the plot for another scene or two.
Ah. Moralizing.
Okay, so Picard makes the unintentional entendre regarding the use of Holodecks for things other than Training and offers Riker to show the Lutan guy the deck, he requests instead that Yar shows him, perhaps with some combat sparring. Riker chimes in about how the Lutan are way to fascinated with Yar's boobs'n'badge combo, and Lutan's assistant comments about how Lutan women merely own the land, and men protect it, then Troi snarks in about some (unspecific) human cultures do/did the same.
ugh.
We so get it: The Lutan are chauvinistic pigs, right? The Federation is much more advanced, not just technically, but morally for having a chick run security.
Oh, wait? What was that: the women of Lutan own all the property you say? I seem to recall how this will end, but, in due time.
Anyway: Yar totally cuts the morality play off to offer to kick this guy's ass... out of respect. Okay, sure. Anything to get the ball rolling.
So, Yar leads the two Lutan into the holodeck, puts on a long Gi jacket over her uniform. Why? Because Hollywood. Then a training mat and white ninja shows up for her to use as a test dummy.
So this guy, whose name apparently is Lutan, asks if she can create people... without a soul!
So she explains to this hopeless savage primitive (with Transporter technology!!!!) that its just a computer simulation. To demonstrate she walks up and asks the ninja questions. Silly woman: Ninja don't talk! Then she fights it in a pretty lame demonstration of, I suppose, Akido (based on her previous dialog), tossing the ninja around the mat a couple of times. Lutan's second doubts his lying eyes, so Lutan tells him to fight it. Naturally he gets tossed on his ass, because fuck him.
Yar dismissed the Ninja, but she takes off the jacket. You know, because its a holo image to begin with and would disappear if she willed it... but that would cost special effects money. She explains how the ninja learns and becomes unbeatable...
Which means its pretty useless as a training aid, really.
Anyway: Back at the cargo bay, Lutan totally transporter kidnaps Yar. Who didn't see that coming? Let me say that Troi, giving her best Bitch-Face the entire episode so far, was fucking useless. Lutan and company are apparently very good at playing poker with empaths.
So, on the bridge Picard makes radio demands and launches photon torpedoes at the surface with 'demonstration blasts' a thousand meters above the surface, while technobabble tells us they can't trace the transporter because, science. Data has a fun moment where he realizes no one cares about his technobabble and shuts up now. Troi has to admit Yar is hot (she definitely hit that during Naked Now...), and then that Lutan apparently had the emotional state of Ambition.
Then everyone except Picard knows that the Natives respect Patience, which is cheap exposition at its finest, and also a way for the writers to transition to the next scene, since they don't want the Ligonians(??) responding to Picard's hails.
Picard narrates a captain's log, establishing a day has passed, that they've scanned the surface and so forth. Crusher comes into the captain's ready room repeating The vaccine and reveals it become unstable when she tries to replicate it (or perhaps Replicate it... making this the first real reference to Replicators in the show?). She goes on about how Picard has never seen a patient die of 'this disease', and Picard replies that its true... but he has seen his share of death. Maybe its an artifact of my pausing when I did, but Crusher totally seems to give him an eye roll at that. Heh.
That means they are one upping each other on how much torture porn they've watched? Love it.
Picard flatters her, and she dismisses herself only to turn back and ask, in a sort of pseudo british/new England Upper Crust accent 'May I speak to you about my son, wesley?", which throws Picard for a loop, seeing as he seemed to think they were flirting, and single mom curveball and all that.
Apparently, despite the fact that Farpoint did in fact air, they are going to treat it as if it didn't, so there is a bit of a reprise of the whole 'Wesley's on the turbo lift, which totally isn't the bridge', so Picard can start warming up to the lad.
Without a single mention of the fact that he totally committed mutiny the previous episode and almost killed them all by letting Shimoda dismantle the computer to play Jenga with the parts.
So, Picard really wants into Crusher's Onsie, badly. He totally just puts Wesley into the ops station, so baldly violating his own orders that just about everyone asks him 'what the fuck, cap?'. He is all commanding and shit while he does it, but damn...
And everyone wears a shiteating grin while Wesley takes his temporary place, as if Yar wasn't kidnapped. Troi, who apparently has mixed feeling about Yar from Naked Now (what with the 'you can't be the cool sexy blonde and steal my wardrobe too, but we'll totally have drunk sex later combo) still, is still smiling when she reports that they have found something in the diplomatic brief.
So, Data starts to give the briefing after everyone gathers like he is a view screen. He references Counting Coup as a way to describe Lutan's actions. I don't recall Lutan hitting anyone with a stick? The fuck? To hide that Lutan's actions in No Way resembled 'counting Coup', Data sticks a reference to French as an obscure language, so we can have more character building from 'Jean-Luc'.
Note: While everyone praises Patrick Stewart's Acting, I just want to point out that if he was serious about his acting in this show he would have worked up a french accent rather than his british one.
Anyway, they go on for a bit about counting coup and Lutan's personality profile, which lets us transition to Lutan calling. Apparently the Enterprise put him on screen with out transmitting image, since Lutan demands to see them.
Everyone tells Picard that in Ligonian Culture the right thing to do now is Ask Politely for Yar back.
Inside a day the staff have managed to sort this out from their diplomatic briefings, but in the days or weeks it took to get to Ligon(?) they apparently missed all these minefields. Worst Naval Crew Ever?
So Picard bites his tongue, praises Lutan, and politely asks for Yar back. Lutan invites him to visit to get Yar back... and commercial.
Ugh.
This is all just a really ugly way to keep things moving forward. We're a third the way through the show and the only thing that's really happened is Yar getting kidnapped. This entire farce of a scene was JUST to get Picard to the surface, really.
So we cut to... the command trio in their chairs, with Data behind them on the mezzanine, or whatever they called it. Troi says, heavily "Commander". that's all she says. Riker, whose actually rank is, in fact, Commander, misses a beat before noting that is... very formal of her.
Its... ugly and unnatural. Troi is asking Riker to let Picard lead the away team, with Data concurring.
Um. This is a Diplomatic Mission. This shouldn't even be a question, even with the whole kidnapping bit. So we've gone from the Kirkian Insanity of the entire command staff going on every single away mission, to Picard being swaddled like a baby?
Picard does the whole scene without dialog, just body language and breathing. Its kinda interesting. Then Riker threatens to put him on report and everyone smiles. You know, because its all light hearted fun, right?
Fucking tonal shifts.
So, planet surface, Picard and Troi, and repeating what we already have been told exhaustively: That asking for Yar back politely is the route to take. Lutan wants the public validation of his boldness with a public ceremony, blah blah. The key takeaway in the scene, I believe is, in fact, the introduction of Lutan's 'first one'... which is supposed to be his first wife?
So, Yar is brought out, still in uniform and unbound. Apparently she's been kicking ass all day.
The twenty four dollar question: Why doesn't Picard grab Yar at this moment and... kidnap her back? Oh, I mean there are still the vaccine negotiations and all that... but rather than babble on and on about honor and banquets, a bit of a comment about the validity of kidnapping her back would have been smart. Oh well...
Banquet: Ax juggler. 'nuff said.
Anyway: Yar walks out and sits on the dias by Lutan, Picard gets up and does the whole diplomatic spiel, Lutan is pleased and makes his speech... and... twist!
Lutan won't give Yar back. He LURVES her and wants to make her his 'First One'. The other woman, the First One we met in the previous scene stands up and challenges Yar to a fight to the death, which apparently hasn't been done in 200 years, according to exposition drops made during her challenge.
