There’s no need to make a song and dance about Craggus’ Trek Trek Phase II Vol 11
Craggus’ Trek Trek Phase II Vol 11 sees the series oscillate between banger and clanger once again.
Star Trek The Next Generation S4E08: Future Imperfect
We’ve all had birthday parties where we’ve woken up the next day and had no memory of some of the previous night’s events but when was the last time you celebrated your birthday and woke up sixteen years later? It’s actually a pretty fun episode, with Riker apparently contracting another mysterious virus on an away mission which erases his memory of the previous 16 years. No doubt relieved it wasn’t that previous away team virus which made him rewatch seasons one and two of The Next Generation, Riker is still confused to find he’s captain of the Enterprise and father to a young son. Of course, all our favourites are here and the make-up team have gone with the universal sign of aging: a distinguished strip of grey in everyone’s hair. Except for Picard who is apparently going through a bit of a mid-life crisis and has taken to wearing a goatee and has grown a futuristic bald/ mullet hybrid (perhaps on his way to a ponytail?) With hindsight, there are a few foreshadowing nods to both Nog (DS9) and B’Elanna Torres (VOY) as well as a completely accidental alignment with the events of #Star Trek Nemesis during the summary of what Riker has ‘missed’. Of course, the real genius of the episode is that we work out the whole future setting/ Romulan peace talks are a simulation quite early on, thanks to the weirdly deep cut call-back to Minuet (Riker *really* shouldn’t be ragging on Barclay if he’s still jonesing for his own hologram hottie from three years previously), but then it reveals its second twist: that the Romulans (although aligning with the season arc) are themselves just another layer of fakery and it’s all just a front so that a lonely alien boy can have some company. Everybody say ‘ahhhh’.
Star Trek The Next Generation S4E09: Final Mission
Wesley is finally off to Starfleet Academy so of course, there’s time for one more ‘road trip’ with Captain Picard. After all, Wesley & Picard shuttle trip episodes are always a blast, aren’t they? The episode feels like a throwback to a previous (worse) era as the episode juggles two competing but unrelated and not very involving stories. The disposal of a radioactive garbage scow gives some unpleasant thematic subtext to an episode designed to give Wesley a proper send-off as he leaves the series and to that end, the showrunners seem to want to soften the blow of him leaving by placing him front and centre of a boring ‘marooned-on-a-desert-planet’ cliché. They add in the improbable obstacle of an apparently uninhabited planet having a water fountain protected by a force-field and lethal security system which is conveniently overcome when the story requires it but this is a disappointing grab-bag of plots episode and a real low note for Ensign Crusher to finally set off for the Academy.
Star Trek The Next Generation S4E10: The Loss
Counsellor, analyse thyself! Remarkably the loss of empathy rightly turns Troi into a sociopathic bitch as she lashes out at her friends, colleagues and even patients. Meanwhile, the series’ cheapest special effects to date keep the rest of the crew occupied. It’s curiously appropriate that the dilemma of this episode involves two-dimensional life-forms because the writing treats most of the characters in much the same way, but especially Troi whose two dimensions amount to stroppy or sad. The crass attempt to turn the story into a disability allegory just makes things worse.
Star Trek The Next Generation S4E11: Data’s Day
Not one to hold a grudge, Data has become pen pals with the odious Commander Maddox who only two years before wanted to disregard his human rights and dismember him to find out how he ticks, making this episode kind of a Star Trek version of those people who correspond with incarcerated serial killers. Luckily, we’re privy to Data’s correspondence during a particularly eventful period as it coincides with Chief O’Brien’s marriage to Keiko and the arrival of Vulcan ambassador T’Pel who apparently dies in a mysterious transporter accident. It’s a good Data episode and although story-wise it feels a bit patchwork, it’s a nice opportunity to see various aspects of life aboard the Enterprise from Data’s unique point of view. Brent Spiner gives a nicely understated performance, allowing the events and other characters to reflect off him. It’s also fun to see Gates McFadden put her choreography experience to use as she pre-empts the 2005 revival of Doctor Who by showing us the doctor dances. It’s also the debut of Data’s cat Spot and, of course, Keiko O’Brien (née Ishikawa).
