Going Boldly Through Tapes
May. 30th, 2009 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakYou know, I figured the new movie would lead me to a rewatch binge, but I thought it would be a DS9 one. Which would have been way easier because I have the entire show on nice and shiny DVD. Whereas with TNG I only have the old video tapes, somehow not having gotten around to buying it on DVD. Nonetheless, fate has decreed that I have a TNG craving right now, so my old video recorder, which I haven't used for YEARS, suddenly gets a lot of action.
(Sidenote: and I am oddly lacking in wanting to rewatch TOS. On the other hand, I did reread some of my favourite TOS books and concluded I still love The Pandora Principle best. I ♥ Saavik and the Spock-Saavik relationship.
So, recently watched TNG eps and observations on same from a "ten to twenty years later" perspective:
Q-Who? was written by Maurice Hurley, a second season episode that proved to be one of the most crucial ones for TNG on several accounts. The most obvious being that it introduced the Borg, but it also changed the way used the guy in the title. Q's first two appearances, in Encounter at Farpoint and Hide and Q, are more or less formulaic TNG repeats of something TOS did quite often - very (nearly all) powerful entity shows up, tests/bullies/traps Enterprise crew, Kirk shows entity what's what, entity slinks off humiliated and/or gets destroyed. The most glaring TOS precedent would be Squire of Gothos (there is a reason Peter David came up with the "Q and Trelane are related" thing for one of the novel), but there is also Who Mourns for Adonais?, Charlie X, etc. Last time we saw a variation with the TOS crew was ST V The Final Frontier, summed up in the immortal quote "Why does God need a starship?".
Now, you can't repeat this with the same supposedly all powerful entity ad infinitum. If such a creature is really that powerful, why does our hero keep defeating it, and even if it isn't all that powerful but still powerful enough you want it to be believably dangerous, why does it keep coming back for encores if it keeps getting defeated? And this is where Hurley and the production team, ably aided by John de Lancie and Patrick Stewart in their performances, hit on something different for this third appearance. This time around, Q doesn't put anyone through tests, and he doesn't end the episode defeated. He's been shifted from opponent character to trickster character. And he's been given motivation for his return appearances that go beyond "err, we needed him to get the plot going"; a personal interest in Picard. Now, whether you see this as slashy is up to you, eyes of the beholder etc, though I'd say that between the body language (de Lancie plays this as Q constantly invading Picard's personal space as if he were the lead in a performance of Phantom of the Opera, only with banter instead of songs) and the actor chemistry, it's really really easy. But what makes the dynamic for me is that we're not talking about Q one-sidedly harrassing humans anymore (been there, done that); this episode gives Picard lines like "you're one of the most unique life forms we've ever encountered" and "to learn more about you would frankly be provocative". He's interested. (Again, interpret the nature of the interest with or without subtext.) He's also very aware that Q is "next of kin to chaos", generally bad news, and based on previous encounters a source of danger to the crew, plus he's not into being bullied, so he says no to Q's "request" to stay on the Enterprise, but he's definitely intrigued. (Also irritated and frustrated, that's a given.) The script then reverses the previously established formula by letting the episode climax not on the captain ingeniously figuring out how to beat the powerful entity, but on Picard, after the loss of 18 crewmembers and a relentless Borg attack, conclude that right now, they're outmatched and need more time to prepare, swallow his pride and give Q what he wants. "You wanted us to be afraid? We're frightened. You wanted us to admit we're out of our league? Fine, for the moment I concede that this is true. You wanted me to admit I need you? I need you!" (The look on Q's face is rapt and reminds me of a certain phonecall scene on Doctor Who.)
In regards to Q, this is also the episode which introduces the hostility between him and Guinan and the first of many hints of a backstory between them. Watching Guinan with the awareness of all the race debates since I last have seen this episode, I on the one hand was aware that you can accuse the show of going for the "wise black woman" cliché here, but on the other, I contest Guinan is too individualized for this to apply. We see her most often in her function as advisor to other characters, true, but she never gets sacrificed to forward their stories, she has her own powers (Q is unable to harm her, whereas she when he's in human form evidently has no problem harming him), her own story which we get intriguing hints at (and not just here, but here for the first time), and she's not defined through her relationship to a single character. Also, given her positively Gallifreyan hats and Whoopi Goldberg's performance, I'm thinkingalara_r is on to something with her idea of Guinan as a female version of the Doctor. (Not literally, in forms of character type.)