The writers get a bit confused I think. Picard leaps in to deny the challenge on Yar's behalf, which I suppose is fine, then Lutan stands up to shout how there will be no treaty, no vaccine and no Yar... and Scene!
See: the wife leveled the challenge, so I'm thinking Lutan can't just interject here. Maybe he can, maybe not but how would that work? In any given code of honor, how would he be able to deny all three on behalf of his wife's challenge?
Riker's log: They're maintaining combat readiness... because the Ligonians have such an awesome navy or something? Seriously, this is like me noticing that my dog is looking a bit shady and worrying about a knife in the dark.
No, he's a dog, and not even a big dog. The most I got to worry about is him chewing my ankle a little bit. Maintaining combat readiness against his future attacks is sort of... overkill.
Moving on.
Picard interrupts Yar's pre-fight stretching to interrogate her on Lutan's plans. Really? I guess I can't blame him, given how when he asks the experts on his team they generally tell him nothing, I guess I'd be a bit starved and desperate for answers too after a few weeks of that.
Troi pulls the bitch card and calls Yar out on being flattered that Lutan desires her, which is just cold. Even poor, naive Yar figures out what she just did. "Troi you're my friend and you just bitchslapped me!"
To which Troi doth protest too much, claiming it was for Yar's own good.
Lolwut?!
Picard is mostly oblivious to the girl-fight going on around him, so he interjects to offer fatherly wisdom to Yar and protest about all the manipulation going on, which Troi uses to camouflage her own unnecessary bitch move by making a non-sequitor about the Prime Directive.
The Prime Directive? The one that says Star Fleet will not interfere in any way with the development of pre-spaceflight races?
The Ligonian's have space defenses of some sort and Transporter technology, the Federation is dealing with them openly (interfering). If the Prime Directive applied at all, the Federation was long violating it before the Enterprise arrived.
And showing he is no real master of Federation Laws, Picard bluffs by admitting that the thought had crossed his mind.
Cut to the bridge. Crusher walks on from the Turbolift. I say that because her posture is... weird, unnatural. Anyway, as she gets over to Riker, he just 'Whats this message say?" to her out of left field and she looks and starts talking infection rates and plague. So this is a really ugly way of getting the crew to express how super cereal this whole Lutan business is, right. Laforge chimes in from offscreen, cut too as he talks about millions of deaths. Because Super Cereal.
Cut to Yar doing her pre-fight boasting to Troi, Picard walks in so we can continue hammering how deadly the plague is, then Troi basically tells Picard to let Yar fight so they can get the vaccine, and how betazoids are, like, really practical and some stuff.
Entirely missing from this is that Yar would be fighting to marry Lutan, right? Right?!
So, Picard goes to talk to Lutan and find out more. He stumbles across Lutan talking with his Second, and instead of letting them go on and plot exposit (the sensible but un-cinematic thing to do) he interrupts to admit that Yar is a 'desirable female', and then to admit he knows nothing of wants and needs or something... what? I mean, I guess he's playing Lutan here, drawing him out, but the fuck???
So... Picard is supposed to be the Robot?
For the slow kids, we learn for the second time that males on Ligonia don't actually own anything, and Lutan 'panic gestures' to cut off this super-important point, so we all know how important it is, this time. Because letting Picard know something that every Ligonian already knows is bad? Lutan more or less admits that he's totally using his Code of Honor to get ahead, and Picard totally smiles and offers to stab him in the back. This says something about where we are going as a people that I don't like, but I'm at a loss to put it to words... aside from the naked rejection of codes of honor as bad things that seems to be going on here.
Cut to LaForge shaving while blind. Why the visor is off for this I'm not sure, but then why he'd need it on for this is similarly unclear. I suppose its like asking why you've got your car keys in your pocket while walking the dog. Data walks in and mentions something about a perfectly adjusted razor, apparently a different model that the Space Razor LaForge is using, but this is all a setup for a conversation about humor and bad Data-jokes. The scene end with Riker calling them to Away Party Duty, then cut to Picard on the surface, still listening to Riker. This is really part of the same scene, I guess, since Data and Laforge transport in. Picard tells them to look over the weapons, evaluate them.
Right here I have a minor problem. I'm pretty sure some clever techno-trickery will subvert the weapons, but to avoid tipping their hands, the writers keep Picard from actually asking his crew to do anything... helpful. The correct answer to his orders would be to look at the wall of weapons and go "ayup. Those are dangerous all right. That one over there is pretty sharp, and that one too.".
Seriously. All he did was ask them to evaluate the local weapons and tell him which ones were sharp. I mean he did it in fancy speak, but barring an in depth fencing instruction manual, that's pretty much as much as his crew can tell him based on what he actually asked.
Data thinks its a joke, and Picard uses this to segue into a diatribe against codes of honor.
Sigh.
Yeah, I saw that coming. Never mind that the whole nonsense about the Prime Directive is just another type of Code of Honor, as is any legal code. Then too he talks about having evolved past such primitivism. This thing with Evolved and morality really gets under my skin, like a stone in my shoe. Enough.
Back to the bridge:
Riker still logging his exposition, fine. So, Data and LaForge have apparently reported that the Ligonian weapons are, in fact dangerous. No, seriously: Thats just about exactly what he says, and the plan is apparently to transport Yar to safety if she gets stabbed or something... if Ligonian custom allows it??? So, what part of the Prime Directive forces Star Fleet Personnel to have primitive rules forced on them against their wishes again? The hell, is Prime Directive now a catchall term for 'plot handcuffs'?
Cut to Yar, with Irina, the First One walking in because Yar wants to chat. Apparently, despite the fact that Irina is the one who leveled the challenge, Yar seems to think she can convince Irina to back down by humble-bragging about how awesome Star Fleet physical training is.
Irina, the woman from a culture that includes duels to the death is not impressed, and good for her. OF course, the fact that Yar towers over her should be a problem for her, but then again: Deadly weapons are deadly. Yar continues to demonstrate that she has no idea what women are like, as Irina can't believe Yar doesn't love Lutan, because he's a sexy beast(?), which only seems to motivate Irina to double down. So, clearly not part of Picard's plan.
So, Picard and Troi are pacing when LaForge and Data walk in. Their report is, verbatim:
Laforge: The weapons in that room are flexible, durable and deadly
Data: And light, made for women to use.
So, what a waste of a man who can see everything and a robot. Picard is a dum-dum. Troi could have told him all that, for god's sake, and she's the least technical member of the crew!
The only pertinent point is that an alkaloid based poison is on some of the weapons. We know its pertinent, because Picard perks up and asks for more details.
Yar walks in and reveals her inability to talk Irina out of the fight because, lurve. Data has to ask if Yar loves Lutan, which... what??? Yar goes on to admit finding him hot, but not being in love with him.
Seriously: What the fuckitty fuck is going on with the love/sexy beast shit with Lutan? Who decided this stray subplot was remotely relevant or interesting? Did they think some viewers would start worrying that Yar would defect in episode 3 to some random backwater world, so 'tension'?
So, they talk for a bit and Riker calls, unnecessarily to reveal that three dudes are coming. Three dudes arrive with boxes containing 'weapons', apparently so Yar can pick her size. Why they brought them to Picard's room is a mystery, but TV.
