7.8 — “Attached”
Plot: Picard and Crusher are abducted by transporter capture and fitted with transponders that force them to stay close together and enable them to read each others’ thoughts and feelings. Riker’s attempts to retrieve them force him to get embroiled in a hundred-year planetary cold war.
Thoughts: I want to resist applying my critical brain to this one. I appreciate an original story full of life and adventure. And a campfire, which makes me think of Star Trek V. I was touched by Picard’s gentle reaction to Crusher’s “I didn’t know you felt that way.” Picard: “Didn’t you?” If only TNG were always this fun to watch.
“Attached” is designed to pay off long-standing loose ends regarding the supposed attraction between Jean Luc and Beverly that go back to “Encounter at Farpoint.” It does so remarkably well. A central mystery of their relationship is, if these two are so hot for each other, why is their relationship characterized by stasis and inertia? Which leads to two questions that do not have right answers. Is the resolution they reach in their final meeting in Picard’s quarters persuasive? Is it satisfying?
There is natural frustration, as a fan, that these characters are not giving in to what we think we want. Which is, I suppose, a full-throated declaration of love, a release, and catharsis. A few moments of beaming happiness. A declaration that they will never be lonely again.
This is fiction, after all. We put ourselves mentally inside the characters. As I write this, Meryl Streep just told an audience at the Golden Globes, “An actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like.” In the privacy of your mind, it’s natural to reach for the catharsis.
But if another task of art is to hold up a mirror to life, we must be honest and say that this outcome is not unexpected, or uncommon.
In television, it’s the frisson that keeps us coming back. That crackle of potential, so alive to possibility, to unspoken shared truths on the verge of being uttered. Perhaps Crusher is not ready to give up the joy she gets from the frisson. Maybe she intuitively realizes that it’s the best part of her relationship with Picard. So why part with it? You’ve reached a certain age, you see things not working out, so why not skip all that. Frisson is evergreen.
More likely she doesn’t accept Picard’s framing or share his reality. For all his over-intellectualized sentimentality and sweet solicitude, declaimed sonorously, it’s a shoe that doesn’t fit. I like you for coffee and croissants, Jean Luc, but I don’t like you that way.
Or maybe she’s a coward. Bob Dylan would screech like a rusty hinge singing dirges about his disappointment. I once, about 16 years ago, added his song “Is Your Love in Vain?” from Street Legal (1978) to a broken-hearted mix tape (one of my last). “Are you willing to risk it all, Or is your love in vain?” It’s a great song. She did come off as a reckless romantic during the affair with the Trill, but that was with a new face.
Either way, I think we have to respect her choices.
4 out of 5–okay, what is that equipment the Kes fill their quarters with? 4 out of 5 Tesla coils and spinny objects that are somehow crucial to their planetary security. That scene is pretty funny. Jonathan Frakes did a good job directing this one.
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