Star Trek Anniversary Month!

It’s Star Trek’s 50th anniversary!! I couldn’t be more excited!! It’s taking all of my will just to refrain from YELLING AT YOU!! (Kidding.) This is a momentous occasion and I thought it would be really fun to review some of the more ‘Trek-y’ episodes from the various series. This has nothing to do with the fact that one of the Thursdays this month falls on Sept 8, which is that day that the first episode of Star Trek aired in 1966. (It has everything to do with that.) That’s not to say that these are necessarily the ‘best’ episodes of their respective series, just that they embody the core formula of what makes a Star Trek episode uniquely Star Trek. To make sure we’re on the same page, I’ve graciously come up with a brief list of criteria that I looked at when choosing each episode. First, I looked at character usage and development. Star Trek has always been about the characters and the audience learning lessons through the characters. Second, I looked at the lessons taught. Roddenberry always intended Star Trek to be an exploration of the human condition, and a platform where viewers could learn about the world around them, as well as themselves. Third, I looked at the efficacy of the analogy(ies) used, if there were any used. Metaphor is a fantastic way to teach a lesson without brow beating your audience and when Star Trek is on its game, it does this exceptionally well. This list of criteria is in no what comprehensive, and it’s definitely still subjective, but it does give us a common frame of reference so that you can hopefully see my reasoning as I choose episodes that maybe you would not have thought to choose. Also, I did only choose one episode per show to review in this fashion. However, as an added bonus, and because reviewing one episode would make for a painfully short article, I took the advice of an esteemed colleague of mine and I’ve included what he refers to as ‘anvil’ episodes. These are episodes that meet the above criteria, but come down really heavyhandedly on their moral principles. You’ll get the idea when we get there…

Being as the second Thursday in September is the 8th, I felt it would only be fitting to save my Original Series review for that week. So which episode is going to kick off our little celebration? I decided to do Next Generation first, and one of my personal favorites, as well as one of the more Trek-y in my opinion is Peak Performance. I've already touched on this episode once before. However, it’s one that is definitely worth looking at a second time. The premise of the episode is that the Enterprise and her crew are going to engage in some battle simulations. It’s interesting that both Picard and Riker point out that they see no need for this as Starfleet is not considered a military organization, but in light of their recent encounter with the Borg, Picard saw some wisdom in learning to properly defend themselves. It’s decided that Riker will command a derelict ship and challenge the Enterprise. Joining to judge the exercise is a gentleman by the name of Kolrami. Kolrami is of a species that are considered the best tacticians in the galaxy. The actor who plays the character plays him annoyingly smugly,and that really works in this case because you just want to strangle him until he dies, but he’s supposed to be smug so mission accomplished.

There’s a game that Kolrami’s people play called Strategema, and Riker challenges Kolrami to a game. *SPOILER ALERT: Riker gets pwned.* The entire match is over in just a few seconds. Meanwhile, Dr. Pulaski decides that it would be a stroke of brilliance to challenge Kolrami on Data’s behalf, surmising that Kolrami would be unable to keep up with a super computer. Goaded into the challenge, Data plays against Kolrami as well. *ANOTHER SPOILER: Data also gets pwned.* This is where the life lesson kicks in for this episode. Even though Data is an android, and devoid of emotion, his ego is bruised and he removes himself from duty. Both Troi and Pulaski attempt to assuage his feelings, but to no avail. So they enlist Picard to take care of the situation. Picard has a brief conversation with Data, and then he makes one of the most profound observations to ever come out of Star Trek. Ever. He tells Data that it’s possible to do everything right and still fail. That this is not a flaw, it’s life. Geez, I wish I had learned that earlier in life! It’s a lesson that’s poignant no matter the century, and no matter the situation. It’s just brilliance.

Meanwhile, Riker has been prepping his ‘ship’ for ‘combat’ and once the preparations are complete, the battle will commence. There are a couple of things to point out here. First, Wesley cheats the established Star Trek lore by beaming his antimatter experiment to Riker’s ship. That’s a huge deal because it was established at some point that antimatter can’t be transported. Second, Picard has a really revealing conversation with Kolrami. Up to that point Kolrami had been doing his condescension thing against Riker so Picard puts him right in his place. Kolrami explains that he sees Riker’s joviality as a weakness and Picard kindly informs him that joviality is just Riker’s style and it’s his way of gaining the trust and loyalty of his crew. There’s a huge amount of respect for Riker portrayed here on Picard’s behalf and it really helps to further solidify their relationship.