The 'weapons'.. we'll just assume all the boxes are the same since we only see one, hold some sort of super spiky cestus thing, which LaForge cautions us is poisoned. Yar humble-brags about how she understands 'this', and they hear Irina grunting, so they look out the window to see a ridiculously complex arrangement of boxes and poles where Irina is training while a DJ sets up glowing lights, for true techno-barbarism. Its a long cut of the poor actress having to swing and grunt her way around the jungle gym to show us its super cereal bidness time.
So, Wesley sits at ops, Data transports onto the Enterprise, and Riker and Crusher meet him. Apparently Data's coming back and forth is secret squirrel stuff, and they start talking around Picard's plan. I like how Riker understands that Picard is sort of dim. He interrogates Data, making sure that Picard grasped that these weapons were, you know, sharp and stuff. No, seriously: he asks Data if Picard understood his report that the weapons were "Sharp, split second lethal". The joke is on the audience then, do they understand that Picard wasn't just playing senile when he was space-drunk in Naked Now, that's what he's really like when you strip away his ability to bluff...
I keed. Do I?
Data is there to explain the plan, which we, the audience, will not be privy to. Because, fuck you, that's why.
So, cut to the planet, Lutan waiting, Picard and company lead Yar out. Yar's got that damn heavy, spiky cestus thing on, holding her hand up in the air because, you know, poison. Seems like a good way to wear yourself out before the fight, wearing it around like that. Then Irina comes out in some pink foil disco jumpsuit... and puts her cestus on. Smart woman, my money is on her.
So the Second stands up to announce the fight. He speaks for Lutan (who is sitting right there, but whatever... there are stupider cultural traditions in the real world).
What I like is that he then says "The Rules are Known. The Fight will continue until there is a victor, it will not be interrupted'.
The first sentence is somewhat amusing. A boxing referee doesn't say shit like that, and everyone in boxing knows the rules. Would he say that if this was a match being put on for the sake of an alien from another planet? Probably not. But I'm guessing that 'until there is a victor' and 'No interruptions' are the rules here, so I guess its simple enough.
Anyway: the girls start...ah...'fighting', which involves poor Irina flailing around wildly from the middle of the monkey bars while Yar mostly stays at the edge and leans back a bunch, with cheap cut editing to make it look more vigorous than it is. Then the girls do an arm to arm press (crossed swords analog I guess), until Yar pushes Irina back. Her cestus hits one of the glowing bars, sparks shoot and the spiked glove shoots into the audience, where the worlds dimmest bulb sits.
Lutan interrupts the fight. Against the rules, dude!
He interrupts to demand the weapon be returned, so the dimmest bulb hands it over, all chill, until the blood on his chest is visible. Hollywood wound style, he then keels over dead from the poison.
The girls go back to 'fighting', and we get a moment of plot dropping when the Second shouts out 'careful Irina!', drawing a look from Lutan. Aha!!!!
No, wait... at this point of the episode its pretty pointless, though it will make cleaning up the mess afterwards much easier, I guess. Back to the 'fight'. So the girls grab each other's weapon arms around a glowing pole, so 'Drama!' as they pull towards the light. Anyway, they break free, swing some more until, finally, Yar manages to land a hit on Irina's back.
Writerly Note: If you want to create real tension and drama in a fight, poisoned weapons may seem to up the tension but they actually do the opposite. Since the fight can be one or lost with a single cut it makes it exceedingly difficult to actually create any 'struggle', any changes in fortune. Normal weapons are lethal enough that poison is sort of unnecessary anyway. For an example of what I mean you can either watch Liam Neeson's duel in Rob Roy (not recommended, though Tim Roth is outstanding as the villain), or you can watch Malcolm Reynolds get cut up in Firefly. Both fights hinge on the contestants still standing after getting cut up by a superior technical opponent. Both fights have actual tension during the fight.
So, Irina goes down, Yar sort of dives on top of her and they transport out while "Second" looks on in horror, and Lutan looks on in outraged shock.
So, to no ones shock, and no real clever trickery, Crusher begins treating Irina in the transporter room, while Yar looks all sweaty and heartbroken over her murderous murder-fighting.
Picard meanwhile talks to Lutan, explaining that by the rules of the fight, its over. Yar won, Irina was poisoned to death by poison, and Yar can marry or not marry Lutan if she wishes. Second reminds Lutan that he now has all of Irina's wealth, so Lutan is cool with it all of a sudden. Riker calls and gets permission to beam aboard the vaccine, then Picard more or less transporter kidnaps Lutan!!
Huzzah! The look on Lutan's face when Picard says "five to beam up" is priceless, though its a blink and you'll miss it moment. They swing through the bridge just so Riker can tell them to head to the lounge, where Crusher is with Irina. Lutan is all outrageously outraged that Irina is still alive, and we are pretty much told all about Ligonian Divorce customs in a very, mercifully, brief allusion. Since Irina was technically dead, she is now free to take Lutan's cool necklace and give it to Second, meaning all that bullshit she said to Yar about loving Lutan was, well, bullshit. Yar turns Lutan down, of course. Lutan winds up becoming Second to, um, Second (Hegira or something...), and Second tells Picard that its obvious that Ligonia is more civilized than the Federation.
Which of course has everyone smiling their best catbird smile. Its a pretty clever line, but its almost entirely unearned so its wildly out of place.
Picard walks on the bridge, totally missing Wesley on Ops for a good long moment, and remembering that he wants some of that sweet, sweet doctor pussy manages to not throw Wesley off his bridge. Then they warp out to the Plague planet at a leisurely warp three.
You know? Millions of people dying, your normal cruising speed is warp seven, your hustle speed is warp nine? Why not simply go Warp Three... no rush, now that Yar doesn't have to murderize anyone, right?
Sigh.
Final thoughts: They try to earn some easy goodwill early in the episode for their heavy handed moralizing with all that anti-feminist talk, but its clearly unearned by the culture they actually wind up presenting. The bullshit speechifying about primitive codes of honor is, well, bullshit. Thats not to say that there aren't codes of honor that aren't bullshit (Pashtunwalli comes to mind, for example), but you can't take any single element in isolation and declare the whole idea suspect. If they really had the courage of their convictions regarding their more evolved stance towards codes of honor, they'd have violated the 'Prime Directive' in a heartbeat... since, you know, Codes of Honor are primative, savage, bullshit.
So, while Lutan is something of an asshole the Ligonians actually are right at the end when they talk about superior civilizations. For all his scheming asshole ways, Lutan silently takes his place as subordinate to the man he'd been bossing around for years, because that's what his Code demands of him. He doesn't protest or complain about how its unfair he can't just violate it, the way Picard did constantly.
You could say he just mans up and takes his lumps.
Then there is a massive editorial error: In order to make the entire 'Prime Directive' relevant, the Ligonians have to be primitive, and they are constantly presented as primitive... except for that nagging issue of having their own Transporter technology...
... you know, that old stone age technology you use everyday to go shopping or get to work or what have you?
You mean you DON'T use it? Well, why the hell not?
Oh... thats right. Its so primitive we haven't actually invented it yet... meaning the Ligonians are at least a century or two beyond us, technologically, and therefore... not primitive.
Of course, I'm sure someone realized that, but they couldn't figure out how to kidnap Tasha Yar without the Ligonians having transporters... And why couldn't the Enterprise lock onto Yar's badge?
This leads me to a curious thought...
If you have a character who is explicitly your asskicker you can only really kidnap them if they are dudes.
No, think about it: If someone wrote an episode of TNG where Worf had to be kidnapped, they would just, you know, do it. Its acceptable for a guy to be beaten by a superior opponent, caught off guard, surprised... ambushed, whatever.