Now to the Borg. As an introduction episode for a new antagonist, Q-Who? is a model of suspense building. Of course, watching it now is a bit like watching Ridley Scott's Alien once you've already been through the entire tetralogy, but even without the advantage of not knowing all about the Borg, it still works smoothly. We go from Guinan realizing which part of space Q has dragged them into and reacting disturbed and scared, to the first fragmentary sightings of a Borg drone (whose silence and utter lack of interest in posturing, issuing threats or otherwise communicating with the crew while accessing technology immediately sets up the Borg as different from previous enemies like the Klingons or Romulans), to the Borg cube itself. Back then, this was an entirely new design, and like the behaviour of the drone, it immediately conveys a lot - there is no outer hull, it's simply a collection and compression of technology, without any pretense at aesthetics. And then there's the utter lack of individuality; at this point, the sheer facelessness contributes to the emotional impact. (Upon rewatch, it's also noticable that the basic Borg design went through a lot of redesigns in the long course of Trek history from here, but as the Borg are constantly adapting other technology, that works beautifully.*g*) The fact that Our Heroes try but can not manage to outfight them is an excellent set-up for what's to come.
So, all in all: still a very watchable episode. Ensign Sonya Gomez from Engineering is an obvious proto-Barclay, but I can see why they didn't keep her instead of him; sadly, the actress isn't up to scratch with Dwight Schultz in conveying being a babbling klutz and being a talented engineer at the same time. And Q's one liners still work, too. "Growl for me, Worf. Show me you still care."
Captain's Holiday is a third season episode and was written by Ira Steven Behr, who went on to become one of the three pillars on which DS9 was build. Ironically enough, given that Behr was going to be the Ferengi specialist extraordinaire on DS9, the one thing that really doesn't work in this episode and makes you cringe retrospectively is the Ferengi character played by Max Grodenchik. (Who also was a Ferengi in the Lwaxana episode Menage a Troi and would of course later become Quark's brother Rom on DS9.) Said Ferengi, called Sovek (which I'm told is also the name in the credits of the Vulcan boy who bullies young Spock at school in the new movie, btw), underlines just how badly TNG failed when inventing the Ferengi and originally meaning them to be a new and impressive antagonist race. I like to think Behr felt really sorry (and so did Grodenchik who doesn't improve things with a really bad and stiff delivery of already not too inspiring lines) and thus threw himself into the effort of reinventing the Ferengi for DS9 as a people with their own codex and cultural background. Anyway, if Sovek - who's supposed to be at least threatening enough that Vash feels compelled to go on the run, and then to trick him, but comes across instead of as ridiculous in an unintended way and utterly harmless - is a failure, the rest of the episode is fun. It's build around a simple concept - the crew decides their Captain really needs some shore leave, and Picard goes off and has an adventure - and is basically lighthearted fluff with some neat character points. Among other things, the opening sequence underscores that the TNG crew really made a good team and how each of them interacts with Picard, and it cracks me up that out of Riker, Crusher and Troi, all of whom try, it's Troi who finally outmanouevres Picard into going on vacation by ever so casually telling Riker, on the bridge "Will, I have wonderful news. My mother is coming for a visit!" We also get a priceless little scene that underlines one of the reasons why I love Picard, when Beverly talks to him about where he's going to take his shore leave, and which basically goes like this:
Picard: There is this great archaeology conference on Rigel XI...
Crusher: *headdesks* Beach. You. Now.
Picard then suffers the way one does when forced to take a beach vacation if you're really a life long geek: you try to read a good book and keep getting interupted by people who think they're doing you a favour when inviting you to have FUN, FUN, FUN. I empathize. No wonder that by the time an archaeological mystery presents itself, he jumps at the opportunity. All the while TNG strikes one for sexual equality by giving us not just the female guest characters in bikinis, which is standard ST, but Patrick Stewart in shorts for the same amount of screen time. I have to say, he was in great shape. 24th century civilian clothing, which he then changes into as he and Vash go on on their digging expedition, looks good on him as well. Picard's interest in archaeology is a red thread through the show, but in this episode you can tell he must have watched and loved old Indiana Jones movies as a boy. And heist movies, as he correctly figures out Vash as a conwoman early on but is willing to go with the flow as long as he can outhink her. He also canonically gets laid for the first time (that we know of) since the show started. TNG when establishing itself made an effort to make Picard different from Kirk in practically every way they could think of, and handing over girl-of-the-week and derring-do stories to Riker was one of those, but by season 3 Riker had settled down a bit and the producers must have tweaked that their leading man, even while being middle-aged, bald, and smaller than any of the other male characters save teenage Wesley Crusher, nonetheless had immense charisma and sex-appeal not inspite but because his character was usually so restrained. So here Picard gets an adventure and a girl of the week, and still isn't in any danger of being confused with Kirk, probably because the within story justifications for both draw on previously established character traits. Of course he wouldn't be able to resist a quest for some archaeological artifact, especially if some time travellers and a villain of the week are also after it. And it's practically a law of the genre that restrained men have a sneaking fondness for trickster types, so of course he'd go for a conwoman who is also an archaelogist. :) Plus Vash isn't a member of the crew, and he's not responsible for her. I've always liked Vash, I must admit, and that didn't change upon rewatch. I can't remember what reception she had in fandom at large, and wonder whether Picard/Crusher 'shippers were upset? Or whether she got the same type of bad press Christina de Souza recently got in the latest DW special, because they're very similar characters.
