TNG Flashback: The Royale

The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Royale" was a troubled one behind the scenes, and some of that turmoil can be seen in the finished product. Still, when I strapped myself in to watch it, I was dreading what I remembered to be one of the worst installments of the second season. I was surprised to find that, while it was certainly nothing one could call "good," it was nowhere near as bad as I'd recalled.

The Enterprise discovers debris from a 21st-century Earth space vessel in orbit around an utterly inhospitable planet, and further investigation soon reveals a small bubble of breathable air on the otherwise lifeless surface. An Away Team beams down to find a strange revolving door alone in a black void, and steps through it to enter a recreation of a Las Vegas casino. In time, the Team learns that centuries ago, the last survivor of a doomed Earth space voyage was brought here by unknown aliens. Remorseful at their role in crippling the astronaut's ship, the aliens created a false Earth-like environment in which the survivor could comfortably live out his remaining days. But their only blueprint for Earth was a poorly written pulp novel, Hotel Royale, whose plot is now being repeated eternally in this simulacrum. The Away Team must now find an escape from the "hotel," as the revolving door that brought them in works in only one direction.

This episode was originally conceived by writer Tracy Tormé, who penned the fan favorite "The Big Goodbye," and created the memorable and enduring character of Lwaxana Troi in the otherwise uneven "Haven." He envisioned "The Royale" as a highly surrealistic episode with nods to the original Star Trek series pilot, "The Cage." His tortured astronaut lived on after death inside the simulation, eternally sustained by the aliens' design. The resolution involved a killed Away Team member -- herself now permanently unable to leave -- remaining behind to keep him company for eternity.

Head writer Maurice Hurley hated the script, calling it too surreal, and too similar to the original series episode "A Piece of the Action" in its trapping of gangsters and a world being based on a book. Hurley rushed through his own rewrite just days before shooting was to begin, and Tormé found the result so offensive that he took his name off the episode, opting for a pseudonym. Tormé stepped back from day-to-day involvement with the series in protest, and when his next script was also compromised, he left Star Trek altogether. (But we'll get to that later in the season.)

Budget considerations hurt the episode as well. The money didn't exist to create a casino with any kind of credibility; gaming tables were crammed in right next to the front desk and the elevators, and the same handful of extras walk by over and over again trying to create the illusion of a larger crowd. The script seems to treat the setting as the classic Vegas of the 1950s or earlier, but a true period setting was beyond the episode's budget. As a result, all the set decoration, plus all the costuming and hair styling, are clearly of the 1980s. Plus, of course, there was the revolving door in the black void; what set could be cheaper than no set at all?

But despite all the flaws, there is some element of fun that powers through at times in the finished product. Ron Jones delivers a fantastic score, making up in music for the shortcomings in the visuals. In addition to more conventional music to build the tension (Jones' "conventional" being quite effective), he also includes several over-the-top, jazzy pieces with wailing horns to personify the Vegas setting.

The actors, for their part, seem to be having the time of their lives. Jonathan Frakes' ear-to-ear grin throughout the climax is infectious. The comic beats played between him, Michael Dorn, and Brent Spiner are spot-on. And while Brent Spiner seems almost to break character during Data's epic craps run, it's great fun to watch. Even the guest stars (including Sam Anderson, who later played Bernard on Lost) seem to enjoy themselves, squeezing all the sour juice from the cliché dialogue.

Still, the episode drags in places, and at times it feels like the intentionally bad elements of the novel spill over into the rest of the episode. There are painfully long scenes of technobabble as the ship tries to break through communications interference early on, and dull sequences where more focus is given to the plot of "Hotel Royale" than the plight of our characters.

Other observations:

• A bookend subplot of this episode has Picard pondering the puzzle of "Fermat's Last Theorem," a real world mathematical mystery that, in the captain's words, "may never be solved." But just a few years after this episode aired, a proof was discovered by mathematician Andrew Wiles. From the little I've read, the solution required advanced calculations that were unknown in Fermat's time, and so many contend that it could not possibly be the "remarkable proof" Fermat alluded to in his notes. Thus, a continuity freak working on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine found a hook to write an explanation for all this -- by mentioning that Tobin Dax (past host of Jadzia) had worked on a proof (not the proof) to the theorem, even comparing it Wiles' by name.

• Speaking of details proven wrong with the passage of time, the space vessel Charybdis is said in this episode to be launched in 2037 as the third manned attempt to leave the confines of the solar system. The way manned space flight has slowed since 1989, I'd set the odds against that. But with the recent possibility of Puerto Rico switching statuses to become a U.S. state, we might be on our way to the 52-star flag this episode posits. Actually, with all the budget cutbacks NASA has suffered in the past decade, I'd say that organization's continued existence 24 years from now might be the least likely of all "future history" tidbits in this episode.

• Data displays an intermittent understanding of blackjack in this episode. In his first session, he incorrectly states the objective of the game as being "to reach 21" (rather than "to beat the dealer's hand without going over 21"). But in a second session, he offers more correct advice on blackjack strategy to one of the novel's characters.

In the end, it seems the frustration Tracy Tormé felt over this episode really had more to do with his compromised original vision rather than the quality of the finished product. I wouldn't call "The Royale" substantially worse than "Haven," an episode he did keep his name on. In fact, I'd actually say it's a touch better. In any case, they get the same mark: a C-.