Loud As A Whisper

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Troi points out that Worf has ambiguous feelings about famed negotiator Riva of Ramatis. Riva helped broker important treaties between the Klingon Empire and the Federation.

"Before him there was no Klingon word for 'peacemaker'." (I choose to believe this is compatible with the later stories, so long as alien Riva is many decades older than he looks.)

Troi's own feelings about Riva are less conflicted- she likey.

Riva the mediator is deaf and mute, his unique mode of communication uses a telepathic chorus of three: The Scholar/Poet, The Warrior/Lover, & Wisdom/Balance.

He's needed to make peace on Solais V, now at war for 15 centuries and on the verge of extinction.

En route, Troi enjoys some ginger with her meal.

I see the battle for the planet of the apes is still going strong. Unfortunately, a Solari with an itchy laser finger incinerates the entire Chorus. Holy Crapweasels! That was a shock. Shockingly effective effect, too.

Data learns Riva's gestural language to communicate, but with Riva's confidence shattered by grief and anguish, only Troi can provide the answer.

Riva will have the Solari learn his signs for months to teach them patience and give them something in common.

Mention is made of the fact that Geordi's options are increasing: Pulaski says there are new but risky procedures to either give him eye-like VISOR implants, or to replicate him some organic eyes. Either would reduce his pain, but either might not work. So stay tuned... for eight years.

"Loud As A Whisper" is well-intentioned. Riva actor Howie Seago, deaf himself, got the producers to make the resolution of the story better. I read that Geordi was named for George La Forge, a Trekkie who lived a good life with a handicap. Levar Burton's expressive eyes are hidden behind a symbol that mattered to people. It mattered to me.

The Outrageous Okona

**** (4 stars out of 5)

William Campbell, globe circumnavigator, Rocketeer, and second cousin of character actor Bruce, was up for the role of Riker and would've made a good one, to be sure.

Here he plays the dashing rogue Thadiun Okona, who tomcats about the Enterprise distributing charming smiles and wicked crabs to many of the female crew.

Data, keen to learn the man's appeal (hint: not the hair) takes lessons in humor from a holographic comic. You'll Piscopo your pants when you see who it is!

The sullen android tries out his archaic humor on Guinan.

"Bring new jokes," counsels the benevolent alien bartender.

Okona is not merely a gadabout, but caught up in a merry drama as the go-between for a prince and pregnant princess of warring planets. Okona clouds the issue but helps the kids pitch woo and patch things up with their belligerent fathers.

Data's intentional comedy is a dismal failure. 'An audience appropriate to the venue' laugh at everything. That is appropriate to the 1980's. They're probably full of holographic nose candy.

Still, Data is the master of UN-intentional yuks.

"Say good-bye, Data."

"Take my Worf... please."

"The Outrageous Okona" is fun times. Made more enjoyable for me by the company: I watched nearly a dozen of these in one day with my beloved wife. What a delight to share them with her and how gratifying that she likes them too.

Pretty people, stupid jokes, what more can you ask from an evening in?

Elementary, Dear Data

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Geordi La Forge and Data head for the holodeck to play Watson and Holmes! You know, it's a real Cushing job they've got, with a whole Cumberbatch of adventures to have. Aw, c'mon, throw me a Rathbone, here, I'm tryin' to entertain you people! Don't bring me Downey.

Speaking of tired, Geordi tires of how quickly Data can solve a Holmes mystery he's already read. Can't blame the man. Replicate a bowler hat, figure out a cravat, and then follow Data around writing down everything he says? What kind of RPG fun is that for a self-respecting nerd?

Pulaski claims (on the basis of having seen Data now and again while insulting him and belittling his abilities) that Data has no capacity to solve a mystery he hasn't read. And, to be fair, even the Conan Doyle mash-up the computer offers as a challenge is too simple for Data. The third try is even more of a cock-up: Geordi asks the computer to create a mystery with an opponent capable of defeating Data. Not Sherlock, DATA. Oops.

The computer gives Prof. James Moriarty the equivalent of Data's cognitive power, draining a tad extra energy. (If consciousness is so easy to accidentally bestow, does that not mean the ship's computer would also be conscious?)

Moriarty kidnaps Pulaski and begins to seize information from the computer library in exactly the way that holodeck characters don't. And, as is becoming abundantly clear, the holodeck Mortality Failsafe is usually the first bit to fail. (I suspect the Drama Subroutines put out an interference pattern.)

I got a belly laugh from Geordi's in-depth, detailed description of a machine he could rig up to destroy all the holomatter on the holodeck. When Picard asks if the hostage would be safe, La Forge admits it will destroy living flesh as well. He's just so caught up in the engineering that I think he wanted to try it anyway. If Picard hadn't asked, would we have gotten Beverly back?

Moriarty is smart enough to see that he is a construct of holographic matter. And to argue that he is cognitive and therefore ALIVE. I'm inclined to believe him because he has already grown beyond his origins. Although he was written as a villain, he asks not for wealth or a kingdom, not even a helicopter and a pizza, but releases his hostage and merely asks to be allowed to keep living.