Star Trek The Next Generation S4E12: The Wounded
It’s finally time to keep up with the Cardassians as Star Trek: The Next Generation introduces later Trek’s most fully realised, successful new alien race. It’s fitting that the first Cardassian is played by the actor who would go on to play one of the best Cardassians of all – Marc Alaimo. Riffing on Heart Of Darkness, The Wounded is a gripping thriller which puts Picard in the middle of a cosmic quagmire as he struggles to deal with an apparently renegade Starfleet Captain threatening the fragile and recently-won peace with the Cardassian Empire. It’s a serious episode that showcases the strengths of the series and the quality of the cast. Miles O’Brien finally steps fully into the limelight, filling the gap in the cast left by Wesley’s departure with a more seasoned and arguably more interesting character.
Star Trek The Next Generation S4E13: Devil’s Due
After the sobering introduction of the Cardassian Empire in the previous episode, it’s time for some fun again – and what better way to let loose a little than to brush off another of those old Star Trek Phase II scripts and rewrite it for the TNG crew? It’s a play on Arthur C Clarke’s maxim that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic as the planet of Ventax II must deal with the return of a quasi-mythical figure from their past who has apparently returned to collect on a thousand-year covenant. Guest star Marta DuBois has a whale of a time chewing the scenery as Ardra, the scam artist exploiting a planetary legend for her own gain. Of all the scripts adapted and rewritten for the TNG crew, this is the one where it’s easiest to see how the original version would have played out. Data occupies the Spock role as the impartial judge during the trial while even in the authoritative timbre of Patrick Stewart, you can hear the Kirk in Picard’s lines. Goofy, lightweight and cutely clever, this is Trek as comfort food and there’s nothing wrong with that at all.
Star Trek The Next Generation S4E14: Clues
Clues In which Data attempts to gaslight the entire crew of the USS Enterprise, but it’s for their own good. It may bear more than a passing resemblance to the Red Dwarf season 2 episode ‘Thanks For The Memories’ which aired some two years before this did but even if it is a remake of sorts, it’s a pretty darn good one. There’s a nice slow reveal to the central mystery as the crew try to wrestle with their suspicions and trust in Data. It’s essentially Agatha Christie in space only this time, nobody’s wondering why they’ve been gathered together – it’s so they can accuse Data.
Star Trek The Next Generation S4E15: First Contact
Wrapping up Craggus’ Trek Trek Phase II Vol 11 is an episode that’s very different from the movie which would share its title. The story opens like an episode of ‘Alien ER’ as a prone and prosthetically enhanced Riker is wheeled into emergency surgery and looks like he might be heading for his very own alien autopsy. Unusually for a Riker episode, this time it’s his *internal* organs that get him into trouble as his obviously alien nature poses social and philosophical conundrums for the ever-so-slightly-pre-warp civilisation on Malcor III. Picard and Troi make the unusual decision to make contact with the lead scientist of the planet’s warp experiment, Mirasta (veteran (usually Romulan) guest star Carolyn Seymour) to discuss the situation and pull his favourite trick of beaming someone up to the Enterprise to blow their mind. While Picard and Troi attempt diplomatic gymnastics to locate their missing first officer, Riker finds himself on the receiving end of the sexual harassment for once as a nurse (an almost unrecognisable Bebe Neuwirth) offers to help him to escape in return for a close encounter of the fourth kind but the escape attempt fails and he falls into the clutches of Krola, the paranoid Malcorian Security Minister. It’s a thoughtful and deliberate examination of the political and sociological implications of ‘first contact’ and has the courage to end on an atypically (for Trek) downbeat note as a civilisation chooses not to join the Federation’s utopic fraternity and opts for ‘ignorance is bliss’ instead.