Because of course I had to rewatch that particular trio of episodes after FC. Back in the day, there used to be a saying that in ST shows the first part of a two parter was always better than the second, which is true quite often, but not here: The Best of Both Worlds two parter, written by Michael Piller, has two equally strong parts. Though it also has definite lead characters - Riker, Picard and guest character Shelby, with everyone else in supporting positions - it is a good example of the ensemble-ness of TNG. And not just because there is a poker scene. (TOS = chess, between Kirk and Spock. TNG = poker, between the entire crew, with an emotional arc point being that Picard joins them in the last eisode. DS9 = dart board (O'Brien and Bashir), tongo (Quark and Dax) and Dabo (everyone else), if you're wondering.) In which Deanna teases Wesley a bit. It occurs to me that Wesley Crusher's reputation of being a Marty Stu who "always" saves the ship really rests mostly on a couple of first season episodes; by season 3, he is simply written as a member of the bridge crew, though much younger than the rest of them, and while the writers still have a way to go till they arrive at Jake Sisko and Nog who always struck me as the most successfully written teenage characters I think Wes is a fairly believable teenager here. He doesn't have many lines in this particular two parter, but during this rewatch I was impressed by two silent reaction shots they gave him; one when the crew first sees Picard as Locutus, and the other when Riker orders Wesley to steer the enterprise directly into the Borg cube (i.e. a kamikaze maneouvre). I have no idea whether it was in the script or improvisation during shooting, but the way Wesley hesitates, swallows, then follows orders struck me as one of those subtle touches that sell the believability of both his age and his presence on the bridge to me.
There is a great sense of interconnectness in this two parter, showing the different types of relationships; after being told Riker got offered a Captaincy of his own for the third time, Picard has a talk with him which is basically emblematic of their brand of Captain/First Officer relationship, which is quite different from the Kirk and Spock precedent; I wouldn't say exactly father/son, though the age gap allows for that interpretation, more mentor/protegé. (If Reboot Kirk had gone on to serve under Reboot Pike, I'd imagine they'd have had something like this.) Then Riker talks in a different way with Troi, trying to figure out whether or not he's ready to move on and leave the Enterprise. Having gone through recent melodramas in other shows where the romantic relationships gradually overtook anything else about the characters in question, I must say that the way TNG handled Troi/Riker strikes me as remarkably mature by comparison. They are believable exes who might still carry a torch but do manage be friends in the meantime, and more important, work together. Compare the scene when Riker and Troi talk about whether and how he's changed since hisKirk clone younger days in Ten Forward, where they're clearly talking as friends and exes, to the scene later when Riker after Picard's abduction wants to lead the away team and Troi points out to him he's now in command and can't afford this, and needs to send Shelby instead, where they're talking as officers.
Speaking of Shelby: excellent guest character. Make that excellent female guest character in particular, because she's not there to be anyone's love interest, she's there as a foil to Riker, a younger self challenging him. (And I'm always glad when we see competent Starfleet officers not belonging to the Enterprise crew because one of my TOS grudges is that it could give you the impression Kirk and friends were the only ones good at their jobs.) She's ambitious, but at no point in this two parter does the narrative punish her for this or make her look evil. When she leaves at the end, one can really believe she'll make a great captain herself elsewhere.
Not until rewatching did I remember that before Best of Both Worlds, Part I we didn't actually know that the Borg could assimilate people as well as technology. (Because in Q-Who, our heroes had found babies in the Borg ship, so as far as they and we knew then, they were grown in tubes and then as babies immediately implanted with Cybernetic implants.) So when the captured Picard hears "resistance is futile, death is irrelevant", the full implication wouldn't have been there until Shelby finds his uniform and communicator, and the audience realizes what happened. I also didn't remember we don't see anything of the battle at Wolf 351 until the DS9 pilot, just the before and after. (Which makes sense within the Best of Both Worlds context because the Enterprise arriving there and finding nothing but wrecks conveys a far more devastating impact than brief battle cuts in between would have given.) The second part in general does a great job with conveying a lot via images - I already mentioned Wesley's reaction shot when Riker gives his kamikaze order; the most effective silent image telling the audience something we don't get spelled out in words yet is after the first Locutus appearance, when Locutus/Picard regenerates and gets even more modified by the collective, and the camera pulls closer and closer until we see there is a single tear in his uncovered eye. Which is when a first time viewer realizes that this assimilation procedure doesn't mean the "real" Picard got completely wiped out or went to sleep or had his soul removed in the ether but is locked in there somewhere. That this isn't just information to heighten the emotional horror of the assimilation concept but also a plot point for the later resolution of the "how do we beat the Borg?" question is another case of great episode writing. The resolution itself: again, team work. It's Riker who has the idea that if the Borg now know all that Picard knew via assimilating him, Locutus/Picard should have complete access to the Borg hive mind as well; it's Data who is able to interface with the captured Locutus; it's Troi who realizes Picard is still in there and trying to tell them something; it's Picard who tells Data how to disable the Borg.
