Wanderlust

4.14 — “Clues”

4.14 — “Clues”

Plot: Picard and the crew travel through a wormhole. The effects knock out everyone for 30 seconds, except Lt. Cmdr. Data. Review of the circumstances afterwards, however, reveals several discrepancies. These begin to point to a disturbing conclusion… that Data is lying about what happened during the blackout.

Thoughts: Wormhole! Wormhole!

I will sign up to learn Klingon Tai Chi. I continue to appreciate the writers’ substantial efforts to fill out the details of the lives of the crew.

Putting Whoopi Goldberg into a Dixon HIll simulation is inspired. The guest actor who plays Hill’s secretary must have been thrilled. Fortunately, the writers do not stay with the Dixon Hill conceit for the whole episode. Five minutes is plenty long enough.

Coming to think of it, the Holodeck hasn’t tried to kill anyone all season (unless I forgot an episode). Just look how much better the show has become!

At the end, when Picard tells the Paxans “The second time we will remove all clues,” I really wanted them to say back to him “This is the second time!”

I don’t know why Troi is the one whose body has to be taken over by the alien intelligence. Somehow, it’s always easier to violate the women. These scenes echo Star Trek: The Motion Picture where Ilia is taken over by V’Ger. The characters Troi and Riker are based on Ilia and Decker in the film (or rather all the above characters derive from sketches created for a planned Star Trek reboot television series in the late 1970s which was scrapped in favor of ST:TMP).

I find this episode fun, but not earth shaking. The moral, again, is that Data is the most terrifying and dangerous piece of technology in the ship, except for the transporter.

3.5 of 5 Klingons with broken wrists (was the ship invaded by Steven Seagal?).

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Clues

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5 responses to “4.14 — “Clues””

  1. Randi Cohen Avatar
    Randi Cohen

    Love Guinan’s reaction to the holodeck… it reminds me of my own reaction to horror/violence in film… so you find this entertaining why exactly?

    Troi is an empath, so I kind of get that she would be easier to take over.  So I actually can see their point on this one (plus, Picard has gotten taken over a time or two, and sometimes the whole crew gets taken over either together or one after another).

    I found this ep interesting both as far as the mystery it presented and also the solution.  Picard suggesting that the aliens simply get better at fooling him is not necessarily what I expected.

    I liked it, overall.  Although not the best ep they’ve put together, I found it memorable and interesting.  And yes, Data is completely terrifying.

    Reply
  2. Kevin Black Avatar
    Kevin Black

    That’s true, they have taken over Picard. “Lonely Among Us” and that other one, er, whatsit, with the mutiny and the subplot where Picard was actually a prisoner somewhere else, but appeared to be on the ship. I looked it up–3.18, “Allegiance.”

    It’s interesting why Data is so terrifying. He’s more powerful than the other crew members, but so is the weather, or the vacuum of space, and other forces. Something about the person-to-person relationship makes us much more vulnerable. And while he appears to be human, he really isn’t. Maybe this fear is related to why some people with schizophrenia report the feeling that the people they know aren’t really them, or have been replaced? Could be all too real a scenario with Data.

    I also thought Picard was too quick to jump at the “just deceive us” solution, although I guess they couldn’t spend much more time on that and fit everything else into the episode.

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  3. Randi Cohen Avatar
    Randi Cohen

    Right.  I think Data, as new technology, simply hasn’t been around long enough for all parameters to be known.  The weather and space have a long track record and are thus fairly predictable… although lately I am beginning to be a bit terrified by the weather, actually. 2015 hottest year on record, they say.  But that is straying from the point.

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  4. Kevin Black Avatar
    Kevin Black

    Yeah. People (or near-people) have ways to exploit you, though, that the weather doesn’t. We rely a lot on social norms and assumptions about empathic connections that just don’t necessarily hold true for Data. Which might be the scariest thing (and also why so many horror stories these days feature so-called psychopaths).

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  5. Kevin Black Avatar
    Kevin Black

    A funny thing about this one is that when I saw it, I graded it 3 out of 5. In my memory, it’s now a 4 out of 5 (I compromised, and changed my rating to 3.5). Probably based on good concept, indifferent execution.

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