6.5 — “Schisms”
Plot: Riker can’t sleep; other crewmembers experience physiological disturbances. Occam’s Razor says: they all must be victims of clandestine abduction by space aliens. Wait, I thought that the crew of the Enterprise is the space aliens? Meanwhile, Data holds a poetry reading.
Thoughts: Two words: incoherent and terrible. Recent episodes have relied too heavily on technobabble to support the story. Here, technobabble is the only story. The rest is giant leaps from nowhere to the ridiculous.
I guess we’re supposed to think, oh gosh, if Riker has trouble sleeping there must be a cosmic threat lurking capable of destroying the ship! But all I’m thinking is, they took the keys to the Star Trek franchise, and used them to make an episode about the First Officer having insomnia.
Larry Nemecek’s book, The Next Generation Companion, quotes the production team lamenting the design of the aliens at the end of the episode, and theorizing that the story would have paid off better with better lighting and execution in the third act. I disagree. This is a classic lipstick on a pig situation. The Lovecraftian slant and vague mushiness of this story has no place in Star Trek.
I see little profit in writing more about the main plot, so I will mention two things that are pleasurable: Jonathan Frakes’ unintentional imitation of a stoner, and the poem that Data writes about his cat:
Ode to Spot
Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature.
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature.
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skill and natural defenses.
I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations.
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection,
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.
A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents.
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotions.
Oh, Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.
I hope Season Six gets better. The next episode features Q.
1 of 5 simulated Holodeck tables.
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