The Enterprise is transporting a trio of Ulians, telepathic aliens with the ability to recover other peoples' buried memories. But one of them is secretly a vile criminal, invading people's minds against their will. With the victims left in comas for days, and unable to recall the assaults even after regaining consciousness, the crew must determine what is happening in their midst.
The raw idea for this episode was pitched by the same outside writer who sold "Night Terrors"; both were bought at the same time. But I'm honestly not quite sure what the original idea really entailed, because the key element that makes the story worth telling came from staff writer Jeri Taylor and one of the production interns: the idea that these would be telepathic rather than physical assaults. Unfortunately, after making that one very smart decision, the writers made several poor ones.
First, there's the challenge of presenting these assaults on screen. The metaphor isn't subtle here; this is meant to be a science fiction take on rape, which one of the characters states directly at the end of the episode. When you really stop and think about it, mind invasion is a horrible violation. But you kind of do have to stop and think about it. And it would help the audience do that if the memories being invaded were of a sufficiently horrific nature that comport with the horror of the crime. We don't really get that.
I'll skip the first memory for a moment, because there are some other puzzling facets of Troi's assault. Riker's memory is of a time he gave an order that led to a crewmember's death. Not to make light of a death, but this must surely be one of many such occasions in Riker's past as a command officer. Nothing we see in this memory suggests anything particularly significant on this occasion to make it worse than any other weekly death of a Star Trek red shirt.
Crusher's memory does only marginally better. It revolves around the death of her husband Jack, which surely must be one of the worst events from her past. Yet the memory isn't about the moment she learned of his death, or the moment she had to tell Wesley his father was gone; it's actually about the moment where she arguably began to come to grips with and accept Jack's death. Maybe if actually seeing the body had rendered her an emotional wreck, if seeing Jack in fact did not provide Beverly the closure she'd expected, that would have been something. Instead, the memory is oddly cold and antiseptic, keeping the audience at a distance. (A distance from which we can't do much but think about how goofy Picard's hairpiece looks.)
So, back to Troi's memory. It's about a post-poker game flirtation with Riker, a moment where she firmly declared that they could not be a couple while serving together aboard the Enterprise. Where it gets weird is that Riker then forces the issue, and apparently begins to physically rape her. Clearly, this isn't the actual truth of what happened. This is further confirmed by the fact that the villain Jev later makes Troi misremember her attacker as his father Tarmin, so clearly he has the ability to alter the memories he invades (as opposed to merely assuming roles within them). But the Riker and Crusher memories seem to represent pretty much the literal truth of what happened (albeit, in a sort of dreamscape presentation). So I find myself having to ask, just how far did things go with Riker? And any discomfort I find in the answer is surely not the discomfort the writers intended.
Not only do all the memories range from awkward to ineffective, but I'm not even sure the right characters are experiencing the assault. The writers reportedly crafted a memory for every character before selecting the victims -- even including Ensign Ro, who ultimately didn't even appear in the episode. Imagine those roads not taken for a moment. In the episode, when Tarmin suggests that Picard might try memory retrieval, his recoil is subtle but clearly visceral. We saw in "Family" the emotional toll of the captain's violation at the hands of the Borg; what if he were forced to relive it again here? Or how about Worf? He gives us a good laugh when he says "Klingons do not allow themselves to be... probed," but how would a character with such a tough exterior cope with such a profoundly internal violation?
I think another big flaw in the episode is how it puts the audience so far ahead of the characters. This story could have been staged as a mystery: which of the Ulians is attacking our heroes? Instead, we know right from the start. Indeed, before Jev even commits his first assault, there's sinister music and conspicuous blocking that tells us he's the villain of the piece. But not only do the main characters not know who is responsible for the attacks, they don't even know they are attacks. So we the audience are made to sit impatiently through scene after scene where the characters investigate avenues we know will prove fruitless. Riker questions an immediately defensive Jev, without ever taking note of the other's odd behavior. Geordi spends an entire scene searching the computer for coma-inducing chemicals that have nothing to do with what's really happening. It's not that this behavior doesn't make sense from their point of view, but when we the audience aren't in the dark along with them, we can't help but look down on them.
But there are a few things that work well. Director Robert Wiemer used some unusual cameras and lenses to stage the memory sequences, achieving wonderful discomfort where the script itself fell short. And guest star Ben Lemon is fantastically creepy as Jev. While his odd behavior does add to the frustration at the other characters' ignorance, it excellently sells the episode's central metaphor: Jev comes off exactly like a sexual predator.
Other observations:
- Keiko O'Brien is used at the start of this episode to illustrate the good side of memory retrieval. This is the only episode in all of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine where she appears but Miles doesn't.
- You sort of have to get it from inference, but these Ulians seem to be telepaths of almost exactly opposite abilities to Counselor Troi. They only probe memories, it seems. If they had any awareness at all of a person's current mental state, then Tarmin would not push people to be probed who clearly have no interest (like Picard). Or, for that matter, a monster like Jev could surely never have developed right under his father's nose.
- There's a nice character scene in which Riker comes to talk at Troi's bedside as she lies comatose. But it contains a very gutsy reference to a previous episode. I think if I'd been a writer on Star Trek: The Next Generation, I'd have avoided mentioning "Shades of Gray" at any cost.
- Actor Doug Wert, who played Jack Crusher in the holographic recording for Wesley back in "Family," makes the briefest imaginable return appearance in this episode. In Beverly's memory, that's really him on the slab in the morgue -- for less than a second, before he's replaced by Jev.
- I've often commented that when the show needs to demonstrate how strong an alien is, they have him beat up Worf. Paradoxically, this makes Worf come off as a bit of a weakling. But not in this episode, when he lays out Jev with one unintentionally hilarious blow.
- The final scene of this episode feels like a throwback to the original Star Trek series, as Picard delivers a rather Kirk-esque, moralistic summation of the lesson we've all learned here today.
- For all the flaws this episode may have had, it still handled the idea of telepathic rape better than the terrible Star Trek: Nemesis. That final film with the Next Generation cast included in its patchwork, overstuffed script a needless subplot in which Shinzon's unnamed Reman Viceroy helps him telepathically violate Troi. (Because otherwise Marina Sirtis really didn't have anything to do in the movie.)
No comments:
Post a Comment