Finally, a shaky end to a shaky
first season.
As I'd discovered when looking into Conspiracy, this was supposed to be part two of a three episode introduction of the Borg which were supposed to be insect or parasitical beings trying to take over the Federation. The writer's strike put a stop to that, so this episode is partially victimized by that even though it was for the best as far as the Borg were concerned. However, this episode is as awkwardly alone in the timeline as Conspiracy. A confrontation with the Romulans is forced when it is discovered that Federation outposts are being destroyed along the Neutral Zone. It turns out that Romulan outposts are being destroyed too. The Borg is mentioned in passing, but the audience is given no reason to think that they will be anything of importance in the future and the plot can be summed up as the Federation and the Romulans just beating their chests at each other for 20 minutes. I'm not comfortable with the Romulan reunion, either. They're basing the last incident between the Federation and Romulans on a novel from the extended universe and that's always a dodgy way to go. As important as Romulans were in the first series and as important as they became in the following series, it's not believable that there'd been no contact with them for a span of decades.
Of course the reasoning behind
the show trying very hard not to incorporate Romulans is, once again, an idea
of Gene Roddenberry's. In the guidelines
set down for the writers and directors of the show, he specifically states that
quote:
"No stories about warfare with Klingons and Romulans and no stories with Vulcans. We are determined not to copy ourselves and believe there must be other interesting aliens in a galaxy filled with billions of stars and planets."
It sounds so ambitious and progressive... meanwhile while the new adversarial race, the Ferengi, were steadily becoming a joke, Roddenberry had been remaking scripts directly and indirectly, and recreating situations from TOS every chance he got (I've pointed them out every time) including this episode in which people from the 20th century have been cryogenically frozen and discovered by the good old Enterprise just like Space Seed. I don't think hypocrisy is quite the right word, but it's certainly a disconnect with reality and it was just plain harmful to the show. Further development of the races that were only done half way or not at all in the first show should've always been a goal of this show for the purpose of depth if nothing else.
It was good for a few laughs,
like a 20th century person waking up to see a Klingon and fainting. And it was actually supposed to stay more
comical with the unfrozen people.
Roger C. Carmel as Mudd was
originally supposed to be one of the people thawed out which wouldn't have made
much sense with the timeline, but would've been very funny indeed. I always liked Mudd. However Carmel died before filming so they
replaced him with the business man Offenhouse. So, instead of keeping this part of the plot light, it gets really idiotic.
The last time I mentioned the
folly of this socialistic utopia in When The Bough Breaks, I was thinking
forward to these parts of this episode.
They want you to think that Offenhouse is a jerk that wants power but
it's the power of controlling your destiny that he's getting at. Individuality which is stripped in communistic
society. Really listen to his line: "Then what's
the challenge?" and think about it. They try to paint him as a primitive person for having ambitions and the freedom to compete for individual success.
No, no... the challenge is finding ourselves now that money doesn't exist and people aren't interested in possessions. We don't have jobs anymore apparently. We all either work for the Federation doing
research or we become artists. My God,
can nobody see how unrealistic this is?
As I noted before, people would not try to challenge themselves if they
were being taken care of like zoo animals.
They would fall into depression, laziness, and crime and the society would become a series
of slums except for the ruling class who is worthy to have power and control for no logical reason.
This is such a mortifying thing to see.
Like I said, I have no illusions as to what Star Trek represents, but I
just don't see how people can still
think it's intelligent and sound reasoning when they see it laid out like this
with the character of Offenhouse making these very valid points.
Then they write this guy, who is supposed to be representing the shamefulness of an American capitalist society, as explaining the psychology of the
Romulan stand-off to the Captain at the end of the show because he learned it from being
an evil business man and, of course, he's absolutely right... I mean this whole
episode just gives me a headache from trying to figure out the inconsistencies
of their thinking.
And the fun guy can't see how to
have fun in this world. Why? In life he had enough money to not have to worry about paying bills, so did he take a self-improving and philosophical journey through his life? No. He partied until his liver imploded. And although this is portrayed comically, (not unlike celebrities are thought of as charming for this sort of behavior in real life) this just goes to further my point that most people, when stripped of drive and ambition because they are forced to have equal an living status by government benefactors, are naturally given over to slothfulness at best and varying degrees of destructiveness at worst. I love this actor,
Leon Rippy, by the way. His scenes are worth
watching. He's a talented supporting actor and he went
on to do other things in television and movies (Stargate, The Patriot, Quantum
Leap, Deadwood, etc.)
It
was also good to see the updated Romulan ships and make-up. And I always love Marc Alaimo (later, Gul Dukat in DS9) who is the Romulan on the left. It's a shame it had to have such a poor
ending with the Romulans stating that "we're back", you know, because they had
been out of touch for decades even though they share a boarder with the Federation.
It all just makes me cringe with embarrassment for the show.
I can't bring myself to give it
more than a star and a half and only that much for the Romulan updates and the L.Q. "Sonny" Clemonds character.
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