The only thing that feels too rushed, if you don't know what's coming in the next episode, is the conclusion, with Picard's seeming too-fast recovery after the Borg cube has blown up, but even before watching Family, we get a hint in the very last scene, when, after Riker and Shelby have left the ready-room, Picard who until then seemingly was his old self, busy writing on his desk and drinking a cup of tea, puts down the cup (from which he hasn't drunk, we realize) as soon as he's alone, gets up and stares into space.
With Family, I'm bound to repeat myself because I've said it before, and more than once, but it bears repeating, so excuse me for doing so. Back then, and in Star Trek terms, this was nothing short of revolutionary, because until then there just weren't follow-ups to events from previous episodes in the next episodes (if we're not talking about two-parters), no matter how traumatic these events had been. It just didn't happen. Of course, now that such follow-up is a given, this sense of newness in Family isn't there anymore, but it still holds up really well as an episode. Minus the Jack Crusher scene, which is thematically connected with the overall family theme of the episode but still lacks the emotional impact of both the Picard main plot and the more light-hearted Work sub plot. Speaking of Worf, his changing relations with the Klingons (at this point, he's in disgrace) is an early example of a pre-DS9 arc spanning several seasons. Here, we meet his human adoptive parents, and at first it looks like this will be played just for comic relief, but then we find out that the main reason why they visit was that they have heard what happened to Worf on the Klingon homeworld. Given that in both TOS and TNG, everyone tends to have Daddy and/or Mommy issues (Worf, too, only he has them about his dead Klingon father, and he's about to get son issues once Alexander graces the scene), Sergej and Elena Roshenko are a rare breath of parental normalcy. Also, hooray for the proud continuation of, err, the Chekov variation of the Russian accent. But seriously, I like that Worf's adopted parents are Russians; as with Picard being French, it underlines that Earth being united in the future doesn't mean everyone is from the US.
Picard and Spock basically share the backstory of having a father who had wanted them to continue in his own profession and disapproved of their job choice, seeing it as a personal rejection, and of simultanously loving the place they were raised and wanting to escape from it (which makes Picard's bonding with Sarek nicely ironic) , but Picard is really too old to be given a living father to have issues with, so the show wisely didn't try and gave him a brother instead. As sibling relationships go, I thought the Jean-Luc and Robert one was pretty plausible; both the resentment mixed with competitiveness, quite genuine dislike at times, and the affection in a "I know you a bit too well to like you, but I love you" manner. If Worf's adopted parents are all warm-hearted effusiveness, Robert Picard is an embodiment of "Family is where they have to take you in". His son Rene is a bit implausibly young (although maybe he married late, it happens), but the interaction between Picard and his nephew has a wry charm I wouldn't want to miss. (Long, long before BSG and its character death score Ron Moore broke my heart by first creating the Picard family - i.e. Marie, René and Robert - and then killing them off in Generations. Never mind Kirk; what I was upset about, death-wise, was that the Picards died in a fire, damm it.) For a man who is uncomfortable with children Jean-Luc is surprisingly good with them if he doesn't try. What makes the France scenes so effective is that nobody says "Borg" out loud; certainly not Picard who rather talks about anything else, from tectonic plates to his nephew's school prizes, but you can see the self-control getting thinner and thinner so that when his brother finally manages to provoke him into a fight, the eventual breakdown isn't a surprise. It ties with First Contact in that it's not a member of his crew who pushes him hard enough, so I guess I have to take "it should have been Beverly" back; here it takes relentless aggressiveness from Robert, which I don't think anyone of the Enterprise would show.
Coming up: Darmok, because my thirst for TNG has not yet slackened...
(Sidenote: and I am oddly lacking in wanting to rewatch TOS. On the other hand, I did reread some of my favourite TOS books and concluded I still love The Pandora Principle best. I ♥ Saavik and the Spock-Saavik relationship.
