The Next Generation 7x11 "Parallels"

rating: ****

the story: Worf skips along a series of alternate realities.

what it's all about: While fans in general don't think much of the seventh season, they all seem to agree that "Parallels" is a highlight of the series.  It's just too much fun, more or less the "Trouble with Tribbles" of Next Generation.

It's really hard not to love.  Like the cleverest episodes of the series before it ("Cause and Effect," for instance), "Parallels" sets up a simple premise, lets you know everything you need to know, and then begins to chip away at that knowledge as the story progresses.  Worf returns from a Klingon tournament, which he has won, and it's his birthday, and the crew has a surprise party for him, even though Riker swears they wouldn't.  Then things change, and we get to see variations not just on stuff we know from the series (where an average episode would have drawn on), but the basics of the story itself.

And it's easily the funniest non-Q Next Generation experience you can imagine.  The more things change, the more you realize nothing's off-limits.  The Worf/Troi relationship, long teased and headed toward its culmination in the series finale, has some great material, such as when Worf ends up in a reality where he's married to Troi and has no idea! 

Wesley Crusher gets to pop up without too much fanfare thanks to the nature of the story, another prelude to later season developments (it can sometimes seem depressing, how easily Wes was to erase from later Next Generation lore, when he was so important in the early seasons, including a similar cameo in Star Trek Nemesis), and that's fun, too.

By the time the big convergence at the end of the episode occurs, and we see the harried Captain Riker of a reality where the Borg weren't defeated, "Parallels" brushes on just how serious this could've gotten, and you're grateful that it was kept so lighthearted.  Instead, it's a classic romp.  A classic, period.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Any fan would love this one!
• series - Fans of the series, certainly!
• character - Fans of Worf, of course!
• essential - It's a classic.

notable guest-stars:
Wil Wheaton (Wesley)
Patti Yasutake (Ogawa)

The Next Generation 7x10 "Inheritance"

rating: ***

the story: Data meets his "mother."

what it's all about: This late-series addition to Data's backstory is a fascinating one, which maybe would have been better if it'd happened earlier.  You can bet that if this had been Deep Space Nine, we would've seen Noonien Soong's wife a few more times at least.

So it turns out Soong, the man who created Data, Lore, and B4 (whom we don't meet and/or know about until Star Trek Nemesis), also transferred his wife's consciousness into an android body.  This is a wonderful Next Generation echo of far more blunt moments from the original series ("What Are Little Girls Made Of?," for instance), and even from its own past ("The Survivors"). If "Inheritance" has a quieter legacy, it's because the story around what really matters is about as generic as the series could get.  It's still a step up from "Interface" earlier in the season, though, and a clear sign that the season had begun to find its footing.

Data was a remarkably rich character to explore.  Whether his quest in the present to become more human, or his origins, there was always great material to be found.  To consider it as something that could easily have consumed the entire series (Data was probably inspired by Gene Roddenberry's failed pilot concept, The Questor Tapes, which did star an android, played by later Trek alum Robert Foxworth) is to wonder how any other in the series ever managed to compete with him.  He even had the season premiere to resolve another aspect of his story, the matter of Lore and the emotions he'd stolen from Soong that were meant for Data.

That was a thorny story, and didn't in the end add anything new.  It was so obvious there was nowhere left to go with Lore the episode ended with Data switching him off!  So to have another android, one who apparently was the most sophisticated android Soong ever created, is something worth considering.

Soong had a human prototype to work with.  For the androids everyone knows he created, he merely used himself as a visual aide, and created everything else from the ground up.  For Tainer, he had an actual person.  From other episodes we already know Soong could program the memories of individuals into Data.  It's not so unreasonable to assume he could imprint Tainer's directly into a positronic net, so that the android believed it was Tainer.

That's the story, right there, Tainer not realizing what she is, but Data figuring it out.  It's perhaps one of his most human moments in the whole series, not one where he was forced to pass judgment on someone, but in the grand tradition of the series let the moral ambiguity work itself out.  Soong programmed the Tainer android to live a natural lifespan.  She never needed to find out, and Data decides it's just as well that way.

Soong was full of secrets.  What made him such a maddening genius was that those secrets had a way of revealing themselves without warning.  Tainer was the best of them, and "Inheritance" is a happy experience for it. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Smart, subtle echoes to franchise lore.
• series - In its basic structure reflects poorly on the creativity of the series.
• character - Works wonders for Data, however.
• essential - It adds a nice flavor to his backstory.

notable guest-stars:
Fionnula Flanagan (Tainer)

Star Trek's 50th Birthday!