Picard agrees, but there is no technology yet to allow him to leave the holodeck. Instead, the Captain saves Moriarty's program against that possible future time.

"Elementary, Dear Data" is very cool. Mostly light-hearted, and who doesn't like the variety offered by the holodeck stories? Questions about artificial sentience raised here will continue to arise, probably until and beyond the point when humans and AIs meet for realsies.

Where Silence Has Lease

* (1 star out of 5)

Worf and Riker use Worf's exercise program on the holodeck. They battle a Ninja Turtle and Skeletor to the death, as you do in the eighties. Worf gets a little TOO into it and almost stabs Riker, too. This is the last laudable moment of the episode AND IT'S BEFORE THE OPENING CREDITS!

I'm not a drinker anymore, but the blissful numbness of alcohol would probably help you get through this episode.

Oh, look, what fun, it's a hole in space. (Yer a hole in space! You space-hole.) The absence of everything seems like something to devote a whole damn hour to...

When asked, Data claims nothing remotely like this has ever before been observed, when of course, it's a lot like the hole in space from 'The Immunity Syndrome". Or any old hole in space you'd care to name from everything ever.

Zooming in on it with scanners fails to make it more interesting.

'It does know how to do these things, doesn't it?' Pulaski asks of Data. What a delightful old racist!

Engulfed in blackness, at 17 minutes into a discussion about nothing they drop a beacon, drive away from it, and meet it coming towards them from up ahead. O.K., I have to give it this one. That is a little eerie. But mostly, it has me longing for the good old days of 'Catspaw'. No, not really.

They easily annihilate a Romulan warbird, then see their sister ship Yamato 1305-E. Riker and Worf beam aboard the empty ship and jump at spooky sounds in labyrinthine hallways.

It seems they are rats in a lab run by something called Nagilum. Pulaski refuses to have sex in front of it to demonstrate reproduction, so it plans to kill up to 500 of them to study death. Can't it get the Internet in here?

Nagilum starts with a horrible spastic demise for redshirt Haskell. I don't know what Haskell saw and felt as he died but I hope it was less painful than re-watching "Where Silence Has Lease".

In order to have some control over their fate, Picard and Riker set a 20 minute auto-destruct countdown which for some reason means Nagilum lets them go. I thought it wanted to study death? Isn't a thousand people exploding twice as interesting?

Hava Nagilum taunts Picard- saying he's too aggressive. This from the outer space equivalent of a troll under a bridge.

There's probably a message here along the lines of science not being a good excuse to kill things, but it's a pretty dull way to tell that story, even for 'a bottle show'.

Picard observes that humans share at least one trait with Nagilum- curiosity. He's apparently too polite to mention the callous douchebaggery.

The Child

**** (4 stars out of 5)

It's the witching hour, and appropriately enough, the Enterprise has a new Doctor.

The occasion is marked by strange lights, troubled dreams, and an unexplained pregnancy.

I'm speaking, of course, of Dr. Katherine Pulaski, replacing Crusher (who is now Head of Starfleet Medical). That's right: no more Yar, no more Bev, and the new CMO is the Crusty Lady version of Bones McCoy. You'd think I'd find that appealing. I didn't.

Pulaski endears herself quickly by not checking in with her Captain and instead reporting to the bar at the forward end of Deck 10.

Counselor Troi has a 47 hour pregnancy from immaculate conception to atypically painless delivery. The boy child has only her genetics, and Troi vehemently defends her right to bear the strange baby over Worf's pragmatic suggestion that she abort.

Data offers 'fatherly support' 1950's sitcom style during delivery over Pulaski's dismissal of 'the cold hand of technology'. 'Amazing', 'remarkable', and 'beautiful' are the words bandied about for Ian Andrew Troi, named for Deanna's father.

These words are true of all babies. And like all babies they're totally describing a fugly little goblin.

One day later, Troi's exams show no trace of her pregnancy, and Ian is talking and looking four. Across the commercial break he turns eight. Oh, no! Soap Opera Baby Disorder! If you send him to boarding school now he'll come back 16 and need a girlfriend!

Pulaski calls Data "dah-ta" and scoffs 'What's the difference?" when he corrects her. She whips out a tricorder to scan him for 'bruised feelings'. I already loved Data with my whole soul by this point and I did not in the LEAST find this interloping shrew and her ignorant prejudice charming. I might be alone on this one. Stupid Pulaski. I'm gonna sulk all season.

Some of the changes are improvements: Riker's nautical beard, Geordi's promotion to Chief Engineer, that Irish guy has a job in Transporter Room 3, and Worf's department-appropriate shirt finally arrived. Best of all, there's Ten-Forward's hostess Guinan.

The enigmatic woman pesters Wesley for drink orders until he asks her why. "It's what's expected. Don't you always do what's expected?"

Wesley says he tries, because it's important to consider others before yourself.

Guinan agrees, but points out something profound I heard for the first time from her: sometimes it's O.K. to "Give yourself permission to be selfish."