If your Asskicker is a chick you have to go through all sorts of odd contortions to explain how they were not-beaten on the way to being somehow kidnapped or what have you. If Yar is overpowered by human scale enemies at any given point it points out the lie that, as a chick, she is not really an asskicker.
If Yar really was an asskicker, it would be acceptable for Lutan to simply overpower her and drag her to a shuttlecraft or something, to draw a phaser on her... something.
I mean: this isn't written into stone or anything. A legitimate chick asskicker, a Rhonda Rousey or Gina Carano, written without a political agenda behind her presence (mind you: Denise Crosby was all of a hundred and ten pounds or so, willowy if you will... waif-fu territory, though she is taller than many of the other women on the show), might be disadvantaged by a writer fairly and honestly...
But when you are selling the notion that women are only inferior fighters to men because primitive attitudes, you can't have your willowy, sexy hot chick be defeated by anything remotely human. I suppose I should be grateful the writers chose to demonstrate her asskickery with Akido moves rather than face punching. At least with that we can buy some level of equality is possible.
And for all I love Summer Glau, every time she knocked a dude out in Serenity with her face punching I had to cry a little inside. I'd say just about the only legitimate knockout, Ironically, was Jane, because he wasn't trying to hurt her and she beat him by crushing his balls instead of face punching. Okay, the knife stabbing is fine too. Knives don't give a fuck.
Naked Now Real Time Review
Following my post on Encounter at Farpoint, I thought I'd try to establish some of my problems with ST:TNG, or at least season one, with a real time review of what was my younger self's favorite episode.
We have a fairly normal opening, Picard narrating his Captain's Log, establishing the mission. This is actually a great framing device for the series, allowing them to set up episodes with a minimal amount of wasted time and energy. In this case they're going to investigate a research ship which has been sending 'strange messages'.
Naturally they arrive just in time for the final message, seductively voiced offscreen, referencing a 'blowout', just as the Seirkovski (spelling?) bridge blows out their emergency hatch. Apparently there was no video, as Data has to identify the noise.
Pause: Data says "What we just heard was.... impossible. That was the sound of an emergency hatch.. blah blah blah"
Here we have the first real indicator of bad writing for Data, a long running theme. Data is our Spock Analogue, of course, the logical emotionless machine. He's a lot like Spock in so many ways, deliberately so. Inhumanly strong and smart, knows everything, blah blah.
But Spock was never so crippled to say something that was possible, if stupid, was 'impossible'. An emergency hatch can be opened, it sounds like one was opened, ergo it is not impossible for the sound of an emergency hatch opening to be impossible.
Of course, in Farpoint Data constantly does things that a machine intelligence would not do, which he'll keep doing throughout the series. We can chalk some of them up to deliberately mimicking human behaviors, but not shit like 'Thats impossible!" when it plainly isn't.
Resume:
Riker immediately grabs half the bridge crew for an away mission.
This is an artifact of Television. They managed to eliminate the 'captain away team' trope from the first series, but the idea that you'd take your sitting Conn operator (pilot), the security chief and the chief engineer.... well...
Anyway, they Transport over.
Again: They just heard a decompression event, apparently deliberately triggered by the crew of the ship they are going to, and they just transport over in their duty uniforms. Because your chance of landing in Hard Vacuum and killing half the senior officers is surely minuscule, right? Well, presumably Data would survive. Also, I'd like to note the utter lack of quarantine equipment and procedures for an exploratory vessel in an exploratory fleet with at least a hundred fucking years of experience with a galaxy that, like the honey badger, don't give a fuck.
So they separate, wandering around. Riker takes data to look at some malfunctioning display screen and they can see the open emergency hatch. I like that Riker has no idea what to call the display screen... he says 'Whatever this is' when he tells Data to try and get a recording off of it. I also like that Data, who labels clearly possible events as Impossible, feels the need to correct Riker that no one is sucked into space, but is blown into space. I am pretty sure both are technically correct*, but Data has some weird inconsistencies in his logic.
Meanwhile Yar and Laforge wander around commenting on all the frozen people in separate areas of the ship. Laforge walking into a hoary room full of naked people and dumping a body out of the shower (the only fully clothed person).
Technical foul: Simply turning down the environmental controls and 'dumping heat into space', or whatever, will not reduce a room on a space ship to that level of coldness... certainly not in a reasonable time frame. In fact, getting rid of excess heat in Space is a major problem, especially in Engineering (where Yar reports from, audio only). The level of freezing we see requires actual refrigeration, or the entire ship to have radiated out the heat without generating any more... a process that would take weeks or longer.
So Riker calls in that everyone is dead, Picard goes 'But... people?' so Riker repeats 'all dead'. Its a pretty stupid exchange, actually. I'll forgive Riker's assertion, given that they couldn't possible account for all eighty people seeing that an unknown number were on the bridge and 'blown out' into space. Maybe the Enterprise managed to use their sensors to see all the bodies and had a clean count?
And before anyone claims that the Transporter wouldn't send the Away Team into Hard Vacuum because 'Sensors' or something, let me point out that Star Fleet still uses Away Teams to investigate things. Why? Because 'Sensors' can't answer questions like what is on another ship, clearly. Thus, the first thing any away team does is pull out a fucking tricorder and start taking local readings. It then follows that Star Fleet must loose a lot of away teams to local environmental hazards simply because they are too cheap and lazy to use fucking space suits when going into potentially hazardous environments. This entire episode would have been a non-starter had they simply used good quarantine procedures from the beginning.
I can say that, because the first thing Picard does upon recalling the Away Team is to order full decontamination and examinations... meaning that he was at least aware of the potential for a contaminant.
In which we can see that Star Fleet puts WAY too much stock in Transporters, since they never use any isolation protocols, they just have the Transporter set to maximum decontamination and have Crusher check them out.
So the first up is Data, who is a machine. I'm gonna keep repeating that, because the writers seem to think 'machine' is some sort of code for 'alien life form'. Data doesn't need to be checked for diseases or injuries, so much as he needs a quick wash with bleach solution to kill anything living on him and a check for damages. There is the stock quip about how perfect he is, yadda yadda...
Then Laforge, who checks out perfectly on the scanner, but Crusher sees he is sweating.
Note; I hate Gates Macfadden. Not her fault, nothing she did, but I never liked her. Moving on.
I actually like the fact that the machine gives her nothing here. The doctor is the one person in Star Fleet who seems to know that technology by itself is just a tool, not the magical cure all.
Laforge shoots back with a bit of over emphasized anger about how the heat is too damn high, while Riker looks on in shock.
So Crusher calls Picard to confine Laforge to sick bay, leading to one of numerous 'stupid exchanges' throughout the episode. So far there have been at least three, and two of them have involved Crusher, all have involved Picard. This example: '
Crusher: I'm confining Laforge to Sick Bay (normal exchange of information).
Picard: Is there a problem? (normal request for more information)
Crusher: I don't know. (Stupid TV reply that means nothing)
Ugh. A more reasonable response would have been to tell the Captain that LaForge was acting strangely. We, the audience, already know that of course. Thats why the writers twisted the conversation into knots trying to allow normal flows of information not to be redundant, but its just sloppy all around.
