Speaking of worse, no matter what you thought of the season opener, this next episode was an eye-roller from top to bottom.
It was good that they were starting to have little throw away scenes at the beginnings that were intended for character development only. But it's so cheesy that Picard and other members of the bridge crew would even be aware of Riker and Worf doing a Klingon calisthenics program in the holodeck much less worried because they might hurt themselves. Boo hoo. It's stuff like this that worked fine on TOS, but didn't work, in my opinion, 20 years later. I think it's because I came into the show late... after the third season had started and the shows were complex and not entirely like kids' shows. Later on, as Picard becomes a more emotionally distanced from the crew sort of commander, you look back on this sort of mother hen behavior as uncharacteristic to the point of being a little confusing and uncomfortable.
The melodrama. Blah. More obvious time killing because the episodes were still too simplistic. And I always hated those skull creatures. They also seemed very corny
and it annoyed me that they were in all of his exercise programs even
into DS9. However we do get some insight into how Worf handles his aggressive Klingon nature when his position on the ship is relatively uneventful compared to the sort of combat a Klingon warrior would be used to. Also, I'm glad that they eventually wrote Worf as being more disciplined and controlled as a warrior. The type that's not so high on adrenaline and rage that he doesn't know when to stop fighting and starts attacking comrades.
The story actually doesn't have a bad start, but there's really not much too it. A lot of long dramatic pauses and intense musical scores as they come upon another "zone of darkness" type of area in space like The Immunity Syndrome (TOS) to examine. After probing it they get a closer look and get trapped there. Weird things start to happen, like encountering a Romulan Warbird that engages them in a short battle. Then another Enterprise appears which they check out. That's all fine, but then it starts to get stupid. Worf in particular. They turn his character in to a total meat head in this episode. Superstitious at first and then going half crazy when he can't figure out why there's two Enterprises. They were just determined to make him a big, dumb animal for some reason. Then they start being led around to openings in the void. It's prettier than the Q cage from the first two Q episodes, but it's still too big to be believable. Then they figure out what the audience figured out from the easy destruction of the Warbird, that they're subjects in a laboratory experiment.
Then the big reveal - this thing. It looks awful. It sounds awful. And a big face in space is just more bad science fiction writing again. They later revisit the concept a couple of different times of having experiments preformed on them by other alien species, but in a more intelligent and adult way.
But for now we get our tweenage sex jokes in. It picks out the older woman on the bridge to question about the difference in genders and then wants a demonstration of procreation on the spot. Innuendo is a clever thing when done properly. This is so childish. Right back to square one, season one nonsense. Then it demonstrates its power as their immortal captor by a nice red-shirt death. For a show that was always rabidly preaching against war and violence, they sure liked to kill off random people as often as possible for shock value and, I guess, dramatic effect. And it's only further interest seems to be killing a third to a half of the crew just to examine different kinds of death.
So, we break out the auto destruct desperation move again. I admit it was used for a good purpose again this time, but three times in two seasons is pushing it on the credibility level. And for some reason they can set the time on this for a little longer than a five minute countdown. Maybe I didn't understand it too well the last times it was used, but I thought they didn't really have a choice about that. I actually approve though. It makes sense that they should be able to allow whatever time necessary. Five minutes may be too long in some cases.
There is a nice moment after this where the Captain is trying to explain what happens after you die to who he thinks is Data. It shows you that even the most hard core atheists, as these writers appear to be, seem to think that surely this physical life that we have can't be all there is in the grand scheme of things. Or maybe they were just trying to pander to everyone. At any rate it's a good Picard moment. As is the rest of the show, really. Picard seeing through the attempt to make him stop the auto-destruct sequence. Picard playing chicken with the alien as he lets it run down to the last second before he chooses to believe they've been released. Yes, these moments almost make it a decent episode.
But you just have to carve those moments out and put them in a Picard package because the alien returns to the Captain's laptop in the end to get in a few jabs about how inferior the human race is again. Unsatisfied, aggressive, militant, etc. The usual laundry list. And of course, there's no objection from the main character because we in the audience must all learn a lesson about how much we suck even though we've reached perfection in the Star Trek future. Instead Picard simply notes that they are both curious and that makes it pretty much okay to agree to disagree. Poppycock. I get so sick of it. At least in the old show they had to be subtle about this self loathing tripe by making the Federation observers while other aliens poured out these judgements on each other.
The awesomeness of Picard was fun, but it wasn't quite enough to get more than a star and a half out of me for this one.
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