"The Child" is a good start to a new season, recycled old script or no. In the spirit of selfishness, I'm going to do my damnedest to grin and bear Pulaski or... maybe I'll learn to like her this time. Probably not, though.

The Neutral Zone

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Waiting for the Captain to return from a meeting, the crew get bored enough to wander around an ancient space vehicle. With disk drives and cryogenic freezers and door handles. And eight tracks. And straw boaters. And a spinning jenny. (I'm saying it's old.)

Data and Worf retrieve three intact frozen humans and Dr. Crusher thaws, resurrects, and cures them. When Kirk's crew did this, (as you'll recall) the 20th century types took over his ship and caused no end of trouble! Here the story is a little different: not ambitious supermen, but a homemaker, a financier, and a country-singing pill popper.

Crusher has to explain cryonics to Picard: informing us all that it was only a fad for a people frightened of death. Is she saying people are no longer afraid of death? And if so, when did that change and why?

Data welcomes them to the year 2364. Clare Raymond is mostly scared. Ralph Offenhouse wants his money. "Sonny" Clemonds hopes to drink the replicator dry and get laid.

Troi helps Clare trace ten generations of her descendants. Data replicates Clemonds a guitar. Picard slaps a wet blanket of massive cultural altruism back and forth across Offenhouse's face until he sees reason.

"People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things... We have eliminated hunger, fear, want... Material needs no longer exist."

"Then what is the challenge?" barks the money man.

"To improve yourself, to enrich yourself."

If that weren't enough, somebody else from the past has also emerged. The Romulan Empire is stirring once more.

With several Federation Outposts completely destroyed along "The Neutral Zone" it looks bad. But Picard refuses to be goaded into firing first.

Forget Klingon designs: the Romulans have a fierce-looking new ship!

Romulan haircuts may not have changed in a century, but their skulls are looking a little more severe. Like the Klingons before them, bumpy foreheads are the trendy thing!

"Matters more urgent caused our absence... Do you understand my meaning? We are BACK!"

Audience and writers will soon respond "And...?"

The set up for next season would indicate more Romulans in the offing... but it's the "matters more urgent" that paves the way for even bigger challenges.

I feel ST:TNG has a weak start. Despite the lavish budget, driving classic 'Doctor Who' into hiding, and even my own instant and abiding love for it... this would have been cancelled if it came out today. So thank Worf it didn't!

Conspiracy

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Picard is awakened by a Code 47 Emergency. It's a call from his old friend Captain Walker Keel of the Horatio.

Keel introduced Jack Crusher to Beverly. He's a man Picard trusts well, and he's worried by patterns of unusual deaths, strange orders, and people with a lack of memory. Also worried are the Bolian Captain Rixx, and Captain Tryla Scott- who holds Starfleet's record for fastest attainment of a Captaincy. (In my imagination only, she's the grandchild of Montgomery Scott and Nyota Uhura. Which is neither here nor there. And a little bit racist of me- there are bound to be plenty of black people named Scott in Starfleet.)

Picard has Data build a case for a conspiracy within Starfleet with a high-speed records extrapolation. When the Horatio explodes unexpectedly, it seems to confirm the hushed whispers and suspicious glances. Enterprise speeds back to Earth to confront their bosses.

"Friendship must dare to risk, or it's not friendship," says Picard.

Brimming with enthusiasm and energy, Admiral Quinn comes aboard and assures Picard whatever he hinted about conspiracies back in 'Coming of Age', he only meant something vague and irrelevant about assimilating new races into the Federation and how those dang Benzite kids won't get off his lawn.

Quinn gets Riker alone, beats him senseless, and shows him the squirmy pink insect in his attaché case. Not a euphemism.

The old man overpowers La Forge and Worf as well.

"I could snap your neck in a second," brags "Quinn" to Worf. "But it wouldn't be as much fun."

A cluster of old farts drink tea and insinuate to Picard that Keel was incompetent and delusional.

Crusher has downed Quinn and discovered he's been 'puppet mastered' by a parasite in his brain stem. The only external clue is a breathing gill protruding from the back of the neck.

The admiralty and Captain Scott mow down on bowls of live mealworms, even the Vulcan. For a few minutes, it even appears Riker has been taken over- but it was a ruse to bring in a phaser to dinner!

"We seek peaceful co-existence," hisses the mother creature puppeting Remmick. It is a measure of how little trust it engenders that moments later Picard and Riker's incendiary phaser settings blow his head off and abdomen open. Then they disintegrate the squealing alien in his guts.

Coin a phrase: grody to the max!

The parasites apparently died without the queen creature- but Data alerts them that Remmick's hitchhiker sent a homing beacon from Earth.

Maybe it says 'come on down' or possibly 'soup's on'. The creatures claimed to be intellectually superior to humans with a sense of theatre: maybe they're still waiting in the wings for their cue to return. Or maybe not.

"Conspiracy" is mostly taut, grisly, action. But it has time for a little humor, as when the main computer apparently got frustrated while talking to Data. Also, Worf drops the truth bomb that he enjoys neither swimming nor bathing. Or possibly it was a Klingon joke. You never can tell. Trust no one and keep watching the skis.