Welcome
back to Underrated Trek, where I take a special look at Star Trek
episodes that I love…which may not be the most popular or even liked by
most. Sometimes an episode is delayed, causing another episode to be
rushed to fill the slot. What we end up with is a less then stellar
episode that is more a miss than a hit. This is:
Maybe if this episode made a little sense it would have been better.
Poor early season six TNG, I feel so bad for you! I talked about another
less than thrilling episode back in review of “Rascals”. Here’s another
which aired a few weeks earlier. Is it that bad? Let’s discuss :
Plot Synopsis:
The Enterprise comes to aid of a Federation transport vessel under attack. After saving them the Enterprise takes on the passengers, an ambassador named Alkar, on his way to mediate on a planet and his frail mother. The mother immediately hates Troi, sounding crazed.
After the mother dies Alkar asks Troi to participate in a ritual. The ritual actually links the two, so that all of Alkar’s negative emotions begin flooding into Troi. As her behavior changes, and she rapidly ages, she begins to act very differently by lusting after crewmen and experiencing fits of jealous rage.
After Troi fails to kill Alkar, she is brought to sick-bay where Crusher investigates and finds that the old woman was not Alkar’s mother. Crusher determines the way to help Troi is to get Alkar to break is link with her. They convince him she had died, and when he goes to another Vitim Crusher is able to restore Troi. The process restores Troi while simultaneously causeing the emotions to flood back in Alkar, killing him.
What I Liked:
To be fair the make-up showing Troi aging is pretty good. Course Michael Westmore was fantastic. Also, Marina Sirtis really acted her, you know what, off in the episode. I really can’t find any fault in her performance. She didn’t quite hit the mark I think the writers were going for, but still some of those scenes are chilling.
Alkar is nicely played, you really feel like he thinks that abusing these women is noble and for the better good. Which only makes him more of a monster! I really hate this guy! Picard sums it up himself when he points out that what Alkar is doing doesn’t make him courageous, it makes him a coward.
The transporter scene is pretty cool. Alkar is about to beam down when Troi, very aged and crazed, appears. Picard hasn’t seen her at all so is shocked. Then she tries to attack Alkar when Picard stops her, wrestling her to the floor. But my favorite part is that the transporter chief doesn’t just stand there and watch, she goes over and helps get Troi off Picard. I like this because it’s so rare, to see a background character not only act but act competently! Course she doesn’t get a line, but I’ll take it.
What I Hated:
Ok, so when Deanna and Alkar do the ritual we see Alkar touch two stones and we can tell by Deanna’s reaction that something happened. So what happens next? We see her in her quarters aggravated, going through her clothes and cancelling her appointments. Um, episode, what happened after the ritual?? Deanna clearly reacted as if she felt something and did not like it! Did she forget it? Did a new persona take over? What exactly does the ritual do, I mean we know the result but how does this happen? Where did Alkar find this, he only says later he discovered long ago he could do this-HOW?? Explain episode, explain!! Uh, sorry didn’t mean to rip off Nostalgia Critic there.
Many of the characters act oddly in my opinion. Data barely puts in an cameo, I think they stuck in that one scene in ten forward to get him into the show for a second. And all he does his point out the obvious! LaForge gets even less to do, and the one thing he does to serve the plot is done entirely off screen. Worf comes off like a dufus when he is disarmed on the planet way to easily. Course he had to be disarmed or the episode would have been a lot shorter. But the worst has to be Riker, and just how long it takes him to question Deanna’s behavior. He sees she has hooked up with a random crew member and yet this doesn’t get his attention? It isn’t until she scratches him that he finally goes to Beverly. Even then he apparently waited till the next morning to so! Did he sleep with those scratches? Heck even Picard seems more concerned with Alkar’s next victim than he does Troi!
While I said that Marina Sirtis acted well that doesn’t mean the scenes aren’t goofy. Maybe it would be better if we understood more of what was happening. But there’s no consistent behavior. She gets moody, cancelling appointments and hen berating an officer she should be counseling. Then she gets lusty, going after some officer she apparently has her way with. Then she starts lusting over Riker, before scratching him which never made any sense. And trying to kill Alkar to keep him from leaving the ship was a dark moment even if it also made no sense.
The conclusion of the episode is pretty lame. Crusher decides that the only way to save Troi is to get Alkar to stop doing what he’s doing. And the only way to do is to kill Troi. Then Alkar will switch to someone else, and they can revive Troi and heal her. Ummm…not sure that’s how that works. Not everything that kills a person can be un-done. It’d be like saying “I’ll shoot them and then bring them back to life once the threat is over”. And they wait almost the entire thirty minutes (why thirty minutes? Hell if I know)! The worst part is that it makes the last act pretty boring. They try to ramp up the tension concerning the other woman, Liva, but we know Troi will be OK so it doesn’t really matter.
Fast Forward Moment:Believe it or not the opening where the Enterprise answers a distress call serves no real purpose except getting the antagonist onto the ship. Once Alkar is on the ship the fact he was being attacked is quickly forgotten, they make it to the destination without incident. I know we’re supposed to care about the conflict Alkar is mediating, but we don’t really.
