6.20 — “The Chase”
Plot: A visit from Picard’s former archaeology professor touches off a race between humans, Cardassians, and Klingons to uncover clues to a great secret, concealed billions of years ago in the DNA of the species of various worlds.
Thoughts: My dominant thought is that TNG has come a long way. It’s not as philosophical as Original Trek, but I now consistently find it engaging and capable of surprising me week to week in big and small ways, even when it grasps for a theme that exceeds its reach.
In retrospect, the whole Professor Galen subplot is a blind, grafted onto a fanciful premise about teams racing through the galaxy. This is confirmed in The Star Trek Next Generation Companion by Larry Nemekek, who reports that the premise, which had been kicking around since Fifth Season, originally had a comedic, It’s a Mad Mad World vibe. Despite their late addition, the Galen scenes are my favorite. Solid acting, fresh shooting angles, and an open acknowledgement that Picard could have had other career possibilities besides Starfleet, and perhaps been better off.
The idea of a hidden message in DNA is supposedly inspired by Carl Sagan’s novel Contact (1985) (the film would not appear until 1997), which has a clue to the nature of the universe hidden in a long calculation of pi.
I like the female Cardassian leader, whose bone structure is embellished by color. This is the second female Cardassian seen, after the daughter of Gul Madred in “Chain of Command Part I and II.” Depressingly, Memory Alpha informs us that “Ocett is… the only female with a rank of Gul ever mentioned or seen in any episode of any Star Trek series.”
I can’t argue with anyone who thinks the payoff to this episode is hokey, but the overall story does evoke a certain small-scale sense of wonder. The writing staff thought the message was Roddenberryesque. That’s pushing it, but perhaps I shouldn’t make fun of pleas for tolerance and understanding.
3.5 of 5 dangerous tales of archaeology.
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