Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: We'll Always Have Paris

TNG "We'll Always Have Paris"

"We'll Always Have Paris" blazes a trail for The Next Generation in a couple ways. It's the first "timey-wimey" episode, featuring time distortions (later examples: "Time Squared", "Cause and Effect", etc.). And not counting Beverly Crusher, it's the first Picard's old flame/Picard love interest episode (later examples: "The Measure of a Man", "Lessons", etc.). So cue rote time trickery and Picard wistfully recreating a Paris cafe on the holodeck.

Jenice Manheim, Picard's former lover of 22 years ago, is played by Michelle Phillips, best known from the 1960s rock group The Mamas and the Papas. With all these time distortions, it's a real "Monday Monday" situation, huh? "California Dreamin'"? More like Paris Dreamin'.

... Maybe that doesn't work too well.

The episode runs those two strands in parallel, pioneering their use in the show but in a decidedly workmanlike fashion. One fun aspect of the holodeck program is seeing future production design in the 24th Century French cafe. The Space Fashion Choices for those women scream out the trademark of costume designer William Ware Theiss, lending his talents familiar from the original series to the first season of TNG. It is details like this that make TNG Season 1 an aesthetically liminal transition point between the gaudy TOS and the more austere TNG.

Being a showcase for Picard, he is also seen fencing with an anonymous crew member. Seeing Picard in "dab hand with a cutlass" mode recalls his time as swordmaster Gurney Halleck in David Lynch's Dune - or for that matter, Lord Leondegrance in John Boorman's Excalibur.

Details like that liven up a somewhat routine episode. There is one moment at the episode's close I want to pick out, before a painfully awkward comedy ending. Picard says the Enterprise is due for "much needed" shore leave. Could it be a subtle reference to the loss of Tasha Yar, killed in action in the episode directly prior...?

A decent but unremarkable romance/science puzzle. 5/10.

P.S.: As a Star Wars fan, the Enterprise's trip to Vandor 4 recalls Han Solo and crew's Conveyex heist on Vandor 1 in Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: The Perfect Mate

TNG "The Perfect Mate"

A centuries-long war between two planets, coming to an end through an alliance sealed by marriage. An ambassador ferrying the bride on the Enterprise, and said ambassador falls victim to a violent mishap and ends up in sickbay. A romantic connection between the bride and the captain of the Enterprise. If this all sounds familiar, it's because "The Perfect Mate" shares many basic similarities with another episode we've recently covered in this random rewatch: the original series' "Elaan of Troyius"!

The skeleton of each episode is similar, but thankfully that's where they end. In terms of subtlety, and quality of character work and writing, "The Perfect Mate" is a drastic improvement. Famke Janssen guest stars as Kamala, a "metamorph" whose sole purpose is to tailer herself to the pleasure of their future betrothed. (In a subversive detail, it's mentioned that most metamorphs are male.) Naturally this doesn't sit terribly well with the Enterprise crew (particularly Beverly Crusher), but if Kamala truly derives pleasure from subsuming herself to someone else, the issue isn't as clear cut as one might think.

The episode teases out this dynamic well, articulating multiple sides, and taking unexpected turns in the plot. Alrik, the man Kamala will marry, is established to be rather dismissive of Kamala. In a haunting moment, Picard wonders to Beverly how Kamala will change to accommodate Alrik. The implication is clear: there's a danger that to please a man who doesn't respect her, she will void herself of the sharp intelligence that defines her now, and hollow herself out. There's a small victory in that Kamala makes clear that she will accommodate Alrik, but she won't change for him.

Kamala finds herself imprinting romantically on Patrick Stewart's Picard. This is quite something when you consider that in the X-Men movies, Janssen's Jean Grey is a professor who works for Stewart, who was recruited by Stewart when she was a little girl. Remarkably, Kamala even refers to herself as a mutant, just as Jean Grey and her fellow X-Men are mutants.

There's a notably dirty joke in the episode. After Kamala comes on to a flustered Riker, he calls in and says, "I'll be in Holodeck 4." What he'll be doing in Holodeck 4 is left to the imagination, but this is a true Jayne from Firefly, "I'll be in my bunk" moment.

