Another episode that shouldn't have happened. Hide and Q was a Q episode that shouldn't have happened, but in this episode, Q is the only thing legitimizing the episode.
The Enterprise is hosting an archeological lecture with Picard giving a speech for the archeological council. This episode is committing to Picard's primary hobby of archeology as The Nth Degree was committing to Crusher's play write hobby. After agonizing over his speech Troi tells him to get some sleep and when he goes to his room he finds a horga'hn and then Vash appears with a passionate kiss. I just didn't think Vash warranted seconds. Captain's Holiday was a decent episode and they should've just let it be.
She has tea with him the next morning. Although she gives no definite answers she allows him to think that she's on the archeological council. It's not awkward at first because she represents a wonderful memory to him. Of course that's usually the time he has breakfast with Beverly and that's when he starts to become flustered. He fumbles over introductions and is uncomfortable, but Beverly decides to just take over her company since Picard had never mentioned her and gives her a tour of the ship. Vash is disappointed to find out that he's never mentioned her to anyone. I honestly don't see why she's upset about this. Of course, it's not clear if she'd stayed in his quarters the night before, in which case she may have reason to complain, but it's too vague to tell. Everyone can tell that there is or at least has been more between them than just a professional relationship and they all find it intriguing to imagine their strong and self controlled captain having a secret love affair. And it really is a funny situation since Picard is so different from Kirk. And Picard just does his best to remain neutral to her presence.
At the reception she gets more explanations from everyone about how Jean Luc is a very private man as the reason they haven't heard of her. She finally confronts him and accuses him of being embarrassed by her. Like I said, I'm on Picard's side. It also illustrates a cultural 180... Women have classically been offended when they've had brief affairs and the man chooses to brag about it. I would think Picard staying silent would be appreciated by even a woman like Vash who one can assume isn't the marrying type and has probably used her wiles to gain other advantages with men in the past. Yet she expects Picard to have spoken about her as if she were his girlfriend or had been the love of his life. It makes her seem more conceited and immature than the victim of wrongdoing on Picard's part. I just don't understand the feminist culture's desire to "have it both ways." Anyway, this episode definitely needed direction and after their little spat Picard returns to his ready room to find Q. Q wants to do something nice for him after their last encounter where Q lost his powers and the Enterprise protected him. He gives Picard a genuinely tempting offer to take him to the ruins on the planet they're orbiting which have been closed off. When you see Picard's face light up at the thought of it, it's a wonderful moment... it shows he has a weak spot for something he's passionate about and it's very relateable, making him more endearing to fans. Still, he chooses to do the right thing and refuses this illegal offer. Q goes away for the moment but with the determination to find some way of repaying the kindness that was shown him. Q is so great. You know that even his attempts at being nice will only result in chaos and it's makes such fun anticipation.
Picard goes to Vash's quarters to apologize and finds her up to her old tricks of robbing dig sites. She has maps of the closed off ruins of the planet along with digging tools. Picard was swept into their last adventure by chance, but he makes it clear that he doesn't approve of this lifestyle. Again displaying what I see as immaturity, she is unapologetic about being who she is and they decide they have no more to say to each other. Naturally Q overhears all of this and then confronts Picard. First he offers to simply get rid of her, but Picard doesn't want to see her hurt. Q mistakes the protective impulse he shows as feelings of love and decides that he will repay his debt with her. When Picard is giving his speech the following day, the senior officers sitting in the back begin to experience puzzling wardrobe transformations.
The room then vanishes and they find themselves in a forest and cast as characters from Robin Hood. This really is some of the funniest stuff from the show and makes this episode worth watching. They're sure Q has done this but before they can discuss it further, they are quickly confronted by a nobleman. Worf attacks unsuccessfully and is wounded and then Q shows up as the Sheriff of Nottingham to confirm their guesses and explaining that Vash has been cast as Maid Marian and will be executed unless Picard as Robin Hood saves her. He also claims that the illusion has to play out on its own and that he doesn't control it.
The nobleman is Sir Guy of Gisbourne. We see him trying to court Vash's Marian and at first she's outraged, but then learns that she'll be executed unless she marries him. Self preservation kicks in and she decides to warm up to him and agree to marry him, much to Q's confusion and chagrin. He tries to persuade Sir Guy that she's playing him for a fool and he won't believe it.
Picard insists on rescuing Vash alone and it should've worked except Vash is still reacting childishly to their fight. She hands him over to Sir Guy as proof that she wants to marry him which makes Q's claims seem baseless. Q later discovers her writing a letter to his "merry men" to inform them that he is captured and needs them to rescue him. He is very intrigued by her behavior... her fierce independence and selfish intentions along with her duplicity in this turn on Sir Guy as well. She guesses who he is and is fascinated with him as well. She probably hopes that that fascination will stroke his ego into letting things go, but he decides instead to call the guards and tell Sir Guy of her deception putting her execution back on schedule, along with the execution of Picard/Robin Hood.