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Final Thoughts:I don’t hate this episode, but I have to admit it’s not the greatest either. Sirtis kept it from being borin, which is really what it is. A boring episode where nothing happens. It seemed to be the final low point for Troi’s character before they would finally begin to turn Troi around to be more than a sex object. You know, in the middle of season six!
Plot Synopsis:
The Enterprise comes to aid of a Federation transport vessel under attack. After saving them the Enterprise takes on the passengers, an ambassador named Alkar, on his way to mediate on a planet and his frail mother. The mother immediately hates Troi, sounding crazed.
After the mother dies Alkar asks Troi to participate in a ritual. The ritual actually links the two, so that all of Alkar’s negative emotions begin flooding into Troi. As her behavior changes, and she rapidly ages, she begins to act very differently by lusting after crewmen and experiencing fits of jealous rage.
After Troi fails to kill Alkar, she is brought to sick-bay where Crusher investigates and finds that the old woman was not Alkar’s mother. Crusher determines the way to help Troi is to get Alkar to break is link with her. They convince him she had died, and when he goes to another Vitim Crusher is able to restore Troi. The process restores Troi while simultaneously causeing the emotions to flood back in Alkar, killing him.
What I Liked:
To be fair the make-up showing Troi aging is pretty good. Course Michael Westmore was fantastic. Also, Marina Sirtis really acted her, you know what, off in the episode. I really can’t find any fault in her performance. She didn’t quite hit the mark I think the writers were going for, but still some of those scenes are chilling.
Alkar is nicely played, you really feel like he thinks that abusing these women is noble and for the better good. Which only makes him more of a monster! I really hate this guy! Picard sums it up himself when he points out that what Alkar is doing doesn’t make him courageous, it makes him a coward.
The transporter scene is pretty cool. Alkar is about to beam down when Troi, very aged and crazed, appears. Picard hasn’t seen her at all so is shocked. Then she tries to attack Alkar when Picard stops her, wrestling her to the floor. But my favorite part is that the transporter chief doesn’t just stand there and watch, she goes over and helps get Troi off Picard. I like this because it’s so rare, to see a background character not only act but act competently! Course she doesn’t get a line, but I’ll take it.
What I Hated:
Ok, so when Deanna and Alkar do the ritual we see Alkar touch two stones and we can tell by Deanna’s reaction that something happened. So what happens next? We see her in her quarters aggravated, going through her clothes and cancelling her appointments. Um, episode, what happened after the ritual?? Deanna clearly reacted as if she felt something and did not like it! Did she forget it? Did a new persona take over? What exactly does the ritual do, I mean we know the result but how does this happen? Where did Alkar find this, he only says later he discovered long ago he could do this-HOW?? Explain episode, explain!! Uh, sorry didn’t mean to rip off Nostalgia Critic there.
Many of the characters act oddly in my opinion. Data barely puts in an cameo, I think they stuck in that one scene in ten forward to get him into the show for a second. And all he does his point out the obvious! LaForge gets even less to do, and the one thing he does to serve the plot is done entirely off screen. Worf comes off like a dufus when he is disarmed on the planet way to easily. Course he had to be disarmed or the episode would have been a lot shorter. But the worst has to be Riker, and just how long it takes him to question Deanna’s behavior. He sees she has hooked up with a random crew member and yet this doesn’t get his attention? It isn’t until she scratches him that he finally goes to Beverly. Even then he apparently waited till the next morning to so! Did he sleep with those scratches? Heck even Picard seems more concerned with Alkar’s next victim than he does Troi!
While I said that Marina Sirtis acted well that doesn’t mean the scenes aren’t goofy. Maybe it would be better if we understood more of what was happening. But there’s no consistent behavior. She gets moody, cancelling appointments and hen berating an officer she should be counseling. Then she gets lusty, going after some officer she apparently has her way with. Then she starts lusting over Riker, before scratching him which never made any sense. And trying to kill Alkar to keep him from leaving the ship was a dark moment even if it also made no sense.
The conclusion of the episode is pretty lame. Crusher decides that the only way to save Troi is to get Alkar to stop doing what he’s doing. And the only way to do is to kill Troi. Then Alkar will switch to someone else, and they can revive Troi and heal her. Ummm…not sure that’s how that works. Not everything that kills a person can be un-done. It’d be like saying “I’ll shoot them and then bring them back to life once the threat is over”. And they wait almost the entire thirty minutes (why thirty minutes? Hell if I know)! The worst part is that it makes the last act pretty boring. They try to ramp up the tension concerning the other woman, Liva, but we know Troi will be OK so it doesn’t really matter.
Fast Forward Moment:Believe it or not the opening where the Enterprise answers a distress call serves no real purpose except getting the antagonist onto the ship. Once Alkar is on the ship the fact he was being attacked is quickly forgotten, they make it to the destination without incident. I know we’re supposed to care about the conflict Alkar is mediating, but we don’t really.
\Final Thoughts:I don’t hate this episode, but I have to admit it’s not the greatest either. Sirtis kept it from being borin, which is really what it is. A boring episode where nothing happens. It seemed to be the final low point for Troi’s character before they would finally begin to turn Troi around to be more than a sex object. You know, in the middle of season six!
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