"The Perfect Mate" is a tender and well-told tale of space romance, and one-ups "Elaan of Troyius" in every way except camp value. 7/10.

Canon connections:
- One of the Ferengi is played by Max Grodenchik, who will in future play the Ferengi Rom in Deep Space Nine.
- Geordi asks the Ferengi if they want to see the dolphins on board. I believe this was a cute detail in the Next Generation Technical Manual, which identified an area for dolphins on the Enterprise-D.
- Kamala's ceremonial line, "I am for you, Alrik of Valt", calls back to Losira's siren words in the original series episode "That Which Survives". She too said ostentatiously "I am for you".

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: Conundrum

TNG "Conundrum"

"Conundrum" has a singularly clever premise, as an alien erases the Enterprise crew's memory and inserts himself in the command structure of the senior staff, in order to use the Enterprise's tactical features as weapons of mass destruction against an enemy. By instantly retconning himself into the crew, the alien (MacDuff) becomes an early example of the "Dawn from Buffy" phenomenon. Dawn was also inserted into the cast of the show, and the artificiality of that was a major plot point.

The initial disorientation of the crew is captured by rare handheld camerawork, from director Les Landau. I love how the initial reveal of MacDuff is done subtly; no particular musical sting accompanies his first appearance, and the camera quickly cuts away. Of course, later MacDuff's cover is violently blown.

What saves the day is Federation ethics. Picard has a great scene in the Ready Room with MacDuff, forcefully saying that he requires a moral context for orders that involve killing. Before things turn around, the Enterprise is treated as a warship even by the show itself. Dennis McCarthy's score follows the ship with a percussive martial cue.

Perhaps the episode's biggest flaw is a quick resolution, so common in Star Trek. MacDuff is phasered into submission, and there's only the briefest reflection on what has happened. What's missing, on the nose as it might have been, is a moment of summation.

With Star Trek: Picard hindsight, we have any seed that pays off in that later show. Data speculates that he could hail from a race of artificial life-forms, who live on a home planet they claim as their own. Such a planet directly factors into Picard.

A clever episode that slightly fizzles out at the end. 7/10.

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: Time's Arrow Part 1

TNG "Time's Arrow Part 1"

"My brother's positronic brain had a type-L phase discriminating amplifier. Mine is type R." 

"Type R?!"

- Data and Jean-Luc Picard

The Enterprise is recalled to Earth by a project manager who seems to know the conventions of television. Instead of telling Picard and Data up front that they've found DATA'S HEAD, he buries the lede and only reveals it for maximum, end-of-teaser, effect.

The evidence points to Data's death after being displaced in time to 19th Century Earth, which Data reacts to with customary unemotional evenness. Not so his crewmates. This leads to a wonderful first act of the episode, where everyone reacts to the specter of Data's apparent inevitable death with unease. In a hilarious moment, Geordi just sighs and says casually, "They found Data's head a mile below San Francisco..."

But for Data, having knowledge of his death at an undetermined future date is strangely comforting, giving him a mortality that brings his life experience closer to transitory humanity. It's profound stuff, and for anyone who's seen Star Trek Picard Season 1, it should sound a massive signal that certain developments in that show have their exact roots right here.

Soon enough, Data is transported back in time, and the episode takes the left turn in stride. He's winning money in poker, connecting with Mark Twain and the Guinan living in San Francisco at the time, and applying Starfleet resourcefulness to period machinery, "City on the Edge of Forever"-style.

The entire rest of the cast, minus Worf, follow Data into the past. Which begs the question, who's helping Worf run the Enterprise? With Worf as acting Captain, I would speculate that we'd have Ro Laren as First Officer, Reginald Barclay as Chief Engineer, Alyssa Ogawa as Chief Medical Officer, and Guinan as Counselor. Would watch.