So, recently watched TNG eps and observations on same from a "ten to twenty years later" perspective:
Q-Who? was written by Maurice Hurley, a second season episode that proved to be one of the most crucial ones for TNG on several accounts. The most obvious being that it introduced the Borg, but it also changed the way used the guy in the title. Q's first two appearances, in Encounter at Farpoint and Hide and Q, are more or less formulaic TNG repeats of something TOS did quite often - very (nearly all) powerful entity shows up, tests/bullies/traps Enterprise crew, Kirk shows entity what's what, entity slinks off humiliated and/or gets destroyed. The most glaring TOS precedent would be Squire of Gothos (there is a reason Peter David came up with the "Q and Trelane are related" thing for one of the novel), but there is also Who Mourns for Adonais?, Charlie X, etc. Last time we saw a variation with the TOS crew was ST V The Final Frontier, summed up in the immortal quote "Why does God need a starship?".
Now, you can't repeat this with the same supposedly all powerful entity ad infinitum. If such a creature is really that powerful, why does our hero keep defeating it, and even if it isn't all that powerful but still powerful enough you want it to be believably dangerous, why does it keep coming back for encores if it keeps getting defeated? And this is where Hurley and the production team, ably aided by John de Lancie and Patrick Stewart in their performances, hit on something different for this third appearance. This time around, Q doesn't put anyone through tests, and he doesn't end the episode defeated. He's been shifted from opponent character to trickster character. And he's been given motivation for his return appearances that go beyond "err, we needed him to get the plot going"; a personal interest in Picard. Now, whether you see this as slashy is up to you, eyes of the beholder etc, though I'd say that between the body language (de Lancie plays this as Q constantly invading Picard's personal space as if he were the lead in a performance of Phantom of the Opera, only with banter instead of songs) and the actor chemistry, it's really really easy. But what makes the dynamic for me is that we're not talking about Q one-sidedly harrassing humans anymore (been there, done that); this episode gives Picard lines like "you're one of the most unique life forms we've ever encountered" and "to learn more about you would frankly be provocative". He's interested. (Again, interpret the nature of the interest with or without subtext.) He's also very aware that Q is "next of kin to chaos", generally bad news, and based on previous encounters a source of danger to the crew, plus he's not into being bullied, so he says no to Q's "request" to stay on the Enterprise, but he's definitely intrigued. (Also irritated and frustrated, that's a given.) The script then reverses the previously established formula by letting the episode climax not on the captain ingeniously figuring out how to beat the powerful entity, but on Picard, after the loss of 18 crewmembers and a relentless Borg attack, conclude that right now, they're outmatched and need more time to prepare, swallow his pride and give Q what he wants. "You wanted us to be afraid? We're frightened. You wanted us to admit we're out of our league? Fine, for the moment I concede that this is true. You wanted me to admit I need you? I need you!" (The look on Q's face is rapt and reminds me of a certain phonecall scene on Doctor Who.)
In regards to Q, this is also the episode which introduces the hostility between him and Guinan and the first of many hints of a backstory between them. Watching Guinan with the awareness of all the race debates since I last have seen this episode, I on the one hand was aware that you can accuse the show of going for the "wise black woman" cliché here, but on the other, I contest Guinan is too individualized for this to apply. We see her most often in her function as advisor to other characters, true, but she never gets sacrificed to forward their stories, she has her own powers (Q is unable to harm her, whereas she when he's in human form evidently has no problem harming him), her own story which we get intriguing hints at (and not just here, but here for the first time), and she's not defined through her relationship to a single character. Also, given her positively Gallifreyan hats and Whoopi Goldberg's performance, I'm thinking
alara_r is on to something with her idea of Guinan as a female version of the Doctor. (Not literally, in forms of character type.)Now to the Borg. As an introduction episode for a new antagonist, Q-Who? is a model of suspense building. Of course, watching it now is a bit like watching Ridley Scott's Alien once you've already been through the entire tetralogy, but even without the advantage of not knowing all about the Borg, it still works smoothly. We go from Guinan realizing which part of space Q has dragged them into and reacting disturbed and scared, to the first fragmentary sightings of a Borg drone (whose silence and utter lack of interest in posturing, issuing threats or otherwise communicating with the crew while accessing technology immediately sets up the Borg as different from previous enemies like the Klingons or Romulans), to the Borg cube itself. Back then, this was an entirely new design, and like the behaviour of the drone, it immediately conveys a lot - there is no outer hull, it's simply a collection and compression of technology, without any pretense at aesthetics. And then there's the utter lack of individuality; at this point, the sheer facelessness contributes to the emotional impact. (Upon rewatch, it's also noticable that the basic Borg design went through a lot of redesigns in the long course of Trek history from here, but as the Borg are constantly adapting other technology, that works beautifully.*g*) The fact that Our Heroes try but can not manage to outfight them is an excellent set-up for what's to come.