They fight like a married couple all the way to the "end." Picard can't believe that Q is just going to allow this execution to happen and there seems to be no signs that it will just end as his head is put down to be chopped off. But the rest of the crew reveal themselves as disguised crowd members and the swashbuckling antics begin. Vash is whisked up to the tower. It's a good tribute to the many Robin Hood stories over the years with the costumes being a nod to Errol Flynn's version. Crusher is thoroughly enjoying herself and I think it's great. Sadly, it was hard to find good still pictures of this episode. The crew had been practicing with their weapons and put up a rousing fight while Picard duels with Sir Guy up to the tower to find Vash. Picard then asks Q to end it and they have a brief discussion in which Q asserts that love brought out the worst in Picard while Vash claims it brought out the best. I think this is over analyzing poor Picard. He didn't deserve this and even though he and Vash appear to be on good terms again after this adventure, it's ultimately pointless.
But it's packaged in the story that what Q did proved to Vash that Picard still cared for her,which the audience could never have doubted anyway since Picard didn't just plant his seed irresponsibly all over the galaxy like Kirk. Q then appears and we see that Vash has decided to throw in with him since he can take her to all kinds of places... legal or not. It is definitely fitting that she ends up with him - a scoundrel for a scoundrel. Q gives them a moment to kiss goodbye and that's that.
All in all it's a good Q episode. The humor is natural, not forced and it outweighs the absurdity of the character of Vash and her relationship with Picard. It's not a four star episode, but even though it's not a favorite, I can't rate it very low either because it's still a lot of fun and a nice break from weightier episodes. I think three and a half stars is fitting.
I probably won't be able to post again until Friday with my normal Star Trek TNG episode review, so I thought I'd give a best of post of my own stuff. (I feel so conceited!) But I've been posting in this blog for a little over a year now. I don't do it for followers or attention... I do it as therapy after having a few rough years. Most of my posts get between 3 and 8 hits. However, there are some that have gotten more. Most of them are very long, but I had a lot to say. So I'm posting links to my posts that have gotten some of the most views over the last year. See you Friday.
I was happy they brought Barclay back. It was a technically weak, but very entertaining episode and Barclay has a lot to do with it.
It had one of the longest opening scenes of any episode. They commit to Beverly Crusher's hobby of being a play write and a theater director. Beverly and Barclay are acting out a scene from the play Cyrano de Bergerac in front of a small audience of senior staff members. Barclay is still very insecure and his acting is terrible, for all of Crusher's help. Data, who has studied acting several times at this point in opening scenes is very conscious of Barclay's bad performance and can't understand why everyone applauds generously at the end of the scene. It's comical and it also serves to grow Barclay's character. Instead of spending all of his time in holodeck fantasies, he's away from that and interacting with his friends and crew mates. His self esteem is still very low, but the progression makes sense. The writers were trying to find a way to work Barclay back in, but didn't want him to remain in a permanent mind frame as he was in his last appearance.
Afterwards, the Enterprise arrives at a large subspace telescope called the Argus Array which is in critical condition. The trouble is being caused by a probe and Geordi is sent out in a shuttle to scan it. He takes Barclay with him. This shows that Geordi is still "taking him under his wing" as per his last appearance, reminding us that Barclay is actually good at his job even though he's a social misfit. The probe emits a bright flash and knocks Barclay unconscious.
Geordi is reckoned to have been spared because of his visor and no harm seems to have been done to Barclay either, but he then confidently advises the doctor on how to better run some medical scans. She doesn't take it seriously at first and shoos him off. The probe then begins to follow the Enterprise. They can't outrun it and they can't shoot at it if it's too close, but Barclay surprisingly saves the day by cooking up a way to make it work. He doesn't clear it with Geordi first because there's little time, but Geordi is more amazed than upset.
So they go back to fix the telescope and it looks like it'll be a long drawn out process. The let Barclay in on the staff meeting since he was able to dispatch the probe and it turns into another moment to shine for him. He turns what was looking like a three to seven week project into a couple of days worth of work. And nobody can deny that his calculations are correct. He continues to have success in his personal life as well. He nails his next rehearsal of Cyrano, leaving Crusher breathless, and invites Troi on a date with all of the confidence and charm of a regular ladies' man. She doesn't answer him directly, but you can see that her normal wall of caution has been broken down by the vast change in his character. They start to suspect that the probe had an effect on him after all and when he's reexamined in sick bay it's discovered that he is developing an advanced and almost superhuman intelligence. But it's not anything to be alarmed about at this point and everyone feels like it's a win-win situation for all.