It must be said of the science fiction concept of the episode: what were they smoking? The Devidian sequence at the end is truly bizarre, as ghostly approximations of alien forms feed on human life force through their foreheads, and there's a creepy snake too for some reason. It's an eerie Doctor Who-esque setup, aliens targeting Earth's history to feed on humanity.

While the clear highlight of the episode is the warm character-driven Act 1, the episode as a whole balances well affability and true strangeness. 7/10.

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: Booby Trap

TNG "Booby Trap"

The Randomizer has been on a Next Generation kick recently. This is the sixth TNG episode so far, and the third from Season 3! Hopefully some variety turns around this disproportionate trend.

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When the Enterprise gets caught in a millennia-old booby trap (which is explained and circumvented in technobabble I can't begin to decipher), two characters' stories are serviced. Geordi, established as permanently unlucky in love, brainstorms a way to save the ship while flirting with a hologram of propulsion designer Dr. Leah Brahms. And Picard, whose boyhood sense of adventure is excited by a derelict ship, must manually pilot the Enterprise to safety in a daring gambit.

Geordi's story kicks off with an awkward date on the holodeck that fizzles to nothing. He speaks with Guinan about it and she once again proves an effective counselor. Throughout the episode, Geordi develops an attraction toward a hologram who duets with him in technical jargon. After the Leah Brahms hologram says of the Enterprise, "Every time you look at this engine, it's me. Every time you touch it, it's me", she and Geordi kiss. So Geordi, Chief Engineer of the Enterprise, makes out with what is coded as an embodiment of the Enterprise itself.

Also on the Geordi dating tip, it's established that he spent a long time finessing the holodeck date program, trying to get every detail exactly right. It seems to me that part of any date, or indeed any social engagement, is not knowing exactly what's going to happen. Going with the flow, and relaxing into it however possible, is probably the way to go, over trying to fine-tune a beat-by-beat "romantic scenario".

The dead ship that the Enterprise investigates is realized with gorgeous model work that's all the more striking on blu-ray. And Ron Jones' score has an appropriate motif for the vessel: a lonely, echoing sentinel horn. Fitting for a ghost ship in the vastness of space. At one point, when danger for the Enterprise is dire, that theme haunts the Enterprise; it represents the fate the crew must avoid.

The technical side of the episode is kind of a wash as far as I'm concerned. The Picard material is overall better than Geordi's. (There's a sweet moment where Deanna and Riker are happy to see the side of Picard who gets excited by things.) A functional, average episode. 5/10.

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: The Hunted

TNG "The Hunted"

"To survive is not enough! To simply exist is not enough!" - Roga Danar

"The Hunted" is Star Trek does First Blood. The Enterprise travels to Angosia, and this strange world is used to reflect our social issue of veteran treatment. Just like John Rambo, Angosian fugitive Roga Danar was a soldier, programmed and conditioned for war, used by his government and society, but cast aside by the same in peacetime.

And functionally, the episode plays out a bit like the Enterprise vs. an 80s action hero. Actually, the one-man army has the upper hand. The ingenuity of Roga humbles Picard and the crew constantly, and Deanna empathizes with the inhumane plight that the Angosian government has put Roga in.

This is an action episode, but the action is built upon a fascinating dynamic. When the Enterprise has Roga in the brig, Deanna, Data, and Picard sympathize with Roga and rue having to turn him over to the local authorities. Roga comes out and says he'll do anything he can to escape that fate. And vis a vis Patrick Stewart's subtle acting, Picard tacitly respects and accepts Roga's vow to tear through the Enterprise for a shot at freedom. So the nominal hero and villain of the episode are in high-stakes conflict with each other, with no malice between them. Each cat and mouse ploy, each reversal, has an undercurrent of respect.

The Enterprise is in the Angosian system because Angosia (headed by James Cromwell's Prime Minister Nayrok) is petitioning for Federation membership. Picard, his eyes open to the Angosian exploitation and disrespect of their soldiers, satisfyingly refuses them. And the Angosian society of bureaucratic philosophers looks like a 19th Century, cod-Wellsian utopia - we see no Angosian women.

Solid social commentary, engaging action, and an antagonist with depth. 7/10.

