Mind - The Parallel Frontier
Why did season seven of Next Generation seem so underrated
as a whole by many other vocal fans of this show?
At least one prominent factor seems to stand out:
Season Seven really does embrace an exploration of the mind, its untapped abilities and secrets,
its vulnerabilities and strengths, its dark places, its corniest places, its highest aspirations.
More and more, I find I'm right there with the show when it does such explorations,
whereas I notice many others refuse to go there
or mostly treat that kind of journey with ridicule. Curious. I'm reminded of the earliest
attempts at the Philadelphia Experiment, where neglect of the entire
metaphysical area of mind, emotion, and soul resulted in disaster. I'm not convinced that we can have
all the technologies and gadgets making life so wonderful for these characters in the 24th Century
if we think only in terms of particles and molecules and the physical billiard-ball building block
universe that many regard as the essence of science. We need to see ourselves and the creations
of the mind in there somewhere too.
I also think back right to the beginning
of this version of Star Trek, with the concept episode of
"Where No One Has Gone Before" which put thought and mental/emotional
considerations as a major part of time/space navigation, and the simple but critical addition of counselor Troi
and her telepathic/empathic abilities as a core component of the show.
I welcomed these things as an integral part of what this show would explore,
and I think that season seven neglected these components less than other prior seasons had.
Troi got more significant things to do this season. And all that was to the good.
Now, I won't say that this season is better than seasons 3, 4, or 6.
And any worthwhile exploration of the mind still has to
keep its philosophical principles straight to rank well with me.
But at the end of the day, season seven is still a good one in my book.
Sub Rosa
Of all the many season seven stories putting mental/emotional considerations first and dealing with
subjects we might term paranormal, this one is I think often picked on the most,
and I haven't seen a whole lot of maturity in the criticisms of it.
It won't ever be nominated as one of my personal favourites,
but there are a number of things I really like about it and/or thought it did well,
and I think it deserves some defense.
Firstly I really like the quick, believable, and organic way this story pulled several
of our regular characters off the ship and onto an interesting planetary setting.
I may prefer "Dark Page" overall as a story, but it really lacked the kind of off-ship locales
that this story used so much and so well. "Sub Rosa" contributes healthily to my overall impression
that season seven did not quite suffer the "stuck on the ship all the time" syndrome that
I felt while watching seasons two and four. Here, there's a reality to these characters'
lives extending beyond their ship throughout all of Federation society and this episode
brought it home and made it seem effortless.
And perhaps there's something about the Scottishness
of today's setting that also attracts me - I rather feel like the non-terrestrial that Picard meets,
having no tangible connection to Scotland, but feeling a connection nonetheless.
Of course, season seven made a bad habit out of springing random new family members for the
regular characters on us in each episode. I think this backfired greatly when we see them
parading in one after the other as the primary guest star with a room on the flying hotel
for the duration of the episode, and then neatly packed off on their way again at the end.
It makes for all-too-predictable plotting that generates little interest. This episode's
new family member definitely has a different journey, being laid to rest at the tale's opening.
She'll not be downloading anecdote after anecdote at you, 3 boring ones for every good one, as often happens.
If you want to get to know her, you have to dig for clues in her house, open up her journal,
and investigate. This also allows Dr. Crusher to "edit" and only relay to the rest of us
the interesting stuff. I found this refreshing.
It's also visual - the sets and props gave a sense of richness and of being personal treasures.
The adage "show, don't tell" is better adhered to in this episode than in a good many others.
Indeed, any of these new family member shows can help create the sense that our regular characters
have lives that extend far off the ship and connections all over the galaxy, but it felt stronger
and more real here because we got to go off ship and actually see Granny's house and meet her neighbours.
More of this please.
Now, for the main story, it seemed clear to me that all the features of romance novels were in play.
This story was concocted by a woman, primarily for women, and allowed the series' two female leads to be
amongst the strongest players in it. I thought that was a fair call, to perhaps cater to members of
the audience with tastes, perspectives, and priorities that did not match my own. I do like to hope
that Star Trek can appeal to women on their terms as well as on its own usual ones. Who was I
to judge how well this genre of novel, which I knew only a little about, was translated to sci-fi TV?
There was good reason to give it some rope.
One aspect I found very interesting was that it provided some of the insights I had expected previously
in the episode "Attached", and I had not remembered that there were any such insights between "Attached"
and the finale
"All Good Things...." - These concern Picard,
and exactly what kind of limbo status
he and Beverly have left their relationship in since the events of "Attached". The interesting stuff
in this vein begins when Beverly resigns from Starfleet. Picard is accustomed to always having the concepts
of the chain of command and professional Starfleet conduct to rely on when dealing with Beverly or when
he feels he knows what's best for her safety and well being. And now she takes that comfort zone away from him,
and we see him scrambling a bit to figure out how best to express his continued concern for her. I thought that
was interesting from several angles. Firstly, I think Star Trek often cheats its audience a bit by describing
such a wonderful, optimistic, utopian future with completely different economic and social structures,
but then instead of really showing how that works on a day-to-day practical basis for normal people,
it cheats by hiding in a near direct parallel of a 20th century Navy chain of command. Beverly steps
outside that, and forces Picard out of it as well, which heightened my interest in seeing what would play out.
And I like that Patrick Stewart put much more fish-out-of-water into his performance as he followed
Beverly down to her recently-inherited house on the planet to check up on her, and explain himself to her,
and he still managed some classic Picard verbal manouvering as he confronted Ronin. It seems that the
events of "Attached" are a factor here as well, because he knows Beverly has seen his innermost thoughts already,
and that his concerns may go deeper than professionalism or friendship. She may even suspect downright jealousy.
Well, perhaps Picard made one good verbal point too many, pushing Ronin to switch to a new playing field
of green energy zapping. I found it interesting that this more than anything else was what woke Beverly up
from her stupor, and no amount of addiction would deter her from ensuring the safety and well-being of
her real friends and loved ones when they really needed her most. She makes pretty clear sailing from that
point onwards to resolve her big story issues. It felt like a good set of character turning points
to resolve the episode. That wasn't bad, I thought. Why isn't this one better liked?
Well, I'll pick at one or two things that I consider minor. We see a character with a very thick accent
whose main purpose seems to be to plug dire warnings to Beverly, to the audience, and to anyone else who'll listen.
I thought him to be quite pushy and too obviously there to fulfill a plot objective. He gets a bit more dimension
later on, which I welcomed, but I thought he needed much more of that. Ultimately, I liked the character
and wish he'd have been better developed... and that he'd have survived the tale, so that we'd feel we got to know
people from this colony who were still there after we leave.
I also found the weather control room to be a confusing set - I though it was just another never-before-seen
room on the Enterprise at first. I'm still not sure if it's meant to be on the surface of the planet, or in
some satellite in orbit somewhere. An external establishing shot would solve this nicely.
In the end, I have to say that I enjoyed this one. I am a big fan of The Next Generation,
my favourite Star Trek crew, and this was an intriguing and unusual outing for them,
with some plot twists I could not predict, yet I could still root for the characters
through this one and feel satisfied with the ending. Not my favourite episode ever
by any stretch, but two thumbs up anyway. May your viewing be as pleasant.
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