Riker's interaction with Data in the next seen is, somewhat characteristically in the season so far, much better. Riker walks in and mentions reading about people showering in their clothes to Data, a call back to the Original Series episode this one is based on...** Data does another of his 'not-machine' ticks where he treats the vague request for more information as spurious, but then he starts the search. Then he worries that he seemed boastful to the doctor. Elements of the conversation are painfully self aware, but the actors do a manful job selling it. I think the comparative strength of these scenes is that Jonathan Frakes actually sat down and figured out how he wanted Riker to react to the presence of an Android crew member. That's my speculation, anyway. It provides a consistency to their interactions that Data's interactions with others is lacking.
So, the lack of quarantine procedures continues apace with the next scene. As Crusher investigates Laforge, she eventually wanders off to her computer to check something. Cue the mystery music as Laforge sits up, removes his badge/communicator and wanders off aimlessly while looking at his hand. Again: Proper quarantine procedures would have kept him safely locked up. Also: Removing his badge is one of those TV complications. There is no practical reason for him to do so except that it makes the obvious technical solution to the problem of a missing crew member impossible. Clearly the use of Onsies Uniforms for Season One created this problem, as the more natural solution would normally be to simply remove his uniform jacket instead (seeing that he's feeling hot).
Crusher walks back in and is Shocked.. SHOCKED to find her clearly delusional patient has wandered off, leaving his badge behind. LOL. Literally, I laughed out loud at the skit.
Crusher checks the hallway, empty.
Technical Note: The interior of the ship is laid out badly. Sickbay is apparently is a part of the ship that is all hallways, not near anything of note. I'll note that Star Trek ships have some of the worst 'set-itis' of layout I've ever seen, which is amusing when you consider the amount of money spent by geeks on blueprints and technical readouts over the years. ***
So crusher calls the bridge to have Yar, chief of security, find Laforge. Yar handles it competently enough, then turns to Daddy Picard for validation. Picard rather unnecessarily makes it a ship wide search. Yar didn't specify any specific area of the ship to be searched, and presumably there are security personnel all over the ship who would have heard the alert in the first place. What, does Picard think that Petty Officer Schmuck, sitting in Engineering, would see Laforge wander into Engineering and think 'Nah, I'm not tasked to find people near Med Bay, I'll just ignore him.' if the Captain didn't specify it was to be ship wide??? Fucking asshole.
So a clearly NOT DELUSIONAL Laforge is next seen with Wesley Crusher while Wes shows off his portable tractor beam and then his Totally Not-Creepy Picard voice simulator. I like how they treat a basic recording and playback device as some sort of awesome techno-genius. Guys, I know this was back in the mideval days of 1987, but even back then Radio DJs were using similar devices to make prank calls and shit. That'd be like me trying to impress you with my mastery of a fucking butter churn, but totally-normal Laforge thinks its fucking inspired.
Wesley complains for the third or fourth time in this one scene that he's not allowed on the bridge. Fucking Wesley. This triggers LaForge to go back into Delusional Mode, so Wesley can ask him if he's ok... sigh.
So, Laforge's mystery ailment apparently cures itself so he can have long scenes with other characters before it returns to remind us he's alien space sick.
The next scene has Yar finding LaForge in the dark in Observation. No clue how she found him, since she calls Security to come pick him up while he begs her to help him control his wild urges. Ha.
Their conversation is... bizarre, and not just because LaForge is currently in Delusional Mode. Yar has called for a security team, but when he asks for help she's all like 'But I'm Security, not Help Desk', then changes her mind and decides that 'Helping is totes important, kids!'.
Of course Laforge wants help seeing like real people do. No, wait, that would be Data. He wants help seeing like a not-blind guy who totally has X-ray specs. Really, dude? I can forgive him for asking someone to do something impossible (wait... that's Data's line, and here it really is Impossible...)
LaVar Burton has some good lines here, selling the blind (not-blind) man who wants to see, so I shouldn't mock him too badly. Too bad I think it was all just an excuse to have him take off his visor to show off his blind-contacts and blinking impacts, and to touch Yar's face... thus signaling she's the next sick person... unnecessarily, as its never established that physical contact is necessary.
Also: Yar's security team? One guy.
So, Sick Bay, Yar and Picard, the Picard, Crusher and Troi all talk about how there is nothing wrong with LaForge. Crusher gives LaForge a shot of something without a word or any obvious effect. Honestly? It feels like padding while they wait to get Yar all steamy and slinky later.
Then Riker follows up with Data on his Shower Search, and Data misses the whole proverbial nature of 'Needle in a haystack'. I guess I can't fault Data for not responding that the easiest way to find a needle in a haystack is with a magnet... I seem to be unique in that I actually solved that problem decades ago... but missing that this is a common proverb? What, did his database algorithms somehow miss that? Is Riker using the Space Equivilent of "Oh My Stars and Garters", and Data's never heard the term before?
Somehow, Riker has a Dr House moment, and suddenly recalls that it involved a previous ship named Enterprise.
Picard walks in just as Data is refining the search perimeters and Riker totally pretends that Data just told him they'd found it... sloppy. Still, Picard reads off the data about Captain Kirk, gravity wave induced drunkenness and so forth. One third the way through the episode and they've solved it! What will they do with the remaining half hour??? Tune in next time...
Oh, wait. Sigh. We're still on. Ok.
So, Picard tells Crusher that he's solved it while Data does an eye roll at the Picard's certainty. Data does that a lot, reaction shots that seem out of place. Whatever.
So Troi walks into a room strewn with filmy scarves and things. Her reactions are a bit off-beat, as she seems to be in her own quarters, but she doesn't react like this is either normal or unexpected... like it isn't her quarters, you know? Yar giggles from the other room and reveals that she's well into delusional mode, that this is Troi's quarters and that Yar needs feminine advice. Why exactly does Troi have a bunch of filmy see through scarf-dresses? Why doesn't she wear them? The world wants to know.
So, Yar really wants to update her image, be more feminine like Troi, and Troi goes total bitch-face on her. "Its Not for You." she snaps before she remembers she's the ships councilor, and that Yar is acting like someone in need of counseling. Yar, for all her delusional mode and lack of feminine wiles totally gets the bitchface from Troi and gives her the smiling riposte that she can get what she needs elsewhere...
So Troi calls Picard to tell them Yar is Infected, and Picard plays Grammar Nazi. What the fuck is with these people and nitpicking over shit? Still, I like that Picard doesn't feel like wasting time telling Data was "Snootfull" means.
So Crusher, Sickbay: Wesley, looking a bit sickly...um, sicklier, calls 'Mom' in to show off his tractor beam. He's holding a tricorder or something up in the air and bragging about how he's made the beam stronger. Last scene he was holding up a chair, so...wtf? Anyway, Wheaton does an alright job playing up the subtle signs of Delusional Mode, but drops the ball when he has to note how hot it is, suddenly. Of course, Picard calls to check on the cure and remind the doctor that its spreading. She doesn't tell him her son is sick now.
Cut Too: Tasha Yar's Amazing Ass Shot as she sashays through the halls. Still in uniform, sadly. Of course, the all black of her Onsie doesn't show it off as well as we'd like, bah. On the other hand, the Uhura Skirt makes another appearance on a random extra in the hall, so that's nice. Good to see Starfleet still has some priorities. Yar totally kisses some random lucky dude in the hall, and I don't think the extra was acting when he was smiling, though the kiss itself is brutal and awkward.
Then back to the bridge, where Picard continues to act secretly terrified of collapsing stars, a weird trait for a starship captain. Data reveals that 'Half Impulse Power' is.... really fucking fast, since they can apparently outrun exploding stars at that rate. On the other hand, data transfer rates in Starfleet are... really fucking slow, as they've already been downloading for hours, and still have 41 minutes left. Yes, yes.. eight months of data, and all that, whatever.
