111 lines
5.7 KiB
Plaintext
111 lines
5.7 KiB
Plaintext
WARNING: The following post contains spoiler information regarding this
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week's TNG episode, "The Vengeance Factor". Be warned.
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Really.
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Greetings, all.
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Well, this is another case of "nothing spectacularly wrong, but nothing
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spectacularly RIGHT either". It was sort of nondescript. Here comes a
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reasonably short synopsis:
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The Enterprise finds a Federation science outpost torn to shreds, and it
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appears that the Gatherers are responsible. The Gatherers are a group
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originally from Acamar III, who split off from the Acamarians roughly a
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century ago. The raids have been getting worse, and something has to be done.
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They travel to Acamar III to talk to the Marouk, Sovereign of Acamer 3. She
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wants nothing more than Federation help to hunt the Gatherers down, but
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Picard has other ideas. He claims they'll be a divided people until they take
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the Gatherers back into the fold, and weaker as a result. Eventually, he
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manages to talk her into it. Then, of course, the problem is finding and
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convincing the Gatherers.
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They find one Gatherer outpost, led by a man called Brul. He is initially
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skeptical, but after hearing the Sovereign out, decides this is an offer
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worthy of consideration. He says he'll take the message to Chorgan, the
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Gatherer leader, but whatshername says she'd rather do it herself. Okay . . .
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so they all end up on the Enterprise.
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One minor complication arises, however. The original reason for the
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Gatherers' departure, the Clan Wars, apparently are not quite as over as
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originally thought. The Lornac clan, a century or two ago, managed to kill
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off nearly all members of a rival clan, the Triesta. A few survived, however,
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and one of them has been genetically altered to carry a virus lethal only to
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Lornacs. She happens to be Uta, the Sovereign's servant, and is discreetly
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killing off the last few Lornacs wherever she goes. The final catch: Chordan,
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himself, is the final Lornac left alive.
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From here, things are pretty much as you'd predict. After analyzing the death
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of an elderly Gatherer on the outpost (whom we saw Uta kill), Dr. Crusher
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ends up realizing it's lethal only to Lornacs. Data eventually figures out
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who'd have motive, etc., and Riker ends up beaming over to the negotiations
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and stopping Uta. Unfortunately, he has to kill her to do it, and it's all
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the more painful because he was falling in love with her.
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Well, that's about all there is to that. Now, usual babble:
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As I said, there really wasn't much wrong with the episode. There just wasn't
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much right about it either. It was certainly watchable, but just . . . there.
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I was fairly impressed with the acting of whoever played Uta. She carried off
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the attitude of one who's been so obsessed with vengeance that it's all she's
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got left quite well. She also projected a good image of one used to service
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for so long that she can't remember any other way to behave.
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I liked the idea of the virus tailor-made to kill one clan only very much
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indeed, but had one major problem with the scene where this was discovered.
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When they discover the record of the other Gatherer dying, and see he's a
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Lornac, then notice that the old man was also Lornac, they immediately say,
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"Oh, so that's it!" Now, I realize that the Clan Wars were a big deal on
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Acamar III, and that this in all probability wouldn't have led them astray,
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but would it have been that big a deal to ask the computer to specify all
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factors common to the two people who died? For all they know, the virus
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specifically attacked only those who were males with no left testicle.
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The coarseness of the Gatherers seemed a little overdone to me, and slightly
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inconsistent as well. There's a scene between Brul and Wesley in 10-Forward,
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which smacked of a subplot waiting to happen (but never did), where Brul
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seems a little less brutal than usual, with no real reason given. While the
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brutality of the Gatherers did convey the idea that these people have had to
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live by their wits for 100 years, it still seemed a little too barbaric to
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me.
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One really minor "what-if": I sort of hoped that Uta's meal for Riker had
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been less delicious and more spicy. I half expected him to have real trouble
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with it. Well, I suppose this lends credence to the theory that Riker had his
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taste buds surgically removed before signing on to the Pagh last season. :-)
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I didn't like the acting of the woman playing the Sovereign very much. She
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was too whiney and dictatorial to be a proper leader.
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Other than that, there's not much to say. The regulars did a pretty good job
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(particularly Crusher), but there just wasn't much to this. I suppose, then,
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that it's rating time.
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Plot: 6 - Competent, but not particularly exciting.
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Plot Handling: 5 - Nothing wrong, but points off for the immediate jump to
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the clan being the common factor.
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Characterization: 7.5 - Not bad, and a little extra for Uta. Some off for the
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Sovereign and the Gatherers.
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Technical: 8 - I liked the virus, and the method the away team used to get
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out from under the ambush.
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TOTAL: 26.5/4 => 6.6. Watchable, certainly, but not really worth a second
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viewing.
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Tim Lynch (Cornell's first Astronomy B.A.; one of many Caltech grad students)
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BITNET: tlynch@citjuliet
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INTERNET: tlynch@juliet.caltech.edu
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UUCP: ...!ucbvax!tlynch%juliet.caltech.edu@hamlet.caltech.edu
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"Brill? What was he doing here?"
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"Last time I saw, trying to fly."
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"I didn't know he could do that."
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"He wasn't doing very well."
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"Well, maybe he'll get the hang of it."
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<<THUD>>
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"Does bouncing count?"
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---Silk and Belgarath, from David Eddings' THE BELGARIAD
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--
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Copyright 1989, Timothy W. Lynch. All rights reserved, but feel free to ask...
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