143 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
143 lines
6.4 KiB
Plaintext
WARNING: This article contains some spoilers for this week's TNG episode,
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"Captain's Holiday". Readers should use their own discretion before proceeding.
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Iffy, very iffy.
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I'm not sure this is going to be the worst of the season (I very rarely know
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exactly what numbers a show is getting before writing the review, except for
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obvious 10's and obvious 0's), but it might be close. It wasn't particularly
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good. Here's a (hopefully brief) summary:
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Picard returns from a two-week session of creating a trade agreement between two
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very difficult races. He's tired and grumpy. Crusher suggests a vacation to
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him, but he detests going on vacation, so he refuses. Riker then gets in on
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the act, and then Troi. Finally, realizing that everyone (with the possible
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exception of two ensigns stationed on Deck 30) is going to harass him about
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this, he consents, and beams down to Rysa, a paradise of a planet. On his
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initial arrival, he's greeted with a kiss by a woman he's never seen before.
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"Nice planet."
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After several conversations with women (who are interrupting his reading out in
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the sun), the woman from his arrival returns. Her name's Vash, and it seems a
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Ferengi is after her, and after a disk she apparently has her hands on. She
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surreptitiously puts it in Picard's pocket when the Ferengi, Savak (sp?) un-
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expectedly shows up. Picard returns to his room and encounters two Vorgons from
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the 27th century. They are there looking for a weapon (a "quantum phase inhibi-
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tor, which is capable of stopping all nuclear reactions in a star") that, after
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one attempt at theft, was hidden back in the 22nd century, and it has remained
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hidden ever since. Their history indicates that Picard finds it on Rysa.
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After that, things are reasonably predictable. It turns out that the mysterious
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disk belonged to Vash's old boss, a professor who searched for years for this
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weapon (the name of which escapes me, alas), before he died (any rumors that he
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was kidnapped by Nazi spies are pure fiction :-) ), and contains the results of
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his final analysis. Vash took it, AND Savak's money, and fled to Rysa to find
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it. Picard and Vash start digging in the cave to which the trail leads (after
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a small romantic interlude), but find nothing. This failure particularly annoys
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Savak, who followed them and then forced them to finish digging at gunpoint. It
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also disturbed and puzzled the two Vorgons, who appeared close to the end of the
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excavation. However, Picard figures out that Vash must have found it earlier
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and rigged the whole thing to throw Savak off the scent. The Vorgons appear and
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ask for the weapon. Picard asks for some proof that they're really the good
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guys, and the Vorgons threaten him. He calls upon the recently-returned
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Enterprise to initiate transporter sequence 14, and the weapon is destroyed.
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Picard returns, in better spirits. THE END.
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Okay, so it wasn't much of a synop. It wasn't much of a show, either. But, I
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suppose you want some more specific commentary, huh? :-)
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First, the bad points:
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1) I thought Savak's makeup job was terrible. Just an observation.
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2) The plot was entirely too predictable, from beginning to end. It was obvi-
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ous that the disk was somehow connected to the weapon, and that Vash wasn't
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quite as innocent as she originally claimed, AND that she and Picard would
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eventually end up in the sack (but see my commentary on that below), AND that
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the Vorgons weren't entirely on the up-and-up. Sheesh.
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3) Too much of a bad knock-off of Indiana Jones. Besides the professor who's
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sent his life searching for the weapon, Vash wears a vaguely Jonesian outfit
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(no hat, though) when going off to the site and seemed to be trying to project a
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Karen Allen-like personality (an attempt she failed, I might add). Also, she
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and Picard's conversation right before their tryst was very reminiscient of that
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between Jones and Ilsa in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", AND I almost
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expected Vash to respond to the question of what she wanted from the weapon with
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"Fortune and Glory." If I want Indy, I'll watch the real thing, thank you.
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4) Now, about that romance. While I'm not surprised that Picard has hormones,
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I cannot see their encounter (hell, their whole RELATIONSHIP) happening quite
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so spontaneously. Picard strikes me as entirely too honorable to get involved
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with someone so shady.
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5) The "quantum phase inhibitor" deal. If they'd just said it could halt
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all nuclear reactions in a star, I could've bought it. But, to the best of my
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memory, most stellar reactions could care less about phase factors, so calling
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it a QPI is about as explanatory as calling it Ethel.
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6) I like Picard as much as the next guy (probably more than most, in fact),
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but I like episodes where we SEE the rest of the crew for more than a couple
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of minutes. The rest of the regulars had little more than walk-ons.
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Now, for the good points. Yes, there were SOME.
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1) The performances and characterizations of the regulars were actually pretty
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good. Troi's artifice in getting Picard to go on the holiday was absolutely
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splendid (she pretends her mother's coming to meet the ship at Starbase 12).
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Also, Riker's asking Picard to pick up a "horgon" (apparently a symbol of
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sexuality) had some wonderful results. I could just see Picard thinking to
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himself when he found out what it means, "ACTING...ENSIGN...RIKER!" Lovely.
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If we'd seen more of the Enterprise crew and less of the planet, I'd have been
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much happier.
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2) I believe this is the first time in TNG that we've seen beings from beyond
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the 24th century. While they could have been better used, I'm glad to see some
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evidence that the history of the universe doesn't end in 2366.
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3) There is no #3. Two good points--that's all.
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At any rate, I'm still tired from my flight in, and I've said about all that
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needs to be said about this. Some ratings, then:
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Plot: 4. Barely.
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Plot Handling: 4. That's mostly due to the all too few scenes aboard the
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Enterprise.
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Characterization: 6. Wonderful aboard ship, rotten on the planet.
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Technical: 3. Boring--and the QPI didn't help much.
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TOTAL: 4.3. The worst of the season. Pity--it almost had promise.
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NEXT WEEK:
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A rerun. Bleah. But it's a rerun of "The Defector". WHOOPEE!!
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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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"Anything directed by a guy named Chip..."
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--me, upon seeing the lead credits.
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