Engineering; Picard's Voice summons the chief engineer to the bridge. I'm assuming its the acting chief, or else LaForge's actual duty position wasn't clearly established yet. The Actress looks familiar, but she's not. (Brooke Bundy, for the curious). Curiously, Picard then summons the assistant Chief by name (Shimoda), telling him to report to Sick Bay. Cue Wesley's walk in.
So, we've established that this mysterious gravity based ailment causes drunkness, so why does everyone act less like they are drunk and more like they are deliberately fucking with us? Oh, yeah: the writers are hacks, got it.
Shimoda isn't drunk, yet, but clearly he's a fucking idiot, since he accepts Wesley's offer to watch Engineering for him. I'm pretty sure we never see Shimoda again after this episode, but I do know we see the Chief Engineer (Macdougal?) in later episodes.
So the Engineer reports, and Picard continues to reveal his secret fear of exploding stars (seriously: its a thing. I dare you to watch the episode and not see it). Naturally Wesley uses his Picard Voice to announce his sudden captaincy. Picard is more upset with the rank than the fact that his voice was saying stuff he wasn't actually saying.
Yeah, cause Drunk People totally do shit like this, all the time.
Cue Commercial break.
And we're back while Acting Captain Crusher regales a gaggle of giggling gear heads with his new orders covering desert from behind a force field. Because, you know, drunk kids on power trips totally recognize the need for defensive measures to protect their stolen power, or something. Shimoda shows up and walks into the force field stupidly, praising Wesley's genius. Stupid Shimoda, way to toss asian stereotypes right out the window!
Apparently hooking up his tractor beam up to ship's power turns it into a repulser beam. You know, just like plugging a battery powered vacuum cleaner into a house turns it into a leaf blower.
And so Wesley lets Shimoda into his office-fortress.
Picard, on the bridge, orders Riker and Macdougal (hah!) to Engineering to get 'that boy' out. Worf passes on the fact that there are strange reports coming in, and Data passes on a dirty limerick. Somehow Picard thinks calling Security will help.
No, doofus: Security isn't the answer. Proper Quarantine is the fucking answer. Too late now, but you'd still be better off calling the doctor. Security is drunk too.
Apparently, Yar was hosting an orgy when Picard called, though she is alone when Data goes to her quarters. I base this on the sexualized nature of her dialog, double entendre and the male voices that answer the comm in the first place. You decide if she was having sex or serving cheese platters.
For no good reason, Picard orders Data to take Yar to Sick Bay. Note that at this time he's already established that half his crew are sick, so what possible purpose could be served by taking one sick crew member from her quarters to sick bay?
Yar's Quarters: Data walks in, its TV dark, Yar shows up in a revealing wet-scarf outfit, hair slicked back and with femme fatale makeup. Data does that whole nervous swallow routine that is really, really out of place for his character. Again: Machine. Fuck. Anyway, Yar claims to have gotten all sexied up for Data, which we'll chalk up to 'fill in the blank' lust rather than having a fetish for machine men (walking dildo?), but then she lays down some character exposition about being abandoned when she was five, which... would kill the mood, but... Data. Then she mentions Rape Gangs... apparently Data never did any research on bridge crew... and since we've gone to Rape Gangs, Yar clearly wants sexy time... yeah... they did that, but its 'gentleness'. Great: So Data is Yar's dream boyfriend, because as a machine man he's incapable of being rapey....
Yar's asking Data about how fully functional he is almost redeems the scene from its, well, rapey-ness, and Data reveals that this is not his first walking-dildo rodeo... now, there is a fucking story to wonder about, eh?
I'll note that Denise Crosby is somewhat tall, having a good two or three inches on the random extra she kissed in the hallway. Luckily for the ladies, Brent Spiner is taller than Denise Crosby. You know you want that...
Anyway: Back to Engineering where Riker and MacDougal are baffled as Drunk Wesley's office-Fortress. Apparently science fair tractor beams that magically work as repulser beams when given ship's power are an insoluble problem for a chief engineer (no wonder she was demoted). Likewise, shorting power to the office, from conduit panel is a time consuming affair. Meanwhile, Shimoda has pulled all the isolinear computer chips out and is playing Jenga with them.
I would hardly be the first reviewer to note that Star Trek's ship designers are apparently pulled from those who flunked out of engineering academies. Apparently, despite being a massive compartment built around the ship's engines, everything is controlled from that one tiny little office. This is as bad as the exploding control panels, never mind that the only thing those particular chips should probably affect is the link between the office and the rest of the ship. But, no: this one tiny office apparently controls the only interface between the ships engines and the puny humans who walk around it all day AND the actual computer that takes orders from the bridge. Because that makes sense.
And... here comes Drunk Troi, calling Riker "Bill". I guess its better than Inzadi, or whatever she called him in Farpoint. She starts going on about all the human minds and how free they are, and how she's never experienced that... I guess on Betazed all the Betazoids are free all the time but its different? I dunno. Anyway, Riker picks her up to carry her to Sick Bay and she starts asking the obvious question: Why Sick Bay? Don't you want to take advantage of my drunk ass?
Sick Bay: Closeup of Crusher pushing an injector onto a vial of fluid, loading it or whatever, complete with unnecessary sci-fi sounds. She moves to Laforge, who I'm gonna guess was tranquilized by the earlier shot. Oh, no. He's just restrained and acting more sick than drunk.
So Riker drops off Troi and finds Crusher obsessively working, so he totally touches her shoulder and bare neck, we get the stupid sound effect of drunk-transmission, even though Riker is currently symptomless. Also, unnecessary, as Crusher has been working with Laforge from the beginning with no protection at all. Crusher reveals that the formula doesn't work. She thinks this 'water carbon compound' may have mutated.
What?
This is a gravity created chemical compound that doesn't act like a virus or bacteria, isn't alive in any meaningful sense... though it is transmitted on skin to skin contact just like a real disease... but it somehow 'mutated'? This isn't the TOS sickness, its a new sickness that is just like it. How the fuck would it have 'mutated'? Sigh.
And suddenly Crusher realizes that Riker just infected her. He runs off and she calls out that she's got to quarantine him!
Oh, god.
NOW?
NOW!!!!
Sigh.
Riker points out that he's got a drunk mission to save their lives down in engineering, instead of simply pointing out that its more than a little too fucking late. Man, if I didn't already hate Riker from before, he'd be my favorite character.
Commercial:
And back to the bridge, where Picard totally lets Wesley logic him to death. It goes like this: Picard demands Wesley hand control back to the bridge, Wesley counters, suggesting Picard order Wesley to do whatever he wants done, Picard protests that Ship Captains don't do that, and...naturally, Wesley points out that actually, all Picard does is give orders, so whats wrong with giving them to Wesley?
Ouch. A drunk kid totally logic trapped you, don't you feel stupid and ineffectual.
In fact, he feels so stupid he totally forgets that he's been terrified of this star going Boom all along and actually waves away Worf giving him 'star go boom' countdown information so he can try to sweet talk Wesley out of Engineering.
I'll note too that no one who hasn't left the bridge has been the least bit drunk, so the informal quarantine of the bridge? Totally effective. Oops, random redshirt conn guy is looking a bit unsettled. Who touched him?
