Sigh... I wish it had been a better episode.
If it's of any significance, things were heating up over
control of the writing of the show at this point. I'm not sure of the timeline on everything,
but there were even rumors that Roddenberry's lawyer was rewriting scripts too,
which was illegal because of the writer's guild. They may have just been looking for another
scapegoat, but the fact is, this first season was in a choke-hold from
Roddenberry's vision. I'm actually
amazed to hear myself saying these things at times. You'll never find a bigger supporter of "originals over remakes" and
"traditions over 'get-with -the-times' changes" than me, but Roddenberry's
view was too narrow to make an effective science fiction series in the 1980's
after all of the major political and social changes that had taken place in the
30 years since TOS.
Everyone knew this deep down. Crosby had said that she may have stayed on
if there had been more scenes like the one at the beginning with Tasha and Worf
in which he is telling her that she is the favored winner in an upcoming martial
arts competition. That's the character
development she was enjoying. That was
the beginnings of depth that eventually came after Roddenberry's passing. Wil Wheaton is quoted as saying that Dorn
made the most of the head of security character while Crosby gave up and left,
but I don't think that's what she was giving up on. I think she just didn't see them ever having
three dimensional scripts. She wanted to
see Tasha showcasing her abilities as security chief and we never got to see
that, not even in this episode. She
couldn't have known that they would eventually start expanding on themes and
giving detailed backgrounds to every character.
I think it would be more accurate to say that Dorn was willing to gamble
where Crosby wasn't.
So, the shuttle Troi is in crashes on another deserted
planet (same old set designs) and an oil slick monster holds it hostage for no
real reason... it's just a sadistic evil thing..., so the story is basically
the psychoanalysis of this thing. Very
poor. Very weak.
Roddenberry thought it would be strongest to write Tasha out
as being killed off for the shock value.
I'm sure he'd approve of the new Star Wars and Star Trek reboots because
of that sort of shallow thinking. And
I've never understood why people tout the writing of her death being
"senseless and without reason" as though it was a brave and creative
thing to do. They did that to red-shirts
all the time in TOS. No, the death of a
primary character should always have more significance. I wonder if Roddenberry thought these awful
special effects were great for shock value too... I'm trying not to complain too much because
it was the first season and it was unproven as yet so they probably got a
better effects budget for later seasons, but this is an important episode and
it seems so shoddily done for the removal of a main character.
It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't go from a realistic
looking stream of oil to an animated moving oil slick and back again
repeatedly. Very low grade effects. It's also more bad science fiction. The thing has powers but nobody knows how or
why. They throw in a little
techno-babble as with previous first season episodes where the antagonist has
dubious powers, but it's not convincing.
And the creature itself, Armus, is embarrassing to look at. It looks like a Halloween costume gone
wrong. Not scary. Not anything that could cause the viewer to
be tense and worried for the characters. I've said all these things before in
previous blogs over the other bad episodes in season one, so I won't carry on
too much.
So Tasha comes forward on the offence the way she does in
almost every episode where there's an away team but doesn't attack and she's
killed instantly without ever getting a chance to really fight. Code of Honor was a horrible episode, but at
least she got to fight in that. And that
red blob on her face... please tell me that's not supposed to be blood. If it is, it just adds insult to injury. She looks like she's in an elementary school
play with that makeup on her face. It's
just infuriating to see this sort of laziness in something as great as Star
Trek.
The only good thing about seeing her die after the fact is
knowing that her character got a second chance to be great when the show was out
of Roddenberry's direct influence. They
caught up on years of character development in the one episode they had her
back on and gave her a proper way to choose death in a hero's sacrifice and
they didn't need bad special effects and makeup to do it.
So the monster decides that killing isn't any fun anymore
which is convenient. Lucky for Riker...
not so much for Frakes who got to take a Metamucil and printer ink bath. It's cool to do extreme things for your art,
but I imagine it didn't seem so cool for such an ineffective episode. But he wears it better than the monster.
And then Picard finishes the psychoanalysis of the
monster in "star of the show" fashion as Kirk of old. He was abandoned there by his own kind. It's so typical of liberally minded people to
try to justify evil with an excuse like this.
He was evil before they abandoned him, I think. Anyway, Picard decides they will not to kill
it because humans are above revenge and even anger at something so
pathetic. (We're above so many primitive
things now, that's why we need to be constantly reminded of how primitive we
are.) So we abandon him again as further torture. Okay, I'll go along with that. Of
course, if it had been a few seasons later, Worf at least, wouldn't have stood
for this. Lol. But this is more of the hippie vision that was out of place in
the 80's.
At least the memorial service was nicely done, though
premature. It's a shame there couldn't
have been more history with Tasha and the other characters. The memorial service saves the rating for
me. I can give it 2 stars because of
this alone, as well as knowing it wasn't the complete end for the character.
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