Fifty years ago today, NBC aired "The Man Trap," the first broadcast episode of Star Trek.  The rest is history, right?

In sum: The series struggles to remain in production, limping to three seasons before finally being cancelled.  Then the fans truly emerge, and it just keeps coming back, in one form or another.  It makes history any number of ways: the mixed ethnicity of the crew, the interracial kiss, the technology, Vulcan culture. 

Everyone has a reason for why this happened, and why it endures to this day.  The more high-minded commentators point out that it was a perfect embodiment of all the best '60s ideals.  Today, Star Trek's legacy can perhaps best be summed up as: Star Wars' main competition.

Now, this is somewhat more interesting to me, as I am a fan of both franchises (it can happen!), and this has been the most relevant dialogue of the past forty years, ever since Star Wars helped revive Star Trek once and for all.

I think Star Wars invented a whole new class of Star Trek fans, actually.  Fans today moan about how JJ Abrams, who later directed Star Wars - Episode VII: The Force Awakens, turned Star Trek into Star Wars with his 2009 revisions, but this is something they've secretly wanted since they emphatically made the Star Wars-chasing Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan into the franchise standard-bearer, so it's hard to explain. 

Remember how I noted everyone has their own reasons why Star Trek has persisted for fifty years?  Well, the fans who think Wrath of Khan, which often seems to be all of them, is worthy of such consideration seem to think it's because of Star Wars.  Yet Star Trek existed a full decade before anyone had seen Star Wars, and its wild and woolly legacy was already well underway by the time George Lucas started hammering out the specifics of his grand space saga. 

What makes Star Trek special is that it can embrace the Star Wars conceit, along with everything else.  I mean, Kirk was always a kind of Han Solo anyway, right?  What was Spock but a Jedi Starfleet officer?  There's a reason why he became so philosophic in the movies, because the filmmakers were suddenly concerned with how well he compared to the wise little Yoda.  They never had to worry.  Kirk and Spock are still Kirk and Spock, and people still have an easy time telling these franchises apart.  Star Trek Beyond was not the massive hit The Force Awakens was, because again, it embraced the complete wild and woolly legacy of its franchise.  It doesn't take three movies to tell a Star Trek story (unless Spock dies).

Star Trek was born for the Internet Age.  In some ways, it created the Internet Age.  Everything's up for debate, and things are either loved or loathed.  There's rarely any middle ground.  That's how fans have talked about Star Trek all along.  That's what put it in the position to be cancelled, all those years ago, because it was so polarizing, like the decade that spawned it.  But today, nobody thinks of Star Trek as a product of the '60s.  It's somehow transcended its own origins, even while fans continue to pour over the original series as if it were biblical truth (if that's your thing, and it certainly wasn't Gene Roddenberry's!), and only a heathen admits Star Trek might actually have...improved in later iterations.

The Next Generation, at its prime, did become the standard-bearer, but was quickly relegated to the same woes of its successors, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, as having to defend its legacy tooth and nail, its movies easy to dismiss, an era when Star Trek fell out of favor, not just among viewers but fans.  There came a time when the franchise looked all but dead, with no one much interested in reviving it.

Today, you have absurd debates about Star Trek Into Darkness being the worst of all possible Treks, because it dared echo Wrath of Khan, and you wonder, what's it all about?  Is it about rancor, about putting up little fences and finding enemies everywhere?  Not the Star Trek I know.  Apart from everything else, it's a message of hope, that we can overlook petty differences, finally, that we can find common ground.  Like Star Trek.  I can sometimes seem as if I want everyone to like everything.  That's never been the case.  I don't like everything.  But it's always been odd, seeing how much passion Star Trek fans put into hating various pieces of the franchise.  There's a million ways to love the franchise, to celebrate it, to boast about it.  If Star Trek really did create the Internet Age, I think fifty years ago, something very different would have aired.

If there's something that hateful in "The Man Trap," and other episodes, I never saw it.  Today, I remember, I choose to remember, the best of it, because that seems to be the standard Star Trek tried to set, all those years ago.  If it's remembered in another fifty years, I think fans will have finally figured that out.  Hopefully.  The future's funny like that.  Constantly going where no one has gone before...