So, all in all: still a very watchable episode. Ensign Sonya Gomez from Engineering is an obvious proto-Barclay, but I can see why they didn't keep her instead of him; sadly, the actress isn't up to scratch with Dwight Schultz in conveying being a babbling klutz and being a talented engineer at the same time. And Q's one liners still work, too. "Growl for me, Worf. Show me you still care."
Captain's Holiday is a third season episode and was written by Ira Steven Behr, who went on to become one of the three pillars on which DS9 was build. Ironically enough, given that Behr was going to be the Ferengi specialist extraordinaire on DS9, the one thing that really doesn't work in this episode and makes you cringe retrospectively is the Ferengi character played by Max Grodenchik. (Who also was a Ferengi in the Lwaxana episode Menage a Troi and would of course later become Quark's brother Rom on DS9.) Said Ferengi, called Sovek (which I'm told is also the name in the credits of the Vulcan boy who bullies young Spock at school in the new movie, btw), underlines just how badly TNG failed when inventing the Ferengi and originally meaning them to be a new and impressive antagonist race. I like to think Behr felt really sorry (and so did Grodenchik who doesn't improve things with a really bad and stiff delivery of already not too inspiring lines) and thus threw himself into the effort of reinventing the Ferengi for DS9 as a people with their own codex and cultural background. Anyway, if Sovek - who's supposed to be at least threatening enough that Vash feels compelled to go on the run, and then to trick him, but comes across instead of as ridiculous in an unintended way and utterly harmless - is a failure, the rest of the episode is fun. It's build around a simple concept - the crew decides their Captain really needs some shore leave, and Picard goes off and has an adventure - and is basically lighthearted fluff with some neat character points. Among other things, the opening sequence underscores that the TNG crew really made a good team and how each of them interacts with Picard, and it cracks me up that out of Riker, Crusher and Troi, all of whom try, it's Troi who finally outmanouevres Picard into going on vacation by ever so casually telling Riker, on the bridge "Will, I have wonderful news. My mother is coming for a visit!" We also get a priceless little scene that underlines one of the reasons why I love Picard, when Beverly talks to him about where he's going to take his shore leave, and which basically goes like this:
Picard: There is this great archaeology conference on Rigel XI...
Crusher: *headdesks* Beach. You. Now.
Picard then suffers the way one does when forced to take a beach vacation if you're really a life long geek: you try to read a good book and keep getting interupted by people who think they're doing you a favour when inviting you to have FUN, FUN, FUN. I empathize. No wonder that by the time an archaeological mystery presents itself, he jumps at the opportunity. All the while TNG strikes one for sexual equality by giving us not just the female guest characters in bikinis, which is standard ST, but Patrick Stewart in shorts for the same amount of screen time. I have to say, he was in great shape. 24th century civilian clothing, which he then changes into as he and Vash go on on their digging expedition, looks good on him as well. Picard's interest in archaeology is a red thread through the show, but in this episode you can tell he must have watched and loved old Indiana Jones movies as a boy. And heist movies, as he correctly figures out Vash as a conwoman early on but is willing to go with the flow as long as he can outhink her. He also canonically gets laid for the first time (that we know of) since the show started. TNG when establishing itself made an effort to make Picard different from Kirk in practically every way they could think of, and handing over girl-of-the-week and derring-do stories to Riker was one of those, but by season 3 Riker had settled down a bit and the producers must have tweaked that their leading man, even while being middle-aged, bald, and smaller than any of the other male characters save teenage Wesley Crusher, nonetheless had immense charisma and sex-appeal not inspite but because his character was usually so restrained. So here Picard gets an adventure and a girl of the week, and still isn't in any danger of being confused with Kirk, probably because the within story justifications for both draw on previously established character traits. Of course he wouldn't be able to resist a quest for some archaeological artifact, especially if some time travellers and a villain of the week are also after it. And it's practically a law of the genre that restrained men have a sneaking fondness for trickster types, so of course he'd go for a conwoman who is also an archaelogist. :) Plus Vash isn't a member of the crew, and he's not responsible for her. I've always liked Vash, I must admit, and that didn't change upon rewatch. I can't remember what reception she had in fandom at large, and wonder whether Picard/Crusher 'shippers were upset? Or whether she got the same type of bad press Christina de Souza recently got in the latest DW special, because they're very similar characters.
