86 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
86 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
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WARNING: The following post may contain spoilers for this week's TNG episode,
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"Up the Long Ladder". Anyone not wishing spoilers had better get off.
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Come on, now. Don't do this just to be different.
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Sigh...I wish these things were working better.
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"Up the Long Ladder" was similar in my mind to "The Icarus Factor": it had
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lots of good ideas, and tried really hard to execute them. However, things
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just got too cluttered to do much good.
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There are several plots working here, most of which end up inter-relating.
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Most, but not all.
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One plot involves two old Earth colonies, one of which sends out an SOS, since
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their sun's about to have some mega-flareups, which will shortly consume the
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planet. One of them is a back-to-nature sort of colony, which uses no real
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technology at all. They, of course, are taken on board ship, where chaos
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quickly ensues. (Ever wonder what would happen if someone were to start
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cooking over an open flame without telling the ship? Now it can be told.)
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The second colony is quite advanced in some ways. All but five of the initial
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colonists died when the landing ship crashed (or something like that; my mind's
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a bit fuzzy here). So, to keep from dying out, this colony decided to reproduce
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itself by cloning the five survivors: over, and over, and over, and...you get
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the point. The problem is, there's this little thing called "reproductive
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fading", which makes repeated cloning a bit of a problem. If they don't get
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some "new blood" to clone, their society will die. Guess who they pick?
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More importantly, guess how this problem gets resolved? (No, I won't tell you,
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but it is as obvious as you think.)
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There's also a very brief subplot about Worf suddenly fainting on duty. It
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turns out that he has the Klingon equivalent to measles, and he's very upset
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about having a childhood disease in his prime. Hence, he and Pulaski have a
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couple of little scenes together. That's all this plot gets, though.
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Now, some comments:
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In my opinion, they played up the first colony too much here. Okay, so they
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look like a bunch of old, drunken, Irish settlers (not Irish setters; that's
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different :-)). So what? They could've done a lot more than just making the
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leader a wise old negotiator, and his daughter a haughty shrew. Raise your
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hands, everyone who hasn't seen THAT one over and over.
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The second colony had a little more potential, but they could've done more with
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this. The few scenes where Riker and Pulaski are kidnapped for cloning, and
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where Geordi tries to figure out where they are, were quite good. I just wish
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they'd let that one run longer, and cut out some of the first part.
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I also thought they let Worf get over his malady way, WAY too easily. I mean,
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one minute he's fainted on the bridge, and a couple of hours later, he's back
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on duty? Give me a break. Also, I thought during the Klingon tea ceremony
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for one fleeting instant that they were going to try to start something
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between Pulaski and Worf! What a couple, huh? That would've been fun.
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However, after that scene, there's no mention of Worf's problem at all for the
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rest of the episode. Sigh.
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There were also a few technical problems, the main one being that huge solar
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flare that starts the whole thing. This planet was the fifth from its sun,
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according to Data. Now, even if we assume that the closer planets are packed
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close enough that the planet's only as far away as Earth, that's still a flare
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one AU in diameter. No way, folks. Not if life's still on that planet.
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Oh well. Nice try, Melinda, but no go. Better luck next time.
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To sum up:
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Plot: 7. A good idea, but that's all.
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Plot Handling: 3.5. Way, way too cluttered.
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Characterization: 5. Adequate.
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Technical: 5. Could've been MUCH better, folks.
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TOTAL: 5.125---> 5. Amply mediocre.
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Now, we have three weeks of reruns. Stay tuned for Lynch's Spoiler Review of
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Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
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Tim Lynch (Cornell's first Astronomy Major)
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BITNET: H52Y@CRNLVAX5
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INTERNET: H52Y@VAX5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
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UUCP: ...!rochester!cornell!vax5.cit.cornell.edu!h52y
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"What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the ape in apricot? Whatta they
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got that I ain't got?"
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"COURAGE!!!"
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"You can say that again."
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