Best Episodes:

• "The Trouble with Tribbles" (Star Trek 2x15) Nothing quite captures the spirit of the original series as this lark featuring the most unlikely menaces in the galaxy, plus Klingons!
• "Yesteryear" (The Animated Series 1x2) This crucial episode formed the basis of Spock's backstory as featured in 2009's Star Trek.
• "The Inner Light" (The Next Generation 5x25) The dignity of the series, and Picard, in a nutshell.
• "The Visitor" (Deep Space Nine 4x3) The deep bond between Sisko and his son embodied the soul of this series, and this is the best opportunity to explore it.
• "Distant Origin" (Voyager 3x23) The series often said to on the whole be the most generic of the franchise also made the quintessential episode of the franchise.
• "Twilight" (Enterprise 3x8) The third season Xindi arc helped define this series, and this is the episode that helped define the Xindi arc.

Best Characters:

• Spock (Star Trek) With all due apologies to Kirk, this was the indisputably logical selection.
• Picard (Next Generation) They used to teach leadership lessons based on this guy.
• Sisko (Deep Space Nine) As noted above, he was the necessary soul of his show.
• Seven of Nine (Voyager) The curvaceous ex-Borg transformed what it meant to be human.
• Trip (Enterprise) The final episode revolved around him.  People tend to forget that.

Best Movies:

• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (Star Trek) This Cold War capper perfectly encapsulated what it meant to love the original crew.
• Star Trek: First Contact (Next Generation) Picard's best showcase.
• Star Trek (2009) The introduction to the reboots is perfect.

The Next Generation 7x9 "Force of Nature"

rating: *

the story: Scientists claim that warp drive is an environmental menace.

what it all means: Boy o boy.  Fans really pick their spots when naming the worst episodes/movies/ideas in franchise lore.  "Force of Nature" rarely seems to come up in the conversation, but like "Phantams" earlier in the season, it certainly merits consideration...

As with most episodes/movies fans despise," the problem resides mostly in the idea (although execution often plays a heavy hand): just go back and read my plot summary above and try and see for yourself what the problem might be.

Okay, let me spell it out for you: having the basic concept of warp drive questioned is like having an episode question tricorders, or communicators.  Sure, one of the running tropes of the franchise is questioning transporters, but Star Trek could technically get by without them.  It couldn't without warp drive.  You see the problem?

The '90s were a watershed moment in the environmentalism movement.  You wouldn't have the concept of climate change without the ideas discussed in the '90s, when great strides were made in at least addressing the worst things man was indisputably doing to nature.  We've since entered territory where things are a little less clear-cut, and "Force of Nature" kind of epitomizes that.  Simply put, we're now kind of putting into question whether humans are more menace than friend to the planet, on an existential level.  "Force of Nature" does the same with Starfleet, whether or not it realizes it.

It's a brave and foolish subject to tackle, and the episode has been questioned in the past, but it apparently has been easy to overlook in more recent years.  This is oddly troubling.  The whole franchise very early on developed a reputation for fearlessly tackling the most difficult issues, and usually not having too much of a problem sounding right about them.  Here it's such a difficult subject, and handled so clumsily, it's hard to know what to make of the episode, even two decades later.

So I will exercise the rare privilege of giving the final verdict up, and merely noting that it's worth considering in the greater Star Trek experience.  Otherwise I'd be very much inclined to outright dismiss it, the way fans can sometimes find it so easy in such matters.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - This big idea is at least worthy of Star Trek's highest ideals.
• series - The series should really have been able to do better, though.
• character - Some half-hearted attempts were made to ground the story.
• essential - I'm inclined to say this is the opposite of essential.

notable guest-stars:
Lee Arenberg

The Next Generation 7x8 "Attached"

rating: ***

the story: Picard and Crusher become tethered to each other's thoughts.

what it all means: If "Dark Page" initiated the seventh season's efforts to dig deeper into the familiar characters of the series, "Attached" is the episode that finally offered some time to one of the show's longstanding unfulfilled teases: the relationship between Picard and Crusher.

Part of the series backstory is that the good captain and his first medical officer previously served together, and that Crusher's husband died under Picard's command.  This kind of necessarily resulted in a complicated would-be romance that never quite happened (somewhat amusingly spun further in "All Good Things...," the final episode, in which they finally did get married...but then ended up divorced).  They could often be seen hanging out socially together, in their private quarters, but that was about as far as it ever went.  Until "Attached," no episode had really even tried to explore it directly.  ("The Arsenal of Freedom" from the first season also saw they trapped together, but nothing like the events here transpired.)

