7.17 — “Masks”
Plot: Hidden at the core of an 87 million-year-old comet is an alien research station, which causes the Enterprise to begin transmogrifying itself into something like a Mayan temple. Data begins channeling multiple personalities and wearing changeable pottery on his chest. Picard must challenge the Goddess of Death presiding at the center of this mayhem by donning a mask and impersonating a god.
Thoughts: Well, this episode is terrible. I will transcribe some of my notes, starting from the beginning:
We learn that Troi is not just a bad counselor, she’s also bad at art therapy and teaching children. She just got promoted to Commander, so why is she teaching kindergarten? In a ship with 1,000 souls?
Oh, it’s a magic comet.
This episode should have been renamed “Mystical Magic Shit.”
Sick bay has collided with Pottery Barn.
You can’t combine suspense music with pan pipes.
This episode is crawling up its own ass quickly.
Picard talks the computer to death! Kirk did it better.
Even worse than the absurd happenings is the dialogue. This just isn’t how men and women of science talk, analyze, or react to challenges and unexplained phenomena.
I’d like to say “Masks” has no redeeming features (Empire magazine called it TNG’s worst episode, and Michael Dorn says it’s his least favorite, proving that these folks have forgotten “Ménage à Troi” and “Angel One”), but there are some watchable moments, which all involve Brent Spiner acting his heart out, thanklessly. Some of the voices he uses seem repeated from “A Fistful of Datas.” Spiner explains: “I got the script for ‘Masks’ on the night before we shot it and I was finishing ‘Thine Own Self’ the midnight before, so I didn’t have the time to even absorb the script and digest it and figure out who these people were that I was playing…I think I said to Jeri [Ryan] at the time, ‘Give me six months and I think I could give all the characters their due,’ but as it was, I didn’t know who these people were and so I was doing instant acting and just coming up with whatever I was coming up with because we had to put it to film.” Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages , Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, quoted on Memory Alpha.
The episode is bad, but Spiner’s horror takes on a possessed Data warning the crew about incoming evil spirits is the best part of it.
1.5 of 5 ceramic iPads.
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