Worf must have nerves of steel, since he doesn't bother to try again until after Picard has been cut off by Wesley. You know, collapsing stars and all that... either that or its not that big of a deal and Picard is just a big pussy, you decide.
There is more scene padding, with a montage of everyone trying to solve their simple problems (you know, cutting power to an office from the electrical panel outside that office, Wesley struggling to work the tractor beam, Crusher noting that drunk problems solving is harder than sober problem solving...), Picard attempts to call engineering, but Data does his walk of shame onto the bridge.
This one scene more or less destroys all of Data's future whining about lacking emotions. Clearly his positronic brain (they don't use that term in this episode) is fully capable of emotions, as he is in full drunk-emotional roller coaster mode here. I was hoping Picard would point out Data was a machine, but instead he just says 'different', so once again, Android becomes code for 'alien'. Sigh.
Anyway, Crusher comes in talking about 'private, no urgent' matters... as if these are binary opposites. Crusher is sitting on the captain's desk all 'Mrs Robinson' when Picard comes in, but it goes to waste. The scene is sort of pointless, though it does help establish the presupposed chemistry between the two characters that is supposed to be simmering away but hasn't really had time to be established. I like how Picard does the 'Hun-hun-hun-hun' sound to check Crusher's....um...crush. He tries to walk off and she starts protesting about her need for 'a man', unzipping a little. Its all pretty demure to me, MacFadden just isn't sexy, really, but the actors play off one another nicely nonetheless. Picard more or less promises her later sexytime with a rasped 'not now, doctor', all while Worf watches with all the stoicness that Data should be mustering. Worf calls Riker to tell him Picard and Data are infected, and Riker (himself infected, mind you, but not showing it), goes to somehow handle that, leaving MacDougal to somehow beat the drunk kid at engineering.
Cut to: Star explody. Picard tries to order Worf to 'take us out of here', but can't get the words out, and Worf plays dumb until Riker steps in. What? Sigh.
Technical note on star explosions: Whatever, its TV. I guess stars just pop like balloons now.
Worf can't get the conn to work, so he tries the other one, then back to the first one. You know, because its not like Picard and Riker haven't spent the last hour or two, or whatever, trying to get control back on the bridge from Wesley's demented hands. Sigh.
He reports that the controls are still offline, and Picard orders him to "override".
Well, I guess you should have tried that earlier?
Oh, you did? Same results you say? Oh, look, in all the vastness of space a single glowy chunk of star matter is coming right for the Enterprise! Imagine that!
Just then MacDougal finally figures out how to cut the power. She comes in with a great Mom-Glare for both Wesley and Shimoda. I'll note that apparently Drunk-Shimoda is apparently a three year old boy, just for the record.
Okay: So with fourteen minutes MacDougal can't replace all the chips. Call it fifty to a hundred chips. Her life is on the line, but no can do. Well, clearly, since it took her an hour or two just to cut the power to this one room, and that was with Riker's help. Luckily Wesley knows Data could do it. I'll note that 'Drunk Picard' is... dull. He's less drunk than senile. Bah.
Wesley points out that to Data the simple Isolinear Chips are just simple isolinear chips (ouch, that was a brick), and Data could shuffle them like cards. No, literally, he says that. The problem isn't that the chips are in dire need of shuffling.
Look: the chips all go into a panel that is roughly twelve inches wide and maybe 24 inches tall, arranged in a number of vertical slots arranged in rows of... call it twenty or so. With me? Less than 75% of the chips were removed, based on eyeball estimates of the panel. The chips clearly slide in and out without difficulty, based on Shimoda, and later Data's actions. The only problem must be putting the chips in the right slot. Now, this may be taking things for granted, given the quality of Star Fleet engineering, but the chips and slots must be clearly labeled, as we can presuppose that they go in specific slots (and for that matter, what's wrong with trying to isolate critical chips and just putting those into place first? How the fuck do they do diagnostics and repairs without crippling the ship???). Lets say a full hundred chips were removed, and a full 14 minutes remain until explody death happens. That gives MacDougal seven and a half seconds per chip, most of which would be spent isolating the right chips. Simple expediency would have her simply pick up a chip, look at its label and then slotting it properly, which should take no more than three to five seconds at a time, averaged, leaving approximately four minutes to fly the ship out of danger.
Instead she gives up, Riker spends ten minutes getting clearly Drunk-Data into Engineering and letting him sort chips at a rate of two per second, giving the ship a margin of error of only one minute.
Bah.
So, the show cheats a bit, to ratchet up the tension. Riker gives Data 8 or 9 minutes, and though Data is clearly working far more than fast enough, he claims it will take slightly more time than they have, and Riker at last notices he's getting drunk. Finally!
Now: I've paused the show. Nine rows of chips, with roughly 15 chips a row, with a second panel with only partial rows. Despite the fact that clearly not all the chips were removed earlier, now they were all (or mostly all) gone. Still with math: Even if you had two full panels (270 chips), and Data only managed a rate of one chip a second (clearly he is faster than that), it would only take him four and a half minutes to put in every chip.
Picard gives up on senile-drunk and goes for Randy-Drunk and checks in with the doctor. While their interaction is cute enough, the inconsistency of everyone's drunk behavior is driving me nuts. So far not one clothed shower or freezing cold climate control scene to be had, either. Anyway, Crusher has a new serum to test.
Meanwhile, Wesley is crowing about his repulser/tractor beam thingy, and Data goes 'if only we had one minute more', as if he had to do a whole second panel of chips and Riker gets that 'oh yeah!' face. So someone REALLY REALLY wanted to ensure Checkov's Gun got fired this episode, since that god damn science fair project has only been used in four or five scenes...
But, wouldn't you know it: Drunk Riker can't concentrate, so Drunk-Wesley has to do the math himself. Clearly, Riker had that epiphany face while Wesley was talking, but no... kid-genius gotta gene... Wesley decides to reverse the polarity of the ship's tractor beam himself.
Meanwhile, not-Drunk Macdougal stands there uselessly. Wesley even asks her to help and she protests it would take weeks to lay out new circuits. Oh...oh, God... Now I remember why everyone hated Wesley so much! In order to make him seem so fucking smart, they had to make everyone else morons!
Also: We have clearly seen, no less than three times, that it is one single chunk of star stuff in all of space coming right for them. Astronomical!!!
Anyway, back in Sick Bay, Crusher tests the formula, and it works. She takes a moment then shoots up Picard and herself and I notice that in the background there are clearly medical 'extras' walking around... not-drunk. So, why have the drunk doctor making up formulas and injecting them in human guinea pigs???
Picard takes the formula down to Engineering and immediately shoots up MacDougal, useless and non-drunk as she is. Sigh. He then injects Data. Sigh. Data starts putting in chips..faster. Apparently he ALSO shot up Wesley, but we don't see it, because as he shoots up Riker, Wesley overcomes he genius block. His brilliant plan? To push the Tsiolkovski into the star matter, pushing the Enterprise one minute further away from the star matter. Sigh.
Why not push out of the way? Why not just push against the oncoming glowy boulder, buying essentially infinite time? Also, it turns out they didn't need a full minute, more like ten seconds (again, why? See the math above. At absolute worst Data needed four and a half minutes (more like 3 minutes) out of 8 or 9 minutes, and in all probability he was putting in chips fast enough to shave his time down to a minute and a half. Bah.
So, after one last commercial break, Crusher is injecting bridge crew. LaForge calls Picard asking if they got shoved aside at the last minute somehow, and if Data saved them all... and Picard reluctantly admits that Wesley may have helped. Worf finds that hard to believe, letting Crusher do the proud-mama moment.