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: A Matter of Perspective

TNG "A Matter of Perspective"

Yes, this is the episode that features the famous Riker facepalm. (Almost as well-known as the Picard facepalm.) It's one of many moments where Riker is made to squirm, as he is accused of the murder of a Tanugan scientist, and must sit through hostile testimony at a hearing. The hook is, the testimony is dramatized on the holodeck, so the prosecution and defense can powerfully and immersively illustrate their sides of the story.

In Tanugan justice, the defendant is guilty until proven innocent, a familiar idea from Cardassian justice later in the franchise, and indeed already seen in this rewatch: It was also the modus operandi of the mid-21st Century courts from the post-atomic horror, as shown in "Encounter at Farpoint". Of course, by episode's end Riker is exonerated, with Picard and Geordi proving his innocence in a very technical, Trekkian way.

From an optics perspective, it should be noted that on the face of it, the episode features a woman (Manua Apgar, the dead scientist's wife) lying about an attempted rape to stack evidence against a man (Riker). While depicting this tends to be a bad look, there is more to it than that. When Manua's testimony is given, Deanna doesn't sense deception from Manua's perspective. So the truth, between a violently exaggerated version of Riker's womanizing tendencies, to Riker's account of warding off her advances, lies somewhere in between. Understanding is a three-edged sword: your side, my side, and the truth.

Ron Jones' score is instantly more interesting than those for the Season 4 and 7 episodes the Randomizer has recently featured. (That's largely because producer Rick Berman wanted the scores toned down about halfway through the show's run.) A regal motif accompanies an amusing scene where Data the art critic assesses the work of Picard's art class (who are painting a nude model). The episode's main theme is waftingly eerie, though admittedly not very pleasant to listen to.

A novel use of the holodeck makes for an engaging look at space justice. 7/10.

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: Inheritance

TNG "Inheritance"

The final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation was like a clown car family reunion. The show debuted Geordi's parents, Worf's foster brother and a future version of his son, Beverly's grandmother, the sister Deanna never knew she had, the son Picard never knew he had, and here, the mother Data never knew he had.

Doctor Juliana Tainer (guest star Fionnula Flanigan) claims to be the wife of Data's creator Noonien Soong, and to have had a hand in crafting Data. Her part in raising Data was, to hear her tell it, erased from Data's memory banks. Data investigates her claims with the same Sherlockian vigor he brings to bear when portraying that detective on the holodeck, and eventually comes to call Juliana mother as casually as he refers to Noonien Soong as his father. (Surely a small sign of Data's progress toward humanity.)

The episode weaves in a wide tapestry of Data continuity from throughout the entire show, with multiple previous episodes mentioned or alluded to. The episode also calls forward to the future, as in retrospect, we can see the seeds planted for Star Trek: Nemesis' B-4 and Star Trek: Picard's Soji and Dahj Asha.

Fionnula Flanagan's warm performance brings out fine work from Brent Spiner as Data, as he processes this new relationship in his own way. Data's wonderfully matter-of-fact affect is on full display, like when he says of his art, "I am attempting to master all known styles of painting."

The twist of the episode comes with the reveal that Juliana is an android replica of the original, long deceased woman, programmed to think herself human and even with some internal human biological systems. She's a clear predecessor of the more "uncannily human" Soong androids Soji and Dahj. One of the highlights of the episode comes in an observation lounge scene where Data, Beverly, Deanna, and Picard discuss whether to tell Juliana if she's an android.

A sweet, above-average character episode for Data and his mother figure. 6/10.

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: The Loss

TNG "The Loss"

Back to TNG, and we skip ahead three seasons. The difference between where the show is in "The Loss" and where it was in the pilot is clear. The show has calmed down. The aesthetic is more locked down and frankly more beige. In a way, the tone has traded campiness for dignity. These changes are what secured the show's success, but the evidence of only "The Loss" is that of a show on autopilot. Come up with a technical threat, and tie it in with character stuff for one of the regulars (Deanna Troi in this case), and spend as little money as possible.