And then a wonderful fake out... Barclay is late for work the next day because he's in the holodeck. Geordi goes expecting him to have reverted to his old fantasies and instead finds him correcting Albert Einstein on a theory. His attitude is much changed and he's now very pompous and bored with his regular duties on the Enterprise since they no longer present a challenge to him. So now he's out of control in the completely opposite direction from his last episode. Like I said this is the entertaining part of it. The rest of the science fiction elements start to weaken a little at this point. The array's reactors are beginning to overload and although Barclay can stay ahead of the game with what needs to be done, they simply don't have what is necessary to stop the reaction.
He hurries to the holodeck to create a new scanning interface that is linked to the human neural system so that the computer would be able to work faster. He instructs the holodeck on how to build it and becomes a part of the Enterprise computer system. At the critical point where they think the reactors will explode, they are suddenly normalized and Barclay, now speaking for the computer decides also to take control of the Enterprise as well. And this is why I didn't put this episode in my top five holodeck moments because it seems unlikely that a holodeck creation of any kind would be able to take over the ship. Just because this creation isn't in human form like Moriarty doesn't make it different. But I have no animus towards this. It's fun to watch.
He is now inextricably linked with the computer and any attempt to remove him will kill him. Geordi attempts to bypass him manually and he tries to explain to both Geordi and Troi that he now feels he has a higher mission and is planning to take the Enterprise to places its never dreamed of before. There are a lot of influences in this episode. 2001 is alluded to as Barclay tells Geordi that he can't allow him to try to take back command of the Enterprise.
Force doesn't work and he then takes the Enterprise into a distortion that he created to hurdle them 30,000 light years away to the center of the galaxy.
Instead of finding a malevolent entity as in another influential movie, Star Trek V, they find a conscious that manifests as an apparition on the bridge. This is the only part of the episode that I truly don't like because it's the sort of thing that would be present in the first couple of seasons. A floating head. I understand that the episode was winding down and they wanted to be more exotic since they'd traveled so far and wanted something different than communication with a person on a planet, but it kind of made things silly after all the work put into Barclay's strange evolution. Suddenly Barclay appears on the bridge and explains that the Cytherians to whom they are speaking reintegrated him and that they are peaceful explorers as well only instead of going out of their solar system, they bring others to them. The probe was unable to summon any of the Federation technology, but it was able to find a vessel in Barclay, much like another influence - the movie Explorers in which aliens psychically draw a group of kids to their solar system, giving them the information necessary to make the journey.
The episode ends with Barclay in Ten Forward with Geordi and Troi. He remembers doing everything he just can't remember how now. His supernatural intelligence is gone now and he's back to his old self and although he's glad to be alive, he has reason to lament the loss of that gift that the probe gave him. But Troi decides to hold him to the date he'd arranged for a walk in the Arboretum which sends him back into a nervous stutter. As they're walking away he notices a chess game going on and politely asks to make a move that would cause checkmate in just a few short moves. Troi is impressed, not knowing he played chess. He's just as surprised because he doesn't so perhaps he's left with a flavor of that intelligence after all and that makes it a happy ending.
Like I said this episode had some weak points. The shaky holodeck science was one, although it wasn't as obvious or overpowering to the story. The floating head definitely isn't my favorite thing but it was charming enough to get a pass and leave me with no serious complaints. I think using the Barclay character to carry out the plot was a wise move and I'm not sure it would've worked as well with any of the main characters. Three and a half stars.
One of my favorite episodes. One of the best Geordi epidsodes. It has a nice, old-fashioned science fiction vibe to it.
There's lots to get in on this episode so there's not a lot of dilly dallying around. It starts out with the senior staff in the observation lounge being briefed by a Commander Susanna Leijten over a mission from five years prior. She'd been commanding an away team that was investigating the disappearance of a group of colonists on Tarchannen III. It was a small away team which Geordi La Forge had been a part of and she's running the video record of it. There's Geordi in his red uniform (props for continuity!) They cut to the problem quickly - one by one, all of the members of that small away team were beginning to disappear as well. They've actually tracked down one of them who had stolen a shuttle and was heading back to the planet. At this point Susanna and Geordi are the only ones left that haven't disappeared. The progression is believable. If one person from the group had disappeared it would be tragic. If two, it would certainly be disturbing. But once the third person takes off, a pattern is established and people start to think it may be a problem. There's no tease on poor Geordi's romantic sensibilities in this episode. Susanna always was and always will be just a friend. They take a minute to catch up and wonder what all this disappearance thing is about and if it was related to the disappearance of the colonist they'd investigated five years ago.