And everyone conveniently forgets that Wesley is the one who put them in that situation in the first place. Damn space drunkenness!
Riker tells Picard its only fair to mention Wesley in a log entry... you know, for his little space-drunk mutiny or something, and... Picard says something about crediting his science teacher (who??), before giving Wesley his shot. Oh... so drunk Wesley... still smarter than the rest of the crew. Sigh.
So, back on the bridge. Yar and Troi walk off the turbo lift together. Given how both of them are apparently horny drunks that does make me wonder... Yar goes to her station and exchanges an awkward look with Data, then stalks over to tell him 'It never happened', like she's dealing with a bad boyfriend material or something. Its cute, but in the context of Data as Machine, it makes little sense. In the sense of Data as Alien-human, I suppose it makes some sense, but that really irritates for the reason I've been going on and on about. Data is a Machine, not an alien that looks like a human and wants to be human. Fucking writers.
Anyway: Seeing this is the first true (non-pilot) episode, Picard makes a comment about how they might have a fine crew if they avoid temptation (Reaction shots of Yar-Data... and you can see Yar will totally be hitting that again, later, and of Riker-Troi...)... never mind that Picard will presumably have to answer for the loss of a fucking starship. Not HIS starship, true... but...
Anyway: On the final analysis I can see a what promises to be a chronic problem with the series. Lets call it 'Causality'. On the Tsiokovski, no one touched a sick person, yet they got sick. We're told that the 'disease' might be caused by gravity waves from the collapsing star. However, the Enterprise only gets sick from touch. Laforge Touches a corpuscle, then he touches Wesley, then Yar... and presumably a bunch of people we don't see. Yar touches some random people, Troi and Data. Troi touches Riker, who touches Crusher. No one touches Picard, or he catches it much faster than anyone else aboard, and no one touches Worf (Poor, sad, lonely klingon...).
How the fuck did all thousand plus people on board get touched that everyone was drunk by the end?
We'll never know. Cause and effect are nearly completely divorced for the most part. Wesley's tractor beam becomes a repulser when he plugs it into the ship's power, but then converting an existing tractor beam to repulse would take weeks for a trained engineer to do, but he can do it on the fly faster than Data can plug in chips.
Sigh. Cause, meet Effect. Now, wave goodbye, you'll never see each other again in this show...
*In purely technical terms, suction is caused when you have a pressure differential, taking stuff from the high pressure side to the low pressure side. Obviously being 'blown out' is when stuff is carried on a wave of expanding gas. This means Data engages in the worst sort of grammar nazi behavior, correcting people when they aren't actually wrong.
** Like the JJ Abrams movies, the first Season of Star Trek: The Next Generation couldn't avoid making obvious references to what came before. This is a serious weakness for the show, and from the writers. At least in this case we have a reasonably strong case to make that allowing TOS references creates a stronger backstory, unlike in the Abrams movies, where the backstory was wiped away completely.
*** Just to note: Sick Bay is a big and reasonably important part of the ship. With the size of the crew its more a mini hospital than a small private clinic. Yet Crusher steps out of a door more akin to an office door into a hallway (twenty feet of empty hallway in either direction, with a connector) with no other doors in sight. This is the ghetto of the starship. We've seen major corridors, but this ain't one. Mind you, part of her duties is trauma, getting large numbers of critically injured people to sick bay for emergency medical response, and she supervises at least a half dozen emergency responders (see Farpoint for an example of this), yet as of this scene, Sickbay is basically a converted crew quarters shoved in an otherwise empty part of the ship, far removed from anything. I'd love to believe this is the quarantine sickbay, rather than the main sickbay, but given security, it just ain't so...
Encounter at Farpoint
I've been talking a lot of Star Trek with friends lately. There are a handful of later season episodes that were begin bandied about as examples of ST writing at its finest, including Darmok, a personal favorite... even if the episode itself doesn't quite deliver on strength of its premise fully.
It occurred to me that I had access to the entire show, and that I hadn't really watched 'the entire show' since it originally aired. Skipping Encounter at Farpoint wasn't an option, as Q was a highlight.
You have to understand, I watched at least the first four seasons as they aired, religiously. Not personally religiously, but because my family were pretty die hard 'trekkies'... to this day I am aware of the two factions of Fandom, the Trekkies and the Trekkers, but I'll be damned if I can find more difference between them than the name of choice.
Encounter at Farpoint is... bad. Really bad. Rewatching it I realized that John de Lancie probably saved The Next Generation, singlehandedly, from oblivion. Not unexpectedly, a large number of simple problems were artifacts of it being a Pilot Episode. I'm talking about exposition dumps, massive overuse of musical cues and drastically overamped scenes to demonstrate this or that facet of the new crew.
But not all of them. Take Q himself. His introduction is handled incredibly sloppily, a callback to the Original Series, but without any real setup. He's a 'designated nemesis', which is simply piss poor writing. However, he sells it very well so we forgive the writers for being hacks. If you must rematch this episode, pay attention to the opening bit, where John de Lancie is changing costumes. Its practically an actor's workshop of using subtle changes in behavior to sell entire characters instead of relying on the costumes or dialog, and given that he's just playing one character doing 'dress up' its notionally unnecessary. Only, without it I don't think we would a have bought Q as a proper nemesis at all.
Curiously: The court Announcer is one of my favorite under appreciated actors, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, in what IMDB labels as his fourth acting gig, after an episode of MacGuyver! Huzzah!
Seeing the entire episode again, I was reminded of something that had stood out even to my young self on first watching: Tasha Yar, while hot, was a terrible character. My older self isn't quite as sure she was as hot as I thought back then... old crushes don't always stand up to scrutiny... who knew? Of course, since I'm set to watch Naked Now in a little bit I may change my mind (I seem to recall my voice dropped an octave after she seduced Data, a couple of years ahead of schedule...), and Denise Crosby did herself no favors as an actress playing her, though I recall seeing her more recently in her Romulan character and finding her much improved.
I note that Marina Sirtis is Greek by way of London, which is all well and good, but for some reason discussions about her casting reference her Exotic Looks. Greeks are Exotic now? Oy. Of course, it could have been worse: She could have played Macha Hernandez, the character that eventually became Tasha Yar.
Of course, Farpoint has one thing going on for it that later episode lacked: The return of the short skirts for women, notably Marina Sirtis.
On the other hand, it had something that thankfully disappeared: Short Skirts for men! The fuck???
Yup, there is a random dude in Engineering wearing a Starfleet Uniform dress, and you see him again (or another dude, maybe) evacuating to the Saucer Section during separation, still in that fucking dress.
Let me note for the record, however, that if Humanity is ever being judged on its fitness by some powerful alien creature that I do not want Picard as my advocate. He almost seems to agree with Q about how pathetic and savage humans are in general... at least up until the Federation came into being. What a prick.
No, seriously: Picard is an asshole in this episode. Pretty much the first thing he does when he meets his first officer is punish him by making him manually attach the saucer back in place, something even Data thinks is incredibly difficult and risky, and later he simply calls it routine. He more or less tries to fire Dr Crusher her first day on the job... pretty much everyone pulls rank and ceremony bullshit to the other crew members, but Picard is the worst example of 'I'm the Captain, so I'm gonna be a dick to remind you that I'm the boss' I've seen in a sympathetic character in some time!
Lord help me, but I'm not sure I will be able to make it through seven seasons of this...
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