The technical threat is a pretty esoteric SF concept: two-dimensional sentient beings unwittingly trapping the Enterprise in their wake. And as the Enterprise reckons with an almost literal abstraction, a cosmic anomaly robs Deanna of her empathic abilities. At one point, the parallel between plots is made explicit: Deanna fears that without her powers, she feels as two-dimensional as the new life-forms.

I said earlier that the tone of TNG on display here is that of restraint. Still, Deanna is having a total emotional meltdown over losing her abilities, snapping particularly at Beverly Crusher. The drama of the episode comes from Deanna trying and very much failing to adjust to life without sensing emotions, with the teleplay making a connection between her situation and disability. (Of course, by episode's end, she gets the powers back.)

At one point Deanna resigns as Counselor. This leads to some halfway-there character material. For instance, it's sage bartender Guinan who finally gets Deanna to see that she can still read emotions in others like non-empaths do, which is exactly the logical thing to show Deanna. But the teleplay characterizes that phenomenon as a "human instinct". While there's truth to that, it seems to me that for a trained, elite psychiatrist, there's much more to it than only "instinct". What about picking up on social cues? Micro-expressions? Tone of voice? Reading between the lines of what patients say? And most of all, regular human empathy? What did Deanna learn at the Academy if she's lost without her Betazoid abilities?

The cosmic side of the episode is weighed down by technobabble, which will likely prove a common theme in a lot of TV Trek coming up on the Randomizer. "The Loss" feels like the result of a cheap "Build a TNG episode" kit, given a bottle show budget. 3/10.

Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: Encounter at Farpoint

TNG "Encounter at Farpoint"

After a ten-year cryosleep, this blog has awakened. The first order of business? Dipping a toe into a randomized rewatch of Star Trek on TV. "Dipping a toe" is the operative phrase, because this is not meant to hit every episode of every series; it's just a fun mechanism to get a sampling of Trek on telly. The totally scientific method a random episode is arrived at? Hitting Random Page on the Star Trek wiki, Memory Alpha, until running into an episode link. And while it might've been more befitting for the first entry returned to be something obscure, the fates dealt a heavy hitter: "Encounter at Farpoint", the pilot of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the 1987 return of Star Trek to the small screen after nearly twenty years away.

It's funny to see a TNG episode infused with the colorful energy of the original series. Specifically, zonked out concepts involving super-advanced life forms and a fair amount of histrionic acting. On the advanced life form side, John de Lancie ably struts around and chews the scenery as Q, and the space jellyfish evoke a sense of wonder. And on the histrionic acting side, guest star Michael Bell as the wonderfully titled Groppler Zorn gives a very big, constantly exasperated performance that's kind of fun to watch. Not to be outdone, series regular Denise Crosby delivers an epic rant evangelizing the Federation. As Deanna Troi, Marina Sirtis is given empathic dialogue that relies exclusively on repetition. To paraphrase, "Pain... Great pain. Joy... Such joy."

Jean-Luc Picard himself has a mixed showcase here. He does have moments of eloquent gravitas and endearment. But he also has a stiff and awkward rapport with Riker (everything is noticeably more militaristic than it would be later in the show), and let it not be forgotten that he takes command of the Enterprise, and during the first incident on his first day surrenders the ship.

Other character notes: William Riker is amused by everything around him. At this point, the Klingon Worf is there to casually represent how yesterday's enemy can be tomorrow's friend, but he has no clear function on the bridge. He's basically a functionary, and indeed in this episode he sits in both Geordi and Data's seats as ship operations demand it. Leonard McCoy's cameo is pretty great, very touching for a fan.

Director Corey Allen's most impressive touches come in the mock-trial scenes, particularly the dynamic way he films Q's crane-operated judge's chair. But certain story elements need a second draft. Particularly when Picard leaves the bridge to have a personal conversation with Beverly Crusher, at a crucial point in the story when Doctor Crusher was just preparing to beam planetside to tend to wounded people who are presently BEING SHELLED.

A baggy pilot with mixed results, caught between charm and mediocrity. 6/10.