Unfortunately the man that stole the shuttle doesn't survive. He enters the atmosphere too quickly and burns up but they do detect two other shuttles on the surface and head down to investigate. It moves into the beginnings of a thriller... they don't find anyone, they only find footprints. And a discarded uniform. Worf feels like they're being watched. Susanna disappears for a moment and when Geordi finds her she's getting strange extra sensory perceptions as well; sensing the presence of other people. But then she collapses screaming in pain and panic so they beam out fast.
She appears fine but she feels compelled to go back to the planet. She's ordered to stay on board and while they're investigating cellular matter from the planet that doesn't seem to belong to any native being of the planet, Susanna and Geordi look over the record again to see if there's a commonality that made members of the away team want to go back to the planet to be abducted. It's an absurd notion that someone would want to be abducted but her desire to return to the planet makes her think that whatever made the others disappear is happening to her too. Then it starts to make sense. Susanna begins to convulse and collapses again. This time she appears to grow strange veins on her neck and her fingers are fused together.
Crusher discovers the mysterious cellular matter on her and it's revealed that the away team have been one by one transforming into members of another species. It's alarming enough and then Susanna's body starts to undergo radical transformation with her body temperature dropping and her skin becoming more visible under a UV light. Of course they want to confine Geordi for his own safety but he begs to be left free to try to find out more about what's causing all of this. He goes back to engineering promising to return if he starts to feel any symptoms and he watches the video record repeatedly, analyzing as he goes. I always like to see Geordi scenes where he's talking to the computer. Nobody could pull that off quite like Burton. Even in Remember Me when Crusher working out her situation by talking to the computer it doesn't come off as smoothly as when Geordi is doing it. It's so easy to believe that he actually does this for a living. He's really one of the more underrated characters.
He sees a shadow that he can't place in the video and decides to recreate it on the holodeck, which as you know from yesterday's post is one of my top favorite uses of the holodeck. As he's headed in he begins to get the shakes and instead of reporting to sick bay he ignores it because he feels very close to solving the mystery. Of course, one can predict what will happen but it doesn't stop the intensity of the scene Geordi reconstructs the video in true dimensions. He has the people in it moving backwards and forwards in real time and in slow motion. (Another reason why this holodeck moment is so cool.) He eliminates everyone except the person with the light source and discovers the unknown shadow and in truly creepy moment has the computer guess as to the height and shape of what it could be in three dimensions. Then his fingers begin to fuse together. All of this with the disappearing crewmen that are being turned into aliens and time running out for the main character is what gives this episode a classic sci-fi feel... as though it was something from a short story or movie from the 1950's. With the updated holodeck technology and a modern atmosphere that's adequately creepy but not overdone makes this a great episode to me.
While all of this is going on, Crusher discovers what looks like a
parasite on Susanna and removes it just in time before she loses her
humanity all together. They then start looking for Geordi but it's too
late; he's already left the Enterprise. They go to the holodeck to find what he was looking at along with his communicator and torn uniform.
When Susanna comes around she explains that the experience was this species way of reproducing. The parasite is implanted to cause a complete metamorphosis. She insists on going down to help search for Geordi because she knows she'll still be able to sense him down there. He's already invisible when they arrive and some may complain that this is a goof since it took the whole episode for Susanna to transform slowly, but I don't see it that way. After all it's an unknown phenomenon and could effect some more quickly than others and Susanna had constant attention and attempts to reverse the process. I think the only way to really nit pick it would be to say that it would take her a little longer to return to a normal than it would seem to in this episode, but of course, time is a factor in an hour long show. Data rigs up a UV light for them to search by and they find him beginning to run away with a group of others. Susanna speaks to him and reaches out to him.
Her voice calms him and he returns to her. This episode won awards for makeup and it's easy to see why. I thought this was one of the most creative alien suits ever designed. It was a 6 hour job and Burton had to have a nurse standing by for removal for his bathroom breaks.
The creative writing is commendable too. The story of this alien race is being told all the way to the end with only little bits revealed at a time. This race wasn't intelligent but bestial, acting only on instinct. So there was no malice, but it was far too late to retrieve the other two since the metamorphosis was complete. They were all in the wrong place at the wrong time and it solves the mystery of the colonists as well, making it a bitter sweet ending. I just loved it. Four and half. I don't give away that extra half for a total five star rating very easily, but apart from this being a one off episode, there's nothing wrong with it at all. It has a good flow and progression. It's nearly perfect and has a classic feel and I see no reason just to give it four stars alone.
