Data is abducted by a ruthless alien named Kivas Fajo, who wishes to add him to his collection of rare items. Fajo has gone to great expense to procure the android, to the extent of faking Data's death so the Enterprise won't look for him. Unable to find an escape, Data must deal with Fajo's amoral coercions, and may ultimately be forced to do what he has never done before -- take a humanoid life.
Tales of captivity aren't uncommon on television, but never do you have an emotionless character as the victim. Data's presence in this story results in a novel new take on the dramatic construct. His debates with his captor are logical, not pleading. His attempts at resistance seem carefully calibrated. And yet this very detachment that makes the episode more intriguing from an intellectual standpoint also leave it a bit lacking from an emotional one. Data is never in any danger, and the audience has no doubt he'll be free by the end of the hour. There don't seem to be any stakes here.
Still, it is interesting to see such a morally reprehensible character like Kivas Fajo depicted in a Star Trek episode. There have been playful rogues like Okona, mustache-twirling Romulan captains, and even the dispassionate Borg... but never has there been such a diabolical person as this. He can summon fake tears while telling a completely fictitious story of past hardships. He can callously threaten to kill a companion he's traveled with for 14 years. And he can do it all without ever raising his voice.
It's a solid performance by actor Saul Rubinek. But interestingly, he was not the first actor cast in the role. David Rappaport, a little person well known from many performances throughout the 1980s, was cast as Fajo and filmed for two full days, completing the first scene and last two scenes of the episode. But then the weekend came, and he attempted suicide. Though he survived, he was hospitalized. Episode director Timothy Bond had suddenly lost his main guest star, and had to scramble for a replacement.
Bond was a friend of actor Saul Rubinek, who was in Los Angeles in preparation to shoot a movie. Rubinek was a Star Trek fan, knew that his friend was directing an episode, and asked if a set tour could be arranged. Bond called him back with an unexpected offer -- though Rubinek did not usually work in television at the time, he could absolutely get his set tour... if he could come in immediately on Monday morning, be fitted for a new costume, and start filming a guest role as Kivas Fajo that afternoon.
David Rappaport attempted suicide again a few months later, just days before the completed Star Trek episode aired, and this time was successful. But the footage from his two days of filming on the episode can now be seen, as a special feature on the Blu-ray release. It's an intriguing look at how different a character can be in the hands of two different actors -- something you can often see in the theater, but rarely on television. To make Kivas Fajo appropriately menacing despite his small stature, Rappaport plays him as much more dour and stern. Rubinek's take, in sharp contrast, is much more pleasant, the villainy more concealed with a smile. Rappaport's incarnation of the character also sports a much more alien makeup -- though presumably Rubinek's lack of such makeup wasn't a deliberate choice so much as a lack of time to mold a new prosthetic.
The recasting of the actor goes off without a hitch. But there are other aspects of the episode that aren't so successful. The writers are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to showing the reactions to Data's "death" by the rest of the crew. We saw an elaborate funeral for Tasha Yar back in the first season, a character who is deftly referenced twice in this very episode, and yet we see no such grief over Data's death. Of course, the problem is that it would be a waste of time to dwell on Data's death too much, since we all know that hasn't actually happened. At least we do get two moments that seem to appropriately carry the weight of Data's loss: Picard's quoting from Hamlet, and Troi reaching out to counsel Worf on the emotions of replacing yet another fellow crewmember after a death.
Actually, it might be the comedic moments of the episode that play the best. The other contents of Fajo's collection bring a smile to your face, from rare paintings to a bubble gum scented baseball card. Data's attempt to emulate the Mona Lisa's smile is great. And watch the background when Fajo's alien guest Palor Toff comes to see Data; he has a hilarious moment where he picks his three-nostriled nose.
For the most part, I can enjoy the good moments and weather the less good ones in this episode. But there's one element I just can't make sense of at all -- the climactic moment. Data has a disruptor trained on Kivas Fajo, which Fajo says he won't use out of respect for life. The first flaw is that Fajo, who has proven such a master manipulator throughout the episode, so overplays his hand here. He tells Data point blank that he'll continue to murder people to force Data's compliance, and the only escape will be for Data to murder him right then and there. But if Data is to be the cause of deaths in either case, then which is the lesser loss: all the lives taken by Fajo, or Fajo's one life? Framing the situation in such mathematical terms makes the conclusion inevitable for the calculating Data.
But while I have no quarrel with Data's decision in that moment to commit murder, I don't understand what happens next. Having fired the disruptor a split second before the transporter takes him, Data then arrives on the Enterprise and lies to Riker about having done so. It's not that it's ever been stated point blank that Data doesn't lie (at least, I don't think it has), but I can't imagine him doing so without reason. Riker asks point blank what happened, and Data pauses for a moment and makes the calculated decision to lie. This I can't comprehend at all. I think the writers thought they were being cool and ambiguous in this moment. Or maybe the powers-that-be didn't want to consequences of acknowledging point blank that Data had attempted a murder. But either way, I find the equivocation harmful to the drama.
Other observations:
- The Enterprise shuttle piloted by Data in the teaser is named the Pike. I believe this is the first time a shuttle has been named for a fictional character within the Trek universe.
- Speaking of ship names, the Grissom is mentioned in dialogue later in the episode. It seems the Enterprise is not the only reused ship name in Starfleet, as we saw the Grissom destroyed in Star Trek III.
- The makeup work on Varria is really clever and well done. Even though she's an alien, something about her face implies that she may be a burn victim or some such. And the actress alludes to this with a gesture to her face when she talks about the horrible things Kivas Fajo is capable of.
- In contrast to Picard's sleeping habits, Geordi apparently sleeps in his uniform.
- The thugs that Data tosses around at the end of the episode do some unintentionally hilarious overacting.
- This is another episode that, according to the series' policy of alternating composers, would have been scored by Ron Jones. He was still on his trip to Russia, and so Dennis McCarthy filled in. With this, the previous episode, and the subsequent one, McCarthy actually did three in a row.
- This episode was huge for Decipher's Star Trek Customizable Card Game. Not only did it inspire the limited specialty set The Fajo Collection, it was the origin of two of the most overpowered (and thus widely abused) cards of the premiere set, "Kivas Fajo -- Collector" and "Palor Toff -- Alien Trader." Subsequent expansions were filled with numerous attempts to balance the former in particular. In my time as a designer on the game, I remember one recurring idea for a "Kivas Fajo counter" was going to be named for Data's pivotal line from this episode: "I cannot permit this to continue." I don't recall what the card did in playtesting, nor do I think any version of it was ever actually printed, but I think the gist of it was basically "if your opponent plays Kivas Fajo, burn his house to the ground and spit on the ashes." (Or maybe we did print that card? One decade and dozens of versions of thousands of cards later, I can't firmly recall.)
4 comments:
Great review!
Yes, great review. As always!
(I never understood Decipher's policy not to issue errata and/or reprint cards. It certainly would have been better to errata Fajo than to spend countless cards trying to counter him...)
FKL
First Officer's Log:
- No wonder Geordi's not getting any good sleep: he's sleeping in his uniform (as you've pointed out), but he's also using something out of Minecraft for a pillow. Seriously, that thing doesn't look futuristic at all, but it does look rather painful.
(But that stuff always looks stupid, no matter the series or film. There's an entire thesis waiting to be written on bedroom accessories and accouterment in science fiction.)
- Data doesn't actually lie at the end, there. He says "Maybe something happened with the transporter." A detail, for certain, but an interesting one.
Why would Data be chosen for the mundane job of shuttle craft ferrying? And how could the collector have known that Data would be chosen when planning the kidnap?
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