Because of course I had to rewatch that particular trio of episodes after FC. Back in the day, there used to be a saying that in ST shows the first part of a two parter was always better than the second, which is true quite often, but not here: The Best of Both Worlds two parter, written by Michael Piller, has two equally strong parts. Though it also has definite lead characters - Riker, Picard and guest character Shelby, with everyone else in supporting positions - it is a good example of the ensemble-ness of TNG. And not just because there is a poker scene. (TOS = chess, between Kirk and Spock. TNG = poker, between the entire crew, with an emotional arc point being that Picard joins them in the last eisode. DS9 = dart board (O'Brien and Bashir), tongo (Quark and Dax) and Dabo (everyone else), if you're wondering.) In which Deanna teases Wesley a bit. It occurs to me that Wesley Crusher's reputation of being a Marty Stu who "always" saves the ship really rests mostly on a couple of first season episodes; by season 3, he is simply written as a member of the bridge crew, though much younger than the rest of them, and while the writers still have a way to go till they arrive at Jake Sisko and Nog who always struck me as the most successfully written teenage characters I think Wes is a fairly believable teenager here. He doesn't have many lines in this particular two parter, but during this rewatch I was impressed by two silent reaction shots they gave him; one when the crew first sees Picard as Locutus, and the other when Riker orders Wesley to steer the enterprise directly into the Borg cube (i.e. a kamikaze maneouvre). I have no idea whether it was in the script or improvisation during shooting, but the way Wesley hesitates, swallows, then follows orders struck me as one of those subtle touches that sell the believability of both his age and his presence on the bridge to me.
There is a great sense of interconnectness in this two parter, showing the different types of relationships; after being told Riker got offered a Captaincy of his own for the third time, Picard has a talk with him which is basically emblematic of their brand of Captain/First Officer relationship, which is quite different from the Kirk and Spock precedent; I wouldn't say exactly father/son, though the age gap allows for that interpretation, more mentor/protegé. (If Reboot Kirk had gone on to serve under Reboot Pike, I'd imagine they'd have had something like this.) Then Riker talks in a different way with Troi, trying to figure out whether or not he's ready to move on and leave the Enterprise. Having gone through recent melodramas in other shows where the romantic relationships gradually overtook anything else about the characters in question, I must say that the way TNG handled Troi/Riker strikes me as remarkably mature by comparison. They are believable exes who might still carry a torch but do manage be friends in the meantime, and more important, work together. Compare the scene when Riker and Troi talk about whether and how he's changed since his
Speaking of Shelby: excellent guest character. Make that excellent female guest character in particular, because she's not there to be anyone's love interest, she's there as a foil to Riker, a younger self challenging him. (And I'm always glad when we see competent Starfleet officers not belonging to the Enterprise crew because one of my TOS grudges is that it could give you the impression Kirk and friends were the only ones good at their jobs.) She's ambitious, but at no point in this two parter does the narrative punish her for this or make her look evil. When she leaves at the end, one can really believe she'll make a great captain herself elsewhere.
Not until rewatching did I remember that before Best of Both Worlds, Part I we didn't actually know that the Borg could assimilate people as well as technology. (Because in Q-Who, our heroes had found babies in the Borg ship, so as far as they and we knew then, they were grown in tubes and then as babies immediately implanted with Cybernetic implants.) So when the captured Picard hears "resistance is futile, death is irrelevant", the full implication wouldn't have been there until Shelby finds his uniform and communicator, and the audience realizes what happened. I also didn't remember we don't see anything of the battle at Wolf 351 until the DS9 pilot, just the before and after. (Which makes sense within the Best of Both Worlds context because the Enterprise arriving there and finding nothing but wrecks conveys a far more devastating impact than brief battle cuts in between would have given.) The second part in general does a great job with conveying a lot via images - I already mentioned Wesley's reaction shot when Riker gives his kamikaze order; the most effective silent image telling the audience something we don't get spelled out in words yet is after the first Locutus appearance, when Locutus/Picard regenerates and gets even more modified by the collective, and the camera pulls closer and closer until we see there is a single tear in his uncovered eye. Which is when a first time viewer realizes that this assimilation procedure doesn't mean the "real" Picard got completely wiped out or went to sleep or had his soul removed in the ether but is locked in there somewhere. That this isn't just information to heighten the emotional horror of the assimilation concept but also a plot point for the later resolution of the "how do we beat the Borg?" question is another case of great episode writing. The resolution itself: again, team work. It's Riker who has the idea that if the Borg now know all that Picard knew via assimilating him, Locutus/Picard should have complete access to the Borg hive mind as well; it's Data who is able to interface with the captured Locutus; it's Troi who realizes Picard is still in there and trying to tell them something; it's Picard who tells Data how to disable the Borg.