Anyway, the exercise starts. Riker, on Worf’s suggestion uses a ruse to throw the Enterprise off balance and score some devastating hits. Everything is going swimmingly, when a Ferengi ship comes out of nowhere and actually attacks the Enterprise. They lay claim to the derelict, and demand that Picard deliver. To drive them off, Riker and Picard fake the destruction of the derelict, and while the Ferengi are still off balance, Riker uses a sensor trick to scare them all off. After all is said and done, Data takes Kolrami on in a rematch where he drives the game to a stalemate, which frustrates Kolrami into forfeiture. Data wins and everyone is happy. The end.  I know that was a lengthy synopsis, but you really need the framework in order to understand the context here.

This was a season 2 episode, and during that season, as well as some of the first season, rejected scripts from another failed project were being repurposed as Next Generation episodes. The episodes were very hit and miss. Also, Gates McFadden had taken a break from the show, and to replace her, Diana Muldaur was brought in. I’ve never been a huge fan of Pulaski, in fact very few people are. She’s an awkward retread of Dr. McCoy. She’s not very well rounded as a character, and she was not in the show long enough to be developed into one. That said, this is one of maybe three episodes where she’s tolerable to watch. Her purpose in this episode is well defined and she as a character is well used. It’s a really interesting look into what could have become of the character had she remained on the show.

Speaking of, there’s a certain je ne sais quoi element to Star Trek wherein everything intangible clicks and the shows really hit their stride. You can really see that happening in this episode. The cast, and probably the crew, were finally starting to get their heads around what the show needed to be in order to be successful, and all of those stray elements that were just blowing in the wind finally came together to become more than the sum of their parts. Yes this is a second season episode, but if the uniforms hadn’t changed, and Dr. Crusher were in it, you wouldn’t be able to differentiate it from, say, a season four episode. From a technical aspect, there are some pretty cool things going on, specifically with the derelict that Riker inherits, it’s the USS Hathaway by the way. The Hathaway is a motion picture era Constellation class ship similar to Picard’s Stargazer, probably because the SFX guys already had that model. Starfleet ships are usually so clean and put together. It’s not often that we get to see them in any state of disarray. However, when we do, it’s a lot of fun. Consoles are missing, wiring is hanging from the ceilings, rooms are a lot darker than we’re used to. It’s like stepping into a Star Trek themed haunted house! In all, this is an episode that I will quickly and wholeheartedly recommend to anyone whether you’re a fan or not.

On the flip side of this is our ‘anvil’ episode. Again, this is an episode where the elements were there, but the message was too heavy handed, and to me, there’s no bigger culprit than the season 7 episode Force of Nature. The Enterprise gets called in to investigate the disappearance of another ship in a corridor of space that’s surrounded by violent plasma storms, or some such. They find a Ferengi vessel that appears to be disabled, but that was a lie. In actuality, only their warp drive is offline. The crew help the Ferengi and send them on their way only to have the same thing happen to themselves. A couple of aliens come aboard and tell them that use of warp drive is destabilizing space within the corridor, and that they need to stop using it there right away. Picard has Data do an analysis, which concludes that there’s insufficient data to draw a conclusion so Picard kind of writes the whole thing off. In response, one of the aliens creates a warp engine cascade in order to trigger the very event that she’s trying to prevent. This puts that other ship that you probably forgot about in danger of being dragged into the anomaly so the Enterprise has to save them in a very dramatic sequence of events. This all leads to Starfleet issuing a speed limit for warp travel until a more permanent solution can be found.

Let me be clear, this is not a bad episode by any stretch. It’s actually a lot of fun to watch. Mingled with all of the dramatic stuff, Data is trying to train his cat, which provides so classic moments. Also, the idea behind the metaphor is poignant, it’s just so heavy handed that it’s not veiled at all. It’s obvious once the episode establishes what it’s really about that it’s about environmental awareness, specifically the ozone layer and how our use of fossil fuels is destroying it. It could apply to any other type of eco-awareness cause, but this is what I think is intended based on the fact that there are several scenes where Geordi LaForge is literally trying to soup up the Enterprise’s engines. I understand that this was a hot button issue back in the early 90s. I remember being fed the propaganda about switching from regular gas to natural gas. I was exposed to all sorts of media in school about protecting our environment and preserving it for posterity. I don’t disagree with those ideas, but I’m also not a loud and proud member of Greenpeace. I was not aware that anyone associated with Next Generation was either, but here we are with an episode about eco-terrorists. This may not even have been an ‘anvil’ episode except that it’s a season 7 episode. I’m not saying that every episode to come out of that season was gold, but the bulk were more hit than miss, and the bar was pretty high. That fact combined with the blatantly forced analogy puts this one just a little over the top to be considered a genuine Trek-y episode, even if all of the components were there. Still, I would recommend giving it a watch, especially for the Data moments. That’s going to wrap up our first week of Star Trek month! Stay tuned for next week when we’ll take a look at the first episode of Star Trek ever to air on television and one that came down like a ton of bricks with its message!