But once they could literally not get away from each other, it becomes an entirely different matter.  Crusher usually needed a strong tether to break free from her natural inertia as a character (all charm, no wit), and Picard is as good a tether as you can find.  Like the earlier "Liaisons" after someone in the writers room figured out how to make that particular story less disposable, "Attached" is also a version of a story that has reliably provided great material in the franchise ("Shuttlepod One" from Enterprise, for instance), in which two characters are forced to spend time together, and everyone wins because of it.

The episode around this scenario is somewhat generic and underdeveloped, but that can easily be forgiven, considering.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Sorry, this is a private viewing party!
• series - For Next Gen fans, thank you!
• character - Specifically, Picard/Crusher shippers!
• essential - I mean, seriously!

The Next Generation 7x7 "Dark Page"

rating: ***

the story: It seems Lwaxana Troi has been hiding a secret pain...

what it all means: This is the only Lwaxana episode (in Next Generation and Deep Space Nine) where Lwaxana herself does not dominate the story.  In some respects, it's the first time her daughter Troi is in control.  Granted, for horrible reasons, but...

"Dark Page" is in some respects the first truly seventh-season episode of the seventh season, the first deep cut into backstory the season allows to fully breathe.  Unlike "Descent, Part 2" or "Interface," this is a truly relevant story of the series, with no qualifications needed.  It even has aliens-of-the-week who go out of their way to help rather than hinder, which is about the one and only time in franchise history this happens.

But you need to be a fan of the series to appreciate it, because without the context, you have no idea what's missing from Lwaxana, and thus why it's so important that this is the rare excursion into taking her seriously ("Half a Life" is the best such example).

Why Troi has two mysteries under her belt this season (the later "Eye of the Beholder" as well) is something of a mystery itself, or just maybe why it took the series so long to let her be featured this way (contrary to what some say, she was always one of the series' strongest characters, when given half a chance, including her standout appearance in the pivotal "Skin of Evil" from the first season).  Too often, she was stuck in lousy episodes with lousy relationships with lousy aliens of the week.  In fact, part of what makes "Dark Page" so refreshing is that it seems to go out of its way to refute that this was ever even necessary, and again, that makes it more a Troi episode than a Lwaxana episode.  We learn Lwaxana's deep, dark secret, but we also learn how strong Troi is entirely on her own.

(I mean, usually she has to be pretty tough around her mother, but not this tough!)

From here, it becomes easier for the season to delve into rich character work, of the kind far removed from the gimmicky early efforts.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Might be baffling for the uninitiated.
• series - Although perfect for the initiated!
• character - Good for Lwaxana.
• essential - Great for Troi!

notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry (Lwaxana Troi)
Kirsten Dunst

The Next Generation 7x6 "Phantasms"

rating: *

the story: Data has nightmares that end up helping save the ship.

what it all means: That logline kind of makes "Phantasms" sound as awesome as Voyager's "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy," in which the Holographic Doc's daydreams are tapped into by aliens (also known as the debut of the so-called Potato Heads), and while some of "Phantasms" is awesome, it isn't really, on the whole.  It's kind of a variation of a Barclay episode, but with Data carving up Troi cake.

In fact, Troi cake is the best part about the episode (cellular peptide, with mint frosting!).  The rest of it is kind of a waste of the potential introduced in "Birthright, Part 1," in which Data initially unlocks the ability to dream.  There ought to be fans who deride "Phantasms" the way they do "Spock's Brain" (or the later seventh season episode "Genesis," for whatever reason; fans are overly concerned with images they think make Star Trek look cheap, which apparently doesn't include all the horrible choreography of the original series, the Gorn fight being just the tip of the iceberg).

Is it that bad?  No.  It's not "Sub Rosa," for instance.  But it's certainly the seventh season living up to its reputation for disposability (it's got about the same mix as any other season of middling episodes).

For shear kitsch value, though, it's hard to dismiss an episode featuring Freud uttering the advice: "You must kill zem.  Kill zem all!" 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Not particularly how you want to represent Star Trek!
• series - Not the series, either!
• character - Still, it's a fun Data episode.
• essential - Though, one you could easily skip!