The only thing that feels too rushed, if you don't know what's coming in the next episode, is the conclusion, with Picard's seeming too-fast recovery after the Borg cube has blown up, but even before watching Family, we get a hint in the very last scene, when, after Riker and Shelby have left the ready-room, Picard who until then seemingly was his old self, busy writing on his desk and drinking a cup of tea, puts down the cup (from which he hasn't drunk, we realize) as soon as he's alone, gets up and stares into space.
With Family, I'm bound to repeat myself because I've said it before, and more than once, but it bears repeating, so excuse me for doing so. Back then, and in Star Trek terms, this was nothing short of revolutionary, because until then there just weren't follow-ups to events from previous episodes in the next episodes (if we're not talking about two-parters), no matter how traumatic these events had been. It just didn't happen. Of course, now that such follow-up is a given, this sense of newness in Family isn't there anymore, but it still holds up really well as an episode. Minus the Jack Crusher scene, which is thematically connected with the overall family theme of the episode but still lacks the emotional impact of both the Picard main plot and the more light-hearted Work sub plot. Speaking of Worf, his changing relations with the Klingons (at this point, he's in disgrace) is an early example of a pre-DS9 arc spanning several seasons. Here, we meet his human adoptive parents, and at first it looks like this will be played just for comic relief, but then we find out that the main reason why they visit was that they have heard what happened to Worf on the Klingon homeworld. Given that in both TOS and TNG, everyone tends to have Daddy and/or Mommy issues (Worf, too, only he has them about his dead Klingon father, and he's about to get son issues once Alexander graces the scene), Sergej and Elena Roshenko are a rare breath of parental normalcy. Also, hooray for the proud continuation of, err, the Chekov variation of the Russian accent. But seriously, I like that Worf's adopted parents are Russians; as with Picard being French, it underlines that Earth being united in the future doesn't mean everyone is from the US.
Picard and Spock basically share the backstory of having a father who had wanted them to continue in his own profession and disapproved of their job choice, seeing it as a personal rejection, and of simultanously loving the place they were raised and wanting to escape from it (which makes Picard's bonding with Sarek nicely ironic) , but Picard is really too old to be given a living father to have issues with, so the show wisely didn't try and gave him a brother instead. As sibling relationships go, I thought the Jean-Luc and Robert one was pretty plausible; both the resentment mixed with competitiveness, quite genuine dislike at times, and the affection in a "I know you a bit too well to like you, but I love you" manner. If Worf's adopted parents are all warm-hearted effusiveness, Robert Picard is an embodiment of "Family is where they have to take you in". His son Rene is a bit implausibly young (although maybe he married late, it happens), but the interaction between Picard and his nephew has a wry charm I wouldn't want to miss. (Long, long before BSG and its character death score Ron Moore broke my heart by first creating the Picard family - i.e. Marie, René and Robert - and then killing them off in Generations. Never mind Kirk; what I was upset about, death-wise, was that the Picards died in a fire, damm it.) For a man who is uncomfortable with children Jean-Luc is surprisingly good with them if he doesn't try. What makes the France scenes so effective is that nobody says "Borg" out loud; certainly not Picard who rather talks about anything else, from tectonic plates to his nephew's school prizes, but you can see the self-control getting thinner and thinner so that when his brother finally manages to provoke him into a fight, the eventual breakdown isn't a surprise. It ties with First Contact in that it's not a member of his crew who pushes him hard enough, so I guess I have to take "it should have been Beverly" back; here it takes relentless aggressiveness from Robert, which I don't think anyone of the Enterprise would show.
Coming up: Darmok, because my thirst for TNG has not yet slackened...
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Date: 2009-05-30 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 03:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-31 04:11 am (UTC)Oh, and after Star Trek (which he has seen five times in the theater now, once more than me!) we watched Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock and Voyage Home. And Undiscovered Country.
Disturbingly: he had never seen any of this! I watched TNG as a wee child and realized he was born when DS9 was in the last stretches. Gah. So if it makes you feel old?
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Date: 2009-05-31 06:55 pm (UTC)I just rewatched Relics, aka the TNG ep where Scotty shows up, and it has a triple bittersweet poignancy now in addition to the original one.
a) James Doohan is dead.
b) I've just seen young Scott in the movie.
c) When Scotty tells Geordi near the end to treasure his turn on the Enterprise, because the adventure will be over one day and won't come again you are of course aware that now nearly the same amount of time has passed for the TNG crew which it did for the TOS crew when that episode was filmed. Gah!
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Date: 2009-05-31 07:29 pm (UTC)Galaxy Quest is a good idea!
Oh boy, Relics is in my DVD list. I hope I don't cry. (I have a thought that I will in Sarek, which I have not seen in years.)